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“The Ten Commandments can’t save you, you know! After all, we’re saved by GRACE, not the law!”

“Yes, I know it’s a sin to work on Saturday, but let’s face it, the Ten Commandments aren’t what saves you!”

Evaluate those statements. How would you respond to those? Would you agree? Would you say, as I’ve often done “Well, no, they can’t… but you can’t be saved without them!”

In either case, you’d be wrong! I was. The Ten Commandments absolutely CAN save you, and NOTHING ELSE IN THE UNIVERSE CAN!

Now, allow me to prove this drastic, radical departure from modern protestant thinking and explain WHY you need a sacrifice, WHY you need grace, and WHY the entire world is deceived about this CRUCIAL TRUTH!

Our first stop on this study will be the words of Christ Himself. How did He feel about this issue? When Christ was asked “How do I get saved?”, what did He say? Did he say “Believe on me, and NEVER forget; the ten commandments can’t save you?”

Matthew 19:16 And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS.

This man wanted SAVED! He wanted ETERNAL LIFE, to be with Christ forever!

But Christ gave Him terrible advice! He said to be saved, keep the commandments! But we all know that’s simply not true, don’t we? We know that you are saved by GRACE, and not by that musty old law!

If only Christ had known that, He could have given this man the CORRECT answer… Or wait a minute! Maybe He did? Maybe it is YOU and not HIM who have been in error all your life! Let’s pursue that thought…

Ezekiel 20:11 And I gave them my statutes, and shewed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them.

God says that if a man KEEPS the Ten Commandments, he will LIVE in them, or BY them, or BECAUSE of them! That’s what He said! God said if you DO them, you will LIVE!

But of course God also said, you must BELIEVE, and have FAITH in Him to be saved, right?

Just HOW do you believe on Him? How do you have faith in Him? If you are familiar with our other articles, such as “The simple TRUTH about Faith”, “Why doesn’t God answer your prayers?”, then you know you can only have FAITH and BELIEVE on Him… BY KEEPING THE COMMANDMENTS!!

It is by KEEPING the commandments, and KNOWING you are keeping the commandments, you have FAITH! Faith, then, comes by the ten commandments!

But don’t you have to love your brother, and God, to be saved? Definitely! And where does that love come from?

Romans 13:9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

God says that LOVE IS the keeping of the commandments! So even if you are saved by love, you are STILL saved by the LAW OF GOD!!

1 Timothy 1:5 Now the END OF THE COMMANDMENT is charity [LOVE] out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:

The END of the commandment - the PRODUCT, the natural RESULT of the commandment is LOVE! And a good CONSCIENCE, and FAITH UNFEIGNED! These all come directly FROM OBEYING THE TEN COMMANDMENTS! They could not EXIST WITHOUT IT!

Are you ready yet to admit that it most certainly IS the law that saves you?? If not, there is more!

We know that it says BY GRACE are you saved through faith! And yet we know that that Grace which saves you COMES BY FAITH! (Ephesians 2:8), and that FAITH comes by OBEDIENCE TO THE LAW!!

And now at last we reach the heart of the matter! WHAT SAVED CHRIST?? Was it Grace? Faith? Love? Yes! All of those! And where does the BIBLE SAY THEY CAME FROM??

Isaiah 59:16 And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore HIS ARM BROUGHT SALVATION UNTO HIM; and HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS, IT sustained him!

He saved Himself by righteousness! The LAW, and HIS OBEDIENCE TO IT, saved HIM!

1 John 2:3 And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.

God says you should walk as HE walked! And when you walk as HE walked, you will be walking RIGHTEOUSLY, which means you won’t break the law! Which means you will be showing LOVE! And knowing that will bring FAITH, and that will bring GRACE, and that will bring salvation!

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But in spite of all that, you deserve an explanation. You deserve to know WHAT PAUL MEANT when he said

Galatians 3:10-13 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:

Paul, in his confusing way, was saying that when once you had sinned, you were under a curse, and could not be saved by the law anymore! The reason for that is very simple; the law is clear; if you KEEP the law, you will LIVE. But when you break the law, you must die.

And so, when you broke the law, it required special intervention by Christ’s death, bearing your curse on a tree, for you to be given another chance. A new lease on life, so to speak.

