in Maryland yet. I'm Lisa Brady, Fox News Radio. Knowing the Truth with Pastor Kevin Bowling is a live call-in radio program providing doctrinal dialogue, cultural commentary, and insightful interviews with some of today's foremost Christian authors and leaders. Knowing the Truth is the outreach ministry of the Mountain Bridge Bible Fellowship located on Highway 25 in Traveler's Rest. The goal of the church and the radio program is to seek the glory of God in the salvation of sinners and the sanctification of the saints. by the ministry of the Word. For more information, go to www.knowingthetruth.org. Here with today's edition of Knowing the Truth is Pastor Kevin Bowling. Hey, welcome into this Wednesday edition of the Knowing the Truth radio broadcast. This is Pastor Kevin Bowling, and it's wonderful to have you along with us today on the broadcast. This is our Worldview Wednesday edition of the program, which means that first up, we'll be speaking to World Magazine. And in particular, today we'll be speaking with Emily Bells, a reporter for World Magazine. And we're going to be talking with her about the President of the United States and his recent remarks about the Supreme Court of the United States and their handling of whether or not the health care law is constitutional. And I'm asking this question on the broadcast today Is it right to judge? You know, this issue is a big issue today, not only dealing with the judges and the situation that's taking place at the Supreme Court, but this bigger concept about judging is a huge issue in our society today. Here's the President of the United States. Sensing a politically damaging decision coming out of the court, he recently questions then the U.S. Supreme Court ability or even their right to judge the constitutional merits of this sweeping health care law. And when he made these statements, I don't know if you caught this the other day on the news, but the president said that if the justices overturned his health care law, it would be unprecedented and that it would amount to judicial activism. And later, when he was asked about his comments, the president referred to the court as an unelected group of people. It's not really the most flattering way to – or the most respectful way to speak about the Supreme Court of the United States that has been put in place as one-third of our government. It's not very flattering. This isn't the first time that he's done this. You remember during one of his addresses to the nation at the State of the Union address While the Supreme Court was present, he spoke of them in a disparaging way about the decision that they had come to, so much so that I think it was Samuel Alito who actually mouthed the words that it was not true. what he said. And so in light of that, we want to talk about this issue today about is it right to judge both in this area of this judicial issue from the Supreme Court related to health care in the first half of the broadcast In the second half of the broadcast, I want to look at that verse of scripture that is so often taken out of context, the verse there in Matthew 7 that says, Judge not lest ye be judged. people who misquote that. There's a lot of Christians, even, who when confronted with sin or just think that it is improper to bring any sort of judgment whatsoever. We're going to talk about that in the second half of the program. We're going to go to Emily here in just a moment, but before we do that, let's listen to the President's remarks that he made just recently about the Supreme Court. I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress. Emily, welcome back to the Knowing the Truth radio broadcast. Your take on the President's comments? Well, it's something that's never happened before, as far as I can tell, in terms of a president speaking on a Supreme Court case that is pending that, you know, you've had presidents say before that they didn't like a decision, you know, like in Roe v. Wade, Reagan spoke against that decision, but you've never had a president speak while the Supreme Court is considering a case. This is really rare. So you entitled your article unprecedented. The president says that what is unprecedented is the Supreme Court considering whether or not a law is unconstitutional. But you're saying what is really unprecedented is the president of the sitting president of the United States speaking against a court while the court is currently debating the legislation that he's that he's Condemning or condemning their decision I should say That's right. I mean he's in effect kind of lobbying the Supreme Court justices to uphold the law which is just really strange and he also said something about the how the individual mandate was essential to the law which I was exactly the opposite of the argument his lawyer made in court, which was that if the justices struck down the mandate, they should leave the rest of the law intact. So I think he just kind of was riffing there and sharing his thoughts pretty openly about that case. Now, were you there at the court? I know you've been writing about the oral arguments, the three days of oral arguments. Were you right there at the court getting that information? I was at the court. I wasn't inside for the arguments. There were just a handful of people that made it in there. But it was a wild circus out there. With those comments that were made during the oral arguments, it appears from the things that were said that the justices of the Supreme Court are not They don't have a very