I was amazed to read a person's claim online,
that believing God kept His promise
to preserve His words, and that He did it in a book
we can hold in our hand, is "a psychological condition,
not a logical position."
Clever saying, but is it true?
Let's think about it.
Hi, I'm David Daniels from Chick Publications.
Let's break it down. According to this view,
if you are confident that God kept His own promise
to preserve His holy words, and that you can actually hold them
in your hands in a book, and you can believe what it says,
you have a psychological condition.
Realize, of course, that this would mean
Moody, Spurgeon, Billy Sunday, Jonathan Edwards
and a host of others had this "psychological condition."
And this would spread all the way back to the 1646
Westminster Confession of Faith and Puritan John Owen's
1657 addendum, and many other confessions
both written and believed, until 1881.
They all had this "psychological condition"?
So "normal" would be defined as
jumping around from version to version,
from lexicon to dictionary, from papyrus to codex,
from Nestles 26th to 27th to 28th, Reinecker to Zerwick S.J. (Jesuit)
to Metzger, trying to figure out what,
if anything, is left of what God said.
Remember how I quoted in the book
"Look What's Missing" those incredible scholars,
who as they ended their careers admitted they doubted
they'd ever find what God actually said?
Like the text critic Kirsopp Lake (1872-1946),
who wrote five years before he died:
"In spite of the claims of Westcott and Hort
and of Von Soden, we do not know
the original form of the Gospels, and it is quite likely
that we never shall."
This, I suppose, is what qualifies as "normal"?
But if you believe and base your life
around the words of a Book that was preserved by
persecuted believers in many languages
for over 1500 years, and that was tried,
tested and proved in English in the King James Bible
for over 400 years, you have a "psychological problem."
So if we believe, like hundreds of thousands,
even millions of believers have done, that God kept His promise
in a book that we have and hold and can trust,
and can live our lives in full assurance of faith,
we are the nut jobs? Wow.
You know that psychological health
is usually characterized by balance, calm,
settled principles and a good sense of right and wrong.
People settled on the one Bible, the King James,
can spend their time focusing on what kind of person
God wants us to be. That leads to all kinds of balance,
don't you think?
Usually, then, if you are imbalanced,
unsettled, and unclear about right and wrong,
people think you may have a psychological problem.
What do you think of people who are always looking for
the newest version and the newest study,
to see whether a verse means one thing or another?
Does constantly updating your Bible with another one,
with changed words, phrases and verses,
sound healthy to you?
I admit it: I used to be that guy!
Now let's take a look at this from the spiritual side.
There IS a Devil in all of this. There are clearly
two different sides. So let me ask you:
Which would Satan promote?
Would Satan back a Bible that:
Is consistent in the doctrine of salvation
by grace through faith apart from works;
Clarifies the divinity of Christ and the Godhead,
hell and heaven, devils and angels;
Spawned the greatest missionary movement of God
in history;
Was the book-chapter-verse source for people
seeking the truth during revivals;
And has done massive damage to Satan's kingdom
by giving clear answers to people trapped in cults,
the occult and false religions?
Would Satan back that Bible? How could he?
That makes it sound like Satan backs a book
that casts out Satan.
And Jesus spoke plainly about that in Matthew 12:26.
26 "And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself;
how shall then his kingdom stand?"
Obviously it cannot. Satan cannot work against himself.
He's evil, but he's not stupid.
I believe Jesus. So I think that maybe
this view is completely ... backwards.
I think that Satan backs the side that:
Is inconsistent in its doctrine of the divinity of Christ
and the Godhead
Muddies the doctrines of hell and heaven,
devils and angels, faith and works
And spawned the biggest movement
of Bible doubters in history.
Maybe, just maybe, Satan favors
confusion over certainty, doubt over faith,
and the idea of progressing toward salvation
(1 Corinthians 1:18) over the fact that I'm saved,
and I know that I am.
Look around: the King James has been
almost completely abandoned by Bible colleges
and seminaries for decades.
Matthew 7:16, "Ye shall know them by their fruits"
So what's their fruit?
Since 1881, the year the Revised Version and
the new doctrine of "Original Autographs Only"
came out, what fruit have we had?
Greater faith in the "enlightened" scholars
and students, or doubt
that has worked its way down into the local congregations?
I think Satan is behind the many Bibles,
which stand against our simple faith
in only the King James. But according to that guy,
I have a "psychological problem."
Call me psycho, but I'd rather have
the settled confidence that the King James
is God's words, than fulfill his ideal
of psychological health: running to and fro
on a never-ending quest to find the scholars' "holy grail:"
a nonexistent Original Autographs Bible.
So you want to be healthy?
Find the fulfillment of God's promise
to preserve His words. Get them in a book.
Keep them. Learn them.
Live them. Trust them.
Or you can spend your time chasing after rainbows,
"Ever learning, and never able to come
to the knowledge of the truth," 2 Timothy 3:7.
Hey, make your choice. I'm happy with mine.
God bless you, and have a wonderful day.