WWUTT 1968 Judge Not (Matthew 7:1-6)

Judge not, lest you be judged. You've heard that verse before, right? Maybe have even heard somebody twist it.

But this is not Jesus saying we shouldn't judge at all. He's saying don't judge hypocritically when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of Christ. For He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

Tell your friends about our ministry at www .wtt .com. And once again, it's Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. Well, in our study of the Sermon on the Mount, we are two -thirds of the way through. We finished up chapters 5 and 6.

Today we set in on chapter 7. This is the famous judge not section of the

Sermon on the Mount. I'll begin by reading verses 1 through 6 out of the Legacy Standard Bible.

Hear the word of the Lord. Do not judge so that you will not be judged.

For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged. And with what measure you measure, it will be measured to you.

And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye, and behold, the log is in your own eye.

You hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

I think it goes without saying, this is the most abused section of the

Sermon on the Mount. I said in the very beginning of this study that there are all kinds of verses in this famous sermon that get taken out of context, or twisted, or misapplied, but perhaps none more so than Matthew 7 -1.

Do not judge, so that you will not be judged. Have you ever had a situation or a circumstance where you called out somebody's sin?

Or you just called out some sin in general? This is wicked, it's evil, that our culture or society does this?

That this person does this? Or maybe you called out some false teaching? That person's a false teacher? Don't listen to them?

And you heard somebody reply to you, Judge not, lest you be judged.

I love Paul Washer's retort to that. Twist not Scripture, lest you be like Satan. Jesus is not saying not to judge at all.

Although that's the way the verse often gets applied. You can't judge anybody. Of course, when somebody does that, when they say that you're being judgmental and that you need to stop being judgmental, well, what are they doing?

They're now being judgmental. And now they've heaped condemnation on themselves because they're going to be judged the same way that they're judging, just as this passage says.

Jesus doesn't say not to judge. And we'll see that as we continue on here. In fact, it's in John 7 where he says,

Don't judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment. In 1 Corinthians 5, the instruction is given to the church,

Purge the evil person from among you. In 1 Peter, we read that judgment begins with the household of God.

So there are absolutely times where we are called to judge. Paul telling Timothy, Don't let those false teachers teach in your church.

Do not let these men teach any strange doctrines. He says right at the very beginning of 1 Timothy. And to Titus, the instruction is given to Titus that these false teachers must be silenced.

In chapter 3, he says that you warn a divisive person once, you warn him a second time, and after that have nothing to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful.

He is self -condemned. We can find all kinds of passages in even the

New Testament that tell us we are supposed to judge. This instruction here in Matthew 7 is

Jesus saying, Don't judge hypocritically. There have been all kinds of calls here in the

Sermon on the Mount not to be hypocritical. Go all the way back to the beginning of chapter 6.

Beware of doing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them, otherwise you have no reward with your

Father who is in heaven. When you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet like the hypocrites do.

Verse 5, when you pray, you're not to be like the hypocrites. When you fast, you're not to look gloomy and disfigure your face like the hypocrites do.

This is kind of continuing that same instruction with regards to hypocrisy.

Don't be like the hypocrites. Recognize in the way that you judge, don't be doing the same things that you're telling other people not to do.

If you're guilty of sexual immorality and you're telling somebody that they should not be committing adultery, well, whatever condemnation you're giving to them, you're heaping upon yourself.

This is a call to holiness here. Remember what we just read at the end of chapter 6.

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all the things that you need will be added to you as well.

That's Matthew 6, 33. And this even calls back to the Beatitudes at the beginning in chapter 5.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Jesus saying that I did not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them, so that in Christ we have

His righteousness. We seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and it will be given to us.

Hungering and thirsting for righteousness, we will be satisfied. So we have the righteousness of Christ.

We live in that righteousness. Those who are followers of Jesus. It's in 1

John 3, either verses 5 or 6. I can't remember which one, where it says whoever abides in Him does not sin.

So you either abide in Christ, you live in Christ, or you live in your sin, but you can't do both.

If you're in Christ, you're in His righteousness. You're no longer making a practice of sinning.

It's not your life's pursuit to go after these sins. It is your pursuit to be after righteousness.

Seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness. So in the righteousness of Christ, you can make those judgment calls consistently, and you should, in fact.

Later on, we get to Matthew 18, where Jesus gives instructions to His disciples on how we are to practice discipline within the church.

When your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault between you and him alone.

That's Matthew 18, 15. If he listens to you, you have won your brother, but if he doesn't listen to you, take one or two others along so that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

If he won't listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he doesn't listen to the church, let him be to you as a

Gentile or a tax collector. In other words, he's removed from the body. He's an outcast to you.

