Pastor's Bookshelf

Personal Library
of
Pastor Del Wray

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"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge,
I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God,
I will also forget thy children." (Hos 4:6)

Life on the Highest Plane

"Called Unto Holiness"

"Rivers of Living Water"

Read all three Online by Ruth Paxson

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BOOKS BY ANDREW MURRAY

Here we are at the end of this age. Most of the leaders of Christendom are proclaiming that Christendom's best days are just ahead of us. In contrast, we have the testimony of Jesus Christ and all of His Apostles that the last days would be characterized by The Great And Final Apostasy Of Christendom.

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THE END IS HERE! . . . . .THE CHOICES ARE CLEAR!
Click for Chapter I:

BOOK: THE GREAT DREAM
The Great And Final Apostasy Of Christendom, described.

"Soul and Spirit" By Jessie Penn-Lewis

"War on the Saints" By Jessie Penn-Lewis

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FOXE’S BOOK OF MARTYRS
by John Foxe

John Foxe’s classic, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, is an inspiring legacy of the Church’s witness and testimony. It is “the testimony of Jesus” wherein John the Apostle “saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held . . . and they cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’ Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed”(Revelation 6:9-10); therefore, it records the blood of the martyrs of Jesus and speaks to the present and ultimately, to that future day of tribulation and glory!

The English word “martyr” comes from the Greek root marturia which is translated “testimony” throughout the book of Revelation, as well as in other Scripture. John 19:35has an altogether intensified connotation: “And he (John) who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe.”

Foxe’s vivid accounting will astound and challenge every ardent Christian to persevere in testing and tribulation, because “the love of Christ” has constrained them to make that ultimate sacrifice for Him Who gave His all for them. “Ye are my witnesses” – yes, MARTYRS! That’s the testimony of the Church throughout the ages and it is altogether true today, not just up to the early 1800s of Foxe’s history. You will never forget the passion and message of this text—and neither shall He Who “having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar . . . He was given MUCH INCENSE, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne . . . and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand” (Revelation 8:3-4).

The Coming Prince
by Sir Robert Anderson.

by Doug Krieger

                                                             Intruduction:

The work of Sir Robert Anderson represents the high water mark of Nineteenth Century eschatology. His exegesis and commitment to copious detail, is unique and refreshing. Although written in the "elaborate style" of most Nineteenth Century writers, its prophetical intensity more than compensates, as it maintains the interest of the reader.

Sir Anderson's life (1841- 1918) encompassed the Victorian Era and the great eschatological awareness sweeping the English-speaking world. A time of empire, colonialism and Biblical discovery concerning the rise of that final end-times' "Revived Roman Empire" and of THE COMING PRINCE, the Antichrist. For it will be this prince who shall be that vile manifestation and ultimate Abomination of Desolation spoken of by Jesus, who shall, as the YOUNGER HORN, be the persecutor of both Jew and "Tribulation Saint." Daniel's revelation of the "Messiah the Prince" is in counter distinction to "The Coming Prince" - - FOR ONE IS THE CHRIST, AND THE LATTER IS THE ANTICHRIST!

Daniel's passages are elaborately detailed; especially, the SEVENTY WEEKS, and the incredible details of the actual DECREE TO REBUILD THE CITY OF JERUSALEM under Artaxerxes until Messiah's triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. The chronological precision is astounding and puts to shame the faulty calculations from "Haley's Bible Handbook" and other historical interpreters of eschatology. They who deny the final Seventieth Week is yet to come, simply REFUSE to configure the pristine detail that this former Chief of Scotland Yard has determined.

Indeed, Sir Anderson, knighted by Queen Victoria for his professionalism in intelligence gathering and discovery (i.e., perhaps the "original" CSI-Crime Scene Investigator), "investigates" the Scripture and defends against the higher criticism of his day with such passion, that if a trial were held, I can assure you, Sir Anderson would win the case hands down! Could it possibly be that Sir Anderson IS the fictional character of Sherlock Holms? Some have so speculated.

But one thing is for certain: There is no fictional character to come . . . Sir Anderson makes his case for that final Roman Prince whose original legions "destroyed the city and the sanctuary" in 70 A.D. but who will this time IN PERSON come to establish a PEACE TREATY or DEFENSE PACT (not THE Covenant as some ill-informed so contrive) with Israel in the latter days, so commencing the infamous final 70th Week of Daniel. Further, as Anderson's investigation continues, this "Coming Prince" shall suspend his "agreement with the many" in "the midst of the week" and so shall the final 3 1/2 years of the GREAT TRIBULATION ensue.

