For
it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to
nothing the understanding of the prudent. (1 Corinthians 1:19)
The Scriptures we are studying are the terror of apostate Fundamentalists and Conservatives in the twentieth century because if they are brought up and discussed they will reveal two things immediately: first of all, that the people who make the loudest noise at “Congresses of Fundamentalism” about the “Authority of the Scriptures” do not believe that any Book on this earth is the “Scriptures”; and secondly, they will not tolerate the open discussion of any statement from any Bible that could jeopardize their incomes or their “images” by bringing ridicule down on their heads for believing the Bible as they have it. We just gave three outstanding samples: satyrs, dragons, and Leviathan; and as you saw from the documented evidence, there wasn’t one seminary educated “Fundamentalist” in America and there wasn’t one member of one revision committee (Conservative or Evangelical) who believed anything about those words found in any edition of the Authorized Version. The attitude they had toward these passages (see the last chapter) was total and complete infidelity, absolute unbelief as rank as any Liberal Methodist bishop promoting Jesse Jackson or the PLO.
One of the great dictums of Biblical criticism set up by Bible-rejecting apostates (Griesbach, Lachmann, Hort, Kenyon, Tischendorf, et al.) of the nineteenth century was that “doctrinal passages are suspect.” Now in layman’s language this simply means that “any time you find a verse in the Bible that is a good, strong, plain, clear-cut statement backing up the Deity of Christ or the Trinity, you can “suspect” that the verse has been manipulated by an over zealous, Bible believer in order to reinforce a reading which “in the plenary, verbally inspired original autographs” was not emphatic enough. Cases in point would be 1 Timothy 3:16 in the “Bibles” recommended by BJU (ASV and NASV) or Acts 4:27, 31 in the “Bibles” recommended by Tennessee Temple and Liberty Baptist College (NIV and NKJV) and 1 John 5:7–8 in the “Bibles” recommended by Wheaton, Moody, and Fuller (NIV, ASV, RSV, NRSV, etc.).
In every case, the philosophical speculation has been that someone must have meddled with these words to reinforce the truth, whereas if they had been left alone they would not have reinforced the truth.
Of such high-minded nonsense we may say reverently (and with charity): APPLESAUCE. (The Army of 1938–1945 had a much more fitting word for it—a compound word—but I am sure that it could hardly be called reverent.”)
We come now to three passages in the “Unknown Bible” which the believer should know if only for the purpose of learning something that his teachers and professors cannot know. (If this seems a little harsh or unkind or egotistical, let the reader turn to the chapter in this work that deals with David’s famous profession of faith in Ps. 119:99– 100). Many times our readers “jump the gun” and assume that our vicious language comes from a bad spirit or a bad attitude. They are quite mistaken. It comes from a desire to drive home the truth. A man said to me one time, “If I talked like you talk and used the language you use someone would probably take a shot at me.” My answer to that is, “If I talked like I do talk and use the vocabulary I do use and don’t have the right spirit that I have about it, God would have killed me thirty-two years ago.” God evidently knows something about our ministry that many of the leading Christian “celebrities” in America don’t know. At least it is certain that the professors and teachers at the major Christian colleges and universities don’t know about it, for they cannot explain thirty-five years of blessed and fruitful ministries accompanied by unloving and “abusive” language.
Here before us are three verses of Scripture that never come up at a “World Congress of Fundamentalism.” They are not preached, as far as I know, from any pulpit in America. In six school years at Bob Jones University I never heard the verses mentioned or read and never saw them on a list of Scriptures given to anyone to study. These Scriptures deal with the very first fundamental of the faith: BELIEVING WHAT GOD SAID. What God said is more important than the Virgin Birth or the Deity of Christ or the Blood Atonement, since, after all, all three of those great “Fundamentals of the Faith” were learned by believing the WORDS found in the BOOK.
We will do well to closely examine and carefully scrutinize any part of the Bible that is expounding on the importance of the words that are recorded in that Book. At BJU and other Alexandrian offshoots, this is called a “hobbyhorse,” for, after all, their main efforts are built around promoting their own institutions, their own friends, and their own “images”; their ministries have been from the start primarily self-promotion, selfpropagation, self-magnification, and self-preservation. No one with any spiritual discernment is fooled by such pious claptrap for half a minute. If it weren’t for THE BOOK (and we don’t mean “the original autographs”), Bob Jones University would have never been built. If it were not for THE BOOK (and we don’t mean the “verbal, plenary inspired originals”), Tennessee Temple schools would never have come into existence. If it were not for THAT BOOK (and we do not refer to the “inerrant originals”), Jerry Falwell would never have built the first building. That is the truth of the matter, and you know it and I know it and God knows it, and so does every saved person on the face of this earth whether they will “own up to it” or not. (If they will not “own up to it,” it is only proof that they are afflicted with the same plague of worldliness which we mentioned in the previous chapter.)
You see, THE FEAR OF RIDICULE (that might affect income or image) is the real “guiding light,” the radar beam, the steam power, the jet thrust, the fuel pump, and the locomotive that drives, leads, and guides these apostate Fundamentalists in nearly every single one of their teaching endeavors. And even when they are professing to have a great “burden for souls” or a missionary zeal or a love for “high academic standards” or convictions about “secondary separation,” the whole superstructure is activated and motivated and held together and sustained by one supreme “Fundamental” that overshadows all others; one godless, worldly, hellish principle: DON’T LET ANY EDUCATED PERSON MAKE FUN OF US FOR OUR LACK OF SCHOLARSHIP.
That is the real motto and theme song of Laodicean Christian higher education; and it is the hallmark of the apostasy within the Body of Christ. It is applicable to ninety percent of the saved faculty members who are involved in higher education. Again we will illustrate so that matters will be as clear as the Gulf of Mexico on a cloudless day in June.
“For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered. And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed: And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned” (Isa. 29:10–12).
Now here is a “nugget” if you ever unearthed one, for it is aimed at the religious leaders of the people to whom were given the “Oracles of God” (Rom. 3:2). These people are listed as “prophets,” “rulers,” and “seers,” the very people in charge of teaching and preaching and judging the truth. All three groups are included in verse 11 (“And the vision of ALL is become unto you…”). Now what place in the Scriptures could be more important in dealing with the Bible than this place where we read, “As the WORDS OF A BOOK …which men deliver to one that is learned…AND THE BOOK is delivered to him that is not learned…” Wouldn’t you think that a Bible teacher could find something in a passage like that?
Here is a “Book” (you are reading a book right now); here is a BOOK (and the Bible is a BOOK); here is a BOOK (Isa. 29:11), and it is not one of “many books” about which there is “no end” to making (Eccl. 12:12). No, this Book is a Book that God had something to do with, for He continues with, “Forasmuch as this people draw near ME with their mouth…and with their lips do honour ME…but have removed their hearts from ME…and their fear toward ME…” We read that on a certain day the deaf will “hear the WORDS OF THE BOOK” (Isa. 29:18).
Could there be any doubt in your mind about what Book this is? We are quoting from Isaiah, which, as anyone knows, is in the Old Testament. When the Old Testament ended, the Lord said: “A book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and thought upon his name” (Mal. 3:16).
But, my my, what a strange BOOK!!
First of all, this Book is taken to an educated scholar with a Ph.D. (or at least an M.A.) and he is requested to “Read this I pray thee.” Here comes his answer: “I CANNOT, FOR IT IS SEALED.” But the implication that follows would show that even though it was sealed (Isa. 29:11), the scholar could have opened it. This is perfectly apparent when one reads verses 13 and 14. The scholar lied. He pretended that he couldn’t open the seals when he could. Let’s put it over the plate waist high; he lied, he was a liar. He was an educated liar (“one that is learned”), for he could have easily opened the seals. When the Bible was finished, the last thing that Christ told John was “SEAL NOT THE SAYINGS OF THE PROPHECY OF THIS BOOK” (Rev. 22:10). Christ broke the seals on the last Book way back in Revelation 5–6. Observe that the “sealing” on the Book that is delivered to this educated liar was only on it by virtue of the fact that he himself was BLIND (Isa. 29:10) and that the Lord Himself was the author of this blindness. When the liar said it was “sealed,” he meant that it was “figurative,” “highly symbolic,” “apocalyptic,” or (to put it in the language of a genuine apostate) that “the text was corrupted,” “there was a scribal error,” “an error in the transmission of the text,” etc.
But matters do not end here. After this, this educated ass (and we have substituted the term for “liar” since “liar” might offend some of you people who are always so concerned about “lack of love for the brethren”), this educated ass, I say (we use the word with charity as it pictures the old nature of the unregenerated man who by birth is a liar: see Job 11:12), this educated ASS (we repeat for “emphasis”) has just been told by the Holy Spirit:
“For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips. All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them. They are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge” (Prov. 8:7–9).
