1-1-23 - What Jesus Actually Taught About Judging Others

If you would turn with me in your Bibles to the blessed Gospel of Matthew, we're going to read in chapter number seven, verse one, down to verse number six, and when you find your place, if you would stand as we honor God's Holy Word. And we've spent a year preaching the first six chapters and maybe we'll go through another six this year, right?

Get through Matthew in about four years will be pretty quick, actually. Matthew seven, we're going to read verse one down to verse number six. We've been doing our verse by verse study through this wonderful gospel, and this is right in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is first major address in preaching, and he lays out a long three chapter sermon.

And we are with joy returning to it today. Our Lord says in verse number one, judge not that you be not judged for with what judgment you judge, he shall be judged and with what measure you meet, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the moat that is in thy brother's eye, but consider is not the beam that is in thine own eye, or how will thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the moat out of thine eye and behold a beam is in thine own eye. Now, hypocrite first cast out the beam out of thine own eye and then shout thou see clearly to cast out the moat out of thy brother's eye.

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you. God, your word is our wisdom, it is our light, it has brought us salvation, it is sanctifying us. Lord, we stand for your word because it is the word of the living God and we honor you today. I pray that you would open our eyes and our ears to the truth of your word, govern our hearts.

As we enter into 2023, we want to place the pen of our life in your hand and let you author our life. May this year be governed by God, may you be the driver of our life. Forgive us of our pride, forgive us of our self will, our independence, which pushes against you. And I pray that we would understand today our complete and utter dependence on God for everything. We need you for daily life, daily bread, daily wisdom. Guide us today. Give us ears to hear and give us humility to obey all that your word says. We rejoice in you, Christ. We love you. Help us to love you more. In Jesus name and God's people said, Amen.

You may be seated this morning. Years ago, the most famous verse that was quoted was John 3 16. And I love John 3 16. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that anybody glad it says whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. What a what a tremendous verse.

And I think sometimes we miss the magnitude of that by our our hearing it through the years so often. But where John 3 16 used to be the most famous verse promoted throughout our country, it has been replaced by a verse that it seems every pagan, every atheist and every God hater even knows by heart. And it's Matthew 7 1. Has anybody had Matthew 7 1 quoted to you by someone who doesn't reverence God at all?

Right. We have heard that said Judge not, lest ye be judged. You know, the Bible says Judge not. And so today I want to bring our attention to what I believe is probably the most misunderstood verse among lost people. And one of the most misunderstood verses among Christians. And I don't think that the lost world is saying Judge not and elevating this verse because Christians or churches are being more critical today.

I mean, just go back 30 40 years ago. You think churches preached a hotter message then than they do now? You think churches have softened their message? You think Christians have been fearful and silenced into their fear of offending anyone?

And I think that that's that would be the case today. So I don't think that it's that people are being more harsh in criticism of people. I just think it's that the world, the darker it's become, the more they hate the light. And just just like all of us, we don't want accountability for the wrongs that we do.

Right. And the Bible says in John 3, men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. And so today I want to turn our attention to this passage and learn what Jesus had to say about judging others. First of all, what did Jesus mean by the statement Judge not that you be not judged? This word from Greek crano actually has at least seven different ways it could be interpreted.

And the meaning of the word is defined by the context that it's in. When Jesus said this, you need to understand he was speaking this statement in a culture that was defined by real legalism. Sometimes we'll say, well, that's a legalistic church, but it's really not in the in the true sense of it, because very, very few number of churches believe that you can work yourself into salvation. But among the Jews, they believe that it was through your works and your obedience that you gained favor with God. That God accepts the righteous into heaven by their deeds. And so you had to fulfill these commandments.

You had to obey the law and uphold that. And so what that produced is whenever you have a legalistic system, it always produces a judgmental system. And if you've ever come out of a quote unquote legalistic church, you came out of a judgmental church.

Is that true? It always produces that because you begin to evaluate the behavior of people based upon how good they're doing, how bad they're doing. But if you go to a church that truly preaches the gospel, it lets all of us know that we are unworthy sinners. When you preach the true gospel, we all start at the very bottom. The interest into the kingdom is those who are poor in spirit.

Right. We're spiritually bankrupt. We have nothing to offer God. We confess ourselves as the greatest of sinners. We align with Paul and say, oh, wretched man that I am. And when you're in that kind of a system, you have been given such rich mercy and grace that is the recipient of mercy. You are prone then to be merciful to others. Does that make sense? And so inside of this legalistic system, Jesus had to confront something that was was extremely intense in that culture, which was criticizing judgment of one another.

