God was faithful to His Word and He will continue to be so forevermore. Thus, no matter how bleak things may look for a time, these realities stand true and indisputable: Christ came, Christ died, Christ rose, and Christ conquered. And He now reigns as the uncontested Lord of heaven and earth. 

And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and take out of his mouth what he has swallowed. The nations shall no longer flow to him; the wall of Babylon has fallen. (Jeremiah 51:44)
When the prophets looked out on the world, the sight that met their eyes was a bleak and depressing one. Oppression sat in the place of justice, evil in the place of righteousness, lies in the place of truth, and idolatry in the place of true worship. A heavy and indeed demonic darkness blanketed the earth as whole nations were swept up in crushing servitude to false and cruel gods. As Jeremiah here tells us, the nations were “swallowed” up in service to pagan deities, “flowing” like a torrent to give tribute and worship to vain and worthless idols. The apostle Paul described the situation in similar terms, adding that the Gentiles were then “separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12). A bleak picture indeed.
Into this world, however, the prophetic Word was uttered — a shoot from the stump of Jesse (Isa. 11:1), a righteous Branch (Jer. 23:5), Light for those dwelling in darkness (Isa. 9:2), restoration of the fallen Davidic house (Amos 9:11). Little by little, hints and shadows were given that looked forward to a day when Yahweh would again show mercy to His wayward bride and establish a new and everlasting covenant with her (Jer. 31:34).
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The day is coming soon when “we will all stand before the judgment seat of God” (Romans 14:10)—great and small, rich and poor, well-known and unknown. And what will happen when we stand there? The rubric we raised against others will be raised against us.

“Judge not.” Few words of Jesus are more familiar, even to non-Christians. And when understood, few are more devastating.
Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. (Matthew 7:1–2)
In the face of others’ aggravations and sins—their thoughtless comments and annoying tones, their insensitive laughter and failures to follow through—how natural it feels to convict them in the court of our imagination. How gratifying to hear our inner prosecutor give their words or actions the worst spin, and then to close the case before the defense can even speak.
And how easy to forget that one day, the judgments we laid on others will be laid on us; the measures we used to assess others will be used to assess us. One day, we will enter the court of our imagination—and this time not as judge, but as defendant.
How many emails would be abandoned and text messages unsent, how many thoughts would be discarded and words unsaid, how many conversations would be redirected and posts unread, if only we heard our Savior say, with eternal sobriety in his voice, “Judge not”?
Wrong Judgment

Of course, “judge not” does not mean what some would like it to mean. Matthew 7:1 is the life verse of many who simply would like to live in sin undisturbed. Rarely do they read the rest of the chapter, where Jesus warns against “dogs,” “pigs,” and “false prophets” — and expects us to judge who they are (Matthew 7:6, 15–20). Rarer still do they read Matthew 7 alongside John 7, where Jesus commands, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment” (John 7:24).
Critical thinking, discernment, and “right judgment” belong to every mature disciple of Christ. But there is another kind of judgment to which Jesus says, “Judge not”—a kind produced in the factory of our unredeemed flesh, marked by a tendency to (1) indulge hypocrisy and (2) withhold mercy.
Hypocritical Judgment

“Let me take the speck out of your eye” (Matthew 7:4). Our words of judgment, whether spoken or merely thought, may seem unobjectionable, perhaps even kind. We really do notice a speck in another’s eye—some small pattern of sin or folly that our brother has failed to see. And don’t we all appreciate the friend who points out the spinach in our teeth or the shirt tag climbing our neck?
But wait: “There is the log in your own eye” (Matthew 7:4). The spinach-noticer has ketchup smeared across his cheeks; the tag-discerner forgot to put his pants on; the speck-remover has a birch tree jutting from his left eye. In other words, “You hypocrite” (Matthew 7:5).
The faults and annoyances of others — that is, their specks—have a way of taking our eye from the mirror and putting it over a magnifying glass. In the moment of offense, how easily many of us assume, without prayer and with scarcely three seconds’ worth of thought, that we are only the observers of specks and logs, and not also the bearers of them. We hear her retort without remembering our own exasperating comment; we bristle at his third reminder while forgetting our own failure to communicate well. We quickly play the role of prosecutor, but refuse to cross-examine ourselves.
Those who “judge with right judgment” do not pass by others’ specks without comment, but they spend some time searching their own eyes before poking another’s. “First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:5).
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Stay close to Jesus. He leads his flock to safe pasture. If you follow him, you will undoubtedly belong to a flock of sheep. That’s just how it works. Don’t be afraid of belonging to a church community. The real threat is not about losing your autonomy but losing your very life to ravenous wolves. Jesus wants to protect you. He’s wants you to belong to his flock.

The safest place for a Christian to exist is in the midst of a church community. It’s always saddened me how quickly believers shift from church to church looking for a pastor who believes what they believe, people who look like they look, and an environment that is welcoming though not too intrusive. It has become increasingly common for Christians to leave the flock in pursuit of some idealized self. In essence, they attempt to shepherd their own soul while having the audacity to call it faith.
Sheep stink and they stand really close to each other. They don’t all look the same, but they all have similar inclinations. All sheep lack an ability to lead themselves anywhere safe. That’s why they need a shepherd, so they don’t go astray and get picked off by a wolf.
Without a flock, there can be no shepherd. Sure, a good shepherd will leave the ninety-nine to search for the missing one (Matthew 18:10-14), but the missing one originally belonged to a flock. They were not some solo or intentionally isolated sheep. They were lost. They strayed from the flock of God.
There is no thriving flock without a faithful shepherd. There is no content shepherd without a flock. The two must exist together.
Scripture refers to God’s people as sheep. If you are a follower of Christ, you are a sheep of His flock.
According to the Iowa Sheep Industry Association, “sheep are prey animals. It is flocking together in large groups that protect sheep from predators because predators will go after the outliers in the flock.”
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