favorable opinion of this law, I should say now, the constitutionality of this law. Would you agree? Yeah, I think the government's lawyer who's defending the law was really taken aback by the hostility that he felt in the questioning. The key vote, I would say, would be Justice Anthony Kennedy, who's often considered the swing vote. And he said that the law fundamentally changed the relationship between individuals and the government. And so if that's really his opinion, he's not just throwing an idea out there, then it does look bad for the health care law. And that's really the crux of the argument, right, is the idea that the federal government can force someone to buy a product. In this case, the product is health care, but the precedent is any product could be forced upon us where the federal government could say, you will buy a certain product. Is that correct? Right. The justices posed whether, you know, this would allow the government to require us to buy gym memberships, for example, because it would improve our health and that would, you know, keep everyone's health insurance cheaper. So they just wondered whether this would be a snowball effect for the government requiring more and more things. But this is, I mean, the oral arguments are sometimes not indicative. of the justices' positions. So it's really hard to predict what they'll do. It's just hard to see them asking those types of questions, hearing the lawyer for the administration floundering at some points during the oral argument. I mean, it was, I almost felt sorry for the fellow because he didn't seem, and now to hear the president contradict what the actual case was, I don't think that all these things are going unnoticed by the court. They don't seem to really have thought this through as deeply as maybe they should have before pressing this particular piece of legislation. Right, and I don't know if you heard about what happened at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday, but... Yeah, I was going to ask you about that, so please, tell us about it. Well, the administration was dealing with another case related to the health care law. at the circuit court level. And right when they were starting their arguments, one of the judges spoke up and said, do you believe that courts have the authority to determine whether a law is unconstitutional and if it is to throw it out? And of course, the government's lawyer said, yes, we do believe that's part of your authority. And then the judge said that, you know, in response to the president's comments yesterday, I would like you to give me a three-page letter explaining our authority to do that. So, he essentially gave the lawyers some homework to do and said it was due by noon on Thursday, single spaced, to explain their authority declare laws unconstitutional. Yeah, I thought that they would just completely ignore that and see what would happen next. But I understand just coming in to the studio this morning that Eric Holder has made some sort of comment about that particular case and the and the judge's remarks and homework that was assigned. I don't know exactly what those comments were. but I understand that he did acknowledge it, and I thought they would just try to ignore it as best as possible. Do you know anything about that? Well, the lawyer in the courtroom in this specific case said that she would give that letter to the judge, and usually in these cases, they have to comply with the judge's request, because after all, they're the ones that are ruling on their case, so they want to comply with whatever request the judge would make. So, I guess we'll see what they do. I haven't seen Eric Holder's comments, though. I noted in the beginning that this was not the first time that President Obama has spoken out or disrespected the Supreme Court of the United States. He also did so during one of his State of the Union addresses, right? Yeah, in his 2010 State of the Union address, he called out the justices sitting right in front of him about their Citizens United decision, which was the decision that allowed for spending. It removed a lot of the campaign finance rules. And he, you know, eviscerated that decision and said that it would bring a lot of special interest into politics. Of course, now we know that the Obama campaign has decided to use super PACs themselves, even though they said that that would be a threat to democracy. So we've seen a little back and forth from the president on this issue. The other day, a reporter asked President Obama about this case before the Supreme Court in the White House Rose Garden. It was on Monday. I don't think the irony was lost on many people. that he was flanked by the Mexican president and also by the Canadian prime minister when he made his comments. And what I found ironic about that was, is both Mexico and Canada have failed socialistic health care programs. The people from Canada come to the United States to take advantage of our health care because it's so much better than what they get in Canada. And Mexico's health care is certainly no great standard that the people around the world look to. And so here he is flanked by two failed socialistic health care programs, and he's commenting on how we should adopt this here in the United States as well. Have you heard anybody pick up on that? Um, I, I just was thinking about the, uh, trying to remember exactly what the Mexican president said, but he actually commented on the U S healthcare law and said something about, um, how Mexico