MARK OF THE BEAST by Peter S. Ruckman CHAPTER ONE THE DECLINE OF BIBLICAL CHRISTIANITY In undertaking a writing of this nature, it is nearly impossible to begin with an enumeration of the FACTS. The reader has already been prepared ahead of time (by his previous religious training), to reject certain ideas which conflict with religious tradition. This is true of any treatise of a "Biblical" nature. Since "The Book" is the center and ground of controversy, it is rapidly becoming rejected, en toto, as a basis for FACT. Bible Christianity as it was known to the original Bible-believers in either Testament, is at present a rare species of pre-historic animal which no longer makes up a majority. In vain are the scriptures quoted to PROVE FACTS, for the religious leaders have had 1900 years to twist, wrest, pervert, distort, misapply, and misdirect the verses, and their work has left an indelible mark on the minds of those who look to the Book for authority. Nineteen hundred years of theological controversy over "interpretations" have gradually beaten down the resistance of the Bible-believers themselves until they are now willing to submit to an ecclesiastical authority OTHER THAN THE BIBLE. This ecclesiastical authority is, as it always has been--Roman. Therefore, in order to re-orient the reader back into the true CHRISTIAN setting of study and knowledge, it is necessary to trace from the beginning the peculiar "Mystery of Iniquity," which is spoken of as a PRESENT work during the time of the formation of the New Testament canon. For a while we shall be able to deal with historical facts, but sooner or later we must return to the God of history and revelation, for as Pope Gregory long ago demonstrated, you can prove anything by history. It is answered immediately. "You can prove anything by the Bible." But this is a "half truth." The only way that you can prove ANYTHING by the Bible is to do one of three things with its contents. 1. Subtract from the verse a word or words. For example: the Campbellite method of quoting Mark 16:16 with half the verse missing, or quoting I Peter 3:21 with two- thirds of the verse missing. 2. Adding to the verse words not found in it. For example: the addition of the word "baptism" to the passage in John 3:5 where there is no mention of baptism, or the adding of the phrase "neither shall ye touch it" (Gen. 3:3), where God has only said, "Thou shalt not EAT of it" (Gen. 2:17). 3. The wresting of the scriptures from their context. This is the uniform and standard method in most cases, as it is more subtle. It can best be illustrated by the Romish lifting of John 20:23 out of context, for in the context more than TWELVE are present and NONE derive their authority from Peter (see Luke 24:33 and John 20:20 with II Cor. 2:10). Another splendid example is the Campbellite custom of withdrawing Acts 2:38 from its setting which is entirely Jewish, to Jews only (see verses 5,14,22, and 36), and forcing it on an unsaved Gentile as the plan of Salvation. If any of the above-mentioned tricks are resorted to, then it is true that "you can use the scripture to prove anything." But if the text is left as it stands, where it stands, it can only teach one thing--and that is the truth. Thus, in approaching the tremendous theme, the "Mark of the Beast," an investigator cannot establish FACTS until he himself is submissive to the authority of the Bible AS IT IS. This brings up a far more complicated problem: "WHAT IS IT?" To clear the ground for action, the reader must retrace not only the course of the leaders who have taught lies by adding to, subtracting from, or perverting the context, but he must also retrace the course taken by the translators themselves in gradually developing a "Bible" that is no more a Bible than "Gone with the Wind." We may as well reconcile ourselves to the fact that the 20th century has produced one "Bible" for every falsehood taught from the original Bible. Every time a man added to or subtracted from the word (or took the verse out of context), he was faced with the need of producing a Bible which would back up the heresy that he had invented. Such now is the situation. There is one Bible per heresy. Anyone can find a Bible to prove anything with, and now there is hardly a need left for adding, or subtracting, or perverting. The Russellites, for example, have taught consistently that a "witness" can lose salvation by the fact that Judas lost it. This cannot be proved from an AV, for the AV states plainly that Judas was "a DEVIL." He was not a human being, although he appeared so (see Heb. 13:2; II Thes. 2:4). We arrive immeidately at a stumbling block. To avoid the implications which run contrary to Catholic and Reformation theology, the fundamentalist or Protestant will resort to the "original Greek" to rid himself of the passage. But the Russellite will go one better; he REVISES the entire translation and produces the word "slanderer" where the word "devil" was in John 6:70-71, and thereby MAINTAINS HIS DOCTRINE that a "Christian" can lose salvation, for did not Judas lose his? (John 17:12). The Reformed Christian Church (Holland, Michigan) runs in the same groove with the Jehovah Witnesses. Not believing in a millennial reign on earth (and adopting the Augustinian position of a spiritual kingdom only), they are faced with John 18:36. The passage has the word "now" in it, which strongly implies that LATER Christ will have a kingdom "of this world." Since the Reformed Church does not believe this, they produce their own translation, the Amplified Version, where the "now" is struck out regardless of the fact that it is in all the Greek manuscripts. We thus observe one of the most common practices in the 20th century in full swing--the practice of DEFILING AND ABORTING THE WORD OF GOD WHILE CALLING ATTENTION TO THE "ORIGINAL GREEK." The same version (the Amplified) goes to extreme lengths in this corrupting of scripture when it re-translates I Thes. 2:16 to read that God is through with the Jew, "COMPLETELY AND FOREVER." The reason for this perverted translation is not found in MSS evidence. It is found in the theology taught by the Reformed Churches, which forces them to abandon the AV and make their own Bible which will condone their own pet sins. Much more could be said in regard to these practices, but these few samples will suffice to show the reader what he is up against when he determines to find out the FACTS about any given situation that is connected with the word of God. Two lines of people, then, can be said to be responsible for the esprit-de-corps of Bible-believing Christians today. One line is that of preachers and teachers who INSIST on correcting the AV because it will not line up with their church traditions (and more will be said about this line later). The other is that line of translators and "revisers" who have, under the cover of desiring "more accurate translations," destroyed the word of God until the common man no longer knows what it is or where to find it. These two lines of corrupters must clearly be searched out, named, located, and defined before anyone will have any confidence in what the Bible actually has to say about a subject. For without this knowledge, every proof- text produced will be met with the objection, "Oh, that's just your interpretation," or "you just say that because you belong