Amen.
Jeremiah 36, the Bible reads in verse number 1, it came to pass in the fourth year of
Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, that this word came unto Jeremiah from the
Lord saying, take thee a roll of a book and write therein all the words that I
have spoken unto thee against Israel and against Judah and against all the nations
from the day I spake unto thee from the days of Josiah even unto this day.
Now when the Bible says there a roll of a book, the word that we would be more familiar
with than a roll would be a scroll, okay, so if you just put a S-C-R at the beginning
of that instead of roll, think scroll, okay, that's what's being talked about here.
And he says, write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel,
against Judah, and against all the nations from the day I spake unto thee.
So he's saying, everything that you've preached, all the prophecies that you've preached
for many, many years, right now this is happening in the fourth year of Jehoiakim,
but he's saying going back all the way to when Josiah was king.
So this is just years and years of the prophecies of Jeremiah, everything that was
God's word that had been given to him, he tells him to write all that down.
And the way that this happens in this chapter is that he has a scribe named Baruch and
he dictates to the scribe the words of the Lord, all the words that the Lord has spoken
to him over the last many years and Baruch sits there and writes it all down.
Now this is a really interesting chapter because it really shows us where the Bible
came from.
It shows us where we get God's word.
A lot of people have this attitude that the word of God is just written by man and
man kind of put his spin on it and so forth.
And in fact, people who believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible and people who believe
that what we have in the Bible is word for word what God spoke, sometimes they'll
even make fun of that and call it mechanical dictation.
And they'll say, oh, well you believe in mechanical dictation.
But actually that's what we see in this chapter, mechanical dictation because you
have Jeremiah speaking the words and he has a guy like a machine just writing down the
words at the mouth of Jeremiah.
So God spoke these words to Jeremiah and then Jeremiah speaks them to Baruch and then
Baruch writes them down.
That's the workflow of how the Bible is written when it comes to the book of Jeremiah.
Now other books in the Bible are written in a similar way.
For example, the book of Romans, if you go to chapter 16, don't turn there now,
but in chapter 16 it says, I, Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord.
And you say, wait, I thought Romans was written by Paul.
But the one who physically wrote it down was a guy named Tertius because Paul dictated
it to him and he was kind of like Baruch in the sense that he wrote it down.
Now the reason that this is so significant is that a lot of people will say, well, man
wrote the Bible because God didn't physically come down and pick up a pen and write it
himself.
And what I always say to people who say that is, I say, well, you know, the Bible
that I have in my hand was not really handwritten by anyone, it was printed by
a machine.
You know, nobody writes like this.
This is printed by a machine.
This had to use computers and so forth.
And I say to them, is the machine the author of this book?
No.
The person who came up with the words is the author.
The guy who's writing it down is meaningless.
Baruch could have been replaced with anyone.
Baruch's not really an important player in the story here when it comes to writing
it down.
I mean, Tertius just really isn't that important.
The guy that was important was the apostle Paul because that's the guy who God is using
to bring the scripture.
The fact that Tertius wrote it is pretty much meaningless.
That's why nobody even brings it up.
Nobody cares.
They just talk about the epistle of Paul to the Romans.
Why?
Tertius was like a machine in the sense that he's just writing down exactly what he's
told to write down.
And what we need to understand is that when it comes to the Bible, the Bible is man
writing down what God told him to write down.
So God is the author of the Bible.
God doesn't physically have to pick up the pen and write it.
God doesn't have to write it with his own finger graven in stone like he did with the
Ten Commandments.
He doesn't have to do that with the whole Bible.
It's God's Word because he's the author of the words.
That's what matters at the end of the day.
And it's a supernatural act that took place here because how could Jeremiah really remember
all this stuff in order to just quickly dictate it all to somebody and have them
basically write out most of the book of Jeremiah?
Obviously that was under the inspiration of the Spirit of God.
God's Spirit allowed them to write this book.
Then when he brings the book and it's read before the king, the king destroys it.
And then what does he do?
He writes it again.
He writes the exact same thing again.
Now people were distraught when the book is being destroyed saying don't throw it
away because they're afraid it's going to be gone forever.
But they don't realize that God promised to preserve his Word.
And so God's Word was preserved because another copy was produced by Baruch and it's been
passed down to us today.
And we by faith believe that we still have the exact words as God spake them.
Thousands of years later we have them preserved unto us.
You see it doesn't make any sense to believe that God inspired the Word of God,
that God spoke all these words and that the Word of God was perfect and then to
believe that God would just let those words fall off the face of the earth.
That just doesn't make any sense.
You see why would God go through all the trouble to give us the Bible which it came
to us through almost 40 different authors.
It came to us over the course of about 16 to 1700 years.
So it's in the making for 16 to 1700 years, 40 authors written in all different geographies.
It's written in three different languages.
And all of it comes together just so that God could allow it to be lost.
That's really silly isn't it?
And not only that we have the promises of God where he said heaven and earth shall
pass away but my words shall not pass away.
It's easier for heaven and earth to pass than for one jot or
one tittle to pass from the law till all be fulfilled.
So he said every word, every jot, every tittle, man did not live by bread alone
but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God.
He didn't say every thought or idea or story, he said every word.
God's words would be preserved.
His words will endure to all generations.
The flower faded the grass with earth but the word of our God shall stand forever.
But yet today you even have Baptist churches who in their statement of faith say,
we believe that God's word is perfect when it was originally written.
We believe in the perfection of God's word in the originals.
And they're not just saying in the original language.
