(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Amen. Deuteronomy chapter number 8, again this is Moses preaching to the children of Israel as they're right about to enter into the Promised Land, they've wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. And he says in verse number 1, all the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do that ye may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers. Now obviously we in 2023 as New Testament Christians are not going into the Promised Land, but still the principles here apply that if we follow the commandments of God, if we do what the Bible tells us to do, we are going to be blessed, we will live, we will multiply, and we will prosper in the land where God has put us, whether that's the United States or wherever people live that are reading this text. We need to make sure and realize that God's word is always relevant in all generations. God didn't just write this for the people back then, but in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 the Bible tells us that these things, referring specifically to these stories about the children of Israel in the wilderness and coming into the Promised Land, it says these things were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come, and so these things are for us to look at and learn. And so today the path to God's blessing is through the door of obedience. Yes, we are saved by faith alone, not of works lest any man should boast, but if you want to be blessed by God, if you want your life to go well here on this earth, then you need to obey the commandments of the word of God, and Christ commanded us many things, and part of the Great Commission is to teach people to observe all things that Christ has commanded us. That's part of the job of preaching in the New Testament. So the Bible says in verse number 2, thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee, these 40 years in the wilderness, to humble thee and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldst keep his commandments or no. And again, this is the same type of experience that we are going to have in our lives, although we're not going to wander in that literal wilderness for 40 years, we will go through a type of wilderness spiritually, where we go through trials and tribulations and difficult things. Now the Bible says that this experience was to humble them and to prove them. What does that mean to prove them? Well prove means test or tempt or try. In fact, people that work for car companies, they take brand new models of vehicles and they take it to the proving grounds where they test out that car to see how it handles heat and cold and how it can handle the turns and different speed tests and braking tests. Those are called proving grounds because they're testing it. So it says it's to test you, right, to humble you and to prove you. Now God is going to bring difficult things into our lives as well for the same reason. We are going to go through dry patches in our life, difficult things, pain and suffering in order to humble us and to prove us. You see, without going through trials, tribulations, afflictions in our lives, we would become prideful. We would become arrogant. When everything goes well in your life and you just start feeling like everything you touch turns to gold, you can see how that can easily lead to you having a little bit too high of a view of yourself when you see everything going so well for you and maybe people around you are going through bad things and nothing bad ever happens to you because you're so wonderful. And this is how we as human beings are all prone to think, unfortunately. We have a sinful nature and so God will bring us through hard times in order to humble us, to keep us humble, and it definitely works, right? Those of us that have been through hard times, it definitely works to humble you and kind of take you down a notch when you go through bad times yourself. But also to prove us, to test us, to see what's in our heart. When you test out metals or purify metals, you expose them to a lot of heat and you melt away the impurities. And so God will often bring some fire of testing into our life in order to purge us and purify us and test us out, see what we're made of, right? Because in order to really be tested, you have to be taken to your limits. I mean, I guarantee you they don't just take those cars to the proving grounds and just sort of cruise around. You know, they're just kind of cruising at 45 miles an hour, real slow, like you on your driving test or something. That's not how they're driving the vehicle. They're probably just, you know, pedal to the metal, slamming on the brakes, spinning out, trying to do it in the hottest weather, maxing it out, AC cranked on high, you know, just low gears, just high RPMs. They're trying to push the thing to its absolute limit because they want to know what that limit is. Sometimes you'll buy products and they'll tell you, hey, this is a minimum temperature. Here's a maximum temperature. Why? Literally checked and the thing started exploding at that temperature or the thing stopped working at that temperature. You know, they test these things and so God will put us through trials and tribulations to strengthen us, to humble us, and also to see what we're made of and to test us, to see what's in our heart. See, there are a lot of people that outwardly care about serving Christ and that outwardly are a good Christian. But then when the hard times come, it sort of separates the people that are really serious about the Lord, really love the Lord from the posers that end up getting purged out in those times. And so God humbled them and proved them just like He's going to humble and prove us. It says in verse 3, He humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger and fed thee with manna. You see, when the children of Israel were in the wilderness, there were times when they would go without eating for a couple of days where they're out in the desert, where there's no food or no water. And He put them through those things, not through poor planning on His part or something like that, but because He wanted them to experience those trials and that difficulty. And so He allowed them to hunger. He humbled them and He fed them with manna, which He said that they knew not. He said, neither did thy fathers know that He might make thee know that man does not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. And so He was trying to get them to see the fact that aside from their physical need to eat, there's also a spiritual need daily for the Word of God. We need to spiritually eat every single day. We need that nourishment and sustenance that comes from the Word of God. And the specific lesson with the manna was that the manna came down from heaven, and it was there every morning, and as soon as the sun became high in the sky and warmed things up a little bit, the manna would just sort of melt away and be gone. And so they had to get up early and get out there and get the manna before it was gone. And if