When you judge, there's a whole lot of things begin to happen. For example I've had things as silly as this. I walk in and I'm preoccupied, I'm just thinking about the meeting, and someone's rung me before I got here, and I've got a few things on my mind, so I walk in, and walk right past someone. Now you know what I did? I was just preoccupied, walked past someone, that's all I did. That's all that happened - but that person looks - he walked past me. That's an observation. What does that mean? Now he's about to enter into judgement: he doesn't like me. Now that's judgement. It's got nothing to do with reality, it's your conclusion about what it means. Why doesn't he like me? I only tried to do this, I only tried to do that, and now I'm angry. Now you notice I'm angry, not because someone walked past me; I'm angry because I judged. My judgement has unleashed all kinds of resentment: I always have this trouble everywhere I go! People treat me like this. Before you know it, that person's wound up, and they can't worship God, and they're in a mess.
Don't think that's an exaggeration, I've seen it happen. People come up: why did you walk past me? I said: I don't know, I didn't even notice. I was actually full of - I'm so sorry, what? But they're actually full of something, so when you start asking why, then you try and find all the reasons.
So the Bible just tells us this: don't speak evil of one another. Whoever speaks evil of his brother is judging his brother. When you hear someone running someone down, they are judging them; and they're about to reap a huge cycle. If you don't watch out, you'll come into agreement with it, then you'll reap the cycle too. [Laughter] Think about it. So here's some insights. As soon as we decide why someone did something, we end up judging them, so here's the thing. When we judge others, we set ourselves in the place of God. Why did they do that? Hmm, he doesn't like me. See, so that's a judgement of someone's motive. It's got nothing to do with reality, it's just how I assessed what happened to me, and that will determine then some things, and away it goes. So when we judge others, we can't see clearly. That's what Jesus said: you can't see clearly. It's like you've got a beam in your own eye. Your own eye is so blocked, you can't see clearly. Can you imagine someone who's got a big hunk of wood in their eye, and they're trying to use a pin to get a speck out of your eye? What's going to happen? They're going to do immense damage, so you notice the thing is, we can't see clearly.
Jesus' concern is that we see clearly. Notice He doesn't say we shouldn't help others. He just said: don't judge them, and He said: you need to get the plank out of your own eye, then you can see clearly. In other words - and the context is one of judgement. In other words here's the deal; when you judge someone, you now cannot see at all clearly them or the situation. If you want to see clearly, you have to get the judgement out of your heart. You have to repent of it, renounce it and let it go. That's the deal, have to let it go. You notice then, not only that, we can't deal with issues in our heart. Why? Because we're looking at the speck in someone else's eye: look at that, look what he did, look what they did, look - and you become obsessed, so obsessed with someone else's faults and failings, you can't see what's in your own heart.
Now of course we do this all the time, and we reap a judgement that comes on us. So judging ends up in fault finding, and criticism, and resentment and bitterness. It ends up in all kinds of horrible, horrible things. In fact actually, you notice unsaved people - a Christian meets unsaved people, you know what they tend to do? Tend to judge them: oh, they're going to hell. How do you know? How do you know their state of heart? Why did you set yourself up to judge where they're at, and where they're going? How did you know that? Oh, well it looked like it, and I concluded that. Oh - now what happens of course we see someone, and we immediately look through what's in our heart. We filter what's there, and we judge it in line with what's in our heart; so you see someone, and maybe they're just dressed a little bit untidily, or they're dressed in some way that you disapprove of, so ooh, that person must be such and such. How do you know?