Post by teetop on Jul 13, 2016 7:28:34 GMT -7
There seems to be a difference of opinion as to what can and can-not be judged scriptural y.
Many if not most people do not like the concept of; JUDGEMENT.
How and when can we judge or is it taboo scriptural y speaking?
The question has come up as to making a judgement call over another originated at:
'Can PA Go Forever Without Taking Ownership'
To start this topic I've decided to let Pastor Skip Heitzig of Calvary Albuquerque, New Mexico, give us a little insight into Judging.
Matthew 7
This link will also give you access to the complete sermon to watch or just listen.
An excerpt from his sermon on chapter 7.
"Judge not, that you be not judged.
We finished Chapter 6, Chapter 7. Verse 1 is before us. Jesus continues. You notice if you have a red lettered Bible, again it's all red lettered. Jesus is giving one long dialogue, one long monologue. "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." Some people have read those verses and based upon especially Verse 1, have said, "Christians are to make no evaluations whatsoever." They are not to make an evaluative statement. They're not to be critical of how things are done or what is being said or paying too careful attention to doctrine. Not too critical and would even disparage those who are in discernment ministries because Jesus after all said, "Judge not, that you be not judged." Therefore, the Christian is to make no critical evaluation of anyone else.
Now, if that is what Verse 1 means, we have a big problem. We have a problem for example with Elijah the Prophet who spoke forcefully against King Ahab, the king of Israel and the false prophets of Baal. We have a problem with Paul the Apostle who spoke against the Judaizers who infiltrated the church and said that you have to keep the Law of Moses to be saved. Boy, did Paul come against them and we have a huge problem with Jesus because Jesus tells us, commands us to make evaluative critical judgments. For example in John Chapter 7, Jesus said, "Do not judge according to outward appearance, but judge you a righteous judgment." He commands us to do it.
In Galatians Chapter 6, "If anyone is overtaken with any fault, you who are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness." But way before that, that beautiful restorative word that he gives. In Galatians Chapter 1, Paul says, "Even the we, or an angel from heaven come and preaches to you a gospel that is different than the one that you have received, let him be accursed eternally condemned."
Boy, is he being judgmental? So here is Jesus saying, "Judge not, that you be not judged." But does he mean make no evaluation, no critical evaluation whatsoever, never use discernment? Because if Jesus meant that, go down to Verse 6, "Do not give what is holy to the dogs, not cast your pearls before swine." Well, you're going to have to make some sort of evaluation to understand who is a dog and who is the swine versus those who are not, correct? It's the same context. Or skip down a few more verses down to Verse 15. "Be aware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly, they are ravenous wolf. You can't beware of them, you can't be on the lookout for them if you are not prepared to make sort of critical evaluation."
So then, what does Jesus mean when he says, "Don't judge?" He simply means and the word is krino in Greek. Krino means a harsh, self-righteous, censorious judgment, a hypercritical evaluation that pretends to know the motive of a person when in reality you don't have all the facts.
Let me give you an example. If I were to see somebody at a restaurant and say, "What does that person doing here? What does that family doing at this restaurant? I know what they make. They can't afford this thing. No wonder they're in poverty, they go out to places like this." Now, I don't have all the facts and I just made an evaluation based upon not having all the information and judging the motivation. It's a harsh, censorious and self-righteous evaluation. Now they could be in that restaurant because somebody graciously gave them a gift certificate. They're cashing it in that night. The Lord is blessing them. If is say, "Yeah, that person gets up late every morning man. I'll tell what a bum." Well maybe, that person is up late the night before or working on some project trying to get through school or working hard for the family, maybe a second or third job.
So when Jesus says, "Don't judge," that's the kind of judgment he is talking about that harsh, self-righteous judgment, not knowing all of the facts. There are three reasons we're not to judge. Number one, you're the final judge, God is. God knows everything. See, God reserves the right to be God. Don't try to be him yourself. If you don't know something, don't make an evaluation about it. It is amazing to me how many people spout opinions after not researching things, but just hearing the opinions of other people, thinking it must be the right opinion. That's tragic. It happens all the time. I see it even in newspapers and magazines. I see a journalism that is not a journalism of integrity. They just simply take what another journalist has written and instead of doing all the hard research and asking all of the fundamental questions, they just sort of reprinted, they stated in their own words, it's just sort of a sloppy plagiarism and it gets them in trouble sometimes.
