Season 1 Podcast 16 Selfish Charity

A New Voice of Freedom

Season 1 Podcast 16: Selfish Charity

James calls the Two Great Commandments ‘The Royal Law.’ In Matthew 22 we read,

“36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

If you examine the Ten Commandments, you will find that the first five commandments help us to live the First Great Commandment of the Royal Law: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”

The first five commandments are:

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.

3. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.

4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

5. Honour thy father and thy mother.

And the last five commandments help us to live the Second Great Commandment of the Royal law: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

6. Thou shalt not kill.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

8. Thou shalt not steal.

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

10. Thou shalt not covet

The Ten Commandments lie at the heart of everything: the rise and fall of civilizations, the joy and happiness of all the people of the earth. The Ten Commandments are at the heart of law and order, liberty, freewill, freedom, and agency. All the ills of the earth could be healed simply by the majority of the people living the Ten Commandments. There would be no murder, no adultery, no lying, cheating, stealing, envying. There would be no poor, no racial division, no riots, no wars, no discontent. Our prisons would be empty, our streets safe, our governments peaceful.

In the final judgment, we are going to be judged by our works. In other words, we are going to be judged by how well we lived the two great commandments of loving the Lord and loving our neighbor. Violation of the Ten Commandments complicates everything; obedience to the Ten Commandments simplifies everything.

Our jails are full, and our courts overcrowded only because we have turned our backs on the Ten Commandments called by James, “The Law of Liberty.” Our court system, however, is subject to the corruptions of man. In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, King Claudius, guilty of fratricide, tries to pray for forgiveness but cannot: He said:

“In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above;
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence.”

When the Lord commanded the Children of Israel to appoint judges rather than have kings, He established the criteria for any free government. Notice the charge to the judges:

“16 And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him.