Dogs and Hogs: Spiritual Judgment & Discrimination

Introduction

For the last two Sundays we have taken deep dives into the meaning behind one of the most misused verses in the New Testament. These verses are from the Sermon on the Mount, specifically, Matthew 7:1-5.

Matthew 7:1–5 KJV 1900

1 Judge not, that ye be not judged. 2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. 3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? 5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

We have seen that the phrase “judge not” does not mean that we are not supposed to analyze people or situations and come to conclusions. It does mean that we are not supposed to pronounce condemnation on others, we are not to act as if we were the final judges and “write people off”, nor are we to be hypercritical. When we judge this way we become hypocritical. What we are to do is to constantly be looking inward, analyzing our own thoughts, attitudes, and actions with God’s word and with His character in mind. Then, when we notice someone is engaged in a particular sin, we will respond with righteous judgment.

Righteous judgment is, of course, concerned with the restoration of the other person, the reconciliation of relationships, and the strengthening of another person in their relationship with the Lord. Righteous judgment is done with love. This does not mean that it is always smooth and soft-spoken, but it does mean that the motivation behind it is love. Unrighteous judgment flies in the face of the biblical characteristics of love and is destructive.

When we practice this type of judgment, we find that Jesus says this is one of the most damaging kinds of sins. Damaging to ourselves, and damaging to those we judge. So first, before trying to correct someone, before attempting to point out the flaws in others, we must ensure that our motives are pure and loving, and that we are not guilty of doing the same thing.

Finally, we saw that we will answer to Jesus Christ, the righteous Judge, for the way in which we judged others.

So now that we know how not to judge, Jesus proceeds to tell us how to properly apply righteous judgement. He does so by using some very thought provoking word pictures.

Let’s look at them in the following verse.

Matthew 7:6 KJV 1900

6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

This may seem like it has nothing to do with the previous verses, but today, I hope that you will come to see not only the differences between righteous and unrighteous judgment, but what righteous judgment looks like in practice as we go through this sermon titled

Dogs and Hogs: Spiritual Judgment and Discrimination

We have been been conditioned to automatically flinch a little at that last word - discrimination. You would think that a Christian, a follower of Jesus, would never discriminate. You might even say that it is unthinkable that Jesus would teach us to discriminate, since He came to die for every person’s sin. And though that last part is true, that Jesus did die for every man’s sin, I want to make it very clear that God is a discriminatory God, and He teaches us to use spiritual discrimination.

Before I make that argument, I also would like to clear up something else. God does not discriminate against skin color or gender or societal class or nationality. Even though God, at one point and for a period of time, had a chosen people, that chosen people was not chosen for salvation, but chosen to be the people through which God revealed His nature and character, His word and His law, and ultimately, Himself, through Jesus Christ. He chose the nation of Isreal for that and so that through them, all the rest of the nations of the world would be blessed with the knowledge of God, His character, His word, His Son, and salvation.

Had Jesus discriminated against nationality, then few, if any of us, would be able to claim God’s grace of salvation, for very few, if any of us, are from Jewish descent.

So God does not discriminate on these things, nor does He instruct His followers to discriminate using these criteria.

We have looked at what it means to be hypercritical. It is mean spirited, it is unrighteously judgmental, it is destructive, and it is self-serving. Yet, while the Lord instructs us not to be hypercritical, He never tells us to not discriminate.

Exercising good spiritual discrimination is something that the Bible consistently tells us to do. We are told to “prove” (test) things to see if it is part of the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. We are commanded to “test the spirits” to see if what is being told to us is truth or lies. In a few more verses here in Matthew 7 we will be told to be careful of false prophets. If we do not exercise righteous judgment and discrimination, we would never be able to do these things.

Hypercriticism and unrighteous judgment point out errors and faults, but the purpose is condemnation or egotism. Righteous discrimination recognizes errors, faults, and sins, but points them out in order to help.

In the previous verses that we studied last week, Jesus dealt with the issue of helping our brother get rid of the speck in his eye. If we want to do that the right way, we must not have a judgmental spirit, but a spirit of discrimination. We must be able to recognize motes and beams, and, as we are about to see, we must be able to discriminate between person and person.

