Be Careful How You Judge, Pt. 1

Ronald Weinland

October 30, 2021

Today we’re going to be looking at another spin-off of what we’re to learn from what we have been going through, what we have been discussing as far as the sermons are concerned, and what has been made more fully manifest as a result of Covid-19 concerning spiritual weakness in the Body of Christ, and I fully welcome those things when they take place. They’re not always pleasant for all of us to go through, but we need to grow, we need to continually grow.

God gives us those abilities, that blessing of being able to have that in our life, and this way of life really demands growth, and that’s what it’s all about. We want to grow. We want to draw closer to God. We want to become spiritually stronger. He gives us those opportunities, that molding and fashioning, and as we know, it doesn’t come easy because most of that is fighting against self, against our own human nature.

God reveals to us what the nature of mankind is really like, and that’s not an easy thing to acknowledge those things. Because it’s easier maybe to acknowledge other people’s human nature, because we see it, “Oh, it’s so obvious!” But to see our own, it requires more humility, especially as we start digging deeper to see the faults and the weaknesses we have and to understand we have an opportunity to change. We don’t have to stay like this. To me, that’s such an awesome blessing, that we don’t have to stay this way as human beings.

God shows us what is beyond and what we can have and the kind of mind we can have, and it isn’t the mind we have now. We have to conquer that and overcome that, and as it talks about in Romans 12, to desire to be part of the mind becoming transformed, changed completely, becoming in unity and oneness with God.

That battle has shown itself in this very physical thing of Covid and what has been said within the Church, different things that have taken place, to see where our thinking is, to see whether we’re focused on how God works in our lives. That’s why we’ve gone through some of the past sermons, to hopefully become stronger in that. Because we really need to be strong in that, to recognize how God works in our lives, how He reveals truth to us, how He teaches us, how He leads us.

Because if we see that clearly and we hold on to that with all of our being other things that come along out here will not be a distraction. We’ll be more on guard to those things that come at us, which have come at so many in times past; someone saying something that isn’t in agreement, and then someone beginning to let that mull over in their minds and beginning to go off on tangents in different areas, becoming deceived. God gives incredible warning, Christ did throughout scripture there. Incredible, the things we have to be on guard in in our lives to not be conquered by something else, but for us to be in control, conquering as we go forward in battle. Because it’s a battle.

So, we’re going to go on to the next step here, a kind of a spin-off of what we’ve already been covering. It’s something that’s a little more widespread concerning the subject of judging. It’s always good to look at this.

This is one of the most important things in our lives we’re to learn how to do. Truly is. That has to do with the transforming of our mind, desiring to be more at one with God. Because it’s that which has to be in agreement with God, not by our own feelings, because as human beings we judge by how we see things, how we evaluate things by our own past experiences. That isn’t the right way to judge. God wants us to learn how to judge because that requires a lot of us then. And we do this all the time; how to keep the Sabbath, what to do on the Sabbath. We’re ever growing in those kinds of things in our life. Those are things we constantly look at. Not just about the Sabbath but everything in our life, that we need to focus upon how to judge matters around us and becoming more refined in that.

So, this sermon today is entitled Be Careful How You Judge, Part 1.

This has manifested itself in the past year as well because it tries us concerning different things that are said whether they be in the world or whether they be from sermons, and what others choose along the way. Some maybe quickly, some maybe different because of different feelings about what they’re going through. Then sometimes the perception of judging someone.

I’m talking about things like wearing masks or not wearing masks, getting a shot, or not getting a shot. On and on it goes. There’s a lot of judgement in there oftentimes, and there was this past year – may still be on both sides, on both sides of the issues. We have to be very careful of that, how we handle those kinds of things.

We do have to judge, and that’s a lot of what this series is about. And hopefully, becoming more refined. To me, again, one of the greatest things to learn, God wants us to learn how to judge righteous judgment which means it has to be in unity and harmony with His will. That really puts us to the test to see where we are on a spiritual plane.

Let’s turn over to John 8. It’s been a little over two years ago that we focused on this subject of judging. So, every once in a while God has us return to a particular subject to focus upon it in a different way, coming at it in a different vantage point, from a different vantage point because there is always more to grow in what we’re given, and more is added, a maturing process of what we can see and what we can learn.

Just like the Holy Days, every year we go through the Holy Days about God’s plan, and we build upon those things that we already know the basics of very deeply. But we’re to build upon those things. So it is with other subjects in scripture.

We’re going to do so again here going through this, and prayerfully with a maturity that reflects we can grow even more in understanding in this subject, grow more deeply, especially as it applies to fellowship in the Body of Christ. There are things in the world we have to judge and how we deal with it. But when it comes to the Body of Christ it becomes more important because during that we’re being judged even more so how we judge. So again, we have to be careful how we judge.

One of the most important places to begin when this subject is addressed concerns Christ’s own example that gives us the heart of the instruction we need to receive on a spiritual plane in our lives.

John 8:15—You judge according to the flesh. So, he’s telling them, he’s telling mankind, in essence, “You judge physically.” That’s what he’s saying. “You judge according to flesh,” in other words, not according to the spirit because you don’t have the spirit. That’s what he was telling them at that time especially.

Our natural inclination as human beings is to judge on a physical plane by our own experiences, by our own knowledge, by our own insight, and that isn’t right judgment at all. It’s always going to be slanted. Always, always, always is going to have some kind of a bias in it unless it’s based on that which God gives to us in being in unity and agreement with Him according to His will.

But as a whole, our first reaction to things, our first thought oftentimes is what comes out of self, what comes out of here in our thinking, in our speech about others, and we judge.

You judge according to flesh; I judge no one. Now, he’s not saying he doesn’t judge anyone. He judged all the time. We all do. We have to or we’re not thinking and we’re not learning in a way that God wants us to. His point is, “You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one according to the flesh on a physical plane.” He didn’t do it that way. He didn’t do it from his own emotions on an emotional basis or by some other knowledge that he gleaned.

But we tend to as human beings, especially in the world we live in today with the internet and all the junk that’s out there and the things that people read and fill our minds with. It’s as though we study something enough we become expert in it. No, you don’t! No, we don’t! It’s incredible how we can think along those lines sometimes. We have to be so careful.

This here then obviously can be understood by what’s said next, and that’s in verse 16 then, Yet, if I judge, my judgment is true. It’s not really “if,” it’s more of “when I judge,” because, again, those are words that so often are not translated properly. They don’t understand. They don’t grasp what is being said.

“My judgment is true.” Awesome! What an incredible thing to be able to think or to know, to know and to say, “My judgment is true.” If you make a judgment in a certain matter and you know it’s true, there’s something else you know that gives you that confidence, it agrees with God’s will. Now, that’s an awesome thing and that’s our goal, that’s our desire, that’s what we want to aim for.

So, he says, “My judgment is true.” Anything that’s true has to come from God. Truly does. Because it has to agree with Him.

