Former Thoughts Page ... A Voice In The Wilderness

QUESTION:

How may a Religious Organization check to see if the pre-printed sacred calendar it uses is correct ?

ANSWER:

The organization should post a few believers on a high point at Jerusalem to look out for the new moon each month. A sighting of the new moon would confirm the pre-printed dates given by A Voice In The Wilderness for the first day of each month. Some years ago A Voice In The Wilderness invited a body of believers in Jerusalem to check the calendar published by their school. This group of believers did so for several months. Again we quote from Charles Dugger’s letter dated 22/11/1978:

“We find that the moon really is new over Jerusalem each month by your calendar and is off as much as two days by the Jewish calendar. Therefore we wish to publish the truth - and we simply need a list of the moonrise after conjunction at Jerusalem. Please send them so that we can take the list straight to the printers.”

To A Voice In The Wilderness this was valuable confirmation that, as far as a pre-printed calendar is concerned, the method we are using is reliable. We now invite any believer or group of believers in Jerusalem to check out the calendar A Voice In The Wilderness publishes against first sightings of the new moon with the naked eye.

The alternative to publishing a calendar in advance, is to post a lookout group at Jerusalem who would announce to the world - month by month - when the new moon is seen. This is still the best method of ensuring the correct starting dates of months. But we do not know of any group which does this on a monthly basis. To our knowledge they all publish their calendars and festival dates many months in advance; so they must all be using calculations of some sort.

NOTE:
Many believers become polarized about the matter of keeping the correct Feast days. It is, of course, very important: and that is why A Voice In The Wilderness makes such an effort to get it right. But let no one forget that the Great Feasts (the realities to which the current feasts merely point) will be miraculously highlighted by signs in the sun, moon and stars! We will not then be dependant upon computer printout, or the knowledge and skill of leaders feverishly arguing amongst themselves as to who is correct.

In the near future the sun and moon will clearly mark out the correct feasts, sacred seasons or sabbatical year just as they did when the Saviour hung on the cross. On that occasion the sun went out for three hours. That was no eclipse by any means; for an eclipse only lasts a few minutes. When the sun went out on that memorable day, even the Roman soldiers were staggered into saying “ Truly this is the Son of God! ” It will be the same in the near future; the promised signs in the sun, moon and stars will mark out the sacred times for all to see.

Having said that, it still behoves true believers to attend the Sacred Feasts; because the Almighty God of Israel may well, as on that memorable Day of Pentecost long ago, have some extra ordinary gifts to bestow on His obedient people!

TRUE MINISTERS

The rebellion of Korah, should not be used as a gag to stifle the message of the TRUE GENUINE SERVANT of God. Why, the Master himself, not to mention the long list of prophets, apostles and reformers of old, were all rejected by the mainstream church hierarchy as being unfit to understand and proclaim truth. Had these GENUINE MESSENGERS of GOD waited for the church's official sanction before proclaiming the truth, the Gospel work would not have gotten very far. Thank God they pressed ahead knowing within themselves that they were called of God. The TRUE SERVANT of GOD will have the following credentials:

He will be divinely motivated. He will know within himself what he is expected to do and he will do it - come what may. This is an extremely difficult qualification for others to assess or even accept; especially as there are so many religious cranks around these days; all believing that they have a special message from God!
He will be divinely enabled. In other words he will be qualified to do the job. He will have the inherent ability, time, helpers and equipment for the task. This is an easy credential for others to assess.
He will be divinely blessed. In other words the work he has been called to do will bear visible fruit in the lives of the members of Yahweh's church. They will be blessed and all the families in the church will benefit.

TO WHICH DENOMINATION IS
A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS LINKED?

A Voice In The Wilderness is not linked to or directed by any earthly, religious denomination.

A Voice In The Wilderness is an independent Information Service, a Message, a Voice in the Wilderness; and though it holds similar views to several other Christian groups, as regards:

The divine inspiration and preservation of the Holy Scriptures.
The Creation record in Genesis
The divinity of Jesus Christ (Yeshua the Messiah)
The virgin birth and Messianic role of the Saviour
His role as the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.
His bodily resurrection, ascension and promised return etc.,

A Voice In The Wilderness is not affiliated to or financed by any religious group. In other words A Voice In The Wilderness is not the secret work of some denomination, sect or cult seeking to hide its identity in order to win members.