So what does spiritual discrimination, righteous judgment, look like in action?

To find out, let’s look at Matthew 7:6 once again.

Matthew 7:6 KJV 1900

6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

The first question that we must ask ourselves is,

“What is this holy thing which Jesus is talking about? What are the pearls to which He refers?” The answer is simply “truth.” Truth is holy and valuable like pearls. This truth that Jesus has been preaching, not only here in the Sermon on the Mount, but all over Galilee, Samarian, and Judea, since the beginning of His ministry has been the truth of the Gospel, the truth of the Kingdom of God. In short, the Christian message.

The next question we must ask ourselves is, “Who are the dogs and who are the swine?” Dogs in this region and time were not regarded as we do today. In my house, we have a dog. She is an awesome golden retriever named Izzy. We love Izzy and care for her, and most of my family considers her as part of the family. But dogs in Jesus’ day were not part of the family. They were not considered pets. Dogs were the scavengers in the villages. To call someone a dog was very insulting as dogs were fierce and dangerous, half-wild animals. Pigs, on the other hand were not much better, especially in the eyes of the Jews. To them, pigs represented everything that was unclean, unacceptable, and offensive.

Is Jesus implying that we should not give the truth of the Gospel to people that are unsaved? That they are half-wild and offensive so therefore we should not give them the truth? No, but the use of this terminology in this example is a way to teach us how to discriminate between people and do it in a righteous way.

We have to recognize that there exists a class of person that can be described as a ‘dog’ or a ‘swine’ with respect to the truth. This is not a reference to all unbelievers, because we clearly see Jesus preaching the Gospel and we know that He sent out his disciples to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of God to those that had not heard it before. So clearly, taken in the context of the rest of Jesus’ ministry, this cannot be the proper interpretation of it. So what does it mean?

To find that answer, it is best to look at the different ways that Jesus did things and how He handled people during His earthly ministry. We quickly find that Jesus handled different people differently. He confronted the Pharisees a different way than he confronted publicans and sinners. At the time of His arrest, Jesus dealt differently with the high priest, Herod, and Pilate. When asked by Pilate who was interested in the truth, Jesus answered, but when Jesus stood before Herod, who only had an interest in seeing Jesus perform miracles, Jesus did not answer a single word.

Depending on the person, Jesus dealt with them differently. We see the same discernment in the lives of the apostles. Let’s take a look at the apostle Paul and his traveling companion, Barnabas.

Acts 13:45–46 KJV 1900

45 But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. 46 Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.

Paul and Barnabas tried to preach to the Jews in Antioch, but they would not listen. So they said, “We have tried and tried, but since you won’t listen to the message and all you do is trample all over it, we turn to preach to the Gentiles,” who, if you continue to read in this chapter, became very glad and glorified God because of it.

Again, in the city of Corinth, we find something similar happening. Acts 18:5-6

Acts 18:5–6 KJV 1900

5 And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ. 6 And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles.

Paul has arrived in Corinth with a few others and begins to preach in the synagogues every sabbath, but when the Jews opposed them, Paul said, “We tried and tried to tell you, but you won’t accept it and on op of it, you blaspheme God so we are taking the truth to the Gentiles.” Immediately, Gentile families began being saved.

To the Jews, it was the Gentiles that were dogs and swine. They were not “God’s people.” They were unclean, and were considered so much so that the average Jew would not even share the same table with a Gentile. They regularly referred to Gentiles as dogs.

However, the ones that were acting like wild dogs and hogs when it came to the truth were the Jews in these two instances. They were taking that which was holy and precious and trampling it under foot.

