Sermon: Casting Pearls

The Perils of Evangelism
#1723
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 19-Aug-23; 83 minutes 2023-08-19

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As you know, I have been going through the Sermon on the Mount and I decided to let you know why I decided to do this. I started almost a year ago, I think, but I thought (maybe this will give you some insight into my thinking) that this is my first go around as a pastor and it would be a good idea to touch base with the Boss' sermon here because it is the foundation for what He taught. And I thought, well, what would be a better way than to go through the Sermon on the Mount and get those, I will not call them basic because they are not basic at all, but those foundational teachings reestablished.

That was about the same time I told the men who give sermonettes and sermons to occasionally throw in some basic material because we have a lot of kids and people who have just come into the church and it would be a good idea to rehearse some of those things, some of which they may have not have heard in a while or not at all. Of course, this was before my dad had died. But, I knew from observing him that he probably would not serve again, so in thinking it through, I decided this is what I do.

So now we are already up to chapter 7, verse 6. And that is where Jesus tells His disciples not to give what is holy to dogs or to cast pearls before swine. And if you want a title (I normally do not tell you my titles), but this one is "Casting Pearls." We are going to be on this verse for the whole sermon because it is an important principle that we need to learn. And it is something Jesus gave us out of love for us so that we could make certain determinations and avoid a lot of trouble.

Matthew 7:6 [He tells us] "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."

This proverbial saying is enigmatic just in its own right, just by itself, not to mention that it is enigmatic in the sense of how does it connect to what came before and also what can comes after. Sometimes the commentators have a hard time seeing the transition in the subject matter and in this case, they do it a lot. They just sometimes shake their head, "I don't know why Jesus would say this next." But hopefully we will be able to at least connect it, today, to what came before.

And of course, as this is the only place in all four gospels that this particular proverbial saying is mentioned, we do not get any help from the other gospel writers. You know, sometimes the gospel writers will take the same material and they will use maybe a few different words or they will cast it in a way that makes the meaning more obvious or at least give you some help in understanding it. But since this is a one-off in the gospels, it has to stand by itself and we have to learn about it through context and word meanings and the general teaching of Jesus Christ.

Now, in studying this verse, it is obvious that it is about dogs and pigs, and that is where our mind usually comes to rest. We come to rest on dogs and pigs. Maybe you are of a higher sort and you do think about holy things and pearls. But for most people, we think about dogs and pigs; we are more familiar with dogs and pigs, I think. It made me think of the 1995 movie "Babe," in which dogs and pigs, especially pigs, were front and center. They share the screen and it is a pretty good movie, I thought.

In that movie, if you will remember, Australian farmer, Farmer Hoggett, wins a piglet at a country fair, so he brings it home. And on Hoggett Farm, the pig, who was named Babe (Babe named himself, he was Babe), bonds with a motherly border collie named Fly and it is not long before he discovers, after following after the dogs, that he can herd sheep. Pigs herding sheep, it is unheard of (get the pun). With Fly's help and Farmer Hogget's intuition, Babe embarks on a career in shepherding with some very surprising results. He actually—spoiler alert!—learns the language of sheep and can do his work with ease.

But anyway, as funny as it was, I like the music better. It has got some really great classical music in it. And if you are interested in that, it was especially Camille Saint-Saëns Symphony No. 3, which is just beautiful.

Anyway, the film glorified pigs just about as much as possibly could be done. And I cannot remember whether the fascination with pot-bellied pigs as pets was ongoing at the time or whether the film actually spurred it along. I do not have very good ability to put memories with actual years and dates and stuff like that, but it seemed like that was all going on at the same time.

But the practice of having pigs in your house has always disgusted me. You go to a pet store or whatever and you get this cute little pig that you can carry around and like 15 minutes later it is 600 pounds and you cannot get it out of your living room. That just is not to me very good, not healthy. Pigs belong in a pig sty. That is what I am trying to tell you. Not the living room, because pigs generally are nasty, dirty, smelly, foul creatures that will eat anything and everything. And with a 4 foot intestine, they tend to leave noisome messes around everywhere they go. And when they get older, especially if they are boars, they get mean and cruel and vicious, and they will do exactly what Jesus said there in Matthew 7:6. They will turn and rend you at the drop of a hat.

I do not know if you are aware, but when they went boar hunting in the Middle Ages, they went with very long boar spears. They were like eight or 10 feet long and they had a crossbar for the handle end. The handle was a few feet long and it had a crossbar there. And the reason was that the pigs, the boars that they found in the forest, would charge them, you know, go full tilt and they would run up the spear as it was going down their throat and into their bodies. And if you did not have the crossbar there to stop it at their jaw, they would continue right into the hunter. So that is wild boars for you!

As you can tell, I do not have much respect for them.