But ONCE THAT HAPPENED, you are once again obligated to keep the Ten Commandments, just as before! As Paul himself quotes, If you DO them, you will LIVE! And if you DO THEM, you will have FAITH! The JUST shall live by faith! And how is a man just, if not BY PROPERLY KEEPING AND ADMINISTERING THE LAW! And the END of that law is FAITH, and LOVE, and a good conscience, and that FAITH brings you GRACE!

Romans 5:21 That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might Grace Reign through RIGHTEOUSNESS unto eternal life BY Jesus Christ our Lord.

Through perfect obedience to the Ten Commandments, Christ Saved Himself and then His sacrifice paid for your sins. His obedience to the Law saved Him, and IF YOU had ever actually KEPT the law, it could have saved YOU as well! But YOU messed it up! You didn’t hold up YOUR END of the bargain! You sinned!

This didn’t mean the LAW was wrong, or evil; it meant YOU were wrong, and evil.

Hebrews 8:8 For finding fault with THEM [This was a fault with the PEOPLE, not the LAW], he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:…

If you would have embraced the law from the beginning, as Christ did, and had never sinned, then the Law would have saved you. And since you DIDN’T keep the law, and didn’t bear up your end of the bargain, it could no longer save you.

BUT once Christ’s death paid the penalty for your sin, your repented-of sins are gone, and you are in effect, given a new start. A new chance to try to keep the law - and this time, to do it right.

And it is STILL the Ten Commandments that will save you! THAT never changed! But God has now given you the holy Spirit to explain the law to you. To teach you right from wrong. That is the main difference with the new covenant.

Hebrews 8:9 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because THEY continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For THIS is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MIND, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

He has put HIS LAWS, HIS TEN COMMANDMENTS in your MIND, if you have the spirit of God! They are in your mind so that your OBEDIENCE to them can SAVE YOU, just as CHRIST’S OBEDIENCE to them saved HIM!

The new covenant, that of faith, is NOTHING BUT KEEPING THE LAW PERFECTLY, AS IT WAS INTENDED! But it is STILL NOTHING MORE THAN A SINCERE APPLICATION OF THE MUSTY OLD TEN COMMANDMENTS!!

And so YES! A thousand times, YES! The ten commandments CAN save you, and they are THE ONLY THING THAT CAN!!

(By Crystal D. Holmes - see more of her articles on her own website, www.TruthAboveAllElse.com)

Christmas is PAGAN! That’s right! Christmas is PAGAN! It most certainly DOES NOT commemorate the birth of Christ! And, I can prove it!

*Unless otherwise noted, my emphasis is in bold in all quotations.

1. Christmas Pre-Dates Christ!

Christmas actually pre-dates Christ by centuries - though it was not called Christmas during that time, the celebrations were essentially the same. You see, Christmas is just another winter solstice festival. The winter solstice is the shortest day - or the longest night - of the year.

Wikipedia, in the article “Winter Solstice”, notes, “Worldwide, interpretation of the event has varied from culture to culture, but most cultures have held a recognition of rebirth, involving holidays, festivals, gatherings, rituals or other celebrations around that time.”

The sun ceases to decline in the sky at the winter solstice, and it resumes its ascent and days grow longer after the winter solstice. Many cultures feared that the sun would go down and days would only continue to grow shorter and shorter until the sun disappeared altogether. So they begged the sun to return to them, and when he did, they celebrated his rebirth. The concept of the rebirth of a sun god is present in nearly all cultures.

William Sutton, in his book “Antichrist 666″, writes, “In the Babylonian and Assyrian legend, Nimrod died in his prime leaving a queen named Semiramis. At his death, Nimrod according to legend, became immortal, and his spirit flew up to the sun and took possession of it. Hence, he became Beel-saman, ‘Lord of Heaven’. After Nimrod had died and became the Sun God, Semiramis his queen [the biblical ‘Queen of Heaven’] became pregnant, she claimed to be a virgin, and after Nimrod’s death, according to legend, begot a child by Nimrod’s spirit coming down on her from the sun. She proclaimed to her subjects that her husband’s spirit entered into her womb through a sunbeam and begot the legendary god-child Tammuz (Ezekiel 8:14), he was born December 25.”

