SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/17/2021 9:17 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 An
Erroneous View of Others
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 7:2
Message of the verse: “2 "For in the
way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be
measured to you.”
We
continue to look at this verse that probably has stumped many people for a long
time. Let us begin by looking at James
3:1 “1 Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as
such we will incur a stricter judgment.”
James has the same principle here of what Jesus says in this verse. The person who is qualified to teach is
judged on a stricter basis than others because as a teacher he has greater
understanding and also has greater influence.
We can see an example of this from Luke 12:48 “From everyone who has
been given much shall much be required.”
I think that Spiritual gifts can come into play as we look at this
principle found in Luke and also in James, and Matthew. The one who has been given more Spiritual
gifts has much more to be responsible for.
Now
if a person has a gift of teaching and is teaching something and does not
follow the things that he is teaching, something like the Pharisees were doing
then they are guilty as seen in Romans 2:1-2 “1 Therefore you have no excuse,
everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you
condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. 2 And we know
that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things.”
John
MacArthur writes “God has no double standards.
In criticizing unjustly or condemning unmercifully, we play God and give
the impression that we ourselves are above criticism and judgment. But God sets
none of us as final judge above others, and we dare not set ourselves as judge
above others. Other people are not under
us, and to think so is to have the wrong view of them. To be gossipy, talebearing, critical, and
judgmental is to live under the false illusion that those whom we so judge are
somehow inferior to us.”
Those
who do things like this will have it come back on them like a boomerang as
Jesus tells us in this verse. The story
in the book of Ester is partly about a man named Haman who hated a man named
Mordecai because he was a Jew. Haman
made gallows to have Mordecai on and ended up being hung on those very gallows. Kind of like what goes around, comes
around. MacArthur adds another little
story: “Just as the cruel Adoni-bezek
had ordered the thumbs and big toes cut off seventy other kings, so his own
were eventually cut off (Judg. 1:6-7).”
This
final story should make all of us stop and think. MacArthur writes “In ancient Persia, a
certain corrupt judge who accepted a bribe to render a false verdict was
ordered executed by King Cambyses. The
judge’s skin was then used to cover the judgment seat. Subsequent judges were
forced to render their judgments while sitting on that chair, as a reminder of
the consequences of perverting justice.
“To
be judgmental is dangerous to the victim because of the bias against him. It is even more dangerous to judge, because
by the ‘standard of measure’ with which he judges others ‘it will be measured
to’ him.”
1/17/2021 9:40 PM
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