So, but I am going to touch on them for a little, just a little bit here and there,
but I'm really going to concentrate fully on just a few of them.
And the reason why I chose Psalm chapter 12 verse 6 is because really the Bible states
in this, and this is why it's the theme of the whole conference, because look down at
verse number 6, the Bible says, "The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried
in the furnace of earth purified seven times."
Now a lot of people will make fun of King James only people for applying these verses
to how the English Bible came to us, and I would say that we have had seven great translations
of the English Bible culminating into the King James.
I'm not saying that this verse is necessarily talking about just the King James or the English
Bible, but it certainly can be applied to it, because we've had translations of the
Bible from John Wycliffe and down to the King James. We've had the Tyndale, the Miles
Coverdale, and the Matthews Bible, the Geneva Bible, the Bishops Bible, and then the King
James Bible, and the Bishops Bible, which I have a replica here. This is hard to find.
You can find replicas of the King James a lot easier. You can find this. I looked everywhere
and finally got this before the last King James conference, and if you look at the verses
in there, there's a lot of them that are very similar, and a lot of people I noticed came
up here during the break time in between the services, and we're looking at some of these
passages here. The John 3.16 verse is exactly the same as we have it now, and so it's about
90 to 95 percent the same as the King James. So, now with the Geneva Bible, the Geneva
Bible was more popular than this version for whatever reason, especially with the Calvinists
because it was done in Geneva. It had all those footnotes, and King James didn't like
it. People will say, "Well, King James was this big Presbyterian. He was this big Calvinist."
But it's funny how he didn't like the Bible that they put forth, the Bible that they were
pushing, the Bible that they loved so much, the Puritans. And King James really didn't
specifically like, he liked this one but he didn't, there was things about it he didn't
like about the Bishop's Bible. I mean otherwise he would not have changed it and said, "Hey
yeah, let's do another version." So there was obviously problems with this one too.
Now again, this, I mean you could get people saved with this. I mean this is a good Bible.
This is a good translation. And I would say that the other translations are good too.
The William Tyndale Bible was the first one that was translated from Hebrew and the Greek.
Also the original tongues. And he did that riding on horseback, running from the government
who were trying to kill him and finally did catch him. He was betrayed by a friend like
Judas and he traded him in and he was burned at the stake as was told by Pastor Shelley
this morning. And he was saying that it's about 85% what we have in the King James.
So Pastor Anderson mentioned this in his sermon where he said, "Well this is what I would
have told Pastor Anderson is that we had a guy that came in, you know those guys, have
you ever been to a Baptist church where somebody comes in and brings a whole collection of
Bibles in, their old Bibles, maybe, anybody ever been to a church where they've done
that before? Well this guy, he had a really cool collection of old Bibles. And he brought
forth his William Tyndale Bible and he asked for the pastor's permission to read John
chapter 17. And he read John chapter 17 and it was word for word exactly as the King James
is in John 17. Except for instead of the word glorify, it said clarify. That was the only
difference. So instead of saying glorify, instead of saying glorify thy son, the glory
it would say clarify. So that was the only difference. And then William Tyndale, me and
Brother Sean were talking about this before the service about basically he invented much
of the English language when it comes to especially some of these ecclesiastical terms like Passover,
Baptism. I mean there's a lot of terms that he, what are some other Easter, anybody know
some other ones just off the top of your head that William Tyndale came up with? There's
a lot. I mean there's a lot of terms that just were not in the English language and
he helped solidify and made the English language what it was at that time through the Word
of God being translated, it kind of solidified the English language. You know there's people
who say William Shakespeare wrote the King James Bible, that's just ridiculous, okay.
That is just the things that people dream up in their head is wild. But the Bible says
the words of the Lord are pure words as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven
times. It's so pure, it's so great that it's like silver that's just gone through the purifier
multiple times and it says thou shalt keep them. This is a phrase I really love in this
song specifically that it's not our job necessarily to keep them pure, it's God's job to keep
them pure. God is the one that keeps the scriptures pure. He uses men to do this but he is the
one there's no doubt it says thou shalt keep them oh Lord. Thou shalt preserve them from
this generation forever. So God is responsible to make sure that we have a pure Bible and
again he does use men to do this but you know today we have people that think that they
have better manuscripts and Pastor Shelley was talking about the one that they got out
of the dumpster you know the one that they got out of Mount Sinai you know they're using
it to start fires or something in some monastery. That's supposed to be the word of God that
was missing all these years. You know they were just about to burn in the trash and then
they saved it and now we have the NIV out of it. We have the RSV, you know the HIV,
the monkey pox version, whatever. But there's also other Greek manuscripts and old manuscripts
that came out of, have you ever heard of Vaticanus? Anybody ever heard of that? Where do you think
that came from? It came from some deep dungeon next to Satan's lair in the Vatican. Okay.
And then what? The Alexandrian text. Where do you think they found that? Alexandria, Egypt.
So and then of course we heard about the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea is where they annihilated
Sodom and Gomorrah. So I mean all these places that they found these manuscripts and those
are the ones that are supposedly the best manuscripts. No, those are the worst manuscripts.
That's why they had to dig them up from some place and pull them out. No, we believe in
the received text, the textus receptus, which is you know short "tr" is what those would
be. That's the Greek New Testament. And then of course we believe in the Masoretic text
as the Hebrew that's been passed down and that's been discussed at length. So the seven
translations that have come forth, well John Wycliffe came up with the first one in 1384
and his translation was from the Latin. So it wasn't actually from the original manuscripts
but I'm pretty sure that the Latin that he transcribed it from was from the original.
