LOST IN TRANSLATION

 There’s a notion that complex human language developed from an earlier system of grunting. One can only marvel at any attempt to verify this theory! What we do know for certain is that when God created man in His own image He verbally communicated with him in a language sophisticated enough for God to promise blessings for obedience and to hold the man accountable for his disobedience. And when Adam subsequently disobeyed God he didn’t plead ignorance of God’s intention. Therefore there had been no breakdown in communication between God and him, which is to say that Adam had fully understood the intent of the words God had spoken to him.

Indeed, verbal communication begins with the Triune God. From eternity the Father and the Son have spoken to each other by Their Spirit, who also speaks with equal power and authority (Genesis 1:1-3; John 1:1-3; Acts 1:16; Hebrews 1:1-2). The Son, the middle Person in the eternal Godhead, is identified as the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us. He refers to Himself as the Alpha and the Omega (Revelation 1:11; 22:13), which, among other things, means that He is the beginning and the end of the alphabet. Therefore every word, and every letter of every word, including every jot and tittle, i.e., every dot above every ‘i’ or every stroke across every ‘t’, regardless of the language or dialect, speaks of Him. He is speech incarnate. The Lord of lords is also the Word of words. Words have their ultimate meaning in the Word.

The written Word of God consists of the Hebrew (with a small portion of Aramaic) and the Greek Scriptures. These make up one Book, the Bible. These original languages have been translated into the English. A plethora of English versions abound. Some take a literal approach and may be slightly wooden in their translation, while others opt for the dynamic equivalent and may be of a more ‘general gist’ version. However, all try to capture original intent. Many people favour the King James’ Version only, but its wide use of archaisms can act as a stumbling block to the modern English speaker.

In Christian evangelism, though the accuracy of translation is important, it is the substance or message of Scripture that is emphasised; such as the overarching Everlasting Covenant, which includes Creation, Fall of Man, Redemption, Resurrection and Judgment Day, the New Heavens and the New Earth and Hell. It is the special work of the Holy Spirit to take the things of the Son and communicate them to those God is saving from His judgment. Thus the Spirit works with the Word convicting and convincing people of their sins and lost-ness, and the salvation from the judgment upon them for their sins, found only in the Saviour of sinners. This brings us back to Jesus, whose name, in a word, means ‘Jehovah saves.’

Regarding redemption, the theme of the whole Bible is that salvation is of the LORD (‘LORD’ being an English version of ‘YHWH’ or ‘Jehovah.). Thus Jehovah-Jesus is Saviour of all who believe (John 3:16). Redemption is an aspect of the Triune God’s covenant plan to buy back an innumerable multitude from His justice. Thus fallen human beings hear the Gospel or good news message, and by the power of the Holy Spirit working within them, in His good time, repent of their sins and believe it. However, those who do not receive God’s gift of salvation are those who remain deaf to God’s Word, which is to say that they remain in their lost condition with the wrath of God abiding on them (John 3:36).

Only an unbeliever would ignore or deny the wonderful message of salvation by grace. Attempting to justify their unbelief some aver that the Bible is the end result of a chain of ‘Chinese whispers’, that Its message has been ‘lost in translation.’ However, the Bible says that, pre-conversion, all human beings ‘suppress the truth in unrighteousness’ Romans 1:18. That’s why, ‘he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him’ Hebrews 11:6b.

When it comes to the message of salvation, nothing is lost in translation. Rather, those who don’t understand simply don’t wish to understand. Otherwise they would diligently seek God and be rewarded by Him. We are thankful that ‘the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost’ Luke 19:10. Otherwise the whole human race would die in its sins. We are thankful that by His Spirit the Word incarnate comes to us with words we can understand, words that bring us back to life. He that used words to bring creation and everything therein into being, with a word, can bring your dead soul back to life and on the last day, bring also your dead body back to life, merely ‘with a shout, with the voice of an archangel’ 1 Thessalonians 4:16b.

The Gospel Simple yet Profound

 THE GOSPEL: SIMPLE YET PROFOUND is out today in paperback and eBook.

"What is the gospel all about? This is a question that many individuals, even Christians, often ask and the answer is simple: the gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ and the way of salvation that is offered through Him. Yet in this simple answer lies profound truths as the gospel, far from being something that someone only needs to hear once, continues to be the central element in the life of the Christian. In these pages, McKinlay takes the reader on a journey through the meaning of the gospel so that believers can better understand what the gospel fully entails."

