SUNDAY - 2/7/2001

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON - WHY THE KING JAMES VERSION? MORNING WORSHIP - WHOSOEVER SHALL CALL . . . SUNDAY EVENING MESSAGE - THE CHRISTIAN'S BIBLE

WHY THE KING JAMES VERSION

The multiplication of modern language English Bibles is a major religious phenomenon of recent years. It is our view that the production of these new translations has served to undermine the spiritual foundations of our country and weaken the message of her churches. The new versions are not really better than the old one. The abandonment of the King James Bible by churches has not been a good thing. We believe there are several compelling reasons for rejecting the new Bibles and retaining the King James Bible.

1. Theological Reasons

Some new Bibles are dangerous because of the theological bias of their translators. The Revised Standard Version of the Bible, 1952, was authorized by the notoriously liberal National Council of Churches. The unbelieving bias of the majority of the translators is evident in such readings as Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel" (Revised Standard Version).

The difference between this reading in the RSV and in the KJB is important. The KJB says that “a virgin shall conceive and bear a son." The liberal bias against the doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ is reflected in 1he RSV translation of this verse.

The word used In Hebrew has long been understood to mean specifically a virgin, and it is incorrectly rendered “a young woman” by the RSV. To make matters worse, this liberal version translates Matthew 1:23, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son." This is a correct rendering of the Greek, but with the incorrect translation of Isaiah 7:14 in the same Bible, the impression is given that. Matthew misquoted Isaiah.

Not only is the doctrine of the virgin birth undermined in the Revised Standard Version, but also the doctrine of the infallibility of the Bible! No fundamentalist Christian would accept as his standard a theologically liberal translation of the Bible like the RSV.

The Good News Bible (Today's English Version) was translated by neo-orthodox Richard Bratcher and purposely replaced the word "blood" with the word "death" in many New Testament passages that refer to the blood of Christ (such as Hebrews 10:19 and Revelation 1:5). Bratcher also replaces the word "'Virgin" with "girl" in Luke 1:27. His theological bias ruins his translation.

Other versions, such as the Phillips translation and the New English Bible, were produced by liberal or neo-orthodox religionists.

2. Textual Reasons

Many do not know that most of the more than one hundred new versions of the Bible are not translated from the same Hebrew and Greek texts that the King James translators used! When somebody says that the translation of a certain verse in the King James Bible is "unfortunate" usually the problem is text rather than translation.

In the late 1800s, a committee of British and American scholars began work on a revision of the King James Bible. It was decided by them that the Greek text of the New Testament used in the translation of the KJB was seriously defective. Although that text represented the New Testament as it had been accepted over the centuries, it was spurned because it disagreed with some of the older manuscripts. Almost all of the new versions are actually translations of the new Greek text generated by this committee. This new text is significantly different from the traditional text.

When the reader comes to John 7:53-8:11, even in so-called conservative translations such as the New American Standard Bible or the New International Version, he finds the whole story of the woman ·taken in adultery set apart with. lines or brackets. A note is placed in relation to the bracketed section that says something like this:

"The earliest and most reliable manuscripts do not have John 7:53-8:11."

Something similar is done to the Great Commission in Mark 16:9-20.

What the textual critics of a century ago were saying, and what the new versions are saying, is that a large amount of the New Testament read, believed, preached, and obeyed by most of our spiritual forefathers was actually uninspired material added to the text! If this new textual theory were true, it would be revolutionary news. However, the new theory is still ·very controversial.

Jesus said, "Man shall not live.by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Matt 4:4). Every man needs every word of God! A man’s needs will not be met unless he has received "every word" that God has spoken. So said the Lord Jesus.

Jesus also said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my Words shall not pass away" (24:35). With this promise, Christ assured us that the very words we need in order to live as we should, would be preserved throughout the ages--through wars and persecutions and disasters and even through the fiery end of creation!

So-called "textual criticism" is more faith than it is science. One who studies the thousands of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament with the belief that God has preserved His Word through the years will come to a different conclusions than one who studies the same documents with the belief that such preservation is unlikely. Much of the work is guesswork and ·many of the conclusions are debatable.

For this reason, thoughtful conservative Christians will decide that it is safer to stay with the traditional text than to adopt the revised one. The only widely used English version that is translated from the traditional text is the King James Bible.

3. PHILOSOPHICAL REASONS

Christians ought to be interested in having the very words of God, since this is what Jesus said we need! The King James is a translation that seeks what scholars call "'formal equivalence." Others, however, seek "'dynamic equivalence."

The formal equivalence approach seeks to express in English the meaning of the words ·in Greek. The dynamic equivalence approach seeks to express the meaning of the -writer in modern idiom. Anyone who takes seriously our Lord's admonition in Matthew 4:4 will want a formal equivalence translation.

Several of the new versions do not offer this to us. The so-called "Living" Bible does not even pretend to be a translation of the words. Copies of this book clearly identify it as a paraphrase. Dr, Kenneth Taylor wrote the Living Bible and freely admitted that it was his paraphrase of the Scriptures. In other words, he was putting the Bible into his own words.

