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  DON'T CAST YOUR PEARLS BEFORE SWINE
  by Tim Conway
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Summary: This sermon delves into the allegorical meaning behind Matthew
7:6, emphasizing the importance of discernment in sharing the Gospel. It
highlights the need to recognize individuals who may not be receptive to
the message and to avoid wasting time by persisting with those who show
no interest. The speaker draws insights from various biblical passages
and practical examples to illustrate the concept of not casting pearls
before swine and the significance of prayer in guiding evangelistic
efforts.

Topics: "Discernment in Evangelism", "Effective Witnessing"
Scripture References: Matthew 7:6, Proverbs 9:7, Matthew 10:14, Acts 8:26, 2 Peter 2:20, Acts 13:45, John 4:35, Proverbs 23:9, 1 Peter 3:15

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon delves into the allegorical meaning behind Matthew 7:6,
emphasizing the importance of discernment in sharing the Gospel. It
highlights the need to recognize individuals who may not be receptive to
the message and to avoid wasting time by persisting with those who show
no interest. The speaker draws insights from various biblical passages
and practical examples to illustrate the concept of not casting pearls
before swine and the significance of prayer in guiding evangelistic
efforts.

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CONTENT
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How to understand Matthew 7-6. Now that's a, see that's the kind of
question that's hard to answer because it's asked in such a way that it
doesn't really help me know what it is about this passage that people
don't understand. And it says, don't give dogs what is holy and do not
throw your pearls before pigs lest they trample them underfoot and turn
to attack you.

So I hope everybody recognizes that we have allegory here. Obviously,
the Lord is not talking about physical dogs. He's not talking about
actual pigs.

He's talking about people. We, I mean, there's actually some Proverbs
that resonate with a similar tone. I mean, you've got a proverb that
says, you know, don't reprove a scoffer.

Don't speak in the hearing of a fool. I mean, some of the Proverbs say
things like that. Don't do that.

Don't speak something that's good or valuable or helpful or wise to a
scoffer or to a fool because they won't respond in a good way with it.
In other words, you're wasting your time. All you're doing is giving
them ammunition.

That's really what's happening here is don't give dogs what's holy.
Don't throw your pearls before pigs. Why? Well, they trample them and
they turn to attack you.

So what is it that's holy? What is it that is a pearl? Well, these are
precious things. This would be like truth. This would be like things
like scripture, like proclaiming the gospel, like sharing some kind of
biblical teaching with a certain individual.

Now, let's just think with me. Do you know what a verse like this tells
me? It tells me that the Lord is assuming you and I ought to be able to
figure out who dogs and pigs are. Now, how do you recognize a dog and a
pig? Probably, you recognize a dog and a pig because they trample holy
things and pearls underfoot and turn and attack you.

I mean, you probably recognize who they are because they do the very
thing that Jesus says that they'll do. And it's probably more like, hey,
if you see that somebody does that, well, stop throwing the holy thing
before them, or the outcome just isn't going to be good. So let's see
this maybe more in some kind of practical way or practical sense as it's
demonstrated in various places in scripture.

One of the things that I think we need to learn from a text like this,
sometimes we have this idea that we need to evangelize everybody and
that we need to keep evangelizing everybody, and that that is the most
loving thing that we could do. And I've seen Christians who continue
talking to people who don't want to hear. They've got this glazed over
look in their eyes, or they keep looking at their watch, or it's evident
that they just aren't interested, or you're talking to somebody you're
sitting next to on a plane or on a bus or whatever, and you just tell by
body language, you can tell that people are not interested.

You go to somebody's door, I've done that, they're not interested, or
you meet people in a crowd, they're not interested. Sometimes I've
watched Christians who just keep going on and on. I really think that
texts like this and similar texts give us indication that don't do that.

Don't keep going on and on. And I'm going to show you a few, well, let's
look at the verses. If you look over at Matthew chapter 10, you'll
remember that Jesus sends out his 12.

He says in Matthew 12, 12, you enter a house, greet it. If the house is
worthy, let your peace come upon it. If it's not worthy, let your peace
return to you.

If anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake the dust
from your feet when you leave that house or town. You recognize what
he's saying? You go up to a house, they're not willing to receive you.
Don't sit there and keep arguing with them.

Don't go on and on and on. Don't continue forever and always. Shake the
dust off your feet and move on.

And he says, I'll tell you, it'll be more bearable on the day of
judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than that for that town. And
if you go down further to verse 23, here he says, and look, if you begin
to preach the gospel and they persecute you, he doesn't say you need to
just hang around there and just take that and continue to try to preach
the gospel to your persecutors. He says this, flee to the next town.

Truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of
Israel before the Son of Man comes. But the point I'm trying to make
right there is, he doesn't say that you need to stay there. Go on, flee
to the next.

Or when you go to the book of Acts and we actually see those early
Christians as they took the gospel forth to the nations, you may
remember the apostle Paul. You remember how he responded at times. If
you go to Acts chapter 13, we know that Acts 13 is the first chapter
where Barnabas and Saul were launched forth from Antioch.

This is their first missionary journey. This is where the missionary
endeavor to the Gentiles was really launched forth in a very obvious and
clear fashion. When you get down to about, well, maybe verse 45, when
the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to
contradict what was spoken by Paul reviling them.

Well, you remember what pigs do? Pigs and dogs, that's basically what
they do. They revile you. They trample it underfoot.

They turn and they attack you. That's what's happening here. So what do
we say to Paul and Barnabas? Should you guys just stay there? Should you
just keep throwing the holy things, throw the gospel, throw the pearls
before these people? Is that what you ought to do? Paul and Barnabas
spoke out boldly.

It was necessary the word of God be spoken first to you. But since you
thrusted aside, since you're acting like these dogs and pigs that Jesus
talked about, you judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, guess what
we're doing? We're going. We're leaving.

We're turning to the Gentiles. I mean, this is the reality of this
worked out. Um, well, I think of another text that talks about pigs.

Peter, Peter talks about pigs. If we go to second Peter chapter two, you
may remember towards the end of this chapter. It says in second Peter
chapter two, verse 20.

If after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the
knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, they're again entangled
in them and overcome. The last state has become worse for them than the
first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the
way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy
commandment.

And what's interesting is this. Here you have holy. That came from
Matthew seven.

Don't take what's holy and give it to dogs. Here's something that's
holy. The holy commandment delivered to them.

What the true proverb says has happened to them. The dog returns to its
own vomit. The sow.

There's our dog and our pig right there. They returned to wallow in the
mire. You know, if we're looking for people who are dogs and pigs, a lot
of times it's not just people that take what's holy and they mock us or
they revile us or they turn and they attack us or they persecute us.

The scripture also seems to indicate that you want to find dogs and
pigs, it's people that have been exposed to the holy commandment.
They've been exposed to the truth and they've turned. They're in such a
position that it would have been better if they had never known than
once knowing to actually turn and go back.

If you want to look around our world, for people who it seems probably
fit this category as much as anybody. It's been people who have been in
the church and have known the truth and have walked away. Anyway,
anything else anybody wants to say or comment on that? Well, here,
brethren, I want to read something to you.

This book was recommended by Jeffrey Thomas. When he came over here
about two years ago, two or three years ago, he, you know, we have this
really decked out book table typically at our fellowship conference.
Charles and Mona typically were behind all those books.

Oftentimes, Charles and Mac would give these, you know, book
recommendations. Well, one year they had Jeffrey Thomas do it. And I
usually don't attend those, but because Jeffrey did, I felt like that
might be a little bit different and unique.

I pretty well knew from the lighters what books they most highly
recommended, but I really didn't know that from Jeffrey. And he
recommended this book called Get Real. And it's by this guy, Leonard,
John Leonard.

This is a professor from Westminster. This is about sharing our faith.
This is a book on evangelism.

And Jeffrey said he felt, I believe he said, he felt like this was one
of the best books or if not the best book he had ever read, or at least
he was recommending it on the subject of evangelism. So I thought, oh,
that's interesting. If he recommends that, then you know what? I'm
interested.