They were extremely harsh. I mean, can you read a chapter of the gospels without Jesus being criticized? Can you read anything he does without somebody coming against him for it? I mean, he heals people and it says and they picked up stones to kill him. Some of the most ridiculous things that you'll read as you go through the gospels, it's like so he heals a guy on the Sabbath. You will pull your donkey out of the mud on the Sabbath.

And that's OK to do. But he can't make a man walk on the Sabbath. Are you so blind in your self righteousness? And they wouldn't sit down with gentiles, people like us and eat because we were unclean. Racial tension was extremely high. They would not pass through some area.

They would travel around it. There was so much judgment one with another. And so Jesus comes to them and he says, Judge not, lest ye be judged.

This critical criticizing spirit that was so prevalent among them. Now, now was Jesus teaching that we should never make judgment against anyone for anything? Sometimes I hear Christians say, you know, we're not supposed to judge anyone. And I'm like, you have no idea what the Bible says about that because your statement just reveals your.

And I don't mean this in a demeaning way, but your lack of knowing the truth on this situation, because if you don't understand the truth about this, you're going to have a lot of things in your life that are going to be off. The same person that says, you know, we're not supposed to judge anybody is the same person that will still discipline their children. How can you discipline your children if you don't believe you should ever judge anyone? Aren't you judging their actions as being wrong, their attitudes as being wrong?

And all the kids in the room are like, I kind of like this sermon so far. And so you have to judge your kids. And, you know, when your spouse says something wrong, has a bad attitude, has a bad word, does something wrong. Or you just say, well, I'm not supposed to judge, so I'm just going to let that go.

I'm not going to confront anything. Is that what you do? If somebody works for you and they steal things from you or have dishonest means or wrong actions or you say, well, you know, I'm not supposed to judge anybody, so I'm just going to overlook all of that. Is that what Jesus is teaching here? Does God forbid all judgment of wrongdoing? What exactly is Jesus saying? Well, first of all, not judging others does not mean we don't show discernment of what is right and wrong. In Matthew seven, verse six, look what he says. Wouldn't it be something if Matthew seven, six became the most famous verse in the country? Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you. My boss years ago, when I was working in business world in the business world, came to me and he says, what in the world does this verse mean?

And I said, do you really want to know? He was not a believer. And so I got to sit down and share with him what the Bible says. And it was pretty offensive to him.

And I'll explain it here in just a little bit. But Jesus is saying here, the only way you can discern who the hogs and dogs are, is you've got to make a judgment. In Matthew seven, verse 16, he says, beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. The only way that you know who a false prophet is, is you have to judge their teaching, whether it's right and wrong. Matthew seven, 16, he says, you shall know them by their fruits. He says it in verse 20.

Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them. The only way you know if a person is truly saved, truly lost, if they're truly a right person with God, is to examine the fruit of their life. And Jesus says you can do that. Sometimes people say you can never know if somebody is truly saved or not.

Yes, you can. Just look at the fruit of their life. Time and truth hold hands.

You can only fake it for so long. Jesus said, if you continue in my word, then are you my real disciple indeed? Show me people who continue in the word of God. I'll show you people that are truly saved. Show me someone who rejects the word of God, the preaching of God's word.

And I'll show you someone who is evidencing by that rejection, a life that doesn't look to be redeemed. And so he is clearly giving permission to discern between what is right and wrong. Secondly, God calls pastors to preach, not just edifying messages that help encourage and build people up in the truth, but he also calls pastors to rebuke people and reprove them in the truth. The last book that Paul wrote was Second Timothy in Chapter four.

He writes this about six months before he dies. He's writing to a younger pastor named Timothy. Timothy was kind of a timid fellow, and he had some people really causing him some difficulty as a young pastor. And so Paul tells him, basically, you need to be strong and not cower before these situations. You need to you need to preach the word of God. And the last thing he tells him in Second Timothy four, two, he says, preach the word. How do I preach the word, Paul? He says, be instant in season and out of season.

What's that mean? Well, sometimes the word of God is preached when it's in season. And I think it was probably in season in the 40s and 50s in America. But then it turned to be out of season from in the 60s and 70s, didn't it?

Anybody lived through the 60s and 70s? The word of God got quickly out of season. We're preaching way out of season right now, but we're going to preach anyway. Amen. Because we preach in or out of season.

I don't care what this culture says about it. So we preach in season, out of season. And this is how we do it. We reprove, we rebuke, we exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.

