King Henry VIII. Now who learned about King Henry VIII in school? You guys learned about King Henry VIII maybe a while ago?
King Henry VIII is one of the most famous kings in history and what he's most famous for is marrying a lot of women and having them killed when he basically got sick of them.
So the real truth was basically he wanted to have a male son and he was basically marrying new women because they couldn't provide a male son.
But actually, he's a very important part of the history of churches in general, okay. So anyways, let me read you this before we get into Romans 13 and I've explained this to you recently, but something known as the divine right of kings, which is something that the Catholic Church and other countries and religions have stated as well.
It says, Augustine of Hippo in his work, the city of God, has stated his opinion that while the city of man, which is in reference to government or the country, the city of man and the city of God may stand at cross purposes, both of them have been instituted by God and served his ultimate will.
Even though the city of man, the world of secular government, may seem ungodly and be governed by sinners, it has been placed on earth for the protection of the city of God.
Therefore, monarchs have been placed on their thrones for God's purpose and the question of their authority is to question God.
And so what it says in this is that the city of man, the government, sometimes comes in conflict with the city of God because the Catholic Church believes in this global religion, okay.
But basically you cannot question the city of man.
So basically if the city of man, the government says, you must get this vaccine or abortion is okay or whatever they say, you cannot question the king, okay.
Because they say, no, this is right, you cannot question it.
Obviously that's ridiculous.
Governments are wrong sometimes, okay.
Every government in the world is going to be wrong.
I won't advocate trying to fight the government.
I say try to get along with them.
That's biblical.
The Bible says pay your taxes, obey their rules, but sometimes they can overstep their bounds.
And if they try to say you must worship this statue of Nebuchadnezzar, you're obviously not going to do that.
But it's against what the Bible says, okay.
Notice what it says in Romans 13 verse 1.
Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers.
There's no power but of God.
The powers that be are ordained of God, referring to the government, okay.
Verse 2, whosoever therefore resisted the power, resisted the ordinance of God.
And they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation, okay.
What the Bible is saying here is that God did set up a system of government.
No government fully goes along with the system of the Bible.
We're well aware of that, okay.
That does not change the fact though that they do make the rules when it comes to the country that we live in, okay.
I'll give you an example of this.
When it comes to our household, I make the rules for my son and my daughter, okay.
My son would love to eat ice cream every single meal.
But you know what, he doesn't make the rules.
I make the rules.
And so he's expected to listen to what I have to say even if he doesn't agree with me, okay.
Now it works the same way with the government.
The government has a lot of rules that maybe we do not agree with.
But unless they're asking you to commit a sin, unless they're asking you to tell a lie or to steal or whatever, we are supposed to obey.
So if I were to tell my son one day, I want you to rob 7-Eleven.
Obviously, he should not listen to that.
But why it goes against God's word, okay.
What you need to understand with the Catholic Church though is that basically they would control kings.
And they would control kings and basically the rules the Catholic Church wanted, they would have the kings put those rules into place.
And they'd say, well, you know what, it's the city of man.
You can't question it.
It comes from God.
Go to 1 Samuel 8, 1 Samuel 8.
It's interesting what Augustine said.
He said that the city of God and the city of man come in conflict sometimes.
What he's saying is the government sometimes comes in conflict with the church, okay.
Now here's what's interesting.
When it comes to the Catholic Church, they've got a pretty dark history, don't they?
They've got a lot of blood on their hands.
They've got a lot of pedophilia on their hands.
And you know what the Catholic Church likes to do?
What they've done throughout history, they would have the city of man, the government, do illegal things so they could get money.
And they'd say, well, you can't question the city of man.
You can't question the king because God put that king into place.
Look, the Catholic Church has never been godly.
They never care about following the rules of the Bible.
They've always been ungodly.
Pedophilia's been there since the very beginning with the Roman Catholic Church.
But what they would do is they basically have their king in place that they want.
And the king's expected to listen to the pope and say, why?
Because the popes were more powerful than the king.
The popes started wars in the past.
And so what you have to understand is we're going to talk about King Henry VIII.
King Henry VIII is one of the most famous, powerful rulers.
But if you know the history of his life, he did a little sip sip with the Catholic Church for most of his life.
Until he started another church.
Why? Because he didn't want to go against the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church was more powerful.
Now this is what it says in 1 Samuel 8.
1 Samuel 8.
It says in verse 1,
And it came to pass when Samuel was old that he made his sons judges over Israel.
This is before the system of having a king was in place for basically the nation of Israel.
This is before that.
Now what you have to understand is that when it comes to having a king, who takes the throne from a king afterwards?
The son takes the throne, right?
Pretty much the oldest son is going to take over in most situations.
Or someone of that bloodline.
But think about when it comes to a godly position like a church.
Let's say 20 years from now, I can no longer run this church.
Should my son automatically, when he's 22 years old, just take over the church because he's my son?
Does that make sense?