So he translated it from the Latin which was translated from the original. So it's not
straight from the Greek and Hebrew but he was burned as a heretic for his work so obviously
God must have approved of his translation to some certain extent. Now Miles Coverdale,
this translation was the first complete English Bible to be printed in England and Coverdale's
great Bible 1539 was an authorized version ordered to be placed in churches and I believe
that was Henry the 8th that was allowing that to be placed in churches and then the Matthews
Bible 1537 published by John Rogers and based on William Tyndale's work. Rogers was burned
at the stake later for that. See there is a trail of blood when it comes to getting
our Bibles. Somebody died to get these Bibles in our hands. That was a good point I thought
by Pastor Shelley that nobody died getting the NIV. Nobody died getting the NASB. They
just found these things and then there's like all these codexes and most of those are Frankenstein
together. The Nestles Greek that they have as their supposed source document, those are
all Frankenstein together of what ones they like the best. They just put it all together
and then it's like this is the real Greek. This is the best manuscripts and if it's missing
stuff that has been passed down through time then it's not the right stuff. It's just really
that simple. The oldest doesn't mean the best. So they can say it's an older manuscript,
that doesn't mean it's the best. It's like if you have an NIV, most people have some
kind of false Bible version on their shelf just so they can make fun of it at some point
when they're preaching or they want to look at it and say, "Well, this is really bad
because this is what the King James says. This is horrible." So if there was an earthquake
at my house or some volcanic ash just destroyed this area because of Portland, and they uncovered
my house later on, and they found books at my house, and there would be some pristine
mint New King James versions and other versions of the Bible that have never been even opened,
never been cracked open hardly, but they'll find King James versions and other books that
have been read, and they'll be like, "Well, these must be better because they're better
preserved."
That's just not true.
They just don't get read.
So when they find older ones that are better preserved, that just means nobody read them
because they knew there was something wrong with them.
All right.
So with that being said, now the Geneva, so the Geneva Bible is translated in 1560, translation
was made by exiles in Geneva after Bloody Mary's persecution.
Then you had the Bishop's Bible, 1568, and then the King James, 1611.
And that is considered to be the culmination of these efforts.
So you have all these great Bibles, and some of them were better than others obviously.
But the King James, we believe, is perfectly inspired, perfectly translated.
And today people will say, well, these things are lost in translation.
You can't have a perfect translation.
You just can't.
It just doesn't translate into these other languages.
That's just a weird thing that Bible people say.
That's a weird thing that Christians would say, because in reality, there's all kinds
of translating that goes on in the world for all different types of things.
You know, countries, believe it or not, there's lots of people that are employed as interpreters
all over the world.
And guess what?
They can get it right.
In fact, they have to.
You know, if we have some nuclear treaty with China or some nuclear treaty with Russia,
don't you think we have to have those treaties exactly right?
Don't you think that they have to be interpreted exactly correct?
Because nuclear war could break out if we get something wrong.
They have to get these things right.
Medical device.
All types of different things like this have to be, you know, have you ever gotten, well
of course you've gotten instructions that you can't read.
It's like this one's from China, this one's from Mexico, whatever.
You know, all these different kinds of, you know, Spanish, different languages are on
all types of different packages.
What do you think they all say?
Something different?
Something got lost in the translation?
No, they have, we can translate every language so that other people can understand it, but
then people just want to say, "Oh, but you can't do that with the Bible."
That's just not true, folks, and let me prove it to you.
Turn to Daniel chapter 6 verse 25, Daniel chapter 6 verse 25.
Nothing is lost in translation when it comes to God's Word in the King James Version or
any other Bible that's been faithfully translated from the original languages.
What you have is though that people might not be as good at translating.
You know there's probably bad translators in the world that just aren't as good at
translating.
Wouldn't you agree if that's true?
Not all translators are created equally.
I mean sometimes people just are bad at translating.
They wing it.
They mess some things up.
And when it comes to a Bible, if you're not as good at translating then your translation
is not going to be as good.
So I'm not saying that they did that on purpose.
They probably just made mistakes and just couldn't get it right in some areas.
And then that's why someone else came along.
That's why King James is like, "Hey, let's just do this last one and make sure it's good
and right."
They spent seven years on something that was already 95% good and made sure it was right.
Daniel 6.25, the Bible says, "Then King Darius wrote unto all people, nations, and languages,"
all people, nations, and languages, "that dwell in all the earth."
That does all mean all?
I mean, I know the Puritans wouldn't get this, but "Peace be multiplied unto you.
I make a decree, that in every dominion of my kingdom men tremble in fear before the
God of Daniel, for he is the living God and steadfast forever, and his kingdom which shall
not be destroyed, and his dominion shall be even unto the end.
He delivereth and rescueth, and he worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who
hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.
It sounds to me like even back then they had some pretty dang good translators that could
translate in every language, in every tongue, in every nation of the world, and they ruled
the world at this time.
This is one of the great world powers that has ever ruled the world, and you know, they're
the Medes and the Persians.
Let's look at what the Persians said in their world empire.
Same empire, just different king here.
Look at Esther chapter 1, Esther chapter 1.
Esther chapter 1 verse 20, the Bible says, "And when the king's decree, which he shall
make, shall be published throughout all his empire, for it is great.
All the wives shall give to their husbands honor, both to great and small, and the same
please the king and the princes.
And the king did according to the word of Mamuchan," sorry, I don't know how to pronounce
that exactly.
Eli, can I get a witness here?
"For he sent letters into all the king's provinces, into every province according to the writing
thereof and to every people after their language," every people after their language, "that every
man should bear rule in his own house and that it should be published according to the
language of every people."
Sounds like they could translate every word, every language to every person on the earth
at this time, but all of a sudden we can't do it anymore.
All of a sudden we need new translations and new people to do it.
Look, the people that translate now are not as good as the people who could do it in the
1600s.
I was just thinking about this last night.
They had no televisions back then.
They actually had some drive to get some academics done.
Imagine all televisions gone, all Xbox and any kind of things, screens to put in your
face are just gone.
There's no phones.
There's nothing like that.
You're going to be bored and you're going to want something to do.
Some people are just driven to do something and some people are driven to academia.
These types of guys, the ones that translated the King James Bible, the 54 scholars that
did it, I mean Lancelot Andrews, 21 languages, that's just one.
There was a lot of them.
There was 54 of them.
They were all really good and sometimes even reached out to people that might have been
even, you know, just knew some different things or experts in their field according to the
rules they could reach out to these people.
Maybe they couldn't be part of the full translation, but maybe they were really good specifically
at one ancient language and they could write letters to those people and say, "Hey, we're
having trouble with this specific word.
