Dr. Robert Sumner passed away in December 2016. The Biblical Evangelist newspaper is no longer being published and the ministry of Biblical Evangelism has ceased operation.

The remaining inventory of his books and gospel tracts was transferred to The Baptist Tabernacle of Los Angeles and may be ordered here.

Off the Cuff! (Part 2)
Dr. Robert L. Sumner, Editor

STRANGE KJVO REASONING

A preacher in Kansas sent me a magazine that is obviously more fundamentalist than the original fundamentalists, but that is the right of its editors. Several of the major articles related to a King James Only rally that wasn’t KJVO enough to suit the editors. And that is their right, too.

One of the editors summed up the purpose of the conference as twofold: 1) the leaders and speakers wanted to show how smart they were; 2) they wanted to prove God lied, that while He was preserving His Word He lost the inspiration. The latter point was above my pay scale to understand, but that ought to prove I’m not trying to show how smart I am! And the first point is obviously a judging of motives, forbidden by God and the KJV.

I have no intention of printing a rebuttal (our position is well known), but I will give one example of the caliber of argument the magazine fielded to ridicule the conference (sponsored by those who are also ‘too KJVOnly’ for my taste, I hasten to add). The writer – who has published his own Reference Bible with “approximately 3,000 footnotes” to help readers understand the King James translation – attended all the sessions, if I understood him correctly, and “listened intently and objectively and took copious notes.”

In referencing one speaker’s claim that “The Bible never claims inspiration to any translation,” he admitted this was true, but tried to answer by saying: “If the King James Bible is allowed to be the final authority, there are several examples where translation is the work of God and a translation can be without error; in fact, it can be better than the original” (emphasis added).

Wow! Did he back up that claim? Believe it or not, this was what he offered as proof: “God translated the kingdom from Saul to David and David’s kingdom was better that Saul’s (2 Samuel 3:10).” Incredible, what? He added that a sinner “translated” into the kingdom of God was better after that translation. And after God “translated” Enoch he was better off in Heaven than on earth. I don’t know how he was able to make those comparisons with a straight face and maybe his conscience forced him to add a few words about real translation, which we thought was the subject anyway.

So he said, “But, lest I be considered a dumb thump [that thought had crossed my mind – editor] for believing the words and example of the King James Bible [actually, taking them out of context – editor] let’s look at a translation from one language to another in the final authority.” Ah, now he is getting down to business, you would think.

Alas, his proof was Old Testament examples of truth written in Hebrew being given in Greek in the New Testament (which he pronounced “better”). And then he took a swipe at the Apocrypha (which is not inspired, of course), forgetting or not knowing that the Apocrypha was printed in all its glory (sic) in the original KJV of 1611!

But back to his “better” translation in Greek of the original Hebrew: is he saying the Hebrew was faulty, wrong, imperfect, inadequate? Wasn’t the Old Testament written under the full inspiration of the Holy Spirit as truly as the New Testament?

We admit our ignorance here; we just don’t understand what these people – good people all, I’m confident – are trying to say. Weren’t the words of Moses as “God breathed” as the words of Paul? Is there some kind of competition between the Testaments? Did the world have an inadequate Bible until the wicked, immoral King James came along and appointed bishops in the Church of England to give us a true translation?

Don’t misunderstand; I’m glad he did. But what is the point these men are making?

These are serious questions that demand serious answers. And, might I add, with friends like these the KJV doesn’t need any enemies!

CROOKS ‘BRIBING’ IN D.C.

To get ObamaCare passed it was necessary to pass out bribes. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana (payoff, $300 million in Medicaid help); Patrick Leahy of Vermont (payoff, $600 million in additional Medicaid benefits over 10 years); Bernie Sanders of Vermont (payoff, $10 billion in support for community health centers); Ben Nelson of Nebraska (payoff in numerous benefits for his state including expansion of Medicaid at an estimated cost of $100 million over 10 years, Nebraska’s Blue Cross/Blue Shield exempted from an annual fee on insurers); Max Baucus of Montana, (payoff, in addition to being a key architect of the bill and goodies for his state already in it, a provision helping 2,900 residents of Libby with asbestos-related illnesses); Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, (payoff, $100 million for a hospital at a public university); Bill Nelson of Florida was bought with Medicare Advantage payoffs, too. He explained, “I was able to pass an amendment to the bill that excluded some 800,000 policyholders all across Florida from cuts to Medicare Advantage." And these are just the ones I know about.