You'll marvel at Sir Anderson's tone regarding a future rebirth of prophetical Israel. Friend, here is the very essence of British eschatological anticipation of THE REGATHERING OF THE EXILES to their ancient homeland . . . the precursor to the Second Coming, couched in terminology so anticipatory of May, 1948 (Israel’s Nationhood) that it sweeps your breath away and causes you to stand before your Messiah, fully assured, that He

Who keeps covenant, shall utterly keep all those committed to His eternal trust!

Persistence, my lad . . . that's what's needed as you journey with this "Prophetical Sherlock" while he pursues the truth, gathers his evidence and, at last, amasses an ironclad case and ultimate conviction. Read it like a novel and you will treasure Sir Anderson's insights the rest of your life- - all skeptics to the back of the room, please!  Today, the skeptics and scoffers proliferate, but, Alas!, the Almighty has His "Andersons" even in high places to confirm what is truth in the midst of apostasy and rampant lies on every side. May the Lord stir His people in this final hour prior to the greatest CSI ever! Let all those who distain the specificity of such Biblical investigation be put to shame for their superficial handling of the Word of God! Now . . . go to . . . "let God be true but every man a liar!" (Romans 3:4)

Special Revelation

As I have noted, God has revealed Himself through nature, but through nature we cannot know how to be reconciled to God. God had to speak in a special way to tell us how we may be redeemed. "Special revelation is redemptive revelation," says Carl Henry. "It publishes the good tidings that the holy and merciful God promises salvation as a divine gift to man who cannot save himself (OT) and that he has now fulfilled that promise in the gift of his Son in whom all men are called to believe (NT). The gospel is news that the incarnate Logos has borne the sins of doomed men, has died in their stead, and has risen for their justification. This is the fixed center of special redemptive revelation."

Personal

What is the nature of special revelation? First we should note that it is the communication of one Person to other persons. It isn't simply a series of propositions setting forth a theological system. This is why special revelation finds its culmination in Jesus, for in Him we are confronted with the Person of God. We'll talk more about this later.

Verbal and Propositional

It has been the understanding of the church historically that God has spoken verbally to His creatures. Words have been exchanged; rational ideas have been put forward in understandable sentences. Not all revelation is easy to understand, of course. Meaning is sometimes shrouded in mystery. But important truths are made clear.

That God would reveal Himself through verbal revelation isn't surprising. First, He is a Person, and persons communicate with other persons with a desire to extend and receive information. Second, His clear desire is to make friends with us. He wants to restore us to a proper relationship with Him. It's hard to imagine a friendship between two people who don't communicate clearly with one another.

Implicit in this understanding of revelation is the belief that it contains propositional truths; that is, statements that are informative and have truth value.

This isn't to say the Bible is only propositions. Douglas Groothuis notes that it also contains questions, imperatives, requests, and exclamations. However, in the words of Carl Henry: "Regardless of the parables, allegories, emotive phrases and rhetorical questions used by these [biblical] writers, their literary devices have a logical point which can be propositionally formulated and is objectively true or false."{9} So when Jeremiah says that God "has made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm!" (Jere. 32:17), we know that the image of God's "arm" speaks of His power active in His creation. The truth "God acts with power in His creation" is behind the imagery.

Modern ideas

In recent centuries, however, as confidence in man's reason overshadowed confidence in God's ability to communicate, the understanding of revelation has undergone change. Some hold that revelation is to be understood in terms of personal encounter, of God encountering people so as to leave them with a "liberating assurance. . . .This assurance -- 'openness to the future', Bultmann called it -- was equated with faith."{10} Such an encounter can come as a result of reading Scripture, but Scripture itself isn't the verbal revelation of God. Even in evangelical churches where the Bible is preached as God's Word written, people sometimes put more faith in their "relationship" with God than in what God has said. "Don't worry me with doctrine," is the attitude. "I just want to have a relationship with Jesus." It's fine to have a relationship with Jesus. But try to imagine a relationship between two people here on earth in which no information is exchanged.

Those who hold this view draw a line between the personal and the propositional as if they cannot mix. In his evaluation, J.I. Packer says that this is an absurd idea.

"Revelation is certainly more than the giving of theological information, but it is not and cannot be less. Personal friendship between God and man grows just as human friendships do -- namely, through talking; and talking means making informative statements, and informative statements are propositions. . . . To say that revelation is non-propositional is actually to depersonalize it. . . . To maintain that we may know God without God actually speaking to us in words is really to deny that God is personal, or at any rate that knowing Him is a truly personal relationship."Another idea about the Bible in particular which has become commonplace in liberal theology is that the Bible is the product of the inspired ideas of men (a "quickening of conscience"{12}) rather than truths inspired by God. If this were the case, however, one might expect the Bible to give hints that it is just the religious reflections of men. But the witness of Scripture throughout is that it is the message of God from God. Here we don't see men simply reflecting on life and the world and drawing conclusions about God. Rather, we're confronted by a God who steps into people's lives, speaking words of instruction or promise or condemnation.

Modes of Special Revelation

Special revelation has taken different forms: the spoken Word, the written Word, and the Word made flesh.

Spoken Word

In the Garden of Eden, God spoke to Adam directly.(Gen. 3:8) He spoke to Abraham(Gen. 12:1-3), to Moses (Ex. 3:4), and to many prophets of the nation of Israel following that. Amos said that God did nothing "without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets. . . . The Lord has spoken," he said. "Who can but prophesy?" (Ex. 3:7-8) Prophets were primarily forth-tellers, relaying God's Word to those for whom it was intended.{13}

Written word

God also had His prophets write down what He said. The writings of Moses were kept in the Tabernacle (Dt. 31:24-26), read in the hearing of the Israelites (Dt. 31:11), and kept as references by future kings of Israel(Dt. 17:18). They are quoted throughout the OT(Josh. 1:7; 1 Kings 2:3; Mal.4:4). Joshua put his teachings of God's ordinances with "the book of the law of God" (Josh. 24:26), and Samuel did the same (1 Sam. 10:25). The writer of Chronicles spoke of those earlier writings (1 Chron. 29:29), and later, Daniel referred to these books (Dan. 9:2; Dan. 9:6; Dan. 9:11). Solomon's proverbs and songs are mentioned in 1 Kings 4:32. The writing of the New Testament took a much shorter time than the Old Testament, so we don't see generations down the line referring back to the writings of their fathers. But we do see Peter speaking of the writings of Paul (2 Pet. 3:15-16), and Paul referring (it appears) to Luke's writings in 1 Tim. 5:18.

Word made flesh

So God has spoken, and His words have been written down. The third mode is the Word made flesh. The writer of Hebrews says that, "In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son . . . ." (1:1-2a) All God's will wasn't given at once; it came in portions at various times. J.I. Packer says, "Then, in New Testament times, just as all roads were said to lead to Rome, so all the diverse and seemingly divergent strands of Old Testament revelation were found to lead to Jesus Christ."{14}

Jesus has been the mediator of revelation since the beginning. "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. (Matt. 11:27) Peter says it was the Spirit of Christ who spoke through the Old Testament prophets.
(1 Pet. 1:11) But these were God's words given through men. In the Incarnation we received the fullest expression of His word directly. Jesus was and is the Word made flesh. (John 1:1 thru John 1:14)

Jesus is the supreme revelation because He is one with the Father: He is God speaking. He spoke the words the Father taught Him. (John 12:49; John 14:10), and He summed up his ministry with the phrase "I have given them your word."(John 17:14) Abraham Kuyper summed it up beautifully: "Christ does not argue, hedeclares; he does not demonstrate, he shows and illustrates; he does not analyze, but with enrapturing symbolism unveils the truth."{15}

But Jesus doesn't reveal God just in His words but also in His person -- in His character and the way He lived. Says the late Bernard Ramm: "The attitudes, action, and dispositions of Christ so mirrored the divine nature that to have seen such in Christ is to have seen the reflection of the divine nature." He continues:

Christ's attitudes mirror the Father's attitudes; Christ's affections mirror the Father's affections; Christ's love mirrors the Father's love. Christ's impatience with unbelief is the divine impatience with unbelief. Christ's wrath upon hypocrisy is the divine wrath upon hypocrisy. Christ's tears over Jerusalem is the divine compassion over Jerusalem. Christ's judgment upon Jerusalem or upon the Pharisees is the divine judgment upon such hardness of heart and spiritual wickedness.{16}

As the Son spoke the Word of the Father so clearly because He knows perfectly the mind of the Father, so He also reflected the character of the Father being of the same nature.

