Turn to page number 434.
Page number 434, oh little town of Bethlehem.
Page number 434.
♪ Townside shine ♪
Thank you everybody.
Brother Paul, just please help us up with a word of prayer.
If you want to take your hymnals,
turn to page number 431.
Page number 431, silent night, holy night.
Page number 431.
Sing everybody at this time.
The verse of the week is Romans 15 verse 15.
Romans 15 verse 15.
Now, the God of patience and consolation
grant you to be like-minded one towards another
according to Christ Jesus.
That's Romans 15 verse 15.
Service times are 10.30 this morning,
3.30 this afternoon.
And Wednesday we have a Bible study at 6.30 p.m.
Solding times will be today at 1.00 p.m.
And yesterday was at 10.30 a.m.
Salvation reports for November were six.
Salvation for December,
which I believe was from yesterday, was one.
Which brings us to a total of 91 for the year so far.
All right, upcoming events, please remember.
Ladies, your Christmas party is this Saturday on the 13th.
It will be at the Thompson's, all the fellowship there.
Please just RSVP, let Ms. Kylie know
so she is prepared for food and games and everything.
And let me tell you, someone who plans stuff,
please RSVP, it's just the right thing to do, all right?
It helps a lot to know a rough count.
So ladies, that's coming up.
The rest of us, including the ladies,
on December 20th will be the church Christmas party,
which will be 4 p.m. on the 20th.
And that'll be at the church building.
There'll be food, drinks, and the second Olympics.
I'll see if I'm still banned or not from those games.
The petition is still in.
So that's coming up in two weeks.
And then the 21st, the day after the Christmas party,
will be our Christmas Sunday.
So Christmas messages, you know,
probably won't be banned or kicked from YouTube that day.
So, you know, you can bring families and whatnot, you know,
but bring them anyway, anytime.
But Christmas messages, kids choir,
which I'm really looking forward to,
that's first for our church.
I think it's going to be beautiful, be a potluck.
So, hey, just a good Christmas fellowship
or Christian fellowship that whole day.
So looking forward to everyone that can make it.
All right, kids, if you'd like to receive a piece of candy,
you just have to remember your verse right now to work on
is Psalms 34 verse 13, Psalms 34 verse 13.
"Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile."
That's a good one to build off young.
I know, especially the military did not train me that.
So I just wish, you know, you keep your heart and tongue
cured, that will just help you throughout life.
So very good verse to memorize at any age,
but especially as a child.
So those are the upcoming events, you know,
just started the season.
Birthdays, mine is, I think we sang last week, didn't we?
Yeah, okay.
So right now coming up, I think after this Sunday,
we'll be singing Happy Birthday a few more times this year.
But right now we have a little reprieve.
No anniversaries anyone's discussed so far,
so that's pretty much done.
If you have any prayer requests,
please just let the Thompsons know.
They'll get it into the bulletin.
And with that, let's turn to the Lord in prayer.
All right, if you wanna take your Bibles,
we're gonna turn to Psalm 139.
That's Psalm number 139.
Psalm number 139.
Beginning in verse number 19.
(singing in foreign language)
Brother Paul, would you please pray for the offering?
Everybody, go ahead and take your Bibles
and turn to John chapter 21.
We're gonna be reading John chapter 21,
and as our custom is,
we read the entire chapter before the preaching.
John chapter 21, the Bible reads,
"After these things, Jesus showed himself,"
again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias,
and on this wise showed he himself.
"There were together Simon Peter and Thomas called Didymus,
and Nathaniel of Cana in Galilee,
and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples.
Simon Peter saith unto them, 'I go a-fishing.'
They say unto him, 'We also go with thee.'
They went forth and entered into a ship immediately,
and that night they caught nothing.
But when the morning was now come,
Jesus stood on the shore,
but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.
Then Jesus saith unto them, 'Children, have ye any meat?'
They answered him, 'No.'
And he said unto them, 'Cast the net
on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find.'
They asked therefore, and now they were not able
to draw it for the multitude of fishes.
Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved
saith unto Peter, 'It is the Lord.'
Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord,
he girt his fisher's coat unto him.
For he was naked, and did cast himself into the sea.
And the other disciples came in a little ship.
For they were not far from the land, but as it were,
two hundred cubits dragging the net with fishes.
As soon then as they were come to land,
they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon,
and bread.
Jesus saith unto them, 'Bring of the fish
which ye have now caught.'
Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to the land
full of great fishes, and hundred and fifty and three.
And for all there were so many, was not the net broken.
Jesus saith unto them, 'Come and dine.'
And none of the disciples durst ask him,
'Who art thou, knowing that it was the Lord?'
Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth fish likewise.
This is now the third time that Jesus showed himself to his disciples,
after that he was risen from the dead.
So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter,
'Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?'
He saith unto him, 'Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.'
He saith unto him, 'Feed my lambs.'
He saith to him again the second time, 'Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?'
He saith unto him, 'Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.'
He saith unto him, 'Feed my sheep.'
He saith unto him the third time, 'Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?'
Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, 'Lovest thou me?'
And he said unto him, 'Lord, thou knowest all things.
Thou knowest that I love thee.'
Jesus saith unto him, 'Feed my sheep.'
'Verily, verily, I say unto thee, when thou was young thou girdest thyself,
and walkest whither thou wouldest.
But when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands,
and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.'
This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God.
And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, 'Follow me.'
Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following,
which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, 'Lord, which is it that traith thee?'
Peter, seeing him, saith to Jesus, 'Lord, and what shall this man do?'
Jesus saith unto him, 'If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?
Follow thou me.'
Then went this saying abroad among the disciples, that that disciple should not die.
Yet Jesus said not unto him, 'He shall not die.'
But if I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?
This is the disciple which testified of these things and wrote these things.
And we know that his testimony is true.
And there are also many other things which Jesus did.
The witch, if they should be written every one,
I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.
Amen.
Brother Daniel, could you please pray for the preaching?
