When someone makes a moral mistake and is dealing with the consequences of their sin, it never helps to have critics add judgment to their pain.
It's like keeping shame on top of shame. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll is teaching from Matthew chapter 7. In this passage, Jesus made it very clear that making sport of someone's demise does nothing to accelerate their healing, not to mention that it's often hypocritical. In fact, he taught us that slapping a label on the disenfranchised is called judging.
Chuck titled today's message, Attention All Spec Inspectors. We're in the middle of our study through Matthew, and we've come to this Sermon on the Mount that is contained in the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters. If you were to read it alone, you could make your way through the sermon in less than 15 minutes, and when we come to this last chapter of the sermon, it seems as though the Lord is putting his finger on sensitive areas. Last time it was on worrying, and he says, stop that.
Just stop it. Now we come to the subject of judging, and the same word, stop that. The way the imperative is written suggests it was going on, and he's commanding his hearer, in our case, the reader, to stop doing what we've been doing. Judging can be an addiction, a habit that we don't break, and that's what he is addressing here, and we take his word seriously.
Matthew 7, verses 1 through 5. Do not judge so that you will not be judged, for in the way you judge, you will be judged, and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. 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. Jesus cannot be criticized for making things confusing, can he? This is straight talk, so the sermon will be made up of straight talk. You're listening to Insight for Living.
To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scriptures studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. And now the message from Chuck titled, Attention All Speck Inspectors. Some Christians love to play indoor games.
It's interesting how they go on and on doing so, and seem always to find a reason to keep playing the games. One of the favorites is what I would call let's label. Let's label.
Here are the ground rules. You find someone who is different. The person thinks and sounds and maybe even looks different than those you hang out with.
It's best if you can find an individual who has different strong opinions than you and your clique and your strong opinions. Ideally if the person has a dark mark in his or her past record, oh that's just food for the fire. That'll make it even more juicy. Maybe it happened a long time ago, maybe it's all over and done with. The person may have made everything right and it's no longer an issue, but you know about it.
You can use it when you label that person. Now here's how you play it. There are about six steps you go through. First, you find someone and there's something about that person you don't like. So second, you quickly examine the external evidence. You have to do that because there's no way you can know the internal truth, but you look at the external because you are now third forming a critical and negative opinion about that individual. Fourth, you jump to several conclusions which will be inaccurate of course since you don't know all the facts, only what's tangible, only what you can see and hear. But nevertheless, five, you stick a label on that person. This saves you time.
It also makes you look like you know a lot of things that you don't know. Finally, you share your inaccurate conclusions and label openly and freely so that others may quote, pray more intelligently for that individual. Actually there's another name for that ugly game. It doesn't sound nearly as clever or enjoyable as let's label.
Jesus used the name in his sermon. He called it judging. Judging. If worrying is our favorite sin, as we learned last time, then judging is our favorite pastime. Worry represents a lack of faith and trust in God, but judging is a lack of love and acceptance and forgiveness toward others. What is interesting is that even though Jesus spoke firmly against it, Christians went right on then until the very date we live playing the same game. How we love to judge.
Oh we don't call it that, but that's what it is. We know it went on because years after Jesus spoke this sermon on the mount, Paul who came on the scene and began to write letters wrote a letter to the Romans and by the time he got to the 14th chapter as we know it, that's toward the end of the letter, he mentioned it in other terms. No need to turn, I'm reading from The Message, Romans 14, several excerpts. Eugene Peterson writes, Paul's words, welcome with open arms fellow believers who don't see things the way you do and don't jump all over them every time they do or say something you don't agree with, even though when it seems that they are strong on opinion but weak in the faith department.
Remember they have their own history to deal with, treat them gently. Little later he writes, do you have any business crossing people off the guest list or interfering with God's welcome? If there are corrections to be made or manners to be learned, God can handle that without your help. And finally Jesus lived and died and then lived again so that he could be our master across the entire range of life and death and free us from the petty tyrannies of each other. Petty tyrannies of each other. That's the result of playing the game and perfecting it, judging. How do you play the game? I pretty well described it and we hardly need the reminder of how to play it since we're good at it, but we need to hear exactly what Jesus says about it and we need to stop it.
You and I both. We need to stop doing it. The opening lines of Matthew 7 do not represent a suggestion. They're a direct command. It's called an imperative. It is imperative that you not judge. Pretty clear, isn't it?