And, you know, when it comes down to it, dogs are not much better, especially wild dogs. But we have made our peace with dogs, especially the domesticated ones. And they are better than pigs in terms of the fact that we usually do not eat them. I mean, pigs are bad, dogs would be worse, I think. But we call them man's best friend. And on the one hand, they are great creatures. On the other hand, they are almost as disgusting as pigs. They are really cute. You know, they can be loyal and playful and they are very useful. We use them for hunting, birding, all kinds of things. We can use them to herd cattle, like Babe, or sheep or what have you. And we train them to do this and that and the other thing. We have guard dogs and we have personal dogs and therapeutic dogs and dogs that will sniff out bombs and drugs and whatever they are trying to find, so we have made a good use of dogs.

And so because they are useful and cuddly and all that stuff, we give them a break. But like pigs, dogs will eat just about anything. They will eat rotten, decaying stuff and they will roll themselves in it and reek for a week. Their tongue is lolling out, they are just having the time of their life, and then they sidle up to you and want to cuddle and they smell like the dumpster or worse. And dogs are disgusting. Some dogs are. My dog was fine. That is how we think about dogs.

Now, of course, God considers both dogs and pigs to be unclean. Let us start in Leviticus 11 and read the first full paragraph there down to verse 8, where both of these creatures, well, the swine is definitely mentioned and the dog is in the general classification. Let us put it that way.

Leviticus 11:1-8 And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, "Speak to the children of Israel, saying, 'These are the animals which you may eat among all the beasts that are on the earth: Among the animals, whatever divides the hoof, having cloven hooves and chewing the cud—that you may eat. Nevertheless these you shall not eat among those that chew the cud or those that have cloven hooves: the camel, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you; the rock hyrax, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you; the hare, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you; and the swine, though it divides the hoof, having cloven hooves, yet does not chew the cud, is unclean to you. Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch. They are unclean to you.'

So, swine is the term that is used here generally for all porcine creatures, anything that is like a pig, the pig-kind, they are specifically mentioned in verse 7 as unclean because despite having cloven hooves, they do not chew the cud. When we try to determine whether an animal is clean or unclean, it has got to do both of those things. It has to have the cloven hoof and it has to also chew the cud. If it lacks one or the other, then it is unclean. Very easy to figure out.

Now, dogs, as I said, are not specifically mentioned, but they do not have cloven hoof and they do not chew the cud, so they are obviously unclean.

Leviticus 11:27 "Whatever goes on its paws, among all kinds of animals that go on all fours, those are unclean to you. Whoever touches any such carcass shall be unclean until evening."

Clearly, dogs have paws, it goes on four feet, and so it is unclean. So another strike against the dog there. It is unclean. That eliminates both dogs and pigs from being sources of food for us. Both dogs and pigs are carrion-eating scavengers. Remember I said earlier, they will both pretty much eat anything and they will enjoy it. That is why God made them. They are made to take decaying matter, garbage of all kinds, and turn it into what they defecate and which actually is organic and can actually help us grow things in the soil. So they have a good purpose in that regard.

They will also both eat human flesh, which makes them especially unclean, if you want to think of it that way. Remember, Jezebel was thrown from the window and dogs came and ate her flesh. So that is another big strike against them. Unclean animals, birds, fish, insects are all called both abominations, you can see that in Leviticus 11, verse 10, and some of the verses after that, and in Deuteronomy 14:3 they are called detestable. So they are abominable and detestable in God's sight in terms of food. They are to be considered unclean and a lot of that too has to do with they are carriers of disease as well, which our immune systems have a hard time fighting against. So the admonitions there not to touch their dead bodies is there for our good. And it does also say here that they will be unclean until the evening. That is to keep us away from other people so we do not spread it.

Enough about that. Let us go to II Peter 2 because Peter brings out another set of qualities, if you want to call them qualities, about dogs and pigs that is rather reprehensible.

II Peter 2:18-22 [I want to read the whole context because it is important for us to understand why he is applying the metaphor that he is. Dogs and pigs are the metaphor that he brings up.] For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness [Here, he is talking about false teachers that had come into the church and he was warning the people they needed to be aware of it and fight them off], they allure through the lust of the flesh, through licentiousness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage.

For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: "A dog returns to his own vomit," and, "a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire."

So, we have the reality first of what he was seeing in the church and then we have the metaphor that helps illustrate the process that he is talking about.

I know it is foul and disgusting, but there is something we can learn here, not only about dogs and pigs, but about human dogs and human pigs. That is what he is really trying to get us to understand: that this is behavior that people do, not just dogs and pigs. So this is another angle to consider in our study of dogs and pigs today. They have these disgusting habits. Dogs will eat their own vomit. I have seen it many a time and it is disgusting! It is revolting. And a clean pig, if there is such a thing, will wallow in mud and muck.

Actually, dogs will do this too. We would take Sydney, our black Lab/Border Collie mix that we had years ago, out in the backyard and give her a good scrubbing, and immediately as she was let go, because she did not like to get a bath that way or a shower or whatever you would call it, she would run around and go through the whole yard and roll herself in whatever—dirt, grass—there was. She just went and now she was probably dirty enough to go back and clean her again. But that is a dog for you.