When a pastor reads John 3:16 to his congregation Sunday morning, that is one thing. When he rephrases it in his own words in order to explain what the verse means, that is another thing. Preachers are to make it clear when they are reading God's Word and when they are paraphrasing it. It's acceptable to paraphrase the Scripture in explaining it, but it is unacceptable to confuse the paraphrase with the actual Word!

The Living Bible is not a Bible; it is Dr. Taylor's paraphrase of the Bible. Please keep in mind the distinction: Sadly, the result of Dr. Taylor's paraphrasing was not always very helpful, even though he claims to hold "a rigid evangelical position" in his theology. for example, in 1 Samuel 20:30 of the early editions, he introduced vile profanity into Holy Writ without warrant from the original text!

The very popular New International Version is largely a ·dynamic equivalency translation. Its rival among conservative modem versions is the New American Standard Bible, which is a formal equivalency translation--but of a Westcott-Hort-based text! The looseness. of the NIV's translation is admitted by the publishers, amt it is well-known. The scholars who did the translation believe that it is possible and beneficial to put into English what the writers of Scripture meant rather than what they actually said.

One great problem with this approach is the element of interpretation that is introduced into the translation process. To translate is to put it into English. To interpret is to explain what it means. Experts will say that all translation involves some interpretation, even when this is not the object of the translators. However, much more interpretation will go on when the composers of a new version try to convey the thoughts rather than the words.

4. Cultural Reasons

"Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set" (Proverbs 22:28).

In the spirit of the fifth commandment, we are to honor the traditions given to us by the previous generations of our people. Of course, if such tradition contradicts Scripture, we are to reject it in favor of what the Bible says.

"Why do ye, also transgress the commandment of God, by your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3).

We never elevate tradition to the same level of authority as Scripture. But we should give our forefathers the benefit of any doubt. We should also be careful to preserve all we can that is truly Christian about our culture.

The King James Bible has played an important and unique role in the development of American culture. It could be said that the foundation of our society was Holy Scripture. The theology of the Bible influenced the ideas behind our Constitution. The language of the King James Bible was scattered throughout our early literature. The revivals that formed and changed our culture resulted from the preaching of Bible texts.

For many years, Americans knew a certain amount of Scripture by heart. Many or most could quote at least part of Psalm 23 and recognize the Beatitudes, the Ten Commandments, and parts of the Sermon on the Mount when quoted. But now the influence of the Bible has waned significantly. One reason for the decline of biblical influence has been the loss of a standard version of the Bible.

For most of our first two hundred years as a nation, the King James was the Bible to most Americans. Even after so-called "modern" versions became popular, the King James Bible continued to be the version memorized, quoted, and publicly read most often. With the demise of the old Bible, our country has been left without a standard text of Scripture.

Who can quote Psalm 23 anymore? Who knows how to repeat the Christmas story? The question arises: "Which version?" Everybody realizes that our nation's spiritual and moral foundations have been crumbling, but few have understood how the multiplication. of Bible versions has contributed to the decay.

Why should conservative Christians join in the mad movement to throw away the standards that made our country good? Our Constitution is jealously guarded against change by an elaborate and difficult amendment process. If it takes two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of the states to change one sentence in the Constitution, why should the churches be so willing to accept great changes in the Bible without serious and extensive "due process"?

5. Practical Reasons

Believe it or not, some of the features most criticized in the King James Bible are among the best reasons to keep it! For example, consider the "thees" and "thous." The King James Bible was not written in the everyday language of people on the street in 1611. It was written in high English, a very precise form of our language.

In modem English, the second person pronoun is expressed with one word, whether in the singular or the plural. That word is you. Most other European languages have both a singular and a plural pronoun in the second person, as well as in the first and third persons. The first person singular pronoun in the nominative case, for example, is I, while the plural is we. The third person singular pronoun (also in the nominative case) is he, she, or it. while the plural is they.

Modem English, however, has only you for all its second person pronoun uses. High. English uses thou for the second person singular, and you or ye for the plural! In this way, the King James Bible lets us know whether the Scripture means a singular you or a plural you. "Thou" or “thee" means one person is being addressed, and •ye" or "you" means several people are being spoken to. This feature often helps us interpret a ·passage.

We also find the use of italics in the KJB a great help. The translators italicized words they put into the text that do not appear in the source language. The new translations do not do this. A word in Greek or Hebrew may require an additional word in English.to convey the meaning to make a phrase grammatically correct. We appreciate the integrity of the ancient scholars in letting us know what was done on this and are disappointed that modern translators have let us down in this area.

The matter of quotation marks is also a question of importance. The KJB does not use them, because the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts do not have them. The reader determines where a quotation begins and ends by the context and by any other means of interpretation at his disposal.

