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Look back at verse number seven, the Bible read, the robbery of the wicked shall destroy them, because they refuse to do judgment. The title of my sermon comes from that last phrase, refuse to do judgment. Now, let's go, if you would, to Psalms chapter seven. In today's world, people are refusing to do judgment. It's an epidemic, especially amongst what everybody would call in the world, Christians. Today, there's a big brainwashing campaign against the word judge, against judgment, against judging anything. They always have to quote Matthew 7 where it says, judge not! They just parrot that. They don't even know what it means. But nobody who reads their Bible cover to cover over and over could ever be wrong in this doctrine, because the word judge or judgment is used over and over and over. But I think sometimes, even then, sometimes people could just still be brainwashed. They could still be confused. And it says in Ephesians chapter four, verse 23, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. I want us to renew our minds on the word of God. I want us to wash all the filth, the false doctrine from God's word off of our minds about judging, about judgment. Because the Bible gives a strong warning in Proverbs 21 about what would happen to people who refuse to do judgment. And that's what we see today. We see a lot of Christians, we see a lot of people today, they just refuse to do judgment. And it's a destruction to them. Look at Psalms chapter seven, verse eight. We're going to see, what's God like when it comes to judgment? Now, for the sake of time, I can't even cover the hundreds of verses that it talks about. But let's just look at a few. Psalm seven, verse eight, the Lord shall judge the people. Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to my integrity that is in me. The Lord shall judge the people. God is a God that judges. Go to verse 11. God judgeth the righteous. And God is angry with the wicked every day. Some people would think, well, he's just going to judge the wicked people. Nope. Says right there, God judges the righteous. God is going to judge every person. He's constantly judging people. Look at Psalms chapter nine, verse 16. The Lord is known by the judgment which he executed. The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Degeon Silah. Now, this is interesting because the Bible says the Lord is known by the judgment which he executed. So think about this. If God never executed any of his judgment, any of his laws, he would be looked at as weak, as being someone that, well, we don't really need to fear God because he's never going to execute any judgment on them. When there's a law in the country that we live in in America, which there's a lot of laws. There's a lot of laws that aren't enforced, that are never executed. There's no judgment ever given. Nobody has respect under that law. But you know what? God is not like that. What else soever man soweth actually also reap? God is not one who's not going to just never judge. Now, obviously the Bible also has other attributes to God. The fact that he's loving, that he's long suffering. The Bible even uses this word he forebears. The forbearance of God. What does that mean to forbear? Forbear just simply means to not do something. Now you have to use the context of whatever the word is used to figure out what you're not doing. But a lot of times he will not judge people because of his loving kindness or his mercy. He'll give mercy unto them and grace. He'll spare them from some type of judgment because of his forbearance, because of his loving nature. But God will judge. In Psalms chapter 19, go just a few more chapters over. Look at verse nine. The Bible says, the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. Every single one of God's judgments are true and righteous. There is no judgment in God's word that is not right. They are all right. They are all truth. They are all good. We should always look to the Bible for its judgment. Look at Psalms 33. Skip over a couple more chapters. Psalms 33, verse 3. Sing unto him a new song. Play skillfully with a loud noise, for the word of the Lord is right, and all his works are done in truth. He loveth righteousness and judgment. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. God loves judgment. But you know, when you go to these other Christian churches today, they talk about the judging as being negative. It's always negative. It's always wrong. It's always terrible. It's something Christians should never do. But we see God loves judgment. God judges. God is going to judge in the earth. God judges the righteous. We should not be afraid of this word. We should not be afraid of being attributed to God, being attributed to even ourselves. Go to Psalms, back to Psalms 25. I'll read for you one other verse. It says, for the Lord loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints. They are preserved forever, but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off. Because God loves judgment, he had to send his son to die on the cross for our sins. Because without the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are going to be judged according to our sins and be damned to hell. Because the Lord loveth judgment. The Lord is going to judge. But because Jesus Christ sacrificed himself, he paid the ultimate penalty, we can have mercy. We can have grace. We can also see the other attributes of the Lord that he loves, that he loves us so much that he sent his son to die for us. But he loves judgment too. And he's not gonna let the judgment just go by. He's not gonna just skip the judgment. No, there had to be a penalty paid. That's why Jesus Christ had to come and die. Because he loves judgment. He's not just gonna skip over it, forget it. So what about man, though? We say, okay, well, the Lord can judge. Some people, they maybe rightly divide the fact that God is the judge, God can do judgment, the Lord loves judgment, okay. But we're never supposed to judge because we're not God. Okay, let's see if that lines up with what the Bible teaches. Look at Psalms 25, verse nine. The meek will he guide in judgment. And the meek will he teach his way. Now, meekness is an attribute of one that doesn't think highly of themselves. They actually esteem others better than themselves. That's a good definition of being meek, is looking at other people and thinking they're better than you, more important than you. They have more value than you. They have more potential than you. But it says, look, the meek will he guide in judgment. God wants the meek to judge still. You can be meek and judge. Wow, wake up, Christians. You can be meek and judge. Judging is not bad in and of itself. Judgment is not wrong. The Lord loveth judgment, he'll guide you in judgment. But how do you get guided in judgment? By going to his word. The meek will go to God's word and that's where they'll get their judgment. They won't make their own judgments. And that's usually where people fail because they think, why don't judge anyone? Well, they're just lying through their teeth because they make judgments every single day, every single moment. The problem is they get their judgments from in their own heart. They don't get them from God's word. The meek will he guide in judgment. The meek says, well, it's not my opinion that matters. It's not what I think that matters. It's whatever God's word says. And that's the meek person. And you know who's gonna be guided in judgment? The meek person who goes to God's word and God is