D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Spiritual Discernment

“Spiritual Judgment and Discernment”

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 7:6 “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.”

It is an extraordinary statement.

What does our Lord mean by this? Obviously He is referring to the Truth, which is holy, and which can be likened to pearls. What is this holy thing, this pearl to which He is referring? It is clearly the Christian message, the message of the kingdom, the very thing about which He is speaking Himself in this incomparable Sermon. What then does He mean?

We have to recognize that there is a class of person, who, with respect to the Truth, can be described as a ‘dog’ or as belonging to the ‘swine’.

What does it mean?

The best way to approach the problem is to look at it first of all in the light of our Lord’s own practice. What did He Himself do? The answer of Scripture is that He very clearly differentiated between person and person and type and type. He does not handle any two people in exactly the same way. At once you see certain differences. Look at the entire difference in His manner and method when He was confronting the Pharisees and when He was confronting the publicans and sinners.

Perhaps the best illustration of all is the one we encounter in Luke 23. When examined by Pilate, our Lord answered; but when He was questioned by Herod, who just had a morbid, unhealthy curiosity and was looking for signs and wonders, He answered him nothing. He would not speak to Herod (see vv. 3 and 9). Thus you see that our Lord, when dealing with people in terms of the same truth, dealt with them in different ways and accomplished His way of teaching to the person. He did not vary the truth, but He varied the particular method of presentation.

Then when you come to the practice of the apostles, you will find that they do precisely the same as their Lord, and carry out the injunction that is given here. In Acts 13:46 where Paul was preaching at Antioch and meeting the jealousy and envy and opposition of the Jews, we read that Paul and Barnabas were bold and said, ’It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first; but since you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles’. Paul is not going to continue presenting this holy thing, the Truth, to them.

You find exactly the same thing at Corinth where we read in Acts 18:6: ‘But when they opposed him and blasphemed, he shook his garments and said to them, “Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles”.’ Here, you see, are people to whom the truth has been presented; but they did the very thing our Lord prophesied. As dogs and swine, they turned opposed and blasphemed, and they stamped the truth under their feet. The reaction of the apostle is to turn away from them; he no longer presents the gospel to them.

There, it seems to me, is the right way to approach this statement which at first sight is somewhat perplexing, but it is an exhortation to us. We are told: ‘Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.’ How do we interpret this? What does it mean to us?

First and foremost it means that we must recognize the different types and persons, and we must learn to discriminate between them.

There is nothing so pathetic or so unscriptural as a mechanical way of testifying to others. There are some Christians who are guilty of that. We are all so different, and the same thing must be presented to different people in correspondingly different ways. The New Testament has always taught the necessity for preparation. We need to know our New Testament. Like the apostle Paul we must become ‘all things to all men’ that we may by all means save some.

The second principle is that we must not only learn to distinguish between one type and another; we must also become expert in knowing what to give to each type.

You do not handle a Pilate and a Herod in exactly the same way; you answer the question of a Pilate, but you say nothing to a Herod. We must see people as they really are and be sensitive to them. We have taken the beam out of our own eye, we have got rid of everything that is censorious, and we really are concerned about helping the other.

Our third principle is that we should be very careful as to the way in which we present the truth.

Apart from the truth itself the method of presentation must vary from person to person. We must be careful not to put truth in a way that is likely to be offensive to any type of person. For instance, to go to an unbeliever and say, ‘Are you saved?’ is not the scriptural method. The effect of such a question on him will be to produce this response that our Lord is describing, the reaction of the dog and the swine, the trampling and the rending, the blasphemy and the cursing. And we must always be careful not to give anyone cause to blaspheme or to curse.

The fourth principle is that we must learn to know what particular aspect of the truth is appropriate in particular cases.

This means that in the case of an unbeliever we should never present to him anything but the doctrine of justification by faith only. He will often be anxious to discuss other doctrines, but we must not allow it. The account given in John 4 of our Lord’s interview with the woman of Samaria is a perfect illustration of this point. She wanted to discuss various matters, and the Being of God, how and where to worship, and the differences which separated the Jews and the Samaritans. But our Lord would not allow it. He kept bringing her back to herself, to her sinful life, to her need of salvation.

But this applies not only to unbelievers; it applies also to believers.

Paul tells the church at Corinth that he cannot give them strong meat; he had it, but he could not give it to them because they were still babes. We are called upon to exercise this discrimination in all directions. If we are really to be witnesses and presenters of the truth we must pay attention to these things.

We should now draw some general deductions which are of grave importance.

Do you notice the first obvious implication on the surface?

There is not a single statement in Scripture that gives a more awful picture of the devastating effect of sin upon man as this verse. The effect of sin and evil upon man as the result of the Fall is to make us, with respect to the truth of God, dogs and swine. It gives him an antagonism to truth.

Sin makes man hate God. What a terrible thing sin is! You can see the reactions in the world today. Present the truth to certain people and they snarl at it.

Talk about the blood of Christ, and they laugh and make jokes about it, and spit upon it. Sin turns man into something hateful, utterly opposed to God and to purity, and holiness, and truth. We are all guilty at this point by nature.

Then there is a second matter; the nature of the truth.

Truth is very varied, truth is very full. It is not all exactly the same; there are different varieties, such as milk and strong meat. There is truth in the Scripture which is appropriate to the very beginner; but, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, we must also ‘go on unto perfection’.

The question we must ask ourselves is, am I growing in my knowledge? Am I hungering and thirsting after this higher doctrine? There are certain secrets in the Bible which only God’s children can appreciate.

But if we are growing in grace, these doctrines will become more and more precious. If you find that some of these great and mighty expositions of truth which you have in the Epistles say nothing to you, examine yourself, and ask yourself why you cannot take in these truths. There is a distinction to be drawn between first principles and more advanced principles. There are people who spend their lifetime in the realm of apologetics and who never go on to deeper spiritual truths. They remain as babes in the Christian life.

Lastly, God’s normal way of presenting truth is through His servants expounding the word of God. Think of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 going back from Jerusalem. He had his Scriptures and was actually reading them, when Philip approached him and said: ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ And he replied, ‘How can I unless someone guides me?’

Exposition is generally necessary, and you cannot do away with the human instrument as a general rule. We must all feel that we have been lazy. It is not quite as easy as we sometimes seem to think, and if we take the Word of God seriously, we shall see the vital need of study and preparation and prayer. Let us maintain a true balance and a due sense of proportion in these things, for the good of souls and in order that we may give a balanced, full-orbed representation of the truth of God.