A Survey of the

Authorized Version
 

 
Dr. Peter S. Ruckman
President, Pensacola Bible Institute

B.A., B.D., M.A., Th.M., Ph.D.

 
COPYRIGHT © 1978 by Peter S. Ruckman
All Rights Reserved
(PRINT) ISBN 1-58026-279-1
 
 
PUBLISHER’S NOTE

The Scripture quotations found herein are from the text of the Authorized

King James Version of the Bible. Any deviations therefrom are not

intentional.

 
BB BOOKSTORE
P.O. Box 7135 Pensacola, FL 32534

 
www.kjv1611.org
 
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 PREFACE
 
We’re going to have a little Bible study, and it’s going to
be kind of dull for some of you. If you don’t like the manna,
it’s going to be kind of dull; and if you long for the leeks and
the onions and the garlics, why, it won’t be too interesting.
But if you love the Lord and love the word, you’ll get a
blessing. I’m going to show you some things about your
Bible tonight that you’re not going to learn in any school,
and I didn’t learn them in any school anyway. If I’m kind of
out in left field in my Bible approach, it’s because the Lord
got me there by myself. And I’m going to show you some
things about a King James Bible that maybe you didn’t know
and that might be a blessing to you.
 A Survey of the
Authorized Version
 
 
We could start almost anywhere here, but let’s start in 1
Thessalonians 2:13: “For this cause also thank we God
without ceasing, because, when ye received the word
of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the
word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God,
which effectually worketh also in you that believe.”
That is, if you’re saved, this Book will work in you. But it will
only work effectually in you if you believe it; if you don’t
believe it, it won’t work in you. The Bible says when you
heard the truth, you received it not as the word of men but
as the word of God, and it effectually works in a man that
believes.
Take your Bible now and turn to Hebrews 4:12: “For the
word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than
any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing
asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and
marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and
intents of the heart.” I don’t discern its thoughts and
intents; it discerns mine. This Book is perfectly capable of
judging any college professor in this town. That is, this Book
is perfectly capable of taking apart and critiquing and
dissecting anything you ever heard or anything you ever
read or anything you ever learned. Hebrews 4:13: “Neither
is there ANY creature….” (That takes care of you and
your mother and your professor.) “Neither is there any
creature that is not manifest in his sight….”
His sight?
Why, who’s the Him? Verse 12: “The word of God.” He
talked about that word like it was a person. “Neither is
there any creature that is not manifest in his sight”—
the word of God. You say, “Well, it’s Christ.” No, you’re
wrong. When He said: “The word of God is quick, and
powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword,” it
was not a reference to Jesus Christ, because when Jesus
Christ comes back in Revelation chapter 19, He opens His
mouth and a sharp two-edged sword goes out of His mouth.
Hebrews 4:13 is not the Incarnate Word; it is the written
word. “The word of God is quick, and powerful, and,”
nothing is hid from “HIS sight.” This book has personality:
it’s like a person. A fellow told me one time, “You’ve got a
‘paper pope’.” Amen! Amen! That’s right. At least I’ve got
one that’s infallible and sinless. That’s more than some of
you have.
One time a man found a fanatic out there in the streets
of New York running around a hat. He was pointing at the
hat in the middle of the road and yelling, “It’s alive! It’s
alive! It’s alive! It’s alive!” And the crowd gathered around
there because they thought he was nuts. And he kept
running around that hat yelling, “It’s alive! It’s alive!”
The crowd kept asking, “What’s alive? What’s alive?”
So he went over and picked up that hat; there was a
Bible underneath it. He said, “The word of God.”
Now, folks say, “Well, he’s crazy.” Well, not so crazy as
you are if you don’t believe it.
You say, “I don’t like the way you talk.” You’re going to
like it less before we get through!
Hebrews 4:13: “Neither is there any creature that is
not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and
opened unto the eyes of him….” Where’s the
antecedent? The antecedent is in verse 12, “the word of
God.”
One time a Catholic said to Martin Luther, “Where is your
religion found?”
And Luther said, “Where yours has never been found and
never will be found.”
And the Catholic said, “Where?”
And Luther said, “In the Bible and no where else.”
 One time a Catholic said to John Wesley, “Where was
your religion before the Reformation?”
And he said, “Where was your face before you washed
it?” (Behind the dirt!)
All right, now let’s turn to Galatians chapter 3. Here Paul
is what you would call a “Bibliolater,” and that’s what scares
these college professors so badly. Your Greek and Hebrew
professors are scared to death somebody will think that they
worship the Bible. So they try to make their students
worship them. And instead of putting the Bible as the final
authority, they correct the Bible and make you think they
are the final authority. But let’s see what the greatest
Christian said about this book. (Bibliolatry never bothered
him a bit.) Galatians 3:7–8: “Know ye therefore that
they which are of faith, the same are the children of
Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing….”
“The scripture, foreseeing”? Why, a book can’t
FORESEE. To be able to foresee is an attribute of something
that’s LIVING.
“And the scripture, foreseeing that God would
justify the heathen through faith, preached before
the gospel unto Abraham….” Why, there were no
Scriptures when God spoke to Abraham. Did you read back
there in Genesis where the Lord spoke to Abraham? Genesis
hadn’t been written at the time God spoke to Abraham.
Moses wrote Genesis about 1500 B.C. while Abraham lived
back there around 1900 B.C. What do you mean, “the
scripture…preached…unto Abraham”? Abraham HAD
no “Scriptures.” Do you know who it was that said to
Abraham: “In thee shall all nations be blessed”? Who
said that to him? Why, God said that to him. Paul, aren’t you
ashamed of yourself putting the word “scripture” for GOD?
Tut, tut! This is what scares people, see? They say, “You
worship that book.” Well, I don’t want to have you
misunderstand me; I’m not a fanatic on it. I know you can
burn this book, and you can’t burn God. I know that “God is
