"Judge not, that you be not judged. "For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. "And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? "Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? "Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
"Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces. Matthew 7:1-6
One of the great doctrine of demons in Christendom is the idea of "Judge not, that you be not judged." Now Jesus warned the hypocrites not to judge lest they be judged and that with what judgment they judge, they will be judged; and with the measure they use, it will be measured back to them. But Jesus never taught that the wise and righteous should not judge for God’s word is unchanging:
'How can I alone bear your problems and your burdens and your complaints? 'Choose wise, understanding, and knowledgeable men from among your tribes, and I will make them heads over you.'
"And you answered me and said, 'The thing which you have told us to do is good.'
"So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and knowledgeable men, and made them heads over you, leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties, leaders of tens, and officers for your tribes.
"Then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, 'Hear the cases between your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the stranger who is with him. 'You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid in any man's presence, for the judgment is God's. The case that is too hard for you, bring to me, and I will hear it.'
"And I commanded you at that time all the things which you should do. Deuteronomy 1:12-18
It’s is sin to show partiality in judgment but it is not sin to judge righteously between a man and his brother or the stranger who is with him. God, who is the judge of all the earth righteously judges all men and in due season renders to each one according to his works, has given to men the responsibility to do righteous judgment by the Spirit of the Lord. For God’s word is unchanging:
Then Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, everyone at the door of his tent; and the anger of the LORD was greatly aroused; Moses also was displeased. So Moses said to the LORD, "Why have You afflicted Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all these people on me? "Did I conceive all these people? Did I beget them, that You should say to me, 'Carry them in your bosom, as a guardian carries a nursing child,' to the land which You swore to their fathers? "Where am I to get meat to give to all these people? For they weep all over me, saying, 'Give us meat, that we may eat.' "I am not able to bear all these people alone, because the burden is too heavy for me. "If You treat me like this, please kill me here and now-if I have found favor in Your sight-and do not let me see my wretchedness!"
So the LORD said to Moses: "Gather to Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them; bring them to the tabernacle of meeting, that they may stand there with you. "Then I will come down and talk with you there. I will take of the Spirit that is upon you and will put the same upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you may not bear it yourself alone. Numbers 11: 10-17
Moses complained to the Lord that the people were too much to handle by himself and asked that the Lord would kill him if He wouldn’t do something about the problem. The Lord’s solutions was to choose seventy men of the elders of Israel, bring them to the tabernacle and He would come down and take of the Spirit that was upon Moses and put the same upon them. As a result the elders of the officers of the people would bear the burden of the people with him, so that Moses would not bear it alone. The bible records:
So Moses went out and told the people the words of the LORD, and he gathered the seventy men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tabernacle. Then the LORD came down in the cloud, and spoke to him, and took of the Spirit that was upon him, and placed the same upon the seventy elders; and it happened, when the Spirit rested upon them, that they prophesied, although they never did so again. But two men had remained in the camp: the name of one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad. And the Spirit rested upon them. Now they were among those listed, but who had not gone out to the tabernacle; yet they prophesied in the camp.
And a young man ran and told Moses, and said, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp."
So Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, one of his choice men, answered and said, "Moses my lord, forbid them!"
Then Moses said to him, "Are you zealous for my sake? Oh, that all the LORD'S people were prophets and that the LORD would put His Spirit upon them!" Numbers 11: 24-29
Through out the old and new testament God has put His Spirit upon prophets and kings and has made them judges over His people. His word is unchanging:
There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, And a Branch shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him, The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD. His delight is in the fear of the LORD, And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, Nor decide by the hearing of His ears; But with righteousness He shall judge the poor, And decide with equity for the meek of the earth; He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked. righteousness shall be the belt of His loins, And faithfulness the belt of His waist. Isaiah 11:1-5
Yes, God has ordained that His anointed ones by the Spirit of the Lord that rests upon them the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD, they shall judge with righteousness the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth and not by the sight of their eyes, nor decide by the hearing of their ears. With the breath of their lips they shall slay the wicked just like Jesus did:
"But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. Matthew 23:13-15
"Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. "Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come. "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit.
"Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. "But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." Matthew 12:31-37
Jesus judged the false ones of His day and He public ally did not say nice things about them but told them that their end would be worse than their beginning. He told them they were hypocrites, blind guides, serpents, brood of vipers, and lawless ones, who would not escape the condemnation of hell and there would be a day of judgment for them.
Of course they didn’t like Jesus telling the truth about them so they murdered Jesus. But they did not escape the condemnation of hell in the judgments of God that followed, as Flavius Josephus in writing about “The Siege of Jerusalem, AD 70” testified:
Throughout the city people were dying of hunger in large numbers, and enduring unspeakable sufferings. In every house the merest hint of food sparked violence, and close relatives fell to blows, snatching from one another the pitiful supports of life. No respect was paid even to the dying; the ruffians [anti-Roman zealots] searched them, in case they were concealing food somewhere in their clothes, or just pretending to be near death. Gaping with hunger, like mad dogs, lawless gangs went staggering and reeling through the streets, battering upon the doors like drunkards, and so bewildered that they broke into the same house two or three times in an hour. Need drove the starving to gnaw at anything. Refuse which even animals would reject was collected and turned into food. In the end they were eating belts and shoes, and the leather stripped off their shields. Tufts of withered grass were devoured, and sold in little bundles for four drachmas.
There is a real price to be paid for rejecting truth and doing injustice, even in the current time of life, as the people of Jerusalem who murdered Jesus could testify. By 66 AD Life in Jerusalem had become a nightmare, it was so full of violence and misery. Famine and food shortages become an everyday problem.
Then in 70 AD Titus marched against the city with four legions of the Roman army. They laid siege to Jerusalem and using their battering rams they breached the walls of the city. Fleeing citizens of Jerusalem were caught by the Romans and were tortured and crucified. Later the whole city was destroyed and the people of Jerusalem paid the price for ignoring Jesus warning about what would happen to them. These kinds of things do happen even in the current time of life!
TITUS now promised that the Temple should be spared if the defenders would come forth and fight in any other place, but John and the Zealots refused to surrender it. For several days the outer cloisters and outer court were attacked with rams, but the immense and compact stones resisted the blows. As many soldiers were slain in seeking to storm the cloisters, Titus ordered the gates to be set on fire. Through that night and the next day the flames raged through the cloisters. Then, in order to save the Temple itself, he ordered the fire to be quenched. On the tenth of August, the same day of the year on which Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Temple built by Solomon, the cry was heard that the Temple was on fire. The Jews, with cries of grief and rage, grasped their swords and rushed to take revenge on their enemies or perish in the ruins.
The slaughter was continued while the fire raged. Soon no part was left but a small portion of the outer cloisters, where 6,000 people had taken refuge, led by a false prophet who had there promised that God would deliver His people in His Temple. The soldiers set the building on fire and all perished. Titus next spent eighteen days in preparations for the attack on the upper city, which was then speedily captured. And now the Romans were not disposed to display any mercy, night alone putting an end to the carnage. During the whole of this siege of Jerusalem, 1,100,000 were slain, and the prisoners numbered 97,000.
Now Apostle Paul stated something about judging that most religious leaders seem to ignore - he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one, as he has the mind of Christ. For God's word is unchanging:
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For "who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?" But we have the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:12-16
Apostle Paul also instructed that God’s people judge the sexually immoral people or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioners amongst them and to keep company with them or not even to eat with such a person. But rather they were to put away such person from their midst. For God will judge the outsiders but it was their responsibility to judge the brethren:
I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.
But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner-not even to eat with such a person. For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore "put away from yourselves the evil person." 1 Corinthians 5:9-13
For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world. 1 Corinthians 11:31-32
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