November 24, 2009
November 15, 2009
November 4, 2009
Hollywoods Unwritten Rule
Columbine Effect
by Jason Kovar
In the latter half of the 20th century, the United States and the Soviet Union squared off as enemies in a massive arms race that subsequently plunged the world into what has become known as the "Cold War." However, in the 21st century, the Cold War is no longer against a foreign aggressor on the other side of the globe, but at home in our nation's schools. Our new arms race is against the youth and now Americans are scrambling to face this enemy within their own borders. In a 3/19/01 article entitled "The Columbine Effect," Time magazine reported on dozens of schools that have been forced to undergo Columbine like tragedies as the progeny of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold continue to reenact the nations newest social ill- school shootings. Moreover, scores of students live in fear in our nations educational institutions as the likelihood of school shootings becomes more and more of a real threat. This article will present eye-opening evidence that will account for the mayhem and carnage that now plague our youth.
It has been argued that the gross effects of the nonstop and influential media cannot be glossed over or denied. By way of comparison, the 20th century's most lethal propaganda machine was Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler. Hitler positioned Joseph Goebbels as his Minister of Enlightenment and Propaganda for the brainwashing of a nation through the utilization of film. Goebbels clearly stated that cinema was "one of the most modern means of mass persuasion" and "that film was one of the most modern and far reaching means for influencing the public that has ever existed." The haunting results of this era are tragic. Does our modern day American media elite influence the populace for ill? Hollywood insider, David Puttnam, the producer for the films The Mission and Chariots of Fire, made an amazing statement that bears striking resemblance to Nazi Germany's mindset:
"Movies are powerful. Good or bad they tinker around inside your brain. They steal up on you in the darkness of the cinema to form or conform social attitudes...In short, cinema is propaganda."
And what is the bottom line effect of this "propaganda?" Shock rocker Marilyn Manson, who has stated that his controversial goal is to bring an end to Christianity, clearly understands it. He stated: "The more bad movies, bad TV shows, and bad music I hear, the dumber I think it's making America." Far beyond an intellectual dumbing down of the youth, the entertainment industry is systematically hardening the hearts of the youth from following in the footsteps of what many contend to be appropriate.
As Marilyn Manson observed, the effects of the television and motion picture industry reach far and wide. One thoughtful observer commented: "TV is not unlike letting your children play in a toxic waste dump. I mean they're going to get sick from this stuff." Too late, they already are – Columbine ad infinitum. Ken Wales, former vice president at Disney studios and veteran producer to more than twenty feature films clarifies the reality of this cinematic sickness:
"As a member of this industry I wish that there were hundreds of stars and writers and directors standing here with me. I suppose they are out protesting toxic waste! Let me tell you there happens to be toxic waste in other areas besides our rivers. That happens in the pollution of our minds, our souls and our spirits!"
The National Institutes of Mental Health has over 1,000 studies confirming that TV violence and aggressive behavior are conjoined. This is amazing, for if the medical community released over 1,000 clear studies revealing that cancer was caused by milk, the dairy business would go out of business overnight. Yet 50,000 TV's continue to be sold each day in our country alone. One TV network study found that television programming is implicated in 22 percent of juvenile crime. Hollywood's incredible influence even has the ability to sway upstanding citizens to destructive ends. Homicide rates doubled in 10 to 15 years after TV was first introduced into specific areas of the United States and Canada.
Interestingly, the networks know the ramifications of their shows yet refuse to curb their violent content. Popular media personality Steve Allen adamantly turned on the medium that had previously brought him his success, declaring: "TV is leading children down a moral sewer." Could he be right? World renown for a liberal mindset, media mogul Ted Turner thinks so and believes movies ignite violent behavior like a tinderbox. He explains:
"You know that everything we're exposed to influences us…Those [violent] films influence us, and the TV programs we see influence us. The weaker your family is, the more they influence you…The problems with families in our cities are catastrophic-but when you put violent programs before people who haven't had a lot of love in their lives, who are angry anyway, it's like pouring gasoline on the fire."
The evidence strongly implicates Hollywood's top brass in actively pursuing some type of social revolution in the culture. Film actor and director, Dennis Hopper, has successfully portrayed druggies, alcoholics and psychotic characters, and has stated the purpose of his films as the following: "What we're doing is ------ with the rules. There should be no rules, man." Researchers from George Washington University found that Hollywood's producers, writers and directors view themselves as:
"…crusaders for social reform in America. They see it as their duty to restructure our culture into their image."
The belief systems of those who run Hollywood are for the most part opposite the mainstream views held by the vast majority of Americans. Newsweek magazine reported a survey that was conducted by the Center for Media and Public Affairs. It concluded:
"The Center found that on issues of sexual morality, abortion and religion, the people at the top in television and movie making were far more liberal than the rest of the country."
This is a sobering fact considering that two out of every three executives feel that film "should be a major force for social reform."
Eddy Manson, a popular composer for motion pictures stated this "social reform" is accomplished through manipulation, stating:
"We manipulate people like crazy in films…It's a tremendous release. I can make you feel any emotion I want you to feel at any time. It's a Machiavellian power we project gut to gut."
And what is the culture being manipulated to receive? The renowned Gus Van Sant, acclaimed director of My Own Private Idaho, answered this question when he offered a memorable statement of the Hollywood artistic credo:
"I believe the properly manipulated image can provoke an audience to the Burroughsian limit of riot, rampant sex, instantaneous death…The raw materials of inspiration include elements as primal and potentially frightening as violence, sex, and death…the primitive world of blood and flame is still with us."
Today's images become tomorrow's realities.
Filmmakers primarily effect change by specifically targeting the emotions of their audiences. Even George Lucas, who has what many consider to be a "clean" image is part of the equation. He stated:
"I'm very much of a visual filmmaker, and very much of a filmmaker who is going for emotions over ideas." And, "Emotionally involving the audience is easy. Anyone can do it blindfolded, get a little kitten and have some guy wring its neck."
Fascinatingly, filmmakers like Lucas hold little regard for their easily manipulated audiences. Lucas has openly declared:
"Popcorn pictures have always ruled. Why do people go see these popcorn pictures…Why is the public so stupid?…I just understood what people liked to go see, and Steven [Spielberg] has too, and we go for that."
With these kinds of accusations leveled at the movie going public by Hollywood's elite, it becomes increasingly difficult to defend the industry.
Clive Barker, a homosexual activist and award-winning creator of countless horror stories turned movie, including Hellraiser and Nightbreed, has a clear purpose for his fans. By cloaking his own belief systems in the seduction of the story, Barker slyly uses his films to blindside his audiences with his own philosophies and usher a change into their lives in the process. He says:
"The idea of getting up in the morning and saying, 'I'm going to scare the hell out of somebody' or 'I'm going to create some wonderland and not connect it with some transformative story, something which is going to take the reader and change them a little bit,' doesn't interest me. I need to have the energy, the motive force of a story which is going to change people." Further, "I do love story. I do love the energy that comes from story, which is making people feel things, often things they don't even want to feel. I love trapping people in the process of a story into feeling something where they're perhaps blindsided by the feeling they're having."
What types of stories and feelings does he like to change his viewers with? He said:
"I always used to side with the demons. I never used to care two hoots about the hero. I was interested in the dark, mysterious creature that the hero faces."
How has Hollywood's tampering with the emotional makeup of individuals through aggressive images influenced our society? One of the industry's skilled directors, Alan J. Pakula, who directed All the President's Men and Presumed Innocent, replies:
"Movie violence is like eating salt. The more you eat, the more you need to eat to taste it at all. People are becoming immune to the effects: The death counts have quadrupled…they're becoming deaf to it. They've developed an insatiability for raw sensation."
One horror star openly commented on TV violence, stating: "We're getting away with murder." Sadly, they are not. The old saying that you reap what you sow bears true. We are reaping a society of psychopaths who engorge themselves with violence on a daily basis. As a result America is the most violent nation in the world bar none. Our reputation precedes us as being a wicked, barbarous people in the eyes of other countries because of the messages we send in our movies.
The impact that movies have on their viewers is due to the purposeful way their creators design them. Alfred Hitchcock, considered the horror film director and Master of Suspense in his day declared his intent:
"The point is to draw the audience right into the situation-instead of leaving them to watch it from outside, from a distance…If you played the whole scene straight through… you would lose your power over the audience. They would watch the scene without becoming really involved in it, and you would have no means of concentrating their attention on those particular visual details which make them feel what the characters are feeling."
The powers Hitchcock's films have wielded have been a detriment to society.
Renowned forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Park Dietz, is a FBI consultant, UCLA professor, and media consultant. He has served as expert witness on many notorious cases such as those of attempted Reagan assassin John Hinckley Jr., O.J. Simpson, and Joel Rifkin. Many of his colleagues concur that Dietz has changed the practice of forensic psychiatry. "He has become the model for psychiatrists testifying in court," says Hinckley's prosecuting attorney, Roger Adelman.
Concerning sex offenders, Dietz explains in his characteristically blunt way how someone ends up with a perversion: "You don't have to have a genetic predisposition… You can take any boy and make a pervert out of him," he contends, merely by associating something specific over and over again with sexual arousal. One British study found that it took only 20 minutes to condition a teenage boy to become aroused by looking at a picture of a boot. First the boys were shown slides of naked women wearing boots, then just the boots. The association was that strong. Joel Rifkin, Dietz discovered, was hooked on a specific scene in the Hitchcock film Frenzy, in which the killer attempts to strangle the victim right before she consents to become intimate with him. "For Rifkin, that was the sexiest thing he'd ever seen, and he ended up strangling 17 prostitutes in the same way."
A recent meting of Hollywood screenwriters billed it's gathering, "Guns Don't Kill People…Writers Do." In their discussion of the topic, at least one veteran writer declared: "We who create entertainment must honestly acknowledge and urgently address the responsibility we all have to eliminate excessive or gratuitous or unpunished violence. Otherwise, children will continue to kill children." Screenwriters admit their responsibility to the adverse decay of influence affecting those who place these films before their eyes.
One of Alfred Hitchcock's most successful screenwriters, Ben Hecht, painted a grim picture of the effects of his own industry. He confessed:
"Movies are one of the bad habits that corrupted our country. Of their many sins, I offer as the worst their effect on the intellectual side of the nation. It is chiefly from that viewpoint I write of them- as an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming a cultured people."
Scriptwriter, Kevin Williamson, partnered with his lifelong idol, Wes Craven, to produce the blockbuster Scream series aimed primarily at teens. Williamson's other productions include Scream 2, Scary Movie, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Dawson's Creek, The Faculty and Teaching Mrs. Tingle. Amazingly, his exploitation of violence possibly surpasses that of even Craven, known primarily for his Nightmare on Elm Street series. Scream contains numerous scenes of blood and gore, which just fifty years ago would have been condemned as depraved. Sarah Michelle Gellar of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, also starred in Williamson's Scream 2 and I Know What You Did Last Summer. She haphazardly praises Williamson for his ability to twist people's minds and realizes the effects of these types of films. She stated:
"I think Kevin Williamson almost began a new genre of horror. It's intelligent horror, it's horror that scares your mind, and I think that what can be done is that the [audience] can be scared in reality…The thought of actually killing someone on the road, the thought of someone actually stalking you in your school or your house…it plays with the mind."
The minds of the youth are at the breaking point. James Fox, Dean of the Criminology Department at the Northwestern University, uses computer modeling to show future trends. The forecast? Murder. "This is the lull before the crime storm, " he says. "There is a tremendous crime wave coming in the next ten years and not by hardened criminals but by the young and ruthless, young people who are turning murderous." In the year 2005, the number of teenagers age 14-17 will peak. This age group commits far more murders, up 165% between 1983 and 1993, and according to Fox, the nation's murder rate will follow suit. Fox says teenagers are exceedingly more threatening than adults:
"Because…murder is just not the taboo that it once was. A lot of that is television. Now, kids have become desensitized. They'll rent movies and play their favorite scenes-often the most violent-over and over. What do you think the effect is on a kid when his first exposure to sex is a brutal rape scene? That is a very powerful image…Kids are the least deterrable."
He is spot on. Consider eighteen-year-old Pete Roland who acquiesced to the messages in the slice and dice films and brutally gang-murdered his friend. One of the baseball bats used to beat in the brains of the victim had the words "the ultraviolence stick" written on it, a phrase from Stanley Kubrik's A Clockwork Orange, about violent gangs in England. While ritualistically beating him, he chanted, "Sacrifice for Satan." After his capture, Roland reflected back on his decent into Satanism, stating: "I gave up my soul, but I didn't get anything back. Satan stole it." Carl Raschke of the University of Denver, a leading authority on the occult, as well as an expert witness at Roland's trial, explained that Roland was immersed into beliefs that led him to a state of "diminished competence." What formed these beliefs and in Roland's words cost him his soul? Raschke tells us, explaining that it was no wonder he acted the way he did considering that
"He became obsessed with horror movies, of which his favorite was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. At the end of the summer of 1987, Roland had assured himself that 'killing is a way of life.'"
A world famous murder case in Liverpool, England, regarded two eleven year old boys who were caught on camera leading James Bulger, a small two-year-old along the railroad tracks to his death. Sadly, the murder was found to be a direct result of the movie Child's Play and it's indoctrinating glorification of murder. Child's Play revolves around a doll named Chuckie who is possessed by an evil spirit. The story line comprises his rampage on a murderous killing frenzy connoting sacrifice to his occult gods. These messages were continuously instilled as one of the boys admitted to repeatedly watching the film over and over again just before the murder. The judge presiding over the case pointedly deliberated:
"The horror movie depicts a baby doll who comes to life and gets blue paint splashed in its face. There was blue paint on the dead child's face…. The movie depicts a kidnapping. James was abducted by the two older boys before they killed him…. The climax of the movie comes as two boys murder the doll on the train, mutilating the doll's face…. James was first mutilated and bludgeoned by the older boys and then left on a railroad track to be run over."
The news initially hyped the story at its onset, but conveniently failed to report the ultimate determinant.
By way of comparison, just as Timothy McVeigh bombed an Oklahoma building and is fully responsible for acting out his perverse fantasies of murder, so is Hollywood. For example, take a drug dealer on the street that sells drugs to your children, or somebody else's children. Is he responsible, or is it just the child's fault when he dies? Obviously, both neglected to heed what was right, but because he supplied the drugs, the dealer is responsible. In fact, the law states that the higher that you are in the distribution chain, the more culpable you are. Hollywood's higher placement in the distribution chain denotes them as guilty.
In Houston, Texas, Scott May, mind drenched in violent/horror movies and the occult, Viciously attacked his date after viewing The Cutting Edge. May reported to authorities that he had an infatuation with murder for some time. He stated:
"I love knives. I like to go to the movies a lot. A lot of people get stabbed in the movies. I really liked the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. A lot of people got stabbed in that."
Hailed as one of the most notorious movies for inciting viewers to duplicate crimes is Silence of the Lambs; a movie that revels in a serial killer's escapades of mutilation, murder, and cannibalism. The same week that Silence of the Lambs won the Oscar for the Best Picture, a man decapitated his handicapped mother while yelling, "I'm Hannibal the Cannibal!" as he was taken into custody by police.
It's no coincidence ABC found that 22-34 percent of young felons imprisoned for violent crimes said that they had consciously imitated crime techniques learned from watching television programs. After viewing a screening of his film, Natural Born Killers, director Oliver Stone declared: "This movie is great. It makes you want to go out and kill somebody." This controversial movie was reported to be a favorite among the Columbine killers, who watched it repeatedly before being worked up into a frenzy for their mission of death.
Oliver Stone's philosophy is worth repeating:
I think America has to bleed. I think the corpses have to pile up. I think American boys have to die again. Let the mothers weep and mourn."
Countless innocent people have died and others have lost their loved ones to callous acts that are encouraged by the images of the silver screen. The messages that the Clive Barker's of the movie screens disseminate to their fans are deemed by many to be irresponsible. However, in reply, Barker has stated:
"That's my responsibility, to kill as many people as possible…And some of that truth may not be palatable to anybody. My responsibility is not to give a ---- about that. My responsibility is not to care."
Hollywood is transforming the culture and doesn't even bat an eye.
As previously mentioned, Natural Born Killers as well as The Basketball Diaries, which depicts Leo DiCaprio dressed in a black trench coat as he blows away classmates at his school, have both been implicated as the influential factors in Eric Harris's and Dylan Klebold's Columbine killing spree. In fact, the head of New Line Cinema, who made The Basketball Diaries, admitted that the movie might have caused the carnage at Columbine. He stated: "It could be that our movie was the final moment of dark inspiration, the last straw that caused the crimes."
The parents of Cassie Bernall, one of the victims of the Columbine massacre who was specifically targeted for her faith in Jesus Christ, knows the veracity of these facts all too well. In a personal interview, Brad Bernall, Cassie's father, stated that he was shown a video the two murderers made prior to the killings in which they made their intent clear. Their goal in their own words was "to shoot Christians in the [expletive deleted] head." They also mocked the WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) bracelets worn by Christians and said: "What would Jesus do? What would I do…I would shoot you in the head." Mr. Bernall said that he strongly believes that the media has purposely covered up these facts and turned a blind eye to other obvious truths. Mr. Bernall credits his ability to weather the incredible loss of his daughter to his own faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus promised that those who lose their lives for his sake would find them and that not one hair on their head would perish because of the eternal life that he gives his followers. Mr. Bernall knows this to be true of his daughter.
Jesus warned that there were two paths that human beings could go by. He said:
"Enter by the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter that way. For the gate is small and the road is narrow that leads to life and few are those who find it." Matthew 7:13-4
What road are you on? The road that the vast majority of this world is on or the road that God wants you on?
Hollywood is rapidly funneling the world onto the spiritual broad path of rebellion that is directed away from God. Satan is identified as the leader of this rebellion against God and is described as a real and incredibly powerful being in the Bible. The apostle Peter wrote:
"Be sober, be on the alert, your adversary the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour"
The Bible states that Satan is the one who deceives the whole world into following him through his deceptions. Crafty to the core, Satan knows that he does not have to get someone to fall on their knees and worship him to get their soul for eternity. He just has to keep them from worshipping God through the distractions this world offers.
The Scriptures definitively say that "we all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way." Isaiah 53:6 This means that if you are honest with yourself, you will acknowledge instances in your life when you have done things you know to be wrong. As a result, the book of Romans states that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23 God is perfect and the wrongs, or sins, that we have committed in our lives separate us from Him. Isaiah 59:2
The Ten Commandments are absolute in their instruction. "You shall not lie." There is no room for leeway. If you have ever lied, it makes you a liar. "You shall not steal." If you have ever stolen anything – even something as small as a paperclip – you are a thief. Down through the commandments we could go; if you have ever lusted after a woman, Jesus said it was as the sin of adultery. If you have ever uttered God's name in vain, you are a blasphemer. And so on. Every person who has ever lived has not perfectly kept these commandments. Therefore, before God every person has fallen short and is guilty. You cannot escape this. The result of this is eternal separation from God for eternity in fiery torment as punishment for our disobedience to God's holy calling. It is akin to a rapist who stands before a judge. The judge has a responsibility to act righteously and execute judgment on the offender for his actions. Justice demands this. God's judgment upon us is no different.
But God is also a God of love and His answer to the disease of sin and the eternal penalty of hell was to become a man in the person of Jesus Christ and to live a sinless life. He then allowed Himself to be murdered on the cross as a payment for the penalty of our sins that demands to be met. He Himself paid the price that each person should pay themselves. Forgiveness for sins through His sacrifice is available for anyone who will turn from their sins and place their faith in Jesus Christ.
Life is short- the Bible refers to it as a vapor. The pulse that you feel in your wrist will one-day cease to continue and you will be accountable to your Creator. Will your last breath on earth be your first breath in heaven or your first breath in hell? The Book of Acts says, "There is salvation in no one else. For there is no other name under heaven given among men, by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12 Your Creator made you and lovingly gave up His life for you. Jesus is the only remedy for the true ailment of the world- the sin problem. Take the gift he offers you. The word repent in Greek means to do an about face, a 180-degree turn. Repent and turn from your sin through placing your trust in Jesus. Read the New Testament, pray, and find a good church that preachers the truth of the Word of God. If you have received this gift then you are a part of the family of God.
The world system that we live in runs contrary to the life God calls us to. The Scriptures tell us that the world is engaged in a spiritual battle for the hearts and minds of mankind at every level. Children have steadily been force-fed a diet of information that overtly attacks the Word of God and makes this spiritual war quite evident. This is, and continues to be, the deliberate aim of the American schools system that has in many ways replaced the family and now father the nations youth.
John Dewey, known as the father of the American school system, proclaimed:
"I am convinced that the battle for mankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers that correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith which will replace the rotting corpse of Christianity."
Is it any wonder that kids have progressed to the point of killing each other as animals when in fact the evolutionary philosophies they are indoctrinated into teach that that is exactly what they are? School shootings, motivated by Hollywood's destructive images, are par for the course.
In conclusion, Satan is thoroughly using the Hollywood elite to thwart Gods plan for people's lives by filling their minds with ungodly propaganda. As the television screenwriter Lloyd Billingsley observed:
"In the unwritten constitution of television…God is effectively written out of existence and Judeo Christian values on such things as adultery and divorce are disregarded."
Satan is taking advantage of the world through this medium and it is therefore important to guard yourself against its seductions. Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, whose aim it is to establish the kingdom of antichrist on the earth for his master Satan, wrote the following:
"Many of you have read my writings identifying TV as the new God. There is a little thing I failed to mention up until now- television is the major mainstream infiltration of the New Satanic religion."
Violence is not the only influential aspect of film: sexual immorality and perversions, drugs and occult messages also carry tremendously powerful abilities to sway the culture for the worse. We have already witnessed the confessed powers film holds over its viewers and documented unfortunate cases where people have even lost their very lives as a result.
In conclusion, we would do well to consider a letter from a prison inmate who perceptively enunciated the amazing leverage that film's messages had on fellow inmates:
In many (perhaps most) prisons…would it surprise you to learn that the favored genres are those containing the most naked flesh engaging in fornication, the most horrific gore and the most gratuitous violence? I've observed groups of convicts watching violent films…A gruesome bloodbath may bring forth much response-everything from increased attention to involuntary facial expression (clenched teeth, twitches) and quite often inappropriate responses (smiles, laughter, cheers, etc.). These inappropriate responses ultimately translate to joy at the suffering of others. It doesn't matter in the least whether good guys or bad guys get killed, as long as somebody gets killed. …I spoke with an older repeat offender…[who said], 'Sometimes I watch a video and get real angry. Takes me an hour or so afterward to stop being p----- off. I don't like that. I've tried very hard for a long time to get over my anger, but these videos bring it out.'
Drastic changes in personality can happen in the space of a ninety-minute film. Allow me to be blunt: IT IS AN ABSURDITY TO BELIEVE THAT THE EFFECT OF SEX AND VIOLENCE IN MOVIES IS ANY DIFFERENT UPON YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN THAN IT IS UPON ME AND MY FELLOW INMATES. A short while ago many of us stood in the same ticket lines as you. We've sat in the same movie theaters, watching the same movies. We've rented videos from the same video stores as you. The world system touches every life, and every person is led into sin in the same ways, through the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the sinful pride of life. How many minds out there are being programmed right now to do the things that could result in their joining us in prison? How many young people are being desensitized, emotionally manipulated to follow harmful role models and conditioned to accept aberrant sexual behavior as normal? How many hearts are being turned to stone?"
Very wise words from a man rightly using his life in seeking to warn others of real perils from the popular film menu that is predominantly offered to our world. Let his encouragement not be in vain.
by Jason Kovar
In the latter half of the 20th century, the United States and the Soviet Union squared off as enemies in a massive arms race that subsequently plunged the world into what has become known as the "Cold War." However, in the 21st century, the Cold War is no longer against a foreign aggressor on the other side of the globe, but at home in our nation's schools. Our new arms race is against the youth and now Americans are scrambling to face this enemy within their own borders. In a 3/19/01 article entitled "The Columbine Effect," Time magazine reported on dozens of schools that have been forced to undergo Columbine like tragedies as the progeny of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold continue to reenact the nations newest social ill- school shootings. Moreover, scores of students live in fear in our nations educational institutions as the likelihood of school shootings becomes more and more of a real threat. This article will present eye-opening evidence that will account for the mayhem and carnage that now plague our youth.
It has been argued that the gross effects of the nonstop and influential media cannot be glossed over or denied. By way of comparison, the 20th century's most lethal propaganda machine was Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler. Hitler positioned Joseph Goebbels as his Minister of Enlightenment and Propaganda for the brainwashing of a nation through the utilization of film. Goebbels clearly stated that cinema was "one of the most modern means of mass persuasion" and "that film was one of the most modern and far reaching means for influencing the public that has ever existed." The haunting results of this era are tragic. Does our modern day American media elite influence the populace for ill? Hollywood insider, David Puttnam, the producer for the films The Mission and Chariots of Fire, made an amazing statement that bears striking resemblance to Nazi Germany's mindset:
"Movies are powerful. Good or bad they tinker around inside your brain. They steal up on you in the darkness of the cinema to form or conform social attitudes...In short, cinema is propaganda."