So Jesus then continues in Verse 2, and here's the second reason, you're not judge because judgment is a boomerang. "With what judgment you judge, you will be judged. With what measure you used, it will be measured back to you." You've heard the old saying that if you live in a glass house, you shouldn't be throwing stones and judgment has a way of boomeranging, creating a gallows that you will hang on one day.
You remember the story in Esther Chapter 7 of Haman who built a gallows to hang righteous Mordecai, the Jew and things turned around against him and he was hung on the very gallows that he made. Most of you remember that, fewer of you will remember the next example.
There was a king, a Canaanite king named Adoni-Bezek. He comes to us in Judges Chapter 1. Now Adoni-Bezek was captured by the Israelites and they cut off his thumbs and his big toes, it's an odd passage. You go, "Why is that on the Bible?" Ever find that in the verse -- why did they write that? What's the deal with the thumbs and the toes? The idea of cutting off one's thumbs is to take away the dexterity, the manipulative dexterity in the hands, you lose it, you lose the ability to fight, to wield a sword. Taking off the big toe, you lose balance.
Well, after they do that to him, Adoni-Bezek says, "There are 70 kings of which I have cut off their big toes and their thumbs who were beggars under my table and now the Lord has repaid me." It seemed that he made a practice of doing that with other kings that he have conquered and now it happened to him. He judged by a measure and he was judged with that measure.
All right, some of the ancient Jewish rabbis used to say that God has two measures whenever he judges: the measure of justice and the measure of mercy. Which measure would you like on you? If God is judging you, which measure do you want God to use? You want mercy, right? Which measure do you usually grab when you judge other people? Mercy or justice? Usually justice. "Where's the cop when you need him? That guy just did 90 miles an hour." (Laughter) When you're in a hurry, you don't seem to mind that you've got away with it.
Verse 3, here's the third reason why you shouldn't judge because it's hypocrisy. Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?" You see a splinter, "Excuse me brother, I see a splinter in your eye. Oh excuse me, I'm sorry to hit you with a pine tree that's hanging out in my eye." (Laughter) That's the idea. 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.
As I was going over this, something occurred to me. The speck, the splinter and the plank, the pine tree is essentially the same substance. One is the other, one is much smaller, the other is much bigger. The reason I can see little splinters in your eyes is because I'm familiar with the substance. I've got a huge piece of it in mine. We are good typically at spotting sins in other people because we're familiar with them in our own lives and we become unfortunately very judgemental over the sin that lurks in us.
David committed adultery. He took the only wife of Uriah the Hittite, a faithful soldier in David's army and had an adulterous affair, her name was Bathsheba, you know the story. David had many wives. He was very wealthy. He could have anyone of his wives that he wanted at anytime. But he took Uriah the Hittite's wife, committed adultery with her and so Nathan the Prophet paid him a visit one day. He said, "David, I've got a little problem I need your help on. There were two men living in the same town. One was the rich dude, one was a poor guy. The rich guy had many herds and many flocks. The poor man had nothing, just one single ewe lamb, a female lamb, a little lamb, that's all that he had, it was his pet. He cuddled with it every night on his chest. He fed scraps from the table. It was like a daughter to him, David. This rich guy had a friend coming from out of town and the rich guy said, "Well, I've got to make him a meal." So instead of going to one of the sheep in the many flocks that he had, he stole the one small little pet from the poor man and killed it and they ate it for supper. David said, "That man shall surely die." Nathan said, "Really? Because you are that man." You had many wives, God has blessed you with so much and you stole the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and what you said about that man that he should die is what you have done.
Now, here's what's interesting, why did David say, "Kill him?" That wasn't the law. The Law of Moses didn't say, "Kill him." The Law of Moses said, "If somebody steals somebody's sheep, you've got to restore it fourfold, four times paying back." Because David was so familiar with the sin of the man in the parable, because it was his own sin, same substance, speck, plank. I see the speck it's because I have the plank.
