"Judging Others"

Hi there, this is Lon Solomon and I'd like to welcome you to our program today. You know it's a tremendous honor that God has given us to be on stations all around the nation bringing the truth of God's word as it is uncompromising and straightforward. And I'm so glad you've tuned in to listen and be part of that.

Thanks again for your support and your generosity that keeps us on the radio. And now, let's get to the Word of God. There's a critical spirit in America today. Some people say it came from the Vietnam War era. Some people say it came from Watergate.

I'm not a social scientist and I don't know where it came from, but I know it's here. And it's a critical spirit that reserves the right not only to question people's actions, but to question their motives and their intentions and their heart as well. Now when we look in the Bible, what we find very interestingly is that this tendency to judge other people critically is not just an American flaw, but rather the Bible tells us that it is a deep-seated blemish that runs through all of the human race. And if I suspect correctly, and I think I do, if you've been alive any amount of time, you've been burned at least a few times by people who've done this to you. People who've looked at the situation outwardly, immediately made a value judgment on you, your heart, your motive, your intent, a value judgment that was wrong, and then proceeded to go out and talk about it and spread it or take action against you because of it.

The whole time they had it all wrong. And this is exactly what Jesus addresses here in Luke chapter 6. And I want us to talk about it this morning. This passage this week, I tell you, God slam dunked me with this passage this week. I mean, this has been a week where the Lord and I have done a lot of talking, and I've always ended up on the short end of the talk. And God has said, Lon, we really have some things we have to do in your life about this. And I hope God will slam dunk you if you need it this morning.

If you don't need it, great. So let's talk about this here in Luke chapter 6, verse 37. Do not judge and you won't be judged. Do not condemn and you won't be condemned.

Forgive and you'll be forgiven. Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over will be poured in your lap. For with the same measure that you measure out to other people, God will see to it that they measure back to you. Now this verse, verse 38, interestingly enough, is often a verse that's used with regard to money. You know, you measure out with good giving and God will give back to you.

But would you notice in the context, it has nothing to do with money here. It has to do with the way we judge other people. And what God is saying is, you deal with them properly. You dish out to them compassion and sensitivity and forgiveness, and I will see to it they dish the same thing back to you. You deal out judgment and condemnation and harsh criticism and that's what you're going to get back. Now let's decide what he isn't talking about before we decide what he is talking about. What Jesus is not saying here is that it's wrong for us to have legal justice in society. And he's not saying that there's anything wrong with men and women being appointed as judges to make sure that that law is kept. And Jesus is not saying that this is wrong or that these people are doing anything incorrect when they're doing their sworn duty to enforce the law. The issue here that Jesus is talking about is the tendency that we all have to pass personal judgments on other people. He's not talking about the fact that we may disagree with them on some issue.

That's okay. But then to go beyond that and begin impugning them to begin looking at their motives and their character and their intentions, and to do what these two Greek words say, that's wrong. The first Greek word in verse 37, do not judge, means literally do not bring somebody to trial. Do not act as their prosecutor. And the second word, do not condemn, literally means do not pass sentence on people. Do not act as their judge and their jury. And so what Jesus is talking about is the tendency we all have to set ourselves up as the prosecutor, the judge, the jury, and sometimes the executioner of other people. God wants us to see this for what it is, that it's evil and it's wrong. And that's what I want us to talk about this morning. I want to give you four reasons why we have no business judging other people's hearts. And then answer the question, so what? Right. Let me give you those four reasons why we have no business judging other people's hearts.

Reason number one, things are not always the way they look. I was sitting home about a year ago last spring in my study at home pecking away on my Mac and working on my message and the phone rang. And it was a lady on the phone and she said, is this Reverend Solomon? Whenever anybody calls me Reverend Solomon, I know it's not good. I said, yes, this is Reverend Solomon. She said, well, my name is so and so. And she gave me your name and she says, I'm calling you from Georgia. She said, I work at the hotel where your high schoolers are staying on their spring retreat. And I said, yes, ma'am. She said, well, I called the church office and they told me that in light of what I wanted to talk about, they thought I should call you directly.

And so here I am. I said, OK, what's the problem? She said, we have several problems.

I said, well, what are they? She said, well, we've got your high schoolers running around all times of the evening, two, three, four o'clock in the morning, disturbing the other guests, disturbing the neighbors, carrying on like a bunch of rowdy people. I said, OK. She said, but that's not all. She said one of the maids here let themselves into one of the rooms and found beer cans stacked in the room over in the corner.

All these beer cans stacked up. And I said, oh, she said, but that's not all. I said, there's more? She said, yeah, we let ourselves into one room and we found a guy and a girl on the bed together in the room. I said, well, gee, our high school pastor is down there.