And I believe this is the best book I have ever read on evangelism. And
I just, I want to give you a taste. He says things like this.

Jesus commanded us to preach the gospel to all nations. But that
teaching must be tempered with Jesus teaching that we should not witness
to everyone. He says, don't give dogs what's holy.

Don't throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot
and turn to attack you. Yet, we do tend to believe that because Jesus
commanded us to preach the gospel, we have to speak to everyone and to
keep talking until they believe. We do tend to think that way, but
that's not what Jesus would have us to believe.

And that's what he's saying here. He said, he says this, we should learn
from the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons. Because when you tell them
you're busy and can't speak to them, most of them politely say, thank
you.

We're sorry to bother you. He says, again, he quotes from Matthew 10,
14, where I already quoted to you, shake the dust off your feet, leave
the house or that town. He said, instead of trying to lead people to
Christ, he believes that we need to give ourselves more to letting
Christ lead people to us.

Now, you have to hear him. He doesn't say sit in your churches and never
take the gospel out. He says, you ought to really be praying that God
will bring you as you go out to take the gospel, that Christ will bring
people to you who are truly interested.

You know, there are people out there who are under conviction. There are
people out there who God is putting his finger on and they're troubled
about their sins. They may be Muslim.

They may be Mormon. They may be JWs. They may be Hindus.

They may be Buddhists. They may be atheists. But the reality is there
are people that the spirit of, remember what happens, the spirit of God
comes into this world and he convicts.

There are people under conviction. He convicts of right judgment and
righteousness. He convicts people of sin.

Listen to this. I learned this lesson while working with Muslims in
France. Many Muslims wanted to talk about Christianity and Islam, but it
wasn't because they were interested in the gospel.

They were interested in disproving Christianity and converting me. Too
often these conversations were just arguments about what Muslims believe
and what Christians believe. You ever been in that? You ever just had
the argument? That happens all the time.

He says, all my convincing arguments never led one Muslim to Christ. But
he said this, I noticed that there were Muslims who were coming to
faith. And he says these Muslims for many reasons, they wanted to know
about Christianity because they were interested in the gospel.

He says, yes, you had to answer the same questions that you debated the
others about, but their attitude was completely different. They were
looking to learn, whereas the others, they just wanted to argue. We have
to be discerning.

I have seen young Christians stand and argue at somebody's door for an
hour. I have seen young Christians argue with Jehovah's Witnesses for
two or three hours when they're out evangelizing. And at the end, they
didn't evangelize anybody that wanted to hear because they sat there and
they argued with the JWs for the whole time.

He says this, my friend who's an expert fly fisherman, he compares
witnessing to fly fishing for trout. Any of you ever fly fish or do you
know what it is? He says when you're waiting and you see a trout, you
want to present the fly in as natural a way as possible. If the trout
doesn't take the bait, you might try again.

But if you just keep thrashing the water with your fly, if the trout
doesn't bite it, you're not going to catch the trout. He says, leave
that fish. Find another one that might be interested.

You can always come back later and maybe then you'll find a hungry
trout. He says most of the people Jesus taught actually found Him. How
do people find you? Well, ask your heavenly Father to send them and keep
your eyes out for everyone who comes along as the possible answer to
your prayers.

Our Lord still leads us the same way that He led Philip to the Ethiopian
eunuch in Acts 8. Anyway, He goes on and He develops this. He says, I
had an aisle seat on an airplane. When I got to my seat, there were two
ladies in the seats next to me.

I sat down, I greeted them. The lady next to me introduced herself and
her seat partner. After I introduced myself, the woman asked me what I
did.

I told her I was a pastor. She was shocked and said, you're not going to
believe this. But the woman next to me and I are having a conversation
about Christianity since we checked in.

I just told her that if a pastor sits down beside us, then I know the
Lord is trying to tell me something. He says, we spent the rest of the
flight talking about reading through Scripture together. By letting
everyone know that you're a believer, people will either automatically
withdraw from you or be drawn to you.

Letting Christ bring people to you means never saying more than people
want to hear. Now, this is really important. Just listen.