Available at: The Gospel: Simple Yet Profound – Tulip Publishing

AUSTRALIA

Koorong
Phone: (02) 9857 4477
https:/koorong.com
Koorong’s Range of Tulip Publishing Titles

Reformers Bookshop
140 Albany Road, Stanmore, NSW 2048, Australia
Phone: (02) 9564 3555
https://reformers.com.au
Reformer’s Range of Tulip Publishing Titles

The Wandering Bookseller
119 Cliff Drive, Katoomba, NSW 2780, Australia
Phone: (02) 9188 9186
https://wanderingbookseller.com.au
Wandering Bookseller’s Range of Tulip Publishing Titles

CANADA

Reformed Book Services
230 Lynden Road, Brantford, ON N3R 8A3
Phone: 519 304 4709
https://reformedbookservices.com

NEW ZEALAND

Gracebooks NZ
354 Te Aute Road, Pukahu 4172
Phone: 06 875 8309
https://www.gracebooks.co.nz

PHILIPPINES

Puritan Project Philippines
https://puritanprojectphilippines.wordpress.com

SOUTH AFRICA

Good Neighbours Bookshop
172 B Hyperion Drive, Northriding Randburg
Phone: 27 11 704 1857
https://www.goodneighbours.org.za/

UNITED KINGDOM

Christian Bookshop Ossett
21 Queen Street, Ossett, West Yorkshire, WF5 8AS
Phone: 0192 426 0502
https://christianbookshopossett.co.uk
Christian Bookshop Ossett’s Range of Tulip Publishing Titles

CLC Bookshops
https://clcbookshops.com

Evangelical Bookshop
15 College Square East, Belfast, Northern Ireland, BT1 6DD
Phone: 0289 032 0529
https://www.evangelicalbookshop.co.uk
Evangelical Bookshop’s Range of Tulip Publishing Titles

James A. Dickson Books
Livingstone House, 16 Edward Street, Kilsyth Scotland, G65 9DL
Phone: 01236 827 978
https://jamesdicksonbooks.com

Mound Books
15 North Bank Street, The Mound, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH1 2LS
https://moundbooks.com

UNITED STATES

Christianbook.com
140 Summit St, Peabody, MA 01960
Phone: 1-800-247-4784
https://www.christianbook.com

Reformation Heritage Books
2965 Leonard St. NE, Grand Rapids, MI, 49525
Phone: 616-977-0889
https://www.heritagebooks.org

Solid Ground Christian Books
1682 SW Pancoast St., Port St. Lucie, FL, 34987
Phone: 772-207-5862
http://www.solid-ground-books.com

Westminster Bookstore
Phone: 215–886–0999
https://www.wtsbooks.com

NEW START

 Gone are the days when poets and other writers tried to lob crumpled sheets of paper into waste-paper baskets with basket-baller precision! What masterpieces might perhaps have Burns, Shakespeare or Paterson thrown away in moments of frustration? Nowadays bards simply delete offending pieces from their computer screens! No damage done. A button is pushed and a clean sheet appears, but, once the delete button is pressed there’s no way of retrieval; there’s no un-crumpling of paper fished out of the bin when of a calmer disposition. Gone means gone in the computer age!

What if God were to fetch from the waste-paper bin the crumpled up story of your life? Our lives have no delete button. What kind of mistakes would God see if He un-crumpled and read your life’s record? In the beginning He made mankind perfect, male and female. He wrote His perfect Law on our heart. But who can look back over their life and say that they lived it exactly as God designed? And, who can blame God for any wrong-doing they’ve done? Unkind angry thoughts? Rash and harsh words? Things we’ve done of which we’re now embarrassed? I am but a quill dipped in sin, inking my own death warrant!

Who can stand the fact that God records every idle (or is it ‘idol’?) word we speak? Would it help us to enjoy life better if we dumped everything we know about God? Then we could start anew with the proverbial clean sheet! This type of thinking can be shrunk down to the size of a bumper sticker, which may then be blown up in size and graffiti-ed onto the side of an English double-decker bus, thus: ‘There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.’ That word ‘probably’ signals that it’s all right to continue to worry. Therefore, there must be a better way!