They're saying in the original documents.
And then when someone points out to them what looks like a contradiction in the Bible,
somebody will point out something that looks amiss, here's what they'll say.
Well, that's just a mistake in the transmission because they say that it was originally perfect
but over the years it got a little contaminated, it got a little messed up,
it didn't get transmitted properly so it's not perfect anymore.
And look, if you see a statement of faith that says that, that's what they're saying.
When they say, well, we believe God's word was perfect in the original,
they're saying that somewhere along the line it got messed with.
Now here's what's so foolish about that.
What good does that do us to say, once upon a time, long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away,
there was a perfect Bible.
How does that help me?
How does that help you?
How does that give me the assurance that what I have is even God's word
because I believe that it used to be perfect somewhere a long time ago?
And who's going to decide where the mistakes are?
You know, some theologian is going to pick it apart and tell us, oh, this part's right.
Look, I believe by faith that this whole book is right.
And I'm not just talking about some obscure concept of some long ago far away book in a foreign language.
I'm saying that I believe that the English King James Bible that I'm holding in my hand is 100% right.
I believe that this is the preservation of God's word that I'm holding in my hand.
And you say, well, no, no, no, it's only the original.
Hey, the original got burned up in this chapter.
And he wrote another one.
Was the second one any less powerful than the first one?
It's the same thing.
If God can deliver his word, if he can use sinful man to deliver his word,
he can use sinful man to preserve his word.
If he promised that he would preserve it into all generations, that's what he's going to do.
And that's what we believe.
Otherwise, how do we even know what's right and what's wrong?
We have to believe by faith that the Bible is preserved.
And whenever people come at you with this, oh, it's perfect in the originals.
What their agenda is, it's actually to attack portions of the word of God.
See, see, I get up here and I say, this book is God's word in English.
We all speak English here.
We all understand it.
This is God's word.
You know what that means?
That means that anything that I preach has to line up with this book.
And if I preach something that doesn't line up with this book, you can take me to task
and come to me and say, Pastor Anderson, here's what the Bible says.
You know, you preach something that was in error.
The Bible says this, and I would have to go with what the Bible says.
I can't just say, well, no, I'm right.
Well, I better have some Bible to back up while I'm right.
Otherwise, you're right.
See, the Bible is the final authority.
But when you get this thing of, well, it's only perfect in the originals,
then what will happen is you'll show somebody something point blank out of the Bible.
Here's what the Bible says, and then here's what they'll say.
Well, no, no, no, the translation's wrong.
You got to go back to the Greek.
You got to go back to the Hebrew.
And of course, the person who's saying that to you is neither fluent in Greek nor Hebrew.
You are neither fluent in Greek nor Hebrew.
So you have one person who doesn't speak Greek telling another person who doesn't speak Greek
what the Greek really says, why we're going to ignore what our English Bible says.
And it just cracks me up how people with virtually no knowledge of Greek,
they couldn't even order a gyro sandwich to save their life.
They couldn't even find a hotel in Athens.
They couldn't even convert their dollars into whatever the money is over there.
But they're going to sit there and tell you that the King James is translated wrong.
When the King James is translated by 54 top scholars from various religious backgrounds
who all came together and spent six years translating it and working on it,
it was reviewed and reviewed and gone over and gone over.
And then it stood the test of time for 400 years where all the translations before it
eventually went out of print.
Nobody even cared because the King James displaced all of those translations.
Some of them are being reprinted again now.
But for many, many years, those all went out of print.
Everybody went to the King James.
It was universally acknowledged to be the standard.
And you can come out with some Bible and call it the new American standard.
That doesn't make it the standard.
Yeah, if the new American standard is the standard, how come it's starting to fade away and go out of print?
And now it's being replaced with the ESV, the English standard version.
How can you just sit there and call something the standard?
No, this is the standard because every version that has ever come out or ever will come out,
it's compared to the King James.
The King James is the standard.
And, you know, people from the Bible of the month club will basically say,
well, it's not just the standard because you just say it's the standard.
You know, James White said, King James only is just say the KJV is the standard.
And then if you ask him why, they say because it's the standard.
And he said that's a circular logic.
But you know why it's the standard?
Because it's the standard.
You know why it's the standard?
Because it's been in print for 400 years and because it is still the most read Bible in the world.
That makes it the standard, not just me saying it's the standard.
The fact that God has preserved it.
God has endorsed it.
God has put his stamp of approval on it.
How?
I'll tell you how.
Because every great soul winning church that has ever existed in the era of modern English
has preached out of this book.
That's why it's the standard.
You show me a great preacher.
You show me a great church.
You show me a great soul winning movement from one of these other versions.
It doesn't exist.
You know what the other versions have spawned are a bunch of skinny jeans wearing,
bunch of contemporary, worldly, not soul winning, not preaching the whole Bible,
not filled with the Spirit of God preachers.
That's what we have.
We have the rock and roll church down the street, the fun center where they're not using the King James.
Then we have the soul winning powerhouse Baptist church.
It's always a King James.
So refreshing just visiting down in Guyana, down in Trinidad, in those Caribbean countries.
All they use down there is the King James as far as I could see.
That was a blessing.
We went into a public school and we're handing out Bibles to all the teachers
after we preach the gospel.
And four of them said, hey, make sure I get a King James.
Is this a King James?
OK, good.
Why make sure it's King James?
I was doing some research on some churches in different areas in the Caribbean.
And I was looking at some stuff in Jamaica.
And I saw this Baptist church in Jamaica.
And you could tell it was kind of liberal and watered down.
And they were talking about how they had missions teams coming in.
They were inviting missions teams to come in.
And they had a note there.
And they said, oh, by the way, in Jamaica they still use the King James Bible.
So if any missions groups come here, don't bring any other versions.
Because if you start speaking to the local Jamaican people out of another version,
it really just confuses them and they don't want to hear you.
So this guy, you could tell from his website, he's not even King James only.
But he's saying, hey, if you're going to go on a missions trip to Jamaica,
you better bring a King James because that's all they're using down here.
And they don't want to hear anything else.
Praise God for that.
If only the United States of America would get some sense
and get back to the King James.
It's funny, the best selling Bible in America today is the NIV.
But the most read Bible is the King James.
There was a research done by the Pew Research Center.
I don't remember what research was done.
But a major research came out about religion in America.
And Brother Scott Brook gave me a copy of it.
And it showed that although the new versions are outselling the King
James now, like the NIV, that as far as people who actually read it,
it was overwhelmingly King James.
Isn't that interesting?
Yeah, because this is the book that's actually worth reading.
The NIV is a great book to just use as a doorstop or a paperweight
or carry it to church with you so you can look spiritual.
But when you actually want to read and learn something and be
filled with the spirit of God, it's the King James version.
You say, well, what's wrong with all these new versions?
The new versions are based on new discoveries,
new manuscripts that have been buried in the earth for thousands
of years.
The real word of God that's been hidden for thousands of years.
I don't believe that.
I believe God's word has been preserved into all generations.
And whatever was buried under the earth and buried under a rock,
that's not the real Bible.
And isn't it funny how all of a sudden these phony Bibles
and all these phony discoveries are just being rolled out just
in time for the end times?
They're just rolled out.
So God just left us without the real Bible for 1,500 years.
But thank God for archaeologists to bring us out
the real Bible in the 20th century.
And thank God in the 1960s, we could finally
start having some popular modern versions, the revised standard version, the NIV,
so that we could what?
Have a great revival so that America could go back
to being a Christian nation.
Is that what's happening right now?
Is the world right now and the United States
right now, because of these new versions,
just experiencing revival and getting back
to the fundamentals of the Christian faith?
No.
The fruit of these versions is rotten.
And the timing is uncanny.
They're coming out just in time for the Antichrist
and getting everything ready for the one world system and the end times.
So don't be deceived by these new versions.
And people act like you're crazy for being King James only.
But these new versions, they're nothing like the King James.
It's not that they just updated the language.
They're taking out entire verses.
They're tampering with the deity of Jesus Christ.
They tamper with salvation by faith alone.
I mean, they make all these changes.
And they act like you're crazy because you believe in one Bible.
Actually, what's crazy is to think that there's 400 different Bibles
and that they're all right.
When you can compare them and they all say dramatically different things.
That's crazy.
What makes more sense is that the Bible
that was used for hundreds and hundreds of years
when America actually did somewhat honor God
and when the gospel was being preached all over the world
and when missions was at its heyday
and American missionaries were going into Africa and South America
and Asia and out of the uttermost parts of the Earth,
they all had a King James under their arm.
And this King James has been translated into hundreds,
yay, thousands of African dialects and other tribal languages
of the oceanic regions and South America, the Caribbean,
all different places.
This book was carried by missionaries.
This book is what has led all the great preaching
and all the great soul-winning movements.
And if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Somebody said, well, you know,
why don't we just get rid of the these and the that?
You know what?
A child can understand this book.
And it might be a little tough at times,
but grow up and get some smarts
and learn how to read this book.
This book is still being preached.
Look, if Jamaica is understanding it just fine,
why can't we understand it?
Do we all need to go down to Jamaica
and be taught English or something?
Because last time I checked,
those people butcher the English language more than we do.
All right?
Nothing against Jamaicans, mon.
But you know, I don't think that they're using
these and that was down in Jamaica.
That's all I'm saying.
You know what I'm saying?
I don't think that down in Jamaica,
they're speaking like the King's English down there,
even though it's Kingston.
It's not the King's English, all right?
So if they can understand the Bible down there, mon,
we better understand it up here in Arizona.
We can't figure out.
Here's a big groundbreaking piece of information for you
that struggle with the these and the thous.
Are you ready for this?
It all means you.
Okay, now can we read the Bible now?
Like it's just, oh, it's just the these and the thous.
It means you!
Done!
You have to learn one word.
Thou, it means you.
Okay, can we move on now?
Is it really that hard?
But this is the big hang up.
We gotta get rid of the these and the thous.
Of course, the these and the thous serve a purpose
because thee and thou is singular.
Ye, you and your is plural.
So you actually lose that understanding
when you get the new versions, which just says you.
You don't know whether that's singular or plural.
King James, if it starts with a T, it's singular.
Why? It's plural.
Thee, thou means you.
That's it, pretty simple.
So let's look at this chapter
and understand some things about God's word.
First of all, we understand how we get God's word.
It's spoken directly by God, it's penned down by man,
and it's not important whether it's Jeremiah
or Barak that pens it down.
You know, Jeremiah just didn't feel like writing it down.
He has Barak do it.
Paul didn't feel like writing it down.
He has Tertius do it.
Who cares?
Because it's not who's writing it
with the pen that counts,
it's who the author of the words is, and that is God.
Look what the Bible says in verse number two.
You take the role of a book and write therein
all the words that I've spoken unto thee against Israel
and against Judah and against all the nations
from the day I spake unto thee
from the days of Josiah, even unto this day.