Will you help us?"
You know, that kind of stuff happens today.
Think about it.
You know, they're having some problem with this one person who has this skin disease
right now and they've reached out to every person.
They've gone to John Hopkins, they've gone to the Mayo Clinic, and then led it back to
Portland, Oregon, which is where the expert in the field is to try to find out whether
they can help this person or not.
And I'm just saying that this kind of stuff happens all the time.
Experts in the field are sought after that are not in the normal pool of doctors or whatever
type of thing there is.
So the King James translators were allowed to go outside of the club to find out these
types of things.
So I wanted to point out a verse that we were looking at earlier in this great Bible.
It says, I think it's in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, it says, "For by grace are you made safe
through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works, lest
any man should boast himself."
That's not exact, is it?
But is it pretty close?
You're made safe, you know.
I mean it is a little different, right?
But you're made safe, what does that mean you're saved?
So the King James just came and cleaned that up a little bit.
It still I believe means the same thing, it's still the Word of God, but it's just cleaned
up a little bit so it's a little more easy for us to understand, I believe.
So the 15 rules were authorized by King James himself at the council at Hampton Court Palace
in 1604, which is a place I visited before.
It's so huge that I only saw about a quarter of it.
They basically wiped King James' name out of the place.
It was actually where King Henry VIII was, and all the stuff is about King Henry VIII,
the whoremonger and the piece of garbage that he was, definitely wasn't saved, was just
a foul person.
He killed, like, I don't know how many of his wives he killed, but like three or four
or something like that.
So he divorced one and then married another or whatever.
But the only thing I saw of King James that was even there was a really dark picture on
the wall that you could barely even see with the light because it was just so dark.
That was the only thing I saw there of him.
They completely remodeled the whole wing that he lived in of the palace.
And I mean, even trying to find where he's buried at Westminster Abbey is just like a
little brick next to the fireplace or something.
There's no big ado about King James in England.
It's kind of like how Christians are treated in this life.
And I feel like he's kind of gotten the Christian treatment, and it kind of makes me believe
even more that King James was saved.
Because he's not very well liked, he's not a very well beloved king in England.
I think we in America treat King James better than England ever thought about treating him,
even though he never was in wars.
He didn't get in any wars, he was very diplomatic, and he was very middle of the road.
So he wasn't trying to please, he wasn't trying to just take sides with the Church of England
or the Puritans, he was more, like, trying to meet in the middle here and not be so extreme
on one side or the other.
Because the Puritans, I mean, if you look at pictures of their old church buildings,
it's nothing with padded pews or anything.
It's like big windows of light coming in so everything can be seen, hard wooden benches,
there's no cushions whatsoever.
I don't think women and men were allowed to sit on the same side or something like that.
Big giant pulpits where stairs had to be locked up.
It looked like you're going to prison for church versus going to church.
They just had all these rules and things like that and it just wasn't very, didn't seem
like a very welcoming church, we'll just say that.
So they're very staunch and when they met at the Hampton Court Palace, they had this
long list of rules for King James that they wanted him to change about the church.
And he told them no, about pretty much almost everything.
They wanted to change all the rules about weddings, things that they do inside the ceremony,
you know, all the ceremonial things in the church, he was just like, "No, no, no, no."
And then finally they recommended a change in the Bible translations and he was like,
"Yes, let's do that."
And so that's where he came up with the rules.
So the first rule is that to use the bishop's Bible as the base text.
So they took this book that was already done and they used it as the base text for what
they were going to use.
So it's not like they just started from scratch and didn't use this book at all.
They did use it.
They used the bishop's Bible and you can see why.
Let me read for you and let's go ahead and turn to John 3.16.
John 3.16, these chapters are hard to read, man.
I just have to catch glances at them here.
John 3.16 in the bishop's Bible says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting
life."
Is that what your Bible says?
Yeah.
That's exactly what the bishop's Bible says.
Can you get somebody saved with that?
Absolutely.
John 3.36 says, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.
He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on Him."
Is that what your Bible says?
Amen.
Good.
Verse 15, "That whosoever believeth in Him, perish not, but have everlasting life."
So it's a little bit different.
I mean, it means the same thing to me.
John 3.17, "For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the
world through Him might be saved.
He that believeth on Him is not condemned."
So it's a little different, but that's a little bit different, isn't it?
Yeah.
So, I mean, it's pretty good, right?
In the Ephesians, chapter 2, verse 8 and 9, pretty good.
It does have the Apocrypha in it, which is kind of annoying, but I haven't checked much
in the other stuff, but they did have some stylistic problems, but here's the rule though.
Here's the whole rule.
"The bishop's Bible, the official Bible of the Church of England, was to be followed
as closely as possible with alterations made only when necessary to align with the truth
of the original."
So, if there was a problem, then it had to only be changed only when it had to align
with the truth of the original.
So, if the original language was saying something different, then they could change it only
when necessary.
So, turn to Proverbs chapter 22 verse 28, Bible says, "Remove not the ancient landmark
which thy fathers have set."
You can apply this verse in a lot of ways, literally not moving your markers for the place
that you own.
But, if you apply that spiritually, obviously the ancient landmarks that we've been set
before us are the great Bibles that have been placed in our past.
And of course, we don't want to leave the King James.
Why would you leave that ancient landmark that's been tried and true, that rock that
we've been able to place our salvation in the truth of God's Word?
Look, I was saved from the King James Bible.
My wife was saved from the King James Bible.
My children have been saved from the King James Bible.
I've saved multiple people from the King James Bible, you know, through the power of God,
of course.
But I mean, why would I turn away from something that just has all this power that's just changed
my life for the better?
I'm not going to turn away from that.
I'm not going to remove that ancient landmark from my life.
And the bishop's Bible was the landmark of that time.
And he was saying, we're not going to change from this.
We're going to just build upon it and make it better, perfect the imperfections that are
in it.
So they were supposed to also use the Masoretic, Hebrew Old Testament, and the Greek, Texas
Receptus for the New Testament.
So now turn to Jeremiah 6.16, Jeremiah 6.16, Jeremiah 6.16.
