Pastor Kong and the 5 others accused were the heart, soul, the life behind City Harvest Church, hence their trial becomes personal to many City Harvest members who had trusted in their honesty and integrity and gave so much in their tithes and to the A&B.

When the investigations first came out in June 2010, there was unbelief but it was too early to judge.

But as the evidences came out, the initial denials turning into admission that the A&B was also for the secular singing mission in Hollywood, it would have been painful.

In 1 Cor 6, we are to be saints, seen to be pure and holy apart from the world, rather than acting like the unrighteous and putting ourselves at the standards of the world to be judged in court by the unrighteous.

A high calling and standard is expected so that as the world looks in, they would see Christ. When we insist that we are innocent until the judge hammers down the judgement, we are bringing the entire church to the law.

 Why don’t we just accept wrong rather than letting the church be exposed to incriminating emails, messages, minutes, docked documents, and carefully planned transactions to legitimise shoddy intentions. 

They told us repeatedly from the pulpit to give to build God a house, a physical building. Give until it hurts to show our faith. If we don’t give enough, it was cheating God, and we were deemed not good Christians.

The World sees us not admiring our righteousness but the scheming and plans to go under the radar of the law, audits, and the general perception.

 It was an attempt to be technically legitimate rather than morally truthful. Why the need to go to such great lengths to hide – and the endless trail of transactions showed the senseless waste of money and extravagance and untenable ventures which hitherto were denied.

So we have the World, its practices/culture and basic laws. We have the church which should not only complies with the basic laws of the world, but in addition have a much higher expectation of love, morality, integrity and righteousness which no law could sufficiently codify.

When we drag ourselves down to the level of the law, and be judged by the law, are we no better than the world?

We can’t marry Pastor Kong, and Pastor Joseph Prince, because Grace is above Law. When we are sin focussed, law minded, we “may” comply with the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law. When we are Grace minded, it is not our ourselves, and our works, but the righteousness of Christ within.

There is no more striving and more of rest and favour of God. We comply with the law naturally.