He's an outsider. He's a pagan. You as a church are not able to testify to whether or not that person is truly a follower of Christ.

And so, therefore, they've been put out of the body for that reason. That's a judgment. And that's a judgment that the church is given the responsibility to make.

We even have the responsibility to recognize false teaching and make sure those false teachers stay out of the church.

That's coming up here in Matthew 7, just a few verses later, 14 verses later. Jesus says,

Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

You will know them by their fruits. So when you're calling this person a wolf, and they shouldn't be in the church,

I shouldn't follow their teaching, what are you doing? You're making a judgment call. Now, if you yourself are a false teacher, well, then you're just a hypocrite, a false teacher calling out a false teacher.

I remember one time seeing Benny Hinn call out Joel Osteen, and I'm like, well, there's the pot calling the kettle black.

So that's hypocritical. But if we have cleansed ourselves, Paul telling

Timothy that if you cleanse yourself, you will be useful to the master of the house. So cleansing yourself of all unrighteousness, examining and judging yourself first, so that you may make those consistent judgments for the benefit of the whole body of Christ.

This isn't for you to show your righteousness as being better than somebody else's, or to win a debate over somebody else.

It's in service to the church, that we might be a benefit, or we might help edify all of our brothers and sisters in Christ in the church.

So again, this instruction in Matthew 7 -1, do not judge so that you will not be judged.

This is an instruction opposing hypocrisy. In the manner in which you judge, you're going to be judged.

So don't judge, or you're going to be judged the same way. That's clarified in verse 2. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged.

I mean, really, that's all you got to do. You just read on to the next line, at the beginning of the next verse, and suddenly, oh, okay,

I understand what is meant here now by do not judge. It's not Jesus saying that we should never judge.

But don't judge hypocritically. With what judgment you judge, you will be judged.

And with what measure you measure, it will be measured to you.

This isn't the only place that we find that instruction. In Romans 2, we read,

Therefore you are without excuse, O man, every one of you who passes judgment. For in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself.

For you who judge practice the very same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things.

But do you presume this, O man, who passes judgment on those who practice such things and does the same as they do, that you will escape the judgment of God?

Or do you think lightly of the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?

But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath.

And the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will repay to each according to his works.

I remember Francis Schaeffer giving an explanation of this particular passage in Romans 2.

He gave this illustration. Let's say that you were born with a tape recorder around your neck.

Now at the time that Francis Schaeffer gave this illustration, tape recorder would have fit with the times.

Some of you may not even know what a tape recorder is. Let's just say you've got some sort of digital device hanging around your neck, or it's a certain app on your smartphone.

Everyone's born with a smartphone and you've got an app on that phone that will make recordings.

Every time you make a judgment call, whenever you judge somebody else, that app records you making that judgment.

Let's say everybody's got that phone, everybody's got that app, it's recording every single judgment call that you make against another person.

It could be anything as trivial as, man, I really don't like that sweater, to something as serious as calling out a person's sin, or saying something about a person's morality that's wrong.

I made a joke yesterday about the whole do better thing, how annoying that is. Do better.

Because it's not really based in anything. It is based in something.

It's based on my own subjective sense of morality. I'm morally superior to you, so therefore

I have the moral authority to tell you to do better. It could be some sort of judgment call like that.

You're just telling a person that you think that they need to do better. Every time you make a judgment call, that app records you making that judgment.

On the day that you stand before God, and he renders to each person according to their works, as said here in Romans 2, it's repeated again in Romans 14,

Jesus says in Revelation, I will give to each according to their works. We see that over and over throughout the

New Testament. So that day comes, we're standing before God, and we're ready for judgment.

All God would have to do is take that little smartphone from you, open up that app, and hit play, and let you condemn yourself.

Because one after the other, you would be listening to these different judgment calls made.

One after the next, and you would hear this judgment call against this person, and recognize you did the same thing.

This person, this person, and this person, every judgment call, and you're recognizing

I am just as guilty of every one of those. You cannot even measure up to your own standard of righteousness that you impose upon everyone else.

Nobody can. Everybody has their own sense of morality.

As it says in Proverbs, there is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end is the way of death.

So even those people who are unbelievers, they don't believe in God, they don't believe in his word, they still have a morality.

Everybody does. There are some persons who have a morality that's pretty close to what

God said, and there are others that are way off. But nonetheless, everybody has their own kind of moral compass.

What is it set to, right? What's their compass set to? Is it set to something objective, like what

God has said in his word, or is it set to something subjective, which is just whatever they decide is right and wrong today.

And we see the world around us changing their minds about right and wrong all the time. So everybody has a sense of what they think is right and what they think is wrong.

And no one is even able to keep their own rules.

