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A. E. PLACE

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jul 16, 1914

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 91, No. 29.

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A. E. PLACE

By A. E. Place

“Judge Not”—No. 1

A. E. PLACE

“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? . . . 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.” Matt. 7: 1-5.
EVERY generation, every people, and doubtless every individual, has to a greater or less extent violated the principle laid down in the text quoted above. We have beheld motes when we should have been considering beams. We have felt sure that we saw a beam when it was in fact but a mote. We have failed to discern and apply just weights and measures. And some of us at least have strained at the proverbial gnat, and swallowed a camel. But, letting bygones be bygones, is there a cure for the constitutional disease?
It would seem, from the Saviour’s words, that to behold a mote in a brother’s eye, and not consider the beam in our own eye, is hypocrisy, and the same author said, “Woe unto you, . . . hypocrites.” To “consider,” according to Webster, is “to fix the mind on, with a view to a careful examination.”
Perchance if we should fix our mind upon our own eyes, with a view to a careful examination, we might find a beam. If so, and we should find the grace of God sufficient to take it out, we might be unable longer to see the mote which before we saw so plainly in our brother’s eye. These motes, are sometimes but a reflection of the beam which is in our own eye, and which, by a faulty focus, we locate in our brother’s eye.
O, how much sadness and misery have been brought into this world because of a wrong focus or an obstructed vision!
Paul, in his letter to the Hebrews (chap. 12: 1), speaks of “the sin which doth so easily beset us.” We say Paul referred to unbelief. But there is another sin which doth easily beset us,—the sin of seeing things we ought not to see, carrying reports that should never be carried; in a word, violating the plain demands of our text.
Seventh-day Adventists are dealing with a most sacred work, the finishing of the “mystery of God” (the gospel). This finishing must embrace the perfecting of character as truly as the carrying of a theoretical message to the world. Of the finished people it will be said, “Without guile in their mouths,” “without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.”
Are we prayerfully considering the fact that in this finishing work, God himself is judge? Are we studying both motes and beams by means of God’s great perfect looking-glass? See James 1: 23, 24.
It is so easy to sit in the judge’s chair and pass sentence upon this one, that one, in fact, any one except the first person singular,—myself,—and still worse, to do it without jury, and without once calling in the prisoner; then to kneel down and pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”
Think of a judge passing sentence without one word from the accused! Think of a judge listening to tales about a prisoner while the accused is not at the bar! Would this be tolerated by the courts of this world? But is it not a common thing in the church, even in the remnant church?
Judging, condemning, or criticizing without Christlike labor for the accused one, has caused more heartaches, made more separations, produced more leanness of soul, than almost any other one thing. It has lacerated and torn most tender cords of affection; it has driven honest husbands, wives, and children from home; it has doubtless driven many to ruin, temporal, spiritual, and eternal. Because of it “many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.”
For several years, this has to me been a burning question, and from this sin I have prayed earnestly and long to be completely and eternally delivered. Often have I asked myself the question, When will it all end in my life, and the lives of my brethren and sisters? The only answer I seem to get is, Never, unless we come to see clearly.
We well remember the case of the blind man whom Christ touched, and then asked him if he saw anything. The man answered, “I see men as trees, walking.” Then Jesus touched him again, and he saw clearly. Has Jesus touched us but once? Are we ready for his divine hand to rest upon us again? If so, he will touch our eyes, and suddenly we shall lose sight of the motes and the beams, we shall cease to see men as “trees.” Then we can see men as men. In them and through them we shall see one Man,—the Man of sorrows, dying on the cross for every man, that he might give to every man the divine focus.
When we see every man as Christ sees him, we should rather go to the cross ourselves than put a stumblingblock in the way of the weakest.
“Why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at naught thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. . . . So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.”
San Jose, Cal.