Job wanted to chisel his words into rock and fill them with lead forever! But he wasn’t writing the story of his own life. His words reduced to a bumper sticker might read, ‘I know that my Redeemer lives!’ Put that on the side of your corporation bus! So what is it then? Ought we to throw God under the bus or acknowledge that He lives and that He is the Redeemer? I opt for the latter! It’s solidly historical and so well documented. In fact there is a whole Book written on the subject! The teaching of the Bible shrunk onto a bumper-sticker might read, ‘The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’ This is how we enjoy life: we stop rejecting God by hoping that He ‘probably’ is not watching us. Rather we glorify Him and enjoy Him forever in everything we do.

God is the poet and the writer. He didn’t crumple up anything He wrote because He makes no mistakes! The message of His Book says, ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life’ John 3:16. Does a believer have anything to worry about? No? Then surely it’s more reasonable simply to acknowledge that the Redeemer truly lives and put your trust in Him instead of believing in a mere probability?

God’s Law is what shows us up as sinners in need of redemption. Writing anti-Christian slogans on the sides of buses is clear evidence that we are sinners. Indeed, the subtlety of the ‘There’s probably no God’ message is that it completely misses what God’s message is all about! We are not reconciled to God by our own feeble attempts at good works, for this is slavery! Rather, we are set free from our bondage to sin and its ultimate penalty through belief in our God and Saviour Jesus Christ. ‘For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast’ Ephesians 2:8-9.

God gives a new start to anyone willing to believe in Christ alone for salvation. With this new start comes liberty. On the one hand there’s emancipation from hoping in probabilities as you work hard to reject God, and on the other there’s freedom from the slavery of always wondering if you’ve done enough to please God. As the Son of God says, ‘Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed’ John 8:36. And as He says through His Apostle, ‘It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery’ Galatians 5:1.

Enjoy yourself as you sit on the bus with ‘I know that my Redeemer lives!’ on its sides. Forget your trail of ink-blobs. Look to Jesus. Believe in Him as your God and Saviour. For only then will you truly be able to stop worrying and truly enjoy yourself.

‘Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to God our Saviour, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen’ Jude 1:24-25.

REMEMBRANCE DAY

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae was the author of that famous poem “In Flanders’ Fields.” It would seem that as a person he had some qualities well-worth emulating.

First off: “The family were Scottish Presbyterians and John McCrae was a man of high principles and strong spiritual values. He has been described as warm and sensitive with a remarkable compassion for both people and animals … John McCrae attended Sunday morning services regularly at St. Paul's Presbyterian Church in Montréal.”

Secondly: Over a century ago on 4^th August, 1914 war was declared on Germany. Like many brave Australians, the Canadian John McRae deployed to the battlefields in Europe. Just before he departed he wrote to a friend: ‘It is a terrible state of affairs, and I am going because I think every bachelor, especially if he has experience of war, ought to go. I am really rather afraid, but more afraid to stay at home with my conscience.’ (Prescott. In Flanders Fields: The Story of John McCrae, p. 77)”

“The day before he wrote his famous poem, one of McCrae's closest friends was killed in the fighting and buried in a makeshift grave with a simple wooden cross. Wild poppies were already beginning to bloom between the crosses marking the many graves. Unable to help his friend or any of the others who had died, John McCrae gave them a voice through his poem.” http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/history/first-world-war/mccrae

Lieutenant Colonel John McRae would have been very familiar with Psalm 23, the well-known Shepherd’s Psalm.

First, a brief word on accents. As a Scots-Canadian where would have McCrae placed the accent in the following, “The Lord is my shepherd”? Perhaps he might have said, “THE LORD is my shepherd.” Or maybe “The Lord IS my shepherd.” Or “The Lord is MY shepherd”? Or was it “The Lord is my SHEPHERD”? We see then that accenting certain words may help us to better express ourselves!

Second: When McCrae wrote the words, “In Flanders’ Fields the poppies blow between the crosses row on row” he could have had the words of Psalm 23 in mind, “He makes me to lie down in green pastures.” Think about it: Graves in Flanders’ Fields, soldiers lying down in green pastures. Picture it: Red poppies in green fields, Flanders’ Fields. Rest in Peace!

