The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 36 - Stop Telling People To Stop Judging

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the CarCast, everyone. You've probably noticed that the word judgmental is used quite a

00:00:06.280 bit these days. There are people who can't seem to walk out of their house in the morning without

00:00:11.760 finding judgment all around them. Everywhere they go, they're telling people, stop judging,

00:00:17.160 you're judging, you're being judgmental, stop judging, judgmental, judgmental. And the terms

00:00:21.920 self-righteous and holier-than-thou are also quite popular or generally are used interchangeably

00:00:27.980 with judgmental and judging and self-righteous, holier-than-thou, you know. Now, it is possible

00:00:34.740 to be judgmental and self-righteous, and it is bad to be those things, but the problem is that a lot

00:00:39.880 of people seem to find judgment and self-righteousness everywhere they turn. And they paint a picture of

00:00:46.580 American society as this place that's filled with puritanical, straight-laced prudes who are holding 0.76

00:00:54.420 everyone else to this really high moral standard, as if that's the great problem in our society,

00:01:00.960 right, is the high moral standard that we're all being held to. Of course, the truth is exactly the

00:01:06.960 opposite of that. There's basically no moral standard. The moral standard for most people is,

00:01:13.700 you know, whatever people like to do is good. If people like to do it, then it's good and it's right

00:01:19.160 and it's okay. That's the moral standard that most people operate by. But you say that that's wrong,

00:01:25.820 but wait, these people like doing it, so it must be okay. What are you talking about? How could it be

00:01:31.600 wrong if people enjoy doing it? So, no, you know, I wouldn't, I don't think that moral standards is

00:01:37.120 that unrealistic moral expectations are our problem. But let's start with what does it actually mean

00:01:44.800 to be, to be truly judgmental and self-righteous? What does that mean? Well, a truly judgmental and

00:01:51.100 self-righteous person is somebody without humility, who doesn't see their own flaws and their own

00:01:56.520 weaknesses, and who will tend to put themselves forward as an example of moral perfection. That's what a

00:02:05.800 judgmental, self-righteous person will do. They judge unfairly, they judge wrongly, they judge with the

00:02:12.720 wrong heart, and they consider themselves to be the paragon of moral virtue and perfection.

00:02:22.500 Now, in other words, a judgmental, self-righteous person, that's someone who feels superior to other

00:02:26.360 people. And we all have, we all do have a little bit or maybe a lot of that in us. We have some

00:02:33.020 element of that in us. We all struggle with that to a certain degree. That's called pride. That's part

00:02:39.380 of pride. And pride is the starting point of all sin, and we all have pride in us. So we all have,

00:02:45.820 to some degree or another, we all have these kinds of feelings of superiority sometimes. But I think for

00:02:51.740 most people, their feelings of superiority are more implicit than explicit. In other words,

00:02:57.880 most people aren't, you know, I think most people don't actually literally think to themselves,

00:03:03.060 oh, I'm better than other people. I don't think most people think that exactly. It's more like an

00:03:09.660 implicit subconscious assumption that they make. And they really have to examine their own conscience.

00:03:19.740 That's what we have to do. We have to do an examination of conscience to find that within

00:03:24.100 ourselves, and then purge it, and repent of it. But I mean, I could be wrong. I just don't think

00:03:32.320 the average person, when they're walking by another person on the sidewalk, or they're standing

00:03:37.380 in the supermarket checkout line with someone, the average person isn't going to look at someone else

00:03:42.300 and think, I am better than that person. They may sort of think that, but it's buried deep within

00:03:48.440 themselves. I think here's an example of a more explicit self-righteousness and, you know, a more

00:03:56.180 explicit example of being judgmental that you'll find in your everyday life. Gossip. You know, gossip

00:04:03.380 is a self-righteous, judgmental thing most of the time. Because the whole point of gossip, what makes

00:04:09.500 it gossip, is that you're all sitting around talking about these negative things about someone else who's

00:04:15.060 not part of the conversation. And you're taking some sick pleasure in discussing the negative aspects

00:04:21.520 of another person's life or personality. And what is, why do you find pleasure? And you find pleasure

00:04:27.420 in it because it makes you feel better. Really gossipy people, the people that are really gossipy,

00:04:33.200 the reason they're gossiping all the time is because it makes that, it keeps inflating their own ego

00:04:37.920 and their own sense of self-worth that they find in dwelling and delighting in other people's flaws.

