'Judge Not' and Christian Discernment #1

Ignorant, or malicious, people will take these words and hurl them at people to intimidate them into silence, but they're using the passage in an entirely wrong way, in a way that it was not intended to be used.

Do not judge. You hear non-believers misapply a particular scripture verse often. Judge not, lest ye be judged, and by that they imply you're never to judge anyone's sins, period. Well, on this edition of The Truth Pulpit, Pastor Don Green will begin helping you understand what Jesus really meant in his Sermon on the Mount. Hi, I'm Bill Wright, and we're beginning a series titled The Art of Discernment.

Don, this is a question I'll bet you get often. Well, my friend, if you have ever tried to bring the Bible to bear on any discussion with anyone who disagreed with you, you've probably heard the words, don't judge me. Jesus said, judge not, as if those were the only two words in the Bible. You know, our Lord did not say those words in order to forbid discernment. He did not say those words to silent preaching or biblical righteousness.

But what did he mean by them? We're going to explore the answer to that question today on The Truth Pulpit. Thanks, Don, and friend, let's get started now in The Truth Pulpit. As I've said from time to time, I've said it more often in the past than I do from this pulpit, you must understand this about the Sermon on the Mount. You must understand this. If you understand nothing else, you walk away with this. Jesus Christ teaches for keeps.

For keeps. He means what he says. And when Jesus speaks, there are serious consequences that flow. It grieves my heart, frankly, to see the frivolity that marks so much of what passes for evangelical Christianity today. Because when you drive motorcycles into a congregation for a prop, when you preach from a bed as a pastor in Texas has done in order to teach a series on marital intimacy, when you just fill your sermons with jokes and lighthearted stories about yourself, everything that you do communicates the fact that this really isn't that serious.

This is all just a lighthearted piece of fluff that fits in quite naturally with a view of comedy that you might find on network TV. What we must understand as we come to God's Word is that that is not the spirit with which Jesus teaches us at all. Jesus is not joking here. He's not a comedian as he speaks in the Sermon on the Mount.

No, not at all. Jesus is speaking seriously about weighty matters that culminate in a final appointment of judgment that each man will have before a holy God. That's not something to joke about. And it's one of the great travesties of modern Christianity that we have lowered the seriousness and the holiness of God to a point where people don't even take it seriously.

Why would the world take it seriously if we don't? If our worship services are comedy hour, why would anyone take anything that we say seriously? Well, we can see that Jesus, that is not the spirit with which Jesus spoke, and you can see that clearly in Matthew chapter 7. Matthew 7 introduces a final section of the Sermon on the Mount that you could call the Christian and coming judgment. And look at the first two verses here, Matthew chapter 7, just to kind of give you the bookends of the chapter to kind of set the context for what we're saying. Matthew chapter 7 verse 1 says, "'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.'" Central and underlying those two verses is Jesus' statement, you will be judged. My friend, my brother and sister in Christ, we are all moving toward an inevitable appointment with God where we will give an account to Him of our lives. Christian and non-Christian alike, we are going to stand before God and He will render judgment upon us. All I'm saying right now is for you to realize that the Scriptures say you will be judged. Now, if you've never taken life seriously, maybe you're a young person or a young adult and you've never really taken life seriously and you're just trying to get the most fun out of life that you can, in one sense I can understand that, but there comes a point where you have to come to grips with the fact that Jesus speaks of a reality of spiritual life and judgment that is about to come. Here's the thing, my friends, you have a brief window of time in your life in order to prepare for that inevitable moment when you stand before holy God.

Your life is given to you ultimately to prepare for that moment before God, and that's what needs to weigh on your mind and on your thinking. Life is serious. It culminates in the most holy, august setting that you could ever imagine, and with that we also see that that means that there's meaning to life. Life is not meaningless. Life is not a random series of events by a random clump of cells that came together and you live and then you die and you cease to exist.

