WWUTT 2327 The Blind Leading the Blind (Luke 6:39-40)

The Sermon on the Plain and the Call to Judge Righteously

A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. That can be good or bad. If you've got a good teacher, well then you're going to have good practice when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of God that we may comprehend with all the saints how wide, how high, and how deep is the love of Christ. Tell all your friends about our ministry at www .wutt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the gospel according to Luke, we've been in chapter 6 where Jesus is teaching in the Sermon on the Plain, addressing his disciples about judging others. That's the section we're looking at this week.

So let me come back again to verses 37 to 42. Hear the word of the Lord. Judge not, and you will not be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you.

Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. He also told them a parable. Can a blind man lead a blind man?

Will they not both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but you do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

How can you say to your brother, Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye, when you yourself do not see 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 out the speck that is in your brother's eye.

And that latter statement right there in the parable also serves to qualify the opening statement in this section. In verse 37, judge not, and you will not be judged. As I stated yesterday, this is not Jesus saying that we should not judge at all.

Forgiveness, Giving, and God’s Abundant Blessing

For there are numerous things, even in the Sermon on the Plain, that Jesus is telling his disciples to judge rightly for themselves. In fact, it's said in John 7, 24, do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.

So there are judgments that we're going to make. But what this is addressing is not judging hypocritically. For after all, with the illustration, Jesus says, take the log out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

So there is a judgment that's being made there, and you are serving to help your brother be sanctified and walk in holiness. But if you're blinded by the same sins that you're trying to call out in other people, you're not helping anybody.

It's the blind leading the blind, as said in verse 39. That's the verse. Verses 39 and 40 are the verses we're going to be looking at today. Yesterday was 37 and 38, today 39 and 40, and then we'll get to the speck in the log illustration in 41 to 42, which will be tomorrow.

So let me quickly recap what we looked at yesterday, first of all. 37 and 38, where Jesus says, judge not, and you will not be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. So we have those two negative statements there, and then two positive statements.

Jesus says, first of all, don't do this, and then the two positive statements, do this. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. And again, this is not about salvation, okay?

So we understand that salvation is by faith in Christ alone. There's no works that we do to save ourselves. We can't do anything to save ourselves. It is trusting in the work that Christ has done to save us.

So by faith in him, we're justified by faith alone. We are declared innocent of our sins when we trust in his work that he did with his death on the cross, resurrection from the dead. Whoever believes in him, we are justified.

And as I had quoted yesterday from Romans 8 .1, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So when Jesus says here, forgive, and you will be forgiven, he's not talking about salvation.

If you go around forgiving people, well, then you will receive forgiveness too. But rather, this is illustrating that God indeed blesses those. He blesses his children who walk in godliness, who walk in the instructions that Christ has.

Given.

We're going to see that stated too when we get to the end of the sermon on the plane with the illustration of the wise man and the foolish man. Whoever does these words of mine is like a wise man. So the one who is a follower of Jesus is going to be a forgiving person.

And the person who forgives will likewise be forgiven by God. But a person who does not forgive, then when they come to God and ask forgiveness for their sins, are they genuinely repentant? Because they weren't willing to receive someone else's genuine apology.

Why should God receive yours? It would make you a hypocrite. You're not going to receive that person's, but you expect God to receive yours. So a person who's being hypocritical is not going to receive those blessings from God.

Again, we're not talking about salvation here. Forgive enough people and then God will save you. It's not what's being said. But as Jesus is addressing disciples here, there needs to be a consistency in our practice.

And we're talking about that here with regards to judgment. If you are going to correct somebody for their errors, but you're committing the same errors, you're guilty of the same sins, that just makes you hypocritical.

So forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and it will be given to you. And that even goes back to, I think I pointed this out yesterday, but the love your enemies paragraph. When it comes to giving to somebody who wants to borrow from you, you're not expecting anything in return.

When you love your enemies, you're not expecting anything in return because they just hate you. But in obedience to Christ, we're supposed to love them. And so you give expecting nothing in return. Give and it will be given to you.

Your reward will come from God. Don't worry about what other men think of you in that respect. Your desire is to obey God and to please him. What you do in secret, the Father will reward you, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount.

So we go on here as Jesus says, good measure, press down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. I kind of breezed through that yesterday. I didn't give that a whole lot of definition, but each one of these things is relevant for Jesus to say, good measure, press down, shaken together, running over.

It's talking about the dimension of the love that God will have for you. The blessing that God will show you will be immense. The Apostle Paul praying for the Christians at the church in Ephesus, he prays in Ephesians three, that they would be rooted and grounded in the love of Christ, and they may have the strength to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Paul is saying a very similar thing there to what Jesus is saying here about the blessing of God just being poured out on you abundantly. So Paul praying for these Christians that they would understand the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth of the love of Christ.

