Matthew 7

If you judge, you will be judged and held to the same standard as you hold others to, otherwise Jesus would be condoning hypocrisy. Judging meant to equal out Justice. Jesus stated that we should not equal out Justice on others, otherwise Justice would be equaled out on us.

The rest of this chapter was the culmination of Jesus' direct teaching via principles. Everything we have seen focused on causes. This chapter applied the causes and showed that the effect ought to be integrity (soundness) instead of hypocrisy.

Consider the "beam" in your own eye before you pull out the "mote" (speck) in someone else's. If you work on yourself first, others will see and you will qualify to help them. Jesus used the principle of contrastive thinking. We ought to consider ourselves wrong first. Notice, casting out the beam in your own eye does not qualify you to judge others. It qualifies you to help others, with the specific context of verses 3 through 5 being believers. Not removing the beam in your own eye and then judging believers would be hypocrisy. Many people wrongly use the word "judging" in conjunction with verse 5 when Jesus did not use that word after verse 2.

"Swine" referred to unbelievers. Remember, verse 5 spoke of helping a believer. This verse continued the concept of helping with the focus being unbelievers. The verse said to "give not that which is holy" and "neither cast ye your pearls." "Pearls" represented a holy value: help. The point was that unbelievers would not only destroy what you try to give to them when you help, they will also try to destroy you.

The summary for what we've read so far is: "Work on yourself first so that you are able to initiate help towards believers. Don't initiate helping unbelievers because they will only end up worse off." Next, Jesus looked at how God the Father dealt with the issue of helping people.

Notice, the last four verses all began with people initiating help from God. Jesus was stating that people ought to ask God for things instead of take things away from other people through judging.

Verse 12 tied the previous eleven verses together! The first verse said not to judge so that you wouldn't be judged. The next section stated that you ought to help yourself if you want to help others. This final section stated that God would certainly give to you if you asked or sought because you would certainly give to your children if they asked or sought! Notice too, the comparison of parents giving to their children and God giving to His children referred to giving "good gifts." This implied that the parent, and of course God, would give gifts that were a long term benefit to the child. Jesus concluded that the Law and the prophets all pointed to this summary.

It will take an intentional approach to walk the narrow and straight path. Jesus said that few find the straight and narrow path. This focus on Salvation served as a transition for this chapter. Salvation came to a few that acted differently than people in the world. The first verse of this chapter can now be seen as Jesus encouraging believers to be different than those in the world by not judging.

Jesus stated there would be false prophets and that we need to beware of them. Notice, Jesus still didn't say to judge these false prophets, just to "beware." Jesus said that we would know who they were by their fruit: their works and effects. Jesus used Causality to teach this point.

Jesus concluded this section by stating that those false prophets would produce bad fruit and justly end up in eternal torment. Notice, Jesus said nothing about believers judging false prophets. None of us believers are able to send a false prophet to eternal torment, so why do some people think this passage allowed believers to judge others? Worse: a person who thinks he can judge false prophets based on this passage would be talking and acting as if he believes he is God, because God was the one who "hews down and casts into the fire"!

Jesus got more specific about the "narrow gate." Not everyone who SAYS the right thing will make it to heaven. The key to getting into heaven is to DO the Will of the Father. From the context of this chapter, this sounded like it was something that few actually did. Those who DO the Will of God enter the kingdom of heaven. This usage of the kingdom of heaven referred to the eternal Kingdom with God in heaven. Our actions are what matter because they are an effect of our internal causes. However, Jesus immediately addressed "good" actions from "bad" causes.

These people did these works in their own strength, not as an effect of having God flow through them. This introduced two key Doctrine:

1. People are able to have righteousness from themselves. People with Calvinistic beliefs state that people are totally depraved, that people have nothing good within themselves. Actually, people have good in themselves that results in good works, otherwise Jesus was wrong. Jesus was never wrong.

2. Getting to heaven is an effect of knowing God, of having God operate through you as a cause. This was grace: "the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life." The people Jesus was referring to did good works of themselves, however, they didn't act in grace. They didn't allow God to be the cause of their words and actions.

So, Jesus' comment from earlier in this chapter did create the context for this verse: we will know the person by the fruit they produce over the long term. Even though these people produced what appeared to be good fruit in the short term, at Final Judgment we will find out if this fruit was from God or their own strength. This was consistent with the first verse of this chapter: Don't judge! What person is able to judge whether these people were doing these miracles in their own strength or by having fellowship with God?)

Worse: A person who uses this passage as support to why he is supposed to judge others would be putting himself in God's place because it was Jesus who will be the one who judges these people. Notice, the last two passages both stated God was the one who would judge these people. Anyone who uses these passages to justify their judging of others is acting as if they are God.

Hearing and doing the words of Christ will liken you to a wise man with a strong foundation. The rock is the deepest level: the HOW/WHY.

Notice, the rains and floods still beat upon this person. Doing Jesus' words didn't prevent trials and persecution, in fact we saw that the highest level of maturity from the beginning of this teaching (Matthew 5) stated that handling these trials and persecutions well were the ultimate proof of spiritual maturity. Here, Jesus said the same thing. The house did not fall even though trials and persecutions came.

Even the foolish man heard the words of Christ but did not DO them. The foolish man heard the WHAT, but he did not build deep enough, just on the sand and not deeper to the rock. This man only built his faith on the WHAT and not the HOW/WHY. Building your house on the rock is doing the Word of God...doing is the HOW/WHY.

When bad circumstances occurred to this superficial believer, they were not able to remain profitable and they became unprofitable. Both people heard the Word of God (WHAT) and had bad circumstances. The one who survived the bad circumstances also had the HOW/WHY...they did the Word of God. The conclusion was to have integrity (soundness): SAY (WHAT) and DO (HOW/WHY) ought to match.

These verses repeated the point of Jesus' parable that ended His teaching. The people were astonished at Jesus' Doctrine: HOW/WHY. Jesus had authority. He was a Semikah (authority) Rabbi. The people were used to Rabbis who only presented the WHAT of the Law.