The Jews would have been in an uproar had someone gone into the Temple and taken those things that were holy and thrown them to the dogs and the hogs. In fact, something like this had happened about 200 years prior to Jesus preaching this sermon. Antiochus IV, ruler of the Seleucid Empire, tried to Hellenize (Greek-ify) the Jews. One way he tried to impose Greek culture upon them was a direct attack on their religion. He entered the temple and erected an altar to Zeus. And then, on that altar, he sacrificed pigs. Not only had a non-Jew entered into the Temple,e, not only had he erected an altar to a false God within the temple, but he had brought unclean animals and sacrificed them on this altar. Antiochus IV desecrated the temple by using the holy place as a place to blaspheme and desecrate the truth.

The Jews revolted against Antiochus under the leadership of Judas Maccabeus and his brothers, eventually taking back the temple and re-dedicating it to the Lord.

And now, with this Sermon that Jesus is preaching, he calls all those Pharisees and Scribes and Sadducees and everyone else that takes the truth and then blasphemes it and tramples it, He calls them dogs and hogs. They had an inability to appreciate the truth, much like a hog would not appreciate a strand of peals.

So then, how are we to interpret and apply this?

Practical, Spiritual Discrimination

Let’s talk about practical, Spiritual Discrimination.

There are two primary definitions of the word discrimination. The first is the most widely used definition now, and it is the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of ethnicity, age, sex, or disability. This is not the definition we are working with today.

The definition we are working with today is the second definition:

Discrimination

-recognition and understanding of the differences between one thing and another

-good judgment; good taste

We need to recognize that it is a responsibility that we have to give the truth to people. Having said that, we need to recognize that people are all different from one another. Our approach to people must be different as we meet them where they are. I don’t know why, but there is an aversion now to using the phrase, “meeting people where they are.” This is exactly what Jesus did for us though. The Christian group Casting Crowns sings a song that is one of my favorites. We do not sing it as a congregational here at church simply because it does not really lend itself to congregational singing, but it is a beautiful song. It is called Love Moved First. The chorus of this song goes like this:

You didn't wait for me to find my way to You

I couldn’t cross that distance even if I wanted to

You came running after me

When anybody else would’ve turned and left me at my worst

Love moved first

This is what Jesus did for us, so we are to go to others where they are. If you are waiting for the conversations to come to you, you are waiting on the wrong thing. We need to go tell others. And when you and I go to others where they are to tell them the truth of the Gospel, one of the worst things we can do is to approach this task, this mission, this Great Commission in a mechanical manner.

The truth cannot be presented in the same way to every person. I am not saying that the truth changes, because truth does not change. God’s truth, like God Himself, is immutable. But the presentation of that truth must vary from person to person, sometimes slightly, other times drastically.

E.g.: In the early 1960’s, Don Richardson and his wife and child went to Dutch New Guinea as missionaries to a particularly dangerous and treacherous people group called the Sawi. As Don learned the language and the culture, he encountered a massive barrier to the truth of the Gospel.

He would explain to the Sawi about Jesus coming to earth and living like a man. He taught them the life of Jesus, His miracles, His messages, and about the disciples. These 12 trusted friends were with Jesus and travelled with Him almost everywhere. But one night, Jesus was betrayed by the disciple named Judas. Jesus was arrested and killed the next day, nailed to a cross.

Whenever Don would arrive at this point, the Sawi people would cheer and would smile. In their eyes, Judas, not Jesus was the hero of the New Testament. You see, in Sawi culture, there was a practice that was undertaken with great pride. One tribesman would befriend someone from another tribe. They would establish this friendship and would proceed to gain the other person’s deep trust in a process they called “fattening the pig.” Then, in a moment of where the “friend” had is guard completely lowered and did not suspect anything, they would be murdered. Accomplishing this kind of kill gained you notoriety in your tribe. You would be celebrated by the rest of your tribe as you recounted the ways in which you gained your victim’s trust and the look upon his face as he realized that he was about to die at the hands of his friend.

So Judas quickly became the hero. When Don would tell the story of Jesus, the Sawi would exclaim, “What patience! How amazing is it that Judas walked with Jesus for years and waited for the right time! He hid his intentions so well,” they thought, “He his his intentions so well that even with an army at his back, Jesus still called him friend!” In the Sawi eyes, Jesus was the biggest dupe ever.

There was no reasoning with them. Judas was the greatest. Util one day...