a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him
in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). I know you can put ink
all over this book, and you can’t put ink on God. I’ve got
some sense. I mean, I’m not making an idol out of it. But
boy, it “sure do get close,” don’t it? It sure do get close!
Have you ever wondered…?
Some apostate fundamentalist says, “Well, what he’s
talking about there is the originals.”
Who told you that? You’ve never read that in any Bible.
Where did you ever read in any Bible that somebody
said, “The originals said, the originals said”? Isn’t it strange
how non-Christian some Christians talk? Here’s a man
standing up and saying, “A better translation should be….”
He didn’t learn that from God, and you didn’t read it in any
Bible you ever read.
The faculty members say, “It’s unfortunate it is this way,
and a better rendering should be such and such.” Did Paul
ever talk like that? Did James ever talk like that? Did John
ever talk like that? Did Matthew ever talk like that? Did
Moses ever talk like that? Did David ever talk like that? Did
Jesus Christ ever talk like that? Then why do you listen to
men who do?
You know what I think? I think that way down somewhere
under that veneer which some of you have, you’ve got a
kind of desire to judge that Bible yourself and be superior to
it; so that kind of stuff appeals to you. These egotistical
critics get up there and begin to correct it and correct it. And
you say, “Well, I can do that. I can study. I can get the brains
to do that, and then I’ll be the final judge.” See? You never
in your life heard a Christian in the New Testament talk that
way or say, “The originals said, the originals said….”
We’ve just got a good start! Romans 9:17: “For the
scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same
purpose have I raised thee up….” The “scripture” said
to Pharaoh? Why, in the book of Exodus there were no
Scriptures around when Moses talked with Pharaoh. Moses
wrote the book of Exodus after those events took place. The
Scripture didn’t say it to Pharaoh. Who said to Pharaoh,
“Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up,
that I might shew my power in thee”? Who said that?
Why, the Lord said it. Paul is kind of careless, isn’t he? The
idea of putting the word “scripture” for the word “God”!
Isn’t that kind of careless? Paul must have been a
Bibliolater.
One of our young men was downtown, and this other
young man said to him, “You’re a Ruckmanite. You’re
following a man.”
Our student asked, “Whom am I following?”
“You’re following Ruckman,” came the reply.
“I’m not following Ruckman. I’m following this book. I
believe this book doesn’t have a mistake in it.”
“Ruckman taught you that; you’re a Ruckmanite. I
believe it has mistakes in it.”
To which our student replied, “Who taught you that?”
Strange, isn’t it? Did you ever notice how these fellows
say, “You’re following a man. You’re following a man.” And
every man that says that is following a man. Isn’t that
peculiar? Listen, I’ll tell you, if you can find a mistake in that
book, you’re not following me because I don’t teach there
are any mistakes in it. And I’ll tell you something else:
You’re not following the Lord!
Anyone of you fellows care to tell me that God Almighty
or the Holy Spirit showed you a mistake in that Book—that
God showed it to you. Tell me! Tell me! Every time you
thought that 1 John 5:7 shouldn’t have been in there and
that Ahaziah’s age contradicts in Chronicles and Kings, you
got it out of another book, didn’t you? Didn’t you? Yes, you
did.
All right, Romans 9:17, “For the scripture saith unto
Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised
thee up.” The Scripture foresees. The Scripture raises
people up, and Paul used the terms interchangeably.
 This is a strange Book that I have in my hand. They say
this Book is not “scientific.” They say this Book is outdated,
it’s outmoded, it’s archaic. They say it needs to be
“updated.” They say it was written by men who didn’t have
the “scientific world view” and who knew nothing about the
“inductive method.” Let’s see how these men did with the
limited knowledge that they had. Luke 17:30, “Even thus
shall it be in the day when the Son of man is
revealed.”
“In the day”? Verse 34: “I tell you, in that night….”
Oh, come on, Lord; it can’t be day and night at the same
time! Verse 30 says, “in the day”; verse 34 says, “in that
night.” Well, come on; it can’t be day and night at the
same time, can it?
You say, “Why, sure!” But how did Luke know that? Until
A.D. 1500, people thought the earth was flat. How do you
explain the fact that Luke recorded something there that
scientists didn’t know about until 1500. How come he knew
it could be day and night at the same time? Did you ever try
to explain anything like that? Do you know who thought it
was flat in 1500? The scientists and educators.
All right, take your Bible and turn to Isaiah chapter 40.
Luke not only knew that it could be day and night at the
same time, but Isaiah—and he lived at least 800 years
before Christ—said this in Isaiah 40:21–22: “Have ye not
known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you
from the beginning? have ye not understood from the
foundations of the earth? It is he that sitteth upon
the circle [the circle—the circle!] of the earth, and the
inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers.” The Bible
says that the earth is round. You know what the scientists
said for fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen centuries? They said it
was flat; they said it was square.
You say, “Doesn’t it say over there in Revelation that
they stood on the four corners of the earth?” Sure, the earth
has four corners. Aren’t you up on your geography? Haven’t
you ever read the National Geographic magazine that shows
you that picture of the earth with those four bulges there at
different places? You’re “up-to-date,” aren’t you? Sure you
are! Folks say that the Bible says that it has four corners—
north, south, east, and west. You’ve got four corners on a
compass—north, south, east, and west.
A fellow said to me one time, “The Bible’s not scientific:
it says the ‘four corners of the earth’.” I went down by the
post office, and I saw a sign there for recruiting Marines. It
said, “Marines are serving Uncle Sam in the four corners of
the earth.”
Folks are funny, aren’t they? The Bible accommodates
itself to you so that you can understand it; then you say,
“It’s not scientific.” Then the Bible gets scientific, and you
say, “I can’t understand it.” There’s something wrong with
