Romans 14:1-21
We are not done with life as we live it; we shall meet it again, every act of it. We are not answerable to men. But we must never forget that there is One to whom we are all answerable. “Every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” The only true way to live, therefore, is to keep God always before us, and do each thing we do to please him. We have not to answer for other people, but neither can other people answer for us.
“Let us not therefore judge one another any more.” It is God alone to whom all men are responsible. Of course, if a man lies, or steals, or gets drunk, or forges another’s name, or beats his wife, it is not to be expected that nobody shall blame him. But there is a vast amount of fault finding, condemning and criticism that has to do with things of mere indifference in a moral way – people’s manners, their personal habits, their dress, their way of living, their private affairs.
“But judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block… in his brother’s way.” That is, we are to watch ourselves, not our brother. Instead of keeping our eye ever on others, looking for faults and mistakes in them, we are to look to our own example lest something we do may hurt their lives, or cause them to do wrong. If everyone would do this it would go far toward making a paradise of this world of thorns and briers. We dash at our neighbour’s eye to pull out some little mote we imagine we see in it, while at the same time we have a great beam in our own eye which sadly disfigures us and is a reproach to us in the sight of others. The habit of judging and condemning others, for example, is usually a great deal more serious blemish than any of the things we so glibly point out as flaws or faults. The first duty of every Christian is to make sure that he lays no stumbling blocks in other’s way. The other day a prominent man said, “I am very fond of wine and I believe I could drink moderately without danger to myself, but I never touch any kind of wine. I might set the example for some who could not drink moderately without becoming drunkards. My liberty would thus become a stumbling block to others.”
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