The new versions do not give us the luxury of deciding the extent of quotations ourselves, because they have inserted quotation marks according to the translators' interpretations of the various passages. John 1:15-18 and 3:27-36 present examples of places in the Bible where the length of quotation is a matter of interpretation.

Such features make the King James Bible the most helpful translation of the Bible in English for the serious reader. Even the New King James Version, which is translated from the traditional texts, denies us the practical help of high English, italicized additions, and the absence of quotation marks.

For all of these reasons, it just makes good sense for conservative, Bible-believing churches to keep the. King James Bible as their standard text. The new versions present too many problems and simply are not fit to replace the English version we have trusted for so long. Let's stick with the King James! The movement to abandon it will move us from clarity to confusion, from authority to anarchy, from faith to doubt May we never make such a move!

- Dr. Richard Flanders

SUNDAY A. M. MESSAGE

“WHOSOEVER SHALL CALL . . .”

“Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.

“For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.

“For they being ignorant of Gods righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

“For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

“For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.

“But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not .in thine heart, Who shall ascent into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:)

“Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)

“But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth. and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

“For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

“For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed” (Romans 10:1-11).

The Lord said in the Scripture that if a man has believed on the Lord, he should confess it: “Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.” You let the love of God come into your heart, and it is only natural that you would confess Him.

“For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.

“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (vss. 12, 13).

“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” is our text

1. All Need a Saviour Because All Have Sinned

One thing every person needs is salvation. Now, there are many things you might need that I would not need, and many things you do not need that I need. But there is one thing every person needs, and that is salvation. It makes no difference how good a person may be nor how moral nor how clean; that person needs salvation. For the Scripture says plainly that “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”

Why do people try to avoid the question and try to convince themselves that they can get to Heaven without salvation, when every one of them knows that he has sinned? Even if God has not said so, they know it just the same.

Where is the person of normal mind who is not conscious of the fact that he is a sinner? Even little children know it Even the most savage heathen and the most ignorant Hottentot in Africa—something tells them in their hearts that something has separated them from God. That is why they make their pilgrimages; that is why they make their sacrifices; that is why many of them go to the extent of making burnt-offerings of their own children. Something deep down in their hearts has told them that sin has separated them from their God.

So, we all need to be saved because we have all sinned.

A person asked me once, ‘’Why do you keep on saying, ‘Ye must be born again’?”

I said, “Well, I will give you two reasons. D. L. Moody once said, ‘The reason I keep repeating, ‘’Ye must be born again;’ is that ye must be born again.’ The second reason is, God said so and that settles it. There is no. argument about it. The Lord Jesus Christ said, ‘Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ And if words can express a thought clearly and concisely, nobody can mistake what Jesus meant when He said, ‘Ye must be born again.’”

Talk about your morality. What have you to commend you to God? You are a sinner and know it. I have done my utmost to live a clean life. I was taught by old-fashioned parents that their boys ought to be as pure as their sister. When I met my bride at the altar,

I was nearly twenty-six years of age and just as clean morally as she and my precious mother. But, after saying all that, I look into my life and find plenty of sin there.

Not one of us can boast about his morality. Who would be willing to sit here and have your life put on a screen and let this congregation see the innermost thoughts and secrets of your heart and life? You could not stand- it. We have nothing to commend us to God.

No wonder Isaiah said, ‘’We are all as an unclean thing, and all our, righteousnesses are as filthy rags’ (Isaiah 64:6). If we are honest, we will admit that we need a Saviour because of our sins.

And, bless God, we have one. Listen to the Word of God: “Thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

2. You Need to Be Saved Because Death Is Certain

Not only do we need a Saviour because we have all sinned, but we need to be saved because we are all going to die one day.

I know people don’t like to think about death. We try to camouflage it, try to cover it up. The undertaker does everything in his power to try to camouflage it. He takes the body of the dead, paints it up, smooths out the wrinkles, fixes the hair, dresses up the corpse, paints the lips, puts rouge on the cheeks. People come by and say, “She looks as natural as life itself.” But, brother, she is dead.

They do not do as they used to do when I was a boy. Then, neighbors would bring the casket out to the old country graveyard in the wagon, take it out and lower it down into the ground; then they would take shovels and, while all stood around, shovel the dirt on top of the box. I think it is a pretty good thing sometimes to do that. Oh, we try to cover it up, to camouflage it. But why not bring home to the hearts of the people the reality of the thing which we cannot escape? We have to face it.

I was just a little country boy as I stood there in the old country church graveyard and saw men shoveling dirt from a newly made mound and heard it rumbling on the box in the bottom, but something gripped my heart about the awfulness of death.

We have to face it. And it is a terrible thing to think about facing death without Christ or without hope.

When I was in a meeting in north Texas, a man past forty came down the aisle to confess the Lord. He was pale and weak. He looked almost like one who had come from the dead. When he came down to make his confession of Christ, he said, “May 1 say a word?” 1 told him he might. He turned to that crowd of people and said:

You all know me. 1 was born and reared in this community. All these years you know that I have been depending upon my morality and good works and character. If I do say it, I call you to witness who have known me from childhood. I have lived an upright life; I have been honest, paid my debts, treated people right and lived the best I knew how by the Golden Rule. I have told you, many of you, that that was my religion and that it was going to get me to Heaven.

