Christians Should Avoid Judging and Be Merciful

Good evening. Good to see everyone out this evening. I appreciate you being here. It’s been a while since I’ve had an opportunity to study God’s Word with you. Like Scott said this morning, I’m not the regular preacher. I’m not a professional preacher or teacher. I’m just a person trying to grow in the knowledge of the Lord by studying His Word in the best way that I can.

Sometimes I fail at that miserably. But we just keep going and keep trying. You know, you’d think like an old goat like myself would have mastered the principles that the Bible lays out for us by now, but I still have a long way to go. You know, that reminds me of a story I heard. There was a young couple who had invited their preacher over to have supper with them one evening. And while the man and his wife were in the kitchen preparing the meal, the preacher asked their young son what they were going to have for supper that evening. And the young boy replied, goat. And the preacher said, goat, are you sure about that? And he said, yes, sir. I heard my father tell my mother this morning that we were having that old goat for dinner, and today was as good a day as any.

You know, kids say the funniest thing sometimes. There was a Bible teacher who, he was just wondering where his students were at in their thinking process. And so he had them write a letter to their preacher and either ask him a question or just say what was on his mind.

And so just a couple here real quick that they had. And this first one’s from a little boy named Arnold, age eight. He says, Dear Preacher, I know that God loves everybody, but he has never met my sister. Here’s another one. Dear Preacher, I think a lot more people would come to church if you moved it to Disneyland.

A little girl, age nine. Dear Preacher, my father says I need to learn the Ten Commandments, but I don’t think I want to because we already have enough rules in my house. You know, it sounds just like kids, don’t it? And here, this last one’s my favorite. Ralph, age 11, he says, Dear Preacher, I really loved your sermon on Sunday, especially when it was finished.

But anyway, I told those little things because I don’t think we laugh enough, you know, really. You can let life get to you and get depressed and all the things that can happen. And laughter is such a good remedy to help you overcome things. But anyway, enough of that stuff. And the what really I really don’t have a title for my lesson, but what it’s about really is judgment and mercy.

And so we’re going to look at some of the things the Bible says about those subjects. I don’t know just how many people in the world actually think about the fact that the way that they treat other people in life will have a bearing one day on how God judges them on judgment day.

You know, and I would like to start with a few verses speaking of judgment day and just look at a couple of the things that God says he’s going to hold each and every one of us accountable for. So if you would, pick up your Bibles and turn with me as we look at these verses. And I say that because there’s power in God’s Word. You know, I believe that if you’re reading God’s Word yourself, individually, God speaks to you that way.

And there’s no power in my words, you know, but God’s Word is powerful. He spoke the whole universe into existence. You know, that’s the type of power that he has in his words. So if you would, the first one I would like for us to look at is in Matthew chapter 12, verse 36.

Now, these are things aren’t anything new. You’ve all heard lessons on all of these things before. If I was preaching something new to you, you’d probably have to be weary of that because there’s really nothing new that we can gain from the Bible, just things that we don’t know personally. But anyway, Matthew 12 and 36, it says, And I say to you that every careless word that men shall speak, they shall render account for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

So here we can see that the things that we say, we’re going to be held accountable for that, whether it’s good or bad. How many times in your daily life do you run into someone, or it may be coming out of your own mouth, that you hear people just saying careless things seemingly without regard for who’s listening or for what they’re saying.

They’re just talking. You know, that’s really scary if you think about it. I know as I look back in my life, all the things that I may have said, either out of anger or just carelessness or stupidity or whatever, that one day I’m going to have to give account for that.

Another one is in Romans chapter 14, verse 12, where he says, so then each of us shall give account of himself to God. Now, we’re going to be looking at that a little more closely later in my lesson. But one more in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 10. 2 Corinthians 5 and 10, it says, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

As I mentioned earlier, my lesson really is not about judgment day, but that’s going to play a part in what we’re talking about this morning. But let’s begin our study on our subject. If you would turn to Matthew chapter 7, verses 1 and 2. Matthew chapter 7, verse 1 and 2. And here in this text, Jesus is giving the Sermon on the Mount. Perhaps many people say it’s the greatest sermon that ever was preached. But in verse one, he says, do not judge lest you be judged for in the way that you judge, you will be judged.

And by your standard of measure, it will be measured back to you. Now, I’ve heard this verse or these verses explained several different ways. Some people think that he’s talking about in this life. You know, it’s going to, the way you judge people, you’re going to be judged. And the way that you treat people, it will be, you know, you’ll be treated. I really don’t take that view because I just don’t see life being that fair.

I take it as this is talking about the way that we treat people is the way God’s going to treat us come judgment day. Now, there’s a lot of different factors involved when we face judgment. And, of course, the first thing you need to do is you need to be a Christian. You know, as long as you’re in Christ, we have no fear of judgment, really. As long as we’re being faithful to God, judgment day shouldn’t be a day that we fear. It really should be something that we look forward to. But for people not in Christ, it’s going to be a totally different day.