You guys are there in John 21.
We're going to look at verse number 15 where it says,
"So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon son of Jonas,
Loves thou me more than these?
He saith unto him, Ye Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.
He saith unto him, Feed my lambs."
The title of my sermon this morning is "The Greek Loves."
Let's pray.
Dear Lord God, thank you so much.
Wonderful day.
Thank you so much for everything you do for us, God.
Thank you so much for this church, God, and everybody that showed up this morning, God.
Thank you so much for people that want to come and hear your word preached, God, and
that have sacrificed time out of their weekend and out of their schedule to hear your word,
God.
I just pray that you'd bless them for that, and I pray that you'd fill me with the Holy
Spirit and help me to preach words that would help improve everybody's lives in this room.
I just pray that you'd help me to have a clear train of thought as I preach, and I just pray
that you'd help me to deliver well the message you put on my heart.
I ask all these things.
Did you say I pray?
Amen.
The title of my sermon, like I said this morning, is The Greek Loves, which will make a little
bit of sense a little bit later on.
We're here in John 21, though, and this is a really beautiful passage of scripture, a
very beautiful chapter out of the book of John, one of my favorite chapters out of the book
of John.
There's a lot of heartwarming, a lot of inspiring, a lot of great symbolism and principles and
doctrine that we could glean from this chapter.
And the title of my sermon, like I said, was The Greek Loves.
I figured Wednesday was a little mean, so I got to at least kind of give back to the
mushy-gushy a little bit for you guys, okay?
But this is not really going to be that mushy-gushy, but it kind of sounds nice on the surface.
But because I was going to say, there's a lot of heartwarming stuff, but I'm going to
talk about something in this chapter that does not warm my heart, and that is this concept
that's not in the chapter itself, but it's what people do with this chapter.
It's this concept of people going to verses in the Bible or stories in the Bible or chapters
in the Bible and completely flipping them on their head and teaching the opposite of
what they actually mean or finding some kind of little hidden meaning in the text itself
by going back to an ancient language like the Hebrew or the Greek is what people obviously
because the Old Testament's written in the Hebrew and the Aramaic and the New Testament's
written in the Greek.
There's a lot of people that will go back to the Greek or they'll go back to the Hebrew
to just completely flip verses on their head, and I'm sure the time would fail me to tell
you all the doctrines that this happens to, but I'm sure you guys have experienced this
out just even going out and talking to any Christians or seeing things online in comments
or just people that you meet in your life.
People love, love to go back to the Greek and to the Hebrew even though they don't speak
any of it, which is just mind blowing to me.
But before I get into that part of my sermon, I want to talk about something else.
There's like two spectrums on this issue.
There's like people that I'm going to talk about after this where they just like want
to correct everything that the Bible says by going back to a foreign language.
And then there's people that are on the opposite end of the spectrum where they'll become like
Rukmanites.
And if you don't know what a Rukmanite is, someone who basically follows the teachings
of Peter Rukman who is a dispensationalist, it's a big word, you can Google it, I'm not
going to get into it right now.
It's not going to be the point of my sermon anyways, but Rukmanites will get up and teach
something that's called like double inspiration, but they'll also get up and say things like
I saw this clip online the other day, which I just was like in shock and I was just like,
this is such a dumb point that this guy's making.
He got out there and in the behind his pulpit and he was like, you know what, if you know
what my KJV corrects your Greek, what, how does that make any sense?
He's being serious too.
And there's lots of them that will like non ironically say this.
They'll go up and say, my King James corrects your Greek.
And that's just like super bizarre.
Okay.
And how could a translation correct what it's translated from?
That's literal nonsense.
That's like flat earth level thinking.
Okay.
Now they do this because they're trying to fight this opposite end of that spectrum where
people are just always going back to the Greek and saying that the King James is basically
meaningless.
But you just need to realize that there's a balance to this.
Okay.
There's a bound and this is the balance.
The Greek can be perfect and the King James can be perfect as well.
It can be a perfect translation of the Greek.
And that's the reality of the matter, that the King James is the best translation of
the Bible into English.
It's a perfect translation of the Greek text into English.
But I want to bring up to the, cause I said the perfect and the best right there because
this is not what I'm avoiding saying right there.
It's not a word for word translation.
And before you stone me on that one, okay, just hold on.
Okay.
See.
So who's reaching their pocket back there?
But before you stone me on that one, I would say this, that the fact that the King James
is not a word for word translation is good because that's not how you want to translate
big text.
Okay.
You never just go word for word.
And I can kind of prove this to you, but like, like you just, like when you go word for word
on translations, you end up getting like a Google translate translation.
That's why Google translates all jacked up when you get things and you're like, that's
clearly not what it says.
It's because they're going word by word on Google translate.
But we don't want to do that.
And you can prove that a couple ways.
But I want to clarify this.
You can get the exact same meaning from a text without it being word for word.
And I'll show you that.
Number one, you can't go word for word with languages when you're translating though.
Not all the time at least because some language have different grammatical constructs.
Like for example, in English when we say someone's name, you're just like, you know, David went
to the store.
But if you're in Greek, you would say like, like, oh, that the V there's something like
that or with Jesus is easier, like, oh, he suits you say the Jesus or the David.
But when you translate that from Greek to English, you drop the, the, because we don't
do that in English.
It would sound weird.
Imagine me translating word for word.
I mean, like the Jesus said unto him, it's like, that's really weird, right?
You know, you, you drop that because it means the same thing.
Like, like the languages just are different in that regard.
There's also other constructs where this is true as well, like verbs, how they work.
For example, when in English, when you say, I like something, that's what you say.
Like I'll say, I like this cup right here.
Okay.
Because it's not one of those baby cups anymore, but they have a different construct in Greek
for that too, where they say, which literally means it is pleasing to me.
So if you said like, like, or something like that, I mean like the cup is pleasing to me,
but you wouldn't say it that way in English.