has done such a great job with their, um, healthcare system, which is essentially government run. Um, and how many people were covered down there. So I think he's, he, they took that opportunity as a little PR moment. But yeah, I don't know how true that is, that it's been successful. Yeah, you normally don't hear of people going from this country to somewhere else because they want better health care. We get all sorts of foreign dignitaries from around the world who come here to take advantage of our health care program. So I think it's a hard sell for them. A couple things happened recently concerning this, what the President's comments. You alluded to one of them already about that first court, Circuit Court of Appeals, where the judge gave out the homework and wanted clarification on what President Obama's stand was, and so we've already alluded to that one. I found it also ironic that while the president was saying that this was unprecedented, that a court would do this, as your article points out in the very beginning, and that they were, you know, this was a judicial activism on the part of the court, I found it hypocritical then that the administration itself was at the same time asking the federal government to overturn DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, saying that this duly written law was voted on and passed by a much greater majority than the health care law was passed. And yet the president and his administration are trying to overturn that or have the Supreme Court declare it to be unconstitutional. So talk about hypocrisy for him to say on one hand that the law, if the court does this, that they're overreaching and they're activists. On the other hand, his administration is actively seeking the court to overturn another law that he doesn't like. Quite a bit of irony there. Do you agree? Yeah, it's the argument that the court should uphold the law because it was passed by a majority of Congress is a little funny because anytime they declare a law unconstitutional, it was because it was passed by a majority of Congress and became a law. So that's kind of the basic tenant there. I think Obama tried to walk back his comments a little bit yesterday and said, you know, The court should just show deference. I'm not saying that they should never declare a law unconstitutional, but yeah, those remarks are interesting in light of the other cases the government's pursuing, like the overturn of DOMA. For the record, you know, here he was making this point about how it was passed by a strong majority, the health care law, Obamacare. Well, all of us remember what took place during that time. you know, all the backroom deals where they were, you know, basically bribing people, let's just call it what it was, in order to get their vote. Remember, they were giving away tremendous amounts of money and waivers and packages to congressmen and senators to vote on this. Remember, Bart Stupak, I don't know whatever happened to him, But he was given the assurance that for his vote for this, that the President would make sure that abortion wasn't part of it. Well, so much for that idea, since now the President has gone after the rights of the religious exemption right associated with this as well. By the way, the Obamacare passed the House by a vote of 219 to 212. with 34 Democrats voting against it. That's his strong majority. By comparison, DOMA passed the House by 342 to 67. So here is the president saying, that because it was passed by such a strong majority, the court has no right to do it, and yet he doesn't hold himself to that same standard about the Defense of Marriage Act. So, both ways Obama is what we're seeing again here on this. I think that's starting to stick with him. Whichever way is more profitable for him, more politically expedient for him, then he's going to go that way. But as for holding to what the actual rule of law is, he seems to have little regard for that. Yeah, well, I think this case just highlights the beauty of our system of government in that, you know, you had at that time three, you know, all the executive and legislative branch were controlled by Democrats. And here, the Supreme Court is functioning as a check on that one-party power. So regardless of what their decision is, we're seeing that that one-party power doesn't have unlimited power, and that's part of the balance of government, which is just interesting to watch, kind of a little civics lesson. Yeah, exactly right. This is why we have the balance of power, as you were just alluding to. Some of the Democrats have already tried to spin this in two ways. One, they've tried to spin it that, you know, we have this activist court and, you know, they didn't seem to mind some of the other decisions that came down. So they're trying to spin it that way to make the court itself the bad guy rather than this legislation or this law. And two, they've even tried to spin this, that this is a good thing for President Obama. Address those two issues, if you would, please, from a political standpoint. Yeah, well, the Washington Post editorial board, and actually today the Los Angeles Times editorial board, both chastised Democrats for preemptively characterizing this as a political decision if the court strikes down the law. I'm just saying that there are actual difficult constitutional issues. And then I would say on the second point that I don't see how this plays into Obama's hand for the 2012 election. I mean, it would be a defeat of his biggest legislative battle that