The morality that you impose on other people, the standard that you expect them to live by, you can't even live by that.

That's how sinful we are. We can't keep God's law. We can't even keep our own law.

That's all God would have to do on Judgment Day, is just play back our own moral judgments against us.

Now, we know that on that day, those that are going to be judged will be judged according to the law, whether they knew what

God's law was or not. There's a law that's been written on the heart of man. They can't even keep that law. And so God will judge them because they broke

God's law, no matter what. The only people who will be saved are those who are covered by the blood of Christ.

And our entrance into the kingdom of God is not going to be based on our own merit. It's going to be based on Christ's merit.

Even when you became a Christian, you've still made bad judgments. You've still made hypocritical judgments.

But we will enter into God's kingdom on a road to righteousness. An alien righteousness is the way

I remember R .C. Sproul talking about it. We get into the kingdom of God on Christ.

Now, that said, even though our entrance into the kingdom is secure in Christ, for those who are followers of Jesus, nonetheless, the call is still upon His kingdom people to live consistently, to judge righteously.

Jesus is still giving that to us. Remember, this is the word of the King. This is the message of the kingdom for His subjects.

And so Jesus expects of His subjects to judge righteously, not hypocritically.

But we must check ourselves, examine ourselves, and then take the log out of your brother's eye, or take the speck out of your brother's eye.

That's what we get to here as we continue on this instruction. So Matthew 7, 3, why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but you do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

You hypocrite. First, take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

Oh my goodness, look at that. Jesus just instructed us to judge. But don't judge hypocritically.

So first of all, your first judgment is yourself. Take the log that is out of your own eye.

And notice the difference between the two. You've got a log in your eye. What you're trying to remove from your brother's eye is but a speck.

So you should be able to see your sin so clearly. It's like a log that's coming right out of your eye.

You can identify the sin that is in your brother, but compared to what you see in yourself, what's in your brother is more like a speck.

Now, Jesus does say that we are to judge. Judge with right judgment.

Take the log out of your eye. That's the first judgment. You examine yourself and then take the speck out of your brother's eye.

That's an imperative. Then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

Because once again, when we get to Matthew 18, we have those instructions about carrying out church discipline.

So it is imperative for us to call out each other where necessary.

Colossians 3 .16. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another with all wisdom.

To admonish means to correct with goodwill. So we should want to desire to help one another, building each other up, calling out sin, restoring one another to the path of righteousness.

As said at the end of James 5, if any among you strays from the truth and one turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover over a multitude of sins.

To not judge at all would actually be very unloving because you would be letting a brother or sister in the

Lord continue in sin that would lead to their destruction. So examine yourself that you are pursuing the righteousness of Christ and then as you have been cleansed by Christ, so help another to be cleansed.

Then see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. Then we have this judgment that is made in verse 6.

Do not give what is holy to dogs and do not throw your pearls before swine lest they trample them under their feet and then turn and tear you to pieces.

What is holy but the word of God? Like if you're calling somebody out of their sin to holiness, you're using the word of God to do that, to show a person their sin and the right way that they are to go.

So don't give what is holy to dogs, a person who's not going to be receptive. If they're just hateful towards you when you give them the word of God but they despise you for it, don't continue to give it to them because what will end up happening is they're going to trample them under their feet and then they're going to turn and tear you to pieces.

So this is calling us to make right judgments in such a way that we recognize those people who are going to be receptive to that correction.

That's who we're investing ourselves in. Don't continually be going after the person that is going to trample those holy things underfoot and then just turn and attack you.

So we've got the call to make right judgment there in Matthew 7, 6.

But I hope you see out of this passage exactly what's being said. Again, it's not saying not to judge at all, but don't judge hypocritically.

And even the responsibility toward one another to judge each other with right judgment is spelled out right here in Matthew 7, 5.

Take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

The Lord Christ has shown us our sin and brought us into his righteousness.

And so as God has done this for us, the conviction of the Holy Spirit in our hearts that we might see our sin and look to his righteousness.

So let us help one another do the very same thing. Lovingly calling a person out in their sin and calling them to the righteousness that we have in Christ.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here. The love that you have shown for us in Christ our

Savior. And may we have that same love for each other. Examining ourselves where we see those things in our lives that need correction.

We come before God to be cleansed. Cleanse us from all unrighteousness so that we also are able to see clearly to help one another.

Lovingly correcting our brothers and sisters in the Lord so that they will know the righteousness that we've been called to in Christ.

Galatians 6, 1. Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, each of you looking to yourself so that you too will not be tempted.

Help us to do these things today. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the

Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday Gabe will be going through a New Testament study.

Then on Thursday we look at an Old Testament book. On Friday we take questions from the listeners and viewers.