You would just say, I like the cup.
Same thing as Spanish, Ms. Molina, our resident Spanish expert can correct me if I'm wrong,
but isn't me gusta like it's pleasing to me as well?
It's true.
See?
So you say like me gusta, I don't even know what, what do you me gusta?
This cup as well.
Okay.
I don't know what cup is in Spanish though.
I'm teaching Spanish.
I don't know Spanish.
I'm a hypocrite up here, but it's the same thing.
It's the same thing where it's like you wouldn't translate like it's pleasing to me.
You'd say I like this because that's how that's the dynamic equivalent in English.
This is especially true when it comes to things like idioms though.
You have to do this with idioms because in English when it's dumping outside what do
you say?
It's raining cats and dogs outside.
If I put that into Greek they'd be like what are you talking about?
Cats and dogs?
They're like oh that's a crazy concept.
Over here in Greece we say it's raining chair legs outside.
I don't know if that's any better.
Spanish I remember because I did take Spanish class in high school.
I remember I thought my teacher told me that it was raining like pitchers or something
like that.
It's raining the ocean something like that.
Jars and glasses yeah I think there's a couple of them in Spanish but again you can go to
our Spanish expert after the sermon if you don't believe me on that.
But again I'm just bringing this all up to say that when you're translating that's why
I prefer to say that the King James is just a perfect translation rather than saying it's
word for word because it's not word for word.
But here is what is the exact same the meaning from the Greek to the English the exact same
meaning.
But unfortunately okay it's not even just Rukmanites that believe stuff like this.
There's regular Baptists that fall into this trap and it's embarrassing.
I watched a Baptist go up and go up and preach to someone I'm just gonna leave them unnamed
because they're saved and I don't want to just attack them.
But they said like one of the dumbest things I've heard about this they're like people
get mad when I say the same thing that I was saying earlier they say people get mad when
I say that my King James corrects your Greek.
I'm like yeah they should get mad because that sounds stupid and anybody that's listening
to you is going to tune you out of their brain if they had a brain in their head okay because
it just sounds like super bizarre he was like what I mean by this though is not that the
King James corrects the originals he was like because we don't even have the originals anymore
what that is an insane teaching that is blasphemy okay and again I don't think that this guy
realizes that the gravity of what he's saying right there but what he's doing is he's attacking
the word of God he's saying God didn't actually preserve his words because here's the thing
I'll just read these verses for you guys in Psalms because you guys already know him it
says the words of the Lord are pure words a silver tried in the furnace of earth purified
seven times thou shall keep them oh Lord thou shall preserve them from this generation forever
God promised us that he would preserve his words for us then you have to ask yourself
what language did he preserve these words in the Hebrew the Aramaic and the Greek that's
what he preserved it in and then you can say that the King James is a perfect translation
of that but what you can't say is like the inspiration switched away from the Greek text
to the King James and then we lost the original Greek text blasphemy that's saying that God
was not able to preserve his word God preserved his word to us just like he promised us here
but you can't get up and say that we've lost the original autographs that's what they like
to call them they have to be fancy okay we don't have the original autographs anymore
like autographs okay that's the fancy word though okay you see how smart I am up here
but this if you like follow this line of thinking it is like a flat earth level of thinking
just like saying like oh yeah we don't have what the king james originally translated
from because here's the reality what they're saying is technically and and I mean technically
literally they're true because we don't have those oldest papers anymore because papers
vanish over time right but what we do have is a perfect translation of the original autographs
and that's what the king james is translated from so when you're saying we don't have
the originals anymore this guy is either being dishonest or he's being like ignorant i mean
like there's only two options right there because it's a very bizarre thing to say that
we don't have the originals from what the king james was translated from we need that
and other languages this is the thing besides this as well other languages need the originals
like it's not like god just preserved his word up until 1611 then he's like okay that
greek can get out of here now it's like no other countries other languages need those
originals to translate their bible into as well but i don't know i just think i when
i heard that i was just like how could this this is such a weird teaching okay but going
back to kind of the main part of my sermon um people will go to the opposite end of that
spectrum okay and we just need to be balancing this but they'll go to the opposite end and
they'll say like oh yeah the king james is wrong here because you don't know this because
you're unlearned but the original hebrew word here is this or they'll be like the original
greek here is actually this and these people don't speak those languages they don't even
speak the ancient edition of those languages on top of that which is even like the the
greek that we have and the hebrew that we have nowadays is not even the same as back
then it's not completely different but the different sermon for a different day but like
not only do we have people doing that we have like the top scholars nowadays the top bible
influencers encouraging people to do that people like james white and mark ward will
get up and encourage you to correct the bible in a language that you don't understand it
is nonsense i found something online in this texas receptist group that i'm in this guy
that posted this and i thought he just like perfectly summarized this issue i'm just going
to read this to you um because what he makes is he makes a lot of good points in this listen
what he said listen what he said he said one of the most obnoxious problems as it pertains
to the practical theology of reading scripture today is the fact that the average midwit believes
himself to be a language expert because he can read a lexicon or a concordance or a language
dictionary he takes a hebrew or a greek word from the scripture yanks it out of the text and chooses
whichever definition from the lexicon that he sees fit for himself and places it back into the text
in the first place this practice demonstrates that he does not understand how language works
any language not just greek or hebrew as such he likely struggles with reading comprehension and
composition in his own mother tongue despite seeing himself as some sort of greek or hebrew
grammarian and i was just going to like tell you guys that i wrote this at first but then
when i saw that word i was like nobody's gonna believe that right okay keep going though he says
he says secondly this practice demonstrates his pride believing himself to be some sort of expert
in a language he's never spoken it's shocking that people today believe they can understand a
language by simply reading lexical values from a website these people believe that men who
converse fluently in such languages somehow knew less because they didn't have industrialization
yet such beliefs demonstrate a lack on cognitive ability this guy's tearing him up i love it he
says finally this practice is encouraged by the modern intelligentsia and then again i was like
that's a hard sell right there okay i'm not intelligentsia enough to use that word in a
sentence but he says encouraged by the modern intelligentsia such as mark ward and james white
