The Abilene Paradox

Well, thank you, Mr. Emory, and good afternoon, everyone! I'm going to set my timer here. Yep. The countdown has begun! Shannon and I just got back Tuesday evening from the GCE.

We had a wonderful time. I'm not going to take too much time today to discuss that. There will be more coming, but I look forward to talking with you about it, answering any questions you might have, etc., today after services. Many of you may have, in the past, had the unique experience of driving across the state of Texas. Sorry, sorry, the great state of Texas, right? I'm seeing thumbs up from Carol in the back back there. You know, depending on who was driving and whether they were merciful or not, you might remember it fondly. You might remember it not so fondly.

It kind of depends on whether your driver was willing to stop occasionally, or maybe your driver is like, nope, El Paso to Shreveport, and we're not stopping. Depending on who was driving, it may have been a very different experience for you. You may have spent your trip crammed into the back seat of an old boat of a car, an old station wagon, driving for hours in the heat and the dust with no air conditioning, or as we sometimes jokingly call it, 275 AC.

Both windows rolled down 75 miles an hour. Both the wing dams open, small tornado in the inside of the car, trying to keep you cool. And you may have made that trip each Sabbath to or from family get-togethers, or perhaps, like we were, just passing through. I will admit, I personally have not had the full Texas experience of driving across this gigantic landmass without air conditioning, and maybe I'm admitting a little bit of weakness, but I'm thankful that I haven't had to do it without AC.

But a few years back on that fateful road trip that my wife and I went on that buried our silver van into an early grave, we had a chance to drive I-40 from New Mexico up towards Altus, Oklahoma. Now, for those of you who have done the entirety of the Texas trip, I know I barely did the Texas trip. I mean, we're talking a stretch of Texas that is very, very little comparatively and is all interstate.

So, I mean, it wasn't really the true Texas experience. The true Texas experience is driving little tiny highways from small town to small town, city to city. Those towns, big old flat distances out there where those towns are spread out, and honestly, never quite close enough when you need them. But just over the next rise, yeah, right in Texas, just over the next bit of heat wave, we are going to be in the next one.

But you know, it's hot, it's dusty, and it's human. With our family trips, when we've gone down, we head down that way. We go in August, and we end up, it's kind of, I don't know, I guess maybe it's the weakness of us Northwesterners. We go from one air-conditioned building to the air-conditioned car to the next air-conditioned building back to the air-conditioned car.

Our Northwest complexions and physiology just won't take the heat. And the times that we've gone, it's been, you know, 105, 110, and superhuman. And what we end up doing is we get to the house, we stay inside, we relax, we play cards, we hang out in the cool air, and honestly, the last thing that any of us want to do is go outside. There's a story that made it round several years back. It was actually written in 1974 by a guy named Jerry Harvey, who was a professor of business management from George Washington University. He used this story to address the principle of management of agreement, the principle of management of agreement.

And I came across it a few years ago in a meeting at work, and when I got home, I tucked it into my sermon file for the right moment, whenever that moment may come. And I'd like to share it with you today. It's entitled, The Abilene Paradox, The Abilene Paradox, and the subtitle of the article is, The Management of Agreement. And often, you know, before we start into this, we do a lot of work at times to manage disagreement and conflict.

We try to avoid disagreement and conflict like the plague, but we don't often look at managing agreement, the opposite side of that, and managing our yeses, so to speak. So let me just read the article to you. It'll all make sense after the article is done. It says, the July afternoon in Coleman, Texas population 5,607—I'm sure it's bigger now, this was 1974—was particularly hot, 104 degrees as measured by the Walgreens Rexall XLACs temperature gauge.

In addition, the wind was blowing fine-grained West Texas topsoil through the house, but the afternoon was still tolerable, even potentially enjoyable. There was a fan going on the back porch, there was cold lemonade, and finally there was entertainment. Dominoes. Perfect for the conditions.

The game required little more physical exertion than the occasional mumbled comet Shuffleham, and an unhurried movement of the arm to place the spots in an appropriate perspective on the table. So not a lot of physical exertion going on in—I mean, they don't play dominoes like my family plays dominoes, apparently. Dominoes is a serious game. All in all, it had the makings of an agreeable Sunday afternoon in Coleman. That is, it was, until my father-in-law suddenly said, let's get in the car and go to Abilene and have dinner at the cafeteria.