Folks, about three weeks ago the doctor stood by my bedside, looked into my face and said, “Jim Ragsdale, is your house in order?” I said, “What do you mean, Doctor?” He said, “I mean, Jim Ragsdale, that you are going to die today. Are you ready to meet God?”

When that doctor told me that, I turned my face to the wall. Everything went as dark as midnight. I reached out in that awful darkness for something to hold onto, and there wasn’t a thing.

In that awful hour I cried to God: “O God, if You will hear me and give me another chance, I will confess Christ before the world.”

God heard my cry, and here I am to make good my promise.

Listen, folks: morality may do to live by, but I want to tell you that when you turn your face toward the wall and the lights go out, and when you face that awful darkness and reach out for something to hold onto, you will realize then that you need Jesus and that nothing else will do.

Hear me! You are coming to the end someday. You need salvation. You need Jesus.

3. You Need Salvation Because You Must Face God

Everyone is going to have to meet God face-to-face. When you stand before Him, you will be just as much alone as if you were the only person that had ever lived on earth. It will then be an individual matter, not a “crowd” proposition. You may lose yourself in the crowd now; you may be swept on by the crowd now; you may hide yourself behind the hypocrites now; but. when you face God, you face Him as a lone soul.

That is a serious thing to think about—facing the God that you have shut out of your life, the God you have refused to bow the knee to, the God you have lived in rebellion against, the God whose name you have taken in vain with your lips; facing God to give an account of every idle word you spoke; facing the awful wrath of God which will devour the adversaries.

I was called to a home in Texas when I was a pastor. An old father had died suddenly during the night. He was living with his daughter, had eaten a hearty supper, and gone to bed. And in the night, he went to sleep never to wake up.

Sitting on the porch talking to the four sons, I remarked that the way their father went was a wonderful way to finish life’s journey.

“For seventy-six years he fought a ·good fight for the Lord and had been a wonderful Christian, and then just to lie down and go to sleep and wake up in Glory!”

The youngest son looked at me startled and, with a look of horror in his eyes, said, “I hope to God I don’t go that way.”

I said, “Why, Red?”

“Simply because I would like to have a little warning. There are some things I would like to put in order!”

“Red, no man can afford to live one single day without his house in order, for God is under no obligation to give you any warning. He has been fair with you. He has told you the truth. He has given you warning after waring all your life. He is under no obligation to give you time to get ready. You may have to meet God without a moment’s notice!”

What about it? Many a person has gone out to meet God without a moment’s notice.

One Sunday morning in Little Rock, Arkansas, a young man came to teach a young men’s class in Sunday school. He said to that group of young men, “Say, boys, we are not working tomorrow. What do you say we all go fishing? I have a trailer and plenty of camping equipment, with fishing tackle. Let’s go down to the lake tomorrow and have a big time. We will take our bathing suits along and stay on the lake all day and fish and swim.”

Next morning, early they loaded that trailer and went over to Hot Springs to Lake Catherine. All day long they fished and swam and had a big time. While getting supper ready late in the evening, some of the boys said, “Warren, we are going to the little store to get a Coke.”

They went—they still had on their bathing suits. They walked down the shore to the little store and lingered awhile. Soon a young man came along in a big motorboat. He was passing, going by the island where they were camped, and asked the boys if they wanted to hop in and ride.

Down the lake they went. When they got close to the island, the driver of the boat said, “I had better not go any nearer as the water may be shallow.” The boys said, ‘’We can all swim, and we’ve got on bathing suits!’ So out in the water they went, the three of them.

But one of the boys did not come up. The other two swam around looking for him. After awhile they saw him down underneath the water. One of the boys dived down and got the drowning boy by the hair. When he got him up near the surface, the boy was struggling so that he had to let him go. Then both boys dived down and did their dead-level best to bring him out, but they finally had to let him go.

They swam to the island to tell the story. A call came in to Little Rock that this young man had drowned in the lake.

They fished out the body, and I held his funeral. Those two boys who tried so desperately to rescue him were both unsaved young· men. This boy who went down was a Christian.

After the funeral I stood in the front of the funeral home with one of these boys on either side. One was a big, tall blond, and the other, a little brunette.

I said to the big, tall fellow, “Do you know what I have been thinking about ever since I got word about Bill’s going down in the lake?”

He said, “I guess I have been thinking about the same thing, Brother Hankins. I have been thinking about how easily it might have been me instead of Bill. If it had, I would be in Hell, and you could not have said about me today what you said about Bill.”

I said, “Well, what are you going to do about it?”

He said, “Right here and now I am going to give my heart to Christ. And when He calls, then I’ll be ready.”

I turned to the other boy and said, “What are you going to do about it?”