this is passed off as being studious but it actually encourages distrust and foolishness
and often results in heretical interpretations of the text here's the bottom line if you don't trust
your translation your mother tongue get a translation you do trust because you don't
know greek or hebrew and you don't need to know these languages if you have a faithful translation
amen to that he smoked him he nailed that like a split hog we should just close the sermon right
there because i'm not going to have anything as intelligentsia as he just said okay but i got some
more stuff to say to this okay go to romans 2 19 romans 2 verse number 19 this is so true though
like that's like it is perfectly boiled down right there what he just said people thinking that
they're like fluent in a language because they can pick up a dictionary in a foreign language
and read it and that's nonsense okay because words are determined by their context so you have to
understand the not even just the sentence as a whole but sometimes even the paragraph as a whole
understand what a word's doing in the sentence well here's what i'd ask why do people do this
and what's the problem with people doing this okay number one i think a lot of people do this
because they want to appear as a super smart and super intelligent that's why i think people do
this roman's 219 it says and are confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind a light of
them which are in darkness an instructor of the foolish a teacher of babes which has the form of
knowledge and of the truth in the law now if you remember the roman's one and two sermon that i
preach out of this you remember that the primary context right here is he's talking to the jews
these Pharisee type and scribe like people that are either influencing this church or they're
in this church itself and paul's rebuking them saying here like these guys they want to be
leaders they want to be guides and he's like but they're not even guiding themselves they're not
even leading themselves they're not even intelligent enough to understand the law themselves that's why
Jesus Christ himself also says you know if the blind lead the blind both of them will fall into
a ditch and what does he say to Nicodemus as well when he meets her in the night he's like you're a
leader in Israel and you don't know these things these these people that in the Bible the Pharisees
this is what they struggled with they wanted to be leaders they wanted to be teachers but they
really needed someone to teach them the Bible but they're too prideful they're too puffed up
they're too you know arrogant to admit this is really what happens and that's what Paul's
rebuking them for here but the reality is is that this attitude is not faded away nowadays
there's still people that do this exact same thing and they do this by going to the Greek and to the
Hebrew and they do that to get the praises of men and to get the glory from men even though they
don't understand what they're even saying they're teaching people the law and they don't even
understand the law go to 1st Timothy five or one five first timothy one five blind leading the blind
that's exactly what i thought about when i was writing the sermon i was just like literally you
have people that can't speak hebrew trying to teach people hebrew you have people that cannot
speak greek trying to teach people greek it is insane insane to get up and do that and it shows
the pride and and then their and their uh puffed upness when they do something like this i have a
little side note though i want to say obviously i'm not trying to say that everybody that does this is
unsafe or anything like that right there's just there are going to be some well-meaning people
that are just looking at these scholars doing this so they want to do it themselves right
so don't take what i'm saying there to say that everyone's a pharisee that does this but i'm saying
that there are a chunk of these people that do that and they purposely go to that to kind of weasel
in their own definition to the scripture but i don't want to label that as everybody look what
it says in first Timothy five though it says one five excuse me it says now the end of the commandment
is charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and of faith unfamed from which some
having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling look what it says right here desiring
to be teachers of the law understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm textbook
that's what these people are doing they're trying to be a teacher of the old testament hebrew they're
going to be a teacher of the new testament greek and they don't even know what they're saying they
couldn't even count to 10 in greek if they wanted to but they're going to tell you what tense this
verb is in and what it actually means and how the king james translators were wrong even though
they spoke fluent greek nonsense and it's encouraged nowadays it's like that guy's saying
that's like if you don't go to the greek they're like oh so you're unlearning you're not educated
it's like i think they said the same thing about jesus christ though didn't they like how does this
man go up and preaching seeing that he's never learned letters right he's never learned these
words he didn't learn like the the teachings that the scribes and pharisees had gotten you know why
it's because when you have the holy spirit you don't need a bible college degree not to say that
that couldn't help some people but when people make that like uh like whenever i tell people
like i'm trying to become a pastor they'll always say that like well did you go to bible college
i'm like no because bible college is a racket it's a scam okay most of the time not always but okay
i'm being a little general but just bear with me go to ecclesiastes 12 12 ecclesiastes 12 12 it's
not always a scam but there are bible colleges that i will not name but that will just go up and
they'll just give someone a degree after they've been there for four years because basically if
you graduate with the grades they're gonna ordain you there they're just gonna give you the pastor
slip and it's like go start a church that doesn't mean you're qualified though because here's the
thing why do people do this though they do this out of pride they do this to seem spiritual
they do this because it's a lot of reward for a very little amount of work because here's the thing
when it comes to this subject when you go up and say like a greek word or you go up and say a hebrew
word 99 percent of people don't understand that language so you can literally get up and say
whatever you want to and everybody's like wow he knows a foreign language wow it's so amazing
right it's like little effort for a big reward like you get the praises of men everything's
you're super smart because you can say some greek word probably not right anyways and then nobody
can fact check you on what you say because yeah yeah exactly right because who's going to fact
check you they don't speak greek you don't speak greek it's like they're just going to be like oh
okay maybe i don't know kalesiastes 12 12 because here's what it takes to actually be someone that
teaches the bible well to be a teacher of the law to to be a good bishop a good pastor it takes hard
work it takes study it takes years of reading the bible years of studying the bible and hours
in your daily life of looking into these things if you want to be a proper teacher of the law a
proper teacher of the bible so what these people do instead they're like man i don't want to do
that work but i do want the glory so what do i do go to the ancient language bam that's that's the
money right there ecclesiastes 12 12 it says and further by these my son be admonished of making
many books there is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh when you actually sit
there and study out a topic if you take more than just like a five minute google search it can really
weary your flesh sometimes your brain like wants to explode when you're looking into stuff because