gonna guide them in that judgment. He's gonna teach them how to live their life, the decisions they need to make. You know, one other way to word judgment is just decision. I mean, who doesn't make decisions every single day? That's not a bad thing. And you wanna be able to make good decisions, good judgments, you need to go to God's word. Look at Psalms 37, 37 verse 30. The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom and his tongue talketh of judgment. The righteous person is talking of judgment. Judgment is coming out of the mouth of the righteous man. This isn't talking about the Lord. This is talking about the righteous just in general. Says in Psalms 119, go to Psalms 119 if you would. Look at a handful of verses there. The Bible says, I'll read for you in Proverbs chapter one verse three. To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice and judgment and equity. The whole purpose of the Proverbs is to teach you how to rightly judge. It gives you all these different scenarios of all manner of life. Hey, here's a good thing to do, here's a bad thing to do. Watch out for the scorner. You know, reprove not a scorner lest he hate thee. Rebuke a wise man and he will love thee. That's just teaching you how to make a right judgment. Saying when you're around the scorner, there's no use in trying to reprove this guy. He's gonna hate you. But if you're around a wise person, you know what, if he's in grievous sin, he's doing something wrong, go ahead and rebuke him. Because guess what, he'll love the fact he rebuked him. It's just teaching you how to judge in your life. If you just say, well, I'm never gonna judge, you're gonna miss out on the whole book of Proverbs. Because it just starts out in Proverbs chapter one saying, hey, this is how you judge. Let me teach you how to judge. Let me give you all these proverbs and all this wisdom. Oh, I don't want that. You don't want God's word. Psalms 119, look at verse seven. I will praise thee with uprightness of heart when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments. Look, he's praising, he's using his mouth when he learns what? His judgments. Look at verse 13. Just in case you're like, well, he learned the judgments, but he's not saying them out loud. He's just kind of meditating on them. He's just using them to make decisions. Well, look at verse 13. With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth. Now that verse alone, I mean, just seals the deal. He said with my mouth, I made known all of your judgments. He said, what? I'm declaring all of your judgments with my mouth. Is it wrong to judge from the Bible? I don't see how this can be any plainer. With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth. It's not my judgments. It's not my, what I decided was right and wrong. It's not my decisions, it's God's word. Look at verse 36. Teach me good judgment and knowledge. For I believed thy commandments. Look at verse 106. I have sworn and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments. God loves the way a man decides, hey, you know what? Not only am I gonna declare your righteous judgments, I'm gonna keep them. I'm gonna commit myself to following God's word. Look at 21. I have done judgment and justice. Leave me not to mine oppressors. Say, look, I have judged, I've done justice. We see the righteous man in the Bible constantly over and over, he's doing judgment. He's doing justice. Proverbs is teaching you how to do judgment. Go to Proverbs chapter 16, if you would. Skip over just a book, a few chapters. Proverbs 16, verse 10, the Bible reads, a divine sentence is in the lips of the king. His mouth transgresseth not in judgment. Now the king has to judge. I mean, it's inevitable. A king that does not judge is basically no king at all. He's not doing anything. But the Bible's saying, it's prophetic of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a lot of things here. But it's important that a king would not transgress in his judgment. And how's he gonna do that? Through God's word. Look at Proverbs 19. I'll read for you. It says, it is not good to accept the person of the wicked, to overthrow the righteous in judgment. Look at Proverbs 19, verse 28. An ungodly witness scourgeth judgment, and the mouth of the wicked devoureth iniquity. Why is it that people don't like judgment? Well here, it says an ungodly witness scourgeth judgment. Who is it that doesn't like judgment according to this verse? The ungodly person. The person that's in sin. The person that's in iniquity. The person that doesn't like God's word. The person that has nothing to do with God. They're ungodly. They don't like God. They don't like his word. They're not following his commandments. They're in sin. They hate judgment. Why? Because they're abused their sin. Because they're abused their lifestyle. Because they're abused what they're doing. Look at Proverbs 19, verse 29. Judgments are prepared for scorners and strikes for the back of fools. Why, what's the point of judging? For the scorner. The guy that doesn't like it gets it. Why? It's a punishment. It's to reprove him. It's to rebuke him. Proverbs 20, verse eight. A king that sitteth in the throat of judgment scattereth away all evil with his eyes. When you have a righteous king, when you have a king that's actually gonna execute judgment, even just a look can make a change in behavior. Have you ever been, you know, maybe not doing something you're supposed to and your dad just gave you that look and you just shake him up right away? I know when I go into, my kids, every time I put them to bed, every night, every night we have to spank them or discipline them. They just won't go to sleep. But as soon as you open the door, like you come up and you open the door, they just like, they're standing up screaming and they're on the bed, they're like, yeah! As soon as you open the door, they just fall down and they act like they're asleep. It's just like, as soon as you open the door, it's the same thing would be with a righteous king, with a righteous government. Even just them noticing you, taking attention to you, makes them just shake up right away. Maybe the teacher steps out of the classroom for a moment. Everybody's screaming and yelling. Then she peeks back the door open and everybody just looks like they're studying and doing their homework. I mean, it's just a natural thing. But when the person won't judge, what would happen if the teacher stepped out of the classroom and everybody just screaming and throwing paper airplanes and chewing gum and doing whatever, and they walk back in, they see it all, and nobody does anything? And then they just walk back out. They never punish, they never do anything. The kids are always gonna do that. Why? To execute your judgment, it puts fear in the people. They don't wanna do the evil anymore. It says, a king that sitteth in the throne of judgment scattereth away all evil with his eyes. What's the purpose of judging? To put away the evil, to get rid of the evil, to cause people to change. Isn't that, I mean, you're wanting people to stop doing the evil, stop being a sorter, stop being whatever, you can do with your eyes. New Proverbs 21 verse three, to do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. You know, you go to these stupid churches today and they get up and they scream about how you should never judge. Oh, we don't like these churches because they're so judgmental and they're not loving because they judge and they use the Bible and they try to take you to verses that say women shouldn't preach and women should dress like women. Men should actually be menly and not be an effeminate. They preach against all kinds of manner of things, against fornication and drinking and tattoos and you shouldn't even watch all the filth and garbage on TV, they're so judgmental. You know what they'll preach? They'll say, oh, but just give us your money, make a sacrifice unto the Lord, come bring your tithe, come bring your offering. But they forgot this verse, which makes it clear it says to do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. You know what God likes more than you giving him your money? Just actually doing judgment, actually being judgmental, actually following God's words, declaring all of his judgments with your lips. That's more acceptable to the Lord. God doesn't want you to just give all your money and not follow his commandments. People for some reason don't understand that. They think by just giving a big sacrifice, God's gonna be pleased with them. Even though they're living in fornication, even though they're living wicked, ungodly lives, they're not even going to church, they're not reading their Bible, they're never praying. But I give a lot of money to the church, that doesn't get to buy you anything. You can't buy God's affection, just like you can't buy a child's affection. God doesn't want your money when you're not following his commandments. Now, of course, the Bible does say the righteous, if they want to give a free will offering unto the Lord, God is pleased with that. That's a great way to sacrifice and honor the Lord with your money. There's nothing wrong with giving a sacrifice of your heart, of your own heart's desires, being a cheerful giver, giving it unto the Lord, giving it to the church. We see in the early church, people were selling all kinds of stuff and giving it to the apostles, and there's nothing wrong with giving a sacrifice. I don't want to say that there's something wrong with it. The problem is, is people put the emphasis on that. Now, it just happens to be coincidental that false teachers love to teach things which they shouldn't for filthy lucre's sake. Oh, it just seems to match up perfectly. Let's emphasize the one doctrine that loads my pocket, that lines my pocket, that helps me drive the Mercedes, helps me drive the Benz. It's true that we should give sacrifices unto God, that we should tie all the first roots of our increase, that we should tie the 10% that God gives us. I even believe, it's even the gross, because the Bible says of all thine increase, okay? But that's not something you should be emphasizing in the Bible. The Bible says what? It says that to do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. People don't want to hear a sermon about judging people. They want to hear a sermon about giving money, because that's cheaper to them than actually following God's commandments. It's actually easier for them to just write a check than to want to follow God's word, than to open the Bible and read it, than to actually judge. Sad. Go to Proverbs 31. I'll read for you a couple of other places. Proverbs 21, 15. It is a joy to the just to do judgment, but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity. Righteous people love judgment. When someone's a fornicator, when someone's an adulterer, when someone's a murderer, and that judgment comes upon them, the righteous judgment, it actually gives joy to those that are just. People that don't like it are the ones that are guilty of the same sin. They're guilty of a similar sin. They're hypocrites. That's the only reason they wouldn't like the judgment. You're fine when a murderer gets put to death. If you're a righteous person, you love that. You don't want the murderer to just go scot-free. If someone murders your family member, you want justice. You want judgment. And if it doesn't happen, it's a grief unto you. But when it does happen, it can be a joy. You can rejoice in that. You can rejoice in when God's enemies are slain or destroyed. It says in Proverbs 28, five. Evil men understand not judgment, but they that seek the Lord understand all things. You know what the wicked, the ungodly, they don't understand God's judgment. And I don't think it should be our goal to just try and get all the unsaved to understand God's judgment. We should preach Christ and then crucify to the unsaved. And it should be no marvel that the unsaved, the ungodly, the worldly, they just don't understand God's judgment. They don't understand his laws. Neither can they know them. They just, they have no knowledge. They have no understanding. Proverbs 29, 14. The king that faithfully judges the poor, his throne shall be established forever. Look at Proverbs 31, verse nine. Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy. Now go to Matthew chapter 19. Again, another great verse that says, hey, open your mouth, do some judgment. Judge righteously, though. Go to Matthew 19, if you would. So we've looked at a lot of Old Testament verses. Maybe there would still be somebody that'd be like, well, in the Old Testament you could judge. In the Old Testament, you're supposed to do judgment. You're supposed to open your mouth in judgment. But in the New Testament, judge not, judge not. They don't ever finish the rest of that verse, lest you be judged. They don't finish out the fact that, of course Christ condemned hypocritical judgment. He condemned the fact that if you're in the same iniquity, if you're in the same sin, why in the world are you judging another person? It even has it in Romans chapter two. He's saying, thou therefore art inexcusable, old man. Whosoever thou beth judges, saying, where in thou judges another, thou condemnest thyself. He's saying, look, you're judging the guy that's a thief and you're a thief. You're judging the guy in adultery and you're an adulterer. You're judging the guy that commits sacrilege or abhors idols, but you commit sacrilege. He's saying, look, you're just judging these people, but you're doing the same thing. Quit being a hypocrite. Get it right for yourself. Get the beam out of your own eyes so you can help take the moat out of your brother's. Now, taking the moat out of your brother's eye, whether or not you like it, is still judgment. It's still judging your brother. He's just saying, make sure you get it right for yourself first. Focus on judging yourself first, then you can help others. Get it right first. Follow God's commandments first. Then you can help people. Then you can learn how to judge righteously. The meek will be guide in judgment. You know what the meek are? They think everybody else is more important, so they go to God's word first and they get themselves right. They get God's judgments from the Bible. Then they try to help others. They don't go around just trying to help other people. No, they're trying to get it right for themselves first because they're meek. They don't think that they're better than everybody else. They think everybody's already better than them. So they're trying to get it right. They're focused on God's judgments for themselves. I think that's the attitude of a Christian. Look at Matthew 19, verse 28. And Jesus said unto them, verily I send you, that ye which have followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel. Well, judgment's just for now. Judgment's just for the Lord. No, even after the regeneration, people are gonna be judging. For the Lord loveth judgment. Judgment is not just a one-time thing. It's not just for God. No, he wants the righteous to do judgment. And even the disciples, the apostles, they're gonna judge the 12 tribes of Israel. Look at, go to Luke chapter, well, no, go to Matthew 23, since you're right there, and I'll read for you. In Luke 11, chapter, or verse 42, the Bible says, but woe unto you, Pharisees, for ye tithe mint and brew and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God. These ought ye have done, and not to leave the other undone. Look at Matthew 23, 23. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. So what's Christ saying over and over is just a common thing for people to do. They focus on the money, they focus on the tithe, they focus on the sacrifice, and they forget to preach about the judgment. They don't wanna preach about judging, or judgment, or God's judgments, or God's laws. And we see this throughout the whole Bible. Man constantly resists his judgment. He hates judgment. We see even with Abel and Cain. Cain slew Abel's brother, why? Because Abel testified that his works were evil. He testified that Cain's works were evil. Cain didn't like being judged by the fact that Abel was righteous. So what, he slew him. He wanted to kill him, he wanted to shut him up. We see even Abraham. He doesn't want God to judge Sodom. He keeps pleading with him not to judge Sodom and Gomorrah. We see with Moses, they didn't wanna deliver. They were saying, how are you coming to judge us? You know, they didn't want him. We see even with Benjamin, the tribe of Benjamin. They even have literal Sodomites in their city, and they don't wanna judge the Sodomites. They don't wanna bring them out under the tribes of Israel, and they fight for them. We see in the Judges, they didn't want the judge. They didn't like the judge. They didn't like that God was their king, so they wanted a king. We see with Rehoboam, they say, well, we don't have any inheritance in David. They didn't want Rehoboam. They're just, well, we don't have any inheritance in David. You know what they're saying? They don't have any inheritance in Christ. It's a picture of Christ that they don't want to have the inheritance that comes from David. Guess who that inheritance is? It's Christ, who's the son of David. They don't want it. They reject it. They don't like the judgment. It's just a prophecy of how they're gonna reject Jesus Christ later. They rejected all the prophets. They didn't like the prophets coming and constantly judging them and rebuking them. We got Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Isaiah, just constant prophets coming in and preaching against their sin they don't want. We see even with the woman caught in adultery, right? They didn't wanna do judgment. But think about it. Christ actually told them to stone her. You know, people always bring up this parable like, Christ didn't believe in the death penalty. And I say, well, you realize he did tell them to stone her. He literally told them to kill her. He just put a condition on it that none of them wanted to partake in. He said, let him that was without sin cast the first stone. Why did they not throw the stones? Because they didn't wanna be judged. They didn't wanna be judged because they're sinners. They're gonna be condemned. They're hypocrites. They don't wanna cast the stone at this woman. We see they didn't like judgment. With Christ, his first coming, they didn't like Christ reproving them. He reproved them of their darkness, of their wicked deeds. They rejected him. We see even in the church after Christ, they don't wanna cast people out of the first Corinthian church. Why? Out of first Corinthians, the first letter of the Corinthians, the Corinthian church, the first church there. They don't wanna cast wicked people out of the church. They're puffed up. They're arrogant. They don't wanna judge. Paul signed it modestly. Hey, you need to judge? I've already judged. The Gentiles would have judged and said this was wicked. What are y'all doing? We see man is constantly resisting judgment. Go to John chapter three. The Bible says in Psalms chapter seven, the Lord shall judge the people. Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness. It says in Psalms 26 one, judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in mine integrity. I have trusted also in the Lord, therefore I shall not slide. Now a righteous person, he does not get offended at church discipline. He does not get offended at first Corinthians five that says all the fornicators and extortioners and drunkards are kicked out of the church because they say, look, I'm abiding by the same rule. Judge me. If I'm a drunkard, throw me out. But you know what? The same token, throw all the drunkards out. He's not afraid of the judgment. Why? Because he's not a partaker of the sin. Look at John chapter three verse 20. For everyone that doeth evil hated the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. Think about it. The guy that loves truth, he doesn't have a problem stepping into the light. What's happening when he gets in the light? He's being judged. He's being judged what his life is like. The light's being shown. But you know what? He wants to go in there. Why? Why does it say? Why does it say that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God? He wants to be proved and tried that he's doing the right stuff. He says, look, I am following God's commandments. I am reading my Bible. I am praying. I am going to church. I have no problem with the light being shone on me. I want to make sure that I am following God's commandments. Because guess what? If the light shows some kind of darkness in me, shows some kind of iniquity, I want to get it right. But you know what? I think I'm right, so I want to stay in the light. Why does the person not want the judgment? Not want the light? Because they don't want their evil deeds to be seen. This is why people don't like judgment today. This is why it's such a dirty word in churches today. This is why it's such a dirty word when you go out and you reprove people with the Bible, they're too afraid that you're going to rebuke their sin. They're too afraid of the flash. You start looking over here, they're afraid you're going to shine it on them. They're afraid they're going to see their own wickedness. That's why people hate judgment. Because they don't want the light to be shown on themselves. And we see the thing that Christ was constantly preaching against was hypocritical judgment. I want to go to one of the places in Paul goes to Acts chapter 25. This is how we get the attitude of the Christian when it comes to judgment. It's that we're not hypocritical about it. If we're going to cast judgment upon others, we should be willing to walk in the same judgment. We should be willing to be judged by the same measure. Judge not less to be judged. For what measure you meet, the Bible says that you'll be judged against that. If you go through Matthew chapter seven, he's saying, look, if you want to have judgment, you better make sure it lines up with yourself. Look at Acts chapter 25 verse 11. This is Paul answering in Ephesus. For if I be an offender, or have committed anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die. But if there be none of these things where have these accused me, no man may deliver me unto them, I appeal unto Caesar. So we see Paul, he wants people to be put to death. And he's not willing to not play by the same rule. He says, look, if I've committed anything worthy of death, put me to death. I'm going to give the preeminence to God's word, to God's law. If anybody's an offender, worthy of death, put them to death, even if it's me. We see Paul's not hypocritical in his