No, because this is a spiritual position and you need to prove yourself.
You need to know the Bible, you need to be godly, and Samuel makes the mistake because he makes his sons judges.
Now if you read the life of Samuel, the reason why Samuel was a very godly person,
but probably not the greatest father and his sons don't become that godly, is because he always traveled around and was never around his kids.
It says he went in circuit from town to town, so basically he's not around that much.
The result is if you don't spend time with your kids, what will take place?
You're not going to grow up and love God.
That's the reality. That's what you see with the sons.
They're not reprobates. I believe they're saved.
But it doesn't mean that they should be the judges of Israel, a spiritual position.
Verse 2.
Now the name of his firstborn was Joel, and the name of the second, Abidah.
They were judges in Beersheba.
And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after Luger, which is basically money got in wrong ways and took bribes and perverted judgment.
What you're seeing in verse 3 is that his sons basically took the liberty to take money that they shouldn't have taken.
The Bible says when you're going to be a leader, one of the big things is that you are not covetous.
But what you see with his sons is they took Luger. They took bribes.
This doesn't mean that they're reprobates, but it means that they shouldn't be running a spiritual position.
If you've got people that are pastors in Baptist churches and they are very covetous, do you know what you're going to have?
You're going to have firstfruits every year.
You're expecting to get your first month's salary.
You're going to be basically, it's not 10%, it's 20%.
You're going to have people try to basically steal money or guilt you into giving them money if they're covetous people.
His sons should not have been the judges. Why?
It doesn't automatically get passed down to the son in God's system. You have to prove yourself worthy.
Verse 4.
All the elders of Israel gathered themselves together and came to Samuel on the rainbow and said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways.
Now make us a king to judge us. Notice the last part of verse 5.
Make us a king to judge us like all the nations.
Does that seem like the right thing to do? Just do what every other country is doing.
I mean, every country is legalizing abortion, right?
Every country is legalizing gay marriage. Should we do that because every other country is doing it? Absolutely not.
But that's what takes place here. They say everybody else has a king, we want a king also.
And that's really the downfall of it. Because after that, this is not God's system.
God did not intend one person to have that much power.
That's too much power for one person to handle.
If you're running a nation of 10 million people, that's not the system God has in place, okay?
Now, go in your Bible to Leviticus 20. Leviticus 20.
Now, let me just give you a bit of origins, a bit of the beginning of King Henry VIII and the Church of England,
which in America is the Episcopalian church and England is the Anglican church basically, it's basically the same.
So basically, he started the Church of England, okay? King Henry VIII was born in 1491, over 500 years ago.
And his first wife, Catherine, she was born in 1485, okay?
Now, in 1502, King Henry VIII's older brother died. Back in those days, it was very common to die from diseases and illnesses and things like that.
People did not live as long of lives. And so his older brother dies at the age of 15 when he is 10 years old, okay?
Now, when it comes to having a king, the oldest brother is going to take over.
King Henry VIII was not supposed to become the king because he had an older brother.
But his older brother dies when he's 10 years old and his older brother was married to Catherine of Aragon.
What this was, was a political marriage to basically marry England and Spain together.
That's very common, where you marry the queen of another country if you're a king or prince, to basically give power and to unite.
It was a big way to unite power. So basically, arranged marriages.
So King Henry VIII's older brother, Arthur, was married to Catherine of Aragon and her nephew was the Roman Empire, Charles V, okay?
But when his brother dies, King Henry VIII ends up marrying his wife, okay?
And so basically, his father wanted him to marry his brother's wife because his brother died, okay?
Because they wanted to merge Spain and England together, okay?
Now, here's the thing. Catherine was a good bit older than him, okay?
But basically, it's kind of coarse. He had to marry her, okay?
So it's a political marriage and in 1503, they get married.
Well, in 1509, King Henry VIII's father ends up dying, okay?
So at the age of 17, King Henry VIII becomes the king at a pretty young age.
He's a teenager and his wife is 23 at the time.
Now, when you're a king, during this time period, your goal was to end up having a male heir to the throne.
You wanted a male son who could become the king.
Because if you do not have a male son, then your bloodline loses that authority, okay?
Somebody else would end up becoming the king and you wanted to stay in your family, okay?
Now, in 1521, King Henry VIII wrote a book called A Defense of the Seven Sacraments.
A Defense of the Seven Sacraments.
So King Henry VIII was actually one of the most religious Catholics on the planet, okay?
He was actually a pretty good friend to the pope and if you're going to become the king, you kind of have to be, okay?
This was a book that blasted Martin Luther.
That was the whole purpose of the book, was to blast Martin Luther for basically turning against the Catholic Church, okay?
This was in 1521.
He was actually awarded a medal or something by Pope Leo X as being a great defender of the faith.
But what happened was in 1525, as he's gotten a lot older, his wife was not able to produce a male child, okay?
You know, during that time period, many babies would die right after birth, many miscarriages took place.
