Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Arturo Toscanini, the great symphony conductor, once told this as his favorite story.

And orchestra was playing Beethoven's Leonore Overture, in which there are two climaxes, each of which is followed by a trumpet passage from off stage.

The first climax arrived, but not a sound came from the trumpet.

The conductor was annoyed, but went on to the second climax.

Again there was no trumpet.

This time the conductor rushed into the wing of the concert hall, and he found his trumpet player struggling with the house fireman.

"I tell you, you can't play that trumpet back here," the fireman was insisting, "There's a concert going on."

Little did he realize that he was the one disturbing the concert, and not the trumpet player.

This same problem of misunderstanding arises in connection with this well known statement of Jesus, "Judge not that ye be not judged."

It is one of the most misused verses in the Bible.

So often some overly cautious person uses this verse to forbid our blowing of the trumpet of judgment, even though we know it is a part of the symphony of life being conducted by Christ.

Much misunderstanding arises when men take a relative principle and turn it into an absolute rule.

The house fireman knew that, as a rule, a concert would be spoiled by someone playing a trumpet off stage.

What he did not know that this particular concert called for the unusual.

So many Christians know that being critical and judgmental can bring only discord into life, and so they forbid it as always and absolutely out of harmony with the symphony of the Christian life.

What they fail to realize is that many parts of the symphony call for the trumpet of judgment.

If we ever hope to be in harmony with the music of the Master, then we had better recognize that there is a time to sound, and a time to silence, our trumpets of judgment.

We spoil the concert of obedience just as much by being silent when we should blow, as we do when we blow when we should be silent.

Our task in this message will be to help us avoid either by learning that our conductor calls for both sounding and silencing the trumpets of judgment.

First consider-

I. SOUNDING THE TRUMPET OF JUDGMENT.

We need to consider this first, for this seems to be the very thing that Jesus is forbidding us to do.

He says very clearly, "Judge not."

Every time you begin to judge the character or conduct of a person someone will repeat it just as simply and clearly-"judge not."

This is usually a quick way to muffle the trumpet.

It is like throwing a wet blanket on a flickering match.

The critic immediately feels condemned if he persists in judging, and so he ceases.

Now when that flickering match of judgment is kindled by envy, prejudice, or any other attitude inconsistent with Christ's likeness, then the wet blanket is a blessing.

But when the flame is kindled by the legitimate desire to oppose an expose the works of darkness, then the wet blanket is being used to quench the fire of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus did not intend to convey an absolute rule here.

He did not expect His followers to suspend all their critical faculties, and live in a moral vacuum where all is neutral, and neither good nor bad.

Jesus expected His followers to be especially keen at this point.

That is why in verse 6 He commands, "Give not that which is holy to dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine."

How can we possibly obey verse 6 if we take verse 1 as an absolute forbidding to judge?

We need to judge both that which is holy and a pearl, and who are the dogs and swine.

A Christian is to judge some people as being unworthy to be associated with the name of Christ.

Just as you would not go to the stock yard and hang up the Lord's Prayer in a pig pen, so you do not talk of your answers to prayer with the mocker who is blaspheming the name of Christ.

It is because you judge them to be incapable of recognizing spiritual values.

In verse 15 Jesus says we must be able to judge who are false prophets.

We are not only to evaluate the character of men, but also their conduct and teaching.

We are to be critical enough to detect what is false and reject it.

Jesus was constantly judging the system of the Scribes and Pharisees, and frequently He called them hypocrites.

All the reformers of the church through history were those who saw evil, and called it evil.

They came to critical conclusions, and sounded the trumpet of judgment.

It cannot be said of Jesus that He never had a bad word to say about anybody.

Jesus said He did not come to judge, but He could not avoid distinguishing between good and evil men.

Jesus said there were those who were wolves in sheep clothing, and He did not say we were not to try and detect them, but we are to know them by their fruit.

In other words, observe and use your critical faculties, and judge who is true, and who is false.