I thought, what? Go to Abilene, 53 miles in this gust storm and heat, and in an un-air-conditioned 1958 Buick? But my wife chimed in with, sounds like a great idea! I'd love to go! How about you, Jerry? Since my own preferences were obviously out of step with the rest, I kind of hurriedly replied, sounds good to me, and added, I just hope your mother wants to go.

Tried to play the mother-in-law card here. Well, of course I want to go! said my mother-in-law. I haven't been to Abilene in a long time. So into the car and off to Abilene we went. My predictions were fulfilled. The heat was brutal. We were coated with a fine layer of dust that was cemented with perspiration by the time that we arrived.

The food at the cafeteria provided first-rate testimonial material for antacid commercials. Some four hours and 106 miles later we returned to Coleman, hot and exhausted. We sat in front of the fan for a long time in silence. Then, both to be sociable and to break the silence, I said, that was a great trip, wasn't it? No one spoke. Finally, my mother-in-law said with some irritation, well, to tell you the truth, I really didn't enjoy it much and I would have rather stayed here.

I just went along because the three of you were so enthusiastic about going. I wouldn't have gone if y'all hadn't pressured me into it. I couldn't believe it. What do you mean, y'all? I said, don't put me in the y'all group. I was delighted to be doing what we were doing. I didn't want to go. I only went to satisfy the rest of you. You're the culprits. My wife looked shocked. Don't call me a culprit. You and daddy and mama were the ones who wanted to go. I just went along to be sociable and to keep you happy.

I would have had to be crazy to want to go out and eat like that.

Her father entered the conversation abruptly.

Unreal, he said. He proceeded to expand on what was already absolutely clear. Listen, I never wanted to go to Abilene. I just thought you might be bored. You visit so seldom, I wanted to make sure you enjoyed it. I would have preferred to play another game of dominoes and eat the leftovers in the icebox. After the outburst of recrimination, we all sat back in stunned silence.

Here we were, four reasonably sensible people who, of our own volition, had just taken a 106-mile trip across the wasteland of a desert in a furnace-like temperature through a cloud-like dust storm to eat unpalatable food at a hole-in-a-wall cafeteria in Abilene when none of us had really wanted to go. In fact, to be more accurate, we'd done just the complete opposite of what we wanted to do. The whole situation didn't make sense. Now, I've personally never been to Abilene. Some of you may have been to Abilene. Maybe this is just a common response from all who visit. I don't know. I'm sure, kind of sit there in stunned silence, like, why did I come here again? No, I'm kidding. I'm sure Abilene is very, very nice. I'm sure it's beautiful. But Jerry Harvey spent the majority of his career trying to make sense of how what he and his family had experienced had occurred.

His conclusion resulted in the description and the popularization of the Abilene paradox in the business management community. He defined the paradox as, when a person or an organization frequently takes actions in contradiction to what they really want to do and therefore defeat the very purposes that they're trying to achieve. One of the examples that Dr. Harvey gives for the Abilene paradox in action was Watergate. Some of you are familiar with that. It was a little before my time, but all these men are sitting around as they're planning this process, and after getting caught, the officials are interviewing them in the criminal investigations, and one after one after the other said, well, yeah, I had concerns. I mean, I didn't think we should be doing this. It wasn't right. But nobody spoke up. They kind of just went along with the group, kind of just drifted along, and no one stepped forward and said, hey, guys, are we really doing this?

This doesn't seem like a great idea. Everyone just kind of drifted along with the flow.

So the explanation given by psychologists as to the reason why the Abilene paradox occurs is because of social conformity and social influence. Turns out, individuals are reticent to acting contrary to the trend of the group. They don't want to be seen as kind of sticking out like a sore thumb, so to speak. Or maybe they get the feeling that they're the only ones who really feel that way. Or maybe their viewpoint isn't maybe calibrated correctly and their input's maybe not wanted. So they just don't say anything. They just kind of go along with it.

The issue with the Abilene paradox, as we mentioned earlier, it's not an issue of managing disagreement. It's an issue of managing agreement. Sometimes we can be so focused on managing our disagreements and our conflicts that we're not concerned enough about managing tacit approval.

Meaning that not speaking up indicates your approval of something, whether or not you agree with it or not. In case you hadn't guessed already, some of you are really good guessers, the title for the message today is The Abilene Paradox. The Abilene Paradox.

