Hello, I'm Cindy Mercer in. Welcome to our program, critically speaking, where we are talking with Jim Hammer, author of the book victory over a critical spirit. Welcome to the program, Jim.
Jim Hammer:Hi. Nice to be here with you and with our listeners.
Cindy Mercer:Yes, absolutely. Jim, you and I have had several discussions and we have been talking over some previous episodes. We've been talking a lot about a critical spirit we've been talking about are critical spirit and how it will we see it in others and we've been talking a lot about that, but you know, there are people that are even really critical to the point they've even suggested or brought up the fact that Jesus was critical. How do you respond to that Jim? Is that valid?
Jim Hammer:Well, it's kind of valid because Jesus rebuke the religious leaders, the walls to the Pharisees to remember, didn't criticize like we, like we. Jesus criticized with a broken heart, tears in his voice that He was wanting to bring them to repentance for their actions. And he knew that their very being from the time they were born to present time that uh, he was, uh, speaking with them. We don't know any of that when we criticize, we criticize with malice in our heart and uh, and we kinda Christianize or too, we will criticize somebody and then we'll tell them, well, I'll be praying for you when we gossip, we will then spread this whatever this tale, and then we christianize it and say, you know, we need to pray for that person where we should have been just praying to begin with and that spreading the situation any further. So, um, so we don't do it like Jesus. And what we have to remember also is that Jesus was willing to die for those he criticized. I don't want to say criticize those that he rebuked and uh, and we are not willing to do that. We're willing to criticize and rebuke somebody, but we're not willing to die for them.
Cindy Mercer:In your book, you said that not only was he willing to die for them, shed his blood, that he was willing to even give up heaven, itself, for the entire human race.
Jim Hammer:Yes. Wrap my mind around that.
Cindy Mercer:No, I can't either because I mean, we can agree that yes, I mean Jesus was, he was, um, how can we put this, I mean, he was basically constantly mocked. He was, you know, people were finding fault with him constantly and how did he respond
Jim Hammer:Always in a loving tender way and what we just shared about the religious leaders that basically came the last week of his life, the other, uh, five months and three weeks, or I'm sorry, the last three and a half years, five months and three weeks was shared with a healing and teaching and, and, uh, just guiding the people had a burden for them. But most people that want to criticize, we'll focus on that last week of Christ's life and forget that he was just within a matter of days going to be their lamb of God sacrificed for them,
Cindy Mercer:Jim I want to discuss something. I think that's really important because it really, we get to the point where we fund within the church, within our own families were just fault finding. But I want you to talk to us about how you know when Jesus was brought to the judgment hall, a Pallette, and they wanted him crucified. Share with us how a little bit about that, because we're the condemnation came from and relate it to today, how that's happening. Even within our church.
Jim Hammer:Pilot was a pilot and his wife were the only ones that stood up who actually defend Christ. Here they were. Gentiles didn't really have any. I don't know if they didn't have any spiritual inklings, but they surely were in Jews, but they all pilot said more than once. I find no fault in this man, too bad. He didn't have the inner strength to follow his convictions. But, uh, the condemnation came from the, within the church, within the church. They were condemning Christ outside of the church. A pilot and his wife were trying to defend him. So then we see it today and the churches that most of the criticism comes from within the Church of each other. And isn't that the way the enemy would want it? Especially of our pastors and our leaders that we sit back and just want to tear them down. And that's what the enemy would expect us to do it. That's what he wants us to do and he encourages us to do it. But again, it's our decision. We can bridle, bridle our tongue like James says, or we can just plug away and, and destroy somebody. We have to. And I liked this terminology, put you're mining gear before you open your mouth. And sometimes we have a hard time doing that. And the Lord is teaching me that too.
Cindy Mercer:Now Jim, what about, what about the person that says, well, don't we need to address known sin within the Church? Shouldn't we line these people out? How would you respond to that?
