Matthew 7

Matthew 7:1-29

THE THIRD SECTION OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT Matthew, Chapter 7. WE come now, in our consecutive study of the Book to Matthew VII. By the somewhat mechanical division of chapters, this constitutes the third section of the Sermon on the Mount. A great many people who talk of “the Sermon on the Mount” mean simply the Beatitudes. On the contrary, the Beatitudes constitute a small portion of this—Christ’s most fully reported discourse. The “Blesseds” that made that portion of it a sort of “balm in Gilead”, are followed by important truths doctrinally phrased; by insistent demands of righteousness in thought, as well as in conduct; and, even by urgent appeals for the highest spiritual living; cogent warnings against the dangers by the way, and, finally, rather drastic declarations concerning departure from the plain paths of God’s appointment. This seventh chapter could be considered under many headings. Practically every paragraph in it introduces a specific theme, but for the sake of simplicity and clearness, I have elected to try to bring its discussion under three general heads:—hypocrisy in judgment, honesty in prayer, integrity in prophets. IN . Here we deal with Matthew 7:1-6 : “Judge not, that ye he not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, ‘Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye” Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye. Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them wider their feet, and turn again and rend you”. The intent of these verses is neither a timid nor a trite appeal. They are virile in spirit, rather blunt in speech, and evidently intended for “correction”. They were spoken for the benefit of a certain class in Christ’s day—Pharisees—a class that has always unfortunately been prolific, that is to say, their descendants are many. The kind of judgment here excoriated has three essential elements. It involves a self-righteous assumption, it voices a censorious and sinful spirit, and it makes little or no distinction between the saved and unsaved. First, it involves a self-righteous assumption. “JUDGE”! That opening word conveys a definite idea. In the text, it is a verb. In fact, it is a noun! The man who pronounces “judgment” is the man who assumes that he is an officer set to declare judgment. Now, there are such officers duly appointed or elected, but the text is not talking of them. It is talking of men who build their own judgment-seat and set themselves in it. It is talking of women who find an open-ear and convert it into a tattler’s throne. It’s strange how the man who imagines that he is himself righteously superior, sees little or no good in his nearest neighbor. How marvelously Christ’s parable brings that fact forth! “And He spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess”. It is very rare, indeed, to find a man, who boasts his own virtues, who does not spend at least half his time condemning the vices of his friends and acquaintances, and, exactly, as in the instance of the Pharisee in the parable, he will take his own strong points and parade them: “I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess”, and then condemn the acquaintance who does not do identically the same. In other words, Hebrews 1 converts the strongpoints of his conduct into cold steel with which to cut the weaknesses of his fellow. The man who is too stingy to spend a ten-cent piece on drink is never known to have any sympathy for a drunkard; and the woman who is too bloodless to know the meaning of affection, much less a misplaced one, is never known to speak a kind word for the sister who, enduring a thousand temptations the first never knew, before she fell into a sin that even at its worst is not so condemning as the secret whispers and slander of the self-righteous—all of which illustrates the poet’s words, “Compound for sins they are inclined to, By damning those they have no mind to”. Second, it voices a censorious and sinful spirit. Self-righteousness and censoriousness are twin sisters, and they both seem to be well-nigh beyond redemption. When a man in the ministry reaches the point where he regards himself as the only straight thinker in the land, and the competent judge and censor of all of his brethren, he is in a bad way spiritually. His best friend cannot keep him afloat and dare not even trust him out of sight. When a woman is afflicted with a whispering tongue, you may defend her other good qualities and prove yourself ten thousand times her friend, and yet live in the practical certainty that you yourself will yet be venomously stung by that same tongue. Third, it makes no distinction between saved and unsaved men. The judge on the bench is supposed to be “no respecter of persons”, and the self-appointed judge always lives up to that supposition. He doesn’t think of worldly and wicked men as of one company, and Christian men as of another, to be considerate, at least, of the latter. The best man must be inspected by him. He must lift his eyelids and look the whole eye-ball around to see if he can find “a mote” there, and it never once occurs to him that the man into whose eyes he is looking sees “beams” in his head-sockets where eyes should be, and that “beam” is not constituted by strong drink; that “beam” is not made up of bad manners; that “beam” is not an accumulation of profane words or vicious acts; that “beam” is the spirit of the man himself. He is drunk on censoriousness; he is profane in his uncharitableness, and is particularly vicious in his speech. Little wonder that the Scriptures write, “Thou art inexcusable, oh man, whosoever thou art that judgest, for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest doeth the same things”. The longer one lives, the more keenly one appreciates those people who go their way through the world, moved in thought and conduct by kindliness, those who considerately phrase even their deepest convictions, and who guard with careful concern the standing and reputation of saved men and women. The sixth verse here is the consummation of this entire thought, “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you”. Beyond all question, the man to whom you preach the Gospel in vain is the man whose self-righteousness renders him as absolutely indifferent to the sense of need, and almost as incapable of the experience of grace as a dog is indifferent to holiness and the swine is to the value of pearls. In other words, it is a waste of time and speech to preach to the self-righteous! HONESTY IN PRAYER “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, holy much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that ask Him? Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it”. A sincere perusal of this passage will impress one with the following facts: Prayer is by its nature importunate, its expectation rests in Him who promised, and it clearly recognizes the paternity of God. Sincere prayer is by its nature importunate. Hence, the repetition, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened”. If these are not synonyms, they are of close akin. “Ask”, “seek”, “knock”. There is, however, in them an evident progress. “Ask” is a mere request! “Seek” is an insistent one! “Knock” is an excited and urgent appeal! We know from other Scriptures that Christ favored importunate prayer. “He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man: Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily”. Chrysostom, the golden-mouthed, says, “If thou do not receive straightway, do not even thus despair, for to this end he said ‘knock’ to signify that even if he should not straightway open the door, we are to continue there”! The difficulty with too many of our prayers is that they are indifferently lisped, and then even the subject of the prayer forgotten. If a true believer takes pains to review his life, he will find that there have been few things for which he insistently sought, that God did not finally give him. In fact, I was able to say just a bit ago that there remained but two great desires of my life that had not yet been accorded, and I had an unshaken confidence that they would both come to pass, on condition, of course, that I continued to plead, to “ask”, to “seek” and to “knock” until He answers. Its expectation rests in Him who promised. “What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that ask Him”? In other words, we are dealing with God—God who is love; God, who is compassion; God, who keeps His promises. There’s a very great reach in these sentences. God does not lay speedy limitations upon prayer. He does not tell us that we can ask for “a few things”, or for “the most important things only”. He does not tell us that “only a few people can ask”,—special favorites of His own. He does not limit us to “a few realms”, as that of health for instance, or honor, or riches.

