A Rainbow on the Cloud - King’s Heralds Be Thou Near - Multiple Trio, Del Delker Open the Bible and Read It - King’s Heralds O Word of God Incarnate - King’s Heralds

A Rainbow on the Cloud - King’s Heralds Be Thou Near - Multiple Trio, Del Delker Open the Bible and Read It - King’s Heralds O Word of God Incarnate - King’s Heralds

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Voice Of Prophecy

H.M.S. Richards

The Man Who Whittled the Scripture


Lift up the trumpet and loud let it ring, Jesus is coming again. Cheer up you pilgrims, be joyful and sing, Jesus is coming again. This is the voice of prophecy, A voice crying in the wilderness of these modern days, prepare ye the way of the Lord. Coming again, coming again, Jesus is coming again. From our Voice of Prophecy studios in Los Angeles, California, we welcome you to this half hour of inspiration and music transcribed with Kings Heralds, Del Delcker, Brad Braley, and HMS Richards, the voice of prophecy speaker.

A rainbow is the greatest advertisement we know of. Everyone who sees it knows immediately what it means, a token of God's unfailing love. And friend, there's a rainbow on the cloud for you. Tis an arch of promise bright, earnest love unfading light, pouring from a sky of red and blue. There's a rainbow on the cloud for you.

There's a promise that is true. Yes, the storm will pass away, there will dawn a brighter day. There's a rainbow on the cloud for you. There's a rainbow on the cloud, though your soul is sorrow-bound, lift your voice to praise the Lord today. There's a rainbow round the throne, in its glory we will own, that he led us in his perfect way.

There's a rainbow on the cloud for you. There's a promise that is sure and true. Yes, the storm will pass away. There will dawn a brighter day. There's a rainbow on the cloud for you.

Our Father in Heaven, we pray that Thou wilt bless this broadcast to everyone who listens. Send forth the light of Thy truth for this age, Thy message to all the earth quickly, we pray, and bless every hearer in Jesus' name. Of God, a place where sin cannot molest, near to the heart of God. Amen. There are so many times in life when we just can't seem to go any farther.

We grow lonely and afraid. It will help you in times like that to offer this simple three-word prayer. Be thou near. Prayer, Be Thou Near. When my heart is filled with sorrow, be thou near.

When I fear to face tomorrow, be thou near. Be thou near me, O my Savior, when my heart is filled with fear, with fear. When I feel my faith is failing, blessed Savior, be Thou near. When the trials of life oppress me. Be thou near when temptations, fears distress me.

Patience, peers, distress me, be thou near. Be thou near me, O my Savior, when me. Oh my Savior, when my heart is filled with fear, When I feel my faith is failing, blessed Savior, be Thou near. Here now is HMS Richards, the voice of prophecy speaker. His subject, the man who whittled the scripture.

It was winter time. The man with the knife was sitting in front of a large fire, surrounded with a group of prominent politicians and government officials. The man with a knife was also a royal Hitler because he was a king, yes, the king of Jerusalem. And 1 more important point, this man with a knife was a religious man, for he had just proclaimed a nationwide fast which was then being celebrated in God's holy temple. But why would such a man, the king of Jerusalem, a religious man, Who took an interest in the worship of the temple do such a thing as to whittle the scripture?

Why did he actually take a knife and cut the holy words of God from the scroll of the prophets? Why would he do it? Because he didn't like what the scripture said. This story is found in the 36th chapter of Jeremiah. God's prophet was in prison because he had been proclaiming the words of the Lord, which were very unpopular with the rulers of the country, because of their pronounced and continued sin.

God had declared that the king, his princes, and the people would be carried into captivity by the king of Babylon, their approaching enemy. God gave them time to repent. They refused to repent, still carrying on religious forms while breaking the commandments of God. Evil of every sort was rampant. The people preferred a form of religion to the reality.

Now they were about to go into Babylonian captivity, not only as a punishment, but as a school where they would learn obedience. Jeremiah, at the command of God, prophesied these coming events, pled with the people to reform, to repent. But instead of reforming and repenting, they cast the prophet into prison. Then the word of the Lord came to him, even in the prison, commanded him to take the role of a book or a scroll, as books were written in that particular form in those days, and write the words of doom which certainly would come to pass upon the city. After the message was written, Jeremiah himself could not go into the temple to proclaim it to the people.

