When I read “The Legalist’s Worst Nightmare,” I felt compelled to respond. Do you see anywhere in Scripture where Christ pursued those who followed the Law like you said to pursue them? You may be trying to make a valid point, but the method is extremely wrong. I see your point, but to follow through would be horrendous. This is the Muslims’ technique! They force people to follow their beliefs. That is totally wrong.

Sorry, Vincent, the best way is to live and love Christ as displayed in the Bible, then let the Holy Spirit do His work. To attempt to be the Holy Spirit for others is extreme folly and will drive anyone away. Our job is to live for Christ and love others as Christ did. We are NOT the “Hound of Heaven.” We are but messengers. Our job is to tell others and the get out of the way and let the Holy Spirit do His work.

Then why do you write to me and try to “force” your beliefs on me? You hypocrite! You Muslim! I have never met you. I have never heard of you. I have never initiated anything with you. Yet you take it upon yourself to send me a correction. Why do you pursue me like this, you hypocrite? By your standard, this makes your behavior worse than what I recommended to this man. You see, you do it yourself, but when I suggest it, you say I am wrong. You self-righteous Muslim hypocrite.

Can you read? Are you stupid? Before you initiate a correction, make sure you read what you are correcting. The person who wrote to me said that his in-laws were trying to impose the Law on him. Like the Pharisees, this probably meant not the pure Old Testament laws, but Jewish traditions as well, which often contradicted God’s laws. I was telling him to force their own beliefs on themselves (not with violence, but with his words), to challenge them to live up to their own standard. Do Muslims force Christians to live like Christians? I did not tell him to force the Christian view on them, since they have already rejected the Christian view. They initiated, and he was answering them. They pursued him, and I taught him to respond in a decisive manner.

Have you never read how Christ dealt with the legalists? Whenever the Pharisees tried to impose their beliefs on Christ, he challenged their interpretation of Scripture and exposed the fact that they could not live up to their own standard. But he did more than that. He went all over the place preaching against them and telling parables about them. He called them all sorts of names. The Sermon on the Mount blasted their whole way of life. He criticized their prayers and their offerings, to their face and also to the multitudes. The “woes” at the end of Matthew was an explicit and public curse against them, even saying that they would die and burn in hell. He did this sort of thing repeatedly, until he became so irksome to them that they wanted to kill him, and did kill him. Is anyone nearly this angry with you, huh, “messenger”? Jesus even got physical when he went into the temple, where he turned over tables and used a whip to clear the place. Is that a Muslim technique, or is it just that you know nothing about Jesus Christ, and then like a hypocrite, you lecture someone about his ministry and his love? I never tell anyone to get physical, yet you say that I teach a Muslim technique. So would you like to tell everyone what you really think of Jesus?

Have you never read how Paul dealt with the legalists? Like Jesus before him, he went into the synagogues, into the stronghold of the legalists, and preached doctrines that were contrary to their beliefs and way of life. He even had heated arguments with them. Like the in-laws of this man who wrote to me, although they claimed to follow the Law, they did not, else they would have believed on Christ, for the Law is as a schoolmaster who leads people to Christ. Paul did this constantly, so much so that the Jews made the false charge against him that he wanted to overthrow the temple. He told the high priest, although not knowing who he was at the time, that God would strike him, since he ordered the apostle to be struck contrary to the Law. He told those who advocated circumcision to go all the way and castrate themselves. Paul was never violent, and he never plotted insurrection, but he did pursue the people and told them the truth. If the people persisted in unbelief, he would leave them, which is also what I told this man to do. Does that sound Muslim?

Where do you preach the gospel, “messenger”? In the shower when no one is listening? Jesus and Paul went into other people’s territory and disrupted their lives. How do you preach the gospel, “messenger”? In such a soothing way that it pleases itching ears? Jesus and Paul made people so angry that they wanted to kill them. You would regard Jesus and Paul as Muslims, then. You hypocrite. You pay lip service to the Lord and say that we should follow his love, but in reality you disapprove of him and regard him as “horrendous” and “totally wrong,” and you think that he acted in “extreme folly.” Thus you blaspheme by calling the Lord Jesus himself extremely stupid, only that in your hypocrisy, you take it out on me instead. Did Jesus and Paul “force” people to follow their beliefs? Well! Now I know that either you disobey the Great Commission, or you are a hypocrite every time you follow it. Next time a non-Christian tells you to shut up, you better obey like a good little Christian dog, that is, if you do not want to become a Muslim and “force” your beliefs on him.

There is something very wrong with you, “messenger.” Like the legalists, who mistakenly assume that they understand what the Law is, you assume you know what Christianity is, what Christian love is, what Christian ministry is, and how Christ and his disciples lived. But you are ignorant. You are hypocritical. You are self-righteous. Your whole perspective is wrong and from the world. Your Christianity is what Satan tells you it ought to be, and not what the Scripture teaches you that it is, and what the Lord Jesus shows you that it can be, and what the prophets and apostles practiced before you.

Now I will let the Holy Spirit do his work, and if he works on you, you will smarten up and stop talking like an imbecile that has been programmed with false religious traditions. We are indeed messengers, but we are messengers of the King, and thus messengers with knowledge and authority, and we are to go forth with boldness to tell the nations what to believe and how to behave, even all that the King has commanded. May the Holy Spirit deliver all of us from hypocrisy and self-righteousness, and make us an unstoppable spiritual force in the world.

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