Third: in his second stanza he wrote, “We are the dead … Loved and were loved, and now we lie in Flanders’ Fields.” There’s that picture again, soldiers lying down in green pastures. As McRae looked out over these fields he must have thought of those comforting words of the Shepherd’s Psalm, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”

And fourth and finally: Where he says at the beginning of the third stanza, “Take up our quarrel with the foe” he could have had the following words of Psalm 23 in mind, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”

Enemies. Foes. War. Conflict. Quarrel. Death. None of us like these things, but what are we to do in the face of evil? Lieutenant Colonel McCrae summed it up for most if not all of us where he wrote, “I am really rather afraid, but more afraid to stay at home with my conscience.” Even so, he could say with comfort and confidence, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”

Why? Because the LORD was his shepherd! How about you? Can you say “The Lord is my shepherd”? And where, as an Aussie, would you place the accent?

Let us remember the fallen, those who lie in Flanders’ Fields as well as those who died in the other wars since then. They fought for the type of peace, justice and freedom we enjoy here in Australia.

SWALLOWING DEATH

 When the prophet Jonah tried to flee from the assignment God had given him, God had a great fish swallow him. When Adam tried to flee from his God-given assignment, God had a garden snake as it were swallow him. First Eve swallowed the Devil’s lie, then Adam swallowed the forbidden fruit. As mankind’s federal head, Adam formed a confederacy with the Devil against God. In Adam, we also have covenanted with death. (Isa. 28:15; Rom. 5:12). Therefore, the earth has been swallowing us one by one ever since. (Gen. 3:19; Prov. 1:12).

To no avail Eve had told the lying serpent about God’s threatened death penalty for disobedience. But ‘Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’” Genesis 3:4&5. Therefore, according to the Devil, for man to be ‘like God, knowing good and evil’ – to remove the parameters of God’s Law and to make up your own rules – simply eat the forbidden fruit!

Man equal to God? Who could resist it? Death? Small price to pay for moral freedom! But contrary to the suggestion of Satan, God never wrote His Law on mankind’s heart at his creation in order to stifle. Human physical death proves the paradox of the freedom of law. For true stifling comes when Hell dislocates its jaw and swallows you into its fiery belly.

Dear reader, how have you been enjoying your ‘autonomy’ from God? I’m sure, like me, you have not enjoyed being mistreated by others or seeing loved ones die. And who can explain away the death of an infant? Yet these miserable related things are included in the wages we collect for turning our collective cold shoulder to the One who created mankind.

Man’s main purpose is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. But this runs contrary to the philosophy taught by those educators who work overtime to keep the living and true God out of our eduction system; especially our science classes. Why remove God from education? Behold! Our covenant with death! But human death is unnatural. It didn’t exist in the beginning when God created us. Death came when man rebelled against God in the Garden – siding with the Devil. But when was the last time you heard this taught in a school science class? Old hat? That’s exactly what the serpent told Eve! Just eat the fruit and you can make up your own rules without God interfering in your education! (Prov.16:25).

But we since have learned that the Devil is a liar. For he said to Eve, ‘You will not surely die.’ How many times over has the Devil been proven a liar? See the jaws of death salivating for you! Why then should you keep on trusting him over the God who made you? Perhaps you don’t believe in God or the Devil? Perhaps you believe instead, e.g., what the Darwinian Evolutionists are teaching our precious children? The young are being taught to believe that we will not surely die for disobeying God – that death is simply a ‘natural’ process. Death and Hell? Small price to pay for autonomy from God! – and so say all who ignore God.

But there is Good News! The keeping of God’s Law provides true freedom – freedom from death and Hell. But before you look for the old straitjacket in your closet to put on, remember that you are still under the condemnation of the guilt of our rebellion way back in Adam! Therefore it is only through our substitute Adam’s perfect keeping of God’s Law that we are saved. And His death on the cross was to pay the penalty we owed God for breaking His Commandments. He physically rose from the dead. Thus contrary to the teaching of that old serpent the Devil, becoming like God is not attained through freedom from God and His Law, but by being united to Christ and His completed work through the instrument of faith.

He is the express image of God. Therefore, ‘Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.’ Philippians 2:5-8. Christ by His bodily resurrection has swallowed up death forever. (Isa. 25:8).