First published: 1946

MEIHEM IN CE KLASRUM by Dolton Edwards

BECAUSE WE ARE STILL BEARING SOME OF THE SCARS OF OUR BRIEF SKIRMISH with II-B English, it is natural that we should be enchanted by Mr. George Bernard Shaw's current campaign for a simplified alphabet.

Obviously, as Mr. Shaw points out, English spelling is in much need of a general overhauling and streamlining. However, our own resistance to any changes requiring a large expenditure of mental effort in the near future would cause us to view with some apprehension the possibility of some day receiving a morning paper printed in-to us-Greek.

Our own plan would achieve the same end as the legislation proposed by Mr. Shaw, but in a less shocking manner, as it consists merely of an acceleration of the normal processes by which the language is continually modernized.

As a catalytic agent, we would suggest that a National Easy Language Week be proclaimed, which the President would inaugurate, outlining some short cut to concentrate on during the week, and to be adopted during the ensuing year. All school children would be given a holiday, the lost time being the equivalent of that gained by the spelling short cut.

In 1946, for example, we would urge the elimination of the soft c, for which we would substitute "s." Sertainly, such an improvement would be selebrated in all sivic-minded sircles as being suffisiently worth the trouble, and students in all sities in the land would be reseptive toward any change eliminating the nesessity of learning the differense between the two letters.

In 1947, sinse only the hard "c" would be left, it would be possible to substitute "k" for it, both letters being pronounsed identikally. Imagine how greatly only two years of this prosess would klarify the konfusion in the minds of students. Already we would have eliminated an entire letter from the alphabet. Typewriters and linotypes kould all be built with one less letter, and a11 the manpower and materials previously devoted to making "c's" kould be turned toward raising the national standard of living.

In the fase of so many notable improvements, it is easy to foresee that by 1948, "National Easy Language Week" would be a pronounsed sukses. All skhool tshildren would be looking forward with konsiderable exsitement to the holiday, and in a blaze of national publisity it would be announsed that the double konsonant "ph" no longer existed, and that the sound would henseforth be written "f" in all words, This would make sutsh words as "fonograf" twenty persent shorter in print.

By 1949, public interest in a fonetik alfabet kan be expekted to have inkreased to the point where a more radikal step forward kan be taken without fear of undue kritisism. We would therefore urge the elimination, at that time, of al unesesary double leters, whitsh, although quite harmles, have always ben a nuisanse in the language and a desided deterent to akurate speling. Try it yourself in the next leter you write, and se if both writing and reading are not fasilitated.

With so mutsh progres already made, it might be posible in 1950 to delve further into the posibilities of fonetik speling. After due konsideration of the reseption aforded the previous steps, it should be expedient by this time to spel al difthongs fonetikaly. Most students do not realize that the long "i" and "y," as in "time" and "by," are aktualy the difthong "ai," as it is writen in "aisle" and that the long "a" in "fate," is in reality the difthong "ei" as in "rein." Although perhaps not imediately aparent, the saving in taime and efort wil be tremendous when we leiter elimineite the sailent "e," as meide posible bai this last tsheinge.

For, as is wel known, the horible mes of "e's' apearing in our writen language is kaused prinsipaly bai the present nesesity of indikeiting whether a vowel is long or short. Therefore, in 1951 we kould simply elimineit al sailent "e's," and kontinu to read and wrait merily along as though we wer in an atomik ag of edukation.

In 1951 we would urg a greit step forward. Sins bai this taim it would have ben four years sins anywun had usd the leter "c," we would sugest that the "National Easy Languag Wek" for 1951 be devoted to substitution of "c" for "Th." To be sur it would be som taim befor peopl would bekom akustomd to reading ceir newspapers and buks wic sutsh sentenses in cem as "Ceodor caught he had cre cousand cistls crust crough ce cik of his cumb."