they slept in, there's nothing to eat. The other lesson was that they would gather up the manna, and they would eat that manna all day, but it was no good tomorrow, so that they could eat it for breakfast, they could eat it for lunch, they could eat it for dinner. But if they tried to keep it overnight, then the next day it would have worms in it. It would be rancid, it would go bad, and it would just be something gross that they had to get rid of. And so they were not supposed to lay it up until tomorrow. And the lesson there is that with God's Word, it's not going to work to just read a bunch of Bible and then just not read the Bible for the rest of the week. Like I got all my Bible reading done on Monday, I'm done for the week. I spent two hours in my Bible on Monday, and so I'm good through next Monday. That's not the way it works, is it? We are supposed to read it every day. You should get up in the morning and read it. Obviously, if you are not a morning person, if your schedule is different, as long as you're getting it in, I'm not going to criticize you if you don't read it in the morning, as long as you're reading it at the time of day that's your best. We want to give God our best. And so for me, I am at my best when I wake up in the morning. Not necessarily right when I wake up, but in the morning is when I tend to be thinking the most clearly, I get the most done, I'm the most productive, and then sometime around 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock at night, I become totally worthless mentally. And so hopefully I can get most of the sermon done before 8 o'clock when my mind begins to go. But the point is that, for me, my best, the first fruits of my day would be first thing in the morning. So I want to make sure and commune with God first thing in the morning. But by all means, just make sure that you spend time reading the Bible every day. Just like you wouldn't go a day without eating, and if you did go a day without eating, it would be kind of a big deal. I don't think anyone here just casually skips food for a day, right? I'm sure all of us have probably done it, but it was not taken lightly, it was not casual, it was pain, it was suffering, it was hard, it was difficult, it was something that you made a point, like, I'm not going to eat anything today. Or you got put in a strange situation where you had no access to food or something like that. But you don't just casually or flippantly skip food for a day. Well, how casual are you about skipping the Bible? We want to make sure that we prioritize God's word like we would an actual meal. And Job said, I've esteemed the words of thy mouth more than my necessary food. So he said, more than food, I need to have the word of God coming in all the time. Now there could be a temptation if you're a mature Christian who's been saved for a long time to think, you know, I've already read the Bible so many times, I already know what it says, there's no point in reading it again. But yet, you need to realize that the Bible is a living, spiritual book. It's not just a book like any other. And so as we read the Bible, the Holy Spirit is going to be speaking to us through his word and it's going to be different every time we read it. Now, thankfully, since we're King James, the text stays the same. But God will illuminate new things and show us new things and speak to us in a unique way using the same text that stays the same year after year that's been the same my entire life and will be the same for the rest of my life because I'm not part of the Bible of the month club and I'm not part of these Bibles that keep needing an update. You know, it's like when your software just keeps updating and it's kind of annoying. You know, well, that's how these Bible versions are. Like the NIV, the ESB is constantly getting an update. All these annoying, you know, you go to read your Bible and it needs an update and it keeps changing. You memorize a little scripture and then they just change the whole thing. And then they stop selling the old one. Can't buy the 1984 NIV unless you, you know, get it used at a thrift store or something. But the one that they're selling now is going to be the updated 2011 edition that's a little more gender neutral for you. That's what we need in 2023. And so we've got the word of God as our daily food. We need to every single day make a stop there, yes to learn, yes to gain knowledge and doctrine. But even if you already have a ton of knowledge and doctrine, yes you can learn more. But even aside from learning, it's also just for devotional purposes, right, of just communing with God and letting God inspire you. Because yes, the Bible is a source of knowledge. And when I read the Bible, I'm looking for information. I'm looking for knowledge. I want to learn something. But I also want to be inspired. I also want to be motivated. I also want to be encouraged. I also want to be strengthened. And so the Bible is operating on a bunch of different levels. So even if we already know the information in a particular chapter, we could still read that chapter for devotional purposes and be inspired, be illuminated in new ways. And look, some of the chapters that are the most basic chapters that we've read so many times, man, I am constantly learning new things. I mean, think about the book of Genesis. Talk about a basic book that we've been reading our whole lives. If you grew up in church, I know many of you got saved later in life. I got saved as a little boy. I grew up in a Christian home. And so I grew up with Genesis. I've read Genesis so many times. But every time I read it, I learn new things. And I'm constantly gaining new insights through the Holy Spirit's guidance. And I just went on that road trip, and I was preaching through the pastoral epistles. And again, that's a portion of scripture that I have read a lot. I remember as a kid just constantly going through those pastoral epistles, reading them over and over again. And yet, on the road trip, as I was preparing those sermons, I learned a ton of new stuff from the pastoral epistles. I mean, if there's one part of the Bible that I would say, man, I know this part of the Bible. It's the pastoral epistles. And yet, I was learning a bunch. Why? Because the Bible is infinite. The Bible is divine. The Bible is written by God and illuminated by God upon every fresh reading. And so you've got to keep going back to it, keep reading it, so that God can give you what you need for that day. And it's not going to be there tomorrow. You know, you've got to read it today. Tomorrow, God's got something different for you. God's got something different on Friday. You've got to keep on reading the Bible every day. And God was trying to teach them the need for his word. Jesus said that he was the bread of life. He said, I'm the bread that came down from heaven. And he compared the manna in John chapter 6 to the word of God. And he said, the words that I say unto you, they are spirit and they are life. Jesus Christ also compared himself to the manna because Jesus is the word