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Times are changing. The world moves on. Everything seems to be getting bigger and better. But is this true in every sense? Must everything change? I'm Dennis Finnan, speaker for the World, the Word & You! Broadcast, and in a moment we'll talk about things that must not and cannot ever change!..
It seems that the world we live in can be characterized by one word - "change!" Yes, all around us due to the fast evolving technology advances that daily effect our lives, we witness this constant change in almost every area of life. This is not in itself unhealthy, although at times unnerving. Rather, it is the inevitable result of a world fast maturing in its quest to improve and enlarge its knowledge and control. However, there are some areas of life that must never change. For if change would occur, it would ruin what we already have and enjoy. What am I specifically talking about? I'm talking about the faith of man in the one true God of eternity and His unchanging Word given to us in the Holy Scriptures.
Recently Newsweek Magazine, reported on a church affair that caught my eye. It was entitled: "HYMNS, HERS & THEIRS,"1 a catchy title that told of new important changes that were occurring in one of the largest liberal denominations that claim Christianity. It appeared that the United Church of Christ, a 1.5 million member religious organization had decided it was time to make drastic changes in its official congregational hymnal. What changes were these? And how significant is this action, and its effect on the world of its people? In another moment after we pause again for this spiritually uplifting refreshment in song, I'll tell you…
The liberal United Church of Christ has finally done it! It was the consensus of the leadership to take the drastic step to "change," the old hymnal and remove all the "politically" and now "spiritually incorrect" language of the historic past. In its newly published church hymnal, the lyrics of past great hymns have been altered to meet contemporary views on equality, nonviolence, and acute social sensitivity. In fact, according to the denomination's officials, it is the first to "balance masculine with feminine images of God."2 These new hymn-doctors took the knife of change and slashed away at almost every time honored hymn. For example, the Battle Hymn of the Republic, no longer responds with any masculine terms describing God. Still others that spoke of God as Father in even its titles, were excised altogether. In place of these "offensive," hymns,the new hymnal offers new feminist creations like, "Mothering God, You Gave Me Birth." In addition, not only have words been deleted that were offensive to modern sensibilities, but the hymn doctors corrective surgery went so far as to change the original biblical meaning of some of our history's greatest hymns of the faith. In all, as one outraged church member said,
"What we're being asked to celebrate… is the advent of a new religion!" 3
Is nothing sacred anymore? We have now brought the insanity of "political correctness," into the hallowed halls of the Church, and beginning with our hymnals the ultimate goal is to now doctor even the sacred pages of the Word of God. The reason why is some ethnic groups are supposedly offended by the language used. Black, Native-American, Hispanic, and radical feminist groups claim certain words in the Bible are offensive to them and should be altered. Words describing God as "Father," or Christ as "King, or only begotten Son;" Words that speak of "darkness," and "blindness," are now offensive to some African-Americans, the "visually challenged," and the radical and liberal crowd. So, our hymnbooks and even our Bible must go!
However, "TIME OUT!," as the CBS newsman Eric Engberg chimes on the nightly news. Doesn't God have something to say about all this? The answer is He certainly does. For from the Old Testament to the New Testament, the Bible warns us that some things do not change. Perhaps the greatest warning is found in the very last book of the Bible. We read in,
Rev 22:18-19 (NIV) "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. 19 And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book."
It is here as John the revelator completed God's communication of His Word to all mankind, that God gives this stern warning. Amazingly, the Bible is full of warnings. Not to scare people, or to infringe on their rights, but to protect us from the harm that can come when we violate those warnings. The very first warning is found in the opening pages of Genesis where God warned Adam and Eve to obey His rules for living in His world and universe as His creation and guest. We know that because our first parents rebelled and disobeyed God's rules, they plunged the human race into the sin and death that has plagued us for the millenniums of time since then.