That would be a hopeless thing. No wonder people despair in life when they think that there's no meaning to it. Well, there's ultimate meaning to every soul that's in this room, and every one of you has an immortal soul, and there is meaning in the fact that your immortal soul is one day going to stand before your maker and give an account to him. That calls for a serious response, a meaningful response, and Jesus's teaching for keeps leading us to this point. Now, look at the end of Matthew chapter seven or toward the end just to see the other side of the book ends here. Matthew chapter seven verse 21, Jesus says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter.

Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles, and then I will declare to them. Notice what Jesus says. Jesus says, I will personally say to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.

Jesus says there will be those that gather before him in judgment, anticipating, welcoming into the kingdom of heaven, and they will be stunned into silence, recognizing that Christ is sending them away. Depart from me. Depart from me. I never knew you. During the course of the 70 years of your earthly life, we did not know each other. And they'll be stunned saying, but Lord, I did all these, I manifested all the charismatic gifts, cast out demons, spoke in tongues. Jesus says, but you are a worker of iniquity.

I didn't know you. Depart from me. These are holy words not to be trifled with. What are we to draw from this for today then? What are we to draw from that in our lives with the reality of this coming judgment?

We are beloved, beloved. We are to take these words earnestly and to take them to heart. Everything that Jesus said, we are to give our hearts over to, perhaps in the first instance for some of you, to put your faith in Him for your salvation, to flee from sin, to flee from the world, and say, Lord, I embrace you by faith because I know I'm a guilty sinner and you are my only hope of salvation.

For those that know Christ, to realize that His word is meant to be that which governs our thinking and governs our response to life and is worthy of our devotion and our obedience. Verse 24, Jesus said, look at it there. He says, therefore, therefore because coming judgment is like that, verse 24, therefore there's consequences. And He divides all of humanity up into two different groups. And He says, therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew and slammed against that house and yet it did not fall for it had been founded on the rock. Jesus is saying that the one who receives My words and responds to them from the heart is somebody who will survive the coming judgment. He will not be cast away because He's responded to the word of Christ as He has revealed it. He says on the other hand, there's going to be this other group who without exception, this will be true. Verse 26, everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

The rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and slammed against that house and it fell and great was its fall. And so, in light of what Jesus has said here, there is no excuse, there will be no legitimate objection at the day of judgment, certainly for anyone here under the sound of My voice, certainly no word that says, but no one ever told Me, but this is a surprise. No one indicated that it was serious. Jesus did. Jesus said, take heed. I'm warning you about the coming judgment. What will you do with the warning?

How will you respond to it? Will you go on in your triviality and sin? Or will you bend your heart before Christ and respond to Him in the way that He calls us to? You see, here talking now to believers, the true Christian understands that he faces a final accountability before God and that has an effect on the entire way that he thinks about life and the way that he lives it. It motivates him, watch this, it motivates him to hear the words of these sermons and to respond in faith and obedience and not settle for simply outward displays of religion, not simply to go through the motions, to be one person for two hours on Sunday morning and a demon throughout the rest of the week.

He realizes that that kind of hypocrisy, that kind of double-minded life is not the reflection of a true disciple and the fear of God and the fear of Christ motivates him to say, I have to take this seriously. I have to respond to this and make this my priority to make Christ and His Word the priority in my life, not simply an optional accessory as if it were some kind of necklace that you wear with your favorite dress. No, this is what life is about. This is all. This is everything.

This is everything. The one who responds rightly to Christ has succeeded with his purpose. The one who becomes a king and rejects Christ and His Word is a failure and great will be his fall at the end. And so the world has it all upside down and Jesus teaches to clear it up for us. And we're only going to introduce this passage, these first five verses, these first two verses really. Do not judge so that you will not be judged.

And we'll get to some of these other themes in coming days. But A.W. Pink said this about these verses.

A.W. Pink said this and I quote, he says, unless the meaning of these verses is open to us, we will be at a loss to repel those who would bring us into bondage by the corrupt use they make of it. There are few verses less understood by those who are so ready to cite it and hurl it at the heads of those whom they ignorantly or maliciously suppose are violating it." What he's saying, talking about these words, judge not lest you be judged, A.W.

Pink is saying and rightly so, he says that ignorant or malicious people will take these words and hurl them at people to intimidate them into silence, but they're using the passage in an entirely wrong way, in a way that it was not intended to be used. And so, stepping back and perhaps echoing something that you have had in your own personal experience as you've talked with people, perhaps dealt with pastors in other churches, if you question a man's teaching or if you confront a professing brother who is in sin, he may say, don't judge me. Jesus said, judge not so that you will not be judged and that's a very intimidating place to be in. What you need from God's word that we're going to try to give you is a perspective that will help you stand against that and to exercise proper discernment. That moment in time that plays out in any public discussion of Christian morality, any public discussion of a clear teaching of scripture, judge not, beloved, let me state it plainly so that it cannot be missed. That response, that use of this passage is sheer manipulation and sheer scripture twisting that has nothing to do with Jesus' intent in saying these words. It is simply a thinly veiled effort to intimidate a critic into silence. But, let's be honest with one another, that objection has a superficial plausibility, doesn't it?

I mean it says right there on the passage, do not judge. And so you kind of wonder, well, am I off base here? How am I supposed to think about this? There's a superficial plausibility that makes you wonder if you're doing the right thing.

Well, what I want to do is spend some time on this faulty use of Jesus' words to equip you to deal with such situations. And here's the question, let's frame the question this way. What attorneys are told in their early training is that if you, the one who frames the issue wins the argument. And there's a lot of truth to that. In litigation, the attorney that persuades the judge that he's framed the issue correctly is the one who's likely to win the case. Well, I want to frame the issue for you here in asking you this question.

Stay with me, watch this, and it will lead your thinking into the right direction. Did Jesus intend to insulate false teachers and sinners from accountability with anything that he ever said? Did Jesus intend to give a shield to people who were teaching false doctrine and demonic lies? Did he intend to give them a verse that would keep them from being called to account? Is there any possibility that that's what Jesus intended to do in anything that he ever taught?

Did Jesus intend to give what Jesus intended to do in anything that he ever taught? The answer to that question is no. That's impossible. That's not possibly what he meant here.

Absolutely not. And you can see that even in the immediate context of what we're talking about. Beloved, here's the thing. As we go through the Christian life, part of righteous living, part of manifesting faithfulness to Christ is this. You practice discernment. Discernment is part of the righteous life.

You're not intended, you're not supposed to be a gullible person that simply believes everything that you're ever told. You're not meant to give tacit approval to every form of immorality and sinful living that might cross your path. Christians are meant to be discerning people.

You must know truth and apply it to the world around you. Look at verse 6. Jesus said, Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces. This may be shocking to some of your ears, but what Jesus is saying here is that some men are dogs and some men are hogs, and you treat men differently based on the way that they respond to truth and their attitude toward truth.

And people that are openly hostile and mock and denigrate God's word, and when it is spoken to them, twist it and mock it and insult it and treat it like it is some profane thing. Jesus says, You're to step back and not to be a fool. You're to be a fool. You're to be a fool.

You're to be a fool. You're to step back and not speak the word of God to them, because God's word is so holy and truth is so sacred that you don't hold it up to men who are intentionally and you know that they're just going to ridicule it and treat it like it is some piece of food for pigs. You don't do that, Jesus says. Well, look, how on earth are you going to obey this scripture that says, Don't give what is holy to swine if you're not making some kind of judgment about the people that you're interacting with.

How can you do that? This verse is meaningless if we just have a blank slate toward everyone and treat everyone equally without any sense or degree of discernment. You could never make that judgment. You could never make that judgment.