And what is the bottom line effect of this "propaganda?" Shock rocker Marilyn Manson, who has stated that his controversial goal is to bring an end to Christianity, clearly understands it. He stated: "The more bad movies, bad TV shows, and bad music I hear, the dumber I think it's making America." Far beyond an intellectual dumbing down of the youth, the entertainment industry is systematically hardening the hearts of the youth from following in the footsteps of what many contend to be appropriate.
As Marilyn Manson observed, the effects of the television and motion picture industry reach far and wide. One thoughtful observer commented: "TV is not unlike letting your children play in a toxic waste dump. I mean they're going to get sick from this stuff." Too late, they already are – Columbine ad infinitum. Ken Wales, former vice president at Disney studios and veteran producer to more than twenty feature films clarifies the reality of this cinematic sickness:
"As a member of this industry I wish that there were hundreds of stars and writers and directors standing here with me. I suppose they are out protesting toxic waste! Let me tell you there happens to be toxic waste in other areas besides our rivers. That happens in the pollution of our minds, our souls and our spirits!"
The National Institutes of Mental Health has over 1,000 studies confirming that TV violence and aggressive behavior are conjoined. This is amazing, for if the medical community released over 1,000 clear studies revealing that cancer was caused by milk, the dairy business would go out of business overnight. Yet 50,000 TV's continue to be sold each day in our country alone. One TV network study found that television programming is implicated in 22 percent of juvenile crime. Hollywood's incredible influence even has the ability to sway upstanding citizens to destructive ends. Homicide rates doubled in 10 to 15 years after TV was first introduced into specific areas of the United States and Canada.
Interestingly, the networks know the ramifications of their shows yet refuse to curb their violent content. Popular media personality Steve Allen adamantly turned on the medium that had previously brought him his success, declaring: "TV is leading children down a moral sewer." Could he be right? World renown for a liberal mindset, media mogul Ted Turner thinks so and believes movies ignite violent behavior like a tinderbox. He explains:
"You know that everything we're exposed to influences us…Those [violent] films influence us, and the TV programs we see influence us. The weaker your family is, the more they influence you…The problems with families in our cities are catastrophic-but when you put violent programs before people who haven't had a lot of love in their lives, who are angry anyway, it's like pouring gasoline on the fire."
The evidence strongly implicates Hollywood's top brass in actively pursuing some type of social revolution in the culture. Film actor and director, Dennis Hopper, has successfully portrayed druggies, alcoholics and psychotic characters, and has stated the purpose of his films as the following: "What we're doing is ------ with the rules. There should be no rules, man." Researchers from George Washington University found that Hollywood's producers, writers and directors view themselves as:
"…crusaders for social reform in America. They see it as their duty to restructure our culture into their image."
The belief systems of those who run Hollywood are for the most part opposite the mainstream views held by the vast majority of Americans. Newsweek magazine reported a survey that was conducted by the Center for Media and Public Affairs. It concluded:
"The Center found that on issues of sexual morality, abortion and religion, the people at the top in television and movie making were far more liberal than the rest of the country."
This is a sobering fact considering that two out of every three executives feel that film "should be a major force for social reform."
Eddy Manson, a popular composer for motion pictures stated this "social reform" is accomplished through manipulation, stating:
"We manipulate people like crazy in films…It's a tremendous release. I can make you feel any emotion I want you to feel at any time. It's a Machiavellian power we project gut to gut."
And what is the culture being manipulated to receive? The renowned Gus Van Sant, acclaimed director of My Own Private Idaho, answered this question when he offered a memorable statement of the Hollywood artistic credo:
"I believe the properly manipulated image can provoke an audience to the Burroughsian limit of riot, rampant sex, instantaneous death…The raw materials of inspiration include elements as primal and potentially frightening as violence, sex, and death…the primitive world of blood and flame is still with us."
Today's images become tomorrow's realities.
Filmmakers primarily effect change by specifically targeting the emotions of their audiences. Even George Lucas, who has what many consider to be a "clean" image is part of the equation. He stated:
"I'm very much of a visual filmmaker, and very much of a filmmaker who is going for emotions over ideas." And, "Emotionally involving the audience is easy. Anyone can do it blindfolded, get a little kitten and have some guy wring its neck."
Fascinatingly, filmmakers like Lucas hold little regard for their easily manipulated audiences. Lucas has openly declared:
"Popcorn pictures have always ruled. Why do people go see these popcorn pictures…Why is the public so stupid?…I just understood what people liked to go see, and Steven [Spielberg] has too, and we go for that."
With these kinds of accusations leveled at the movie going public by Hollywood's elite, it becomes increasingly difficult to defend the industry.
Clive Barker, a homosexual activist and award-winning creator of countless horror stories turned movie, including Hellraiser and Nightbreed, has a clear purpose for his fans. By cloaking his own belief systems in the seduction of the story, Barker slyly uses his films to blindside his audiences with his own philosophies and usher a change into their lives in the process. He says:
"The idea of getting up in the morning and saying, 'I'm going to scare the hell out of somebody' or 'I'm going to create some wonderland and not connect it with some transformative story, something which is going to take the reader and change them a little bit,' doesn't interest me. I need to have the energy, the motive force of a story which is going to change people." Further, "I do love story. I do love the energy that comes from story, which is making people feel things, often things they don't even want to feel. I love trapping people in the process of a story into feeling something where they're perhaps blindsided by the feeling they're having."
What types of stories and feelings does he like to change his viewers with? He said:
"I always used to side with the demons. I never used to care two hoots about the hero. I was interested in the dark, mysterious creature that the hero faces."
How has Hollywood's tampering with the emotional makeup of individuals through aggressive images influenced our society? One of the industry's skilled directors, Alan J. Pakula, who directed All the President's Men and Presumed Innocent, replies:
"Movie violence is like eating salt. The more you eat, the more you need to eat to taste it at all. People are becoming immune to the effects: The death counts have quadrupled…they're becoming deaf to it. They've developed an insatiability for raw sensation."
One horror star openly commented on TV violence, stating: "We're getting away with murder." Sadly, they are not. The old saying that you reap what you sow bears true. We are reaping a society of psychopaths who engorge themselves with violence on a daily basis. As a result America is the most violent nation in the world bar none. Our reputation precedes us as being a wicked, barbarous people in the eyes of other countries because of the messages we send in our movies.
The impact that movies have on their viewers is due to the purposeful way their creators design them. Alfred Hitchcock, considered the horror film director and Master of Suspense in his day declared his intent:
"The point is to draw the audience right into the situation-instead of leaving them to watch it from outside, from a distance…If you played the whole scene straight through… you would lose your power over the audience. They would watch the scene without becoming really involved in it, and you would have no means of concentrating their attention on those particular visual details which make them feel what the characters are feeling."
The powers Hitchcock's films have wielded have been a detriment to society.
Renowned forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Park Dietz, is a FBI consultant, UCLA professor, and media consultant. He has served as expert witness on many notorious cases such as those of attempted Reagan assassin John Hinckley Jr., O.J. Simpson, and Joel Rifkin. Many of his colleagues concur that Dietz has changed the practice of forensic psychiatry. "He has become the model for psychiatrists testifying in court," says Hinckley's prosecuting attorney, Roger Adelman.
Concerning sex offenders, Dietz explains in his characteristically blunt way how someone ends up with a perversion: "You don't have to have a genetic predisposition… You can take any boy and make a pervert out of him," he contends, merely by associating something specific over and over again with sexual arousal. One British study found that it took only 20 minutes to condition a teenage boy to become aroused by looking at a picture of a boot. First the boys were shown slides of naked women wearing boots, then just the boots. The association was that strong. Joel Rifkin, Dietz discovered, was hooked on a specific scene in the Hitchcock film Frenzy, in which the killer attempts to strangle the victim right before she consents to become intimate with him. "For Rifkin, that was the sexiest thing he'd ever seen, and he ended up strangling 17 prostitutes in the same way."
A recent meting of Hollywood screenwriters billed it's gathering, "Guns Don't Kill People…Writers Do." In their discussion of the topic, at least one veteran writer declared: "We who create entertainment must honestly acknowledge and urgently address the responsibility we all have to eliminate excessive or gratuitous or unpunished violence. Otherwise, children will continue to kill children." Screenwriters admit their responsibility to the adverse decay of influence affecting those who place these films before their eyes.
One of Alfred Hitchcock's most successful screenwriters, Ben Hecht, painted a grim picture of the effects of his own industry. He confessed:
"Movies are one of the bad habits that corrupted our country. Of their many sins, I offer as the worst their effect on the intellectual side of the nation. It is chiefly from that viewpoint I write of them- as an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming a cultured people."
Scriptwriter, Kevin Williamson, partnered with his lifelong idol, Wes Craven, to produce the blockbuster Scream series aimed primarily at teens. Williamson's other productions include Scream 2, Scary Movie, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Dawson's Creek, The Faculty and Teaching Mrs. Tingle. Amazingly, his exploitation of violence possibly surpasses that of even Craven, known primarily for his Nightmare on Elm Street series. Scream contains numerous scenes of blood and gore, which just fifty years ago would have been condemned as depraved. Sarah Michelle Gellar of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, also starred in Williamson's Scream 2 and I Know What You Did Last Summer. She haphazardly praises Williamson for his ability to twist people's minds and realizes the effects of these types of films. She stated:
"I think Kevin Williamson almost began a new genre of horror. It's intelligent horror, it's horror that scares your mind, and I think that what can be done is that the [audience] can be scared in reality…The thought of actually killing someone on the road, the thought of someone actually stalking you in your school or your house…it plays with the mind."
The minds of the youth are at the breaking point. James Fox, Dean of the Criminology Department at the Northwestern University, uses computer modeling to show future trends. The forecast? Murder. "This is the lull before the crime storm, " he says. "There is a tremendous crime wave coming in the next ten years and not by hardened criminals but by the young and ruthless, young people who are turning murderous." In the year 2005, the number of teenagers age 14-17 will peak. This age group commits far more murders, up 165% between 1983 and 1993, and according to Fox, the nation's murder rate will follow suit. Fox says teenagers are exceedingly more threatening than adults:
"Because…murder is just not the taboo that it once was. A lot of that is television. Now, kids have become desensitized. They'll rent movies and play their favorite scenes-often the most violent-over and over. What do you think the effect is on a kid when his first exposure to sex is a brutal rape scene? That is a very powerful image…Kids are the least deterrable."
He is spot on. Consider eighteen-year-old Pete Roland who acquiesced to the messages in the slice and dice films and brutally gang-murdered his friend. One of the baseball bats used to beat in the brains of the victim had the words "the ultraviolence stick" written on it, a phrase from Stanley Kubrik's A Clockwork Orange, about violent gangs in England. While ritualistically beating him, he chanted, "Sacrifice for Satan." After his capture, Roland reflected back on his decent into Satanism, stating: "I gave up my soul, but I didn't get anything back. Satan stole it." Carl Raschke of the University of Denver, a leading authority on the occult, as well as an expert witness at Roland's trial, explained that Roland was immersed into beliefs that led him to a state of "diminished competence." What formed these beliefs and in Roland's words cost him his soul? Raschke tells us, explaining that it was no wonder he acted the way he did considering that
"He became obsessed with horror movies, of which his favorite was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. At the end of the summer of 1987, Roland had assured himself that 'killing is a way of life.'"
A world famous murder case in Liverpool, England, regarded two eleven year old boys who were caught on camera leading James Bulger, a small two-year-old along the railroad tracks to his death. Sadly, the murder was found to be a direct result of the movie Child's Play and it's indoctrinating glorification of murder. Child's Play revolves around a doll named Chuckie who is possessed by an evil spirit. The story line comprises his rampage on a murderous killing frenzy connoting sacrifice to his occult gods. These messages were continuously instilled as one of the boys admitted to repeatedly watching the film over and over again just before the murder. The judge presiding over the case pointedly deliberated:
"The horror movie depicts a baby doll who comes to life and gets blue paint splashed in its face. There was blue paint on the dead child's face…. The movie depicts a kidnapping. James was abducted by the two older boys before they killed him…. The climax of the movie comes as two boys murder the doll on the train, mutilating the doll's face…. James was first mutilated and bludgeoned by the older boys and then left on a railroad track to be run over."
The news initially hyped the story at its onset, but conveniently failed to report the ultimate determinant.
By way of comparison, just as Timothy McVeigh bombed an Oklahoma building and is fully responsible for acting out his perverse fantasies of murder, so is Hollywood. For example, take a drug dealer on the street that sells drugs to your children, or somebody else's children. Is he responsible, or is it just the child's fault when he dies? Obviously, both neglected to heed what was right, but because he supplied the drugs, the dealer is responsible. In fact, the law states that the higher that you are in the distribution chain, the more culpable you are. Hollywood's higher placement in the distribution chain denotes them as guilty.
In Houston, Texas, Scott May, mind drenched in violent/horror movies and the occult, Viciously attacked his date after viewing The Cutting Edge. May reported to authorities that he had an infatuation with murder for some time. He stated:
"I love knives. I like to go to the movies a lot. A lot of people get stabbed in the movies. I really liked the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. A lot of people got stabbed in that."
Hailed as one of the most notorious movies for inciting viewers to duplicate crimes is Silence of the Lambs; a movie that revels in a serial killer's escapades of mutilation, murder, and cannibalism. The same week that Silence of the Lambs won the Oscar for the Best Picture, a man decapitated his handicapped mother while yelling, "I'm Hannibal the Cannibal!" as he was taken into custody by police.
It's no coincidence ABC found that 22-34 percent of young felons imprisoned for violent crimes said that they had consciously imitated crime techniques learned from watching television programs. After viewing a screening of his film, Natural Born Killers, director Oliver Stone declared: "This movie is great. It makes you want to go out and kill somebody." This controversial movie was reported to be a favorite among the Columbine killers, who watched it repeatedly before being worked up into a frenzy for their mission of death.
Oliver Stone's philosophy is worth repeating:
I think America has to bleed. I think the corpses have to pile up. I think American boys have to die again. Let the mothers weep and mourn."
Countless innocent people have died and others have lost their loved ones to callous acts that are encouraged by the images of the silver screen. The messages that the Clive Barker's of the movie screens disseminate to their fans are deemed by many to be irresponsible. However, in reply, Barker has stated:
"That's my responsibility, to kill as many people as possible…And some of that truth may not be palatable to anybody. My responsibility is not to give a ---- about that. My responsibility is not to care."
Hollywood is transforming the culture and doesn't even bat an eye.
As previously mentioned, Natural Born Killers as well as The Basketball Diaries, which depicts Leo DiCaprio dressed in a black trench coat as he blows away classmates at his school, have both been implicated as the influential factors in Eric Harris's and Dylan Klebold's Columbine killing spree. In fact, the head of New Line Cinema, who made The Basketball Diaries, admitted that the movie might have caused the carnage at Columbine. He stated: "It could be that our movie was the final moment of dark inspiration, the last straw that caused the crimes."
The parents of Cassie Bernall, one of the victims of the Columbine massacre who was specifically targeted for her faith in Jesus Christ, knows the veracity of these facts all too well. In a personal interview, Brad Bernall, Cassie's father, stated that he was shown a video the two murderers made prior to the killings in which they made their intent clear. Their goal in their own words was "to shoot Christians in the [expletive deleted] head." They also mocked the WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) bracelets worn by Christians and said: "What would Jesus do? What would I do…I would shoot you in the head." Mr. Bernall said that he strongly believes that the media has purposely covered up these facts and turned a blind eye to other obvious truths. Mr. Bernall credits his ability to weather the incredible loss of his daughter to his own faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus promised that those who lose their lives for his sake would find them and that not one hair on their head would perish because of the eternal life that he gives his followers. Mr. Bernall knows this to be true of his daughter.
Jesus warned that there were two paths that human beings could go by. He said:
"Enter by the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter that way. For the gate is small and the road is narrow that leads to life and few are those who find it." Matthew 7:13-4
What road are you on? The road that the vast majority of this world is on or the road that God wants you on?
Hollywood is rapidly funneling the world onto the spiritual broad path of rebellion that is directed away from God. Satan is identified as the leader of this rebellion against God and is described as a real and incredibly powerful being in the Bible. The apostle Peter wrote:
"Be sober, be on the alert, your adversary the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour"
The Bible states that Satan is the one who deceives the whole world into following him through his deceptions. Crafty to the core, Satan knows that he does not have to get someone to fall on their knees and worship him to get their soul for eternity. He just has to keep them from worshipping God through the distractions this world offers.
The Scriptures definitively say that "we all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way." Isaiah 53:6 This means that if you are honest with yourself, you will acknowledge instances in your life when you have done things you know to be wrong. As a result, the book of Romans states that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23 God is perfect and the wrongs, or sins, that we have committed in our lives separate us from Him. Isaiah 59:2
The Ten Commandments are absolute in their instruction. "You shall not lie." There is no room for leeway. If you have ever lied, it makes you a liar. "You shall not steal." If you have ever stolen anything – even something as small as a paperclip – you are a thief. Down through the commandments we could go; if you have ever lusted after a woman, Jesus said it was as the sin of adultery. If you have ever uttered God's name in vain, you are a blasphemer. And so on. Every person who has ever lived has not perfectly kept these commandments. Therefore, before God every person has fallen short and is guilty. You cannot escape this. The result of this is eternal separation from God for eternity in fiery torment as punishment for our disobedience to God's holy calling. It is akin to a rapist who stands before a judge. The judge has a responsibility to act righteously and execute judgment on the offender for his actions. Justice demands this. God's judgment upon us is no different.
But God is also a God of love and His answer to the disease of sin and the eternal penalty of hell was to become a man in the person of Jesus Christ and to live a sinless life. He then allowed Himself to be murdered on the cross as a payment for the penalty of our sins that demands to be met. He Himself paid the price that each person should pay themselves. Forgiveness for sins through His sacrifice is available for anyone who will turn from their sins and place their faith in Jesus Christ.
Life is short- the Bible refers to it as a vapor. The pulse that you feel in your wrist will one-day cease to continue and you will be accountable to your Creator. Will your last breath on earth be your first breath in heaven or your first breath in hell? The Book of Acts says, "There is salvation in no one else. For there is no other name under heaven given among men, by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12 Your Creator made you and lovingly gave up His life for you. Jesus is the only remedy for the true ailment of the world- the sin problem. Take the gift he offers you. The word repent in Greek means to do an about face, a 180-degree turn. Repent and turn from your sin through placing your trust in Jesus. Read the New Testament, pray, and find a good church that preachers the truth of the Word of God. If you have received this gift then you are a part of the family of God.
The world system that we live in runs contrary to the life God calls us to. The Scriptures tell us that the world is engaged in a spiritual battle for the hearts and minds of mankind at every level. Children have steadily been force-fed a diet of information that overtly attacks the Word of God and makes this spiritual war quite evident. This is, and continues to be, the deliberate aim of the American schools system that has in many ways replaced the family and now father the nations youth.
John Dewey, known as the father of the American school system, proclaimed:
"I am convinced that the battle for mankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers that correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith which will replace the rotting corpse of Christianity."
Is it any wonder that kids have progressed to the point of killing each other as animals when in fact the evolutionary philosophies they are indoctrinated into teach that that is exactly what they are? School shootings, motivated by Hollywood's destructive images, are par for the course.
In conclusion, Satan is thoroughly using the Hollywood elite to thwart Gods plan for people's lives by filling their minds with ungodly propaganda. As the television screenwriter Lloyd Billingsley observed:
"In the unwritten constitution of television…God is effectively written out of existence and Judeo Christian values on such things as adultery and divorce are disregarded."
Satan is taking advantage of the world through this medium and it is therefore important to guard yourself against its seductions. Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, whose aim it is to establish the kingdom of antichrist on the earth for his master Satan, wrote the following:
"Many of you have read my writings identifying TV as the new God. There is a little thing I failed to mention up until now- television is the major mainstream infiltration of the New Satanic religion."
Violence is not the only influential aspect of film: sexual immorality and perversions, drugs and occult messages also carry tremendously powerful abilities to sway the culture for the worse. We have already witnessed the confessed powers film holds over its viewers and documented unfortunate cases where people have even lost their very lives as a result.
In conclusion, we would do well to consider a letter from a prison inmate who perceptively enunciated the amazing leverage that film's messages had on fellow inmates:
In many (perhaps most) prisons…would it surprise you to learn that the favored genres are those containing the most naked flesh engaging in fornication, the most horrific gore and the most gratuitous violence? I've observed groups of convicts watching violent films…A gruesome bloodbath may bring forth much response-everything from increased attention to involuntary facial expression (clenched teeth, twitches) and quite often inappropriate responses (smiles, laughter, cheers, etc.). These inappropriate responses ultimately translate to joy at the suffering of others. It doesn't matter in the least whether good guys or bad guys get killed, as long as somebody gets killed. …I spoke with an older repeat offender…[who said], 'Sometimes I watch a video and get real angry. Takes me an hour or so afterward to stop being p----- off. I don't like that. I've tried very hard for a long time to get over my anger, but these videos bring it out.'
Drastic changes in personality can happen in the space of a ninety-minute film. Allow me to be blunt: IT IS AN ABSURDITY TO BELIEVE THAT THE EFFECT OF SEX AND VIOLENCE IN MOVIES IS ANY DIFFERENT UPON YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN THAN IT IS UPON ME AND MY FELLOW INMATES. A short while ago many of us stood in the same ticket lines as you. We've sat in the same movie theaters, watching the same movies. We've rented videos from the same video stores as you. The world system touches every life, and every person is led into sin in the same ways, through the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the sinful pride of life. How many minds out there are being programmed right now to do the things that could result in their joining us in prison? How many young people are being desensitized, emotionally manipulated to follow harmful role models and conditioned to accept aberrant sexual behavior as normal? How many hearts are being turned to stone?"
Very wise words from a man rightly using his life in seeking to warn others of real perils from the popular film menu that is predominantly offered to our world. Let his encouragement not be in vain.
August 25, 2009
World of Warcraft Cataclysm Release
“There is not a single case of game addiction that we have worked with in which World of Warcraft has not played a part.”
“It is the crack cocaine of the computer game world. Some will play it till they drop.” Sven Rollenhagen, Sweden Youth Care Foundation
World of Warcraft is a dangerous child’s game that teaches children about black magic and death rituals. It encourages them to team up with friends “online” to form death squads who wield bladed weapons to violently bludgeon adversaries to the point of death.
In February, we condemned World of Warcraft to be as addictive as cocaine, after we collaborated with The Daily Mail to break an interview with an innocent teenage victim who became so addicted he played for 24 hours straight and then had convulsions.
With such alarming facts, all parents must beware that the advertising executives of Blizzard, WoW’s parent company, are releasing a new game named World of Warcraft Cataclysm.
This game promises more violence and addiction to the dark arts and new ways to murder people in the guise of online avatars.
My dear friends, please beware and forbid this game to enter your household! Our friends at the Sweden Youth Care Foundation have described this game as ‘the most dangerous game on the market’.
Sven Rollenhagen told us: “There is not a single case of game addiction that we have worked with in which World of Warcraft has not played a part.”
Rollenhagen continued, “It is the crack cocaine of the computer game world. Some will play it till they drop.”
Such was the case for a precious 15-year-old child in Sweden. He could have been your son. After playing for 24 hours straight, unable to break the game’s Satanic spell over his mind, the child collapsed and nearly succumbed to the deadly disease of violent game induced seizures.
Despite these facts Blizzard’s advertising team is slinging their new drug to your teens. Remember that just like pornography, violent games are drugs for the mind. They will addict your child and then lead them to a lifestyle of violence, depression and then death.
Blizzcon 2009 highlighted this game and got WoW addicts primed to need their new fix. While balding old men preyed on young children who sneaked to the gaming festival, the studio executives allowed children to stare at new rendered pixelated images of destruction so as to put them in a gaming trance.
Psychiatrist Dr Richard Graham of the Tavistock Center is well apprised of this sinister marketing technique:
“Some of my clients will discuss playing games for 14, 16 hours a day at times, without breaks and without attending to their physical needs.”
“For those, the consequences are potentially severe.”
“Such prolonged gaming can produce a sort of socially withdrawn figure who may be connecting with people in the game, but is largely dropping out of education and other social opportunities.”
Such prolonged gaming will be the ruin of our culture, if we allow it.
Pastor’s Note – If you or your teen is suffering from World of Warcraft addiction, please discuss with your pastor and also visit Teen Challenge for resources on beating your addiction.
- You can do ALL THINGS through Christ, which strengthens you. -
“It is the crack cocaine of the computer game world. Some will play it till they drop.” Sven Rollenhagen, Sweden Youth Care Foundation
World of Warcraft is a dangerous child’s game that teaches children about black magic and death rituals. It encourages them to team up with friends “online” to form death squads who wield bladed weapons to violently bludgeon adversaries to the point of death.
In February, we condemned World of Warcraft to be as addictive as cocaine, after we collaborated with The Daily Mail to break an interview with an innocent teenage victim who became so addicted he played for 24 hours straight and then had convulsions.
With such alarming facts, all parents must beware that the advertising executives of Blizzard, WoW’s parent company, are releasing a new game named World of Warcraft Cataclysm.
This game promises more violence and addiction to the dark arts and new ways to murder people in the guise of online avatars.
My dear friends, please beware and forbid this game to enter your household! Our friends at the Sweden Youth Care Foundation have described this game as ‘the most dangerous game on the market’.
Sven Rollenhagen told us: “There is not a single case of game addiction that we have worked with in which World of Warcraft has not played a part.”
Rollenhagen continued, “It is the crack cocaine of the computer game world. Some will play it till they drop.”
Such was the case for a precious 15-year-old child in Sweden. He could have been your son. After playing for 24 hours straight, unable to break the game’s Satanic spell over his mind, the child collapsed and nearly succumbed to the deadly disease of violent game induced seizures.
Despite these facts Blizzard’s advertising team is slinging their new drug to your teens. Remember that just like pornography, violent games are drugs for the mind. They will addict your child and then lead them to a lifestyle of violence, depression and then death.
Blizzcon 2009 highlighted this game and got WoW addicts primed to need their new fix. While balding old men preyed on young children who sneaked to the gaming festival, the studio executives allowed children to stare at new rendered pixelated images of destruction so as to put them in a gaming trance.
Psychiatrist Dr Richard Graham of the Tavistock Center is well apprised of this sinister marketing technique:
“Some of my clients will discuss playing games for 14, 16 hours a day at times, without breaks and without attending to their physical needs.”
“For those, the consequences are potentially severe.”
“Such prolonged gaming can produce a sort of socially withdrawn figure who may be connecting with people in the game, but is largely dropping out of education and other social opportunities.”
Such prolonged gaming will be the ruin of our culture, if we allow it.
Pastor’s Note – If you or your teen is suffering from World of Warcraft addiction, please discuss with your pastor and also visit Teen Challenge for resources on beating your addiction.
- You can do ALL THINGS through Christ, which strengthens you. -
Lutherans Endorse Homosexuality God Sends Tornado!
THE MIRACLE TORNADO
On August 19 the Lutheran Church in America voted to allow same sex marriage. This video shows a tornado that hit Minneapolis on August 19 around 2 pm at the time they voted. It sheered the cross off the Lutheran church next to the conference center where they were meeting.
On August 19 the Lutheran Church in America voted to allow same sex marriage. This video shows a tornado that hit Minneapolis on August 19 around 2 pm at the time they voted. It sheered the cross off the Lutheran church next to the conference center where they were meeting.
August 19, 2009
Speaking Truth Will Cost You!
The Wisdom of Tozer
“One reason for the divorce between truth and life may be lack of the Spirit’s illumination. Another surely is the teacher’s unwillingness to get himself into trouble. Any man with fair pulpit gifts can get on with the average congregation if he just “feeds” them and lets them alone. Give them plenty of objective truth and never hint that they are wrong and should be set right, and they will be content! But the man who preaches truth and applies it to the lives of his hearers will feel the nails and the thorns. He will lead a hard life — but a glorious one!”
A.W. Tozer
“One reason for the divorce between truth and life may be lack of the Spirit’s illumination. Another surely is the teacher’s unwillingness to get himself into trouble. Any man with fair pulpit gifts can get on with the average congregation if he just “feeds” them and lets them alone. Give them plenty of objective truth and never hint that they are wrong and should be set right, and they will be content! But the man who preaches truth and applies it to the lives of his hearers will feel the nails and the thorns. He will lead a hard life — but a glorious one!”
A.W. Tozer
July 30, 2009
July 28, 2009
How RADICAL Are You?
Let's Get Radical
David Shibley
Nine years ago I made this declaration: "I spent the first 50 years of my life trying to be balanced. I want to spend the rest of my life trying to be radical." All history shapers are radical, and I believe it's time for believers everywhere to take on this attribute.
We tend to equate being "radical" with being "extreme," but that is only part of the definition. To be radical means to go to the origin or the root. Thus, a true radical is rooted.
He is the antithesis of the sad person Jesus described in the parable of the sower who "has no root" and "quickly falls away" when persecution comes (Matt.13:21). A radical is a "good soil" believer who hears the Word and mixes it with faith, allowing the seed of the Word to literally take root, grow, and produce much fruit (see v. 23).
Jesus called us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. That's radical.
He commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves. That's radical.
He said we are to preach the gospel to every person on earth and turn all nations into His followers. That's radical.
Paul was shipwrecked, flogged, and spat on, and his motives were impugned. He lived under constant threat of assassination and was beaten three times within an inch of his life—all for the sake of the gospel. That's radical.
What does it mean to be radical for Jesus today? A true radical is one who defies the whims of his times and calls people back to root realities and root causes.
The need in the body of Christ today is for radicals who are anchored in:
• truth, not conjecture
• grace, not legalism
• faith, not skepticism
• discipline, not indolence
• history, not fads
• hope, not despair.
Most of all, we need radicals who are anchored in Christ and the assurance of His global glory. "We who have fled to Him for refuge can take new courage, for we can hold on to His promise with confidence. This confidence is like a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls" (Heb.6:18-19, NLT).
I want to be a truly radical follower of Jesus: rooted in Him, extremely in love with Him, extremely devoted to Him and His cause. The acrostic below spells out for me the components of a radical life fully given over to Jesus:
Revelation. True radicals live by revelation drawn from intimacy with Jesus.
Anointing. True radicals are anointed by the Holy Spirit.
Discipline. True radicals retain that anointing by practicing historic Christian disciplines.
Integrity. True radicals are those whose public persona is matched by private purity.
Courage. True radicals follow the truth, speak the truth and call people to the truth.
Anchored. True radicals are anchored in history and hope; in the Word and the Spirit.
Love. True radicals are driven by the love of God at work in them by the Holy Spirit.
The late theological-ethicist Richard Niebuhr observed that the great revolutions in the history of Christianity do not occur by discovering something new. Great revolutions happen, said Niebuhr, when someone takes radically something that has always been there. Martin Luther took the simple gospel message of justification by faith radically. John Wesley took the simple message of biblical holiness radically. William Seymour took a present-tense encounter with the Holy Spirit radically.
I believe this is the day for us to take Christ's Great Commission radically. I believe it is the hour for us to go forth with radical faith, radical commitment and radical love and usher in His second coming by making disciples of all nations. We can't start a revolution by being balanced. Let's get radical!
AMEN!!!
David Shibley
Nine years ago I made this declaration: "I spent the first 50 years of my life trying to be balanced. I want to spend the rest of my life trying to be radical." All history shapers are radical, and I believe it's time for believers everywhere to take on this attribute.
We tend to equate being "radical" with being "extreme," but that is only part of the definition. To be radical means to go to the origin or the root. Thus, a true radical is rooted.
He is the antithesis of the sad person Jesus described in the parable of the sower who "has no root" and "quickly falls away" when persecution comes (Matt.13:21). A radical is a "good soil" believer who hears the Word and mixes it with faith, allowing the seed of the Word to literally take root, grow, and produce much fruit (see v. 23).
Jesus called us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. That's radical.
He commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves. That's radical.
He said we are to preach the gospel to every person on earth and turn all nations into His followers. That's radical.
Paul was shipwrecked, flogged, and spat on, and his motives were impugned. He lived under constant threat of assassination and was beaten three times within an inch of his life—all for the sake of the gospel. That's radical.
What does it mean to be radical for Jesus today? A true radical is one who defies the whims of his times and calls people back to root realities and root causes.
The need in the body of Christ today is for radicals who are anchored in:
• truth, not conjecture
• grace, not legalism
• faith, not skepticism
• discipline, not indolence
• history, not fads
• hope, not despair.
Most of all, we need radicals who are anchored in Christ and the assurance of His global glory. "We who have fled to Him for refuge can take new courage, for we can hold on to His promise with confidence. This confidence is like a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls" (Heb.6:18-19, NLT).
I want to be a truly radical follower of Jesus: rooted in Him, extremely in love with Him, extremely devoted to Him and His cause. The acrostic below spells out for me the components of a radical life fully given over to Jesus:
Revelation. True radicals live by revelation drawn from intimacy with Jesus.
Anointing. True radicals are anointed by the Holy Spirit.
Discipline. True radicals retain that anointing by practicing historic Christian disciplines.
Integrity. True radicals are those whose public persona is matched by private purity.
Courage. True radicals follow the truth, speak the truth and call people to the truth.
Anchored. True radicals are anchored in history and hope; in the Word and the Spirit.
Love. True radicals are driven by the love of God at work in them by the Holy Spirit.
The late theological-ethicist Richard Niebuhr observed that the great revolutions in the history of Christianity do not occur by discovering something new. Great revolutions happen, said Niebuhr, when someone takes radically something that has always been there. Martin Luther took the simple gospel message of justification by faith radically. John Wesley took the simple message of biblical holiness radically. William Seymour took a present-tense encounter with the Holy Spirit radically.
I believe this is the day for us to take Christ's Great Commission radically. I believe it is the hour for us to go forth with radical faith, radical commitment and radical love and usher in His second coming by making disciples of all nations. We can't start a revolution by being balanced. Let's get radical!
AMEN!!!
July 20, 2009
Harry Potter - Introduction Into The Occult
Harry Potter...
Real Names and Real Witches
by Vicky Dillen | SOURCE
Jeremiah 3:17, 7:24...
"At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart. 24 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward."
Many say that fables or fiction are innocent reading. However, we've shown that imagination itself reveals what is inside a heart. And there is wicked imagination, purposes and ideas and there is imagination, purposes and ideas that honor God. There are none in this world that can please God without that person knowing Jesus Christ.
J.K. Rowling's first book was called Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and also the Sorcerer's Stone. Right from the title we have deep occult knowledge and pursuits.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica article on the Philosophers Stone: "The stone, also referred to as the 'tincture' or the 'powder' ... was allied to an elixir of life ... Inasmuch as alchemy was concerned not only with the search for a method of upgrading less valuable metals but also of perfecting the human soul, the philosopher's stone was thought to cure illnesses, prolong life, and bring about spiritual revitalization."
Revelation 21:8...
"But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death."
The search for the Philosopher's Stone is well known in alchemy, that is, alchemy defined by occultists as,
"... There are three main ideas about the origin of the word alchemy. Firstly, from ancient Egyptian transmitted through Arabic 'al-khem', from the Egyptian hieroglyphics...Km.t which form the native name of Egypt, 'Chem', meaning 'black earth'. Thus one derivation of the word alchemy is the 'Egyptian art', or the 'art of the black earth'. The second derivation is from the Greek word 'chemeia', found in the writings of Diocletian, the art of making metal ingots. The third derivation is from the Greek word 'chumeia', the art of extracting juices or infusions from plants, and thus herbal medicines and tinctures....Alchemy is so multifaceted that any definition restricts alchemy to a particular view or excludes aspects that should come within the realm of the alchemical. One cannot reduce alchemy to practical laboratory work, or to interior meditative work with symbols, or to being only a spiritual pursuit. Anthropological, Jungian, esoteric, history of science, semiotic, or other interpretations, are only ways of looking at alchemy. In recent years some people have tended to use the term in a very broad sense. Definitions of alchemy tend to reflect individual's underlying philosophical preconception. Perhaps it is best if we found our view of alchemy on the body of alchemical writings, the manuscripts and printed books that constitute and embody the alchemical tradition. This body of alchemical knowledge, preserved in many libraries throughout the world, is probably the securest foundation on which to build a view of alchemy. [Alchemy Faq> http://www.levity.com/alchemy/faq.html]
One website asks, "Superconductivity And Modern Alchemy Has The Philosopher's Stone Been Found?" and presents these heretical and blasphemous thoughts.
"....A new line of thought consumed David Hudson. He read over 500 books on alchemy and its history. He reread the Bible, finding many references to the white powder. He talked to Rabbis well versed in the ancient secrets of Judaism who told him of "white powders" available only to the priests of Solomon's Temple. This is referred to as "manna," food of the gods. Hudson's research has led him to believe that ingesting the manna enabled the priests to approach the Ark of the Covenant without being killed.
In his lecture, Hudson gave fascinating details about the Ark and a scientific explanation behind the manna's protection. He also discussed where the priests obtained their formula for making the white powders and how this formula was lost after the Temple was destroyed. He explained his theories about the Essenes and why he thinks Mary was given the white powders of gold in preparation for the conception and birth of Jesus.
Nostradamus predicted that by 1999 "occult gold" would be known to science. Other prophecies indicate the discovery of this "occult gold" would be made by a direct descendant of the Davidic blood line. According to the book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, the Davidic blood line is continued today in the French de Guise family name. Long after his research into the white powders began, David Hudson discovered he was a direct descendant of this French family. [David Hudson 1995> http://www.eclecticviewpoint.com/evhudson.html]
Another article discussing Hudson and the Philosopher's Stone, stated:
Spiritual Powers of the White Powder
Hudson said that the naturally-occurring white powder is comprised of all the precious ORMEs in rather fixed proportions. (At least from his ores.) He stated that each ORME affects a different gland (seal) of the body. Ancient literature says that the white powder of gold effects the seventh seal (the pineal gland), other white powders effect other seals. Hudson believes that proper spiritual usage would require that you take all the elements in their naturally-occurring proportions. That's what the Egyptians did.
Hudson pointed out that the ancient Egyptian literature only discusses the white powder of gold. Yet, the powder which was found in the pyramids contained all the monatomic elements in the expected percentages. The dominant element was rhodium. He believes that the reason that the Egyptians only mentioned gold was because they were simply unaware of the other elements. [The White Powder > http://monatomic.earth.com/contributed/white-powder-primer.html]
Hence, the first book in the Potter series is based on the very real occult activity of searching for immortality, based on real witchcraft and occult teachings. On the back cover of the book is a picture of a wizard holding a book with nothing less than a pentagram on it, and the background is covered with stars shaped like upright pentagrams, which symbolizes the power of witchcraft. The pentagram, called the great Rite in witchcraft, is one of the main symbols in witchcraft and occultism. Used in ritual magic, divination, the conjuration of spirits, casting spells and summoning demonic help, it is not simply part of a cute drawing. When the pentagram points skyward, it's denoting witchcraft, while if the point is downward it is signifying Satanists. The view of the pentagram on the book is pointing down, meaning that it is for black magic rites, calling Satan and so on. This is not light fluff. This is real to occultists.
Rowling's penchant for 'making up names' isn't really about deriving original names. Rather, names are found from mythology, folklore, other works of fiction, and from real people, towns or occult sources. Rowling presents actual witches as heroes in her works of fiction. The best example is found in the Chocolate Frogs trading cards.
"Chocolate Frogs have cards inside them, you know, to collect - famous witches and wizards. I've got about five hundred....Ron was more interested in eating the frogs than looking at the famous Witches and Wizards cards, but Harry couldn't keep his eyes off them. Soon he had not only Dumbledore and Morgana, but Hengis of Woodcroft, Alberic Grunnion, Circe, Paracelsus and Merlin. He finally tore his eyes away from the druidess Cliodna, who was scratching her nose..." [pp77-78]
Cliodna was the daughter of a High Druid and is also the Banshee/Beansà of the O'Keeffe clan and is a faery Queen in Southwest Ireland. She is also noted as being the Goddess of beauty and the otherworld. Circe was a sorceress in Greek mythology who turned people into swine. 'Hedwig' was a medieval Catholic Saint whose marriage to Duke Henry1 of Silesia united Silesian history through German influence. From the Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume III "....she gave her support to new monastic foundations and assisted those already in existence....She was interred in the church attached to the monastery, and was canonized by Clement IV,26 March, 1267, and on 25 August of the same year her remains were raised to the honours of the altar. Her feast is celebrated 17 October; she in honoured as the patroness of Silesia...." [St. Hedwig > http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07189a.htm]
Alberic [Grunnion], a Wizard on a Chocolate Frog Trading Card, was the king of the dwarves in Wagner's 'Ring of the Nibelung'.
Nicholas Flamel, a real historic sorcerer, plays a key role in the book. Referring to the trading card of Albus Dumbledore, we read:
"Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindlewald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel'!...'Nicolas Flamel,' she whispered dramatically, 'is the only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone!'...She pushed the book toward them, and Harry and Ron read: The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Philosopher's Stone...the stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal...the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist...Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life...'A stone that makes gold and stops you ever dying!' said Harry. 'No wonder Snape's after it! Anyone would want it.'"(pp.160-161 )
Yes, occultists and those who seek after eternal life without Jesus Christ do desire immorality. They would 'be gods.' Note that Harry presents the emotional response that 'anyone' would want it. Our hero desires immortality through actual occult means.
Towards the end of the book, we are presented with the promotion of suicide as an honorable way of helping others. Flamel and his real wife Perenelle have killed themselves to hide the secret of the Philosopher's Stone, with Flamel being the significant age of 666 years.
...Dumbledore smiled at the look of amazement on Harry's face. 'To one as young as you, I'm sure it seems incredible, but to Nicolas and Perenelle, it really is like going to bed after a very, very long day. After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." (p.218)
From the Testament of Nicholas Flamel (also written Flammel)--"...and after the death of my faithful partner Perenelle, am seized with a desire and a delight, in remembrance of her, and in your behalf, dear nephew, to write out the whole magistery of the secret of the Powder of Projection, or the Philosophical Tincture, which God hath willed to impart to his very insignificant servant, and which I have found out, as thou also wilt find out in working as I shall declare unto you...." http://www.levity.com/alchemy/testment.html
Around 1361 Flamel found an occult book called "The Sacred Book of Abraham the Jew, Priest, Levite, Astrologer and Philosopher to that Tribe of Jews who by the Wrath of God were Dispersed amongst the Gauls." On a trip to Spain in 1382, Flamel supposedly met a Jew who explained the "mysteries" of this text to him. He returned to Paris with the alchemist keys and became wealthy. In speaking of the Book, Flamel, wrote that only a Cabalist could understand it's meaning.
"....Upon the first of the leaves was written in great Capital Letters of Gold: Abraham the Jew, Prince, Priest, Levite, Astrologer, and Philosopher, to the Nation of the Jews, by the Wrath of God dispersed among the Gauls, sendeth Health. After this it was filled with great execrations and curses (with this word Maranatha, which was often repeated there) against every person that should cast his eyes upon it if he were not Sacrificer or Scribe....no man could ever have been able to understand it without being well skilled in their Cabala, which goeth by tradition, and without having well studied their books..... These Hieroglyphic figures shall serve as two ways to lead unto the heavenly life: the first and most open sense teaching the sacred Mysteries of our salvation; (as I will show hereafter) the other teaching every man that hath any small understanding in the Stone the lineary way of the work; which being perfected by any one, the change of evil into good takes away from him the root of all sin, (which is covetousness) making him liberal, gentle, pious, religious, and fearing God, how evil soever he was before, for from thenceforward he is continually ravished with the great grace and mercy which he hath obtained from God, and with the profoundness of his Divine and admirable works....Let him, therefore, who having well weighed my words, and well known and understood my figures, hath first gotten elsewhere the knowledge of the first beginnings and Agents, (for certainly in these Figures and Commentaries he shall not find any step or information thereof), perfect, to the glory of God, the Mastery of Hermes, remembering himself of the Church Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman; and of all other Churches, Church-yards, and Hospitals; and above all of the Church of the Innocents in this City, [Flammels' Hieroglyphics > http://www.levity.com/alchemy/flam_h0.html]
".... The Ancient Sages that were Cabalists, have described it in their Metamorphoses, under the History of the Serpent of Mars, which had devoured the companions of Cadmus, who slew him, piercing him with his lance against a hollow Oak..." [Flammel's Hieroglyphics Chapter III > http://www.levity.com/alchemy/flam_h3.html]
Occult encyclopedias state that legend teaches that Flamel and his wife faked their deaths and are still living. Which, would be why Rowlings showed Flamel alive and well working with Dumbledore, also a sorcerer. Honored as an adept by occultists, January17 is 'his day'. "Nicholas Flamel is listed as one of (the Prieuré de Sion's) Grand Masters and January 17 -- given by him as the date on which he achieved the Great Work -- is a day held sacred by them, a day specially set apart to honor alchemical perfection." [Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, Turin Shroud: In Whose Image? The Truth Behind the Centuries-Long Conspiracy of Silence, HarperCollins Pub., 1994, p. 99]
Paracelsus (1493-1541) is also an icon of modern day witches and wizards! He was also an alchemist, that is, a sorcerer and was famous for reviving the use of Talismans. Albert Pike wrote in his Masonic "Morals and Dogma" that: "The Hermetic Art is, therefore, at the same time a religion, a philosophy, and a natural science...we must inquire for its processes of Paracelsus [and] Nicholas Flamel..." (p.774) According to Pike, the goal of magic is to master the universe by learning the principles of divine creation. That is, in effect, the holy grail of Freemasonry, according to Albert Pike. To that end he turns to the occult. And Pike is a true occultist, fluent in its history and arcane philosophies.
The Morals and Dogma preceding pages to this quote deal with the goals and methods of the occultists in ages past, specifically focusing on Hermeticism, Gnosticism, Kabala and alchemy, taking up the ancient occult quest of mastering the creative principle of the universe, or in effect, man becoming god, or co-creator of the universe.
"...Creation is the habitation of the Creator-Word. To create, the Generative Power and Productive Capacity must unite, the Binary become Unity again by the conjunction...
To be always rich, always young, and never to die: such has been in all times the dream of the alchemists. ...
to possess the universal medicine and elixir of life; such is the problem to be resolved, in order to accomplish the desire and realize this dream....
The Great Work is, above all things, the creation of man by himself; that is to say, the full and entire conquest which he effects of his faculties and his future. It is, above all, the emancipation of his will, which assures him the universal empire of Azoth, and the domain of magnetism, that is, complete power over the universal magical agent." (pgs. 772, 773)
"The whole Hermetic Science (magic) is contained in the dogma of Hermes (ancient), engraven originally, it is said, on a tablet of emerald...
The Hermetic Art is, therefore, at the same time a religion, a philosophy, and a natural science. As a religion it is that of the Anient Magi and the Initiates of all ages; as a philosophy, we may find its principles in the school of Alexandria and the theories of Pythagoras; as a science we must inquire for its processes of Paracelsus [and] Nicholas Flamel, and Raymond Lulle.
The science is a real one only for those who admit and understand the philosophy and the religion; as its process will succeed only for the Adept who has attained the sovereignty of will, and so become the King of the elementary world; for the grand agent of the operation of the sun. is that force described in the symbol of Hermes, of the table of emerald; it is the universal magical power; the spiritual, fiery, motive power; it is the Od, according to the Hebrews, as the Astral light, according to others."
Paracelsus is mentioned in the Seek God article The Legend of Hanukkah when referring to the Talisman of Saturn:
"Theophrastus Paracelsus revived, in the XVIth century, the ancient doctrine of Talismans, which he claimed to be able to use successfully in the treatment of illnesses and accidents. This medical doctrine, derived from the Cabala, or secret tradition of the Jewish rabbis, was said to be borrowed from the ancient occult sciences of Chaldea and Egypt. The talisman (tsilmenaia) signifies an image, a figure, and was engraved in the form of an emblem or symbol on metals consecrated to the genii of the seven planets. This magical task had to be carried out at a fixed time of a certain day, with the firm intention of attracting to the talisman the beneficent influence of the genius which was invoked, whether for health or any other protective measures...
It's very noteworthy that students of Hogwarts engaged in the use of talismans for protection, as described, "...hidden from the teachers, a roaring trade in talismans, amulets and other protective devices...evil smelling green onion, a pointed purple crystal..." [p.139, Chamber of Secrets]
Paracelsus is also discussed in the Seek God article Practical Kabbalah: Talismans and Masters of the Name
Gershom Scholem suggests that while many created the "golem" from the earth, others were able to produce the "creature" by "influx of the alphabet"--out of thin air. Many stories recount that the "golem" was made to "work" or accompany the adept, although few "golem" are reported to have the ability of "speech". Polish stories particularly focus on the 'golem' as a mute worker who was able to follow commands. According to Scholem (p.172), it was this parallel in Jewish golem and alchemy that finally led to Paracelsus' idea of the "homunculus." These wax or clay figures were employed in back magic to inflict injury on enemies.
The Basilisk, a giant creature with snake-like features and in the Chamber of Secrets, was presented as coming from the Slytherin statue, which came alive when Voldemort/Riddle spoke to it in snake language. If it looked in Harry's eye, he would die. Basilisk is another name for the Philosopher's Stone. [Names > http://www.levity.com/alchemy/gratacol.html] Meaning, that the symbol of Satan--a serpent, offers immortality or the Elixir of life.
This takes one back to the Garden of Eden, and those most destructive words in Genesis 3:1 "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?...4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."
Jesus said in John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father
Jesus spoke to those who would not believe who He was and rather followed after Satan and his lies and false promises, by saying in John 8:43 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. 44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."
Further about the Basilisk, also from the Alchemy website > http://www.levity.com/alchemy/home.html
"....the herb Squilla or the Onion, is good against evil spirits and night apparitions. For Plinius, speaking of this herb, saith that Pythagoras wittnesses that when they hang onions above the entrance of the door, that it drives away all evil spirits that would enter the house. Of the Weasel which carries rue in his mouth, all naturalists relate that it provides himself therewith against the Basilisk and all venomous snakes, and this is the opinion of some of the ancient....The Basilisk, as it is written, is a sort of snake. Whereof, not only the breath, but also the sight, are infectious. And the creatures which are killed by her poison, are not touched by other creatures; how hungry and gluttonous soever they may be. And if by mere hunger they do touch the same, they die immediately. Wherefore, the Basilisk is avoided of all other creatures, how poisonous soever they may be, as surpassing all other creatures by her poison; as AEtius and Plinius relate...."[Iconologia > http://www.levity.com/alchemy/iconol03.html]
Another site provides further connection of the Basilisk to Paraclesus and sorcery. "THE AURORA OF THE PHILOSOPHERS. BY THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS. "...Others have purified the white and yolk of eggs; from which has been generated a basilisk...." [Aurora > http://www.levity.com/alchemy/paracel3.html]
The Dragon is considered by some alchemists to be superior and stronger than the basilisk. [Book of > http://www.levity.com/alchemy/lambtext.html] The dragon of course is a reference to Satan.
In occult lore, which Rowling presents, a Basilisk is the creature created when a chicken's egg is hatched by a toad on a bed of dung, and to have a three-pointed tail, glittering eyes and a crown on its head. It must be hatched during the days of Sirius the star. It's glance is said to be lethal, and could only be destroyed by watching it in a mirror. This belief is related to the myth of the Gorgon's head. In the East , its body was supposed to be a mixture of cock, snake and toad. According to Diel, this projected image of the human psyche is clearly infernal in character, as is shown by it's threefold attributes (it's three-pointed crest and trifurcated tail) since they are an inversion of the qualities of the Trinity; and also by the predominance of evil components, such as the toad and the snake. It is one of the many "keepers of treasure" mentioned in legend. [Burns p.133-134]
It's important to note that the Hogwarts School Crest has the images of a Lion, a serpent with a trifurcated tail and holding a leaf in it's mouth, a badger and an eagle which looks more like a phoenix.
The Witch Morgana found on the Chocolate Frog Trading Cards, figures into the King Arthur legend. According to the legend, Morgan le Fay, or Morgana, was the witch in the castle that Wart and Kay encountered with Robin Wood (Robin Hood), Maid Marian, Little John, and the merry men to rescue Friar Tuck, the Dog Boy, and an old man named Wat. Morgana was the child of the Duke of Cornwall and Igraine, the woman Uther Pendragon seduced to have Arthur.
She was also linked with the Goddess's Macha and Morrighan of Ireland. In Welsh tradition Morgana is the daughter of Avallach or Avalloc, king in the Otherworld. The concept of the Otherworld was central to the religion of the pre-Christian Celts and is the same as the parallel world Rowlings presents Harry Potter and the wizards in. It is the realm of quest and achievement, of challenge and encounter, of initiation and enlightenment. Mystics travel there through meditation. "'One of the chief recurrent images of Celtic mythology and legend is a visit to or from the 'Otherworld' - a realm somehow detached from this present world, or at most times, to all but a chosen few, invisible. It may be visibly cut off by ocean, river, lake, by mountain rock, or by mist, or hidden within the mountain itself. Sometimes it can only be entered by the overcoming of a test or through the sustaining of a mortal wound. Always cut off by some sort of barrier from the world of earthly existence.'" "'Within the 'Otherworld', archetypal forces are perceptible, essential wisdom teachings are available to those who have the right keys." "'The 'Otherworld' has its own valid reality which is not accessible to the five senses, though it is appreciable by the sixth. It is often spoken of as a state of consciousness.' Islands were regarded as particularly sacred with their role as gateways to the Otherworld and Boats are viewed as starting the journey through the gateway to the otherworld. [otherworld > http://www.lundyisleofavalon.co.uk/mythology/otherworld.htm] This is noteworthy as new arrivals to Hogwarts travel across the lake in boats.
Albus Dumbledore, who is presented as being over a hundred years old and a great wizard, wrote the letter telling Harry of his place at Hogwarts, and had listed his titles as "Headmaster, Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., [sorcerer], Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards." [p 42] A warlock is a male witch. A Sorcerer is a witch.
Albus' is Latin for 'white'. It is also one of the figures of geomancy, an ancient divination method, with Feng Shui being the Chinese method. Geomancy is any system of divination (an attempt to get in touch with the divine) related to manipulation of the earth. Caput Draconis, Latin for 'dragon's head, is one of the figures of geomancy, and a password to the boys rooms at Hogwarts. Other Geomancy figures include Fortuna Major, and Rubeus, all of which also appear in H.P as characters or passwords. [Astrological Geomancy by Anthony Louis> http://www.accessnewage.com/articles/astro/TLOUIS4.htm]
According to a Geomancy website,
"Geomancy had its heyday in the Renaissance during Western Europe's transition from the medieval to the modern world. It's most famous spokesperson was Henry Cornelius Agrippa, born in 1486, and author of several texts in Latin on occult philosophy. Agrippa's attitude toward geomancy was ambivalent. Although he wrote the major geomantic text of the period, he commented on his own work and about the "common geomancy" of his predecessors, "I too have written a geomancy quite different from the rest but no less superstitious and fallacious or if you wish I will even say 'mendacious.'" Nonetheless, Agrippa appears to have practiced and written extensively on the subject.
By the time Agrippa wrote about geomancy, it had undergone an evolution. No longer were the marks on the earth interpreted in their own right; now they were used in combination with a horoscope wheel depicting the twelve astrological houses." [Astrological Geomancy by Anthony Louis> http://www.accessnewage.com/articles/astro/TLOUIS4.htm]
Agrippa was also a Wizard on a Chocolate Frog Trading Card. Henry Cornelius Agrippa > http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jlynch/Frank/People/agrippa.html--noted Alchemist and mystic...the Rosicrucian manifestos, The Fame and Confession of the Fraternity of R: C: commonly, of the Rosie Cross. ... 1652 "....the Improvements of this fatal Invention are not known even to the present Generations, for the Pyrography of Cornelius Agrippa,....The second Philosophical work is commonly called the gross work, but 'tis one of the greatest Subtitles in all the Art. Cornelius Agrippa, knew the first Preparation, and hath clearly discovered it, but the Difficulty of the second made him almost an enemy to his own Profession. By the second work, I understand not Coagulation, but the Solution of the Philosophical Salt, a secret which Agrippa did not rightly know, as it appears by his practice at Malines, nor would Natelius teach him, for all his frequent, and serious entreaties....' [Rosicrucian Manifestos] http://www.levity.com/alchemy/vaughanp.html
'Dumbledore' is the Old English for 'bumblebee, and the French word 'dore' means 'golden'. In the occult, and Masonry, the bee is sacred to the goddess Venus. In Greece, they served at the greatest Greek festival in honor of Demeter, the Queen Bee, celebrating the return of Persephone from Hades; they are associated with rebirth and are an accepted symbol of generative power. It is also considered a symbol of the soul influenced by the Sun and possessing immortality and spiritual telepathy. [Burns p. 135] Dumbledore is portrayed as having extensive telepathy and awareness of what was happening without being in person. It was shown in the battle with the basilisk, by his sending Fawkes the phoenix and the sword which Harry pulled from the hat--(no different than the Sword and the Stone, only Harry/Arthur could pull it out)--although he was not physically present to see what was taking place.
Besides being listed on the Trading cards, Merlin is important to sorcerers and Arthurian legend. In the Potter books Dumbledore, of the Order of Merlin, is considered an equal to Voldermort in power. The Order of Merlin signifies the allegiance to the Druidic concept of Merlin. "....the Ancient Druidic state the Druid was teacher of truth and the dispenser of justice. As teachers they taught that the light of intelligence destroys the darkness of superstition and ignorance, hence the first precept of Merlin, the great Druidic teacher, “Labor diligently to acquire knowledge for it is power.”..." http://www.neopagan.net/UAODbooklet.HTML
New Agers revel in Merlin lore and Arthurian legends, and there is a current practice of calling "forth the spirit of Merlin from King Arthur's Court.". Merlin of Arthurian legend may have been a real person, but in the fable is a magician, seer and is still a wizard/witch and considered the most famous and revered Druid throughout Druid history. A so-called "prophetess" on the Internet distributed an entire book called Prophecies of War, which were channeled by none other than the Angel Merlin.
According to one website Merlin was, "The wizard who brought together the two who were to become the parents of the most famous king of Britain, Arthur. King Uther Pendragon fathered on Igraine, wife to Duke Gorlois of Cornwall, and Merlin took over the youth's rearing, after his father was killed. Merlin is credited with the building of Stonehenge, and the fashioning of the Round Table. Born himself under dubious and uncertain circumstances, Merlin eventually fell in love with Nineve, the daughter of a Siren, and taught her how to bind him magically to her, so that he remained forever in the enchanted wood with her." http://www.clubi.ie/lestat/ofgodsm.html
Another website states, The Story of Druidism: History, Legend and Lore 1.3
There may have been a real Merlin, such as the one Nikolai Tolstoy describes in Quest for Merlin:
“...Merlin was indeed an historical figure, living in what are now the lowlands of Scotland at the end of the sixth century A.D...an authentic prophet, most likely a druid surviving in a pagan enclave of the north.”
A Merlin prototype may have been the Celtic druid (Lailoken) who gained second sight after he went mad and escaped society to live in the forest. A poem from 600 describes a Welsh prophet named Myrddin. [Ask Jeeves: The History Net> http://ancienthistory.tqn.com/library/weekly/aa042898.htm]
Many would claim that Merlin lore and Druidism is based on true Christianity. From a website about the Druids,
"United Ancient Order Druids, U.A.O.D... Our truths come directly from the Bible, and the HIDDEN KNOWLEDGE of our ancient ancestors. Many of these sacred teachings were kept symbolically in the legends of Saint Merlin of England, so that the hidden, true meaning of Christ could be concealed from the profane masses, yet revealed to the deserving few through our mediation. Our rituals reflect our Ancient Brethern's efforts to bring true Christianity to heathen Europe, and the persection they suffered as a result of the SACRED MISSION....As Sir Knights, They fought for the oppressed, and taught morality to the barbarians. They began missions to spread knowledge and light to the masses, through the teachings of St. Merlin and our "Red Fez" prophets. By teaching THE SEVEN PRECEPTS OF MERLIN and THE SEVEN STAR POINTS, they were able to redeem those who put into practice these sacred commandments, making them free from all sin. We are proud to carry on the tradition of SERVICE, PURITY, and VIRTUE, following the teachings of the Magi, Magus-Jesus, Merlin, and the Angel of Light and Knowledge..." http://www.geocities.com/caldruids/
The Phoenixmasonry site provides the same information as above and also lists The Seven Precepts Of Merlin > http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/
First: Labor diligently to acquire knowledge, for it is power.
Second: When in authority, decide reasonably, for thine authority may cease.
Third: Bear with fortitude the ills of life, remembering that no mortal sorrow is perpetual.
Fourth: Love virtue-for it bringeth peace.
Fifth: Abhor vice-for it bringeth evil upon all.
Sixth: Obey those in authority in all just things, that virtue may be exalted.
Seventh: Cultivate the social virtues, so shalt thou be beloved by all men
[Seven precepts> www.phoenixmasonry.org/masonicmuseum/fraternalism/druids.htm]
It is very important to note that Focus on the Family, Christianity Today, Chuck Colson and many others also recommend the writings of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis as a way for children to grow spiritually. Chuck Colson suggests, "...they inspire the imagination within a Christian framework -- and prepare the hearts of readers for the real-life story of Christ." In those writings we find mention of the same Merlin mentioned above, equated to Christ. As has been stated in the previous articles, we're to have nothing to do with fables. For Chuck Colson See: Evangelicals and Catholics Together
In C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, the third book is called, "That Hideous Strength." In a nutshell, the book is about the redemption of Thulcandra (Earth) from the clutches of the Bent One, the Oyarsa of Thulcandra, who is supposedly Lucifer. It’s set in a small town called Edgestow, the home of Bracton College, just after the end of WWII. Certain Fellows of Bracton College engineer the sale of Bragdon Wood, which houses the living body of Merlin, his body preserved from aging by magic, to N.I.C.E., the National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments. N.I.C.E. is a wicked group of scientists researching use of technology to rule mankind, who think Merlin's magic powers would be helpful. They obtain the land with the purpose of disinterring and reviving Merlin and using his powers for evil. Jane Suddock's psychic powers are used to help locate Merlin and also provide information about N.I.C.E. Once discovered, Merlin’s ancient wizardry, linked with the power of the Eldil, (angels), defeat the evil N.I.C.E. in a wicked and bloody climax.
The reader is supposed to equate Merlin with Christ, who defeats Lucifer and evil. How blasphemous! That Merlin, who is revered by occultists as a druid, sorcerer, witch, wizard and every abomination thinkable, is viewed as Christ and that witchcraft and psychic powers parallel the saving power of Jesus Christ is wicked at best. For those who say children should just read Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia books, we have the same menu with witches, elves, Bacchus, false gods, and so on, all being part of the stories.
The Narnia plot revolves around the "White Witch" who has bound the land of Narnia in a perpetual winter which can only be broken by the coming of Aslan, who is supposed to represent Christ. However, no rendition of any Scripture is found in these tales except if one compares the practices of paganism and witchcraft which God calls an abomination to Himself. Lewis could not have known Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. Of the many blasphemous statements he has made in his writings, probably one of the worst is found on page 276 of C.S. Lewis: A Biography, by Roger Lancelyn Green. Lewis stated, "I had some ado to prevent Joy and myself from relapsing into Paganism in Attica! At Daphni it was hard not to pray to Apollo the Healer. But somehow one didn't feel it would have been very wrong - would have only been addressing Christ sub specie Apollinis."
1 Corinthians 10:20-22, "But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?"
In Crosswalk.com's weekly updates email, sent out December 26, 2001, the entire issue was devoted to praise and promotion of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic, who wrote The Lord of the Rings, he later said, to give England her own myth. Patrick W. Curles wrote in Tolkien's Impact in Literature and Life,
Tolkien saw myth as the exact opposite. His great friend C. S. Lewis once objected to Tolkien that, “...myths are lies, though lies breathed through silver.” “No,” said Tolkien, “they are not.”
There are truths, Tolkien said, that are beyond us, transcendent truths, about beauty, truth, honor, etc. There are truths that man knows exist, but they cannot be seen - they are immaterial, but no less real, to us. It is only through the language of myth that we can speak of these truths. We have come from God, Tolkien said, and only through myth, through story telling, can we aspire to the life we were made for with God. To write and/or read myth, Tolkien believed, was to meditate on the most important truths of life.
...It was Tolkien’s view of myth that that most aided C. S. Lewis in his pilgrimage to accept Christianity. All the other myths of the world, Tolkien said, are a mixture of truth and error - truth because they are written by those made by and for God - error because written by those alienated by God. But the Bible is the one true myth. It is a true accounting of truth, while everything else we do is mimicking. This perspective was decisive in Lewis’ conversion to Christianity.
....Tolkien and Lewis ... were together at least three times per week: on Tuesday mornings and Thursday evenings with the other “Inklings” (a literary circle of friends), and at least one other day for lunch. Tolkien wrote, “Friendship with Lewis compensates for much, and besides giving constant pleasure and comfort has done me much good from the contact with a man at once honest, brave, intellectual - a scholar, a poet, and a philosopher - and a lover, at least after a long pilgrimage, of Our Lord.”...
Jeff Robinson of the Baptist Press News Service, wrote in the article 'Lord of the Rings' has ring of Christian Lord, about James Parkers view of the Lord of the Rings movie.
In a lecture on the life of Tolkien, James Parker, professor of worldview and culture at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said the movie will serve as fruitful viewing for Christians.
"He operates out of a thoroughgoing Trinitarian worldview and (he) says that very explicitly, plainly and bluntly on several occasions," Parker said Dec.5 . "He has a traditionalist Catholic worldview, which means his doctrine of God, his doctrine of the Trinity and his Christology were totally orthodox.
"I have differences with him because of his positions on soteriology (the doctrine of salvation) and ecclesiology (the doctrine of the church). But in terms of his Trinitarian formulation of the doctrine of God, there would be no differences (between Protestants and Catholics) because of his historical orthodox expressions of those doctrines. In fact, he says himself that 'The Lord of the Rings' grows out of this fundamental belief system."
It was Tolkien who, as a professor of Anglo-Saxon language at Oxford University, led a colleague to embrace Christ in 1929. The colleague was C.S. Lewis, who would go on to become a stalwart apologist for the Christian faith. Lewis also wrote a Christian fantasy series, "The Chronicles of Narnia," along with apologetic works such as "Mere Christianity," and "The Problem of Pain."
It was Tolkien's view of myth -- that it is always grounded in the reality of the transcendent God, (even if subtly) -- that ultimately shattered the barriers to Christianity for Lewis.
"Tolkien did not mean by 'myth' that it is defined as 'non-historical,'" Parker said, "but that it exhibits certain characteristics, certain ideas, recurring themes such as the dying and rising God, the sense of the moral universe behind things.
"Lewis said when he read the Gospels, he felt like he was reading a myth because it contained mythical elements. But ultimately, he knew it was fact. This was the 'true myth' that was absolutely true and historical."
But can the Tolkien movie bridge the gap between Christians and non-Christians in a way that will enable believers to proclaim the saving Gospel of God? Parker feels confident that the movie -- with its patently theistic world, albeit a make-believe one -- will do just that.
"The moral universe will do that," he said. "If they are really into Tolkien, you can go back to the 'Silmarilion' and the view of God which comes through there. And you can contrast that with other views in say, 'Star Wars' (with its impersonal, pantheistic 'force'), or even Harry Potter, as far as that goes.
"Also, the sense of providence that goes through it -- there is a sense of providential oversight in 'The Lord of the Rings' that is inexorable. You have all these individual players whose roles are not lessened by the overarching providential drive of the story."
First the Catholic view is not the Biblically sound view. Difference in salvation?? There is only one way to God, through Jesus Christ. Second I've been to Tolkien sites--and most --unless Christian already--deny that Tolkien ever intended a Christian meaning. And they quote from his words as well. In the previous articles it has been discussed in-depth why fables and myth are not of God, nor tools for presenting Jesus Christ. Just because someone wrote that it is okay--does not make it okay with God. Every word used by Tolkien to describe promoting his fables is directly against the Word of God. As stated in Harry Potter & Every Imagination of the Heart:
"As discussed in our article Have Nothing to Do With Fables or Old Wives Tales, we are told to have nothing to do with fables, that is, "2. an untrue story; falsehood 3. A legend, Myth."
The Greek word for 'fables' is found in Strong's Concordance as 3454. muthos, "perhaps from the same as 3453 (through the idea of tuition); a tale, i.e. fiction ("myth"):--fable
Paul warned in 1 Timothy 1:4 Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do."
We have clear Biblical instruction to not be involved with fables, myths, fiction and so on. It does not say we can read fables and be edified. It does not say we can read or write fables and learn sound doctrine from them or use them as an evangelism tool. It says to have nothing to do with fables. This cannot be confused with Christ teaching in parables, which some have tried to say is the same thing. If it was the same thing, we would not have been given these very serious warnings and commands to have nothing to do with fables. A Parable, which Jesus used frequently, is a short story of everyday life used to teach a moral by comparison or by implication. According to Strong's Concordance, it is "an earthly story with a heavenly meaning." Jesus taught the truth with situations that could easily be applied in our own lives. He did not immerse those stories in witchcraft and false gods, nor did he purvey lies of the occult. Those who propagate the idea that a fable is the same as Christ's parables are misinformed and Biblically inaccurate.
Crosswalk which is the mouth piece of ecumenical evangelicals, presented the following article from Amy Hollingsworth, a Home-schooling mom. She advocates Tolkien, Lewis and Rowling as worthy authors for Christian families.
Escape from the Hobbit Hole, by Amy Hollingsworth; Professor, Author and Home-schooling Mother: Learn life long lessons from Tolkien--and say yes to adventure.
Crosswalk.com HomeSchool Channel
"....Opponents of fantasy say that it creates an unreality that’s not healthy for kids. I say it gives them an outlet to express very real fears and concerns. And so it was with The Hobbit. When I picked it up from the library shelf one day, I thought my kids and I would enjoy it for a few weeks and then be done with it. But five months later, we were still reading. Not because it’s an enormous book (my husband read three Tom Swift books to my son and daughter in the time it took me to read The Hobbit to them), but we were savoring it, letting its images linger, unwilling to depart from Tolkien’s great imaginative world any sooner than we had to.
The focal point of the novel is a diminutive creature named Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo is a hobbit, a creature with hairy feet, a fruity laugh and a preference for safety and routine (adventures, after all, “make you late for dinner”). That all changes one day when a wizard named Gandalf and thirteen dwarves show up at his hobbit hole. The Tookish part of Bilbo (a less respectable branch of the family tree, one that actually succumbed to adventure from time to time) is slowly awakened. Bilbo is hired as a burglar, to steal back the treasures hoarded by the dragon Smaug. En route, he and the dwarves run into all kinds of obstacles: trolls, wolves, elves, goblins, giant spiders, a bear-man and an amusing little creature named Gollum (who hisses and refers to himself as “precious”).
Besides giving Jonathan an outlet for his fears, The Hobbit also gave his imagination a jumpstart. Usually a prolific writer, Jonathan had hit a dry spell for nearly half a year. But The Hobbit had sparked a revival, and Jonathan was again trusting in his ability to create—although he did borrow freely from Tolkien’s images and style. He sat at the computer for hours (even forgoing a few football games with friends), composing an epic about a character named Gnome. Unlike Bilbo, Gnome was a rather tall fellow; like Bilbo, Gnome had a dislike for adventure (“He preferred to work in his office,” Jonathan wrote).
...When he wasn’t content with the plot he was weaving, Jonathan started on a second story, this time Gnome had an alter ego, a boy named Steven (yes, the name of his friend who questioned our choice to learn at home). He originally wrote Steven as a sort of bad guy—he grabs the mayor by his shirt collar in one scene—then changed his character to the hero...Jonathan also realized that to become a great writer you have to read great writers. He noticed that when he began to write again, he borrowed not only from Tolkien, but also from two other favorite authors: J.K. Rowling and Clyde Robert Bulla. I was quick to point out (with perhaps more relish than was called for) that none of the novels adapted from the Pokémon movies made it into his mix. ...As I looked back over the last months, I realized what an impact that little guy had had upon my little guy. Bilbo had encouraged Jonathan to start writing again, to trust his imagination. Bilbo had broken the Captain Underpants curse, and Jonathan was choosing to read C.S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew instead. And Bilbo gave Jonathan the courage to confront a dragon of his own, one who twisted words to make him doubt.
The fact that this mom advocates all the witchcraft, and occult imagery as a positive pursuit has been addressed already. Her statement, "Bilbo had encouraged Jonathan to start writing again, to trust his imagination," takes us back to the imagination and the imagination of the heart. The heart is desperately wicked, and imagination is not to be trusted. Children are just as able to think about and be part of sin as adults. Children are to be 'trained up in the things of the Lord.' This hardly qualifies.
Psalm 1:1, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night."
Rather than trusting the writings of fables, witchcraft, myth and the occult for sound doctrine and direction, I prefer Jesus words,
Matthew 7:18-21, "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."
Copyright . All articles are the sole property of SeekGod.ca and Vicky Dillen
Real Names and Real Witches
by Vicky Dillen | SOURCE
Jeremiah 3:17, 7:24...
"At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart. 24 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward."
Many say that fables or fiction are innocent reading. However, we've shown that imagination itself reveals what is inside a heart. And there is wicked imagination, purposes and ideas and there is imagination, purposes and ideas that honor God. There are none in this world that can please God without that person knowing Jesus Christ.
J.K. Rowling's first book was called Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and also the Sorcerer's Stone. Right from the title we have deep occult knowledge and pursuits.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica article on the Philosophers Stone: "The stone, also referred to as the 'tincture' or the 'powder' ... was allied to an elixir of life ... Inasmuch as alchemy was concerned not only with the search for a method of upgrading less valuable metals but also of perfecting the human soul, the philosopher's stone was thought to cure illnesses, prolong life, and bring about spiritual revitalization."
Revelation 21:8...
"But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death."
The search for the Philosopher's Stone is well known in alchemy, that is, alchemy defined by occultists as,
"... There are three main ideas about the origin of the word alchemy. Firstly, from ancient Egyptian transmitted through Arabic 'al-khem', from the Egyptian hieroglyphics...Km.t which form the native name of Egypt, 'Chem', meaning 'black earth'. Thus one derivation of the word alchemy is the 'Egyptian art', or the 'art of the black earth'. The second derivation is from the Greek word 'chemeia', found in the writings of Diocletian, the art of making metal ingots. The third derivation is from the Greek word 'chumeia', the art of extracting juices or infusions from plants, and thus herbal medicines and tinctures....Alchemy is so multifaceted that any definition restricts alchemy to a particular view or excludes aspects that should come within the realm of the alchemical. One cannot reduce alchemy to practical laboratory work, or to interior meditative work with symbols, or to being only a spiritual pursuit. Anthropological, Jungian, esoteric, history of science, semiotic, or other interpretations, are only ways of looking at alchemy. In recent years some people have tended to use the term in a very broad sense. Definitions of alchemy tend to reflect individual's underlying philosophical preconception. Perhaps it is best if we found our view of alchemy on the body of alchemical writings, the manuscripts and printed books that constitute and embody the alchemical tradition. This body of alchemical knowledge, preserved in many libraries throughout the world, is probably the securest foundation on which to build a view of alchemy. [Alchemy Faq> http://www.levity.com/alchemy/faq.html]
One website asks, "Superconductivity And Modern Alchemy Has The Philosopher's Stone Been Found?" and presents these heretical and blasphemous thoughts.
"....A new line of thought consumed David Hudson. He read over 500 books on alchemy and its history. He reread the Bible, finding many references to the white powder. He talked to Rabbis well versed in the ancient secrets of Judaism who told him of "white powders" available only to the priests of Solomon's Temple. This is referred to as "manna," food of the gods. Hudson's research has led him to believe that ingesting the manna enabled the priests to approach the Ark of the Covenant without being killed.
In his lecture, Hudson gave fascinating details about the Ark and a scientific explanation behind the manna's protection. He also discussed where the priests obtained their formula for making the white powders and how this formula was lost after the Temple was destroyed. He explained his theories about the Essenes and why he thinks Mary was given the white powders of gold in preparation for the conception and birth of Jesus.
Nostradamus predicted that by 1999 "occult gold" would be known to science. Other prophecies indicate the discovery of this "occult gold" would be made by a direct descendant of the Davidic blood line. According to the book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, the Davidic blood line is continued today in the French de Guise family name. Long after his research into the white powders began, David Hudson discovered he was a direct descendant of this French family. [David Hudson 1995> http://www.eclecticviewpoint.com/evhudson.html]
Another article discussing Hudson and the Philosopher's Stone, stated:
Spiritual Powers of the White Powder
Hudson said that the naturally-occurring white powder is comprised of all the precious ORMEs in rather fixed proportions. (At least from his ores.) He stated that each ORME affects a different gland (seal) of the body. Ancient literature says that the white powder of gold effects the seventh seal (the pineal gland), other white powders effect other seals. Hudson believes that proper spiritual usage would require that you take all the elements in their naturally-occurring proportions. That's what the Egyptians did.
Hudson pointed out that the ancient Egyptian literature only discusses the white powder of gold. Yet, the powder which was found in the pyramids contained all the monatomic elements in the expected percentages. The dominant element was rhodium. He believes that the reason that the Egyptians only mentioned gold was because they were simply unaware of the other elements. [The White Powder > http://monatomic.earth.com/contributed/white-powder-primer.html]
Hence, the first book in the Potter series is based on the very real occult activity of searching for immortality, based on real witchcraft and occult teachings. On the back cover of the book is a picture of a wizard holding a book with nothing less than a pentagram on it, and the background is covered with stars shaped like upright pentagrams, which symbolizes the power of witchcraft. The pentagram, called the great Rite in witchcraft, is one of the main symbols in witchcraft and occultism. Used in ritual magic, divination, the conjuration of spirits, casting spells and summoning demonic help, it is not simply part of a cute drawing. When the pentagram points skyward, it's denoting witchcraft, while if the point is downward it is signifying Satanists. The view of the pentagram on the book is pointing down, meaning that it is for black magic rites, calling Satan and so on. This is not light fluff. This is real to occultists.
Rowling's penchant for 'making up names' isn't really about deriving original names. Rather, names are found from mythology, folklore, other works of fiction, and from real people, towns or occult sources. Rowling presents actual witches as heroes in her works of fiction. The best example is found in the Chocolate Frogs trading cards.
"Chocolate Frogs have cards inside them, you know, to collect - famous witches and wizards. I've got about five hundred....Ron was more interested in eating the frogs than looking at the famous Witches and Wizards cards, but Harry couldn't keep his eyes off them. Soon he had not only Dumbledore and Morgana, but Hengis of Woodcroft, Alberic Grunnion, Circe, Paracelsus and Merlin. He finally tore his eyes away from the druidess Cliodna, who was scratching her nose..." [pp77-78]
Cliodna was the daughter of a High Druid and is also the Banshee/Beansà of the O'Keeffe clan and is a faery Queen in Southwest Ireland. She is also noted as being the Goddess of beauty and the otherworld. Circe was a sorceress in Greek mythology who turned people into swine. 'Hedwig' was a medieval Catholic Saint whose marriage to Duke Henry1 of Silesia united Silesian history through German influence. From the Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume III "....she gave her support to new monastic foundations and assisted those already in existence....She was interred in the church attached to the monastery, and was canonized by Clement IV,26 March, 1267, and on 25 August of the same year her remains were raised to the honours of the altar. Her feast is celebrated 17 October; she in honoured as the patroness of Silesia...." [St. Hedwig > http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07189a.htm]
Alberic [Grunnion], a Wizard on a Chocolate Frog Trading Card, was the king of the dwarves in Wagner's 'Ring of the Nibelung'.
Nicholas Flamel, a real historic sorcerer, plays a key role in the book. Referring to the trading card of Albus Dumbledore, we read:
"Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindlewald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel'!...'Nicolas Flamel,' she whispered dramatically, 'is the only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone!'...She pushed the book toward them, and Harry and Ron read: The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Philosopher's Stone...the stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal...the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist...Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life...'A stone that makes gold and stops you ever dying!' said Harry. 'No wonder Snape's after it! Anyone would want it.'"(pp.160-161 )
Yes, occultists and those who seek after eternal life without Jesus Christ do desire immorality. They would 'be gods.' Note that Harry presents the emotional response that 'anyone' would want it. Our hero desires immortality through actual occult means.
Towards the end of the book, we are presented with the promotion of suicide as an honorable way of helping others. Flamel and his real wife Perenelle have killed themselves to hide the secret of the Philosopher's Stone, with Flamel being the significant age of 666 years.
...Dumbledore smiled at the look of amazement on Harry's face. 'To one as young as you, I'm sure it seems incredible, but to Nicolas and Perenelle, it really is like going to bed after a very, very long day. After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." (p.218)
From the Testament of Nicholas Flamel (also written Flammel)--"...and after the death of my faithful partner Perenelle, am seized with a desire and a delight, in remembrance of her, and in your behalf, dear nephew, to write out the whole magistery of the secret of the Powder of Projection, or the Philosophical Tincture, which God hath willed to impart to his very insignificant servant, and which I have found out, as thou also wilt find out in working as I shall declare unto you...." http://www.levity.com/alchemy/testment.html
Around 1361 Flamel found an occult book called "The Sacred Book of Abraham the Jew, Priest, Levite, Astrologer and Philosopher to that Tribe of Jews who by the Wrath of God were Dispersed amongst the Gauls." On a trip to Spain in 1382, Flamel supposedly met a Jew who explained the "mysteries" of this text to him. He returned to Paris with the alchemist keys and became wealthy. In speaking of the Book, Flamel, wrote that only a Cabalist could understand it's meaning.
"....Upon the first of the leaves was written in great Capital Letters of Gold: Abraham the Jew, Prince, Priest, Levite, Astrologer, and Philosopher, to the Nation of the Jews, by the Wrath of God dispersed among the Gauls, sendeth Health. After this it was filled with great execrations and curses (with this word Maranatha, which was often repeated there) against every person that should cast his eyes upon it if he were not Sacrificer or Scribe....no man could ever have been able to understand it without being well skilled in their Cabala, which goeth by tradition, and without having well studied their books..... These Hieroglyphic figures shall serve as two ways to lead unto the heavenly life: the first and most open sense teaching the sacred Mysteries of our salvation; (as I will show hereafter) the other teaching every man that hath any small understanding in the Stone the lineary way of the work; which being perfected by any one, the change of evil into good takes away from him the root of all sin, (which is covetousness) making him liberal, gentle, pious, religious, and fearing God, how evil soever he was before, for from thenceforward he is continually ravished with the great grace and mercy which he hath obtained from God, and with the profoundness of his Divine and admirable works....Let him, therefore, who having well weighed my words, and well known and understood my figures, hath first gotten elsewhere the knowledge of the first beginnings and Agents, (for certainly in these Figures and Commentaries he shall not find any step or information thereof), perfect, to the glory of God, the Mastery of Hermes, remembering himself of the Church Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman; and of all other Churches, Church-yards, and Hospitals; and above all of the Church of the Innocents in this City, [Flammels' Hieroglyphics > http://www.levity.com/alchemy/flam_h0.html]
".... The Ancient Sages that were Cabalists, have described it in their Metamorphoses, under the History of the Serpent of Mars, which had devoured the companions of Cadmus, who slew him, piercing him with his lance against a hollow Oak..." [Flammel's Hieroglyphics Chapter III > http://www.levity.com/alchemy/flam_h3.html]
Occult encyclopedias state that legend teaches that Flamel and his wife faked their deaths and are still living. Which, would be why Rowlings showed Flamel alive and well working with Dumbledore, also a sorcerer. Honored as an adept by occultists, January17 is 'his day'. "Nicholas Flamel is listed as one of (the Prieuré de Sion's) Grand Masters and January 17 -- given by him as the date on which he achieved the Great Work -- is a day held sacred by them, a day specially set apart to honor alchemical perfection." [Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, Turin Shroud: In Whose Image? The Truth Behind the Centuries-Long Conspiracy of Silence, HarperCollins Pub., 1994, p. 99]
Paracelsus (1493-1541) is also an icon of modern day witches and wizards! He was also an alchemist, that is, a sorcerer and was famous for reviving the use of Talismans. Albert Pike wrote in his Masonic "Morals and Dogma" that: "The Hermetic Art is, therefore, at the same time a religion, a philosophy, and a natural science...we must inquire for its processes of Paracelsus [and] Nicholas Flamel..." (p.774) According to Pike, the goal of magic is to master the universe by learning the principles of divine creation. That is, in effect, the holy grail of Freemasonry, according to Albert Pike. To that end he turns to the occult. And Pike is a true occultist, fluent in its history and arcane philosophies.
The Morals and Dogma preceding pages to this quote deal with the goals and methods of the occultists in ages past, specifically focusing on Hermeticism, Gnosticism, Kabala and alchemy, taking up the ancient occult quest of mastering the creative principle of the universe, or in effect, man becoming god, or co-creator of the universe.
"...Creation is the habitation of the Creator-Word. To create, the Generative Power and Productive Capacity must unite, the Binary become Unity again by the conjunction...
To be always rich, always young, and never to die: such has been in all times the dream of the alchemists. ...
to possess the universal medicine and elixir of life; such is the problem to be resolved, in order to accomplish the desire and realize this dream....
The Great Work is, above all things, the creation of man by himself; that is to say, the full and entire conquest which he effects of his faculties and his future. It is, above all, the emancipation of his will, which assures him the universal empire of Azoth, and the domain of magnetism, that is, complete power over the universal magical agent." (pgs. 772, 773)
"The whole Hermetic Science (magic) is contained in the dogma of Hermes (ancient), engraven originally, it is said, on a tablet of emerald...
The Hermetic Art is, therefore, at the same time a religion, a philosophy, and a natural science. As a religion it is that of the Anient Magi and the Initiates of all ages; as a philosophy, we may find its principles in the school of Alexandria and the theories of Pythagoras; as a science we must inquire for its processes of Paracelsus [and] Nicholas Flamel, and Raymond Lulle.
The science is a real one only for those who admit and understand the philosophy and the religion; as its process will succeed only for the Adept who has attained the sovereignty of will, and so become the King of the elementary world; for the grand agent of the operation of the sun. is that force described in the symbol of Hermes, of the table of emerald; it is the universal magical power; the spiritual, fiery, motive power; it is the Od, according to the Hebrews, as the Astral light, according to others."
Paracelsus is mentioned in the Seek God article The Legend of Hanukkah when referring to the Talisman of Saturn:
"Theophrastus Paracelsus revived, in the XVIth century, the ancient doctrine of Talismans, which he claimed to be able to use successfully in the treatment of illnesses and accidents. This medical doctrine, derived from the Cabala, or secret tradition of the Jewish rabbis, was said to be borrowed from the ancient occult sciences of Chaldea and Egypt. The talisman (tsilmenaia) signifies an image, a figure, and was engraved in the form of an emblem or symbol on metals consecrated to the genii of the seven planets. This magical task had to be carried out at a fixed time of a certain day, with the firm intention of attracting to the talisman the beneficent influence of the genius which was invoked, whether for health or any other protective measures...
It's very noteworthy that students of Hogwarts engaged in the use of talismans for protection, as described, "...hidden from the teachers, a roaring trade in talismans, amulets and other protective devices...evil smelling green onion, a pointed purple crystal..." [p.139, Chamber of Secrets]
Paracelsus is also discussed in the Seek God article Practical Kabbalah: Talismans and Masters of the Name
Gershom Scholem suggests that while many created the "golem" from the earth, others were able to produce the "creature" by "influx of the alphabet"--out of thin air. Many stories recount that the "golem" was made to "work" or accompany the adept, although few "golem" are reported to have the ability of "speech". Polish stories particularly focus on the 'golem' as a mute worker who was able to follow commands. According to Scholem (p.172), it was this parallel in Jewish golem and alchemy that finally led to Paracelsus' idea of the "homunculus." These wax or clay figures were employed in back magic to inflict injury on enemies.
The Basilisk, a giant creature with snake-like features and in the Chamber of Secrets, was presented as coming from the Slytherin statue, which came alive when Voldemort/Riddle spoke to it in snake language. If it looked in Harry's eye, he would die. Basilisk is another name for the Philosopher's Stone. [Names > http://www.levity.com/alchemy/gratacol.html] Meaning, that the symbol of Satan--a serpent, offers immortality or the Elixir of life.
This takes one back to the Garden of Eden, and those most destructive words in Genesis 3:1 "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?...4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."
Jesus said in John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father
Jesus spoke to those who would not believe who He was and rather followed after Satan and his lies and false promises, by saying in John 8:43 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. 44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."
Further about the Basilisk, also from the Alchemy website > http://www.levity.com/alchemy/home.html
"....the herb Squilla or the Onion, is good against evil spirits and night apparitions. For Plinius, speaking of this herb, saith that Pythagoras wittnesses that when they hang onions above the entrance of the door, that it drives away all evil spirits that would enter the house. Of the Weasel which carries rue in his mouth, all naturalists relate that it provides himself therewith against the Basilisk and all venomous snakes, and this is the opinion of some of the ancient....The Basilisk, as it is written, is a sort of snake. Whereof, not only the breath, but also the sight, are infectious. And the creatures which are killed by her poison, are not touched by other creatures; how hungry and gluttonous soever they may be. And if by mere hunger they do touch the same, they die immediately. Wherefore, the Basilisk is avoided of all other creatures, how poisonous soever they may be, as surpassing all other creatures by her poison; as AEtius and Plinius relate...."[Iconologia > http://www.levity.com/alchemy/iconol03.html]
Another site provides further connection of the Basilisk to Paraclesus and sorcery. "THE AURORA OF THE PHILOSOPHERS. BY THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS. "...Others have purified the white and yolk of eggs; from which has been generated a basilisk...." [Aurora > http://www.levity.com/alchemy/paracel3.html]
The Dragon is considered by some alchemists to be superior and stronger than the basilisk. [Book of > http://www.levity.com/alchemy/lambtext.html] The dragon of course is a reference to Satan.
In occult lore, which Rowling presents, a Basilisk is the creature created when a chicken's egg is hatched by a toad on a bed of dung, and to have a three-pointed tail, glittering eyes and a crown on its head. It must be hatched during the days of Sirius the star. It's glance is said to be lethal, and could only be destroyed by watching it in a mirror. This belief is related to the myth of the Gorgon's head. In the East , its body was supposed to be a mixture of cock, snake and toad. According to Diel, this projected image of the human psyche is clearly infernal in character, as is shown by it's threefold attributes (it's three-pointed crest and trifurcated tail) since they are an inversion of the qualities of the Trinity; and also by the predominance of evil components, such as the toad and the snake. It is one of the many "keepers of treasure" mentioned in legend. [Burns p.133-134]
It's important to note that the Hogwarts School Crest has the images of a Lion, a serpent with a trifurcated tail and holding a leaf in it's mouth, a badger and an eagle which looks more like a phoenix.
The Witch Morgana found on the Chocolate Frog Trading Cards, figures into the King Arthur legend. According to the legend, Morgan le Fay, or Morgana, was the witch in the castle that Wart and Kay encountered with Robin Wood (Robin Hood), Maid Marian, Little John, and the merry men to rescue Friar Tuck, the Dog Boy, and an old man named Wat. Morgana was the child of the Duke of Cornwall and Igraine, the woman Uther Pendragon seduced to have Arthur.
She was also linked with the Goddess's Macha and Morrighan of Ireland. In Welsh tradition Morgana is the daughter of Avallach or Avalloc, king in the Otherworld. The concept of the Otherworld was central to the religion of the pre-Christian Celts and is the same as the parallel world Rowlings presents Harry Potter and the wizards in. It is the realm of quest and achievement, of challenge and encounter, of initiation and enlightenment. Mystics travel there through meditation. "'One of the chief recurrent images of Celtic mythology and legend is a visit to or from the 'Otherworld' - a realm somehow detached from this present world, or at most times, to all but a chosen few, invisible. It may be visibly cut off by ocean, river, lake, by mountain rock, or by mist, or hidden within the mountain itself. Sometimes it can only be entered by the overcoming of a test or through the sustaining of a mortal wound. Always cut off by some sort of barrier from the world of earthly existence.'" "'Within the 'Otherworld', archetypal forces are perceptible, essential wisdom teachings are available to those who have the right keys." "'The 'Otherworld' has its own valid reality which is not accessible to the five senses, though it is appreciable by the sixth. It is often spoken of as a state of consciousness.' Islands were regarded as particularly sacred with their role as gateways to the Otherworld and Boats are viewed as starting the journey through the gateway to the otherworld. [otherworld > http://www.lundyisleofavalon.co.uk/mythology/otherworld.htm] This is noteworthy as new arrivals to Hogwarts travel across the lake in boats.
Albus Dumbledore, who is presented as being over a hundred years old and a great wizard, wrote the letter telling Harry of his place at Hogwarts, and had listed his titles as "Headmaster, Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., [sorcerer], Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards." [p 42] A warlock is a male witch. A Sorcerer is a witch.
Albus' is Latin for 'white'. It is also one of the figures of geomancy, an ancient divination method, with Feng Shui being the Chinese method. Geomancy is any system of divination (an attempt to get in touch with the divine) related to manipulation of the earth. Caput Draconis, Latin for 'dragon's head, is one of the figures of geomancy, and a password to the boys rooms at Hogwarts. Other Geomancy figures include Fortuna Major, and Rubeus, all of which also appear in H.P as characters or passwords. [Astrological Geomancy by Anthony Louis> http://www.accessnewage.com/articles/astro/TLOUIS4.htm]
According to a Geomancy website,
"Geomancy had its heyday in the Renaissance during Western Europe's transition from the medieval to the modern world. It's most famous spokesperson was Henry Cornelius Agrippa, born in 1486, and author of several texts in Latin on occult philosophy. Agrippa's attitude toward geomancy was ambivalent. Although he wrote the major geomantic text of the period, he commented on his own work and about the "common geomancy" of his predecessors, "I too have written a geomancy quite different from the rest but no less superstitious and fallacious or if you wish I will even say 'mendacious.'" Nonetheless, Agrippa appears to have practiced and written extensively on the subject.
By the time Agrippa wrote about geomancy, it had undergone an evolution. No longer were the marks on the earth interpreted in their own right; now they were used in combination with a horoscope wheel depicting the twelve astrological houses." [Astrological Geomancy by Anthony Louis> http://www.accessnewage.com/articles/astro/TLOUIS4.htm]
Agrippa was also a Wizard on a Chocolate Frog Trading Card. Henry Cornelius Agrippa > http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jlynch/Frank/People/agrippa.html--noted Alchemist and mystic...the Rosicrucian manifestos, The Fame and Confession of the Fraternity of R: C: commonly, of the Rosie Cross. ... 1652 "....the Improvements of this fatal Invention are not known even to the present Generations, for the Pyrography of Cornelius Agrippa,....The second Philosophical work is commonly called the gross work, but 'tis one of the greatest Subtitles in all the Art. Cornelius Agrippa, knew the first Preparation, and hath clearly discovered it, but the Difficulty of the second made him almost an enemy to his own Profession. By the second work, I understand not Coagulation, but the Solution of the Philosophical Salt, a secret which Agrippa did not rightly know, as it appears by his practice at Malines, nor would Natelius teach him, for all his frequent, and serious entreaties....' [Rosicrucian Manifestos] http://www.levity.com/alchemy/vaughanp.html
'Dumbledore' is the Old English for 'bumblebee, and the French word 'dore' means 'golden'. In the occult, and Masonry, the bee is sacred to the goddess Venus. In Greece, they served at the greatest Greek festival in honor of Demeter, the Queen Bee, celebrating the return of Persephone from Hades; they are associated with rebirth and are an accepted symbol of generative power. It is also considered a symbol of the soul influenced by the Sun and possessing immortality and spiritual telepathy. [Burns p. 135] Dumbledore is portrayed as having extensive telepathy and awareness of what was happening without being in person. It was shown in the battle with the basilisk, by his sending Fawkes the phoenix and the sword which Harry pulled from the hat--(no different than the Sword and the Stone, only Harry/Arthur could pull it out)--although he was not physically present to see what was taking place.
Besides being listed on the Trading cards, Merlin is important to sorcerers and Arthurian legend. In the Potter books Dumbledore, of the Order of Merlin, is considered an equal to Voldermort in power. The Order of Merlin signifies the allegiance to the Druidic concept of Merlin. "....the Ancient Druidic state the Druid was teacher of truth and the dispenser of justice. As teachers they taught that the light of intelligence destroys the darkness of superstition and ignorance, hence the first precept of Merlin, the great Druidic teacher, “Labor diligently to acquire knowledge for it is power.”..." http://www.neopagan.net/UAODbooklet.HTML
New Agers revel in Merlin lore and Arthurian legends, and there is a current practice of calling "forth the spirit of Merlin from King Arthur's Court.". Merlin of Arthurian legend may have been a real person, but in the fable is a magician, seer and is still a wizard/witch and considered the most famous and revered Druid throughout Druid history. A so-called "prophetess" on the Internet distributed an entire book called Prophecies of War, which were channeled by none other than the Angel Merlin.
According to one website Merlin was, "The wizard who brought together the two who were to become the parents of the most famous king of Britain, Arthur. King Uther Pendragon fathered on Igraine, wife to Duke Gorlois of Cornwall, and Merlin took over the youth's rearing, after his father was killed. Merlin is credited with the building of Stonehenge, and the fashioning of the Round Table. Born himself under dubious and uncertain circumstances, Merlin eventually fell in love with Nineve, the daughter of a Siren, and taught her how to bind him magically to her, so that he remained forever in the enchanted wood with her." http://www.clubi.ie/lestat/ofgodsm.html
Another website states, The Story of Druidism: History, Legend and Lore 1.3
There may have been a real Merlin, such as the one Nikolai Tolstoy describes in Quest for Merlin:
“...Merlin was indeed an historical figure, living in what are now the lowlands of Scotland at the end of the sixth century A.D...an authentic prophet, most likely a druid surviving in a pagan enclave of the north.”
A Merlin prototype may have been the Celtic druid (Lailoken) who gained second sight after he went mad and escaped society to live in the forest. A poem from 600 describes a Welsh prophet named Myrddin. [Ask Jeeves: The History Net> http://ancienthistory.tqn.com/library/weekly/aa042898.htm]
Many would claim that Merlin lore and Druidism is based on true Christianity. From a website about the Druids,
"United Ancient Order Druids, U.A.O.D... Our truths come directly from the Bible, and the HIDDEN KNOWLEDGE of our ancient ancestors. Many of these sacred teachings were kept symbolically in the legends of Saint Merlin of England, so that the hidden, true meaning of Christ could be concealed from the profane masses, yet revealed to the deserving few through our mediation. Our rituals reflect our Ancient Brethern's efforts to bring true Christianity to heathen Europe, and the persection they suffered as a result of the SACRED MISSION....As Sir Knights, They fought for the oppressed, and taught morality to the barbarians. They began missions to spread knowledge and light to the masses, through the teachings of St. Merlin and our "Red Fez" prophets. By teaching THE SEVEN PRECEPTS OF MERLIN and THE SEVEN STAR POINTS, they were able to redeem those who put into practice these sacred commandments, making them free from all sin. We are proud to carry on the tradition of SERVICE, PURITY, and VIRTUE, following the teachings of the Magi, Magus-Jesus, Merlin, and the Angel of Light and Knowledge..." http://www.geocities.com/caldruids/
The Phoenixmasonry site provides the same information as above and also lists The Seven Precepts Of Merlin > http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/
First: Labor diligently to acquire knowledge, for it is power.