he fought for, you know, and spent a lot of capital on. So, I mean, I think that it will make it complicated in terms of how Congress will address health care reform, because now people really do want insurance that covers pre-existing conditions and things like that. So those are small issues that they'll have to deal with piece by piece, but I think overall it would be a huge setback for the Obama campaign. I think most people would agree that the court is not going to agree to go through, what was it, over 2,000 pages of this health care, and to pick certain pieces of it and say, this is constitutional and this is not constitutional. We don't see them doing that. Do you agree? Right. I mean, Justice Kennedy said in the arguments that if they did that, it would be more extreme than just striking down the whole law together because then they would be acting as a legislative body rather than a judicial body. I think he referred to it as being cruel and unusual punishment. when the people uh... who passed the law were guilty of not even reading that you may remember nancy pelosi's comments that we have to pass the law to find out what's in it those infamous comments uh... by the way nancy perot pelosi is predicting today a six to three victory and uh... that the law will be passed off you want to go with nancy pelosi on this one there's her account What's your, do you want to take a venture or a guess here? Do you think it's going to pass or do you think the Supreme Court is going to shoot it down? Well, I think it's folly probably to try and predict anything the Supreme Court does. Even the lawyers who had such a good, the lawyers challenging the law, who felt so good afterwards that we have no idea what's going to happen. So I think the court still could possibly say the case isn't even ready for them to rule on. And I think that's still a strong possibility. Or they could find a narrower way to deal with the constitutional issues. But they never make it easy to predict. Yeah, my prediction would be that the mandate portion of it is going to be declared unconstitutional and probably by five to four. And then I think that there might be aspects of it that it would open the door for aspects of it. It may require a rewriting of a new bill. in order to do that, but there would be aspects of it that they would not touch. And so, which, according to the President and his staff, that would completely, shooting down the mandate, would undo the entire bill. So they would be sent back, basically, to the drawing board to pull parts of this and rework the entire bill, which would be as good as dooming it, I think. But we'll just see, see how that comes out. I hate to go against Nancy Pelosi in that way, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and do that. Well, thank you very much, Emily. Once again, very few news outlets are speaking out against what was taking place and reporting the news in a very honest fashion. We find World Magazine doing this on a consistent basis week after week, and so we thank you guys for the work that you're doing there at World Magazine, and specifically the work that you've done on this particular issue. Thanks a lot, and thanks for being with us today. Well, thanks for having me. OK, that was Emily Bells. Emily is a reporter for World Magazine. Again, you can check out Emily's article on the issue that we were just talking about. It's called Unprecedented, and it's out there at worldmag.com. That's www.worldmag.com. You can go out there to read that article and many, many other great articles out there as well. We're going to be back in just a few moments. We're going to look at this whole issue of judging. Is judging right? Should a Christian judge? We'll find out in just a moment. Stay tuned. You're listening to Knowing the Truth with Pastor Kevin Bowling. For more information about today's program, the radio ministry, and the resources we offer, go to www.knowingthetruth.org. Would you please welcome the pride of Alexandria, Indiana, your host, Bill Gaither. Hey, thanks, Bill, and welcome to Homecoming Radio. Do we ever have a great show for you. You can hear some of the great Christian music you grew up with with Bill Gaither's Homecoming Radio, heard every Sunday evening at 5 o'clock on Christian Talk 660 and 92.9 FM. It's great pizza for a great price. So pack up the family and head over to Stevie B's near Walmart on Woodruff Road in Greenville. At Stevie B's, you'll find friendly faces and at least a dozen pizzas out at all times. Or you can order a pizza, and they'll make it fresh just for you at no extra cost. So visit Stevie B's today. Hi, this is Pastor Kevin Bowling, and I want to take the time to thank John, Ruth, Carlos, and the good folks over there at Stevie B's Pizza for their support of the Knowing the Truth radio broadcast. Hi, Louise. Hey, Mr. Thompson. Here's my good suit. Can I have it cleaned and pressed by Wednesday? Oh, got a big date? Well, an important one anyway. I'm volunteering to do tax returns at IRS VITA sites. Makes sense. You were a CPA for years. Yeah. Now I have the chance to help people who don't make much money. And senior citizens like me and military folks get their tax returns done for free. Well, I'm not exactly making a fortune working here. Well, why not go to irs.gov to find the nearest VITA site and see if you qualify for free tax prep. Most families making less than $50,000 do. irs.gov. Got it. Oh, yeah. And while you're there, print out the list of things to bring with you, like