That's what's referred to there by the gospel, and it says, "The beginning of the gospel
of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in the prophets, 'Behold, I send my
messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.
The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths
straight.'"
And then of course it identifies who that voice crying in the wilderness is, it's John
in verse four there, John the Baptist.
Now let me point out the fact that there's a big reason in this church why we use the
King James Bible only.
I mean it says it right on the window, it says it in the Yellow Pages ad, it's on our
website.
You know we talk a lot about being King James only and most churches these days are not
King James only.
Today if you go to the Christian bookstore they're going to try to get you on the NIV
or the ESV or one of these other modern versions of the Bible.
Why is it so important that we stick with the old King James Bible?
Why are we using a Bible translation that's over 400 years old?
It's not just a matter of preference.
It's not just that we think it sounds cool using a more archaic language.
These new versions are very different and they make dramatic changes to the Bible that
affect doctrine.
But when you look at just this first part of Mark, here's what I want to point out.
Is that it says in verse 2 as it is written in the prophets and then it quotes two different
prophets.
First it quotes Malachi in verse 2 and then it quotes Isaiah in verse 3.
Well, if you're reading the NIV or the ESV, it says in verse 2 as it is written in Isaiah
the prophet and then it quotes Malachi, which is incorrect because obviously Malachi and
Isaiah are two different prophets that preached it two different times and they have two different
messages and it's just totally wrong.
But here's what's funny too, even verse 1 is corrupt in the Westcott and Hort Greek
text from which the modern versions come.
Now I don't want to go too deep on this right now, but let me just give you the basics of
this because there's a really important point that I want to get across here about this.
The modern versions, their corruption comes from the Alexandrian text of scripture, the
Egyptian text of scripture, and the two most notable manuscripts in that tradition are
called Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.
And again, I'm not going to go too deep on this, so don't tune out or anything, but Sinaiticus
and Vaticanus are the two bad guys.
These are two corrupt Greek manuscripts that have done more to corrupt these modern versions
than anything else.
So we've got the traditional text that's been passed down and received by everyone.
That's what we have in the King James, the traditional text.
In the 1800s, you start having all these German scholars and people second guessing the word
of God and saying it's been corrupted, we've got to find something more accurate, and you
have them digging up these old manuscripts, Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and making changes.
But here's what's funny, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus leave out the phrase the son of God there.
They just say the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ and then that's it.
It just stops there, whereas we have the son of God in our King James Bible.
Now if you open the Jehovah's Witness Bible, it leaves out the son of God here because
it's based 100% on Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, based on the Westcott and Hort manuscript.
But what's funny is that the NIV and the ESV will include the son of God here, but then
a whole bunch of other places, they're just constantly following Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.
So here's my thing, make up your mind.
If Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are so great, if Westcon and Hort is so great, why don't
you go with it all the time?
But I'll tell you this right now, the people who are promoting these modern versions and
the people that are working on these modern versions, none of them believes that the son
of God should be there in verse one.
And by the way, they all believe that the last 12 verses of the book of Mark should
be left off.
It's what James White and those type people believe.
They want to ditch 12 verses from the end of Mark, they want to ditch the story of the
woman taken in adultery, they want to ditch all kinds of stuff.
But isn't it funny how the NIV and the ESV, they still print those stories in the Bible?
And I'll tell you why, it's because they don't want to freak you out too much by changing
too many things at once.
And so they're a work in progress, slowly getting worse and making more and more changes.
You see, in the early days of the Jehovah's Witness Bible, it still contained the ending
of Mark.
But just in 2013, they ditched the ending of Mark and now it just ends at verse 8.
That's where the modern Bibles are going, my friend.
There will come a day, mark my words, there will come a day when the ESV and the NIV just
stop at Mark 16, 8 and they stop right there.
Just a few years ago, in 2011, the NIV was revised to become gender neutral and to take
out too many references to he and him and his.
And I'm telling you, these Bibles keep on changing.
How far are you going to go down that road?
Even if you say, "Well, I don't think the NIV is that bad."
Okay, what's it going to be like 10 years from now?
What's it going to be like 20 years from now?
They keep changing it.
They keep updating it and you can't even get the old one.
The King James Bible has stood the test of time for over 400 years.
We have an accurate Bible in English.
It is the preserved, inspired Word of God in our English language.
And if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
And so I just wanted to take a moment to warn you about these modern versions.
Just in Mark chapter one alone, we could point out a whole bunch of examples.
Like I said, the text that they're constantly using removes the Son of God from verse one.
They left it in because they're schizophrenic.
They go back and forth between following the Texas Receptus and the Westcott and Hort because
they don't want to jerk the steering wheel too much and freak you out too much.
So they're slowly making more and more changes with each edition to get it on that corrupt
text.
But even in verse 41, jump down to verse 41 of Mark chapter one.
It says, "And Jesus moved with compassion, put forth his hand and touched him and said
in him, 'I will be thou clean.'"
This is a man with leprosy comes to Jesus and says, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst
make me clean.
If you want to, you can make me clean."
And he says, "I will be thou clean."
And he's moved with what?
Compassion.
That makes sense.
Read the NIV and the ESV, here's what it says, that he was moved with indignation.
Indignation means anger.
So a man comes up in faith asking to be healed, why would Jesus give, "I will be thou clean.
Fine.
Be clean.
Fine.
I guess I'll heal you."
It's nonsense.
It's ridiculous.
So just in this one chapter alone, they're quoting Malachi saying it's Isaiah.
Jesus is angrily healing people.
I guess I'll do it.
Get out of here.
Get away from me, son.
You bother me.
It makes no sense.
This is one chapter.
And I want to make this important note in verse one, chapter one, that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God, the one thing that you have to believe to be saved.
You got to believe on the Son in order to be saved.
Anyway, that's not what I'm preaching about here, but I wanted to just do a little commercial
break there for the King James Bible so that you understand that that's not just a preference
that we have.
There's a reason why we only use the King James Bible, and there are some dark forces
behind these new versions, and they're corrupt, and they're not of God, and so we are King
James only.