He said, “I settled it while you were preaching Bill’s funeral.”

One of them wrote a friend these words from a battlefield, “I do not know when my number may come up; it looks like it might come up any day. But if it does, you can know you will meet me in Heaven:”

Friend, you need God! You need salvation.

4. It Is the Only Way to Settle Where You Will Spend Eternity

And you need salvation because it is the only thing that determines where you will spend eternity. Nobody will ever stand before God in peace unless he is born again. It is the one and only thing that determines where you will spend eternity.

Don’t let the Devil make you think it is hard to be saved. That is one of the Devil’s lies. The Devil tells you that because he would like to get you confused. And if he gets you to thinking it is a hard thing, then you may never try it.

The Devil will also tell you it is hard to live a Christian life. He is a liar. My Bible says, “The way of transgressors is hard.” The Devil says the way of a Christian is hard. Some of us Christians sometimes slander the lord in our testimony by getting up and saying what a hard time it has been living for the Lord. I am having the best time I have had in my life! You talk about joy; I didn’t know what it was to be happy until I cut loose for the Lord. The service of the Lord is happy. His yoke is easy, and it is pleasant and glorious. It is the way of the transgressor that is hard.

Some years ago, the arch-criminal Gerald Chapman was executed. Many of you remember him. He was then the most notorious criminal in the United States. It came out in the Associated Press that, as they led him to the electric chair, the warden said he heard him repeating something over and over to himself. He could not understand it but stepped up closer where he could catch what he was saying. As he was making his death march to the electric chair, that criminal was saying, “The way of the transgressor is hard! The way of the transgressor is hard!”

It is not hard to be saved. It is not hard to live for Christ. If God loved you enough to give Christ to die for you, don’t you know He wants to save you more than anything on earth? Then is God going to make it hard for you to be saved? No!

Listen to the text: “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Paul said, “Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above).” It is not something high and difficult to attain and to reach. Don’t say, “Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead).” It is not something that is hard. It is not something deep and mysterious which you cannot understand. He said “The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart.”

What? Yes, you speak the word yourself that decides your salvation. It is right in your mouth. What is it?

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

“For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:9, 10, 13).

In a revival meeting out in west Texas a man in his forties was under deep conviction and had been for several days and nights. He would come with his wife every night to the service. I tried to win him to the Lord. I talked to him, prayed with him and did everything I knew to do.

I came to my last night of the meeting. Standing there he said, “I want to be saved more than anything else in the world, but I am afraid I don’t have faith enough.”

I said, “God’s Word says, ‘If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.’ Do you believe God raised Christ from the dead?”

“I certainly do.”

“Then that is faith enough to save anybody if you act on it.”

“How can you act on it?” he asked.

‘’Why,” I said, “it tells you right there. Confess with your mouth; believe in your heart; believe that Christ died for your sins and God raised Christ from the dead. If Christ had not been what He claimed to be, God would have left Him in the tomb to rot. The fact that God raised Christ from the dead means He was God’s Son; that He was what He claimed to be; that He did come to die for our sins; that He told men the truth; that He is able to save. If you believe Christ was raised from the dead, then you must believe the rest of this.”

I added, “If you believe Jesus Christ arose from the dead, that Is faith enough to save anybody if he will act on It. You act on it by receiving Christ into your heart as your own personal Saviour.”

This man saw it and said, “1 will do it!”

And he did.

Don’t make something hard out of it.

I saw a gray-haired man in my congregation in Little Rock wipe the tears away as I preached that morning. Yet he did not come. Back at the door I was watching for him. When he came along, I stopped him and asked about his soul. He said he was lost.

“Are you going away lost?” 1 asked.

“I am afraid so. But I want to be saved,” he answered.

I said, “Just reason with me a few minutes, will you? Man, do you believe God loves you?”

“I certainly do.”

“Do you believe Christ loves you? Do you believe Christ died to save sinners?”

‘’Yes, I do.”

“Do you believe He is able to do it?”

‘’Yes, I do.”

“All right, let’s reason a little bit. If God loves the sinner, He wants to save him; if Christ loves the sinner enough to die for him, certainly He wants to save him. Now, if both Christ and God want to save him, and Christ is able to save him, then nothing stands between a soul and salvation but the sinner’s consent.”

He saw it and was saved on the spot.

That is what God wants; that is all He needs. He does not need your help. “He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him” (Hebrews 7:25). He does not need your works, nor your character, to help save you. Come just as you are—sin and all. All He has ever waited on is your consent. And when you say one eternal “yes” in your heart to God, that minute you are a child of God.

“Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” If you will ask for salvation with a sincere heart, He will give it.

Brother, if it is not worth asking for, it is not worth having.

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

“For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened” (Matthew 7:7, 8).

It is as simple as trusting your own mother to do what she said she would do. Faith is just taking God at His word. It is not something mysterious; it is something we exercise every day. “for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved!”