And what is it that Jesus says here? Again, coming back to Luke 6, 38, God will give to you in good measure, press down, shaken together, running over. It's talking about the vastness of the dimensions of this blessing that God will show to you.

Good measure, meaning it won't be a little, it's going to be a lot. Press down means that it's going to fill the entire container. There won't be a bit of the container that is not filled with the wonderful blessings, especially the love of God through Christ Jesus, our Lord, that will be given to the person who is forgiving and giving, shaken, right?

So it says, I've lost my place all of a sudden. A good measure, press down, shaken together. So it's all blended together. It doesn't separate out where it gets kind of watery on the top and the good substance is down there on the bottom.

I was recently teaching Becky how to make my sweet tea. She likes my tea too. I grew up in the South, was born in South Carolina. So of course I like tea so sweet, you can pour it on your pancakes if you wanted to.

So I'm teaching her how to make the sweet tea. And originally when she was making it, she wasn't stirring it. She was kind of hoping that the, just filling it with water would make it self stir. I've done that before.

So, and sometimes it comes out okay, especially if we put a lot of sugar in it. Anyway, the tea was coming out as kind of watery on the top. And then the deeper you got into the pitcher, then it got a lot sweeter and thicker toward the bottom.

So I did have to show her when you're making this tea, you do have to stir it. As you're pouring the water in it, you got to stir it so that all the good stuff is blended.

Together.

That way you don't get it separated out, kind of watery on the top and a little too concentrated on the bottom. So same sort of thing here, shaken together. So it's all blended. It's not like you get a little bit here and then a whole lot here.

It's all a good mixture that God gives and then running over. So with the measure that you use, it will be measured back to you, Jesus says. And the Apostle Paul states in Romans chapter 12, that we should try to outdo one another in showing honor.

It doesn't mean that our honor game is a competition. Look at how much I've given. I've given way more than you. Oh yeah, well, I've given way more than you. It's not what Paul means by that, but merely that you would want to give abundantly to others, not expecting anything in return.

It's really what it means to outdo one another in showing honor. You're not trying to match someone else's honor. I'm only going to give you as much as you gave me. No, you'll go above and beyond outdoing one another in showing honor.

So if this is the way that you show charity and kindness to others, then God is going to use that same measure to you and he will give abundantly to you beyond what you would ever have asked or imagined.

The Blind Leading the Blind and the Danger of Hypocrisy

And so then Jesus tells the parable. Now we get to verses 39 and 40. He told them a parable. Can a blind man lead a blind man? So again, this is all pointing back to the fact that when Jesus says, judge not, he's just he's not simply saying, don't judge anybody because there are judgments that we will have to make.

And we've even seen that in the Sermon on the Plain. Jesus state things like that. So can a blind man lead a blind man? If you are blinded to your own faults, shortcomings, sins, if you don't recognize your transgressions, you're not asking forgiveness for them.

You don't even think they're wrong. But then you're calling out the wrong in everybody else. You're blind. And how can you lead someone else in truth when they're going to look at your life and they're going to see that inconsistency?

Yeah, you tell me that I'm doing wrong, but you're committing the same thing. You're doing the same sin. So who are you to tell me? Just take, for example, the controversy that happened in 2024. We just recently did our 40 biggest headlines of the year affecting the Christian faith.

And so one of those big headlines in 2024 was the Steve Lawson scandal come to find that he was in sexual immorality and had to step down from all the ministries that he's been in from Ligonier, from G3, from the Shepherds Conference and teaching at Master's Seminary, from One Passion Ministries, all of these different things that Steve Lawson was doing.

Very, very busy guy. We know that he traveled a lot anyway, but he made a shipwreck of his ministry because he was going after this young woman. Well, you know, it just so happens that while I was researching for those big headlines that I was going to sum up at the end of the year, I found a story in which Steve Lawson called out Alistair Begg.

Now, remember, Alistair Begg had one of those big stories last year, too, when he gave unwise counsel to a grandmother telling her that she should go to her gay grandson's wedding and even take a gift and partake in that celebration.

It was an absurd recommendation. We can't partake in homosexual weddings because they're not actually weddings. It is an abomination before God. They're not really getting married. So there's nothing that a Christian can partake in in celebration of this union.

It would be to encourage somebody towards sin that God has promised that he will judge. Well, after Alistair Begg gave that unwise advice, guess what? Steve Lawson was one of those ministers who had rebuked Begg's advice and had said that a Christian can't have anything to do with such things.

