The Anvil-1611-God's Word

James H. Sightler, M.D.

Sightler Publications

September 1, 2002 ©

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The Anvil-1611-God's Word

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The King James Bible Is Inspired

May we call the KJB inspired, or merely the best translation of the inspired originals and copies of them? Is it truly scripture as we read in II Timothy 3:16 or not? I believe the KJB did not lose inspiration in translation. Few pastors are unwise enough to stand in the pulpit and say that Bible in the hands of the congregation is a good translation but somehow not equal to the manuscripts. But there are fundamental "academic" defenders of the Textus Receptus who boldly say that very thing.

Elizabethan English of the KJB is more precise than any legal document, more beautiful than any other literature, and more easily memorized than any other translation. H. L. Mencken, the agnostic Baltimore Sun reporter who covered the Scopes trial, said of the KJB: "many learned but misguided men have sought to produce translations that should be…in the plain speech of everyday. But the Authorized Version has never yielded to any of them for it is palpably and overwhelmingly better than they are, just as it is better than the Greek New Testament, or the Vulgate, or the Septuagint. Its English is extraordinarily simple, pure, eloquent, lovely. It is a mine of lordly and incomparable poetry, at once the most stirring and the most touching ever heard of." If unbelievers can say that of the KJB, why is it politically incorrect among us to say the same thing?

The question is whether inspiration belongs only to Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. If so the mass of believers cannot hide God's inspired words in their hearts. Is this position any better than concept inspiration or inspiration of the autographs only? It is not. The KJB translators, taught in prayer as Moses was taught eloquence by God in Exodus 4:12, rendered our Bible into an elevated, Biblical form of English, cast in a mold slowly shaped by the Biblical Greek and Hebrew as they had been carried over into other languages for centuries before English came about from them and took its best form in the 16th century.

Koine Greek of the New Testament was vernacular and also Biblical because of strong Hebrew influence. It was not the language of the streets. It was a world language in its day but is now a dead language. The best Greek scholars do not think in it nor preach or pray from the heart in it. English, now spoken by more people than any other tongue, has replaced it as a world language, and the honour given to God by the KJB is the primary reason. Bible translations in use through history in the true churches outside Catholicism have all been inspired. That our English Bible has surpassed them in beauty and soul stirring pathos is in the hands of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who gave Hebrew to Adam and guided the development of earlier tongues out of the integrity of His heart and with the skilfulness of His hands and by that same power shaped English itself to receive Hebrew and Greek expressions with divine ease and grace. God is in control of this world and did not stand aside and let languages evolve naturalistically without direction.

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Some Things We Know

ONE The Bible is eternal, has always existed and always will. Ezekiel 2:9-10, Psalms 119:89, 152, Isaiah 40:8, Matthew 24:35

TWO
Inspiration of the Bible is by direct dictation from God. Numbers 12:8, Isaiah 51:16, Ezekiel 2:1-2 and 3:1-3, John 17:8

THREE
Inspiration and writing, or scripture, are specifically connected in II Timothy 3:16 and I Peter 1:17-21.

FOUR
The Bible, always vernacular, is alive; it is the lively oracles which Stephen preached as given to the Jews. It lives in the hearts of believers, hidden there by the Holy Ghost who has provided spiritual understanding and tbe means by which we can call it to memory. John 6:63 says that the words of Jesus, the living bread, are spirit and life.

FIVE
God sent Jesus to spend his youth in Galilee of the nations where he was protected from Herod. God ordained that Jesus' ministry would flourish there. This follows Messianic prophecy of Isaiah 9:1-8, fulfilled in Matthew 4:12-16. All the disciples except Judas were Galileans. Believers were scattered there after Stephen's stoning; churches were established there at an early time. The Lord's ministry in that land of many languages foreshadows the very early translation of the Bible.
SIX
The priesthood of the believer, taught in I Peter 2:5, 9 and Revelation 1:6, requires vernacular translation as we see in I Corinthians 14:13-16, I will pray with the understanding, I will sing with the understanding also.

SEVEN
Translation has always been the means of preservation of the scriptures. The Bible has been translated, published in written form, and preached since Acts 2:4-18 (16 languages here), I Corinthians 14:5-22, Colossians 1:5-6 and 22, Romans 10:17, and Romans 16:26. Portions of Daniel are Aramaic. A number of verses in the KJB, I John 5:7, Acts 8:37, Acts 9:5-6, Acts 20:28, and Matthew 27:35 depend primarily on Old Latin manuscripts, although they are in a small minority of Greek manuscripts.