Jim Hammer:That's correct. Any known sin that goes on and on, and I was in two disfellowship meetings and both were in adulterous situations. And this just boggles my mind how somebody could think like this, but that both of these situations, when we, when we addressed it and we had prayed about it and talked to him and tried to encourage them to go in the direction that the Lord would want them to both situations. The couple said, well, we prayed about this and this is what the Lord wants us to do. And, uh, and I just can't understand somebody committing known sin constantly and thinking that's what the Lord wants them to do. That's how deceived we can be. You know in Matthew 24 before Christ even answered his disciples of the question was, what's going to be the same if you're coming before he even answered that, he said, be careful that you're not deceived and he said that four times in that chapter. He knows that we have a wally for who will do everything to deceive us. But as we are drawing closer and closer to the Lord, those things that we'll try to deceive us will just fall by the wayside.
Cindy Mercer:Jim we've all heard a familiar statement. And it says that we love the sinner but we don't like the sin. And so when we look at these situations were known, sin is happening. We don't want to have that condemning heart. We want to have the attitude of Christ. We want to, we want to really love that sinner and continue to pray for them because, because really, um, who are we to judge? And often that's what we do. We just sit there and again, we set it up like we want it, how it should work out and in our way, but with these, with these, these situations of the known sin, we, we certainly, there's enough criticism going on. We certainly need to reach out with a burdened heart. Like Jesus.
Jim Hammer:I mentioned these two couples that were committing adultery and thinking. Nothing wrong with it. The one couple moved out of the state, but, uh, the other couple of remaining close close by and I was able to talk to the man involved at different times and just asked them, have you made this right with the Lord? And uh, because I'm concerned about the salvation salvation issue and he's still even years later and did not see anything wrong with what he had, uh, had done. But before he died, you know, we're still in communication with his, his wife. Now they were married and before his day he died. His wife told us that he did request to be rebaptized, although he was bedridden he couldn't be. But, but, um, that gave me hope that I'm going to see him in the kingdom, that he didn't make everything right with the Lord. And that's why we had to add a burden for people's salvation when we look at somebody a not as we look at it through the eyes of Christ, you know, we look at them altogether different in Matthew Chapter six, verses 22 and 23 talks about the lamp of our lamp is the eye, our eye as we, um, as we look at things. And if, if, uh, eye is good looking for the good and the positive, that's how we will relate. But if our eye is evil and we're on this verse 23 for eye is evil, then we were looking at the negative and a fault finding things. So it's up to us know what type of a attitude do we want to have. Do we want to have a positive attitude or negative attitude? The positive in people who we want to look at the negative, it's our choice.
Cindy Mercer:And I think you say it very well in your book because Jesus is the light of the world, Jim. And what's our, what's our goal? We want to let his love and light flow through us to others, and you mentioned, and you talk about the fact that Jesus was inconvenienced every step of the way, but what did he do? Even though he was inconvenienced?
Jim Hammer:He kept going forward. You know when people tell me Jim I'm not comfortable doing this, or uh, you know, um, inconvenience if I do that, I just remind them that Jesus was not comfortable hanging on the cross either. He was inconvenienced, but he did it for us. And, uh, in fact I mentioned that every time this one president's wife conference, presidents, wife would mentioned something I'd say you know Jesus wasn't comfortable either when he was hanging on a cross. And she's say, no, tell me that.
Cindy Mercer:Well, I'm glad that you keep telling us that Jim, and you know, we really do want to represent Jesus every single step of the way.
Jim Hammer:You know, and I like this quote from the Desire of Ages, That every pang that was that rench His heart so taht was heaped uplon His head was open to His view before he laid aside his robe and a step down from the throne, the closes divinity with humanity. The path from the manger to calvary was before his eyes. He knew it all. And he said Lo' I come, just powerful, you know that Jesus seen all of that knew what he was going to go through. He says, I'm going to get my people.
Cindy Mercer:Jim, as we get ready to come to a close today, I hope that we can encourage our listeners and let them know that that yes, they're going to be situations where there's going to be some disharmony, but we can do our part by affecting it either in a positive way or a negative way, and then when we find that harmony together, it's going to be beautiful and, and I hope that if anything, our listeners will know that we do have an opportunity to have victory over critical spirit. Jim, I want to thank you for the time that you've shared with us today and I hope that you will join us again in a future episode, but for now that's all the time we have for today. Thank you for joining us on. Critically speaking, God bless.
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