Ch. 3
Love Your Neighbor to Fulfill the Law
God's law to love your neighbor stood then as it does now: "You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor. Thou shalt not go up and about as a talebearer among thy people: neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbor: I am the Lord. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the Lord. Ye shall keep My statutes" (Lev. 19:15-19).
But the Church has not kept God's law just as Israel did not keep God's law. Instead, like Israel, everyone has been doing what seems right to him. "Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes. For ye are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord your God giveth you. But when ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit, and when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety... Deut. 12:8-10).
Those who desire to walk with God must stop following the flesh and submit to God's holy walk: "For the LORD thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy camp be holy: that He see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee" (Deut. 23:14). Jesus leads us by His Spirit to put to death the deeds of all fleshly rebellion, so that we may fulfill the law and be holy. If we do not resist sin and put to death the deeds of the flesh, we will continue to have a mind like Satan, because the nature of Satan and the ways of the flesh are the same. Putting to death the flesh is the only way we can have a pure heart and be renewed to have the mind of Christ. This is the walk of holiness. "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16). This is the Church of Jesus Christ, because ".., if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not (any longer) under the (judgment of) law" (Gal. 5:18). If you are led by the Spirit, your mind is no longer set on the things of the flesh, but the things of the Spirit. You are no longer under judgment because you no longer break the law. God's presence is in the midst of you to protect, deliver, and defeat your enemies.
The result is God's hedge, which brings peace: "For to be carnally minded is death: but to be spiritually minded is LIFE and PEACE. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law, neither indeed can be" (Rom. 8:6, 7). Everyone in the world who does not walk in love and obey God's law is destroyed by the powers of darkness. It is a slow death, almost imperceptible, as a moth destroys or as rottenness is in a fabric.
The ones who do not receive the Word of God into their hearts to be perfected in love are those who love other things more than they love God. If a person's mind is set on things of the flesh, the powers of darkness will be able to replace the Word in his heart with the lusts of the flesh and the things of the world. A disciple of Jesus Christ loves the Lord with all his heart and has his mind set totally on things above.
The powers of darkness bring temptation to cause our hearts to love pride, approval of man, greed and things of the world more than we love the Lord. These temptations become the roots of all sorts of evil, which change our motives from love to selfishness. This prevents us from being perfected in love. When we turn to the ways of Satan, we turn from our faith in Jesus. This is how the powers of darkness take the Word from our hearts and carry us away from the faith. The only root and motive in our heart should be to please the Lord. The parable of the Word best explains how the powers of darkness keep us from being perfected in love, and keep us from having understanding. Jesus said to the disciples, "Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand" (Mark 4:11, 12). Jesus was saying that only the disciples, the ones who come to Him with all their hearts, will have understanding. Everyone else will not be able to see, hear, or understand the mysteries of God today.
Jesus said, "The sower soweth the word.., but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts" (by turning their hearts to something else)... "These are they likewise which are sown on stony ground; who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness; and have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately they are offended." (They fall away from the faith and their hearts turn to things like pride, reputation, greed, treasures of this world, selfishness, and they love these things more than the Lord.) "And these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word, and (the powers of darkness bring) the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful" (Mark 4: 14-19).
These are examples of the trials that the powers of darkness bring against us to try to stop us from bearing the fruit of love. The powers of darkness try to get our hearts to be set on things of this world, by causing us to lust after the riches of this world and the desire for other things. Then our interest will be to please our flesh rather than to please God and be perfected in love. The opposite of all these is the man of God who is led by the Spirit of God. His motive will be to please the Lord rather than his flesh in everything he does. "But he that received seed into the good ground (a repentant heart) is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty" (Matt. 13:23).