Second: When in authority, decide reasonably, for thine authority may cease.
Third: Bear with fortitude the ills of life, remembering that no mortal sorrow is perpetual.
Fourth: Love virtue-for it bringeth peace.
Fifth: Abhor vice-for it bringeth evil upon all.
Sixth: Obey those in authority in all just things, that virtue may be exalted.
Seventh: Cultivate the social virtues, so shalt thou be beloved by all men
[Seven precepts> www.phoenixmasonry.org/masonicmuseum/fraternalism/druids.htm]
It is very important to note that Focus on the Family, Christianity Today, Chuck Colson and many others also recommend the writings of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis as a way for children to grow spiritually. Chuck Colson suggests, "...they inspire the imagination within a Christian framework -- and prepare the hearts of readers for the real-life story of Christ." In those writings we find mention of the same Merlin mentioned above, equated to Christ. As has been stated in the previous articles, we're to have nothing to do with fables. For Chuck Colson See: Evangelicals and Catholics Together
In C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, the third book is called, "That Hideous Strength." In a nutshell, the book is about the redemption of Thulcandra (Earth) from the clutches of the Bent One, the Oyarsa of Thulcandra, who is supposedly Lucifer. It’s set in a small town called Edgestow, the home of Bracton College, just after the end of WWII. Certain Fellows of Bracton College engineer the sale of Bragdon Wood, which houses the living body of Merlin, his body preserved from aging by magic, to N.I.C.E., the National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments. N.I.C.E. is a wicked group of scientists researching use of technology to rule mankind, who think Merlin's magic powers would be helpful. They obtain the land with the purpose of disinterring and reviving Merlin and using his powers for evil. Jane Suddock's psychic powers are used to help locate Merlin and also provide information about N.I.C.E. Once discovered, Merlin’s ancient wizardry, linked with the power of the Eldil, (angels), defeat the evil N.I.C.E. in a wicked and bloody climax.
The reader is supposed to equate Merlin with Christ, who defeats Lucifer and evil. How blasphemous! That Merlin, who is revered by occultists as a druid, sorcerer, witch, wizard and every abomination thinkable, is viewed as Christ and that witchcraft and psychic powers parallel the saving power of Jesus Christ is wicked at best. For those who say children should just read Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia books, we have the same menu with witches, elves, Bacchus, false gods, and so on, all being part of the stories.
The Narnia plot revolves around the "White Witch" who has bound the land of Narnia in a perpetual winter which can only be broken by the coming of Aslan, who is supposed to represent Christ. However, no rendition of any Scripture is found in these tales except if one compares the practices of paganism and witchcraft which God calls an abomination to Himself. Lewis could not have known Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. Of the many blasphemous statements he has made in his writings, probably one of the worst is found on page 276 of C.S. Lewis: A Biography, by Roger Lancelyn Green. Lewis stated, "I had some ado to prevent Joy and myself from relapsing into Paganism in Attica! At Daphni it was hard not to pray to Apollo the Healer. But somehow one didn't feel it would have been very wrong - would have only been addressing Christ sub specie Apollinis."
1 Corinthians 10:20-22, "But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?"
In Crosswalk.com's weekly updates email, sent out December 26, 2001, the entire issue was devoted to praise and promotion of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic, who wrote The Lord of the Rings, he later said, to give England her own myth. Patrick W. Curles wrote in Tolkien's Impact in Literature and Life,
Tolkien saw myth as the exact opposite. His great friend C. S. Lewis once objected to Tolkien that, “...myths are lies, though lies breathed through silver.” “No,” said Tolkien, “they are not.”
There are truths, Tolkien said, that are beyond us, transcendent truths, about beauty, truth, honor, etc. There are truths that man knows exist, but they cannot be seen - they are immaterial, but no less real, to us. It is only through the language of myth that we can speak of these truths. We have come from God, Tolkien said, and only through myth, through story telling, can we aspire to the life we were made for with God. To write and/or read myth, Tolkien believed, was to meditate on the most important truths of life.
...It was Tolkien’s view of myth that that most aided C. S. Lewis in his pilgrimage to accept Christianity. All the other myths of the world, Tolkien said, are a mixture of truth and error - truth because they are written by those made by and for God - error because written by those alienated by God. But the Bible is the one true myth. It is a true accounting of truth, while everything else we do is mimicking. This perspective was decisive in Lewis’ conversion to Christianity.
....Tolkien and Lewis ... were together at least three times per week: on Tuesday mornings and Thursday evenings with the other “Inklings” (a literary circle of friends), and at least one other day for lunch. Tolkien wrote, “Friendship with Lewis compensates for much, and besides giving constant pleasure and comfort has done me much good from the contact with a man at once honest, brave, intellectual - a scholar, a poet, and a philosopher - and a lover, at least after a long pilgrimage, of Our Lord.”...
Jeff Robinson of the Baptist Press News Service, wrote in the article 'Lord of the Rings' has ring of Christian Lord, about James Parkers view of the Lord of the Rings movie.
In a lecture on the life of Tolkien, James Parker, professor of worldview and culture at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said the movie will serve as fruitful viewing for Christians.
"He operates out of a thoroughgoing Trinitarian worldview and (he) says that very explicitly, plainly and bluntly on several occasions," Parker said Dec.5 . "He has a traditionalist Catholic worldview, which means his doctrine of God, his doctrine of the Trinity and his Christology were totally orthodox.
"I have differences with him because of his positions on soteriology (the doctrine of salvation) and ecclesiology (the doctrine of the church). But in terms of his Trinitarian formulation of the doctrine of God, there would be no differences (between Protestants and Catholics) because of his historical orthodox expressions of those doctrines. In fact, he says himself that 'The Lord of the Rings' grows out of this fundamental belief system."
It was Tolkien who, as a professor of Anglo-Saxon language at Oxford University, led a colleague to embrace Christ in 1929. The colleague was C.S. Lewis, who would go on to become a stalwart apologist for the Christian faith. Lewis also wrote a Christian fantasy series, "The Chronicles of Narnia," along with apologetic works such as "Mere Christianity," and "The Problem of Pain."
It was Tolkien's view of myth -- that it is always grounded in the reality of the transcendent God, (even if subtly) -- that ultimately shattered the barriers to Christianity for Lewis.
"Tolkien did not mean by 'myth' that it is defined as 'non-historical,'" Parker said, "but that it exhibits certain characteristics, certain ideas, recurring themes such as the dying and rising God, the sense of the moral universe behind things.
"Lewis said when he read the Gospels, he felt like he was reading a myth because it contained mythical elements. But ultimately, he knew it was fact. This was the 'true myth' that was absolutely true and historical."
But can the Tolkien movie bridge the gap between Christians and non-Christians in a way that will enable believers to proclaim the saving Gospel of God? Parker feels confident that the movie -- with its patently theistic world, albeit a make-believe one -- will do just that.
"The moral universe will do that," he said. "If they are really into Tolkien, you can go back to the 'Silmarilion' and the view of God which comes through there. And you can contrast that with other views in say, 'Star Wars' (with its impersonal, pantheistic 'force'), or even Harry Potter, as far as that goes.
"Also, the sense of providence that goes through it -- there is a sense of providential oversight in 'The Lord of the Rings' that is inexorable. You have all these individual players whose roles are not lessened by the overarching providential drive of the story."
First the Catholic view is not the Biblically sound view. Difference in salvation?? There is only one way to God, through Jesus Christ. Second I've been to Tolkien sites--and most --unless Christian already--deny that Tolkien ever intended a Christian meaning. And they quote from his words as well. In the previous articles it has been discussed in-depth why fables and myth are not of God, nor tools for presenting Jesus Christ. Just because someone wrote that it is okay--does not make it okay with God. Every word used by Tolkien to describe promoting his fables is directly against the Word of God. As stated in Harry Potter & Every Imagination of the Heart:
"As discussed in our article Have Nothing to Do With Fables or Old Wives Tales, we are told to have nothing to do with fables, that is, "2. an untrue story; falsehood 3. A legend, Myth."
The Greek word for 'fables' is found in Strong's Concordance as 3454. muthos, "perhaps from the same as 3453 (through the idea of tuition); a tale, i.e. fiction ("myth"):--fable
Paul warned in 1 Timothy 1:4 Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do."
We have clear Biblical instruction to not be involved with fables, myths, fiction and so on. It does not say we can read fables and be edified. It does not say we can read or write fables and learn sound doctrine from them or use them as an evangelism tool. It says to have nothing to do with fables. This cannot be confused with Christ teaching in parables, which some have tried to say is the same thing. If it was the same thing, we would not have been given these very serious warnings and commands to have nothing to do with fables. A Parable, which Jesus used frequently, is a short story of everyday life used to teach a moral by comparison or by implication. According to Strong's Concordance, it is "an earthly story with a heavenly meaning." Jesus taught the truth with situations that could easily be applied in our own lives. He did not immerse those stories in witchcraft and false gods, nor did he purvey lies of the occult. Those who propagate the idea that a fable is the same as Christ's parables are misinformed and Biblically inaccurate.
Crosswalk which is the mouth piece of ecumenical evangelicals, presented the following article from Amy Hollingsworth, a Home-schooling mom. She advocates Tolkien, Lewis and Rowling as worthy authors for Christian families.
Escape from the Hobbit Hole, by Amy Hollingsworth; Professor, Author and Home-schooling Mother: Learn life long lessons from Tolkien--and say yes to adventure.
Crosswalk.com HomeSchool Channel
"....Opponents of fantasy say that it creates an unreality that’s not healthy for kids. I say it gives them an outlet to express very real fears and concerns. And so it was with The Hobbit. When I picked it up from the library shelf one day, I thought my kids and I would enjoy it for a few weeks and then be done with it. But five months later, we were still reading. Not because it’s an enormous book (my husband read three Tom Swift books to my son and daughter in the time it took me to read The Hobbit to them), but we were savoring it, letting its images linger, unwilling to depart from Tolkien’s great imaginative world any sooner than we had to.
The focal point of the novel is a diminutive creature named Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo is a hobbit, a creature with hairy feet, a fruity laugh and a preference for safety and routine (adventures, after all, “make you late for dinner”). That all changes one day when a wizard named Gandalf and thirteen dwarves show up at his hobbit hole. The Tookish part of Bilbo (a less respectable branch of the family tree, one that actually succumbed to adventure from time to time) is slowly awakened. Bilbo is hired as a burglar, to steal back the treasures hoarded by the dragon Smaug. En route, he and the dwarves run into all kinds of obstacles: trolls, wolves, elves, goblins, giant spiders, a bear-man and an amusing little creature named Gollum (who hisses and refers to himself as “precious”).
Besides giving Jonathan an outlet for his fears, The Hobbit also gave his imagination a jumpstart. Usually a prolific writer, Jonathan had hit a dry spell for nearly half a year. But The Hobbit had sparked a revival, and Jonathan was again trusting in his ability to create—although he did borrow freely from Tolkien’s images and style. He sat at the computer for hours (even forgoing a few football games with friends), composing an epic about a character named Gnome. Unlike Bilbo, Gnome was a rather tall fellow; like Bilbo, Gnome had a dislike for adventure (“He preferred to work in his office,” Jonathan wrote).
...When he wasn’t content with the plot he was weaving, Jonathan started on a second story, this time Gnome had an alter ego, a boy named Steven (yes, the name of his friend who questioned our choice to learn at home). He originally wrote Steven as a sort of bad guy—he grabs the mayor by his shirt collar in one scene—then changed his character to the hero...Jonathan also realized that to become a great writer you have to read great writers. He noticed that when he began to write again, he borrowed not only from Tolkien, but also from two other favorite authors: J.K. Rowling and Clyde Robert Bulla. I was quick to point out (with perhaps more relish than was called for) that none of the novels adapted from the Pokémon movies made it into his mix. ...As I looked back over the last months, I realized what an impact that little guy had had upon my little guy. Bilbo had encouraged Jonathan to start writing again, to trust his imagination. Bilbo had broken the Captain Underpants curse, and Jonathan was choosing to read C.S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew instead. And Bilbo gave Jonathan the courage to confront a dragon of his own, one who twisted words to make him doubt.
The fact that this mom advocates all the witchcraft, and occult imagery as a positive pursuit has been addressed already. Her statement, "Bilbo had encouraged Jonathan to start writing again, to trust his imagination," takes us back to the imagination and the imagination of the heart. The heart is desperately wicked, and imagination is not to be trusted. Children are just as able to think about and be part of sin as adults. Children are to be 'trained up in the things of the Lord.' This hardly qualifies.
Psalm 1:1, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night."
Rather than trusting the writings of fables, witchcraft, myth and the occult for sound doctrine and direction, I prefer Jesus words,
Matthew 7:18-21, "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."
Copyright . All articles are the sole property of SeekGod.ca and Vicky Dillen
July 13, 2009
Are All Bible Versions Reliable?
Which Bible Can We Trust?
by Roy Lister
The TEXTUS RECEPTUS, original Greek text from which the Authorized King James Bible was translated, has been the target of textual critics since 1611. Yet copies of it substantially exist today without error. This is the Bible you can trust. All this talk about older and more dependable manuscripts, like the theory of evolution, hangs upon an UNPROVEN HYPOTHESIS.
HERE'S THE ACID TEST
Any version of the Bible which omits Acts 8:37, or "Through His blood," in Col. 1:14, evidently has for its foundation a corrupted manuscript. This corruption can be traced to 200 A.D., when there lived one of the world's foremost theologians whose name was Origen. Being a TEXTUAL CRITIC, he is supposed to have corrected numerous portions of the sacred manuscripts. Evidence to the contrary shows that he changed them to agree with his own human philosophy of mystical and allegorical ideas. Thus certain original MSS. became corrupt and it is evidently from this source the revised Bibles of this generation have come. Read pages 900-902, Vol. 16, 1936 edition Encyclopedia Britannica and you will see that Origen taught the "LOGOS" is "KTISMA," meaning the Lord Jesus Christ is a created being. Thus, he could easily omit Acts 8:37 and other texts which testify to Christ's deity.
Should You Choose The Bible of Your Choice?
by DONALD T. CLARKE
THE BIBLE IS AN INSPIRED BOOK
The Bible is a supernatural gift from God and has been both inspired and preserved by the Holy Spirit. By inspired I mean that the Holy Spirit so moved upon the hearts of men that they recorded the very words that God wanted written in the Holy Bible. The Bible would be no more accurate or authoritative had God written the Scriptures with His own hand. "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Peter 1:21).
THE BIBLE IS A PRESERVED BOOK
God has safeguarded the Bible in the past from the wicked poison of human reasoning and He will continue to do so in the future. God is not the author of confusion and therefore He has only inspired and preserved one Bible. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matthew 24:35).
ONLY ONE BIBLE CAN BE THE WORD OF GOD
It has been estimated that there are nearly one hundred versions of the Bible available in the English language today. However, this multiplicity of Bibles does not alter the fact that God has inspired and safeguarded one Bible. This one Bible is written in the Greek language in the New Testament and is called the Textus Receptus or Received Text. The Old Testament has been preserved in the Masoretic Text and is written in Hebrew. The Textus Receptus of the New Testament and the Masoretic Text of the Old Testament combine to give us the complete Word of God. The King James Version of the Bible stands alone as the one Bible in use today which has been faithfully translated from these God- given manuscripts. All of the modern versions are based wholly or in part on corrupt texts.
MODERN TRANSLATIONS ARE DIFFERENT BIBLES
Modern translations are not just simply different versions of the King James Bible written in contemporary language. These perversions are different Bibles entirely. Their foundation is not the God-preserved Textus Receptus of the New Testament. Instead, they are based on contaminated, Christ-denying manuscripts which had been rejected by the early church fathers.
This turning away from the true Bible to a wicked counterfeit is largely the work of humanistic scholarship. Men who call themselves textual critics have placed their thoughts and ideas above those of God and have presumed to improve upon that one Bible which has been given by God. One can only conclude that they have been so blinded by their compromise and delusions of self-importance that they forget God has already given us His Word. The duty of every believer today is to take the one Bible which God has given and proclaim its glorious message of salvation to a sin-sick world.
"I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel . . . As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed" (Galatians 1:6, 9). Almost 2000 years ago men were preaching another gospel no doubt from another Bible. However, never since the Bible was given has it been under such Satanic attack as it is in our generation. Humanistic scholarship has deviated from the Textus Receptus in about 6000 places. This has the same effect as questioning the inerrancy of the Holy Bible in 6000 places. Charles H. Spurgeon stated it very well when he said, "The craving to alter the Word of God is accursed. This is the crime of the present day. The Lord preserve us from it."
THE PURE FOUNDATION OF THE KING JAMES VERSION
The Old Testament of the King James Bible was translated from the Masoretic Text. This text was in use during the time of Christ and He quoted from them many times. If the Masoretic Text was acceptable to Christ then it certainly should be accepted by every child of God. This text was kept pure by the Hebrew priests who were given the responsibility of caring for it.
The New Testament of the King James Version was translated in 1611 A.D. from the Greek manuscripts known today as the Textus Receptus. The scholars who did this work were giants in their field. They were far superior to the self-proclaimed scholars in Biblical criticism who are responsible for the rash of modern perversions.
The Textus Receptus from which the King James Bible was translated is a faithful reproduction of the original manuscripts, which were penned by the writers of the Scriptures. The T.R. or Traditional Text as it is also called has been traced back to the early church.
THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE KING JAMES VERSION
1. From the birth of Christ to 100 A.D. the original manuscripts were written in the Greek language.
2. The New Testament was compiled by 400 A.D.
1. by 170 A.D. -- 20 N.T. books had been accepted by the early Christians.
2. by 400 A.D. -- all 27 books of the N.T. had been accepted by the early Christians as they were guided by the Holy Spirit.
1. The Holy Spirit guided so that only the genuine books were included.
2. The Holy Spirit also guided in the selection of the pure manuscripts.
3. The Holy Spirit so guided that false gospels and manuscripts were set aside.
3. the original manuscripts were lost but the Received Text that was produced during this time was a faithful reproduction of the original autographs.
3. 452-1453 A.D. -- The Textus Receptus was used by the Greek Church during this time under the direction of the Holy Spirit.
4. 1516 A.D. -- Erasmus edited the first printing of the Greek N.T.
1. This was in agreement with the Textus Receptus.
5. 1526 A.D. -- Tyndale's New Testament in English was printed. He was burned at the stake in 1536 because he had the Bible printed in English.
6. 1550 A.D. -- Stephens Greek N.T. (Textus Receptus).
7. 1611 A.D. -- The King James or Authorised Version of the Bible was translated from the Greek Textus Receptus in the N.T. and Hebrew Masoretic Text in the O.T.
8. 1611 A.D. -- To the present. Infidels and assorted enemies of the Bible have attacked our Bible in every way known to man, but God's Word shall abide forever.
THE CORRUPT FOUNDATION OF MODERN TRANSLATIONS
The "other Bibles" which are so prevalent today are as dependable as quicksand. They will vary even from printing to printing as the constantly changing whims of man directs. However, each new Bible will continue down the same path of confusion and error. You cannot produce good fruit from a rotten tree.
THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE "OTHER BIBLES"
1. From the birth of Christ to 400 A.D. False prophets wrote polluted gospels and other books of the Bible at the same time that the true books of the New Testament were being written. Paul makes mention of this in 2 Cor. 2:17, "For we are not as many, which corrupt the Word of God .... "Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit these tainted manuscripts were cast aside and were not included in the Textus Receptus.
1. 331 A.D. Constantine ordered that an "ecumenical Bible" be written that would be accepable to every stripe of Christian that was under his jurisdiction. A man by the name of Eusebius was assigned to direct this undertaking. Eusebius was a follower of Origen who rejected the deity of Christ. He claimed that Christ was a created being. The Jehovah's Witnesses of today believe the same thing. This error is called the Arian heresy.
2. 1481 A.D. The Vatican manuscript was discovered in the Vatican Library. This is a corrupted manuscript which repeatedly casts aside the deity of Christ. It reflects the Arianism of Origen and is thought by some to be one of the surviving manuscripts done be Euscbius at the command of Constantine. The date of its writing coincides with the "ecumenical Bible" of Constantine.
3. 1844 A.D. The Sinaitic manuscript was discovered at Mt. Sinai in the monastery of Saint Catherine. It agrees closely with the Vatican manuscript and minimises the deity of Christ and is Arian in nature. It is safe to suggest that these two manuscripts were two of the fifty that were written for Constantine.
4. 1881 A.D. The Westcott and Hort Greek Text was introduced. This text departed from the Textus Receptus and follows the Vatican and Sinaitic corruptions. Most scholars from every spectrum of Christianity have knowingly or otherwise promoted the Westcott and Hort text from that time to the present.
The Jehovah's Witness Bible entitled the "New World Translation of the Scriptures" was translated from the text of Westcott and Hort. Their friendship with Westcott and Hort is not surprising. They reject the deity of Christ and gain strength from this corrupt text.
Most, if not all, of the modern translations of the Bible follow the path of the two worst manuscripts which are in existence. They almost seem to loathe the Textus Receptus. This is evidenced by the fact that most Bible colleges, seminaries and schools use some Greek text other than the Textus Receptus. Nevertheless, the new versions are founded on faulty texts and are not acceptable for any purpose.
GOD'S BIBLE COMPARED WITH "ANOTHER BIBLE"
1 PETER 2:2
The King James Version:
"As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby."
In our God-inspired and preserved Bible the meaning of this passage is very clear. Those who have been born again (by receiving Christ) should feed on the Word of God that they might grow in the Christian life. Christian growth has nothing at all to do with initial salvation. Salvation takes place first and then the newborn child of God is to grow. Please note that all of the following new versions leave the door open for a gradual salvation, i.e., one of works.
Good News for Modern Man:
"Be like newborn babies, always thirsty for the pure spiritual milk, so that by drinking it you may grow up and be saved."
New World Translation: (Jehovah's Witnesses)
"And as newborn infants, form a longing for the unadultered milk belonging to the word, that through it you may grow to salvation."
New American Standard Bible:
"Like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation."
The wording may be slightly different in each of these new Bibles, but it should be obvious that they all have the same corrupt source. No amount of polish can correct an untrustworthy text.
MATTHEW 18:11
The King James Version:
"For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost."
New World Translation: Verse omitted.
The Amplified New Testament:
The entire verse is in italics. Their explanation for this omission is as follows: "Italics indicate certain familiar words or passages found in the King James Version, but generally omitted now because they are not adequately supported by more recent scholarship." Would any care to hazard a guess as to who the more recent scholars are?
The New American Standard:
The verse is included with the following footnote. "Most ancient manuscripts omit this verse." Since when is 5% of the manuscripts considered a majority?
The Living New Testament:
The verse is included (in a manner of speaking) with the following footnote. "This verse is omitted in many manuscripts, some ancient."
THE PERSON OF CHRIST AND SIX NEW BIBLES
1. New American Standard Bible
2. Revised Standard Version
3. Living New Testament
4. Good News for Modern Man
5. New English Bible
6. Amplified New Testament
John 6:69 -- Christ is omitted in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Acts 9:20 -- Christ is changed to Jesus in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Acts 15:11 -- Christ is omitted in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Acts 16:31 -- Christ is omitted in 1, 2, 31 4, 5, (italicised in 6).
Romans 1:16 -- Christ omitted in 1, 2, 4, 5, (italicised in 6).
Romans 16:24 -- entire verse about Christ emitted in 1, 2, 5, (verse italicised in 6).
1 Cor. 5:4 -- Christ omitted twice in 1, 2, (omitted once in 3), 4, 5, (omitted once and italicised once in 6).
1 Cor. 9:1 -- Christ omitted in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
2 Cot. 11:31 -- Christ omitted in 1, 2, 4, 5, (italicised in 6).
Eph. 3:14 -- Lord Jesus Christ omitted in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, (italicised in 6).
Col. 1:14 -- blood omitted in 1, 2, 4, 5, (italics in 6).
1 Thess. 2:19 -- Christ omitted in 1, 2, 4, 5, 6.
1 Thess. 3:11 -- Christ omitted in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, (italics in 6).
1 Timothy 1:1 -- Lord omitted in 1, 2, 4, 5, 6.
1 Timothy 5:21 -- Lord omitted in 1, 2, 4, 5, 6.
2 Timothy 4:1 -- Lord omitted in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Titus 1:4 -- Lord omitted in 1, 2, 4, 5, (italics in 6).
Hebrews 3:1 -- Christ omitted in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
1 John 1:7 -- Christ omitted in 1, 2, 4, 5, (italics in 6).
2 John 3 -- Lord omitted in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Rev. l:9b -- Christ omitted in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, (italics in 6).
Verses quoted and emissions listed are by no means exhaustive. They are merely given to show the common bond which exists between all of the new Bibles. They stand or fall together. One cannot accept one and reject another.
It should be plain for all to see that Satan's strategy is to lure even God's own people away from the true Bible. Without the inerrant Word of God there would be no salvation. "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17).
I thank God for my salvation and I thank Him for preserving His Written Word for my use and for all who will rest in Him. I am convinced that the King James Bible I hold in my hand is a completely faithful reproduction of the Word of God. I can hold my Bible in my hand and say without fear that I am in possession of the Word of God that has been passed down from generation to generation by the providential protection of my Heavenly Father.
IMPORTANT CONCLUDING SUMMARY
The King James Version is the only English Bible in use today which is taken from the Textus Receptus. Therefore, this must be the only Bible used by pastors, Bible students, churches, missionary groups, educational institutions or Christian laymen.
In that it is the only authoritative and trustworthy Bible, it should be studied consistently and systematically. Every born-again believer in Jesus Christ should start the day by meditating in the only Word of God and by talking to God in prayer.
Every born-again, Bible-believing Christian should endeavor to enlighten others about the dangers of the modern counterfeit Bibles. This must be done if we are to heed the admonition to "earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints" (Jude 3b). God wants you to join with us in sounding the alarm against those who would rob this generation of the only Bible. "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever" (Isaiah 40:8).
All over the world there is an alarming increase in the worship of Satan by outright willful submission to him through occult practices. He is now loosing his forces on the civilized world which has known the Gospel for centuries but which is not presently heeding that Gospel. We may look for an increase in satanic miracles and strange behavior as multitudes resort to witchcraft, astrology, spiritism, and fortune telling.
ITS INSPIRATION
There can be no Christianity without an inspired and authoritative Bible. C. H. Spurgeon once said, "The turning point of the battle between those who hold 'the faith once delivered to the saints' and their opponents, lies in the true and real inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. This is the thermopylae of Christendom. If we have in the Word of God no infallible standard of truth, we are at sea without a compass, and no danger from rough weather without can be equal to the loss within. 'If the foundation be removed, what can the righteous do?' And this is the foundation loss of the worst kind."
The Bible is a supernatural Book. It is God's voice speaking, not only in the sense that the Word springs from Him, but from the standpoint also that it is expressed by Him in His own vocabulary.
The fundamental claim of the Bible in relation to its inspiration is found in five passages: Luke 1:70, "As He spake by the mouth of His Holy prophets which have been since the world began," 1 Cor. 2:13, "Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." 2 Tim. 3:16, "ALL Scripture is given by inspiration of God." Heb. 1:1-2, "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son." 2 Pet. 1:21, "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."
It is important in these days of open attack upon the Bible and increased versions of the Bible to make clear what we mean by divine inspiration of the Scriptures. We do not mean what the modernists mean who claim a kind of "human genius" residing in all great writers; nor do we moan as Barth and Brunner and modern neo-orthodox and neo-evangelicals who hold that the Bible is the Word of God because some passages reveal a word from the Lord. This teaching tells us that the Bible contains the Word of God but is not essentially and verbally and wholly the inspired Word of God.
While there is open opposition from outside the true Church in lands like Russia against the Word of God and against those who read it, there is also opposition from within religious circles through the modern day versions of the Bible, RSV, Good News for Modern Man, Living Letters, New English Bible, Amplified Version and a host of others.
I need not remind you that most of these versions have been prepared by committees whose members reject the infallible inspiration of the Scriptures, the deity of Christ, the blood atonement of Christ, and other essential doctrines. I need not emphasise that many of these versions are ecumenical efforts to unite Protestantism and Romanism into the great whore church of Revelation 13 to 17, the ecumenical church of Antichrist.
What is not generally realized, however, is the fact that these revisers are true successors of Jehoiakim, the King of Jerusalem, whose mutilation of Scripture is given in Jeremiah 36:22, 23. A message from the Lord was dictated by Jeremiah to Baruch, son of Nerah, who carefully wrote it in a roll. Jehoiakim came to know of this divine oracle and sent Jehudi to get it and read it to him. As Jehudi read, whatever did not please the king he would cut out with his penknife and cast into the fire, burning on the hearth. Jehoiakim continued with his mutilation of the written Word of God until nothing was left but a heap of smoldering ashes.
Let us notice, however, how God dealt with the penknife king. He had the burial of an ass (Jer. 22:18,19). The king was denied the glamorous burial belonging to a good sovereign. He was drawn outside the gates of Jerusalem, as the body of a dead ass is dragged and left to corruption and the beaks of the vultures.
Surely such a record constitutes a warning not to tamper with the Word of God. Yet many modern versions have used the penknife of liberalism and the penknife of the ecumenical movement to tamper with the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God. Yes, but the end is not yet in sight. As modern versions and perversions continue to cut out, rearrange, and change Scripture to suit themselves God's eye is upon it all and His Word shall never pass away.
ITS AUTHORITY
The increasing efforts of men to do away with the Authorised King James Version of the Bible are directed against the authority of the Bible. Under the guise of "better translations," "clearer readings," "church authority," "Christian tradition," "later manuscripts," and "helps for the reader" the corrupters of the Bible with their many perversions have sought to undermine the deity of Christ, the blood atonement, and other doctrines that offend the natural man.
You will notice that the modern versions have as their goal the "return to the original Greek texts." The New American Standard Bible, for example, is based on Nestle's Greek New Testament. Nestle's text, as the Westcott and Hort text, is the classical Greek of Alexandrian scholarship, written in Italy. It is not the koine Greek of New Testament scholarship, written in Asia Minor. Nestle's "original Greek" is built on the theory of Vaticanus (the Catholic manuscript which contains the seven corrupt books of the Apocrypha, never recognised by Jesus or Paul, and shows its source of corruption as Rome itself) as the most perfect text. Therefore "going to the Greek" to correct the Authorised King James Version involves running to Romanism to correct a Bible-believing Protestant translation.
Even since Adam fell there has been a bias in his descendants to listen to the Devil who repeats today what he said in the Garden of Eden, "Hath God said?"
The textual critics of our day, profoundly trained, called higher critics, are also saying, "Hath God said?" The more lofty textual scholars have so falsely put together the knowledge they have gained that our generation now doubts if there is a Bible it can completely trust and say with assurance, "God hath said."
The Bible teaches "In the beginning God." This is true of the Bible itself, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God" (2 Tim. 3:16). As the Spirit of God "moved upon the face of the waters" in the day of creation (Gen. 1:2), so "Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Pet. 1:21). God is the Creator of the universe, the creator of man, and the Author of the Word of God, the Bible.
It is possible to know that behind all the marvellous creation of the universe there is a God, a Creator, but let us never forget that the God of creation is also the God of revelation.
Paul makes clear in 1 Cor. 2:9-14 that we can only receive and understand this Word as a supernatural revelation (vs. 10), given by supernatural illumination (vs. 11,12,14).
God has given us the inspired scriptures for a definite purpose as recorded in 2 Tim. 3:16, 17 so that man could have a sure authority and standard for his reproof and correction and for "furnishing" him for right and good living by a perfect rule. Paul made clear in speaking of the total unity of the Bible which would shortly be completed that "when that which is perfect is come" (1 Cor. 13) that is, the full and completed New Testament, then other temporary aids allowed to the earthly church would "be done away."
The early church believers not only "received the word with all readiness of mind," but they gave it the place of final authority, and searched "the scriptures daily, whether those things were so" (Acts 17:11). In their search for truth they did not turn to the evaluations of human reason, nor to the traditions and declarations of the church, but to the written Word of God.
-- THE PEOPLES GOSPEL HOUR
THE WONDER OF THE BOOK
The wonder of the Book grows upon us as our experience is enlarged, for the more deeply we search it, the more we feel that the Bible is not merely a book, but The Book. It alone is the universal Book, the eternal Book, the Book for all time. It is the voice of the Lord. It stands alone, unapproachable in its grandeur, as high above all other books as heaven is above earth, or as the Son of God is above the sons of men.
THE WONDER OF ITS FORMATION
One of the first things about this Book that evokes our wonder is the very fact of its existence, for there was never any order given to any man to plan the Bible, nor was there ever any concerted plan on the part of the men who wrote to write the Bible. The way in which the Bible grew is one of the mysteries of our time. Little by little, century after century, it came out in fragments, written by various men, without any concerted arrangement. One wrote a part in Arabia, another in Syria, a third in Palestine, another in Greece and Italy, and the first part was written hundreds of years before the man who wrote the last part was born.
Here is a Book that took at least fifteen hundred years to write, spanning sixty generations of this world's history. It enlarges our conceptions of God and gives us new ideas of His infinite patience as He watched the strain, the haste and restlessness of man across the feverish years, while slowly the great Book grew. Here a little, there a little, history, prophecy, poetry and biography, it came forth before a needy world in its finished completeness.
There was no pre-arrangement by men. It is not as if Matthew, Mark, Luke and John met in committee and after solemn conference and seeking for the leading of the Spirit, Matthew undertook to write of Christ as the King, and Mark agreed to write of Him as the Servant, Luke undertaking to delineate Him as the Man, and John determining to crown it all by writing of Him as the Son of God. It was not as if Paul and James met and after talking and praying about it agreed that Paul should write of the doctrinal and James of the practical aspects of the Christian faith. There is no trace of such a thing. They simply wrote as they were moved by the Spirit to meet a present need, to teach some glorious truth, to express some earnest longing, and from the aggregation of their writings came this miraculous unit that we call the New Testament.
THE WONDER OF ITS UNIFICATION
The Bible, though regarded as a Book, is in fact a library of sixty-six volumes written by between thirty and forty different authors, in three languages, on totally different topics and in extraordinarily different circumstances. One wrote history, another biography, one wrote on theology, another poetry, another prophecy, others on philosophy, jurisprudence, genealogy, ethnology, and narratives of wonderful journeys. Here in the Bible we have them all, in a little Book that a child can carry in its little hand. The strangest thing of all is that, although their subjects are so diverse and difficult, and although it was impossible for the man who wrote the first pages to have the slightest knowledge what others would write 1500 years later, yet this collection of writings is not only unified by men in one Book, but so unified by God, the Author, that we can never think of it today as anything else but one Book! And one Book it is indeed -- the miracle of all literary unity.
THE WONDER OF ITS INTEREST
Another marvellous thing about this Book is that it is the only book in the world read by all classes and all sorts of people. Literary people rarely read a child's book, and children do not read books of philosophy and science. There is but one Book that is read by the wisest of men, read to the little child, and read by the old man as he trembles on the brink of another world. Professor Dyson Hague asked the nurse what she was reading to his daughter, and she replied, "I am reading the story of Joseph in the Bible," and the child added, "And please do not stop her, father." She was listening with delighted interest to a story that had been written in Hebrew three thousand five hundred years before. Not far away from the same room where the child was listening, there sat one of the greatest of modern scientists, Sir William Dawson (a humble believer in the Lord Jesus Christ), reading with profound devotion and higher delight the pages of the same marvellous Book. Here is a phenomenon -- one of the ablest of modern scientists delights in reading a Book which is the joy of a little child in the nursery!
THE WONDER OF ITS LANGUAGE
The Book was not written in the seats of learning, either at Athens in Greece or at Alexandria in Egypt, but in Palestine. Some of the writers were not distinguished for their scholarship. Some did not speak even their own language perfectly. Peter was betrayed by his Galilean dialect, and he and John were described in Acts 4:13 as "ignorant and unlearned men". Many of the men who wrote the Bible were of that character. One was a farm-hand, another a shepherd, others were fishermen. They were men of no literary reputation, and yet by the mysterious power of God the Book has become the standard of language of the most literary nations of the world.
THE WONDER OF ITS PRESERVATION
The Bible has withstood ages of ferocious and incessant persecution. Century after century men have tried to burn it and to bury it and to extirpate it. Kings of the earth set themselves and rulers of the church have taken counsel together to destroy it. Diocletian the Roman Emperor inaugurated in AD 303 a terrific onslaught upon the Book. Bibles were destroyed, Christians were slain, and the Emperor boasted that the very name of the Christians was blotted out, and yet after a few years, the Bible came forth as Noah from the ark to repeople the earth, and in AD 325 Constantine enthroned the Bible as the Infallible Judge of Truth in the great council of the Church held in that year.
Later the Church of Rome denied the Scriptures to the people and for ages the Bible was practically an unknown book. Martin Luther was a grown man when he said that he had never seen a Bible in his life. No jailor ever kept a prisoner closer than the Church of Rome kept the Bible from the people.
The worst opposition of all has been during the last two hundred years, with rationalism and modernism seeking to undermine the authority, inspiration and inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures. It was Voltaire's boast that within one hundred years of his death not a Bible would be found save as an antiquarian curiosity. Many more than one hundred years have passed, and other pens and other voices have joined in the attack, but the Bible remains and is being more widely distributed and used than ever before.
THE BIBLE IS SELF-AUTHENTICATING
You need no historical critic for God's own Word. The Holy Spirit, who is the Author of the Book, makes it speak to our souls in such power as to give divine conviction. Men may arise to unsettle and destroy, but the Spirit of Christ comes to validate and confirm, with a certainty that is incommunicable by mere reason, and is impervious to the assaults of doubt. Spurgeon spoke of a poor woman who was challenged by an agnostic to prove that the Bible in her hand was God's Word. She pointed to the sun and said, "Can you prove that there is a sun in the sky?" The unbeliever answered, "Of course, the proof is that it warms me and I see its light." "That is it," she replied, "and the best proof that this Book is the Word of God is that it warms and lights my soul."
IT CANNOT BE IMPROVED
We do not gild gold. We do not paint rubies. We cannot brighten diamonds. Neither can any artist add any final touch to this finished Word of God. It stands as the sun in the sky and this proud age can add nothing to it. It has the glory of God and any attempt to improve it can but disfigure it. It speaks with authority and breaks upon you as the Voice from heaven. Five hundred times in the Pentateuch, three hundred times in the following books and twelve hundred times in the prophets, the declarations are prefaced or concluded with such expressions as "Hear the Word of the Lord", or "Thus saith the Lord". No other book dares thus to address itself to the universal conscience. No other speaks with such a binding claim or presumes to command the obedience of all mankind. The Book speaks to the inner conscience with the authority of God Himself.
IT IS LIVING AND POWERFUL
Men think of the Bible as a Book that was inspired, and this is true, but it is also true that it still comes sweeping into the hearts of men today, and the same breath of God that gave it life makes it living and spiritually energising today. This is a most remarkable and unique feature of the Bible -- I feel that it is mine. Its promises are mine. The 103rd Psalm is not ancient Hebrew, it is a present day message to my soul. The other day I took up an old Bible that my mother gave me, in which years ago I had marked Genesis 28:15 when I was in great trouble and had to leave my wife and children and travel in quest of health in distant lands. One day as I opened the Bible at random these words came before my eye. Shall I ever forget the flood of comfort that swept over my soul as I read that verse? "Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again to this land." All the critics in the world could never persuade my soul that those words were a mere echo of some far-off relic of a Babylonian legend or oriental myth. No, no! That was a message to me, and it swept into my soul as a voice from heaven and lifted me up. No man will ever shake me out of the conviction that that message was God's own Word to me -- inspiring because inspired.
IT REVEALS CHRIST
It changes mens' lives and alters their destinies. It inaugurates world-wide movements. A single text transformed Luther and launched the greatest of modern epochs. It comes today into communities of unrighteousness as a regenerating force.
The supreme wonder of the Book is Christ, Who is its fulness, its centre, its great subject. Of the whole Book it may be said, "The glory of God does lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof". As long as men live upon the face of the globe, the Book that tells of Christ the Revealer, Redeemer, the Risen, Reigning, Returning Lord will draw men's hearts like a magnet, and men will stand by it, and live for it, and die for it.
Do not think that we ought to read this Book as we read any other book, or study and analyse it just as we do any text book in literature or science. No! When you come to this Book, come to it with reverence. Read it with a plea for the Spirit's help. "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." Other books are of the earth. This is from heaven, it is the living Word of the Living God, Supernatural in origin, divine in authorship, regenerative in power, infallible in authority, personal in application, inspired in its every part.
(Summarised and selected from "The Wonder of the Book"
by Prof. Dyson Hague, M.A.)
CONCLUSION
Let us make ourselves very clear where we stand in relation to the Authorised Bible, God's Word. We believe the A.V. Bible was translated by 47 scholars, men of God appointed to carry out this vital work. These men under the inspiration of The Holy Spirit translated from the Greek into English words, placing commas, etc., where necessary, thereby giving us the true meaning in our language. There is no room for alteration to words or commas, etc., as they stand in the A.V. Bible. So vital is this that God has distinctly warned against tampering with His Word. He has placed in our A.V. Bible these warnings. In Deut. 4:2a, "Ye shall not add unto the Word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it .... "; In Prov. 30:6a, "add thou not unto His Words" and in Rev. 22:18, 19, "(18) For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto l hese things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: (19) And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."
Let us here give one example of tampering with God's Word, and how vital commas are in our English translation. In Heb. 10:12, the A.V. reads, "But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God;" Some translations have placed the comma after sins making it read "After He had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God" thus making the return of Our Lord impossible. This of course makes Roman Catholic doctrine, leaving the priests free to celebrate "mass" as often as they please, in spite of Our Lord Jesus Christ having offered one sacrifice for sins forever. Heb. 10:12.
We can be sure the A.V. is God's infallible, inerrant, and no less inspired word than was the original Greek and Hebrew from which it was translated. Would God have neglected the preservation of His Pure Word?, if so, He certainly could not hold us responsible. He would have left us without a Bible in which we could place our trust, further more as few of us read and understand Greek, what an impossible position we would find ourselves in, in relation to our salvation.
All Things Must be Examined by the Scriptures
When we are confronted by some new doctrine, etc., we must do as the Bereans did, Acts 17:11. "Search the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so." In addition, we must, under the guidance of The Holy Spirit learn to "rightly divide the Word". 2 Timothy 2:15.
We would further draw the attention of those who would seek to alter or improve (as they imagine) the A.V. by using some Greek text which does not agree with the A.V. if so there is only one place for the text, the waste paper basket, as you are probably using one of the many corrupt Greek texts, possibly Westcott and Hort's. This has been altered and differs in something like five or six thousand places from the Received text from which the New Testament of The A.V. Bible was translated into English. We stand or fall on this Bible, God's Word given to us in English.
Remember! God wrote only one Bible.
Paul said he did not adulterate the Word of God but presented it in all its purity. However, man today has corrupted it by adding to it through the rapid production of new translations, paraphrases, versions, perversions and amplifications of the Scriptures. The best that can be said for them all is that they are helping to increase sales in most Bible Book Stores and helping the publishers to make large profits. The Christians are left without their money and end up in greater confusion than ever.
Compiled by-
BIBLE TRUTH SOCIETY R.D. Oratia
Auckland
New Zealand
by Roy Lister
The TEXTUS RECEPTUS, original Greek text from which the Authorized King James Bible was translated, has been the target of textual critics since 1611. Yet copies of it substantially exist today without error. This is the Bible you can trust. All this talk about older and more dependable manuscripts, like the theory of evolution, hangs upon an UNPROVEN HYPOTHESIS.
HERE'S THE ACID TEST
Any version of the Bible which omits Acts 8:37, or "Through His blood," in Col. 1:14, evidently has for its foundation a corrupted manuscript. This corruption can be traced to 200 A.D., when there lived one of the world's foremost theologians whose name was Origen. Being a TEXTUAL CRITIC, he is supposed to have corrected numerous portions of the sacred manuscripts. Evidence to the contrary shows that he changed them to agree with his own human philosophy of mystical and allegorical ideas. Thus certain original MSS. became corrupt and it is evidently from this source the revised Bibles of this generation have come. Read pages 900-902, Vol. 16, 1936 edition Encyclopedia Britannica and you will see that Origen taught the "LOGOS" is "KTISMA," meaning the Lord Jesus Christ is a created being. Thus, he could easily omit Acts 8:37 and other texts which testify to Christ's deity.
Should You Choose The Bible of Your Choice?
by DONALD T. CLARKE
THE BIBLE IS AN INSPIRED BOOK
The Bible is a supernatural gift from God and has been both inspired and preserved by the Holy Spirit. By inspired I mean that the Holy Spirit so moved upon the hearts of men that they recorded the very words that God wanted written in the Holy Bible. The Bible would be no more accurate or authoritative had God written the Scriptures with His own hand. "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Peter 1:21).
THE BIBLE IS A PRESERVED BOOK
God has safeguarded the Bible in the past from the wicked poison of human reasoning and He will continue to do so in the future. God is not the author of confusion and therefore He has only inspired and preserved one Bible. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matthew 24:35).
ONLY ONE BIBLE CAN BE THE WORD OF GOD
It has been estimated that there are nearly one hundred versions of the Bible available in the English language today. However, this multiplicity of Bibles does not alter the fact that God has inspired and safeguarded one Bible. This one Bible is written in the Greek language in the New Testament and is called the Textus Receptus or Received Text. The Old Testament has been preserved in the Masoretic Text and is written in Hebrew. The Textus Receptus of the New Testament and the Masoretic Text of the Old Testament combine to give us the complete Word of God. The King James Version of the Bible stands alone as the one Bible in use today which has been faithfully translated from these God- given manuscripts. All of the modern versions are based wholly or in part on corrupt texts.
MODERN TRANSLATIONS ARE DIFFERENT BIBLES
Modern translations are not just simply different versions of the King James Bible written in contemporary language. These perversions are different Bibles entirely. Their foundation is not the God-preserved Textus Receptus of the New Testament. Instead, they are based on contaminated, Christ-denying manuscripts which had been rejected by the early church fathers.
This turning away from the true Bible to a wicked counterfeit is largely the work of humanistic scholarship. Men who call themselves textual critics have placed their thoughts and ideas above those of God and have presumed to improve upon that one Bible which has been given by God. One can only conclude that they have been so blinded by their compromise and delusions of self-importance that they forget God has already given us His Word. The duty of every believer today is to take the one Bible which God has given and proclaim its glorious message of salvation to a sin-sick world.
"I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel . . . As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed" (Galatians 1:6, 9). Almost 2000 years ago men were preaching another gospel no doubt from another Bible. However, never since the Bible was given has it been under such Satanic attack as it is in our generation. Humanistic scholarship has deviated from the Textus Receptus in about 6000 places. This has the same effect as questioning the inerrancy of the Holy Bible in 6000 places. Charles H. Spurgeon stated it very well when he said, "The craving to alter the Word of God is accursed. This is the crime of the present day. The Lord preserve us from it."
THE PURE FOUNDATION OF THE KING JAMES VERSION
The Old Testament of the King James Bible was translated from the Masoretic Text. This text was in use during the time of Christ and He quoted from them many times. If the Masoretic Text was acceptable to Christ then it certainly should be accepted by every child of God. This text was kept pure by the Hebrew priests who were given the responsibility of caring for it.
The New Testament of the King James Version was translated in 1611 A.D. from the Greek manuscripts known today as the Textus Receptus. The scholars who did this work were giants in their field. They were far superior to the self-proclaimed scholars in Biblical criticism who are responsible for the rash of modern perversions.
The Textus Receptus from which the King James Bible was translated is a faithful reproduction of the original manuscripts, which were penned by the writers of the Scriptures. The T.R. or Traditional Text as it is also called has been traced back to the early church.
THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE KING JAMES VERSION
1. From the birth of Christ to 100 A.D. the original manuscripts were written in the Greek language.
2. The New Testament was compiled by 400 A.D.
1. by 170 A.D. -- 20 N.T. books had been accepted by the early Christians.
2. by 400 A.D. -- all 27 books of the N.T. had been accepted by the early Christians as they were guided by the Holy Spirit.
1. The Holy Spirit guided so that only the genuine books were included.
2. The Holy Spirit also guided in the selection of the pure manuscripts.
3. The Holy Spirit so guided that false gospels and manuscripts were set aside.
3. the original manuscripts were lost but the Received Text that was produced during this time was a faithful reproduction of the original autographs.
3. 452-1453 A.D. -- The Textus Receptus was used by the Greek Church during this time under the direction of the Holy Spirit.
4. 1516 A.D. -- Erasmus edited the first printing of the Greek N.T.
1. This was in agreement with the Textus Receptus.
5. 1526 A.D. -- Tyndale's New Testament in English was printed. He was burned at the stake in 1536 because he had the Bible printed in English.
6. 1550 A.D. -- Stephens Greek N.T. (Textus Receptus).
7. 1611 A.D. -- The King James or Authorised Version of the Bible was translated from the Greek Textus Receptus in the N.T. and Hebrew Masoretic Text in the O.T.