Here's the point. If what these critics say is true, you're never to judge anything. That can't be what Jesus is saying. Even more clearly than that, look at chapter 7, verse 15, and I invite you, I ask you to let your eyes go to the text here and to see it for yourself. Jesus says in verse 15, Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

You will know them by their fruits. What's he saying here? He's warning us clearly, saying, There are true teachers and there are false teachers, and you need to know the difference between them. What is true?

What is false? And then he goes on to help you and say, Here's how you'll know the distinction. You'll know them by the fruits of their lives and the fruits of their teaching. What's he saying, beloved, except that he's giving you discernment so that you can make judgments about what is true and what is false and order your life accordingly? When you have reason to know that a man is a false teacher because he's contradicting scriptural and biblical doctrine and what he teaches over time, or you see a minister of sin claiming to be a minister of Christ, you look at that and say, No way.

I may not be able to explain everything. I can know a tree by the fruit it bears. Jesus says, When you can do that, then you do not give a man like that a platform to speak into your life. You don't give a man your obedience.

You don't trust him to teach you because you can see by his life that he's a false teacher. And Jesus says, Beware of them. And sometimes it's going to be initially hard to see the difference.

It's going to look like a warm and fuzzy sheep. But inside the outward appearance is a wolf who wants to devour you. And Jesus says, Therefore beware. I give you this teaching so that you can practice discernment. You need to know, beloved, you need to know doctrine and you need to know righteousness before you can assess whether man truly speaks for God. And sometimes, beloved, there's more than adequate evidence in front of you to conclude that a man is a false teacher and you don't give that man a platform in your life.

How can you do that? How can you obey Jesus' teaching unless somewhere, somehow along the line you are exercising spiritual judgment about what you're being told about what a man is doing? You see, beloved, you can see clearly even in the passage of Matthew chapter 7 that Jesus is not teaching you to be passive in the face of false teaching. This is a very important point. It's part of the reason, by the way, it's part of the reason why we just completed a ten-part series called The Bible and Roman Catholicism. After hundreds of years, we're in a position to make judgments about whether the Roman Catholic system is consistent with the Bible or not.

And we need to do that. But this is such an important point that I want to help you think through it in the broader context of Scripture as well. Because, beloved, I realize for some, maybe you're visiting, you're just passing through, this may be my only opportunity to speak with you. For others, you know, you're a part of our church and I just have such a responsibility to engage in the process to inculcate this into you in a way that you embrace. Judgment by men. It's such an important point that I want you to think through it in the broader context of Scripture.

And here's the point. Judgment by men. Men exercising judgment is an intrinsic part of the way that God has ordered the world and has ordered his church. It is part of the very order of God revealed in Scripture that there will be men exercising judgment about other men and about situations and teaching in front of them. This is part of the order of God. And so to say judge not means that I can do whatever I want without any kind of accountability from anyone, you'll see, is absolutely contrary to the whole order of God in society and in the church. And I want you to see this because if you see this in the broader context, then it will strengthen you not to be intimidated by those who would try to put you to silence when you're simply trying to say, but the Bible says this. We've only just begun to unpack the true meaning of Matthew 7 in Pastor Don Green's message, Judge Not and Christian Discernment. In part two, Don will offer some examples of how judgment is very much a part of God's intention for our lives. Join us as we continue our series, The Art of Discernment, here on The Truth Pulpit.

Right now though, Don's back here in studio with a special invitation. You know, friend, we realize that you may not be close enough to our church to be able to join us as you would like to on any given Sunday. So let me invite you to join us on our live stream that you can find at our website, Sundays at 9 a.m. Eastern Time, and also we have a midweek service on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. We would love to have you join us in that way.

A lot of people do. You might as well be one more to join us for those special studies of God's Word and our church services on Sundays and Tuesdays. Here's Bill with some final information to help you find us. For all the info about and directions to Truth Community Church, just visit thetruthpulpit.com. I'm Bill Wright, and we'll see you next time on The Truth Pulpit with Don Green.