So he sent his secretary, Beruk, who took his stand by 1 of the gates of the temple and there read the words of God from the scroll. They were not merely the words of Jeremiah, they were inspired words. For we read in Jeremiah 36, this word came unto Jeremiah from the Lord. Someone informed the leading princes in the palace about this sermon preached by Jeremiah's secretary and the king heard of it and wanted to see the scroll. It was brought and read to him by 1 of his officials.

And here's what happened. I'm reading now Jeremiah 36, 22. Now the king sat in the winter house in the ninth month, and there was a fire on the hearth burning before him. And it came to pass that when Jehudi had read 3 or 4 leaves, he cut it with a penknife and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth until all the scroll was consumed in the fire. Yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, Neither the king nor any of his servants heard all these words.

There were 3 men there brave enough to request the king not to destroy the scroll, but he wouldn't listen. Then the king attempted to arrest Jeremiah and his secretary, But the Lord hit him. This wasn't the end of the matter for reading on in verse 27 and 28, the word of the Lord came again, get another scroll. And at the mouth of Jeremiah, Beruk wrote the same words again and added to them many like words. So we see that 1 may whittle away the Holy Scriptures, but it doesn't destroy them.

God's Word is like Himself, indestructible, eternal, immortal. The words of the message were dictated again by the Holy Spirit through Jeremiah. In fact, the scripture was enlarged and this enlarged scripture was the prophecy that the king would learn God's word after whittling it down and cutting it to pieces, that he himself would be a victim of the coming Babylonian invasion. Read it in verse 30, and that his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, in the night to the frost. This king, Jehoiakim, was the son of a good man, King Josiah.

He knew better. He knew the will and word of God. He made his own political aspirations supreme. He had a strange career. At the age of 25, he was placed on the throne of Judah by the king of Egypt.

He departed from the God whom his father had served, went back into idolatry. The king of Babylon defeated the pharaoh of Egypt and demanded submission of Jehoiachin, which was given. A few years later, he rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar. Then the Babylonian king himself came with his army and captured Jerusalem and bound the rebel with chains to carry him to Babylon. You read that in 2 Chronicles 36.

It is said that he was carried in a cage with hooks to the presence of the king of Babylon who was in his camp in the Holy Land. Evidently the purpose of taking him to Babylon as a prisoner was abandoned. He died or was murdered and his body was drawn along the ground and buried with the burial of a domestic animal as the scripture predicted, Jeremiah 22, 19. His rejection of God's word brought him only sorrow, disappointment, defeat, and death. This was the man who whittled the word of God, who cut out the parts of the Scripture he didn't like.

But there have been Bible clippers all down through the ages. Some have whittled the book and burned it literally. Others have done it in even a more deadly way, substituting human ordinances for its teachings, exalting man-made commandments for a plain thus saith the Lord. And friends, in our day there is a destructive criticism of Holy Scripture which whittles away its authority. As long as there are sinners, unbelievers, and skeptics in this world, there will be whittlers of the Bible.

Why don't they whittle the dictionary which contains over 600, 000 words? By actual count there are only 5, 642 words used in the Old Testament. John Milton used 8, 000 words, Shakespeare about 15, 000. In our common daily talk we use about 3 or 4. Why whittle the Bible?

Men whittle it because they don't like it, because its teachings condemn their sins. And that's the way it was with the king there in the Winter palace. He cut out the parts he didn't like. And soon there was nothing left. It was all gone.

You've heard the story of the deacon who loved God's word. But a new pastor came who was very critical of Holy Scripture. 1 week he would tell the people that a certain part of the scripture was uninspired, and the next week he would tell them another part was not inspired. Every time he did this, the deacon clipped out that part of the Bible. After about a year, he came to the pastor with only the covers of the Bible left.

It was all whittled away. And so, because of unbelief and doubt, many today have no scripture left, no encouragement for life's problems, no peace of soul, no hope of a resurrection, no promise of meeting their loved ones again in a land where dreams come true. Does the Bible claim that its very words are inspired? Listen, 3, 808 different times such words as, Thus saith the Lord, or God said, are found in the Bible. God told Moses, I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say.

Exodus 4 12. David said, the Spirit of the Lord spake by me and his word was in my tongue. Second Samuel 23 2. Jeremiah said, Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.

Jeremiah 1, 9. God said to Ezekiel, Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my words unto them. Ezekiel 3, 4. And the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 2, 13. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.

It's a matter of divine prophecy that in the latter days faith will be small in the earth as we read in Luke 18, 8, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? There are more Bibles printed today than at any time in the history of the world, and in more languages, over a thousand. But do we believe the Word of God? Do we act upon it? Do we obey it?