The passage is intact in every edition of every AV printed on either side of the Atlantic for over 360 years.
If the words (note the plural: not the “Word” of God) of God’s mouth are in “righteousness” and if there is “nothing froward or perverse in them” then “they are ALL PLAIN to him that understandeth…”
How could an educated Christian say they were “sealed”?
They are not sealed to a man who “understands.”
Is the educated ASS (and we say it one more time to establish you in sound doctrine) confessing that he has no understanding? Here he is given a Book with words (notice the plural: not “Word”) and the words are “all plain to him that understandeth” and he doesn’t understand them, even though he holds three earned degrees and is a “Professor of Ancient Languages” and probably the head of a “Bible” Department!
Quite a confession for an educated idiot: he is “learned” but has no understanding.
He is “ever learning yet never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.”
If the words of God are “THE WORDS OF THE WISE” (Prov. 22:17) and a man is commanded to apply his heart to this knowledge (Prov. 22:17), how did this learned ASS (and we use the term to root and ground the reader in “sound speech that cannot be condemned”) of Isaiah, chapter 29 fail to obey the commandment? Especially since he has set himself up as a Biblical scholar with the authority to teach the word of God to others (seers, prophets, rulers)?
You won’t answer that question before the Millennium.
Now, do you want to know why such a passage of Scripture is never brought up at Maranatha, Cedarville, Mid-South, Midwestern, Santa Rosa Schools, Pensacola Christian Schools or Liberty Baptist College? Well, you don’t have to ask me to find out because:
1. My opinion of the matter is irrelevant.
2. Why should I give you my opinion when God has already given His?
Look at the explanation the Holy Spirit Himself gave about this debacle.
“A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold…Bow down thine ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply thine heart unto my knowledge. For it is a pleasant thing if thou keep them within thee; they shall withal be fitted in thy lips. That thy trust may be in the Lord, I have made known to thee this day, even to thee. Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge, That I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth; that thou mightest answer the words of truth to them that send unto thee?” (Prov. 22:1, 17–21).
Somebody understood the words (note the plural: not the “Word” of God). God wrote somebody “excellent things in counsels and knowledge” and He made them known to somebody (Prov. 22:19). He made them known to someone for a purpose: that they might “know the CERTAINTY OF THE WORDS OF TRUTH” (note the plural: not “fundamentals of the faith”) so that when someone sent to them for an answer (see Ezek. 14:1–10, for example) they could answer them with “THE WORDS OF TRUTH” (note the plural: not the “Word” of Truth). Who could this be?
To whom were the WORDS of truth revealed?
It couldn’t have been to the learned Ph.D., for to him they were SEALED. (At least that is the alibi that he gave for having no “certainty” about the words and the words not being “made known” to him: “HE SAITH I CANNOT, FOR IT IS SEALED.”)
Well, if this educated ass (the term is a Biblical term and not to be confused with such anti-Biblical slang as “scholarship,” “original autographs,” “qualified authorities,” “text types,” and other pagan mishmash) cannot understand the words in this Book and if the unlearned man cannot understand the words in this Book (Isa. 29:11–12), then who is it that does understand them?
Who is it that knows the “certainty” of them (Prov. 22:21)? After all, the ignoramus (the hillbilly)—the fellow who never finished high school—said (when he got a hold of the Book): “I kaint read it ‘cause ah ain’t got no book larnin (“I AM NOT LEARNED”).
Here we have quite a situation, wouldn’t you say?
No wonder the “Bible” departments at Bob Jones University, Tennessee Temple, Dallas, and Denver never discuss such matters! After all, the Scriptures are here dealing with the very words found in the Bible. What could be more foreign to a “Bible” department than a detailed study of a Bible with WORDS in it that are “true and certain,” that someone can know because they are “plain,” and yet a LEARNED MAN can’t learn them and an UNLEARNED MAN can’t learn them!
Vot a zituation, Abbey!
It almost reminds us of that passage in Revelation, chapter 5 where we were told that “no man was found worthy to open or read the Book, neither to look thereon.”
Can you see yet how “relevant” all of this is? Can you not see the relationship of these great Biblical truths to all of this twentieth century Fundamentalist hot air coming out of Christian schools about “Ruckman” and “Ruckmanites”? Why, these passages are unknown to every faculty member of Dallas Theological Seminary from Lewis S. Chafer to Farstad. No one at Bob Jones from Dr. Brokenshire to Panosian ever discussed them.