For I am not alone. Alone in what? Alone in judgment. …but I and the Father who sent me. Awesome. So, you learn what that means. It’s on a spiritual plane, has to be of God’s spirit, and that’s the only way to have truth in our life. To continue to be true is with the help of God’s spirit leading and guiding and directing our minds, our thinking as we desire that in our thinking, in our lives, as we come into agreement with it. And that has to come through experiences and conviction. It’s not just doing it blindly, it’s a matter of a change in the thinking where we come to see and understand what God is.

It’s like the Holy Days. It’s like saving second tithe, as an example. Someone who starts to save second tithe before they’ve ever experienced the Feast of Tabernacles, does so by faith because they believe what God has said about tithing, and so they start. But they don’t really understand it yet. They believe God, they see the truth, and so because of that, what they see they’re acting upon it and they look forward to observing the Feast, especially after talking to people.

Because so often the closer it gets the more of a buzz it is, and especially like a time right now if someone had just come into the Church, last week, as an example, and they heard this sermon and they hear all the different people in a congregation talking about the Feast and making plans for wherever they want to go, and now having to shift some plans because they can’t go to Spokane, and things change. But there’s that excitement in the air still that we can do this, we can shift this. But they don’t understand it yet. They just see something that they don’t grasp yet. What an incredible thing then when they have their first Feast of Tabernacles: “Now I know! Now I know what that was all about, all that excitement, because I have tasted of that excitement.” And so, that’s how we grow.

So, whether it be things that God gives us in Holy Days, the experiences of His way of life, it’s something we grow in and we grow in conviction. We act upon that then because we’re convicted. Not just because of a “yes” or “no” and we’re trying to keep God’s commandments like they did in Israel in the Old Testament. They did it by pressure, by peer pressure because of society, because of other things around them, and it was that or nothing else, basically, or you’re ostracized, basically, you’re not a part.

If someone wanted to bring in the observance of some other gods it wasn’t met very well. Most of the times people were put to death. That’s how it was dealt with in Israel. It’s hard for people to understand today, but in this world and in societies as we have today, but back then, God didn’t play games with them. He told them, “This is the way it’s going to be, and this is what you’re to do. They had to make a choice as to whether they were going to do that or not. And if they didn’t want to I guess they could go up into Assyria or down into Egypt or wherever they wanted to go, which undoubtedly happened on occasion.

He says, But I, and the Father who sent me, and in essence saying who have judged. “We have judged,” because he’s in agreement with God. He’s in agreement with God’s judgment in matters and God’s will because it’s a matter of seeing a plan and a purpose that God’s working out. When you see how everything fits into it and how we’re supposed to react and act toward one another then we have to make judgments in that. Because it’s not easy. When we should say something, when we shouldn’t. When we should back away from something or when we should go ahead and address something. What we take in and how we take it in and everything else in life, whether it be in the world around us or within the Body of Christ.

The next area of scripture that adds more and states it more fully is in John 5, backing up a little way here. John 5:30 he said, Of myself, I can do nothing. This is where we all have to begin. We have to understand that especially in what he’s getting ready to address. Of myself, I can do nothing. As I hear I judge, and my judgment is righteous. We want to be able to say the same thing. We want to have that kind of confidence and that kind of boldness, but the only way you can is if you know you’re in agreement and unity with God’s will because God is righteous. By nature we’re not.

As I hear I judge, and my judgment is righteous, because I do not seek my own will. What an incredible thing to say, that we want to be able to say, we should want to. We should want to have that same thinking, that same mind, just as it says, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Joshua.”

…because I do not seek my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me. That’s the answer. That’s what we have to strive to do. If we judge right it’s because we’re not seeking our will, what we might desire in a matter. It’s like even when he was at the point of knowing he was going to die. He knew he was going to be beaten up, he was going to be whipped, his skin going to be ripped off his flesh. He knew the scriptures in the Old Testament.

He didn’t just know those scriptures. He, by reading, he knew them; it was in his mind, it was a part of his being, it was real to him. We can read scriptures and we grow in understanding the reality of certain things, but for him it was like living it because it was so real. “This is what it’s going to be.” And so he asked his Father, he asked our Father, he asked God, he says, “If there is any other way, take this cup from me.”

So, he wanted something different. He didn’t want to have to go through that as a physical human being, but he knew, he knew he had to. He still knew, “This is what I have to do.” He said, “Nevertheless, not my will but Yours be done.” A lot of that just said for our sakes so we can learn from it. Awesome to have that kind of thinking, that kind of mind.

I do not seek my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me. Now, he sent all of us as well. We have to understand that. Sometimes we don’t grasp that. We are called by God; we have the ability to see and know things that are only made possible because of God’s spirit and because of Him drawing us to His truth. God has to do that. He is the one that decides, that chooses who it is. As small as we are on the earth, to know and to understand (so incredible), we are called by God. He has to give us understanding. He has to open up the mind because it’s a spiritual process. He gives to the mind, to our thinking, the ability to hear Him.

The world can hear the words. They can hear things out of scripture. They can hear the same verses we just read, but they don’t understand them. They don’t see them on a spiritual plane, what it really means. How blessed are we that we are in subject after subject, in scripture after scripture, there are things we see? It’s incredible! And because of that then when we respond to the calling God gives to us, it draws us to a point of making a choice. “Do I want this way of life?” And so, it comes to a point of baptism. People have to make choices and decisions.

It’s at that point then that a person then receives that impregnation of God’s holy spirit, and from that point on we’re seeking to do God’s will, we want to be in unity and agreement with God. But when that choice is made God sends us out. We are sent by God to be the Church of God, to be members in the Body of Christ, to be an example of what we’re supposed to be living to anyone who sees it.

Wherever we have contact with different ones they are to see something that is not just us and our ideas and our thoughts; they’re to see something of us, of what we’re like. We’re different. Sometimes people can’t understand that. Like at a Feast of Tabernacles. I don’t know of a place we’ve ever been where there aren’t people at hotels and different places, restaurants, that talk about how it’s like a joy when we’re there at that particular time, that they talk about never seeing a group like this that’s this well behaved, that acts the way they do. They can’t put their finger on it, but they like it, and they make comments about that.

Well, we’re sent to do that. That’s the way we’re to be. We’re not to be like the world.

I marvel sometimes in visiting with some hotels and the like, when we’re talking about a Feast of Tabernacles, and especially in the south, because there are a lot more that come together in different kinds of situations where they have large groups that come for a few days into a hotel and people come there and their behavior sometimes is so atrocious. The world. Supposed to be of a particular church organization, whatever that organization is, but they’re not living what some others would think, “This is what a church organization should be like.” That’s horrible. What a horrible example.

Because they’ve said things like that to me. Sometimes they’re not real excited when they find out it’s a church because it’s like, “Oh…” Now, if it’s a corporation there’s going to be adults who come there to learn something, to sit through seminars and so forth, or whatever it might be, and that’s a different matter. Business people tend to act a little more responsibly in these kinds of atmospheres, but not always. So, that can vary from time to time, but as a whole. But church groups are noted for just being rowdy and not acting good, demanding.

