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***The following is an unedited auto-generated transcript and may contain serious errors and speakers other than Dallas Willard. It is included here to assist your study. Please check the original audio for an authentic record of the event.

Dallas: Now this is one of the more frightening ones on this theme, and I want to bring the ones which are frightening, because I want to try to deal today mainly with the way this spirit of giving is limited so that people are blessed and not hurt. Every good thing can be abused. Every good thing can be abused. That I guess is a part of what it means to be in a fallen human condition. But every good thing can be abused by misunderstanding and misapplying, and we have to above all remember this when we were studying the teachings of Jesus, because they have indeed been abused and especially as we studied the Sermon on the Mount, we picked up one thing after another that has been taken and misapplied and turned into something which was wrong and harmful.

In the book of Acts in the second chapter, this is after the time when Peter spoke with such power and there was a community of a new sort that had been formed, and in the 41st verse and following, then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day they were added unto them about three thousand souls, and these people continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers, and reverence or awe came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles, and then all that believed were together and had all things in common. They sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all, that is, all of the group as every man had need, and they continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added daily unto the church such as should be saved.

Later on in the fourth chapter, the 32nd verse and following, the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul, neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. Next skip of verse, neither was there any among them that lacked, for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them down at the feet of the apostles and distributions made unto every man according as he had need, and he mentions Barnabas. So land brought the money, laid it at the apostle’s feet.

Now first of all something that might shock you, there is no indication that this was necessarily the right thing to do. It was something which was done, it obviously had some good effects, but there is no indication that this was the right thing to do, and indeed in the community of the faithful in the kingdom of God, it isn’t always a matter of things being clearly right or clearly wrong, it is oftentimes a matter of attempting to understand what would be profitable for the progress of the kingdom, taking the risk of perhaps being a little wrong or a little right here and going ahead and trying to do something interesting in God.

God does not sky write his instructions for every moment of the day. If he did, that would move our faith into something of knowledge. It’s like the person who is virtuous as long as the house detective is looking. That’s pretty shady virtue, wouldn’t you think? And our faith is to stand in something other than the obviousness of two plus two equals four. It is to stand in the trust of God beyond what we can see, beyond what can be certified by all of the methods that might be handed to us by our society around us.

So there is a place in faith for adventure, and where there is no adventure, there is no faith. Where there is no readiness and openness to experience and find out and possibly be wrong, there is no faith. I am very concerned to stress that because right now in the religious life of America, no matter what kind of denomination of a church or anything you go into, you tend to find people who are pretty well hung on the methods of the past, and they’re attempting to perpetrate their own denomination, their own work, simply by using methods which were certified somehow by others before them, but they don’t know how to update and put into a current context.

And like we were talking last time, it’s one thing to talk about love. What does that mean, where I live? It’s one thing to talk about, for example, in our meeting here, the Quaker tradition of quietness and peace. What does that mean for us today? What does that mean in this group? Now when we make out a bulletin on Sunday, we can have a section there which says, Silent Worship. Well, let’s all stand up and shout, now what’s that going to mean to us, huh? What does it mean to us? You can’t have that reality just by putting the word in the book. And we have to think concretely about what these things mean. And that’s where there is a necessity for adventure in the spiritual life, for experimentation, for being willing to do something you might just possibly be wrong.

You know what happens to business establishments when they are run by people who will not take the chance of being wrong? They go out of business. And sooner or later, they go out of business. That doesn’t justify rash judgments, you can go out of business that way, too. But the business establishment, which is not willing to take a chance on being wrong, to risk something, never finds out, and it’s exactly the same way in the life of the believers. The person who is not willing to put themselves on a limb with God, they have to be back clinging to the trunk all alone, hanging on.

I’m tempted always in that connection to tell the story of a cat that we used to have that got up in a tree and the owl attacked it, and I had to get a ladder and climb up and pull that cat loose from the tree. She took the bark with it, and as soon as she turned the bark loose, she grabbed ahold of me. She was just scared to death, paralyzed, holding on to the trunk of that tree. He was a Siamese cat, and you know, they know how to get up, they know how to get down. They haven’t heard about, you know, reverse, like alley cats have, they know they have a reverse in them, but Siamese cats don’t have reverse if it’s down. So we’re very often like that, we’re caught hanging on to something that is certain rather than being willing to go forward and take a chance with something that just might be wrong.

Now this is very important for us to understand in the present context. We read last time about reaching out to people, not just physical needs, but spiritual needs as well, feeding the hungry, giving those who are thirsty something to drink, clothing those who are naked, just being helpful and loving. But I wanted to spend more time today talking about how that is to be limited and kind of laying down some principles that may help us in understanding what we’re doing. Then I want to look at some further passages of Scripture where the early church tried to deal with this in a very concrete setting, because they did. I’ll show you a passage in a moment where they had even orders within the early church where they attempted to help people with very good, solid, physical needs, as well as spiritual needs.

But first of all, I just want to lay down some principles to guide us, and in part these are not rules, but they are truths which we need to accept or we’re going to make shipwreck in one way or another by attempting to love in the concrete relations of our lives.

The first of these is we have to accept the fact that we are limited creatures. That isn’t as easy as it may sound. We are not God. We do not have an inexhaustible supply of attention or time or material resources or love. In fact, most of us are very limited in this respect, very limited. Most of our attention and time of necessity has to go to ourselves. I am better equipped to brush my teeth, take my own baths, thank you, than you are to give them to me. Why? Well, just because of the factual way I’m related to myself. Have you ever tried to brush anybody else’s teeth? Sure, if you had kids, you’ve tried that. And it can be done. But it’s something very thankful when we can come to the time when they can do it for themselves.

Now most of our time and attention and material resources in the nature of the case goes to ourselves and to our immediate family. We have a very small supply, and we have to see that and accept it because there are many wrong teachings that are put forward in the name of the Church and of Christ in this respect. Many people are taught and told that somehow they are going to save the lives of other people, that they are going to be responsible for the redemption, whether it’s in the economic realm or the spiritual realm, and you can interpret that as getting into heaven when you die or getting into eternal life here and now. And they are taught and told these things in a very harmful way.

You are not going to save the souls of other people. God may use you in the process of Him saving those souls, but you are not going to save the souls of other people. And when it comes to making material provisions for other people, there are severe limits as to what you can do, severe limits as to what you can do or I can do in that regard. Even if you are a millionaire, there are severe limits of what you can do in that regard. When you look at the need, it doesn’t matter if you are hard-used, if you look at the needs as far as material things are concerned and you start trying to meet those needs directly, your cash barrel is going to be emptied pretty fast. And if you want any proof of that, I recommend to you a close look at the budget of the United States of America. Just look at it and you will see something there. And that’s the biggest business in the world. That’s the biggest business establishment in the world is the United States government.

Now, we have then this fact which we have to understand, and then we have to be very careful with it. Because if we aren’t careful with it, we will do what the guy with the one pound did. Do you remember what he did? He went and hid it. So we attempted then to take the little that we have, and especially if we are worried about taking care of ourselves, that complicates matters too. And go hide it. That’s a mistake. That’s a mistake. So just hold that one, and we will come back to it later. How are we going to handle that particular mistake of trying to love other people? We will come back to that later, all right?

But I want to go on to another thing or two before getting there. Now, with the supply of goods, time, and attention, and love that I have, where do my responsibilities lie? Beyond myself, they lie primarily with those whom God has placed in my life by circumstances. They lie to my family. They lie to my close neighbors. They lie to my old friends. And above all, they lie to my comrades, my brothers and sisters in the way of Christ.

Now, why do they lie there? They lie there for the simple reason that there I can do the most good with what I have. Helping another person depends upon two things in the main. First of all, the knowledge of the need and how it can be met. If I don’t know other people, I can’t help them. This is why very often just handing money to people is a destructive act. It can be a destructive act. I can hurt people by just handing money to them. This may be my child. It may be a perfect stranger. I have to know the circumstances of that person’s life, and I have to be able to know that by giving them something, it’s going to do good for them and not evil.

I don’t care, I can talk about how warm I felt in my heart when I handed that man that twenty dollars. But if he goes out and buys a gun with it to shoot someone he hates, I’m responsible in part for that action. Not you say, well, I didn’t know. I didn’t know he was going to do that. Okay. How much did you imply into that person’s life? See, this is why very often when we give money to people, we’re just buying a little cheap, easy conscience. We give them money and get them out of our lives. And it’s a way of saying, okay, I can give you this. Don’t ask me for anything more. Don’t get close to me. Don’t get close to me. I don’t want to get involved. I’ll risk twenty dollars on you, you know, like putting twenty dollars on some horse and raise all fours. But I don’t want to get involved in your life. I don’t want to know about what’s going on.

And, of course, there are some times, there are some times when you can’t. Your time and your attention are limited, and you sometimes cannot because you’re already involved in so many other things. But at that point we have to remember that we shouldn’t use money as conscience salve. And perhaps it is more advisable in some cases not to give to a person than it is to give. Not to give than it is to give. I would say that when I stop because I want it to soak in and need to have time like everything I say to reject it. I hope you’ll reject it thoughtfully. I hope you’ll reject it thoughtfully if you do. Or if you accept it, I hope you’ll accept it thoughtfully.

Sometimes it is better not to give than to give. You have to understand the circumstances and know that you are doing good or what you will do is you will come away feeling real good and you will have bought yourself a little bit of self-righteousness is what you will have done. You will have bought yourself a little bit of self-righteousness and you will go down the street enjoying that, but it won’t have done anyone any good other than just that little self-righteousness that you give. It’s just like when Jesus says when you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites. They stand on the street corner and pray and you, did you notice the phrase in there? He says, barely I say unto you they have their reward. He’s saying they got what they wanted. They stood up, they blew the horn and they prayed and everybody said, ah, gee, he’s praying. You know, he’s praying. So that’s what they wanted, right? So they got what they wanted. And if a person is buying conscience, sad, by giving a little, little money, okay, just as long as you know what you’re doing and as long as you know also that you may be hurting that person by the gift.

One of the great harms that has come from the abuse of Jesus’ teachings is the application of responsibility for making judgments about this. It’s like I’ve known people who say, you never restrain evil. Jesus said, don’t resist evil. So if you see someone shooting down people, you don’t do anything to stop them. Jesus said, give unto him that asketh of thee, and from him that would borrow thee, turn not away. So a man says, come on, borrow that gun, shoot this guy over here. He says, okay. Jesus said, give unto him that asketh of thee, because he borrowed thee, so here’s the gun, shoot him. All right? So you understand that the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life, and that Jesus taught for the spirit of the law.

But many people who have not gone beyond the righteousness as the scribes and the Pharisees take Jesus’ words, turn them into laws, and say, aha, I’m beyond it because I’m doing what he said in a legalistic sense, then they’re not beyond it at all, it’s the same thing. And they can look around at the waste that they have made by their irresponsible judgments and by their lack of love and say, oh, well, that’s what Jesus said. I’m driving my family crazy. I’m hurting people all around me, but Jesus said, do it.

We have to understand that our responsibilities are determined by the effect of our gift. And the nature of the case is such that our main responsibilities in helping lie to those who are connected with us in the ordinary affairs of life. See, many people teach that when Jesus came, he gave this special new way which sort of lifted you out of the ordinary affairs of life and got you functioning on this transcendental level where all is rosy. But that is false. Jesus did not come to put us on a new level. He didn’t come to give us a new culture. He came to redeem the relation of husband and wife, parent and child, sibling to sibling, of employer to employee, of neighbor to neighbor, of governor to governor. He came to redeem those. He came to inform them with love and to show how they could be made non-destructive by placing them in the light and in the presence of God. That’s what it is to be in the presence of God.

So we don’t look for special occasions. It’s like witnessing. Witnessing is not something you decide to do one night of the week. You may decide to do something on one night of the week and it may be a good thing. Witnessing is something you do all the time, just like breathing. Your witness continues. If your witness is one of hatred and mistrust and hardness of heart six days of the week, it’s not going to be changed when you go out on Thursday night or Friday night or Saturday night and decide to lay something on somebody. It’s not going to be changed. Your heart will still be hard. Your life will still be filled with fear, meanness, bitterness, and no matter how big your words may be, that spirit will come through. That is what you communicate to the people you talk to.

Now I want to return to some slightly more specific matters. We have this little bit of the world’s goods that are entrusted to us. Time. You can’t save it. You can’t kill it. You can’t spend it. It just flows. It just flows. You can’t do anything about it. Attention, material goods. What are you going to do with it? The problem here is one of management. You have to see it in that light.

There are many folk who will agree that we should do these kinds of things, but they say my circumstances are not such that I could. I cannot be liberal with my children. I cannot be liberal with my neighbor or my mate. There’s so much bitterness even within families because of the griping, bitter spirit of illiberality which governs fathers and mothers and parents of all sorts, whether they’re fathers or mothers, maybe grandfathers and grandfathers, uncles, aunts, guardians, or whatever, as well as the children. And the child who does not experience liberality in the family may never find it outside of the family. For many people, an almost unbreakable barrier to God is the first two words of the Lord’s prayer, our Father, and many of them have never been able to get beyond the concrete meaning of those two terms, their lives. And see God as a loving, gracious, liberal God who loves to give and loves to forgive. And any person who comes short of that doesn’t know the God that Jesus revealed. We have to find that experience in ordinary relations of life.

Now, here the problem comes to me. I can help maybe certain people with certain of my needs. The first thing I have to do is decide what am I going to do with what I’ve got, and I have to be responsible in that judgment. I have to look at what I have and I have to say how much is right and good for being spent within my family, give within my family, to give outside of my family. Now, remember I say spent, but I’m not just talking about money. I have to make the decision as to what I’m going to do with what I have now, and that is not an easy matter. It isn’t something which, again, God is going to sky write a formula for us. And it’s going to vary depending, for example, are there children in the home, how old are those children, what are their needs, what sorts of relationship there is between the husband and wife, what sort of relationship there is to other people who may be involved in the home, other kin folks, or whatever, however people are put into that home.

I have to make a decision about that on the basis of love. Now, what is love? Love is a well-reasoned concern for the well-being of everyone involved in the act. Love is not obsessive. It does not concentrate on one person. Now, if you forget everything else I say today, will you please remember this? Love is not obsessive. It is not tunnel vision. It does not concentrate itself on one person and disregard everyone else. Love is a well-reasoned concern for the well-being of everyone involved in the act. And my main sins of love come from disregarding that. I help one person and hurt two others. Love is not obsessive. It looks at everyone involved.

Now, this is the point at which, above all, we have to remember the spirit of the law as opposed to the letter of the law. Because you know why the letter of the law kills? It is always tunnel vision. The law concentrates you in one spot and disregards the rest. It’s in the nature of the case. A law can’t do anything else. You can’t write all the context of a traffic law in, can you? I mean, you have to say certain definite things about certain definite acts and go on to something else. You can’t write all the context of a law in, even to a traffic law. Back at the use of the law, there has to be a spirit that sees the whole, the whole thing. And when I come to this first important area of deciding what I must do, with my present means, I have to have that wide, wide vision lens of where I can see the whole situation.

Now, just this before I go on to the second thing that I have to do. When a man gets drunk, he may do things which are bad, and in a certain sense not be responsible for those actions. His first responsibility is for getting drunk. In the matter of loving and giving to others, we very often say, I can’t. And that has the advantage of putting us in a position of not having to say, no, I can’t, but I won’t, and taking the responsibility for our judgment lets us off the hook. So we say, well, I can’t. But on the other hand, sometimes we really can’t. We really can’t do it.