judgment. And that's how the New Testament teaches about judgment. There's a lot of warnings about judgment, but it's often almost in every case just to the hypocrite. And so the guy that's in the same sin or a similar sin, or he can't cast out the beam out of his own eye to see clearly to take the mote out of his brother. But the Bible is not teaching that we should never judge, that judgment is bad. If you read the Bible cover to cover, you're going to see constantly God's judging, God wants man to judge. So I kind of laid a really heavy foundation. I don't think we're going to get to everything I wanted to, but go to back to Proverbs chapter 29. What did Proverbs 29 tell us? It said the righteous consider the cause of the, I'm sorry, Proverbs 21. I said Proverbs 29, go to Proverbs 21. The Bible says the robbery of the wicked shall destroy them because they refuse to do judgment. So what was the title of the sermon? The title is refusing to do judgment. I just wanted to spend some time to cover some judgment verses before you got into the meat. Because I think it's important that we really make sure as Christians that we're not afraid of that word. We're not afraid of judgment. We understand some basic foundations when it comes to judgment. But how can someone be robbed when they refuse to do judgment? I think there's three ways, okay? You can be robbed of your possessions, you can be robbed of your freedom, and you can be robbed of your safety. Now I want to focus on a lot of different areas, but we'll see those three points repeated in all of them. You're constantly going to lose your possessions, you're going to lose your freedom, and you're going to lose your safety when you refuse to do judgment. Go to Ezekiel chapter five, Ezekiel chapter five. And I'll start reading verse five. Thus saith the Lord God, this is Jerusalem. I have said in it the myths of the nations and countries that are round about her. And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries that are round about her. For they have refused my judgments, and my statutes they have not walked in them. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, because he multiplied more than the nations that are round about you, and have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept my judgments, neither have done according to the judgments of the nations that are round about you. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, behold, I, even I, am against thee, and will execute judgments in the midst of thee in the sight of the nations. And I will do in thee that which I have not done. And whereinto I will not do any more the like because of all thine abominations. Therefore the Father shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers. And I will execute judgments in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds. Now what's happening in this passage? God's rebuking Jerusalem, and he's rebuking them hard. He's saying, I'm gonna cast judgments on you that are so bad that it's never gonna happen again. It's gonna be so bad the fathers are gonna eat the sons, and the sons are gonna eat the fathers. Why? Because they refuse judgment. So what does God do? He brings the worst judgments upon them. He says they had changed their judgments into wickedness. He also says they had not even done to the judgments of the nations that are round about you. They were so wicked that they weren't even following the laws of the heathen nations. They wouldn't even judge as much as the heathen. And we see that even today. We see Christians today. We see churches today. They won't even judge wicked people more than the unsaved, more than the ungodly. You see, if you go to a child daycare center today, you know what they won't let you do? You can't work there if you have a criminal background, if you have any kind of shady background. They try to protect you from all the perverts, and the freaks, and the pedophiles, and all kinds of weird people. The unsaved, they have enough common sense. But you know, you go to Christian churches today, oh, he's reformed, oh, he's better. Oh, we don't believe in background checks. Oh, we don't believe in these things. We see today people won't do judgment, and they just let freaks, and perverts, and filth, and baguettes into their churches. They let all kinds of stuff into their churches. Why? Because they refuse to judge. They refuse judgments. Why? Because of their own sin, their own iniquity. They're afraid of the light being shone on them. So they let even worse filth into the building. They let the worst filth come in because they're just too afraid. And you know what God says to those type of people? He's gonna execute the worst kind of judgments on them. Just the worst. That's not something I wanna be in. What are you gonna do? You're gonna lose your possessions. What happened to the children of Israel? What happened to the children of Judah? They were carried away captive into Babylon. They lost all their possessions. They didn't have anything. What about their freedom? Well, obviously they're taken as slaves. They're bound. They're naked. They're taken into a land not to do their own will, but to do the will of their servant. Their servant under the Nebuchadnezzar, or whatever country they've been taken into. Taken captive. And they lost all their safety. They have no safety anymore. The Lord's not their trust. They can't lean on the Lord anymore. They've lost all their possessions. They've lost all their freedom. They've lost all their safety. Why? Because they refused to judge. Think about that. So why did the children of Israel destroy themselves? They refused to judge. They refused to open God's word. They refused to be meek and open God's judgments and judge from the Bible. If they had followed God's word, if they had followed his commandments, they'd be a nation forever. He had an everlasting covenant under them if they had walked in his ways. If they had followed his statutes, if they would do his judgments. But they refused it. They refused the judgment. Go to Proverbs 29 now. So let's look at some other ways that people can be destroyed. How can we be destroyed? What are ways that we will be robbed if we refuse to do judgment? Here's one, how about the homeless today? Say, how are we being robbed by the homeless? Well, the Bible says in Proverbs 29 verse seven, the righteous consider it the cause of the poor, but the wicked regardeth not to know it. In the United States, in 2016, 5.5 billion dollars of our government dollars were spent on targeting to fixing homelessness. The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness was given 5.5 billion dollars to try and fix all the homeless problems. Why? Because the righteous refuse to do judgment. They refuse it. They won't just consider the cause of the poor and say, hey, this guy looks young, this guy looks able-bodied, this guy's standing on the street corner, maybe he should work, maybe he should get a job. Why am I gonna give this derelict money? Even worse, why am I gonna give money to the government to try and somehow fix this guy? That's not gonna fix anything. We're being judged because we're not fixing the problem ourselves. You know what would fix homelessness? If every single person stopped giving these derelict money, if you stop giving the people that should never be given money in the first place, then you'll fix it immediately. And now the government won't be robbing us blind by taking 5.5 billion dollars out of your wallet to fix homelessness. How do you fix it? By judging. But you know what, it's