to such-and-such church," or "There are a lot of ways to take that, now," etc. The Bible no longer holds any awe for its rejector, for the men entrusted with preaching and preserving it have corrupted it so badly, the common man no longer believes that it is any more "holy" than Hitler's swastika. No exposition on the "Mark of the Beast" could ever be authoritative or final without the investigator first being thoroughly enlightened about the men and the churches who have destroyed the authority of the word of God so that it is no longer considered to be an authority in dealing with FACTS. At every turn in reading the scriptures appropriate to the subject, the sincere seeker of truth will be confronted by pre-judicial opinions so thoroughly instilled into his being by brain-washing, that he cannot hope to find the truth on the subject unless he abandons himself to the authority of the word of God. WHICH WORD? To begin at the beginning, we find the corrupting influence of the scripbes well under way before the first coming of Christ. Christ in Matthew 23:35 places the bounds of the canon of the Old Testament at Genesis and II Chronicles. Read the passage very carefully, and make sure that you understand that what you read does NOT HAVE TO BE "INTERPRETED." It is a couple of FACTS which need to be noticed. "From the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar" (Matthew 23:35). The death of Abel (in any Bible) is found in Genesis, and the death of Zachariah, "the son of the blessed one" (Jehoiada), is found (in any Bible) in II Chronicles (II Chr. 24:20). Now to this day, a Hebrew Bible, written by the Hebrews, given to the Hebrews (Rom. 3:2) by the God of the Hebrews (Ex. 5:3), is written in Hebrew. This series of facts is incontestable. Whatever attitude the Catholic, Protestant, Communist, Buddhist, Taoist, Hindu, Mohammedan, Atheist, or Pragmatist may take toward the TRUTH in those writings, one historical fact is irrefutable; and that is that Genesis to II Chronicles, in a Hebrew Bible, was written by Hebrews who professed to have received these oracles from God, and both Jesus and Paul bear witness to this in the New Testament passages. Now of course there are always irascible dissenters who will object to the establishment of any kind of fact. These men will invent hypotheses and try them out, and if they work, will then announce that they are "fact" and "scientific" (I Tim. 6:20); yet the same men will not be able to tell you what the word "science" means, or from whence it was derived. In the tyranny of words and sources of information, modern day man has wholly overlooked the fact that Jesus or Paul would be far more authoritative in the field of RELIGIOUS LITERARY WORKS OF THE HEBREWS than any living Hebrew scholar today. Driver, Gesenius, and Delitzsch admit that when the library at Alexandria burned to the ground, it destroyed thousands of valuable documents more authentic than those available today; but they will not believe Jesus and Paul, both living before that time, could be higher authorities. You see, at every turn we are faced with the problem of ABSOLUTE OR FINAL authority. With the decline of Biblical Christianity facing us, the Bible has been flatly rejected as the final authority--even where it is professed to be that authority. We shall see how true that is as we study the matter of canon. Canon (that is, the proper number of books in a real Bible) must be ascertained before there can be any discussion of Bible truth or Biblical Christianity. After all, if no one knows what a Bible is, and no one can prove that his Bible is the right one, what kind of authority would it be anyway? Now face the truth squarely one time, just for diversion's sake. According to the greatest living authority on religious teaching, truth, and principles, the Old Testament begins in Genesis and ends in II Chronicles (Matt. 23:35). At the time Jesus speaks these words, there are no New Testament books in print, Paul is unconverted, and Christ's audience is composed of Old Testament, pork- abstaining, temple-attending, bearded, sabbath-observing Jews. Not a man in the bunch, believer or unbeliever, would question the fact that the beginning of the Old Testament is Genesis and the end is II Chronicles. That is, the authorities themselves, who lived in the day and time in which the statements are made, accept them to be FACT with full knowledge of the facts and with resource to MORE KNOWLEDGE about the facts than we have today! What is there left to question! Again, there is always one questioner (Gen. 3:1) who has been taught from his youth that any man who is not a skeptic is insincere. This type of man will question anything and everything that deals with ABSOLUTE MORAL STANDARDS, but will blindly accept church tradition without even analyzing it. To such a questioner, only this can be answered: "If you are so lazy and so immoral that you cannot spend time investigating Pember, Larkin, Scofield, Sauer, Bullinger, Wilbur Smith, Harry Rimmer, and A.W. Pink, then you will simply have to grow up with a prejudiced, lop-sided, narrow-minded bigotism that only Aquinas, Spellman, Shaw, Marx, Freud, James, Huxley, Plato, Aristotle, and Darwin can give you." A man IS what he eats, as a dietician said, and man EATS WORDS WHEN HE READS (Job 34:3; Ps. 119:103, Heb. 5:14, I Peter 2:1-3). It follows, as old-age follows youth, that a man is WHAT HE READS. The opinions voiced by our young collegiates and officers of state these days are not THEIR opinions. They are the opinions of Santayana, Maugham, Hilton, Douglas, Hemingway, Machiavelli, Hegel, Tennison, Emerson, Neitzsche, Peale, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Darwin, Paine, Rousseau, Omar Khayyam, and LIFE Magazine. You will never find a man who rejects the Bible, or who wants to change it, or who does not believe portions of it, or who will not read it, until you find a man who has been exposed strongly to the group of books that were written by men WHO NEVER ACCEPTED CHRIST'S OR PAUL'S AUTHORITY IN MATTERS OF INSPIRATION, CANONICITY, OR ABSOLUTE TRUTH. To return to the corrupters of the Bible, a Hebrew Bible, then as now, begins with Genesis and ends with II Chronicles. You can go to any Jewish book store, and you will find the books laid out exactly as they are cited by Jesus Christ in 33 A.D. Further than this, our Lord even states the correct DIVISIONS into which these books are divided in a Hebrew Bible. Now why have we gone to so much length to establish these two little truths? What difference does it make if a Hebrew Old Testament is correct in its divisions and number of books? Who cares? Doesn't the AV end with Malachi instead of II Chronicles? Is it then a violation of the canon? If it is, how can we say it is the "Bible"? Do we all have to go back and study Hebrew before we can find the FACTS dealing with Biblical subjects? You see, the rush of thought is too great. What is needed is a "peeling off" of dense underbrush, and a fresh beginning with some newly plowed ground. Instead of jumping ahead into additional perplexities (which is the Standard Operating Procedure of the intellectual mind), let us see what has been uncovered in the above TWO FACTS which will enable us to proceed safely through the maze of theological dispute erected to overthrow the authority of the Bible. 1.