The Bible For Today Update Yvonne Sanborn Waite, D. Hum. August 2006

2 TIMOTHY 1:8

DEAR FRIEND,
As I begin my letter to you, I am looking out of my study windows.  (This room used to be our son's bedroom.  Now he is our BFT business manager.)  Our yard is beautiful!  The green grass is shaded by our large chestnut tree. The squirrels love it and so do I.   It is HOT!  According to the weather man, it could get to 100 this week. The Lutheran church across the way is quiet in the summer--no nursery school, no cars blocking our driveway, and still no gospel preached there.  They have a woman pastor.  On the same side of the street the house has much activity.  A new addition is being erected, and a garage torn down.  More room for their three-year-old!  The neighbor to our other side has a beautiful swimming pool.  No one much swims in it.  Mostly, the only activity is the automatic pool cleaner that moves round and round and round, occasionally spitting out water.

THE DEAN BURGON SOCIETY IN ROBBINSDALE, MINNESOTA

WERE YOU THERE?  If not, GET THE TAPES!!

My, have we ever been busy!   OUR 28th DEAN BURGON SOCIETY MEETING WAS HELD AT CALVARY BAPTIST CHURCH IN ROBBINSDALE, MINNESOTA, JULY 19-20.  It was a wonderful, peaceful meeting.  Well, if you can call good preaching and teaching peaceful!  If you weren't there, you missed it!   But, take heart--Dan Waite brought all his recording equipment and enough wires to wire all of Collingswood.  Why?  Am glad you asked.  HE "LIVE-STREAMED" THE WHOLE THING!!   Maybe you were one of the many who E-mailed questions and comments as you viewed the speakers.   It may still be re-broadcasting now.  Go to "BibleForToday.org" and click on to the RED BAR.    ALSO ORDER YOUR OWN COPY OF THE 2006-DBS MEETINGS (BFT #3284DV1-2 @ $25.00+$5.00 S&H for DVD; BFT #3284VHS1-3 @ $35.00+$5.00 S&H for VHS; and BFT #3284/1-7 @ $21.00+$4.00 S&H for audio cassettes.)

FROM MICHIGAN TO GEORGIA & ONTARIO IN BETWEEN

When you get your DBS audio tapes and/or DVD's or VHS's, you'll hear speeches and sermons by men such as Pastor Bob Barnett (MI,) Pastor Denis Gibson (ONT), Pastor David Brown (WI), Pastor Kirk DiVietro (MA), H. D. Williams, M.D. (GA), Mr. Daniel Waite (NJ), Pastor David Hollowood (PA), Pastor David Sorenson (MN), Pastor Ralph Brown (WI), Pastor Humberto Gomez (Mex), Pastor D. A. Waite (NJ). & HOST PASTOR MICHAEL MONTE WHO DID A GOOD & GRACIOUS JOB OF ENTERTAINING THE SOCIETY.   The women & girls served us food in a delightful way for every meal.

SOPHIA, GNOSTICISM, THE JESUS SEMINAR & MORE--EXPLAINED

I wish I had a good memory to synthesize these talks.   BARNETT preached a sermon on "God's Words and God's Person."   GIBSON explained "wisdom" (Sophia) in Proverbs 8.  DAVID BROWN talked on GNOSTICISM.  This subject is all the rage since THE DA VINCI CODE book.  DiVIETRO was eloquent on the "Jesus Seminar" debacle.  WILLIAMS talked with Power Points on a passage in Isaiah.  DAN WAITE Power-Pointed many DBS' men's statements on the Words of God for the last 28 years--a good review.  HOLLOWOOD talked about the Bible as our Dictionary.  SORENSEN expounded textual defense of Inspiration and Preservation.  RALPH BROWN preached hard on The Faith Once Delivered.  GOMEZ encouraged us in the faithful Spanish Bible.  MONTE proved to be an excellent and humorous defender of the KJB as he preached on INTERPRETING INSPIRATION.  My husband, DR. WAITE, excelled on the subject of "BJU'S ERRORS ON BIBLE PRESERVATION."    Ask for them all, or for individual sermons!

TESTIMONIES & THE FALSE MYSTERY RELIGION DISCUSSED

PRAYER, PRAISE, & PRACTICE

ALSO, YOU MAY ASK FOR THE "DBS WOMEN" TAPES.  BFT #3288TP (audio cassettes @ $4.00 + $1 S&H; DVD #3288DVD @ $15.00+$4 S&H; VHS #3288VHS @ $15 +$4 S&H).  We had testimonies from several Christian women such as Susan Monte (Minnesota), Lita Ramnarine (Minnesota), Stacy Brown (Wisconsin), and Patricia Canter (Ohio).   I was fascinated and thankful  how the Lord had worked in their lives recently.  I don't get out much with women's groups, so I am always happy with the Christian fellowship we DBS women have together. We prayed together.  That is good when believing women pray.  We brought before the Throne of God two of our widows of past defenders of the Words of God--two women who no longer can meet with us--Mrs. David Otis Fuller and Mrs. M. J. Hollowood.   Of course, some women couldn't resist the AVENUE MALL (or whatever it is called) which was a stone's throw from where we met.  We missed them!  Then I spoke on GNOSTICISM --THE FALSE MYSTERY RELIGION CONDEMNED BY GOD (BFT  #3283-TP @ $4+$1 S&H).  I made up a 63-PAGE BOOKLET full of many articles to help us understand the subject of GNOSTICISM (BFT #3283BK @ $6.50 + $4.00 S&H).  I hope to do a few radio programs on this subject soon.

GNOSTICISM: THE NEW VIEW OF JESUS

I read that there have been three so-called "revivals" in the United States.  One was with Jonathan Edwards & George Whitfield (1730), another was with Charles Finney & Theodore Weld in 1820-1830, and the one we are in now is THE RE-DISCOVERY OF ANCIENT GNOSTIC SPIRITUALITY or THE NEW VIEW OF JESUS.  CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS?  I personally think that OPRAH WINFREY is a Gnostic.  I mentioned this in my talk.  A book which greatly helped in understanding this subject of GNOSTICISM, besides my husband, was JANET MOSER's GNOTICISM: THE DOCTRINAL FOUNDATION OF THE NEW BIBLE VERSIONS (BFT# 2732 @ $24.00 + $5.00 S&H).  You should go without new shoes to get it.
    THE LIE THAT CHANGED THE MODERN WORLD BY H. D. WILLIAMS, M.D.

The other day I heard of a college student whose television broke.  So she got a hold of Dr. Williams book, THE LIE THAT CHANGED THE MODERN WORLD (BFT 3125 @ $16.00 + $4.00 S&H) and began to read it.  She was fascinated!   "My, this writer is an intelligent man!," she said to herself.  She couldn't put the book down.  I wondered, "What are the facts therein?"  I must confess, I never read it.  I'm too busy proof-reading my husband's books or writing to you.  So I got the book out and looked at it.  Sure enough, it is a refutation of the modernist cry "POLY-SCRIPTURES"! 

Let me quote from page 48 to give you a flavor of the book.

". . . let us examine the philosophy of Socrates' student, Plato . . . who taught Aristotle.  Plato was   a homosexual who taught the concept of ‘the ideal Republic.' In his Republic he ‘prescribed, among other things, socialism, selective breeding, contraception, infanticide, and the kidnaping of children from their parents for a 20-year period of state-controlled values clarification. . . .'  This form of thinking gave rise to Arianism that taught that Jesus Christ was a created being and he subsequently created the Holy Spirit. . . ."