You know, it just wasn't as safe during that time period and she was unable to have a male son.
So basically, she's a good bit older than him and basically he says, you know what?
I want to divorce her because I'm not going to be able to have a male son.
Well, the problem with that is the Catholic Church was against divorce and they would not allow him to get a divorce.
And it's kind of a political play where they would not let him do that.
So basically, since he was not able to get a divorce, he said, well, I'm just going to leave the Catholic Church, start my own religion and give myself a divorce.
That is how the Church of England got started.
Now, let me ask you, did they separate for any godly reasons?
Like the Catholic Church does infant baptism and you know what, we're against that so we're starting to know.
He believed everything the Catholic Church did but he wanted to be able to get a divorce so he started his own religion.
And King Henry VIII was essentially the Pope, so to speak, of the Church of England and everybody in the country is forced to be part of the Church of England.
When you wake up one day you're Catholic, the next day, now you're part of the Church of England.
It's pretty much forced upon you.
Now, in Leviticus 20, and his excuse for getting a divorce was this, he said, I should have never married my wife and God's cursed me so I cannot have a male child.
It's kind of interesting, it took him 15 years to come to this conclusion that he thought it was wrong.
But he's not actually right about that because notice what it says in Leviticus 20 verse 21.
And if a man shall take his brother's wife, it is an unclean thing.
He hath uncovered his brother's nakedness, they shall be childless.
So this was the verse that he used.
And he said, you know what, if I'm married with my brother, my brother's wife, then I'm going to end up being childless.
Well here's the thing, he was not childless, he was just without a male heir.
So he's going to use this verse, you need to take it literally because you were not childless.
Now when it's talking about Leviticus 20, what it's talking about is taking your brother's wife while he's alive.
That's what it's referring to.
Now go to Matthew 22.
Matthew chapter 22.
Now let me say this, we don't live during this time period or these laws and there's reasons why some of these things took place.
During that time period where people were given in their tribes various portions of land and you were supposed to stay in that portion God gave you.
But because people were bound against God, basically they lost all the area that they were supposed to live in.
And so they were supposed to marry within their tribe back then, not because God is a racist or that God is against interracial marriage.
I mean that's ridiculous.
A lot of preachers will preach things like that, but Moses, didn't they criticize him for marrying in Ethiopian 1?
And basically, oh you're marrying a woman of another race.
Well that's ridiculous. You need to read the whole Bible.
The reason why they were supposed to marry within their tribes was because they were given a portion of land.
But because they became wicked, all those tribes separate and it's all completely different today.
But notice what it says in Matthew 22 verse 24.
Saying Master, Moses said, if a man died having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up seed on his brother.
That's what it says in Matthew 22.
So the idea that it's this terrible sin that he did, that's not really biblical.
It would have been if he took his brother's wife while his brother was alive, but that's not what took place.
So his reason for separating isn't even biblical.
But Pope Clement VII refused to give him a divorce and it was basically a weird political situation where the emperor had the pope hostage.
But he didn't have to have the movies back in his day because the world itself was interesting.
The emperor had basically taken the pope hostage.
And here's the thing, the emperor is the nephew of King Herodias' wife.
So basically if the pope grants the divorce, the emperor is going to kill the pope.
The whole reason the Catholic church refuses to give him a divorce is because he's being held hostage.
The emperor had become more powerful.
And if he goes against the emperor, there goes the head of the pope.
And so the only reason the Catholic church, it's not that they said we won't give you a divorce, we think it's so wrong to do that, we're just spiritual and immoral.
No, he was afraid he'd get killed if he gave him a divorce.
And so basically King Henry VIII starts his own religion, the Church of England, and he separates.
So of all of the Protestant branches we're going to look at, this is the most similar to the Catholic church by far.
You say, why? Because there's not a single doctrine they separated over.
They only separated over the fact that King Henry VIII said I wanted a divorce.
The only thing I've heard them saying they separated, they basically made it illegal to beat yourself.
They said it's wrong to beat yourself.
The Catholic church, look in Pampanga, that comes from Catholic church doctrine where you're supposed to beat yourself and you get forgiveness from God.
That is not just something that was drained up. The Catholic church has taught that before.
And so the Church of England separated, they said you're no longer allowed to beat yourself.
That's the only thing doctrinally that they said they disagree with, as far as I'm aware.
Now turn in your Bible to John chapter 1.
Now in the Anglican church, priests are allowed to get married in the Anglican church, the Church of England.
And they are men who are the priests, but unfortunately they're allowed to get married to men or women.
But they allow marriage with the priests in the Anglican church, but they're not against the LGBTs, so they're allowed to marry men or women.
And so this is the Anglican church.
Now another character I want to mention, I know I'm showing you a lot of history in this sermon, but I'm also showing you a lot of Bible.
And the reason why King Henry VIII is important when we discuss the process of reformation is not just because of the denominations that came from him, although that's a big part of it,
but also because he's a large reason why we have this Bible in the English language.