you're just like trying to piece all these things together that's why the bible's saying right here
it's a weariness to the flesh right that's hard work to do that but a lot of pastors and a lot
of christians unfortunately nowadays they don't want to put in the hard work of actually reading
and studying something out so they just run off to a commentary or they run off to a concordance
or they run off to something like that a youtube sermon even sometimes and they'll just go up
and just parrot whatever they heard and then people think that they've done all that research
because they're just like regurgitating what they've heard uh where are you guys at you guys
are there in the ecclesiastes go to first timothy 1 8 first timothy 1 8 first timothy 1 uh verse
number eight where you guys are going to that's where i just kind of had you leave from but um
this is kind of a weird issue too because i think that people are just like really gullible about
this stuff as well i don't know if it's just my personality but i like am almost slanted to not
believing what someone tells me like when someone tells me something like oh yeah back in the day
they used to do this this and that i'm like basically uh until i looked it up for myself
i'm just taking that with a grain of sand because there's so much misinformation out there nowadays
and the the the the details that are lost and just the word of mouth the speaking by the word of mouth
to each other is crazy when you actually take a step back and look at it but people are just like
they'll go up and just say something and it's like everybody in the crowd is like wow like
why would a pastor lie to me he must be telling the truth it's unfortunate that pastors will take
advantage of that kind of stuff as well you guys are going to first timothy one verse number eight
i think something else i was going to say about that as well now i'm losing my train of thought
on that the clifford story i don't think that's it though what was i just talking about i completely
lost the blame what like what did i just say yeah that is what oh the super global too that's what
it was okay yeah that's what okay thank you it was this guy when i went out soul hunting one time i
can't remember where this was but we were telling him that he had to believe on the lord jesus
christ that salvation was by faith alone and he was like well but do you know what the actual word
for faith there is he was like it doesn't just mean to believe it means to obey and this guy
went to bible college or whatever so that's probably what they taught him there i guess
and i was just like i was actually happy because i was like no no that that's not what it means i
was like uh i like i'm like studying greek right now and i know that peace though is always faith
that's what it means okay and he just like he was like because i asked him in greek i was like do
you speak greek and he's like so then it's like well yeah of course right but again he's just
banking on the fact that i don't know that which kind of i don't know if he would say got lucky
or maybe god led me to that door you know whatever but it's just like people do this kind of stuff
all the time so my point bringing that up is just to say don't just take people at face value on
stuff like that you should be like like when it's a pastor you know you should be like the baryans
who hear the word and then they go search it out to see if those things are so but if it's an
average person on the street when they say stuff to me like that i'm like i'm not believing them
until i actually look that up myself there was another guy can i talk about people doing this
stuff to be like uh experts and to get this glory and this fame while you guys are in first timothy
one hey there's a guy in my old baptist church his name was uh his name was clifford okay which is
the big red heretic okay but but he uh was the resident greek expert okay they people would
say this about him like he if you need a question about the greek go talk to this guy so and i came
in one day and he was talking to this kid there about there's a verse in luke where it says that
jesus was in n agony doesn't say agony it says n agony and this guy was like what is up with this
so he goes to the greek expert and he's like can you tell me like what's going on here and he told
them this is why you need to understand greek and the english it's not enough because what's
happening here is this tense is not in english so it's making it like an awkward translation or
yeah he said this tense is in english so it's making an awkward translation and i was like
thinking about myself like man that doesn't sound right that sounds really really weird
and then sure enough i'm like i'm like wondering myself like i wonder how much greek this guy
actually knows so i talked to my dad about that and my dad goes and asks this guy he's like how
much greek do you actually know he's like well i learned it in bible college he's like yeah but
how much do you like actually know of the greek he is like well basically know a few words i can
count to ten and i can say the alphabet it's like that's the greek expert my daughter is apparently
a greek expert then because she knows all those things too karina do you know the alphabet greek
you listening you know the alphabet what do you call it she's so she's alphavita yeah karina how
do you say where are we going in greek exactly right resident greek expert right there okay
she knows just about as much as greek as that guy that he got from bible college nonsense though
these greek experts are charlatans they're fake okay she probably knows more greek than half of
them out there any of the ones in bible maybe there are some people that do know greek pretty
well like obviously james white clearly knows greek very well there's other people like that
but most of the time when people are experts in greek you just can ask them can you count the ten in greek
and you'll watch them fumble that's what my sister did i think it was her and miss Alejandra they were
arguing with this pentecostal pastor that was at this house of someone that we had gotten saved
from that church so he was trying to come and do like damage control there and he was like we were
talking they were talking about the faith thing and he did like the same thing he was like well
faith really means to obey though and she was like oh you speak greek he's like yeah she's like can
you count to ten in greek crickets nothing because there are a lot people literally just lie about
this it is actually insane don't trust these charlatan you can understand the bible in
english okay because the king james is a perfect translation of the english and if you spend as
much time in the king james as you would going and studying something in greek you would have
already found your issue a lot faster a lot faster in the language that you understand
where you guys at first timothy 1 8 it says but we know that the law is good if a man use it
lawfully the law is good but you have to use it lawfully you actually have to take the law
for what it says because here's my other point in this you know why people don't why they go
back to the greek and the hebrew all the time it's because they just don't like what the bible
actually says that's what they really do it for it's not because the king james translator has
got it wrong it's because they got it so right that they want to find a way to get around it
that's really why they do this they don't like what god said in english in leviticus 2013 they
don't like what god said about men having long hair so what they do is they go back to the greek
and just try to twist it to say that it doesn't really say what it says in english that's what a
lot of these people are doing this is what 99 of these people are actually doing when they bring
these kind of things up to you like i had this girl that i was arguing with one time about spanking
your kids she was like no no no the hebrew word there i remember this the stupid hebrew word was
there but it was like she was like the hebrew word there is you know something not that she could
speak hebrew and she was like what that really means is to beat someone really badly really
really badly she's like so you're saying that the bible's telling me that i should beat my kid
really really badly nonsense though because you know what it just actually means it means to hit
that's what it actually means because the word beat even in english can have different connotations
right it's like or even a slap is a good example too like when you slap someone it can be like a
mega slap like or it could just be like a right there's the same thing with hitting is the same
exact way you can be hitting someone or not really too hard right so people just go back to these
things but this happens with so many doctrines okay and i'm going to get back to the main part
of this sermon but this happens with so many doctrines it's not even funny it's not even
i i like listed off just a couple of these here leviticus 2013 first corinthian 6 that's uh the
abuse of themselves mankind i just watched another video the other day about that where this guy was
saying like actually and he didn't know what he was talking about the long hair being a covering
the the spinging they just told you john one one that's what the jehovah's witnesses do they go to
the greek and they're like really there's an a there uh but there's not mary being sinless i
mean i was preaching to you guys about the catholics how they do that the catholics do that a ton a ton
a ton any dumb belief out there that the catholics have you can almost bank that it's somewhere in
the greek somewhere in the greek mary being a perpetual virgin john 316 being butchered by
james white like jesus didn't really go to hell it's really went to hades hell's just a metaphor
you know where all these things come from they come from people not liking what god says in
english that's what they actually come from so they go to the greek because they know that that's
the ultimate conversation killer because how can you argue with someone when they're bringing up a
greek word that you don't understand right it's a it's a tactic though it's like a debate tactic
they're doing not because they want the truth is what the reality is go to genesis three one this
three one genesis three verse number one what's the problem with this though number one is blasphemous
like i just said because again people just don't like what god says that's why they're trying to
change his word so it's blasphemy it's also very poor practice to encourage people to look up these
things in a language they don't understand and also this is the ultimate goal of this all though
by the devil maybe not the people that do this themselves but the devil is the devil wants us
to doubt the word of god that's why this is so prevalent nowadays genesis 3 1 this is what we
see from the beginning with the devil it says now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of
the field which the lord god had made and said unto the woman yea hath god said you shall not
eat of every tree of the garden this is what the devil has done from the beginning is what i want
you to see he wants us to doubt the word of god and he's doing a good job of it for a lot of
christians out there nowadays because a lot of christians do not just take the bible for what it
says at face value they have to go to some scholar some expert or like chat gbt to find the deep
truths of the bible that's a plot from the devil to get us to doubt the word of god
that's truly what it is at the end of the day um go to john 16 verse number 13 john 16 verse number
13 here's what people need to do though and and people will say like they'll look up a lot of
stuff because they don't understand the bible but let me just let you know a little secret if you're
saved you can understand the bible you can understand the word of god because you have
the holy spirit in your heart so what you need to do is not run to the greek and not run to the
hebrew but run to the king james bible run to the english and read it and read it and read it and
then you'll actually understand what the bible says stop running off into a foreign language that
you don't understand just read the language that you do understand because most people don't even
read the bible and the words that they can understand enough as it is so why are you
running off into a language that you don't understand it's absolute nonsense if you want
to understand something from the bible here's the answer to it read more of the bible because the
more of the bible that you read the more you understand it it's like an amazing thing how
that works right there the more you read the more you understand just like anything else in life the
more time you spend in something the better off you'll be where you guys are here uh you guys are
and john yeah this is what i want to say about that look at what it says it says how be it when he the
spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth for he shall not speak of himself but
whosoever he shall hear whatsoever excuse me he shall hear that shall he speak and he will show
you things that come if you want to find the truth of the bible read the bible with the holy spirit
inside you which you get by believing on jesus christ and you'll start to pick up more and more
of it go to where i have you guys going at matthew matthew 5 verse number 43 matthew 5 43 we're
getting back to the main stuff here matthew 5 43 so going back to the title of sermon because
what inspired this sermon was the greek loves why am i talking about that because if you're unaware
out there there's a teaching out there nowadays that falls into this this this idea of there
being four different love words for love in greek sometimes all different amount of words on that
list but four is kind of the most reasonable in my opinion that's a very popular teaching among
christians we actually had someone come into sure foundation baptist church vancouver and start
telling us this exact same teaching so this is pretty widespread and he was like no no no you've
got to understand the greek that's happening in john 21 because there's like a secret message
you can find only if you can read greek though and he just happened to know it wow what are the
odds of that but the the thing about this is that there are different words for love in greek this
is what's true about what they say okay but this is what they're saying now understand the
difference between them and me this is what they say about all these different loves though okay
and i'll show you what the real answer to all this is at the end of it they have firstly agape
love or agape if you want to sound like one of these modern translators kind of people agape
love which is probably the most popular does anybody who's heard of agape love before agape
love okay agape is like how you'd actually say in greek and that's like the the englishized version
of it okay people say agape love is the chiefest of all loves it is godly love it's sacrificial
love it's perfect love it's the love that jesus had when he's on the cross for our sins it's the
love that god has in heaven for us right now it's the love that god pours down on us every day
doesn't that sound really nice to your heart man man so sweet that that's the kind of love
that god has me sacrificial perfect never-ending love which is true but it's not just agape love
spoiler okay but this is where this is found in the bible one of these one agape is the word that's
used the most in the bible though john uh matthew 5 43 it says he have heard that it's been said
thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy so that's that agape love right there the the
super highest form of love then you have phileo love which is go to uh john 20 verse number two
john 20 verse number two this is like what people will say like brotherly love and they'll say like
phileo love's good it's just not as good as like that peak agape love like this is like and that
by the way that's where the word philadelphia comes from it comes from this word phileo philadelphia
that's where they get that from and that's why they call it the city of brotherly love