In closing, I don't have to remind you of the dreadful military conflicts that are happening all over the world.  As I write, Israel and Lebanon/the Hezbollah terrorists are "at it" in the areas that we Bible readers are used to reading about in our Scriptures. It is not the first time that battles have been fought in the "Promised Land."  Our grandson is going back to Iraq for the second time, leaving his wife, our granddaughter, and his two babies in the USA. Then, friends of our ministry, the Ryans in New Mexico, had their church torched by someone who was up to no good.   All this destruction and hate pours out like the vilest of dead flies and putrefying scabs on the world.  HOW LONG, LORD, HOW LONG?

I'm under God's care, are you?

    THE MEMORY OF IT ALL
    A Reflection on the life of Frances Ridley Havergal   
    The Author of Many Hymns and Poems
    (1836-1879)
    by Yvonne S. Waite
    August/2006

A NOSTALGIC LOOK AT ASTLEY CHURCH

Today has been a "delicious" day--to use FRANCES HAVERGAL'S terminology.   I have finally had enough time to read every word sent to me by a missionary friend in England concerning Frances Havergal and her beloved ASTLEY PARISH.  That beautiful church still stands in the village of Astley in Worcestershire, England.   It  was the parish in which her father ministered, and where Frances spent her early childhood.  To be truthful, from her youthful description, I was surprised that the building was much larger than I supposed.  I thought it was a smaller chapel.  Frances Havergal spoke so lovingly about this church.  It held many childhood memories for her.  She reminisced about her days there, and knew she would be buried in that cemetery.  I wondered if my friend had seen the parish house where she was born, or had it been destroyed long ago?   Eagerly, I looked at each picture sent to me.  There were pictures of the church, her grave, and that of her parents, as well as views of the quiet surroundings.  I had a feel for the beauty of the area--and the loneliness, too.  I tried to imagine life back in the 1800's when the child Frances walked those paths and climbed those stone-walled fences. 

I was surprised at the "Catholic" historical background of the church. Surprised, too, at the antiquity of the Priory, being connected to the village of Astley for over 900 years.  In 1195, Richard the Lion-Hearted granted the Abbey the royal charter, and in 1289 the church was dedicated.  Also, it seemed as if the buildings and grounds were privately owned for many years.  The church and property seemed to be given to various brave men by past kings in thankfulness for brave acts.  It always amazed me that people lived, breathed, loved, and warred hundreds of years ago, and here we are in 2006--living, breathing, loving, and warring, too.  Some things never change.

It was very interesting that the church building itself had been preserved down through the centuries since 1289. That is the actual date of the dedication of the present church structure, which, by the way, had been changed and renovated several times since Frances Havergal's childhood.  Even though the original building had disappeared through the years with only an arch or so left to view, the remains of those early years when knights walked the grounds, lie underneath the old rectory gardens.  One could  notice, if one were astute, parts of the original Norman nave and chancel.

There seemed to be an interest in the nearby community as well as world-wide concern to preserve the building.  I assume it is because of Frances Havergal's part of its history.  Her words and writings are much loved by millions. Her hymns are sung weekly in churches today.  One cannot help wondering how such a dedicated Bible-believing saint could come out of such a formal, historical church-setting! The longer she lived, the more she loved the Lord Jesus Christ and His Words.  Nothing much in the church's history, that I read today, gave testimony to the early Bible-teaching from its pulpits.  From my past research on her life, I remembered that Frances spoke highly of her Anglican rector-father, Rev. W. H. Havergal, and his sound teaching from the Holy Scriptures.  She mentioned that all rectors did not hold to the faith like her father.  I did not know until this present reading that he was called a "Canon."

Is this parish a working-church today?  There seemed to be a rector listed as late as 2001.  I was also interested that Frances' sister, Marie Vernon Graham Havergal, was buried close by her sister and their parents.  I remember reading of Marie and her devotion and care of her youngest sibling during her final days in Wales. 

I can't help wondering about the DOMESDAY BOOK that is referred to often in Mr. Stephen Ross' history.  It is rather an odd name for a history record.  I didn't know about the Havergal College in Toronto, Canada. I wonder what kind of school it was.  The trustees of the Astley Church must cherish their friendship as they permitted a picture of their college in their church display-case.