your Social Security card, W-2, last year's return, and so on. So, Wednesday? For my suit or your taxes? Both. IRS.gov from Vita sites to vital information. It's the best tax tip of all Welcome back to knowing the truth with pastor Kevin bowling information regarding the resources referenced on today's program can be found at www.knowingthetruth.org now here to continue with today's program is pastor Kevin bowling and Hey, welcome back into the second half of the Knowing the Truth radio broadcast, and so great to have you along here with us. We've been talking today about the subject of judging, specifically in the first part of the broadcast, the first segment. We were speaking with Emily Bells from World Magazine, a reporter with World Magazine, talking about the President's comments about whether or not it's right for the Supreme Court of the United States to pass judgment upon the legislation, or actually the law, the new sweeping health care law referred to as Obamacare. And the president was indicating that it was wrong for them to pass judgment upon that. And so it got me thinking about this entire subject of judging, whether or not judging itself, is right. So I want to talk about that here in just a minute and talk a little bit about whether or not judging, as we find it in the Scriptures, is something that Christians should be participating in. Is judging something that the Bible tells us is, you know, something that we should do? Before I do that, let me just make mention of an event that I spoke about yesterday when I was speaking with Dr. Steve Lawson. The event is called the Grace Advance event. It's taking place in Columbia, South Carolina on April 18th through the 19th. It's going to be held at the Marriott in downtown Columbia. This is for those that have the preaching responsibility in their church. Dr. John MacArthur is going to be there, of course, 40 years in ministry, just celebrated The 40th anniversary, I think it might have been late last year, might be in his 41st year of ministry at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California. He is going to be there and also Dr. Steve Lawson. who was my guest on yesterday's program. Dr. Lawson is the pastor of Christ Fellowship Baptist Church in Mobile, Alabama, and both of them are going to be there. Now, many people in our listening audience are familiar with the preaching ministry of Dr. John MacArthur, And so there's very little that I need to say in order for you to understand the significance of being there in a very intimate setting, a small gathering of those with the responsibility for preaching. I think Dr. Lawson likened it yesterday to going and watching Babe Ruth at batting practice. You're going to see John MacArthur. He's going to talk about preaching, about how he preaches, some of the mechanics of what he does in preaching, the impetus to preach, and how we should preach, and all of these aspects of the preaching ministry in the church. So that alone is worth the cost of admission. He kind of alluded to the fact that John MacArthur now is 70 years old, or 70 plus years old, and just not sure how much longer John MacArthur is going to be in the active preaching ministry, of course. And so the opportunity to be involved at this type of an event is very limited, to just put it that way. Sometimes for health-related issues later on in life. I know that with Dr. R.C. Sproul, he had some issues with a knee surgery not that long ago, and I remember reporting that the board of directors at Ligonier Ministry had asked him to not to accept any speaking engagements outside of the state of Florida because travel became more difficult for him. So as these great men of God and these great leaders in the church get up in years, the opportunity to hear them speak personally and in person is going to go away. That opportunity is going to be lost. And so take advantage. If you're involved in the preaching ministry of your church, Here for the folks in the Greenville, South Carolina area, you're talking just 100 miles down the road there in Columbia. I do it at least a couple times a month going there to Columbia. And so it's not a great burden on us to go there to participate in this. Additionally, and he certainly wouldn't say it of himself yesterday when he was on the program, if you haven't heard Steve Lawson preach, you're in for a real treat when you go there to listen to him preach. Wow. I have some folks at church who listen to his preaching. Some of the guys at church, they refer to him as Awesome Lawson. He just has got a tremendous preaching ministry. You're not going to get a lot of fooling around in the preaching. There's no buffoonery with Steve Lawson. he opens up the scripture gets to the text in a way you better strap in and put your seatbelt on because the way you go on that text so he's a tremendous preacher of the gospel himself so you're going to get both of these two men the fee to go and includes your dinner and your breakfast the following morning, as well as refreshments during the breaks. It's $75 right now to go. I'm already signed up. I'm there with these two men. And so I'm already going. I would encourage you, anybody in your church, hey, if you want to, if you don't have a preaching responsibility at your church, But you would like to invest in better preaching at your church? You'd like to invest in the men that have been called there to preach? Buy a ticket for these guys. Wow, what an opportunity for them to go and to be instructed and to learn more