I think this is excellent. There are many times I've begun to share my
faith with someone and discovered not long into the conversation that
the person isn't interested. Why do we feel like if we keep talking, we
can change their minds? It's God that changes hearts, not my words.

God may use my words, but if people are not interested in what I have to
say, He says, stop talking. This is key. The Gospel is a precious gift
and should only be given to those who deeply desire it.

You see, that's where our pearl and our holy things come in. Don't just
cast it before any pig or any dog. That's strong language, but it's not
mine.

It's the Lord's language. He calls people pigs and dogs. Again, the way
we often discover those who deeply desire the Gospel and for that
matter, how they find us, it's often through prayer.

And I would say this, we need to go out. We need to go into our
workplaces. We need to go up and down our streets.

We need to go along the canal. We need to go to all the places. But you
know, we always need to be basking it all in much prayer.

Through prayer, God prepares both us and those with whom we share Christ
for the right encounter at the right time. I learned this lesson during
my first term in France. He goes on, but he said, I called our home
church and told them we would be there in August.

They asked me to preach while the pastor was away. First two Sundays of
the month. First Sunday went really well.

It was wonderful to see our friends. Close friend Valerie came up and
said to me and my wife, John, if you stay and be our pastor, we'll bring
the Muslims to you. I laughed to myself thinking she has no idea how
difficult reaching Muslims is.

It's naive to think they're so easy to convert. The next Sunday was a
special day. I conducted a baptism and then we were invited to eat lunch
with the family.

Long line of people formed after church waiting to speak to us. After
many hugs and goodbyes, when there were only a few people left in line,
one of the elders came up beside me and asked if he could speak to me
for a moment. He had a concerned look.

After excusing myself, I stepped aside to talk to him. Johnny said
there's a Latino man in the parking lot who says he has something to
confess and would like to speak to the father. I've had that kind of
thing happen.

Catholics come in the church. I've been called father before. I've been
called different things, but this happens.

He says I told him we're not a Catholic church and they could speak to
me and I would be glad to hear what he had to say, but he insisted he
was to speak to the father. I sighed and asked, did he give you any
indication what he has to confess? You know, this is our last day here
and we leave for France tomorrow. The family whose son we just baptized
has asked us over for a special lunch and they're waiting for us.

Can't you speak to him? I tried to get him to speak with me. The other
guy says, but he insisted on speaking with the father. What does he
want? What if he's murdered somebody? What should I do? What if he's a
drug dealer? After all, this is Dade County, Florida.

Who knows what this guy has to confess. I really don't know how I can be
of any help to him leaving tomorrow for France. I was looking for any
reason to get out of what seemed like an unpleasant situation.

The other guy says he's waiting in the parking lot. What should I tell
him? The elder asked. It's not often people show up at church with
something to confess.

So I thought I should at least take the time to meet our Latino
confessor and see what he had to say. I looked over at my wife. She'd
already decided what I should do and said, I'll take the kids over to
lunch.

You get there when you can. I kissed her on the cheek, thanked her and
said, this shouldn't take long. Sure, she said.

I'll see you when I see you. Be careful. The parking lot was on the
other side of the church building.

I walked through the hallway and out into the parking lot where the
elder said that the Latino man was waiting. He was easy to find because
the parking lot was empty. He was parked at the far end in the last
parking space.

His old white Toyota was still running. I wondered if this was a drive-
by shooting with a man who had some type of vendetta against priests.
The Domino's pizza sign in the back seat made the whole thing seem even
stranger.

When he saw me coming across the lot, he got out of his car, stood
beside it. He was medium height, slim with dark curly hair, wearing a
white t-shirt, blue jeans, sneakers. His tan complexion Latino look was
common in South Florida.

When I got within a few yards of him, I reached out my hand, said, hi,
I'm the pastor of the church. How can I help you? The young man stepped
toward me to shake my hand. My name is Farid, he said with an Arabic
accent.

I'm a Palestinian from Bethlehem. I'm here today because I want to
confess Jesus is my Lord and I want to become a Christian. Anyway, you
get the sense.

