So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, Romans 10:17.
We live in an age when the word of God has the least amount of respect that it has ever had in the English-Speaking world. I live in a rural community that still enjoys its volunteer fire department. A man is accounted great who can fell, saw and split wood quickly and well. Women who know the arts of housework receive respect.
It is a pleasant place to live. Crime is very low. Everybody knows everybody either by blood relationship or having been raised near them. Nevertheless, this is not an idyllic 1950s community. Children are too often raised without fathers. Young women are under the same sexual pressures as their big city counterparts. Young men are just as apt to shirk the responsibilities of fatherhood. Sodomy is blatant.
What is missing in this community is the bible. In the late 1950s the bible was successfully removed from the schools. It was successfully removed from the schools because enough homes no longer saw it as essential and even though they griped at having it removed, they did nothing. That could not have been done to previous generations.
When the Revised Version committee released its new bible in the late 19th century, they fooled great Christians like Spurgeon and Moody. The bible colleges established to train Christian leaders became indoctrination stations to convince young preachers that there was no such thing as a perfect bible. Preachers who came from Fundamental backgrounds found that distasteful so the schools gave them a little hug, a kiss on the cheek and with a pat on their fannies told them not to worry, the bible used to be perfect.
The effect upon our society was not instantaneous. Imagine a person who took a blast of radiation at the Chernobyl nuclear accident in Russia. They could have walked away from there looking healthy. The damage had been done but it would not be apparent over night. As their bodies tried to reproduce its own cells, it would not be able to keep up with the damage.
Such has been the fate of the English-Speaking world. Each generation since the disaster of the Revision committee has had less respect and less use for the bible. It is a small minority of people who I meet who ever read the bible. Those who do read it, read it rarely and more out of a sense of religious duty than to fellowship with their creator.
If we were to use the standard of changed lives as a measurement of whether or not people are getting saved in our churches, our churches are dying. Most Fundamental churches today are a motley conglomeration of people and lifestyles that still cling to a weekly church meeting. To look in their cars or their homes would not be much different than looking in the cars and homes of most homes. They do not live separated lives. Their children have little interest in following the faith of their parents.
The art of being able to go out into a community and to carve out a people for Jesus Christ is for all intents and purposes dead in the English-Speaking world. Instead we have substituted a program of getting sundry neighbors and visitors to pray a prayer and to tell them that they are not saved. We need to tell them that because the Holy Ghost will not. What is missing these last 20 years is an influx of new people who can lift up holy hands without wrath or doubting. Churches grow by attracting people from other churches.
The King James Bible believing community has a huge advantage. We have the truth. We keep telling people about Jesus, but there are so many Jesus Christs out and about today that our hearers are not prone to zero in on the Jesus Christ of scripture when we speak. They will pray to feel good religiously, but as Paul warned in 1st Corinthians 15: 2; unless ye have believed in vain. Remember, the gospel is not the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ according to the scriptures.
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures, 1st Corinthians 15:3,4. If you want to see a true change in people, you need to get them to change their thinking. That is what the bible does.
When I convince people that the King James Bible is indeed the word of God, they sit up straighter. They begin to get fascinated with the bible. We have changed lives in our church. I mean lives wherein social workers have noticed, doctors have noticed, relatives have noticed and law enforcement has noticed. That did not happen because I got them to pray a preformatted prayer. It happened because it pleased God to use me as a vessel whereby these people could hear that there is a 100% accurate bible on this earth which they can hold and read.
It happened because they began coming to hear the word of God. It happened because the Holy Ghost took the words that they heard and made them ashamed of their lives. It happened because it pleased the Lord to give these people the truth. We have people in our church who after years of coming and hearing the words of God, the Holy Ghost convicted them of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. They tell conversion stories that rival any you will hear when you read behind the Wesleys, George Whitefield or any other preacher.
I am glad for each one of you who intellectually contend for the King James Bible. Quit acting like a person who can win debates over who has the sharper sword. Take that sword and put it to work. You may eventually convince some poor wretch who wasted his money on a bible college degree, but with far less effort and far greater results, you can convince the drunk next door.
I received an email from a man yesterday with whom I have had the honor of working for these last two years. He is in his mid 40s and two years ago was on the brink of abandoning his family and giving himself over to drunkenness. He said this: "God has shown me MANY things about myself. I have come to the conclusion that I need to stop being a little wimp, and let my parents off the hook. Last night I wrote them both honest true letters of my failing them, and spending a lifetime dishonoring them. I can't believe what a "@!@#$" I've been. I intend to mail them today. For the first time in my life, the bible has begun to open up and affect me, affect me in a personal way".
Like so many that the Lord has entrusted to me, my early dealings with him were about the bible itself. Once that bible takes its rightful place, God moves in and begins to convict. We have a great God. He has given us a great bible. Let's go out and do great things with it through him. If anyone is interested in getting a copy of my book, Who Moved the Goal Posts?, email me at asquithjm@gmail.com. It is book on why people are not being converted and common sense ways that you can change that.
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