THE NAUSEOUS STATE OF PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIANITY

Modern saints have greatly altered the image of the church. No longer is the church characterized by a people who are sober and burdened, who fast and pray and cry mightily to God. This generation of believers is sharp, chic, smooth and debonair.

Present-day church leaders, instead of being like the prophets of old who preached to eternity-bound sinners, are experts in the field of public relations. They are toastmasters, executives, and masterful promoters.

Preaching has given place to counseling, and the apologetics of blood atonement, imputed righteousness and personal godliness have been replaced by psychology with a slight sprinkling of religious jargon to give the whole a Christian flavor. God chose that by the "foolishness" of preaching He would save them that believe. Consequently, while there are more seminars on the home than at any other time in history, the Christian home has never been in greater disarray.

The present-day church has sidestepped the venerable hoary heads and has focused its attention upon youth. It has built basketball courts and has organized softball and bowling leagues, yet young people are no more spiritually inclined than before these programs.

Instead of bearing a vital, living testimony before the world, present-day saints have surrendered their testimony to the world. They have donned the world’s standard of dress and relished in the entertainments the world has produced. The present-day church has married the music of the age and has adopted the sleazy attitudes of Nashville and Hollywood. Unless the world recognizes their education by accreditation, modern saints feel discredited.

Modern pastors have for the most part compromised the message God commissioned them to preach, and now "share" what things the people want to hear. They have diluted God’ s time-less message in an attempt to make it more appealing. Others have muzzled themselves for fear of jeopardizing their pension, or angering the board of deacons or elders.

Unity is all-important to the modern church and since doctrine necessarily divides people, it has been dispensed with. Denominational pastors have therefore become diplomats instead of under-shepherds, guides, and overseers.

Have you looked at the disgusting covers of the books being marketed by Zondervan Publishing Company? When did you last look at a catalog from Gospel Films?

One need only look at the state of the church in the present age to understand why the Lord will spit out of His mouth this contemporary church.

          2.) Is my Bible inspired?

          3.) Is my Bible free from error?

          6.) Why are there serious discrepancies in various translations? --

THE PRESERVATION OF SCRIPTURE

Text: "The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, 0 Lord, Thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever." -(Psalm 12:6,7)

I received three letters last week each of which dealt with the integrity and reliability of Scripture. In addition, one of the finest young men I have met confessed that while he had attended one of the most fundamental, "Bible-believing" colleges in the country, he had questions whether he could trust any Bible translation.

One letter read in part, "With all its faults, obscurities and inconsistencies, we prefer the King James Version. We have no qualms about correcting it where necessary. ...It is not inerrant." The other two letters subscribed to the idea the Word of God is "inerrant in the original manuscripts" -- a position held by many present-day saints.

But is the Bible I have in my possession inerrant? If it is not, it cannot be infallible (incapable of error), or authoritative.

If it is not inerrant, my Bible cannot be faithful to the original. This issue is of paramount importance because the integrity of the Word of God is under attack --intentionally by some, and unwittingly by others. At the root of the problem is a presumptuous spirit that is nourished by modern scholarship --a spirit that is both haughty and haunts. It is a peevish spirit that has no reverence for the Book of God. Modern scholarship however great we think it to be is ghastly inferior to the least educated of the King James translators.

These men mastered the Latin and Greek –both Classical and Koine, as well as the Hebrew languages but only after years of disciplined study.

The case is one of authority: what to us is the settler of all disputes? Is it the Bible? or is it man --a brilliant man, a doctor of philosophy? When my college philosophy professor was studying for his doctorate in a state university, he and one other student were the only professing Christians in the class. One day his professor declared the Bible had all kinds of errors and contradictions. The other student remarked to my professor, "Bob, I didn’t know the Bible had all kinds of errors and contradictions." In his superb wit he remarked, "Why of course it does; didn’t you hear what the professor said?" Again, in what is our confidence: the Word of God, or the word of man?

If faith is based upon scholarship, how can the uneducated believe? The Bible was purposely designed for our learning. It is not a book of mysteries that only philosophers and critics can understand. It was intended for the common man and net only for the intelligentsia. Therefore Scripture should be understood in its plain meaning, and should be received in simple, child-like faith.

If the Bible is errant, it certainly is not "perfect" as the Psalmist affirms (Psalm 19:7). If it is errant then it can not be the basis for either our creed or our conduct. If only the original manuscripts are inerrant, we are of all men most miserable because there are no "original manuscripts" available.

Yet our meet fundamental schools have accepted the liberal line of theology. When Rationalism settled in the seminaries of 19th century

Germany, the "Documentary Hypothesis" or the "JEDP Theory" was born and from it came the "Q Theory." The idea that the Word of God is "inerrant

in the original manuscripts" is the product of this "Higher Criticisms" and is essentially the same message preached by Neo-Orthodoxy--that the Bible "contains" the Word of God.

1.) Is the Bible I have in my possession the Word of God? Yes, though written by men who acted as amanuenses, God is the Author of it. It is as truly His Word the organic Word when He spoke, "Let there be light," and there was light.

2.) Why then are there serious discrepancies between the King James Version, and the Revised Standard Version and the New English

Bible, to list only a few? The answer lies in the fact these are not true representatives of God’s Word on account of the fact many of the men on these translating committees were not born-again men. Others

chose to follow the liberal line of theology because they thought it was scholarly to do so.

The Revised Standard Version was authorized and copyrighted by the National Council of Churches. It should come as no shock that it adopts the Neo-Orthodox position on the doctrine of Scripture affirming that the meaning of Scripture is somehow "hidden under words." (Preface)

The Translators’ Preface to the King James Version acknowledges Divine Inspiration, and the Authority of Scripture as the Word of God,

the gift of God to man. No such statement is found in the Preface of the New English Bible. It is a version which the London Trinitarian Bible Society called "utterly alien to the faith of our fathers and unacceptable to these who still cherish some respect for the old paths."

3.) Is my Bible errant? Is it fallible? The Bible because it is the Word of God must be free from error (inerrant) and incapable of error (infallible).

4.) Is my Bible inspired? No. Inspiration ceased with the apostles, as did all the "signs of an apostle." No book written today is inspired in the same sense as Scripture was when God Himself authored it.

5.) How then can I have the very Word of God inerrant and infallible? Because of the doctrine of the Preservation of Scripture. The issue then is not one of Inspiration but of Preservation.