A Voice In The Wilderness has no membership! We are not a denomination!

WHAT THEOLOGICAL TRAINING DO
A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS TEACHERS HAVE?

This question made us smile as we mused on how the prophets, patriarchs and apostles of old would have answered it: Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joshua, Gideon, King David, Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Matthew, Mark, Peter, James, John and the other disciples, not forgetting the Saviour himself.

How would they have answered the question: What theological training do you have? The words of the prophet Amos also came to mind:

(Amos 7: 14)
“Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit:”

We are not impliedly decrying theological training: it is important, but not as much as some think. For the fact is, the Almighty raises up believers according to His own standards.

Educational qualifications, wealth, fame, talent, social standing, outward appearance etc. are useful; but they are secondary in His sight. Qualities like faith, obedience, holiness, humility, honesty, absolute loyalty to one's spouse, the ability to raise one's family to fear God and keep His commandments etc.; these are the things the Most High values.

“Man looketh on the outward appearance,
but the LORD looketh on the heart.”

Only on the Day of Judgment will it be known how truly educated, weighty and effective we have been. That is why we had to smile when the question came in.

The vanity of the question is only matched by the foolishness of our answer. As the wise man wrote: “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; all is vanity.” (Ecclesiastes 1: 2)

Or as the apostle Paul commented in (2 Corinthians 11:16-30) when rattling off a long list of impressive qualifications “ ...I speak as a fool.”

OLDEST & BEST

Bible students are often told that Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are older and better than other manuscripts: the implication being that they must, therefore, be more accurate. But this conclusion is wrong. We have already seen how Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are corrupt beyond measure. To be sure they are ‘better’ in appearance, but certainly not in their content. Remember they are written on expensive vellum; so they ought to be in good shape. They are older, but older than what? They are older than other Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. But they are not older than the earliest versions of the Bible: the Peshitta, Italic, Waldensian and the Old Latin Vulgate: versions which agree with the Majority text. These ancient versions are some 200 years older than Aleph and B. Yes Aleph and B are older than other Greek mss, but for anyone to suggest that they are more accurate is absurd. It is like someone saying ‘You will find the greatest TRUTH being preached in the oldest and most beautiful cathedrals of the world,’ or, ‘the most beautiful women have the best characters.’

A DIVINE WARNING

The God of Israel anticipated Satan's intended attack on the Scriptures: and how the enemy of souls would seek to frustrate the divine work of preservation by causing unbelieving scribes to add to, delete and distort the sacred writings. That is why this solemn, yea frightening, warning appears at the end of the Bible. It not only addresses copyists and translators who intentionally corrupt Jehovah’s Word, but also those who knowingly promote their corrupted publications.

Revelation 22: 18: “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
19: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”

LAWLESSNESS IS A GROWING PROBLEM

Few people will doubt but that we live in a lawless and violent age; where moral standards, once held sacred, are being abandoned with impunity. Drug abuse, sex abuse, violence, murder and rape plague our cities. Most will agree that lawlessness is a growing problem. People are becoming ungovernable. The rising cost of crime, and it is the tax payer who ultimately foots the bill, is causing concern throughout society and there seems little the authorities can do to curb it. To study more on Law proceed to Divine Law Index.

MARTYRS FOR THE WORD of GOD

Multiplied millions of true believers in ages past have died for the Word of God. Publishing the Bible was a major crime. To possess a Bible, or even portions of one, placed a Christian in a very dangerous position. During the dark ages the situation was immeasurably worse. One has only to study the history of the Waldensian Church to see how dangerous it was for true believers to possess the Scriptures. Multitudes perished by sword, famine, beatings, burning, hangings and torture. Many were slain with Bibles tied around their necks. One of the greatest Christian classics on this subject is Fox's Book of Martyrs: a book which in ancient days was chained - alongside the Bible - to the reading desks in many British churches. Make time to study this book. It tells of martyrs who died in their tens of thousands - yea millions - all because they lived and loved the teachings of the REAL Word of God.

KING JAMES TRANSLATORS

Always bear in mind the spiritual qualifications of these great men of God. They were

Pious Christians who believed that the text they were handling was the very Word of God!
They had absolutely no doubt in their minds that the Genesis account of creation was true.
They never for a moment doubted the miracles of Jesus or that he was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, was crucified for the sins of mankind and that he rose from the dead and ascended to heaven.
They were pious Protestants who saw through the errors of the Roman Catholic Church.
They were scholars of the highest order. Few - if any - of today's scholars come anywhere near them in their understanding of the original languages; let alone their faith, piety and commitment to truth above tradition.