00:04:50.280 But I think most of the time, that's not really what's meant when people say self-righteous and

00:04:58.160 judgmental. They're not talking about gossiping. Usually in common usage, when someone accuses you of

00:05:05.740 being judgmental, what they really mean, nine times out of ten, what they really mean is,

00:05:10.580 you have made me feel uncomfortable about myself because of a certain moral stand you have taken

00:05:19.100 or a criticism you have offered. Nine times out of ten, that's what they mean. They're calling you

00:05:26.000 judgmental because you made them feel uncomfortable. And that's why nowadays it's basically impossible

00:05:35.080 to have any kind of moral discussion or debate at all without being called self-righteous and

00:05:41.680 judgmental because it's going to make people feel uncomfortable. It's going to make people

00:05:46.160 look at themselves. So anytime you say, this is right, that is wrong, anytime you do that,

00:05:55.780 in the minds of a lot of people, you're automatically being judgmental and self-righteous

00:06:00.160 because everyone who does the wrong thing is now going to feel bad about themselves.

00:06:04.840 And because they feel bad about themselves, you're being judgmental. And the only way to not be

00:06:09.860 judgmental and to not be self-righteous is to never make anyone feel bad about their life choices.

00:06:14.980 I have certainly found anecdotally that this comes up quite a bit. It won't surprise you to learn that

00:06:22.320 I get these accusations a lot. And I'm sure that there have been plenty of times when I have

00:06:26.680 been self-righteous and judgmental. I'm sure I have been guilty of that.

00:06:32.560 But I also know that it doesn't really matter how I frame it. If we're talking about speaking

00:06:42.620 specifically about my writing for a minute, if I'm writing something where I'm distinguishing right

00:06:49.460 from wrong, and I'm saying that's wrong, we shouldn't do that. If I call anything immoral whatsoever,

00:06:56.920 I will be accused of being judgmental and self-righteous no matter how I say it, no matter

00:07:02.220 how I frame it. And I know people say, well, it's because of how it's not what you say. It's how you

00:07:06.640 say. No, actually, no, that's not what it is because it doesn't matter how I say it. It really honestly

00:07:12.640 doesn't. I could be talking about something and saying, oh, this is wrong over here. And I could use

00:07:18.680 myself as an example of the wrong thing. And I tried to be very careful about that. If I'm talking

00:07:25.880 about a wrong thing, a wrong action, if I'm going to use any specific person by name as an example of

00:07:34.400 the wrong activity, when applicable, I try to use myself. So one example is, you know, I talk a lot

00:07:42.340 about our obsession with TV and internet and, you know, all these things. And we live our lives

00:07:51.700 revolved around the screens. And that's wrong. We shouldn't live that way. But anytime I'm talking

00:07:58.060 about that, I always make sure to say, I struggle with this myself. I have struggled with this. I

00:08:03.900 still struggle with it. It's a struggle for me. And I use myself as an example. And I try to

00:08:08.680 communicate that, like, this is one of the reasons why, you know, this is how I know what effect this

00:08:13.900 has on people's lives. I've been through it. I have experienced it. But what I found is it doesn't

00:08:19.260 matter. You could use yourself as an example. You could make it explicitly clear that you don't think

00:08:24.820 you're better than anyone. You're not superior. You know that you're not. You're down in the mud

00:08:31.740 with everyone else struggling and sinning and trying to, you know, scrape your way through.

00:08:36.220 You could make that as clear as possible. It doesn't matter. You'll still be called judgmental.