- Joe Henry Hankins

>>>>>

You have just read “’Whosoever Shall Call . . .’” a plain and simple message by Dr. Joe Henry Hankins. How could anyone make the way of salvation any clearer? The fact that all have sinned is too plain to deny honestly, and that confirms what you feel in your heart—that you are a sinner before a holy God. Nor can anyone rationally deny the fact that we will all someday die. God tells us that when we keep this appointment with death, we will stand before Him in judgment. Therefore, it is vital to know before you die where you will go when you die. The only way to do this is to be saved, and the text of the message has pointed the way: believing that Christ is risen and lives, call upon His name, trusting Him alone to save you.

You can with assurance claim His promise and know you are His child. This is the same for “whosoever shall call”! Do you want to be sure of your eternal destination?

THE CHRISTIAN’S BIBLE

“For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89)

If there is any one question that ought to concern men in general more than another, it is the question of the eternal future. Is there such a thing? Nor do I think your pastor is making any mistake when· he says that men in general think more frequently about that question than any other. And when I say, “men in general,” I mean men of every class and kind.

You say, “Mr. Preacher, do you mean to tell us that bleary-eyed, ragged, reeling, drunken specimen of humanity ever thinks’ of the hereafter?

“Do you mean to tell us that money-hearted gambler with the flip of the cards and the whirr of the roulette wheel buzzing in his ears ever thinks of another world when this one is over?

“Do you mean to tell us that old rubber-souled rascal of a candidate for office, all tangled up in twentieth century boodling and machine politics ever thinks of any other life after this?

“Do you mean to tell us that rabid, raging, rampant anarchist bellowing out against law and order and government ever thinks of death and the beyond?

“Do you mean to tell us shouting, yelling, gesturing stockbroker, who acts like a maniac on the floor of the stock exchange, ever thinks of what lies beyond the grave?

“Do you mean to tell us that fashion-worshiping, pleasure-seeking woman, given over absolutely to dress and ornament and social functions, ever thinks of what shall be in the great unknown?

“Do you mean to tell us that stooped-shouldered, serious-faced businessman who toils from early morning till late at night the year through to make financial ends meet ever thinks of eternity?

“Do you mean to tell us that student and that professor, all absorbed in art and literature or tangled up in the mysteries of mathematics and the secrets of natural science—do you mean to tell us, Mr. Preacher, that such people ever have any time or disposition to think of what shall be when the end of this life has come?”

Yes, your preacher means to say that very thing. “Man, dieth and, where is he?” In the midst of sin and excitement and business, that question goes, but it comes back again. Like Banquo’s ghost, “It will not down.”

What about this thing we call the eternal future? And then someone comes and hands me a Book—a Book that professes to know; a Book that speaks with no uncertain sound; a Book that professes to be from God and to speak with all the infallible authority of the Most High; a Book, the unique purpose of which is to give answer to this all-important, all-absorbing question of the ages, and which distinctly says of itself, “These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (John 20:31).

If now I can only be sure that this Book is all that it professes to be, that it really does speak with divine authority and that I can depend absolutely upon what it says, then, indeed, I have a volume of unsurpassable worth.

Were the seas one chrysolite,
The earth a golden ball,
And diamonds all the stars of night,
This Book were worth them all — William Leggett

“Bible” is the English of a Greek word meaning “little book.” It is the sacred writing of the Christian faith. But there are other sacred writings, other so-called Bibles—the Koran of the Muslims; the Eddas of the Scandinavians; the Tripitaka of the Buddhists; the Five Kings of the Chinese; the Vedas of the Hindus and the Zend-Avesta of the Persians.

What ground have I for believing that the Christian Bible alone is the Word of God in the sense that the holy men of old who wrote it wrote as they were inspired by the Spirit of God for the distinct purpose of revealing His will concerning us and the plan by which He is to redeem the world to Himself?

I. I Believe It Because of Christ’s Own Testimony

Christ distinctly called the Old Testament the word of God. The New Testament was not yet written. when He lived, but He gave anticipatory to it by telling those who were to write it that the Holy Spirit, whom He would send, would bring to their remembrance all the things which He had said to them (John 14:26).

II. I Believe It Because of the Testimony of the Human Heart

It finds me in the deep places of my being as no other writing could possibly do.

III. I Believe It Because of the Superiority of Its Teachings

Compare it with other sacred writings, if you please; and the more you do, the more you are convinced that it contains not “a comparative religion” but “the superlative one.”

IV. I Believe It Because of Its Transforming Power

It had power to make completely over a life that has been broken and ruined and lost. No other book has ever been known to do it.

V. I Believe It Because of Its Marvelous Influence on the World

Queen Victoria was right when she said, “The Bible is the secret of England’s greatness”; and Canon Farrar was right when he said, “It was the Bible that made America great.”

VI. I Believe It Because of Its utter inexhaustibility

If all the philosophical literati and scientific dignitaries of the world deliberated a thousand years, they couldn’t sound the shallowest depth of the. Gospel of John.

