(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

["Pomp and Circumstance"] Welcome to Faithful Baptist Church. Will you please take our seats and open up our hymnals to song number 39. We begin our Sunday morning service by singing song number 39, How Beautiful Heaven Must Be, again that is song number 39. ["How Beautiful Heaven Must Be"] ["How Beautiful Heaven Must Be"] ["How Beautiful Heaven Must Be"] ["How Beautiful Heaven Must Be"] ["How Beautiful Heaven Must Be"] ["How Beautiful Heaven Must Be"] ["How Beautiful Heaven Must Be"] Lord, thank you for allowing us to be here today. Please bless the preaching and the soloing layer, and help us to hear what we need to hear today. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Amen. All right, will you please turn your hymnals to song number 10. We'll be singing song number 10, and then we'll be hearing the cross with another song number 10. ["Here Comes the King"] Here's a steaming hill across There's a precious mountain Way to all the weary sheep Forts from town resounded In the past, in the past Leave thy lowly ever Till thy good church, Lord, shall come Let's be on her finger Here the joys of heaven serve Now there can't seem to be There no joy in her return Shears its wings around me Lead the cross, lead the cross Leave thy lowly ever Till thy rapture's full shall come Let's be on her finger Here the gospel and the blood In his feet be glory There'll be one who'll pay to live If it shatters all in Here the cross, lead the cross Leave thy lowly ever Till thy rapture's full shall come Let's be on her finger Here the cross, now watching me Move and trust me ever Till thy knee shall go astray Let's be on her finger Here the cross, lead the cross Leave thy lowly ever Till thy rapture's full shall come Let's be on her finger Welcome to Faithful Words. Good to see everybody out this morning. If you'd like a bulletin, just go ahead and slip up your hand and one will be brought to you. As always, on the back there we have our service times listed. We will be back tonight at 5.30 p.m. and then we'll be back this Thursday as well at 7.00 as we make our way through the book of Genesis. We'll be in chapter number 35 this week. We have the church-wide soul winning times as well as the regional soul winning times. And the salvation and baptisms for both the month and year. And just a couple of reminders about the church. If you're visiting, we are family integrated. So we keep the families together here in the service. However, I understand sometimes children need to be taken out of the service for whatever reason. So we do provide the mother baby room there for ladies and their children to resort to and change a diaper or whatever needs to be done there. And also we can perform baptisms before, excuse me, after any of our services. So if there's anybody that needs to be scripturally baptized, you can always speak to myself or one of the men in the church and we'll make sure that we make that happen. But that's going to be it for announcements this morning. Let's just go ahead and sing one more song before we get into preaching tonight, this morning. Alright, could you please open your hymnals to song number 404? We're singing song number 404, When the Battle's Over. Give that song number 404. And when the battle's over, We shall wear the crown. Yes, we shall wear the crown. Yes, we shall wear the crown. And when the battle's over, We shall wear the crown. Give the king a new song. Wear a crown, God, wear a crown. Wear a bright and shining crown. And when the battle's over, We shall wear the crown. Give the king a new song. Let the sky be merry, Till the skies are proud. And let the breeze. Our fathers fought to win the world And stand on bloody sea. And when the battle's over, We shall wear the crown. Yes, we shall wear the crown. Yes, we shall wear the crown. And when the battle's over, We shall wear the crown. Give the new Jews a crown. Wear a crown, God, wear the crown. Wear a bright and shining crown. And when the battle's over, We shall wear the crown. Give the new Jews a crown. Yes, we shall wear the crown. And let the sky be bright, Till the skies are proud. And let the breeze. Our fathers fought to win the world. And when the battle's over, We shall wear the crown. Yes, we shall wear the crown. Give the king a new song. Wear a bright and shining crown. And when the battle's over, We shall wear the crown. Yes, we shall wear the crown. Yes, we shall wear the crown. And when the battle's over, We shall wear the crown. Give the new Jews a crown. Wear a crown, God, wear the crown. Wear a bright and shining crown. And when the battle's over, We shall wear the crown. And that is Romans, chapter number 13, beginning at verse 1 with that every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power but of God, and the power that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power resist the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive the power of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power resist the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. The rulers are not a parrot of good works, but of evil. Would thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the saint. For he is the minister of God, to be for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he bears not the sword of vain. For he is the minister of God, and he vanishes to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore, you must leave these subjects, not only for wrath, but also for conscious sake. For this cause pay thee tribute also, for they are God's ministers, appending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all the Jews, tribute to whom tribute is due, tussler to whom tussle with, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. O no man of any king but to love one another, for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet. And if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. And that, knowing the timing, that now it is high time to await our excuse, that now it is our salvation nearer than when he believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us never cast the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of life. Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and in drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife but in envy. But put me on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make my provision for the flesh with the filth of lust for us. For thou must confess with us. Thank you, Father God, for the experience, and thank you, again, for this morning's service. Thank you for everyone who is here today, and how close we want to stand to this work today, to build our deacons, our Holy Spirit, and will be preached to us. Amen. Amen. Amen. So we're there in Romans, and we're going to be right back there. If you want to go ahead and turn back to Mark chapter 12, I'm going to continue on again this morning in Mark chapter 12. Remember last week we looked at the verses beginning there in verse 28 of Mark chapter 12. We talked about the first commandment, right? The first commandment was to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength. And we preached about that, but then Jesus also reminds us of the second commandment as well, and that's what I want to focus on this morning, is that second commandment. And just kind of remind ourselves what's going on here in Mark chapter 12. Jesus is being kind of confronted, and some people are kind of coming to him in kind of a hostile way, asking him these hard questions. You have the Sadducees, you know, kind of testing him about the resurrection. You have the Pharisees and the Herodians trying to catch him in his words when it comes to rendering unto Caesar, you know, paying taxes. And as we just read there in Romans 13, it wasn't kind of intended. You know, it's very obvious, and I think we covered it when we went through that section of scripture, that, you know, we are as God's people to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, to pay custom and tribute to whom it's due, and just kind of move on with our lives and focus on serving God. But again, that's not what I'm focusing on this morning, but I'm just kind of giving us the background of kind of what's taking place here in Mark chapter number 12. So remember, Jesus is just being kind of confronted with these different questions. And thus far in the review, people have been kind of hostile. But then we have in verse 28, this one that comes to him, one of the scribes it says there, and having heard them, meaning the others that have questioned him, reasoning together and perceiving that he, meaning Jesus, had answered them well, asked of him, which is the first commandment of all? So this guy isn't coming to him, I think, with any prior motives. You know, he kind of sees what's taking place, and he just kind of says, hey, he's answering them well, and I'm curious about this, and he's not trying to trip Jesus up or stump him. You know, he's, I believe, in this case, being sincere and honest in his question. And he asks him, hey, which is the first commandment of all? And you know, we covered all of this last week, and he tells him that the first one is to love the Lord thy God, right? Verse 30, with all thy strength, this is the first commandment. And then in verse 31, where I want to pick up this morning, is where he says, And the second is like, namely this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other command, excuse me, there is none other commandment greater than these. These are the two greatest commandments. Now, again, these aren't the first and second commandment, right? We already covered that last week. This isn't part of the litany of the ten commandments. But, you know, these two commandments are the two commandments on which all the other commandments hang. If you get these two things down right, you're going to probably be doing a good job of keeping the rest, okay? And that's why they're the greater, right? The first commandment, the second, they're the greatest commandments. These are the most important commandments, right? Because upon these, all the others hang. And he said, And the scribe said unto him, Well, master, thou hast said truth, for there is one God, and there is none other but he. And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, right? So he's not trying to make a show out of it. He's not trying to, you know, put people, try to put Jesus in his place or try to stump him, right? He's being discreet because he's sincere in his questioning. He said unto him, Jesus responds and says, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And what he has to understand, probably what he's missing here, is that salvation is not of works, right? He's close. He's figuring out that, hey, keeping the commandments is more important than burnt offering and sacrifices. You know, the blood of bulls and of goats cannot, you know, atone for our sins, as he says in Hebrews. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. But those things in the Old Testament, those burnt offerings and sacrifices were a shadow of that which is to come, that being Christ, right, and his sacrifice, his atonement. So the guy's close, right? He's getting it. Hey, you know, the burnt offerings and things, those are kind of a ritual. Those are a picture of what's to come. We put our faith in those things as a picture of the sacrifice that God is going to give, as Abraham said, that God would provide himself a lamb, right? They understand all that. But he gets that part, but, you know, he's kind of still relying on the fact that maybe, you know, keeping the commandments is what's important here. You know, what's the greatest commandments? I want to make sure I'm doing these things. It kind of reminds me of the rich young ruler, right, who came to him and said, you know, what do I got to do to go to heaven, basically? And he said, you know, thou knowest the law, you know, and he gives them these same commandments. And he says, all these things have I kept since my youth up. What lack I yet? And he tells them to sell that which he has and to give unto the poor and to come follow him. And he went away sad for he had great possessions. So even that guy had covetousness in his heart. So what he's meaning, I believe what Jesus is getting at here when he's saying, you know, thou art not far from the kingdom of God. He's somebody that's understanding that, you know, the Old Testament law is not going to get you saved. Right. Keeping, you know, the rituals, the sacrifices. Those are things that people can just go through kind of just, you know, out of rote. Right. They can just go out of robotically. They can just go through it, kind of go through the motions and do those things even insincerely. You know, but that's why those things are never going to atone for sin. There's a picture of what's to come. Christ. Right. That ultimately you have to put your faith in him. And even the keeping of the commandments, which is why this guy's kind of asking, I think, hey, what's the greatest commandment? And he understands, hey, I got to love God and love my neighbor as myself. Jesus saying, that's true, you do, but that's not going to get you saved either. Right. The law, Paul said, is a schoolmaster to bring me unto Christ. You know, I was alive once without the law, but when the law came, sin revived and I died. The law actually is what condemns us. You know, when we read through the law, the Ten Commandments and the other commandments, what we find is that we come short, as he says in Romans. Right. For all have sinned to come short of the glory of God. So he's saying you're close, but you're not quite there yet. Right. You understand that has nothing to do with the sacrifices, but, and that the law has a certain place, but you need to learn to put your trust and faith in the Lord. That's what he's saying here. I believe that's kind of what he's getting at. And then it says, and no man after that, just ask him any question. Right. So Jesus successfully navigates all these hostile questions. Not all of them, obviously this last guy I believe was sincere, but all these people that are coming to him and trying to stump him, trying to catch him in his words. And he answers wisely and he, you know, gets through that and then they kind of all give up. They just say, you know, no man durst ask him any more questions. They say, well, we can't get them. Right. But what I want to focus in on this morning is the second commandment. Right. Because again, he says, he's asked, you know, what's the greatest commandment? And he says, thou shalt, the second, you know, thou shalt love the Lord thy God. And without even kind of being asked, and he says, the second is like, is like, namely this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as yourself. You know, that's something that we are commanded to do, to love our neighbor. Make no mistake about it. You know, we have to learn to love our neighbor as ourself. And this is something that even, you know, the world that doesn't even know maybe what the scripture says on this matter. People just kind of repeat this because it's just kind of a common phrase or teaching out there that you need to treat others as you want to be treated. Right. They call it the golden rule. We've probably all heard of that. Right. Even atheists, unsafe people, people who don't believe the Bible, they'll subscribe to that philosophy. Hey, treat other people like you want to be treated. You know, just have common courtesy. Right. And that's good. It's good that people understand that this kind of helps all of us get along, doesn't it? And really, when you think about it, that is the purpose of the law. You know, there's we talked about it last week. And if you would go over to Romans 13, if you want to keep something Mark 12, you can. We talked about this a little bit last week, how, you know, the Ten Commandments are kind of broken up into two sections. You know, Commandments one through four kind of pertain unto God. And then the latter half kind of pertain onto our relationship with our fellow man. You know, the first half is our relationship with God. The last half is our relationship with other people on earth. Right. That's why, you know, he's saying if you love God and you love your neighbor, you're going to kind of fulfill all of these things. Right. So obviously keeping the Commandments is important. It's something we want to do. It's not something we just want to blow off, you know, because namely, you know, it helps us get along. And this is something I'll often tell people, you know, I'm trying to preach them the gospel because a lot of people will say, hey, you know, you'll ask, what do you got to do to go to heaven? And they'll just say, well, you know, be a good person. You know, be good to your fellow man. And that's and I always say, you know, that's a great thing to do. But we don't always do that, do we? Right. It's funny the people things people say, oh, this is what gets you to heaven. And it's like, yeah, but you do that. And I know it's like, well, good luck. Good luck with that. And I always kind of make a joke. I'll say, yeah, the Bible says, you know, we should love our neighbor as ourself. But come on, some neighbors are more lovable than others. Right. And they're like, yeah, they kind of they kind of look at that over there. You know, at the other house and like, whoa, buddy, you know, I'm just kidding. Right. But, you know, I kind of make a joke at it, but it's true. You know, sometimes we might have a bad day. We don't always keep the law. We don't always treat other people as we ought to. We fall short. Because, again, why I'm kind of repeating myself, that's why Paul said, you know, the law is a schoolmaster to lead me to bring me unto Christ. Yeah, we should love our neighbor as ourself. But do we always do that? No. If you look at Romans Chapter 13, look at verse eight again, you know, just making the point that these two commandments, the first and second commandment that Jesus is giving here in Chapter 12 of Mark is kind of a synopsis or a summary of the Ten Commandments. Right. He says in verse eight, Oh, no, man, anything but to love one another, for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. Okay. And I'm taking the time to make a point because I want to my next point is going to be how people misunderstand this or misapply what it means to love your neighbor. Okay. But I want to make sure we understand that, you know, it is important that we love our neighbor. Okay. I don't want people to get an idea this morning that, you know, we can just go out and judge people or mistreat people or, you know, people are doing wicked things that they should just be treated as second class or whatever. No, we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourself. Right. And no matter what the circumstance, you know, even when people are doing bad, when people are doing the wrong thing, where people are committing sin, you know, we should still try to, you know, of course, we have to judge righteous judgment. I'm