um which it can be brotherly love definitely it can be but it's not only that as i'll show you a
little bit later on but they'll say this is like the average love that we have as humans until we
get saved and then god kind of gives us his real agape love the ability to love like that you see
that there in john 20 verse 2 it says then she runneth and cometh to simon peter and to the other
disciple who jesus loved that's the phileo right there and saith unto them they have taken away the
lord out of the sepulcher and we know not where they have laid him so this is agape love the best
phileo is kind of like underneath it but it's still good they like it they're like it's still good
but it's just not the godly heavenly love then you have storge or storge if you're like speaking
greek but the modern emphasis on the gay right there okay go to uh go to romans 131 this is
very interesting to me because of the fact that storge okay storge is not actually in the bible
as just like the proper word for love it's not actually like in the bible uh as just like this
word for love but it is in romans 131 brother ryan's favorite chapter of the bible where is
this at here okay because usually they'll say storge is like a familial love it's like a love
that you have for your mother-in-law maybe okay or your father-in-law right or you know your
cousin or something like that not like an alabama cousin though but like an actual like familial love
it says this though this is this is the one time that this word's used i will know there's two
times but it's the same exact thing and it's in first committee i think as well it says in romans
131 without understanding covenant breakers without natural affection implacable unmerciful so the
word it uses there the base word is there but it has the a in front of it so it's astor goose
so it's like uh that the a in front of it negates it kind of like in english we do this as well like
you have a theist which is someone who believes in god and you have an atheist it's called an
alpha privative okay don't you think i'm so smart now actually pastor anderson taught me that uh
like a couple weeks ago and i was saying alpha primitive he's like no no alpha privative okay so
i'm not that smart but i'm just echoing someone that's actually a lot smarter than me uh but yeah
it's called an alpha privative that like it's like negates a word that's what's happening here so it's
like without natural affection uh which i thought was kind of interesting then you have eros which
is like a romantic love people say or like a more like sensual love if you catch my drift on that
but this word is not in the new testament at all so we're just going to ignore that we don't really
care about that here but those are the three and really you can ignore storge as well because we're
only going to focus on their two but they they have to have the four because it makes a really
nice four point sermon if you have all these different kinds of love but um remember because
go to john 2115 go to john 2115 and remember the two main ones okay that's for that's the focus
right now agape is like the biggest sacrificial god almighty kind of love and then phileo is like
brotherly love kind of human love still good but just not peak love as you'd say okay and you guys
are going to john 21 can you might ask yourself why is this important at all the reason why is
because people nowadays have taken a big focus on these words and there's been thousands of
sermons preached on this subject and they're preaching a bunch of nonsense about these words
what they're actually doing okay but they'll go to this passage right here this is why this is a big
thing at all and they'll say listen here you king james onlyus this is the exact reason why you need
the greek and you can't just rely on the english alone because you're going to look at this verse
in john and see the word love and it's the same in english but in greek there's the different kinds
of loves as we see okay so they're saying you're going to miss this secret super awesome hidden
meaning in the text unless you speak greek or you go to your greek expert okay and so what is this
that they're talking about and they'll say this this reveals to us why peter's so upset in the
story you have to understand greek to know why peter's upset so john 21 15 it says so when they
had dined jesus saith to simon or simon peter simon son of jonas lovest thou me more than these
he said unto him yea lord thou knowest that i love thee he saith unto him feed my lambs so what's
happening here is jesus says like do you love me and he says with the agape love because of course
jesus is gonna have the agape love right in their opinion and then peter's like yeah jesus you know
that i love you and he uses the phileo love here the lesser love okay second verse verse number 16
it says he saith him again the second time simon son of jonah's lovest thou me he said unto him
yay lord thou knowest that i love thee he saith unto him feed my sheep so again jesus says do you
love me with this agape love and peter's like i love you with this phileo love jesus he's like
it's like like like this is what they want you to believe too and i don't want to step on myself but
like it's like they're like he's just like slipping this in like this wouldn't be like
super obvious if you're speaking greek you know what i mean like it's like agape me he's like
phileo you jesus it's like what doesn't it doesn't make sense okay but then the last time okay this
is the killer okay this is why you need to know greek says in verse 17 he saith on him the third
time simon son of jonest lovest thou me but here okay for you unlearned out there jesus switches
to phileo no more agape love he switches to phileo love for peter he's like do you phileo me and this
just like breaks peter's heart he's like oh jesus i only phileo you is that what you think of me
that jesus like switches going agape do you agape me do you agape me and then he's like
you phileo me and he's like i love you but here's why this doesn't make sense because of the fact
that peter is saying phileo to jesus the whole time if you were following what i was saying
it's nonsense he's like do you love me he's like i phileo you do you love me i phileo you and then
he's like do you phileo me and he goes in their opinion that's absolute nonsense that's what they
get up and teach about that though absolutely dumb guess what you don't need to go back to the greek
to find out the meaning here what if i told you guys that you can find out why peter's so grieved
in the text itself what if i told you that you could find that out look what it says in john
21 17 it says he says unto him the third time simon son of jonah's love is thou me peter was
grieved because he said unto him the third time love is thou me so guess what you didn't have to
go to the greek right there if you just kept reading the english you'd have figured out that
he's upset because jesus asked him three times do you love me do you love me do you love me
peter's like i do love you that's why he's upset because here's the thing why is he doing that to
him though in my opinion it's because peter denied jesus three times so it's a recall back to that
like he denies jesus three times so then jesus right here is asking him do you love me do you
love me do you love me you could find that just in the english itself though i'm bringing this
up though because again this is pretty popular this teaching is pretty popular but it is nonsense
here's the reality that matter what this proves is this is that phileo and agape are synonyms they
mean the exact same thing they're just love is what they are there's no difference between these two
things one's love the other one's love you can swap them interchangeably it doesn't matter what you
do right there and i can prove this to you way further than that go to john 319 john 319 we're
going to play a little game here the agape and phileo jeopardy okay you guys didn't know we're
going back to the greek disservice playing this game so with their definitions i'm going to take
