Friday, March 16, 2012

Don't Trade In Your King James Bible!

Don’t Trade In Your King James Bible
by Dr. David L. Brown
PastorDavidLBrown@gmail.com                                                                                                www.facebook.com/KJBRC
ÓSeptember 2011 by David L. Brown                  Don’t Trade In Your King James Bible-C[1]

Hebrews 11:32-40

For nearly 2000 years, the Bible has remained the most controversial and contested book of all times. The Dragon, that Old Serpent, which is the Devil, or Satan has hated the Words of God since Eden. He has sought to corrupt it, compromise it, water it down, obscure it and destroy it. (Genesis 3:1-7) Satan is still doing that today in the modern Bible versions.

There was a time when men or women who dared to handle it, possess it, or yes, even read this sacred Book and were found out, it would cost them their very life.

Since the completion of the New Testament canon it can be said that the Bible has become the most bloodstained book in all of history.

Men have fought for it and even been burned at the stake for it. Believers have been (and continue to be) imprisoned, beaten, buried alive and killed, just for reading it. One account in Foxes Book of Martyrs tells of a true story of a widow who was brought to trial for teaching her children the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer in English. But no solid evidence was produced, so at first she was released. However, when the sheriff went to help her down from the platform, he felt something in her sleeve. Reaching in, he pulled out a little scroll containing the Lord’s Prayer and Ten Commandments in English. Immediately she was convicted of heresy and shortly thereafter burned at the stake.

Others, like John Wycliffe, who gave us the first English Bible, have had their bones disinterred, and burned to ashes and have been accursed to damnation and eternal fire by the Roman Catholic Church.

Bible believing Christians have suffered all this and more for daring to share the empowered Words of the Holy Scriptures with a lost and dying world. The baton has been passed to us. We must carry the Light of the Gospel to our friends, and neighbors!

God Gave Us His Perfect Word(s)

In 2008 I took a group of people on a trip to see the important biblical places in the Middle East. We arrived at St. Catherine’s Monastery guesthouse in Sinai, Egypt for a late supper. It was already dark. The monastery is a Greek Orthodox monastery located at the foot of Mt. Sinai. This is where the corrupt Greek Manuscript, Sinaiticus, also called א – Aleph, was found in a trash can by a flamboyant antiquity’s dealer named Constantin Von Tischendorf. They claim it is the oldest and best manuscript, neither of which claim is true. What is even more interesting is how liberal scholars hide the public claim of Constantine Simon Simonides, a senior textual scholar, that he had written the manuscript himself in 1839 when he was at Panteleimonos monastery at Athos. Either way it is a horribly corrupt manuscript.

Now, St. Catherine’s is said to be the oldest, continuously inhabited Christian Monastery in the world. But it certainly was NOT the monastery that interested me! It was Mt. Sinai! The next morning I stared up at that mountain and tried to picture in my mind what it was like almost 3500 years ago when God met Moses on that mountain top. In about 1280 B.C. the first written communication from God to man came on Mount Sinai, etched in stone tablets by the finger of God. “These sacred words from the Ten Commandments have shaped the world and its ethical system for 3,500 years.” (A Visual History of the English Bible by Donald L. Brake; Baker Books; p. 25).

My heart is grieved as I see our Nation move from the Solid Rock of the Judeo-Christian ethic (Old Testament-New Testament principles) to the shifting sand of the relativistic ethic of Humanism.

Although Moses destroyed the tablets God had written when he saw the idolatry of the people upon descending from the mountain (Exodus 32:19), God instructed Moses to, “Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.” (Exodus 34:1). But, in spite of a bad start, it is on Mount Sinai that God began to communicate with human beings in written form using the language that the people knew. God continued His progressive revelation for the next 1500 years until the canon of Scripture was closed with the book of Revelation.

Let me give you an overview of how God revealed His Word(s) to us. Consider this from William Smith written in the 19th century. – “There are at least 36 different authors, who wrote in three continents [Europe, Asia & Africa], in many countries, in three languages - Hebrew, Aramaic (Genesis 31:47; Jeremiah 10:11; Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:21-26; Daniel 2:4-7:28) and Greek. The Bible is written from every possible human standpoint. Among the authors were kings, farmers, mechanics, scientific men, lawyers, generals, fishermen, ministers and priests, a tax collector, some poor, some city bred, some country born, thus touching all experiences of men, extending over 1500 years." (Smith's Bible Dictionary; by William Smith; published 1884; p.91)

As I stared up at the 7,498 foot summit of Jabel Musa my mind took me to Exodus 19: 16 ff, which gives the account of Moses being on Mt. Sinai early the morning God visited Moses. There was thunder, lightning, loud trumpets, fire, and smoke. The whole mountain shook. As I looked at Mt. Sinai I thought, this may have been the place where Moses received the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments written by the finger of God three and one half millenniums earlier. It was on Mt. Sinai that Moses received the very first written communication from the Lord God Almighty. It was on Mt. Sinai that the written progressive revelatory journey of God speaking to man began. Praise God For Our King James Bible, God’s Inerrant Words To All Who Speak English.

