Poison Herbs

Greeneville Seventh-day Adventist Church: you Did you ever meet a bully? How many of you here has ever met a bully? Oh, you went to the same school I did, okay. ⁓ Bullies are good at making the lives of whom they consider to be lesser or weaker beings miserable. And when I went to school, there were some guys that loved to pick on the little guys. And guess who the little guys were? It me and my friends. And, They would pick on us and we lived with it and it wasn't too bad, but you know, I got tired of it. And then I became a sophomore and a new freshman came. He looked like he should be in fifth grade. He was, he made me look big. I thought, huh, now I have a victim. Wait a minute, I didn't like it. Shame on me for thinking it. Now I'm glad I did not follow through because I saw him a few years afterwards and I went, ⁓ hi, he was big. Somehow he finally grew. But, know, psychologists have long told us that bullies are people of low self-esteem who try to feel better about who they are by tearing others down. Over the years, I've found this to be true. Bullies often have an abusive home life and are jealous of those who don't. Frustrations get taken out on them at home, so they take it out on weaker individuals outside the home. If not recognized and conquered, the person can persist in this lifestyle long after the people who abuse them are gone. Most of them could not formulate what's going on in their own minds. It's just what they have seen and what they know. what they're acting out. Dr. Chalmers, who was a Seventh-day Adventist psychiatrist in this conference, passed away a number of years ago, but he said something similar about those in the church who are judgmental and critical of others. I know, he was visiting my church, and that particular church was like, a school for bullies. wasn't a hospital for sinners. It was just like, whoa, what's going on in this church? I invited him in and said, please give me some guidance here. And he said, show me a legalist, who are usually the bullies, and I will show you a person who has some deep personal sins. Huh, I thought that was strange. And he listed some of those and I don't want to do it mixed company, but show me a legalist and I will show you a person who has some deep personal hidden sins that they are trying to keep hidden. I will show you also someone who's deeply worried about their salvation. Thus, they take it out on others by being critical and judgmental of those they deem to be lesser Christians than themselves. Even though a psychiatrist can put a diagnosis on the problem, the problem is not excused. Like every other kind of sin, it must be dealt with. Look with me at Matthew chapter seven. For those of you that may be here for the first time, We are going through the whole book of Matthew and we've been in the Sermon on the Mount for quite a while. so remember, in this sermon, you know, at first we look at the Sermon on the Mount and we think, oh, it's very disjointed sermon. They did not teach this in preaching class, homiletics class. There's no organization, no three points and three illustrations and all the things they teach you. looking at me now saying, you never do that either. But I like to look at Jesus, it's very disjointed here. It seems like, but it's not. It's actually very organized. So in the Sermon on the Mount, so far, starting with the Beatitudes, we looked at Christian character. And then with Salt and Light, we looked at Christian influence. And then we looked at Christian righteousness with what it means to keep the spirit of the law, not just the letter of the law. And Christian piety we looked at with the way a life is lived based on who one believes in. And last time, goals and priorities with how we handle our treasures and our fears. Now we see how a Christian is supposed to look at his two major relationships with each other and with God. So Matthew 7 verse 1, judge not that ye be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Now, thoughts from the Mount of Blessings puts it this way. The effort to earn salvation by one's own works inevitably leads men to pile up human exactions as a barrier against sin. For seeing that they failed to keep the law, they will devise rules and regulations of their own force to force themselves to obey. All this turns the mind away from God to self. His love dies out of the heart and with it perishes love for the fellow man. A system of human invention with its multitudinous exactions will lead its advocates to judge all who come short of the prescribed human standard. The atmosphere of selfish and narrow criticism stifles the noble and generous emotions and causes men to become self-centered judges and petty spies. Interesting. It's too easy for people who are serious about religion to judge their friends, relatives, and fellow church members who seem to not be quite as serious or zealous in their walk with God as they perceive themselves to be. That was the disease of the Pharisees, and the problem is certainly alive in the modern church. We think to excuse our criticism of the church or our fellow man by starting the sentence. I know I'm not perfect. What's the next word? ⁓ you've got the same people. I know I'm not perfect. that's okay. Now, ⁓ okay, I'm all right now because I've admitted I'm not perfect. But did you see what so-and-so did? Can you believe that? Wow. Well they don't see the hypocrisy in what they just said. They're judging. You know, and somebody said, I'm going leave the church because there's too many judgmental people. Well they just made a judgment, didn't they? They judge the judgmental people. Like it's a never-ending story. I find it quite ironic that judgmental people can be, can just as easily get their feelings hurt when they find themselves judged by others. What? Me? Hmm. The same cycle as the bullying that we mentioned earlier. While it should be our relationship with God that brings us to worship together, God recognizes that the way we treat each other is important. So important that in verse