Before I move on to the other part of my study I want to read in Luke where it covers the same verses taught in Matthew about judging. This helps some times because each writer was there when Jesus taught the lesson and each one, inspired by the Holy Spirit, recounted what they learned… and sometimes this means the meaning is fine-tuned a little more with each author.

Luke 6:35-38

³⁵ But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.

³⁶ Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.

³⁷ Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:

³⁸ Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

In verse 37 again we see the admonition of the Lord not to judge one another or we will be judged….. but then it also talks about not condemning one another so we aren’t condemned and to forgive one another so we can be forgiven. The linking of these things… judging, condemning and forgiving is significant and gives context to the judgment we are speaking about. All of these three things are connected…. we want to be forgiven, so we aren’t judged and then condemned. So, this is why I feel confident that the judgment being spoken of here is simply not to look at another person with the mindset that they are too evil to be saved and are on their way to hell without hope. This is hardly the same as the judgment we use when we determine what kind of fruit is growing on a person’s tree.

Judging is an action that is neither good or bad until it is given context.
Going back to Matthew 7

7 ¹Judge not, that ye be not judged.

² For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

³ And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

⁴ Or 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?

⁵ Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

I covered this yesterday…I included it here to show the flow of where we go from these verse about not judging someone worthy of hell… to the verses show how to judge the fruits of a person to know what kind of person you are dealing with.

⁶ Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

⁷ Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

⁸ For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

⁹ Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?

¹⁰ Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?

¹¹ If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

¹² Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

God is an example of love…pure love. He sent Jesus to redeem us and wash our sins away by dying in our place. God is there waiting to give us good things… we just need to Ask Seek Knock (ASK) …. he will never give us something that is bad for us…. God loves us and wants us to love one another. God loves me… and he also loves that person who hurt me… and so because God sees value in that person who hurt me, I also must see value in them and love them regardless of how they treated me…. even if I don’t like what they did to me and see it as evil and wrong, I need to value the person as valuable to God and love them anyway. There are 2 commandments, Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and your neighbor as yourself(Matthew 22:37-39 paraphrased). If we are loving God and our neighbor we are not sending people to hell mentally because we view them as scummy sinners, ESPECIALLY in light of the fact that we ourselves are sinners. The mercy we show to others is the mercy we receive.

¹³ Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

¹⁴ Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

This tells me that this is significant to our very salvation because you see next that Jesus is talking about entering into your Christian walk (some say heaven) on a straight and narrow path. I’ve walked on a narrow path… and I noticed that there is no running… just slow careful steps. And this implys that we will need to practice remembering to LOVE… to Love God and one another… constantly. We will have to suck up the pain sometimes and leave it to the lord and continue to love the person…. because of Gods end goals… that is, to bring that meany who pesters you to repentance… because God loves them just like he loves you. This is the narrow walk… not giving in to our flesh and becoming bitter and judgy and angry with people who are just like us….a common old sinner.

But then…. this

¹⁵ Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

This calls for judgment… and no, it isn’t a contradiction. Because we aren’t looking at the false prophet and sending them to hell in our hearts, we are looking at their actions and taking precautions. Also, this doesn’t seem like a Christian who in their ignorance makes a mistake, this seems like a person who is acting deliberately.

¹⁶ Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

We are going to know these wolves who come in to scatter and destroy by their fruit. We are going to have to judge whether their fruit is good or not by holding it up to the word of God…. so then we are no longer judging, the word is. If we determine in our hearts that the word of God is the authority, then the word of God has the last say and if something someone is doing doesn’t line up with the word, then it’s bad fruit. We are not judging, we are simply measuring what they say and do against what the word says and allowing the word to let us know.

¹⁷ Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

Using the tree analogy….
I’ve owned a fig tree or two in my lifetime…. and each year these figs come out on the tree and ripen… never once has a castor bean or any other poisonous type of fruit developed on my fig trees…. only figs. That’s not to say that a few of the figs weren’t rotten, there were those… but those were still figs, not poisonous fruit. Just like a Christian… their fruit is good… sometimes they miss the mark… a rotten fig is not an indication of a bad tree. I also have this tree called a Money tree… its fruit is not edible… it’s these hard spiky pods that fall everywhere and choke out the grass… and hurt your feet when you step on them. The tree is just bad… but the only way to know this, is to look at the fruit and all the damage it does.

¹⁸ A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

¹⁹ Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

²⁰ Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

This verse calls for judgment. Not the kind that condemns someone to hell… God is in charge of that… but the kind that lets you know this person is a wolf and to treat them with caution.

The beliefs today about not judging has infiltrated the Church and caused Christians to abandon making a judgment call to protect the flock from danger. Look at the verses in Revelation where the rebuke of the 7 Churches include the fact that the churches were tolerating sinful teachers within the body. If we can’t judge, then how will we root out false teachers and protect the sheep from dangerous doctrines? How will we as a body of believers be able to confront open sin.

There is a right way and a wrong way to use judgment. The wrong way is to look at another person and judge them worthy of hell…. this shows no mercy, no love and no forgiveness…and it shows forgetfulness of the fact that we are all sinners… and Jesus died for each one of us. And there is the right way to judge…. where we take everything and line it up against the word of God to determine if it’s from God or not. 2 Timothy 3: 16 ¹⁶ All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: While the word Judgment isn’t written, it’s implied.

Judgment is one of those things where the context matters and the motive matters. It’s like money… money in itself isn’t evil… the love of money is.