Tammuz was the Babylonish name for the Persian god Mithra (or Mithras). He was always the life-giving sun in human form, and went by many names in different cultures, such as Bacchus, Hercules, Dionysus, Attis, Osiris, Horus, Krishna, Yi, Quetzalcoatl, Balder, etc. All of these legends say that their god the sun was born on December 25 when the days begin to get longer.

Interestingly, Christmas was NOT celebrated by “Christians” until the fourth century. The early Christians who LOVED the truth wouldn’t ALLOW pagan practices in the church. Alexander Hislop, in his work “The Two Babylons”, writes:

“Indeed, it is admitted by the most learned and candid writers of all parties that the day of our Lord’s birth cannot be determined, and that within the Christian Church NO SUCH FESTIVAL AS CHRISTMAS WAS EVER HEARD OF TILL THE THIRD CENTURY, and that not till the FOURTH CENTURY was far advanced did it gain much observance.”

The apostles - the FOUNDERS of the New Testament church - the men who KNEW Christ face-to-face and were sent by Him to spread the gospel and teach others around the world NEVER KEPT CHRISTMAS! Read the rest of this entry »

Do you read the Mexican news? Why not? Things that happen in Mexico definitely affect you. Or how about a good Canadian newspaper? Or perhaps a Japanese and German periodical? All these nations, as well as the 180-some-odd other nations, affect you. So why don’t you make it a point to read them?

Easy; because they aren’t your country! And while a passing headline here and there from Pakistan or Bolivia might catch your notice, you really don’t care about anything that doesn’t affect YOUR country. So you read USA Today, US News and World Report, and magazines like that, to fulfill your duty to “watch” as given by Christ in the Olivet prophecy.

Of course no one can absorb all the news happening at this very moment all over the world. Even to take in the headlines from one major newspaper from every country would be impossible. But then for that matter, it’s not possible to get all the news from even your own country, and barely even your home town!

So you filter out what happens in say, sports, and read or watch the segment about money; or you filter both out and watch the political news - whatever news you feel is most important to you and will affect you the most.

And now let me prove to you that every bit of that is wrong. Well, I guess I shouldn’t say wrong exactly; but symptomatic of what is wrong with YOU, spiritually… Read the rest of this entry »

“Lord, increase our faith!” cry many hapless Christians today. They simply can’t understand why God hasn’t given them more faith, and they want more! But they go about getting it all wrong! God doesn’t GIVE you faith - you must EARN your faith! You BUILD it, and YOU are in control of EXACTLY HOW MUCH OF IT YOU HAVE!

What could be more shocking than those simple words! And yet the Bible is full of words like those from beginning to end! One of the principle uses for faith is in communicating to God. If you have faith, God will hear and answer - if not, He won’t. Everyone knows that. But what no one seems to know is, YOU are responsible for THAT! Not God!

Psalms 66:18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:

This says that if you allow iniquity - literally, lawlessness, breaking the laws of God - in your heart, GOD WILL NOT HEAR YOU! That means that, no matter HOW much faith God might have given you, if you break His rules, HE WILL NOT HEAR YOU! So it is YOU who controls that! Read the rest of this entry »

Did you realize that? Did you know that YOU are the one who destroyed what little faith you might have ever had? That IS where the Bible says the blame lays. You might have been taught that it was God’s job to just GIVE you faith! But that isn’t how it works at all!

But, you might say “The disciples asked Christ to increase their faith!” Indeed they did! But did He do it? No! Instead, He told them how to do it themselves! Read the rest of this entry »

There are a great many things responsible for the evils in this world. There are hundreds of organizations whose sole purpose it seems is to destroy health, happiness, and freedom for mankind. One may hardly take a step without stumbling over someone who is to blame for the troubles we suffer. Just the other day in fact at a natural health conference the guest speaker, a respected lecturer and author informed the audience that there were five groups responsible for America’s ill health; she proceeded to name the FDA, the doctors, the drug companies, the fast food industry, and the government.

Now don’t take what I’m about to say the wrong way; I wholeheartedly agree with what she said; these people are to blame for our ill health. The FDA wants power, the doctors treat symptoms not causes, the drug companies want you addicted to expensive medications, fast food industries provide some of the most unhealthy food on earth, and the government, well.. they just don’t seem to care. So yes, these organizations, among others, are to blame for our nationally poor health.

I’ve addressed in other articles similar views on conspiracy theories - yes, many of them may be true. The government no doubt covers up many illegal operations which violate the freedoms guaranteed to us by the constitution. And they are to blame for the loss of freedoms in this country.