00:08:41.480 Because if anyone, if they get the scent of, if they pick up on the scent of judgment, any kind of

00:08:47.860 judgment, even self-judgment, they will call you judgmental. I mean, I have written things

00:08:54.120 I've written articles where the entire thing is about my own flaws. I wrote an article, for instance,

00:09:05.600 literally the title of it was, I am Judas. Okay. And the entire article was about my own sin.

00:09:14.020 And you want to know something? I was called judgmental and self-righteous for that.

00:09:18.720 So it's, there are things sometimes where you just kind of throw up your hands and say, all right,

00:09:22.720 oh, I don't know. I don't know what I could do now. Then if that, even that's judgmental, well,

00:09:27.140 I don't know. But this isn't, this isn't just me, by the way. Of course, I'm not, I'm, you know, I,

00:09:31.680 I'm not the only one who's experienced this, but of course, so many times, I can't tell you how many

00:09:37.100 times I've gotten emails. It's, it's almost a daily occurrence, if not multiple times a day,

00:09:41.780 where I get emails from people confiding in me that they would like to be more outspoken.

00:09:46.560 They would like to make a moral stand, but they're deathly afraid of being called self-righteous

00:09:51.940 and judgmental. And I understand, you know, I, I get it. You don't want to be written off as

00:09:56.880 judgmental and self-righteous. And so people, a lot of times will just avoid the conversation.

00:10:02.180 What'll happen for me often is I'll get an email from someone and they'll tell me about some particular

00:10:08.360 thing that's happening around them with their friends or in their families, some wrong thing that's,

00:10:15.700 that's happening. And they, they want to take a stand and say, no, we shouldn't be doing this

00:10:20.860 or this shouldn't be happening, but they don't, they're afraid to, because they don't want to be

00:10:26.720 written off as being judgmental. And they realize that, you know, no matter how they say it,

00:10:33.700 they're going to be called judgmental. Because if they're offering a criticism

00:10:38.700 that makes people feel bad about themselves, well, then the accusation will come.

00:10:45.700 But of course, this is all ridiculous. A person is not automatically judgmental just because

00:10:51.120 they've discerned right from wrong. When a guy says this is wrong and this is right,

00:10:56.000 that doesn't mean he's claiming to be perfect. Unless he does claim to be perfect, in which case,

00:11:03.320 fine, write them off. You know, if somebody is, if someone's approaching it that way and they're

00:11:07.080 saying, I'm, I'm never wrong and I'm perfect. Listen to me. If that's how they're approaching it,

00:11:12.240 then yeah, they don't deserve to be listened to. But if someone is simply saying this is wrong and

00:11:17.000 this is right, it doesn't mean they're making any claims about themselves. It doesn't even

00:11:21.600 necessarily mean that they're claiming to never do the wrong thing. It's just, it's just that they're

00:11:25.240 observing a something. They're, they're saying they're, they're making a moral observation,

00:11:29.820 which they're perfectly entitled to do and which they should do. It's like, if a person says,

00:11:35.720 um, a triangle has three sides, it doesn't mean that they're claiming to be a geometry expert.

00:11:43.140 It doesn't mean that they're claiming that every time they draw a per a triangle, it's perfectly

00:11:48.160 straight and everything. No, that's, that's not what they're claiming. They're not making any claims

00:11:52.220 about their own expertise with shapes and triangles. They're just observing something that is true.

00:11:58.820 And if we happen to live in a society where everybody rejects the definition of a triangle,

00:12:04.900 then it behooves anyone who recognizes the actual definition of a triangle to stand up and say it,

00:12:10.760 even if they're normally really bad at geometry, still, they should stand up and say it.

00:12:17.320 Now we happen to live in a society where a lot of people are very confused

00:12:21.100 about basic questions of morality. A lot of people, in fact, reject that objective morality exists.

00:12:32.520 And so those of us who recognize objective morality

00:12:35.560 and who understand, at least on a basic level, right from wrong,

00:12:41.080 we all have a duty and a responsibility to stand up and say it. No matter if we are, if we are dirty,

00:12:48.700 terrible, awful sinners ourselves, that's irrelevant. We would be even greater sinners if we stayed silent.