One thing I want to point out about verse two here
is that the word of God speaks against Israel
and against Judah.
Now, a lot of people have this attitude
that speaking against Israel or against Judah
is somehow a sin, but that's not biblical
because right here, the word of God is specifically stated
as being against Israel and against Judah.
Why?
Because if they're in sin, if they're doing wickedness,
they need to be called out for the sin and wickedness
that they're doing.
And it's not just Israel and Judah.
He said that it's against all the nations.
You know, God has problems with all the nations.
And so we don't want to think
that Israel gets a free pass
where we would never want to speak against Israel
or preach against Israel.
And some people would even say
that if I speak against Israel,
I'm going to be cursed by God.
Well, that doesn't make any sense
because Jeremiah was commanded to speak against Israel.
And I can show you a hundred examples of that
in the book of Jeremiah.
Look at verse three.
It says, it may be that the house of Judah
will hear all the evil which I purposed to do unto them
that they may return every man from his evil way
that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.
The next thing I want to point out is that
preaching hard against nations
and preaching hard against sin, it works.
God said, if you preach this negative message
against Israel, against Judah,
and against these other nations,
it's possible that they will get right with God.
It's possible that they will repent.
It's possible that they will turn from their wicked ways.
Now, notice here it says
that they may return every man from his evil way
that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.
Keep your finger there in Jeremiah.
Go to Jonah 3.10.
Keep your finger on Jeremiah 36.3, go to Jonah 3.10.
And I'm gonna show you something very similar
in Jonah 3.10.
You see, when it comes to our personal salvation,
that is based on whether or not
we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Once we're saved, we have everlasting life
and there's nothing that we could ever do
to lose our salvation.
Because Jesus said, I give unto them eternal life
and they shall never perish.
Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
The Bible says that we're sealed by the Holy Ghost
unto the day of redemption.
The Bible says that he which has begun a good work in us
will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
The Bible says, I will never leave thee nor forsake us.
The Bible says that nothing can separate us
from the love of Christ,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We are saved, we're sealed, we're secure.
We shall not come into condemnation.
We've been passed from death unto life.
There's nothing we could ever do to lose our salvation.
But if we sin after we've believed on Jesus,
there is a consequence.
The Bible says, whom the Lord loveth,
he chasteneth and scourgeth every son
whom he receiveth.
So as a father will discipline their children,
God will discipline us if we commit sins
after we're saved.
We all sin, we're all gonna go through discipline
at some point in our Christian lives.
The Bible says, if you be without chastisement,
whereof all are partakers,
then are you bastards and not sons.
He's saying, if you're never disciplined for your sins,
that just means that you're not even saved.
You're not even a child of God
because he scourges every son whom he receiveth.
Now, when it comes to personal salvation,
the way to receive salvation is by faith.
We're saved by grace through faith,
not of works lest any man should boast, okay?
But if we wanna receive the blessings of God
on our life, those don't just come automatically
because you're saved.
I mean, think about it,
if my children are born into my family,
they're automatically my children
and there's nothing they could ever do
where they would stop being my children.
But does that mean
that they automatically have my blessing?
No, because if they commit sin and do wrong,
I'm not gonna bless them for that.
I'm not gonna praise them for that.
I'm gonna punish them for that.
But they're still my children, okay?
So once we're saved, if we want God to bless us,
we have to obey.
Just like if we want our parents to be a blessing to us
when we're a child, we have to obey our parents.
We're not gonna be rewarded for being bad,
for disobeying.
We're gonna be punished.
So as Christians, we need to obey God's commandments
if we want God to bless us.
And if we don't, he's gonna cloud up and rain on us.
He's gonna punish us.
He's gonna chastise us
as a father would chastise his children.
Now, when it comes to nations,
nations don't have a soul.
Like an individual person has a soul,
they believe in Jesus, they're saved,
they're going to heaven,
but then they're gonna be blessed or cursed
depending on the way they live their life.
When it comes to a nation,
a nation isn't a person that gets saved or not saved,
because it's made up of thousands of people
or even millions of people.
So when it comes to a nation,
in order for God to bless a nation,
that nation has to do what's right,
because it's not a matter of salvation.
Salvation's an individual matter, not a national matter.
It's not like the USA all goes to heaven
or all goes to hell.
That's an individual thing.
Some individuals are going to heaven,
other individuals are going to hell.
But when it comes to the nation itself,
if we want God to save America or God to bless America,
the only way that's gonna happen
is if America keeps God's commandments,
if we do what's right.
And if we do wrong as a nation,
we're gonna be cursed as a nation,
we're gonna be punished as a nation,
regardless of the salvation of the people in America.
For example, let's say that in our church,
everybody's saved, okay?
And I'm sure that there are some people in our church
that are not saved,
because the Bible talks about
how there's always gonna be people who creep in,
Judas Iscariot, or there might be somebody here
who's brand new and they just haven't really learned
about the gospel yet, okay?
But let's just say for a moment
that 99% of the people in our church are saved, right?
Well, what if 99% of the people in our church,
we all believe in Christ, we're all saved,
but what if we all have some major sin in our life?
What if I get up and start preaching,
hey, drinking's fine, and we all start drinking,
and we're all a bunch of drunks, right?
And we get together with each other,
and we go through a 24-pack
with another couple from church,
and we just become the beer church.
Now here's the thing, God's not gonna bless that.
You say, but we're saved.
Yeah, but God's not gonna bless that.
