THE FOUR SPIRITUAL LAWS AGAINST THE TEN GOD'S COMMANDMENTS

You have probably already heard of Christians who preach The Four Spiritual Laws, namely, a recipe on the basis of which, as they think, many people they successfully deliver into God's hands.

However, is the calling of Christ's name a magic formula which protects us from Satan's temptations of pseudospiritual experience?

Of course not! Such a thing would not be just, because it would involve unconscious and irresponsible delivering of ourselves into hands of the one, who we still do not know, who we, maybe, still despise deeply in our hearts.

As many people, using The Four Spiritual Laws, had experiences which made them, as they say, very happy, we will analyze what really happened to them in such experiences:

LAW 1:

GOD LOVES YOU AND OFFERS A WONDERFUL PLAN FOR YOUR LIFE.

Saying that God has love for man without the explanation of what such love really means, allows a man to interpret God's love as His tendency to satisfy man's selfish and self-righteous needs, because these needs are only ones of which man is aware by his nature. Without correct knowledge of God's character (through Biblical revelation) they are inclined to seek God right out of these motives, from which God wants to free them, and which would be reprimanded by clear demands of His holy law.

If they realized the God's real character, they would understand that they would never choose God, according to their nature (Matthew 5:3). Only then they could really humiliate themselves before God and allow Him to lead them by His Holy Spirit, instead of selfish and self-righteous motives of their unconverted hearts.

As an answer to our remark, those people who support The Four Spiritual Laws will surely show the following scheme and say that they reprimand man's pleasing himself, his ego and desires of his flesh:

But, can such a scheme compensate the neglected Ten Commandments?

If the idea of God's character, which man has in his mind, provokes his natural motives of behavior, if it stirs his "self", then it is quite the same if there is an idea of God and not our "self" on the throne of our heart.

So, if the idea of the one who is on the throne of our heart moves our natural motives: fear, guilt, selfish interest etc., then such an idea automatically elevates our "self" to God's place, although it is not on His place formally.

God knows your heart and is not so concerned with your words as He is with the attitude of your heart. The following is a suggested prayer:

"Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive You as my Savior and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of the throne of my life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be."

Does this prayer express the desire of your heart?

We can see that they recite Scripture right in such light in which they will awake the unconverted motives of human nature.

God's Love

"God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:16 NIV).

God's Plan

[Christ speaking] "I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly" [that it might be full and meaningful] (John 10:10).

Why is it that most people are not experiencing the abundant life?

Who would not want to have abundant and eternal life? There is no need for a person to be inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that he could wish to have eternal and abundant life.

Such people are not interested in God real goodness, because they do not have any selfish use of it. It would just reprimand their selfish and self-righteous motives out of which they pray to Christ.

"What if the lovely Jesus, our pattern, should make His appearance among them and the professors of religion generally, as at His first advent? He was born in a manger. Follow Him through His life and ministry. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. These professed Christians would be ashamed of the meek and lowly Saviour who wore a plain, seamless coat, and had not where to lay His head. His spotless, self-denying life would condemn them; His holy solemnity would be a painful restraint upon their lightness and vain laughter; His guileless conversation would be a check to their worldly and covetous conversation; His declaring the unvarnished, cutting truth, would manifest their real character, and they would wish to get the meek pattern, the lovely Jesus, out of the way as soon as possible. They would be among the first to try to catch Him in His words, and raise the cry, 'Crucify Him! Crucify Him!' " (Early Writings 109)

LAW 2:

MAN IS SINFUL AND SEPARATED FROM GOD
Therefore, he cannot know and experience God's love and plan for his life.

Man Is Sinful

"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).

Only admitting that man is sinful, does not mean that he became aware of his sinfulness. Only through the demands of God's laws (The Ten Commandments) can man really be aware of his sinfulness, and not by informing him that he is sinful.

"I would not have known what is to covet if the law had not said, You shall not covet." (Romans 7:7)

Without the law man is not aware of the sin itself, but he is aware of its negative manifestations in his feelings and acts. Manifestations of sin spoil man's pleasant feelings, and bad actions lead man to a conflict with his neighborhood, and destroy his self-righteous picture about himself. Out of selfish and self-righteous nature every man wants to remove the manifestations of sin, but not the sin itself.