00:12:57.720 We have to stand up and say it. It's a responsibility. It is not automatically judgmental or self-righteous.

00:13:08.780 Not everyone who distinguishes between right and wrong is claiming to be a saint.

00:13:13.380 It could be that someone who does that, they realize that they're a sinner.

00:13:20.220 They know that they're a sinner. They acknowledge their own sin.

00:13:24.420 And therefore, they take sin personally and they hate it all the more

00:13:28.520 because they have dealt with it and felt its effects.

00:13:33.860 Now, contrary to popular belief, the Bible does not actually forbid judging.

00:13:43.260 And that's what you'll hear, right? You'll hear, well, you call yourself a Christian,

00:13:47.540 but you're running around judging. The Bible says don't judge. The Bible says it right there. Stop judging.

00:13:52.720 Yeah, you know what? The Bible says stop. If you are, like, looking with, if you've got these blinders on

00:14:01.520 where you could only see two words at a time in the Bible, then yeah, you could find the phrase,

00:14:06.840 stop judging. And then you could take that phrase and remove it from its entire context

00:14:11.840 and say, oh, the Bible says stop judging, right? You see, those words appear in the Bible. There you go.

00:14:16.540 See? But of course, if you're approaching the Bible that way, you could, the Bible will say anything

00:14:21.400 you want it to say. If you're approaching it like a, basically like a word search or something where

00:14:26.540 you can, as long as you find the words or the letters in the Bible somewhere and you can arrange

00:14:31.540 them in whatever way and remove them for their context, well, in that case, then the Bible can

00:14:35.820 justify anything you want it to justify. But the Bible does not actually, taken in context, Jesus is

00:14:41.540 not telling us as a blanket statement not to judge. What he's warning against is judging wrongly.

00:14:48.200 He's warning against judgments that are made wrongly and with the wrong heart. He's also warning us

00:14:55.080 that even if you judge rightly, even if you make a right judgment, because in John 7, 24, Jesus says,

00:15:01.560 don't judge by appearance, but judge with right judgment. So that's a, it's not even just that

00:15:06.320 Jesus is saying you can judge. He's saying judge with right judgment. He's commanding us to judge.

00:15:13.100 You should judge, but do it rightly with right judgment. But he also tells us, when he talks

00:15:20.380 about how the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you, what he's saying is,

00:15:24.620 if you hold people to a certain standard, even if it's the right standard, you know, even if you're

00:15:30.880 doing it correctly, you better hold yourself to the same standard. You better hold yourself to a higher

00:15:36.820 standard than you hold everyone else. So if you have this very clear moral sense, and you're very

00:15:43.880 intolerant of sin and wickedness, which is a good way to be, that's how we should be, but you better

00:15:49.920 apply it to yourself. And so if you're very hard on other people, and very, you know, and not

00:15:58.520 interested in hearing excuses, which again, there's not necessarily anything wrong with being that way,

00:16:03.880 you better be twice as hard on yourself. And you better be dismissing your own excuses

00:16:10.320 right away. This is also what Jesus gets at in the, you know, the verse, the other verse that's

00:16:17.100 tossed around by the don't judge camp is the verse where Jesus discusses the speck in our brother's eye.

00:16:26.260 And the way that this is paraphrased and kind of boiled down most of the time, we've distilled it

00:16:31.600 down to what Jesus is saying is, never worry about your brother's speck, because you have a bigger

00:16:37.380 speck. Or you, you know, your brother has a speck, you have a log, so never worry about the speck.