Shakespeare said, "Oh, what may man within him hide, Though angel on the outward side."

Jesus saw through the veneer to the rotten wood beneath.

He saw through the whited tombs to the bones and decay within.

Jesus was a judge, and He expected His disciples to be so as well.

We can have no value system at all if we cannot evaluate men and ideas, and then judge them as good or evil.

We cannot begin to cover all the material in the Epistles dealing with judging persons and doctrine, but no person can be obedient to the teachings of the New Testament without exercising their obligation to judge.

Even John, the great Apostle of love, could write, "If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God's speed, for he that bids him God's speed is partaker of his evil deeds."

John is saying we must judge, or we will be judged.

If you give indiscriminate support to every person who says he is serving God, your lack of critical judgment will lead you to condemnation instead of reward.

Instead of judging being forbidden in the New Testament, we see that it becomes an essential part of our obligation as Christians to judge.

Not to judge is to be shut up into perpetual silence, for one cannot even say to another, "Judge not," since this is judging them to be breaking this command.

In other words, you can't use this verse at all without sounding the trumpet of judgment, for to quote it to another is making a judgment.

We see then that the trumpet of judgment does belong in the orchestra of Christian living.

Now we need to look at what this statement does say concerning-

II.

SILENCING THE TRUMPET OF JUDGMENT.

Jesus is here warning against the dangerous consequences of being an habitual critic.

The one who presumes to advise the whole world on how they are wrong, but does little examining of his own life, is the one that Jesus is warning.

The trumpet of judgment is to be available when the script calls for it, but the man or woman who is blaring away with it all through the concert is a curse.

He not only ruins the harmony for others, but he brings down the wrath of the conductor and other people upon himself.

Therefore, when this trumpet is not appropriate and fitting, keep it silent.

For example, this trumpet should always be kept silent when we are ignorant and lack knowledge on a matter.

If you don't know the tune, don't play.

Prov.

18:13 says, "If one gives answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame."

Nothing is so inappropriate as a critic who has not heard the evidence.

We would consider it an intolerable evil if men were condemned without a chance for explanation and defense in court, yet we think nothing of pronouncing judgment on men on the basis of rumor or hearsay.

We have a double standard that leads to much evil and injustice.

We expect men to be experts in dealing with us, but then turn around and take the intricate, complex, unpredictable, internal operations of the minds and motives of men, and rattle off evaluations and judgments without even an acquaintance with the person in question.

Rochefoucauld said, "Everyone complains of the badness of his memory, but nobody of his judgment."

People have the foolish feeling of infallibility when they pronounce judgment.

On the basis of the most flimsy evidence they are willing to form conclusive opinions.

This is the kind of unjust judgment that Jesus condemns, and forbids in the life of the Christian.

It is the kind of judgment the Pharisees pronounced upon Him and His ministry.

It was judgment that was blind to the evidence, and unwilling to even consider the evidence in the light of Scripture.

They were the kind of critics Charles Churchill complained about.

Though by whim, envy, or resentment led,

They damn those authors whom they never read.

This is the kind of judging that Jesus forbids.

It is unjust, and has no place in the Christian life, and yet you hear it often.

I know I hear people judging others of whom they know nothing.

They have never sought to read the books of those men they are content to judge in ignorance.

They listen to the critics of these men instead of the men themselves.

This is a violation of the law of Christ, and the Christian who persists in this violation will suffer judgment themselves.

When you are ignorant, keep the trumpet silent, for the innocent suffer when we blow before we listen.

This is especially the case when it comes to judging the motives of men.

It is easy to be critical, but hard to be correct at this point.

We are almost always on dangerous ground when we pronounce judgment on people's motives.

Augustine said, "I think this text enjoins on us this one thing: that in the case of those actions where motivation is in doubt, we are to put the better construction on them."

There are those who do things we think are foolish, but their motive is to please God, and we are displeasing God if we blast the trumpet of judgment at them.

If we don't understand, let us silence the trumpet, for it is always inappropriate to blow it in ignorance.