man; did you know that?
Do you know what some bird said to me one time? He
said, “The Bible said the sun rose and the sun set.” He said,
“Now, we know that the sun doesn’t rise, and it doesn’t set;
the earth turns.”
I said, “You got a newspaper on you?”
He said, “Yes,” and took it out.
I said, “What time’s sunrise?” And before he could think,
he quoted it to me. The Naval Air Station says “sunrise-
sunset.” You won’t beat the Book.
All right, now turn to Ecclesiastes 1. Now, you notice that
I’m using only one Book for what I’m going to show you.
We’re not going to get into any of the new versions; we’ll
just stick with the old one right here. Ecclesiastes 1:6: “The
wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto
the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind
returneth again according to his circuits.” But they
didn’t know that back there in A.D. 100, 200, 300, 400, and
100, 200, 300, 400 B.C., that the wind has regular circuits,
or paths, that it travels. Ask the aerologist out there at the
airport; he’ll tell you about it. Ecclesiastes 1:7: “All the
rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto
the place from whence the rivers come, thither they
return again.” Solomon said that the water runs down into
the ocean; then it goes back up to the river and comes back
down the river, and goes up the river and comes back down
the river. Nobody believed that for years and years and
years. Then somebody began to study evaporation and
condensation. Somebody said, “Well, it goes up over the
water and blows back over the land; clouds come down with
drops.” Yeah, but how come Solomon knew it in 1000 B.C.?
Why is it that the scientists always lag 500 to 1,000 years
behind the Bible? You’d think they would get caught up
sometime, wouldn’t you?
For example, if I were to tell you tonight—and I wouldn’t
think of telling you a thing like this—but if I were to tell you
tonight that the way to learn how to make bread is out of
snow, you wouldn’t take it seriously. If I were to tell you that
the best substitute for blood in a human being, if you were
trying to make a human being, would be water, you
wouldn’t take it seriously. If I were to tell you that between
here and Alpha Draconis, going north, is a body of water
fifteen million times bigger than the Pacific, some of you
wouldn’t believe me: and yet you’re going to go up through
it when you go up at the Rapture. If I were to tell you that
New Jerusalem is right up there, and that I could point to
within three inches of it from down here, you wouldn’t
believe me; but that’s because you’re too “scientific.’’ See?
If you’d get in your Bible, you’d be so far ahead of science
that they couldn’t catch up with you. So I’m not going to tell
you about any of those things!
In the Dark Ages in Europe, when the Black Plague swept
Europe (1300) and took off people by the millions, and there
weren’t enough live people left to bury the dead people, the
Jews got through with hardly a casualty. So they were
blamed for the Black Death. One of the reasons the Jew got
through was his dietary laws. And another reason he got
through is found in Leviticus 15:13: “And when he that
hath an issue is cleansed of his issue; then he shall
number to himself seven days for his cleansing, and
wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in running
water, and shall be clean.” It wasn’t until late in the
eighteen hundreds that the surgeons and physicians learned
how to bathe their hands in running water to get the germs
off them. The guy was putting his hands down in the bowl
and washing and down in the bowl and washing, and the
patients were getting gangrene by the score and losing
arms and hands and feet by amputation. Then somebody
said to let the water run over it, so now they wash them in
running water. But don’t you think that twenty-two centuries
is just a little bit slow? As a matter of fact, it’s more than
that—the passage I’m reading here is fourteen centuries
before the birth of Christ; it’s been eighteen centuries after
his birth. Let’s see, that’s only thirty-two centuries off! You
know, if you’re a scientist, you’re going to have a problem
trying to keep up with what’s going on. You’re liable to get
way out of step.
All right, take your Bible and turn to Job 37:6. Job was
written in 1800 B.C.; it’s the oldest book in the Bible, written
probably before Moses was born. Job 37:6: “For he saith to
the snow, Be thou on the earth; likewise to the small
rain, and to the great rain of his strength.” God takes
care of snowfall and rainfall. When the snow comes down,
every snowflake is different. I’ve heard them say of a
snowfall of eight or nine feet up there in Canada, that you
can’t find two of them alike. That’s a strange thing. Boy, you
know, if you’re a Darwinian, you’ll sure have a time with
that one, man! I don’t know how you’ll get through that.
You’d think He’d mess up once, wouldn’t you? All right,
verse 7: “He sealeth up the hand of every man; that
all men may know his work.” How do I know it’s God
doing the work and not Mother Nature and not Darwin? By
my hand. God seals up my hand so that I can know His
work. How do I know His work? I look at my hand. My
fingerprints are not like yours. Fingerprints are just as
different as snowflakes. The One that made the snowflakes
made my hand. “He sealeth up the hand of every
man.”
Like a fellow said one time, “My daddy got put in jail for
something he didn’t do.”
And they said, “What’s that?”
He said, “He didn’t wipe his fingerprints off the safe.”
Some smart aleck drove the police officers and the
sheriffs nuts for about a year trying to figure out that he’d
open safes with his toes.
I don’t see how in the world a man can be an evolutionist
when he knows that snowflakes come down different and
hands come up different. They’re saying now that not even
two sets of teeth or toes are alike. And yet there’s a bunch
of kooks saying that all the races are alike. Why, the
individuals are not even alike, man, let alone the races.
There are not even two individuals the same. They get this
idea, “Well, it just came from a kind of indiscriminate
mongrel mass and just gradually evolved into a kind of
spontaneous dust cloud that swirled until the chemicals
broke off,” and all that stuff. Why, man, you’ve got to have
faith to believe that nonsense! I haven’t got that much faith.
I never had very much faith. It’s a lot easier just to say,
“Well, God did it,” than to go through that mess.
I want to read you one of my favorite poems. You may
not appreciate it, but this has always been one of my
favorite poems.

