Double-Edged Sword

 

[1]

Hebrews 4:12-13 Contemporary English Version

¹² God's word is alive and powerful! It is sharper than any double-edged sword. His word can cut through our spirits and souls and through our joints and marrow, until it discovers the desires and thoughts of our hearts. ¹³ Nothing is hidden from God! He sees through everything, and we will have to tell him the truth.

 

We recently attended a Wycliffe Associates Summit here in California. They accentuated the transformation native speakers undergo when they read the Bible in their own language. The translators especially are changed because they have spent genuine time actually understanding God’s word and then expressing it in their own heart language.

Some of my fellow believers ask me if it wouldn’t be better to donate what I give for Bible translation to church evangelism instead. As we discovered in Tanzania many years ago, where people used an English or a Swahili version of the Bible to study for themselves. I heard them say, “But this is in the language of our oppressors.” Indeed, the English were the most recent rulers of Tanzania, and Swahili is a language created by the Arabs who used it in the slave trade. It can be difficult to learn about love and grace in a language normally associated with oppression.

But then, some argue, what if people misinterpret the meaning of the text? That is the same argument the Catholic Church made in order to restrict the use of Scripture throughout the Dark Ages. Some experts claim there are over 9,000 Christian denominations in the United States alone (over 33,000 worldwide). See what happens when each person is able to read the Bible and form his/her own opinion about the Truth of God?

God’s Word is alive! It is causing people to think about what message God has for them. It is the Holy Spirit’s duty to teach each person what he wants them to believe as well as what He wants them to do. It is only the active intervention of the Holy Spirit in our lives that prepares us for heaven, that applies God’s grace to the individual believer.

Just as God used human instruments to write His words contained in the Bible, God has given people the privilege for making His Word available to every to every nation, kindred, tongue and people[2] in their heart language.

Thank You, Lord, for giving us the opportunity to help spread Your Word to all of mankind. And Thank You also that it is not our assignment to police how Your Holy Spirit chooses to use this Word.

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[1] https://clipground.com/images/gods-words-clipart-3.png

[2] Revelation 14 :6 “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,”

 

Weapons to Fight in the Light

[i]

Romans 13:12

Good News Translation (GNT)

¹² The night is nearly over, day is almost here. Let us stop doing the things that belong to the dark, and let us take up weapons for fighting in the light.

When I was probably about 8 years old we had a student at Helderberg College who taught our Sabbath School class. He was very persuasive and very knowledgeable. He also had an unshakeable faith in Jesus Christ and His soon return. He looked at current world events—around 1950—and assumed that all the prophecies about Christ’s return had already been fulfilled. He stated that he guaranteed categorically that Christ would return within 5 years at the very most. It made a huge impression on me, or I certainly wouldn’t remember it all these years later.

I got much of his expressed certainty, but I do remember wondering whether it would really happen. The thought of Christ’s coming struck fear into my life rather than wondrous hope. Christ’s coming meant He would judge me, and I knew that my life and thoughts would reveal that I wasn’t ready. What it did mean to be ready? In my young life it meant that I would no longer be sinning—something that still hasn’t happened. I did not understand what the grace of Christ means to every Christian. It is this grace that makes me ready in spite of my sinful nature.

Unfortunately my teacher hadn’t put this verse into either his or my thoughts about getting ready. “Let us take up the weapons for fighting in the light.” A weapon of great consequence is the “Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Ephesians 6:17 KJV). Now close to 70 years later, it appears that we have a new tool in this Sword. Devout men and women of God are demanding that we provide Scripture to each people group in their own heart language. Furthermore they are anxious, willing, and able to step in and provide the manpower to produce these translations. Truly this is a modern outpouring of the Holy Spirit to provide the most powerful weapons “for fighting in the light!” With these weapons against him, Satan is hard pressed like never before. He is redoubling his fiendish efforts to defeat Christ and us. But we have the infinite power on our side, and we can indeed overcome by Christ’s amazing grace.

Thank You, Lord, for giving us this new and most potent weapon against the enemy of all human kind in our day.

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[i] https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2016/march/wycliffe-associates-leaves-wga-bible-translation-son-of-god.html

NEW BIBLES IN SPITE OF PERSECUTION

[i]

[ii]

Matthew 5:11-12 

Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)

¹¹ “You are blessed when they insult and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of Me.¹² Be glad and rejoice, because your reward is great in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

We are just back from a weekend set of meetings called the Wycliffe Associates President’s Summit in Carlsbad, California. We listened to a number of heartening reports of how their new MAST program is allowing the translation of Scripture into languages worldwide. It provides printed text and also audio and various sign language versions for those who would rather not read or are visually or audibly handicapped. Some of these languages have never even been written down. It is a technique that, I’m sure, is inspired by the Holy Spirit. It allows us to provide an excellent and accurate translation in an unbelievably short time. Some have translated a whole New Testament in a fortnight.

Satan is not taking this lying down! WA brought in two African leaders who told of the extreme trials they are meeting in their respective home countries. Both had experienced physical beatings and imprisonment for their faith. Hundreds of Christians have been brutally killed. This has left each of them stronger and more determined to provide Scripture for their people so that they can meet terrible opposition with the knowledge, hope, and faith that comes only from reading and understanding the Word of God.

One of these leaders comes from what is probably the first Christian country on earth. He reminded me of Bekele Heye, a Christian leader from his country whom I met a half-century ago. Heye was a visiting speaker at a camp meeting in Tanzania where Sylvia and I were working. I’ll never forget some of his words to those African believers. He told them, “Don’t wish you had been born with a white skin. One day I went out into the fields with a white missionary, and we worked all day in the sun. The next day this missionary was in hospital where all his skin came off. Meanwhile I was still out in the field growing food for my family.”

Heye also warned his listeners “Don’t think that this is a white man’s religion from Europe or America. Almost 2,000 years ago Africa had it first when the Ethiopian ambassador came back from having been baptized by the deacon Philip. Since that time we have kept the Christian faith to ourselves and haven’t taught it to the rest of Africa. Now these missionaries have come from other countries to do the work God originally gave us to do.”

Thank You, Lord, for showing us how to use modern technologies to reach the entire earth so that a “vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language” (Revelation 7:9) can soon be gathered in front of Your throne.

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[i] http://globalchristiancenter.com/christian-living/lesser-known-bible-people/31308-the-eunuch-of-ethiopia

[ii] https://www.google.com/search?q=ethiopian+eunuch+acts&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS744US744&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMj-3V0uXdAhVE6lMKHafoAHUQ_AUIDygC&biw=1116&bih=538#imgrc=G89oFVhp0BT6pM: