"JUDGE NOT!" - by David Kirkwood
Posted by: prophetic <prophetic@...>
by David Kirkwood.
Anyone who holds to any standard of righteousness in our "culture
of tolerance" is in trouble. If you say, for example, that
homosexuality is a perversion, abortion is murder, sex outside of
marriage is a sin, or that Jesus is the only way to heaven, get
ready to be labeled. You will be categorized as "intolerant,"
because intolerance is not tolerated in our culture. You may also
be branded as close-minded, because our culture is not
open-minded to anyone who is "close-minded." You may be
criticized for being critical. And you will probably be branded as
unloving, because our culture just hates people who aren't "loving."
They really should start putting bumper stickers on their cars that
say, "I Do Not Tolerate People Who Are Intolerant."
Quite often, those who are are not tolerant of "intolerant" Christians
even cite the Bible to prove how wrong intolerance is. "Judge not!"
they quote Jesus as saying. They construe Christ's words to mean
that no one has the right to make a moral appraisal of anyone else.
In so doing, however, they make a moral appraisal of those whom
they accuse of making moral appraisals. If you say,"Homosexuality
is wrong," they say, "Don't judge!," and in the process they commit
the very crime of which they find you guilty. This is not something
that only those in the world do, but something that professing
Christians sometimes do as well. If you hold to any standards of
righteousness that exceed the low standards that many professing
Christians hold, you set yourself up to be a target by some even
within the church.... They too may judge you as being judgmental---
even if you keep completely silent about your convictions and just
live them. (I am doubtlessly being judged right now by some
readers as being judgmental for writing this!)
So exactly what did Jesus mean when He told His followers,
"Judge not, that you be not judged"? If we understand what He
meant, then we can strive to obey Him in this regard. Perhaps it
will help if we first consider what Jesus obviously did not mean.
Clearly, Jesus did not mean that His followers should never make
moral appraisals of anyone, judging them in that sense. Just a few
seconds after He said, "Judge not," Jesus instructed His followers,
Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls
before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and
tear you to pieces (Matt. 7:6). Surely Jesus was not speaking of
literal dogs and pigs, but of people who, like dogs and pigs, don't
recognize what is truly valuable and holy. It seems that Jesus
could have been speaking only of people who reject His holy word
because they don't value it. If we are to obey this commandment
and not cast our pearls before pigs, we must of necessity appraise
people. We must judge if they are in the category of spiritual pigs
and dogs. How can we judge such people? We certainly can't tell
by looking at them. Sweet old ladies sometimes morph into
monsters when we attempt to speak to them about the Lord, while
tattooed tough guys, under conviction, may melt like margarine.
We must, therefore, cast at least one "pearl" and watch what
people do with it. If they trample it in the mud, we know they're
spiritual pigs or dogs. We shouldn't waste more pearls on them, at
least not until we allow some time for their hearts to soften. For
now, we should "shake off the dust from our feet" (see Matt. 10:14)
and look for those who value what we have to tell them. That is
what Paul practiced, displaying a certain degree of intolerance in a
manner prescribed by Jesus (see Acts. 13:51).
This should not only be practiced in regard to unbelievers who
reject God's Word, but in regard to so-called believers who just as
much reject God's Word. Don't waste your valuable time on people
who don't value God's Word. But back to my main point. We must
judge people in at least one sense if we are going to obey Christ's
command not to cast our pearls before pigs.
Judging Spiritual Leaders
Just a few more seconds after Jesus said, "Judge not," He also
instructed His followers to appraise spiritual leaders by their fruit.
By so doing, they could determine if a leader is a wolf disguised as
a sheep. This requires that Christ's followers judge spiritual leaders,
and it seems that there isn't enough of that kind of judging going on
because so many of us are being misled and devoured by wolves
that appear to be sheep. Sincere believers are often afraid of
judging spiritual leaders because they think that they shouldn't
"pass judgment" on them or "touch God's anointed." They couldn't
be more wrong. Jesus commands us to examine the fruit of
spiritual leaders and make judgments about them! We should be
looking at the fruit of every spiritual leader in the church. Don't
make the foolish error of "judging their fruit" by counting how many
miracles they perform or by how many thousands of people attend
their meetings. That is not the kind of fruit Jesus was saying we
should be examining. Speaking of spiritual leaders, Jesus warned
that many would say to Him, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy,
cast out demons and perform miracles in Your name?," and He
will say, "I never knew you" (see Matt. 7:22-23). Miracles are not
the proof of God's endorsement of a minister. (According to
Scripture, God may actually test our love for Him by means of
false prophets who work miracles; see Deut. 13:1-4.) A big crowd
may only be a sign of a big deceiver. The fruit of which Jesus
spoke is the fruit of holiness (see Matt. 7:21, 23). Are spiritual
leaders obeying Christ's commandments? That is the test. We
should also judge the teaching of spiritual leaders to make certain
their teaching is the teaching of Christ (see 2 John 1:7-11). If it isn't,
we are instructed by Scripture not to receive such people into our
homes (which takes on additional meaning when you realize that
the early church met primarily in homes), and not even to give
such teachers a greeting (much less an offering). Otherwise, says
John, we "participate in their evil deeds (see 2 John 1:11).
It is sobering to realize that we bear part of the responsibility for
the spiritual deception that is propagated by false teachers if we
support them in any way. It is amazing to me how many Christians,
whose hearts have been enlightened to fundamental and essential
biblical truth, attend and support churches that promote a false
gospel while leaving the "voices that are crying in the wilderness"
to continue crying in the wilderness, unsupported. They are eating
at Red Lobster and paying at Burger King. Some excuse
themselves by saying, "I'm giving to the Lord and my heart is right,
so it makes no difference where I give my money." The truth is,
you are supporting the devil with God's money. And God is not
likely to reward you for that! Like John, Paul also instructed us to
"beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the
false circumcision" (Phil. 3:2), and he, too, warned of false
apostles (see 2 Cor. 11:13-15). To obey these inspired instructions
given by Paul and John requires that we make judgments about
spiritual leaders and act on those judgments. Yet, again, it seems
that too few in the church follow such biblical instructions
According to the consistent teaching of the New Testament, the
outstanding characteristic of a false teacher is that his teaching
downplays the necessity of holiness (see Matt. 7:15-23;
Rom. 16:17-18; 2 Pet. 2:1-22; Jude 1:3-4). By that criteria, the
church today has been inundated with false teachers. In Scripture,
some of the New Testament authors go so far as to name the very
names of false spiritual leaders of whom the church should beware
(see 1 Tim. 1:19-20; 2 Tim. 2:16-18; 4:10; 3 John 1:9). This
required a judgment on the part of those authors. By exposing and
warning the church of certain false teachers, something that is
often today classed as "passing judgment" or as being "unloving,"
these authors actually showed their genuine love for Christ's body.
Jesus commended the church in Ephesus for judging correctly
certain men as being false apostles (see Rev. 2:2).
Judging Other Believers
So far we've seen that we should judge, in some sense, unbelievers
and spiritual leaders. But what about judging fellow believers?
Believe it or not, Scripture teaches that we all have a responsibility
to judge, at least in some sense, everyone within the church.
Surprised about that? Read what Paul wrote to the Corinthian
Christians who had failed to judge a man in their midst who was
living in an immoral relationship with his stepmother: For what
have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who
are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges.
[The clear implication is that they should judge those within the
church.] Remove the wicked man [this requires a judgment] from
among yourselves (1 Cor. 5:12-13)
And it is not only people within the church who are living in immoral
relationships whom God expects us to judge. In the same passage,
Paul declared, I wrote you in my [previous] letter not to associate
with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people
of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters;
for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote
to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he should be
an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a
drunkard, or a swindler---not even to eat with such a one
(1 Cor. 5:9-11). To obey this instruction, we must make judgments
about people within the church and act on those judgments. If we
discover a professing Christian who is an immoral person, greedy,
an idolater, a reviler, a drunkard or a swindler, we are not to
associate with him or her at all. The reason is because such
people bring a stain and reproach on what the church is supposed
to be---the holy followers of Christ. Such people are not true
followers of Christ, regardless of what they claim, and they are on
the broad road that leads to hell, as Paul wrote in the same
passage, Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit
the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor
idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,nor
thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers,
shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but
you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God
(1 Cor. 6:9-11). Paul warns us not to be deceived about this, but
again, so many are. When entire denominations agree that
homosexuals are fit to be ordained for ministry, they've abandoned
the Bible and bought into the world's "tolerance message." They
are deceived in their tolerance. But this is not the only way we are
told in Scripture to judge those within the church. We are also
instructed by Jesus to confront those within the church who sin
against us (see Matt. 18:15-17), and this, of course, requires that
we make a judgment about offenders. If they don't receive us, we
are to take one or two others, who must also make a judgment
about the offender and confront him a second time. If an offender
doesn't receive the testimony of those two or three, he should be
taken before the entire church, who must also then make a
judgment about him. (Keep in mind that Jesus was thinking of
small churches that met in homes---as all churches were until
A.D. 300 when Constantine married the world with the church---
churches that were like families, in which everyone knew and loved
the offender and the offended person. This third part of His
instruction could never be followed in large, modern churches
without it resulting in a church split. In such cases, the third step
should be administrated in a small group of believers who all know
and love both parties.) If the offender doesn't receive the church's
call to repentance, he should, according to Jesus, be "treated like
a Gentile or tax-gatherer" (Matt. 18:17). That sounds quite
"intolerant," doesn't it? Some professing Christians might accuse
a church that followed this practice of being intolerant" and
"unloving." But the truth is, those churches who are tolerant in this
respect are the ones that are not loving. They help deceive
unrepentant sinners within their ranks to think they are on the road
to eternal life.
In any case, we see that when Jesus said, "Judge not," He could
not have meant that we are not to judge in any sense those within
the church, otherwise He contradicted Himself in other places,
and Paul contradicted Him as well. The truth, as we have seen, is
that Christians are to judge, in some sense, unbelievers, spiritual
leaders and believers. Thus it seems that we don't need less
judgment by Christ's followers these days; we need more judgment.
We've been entrusted, by God Himself, with the very important
responsibility to judge---and primarily to keep the church pure.
What could be more important than that?
If we ever hope, however, to judge the world and angels in the future,
we must properly judge now. Judging Righteously In all of these
cases when Scripture instructs us make judgments about people,
we must be cautious that we don't make assumptions and wrongly
judge anyone. In regard to Himself, Jesus once said to some of
His detractors, "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge
with righteous judgment" (John 7:24). Similarly, God commanded
every Israelite in the Law of Moses: You shall do no injustice in
judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great,
but you are to judge your neighbor fairly. You shall not go about as
a slanderer among your people.... You shall not hate your fellow
countryman in your heart; you may surely reprove your neighbor,
but shall not incur sin because of him (Lev. 19:15-17). If you've
ever been a victim of people's wrong judgments or been slandered,
you know how much it hurts. We should therefore take every
precaution that we don't make wrong judgments about others,
much less spread our wrong judgments to others, which amounts
to slander. Our judgments should be based on facts, and we
should always strive to believe the best until we know the worst.
And if we love fellow believers whom we judge, we will speak to
them first, and not others, about their sin as the scripture we just
read says. In the case of false believers and false teachers (who
are of course unbelievers), a different rule applies, as is clear from
Paul's instructions and dealings with the immoral man in Corinth.
False teachers, especially, should be publicly exposed. Not only
should our judgments be based on truthful facts, they should be
based on scriptural truth as well. For example, Scripture does not
give us the right to determine that someone is not saved because
he drank a glass of wine or because she doesn't wear her hair in
a bun. We must also be cautious that we don't judge what is
impossible to judge. For example, we don't know the motives of
people's hearts (see 1 Cor. 4:5). On the other hand, according to
Jesus, there are times when we do know something about what is
in people's hearts, and we can judge righteously in this regard to
some degree. Jesus told us, For from within, out of the heart of
men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders,
adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit,
sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil
things proceed from within and defile the man" (Mark. 7:21-23).
I remember once being rebuked by a parishioner because I said
that a certain political leader who claimed to be a Christian was
certainly not a Christian because of his immoralities and lies.