you to a verse and you're going to tell me with their weird definitions what would make sense here
okay john 3 19 it says and this is the condemnation the light has come into the world and men
loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil is this going to be the the godly
love or this going to be the phileo love you think phileo right my brother jace is cheating
it is agape love hey with this selfless godly sacrificial love men loved darkness way rather
than light doesn't even make sense does it it's ridiculous john 11 34 go there we got another one
john 11 34 brother jason must have took birdman up on those greek classes okay
birdman and dane catch way more strays than anybody else i don't know what
pretty funny um john 11 34 though okay we're gonna see another one which one is it gonna be it says
and said where have you laid him they say to him lord come and see jesus wept then said the jews
behold how he loved him so jesus whose god manifests in the flesh who had all this love
for us on the cross how do you think he loves lazarus right here with an agape love or with
phileo phileo is what it is yeah i know but that's what you think no brother ryan he's thinking
logically right it's like that's what they're saying that should be true but i'm showing you
this is nonsense okay that's that's my point showing you this right so jesus i guess only
loved lazarus i mean he cried over lazarus but it was just a brotherly love not like the the true
godly love here okay john 1240 there's let's plays i'll be turned john 1243 john 1243 oh this
is not the last play okay i told a lie i'm sorry go to uh you're gonna go to john 520 after this
but stay there in john 1243 this is talking about the scribes and Pharisees it says for they loved
the praise of men more than the praise of god it's agape this godly love they love the praise of men
way more okay last one now for real go to john 520 john 520 this is the nail in the coffin and
if anybody brings this up to you bring them to john 520 and watch them stutter and follow themselves
because this destroys what they actually teach about this john 5 verse number 20 john 520
because when i brought this up to that guy who came to shirt foundation it was pale it was like
a visitor it wasn't like a normal guy that was going there he just was like wow i mean god can
he's loved so he has all the loves but it's like no that's not the answer dude the answer is that
these mean the exact same thing that's the answer to this john 520 the last place it says for the
father loveth the son and show them all things that himself doeth and he will show him greater
works in these that ye may marvel the father loving the son what is it going to be filet is
what it is right but it should be agape if they're saying if what they're saying is true right
that should prove to you that this is a bunch of garbage that they're saying agape and filet are
the same thing corporate wants to find you the difference between these pictures they're the
same pictures okay filet and agape mean the same thing which you would get from just reading the
text anyways but i'm not even going to get into that so just kind of in summary for this sermon
though okay i want to point out a few things to close this on don't be gullible and don't just
take people especially when it comes to the bible at surface level things never just when it because
in other places in life it's i mean you still probably shouldn't but it's not as big of a deal
but when it comes to any belief you have from the bible it should be backed up by more proof more
evidence than just the average thing that you would have to believe in this life so don't just
like don't just believe people that are throwing these kind of things out unless they can prove it
to you number two you don't need greek to understand the bible what you need to understand the bible is
to read more of the english that you can actually understand that's what's going to increase your
learning in the bible and i didn't bring this up earlier but i meant to it's like this like i don't
think people realize how important this is like when i first ever read through the bible cover
to cover i still could not grasp the entire like storyline of what's going on because the books go
a little bit about out of order like obviously i knew like the the kind of ballpark where things
were at but it was like i had like i didn't even get the entire full picture of the bible until i
read it through like i think it was on my third time then i kind of understood like exactly where
we were at in the timeline just reading the bible three times would do you more good than looking up
any greek grammar ever okay read the word of god that's what gets going to help you understand the
bible by reading it itself not going to books about the bible not going to commentaries sure
is heck not going to chat gbt or anything like that okay read the bible for yourself because you
have the holy spirit that will guide you into all truths what the bible teaches number four is that
agape and phileo mean the exact same thing there's no difference between these things they both mean
love and lastly people would do well to have faith in the bible and not let people creep in
and make you doubt the word of god because if you find yourself doing that we're like because like
because i'm learning greek right now obviously but like my point in doing this is to stop people from
doing dumb things like that that's my goal not that i'm going to go up and correct the king james
because guess what the king james i will never know enough knowledge to get up and make a
translation of the king james in my life in my lifetime okay we're going to correct it there's
nothing to correct about the king james it's perfect that's what's doing the most work from
god that's what we've seen from its conception any church that's truly serving god they're using the
king james bible that's the reality that we see in this life and in this world so i'm learning
that to just to stop this kind of nonsense but you don't have to you i mean you can't even want to
but you can just read the bible for what it says and you should believe it from for what it says
That's what God wants from us. That's what the book of John wants from me.
He's like, "Why are these things written so that we could believe, not so that we could doubt the things written in the book of John?"
Because every word of our Bible is true in English. You don't have to go back for it.
With that all being said, let's pray. Dear Father God, thank you so much for this wonderful day.
Thank you so much for this church, God. Thank you so much for your holy word, God.
Thank you so much that we have something stable to depend upon in this world, God.
There's so many different opinions out there and there's so many different theories and there's so many different ways that people approach things, God.
But thank you so much that we have the ultimate source of knowledge and the ultimate source of truth through your word, God, and through the holy spirit that's in our heart, God.
I just pray that we take advantage of that more and that we'd read your Bible in a language that we can understand and just keep doing that until the day that you come back.
I just pray that you'd be with us when we're out sewing later and I just pray that you'd bless the next sermon.
Jesus, may I pray? Amen.
Turn to page number 173. Page number 173. "Love lifted me." "Vigape love."
Page number 173. "Love lifted me." We'll sing it out on the first.
I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore. Very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more.
But the master of the sea heard my despairing cry from the water.
Safe Al's could help. Lying Al's could help to him.
His blessed presence, let his praises sing. So mighty and so true merits my soul's best song.
Faithful loving service too to him. When could help could help.
Let's sing everybody. Brother Ron, would you please close us on a word of prayer?
We don't need to go back to the Greek to understand these things. Help us to read
our Bibles every day and love you in Jesus name, amen.