I thought these were a good couple of verses for this particular point.
I know we're only on number one, but don't worry, this is going to be the longest point.
So it says, "Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old
paths, where is the good way, and walk therein; and ye shall find rest for your souls."
But they said, "We will not walk therein."
So that's what people say today.
They don't want to walk in those old paths.
They don't want to walk with the old King James.
They don't want to use the King James because they're like, "Oh, this is a better way."
No, it's not a better way.
You need to stick with the old path, you need to stick where the good way is, the way of
the salvation, the way to walk.
The King James Bible is going to tell you where to walk.
It's going to tell you what to walk, how to walk, how to find rest for your souls.
And you know, just all the things we've already seen in the conference so far, there's just
so much weird stuff in the modern versions.
I mean, the message Bible is just like, "Ah, I'm sure that there's lots more weird stuff
where that came from."
I mean, that was just a very small taste of just how weird that version is.
And there's some bizarre stuff that was told to us today, too, it was just like, "Yikes."
But the modern Bibles are based on what's already been talked about, these weird, corrupt
manuscripts.
Grock pissed me off last night by presuming that the newer manuscripts were better than
the Byzantine manuscripts.
He's already upset me last night.
Die, intelligence, you know, they just assume automatically when you start asking them questions
that the newer versions are better.
So you know, I just kind of pushed it back on me, apologized to me, of course, because
Grock is always groveling to me whenever I push back on him.
He's like, I'm sorry.
And then like every time I said something to him, he's like, by the way, I'm sorry about
last time what I said.
It's like, you better be sorry, Grock.
But like literally, if it's found in a basement in the Vatican or any of those other places
that I mentioned before, you know, it's just not better.
It's not better.
And if it's found, I mean, have you ever seen that thing that looks like the Emperor Palpatine
background or something where it's like all these spooky souls and like that's where the
Pope sits or whatever?
You know what I'm talking about?
If they found that Bible anywhere near that location, like, I don't want to read that,
okay?
Or, I mean, good night.
And then the fake Mount Sinai, that's not even where Mount Sinai actually is.
And, I mean, I know that's disputed or whatever, but, like, it's definitely not in a, you're
not going to find the real word of God in some monastery with some monks, you know,
in the garbage can.
And you're definitely not going to find it in Alexandria or anyplace else.
So like I said, oldest doesn't mean best.
But another one of the, here's an example that I know King James didn't like in the
bishop's Bible, though.
Ecclesiastes 11.1 says, "Lay thy bread upon wet faces, and so shalt thou find it after
many days."
The King James says, "Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many
days."
So they're just an example of being a little too literal, and they translate it too literally.
And if you've watched that King James movie, and I don't even know if this is real, maybe
this was just done for flair or something, because I tried to find that quote where he
actually said that, and I couldn't find it.
So maybe it was just added for dramatic flair, because King James was a really crass man,
and he just spoke to people in a way like the Scottish Highlanders did or something,
and he just says, "Cast thy bread upon wet faces."
He's like, "You better do better than that, or I'm going to be casting bread upon your
wet face."
I just thought that was just a great line, and the other guy's like the arch whatever
of Canterbury, he's like the top ecclesiastical head of the Church of England, and he's just
kind of looking at it, and I'm like, oh man, this guy's not playing.
So I mean the Bishop's Bible is a wonderful Bible, but just not as majestic, and sometimes
a little too literal, and things in it were not so middle of the road.
It wasn't middle of the road enough for King James' liking, and it had some ecclesiastical
challenges that he didn't like also.
So now the style, I saw this summary, you know, if you put the Bishop's Bible as the
100% baseline, the King James would be 15 to 10% better improvement on its words.
But Tyndale, the Tyndale, like I said, was 80 to 85%.
You know, if you're saying that the baseline is the Bishop's, which it's not, but if you're
saying it's at 100%, then the Tyndale would be 80 to 85%, Coverdale 70 to 75%, Great Bible
85 to 90%, and the Geneva 95 to 100% in closeness to the Bishop's Bible.
But then the King James would be 10 to 15% better.
So I don't know if that helps you in any way, shape, or form, but that's the little summary
table that I found on that.
And just to kick this little puppy before I go on to the next point here, I like kicking
little doctrinal puppies every once in a while.
Not real puppies.
But some claim that the King James sometimes translates from the Latin.
That would break this rule, wouldn't it?
Who's ever heard that they translate from the Latin to fix some revelation or anything
like that?
Anybody ever heard anything like that?
Okay, maybe I'm the only one.
Well, they do say that.
And they say that the King James sometimes borrows from the Latin just because the King
James translates something the same way a Latin did in one of the Latin manuscripts.
It doesn't mean, it just means that the Latin, because Erasmus, he took the Latin and he
put that side by side with the Greek.
And then he didn't have all the sources that he need.
And so he did use some Latin and put that in with the, you know, and put it in as and
translate it next to each other.
But then he did get, he did do revisions, he did like maybe up to six revisions with
his stuff and he did find the manuscripts he needed to complete that.
And then when he did that, he still used the same things that he found from the Latin.
So and usually it's like, I think it's Isaiah 14, 12, where people will dispute about that.
But also the last six verses in Revelation will say, it will say the King James didn't
even use the Greek, they went to the Latin on that part and that's just not true.
It's just that's, they think that because Erasmus used Latin in part of his first edition
that they just, that he just used it through the whole thing but that's not true, he found
other manuscripts and that he agreed with the translation of the Latin, it just was
a good translation.
It's just like Wycliffe using the Latin and a lot of his was still a good translation.
So the King James is 100% from the Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, it's, they didn't use
Latin to translate any of it because that would be breaking the rule, right?
Alright, so if nobody's ever heard of it then why keep talking about it?
Alright, moving along brethren.
Alright, so number two, retain traditional names.
The names of the prophets, holy writers and other figures in the text were to be kept
as close as possible to their commonly accepted vulgar forms.
Now when we think of vulgar we think that's something ugly and gross or whatever but it's
just really common what it means.