So, we’re sent out to be different. People are to see a difference wherever they come in contact with God’s people. They should because God and Christ dwell in us. So, what should they see? They shouldn’t see that kind of behavior that so often when people are upset about something, when it doesn’t go right and they’re demanding and they’re arguing with the front desk or someone at a table because they didn’t bring the right kind of food out and they got it mixed up. Especially at a time like Covid. They start getting loud with someone and other people in the restaurant are starting to turn around and look. What a horrible thing if we did something like that. We’re not like the world in those things.

This sets the example of what he said here, I don’t seek my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me. We have to understand we have a job to do. We aren’t just free to live any way we want to live. If we do, God will bring that to the surface. If we’re living in a way that doesn’t reflect how we’re supposed to be living that will come to the surface in time and it’ll be addressed one way or another in the Body of Christ. And candidly, the vast majority, as I’ve always said, of the people who ever come into the Church have become disfellowshipped over time. The vast majority! Incredible!

It’s like yesterday. Another one is gone already. It just keeps happening. It’s going to happen until the end. Hard to believe sometimes that those things just keep going on, that people make choices and decisions that that supposed life, they don’t feel it anymore. “It’s just I don’t feel the same.” You think, then what are you doing? Why? That’s up to us what we experience.

If we’re not excited by what God is doing, if we’re not excited by everything we go through and what God teaches us in the Church and all that we’re focused upon? If we’re not in that with all of our being then why aren’t we, if we’re not? Well, it’s because of a relationship between us and God, and so often between us and other people in the Body of Christ. Something’s wrong and we can lose then what we had toward the beginning.

Mark 3. So, when it comes to how we judge and how we live our life it should be in this same manner. Mark 3:31—Then his brothers and his mother came and were standing outside, and they sent for him and called out to him. Now, this has been in times past kind of a hard thing for a particular organization, church organization, because they don’t like to think of Christ having literal members of his family that came from Mary. It’s like, well, yes, she had more children.

So, his brothers and his mother came and were standing outside as they sent for him and called out to him. Then the people who were sitting around him said, Look, your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you.

Then in verse 33 it says, He answered them saying, Who are my mother or my brothers? Who are they? Who is my mother? Who are my brothers? in essence. Then looking at those who sat about him, he said, Here is my mother and here are my brothers. Incredible. So, he was revealing something here that they didn’t grasp. We can understand it, the Church understands it because of family, because we recognize that God’s called us into a Family, a family environment, a family atmosphere to become part of a family, to become part of His Family.

So, it’s an incredible thing that we begin to experience over time. We come to understand that we’re actually closer on a spiritual plane. We understand that. When it’s a matter of God’s spirit, that brings us closer together in a bond and in ties than even physical families. That’s experienced over time. It’s a unique thing.

Verse 35—For whoever does the will of God is my brother, my sister, and mother. Incredible. “Whoever does the will of God.” We’re family. It’s a beautiful thing that God’s called us to, to become part of His Family.

Romans 10. So again, that unique thinking that we need to have toward one another in the Body of Christ, toward family, God’s Family. Because it’s God’s Family and a unique relationship we can have. So, we have to be careful how we judge within that family because if we don’t do it correctly according to God’s will we’re judged. Regardless of what someone else may or may not have done that we have judged, and we make ourselves a judge of them, God holds us accountable for that and not in a good way. So, we have to be very careful what we do and how we do it.

Romans 10:1—Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. So, he’s conversing with them on a plane of something that, because he was sent to the gentiles or to other nations, not to Israel, but he’s telling them, “This is my heart’s desire.” And so, he’s looking to that time. He desires that that take place.

It says, For I bear them witness that they have a zeal of God. So, he recognized that on a physical plane, and it’s strictly on a physical plane, that they had a zeal. Judah primarily at this time, obviously, speaking of Israel, because the rest of the tribes had already been taken into captivity long before. But what remained of Judah and a smattering of a couple of the tribes that were there in Judea at the time, at this time, he said that “they have a zeal for God.” But it’s on a physical plane because they don’t understand what it is. But that’s why they were able to keep their identity.

To me, that’s an awesome thing to understand because Israel turned away from God, turned away from the Sabbath, turned away from the Holy Days, the ten tribes to the north, that nation that split off from Judah, when that happened they began to worship other gods. They began to worship on the day of the sun, they began to worship the sun god and Baal, in essence, and take in the religions around them, and they left the Sabbath, they left keeping of the Holy Days.

Matter of fact, Jeroboam set up the different areas. Rather than going down to Judah for Holy Days, he set up counterfeits of those things in the north where you didn’t have to travel so far. Because his fear was, as is brought out in scripture, that they’re going to turn from him and want what they had in the past when they were united as one people. And so, if they go back down to Jerusalem they may get pulled into that when they go down there to observe the Feast of Tabernacles and want the king down there, king Rehoboam, and want to reunite again. So, he set up other places that they could go and worship during that period of time so they wouldn’t go down to Judah.

From that point on, that’s why it says, after different kings that came along, that basically “they followed the ways of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat.” It’s that scripture after scripture after king after king after king, and because of that God let it be known that they were going to be taken captive into Assyria, into the north by the Assyrians and lose their identity. They wouldn’t be known as Israel any longer. They would lose that.

Judah, on the other hand, they were taken captive later on as well, but it was because they were letting down on the Sabbath. They began to buy and sell on the Sabbath. But they never forgot the seventh day. They didn’t forget the observance of the Holy Days. They still came together. They didn’t do it right; they began to pollute those days, but they had a kind of zeal to keep what God had given to them in that area. They didn’t go with the other religions around them. So, they kept a certain identity. But because they started polluting the Sabbath God let them go into captivity for the seventy years. Awesome! Then they began to come back.

Anyway, I think of us, and the identity God has given to us and how we’re able to keep it because we’re to have a zeal for God but on a spiritual plane. They had one on a physical plane. So, Judah has always been that way. Today the Jewish people, they never lost the seventh day Sabbath. Never lost it. We don’t have to worry about time ever. You know, maybe sometimes different religious scholars get into arguments, “Well, we’ve lost track of time and so how do people really know which day was the seventh day?” If you know the Jewish people, they never forgot. They’ve always had it.

So, one kind of a proof by itself. We know when the seventh day is because they never lost sight of it. They don’t understand Passover anymore. They’ve lost that. They keep a different timing of it and so forth, so they’ve polluted those kinds of things. But even to this day Jewish people still have a zeal in a way toward things that are in the Old Testament that no other religious groups, traditional Christianity, doesn’t have. Those are long gone. They went by the wayside a long time ago. They never had it.

So, he says, For I bear them witness, that they have a zeal. Sometimes we lack zeal. What a horrible thing that Paul is talking about a people, Judah, that has a kind of zeal for what they’re doing in a routine as far as the seventh day Sabbath and when they sun goes down they observe it according to that time. They have a zeal toward that. So much so that the Jewish people to this day, the alarms in Jerusalem go off an hour before sundown and they go off an hour after sundown. They become more than just the letter of the law; they create their own letters. They’re so far to the right in some things and their observances of some of these things.