His name is Bruce Wiley. Have you spoken to him about this? She said, yes, sir, I have. And we did not get what we consider to be an acceptable response from Mr. Wiley. I said, well, just where is Mr. Wiley right now? And she said, I don't know. I said, would you find Mr. Wiley for me? She said, I'd be happy to. I said, and you have Mr. Wiley call me. She said, yes, sir, I'd be happy to do that.

She said, I just thought as the pastor, you might like to know this. I said, yes, I'm glad you called me. Find Mr. Wiley. Well, I got a call about 20 minutes later from guess who?

Mr. Wiley. And he picked up the phone and he said, hey, Lon, how are you? I said, I'm not doing so good right now, Bruce.

I just got a phone call from down there. And here's what this lady told me. And I walked him through all these. He said, Lon, it's all a big misunderstanding. I said, it is. He said, yeah, I've talked to the lady, but he said, I can't make any headway with her.

It's all a big misunderstanding. I said, well, Bruce, here's what I need. I got to tell you, here's what I need. I need you to have the manager of the hotel call me and tell me it's all a big misunderstanding.

Do you understand what I'm saying to you? I need to hear back from the hotel. Well, I sat there at home while the phone was silent and the phone was silent and the phone was silent. And I couldn't work on my message. I couldn't concentrate.

I was just completely upset. Then the phone rang and it was the manager of the hotel. And she said, Reverend Solomon. Yes, ma'am.

I'm calling. She said to apologize to you. I said, well, this is a good start.

I'm glad we're starting like this. She said, you know, we investigated and we found out that all those people run around making all that noise in the middle of the night. It was not your high schoolers. It was some other people from the community. I said, OK, that's good. She said, and you know, that boy and the girl that we told you we found there in the room that they were sitting on the bed fully clothed.

They were watching The Price is Right. I said, well, that's good. Keep going.

You're on a roll. And she said, you know, those beer cans. I said, yes, ma'am. I'm very interested in those beer cans. She said, we actually found out they were Fresca cans, but we don't have Fresca down here and the maid didn't recognize them.

So she just assumed they were beer cans. I said, ma'am, I really appreciate this call. You've made my day. She said, I really apologize for any inconvenience or heartache we've caused you. And I said, ma'am, you caused me a lot of heartache, but I'm really glad we got this straightened out. What did I learn from this? Things are not always the way they look.

I mean, I was ready to go charging off when I got that first phone call, but I'm sure glad I waited to get the second phone call from down there because things were not the way they looked. And, you know, when it comes to judging other people, things are not always the way they look either. And when we rush to judgment and we look at people and we immediately decide what's in their heart, we're usually wrong.

Things are not always the way they look. Number two, only God really knows what's in a person's heart. Only God is the one that can really make correct judgments about other people's hearts. I want you to see the Apostle Paul comment about this. Turn back to First Corinthians Chapter four with me. You know, Paul had been maligned. Paul had been really misjudged at Corinth. And he kept writing the Corinthians and saying, I think I've done everything right.

But look what he says here. First Corinthians Chapter four, verse three. Paul says, I care very little if I'm judged by you or by any human court. He said, I don't even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who ultimately has to judge me. Now, do you hear what Paul is saying? Paul is saying, look, as far as I know, my heart is white as snow, but I don't even trust my own judgment of my own heart.

That doesn't mean I'm right. It's the Lord who eventually has to decide what's really going on in my heart because I can't be trusted to judge my own heart. You say, Lon, why is that? It's because of what Jeremiah said. Jeremiah said in Chapter 17 of the book, he wrote that the heart is deceitful above all things.

And who can really understand it? Friend, our hearts are so beguiling, they're so sneaky, they're so tricky that we're able to justify our own behavior while we condemn that very same behavior in other people. We cannot be trusted to sit in judgment even over our own hearts.

Our hearts are deceitful above anything you can imagine. You can't even trust your own heart to evaluate itself. That's what Paul is saying here. Paul is saying, I don't even judge myself.

I can't be trusted. Only God knows what's really in my heart, and only God can be trusted to judge my heart. Therefore, Paul has some good advice for us. Look at verse 5. He says, therefore, don't judge anything before the appointed time when the Lord comes. The Lord will bring to light what's hidden in darkness, and he will expose the motives of men's hearts.

Only God is capable of judging other people's hearts. We dare not step onto his turf. When you and I try, we are way out of our league. Number three. When we try, and we often do.