So let's turn to Mark chapter 12 verse 37, Mark chapter 12 verse 37, there's a lot of
people that are academics and so-called scholars of biblical languages and biblical scholars
and they don't, they're not even saved and yet they're calling themselves scholars.
I mean it's pretty bizarre but it's out there, it's out there a lot.
But what does the Bible say here, it says, "David therefore himself calleth him Lord
and whence is he then his son and the common people heard him gladly."
It's important that it was important to King James and the translators that the common
people liked the version that they were reading and that they just used simple terms, the
names that were commonly already accepted for hundreds of years already in the English
language because to call them after their Jewish names or whatever with the ye sound
in it and stuff like that, they just were not calling them those things.
So I'll give you some examples here in a minute, but look at 1 Corinthians 14, 9, 1 Corinthians
14, 9.
The Bible says the common people heard Jesus gladly, you know why?
Because he just spoke commonly to them, he didn't try to talk over them and say these
great swelling words to them so that they couldn't understand, normal people just listened
to him and they liked what he had to say.
1 Corinthians 14, 9 says, "So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to
be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken, for ye shall speak into the air."
And Paul is admonishing the Corinthians, don't start using all these big words that are hard
to understand.
You know, this is what Calvinists eventually get to, so they're just talking over the people
using these big words that nobody cares about except for them and they just get caught in
the minutia, they get caught with their head in the clouds and you know it's good to be
academic, it's good to be smart, I'm not saying it's not, but when you're talking to the people
you need to use easy words to understand.
So in that second rule says that the translation states the names of the prophets and the holy
writers and the other names of the text was to be retained as close or nigh as possible
according as they were vulgarly used.
So names like Jonas or Jonah are used, right?
The Old Testament Jonah, the New Testament Jonas instead of the Hebrew Yona.
So nobody says Yona, okay?
We use Jonas or Jonah.
So that was a common accepted name and in the New Testament what's Elijah's name in
the New Testament?
Elias, yeah.
So those names are retained and what's Isaiah's name?
Esaias.
Esaias, yeah.
So they use that one.
What about Jesus' mother's name was Maria or Miriam is the actual Old Testament name
but what do we call her in the New Testament?
We call her Mary, right?
And then of course Jesus' name in the Old Testament is actually what?
Joshua and we call him Jesus.
His name is Jesus in the New Testament.
So there's no "sh" sound in Greek so that's why his name was Jesus and then we in English
called him Jesus.
So like there's no "j" sound and in English there is okay so just shut up.
His name is Jesus just shut up.
That's what we call him.
If you're in Israel and you want to call him Yeshua or whatever then maybe his name did
sound like that there.
Maybe I mean Yahushua or whatever over there that's what his name is but here it's Jesus.
So that's what they called him in English in England that's why there's a "j" at the
beginning of it.
Jesus, that's how we pronounce it all right.
In Spanish the name is what?
Jesus.
Yeah.
Which is really close to the Greek pronunciation of it really.
So that was the rule for that.
Number three, preserve ecclesiastical terms.
Traditional ecclesiastical words such as church were to be retained instead of being
translated as congregation or other terms favored by Puritans.
He really seemed to have a problem with Puritans, so I mean I think he had a problem with both
sides in reality.
Like I said, middle of the road, but they just, like I said, they had these long lists
that they just wanted to, and he's just like, "Nope, nope, nope, uh-uh."
But Hebrews 12, 212 says, "Saying I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of
the church will I sing praise unto thee."
So the Bible in the New Testament uses the word church instead of congregation.
Everybody knows that.
This is what it's talking about, preserving the ecclesiastical term.
In the Geneva Bible, it said "congregation" all the time in the New Testament.
King James didn't like that.
Translators didn't like that.
And in the Old Testament, it's true, the congregation of the Lord is what it's called in the Old
Testament.
Psalm 22, 2, which is 22, 22, is what it's quoting in Hebrews 2, 12, says, "I will declare
thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee."
They're like, "Well, why would it do that?"
Well, the Old Testament is done away with.
The New Testament is the New Testament.
I think it's important to establish that there's a difference between the Old Testament
and the New Testament.
I think that that's what the big deal was.
In reality, there's a change, it's the New Testament, and Jesus is the head of the church.
And in Scotland they called it the Kirk.
I think that they still call it that, the Kirk of Scotland.
So if you ever see that name Kirk, it's not Captain Kirk, it's just, it means church.
So they had names like that, but also the word bishop.
Bishop they didn't like, there was a problem with the name bishop.
The Presbyterians didn't like that name because it was too Church of England-y or whatever.
But they kept that saying in 1 Timothy 3.1 because it's implying that that person is
an overseer, that person is an elder overseer, bishop, pastor, those things really mean the
same thing.
But the church or the Puritans, they wanted to change terms and King James didn't like
that.
They didn't want those terms changed.
Deacon was also retained rather than minister or servant because deacon does mean servant,
that's what it means.
But other translations might use servants, but King James specifically uses the word
deacon as an office and bishop as an office, but it also uses elder, it uses pastor.
So when God gives gifts onto people, he said pastor is one of those gifts and it gets rid
of the word bishop.
So some of the terms that King James didn't like, he had certain ones and obviously the
translators retained certain ones, so that was the problem, that's what that issue was
about and a lot of it was fighting about the ecclesiastical terms.
Number four, use commonly accepted meanings.
He said when a word had multiple meanings, the translation should use the meaning most
commonly adopted by the ancient church fathers, ensuring it fit context and analogy of faith.
2 Peter chapter 2 verse 18, 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 18 kind of goes along with that other
rule seemingly, but it says for when they speak great swelling words of vanity they
allure through the lust of the flesh through much wantonness those that were clean escape
from them who live in error.
