To take the mote out of a brother's eye is a tender task. The point is that we are to take the mote out and not the eye. How often we do it with red-hot pokers and prescribe and apply carbolic acid and vitriol as an eyewash! If it is their feet we cleanse we wash them with water--yes! scalding water. We dry them with a towel--yes! but of sand-paper. And if we operate on their spiritual anatomy we employ such delicate surgical instruments as buzz-saws and hydraulic drills and it is against our principles to administer anaesthetics. The word of God is used as a sword in public ministry, but you cannot use a sword on an injured eye. What you need for such work is the tender sympathy of the finger of God. The beam in our own eye is too often a magnifying glass that makes our fellows' motes seem as large as mountains. In 1 Corinthians 8:11 Paul refers to the "weak brother" and immediately adds "for whom Christ died." The best place to bring your brother when you would remove his mote is back to the cross of Calvary. The "weak brother for whom Christ died" acquires new values there. And when you are near the cross you are more apt to follow His method of correction. What sorry oculists we are in the spiritual sphere! Always prescribing something to STING instead of to SOOTHE. And we may well remember that even in a case where sight seemed altogether gone (Rev.3:18) it is a SALVE that is recommended. |
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