Condemnation and Discernment

He paints this almost ridiculous picture. Here is a man and he has a plank sticking out of his eye, a great plank of wood. And he comes up to somebody and he says, You've got a speck of dust in your eye.

Let me get that speck of dust out of your eye. And Jesus said, Can you not see yourself? Can you not see that as you grow large in condemning another? You look so ridiculous in the sight of God that you think this man's speck of dust is a grievous thing to you that irritates you.

And as you bang this man and condemn this man, you don't understand that there is a great plank growing out of your own eye. As the world parades their sin and their open rebellion against God, it's not uncommon for a Christian to hear the response, Judge not, lest you be judged. But are they using the words of Jesus accurately?

Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and thank you for joining us today for Renewing Your Mind. Of all the words that Jesus spoke, perhaps the most misused and misunderstood, when he told us to judge not. So what did Jesus mean? Was he really saying that we couldn't call out sin or call people to repentance? Well, as we continue Sinclair Ferguson's series through the Sermon on the Mount, today he turns to Matthew 7 to consider these controversial words of Jesus. When we come to the seventh chapter of Matthew's Gospel, the third of the chapters in the Sermon on the Mount, we come to the third big word in that sermon.

A couple of weeks ago in Scotland, I was reading the correspondence pages in one of the newspapers. There had been discussion about an ethical issue in the country and a Christian had written in. And the next day, almost true to form, someone wrote in and his letter began with words addressed to the Christian correspondent, Judge not.

Judge not. We saw right at the beginning of our studies in the Sermon on the Mount that for all people seem to love the Sermon on the Mount and this individual who quoted it in his correspondence professed to love the Sermon on the Mount have so very little understanding of it. And these words, Judge not, of course they are derived from the opening words of Matthew chapter 7. Judge not that you be not judged must be among the most misunderstood words in the Sermon. But actually, judgment is the third big word. And as we look through Matthew chapter 7, we'll notice that judgment is the idea that holds this whole chapter together. Because of course, judgment is a term that has a certain elasticity about it.

You know we sometimes say a word is a word is a word, but every context in which a word appears gives different nuance to the significance of that word. And that is actually unusually true of the word judgment. And so as we come to the seventh chapter, I want us to try and see how important judgment is in the life of the Christian believer according to the teaching of Jesus. He begins of course with the opening five verses in which He's speaking about judgment in the sense of condemning. So, this is a judgment that condemns someone else. And Jesus is really inferring here, condemns someone else without having proper evidence for doing so. Do not judge, He says, in the sense of condemning somebody, lest by your condemnation of them you lay the groundwork for your own condemnation. For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. In other words, the vitriol of my judgment of someone else, the fact that I dismiss them without having good grounds for doing so, the fact that my real motivation is to demean them, those motivations will be the ground of God's judgment of me.

And so Jesus is saying, you need to be very careful about the way you judge and condemn others. And then He uses this marvelous illustration, doesn't He? It's another illustration that looks as though He's thinking about the hypocrites and the Pharisees. Remember Jesus' parables in Luke chapter 15 of the lost sheep and the lost coin and the lost son, hundred sheep, one is lost, ten coins, one is lost, two sons, one is lost, obviously moving towards a climax. And the real climax in the third part of that parable is not really the prodigal son at all, is it? It's the elder brother. Jesus tells us that He was telling these parables because He wanted to speak to those who despised the fact that He welcomed sinners and condemned Him for it, judgment in the sense of condemnation. And so right at the end of Luke chapter 15, the person who is standing there is the older brother. His younger brother has come home, his life has been transformed, his father is over the moon.

They're throwing a party, there's music and there's dancing and there's killing the fatted calf. And the older brother will not come in for the simple reason that he has judged and condemned his younger brother, and in the process he judges and condemns his father. And Jesus clearly there is thinking about a certain kind of spirit that He encountered in His day among the Pharisees.

But interestingly, it's a similar spirit that the Apostle Paul thought was brooding in the church in Rome when he wrote to the Christians there. He said, Now be careful some of you, you are rigorous and you are judging and condemning the weaker brothers and sisters as though they stood before you as their master rather than standing before the Lord Jesus as their master. Now what does Jesus do? We've seen Him do this before. He says, Just look at you. That's what He does. He says, Just look at you.

Just let me show you what you're like. And He paints this almost ridiculous picture. Here is a man and he has a plank sticking out of his eye, a great plank of wood. And he comes up to somebody and he says, You've got a speck of dust in your eye.