It’s like Unleavened Bread. They even destroy or sell (most often) in hotels dishes that have had unleavened bread on them. They have a new supply come in year-by-year-by-year and they get rid of the old because it’s had unleavened bread on top of it. They come up with all these things that have leavening in it, what kind of pop you can drink and what kind you can’t drink (soda, whatever), because sometimes some of them have yeast. It’s like beer. You can’t have beer because that has leavening in it. It’s like dog food… Anyway, sorry. It’s not the Day of Unleavened Beer. It’s not the Days of Unleavened Soda or Pop. It’s the Days of Unleavened Bread. But that’s how far they go because there is a zeal, and they carry that zeal too far.

We’re to have a zeal too, but it’s to be in unity and oneness and to become right with God, to be in agreement with God because God is right. If we come up with our own ideas and our own ways of worshipping God, God doesn’t want that. I think of one time at a Passover service somebody wanted to have an arrangement in the front during our Passover service, and they wanted to bring wheat, you know the heads of wheat (it can make a nice arrangement) but dip them in something red because somehow then if we put that up there it reminds us of the suffering of the blood of Christ. And you think, are you nuts?

They weren’t very happy when I told them, “We’re not going to do that.” You can’t change things and put things in because this is how you think you should observe something because it adds something extra to the occasion that we can say, “Oh, look at that wheat…” The person that had that idea it’s like, “That really added to the Passover service.” You think, no, it’s sick, it’s perverted. But sometimes that happens in human life and people get off track.

So, a zeal has to be according to God’s will. But what is our zeal? What is our prayer life like? Do we have a zeal of wanting to make certain that we have our own time, whatever that might be, but that we strive to have it, we try to grow in that, we recognize there are battles we have in our life of wanting to have a right relationship with God, a balanced relationship, things that we do and how we do it, that we want to do it the way God wants us to do it? When something comes along and says, “Well, let’s do it this way now and learn from that,” then we do it because God is showing us something that we can grow in and understand more.

For I bear them witness, that they have a zeal, but not according to knowledge. We’re to have a zeal, but according to the knowledge that God has given to us of His way of life, of His thinking, of His mind, of His plan and purpose, of His Holy Days and what’s pictured and how we fit into that plan and have a zeal toward that.

What a beautiful thing to have a zeal toward what God has told us we can have rather than getting caught up with certain things in the world, if we’re not careful, that begin to take us away from the greatest treasures that mankind could ever be offered.

Everything is God’s and He says we can inherit it all. It’s like it belongs to the entire family. It’s hard to grasp and understand that, what that means. I think of this thing of why keep any tithes back from God that belong to God? Where is the mind in that? Because that’s insanity. What are the riches of life that God has given to us? It’s all God’s. This is what we’re to honor Him, give to Him, and be thankful that we have that opportunity. Yet sometimes that’s not valued because that depends upon our zeal to God.

Where is our zeal, our mind toward God, to loving God, to recognizing how much God has given to us? He’s given us everything. There are very few on earth who have ever been given what we have the opportunity to have. Most of them have to wait until the Great White Throne, then they’ll have that opportunity. To think we’re given that now? But sometimes we begin to take it for granted; we do take it for granted. We can begin to take it for granted, and when we do that we begin to lose the zeal.

I think of the person who just quit. It’s like, there’s not zeal there because it’s like, “Don’t know really where I stand in things and I don’t feel the same anymore, and what is there to hold on to?” It’s like, “Okay, you had it all right in front of you. What did you do with it?”

What do we do with what God has offered us? He wants to know we treasure it. And if we do, you know what? We’ll thank God every day of our life. We’ll be thankful. When we pray, there’s going to be thanks involved in it. If we don’t, something is wrong with us. To thank God. That’s good for us and our thinking and for our minds because it reminds us He’s given us everything.

How blessed are we? Everything around us, everything we see, everything we taste, everything we feel, experiences of life. But this is all physical and what He’s offering us is so far beyond that. But it’s hard for us to grasp that sometimes. If we become weak we won’t be able to hold on to those things.

For I bear them witness, that they have a zeal, but not according to knowledge. Yet we have much knowledge. I am dumbfounded by that sometimes. I think, of all the times to have lived, some of the greatest knowledge that ever came along at any point in time was right at the time of Christ’s ministry. After 4,000 years all of a sudden he began to teach things—they still didn’t understand it until after he died, until their minds received God’s spirit—but still, the things he taught that they were able to learn from and see.

So much more was given to mankind at that point in time because there was very little in understanding of spiritual things before that. Just promises of God and a desire to hold on to those things, and to look forward to those things and in the future a better world where God governs and not mankind. Because especially in those times that people have lived through in the first four thousand years, very cruel, human beings, governments. Far more cruel — they’re cruel still today, but nothing like they were then. Even up to modern times, still have been cruel as a whole, and mankind is still cruel, but it was far more back then.

They had a great desire to see God coming and setting up a government that would rule the world, rule them and the world around them. They didn’t really grasp the magnitude of what it meant. The first thousand years, they didn’t even know about a thousand years. The disciples didn’t know about the thousand years. It’s not written about until you come to John. There are so many things they didn’t grasp and comprehend.

All the things in the book of Revelation, they didn’t have. They didn’t have any of it. They didn’t understand 144,000. They knew because of Old Testament scriptures there are going to be tens of thousands, that’s how it’s recorded, tens of thousands, in essence, of saints, those who come through all of it and are a part of God’s Kingdom. But to understand there’s going to be exactly 144,000?

We have so much that sometimes we don’t grasp how rich we are with truth, with knowledge, things that others before us for nearly 6,000 years have never known. Only in the last seventy-some years has that grown immensely, and the closer we get to Christ’s return, Christ’s coming, the more there is.

I want to stress again I feel exceedingly strong—not setting any dates—but we’re getting extremely close. Things will fit into a pattern when it’s all said and done. The way the world is right now we are so close to things taking place. I believe we have at least one more Feast. After that, I don’t have confidence. We will have a Feast, but it won’t be like what we’re having in organized form now. When God’s Kingdom comes everything changes. But we’re so close.

What is happening with China? I don’t know if you saw. I was sent an article that was talking about how China has 50 million more men than women, and the discussion of some of this is how does China look upon this? Expendable. War. Soldiers. That’s their mindset. That’s the way they’ve always been through time. They don’t think like we do. One of the things that is so difficult for this country especially to understand is other peoples don’t think the way we do. We tend to treat others in the world as though they think the same way, or they should. That’s why we’re so controlling as a nation, trying to control everyone and what they do and how they do it. It’s gotten to a point where the world hates us because of that. They loathe it because of that.

And so, you think about some of those kinds of things that are taking place with Taiwan and the sabre-rattling, what’s being said right now is not a small thing. We are exceedingly close to a war and it’s coming very quickly. Another thing, why would there all of a sudden be a lot of people who would rather have the previous president than what we have now, by a large margin? Do you think other countries that look at that would want him back if that begins to be more of a thing that’s said, if there’s folly after folly after folly and then thinking that he might get back? Because he doesn’t pull any punches. We know what he would do in a war. We know what he would do! He means what he says.

If I were any of those other nations, especially over there, and I was planning on something of this nature—which they already are, planning on a war—that’s why their military is so great, that’s why they’re pushing it as hard as they are, they’re sacrificing mightily for what they have. Their naval forces far exceed ours now. We know that. Finally, our government acknowledges that, that what they have as a navy far exceeds ours. Their ships far exceed ours. Now their missiles exceed ours many times over.

What are they doing all this for? Just to have an equal arms race? Or do they want to be way out ahead? Is it possible that some nation might actually get to a point where they would have the gall to go ahead and use that, to exert their power and influence in the world? We’re naïve if we don’t think that’s exactly where it’s going.

I hope as a Church we recognize by what we see out there time is short, and this is a time to have greater zeal than ever before, a time to push forward more than ever before, a time to desire to draw closer to God than ever before. He is our strength. He is our help. He is the one that’s going to help us through that period of time. Because it’s going to be nastier than what we can ever comprehend.

For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about seeking to establish their own righteousness… That’s the way all nations have been. That’s the way Israel was, Judah, setting their own righteousness, establishing their own. They think they’re right. Every nation does it as a whole. They think they’re right. They know what’s best for their people.

People don’t know what’s best. The government knows what’s best. That’s the way people think. This party knows what’s best or that party knows what’s best, or that person knows what’s best. Then people, if they’re not careful, begin to take sides. Yeah, that would be far better. You think, no, it’s all a bunch of garbage. It’s all a bunch of stupidity and ignorance. God’s Kingdom is what’s best. Thank God we know that’s what’s coming.

For they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, are going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. That’s the problem. No one, people don’t want God. They don’t want the truth of God in their life.

Like the book being written. People don’t want that. They don’t want to know what a church did in 325, when they outlawed Passover, that no longer could anyone within the Roman Empire keep Passover, to the penalty of death.

The Sabbath became outlawed. The seventh day. It was considered “Jewish.” People hated the Jews in that part of the world at that time. Hated them. Loathed them. I think of a hundred thousand that were taken up to build the Colosseum in Rome, Jews, slaves, things that have happened in history that are mind-boggling sometimes.

…have not submitted to the righteousness of God. So, that’s the problem. So often people don’t want God in their lives, don’t want to talk about God.

It becomes difficult for us as a Church sometimes renting facilities because when someone finds out, you mention the word “God,” it’s tough, especially overseas. It gets tough, it really does. A church? Church organization? All these feelings that people have about it.

That’s why we’re not doing music anymore, as a whole, in services, because people really don’t like that in their hotels. They don’t want that there. Anyway, I could tell you some stories, but I’m not going to bother. People don’t want God, anything to do with the name of God, whether it be what’s true. But when somebody begins to learn what is true and that it means we’re not supposed to be keeping Sunday? You mean, not only is Santa Claus a lie but christmas is a lie? It’s hard.

So, the reality is we’re to judge matters in life all the time. It’s just a part of life. We have to judge. It has to take place. You have to judge things you do in your life and why you do them. A lot of those are very critical, matters of judgment in your life, matters of judgment with other people as well about other people. There are things you can’t just be foolish about in relationships, trusting. You have to be wise in your judgment when it comes to trusting, especially in the world. Sometimes you have to be careful even within the Church. You have to be careful until we really know someone. And how well do we really know someone? So, it takes time to really get to know one another.

We’re to be wise in all of our dealings and we have to make judgments along the way and we’re held responsible for that before God. For our families, for all kinds of matters. I’m just going to throw this in there. We have to be careful how we judge in matters of others in the Church.

I think of Covid. People getting the jab; why they did or why they didn’t. There are some situations out there that some people have certain health situations where they’ve been advised, highly advised not to take it. So, if that be the case, someone else can’t say, “Well, they didn’t get the jab. They didn’t walk in faith.” You think, that’s not what this is all about.

It’s about striving to have what’s best for the Body at the Feast of Tabernacles, so we don’t have the kind of outbreak like it happened in so many different groups that we know of now, in the exceedingly high percentages of people at different Feast sites (not ours), that had it and so forth. So again, we learn through matters of how to judge them and so forth, and what is good and what isn’t good. Sometimes even within this we have to be careful how we judge someone else.

Whether someone gets the booster. I plan on getting a booster. I do a lot of travelling; different variants are coming around. There’s another variant coming out right now, again, like I said, it’s supposed to be worse than the Delta, and not just as far as catching the stuff, but it’s supposed to be harder on you as far as your health is concerned. There are two of the vaccines out there that they say it doesn’t have any effect on whatsoever – I think it was Pfizer and Astra Zeneca, I think. But anyway, that’s early stages. But there’s some scary stuff going on out there.

So, you strive to do the best you can, and then it’s in God’s hands. That’s how we live our life. We strive to do in unity what we can the best we can, and then we have to make judgments. Like with children. Some have asked me, “Well, what about children getting it?” I’m not going to set something for children at all.

Coming to the Feast of Tabernacles, being an adult, yes, we have to all have the vaccine. It’s just like in Europe. You can’t go into a restaurant unless you have your card, unless you have proof that you have had the vaccine. So, you can order from a grocery store because I don’t think you can go shop in a grocery store, so you have to order from them, and they will deliver it to you if you want to do all your own cooking.

You can’t even come into the restaurant. Like we’re going to be together, and the first day between services, you can’t come in and eat there. Of necessity, that’s why we have some of these things. You don’t know from what, from what point in time something is going to get worse and it’s going to be required again. So we don’t know. We strive to have a unity within the Body, to function the best we can with what we know, with what God has blessed us to know.

When it comes to children, I’m not going to set anything as far as an age. I would be personally leery for a very young age, candidly. Older, into teens, I don’t know. I’d have to make a judgment in that. But we’re not doing one as far as the Church is concerned. I’ve basically, I think I’ve made it very clear that it’s adults on up.

When are you an adult? Well, sometimes it may be forty! (No, I’m just kidding. Just kidding!) It’s like baptizing. We don’t baptize someone generally until they’re around nineteen at least. Adult age, in through there, maybe sometimes on a rare occasion eighteen. But as a whole, it’s nineteen on up. So, that’s kind of a guideline.

But anyone younger than that, older teens, I probably wouldn’t have any qualms about it, but after that it’s like where is the threat to them, as a whole. It’s not out there, as a whole, so, you know, I’m not going to say anything about it. But parents have to, don’t they? And who are we to judge in those areas? Because nothing has been given as a guideline by the Church. So, if something hasn’t been given as a guideline by the Church then you have to judge yourself and no one else should judge you for what you choose. Make sense?

Because see, those things have happened in the past year or so, where people have judged others for why they didn’t do something or why they did do it. It’s one thing to judge and be at peace yourself. Well, we’ll come to some of those things in other scriptures here. But there’s balance in these things, and we’re ever growing in these things. But it’s never to be used against someone in a bad way in the sense of condemning. That’s when judgment gets into an area that is difficult. We should be far more cautious when it comes to this matter in the context it’s talking about condemning someone else for what they have chosen to do.

Be very, very careful in the Body of Christ. If there is judgment that has to be given in a matter that requires an action, it’s not a matter of condemning but it’s a matter of judgment, that something has to be done, “You shouldn’t have done this,” then that will be administered by the Church. That’s how it works. So, we learn from that as well.

We have to judge matters all the time—it’s just a fact of life—which involves making judgments concerning the actions of others as well because we have to decide, “What would I do?” Sometimes we don’t really know what we would do in certain situations until or unless they come upon us. There are a lot of judgments that take place sometimes upon others for what they’ve done, and we think we know what we would do.

I’ll tell you what, the Apostasy brought to light the reality that a lot of people thought they knew what they would do but when it happened they didn’t realize where they really were. Then they made their choices and their judgments, and it wasn’t good, as a whole, for the Church.

Sometimes we think we know what our judgment would be in certain matters until it actually knocks on our door. Then a lot of things can change because you begin to take in factors that you had never considered before. Judgment. Input. All different thinking. Then most of all looking to God for help, that you want to be in unity and agreement with Him according to His will and what’s best. But ultimately, you have to make a choice, and if you strive to do it God’s way He’s very merciful.

Sometimes we do that, and we still make the wrong choice. Well, then we can learn from that. He’ll help us to learn from that. That’s what’s good. He’ll help us to learn from that. Then if we do something wrong we always can repent if we’ve gone that far with something, where sin is involved, and ask God to forgive us. And you know what? He always does. Awesome. Incredible, the blessings we have because of grace and because of how God works in our life. Because He wants us to have these experiences.

It’s like a child. You have to give them certain things; you can’t protect them all the time. You can’t be there, in a sense, over everything in their life. You’ve got to let them to make some choices, to learn from their choices. And when they make wrong choices, to teach them that as well. That’s a learning process. It’s because of those experiences you can tell them not to do this, you’re going to get hurt. Then if it happens, you say, “See, it hurts, doesn’t it?” and we reinforce those things. They begin to learn, to listen maybe, hopefully more, but we don’t tend to much as human beings.

So, this continues on through the rest of our life. Awesome! So, it involves making judgments, again. The test is whether or not we do it, strive to do it God’s way. We want to look to God first, but ultimately we have to make those choices.

Sometimes I’ve had people ask, “Well, these three jobs are there, which one do you think?” It’s a choice. It used to be sometimes people would ask, “Well, what kind of car is the best kind of car to buy?” You think, you’re buying the car! The Church isn’t buying the car. But sometimes there were ministers who would give that input. It’s like, who do you think you are to tell other people what kind of a car is better than the other? Everybody has to make their own choices in life.

Same thing with a job. You have to look at it. You might have some pointers of some things to look at: “Have you thought about ‘this’ and ‘that’ with each one of them?” But ultimately each person has to make their own choice. Then, it’s a choice because it’s not a matter of a right or a wrong.

There are all kinds of choices we make that aren’t a matter of a right or a wrong, but sometimes we can ask someone else in the Church if we’re not careful, and they know what’s right and wrong. “You buy that Chrysler; you’re going to be sorry.” (Just kidding.) But things like that have happened, crazy things. But again, it’s a matter of each person has to make a choice, and when you do you ask God to bless you in it. There’s not a right or wrong so you ask God to bless you in whatever that might be – in the job you do choose, or the business you decide to start. You step out and do something that you’re kind of fearful, you’re going to start this business, and so you start pushing, you start doing it, but you ask God to bless you in it. There’s not a right or wrong.

I hope you can relate to some of that because these things happen in different forms and different ways in people’s lives in the Church all the time. Sometimes there are individuals who are ready to tell you what’s right and what’s wrong in the situation that may not be too expert in the field.

So, we want to do it according to God’s will. So, we have to be careful when we judge, because of necessity we must all judge.

Let’s turn over to Matthew 7:1—Judge not so that you may not be judged. So again here, it’s not saying we’re not to judge at all. You have to understand the context. Sometimes we don’t grasp that you can’t grasp things that are given unless you know the context, what is being discussed, what is it about, because it doesn’t bring up everything every moment throughout a particular verse. But if you read the context of what it’s all about then you’ll see the framework and be able to put it all together in a right way, in a sound way.

So, when it says, “Judge not so that you not be judged,” it’s not saying that you’re not to judge at all. It’s how you judge, and especially when it comes to judging others. We have to be careful. It’s a matter of the way we judge that’s being addressed here. That’s the context.

For with what judgment you judge, again, the manner in which we judge. What is that manner? God’s will or the way “I” see it, the way we see it. Are we striving to do it according to God’s will? And so, it’s the way we do it that’s important.

For with what judgment you judge, so if you do it from your own vantage point, from your own way physically, carnally, without input, without thought about what God says about a matter, God says that’s how we’re going to be judged. Awesome. Because we have to learn from it. He lets us then experience that and then hopefully we’re able to come to see how that was wrong and how we have to repent of it because it’s wrong to not have God as the focus of our judgment.

So again, it’s not a matter of how we see it. It’s not a matter about what we believe it should be that’s apart from God. Because we tend to do that as human beings so often with others. It’s really quite incredible sometimes how we can look down on others, of what choices they make in certain things they do. “They shouldn’t have done that” or “Why did they do that that way?” Well, because it’s their way, not your way.

I hope this is resonating a little bit in our lives because it happens all the time in God’s Church, it happens all the time in our lives in how we do judge. But it’s a matter of how we do it that’s so important that God wants us to grasp. It has to be according to God’s will.

Verse 2—For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with what measure you use, how we’re measuring it. How do we measure ‘this’? How do we decide ‘this’? it will be measured back to you. It’s a spiritual thing, candidly, and sometimes that’s very hard to see and understand, what’s being said here. “With which measure you meet, it’s going to be measured to you.” Sometimes we can be so clear about what someone else is doing and we don’t see ourselves, what we’re doing, and we’re doing the same thing so often, maybe in a different matter but we’re doing the exact same thing.

That’s the incredible thing about human nature. We can see how someone else is doing something with their children, or whatever it might be, and then we just don’t see what we’re doing. We don’t see how we’re doing things with our children. It’s a common thing that happens in people’s lives. We see choices of certain things that some individuals might make and their thinking, and again, it’s very hard to see in the mirror ourselves because it’s easier to see someone else. It’s so clear to us so often, everybody else. It’s so difficult to look in a mirror and see ourselves. It really is. To understand our own motives, our own reasons.

Verse 3—So, why do you look at the splinter in your brother’s eye? Why do you focus upon it? Isn’t that a crazy thing that human beings do? Why are we so prone as human beings to find fault in others, to see fault so clearly in others and what they’re doing and to get worked up over it. That’s where a lot of drama comes from in life because we see something that someone should have done in a different way, and if they’d just done it that way they wouldn’t be going through this right now. If they’d just listened to me because we have the answers if they’d just ask.

It’s wrong, that kind of thinking where we judge others and condemn others because they didn’t do something the way we thought they should do it. Because the tendency is then to look down at them, to put them down somewhere, not up to where we are in our insight and understanding because they didn’t choose the way “I” would have done it, or the way “I” said it ought to be done. But they did it a different way. Then because of that a person can look down upon them, sometimes to the point where they won’t even associate with someone again or on the same level anymore. There is something there in between them because we put them in a pigeonhole somewhere, a category somewhere.

Sometimes as human beings—I hate this so much—we never let them out either. It’s like something that might have happened a year ago or two years ago or a month ago and we won’t let go of it and whenever we look at that person then we’re always reminded of this one thing here or there, whatever it might be. We can’t do that. The slate gets wiped clean.

God forgives; we better be forgiving in our thinking toward others and want to see everyone succeed in the Body of Christ, especially when we’re talking about the Body of Christ. You have to strive not to judge someone by a mistake in the past—that can be very difficult to do—by a sin of the past. Who of us hasn’t made mistakes? Who of us haven’t sinned?

So, if we’re using the measure of judgment and we’re not that way toward ourselves, what a horrible thing to measure that out to others or to meet it out to others. God says if we do that why is that? It’s because we’ve got some really tough things to learn and it’s not going to be easy, it’s going to be hard. God’s going to make sure we learn it just because it’s a requirement to grow. We have to go through and do it successfully if we’re going to grow.

In the things that we might measure out to others we find ourselves having to learn we’re doing the same sort of things. In different areas perhaps, but something is wrong with our thinking, or we wouldn’t have judged that way in the first place. So, our judgment was wrong, so we have sin. Incredible.

So, why do you look at the splinter in your brother’s eye and do not consider, or are not aware of, that’s what it’s talking about here. You know, why is this being said here? It’s because we’re to look at ourselves. That’s the whole point. It’s so easy to see mistakes of others. Who doesn’t do that at times in their life, or who doesn’t maybe do it all the time if we’re not careful as human beings?

Even in the Body of Christ if we’re not careful we can judge something that someone’s done and find great fault in it and it becomes so blown up and we look at them in a certain way, and it says, “and you don’t even look at what you’ve got to change in your life.” Why aren’t we examining ourselves? Why are we examining someone else? Why are we putting down someone else? These are the kinds of things I hate the worst, most in the Body of Christ when they take place.

I just want to tell you, they happen all the time Church area to Church area to Church area because we’re still coming out of the world and we’re still growing. We have to have patience with one another in that process. Prayerfully, we’re learning as we go through that process, and we want to see every person succeed in this. A much higher standard is held for us, obviously, in that change that has to take place in our thinking that the world can’t do. They can’t do, they can’t see these things. But we can because we’re to work on self.

We’re sent into the world to change, to be transformed, to experience things out here and not be pulled away by them, to be able to look at the internet, to look at news and learn to judge righteous judgment. Not to be pulled into it, not to begin taking sides, not to begin thinking someone is right out here, but to be wise in what we’re digesting and how we’re evaluating it, and understanding what God says – it’s all wrong.

It all has to change. I don’t care what part of society or the world you look at, everything has to change. Everything in the legal system, everything in the government system, everything, I don’t care where it is. In the taxation system, everything in the medical field, everything that’s out there. Everything in schools. In all those categories, they’re getting worse. They truly are. Everything is just getting worse and worse and worse.

God is letting the world get a big taste of it and a big smell of it because He’s manifesting it more and more in the world. A lot of that is because of technology. It’s out there and things are being brought to the surface, how bad it really is.

So, why do you look at the splinter in your brother’s eye and do not consider the plank (the beam) that’s in your own eye? I love the way it says that because it’s like we can pick apart something in someone else’s life and find something that we don’t agree with that they shouldn’t have done, and we don’t see that by what we’re doing we have a far greater problem. Our problem is far, far worse. That’s what God wants us to grasp, that the very fact we’re doing that reveals something about ourselves and the way we’re measuring this, the way we’re evaluating it, the way we’re judging it, that we’re so far off base according to God’s will because we’re not looking at ourselves, that we have the greater problem. Not them.

Maybe they have done something wrong. Maybe they don’t see something as clearly as they could or should. But if we’re of a condemning spirit toward them, very judgmental, not letting it go, holding on to it, then we’re committing the greater problem, and that problem, candidly, is sin.

Sometimes we can judge things out there that it’s a matter of a choice and it’s not a sin. That’s why sometimes people ask various questions, and they disagree with what somebody has done, and they find fault in the way somebody said something, and the question is, “Was there sin?” Where was the sin? And so often, and I would say probably most of the time, people can’t tell me what the sin was. What was the sin? What was the sin that you’re so worked up and upset with that individual? What sin is there? Because if there is a sin that needs to be addressed then we can maybe discuss some of this and strive to do it God’s way.

So often when these things come to light it’s like, “Well, yeah, huh, no sin.” But we can be very hard on people sometimes and it not be a matter of sin, it’s just a matter of choices or a different way of doing something. Or maybe we just didn’t like the way they said it. But was it sin? Are you judging them because of the way you think they said it, that there was a sin involved in them? Are you judging their motive? Who are you to judge someone’s motive, of why they might have said something or done something in a certain way? How do you know what they did or why they did it?

That’s why even in some things of shot or not shot, sometimes you can judge someone and not realize the decision is just as righteous as yours.

Or how can you say to your brother, Let me remove the splinter from your eye. So, sometimes if we’re not careful sometimes then that splinter thing becomes so big to us that we think we need to go to our brother alone. Maybe we don’t even think that way, we’re just going to go to our brother alone and tell them why we disagree with them about a certain thing, the splinter, whatever that is that’s become big to us, but it’s not really big, so often it isn’t even a sin.

It says, and yet look, a beam, a plank is in your own eye? Again, the point being from God is we get sometimes as human beings so worked up over something so little, so small that we’re the ones that are sinning by our attitude, by our response that should tell us something is wrong here. Why are you so worked up over this? Why are you so adamant about this? Why do you feel so strong toward this individual in a bad way? Why do you feel this way toward them? Are they in the Church? Are they in the Body of Christ? Do they have God’s spirit? Do you know why they said that? Are you certain that you heard them correctly even?

Then he went on to say, Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye. So, the admonition is always when it comes to relationships especially and how we look upon or think about various things about others that we might think is wrong or we find fault in, the first thing we’re supposed to do basically is go to God in prayer and ask for right thinking: “Am I seeing this correctly? Am I right? Am I dealing with it right? Is there sin involved?” Whatever it might be. Just ask, “I want to do it Your way and I don’t want to have bad feelings toward someone else.” If you start to have bad feelings towards someone, that’s a tell-tale sign something is wrong in your thinking anyway because you can see that something is wrong but love them.

You can see your own children have done something wrong and address that wrong, but you don’t feel badly toward them in the sense of not liking them as much anymore or whatever it might be that we can do to other human beings sometimes. Because we love them. If we really love each other we’re going to want to see each other succeed.

So, our judgment is so important, that it be done God’s way, that we love God’s people, and if we love God’s people, if we start to feel badly toward someone else in a way that shows attitude in the sense of being harsh or very critical and cutting in what we’re saying then we have to be careful we’re not the ones sinning by doing that.

Hypocrite! It says, First remove the plank from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your… Then you can help someone perhaps. If we’re able to see something properly and be of a right spirit and a right mind, a humble spirit, candidly, knowing that we all have sin to be repented of in life, we’ve all made mistakes. Yet the desire and the goal is to conquer and overcome and be in God’s Kingdom and want to see everyone succeed.

That’s why it’s so painful sometimes to see people month after month go by the wayside. We get smaller and smaller. It’s not God’s purpose to add to us now. He’s letting us be sifted because of where we are, because we’re getting so close there it’s like a final sifting to have something that’s remaining that’s pure, pure as can be in human form, human life. So, too often we just don’t grasp our human nature.

Romans 2. Now, all of you listening today, you’re going to have the opportunity, the ability over this next week to be able to see certain things that I’ve talked about in the sermon that are going to pop up in your thinking (because you’re a human being), about someone else. Perhaps on the outside. And how should you think toward that, toward others on the outside? Get riled up, get mad, get upset with the waitress, get upset with someone, whatever it might be, that people tend to do, get upset with the way people are driving (have to be careful of that one) around you? We have different battles, all of us, and situations can come to the forefront.

But as far as the world, you know what your first response should be? “They can’t help it, but I can.” That says a lot right there. “They don’t know what they’re doing. They’re caught up in this world. I’m not supposed to be caught up in this world. I’m in this world and it’s all around me,” and it presses on us, but we’re not to act like the world. We’re not to respond like the world. We have to be different. That’s why we have to constantly look at ourselves and what we’re doing.

So, it’s easier in one respect if we do it the right way, like Christ said, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.” Why hold something against someone when they don’t even know what they’re doing? They don’t grasp it. They think he’s a criminal, they think the government wouldn’t have been wrong, that Pilate wouldn’t have done what he did unless he’d done something. The religious leaders? He must have done something wrong, or they wouldn’t, he wouldn’t be going through this right now. The thinking of people sometimes and how those things come in. We have to be so careful then how we think.

You are inexcusable old man, speaking of mankind. That’s what this word means in essence, it’s about mankind. Therefore, you are inexcusable O man, mankind, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever, and this is a Greek word having to do with “the instrumentality used.” That’s literally what it means, hence, a matter of the manner in which one judges, the process, the means by which you do it. That’s what this Greek word is. So, when it says “whatever” that’s what it’s saying, “the manner that you use.”

…you judge another you condemn yourself. So, because of mankind, mankind doesn’t do it God’s way, in seeking God’s will, so people don’t realize even within the Church so often, that when we judge others in that manner we’re judging ourselves. Because God says it shouldn’t be that way, we shouldn’t do that.

For you who judge practice the same things. That is so hard to see even when you have God’s spirit. Well, you say, “Well, I didn’t do that.” Well, not that specific thing perhaps, but of the things you condemn in other areas of your life, you’re using the same kind of reasoning, you’re doing the same kind of things and you do the same things. Sometimes even the exact same things that we condemn someone else of doing and we don’t even see it. That’s how blind human beings can be.

But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth. So, that’s what we look for. The world around us, every time we have something happen around us, it gets to a point where it should be automatic in your thinking. It might take a little while but that’s the conclusion you should come to. It depends on the situation. I don’t care where you are.

It’s like people coming at you in a mall, one of my favorite things, and they’re four abreast and that’s all you can get. You’re coming at them, and no one will make room for you. They expect you to disappear or something, I don’t know, but it’s like, “Can’t you see?” It’s the way we are as human beings.

But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth. So, we realize they can’t help it. They can’t help what they’re like. We can. I don’t want to get caught up in that attitude. Sometimes we have to fight certain things because you’re bombarded with things in the world around you, the way people treat you, the way people talk, the way people act. There is so much pressure in the world today, the way people are, the way people think and get upset about the slightest little thing.

I think of schools today and people who have children in schools and the battles that are going on there in schools. Tt’s horrible, that pressure, that stress that’s out there. Your way of dealing with it is to understand they don’t know what the answers are. They think they know but you have to work with it. You have to work with what is not perfect yet. It’s not perfected. You have to make the best decision within a bad environment and strive to make it.

Just like Covid shot, what are you going to do? Well, we’ve got to work with it the best way we can. Masks! I hate masks! And yet you’ve got to do what you can to cooperate in the best way you can to a point, and that’s the way we should live. Because they don’t know, they can’t help how they live and what they’re doing.

Because it has to be according to truth, it says here, against those who practice such things. So, do you think this, O man, again, speaking of mankind, you who judge those practicing such things are doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? So, that’s the whole point that God wants us to grasp when it comes to this subject. We need to understand that we’re being judged and how we judge. Simple. Is it good or is it bad? Is it right or is it wrong? Is it according to God’s will or not?

We have to learn through that process. Because if it’s not according to God’s will we’re sinning; we’re being condemned, we’re being judged, we’re under a judgment and have to pay a price.

Or do you despise the richness of His goodness, the forbearance, the longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads to repentance? What an awesome thing to understand. God’s patient with us. What are we to learn from that? We should be patient with one another within the Body. God is good toward us in everything He does and everything He gives us in life, and we should strive to be good toward one another in the Body.

“Forbearance.” We should be that way toward each other. Appreciating the differences. I love this because within the Church we have a lot of differences, different personalities. Sometimes people don’t realize that’s the spice of life. If we were all the same it would be so bad, it really would. We’re supposed to learn to appreciate the differences and the fact that people think differently and come to different conclusions about different things. If it’s not a matter of sin there are all kinds of choices that can be made in life.

And so, instead of seeing that as something that’s bad or that’s opposing you or hurting you, embrace some of the differences, “viva la difference.” That word didn’t come to me.

Not knowing that the goodness of God leads to repentance. Well, I’m going to stop there because again here, it’s understanding that if we grasp God and God’s mind toward us and how He deals with us, we ought to have that same mind toward others. That’s what He’s telling us, that we ought to be patient with one another, longsuffering through things that sometimes we have to be in life. And in all this, it’s a matter of love toward each other. What else would we want but to be patient with someone, to give someone time?

Do we think that we’re changing quickly? I’ve been at this since 1969 and I’ve got a way to go, and I will until it’s over with. Every one of us does; we have things we have to work on. We get to a certain point; God will show us more that’s inside of us. We all have things that have to change. But we can’t be perfect while we’re in this body, but He brings us to the point where He can say, in essence, “You’ve fought a good fight. Now I know you. I know what you’ll do under these difference circumstances,” and we’re going to be a part of His Family.

But you’ll never be perfect so we should have a humble spirit and realizing what we are and who we are and every one of us have changes that need to take place and not be hard on each other. It’s not good.

Next Sabbath, Part 2.