You might not be aware of this, but King Henry VIII is one of the major reasons why we have a King James Bible.
Now there's a character by the name of William Tyndale. Many of you know who William Tyndale is, right?
He was persecuted and killed for trying to get a Bible into the hands of the common man, because the Catholic church made it illegal to have a Bible.
So there's a lot to his life, William Tyndale, we won't get too much into that, but here's what happened with William Tyndale.
He basically spoke against King Henry VIII due to the divorce, and so basically the Catholic church and the Church of England wanted to kill William Tyndale.
They're kind of in it together. Whenever you're living for God and you're doing what's right, everybody wants to kill you.
I mean, every single branch, everybody wants to kill them. The Church of England hates the Catholic church, but together they hate William Tyndale, because he wanted to get a Bible into our hands.
William Tyndale was burned at the stake, and the last words that are recorded that he said, supposing that this has happened in history,
what they say, the last words he said was this, open thou the eyes of the King of England.
Open thou the eyes of the King of England. Sometimes you'll hear that quote that's changed a little bit, but basically his last words, his dying words are
open the eyes of the King of England, basically, so he can put it in his heart to get a Bible in the hands of man.
Because the Catholic church made it illegal to have a Bible, but King Henry VIII started a new religion, and you know what ended up happening with King Henry VIII?
It came into his heart to get a Bible started in the English language. Before that, they were not able to have Bibles in the English language.
And King Henry VIII, basically, he stood against the Catholic church and said, we're going to have a Bible, we want every single person to have it.
One of those Bibles, the first one was called the Great Bible. It was the first authorized Bible in the English language.
Now I want you to understand, I'm going to kind of go to depth about this, about Bible translations and things like that, but what you need to understand,
at our church, we are King James only. We believe the King James Bible is the perfect, preserved Word of God in the English language.
Now here's the thing, the Word of God can be translated into any language. God is not bound by a language. The Bible says,
God's Word existed before we existed. God's Word existed before languages existed.
So you can put the Bible into any language in the world and have it 100% perfect without losing any power over me.
In the English language, the King James Bible is the perfect one. Now what has taken place over the last 100 years, pretty much, is there's a lot of new Bibles that spring up.
The NIV, the New King James, the ESV, the NRSV, the NASV, and you see all these Bibles and it confuses someone who's a new Christian.
You're like, which am I supposed to read? And you go to a Bible bookstore and they say, this is the easiest to read you.
As a new believer, we want to give you the easiest one. Now here's the thing about this, what we believe is this is how God said it in the King James Bible.
The Word of God is not meant to be like a Dr. Seuss book, like on a first grade level. No, it's meant to be the words of God.
And you know what, there are some things that are deep in this book, there are some things that are complicated, but these are the words of God.
What we believe, and I'm not going to get too much into it, what we believe is that you should read the King James Bible if you're reading in the English language.
If you're reading in Tagalog, or
or whatever, you can read in that language a Bible that's translated. Now I believe that in the English language there's a perfect Bible, and there may be perfect Bibles in other languages, but I don't speak Portuguese.
I don't speak Romanian. I don't speak all these languages, Arabic, so I don't know if there's a perfect Bible in Mandarin or whatever, but I will say this, in the English language we have the King James Bible.
Now in the last hundred years, a lot of new Bibles are coming up on the market, and the purpose of them is not the same as King Henry VIII.
See, King Henry VIII says, I want people to have a Bible so they can read it because it's illegal, but today they make Bibles to make money.
That's the purpose of it. See, legally you must change the words by a certain degree, otherwise there's a copyright claim, okay?
The only Bible in the English language without that copyright claim today is the King James Bible. You can print this book and give it to people and it's not illegal.
But did you know that if you printed the NIV it would be illegal and you could pay a huge fine or be arrested? Why? Because those aren't the words of God, they're the words of man.
So in the English language you have the King James Bible. These new versions that have come up the last hundred years are different than the King James Bible, they teach different things.
But, before the King James there were six different Bibles that were there, and these were almost identical to the King James.
They were not teaching heresy, they were not trying to deceive people, they were almost the same as the King James Bible. You say, prove it to me.
Well you're there in John 112. This is not a fully King James only sermon, so I don't have time to go deeply into it.
I will eventually because apparently there's a lot of confusion on what it means to be King James only.
But I want you to look at John 112 and tell me, I want to read from the great Bible, okay?
And tell me if this sounds similar to what you have in your hands. John 112.
But as many as received it, to them giving power to be the sons of God, even them that believed on his name.
Is that almost identical? Almost identical. Even them that believed on his name. Slight difference.
But is that teaching a different doctrine? No it's not, it's the same thing, right?
John 113, which were born, not of blood, nor of the wills of flesh, nor of the ends of the will of man, but of God.
Do you notice how it says almost the exact same thing, okay? But you know if you read those verses in modern versions, it's completely different.
What I read to you only had a couple words different and it taught the exact same thing.
But you need to understand, we say that people cannot get saved from a version other than the King James and what we mean by that is you cannot get saved from modern versions because they're teaching different things.
The words are changed. But the Bibles before the King James, they're almost identical and many verses are word for word exactly the same, okay?
Okay, turn to John 3. John 3. Now here's the thing, if you look at my notes after the service, you're going to be like, this looks different brother.
Why does it say G-A-U-E, okay? Well there was changes in the font and things such as that, but that's not a different word, it's just differently how it's spelled today versus how it was back then.
It's the same word though, okay? And so basically you know the words though, they're basically the exact same, okay?
Now turn to, and let me give you an example of this, okay? Now think about this, I don't have a board up here, but think about the letter W, okay?
Double U. Does that look like a double U or a double B? It looks like a double B, okay? Why is it called double U, okay?
Look, there's slight changes to the language, okay? It was called double W, but the letters have changed a little bit. That hasn't changed the words though, okay?
John 3.16, I'm going to read to you here from the Great Bible. 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.
Now some of the letters have changed because of, like I said, they've changed certain things, but not the words, so I'm assuming I'm saying all those words right because I'm seeing U's and Paris and P-E-R-I-S-S-H-E, but I'm assuming it's the exact same word and everything like that.
But what you saw in John 3.16, that's the same thing, isn't it? I mean, that whosoever believeth in Him. He gave His only begotten Son, but in the modern versions, He gave His one and only Son.
That's changed because of the fact I am a son of God, and if you're saved as a man in this room, you're a son of God, if you're saved as a woman, you're a daughter of God.
But see, in the NIV, it will say He gave His one and only Son. No, no, that's not right. He gave His only begotten Son, right?
It says His only begotten Son in John 3, verse 16. We can go to John 3, verse 36.
John 3, verse 36.
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.
You say, brother, aren't you reading from the King James? No, it's just very, very, very similar, okay?
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abide by Him.
I mean, are you noticing it's almost identical, right? It's teaching the exact same thing.
But, you know, you look at modern versions in John 3, verse 36, like the ESV, the NASB, and it says He that obeys the Son, instead of He that believes.
Now, look, that's different, right? That's teaching a different thing, because you don't have to obey the rules of God in order to go to heaven. You just have to believe, okay?
In the Great Bible, it's saying basically the same thing, and very slight differences in words, and in some verses, the exact same.
So, look, before 1611, you could get people saved in those Bible verses. Why? It's saying the same thing.
And look, before the Great Bible, you could still get people saved in English. All you could do is translate the verse.
Look, if you speak multiple languages, you can translate from one verse to another and say the same exact thing, okay?
And so, look, before people had Bibles in their hands, you know what they did? They would just translate it, and they could get people saved.
Look, they're not translating the whole Bible. They're translating John 3.16, Romans 6.23, John 3.36, Acts 16.30-31.
Yeah, if they had to translate the whole Bible, they'd make lots of mistakes, but when they're just translating whosoever believeth it, or He that believeth it of the Son, you know what, you're able to do that, okay?
I mean, in the Artegalo Bible there, it's the exact same. The gift of God, I'm regalo namios, I will I'm going to go on.
It's the exact same thing as in English. And look, you don't have to be an expert to be able to translate that. You don't have to speak 10 languages to translate the gift of God.
All you have to do is just spend like 15 minutes studying Tagalog. Even Google Translate will get that right. I assume. I assume. I didn't check that, okay?
Now go to Psalms 12. Psalms 12. Psalms chapter 12.
So what we believe is that the King James Bible is perfect. And look, this was already in my notes here today. It's kind of an appropriate timing. But this was already part of the sermon. I have added this. This was already part of my sermon.
I will say a few extra things that I wasn't planning to say. But when it comes to the King James Bible, King Henry VIII was a big part of getting that into play.
Because when he had the great Bible, that started a chain of events where other people were making Bibles, and there was a purification process of the King James Bible, okay?
What the Bible says in Psalms 12 verses 6 and 7, it says the words of the Lord are pure words. As silver tried to furnish the earth, notice this next part, purified seven times.
Thou shalt keep them, O Lord. Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever.
When you look at the King James Bible, there was basically a process of God purifying his word. The great Bible came, and then a new Bible came that was even closer to what the King James would be.
And eventually when the King James came into play, boom, it's the perfect word of God. 100%, no mistake, it was the perfect word of God, okay?
But those ones beforehand were almost the same. They were part of that purification line. It's not like it was NIV, the ESV, the new King James. No, no, no. These were almost the same as the King James.
And you could confidently hold this up and say, hey, I'm not going to end up here and heresy out of this. There's just some slight things that God said, you know what, I want to make some changes.
This is how God did it. There's a purification process. What's interesting is if you study a little bit of the history of Bibles in other languages, other languages have kind of a similar history.
Like the Spanish language, the people that tried to put the Bible in play, they were killed and persecuted, and their Bible came in 1602.
Now, I don't think that one was perfect, but it was very, very close, much like the one before the King James, almost identical, okay? God goes through a purification process, okay?
Now go to Matthew 24. Matthew chapter 24.
So when it comes to the King James Bible, I want you to realize what King Henry, not King Henry, later on put King James, they basically had 54 translators that spoke lots of languages.
Seven languages, eight languages, nine languages, some of them spoke over a dozen languages, just experts at language, and basically their whole job became to translate the Bible into the English language and make it perfect when King James came on scene.
Now, the ones before were great Bibles, though. You could use them and get people saying, and look, you could confidently read the great Bible and not say, well, I can't read the Bible because it's heresy.
Many languages today don't have a 100% perfect Bible, but I would recommend that people in those languages read the Bible in their language, and there's going to be very, very little problems with it because it's very close, and the other languages may be perfect as well, some other languages, too.
So notice what it says in Matthew 24 verse 35.
Heaven and earth shall pass away, Matthew 24 verse 35. No, we're not talking about the end times. You've got to wait until Wednesday to come back.
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. My words shall not pass away. God's promise is that every word is going to stick there. We're not going to have a word pass away.
What we believe in the King James Bible is that every single word is perfect. It's the word of God. Not a single word has passed away, but when you translate from one language to the next, what do you have to do?
You have to change some stuff. You have to read the words. Look, if you just did a word-for-word translation from English to Tagalog, you know what? You would lose the power, lose the meaning oftentimes, and it would not be the word of God.
I mean, this book is not just, there's no mistakes. It's poetic. You can tell it was written by the hand of God. This morning I made an example, and I told a couple of guys here this morning, I'll do my best to pronounce this right, but this makes sense in English, and it's probably not going to make a whole lot of sense in Tagalog.
I left the cat out of the back is what I just said. Now that makes sense in English. And you're like, no, I'm just talking. What in the world do you mean you left the cat out of the back? That's an expression that means you said a secret, like you're gossiping.
Like, oh, I left the cat out of the back. Now that makes sense in English. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense in Tagalog. You say, why? Because when you translate from one language to the next, sometimes there's expressions that just do not translate that well.
That's just the way it is. So obviously when we're saying that the King James Bible is perfect and the exact words of God, we're not saying that those 54 translators just said, wow, I've got the word regado, give. Those line up. And that's all they did. No, you've got to make some changes and adjustments when you're translating from one language to the next.
You cannot just have a completely 100% formal translation. We use what's called dynamic equivalents. You must make some changes where it doesn't make sense. And anyone who's studied even just a little bit of languages knows that, that you cannot just translate from one language to the next and be perfect.
Now here in the Philippines, all the languages are kind of similar. So the grammar and structure is going to be pretty similar because they kind of derive from the same source. But if you were to go from like Tagalog to English, the grammar is different. There are going to be a lot of changes you have to make and not just, wow, you know, what's the word for this? What's the word for this? Okay. So we're saying all the words are there. We're not saying that you just look from one language to the next and it's the exact same word. You have to make changes. But still, it's the same power and the same meaning.
Turn to songs from one language. Songs from one language.
I mean, a great example of this is in the word poet. Did you know there is no word poet in English or pretty much any language? It's like, I don't even know how they translate that into English because we don't have that word in the English language. Did you know that languages, there's certain words that's like, man, we just don't have that word. And that's why they have to make adjustments and things like that.
And here's the thing. If all it was is you look at one language to the next and here's the word for this, just put that in and it'll all be perfect. If that's all they had to do, why did it take 54 translators who spoke a dozen languages over six years to do that?
It's like, good night, just hire one eight year old for a year and you can get the job done. You can just look it up in the dictionary, okay? Because of the fact you do have to make changes, but they wanted to make sure they kept the power and the full meaning. And we believe they did that with AJ and Bob.
Obviously guided by God to make sure that there were no mistakes. But look, it was not just look up the dictionary, here's the word and replace it. No, you have to make some changes from one language to the next.
But you can translate from one language to the next and be 100% perfect, just as powerful, with as much meaning from any language because God is not bound by one language.
Now when it comes to the split offs from the Church of England, you're in Psalms 111, we'll go there in a second. When it comes to the split offs from the Church of England, the Anglican Church and the Church of England came and there was a lot of split offs from that.
One of the split offs were called the Puritans. Now the Puritans get their name because they wanted to purify the Church of England. They're sort of like the Protestants for the Church of England.
Now what the Puritans were were hard core Calvinists. I don't have time to go all into that, next week we'll talk a lot about Calvinists and we'll talk about John Calvin. But when it comes to the Puritans, it was known they would go to their deathbed and they were scared to death they were going to go to hell.
Why? Because of the fact they didn't know they had eternal life. Because Calvinists are teaching the world of salvation. And so basically it was known throughout history, they'd get to their deathbeds, they were the most religious people, they would just be very strict with all their rules, they'd get to their deathbed and they're scared to death they were going to go to hell.
Now here's the thing, I was scared to death about that when I was 18 years old, but not after I got saved. You say why? Because when you have eternal life, you know you have eternal life. And even when you screw up, even when you make mistakes, you know God will not take away eternal life. He's eternal. He's reputable.
And so the Puritans came from that. Now also with the Puritans, there's a separatist for pilgrims, and a lot of people think pilgrims are Puritans, they're not the same though. Because what the Puritans wanted was a state religion, where basically you're forced to do everything the religion says.
Which is where you get into being forced to have anything baptism through murder or baptism rather than through the ages. The Pilgrims though, they didn't want a state religion where you're forced to follow certain rules. Those are not the same.
Also splitting off from the Church of England were the United Methodists. I grew up the United Methodists. I like to call them the United Deathless. Because if you believe their doctrine, you're going to experience the second death. Because they teach and believe and work salvation.
In the United Methodists, their famous leader was John Wesley. Now in the United Methodist religion, and I grew up the United Methodists, I know what it's like, they called their leaders reverent. Notice what it says in Psalms 111 verse 9.
He sent redemption on his people, he commanded his servant, his covenant forever, holy and reverent is his name. What the Bible says about God is holy and reverent is his name. God's name is holy, reverent, and so when it comes to the name reverent, that is not something you would call a person.
Like Reverend Stuckey. That's reserved for God. There are certain names that you don't take on. Don't call me Jehovah Stuckey. That would be blasphemous. That's the name for God my friend. And so is the name reverent. Now it might not feel like that because many Baptist pastors call themselves reverent.
It's like why in the world would you call yourself the name the Bible tells you not to? That's the United Methodist religion. Go to Matthew 23.
As for the United Methodists, what they're famous for that's kind of different than a lot of the Protestants, the United Methodists were not Calvinists. They believed in none of the points of Calvinism. They did not believe in eternal security though.
They weren't believing in Jesus Christ but their salvation. They believed in the word salvation but they did not believe in the Calvinist version of the word salvation. They just believed in their own version of the word salvation.
Matthew 23 verse 8. But be not he called rabbi, for one is your master even Christ, and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father on earth, for one is your father which is in heaven.
And so what you see is basically blasphemous titles being used and Jesus speaks about this and you would think with a Bible that tells you not to do this, they wouldn't do that. But they still call their leaders reverent or father or all these terms that should be directed only towards God. The United Methodists are guilty of that.
Here's your Bible to Mark 12. Another thing the United Methodists are pretty famous for and I mentioned before is this, that all the United Methodist preachers or reverends, and I don't really want to say that we're all those reverends, they always wear these long clothes, these long robes with these bright colors, usually purple, sometimes red from what I've seen, maybe it varies my country a little bit.
But you say what's wrong with wearing long clothing? Well, Mark 12 verse 38. And he said on to them in his doctrine, Mark 12 verse 38, he said on to them in his doctrine, beware of the scribes who just love you go in long clothing and love salutations in the market places and the cheap seats of the synagogues and the uppermost rooms of peace. Notice how it says love you go in long clothing.
So here's what I want you to understand, the Bible speaks against having long clothing as a leader. Love to go in long clothing and yet today you see those leaders, what do they wear? Long clothing.
And so they wear these robes that go down the ground and the purpose of this is to draw attention to themselves. That's the purpose. Go to verse 53.
Look, it's like this with every religion. I mean, you go to the airport and you have that Buddhist monk with that orange in a long robe or whatever, and look, it causes everybody to look at him. Why? Because he stands out.
Okay, you're not supposed to try to stand out as a Christian. Okay, let's just kind of dress normal, not supposed to stand out. Look at me. I'm a priest. I'm a rep. Okay, that's not what you're supposed to do.
First Timothy 3. Another thing you've got Methodists arguing about is they have women preachers. You say, is it wrong to have a woman as a preacher?
First Timothy 3, verse 1. This is a true saying, if a man desired the office of a bishop, he desired the good work. If a man desired the office of a bishop, he desired a good work.
Okay, not a woman, but if a man. You say why? Because the pastors, the leaders are supposed to be men, not women. If a man desired the office of a bishop.
Okay, verse 2. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, out to teach.
So you must be a man that is married to a woman. It's not that complicated. Now in the United Methodists and the Anglicans, you can be a woman married to a guy or a woman.
You can be a man married to a man or a woman. It doesn't matter. They have outright people that are LGBT or sodomites that are the ones preaching the sermons.
Doesn't the Bible speak about against that over and over and over and over again? And yet they have people that are just open homosexuals that are running the churches.
Last I checked, that's a pretty big sin in the Bible. In fact, go to 2 Kings 23.
And look, it's coming this way for all the Protestants. But it's just that, you know what, the United Methodists and the Anglicans, they're pretty famous for it.
