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MATTHEW 7:12

I. "THEREFORE"
        A. Links necessity with power. "Ask, seek, knock."

II. DO UNTO YOUR NEIGHBOR WHAT YOU WOULD HAVE YOUR NEIGHBOR DO TO YOU.
        A. Similar to other statements.
                1. Hillel, "Do not do to your neighbor what is hateful to yourself."
                2. Socrates, "What stirs you to anger when done to you by others, do not do to
                   others."
                3. Aristotle, "We should bear ourselves toward others as we would desire they
                   should bear themselves toward us."
                4. Confucius, "What you do 'not what done to yourself, do not do to others."
                5. These are negative and passive.
        B. Christ command is positive and active.
                1. You care just not to refrain from doing him harm, you are to do him good.
                2. It is not that you aren't to rob him, you are to give to him.
        C. Selfish, self respect might refrain us from harming him, but the higher thing
           cannot be done without power.
        D. Summation on matter of judgment.
                1. Summation also of law and prophets.
                        a. Calls attention to misunderstanding of God's law.
                        b. We are prone to think law is just rules we must keep and we forget
                           spirit.
                        c. Think of law as something negative or prohibitive.
        E. Modern view of golden rule.
                1. Praised not practiced.
                2. Sermon on the mount preached not that we should comment on it, but follow
                   it.
        F. Why do men forsake golden rule.
                1. Theological and Biblical.
                        a. Some say they dislike theology.
                        b. Love Sermon on he mount, practical and simple not theology.
                        c. Just put this before people and they will see its merits and put it
                           into practice.
                                1. What is truth? (1900 years faced with this rule.
                2. Why is this so?
                        a. Man is sinful.
                        b. So bound by evil cannot practice golden rule.
                        c. "The carnal mind is enmity against God, it is not subject to the 
                           Law of God."  Rom. 8:7.
                        d. Useless to hold law before him, he hates it.
                3. Self is worst problem, we are to self-centered.
                        a. Labor disputes.
        G. How is it possible to put golden rule into practice 
                1. You must start with God.
                        a. What is greatest commandment?
                                1. You cannot love your neighbor until you first love God.
                        b. To come into presence of God gives us hew view of ourselves.
                                1. We also get new view of others.
                                2. Victims of sin.
                        c. We see perfect order of Sermon on the Mount. Ask,  seek, knock - 
                           brings the power to do unto others.