In Christ, also, we see revelation as event. He carried out the will of the Father, thus revealing things about the Father. The cross not only accomplished our redemption; it also demonstrated the love of God. Jesus revealed God's glory in changing the water to wine in Cana (John 2:11) and in His resurrection
(Rom. 6:4).

The total redeeming work of Christ, therefore, revealed the Father in word, in character, and in deed.

The history of the Church may be correlated to Revelation 2-3 as follows:

1- Ephesus (Rev. 2:1-7):
the Loveless Church of the late Apostolic Age (to 100 AD),
i.e., "Thou hast left thy First Love" Rev. 2:4

2- Smyrna (Rev. 2:8-11):
the Suffering Church of the period of persecution (100-300 AD),
i.e., "Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer" Rev. 2:10

3- Pergamos (Rev. 2:12-15 & thru Rev. 2:16-17):
the Compromising Church (300-500 AD) that led to the Dark Age,
i.e., "Thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam [diffusing the power of the godly by alliances with darkness]"
Rev. 2:14

4- Thyatira (Rev. 2:18-21 thru Rev. 2:29):
the Worldly Church of the Dark Age (500-1500 AD),
i.e., "Thou sufferest that woman Jezebel [the harlotry of Rome]" Rev. 2:20

5- Sardis (Rev. 3:1-4 & Rev. 3:5-6):
the Barely Alive Church of the Reformation (1500-1700 AD),
i.e., "Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die" Rev. 3:1-2

6- Philadelphia (Rev. 3:7-10 and Rev. 3:11-13):
the Missionary Church of the late Church Age (1700-1900 AD),
i.e., "I have set before thee an Open Door, and no man can shut it" Rev. 3:8

7- Laodicea (Rev. 3:14-17 and Rev. 3:18-21):
the Lukewarm Church of the present apostasy (1900 AD to the present),
i.e., "Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth" Rev. 3:16

Index of Books

Runaway World by Michael Green
Jesus Rediscovered by Malcolm Muggeridge
Reality by Burnett Hillman Streeter
The New Testament Documents Are They Reliable? by FF Bruce
The Story of the Bible by Sir Frederic Kenyon

The Christian's Secret to a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith
How to Master The Bible by Rev. Martin Anstey
Ever Increasing Faith by Smith Wigglesworth
The New Life by Andrew Murray
With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew MurrayThe Prayer Life by Andrew Murray
The Secret of Guidance by F.B.MeyerThe Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer
Man - The Dwelling Place of God by A. W. Tozer
The Life of Prayer by A. B. Simpson
The Necessity of Prayer by E.M.Bounds
The Essentials of Prayer by E.M.Bounds
The Possibilities of Prayer by E.M.Bounds
Smoke on the Mountain by Joy Davidman
Dawn of World Redemption by Eric Sauer
In the Arena of Faith by Eric Sauer
The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton
The Incarnation of the Word of God by St. Athanasius
A Plain Account of Christian Perfection by John Wesley
Christ Manifested by John Fletcher

Which is the Real Word of God?

Dr. Samuel C. Gipp Th.D Answers Over 60 Questions about the Authorized Version

Are you ready?Jesus is

JESUS CHRIST is ALMOST here. HE is even at the door.
Jesus said, "If a man love Me, he will keep My Words"
(John 14:23).

Love Him with all your heart, mind, and soul.
"The end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober,
and watch unto prayer" (1 Peter 4:7).

"Let the Heavens rejoice, and let the Earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof... FOR HE COMETH, FOR HE COMETH TO JUDGE THE EARTH: He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with His Truth" (Psalm 96:11,13).

Read or Listen to these books in their entirety Online:

FINAL AUTHORITY:
A Christian's Guide to the King James Bible By William P. Grady.
RIPPED OUT OF THE BIBLE
By Dr. Floyd Jones..
KJV 1611: PERFECT!
A CONVICTION, NOT A PREFERENCE
By Dr. Roy Branson, Jr.
WHICH TRANSLATION SHOULD YOU TRUST?
A Defense Of The Authorized King James Version Of 1611
by Timothy S. Morton.
"THE ANSWER BOOK"
By Dr. Samuel C. Gipp, Th. D.
"AN UNDERSTANDABLE HISTORY OF THE BIBLE"
By Dr. Samuel C. Gipp, Th. D.
The N.I.V. Infection
By Dewey W. Williams