As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction, 2nd Peter 3:16.
One Effect of the King James Bible upon the World....
One of my favorite historical subjects is the development of English civil liberty. I am a citizen of the United States of America and as such I have inherited much from the development of civil liberty among the English speaking People. What I marvel at is the chaos and disorder from which this great inheritance sprang and the guiding hand of God upon the people of God in ordering those nations which were birthed from the United Kingdom.
I am not calling the English People or Britons the people of God. What I am saying is that from within that great amalgamation of the English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish peoples that became known as Great Britain, God raised up men who grasped the principles of the King James Bible and its predecessor, the Geneva Bible, and in grasping those principles wrestled out those great truths upon which a free society stands.
The Catholic Church, established rulers, and the wealthy generally feared the dissemination of the word of God among the common people. They rightly envisioned the chaos and turmoil that arose as that lighted firebrand of truth was tossed into the dry tinder of the English Speaking public. What those enemies of dispersing the bible among the people never envisioned was the guiding hand of a great and powerful God upon those who would wrestle with the revelations of God's word now made accessible to the lowest of people.
It was not uncommon in the early 1600s for a dissenting person (worshiping outside of the legally recognized church) to use the Book of Revelation to identify specific government figures as being the living, breathing fulfilment of prophecy. Established clergymen and parliamentarians were often horrified to see their names in print. They saw the use of the bible among the masses as a horror to good government.
For anyone who has attended a prophecy conference in the last 60 years, the process of exciting people is familiar. By carefully identifying current events and then finding parallels in prophetic scripture, a preacher can keep whole congregations on the edge of their seats. As events slowly change the political climate, no one notices that almost nothing of what the man said comes true. For example, in the 1960s and the 1970s, the Common Market was regularly identified as the reenactment of the Roman Empire even though its boundaries and population scarcely were the same. Bar codes were quickly seized upon as the mark of the beast.
It took the good grace of God and the wisdom of many good people to slowly sift through the overwhelming abundance of truth which was made available to the English Speaking people, and to knit together those truths which in their proper context made plain what are the rights and duties of men as individuals as opposed to the rights and duties of Kings and nations.
Among the many miracles wrought in the giving of the King James Bible is the miracle of responsible government being made available to men on this earth. We shall see in further posts how that the bible is a single cohesive message from God to man, but that it is so composed that the prideful and foolish will stumble. We shall also see how that having a perfect bible is essential to ever really trusting the bible.
Many good patriots and lovers of truth and good government have become dupes of hell in their support for the new versions. There is simply no greater foundation in the English Speaking world than the King James Bible. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? Psalms 11:3.