unpopular today to say I'm not gonna give that guy money. He's a lazy jerk. He's slothful. He's just a drunk. That's all, you don't know the situation. You don't either, because the righteous is the one that's considering the cause of the poor. The wicked won't even regard to know it. I'll just give him five bucks. I'm sure it was something bad. I'm sure this guy, you know, I'll give him 20 bucks. I don't really need to know. Here's some money. They're not actually considering the fact this guy's just a lazy jerk. The Bible says in Second Thessalonians chapter three verse 10, for even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. You know, the Bible says the person that's slothful should not be able to eat. Why? So it can fix the problem. My mom always taught me this. My dad would teach me this. When you feed a stray dog, it'll just keep coming back for more. I didn't really understand that as a kid. You see a dog running around in the neighborhood, and you wanna give it some bread, you wanna give it some dog treat, you wanna give it some kind of food. You don't realize that if you feed a stray dog, he'll come back to your house again. You feed him again, now he's gonna be staying there a couple days a week. You keep feeding him, you might even get a new pet. You didn't even know you wanted a pet, but if you keep feeding him, he'll stay around. You know what happens if you never feed him? He's not gonna stay around. He's not gonna come back. If you stop feeding him, it'll correct the problem. If you stop giving him money, it'll fix the problem. Slothfulness is something that can be fixed today. Laziness can be fixed. But you know what? Enablers stop them from being fixed. They give them money. They refuse to do judgment. They don't wanna do the judgment. They don't wanna call the guy lazy, and a derelict, and a loser. No, they wanna give him money. And you know what? If you don't work hard, you're a loser. If you don't work hard, you're ungodly. God says he wants Christians to work hard. And you know what? You should be rebuked if you don't work hard. You should not even be able to eat. What a horrible punishment. I mean, not being able to eat, if I go like half a day without eating, it's terrible. I hate it. I love to be able to eat. I don't like it when my belly isn't full. It's terrible. But you know what? It'll fix the problem. But unfortunately, there's so many people today, especially in America, where we have fullness of bread, and we have all this rich money and prosperity, and people are willing to just give you all kinds of stuff, that there's a lot of lazy people today. The Bible says in Proverbs 26, the slothful man said, there's a lion in the way, a lion is in the streets. As the door turns upon his hinges, so does the slothful upon his bed. The slothful hides his hand in his bosom. It is agreed with him to bring it to his mouth, again, to his mouth. The Bible's saying some people can get so lazy that they wouldn't even bring their hand to feed their mouth. They're hungry. They wanna eat something. They can't even, oh, I can't, oh, it's just, it's too much work. It's too much effort. But you know what would fix that? A hungry belly, a belly that hasn't eaten in a few days. I guarantee he could pick that hand up and shove some food in his mouth when he hasn't eaten for a few days. But you know what? The full belly, that sloth, he's just laying in his bed, he doesn't wanna do anything, he doesn't wanna work. It's ungodly. We should work hard as Christians. We should always be diligent. God is angry when you just sit there and waste time all day, when you're just slothful, when you just lay in bed, when you're just wasting your time on vanity and pointless junk. Now, of course, the Bible says that we should eat and drink and enjoy all the good of our labor as the gift of God. God wants us to enjoy our lives. He wants us to have recreation. I don't think God looks down to seeing his children playing with his kids, going out, having a good time, enjoying the earth that he created, doing fun activities. That, to me, is not being slothful. That's just enjoying the gift that God gave you, okay? But when you're just laying in bed, looking online and checking on your phone and watching TV and watching movies and just doing nothing with your life, just wasting your life, just sitting around, doing nothing, God is angry with you. But today in America, people, they just give a freak hat because we're refusing to do judgment. People that are lazy should be judged today. They should be rebuked. Hey, you're lazy. Hey, you're slothful. Get off your rear and do some work. We used to have parents today that would rebuke people and tell them to get up and go work. Or neither should you eat. That's what kids should be told. Hey, do your chores, you're not gonna eat. Guess what's gonna happen? The chores are gonna get done. Guess what? We're not gonna have all these derelict, lazy bums today. But people refuse to do judgment. And then what happens? You lose your possessions because the government takes $5.5 billion out of your pocket. That comes from somewhere, people. That's not just fake monopoly money, even though it seems like it. They're not just printing that. No, they're taking it from your wallet and they're giving it to the derelict and the cutter because you refuse to do judgment. And then you lose your freedom that that money would have afforded you. You lose your freedom that you can't just walk down the sidewalk without being molested by stupid panhandlers. My wife can't just even go to the grocery store and pee. There's always someone knocking on her window and coming up to her being like, hey, can I have some money? Hey, do you have some change? Hey, my car broke down. Even though it's running and it's right there. I mean, you're just molested by these people. It's disgusting, it's gross. You don't even feel safe anymore. You don't feel safe. I'm not gonna use my sermon, so don't worry about it. I was like 16 or 17 years old. And we did the high school musical. I did the high school musical. I'm not proud of that. And I took a girl on a date and we went to IHOP after the show. It was like a thing everybody would do. It was a lot of fun. So we go to IHOP, it's late. As a high school student, you don't get to go out at 12 o'clock or one o'clock at night so it's really cool. So we go to IHOP and as we're leaving, this car pulls up right behind me, okay? Now there's a car to my right, there's a car to my left, and there's just a cinder block wall in front of me. This car drives up directly behind me. I mean, I'm literally boxed in. And then this derelict loser comes out and comes knocking on my window. Now what does a 16 year old kid do in that situation, right? I mean, I rolled down the window just a hair just so I could kind of communicate with the person. He gives me this long sob story about, yeah, I'm almost out of cash and I tried to knee my brother. I don't know the details. It was the biggest lie you could ever see on a person. So then I just forked over some money so he would just leave. Because I got a young lady with me, okay? It doesn't feel like the safest situation. I mean, I'm boxed in, there's nowhere I can go. It's like one o'clock in the night. This derelict loser's coming up and banging on my door. I mean, I don't know what he's gonna do. What if he pulls a knife or a gun or something? I just gave him some money so he would just leave us alone. He just wouldn't molest us. But I lost my safety because people refuse to judge these derelict losers. You know, a lot