Thank you Father God for your soothing tone and firm hand of graceful truth that you communicated to me the last 33 years of  my life through your servant Warren Wiersbe. And thank you for your faithful ministry at Back To The Bible Warren. Love and miss you. We'll see you when we get Home.

“Ignorance of God’s Word has come to characterize both our nation and professing Christians. This ignorance is reflected in the latest polls conducted by the Barna Association which show that only 9% of Americans are Bible-believing Christians!

And what determines a Bible-believing Christian? Answers to the following six questions:
1) Does absolute moral truth exist?
2) Is the Bible totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches?
3) Is Satan a real being and not simply a symbolic force?
4) Can people earn their way into Heaven by doing good works?
5) Did Jesus live a sinless life?
6) Is God the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today?

Again, only 9% of Americans can answer these questions biblically, and only 17% of professing Christians can do so. Is it any wonder that a recent national poll by the George Barna’s American Culture and Faith Institute revealed that: ! 77% of Americans believe divorce is acceptable. ! 71% believe sexual intercourse between unmarried adults is acceptable. ! 69% believe having a baby out of marriage is acceptable. ! 58% believe viewing pornography is acceptable.

Or, consider what public opinion polls are showing regarding same-sex marriage: acceptance of the abomination of same-sex marriage has increased rapidly from 37% in 2007 to 62% in 2018. The acceptance among white Evangelicals has increased from 14% in 2007 to 35% in 2018. The latest poll in 2018 shows that Alabama is the only state in the Union where a majority of people oppose same-sex marriage!

Our nation needs to wake-up to the fact that legalizing an abomination does not make it moral.”
–David Reagan (The Lamplighter- Sept 2018)
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​Isaiah 58:12 “Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.”

“With unprecedented power and courage, Luther had brought to light the Scripture truths as to the individual salvation of the sinner by faith, but failed when he might have shown the way to a return to Scripture in all things, including its teaching as to the Church. In 1526, he has written:
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“The right kind of evangelical order cannot be exhibited among all sorts of people, but those who are seriously determined to be Christians and confess the gospel with hand and mouth, must enroll themselves by name and meet apart, in one house, for prayer, for reading, to baptize, to take the Sacrament, and exercise other Christian works. With such order it would be possible for those who did not behave in a Christian manner to be known, reproved, restored, or excluded, according to the rule of Christ (Matt. 18:15). Here also they could in common, subscribe alms, which would be willingly given and distributed among the poor, according to the example of Paul (2 Cor. 9:1-12). Here it would not be necessary to have much or fine singing. Here a short and simple way of baptism and the Sacrament could be practiced, and all would be according to the Word and in love. But I cannot yet order and establish such an assembly, for I have not yet the right people for it. If however, it should come about that I must do it, and am driven to it, I will willingly do my part. In the meantime, I will call, excite, preach, help, forward it until the Christians take the Word so in earnest that they will themselves find how to do it and continue in it.”

​"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”    -Luke 9:23

“If you would come after me as my disciple (fill in your name), you must deny your own personal collection of fallen Adamic attachments and aversions; your own set of “emotional programs for happiness” independent of God; your literal “death grip” on self-generated Security & Survival, Esteem & Affection, Power & Control.

Then, take your place in your objective union and co-crucifixion with me in MY Cross. You must do this as an intentional act of consecration every single day; you must daily reckon yourself dead to sin, self, Satan and his kingdom- the world.

Then, follow me- listen to my voice; the “voice of a thin silence”. Stay close and ask… frequently; don’t just assume. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me.

If you insist and persist in trying to arrange for life; trying to self-secure happiness based on your own attachments and aversions, I tell you, you will lose it all. What benefit is it to you, even if you were successful in self-securing happiness to the point of gaining the whole world, if along the way you lost your true integrity of being or forfeited your unique person in union with me?

You were chosen (fill in your name), predestined and created in me for this divine union; for your own unique sonship and participation in my communion with the Father. I alone am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes unto the Father except through me. So release your grip and open your clinched fists of self-security and anger and take my hand…you can trust me. The nail scars in my hands are your proof…no one can snatch you out of these hands.”

Deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him are the immediate and basic instructions to all disciples of all time. Their context is Peter’s God given revelation and confession of Jesus as Messiah and in his next breath that which we are all familiar with, the blurting forth of our own Adamic attachments and aversions in the “basic principles of this world”.  How easy it is to fall from grace, having in mind the things of man rather than the things of God.

There is so much at stake…“Oh God, come to my aid. Oh Lord, make haste to help me.”
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(Matt. 10:37-9; 16:24-26; Mark 8:34-35; Luke 9:23-25; 14:26-33; John 10:27; 1 Kings 19:12; Ephesians 1:4-5; 2:10; John 14:6; 17:22-23; Romans 5:8; John 10:28)

"When Christ ceases to fill the heart with satisfaction, our souls will go in silent search of other lovers" - Maurice Roberts

“In the fourth century AD, the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, Arabia and Persia were peopled by a race of men who had left behind them a strange reputation. They were the first Christian hermits, who abandoned the cities of the pagan world to live in solitude. Why? Why did they do this? The reasons were many and various, but they can all be summed up in one word as the quest for salvation. Society, which meant pagan society, limited by the horizons and prospects of life in this world, was regarded by them as a shipwreck from which every person needed to swim for their life. These were men who believed that to let oneself drift along, passively accepting the tenants and values of what they knew as society... was purely and simply a disaster.” – Thomas Merton “The Wisdom of the Desert”
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I’ve been thinking about desire a lot lately. What is it I truly desire? The question has arisen in the context of my desires seemingly having been thwarted yet again. Is this what I really desire? God are you really in this? How many times can I take the mocking gut punch of unrealized desire? What DO I want?
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The question may seem rather simple at first glance, but stop and ask yourself. What is it YOU desire? I suspect for some the answers may come quickly, but upon further honest reflection may reveal themselves to be fairly unaligned with those of the Kingdom or else on a flat out carnal and worldly trajectory. In which case, the question needs to be asked again, “What is the real desire lying underneath these misguided ones?” For others, I suspect the question, “What do you desire?” is so deeply and spiritually intimate that only with great difficulty could they respond with anything that felt like an authentic answer.

Join us as we commemorate May 14, 1948 and Israel's 70th year in The Land and as we "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem" Psalm 122:6

Correction: The First Zionist Congress was in 1897 not 1827. I transposed the years of their Diaspora in error.

​Lord Jesus, I confess and repent of all forms and expressions of the sin of envy in my life, heart and will. I confess I have hated my brother, and others, thus becoming a murderer through my hateful envy, slander and backbiting; through my lack of gratitude to you for what you ARE doing in my life and HAVE given me.

I confess and repent of cherishing offense and resentment at both the real and imagined hurtful acts and words of others; I renounce the idolatry of cherishing offense and resentment as the breeding ground of envy, hatred, malice and ingratitude.
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Lord Jesus, I invite you to bring to my remembrance anyone and anything related to this my sin of envy, so that I may repent, bring it out into your Light, under the cleansing of your Blood, and the deliverance of your Cross.

I also resist the foul spirit of envy and its attendants coming against me through the sin of envy operative in others; their envy of me, my family, my gifts and my stewardship. I bring the Cross of Jesus Christ between me and them; I bring the Love of God and forgiveness against their spirit of envy. I return blessing to them for every curse generated against me as a result of their envy. I forbid their sin and warfare to transfer to me and I break every soul tie and curse in the Name and authority of Jesus Christ.

Lord Jesus, I now give you my gratitude for your every grace and mercy in my life and I resist the temptation to feel envy, loss, or diminishment when I see your generosity being given to others, especially in those areas where I still feel deep desires as yet unrealized within me. I choose to praise to you and bless others. In the Name, authority, power and dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ. ἀμήν -Amen

“Therefore rid yourselves of all malice…and envy and slander of every kind” – 1 Peter 2:1

Today we make our final push to the summit of this mountain of a book, 1 Corinthians, and like Everest, will face our own "Hillary Step".