My Testimony With the King James Bible

This May 8, will be the 400 anniversary of the King James Bible. What I intend to do is each day leading to the anniversary give a teaching about this Bible. The teaching will include its history, underlining Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, how God used this translation, testimonies, and the serious deficiencies of the modern translations.
I will be working with Geoffrey Grider of Now the End Begins ministry, as he also will be posting teachings.

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Through my teen years and up until I was 26, I was an atheist. I had never owned a Bible and never even read a verse from the Bible. I even never heard of John 3:16! I remember briefly listening to Billy Graham and thinking he was crazy. I was not hostile towards the Bible. It just was irrelevant to me.

In August 1974, I had stopped and listened to a Jewish man preaching the gospel on the street. I had nothing to do, so I stayed and listened. He spoke about Bible prophecy connected to Israel and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. His history about Israel caught my attention, as I was a budding historian, and in my mind was verifying what he was saying. He was very accurate with history, which gave him credibility to me. When he shared the prophecy of Christ's first coming, I was astonished along with the verses about the restoration of the nation of Israel.

He had established the authority of the Bible through prophecy, which I could not deny. This was the first time I heard anything like this, but I knew in my heart it was truth. At the end, he gave a call to receive Christ as Savior, to which I responded. Right there in the street, I went from an atheist to a believer in the Lord Jesus. I never turned to the left or right but stayed on course with the Lord.

Since I did not own a Bible, I needed one and ended up getting God News For Modern Man. I had this translation for about three months and was not getting much out of it. I met a pastor who was selling Thompson Chain, King James Bibles. They were new, and he wanted only $10.00 as the covers were soiled. I used that Bible for years until the cover fell apart and the pages fell away.

As I read it, I immediately felt the power. I was obtaining understanding and now clearly understood verses. I literally threw the other translation away. Reading was very difficult for me. At this time, I was not aware that the problem was caused by dyslexia. What I did find was that as I thought on a verse, it brought a soothing to my mind. I could feel it. This led me to start memorizing verses instead of reading the Bible.

I found that memorizing was far easier for me than reading, so I spent vast amounts of time memorizing and mediating upon the Bible. Soon I had significant amounts of the Bible memorized including entire books. I found that memorizing the King James Scriptures was easy and actually fun. The dyslexia was no hindrance on my ability to memorize. I tried other versions but was unable to memorize even one verse! At this time, I was unaware of any differences between the translations. I put enormous amounts of time in this effort but found it impossible to memorize one verse. I simply gave up and went back to the King James, which once again I found so easy.
(I developed a memorization course which I taught for years. What I am going to do is post this course on my website. I will go into detail about this course in a later posting.)

I stayed with the King James until briefly switching over to the New King James. I read Gail Riplinger's book New Age Bible Versions. This book had a huge impact on me as I spent a good part of a year verifying her research about the differences in various translations compared to the King James. Based on her book and my independent research, I came to the conclusion that the King James translation was the correct one.

God would lead me into defending the faith from all types of unbelievers. I spent thousands of hours in both email and formal debates with Jews, Muslims and every type of belief system you can image. Against all of them, I used only the King James to defend the faith, and it easily withstood the test. From the knowledge I gained from defending the faith against all this opposition, I wrote three books. I exclusively use the King James version to articulate my knowledge. With using the King James, there is absolutely no problem in understanding what the Bible is stating. The King James makes it very clear with power.

All I ever used was the King James against every attack from unbelievers that you can imagine! I am in awe of this Bible. It is the word of God for us. This is not so with the other translations, and in a later posting I will give you specific examples of how it is impossible to defend the faith with the other translations. The leading Muslim and Jewish apologists know the pitfalls of these modern translations and use them when attacking Christianity. I was protected from this attack by using the King James Bible. This is not a theory as I lived this.

I know from life experience of being able to memorize vast amounts of the Bible and seeing the results from defending the faith from every attack possible, that the King James Bible is God's word for us today. There is great power in the King James Bible that is not found in other translations. Many Christians lack power in their life, and maybe the source of the problem is the the Bible they are reading.

Geoffrey Grider has set up a page on his website for this teaching series. He has done a wonderful job with visual effects, see The 400th Anniversary Of The King James 1611 Bible

Jude 1:3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.