And on the other hand, pigs are not discriminatory against vomit. They will also eat vomit if it were given to them in the slops. They would not care. They probably think it smelled great or whatever because they are very different from us. Dogs love bad smells just like pigs. And so they will they will put their nose in there and start eating.

Now, the foregoing material that we saw there in verses 18 through 21 provides the reality for the metaphor that Peter uses here to illustrate it. So he likens these revolting acts, the things that we almost want to throw up ourselves after seeing or witnessing, to a converted person returning to consume the polluted knowledge and the beliefs that he had vomited out through repentance. Or in the other case, these things that we had gotten clean from through baptism, through justification, and the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, but they go back to them and they do a disgusting thing in God's sight, which is to revert to the things they did before they were converted.

Proverbs 26:11 As a dog returns to his own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.

So the way God looks at it, using this verse, is that it is the height of folly to choose toxic waste over the purity of God's Word. We know in Psalm 12:6, it says, "God's word is like silver, purified seven times." So God's Word is the pure and the clean, everything that is good and right. And yet a person who has taken in that knowledge, been converted through that knowledge, has said that he has repented of all the bad things and will follow the knowledge of God, yet who turns and goes back to believing the filth, to consuming the filth, if you will, that is of this world, the stuff that we had supposedly rejected when we came into the church, that is like a dog returning to his vomit or a pig returning to wallow in the mud, in the mire.

So likewise, I am sure you get it, a converted person, having been washed by the blood of Christ, commits an abomination in God's eyes when he returns to the mire, when he returns to the swamp, as we like to say the these days, of this world's wickedness. These are pictures of apostasy, of turning away, of falling away from the precious gifts and promises of God, rejecting Christ's sacrifice and the grace of God. God hates it when we do this. We are rejecting Him and we are going back to "enjoy the pleasures of sin," which we had told Him, vowed that we had forsaken.

Notice Hebrew 6, verses 4 through 8. This is a cut-off point when this happens. This is why God is so disgusted with it, why He calls it an abomination.

Hebrews 6:4-8 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame. For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessings from God, but if it bears thorns and briers, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.

As the author of Hebrews says here, it is impossible at this point for them to be renewed to repentance. Once a person rejects God's Word and returns back into the world and will not repent again, their end is the second death. They have rejected Christ and His Spirit. They do not receive a second chance because Christ will not be crucified again, His sacrifice applying to them a second time. You could also go to Hebrews 10 and see that the author here basically says the same thing. And that is when he ends up and says, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God," because now His wrath is upon us or would be upon that person and there is no escape.

Even just scratching the surface here with a few verses to try to tie into Matthew 7:6, we see that, considering the biblical view of dogs and pigs as vile and detestable, we are getting into some pretty deep spiritual subjects. Clean and unclean is probably the least deep among them. But this all touches on knowledge, belief, conversion, apostasy, the second death, all those things that come into play when thinking about this metaphor. So the proverbial statement that we see in Matthew 7:6 has a lot more to it than meets the eye.

So we are going to take a pretty deep dive into Matthew 7:6, especially into dogs and pigs. And I think Jesus really wants us to learn something very important about good and righteous judgment because remember this is right in the same paragraph, basically, where He talks about judging; and He also wants us to learn about what I have called prudent evangelism. Or we could make it more simple and say our interaction with the world, because that is where the rubber meets the road in terms of this proverb most often. So either prudent evangelism or just simply our interaction with the world where we make a personal witness to people.

We would do very well to heed His command here and save ourselves a heap of trouble because there will be times when we come upon dogs and pigs in this world. Not literally. I am talking about human dogs and human pigs. And if we heed this, it will save us a lot of grief.

Let us go back to Matthew 7. I want to read verses 5 and 6 just so we can get a little bit of a review here about what He said. In verse 5 He is talking about the speck in the brother's eye and the plank in our own eye. He says,

Matthew 7:5-6 "Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye. 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."

The earlier hyperbolic metaphor of the speck and the plank in the eye teaches against hypocritical condemnation of others for their little faults while we have huge faults; that we should actually be dealing with more heinous sins of our own. Now, His teaching tells us here that we need to be far more concerned about our own sins than about those of our brethren. It is not our job to be correcting other people for their sins or judging them for them or condemning them for them.

They are Christ's sheep. They are in the church and they are working toward salvation. God will take care of them. Christ will teach them. Christ will lead them. He will open their eyes to their sins. He can give them whatever gift and strength that they need to overcome them. He does not need us to point out those sins and, and make a mess of relationships because of what we do hypocritically trying to help somebody whose sins are actually more benign than their own, which just only makes sense.

So, one of the teachings here is that we need to be looking to improve our own character and overcome our own sins as a priority before we think that we are wise enough to help anybody else.

Now, both set of sins still need to be repented of and overcome, but we only have control over our own sins, our own behaviors and actions, so that is what we should be focused on and let Christ deal with the other person. And if He should need us for any reason, it should probably be obvious when He opens the door for that. But we should already have been overcoming our own sins and showing a proven track record of doing that.