of places, panhandling's illegal. And I do think panhandlers should be thrown in jail. And they shouldn't even be given any food. Just make them suffer and don't even give any money. And I don't really believe in jail. I'm just saying, like, hypothetically in our area with the law is the way they are. It's not really a righteous judgment to block people in a cage. I don't believe that. But I'm just saying, you know, if that is the law, if that is on the books and someone's violating that law, then judge them. Judge them by it. Go to Isaiah chapter 30, if you will. God wants us to work hard. And when we don't work hard, when we're constantly lazy, when we're constantly just wasting time, God doesn't like it. And as much as man won't punish, God will punish. God will bring the judgment. If you're gonna be lazy and wicked and slothful, God might just take all manner of things from you. He could take your health. He could take your time. He could take your finances. He could take all the stuff that you have and be sure God's not mocked. Once over man, soweth, that shall he also reap. If you're just gonna be lazy and slothful your whole life, God's just gonna not have anything to do with you. God wants to, you know, partner up with those that are hard workers. Go to the anthill sluggard, consider our ways and be wise. Slothfulness can be fixed. Slothfulness can be corrected. What? Consider your ways. Stop getting food. Pay attention to what the Bible's teaching. Be me. Go to God's judgments. Judge yourself. Isaiah chapter 30, look at verse one. Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel but not of me, and that cover with the covering but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin, that walk to go down into Egypt and have not asked in my mouth, to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh and to trust in the shadow of Egypt. Therefore, shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame and the trust of the shadow of Egypt your confusion. For a second time, I won't read all this. This is a really great passage. I want to read the whole first 18 verses. Why? Because it emphasizes the fact that the children of Israel, rather than just trusting in the Lord, rather than just doing his judgments, they want to trust in Egypt. And you know what happens when they trust in Egypt? It costs them. Look at verse 12. Wherefore, thus saith the Holy One of Israel, because he despised this word and trusted in oppression and perverseness and stayed thereon. Now this is really, I think it's one of those things that I didn't really get at first. It's kind of confusing. It's like, how does someone trust in oppression? How does someone trust in perverseness, right? I mean, what does that even mean? It's very clear. What is happening, they could follow God's commandments. The children of Israel could follow God's rules, follow his judgments, and the Lord would fight for them. The Lord would be their deliverer. The Lord would save them. But they don't want that. So what do they do? They go to Egypt. But the problem is, Egypt isn't free. The Lord doesn't want your money. The Lord isn't gonna oppress you. The Lord isn't gonna be perverse with you. But Egypt is going to. If you go into Egypt, you're gonna have to pay a big tribute. You're gonna be their servants. You're gonna have to go under the oppression of the Egyptians. They're gonna become your ruler. They're gonna become your master. So now, you have to obey them. And what do they give you? In theory, they're giving you deliverance. In theory, they're gonna be the ones that save you. They don't want God to be their savior. They want Egypt to be their savior. Now, this is not something that we really see today in our culture exactly like that. But we do see the exact same thing constantly happening. In verse 18, it says, And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you. And therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you. For the Lord is the God of judgment. Blessed are all that wait for him. Now, how do people today do that in America? How about with socialism? You say, what is socialism? Well, unfortunately, in the American government we have today, in the American society we have today, there's a lot of socialism that already taken place. And you know, there's a lot of people that wanna push this fully to socialism. Why? Because they don't wanna trust in the Lord. They wanna trust in oppression and perverseness. They wanna make the government their God. They wanna make government Egypt. They wanna trust in the government to be their savior, to be their deliverer. And they're willing to trust in oppression and perverseness just so they can have that deliverer. Just so they can have that security. What is socialism? Socialism is any various economic or political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration by the means of production and distribution of goods. What does that mean? It means no personal property. What does that mean? You don't own your car, you don't own your house, you don't own anything. The United States owns everything. And you just get whatever portion they allot unto you. This is socialism. This is the extremes of socialism. Now how do we have that in our world today? Well, when you think about it, there's a lot of things that we do share in common in America. We share roads. Nobody really owns the road. Personally, I don't own the road. Who owns the road? Just the United States owns the road. The states own the roads. The schools, the water, the insurance, the fire department, the military, now healthcare, social security. We see there's all these programs that the government's just owning as a collective rather than it being personal property, personal things that people own. Now, even in the Bible, we see some forms of people sharing something collectively. The fact that the military is some type of collective or the Levites are given inheritance in the land and it's to be given by all the people. We see people are giving a tribute unto the Levites. They're giving their money unto the Levites. I'm not against the idea of necessarily having government or having taxes or having those type of things, but we have to understand what socialism is and what the Bible teaches. Now, the difference between socialism and what America's supposed to teach is capitalism. Capitalism is what really has bolstered the United States, what a lot of people would advocate for. What is capitalism? Capitalism is the idea that you have all personal property and that it's all fair game, that the market determines the price of goods. There's no one in control but the buyers and the sellers, the people that own and the people that don't own, people that wanna own. It's a whole economic system. The best way I can explain this, I think, is through the game of monopoly, okay? What happens in monopoly? You start out with some money, then you roll the dice, and you land on a property. If someone doesn't own it, you can buy it. That's capitalism. That's capitalism at its finest. You don't have to buy the property. You can buy the property. Now, what happens when someone lands on a property you own? They can now owe you money, because it's yours, you own it, and you can do whatever you want with the property. You can build a house, you can build a hotel, you can mortgage it. I mean, you can do a matter of things. Capitalism at its finest. But you know what? Capitalism isn't perfect, and I don't believe that the Bible teaches capitalism as this idyllic economic plan. Capitalism's great, but there's one