8. 1611 A.D. -- To the present. Infidels and assorted enemies of the Bible have attacked our Bible in every way known to man, but God's Word shall abide forever.
THE CORRUPT FOUNDATION OF MODERN TRANSLATIONS
The "other Bibles" which are so prevalent today are as dependable as quicksand. They will vary even from printing to printing as the constantly changing whims of man directs. However, each new Bible will continue down the same path of confusion and error. You cannot produce good fruit from a rotten tree.
THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE "OTHER BIBLES"
1. From the birth of Christ to 400 A.D. False prophets wrote polluted gospels and other books of the Bible at the same time that the true books of the New Testament were being written. Paul makes mention of this in 2 Cor. 2:17, "For we are not as many, which corrupt the Word of God .... "Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit these tainted manuscripts were cast aside and were not included in the Textus Receptus.
1. 331 A.D. Constantine ordered that an "ecumenical Bible" be written that would be accepable to every stripe of Christian that was under his jurisdiction. A man by the name of Eusebius was assigned to direct this undertaking. Eusebius was a follower of Origen who rejected the deity of Christ. He claimed that Christ was a created being. The Jehovah's Witnesses of today believe the same thing. This error is called the Arian heresy.
2. 1481 A.D. The Vatican manuscript was discovered in the Vatican Library. This is a corrupted manuscript which repeatedly casts aside the deity of Christ. It reflects the Arianism of Origen and is thought by some to be one of the surviving manuscripts done be Euscbius at the command of Constantine. The date of its writing coincides with the "ecumenical Bible" of Constantine.
3. 1844 A.D. The Sinaitic manuscript was discovered at Mt. Sinai in the monastery of Saint Catherine. It agrees closely with the Vatican manuscript and minimises the deity of Christ and is Arian in nature. It is safe to suggest that these two manuscripts were two of the fifty that were written for Constantine.
4. 1881 A.D. The Westcott and Hort Greek Text was introduced. This text departed from the Textus Receptus and follows the Vatican and Sinaitic corruptions. Most scholars from every spectrum of Christianity have knowingly or otherwise promoted the Westcott and Hort text from that time to the present.
The Jehovah's Witness Bible entitled the "New World Translation of the Scriptures" was translated from the text of Westcott and Hort. Their friendship with Westcott and Hort is not surprising. They reject the deity of Christ and gain strength from this corrupt text.
Most, if not all, of the modern translations of the Bible follow the path of the two worst manuscripts which are in existence. They almost seem to loathe the Textus Receptus. This is evidenced by the fact that most Bible colleges, seminaries and schools use some Greek text other than the Textus Receptus. Nevertheless, the new versions are founded on faulty texts and are not acceptable for any purpose.
GOD'S BIBLE COMPARED WITH "ANOTHER BIBLE"
1 PETER 2:2
The King James Version:
"As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby."
In our God-inspired and preserved Bible the meaning of this passage is very clear. Those who have been born again (by receiving Christ) should feed on the Word of God that they might grow in the Christian life. Christian growth has nothing at all to do with initial salvation. Salvation takes place first and then the newborn child of God is to grow. Please note that all of the following new versions leave the door open for a gradual salvation, i.e., one of works.
Good News for Modern Man:
"Be like newborn babies, always thirsty for the pure spiritual milk, so that by drinking it you may grow up and be saved."
New World Translation: (Jehovah's Witnesses)
"And as newborn infants, form a longing for the unadultered milk belonging to the word, that through it you may grow to salvation."
New American Standard Bible:
"Like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation."
The wording may be slightly different in each of these new Bibles, but it should be obvious that they all have the same corrupt source. No amount of polish can correct an untrustworthy text.
MATTHEW 18:11
The King James Version:
"For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost."
New World Translation: Verse omitted.
The Amplified New Testament:
The entire verse is in italics. Their explanation for this omission is as follows: "Italics indicate certain familiar words or passages found in the King James Version, but generally omitted now because they are not adequately supported by more recent scholarship." Would any care to hazard a guess as to who the more recent scholars are?
The New American Standard:
The verse is included with the following footnote. "Most ancient manuscripts omit this verse." Since when is 5% of the manuscripts considered a majority?
The Living New Testament:
The verse is included (in a manner of speaking) with the following footnote. "This verse is omitted in many manuscripts, some ancient."
THE PERSON OF CHRIST AND SIX NEW BIBLES
1. New American Standard Bible
2. Revised Standard Version
3. Living New Testament
4. Good News for Modern Man
5. New English Bible
6. Amplified New Testament
John 6:69 -- Christ is omitted in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Acts 9:20 -- Christ is changed to Jesus in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Acts 15:11 -- Christ is omitted in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Acts 16:31 -- Christ is omitted in 1, 2, 31 4, 5, (italicised in 6).
Romans 1:16 -- Christ omitted in 1, 2, 4, 5, (italicised in 6).
Romans 16:24 -- entire verse about Christ emitted in 1, 2, 5, (verse italicised in 6).
1 Cor. 5:4 -- Christ omitted twice in 1, 2, (omitted once in 3), 4, 5, (omitted once and italicised once in 6).
1 Cor. 9:1 -- Christ omitted in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
2 Cot. 11:31 -- Christ omitted in 1, 2, 4, 5, (italicised in 6).
Eph. 3:14 -- Lord Jesus Christ omitted in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, (italicised in 6).
Col. 1:14 -- blood omitted in 1, 2, 4, 5, (italics in 6).
1 Thess. 2:19 -- Christ omitted in 1, 2, 4, 5, 6.
1 Thess. 3:11 -- Christ omitted in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, (italics in 6).
1 Timothy 1:1 -- Lord omitted in 1, 2, 4, 5, 6.
1 Timothy 5:21 -- Lord omitted in 1, 2, 4, 5, 6.
2 Timothy 4:1 -- Lord omitted in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Titus 1:4 -- Lord omitted in 1, 2, 4, 5, (italics in 6).
Hebrews 3:1 -- Christ omitted in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
1 John 1:7 -- Christ omitted in 1, 2, 4, 5, (italics in 6).
2 John 3 -- Lord omitted in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Rev. l:9b -- Christ omitted in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, (italics in 6).
Verses quoted and emissions listed are by no means exhaustive. They are merely given to show the common bond which exists between all of the new Bibles. They stand or fall together. One cannot accept one and reject another.
It should be plain for all to see that Satan's strategy is to lure even God's own people away from the true Bible. Without the inerrant Word of God there would be no salvation. "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17).
I thank God for my salvation and I thank Him for preserving His Written Word for my use and for all who will rest in Him. I am convinced that the King James Bible I hold in my hand is a completely faithful reproduction of the Word of God. I can hold my Bible in my hand and say without fear that I am in possession of the Word of God that has been passed down from generation to generation by the providential protection of my Heavenly Father.
IMPORTANT CONCLUDING SUMMARY
The King James Version is the only English Bible in use today which is taken from the Textus Receptus. Therefore, this must be the only Bible used by pastors, Bible students, churches, missionary groups, educational institutions or Christian laymen.
In that it is the only authoritative and trustworthy Bible, it should be studied consistently and systematically. Every born-again believer in Jesus Christ should start the day by meditating in the only Word of God and by talking to God in prayer.
Every born-again, Bible-believing Christian should endeavor to enlighten others about the dangers of the modern counterfeit Bibles. This must be done if we are to heed the admonition to "earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints" (Jude 3b). God wants you to join with us in sounding the alarm against those who would rob this generation of the only Bible. "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever" (Isaiah 40:8).
All over the world there is an alarming increase in the worship of Satan by outright willful submission to him through occult practices. He is now loosing his forces on the civilized world which has known the Gospel for centuries but which is not presently heeding that Gospel. We may look for an increase in satanic miracles and strange behavior as multitudes resort to witchcraft, astrology, spiritism, and fortune telling.
ITS INSPIRATION
There can be no Christianity without an inspired and authoritative Bible. C. H. Spurgeon once said, "The turning point of the battle between those who hold 'the faith once delivered to the saints' and their opponents, lies in the true and real inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. This is the thermopylae of Christendom. If we have in the Word of God no infallible standard of truth, we are at sea without a compass, and no danger from rough weather without can be equal to the loss within. 'If the foundation be removed, what can the righteous do?' And this is the foundation loss of the worst kind."
The Bible is a supernatural Book. It is God's voice speaking, not only in the sense that the Word springs from Him, but from the standpoint also that it is expressed by Him in His own vocabulary.
The fundamental claim of the Bible in relation to its inspiration is found in five passages: Luke 1:70, "As He spake by the mouth of His Holy prophets which have been since the world began," 1 Cor. 2:13, "Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." 2 Tim. 3:16, "ALL Scripture is given by inspiration of God." Heb. 1:1-2, "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son." 2 Pet. 1:21, "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."
It is important in these days of open attack upon the Bible and increased versions of the Bible to make clear what we mean by divine inspiration of the Scriptures. We do not mean what the modernists mean who claim a kind of "human genius" residing in all great writers; nor do we moan as Barth and Brunner and modern neo-orthodox and neo-evangelicals who hold that the Bible is the Word of God because some passages reveal a word from the Lord. This teaching tells us that the Bible contains the Word of God but is not essentially and verbally and wholly the inspired Word of God.
While there is open opposition from outside the true Church in lands like Russia against the Word of God and against those who read it, there is also opposition from within religious circles through the modern day versions of the Bible, RSV, Good News for Modern Man, Living Letters, New English Bible, Amplified Version and a host of others.
I need not remind you that most of these versions have been prepared by committees whose members reject the infallible inspiration of the Scriptures, the deity of Christ, the blood atonement of Christ, and other essential doctrines. I need not emphasise that many of these versions are ecumenical efforts to unite Protestantism and Romanism into the great whore church of Revelation 13 to 17, the ecumenical church of Antichrist.
What is not generally realized, however, is the fact that these revisers are true successors of Jehoiakim, the King of Jerusalem, whose mutilation of Scripture is given in Jeremiah 36:22, 23. A message from the Lord was dictated by Jeremiah to Baruch, son of Nerah, who carefully wrote it in a roll. Jehoiakim came to know of this divine oracle and sent Jehudi to get it and read it to him. As Jehudi read, whatever did not please the king he would cut out with his penknife and cast into the fire, burning on the hearth. Jehoiakim continued with his mutilation of the written Word of God until nothing was left but a heap of smoldering ashes.
Let us notice, however, how God dealt with the penknife king. He had the burial of an ass (Jer. 22:18,19). The king was denied the glamorous burial belonging to a good sovereign. He was drawn outside the gates of Jerusalem, as the body of a dead ass is dragged and left to corruption and the beaks of the vultures.
Surely such a record constitutes a warning not to tamper with the Word of God. Yet many modern versions have used the penknife of liberalism and the penknife of the ecumenical movement to tamper with the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God. Yes, but the end is not yet in sight. As modern versions and perversions continue to cut out, rearrange, and change Scripture to suit themselves God's eye is upon it all and His Word shall never pass away.
ITS AUTHORITY
The increasing efforts of men to do away with the Authorised King James Version of the Bible are directed against the authority of the Bible. Under the guise of "better translations," "clearer readings," "church authority," "Christian tradition," "later manuscripts," and "helps for the reader" the corrupters of the Bible with their many perversions have sought to undermine the deity of Christ, the blood atonement, and other doctrines that offend the natural man.
You will notice that the modern versions have as their goal the "return to the original Greek texts." The New American Standard Bible, for example, is based on Nestle's Greek New Testament. Nestle's text, as the Westcott and Hort text, is the classical Greek of Alexandrian scholarship, written in Italy. It is not the koine Greek of New Testament scholarship, written in Asia Minor. Nestle's "original Greek" is built on the theory of Vaticanus (the Catholic manuscript which contains the seven corrupt books of the Apocrypha, never recognised by Jesus or Paul, and shows its source of corruption as Rome itself) as the most perfect text. Therefore "going to the Greek" to correct the Authorised King James Version involves running to Romanism to correct a Bible-believing Protestant translation.
Even since Adam fell there has been a bias in his descendants to listen to the Devil who repeats today what he said in the Garden of Eden, "Hath God said?"
The textual critics of our day, profoundly trained, called higher critics, are also saying, "Hath God said?" The more lofty textual scholars have so falsely put together the knowledge they have gained that our generation now doubts if there is a Bible it can completely trust and say with assurance, "God hath said."
The Bible teaches "In the beginning God." This is true of the Bible itself, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God" (2 Tim. 3:16). As the Spirit of God "moved upon the face of the waters" in the day of creation (Gen. 1:2), so "Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Pet. 1:21). God is the Creator of the universe, the creator of man, and the Author of the Word of God, the Bible.
It is possible to know that behind all the marvellous creation of the universe there is a God, a Creator, but let us never forget that the God of creation is also the God of revelation.
Paul makes clear in 1 Cor. 2:9-14 that we can only receive and understand this Word as a supernatural revelation (vs. 10), given by supernatural illumination (vs. 11,12,14).
God has given us the inspired scriptures for a definite purpose as recorded in 2 Tim. 3:16, 17 so that man could have a sure authority and standard for his reproof and correction and for "furnishing" him for right and good living by a perfect rule. Paul made clear in speaking of the total unity of the Bible which would shortly be completed that "when that which is perfect is come" (1 Cor. 13) that is, the full and completed New Testament, then other temporary aids allowed to the earthly church would "be done away."
The early church believers not only "received the word with all readiness of mind," but they gave it the place of final authority, and searched "the scriptures daily, whether those things were so" (Acts 17:11). In their search for truth they did not turn to the evaluations of human reason, nor to the traditions and declarations of the church, but to the written Word of God.
-- THE PEOPLES GOSPEL HOUR
THE WONDER OF THE BOOK
The wonder of the Book grows upon us as our experience is enlarged, for the more deeply we search it, the more we feel that the Bible is not merely a book, but The Book. It alone is the universal Book, the eternal Book, the Book for all time. It is the voice of the Lord. It stands alone, unapproachable in its grandeur, as high above all other books as heaven is above earth, or as the Son of God is above the sons of men.
THE WONDER OF ITS FORMATION
One of the first things about this Book that evokes our wonder is the very fact of its existence, for there was never any order given to any man to plan the Bible, nor was there ever any concerted plan on the part of the men who wrote to write the Bible. The way in which the Bible grew is one of the mysteries of our time. Little by little, century after century, it came out in fragments, written by various men, without any concerted arrangement. One wrote a part in Arabia, another in Syria, a third in Palestine, another in Greece and Italy, and the first part was written hundreds of years before the man who wrote the last part was born.
Here is a Book that took at least fifteen hundred years to write, spanning sixty generations of this world's history. It enlarges our conceptions of God and gives us new ideas of His infinite patience as He watched the strain, the haste and restlessness of man across the feverish years, while slowly the great Book grew. Here a little, there a little, history, prophecy, poetry and biography, it came forth before a needy world in its finished completeness.
There was no pre-arrangement by men. It is not as if Matthew, Mark, Luke and John met in committee and after solemn conference and seeking for the leading of the Spirit, Matthew undertook to write of Christ as the King, and Mark agreed to write of Him as the Servant, Luke undertaking to delineate Him as the Man, and John determining to crown it all by writing of Him as the Son of God. It was not as if Paul and James met and after talking and praying about it agreed that Paul should write of the doctrinal and James of the practical aspects of the Christian faith. There is no trace of such a thing. They simply wrote as they were moved by the Spirit to meet a present need, to teach some glorious truth, to express some earnest longing, and from the aggregation of their writings came this miraculous unit that we call the New Testament.
THE WONDER OF ITS UNIFICATION
The Bible, though regarded as a Book, is in fact a library of sixty-six volumes written by between thirty and forty different authors, in three languages, on totally different topics and in extraordinarily different circumstances. One wrote history, another biography, one wrote on theology, another poetry, another prophecy, others on philosophy, jurisprudence, genealogy, ethnology, and narratives of wonderful journeys. Here in the Bible we have them all, in a little Book that a child can carry in its little hand. The strangest thing of all is that, although their subjects are so diverse and difficult, and although it was impossible for the man who wrote the first pages to have the slightest knowledge what others would write 1500 years later, yet this collection of writings is not only unified by men in one Book, but so unified by God, the Author, that we can never think of it today as anything else but one Book! And one Book it is indeed -- the miracle of all literary unity.
THE WONDER OF ITS INTEREST
Another marvellous thing about this Book is that it is the only book in the world read by all classes and all sorts of people. Literary people rarely read a child's book, and children do not read books of philosophy and science. There is but one Book that is read by the wisest of men, read to the little child, and read by the old man as he trembles on the brink of another world. Professor Dyson Hague asked the nurse what she was reading to his daughter, and she replied, "I am reading the story of Joseph in the Bible," and the child added, "And please do not stop her, father." She was listening with delighted interest to a story that had been written in Hebrew three thousand five hundred years before. Not far away from the same room where the child was listening, there sat one of the greatest of modern scientists, Sir William Dawson (a humble believer in the Lord Jesus Christ), reading with profound devotion and higher delight the pages of the same marvellous Book. Here is a phenomenon -- one of the ablest of modern scientists delights in reading a Book which is the joy of a little child in the nursery!
THE WONDER OF ITS LANGUAGE
The Book was not written in the seats of learning, either at Athens in Greece or at Alexandria in Egypt, but in Palestine. Some of the writers were not distinguished for their scholarship. Some did not speak even their own language perfectly. Peter was betrayed by his Galilean dialect, and he and John were described in Acts 4:13 as "ignorant and unlearned men". Many of the men who wrote the Bible were of that character. One was a farm-hand, another a shepherd, others were fishermen. They were men of no literary reputation, and yet by the mysterious power of God the Book has become the standard of language of the most literary nations of the world.
THE WONDER OF ITS PRESERVATION
The Bible has withstood ages of ferocious and incessant persecution. Century after century men have tried to burn it and to bury it and to extirpate it. Kings of the earth set themselves and rulers of the church have taken counsel together to destroy it. Diocletian the Roman Emperor inaugurated in AD 303 a terrific onslaught upon the Book. Bibles were destroyed, Christians were slain, and the Emperor boasted that the very name of the Christians was blotted out, and yet after a few years, the Bible came forth as Noah from the ark to repeople the earth, and in AD 325 Constantine enthroned the Bible as the Infallible Judge of Truth in the great council of the Church held in that year.
Later the Church of Rome denied the Scriptures to the people and for ages the Bible was practically an unknown book. Martin Luther was a grown man when he said that he had never seen a Bible in his life. No jailor ever kept a prisoner closer than the Church of Rome kept the Bible from the people.
The worst opposition of all has been during the last two hundred years, with rationalism and modernism seeking to undermine the authority, inspiration and inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures. It was Voltaire's boast that within one hundred years of his death not a Bible would be found save as an antiquarian curiosity. Many more than one hundred years have passed, and other pens and other voices have joined in the attack, but the Bible remains and is being more widely distributed and used than ever before.
THE BIBLE IS SELF-AUTHENTICATING
You need no historical critic for God's own Word. The Holy Spirit, who is the Author of the Book, makes it speak to our souls in such power as to give divine conviction. Men may arise to unsettle and destroy, but the Spirit of Christ comes to validate and confirm, with a certainty that is incommunicable by mere reason, and is impervious to the assaults of doubt. Spurgeon spoke of a poor woman who was challenged by an agnostic to prove that the Bible in her hand was God's Word. She pointed to the sun and said, "Can you prove that there is a sun in the sky?" The unbeliever answered, "Of course, the proof is that it warms me and I see its light." "That is it," she replied, "and the best proof that this Book is the Word of God is that it warms and lights my soul."
IT CANNOT BE IMPROVED
We do not gild gold. We do not paint rubies. We cannot brighten diamonds. Neither can any artist add any final touch to this finished Word of God. It stands as the sun in the sky and this proud age can add nothing to it. It has the glory of God and any attempt to improve it can but disfigure it. It speaks with authority and breaks upon you as the Voice from heaven. Five hundred times in the Pentateuch, three hundred times in the following books and twelve hundred times in the prophets, the declarations are prefaced or concluded with such expressions as "Hear the Word of the Lord", or "Thus saith the Lord". No other book dares thus to address itself to the universal conscience. No other speaks with such a binding claim or presumes to command the obedience of all mankind. The Book speaks to the inner conscience with the authority of God Himself.
IT IS LIVING AND POWERFUL
Men think of the Bible as a Book that was inspired, and this is true, but it is also true that it still comes sweeping into the hearts of men today, and the same breath of God that gave it life makes it living and spiritually energising today. This is a most remarkable and unique feature of the Bible -- I feel that it is mine. Its promises are mine. The 103rd Psalm is not ancient Hebrew, it is a present day message to my soul. The other day I took up an old Bible that my mother gave me, in which years ago I had marked Genesis 28:15 when I was in great trouble and had to leave my wife and children and travel in quest of health in distant lands. One day as I opened the Bible at random these words came before my eye. Shall I ever forget the flood of comfort that swept over my soul as I read that verse? "Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again to this land." All the critics in the world could never persuade my soul that those words were a mere echo of some far-off relic of a Babylonian legend or oriental myth. No, no! That was a message to me, and it swept into my soul as a voice from heaven and lifted me up. No man will ever shake me out of the conviction that that message was God's own Word to me -- inspiring because inspired.
IT REVEALS CHRIST
It changes mens' lives and alters their destinies. It inaugurates world-wide movements. A single text transformed Luther and launched the greatest of modern epochs. It comes today into communities of unrighteousness as a regenerating force.
The supreme wonder of the Book is Christ, Who is its fulness, its centre, its great subject. Of the whole Book it may be said, "The glory of God does lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof". As long as men live upon the face of the globe, the Book that tells of Christ the Revealer, Redeemer, the Risen, Reigning, Returning Lord will draw men's hearts like a magnet, and men will stand by it, and live for it, and die for it.
Do not think that we ought to read this Book as we read any other book, or study and analyse it just as we do any text book in literature or science. No! When you come to this Book, come to it with reverence. Read it with a plea for the Spirit's help. "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." Other books are of the earth. This is from heaven, it is the living Word of the Living God, Supernatural in origin, divine in authorship, regenerative in power, infallible in authority, personal in application, inspired in its every part.
(Summarised and selected from "The Wonder of the Book"
by Prof. Dyson Hague, M.A.)
CONCLUSION
Let us make ourselves very clear where we stand in relation to the Authorised Bible, God's Word. We believe the A.V. Bible was translated by 47 scholars, men of God appointed to carry out this vital work. These men under the inspiration of The Holy Spirit translated from the Greek into English words, placing commas, etc., where necessary, thereby giving us the true meaning in our language. There is no room for alteration to words or commas, etc., as they stand in the A.V. Bible. So vital is this that God has distinctly warned against tampering with His Word. He has placed in our A.V. Bible these warnings. In Deut. 4:2a, "Ye shall not add unto the Word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it .... "; In Prov. 30:6a, "add thou not unto His Words" and in Rev. 22:18, 19, "(18) For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto l hese things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: (19) And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."
Let us here give one example of tampering with God's Word, and how vital commas are in our English translation. In Heb. 10:12, the A.V. reads, "But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God;" Some translations have placed the comma after sins making it read "After He had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God" thus making the return of Our Lord impossible. This of course makes Roman Catholic doctrine, leaving the priests free to celebrate "mass" as often as they please, in spite of Our Lord Jesus Christ having offered one sacrifice for sins forever. Heb. 10:12.
We can be sure the A.V. is God's infallible, inerrant, and no less inspired word than was the original Greek and Hebrew from which it was translated. Would God have neglected the preservation of His Pure Word?, if so, He certainly could not hold us responsible. He would have left us without a Bible in which we could place our trust, further more as few of us read and understand Greek, what an impossible position we would find ourselves in, in relation to our salvation.
All Things Must be Examined by the Scriptures
When we are confronted by some new doctrine, etc., we must do as the Bereans did, Acts 17:11. "Search the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so." In addition, we must, under the guidance of The Holy Spirit learn to "rightly divide the Word". 2 Timothy 2:15.
We would further draw the attention of those who would seek to alter or improve (as they imagine) the A.V. by using some Greek text which does not agree with the A.V. if so there is only one place for the text, the waste paper basket, as you are probably using one of the many corrupt Greek texts, possibly Westcott and Hort's. This has been altered and differs in something like five or six thousand places from the Received text from which the New Testament of The A.V. Bible was translated into English. We stand or fall on this Bible, God's Word given to us in English.
Remember! God wrote only one Bible.
Paul said he did not adulterate the Word of God but presented it in all its purity. However, man today has corrupted it by adding to it through the rapid production of new translations, paraphrases, versions, perversions and amplifications of the Scriptures. The best that can be said for them all is that they are helping to increase sales in most Bible Book Stores and helping the publishers to make large profits. The Christians are left without their money and end up in greater confusion than ever.
Compiled by-
BIBLE TRUTH SOCIETY R.D. Oratia
Auckland
New Zealand
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