ALLEGED KJV ERRORS ... EASTER/PASSOVER

Many claim that the King James Version has serious ‘errors’ in it. The most quoted ‘error’ concerns the use of the word Easter in (Acts 12: 1-4). The original word, these believers maintain, should have been translated as Passover - not Easter! Let us now examine the passage concerned and see if that argument holds water. Easter/Passover?

THEE & THOU

We hear a lot about the words ‘ye,’ ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ in the King James Version: and that these should all be replaced by the word ‘you.’ Everyone knows that the word ‘you’ is a uni-plural word like ‘sheep’ or ‘fish.’ It may refer to one or many depending on the context. Believe it or not the word ‘you.’ is used over 950 times in the KJV New Testament alone - but not exclusively. Why not? The answer is because of the vital difference between ‘you.’ (plural) and ‘thee’ (singular) and there are times when it is necessary to make the difference. The word ‘thee’ refers to a single person, church, town or nation: whereas the word ‘you’ is the second person plural: it refers to many persons.

EVERY WORD

Every word in Scripture is important: infinitely more important than a bolt or rivet in a jet airliner; or a line of code in a life-saving computer program. If His Father's words were that important to our Saviour, yea every jot and tittle, how much more should they be to us in these end times.

CALVARY

Most modern Bible translations have removed the name Calvary. This name appears only once in Scripture, in (Luke 23: 33). Check out the version you are using. If it has no Calvary, you can be certain that it's a counterfeit Bible; because Calvary is central to the whole plan of salvation. Removing it is a serious error. See A Voice In The Wilderness article on: Bible Versions ... Which is the REAL Word of God?

SACRED NAMES

Yahweh / Yahovah / Yahu / The Name / Hashem etc. The arguments rage across the world. I'm certain our Heavenly Father is not happy with the way His professed followers are currently behaving. But that is their choice.

A Voice In The Wilderness sermon notes and other articles are being used by many, many people. Indeed that is why A Voice In The Wilderness placed them in the Public Domain in the first place; so that everyone could use them. But, some are now giving the impression that Max W. Mader founder of A Voice In The Wilderness use the above names exclusively; which is certainly not the case. You have only to read our articles to see that we use LORD God, Jehovah, Jesus etc as well as some of the names listed above. Does anyone really know how the Almighty's name is pronounced? Many rabbis don't think so; and that fact makes me very cautious!

King James Version (KJV)

Besides this, A Voice In The Wilderness considers the King James Version to be the inspired and infallible Word of God! See the booklet on Bible Versions concerning this point. With that fact in mind, wouldn't it be inconsistent - if not hypocritical - of us to come out and say that the KJV is riddled with errors and that we of all people could correct it! So when we quote from the KJV we make no changes whatsoever. That's why we use LORD God, Jehovah, Jesus etc.

We believe that those who think that the KJV is incorrect as regards the use of the name Jehovah or Jesus, should not quote from that Bible at all. Rather than try to correct, what is to them, a faulty translation, it would be more ethical by far to create a completely new translation and give it to the world. But alas, they are not doing this. They attempt to correct a perfect masterpiece and no one is impressed with the result; least of all the literary world which is ever conscious of plagiarism!

WHO IS THE AUTHOR OF CONFUSION?

Visit any Bible study group where believers are using a variety of modern ‘Bibles’ and comments such as these are common:

‘My Bible puts it this way.’
‘My Bible doesn't even have that verse.’
‘Listen to this Note about ancient and more reliable manuscripts.’
‘My Bible says something totally different.’
‘My Bible says the very opposite.’

The question is:
Which English Bible is the (REAL) Word of God?
Anyone can see that they cannot all be the Word of God if they are saying different things. After all, God doesn't contradict Himself and is certainly (not) the author of confusion. (1 Corinthians 14: 33)

Scores of conflicting translations, all claiming to be His Word, cannot possibly be the work of the Holy Spirit of Jehovah. Besides, would the Almighty flood the English-speaking world with well over 100 conflicting translations of the whole Bible and over 300 translations of the New Testament? Of course not!
The very idea is ludicrous if not blasphemous. Something is terribly wrong somewhere and it's time to find out. May the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob grant you the humility to do so!