But notice that Jesus specifically mentions that He is speaking of interactions among brethren in the first five verses. Especially verse 3, "Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye?" And then verse 4, "How can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck. . ." Verse 5, He says, "First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye." So He is talking about relationships in the church. We are brethren, brothers in Christ, siblings in this great work of God where He is trying to transform us into the image of Jesus Christ.

But then verse 6 comes up. It switches from dealing with brethren, those who have been justified and are being sanctified, to detestable things, unclean things, abominable things—the dogs and the pigs of the metaphor. Church members are clean. Remember when Christ washed their feet, He says, "I only have to wash your feet. I don't need to bathe your whole body because you're already clean." We have been justified. We have gone through the washing of the water by the Word. And so we only need from time to time and hopefully in small areas to clean things up.

But dogs and pigs are different. Dogs and pigs are intrinsically unclean, they do not meet the standards of being clean. So we have switched the viewpoint a little bit from the church to interactions with the world, people on the outside. And it is not everybody outside. He is actually only speaking about certain outsiders who will fit the definition of a dog or a pig. Remember in II Peter he says they are still eating their vomit and wallowing in their sins. So these are not the "good people" out in the world. We are talking about a specific segment of society that are especially sinful.

Just to be clear, I want to make sure you understand this, not all the unconverted are pigs and dogs. Jesus is identifying particular kinds of people to whom it is not wise for one of the called people of God to give what is holy or to cast pearls to, as Jesus describes it. And at the end of verse 6, these are the people that are likely to trample those good things under their feet and turn and rend you. That is, they are likely to take what you have said, throw it back in your face, and attack you.

This brings up a side point that connects it to my last sermon and should bolster what we understand about Jesus' saying "Judge not" in verse 1. I just want to reiterate this so that we get it. By "judge" Jesus means condemn. That is a good one word way to understand what He is talking about here, if we just use the word "condemn" in the nuance between judging and condemning.

More broadly, what He is speaking about in verses 1 through 5 is having a hypocritical attitude of criticizing and censuring others for minor faults when we have major ones of our own that we have not worked on. It is that hypocritical judging and criticizing that He is trying to remove from the church for our unity and general overall good spiritual health. If you have brethren that are constantly sniping and criticizing and condemning one another for actions that are actually quite small in comparison to their own sins, you are pretty soon not going to have a congregation. That is just the way it will work. Because offenses will come and one group will go one place and another group will go another, or somebody will just up and leave and not want to take it. So He is talking about those specific kinds of judgments or condemnations or criticisms that go beyond the bounds and are very hypocritical to make.

He is not, as the world will try to tell us, talking about evaluating rightness and wrongness. He is not talking about upholding standards that He Himself has set in His law. He is not talking about that. He is not even talking about coming to conclusions about another person's character. I mean, we do that all the time. It is part of what we are as human beings. He made us intelligent and gave us skills and reasoning so that we can make judgments, even if the judgment toward another person is negative. As far as that goes, it is not wrong or sinful that if we see sin in another person, we can see it and judge it that it is sin.

But, as I said, making the judgment is not wrong. But what we do with those judgments is what matters, whether it is good or whether a sin. Because you could make a judgment, let us say, that you saw somebody in the church who was drunk and you found out that this has been a pattern. Ok? The ongoing drinking problem, the alcoholism or whatever is sin. If it is drunkenness, it is a sin. So you have made that judgment that it is a sin. Now, what you do with that knowledge about the other person's drunkenness will make the difference between love and sin. You could use your Christian love not to say something, not to let other people know, to keep it between you and the drunken person. And then you do what you could to help privately.

On the other hand, you could sin grievously by gossiping and besmirching the character of the drunk. Even though he is a drunk, you have made your own sin. You have committed your own sin by tale bearing and not covering that sin in love.

There are ways to help people without sin, even though you have made the judgment that it is sin. But most of us, following our human nature, take it the other direction and we broadcast it and then we have compounded our sin. We have become the hypocrite who is pointing the finger at somebody else when we have sins of our own. So just making the judgment is not sin. Keep it between your ears, you are probably okay. But when you take that judgment and act upon it in a way that is negative toward the person who has committed that sin, then it becomes sin to you because you are doing exactly what Jesus said not to do. You are not acting as a brother in the first place. You are not acting out of love and sin is in many ways the opposite of love.

So that is what He is talking about in verses 1 through 5, just generally.

But in verse 6, He says that we are free to evaluate the people in the world as to whether they are dogs or pigs. Again, if we do not let it go any further than that, if it stays in our mind as a judgment, then we have not sinned against them. So the same principle holds true. We can look out in the world and see somebody acting in a dog-like or a pig-like manner. I am talking about disgusting, horrible sins and say that is a disgusting, horrible sin. You have made a judgment that what this person is doing contravenes the law of God. You are allowed to make that judgment.

