If you would, turn in your Bible to Matthew chapter seven. Matthew chapter seven, we'll be trying to look at verses one through five. Our Lord says, judge not that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged, and with what measure you meet, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considereth not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the mote out of thine eye, and behold the beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye. Then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the moat out of thy brother's eye. Let's pray. Our Father, as we come to your word one more time, we beg for your grace and your strength and your power to speak and to preach your gospel. Give us all the ability to understand and to comprehend the things of your word. Speak to our hearts, open up our eyes that we may see. Because we like the beam, we have so many beams in our eyes that we cannot clearly see. It's blinded our eyes. Take these things away. Help us to rest in you and your perfect righteousness is our only hope. May you be honored and exalted today, and we ask this in your name, amen. In this sermon, Matthew chapters five through chapter seven, our Lord draws a distinct, clear difference between what is real and what is not. He said, except your righteousness succeed that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. We need a righteousness. We saw last week, when should you seek? You should seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all other things will be added unto you. The world seeks everything else. God makes a difference. He said, they'll know in Egypt that I put a difference between my people and the people of this world, and there is a difference. His people, in chapter five, he showed us the character of his people and the necessity of a holiness that he gives. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are they that mourn. Blessed are they shall be comforted. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Who's he describing? He's describing believers. He's not describing how a person is converted. He's describing those who are already converted. In chapter six, he shows us the character and the characteristics of true worship and the necessity of faith. He talked about almsgiving. He talked about fasting. He talked about giving and repentance and these things. But here in chapter seven, he brings the sermon home to all who heard him and all who hear him today. by making general but pointed exhortations and warnings that we need to be reminded of each day. He's teaching us how to deal with each other and how to deal with sinners. That's something we have to be instructed. We know we have a new nature, but we have to be taught and we have to be reminded. of this many times. He said here, judge not that ye be not judged. This is speaking to all of us. We know men misquote this verse. They love to quote this verse. They say if you show any discernment or judge anything, they say, you know what the Bible says, judge not that ye be not judged. You judge things every day. He's given us a spirit of discernment. He said, try the spirits, whether they of God. On over in chapter seven, he said, beware of false prophets. Well, how do you know what a false prophet is if you don't judge him? We won't get to it this week, but in verse six, he talks about dogs and swine. Well, how do we know who a dog is? He describes them, and swine. He's making reference to people, and there is a distinction. He calls his people sheep, and he calls the other ones that he's just left alone, goats. Goats. The Pharisees and scribes of our Lord's day, they were very, very haughty, very proud, and very judgmental. He said, our Lord said, you strain it a gnat, but swallow a camel. Something so small, but something bigger than all, and they don't even bother them. They misjudge things. They always misjudged our Lord. They said, why don't your disciples wash their hands before they eat? We saw your disciples walking through the cornfield on the Sabbath day, and they were eating corn on the Sabbath day. Just nitpicking, just always finding fault, always judging someone else. Who has the right to judge only one? Last time I read in this book, it said all judgment was committed into his hands. He judges, he discerns a man's thought. As I've already mentioned, many people who never read the Word of God, never read it, love to quote this chapter, first part of this chapter, verse one, judge not, yet to be not judged. What is our Lord saying to us? What's he saying here? We ought never to exercise judgment and condemning anything in and of ourselves because we can't see. It's just like we don't know the difference between the tares and the wheat. If it was left up to us, we would pull the wheat up. It's like when we read about lots, the first thing comes to our mind, if it was not for the New Testament, We would judge that he was a lost man. Because how could a believer live in Sodom? Well, when God gives you sight to believe and he gives you faith to believe, you'll understand how a lost man could live there. He vexed his righteous soul. He wasn't happy about it, but he lived there. But we would have judged him and said he was an unbeliever. What our Lord is teaching us. is the necessity of spiritual discernment. Not just first thing we think when we think of that, first thing pops to our mind is we think about spiritual discernment about somebody else. But no, the first thing he's dealing with is spiritual discernment about ourself. Can we discern? No one knows his heart. You know, you hear people say, well, if I know my heart, well, I'm telling you this, you don't know your heart. We don't, any of us, know the extent