 
Upon a rock yet uncreate,
Amid a chaos incohate,
An uncreated being sate.
Beneath him rock
Above him cloud,
 And the cloud was rock,
And the rock was cloud.
The rock then growing soft and warm,
The cloud began to take a form,
A form chaotic, vast, and vague
Which issued in the cosmic egg.
Then the being uncreate
On the egg did incubate.
And thus became the incubator,
And of the egg did allegate,
And thus became the alligator.
And the incubator was potentate,
But the alligator was potentator.

 
Now, Psalm 75:5, “Lift not up your horn on high:
speak not with a stiff neck.” There isn’t a voice
instructor in the world that doesn’t know that’s good advice.
And whoever that fellow was that wrote that, he knew that
you’d mess up your vocal chords if you spoke with a stiff
neck. And if you’re going to speak or sing, it’s got to come
from the diaphragm, and the throat has to be loose. “Speak
not with a stiff neck.” But there were people in 1800 and
1900 who didn’t know that. If they had had a Bible, they
might have been able to save their voices.
All right, take your Bible and turn to Psalm 119:70.
“Their heart is as fat as grease.” Did you ever hear of
fat around the heart? He says over there in Genesis 42:28
that Jacob’s sons’ hearts failed. Did you ever hear of heart
failure? In one place over in the Psalms, He says wine for
this and oil for this, but bread for a man’s heart. They just
found out in the last sixty or seventy years that Vitamin E in
whole wheat bread is good for your heart muscle. If they
would read their Bible, they would keep up with things a
little better, I think.
 Look at Nahum 2:3. “The shield of his mighty men is
made red, the valiant men are in scarlet: the chariots
shall be with flaming torches in the day of his
preparation.” In the day when the Lord comes back or in
the preparing for His coming, “the day of his
preparation,”
“the chariots shall be with flaming
torches.” Verse 4: “The chariots shall rage in the
streets, they shall justle one against another in the
broad ways: they shall seem like torches, they shall
run like the lightnings.” What do you suppose that is?
Could it be any clearer? Somebody speaks up, “Well, you
know, ‘chariots’.” Yeah, but if the Lord had said, “Ford V-8’s
and Mustangs and Barracudas,” who would have understood
it? See? In plainer words, when the Lord writes, He writes so
that any fool can get it.
A fellow said, “Well, it ought to be up-to-date; it ought to
be scientific.” Why, if the Lord had just said, “The Buicks will
bang against the Chevrolets,” who in 1800 could have
understood it?
Take your Bible and turn to Isaiah if you think I stretched
Nahum by putting his words on automobiles. Whoever wrote
Nahum and Isaiah knew something that nobody knew in
1900. Isaiah 9:5, speaking of the battle preceding the
Second Coming of Christ: “For every battle of the
warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled
in blood; but [watch it!] this [this battle] shall be with
burning and fuel of fire [!].” How do you explain that? A
fellow said, “Just coincidence.” We’ll see about those
“coincidences” in a while.
Take your Bible and turn to Job 25:5. “Behold even to
the moon, and it shineth not.” It doesn’t? Doesn’t the
song say, “Shine on, shine on harvest moon”? “Behold
even to the moon, and it shineth not.” Does the moon
shine? No, it reflects light. When did you find that out? They
didn’t know it in 800; they didn’t know it in 900; they didn’t
know it in 1000; they didn’t know it in 1100; they didn’t
know it in 1200; they didn’t know it in 1300; they didn’t
know it in 1400. How come they didn’t read Job? Job was
written 1800 years B.C. You’d think a fellow would get
caught up somewhere, wouldn’t you? (That’s why the Bible
says beware “of science falsely so called,” over there in
1 Tim. 6:20.) The gods of this country are sex, money, and
education. Any time you take sex, education, or money and
put them ahead of that Book, you are in the wrong pew. You
say, “What about Christian education?” Yes sir, Christian
education too! Many times higher Christian education is not
Biblical education in any sense of the word.
The modern, apostate Fundamentalist says, “Well, I
believe the fundamentals.”
So did the Council of Nicaea, A.D. 325. So what? Do you
know what? If I had time, I could take The Two Babylons by
Alexander Hislop and open that thing, and I could show you
every “fundamental” of the Christian faith being taught in
pagan religions before Christ was born. Good people, the
only thing that makes your religion different from other
folks’ religion is not the number of things that you profess to
believe out of this Book, but that you have an authoritative
Book on which you can bet your soul. And it doesn’t make
any mistakes. Why, Tammuz dies, he’s buried, he comes up
from the dead. Apollos dies and goes to the underworld and
comes back up (Eph. 4; Matt. 27). And they had other
“virgin-born” people over there (Alexander and all kinds of
folks) long before Christ shows up. The fact that makes our
religion different from pagan religions is that we have the
truth out of all those other religions stuck right here in this
Book without any error or admixture of error in it.
Job 38:19, “Where is the way where light
dwelleth?” Why didn’t he say, “Where is the place where
light dwelleth” like the corrupt NASV says? Because nobody