And so what Jesus is telling us in verse 7 is what we should do having made that judgment. What is prudent? What is good? What is helpful? so that we do not have them trample our pearls, as it were, or turn and rend us. So whoever says Jesus tells us not to judge is totally wrong. He allows us, and actually He as Creator, He gave us the ability to make judgments, but it is what we do with it that matters. And here in this particular scenario, it is about how we deal with people in the world, great sinners doing disgusting things and how we should or should not approach them with good things, with holy things.

If that is the case, if Jesus gives us the ability to evaluate whether someone in the world is a dog or a pig, then we need to know a little bit more about dogs and pigs. Right? And especially as the Bible itself views dogs and pigs so we have a right basis for making these judgments.

Now, I will start with dogs. Dogs are the pariahs of society. The Jews, the people in the ancient Near East, had a whole different view of dogs than we do. The Western idea of dogs is cute, cuddly, helpful. You know, they may be disgusting at times, but we bring them in, have them lie on the sofa, that sort of thing, they are okay.

The Jews and many of the people in that region detested dogs. They did not generally have them as pets. It was pretty rare. Probably the closest a dog would get to being in or around the house is as a guard dog or as a dog that would assist a shepherd with sheep. Otherwise dogs were considered to be pariah animals. Just think about packs of dogs roaming the streets looking for any kind of scrap or garbage that they could. So that is how the Middle Eastern mind at the time would think about dogs, that they are pariahs, they are outcasts in society.

Dogs were generally thought to be filthy, that they lived in filth, and we know, like I said about Sydney, she would roll in filth and get disgusting. They do not have the level of cleanliness that maybe like cats do. Cats are very fastidious about being clean, you know, licking it off, but we will not think about that, but they try to keep themselves clean where dogs usually do not care. They would live in filth and it would not matter to them.

But in the Middle East at that time, dogs were always on the edge of starvation. And being starving, they would also be ravenously hungry so that they could turn on on people and children. And they were generally regarded as mean and cruel, but they were particularly noted for their inadequate scavengers diet. They never had enough. They were always willing to eat whatever was thrown their way. The Bible shows them eating table scraps and whatever humans would discard. They are constantly looking for food. And as I mentioned a couple of times already, they will eat anything. They have the reputation too. . . I do not know how many medieval movies you have seen where they are in the castle and there is a small pack of dogs in the castle and they will occasionally throw a bone and all the dogs will fight over that one little bone or whatever that has been thrown their way. So they are also known to have a reputation of fighting viciously over scraps.

Let us go to Mark 7 where we have an interesting scene with Jesus and a Gentile woman.

Mark 7:24-30 From there He [Jesus] rose and went to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And He entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden. For a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard about Him, and she came and fell at His feet. The woman was a Greek [or a Gentile], a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. But Jesus said to her, "Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs." And she answered and said to Him, "Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children's crumbs." Then He said to her, "For this saying, go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter." And when she had come to her house, she found the demon gone out, and her daughter lying on the bed.

Here Jesus intentionally implies that this Gentile woman and her daughter were little dogs, which was highly insulting. Jews, by this time, used dogs, the word dog or dogs in a group, to describe all Gentiles no matter what their character was like. If you were a Gentile, you were a dog. That is how they looked at Gentiles at the time. So calling somebody a dog had come to be an epithet, an insult, a way to put them in their place. They were not good like the Jews, they were not special and chosen like the Jews. They were not righteous and keeping the law like the Jews. They were dogs.

And so Jesus does not use it this way. He softens it, for one, by using the term "little." So it was a dog that would normally be seen as someone's pet, let us say, a dog that would be in the house. It was not a big, nasty, mean guard dog or anything. It was a little dog. But He still used the dog because He recognized she was a Gentile and He was using that to test her attitude. How would she react to a Jew, Himself, calling her a dog even though He softened it a little bit by calling her a little dog, like a little Pekinese or something, a little lap dog?

Her reaction is both humble and faithful. She recognizes that He is doing this to her, He is testing her attitude because she had already shown she was very persistent because she kept asking, "Cast this demon out" of the little girl. And so she persists again by not allowing that insult to deter her, showing a great deal of faith to Him. So He cast the demon out.

Now, He uses this example, I am sure that the disciples were all about Him in this scenario here, to teach them that not all Gentiles are dogs, that He made an exception here because of her faith, because of her persistence, because of her kindness, and actually because of her smarts in the way she responded. So this tells us that just because somebody is in the world does not make them a dog or a pig.

But there are other things that we can learn about dogs from the Scripture. Let us go to Isaiah 56. We will be here to get a little fuller picture of what is going on in the metaphor.

Isaiah 56:9-12 All you beasts of the field, come to devour, all you beasts in the forest. His watchman [What we are seeing here is that God is calling the beast to attack Israel and Judah. Why?] are blind, they are all ignorant; they are all dumb dogs [Dumb dogs mean here dogs who are set out to watch and guard who do not bark. They are all dumb dogs. They are not giving the warnings.], they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. [That is another thing that dogs are known for is being lazy or taking every opportunity they can to sleep in the sun.] Yes, they are greedy dogs which never have enough. [Remember that is a descriptor of a dog or one of the characteristics of dogs that they are on the edge of starvation. They never are satisfied. They could always get more.] And they are shepherds who cannot understand; they all look to their own way, everyone for his own gain, from his own territory. "Come," one says, "I will bring wine, and we will fill ourselves with an intoxicating drink; tomorrow will be as today, and much more abundant."