The whole realm of life is within the compass of this promise. As one has said, “If your health is poor, ‘ask’ for improvement; ‘seek’ for perfection of health; ‘knock’ and it will be given. If your income is scant and actual necessities exceed it, ‘ask’, ‘seek’, ‘knock’. If your problem is too great for you, and you must have wisdom above that suggested by your own mind, ‘ask’, ‘seek’, ‘knock’. He will give ‘liberally and upbraid not’ ”. There is, as a matter of fact, but a single condition laid upon this precious proposition, namely, that we should ask intelligently. It’s all right for a son to ask for “bread”. God will give him that! But if he asks for a “stone”, God will do nothing of the sort. It is all right for a child to ask for “fish”. That’s good for his health, and adds to his strength. God will give him that; but if he ask for a “serpent”, God will answer “no”. There are many things that are not for man’s good. For them, it is foolish to pray, and it is commonly of no effect. Wisdom is with God, and all goodness is in Him, and He cannot grant one harm, even on one’s own request. Therein is one reason why so many of our prayers are unanswered. James has dealt with this subject. He said, “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts”. I remember some years ago, one of our world-famed prize-fighters said he could not possibly understand how his defeat came to pass, since, before the fight, he went up into the hay-mow and begged God to give him victory against his opponent. What was he asking God to give him,—the power of brutal blows? What was he asking God to give him,— a quarter of a million for a twenty-minute brutal exercise? Men who know God never expect an answer to a prayer like that. This text clearly presents the paternity of God. “Your Father which is in Heaven”. Then, we must approach Him as a child approaches his father. We must put our dependence upon Him as a child puts his dependence in his father; but we must defer to His judgment as to what is for our good, as the true child always defers to the judgment of an earthly father. He answers us, then, just as perfectly when He says “no” as He does when He says “yes”. If your child came to you and wanted a pound of candy to sit down in the middle of the floor and eat it, and you gave it to him, you would prove your paternal unfitness. Or, if he requested a bottle of liquor, and you took the cork out of the same and handed it to him to drink to his fill, you would have proven yourself without paternal wisdom,— foolish in the last degree. And, if he requested deadly poison, and you softly passed that over to him, they would haul you to court as a criminal. It should never be forgotten that our God is a God of wisdom, as well as a God of grace and of love, and that His answers to prayer are always in accord with His character. There are some fathers who will give their children anything, and by their very gifts, they pamper, spoil and practically destroy the prospect of any true success for son or daughter. There are other fathers who will give nothing.

