Are you a Bible Believer?
Bible Believer - "One who believes the scriptures were given by inspiration of God."
Not all that glitters is gold! Not everyone who claims to be a Bible Believer is really a Bible Believer! Here is a simple test to determine whether or not you qualify as a Bible Believer:
I. A Bible believer is someone who can hold the Bible in his hands!
This may sound strange at first but understand there are plenty who claim that God's word can only be found in the "originals." What's wrong with this? The originals are gone! God did not preserve them. And alas, there are only copies of hundreds of Greek texts, many of them varying from text to text. If the "words" of God are only to be found in the originals, they are gone forever! If they are found only in these varying Greek texts, one scholar's guess is as good as another! However there is an alternative: GOD ACTUALLY FULFILLED THE PROMISE OF PSALMS 12:6,7 !
"The words of the LORD are pure WORDS: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep THEM, O LORD, thou shalt preserve THEM from this generation for ever."
According to this text, we should have the very WORDS of God! Which would show, Jesus Christ really did mean what He said in Mathew 24:35: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my WORDS shall not pass away." Do not be fooled by the claims of the so-called scholars! God HAS preserved His words! We have the scriptures given by inspiration of God according to 2 Timothy 3:16 (context is the last days of the church age). With superior manuscripts from Antioch (Acts 11:26), superior translators (Psa. 68:11) during the Philadelphian period of church history (Rev. 3:8), and under the authority of a king (Eccles. 8:4), God has preserved His WORDS in the English text of the Authorized King James Bible of 1611!
A real Bible believer can hold the Bible! Someone who uses "modern versions", can only hold a "reliable translation" of a corrupt text from Alexandria, Egypt (Siniaticus & Vaticanus - Deut. 17:16, 17) and claim "only the originals were inspired", when there are no such things as the "originals" any longer!
Do you accept the King James 1611 as God's preserved words? If you don't, you are really not a Bible believer! You can't actually handle God's word!
II. A Bible believer is someone who believes the Bible literally!
The real student of the Bible recognizes that the Bible has already had thousands of prophecies fulfilled! Why is this important? Because they were literally fulfilled! That is, they happened exactly as God said they would happen!
The Exaltation of Joseph The Egyptian servitude
The deliverance of Israel The crossing of Jordan
The walls of Jericho The fall of Babylon
The Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ The coming of John Baptist
The humble entrance of Israel's KING The crucifixion of Jesus Christ
These are only a few examples of prophecy which was literally fulfilled! Over 300 prophecies well fulfilled by the first coming of Jesus Christ! When GOD gave prophecy it was to be literally believed, because it was and will be literally fulfilled! Many claim to "spiritually interpret" the Bible. This is PIOUS BALONEY! God the Holy Spirit wrote the Bible as it is! There are over 31,000 verses in the Bible. We are commanded to read the Bible, study the Bible, memorize the Bible, rightly divide the Bible, preach the Bible etc., but NOT ONCE ARE WE COMMANDED TO INTERPRET THE BIBLE! This is something someone made up because he would not believe the Bible literally! This mark of apostasy becomes clear especially when Bible prophecy comes up. "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation." - 2 Pet. 1:20 What about the coming "Beast" or "son of perdition" (2 Thess. 2:4-12; Rev. 13:4)? Do you believe it, or are you going to interpret those passages because you don't want to believe it? What about "the mark of the beast, his name, or number to his name" (Rev. 13:16-18)? Any interpretations? What about the "white horse" (Rev. 19:11) the "thousand years Satan is bound" (Rev. 20:1,2)? Do you believe these prophecies will be literally fulfilled as all other Bible prophecy has and will be? or do you have a "private interpretation" to offer up? Someone says, "The Holy Spirit says this means etc." - Oh no you don't! The Holy Spirit wrote it the way that it is! All becomes clear to someone who believes the Bible. If you want to be a Bible interpreter, FINE!, just don't claim to be a BIBLE BELIEVER, because you're NOT!
III. A Bible believer is someone who reads and studies the Bible!
Those who never read and study the word of God are either going to believe what they are told by a fallible human or nothing at all. How sad it is for so many to claim to be followers of Jesus Christ and yet ignore His word. Some trust tradition of men. They trust in what their church believes, what their preacher says, or what their grandmothers said...-"Let God be true and every man a liar (Rom. 3:4)"! The many heresies and cults of today are a direct result of Bible ignorance! It is a sin to neglect the Bible!
"But He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by EVERY WORD that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" - Matthew 4:4
"Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" 2 Timothy 2:15
Seriously, if you never read the Bible or study it, do you really expect anyone to believe that you believe God wrote it? If you pay more attention to the newspaper, or any book for that matter, than you do the Bible, don't kid yourself... you really don't believe it do you? No, you don't! If you did, you would not ignore it!
IV. A Bible believer is someone who obeys the Bible!
Because of every man's inherited sin nature (Rom. 5:12), God has commanded "Ye must be born again" (John 3:3). The way to be saved is through the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 6:23). This is the only way according to the Bible! If you try to go to heaven by way of water baptism, church attendance, good works, .etc; it is because you don't believe the Bible! If you haven't been saved yet, you are in disobedience to the word of God right now!
"I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" - John. 14:6
"Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" - Acts 4:12
"For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved" - John 3:17
Ye must be born again!
Pastor Dilbert R. Terry (my pastor)
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