The verses state THAT A MAN CAN KNOW THE CERTAINTY OF THE WORDS OF GOD (not the “Word” of God) AND YET CANNOT KNOW THIS (IN ISAIAH) IF HE IS LEARNED OR UNLEARNED.
Let’s see you figure THAT one out with the “verbal, plenary inspired Q-bert.”
Let’s try it with the AV (any edition will do just fine). Obviously the Bible is composed of WORDS, but these words are “sealed” to an educated man who is trying to preserve his image or income (see Isa. 29:13–16 in the context). These words are also hidden from an unlearned man if he is trying to cover up some other sin than “image and income” (see the same context). The author of this ignorance is the Lord Himself.
“For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered” (Isa. 29:10).
The passage is a perfect matchmate to Ezekiel 14:4–11 where the author of delusion is the Lord again (as He is AGAIN in 2 Thess. 2:11). We have run smack into heart motives again where they are involved with trying to understand the words of God. This blows out the stack all talk about “scholarship” and “qualified authorities,” for neither scholarship nor ignorance has anything to do with learning the words of God or understanding the words of God. Neither education nor lack of education will equip any sinner (saved or lost) to really understand the Book; and since this basic, fundamental, Biblical truth is disbelieved by every seminary and university professor in the world (saved or lost), the passages we have just looked at will remain as part of an “Unknown Bible” that is never mentioned in any classroom on this earth.
The terrible truth is that “all the words” of God’s mouth are in “righteousness” (Prov. 8:8, ALL OF THEM) because His mouth speaks the truth (Prov. 8:7), and when He speaks of “excellent things that are right things” (Prov. 8:6), these excellent, truthful and right things are “ALL PLAIN TO HIM THAT UNDERSTANDETH” (Prov. 8:9). If they are not plain to YOU it is because you do not understand, and if you do not understand then certainly your problem (and the problem of the rascal who taught you) is a HEART PROBLEM: it has nothing to do with Greek grammar, Hebrew sufformatives, older manuscripts, transmission of texts, reliable versions, conflated readings, “intrinsic probabilities,” “dynamic equivalents,” archaeological findings, cursives, or uncials.
The problem is a heart problem, exactly as it was a heart problem in the heart of every Ph.D., B.D., D.D., M.A., Th.M. and L.L.D. on the revision committees of every English “Bible” published since 1880.
Their education made them just as stupid as a fourth grade dropout.
The great, fundamental, basic, Biblical truth we have here states that God will make the truth known and will make His words known to someone (Prov. 22: 19) in writing (Prov. 22:20) so they can know the “CERTAINTY” of those words (Prov. 22:21). They can be “kept” within a man (Prov. 22:18). They can be “fitted” to his lips (Prov. 22:18) and with his lips he can “answer” with those “words of truth” (Prov.22:21) anyone who sends to him for counseling or information about anything that God has revealed. Simon Peter says simply:
“If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen” (1 Pet. 4:11).
And what shall we say to these things?
Well, all we can say is that the deadliest enemies of Biblical truth in America in the Body of Christ since 1901—the men who have done more to destroy the faith of Americans in the words of God than all infidels, Modernists, Catholics, Communists, Atheists, and Humanists combined—have been the educated Conservative scholars and teachers WHO WERE SO AFRAID OF RIDICULE THAT THEY APPROACHED THE WORDS OF GOD (note the plural: not the “Word”) WITH THE IDEA IN MIND OF PRESERVING THEIR OWN IMAGES AND INCOMES (see “Moby Dick and the White Crocodile”).
According to the public profession of these men in Isaiah, chapter 29, they cannot understand the plain words of truth—the right words of wisdom and knowledge that are absolutely certain. They say of the Bible: “I CANNOT READ IT FOR IT IS SEALED.”
It is only SEALED to people like them.
If the blind lead the blind, etc. Let them speak for their own kind and testify to their own ignorance and agnosticism. Let them bear witness that the Lord has “poured out upon them the spirit of deep sleep” (see the text). God said that the prophets, rulers, and seers were “covered.” They have an unknown Bible they cannot understand. They cannot read it because for them it is “sealed.” May it not be sealed (or remain an “Unknown Book”) to those of you who have better sense and more humility.
