Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
Beware of Pseudo-Spirituality, Part 4. Ritual Spirituality such as water baptism and the Lord’s supper.
Sunday, November 5, 2000
PHI 3:17 “Brethren [members of the royal family], be co-imitators of me,”
Spirituality by personality imitation creating a role model out of another person–getting your eyes on people instead of getting your eyes on Christ.
Spirituality by “yielding” a false interpretation of the verb paristemi, ROM 6:13-19; 12:1.
Spirituality by tabooism a Taboo is something prescribed by society as improper and unacceptable; hence, a practice excluded from social intercourse.
Spirituality by respectability the false contention that a believer is spiritual because his sins are more respectable than the sins of someone else.
Ritual spirituality the belief that you are spiritual by observing certain rituals.
Water baptism a ritual for the precanon period of the Church-age to teach retroactive and current positional truth–union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection.
EPH 4:4-5 “There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism,”
Turn to 1CO 1:10
Turn to 1CO 12:12
The only ritual that is significant and mandated for the post canon period of the Church-age is the Eucharist–the Lords Supper.
Failure of certain believers to understand that the Pre-Designed Plan of God has replaced the ritual plan of God in this dispensation.
Failure to understand the filling of the Spirit related to the Church-age.
JOH 4:24 “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
The false interpretation of the Scripture resulting in emphasis on rituals and assigning to them a meritorious connotation.
Christianity is not simply a way of life, but a life to be lived.
ROM 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren;
Turn to John 15:1
The Lords Supper, through its symbols that represent His person and work, becomes a reminder that His life is to be the very source of our life.
TLJC sought to establish a symbolic act of worship that would be a perpetual reminder that His life alone must be the very source of ours.
The institution of the Lords Supper and the discourses that followed in John chapters 14-17 were designed to reveal to us the distractions that would take place concerning our communion with TLJC.
The importance and meaning of the Lords Supper as a time of worship and fellowship was highlighted or intensified by the events and agendas that surrounded it.
The events described in Luke 22, verses 1-7, and verse 31 remind us of the treacherous work and agenda of Satan to hinder the plan of God.
Turn to Luke 22:1-7
Turn to Luke 22:31
Satans Agenda is to Dominate. 2CO 4:3 “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing,”
2CO 4:4 “in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
LUK 17:21b “For behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”
2TI 2:4 “No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.”
Satans Agenda is to Delude.
Satan’s agenda is to destroy.
Turn to Luke 9:49
Satans Agenda is to distract and divide.
Satans Agenda is always to distort the plan of God.