"Now you're judging."

Have you ever heard this? Or maybe someone said, “Judge not,” or just, “Don’t judge!” And it seems anyone who has any real concern that they’d like to express, loads their concern with disclaimers, like “I’m not judging, but I really don’t think that man is biblical.” Or “who am I to judge her, but I didn’t think she was dressed very decently.” Or perhaps when you ask someone for their opinion about someone’s words, actions or appearance, they just replied, “I don’t really know the person, so I can’t really say.” Or have you ever heard a typical modern “Christian” try to make an observation, saying something like this: “It seems like there’s such a fine line between not obeying the Bible at all, and obeying it and becoming a judge.” Or maybe you’ve been given the idea that anyone who condemns sin has a holier-than-thou attitude, and a judging spirit.

Let’s look at what Jesus says. I think this is the only Scripture that most people have noticed, that talks about judging. It says, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” Does that really mean, “Don’t make judgments about someone, so that you don’t ever get a judgment made about you?” No. Whether we’ve ever judged or not, we will be judged! “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,” 2 Cor. 5:10 says, “that everyone may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” The Bible is FULL of this truth. Whether or not we judge, WE WILL BE JUDGED. Rev. 20 says, “The dead will be judged out of the things which are written in the books.”

Okay, so Jesus must be talking about some other kind of judgment. Let’s read on. “For with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” Who is this “you”? Who´s Jesus talking to? Let’s read on. “Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” Oh, this person has a BEAM in his eye! Now, get to verse 5 – “Thou hypocrite!” It’s a hypocrite that Jesus is talking to, someone carrying a big beam in his eye, trying to get a little speck out of someone else’s eye. What’s the answer? Quit judging? What does Jesus say? “First cast the beam out of thine own eye, and then thou shalt see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” Quitting judging isn’t Jesus’ answer. He is saying, “Quit judging like a HYPOCRITE! Repent of being a hypocrite. Get honest and single, and then help ME with this business of getting motes out of people’s eyes. I don’t like them either. I want a single eye that’s full of light, like I talked about in Matt. 6:22.”

Is that not what Jesus is saying? Let’s look some more at what He says to His people. Just a few verses later, “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” (Matt. 7:16) V. 17 – “Good trees bring forth good fruit; corrupt trees bring forth evil fruit.” Is that easy, or is it hard? Is it good to judge that way? Or is it bad to judge that way? It is good – This is a command of Jesus. Verse 20 says again, in case we’ve forgotten it, “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” A fruit inspector? Fruit judge?

I remember when I was about 10 years old, my father took me on business to the fruit processing plant at Musselman’s Lucky Leaf, in Biglerville or Aspers, PA. I distinctly remember a woman dressed completely in white, walking around with a notepad, taking samples of the fresh cherries in bins being unloaded by forklifts off the trucks. She would carefully examine the fruit and jot notes down on her pad. I remember her eyeing me for a moment, and then she got a large handful of wet, clean cherries and walked over to me and kindly deposited them in my hands. I believe they were the best sour cherries I have ever eaten.

Now I want to ask you a question. Do you think the rest of the workers were casting dark glances at her and going around muttering angrily about “the judge”? By no means! She had a high office. The forklift would stop when she needed to inspect a bin. Everyone would make way for her and treated her with respect, it seemed, because after all, cherries need to be delivered to the CONSUMER in excellent condition. It seems appropriate that she was dressed in white, too. Do you see why I put the CONSUMER in capital letters? It is Jesus – it is our Lord, who is looking for GOOD FRUIT. He deserves good fruit from our lives, just like Musselman’s thinks the consumer deserves good cherries.

But now, why do people start giving evil glares and ugly words to anyone who starts “dressing in white” (obeying the Lord), and “inspecting cherries” (judging the fruit of others) in the Christian world? Jesus said this to his own brethren who DIDN’T believe on Him: “The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.” (John 7:7) He was a judge! John 16:15 says, “They hated me without a cause.” Being a judge is not a just cause for getting hated in God’s eyes, (unless you’re a hypocrite). Jesus should have been treated with respect, like that fruit judge at Musselman’s. And then He says this: (John 16:2) “Remember the word that I said unto you, the servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”

“But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.” (v. 21) They know not the CONSUMER – God. V. 22 – “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin. But now they have no cloak for their sin.” “He that hateth me, hateth my father also.” (v. 23) He that hates a Christian that’s trying to do what Jesus says, and is inspecting the fruit of others, REALLY HATES GOD.

Now look at these verses: “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. BUT HE THAT DOETH TRUTH COMETH TO THE LIGHT, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.” (John 3:18 – 20) Look at that! The true man INVITES the judge to come and inspect him, and he doesn’t care WHO God uses. He loves God’s Word, and he welcomes the judge. The next time you want to quote John 3:16, quote a bit further.

If you call yourself a Christian, RECEIVE these words. Look at Ephesians 5: 11- 13. We’re commanded to reprove shameful things and works of darkness. Verse 13 says, “But all things that are REPROVED (judged) are made manifest by the light. For whatsoever doth make manifest IS light.” Look what a high place words of reproof are given. They’re called LIGHT.

Here’s another: 1 Timothy 5: 24, 25 says, “Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment: and some men they follow after. Likewise also the good works of some are manifest beforehand; and they that are otherwise cannot be hid.” Some men WANT their sins to be opened up by a judge NOW, but like the Spanish Bible says, “some men’s (sins) are discovered afterwards.”

Now, are you still uncomfortable with how freely I talk about us judging? Look at Luke 12: 57. “Yea and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?” Can’t you judge for yourself what is right? John 7:24 – “Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” Quit judging? Or judge righteously? Judge like God does.

The apostle Paul asked this question in 1 Corinthians 6:2 – “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?”

One time I was a part of a little congregation that didn’t have a pastor, we had the experience of having a man that we called a brother become a homosexual, with 4 or 5 different boyfriends. We felt we should excommunicate him, since we were the ones that probably had the most fellowship with this man. Another of the man’s acquaintances, a very concerned former friend of the homosexual, came and tried to lead us in excommunicating this willful sinner. We had already reproved him, and he said he was not ready to repent yet. But one or two of the men in this little congregation just didn’t think that we should take such a drastic step. One said, “We don’t know what God is doing in his heart still.” I just remember this leader friend bowing his head down and making a loud and bitter declaration, “THE CHURCH HAS LOST ALL JUDGMENT!” That kind of jolted some of the rest of us to our senses, and we managed to agree on dismissing the one that was especially not in agreement, and excommunicating the homosexual.

The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5 that he had “judged already” concerning the fornicator. Look at this command in Malachi 3: 18 – “Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.”

Remember this: according to Matthew 7: 1-5, it’s hypocrites who judge unrighteously, and according to Luke 15: 56, 57, it’s hypocrites who do not judge! (“for themselves, what is right”, Jesus says.)

Are you worthy to judge righteous judgment? Or are you unworthy? After all, hypocrites mustn’t judge. They judge to their own condemnation, and that’s what the “Judge not” in Matthew 7 is talking about. Romans 2: 3 says, “And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?”

But how is it in your life and in your church? Are you continually bearing good fruit, and inspecting the fruit of others that say they are brothers? Or are you letting some horrible, yucky, rotten stuff pass for good fruit? Have you lost all judgment by listening too long to the twisted “judge not” message of the world? What will the Judge that’s in charge of the final judgment say?

--Marcus Rohrer 3-6-08