First Methodist Hobbs Youtube Channel

The body of Christ suffers from an abysmal lack of imagination about the Bible. It has been reduced to a handbook for relieving us of our guilt and suffering. A lingering guilt assisted by mediocre religious thinking. Satan is happy to assist us in remaining slaves to this kind of religion, because it keeps us completely oblivious to the absolute powder keg of wonders upon which we are sitting.

Don’t get me wrong, God wants to rescue us from our very real drowning guilt, and he has done so in Christ Jesus. But because we are ignorant we think once that work is accomplished in us we can just rest in relief and relax in the comfort of the life boat, waiting for the calming safe shores of eternity.

The truth is God hasn’t rescued us to relax and take it easy. He has recruited us for a dangerous and wild adventure. An adventure that leads to the discovery of great wonders and the uncovering of profound mysteries. God has hidden himself in the pages of scripture, and he is just waiting to be found so he can reward your spirit with awe.

Proverbs 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.

Jesus deals the the doubt and unbelief of the disciples via the resurrection. Then he spends 40 days populating their minds with a message the is no longer inhibited by their skepticism. Their needs to be some repository of gunpowder of information for the Holy Spirit to be able to ignite in their minds and hearts.

Romans 10:13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

God himself has condescended to teach the way: For this very end he came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: Here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri ("a man of one book").

--From the "Preface" to the Standard Sermons.

'Here I am: I and my Bible. I will not, I dare not, vary from this book, either in great things or small. I have no power to dispense with one jot or tittle what is contained therein. I am determined to be a Bible Christian, not almost, but altogether. Who will meet me on this ground? Join me on this, or not at all.'"

— Sermon #116 "Causes Of The Inefficacy Of Christianity"