January 22, 2004 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

The following is an excerpt from a message by the late evangelist Lester Roloff (1914-1982), which he preached at the Southwide Baptist Fellowship meeting at Highland Park Baptist Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in October 1982. This was just days before he was killed in a plane crash on November 2 of the same year. I did not have the privilege of hearing that sermon in person. We had been living in Nepal with our missionary work since 1979. I heard the message later by audio cassette, and I recently found that treasured tape and digitized it and used sound editing software to upgrade the quality. I plan to publish the message next year in the Life Changing Sermons series.

The following statement shows the difference between treating the Bible as a mere issue of scholarship and treating it as an issue of the heart. Brother Roloff had a good theological education. He graduated from Baylor University in 1937 and from Southwestern Seminary in 1940. But the Bible was not just a book to him, and the issue of texts and versions was not simply a matter of scholarship. To Lester Roloff, the King James Bible was not just good literature.

We are told today that we should not make an issue of Bible texts and versions, that we should not cause divisions, that we should not get so excited about it. Even if I wanted to, I could not take that advice. The Bible has done too much for me! I don’t have anything without the Bible. I wouldn’t be saved without the Bible. I wouldn’t know anything for sure about God or Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit or salvation or anything else of any eternal significance. If the modern versions only removed one verse of the old Greek Received Text and the King James Bible, that would be a SERIOUS issue to me! This is one reason why I loved old Lester Roloff so much. I heard him preach many times during my years at Tennessee Temple in the mid 1970s, and he never ceased to be a blessing.

THE BIBLE, MY MOTHER
By Lester Roloff

Here is my illustration. I weighed 80 pounds for three years, and it looked like I would never get any bigger. But suppose somebody knocked on my door and Mama said, “Lester, Sonny Boy, someone is at the door; you had better answer it.”

I go to the door, and I say, “Come on in.”

And a great big fellow comes in with a big butcher knife.

I say, “Bud, what do you have on your mind?”

He says, “I want to see your mother.”

I say: “Yes, sir, I’ll be standing between you and my mother as long as you have that butcher knife. What do you have on your mind?”

And my sweet, wonderful, simple, precious, mother says, “Sonny Boy, what does he want?”

And I say, “I don’t know; he hasn’t said yet.”

Then he says, “Lester, is that your name?”

And I say, “Yes, Lester Leo, and I still want to know what you are doing with that butcher knife.”

He says, “Son, I’ve come to cut away some of your mother. There’s too much of her. She’s a little cumbersome. I’m going to cut some things away.”

I would say, “Man, you’ll be lucky to get out of here alive.”

I would climb up his neck as fast as I could get there and choke him until I stopped him from breathing.

Are you catching on now? [many loud amens] Then why don’t you preachers do something about it? Don’t you realize they’re butchering our Mother? “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Pet. 1:23).

And I’m telling you, don’t monkey with my Mama!!!! I’ll fight you about it. I’m mad!!! There has never been a revival come out of the Revised Standard Version, Good News for Modern Man, Living Bible for dead people. There’s never been anything good come out of them!!!

You say, “Well, it’s because you haven’t been educated.” I don’t want more education if I have to get like that. I’ve been to school 19 years of my life, but I’m glad that I went to school when there wasn’t anything but the King James Bible. I can remember the time when the preacher would say, “Let’s all stand and read in unison.” Try that now!

Folks, the old preacher was preaching the KJV when I got saved. He was preaching this Book when God laid His hand on my soul and told me to preach. Fifty years ago the Lord called me to preach. This Book is the source of everything good that I have ever known in my life.

Brother, this old Book will see you through. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).

The nearest thing I have to getting with Jesus is this Book right here. I’m too old to fool with anything else. I’ve got too many burdens. I couldn’t make it without this Book right here.