Man was created to have fellowship with God; but, because of his stubborn self-will, he chose to go his own independent way, and fellowship with God was broken. This self-will, characterized by an attitude of active rebellion or passive indifference, is an evidence of what the Bible calls sin.

Man Is Separated

"The wages of sin is death" [spiritual separation from God] (Romans 6:23).

To the man who did not become aware of his sinfulness, this verse in such context provokes the feeling of guiltiness and fear, and leads him to make pseudodecision for Christ. Distorted realization of God's justice provokes the fear, and distorted realization of God's love provokes selfish motives out of which man becomes religious.

LAW 3:

JESUS CHRIST IS GOD'S ONLY PROVISION FOR MAN'S SIN. Through Him you can know and experience God's love and plan for your life.

He Died in Our Place

"God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

He Rose From the Dead

"Christ died for our sins...He was buried...He was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures...He appeared to Peter, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred..." (1 Corinthians 15:3-6).

He Is the Only Way to God

"Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me'" (John 14:6).

Throwing "pearls before swine" is citing such verses to a person who still did not become conscious of his spiritual needs and who will abuse these verses to satisfy his psychological needs.

LAW 4:

WE MUST INDIVIDUALLY RECEIVE JESUS CHRIST AS SAVIOR AND LORD; THEN WE CAN KNOW AND EXPERIENCE GOD'S LOVE AND PLAN FOR OUR LIVES.

We Must Receive Christ

"As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name" (John 1:12)

We Receive Christ Through Faith

"By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast" (Ephesians 2:8,9).

When We Receive Christ, We Experience a New Birth (Read John 3:1-8.)

We Receive Christ by Personal Invitation

[Christ speaking] "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him" (Revelation 3:20).

Receiving Christ involves turning to God from self (repentance) and trusting Christ to come into our lives to forgive our sins and to make us what He wants us to be. Just to agree intellectually that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died on the cross for our sins is not enough. Nor is it enough to have an emotional experience. We receive Jesus Christ by faith, as an act of the will.

The same experience also happens with Satanists. They accept Satan on the basis of confidence of him, and they do not stay on a superficial contact, but realize a personal one with him.

If it does, I invite you to pray this prayer right now, and Christ will come into your life, as He promised.

Now that you have received Christ...

Selfish prayer can result in possession by a demon.

Do Not Depend on Feelings

The promise of God's Word, the Bible - not our feelings - is our authority. The Christian lives by faith (trust) in the trustworthiness of God Himself and His Word. This train diagram illustrates the relationship among fact (God and His Word), faith (our trust in God and His Word), and feeling (the result of our faith and obedience) (John 14:21).

In a correct experience the concept of feeling would be replaced by the concept of motive. What they are talking about here is the pseudospiritual experience, because in a real new birth God does not change emotions, but motives (character).

The train will run with or without a caboose. However, it would be useless to attempt to pull the train by the caboose. In the same way, as Christians we do not depend on feelings or emotions, but we place our faith (trust) in the trustworthiness of God and the promises of His Word.

It will not be necessary to offer somebody who really understood God's character, symphtomatical warning not to rely on feelings. Correct function of feelings will be the normal consequence of unselfish love. It would be hypocritical to criticize the poor function of feelings, when they are a natural consequence of selfish motives of an unconverted heart.

Those who underestimate the function of God's law do not have protection from their own selfish motives, and also from abusing religious feelings in which they will surely seek salvation, no matter how much they critic this problem.

Can you think of anything more wonderful that could happen to you than receiving Christ? Would you like to thank God in prayer right now for what He has done for you?

RESUME:

The whole formula is egocentric in its essence because it moves selfish motives. The one who is really newborn, does not tend to feel nice, but to serve God and their neighbor. He does not mind how he feels, but it is important to him to do what is just.

When a Satanist gives his soul to the devil, in return he gets an answer to all those needs of his heart, which he could not satisfy by classical sinful living.

Different from the Satanist, who consciously chooses to sin, there are people of sensitive conscience, who cannot admit to themselves the real character of their motives. They give their soul to the devil, but, in order to calm their conscience, they do it under the form of Christian spiritual experience.

But the experience which they have does not essentially differ from the experience of those who consciously gave their souls to the devil.

Neither one nor another did put their own "self" on the throne of their hearts, but they put the one which they consider to be an answer to their selfish and self- righteous motives.

