Pharaoh King of Egypt (Part 14)
This article continues from where I have left off in Pharaoh King of Egypt (Part 13), where I have exposed from scripture the plan of the kings of the earth and rulers of this world to uproot Bible Christianity and replace it with a fake version of Christianity, called American Christianity, which I have discussed in more detail starting from Pharaoh King of Egypt (Part 11) onward.
Psalms 11:3 "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?"
The way they uproot Bible Christianity is by destroying the “foundations” of the house of God. The Devil knows that by attacking the foundational doctrines in the gospel of Jesus Christ, churches will be divided one against another, and if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. By destroying the foundations of the house of God, it disrupts unity and dramatically weakens the church as a force to restrain evil in this world.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 "¶ Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. 10 For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. 11 Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? 12 And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken."
Two are better than one, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Why? Because if one falls, the other will lift up his fellow, and if an enemy prevails against one, two shall withstand him.
Galatians 5:15 "But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another."
But if one be divided against the other, it is inevitable that the members of the body of Christ will be quickly consumed one of another, and the house of God cannot stand. Paul used the word “consumed” in this verse. It is almost like him using the analogy of how cancer spreads in a healthy body, how it consumes the healthy tissues around it, corrupting the body from within. The last time, we stopped at this verse:
2 Thessalonians 2:7 "For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way."
We have established from scripture the identity of the “he” in this verse as the Spirit of the Lord. It is the Spirit of the Lord by the word of God that is withholding that man of sin, the son of perdition from making his appearance before his time. However, there is also that “mystery of iniquity” which is already at work to bring about a change, working against the Spirit of the Lord. Only the Spirit of the Lord who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. In fact, we also have a reference in:
Genesis 6:3 "And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years."
This verse is the LORD saying that “my spirit” (Spirit of the Lord) shall not always strive with man. Isn't it true that man is still striving with the LORD today? But what exactly is man striving against? Yes, not against a tangible body, but against the words of the LORD — the living God in the form of the written Word.
2 Peter 2:5 "And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;"
Noah was a “preacher of righteousness” during his time. What was he doing when the LORD told him to start building an ark for the saving of his house? He was preaching righteousness to everyone around him. He was preaching the word of God to the ungodly, hoping that they will repent before the Flood should come according to the words of the LORD, and drown them into perdition. That was the Spirit of the Lord striving with men by the words of the LORD. During Noah’s time, it was Noah the preacher of righteousness preaching the word of God to the whole world. Today, it is the 66 books of the Holy Bible speaking through the church of the living God, the body of Christ.
1 Timothy 3:15 "But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."
It is the house of God, the church of the living God and the pillar and ground of the truth that is striving with men by the Spirit of the Lord. Where the Spirit of the Lord is by the preaching of the word of God, there is liberty. But where the Spirit of the Lord is absent for the lack of the preaching of the word of God, tyranny prevails. Today, our churches are in great danger of forgetting the past glorious great reformation truths, for which previous generations of martyrs had willingly laid down their lives for.
In an article from facebook titled “The Oxford Martyrs,” I quote:
“On 16 October 1555, just outside the walls of Balliol College, Oxford, a stout stake had been driven into the ground with fagots of firewood piled high at its base. Two men were lead out and fastened to the stake by a single chain bound around both their waists.
The older man was Hugh Latimer, the Bishop of Worcester, one of the most powerful preachers of his day, and the other Nicolas Ridley, the Bishop of London, respected as one of the finest theologians in England.
More wood was carried and piled up around their feet. Then it was set alight. As the wood kindled and the flames began to rise, Bishop Latimer encouraged his companion:
Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.
Hundreds in the crowd watching the burning of these bishops wept openly.
The place of their execution is marked today by a small stone cross set in the ground in Broad Street, while nearby in St. Giles stands the imposing Martyrs Memorial, erected 300 years later in memory of these two men and of Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who 4 months after their execution suffered the same tortured death by burning, in the same place, and for the same reason.”
In another facebook article titled “Faith and Freedom,” I quote:
“On one day in 1519 seven men and women in Coventry were burned alive for teaching their children the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments and the Apostles Creed in English!
In his trial, Bishop Ridley was urged to reject the Protestant Faith. His reply:
"As for the doctrine which I have taught, my conscience assureth me that it is sound, and according to God's Word in confirmation thereof I seal the same with my blood."
After much further pressure and torment, Bishop Ridley responded:
"So long as the breath is in my body, I will never deny my Lord Christ, and His known truth: God's will be done in me!"
Bishop Latimer declared: I thank God most heartily, that He hath prolonged my life to this end, that I may in this case glorify God by that kind of death.”
2 Corinthians 3:17 "Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."
That’s why the Holy Bible is reportedly banned in at least 52 countries worldwide. That’s why street preaching is illegal in some places, and street preachers have been forcefully arrested for simply preaching out in an open space. Do you know also that the first English translations of the Holy Bible were banned? The first printed copies of the New Testament in English had to be printed in Germany and smuggled into England in bales of cotton. The bible translator (William Tyndale) responsible for this was also burned at the stake for the crime of translating the scriptures into English. William Tyndale is known as the father of the English Bible, because he produced the first English translation from the original Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. Once, Tyndale was shocked by the ignorance of the bible that was prevalent even amongst the clergy, to which he declared to one such cleric:
“I defy the Pope and all his laws. If God spares my life, before many years pass I will make it possible for the boy who drives the plow to know more of the Scriptures than you do.”
Failing to obtain any ecclesiastical approval for his proposed translation, Tyndale went into exile to Germany. As he described, not only was there no room in the lord of London's palace to translate the New Testament, but also that there was no place to do it in all of England. Supported by some London merchants, Tyndale set sail to Germany in 1524, and never to return to his homeland again. In Hamburg he worked on the New Testament, which was ready for printing by the following year. As the pages began to roll off the press in Cologne, soldiers of the Holy Roman Empire raided the printing press. Tyndale fled with as many of the pages as had so far been printed. Only one incomplete copy of this Cologne New Testament edition survives. Tyndale then moved to Worms where the completed New Testament was published the following year (1526). Of the 6000 copies printed, only 2 of this edition have survived.
Not only did the first printed edition of the English New Testament need to be produced in Germany, but they also had to be smuggled into England. There, the bishops did all they could to seek them out and destroy them. The Bishop of London, Cuthbert Tunstall, preached against the translation of the New Testament into English and had copies of Tyndale's New Testaments ceremonially burned at St. Paul's. the Archbishop of Canterbury began a campaign of buying up these contraband copies of the New Testament in order to burn them. As Tyndale remarked, his purchases helped provide the finance for the new improved editions.
In 1530, Tyndale's translation of the first five books of the Holy Bible, the Pentateuch (the books of Moses), were printed in Antwerp, Belgium. Tyndale continually worked on further revisions and editions of the New Testament. He also wrote “The Parable of Wicked Mammon” and “The Obedience of a Christian Man.” This book, “The Obedience of a Christian Man,” was studied by Queen Anne Boleyn and even found its way to King Henry VIII who was most impressed: “This book is for me and all kings to read!” King Henry VIII then sent out his agents to offer Tyndale a high position in his court, a safe return to England and a great salary to oversee his communications. However, Tyndale was not willing to surrender his work as a bible translator, theologian and preacher merely to become a propagandist for the king! In his book “The Practice of Prelates” Tyndale argued against divorce and specifically dared to assert that the king should remain faithful to his first wife!
Matthew 14:4 "For John said unto him, It is not lawful for thee to have her."
There is this striking similarity between William Tyndale and John the Baptist who insisted it was not lawful for king Herod to have his brother Philip’s wife, even though his words would cost him his life. Tyndale also maintained that Christians always have the duty to obey civil authority, except where loyalty to God is concerned. Henry's initial enthusiasm for Tyndale turned to rage and so Tyndale was made an outlaw both to the Roman Catholic Church and its Holy Roman Empire, and to the English kingdom. Tyndale also carried out a literary battle with Sir Thomas More who attacked him in print with Dialogue Concerning Heresies in 1529. Tyndale responded with Answer to More. More responded with Confutation in 1533, and so on.