Number three. It often and almost always results in a lot of senseless hurt being done to other people. Judging people when we have no business judging people almost always results in hurt. You know, I've been in full-time Christian ministry since 1975. And in reflecting back over all of those years, the worst hurts I have ever suffered in 18 years of being a Christian have not come from people who were not Christians.

The worst hurts I've ever suffered have come from Christians. People who I served and thought that I had done things to help them, gone out of my way. People who then turned around and misjudged my motives. They said they were judging. I felt they were misjudging.

And then based on those misjudgments, proceeded to assassinate my character and my reputation, undermine my ministry. Folks, you can tell me you don't agree with me. I can deal with that. You can tell me that you don't like some decision I made. I can deal with that. You can tell me that you don't support how I'm doing things. I can deal with that. You can tell me that you don't agree with the direction we're taking the church. I can deal with all of those things and they don't bother me. But when people began going beyond that, to begin judging my motives, throwing around words like compromiser and liberal and backslider, and then based on those misjudgments began working to undermine my ministry here, I've got to tell you, that hurt.

But you know what? In those days I would say to some of my close friends, I would say, you know, I'm willing to grant that those people are doing what they think is right, even though I don't agree with it. I'm willing to grant that their motive is right, even though I don't like what they're doing. Why aren't they willing to grant me the same courtesy? To say we don't like what you're doing and we don't agree with where you're going, but we'll at least grant you that you're trying to do what you think is right and best.

But I couldn't get that from them. And you know, folks, most of the hurt I've suffered in life and most of the hurt that I've given out in life, because I've hurt some other people, can all be traced back to the same source. And that source is judging people's hearts when I have no business to do it. Why shouldn't you be judging people? Not only because usually things aren't the way they look and because God's the only one that's able, but third, because when you do it, you're going to hurt a lot of people and you're going to hurt yourself. But Lon, this really worries me.

I mean, if we stop judging other people and we back off and we just live and let live, I mean, we're going to have sin everywhere. We're going to have license everywhere in this church. Wait a minute. Hold on a second.

There's a fourth thing I want to say to you, and that's this. Nobody is going to get away with anything. Don't worry. God's going to see to it. Nobody is going to get away with anything. Listen to these verses from the Bible. Ecclesiastes chapter 12, God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it be evil or good. God says He's going to do that. Look right here in chapter 4, 1 Corinthians. It says here in verse 5 that God will bring to light what is hidden in the darkness, and He will, not He might, He will expose the motives of people's hearts.

And I love the verse in Numbers chapter 32 that says, Be sure, many of you know the rest of it, your sin will find you out. My dear friends, you and I do not need to be the inspector generals of the world. God is plenty able enough to be the inspector general all by Himself, and He does not need your help.

Thank you. God put you and me here to love people and care for people and try to bring them to forgiveness in Christ. He didn't put us here to be anybody's inspector general.

He doesn't need you to do that. And may I say to you if you're here and you've never trusted Christ in a real and personal way, the judgments that other people lay on you, maybe even some of your Christian friends, is not your biggest worry in this life, believe me. Your biggest worry in life and my biggest worry in life is what we've just read from the Bible that one of these days God is going to reveal all the darkness in our hearts and reveal all the motives, expose them. I'm not worried about people's judgments nearly as much as I'm worried about God judging me. And God says He's going to do it. If you're here and you've never trusted Christ in a real and personal way, may I say to you there is no refuge anywhere for this judgment except the blood of Jesus Christ.

That's it. Because the blood of Jesus Christ covers us, the Bible says, from the judgment of God against our sin. And if you're here and you've never run and taken refuge in the blood of Christ to pay for your sin, I want to challenge you to do that because this is a judgment you and I are going to face otherwise, and it is not going to be pretty. Well, here we are. What have we learned this morning? We've learned that things are often not the way they look. We've learned that our hearts are so complex and tricky that only God is able to judge them. We've learned that when we try to overstep God and we try to begin judging other people, we hurt a lot of folks. And we've learned that nobody is going to get away with anything. We can all relax. God's got this whole show under control. So you say, Lon, what that means is we need to stop judging.

You're right. You say, but Lon, you don't understand. Judging others comes natural for me. I was born this way. It's part of my autonomic nervous system, Lon. It's like breathing for me. I look, I see, I judge.

It's like Julius Caesar. Well, that leads us to the question, so what? How are we going to deal with this? If we know what, how are we going to do it? Back to Luke chapter 6 because Jesus gives us the answer.

Luke chapter 6. I want you to see what he says in verse 41. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank that's in your eye? How can you say to your brother, brother, let me take that speck out of your eye?