Both of these groups of people are proud of their power and abilities, which common people do not have. They are boasting, saying that they finally found an answer to the longings of their hearts, and in that way, they show that they are moved by the same spirit.

Calling Jesus' name automatically in prayer, cannot save any soul on this planet from the trap of false spiritual experience. But the real idea about God's character is being able to reprimand sinful and self-righteous motives of the ones who speak prayers to Jesus' name.

Now, when we have analyzed the idea of God's character and spiritual experience of those who preach the The Four Spiritual Laws, we will understand that it is an occult experience that has Christian form.

THE FOUR CORRECTED SPIRITUAL LAWS:

1. The knowing of God:

"And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." (John 17:3)

God is love

God discovered his character through His Moral Law (Ten Commandments), through his word (Bible), through the life of Jesus Christ, through the world he created and through his faithful children.

Through all these revelations he shows us that he loves the sinner, not the sin. God is love and because of love he is just.

Without God's law man does not have the correct idea about God, so His love is interpreted as His tendency to satisfy man's selfish interests, while God's justice is interpreted as God's cruelty to a sinner.

2. Consciousness about its spiritual need:

"But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful." (Romans 7:13)

Man is in sin

Knowing God we realize we are in complete clash with His character, thus we are incapable of freeing ourselves from the sin and the guilt of our sin ( and the punishment that is waiting for us because of our guilt). We are becoming conscious of our spiritual needs: a) The need for forgiveness, b) The need for the release of sin, c) The need for life which exists for the glory of God.

Without God's law man is not aware of his spiritual needs, but he is aware only of his selfish and self-righteous motives (so called psychological). He is bothered only by the consequences of sin, but not the sin itself.

3. God's plan of salvation:

The solution for man's problem

God made the first step and provided man with a plan of salvation. He redeemed man with his blood through Jesus Christ and according to this victim he gives us the right for forgiveness of guilt, the release of sin and the right to live.

Without God's law the self-righteousness of man is not reprimanded, and that is why men unconsciously still rely on it. They justify themselves by works which search in their feelings or in various miracles and signs which follow their spiritual life.

Christ's sacrifice is then abused, as if it has function to remove only the consequences of sin and not the sin itself. The sinner is given an excuse to sin before his conscience. He is even more free than before when he was open nonbeliever, than when he was at least warned by his conscience.

4. Free choice of God:

Redemption, Appeal and New Life

It is not enough to enjoy in God's goodness, it is necessary to choose God, lean on Him and with His force to live by His will.

God's law is the criterion by which we check if our fruits of the Spirit are the consequence of the conversion of our hearts to God or the excitement that Satan provokes our a human self control.

"I will sprinkle clean water over you, and you shall be cleansed from all that defiles you; I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit in to you and make you conform to my statutes, keep my laws and live by them. " (Ezekiel 36:25- 27)

THE TEN GOD'S COMMANDMENTS
First four commandments speak about the way of expression of
our love toward God, and the other six about our love toward other people.
SPIRIT AND SENSE OF THE LAW
Has Jesus changed the sense of God's commandments?
RELATION BETWEEN THE MORAL LAW AND THE LAW OF JUSTICE
There is a difference between the law of God's justice, which speaks about punishment for the sin ("An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth") and God's moral law which speaks nothing about justice (punishment) but about the righteousness (motives) of human heart ("Do not say I will revenge for evil", "Love your enemies").
RELATION BETWEEN THE MORAL AND THE CEREMONIAL LAW
Today many Christians, tryng to justify their sinful and fanatical life, contest the demands of the moral law, by attributing to it the features of the ceremonial law, which is abolished on the cross of Calvary.
ARE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS STILL VALID?
Many Christians believe that from Moses to Christ God led his chosen people to the heavy burden of legalism and fanaticism (justification by the works). God of their mind had crisis of character in the Old Testament period. They do not understand the function of God's Law, because they are not moved by real love, which the Law demands of them.
FUNCTION OF THE MORAL LAW
Different attitudes towards the Law between Pharisee and Tax Collector resulted in dramatical differences as concerns their salvation.
THE FALSE EXPERIENCE OF SPIRITUAL NEW BIRTH
The fact that many Christians in their prayers call Jesus' name does not mean that they really pray to Him and that they did not fall in the trap, that is characteristic for nonchristian mystical experiences.