This year's theme at the GCE was Judgment, Mercy, and Faith. And I'm planning on putting together a sermon that reflects back on the weekend and addresses those concepts specifically. But honestly, I felt as though it was important to cover some things before we go into that, specifically, that are really necessary as a backdrop. So you can consider this message a prequel, if you will, a part one, as maybe I intend to set the stage here for the next one. Let's go ahead and start today by taking a look at 2 Timothy 3. 2 Timothy 3.

Let's go ahead and turn over there. 2 Timothy 3.

And we'll go ahead and take a look at a passage that describes the attitudes and the actions of those people who are living in the end times. Those days which started during Christ's time and have gone on through today. 2 Timothy 3. We'll go ahead and pick it up in verses 1 through 4. 2 Timothy 3 verses 1 through 4. And again, discussing the last days, says, But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come, perilous times, threatening times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves. They'll be lovers of money. They'll be boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. And verse 5 kind of begins to show the hand here, so to speak, having a form of godliness but denying its power. They look good from the outside. They appear godly, but they deny the transformative power of God's Holy Spirit in their lives. And it gives specific instruction here, and from such people turn away. Verse 6, For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Janus and Jambris resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth. Men of corrupt minds disapproved concerning the faith, says that they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was.

Verses 5 through 9 drives home the point. These traits that we read about in this section in 2 Timothy 3, they're not only present in the world around us, they begin to become present in the church during the latter days. There will be individuals who will have a form of godliness. They'll look good on the outside. But again, inwardly, or perhaps even outwardly, they deny the transformative power of God's Holy Spirit within them. They push back against it. Those individuals can go on to lead people captive and resist the truth, says their reprobate concerning the faith, says that during that time people will be focused on self at the expense of their outward concern for others. They would desire things that they could not have, coveting. They're proud. They're boastful, disobedient, unthankful, and unholy.

Says they despise those who are good. They speak evil of the people of God, of Christianity, of righteousness. They turn on one another. They love pleasure more than they love God.

Now, we can look around us in society today, and we can say, uh, yeah. Right? I mean, we can look around us in society today, and we can see these traits and these actions and these characteristics and these attitudes. Do we see them in the church? Do we see them among our—pardon me—our characteristics among our fellow brethren? Do we see them in ourselves? When we look in the mirror, do we see these in ourselves? You know, it's really easy for us, I think, to look around us at the world and say, whoa, okay, I'm going to distance myself from that. Because there's a—there's in some ways a very clear demarcation, I think, in our minds between the church and the world.

You know, we can almost draw that line and go, that's—that's the world. That's out there.

This is the church. But when the attitudes and the characteristics of worldliness enter the church itself, it's easy for us to let our guards down. We don't notice it as much, because this has been a trusted space for us. This has been a place where we've been able to be, in some ways, become desensitized to the presence of these things. And we might find ourselves following right along with it, kind of drifting along unawares, right in sync with the world, despite our having been called out of it.

If we're not careful, we might find ourselves going to Abilene, whether we wanted to or not. Again, I'm sure Abilene's a fan. Now I have to go to Abilene. I'm just going to have to go one of these days, just so that I can say I've been there. I feel bad. If anyone ever listens to this from Abilene, I'm sorry. Let's go to Romans 1.

Let's go to Romans 1. I didn't choose Abilene, the author did. Let's go to Romans 1. And we'll see again some more examples of some of these conditions that'll be present during this time frame. And the Romans section is a little more focused on the world itself outside of the church. But again, I think it's naive of us to not consider the fact that these sorts of things do creep in. This sort of thing does creep in to the church. Romans 1. And we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 18, when we'll read through verse 32 to continue to set the stage here.

But this describes unrighteous actions, unrighteous characteristics, and the wrath of God towards these actions. Romans 1 and verse 18, Paul writes here to the Romans, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who, and it kind of starts our list here, suppressed the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Paul mentions they are without excuse. These invisible things of creation, looking at what God has made, demonstrates and illustrates his power, such that when you look outside and you see the beautiful green, you know, that we have a chance to now see, it's been kind of a dreary winter, I'm excited for the green personally.

When you see those things, you can make a conclusion that God is the creator. We have the ability to see those things. We understand the laws that are in place in the universe. We can understand this, but they knew God as creator. But according to verse 21, they didn't glorify him as God as a result. Verse 21, because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened, professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

So, kind of addressing some of the idolatry that occurs. And then we see the next passage here has one of those connector words again, wherefore or therefore, because of these things as a result of these things already listed. Verse 24, therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lusts of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator, who was blessed forever.