of how far we would go if we were left to ourselves. Peter thought he knew. Peter thought he knew. Try the spirits, beware of false prophets. How do you beware, how do you judge false prophets? We judge what they say and also what they don't say. Jim pointed it out, and I received one, and most everybody probably got this thing in the mail. Somebody had spent some money on it. It was like, you know, had a road on it, and it's supposed to be, you know, the highway, you know, this is the road to heaven. Does your road lead to heaven? You know, and it goes down through there, and they take you through the Romans road, and then, as Jim pointed out, they say, would you accept Jesus as your personal savior? That's nowhere in this book. He's not up for acceptance, he's not up for your vote. He's Lord. And they spend all this money on this unit because they're trying to talk people, they said just muster up as much faith as you can. Just as much, muster up as much as you can and that's enough. You cannot believe. You can't believe, I'm just telling you. Without grace of God, you can't believe. You don't want to believe, and you will never believe. But he enables you to believe. Faith is a gift of God. You can try to muster it all you want to. All you get is mustard. But you say, what am I doing? You discern by what they wrote, it's not true. And we judge that it's not true. What our Lord is teaching here is a condemning, fault-finding spirit. Every one of us has faults. Every one of us has sins. Every one of us. There's not a one of us in here. If you look at us long enough and are around us long enough, you will see it, because it's there. what he's talking about being quick to pass judgment upon someone. We're quick to magnify the faults of others and fail to see the faults of our own. Every one of us has faults. Every one of us can see the other one's faults, but none of us can see, apart from grace, our own faults. Here was David, I'll show you an example of this as a believer. David committed adultery, and to try to cover that up, he has her husband killed in battle. Deliberately, and as we would call it, premeditated murder. You imagine living with that? And the Lord leaves him in that state for a year. And finally, the Lord sends a prophet to him, those that he loves, he rebukes and chastens. And he told him a story about a man who had one little lamb. They played with that little lamb like it was one of the children of the family, and they loved it and nursed it, that little lamb. And here's a big old king over here, he has a bunch of lambs. But then a visitor comes to his house one day, instead of taking one of his lambs and sacrificing it and feeding his guest, he goes over here and gets this one little lamb, and sacrifices that little lamb to his own lust. And David's so mad, David said, that man ought to die. And then the preacher looks at David and said, David, I'm talking about you. You're the man. See, he was willing awful quick, wasn't he, to judge someone else and to say, that man ought to die. And see, it's like he was so blind, he could not see his own faults. That was the beam that was in his eye. He couldn't see. You mean he couldn't see that? We can't see either. We thought we can't see it. Why didn't I see that? Why didn't I see that? Faith works by love. This teaches us not to be rash and nitpickers. How are we to deal with each other? With patience, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another. I've seen families that couldn't get along. I've seen church members, so-called, couldn't get along. Why? Won't forgive. Won't forgive. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 13 verse four. Charity suffereth long and is kind. Charity envieth not, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemingly, seeketh not her own, her own rights, her own ways, is not easily provoked. Why do we get provoked? Because somebody hurt our feelings. Do you know what they said? Not easily provoked. Thinketh no evil. Rejoice is not in iniquity, but rejoice is in the truth. We don't even rejoice when someone falls. But rejoice in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. That is Christ and God enabling his people to endure it. Another time, the same David. He's walking along one day, and there's a man up on the ridge. And it's untelling what he's calling David. It's untelling the words he's using. He said he cursed David. He could have said, you adulterer. You murderer. You know what one of David's men said? You just let me pull my sword out, and I will cut that man's head off. And David said, leave him alone. The Lord bid him to curse me. And the Lord eventually, under King Solomon, took care of that man. He did. We should never put ourselves in the place of God sitting in judgment over our brethren, acting as though we have the ability and right to condemn anyone. Turn to Romans chapter 14. Verse four, who art thou that judgeth another man's servant? To his own master he standeth or falleth, yet he shall be holding up, and the only reason we can be holding up is for God is able to make him stand. That's his servant. We stand or he can't allow us to fall. We are quick to point the faults of others. We're quick to see the moat in our brother's eye. Like I said, it's easy for us to see their faults and not see our own. And then, if we're not careful, we can talk to others about the faults of others. In Leviticus 19.16, Thou shall not go up and down as a tailbearer among thy people, neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbor. I am the Lord. Give you an example. Moses married an Ethiopian woman. Most people would have found fault with that. Moses' sister did. Miriam, you know what happened to Miriam? God