If he will say verse 25 of chapter 6, do not be worried, and turns around to say in chapter 7 verse 1, do not judge, he is putting his finger on issues that are real issues in our lives. So we need to pay close attention. Now, why is it wrong? Several reasons come to mind. Number one, we never know all the facts about other people. We certainly don't know their motives. So that disqualifies us from coming down strong or hard on individuals regarding things we don't agree with. We don't know enough to say anything. Second, we are prejudiced people by nature.
That's what's wrong with it. It means we're never able to be completely objective. I'm not. I'm not completely objective.
I have a whole background of training and learning process and growing up years, reared by certain parents, in a certain family. I've got all those prejudices that have come along with me in my growing up years, just like you do. So we're prejudiced. That means we're not qualified to be judges. Third, we place ourselves in a position we're not qualified to fill. It's called playing God.
When we judge others, we put ourselves in the place only God fits because he alone qualifies as a judge. I want to urge you, especially you who have fallen into this habit to the point of addiction, to hear the master's voice in Matthew 7. Not my voice. Hear the master's voice. He says, do not keep doing that. Now, I need to clarify what he is not saying, just to be fair. He's not saying do not have discernment. Now, hear this well.
This is important. He's not saying do not be discerning. The reason I say that is because shortly after making the command, he says in verse 6, don't give what is holy to dogs.
That's a judgment call. He sees some people as dogs. And a little later, and don't throw your pearls before swine.
Even worse. But Jesus who does no sin is not sinning when he discerns some are dogs and some are swine. He refers in verse 15 to false teachers. Beware of the false prophets. That's a judgment call.
It represents discernment. You show your maturity when you sense that's false. That's a teacher I don't want to follow. He does not base, or she does not base that teaching on the scriptures. That's his or her own opinion. So that's a false teacher. So he's not saying don't be discerning. In fact, 1 John 4 says, don't believe every spirit, but try the spirits.
In other words, check them out. Some judging is not only acceptable, it's commendable. It's a mark of maturity. Everyone who has mentored me over the years has been a person of maturity. And I've learned from them the difference between a judgmental spirit and a discerning mind is a real difference. You teach your children not to get into the car of a stranger. That's discernment. That's not judging the stranger. That's discernment.
That's a wise warning. That's the role of a parent. And ultimately the child learns as he or she grows up, I need to be careful when I'm in the public because some people have my harm in mind. It isn't judging in the sense of censoring. It's discerning truth from error, false from truth.
So we're not to suspend our critical faculties or turn a deaf or blind ear to those in error. You understand the difference. Now, what does it mean?
What is he saying? He's saying by these words, do not judge. Do not be censorious.
Do not be do not be condemning. Do not conduct every waking moment of your life with a judgmental or negative attitude. Stop being suspicious of everyone. Don't find petty faults and then point them out. Periodic failures and flaws, that's all part of human nature. We're all weak.
We all fail. It's the idea of cultivating a condemning attitude toward others. I like the way Earl Palmer puts it in his book on the Sermon on the Mount. The right to say the last word about our neighbor has been denied us. You don't have the last word. You're not God. Be careful about that. Be careful about that. There's an appropriate place for judging when you stop to think about it.
So stop and think. Where would judging be appropriate? A courtroom. Who would be an appropriate authority? A judge. A group of people who make up a jury. There in the courtroom, evidence is presented, sometime embarrassing, often painful.
Witnesses are frequently in tears. You feel awkward in a courtroom because everything is raw, out in the open, because the purpose is to find out the true facts as best we can and then to judge what is an appropriate response to the accused. But the Christian family is not a courtroom, and you don't wear a robe. You're not a judge or a jury. After making the statement, do not judge, he goes on right away, albeit succinctly, to take us to the next step.
He explains his reason in verses one through four, and does this very vividly in a way we'll never forget if we really listen. Do not judge, look closely, so that you will not be judged. In other words, the attitude you demonstrate toward others will be demonstrated back to you. You'll be known as a judgmental individual, and others will judge you for that.
We have a saying, what goes around comes around. You come to be known as a suspicious individual, people become suspicious of you. You question virtually everything another individual may do or say that is in disagreement with what you do or say, you're going to be questioned as well. Look at Luke chapter six for a little clearer illustration or example of this. Jesus goes into it a little more deeply as Luke writes his account. Please turn. Luke 6 verses 36 through 38.
