Many people have heard what Jesus said in one place, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” (Matthew 7:1) And then they’ll say, “Who are we to judge?” Personally I believe that these thoughts have been overused and misapplied to where believers have become emasculated and led to think that passive acquiescence to evil is what they’re called to do.

So let me share some less well known verses which may bring some balance on this subject. In I Corinthians chapter 5, Paul had just effectively excommunicated someone from the Corinthian body of believers for what was a vile wrongdoing. But then, in the next chapter, he went on to reprove and admonish the Corinthian Christians, saying this, “Do you not know that the saints shall judge the world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life?” (I Corinthians 6:2 & 3)

It seems clear from this passage that the well known admonition of “Judge not” that Jesus taught was not to be taken so broadly and universally that it was to hinder believers from “judging righteous judgment”, another of the Lord’s teachings.

In fact, in that verse in John 7:24, He tells us that we actually should judge. The verse in full says, “Judge not according to appearance but judge righteous judgment.” As is so often the case, one passage in Scripture has been seized upon and used out of context to sadly make an imbalanced view of some admonition from God so that it ends up conveying the almost totally wrong idea.

“But Mark, Jesus did say “Judge not”. Are you contradicting Christ, Mark?”

No, of course I am not. Jesus went on to say in that passage, “with what judgment you judge you shall be judged”. And James the Lord’s brother also spoke on this saying, “He shall have judgment without mercy that has showed no mercy. And mercy rejoices against judgment.” (James 2:13) Harsh, hypocritical, myopic judgment was what Jesus was speaking against in Matthew 7.

Jesus was not teaching that we should just all utterly wimp out to where we end up being spineless neutrals, “who-am-I-to-judge”, string-for-a-backbone milquetoasts. But millions of Christians are convinced that this is the proper understanding of Jesus’ words and that “pardon-me-for-living” convictions are some kind of testimony of the love of God.

What a device of the devil! How Satan has disarmed and imprisoned so many children of the Most High to where they are rendered almost utterly useless in the battle that rages about us for the souls of men, for the morals of our nations, for the very lives and hearts of our children. I believe with all within me that the body of Christ around the world should be awake, galvanized and properly trained to be, not spectators but active participants at the forefront of the battle for right or wrong, light or darkness and God or Satan that is raging and intensifying every day.

But if your mantra is, “Who am I to judge?”, you’re already almost eliminated from being the player for God that He so desperately needs you to be.

“But Mark, who am I? I don’t have a seminary degree, Mark! I don’t know what to say, Mark! I tried it one time and someone said something that I didn’t know the answer to!  Mark, that’s what our pastor is for! He’s the one that is supposed to lead souls to Christ, not me! Mark, if people want to know about God, let them go to church!”

That’s why I sadly believe that the Lord will ultimately allow great suffering and tribulation to come upon the nominally Christian nations of the world. They may be saved but the vast majority of Christians are already defeated and disarmed. I believe many millions have saving faith; but for the most part, they’ve gone only a little further.

They may be believers, but very few can be called disciples. Of course there are exceptions to this and there are many who are more broken now, more desperate now that the powers of darkness have taken the high ground so clearly throughout much of the once Christian nations. Some are waking up. Some are fighting back and standing up for the Lord. But it’s a very small minority.

Elijah thought that he was the only one left of the Lord’s true people and he told the Lord that. But the Lord said at that time to him that “there are 7000 in Israel who’ve not bowed the knee to Baal” (I Kings 19:18). And then the Lord in effect told Elijah to get busy. God had someone of the next generation that He wanted Elijah to train, the upcoming prophet Elisha, who actually went on to do twice as many miracles as Elijah.

We just have to stand on the Rock, hold on to our crowns and continue to do all that we can, every single day for the Lord to not just be weak, passive “believers” but active, alive discipleship Christians, truly serving the Lord daily. That’s one thing we can do, we can do what we can to be faithful in our generation. God has to do the miracle; He has to bring the awakening. Or the judgment.

“And they continued steadfastly in the apostle’s doctrine and in fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers. And daily in the temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.” (Acts 2:42 & 5:42)