The Holy Bible is the “voice” of the Godhead (Father and Son).  The Scriptures reveal that the Old Testament writings were recorded and preserved for the future generations of ISRAEL.  Gentiles can receive the salvation God promised to Israel by becoming spiritual Israelites.  This can be accomplished ONLY by embracing, believing and obeying the voice (Words) of Israel’s God–the God of their Book–the Holy Bible.  The ancient nation of Israel (descendants of Abraham) was chosen by God to be His “light to the Gentiles” (Isa. 42:6).  In Isaiah 60:3 the prophet, writing under the direction of the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:21), prophesied that Gentiles would come to Israel’s “light.”  That light was Israel’s God (Isa. 60:20) in spoken and written form–His Word (Jn. 1:1-4,14).  Recall that Jesus said that while He was in the world He was the “light of the world” (Jn. 8:12).  Then in Matthew 5:14 He said that the disciples were the “light of the world.”  He was sending them out to speak and minister God’s “light.”  Jesus and the disciples were 12 individual people.  But they constituted “THE (one) LIGHT.” What was the one thing they all had in common that made them one “light?”  The Word of God.  God and His light are one in the same (Isa. 60:20).  God and His true, light-bearing saints are one in the same (Jn. 17:11-26) because they share the same “light” and manifest it.  The “light” the nation of Israel was to share with the world was the Law of God (the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation) which would “make one wise unto salvation” (2 Tim. 3:14-16).  God, Christ, Their saints, the light, the Word and the Law are one in the same, only in different forms.  It was the Old Testament light/Law/Word that the apostles preached and taught the New Testament Church.  The New Testament would come into being only after 11 of the 12 apostles had been martyred.  John was preserved alive so that He could bring the Old Testament together with the writings of the apostles (the New Testament).  This enables God-hungry people to have the “whole (light/Truth) counsel of God” which Paul preached (Acts 20:27).  What he declared was the Old Testament and the Words of Jesus of Nazareth, both of which Jesus taught him through revelation (Gal. 1:12).  The Holy Bible is the “whole counsel (teaching) of God” which He preserved for those who wish to become His people.

The entire Holy Bible is God’s covenant with those who seek the holiness required for salvation.  In His covenant He explains 1) how to attain the required holiness, 2) what He will do FOR those who attain that holiness and 3) what He will do TO those who do not.  In 2 Corinthians 1:2o the Apostle Paul states: “For ALL the promises of God IN HIM (Christ) are  yea (“yes”) and amen (“So be it”) so that God can be glorified THROUGH US” by fulfilling His promises in His obedient saints for all the world to see.  God vows to fulfil His part of the covenant–both positive and negative parts.  A covenant is a partnership–a dual contract.  Note that God vows to fulfil His part IF we are “IN HIM” (Christ).  To be “in Him” we must obey Him, which is our part of the covenant.  Otherwise, God is not obligated to fulfil His part.

How important to God was the preservation of His Book?  It was of utmost importance, as the following will attest.  Men literally gave their lives for the preservation and safe-keeping of the Holy Bible in its entirety.  Jewish scribes (writers) carefully and faithfully preserved every “jot and tittle” of the Old Testament, as did Greek scribes when recording the New Testament.

Over the centuries of its existence the Holy Bible has been the object of intense hated by many people.  For example, in 303 A.D. the Romans tried to destroy the Bible, and therefore Christianity itself, by burning every sacred writing they could find.  Yet the Scriptures survived.  In the 1500’s William Tyndale was forced to go to Germany to complete his English translation of the New Testament from the original Greek.  Church authorities had prohibited the writing of an English translation.  In 1536, Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake by those who did not want the “common people” to “hear” the “voice” of God.  Other men of God such as William Rogers and Thomas Cranmer were also brought to the stake.  Since the Garden of Eden, Satan has worked to deceived man into rejecting God’s Word and believing his word.  His success is easily measured.  Simply look in a phone book under CHURCHES and count the number of different versions of “the truth” he offers.  His Burger King (“Any way you want it”) religion can be found throughout the earth.  Ironically, God’s pure religion has been relegated to the dustbin of history by those who call themselves “the church.”

In the original church Satan convinced three of its first four members to turn away from God.  Abel alone resisted his siren call to “a better, easier, more user-friendly way.”  During the time of Noah he alone obeyed God.  “Noah (not his wife, sons or daughters-in-law) found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (Gen. 6:8).  Abraham alone stood for God in his day.  The same can be said of Isaac, Jacob and Joseph in their day.  They made up less than 1% of the world’s population. Nothing has changed.  Today, of the world’s two billion plus professing Christians, less than 1%–God’s “remnant,” His “little flock”–stand with Him.  The present pandemic is a partial fulfillment of the promise God made to those who disobeyed Him.  There is much more and much worse to come as God pours out His wrath on this Truth-hating, God-rejecting world.  Look for the people of “the church” to be hit especially hard because of their rejection of His Word of life.  God’s wrath will continue to fall on them because, while proclaiming themselves to be God’s people, they reject His covenant/Word/Law/light and therefore, as Jesus warns in Luke 10,16, reject (“despise”) both Himself and His Father.  And Satan smiles, knowing that he has deceived the vast majority of church people (Rev. 12:9) into believing and obeying his version of the gospel (Gal. 1:6-9).  Jesus is saying to the Laodicean era church of this day what He said to the woman at the well: “You know not what you worship” (Jn. 4:22).  Like her, the church worships and serves her unrecognized god–Satan.   L.J.