VII. I Believe It Because of Its Wonderful Structure—the Unity and Harmony of It All

Let us suppose that forty builders of various types, living fifteen hundred years apart, should each one in his own land hew and chisel out a number of stones, each utterly ignorant of the others’ work. In later years, when these stones were brought together, what would you expect to find? Just a pile of stones, of course.

But suppose that out of these stones there arose a cathedral as glorious. and as perfect· as any that Michelangelo ever designed! What then?

Well, just this last is true. of the Bible. The Bible is composed of sixty-six books, written by at least forty different writers, living in some cases fifteen hundred years apart and in countries hundreds of miles apart They wrote in three different languages.

Some were wise, and some were ignorant. They wrote without any preconcerted plan or collusion, for by the very nature of the case, such a thing was impossible. What would we expect under the circumstances but total discord and utter lack of unity?

But instead of this, we find the Book to be one harmonious whole; symmetrical in all proportions; with one dominant, ever expanding thought running throughout from beginning to end; until speaking in terms of the cathedral once more, there rises before you this matchless temple of God’s fitting into its place so complete, so perfectly and so divinely that no one must presume to add a stone to it or dare to take one from it.

I know this is an old argument, but it’s a mighty strong one; and no man can be honest and fair who does not meet it and refute it, if he thinks he can, or acknowledge it, if he can’t.

VIII. I Believe It Because of Prophecies Which Have Been Fulfilled

No one of· these other sacred writings contains a single prophecy. They would not dare to make a prophecy, because to make a prophecy that never comes to pass is to brand the work at once as a human fabrication.

The Christian Bible is the only one that has ever made a prophecy, and it has made hundreds of them. And not one of them has ever failed in any respect of all that this Word has said should come to pass.

IX. I Believe It, Finally, Because of Its Absolute Indestructibility

What other book has ever stood so impregnable amidst such storms of persecution and surrounding disaster and such hostile attempts of man and Devil to destroy it? If it had been man’s book, it never could have survived.

All that human ingenuity could contrive, all that human scholarship could suggest, and all that inhuman brutality could accomplish has been done to annihilate it; but it still endures and stands unmoved amid the ages. It is exactly what William E. Gladstone, the great statesman of England called it: “the impregnable rock ·of Holy Scriptures.”

The critic stood with scornful eye
Before a picture on the wall.
“You call this art! Now, see that fly;
It is not natural at all.

It has too many legs; its head
Is far too large—whoever saw
A fly like that.so limp and dead,
And wings that look as if they—Pshaw!”

And with a gesture of disgust,
He waved his hand, when lo! the fly
Flew from the picture.
“Ah, some dust,”
The critic said, “was in my eye.” —Henry Coyle

There is a certain style of so-called higher criticism that styles itself literary criticism, dealing as it does more especially with the text pf the Bible. This criticism comes, as a rule, with pious air, as if loathe to believe the Bible is not to be all it claims to be. After examining the text much as a physician examines a diseased lung or a weakened heart, it turns away with a sigh of disappointment, shakes It head and, with an air of profound wisdom, pronounces the patient beyond the hope of recovery.

It claims to be engaged in an effort to improve the Bible, as though the Book had not come already perfect from the hand of God. You might as well expect to touch up a golden sunset with charcoal pencil! You might.as well expect to improve the glorious notes of a songbird by offering it a tin whistle! As well pour red paint on the blushing beauty of a rose! As if the inspired word of the eternal God needed mending at the hands of men!

What a wonderful Book it is! And now, may I ask what this Book means.to you?

Lord Kelvin was the greatest scientist the British Empire ever had. He gave to the world more scientific discoveries than perhaps any other man who ever lived. One day somebody asked him. what the greatest discovery he ever made was.

He replied, “The greatest discovery I ever made is the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”

Men and women, if you have not made this discovery, this, then, is the first message of this Book to you. It is the only Book, as we said in the beginning; that gives to you any positive assurance of life beyond the grave; and it is the only Book that shows you how you may find your way into it with eternal security and radiant immortality for your soul.

But if you have found that way and are walking in it, then this Book ought to be your constant companion as you go.

The ignorance of this word on the part of God’s people is one of the pathetic things in Christian experience. No wonder we have so many spiritual dwarfs in the family of God—Christian people who might possess themselves with a large degree of spiritual culture, virile and strong, and yet are content to be undersized weaklings with little for themselves and nothing for anybody else.

I have seen people whose bodies have had a stunted growth, and we call them dwarfs; and I have thought that were not so hard to bear, but, oh, to have a dwarfed soul!

I listened to my own pastor one morning tell of a friend of his who has a boy eight years old but who will never be more than ten years of age in mentality. Imagine the crushing disappointment of those parents as the awful truth dawned upon them! They told this pastor of how they had tried to bring every possible medical and scientific assistance to their child and how they rode the shock when they learned from the specialists that it would always be so and that nothing could be done for the child.