yet has been able to determine a location for light: it’s
always moving. So he said, “Where is the way…?” How
did Job know that light was always moving? Einstein spent a
lot of time trying to prove that.
Job 38:22: “Hast thou entered into the treasures of
the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the
hail.”
A fellow said, “That’s just figurative.”
No, it’s not. Dr. Schutt says that a two-foot snowfall has
$8.14 per acre in nitrates, ammonium, and albuminoid.
Job 38:24: “By what way is the light parted, which
scattereth the east wind upon the earth?” By a
spectroscope. But who knew that before the time of Christ?
Job 38:35: “Canst thou send lightnings, that they
may go, and say unto thee, Here we are?” Ben Franklin
did. He got to messing around with lightning and a key, and
somebody got to messing around with electricity, and
Alexander Graham Bell picked up a phone and said, “Here
we are.” How do you account for that? How do you account
for the fact that Job said that lightning could talk? Nobody
else knew that till after the Protestant Reformation.
Revelation 22:19, “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.” It says: “And if any man shall
take away from the w-o-r-d-s”; not the “message,” not
the “fundamentals,” not the “truths”: THE W-O-R-D-S!
Let’s see if that’s good, solid Bible doctrine. Somebody
said, “Well, you couldn’t have the words to the original
because the words to the original are in Greek, and you lose
a lot in translation.” Yeah, and you can gain a lot too!
Do you mean that you can lose a lot of the exact force of
the original?
Some fella says: “Yes.”
Maybe the Lord doesn’t want you to have the exact force
of the original. Maybe he wants you to have the exact force
of the English! Did you ever think about that? I told a fellow
one time, “If I had the originals right here in my pulpit
tonight, I wouldn’t teach them to you”—and I meant it.
If I was over in that room and an angel of the Lord came
down in that room and said, “Here are the original
manuscripts.” Do you know what I’d teach you when I came
over here tonight? Just what I’ve got on the table.
A fellow says, “Whooooaa!”
Do you know why he’d say, “Whooooaa!”? Because he’s
the idolater. He worships the paper on which the words were
written. Yeah, that’s it! A lot of this old, superstitious
reverence about “the original, the original, the original” is
just a cover-up for rejecting what God gave you. You had
better watch that stuff.
John 5:46, 47, “For had ye believed Moses, ye would
have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye
believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my
words?”
John 3:34, “For he whom God hath sent speaketh
the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by
measure unto him.”
Now, I realize that this is rather dull to some of you, and
I’ll tell you why that is: You don’t have a proper estimation
of the word. You don’t have a proper estimation of the Book.
You’re so soaked and shot through with Time and Life and
Look and Saturday Evening Post and Newsweek and The
Caine Mutiny and Gone with the Wind that you don’t know
where you’re “at” just about half the time. God has put into
your lap the greatest Book this world has ever seen, and
you underestimate it. Why, if all the dust were knocked off
all the closed Bibles in Florida, there would be a dust storm
that would smother the crops. John 14:23: “Jesus
answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will
keep my words.”
You say, “I don’t think it’s that important.”
All right, let’s see where you are. Let’s see if we can get
your number. Haven’t you ever noticed how nervous this
Book makes people? You get out this Book, and they begin
to shift and squirm around and get restless. You walk
through an air terminal with one of these things, and they
will look at you like you were a three-headed monster, man.
A fellow said, “How do you know the Bible’s the word of
God?” By how nervous it makes folks.
When some of you fellows were around eight, nine, and
ten years old, you’d carry your King James Bible to public
school. Then you got up around junior high, and you quit,
didn’t you? Do you know why you quit it? Too much
pressure. Do you know why you had the pressure? Because
you had the right Book. And I’ll tell you if you had carried
Life or Look magazine or Good News for Modern Man around
there, nobody would have ever bothered you. But you carry
along that old black-backed sixty-six and see what happens?
All right, John 8:44–47, “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. And because I tell you THE
TRUTH, ye believe me not. Which of you convinceth
me of sin? And if I say THE TRUTH, why do ye not
believe me? He that is of God heareth God’s words:
ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of
God.” Mmmmmmm, Mmmmmmm! You know something?
Those verses say that if you love the Lord, you’re going to
keep His words. And if His words aren’t available, you don’t
have any proof that you even love Him. Do you think that
the God Almighty, Who inspired that Book and gave it to us,
was so weak and so impotent and so tired out that He
couldn’t preserve it? Do you think He lost it on the way
someplace and just gave it up as a bad job? I’ll tell you, if He
had the power to inspire it, He must have had the power to
preserve it. The very idea of God Almighty reaching over the
battlements of heaven and pulling me out of the dance