In fact, a lot of people left the United Methodists due to that issue where they basically ordained gay clergy the ministry. Okay, let me make sure I have the right one.
2 Kings 23 verse 7. And you say, well, what's wrong with having the leader of the church being an open homosexual? Well, notes what it says in 2 Kings 23 verse 7.
And he break down the houses of the sodomites. And a sodomite is a term that was given because in Genesis 19, Sodom and Gomorrah, the people in Sodom and Gomorrah were homosexuals. Fuck off.
It says he break down the houses of the sodomites that were by the house of the Lord where the women wove their hands for the grove.
Those were the ones that lived beside the house of the Lord, their houses were broken down by the leader, by the king. And the Bible says this was a good thing. You say, why? Because they didn't want to divide the house of God.
They were not even allowed to be beside the house of God, much less the one running the church. I mean, what's there to debate about that?
It says you must be a man married to a woman, and it says nowadays you have these denominations in the process. You've got men that are open sodomites married to men. You've got women that are open lesbians.
And they're the ones running the church. It's like, good night to even care what the Bible says.
Now just a few more things to close up in this sermon, kind of going into the history of this. And so this is the Anglican Church, the Church of England, the High Methodist.
This represents a lot of people. It's over 100 million people worldwide that are in these denominations. And it sprang from this religion of King Henry VIII.
But there was a big controversy within the Methodist churches. There was a guy by the name of George Whitefield, and he basically was very good friends with John Wesley who started the United Methodists.
John Wesley was an Anglican priest. He left the Anglican priesthood, the Church of England, to basically start the United Methodist denomination.
So here's the thing. Is he a little bit closer to the truth than the Church of England? Yeah, a little bit. But he was an Anglican priest. Just like the Protestants and the Catholics are basically the same.
Now George Whitefield, he was part of this Methodist denomination, but he was a hardcore Five Point Calvinist. John Wesley didn't believe in any of the points of Calvinism.
He believed you could lose your salvation, and basically that was the big thing they disagreed on. This ended up starting another branch of the Methodists.
But what's interesting about this is that George Whitefield and John Wesley remained very close friends until the day they died, and they did ministry together.
One of them preached one sermon and one the next, and they got along great even though one was a hardcore Calvinist and the other one was a hardcore lose your salvation, what we call as an Armenian.
But they were great friends. It's interesting because neither one of them would have been friends with me. But they were great friends. You say, what? They teach the same doctrine.
At the end of the day, how many religions are there in this world? Two. One religion is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
The other religion is work your way to heaven, and they have a million different ways about how you work your way to heaven. It's the same thing. Hinduism is the same as Islam.
Islam is the same as United Methodists or Buddhists or Catholics or whatever. They're all teaching live a good life and go to heaven.
That goes back to the story of Cain and Abel, how Cain wants to work his way to heaven, so to speak. And guess what? He's rejected by God.
And God will reject any religion that's teaching works for salvation. So George Whitefield, John Wesley, they were made good friends until the day they died.
And look, the brother John Wesley, on a side note, Charles Wesley, he wrote a lot of good songs. He wasn't saved, but he wrote a lot of good songs. In fact, in this hymnal, we actually have some of the songs from Charles Wesley, the brother of the founder of the United Methodists. The songs are good, that's fine, but in terms of what he believed, he was a United Methodist.
And so just one last thing we'll bring on in this sermon. I talked about Calvinism, and we'll talk about that a lot next week. There's another guy that came from the United Methodists, and his name was Jacob Arminius.
Now sometimes people ask the question, are you an Arminian or a Calvinist? They'll say, are you an Arminian or a Calvinist? Arminians are basically the United Methodists, work your way to heaven, you can lose your salvation.
The Calvinists are lying in the George White case, five points hard for a Calvinist. But here's the thing, those guys were friends with one another. I don't see a difference between them. It's like whether you preach against this or this, they're both wrong.
And it's amazing how they were made friends when they're supposedly at odds because they're both teaching work your way to heaven. They got along great. So look, if somebody asks that question, are you a Calvinist or an Arminian?
The answer is neither. Option C, option number three, none of the above. You're neither. Why? Because you're Satan. You believe on Jesus Christ, just as if somebody asks you, are you a Catholic or a Protestant? The answer is neither. None of the above.
I'm not a Catholic. I'm not a Protestant. I believe on Jesus Christ, okay? Because those religions, the Catholics, the Protestants and all these branches, it all goes back to what the Catholic Church taught, work salvation and love. You're not Catholics. The Catholic Church was never right. This doesn't work very well.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today and just getting to see your word on these various topics. God, help us to apply this to our lives and help us to understand our Baptist history, God. It's important for us to know where we came from and the things that we believe.
There are a lot of false religions out there, God, but help us to do our best here in the community and in the Philippines to reach people with the gospel, bring people to church, teach them the ways of God and what the Bible says. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.