God Inspired His Word(s)

I believe God inspired His Words! Why because He says so! 2 Timothy 3:16All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:”

In fact, I believe in the Verbal, Plenary Inspiration for the 66 books of the Bible. By verbal inspiration I mean, every word is inspired.

By plenary inspiration I mean every book is fully, equally and entirely inspired – from Genesis to Revelation!

2 Peter 1:21 “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”

God inspired His Word(s) once when the Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost! What they wrote was NOT their own private or personal ideas. But, inspiration would be of no value to us today if God did NOT preserve His Word(s).

God Preserved His Word(s)

As a friend of mine put it, “God gave us His Words by verbal plenary inspiration. God preserved those Words by Verbal plenary preservation. Almighty God promised and performed both events!” D.A. Waite

God did promise to preserve his Word(s) and I believe He did!

Matthew 24:35 “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”

Matthew 5:18  "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."

There is a bunch of intellectual bible believers, who ignore what the Bible says and who try to hoodwink, dupe and con Christians by saying God only inspired the thoughts of the Bible, not the words! In fact, virtually all the new versions take that approach in their translations! NO! NO! NO! That is not what Christ said; the FACT IS that not only are the Words inspired, but the letters are inspired. The jots and the tittles are inspired! Romans 3:4 “God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.”

Shame on them for promoting something that is A LIE! Proverbs 30:5-6 My Bible says – “Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. 6 Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.”

My Bible says in - Deuteronomy 4:1-2 “Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers giveth you. 2 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.”

Don’t ADD and don’t TAKE AWAY!

So Where Are the Words of God TODAY?

God HAS providentially preserved His Word, including the very words of Scripture, in the traditional texts of the Bible. Our King James Bible preserves by accurate translation, the inerrancy of the Greek Received Text and the Hebrew/Aramaic Masoretic text for English speaking people. ENGLISH SPEAKING PEOPLE HAVE THE WORDS OF GOD IN THE KING JAMES BIBLE! They have had it for 400 years!

You do NOT have the pure words of God in the Modern Versions of the English Bible! They are corrupted!!! They may contain the words of God, but they also contain errors! Allow just one illustration -
Our King James Bible, the pure Words of God, says in Mark 1:1-3  "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; 2 As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. [Malachi 3:1] 3  The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” [Isaiah 40:3]

The new versions say – “It is written in Isaiah the prophet…” and then goes on to quote Malachi and Isaiah!

That is an error my friends!

Let me cite one more. In John 1:18 the King James Bible reads –
“No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

Here is what the NASB says – “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”

My God was NOT begotten! He has always existed from the beginning! Now, Jesus was begotten (born) of Mary! Though he was the eternal WORD (John 1:1&14) he took on a human body that he might die for our sins!

Don’t use a paraphrase! They really are not Bibles at all. Don’t use the modern versions; they are based on the corrupt texts that we read about in the New Testament.

2 Corinthians 2:17 “For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.”

2 Thessalonians 2:2 “That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.”

Satan’s Design is to Corrupt the Word(s) of God. He tried to do it in the past and he continues to do it today. Our King James Bible is the Word of God for English speaking people today!

Did you know that there are 17 complete verses missing from nearly all the modern versions of the Bible? Here is a list. Check it out for yourself.

Matthew 17:21              Mark 15:28                Acts 24:7        
Matthew 18:11              Luke 17:36                Acts 28:29
Matthew 23:14               Luke 23:17                Romans 16:24
Mark 7:16                      John 5:4                    I John 5:7
Mark 9:44 & 46                           Acts 8:37                 
Mark 11:26                     Acts 15:34               

It took 231 years (from Wycliffe to KJB – or 85 years from Tyndale to the KJB) for English speaking people to have the pure word of God. The King James Bible has endured for 400 years! Do not trade in your pure Bible for a corrupt one!