smote her with leprosy. It was not for her to judge her brother. Love covers a multitude of sin. I've had people tell me things and I said, I just wished I had not known that. You cannot un-ring that bell. You cannot un-know it. When Noah and his three sons and his family came off the ark, Noah made him a vineyard. And he made him some wine. And it was fermented. Because he got drunk. If you was one of only eight people left upon the earth, you might have took a swig or two. But didn't it work so quick to condemn? Point that out to Moses. And Ham, one of Moses' sons, saw him. And you know the first thing he did? Went and told his brothers. I knew there was nothing to daddy's religion and daddy's God. He's laying over there drunk. You want to go see it? You know what them boys did? They put it like a blanket on their two backs and they walked back to their daddy and throwed that blanket over their daddy. Love covered a multitude of sin. Ham wanted to expose it. He revealed his nature. What right did he have to point a finger at his father? There's another time David came to Abimelech. David was fleeing from Saul, and he begged for bread and asked for a sword, and he, the priest, gave him the sword of Goliath. And there was a man there who just happened to be a friend of King Saul named Doeg the Edomite. Now, who were the Edomites come from? They are the descendants of Esau. And you know what he runs and tells Saul? He said, that priest over there's helping David. And they were 85 priests, and that man told a lie, and he took the truth and twisted it around, and 85 priests were killed over what one man said. Be careful how great a matter a little fire kindles. We see all them wildfires on TV. You know how they got started? With a little spark. One spark can burn a whole house down. One spark can destroy a whole family. One spark can destroy a whole church. One spark. One spark. And it begins to flame. And it begins to burn. Judge not that we be not judged. And he gives us a reason why we should not judge. Most think this means that if we're not so quick to judge, that others will not judge us. That's not the case. Look how they judged our Lord. They were always judging him. They said, you're a Samaritan. You do miracles, you do miracles. We will give you that much, but you do it through Beelzebub, the prince of flies. That's why you do it. This man's a blasphemer. That's who he is. No, he was not, and he never opened his mouth. God help us to not worry what other people think. You know what? You will be judged. They'll judge you. They will find fault with you. They love to. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4, 3, but with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of man's judgment. You know what some of them were saying? He's not an apostle. I don't believe what he said. And they judged him, and he said he got to the point where they gonna judge me anyway. But the Lord knew his heart, the Lord called him. Yea, I judge not my own self. What liberty we have in Christ. He's delivered us from the bondage of what men would say. They're going to sink it anyway. And it just doesn't matter. And we have to come to that point. Because if we don't, you know how we would defend ourselves? We'll try to make someone else look bad. We want the spotlight off us. No one likes to be judged. No one likes to be criticized. No one does. You rebuke a righteous man and he'll love you. Every one of us at times, he said, he told Timothy to preach the word, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering. Show me what's in me. Show me. Show me that pride. Show me that arrogance. Show me that nitpicking spirit. Show me. And he will. He does. Rebuke a righteous man. He'll love you. He'll thank you. Only grace can do that. Only grace would take that. You want an example of this? Paul's at, I mean, Peter's at Galatia. And there's some Gentiles there, and this is the transition period when God is showing mercy to the Gentiles, and most Jews won't have anything to do with them old Gentile dogs. Peter's eating with them and fellowshipping with them, and because we're saved by grace through faith and not of ourself, it's a gift of God, and then here comes these men from Jerusalem. And Peter, in his mind, he says, what will these people think? How will they judge me? How are they going to judge me eating with these bunch of Gentiles? And he gets up and walks over, and now he's going to sit down at the table with these Jews. And Barnabas watches Peter. He looks up to Peter, whatever Peter does. He gets up and walks over with Peter. And Paul's standing there looking at this, and he said, there's somebody right here. I thought we were saved by grace. I thought there's neither Jew nor Greek, bonded or free. And he says, Paul, or Peter, you're to be blamed. By your actions, you're saying that we're saved by works, not by grace. Did he rebuke that man? He sure did. You know why? He needed it. But they were still friends. I think he loved him for it. That's what the scripture said, rebuke a righteous man and he'll love you. We'll try to get to it next week. Try casting pearls before a sign and you see what happens then. They won't love you, they'll turn on you. Turn on you. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of the enemy are deceitful. No matter of our judgment of others, God's judgment is according to truth. Turn with me to Romans chapter two, verse two. He is his righteous judgment. He is his true judgment. Romans 2.2, but we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth, against them that commit such things. Down in verse 11, there is no respect to persons with God. He judges them righteously. They don't get off because of who they knew or what they knew. There's no respect to persons. I've had to go to court a couple times over things, and I remember, I even went to school with this boy, and he was driving drunk, and he run right into the side of my van, he backed up and just left. This was on Friday evening. And I don't know how I'm gonna fix my van, I don't have collision insurance on it, and I worry all weekend, how am I gonna have something for us to drive? And the law knew it, knew the guy, knew he was drunk, and waited to go to his house till the next day till he sobered up. But we finally went to court, and they tried to say, his daddy's a good daddy, his mama's a good mama, his uncle's a dentist, his father's, his uncle's a doctor, whatever. Like that mean anything? Not in God's court. Said, well, I was raised in religion. I know this, I've done that. Every mouth's gonna be stopped. Now the world's gonna be guilty before God. How will he judge his people? Righteously. He judged us in his son. Here in verses three and four. Let me read verse two. For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged. And with what measure you meet, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye? Now you behold it, but you don't consider the beam that is in thine own eye. How wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the mote out of thine eye, and behold, a beam is in thine own eye. All you can consider is the mote. It would be just like a curtain hose. It's a little speck of dust. You can get just a little speck in you. I got one the other day and I said, went to run in the sand. I said, Sam, would you get that out of my eye? I can't see it. I can't see the moat. I couldn't even see it in the mirror. Doesn't that describe us? She could see it. She could get it out, but I can't get it out myself. But all we want to do is, oh, I see your moat, Danny. but the whole time I've got not only a speck of dust, I'd have like a whole big tube of four in my eye compared to the little speck, the moat to the beam. And we think we can get the moat out. You can't see clearly. I don't wanna get ahead of myself, but if somebody touches my eye, which is one of the most serious, I mean, Sensitive parts of my body, I don't want just anybody touching it. I remember one time I worked in a cotton mill. I was blowing off a machine and that cotton had oil on it and it hit my eye and I could not get it off and you're talking about driving you crazy. You know what they did? They put drops in my eye and numbed it and took that out and I was so glad when they got it out. We get motes spiritually. You know what it is? It's irritating. You can think about it, just dwell on it. And we see it. We see these things. What our Lord is saying that these sins have a blinding influence. We judge things. He's dealing with the eye. We judge things by what we see. We done dealt with the eye in the last chapter. If thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. How great is that darkness? But if the light that is in thee be light, how great is that light that you see? What does that mean? You understand. It's like the Ethiopian eunuch, he was reading the scriptures and Philip asked him, he said, do you understand? How can I except somebody explain it to me? He couldn't see. What we also see here is there is degrees of sin, as it appears from the moat and the beam. Our Lord charged the scribes and the Pharisee with straining at an ant and swallowing a camel. But upon what ground do we set ourselves up to pull out the moat? Out of our brother's eye. He said you don't even take time to consider The I has to do with the understanding and discernment. Many times we're quick to jump to conclusion by someone's actions. Someone said in these verses, what this sets forth is someone who is on the lookout for someone's faults. Just watch it. I'll watch you. I'll see what you're doing. I see what you're doing. I see y'all nodding your heads. I see y'all going to sleep. You see what I'm saying? I've been right where you are. I've been there and I've seen the times it was all I could do to keep my eyes open. I'm not making a lot of it. I was just wore out. Always looking for faults. Why do you beholdest thou the moat in thy brother's eye? He does it in form of a question. Why do you behold the moat that is in thy brother's eye? Someone said the mote in your brother's eye can only be detected by one who's watching very closely and is very close to see it. What right do we have to complain in a tidy mote in someone else's eye when we have a beam in our own eye? In verse five, thou hypocrites. You've heard me say what a hypocrite is, somebody that pretends, somebody that play acts. We're not acting. We're not trying to be something that we're not. We're not trying to make light of sin. This is just who we are. I like the song. I think it was John Wesley. False and full of sin I am. In the title of that song is Jesus, lover of my soul. Let me to his bosom ply. The text not only speaks of negative judgment, but it also speaks of the way that we are to deal with our brother and sister. I've told, spent a lot of time, 30 minutes on what we shouldn't do. But how are we to deal with brothers and sisters? Arthur Pink said, to be preserved from sinning is good, but to be impelled, encouraged into practical holiness is far better. If all I ever did was point out your moats, how would you get rid of the moats? We all have them. He said, it's not sufficient for the branches of the vine to be kept free from blight and pest. The vine must produce fruit. Part of the verse says, be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good. He not only condemns the evil habit of judging others, but he gives us instruction how we