But a crook who offers bribes (for votes) is probably worse than the receivers. In this case, that was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He not only boasted about the bribes – he was defiant – saying: "You'll find a number of states that are treated differently than other states. That's what legislating is all about. It's compromise." No, Harry, that is bribing and blackmail. Reid even said any senators that didn’t get a payoff, “it doesn’t speak well of them.” Unbelievable!

Obama gloated, “The legislation will make a tremendous difference for families, for seniors, for businesses and for the country as a whole.” Not so; the tremendous difference will be in loss of freedom in health-related issues and skyrocketing taxes! By the way, what happened to Obama’s “promise” that if ObamaCare cost a dime in extra taxes, he’d veto it. Fortunately, by the time he made that guarantee everyone knew him well enough not to believe it. As the Congressman from South Carolina shouted during an Obama speech before both houses, “That’s a lie!”

Keep in mind that this “most open administration in history,” as Obama and Pelosi like to call it, used the darkness of 1:00 a.m. on a Monday for his first vote, following with the next cloture vote in the early morning hours of Tuesday. Why the rush and secrecy? They were afraid if the senators went home for the holidays they would get such a woeful earful they wouldn’t pass it when they came back. And, remember, if just one Democrat had voted against it, it would have failed. The next time you go to the polls, remember that it was the Democrat Party that voted us into full blown medical socialism!

We are hoping the election of Scott Brown to the senate will cause all the wheels to fall off the ObamaCare express. You know, something like Cinderella’s coach turning into a pumpkin at midnight.

EDITOR WRITES EDITOR

One advantage I have over others who write letters to newspapers is that even if the editor doesn’t print it, I haven’t wasted any time. I can print it in the paper I edit. I thought the following was a good response to an evolutionist even if the editor of our local News & Advance didn’t (perhaps he is an evolutionist too and thought my rebuttal too good). You read it and see what you think. Here is what I wrote:

You turned the whole Monday Forum over to an “expert” on what’s wrong with Sarah Palin and the Republicans. I am a registered Independent and not an expert in politics, but in the first paragraph – when he called her “a sexual bimbo” – I quit reading (it is an old rule: if you can’t answer the message, attack the messenger) feeling the writer must have nothing worthwhile to say.

However, my wife read it later and said he went on to denigrate creationism and I do consider myself at least a semi-expert on it (I was on the panel of an evolution-creation debate at Vanderbilt University some years back with the founder of the Tennessee chapter of “Freedom From Religion” on my left, moderating the meeting, and the Tennessee director of the ACLU on my right), so I went back and read it in its entirety.

He said there was “overwhelming evidence that evolution is the clear process by which all things developed on Earth, including humans. There is no debate on this issue in the scientific community.” The latter statement is a blanket one, impossible to prove or defend. In fact, there are creation scientists (some not even Christian themselves) in some of the most prestigious universities in the country.

But let me quote from a longtime friend of mine, one of the top scientists of the 20^th century (now deceased) who once taught in the civil engineering department over at Virginia Tech (and at three other prestigious institutions, including Houston’s Rice University). Even though written over 45 years ago, the last I knew his book on hydraulic engineering was still a text at Tech, as it is in other prominent engineering departments across the country.

Obviously not a scientific dummy, he wrote, noting that evolution is as much a religion as creation: “Evolutionists have a most amazing faith. They believe that people have evolved up from the ape (or something like an ape), that apes and other mammals have evolved from reptiles, that reptiles have evolved from amphibians, amphibians from fish, fish from some unknown phylum of multi-celled invertebrates, that vertebrates in all their phyla evolved from some unknown protozoan, that some other unknown protozoan evolved from complex chemicals, and that the complex chemicals evolved from the simplest chemical element of all, namely hydrogen.

“The operative word in the above sentence is believe. There is no evidence for this remarkable chain of events.”

So, lacking evidence, the evolution cult dismisses it with a “big bang” billions of years ago. How convenient.

In short, “evolution is as much of a religion, taken by faith, as creation.” In fact, because evolution is not testable, it is not, in reality, a science.

WACKIEST ANALYSIS

OF THE YEAR!

The Media Research Center, at the end of 2009, awarded winners in 16 categories, one being “The Audacity of Dopes.” This “Wackiest” was in the latter.

First place went to Evan Thomas of Newsweek, on Chris Matthews’ MSNBC’s Hardball (who is sort of wacky himself as evidenced by the excitement he feels in his leg when he hears Obama speak), talking about Ronald Reagan: "Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is, 'We are above that now. We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial. We stand for something.' I mean, in a way, Obama's standing above the country, above, above the world. He's sort of God. He's going to bring all different sides together."

We agree; they don’t come any wackier than that. But second place winner Ted Turner came close. On a Meet the Press program, Ted said: "And the KGB, I think, was an honorable place to work. It gave people in the former Soviet Union, a communist country, an opportunity to do something important and worthwhile."

No wonder he wed “Hanoi Jane” [Fonda].

We reported some other pretty wacky stuff in The Biblical Evangelist last year, too – the Research Center just didn’t note it.

WE SALUTE THIS BOARD!

Dr. Alexandria Coronado is chairman of the Orange County (California) Board of Education and says she is "appalled" and “absolutely furious” over Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger asking state schools to set aside a day to honor the controversial homosexual activist, Harvey Milk (reported here in a previous issue). So is her board that voted unanimously (5-0) to figuratively tell the governor to take a quick dip in the nearby Pacific Ocean. They “ain’t gonna” do it!

As the good doctor noted, "I think it just absolutely denigrates the entire civil rights movement. Homosexuality is not a civil right." She went on to explain: "I don't remember the last time that a homosexual person was forced to move out of their seat on a public bus, like Rosa Parks. And I don't remember the last time that a homosexual person or student ... was forced to go to a segregated school, as in the case of Mendez v. Westminster, which took place right here in Orange County, California."

Not only so, but a number of the state’s citizens, past and present, are much more deserving of the honor. Too, it wastes school staff time and money (underwritten by taxpayers) that is needed for real educational purposes. The lady has a point. A very good point!

WARNING: BIBLE HOAX

Some ex-followers of Herbert W. Armstrong (who hold his false doctrines) have published their own Bible. It is called The Holy Bible In Its Original Order and is published (promoted) by the Christian Biblical Church of God in Hollister (CA). It is the brainchild of the late Ernest L. Martin, Armstrong’s former right-hand man, and allegedly corrects the order of the KJV and other Bibles, although previous translations have done the same – which the “church fathers” are assumed to have messed up.

World magazine had been accepting advertising for it but has seen the light and promised ‘never again.’ Group Publishing’s Rev! magazine published a favorable review last year, too, but when notified of its roots, Lee Sparks, the Managing Editor said, “Rev! Magazine has ceased publication with the Jan/Feb 2010 issue, which has already been printed and mailed. If we were still in print or online, I would retract the review.” So consider this Rev!’s retraction, as our favor to Sparks!

One of the Bible’s authors is Fred Coulter, also a Herbert W. Armstrong disciple and pastor of the church mentioned in our opening paragraph. He has a doctrinal statement on the web that should make a Bible believer’s hair stand straight up and then curl at the top! His books are available also at the Armstrong splinter groups’ bookstore.

Here are just a few of his unorthodox doctrinal statements:

1. Under the nature of God it says, “… God – the Hebrew word is Elohim, a plural noun inherently meaning more than one – is a holy Family of intelligent Beings, composed of spirit ... The God Family presently consists of God the Father and God the Son. One of Their purposes is to increase the God Family.” This is an idea he got from Armstrong, who also taught that Armstrong followers would eventually join “the family” (become gods). Note the denial of a Trinity and the absence of the Holy Spirit being part of God.

2. Regarding the Holy Spirit, it teaches that He “is not a person or a third member of a so-called Trinity,” just a power. All of the followers of this cult are alleged to receive “the power” (Holy Spirit) “upon repentance of sins, baptism by immersion, and the laying on of hands.”

3. If you got the idea of baptismal regeneration from point two above, you win a cupie doll. Their creed states, to prove it: “Upon genuine, godly repentance and acceptance of Jesus Christ as personal Savior, the believer must be baptized by complete immersion in water for the remission of his or her sins ... When the believer comes up out of the watery grave of baptism, he or she rises to newness of life. In order to become a new person, each baptized believer must be begotten with the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands.”

4. Justification is described: In order to receive God's gift of justification, a person must repent toward God, believe in the sacrifice and blood of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and be baptized by immersion.”

5. Here is “Salvation” according to this cult, following the Armstrong view “it ain’t works, but it is works”: “Salvation cannot be earned by works of law, but there are conditions [in other words, “works” – Editor] which must be met in order to receive the gift of salvation.”           

It goes on: “The Scriptures reveal that there are three distinct stages in the process of salvation: 1) The believer has been saved from past sins and from Satan … 2) The believer is now being saved as he or she continues in … loving obedience by faith … 3) The believer will ultimately be saved at the resurrection …” In short, there is no assurance of salvation in this life, only waiting to see if the person held out faithful to the end. By the way, you’ll note the cult attributes the three stages of sanctification to salvation.

6. Also in the cult’s doctrine is a second chance after death: “In God's time and plan, everyone will have an opportunity for salvation.” Again, “Those individuals through the ages who have had no opportunity for salvation during their lifetime will be restored to physical life in the second resurrection [and] … Each will be granted the same period of time to choose God's way of salvation. This period, called the Great White Throne Judgment, will apparently last for 100 years.”

All of this, of course, is absolute fantasy.

Joining Coulter as the other author/editor for the cult’s Bible is Will Tomory, described as “Professor of English, Southwestern Michigan College.” After Coulter translated the New Testament, Tomory polished the English.

A note of humor here: in promotion for this Bible it offers “An Editor’s Forward to The Faithful Version.” Wow! “Forward” instead of “Foreword”? And he is a professor of what? But that was perhaps an ad man’s blunder.

The promoters of this ‘new bible’ really like KJVOnly authors. Two they mention are The King James Version Defended, by Edward F. Hills, and “Hills protégé, Theodore P. Letis,” the radical Lutheran author whose excesses in promoting the KJV are more than we can handle in this brief editorial. They added, “The King James and the New King James Versions would also be adequate for serious Bible Study. However, you need to be careful because they are biased toward false Protestant teachings” (emphasis added).

Someone said “being forewarned is being forearmed.” You have been warned about The Holy Bible In Its Original Order. Don’t order a copy. Unless, of course, you are one of those idiots that insist on doing something you are told not to do, something you never got over from being a little kid.

MORE ON SOCIAL

DRINKING

In our previous issue we referenced Cornerstone University’s action of dropping, as “biblically indefensible,” restrictions on faculty and staff against social drinking. We asked President Stowell to send us a copy of the committee’s report. He kindly sent us two short papers, but since the study we requested was only six paragraphs long and not technical at all, we assume it was merely a paper prepared by the institution to pass out to critics, not the report of the committee. Let me quote briefly from my reply:

You said you hoped they [the papers] would “at least help [me] understand the biblical realities that determined our course of action.” Actually, they didn’t. For one thing, it was a comparing of “apples” with “oranges.” The wine and beer (biblical strong drink of today) – the hard stuff [strong drink] of the 21^st century with its “added punch” to court boozers – wasn’t around in Bible times and has little resemblance to the biblical wine and beer. The only thing really in common is the names. I fear the normal reader of your ‘standards’ will get the idea biblical drinks can be purchased today at the local Meijer supermarket. That is not true, of course. And in my mind, forgive me; your statement about wine in John 2 is a farce. Ernest Gordon, in his Christ, the Apostles, and Wine, points out: “The six water pots of verse 6 each contained from two to three metretas apiece. This unit was almost nine gallons, according to Thayer’s Lexicon. The total amount of wine then was between 108 and 162 gallons, certainly an invitation to drunkenness if the wine had been alcoholic.” And this was after the wedding revelers had “well drunk,” consuming all the wine on the premises!

Your ‘standards’ paper implies “wine is wine,” but that is a gross misconception. Actually, there are thirteen Hebrew and eight Greek words, a total of twenty-one, translated “wine” in Scripture! I was disappointed your scholars did not deal with that at all. Take the Greek oinos [the ‘wine’ of John 2 at the wedding feast], for example. Dr. Ferrar Fenton, a biblical translator (Holy Bible in Modern English), in his book, The Bible and Wine, lists six different meanings of this generic word: (1) Grapes, as fresh fruit; (2) Raisins; (3) A thick grape syrup; (4) A thick jam; (5) Fresh grape juice; and (6) Fermented grape juice. Fenton, according to Charles Wesley Ewing, “was one of the Church’s great scholars of Biblical languages. By the time he was 28 years old, he had acquired a working knowledge of 25 classical, Oriental and modern languages. So he was at home with the languages of the Bible. In fact, Fenton spent 40 years studying the Bible in its original languages before attempting to give the world his own translation of the Scriptures.” [Dr. Stowell], forgive me for saying so, but your ‘standards’ paper is fluff compared to some of these great scholars of the past. While I am in no way a scholar myself, I know how to dig out what they taught and why they wrote as they did.

In my book, Fights I Didn’t Start … and some I did, I have a chapter, “Is God a Social Drinker?” and Cornerstone’s answer would be, as I understand it, “Yes.” That saddens me. By the way, I introduced that chapter by saying, among other things, “While we don’t have the power, prestige or influence of a Billy Sunday and his famous ‘Get On the Water Wagon’ sermon, we nonetheless want to raise our voice against one of the greatest and deadliest evils in our day.” I deeply believe that last phrase. How many homes, how many lives booze has destroyed! I would be happy to send you a complimentary copy of my Fights book so you can read chapter 10 if you are interested (18 pages), “Is God a Social Drinker?”

There was no response to my offer of the free book containing my “Is God a Social Drinker?” argument so the institution was apparently not interested.

As we said in our last issue, this whole thing shocks and saddens your editor, who has long been a friend of that institution. Only recently we gave the seminary students and supporting pastors nearly $12,000 (retail value) of our books.

Postscript: As we were getting ready to go to press we noted the following which would relate to social drinking, written by Dr. Tedd Mitchell, president and CEO of Dallas’ Cooper Clinic, in HealthSmart, a regular feature in USA Weekend. Starting out, Dr. Mitchell said: “Drinking and driving is always the wrong choice. You may think you’re OK to drive, but here’s why you shouldn’t: … It doesn’t take much. Even just a little alcohol can adversely affect your judgment and your response time. Steering, braking and changing lanes become sloppy” (emphasis in original).

That is why many researchers and scholars today believe the social drinker is much more dangerous on the highway than the drunk!

OBAMA AND PSALM 109

Someone was sending e-mails around asking prayer for the president and including the reference of verse eight in the above psalm, “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.” I thought it was humorous and sent it on to several friends. One wrote back he didn’t think it was funny and attached a brief sermon by some Fundamentalist (the name has slipped me; it was not one I was familiar with) telling how terrible it was.

Probably it was insensitive and perhaps shouldn’t have been forwarded, but I certainly disagree with the kind of response it generated. After all, it was the Word of God and when has it become such a sin to quote the Bible, especially since it was in the same context as David wrote? Remember, Peter quoted this psalm with reference to a traitor, Judas Iscariot. Obama, in our judgment, in his first year in office, has proved to be a Judas – a first-class Benedict Arnold betraying our country and Constitution he swore with his hand on the Bible to uphold.

Admittedly, it is one of the imprecatory psalms, hard to understand, but that doesn’t make it any less the Word of God. Spurgeon said of it that it was not “the ravings of a malicious misanthrope or the execrations of a hot, revengeful spirit.” And he noted that David would pray for his enemies, just as every true Christian should pray for the conversion of Obama – whom we sincerely believe is an enemy of all who stand for liberty and freedom – and every member of his cabinet and staff (if there is one godly person in the bunch we haven’t learned who it is; maybe some reader can enlighten me).

The Patriot’s editor Mark Alexander, a staid and prim – but born-again – Episcopalian, quoted the verse in his online paper, saying, “[F]or the sake of our nation and our posterity, we should pray for Barack Obama – perhaps something along the lines of Psalm 109:8, ‘May his days be few; may another take his office!’”

An angry Patriot reader responded, "To use Psalm 109:8 as a prayer is wrong, and beneath the dignity of The Patriot Post. Should we extend that prayer one verse further to 109:9? 'May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.' Please not. His days should be around 1,460 [i.e., end of his first term at the time of writing] and not one day more. I hope that in 2013 another will take his place! Paul, in Romans, teaches us that those in authority are placed there by God. Praying to our God to remove someone prematurely (wishing for the President's early demise) is wrong." Of course, God placed Judas in his position as well.

Alexander responded, “Notably, we stopped with verse 8, though we're certain that David meant every word of the whole Psalm.”

We think so, too!

And Psalm 109, not withstanding the angry Patriot reader, is an inspired-by-the-Holy Spirit prayer to Almighty God. I do have second thoughts about praying the psalm about Obama, however. His successor would be Joe Biden and, after him, if a Biden replacement hadn’t been sworn in soon enough, it would be Nancy Pelosi. Can you imagine anything worse than President Pelosi?

I’ve about decided that perhaps we should sweat out Obama’s full term, which expires in about three years. My new verse is Psalm 37:10, ESV (emphasis added), “In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.”