Let me explain what that means. The words reprove and rebuke speak of confronting people in their sin. Literally turning them from the air of their action and belief and confronting them with their wrong with the very word of God. This is what's known as calling people to repentance. This is exactly what John the Baptist did.

He would call people repent of your deeds and he would tell them exactly what they needed to change. Preachers are not called to pacify. They're not called to please people. They're called to please God. Titus 2 15 says, these things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.

Paul goes on to say, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. This is the positive side of preaching. The negative side is reproving and rebuking. Now, you know, if you've been reproved or rebuked when you when you feel or you say something like this, man, my toes really got stepped on. Anybody ever said or thought that before? You know, that really, really convicted me.

That really cut to my heart. That is the blessedness of being reproved and rebuked. Think of how much think of when somebody says, you know, I don't I don't want a church that causes me to be convicted. I don't want to be reproved or rebuked. What you're in effect saying is this.

My life is perfect. I don't need anybody ever to tell me something that I'm doing wrong. I would rather continue or if I'm in wrong, I would rather continue to live in my imperfection, be out of line with God.

I'm I'm I'm OK to be out of line with God. I just don't want anybody to tell me about it. For somebody to say like this, I don't I don't need any preaching would be like a student that says I don't need a teacher. It would be like a worker saying I don't need a boss telling me what to do.

It would be it would be like somebody saying I don't need to learn anything more. I don't need to be confronted with because I have everything I need in my own life and my own heart. I know enough.

I don't need anybody else. Well, that's a very prideful place to be. I can tell you I need preaching. I listen to preaching. I listen to probably a half dozen sermons at least every week. And in the word of God, I love hearing the preaching of the word.

I got it. It encourages it, sharpens it, strengthens it. It cuts. And so that's the that's the negative side of preaching. The positive side is, is it says you exhort them with long suffering and doctrine. Not only do you have sin preached against, but you also do so with patience. Long suffering is the idea of patience. You don't you don't demand it.

And then cut someone off without having any time of them having time to change. It's a long suffering message. It's a patient message. It continues to exhort them. And so Peter was one who preached a very rebuking message to the Jewish crowd in Acts two in Acts four. Stephen did in Acts six. He preached such a hard message.

They stoned him to death. And this happened also in Paul's ministry and in Christ's ministry. Thirdly, not only are pastors to preach God's word and encourage what's right, but but also Christians are to confront people about sin.

John seven twenty four. Jesus said this judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. He tells us here to make right judgments.

You know, God even wrote a book in the Old Testament and called it judges because he sent judges up over the people. Luke 17 three says, Take heed to yourself if thy brother trespass against thee. Make sure you don't say anything to him because you don't want to be judging. Is that what he says?

No. So take heed to yourself if your brother trespass, if he sins against you, what are you supposed to do? You're supposed to do what the pastor does. You're supposed to rebuke them. You're supposed to say, hey, that's not OK. If you see somebody doing something wrong, you don't want them to continue on what's wrong because you don't want that to destroy their life. First Thessalonians 5 14 says, Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly.

Anybody ever have somebody unruly in your life? You're like, yeah, I'm sitting next to him right now. You know, the church is to confront those who sin openly. Matthew 18 says, If somebody is in sin, those another believer that you're to go to the Matthew 18, verse 15 through 17 makes it crystal clear. Jesus says, If somebody offends, you need to go to them.

You need to confront them about that. The church in Corinth and First Corinthians Chapter number five had a man living in wicked fornication, doing some very sinful things, and Paul confronts him in the letter. Read First Corinthians five.

If you've not read it, he deals with it very severely. Fourthly, Jesus commended the churches in the Book of Revelation for making right judgment. He told the church at Ephesus in Revelation Chapter two, verse two through four. He says, You're doing right by not tolerating those who do evil.

He said, You hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. That's what he told them in Revelation to six. Now, let me give you five right ways to judge others. Five right ways to judge others. First of all, the right judgment seeks restoration instead of condemnation. Listen to what Galatians Chapter six, verse one says. Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fall, you which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. What he's saying here is if you he's telling this church in Galatia, if you see somebody who goes into sin, you that are spiritual, you that don't have beams hanging out of your eyes, you that are that are mature in the faith, you understand the word of God, go to them.

And what is the purpose? Is it to destroy them, to condemn them? No, it's to restore them. It's a it's a desire to see them brought back into a right relationship with God. That is the motivation of judging other people when they get into wrong.

