- A God exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.
- God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
- The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
- God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.
- Good people go to heaven when they die.
“If God answered all your prayers from the past month, would your life be more holy – or just more comfortable?”
Luke 5:33-39
THE GOSPEL IS ABSOLUTELY EXCLUSIVE.
Leviticus 16:29-34
Colossians 2:17
The sacrificial system was “a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.”
Charles Spurgeon: “LET YOUR TEARS FALL BECAUSE OF SIN; BUT, AT THE SAME TIME, LET THE EYE OF FAITH STEADILY BEHOLD THE SON OF MAN LIFTED UP, AS MOSES LIFTED UP THE SERPENT IN THE WILDERNESS, THAT THOSE WHO ARE BITTEN BY THE OLD SERPENT MAY LOOK TO JESUS AND LIVE. OUR SINNERSHIP IS THAT EMPTINESS INTO WHICH THE LORD POURS HIS MERCY.”
We don’t change so we can experience the transformational presence of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ transformational presence leads to change.
R.C. Sproul – “{Our} natural tendency is to flee from the presence of God and to have no affection for the Biblical Christ. Therefore, if you have in your heart today any affection for Christ at all, it is because God the Holy Spirit, in His sweetness, in His power, in His mercy, and in His grace, has been to the cemetery of your soul and raised you from the dead. So you are now alive to the things of Christ and you rejoice in the kingdom into which He has brought you.”
HEAVENLY FATHER, THANK YOU FOR SHATTERING FALSE HOPE AND FALSE RELIGION. IN THIS HOLY MEAL, YOU BRING TO US THE PURE DELIGHT OF THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST. AMEN.