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For the Love of ManyBy: Joseph H. MurrayThe best judge anyone can have is to judge ourselves, for if we be partakers of God’s blessings unworthily, we eat to our own damnation or judgment, and many are sickly, and many sleep (or die). “For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. And if any man hunger, let him eat at home; that ye come not together unto condemnation. And the rest will I set in order when I come” (1Cor. 11:31–34). This means that if we are not worthy of a blessing at home, we may not be worthy when we come together, and there is a fifty–fifty chance that if we do get blessed, we will be eating and drinking unworthily. Then again, we are always eating at the other man’s table and of his food when we bring nothing to offer others from our table. We have nothing to offer anyone unless we have eaten at home and are overflowing with God’s blessings. Someone has said that it is good to pour out a blessing on your brother or sister when your cup is overflowing, but don’t strain yourself or tilt your cup to do it. It is a dangerous condition to be in when we come to the meetings always in need of a blessing, with nothing to offer others. We may be blessed and judged unworthy and receive damnation to our own souls. It’s good to justify ourselves before the Lord by judging ourselves and having a fiesta in the Lord before coming together, and our coming together won’t be unto condemnation. Then our feasting will not make us sick, and we’ll not die before our time. The wisest man who ever lived said, “It is joy to the just to do judgment: but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity” (Prov. 21:15). I am greatly disturbed at the loose manner of disrespect in which God’s people approach our Lord and master. And with the prophet Isaiah I can say, “with my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” (Isa. 26:9). If it’s a “joy to the just to do judgment,” it must be a sorrow for the unjust to do judgment. There is a right and a wrong way to do everything, and I’m sure most things are done both ways. For, it is written again, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth (or discerneth) all things, yet he himself is judged (or discerned) of no man. For who (of the carnal) hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we (that are spiritual) have the mind of Christ” (1Cor. 2:12–16). |
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