Back in 1991, I preached a sermon series on The Sermon on the Mount. One of the references I used was Martyn Lloyd – Jones two-volume book called “Studies in The Sermon on the Mount.” Recently I picked that book up again after a quarter of a century to review a sermon I had written based on Matthew 7:6, “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” (KJV).
Here is what Lloyd-Jones had to say referring back to the opening of Matthew 7:1 on “Judge not, lest ye be judged”:
“If our Lord had finished His teaching with the first five verses, it would undoubtedly have led to a false position. Men and women would be so careful to avoid the terrible danger of judging in that wrong sense that they would exercise no discrimination, no judgment whatsoever. There would be no such thing as discipline in the Church, and the whole of the Christian life would be chaotic. There would be no such thing as exposing heresy and pronouncing judgment with regard to it. Because everybody would be so afraid of judging the heretic, they would turn a blind eye to the heresy; and error would come into the Church more than it has done.”
D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), 1989 Vol. 2, pp. 183-184.
That was originally written in 1959. We have seen that come to pass today. Due to political correctness, and always wanting to be positive and encouraging, the church has lost even the desire to guard itself against heresy, much less point it out. We have turned a blind eye to falsehood, and we label whoever points it out as a “Whateverophobe.” The saddest part is that most of the insults come from professing Christians within the church organization. There is a big difference between being a professor of Christianity and a possessor of Christianity.
Mike McGuire Ministries 