<~>To a Hebrew there are 39 books in the Old Testament--which, don't forget (!), is a HEBREW BOOK. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, I Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings, II Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Haggai, Habakkuk, Zechariah, Malachi, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, I Chronicles, II Chronicles. 2. THESE ARE THE EXACT NUMBER OF BOOKS FOUND IN A KING JAMES AUTHORIZED VERSION, AND THEY ARE THE EXACT NUMBER OF BOOKS FOUND IN THE GREEK TREXT (TEXTUS RECEPTUS) FROM WHICH THE KING JAMES IS TRANSLATED. 3. Every Bible-believing Christian in the book of Acts, up to Acts 10, was a JEW OR A JEWISH PROSELYTE, and could, under no condition, have accepted any MORE or any LESS books than those listed above. Now note that. That is Biblical and historical fact. No amount of investigation by anyone at any time has ever produced any evidence of any amount that would even SUGGEST that any Bible-believer in the New Testament through Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts did not accept 39 books as the inspired "oracles of God." THE ONLY QUESTIONERS WERE THE REJECTORS. To put it another way, the only questioners of the word of God (Gen. 3:1) are always, in any age, those who RESENT ITS AUTHORITY IN SETTLING MORAL ISSUES. You will notice in reading Matthew 8:23 how this is the constant issue between Christ and the Pharisees. It is the constant issue between Paul and his enemies (Acts 9:27). It is the issue between Stephen and the "council" (Acts 7). Regardless of attitude toward the scriptures, the plain-printed facts testify that in the "show down," what is wrong is that someone who believes the Book as it stands, is up against someone WHO BELIEVES IN A HIGHER AUTHORITY OR AN EQUAL AUTHORITY (OF A RELIGIOUS NATURE) WHICH CONTRADICTS THE BOOK. Now here we have a perfect point in question. WHAT IS THE BIBLE? Well, the Old Testament is 39 books. You say, "I was not raised to believe that..." or, "But my church teaches that..." or, "Well, what makes you think you're right and everyone else is wrong...." But these feeble protests came from someone who has failed to face up to scientific fact. 1. Fact one. The Old Testament is a Hebrew book called the Holy Scriptures. It is written by Hebrews, in Hebrew. 2. Fact two. Jesus Christ, a Hebrew, defines its bounds at Genesis and II Chronicles, with three divisions (Luke 24:44-45). 3. Fact three. It is found in the Rabbinical schools in 1960, beginning at Genesis and ending at II Chronicles, with THREE DIVISIONS. 4. Fact four. There are 39 books in the Hebrew Bible before Christ. 5. Fact five. There are 39 books in the Hebrew Bible after Christ. 6. Fact six. There are 39 books TODAY, divided into three divisions beginning at Genesis and ending at II Chronicles. According to the Lord Jesus, the divisions are-- Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Luke 24:44). Notice that in the passages cited, no one is called upon to INTERPRET ANYTHING. The perennial slander that some groups believe in "every man interpreting the Bible for himself" is a heretical teaching in its own accusation. Since the Bible is SELF-INTERPRETING, it is ITS OWN INTERPRETER! No man, church, priest, pope, or denomination was ever given the job as interpreter, for you are told over, and over, and over again in the body of scripture itself, THAT ITS AUTHOR (THE HOLY SPIRIT) IS THE INTERPRETER! (See Luke 24:45, Gen. 40:8, I Cor. 2:10-14, Dan. 5:10-12, etc.) In the passage in Luke (Luke 24:44), Jesus names the divisions. We should not be surprised to buy a Hebrew Bible and find that the divisions are exactly as He named them--and surely enough, they are! A Hebrew Bible is found with three divisions. They are called: the LAW (TORAH), the PROPHETS (NABHIM), and the WRITINGS (KETHUBIM). The first of the "Law" contains Genesis, where Abel was killed, and the last of the "Writings" contain II Chronicles, where Zechariah was killed! (In the Hebrew Bible, Daniel is found in the "Writings" and Joshua is found in the "Prophets.") The "Writings" (Kethubim) begin exactly where any Bible believer would expect them to begin after hearing Jesus' comment in Luke 24:44. The last section, the "Writings," begin with the Psalms. Jesus' division, then, fixes the bounds of the canon and fixes the divisions of the canon of the Old Testament. Without resorting to "interpretation" or "tradition" or "ex- cathedra hallucinations," any man can grasp the first fundamental FACT of Biblical Christianity; that fact is that the OLD TESTAMENT BEGINS WITH GENESIS, ENDS WITH II CHRONICLES, AND IS DIVIDED INTO THREE SECTIONS, WHICH ALL JEWS ACKNOWLEDGE AS THE PROPER DIVISION IF THEY AT ALL PROFESS TO BELIEVE IN THE INSPIRATION OF THEIR SCRIPTURES. So you see, if you believe that there are any more books that should be in the Old Testament, and your church has taught you so, then obviously three things follow: 1. Your church resents the authority of Jesus Christ and desires to place herself on equal authority with Him. 2. Your church is willfully ignorant of facts and manifests blind adherence to unscientific superstition. 3. You are a sucker and fool to believe a fact- rejecting body of men in 1960, who do not have access to the information and knowledge to which Jesus Christ had access. To put it bluntly, you have blown your wages at a flat-joint on the mid-way of Vanity Fair, and your ideas about what SHOULD BE and what SHOULD NOT BE in an Old Testament are absolutely worthless in view of the FACTS. You and your church are asauthoritative as a four-year-old Eskimo discoursing on nuclear physics. Now why go to the bother of establishing these facts? Well, they must be established before one can bring himself to believe the Bible, for a change, instead of the traditions handed down by men who wish to believe THEM. In tracing the course of the decline of Biblical Christianity, it is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL that men realize where and when the corruption began. Having realized this, the man is forewarned and fore-armed when he runs into the sourceof corruption in Bible exegesis. That old original "corrupter" of the word of God was at work in Christ's day and in Paul's day (see II Cor. 2:17). THE FIRST CORRUPTION, WHICH YOU MUST SEE AND RECOGNIZE, is a group of religious leaders SUPERIMPOSING TRADITION over the WORD OF GOD. The outstanding PROOF that this was done is the fact herein attested to, that somewhere down the line, someone INJECTED INTO THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT books that neither Jesus nor Paul would recognize as scripture. Who could this be? Who would add Tobit, Judith, Bel and the Dragon, I and II Esdras, the Wisdom of Solomon, Song of the 3 Children, additions to Esther, the History of Susanna, Baruch, Prayer of Manasses, Ecclesiasticus, and I and II Maccabees to the Hebrew Old Testament, IN THE FACE OF THE FACT THAT CHRIST NEVER RECOGNIZED ONE OF THEM, AND THAT NEITHER PAUL NOR CHRIST EVER QUOTED FROM THEM IN CITING OVER 200 OLD TESTAMENT REFERENCES? Who would do a thing like that? WOULD A BIBLE-BELIEVER DO IT? Would YOU do it? Would your "CHURCH" do it? What do you think of someone who WOULD do a thing like that? I mean, here is the Lord Jesus, admittedly the final and acknowledged authority in religious matters (by all Bible-believing Christians), stating the contents and divisions of the Old Testament, and along comes someone (guess who!) and insists that he (or they) have EQUAL AUTHORITY with Christ, and then use this "equal authority" TO FLATLY CONTRADICT JESUS CHRIST. Whoever it was, they absolutely refused to face the glaring FACTS set forth by our Lord, and proceeded to MANUFACTURE an "Old Testament" that wasn't over there and never will be! The Old Testament does not contain 53 books! It contains 39 books according to the best and MOST RELIABLE AUTHORITIES at the time of the completion of the canon. Josephus, who was a contemporary of the Apostles, testifies that the Jews had 39 books in their Old Testament, and that at no time did any of them, WHO PROFESSED TO BELIEVE IN THE AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE, ever accept the Apocrypha (the 14 books listed above) or the Apocalyptic literature (Jubilees, Assumption of Moses, Enoch, Diatesseron, etc.). Then the student of true knowledge (Greek: gnosis, Latin: science) should realize, at the very beginning, he is going to run into extra-canonical sources which claim, and in many cases DEMAND, as much authority as the Bible. Furthermore, religious leaders within the realm of Bible-believing "Christianity" will pay heed to these sources. The objection is raised: "Why shouldn't they? The Bible isn't the only book in the world containing truth, is it?" The objection shows shallowness and insincerity on the part of the objector. 1. The issue is not, "Are there any books outside the Bible that contain the truth?" The issue is, "When you find an outside source that directly and flatly CONTRADICTS or denies the Bible, can it be truth?" 2. The issue is not, "How do you know there are not other books beside those found in the Bible which are just as authoritative?" The issue is, "In view of the fact that the LORD JESUS CHRIST already told you which were authoritative, why do you fancy you know more about it than He does?" 3. The issue is not, "Doesn't the church have the right to decide what belongs in and what doesn't?" (I Tim. 3:15). The issue is, "Why should ANY CHURCH be recognized as `Christian' when it absolutely refuses to accept CHRIST'S AUTHORITY in matters of what `belongs in' and what doesn't?" Don't confuse the issue with a lot of glib thinking. The whole question (and the answer to it) resolves in whether or not you are WILLING to believe the Lord Jesus and accept what He said in regard to the matter as final. It is proposed, "But didn't He say that all the books in the world could not contain what Jesus did if they should be written?" (John 21:25). To which it may be answered emphatically, "No matter how many books were written, and no matter who authorized them, and no matter who accepted them, they certainly could in no way be connected with John 21:25 if they OPENLY DEFIED THE AUTHORITY OF JESUS CHRIST." That is, you cannot go to scripture to justify something non- scriptural. You cannot run to the Bible and wrest out a verse to justify the authority of a teaching, book, or books which violate the authority of the Bible from whence you derived the verse! In plainer words, it is a rank act of hypocrisy and charlatanism to try to WREST THE AUTHORITY FROM THE WORD OF GOD BY APPEALING TO THE WORD OF GOD FOR AUTHORITY TO DO SO. It is like the Pope appealing to Matthew 16:19 to get authority to bind something by a Papal bull that CONTRADICTS MATTHEW 16:18. God does not give any man or church the power to contradict the Book through which God delegated the power. This is stealing if it is practiced. Now returning to the source and causes of the decline of Biblical Christianity, two lines of corrupters are discernible in the defeat of the Bible as the accepted authority: translators and revisers who have destroyed the word of God by changing it till no one knows what it is and cares less; and secondly, preachers and teachers who INSIST on going to the "original Greek" to correct the A.V. because it will not line up with their church doctrines. Now we have purposely examined the canonical statements of Jesus in Matthew 23:35 and Luke 24:44 for the purpose of discovering the source of these two "lines" of corrupters. Here is one place where both meet on a common ground BEFORE THE TIME OF CHRIST. It is of the utmost importance, then, that any polemic on the "Mark of the Beast" be first buttressed by the fact that the Bible always has been and still is reliable. It is only the CORRUPTERS who have sold you on the impression that it is not reliable, and those corrupters begin their work by first INSISTING THAT YOU DO NOT HAVE ALL THE BIBLE, AND THAT EXTRA-CANONICAL, UNINSPIRED, SPURIOUS LITERATURE IS AS AUTHORITATIVE AS THE WORD OF GOD. Once this gross error is accepted and believed, then the door is wide open to thrust ANYTHING at you (or on you!) in the "name" of Christianity or Jesus Christ, whether it contradicts the scripture or not. This is exactly what has happened to the body of Christ in the last 1900 years; bit- by-bit, piece-by-piece, a little leaven has leavened the whole lump till, from steeple to basement, the church is infected with the leprosy of Bible rejection. This infection began with the ADDING of an Apocrypha (seven books never recognized by Jesus or Paul) into the Old Testament canon. This act was officially sanctioned at the Council of Trent (1546), and its sanctioning marks out clearly, once and forever (to the Bible believer), WHO IS THE SOURCE OF CORRUPTION. Now there is no use sweating and going to the psychiatrist, or calling out the Knights of Columbus. We are here dealing with facts. Someone has deliberately insisted that seven books belong in the Bible that are not in the Bible. No Christian in the first century ever recognized them, no New Testament writer ever quoted them. Jesus purposely cancelled them, and Paul would quote pagan poetry by unsaved men (Acts 17:28, Titus 1:12) before he would quote one book from the Apocrypha! The fount of corruption is thus discovered, and every move in the gradual decline of Biblical Christianity can be traced to this source. For example, there is not a single translation on the market today that does not take as final authority the Greek text of Nestle or Westcott and Hort--AND THIS TEXT CONTAINS THE SEVEN BOOKS THAT JESUS CANCELLED WHEN HE MARKED OUT THE CANON. For example, the church that accepts these seven books has pronounced a "divine" curse (see Prov. 26:21) on anyone who believes the canon to be WHAT JESUS SAID IT WAS! Again (this is not evangelistic "stirring up"), there is the anathema stated in the articles of the Council of Trent (1546). For example, every fundamental scholar, who corrected the Reformation Textus Receptus found in the King James Bible, CORRECTED IT FROM THE WESTCOTT AND HORT, HESYCHIAN TEXT, which contains the seven pagan books. For example, every anti-Christian doctrine or practice found in the Protestant church can be traced to the church that accepted these seven godless books. For example, both major Christian holidays (Christmas and Easter) are dated and observed according to the pagan traditions of unscriptural teaching. This teaching runs CONTRARY to the words of Jesus Christ (for example, "Good Friday" instead of "Bad Wednesday"--Matt. 12:40), and never ever considers HIS AUTHORITY in a final show-down of strength. Though not one apostle in the Bible ever mentioned Mary's name in prayer, and although 30 years of church history is found in the book of Acts and not one person ever remembers Jesus' birthday, still the pagan tradition goes right on and will CONTINUE ON TILL GOD STOPS IT. There is not a single heresy found in Protestantism that cannot be traced to the great monster-mother who added seven books to the Holy Bible and reduced it to a text book for religious lawyers. Get mad. It will raise your blood pressure. You look a little anemic anyway. Having discovered the source by analytical examination of the facts involved, attention should be turned to the actual linkage of names and events that run from this first monstrous rejection of the Bible, and its replacement with a glorified telephone book where no one can occasionally "ring the right number." Irenaeus (130), Eusebius (340), Origen (254), Symmachus, Aquila, Theodotian, Heracleon, Augustine, Jerome, Aquinas, Abelard, Kant, Hegel, Delitzsch, Griesbach, Moffatt, Darwin, Tillich, Sockman, Calvin, Kagawa, Driver, Wellhausen, Weigle, Dahlberg, Spellman, Nestle, Weymouth, Goodspeed, Tregelles, Tischendorf, Gesenius, Trench, Strauss, Astruc, Bushnell, and Caiaphas may not seem to be a very homogeneous grouping. But all these gentlemen have two great bonds of religious affinity that make them "blood brothers" beneath the skin. EVERY MAN IN THE LIST ACCEPTED AS AUTHORITATIVE SOME RELIGIOUS OR CHURCH TRADITION THAT DIRECTLY CONTRADICTED A CLEAR PASSAGE IN THE BIBLE. From Irenaeus to Bishop Oxnam, the scholarly succession can all agree about one thing--that the Bible is spurious, incomplete, filled with fatuities, glosses, errors, fables, and contradictions, and that matters of "CANON" are DEBATABLE, and that only someone in their own line is able to determine what should be accepted and what should be rejected. As Caiaphas and Ananias superimposed the Talmud over the 39 books, as Origin superimposed Platonic philosophy over the 39 books, as Augustine superimposed a "spiritual" interpretation over the literal passages in Revelation, as Jerome and Eusebius added the Apocrypha to the original 39, as Kant and Hegel superimposed rationalism over the revelation of the Pauline epistles, as Spellman and Sheen superimposed the fiats of the popes over the words of Jesus Christ, as Aquinas and Abelard accepted the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus as inspired (they contain the seven apocryphal books!), as Strauss and Astruc superimposed evolutionary romanticism over the doctrine of the Kingdom of God, as Weigle and Poteat today superimpose the findings of Christ- rejecting, Bible-denying "scholarship" over the entire Bible. Birds of a feather flock together (Col. 2:8; I Tim. 6:20). This business can be traced as easily as you can run a tracer back to the gun barrel. The men who have been firing away at the word and puncturing it with the shells of infidelity, form a neat and regular line from the first group that elevated a Talmud to equal authority with the scripture, to the last group that elevated the Apocrypha to the same position. The final authority, the Lord Jesus Christ, never recognized EITHER AS HAVING ANY VALIDITY IN REGARDS TO ANYTHING THAT GOD HAS REVEALED. (See Mark 7:2-13, and don't just note it--GO READ IT!) The whole question then is a matter of authority. As the Bible loses its authority, Biblical Christianity declines. The forces bent on destroying Biblical Christianity are not only readily discernible, but they also have motive and purpose behind their desire to destroy the word of God. If we could find out WHAT THE WORD OF GOD IS AGAINST, we could more easily find its enemies. If you can find where a General has concentrated his troops, you can find the possible avenue of attack or the point of defense. OPPOSITES ATTRACT. In other words, the furious, consistent, perennial, and never-ending attempt to do away with the received text of the King James Bible (Protestants, Catholics, and Jews all cooperating) must have a logical PURPOSE BEHIND IT. Why would the time, talents, money, and efforts of the greatest brains in 19 centuries be devoted to DESTROYING a book, unless there was something in that book that was a threat to their existence? Analyze it. Why would 19 centuries of books, polemics, tracts, bulls, sermons, decrees, and catechisms be ordered and published with things in them DENYING THE WORD OR CHANGING THE WORD, unless there was something IN THE WORD which challenged or threatened the lives and minds of the men attacking it? What is it in that old black-backed Book that men hate so terribly? How can it be, in these last days, that the organized forces of professed Christianity itself are being mustered to RID the world of the authority of the Book? The answer is not hard to find once a person submits to the authority of what the Book says, instead of the tradition derived from it by a church that makes itself its own authority. In Revelation 17 and 18, we find a city. It is said to be "a city" (Rev. 17:18). Since it is SAID to be a city, it si probably A CITY. I realize this is difficult doctrine for a dense mind, as the scholar is always tempted to think "But could not a city STAND for something, or symbolize something?" Thus his own knowledge strangles him and he loses the revelation. (For example, Christ says, "THIS IS MY BODY" at the last supper, and yet it is apparent to anyone that He is symbolizing His body for his REAL BODY IS HOLDING THE BREAD!) But here we cannot take time out for our scholarly friends to keep up with things, for a simple rule of common sense would tell anyone what to do with the passage in Revelation 17:18, for in the passage the city is symbolized by A WOMAN! (Rev. 17:18). Both are given right in the same verse so no one would have any trouble in identifying them. ONLY RELIGIOUS PREJUDICE COULD PREVENT ANYONE FROM RECOGNIZING THE CITY. Let us proceed carefully lest we be guilty of "interpreting." For a while, let us put ourselves in place with the poor benighted heathen in America who are taught by their leaders that they can't understand the Bible (even though many of them have college educations!), and that they need their church to "interpret." So instead of interpreting, let's just read, shall we? The freedom to READ has not yet vanished from the shores of America, has it? Or has it? 1. The woman in Revelation 17:1,3 is a city (Rev. 17:18). 2. This city is built on seven mountains (Rev. 17:9). 3. This city has purple and scarlet for colors (Rev. 17:4). 4. The symbol of this city is a golden cup (Rev. 17:4). 5. This city has killed martyrs and saints (Rev. 17:6). 6. This city is a political power (Rev. 17:18). 7. This city is drunken (18:3), commercial (18:15), rich (18:12), proud (18:7), mystical (18:18), and DAMNED BY GOD (17:5; 18:24). NOW, IF YOU WERE IN THAT CITY, HOW WOULD YOU FEEL? Don't you see the trouble? Where the average investigator or scientist is only looking for A-MORAL, OBJECTIVE TRUTHS IN THE PHYSICAL REALM, the Bible deals with MORAL, ABSOLUTE TRUTHS IN THE RELIGIOUS REALM. The question is not, "Do we have the right interpretation?" The question is, "Having read the passage and UNDERSTANDING EXACTLY WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT, how would YOU feel if it were aimed at YOU?" Scientists, as Nicodemus (see John 3:1-4), are interested only in the abstraction that involves SOMEONE ELSE. Note that Nicodemus did not ask, "How can I be born again?" but, "How can A MAN be born again?" Now, before we join the crowd and attempt to eliminate the passage in Revelation 17 and 18 (the scholars have thought of a hundred ways to do it!), let us consider some FACTS. 1. If you read the passage, you DID identify the city. 2. You identified it with no help from a lexicon or the "original Greek." 3. You could not have possibly identified it as New York, Washington, London, Manila, Shanghai, Hollywood, or New Orleans. 4. YOU KNOW WHAT THE PASSAGE REFERS TO. YOU HAVE FULL KNOWLEDGE OF IT. ANY MAN WHO EVER READ IT HAD FULL KNOWLEDGE OF IT. You have only one problem really--HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GET RID OF IT IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT? The whole problem is, "If I find something in the Bible that I object to, HOW CAN I GET RID OF IT?" This question is the first and foremost consideration of every scholar who ever went about translating or revising the Bible, unless he believed what he was handling was the complete and absolute, authoritative, infallible word of God--as the AV translators did (see their prefatory remarks). Thus the whole rotten mess is exposed. Under the hypocritical excuses of "better translations," "clearer readings," "church authority," "grammatico-historico exegesis," "Christian tradition," "Talmudic authority," and "helps for the reader," the corrupters of the Bible have undertaken to rid themselves of everything in the Bible that they DON'T LIKE. The methods, after all, are secondary; what needs to be considered here is the MOTIVE. Once the motive is established, the methods can be spotted for what they are- -simply variations of an original plan to destroy the authority of the word of God. Revelation 17--18 is an excellent test passage. It is excellent because any reader at a glance can identify the city. Now as far as 17:7,8,10,16, and 18:2-23 are concerned, there may be some confusion, but why start with confusion? Why would ANY honest, sincere truth-seeker desire to reject what was plain and begin with what was obscure unless HE DID NOT LIKE WHAT HE UNDERSTOOD? We have laid the ax to the root of the tree, and a tree full of birds it is! (Matt. 13:31-32). The Decline of Biblical Christianity can be traced to ONE motive: hatred for the authority of the Word. So an attack begins and is carried out meticulously and unceasingly by the people who DO NOT LIKE WHAT THE BOOK SAYS. These people make up two classes in any and every century. 1. Preachers and teachers who INSIST on correcting the AV. The only tool they have to do this with is the Greek text of Westcott and Hort (or Nestle's), which is an Hesychian, Egyptian type text, INCLUDING THE APOCRYPHA. 2. Translators and revisers who have revised and revised until the common man no longer knows what the Bible is, where it is, or how to get one. The motive in both cases is alike; they have found somewhere in the AV something that they UNDERSTOOD ALL TOO CLEARLY and did not like--so they changed it. By doing this through a period of years, the changes have become so numerous and so complex that no longer is it possible to find a truly authoritative Bible anywhere. With this decline in authority, Biblical Christianity, in the true sense of the words, has become extinct. In winding things up (before undertaking an actual study of the Bible doctrine on the Mark of the Beast, a subject of Bible prophecy--eschatology), a few short notations can be made on the methods by which the Bible haters destroyed its authority. We shall take the passage in Revelation 17 and 18 as a test case, although Matthew 16, John 20, Acts 2, Genesis 3, Hebrews 6, or Luke 23 would do just as well. (Actually, nearly every verse has been attacked in the commentaries of Doddridge, Williams, Ellicott, Macknight, Phillips, Lange, Henry, Dummelow, J. F. and B., Clarke, etc.) Method No. 1. QUESTION THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE BOOK. The purpose for this is to destroy the reader's confidence in the canonicity of the book being read. In the test case (Rev. 17,18) before us, we would run to Eusebius, who leaned on Papias, and taught that a certain obscure "Presbyter John" wrote the book, who was not John the apostle. Bleek, Neander, Harnack, Moffatt, and Holtzmann subscribe to this attack, and discussion about it is too lengthy to take up here. Suffice it to say, that as most commentators, they don't know what they are talking about. Method No. 2. ATTACK THE DATE OF THE WRITING OF THE BOOK. The purpose here is to make any prophecy in the book null and void by either implying the writer wrote it AFTER IT HAPPENED (Daniel 2--9 for example), or else, better still, to prove that it ALL HAD TO BE FULFILLED in the apostolic age and therefore could not possibly OCCUR LATER! Melito of Sardis (170) in the Syriac version (the Peshitto) has a note that will effectually eliminate Revelation 17 and 18 from meaning what it says. According to this note, Revelation is written in Nero's reign, and therefore Revelation 17 and 18 REFERS TO PAGAN ROME ONLY, BEFORE THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. You see, if you really objected to Revelation 17 and 18, there is always a scholar present to show you HIS OWN INTERPRETATION so you can rid yourself of what the passage actually says. If John were exiled during Domitian's reign, then REVELATION 17 AND 18 IS YET FUTURE. Now you've got something to chew on, don't you? You see, interpretation was not really a point in question. You understood the passage PERFECTLY the first time you read it. You only got into trouble when you went to scholars WHO OBJECTED TO WHAT IT SAID, and consequently devoted their lives to CHANGING IT! Method No. 3. GO TO THE "ORIGINAL" GREEK. This is the method used mainly by the Bible- believing Protestant when he finds a passage in an A.V. that condemns his religious upbringing. In the case before us (Rev. 17,18), it would be a good idea to pick up Nestle's Greek New Testament and see the "original Greek." (The reader understands, of course, that there is no such thing as the "original Greek." The "original" has never been found. If it be objected that by "original Greek" we do not mean the "original manuscripts," but only the original "language" in which the manuscripts were written, it may be retorted, "Then you are just as much in error, if not worse, for Nestle's text, as the Westcott and Hort text, is the CLASSICAL Greek of Alexandrian scholarship, written IN ITALY. It is not the KOINE Greek of New Testament scholarship, written IN ASIA MINOR." Nestle's "original Greek" is built on the theory that Vaticanus {the Catholic manuscript containing the seven corrupt books} is the most perfect text. Thus, "going to the Greek" to correct the King James, AV 1611, involves running to a CHRIST-DEFYING POPE to correct a Bible-believing Protestant translation. And who is sufficient for these things?) But to return to Method No. 3, "How can going to the Greek enable us to get rid of the obvious implications of Revelation 17 and 18?" Answer: You go to the Greek of Revelation 22:19 and retranslate "BOOK of life" to "TREE of life" (see Nestle's), and then prove that Erasmus added the ending anyway with no real Greek manuscript evidence (Reuchlin, Ir), so consequently, no one has to take the book of Revelation seriously! Was it not a disputed book in deciding the New Testament canon? Was it not disputed along with Jude and II Peter? Yes, it was. I wonder why? No man who ever read Jude of II Peter or Revelation 17 and 18 ever wondered "why" any more. They were disputed because the material found in those books in the Greek was OBJECTIONABLE to the men AT WHOM THEY WERE AIMED. (Thus, Vaticanus, the Greek vellum manuscript authority for all the new translations, OMITS HEBREWS 10. Why? Read it and find out why. Hebrews 10 states that a repetition of Christ's sascrifice is futile and un-Christian.) In regard to Method No. 3, you will find a man going to the Greek in I Corinthians 12:13 to rid himself of the baptism of the Holy Ghost. You will find a Campbellite running to the Greek of Acts 2:38 to enforce baptismal regeneration. You will find a Fundamentalist running to the Greek of II Thessalonians 2:3 to assure himself of a rapture. You will find a money-grabber running to the Greek of I Timothy 6:10 to make it "a root" instead of "THE root." You will find a Modernist running to the Greek of Luke 17:20 to prove everyone is a child of God. You will find a Baptist running to the Greek of Romans 8:1 in order to reinforce the doctrine of eternal security. You will find a Holiness running to the Greek of Hebrews 6:1-6 to prove you can lose it. You will find a Catholic running to the Greek of James 5:16 to justify confession to a priest. You will find a Presbyterian running to the Greek of I Peter 5:1 to put in the "presbyters." And you will find a Jehovah Witness messing with the Greek article in John 1:1 to prove that Christ was not God. During the entire procedure all run heedlessly along, ignoring the fact that what they are FINDING in the Greek to rid themselves of the English MAY CROSS ANOTHER 100 VERSES IN THE SAME BIBLE. But not knowing enough about what the Bible actually says, each is busy riding his little hobby-horse at break-neck speed through the Bible, stomping and tearing the word of God to bits. (The Baptist will eliminate half of Romans 8:1 forgetting that 8:13 is in the same chapter. The Jehovah Witness will strain out the article but leave it untranslated where it occurs in the Greek {"THE Jesus"}. The Presbyterian will get the presbyters in and then eliminate the bishop in I Timothy 3. The Catholic gets James 5:16, and in so doing, spits all over I Timothy 2:5. Finally, the Holiness seizes Hebrews 6 and forgets to read the whole verse which says that he cannot be saved TWICE!! And on we go and where we stop, nobody knows. But what is worse, NOBODY CARES.) Method No. 4. PUBLISH REVISIONS IN SUCCESSION SO PEOPLE WILL THINK THAT IT IS THE SAME BIBLE THAT IS BEING PRESERVED. This trick is out-and-out, by far, the best method to deceive the public and give them a "who cares" attitude about the word of God. It accomplishes in a few years what centuries of theological debate could not. By this method you publish a series of REVISIONS wherein plainly discernible CONTRADICTIONS can be found; then by making these revisions appear to be OF THE SAME FAMILY OR SOURCE, you have established the fact that the Bible DOES contradict itself and therefore cannot be an infallible, God-breathed authority. Anyone who has spent any time in investigating the actual texts of the Douay-Rheims, the RV, the RSV, the ASV, and the New English Bible, knows that they differ radically from the text of the King James, A.V. 1611. But as from where these differences are derived, and how they got there--that is a fog-bound scene. The average reader takes for granted that it went something like this: Caedmon's version, Alfred, Aelfric (950), Wycliffe (1382), Tyndale (1525), Coverdale (1535), Cranmer (1540), Great Bible (1539), Geneva Bible (1560), Bishops Bible (1569), King James (1611), Douay Version (1609), Revised Version (1885), American Standard (1901), Revised Standard Version (1952), New English Bible (1958), etc. Now this looks very convincing. In case it failed to be convincing, all the Sunday school literature publications have changed the designation of the Bible from Authorized Version (A.V.) to King James Version (KJV). This accomplishes a dual purpose; first, it makes the A.V. have three letters so it will match RSV and ASV (so, KJV); secondly, it eliminates that hated word "Authorized" by simply striking it out of the designation. What we have now is no longer an "AUTHORIZED version" (A.V.), but a "King James VERSION" (KJV). In one master stroke the Bible corrupters rid themselves of the despised authority. From the start their trouble was that they resented what the Book said. Their motive was they wanted to get rid of it because it said things they didn't like. Well, the mission is completed. They have done what they set out to do. They got through the whole operation without once letting the cat out of the bag. The "cat" was the fact that none of the translations since 1884 are Bible translations. None are translated from Bible manuscripts according to what Jesus Christ defined as the Bible. Every one of them, without exception, is a translation of manuscripts that contain the seven books that Jesus and Paul never accepted as belonging to a Bible. To be as brutal as possible, we will put it this way: "Every Bible on the market from 1884-1970 is a Roman Catholic Bible that begins with the presumption that Jesus Christ is not the final authority on what constitutes a Bible and what doesn't." Now there it is; choke on it. The facts are all present. Matthew 23:35 and Luke 24:44 settle the matter conclusively before the word "catholic" is coined by believer or unbeliever. It is settled in the New Testament contrary to the teachings of the Council of Trent, and no amount of questioning authorship, canonicity, original Greek, or correct versions will ever alter a fact in the matter. Vaticanus and Sinaiticus (the two Greek texts chosen by all the translators since 1884) are heretical documents palmed off as authoritative, and they are no more a "Bible" than "Aesop's Fables" or the "Tales of Canterbury." The fact that the new translations do not publish all their Greek manuscripts is only a testimony to their shameful hypocrisy. Both manuscripts they use as the final say-so in matters of textual criticism contain the Apocrypha, and if that weren't enough, Sinaiticus contains the "Epistle of Barnabas" and the "Shepherd of Hermas." Bible? Not on your life. The ASV and RSV are not continuations of a Bible-translating line. They are direct break-offs from the Bible line after 200 years of underground work in the critical editions (Fell, 1677; Wetstein, 1751; Walton, 1657; Scholtz, 1830; Griesbach, 1774; Lachmann, 1842; Tregelles, 1857, etc.) During the great missionary and evangelistic age when Whitefield, Luther, Zinzendorf, Wesley, Moody, Finney, Torrey, and Sam Jones were preaching, the corrupters went underground to continue their crusade begun at the time of Christ--the crusade to destroy the authority of the word of God. When the RV (1884-5), the ASV (1901), and the RSV (1952) appeared, they appeared as heralds of a "new age" of Bible enlightenment and understanding. They appeared in their self- appointed robes of righteousness as "easier to understand," "more accurate readings," "true