In ce seim maner, bai meiking eatsh leter hav its own sound and cat sound only, we kould shorten ce language stil mor. In 1952 we would elimineit ce "y"; cen in 1953 we kould us ce leter to indikeit ce "sh" sound, cerbai klarifaiing words laik yugar and yur, as wel as redusing bai wun mor leter al words laik "yut," "yore" and so forc. Cink, cen, of al ce benefits to be geind bai ce distinktion whitsh wil cen be meid between words laik:

ocean    now writen     oyean
machine   "    "        mayin
racial    "    "        reiyial

Al sutsh divers weis of wraiting wun sound would no longer exist. and whenever wun kaim akros a "y" sound he would know exaktli what to wrait.

Kontinuing cis proses, year after year, we would eventuali hav a reali sensibl writen langug. By 1975, wi ventyur tu sei, cer wud bi no mor uv ces teribli trublsum difikultis, wic no tu leters usd to indikeit ce seim nois, and laikwais no tu noises riten wic ce seim leter. Even Mr. Yaw, wi beliv, wud be hapi in ce noleg cat his drims fainili keim tru.

"Fayth is a sure confidence of thynges which are hoped for and a certayntie of thynges which are not sene."

- Hebrews 11:1 (Tyndale translation)

Recap

There were some peripheral things that we discussed last week:

• church historians Eusebius and Origen
• R. C. Sproul and his wife, Vesta
• the terms exegesis, hermeneutics, homiletics, and theology

But the core of our lesson last week was about faith; we examined its biblical definition (Heb 1:1):

Faith is the reality of what we hope for, the proof of what we don't see. - Hebrews 11:1, Common English Bible

By contrast, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines faith as: firm belief in something for which there is no proof. Let's read that secular dictionary definition of 'faith' once more, with emphasis on the last two words.

The following Bible translations speak of 'faith' as equivalent with 'proof':

• Common English Bible
• Holman Christian Standard Bible
• Hebrew Names Version
• Lexham English Bible
• World English Bible

---

Lesson Intro for 10/9/2022

What we're going to learn by studying the life of Abram is that our knowledge of God should lead us to obedient, trusting, forward-looking faith, even when we do not see all of the details.

Let's take a quick trip through Scripture and identify the hallmarks of faith -- those tell-tale signs that indicate that real faith is present:

• the only means of salvation (Eph. 2:8)
• our only way to please God (Heb. 1:6)
• essential if we are not to fall away from God (Heb 3:12)
• Jesus is the object of that saving faith (Rom. 3:22)
• faith shows itself through works (Jam. 2:14)
• produces peace (Psa. 42:11)
• activates God's power in our lives (Matt. 17:20)

Clearly, faith must permeate every area of our lives as Christians, and we'll gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of faith as we study the lives of Abraham and those of his descendants.

---

Way back around 2000 BC God called a man named Abram to leave his home and journey to the promised land. If he obeyed God he would be blessed, his descendants would outnumber the sand on the seashore and the stars in the sky. God also intimated that one of those descendants would be the Savior of the world.

Would someone read Genesis 11: 27-32?

27 This is the account of Terah’s family line. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. 28 While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth. 29 Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milkah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milkah and Iskah. 30 Now Sarai was childless because she was not able to conceive. 31 Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. 32 Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Harran.

Harran (HAH-run) first appears in the Book of Genesis as the home of Terah (TEH-ruh) and his descendants, and as Abraham's temporary home. Later biblical passages list Harran among some cities and lands subjugated by Assyrian rulers. Haran was a major ancient city in northwest Mesopotamia —a river city on the caravan route between the east and west. In the present day, Harran is a village, in southeastern Turkey.

We know that after the Lord called Abram from Ur of the Chaldees, he settled in Harran for many years (Gen 11:31; Acts 7:2-4). Abram grew prosperous during the time he lived in Harran. When he was 75 years old, the Lord told him to go to the land of Canaan:

Let's take a look on a map and see where Genesis 11 introduces us to Abram:

Mesopotamia was a fertile crescent stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to the northern Persian Gulf. Two mighty rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, flowed southwest, eventually joining together before emptying into the Persian Gulf.

According to tradition, the city of Ur in southern Mesopotamia was named after the man who founded the first settlement there. The city's other biblical link is to the patriarch Abraham who left Ur at God's direction and traveled with his father, Terah, to settle in the land of Canaan. This claim has been contested by some scholars who believe that Abraham's home was further north in Mesopotamia in a place called Ura, near the city of Harran.

