Bread of Life Fellowship

Ruble #1 - We lose sight of God's power; Ruble #2 - we replace the authority of His word with our own renditions and our own needs, the doctrines are replaced with ethics and moralisms and we forget all that Christ has delivered us from and does deliver us from. Ruble #3 - We become dispossessed of the wonderful doctrines of justification, regeneration and therefore our understanding of sanctification is just something like, Try harder, be better, we all stumble and fall so pick yourself up, dust yourself off and do your best. And with this #4 the final load of Rubble in the Well is A THOUSAND LITTLE THINGS!

The doctrine of the new birth is faintly preached in our day. The reason is that it would not be received with joy in many congregations. 1 John was a letter most gladly received to its initial recipients. The same letter preached in many of our churches would be sobering and greatly convicting. So be it!

Deny or stifle a robust emotional expressions of guilt, shame or fear and you lose your hold on the greatness of the doctrine of justification. What the individuals need is not that these emotions be tamped down. Instead they must be raised in them to an acute level. This is what the Holy Spirit is doing as he convicts of sin, righteousness and judgment. Then when at full flame these emotions drive us to an answer for them in the cross of Christ.

The topic is Illumination. The same Spirit that revealed God's message through the authors of Scripture must illumine that message to the Christian. The danger of imposing your sovereignty (read wishful thinking or assumed virtues) over the text of scripture was presented in our last message. On the other side of such such subjectivism, we may inappropriately come before God's Word is a smug self confident textualism. Because God's special revelation may be understood through the application of common sense hermeneutical principles does not mean that this word can be known without the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

Once you lose faith in a Sovereign all powerful God you lose confidence in His Word. The authority of God's Word is lost in the church and must be restored.