And I think there's so much to it. Brethren, don't tell people more than
they want to hear. It's better if you go to somebody's door and they
begin to seem impatient or they're looking over their shoulder like they
got food on the stove.

For you to simply say, I can see you're not interested in the words of
eternal life today. I think I'll go to your neighbors. It's better to
leave them like, hey, I want more.

Then you talk so much that when you finally leave, they're like, man,
I'm glad to get rid of that guy. See, if you go away making them think
you had something really important to offer them and they didn't want
it. And you didn't stay there longer than they wanted you to.

Brethren, I think that there's a lot of wisdom in what he's got to say
here. Because we're offering people the greatest thing upon the face of
the earth. We're offering them redemption.

We're offering them the pearl of great price. And you know what? If they
want to treat it with contempt, they want to treat it like it's nothing.
I mean, sometimes I'm amazed you come with such a gifted system.

People, they don't want anything to do with it. And yet I have found
what he says is true. I've found other people.

I've come to some people's doors and I have said, ma'am, I'm here from
Grace Community Church throughout your neighborhood today and we are
sharing the gospel. We're talking to people about life and death and
Christ and God and sin and hell. Ma'am, do you ever think about death? I
mean, there are doors where the lady will be like, I think about it all
the time.

Well, you know what? Bang, you got an open door. You're probably going
to be able to talk for 40 minutes. There's other places and you can just
tell.

It's like they have no interest. I'll still try to force a track in the
door because I don't know what God might do with it. Somebody, their
children, somebody else in the family, who knows, it may go in a drawer
and their grandkids may pull it out 26 years later and look at it and
there's the truth and bang, God's word is not bound.

You never know what may happen. I always try to get a track to them and
to at least leave that there. But brethren, I would say this, don't go
on longer with people than they want to.

Don't cast pearls before a swine. I think his approach is great. He's
got a lot more to say about it.

And really, if you're interested, and it's a small book. I don't imagine
it costs very much. And if you have a burden for souls, but brethren, I
would say this, I have found this to be so true.

My wife and I have both found this to be true. If we asked, Lord, bring
somebody to us to talk to us about the gospel, it's amazing. The Lord
will open that door for you.

And that doesn't mean we shouldn't be proactive. Obviously going, go and
make disciples. We have to be active.

We can't just be passive. We have to go. But you know what, as we're
going, if we're asking, Lord, send us.

Take us to the place we need to go. Help us to hear the Macedonian call.
Help us to know where the Ethiopian eunuch is.

Lord, lead us and guide us. Take us. We're ready to be used by You.

We want to be used by You. We don't want to spend our days and nights
casting pearl before swine. Obviously, You told us not to do that.

That's obviously a waste of time. Lord, show us where the Lydia's are.
Those that you're getting ahold of the heart.

Show us where the Spirit of God is at work. As much as anything, we need
to be praying if we're going to seek to be evangelists. Can I give an
example as well, Tim? Can you hear me okay? Yep.

Yeah. I heard Paul Washer saying once when he was on an aeroplane and he
was sat next to a guy and he had spent half an hour talking with him,
just having a great chat about different things and his family and
really connecting with this guy. And then Paul brought something up of
the gospel and then this guy just went a bit ballistic on him and said,
I don't want to hear what's all this about.

I don't want to hear any of this. And so Paul just dropped it and then
went straight back into just talking about so you're saying about your
son and the baseball team or something and then he just carried on and
enjoyed the rest of the flight. And then as they were getting off, the
guy got in the aisle and then he just turned to Paul and said, I think
he put out his hand and he said, sorry, I got a head up on you there
earlier on.

And I think he was just sort of giving the example that if he'd have
carried on talking, he would have just wound the guy up real big and
instead the guy ended up apologizing and probably thought the better of
Paul and his religion sort of thing. Gave him more to think about in the
end. I had a similar thing happen on an airplane where I think the guy
felt so bad in the end, he was trying to give me money.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/RU5fUqqHojo.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/tim-conway/dont-cast-your-pearls-before-swine/
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