These are leaders of Israel he is talking about, leaders of Judah, and they were like the Bible study I gave today, people without character. They were dogs. God calls them that specifically here. Leaders can be dogs if they are irresponsible, if they are lazy, if they are greedy, if they are self-centered, self-satisfying types. This vignette here gives us a picture of people who are interested only in base things, only in satisfying their own senses, which are never satisfied. There is always more to drink, more to eat, more time to slumber and not do their jobs as God had given it to them. We could call them sensual types, that is, they are only affected by what they see, hear, taste, the smell, touch. They have no high values, no ideas. They are ignoble, not noble at all.

That is enough there. I think you get the idea. Let us go back to the Psalms in Psalm 59. Let us just set the scene here. This is David's psalm when he was running from Saul. Saul had sent men and they watched where he was so that they could kill him when he made his move.

Psalm 59:1-7 Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; defend me from those who rise up against me. Deliver me from the workers of iniquity, and save me from bloodthirsty men. For look, they lie in wait for my life; the mighty gather against me, not for my transgression nor for my sin, O Lord. They run and prepare themselves through no fault of mine. Awake to help me, and behold! You therefore, O Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, awake to punish all the nations; do not be merciful to any wicked transgressors. Selah. At evening they return, and growl like a dog, and go all around the city. Indeed, they belch out with their mouth; swords are on in their lips; for they say, "Who hears?"

Psalm 59:12-15 For the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips, let them even be taken in their pride, and for the cursing and lying which they speak. Consume them in wrath, consume them, that they may not be; and let them know that God rules in Jacob to the ends of the earth. Selah. And at evening they return, they growl like a dog, and go all around the city. They wander up and down for food, and howl if they are not satisfied.

David uses dogs as a description, a type of sinful, cruel, and contemptible people who uncaringly use and abuse others for their own gain. These are people that do whatever profits them in the moment. They are what we might call the "end justifies the means" types who are willing to do whatever it takes, even extreme measures, to get their way. This is how David describes Saul and his men. And I think we could add Saul into that group because at this time he was of a demonic spirit and only David could soothe them. And so without David there, he did whatever it takes to destroy David, the next king of Israel. He already knew that. And that is why he was trying to assassinate him and sent men after him.

So Saul and his men were dogs. In this case, they were going on base emotion and without any kind of standards, nothing to hold them back from what they wanted to do.

Let us go back into the New Testament in Philippians 3 where Paul, who was once called Saul, talks about dogs affecting the people in the church.

Philippians 3:2 [he said] Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation [or the circumcision]!

These were Jews that he was talking about, those who insisted on circumcision for everyone, every male in the church, that they had to keep the whole law in order to keep the covenant. Now he talks about dogs, he calls them dogs, and then the other two things kind of modify what he means. So dogs are evil workers or we could say evildoers. That is what the English Standard Version has. And he is also specifically talking about these evildoers or evil workers who were Jews in that particular situation. So what the apostle is doing here is he is turning the name, the epithet that they used on Gentiles back on the Jews for the way they were acting.

They would do whatever it takes, they would make any argument, they would say whatever it is that they thought that they needed to say in order to make the Philippians here turn to their way of thinking. Because they were trying actually, they may not have looked at it this way, but what they were doing was trying to keep the called, the elect of God, from having a relationship with God. Turning them back to their way that was not even the old way. It was the Jewish way and not what God had given Moses.

What Paul is actually saying here, "Who's acting like a dog now?" Telling these Jews, "You call the Gentiles dogs, but who is the real dog in the room here? It's those of you who are acting basely and trying to take these people away from God and turn them to another way." So what he is saying here in using the term, he is referring to those who use sinful, evil, or self-serving means to obstruct others from seeking or from worshipping God. Sinful, evil, or self-serving people who try to obstruct others from seeking or worshipping God. In this case, they were a false brethren, false teachers, perhaps. Jesus calls such people who He did not call into the church but Satan planted, tares.

We need to be careful about the tares and we need to make sure that we understand that God will take care of them because that is what He tells us. He says, "Leave them be" and in the judgment, He will separate who is who. Who is true and who is not.

Let us go to Revelation 22, the last chapter of the book. John uses the term in verses 14 and 15. Actually, Jesus uses it. John just writes it down.

Revelation 22:14-15 Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. [this is New Jerusalem] But outside [meaning excluded] are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie.

Now, scholars when they comment about this, have all kinds of ideas about what these particular dogs are that are mentioned in verse 15. Some think dogs is defined by the rest of the list. That dogs is the major header and therefore dogs are sorcerers; dogs are sexually immoral; dogs are murderers; dogs are idolater; dogs are liars. That is a possibility. There are others who say that dogs was a common term for a male prostitute. I do not think it is that specific. But who knows? In Deuteronomy 23:18, they are also called dogs. So there is biblical support for that.

