Deep Love for God’s Word
Message Sunday 20 January 2013 PM
How powerful and beautiful are God’s words?
Psa 19:7 The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;
Psa 19:8 the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;
Psa 19:9 the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether.
Psa 19:10 More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
Psa 19:11 Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
How much do you love God’s word?
Would you exchange a big lump of Gold for it?
Would you rather have a meal of Honey (Or plate of prawns, or a wagu fillet steak etc) or a serve of God’ word?
God’s word is so important that He says if anyone tries to change it they will be cursed.
Rev 22:18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book,
Rev 22:19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
Would you be prepared to die so that other people could read the bible?
Let me tell you about the life of William Tyndale
William Tyndale was the Captain of the Army of Reformers, and was their spiritual leader. Tyndale holds the distinction of being the first man to ever print the New Testament in the English language. Tyndale was a true scholar and a genius, so fluent in eight languages; Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, English, and German that it was said one would think any one of them to be his native tongue. He is frequently referred to as the “Architect of the English Language”, (even more so than William Shakespeare) as so many of the phrases Tyndale coined are still in our language today.
Tyndale’s translation was the first English Bible to draw directly from Hebrew and Greek texts, the first English one to take advantage of the printing press, and first of the new English Bibles of the Reformation, so that the grass-roots spread of Wycliffe’s Bible resulted in a death sentence for any unlicensed possession of Scripture in English
Tyndale said, “If God spare my life ere many years, I will cause the boy that drives the plow to know more of the scriptures than the Roman Catholic Bishop!”
In 1535, Tyndale was arrested and jailed in the castle of Vilvoorde (Filford) outside Brussels for over a year. In 1536 he was convicted of heresy and executed by strangulation, after which his body was burnt at the stake. His dying request that the King of England’s eyes would be opened seemed to find its fulfilment just two years later with Henry’s authorization of The Great Bible for the Church of England—which was largely Tyndale’s own work. Hence, the Tyndale Bible, as it was known, continued to play a key role in spreading Reformation ideas across the English-speaking world and eventually, on the global British Empire. His version also worked prominently into the Geneva Bible which was taken to the New World, to Jamestown in 1607, and on the Mayflower in 1620. Notably, in 1611, the 54 independent scholars who created the King James Version, drew significantly from Tyndale, as well as translations that descended from his. One estimate suggests the New Testament in the King James Version is 83% Tyndale’s, and the Old Testament 76%.[7]
Other martyrs
In Tyndale’s time the church service throughout England was still conducted in Latin, as was the practice of the Roman church everywhere. Colet, England’s greatest New Testament scholar and professor of that date at Oxford University, Tyndale’s chief teacher and bishop of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, was denounced for teaching his congregation to recite the Lord’s Prayer in English. Colet advocated also that the preaching be done in English, but this was not tolerated. In 1539
five Scotchmen were burned at the stake in Edinburgh for studying, memorizing, and preaching from the Bible. One of them was charged with teaching his parishion-
ers to say the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments in English. Taverner who published an English Bible in 1539, was at an earlier time, while a student at Oxford, imprisoned for reading Tyndale’s New Testament. Marbeck, who in 1550 published the first concordance to the English Bible, narrowly scaped being put to death. Thomas Matthew, who published an English Bible in 1537,
the year following Tyndale’s martyrdom, was like him burned at the stake in
1555. (http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3135994.pdf?acceptTC=true
craigmanderson 