00:16:41.360 That's not what Jesus is saying. Let's look at the actual verse. He says,

00:16:45.820 why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in 0.59

00:16:49.820 your own eye? How can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye, when all the

00:16:54.540 time there's a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite. First, take the plank out of your own eye. And then,

00:17:02.380 so there's a two-part process here. First step, take the plank out of your own eye. Second step,

00:17:07.100 and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Somehow that last part of

00:17:14.660 the last sentence is left out when people talk about this verse. The whole and then part

00:17:23.180 is completely removed. But we can't remove that. Because what Jesus is saying is, yeah,

00:17:31.160 absolutely help your brother with his speck. Don't just leave him there to languish with the speck

00:17:39.220 in his eye. Help him with the speck. But you can't do that until you worry about the sin in your own

00:17:46.340 life. And if there's a big—if there is this big sin or any kind of sin in your life that you are

00:17:54.960 refusing to confront, then you're going to be blinded by that, and you won't be able to help

00:18:00.340 anyone else. So worry about yourself first and your own sin. Judge yourself, your own sin, and then you

00:18:09.080 can help other people in their walk. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

00:18:15.740 There better be some fear and trembling when you look at your own sin. You should hate your own sin.

00:18:22.640 You should detest it. You should be disgusted by it. You will not be able to help anyone else

00:18:28.460 in their walk and in their faith if you don't have that attitude about your own sin.

00:18:32.620 We talk about hate the sin, love the sinner, which is, I think, you know, there's a deep truth to

00:18:42.060 that phrase. But what Jesus is telling us is, you better apply that to yourself. You better hate your

00:18:48.700 own sin too, and hate it most of all, because it's a sin that you're guilty of and you're responsible

00:18:53.860 for. So be humble, in other words. I mean, we could really boil it down to that. Be humble. Don't think

00:18:59.800 too highly of yourself. Know that you're a sinner, that you have sinned, that your sins are disgusting

00:19:04.320 and terrible and awful and dark and hideous, and go to war against your own sin. Repent of it. And if

00:19:12.000 you're going to stand for what is right in the world, which you should, you better apply it to

00:19:20.760 yourself. But if you're doing that, and if that's how you really approach things, then go out and speak

00:19:26.460 the truth, and stand for what's right. And you can be confident that you're doing it righteously,

00:19:32.380 not self-righteously, because you're not putting yourself forward as the standard for righteousness.

00:19:39.660 That's what it means to be self-righteous by definition. It is to put yourself forward as

00:19:44.960 the standard for righteousness. But if you're looking to God as the standard, and you're holding

00:19:50.880 everyone, including yourself, to that standard, then you're not being self-righteous, and you're

00:19:56.080 not being judgmental. If you're saying to people, look at me, do what I am doing, that's self-righteous.

00:20:02.000 But if you're saying to everyone, let's all look up there and follow Him, and I'm in the same camp as

00:20:10.020 you. I have to look up there too. Let's all look up there. That's not self-righteous. That is not

00:20:16.440 judgmental. That is correct. That is right. That is righteous. And if you approach it that way, and

00:20:23.660 people still refuse to listen, and they still throw around judgmental and self-righteous and all these

00:20:29.460 words, it's only because they don't want to see their own imperfections. That's the great irony here,

00:20:35.740 is that they accuse you of thinking you're perfect, when really they are the ones who think they are

00:20:42.160 perfect. They are the self-righteous ones because they have positioned themselves, not God, as the

00:20:51.480 standard of righteousness. They are saying, this is right because it's what I do. That is self-righteous.

00:20:59.900 That is self-righteous, perfectly illustrated and exemplified, is the person who insists that

00:21:07.140 whatever they do must be right because they're doing it. That is arrogance. That is pride. That is

00:21:13.240 self-righteousness. That's what that is. It turns out, in the end, that most of the time,

00:21:22.080 the people who go around accusing everyone else of being self-righteous,

00:21:26.660 they are the self-righteous ones because they refuse to even consider that they may be doing the wrong

00:21:35.920 thing. They won't even consider it. That's self-righteousness. So we should pray for them

00:21:42.520 and we should, you know, pray for their own awakening and continue to work on ourselves with

00:21:50.340 fear and trembling and also continue to stand for what's right and what's true. And if we know that

00:21:57.340 we're approaching it the right way and doing it the right way and with the right heart, we don't have

00:22:01.060 to worry about the accusations and the insults when they come. Thanks for watching. Thanks for

00:22:06.700 listening, everybody. Godspeed.

The Matt Walsh Show - May 24, 2018

Ep. 36 - Stop Telling People To Stop Judging

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript