You know, I want to write about the coming break-up of the European Union, and the state of the world today, but I need to write about the reasons why I wrote my last posting.

Some of you will find it strange that a blog about bible prophecy would do an article about polygamy. The reason I wrote that post is because that is what the bible teaches! And, there is a definite relationship between that subject and the subject of biblical End Times prophecy!

According to Jeremiah 3, God views Himself as a husband to a large number of wives! He is capable of loving millions of people at the same time, and of having an intimate relationship with each one!

God is not interested in dealing with you, and me, through human priests; He wants to deal directly with you, individually! Did God create the world, and billions of people only so that he could have a relationship with one leader (the pope) or a group of leaders (priests)? Absolutely not!

In fact He says many times that the Church is “a kingdom of priests”! That is you, if you have received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour! The saved person can deal directly with God the Son, or even God the Father, or the Holy Spirit!

At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. John 16:26-27

God the Father loves you, and this is why He sent His Son to die in your place; so that God could enjoy fellowship with you, and so you could enjoy a personal relationship with God forever!

The bible is full of statements that we can’t understand, because we refuse to let go of our preconceived notions about God! The subject of my last post is merely one of a large number of subjects Christians make-up their own rules about without consulting the Word of God!

Once we have accepted the Roman Catholic Doctrine that polygamy is immoral, then we can’t understand passages like Jeremiah 3! I had read it myself several times before it hit me what was being said! The worldview I had grown-up with had actually hindered my understanding of the Word of God! Churches erect barricades against our understanding when they make-up their own rules!

The same thing happened with Isaiah 4:1. I had been through the entire book of Isaiah several times, and loved much of it, such as chapter 53, without being able to see what chapters 2-4 were saying! My eyes were blinded by the philosophy I had learned in Baptist Churches, as a child!

In fact, for several years I had read numerous articles about bible interpretation by men like David Cloud ( https://www.wayoflife.org/ ) and other independent Baptists. What I found with these men was excellent teaching on the theory of bible interpretation, but the practice was a little different than the theory!

You see, the bible interpretation hermeneutic taught by Cloud, and other Fundamentalists, is the “Plain-sense” method, that has been taught by Christians around the world since the Apostles were here! This method is neither literal, nor is it allegorical, but each passage must be read using the same understanding you would use when in a conversation with a normal person, or reading a normal book in a normal language.

This is evident even in the language used; The Koine Greek was the common language of the Roman Empire of the first century AD, and Hebrew was the common language of the Israelite people of the kingdom of Israel. There is nothing especially spiritual about each language.

The problem comes when the plain-sense interpretation of Scripture comes up against some preconceived notions. When this happens most “Christians” run back to their traditions, and refuse to accept the plain-sense meaning of the Holy Scriptures; Even men who have written very good articles on bible interpretation have a tendency to backpedal when confronted with Scriptural teaching on polygyny, alcohol, baptism, Salvation, etc.!

The issue of alcohol consumption is one of those subjects where the plain-sense method of interpretation will get you into trouble with these people; they are inconsistent in their approach to the Holy Scriptures! As soon as you understand that Jesus made wine at a wedding in Cana of Galilee, in John 2, you will find people telling you that “it says wine, but it can’t really be wine, because it is a sin to drink wine”!

So what these people do is they put their own moral ideas ahead of the plain teaching of Scripture! In effect they make the same error as the pope does, saying “You can’t understand the Scriptures by yourself, you need me to interpret it for you”! And so each Pastor becomes the local pope, usurping the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer! (The pope might not make this error on the subject of alcohol, but he uses the same methodology on a number of subjects, and it is always wrong, and often worse than the error of Baptists on the relatively minor subject of alcohol!)

This kind of mindset actually comes from a lack of faith on the part of those who practice it! It also comes from the cultic mentality of trying to control the thoughts of others!

Coming from this background on a number of subjects, it took a lot of time and study before I came to the point where I was able to accept everything the bible says and to allow the Holy Spirit to interpret it for me. It was only then that I was able to start to see things I had not been taught in the Scriptures! To be honest, I am constantly battling the tendency to retreat to the “security” of the “old” traditions

Once I came to this point, however, the study of Scripture became a joy and an adventure!

The other issue is the Scriptures themselves;

Which text are you reading? The text that Christians have always used, until very recently, is the text known as the Byzantine text, or the Textus Receptus. This is the text that millions of believers have lost their lives over, often having their bibles burnt along with their owners! This is the text of the Albigenses and the Waldenses. It is also the text of the ancient Celtic Christians and the Armenian Christians, who were slaughtered in the millions by the Turks in 1914!

The other text, the one that has recently supplanted the Textus Receptus, is the Critical Text, aka the Nestle-Aland text, or the United Bible Societies text. This text was compiled from about 1% of the extant manuscripts, and did not exist as a text until it was cobbled together by two British Occultists in the nineteenth century, Messrs. Westcott and Hort.

The Nestle-Aland text is a fluid thing, and is constantly changing, and in fact, recently over 400 TR readings were put back into the Nestle-Aland text. Well, why were they removed in the first place? Well, that was the plan of Westcott and Hort, I am certain that eventually all the TR readings will be inserted back in the Critical Text, so why not just stick with the true Word of God, the Textus Receptus?

We live in the days spoken of by the prophet Amos:

11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: 12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. Amos 8:11-12

It is not that the Words of God are not available to us, but that our preachers refuse, for the most part, to preach from it, and instead preach from doctored, perverted bibles that have had many modifications.

When researching the history of the modern bible text I came across some quotes from “the Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort” published by his son. Dr. Hort and his friend Dr. B.F.. Westcott worked on their test the “Textus Criticus” from about 1851 to 1881 when it was published. This quote is from the middle of that period;

To HIS WIFE

HARROW, October 23rd, 1864.

. . . We had a pleasant evening, six of Westcott’s Sixth Form boys dining with us. Yesterday we worked all the morning till I had to go to Mrs. Butler’s (sen.), where I lunched. Then we worked till near dinner, when we had a very nice little party, the two De Morgans, H. M. Butler, Farrar, Bradby and his mother, and H. W. Watson. Mrs. Bradby, whom I had never seen, and who was well worth seeing, came in the evening. We tried to turn tables, but the creatures wouldn’t stir. Both the De Morgans were radiant and pleasant. Today we have been to morning chapel, and had a good sermon from Bradby; but a great number of boys are away, this being ‘Exeat Sunday,’ which gave Westcott a holiday yesterday. After evening chapel I am going in for a little to Montagu Butler’s. Our work thus far is very satisfactory, and we are going now to have two or three pages of the beginning of St. Matthew set up in type at once; not with any idea of printing off immediately, but as experiment. We shall, however, be very soon printing off in earnest.

The term “we tried to turn tables” might seem strange to some readers. This is a term originating from the practice of Séances, where groups of people sit around a table and attempt to contact spirits. The group sits with their hands on the table and the leader invokes the spirits. When they get an answer the spirit will turn or tip the table in the direction of the answer.

In this case, Dr. Hort did not get an answer from the spirits, hence “the creatures wouldn’t stir”!

I might speculate on the reason the spirits wouldn’t answer on this particular day, and this is just a guess, but it appears that Mrs. Bradby might have been a Christian, since she was the mother of a preacher. The spirits won’t come around if there is a born-again Christian present! Born-again Christians are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and demons don’t like to be around people with God in them!

My point is this, that these men were conducting Séances at the same time as they were working on their bible text! This was a common practice with them and the fact that the spirits did not answer this time is meaningless; they had conducted many Séances in which the spirits DID answer them!  How is it possible that men, who were in contact with demonic spirits, could produce a “superior” bible text?

The bible itself says this about those who contact spirits through occult methods;

A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them. Leviticus 20:27

There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. Deuteronomy 18:10-12

So, F. J. A. Hort, and B. F. Westcott deserved to be put to death for the sin of consulting with familiar spirits! Now in the age of grace we don’t put witches to death for their sins, but this does not mean that we should elevate them to positions of authority in the Church! No, they should have been put-out of the Church of England, and their work should be shunned today!

Any “bible text” that these people put together should be shunned and ignored by the true Church! There is no way that God would honour people He had commanded to be put to death, by giving them the best bible text, one that is the “closest to the original autographs”! On the contrary, I believe the reason God made this command in Leviticus 20:27is because He saw that it would be this kind of person who will ultimately corrupt His Church, and lead many to perdition!

Unfortunately the “Hort Theory” of bible preservation has been adopted by almost all Bible Colleges and Seminaries around the world! Even by Conservative, Fundamentalist institutions, like Bob Jones University, for instance!

The net effect of the Westcott/Hort text being introduced into Christian Churches has not been a revival of pure Christian doctrine but an age of apostasy!

So now we know what John meant when he said;

And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. Revelation 17:6

Why would John have such admiration for this harlot? He could not help himself, because she looks like the Christian Church! This is the end of the Christian Church; the entity that puts the Antichrist on the throne! To be sure the event spoken of in Revelation 17 will occur after the Rapture, but the entity referred to in verse 6 will certainly identify itself as “Christian”!

For your own safety I would recommend that you stick to Textus Receptus bibles like the AV, the Geneva Bible, or the New King James, although this last one still uses paraphrase, which is a dubious method of translation.  If you are going to use a NKJV I would recommend keeping a KJV along side of it, and double-check everything!

For more information;

http://jesusisprecious.org/bible/wh-heretics.htm

http://deanburgonsociety.org/index.html

http://www.worldincrisis.org/KJV-HB/KJV-textual-criticism.htm