Voice of the Kingfisher speaks out …from a different perspective
by Elinor Montgomery
Consider the Plank in Your Eye
November 19, 2011
Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? This is the question of Matthew 7:3. Luke 6:42 answers the question with the statement to first remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye.
The question is asked to suggest that by the measure of judgment you use, it will come back to judge you. The answer comes with the message that if the blind try to lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch, both the leader and the people. The problem is that the learner is not above the teacher. How can the people gain understanding or vision from a teacher who has neither, if he/she has a log-filled, blind eye?
How many have used this question and answer to suggest we should not judge others, the fruit of which becomes the message that religion and liberalism are as good as truth, and whatever one believes is of as much value as that which another believes? Of course this is the furthest thing from the truth of the message inherent in these words.
They are spoken by Jesus who knows a thing or two about the two trees of the Garden of creation. He knows, sadly, that the difference between them stems from one tree producing good fruit and the other tree producing bad fruit. The heart of a person will determine from which of the two, very different trees that person will eat, affecting what comes from the person’s mouth. From one tree there is an abundance of truth from God; from the other tree is an abundance of lies, religion and liberalism from Satan.
The purpose of the Good Shepherd and Teacher was to lead His sheep out of the danger caused by the abundance of man’s rebellion based on the lies of religion and liberalism. This sin of rebellion caused a log of blindness to fill the eye of man, preventing him from understanding the light of truth in the blind darkness of religion.
It was best shown in Saul, the Pharisee, who was blinded by the scales of religion, those impenetrable scales described as the armor of the Leviathan in the book of Job, chapter 41, which simply prevent the light from penetrating the darkness. Once the serpentine scales were removed from the eyes of Saul, the log of religion, causing darkness, could then be washed away from his eyes as well. Saul was given the new name of Paul by God, as the apostle who was now ready to receive understanding and to go out in truth, leading and teaching others as well, with the God-given power to turn the world around spiritually.
This is what the parable of Jesus, concerning the plank or log in one’s eye, is all about. It is about taking people into a place where they are not blinded by religion, so that they are able to see in the light of truth, once freed of the log of religion that compromises the sight. Then, and only then, are we ready, like Saul, the former Pharisee, to become a Paul who can lead the sheep in a manner that would prevent their fall from the Way into the ditch. Until Paul had been set free of the Pharisaical religion, he could never have taught like Jesus, in the manner, which required the washing process of the Word that cleanses and removes the specks of darkness and uncleanness from one’s eye.
The great lies of liberalism, used to try to put a stop to godly leadership, include the lie that one does not have the right to judge what others believe, according to this passage of Scripture. The lie states that anyone else’s moral values are equal in value to those based on the truth of God’s Word. Hence, the blind stupidity factor of such men as former Prime Minister Trudeau who ushered in the Charter of Rights leading a nation, with a log of liberalism in its eye, to fall into the ditch.
Did he not initiate trade with China, which has led to manufacturing, slowly but surely, closing down in America to reorganize in China? The loss of jobs to this Communist State of very different moral values, indeed, has been costly to the American people. One could say that it is as though we have become our own ditch-diggers of the ditches into which both nations of America are falling. Did this not happen to the Jews of the holocaust where the blind leadership of Hitler led to their digging the very ditches into which they were thrown by those who had the log of liberalism, in place of God’s truth, in their eyes? It was called the religion of Nazism.
Unless we return America to her foundation in the God of truth and His Word of truth, we will continue to teach with a log in our own eye and lead our children in a manner that will prevent us from removing the specks of darkness from their eyes. They, like we, will grow up to have the specks become logs in their eyes, as well. Both teachers and leaders will cause all to fall by the wayside and a nation, once great in the liberty of truth, is no longer great, because of the fact that it did not insist that there were to be no logs in its leaders and teachers’ eyes.
We have failed to judge, as we should have judged, that which is coming from the abundance of the hearts and mouths of those who have ruled over our children and over our nation. We will either go back to the foundations of our constitutions by beginning the rebuilding process on the foundations given to us by our forefathers, or we will become nations full of New Age thinking, standing on mother earth, without a foundation. When the streams come and beat vehemently against them, they will immediately fall and the ruin of the two houses of America will be great (see Luke 6:49)!