Now, the question is, why can’t we? Why can’t we? And it may very well be that our basic failure in certain situations, I say, may I know that this is often the case, is not derived from the immediate act of refusal, but from a refusal to look at our whole life and see what we can do and decide what we can do and have a plan of action for handling the affairs of life. And so our first question is, have you planned what you’re going to do? Have I planned what I’m going to do with my resources? Have I done that? If I haven’t, that is my basic failure, that is my basic failure.

Second stage. We have not only to decide what we’re going to do with our current resources in the present, we also have to ask ourselves, what are we going to do about the future? For example, I’ll illustrate this with something which may make another point at the same time. If I go to people and say, look, would you teach a Sunday school class? Very often they say, oh, no, no, no, I can’t do a Sunday school class. I don’t know how. I can’t. I’m prepared. Well, the next question is, what are you doing to get prepared to be able to do it six months from now? What are you doing to get prepared to do it six months from now? And if your answer is nothing. That’s where the dereliction shows up at that point. And very often what we do is we don’t plan, and consequently we stay perpetually unable to respond to the needs of our enemies.

Now our responsibility is not in the moment to teach the class we’re unprepared to teach any more than it’s the responsibility of the man who’s seen double not to see double. He shouldn’t have drunk that last eyeball, or probably the first one. So there’s no point in saying to him, look, stop seeing double. There’s no point to say to a person who’s unprepared to teach, come on, teach it anyway, if that may probably be a disaster. But what is he doing to prepare himself to bear the responsibilities of teaching?

Now what are we doing to prepare ourselves to bear the responsibilities of ministering to those with needs of all sorts? This means not just individually, but also as a group. What are we doing as a group of believers together to meet the needs of people around us? To meet them in such a way that we’ll not destroy ourselves, not destroy them, but that everyone will be helped and everyone will be happier, we’ll know more of the goodness and the grace of God in the world we live in.

What are we doing about that? Are we just drifting in here on Sundays, and if there is a program to be run, a bulletin printed, and things happen at the right time, is that the work of God? What are we doing to meet the needs of people? What are we doing to meet the needs of people who have police records and can’t get jobs? To meet the needs of people who are in trouble with their families? To meet the needs of people who really are hungry for some food? There we’ve got a pantry, haven’t we? We have a bear pantry. We barely have a pantry or something like that. Anyway, we do have a pantry, bear or otherwise. So there’s something concrete and definite.

But now look, if we just concentrate on that sort of thing and don’t get on to the deeper needs of helping the people who come through these doors, ourselves included, deal with the things that are killing them. When we stand up before the Lord and He says, what have you been doing down there? Oh, I’ve been singing hymns, been going out and getting people to come to church and other things like that. What about the hungry people? What did you do to the people when they got to church? And you say to them, well, I see you’re hungry, well, depart in peace, be warm until notwithstanding, I’ll give you that. Is that what’s going to happen? It may, unless we are willing to plan and think what we’re going to do with ourselves, what we’re going to do together. We’re just going to perpetrate something in the way of a building, a denominational program, it certainly is no small thing if we do prepare people to go to heaven when they die. If I had my choice, I’d prepare everyone for that. That’s a very important sort of thing.

You see, unless we deal with the needs of the people that are around us, to the best of our ability, we’re simply faithful. We’re simply faithful. That’s all.

Now, their needs may be more than we can meet. Now, I want to say something that’s very hard, okay? Very hard. And you will be unhappy with me for it probably, and that’s all well that I didn’t really say. You’ll read the scriptures, you will find set forth something which we know to be a fact anyway. And this is one of the most discouraging things in trying to help other people. We’re not going to be able to help everyone. There are some people who are just going to go down, period. They don’t have to go down, but they will. They’re going to go down, and they’re not going to come up.

Paul the Apostle refers to this class of people as being vessels of wrath fitted for destruction. Those are not my words. But you must understand that there are some people who are going to choose not to follow the counsel of God. They’re going to have all kinds of rationalizations and reasons. In part, these are going to be under their control. In part, they’re not going to be under their control. In part, they’re going to be the victims of things which have been set upon them, but the ultimate outcome is going to be all the same. They may come and try for a while, then they will find out that there is nothing here for them, and they will go their way.