But let’s look back at this verse just a little closer. To start off with, he says, do not judge and stop. Let’s just stop right there. Do not judge. He really doesn’t need to tell us any more than that, does he? Do not judge. That sounds to me like a commandment. You know, if we look back in the Old Testament, when he was given the Ten Commandments, the same type of language was used. Do not steal. Do not kill. Do not have any other God besides me. Do not commit murder. Do not commit adultery. You know, but being the all-knowing God that he is, and he knows how we as people are, he goes a little bit farther, and he tells us that if we do judge people anyway, even after he just said, do not judge, he explains that there will be consequences for that.

And what are those consequences? Well, he says that in the way we judge other people, then that is how we are going to be judged. Have you ever heard the saying that what goes around comes around? You know, or the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The same type of principle is what he’s telling us here. You know, there’s a difference between having an opinion on something and making a judgment or having a judgment on something or someone.

And I believe that Jesus is telling us here, let’s leave the judging up to Him. Because there’s going to come a day when He’s going to do that. He’s going to judge every single person. Let’s look back at the book of Romans again. Romans chapter 14, verses 10 through 13. And he talks a little bit more about judging. He says, but you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me. And every tongue shall give praise to God. So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God. Therefore, let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this, not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in the brother’s way.

Again, Jesus says, do not judge. And yet, you know, we continue to do that. Jesus isn’t telling us we cannot have opinions about people or about matters. But it’s not in our power to be judge, jury, and executioner of people.

He’s going to take care of that at the proper time. And you know, as I was reading this, he says, Why do you regard your brother with contempt? You know, so I looked up that word contempt, and it says the feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn.

And this next part of the definition is something I really think hits it right on the head. He said it’s disregard for something that should be taken into account. You know, a lot of times when we make judgments on people, like it says here in the definition, we consider them, well, they’re not worth our time or they’re beneath our consideration. You know, God takes every person into account. God believes that everybody, he wants everybody to be saved. You know, sometimes we miss that point. That everybody is valuable. You know, you remember the story of Jonah and Nineveh? When God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, this real wicked city where everybody was wicked there. And Jonah didn’t want to do it. He said, man, there’s no point in going over there. He didn’t consider those people like God did.

And when he finally came around and went and did what he was supposed to do, he ended up saving them all. You know, that just shows you how wrong we can be when we start making judgments upon people. So if we have to make a decision about someone or something, maybe we should think long and hard before saying or doing something that is out of line with what God wants us to do.

Maybe instead of judging someone and thinking someone isn’t worthy of consideration, maybe we should be trying to figure out a way that we could help that person. Or show that person, you know, what they’re doing wrong, maybe. And definitely don’t do anything to make it worse for them, you know. We shouldn’t form our opinions unfairly. We shouldn’t make judgments that are harsh. We shouldn’t judge someone falsely or unrighteously, you know. But like the Bible says, we shouldn’t judge anybody at all. That’s where we’d be the safest. Just don’t do those type of things. Have you ever caught yourself making an opinion or a judgment about someone strictly on the way they look or on the way they’re dressed? You know, I think we’re all probably guilty of that at times. You know, you look at somebody going, say you’re in Walmart, and you look at somebody and go, oh, boy, that’s not a good person.

Well, we shouldn’t say things like that, you know. Now, back to these old sayings. You remember the one, don’t judge a book by its cover? That’s exactly what he’s talking about here. You know, we shouldn’t be doing those type of things. And you know what? Jesus can judge people. You know, he did that all through the Bible. We see where Jesus would meet somebody and he would know just the right thing to say. And that’s because Jesus can look into your hearts and into your minds and know exactly who you are and what you need.

We don’t have that ability to do that. All we can see is what we see with our eyes, you know, and that’s not very much. The Bible tells us that if we really want to know what a person is like, that we can know them by their fruits.

And that’s in Matthew 7 and 20. In other words we can tell a lot about a person by the things that they do and I say we can judge about the things that they do because what a person has done is in the past you know you can’t change that we’ve all done things in our past that we’d like to forget we’ve all made mistakes And I really don’t think it’s fair to judge someone strictly on what they’ve done in the past because people can change.

God thinks people can change. God’s word can change people. We don’t need to forget that. We can’t escape the consequences, maybe, of things we’ve done in our past, you know. But the things that we do now is what counts. You know, the other night in our study on the book of Revelations, we got to talking about time.

About the timeline, basically, of what was going on in Revelation. But really, the only time that we have in this life is this very second. That’s the only time that you have in life. The past is gone. The future is not here yet. And we’re not even guaranteed a future. We don’t know if we’re going to be here an hour from now. So the only time that we have is here right now. And when we started this lesson, that’s already in the past. You know, we can’t change that. I believe there’s some place in the Bible, and I didn’t look it up, it says now is the day of salvation. That’s because now is the only time that matters. You know, this is when you can make a difference right now. You know, you can’t make a difference yesterday.