EIGHT
Man did not evolve; language did not evolve. God gave Hebrew to Adam. There is a single New Testament reference which I believe confirms the belief that Hebrew was the original language and is the language of God. In Acts 26:14 Paul told Agrippa "And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" In the providence of God Hebrew expressions somehow flow naturally into English. Hebrew idioms became English idioms because the KJB translators so faithfully respected and followed Hebrew word order. "It came to pass," "a man after his own heart," "as a lamb to the slaughter," "the salt of the earth," "thorn in the flesh," and "gave up the ghost" are some of many examples that have enriched our language.

NINE
England provided a place of refuge for thousands of Spanish Jews and Christians who had to flee from the Inquisition. The English remembered God's promise to Abraham, trong>"I will bless them that bless thee," and gained a world empire as Spain lost one. The vernacular nature of the Bible, the priesthood of the believer, preservation by translation and useage, respectful and exact faithfulness of the KJB translators to Hebrew and Greek, and humble faith on our part, all point toward inspiration of the KJB itself.

James H. Sightler, M.D.

Sightler Publications ©

September 1, 2002

[published on Bible 1611.com by permission from: Sightler Publications ©]

End of The Age Messages

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[THE BIBLE] This is God's Holy WORD to you and I!

Do you believe it?

The A.V.1611 (or The King James Bible) is God's word PRESERVED in the English language for you and me.
It came from the English Reformation.

This Bible declares that: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." [2 Timothy 3:16]

God's inspired word is preserved in the A.V.1611.

The word "preserved" means maintained inspiration.
 
"The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in the furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever." [Psalm 12:6-7]
 
[PRESERVE]
 
You see what God is saying here? GOD promises that no matter what man does, even with his corrupting influence in all these Madison Avenue money-making productions, which have resulted in over 200 "new" English translations of the Bible in the last 100 plus years, HE WILL (in spite of the scholars) "PRESERVE THEM FROM THIS GENERATION FOR EVER!" Stick with the Book! Amen! Amen! AMEN!

I simply have in child-likeness believed THE BOOK ... no matter how hard things got ... for it has BURNED in my heart for these last thirty-four years.

I have by GRACE not gotten off course either ... for He has held me to Himself.
 
God is faithful, and I (literally) have taken God at His word concerning 1 Peter 1:5.
 
"Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."

And while I have seen the Lord hold me to Himself, I have with sadness watched as many people, churches, Bible colleges and even our nation, are slowly slipping ... degree by degree ... away from THE GOD of THE BIBLE.
 
Why has this happened?
 
Could it be, that we can, through unholy alliances, lose something that we never intended to give up?

For me, Rick St.James,
 
I am to approach THE BOOK, as like a child, with a trusting heart through faith.
 
I want to line out with that BOOK!
 
I want this said of me, as also was said of the believers at Thessalonica,

"For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God which effectually worketh also in you that believe." [1 Thessalonians 2:13]
 
What about you?

"Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD. Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart" [Psalm 119:2]

They who keep his testimonies have a whole heart.
 
Their heart will approach God and His Book with total joy and expecting to commune with the Holy God who is infinite, for this purpose:
 
"Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes. With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth. I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches. I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways. I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word" [Psalm 119:12-16]

Will You Come TO Jesus Christ?

Do you believe this scripture, my friend?
 
Do you sense from within your heart ... the tugging and pulling of the Spirit of God?

The Holy Spirit "will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment."

Are you under tremendous conviction of sin, and are you mulling over within your heart the TWO WAYS in life that lie before you?

You must make a decision.

It is a matter of whether or not to go to THE STRAIT GATE, or to stay on THE BROAD WAY!

Where are you, my friend?

What will you do with Jesus Christ?

Will you flee from the wrath of God, and go to THE DOOR, and Knock?

If you go through this DOOR you will be on location at Mount Calvary which place is where the weight of your sin will drop off your back at the sight of the ONE who died for you, and WHO shed His BLOOD for you.

You ... my friend ... will then ... be on THE NARROW WAY TO HEAVEN! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!