Jude 1 16 says these are murmurs complainers walking after their own lust and their mouths
speak great swelling words having men's persons and admiration and I kind of those that kind
of this made me think about the commonly used commonly accepted meanings sometimes people
want to twist meanings and twist words and sometimes speak great swelling words and and
use words of vanity to allure people through the lust of the flesh and you know so we want
I think that that rule is meant to make it so people don't try to put words that don't
mean the right things like you get lexicons and the Strongs you can have the word repent
has like a long list of things that it means and really it doesn't really mean that many
things does it you can make if you take a lexicon you can make it mean a lot of words
mean a lot of different things that's like the Strongs is really not a very good pool
to use when I was first starting out preaching like junior church and things like that when
I used to go to an old lifey church that they didn't have like all these things on your
smart phones where you could just hit something and find all the stuff that you can find at
the tip of your fingertips now and I'm glad that I don't have to do that anymore but you
used to have to search like through the Strongs concordance to find all these words but then
you're looking at their definition of what a word is.
So a lexicon is good to find the words but then if you trust all the meanings it's like
you almost had to have like the lexicon and a dictionary because otherwise you're trusting
in what they believe.
And you could be trusting what the wrong, you might have one for the King James Bible
but you're still getting the Bible critics definition of what those words mean.
That's what's dangerous about it.
So the strong is kind of not as strong as it used to be so you got to watch out for
stuff like that.
So the next thing is maintain chapter divisions.
The division of chapters was to remain unchanged unless absolutely necessary and I think that's
one of the greatest things that happened in the last fifteen hundred years is chapter
divisions.
I don't think it's even been that long.
When did the first chapter division Bible come out?
Was that the Geneva Bible?
Does anybody know?
Was it either the Geneva Bible or the Great Bible?
I can't remember which one it was but praise God for chapter divisions because otherwise
it was just like walls of text.
You're just like, "What chapter am I in?"
So that's pretty self-explanatory.
Chapter divisions are nice.
Number six, no marginal notes.
No marginal notes were to be included except for explanations of Hebrew or Greek words
that could not be concisely expressed in the text.
So this was to avoid the controversial annotations found in the Geneva Bible specifically, and
there was even marginal notes in here.
You might not be able to see this, it's really small writing, but look at all the marginal
notes on the outside.
They didn't like that.
So that's part of the reason why you didn't like this edition, because it's had all those
notes.
Because your eye is going to just, especially if you're having trouble with a verse that's
maybe not super easy, and when you're saved, yeah, I mean, the Holy Spirit can help us
with everything, but we get lazy too.
That's why study Bibles are bad for us, and that's why I like these drill Bibles.
These drill Bibles, you know, this is brought to you by drill Bible, but it has presented
too.
I know that these have like repenting your sins in them, maybe the older editions did,
but this just has the table of contents right to the Old Testament, and you're just right
in to the Bible.
There's no notes, just straight black and white.
There's no gospel presentation at the back of it that I saw, just a couple maps in black
and white.
Nothing fancy.
Yeah, I don't think there's anything in there.
Nope.
The end is Revelation 22.
Done.
But I like these because you're just going to get the straight word of God, sometimes,
I mean, all the time when you're reading the Bible, it should just be you and God, alone,
Holy Spirit telling you what the Bible says.
And when you get marginal notes, you tend to be like, "What does this really mean?"
And then you're like, if anybody's ever, who's ever had a study Bible in the past?
Just be honest.
And who, who looks at, who looked at the margins before?
Yeah.
And you know what they're telling you?
They're telling you lies.
You're getting some liberal scholar's opinion on that.
And I remember one was like even doubting about Jesus, you know, when it says whale,
like when it says that, that Jonah, Jonah about Jonah and the whale, because it says
a great fish swallowed him, but Jesus said it was a whale.
It's disputing that fact, I remember.
And I was just like, why is it trying to cast doubt on God's word by saying it's not really
a whale and Jesus said it was a whale, you know?
Just stuff like that.
And those kind of things can bring you down a, a doubt or make you think things and put
things in your mind that shouldn't be there because making you doubt God's word, it's
subtle and then you might just repeat something stupid that you read in that study, that study
Bible instead of just bringing forth what's out of God's word, then you're bringing forth
something that's out of some other idiot's mind that was implanted in your brain because
you were looking at a study Bible.
Now if you've been reading the Bible for a long time and you can avoid some of that
stuff and it doesn't matter to you, but I would definitely recommend just get a black
and white Bible, you know, black and white, if you like the words of red, Jesus in red,
whatever, but black and white Bible, you know, the Word of God is the best way to go and
no marginal notes.
He hated the marginal notes, especially in the Geneva Bible.
He viewed them as challenging royal authority.
Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 17, 2 Corinthians chapter 2, 17.
Challenging royal authority, what do you mean by that?
Well this part might not be very popular with some people, but guess what?
I don't care.
This is my church.
I'll do whatever I want.
But some people think that it's just okay to overthrow the king and overthrow governments
and stuff like that.
And I happen to agree that that's not okay.
And in the Bible, when any king was in power, the people were just not allowed to overthrow
them whenever they felt like it.
Or if they were tyrannical.
King James did not like the word tyrant in the Bible, and he did not allow it to be put
in the King James Bible.
People were like, "Well, what business does he have to put it in there?"
Well, first of all, it's probably not in the original language, so that's probably why
he didn't like it.
And it was in the Geneva Bible, and he didn't really like it.
And lo and behold, the Puritans thought it was okay to overthrow tyrannical kings.
And guess what happened when King James died?
Who'd they kill?
His son Charles II, or Charles I, excuse me.
They killed him, they chopped his head off, his beautiful little earring and his long
hair all at the same time.
But he wasn't the one who was intended to be the King of England after him, but he was.
And yeah, he was not, you know, Rand is not Ron, Charles was not James, that's for sure.
But James believed in a doctrine called the divine right of kings.
And he believed that he was not answerable to anybody except for God.
So if you look at the book of kings, you know, even the most wicked kings were never allowed
to be just overthrown by anybody.
God was the one that was supposed to overthrow them.
God was supposed to be the one that was supposed to depose them.
And when he was ready to overthrow them, he overthrew them.
And you notice if any of them were assassinated, then they were killed in some like manner.
And they didn't last very long.
Even Ahab, I mean God, how many chances did God give Ahab?
And he was really wicked, wasn't he?
But then it was like that last time, he's like, all right, then he prophesied the dogs
would lick Ahab's blood in, you know, wherever in Nabal and the chariot or whatever.