Some, citing what we just saw there in Philippians 3, say it refers to apostate teachers or particularly heinous people who glorified the works of the flesh. The most intriguing one that I saw is that dogs replaces the first three descriptions of excluded sinners in chapter 21, verse 8 because the same list is given there except the first three are different.

Revelation 21:8 But the cowardly, unbelieving, and abominable, [then] murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

So if that is the case, then dogs are the cowardly, the unbelieving, and abominable. Interesting way to look at it.

But what is clearly implied by all of these suggestions is that He is talking about unclean, impure, depraved, contemptible, shameless, thoroughly immoral, and malicious people. However you look at it, they are not going to be in the Kingdom as Paul says, and he gives us a long list in I Corinthians 6:9-10. So whatever the case, these dogs despise what is holy. We could call them the profane. They are profane. I do not know if you remember, but the word profane in Greek means "far from the temple." So it means they are a long way from God and these kind of people flagrantly violate God's law and reject God's Word and they have rejected His grace as well. So that is why they will not be in the New Jerusalem.

We have seen enough about dogs. I probably overdid it there. But there are so many examples in Scripture about dogs that I thought it was worthwhile taking a look at them because they seem to be the one that has the most said about it about them.

Let us go on to pigs. They are a lot like dogs. They are unclean beasts. They also, back in that day, roamed the streets as scavengers like dogs did. So they are animals that are seen in the same light. We will not go to all the scriptures. I will give them to you so you can look at them later if you want to:

Proverbs 11:22, they basically are shown as an example of a beast that is dirty and ugly. In the story of the man infested with demons whom Jesus then allowed to go into the herd of pigs. That is Luke 8:26-39. They are associated with demons. Pigs were just fine with having a bunch of demons in them. And in Luke 15:15-16, that is in the Parable of the Prodigal Son when he was reduced to feeding the pigs. They are associated with deep poverty and social inferiority—pariahs, outcasts. Again like dogs. Okay, that is enough about pigs. I do not wanna overdo the point.

So we need to plug this back into Matthew 7:6. Let us go back there and just read it now that you have all this wonderful knowledge about dogs and pigs. Jesus says,

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."

The figures of holy things and pearls represent things. It could be many different kind of things, both physical and spiritual, but more on the line of spiritual things. But they are things of great value, great worth. Now, holy things obviously are precious. They have been separated or sanctified by God for His use. Only God can make something holy and so it is something that is precious and valuable, and for a particular godly use. They have spiritual value because they are used in His service.

Now, at the time, in using the metaphor, Jesus could have meant that the holy things were something like the bones of a sacrifice. Because once the sacrifice was devoted to God, then it became holy and it was only for those people whom God allowed to use it. So in some of the sacrifices, it was burned up totally. Only God could use it. In some of the sacrifices, the priests were allowed to take a portion. And in the peace offering or the thank offering God, the priest, and also the people who gave it, got their portions and it was holy to that. And so they had to be careful.

I am talking about the people who got their part of the offering back in order to have a feast. They had to be careful that they did not throw the bones to the dogs because it was not for the dogs. It was for the people and they had to bury the bones and make sure that they could not be recovered by dogs or pigs. So a dog gnawing the bones of a sacrifice would be to the Jews high sacrilege. They would understand the metaphor of a dog gnawing the bones of a sacrifice. That just was not done.

So that is kind of the idea that we are getting here and we have to transfer that then to a more modern and maybe a more spiritual way of looking at things.

In the same way, casting pearls before swine illustrates giving something of great value to those who neither know or care or appreciate the worth of the thing that is cast before them. In this case, pearls. All through the Bible, pearls are objects prized for their beauty and value and permanence. They were grouped in with all the jewels and thought to be pretty much indestructible, that they would endure forever if you took care of them. So the pearl came to stand for something that is excellent or precious, beautiful, highly esteemed and sought by those who understand, sought by those who are wise. Remember in the Parable of the Pearl of Great Price, Jesus is shown buying that great pearl with all He had so He could possess it. That is how much He esteemed the church. That is how much He esteemed what He went out to seek, so He gave everything He had to possess it.

In fact, wisdom is compared to costly pearls. If you go to Job 28:18 that is basically what is being spoken about them, that wisdom is compared to pearls. You can also jot down Proverbs 8:11. I think the New King James has the wisdom is precious as rubies. But the word rubies in the Hebrew is generally jewels and it often refers to coral or pearls. So it could be seen in that as well. And of course, we have a saying that we use people "dropping pearls of wisdom." We still have that idea that wisdom is costly, valuable, excellent, wonderful, that sort of thing when it is at the given at the right time.

So pigs would simply, normally in the course of things, they would ignore pearls. They do not eat pearls. It would be just like a stone to them. They do not have any appreciation of the value or the beauty or anything. It would just be as good as a pebble to them. So, what would they do if you threw pearls before them? They trample them into the mud because they are not looking for pearls or rocks or whatever they would think of them. They are looking for organic matter to eat. So they would simply ignore them and trample on them and ruin them.