In 1535, Tyndale was betrayed by a fellow Englishman, Henry Phillips, who gained his confidence only to treacherously arrange for his arrest. Tyndale was taken to the state prison in the castle of Vilvorde, near Brussels. For 500 days, Tyndale suffered in a cold , dark and damp dungeon and then on 6 October, 1536, he was taken to a stake where he was garroted and burned. His last words were reportedly “Lord, open the king of England's eyes.”
The Lord did indeed answer the dying prayer of Tyndale in the most remarkable way. By this time there was an Archbishop of Canterbury (Thomas Cranmer) and a Vicar General (Thomas Cromwell) both of whom were committed to the Protestant cause. They persuaded King Henry to approve the publication of the Coverdale translation. By 1539, every parish church in England was required to make a copy of this English Bible available to all of its parishioners.
Miles Coverdale was a friend of Tyndale's, a fellow Cambridge graduate and Reformer. His edition was the first complete translation of the Holy Bible in English. It was mainly Tyndale's work supplemented with portions of the Old Testament which Tyndale had not been able to translate before his death. Then, a year after Tyndale's death, the Matthews Bible appeared. That was the work of another friend and fellow English Reformer, John Rogers. Because of the danger of producing bible translations, he used the pen-name Thomas Matthews which was an inversion of William Tyndale's initials (WT) TM. In fact at the end of the Old Testament he had William Tyndale's initials WT printed big and bold. At Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's request, Henry VIII authorised that this Bible be further revised by Coverdale and be called The Great Bible. And so, in this way Tyndale's dying prayer was spectacularly answered. The sudden, unprecedented countrywide access to the scriptures created widespread excitement. Just in the lifetime of William Shakespeare, an estimated 2 million Holy Bibles were sold throughout the British Isles. One estimate suggests that the New Testament in the 1611 King James Version is 83% Tyndale's and the Old Testament 76%. It was mostly by Tyndale's translation that English has been established as a switch from Hebrew, Greek and Latin worldview of scriptures.
“The King James Bible was the bible of the great modern missions movement of the 1700’s and 1800’s. The missionaries from England and the United States were saved, called to the mission field, and trained under the preaching of the King James Bible. They traveled around the world, introducing the gospel of grace to millions. Many of these missionaries knew little or no Greek and Hebrew. They translated the Bible into 760 languages from the King James Bible. Truly the modern missions movement was a King James only movement.” Dr. Phil Stringer, The Unbroken Bible, pp.90-91
Every person in this world who writes, speaks or even thinks in English, is in one way or another indebted to William Tyndale. It is also unthinkable that while English was one of the minor languages of Europe in the early 16th Century, today it has become a truly worldwide language with over 2 billion people communicating in this language. The Reformation in the 16th Century was one of the most important epochs in the history of the world. It was the Reformation that gave us the bible now which is freely available in our own languages. There is liberty in countries where the Spirit of the Lord is honoured, where the word of God is allowed to be openly preached. The leadership and governments of these countries acknowledge the principles of religious freedom, liberty of conscience, rule of the law, separation of powers and constitutionally limited republics, all of which were unthinkable before the Reformation and the Reformers who fought for the principles that scripture alone is our final authority, that Christ alone is the Head of the Church, and that salvation is by the grace of God alone, received by faith alone on the basis of the finished work of Christ alone.
Once, the common people were unable to have access to the Holy bible. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Papal Inquisition forbade biblical translation, threatening imprisonment and death to those who disobeyed. This had in turn given rise to valiant warriors of the faith, warriors such as John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, Martin Luther, the ancient Waldenses, Albigenses and others who hazarded their lives for the sake of sharing the gospel light with a world drowning in darkness. By God’s grace, the world was turned upside down through the Protestant Reformation. The Reformers subdued whole kingdoms by preaching the grace of God and exposing the unbiblical doctrines of Rome. In response, the Vatican would launch a Counter Reformation to destroy the work of the Reformers, including the bibles they produced. I would highly recommend anyone to watch this full documentary “A Lamp In The Dark - The Untold History Of The Bible” to have a complete and unbiased view of the untold history of the Holy Bible, revealing critical information that are often overlooked in modern histories. More to be shared in Part 15.