There was a family that had elderly grandpa. He was a bit cranky and he came to visit the family one Sunday afternoon, and he was taking a nap after supper. He was cranky through the whole supper. "I don't like this. I don't like that." He was just one of those kind of guys, cranky old man. He's taking a nap in one of the back bedrooms. So one of the grandsons thought, "Let's play a trick on grandpa." So they took some Limburger cheese. You know what that is, right? You know how stinky that is? And rubbed it on grandpa's mustache (Laughter) and just waited. The old codger woke up sometime later and you could hear him in the back bedroom. "This room stinks." Opened the door, started walking through the house, smelling, he goes, "Man, this whole house stinks." He walked outside, smelled, he goes, "The whole world stinks." It's because he's carrying around the stink right under his nose.
Here's David going, "That guy stinks." He can smell his own smell and so often, when we pass judgment, we are critical in the same areas that we ourselves have." So what do we do? What is the right approach? Not to be censorious, not to be hypocritical, not to be smug and self righteous, but to be helpful.
Here's the right approach. Be helpful to your brother. Look at Verse 5. "Hypocrite, first remove the plank from your own eye." That's what you do. You first take that out and then you will be able to see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Do you know that when you confess your sin to God and you admit it before the Lord, you're actually helping in the process of restoring other people who have similar situations. That's the first step in helping them is you confess your own sin before God, that helps to restore rather than to destroy other people around you. So that's the first step. First, remove the plank from your eye.
In Psalm 51, David wrote that beautiful song about how sorry he was that he had committed adultery with Bathsheba and done what he had done against Uriah the Hittite. You remember that little portion toward the middle of the Psalm where David says, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation, then I will teach transgressors Your way, then others will be converted to You." Once I make confession of my sin and humble myself, that's the first step in the restoration process. I remove the plank out of my eye.
Second step, be discerning. Be helpful to your brother. Be discerning of your neighbor. Verse 6, it seems like it's out of place, but it's part and parcel of the same speech. "Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before the swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces." We have a balance in Verse 6 to what has been stated in the first five verses.
Now, when you read about dog here, don't think of a pet dog. In those days, most people didn't have pet dogs. Dogs were scavengers. They ran around the city. They carry disease. Dogs and pigs were considered unholy. You'd never find a Jewish home where there was a pet pig. I say that tongue-in-cheek because it's become sort of fashionable in the last couple of decades to have those little Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, have you seen them? They're little pets. I was at Franklin Graham's home years ago and he had a pig running inside of his house. (Laughter) He goes, "Look at my pig. (Laughter) It's a pet."
(Laughter)
I really didn't know what to say. I'm just kind of looking at this as, "Okay, I'm in the South. I was just kind of checking it out." (Laughter) Jane said, "Ain't it cute?" (Laughter) I said, "It's a pig." (Laughter) You don't give a pearl necklace to a pig. You don't give what is holy to the dogs. Now, the context isn't modern America, but ancient Israel, dogs and pigs were considered unholy, uncultured, unclean. You'd never think about taking the meat offered in temple sacrifices and letting the dogs take it away and trample it and eat it and tear it.
Often times, people were known as dogs or pigs. They use that way a couple of times even in the scripture to refer to a person who is so filthy as to trample the truth of God under foot and they pay no attention to it.
So there is a balance. Jesus says, "Don't judge censoriously, self-righteously, hypocritically in a way that impugns the motive of another person." At the same time, you need discernment. Be discerning, be loving, be forgiving, but be discerning. Was Jesus ever that way? Many times. On one occasion, the Pharisees said, "Boy, Jesus you better get out of here because Herod has been looking for you. He wants to kill you." Jesus said, "Go tell that fox that I must do the works today and all the way up to the third day, I've got to complete the works, go tell that fox." Now a fox is a sly, cunning beast. It's not a compliment. He called Herod by what was his true nature, that of a beast, a sly, cunning, self-serving beast. Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You are whitewashed tombs. You brewed of slimy snakes." Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, where does that fit in and judge not that you be not judged? Fits perfectly, Jesus said, "Judge a righteous judgment." It was a righteous judgment. He was right on the mark. So the balance, be loving, be forgiving, but by all means, be discerning.
Will add more a bit later, been up most of the night.
Blessings.
Virgil
Many if not most people do not like the concept of; JUDGEMENT.
How and when can we judge or is it taboo scriptural y speaking?
The question has come up as to making a judgement call over another originated at:
'Can PA Go Forever Without Taking Ownership'
To start this topic I've decided to let Pastor Skip Heitzig of Calvary Albuquerque, New Mexico, give us a little insight into Judging.
Matthew 7
This link will also give you access to the complete sermon to watch or just listen.
An excerpt from his sermon on chapter 7.
"Judge not, that you be not judged.
We finished Chapter 6, Chapter 7. Verse 1 is before us. Jesus continues. You notice if you have a red lettered Bible, again it's all red lettered. Jesus is giving one long dialogue, one long monologue. "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." Some people have read those verses and based upon especially Verse 1, have said, "Christians are to make no evaluations whatsoever." They are not to make an evaluative statement. They're not to be critical of how things are done or what is being said or paying too careful attention to doctrine. Not too critical and would even disparage those who are in discernment ministries because Jesus after all said, "Judge not, that you be not judged." Therefore, the Christian is to make no critical evaluation of anyone else.
Now, if that is what Verse 1 means, we have a big problem. We have a problem for example with Elijah the Prophet who spoke forcefully against King Ahab, the king of Israel and the false prophets of Baal. We have a problem with Paul the Apostle who spoke against the Judaizers who infiltrated the church and said that you have to keep the Law of Moses to be saved. Boy, did Paul come against them and we have a huge problem with Jesus because Jesus tells us, commands us to make evaluative critical judgments. For example in John Chapter 7, Jesus said, "Do not judge according to outward appearance, but judge you a righteous judgment." He commands us to do it.
In Galatians Chapter 6, "If anyone is overtaken with any fault, you who are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness." But way before that, that beautiful restorative word that he gives. In Galatians Chapter 1, Paul says, "Even the we, or an angel from heaven come and preaches to you a gospel that is different than the one that you have received, let him be accursed eternally condemned."
Boy, is he being judgmental? So here is Jesus saying, "Judge not, that you be not judged." But does he mean make no evaluation, no critical evaluation whatsoever, never use discernment? Because if Jesus meant that, go down to Verse 6, "Do not give what is holy to the dogs, not cast your pearls before swine." Well, you're going to have to make some sort of evaluation to understand who is a dog and who is the swine versus those who are not, correct? It's the same context. Or skip down a few more verses down to Verse 15. "Be aware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly, they are ravenous wolf. You can't beware of them, you can't be on the lookout for them if you are not prepared to make sort of critical evaluation."
So then, what does Jesus mean when he says, "Don't judge?" He simply means and the word is krino in Greek. Krino means a harsh, self-righteous, censorious judgment, a hypercritical evaluation that pretends to know the motive of a person when in reality you don't have all the facts.
Let me give you an example. If I were to see somebody at a restaurant and say, "What does that person doing here? What does that family doing at this restaurant? I know what they make. They can't afford this thing. No wonder they're in poverty, they go out to places like this." Now, I don't have all the facts and I just made an evaluation based upon not having all the information and judging the motivation. It's a harsh, censorious and self-righteous evaluation. Now they could be in that restaurant because somebody graciously gave them a gift certificate. They're cashing it in that night. The Lord is blessing them. If is say, "Yeah, that person gets up late every morning man. I'll tell what a bum." Well maybe, that person is up late the night before or working on some project trying to get through school or working hard for the family, maybe a second or third job.
So when Jesus says, "Don't judge," that's the kind of judgment he is talking about that harsh, self-righteous judgment, not knowing all of the facts. There are three reasons we're not to judge. Number one, you're the final judge, God is. God knows everything. See, God reserves the right to be God. Don't try to be him yourself. If you don't know something, don't make an evaluation about it. It is amazing to me how many people spout opinions after not researching things, but just hearing the opinions of other people, thinking it must be the right opinion. That's tragic. It happens all the time. I see it even in newspapers and magazines. I see a journalism that is not a journalism of integrity. They just simply take what another journalist has written and instead of doing all the hard research and asking all of the fundamental questions, they just sort of reprinted, they stated in their own words, it's just sort of a sloppy plagiarism and it gets them in trouble sometimes.