However this stern warning God gave as the final book of revelation is completed, by application takes in the entire canon of Scripture. God says some things must never change, and anyone who tampers with His Word to make it "politically, or spiritually palatable to sinful man's sensitivities," is in for trouble. Now this warning in Scripture is insightful. God said,
Rev 22:18 (NIV) "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book…"
God is saying to you and me and our modern generation, in His eyes and the court of the universe it is a deadly and serious crime to try to "add" to the words of Scripture, to what God has already said. By adding to the Word of God, error is of course inserted. But one grace is, at the least, the whole of the Bible and its saving Gospel is left intact. So God says, He will punish everyone who does this. We see this today in the religious Cults treatment of God's Word. In order to teach the false revelations they promote, they have added human or more correctly demonically inspired words. Such pollution of the Bible has been the cause of the religious fanaticism that has hurt and harmed humanity for centuries. Yet God says there is something worse than adding false words to His inerrant,, infallible and fully inspired Scripture. What is worse? Listen to the text as we continue it. God says,
Rev 22:19 (NIV) "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book … if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book."
Notice the second warning say not to "take away," anything or any language, grammar, or concepts God has written into His Word. Why is this even more serious that adding to Scripture? The answer is obvious. When we cut out and take away what sinful fallen man says is offensive to our humanistic prejudices and evolutionary presuppositions, we so distort and destroy God's Word that we render it ineffective. The Cults "add" to the Word of God, but as we have seen by the Newsweek article, the Liberal religionists ""take away," from the Word, thus destroying the intact Word God gave us. God says when anyone attempts to do this, it is actual evidence of the damning sin of unbelief. This is why God says,
Rev 22:19b (NIV) "I warn everyone ..[God]I will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book."
Now to set the record straight. God is not referring here to Bible believing commentators who mistakenly translate some passage erroneously, or inadvertently minimize it. It is reference to those who like this hymnal revisionist committee, who also advocate doing the same to the Bible, God's holy Word. Yet we have the more "sure" Word from God that,
John 10:35 (NIV) "… the Scripture cannot be broken--"
In fact, this warning found in revelation was also given in the Old Testament through Moses. God spoke through Moses to His people, the elect nation of Israel, and told them all that Moses had written was actually His very own communication of His Word to them. Therefore they had better watch out and not tamper with it, for God said,
Deu 18:18-19 (NIV) "I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. 19 If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account."
Deu 4:2 (NIV) "Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the LORD your God that I give you."
Therefore, we can conclude that God had Moses in the Pentateuch stress the divine integrity of the written Word, while John in his Book of Revelation, stressed the inviolability of it. Indeed it is a fearful thing to tamper with God's Word as we see being done these days.
So friend, let us take this to heart. It is a fearful thing to add to the Scriptures. Although the Cults are known for this, even today we have professing Christians, "adding" to the Word too. Our Charismatic friends are often guilty of this, when they "add," their supposedly new "revelations," God speaks to them through what they describe as the "gift of words and knowledge." I say to you watch out for any and all "extra-biblical" revelations. For God is no longer in the business of communicating revelation to anyone! For example, the popular Charismatic leader, J Rodman Williams said,
"The Bible truly has become a fellow witness to God's present activity…the Spirit as the living God moves through and beyond the records of past witness, however valuable such records are as a model for what happens today." 4
What Williams is saying and all Charismatics affirm, is the Bible is not the completed and closed revelation of God to man. Rather, God is still communicating revelation through His people to the Church and the world. This is dangerous, deadly and is under God's curse. I submit to you the historic Christian faith has always taught some things never change! In particular, the Bible is a closed system of truth, complete, sufficient and not to be added to. Jude, the brother of the Lord Jesus in the New Testament tells us,
Jude 1:3 (NIV) "Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints."
We had better be careful today as to what we allow from the fallen and sinful world's ideology to creep into the world of our faith. "Political correctness" is according to God incorrect. Spiritual tampering with our great Christians hymns as well as God's Word directly will result in untold temporal ruin, as we see unfolding around us today, as well as eternal ruin for what we take away from the wonderful Word of God.