should deal with those who need help. Is anybody here need help? We all do. Eternity of Galatians six verse one. Brethren, believers, if any man be overtaken in a fault. Ye which are spiritual, that doesn't mean that we're claimed to be holier than anybody else, is someone that's been broken, someone that's been humbled, someone knows what it's like to be overtaken in a fault. Restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. I pray the Lord would apply that to our heart. Restore such a one in the spirit of meekness. James chapter five, verse 19. If any of you do err from the truth and one convert him, he's already a believer. He's not talking about converting him from his sin. He's talking about restoring him. What did he tell Peter when Peter sinned? Before Peter sinned, he said, you're gonna deny me three times. But when thou art converted, when thou art brought back, restore my soul, strengthen the brethren. And he did. That's the spiritual man. That's the man that was humbled. If any of you do err from the truth and one convert him, let him know that he which covereth The sinner converteth the sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sin. True love is faithful. It sets aside our own feelings to promote the well-being of someone else. He says first, what's the first thing? Get rid of the beam in your own eye. What does that mean, preacher? It means to be faithful and just be honest when you're dealing with the Lord. Quit trying to pretend, trying to act religious, and just be honest. Lord, I struggle with these things. What can the beam represent? It can represent hypocrisy, pride, Arrogancy? We all had trouble with it. Peter said, everybody else may leave you, Lord. Everybody else, all the rest of me, but I won't. Not me, not me. I'm Peter, I'm the rock. But he did. Remember this, you don't hold yourself, he holds you. One reason we are so slow to casting the beam out of our own eye is that we fail to perceive it. We can't see it as it is. When we see sin as sin. Paul said that I now know the exceeding sinfulness of sin. We talk about hypocrisy and pride. You think, what right do we have to be proud about anything? We don't. When we see it as it is, we'll be like Job. I hate myself. Peter said, apart from me, I'm a sinful man. Paul said, oh wretched man that I am. In verse three where it says considereth not, this means to perceive. This has reference to an act of giving serious consideration and prolonged meditation upon the do considerate. Considereth not the beam that is in an anona. What did we say a couple of weeks ago? Consider what? The lilies of the field. Consider what? The fowls of the air. It's not you just see it. You take time to consider it. You think about it. And you see who we are. by nature. Apart from grace, we look down upon others. We're like the church in Laodicea, Revelation 3.17, because thou sayest, I am rich, increased with goods, and heeded nothing. And no, it's not that they aren't wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. These are spiritual things. They thought they had a need. If nothing, do you have any needs? I got a need. It's called a beam in my eye. And you got moats. We think we have need in this. I know this, we need thee every hour, every hour we need thee. Unless I can get out, get this beam out of my own eye, how in the world am I going to see to get the mote out of someone else's eye? If someone's gonna mess with my eye, I want it to be someone who has some compassion. And he has. I remember my daddy, when I was just a boy, always carried a handkerchief with him. It probably wasn't the cleanest thing, because we'd been out working. I'd been cutting wood all day, and I got a piece of shaving or something in my eye, and I remember my daddy, he took it and he rolled it up like a pencil. And he stuck it, I'll never forget it. He took that thing in and he got it down. Let me tell you, our Lord knows exactly how to get those things out of our eyes. so I can see and we can see clearly. Let me give you some assigned reading. He told Peter, he said, when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. You want some encouragement? Go and read 1 and 2 Peter. Notice how many times he exhorts us. God resists the proud but he gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due season. The devil walks about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. And he encouraged us. Strengthen our brethren. He said, let me find a verse. First cast out the beam out of thine eye, then thou shalt see what? Clearly, to cast the mote out of thy brother's eye. We see clearly. We know we see through a glass darkly. But oh, to have the scales taken from our eyes and we see. You want to see, Kurt? You're a sinner just like I am. that we're all in need and we all need each other. It is humbling for us to trust someone to get the moat. We may be the one with the moat. For me to trust him, to touch my eye, and get the moat, and he's, what's he doing? He wants to get the moat out. You see, the moat, it's not as big as the beam, but it sure is irritating. Does it not irritate you when you can't see? Most of the time, you're going, you know what, you don't even want to blink your eye, you just walk around with one eye shut. Let me give you two verses and we'll close. Proverbs 13, 18, poverty and shame shall be to him that refuses instruction, but he that regardeth reproof shall be honored. He refuses, you're not touching my eye. I don't trust you for a second. Refuses help. Then Proverbs 15, 32, he that refuses instruction despises his own soul. But he that heareth reproof getteth understanding. You know what reproof is, is the Lord teaching his children. And I hope he's taught us this morning.