Welcome! Read again D. L. Moody’s challenge and Leonard Ravenhill’s insightful observations. Men from the past can shed light on the present!
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The Word for Today
“Declare me innocent, O Lord,
for I have acted with integrity;
I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.
2 Put me on trial, Lord, and cross-examine me.
Test my motives and my heart.
3 For I am always aware of your unfailing love,
and I have lived according to your truth.
4 I do not spend time with liars
or go along with hypocrites.
5 I hate the gatherings of those who do evil,
and I refuse to join in with the wicked.
6 I wash my hands to declare my innocence.
I come to your altar, O Lord, (Psalm 26:1-6 NLT).
What a testimony from David. May it be your’s today!
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Unread letters
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was alienated from her family because of her marriage to Robert Browning. Her father had forbade any of his 12 children to marry. She ultimately eloped with Robert and moved to Italy. She wrote letters to her family weekly for years in hopes of reconciling. She never received a reply. After many tears, and a year before her father died, she received a package in the mail. They were the 
letters she had written to him…unopened, her pleas thus rejected. Those letters became literary classics and are considered to be among the most beautiful writings in English literature.
I wonder what the Lord thinks of His efforts toward reconciliation when, after years have passed, His letters of appeal (II Peter 3:9) are yet unopened by so many of His “family.” Many have no idea about what God is saying to them in those epistles.
Have you opened the love letters of your New Testament recently?
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Doubters keep ignoring the facts
In the excavations of the city of David in Jerusalem, they are discovering many items with biblical names on them, some of which had no extra-biblical references. Skeptics take the fact that certain names are mentioned only in the pages of the 
Bible as their being mythical, made-up identities.
One of the most recent finds included a bulla—a piece of clay stamped with a person’s name—that names Isaiah as the person to whom it belongs. When will the doubters and nay-sayers finally admit that the Bible is a reliable history book?
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Hypocrisy in high places
Democrat mayors and their city councils are now balking at accepting illegal aliens into their “sanctuary cities.” Why, if they are declared to be a sanctuary for illegals? We all know why—it is not about the welfare of immigrants, but all about political power, power to hurt the man who is in the White House in Washington. The interests of immigrants are the least concerns such 
politicians embrace. They are merely political pawns in the hands of leftist power seekers.
The multi-millionaire Bernie Sanders, presidential wannabe, denigrates the wealthy by saying they are destroying the country. Puullleeezzz. Let me know when you are hired to a good paying job by a poor man.
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Stirring words
“I would rather awake a sleeping church than a sleeping world.” – D. L. Moody.
Leonard Ravenhill added to the Moody statement: “Our indulgences condemn us! We have slept too long, eaten too much, spent more than we have needed to on things that did not matter, at prices we could not afford.”
Ravenhill further observes: “The man who slips $30 a week out of his budget for cigarettes, drinks, and gambling is considered a sport and worldly-wise man. But the brother who in love for his Lord and for lost men tithes the same amount, not only hears whispers that he is being milked by the lazy preachers, but is looked 
upon as a fool by his workmates. No wonder somebody has written:
I dreamed that somehow I had come
To dwell in Topsy-Turveydom,
Where vice is virtue, virtue vice;
Where nice is nasty, nasty nice;
Where right is wrong, and wrong is right;
Where white is black, and black is white.”
– Sodom Had No Bible
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More wisdom:
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) once said, “The things that will destroy us are:
• Politics without principle
• Pleasure without conscience
• Wealth without work
• Knowledge without character
• Business without morality
• Science without humanity
• Worship without sacrifice
I am not personally a fan of Gandhi, his character, his religion or his morals, but he struck gold there.
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Interesting
- Alabama has passed a law to discontinue the necessity of a judge’s signature to purchase a marriage license. All one has to do is submit a form to a probate judge saying that the purchasers have met the legal requirements of marriage. The judge signs the paper and records it as an official marriage document. This circumvents the old system that puts a judge in the place of assumed endorsement of same sex marriages. Go Alabama! We like your motto: “Audemus Jura Nostra Defendere”—We Dare Maintain Our Rights!
- Alabama is already in trouble with Los Angeles County, CA for that state’s abortion policy, which only approves abortion in a life threatening situation. Calling the law “an act of aggression on us all,” a LA County official joined with other on the council to deny any official travel or commercial interaction with
the state of Alabama. Aggression? What is being done to the baby? - A man in Oregon tore the turban off of a Sikh believer and pulled his beard (his religious symbols) during a disagreement over the sale of cigarettes. The man was convicted of “intimidation and assault,” resulting in it being a labeled a “hate crime.” If every other religion in America is going to law to protect themselves from “hate crimes,” Christians better find some good lawyers because we are becoming the targets today. Aren’t our beliefs and religious positions protected by the constitution as well as theirs?
- A recent Fox News blast included an article about the irrelevancy of current Christianity. “It must change with the times or die,” the author stated. The thrust of the article was that we must present a Christianity that the current generation can identify with, i.e., believe whatever they prescribe. We are behind the culture. We must “catch up.” Virtually no specific changes in doctrine or praxis were suggested, other than to “set aside that which is obsolete.” It did mention the hypocrisy of leadership and lack of authenticity. Evidently, it was left up to the pastors to figure out the details. No denominations were mentioned. I can see young pastors desperately attempting to hurriedly make changes to add special musical instruments and styles, installing pulsing, multi-colored lights and smoke machines, as if to say, “See, we are cool…like you.” But “cool church” is soon going to be seen for what it really is—an accommodation to carnality. In such an environment, specific sins are not to be mentioned. That makes people uncomfortable and resistant to what they believe to be “judgmentalism.”