In fact, do we read it? Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God we read in Romans 10, 17. So we need to open the Bible and read it. Wonderful book called the Bible, lamp to our feet day by day. Light on our pathway to heaven, Guidebook to show us the way.

Open the Bible and read it. Ponder its message so true. Find the great plan of salvation, why Jesus died for you. First the Old Testament scriptures show how the prophets foretold That Christ would come as a Savior, a story that never grows old. Open the Bible and read it.

Ponder its message so true. Find the great plan of salvation. Why Jesus died for you. What is the real reason that some people whittle the Holy Scripture? Well, the answer is in Romans 8-7, because the carnal mind, that is the natural mind that we have, is enmity against God.

For it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. How can an unspiritual, unregenerate, unconverted heart love the Word of God which condemns every sin of which that heart is guilty? The Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, outlived all its enemies. Remember this. Sharp knives have cut it, expurgated it, and hot fires have burned it, but it lives on and will live forever.

Why do I believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures? That they are from God first. They bear in every word the evidence of their divine origin. They picture man exactly as he is. Second, the holy scriptures are indestructible.

Third, the holy Bible condemns our sins and points the way to a righteous life. Fourth, the prophecies of the Bible have been fulfilled and are being fulfilled. Fifth, there's a wonderful harmony between the scriptures, although they were written over a period of 1, 500 years by 40 different writers. Sixth, there's a mighty and important fact here. The Lord Jesus Christ accepted the scriptures of the Old Testament as the inspired Word of God.

He called the Law of Moses the Word of God, Mark 7, 1 to 3. Jesus believed the Bible, acknowledged the authenticity of the Old Testament. In Mark 10, he testified to the authenticity of Genesis 1 and 2. In John 8, 44, he testified to the authenticity of Genesis 3. He often said, it is written.

It has been written and remains written. Heaven and earth shall pass away, he said, but my words shall not pass away. Matthew 24, 35. This applies also to the New Testament where his words are recorded. Jesus acknowledged the authority of the scriptures.

They have Moses and the prophets, he said. Let them hear them. Luke 16 29. Last of all, Christ acknowledged the ability, the power of the Holy Scriptures to overcome Satan. He said, Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Then the devil left him. That's Matthew 4, 10 and 11. Jesus quoted the ancient prophecy of Hosea 6. We read of it here in Matthew 9, 13. Go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice.

He quoted that, and although the penman was dead and gone, the writing still applied. So he acknowledged that the writings of the Old Testament were still authority in his day. And if Jesus accepted the writings of the Bible, why shouldn't we accept them? We see that our Lord and Savior assures us of the divine authorship, antiquity, trustworthiness, durability, applicability, authority, and ability of the Holy Scriptures. Let us not clip or whittle or carve the Word of God, nor burn it in the fires of opposition.

Let us accept it, Let us believe it, obey it, and thank God for it. Then it will be a blessing to our lives. For the word of God is quick, or living, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Hebrews 4.12. This holy living word, the scriptures, the word of the living God, is not only the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, Ephesians 6.17, But it's a lamp of light to light the darkness of this world.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Psalm 119, 105. O Word of God incarnate, O wisdom from on high, O truth unchanged, unchanging, O light of our dark sky, we praise Thee for the radiance that from the hallowed page, a lantern to our footsteps, shines on from age to age. Let us all read the Holy Scriptures, not clip them, not whittle them, but read them, believe them and follow their divine direction. Oh, Word of God incarnate, oh, wisdom from on high.

Oh, truth unchanged, unchanging, O light of our dark sky. We praise thee for the radiance that from the hallowed page the hallowed page. A lantern to our footsteps shines on from age to age. O make thy church, dear Savior, a lamp of purest gold, to bear before the nations thy true light as of old. O teach thy wandering pilgrims by this their path to trace.

May we always remember that God is only a prayer away. Then let us look up and together go forward in faith. Radio friends, we've had so many requests for more information on the subject of prayer that we've decided to give the entire month of July to that subject. Every broadcast next month will be on the subject of prayer. Tell your friends, be sure and listen in and as preparation for it, please pray and may God bless you everyone.

Have faith in God, no whittlers of holy writ. Have faith in God, nor judge it by human wit. Have faith in God. At last, with his saints to sit, have faith, dear friends, in God. We hope this transcribed program of ours has brought spiritual blessing.

Be with us again next week for another broadcast brought to you by the voice of prophecy. And to everyone everywhere who listens, we say, the Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. Amen.

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The Man Who Whittled the Scripture

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