Or what if I get up and start preaching,
hey, actually, the Bible,
and let's say everybody believes in Jesus,
everybody's saved, everybody's got eternal life,
but what if I got up and start preaching,
hey, you know what, premarital sex is fine.
Turns out it's fine.
Fornication, that's talking about something different.
You know, and you can actually just sleep.
And let's say our church
just becomes filled with fornication.
Is God gonna bless that?
Now God's gonna bring major punishment on this church.
God's gonna bring major judgment
and chastisement on this church
if that happened,
regardless of whether we're saved or not.
Now if we're saved, we're going to heaven no matter what,
but God's gonna punish us on this earth.
Well, it's the same thing with America.
Even if a lot of people in America are saved,
if there's still a ton of abortion going on,
if we're still tolerating and accepting homosexuality,
if we're still a nation of drunks and drug addicts,
God's not gonna bless that, is he?
In order to save our nation,
in order to get God's blessing on our nation,
in order for God to turn away his wrath and judgment,
what do we have to do?
Get the sin out of our life.
Does everybody understand that?
So look at Jonah 3.10.
Nineveh was a city that God was gonna destroy,
physically destroy the city,
but when Jonah preached to them,
they actually got right with God.
They responded to the hard preaching.
And it says in verse number 10,
and God saw their works
that they turned from their evil way,
and God repented of the evil
that he had said that he would do unto them,
and he did it not.
So these people were spared physical judgment
of their city by doing what?
By turning from their evil way,
by turning away from the sins
and wickedness of their hand.
Go back to Jeremiah 36.
But notice what it said there in Jonah 3.10.
It says God saw their works,
that they turned from their evil way.
So according to the Bible,
turning from your evil way is works,
which makes perfect sense
because it's not easy to get the sin out of your life.
It takes work.
And when we obey the word of God,
we obey the commandments,
that's called the deeds of the law
or the works of the law.
Now the Bible says that by the deeds of the law,
there shall be no flesh justified in his sight.
The Bible said that we're not saved by works
lest any man should boast.
But yet today,
most of your independent Baptists are teaching
that in order to be saved and go to heaven,
you have to turn from your sins.
They'll say you must repent of your sins to be saved.
You must turn from your sins to be saved.
But this is not biblical
because the Bible says that
whosoever believeth in him
should not perish but have eternal life.
Turning from your sins
is something that is a continual thing.
I mean, who just turns from their sins one time?
It's just like I turn from my sins and I'm just sin free.
You're a liar.
Because if we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
So this doctrine of repent of your sins to be saved
is a works salvation is what it comes down to.
Instead of just saying that you confess with your mouth
the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart
that God raised him from the dead,
they're adding this thing of
turning away from your sins,
cleaning up your life.
And they'll say,
you don't have to do any good works to be saved,
but you do have to stop doing bad things.
You do have to stop fornicating, stop drinking.
But here's what's so stupid about that.
Which sins do you have to stop
and which ones can you keep doing?
Because usually they just single out a few certain sins
like, well, you got to stop this one.
And if you pin these people down,
I just had a conversation with a guy
that was mixed up on this.
And when you pin him down, he says,
well, you got to stop drinking, he says.
And I'm like, okay, well, but what can you continue to...
Well, what if you lie though?
Well, you can, you know, if you lie, okay,
but you know, but you can't drink.
You know, it was just like, you start pinning them down.
Well, what about, is it a sin not to go to church?
Yeah, that's a sin.
Well, okay, so do you have to go to church
to be saved then?
Or how about this?
Does the Bible command us to pay the tithe?
Okay, so then basically
that means you got to start tithing to be saved.
Yeah, this is really a free gift.
I mean, think about that.
If not tithing is a sin and you have to turn from sin
and be willing to turn from sin,
so that means you got to be willing to start tithing.
I mean, think about how bad that is.
You're basically saying
that people have to pay money to be saved.
And you say, wow, we didn't say that.
Yeah, yeah, that's right
because you just pick and choose sins
because half of these preachers
that are up there teaching,
you got to turn from your sins
are about a hundred pounds overweight.
But apparently gluttony doesn't come into question.
You know, bless God.
I mean, I've literally heard a pastor get up and say,
bless God, when I got saved,
I never craved a cigarette again.
God just took that craving away.
Well, you know what?
Maybe he should have taken away the craving
for Ho-Hos and Twinkies too
while he was taking away the craving for cigarettes.
Because you know what?
There's not a verse in this book
that says anything against smoking cigarettes.
I can't find it.
Can somebody show me?
The only verse that somebody could show you is
that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.
And that you're not your own,
you're bought with a price,
therefore glorify God in your body
and in your spirit with your guts.
And if you're not going to smoke in a rental car,
if you're not going to smoke in a rental house,
we shouldn't smoke in a body that belongs to God.
We don't have the right to damage it
and destroy it and deface it.
But you know what?
By that same logic though,
there's other ways to destroy your body, aren't there?
Besides smoking.
There are other things that are unhealthy besides smoking.
So isn't it kind of hypocritical
to literally get up and say,
the moment I got saved,
God took away the craving for cigarettes.
I turned from that sin.
I repented of my smoking and whatever.
And then it's like pass the Coca-Cola and the Ho-Hos
and you're 100 pounds overweight
and you're lecturing us on cigarettes
being bad for our health.
That doesn't make any sense.
And look, I'm not here, an apologist for cigarettes.
And I'm not trying to be down on you
if you eat a lot of junk food tonight.
We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God.
There's none righteous, no, not one.
But the point is, does it make any sense
for a big fat preacher to get up and tell you
that you have to repent of your sins to be saved,
but he's got his own sin.
And you know what?
The only reason I bring that up
is because it's something that's obvious.
Smoking's real obvious.
I mean, if somebody smokes, everybody knows it, right?
You can smell the breath.
You can see the signs of it.
Usually everybody knows it.
But you know what?
Other people who might not have a sin of gluttony,
they're not smoking, they're not drinking,
but you know what?
They have other private sins that nobody knows about
because nobody is righteous.
Nobody is without sin.
Nobody's perfect.
And so therefore, these people who get up and say,
you have to repent of your sins to be saved,
what they mean is, you have to repent of the stuff
that I repented of, but you don't have to repent
of the stuff that I didn't repent of.
That's what they're basically saying.
Well, that's not the plan of salvation from the Bible.
The plan of salvation from the Bible
is just believe on Christ.
And you know what?
When you have correct doctrine, it's always black and white.
When you get into false doctrines
where you get into these gray areas of,
well, how sorry do you have to be
and how willing do you have to be
to turn from your sins and which sins
do you have to be willing to turn from
and what exact, you know what I'm saying?
It doesn't make any sense.
And you know what?
I'll tell you right now, I believe that there are people,
that there are Christians who smoke like a chimney
and they're still going to heaven.
And I believe that there are preachers
that are 500 pounds that are going to heaven.
And I believe that people, but why?
Because sometimes the spirit is willing,
but the flesh is weak.
And we all have weaknesses.
And instead of just singling out one person's weakness,
you know, we need to just understand
that we're all saved by grace through faith.
Now, a lot of people will make this statement.
We're saved by grace through faith
plus nothing minus nothing, okay?
Now, whenever I hear people say that,
I always think that's a great statement, amen.
But I feel like some of the people who say that
don't understand what they're even saying.
Because if you said, hey, we're saved by grace
through faith plus nothing,
what you're basically saying is you don't have to add
anything to that.
You don't have to add any works to that.
And I think everybody understands that.
But when they say plus nothing minus nothing,
you know what the minus nothing means?
We don't have to get sin out of our life to be saved.
We don't have to add anything,
but we also don't have to subtract anything, you know?
So it's funny to hear somebody say
it's by grace through faith plus nothing minus nothing,
but then they tell you what you have to quit
in order to be saved.
That doesn't make any sense.
But we wanna be careful to understand
that once we're saved,
we're not just automatically blessed by God.
We do have to get the sin out of our life
to get blessed by God and to spare us
from physical judgment, physical chastisement,
physical punishment, we get the sin out of our life.
But it's not for heaven and hell, it's just faith.
Okay, so look what the Bible is saying here.
This is the same thing that it said in Jonah 3.10.
Verse three, it may be that the house of Judah
will hear all the evil which I purposed to do unto them
that they may return every man from his evil way,
that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.
Okay, so what he's saying here is,
and this is all throughout the book of Jeremiah,
that if they'll turn away from their sins,
he's not gonna destroy Israel,
he's not gonna destroy Judah.
He'll forgive them if they'll turn away from their sin
and he won't bring his justice,
he won't bring his punishment on them.
That's what he's teaching here.
This has nothing to do with
he's gonna forgive your sins
and you're gonna go to heaven,
like a personal salvation.
So we wanna make sure to understand
the difference between physical judgment
for bad things that we do on this earth
and going to heaven versus going to hell,
which is based on what we believe, okay?
Look at verse four, it says,
Then Jeremiah called Barak, the son of Neriah,
and Barak wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah
all the words of the Lord,
which he had spoken in him upon a roll of a book.
And Jeremiah commanded Barak, saying, I'm shut up,
I cannot go into the house of the Lord.
Here's what he's saying, I'm incarcerated, I'm in prison.
Throughout the book of Jeremiah, he's often in prison,
so he doesn't have the liberty to go where he wants to go.
Therefore, go down, read in the roll,
which thou has written from my mouth,
the words of the Lord in the ears of the people
in the Lord's house upon the fasting day,
and also thou shalt read them in the ears
of all Judah that come out of their cities.
It may be they will present their supplication
before the Lord and will return everyone
from his evil way, for great is the anger
and the fury that the Lord has pronounced
against this people.
And Barak the son of Neriah did according
to all that Jeremiah the prophet commanded him,
reading in the book the words of the Lord
in the Lord's house.
And it came to pass in the fifth year of Jehoiakim,
son of Josiah, king of Judah in the ninth month,
that they proclaimed a fast before the Lord
to all the people in Jerusalem,
and to all the people that came from the cities
of Judah unto Jerusalem, then read Barak in the book
the words of Jeremiah in the house of the Lord
in the chamber of Gemariah the son of Shaphan
the scribe in the higher court
at the entry of the new gate of the Lord's house
in the ears of all the people.
Now watch this in verse 11.
When Micaiah the son of Gemariah the son of Shaphan
had heard out of the book
all the words of the Lord,
then he went down into the king's house
into the scribe's chamber,
and lo all the princes sat there.
Look at verse 13.
Then Micaiah declared unto them all the words
that he had heard when Barak read the book
in the ears of the people.
Therefore all the princes sent Jehudah the son
of Netheniah the son of Shalomiah the son of Cushai
unto Barak saying, take in thine hand the roll,
wherein thou spread in the ears of the people and come.
So Barak the son of Neriah took the roll in his hand
and came unto them.
And they said unto him, sit down now
and read it in our ears.
So Barak read it in their ears.
Now it came to pass when they had heard all the words
that they were afraid both one another
and said unto Barak, we will surely tell the king
all these words.
So here's what happened basically.
Jeremiah basically gives him the book of Jeremiah.
He recites it all to him and Barak writes it down.
They take this book,
they take it to the house of the Lord,
they read it there.
People hear it and say, wow,
we need other people to hear this.
They bring it to other people, they give it to them.
Then they say, let's tell this to the princes.
Then they bring the princes, they read it to the princes
and it keeps kind of escalating to more and more
important people.
People are hearing this is powerful.
People need to hear this word.
Finally, they say, we need to take this to the king.
It said all of them when they heard it were afraid.
So God's word had power.
God's word made an impact on them.
God's word caused them to be cut to the heart.
And they said, we're afraid of God's wrath.
We have the fear of the Lord
because of hearing this word.
But what's interesting is that then
when this is taken to the king,
the king gets about three or four pages into it, right?
And it says in verse 23,
and it came to pass that when Jehudah had read
three or four leaves, meaning pages,
he cut it with the pen knife
and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth
until all the roll was consumed in the fire
that was on the hearth.
Yet they were not afraid nor rent their garments,
neither the king nor any of his servants
that heard all these words.
That is interesting that everybody who heard it
up to this point was afraid, was cut to the heart.
But when the king rejects it and blows it off
and throws it in the fire, none of his household,
none of the leaders that are there are afraid.
Only the people who'd originally been afraid,
they're begging him, don't burn it,
don't do this, and whatever.
But the king's circle, none of them care.
None of them are afraid.
Now here's some things that we can learn from that
is that number one, people tend to have a herd mentality.
See, one guy hears the word of God,
he's moved by it, he's excited about it,
he wants other people to hear it.
Everybody around him feels the same way, right?
Then he tells it to these princes, they are moved by it,
everybody else feels the same way.
Everybody's excited, and so forth.
Then you get to the king, as soon as the king says,
this is trash, and throws it in the fire,
everybody around him's like, yeah, yeah, this is garbage.
Now think about it, you know that if that king
would have rent his garment like the king of Nineveh did,
and put on sackcloth, and said, oh man, I'm afraid.
This word is condemning us, we need to get right with God,
we need to fix things.
Everybody around him would have done the same thing.
Isn't that interesting?
Why?
Everything rises and falls on leadership, okay?
And we have the power to influence the people around us.
See, I've noticed that when you're out soul winning,
if somebody over, if you're out soul winning
and there's a bunch of people around,
and you start to give the gospel to one person,
and they tell you no and reject it,
if any other person was within earshot,
that person will usually tell you no also.
Or if you talk to somebody and they receive the gospel,
then their neighbor, if their neighbor sees that,
then their neighbor will listen too.
People tend to follow the crowd,
they tend to follow what other people are doing.
This shows the power of God's word, number one,
that it had this power to move people,
but then number two, it shows the power of leadership,
that if we would get fired up about God's word,
and if we get an attitude,
hey, everybody needs to hear this,
this is the truth, this is God's word,
you know what, that will be contagious
and the people around us will all feel the same way
about the word of God.
And when we say, hey, we need to get this to the prince,
we need to get this to the king,
other people will feel the same way.
Whereas if we are lackadaisical,
that will spread as well.
We have the power to influence the people around us.
Now, God's word has power, as we see in this passage.
The first groups of people that heard it
were all blown away by it.
That's because the true word of God has power.
That's another reason why we know
the King James Bible is right
and all these other versions are wrong.
Why?
Because they lack power.
Now, when I was a 12 year old boy,
we stopped going to the King James Bible preaching church
and we went to an NIV preaching church
and we went to NIV type churches for about five years
when I was a teenager.
And you know what?
I'd never been taught that the King James Bible
is the perfect word of God
or that there's a problem with the new versions.
I didn't really know that issue.
I didn't know anything about that issue.
All I knew is that there was something wrong with the NIV.
Even as a 12, 13, 14 year old,
it lacked power, it was weak.
And I remember just sitting there thinking
there's something wrong with it.
It waters down the truth.
And I remember different people would try to talk me
out of the King James.
Like my youth leader came to me and he said,
hey, you know, you need to get rid of the King James.
You need to get a version that you can understand.
I'm thinking, well, thanks a lot.
Are you saying I'm dumb?
But he's like, hey, you need to get a version
that you can understand.
And I told him, I said, no, you know,
I'm gonna stick with the King James version.
And he said, why?
Why are you gonna stick with the King James?
Tell me a reason why.
And I told him, I said, I don't know.
It's better.
And he's like, why?
I don't know.
I never, I mean, I felt kind of stupid
because he's pinning me down.
Why?
I don't know.
And other people tried to pin me down
and I was unlearned.
I didn't know the answer to that,
but I just knew because I have the Holy Spirit inside me.
I can tell God's word from the counterfeit
because Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice.
They know my voice and they know the voice of strangers.
And when I heard that NIV butter knife of the NIV,
I knew that wasn't the voice of the shepherd.
And when I heard the two-edged sword of the King James,
I was cut to the heart.
So I don't need an archeology lesson
to know which Bible's the right Bible.
Oh, but they've studied the archeology
and they've studied all the different manuscripts
and Aleph and Codex B and Sina Atticus and Vaticanus.
And you know what?
I don't need to see any of that.
Because you know what?
God would never write a book
that sounds as stupid as the NIV does.
If God wrote a book and he's the creator of the universe,
everything else he created is very good.