Question: In such an environment, who is repenting…and what of?
Apostolics can agree with much of the irrelevant stuff, but I don’t think the article was in reference to us, but primarily to the mainline denominations that are losing members by the millions, mostly by attrition. Hold steady, brethren. We are growing. We are not the problem. Our message is extremely relevant. Our stated positions are Bible-based. Let the others worry over their traditional, post apostolic doctrines and practices. Ours are authentic, time-tested and relevant to every generation from Pentecost until the Rapture. Sin is still why Jesus went to the cross. Renaming transgression to salve its sting on the sinner’s conscience will not erase its effects nor change the eternal destiny it will bring.
Never surrender to the culture. We have no ground to give.
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Pope Francis calls for end of sovereignty and the establishment of global government
The Pope thinks the nation state is outdated. He is for open borders, that is, for the free western Christian nations. He does NOT call for the conversion of Muslims to Christianity, nor for their borders to be dismantled. He calls for “sustainable development,” and worries over “climate change,” more buzz words for total control. Francis said we must stop the things which “hinders the attainment of the 
sustainable development goals approved unanimously by the United Nations.” This means make the change from nation states to a world-wide totalitarianism.
So, will this one-world government, led by the UN, have a constitution similar to the USA which allows for a people to replace its government if it becomes tyrannical? Will the Anglo-American ideal of freedom be preserved? We know it won’t. The UN is riddled with godless Marxist principles, and we will not be free under a monopolistic world government. The UN has not come close to stopping wars. If anything, such a government the pope envisions will be made up of pagan religions and pantheism.
[Does he also want that global government to acknowledge only one church for all Christians? A world government will likely persecute conservative Christians, who might need the protection of the one big church. Guess which one!]
Readers, are your eyes wide open?
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The plight of women under Sharia law
In the Muslim faith, a Muslim man can “marry” a child as young as 1 year old, consummating the marriage by 9. It is said that the founder of Islam did that. To prove rape, the rapist must confess, or the woman must have four male witnesses (how unlikely would that be?). No other testimony is permitted. Often after a woman has been raped, she is returned to her family and the family must return the dowry. Then the family has the right to execute her (an honor killing) to restore the honor of the family. Yet without shame, Sharia and Islamic spokesmen say Islam honors women.The husband is permitted to have (4 wives) and a “temporary wife” for
an hour at his discretion.
(In twenty years there will be enough Muslim voters in Canada, Australia, and Britain, and possibly the U.S., to elect the heads of government by themselves!
Rest assured they will do so. Dearborn, MI is a case in point. Britain has several cities now with Sharia Law controlled zones, totally controlled by Muslims. London has a Muslim mayor.
While Canada, Australia, the U.S. and Britain are busy excising Christianity from all public sites and erasing God from the lives of school children, the Muslims are seemingly planning a great jihad on these nations, bloodless or otherwise.
For more information, please read Cruel and Unusual Punishment by Nonie Darwish, a former Muslim woman who is bravely speaking out against this sweeping surge of immigration that favors an Islamic takeover in the future.
My questions: In what nation are the Muslims in the majority and are “peaceful”? Why is it now popular in the West to criticize Christianity but a prosecutable [as per former A/G Loretta 
Lynch] crime to criticize Islam? And didn’t former president Obama say, “The future does not belong to those who criticize the prophet of Islam”?
Will someone please tell me why so many American leftist women are open to the Muslims. The more of us they kill—in tall buildings like the World Trade Center, and in shopping centers and schools—the more we cave to their demands and wishes, electing more of them to congress. One might notice, strangely, that women in the press, and ostensibly on TV, tend to give them positive press. Wherever America is headed, we are getting there rapidly. Does anyone care? Are we speaking out about the issues that are sweeping across America? Climate change is not our pressing problem—it is cultural change. Weep for your children!
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Summer is home Bible study teaching time!
Into His Marvelous Light Bible Study
No other brief, one session Bible study has enjoyed the consistent soul-winning results of IHML over the years. Often copied but never duplicated. It is attractive, well written, and doctrinally sound. It will convince any open-minded person (and some whose minds are not so open) that the new birth is absolutely essential and that Acts 2:38 constitutes that experience. It’s possible that more souls have been won with this Bible Study than with any other single teaching tool in the past 20 years. Discover how easy it is to share the plan of salvation with others. Available in English, Spanish and Italian. English is available in both KJV and NIV84.
AM Price 1-49 $1.75 each; 50-99 $1.50 each; 100 or more $1.25 each
Guide For Living
A follow-up study for the new believers and a sequel to IHML. This little booklet can be given to the new members to go through alone and then come back to you with any questions they may have. It can also be taught as a text in a class. It covers the new birth—what has happened to them experientially, and goes through what their responsibilities as believers are now.
AM Price 1-49 $1.75 each; 50-99 $1.50 each; 100 or more $1.25 each
Order books and Bible studies from advanceministries.org or call 936-537-0250.
See more books at advanceministries.org/store
It is time to order your studies before the price increase!
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A lighter fare
Nancy Pelosi on Memorial Day:
Personal:
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The Last Word
Join me in praying for every local assembly to view the first century Antioch church (Acts 11:19-30; 13:1-3) as their pattern. They had…
…fervent laymen
…strength in doctrine
…glorious prayer meetings
…anointed teaching
…the gifts of the Spirit in operation
…a vision for missions and evangelism.
If we strive for that kind of church, where sacrificial service, soulwinning, holiness, and true spirituality are in view, then we will have the favor of Almighty God and perhaps have the results they apparently enjoyed.
JREnsey Blog 
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