Amen. Verse 26, for this reason God gave them up to vile passions, for even their women exchanged their natural use for what is against nature, and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lusts for one another, men with men, committing what is shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error, which was due. Verse 28, and even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting. Verse 29 starts the list, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness, their whisperers, gossippers, tail-bearers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them.

These are the conditions in the world around us at the end of the age. Along with what was given to us in Timothy, we see this list of things that God has thrown out there through Paul that are considered by God to be unrighteous, things that are contrary to His law, things that are sinful. And in that, this list includes homosexuality, fornication, covetousness, envy, murder, gossip, pride, disobedience, and much, much more. Let's turn over to Proverbs 6.

Real quick, Proverbs 6 expounds on this list a little bit. Actually, it mentions some of the same things that have been mentioned in both of the other lists, but it adds an extra dimension to it that is specific and that we want to make sure and capture here. Proverbs 6 and verse 16 are an abomination to God. We see a list of things. God gives us a bonus thing here. He gives us six originally and says, yes, seven. There's your bonus thing. Are an abomination to Him. They are abominations. These things that are listed here are abominations to God, absolutely disgusting, to God when He looks at them. Absolutely repulsive. And here they are. A proud look.

Somebody who is prideful. A lying tongue. Tongue that doesn't tell the truth, that stretches the truth, perhaps, or presents falsehoods. Hands that shed innocent blood. A heart that devises wicked plans. Feet that are swift and running to evil. Not running away from evil. No, running towards it.

And not just slow to run, but swift to run. Running right into trouble. Every opportunity.

Verse 19, a false witness who speaks lies. And finally, the last half of verse 19, and one who sows discord among brethren. These are the things. These are abominations to God. They are absolutely disgusting. Repulsive. And when you take these things, you look at the list that we saw in Romans 1, you look at the list that we saw in 2 Timothy 3. There are a lot of things that overlap. The pride was on all three lists. Lying was on all three lists. You know, discord was on this list, but there were applications of it in other things, gossiping, tail-bearing, etc. But it gives it the very good idea of the types of issues, characteristics, and attitudes that would be in the world during the end times, during the latter days. And it's really easy sometimes, I think, to look outside of the church and say, yeah, these things are outside the church. And yes, society has them.

But I think if we're really honest with ourselves and we take a look even within the church, it's present. And when I say church, I'm not talking about any specific organization. I'm talking about the churches of God as a whole, the greater body, those who are the ecclesia.

Within the church, we've long had problems with pride. We've long had problems with pride, something that's continually gotten in the way of our ability to humble ourselves, to reconcile with our brother when we've had disagreements and issues. We've had issues in the church of fornication, falsehoods, discord, gossip, debate, rather than we are not immune to these things. We're not immune to these things. 2 Timothy 3 told us in the last days that perilous times would come even to those in the church. That description is in the church.

The world around us is a culture of moral relativism. There's a lot of—you listen to people today—there's a lot of, well, I think, I feel, I believe—a lot of those statements are thrown around as responses to biblical questions. Well, what do you think God thinks about this? Well, I feel, or I believe, that God blah blah blah blah blah whatever it may be.

Looking around us from a religious standpoint, from a societal standpoint, in many ways society is reflected within the polls that are done in the Christian churches in society today. I grabbed some statistics. Statistics are always fun. I like statistics. They're good times. I'm kind of a data nerd. So I dug up some statistics, and it's really important to recognize—and the reason that I'm giving you these statistics. The folks that are represented by these statistics are using the exact same Bible that we are. The exact same Bibles that we are. Various translations, I'm sure, and there may be some, you know, more modern translations over the good old King James and New King James. But here's some statistics. And actually, I have to explain the data first. Okay, so this website that I found that had these statistics, they basically ranked the question on five different things. They were either people who really believed in God, more or less believed in God, were kind of ambivalent, sort of believed in God, or did not believe in God hardly at all. And then they gave percentages based on each of those groups as to what they believed. So most of the time, I went with those who believed strongly in God. Because I figured that would represent individuals in regular church attendance.