about good biblical preaching. This is what we need. Listen. So much attention is upon the politics these days in our society and even within our churches. We're putting all of our eggs in this political basket. Let me just make this statement, one statement here about that. By far, what we need in this country More than the right man in the White House, we need the right man in the pulpits of America. We need preachers to be in the pulpit again, biblically sound preachers who will declare the Word of God. This will change our country. far quicker and far more deeply than any politician will being in the White House. So there's where we need to put our attention. And so play a role in that. If you're the type of person that would send money to a politician, Let me tell you, your money could be far better spent by sending your pastor to an event like this in Colombia. This is as close as they're coming, Colombia, April 18th and 19th. There's a link on my website, knowingthetruth.org. I don't know what else to tell you in order to encourage you to go to this event. I hope you can just hear in the tone of my voice the importance of an event like this for preachers. Secondly, let me make a very quick announcement about this program. Next week, starting next week, we're going to be changing the time of the live broadcast of the Knowing the Truth radio program. As you probably are aware, Mike Huckabee is launching a brand new radio program, and Mike Huckabee is now going to be carried right here on Christian Talks 660. His program is going to start from 12 o'clock in the afternoon, 12 noon, to 3 o'clock p.m. And then after him, Janet Metford will be on for the two hours from 3 to 5. So you won't miss out on Janet Metford. A lot of people appreciate her broadcast as well. So that will be the afternoon programming here on Christian Talks 660. Well, that means now that I'm moving to 11 o'clock a.m., from 11 o'clock a.m. to 12 o'clock, 12 noon, which I think will be a very good thing for this broadcast. I have had folks tell me before that being on from 1 to 2 was just not convenient with their lunchtime. A lot of folks go out of their office for lunch. They said, I wish you were on a little bit earlier, then I could catch you during lunchtime. A lot of them would say, well, I catch the podcast of it later on in the day out on Sermon Audio, but I don't have the opportunity to get the live one because of lunchtime. Now you have an opportunity to do that. You can tune into the live broadcast and not just tune into it but actually participate in it. I give the call-in numbers on a regular basis and so you can listen to that as well and participate on the broadcast starting next Tuesday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week. The live broadcast will now be from 11 to 12 noon, and then we'll hand it over to Mike Huckabee after that. And so look forward to the time change and hope you can join with us. Let's get to this subject now that I was talking about, the subject of judging as we find it in the Scriptures. You know, I've said many times on this broadcast that that the verse that is often turned to in order to defend the idea of not judging individuals or judging movements or messages that come out is a verse that is found that is part of the Beatitudes of the Lord Jesus Christ, part of the Sermon on the Mount series there in the opening chapters of Matthew's Gospel. Matthew chapter 7 in verse 1, I think, has now become the most quoted verse of all the scriptures. Years ago, the most quoted verse was John 3.16, of course. We saw it appear at so many of those sporting events. Somebody would just hold up the verse John 3.16. People knew exactly what it was referring to. for God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but should have everlasting life." And so many people were very familiar with that. However, a new verse has now superseded as being the most often quoted And I would say, misquoted verse in the Bible. And that verse is Matthew chapter 7 and verse 1, where it says, Judge not that you be not judged, in the King James Version of the Bible. The question is, is that really what the Scripture teaches, the way that people are using that? If you've been a Christian for very long at all, And if you have attempted to share the gospel with someone or to confront a brother, lovingly confront a brother in some open sin or some sort of error that he is propagating or believing himself, if you have attempted to do this, then you have heard this verse quoted. Because, inevitably, what is said is an effort to try to silence the messenger by simply saying, you don't have a right to judge what is taking place. Many Christians have been intimidated by that and have immediately then said, well, I guess you're right. I guess I don't have a right to judge, and therefore I'm completely silenced and don't have a right to say anything about basically anything because I shouldn't judge. Now, what people have failed to realize when that verse is quoted is two important things. One is, it is quoting out of context what Jesus was saying in that passage. And actually, when we look at what he was saying, they are the one that are breaking the command that Jesus is making, the point that Jesus is making in that text. And I'll explain that in just a second. Secondly, not only are they breaking the way that Jesus meant it in context, But they are also very inconsistent in the way that they are making use of that verse. For instance, they're saying, and many people