You can’t make a difference in the future because it hadn’t got here yet. But right now is the time to do things. You know, at times we want to go back and have a do-over, don’t we, in life. But we can’t do that. You know, what we’ve said and done is written in stone. You know, that can’t be changed. It can’t be erased. But what we can do is be more cautious about the things that we are saying and doing right now.

I read a saying the other day that I thought illustrated this very well. It said, you are what you have been. Who you will be is what you do right now. Let me ask you something. Do you think it’s right for us to go around judging people and looking at people with contempt?

You know, that’s not right. We shouldn’t do that. Turn, if you would, in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 18, verses 21 through 22. Matthew 18, 21 and 22. And here Peter is asking Jesus a very good and honest question. Then Peter came and he said to Jesus, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him?

Up to seven times? Jesus said to him, I don’t say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven. You know, and I don’t believe Jesus was saying, well, you can forgive somebody 490 times, but on that 491st time, boy, you can just let them have it. No, he was saying we should forgive someone as many times as it takes. As many times as they ask your forgiveness. There’s another passage that speaks of this, of judging and things that we’ve been talking about. In Luke chapter 6, verse 37 and 38. Do not judge and you will not be judged. And do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Pardon and you will be pardoned. Give and it will be given to you in good measure and pressed down and shaken together and running over.

They will pour into your lap. For by the standard of measure, it will be measured to you in return. You know, it’s so easy to point out the faults and the sins in others, isn’t it? And yet, it’s so hard to see in our own lives the things that we’re doing wrong.

You know, it’s funny how that works, isn’t it? You know, and perhaps one of the greatest examples of this can be found in John chapter 8, verses 1 through 11. It’s a story here that if you would, you can turn to that and read along with me.

But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives, and early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to him. And he sat down, and he began to teach. And the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery. And having set her in her midst, they said to him, Teacher, this woman has been caught in the adultery, the very act. Now, in the law of Moses commanded us to stone such a woman. What then do you say? And they were saying this and testing him in order that they might find grounds of accusing him.

But Jesus stooped down and with his finger, he wrote upon the ground. And when they persisted in asking him, he straightened up and said to them, He who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her. And when they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones. And he was left alone and the woman where she was in their midst. And straightening up, Jesus said to her, Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you? And she said, No one, Lord. And Jesus said, well, neither do I condemn you. Go your way. From now on, sin no more. You know, in some 2,000 years since that event, people really haven’t changed much, have they? People still are quick to point out others’ sins while forgetting that they too have sins of their own.

You know, another good passage to consider is Matthew 7, 3 through 4. And Jesus enlightens us a little more about this subject. And he says, and why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log or the beam 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 out the log of your own eye, and then you will see clearly and take the speck out of your brother’s eye. You know, there’s so many lessons that we can learn from the story of the adulterous woman.

But I want to go back and look at that a little more closely because the main point of my lesson is in that story there. The scribes and the pharisees had brought a woman to jesus who had been caught in the very act of adultery and under the mosaic law that sin brought the death penalty you know but let’s go back to the old testament and see just what really is said about that sin and one place we can find that is in the book of Leviticus chapter 20, verse 10. Leviticus chapter 20, verse 10. And there it says, if there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, or one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

You know, and notice one thing here about the Old Testament. A lot of the times there’s no mention of ever getting a second chance there. You do the sin that no opportunity to repent, you know, that it brought the death penalty.

But the scribes and the Pharisees, they didn’t mention the man at all, did they, when they came to Jesus? They weren’t really interested in justice anyway, though, is what the scriptures told. They were trying to catch Jesus somehow so that they could accuse him of doing something wrong. They were trying to find a way to accuse him. And Jesus knew what the law said. You know, he knew the law perfectly. He could probably quote you the whole Bible word for word. But even though the law said that the woman should be put to death, Jesus had mercy on the woman and he forgave her.

In this instant, mercy ruled over judgment. Was the woman guilty? No doubt. Did she deserve to die for what she had done according to the letter of the law? Yes. So why did Jesus not let the crowd stone her? One reason is because, and he mentioned it, we’ve all sinned, haven’t we?

We all deserve to be stoned because of our sins. But death isn’t what Jesus wants for us. Jesus wants us to have life. In this instance, mercy ruled over judgment. If we were all judged strictly by what the law says, none of us would make it to heaven.

Without God’s mercy, none of us would get there. And can you see the difference in the old law and the new law? In the old law, oftentimes there was no second chance. In the law of Christ, it’s built around forgiveness and mercy and love.

