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About the Book
"Think and Make Impact" by David Oyedepo is a motivational book that encourages readers to think creatively, set goals, and take action to make a positive impact on the world. Oyedepo emphasizes the power of positive thinking, faith, and hard work in achieving success and making a difference in society. The book provides practical advice and strategies for turning ideas into action and achieving personal and professional goals.
Warren Wiersbe
Dr. Warren Wiersbe once described Heaven as ânot only a destination, but also a motivation. When you and I are truly motivated by the promise of eternity with God in heaven, it makes a difference in our lives.â
For Wiersbe, the promise of eternity became the motivation for his long ministry as a pastor, author, and radio speaker. Beloved for his biblical insight and practical teaching, he was called âone of the greatest Bible expositors of our generationâ by the late Billy Graham.
Warren W. Wiersbe died on May 2, 2019, in Lincoln, Nebraska, just a few weeks shy of his 90th birthday.
âHe was a longtime, cherished friend of Moody Bible Institute, a faithful servant of the Word, and a pastor to younger pastors like me,â said Dr. Mark Jobe, president of Moody Bible Institute. âWe are lifting up pastor Wiersbeâs family in prayer at this time and rejoicing in the blessed hope that believers share together.â
Wiersbe grew up in East Chicago, Indiana, a town known for its steel mills and hard-working blue-collar families. In his autobiography, he connected some of his earliest childhood memories to Moody Bible Institute; his home church pastor was a 1937 graduate, Dr. William H. Taylor. After volunteering to usher at a 1945 Youth for Christ rally, Wiersbe found himself listening with rapt attention to Billy Grahamâs sermon, and responded with a personal prayer of dedication.
In a precocious turn of events, the young Wiersbe was already a published author, having written a book of card tricks for the L. L. Ireland Magic Co. of Chicago. He quickly learned to liven up Sunday school lessons with magic tricks as object lessons (ânot the cards!â he would say). After his high school graduation in 1947 (he was valedictorian), he spent a year at Indiana University before transferring to Northern Baptist Seminary in Chicago, where he earned a bachelor of theology degree. His future wife, Betty, worked in the school library, and Wiersbe was a frequent visitor.
While in seminary he became pastor of Central Baptist Church in East Chicago, serving until 1957. During those years he became a popular YFC speaker, which led to a full-time position with Youth for Christ International in Wheaton. He published his first article for Moody Monthly magazine in 1956, about Bible study methods, and seemed to outline his ongoing writing philosophy. âThis is more of a personal testimony,â he said, âbecause I want to share these blessings with you, rather than write some scholarly essay, which I am sure I could not do anyway.â
At a 1957 YFC convention in Winona Lake, Indiana, Wiersbe preached a sermon that was broadcast live over WMBI, his first connection to Moody Radio. âI wish every preacher could have at least six monthsâ experience as a radio preacher,â he said later (because they would preach shorter).
While working with Youth for Christ, Wiersbe got a call from Pete Gunther at Moody Publishers, asking about possible book projects. First came Byways of Blessing (1961), an adult devotional; then two more books in 1962, A Guidebook for Teens and Teens Triumphant. He would eventually publish 14 titles with Moody, including William Culbertson: A Man of God (1974), Live Like a King (1976), The Annotated Pilgrimâs Progress (1980), and Ministering to the Mourning (2006), written with his son, David Wiersbe.
In 1961, D. B. Eastep invited Wiersbe to join the staff of Calvary Baptist Church in Covington, Kentucky. forming a succession plan that was hastened by Eastepâs sudden death in 1962. Warren and Betty Wiersbe remained at the church for 10 years, until they were surprised by a phone call from The Moody Church. The pastor, Dr. George Sweeting, had just resigned to become president of Moody Bible Institute. Would Wiersbe fill the pulpit, and pray about becoming a candidate?
He was already well known to the Chicago churchâand to the MBI community. He continued to write for Moody Monthly and had just started a new column, âInsights for the Pastor.â The monthly feature continued to run during the years Wiersbe served at The Moody Church. Wiersbe would become one of the magazineâs most prolific writersâ200 articles during a 40-year span. Meanwhile he also started work on the BE series of exegetical commentaries, books that soon found a place on the shelf of every evangelical pastor.
His ministry to pastors continued as he spoke at Moody Founderâs Week, Pastorsâ Conference, and numerous campus events. He also inherited George Sweetingâs role as host of the popular Songs in the Night radio broadcast, produced by Moody Radioâs Bob Neff and distributed on Moodyâs growing network of radio stations.
Later in life he would move to Lincoln, Nebraska, where he served as host of the Back to the Bible radio broadcast. He also taught courses on preaching at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary. He kept writing, eventually publishing more than 150 books and losing track of how many (âI canât remember them all, and I didnât save copies of everything,â he said.)
Throughout his ministry, Warren Wiersbe described himself as a bridge builder, a reference to his homiletical method of moving âfrom the world of the Bible to the world of today so that we could get to the other side of glory in Jesus.â As explained by his grandson, Dan Jacobson, âHis preferred tools were words, his blueprints were the Scriptures, and his workspace was a self-assembled library.â
Several of Wiersbeâs extended family are Moody alums, including a son, David Wiersbe â76; grandson Dan Jacobsen â09 and his wife, Kristin (Shirk) Jacobsen â09; and great-nephew Ryan Smith, a current student.
During his long ministry and writing career, Warren Wiersbe covered pretty much every topic, including the inevitability of death. These words from Ministering to the Mourning offer a fitting tribute to his own ministry:
We who are in Christ know that if He returns before our time comes to die, we shall be privileged to follow Him home. Godâs people are always encouraged by that blessed hope. Yet we must still live each day soberly, realizing that we are mortal and that death may come to us at any time. We pray, âTeach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdomâ (Psalm 90:12).
what is the unforgivable sin
âBlasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.â Itâs one of Jesusâs most enigmatic, controversial, and haunting statements. In the last two millennia, many a tortured soul have wrestled over this warning. Have I committed âthe unforgivable sinâ?  When I addressed my angry profanity to God, when I spoke rebelliously against him, did I commit unforgivable blasphemy?  Or, perhaps more often, especially in todayâs epidemic of Internet porn, âCould I really be saved if I keep returning to the same sin I have vowed so many times never to return to again?â Despite the enigma and controversy, we do have a simple pathway to clarity. Jesusâs âblasphemy against the Spiritâ statement only appears in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). If we get a concrete sense of what he did (and didnât) mean there, then weâre positioned to answer what such âunforgivable sinâ might (and might not) mean for us today. What Jesus Actually Said Jesus hadnât been teaching in public long when his hearers began comparing him to their teachers, called âthe scribes,â part of the conservative Jewish group known as the Pharisees. The growing crowds âwere astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribesâ (Mark 1:22). The scribes heard the comparison and felt the tension, and soon escalated it (Mark 2:6, 16), as these Bible teachers of the day, with their many added traditions, quickly grew in their envy, and then hatred, for Jesus. The threat is so great these conservatives even are willing to cross the aisle to conspire with their liberal rivals, the Herodians (Mark 3:6). The showdown comes in Mark 3:22â30 (Matthew 12:22â32). Scribes have descended from Jerusalem to set straight the poor, deceived people of backwater Galilee. âHe is possessed by Beelzebul,â they say. âBy the prince of demons he casts out the demonsâ (Mark 3:22). Jesus calmly answers their lie with basic logic (verses 23â26) and turns it to make a statement about his lordship (verse 27). Then he warns these liars, who know better deep down, of the spiritual danger theyâre in. âTruly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin â â for they were saying, âHe has an unclean spirit.ââ (Mark 3:28â30) Itâs one thing to suppose that Jesus is out of his mind (his family fears as much at this early stage, Mark 3:21), but itâs another thing to attribute the work of Godâs Spirit to the devil â to observe the power of God unfolding in and through this man Jesus, be haunted by it in a callous heart, and turn to delude others by ascribing the Spiritâs work to Satan. This evidences such a profound hardness of heart in these scribes that they should fear they are on the brink of eternal ruin â if itâs not already too late. Jesus does not necessarily declare that the scribes are already condemned, but he warns them gravely of their precarious position. Who Did the Scribes Blaspheme? Before we ask about our sin today, letâs gather the pieces in the Gospels. The teachers of Godâs covenant people, here at this crucial and unique point in redemptive history, have God himself among them. Godâs long-anticipated kingdom is dawning. âIf it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon youâ (Matthew 12:28). The very day that their stories and prophets and Scriptures have prepared them for is being unveiled before them, and in their hard and impenitent hearts, they are rejecting it. And not only are they cold toward how God is doing it, and murmuring about it to each other, but as teachers of Godâs people, they now are speaking up to draw others away from the truth. And they do so by declaring that the power at work in Jesus, manifestly from God, is the power of Satan. Here Jesus warns them, âWhoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sinâ (Mark 3:29). Why so? Matthew adds a detail we donât have in Mark. âWhoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit  will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to comeâ (Matthew 12:32). Attacking Jesus is one thing. He refers to himself as âthe Son of Manâ â God himself among his people, but not yet fully revealed in his death and resurrection. Attack this enigmatic Son of Man, and the Spirit can overcome that. But itâs another thing to see what God is doing and turn to attack his Spirit . Who is left to help these scribes if theyâre settling in against the Spirit of God? Insult, dishonor, and make enemies with the Spirit, and who is left to bring you back? The reason these scribes are dangerously close to being guilty of âeternal sinâ is because they are evidencing such a settled hardness of heart â not just against this mysterious âSon of Man,â but now explicitly against the Spirit â that their hearts may no longer be capable of repentance. Itâs not that they may be genuinely repentant but given the stiff arm, but that they will ânever have forgivenessâ because they will never meet the simple, invaluable, softhearted condition for it: repentance. Is Anyone Unforgivable Today? When Jesus addresses the scribes in his day, it is on the brink of a seismic redemptive-historical change that comes with his life and ministry. So in what sense might his warning to the scribes about âblasphemy against the Spiritâ be uniquely for Jesusâs day, on the cusp of the old covenant being fulfilled and a new covenant being inaugurated? Should these words fall in the same way on our ears twenty centuries later? When we turn forward in the story to Acts and the Epistles, we donât find anything called âblasphemy against the Spirit.â Which signals our need for exercising care in applying this precise term today. However, we do find a concept similar to âunforgivable sin,â even if the terms are not exactly the same. The essence of Jesusâs warning to the scribes in his day lands on us in some form, even if not in the precise way it did originally for the scribes. Ephesians 4:30 speaks of âgrieving the Holy Spirit,â but this is not the same as Jesusâs warning to the scribes. Those who âgrieveâ the Spirit are reminded that by him they are âsealed for the day of redemption.â However, Hebrews 10:29 speaks of âoutraging the Spirit of grace,â and Hebrews 12:17 warns professing Christians not to be like Esau who âfound no place of repentance.â Like Jesusâs warning to the scribes, we are not told that Esau asked for forgiveness but was denied. Rather, he âfound no place of repentanceâ â his heart had grown so callous, he was no longer able to genuinely repent and thus meet the condition for the free offer of forgiveness. Throughout his letter, the author of Hebrews warns his audience of this danger. In the past, they have professed faith in Jesus and claimed to embrace him. Now, because of pressure and persecution from unbelieving Jews, they are tempted to abandon Jesus to restore their peace and comfort. They have experienced remarkable measures of grace in association with the new-covenant people of God (Hebrews 6:4â5), but now they are nearing the brink of falling away from Christ â and Hebrews warns them of the peril: having known the truth, and rejected it, are they now coming into a kind of settled hardness of heart from which they no longer will be able to repent and thus be forgiven? For Christians today, we need not fear a specific moment of sin, but a kind of hardness of heart that would see Jesus as true and yet walk away â with a kind of hardness of heart incapable of repenting. Again, itâs not that forgiveness isnât granted, but that itâs not sought. The heart has become so recalcitrant, and at such odds with Godâs Spirit, that itâs become incapable of true repentance. Hope for Those Feeling âUnforgivableâ If you do fear youâve committed some âunforgivable sin,â or even that your heart has already reached such a state of hardness, God does offer you hope. If you worry about unforgivable sin, then most likely you are not there. Not yet. Hearts with settled hardness against Jesus and his Spirit donât go around worrying about it. Itâs easy to get worked up over this enigmatic âunforgivable sinâ in the Gospels and miss the remarkable gospel expression of Jesusâs open arms that comes immediately before the warning: âTruly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utterâ (Mark 3:28). All sins. Whatever blasphemies uttered. Through faith in Jesus. This is where the Gospel accounts all lead: to the cross. This Son of Man, as he progressively demonstrates in the Gospels, is God himself and Lord of the universe. And he became one of us, and died for our sins, and rose to offer full and entire forgiveness for all who repent and embrace him as Lord, Savior, and Treasure. If your worries about âunforgivable sinâ relate to a pattern of sin and unrepentance in your life, your very concerns may be Godâs Spirit working to keep you from continuing to harden your heart beyond his softening. Donât despair. And donât treat it lightly. As the Holy Spirit encourages his hearers on the edge of such danger, âToday, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heartsâ (Psalm 95:7â8; Hebrews 3:7â8). You are not guaranteed tomorrow. But you do have today. Itâs not too late, if you still have it in you to repent. More Good News However, we should be careful that the enigma and controversy over âunforgivable sinâ doesnât keep us from missing the main reality underneath this episode in Mark 3 and Matthew 12. Jesusâs main point isnât that there is such a sin as âblasphemy against the Spirit,â but that there is such a person as the Holy Spirit! How remarkable that God has not left us to ourselves in the ups and downs of this life. As he did with his own Son in his full humanity, he makes available to us supernatural power by his Spirit. How did Jesus, as man, perform his miracles? By the power of the Spirit. âIt is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demonsâ (Matthew 12:28). When Jesus hears the scribes say, âBy the prince of demons he casts out the demons,â he hears an outrageous attack, not on himself, but on the Spirit. The last word in the story explains it all: â for  they were saying, âHe has an unclean spiritââ (Mark 3:30). How amazing that the same Spirit who empowered Jesus in his earthly life, and on the path to his sacrificial death, has been given to us today. We âhave the Spiritâ (Romans 8:9, 15, 23; 1 Corinthians 6:19). What a gift weâve received (Romans 5:5; 1 Corinthians 2:12; 2 Corinthians 5:5; 1 John 3:24). How much do we underappreciate what power is available to us (and through us) by the Spirit?