Isn't that why we as parents judge our children? Right. I hope that you awake this morning. OK, I know you weren't this quiet last night around eleven thirty. I heard I heard a deep how, you know, I went to bed at like nine forty five Buckeyes just scored.

I said, I'm going to bed right now. I feel real good. Amen. Some of you guys don't even know what I'm talking about.

You're doing even better. And so the right judgment is a is a is a judgment that seeks to restore. So let me ask you, when you go and confront someone who does wrong, who has sinned, do you do you have a condemning self righteous spirit or do you have a spirit that seeks to restore them?

You don't. We are not to go to someone to seek to push them down. We go to them to seek to pull them up. Secondly, the right judgment is motivated by love and not hate. Revelation three, 19, Jesus says, As many as I love, I rebuke and chase and be zealous, therefore, and repent. Jesus said it was love that motivated confronting sin.

Those you love the most, you want the best for them. You know what the most destructive thing in a person's life is? It's not heroin. It's not methamphetamines. It's not alcohol. Do you understand that?

Fentanyl is not as bad as sin. Do you hear me? I've had people say this. Years ago, I had somebody say, You know what?

That's being judgmental when you confront someone over their sexual sin, Pastor. I said, Oh, really? So let me ask you a question.

You're in the world of addiction. I said, If you had and you're in recovery, I said, Let me ask you a question. If your friend was going to get high tonight, I said, What would you do? They said, I would do everything to stop him. I said, Why would you do that? They said, Because I know we could kill him.

I said, Let me ask you a question. Do you think sin is less deadly than than than that drug? That drug may take their body, but sin can take their soul. You understand? There is nothing more deadly than sin, and it should be with the broken heart of a person with a tear in their eye that says, I could never see you go into drugs or go into alcohol.

I would. It breaks my heart to think what could happen to you and you would do everything you could to stop that addict from going into that. In the same way, should not God's people say with broken hearts? I cannot see you continue in sin because I know how damaging this could be to your life and your eternal soul. The Bible says, If you yield your bodies to sin, you shall die. But he that yields his body to Christ into the spirit of God shall live. What are you yielding to?

What are you giving your life to? It's amazing to me how how light people can take sin when Jesus Christ is being crucified on a cross. I mean, it wasn't, in our view, a grave sin that cast the world into to death. He ate.

She ate a piece of fruit. How ridiculous that the world would all die because of that. How absolutely intolerant God must be. What kind of God do we serve? They they break one command and everybody goes to hell.

You kidding me? What kind of loving God is that? That's a holy God. That's a God who cannot look upon sin, who is so holy that one sin would rip humanity out of his presence forever.

That's how big of a deal that is. You think it's being judged mental and evil to go to someone to try to keep them from partaking in fruit of sin that would destroy their soul? Oh, friend, you are living in obscurity and blindness in an obscure thought.

You you are so out of the truth. If you stepped into the ultimate reality of God's word, you would see the devastation of sin. Listen to me. If we even saw our own sin, I don't think we could make it through today. I think if God showed us how wicked our own sin was, we would mourn to the point of death today.

Do you hear me? We don't even understand what I just said. Our own God veils from even our own hearts the wretchedness of our own sin. The only time I think we're ever going to get a glimpse of it is at the great white throne judgment. We will we will see the magnitude of it.

We will be shocked into the reality. You know, hell is a reflection of the magnitude of the offense, isn't it? I mean, how offensive is sin? It's so offensive that people go to hell and flaming torment for eternal existence there.

That's how offensive it is. That's how loving God is that he came to the world and died for us. And you know what he's called us to do? He's called us to go throughout the whole world preaching the gospel. And, you know, you could never preach the gospel without being judgmental.

You realize that? I mean, Tom, we had one say this morning in our in our in our foundations class. Your lady called out the Christ. You know, the only way they call out the Christ is you have to take him to the law, don't you?

You show him the word of God. You know what he ever says? Thou shall not lie. You ever told a lie?

Yeah. Would that make you a liar? So you'd be guilty of lying, right?

Well, they could look at him and say, you're being so judgmental. No, that's actually being extremely loving. And as they walk to the scriptures and they see the reality of their sin, it's then that they cry out to the one who saves them, the only one that can save them. Amen. All of us have been there. If you're saved today, aren't you thankful for the person who loved you enough to bring you the gospel? But didn't you have to get lost before you got saved?

