Proverbs 17:22, in the Bible God has preserved, says, �A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.� I�d like for us to consider this principle of God as we look into the issue of Version Deficient Bible (so-called!) Versions.
I�d like to thank you for the opportunity to speak at another DBS meeting. This is the highlight of my year. I will, once again, admit what every person here either already knows or will soon find out: In that great orchestra of intelligentsia which is in this room, I play third kazoo. I have no new knowledge to offer. I get that from you.
What I do have to offer is a slightly different perspective: you from the halls of academia, I from the halls of Allen Park Elementary School.
I do try to offer what is that I believe God has laid upon my heart and mind. At its best that is founded in a love for God, a study of His Word, and a prayer life that tries not to be too busy to listen. At it worst it can be founded in a pepperoni pizza too late at night.
That is why what we are doing here is so important. Any time we begin to listen to that voice we have deep within us we are in danger of becoming a spiritual ventriloquist and talking to ourselves about our own desires. Or, worse yet, it may cause us to listen to that siren call of Satan as he dupes us into stepping outside the revealed Will of God.
We see many religious movements in the world that are not founded upon the Sure Word of God. These are movements away from God rather than toward a deeper understanding of Him. Every one of them!, even those who stick close to the historical doctrines, will fall short of His Standard if they neglect His Eternal Word!
We need to line up our hopes, and wants, and desires, and plans, and - more importantly - our preaching with the Revealed Word of God. That is why He gave It. We are not just to talk about His Word, but are to live within and for It. Anything that does not line up with Scripture should be lined up and shot. Do away with it. Put it our of our misery.
That is why this is such an important convocation. If we do not have the Pure Word of God, and know that we have it, then we can not know whether we are in the Will of God, out of the Will of God, or even where His Will would reside. He gave us this Book so that we would not have this quandary. Just as importantly, He preserved that Word so that we may KNOW that it is He Who speaks to us in this day!
Well, in conclusion... No. Just getting your hopes up. I got a ways to go!
A certain young man was talking with his great-grandfather. What a resource this old gentleman could have been to this youngster. The old man�s life stretched back to before the beginnings of the 20th century. But, instead of paying homage to the oldster�s years of earned wisdom, this young man seemed more interested in shocking his great-grandfather.
The conversation thus moved to the health classes at the local high school. As an aside, isn�t it almost incomprehensible that the schools which are so anxious to dispense knowledge about mental and physical health will put up aa hoot and a hollar if anyone dares to inquire about Spiritual health. I guess we really can�t expect the public schools to know that we do not need to fear him who can kill the body; we need to fear Him Who can cast both body and soul into Hell (see Matthew 10:28).
Really, when you think about it, why should these public schools know anything about this? They have not only told God that He is not welcome in their little fiefdom, they have made every effort possible, it would seem, to defame and mock His Holy Name - along with those who would date to follow Him.
But, I digress. The youngster came upon the subject of STD�s.
I have to go into another aside here. Look at how our basic vocabulary is being made an agent of social change. What, for instance, is all this hullabaloo we hear about the Rain Forrest? Do you know what a Rain Forrest is? It�s a jungle. That simple. But, as Rush Limbaugh - and where do we get off speaking of him as an authority in our churches. He is, as far as I can tell, a profane and lost person!
This pop theology which borrows from the current culture is one more example of a people - Christian people - fundamentalist people, who seek to find insights into the Mind and Person of God without every going to look at His Book. Of course, that�s not surprising. After all, we have been told that we really can�t trust His Book. �After all,� we are reminded over and over, �We don�t even know if we�ve finally got it right or not. This Book has been wrong for so long, how can we possibly know if we have the correct Message that God deemed as too unimportant to preserve?� So, as we lay aside the blood-stained banner of the Cross of Calvary, we pick up the beer and tobacco stained banner of partisan politics.
Jerry Falwell, no fundamentalist as far as I am concerned!, preaches a pretty pure Gospel Message as near as I can tell. But, what is he known for? His political views are his claim to fame. Maybe that�s what is wrong. We don�t need fame; we need shame. Shame at our sin. Shame at our lazy handling of the Word of God. Shame at our lifestyles which do not display the Power and Might of Jesus Christ. Same at the fact that our soul-winning is so sporadic and shallow that most of us can remember the name of eery single person we�ve ever led to Christ. And, it doesn�t take too long to recite the list! Shame at the fact that we�ve allowed political pundits to replaced powerful prophets of God in our speaking and preaching. Shame at the fact that we feel no shame!
Well, now that I�ve said all of that... Rush Limbaugh has a phrase: it is environmentalist wackos! I don�t think we could, or should, use this term to describe those who care about the physical condition of our planet. After all, God did give us this planet - and the charge to take care of it. I think that we could ascribe this phrase to those who are concerned about the ecology of a nearly extinct mud flea while they are completely uncaring about the souls of a lost and dying human race.
We had a phrase in Seminary. So did you, probably. It is a phrase of flippant youth. I wish today that it had been said of me back then. It wasn�t! The phrase was: �He is so Heavenly minded that he�s no earthly good.� Well, there are too many Christians who are so earthly minded that they do no good in the light of the Heaven of eternity! We need less talk about the Rain Forrest and more talk about the solitary tree on which Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, died so that He might offer salvation - free and clear, to those who would accept Him.
But, these Environmentalist Wackos have discovered that the term Rain Forrest conjures up some warm and fuzzy images toward which people will react. If they had simply said Jungle, most people would not have been so touched.
We are seeing a 1984, Orwellian, style weakening of our witness by the use of changes in our vocabularies.
So, what is an STD? It stands for Socially (sometimes �sexually�) Transmitted Disease. Folks, it is quite plain and simply the new phrase for Venereal Disease in our Newspeak.
The worry was that if we used the term Venereal Disease we might harm little Johnny�s psyche. So What! I�d rather have little Johnny�s psych bruised a little than to see his body racked with disease - some of which know no cure!
Words. How we play with them!
Women get so made at me when I ask a simple little question. �If it is all right to kill a child before it is born because we feel that it might be some nuisance to us, why not the same thing at 14 or 15 when we know what kind of problems they cause us?� Choice! What a misused word. Choice to do what? To kill a baby! And just think, only a few years ago that was considered to be a bad thing.
We just had a murder trial back home. This man had killed a reputed drug dealer. Why charge him? Why put him in jail? Why spend the public monies for a trial? The only thing this man did was to exercise his freedom of choice! And, the man he killed was said to be a drug dealer. The victim was not a defenseless, innocent baby still in its mother�s womb. O. K. It�s not that simple. This murderer did deserve the sentence which was meted out.
Still, it is horrendous to realize that, statistically speaking, the most dangerous place for a baby is in the mother�s womb. And, the single greatest cause of danger to a baby is the mood swings of the mother-to-be. By the way, note that I said baby and not unborn child. Not that the latter is wrong, but that the former is correct. That is a child being choiced out it�s life.
And, what about the phrase, public money? Folks, there just ain�t no such animal. It is all private money which has been confiscated by the Government through taxes! To hear the howl go up when people ask for vouchers so that they can afford to send their children to private schools - just like the politicians!, you�d think we were stealing bread from starving children.
And, by the way, why can some people invoke the concept of harm being done to the children by some sort of action such as school choice vouchers while these same people will not even allow anyone to use the term child as they champion the killing of the unborn fetus? Just curious.
With the aforementioned vouchers, we are only asking that we be allowed to purchase the product of our own choice with our own money.
It�s as if the government were telling us that we were unpatriotic unless we buy a Ford, or a Chevy - whichever one would be produced at the Government run factory. I will guarantee you that if the government did run an automobile factory the product there would be inferior to the one produced at a free-market factory.
That�s why the teacher�s unions and the governmentalist�s will berate the free choice of education. Their own product is quite often so poor that they have to find laws to pass to force its use because so few would choose to use it! So much for that near sacred word: Choice! Words!
We live in a time when you can not even purchase an order of medium fries at Chez Golden Arches. I tried. I was told that they only had small, large, and super size. I always though the one in the middle was medium!
A man is no longer considered a homosexual. He is now a gay. Now, I�ve known more than a few homosexual men. Some have been gay; but, just as many have been quite dour.
Of course, one of the things that upset me the most about homosexual men is that there are now two sexes which find me unattractive.
You know, of course, that it is now considered as impolite to refer to an African-American as a Black. The argument is that the term Black is non-descriptive. Some of the African-Americans are black. Some are brown. Some are quite light in their complexion. So, in polite conversation we address this group as African-American.
Come to think of it, would a Caucasian from Johannesburg, South Africa, be considered an African-American if he moved here?
I really don�t have any problem with this term. To me it is the same sort of thing as Italian-American, or German-American, or Dutch-American... I�m just a little sad that we can�t simply be American.
I don�t believe that the molders of the new morality honestly want us ever to be one people, together. The power base for these social changers lies in being able to play one group off against another.
But, may I just say this: Is it not just as wrong to call a homosexual a gay as it is to call an African-American a black? After all, some homosexuals are gay and happy, some are not. They are the same as the rest of mankind - beset with the trials and tribulations of every day life.
They may have even more problems due to their lifestyle choice. Did you know that AIDS was originally called GRIDS? Instead of �Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome,� it was �Gay Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome.� This was due to its incident rate within that community. Oops. The nabobs of newspeak couldn�t allow that! Accurate or not, we need to make another change in our language and phraseology.
Some people, of course, will argue that the so-called gay, the homosexual lifestyle is not a choice. They will argue, �I�m this way because God made me this way. There is a gene that determines sexual preference.�
You know what? I almost said �sexual orientation.� That�s another word that has changed for this subject matter. To orientate something is to set it in a proper and logical setting. Folks, there ain�t nothing proper and logical about the homosexual lifestyle. Homosexuality is a perversion of God�s creation. There is no purpose served by homosexual unions except to satisfy carnal lust. No other possible reason can be given for this abominable act. That might not be polite and popular; but it is right!
No. God did not give this disease to anyone. If there is a gene there, and I believe that there is a strong possibility that it might just be so, it was put there not by the Creator, God but by the fallen creature, Adam. I don�t mean to say that Adam was himself a homosexual. But, his willful sin brought to us the deadly sin nature.
Don�t ever forget that sin does bring consequence. Deadly consequence. Spirit killing, Hell damning consequence! We do noting in a vacuum! It has been said that sin will either keep you from this Book, or this Book will keep you from sin. It is just as true that sin will either keep us from witnessing the Truth to a lost and dying world or that sin will cause our witness to be unheeded, or laughed out with cause, or worse!
So, getting back to this young lad and his great-grandfather... The subject of STD�s and condoms came up. The old man sort of snorted at the youngster. �Well..,� the young man said, �What did you wear back in your day to keep away from disease.� Without so much as a moments thought the old man held up his left hand, pointed at it, and said, �A wedding ring!�
Today I�d like to talk about the STD of those who are inclined to read and study from these modern translations. They have serious STD problems - Serious Translation Difficulties.
I could be wrong here. Maybe we should use the phrase VD instead - Version Deficiencies. After all, the NASV, for instance, is a pretty good translation. It isn�t that it is a bad translation. But, it is a good translation of a bad text. It, along with the rest of these Johnny Come Lately Perversions suffer from VD - Version Deficiency rather STD - Serious Translation Difficulties.
By the way, what have I just done? I told a little four or five line joke. So, why did it take so long to tell it? Because I went out and ran all over the park. I was like a race horse that runs a little on the track. Then a little on the infield. Then back to the starting gates. Then back on the track to finish up. The horse would finish last. He may have been fun to watch, but he spent so much time running around that he forgot where the race was being run.
I hope most of what I said was good. I tried to make it so. But the joke was the illustration and the purpose. Still, following my joke was like trying to find God�s Words in these modern translations. It�s in there. Well, most of it is in there. But we keep getting sidetracked by the words of man.
You could follow my joke but you had to work at it just a bit. That is true also with God�s Words in these modern perversions. You can find most of the doctrines. But, you really have to work to find them.
By the way, that is exactly what the purveyors of these perversions will tell you when you complain that the Deity of Christ, for instance, is weakened in the NIV. �That doctrine is still there. You may just have to search for it,� we are told. Now, the reason we have these new versions is, �To make the Word of God more understandable.� But, we are told we must �search for it� to find some cardinal doctrines.
Somewhere lost in that oxymoron is the entire rational for the new versions. Never mind the fact that these ersatz scriptures (small �s�) use a faulty textual base, they can�t even explain the reason for their existence. Not logically unless we do not listen to both of their explanations - which are themselves mutually exclusive, one of the other.
How many of you know that Satan ain�t dumb? We tend to think that ol� Satan is just a little bit of a dummy. Just a thinken� he could overthrow God.
By the way, on the subject of using words for a purpose beyond the mere words themselves, have you ever noticed that when a comedian wishes to portray someone as a little short of a full charge in his mental battery, that he will slip into a Southern accent? Why is this? Are Southerners just a little slow on the uptake? What is the purpose? I believe the reason is that we stand in the Bible Belt when we stand in the South. This is another way, perhaps not normally conscious, of casting doubt upon the Scripture. After all, if foolish people reside in the area where the Bible is most popular...
Well, that and us Northerners do not have an accent worthy of copying!
No. Satan is not dumb. He has a character flaw. His pride is so over consuming as to cause him to stand up before God and say, �I want your throne.�
No. Satan is not dumb. He knows that if he can cause our mind to flow to other topics we will just pass over the Words which God has for us.
By the way, haven�t I just gotten away from the topic one more time? I sure have!
Now, not to digress, but to explain: Why did I choose this subject to point up the difficulties with those false texts? I could just as easily have used bifocals, for instance.
Have you ever had to get used to bifocals? Here are glasses used for making better the work of our eyes, and they deceive us. Could not the same be said of the newer translations from an inferior text. They promise to give us the Word of God to instruct and lead our physical and spiritual lives. Yet, the tend to deceive us.
The text was altered, it would appear, to follow a preconceived doctrinal, and heretical, bias. This was first done by Origen; then by Hort, Westcott, et. al., and so on down to the Scripture Correctors of our own day. Look how that early sin has had consequence down to this day and will, in all probability, continue to have consequence for many more decades to come if the Lord chooses to tarry.
Now, about those bifocals...
Remember the first time you were wearing bifocals and came to a flight of stairs going down? We don�t need Six Flags, or any of the other amusement parks. No! Just issue everyone a set of bifocals and send them from the third floor to the first floor. Talk about your thrills, chills, and spills!
That�s like trying to find the Words of God in these modern versions. We know it�s there. We�ve been told it�s there. But, finding it... Especially when these modern perversions, themselves, won�t even admit to having the True Words of God.
That�s on of the few things these newer versions have right: They do not have the Pure Word of God!
We have a lake back home. It was made by the rail roads so that they could get water to their old steam locomotives. The EPA has given some very strict guidelines as to how much of the fish from this lake we are allowed to eat. You know why, of course. The lake is polluted and from it the fish. You can�t catch good fish from a polluted lake.
Why in the world would anyone want to settle for a Maybe Bible when the King James Bible has been proved by God, for nearly four hundred years, to be His Word in the English? I don�t mind telling the Story of God, but when push comes to shove I want to be able to say, �Thus saith the Word of the Lord!�
Remember, while we are taking those Version Deficient so-called �Bibles, at their word that they do not have the Words, let us not forget to take the True Word of God at His Word. The True Word of God comes to us, bought by the blood of martyrs. The True Word of God is authenticated by the Power and Guarantee of the Lord God Who made the Heavens and the earth! I trust it! Big deal. It is the Revealed Word of God whether fat little ol� me ever trusts It or not!
So, why am I not using bifocals as an illustration, a main illustration? They are after all something from outside of our own selves that corrects a serious problem as to our perception of reality. That could be easily tied in with the Death of Jesus Christ as our Substitute.
I prefer to use the illustration of VD because it is much more deadly. Folks, spiritual death is lurking in those false texts. Have you noticed that there is little preaching about Hell in this time? Couldn�t that be partly because the word �Hell� is removed from the Old Testament in the NIV.
We have noted that �...all the doctrines are in these modern versions.� This we are told. �It�s just that you might have to work a little to find them.� If things are not on the bottom shelf, most people are not going to get a step ladder to reach the fourteenth shelf. Even as our vocabularies are being dumbed down and replaced with other words in many cases, so is our Christianity.
Did you ever take a baby puppy from the mother dog. She grieved for a while. So did the puppy. After a few weeks both seemed to forget about the other. They did forget. Put them back together in a couple of years and they will tear each other up. You see they do not have a language to conceptualize their experiences. So, they tend to forget what they are unable to recall.
With our vocabularies being dumbed down in these modern version, we are in danger of losing a grip on the True Reality of the Spiritual world. �Redemption?� Too hard of a word for modern man to use. �Sanctification?� Isn�t that a caffeine free coffee?
This isn�t an aside. This is the crux of the message. Whenever we begin to doubt what are the True Words of God, we begin to doubt the inerrancy of this Book. When we look for the critic to give us the True Word, and look past the Preserving Power of God, we begin to say, �Yea, what in the world hath God said?� If inerrancy, to keep the Words pure, is only assigned to the �Original Autographs,� and not extended to faithful renditions of these Words from God - such as the TR, then we can not have true inerrancy.
This will lead to one Having Inerrancy Vacillation. This type of HIV is very serious. This HIV can cause our Bible study and Christian walk to lose vitality. The doubt caused thereby can just drain the life out of out Bible Study. When we doubt that we do have the Revealed Word of God much of the urgency to study the Scripture is gone. Much of the need to see what the Words of God do say is replaced with a desire to find out what The Rev. Dr. Fiddle, D.D. has to say about those Words back in is famous commentary of 1662. Let�s see, what was that title: The Lazy Preacher Guide to Looking Spiritual Without Having to Resort to Prayer.
By the way, a commentary that old would probably be pretty good. But, how much better to study the Words of God as He speaks to us anew than to live on someone else�s second hand blessing.
We do not walk the Christian walk well when we walk completely by ourselves. The use of good commentaries is a good thing. But, we can not even walk, we crawl most pitifully if we do not READ, and TRUST, His Word for ourselves.
Still, there is worse condition to follow if we persist in Having Inerrancy Vacillation. This sort of HIV can lead to the condition, if we persist in these deviant perversions, of being Always In Deviant Study. This type of AIDS is even more of a soul killer. Not only our own souls are battered by this disease, so too are the souls of those in our congregations as they sit before us to hear the Words of the Lord.
Sin brings consequence. As we assume the office of Pastor, our own sin brings consequence to the people we purport to serve. It, if I may use Dynamic Equivalent rather than paraphrase, is a fearful thing to cause others to fall into the hands of the living God. (See Hebrews 10:31) Now, this is not Scriptural Words; I do believe it to be an honest Scriptural principle.
If it is true of these modern perversions, and it probably is to an extend, that All the doctrines are in there. You just have to look a little harder to find them, then our study tends to, as we look for the historic church doctrines, become study only rather than a Dialog with Deity.
This Book is more than any other Book. We need more than just a study of It�s Words - as Pure and as Animated with His Love as They are, we need to read them with the realization that there is, at our side - in our hearts, the very Author of those Words to illumine them to our time and need.
If I go to my study and pour over His Word... And pray over His Word... And prostate my soul over His Word... And probate my will to the Court of His Word... And prophecy not but the Word He giveth... If I do all of these things I might just be able to go into the pulpit in His power and give forth His Word to a people who stand in need of a Spiritual refreshing.
If, instead, I go to my study and look at the clock and realize that it is now 10:30 P.M. on a Saturday night... If, instead I go to my study and think, �I�d like to talk on...� - with the emphasis on �I�... If I have to study so hard to find, for instance, the doctrine of Hell because I have a Version Deficient perversion that believed the word �Hell� too harsh a word for modern ears, that I give up looking because it must be such a minor doctrine... If I have trained myself to believe that my - emphasis on �my� - study is the most important thing in my - emphasis on �my� - preaching, then I have injected far too much of �my� into the pulpit meant for the proclamation of the Message of Almighty God.
This �injection� brings Spiritual stagnation and disease. The disease may not be readily apparent. But, given time, striding away from the complete reliance upon the Words which God has given, this condition worsens and we begin to see that spiritual drift towards liberalism and apostasy.
This is what is so insidious about the disease of Always In Deviant Study. It springs from such a Life Affirming act: Study of the (supposed) Bible (In these nefarious perversions). It is not the study. It is that which is guiding and misguiding our study. Fidelity to the old man�s wedding ring was his guard against social diseases. Fidelity to the True Word of God is the only guard we have against the many and malicious spiritual Diseases! Never forget that we, members of the Blood Bought Band called Christian, are the Bride of the Lamb.
I am not a Medical Doctor. I make no claim to understand the medical condition known as AIDS. My understanding is that it kills by attaching to, and attacking, the white blood cells, those which protect humans from disease. Therefore, other diseases can come along and find one unprotected. These will then cause death.
What a picture this is of what those Version Deficient perversions do to the Spiritual life of those who use them. Their very Bibles, that which they expect to hold them close to God, these are the agent which draws them further and further from the God of Heaven.
That should be about all of my time. Again, I do thank you for the opportunity to speak at the Burgon Meetings. I would just remind you of this one thing: You can�t tell a book by it�s cover. This is especially so if the cover says Holy Bible and the inside gives and English rendition of a spurious text.