The basic structure of all of that is, the mark of the person is, he wants religion to be something he can use for his purposes. He wants Christ to fit into his life by giving him what he wants. And they miss the simplicity of the gospel, and they may hear that whosoever will may come, and that indeed is true, and I hope you will take that verse home with you along with the talk about vessels of wrath fitted for destruction. Whosoever will may come, they will hear that, and they will come, and they will say, Oh, well, I confess the Lord, believe in my heart, and all of a sudden I’ll get all the things I want. It doesn’t work that way.

People who are willing indeed to submit themselves to discipleship, to Jesus, will find something much better than they ever dreamed of. But you don’t come and use God. And the basic offense of all idolatry is, an idol is something which is shaped by land for his own purposes. Now, that idol may have all kinds of Christian sounding names strung all over it, but you can always tell by looking at the simple fact, is this person trying to use the way of Christ to get what he or she wants? And that person spiritually has their head on backwards. And if it doesn’t get straightened out at some point, they will either go down under the circumstances of lack, or they will turn and walk away and find some alternative route in the way of Christ in which they can hold themselves together until they die out of some natural cause.

This is what Jesus is talking about when he says, The man comes to me and calls me Lord, Lord, that doesn’t mean anything unless he does what I say. To confess that Jesus is Lord is to say, I take his way, I take up his cross and follow him. What he says I do. I rest in his goodness. I trust him. And I trust his God. That’s what it is to confess Christ is Lord. It isn’t to adhere to some theory of the atonement about how all the blood that spread out on Calvary was carried up to heaven and weighed in the balances, and you’ve got a certain part of that allotted to you, that is junk. When people say that that’s what you’ve got to believe, Jesus never said it, Paul never said it, nobody ever said it, and it’s wrong. If you want to be saved, you submit yourself to Christ and the circumstances of your life. And you’ll be saved.

We have to have that on very clear and very straight. And if we don’t get what we want out of it right away, that’s all right. If we be patient with the Lord, he’ll bring us into it. It’s his work in us. Our work is simply one of surrender and openness and willingness.

See, I return to this this morning because I’m concerned how people constantly miss the simplicity of it, and yet the profound profundity of it. Paul says, Thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God has raised him, and that thou shalt be saved. The Jews came to Jesus and said, What should we do that we might work the works of God? And Jesus said, Believe on him who gets it. Simple. Simple, yet profound. But the belief to believe on him is to surrender to him. Because to believe on him is to understand that he is Lord. Oh no, he doesn’t want to be your Lord and you won’t let him. He is your Lord. He is my Lord. He is the Lord of the whole universe. There isn’t anyone anywhere that he isn’t the Lord of. That’s where we start. The only question is whether or not you will accept that, or whether you will remain in rebellion against it, regardless of how you sing, shout, call yourself, or whatever. Because there’s no safety in the labels. There’s only safety in submission.

When we get that settled, then we still have troubles, and we still do things that are wrong, and we still have heartaches, and we still don’t know a million things. But if there’s one thing that is settled, it will all come right in time. And that is if we have it settled, that he is our Lord by claim, and not just by fact. There is no safety in anything else but that. And you must remember that. Because if you don’t, there are all kinds of things that will happen. Bad circumstances without will happen. You will fail inside. You will commit sins, which will throw you off the track. Everybody sins but me. So you’d better be careful. And they’ll throw you off the track. And you will fall back away from grace, and you’ll start in trying to save yourself again. You have to have it fixed. That the central and safe point is simply submission of yourself to Jesus as Lord. He is Lord. You submit yourself to him. You take his way, and everything else will come right, including all of these details about how to give.

