Judging, Asking, Living

Notes

1. Beholding, gazing at a fault in others, turns the attention of others to the thing looked at. It leads to judging, condemning. "Mote," a chip, a splinter, in contrast with a great beam. How can a man with a beam of wood in his eye take from another eye a mere splinter of wood? The sin of sitting in judgment on others is one of the greatest of sins. This judging does not refer to proper church discipline, where the Spirit guides. 1 Corinthians 5. But be sure in such case that it is in reality done in Christ's name and Spirit.

2. The figures are those of casting the flesh of the sacrifice unto dogs, and precious seed pearls, resembling grain, to hogs, which, undeceived, trample them underfoot and rend you. Do not cast the precious truth of God before those who have no desire to hear it. They must be reached in some other way.

3. He who asks to receive, must not ask amiss. James 4:3. It must be to God's glory. He who seeks to find, must seek with all his heart. Jer. 29:13. And he who knocks successfully, will have his whole soul in the knocking. He must long for admittance. Note that this asking must refer not only to ourselves, but we should ask for those whom we would naturally condemn.

4. The sum of the right treatment of all men is embodied in the Golden Rule. How would we have the Chinese, the Spaniard, the Filipino, the opposed to us in religion, our rivals in race or nation, treat us if our circumstances were reversed? That is the way for us to treat them. If the Golden Rule had always been carried out, there never would have been a union of church and state, religious prosecution or persecution, or compulsory religious laws. All labor troubles would be settled by its practical application. All animosity of union men towards non-union would be banished before it. All neighborhood and family troubles would be no more. What is to hinder Christians from reducing it to practise? Note also that all this instruction in Christ's sermon is the magnifying of the law.