I don't know. Close enough, right? So, 57 percent. 57 percent. So over half of those who believe strongly in God, those who are regular church attendees, who also said that on this that they prayed regularly, studied their Bible regularly, went to church regularly, 57 percent of those who believe strongly in God also believe that right or wrong depends entirely on the situation.

That right or wrong depends entirely on the situation.

Recent studies on this same website put the number of Christian singles having sex outside of a marriage relationship. And I found multiple data points on this, so I'm giving you a range. I found one study that said as low as 61 percent, another study that said as high as 80 percent of Christian singles that are having sex outside of a marriage relationship. And maybe an even more troubling statistic, only 11 percent of those polled said that they planned to wait until they were married. 89 percent have some kind of plan prior. There was another study that found that 61 percent of individuals polled left their previous church affiliations over gossip and strife that wouldn't end. It's continuous gossip and continuous strife such that they felt they had to leave. The 2017 poll, so just this year, recorded 54 percent of Christians today believe that same-sex relationships should be accepted. Over half. Reading the same Bible we're reading. Last number, 69 percent of U.S. Christians believe that other religions lead to eternal life. All roads lead to heaven, so to speak, as we sometimes colloquially put that into play. Now, these statistics are not from the churches of God. I don't know what the data is in the churches of God. I don't know that we've ever done it. I don't know that we've ever taken the statistics. But I wouldn't imagine the percentages are as high, but I think we'd be naive to say that there isn't some of this going on in our own ranks. Despite what Scripture says, these are the stats. People today believe that they are free to make their own decisions regarding what God expects of them, and I appreciated Mr. Harmon's split this morning, kind of getting into that idea of what is truth and really how does that end up sorting out.

Many people, I think, believe they have the ability to edit or change or somehow ignore the Word of God as a guiding force in their lives. In doing that, they make God into their own image. They almost put God in a box, so to speak, and then he can't say anything outside of my little box because I've put him in this little box. And he agrees with me on everything because he's in my little box and I've made him in that image. Additionally, we have a prevailing attitude and society around us of, kind of, don't judge me, bro, as I sometimes jokingly say. But the reality is, when you put God in a box and you create him in your image, your feelings, beliefs, and personal truths become the gospel. How could your actions be unacceptable? Besides, Jesus understands, right? So, as a result, many in society deny the existence of absolute truth. They deny the existence of absolute truth. To many, truth is what you make it. It's your own personal definition. It changes based on circumstances. For example, it's okay to steal as long as you're feeding your family. If your family's hungry, then it's okay. It's okay to lie, but only if you're preserving your job, or only if you're doing something that is really, really necessary. And it's okay to mess around before marriage, because after all, you're not married yet. You know, you're not bound to anything at this point. So, yeah, we would all listen to that and recognize, no, that's wrong.

That's wrong. God's Word is truth. And it is by the Word of God that true, righteous judgment can be established. There has to be an unmoving standard. Something that doesn't change from individual to individual to individual in order to apply the law of God equally and fairly without partiality. This is an important point, because God is a God of fairness and of justice. You can find all over Scripture. You do word study on justice and fairness, oppression, injustice. God has a lot to say on oppression and injustice. In fact, we'll explore a few of those places. Let's turn over to the book of Isaiah. Turn over to the book of Isaiah real quick. And we're going to kind of go boom-boom on these three. If I can find them. Never mind. Nothing like starting in Proverbs and moving towards the front of the book. I'll admit my mistake. It turns out Isaiah is after Proverbs. Isaiah 1, verse 17. Isaiah 1, verse 17. We'll see God's Word through the prophet Isaiah to ancient Israel regarding this particular topic. Isaiah 1 and verse 17 will pick up 16 for context. Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes.

Cease to do evil. In other words, in the vernacular of the 1990s, check yourself.

Check yourself. Look in the mirror and judge your own actions based on the validity of Scripture and based on what we see in Scripture. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Rebuke the oppressor. Defend the fatherless. Plead for the widow. God desires us to plead the case of the oppressed, of the widows and the fatherless. We're instructed as much as we can to relieve their oppression, to do well, and to seek justice. Let's go over to Leviticus 19. Leviticus 19, our next two are in Leviticus 19, so we don't have to move too much from there. Leviticus 19, and we'll pick it up in verse 15. Leviticus 19, verse 15, says, you shall do no injustice in judgment. No injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor shall you honor the person of the mighty. In righteousness, you shall judge your neighbor.

