Didn’t Jesus said of the Pharisees?????

No doubt his preaching has been a blessing to many, I have many reservations on some parts of his teachings.

http://www.imeem.com/sgdavid/playlist/T5Go70nL/pastor-joseph-prince-sermon-music-playlist

Scriptually he is right most of the time, but NOT all of what he says is true (not referring just to ten commandments). It is encouraging to hear at best.

In Mark 10:17-24, why did Jesus give the man the Ten Commandments?

1, because he didn’t see Jesus as a Saviour. He saw Jesus as a “good teacher”. The man didn’t see his own inability to save himself. If He did, then he would have seen Jesus as His Saviour, and not a pattern to follow. So, of course it is appropriate for Jesus to give the Ten Commandments.

2, because Jesus saw that he was boasting on his own good works.

By the way, the same story can be found in Luke 18.

Another story from Luke 19, one chapter after the above story. Jesus met Zaccheus and visited his house. To a Jewish, it is considered a great honour for someone as respected as Jesus to visit his house. Despite the fact that Zaccheus was a tax collector, Jesus showed him PURE GRACE simply by visiting and eating at his house.

Now, why do think the Holy Spirit put these two stories back to back in Luke 18 and 19? He wants us to see the difference between law and grace.

In Luke 18. What was the result? After given the Ten Commandments, the man walked away sorrowful, and didn’t even give one cent out of his pocket.

In Luke 19. What was the result? Grace opened up Zaccheus’ wallet. All of a sudden he became very generous. Half of his riches, he would give to the poor. All the people that he had cheated, he would repay four times.

One more thing, is there anywhere in the Ten Commandments where it says, “Give”? Isn’t it a much deeper revelation to be able to give generously?

Grace, and I am talking about PURE GRACE, will CAUSE us to accomplish much more (including obeying the Ten Commandments) than those who insist on the Ten Commandments alone. There is no way the Ten Commandments will be able to make Zaccheus did what he did. Only PURE GRACE could. It is even implied from the above storied that the Ten Commandments might make us to be stingy.

So, I think, it is not a matter of, “Is the Ten Commandment still for today?” Honestly, I don’t care at all.

The question we should ask is, “WHICH OF THE TWO (the Ten Commandments and grace) WILL CAUSE YOUR LIFE TO ACCOMPLISH SO MUCH MORE?” “WHICH OF THE TWO WILL CAUSE YOU TO GO AN EXTRA MILE OF DOING SOMETHING THAT EVEN The Ten Commandments NEVER COMMANDS YOU TO DO?”

From the stories, it is almost as if the Ten Commandments are hindering us taking that extra mile in our Christian life. So, I don’t think “balance” is good at all. Why would I want something that can hinder me from accomplishing much more?

Those who rely NOT on the “balance”, but the PURE GRACE of GOD are the ones who are going to be accomplishing so much more in their Christian life (including fulfilling the Ten Commandments).

~ From a Christian whom Jesus loves the most ~

I never read bible or even pray but god to me …is a sacrifies to love.In our life are we able to sacrfies to love.Is same goes to are we able to sacrifies life ,money ,self fishness to love.

Life come from nothing and go with nothing …just left the love planted in everyone heart.

20″Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

21Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

22At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

23Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”

24The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is[e] to enter the kingdom of God! 25It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
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Having taken a stand on the 10 commandments, has anyone here taken another step to sell all they have to follow Jesus?

Sunday, 13th September 2009

Over the past 2 days, I have been blogging about the fact that it was Paul, the apostle appointed by the resurrected Christ, who on numerous occasions in his epistles, tells us that the Law has been superseded by Grace.

Some preachers get very uncomfortable when they read passages such as Rom 7 and Gal 4. You mean to say the Ten Commandments, the very bedrock of what defines God’s standards, no longer apply to Christians? I remember feeling extremely disturbed when I first heard sermons like that myself. Being a Christian since I was 12, these types of messages went against the very foundation of my faith and truth be told, I was shaken.

It is probably because of this that many theologians rationalised by subdividing the Law into 3 parts:
(i) Moral — represented by the Ten Commandments
(ii) Civil — conduct and behaviour towards others
(iii) Ceremonial — the washing of utensils etc.

They argue that Jesus, via His establishing the New Covenant, has done away with the ceremonial laws. Through the courts, the civil laws are replaced. But the moral law remains.

But therein lies a problem.

Firstly, God did not subdivide His laws; man did. James says in Js 2:10 that anyone who broke any part of them was guilty of breaking them all. This is because the Old Covenant was meant to be one composite whole, one package deal.

Secondly, let’s study the following passage:

Romans 7
An Illustration From Marriage
1Do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to men who know the law—that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives?
2For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage.
3So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.
4So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. 5For when we were controlled by the sinful nature,[a] the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.
6But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

Here, Paul uses the illustration from marriage to tell us that we, now being married to Jesus, so to speak, should not have anymore dealings with our previous spouse, the law.

Those same theologians would argue that the law in this passage refers to the civil and ceremonial law, and not the moral law. But let’s read on…

7What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.”
8But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead.
9Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.
10I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.

Maybe the Holy Spirit could foresee that the church down through the ages would attempt to make such a distinction between moral, civil and ceremonial. So Paul gave an example about what he meant by “the law” by making reference to one of the Ten Commandments — “Thou shall not covet!”

Paul also mentions in 2 Cor 3:7 about “the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones”. Those of us who are familiar with the Bible will know that only the Ten Commandments were written and engraved on stone tablets. The civil and ceremonial laws were dictated to Moses. Hence, those who preach strongly on the Ten Commandments do not realise that they are ministers of death, killing you softly with those words :-)

Thirdly, how many of us Christians observe the Sabbath today, by not working between 6pm on Friday and 6pm on Saturday? Some have argued that it is a ceremonial law, but hey, it was one of the Ten Commandments. If God had meant for His laws to be subdivided into moral, civil and ceremonial, should He not have placed the Sabbath elsewhere? Unless, it was because He knew that there would come a time when man would arbitrarily subdivide them for Him that He deliberately placed this commandment amongst the other Nine?

Paul says in 1 Cor 15:56 that the strength of sin is the law, so the irony is that the more we try to keep them, the more we end up breaking them! In Rom 7, he wrote that he sincerely did not want to covet, but he ended up coveting!

Is it therefore not surprising that Rev Peter Koh committed intellectual theft when he plaigiarised that antinomian article, or when we read of that church elder who was supposed to rehabilitate prostitutes but ended up sleeping with them instead.

Dear friends, via the blood of Christ, God has put an end to the Old Covenant and superseded it with the New Covenant. Jesus even made that clear in one of His parables where He said that new wine should not be placed in old wineskins. Now His laws are written on our hearts. It is via His grace that we can live the victorious and abundant Christian life, and not via trying to keep the Ten Commandments. Amen?

Please quote the full context, for the benefit of others the subsequent statement is this.

“But when you depend on the Spirit of grace, it will lead to life. You will see breakthroughs and miracles (Galatians 3:5), and manifest the fruit of the Spirit.”

See the difference it makes when this is read in the full context. Why would someone with a PhD pick and choose a statement from a full text, and using the statement just to prove a certain doctrine that he is pushing.