to the original language," and "based on scientific research in more ancient manuscripts"; and not once do they reveal their true identity which would cause their sales to drop by the thousand. This true identity is the identity of Irenaeus, Eusebius, Augustine, Constantine, Jerome, Origen and company, who set out hundreds of years ago to destroy the authority of the word of God and incorporate into scripture seven books which Jesus Christ purposely omitted. With a little leaven in, the whole lump can be leavened, and the old mother of harlots (Rev. 17:1-4) is found busy at her work in Matthew 13:33 leavening the whole lump with false doctrine (Matt. 16:12) until it is fit for nothing but pig's food. The truth of the matter is the ASV, RV, and RSV are not "versions" of the Bible. They are from two Greek manuscripts called "B" and "Aleph" which were probably written in Italy (see Westcott and Hort remarks) on vellum sheets which contain all seven anti-Christian books plus the "Shepherd of Hermas" and the "Epistle of Barnabas." They are not "Bibles." One cannot evalute the deceptiveness of this tremendous hoax until one picks up a book like the one by H.G. Herklots. Mr. Herklots (bless his little heart) is advertised as "a graduate of Cambridge University...six years in Canada as Prof. of Exegetical Theology...Canon of St. John's Cathedral and later Director of Religious Education at the Diocese of Sheffield." With a background like this, Mr. Herklots writes a book entitled "How Our Bible Came to Us," and then produces photostats of Vaticanus and Sinaiticus as BIBLE manuscripts. Think of it! "How OUR Bible...." Who is the "OUR," old buddy? It isn't any Bible-believer that ever believed what Jesus said about the contents of a "Bible"! "OUR BIBLE" has nothing to do with "Bel and the Dragon," "Tobit," "Judith," or "Hermas"! How could a man with the background Herklots has be so brainwashed that he would think our Bible is connected with this kind of nonsense? Shouldn't a man be a little more careful before he goes around saying "OUR"? Who is "OUR"? It doesn't include Jesus Christ. He fixed the canon at Genesis to 2Chronicles with three divisions. It isn't Paul. He never quotes any of the seven books, and would quote secular literature before he would make any reference to them. It couldn't be the King James translators. They left the apocrypha out of the Old Testament. It couldn't be Wesley, Whitefield, Moody, Sunday, Torrey, Jones, Finney, Smith, rainerd, Carey, Judson, Goforth, Livingstone, Taylor, or any of the soul-winners of the 18th and 19th centuries, for they all used the A.V. 1611 or the Textus Receptus from which it was taken. Who is that phantasmal "our"? Don't include me. "Our" Bible is not the ASV, RSV, and RV. These "bibles" are the products of Bible corrupters who had a prejudice against the A.V. because of what it said--for example, Revelation 17 and 18. Their motive was not to produce a better Bible, otherwise they would have stuck to manuscripts that contained what Jesus said was the Bible. Their motive was to destroy the authority of the Bible that Jesus recognized, and elevate themselves and their versions (which are not "Bibles") to the seat of authority. The proof is in the pudding, friend. Why change it if you already understand it--and YOU DO UNDERSTAND Revelation 17, don't you? Yes, that is the trouble; you DO understand it. You just don't like it. Bible translating, then, ends with the King James Bible (AV). Translation of spurious manuscripts to do away with the Bible does continue down to this present time with a "bible"-a-month coming off the presses, but none of these "bibles" has anything to do with inspired literature. God knows what He revealed, and how He wrote it, and whom He used to write it, and when it was written, and why it was written. You may fool a gullible bunch of suckers who are trying to get ecumenical bait off a trot-line, but you will not fool God, and you cannot force God to approve and bless something that He never intended to approve, tolerate, promote, or bless. You see now why this book began with a discussion of Matthew 23:35 and Luke 24:44. These two verses, which deal with the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus, give the Bible-believer a fair and advanced warning on how to spot a Bible-corrupter. They can be spotted by their desire to elevate an outside authority to equal authority with the word of God. The first move they made to do this was to incorporate into the Old Testament seven books of man-made trash. To conclude our thesis, the decline of Biblical Christianity is due to the lack of faith that people place in the word of God as a final authority. This lack of faith is due to the fact that the Bible has been so abused and perverted byits handlers that the average man no longer believes that it is sacred or holy. These handlers are men who have corrupted the word of God by two methods: one, by changing the AV to bring it in line with the pre-reformation text of apostate Roman Catholicism (this is the text of Vaticanus used by Westcott and Hort and the ASV), or two, by constantly revising the Bible till 50 Bibles appear that contradict each other. Either way, the public in general, and preachers in specific, have at last become deaf to the warnings and exhortations in the Bible, and have tuned their ears to the pitch of science and Rome. With such an orientation, the Bible passes among the millions from generation to generation unnoticed. There it lies on the dime-store counter of nearly every nation in the world--$1.00 or less per copy. Within its covers is found a prophecy so blood-curdling and shocking that if the populace knew of it, they would rise in arms to overthrow the religious tyrant. But long, long ago, the scholars completed their disastrous and hypocritical work of undermining the Book's authority. In vain it warns; in vain it threatens. It lies as mute evidence to God's eternal power that heaven and earth shall pass away, but His word shall not. It lies like a soundless time-bomb ticking away the hours until the end-time when it will fulfill itself in all the vengeance and wrath that only a Holy God can muster. Witness the Book! It lies on your table now with folded cover, and I believe I see a little dust settling there. Can it be? Dusty or sparkling, there it lies, and between its ancient covers you will find 66 books: 39 in the old, 27 in the new. The 66th book lies just as silent and as undisturbing as the other 65, yet between its first line, "The Revelation of Jesus Christ" (Rev. 1:1), and its last line, "Amen," there is disclosed the most terrifying and consequential subject ever revealed to man--The Mark of the Beast. Take heed how you read and what you believe. With the decline of Biblical Christianity, perhaps your name will be found among the list of those who set their hearts on corrupting the word of God because it conflicted with their traditions and opinions. I hope you are not among that number. If you are in that number, then this study will be in vain, for you also will be found in the ranks of that strange and terrifying figure who has a Number, a Name, a Sign, and a Mark; and he is not the Lord's Christ (Luke 2:26). He is a Christ of another lineage and another "gospel." He is the author of all Bible corruptions, and the Father of all Bible corrupters.