bands and the army camps and the barrooms where I used
to hang out and saying, “Go preach the word,” and then He
couldn’t give it to me to preach! Brother, I’ve got it! I know
where it is. It’s right here in my hand!
Somebody said, “That’s a reference to the originals.”
You old liar; where did you get the authority for saying
that? I read a book one time about how our Bible (the
original manuscripts) was inspired, and every quotation the
guy gave in it he gave from a King James Bible. Now, that’s
a weird thing. How do you figure that out? If your proof that
the original is inspired is this King James Bible, how come
you’re quoting this. This isn’t the original. Folks are funny,
aren’t they?
Let’s take another look at this Book. This binding has
seven bands around the back because Revelation 5:1 says
there was a seven-sealed book “written within and on
the backside.” Take your Bible and tell me something:
Have you got red around the edges? All right. It’s a bloody
Book, so they put red on it. How many of you have a black
Book? They say, “Put it down in your little black book.”
That’s the Book. All right, how many of you have gold or gilt
edges. Gold covered all the tabernacle furniture, so it
represents deity. Back in the old days when you opened one
of these King James Bibles, it had a little book here in the
frontispiece with seven seals on it. Some of you don’t have
that, but I’ll tell you what you’ve got. There are one, two,
three, four, five, six, seven lines around the back of that
Bible. And if you’ve got five—one, two, three, four, five—
you’ve got six coming across the bottom and seven going
across the top. Isn’t that a “cohinky-dinky,” huh? How do
you explain that?
A fellows say, “Well, the publisher….”
The publisher doesn’t even know what I just said. If you
went to Oxford and Cambridge and asked those fellows why
they did that, they couldn’t tell you. It’s a strange Book. And
the more you study it, the stranger it gets. For example, this
Book in the Epistle Dedicatory says, “To the most high and
mighty Prince James, defender of the faith.” Some of you
don’t have that dedicatory in your Bible; you ought to have
it, though. “To the most high and mighty Prince James…by
the grace of God….” Do you know where the word James
comes from? Do any of you fellows know what the Greek
word or the Hebrew word for James is? The Greek word is
from the Hebrew word for Jacob. God waited until He had a
king on the English throne with the name James and then
put that thing in there: “To the most high and mighty Prince
Jacob.” Why, Jacob was a prince in Israel.
This is a Jewish Book. Every writer in it is a Jew. God
wouldn’t turn out a perfect Book when Elizabeth was on the
throne or when George was on the throne. He had to get
James, and there is no power in a Bible unless it is the word
of a KING (Eccl. 8:4).
Did you ever stop and think about this: That thing says
“King James,” nine letters. “Holy Bible,” nine letters. Do you
know what nine is in your Bible? Well, when old Abraham
was ninety and nine, he bore that fruit and got that seed.
And in Genesis 9:1 the Lord said, “Be fruitful, and
multiply, and replenish the earth” with that fruit. And
there are nine fruits of the Holy Spirit over there in Galatians
(which just by wild coincidence happens to be the ninth
book in the New Testament). Merely “coincidence”; nothing
to it, nothing to it! But I’ll tell you something: If you want to
bear fruit, that’s the Book to use. And back in the old days
when those fellows preached that Book, they thought that it
was God’s word, and they preached it like they thought it
was God’s word, and they got the fruit. And the Bible says,
“By their fruits ye shall know them.”
You say, “I’ve got an ASV.”
What are the fruits?
You say, “I’ve got an Amplified.”
What are the fruits?
 “By their fruits ye shall know them.” The greatest
missionary and evangelistic period of church history the
world has ever seen was between 1600 and 1900. And
that’s the Book they used. “By their fruits ye shall know
them.”
Explain this to me: Isaiah has sixty-six chapters; the
Bible has sixty-six books. In Isaiah there’s a division after
chapter thirty-nine, and it’s so obvious that anybody could
see it. As a matter of fact, the scholars see it so much that
they think two different men wrote Isaiah, and they talk
about Deutero-Isaiah. All right, there’s a split in Isaiah after
chapter 39; there’s a split in the Bible after the thirty-ninth
book. Tell me something: How did Isaiah know where to
divide his book so it would match the canon when the canon
wasn’t yet complete?
A fellow said, “Well, they fixed that up later.”
They did? Well, let me ask you this: The first book in the
Bible begins “In the beginning God created the heaven
and the earth.” Isaiah 1:2 says, “Hear, O heavens, and
give ear, O earth.” The last book in the Bible says, “I saw
a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1). Isaiah 66:22
says, “For as the new heavens and the new earth…
shall remain before me, saith the Lord….” Pretty good
guess work, wouldn’t you think? Let me ask you this: If they
just fixed it up later, how come the first book in the New
Testament, the fortieth in the Bible, says: “The voice of
one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of
the Lord, make his paths straight” (Matt. 3:3); and
Isaiah 40:3 says: “The voice of him that crieth in the
wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make
straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Pretty
good “guess work,” wasn’t it? I mean, if you lay that thing
out so that the first chapter matches the first book and the
last chapter matches the last book and the split in the
middle is at the right place with the right material on both
sides, you’re doing pretty well. You’re doing pretty well
considering the fact that the Book wasn’t complete yet.
Someone may say, “Well, the same thing is also true of
the other books.”
You old liar—you ought to be ashamed of yourself. It isn’t
true of any other books. A Hebrew Old Testament wouldn’t
have that phenomenon because the Hebrew Old Testament
of the Orthodox Jew doesn’t have a New Testament—it
doesn’t have sixty-six books.
Somebody said, “Well, the King James Bible set up its
order of books after the Septuagint.”
No, it didn’t. The Septuagint had apocryphal books in the
Old Testament. So the King James is not laid out according
to the Old Testament Hebrew or to the Septuagint. What’s it
laid out after?
Good question! Let’s see what it’s laid out after. Have
you got a Bible there somewhere? Did you ever notice the
order of books in your Bible? Take your Bible and turn to 2
Chronicles. In 2 Chronicles, the last chapter, at the end of
that chapter, those Jews are in captivity. That captivity takes
place right there. They go into captivity, and then He tells
them to go back and rebuild. Look at the next book after 2
Chronicles, Ezra—they go back; they return. Look at the
next book, Nehemiah—they rebuild. Look at the next book,
Esther. Look at the next book, Job. Look at the next book,
Psalms. Shall we try it? Let’s try it. Second Chronicles: They
go into captivity like they went in A.D. 70. Next book, Ezra:
They go back like they went back in 1914. Next book,
Nehemiah: They rebuild like they did in 1948. Next book,
Esther. Look at Esther and notice in the first chapter there’s
a wedding and a party in the king’s garden seven days and
seven nights. Look at the next book, Job. In the book of Job,
Job is on the ground seven days and seven nights being
persecuted by the Devil. Do you know how many chapters
are in the book of Job? Forty-two, for the Great Tribulation.
Right on the money—right on the money. Do you know what
happened in the book of Job? The Devil persecuted Job, but
at the end of that book the Lord “turned the captivity of
Job” just like He’ll turn the captivity of Israel. That isn’t all.
At the end of that book old Job gets those kids back: There’s
a resurrection. And that isn’t all. Look at the next book,
Psalms. In the Book of Psalms up shows David. Christ is a
type of the son of David to reign on this earth. How do you
explain that? That isn’t the order of the Hebrew text. That
isn’t the order of the Masoretic text. That isn’t the order of
the Septuagint. That’s the order that God gave you in this
Book that’s superior to the originals, brother. That isn’t in
the originals. That’s in this Book. That’s some “layout” of
books you’ve got in a King James, isn’t it?
A fellow said, “If we only had the originals—”
If you only had the originals, you’d still be as blind as a
bat. You couldn’t find out anything. Revelation is not
conditioned on scholarship.
All right, let’s take our Bibles and look at it just a little bit
further. (Old Paul said, “I believe God, that it shall be
even as it was told me” (Acts 27:25). “God is not a
man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that
he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do
it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it
good?” [Num. 23:19])
Somebody said, “You’re a Bible believer.”
Yes.
“You’re a Bible fanatic.”
Yes. That doesn’t speak badly of me; that speaks badly of
you. You ought to be too.
“You put that Book in too high a place.”
I don’t put it in a high enough place, and I’ll show you.
Nehemiah 9:5 (watch it carefully): “Then the Levites,
Jeshua, and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabniah, Sherebiah,
Hodijah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, Stand up
and bless the Lord your God for ever and ever: and
blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above
all blessing and praise.” Blessing here. Praise a little
higher. And His name exalted above all blessing and praise.
Philippians 2:10–11, “That at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow, … And that every tongue should
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God
the Father.” Psalm 138:2: “I will worship toward thy
holy temple, and praise thy name for thy
lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast
magnified thy word [small w] above all thy name.”
Now, what are you apostate fundamentalists going to do
with that? You’ve got a whole generation of Christians who
just take that in, yawning, who don’t think anything about it.
If you pray in the name of Jesus and talk about worshipping
Jesus, that Book says that He has magnified that word
above His name. What do you know about that Book? If I
had you stand up right now and give me four verses on
marriage and divorce, could you give them? (Some of you
have been through it.) If I asked you to give me five verses
on eating, could you give them to me? They’re in there. If I
asked you to give three verses on sports, could you find