They often drive their children to degeneracy. The wise father seeks to give what is good and to withhold what will hurt, and his office is a type of the Divine paternity. “For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will Lie withhold from them that walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee”. IN Matthew 7:15-29. “Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven. Think not that I am come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Laic, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shall by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing. Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery; but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart”. Out of this great conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, get three suggestions:—first, not all professed prophets are dependable; second, the true prophet is determined by fruits vs. profession; third, the foundation laid distinguishes between the wise and the foolish. Not all professed prophets are dependable. “Beware of false prophets”. Then there are false prophets, strange as that term may sound. “Which come to you in sheep’s clothing”.—Then, there are men pretending to be prophets, who play a hypocritical part! “But inwardly they are ravening wolves”—then, there are some who profess to be prophets, and yet are the most dangerous opponents of both God and men. How shall we distinguish? The Lord gives us an unerring test, “by their fruits”. “A good tree bringeth forth good fruit. An evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit”. It’s equally so with prophets. The true prophet is determined by fruits vs. profession. You can’t determine, the first time you meet a man, whether he is God’s prophet. You must make his acquaintance! You must watch his conduct! You must, as a matter of fact, come to know his very character. That’s one reason, and a wise one, why “hands should not be laid suddenly upon any man”, setting him apart to a prophet’s office. A man who holds that office should be God’s man, Divinely chosen, Divinely equipped, Divinely commissioned, Divinely empowered, and Divinely approved. There’s a Purist School of Art, in which Mr. Ruskin was a leader, that opposed imitation of any sort. They wanted your colors to be honest, and never to make a false impression. They were utterly unwilling, therefore, to have you take wood and, with it, veneer supporting pillars and stripe it as though it were marble, so deceiving the eye: or pine, and grain it as though it were oak; or paste, and so refine and chisel it as to duplicate in appearance a diamond. Whether such severe honesty is demanded in Art or no, we are now attempting to determine. With us, the matter is not of great enough moment.

If anybody wants to buy their diamonds at a five-and-ten cent store, we expect the spirit of display that expresses itself thus cheaply is little more offensive in God’s sight than that which flashes the glitter of a diamond in your face from the multiplied facets of the true stone. But certainly, in religion, and particularly in the Christian religion, men who enter the prophet’s office should not be there by false appointment, should not be there in false profession, and, above all, should not be there in false teaching. If this single injunction from Jesus was heeded, it would remove a multitude of men out of pulpits at this moment. Some would go from lack of character; some because they were never Divinely commissioned, and more would go because they are apostate from the truth and are preaching “another gospel, which is no gospel”. But to show the danger from such false prophets’ work, Christ concludes with an illustration, “Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it”. You say, “What have false foundations to do with the prophet’s work”? “Everything”! The prophet is the foundation-layer. “Teaching, or doctrine, lies at the basis of life”. When we speak of the fundamentals of the Christian faith, we mean the great facts upon which the fabric of the faith itself rests. Discard these and you can’t build a true life. Discard these and you can’t erect a Christian institution. Discard these and even your great evangelical denominations are doomed.