You don't have to show partiality towards people. God doesn't care if you're rich or if you're poor.

You're treated well and you're respected regardless. You have the same opportunities, the same availability available to you. It says we're to judge one another in righteousness. Let's go down to verse 33 of Leviticus 19, verse 33, and if a stranger dwells with you in your land, a foreigner, a stranger, dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him.

You know, there's a lot of stuff going on right now in the United States around immigration, and I'll be honest, some of the stuff that I've seen posted is appalling with regards to immigration, and some of it is from people in the Church. It's appalling. Continue reading here. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself. For you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

I am the Lord your God. You shall do no injustice in judgment, in measurement of length, weight, or volume. You shall have honest scales, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hen. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

In other words, you don't have a different weight for this person and a different weight for the foreigner. You take care of the stranger that's in your gates. God expected them to treat strangers and foreigners with respect and with justice, not vexing them, not irritating them. He wanted justice and fairness for the people. God is a God of fairness and respect. He is a God who hates injustice and oppression, and a God who desires righteous judgment and respect for others.

Righteous, consistent, godly judgment cannot occur without recognition of the standard by which judgments are to be made, and a recognition and understanding that by that same standard, we will be judged. It goes both ways. It goes both ways. Let's turn over to Matthew 7. We'll see one of my favorite passages that gets trot out. Matthew 7. This is the don't judge me, bro, moment.

Matthew 7. And we'll pick it up in verse 1. Matthew 7 and verse 1 says, judge not that you be not judged. Close the Bible. We're done. End of sentence. That's it. That's the only part I wanted, because my response is, don't you dare judge me. Right? How many of you have heard that used as an argument as to not judging people and not... Okay. So the problem with that situation is most folks want to stop right there. They don't want to go any further because they realize, well, I got what I wanted out of this passage. I got the part where I don't want you to judge me. And so we're good. I'm just going to close this and then everything's fine. But the reality is there's some context here and it's important context. So let's continue the context and let's let scripture explain itself. Verse 2. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Wait, I thought it said don't judge.

Well, here's the context. The reality is this whole section, the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, is deconstructing common teachings of the day. And it's deconstructing some of the stuff that the Pharisees held. And in this case, this lesson is fairness and equity.

Judge with fairness because you are going to be judged according to the same standard with which you put forth judgment. Let's go on just a little bit because there's even more there than this. Verse 3. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? It takes a moment to kind of hammer again that hypocrisy, that idea of, look, you're correcting the littlest, teeniest, tiniest speck in your brother's eye. And here you are with this giant two-by-four sticking out of your own. So much so you can't even see the little speck because you've got the two-by-four in there. Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your own eye and look, a plank is in your eye. I love this word picture. You can almost just picture this plank sticking out. The guy turn and everybody duck in, you know, as it goes over their heads. But he says, hypocrite, first remove the plank from your own eye and then you'll see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's. Then he gets into not casting your pearls before swine. It's telling us to be cautious in our condemnation of others because the same judgment and decisions that we will make will be made unto us. We have to be cognizant of our own sins, judging ourselves and doing what we can to remove them and to draw near to God, repenting of our sins and drawing near to God. And really, honestly, then and only then will we be in a place mentally and spiritually where we are able to help our brother and come to them in love with the right relationship and a humble attitude so that we can actually be heard. Because if we go in any other way, we're not going to be heard. The word used for judge in this passage is the Greek word trino. And it's a word that has a degree of utility. It means anything as far as distinguish, to decide, to sue, to try in court, to sentence, to condemn. It runs a whole gamut of usage for mental and judicial decisions. So in accordance with Matthew 7, another scripture that often gets trotted out is John 8. Let's go to John 8. John 8 here as we start to wrap things up.

John 8. And we'll pick up the account of the woman who was caught in adultery.