going to get into that. But let's also not forget that we would probably want to be to treat those people the way we would want to be treated if we were in their shoes. You know, we would want to probably be told, hey, you're wrong. Get right. But we'd also want to be showed love, mercy, compassion, patience, being given a second chance. Right. I mean, I'm sure we've all made mistakes. We've all messed up. We've all offended people. We've all done things wrong. And we've probably all wanted from those same people, you know, a second chance. We've probably all wanted some mercy and some grace. Right. So that's one way in which we ought to love our neighbor. You know, loving our neighbor is more, it's deeper than, you know, just waving someone into traffic that's trying to pull in. Right. Or letting someone go ahead of you at the checkout or holding a door open. That's common courtesy. That's fine and good to do. But, you know, loving your neighbor is deeper than that. Loving your neighbor is, you know, treating them how you would want to be treated even when people are at their worst. Okay. But again, don't misunderstand. I'm not saying that we're going to just be permissive and let people do whatever they want. People still need to be held accountable, but they also need to be shown mercy, grace, and truth just like we would want to be treated. And if we're saved, just like we have been treated by the greatest judge of all, God. Okay. So he says, again, I know I'm kind of rambling a little bit here, but he says in verse 8, oh no man anything but to love one another, for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. So again, it's important. Love your neighbor. For this, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet. That's that latter half of the Ten Commandments. And if there be any other commanded, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. So what's Paul saying? You know, we could just wrap up the last half, those five commandments by just saying, love your neighbor as yourself. You know, and, and, you know, that's kind of a good basis. Like how do you know if you're loving your neighbor? Well, if I'm not killing them, right, if I'm not committing adultery with them, if I'm not stealing from them, if I'm not bearing false witness or lying against them, you know, getting them perjured. If I'm not coveting their things and wanting what they have, you know, that's kind of how we know that's a good baseline for are you loving your neighbor, right? Now hopefully we're going to go a little bit further than, you know, I haven't committed murder, so, you know, I love my neighbor, okay? Hopefully we can go a little bit further than that. And that's what Paul says here. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. You know, we, we would say, well, I haven't killed anybody. You know, I haven't committed adultery. I haven't stolen anything. I'm not coveting. But if we're working ill in any way, shape or form towards our neighbor out of malice, we're vengeful, we're spiteful, we just despise somebody, you know, we're going to just do things and treat them poorly. Maybe it's not even physical actions, right? Maybe it's just we're just curt, we're rude, we're short, we're not patient with them, we ignore them. You know, that's, that's a working ill towards your neighbor. That's not really loving your neighbor, is it? And we need to make sure that we're loving our neighbor because that's what, you know, really wraps up the keeping of the law. It's important that we do that. Now, if you would go over to, let's have you go over to Leviticus 19. Okay, Leviticus. You got Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. Go to Leviticus there. And I'll again remind us that, you know, loving your neighbor is basically keeping the law, right? Galatians 5 14, for all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. So Paul is saying, as Jesus said, hey, the second commandment, you know, is second only to love the Lord thy God in importance. And it is the keeping of the law. It's, you want to say, hey, what's the keeping of law? Well, just briefly, just to briefly comprehend that saying, it is this, love thy neighbor as thyself. Am I loving my neighbor? Well, you know, if you're slashing their tires or you're treating them poorly or you're doing, you know, you're working ill towards your neighbor. The answer is no, you're not. Okay, so we need to love our neighbors as ourselves. Now, hopefully you've got to understand the importance, but really the point I want to make this morning, because this is the problem that we have, I think, in society at large today, is that people have mistaken loving your neighbor as being permissive with sin. Right? And then that's why when anybody actually gets up in any platform whatsoever, whether it's behind a pulpit, whether it's, you know, wherever they're being heard, anybody voices any kind of judgment or says anything that's maybe a little harsh when it comes to sin, when people are doing wrong, people just want to write that person off as, oh, they're hateful, they're mean, right? Because that's not loving your neighbor. Well, loving your neighbor means you're not going to do certain sinful things, right? So what happens if I have a neighbor that is doing those things and I say, hey, that's not right? The Bible says thou shalt not commit adultery. In fact, Paul and Jesus and everybody said that, you know, loving your neighbor means you wouldn't steal from me, you wouldn't covet and you wouldn't, you know, commit adultery and kill. What if I see my neighbor doing that? Do I not have a right to judge that and call that wicked and evil? I mean, that's what the Bible does. The Bible calls that wicked and evil. It calls it sin. Right? So don't, but people have this misconception today that if you call out the evil, maybe someone, some neighbor is doing, that somehow that's not loving your neighbor. They mistake love for permissiveness. Just as kind of anything goes, who am I to judge? You know, we shouldn't say anything. Just turn a blind eye when people are doing wicked, evil things. That is not loving your neighbor. In fact, that is the opposite of loving your neighbor. You know, if I loved my neighbor, I would care about the fact that my neighbor is being killed, is being, you know, cheated on, is being, you know, robbed, whatever. If I saw somebody mistreating my neighbor, love for my neighbor would cause me to point that out and say, hey, that's not right. But today we live in a society where the guy that's pointing out the evil and says that's not right, now he's, oh, you're not loving your neighbor. Why? Because I'm calling out sin? Because I'm condemning wickedness? That makes me the guy who doesn't love my neighbor? No, my friend. I'm the guy that loves my neighbor. You're the person who loves your neighbor. When you stand up for what's right and say, hey, and you call a spade a spade and you say that's not right, this is wrong, and you condemn somebody in the process if necessary. That's loving your neighbor. Not just letting injustices, you know, play out in society. That's what it means to love your neighbor. Hopefully that's clear, right? Because, I mean, that's what Paul said. That's what Jesus said. The law is briefly summarized, thou shalt love thy neighbor. What did he say in Romans 13? Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not kill in adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet. Right? That's the 10 commandments. He's saying if you're not doing those things, that's loving your neighbor. So, in the same vein, if I'm calling that wickedness out, I'm loving my neighbor. Hopefully that's clear. But today we live in a society where they mistake love for permissiveness. Anything goes, who are we to judge, right? The Bible says in James 8, I'll just read to you, if you fulfill the royal law, right, what we would call, what's often called the golden rule, the Bible calls it the royal law. According to the scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, you do well, right? He's saying in James, hey, you know, if you love your neighbor as thyself, you're doing good. Why? Because you're fulfilling the royal law. You're keeping, you know, the commandments as you ought to. If you fulfill the royal law, you are loving your neighbor as yourself. But, he goes on and says, if you have respect to persons, ye commit sin, okay, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. Now, what does it mean to have respect of persons? It means you're showing favoritism, right? You let things slide. Because of a person's stature, because of a person's position, because of your relationship with them, whatever it is. You know, when somebody's doing wrong, when someone's not doing what they ought to do, when someone's being wicked, misbehaving, whatever it is, and you, for whatever reason, decide to just give them a pass, you know, you're convinced of the law and are a transgressor. That is not fulfilling law. Does everyone see that? That's the opposite of loving your neighbor. When you have respect of persons, when you say, well, I know the Bible says this, and this is what God commanded, but, you know, we'll give you a pass, right? That, you know, that's wrong. That's wicked. The Bible says that's having respect of persons, and you commit sin, and you're convinced of the law as transgressors. But you're like, oh, but I didn't do anything. I'm just giving the person that's doing it a pass. I'm just not judging them. Yeah, but what you're doing is you're condoning it. What