One subset of scholars thinks that the writers of the biblical narrative in the Book of Genesis confused the two cities, Ur and Ura. If we hold the Bible to be inerrant, because it is the inspired word of God, then we can and should discount this scholarly criticism.

Would someone read Genesis 12:1-5 for us?

Let me draw your attention to verse 1 in Genesis chapter 12: The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

Notice the phrase 'had said'. If anyone can tell me the name of that verb tense, I'll buy your lunch. [Pause for response] Nobody? It's the Past Perfect tense. The Past Perfect expresses the idea that something occurred before another action in the past.

God had spoken to Abram when Abram was still living in Ur. God’s command is only revisited in Genesis 12:1-3 because it serves as a transitional segue to explain why Abram left Haran and headed out for Canaan.

By the way, if we need any more scriptural evidence that God spoke to Abram in Ur rather than in Haran, we find it in Acts 7:2-4, which says of Stephen appearing before the Sanhedrin Council:

And he said, “Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said to him, ‘Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.’ Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell.” (N.K.J.V., emphasis mine)

Notice that Abram’s partial past obedience did not take God’s promise away. Instead, it meant the fulfillment of the promise was delayed until Abram was ready to do what the LORD told him to do. Who knows how many years Abram dwelled in Haran before his father died at the age of 205?

The Bible doesn’t tell us how long Abram, Sarai, Terah, and Lot lived in the city of Haran. It does, however, provide us with several clues that indicate that the stay was substantial. First, Genesis 11:31 in the K.J.V and the N.K.J.V. says they “dwelt” there, and many other translations use the word “settled” rather than “dwelt.” Second, Genesis 12:5 lets us know that the group lived there long enough to acquire servants. Third, the stay was long enough for Terah, who was healthy enough to make the six-hundred-mile journey from Ur to Haran, to die.

This is a part of Abram’s story that rarely gets mentioned. We’re talking about months, perhaps years, that he spent out of the will of God in Haran. Call it stopping short. Call it partial obedience. Call it something else. But the bottom line is that God wanted Abram in Canaan, and he settled down to a comfortable life in Haran.

In the Biblical account, it is only after we read the words “Terah died in Haran” that we read the words:

Now let's look on the map and see where the cities of Ur and Haran were, in relation to each other:

Haran was some 600 miles northwest of the city of Ur, a very long journey to be made on foot. So, at 75 years old, Abraham is instructed by God, for at least the second time, to travel to "the land I will show you." God didn't even specify the destination. He just told Abraham I will lead you to a new land, and Abraham obeyed God, because he had faith.

Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. (Genesis 12:1-3, KJV)

The way the story reads, Terah’s death was the event that prompted Abram to get back to doing what God had told him to do. The death of his elderly father didn’t require him to chart a new course but instead finish one that he had previously begun.

So, as Abram, Sarai, and their servants uprooted from Haran and headed out for Canaan, were Abram’s days of stopping short finally behind him? No, they weren’t. Remember that Abram had initially allowed two extra people to accompany him when had left Ur. His dad Terah was one of them, and Terah was now dead. But what about Lot, Abram's nephew? Dare I say that Abram now had a second chance to sever ties with him and get more in line with God’s original vision for the journey? All Abram had to do was either leave Lot in Haran or send him back to Ur. As we know, however, he did neither. Genesis 12:5 says:

Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan. (N.K.J.V., emphasis mine)

What's the application to us today? God is still the same in our day and age. He is unchanging. How many of us had delayed the delivery of God's blessings because we delayed, because we tarried? Okie, this takes me back to times you've talked about what a relief it was to finally answer your calling to preach. I'm sure you've seen your blessing multiply many fold since then.

And looking at the last of verse 5 in Genesis 12, we read they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. Isn't that a great example to us as modern day Christians? God asks us to embark on a journey. He doesn't fully stipulate the destination, but when we choose to obey Him in faith, we will always arrive where He wants us to be.