Three Sawi tribes had been warring for years. The fighting and killing and raiding got more and more intense that Don, fearing for his family’s well-being, decided that they would have to leave for a period of time. None of the Sawi tribes wanted this, as Don had gained their respect, so they agreed to gather on a certain day and make peace among the three tribes.

True peace between Sawi tribes was accomplished only by the exchanging of children. That day, the three villages began making preparations to exchange children. Don asked what was going on when one man ran across a field carrying his young son to establish peace with another village, and it was explained to him that as long as the exchange child, also known as the peace child, was alive, there would be peace among the tribes.

“But what about the high risk of him being betrayed by the other tribe and murdered?” asked Don. “Oh no!” came the reply, “To kill a peace child is one of the worst things you can do. A father gave his son, and he has trusted the whole village to protect him and care for him. No one is allowed to harm the peace child; that is the worst thing you could do.”

And it clicked for Don. This is exactly what Jesus was. Man was at war with God, so God sent His Son, the Prince of Peace, to come and live among men as a man. He should have been cherished, loved, respected, and cared for, but Judas betrayed him. And when this explanation of Jesus was given, Judas went from hero to zero, and Jesus was exalted. People began to get saved and families and entire villages were changed.

Why? Because Don Richardson was able to discriminate. He had never compared Jesus to a peace child before. He had an idea of how to give the truth to the Sawi people, but it wasn’t working. The more he tried, the more he failed and the more Jesus was dishonored by the Sawi. So when he saw this, Don decided to stop casting pearls before swine and alter how he presented the truth of the Gospel.

There is nothing wrong with learning how to present the Gospel, with learning the Romans road, with learning a method of how to witness to others, but we need to never approach anyone thinking the script that we have memorized is going to do anything. We need to learn to discriminate and meet people where they are. Yes, we should prepare ourselves. We should learn verses, try to anticipate questions, but there is no script or “sales tactic” that will be effective. Be willing to be lead by the Holy Spirit and ask Him to help you discern.

So what happens when you try every which way to tell someone the truth of the Gospel and they do not accept it? Keep trying, but understand that when they begin to trample it, then it becomes a practice of casting pearls before swine. When they react viscerally to the Gospel, it becomes a practice of giving the holy to the dogs. So be like Paul and Barnabas, take those truths and reach people who will be glad to know Jesus and happy that the truth has been brought to them.

How do we become experts in seeing people and situations for who and what they are? We begin by clearing our own vision. This may seem like a whole separate issue from the previous verses, but Jesus has masterfully stitched His Sermon together, and lets us know that we cannot be spiritually correct in our discrimination if we first do not clear all motes and beams from our own eyes. Before we can practice righteous judgment, we must first remove all obstacles to it.

Another thing I want to point out is that we must never be offensive in our approach to people with the truth. God’s word is offensive enough on its own, we do not need to be antagonistic toward others. Approaching someone and saying, “Hey, sinner,I hope you are having a lot of fun now because when you die, you are going to a lake of fire for eternity!” That is not the way to approach people!

The cross is offensive all on its own. So if there is offense taken, let it be offence of the cross and not offence because of the preacher. Now, I will say this, there are some people that live like victims and are constantly looking to be offended. No matter the love you show of the care you practice, they find something to be offended about. There are those that no matter your approach or method, will be offended by something you say.

Think of the way Jesus preached. He was truthful, and He was loving. Truth without love is damaging, but even truth tempered with love can still be hurtful. Nobody likes to be called out on something wrong. Nobody enjoys finding out that our whole mentality and approach to things have been wrong. It hurts; it is uncomfortable.

Then, there is the consideration of what truth to share. Since we are talking about unbelievers right now, we need to understand that before someone has the Holy Spirit, the things of the Spirit cannot be discerned, cannot be understood. Therefore, the primary truth, in fact, the only truth that we need to share with the lost is the truth of salvation.