take it this way when it's said, that you don't have, no one has a right to pass judgment on anyone else. Well, in saying that to you, that you don't have a right to pass judgment, they are making a judgment themselves. So their own logic is inconsistent. They are judging you and judging what you're doing as being wrong. So if the verse means that no one is allowed to ever say that any man or movement or message is wrong, then no one can ever possibly say that anyone is wrong for doing that, because it would be completely inconsistent. I know that sounds circular in reasoning, but it is. It is inconsistent. It doesn't line up logically to what is being said. Let me tell you what's being said in this passage. Let me read the entire passage there, or part of the passage, a more full context of it, so that you can get an idea of what the context is. Jesus says, Judge not that ye be not judged, for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and what measure ye meet, ye shall be measured, it shall be measured to you again. So immediately in the passage, Jesus is pointing to the way that we judge. He's talking about the attitude, you know, for the judgment that you judge, how you judge somebody, you will be judged in that same way. So consider your attitude in this. And then he talks about the standard of judgment that you're using. And he says, for whatever standard you use to judge another person, that same standard will be used for you. So those are the two things that he's addressing to start with in this passage. So what should our attitude be in judging? Our attitude should be one of considering the fact that we ourselves are likely to fall and that we could fall. So we don't have a haughty attitude or a proud attitude when confronting someone about error or about a lack of judgment in a certain area or statements that they have made or things that they are believing. We don't have a haughty attitude that, you know, how could you be so stupid as to believe something like that. That's not the attitude that we should have, but we should, as the Scripture says, we should consider ourselves, that we also could fall into the error except for the grace of God. Now, that shouldn't prevent us from judging, That's not a statement that should stop us from pointing out the inconsistency or pointing out the error, but it should just temper the way that we judge a brother or sister that has fallen into sin. Second part of that he says with what measure ye meet it shall be measured to you again There is a standard that we all should use and he is saying don't use various standards if you use one standard for yourself and then another standard to judge somebody else, he's saying that that is wrong and that is sinful. The same standard that we use to judge others should be the same standard that we should use for ourselves. Now we ask ourselves, what is the standard that we should be using in making judgments? The standard, the only standard that we are given by Almighty God, is the standard of His Word. Isaiah tells us, to the Word and to the testimony, if it agrees not with these, it is because there is no light in them. That's from Isaiah chapter 8 and in verse 20. So we have a standard that has been given to us. We have a rule of measurement as to whether something is right or wrong, and that rule of measurement is the very Word of God itself. Now, when some people say, well, with some sort of a relativistic viewpoint, they say, well, you know, that may be your standard, but my standard is something else. I go by whether or not the latest poll, whether or not so many people agree with a certain behavior, or I go by whether or not it's legal to do something or not. Therefore, you know, if it's legal, then I'm, as a Christian, I have a right to do it, or as a person, I have a right to do it. Well, for Christians, there is a law that supersedes all other opinions or laws of the land, and that law is God's very Word. This is what we will be judged by. This is what the standard of measure is. You can't use different standards and expect to make any progress in anything. Can you imagine, you're working on a project, you decide to build a shed, and you have a friend who comes over to the house this summer, and he says, hey, I'll give you a hand on putting that shed together. And so you start to put it together, and you're measuring, and you need a foot, a board cut, a two by four, you need it cut to a foot length, and he hands it to you, and the board is 16 inches. And you say to him, I needed that board to be a foot. And he goes, well, I don't use that standard. I use a different standard. I use a 16-inch foot standard is the one that I'm going by. You can only imagine, if the building stands up at all, you could only imagine what it would look like if you have two people using two different standards. It's a ridiculous illustration, but it shows the ridiculousness of people trying to use different standards in life as well. Now, no progress could be made. God has given us an infallible standard, and that infallible standard is His Word. Now, he goes on in this text then, in verse three, to say this, and why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye?" Very small, like a splinter in your brother's eye. But, considerest not the beam that is in your own eye. So, he is talking about the subject that he's addressing at this point is hypocritical judgment, that you are committing the same sin. For instance, what if you found a brother who is committing adultery