More important than Abram’s faith was God’s promise. Notice how often God says I will in these verses. Genesis chapter 11 is all about the plans of man. Genesis chapter 12 is all about the plans of God.

Look at verse 2:

“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

God promised to make a nation from Abram. He will have children and grandchildren and further descendants, enough to populate a great nation. There is no more honored name in history than the name of Abram, who is honored by Jews, Muslims, and Christians.

This promise – inherited by the covenant descendants of Abram, the Jewish people – remains true today and is a root reason for the decline and death of many empires. Historically speaking, nations that have treated the Jewish people well have often been blessed, and the converse is also true. When the Greeks overran Palestine and desecrated the altar in the Jewish temple, they were soon conquered by Rome. When Rome killed Paul and many others, and destroyed Jerusalem under Titus, Rome soon fell. Spain was reduced to a fifth-rate nation after the Inquisition against the Jews; Poland fell after the pogroms; Hitler’s Germany went down after its orgies of anti-Semitism; Britain lost her empire when she broke her faith with Israel.

Look at the concluding phrase in verse 3:

and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

This amazing promise was fulfilled in the Messiah that came from Abram’s lineage. God’s blessing to Abram was not for his own sake, or even the sake of the Jewish nation to come. It was for the whole world, for all the families of the earth through Jesus Christ.

Galatians 3:8-9 tells us And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.

Revelation 5:9 tells us they sang a new song, saying:

“You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation (Revelation 5:9).

The work of Jesus will touch every people group on the earth, and it all began with God's promise to Abram, who would later be called Abraham. So we're going to be looking at Abraham's dual journeys, one physical, the other a journey of faith, and next Sunday we'll continue with Abraham's journey from Haran to Canaan:

We all know how the story is going to unfold. Abram would certainly become a giant of faith, even being the father of the believing (Galatians 3:7); yet he did not start as a hero of faith. We see Abram as an example of growing in faith and obedience. In addition to embarking on a physical journey, Abram was embarking on a journey of personal growth, which is the evitable result for each of us when we respond, by faith, to God's direction in our lives.

And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the Apostles. - Acts 2:43

Ten Hebrew nouns and eight verbs reference 'fear'. The Greek words 'phobos' and 'phobeo' later stand in for their Hebrew counterparts. 'Phobos' alluded to panicked flight, or the object or cause of fear, or it could allude to reverential respect. 'Phobeo' was 'to terrify'.

In the Septuagint (sep-TWO-uh-jint), these Greek words phobos and phobeo are consistently used to translate those eighteen Hebrew nouns and verbs relating to fear.

When we think about fear, we can imagine a semantic continuum, from mild unease all the way to stark terror. Septuagint derives from the Latin versio septuaginta interpretetum, i.e., translation of the seventy interpreters*.

By around 354 CE, these translated Hebrew scriptures were beginning to be commonly referred to as The Septuaginta. According to legend, 72 Jewish scholars were tasked by Ptolemy II, the Greek pharoah of Egypt, to translate the Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy) from Hebrew to Greek, for inclusion in the Library of Alexandria.

What prompted my interest in the word fear as it is often used in scripture is Acts 2:43: and fear came upon every soul: and many wonders were done by the Apostles. Our Wednesday night Bible study group questioned the precise nature of that fear. Some other translations make it clear that this 'fear' was awed reverence and worshipful respect for the Lord, who was the source of these wonders and signs. The Amplified Bible reads A sense of awe was felt by everyone. The Common English Bible says much the same, and elaborates God performed many wonders and signs through the apostles.

The scriptures frequently make reference to such reverential fear: Ex 14:31; Lk 1:12; Ge 31:42,53; Acts 2:43

All throughout Deuteronomy is the theme of fearful obedience to the Lord as the proper outgrowth of recognizing his sovereignty.

The English clergyman William Durnall famously wrote We fear fear so much because we fear God so little. He authored a length book expounding upon Ephesians 6. It is freely available in PDF, mobi, and epub formats.