Amen. Praise God for that friend. You know, the Bible says faithful are the wounds of a friend. Anybody have a friend who loved you enough to confront you when you did something wrong? Well, I'm praise God I have friends like that in my life. And I believe you would be a friend to me. I believe every person here. I think if I stood up and preach something false, you would love me enough to come and say, hey, Pastor, you know what you said was not accurate with the Bible. Thank you. If you thank you because I believe everyone in here who understands the word of God and is a mature believer would do that.

Thank you for that heart's desire. You know, a couple of years ago, a man left Lighthouse because he did not believe in. What we we believe here at Lighthouse that for you to be saved, you must repent of your sins.

Why do we believe that? Because the Bible says, except a man repent, he'll perish. Jesus said that. The Bible says there's rejoicing in heaven over one sinner that repented. We believe that repentance is a turning from sin, turning from unbelief, turning to faith in Christ. It doesn't mean you're perfect, but it means you've turned to the perfect one and your faith is joined with repentance and salvation.

And we also teach what's known as lordship, salvation. We believe that when you get saved, he is Lord. It doesn't mean you're perfect, but there is no such thing as confessing Christ without him being your Lord.

That's impossible. It's not whosoever calls on Jesus is saved. It's whosoever shall confess Christ as Lord is saved. That's salvation. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth, the Koryos Yeshua, the Lord Jesus, shall be saved. That's whosoever shall call upon the Lord.

What's the thief on the cross say? Lord, remember me in your kingdom. This easy believers and has polluted Christianity. I'll just ask God to forgive you. Go to heaven.

Really? That's why they continue. They have no idea of repentance. They have no idea of the lordship of Christ. They have no idea of the true gospel. And you have a world polluted with with a church that's half lost. I think there's whole entire churches today, even in our cities, that don't even know the gospel.

They don't even know it. We've had people in our church who've come here who said, Pastor, I got saved. I was a teacher in a church.

I ended up getting saved. And later, the pastor of that church got saved. I mean, there's a there's there's people pastoring churches.

How is the church ever going to know the gospel when the pastor doesn't know it? But this individual left our church and and had badmouthed our church to just a lot of people. I mean, and he would get really heated about it, like he would argue with people and just they wouldn't really say anything back.

But they he would just really get fired up in the store in different places. And well, he did this to the wrong person a couple of weeks ago. And and and that person looked at him and said, I rebuke you for what you're saying.

That is not right to do and and did it in love and grace, but in enough sturdiness to let him know that's not OK. Well, that individual called me up. And he says, Pastor Josh, he said, I just want to I need to talk to you. He says, because God has broke my heart over this.

I've been badmouthed and lighthouse and I need to repent and ask your forgiveness. He was so apologetic. And and he said, Can you tell all the people that I am so sorry?

So if you have this individually, I don't need to name a name who's maybe said something to you at Wal-Mart or somewhere in society. You know, but that's and I'm glad for his sake. I love this man. God knows my heart.

I love this family. I'm so thankful that he's right with God now about this and he's not holding some bitter attitude about it. What a joy.

He wouldn't let me off the phone. I was just I was I was just so thankful, so thankful. What a blessing. But you know what? It takes someone who loves them enough to say what you're doing is wrong. You know, the Bible says if you confront a soul, you can save a soul from error and hide a multitude of sins. So the right judgment is to be done in love. It's not to be done in a judge in a condemning way, but a restoring way. Thirdly, the right judgment is forgiving instead of bitterly condemning and being retaliatory. You know, a lot of times people can get judgmental and they want to retaliate.

Well, I'm going to get back at them. Well, that's a sinful way to approach it. That's a wrong way to judge.

The right judgment is to to be forgiving. Think about the woman caught in adultery. They brought this woman to Jesus. Remember, they brought this woman who was caught. They said in the very act, you're like, Where's the guy?

This is a setup, right? They bring her to Jesus and they said in the law says that she must die. And they have they have no desire to show her forgiveness, no desire. Mercy and grace didn't exist in that culture.

All they want to kill her, stone her. And Jesus says, you that are without sin, you that are without any beams in your own eyes. You start with yourself and then you cast the stone and he goes down and starts writing in the ground. He gets back up.

Everybody's gone. The woman's still there. You know, the woman's repent of of what she's done because she didn't run away when she had the chance. Jesus is there. He's the only one with no sin who could have stoned her. And he says, Woman, where are thou thine accusers? Is no one going to condemn you?

And she says, No man, Lord, no man, Lord. And he says, Neither do I condemn you go and sin because what you did was sin. Go and sin no more. Anybody glad Jesus rejoices in mercy and forgiveness? He didn't ignore her sin, called it what it was, and he called her to go do it no more.