inherent flaw with capitalism, and it's best illustrated by monopoly. What happens when you just keep playing monopoly? Eventually, somebody owns everything, don't they? Someone has all the money. Everybody else goes bankrupt. This is what happens with capitalism, and this is what the socialists always point to. They say, well, capitalism doesn't work, because the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. Guess what? That's true. And you know what? They use all kinds of fancy things like inflation and all kinds of other economic tools to try and disguise what's happening. But truly, the richer get richer and richer and richer in a capitalistic society, to the extremes of the fact that there's just people that have complete poverty, they're complete bankrupt, they've landed on Broadway and, you know, hard plays, they have no money, they're mortgaging their eyeballs, they mortgage every property, they're just done. And guess, you know, what happens then? You have to play again, right? You can get the board back out and start all over again. But that was what God's economic society was. The year of Jubilee. What happened? Everybody hit the reset button, and then you get to play again. Then you get to go and buy the properties and sell them and do whatever you want. That was God's perfect economic system. What we see today, people don't want God's rules, people don't want God's economic system, they want to trust in the government to be their savior. The government doesn't live there. So they want socialism. What does socialism do? It enables the lazy person. It enables the sloppable person. The person that doesn't want to work hard. I just want to go to college and play beer pong and play video games and then when I graduate, I'll just get some job the government assigns to me because I just know they'll just give me a job and then I get to have my smartphone and I get to have my house and I get to have my car and I don't have to worry about actually working hard and making the money and paying the bills because we just all own everything. It's so stupid, it doesn't work. It's trusting and oppressing and perverseness because who gets to decide how much you get then? All the government gets to decide. Oh, we think you're working really hard so we're going to give you X amount of dollars. You get to live in this house. You know what ends up happening? Even worse poverty than you could ever imagine. Constant death and destruction. We see countries that become socialists. They basically become enslaving the people. How does this happen? Bible, let's go to Joseph. What happens? Oh, they have collective good, don't they? Oh, we just all give a fifth of our portion into the government, into Pharaoh and then he's going to distribute it evenly unto us. Then what happens? Well, he starts charging for it and they mortgage their lands. Then they don't own anything. Pharaoh owns it all. They're all just his servants. They're all just in slavery. They're all in bondage and affliction. Socialism at its finest. It's wicked. The Bible does not teach socialism and it does not teach capitalism. I think it teaches, it's the Bible, okay? And at best it's some form of capitalism that has a reset button. That has the year of Jubilee. Then it gets reset because capitalism, if it continues on and on, will destroy a country to the same as socialism would, okay? It's gonna make people just impoverished and slaves and having no chance. There was a lot of other ways that we could be enslaved through all the taxes. In this country, you have income taxes, you have payroll taxes, you have property taxes, you have consumption taxes, you have tariffs, you have capitation, you have fees, you have tolls, you have sin tax, you have soda tax, you have luxury tax, you have fat tax, you have carbon tax, you have double taxation. There's so many forms of taxation in this country. You're just taxed and taxed and taxed. Why? Because people are lazy, because they refuse to do judgment. Why? And then they get what? They robbed. They're robbed because they're wicked. You're wicked when you're slothful, you're wicked when you're lazy. You know who doesn't like taxes? The person who works hard, the person that has a good job, the person that goes out and does the work. You know who loves all the taxes? The poor people. But when you judge them, you say you're wicked and slothful and lazy, that's why you don't have a nice house. That's why you don't get to eat good food. That's why you don't have anything. When you judge those people, guess what? They don't like it. They gotta trust in oppression. You know the federal government got $4.2 trillion? $4.2 trillion in tax revenue last year. It's ridiculous. But we trust in oppression in this country. We trust in perversionist white because people aren't willing to work hard. They don't wanna do judgment. They want people to feel the death. They want a prop of the prison industry. The prison industry today, it's $80 billion is how much we spend in our prisons today. We have more people in prison today than all the other countries combined. We don't wanna put anybody to death. Go to Proverbs 24, I wanna show you those long verse. We won't even put sodomites to death. We won't put anybody to death today. We won't put any, someone who's worthy of death. You know, because America would not judge the fags on the TV today, we get Ellen DeGeneres. We get Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. We get Ru Paul's Drag Race. What a bunch of filth. It's disgusting. You get it on TV because you won't judge. We get all these fags in society so we get gay marriage. We won't judge the trans freaks so we get Caitlyn Jenner. We won't judge the pedophiles so we lose our children to constant molestation. Right. We won't judge bestiality today. We're gonna become worse than the heathen. The nations that aren't even Christian. The Muslim nations today are gonna mock America. They're gonna mock Americans. When we won't judge bestiality, we won't judge fagotry, we won't judge all the trans freaks, we'll let the trans freaks come into public schools and teach the children. When we refuse to do judgment, God's gonna judge us. And we're gonna be robbed. We're gonna be taking all of our money, we're gonna be taking all of our possessions, we're gonna take all of our freedom, and then take all of our safety. Says in Proverbs 24, 12. Well, look at verse 11. If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn to the death and those that are ready to be slain, if thou sayest, behold, we knew it not, doth he that pondereth the heart considerth? And he that keepeth thy soul doth he not know it? And shall he not render to every man according to his works? People today say, I don't wanna know what he did. Let's just forget it. Let's not put him to death. But God will render to every man according to his works. God will judge whether we judge or not. That's why Jesus Christ said, judge righteous judgment. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, so much for your word. Thank you so much for your judgments. I pray that we would just be meek enough to open your word and to learn your judgments, and that we would open our lips to declare all of your judgments. We wouldn't be afraid of your judgments. We wouldn't be afraid of your word. We wouldn't trust in oppression and perverseness. That we'd be excited and we would join us when we see judgment. I just thank you, Father, for this church. I pray that you would just help us in this time of evil. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.