“Lord open
the king of England’s eyes” were the last words said by William Tyndale prior
to his execution in 1536 at the age of 42. His prayer was meant for Henry VIII.
Celebrated
this year at my church (it will be a main subject of our annual summer Bible
conference in July) is the 500th anniversary of the Tyndale New
Testament (1526).
Later this week I am going to post parts of a study given on Tyndale just the other weekend at my church's Soldiers’ Training conference in Chicago.
Much of the
New Testament in the King James Version of the Bible is directly from Tyndale’s
work and phrases common even today are attributed to Tyndale, such as “Let
there be light,” “Eat, drink, and be merry,” and “Salt of the earth.”
The anniversary
marks a turning point in the history of the English Bible and how Tyndale
helped place the Word of God into the hands of common ordinary people per his most famous
quote, delivered to a priest: "If God spare my life, ere many years I
will cause a boy who drives a plough to know more of the scriptures than you
do."
*****
"People
say, 'The King James is so hard to read; we want something easier.' Why in the
world would you want God to talk to you like your pal? Wouldn't you rather He
talked to you like God?
"A
writer for the Chicago Tribune once wrote just that. He said,
'I'm not a Believer but I think God ought to sound a little more like God than
somebody's counselor.'
"You
see, there's something about the Word of God that's different from anything
else and people know that," says Richard Jordan. "When you try to
dumb it down and make-believe that making it easier to read is going to make it
easier to understand, you've cut the heart out of everything there is about
understanding God's Word, because understanding it has nothing to do with
making it easier to read.
"If you
could read it in the original language He wrote it in, it isn't easy to read.
Oh, yeah. When you get a passage in your Bible that's kind of knotty and hard
to understand, you know what, you go read the Greek text or the Hebrew text and
you know what you'll find out? It's kind of knotty and hard to understand there
too.
*****
"When people talk about translating the Bible, the great translation problem was taken care of long before anybody had to worry about English. If you can translate deity thoughts and deity words into human words, that’s the translation product!
"People talk about language limitation--there’s the language limitation! If you could take the thoughts of the godhead and put them in Hebrew and Greek, anything else taken from one language to another is a snap.
"God revealed it, made it known. He translated His thinking into our thinking. Isaiah 30:8 says, "Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever."
"He takes the revelation and commits it to written form, putting words on the page in a book. He writes that revelation down and we call that inspiration."
*****
Hebrews 4:12: [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.
"The
reason that first phrase is translated that way is the Word of God, it's not
just that it's alive--it's alive and able to work quickly. Listen,
when you take the solution God's Word gives you and apply it to your life it
doesn't take forever to solve the problem.
The verse
says the Word is '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.'
"It can
get right down to the nitty-gritty of what's going on in your inner man. It's a
discerner of the thoughts and intents . . . ooh, wait a minute. When you read
that Book, it's reading you! That's why some of you don't like to read it.
"That
Book is the only way as a Believer you can know whether you're walking in the
flesh or in the Spirit; whether it's that old life that's running you or it's
the new man.
"Look
at verse 13: [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 with whom
we have to do.
"Who is
the 'him with whom we have to do'? That's God. But he says the Word of God is a
discerner of the thoughts and intents of your heart because God knows what they
are. In the passage, he talks about the Word of God doing what God does.
"When you're dealing with that Book, you're not dealing with any other book like it. There isn't another. God's design is that when you're dealing with God's Word you're dealing with God Himself.
"And if you're going to deal with the God of
creation, you're going to deal with Him through His Word. That's how powerful
that Book is. That's what that Book is. There's God literally talking to you
and you've got it in your hand.
"The
Bible Believer's attitude is, 'When I'm facing God's Word, I'm facing God
Himself and that Book's going to be a discerner of what's going on inside of me
in a way that I couldn't do myself--in a way that only God could do.'
*****
"Let me
show you an illustration. Here's how Paul thought about it. Romans 9:17: [17]
For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised
thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared
throughout all the earth.
"If you
go back to Exodus 9:16, the one who is talking in the passage is Jehovah.
Jehovah says to Pharoah, 'Even this same purpose have I, Jehovah, raised thee
up,' but who does the verse say said that? The Scripture said it.
"In
Paul's mind, when you're reading the Scripture, you're reading what God says.
The power and the authority of the Scripture is there because it's God
speaking. Paul doesn't hesitate to use God and the Scripture interchangeably.
"That
passage in Romans deserves some real cogitation. When God speaks it's the
Scripture, and when the Scripture speaks, it's God speaking. That's where the
power and the authority of that Book comes and it's not like any other book
you'll ever read.
Galatians
3:8: [8] And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the
heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee
shall all nations be blessed.
"Folks,
who tells the future? Only God can do that. But Paul doesn't mind saying the
Scripture does what God does, because when you're reading the Scripture, you're
reading what God's doing.
"A
Bible Believer's viewpoint is that, 'When I'm dealing with that Book, it's God
talking and if I want to talk to God, I've got to go to that Book to get it.' I
don't go to dreams, spirits, seances, religious activities. I don't do a bunch
of praying and asking God to talk to me. He already has and I've got it in a
Book.
"David
says in Psalm 138:2: [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 above all thy name.
"Write
down by that verse Nehemiah 9:5 where it says 'blessed be thy glorious name,
which is exalted above all blessing and praise.'
"In
Philippians 2, Paul says, [9] Wherefore God also hath highly exalted
him, and given him a name which is above every name:
[10]
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and
things in earth, and things under the earth;
"His
name is above everything and He takes His Word and puts it ABOVE that! That's
God's attitude."
*****
King Nebuchadnezzar says to Daniel in Daniel 2:47, "Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret."
To me this is one the greatest titles of God in all of the Bible. In verse 29, Daniel had told him, "As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass."
You can’t find God out by searching but you don’t have to because God reveals Himself.
Isaiah 22:14 says, "And it was revealed in mine ears by the LORD of hosts, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord GOD of hosts."
At camp in California we were discussing some of these guys in the Bible who talk about God talking to them.
You know how He spoke to Isaiah? It was, "HEY, Isaiah!" It was an audible voice and Isaiah heard Him with his ears. Now God isn’t going to talk to you like that today.
I Corinthians 2:9-10 says, [9] But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
[10] But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit
searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
You got something better than Jesus Christ appearing to you at the end of the bed and talking to you. You’ve got something that doesn’t disappear; something that doesn’t just rely on your memory of what was said.
You’ve got something written down on a page that doesn’t change and is always there and always reliable.