Let me get that speck of dust out of your eye. And Jesus said, Can you not see yourself? Can you not see that as you grow large and condemning another, you look so ridiculous in the sight of God that you think this man's speck of dust is a grievous thing to you that irritates you? And as you bang this man and condemn this man, you don't understand that there is a great plank growing out of your own eye. And those who are listening to this, they must have been again high-fiving one another because they had been intimidated by these hypocrites. They had been condemned by these hypocrites. And Jesus is saying, Judge not. In this sense, don't condemn because when you condemn as though you were someone else's Lord and Master, you lay the groundwork for God's judgment on your life. And what will bring us out of that spirit?

Because some of us are wired that way, aren't we? The first thing that comes to mind when we see something goes wrong is to condemn. What will deliver us from that? It is that we know the heavenly Father, isn't it? That He had every reason to condemn us for our sins, but instead He had mercy upon us. So, the knowledge of the mercy of the Father towards us delivers us from engaging in judgment as condemnation of others.

But when we come to the second section, we begin to see something very illuminating, don't we? Jesus says, Don't judge in the sense of condemn, but you must exercise judgment in the sense of discerning. Verse 6, Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your perils before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. Those who simply run out these words at the beginning, judge not to Christians, really a kind of form of self-defense, love the sound on the Mount, but don't read on in the sound on the Mount. Jesus, who says judgment in the sense of condemning is dangerous, now says judgment in the sense of discerning is absolutely essential. And so He says, You don't throw your perils before pigs. You don't lack wisdom in the way in which you handle people. And it's actually very important for you to exercise a spiritual discernment when you're speaking to people.

And of course, He's speaking to us as disciples, and it's certainly true that some Christians appear to lack this kind of discernment. Remember in my home city in one of the major shopping streets, which was an entire shopping precinct, no traffic allowed. One Saturday morning, I had been doing something in the church, which was in the city center. I went up to one end of the street, and there was a group of people, some of whom I knew, conducting an evangelistic, open-air preaching experience. And they were haranguing the people. They were condemning the people. And I walked down to the other end of the street, and there was a blind girl and might have been brother or husband or friend playing the guitar.

There were very few people standing at the one end of the street. There was a massive crowd standing at the other end of the street because they were listening to this girl's beautiful voice as she sang. And as I walked down the street, I remember Jesus' words that sometimes the children of this world are much wiser than the children of the kingdom of God.

And here were people condemning when they should have been wooing, and here were people listening because someone was wooing by the way they were singing. And it was like a parable of people who lack discernment, people who don't understand how you bring the gospel to different situations. And here's another illustration of how we need to have discernment. And Jesus is saying, you know, you need to be able to discern how people respond to the gospel and not cast your perils before pigs. Jesus Himself did this, didn't He?

There were times when He had sufficient discernment to say, thus far and no further. I've sometimes imagined what people in the modern world who are evangelical Christians would have said to Jesus as He stood there and watched the rich young ruler turn his back and go away. I think there would be not a few who would say to Him, that guy would have been a tremendous asset to your kingdom.

I think you should go after him. But you see, the truth of the matter was Jesus disarmed His real spiritual condition. And in this instance, astonishing though it was, He didn't cast His perils before pigs.

And spiritually, pig, unclean person was what that man actually turned out to be. You know those words in Proverbs 26, 4 and 5, don't answer a fool according to his folly that are preceded immediately by the words, answer a fool according to his folly. And you know the mark of discernment? It's that you can tell the difference between these two statements and see that they're not contradictory of one another, that there are times when you need to take on the folly of this world and show it for what it is. And there are times when in the face of fools who despise the gospel, it is appropriate to say nothing whatsoever. That's very difficult for modern evangelicals to grasp, isn't it?

When we're supposed to evangelize without any discernment. But Jesus is saying judgment to condemnation is appalling, but living without discernment may prove to be spiritually disastrous. And then there's another sense in which He speaks about discernment, isn't there? He speaks about discernment as having a real understanding. And this is the theme of verses 7 through 11. Ask and it will be given you, seek and you'll find, knock and the door will be opened to you.

Now, what's He speaking about here? Sometimes these verses are read as though they just fell out of thin air. And many of us know them without any reference whatsoever to their context. Some may ask, seek, knock, and on you go. And we forget that it's in the context of Jesus saying to us, we need to have discernment and our immediate reaction should be, Lord, that's one thing I feel I don't have. I don't have that wisdom about which Scripture speaks. And actually, it's quite a long time since I last heard somebody say about a fellow Christian, you know, the thing about him, he is really wise and disarming.

It apparently isn't such a common thing among us and in our churches as it needs to be. Remember how James puts it in James chapter 1, if any of you lacks wisdom, then let him ask of God because God gives that wisdom freely to those who ask. But wisdom really needs to be pursued and desired. And that I think is why Jesus says, ask and it will be given you, seek it. Because it's not just something that falls down from heaven into your mind.

