QUESTION: Isn't the devil behind all the confusion and fighting over 
          Bible versions?

ANSWER: Undoubtedly.

EXPLANATION: It is a great irony that many of the critics of the Bible 
claim rather indignantly that the devil is behind the battle over the 
King James Bible. In this they are correct. But somehow they have 
managed to assume that it is the people claiming perfection for the 
Bible who the devil is guiding. Is this a correct assumption? Let us 
consider the history of the battle.

From the time of its publication in 1611 the King James Bible has 
grown in popularity. Although not mandated by the King to be used in 
the churches of England, it did, in a matter of a few years, manage to 
supplant all of the great versions translated before it. Though it was 
not advertised in the Madison Avenue fashion of today's versions, it 
soon swept all other versions from the hearts and hands of the 
citizenry of England and its colonies.

With the conquest of the British Empire behind it, it crossed the 
Atlantic to the United States. Landing here it overwhelmed the double 
foothold of the Roman Catholic Church planted previously under the 
flags of Spain and France.

It then began to permeate young America with its ideals. Its truths 
led to the establishment of an educational system, based on Scripture, 
that was unparalleled in the world. It instilled in men the ideals of 
freedom and personal liberty, thoughts so foreign to the minds of men 
that their inclusion in our Constitution could only be described as an 
"experiment" in government.

It commissioned preachers of righteousness who, on foot and horseback, 
broke trails into the wilderness and spread the truth of the gospel 
and of right living. In its wake was left what could only be 
described..."one nation, under God..." This accomplished, it set out 
for the conquest of the heathen world. Bible colleges (Princeton, 
Harvard, Yale) were founded. Mission societies formed. And eager young 
missionaries began to scour the globe with little more than a King 
James Bible and God's Holy Spirit.

But these activities did not go unnoticed by Satan. He who had 
successfully counterfeited God's church, ministers and powers 
certainly could not be expected to let God's Bible roam the world 
unchallenged. Through agents such as Brook Foss Westcott and Fenton 
John Anthony Hort, he published his own translation in 1884. (The New 
Testament had been published in 1881.) Though there had been sporadic 
personal translations between 1611 and 1884, this new translation, 
called the Revised Version, was the first ever to be designed from its 
outset to replace God's Authorized Bible. It failed to replace God's 
Bible, but the arguments of its adherents were the first shots fired 
in a nearly 400-year battle for the hearts and minds of God's people 
concerning the authority and fidelity of Scripture.

In 1901 another round was fired in the form of the American Revised 
Version, later called the American Standard Version. (An intentional 
misnomer since it never became the "standard" for anything.) This 
version, other than being the darling of critical American 
scholarship, met a dismal end when, twenty-three years later, it was 
so totally rejected by God's people that its copyright had to be sold. 
(Does this sound like God's blessing?)

The ASV was further revised and republished in 1954 as the Revised 
Standard Version. This sequence of events has repeated itself 
innumerable times, resulting in the New American Standard Version of 
1960, the New Scofield Version of 1967, the New International Version 
of 1978, and the New King James Version of 1979 to name a few.

The process has never changed. Every new version that has been 
launched has been, without exception, a product of Satan's Alexandrian 
philosophy which rejects the premise of a perfect Bible. Furthermore, 
they have been copied, on the most part, from the corrupt Alexandrian 
manuscript (although a few have been translated from pure Antiochian 
manuscripts after they were tainted by the Alexandrian philosophy).

THIS then was Satan's battle in print, BUT by no means was it his 
exclusive onslaught. He used a standard military "two-pronged'' 
attack.

While popularizing his Alexandrian manuscripts via the press, he began 
to promote his Alexandrian philosophy in and through Christian Bible 
colleges.

Soon sincere, naive, young Bible students attending FUNDAMENTAL Bible 
colleges began to hear the infallibility of the Bible challenged in 
their classrooms. In chapel services the Bible's perfection was much 
touted. But then, the very same speakers would debase, degrade, and 
even mock the English Bible, always assuring their students that they 
were not a "liberal" or "modernist" because they believed that the 
Bible was infallible in "the originals"Äthat non-existent, 
unobtainable, mystical entity which ALL apostates shield their 
unbelief behind.

Soon stalwartness gave in to acceptance and fidelity to a perfect 
Bible became fidelity to one's "Alma Mater". Young graduates, 
disheartened and disarmed by their education, found themselves in 
pulpits across America parroting the professor's shameful criticism of 
the Word of God. They readily accepted new versions hot off the 
Alexandrian presses.

Then, when some Christian approached them claiming to believe the 
Bible (one you could hold in your HAND, not a lost relic from bygone 
days) was word perfect (a belief they had once held before their 
education stole it from them) they felt threatened. They try to dispel 
this "fanatic', this "cultist" . Finally they look this faith filled 
Christian in the eye and piously ask, "Don't you feel that the devil 
is using this Bible version issue to divide and hinder the cause of 
Christ?"

"Undoubtedly," comes back the answer. "But I'm certainly glad it's not 
MY CROWD that he's using." (!) Whose side are YOU on?



Additional Note: 

Here's something that you need to think about. If we King James Bible 
believers have our way, a Preacher would stand in a pulpit to read 
Scripture and everyone else in the church would read from the same 
Bible. Isn't that UNITY? 

But if the Bible-correctors have their way everyone would read from a 
different bible. That's confusion. And who is the author of confusion 
(I Cor. 14:33)?

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