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I want to show you what happens to a nation when its leaders - as well as God's people in that land - reject the Bible as the Lord's divine voice. Wherever the authority of scripture is removed, chaos soon follows - and judgment appears at the door.

I know of no nation on earth today that is governed by God's holy word. In many Muslim lands, the people submit themselves to the authority of the Koran, and Mohammed's word is law. But in supposedly Christian nations, no such subjection to holy scripture exists.

The Christian life is not a life of clear sailing. Every believer is going to have bad days, no matter how holy he may be. In fact, I believe the more godly a person is, the more trying and excruciating his bad days will be.

I once heard a preacher say, "The Bible never says anything about backsliding." That man doesn't know his Bible! The Scriptures speak much about backsliding, because it is a very serious matter — with very severe consequences!

In reading the history of Israel and Judah, we see one generation after another backsliding against the Lord. God told Hosea, "My people are bent to backsliding from me..." (Hosea 11:7). In Hebrew, the meaning is, "My people are in the habit of turning their backs and withdrawing from me. They've always had this tendency!"

The church of Jesus Christ has developed a distorted view of what corruption is. Not many Christians understand God's definition of corruption — and few would admit they are guilty of it!

When we think of corrupt people, we think mostly of wicked sinners. According to our theology, corruption involves alcohol or drug abuse, adultery or fornication, cheating, gambling, homosexuality, murder, rape, incest and other such wicked deeds. We narrow down corruption to mean wild passions and life-controlling lusts.

I know of one Bible scholar who has discovered more than a hundred ways in which Joseph was a type of Jesus Christ. Yet, as much as I believe Joseph was a type of Christ, I also believe He was a type of last-day remnant — a people whom God is raising up right now to show His church how to break out of its spiritual famine!

After seventy years of captivity, the Jewish people heard the prophet's cry: "Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye" (Isaiah 48:20).

Jeremiah came forth preaching, "In those days, and in that time...the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping: they shall go, and seek the Lord their God. They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward...remove out of the midst of Babylon" (Jeremiah 50:4-5,8). "Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul: be not cut off in her iniquity" (Jeremiah 51:6).

I come from a long line of preachers that goes back several generations. So I wasn’t surprised when my oldest son, Ashley, wanted to preach as soon he was old enough to form sentences. My dad was visiting when Ashley announced he wanted to preach his first sermon to us. He led us to his room where he’d set up a cardboard box for a pulpit. Dad and I sat on the floor as Ashley launched into a message he called “The Day the Sins Got Out.”

I’m moved by the Holy Spirit to tell you the simplest thing you’ll ever hear. You might think that as we go through life we need a deeper, more complex theology to understand it all. But the opposite is true. The most important thing I could ever tell you is this: Your Father loves you.

No truth, no fact, no reality is greater, deeper or better than this one. Maybe you think, “I know that already. It’s step 1 in the Christian life. Why is this supposedly revelatory news?”

Regaining Your Passion for a Time Such as This

When I was a teenager, being “on the edge” meant losing your cool. It was being nervous, anxious, about to plunge over an emotional precipice.

Today, being “on the edge” means something very positive. It suggests breaking boundaries, thinking outside of the box, living on the cutting edge of hopeful change.

I once conducted a funeral service for a young man from our church who died of cancer. When I arrived for the service, I was told the young man’s mother was the only surviving member of a family of five. Her husband had died three years earlier and her two other sons had also died. This was her fourth funeral and the third son she’d had to bury.