or fornication or involved in some sort of illicit sexual activity, like we see in the book of Corinthians, and you confront the brother about this sin, if you yourself are involved in that type of sin, you have no right then to be confronting Him, you know, and being righteous, you know, showing righteous indignation about Him being involved in this sin and bringing dishonor to God and disrespect to the Church of God and all of these negative consequences of that sin. You have no right to say that if you yourself have not first judged yourself in this area. So that's what the Lord is pointing to, hypocritical judgment. Now, people dismiss this and they say, well, if you have any sin whatsoever, you have no right to judge another person. That's not true. Nobody could judge. we all have sin. There's no doubt about it. It's talking about the habitual practice of this sin. It's not that you have broken a certain commandment at one point in time. Notice what he says in the next verse, in verse 4, Or how will you say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, and behold, there is a beam in thy other? Thou hypocrite, first cast the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly cast the mote out of thy brother's eye." So you can see the point that I was making, that he was talking about hypocritical judgment, not the fact that judging itself is wrong, but hypocritical judgment is wrong. Notice what he says in the verse, once you get it out of your own eye, Now you can clearly see to get the moat out of your brother's eye. Now you're free to judge on that particular area. Now, the people that say that we shouldn't be judging run into some great difficulty with the next verse. Jesus says, you talk about judging, listen to what he says here in verse 6. He says, "...give not that which is holy unto dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and rend you again." Now question, if you're not supposed to judge, how do you know who are considered here by the Lord Jesus Christ as being dogs or swine? His words, not mine. How do you know that? How do you make a determination? You know, the idea of judging is to discern. That's the idea. You know, you're separating that which is right and good from that which is evil. You're discerning these two things. And so how could you possibly discern what is right and wrong, or who is the dogs, who are the swine here in this passage, if Jesus was saying to you that all judging is completely wrong? Do you know in this same chapter, I'm sorry, it's actually in John chapter 7, and in verse 24, Jesus says, Judge righteous judgment. And so he commands us to judge, and he says that we should judge righteously. It's not that we shouldn't judge at all, but we should judge according to the way that Jesus has told us to judge. in Luke chapter 7 and in verse 43. So we got John 7, Luke 7, Matthew 7. It's very easy to remember some of these passages. But Jesus told a man in that passage, Luke chapter 7 verse 43, thou hast rightly judged. See, there's what we should be doing. We should rightly judge what is taking place. To others, in Luke chapter 12, Jesus says, why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right? So constantly throughout the Scriptures the Apostle Paul did the same thing. He said, I speak as to wise men, Judge ye what I say." He told the faithful Bereans, commended them in the book of Acts for going back to the Word of God to make sure that the things that were said were true. And so the Scripture constantly tells us that we should be judging. We should just be judging by the standard and by the attitude that is given to us in God's Word. Let me say this. The worst thing that is taking place in the Church today is not too much judging, like those on some of these disgruntled Christians. And some of these people of the world would say, you know, this is the big problem in the church. You see a lot of books now coming out like this, you know, books about my problems not with Christianity, but with Christians, that type of title to it. They believe the worst problem in the church today is that Christians are judging. I would say the exact opposite is the worst problem in the church today. The problem is that Christians are not judging the way that they should be judging. We should be judging according to the Word of God. We should be hearing Christ's admonition to judge, but judge righteous judgment. That's what the Scripture tells us that we should be doing. And because we're not doing that, we've lost the ability to discern. We should bring every message. Every man, every proposed methodology, every movement that comes down the pike should be judged according to the Word of God. Well, remember this, the Lord Jesus Christ said, He said, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. We'll see you next time right here on Knowing the Truth. You've been listening to Knowing the Truth with Pastor Kevin Bowling. Knowing the Truth is the outreach ministry of the Mountain Bridge Bible Fellowship located on Highway 25 in Traveler's Rest. For more information about the church and radio ministry, visit us on the web at knowingthetruth.org. The opinions expressed on today's program are those of the announcers, their guests, and callers, and do not necessarily represent those of the staff and management of his radio network, the Radio Training Network, or Clear Channel Communications. Life Changing Teaching and Talk for the Carolinas in Georgia. Christian Talk 660. WLFJ Greenville Spartanburg Anderson.