During America’s Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln was frustrated with many of his generals because, though they had resources superior to the Confederate Army, they were not winning victories. One main reason was their lack of judgment. They lacked the judgment to make them successful.

True Christians are soldiers in a spiritual war (e.g. 2 Timothy 2:3-4). Jesus Christ said that in this war, we too can lack judgment. But with godly judgment, you will win victories.

Christ strongly corrected the religious leaders of His day for their dearth of judgment. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel” (Matthew 23:23-24).

These men fixated on the trivia with the greatest of passion, yet they practically overlooked the weightier matters of the law—including judgment. They were spiritually blind to the big picture.

Think about this: Judgment is one of the “weightier matters of the law.” In fact, Christ made it the leading one, placing judgment ahead of even mercy and faith! That is astounding. What a weighty matter judgment is in our lives. We desperately need it, whether in spiritual war or physical war. If we lack it, we will lose battles. God’s judgment gives us victories!

In his book Lincoln and His Generals, T. Harry Williams gave insight
into physical judgment, from which we can learn many spiritual lessons. Let’s look at a few examples from that book.

Judging Victory and Defeat

Williams discussed how President Lincoln generally could not trust the judgment of Gen. John Frémont. “At first [Frémont] brimmed with confidence and optimism, but soon he imagined himself surrounded on all sides by dangers and difficulties. His shrill complaints poured into Washington. … Lincoln had sent a boy to do a man’s work. Frémont was a sincere and attractive person, but a giddy and fumbling general. … Inefficiency and failure marked every phase of Frémont’s conduct of affairs ….”

At one point Lincoln directed Frémont to move his army to cut off an enemy retreat and said, “Put in all the speed you can.” But Frémont chose a route different from what he was commanded to, and it took him about eight days to move 70 miles—while the enemy moved 50 miles in two days! The opportunity was lost.

“Lincoln’s patience with the generals wore very thin,” Williams wrote. “He began to have some doubts about the capability of the military mind.”

Lincoln’s generals often misreported the facts on the field to their commander in chief. At times they exaggerated their successes; at other times they characterized setbacks as complete disasters. “Several times during the war,” Williams wrote, “Lincoln was cruelly disappointed by generals who reported victories that turned out to be defeats.” That shows a terrible lack of judgment!

Gen. George B. McClellan made this mistake. In the Seven Days Battles, he successfully thwarted an attack by Gen. Robert E. Lee—that is all. Yet he telegraphed the message, “Victory today complete and against great odds. I almost begin to think we are invincible.” Williams wrote, “That he should call the action a ‘complete victory’ showed his military immaturity.” It conveyed the impression to Lincoln that he needed no help, which he did. “This would not be the first time that McClellan would raise false hopes by reporting a partial or a minor victory as a complete one,” Williams wrote.

Shortly after, McClellan repulsed another attack from Lee, and probably could have defeated him had he gone on the offensive. Instead, he felt that he himself had been defeated. “What was most surprising was that he admitted defeat when he had not been defeated. Before, after the first encounter of the Seven Days, he had called a partial victory a complete one. Now he called a partial reverse a disaster. He was giving a fine demonstration of his inability to evaluate the reality of events.” McClellan gave the president bad information because of his failure to assess matters accurately. He could not tell what reality was! That is a catastrophic problem in war!

Of Gen. John Pope, Williams wrote, “He had many of McClellan’s faults in reverse. He was aggressive where McClellan was timid, rash where McClellan was cautious. Like McClellan, he could not judge realities. McClellan magnified dangers. Pope minimized or did not see them. Pope’s faults brought about his defeat at Bull Run.” Again—what a curse is faulty judgment!

It is crucial to have a realistic picture of the enemy—and of both success and defeat. If you exaggerate either, you run into trouble.If you mistake a partial reverse for complete defeat, you get discouraged. If you think partial victory is complete, you then let up when you need to keep pressing your advantage. But partial victories are not enough! We must understand reality, and judgment will do that for you.

Spirit of a Sound Mind

The Apostle Paul wrote, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). This is right before Paul talks about our spiritual war (2 Timothy 2), and he says you must have a spirit not of fear but of power and love and a sound mind. How we need that in this crazy world! It is frightening how few people have sound minds!

Jeremiah 17:9 says the human mind is “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” Can you recognize that in yourself? We all have human nature inspired by the devil. We have to overcome that, and we need to be corrected. We need to be humble and teachable for God to be able to correct us and teach us and give us the spirit of a sound mind.

“Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God” (2 Timothy 1:8). Paul had done nothing but obey God and do the Work of God, and these people wanted to put him to death—and they did! But he said, We have power. Don’t give in to fears. You have to overcome those. We must win in our warfare against the devil, our human nature and this world.

“No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this
life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier” (2 Timothy 2:4). Christ has chosen us to be soldiers and to endure hardness. Paul understood that, and we must understand it too. God fills His people with happiness, but we do have afflictions we must face and overcome to win victories.

In How to Be an Overcomer, I write about the science of spiritual warfare. It really is a science, but few people understand it. Almost none of Lincoln’s generals ever did, and they could not win victories. Some of them virtually never won, and one big reason was their lack of judgment.

Judgment, Mercy, Faith

President Lincoln cycled through several generals, desperate for a man who would give him victories. Williams wrote this about Gen. William S. Rosecrans: “He was a hard worker and wanted officers on his staff who would work.” But the trouble was, “[H]e could not judge between what was important and what was not. He would spend as much time discussing a small matter with a sergeant as a big one with a major general.”

How about you? Can you discern the difference between what is important and what is not? This is a vital question! Can you distinguish between those two, spiritually? Many people cannot. Our world is plagued by disasters, battles and wars, and most people lack real judgment in handling them. They get distracted by side issues and are blindsided by important matters they ignored.

In Matthew 23, after judgment comes mercy. What happens if you put mercy and compassion ahead of judgment? Well, you give the enemy a tremendous advantage, and you will cave in to him! Your judgment should tell you not to do that. After all, he’s trying to kill you and is working hard to do so! If you don’t overcome that flaw and build sound judgment, you will lose battles and you will lose wars.

After judgment and mercy comes faith. It is crucial to have faith—but what happens to your faith if you don’t first have judgment? You will end up stepping out in faith where you should not! You must have judgment to even walk by faith, or you will veer off into all manner of difficulties and dangers—and again, you will lose battles.

God the Father has given Jesus Christ “authority to execute judgment” (John 5:27). Christ executes judgment! And 1 Peter 2:21 tells us to follow Christ’s example. We are to follow His footsteps carefully, step by step by step. So we should strive diligently to execute judgment the way Christ does. You and I must execute judgment! Strong judgments give us victories. Godly judgment brings victories in physical wars and spiritual wars.

Are you winning victories? We must if we are to win that final judgment in going into God’s Kingdom and His Family! God tells us how to win these victories, physically and spiritually.

Judge Righteous Judgment

Jesus gave this instruction: “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” (John 7:24). We cannot simply look at the surface level and think we understand a situation. Christ said we must be more careful. Many people judge according to appearance, but we
must not do that!

To execute right judgment, we must grasp matters in depth. If we do not, we will be fooled by appearances—and we will lose the battle and maybe the war! In a physical
war, that could mean many thousands or even millions of casualties!

“And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind” (John 9:39). If they possess judgment, those who cannot see will see! God’s judgment truly does help us win victories.

When Jesus said “they which see,” He meant those who see things on their own. They don’t let God guide them—and they are blind! That is not a state we want to be in. So many people think they can do things by themselves or that they can solve problems and discern what should be done. God says no, if they lack His judgment, they cannot see, certainly not totally in the way they should. There is some blindness there. We cannot be blind and win battles.

But God will remove that blindness. He makes it so we can truly see!

Jesus said that after His crucifixion, He would send “the Comforter”—the Holy Spirit—and that this power from God “will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:7-8). What He was saying is that we need to submit to God’s view of what is sin and what is righteousness. Otherwise we will think we are righteous when we’re not, or believe we have good judgment when we don’t.

My booklet John’s Gospel—The Love of God discusses this Comforter (request a free copy). God gives us a Comforter to really comfort us in a way this world cannot understand. When you follow its direction, it makes things clear to you, and your judgment is focused.

“Of sin, because they believe not on me; Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged” (verses 9-11). God is about to judge the prince of this world, Satan the devil, who is the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4; Revelation 12:9). We need God’s help to discern his evil influence in the world and even within our own hearts!

“I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now” (John 16:12). When we are spiritually immature, we cannot bear these things. But we must grow to where we can bear them. We can take whatever God says and realize He has perfect judgment and perfect love, and He knows perfectly how to fight battles and wars perfectly! That is a fact. He never loses!

We are in a spiritual war, and God says we must win it to make it into the Kingdom of God! He wants us to have a joyful life where we win victories, time and time again. To achieve those, we need judgment. Seek God for His judgment, and that will lead you to achieve many spiritual and physical victories!