That person may want to engage in discussions of other doctrines, but it is wise to not engage because understanding of other doctrines cannot be had unless there is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. For example, when we studied about Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well, he spoke to her of her sin. She tried to engage Jesus in conversations about the Being of God, how to worship God, where was the right place to worship God, the differences that separated the Jews and the Samaritans, but what did Jesus do? He brought it all back to herself, her sin, and her need for the water of salvation that only He could give. The person who is not born again cannot understand any other doctrine significantly. To then waste their time with discussing doctrines that cannot benefit them before they are saved is like throwing pearls before swine. It does nothing for them and cannot be fully appreciated.

So there is a discrimination that we must exercise with unbelievers as we share the truth and then there is discrimination with believers that we must have as we share the truth. 1 Corinthians 3:1-3

1 Corinthians 3:1–3 KJV 1900

1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. 2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. 3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men [unbelievers]?

Paul wrote to the Corinthian church lamenting that he could not teach them deep theological truths because they were immature Christians, babes in Christ.

There are levels of truth. There is milk and there is meat. There are truths of the word that cannot be understood by those that are not mature in their relationship with Jesus.

Just like there are truths of the world that we live in that children should not be exposed to, there are truths that are to rich that young Christians need to have the patience to pursue.

This is probably, as a pastor, one of the hardest things to do for me. We have in this congregation brand new Christians, and Christians that have been Christians a very long time. We have immature Christians, growing Christians, and mature Christians. Now, time in and of itself is not a mark of maturity, and in this congregation we also have Christians that are relatively new to the life, just a few years, that are maturing and growing consistently, and we also have Christians that have been saved for many years but are still immature in their walk with the Lord.

One of the things for which I am responsible is to present truth in a way that Christians of all stages can receive it. Sometimes it gets hard to do that.

But you need to be asking yourself the question, “Am I growing in my knowledge?” I spoke to a man once who told me, “Mike, I’m old. I’ve done all that I can for God and for the church, and there is nothing left for me to do but sit back.” The reason he believed there was nothing else left is that he had stopped learning more of about Jesus and His word. I can tell you that though this man was advanced in age, I would not consider him a mature believer. There was a lot more that he could have done and gotten involved with, but he was no longer interested in growing.

We need to be asking ourselves, “Am I hungering and thirsting after the knowledge of God and His word? Do I feel as if I am going forward in my walk with God? Am I going on to more and more profound truths?” It is a mark of a growing and maturing child that he feeds himself. It is the baby that is fed by another. It is the child that needs his food cut up and portioned out for him. It is the teenager and college-aged student that spends his money on cheap, easy, and fast food that has little nutritional benefit. But it is the mature Christian that knows he needs a constant intake of truth. He prepares himself to receive it. He receives it with thanksgiving. He searches the Bible for truth pertinent to his situation in life. He shares that truth with others. These are the marks of mature and maturing Christians.

Are you treating the holy, precious pearls of God’s truth as a dog or a hog would? Or are you learning to appreciate these wonderful truths of God?

I’ll close with this quote from D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

We are the custodians and the expositors of the Bible; and if we gain nothing else as the result of our study, we must all feel that we have been lazy, that we have not prepared ourselves as we should have done for such a responsible, such a great task.

It is not quite as easy as we sometimes seem to think, and if we take the Word of God seriously, we shall see the vital need of study and preparation and prayer.

Invitation

Life Groups

What has God done/been doing in your life recently?

What, if anything, stood out to you from the sermon? Are there any questions you might have?

Taking into account last week’s sermon, how can we differentiate between righteous judgment and unrighteous judgment according to Matthew 7:1-6?

What are some practical ways we can ensure our motives are pure and loving when approaching difficult conversations with others?

In what ways does Jesus’ example of dealing with different people teach us about spiritual discrimination?

How can we apply the concept of 'meeting people where they are' in our everyday interactions with peers who don't share our beliefs?

Why is it important to recognize that not all unbelievers will respond positively to the truth of the Gospel? It helps us realize that it is our job to tell and not to convince, it helps us understand that failure to accept Jesus on their part does not mean we have failed.

How does clearing our own vision relate to our ability to practice righteous judgment on others?