It's something that comes through your increasing knowledge of God and your ability to apply it to every situation so that you seek it and you knock on the door and the door is open to you. And he's actually saying the very thing that his half brother James in his letter picks up. He's saying, because if you do that, you can be sure that the Heavenly Father will grant that wisdom to you because He is your Father. He says, think about it this way, which one of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone, or for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, and we do, and even evil men, I mean evil men know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give this wisdom, these good things to those who ask Him? So, there needs to be judgment as understanding how we get wisdom. Remember the opening chapters of the book of Proverbs, how the Father is constantly saying to His Son, Son, in all the things you get, make sure you get wisdom because you are going to need wisdom in order to be able to negotiate as a child of God a world that is often hostile towards God and hostile towards you.

How do we get it? We get it from the Word as the Spirit helps us in all kinds of situations to answer the question, what does God have to say about this situation? Because about every situation, especially situations about which God's Word doesn't speak particularly, maybe men your wife's name is in the Bible somewhere, but most men's wives' names are not in the Bible.

So, how biblically did a Christian man decide who he's going to marry? That's something that he does by the employment of wisdom, by the experience of how God's Word applies to every situation in life. And that kind of wisdom we get, says the Lord Jesus, only by asking the Father.

And then there's a fourth dimension to this which appears, doesn't it, in verse 12. And here we come to what's often called the golden rule. And again, isn't it true that that's just plucked out of thin air as though it had no reference whatsoever to anything that Jesus has already said?

You know it well, verse 12, whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets. Now, what I want you to notice is the connection between that statement and what Jesus has just been discussing. He is saying we are not to judge in the sense of this arrogant condemnation, but we are to judge in the sense that we need spiritual discernment. And if we're going to have spiritual discernment, we need to grow in wisdom and understanding. And if we're going to grow in wisdom and understanding, we need principles that will help us to discern God's purposes in situations about which the Bible doesn't seem clearly to speak. And here is a big principle. Actually, it's derived from the Shema, love the Lord your God, love your heart, all your soul, all your strength, your neighbor as yourself.

Here is the principle, it's this. When I'm not able to draw specific lines from particular Scriptures or perhaps even general Scriptures to this situation, here is the guideline of wisdom. Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets.

Isn't that interesting? This is the law and the prophets. This is how, as it were, the general teaching of Scripture is brought to bear on specific situations about which Scripture doesn't seem explicitly to speak.

What do I do? Well, I say this to myself. I say to myself, what would I want others to do for me and to me in that situation? As a Christian believer, Christian believer, how would I want someone to bless me in that situation? Because at the end of the day, that's what the law and the prophets point to, loving the Lord with all our heart and soul and mind and strength so that in everything I do, I'm asking and trying to answer the question, what would be for God's glory in this situation?

And then I'm also asking the question, what would be the wise thing to do in this situation? And I discover that by putting myself into the situation and by thinking now, if it were somebody else, what would I want them to do for me to the glory of God? How would I want them to love me and to serve me for the glory of God?

It's not just like a casual rule that worldly people could make up, you know, just in general treat others the way you would want them to treat you. It's putting myself in the situation with all the wisdom that God gives me in His Word and saying, now how can I apply that to them and to this situation? And especially to think in this way, which is clearly taught in the golden rule, how can I act so that instead of pleasing myself like the Lord Jesus Christ, I seek to please others? And when I do that in every circumstance, especially those circumstances to which Scripture doesn't seem to speak explicitly, I've begun to exercise the wisdom of God. I've begun to live as the heavenly Father would want me to live. And especially I've begun to follow the example of the Lord Jesus Christ, who regarded others as more important than Himself to such an extent that He was prepared even to die for. That's the wisdom of God.

Oh, how we need that wisdom, especially in our day. You're listening to Renewing Your Mind, and what you just heard was from Ligonier teaching fellow Sinclair Ferguson as he's been walking us through Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. When Dr. Ferguson delivered this message, he wanted to help us see the practical life applications that are found in this sermon to help us live faithful Christian lives. And this complete series can be yours for your donation of any amount. When you give your gift by visiting renewingyourmind.org, we'll send you a DVD package. It's 12 messages in full across two DVDs, but we'll also give you lifetime digital access to all of the messages and the study guide. This study guide has suggestions for further reading as well as follow-up questions after you complete each message in the series. So give your gift at renewingyourmind.org or by calling us at 800-435-4343. Tomorrow, as Sinclair Ferguson comes to the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, we'll see that Jesus has not been speaking about trivial matters, but He's been considering things that have eternal consequences and that there is a choice before each one of us. So join us tomorrow here on Renewing Your Mind.