Look at what "adding," and subtracting has already done. We live now in a world of moral and spiritual catastrophe, a world of chaos, sinking into the depths of sin and corruption. We no longer are able to control ourselves in our pursuits of pleasure, ease and material gain. The "good life," has brought us corruption, greed and now even physical ruin. The AIDS crisis, the drug crisis, the crime crisis, the moral crisis, The economic crisis, the abortion and euthanasia crisis and now the spiritual crisis - all of it was prophesied would come in the last days because of tampering with God's Word. We read in,
2 Tim 4:3-4 (NIV) "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths."
2 Tim 3:2-5 (NIV) "People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God-- 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power, have nothing to do with them!"
Is nothing sacred anymore? The answer is Yes there is! - it is the Bible God's Word and all that it teaches concerning our life and living in God's borrowed universe. I tell you my friend, if you are involved in any organizations be it religious or not that advocates "adding," or "subtracting" from the written Word of God, you had better, heed the admonition of God we read in,
2 Tim 3:5 (NIV) "… Have nothing to do with them."
These people especially the liberal religionists today who "cut away," and rob people of the Word of life through Jesus Christ - God says there remains for those who are culpable, a fearful looking for of judgment to come. God's Word is life, God's Word Jesus said is truth, and the greatest truth we can read there and take to heart, is God's message of love. The Bible tells us,
John 3:16 (NIV) ""For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
John 6:35 (NIV) "…Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty."
John 12:46 (NIV) "I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness."
John 1:10-12 (NKJV) "He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:"
So this Newsweek article should be a stern and serious warning to us all. The time is now here where humanity in full rejection of God and His Son Jesus Christ, will formally act to remove God's Word from our society and even the churches of our nation. Brethren, it's time to take a stand and speak out against any and all tampering with God's Word. Be it the cultic version of adding to it, or the liberal Christ-denying version of taking away from it. Let us each examine our hearts to see where we stand. If we do not stand upon the Word as the closed, completed, absolutely inerrant and sufficient Word of God - we may find we are standing across the line of irreconcilable unbelief that will send us to an everlasting Hell for all eternity. God help us to stand with Christ and His unchanging Word…
"HYMNS, HERS AND THEIRS," was an article we all need to take note of and heed the warning it provokes in the Bible. There are some things that never change. The exact choice of words God used, the particular grammar it is set in, and the gender basis of its context are indeed part and parcel to the divine inspiration of God's Word. The question we must ask is have you believed God? Have you believed what the Lord says about you? That we are all sinners lost and separated from our Creator, that in this separation, we are tainted with a sin nature that is in rebellion to all God stands for. That unless we accept God's terms of forgiveness and reconciliation through the transaction of the Cross, we shall die in our sins and suffer separation from God for eternity in a place called Hell. The fact we all must face is - you either believe God, or you don't. And my friend that is the difference between being saved unto life eternal and damned in unbelief in God's penitentiary called Hell. It's our choice. I've made mine, have you?
ENDNOTES:
1. Newsweek Magazine, "Hymns, Hers & Theirs," by Kenneth L. Woodward, page 75, February 12, 1996.
2. Ibid., Page 75
3. Ibid., Page 75
4. J. Rodman Williams, "The Era of the Spirit," Plainfield, NJ,:Logos, 1971, page 16.
The World, the Word & You! Broadcast is a non-denominational
ministry based on the historic fundamental evangelical
interpretation of the Scriptures.A copy of our doctrinal
statement is available upon request.These weekly radio
commentaries can be heard in selected areas around the nation.
Dennis Finnan has been the speaker for 16 years, and serves as
General Director. These transcripts are available free of charge
to all who desire them. Also available are radio cassette tapes
and printed booklets of each message. A free listing of all
messages is available upon request also.
For further information, reprints, or a listing of all topics, please write to our speaker,
Dennis L. Finnan(wwyfin@sparc.isl.net), or visit our webpage at [ http://www.isl.net/wwyweb.html ].