two, he states that we will be judged by him in the same way that we judged each other. Just as in the Lord's prayer found earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, we are forgiven just as much as we what? Forgive. So I'm considering New Year's resolution coming up being extremely lenient in my judgments. Because that's why I want God to be with me. Extremely lenient, I need all the help I can get. This concept should not have been something new to the original hearers. They should have recalled what happened with the prophet Nathan when he came and told David a story and David made a judgment and he ended up judging himself because the story was about him. Paul carries on this theme, keep your finger here and turn over to Romans chapter 2. Romans chapter 2 verse 1. This isn't just Jesus talking, Paul is reiterating this. Romans chapter 2 verse 1 says, you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself, for you who judge practice the same things. We don't see that in politics, do we? No. Do you know what they're doing? They're doing what we are doing and haven't been caught. They're just doing it better than we are or something. I don't know. But Paul was right, verse two. But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. And do you think this, ⁓ man, you who judge those practicing such things and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But in accordance with your hardness and your impertinent heart, you... are trans, sorry, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God who will render to each according to his deeds. Okay, back to verse three in Matthew seven. Jesus continues, and why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite. First remove the plank from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Okay. It says we can remove the spec, right? After the plank is removed from our own. We're going look at that in a bit. Thoughts from the Mount of Blessings says, his words describe one who is swift to discern a defect in others. When he thinks he has detected a flaw in the character or the life, he is exceedingly zealous in trying to point it out. But Jesus declares that the very trait of character developed in doing this un-Christ-like work is in comparison with the fault criticized as a beam in proportion to a moat. Now that's not a moat around a castle, okay? See those little dust specks in the sunbeam? Those are motes. It is one's own lack of the spirit of forbearance and love that leads him to make a world out of an atom. Did you know that Ellen White knew about nuclear science? She knew about atoms. You're making a world out of an atom? Those who have never experienced the contrition of an entire surrender to Christ do not in their life make manifest the softening influence of the Savior's love. They misrepresent the gentle, courteous spirit of the gospel and wound precious souls for whom Christ died. Christ is the only true standard of character. He who sets himself up as a standard for others is putting himself in the place of Christ. And later she says, that's anti-Christ. Whoa, she's serious about this. Now, we talked about, okay, God does want you to remove the moat from your neighbor's eye. Not until you feel that you could sacrifice your own self-dignity and even lay down your life in order to save an erring brother have you cast the beam out of your own eye so that you are prepared to help your brother. Well, that's a high standard. Then you can approach and touch his heart. I woke up one morning many years ago with a horrible pain in my left eye. I had no clue what had happened. Did Susan smack me in the night? What is this? Ow! I couldn't open it. I couldn't see. I tried to look in the mirror. couldn't see anything. I couldn't even open the eye. It was so painful. And, you know, we were living in South Georgia and my wife, she had already gone to work at the local hospital operating room, so I didn't have my resident nurse to seek advice from. And so I just got in my pickup truck. And I headed down the road with one eye shut looking for an optometrist. I had not looked for one before. I didn't know where they were. But I'm driving around the road, first optometrist I'm coming to, I'm stopping. And so the first one I came to in the town of Statesboro, I saw a picture of an eye on a sign, yeah, that's an optometrist, and I pulled in and I went and I told them the problem, they set me in their chair and they looked into my eye with some kind of machine and they said, ooh, I see it, and I felt like saying, what size nail is it that's stuck in my eye? He said, no, it's a tiny piece of thread sticking straight into my eye. It must have come off of my pillow. Is that all? Are you kidding? Now, and by the way, he had the right tools to reach in there and gently, out it came. No more pain. I was so grateful. But what if I had walked into his office and the doctor himself had a patch on one eye and pink eye in the other? Would I have allowed him to get close to my eyes? No, I'd go down the road looking for the next one. That's how people feel when we approach them, trying to fix their life when our own life is a mess. Yet we are not released from being wise and discerning. There is a difference. These are two spiritual gifts that God gives, wisdom and discernment. These are the gifts that we prayed heavily for in our nominating committee. We want wisdom, we want discernment. We don't want to be judgmental, yet we do need to make discerning decisions. We want to know what God wants that is best for His church. In verse six, Jesus lets us know that not being judgmental does not relieve us of the duty of discerning. Here Jesus is not talking about our relationship with fellow Christians or even those who have not yet met Christ. He is talking about not wasting our time with those that we discern who do not wish to turn from their sinful ways. Verse six says, to pieces. While we should not give up on anyone, we can discern that now is not the time to work with that individual. Have you ever noticed that God has his own time? I had a person in my church one time, he was very hateful and he was very nasty, he was very mean. And I decided, you know what the Lord says? The Bible says that I should go to him as an individual. And then if that doesn't work, should take an elder with me, right? And if that doesn't work, you know, and you go down the process. I said, I've been putting it off. I said, Lord, I don't want to do this. I don't like confrontation and I don't want to deal with this man. I don't even want to talk to him by myself. I'm going to get beat up once again. I said, okay, no, God said it. I'm going to do it. And I was at the church. I was in my office. This was in Georgia. And I started to leave and I walked through the sanctuary from my office into into the foyer. And we had some stuffed wingback chairs, kind of like we do here, and I knelt over one of those chairs. I said, Lord, you're going to have to go with me. I don't want to do this, but I'm going to do it because you said so. And I stood up, and I headed for the door to go on this dreaded mission. and halfway across the foyer it was almost audible, I almost could hear it, God said, no. No, I'm not arguing haha. God said no, I don't have to go And then I got to thinking about it all week long in the next week. I was in the same situation again I said Lord I've got to do it You said to do it. He's still being mean and nasty and I knelt by that same chair and I prayed and prayed and prayed Lord go with me Help me to only say what you want me to say. Because when I say stuff, I mess up and I want these to be your words and I stood up and headed across, no, not today. I wanted to kind of get it over with and God would say no, not now. Yes, God says to do things. God says go and spread the gospel to the whole world, but for that individual it might be no, not now. They're not ready. And so I pulled back, said, Lord, forgive me, I'm not gonna go to that man's house until you just flat tell me to at this point. And I felt peace. It's okay. ⁓ a couple weeks later he was in the hospital. Well, I make hospital visits. And I visited him in the hospital many, many, many times. But this time was different. His heart had melted. and our conversation was far different than it would have been two weeks earlier. God has a timing and he's saying don't cast your pearls before swine. At least not yet. Let me help you have the right timing. So that's what this verse is talking about. We shouldn't give up on anyone but God's timing is best. I once knew an evangelist and he would make visits to people who would come to the meetings and that's expected and that's good. But this man was very persistent. ⁓ He would go to the door and knock, okay, normal so far. If they did not come to the door and he thought they were there, he persisted, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound. And if you still thought they were there and they weren't, they were ignoring him and hoping he would go away, he wouldn't go away. He would go to the windows and peer in. I know you're in there. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Okay, is this discernment? No. They're not ready. They don't want, at this point they're regretting ever meeting this man and coming to his meetings. when I was an intern in Atlanta. I worked with a powerful evangelist and I was trying to learn how to reach people for Jesus and one evening I went along with a couple of other young learners and the evangelist's head assistant. She took us to the home of a family who had been coming to the meetings and we showed up. They hesitantly invited us in. They weren't expecting us and we sat down and she proceeded to pressure and pressure and pressure this family accept Jesus and change their lives and live better for Him. And I'm sitting there I'm getting very uneasy. I'm getting very embarrassed to be there because I could see what they were doing. They were just shh. ⁓ you can see the looks in their face like why did we answer the door? This is horrible. And I was like, ⁓ please Lord help us to leave. This is so embarrassing. then finally they gave the right answers just to get rid of us. ⁓ yes, we accept Jesus, yes, yes, yes, yes. And we got in the car with this evangelist assistant and she was like, ⁓ wasn't that just a wonderful experience? They gave their lives to Christ. And I'm thinking silently because I'm the young student back here. We will never see those people again. And unfortunately, I was right. They didn't want to be pushed. That's the job of the all-knowing, all-discerning, all-wise Holy Spirit. But I did learn something. Discernment. Be aware of what people are going through. I wish I had that more often. In verse seven, Jesus begins to speak of our relationship to God and his relationship to us and how that relationship should affect our relationship with each other. Verse seven says, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and it will be opened to you, for everyone who asks receives and everyone who seeks finds and to him who knocks it will be opened. These verses are often misquoted. misunderstood. We treat them as a promise that all of our prayers will be answered our way, but that's not the context in which this promise is given. We cannot remove them from the Sermon on the Mount that's about to be concluded. After reading this sermon, the sensitive Christian will be overwhelmed by Jesus' demand that his followers exhibit righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. They will understand that Christ's commands are humanly impossible to fulfill. That's the context. Thus they drive us to God's forgiving and enabling grace and only by prayer do we find the grace that enables us to fulfill God's ideal as put forth in this sermon. So what God is saying, if you want your righteousness to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, ask, it'll be yours. Seek not, it will be given to you, that's what he's talking about, will be given to you, that righteousness that exceeds, that righteousness that reflects the righteousness of Christ. Those who ask seek and knock for such assistance will not be turned away by a loving father who art in heaven. Just as verse nine starts to indicate, or what man is there among you who if his son asks for bread will give him a stone or if he asks for a fish will give him a serpent. 