But God is the one that overthrows kings.
He sets them up, he takes them down.
This is what James believed.
And he wasn't so radical with it.
I mean, he did give speeches about it, but he would also draw back from it and not get
all crazy about it, right?
But Charles I did.
And there's, well, let me read the verses here real quick.
It says, "But we are not as many which corrupt the word of God, but as of sincerity, but
as of God.
In the sight of God we speak we in Christ, as ye have therefore," or, yeah, sorry, that's
the second Corinthians.
So turn to Colossians chapter two, verse six.
Sorry, I was reading on here, I was pulling the, I forgot that two wasn't in front of
it.
It's Colossians chapter two, verse six.
So we're not supposed to corrupt the word of God by putting marginal notes into it because
that's what it can be.
It can end up corrupting the Bible by you thinking that what the corrupt, the notes
in there are true, like the Schofield reference Bible.
Look at how it's corrupted a whole movement of Baptists.
They're still thinking there's a pre-trib rapture when they got that out of the Schofield
notes.
They didn't get that out of the Bible.
You can't get that out of the Bible.
You just cannot get that out of the Bible.
Show chapter and verse.
Show me the chapter and verse and I'll believe you.
Oh wait, you don't have one?
Okay, well then it's not true.
So Colossus chapter 2 verse 6 says, "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord,
so walk ye in Him, rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith as ye have
been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men,
after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ, for in Him dwell all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily."
So we shouldn't allow these study guides, these study Bibles, these little annotations
in Bibles to corrupt us from what God's Word is actually teaching us.
That's my point.
So back to the whole thing with King James.
So I have a point of why I'm telling this story.
So the reformer and Scottish Presbyterian preacher, John Knox, and the Puritans believed
it was their duty to overthrow what they deemed to be as tyrants.
He overthrew Mary, Queen of Scots.
So I think that she deserved it, she probably did.
She was a whore, and she was a pretty bad person.
She most likely killed James' father when he was like a year old.
And after that, James never saw his dad was dead, blown up by gunpowder, and then his
mother was taken off and basically lived in prison almost the rest of her life.
And she was killed by Elizabeth, the Queen of England, many years later for supposedly
conspiring to kill her, which, you know, that's all, I don't know, that's what the official
story is.
So anyway, and she was a Catholic.
But James, it kind of worked out for James because James wasn't raised by his crazy,
weirdo parents, and he was raised by tutors all of his life.
He was kidnapped multiple times as a child.
He was a sickly child, he was a sick, you know, he wasn't a very strong young man.
But he tried his best to be, he was a hunter.
He rode horses, he was, you know, he was very smart.
So where he didn't have the physical attributes, he was very intelligent.
He was trained by a tutor named Buchanan, last name Buchanan, I think it was George
Buchanan, was it?
I don't know.
Anyway, I forgot his first name, but Buchanan, who even whipped him.
But James kind of bucked back at his teachings of Presbyterianism and his teaching on tyrants
and things like that.
I didn't agree with him.
But the English Civil War took place after the death of King James, and Oliver Cromwell
overthrew Charles, the first son of King James, and had him executed by beheading.
That's the first time a king's ever been killed in the history of England.
It was a really big deal.
And I don't think they got him in the first chop, which made it even worse.
It was really gruesome.
And he had like a pearl earring like this big or something on his ear.
He kind of looked like a queer.
But he wasn't.
Anyway, he had the hair of a queer, right?
But then Cromwell became Lord Protector of England until his death.
And his son was made Lord Protector for one year.
That's Cromwell's son.
And then he was removed.
They brought Charles II out of exile, which was the son of King Charles, crowned him king
with the promise that he wouldn't take revenge against the man that murdered his father.
And he had Oliver Cromwell's body exhumed, hanged, and his head chopped off and put on
a pole for years at Westminster Hall, which is by Westminster Abbey, where all the kings
and stuff were buried.
So while I tell you this, well, King James, like I said, believed in the divine right
of kings to rule.
And so because of this, there was something that the Puritans hated King James because
he just wouldn't, you know, he wouldn't bend to their will.
And when he died, when he died and they killed Charles, they just burned a lot of King James's
works because he wrote a lot of different things and they can't find any of that stuff.
So, but they hated him so much, they overthrew him, all the Jews had been kicked out of England
for years.
Who brought him back?
Oliver Cromwell.
Ruined England forever.
And then, you know, they killed the king because they believed that it was okay to overthrow
the king if they thought he was a tyrant.
And basically that kind of ruined England as a monarchy ruling and parliament became
the power and, you know, the kings kind of became like these, you know, not really powerful
people anymore.
They kind of had power but not a lot.
So they're kind of ruled over by parliament to this day and I'm not saying I feel bad
for him or anything.
I just, it's just not, I don't believe it's right.
I think King James was right but, you know, his son wasn't really the greatest example
of a king either.
So I think God just kind of rose King James up for a time such as this where we needed
the Bible to be complete and they can't really take that away from him but, you know, the
point is that because the Geneva Bible had so much Calvinist leaning interpretations,
James didn't like that and the Puritans kind of, you know, it really pissed them off enough
to where they just overthrow the kingdom over it in the next generation.
So it just goes to show that King James was right though about that issue because they
were dangerous, they were seditious, and they did plan to overthrow the kingdom and they
did it.
So King James read and spoke Greek and other languages.
He spoke Latin, French, English, Italian, Spanish, and Scots.
I don't know what Scots is, but you've heard him talk before so you kind of know how they
speak.
So I'm 40% Scottish so I can say that, alright, it's not racist.
But he was very skilled in language so he spoke Greek very fluently and it's obvious
in his book, The Basilica in Doron, which he wrote to his son Henry.
He's just quoting scriptures, but the King James wasn't written in 1599.
So either he's using, you know, the Great Bible or he's using the Geneva Bible or he's
just translating it in his mind from Greek to the page, which is probably what he was
actually doing, because he could speak Greek fluently.
And he also translated the French and made a French Bible just from his own ability to
speak French.
The guy was really smart, sharp as a whip, and so, I mean, again, you can see his zeal
to make things for the middle path.