them? (Some of you fellows are doing them.) Boy, I’ll tell
you, if you didn’t know that the Devil had this thing under
control, you’d know it by that, wouldn’t you? Here are a
bunch of folks who are saved and who profess to believe
that Book, and God has already told you that that Book is
above the name of His Son, and what do you do with it?
What do you know about it? Nothing. If some of you folks
had to stand up tonight and give me five verses on making
money and saving money, you couldn’t do it if your life
depended upon it, and you know it! But you’ve made
money; you’re in business.
Now, there are 31,101 verses in a King James 1611, AV.
Do you know what the middle verse is (All About the Bible,
Collett)? Psalm 118:8. The middle verse in a King James
Bible says: “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put
confidence in man.” All right, count the words. One, two,
three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
thirteen, fourteen. You can’t get a center word in fourteen;
it’s an even number. You’ve got to get two center words.
What are the two center words? “The Lord.” How do you
account for that? There is only one Book in the world where
the center two words are “the Lord.” There’s only one: I’ve
got it in my hand. That’s not true of any Greek text, and it’s
not true of any Hebrew text.
You say, “It’s true of the New American Standard
Version.”
No, it’s not, because it took out more than 4 verses. The
NASV’s middle verse would not be Psalm 118:8. What do
you think of that? Just show me anything like this Book I
hold; I’ll trade it in. Just show me any Book in the world that
has 31,101 verses in it, and then when you bust the thing
down the middle, the center two words are “the Lord.”
You say, “It’s just coincidence.”
You’re out of your mind. You can’t do anything like that,
and neither can your teacher! You mean to tell me those
fellows counted all that stuff and counted all those words
out and busted that thing down and did that thing on
purpose? I don’t believe it. You don’t believe it either.
All right, one more shot. I want to show you something
about you and the Lord and that word. Turn to 1 Samuel
chapter 3, and whenever I say “the word,” you know what
word I’m talking about. I’m talking about this Book. Like I
told you, if I had the original here, I wouldn’t fool with it. I
have taught Greek, and I have taught Hebrew. I’ve got
Kittel’s Old Testament Critical Apparatus and Nestle’s New
Testament Critical Apparatus; and I know all about
Tischendorf, Tregelles, Lachmann, Griesbach, and all that
stuff. If I had that stuff right here on the table, I’d just give
you this. This Book is the bread which the Lord thy God hath
given thee. (Wouldn’t I be a fool to stand up here and
preach that stuff? Imagine a fellow getting out in the street
like I do and preaching—I preach out in the street in my
hometown—and getting up there on top of that bus and
hollering, “I want to tell you that in the locative ending the
circumflex accent is on the penult! Glory to God!”)
All right, 1 Samuel 3:1: “And the child Samuel
ministered unto the Lord before Eli. [watch it!] And the
word of the Lord was precious in those days; there
was no open vision.” It was hard to get the word. Amos
said that there is going to be a famine some day. Watch 1
Samuel 3 carefully, verse 7: “Now Samuel did not yet
know the Lord, [how come?] neither was the word of
the Lord yet revealed unto him.” Verse 19: “And
Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and did let
none of his words fall to the ground.” Verse 21: “And
the Lord appeared again in Shiloh: for the Lord
revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by THE WORD
OF THE LORD.” And do you know why some of you saved
people, saved and going to heaven, don’t know the Lord like
you should know Him? Because you don’t know that Book
like you ought to know that Book. And I’ll tell you
something: When the Lord reveals Himself to you, He’ll
reveal Himself through this Book. The verse said He did. It’s
like the old catechism said: “Ignorance of this Book is
ignorance of Christ.” I don’t make them identical, see. I’ve
got better sense than that; but, boy, they sure are close,
aren’t they? I mean, Christ had two natures; so does this
Book. Christ can save you; so can this Book. “Receive with
meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save
your souls” (James 1:21). They’re both living. They’re both
loved. They’re both hated. They’re both incorruptible. They
sure are close, aren’t they?
Let’s have a word of prayer.
Father, bless Your word. We know that Your word is
settled forever in heaven and that heaven and earth shall
pass away, but Your word shall not. Father, we have great
confidence in Thee and in this Book. We’ve seen it work, and
we know what kind of Book it is, and we know, Heavenly
Father, that this is the Book that is hated and cursed and
despised. This is the Book that Conservatives and
Fundamentalists sneer at sometimes right along with
Papists and Atheists and Infidels. And we know that no book
could be hated like this one is and be an ordinary book. Help
us to love it; help us to read it; help us to learn it; help us to
hide it in our hearts; help us to preach it; help us to teach it;
and Father, if we have to, help us to die by it. For Jesus’
sake. Amen.
 
 
 
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