Stop doing that rest of your life. That's the right judgment. The right judgment is to be forgiving.

The fourth way, the right kind of judgment is judging a person's actions and not their motives. You know, you can see actions, but you cannot see motives. That's why he says in verse 16 in verse 20 of Matthew 70 says, You'll know them by the fruits.

You know them by the fruits. You don't know why they did what they did, but you can see what they did. Dwight Pentecost says, Do not criticize. Do not sit as a judge upon another man's motives.

Do not attempt to interpret the desires of his heart. Let me ask you, do you judge people's motives as though you know their heart? Oh, I know what they did, but I know why I really did it. Really. That is a bigger commentary on the defilement inside of you than the defilement that you think is inside of them.

You hear me? That's the truth. Number five, the right kind of judgment discerns what to share and what to keep silent about. Verse six in Matthew seven says this. Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you. So in this passage, Pastor, what is holy? What are the pearls and who are the hogs and dogs?

And what does this mean? Well, the holy and the pearls refer to the word of God. This is the this is the treasure. This is the gospel. This is salvation through the word of God. This is this is sanctification that comes to the word of God.

The pearl is the word of God. And dogs and hogs were animals in that day. There were really the most despised and repulsive creatures, creatures among the Jews. Pigs were an unclean animal. They were not allowed to eat them. It was a very they're called swine in the Bible. My grandfather was a pig farmer.

And I remember helping him move the pigs. We'd have those little shockers. I don't even know if there's probably a proper name for those.

We only knew them as like the shockers. We'd zap each other sometimes with them. But but they would get them to move along.

And sometimes we didn't have those. We'd have a little stick. My grandpa would say, son, don't bruise the meat boy, you know, and we'd take care of those animals. Very, very unclean. You know, you could give you could give the pig something nice and they would just destroy it. They would eat it.

Eat everything. Dogs, dogs in that day. Really, in the Bible, there seems to be nothing that is that's lower than a dog. Now, some of you are probably upset right now why it doesn't say like cats instead of dogs. I understand. But let's go back to.

OK, I've already offended probably the whole crowd. So I like what William Barkley said. He said with us, dogs are well-beloved animals.

But it was not so in the east in the time of Jesus. Dogs were in these days what were known as the Paria dogs. They were mangy scoundrel dogs.

They ran in packs. They would they would they would eat refuse dead animals, even dead people. They would kill people at times. They were flea bitten. They were these. These were not pets. These are not what you're thinking of about a dog in your house. These are snarling, snapping, fighting animals that prowl around in eastern cities. They had no home.

They had no owner. The dogs and swine. In the Bible represent people who treat God's truth with contempt. God calls people who treat his word with contempt, dogs and pigs.

Do you hear that? Because they judge God's word as being worthless. They don't place any value on the pearl of God's word. So according to Jesus, while we are not to judge others in a self-righteous way, we are to use discretion and not give that which is holy to those who would trample it under their feet. This does not mean we don't share the gospel because we share with the lost, right? But we do not force it upon them, nor do we argue with them and debate with them in an angry way and try to try to press it upon them if they don't want it. You know, in the Bible, if people didn't want the word of God, Jesus left them.

Do you hear me? If Jesus preached the gospel to your city and the city didn't want it, he would leave them. He would just leave them. In Matthew 13, they said, Jesus, why are you speaking to the people in parables? Parables were designed for two reasons, one to conceal the other to reveal. They were designed to reveal truth to the believer and to conceal it from the hard hearted unbeliever. And he said this to them in Matthew 13, he says, because it's given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to them it is not given. For in them is fulfilled the words of Isaiah.

This people's heart is waxed gross, their ears are dull of hearing, their eyes have they closed, lest at any time they should hear with their ears, see with their eyes and be converted and I would heal them. Jesus is turning the light off for them because of their unbelief. That's what he's done to this nation. You know why we're running into LGBTQ confusion, you know why we're running into sexual perversion, you know why we're running into every godless thing you could think of in our nation? Because God has removed his truth from this nation. Our leaders, our blind leaders of the blind, we should be broken hearted. The only light left here in this nation is the church and God's people who stand upon this word. That's why we cannot be silent. We must stand. And if you don't take a position to stand, you're going to fall in this nation. You will be crushed by the wave of perversion. You think tolerance is going to win someone over? That's a joke. You think passivity is going to win them over? It's going to take somebody who loves people enough with tears in their eyes, yet boldness like the backbone of a Caleb and Joshua to stand on the word of God and say,