Matthew 7:1“Do not judge so that you will not be judged. “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. “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. “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

It is easy to turn the demand for perfection into hypocrisy or into something twisted and warped, and he comes now to other ways of twisting the heart of the issue.

To pursue holiness has the danger of hypocrisy attached to it.

The danger of being judgmental.

You can see how this danger would arise. Here is the challenge to be perfect, to be holy, to be pure, and as I strive and seek to discipline myself, it becomes very easy to look down my long nose at all the lesser beings who really haven’t caught the vision that I have caught, and they aren’t trying the way I’m trying. They haven’t beaten off the temptations I’ve beaten off this week.

Our very appeal to be perfect can pull us back into the nasty position where we’re just being judgmental. Against this Jesus says, “Do not judge.”

We will look first at what this does not mean, but what many people take it to mean.

It does not mean that we are to be undiscerning blobs who venture no opinions about right and wrong under any circumstances. Do we say nothing about the right and wrong of Hitler? Are we to say nothing about the right and wrong of the slave trade of the last century? Are we to say nothing about the millions of people massacred under Stalin? Are we supposed to say, “Judge not that you be not judged”? Is that what is meant?

If we look ahead, In the sixth verse, Jesus goes on to say, “Do not give dogs what is sacred.” As soon as you start calling people dogs, you’re being fairly judgmental. Then a few verses later, verses 15–16, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them.”

Here we see not only condemnation but a means of testing to see who is a false prophet and who is not In 1 Corinthians 5, the apostle insists that the church there is not exercising sufficient discipline. There is a man in the church who is sleeping with his stepmother, and he hasn’t been disciplined.

He says, I am not there but, I’ve already condemned him. I’ve already judged him, and I’ve sentenced him to be turned over to Satan.” That’s very strong judgment. So this verse is not to be used to eliminate the necessity of discipline in the church.

He says in Galatians 1:8–9, “If even we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!”

In the area of truth and falsehood, the early church had no tolerance. None. If it’s true, it’s true. If it’s false, it’s false, and there’s no point trying to pretend you can gloss it all over by some easy statement about judging.

In Philippians 3 “Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh.” Here there is a reference to people within the church’s compass who are nevertheless leading people in the church astray, and again judgment is being exercised.

John 4 he writes, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” Here again there is an invitation to judge, to test, to assess.

Again in John 7:24, Jesus himself says, “Judge righteous judgment.” It means here, “Do not be judgmental. Do not be hyper-critical. Do not be condemnatory.”

“Do not be judgmental.” Within this context, the injunction given here by the Master is very powerful. So you come home from church. Having sorted most things out, they proceed to have roast preacher for lunch. “I don’t judge. Mind you, since the Master said, ‘By their fruits you shall know them,’ sometimes I’m a fruit inspector, but I don’t judge.”

If we’re not careful, we who are Christians can become very negative, hyper-critical, very glib in our denunciation and rejection of everybody and anybody, probably because we’re trying to protect our own ego. I’m just coming to the place where I have some opinions of my own, and if I assert my own loudly enough.… Well, I can be assured that I’m right if I just put the other person down.

Maybe we who are Christian students have special difficulty in this respect, because the Christian student who really does know that he belongs to the Lord, he’s not only sorting himself out in terms of his own ideas, but he is developing his own Christian worldview, his own Christian perspective, and he might belong to this particular party or that particular movement and assess everybody else as just not quite up to snuff.

“Do not be judgmental or God will condemn you. Do not be judgmental or else you will be judged in the same way.” You will be condemned by God himself. In either case, the injunction is very searching.

This too gives us a theological justification. “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” The point is not that we should be moderate in our judging in order that others will be moderate toward us, but rather that we should completely abolish judgmental attitudes.

This is a picking up again of the theme in chapter 5, verse 7, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy,” and picked up again by the Lord Jesus in chapter 6, verses 14–15: “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” “In the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

The classic example in the Bible is probably 2 Samuel 12:1–7. King David has stolen another man’s wife, along with many other sins. The prophet Nathan enters and tells David, in effect, a sob story about a poor farmer who had one tiny little lamb and a nasty big rich farmer who had a whole flock of sheep.. David’s indignation rises, “Who is he? He shall certainly be tried for this.” Nathan says, “Thou art the man, O king.”

David was judgmental toward this other brother, toward this other person, but he had done, in principle, something that was the same and, in a sense, something that was much worse. He didn’t see it until it was pointed out to him. The rabbis said that God had two measures by which he measured men, and it is possible that Jesus is referring to that common belief at the end of verse 2. “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

The two measures in rabbinic thought were the measure of mercy and the measure of justice. How, then, are we to look on a liar? We come across a liar. How do we look upon him? If we measure him by the standard of justice, we will be very critical, very condemnatory. On the other hand, if that same standard is applied to us, how do we fare?

Do we really want the standards of God’s justice to be applied to us with the same measure? Jesus’ theological justification of the principle, “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you,” is one that demands holiness on our part but a merciful attitude toward others.

It is not that we look on the liar or the adulterer or any other sinner and say, “Well, it just doesn’t matter.” Rather, we look on him with compassion, so when we confront, we have to say, “There but for the grace of God go I. God be merciful to me if I think like that.”

Jesus the Master gives an example.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

This speck of sawdust, In Greek it’s one word for a tiny piece of dried wood or straw. The word here translated plank perhaps is better translated log, a big chunk of wood. Obviously, the Lord is speaking hyperbolically.

They are hypocrites at spiritual discernment, and spiritual ministry. They think they are going to help the other person with his problems when their own problems preclude them from helping anybody.

“You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Christians must keep themselves holy. They must remove every trace of hypocrisy. They must see clearly. They must apply the most rigorous standards to their own conduct, and then they will confront other men with their sins and their problems, but they will do it without a judgmental attitude. It is very dangerous to be undiscriminating.

“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.” You can see also how this danger arises. A person who has been told to love neighbors as themselves, to love even his own enemies, a person who has been told to be perfect, a person who has been told to love people the way God loves the unjust.

This person might become so undiscriminating, so wishy-washy, he sees all men in the same way, and there is a sense in which that is wrong. So after warning against judgmentalism, Jesus warns against being undiscriminating. Notice, nevertheless, that he has reserved only one verse for this warning and five verses for the other. I suspect we are far more in need of the five about judgmentalism than the one about being undiscriminating. Nevertheless, this is the opposite danger.

It is giving what is holy to the persistently irresponsible, unappreciative, and vicious.

Like feeding bears, don’t. You promise them something, and you cast what is valuable before them, but they just turn and tear you to shreds. Now Jesus is saying, in effect, “Do not give what is holy to the persistently vicious and irresponsible.”

Paul in Acts 18: 5–6. “When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. But when the Jews opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, ‘Your blood be on your own heads! I am clear of my responsibility. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.’ ”

Titus 3:10–11: “Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him. You may be sure that such a man is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.”

Look at how patient Jesus is with Thomas and his doubts in John 20 or with bringing Peter back in John 21, but for Herod Antipas (who had often been warned, according to Mark 6:20), Jesus had no words to speak in Luke 23. In other words, this principle means that we are to be careful how we share holy things. We are to be careful with our holy things, and they are not to be cast around indiscriminately but thoughtfully, carefully, responsibly, strategically.

Don’t judge but be discerning!