Now when you get that settled, and you get in a situation where there is a problem of giving, then all such things as self-justification, a desire to manipulate others and save their souls and all that just goes out the window. And you are in a position to plan what you’re going to do about giving. And you’re also in a position to take the greatest gift of all, which are your prayers for those around you. And use them, because you know who is at the center of the universe. You know him as personal freedom. And he knows you. And consequently, you know that you can pray for others and something will happen that is good for you. You know that you can handle people through God.

Now, if you can’t do that, if you can’t do that, probably you’re going to be mainly crushed by the tragedies around you. Because if you want to give and want to love people, you’re going to get into their lives, and they’re going to get into yours. And when you get in there, you are going to find the bitterness and sorrow and tragedy that is wrecked. Wrecked their happiness and their joy, wrecked their purpose. You’re going to find that. And you’re going to see people who are being destroyed and who are destroying others. And if all you have to rely on is you, boy, that’s bad news. That is bad news indeed. And probably the very frantic way in which you start trying to adjust everything will ruin it.

You can’t love people without being driven to prayer by that love. Because when you love people, you begin to understand that what you want for them is far beyond your power. If you only want for them what you can give them, you don’t love them. Forget it. If that’s all you want for them, just what you can manage to give them, you don’t know what love means. On the other hand, if you really love them, you’re going to be driven to God in prayer because you know only He can provide them.

To cap that off, I want to read some verses out of the seventh chapter of Matthew to show you how this works within the context of the kingdom of God, the good news of the kingdom of God, because it is good news. We don’t have to manage people. When we come to give to them to help them, we are not managing them. And the most despicable of things I think I’ve ever seen is people who ring bells. No. Not at all. We have to have that bell or they’d never get me shut up. They’re going to have to start ringing three times, I think.

One of the most despicable things I have ever seen is the person who will give bread to a person, well, either kind of bread, give goods to people within the attempt to manipulate their soul instead of giving it to them because they’re hungry and they need it. All of that goes out.

Now, I want to read the first verses in the seventh chapter of Matthew and I will quit. You will find here two ways in which we try to manage others. And then the right way of dealing with others. Judge not that you be not judged. We try to knock people around with judgments. They’re very potent, aren’t they? For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged, and with what measure you meet, it shall be measured unto you again. Why beholdest thou the moat that is in thy brother’s eye, but consider is not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the moat out of thine eye, and behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam, and then thou shalt see clearly, cast out the moat out of thy brother’s eye.

Now, the important thing about that verse is it shows us that there is a place for judgment, but it is to be judgment with a clear eye. And it is to be a subordinate place. It is a very subordinate place for judgment.

Again, there is a way of managing people not by condemning them, but by trying to stuff what is good for them down their throats. Give not that which is holy unto the dogs. Why? Because no matter how holy it is, it’s not going to help the dog. I quote in scriptures to a dog with a stamper. It won’t heal him. He needs to see a veterinarian, or probably is even too late for that. Neither cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet. Pigs don’t appreciate pearls. They’d rather have corn. And turn again and rend you.

How then are we to deal with other people? We’re to ask, and it shall be given. We’re to seek, and we shall find. We’re to knock, and it shall be opened. For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you whom, if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a sermon? If ye, then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father, which is in heaven, give good things unto them that ask?

Now, do you see that therefore? Therefore, because of this structure of prayer, therefore we’re able to go ahead and all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do so, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets. Please circle that therefore. Because when we come to help people and to follow the law of love, we only do it because we know that we live in a universe where prayer is answered.

Will you think about that this week? I’m giving the same scripture assignments, the same memorization for next week as this week, and if you’ll just use that sheet, I just thought I would postpone it a week so that we can go and spend this time today on the matters which we’ve been dealing with. Because it is so important that we understand how the law of love has built into it the controls. If we would just understand them, built into it the controls which will enable us both to go out to other people and to do it safely in such a way that they’re not hurt and we’re not hurt, but that all are blessed together. So let’s, if you will, think about this and perhaps we’ll have time to discuss it individually or together in some group or other and see if we can’t get down to where we can really reach out to the world in the way which Jesus clearly taught and was clearly practiced in the New Testament.