Matthew, 7:1-12

Matthew chapter 7. Now, of course, Matthew never knew he was writing chapter 7, right? Because that was about 12 centuries after he wrote it that they put a chapter in it. And it was something like 15 centuries after he wrote it that they put verses in it. So, he never knew that there was such a thing as a chapter.

But nonetheless, it does have a kind of a turning point and yet a common theme. And the common theme is, here's Jesus speaking to the disciples who are in Galilee. And He is speaking to them from the standpoint of looking at the time that they're living right then. forward to the time when the Lord would establish His kingdom.

So that's the perspective. From right then up until the time of entry into the kingdom. That's what He's teaching them about. And He's continuing to do that here. Particularly what He's looking at in these twelve verses we'll be looking at today is the moral and ethical principles of the disciple anticipating the kingdom. So it's about those kinds of things that He's going to focus on.

Just to kind of give a brief foreview, from verse 13, starting next week's passage and going through the end of the chapter, there's going to be a focus on questions of entry and building solidly in anticipation of the coming kingdom. So that's what's going to follow after this section. Let's take a look at Matthew 7, verses 1-5.

Do not judge so that you will not be judged, for in the way you judge you will be judged, and by your standard of measure will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye and do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye, and behold the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

Okay. How many have been in a situation where you, and this is painful, okay? You have to talk to somebody about something that's going on, you know, and you bring it in front of them and they'll quote this first verse here. Ever heard that? Ever had that happen? Yeah? Okay. What that reveals, as we'll soon see, is that they're either ignorant or lying. Because that's not Jesus' point. What he did here, he spoke of judging. This ended up being one of the more famous lines out of the Sermon on the Mount. He put forth a couple of principles here that stand out in this passage.

The first one is in the first bullet there. Be careful about judging others, recognizing that those anticipating the kingdom will be judged based upon a principle of law. Based on a principle of law. As a priority, judge oneself first before judging another.

Get that? So that's kind of the summary of what this passage is. The first one is for those anticipating the kingdom, Under principle of law, your judging will be used to judge you. That's for those anticipating the kingdom. And secondly, as a priority, judge oneself first before judging a brother. Those are the two things that come out of this passage here.

Now, there is more to judging than we can possibly cover here this morning. Can you imagine that? Today's handout is a four-pager. You've got a five-page supplement. Some of you have seen this in similar form in recent weeks, but for those who haven't particularly, we've included it here. Now, a key point comes forward as we examine these verses in light of the whole of Scripture. Jesus was not making a flat prohibition of judging.

As he clarified in other passages, John 7.24, for example, says you must judge, imperative, with righteous judgment. See that? So Jesus, if you look at it in the whole context of Scripture, and that's the key thing, okay? What's the whole context of Scripture? He's not making a flat prohibition. It is a statement of judge righteously, not unrighteously. And we'll see what that means here shortly. Okay.

He was cautioning against unbiblical judging for which people will be judged, at least those under principle of law. Okay, for the sake of understanding what Jesus was conveying to his Jewish disciples under principle of law, we could paraphrase those verses, one and two, like this.

Do not judge arrogantly, hypocritically, or overstepping your bounds of responsibility and authority. or giving a priority to seeing and correcting the flaws of others over your own. And in all such things, remember that you all ultimately have an accountability to God Himself that will depend upon how you have judged. It's not a flat prohibition against judging. It is telling them, don't judge with arrogance. Don't judge with hypocrisy. Don't judge without first looking at your own life.

And for those under principle of law, it is true. You will be judged on the basis that you have judged by. Similar, because what's that is? You'll be judged on an if, right? You'll be judged on an if. Remember what was taught earlier about right after the Lord's Prayer? Forgive so that you can be forgiven under principle of law. Principle of grace, forgive because you've already been forgiven. See the big distinction there? Huge difference. Massive difference. Okay. Let's look at the next page here. Matthew 7, 6.

Do not give what is holy to dogs and do not throw your pearls before swine or they will trample them under their feet and turn and tear you in pieces. How many have had that to happen to you? Well, let's see, I have had a pig come at me and I didn't throw pearls at him. I could never do it again, but I was able to do a high jump onto the barn roof. Anyway, well, it is amazing what adrenaline will do at a tight moment. Okay. This verse, immediately following verses 1-5, make clear that Jesus was not telling his disciples ever to judge. Why would I say something like that? Why does this verse tell you that he wasn't telling them never to judge? Pardon?