Yeah, there it is. Verse 36 of Luke 6, be merciful, just as your father is merciful. Next verse. Do not judge, do not judge, do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, you will not be condemned. You will not be condemned or he goes on, pardon and you will be pardoned. What goes around, here it is, comes around. He goes further. Give and it will be given to you.
They will pour into your lap a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, for by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you in return. Pretty clear. So in light of that, back to Matthew 7, we don't want to judge someone else because we'll get that in return and that's no way to live trying to out judge one another. That's not a happy life style or mental attitude. The second reason is because it is hypocritical. Look at verse 3. 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, please notice it's a fellow believer, your sister, let me take the speck out of your eye and behold the log is in your own eye.
I know you're familiar with it so for that reason I brought along a reminder. Here we have it. Now we've got the picture. This is what Jesus had in mind. However, this is a much smaller log than he had in mind. The one he had in mind was the large long rafter that is a part of underneath the roof in the building of a house. It was a plank, sometimes 40 feet long. Sometimes the log was five feet around.
We're talking big log. So that's in your eye. I now have it in mine and here I am looking for the speck.
I brought a speck with me. Hold on just a second. Oh my, I lost it. Wait a minute. There it is. Got it. See that?
No, you can't. Can't see it. And you know, that's even larger than the speck Jesus had in mind. Ever gotten something in your eye?
You know how you'll, you think it was an eyelash? How small is that? Or something, maybe a little piece of debris that blew on a windy day and you go, oh, wait a minute.
Hold on. It's tiny. And you look and you think it's going to be that big and you can't even see it. You look in the mirror. Where in the world is that speck? Tiny. Now think of the guy that wants to judge you.
So he asks you to come up close so he can look at your speck. Boom. Boom.
It's ludicrous on purpose. So you will never, ever forget my making a fool of myself or Jesus using an illustration that is extreme so that it'll never be forgotten. This is us. There's our brother.
Right there. Now let's read it. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye but do not even notice the log in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye. That's judging. Come here. Don't run into my log.
No, you don't even think about your log because you're a speck inspector. You know what Jesus thinks of that? Hypocrite.
That's the beginning of verse five. Hypocrite. You know what? That's a strong word. I would guess, I may be wrong, but I would guess there's not a person listening to me right now who this last week called anybody to his face a hypocrite. That's a strong word.
Jesus is sitting on the slope delivering his sermon and he pauses and looks over the group that's gathered and he says to them, the hypocrites, you're not a judge. You don't know the facts. Stop convincing yourself you know enough to say those things and to give that person a label.
So that now they've got to live with that in the minds of all the people you poured your trash on. And may I point out something you may have overlooked. We're dealing with your brother's eye. Not his hand. Not his feet.
Not an arm or leg. Eye. We're hitting the pause button momentarily, but please stay with us because we'll hear a closing teaching point from Chuck Swindoll in just a moment. This is Insight for Living. To learn more about this ministry, visit us online at insightworld.org. A quick reminder that Chuck wrote a book about Jesus' sermon titled Simple Faith. And whether you're a serious student of the Bible or you're just beginning to learn what it means to follow Jesus, we believe this 14 chapter book will help you. To purchase a copy of Chuck's book, Simple Faith, go to insight.org or give us a call.
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It was Jesus Himself revealed to me through Insight for Living. Such an encouraging testament to God's faithfulness. And you know, every single day, Insight for Living is broadcast from our offices in Frisco, Texas. But Chuck's voice would never be heard without the generous support of friends like you. So thank you for taking a few moments to lend your support by calling us. If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888.
Or you can easily give a gift by using our mobile app or by going online to Insight.org. And now as promised, one closing thought from our teacher, Chuck Swindoll. Hold your place here. Don't lose interest here.
This is crucial. Hold your place here and go to Galatians 6. Look at verse 1. Brethren, you know right away it's the Christians. So this is Christian family talk, everybody.
This is for believers, brothers and sisters, fellow members of the family. Look, if anyone is caught in any trespass, that's a speck. That's the speck. If anyone is caught in any trespass, you who have taken the log out of your own eye, which by the way gives you real compassion for those struggling with specks. You who are spiritual, look at the goal. Rebuke? No, no, no, no. Restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Wow.
In a spirit of gentleness, each one looking to yourself so you'll not be tempted. I'm Dave Spiker. Join us again Tuesday when Chuck Swindoll continues his message titled, Attention All Speck Inspectors. That's tomorrow on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Attention All Speck Inspectors, was copyrighted in 2015 and 2021, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2021 by Charles Parse-Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.