It is no use to imagine that, because you have named yourself a Christian; that, because you have splendidly endowed your institution, and because your denomination now numbers millions, and boasts itself “the biggest in America”, or even of the world, that fundamentals need no longer be considered. As Joseph Parker said, “There may be those who refine upon doctrine and turn it into useless distinction and vexatious definition; but doctrine, teaching, correct idea, lies at the root and core of our life. You are what you believe. * * * * In reality, what you believe is the very substance and inspiration of your character”. There are a good many men, gracing, or properly speaking, disgracing modernist pulpits, who dispense with one fundamental after another by telling us it is not found here, or it is not found there. For instance, they tell us that the virgin birth is not recorded in the Gospel of Mark and John, but only in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. They tell us that in the Pauline Epistles, slight reference is made to the same. The same devotees of unaided reason say that in the later Epistles of some of the New Testament writers, not so much is said on the Second Coming of Christ as they put into their earlier documents; and so, because it is not seen in every chapter or Book, they would fling it to the ash-heap. Let me remind you that there is not a word said about doctrine in these verses Matthew 7:24-27. There is nothing even in the original that could be translated, “dogma”, “doctrine” or even “teaching”, and yet we know that the statement is wholly doctrinal, and we know it from the verses that follow, Matthew 7:28-29, “And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at His doctrine: For He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes”. What does it mean? It means that Christ assumed the great fundamentals of the Christian faith, and was saying to them, “If you build on the foundation of My teaching, you will build wisely, as built the man who dug down to rock bottom and rested the foundations of his house upon that; and when you have flung away inspired teaching concerning My Virgin Birth; when you have flung away the truth concerning the efficacy of My Blood; when you have flung away the fact, passing my lips, ‘You must be born again’; when you have discarded My doctrine of ‘justification by faith’; when you have despised My assured intercession at the Throne in your behalf; when you have scoffed My promised Second Coming, you have deliberately declared your preference for shifting sands as a foundation of faith, rather than that solid rock of which the church itself is built”! I am here to declare, then, that those men who contend to-day for the fundamentals of the Christian faith, are engaged in a service that will give stability to the individual life; they are pleading for a body of truth that provides a firm foundation for Christian institutions, they are defending great and essential doctrines that can alone justify the most evangelical of all denominations and save Civilization itself. When the great Christian Fundamentals movement was born, the introductory sermon published in “God Hath Spoken” called adequate attention to the rock of which the Church had broken in twain, and “that Rock was Christ”. Men have risen among us, calling themselves modernists, who deliberately reject Him as the world’s one and only Saviour; who brazenly deny His Virgin Birth, blatantly oppose His sacrificial atonement, and scoffingly refer to His Second Coming in power and glory to reign. Surely, “their rock is not as our rock, our enemies themselves being the judges”. Our Rock is the Stone cut out without hands and cast upon the great symbolic figure of man-made government, ground it to bits, and became a mountain and filled the whole earth. Our Rock is the stone cast aside in temple building, but without which the temple itself could never come to its completion. Our rock is the rock of the wilderness that gushes refreshing streams when a suffering people required the same.

Our rock is the base upon which the Church of God rests with such steadfastness as to defy “the gates of hell”. Our question to all modernists is this, “What’s your foundation?” And our counsel to the same apostate brethren comes out of the illustration of the text, “Cease building upon the shifting sands of your unaided reason, your uninspired speculations, your ever-changing philosophies. The floods are rising, the winds are taking on furious gate already; the testing time is at hand. Every house will be tried; every human life must face this storm; every foundation will be called upon to show its resisting powers, but only those that are on THE ROCK will abide. “My hope is built on nothing less, Then Jesus’ Blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, But wholly lean on Jesus’ Name.

“On Christ the Solid Rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand”. We may again stand astonished at these truths even as misguided men did in Christ’s day, but let it never be forgotten that He who is the Son of God, without whom was not anything made that was made, with whom is lodged all power in heaven and on earth, and who is, in His very nature, the embodiment of all wisdom for time and eternity, He has spoken and His Word is with authority!