"You don't know what is in his heart," I was told. However, not only
did I make my statement based upon the fact that Scripture tells
us not to be deceived in this matter (that no adulterers will inherit
God's kingdom and that all liars will be cast into the lake of fire),
but actually, in this case, I knew what everyone else could and
should have known about what was in that particular adulterer's
heart---adultery. We know and can thus judge what is in the heart
of every adulterer when he or she committed his or her sin---
adultery. Likewise, theft was in the heart of the thief, murder was
in the heart of the murderer, and deceit is in the heart of the
deceiver. In all of these cases and others like them, we can judge
what is in people's hearts. Of course, if people repent, their hearts
change, but repentance of the heart is also something that shows
up on the outside and can thus be righteously judged. As hard as
it is for us to accept this in an age when "toleration" is the word,
that is precisely why John wrote, By this the children of God and
the children of the devil are obvious [that is, it is easy to judge who
is saved and who is not]: anyone who does not practice
righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his
brother (1 John 3:10). Do you believe this? By this criteria, there
are multitudes of people who consider themselves born again
within the church who are actually children of the devil, and we
have the clear biblical right to make such a judgment.
So What Did Jesus Mean?
"Do not judge lest you be judged. For in the way you judge, you
will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be
measured to you. And 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"
(Matt. 7:1-5). Clearly, in light of the greater and lesser context of
Jesus' command not to judge, He was speaking about the sin of
searching for small flaws in fellow believers (thrice He speaks of
"brothers" in this passage) by those who have bigger faults. As
Jesus warned, God will hold us to the same standard to which we
hold others. He doesn't appreciate those who don't practice what
they preach. Those who do are in danger of being judged by God,
and He often does so by exposing their hypocrisy. So if we point
out the faults of others when we are guilty of the same or greater
faults, we are guilty of the kind of judgment that Jesus here forbids.
But don't read more into what Jesus said in Matthew 7:1-5 than
what is there. Read exactly what He said. Jesus did not
completely forbid finding fault (or "judging" in that sense), and if He
did, it would contradict much of what He said elsewhere. Note that
Jesus said, "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"
(Matt. 7:5). That is, first repent yourself, then help others to repent.
Too many of us are stagnant in this regard, examining neither
ourselves nor helping anyone else after our repentance. We have a
superficial relationship with God and a superficial relationship with
each other. We've nurtured a complacent attitude that either says,
"Hey...I m OK, you're OK...we're all OK," or worse than that: "Look,
we're all just a bunch of sinners here, so let's have another round of grace."
If we are to help others enjoy all the blessings of holiness (a true
act of love on our part), we must first be holy ourselves. Nobody
receives correction from those whom they don't respect and those
whose own faults are glaring. And God becomes angry with those
who hold others to a standard by which they themselves don't live.
Such people are hypocrites, as Jesus said, pretending to be what
they are not. How many preachers (like myself) have heard the
stinging yet loving words of their spouses on a Sunday afternoon,
"Great sermon today, honey. You really ought to consider living it
yourself!"? Ouch!
One Final Thought...
Please note that every scripture we've considered in this teaching
is addressed, not to pastors, but to every follower of Christ. This
leaves us with one overriding thought: Every believer is expected
by God to be passionate and active in the pursuit of personal and
corporate holiness. Paul didn't tell the pastors in Corinth to judge
and remove the wicked man from among them. (In fact, Paul gave
no specific instructions to pastors, elders, or overseers in either of
his letters to the Corinthians or in the majority of his other letters,
a significant fact.) Removing the wicked man was something every
member of the body was to be involved in. Similarly, Jesus made
it clear that every believer has responsibility to judge spiritual
leaders by their fruit so that no wolves in sheep's clothing will lead
the church away from holiness. Every believer, according to what
we read, should judge and not associate with those who claim to
be Christ's yet who practice unrighteousness, lest the church be
stained before the world. Every Christian should judge himself and
remove the logs from his own eyes so he can be personally pure
and can then see clearly to remove the specks from his brothers'
eyes. How many of us have a relationship with God and other
believers like that? May God have mercy on us and help us to
grow up! And may judgment, biblical judgment, increase within
Christ's church.
For more online teachings by David Kirkwood, please visit his
website- http://www.shepherdserve.org/
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