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 good gifts to those who ask him? The next verse is the golden rule. And it also must be understood in the context of this sermon. Verse 12, therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets. Okay, pay attention. This is the what? The law and the prophets. Where have we heard that before? It's in the same sermon earlier, Matthew 517, which says, not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. So Matthew 517 and Matthew 712 are brackets around what Jesus has to say about the law and the prophets, summed up in this last verse that we should treat each other the way we want to be treated. That's the context of the golden rule. You see, this sermon's actually very organized. Now we spent half an hour on this verse last Wednesday night at prayer meeting and we're not done yet. We're not doing that here. So if you wanna come to prayer meeting, come on. ⁓ Thoughts from the Mount of Blessings says, the standard of the golden rule is the true standard of Christianity. Anything short of it is a deception. She also says, this is the truth as it is in Jesus. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. In this book full of truth, absolutely, there's prophecies, there's all kinds of stuff. But the truth as it is in Jesus should lead us to the golden rule. Treat each other the way Jesus wants to treat you. Ellen White then says, when those who profess the name of Christ shall practice the principles of the golden rule, okay, practice what? The principles of the golden rule. Listen to this. The same power that attended the gospel in apostolic times will be yours. ⁓ Well they had the Holy Spirit, they had a lot of power back then, we don't have that today. Why? When those who profess the name of Christ shall practice the principles of the golden rule, the same power will attend the gospel as in apostolic times. a long time ago in China. A girl named Li Li got married and went to live with her husband and mother-in-law. In a very short time, Li Li found that her mother-in-law was a bully, a big bully. Their personalities were very different, and Lele was angered by many of her mother-in-law's habits. In addition, she criticized Lele constantly. Days passed, weeks passed, months passed, and Lele and her mother-in-law never stopped arguing and fighting. But what made the situation even worse was that according to ancient Chinese tradition, Li Li had to bow to her mother-in-law and obey her every wish. All the anger and unhappiness in the house was causing the poor husband great distress. Finally, Li Li could not stand her mother-in-law's bad temper and dictatorship any longer, and she decided to do something about it. Li Li went to see her father's good friend. Mr. Huang, and he sold herbs. She told him the situation and asked if he would give her some poison so that she could solve the problem once and for all. Mr. Huang thought for a while and finally said, Lili, I'll help you solve your problem. But you must listen to me and obey what I tell you. Lili said, yes, Mr. Huang, I will do whatever you tell me to do. Mr. Huang went into the back room and returned a few minutes later with a package of herbs. He told Lili, you can use a quick acting poison to get rid of your mother-in-law if you want to get caught. It needs to be slow acting so people won't become suspicious. Therefore, I've given you a number of herbs that will slowly build up in her body and every other day prepare some pork or some chicken, that'll kill you too, and put a little of those herbs into each serving. Now in order to make sure that nobody suspects you when she dies, you must be very careful to act very friendly towards her. Don't argue with her. Obey her every wish and treat her like a queen. Lily was so happy she thanked Mr. Huang and hurried home to start her plot of murdering her mother-in-law. Weeks went by and months went by and every other day, Leely served the specially treated food to her mother-in-law. She remembered what Mr. Hwang had said about avoiding suspicion, so she controlled her temper, obeyed her mother-in-law, and treated her like her own mother. After six months had passed, the whole household had changed. Lili had practiced controlling her temper so much that she found that she almost never got mad or upset. She hadn't had an argument in six months with her mother-in-law, who now seemed much kinder and easier to get along with. The mother-in-law's attitude towards Lili changed, and she began to love Lili as her own daughter. She kept telling friends and relatives that Lili was the best daughter-in-law one could ever find. Lili and her mother-in-law were now treating each other like a real mother and daughter. And Lele's husband was very happy. One day, Lele came to see Mr. Hwang and asked for his help again. She said, Dear Mr. Hwang, please help me keep the poison from killing my mother-in-law. She has changed into such a nice woman, and I love her like my mother. I do not want her to die because of the poison I gave her. Mr. Hwang smiled and nodded his head. Lele, there's nothing to worry about. never gave you any poison. The herbs I gave you were vitamins to improve her health. The only poison was in your mind and your attitude towards her, but that has been all washed away by the love which you gave to her. Have you ever realized that how you treat others is very often how they will treat you? Seems like Jesus might have said that. In China, it is said, the person who loves others will also be loved. We want you to be our king, ⁓ Lord. Dwell in our hearts and may the love that you have shown us pour out to the world around us. In Jesus' name, amen.

Matthew 7:1 Romans 2 · chapter mention Romans 2:1 Romans 2:1