A CONCERNED LOOK AT FRANCES HAVERGAL

I was happy to have in my hands the writings by Stephen Ross on Frances Ridley Havergal's life (1836-1879).  She composed hymns such as Who Is On the Lord's Side, Like a River Glorious, and Take My Life and Let It Be.  I have copies of her sister Marie's biography of her.  When I was researching Frances' life, a few years ago, for my PORTRAIT OF FRANCES HAVERGAL's presentation, I read anything and everything about her life that I could find.  There is very little written about her.  So it was good to read the Ross review and learn new facts about her short life of forty-two years.  In my research, I could never discover what illness she suffered as a child, nor the sicknesses that plagued her life most of her years.  I assumed it was some kind of mental or emotional illness--because the exact ailment was never mentioned, except that she often had "fevers."  It was mysterious.  Because of sickness, Frances could not go to a formal school for any length of time.  She was "home-schooled"--and that very well, indeed.  The only-named illness I knew of, from my research, was the bout with typhoid fever she experienced a year or so before her death.  It was a disease from which she never fully recovered. 

I was interested to learn she had a serious attack of erysipelas when she was fourteen.  That was the year she had to leave Mrs. Teed's boarding school, The following year, at fifteen, she received Jesus Christ as her Saviour.  Erysipelas is defined as:  "an acute infectious disease of the skin or mucous membranes caused by a streptococcus and characterized by local inflammation and fever."  Personally, I never heard of it.  So my husband looked it up for me to see what the definition was.  Then I looked for it in our Mayo Clinic Health Book.  It was there.   In 1874, Frances caught a fever after an enjoyable Switzerland vacation. The diagnosis was typhoid fever, the disease I had read about in my research several years ago.

I didn't know about Frances' last homecoming on May 21, 1879.  It is very sad.  Being extremely tired after church, she did not walk home, but rode a donkey.  Young boys, eager to hear all she had to say to them about her King, the Lord Jesus Christ, followed her, learning as they walked.  Frances was always teaching--even in her distresses.  Little did anyone know that soon she would die of hepatitis. 

Personally, I was touched as I read of the agony of peritonitis which rapidly overtook her body.  It was written that she was not afraid to die.  She was eager to see Jesus face-to-face.  She said, It was "so beautiful to go."  When others grieved because of her intense pain, she whispered, "It's HOME the faster!"  I was very moved by Frances Havergal's last words and moments.  Her pain was overwhelming; yet, she praised the Lord Jesus and eagerly left this earthly place for her Heavenly Home.  What an example-Christian! 

I was so thankful for all the time my friend took to send me this Havergal information--all the pictures, the words, and their care for me.  I wish I could have been there to see it all in person.  It must have been moving, standing by her grave side.  I remembered when I stood by Fanny Crosby's tombstone, I welled up with great emotion, for I had studied and portrayed her also.  I remembered when I stood by my sister's grave, after an absence of more than thirty years, how I burst into unexpected tears.  The emotions of her young death at twenty welled up within my soul and poured out in surprising, grieving tears!

Dear friend, as the memory of that visit to Astley parish fills our minds, may God deeply enrich our lives.  May He enable us to communicate the Lord Jesus Christ in a fuller, deeper way because of Frances Havergal's life.   I suppose she had no idea the impact that her Christian testimony would have upon others through the ages.  We never really know how and when we influence others, do we?

I end this report with the closing words of our poetess.  She whispered, "God's will is delicious; He makes no mistakes."   As born-again Christians, we must believe this, for it is true.

If you want to find out more about Frances Havergal, you can get the following:
BFT #1417-T @ 10/$1.50 + S&H "A Portrait of Frances Havergal" (A 6-page tract)
BFT #1417VHS @ $15.00 + $5.00 S&H "A Portrait of Frances Havergal" with Y. S. Waite
BFT #1417TP @ $4.00 + $1.00 S&H A cassette on the "Portrait of Frances Havergal."
The Need for TRUTH About the New Testament Greek Manuscript Variations

In view of the ten grossly erroneous statements on the subject of New Testament Greek Manuscript Differences (on the back of this page), I appeal to you to help our Bible For Today ministry to re-print Dr. Jack Moorman's book entitled: "8,000 Differences Between the Textus Receptus and the Nestle-Aland NT Greek Texts."  It is 536 pages in all.

If these Fundamentalist brethren are wrong on this very important question, how many other major points can they be wrong in this battle for our Bible?  With this book available as a hardback book, it could be put into the hands of hundreds of those who now have fallen in line with those favoring the Greek Critical Text.

Can you help us?  The printing will cost about $9,000.00 for 2,000 copies.  All gifts to the Bible For Today are tax deducible and you will be given a receipt for your gift.  Pray about this and then give as the Lord might lead you.  Pray that others might give also.  Thank you for your prayerful assistance to this important project.  You can make an ON LINE DONATION at www.BibleForToday.org marked "8,000."

Sincerely yours for God's Words,


DAW/w                    Pastor D. A. Waite, Th.D., Ph.D.

NAME:___________________________________ADDRESS:______________________________________

CITY:___________________________________STATE:__________________ZIP:____________________

PHONE:________________________E-MAIL:_________________________________________________

CREDIT CARD #:__________________________________________EXPIRATION DATE:____________

I am enclosing a GIFT of: [   ] $9,000.00; of [  ] $5,000.00; of [  ] $2,000.00; of [  ] of $1,000.00; of [  ] $500.00;
a GIFT of [  ] $400.00; of [  ] $300.00; of [  ] $200.00; of [  ] $100.00; of [  ] $50.00; of [  ] $25.00; of [  ] $10.00     Greek New Testament Variants
    According to Three Current books
    By Fundamentalist Leaders

        1. QUOTES FROM
    Bible Preservation and the Providence of God
    By Bob Jones University's
    Chairman of the Ancient Languages Department,
    Dr. Samuel Schnaiter, et al.
    1.    page 31: [Quoting with approval]: "Warfield goes on to point out that the text of Scripture is substantially unaffected by the variations."
    2.    page 105: "Recall that there is only a small proportion of passages where manuscripts substantially disagree."
    3.    page 120:   "The variants have minimal importance to preservation because they are comparatively few, . . ."
    4.    page 247: "In spite of all the uproar, our first five chapters stressed that these differences affect very few passages, . . ."
    5.    page 250: "Greek manuscripts are not the main cause of differences among translations, and even language development accounts for only a few dozen differences."

        2. QUOTES FROM
    God's Word in Our Hands--The Bible Preserved For Us
    Edited, written, and endorsed by many of Bob Jones University's
    Board members, Graduates, Teachers, and Friends
    6.    page 152:  Mincy wrote:  "The happy conclusion for the one who takes the time to examine them is that there is very little difference between these texts [the Alexandrian, Byzantine, and Received Texts]."
    7.    page 212:  Quoting Dan Wallace with approval, Davey wrote:  "These differences are weighed against one another, ‘these differences are so minor that they neither show up in translation or affect exegesis.'"
    8.    page 294: Bernard wrote:  "Nothing of the autographs is lost.  Everything is preserved among the copies.  What differences there may be among the copies are minimal and solvable."

        3. QUOTES FROM
    From the Mind of God to the Mind of Man
    Edited, written, and endorsed by many of Bob Jones University's
    Board members, Graduates, Teachers, and Friends
    9.    page 85:  [Minnick quoted with approval]:  "Westcott and Hort themselves believed that there is actually very little difference between the two major families of manuscripts.
    10.   page 85:  [Minnick quoted with approval]:  "Hort's estimate means that if all of the substantial variation between the families was grouped together in one place it would combine to occupy less than one page of my entire Testament."