This is another of those that is trotted out. And the response usually is, we see Jesus didn't judge her. Jesus didn't judge her, so you're not supposed to judge me either, is often the argument that's rolled out. But there's only one big problem with that argument. Jesus did make a judgment. He absolutely made a judgment. Let's go over to John 8. John 8 and verse 1. We'll kind of pick up the context here. John 8 and verse 1. And everyone...oops, that's 53. But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Now early in the morning, he came again into the temple, and all the people came to him, and he sat down, and he taught them. So at this point, Christ is teaching in the temple. Everybody's sitting and listening. We have a good respectful dialogue most likely going on here. But then verse 3, described in the Pharisee, he's brought to him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to him, teacher, this woman was caught in adultery in the very act. And so we have a woman here who was caught in the act of adultery. This wasn't a we heard or we think. At this point, there was no question of her guilt. There was no shadow of a doubt. She was in the act when they caught her. Now, there's a lot of extenuating circumstances and different speculations around this passage. I've heard a lot of different things theorized, but let's just take it at face value with what the Scripture says. At this point, they're bringing Jesus Christ case law. They're essentially bringing him a case and they're saying, well, here's what the law of Moses says. What do you say? And the reality is they didn't care what the answer was. I mean, they didn't actually want the legitimate answer. What they wanted was to trip him up. They wanted an opportunity for him to say something wrong so that they could make an accusation against him. So it's really important to recognize they really weren't interested in the answer. They really didn't want to know what was the legitimate answer here. They just wanted to try to trip him up. It goes on in verse 5. Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stone, but what do you say? This they said, testing him and that they might have something of which to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and rode on the ground with his finger as though he didn't hear. So when he continued asking him, he raised himself up and said to them, He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first. You know, Christ's implication was that they were also sinful. They had also no right to condemn her as they were with sin and dead in their own trespasses. They needed to remove the beam from their own eyes. He stoops down in verse 8, and rode on the ground, then those who heard it being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest, even at last. I always find that kind of interesting. And Jesus was left alone in the woman standing in the midst. Jesus raised himself up. He saw that no one but the woman, or he saw no one but the woman, he said to a woman, Where are these accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you? She said, No, Lord, Jesus said to her, Neither do I condemn you.

Go and sin no more. Go and sin no more. He didn't let her go without saying another word.

He didn't say, Oh, it's okay. It's totally cool. Carry on. He didn't say that.

He said, Go and sin no more. He absolutely made a judgment. He absolutely made a judgment.

He made a decision. He didn't sentence and condemn her. He looked at the situation in accordance with the law of God. He concluded that her actions were sinful. She had transgressed the law of God, and he'd made a judgment. He didn't condemn her at that point in time. That wasn't his focus during the first coming. He came to not to judge the world, but to save it, as it talks about in John 12. But there is a standard.

Tolerance is not the moral of this story. The moral of this story is not tolerance.

The men who accused this woman were sinners, too, and they refused to see their own sins in the mad rush to condemn her. Christ's point was, you've got a plank in your eye. You've broken the standard, just like she has. The standard of the law of God has established the way in which we should live our lives. And God's expectation is for us to bend to it, not vice versa. God's law doesn't bend to us in what we think and what we feel. God's law doesn't care about our feelings. It really doesn't. It doesn't care about our feelings or what we think. It doesn't matter if we think that we can somehow get away with mistreating foreigners or not loving our enemies. God's law states otherwise.

We bend to it. It does not bend to us. It doesn't matter if we may think that a man should be able to marry another man. God's word says otherwise. God's word says otherwise. It doesn't matter if we think X, Y, or Z. If the word of God contradicts that our position needs to change. The way to your matters of the law, godly judgment, mercy, and faith cannot occur in a vacuum. They cannot occur in a vacuum. The standard has to be present. It has to be recognized before we can consider righteous judgment, before we can consider mercy, and we can consider faith. If the standard will not be recognized, then we're in an impasse. I don't know how many of you have gotten into arguments with people out in the world around us, and you say, well, God's word says this, and they go, well, I don't recognize that as valid. You're kind of in an impasse. Not much going further from there until they're willing to come your way a little bit. So what do we do if we see moral relativism of the world around us creeping into the church? Are we going to go to Abilene? Will we go along with the group knowing that we really don't want to go, but if we're not willing to speak up? When it comes to the truth of God, we have a responsibility to stand in the gap, to uphold the law of God in love. And those last two words are extremely important. God is seeking those who are His. He's seeking those who will stand up for His word, who will seal that wall against the onslaught.

But the manner in which we do it is absolutely essential. Absolutely essential, because it can and it has been done wrong over the years. And it resulted in splits and divisions and upset people and a lot of other issues. In the next message, we're going to examine judgment, mercy, and faith in the context of our brothers. Going to our brother, examining the manner in which we can do this, extend judgment, mercy, and faith to the family of God itself. I hope you all have a wonderful Sabbath.