So if Christ is merciful and we are supposed to be like Christ, shouldn’t we be merciful to one another also? Luke 6 and 36 says, Be merciful just as your Father in heaven is merciful. But you may be asking yourself, What is mercy, really? You know, I looked up the definitions for those two because mercy and grace are really close, but there are some differences there in them. And you can look up, There’s a lot of different definitions, I can tell you, for mercy and grace. So I got a couple of them here. It says, mercy is God not punishing us as our sins deserve.

Grace is God blessing us despite the fact that we do not deserve it. You see, they’re really close there, aren’t they? But there’s a little difference. Mercy is deliverance from judgment. Grace is extending kindness to the unworthy. Mercy is compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or to harm.

One day, God is going to judge all of us. Would you want God to show you mercy on judgment day? I would. You know, I don’t know how I could get there without it. But wait a minute, you say. How do we know when to show someone mercy? You know, after all, when somebody does something wrong, shouldn’t they be made to pay for that somehow? Shouldn’t they receive some sort of punishment in order for justice to be served?

You know, as we mentioned a while ago, one of the reasons Jesus tells us not to judge people is because we don’t have the ability to look into that person’s mind and thoughts like he can. All we can see is what’s on the outside of someone. We can’t easily tell if someone is truly sorrow or repentant for something that they have done.

You know, but God can. That’s why we need to leave the judging of people up to God. Because whatever he says, we can be assured that it’s going to be just and righteous. You know, if you find yourself in a court of law in our country, there’s really no guarantee that you’re going to get justice. You should, but it doesn’t always happen like that, you know. Sometimes things just don’t work in your favor. Lawyers can turn things around to where, you know, A guilty person can go free and an innocent person might end up in jail. But when we stand before God on Judgment Day, He’s going to treat us fairly. You know, anything that He says is going to be right. You know, in the story of the adulterous woman, we aren’t told if the woman was repentant or not for what she had done.

But Jesus didn’t condemn her anyway. He just told her to go and sin no more. Jesus had mercy on her. But there’s another story that I think illustrates this even a little better than that. And that’s in the book of Matthew, chapter 18, verse 23 through 35.

If I can find my place here. It starts off, it says, For this reason, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a certain king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. And when he had begun to settle them, there was brought to him one who owed 10,000 talents.

But since he did not have the means to repay, his Lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and his children and all that he had, and repayment be made. The slave, therefore, falling down, prostrated himself before him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will repay you everything. And the lord of that slave felt compassion, and he released him and forgave him of the debt.

But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves, who owed him a hundred denarii, and he seized him, and he began to choke him, saying, Pay back what you owe. So his fellow slave fell down and began to entreat him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will repay you. But he was unwilling, however, and he went and threw him in prison until he should pay back all that he owed. So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their Lord all that had happened. And then summoning him, his Lord said to him, you wicked slave. I forgave you all that debt because you entreated me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, even as I had mercy on you? And his Lord moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. So shall my heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from the heart.

You know, this story paints a great picture of the true nature of man, both good and bad. In this story, you and I are the slaves that owe a debt that we cannot pay. God is our Lord and our Master, who without His love and His mercy and compassion and forgiveness, we would be forever lost and sent to the tormentors. Because of God’s great love and compassion for mankind, a bunch of sinners I may add, he sent his son to pay the debt that we cannot pay ourselves. My, my, my. Can we even begin to understand the magnitude of love like that?

Have we all sinned? Yes. Are we going to sin some more? Well, we may try not to, but we’re going to. Do we deserve to die for that? Yes. But the thing is, God loves you anyway. That’s why He sent Christ to do what He did. As long as you are in Christ, you have forgiveness of your sins and you’re faithful to Him.

If you are not a part of Christ, then you have no hope. That’s why it is so important for us to teach everyone that we meet about Christ. Because there is a world full of lost people out there, and if we don’t teach them, who are they going to hear it from? The question for me and you today is, how are we going to treat one another?

Are we going to go around judging people? Or are we going to show them love and compassion and how to overcome the sin that’s in their lives? You know, every now and then, I will hear someone make a statement like this. I can never forgive that person for what they’ve done to me. You know, that’s a sad state to be in. Because if you can’t forgive someone else, then God won’t forgive you. But I’ve said enough on our lesson this evening. And we’d like to leave you with one more passage on this subject. It’s found in the book of James, chapter 2, verse 13. James tells us, For judgment will be merciless to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. It’s very important that we show love and compassion and mercy to our fellow human beings in this life.

Because if you don’t, when you find yourself kneeling before God on that judgment day, don’t expect God to show any mercy to you because he’s going to return to you in kind how you’ve treated people on this earth. Think about it. If there’s anyone here this evening who isn’t a child of God, now is the time.

Again, we don’t have tomorrow. We’re not promised that. We hope we do, but that’s no guarantee. If we can help anyone in any way, won’t you come while we stand and sing the invitation song?

End of transcript. Thank you for reading along!