What's that? Yeah, how do you know what's a dog? Or who? Or a pig? Do you not have to do some discerning at that point? So he was not intending, and this is one of the things that would make the point, he was not intending that they just have a blank white sheet and never judge or discern anything. Now, in order to respond to what Jesus said here in verse 6, one would have to judge what's a dog and who's a swine. Given that he was speaking to Jews, the reference to dog and the swine was to Gentiles. Let's get some insight into the word that Christ chose for dogs, which, by the way, is not the only one in the New Testament that uses this word. This Greek word is kouon. It's not kynarion, which is a pet dog, but kouon. Now, what's a kouon?

In the Old and into the New Testaments, they didn't have real good animal control. They didn't have any department for that. So people would have some pet dogs, but there would also be in a great many villages and even into the cities, wild packs of roaming, vicious, mangy dogs that nobody owned. And if the dog thought that you were getting close to its food, which was really disgusting food, it'd attack you.

That's the word that he used here. It was the word commonly used by the Jews for the Gentiles. Jackals and hyenas. Jackals and hyenas, yeah. If you think of an animal, it's not some little pet Fido, but this is an animal that's just a wild, vicious creature. that happens to hang around human beings because that's a food source. Not the humans, necessarily, but the scraps. Things like that.

It is, for example, 2 Kings 9.10 is one of the passages we give there.

This is the story of Jezebel, basically eaten up by these pack dogs, by these vicious animals. These dogs also ate things that the Jews were forbidden to eat by the Old Testament law. Because after all, they just eat whatever. Here's a for instance, you recall where Jesus warned, he talked to the Pharisees and says, you guys, you strain it in that and swallow a camel.

Well, he was doing two things. One, the camel was a forbidden animal to eat. The other thing, of course, is it's huge. You swallow this huge forbidden beast while straining out your neck. These animals would eat anything forbidden because they, of course, didn't care.

Think about this. You've got this animal that goes after and hauls around and protects, thinking that you might want it, this really lousy, forbidden piece of meat. Now, not only might it be forbidden, but what else is wrong with the thing that it's holding? This what? It's dead, yes. So he's got dead carcass of possibly a forbidden animal, and it's quite often in really bad shape.

Just flat-out disgusting. So you've got multiple things about this animal that the Jews would look upon and say, hey, this is one toxic dog. All right. The Jews despised these roaming packs of dogs. They also called the Gentiles Kuan. You disgusting, mangy, diseased, vicious pack dogs. That was their title. Swine, of course, were the ultimate representative of unclean animals.

You know, it's funny if you ask people, you know, what are the things that Jews aren't allowed to eat? A great many folks won't be able to give you the whole list. I'm not sure I could. Sometimes you wonder if the Jews can. But the reality is a great many people will say, you know, what's the first animal you think of they can't eat? and it's typically the swine.

That's the first thing. Most people, if they know very little about Judaism and what the Jews are allowed to eat, that's the one thing that a lot of folks will know. It will come to mind. In truth, while the Jews certainly had all kinds of food laws and they even added to them, this one was quite clear. They knew it. It stood out.

Notice the caution regarding giving food to the dogs, or at least that's the implication. and placing what is valuable before the swine. The dogs would not recognize holiness. Remember, give what is holy. The dogs don't recognize holiness. The swine would not recognize what is valuable. What's valuable? What's holy? That's the issues. And neither of those animals are going to recognize that. There is a risk of serious injury or death from exposure to these animals. In context, especially the swine. Turn and tear you in pieces. So what was Jesus telling his disciples? Don't talk to the Gentiles? What's his message here?

Not only is there a discernment about who or what's a dog and a swine, but what else is there a discernment about? Yeah, in other words, what are you putting before these, right? That's also a matter of discernment too, isn't it? What's holy? What's valuable? So there's discernment about what's being put forth as well as what's the character of those receiving. Yes?

No, however, let's take it for instance. Sea of Galilee. The west side is actually Galilee, and in the time of Christ was under Herod Antipas. So here's the west side around the Sea of Galilee, Herod Antipas. On the east side was Herod Philip, and that side was more Gentile in influence. Remember that you hear about the Gadarene or alternately spelled and pronounced the Gerasene demoniac? That's when they went on the east side. And remember the demons in this demoniac were legion and they asked permission to go into the what?

Yeah, and it says a large herd of swine. Why was there swine there? Well, the east side of the lake was far more Gentile influence. And so that's where there would be swine there. There was a market for them. And there were either Jews that didn't give a hoot, which is unlikely, or Gentiles who were watching them. So on the east side there you'd have the Gentiles in greater prominence.

You look at the story and where it takes place, it fits what we know of the culture on the east side. Essentially, when Jesus had the disciples go over to the east side, they were kind of going into foreign territory. It was an area where, just like you see in the account, there were Gentile influences, including some disgusting things. And we recall from reading the story, Mark 5 is one of the places where the story is recounted for us.

The demons went into the swine, the swine went headlong into the lake, and boy they had an environmental mess, right? What do you do with hundreds of dead swine lying in the lake? Whatever you're going to do, you're going to do fast or it's going to be too late, right?

So this is the character of it. It's a cultural difference between one side and the other. Oddly enough, you have a strange similarity with Lake Tahoe, which is also a somewhat similar size to the Sea of Galilee, and the east side's Nevada. Anyway, okay. Okay. Okay. Now, what's that? There's much in parallel and much to roll your eyes at. Anyway.

Jesus gives us a key clue about who are dogs and who are swine. Those who fail with disastrous consequences to themselves and others to see the value in the gospel of the kingdom and who, upon rejecting the gospel of the kingdom for the good news it is, attack the carrier of the message. Here's John the Baptist. He comes declaring both the gospel of the kingdom Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand and the gospel of substitution. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And of course, what happened to John the Baptist? Yeah. Herod Antipas, the one on the west side, put him in jail. And then here's this party he's throwing and John the Baptist loses his head in the end. Okay, there are parallels to those in the church. We have a gospel to present and there will be those who will not see it for the good news that it is and reject it and attack the messengers. Now, sometimes it happens fairly mildly. No, I don't want to hear that. Don't talk to me like that. I don't want to hear that stuff. I don't believe that. That's junk.

It might be a little bit more aggressive, like my experience I shared with my supposedly objective philosophy of Eastern religions class where the instructor whacked me real good in front of the class because, and he even stated, you're a Christian, aren't you? So it could be that. Or it could be what believers in other parts of the world experience far more aggressively and believers have experienced over the centuries, right? More Christians have died for the faith in the last century than the prior centuries combined. Isn't that something? Amazing. It can be costly.

We need not waste our time and resources with those who are intent on trampling the gospel of Jesus Christ entrusted to us in the church. Paul wrote to Timothy, O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and thus gone astray from the faith. Grace be with you. Paul also wrote to the church at Philippi, Philippians 1, 9-11, and this I pray that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ, having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

Okay, Matthew 7, 7-11. Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds. To him who knocks, it will be opened. Or what man among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask him? Now, this is another passage that touches on prayer. We've seen the subject of prayer come up, and it's interesting. He doesn't just say, here's my section on prayer. He keeps revisiting the topic, doesn't he?

And what we see here, in Matthew 5.44, there was an address on prayer. 5-13, a substantial address on prayer, including what is commonly called the Day of the Lord's Prayer. So in these verses, Jesus was teaching his disciples to be persistent in prayer. Doesn't that come across pretty clearly?

Ask, seek, and knock are all present tense imperatives. It has this sense. You must keep on asking. You must keep on seeking. You must keep on knocking. So in verse 8, asks, seeks, and knocks are present participles. The one who keeps on asking, the one who keeps on seeking, who keeps on knocking. See that?

He was also teaching his disciples that God will be responsive to the disciple who is persistent. That's his questions about the, you know, which of you, if your son asks for bread or fish, And so look at this here, in verses 9 and 10, Jesus makes reference to the two primary food sources in the area of the Sea of Galilee, a loaf of bread, what's grown from the land.

And the area, by the way, up in the northwest quarter of Galilee was one of the more fertile ones in the whole area. That area right up in that northwest quarter. Very fertile. Then also the fish right there. So you have the foods, the occupations, the preoccupations of the people who are there in that area. They are heavily taxed peasants in great part. Heavily taxed.

You see before the Romans came in, They basically had a century of Jewish rule and it was basically one tax system for those Jews. And actually that, after the time when the Assyrians hauled off the Jews, it was only during that time when the Jews had that one century of rule and only during the latter part of that, that they started repopulating Galilee. So Galilee was actually fairly, it was kind of a new area, comparatively speaking, after centuries of being empty. So now, in this place where they had a century of Jewish rule, and even at that it was kind of growing as a phenomenon in Galilee, now they had three levels.

Now you're going to pay the temple people in Jerusalem, and you're going to pay the local dictator, Herod Antipas, and you're going to pay Rome. Now from one level of taxation to three. You're going to pay it all. And so the people were pressed. Up until this time, there were several different peasant revolts. And so what you eat and whether you've got enough money to buy clothing, those were big issues.

So what does Jesus do? The asking, seeking, knocking, he relates to what? Basic stuff. Basic stuff. It goes along with, give us this day our daily bread. So it's a great focus on just how am I going to live the next day? How am I going to feed my family? Those kind of concerns were front and center. How about this use of the word evil? Why did Jesus call these people evil? Was that a mistake? Based on like depravity?

Yeah, yeah, certainly is that. I guess you can get from my silence, that's part of the answer. It's not the full answer. Yeah. Do you recall when Jesus said, I mean this is kind of a shocking statement, unless you hate your mother and father, Boy, I'm supposed to love them and honor them, right? Jesus would do what the Jews often did, and they would put something in an extreme in order to make a relative comparison. It was not that Jesus was wanting them to hate their mother and father, but that their love for the Lord would be so strong that their love for their parents, and that was expected and assumed, would be hate by comparison. He says, you are evil. Not that these people are desperately wicked. They're His disciples. Okay? But I just say, compared to the holiness of God. It's a Jewish contrast. Also, it gets your attention too. Right? It's a Jewish contrast. Bring out this evil. Alright.

There are certainly different forms of prayer, aren't there? We make mention here, there's adoration and worship, thanksgiving and supplication, making requests. And by the way, if I've forgotten something, is there any other kind of prayer you might think of? Pardon? Okay, we have thanksgiving. Okay. Pardon?

Yeah, adoration and worship, you could look at different nuances and praise. In fact, you could kind of fill this out with a lot of other words that have different shades. So this is not intended to be an exhaustive list. We could even add to it, but at least get some sense of it.

This passage focuses on the last of those, making requests. Ask, seek, knock. It's making requests, isn't it? make requests for the basic things. When we look at the New Testament epistles, we find something real interesting here. We don't find an exact parallel to the, you must be persistent. And why do you think that would be? Are we prohibited from asking for things? No, but we don't get quite this message. And why is that? Yeah, and that's kind of the front end of the difference, isn't it?

We have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit with a great list of ministries. And that's for starters. We in the church have been grace-blessed. We've been grace-blessed. Certainly, it doesn't mean that we won't come on hard times. It doesn't mean that we won't be in a position of need. But we have so very much to be thankful for. And a far greater emphasis in the New Testament upon being thankful. As a matter of fact, thankfulness is a key, and I'll use this word because it's the best way I can do it, it's a key motivator Thankfulness is a key motivator for fulfilling the things that are spelled out as imperatives and urgings in the New Testament.

Otherwise, it's principle of law. You do this so that you get this benefit. You do this and then you'll be blessed if. Yeah. Okay, that was brought out earlier in the Sermon on the Mount. That's one of the references here to the praying that we saw earlier in the Sermon on the Mount. And the vain repetition was something that was done among Gentiles. And it's still done, particularly in Buddhism, as one of the places where they have the prayer wheels and that kind of thing. And it was based on this idea of, boy, I'm just going to beat God to death. I'm going to just keep pounding and hounding him until he has to.

And Jesus said, don't do that. God is neither impressed nor compelled by your many repetitions of things. And so, while that's spelled out to Jews, is there anything in the New Testament that contradicts that? I would say not. But there is something that comes out in the Old Testament part of the New Testament that Jesus told about the widow who kept praying for her son.

Yes. She was a big example. Yeah, and this was more on persistence. Yeah, she was talking about the widow who was persistent, right? And notice that this is more the same kind of thought, persistence. But what we see is not so much a teaching on persistence. Here's 1 Thessalonians 5 that has a continuance principle. Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5 says, Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Now, let's ask about this pray without ceasing. Should we be keeping a log and try to work that prayer number up to 100%? I'm no longer eating. I'm no longer sleeping. I'm no longer talking to my wife. I'm sorry, I don't have the message ready today. I was praying all the time.

You'll be happy to hear that, won't you? Maybe today. Yes, that's right. You see, what we see in the rest of the New Testament, this being a focal point, and notice this is not some lengthy passage, but just to rejoice always, pray without ceasing, it would be easy to look at this as, okay, now I've got another law, right?

And I'm going to sit there and try to work on this and see if I can get it up to 100% and I'll try to improve my percentage. just kind of cut out other things. Let the hair grow long. All three of them. And what is it? What am I trying to do with that? I'm trying to operate by law. Is that what Paul's talking about?

Is he saying that if you pray without ceasing, all this other stuff gets whittled away? What's wrong with that idea? What is prayer? Is prayer just an activity that you put on a chart? Do you try to get the bar chart so that week by week the number goes higher? Or is prayer something else? I would think that prayer would be Instead of being a monologue, we make it a duologue. So we base it upon the Word of God. Yeah, it is an interaction with God, not just something where, hey, look how many hours I've clocked. And it's not where I'm trying to increase the bar chart. It's like the ad. Here's all the bars. And the numbers are going up. No, this is not it. This is not it.

He is looking instead, this is a relationship with the Lord. Pray without ceasing is a matter of have a continual relationship with the Lord. Not just, okay, now I've got my logbook numbers up. Now I can tell all my friends and I can send them an email with a bar chart and show them how I'm doing. Yes, too proud.

And there's another issue with that. Remember what we said about the law? If at first you don't succeed, you're sunk. Right? That's another problem with the law. You're trying to work up your percentage, and by the time you've done the first week and it's not 100, you're already in trouble. Okay? That's the problem with the law. Okay, let's take a look here. It's beyond page four.

Paul was not asking that we aim for 100% prayer time and nothing else, but rather that we be in a continual attitude of bringing everything to God and living with our hearts before Him. It's relationship, not logbook numbers. It's like the people that want to evangelize and put notches in their Bible, right? Oh, I evangelize. Got this guy. Sometimes there's notches in the people you evangelize to.

Okay, verse 12. In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want for them to treat you, for this is the law and the prophets. How many people have heard something like, oh, I just try to follow the golden rule and don't worry about the rest?

Okay? You hear that? Yeah. That's not what he had in mind. Okay. Jesus said essentially that this statement sums up the human relationship aspects of the Old Testament. It sums it up. It doesn't replace it. Okay? Did Jesus by this mean that he wanted all those Jews to set the law aside?

No. What he was intending was that they understand that this is the summary of what it looks like, but it doesn't mean you just throw everything aside. Jesus didn't mean that all he cares about is how you live with other people. What did he just get through saying about asking things of the Lord? He was telling them to be persistent. So it's not just to do everything on the horizontal level and God's happy. He didn't mean that his disciples could just forget about the details of the Law of Moses and just concentrate on living out the Golden Rule.

One of the things I've also found, the Golden Rule is problematic. Have you ever had an instance where you would like something but that's not what the other person wants? Have you ever had that happen? Nancy and I found that with massage. Yeah, we try to exchange favors of doing massage. Well, I like my massages really hard. Not everybody does. So, anyway, if I follow the Golden Rule, there'll be a lot of people that just really grimace. Anyway, the Golden Rule can be problematic if you're just going to say, that runs everything in my life.

Jesus was not intending that this Golden Rule just take over and shove everything else aside. Not even for the people he was talking to. Otherwise, why bother with the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, right? He could have just said, 7-12, what that just says, and just left the rest of it alone. But that's not what he did. The last bullet, Jesus did not mean that these words will be taken by us in the church as, okay, now I know what to do to please God, so now I can just do it. I'm not an advertisement.

Now I can just do it and God will be happy with the way I live. No, I just don't have to worry about anything. I'll just follow the golden rule. What do I want? Okay, I'll do that to you. You can help the person across the street whether they want that or not. So some of the thought to make Christianity out is simply you just follow the golden rule. That's Christianity. That's it. All one lump sum.

Jesus certainly had ethical and moral teachings. He put them before his disciples there. The apostles did provide a great deal of ethical and moral guidance for us in the church, even in the form of imperatives. So we've got lots of guidance there. But the essential message of Scripture is about who God is, what he has done and is doing, and will do for eternity.

And that's never to be ignored, never to be set aside. Scripture is about our faith and the spiritual facts that God has deliberately revealed in Scripture. So to simply say, oh, I'm not going to worry about anything else but just follow the golden rule, then you're ignoring everything that Jesus and his apostles said. Ever about our relationship and fellowship with Him. Key thing. The Law and the Prophets, after all, start with, in the beginning God.

It's about what God is doing and has done and will do. And who we are in relationship with Him is always the basis for what we do. Scripture does not call us to think of ourselves simply as human doings. We're not just simply human doings. We refer to ourselves as human beings. And I think that's fitting because we recognize that God is the one who is to do the doing.

Alright. Now, we're going to be moving on from verse 13 on in the next couple of weeks here, finishing up the Sermon on the Mount and looking at some passages that are, I think, often misunderstood. Boy, that's a surprise, huh? But as we go through the passages in the next couple of weeks here and finish up chapter 7, I think we're still going to see some surprising things. Things that are particularly focused, I would say this section we're moving up into here is particularly focused, more than most of the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, on entry into the kingdom. Who gets in and who doesn't? What's the character of those who get in and what's the character of those who don't? Entry into the kingdom, meaning entry into the coming colonial kingdom, particularly focused on the Jews. As Christians, here in the Church Age, are we concerned about entry into the Kingdom? Is that something we should be concerned about or not? Yes? No? Okay. Now, what's interesting is we, like the Jews, have a future perspective on the Kingdom. We're anticipating that coming Kingdom.

So that we would have in common with them. For them, this will be a time when being a Jew in Israel, that's a key thing. And entering into that for the Jews will matter. For us, what is our blessed hope? To be with Christ. His coming for us. That's what Paul writes in Titus 2. That is our blessed hope for His coming for us. We do have an anticipation of being in the kingdom with Christ, but it will be of a different mindset because our place will not be Jews living on the land with a Jewish Messiah as our king, etc. So we do have commonality of perspective, it's future, And Jesus Christ will be center point.

Yes, that's right. We're spiritual beings and probably some ways, although we don't know all the details, some ways of testing it is to look at what was Jesus' resurrection body like. He would walk along with the disciples of Emmaus. What's that? Pretty good. Yes, pretty phenomenal.

He could walk along with the disciples on the road to Emmaus and walked as if his feet were limited by the gravity and the solidness of the road. But that same resurrected Lord could also walk right into the room even if the doors were locked and were not limitations. In order to show that he was a resurrected being, He says, give me something to eat. Did he have to have something to eat? Was he, give me something to eat, I'm starving! I haven't eaten for days! Right? No. It was, give me something to eat, not because I have to have it. I don't. But because I can show you that I have a body where, interestingly enough, eating is optional.

You had your hand up. When you talk about entry into the Kingdom, I think about what I've... It just sort of comes. It's almost like you're trying to earn your card. It doesn't seem to match with what I've learned in the past. Let's talk about that. We are going to be looking at that in the next couple weeks here.

Will there be those who don't enter into the kingdom? There will be a great number who will be dead, but there will even be those alive. Who won't enter? The question is at the beginning of that time, there will be those who have physically survived the tribulation period. And those who are saved, Jew and Gentile, will enter in. Those who are unsaved from the tribulation period will not enter in. And there's the distinction. But will they still be living on earth? No. But won't the kingdom of heaven come down to earth?

Yes. Yes, but there will be a dividing point. No, they're going to the lake of fire. That's their destination. And that's true of the White Throne Judgment, but also at the very beginning of the millennium. No one who is unsaved will enter into the millennial kingdom. This is a key and critical thing. Yeah?