I'll get my tweezers. And when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye, you hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye and then you'll be able to see clearly enough to take the speck out of your brother's eye. See, this is where I got slam dunked this week because Jesus says that the splinters that we see in other people's lives usually just represent telephone poles that we have in our eyes. And psychologists tell us that this is true. They tell us that what people often judge so harshly in others and are so critical of in others are usually what those people are most guilty of themselves.

The technical term for this in psychology is projection, meaning that we're not dealing with the things in our own life that we subconsciously know we need to deal with. So when we see them in others, we project our anger and we project our frustration and we project our guilt onto them and we get mad at them. And we in the Christian world, we're great at this. In fact, some of the greatest damage we have done to our reputation in the world comes because of this very thing right here. Not dealing with the telephone poles in our own eyes, but being so quick to go out there and deal with all the splinters in everybody else's eyes.

Folks, you know something? Jesus tells us how we can get over this. He says very simply, train the microscope on yourself. If you want to look at sin under a microscope, that's fine. If you want to be brutal in dealing with sin and ruthless with dealing with sin, that's great. Be ruthless about dealing with your sin. The harder I get when it comes to judging myself, it seems like the easier I get when it comes to judging others, the more honest and humbled I get about my own weaknesses. It seems like the more gracious and sympathetic I become in dealing with other people when they're trying to grapple with their weaknesses. See, we've got to put the microscope where it belongs, not on other people, on you and me. I was fascinating by the interview a couple months ago that Oprah Winfrey did with Michael Jackson.

Did you see that? I didn't know much about Michael Jackson. In fact, I don't think anybody knew much about Michael Jackson. I'm not a real fan of his music. I don't listen to a lot of Michael Jackson's music, but I have heard some of it. And there's one song that he does that I really, really like.

And you may not know this, but it's a song that he did along with Andre Crouch, the great gospel star, and the Winans, the great gospel group. And the name of the song is Man in the Mirror. And here's how the chorus goes. The chorus says, I'm starting with the man in the mirror. I'm asking him to change his ways. And no message could have been any clearer if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and then make a change. When I heard that song for the first time, I said, I like this song.

This may not be a song that sings a Bible verse, but this is a song that encapsulates a Bible truth, the exact truth that Jesus is trying to communicate to us right here. You want to make a change in the world? Fine. Go look at the man or the woman in the mirror and start right there. And you know what I found? There is so much to work on with the man in the mirror. I don't have any time left to work on anybody else. If you and I would spend the same amount of energy working on our faults as we spent criticizing other people, this world would be a whole lot nicer place, you'd be a whole lot nicer person to be around, and all of us who have to be around you would be a whole lot happier. And if you work on yourself the way Jesus says you ought to work on yourself, you won't have any time or energy left over to work on anybody else.

You've got all you can handle with you, and so do I. And that's what Jesus is trying to tell us, that the only time we're free to go criticize other people is when we've got all our faults straight, and what that means is we're never free to go criticize anybody, period. There's a little poem I'd like to close with. Whenever I get to judging other people, God always brings this little poem back to mind. Very simple and very short, here's what it says. It says, there is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us that it hardly becomes any of us to find fault with the rest of us. You like that?

Eh, you're not sure. Well, this is my message, and I'll use the poem I want. Okay, how's that?

Is that fair? But listen to it again. It's really powerful. There is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us that it hardly becomes any of us to find fault with the rest of us. You work on your telephone poles. Don't worry, God will work on everybody else's splinters.

You work on your telephone poles. And dear friends, that's how we can make this church the kind of church people want to be a part of. That's how we can communicate to people out there in this community that Christianity is not a big fraud and a big bunch of hypocrites. By loving each other and judging ourselves.

The problem is usually we love ourselves and we judge each other. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this reality check this morning.

One that we all need so badly. Forgive us, Lord, as Christians for being so quick to rush and judge other people's hearts and their motives. Lord, what I've said this morning doesn't mean that we can never disagree with people about policies or about issues. It doesn't mean that we can't say that we are against certain things or for certain things in our political system or in our society. But it means that we stick to the issues and we don't go beyond that to impugning and judging people.

That's your job. Help us to be people who love others and who judge ourselves. And Father, I pray that you would use what we've talked about this morning to change our lives. To make us the kind of people who don't go around hurting people and destroying our testimony and damaging the reputation of Christ. Make us people who accentuate you, Lord. Make us people that you're proud of by helping us live this way. And I pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen. You've been listening to So What with Dr. Lon Solomon. So What is an outreach of Lon Solomon Ministries. To listen to today's message or for more information, visit our website, lonsolomonministries.org. Thank you for your support. If you would like to contact us, please visit our website or call us at 866-788-7770. We hope you will join us next time when Lon seeks to answer one of life's most important questions, So What.