So then, the fear of the Lord is the reverential awe and worshipful stance we assume toward the Almighty God. Proverbs 9:10 reads The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

One time many years ago, the king of Hungary found himself depressed and unhappy. He sent for his brother, a good-natured but rather indifferent prince. The king said to him, "I am a great sinner; I fear to meet God." But the prince only laughed at him. This didn't help the king's disposition any. Though he was a believer, the king had gotten a glimpse of his guilt for the way he'd been living lately, and he seriously wanted help. In those days it was customary if the executioner sounded a trumpet before a man's door at any hour, it was a signal that he was to be led to his execution. The king sent the executioner in the dead of night to sound the fateful blast at his brother's door. The prince realized with horror what was happening. Quickly dressing, he stepped to the door and was seized by the executioner, and dragged pale and trembling into the king's presence. In an agony of terror he fell on his knees before his brother and begged to know how he had offended him. "My brother," answered the king, "if the sight of a human executioner is so terrible to you, shall not I, having grievously offended God, fear to be brought before the judgment seat of Christ?"

The term "fear of the Lord" is not a popular one today.

a. Those who do not follow Christ think there is no reason to.

b. Those who do follow Christ don't want to mention it because it might scare someone away.

c. So it is neither politically or religiously correct in our society.

Yet, the Bible talks about it a lot...in fact the phrase is mentioned 73 times in the NLT!

1 Peter 1:17-25 reads 17 Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. 18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 21 Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.[a] 23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For, “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, 25 but the word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the word that was preached to you.

David McCullough in his book MORNINGS ON HORSEBACK tells this story about young Teddy Roosevelt: “Mittie (his mother) had found he was so afraid of the Madison Square Church that he refused to set foot inside if alone. He was terrified, she discovered, of something called the ‘zeal.’ It was crouched in the dark corners of the church ready to jump at him, he said. When she asked what a zeal might be, he said he was not sure, but thought it was probably a large animal like an alligator or a dragon. He had heard the minister read about if from the Bible. Using a concordance, she read him those passages containing the word ZEAL until suddenly, very excited, he told her to stop. The line was from the Book of John, 2:17: “And his disciples remembered that it was written, ‘The ZEAL of thine house hath eaten me up.”’

People are still justifiably afraid to come near the “zeal” of the Lord, for they are perfectly aware it could “eat them up” if they aren’t one of His. Our Lord is good, but He isn’t safe.

Let's take another look at Proverbs 9:10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. If that is true, and it is, then fear of the Lord is not a barrier or hindrance, but is instead a breakthrough to growth and eternal fulfillment. But the word 'fear' requires clarification, doesn't it? After all, the Bible says the following in 1 John 4:18 -- Perfect love casts out fear.

Aha! So there must be two kinds of fear. There is the dreadful fear that will fall upon the unrighteous: And said to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb." - Revelation 6:16

It is important that we Christians have the proper, reverential fear and awe of the Lord. Yet, unfortunately, we are perhaps more saturated with the heathen culture than we sometimes realize, a culture whose media often portrays God as a kindly old grandfatherly, white-bearded figure. But Hebrews 10:27 states But only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume all adversaries. Fortunately, God freely offers us shelter from this wrath, through Christ. And not just shelter: we are justified and adopted as God's children.

John Calvin, the great Reformer, wrote: justified by faith is he who, excluded from the righteousness of works, grasps the righteousness of Christ through faith, and clothed in it appears in God's sight not as a sinner but as a righteous man. By faith in Him we receive not only forgiveness, but also a righteous standing before God.

As Christians, we are truly blessed in that we literally have nothing to fear, either in this earthly life or in eternity. Romans 8:1 tells us There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

Dropping down a few verses to Romans 8:15... For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father."

If, then, we no longer have a spirit of bondage to fear of punishment, who then do some Christians seem to still wrestle with that fear? Lack of grounding in scriptural doctrine, and because of the attacks of Satan and his demons. I think it very easy for those who diligently seek the Lord, to be attacked by Satan, the Accuser. Although the blood of Christ has cleansed and continues to cleanse us, the devil will continue to whisper condemnation to our consciences. This is spiritual warfare (Eph 6:13; 2 Cor 10:4)

Let's end with Romans 8:38-39:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.