Then again there are our moral guardians, those lofty and reverend men known as ministers, who have so ridiculed and slandered the law of God as to morally debase our people to the cesspools of depravity that we as a people have become. These ministers are responsible for corrupting every decent thing that we once had, and drawing the people away from the law and truth of God. And they, more than any other group bear the blame for evils in this world…

However.

You already knew this.

Pretty much everyone does, on one level or another. But there is a completely different side of this coin that the most radical thinker never seems to consider. You know the news; and so now I’m going to tell you.. the rest of the story. Read the rest of this entry »

We say we know someone when we have enough understanding of their basic behavior to build a composite that, to us, represents this person. In other words, we know how they acted the last 3 times we met them, in a handful of situations; as we get to know this person better we fine-tune our observations and observe them in more situations. We find out whether they would steal something if the opportunity has presented itself, whether they would give a handout to a bum, whether they would arrive on time to an appointment, and things like that.

You probably believe you know Jesus. You think you know how he would handle many situations and how he would go about solving some problems. But what if you could find out, from an absolutely reliable source, that He was not like that at all? What if I could prove to you, unarguably, that He would react totally differently than you think? How would you react? Let’s find out. Let’s try to build a picture of the real Jesus.

ANGER

The Jesus most people know would never get angry. Always patient and kind to everyone. Let’s see what the real Jesus did.

Mark 3:5 And when he had looked round about on them WITH ANGER, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.

95% of the Bible versions agree that Jesus Christ was ANGRY. And since He never sinned, that anger must have been justifiable! So the picture of Jesus’ nature that we are building must include anger, when appropriate - not a smooth-speaking milksop who never felt anger! Read the rest of this entry »

How dare you judge me! How DARE you judge me! The strident cry echoes throughout the halls of the modern day church. Everywhere the name of Christ is spoken, this ardent cry shrills against the injustice of condemnation.It’s time you heard JUST HOW MUCH GOD HATES THAT! Today, I’m going to tell you why it’s wrong, and just how it is that I DARE to judge you!

Who is it that hates to be judged? Who is it that screams “Antichrist!” when someone points to their sin? The person sinning!

And WHY does that sinner feel that “judging” is perhaps one of the most wretched sins a Christian can commit? BECAUSE HE HATES TRUTH, and LOVES HIS SIN! Only because he has no INTENTION of EVER TRULY REPENTING, and doesn’t want his SIN brought to light! Read the rest of this entry »

What is it? And how Is the Baptism of John different from the baptism of Christ?

Did you ever wonder? Why it is that John’s baptism came first? Why it didn’t come with the holy spirit? Why people who had been baptized by John had to be rebaptized later? And why it seems as if John and Jesus were almost in competition when baptizing?

John 3:22-23 After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized. And John also was baptizing in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there: and they came, and were baptized.

John 4:1-2 When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, (Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,)

What is this Baptism of John? Why does it no longer exist today? Why did it ever exist in the first place? How was it different? Let’s find out.

John had a prophetic purpose to do before the arrival of Christ which was very clearly stated in the Old Testament book of Malachi, and reaffirmed by the angel Gabriel to John’s father Zacharias… Read the rest of this entry »

If I were to ask you to open your Bible to the part that talks about the creation of the Earth, you’d probably open it to Genesis chapter 1. But it might shock you to learn that Genesis 1 does NOT talk about the creation of the Earth!

Genesis 1 talks about the creation of light and darkness, dry land, birds, fish, grass, man, and apparently the moon and stars, but NOT ONE WORD about creating the Earth!

Genesis 1:3-5 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Everyone knows that this is the first day of creation week - the day when God created light. And nothing else! It doesn’t say that God created anything else on this day! This is important, for when we back up to the very first verse in the Bible, it tells us that the Earth HAD ALREADY EXISTED BEFORE DAY ONE!

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

In the BEGINNING the heaven and the Earth were created - and the next verse describes the condition of the Earth before the first “day” of creation:

Verse 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

So here we find the spirit of God moving over an already existing Earth, about to make the first pronouncement of creation week: “Let there be light!” So why is the creation of Earth, without which NONE of this would have been possible, not even mentioned in Genesis at all? Read the rest of this entry »