Now, Lawson is correct. He's correct that we should not be partaking in this thing that is an abomination before God. It should be an abomination to us as well. He's right in that. But then later on in the year, it's revealed that Lawson is not faithful to his own marriage.

And he's even doing that, which, according to the law, would have resulted in capital punishment in Israel. And so this man is inconsistent, calling out one sexual immorality while he himself is engaged in sexual immorality.

And does that not damage his witness? I mean, there's all kinds of people that have seen this as a reproach against the gospel for him to have called out all the things that he's called out, to have even sat on panels at these various conferences and has called out various sins and has told people that if your church does this, you need to leave that church and go to another.

And here come to find that he is just such a minister engaging in just such a sin that he's previously called out and said, if that's going on at your church, then you need to.

Leave.

And everybody identifies the hypocrisy there. Everybody recognizes it. It's the blind leading the blind. And those who were immature in their faith that see something like that, I mean, it can be shattering to their faith to make them think was anything that he said true because he was saying this.

And yet he was doing this on the side. Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? And so we understand the concept, we get the concept of the blind leading the blind, then there's others out there that I mean, they're just straight up false teachers teaching all different kinds of heretical doctrines.

And there are people that will try to defend them. Let me give you an example with Michael Brown, for example, defending Benny Hinn or someone like that, or Todd White being another one. These men are heretics, but Brown will defend them and say, well, they preach the gospel.

There have been occasions where they preach the gospel, and that has resulted in real life change. I don't deny that, that some of these name it and claim it heretics will on occasion preach the gospel.

I've heard Joyce Meyer do it. I've heard Beth Moore do it. But it's all the other teaching that goes around that. When you find out that teaching is a lie, are you then going to look at the gospel that they proclaimed?

And would you think that that might have been a lie as well? So it's the blind leading the blind. Will they not both fall into a pit? Verse 40 says a disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.

Now, this was a common saying among the Jews. There was a desire among the students of a rabbi to want to be like their rabbi. And so it's understood a disciple is not above his teacher. Whatever advancement that student is able to gain, well, it's going to be because of what his teacher taught him.

It's always going to be to the credit of his teacher. So a student is not above his teacher. And then, you know, eventually the student is not a student so much anymore. That's that's a different scenario.

But for the for the position of teacher and student, the student is not above his teacher. But everyone, every student, when he's fully trained, he's going to be like his teacher. Now, there's a positive and a negative to that.

Because if you have a good teacher. Then every student of that good teacher is going to be filled with good doctrine and good practice. We call this orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Orthodoxy is the teaching.

Orthopraxy is the practice. So if you have good orthodoxy, you'll have good orthopraxy. But what about if the teacher is a false teacher? Well, the saying is still true. That everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher, but it won't be a good kind of teacher and it won't be a good kind of proxy.

It would be heteropraxy would be the term we would use for that. So a student who follows a false teacher will be like him. Also, I remember listening to Kenneth Copeland talk about being discipled by Kenneth Hagan.

Kenneth Hagan was a heretic and produced Kenneth Copeland. And so as Copeland was his pilot and learned all the stuff that Hagan taught him, then Copeland himself becomes a heretic and has continued to teach the same things.

So the one who learns from a good teacher will have good teaching and good practice. One who learns from a bad teacher is going to be filled with all kinds of false doctrines. And then you will also know them by their fruit.

As Jesus said in Matthew 7 in the Sermon on the Mount, you will know them by their fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit. A bad tree cannot produce good fruit. So what you see them doing, their actions, their behavior, it's going to be a reflection of their doctrine.

Is it good or is it bad? And as Paul told Timothy, everything comes to the light eventually, it will all be exposed. So let us be committed to right doctrine so that when it comes to correcting one another, which is what we get to tomorrow, Jesus still says here that there is cause for admonition, which is to correct someone with goodwill, with good intentions, wanting them to walk in the right way.

But if we're going to do that for one another, and we should do that for one another, we've got to check ourselves that our teaching and our practice are consistent. Are we teaching one thing and then the way that we live, is it consistent with that teaching?

So let us examine ourselves in that respect that we may walk in the light as he is in the light and not fall into a pit. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this teaching here as we followers of Jesus, our disciples at the feet of our rabbi and desiring to know his teaching and to keep it and to do it.

And so today, Lord, may we recognize the blessings of God that have been given to us in Christ. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, poured into our bosoms. And Lord, may we show in our lives the goodness of God that has been demonstrated to us.

We believe it, and so therefore we live it. Forgive us of our sins. If there are any secret sins that we're hiding, convict us that we may bring those forward and be forgiven and walk in holiness and righteousness before you.

Thank you for the goodness of your grace that you show to us every day. It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.