The indication that Christ gave, because the Sadducees, as you remember, gave them Jesus a question and what he tried to do is give a conundrum to Jesus based on Jesus was siding with the Pharisees in this respect. He said that there is a resurrection. And so because of the Jewish law that said that, okay, if I've got, you know, if my brother dies, I have to take his wife. Yeah, they were basically, it was a financial provision requirement of the law. And so the Sadducees went and said, OK, one brother, then another, then another. Which one will be his wife in the resurrection? And they were thinking, oh, we've got him.

And he's saying, sorry, you guys have it wrong. Being married is for here and for now in these physical bodies. So the question you're referring to is, in this resurrection body, it won't be a matter of identifying male and female. There won't be reproduction. Sorry to the Latter-day Saints. There won't be reproduction in the heavenly scene. These bodies will be different in many respects and that's one of them. They will be, at least from the standpoint of reproduction, genderless. Not equipped or intended to be reproducing.

Any other thoughts, questions, ponderings? Yeah, Tom. Going back to judging, when I'm judging somebody, and they use that do not judge verse on me, usually what I say is, is it wrong for me to judge this or that, whatever I'm judging? And they'll say either yes or no. If it's not wrong, continue to judge it. If it is wrong, then I say, who are you to judge? And one other thing, the Bible doesn't say for us to examine others to see if they're in the way. So that's one thing I don't judge. And that's all I have to say. Yeah. Interesting. Kate, you brought up a couple of points.

One is just a person who is challenging your judging because you're trying to confront or deal with a problem, okay? And Tom's saying, you know, ask them the question, is this right or wrong? And then I think the final point you made there was, you know, are you judging, right? Are you judging that I'm judging?

So, you know, essentially there's a contradiction in what they're saying. And then the next question is about, I don't judge whether someone is a believer or not. There's one sense in which that's absolutely the case, isn't it? In the end, I don't determine who walks through heaven's gates. Is that up to me? No. It's not up to me. And in fact, ultimately that's the Lord's.

There are a number of instances where it's very hard for us to tell. Very hard for us to tell what's going on in a person's heart. What ends up happening in a lot of hospital or emergency kinds of situations is people may have a consciousness without an ability to communicate. People may have an awareness and even make decisions at the last moment that we'll never be aware of.

But the Lord knows, doesn't He? He knows whose name is written. And I think that's a key thing to keep in mind. A point well taken, Tom, that ultimately, yeah, we have some context. I mean, I might look and say, does this person need to hear the gospel? Yeah. But I'm not in a position of making decisions about who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. That's not for me to decide. The Lord's going to do that. We have to leave those kinds of things in His hands. Other thoughts, ponderings, bafflements? Yeah.

In the book of life, is our name the same as we have here on earth or is there a new name given? Good question. I'm not sure I can answer that explicitly because we've got two things. One is your name is in the Book of Life and that says you're saved. The other thing is Christ said that He would give those who are overcome a new name. Alright, so is my name in the Book of Life a different name than I have now?

Good question. I don't know. I'm sure that's something we'll find out. Hey, there it is. And it'd be interesting, the name given to us seems to be a name exclusively between ourself and the Lord. Isn't that something? To me, as I look at that, and look at that, the Lord saying, I'll give you a new name and it'll just be between you and me.

It's focusing on, will there not be millions saved? Yeah, there'll be millions saved. And in one sense, you say, well, I'm going to get lost in the crowd. And the Lord's saying, nope. What would overwhelm us, if somebody came and said, Vern, you need to keep a close relationship with a million people. Good luck. Right? The Lord's capacity is not challenged by the fact that a great many people are saved. He says just the same.

There will be a special relationship between me and you. Intimacy in spite of the many. And that's a neat thing. That's a really neat thing. Yeah. Yeah. Uniqueness. It won't be just, here's your standard cookie cutter name that you get. No. You're right. Every name will be different. Unique.

Known between the Lord and ourselves. Isn't that something to think of? Think of somebody you have a close relationship with. This is an intimacy closer than that in spite of the fact that the Lord paid the price for and knows and saved thousands upon thousands.

That is an astounding thing. Well, we're going to close the book and pray. Thank you, Lord, for what you've laid out here for us. You have laid out precious truths, marvelous truths, truths in which we can draw things directly, truths in which we can find correspondence from Scripture. And even for that, which we look at and say, well, that's a little different. Nonetheless, there are things to be learned, even in contrast with the principle of law and the principle of grace. And we thank you for what you've revealed, because you love us so very much. Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.