you're doing is you're saying, well, that's okay for you to do it, right? And now that person is mistreating your neighbor as a result. Hopefully everyone sees that. Look, we could talk about how this plays out in society, okay? Here's a real popular issue to bring up, abortion, right? Look, if I love my neighbor, I'm not going to let them be slaughtered in the womb because, you know, abortion is murder. That's what the Bible teaches. Okay, the Bible's real clear when you compare Scripture with Scripture that Mary was with child when she conceived, okay? So we believe as that the Bible teaches that life begins at conception. When the seed of the man meets the egg of the woman, that is conception. That is a life. It's not just a blob of tissue. You know, those cells that are splitting and that being that is forming is going to become a human being, okay? So when someone goes and intentionally has that removed from their body by whatever barbaric means they do, you know, I'm not going to go into all that. You know, the Bible considers that murder. And I don't care if that's popular or not. I don't care if that offends you or not. That's what the Bible says. And so if I love my neighbor, I'm not going to sit here and condone and say, well, that's okay for you to do it. Well, you know, I'm just going to look the other way and just let you murder somebody and take innocent life before it even has a chance to defend itself or draw its first breath. I'm not going to just sit here and let the most helpless among us be slaughtered wholesale to the tunes of millions and have innocent blood shed and just be like, well, you know, who am I to judge? You know, it's not really my place. Well, no, the Bible's crystal clear on this topic. It's murder. So I can't sit here and just, you know, not condemn that because then I would be, you know, I'd be showing, you know, respective persons. Well, that's a very personal decision that's between you and God. Well, God's crystal clear about it. God doesn't make any ifs, ands, or buts about it. It's murder, okay? That's a nice, you know, illustration, right? But it makes my point. You know, what if I see somebody, you know, robbing my neighbor in some way, shape, or form, and I just say, well, you know, maybe that person really needed that more than that other person. You know, maybe it's right for them to just, you know, take all these taxes from us and just give it to a bunch of bums who don't want to work. You know, I'm not, I'm going to call that out for what it is. It's theft. It's theft. You know, and that's, and it's, it's, it's shameful, right? Oh, you're being so unloving this morning. Oh, wait, no, no, no, wait, wait. I'm loving my neighbor because I'm sticking up for the one that's being mistreated. I'm the one that's loving my neighbor this morning, okay? And if you think I should sit down and shut up and not talk about these things, you don't love your neighbor. Period. I mean, I don't know, I mean, it's pretty clear. If you fulfill the royal law, according to scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as yourself, you do well. I mean, I'm not going to let my neighbor be killed. I'm not going to let my neighbor commit adultery. I'm not going to let my neighbor be stolen from. I'm not going to let my neighbor covet that, you know, I'm going to stop my neighbor from being taken advantage of and mistreated. I'm not going to have respect of persons. You know, when it's politically convenient, you know, I'm going to change my stance. When it's going to make me more popular or keep me out of hot water, all of a sudden I'm going to have respect of persons. Well, I don't want to upset so and so. That's respect of persons, and it's something we should not do. Look at Leviticus 19, where I had to go, verse 11. Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another. And ye shall not swear by name falsely, neither shall thou profane the name of the Lord thy God, I am the Lord. Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor, neither rob him. The wages of him that is hired, thou shalt not abide with thee all night until the morning. I mean, you should be getting paid at the end of every day, right? That's God's system. Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shall fear thy God, I am the Lord. Now, that one always kind of, you're like, whoa, right? Whenever you read verse 14, like, who would do that? Right? But it's in there, right? I mean, we could understand, hey, don't steal, because that's pretty common. People do that. Don't deal falsely. You know, there's people that are in business, they're business dealings, they're constantly crooked. I mean, where I work, we have to watch some of these contractors, because just hardware just disappears. You know, a $200 piece of hardware will just make its way back to their yard. Like, I have to be sent to these jobs sometimes and be like, hey, when you take that off, put it in a box and leave it here. Here's a five-gallon pail. Make sure all of our parts that we paid for are in this bucket when you go. Right? Because that's what people do, whether they mean to or not. They deal falsely. Right? I mean, in the business world, that's like how business is done a lot of times. It shouldn't be. And God will bless the person that has integrity, I believe that. Neither lie one to another. Oh, people never do that. That's a lie. Right? And you should never swear by my name falsely. Right? Taking the name of the Lord God in vain. Thou shalt defraud thy neighbor, neither rob him. Just straight up B and E. That happens. Right? So these things are all kind of common. Right? But then you get to 14 and it's like, wow, really? But hey, I'm telling you, if these other things are in there because people do them, this is in there because it's something that happens. Okay? Thou shalt not curse the deaf. Right? Like, to me, it's kind of like a mocking thing. Right? Like, people are mistreating people who have certain disabilities. Like, hey, he's deaf. We can say anything we want and he can't hear us. And start cursing him. That's wicked. Neither shall thou put a stumbling block before the blind. Hey, here he comes. Let's put that out there. I remember there was this video that went viral years ago, some high school kid clocking a blind kid. He just sucker punched some blind kid. And immediately, some other guy saw and tackled him and beat the guy terribly. He got it ten times worse and rightly so. You say, that would never happen. There was a video of it. It was viral. Some punk cold clocked a blind kid. It's like, what in the world? I always think about this in terms of what I do because in my secular work, I have to consider American Disability Act. The life safety code, ADA code, doors have to open and close at a certain speed. You have to have door operators. Thank God, we live in a country and a time People might think, oh, these government regulations. Sometimes these government regulations are looking out for people that could potentially be mistreated or kind of blocked out of society just because they're deaf or blind. Even where I work, there's a person who's in mid-management who is deaf. But he has one of the, I don't know what they're called. Is it ocular? What is it? Ocular, right. He's got one of those implants and then twice a week. The work actually provides a translator. He'll go around and they'll translate and have conversations. He can talk to you and you can have conversations with him. Even in his office, when he gets a call, lights flash and stuff like that so he knows he's getting a call. And I'm like, man, this is great. I like working and living in a place where people consider people like that. So you could say, how would you apply verse 14? Well, you know, maybe making it so that people who have certain handicaps and disabilities in their society can still function and still succeed and still be, you know, it's not like they're any less intelligent. It's not like they don't have anything to offer simply because they were born blind or went deaf or whatever. They still have a mind. They still have the ability to work and serve. It's great to, you know, live somewhere and have the prosperity and the wherewithal to make these things happen for these people. It's great. So you can kind of see, you say, how do you apply verse 14? You know, install a door operator for that person that needs it. Okay. Anyway, he says in verse 15, you shall not do in righteousness and judgment. Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty. So again, he's getting down into what he's saying, basically what we've been saying all morning. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, right? You're not going to do all these things. You're not going to, you know, you shall not mistreat people in any of these ways. You're not going to, you know, steal from them, so on and so forth. And again, the New Testament tells us those things are briefly comprehended as thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, right? And then it's being taught here. We're getting this litany of things that fall under the umbrella as loving your neighbor. But again, notice how, what's tied in with that. Thou shalt not have any respect of persons in judgment. Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor. Oh, well, you know, he's poor, so just give them a pass. You know, they can break the law. You know, they can commit illegal activity because, I mean, look how oppressed they are. That's respect of persons. Hello? That's what the Bible just said. You say, oh, that's so mean. No, actually, letting poor people take advantage of society and commit crime, you know, that's, you know, letting that happen is me having respect of persons. That's not me loving my neighbor. Everybody follow? Because we all get, a lot of people jump on board with the next one, nor honor the person of the mighty. You know, that's why anybody who has any wealth, anybody who's succeeded at all in society, anybody who's worked hard and made something of themselves, you know, they're instantly just an evil, wicked person, right? That's the mentality that's kind of out there. As soon as anyone sees anybody that's succeeded, well, they must just be evil. Look, the Bible does say that the love of money is the root of all evil, right? But it doesn't say that, you know, just money is evil. It's the love of money, right? Money can be a very useful tool. I mean, think about everything that some of these very wealthy people have done for society. There's been a lot of good that's been done by people that have had a lot of wealth. I mean, we wouldn't be where we are as a society if people, you know, who had money weren't making it happen, okay? They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare and thrust themselves through with many sorrows, right? So those that just desire, those that just covet and just want money just so that they can fulfill some sinful desires, you know, yeah, obviously that is wicked, right? But the person of the mighty, the person who has power, the person who has clout, the person who's maybe in a political position in society, you know, or a person who has a lot of wealth and influence, you know, we're not to respect them either, okay? We cannot have respect of persons. And everyone loves that hat. Everyone can go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, these rich people, they need to be held accountable. But so do the poor, okay? So does the poor man that's committing crime. So does the poor man that's robbing and stealing and doing everything and breaking all these other commandments. He needs to be held accountable too. Why? Because we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, right? And I know it's kind of a hobby horse of mine, but that's why, you know, giving people at the freeway that are begging drug addicts and derelicts money is not loving your neighbor. That's called enabling them. You're enabling them. You're enabling their drug dealer. You're enabling a cartel somewhere that's, you know, bringing fentanyl into this country or whatever else it is that they're smoking or sniffing. That's not helping them. That's enabling. If you love those people, you know, you'd let them hit rock bottom. And if society at large really loved those people, we'd actually, you know, do something about it. We'd actually, you know, open up, you know, and I'm going to keep, you know, hopefully some politician hears this and says, that sounds like a good idea because the way it used to be in this country used to have places called asylums where drug addicts and drunks and derelicts would be taken and cleaned up. You know, I mean, think about how great that would be, right? What if we had just some, you know, giant facility, you know, and they could go out in the desert somewhere up there near Marana, get a few hundred acres, right? I mean, they grow cotton, everything else up there. They got citrus. I mean, they could go grow something. They could get some self sustaining facility, round these guys up, round all these bums up, clean up the streets, get them in there, get them off drugs, get them the medical attention they need, right? You know, get their dental work done, give them glasses if they need them. Let's dump all of our millions of dollars into that and send a bunch of stupid tiny homes. They're just going to keep building their tiny homes and they're going to say, you can only stay here if you respect the curfew. They're not going to respect the curfew. That's their problem. They're a bunch of rebellious derelicts. They didn't want to listen to mom. They didn't want to listen to authorities growing up. That's a big reason why a lot of them are on the street. That's where they want to be. They want to just do their drugs and they don't want to work. They're bums. Hello? Is this thing on? They're bums, okay? And look, I'm not being discompassionate. I'm not discounting the fact that people who have problems with addiction, especially those drugs, there has to be an intervention. They're not going to just go clean themselves up. If I loved my neighbor, I wouldn't just let them rob and steal and I wouldn't let them break into cars and I wouldn't let them break into houses. I wouldn't let them, you know, do everything else and commit all the crime that they do. I mean, who knows what else is going on in the dark of night under some underpass with those people we never even hear about. You know, if I loved them, I'd stop them from doing that. I'd get them out of the streets. I'd get them out, you know, out of the elements and not just let them perish in the desert. And we would round them up, and I literally mean that, round them up. You know, we'd go rent a bunch of vans from the Tucson Unified School District, you know, on the summer break. We could just get a bunch of volunteer force. We could all just go around with a bunch of, hey, nightclubs, whatever's needed, you know, cattle prods, something, zip ties. We would get them on buses and we'd take them to a nice air-conditioned facility where they have comfortable beds and they have, you know, rooms to stay in and then we could get them cleaned up and then they could start running that facility. They could do all the HVAC, electrical, I mean the ones that haven't completely lost their minds at this point, who could still be salvaged. Teach them a skill, keep them in there, let them earn a low wage, let them produce something that could be sold to the community. And then when they're sobered up and they have some money in their pocket, they can be put back into society and they can go on and live a happy, I mean, how cruel, how cruel does that sound? Right? That sounds like a pretty good idea to me. You know, maybe I should be, you know, going into politics. You know, that'd be my first hundred days in office. Right? That's issue one right there. We're dealing with that. That's probably the only thing I could come up with. But anyway. Right? But that's loving your neighbor. Right? Oh no, they're poor though. Don't just pander to them. You know, feel sorry for them. Look, I do feel sorry for them. That's why I think we should figure out what's the best thing, you know, that they need and do it for them. And you know what it is? It's called tough love. Tough love. That's what they need. And it used to be the way. I'm not suggesting you take him in there and start doing electroshock therapy and performing lobotomies. Yeah, those things are barbaric. But you know, there's been certain advances in the medical industry. You know, we have certain medical advancements. We've had certain, you know, in neuroscience, like people understand how the brain works now a little bit better. They know, they understand things about addiction and stuff like that. Like it could be a lot more sophisticated today and would actually work. And you know what it would be? It would be loving your neighbor. And not just going after some, you know, fat cat corporate CEO and condemning him and just like, oh, that guy, he's the one that needs to be brought down a notch. You know, look, if there's some corruption somewhere, yeah, it needs to be dealt with. We shouldn't have respected persons to the mighty either. Right? Why? Because we want to love our neighbor. People that are exploiting other people or committing corruption or stealing or whatever. Yeah, the Bernie Madoffs and others like that, they need to be held accountable and thrown in prison or whatever. Right? There needs to be some kind of a punishment. But it works both ways. It goes both ways down the spectrum. The mighty and the poor. We're not to have respect of persons. Because when we do, when we have respect of persons, we fail to love our neighbor. Because today, people misconstrue loving their neighbor with being permissive. Whatever abominable sin, whatever filth people get into, it's like, oh, who am I to judge? Go back to, uh, if you have something in Romans, I, you know, I got to hurry up, but go to Romans chapter number two. You know, every morning I write these sermons and it's like, I wonder if I'm going to have enough. And I get through like the first page and a half and it's just like I got in the last half. I got to hurry up. I should just, you know, remind myself of that when I'm writing this thing. Just calm down. There's plenty here. Probably too much. Right? The Bible talks a lot about this. Not having respect of persons. Again, in Deuteronomy 17, ye shall not respect persons in judgment, but ye shall hear the small as well as the great. You know, you're not going to let the poor and the small get away with things that are wrong, but you're also not going to ignore them when they've been treated poorly. Because remember in the Old Testament, that's the system that God set up, the judges. There were judges that would have been throughout the land that, and there would have been judges and officers and people would have come to those courts, whatever you want to call them, those judges, and they would have pronounced judgment according to God's law. They would determine what the right punishment or the right course of action would have been. And that's why God was adamant over and over again, don't be a respecter of persons. Hear the small as well as the great. You know, some guy who's got a lot of wealth and influence society, he deserves a place at the table in order to voice his concerns and to have judgment and justice doled out onto him. But you know what? So does the poor guy. So does the guy who doesn't have a lot of influence. If he's been mistreated, he deserves to be heard too. He needs to have justice work for him too. So not having respect of persons, yeah, you know, it can hold people accountable, but it can also dole out justice and can do what's right if you have someone with some discernment in these positions. They say, well, I just don't think we should judge anyone. This is where this philosophy starts, this permissive philosophy of just, well, anything goes, who are we to judge? Well, who are we to say that that's a sin? Who are we to say that's wrong? Well, you know, God's a judge. God's got a book called Judges. You might want to read it. You know, God appointed judges. Here's why you call a person a judge, because they judge. Judgment is not a dirty word. And it irks me every time I hear people say, oh, don't judge me. First of all, judging is a natural thing. You're going to judge, folks. Oh, I don't judge people. Yes, you do. You liar. Oh, I don't judge people. We judge people all the time. We make such shallow surface judgments. We have all these presuppositions and we just, all these preconceived notions about things. And we just judge people at the drop of a hat without even meaning to. You ever catch yourself doing that? Oh, I guess I'm the only one. Okay. All right. No one wants to fess up. I'm kind of putting everyone on the spot. Who here has ever judged someone unjustly? That was a joke. Boy, wait, whoa. I already know it, okay. I mean, confess your faults one to another, but folks, let's slow down. Let's pass the mic and talk about it. That'd be weird. But my point is that, you know, we judge. I don't judge. Don't judge me. Well, you know, you're basically asking me to do something that's impossible. Look, obviously, if we're judging people for shallow and vain reasons, you know, we need to fix that, okay. But that doesn't mean that we never judge. Never judge anyone. You know, when someone says to me, don't judge me, it kind of makes me suspicious. It's like, well, why, why are you worried about me judging you, you know? Right. But God is a judge. He said, and yeah, where did I have you go? Romans? Romans 2, verse 11. There is no respect of persons with God. Oh, see, God, God just lets everything go. For as many as have sinned without the law shall also perish without the law. You know, tell that to your Mormons. Well, I just don't think it's fair that people are going to go to hell who never heard of Jesus. Well, not hearing about Jesus isn't what sends you to hell, okay, first of all. What sends a person to hell is sin, and we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Who's ever heard somebody say something like that? I just don't think it's fair that people go to hell when they haven't had a chance to hear about Jesus. And what really gets me is, like, I'm there to tell them about Jesus. Like, you'll hear this when we're out soul winning. I'll knock on someone's door and they're, like, in their pajamas on a Saturday morning or whatever, you know, and they're just so concerned about some poor lost soul somewhere that's never heard about Jesus. Like, yeah, I can tell. I can tell how concerned you are about all these poor people are going to go to hell that have never heard about Jesus. It's like, well, how about we start with you, right, and then we get you saved, and then you can come help me. And then we'll go preach the gospel to all those poor people who haven't heard about Jesus. Because whether you like it or not, there is no respect of persons with God, and if people die without Jesus, they're going to go to hell. Because, well, what if they never heard of Jesus? They're still going to go to hell. Because what takes a person to hell is sin, not not having heard about Jesus. God doesn't just give us, well, you never heard about Jesus, so I know you did a lot of raping and pillaging and murdering, but because you never heard the gospel, you know, we'll give you a pass. No thanks. I mean, who wants to go to, that would be, you know, that would make God unjust. That would make God a respecter of persons. Well, I know I said, thou shalt not kill, but, come on, the guy never, I mean, he's living in the Congo, right, and it's always some, that's always the example they bring up. Some long lost tribe, you know, some cannibal with a bone in his nose who's never heard about Jesus. Yeah, they tried to send missionaries there once and they ate them. You know, wait, wait, before you eat me, let me tell you about Jesus. Right? Well, we'll give him a pass, he never heard. Yeah, because he ate the guy that was trying to tell him. He says, God's an irrespective person, as many as a sin without the law shall perish without the law, whether they've heard it or not. Because the Bible says that the Gentiles, which know not God, have the law of God written in their hearts, and therefore they are without excuse. So the Bible says Romans 2, it's in there, you can read on. But if you would, I know I keep saying I've got to wrap up, and I do. God is a judge. And if you would, go to Matthew chapter number 7. Matthew chapter number 7. The Bible says that he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done, and there is no respect of persons. That the Father, without respect of persons, judges every man according to his work. People are going to be judged by God because God is a judge. That's another stupid catchphrase that's out there. Only God can judge me. Well, he's going to. You've let that set in. How about this? God is going to judge you. Only God can judge me, as if he might. That's kind of what they're putting out there. Don't judge me, only God can. Well, have you really thought about what that means? So you're admitting to me right now that God's going to judge you? God is a judge, and whether you like it or not, we are commanded to judge. And there's so many scriptures about God being a judge. He is a God that judgeth in the earth. He shall judge the world. He is a judge of the widows. God is in his holy habitation. So God's a judge. And we are to judge as well. We are. Because again, that's how you love your neighbor. You have to judge if you're going to love your neighbor. Because loving your neighbor is not just giving everybody a pass. Whoever you deem worthy of your mercy and compassion, just give them a pass. That is not loving your neighbor. Loving your neighbor is saying, what you did is wrong. I don't care if you're poor. I don't care if you're rich. I don't care what your situation is. If you broke the commandment, if you did evil, you're wrong. And there should be punishment. And it should be dealt with. That's how society is supposed to operate. The Bible says in Isaiah, learn to do well, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. You know, you have to be a judge in order to dole out justice. You have to judge in order to stick up for people and help people. In order to help the helpless, to help the widow, to help the fatherless, to relieve the oppressed, you have to seek judgment. You have to say, well, what does the Bible say? What's right? What's wrong? There has to be a black and white. There has to be morality. And we're living in a world today where, as Isaiah said, you know, they want to put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. They want to put light for darkness and darkness for light. They want to say what's right is wrong, what's wrong is right. They want to switch the two. Or they want to blur the lines and just say, well, you know, who are we to judge? Well, I'll tell you who I am to judge. I'm God's child. I'm a born-again, sane believer who knows, who understands and reads and knows the word of God. And I've been given a book that doles out judgment, that tells me as plain as the nose on my face what's right and what's wrong. And it tells me to seek judgment. It tells me to judge. But then again, you know, there's Matthew 7, right? Every liberal's favorite Bible verse. Matthew 7, verse 1. They don't know the rest of the passage. I can't tell you how many times I've heard this come out of, you know, some unbeliever's mouth. Judge not that you be not judged. Right? So isn't that what Jesus said? Some weak, watered-down Christian, someone who claims the name of Christ. Never read the Bible, doesn't know what Jesus, oh, Jesus would never preach like that. You've never read the Bible. If you come to me and say, oh, Jesus would never preach the way you are, you've never read the Bible. Yeah, Jesus would never preach like I'm preaching right now because what I'm preaching right now is too soft for him. It's too weak and watered-down for Jesus. I mean, good night. You've been going through Mark with us. You know, Jesus has been ripping face left and right, calling people hypocrites. Go read Matthew. Go read Matthew 23 where he's calling them a den of vipers, all kinds of names, hypocrites. You know, Jesus ripped face. So when people come to me and they're like, oh, you're not very loving. You're judging. And Jesus would never preach like that. You're turning people away from Jesus. It just tells me, just instantly I know, this person has never read the Bible. They've never even read the New Testament. They've never read our gospel, apparently. Or they did and they went to some lame church where the pastor explained it all away, had some cute little fancy way of backing out. And say, well, you know, the Bible does talk about judgment, but we're under grace, right? And the Bible says that there's no condemnation of them which are in Christ Jesus, right? They liked that one in Romans 7. It was in Romans 8. I can't remember. Right? They'll quote that one. There is now, therefore, no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. Except there's a semicolon at the end of the verse and the next verse says, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Meaning if you walk after the flesh, there is judgment, even if you're in Christ Jesus. There is condemnation. There is judgment. If you do evil, you're going to be judged. Without respect of persons, God judges every man according to his work. That's 1 Peter, chapter 1. So which is it, right? Jesus, but you're there in Matthew 7, right? Look at verse 1. Judge not that you be not judged. But the problem is that people, they just hear what they want. Look, you can go to the Bible and make it say whatever you want. You can just take that out of context, and that's what people do, and just now you have a doctrine of convenience, right? Now, I as a pastor, I as a preacher, never have to call out anyone's sin because after all, I don't want to be judged myself. You know, I don't want to judge anybody. Jesus said, judge not lest you be judged. So we're just going to talk about grace here. We're going to have 90 days of grace. We're going to do a series on the love of God. Look, I'm all about the love of God. I love the love of God. We preach about it all the time, but we also preach the gnarlier bits too, don't we? We preach the heart because it's in there, because that's who God is, right? But it's real convenient for me to just say, well, Jesus said not to judge. Be not judged. Oh, where is that in the Bible? The Gospels? The Gospel of Thomas? No, try again, right? But which is it? If we're told to judge, if Isaiah is being told, seek judgment. In Proverbs, it says it is not good to have respective persons in judgment if we're told to judge people righteously, if we're told to judge people and to not have respective persons in the process. Well, which is it? Is Jesus contradicting the rest of all those passages where we're told to judge? Did Jesus come? No, Jesus said, think not I have come to destroy the law and the prophets. I came not to destroy but to fulfill, for verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, not one jot or tittle shall in any wise pass from the law. So it's not that. It's not Jesus. Or maybe Jesus doesn't know the Bible. No, he is the word. Okay? So what is it? Maybe, just maybe, we're not understanding the context here. Maybe we should read past verse one. Maybe that'd be a good idea, right? Read the rest of the context and try to understand what does Jesus mean when he says, judge not that ye be not judged. So we need to judge in a way that's not going to get ourselves in hot water. Right? Because he says in verse two, for with what judgment ye meet, ye shall be judged. Excuse me, with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured unto you again. Now here's what he means by this, because he gives an example. It's all interconnected. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but consider'st not the beam that is in thine own eye? Now a mote is like a speck of dust, right? It'd be like, who's ever gotten sawdust in their eye? Probably several of the men in here, right? We call it man glitter. It's not fairy dust, it's man glitter. I love the smell of sawdust. But it's not fun when it gets in your eye, right? But you know, it'd be like, so he's saying don't be the kind of person who judges somebody who says, oh brother, you know, you've got a little mote in your eye, and you've got like a ten by twelve in yours. You've just got like this giant eight foot board in your eye. Right? And you're like, oh let me help you with that. He's like, whoa dude, don't knock me out with a board that's coming out of your face. Right? So what's Jesus getting at? Well he gets real clear. He says, don't be a hypocrite. Don't judge somebody about stuff that you're doing. Like Paul told the Jews in Romans 2, you know, you judge another and condemn us thyself, right? Thou teachest, thou shalt not commit adultery. Does thou commit adultery? Don't be a hypocrite, is what he's saying. He's not saying, never judge anybody. Because that would be contradictory to the rest of scripture. That means Jesus just went, oh all that stuff in Deuteronomy, Leviticus, all that judgment we talked about, just forget about all that. But then he couldn't say, you know, I didn't come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. Then he couldn't say that the law shall not pass, one jot or one tittle to all be fulfilled. He couldn't say that, right? So what he's saying is, don't be a hypocrite. Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but consider'st not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull the mote out of thine eye, and behold a beam is in thine own eye? You know, if I walked up to some brother who had some sawdust in there and I had like a giant splinter coming out of my eye, he's like, I think we should address your problem first. I think you should go see an optometrist or whoever it is that gets that stuff out of your eye, right? Wear safety glasses, guys, okay? Public service announcement, especially if you work with a wire wheel. Whoever worked on a bench grinder with a wire wheel, wear those safety glasses. I knew a guy, one of those little wires, those thin little wires came off and went into his eyeball, like in, like a little piece of it. And they had to take them to this doctor and what they do is they put your head in like a vice so you can't move and then they pry the eyeball open so you can't blink. And then they take a drill that is just smaller than whatever's in your eye and literally drill it out of your eyeball. I mean, imagine being strapped in and having this little drill, just like you can't look away, you can't look away. I remember when I had to get stitches right here, they had to like, when I was a little kid, this wasn't last week. When I was a little kid and I did not want stitches, I did like four nurses had to hold me down and they had to like wrap me, you know, do the thing with the blanket where you put it underneath them where they can't get their arms out. Pro tip, mom, you might want to use, I'm just kidding. And I remember, like, looking out and seeing the needles coming in, it's like, ah! Right? It had nothing to do with the sermon at all, you know, it was just a little bit of levity for you, right? We had some levity, but now we got some levity, but I gotta stop. But he's saying here, hey, look, if you go to your brother and you're going to point something out that's wrong, there's nothing wrong with doing that as long as you don't have the same problem. Is he saying never judge here? Is he saying don't judge? He's saying no, don't judge somebody when you have a problem. In fact, it sounds to me a little bit like Jesus is being judgmental. Like he's saying, hey, maybe you have a problem. Well, don't judge me. Don't judge me. Don't judge me on my giant beam. It's like, no, man, you need to take care of that. The problem is hypocrisy. That's what he makes abundantly clear. Thou hypocrite, verse 5. First cast out the beam out of thine own eye and then forget about your neighbor. Pretend you never saw anything. Just forget about that. Just get the beam out of your eye. Just worry about yourself and never say anything. Never judge anyone. Is that what he said? He said cast out the beam out of thine own eye and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the moat out of thy brother's eye. He's saying, you know what, go back to your brother and point out that moat and help him with it. And look, judgment is actually a helpful thing. It's a helpful thing when somebody comes to you and says, hey, what you did is wrong and you need to knock it off. Oh, I would never do that. Well, I hope you don't have children. Right? I hope that's not how you do your parenting. Well, I never tell my kids they're wrong. Keep your kids away from me. Right? I don't want to run into them at the grocery store when they don't get what they want. When they're throwing a tantrum, rolling around on the floor, you know, clutching some sugary cereal. I want it. We've all seen it. The five, six, seven, eight year old that can't control their temper because mom doesn't have the guts to say no. Doesn't have the guts to, you know, judge her own child. It's crazy. Jesus isn't saying never judge anybody. Right? Look, you need, and don't have respect of persons. That's a good application. Parenting. It's funny like how some people, they have no problem pointing out the problems of other people's kids. They're like, oh, that kid needs it. Right? If I were that kid's parent, you know, I would do X, Y, and Z. And then it's like, then their own kids are just like, there's a little bit of a beam there. You know, it's like, maybe you should just focus on yours and then worry about other people's later or not at all. Right? But this is what I was beginning to say is that when we do judge people without hypocrisy, it's actually a helpful thing. I mean, look, if you listen to the preaching of the word of God, if you read the Bible for yourself, you know what's going to happen? You're going to get judged. It's inevitable. Because no one's perfect. There's going to come a time where something, you read something or you hear the Bible preach, you go, ooh, ouch. It's going to happen. Guaranteed. Right? But here's the thing. Does that mean it's mean? Does that mean it's not nice? You know, maybe it isn't nice. But it's not malicious. Even if it's a little mean, a little rough, it's not vindictive. It's not malicious. It's not trying to harm you. It's actually trying to help you. Think about it. It's trying to spare you the suffering that comes with committing sin. You know, we preach things sometimes from the Bible and people think, oh, that's mean. You're judging. Yeah, it is. It is judging. You're right. But here's the point. Judgment helps people. Judgment points out what's wrong. Judgment gets the mote out of the eye and the beam too. You know, you preach against all kinds of sin. You preach against fornication and drunkenness. You know what happens? People stop fornicating and they stop drinking. Believe it or not, hard preaching works. Oh, you'll never build a church preaching like that. We'll see. It's been six years. I've seen a lot of lives changed. There's people here who are on a different course than they were. And we ain't stopping yet. Why? And you think in those six years there weren't some sermons that came out of this book right here across this pulpit that were maybe a little mean and judgmental? I'm surprised half the people didn't say amen right there. They're like, yeah, amen. You tone it down a little, brother. Right? No, but my point is though, and I know I've got to wrap up. Go to Psalm 37. I want to end there. Is that if we're going to love our neighbor, we're going to judge our neighbor. Right? If we're going to love our neighbor, we're going to judge our other neighbors. If we have a neighbor, and obviously we use the neighbor as the person who lives next door on the block with us. That's my neighbor. No, your neighbor is everyone. Everyone is your neighbor. Everyone you interact with. That's your neighbor. Your fellow man is your neighbor. Right? So when I see my neighbor mistreating my neighbor and harming them, if I love that one that's being mistreated, I, just by virtue of trying to do justice for that one, I have to judge the other neighbor, don't I? You cannot love a neighbor without being someone who judges another neighbor. Does that make sense? It's pretty easy to follow. Right? So don't fall for this notion that's out there that loving your neighbor is just giving everybody a pass and never calling anything out and never calling out sin and never saying what's right and what's wrong. Because there is a right and wrong. It's unavoidable. And when people are violating those principles and violating what's right, they need to be called out. Why? Because we want to love our neighbor. Well, I don't think you should judge. Well, you know, I got a book called the Bible that tells me different. Look at Psalm 37 verse 30. The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom and his tongue talketh of judgment. So judgment and wisdom are being used interchangeably here. The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom. How? His tongue talks of judgment. It's a wise thing to judge. It takes wisdom to judge rightly. It takes discernment to not have respective persons. It takes integrity to do that. The law of God is in his heart and none of his steps shall slide. If you have the law of God in your heart, guiding and directing, you will judge righteous judgment. As Jesus said in John 7, judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. That's out of the mouth of Jesus. He didn't say not to judge. He said don't be a hypocrite when you judge. And he said judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment, meaning do some investigation. Look into things. Have some discernment. Use the law of God. Use the word of God to judge righteous judgment. The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom and his tongue talketh of judgment. The law of God is in his heart. Look at verse 38. The transgressors shall be destroyed together. The end of the wicked shall be cut off. Why? Because God verily is a God that judgeth in the earth. He is a judge. And he commands us to judge. And if we're going to love our neighbor this morning, if we're going to keep that second commandment, then we have to be people who discernly and righteously judge people. It's not a dirty word. In fact, the lack of it today in our society is a real problem. The fact that there's so few people in leadership that are willing to just call things out and say it the way it is has led to a lot of wicked things happening in our society. And I don't want to go into it because I'll end up preaching a whole other sermon right now. And I could tell you guys want to get down to the $5 pancakes or whatever. All you can eat. Is that still going on IHOP? I don't know. But look, if you go there, I'm not going to judge you. But folks, don't be afraid to judge. Don't be afraid of people. Just make sure you're not a hypocrite when you do it. Maybe people would clean up their lives a little bit if they took this on in life. They said, you know what? It's my job to maybe help other people. Look, I'm not saying we need to go around correcting everybody for every little thing. How about as parents? If we as parents are trying to bring our kids up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord as we ought to and trying to get them to walk righteously, maybe we would clean up our own lives. I can't sit here and tell my kids not to do this when I'm doing that. I can't sit here and tell my kids not to behave this way or treat others this way when I'm doing it. If we actually said, you know what? I'm going to judge and I'm going to execute judgment in my own house. I know that sounds kind of severe, but if we actually determine to do that in our lives when it's appropriate, it might force us to actually examine ourselves and say, wait a second, there's this beam here and deal with it. And then we could go back and help people with the smaller issues and the things that they need help with. That's how you love your neighbor. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Treat others as you would have them treat you. Look, if I was in sin, if I was backslidden, if I had a bunch, and I'm not saying that none of us is without sin and perfect, but if we're just blatantly sinning, just in open sin, just blatantly disregarding the word of God, I would want somebody to come and tell me. Lovingly, as kindly as possible, maybe not having to jump down my throat, but I would want someone to come point it out and say, hey, I'm concerned about you. And let me just, in closing, remind you that that happens in preaching. The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom and his tongue talketh of judgment. That reminds me of preaching. You know, the preacher's job is to talk of judgment. You come to a church like this where you preach the Bible, you're going to hear some judgmental sermons from the pulpit. There's going to be some judgment that's doled out. There's going to be, you know, people, there's going to be somebody saying, this is what's right and this is what's wrong. No ifs, ands, or buts about it because that's what the Bible says. We need that, right? And just understand that that's me actually trying to help people, believe it or not. And it has helped people. Hard preaching works, but you know what part of hard preaching is? Is judgment. Don't be afraid of it. Let's go ahead and close in a word of prayer. Dear Lord, again, thank you for a book in the Bible that tells us exactly what's right and exactly what's wrong. That we don't have to wonder about what you think on any topic. That you can tell us exactly what to believe and what to practice. And Lord, that we can build our lives upon the rock of God's word. And Lord, not the shifting sands of this world that seek only to please people, often for their own benefit, Lord. And Lord, I pray that you help us to be a discerning people. Help us to, Lord, examine our own hearts. Help us to get the beams out of our own eyes. And Lord, help us also to have, again, discernment in knowing how to judge and so that we can help, Lord, so that we can love our neighbor and not be a respecter of persons. We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. Alright, we'll go ahead and sing one more song before we are dismissed. Alright, please open up your hymnals to song number 343. We'll be singing song number 343, Revive Us Again. And again, that is song number 343. And again, that is song number 343. Praise Thee, O God, You're the Son of my Lord. Over Jesus, who by ages now come above. Hallelujah, light the morning, hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, light the morning, revive us again. You praise me, O God, for the spirit of life. You have shown us thy Savior and scattered our might. Hallelujah, light the morning, hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, light the morning, revive us again. One glory and praise to the Lamb that was slain. You have taught us our sins and as friends that we speak. Hallelujah, light the morning, hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, light the morning, revive us again. Revive us again, when we talk with thy love. May your soul be free and knowed with fire from above. Hallelujah, light the morning, hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, light the morning, revive us again.