And then I thought of the disappointment the Heavenly Father must feel over so many of His children who are never to grow beyond the age of infancy in spirituality.

Oh, to have a mind that knows little or nothing about God; to have a heart where genuine love to God and loyalty to the things that God loves is little known; to have a spirit untouched by the beauty and glory that communion with God can give to it; to have a soul stunted and dwarfed, bringing no peace to itself, no satisfaction to God and no help to the world!

What is the preventive? Here it is: “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby” (1 Peter 2:2).

Dr. A. J. Gordon, in a book he has called “Yet Speaking,” tells us the story of a sick soldier who was given up to die. His father hastened from a long distance to his bedside in the hospital. He lay half conscious, and nothing that father or the attendants could do could arouse him until the father said, “Here is a loaf of your mother’s bread.”

“Bread from home?” said the dying man. “Give me some of it” And from that hour, he began to mend.

Oh, child of your Heavenly Father, you are in the world but not of it. If You eat the native food, you will die. It’s the bread from Heaven that you need. “This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die” (John 6:50).

Feed upon the Word of God. Be regular with it as you. are with the food that sustains your body. Live upon its precepts and its promises and satisfy your soul with the good things of God’s mercy and of His grace.

There is not a need of the human soul for which this Book does not make provision.

When discouraged, read Psalm 23.
When perplexed, read James 1.
When tempted, read Psalm 139.
When facing a crisis, read Psalm 46.
When business is poor, read Psalm 37.
When things look blue, read Isaiah 40.
When death is around, read I Thessalonians 4.

A woman left to her nephew her family Bible and a residue of her estate. The estate was exceedingly small and soon gone, and for thirty-five years, the man lived in poverty, until one day, packing up his few belonging to go to his son, where he meant to spend his remaining years, he discovered $10,000 in bank notes scattered here and there between the pages of the Bible.

Do you remember what Aunt Het said in Robert Quillen’s splendid little volume? She said, “The last time I saved some money, Pa found it in the sewin’ machine drawer; but this time I hid it in the Bible.”

Oh, the treasures that are there—the wealth of His knowledge and wisdom, the riches of His love and grace, unused because unknown and because we are content to drag along in a spiritually impoverished state, when we might be well-fed, healthy, and strong and be an honor to the cause we espouse and a blessing to a needy world around about us!

I find myself thinking of a very unusual and unique paragraph. Now and then another preacher is given credit for the words, but they belonged to John McConaguay. He said:

“Twenty-two years ago, with the Holy Spirit as my Guide, I entered the wonderful temple of Christianity. I entered at the portico of Genesis, walked down through the Old Testament art galleries where the pictures of Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joseph, Isaac, Jacob, and Daniel hang on the wall; I passed into the music room of Psalms, where the spirit swept the keyboard of nature until it seemed every reed and pipe in. God’s great organ responded to the tuneful harp of David, the “sweet psalmist of Israel” (2 Samuel 23:1).

I entered the chamber of Ecclesiastes, where the voice of the preacher wat heard, and into the conservatory of Sharon; and the Lily of the Valley’s sweet-scented spices filled and perfumed my life. I entered the business office Proverbs, and then into the observatory room of the prophets, where I saw telescopes of various sizes pointed to far-off events, but all concentrated upon the Bright and Morning Star, which was to rise about the moonlit hills of Judea for our salvation.

I entered the audience room of the King of Kings and caught a vision of His glory from the standpoint of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; passed into the Acts of the apostles, where the Holy Spirit was doing His work in the formation of the infant church; then into the correspondence room, where sat Paul, Peter, James· and John, penning their epistles.

I stepped into the throne room of Revelation; where towered the glittering peaks, and got a vision of the King sitting upon the throne oi His glory, and I cried:

All hall the power of Jesus’ name;
Let angels prostrate fall.
Bring forth the royal diadem
And crown Him Lord of all!

- Edward Perronet

Thou truest Friend man ever knew,
Thy constancy I’ve tried;
When all were false, I found Thee true,
My Counselor and Guide.

The mines of earth no treasures give
That could this Volume buy;
In teaching me the way to live,
It taught me how to die.

- George P. Morris

- WILLIAM E. BIEDERWOLF (1867-1939)

>>>>>

William Biederwolf has pointed out the wonders to be found in the Bible. But if you have not made the discovery that believers in Christ have made, then the Bible has one message for you. It is the Book that gives hope beyond the grave. The Bible shows the way to prepare and to be prepared for that coming appointment with death and the way to keep that appointment with complete security.

The Gospel truth is this: “Christ died for our sins according. to the scriptures . . . he was buried, and . . . he rose again the third day” (1 Corinthian 15:3, 4).

Jesus paid your sin debt before God on the cross; and when God raised Jesus from the grave, it was His assurance to us all that the debt was paid in full. “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

Now if you will turn to the Lord; turn away from all you have previously trusted and as a repentant sinner, place your trust in the crucified and risen Saviour, the Lord will save you. Will you receive it by faith alone today?

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.