So Jesus then continues in Verse 2, and here's the second reason, you're not judge because judgment is a boomerang. "With what judgment you judge, you will be judged. With what measure you used, it will be measured back to you." You've heard the old saying that if you live in a glass house, you shouldn't be throwing stones and judgment has a way of boomeranging, creating a gallows that you will hang on one day.
You remember the story in Esther Chapter 7 of Haman who built a gallows to hang righteous Mordecai, the Jew and things turned around against him and he was hung on the very gallows that he made. Most of you remember that, fewer of you will remember the next example.
There was a king, a Canaanite king named Adoni-Bezek. He comes to us in Judges Chapter 1. Now Adoni-Bezek was captured by the Israelites and they cut off his thumbs and his big toes, it's an odd passage. You go, "Why is that on the Bible?" Ever find that in the verse -- why did they write that? What's the deal with the thumbs and the toes? The idea of cutting off one's thumbs is to take away the dexterity, the manipulative dexterity in the hands, you lose it, you lose the ability to fight, to wield a sword. Taking off the big toe, you lose balance.
Well, after they do that to him, Adoni-Bezek says, "There are 70 kings of which I have cut off their big toes and their thumbs who were beggars under my table and now the Lord has repaid me." It seemed that he made a practice of doing that with other kings that he have conquered and now it happened to him. He judged by a measure and he was judged with that measure.
All right, some of the ancient Jewish rabbis used to say that God has two measures whenever he judges: the measure of justice and the measure of mercy. Which measure would you like on you? If God is judging you, which measure do you want God to use? You want mercy, right? Which measure do you usually grab when you judge other people? Mercy or justice? Usually justice. "Where's the cop when you need him? That guy just did 90 miles an hour." (Laughter) When you're in a hurry, you don't seem to mind that you've got away with it.
Verse 3, here's the third reason why you shouldn't judge because it's hypocrisy. Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?" You see a splinter, "Excuse me brother, I see a splinter in your eye. Oh excuse me, I'm sorry to hit you with a pine tree that's hanging out in my eye." (Laughter) That's the idea. 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.
As I was going over this, something occurred to me. The speck, the splinter and the plank, the pine tree is essentially the same substance. One is the other, one is much smaller, the other is much bigger. The reason I can see little splinters in your eyes is because I'm familiar with the substance. I've got a huge piece of it in mine. We are good typically at spotting sins in other people because we're familiar with them in our own lives and we become unfortunately very judgemental over the sin that lurks in us.
David committed adultery. He took the only wife of Uriah the Hittite, a faithful soldier in David's army and had an adulterous affair, her name was Bathsheba, you know the story. David had many wives. He was very wealthy. He could have anyone of his wives that he wanted at anytime. But he took Uriah the Hittite's wife, committed adultery with her and so Nathan the Prophet paid him a visit one day. He said, "David, I've got a little problem I need your help on. There were two men living in the same town. One was the rich dude, one was a poor guy. The rich guy had many herds and many flocks. The poor man had nothing, just one single ewe lamb, a female lamb, a little lamb, that's all that he had, it was his pet. He cuddled with it every night on his chest. He fed scraps from the table. It was like a daughter to him, David. This rich guy had a friend coming from out of town and the rich guy said, "Well, I've got to make him a meal." So instead of going to one of the sheep in the many flocks that he had, he stole the one small little pet from the poor man and killed it and they ate it for supper. David said, "That man shall surely die." Nathan said, "Really? Because you are that man." You had many wives, God has blessed you with so much and you stole the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and what you said about that man that he should die is what you have done.
Now, here's what's interesting, why did David say, "Kill him?" That wasn't the law. The Law of Moses didn't say, "Kill him." The Law of Moses said, "If somebody steals somebody's sheep, you've got to restore it fourfold, four times paying back." Because David was so familiar with the sin of the man in the parable, because it was his own sin, same substance, speck, plank. I see the speck it's because I have the plank.
There was a family that had elderly grandpa. He was a bit cranky and he came to visit the family one Sunday afternoon, and he was taking a nap after supper. He was cranky through the whole supper. "I don't like this. I don't like that." He was just one of those kind of guys, cranky old man. He's taking a nap in one of the back bedrooms. So one of the grandsons thought, "Let's play a trick on grandpa." So they took some Limburger cheese. You know what that is, right? You know how stinky that is? And rubbed it on grandpa's mustache (Laughter) and just waited. The old codger woke up sometime later and you could hear him in the back bedroom. "This room stinks." Opened the door, started walking through the house, smelling, he goes, "Man, this whole house stinks." He walked outside, smelled, he goes, "The whole world stinks." It's because he's carrying around the stink right under his nose.
Here's David going, "That guy stinks." He can smell his own smell and so often, when we pass judgment, we are critical in the same areas that we ourselves have." So what do we do? What is the right approach? Not to be censorious, not to be hypocritical, not to be smug and self righteous, but to be helpful.
Here's the right approach. Be helpful to your brother. Look at Verse 5. "Hypocrite, first remove the plank from your own eye." That's what you do. You first take that out and then you will be able to see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Do you know that when you confess your sin to God and you admit it before the Lord, you're actually helping in the process of restoring other people who have similar situations. That's the first step in helping them is you confess your own sin before God, that helps to restore rather than to destroy other people around you. So that's the first step. First, remove the plank from your eye.
In Psalm 51, David wrote that beautiful song about how sorry he was that he had committed adultery with Bathsheba and done what he had done against Uriah the Hittite. You remember that little portion toward the middle of the Psalm where David says, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation, then I will teach transgressors Your way, then others will be converted to You." Once I make confession of my sin and humble myself, that's the first step in the restoration process. I remove the plank out of my eye.
Second step, be discerning. Be helpful to your brother. Be discerning of your neighbor. Verse 6, it seems like it's out of place, but it's part and parcel of the same speech. "Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before the swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces." We have a balance in Verse 6 to what has been stated in the first five verses.
Now, when you read about dog here, don't think of a pet dog. In those days, most people didn't have pet dogs. Dogs were scavengers. They ran around the city. They carry disease. Dogs and pigs were considered unholy. You'd never find a Jewish home where there was a pet pig. I say that tongue-in-cheek because it's become sort of fashionable in the last couple of decades to have those little Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, have you seen them? They're little pets. I was at Franklin Graham's home years ago and he had a pig running inside of his house. (Laughter) He goes, "Look at my pig. (Laughter) It's a pet."
(Laughter)
I really didn't know what to say. I'm just kind of looking at this as, "Okay, I'm in the South. I was just kind of checking it out." (Laughter) Jane said, "Ain't it cute?" (Laughter) I said, "It's a pig." (Laughter) You don't give a pearl necklace to a pig. You don't give what is holy to the dogs. Now, the context isn't modern America, but ancient Israel, dogs and pigs were considered unholy, uncultured, unclean. You'd never think about taking the meat offered in temple sacrifices and letting the dogs take it away and trample it and eat it and tear it.
Often times, people were known as dogs or pigs. They use that way a couple of times even in the scripture to refer to a person who is so filthy as to trample the truth of God under foot and they pay no attention to it.
So there is a balance. Jesus says, "Don't judge censoriously, self-righteously, hypocritically in a way that impugns the motive of another person." At the same time, you need discernment. Be discerning, be loving, be forgiving, but be discerning. Was Jesus ever that way? Many times. On one occasion, the Pharisees said, "Boy, Jesus you better get out of here because Herod has been looking for you. He wants to kill you." Jesus said, "Go tell that fox that I must do the works today and all the way up to the third day, I've got to complete the works, go tell that fox." Now a fox is a sly, cunning beast. It's not a compliment. He called Herod by what was his true nature, that of a beast, a sly, cunning, self-serving beast. Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You are whitewashed tombs. You brewed of slimy snakes." Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, where does that fit in and judge not that you be not judged? Fits perfectly, Jesus said, "Judge a righteous judgment." It was a righteous judgment. He was right on the mark. So the balance, be loving, be forgiving, but by all means, be discerning.
Will add more a bit later, been up most of the night.
Blessings.
Virgil