The average person in the world today, without faith and without God and without hope, is engaged in a desperate personal search throughout his lifetime. He does not really know where he has been. He does not really know what he is doing here and now. He does not know where he is going. The sad commentary is that he is doing it all on borrowed time and borrowed money and borrowed strength; and he already knows that in the end he will surely die! Man, made more like God than any other creature, has become less like God than any other creature. Created to reflect the glory of God, he has retreated sullenly into his cave; reflecting only his own sinfulness. Certainly it is a tragedy above all tragedies in this world that man, made with a soul to worship and praise and sing to God's glory, now sulks silently in his cave.
A.W. Tozer

Curtis Hutson And The Time Mach

Curtis Hutson And The Time Mach

Curtis Hutson And the Time Machine

All this talk about “only the original autographs were inspired,” and “we try to get as near to the originals as possible in our translations,” and “no translation is inspired,” and so on, etc . . . can be solved simply.

Let’s make a time machine, and send someone back to when Moses first wrote his “original manuscript.” We will arrive before Moses wrote, hang around him and after he finishes the autographs, simply take them (seal them), and bring them back to the present through the time machine.

But wait! After that is done, is there any way possible that we can prove they are the “originals of Moses.” All right, let’s say a cameraman went also in the time machine and recorded the event, and everyone believes the film.

But wait! Now we have the “originals”, meaning since the Bible is still here with no books missing, Moses must have rewritten his missing autographs (double inspiration?). Or if his books were missing from the Bible, then we have done the world a great disservice by keeping those books from the Bible. We have the “originals,” but what good does it do us, since they are not in the Bible anymore, therefore, they cannot be said to be “inspired.”

If the books are not missing, then which are inspired? The first autographs written or the second set that Moses rewrote? Would both be inspired or only the first, since “inspiration is only for the originals”?

But wait! Moses spoke to Pharaoh in Egyptian in Exodus, and the “original” we have is in Hebrew. Should we have tried for Egyptian manuscripts written by Moses? Did he ever write what he said in Egyptian?

Wait again! What about the “originals” written by the prophets and read to the people? Did the people hear and read the actual original? Are we to believe that once the “original” was written, that it was taken, say, from Antioch, to other towns, then brought back to be taken to other towns? That is, since only the “original” is inspired, if the people read and heard any copies, the “inspiration” is void? If copies were not made to be taken out of Antioch, how is the word of God to be taught to “all nations”? Should “all nations” be forced to come to Antioch in order to hear the word that is inspired “only in the originals”? And once those “originals” are worn out, is “inspiration” ceased?

Did Jesus say “All power is given me in heaven and in earth,” or did He really mean “just in the Antioch area”? And would we be disobeying the command of Jesus by keeping the “originals” in only Antioch, when He said “Go Ye therefore” (with the scriptures)? Did He say “take the originals with you”, or did he say “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you,” that is by words (speaking)?

And since copies “are not inspired,” what in the world was wrong with Jesus when He said, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears,” since He had a “copy” that “was not inspired”? I mean, if we could be there with our time machine, and record every word that Jesus spoke, and since He quoted the Hebrew Old Testament, and since that was copies of copies, and we know “copies are not inspired,” then those words could not mean anything, and Jesus was wrong in calling those “copies” scripture. Now the problem is that since God CANNOT lie, and since Jesus is “God manifest in the flesh,” is He a liar or just deceived?

Perhaps we have been going about this all wrong. Maybe what we need are actual words spoken by Moses (and other writers of the Bible). Doesn’t the Bible say, “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”

That’s it! The “words” were inspired as “holy men of God SPOKE as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” All we need do to have the “originals” is to record the actual words of the prophets. Back into the time machine. Back to hang around Moses with a tape recorder and record every word he says.

So we return with hours of tape, the “originals”!! And we sit down with everyone to listen to them. But wait! No one listening knows Hebrew. Hurry, call in a Hebrew scholar and he can translate for us. But wait! If he translates the Hebrew from Moses into English for us, isn’t that a “translation”? Isn’t the “inspiration” from Hebrew into English lost now? All right, let’s do this. Train everyone in the world for the Hebrew language. Can’t be done? Sure it could, only while the world is learning Hebrew, and only about one percent of the world speaks Hebrew so it would take awhile, millions are still dying without hearing the “original inspiration” from Moses. Is that fair? I mean, don’t we need the “originals” in order to understand the truth of the Bible? And if anyone translates the Hebrew for us from the tapes, isn’t the “inspiration” void? So, we are back where we started.

But wait! Since the “inspiration” is only by “holy men of God” who SPEAK, that means only the “original words” are inspired, but we have a RECORDING (a copy) of those words. Therefore, the “inspiration” is again lost because a “scholar” has told us that “no copies can be inspired”. What to do?

Simple. Build a larger time machine to ship all the people in the world back to the time the prophets “spoke,” so they could listen to them. But wait! The whole world does not know Hebrew, nor Egyptian. What to do?

Simple. Take the time back to Moses and train him in the English language, so that when he SPEAKS, it will be in our language. But Pharaoh can’t understand English . . . and all his people. . . and all the Hebrew people. Now, when they SPEAK, they will say it in English, and we will hear those words by “inspiration” in our language . . . and when they write it down, we will have those words (although those words are not “inspired” since they are “copies” of what really was SPOKEN). This would also do away with the Hebrew Old Testament, now we will have the English Old Testament, which would not be inspired, but we will have it.

It seems then that the only way for us to have the “original inspired words” is to be there when those words are spoken. Since we cannot be there (until the time machine comes along), it looks like we are lost since we can’t know what God really said, they will say it in English, and we since we only have copies, since translations are not inspired, etc. But wait! There is another way. That is for us to believe (by faith) that God can and will preserve for us (in our language) the words (plural) that are available in the King James Bible (without proven error), and these words from God are infallible. Any other way (a time machine, the searching for the originals that have turned to dust by now), is a waste of time, and really is, in effect, denying what God has already said in His “Holy Scriptures”, which are the WORDS THAT WE READ. The term “scripture” is not a reference to original autographs, but to what we can read (copies) in Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:24, Luke 4:21, Acts 8:32,35; 17:11, Rom. 15:4, and 2 Tim. 3:14-17.