Pigs are gluttons. They are not gourmands, they do not have an eye or a taste, a palate for that sort of thing. We have to remember that they represent unclean people who only want to satisfy their flesh. They have no appreciation for the value of the very worthwhile holy and spiritual things that God's church can offer or a child of God can offer on his own.

Let us get a little bit more perspective on this and go back to Matthew 10, verses 11 through 16. This is where Jesus is sending His disciples out to preach two by two.

Matthew 10:11-16 "Now whatever city or town you enter, inquire who in it is worthy [one of our words: worth, value], and stay there till you go out. And when you go into a household, greet it. If the household is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And whoever will not receive you, nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city."

Remember in the Sermon on the Mount, His disciples were His audience. He was talking to the disciples. He is preparing them to be apostles. He is teaching them how to go out and preach the gospel, to deliver the good news in all its great worth to those whom God is calling. But Jesus says, you do not have to go out and preach to those people who are unworthy of it. If you find in going out into the city that people are acting like dogs and pigs, you do not have to preach there.

They made the effort. They went into the city. They sought out who was worthy, but in their judgment maybe they found themselves to be wrong and they said these people are totally rejecting it. So they left. They did not hire an army to come in and ruin that city. They just simply shook the dust off their feet and left.

To us, we do not have the job of going out and doing this in the same way that the apostles did, but we still have to work and live in the world and we come across people from time to time who seem interested. How do we approach that? How do we make the evaluation that we should continue speaking to them about the good things that God provides, especially the spiritual things. So in either case, whether we are preaching the gospel like an apostle or we are making a personal witness to somebody in the world, we are allowed to judge, we are allowed to assess whether a household, that is, whoever is the potential recipient of the gospel, whether that person is worthy or unworthy by their reactions, by the way they react to the good things that you have to give them and we can determine, if it comes to that, that they are dogs or pigs, or not. We have been given that permission.

Now, Jesus here defines an unworthy person or an unworthy household as whoever will not receive you nor hear your words. That is an important thing to remember. If they are so resistant that they will not hear you, they will not receive you, they will not treat you well, they have got contempt for what you have to say, and I will not just say opposed, but they are more violently opposed, they are arguing vehemently against you, you do not have to put up with that because that vehemence could turn to actual attack.

So, Jesus is saying here, you need to be watchful, you need to be prudent. You do not have to be a sacrifice, a martyr for the cause. You know, the first time you go out and tell somebody about the wonderful news you have heard, you do not have to do that. You do not have to sit there and take the abuse. If you have judged that they are dogs or pigs, you can do exactly as the disciples did here and leave. These are such people. These unworthy ones are those who are profane. So if they come back at you with abusive words and profanity and that sort of thing, that is a reason to turn your back and say, "Ok, you don't want to hear me."

They also treat God's law with contempt and also they have no desire to repent. They wish to continue in sin. If you keep preaching at them, you are just going to be blowing hot air. It is not going to do a bit of good. God would rather you be more efficient and go somewhere else where people will hear you. So you are not required to sit there and just talk and talk and talk until they kill you, which Jesus says, they turn around and rend you. You do not have to take that, if you find that that is the case. If you are running up against a brick wall of sin and abuse, then you can conclude that God has not called them. He has not performed John 6:44 on them and brought them to Christ so further evangelism on our part is pointless. We can move on.

If they not only show contempt but turned and rend us, then we should flee and let God avenge us in the day of judgment where it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for them.

So He advises us to be wise and prudent in this world. Let us read verse 16.

Matthew 10:16 "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves [dogs]. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves."

This is what He says, "Be wise and prudent in this world. Shrewd and astute like a serpent without being aggressive or offensive. You're peaceful like a dove." In other words, we are to display good sense as we make our way through this world as Christians because the world is made up of dogs and pigs. He just talks about the dogs here as wolves. We are to avoid conflict and profane unbelief as much as we can.

What did He say at the beginning of the sermon? "Blessed are the peacemakers." (That is in chapter 5, verse 9.) We do not have to go into these situations in a hostile way and confront. We are bringers of peace and of good news, of pearls of wisdom. And we need to give them to the people who will accept them, not those who are going to reject them outright because they want to continue in sin. If God will call any of them, He will reach them in another way.

Proverbs 16:17 The highway of the upright is to depart from evil; he who keeps his way preserves his soul [or preserves his life].

God does not expect us to spread His Word where it is not wanted and where doing so would put our lives in imminent danger. Save yourself from grief by assessing your circumstances and avoiding those places where angels fear to tread. It is not our job to go out and evangelize like that. God has chosen special people to do that, like He chose the apostles.

Our job, if we are to make a personal witness, is to just do what is right and speak the truth. But we do not need to be hard-nosed and going into areas where we are likely to be hurt, abused, and lose our life because if those people are to be released, God will make sure that they get a fitting witness or judgment sooner or later.

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