He looked back and says,
we look at the trees, the animals, it's all very good.
Then you expect me to believe
that just subpar literature like the NIV is God's word?
It looks like it's translated by Google Translate.
It's so bad in places.
You know, this book has power.
This book is God's word.
This is the one that got me saved.
This is the one that got you saved.
This is the one that's preached week after week
that takes our Christian life to new levels.
And this is the one where when we read it,
our heart burns within us.
And when we read it,
a tear comes to our eye because it's God's word.
It has power.
The new versions lack power.
That's why the churches that use it
have to rely on smoke and purple lights and rock and roll
because of the fact that the message has no power.
The word has no power.
They have to use all these theatrics and smoke and mirrors
to even get people to show up
and feel like they're having some kind of an experience.
But there's no real change in their soul.
There's no real change in their life
because there's no power there.
God's word has power,
but when somebody rejects it and scoffs at it,
they have the power to influence the people around them
to scoff at and reject God's word as well.
Look what it says.
This is after it's destroyed.
Look at verse 27.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah
after that the king had burned the roll
and the words which Barak wrote at the mouth of Jeremiah
saying, take thee again another roll,
or scroll is what that's referring to.
Take thee another roll and write in it
all the former words that were in the first roll,
which Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, had burned.
And thou shalt say to Jehoiakim, king of Judah,
thus saith the Lord, thou has burned this roll,
saying, why hast thou written therein?
Saying, the king of Babylon shall certainly come
and destroy this land and shall cause
to cease from men's man and beast.
Therefore, thus saith the Lord of Jehoiakim,
king of Judah, he shall have none
to sit upon the throne of David,
and his dead body shall be cast out
in the day to the heat and in the night to the frost,
and I'll punish him and his seed
and his servants for their iniquity,
and I'll bring upon them
and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem
and upon the men of Judah
all the evil that I pronounced against them,
but they hearken not.
Then took Jeremiah another roll
and gave it to Barak the scribe,
the son of Neriah,
who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah
all the words of the book which Jehoiakim,
king of Judah, had burned in the fire,
and there were added besides unto them many like words.
You see, you cannot destroy God's word.
Many leaders throughout history have said,
we're gonna burn all the Bibles.
We're gonna eradicate the Bible.
We're gonna destroy the Bible.
Many leaders have said,
we're gonna get rid of the Bible,
and many philosophers have stated,
oh, in 100 years nobody will be reading the Bible.
But yet here we are again still reading the Bible.
You know, John Lennon from the Beatles,
what they said, hey, what'd they say,
50 years from now or 100 years from now?
You know, Christianity will be gone,
but people will still be listening to the Beatles.
That's what they said.
They said, we're more popular than Jesus Christ.
We're more popular than Jesus Christ,
and long after Christianity's dead,
people will still listen to the Beatles.
You know what?
That's wicked blasphemy,
and that's one huge reason
why you shouldn't listen to the Beatles.
Who would want to listen to this
God-hating communist John Lennon?
But what a wicked thing to say,
but it's stupid and foolish,
because you know what?
The Bible is still outselling the stupid Beatles albums.
And you know what?
50 years from now,
the Beatles are even gonna be less popular.
Well, it's still great, you know, it's garbage.
Give me the hymnal and throw the Beatles in the trash.
But the bottom line is
that God's word is preserved.
It always will be preserved.
It cannot be destroyed.
And God's man, Jeremiah, is preaching God's word,
and he's preaching it hard.
And notice, he doesn't back down under persecution
and just lay low for a while.
He delivers a message directly to Jehoiakim
and says, you know what?
You're gonna die,
and your dead body is gonna just lay out there
in the heat and in the frost.
You're not even gonna be buried.
You're gonna have the burial of an ass, he tells him,
you know, God tells another leader.
Same thing, he's basically saying, look,
you're not gonna intimidate me.
You're not gonna back me down.
And you know, we need some Jeremiah's today
that will take the wicked leadership of this world
to task, right?
And preach hard against sin
and call out these wicked kings and leaders.
Because you know, these wicked kings and leaders
that we have, you know what they're doing?
They're taking huge groups of people
down the road to hell.
Just as Jehoiakim here,
if he would have got right with God,
tons of people would have got right with God.
But because he cut up the word of God
and threw it in the fire,
that's what everybody around him just,
yeah, they just, nobody fears the Lord.
You know, we need godly leadership in our churches,
and we need godly leadership in our nations,
or else we're gonna be led down a wicked path.
Because everything rises and falls on leadership, you know?
And you need to decide to be a leader
in your own circle of influence.
Even if you're just a school kid,
you know what, that you don't just go
with the crowd at school,
but be a leader and rally people to the word of God.
You know, a spirit-filled young person
could actually rally people to the word of God
even in their school.
And a spirit-filled Christian can rally people
anywhere they go and create a spirit of revival
and a spirit of soul winning
and a spirit of honoring God's word,
if we would have the boldness to do it.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this chapter, Lord.
And we thank you that we have the Bible
preserved unto us, Lord.
We're not a member of the Bible of the Month Club,
where the Bible just keeps changing every month
and every year, and it doesn't even say the same thing
that it said when we were a kid.
Lord, thank you that the Bible has stayed the same
in the English language for the last 400 years,
and that when we grow old,
it'll still say the same thing, Lord.
Thank you for preserving it, Lord,
and help us to rally with the power of your word
and rally many people to the cause of preaching the gospel
and getting people saved.
Help us to be of good influence
on the people around us.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.