He wasn't just clear out here on this side, clear out here on this side.
He really did want to just rule as a righteous king, and he kind of held it all together
until he died, actually.
Number seven, explanatory notes for difficult words.
Notes could be added to clarify Hebrew or Greek terms and required explanation, but
only when necessary without theological commentary.
Not allowed to put spin on it, basically, is what it really means, and just say what
it means.
Don't try to put your, if they're going to clarify what the Greek or Hebrew term means,
you're not allowed to just say a theological term with it.
Number eight, individual and collaborative translation, each translator in the company
was to translate and revise the same chapter individually, then meet to compare and agree
in the final text.
So they had these different groups that handled certain subjects, the Old Testament or the
Psalms and the poetry and the New Testament or the Gospels and the Epistles in Revelation.
So they would all, you know, compare, meet up and then figure it all out.
So they had checks and balances is basically what it's saying and they weren't, I mean,
it was all different church types of groups, it wasn't just the Peartons, it wasn't just
the Church of England or other people, it was all of them together doing it.
So they kind of had to get along to a certain extent.
So and they couldn't just put their own Calvinistic or church spin on it.
Number nine, review by other companies.
Once a company completed a book, it was to be sent to the other companies for serious
and judicious review.
Again, checks and balances.
Number ten, resolve disagreements.
If companies disagreed on a translation, they were to note the differences, provide reasons,
and resolve them at a general meeting of chief members for each company at the project's
end.
So more checks and balances.
So that's good though.
I mean, they have multiple checks and balances here, so not one group is going to decide
for everybody else, and they really have to come up with the right translation.
They can't just get over on each other.
They're all assigned to projects, and they could be a Calvinist and a Church of England
guy together on the same project, and they're not going to be able to just push each other
around, so to speak.
Checks and balances.
So number 11, consult learned men for obscure passages.
I already kind of talked about this, but for particularly difficult passages, letters can
be sent to any learned scholar in the land to seek their judgment.
So other experts know at the time, not on the council, this type of thing, like I said
earlier, is still common practice in many fields, and it's a brilliant tactic.
It's just something that still people do today.
Number 12, encourage clergy contributions.
Experts were to send letters to their clergy urging those skilled and biblical languages
to submit observations to the translation companies at Westminster, Cambridge, or Oxford.
So it wasn't just for theologians.
That's another thing that I think was good in checks and balances.
It's not just these high tower guys or whatever.
They were urged to do this, to just reach out to the normal guys, that maybe they just
were really skilled in these areas too.
And then so another check and balance and another set of eyeballs on it just besides
the core guys.
Number 13, appoint directors.
The deans of Westminster and Chester along with the King's professors of Hebrew and
Greek at Oxford and Cambridge were to oversee the translation companies.
So these are leaders for the leaders, another great strategy.
I mean, all these things are really good in practice and that's why it turned out so good.
That's probably why it was so perfect.
Number 14, consult other translations.
When the other English translations, the Tyndale, Matthews, Coverdale, Whitechurch, the Great
Bible, and Geneva agreed better with the original text than the bishop's Bible, those versions
could be used.
So say Tyndale got it right or more right in his translation and they all agreed and
it was better they could use those things.
Number 15, point overseers, three or four senior and respected divines and the universities
not directly involved in translating were to be appointed by the vice chancellors to
oversee the translations and ensuring adherence to rule four, use of meanings aligned with
the church.
So in the end you have 54 of the most brilliant minds in the whole world that could actually
speak the languages and the original tongues brought forth the greatest translation that
this world has ever known.
Built on the back of this book and the other ones that were right behind it and I'll take
this book any day over the NIV, the NASB, the HIV, the LGBTQ, whatever acronym you want
to give it.
I'll take this one right here.
And if I didn't have the King James I'd just go right here, bishops.
I'll take that one.
I'll take that over the new King James version.
Any day.
You're free.
I'll just leave it up here.
If you want to come up and take a look at it after the sermon and after everything's
over you can feel free to come up and look at it.
And I usually just have it sitting over on a pillar like that one over there.
That's the 1769 King James.
I have the King James 1611 replica that I brought up here the other night.
And then this one sits right by the window usually right there.
It's the Bishop's Bible.
So yeah, just to close out here.
I was saved by this book.
Like I said, millions of people have been saved by this book.
Like Pastor Shelley was saying there's a billion people that have bought the King James.
That's probably just the records that we know.
And millions have been saved by it.
Thousands of people have been saved just by the people in this room that have gone out
sewing, let alone all the people that were at the conference earlier.
Let alone all the people in all the churches that we are friends with and the pastors that
we know.
I mean, the King James Bible is still tearing it up all these years.
There's nothing that comes even close to it.
There's no other Bible version that people are using that are doing anything close to
what this book is doing still today.
Twenty-five years ago, I got down on my knees and I trusted Christ as my Savior after someone
took me through the King James Bible, showed me the Romans road, asked me to call upon
the name of the Lord.
Yes, you do have to call upon the name of the Lord.
It's garbage, people saying that stuff.
Sick of that.
Anyway, I don't want to ruin my last moments here, so get mad.
But you know, this book, I've used it to comfort and teach myself, I've used it to comfort
and teach other people, and you know, when I've needed strength, I've asked God to give
me strength and to help teach me from this book.
It slays me, it drives me to my knees, it's helped me in due time when I've been weak,
it helps me be strong.
And I will never accept any pretender to the throne because the King James Bible stands
alone.
Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you so much for this great conference, we thank you so much for the people
that were faithful to the end, and Lord, we thank you for the people and I pray that you
just get them home safely that had to leave for whatever reason.
And Lord, thank you for just the blessing of Sure Foundation Baptist Church and all
the members here.
I pray that you just bless each and every single person that helped and prayed and worked
so hard here.
Thank you for my wife, who's a trooper, and I pray that you would bless the fellowship.
And I would say to bless the ice cream to our body, but I just don't know if that's
possible.
But we do thank you for it, Lord, and the sweet treats that we get to have sometimes.
And I pray that you'd bless our time here.
In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.