incarnate. And so what a great passage here. What a powerful statement at the end that every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord is what we live by. Now this is a very important statement. I'm going to spend some time on this. This is, of course, quoted in the New Testament. Jesus Christ quotes this to the devil. When the devil comes at him and says, command that these stones be made bread, he answered and said it is written, man should not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. What does that mean? Well, what that means is that there is not a part of the Bible that's important and a part of the Bible that's not important. We do not rank the books of the Bible by their inspiration or authority or importance. Everything in the Bible is essential. There's nothing that's extra. There's nothing that's bonus. It's all supposed to be there and we need to read all of it. Now other religions don't look at their scripture this way. For example, the Jews, they don't look at the Old Testament as just being all God's word. No, they'll rank it and they have one section called the Torah that's at the top ranking and that's the first five books. Then they have a section called the Prophets, that's the next ranking, and then they have a section called the Writings and they believe that this is a hierarchy of authority and that the Torah is more authoritative than the Prophets. The Prophets are more authoritative than the Writings. Folks, this is nonsense. But I've even seen some Christians get confused and have this type of mentality of, well, you know, the words of Christ are in red, so therefore that's more authoritative. You know, no, because the whole Bible is the word of Christ in the sense that it's all written by God. You know, and so Jesus Christ spake things physically on this earth to his disciples, but is that more authoritative than what the Apostle Paul wrote in his epistles? No, it isn't. And I remember even as a kid being a little confused on this sometimes, thinking that, oh, well, you know, God's answering Job out of the whirlwind, this is actually God directly speaking to man. Well, let me just perk up my ears a little bit, but it's like, wait a minute, no. All of the Bible is God speaking to us. And so we don't want to get this idea that somehow when God is directly speaking, it's somehow more authoritative. Now, obviously there are stories in the Bible where it's just recording conversations and what the people are saying is not necessarily right, but I'm talking about the divinely inspired author of each book, the narrator of each book. That is absolute truth. That is God's word. And so having this red letter mentality, I know this is not common among Baptists because we understand and believe this because of this kind of preaching right here that we need every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. And we know that what Paul wrote is God's word, what Peter wrote is God's word, what Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote is God's word, just as much as what they heard booming out of a cloud at Mount Sinai, just as authoritative. But you'll really get this mentality from the Roman Catholics. They'll always come at you. I know that's what Paul said, but what did Jesus say? As if somehow what Jesus said is more authoritative than the Apostle Paul who's writing inspired scripture. But again, Roman Catholics will typically tell you, well, the Bible's written by man and so therefore man is putting his own thoughts and culture and ideas into it that aren't necessarily right. And so they'll believe that certain things in the Bible are wrong. You know, women keep silent in the church, well, that just reflects on their male-dominated patriarchal culture establishment back then. That's the word of God. But that's the type of thing that people will say, well, that's what Paul said, you know. Well, that's just David talking over there in Psalms or something, you know. No, it's the word of God because remember, the Bible says all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is probable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. Also, the Bible says that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. So if a holy man of God is speaking as he's moved by the Holy Ghost, that's just as much God's word as if Jesus Christ is talking. It's the same thing. And so we shouldn't have this hierarchy of scripture. We need to live by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. Is Jesus God? Yes. Is the Holy Spirit God? Okay. Well, if Jesus is talking in the red letters and the Holy Spirit's talking over in the book of Romans, either way, it's proceeding out of the mouth of God. Whether it's God the Holy Ghost or God the Son, it's still coming out of the mouth of God. And so we don't want to get this hierarchical view of scripture. We want to take the whole book, the whole Bible, and say it's all God's word. We need all of it. We derive our doctrine from all of it. It's all equally essential to us. Now, we might have our personal favorites, and maybe certain things are more important for certain subjects, like certain scriptures are more relevant to salvation than others, which is obviously, you know, arguably a lot more important than a lot of other things, depending on what we're talking about. So therefore, all of God's word should be read, studied, believed, preached, and we shouldn't rank it in any way. It's just all the Bible. It's all God's word. And so that's one important thing that we can learn from man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God is that we need the entire Bible, meaning every book of the Bible. Every chapter of the Bible, every verse of the Bible is what we need. Okay. Now, here's the thing about that. If we need every book, if we need every chapter, amen, we need every verse, amen. But then we're already starting to lose the modern version crowd when we need every verse. And then when we need every word, well, we've really lost them at that point. Okay. Now, why is this an issue for the modern version crowd? Because the people that are on the modern versions, they have Bibles that are constantly changing and that are different than the traditional text used by God's people throughout the centuries. Here's the thing about that. We're not talking about an update of the language. That is not the problem with the modern versions. The modern version crowd wants you to believe that the new versions are just a language update. That's what they'll try to trick you into thinking, especially with the new King James. They'll try to make you think it's just a language update. Hey, if it were just a language update, there'd be no issue. That's not what's going on, my friend. They have changed the text of the scripture to the point where entire verses are removed, words are removed, phrases are removed that are meaningful to the text, that change the meaning of the text. It's not just smoothing out the language for 2023. Now, here's why it's so misguided to feel like we have to update the language anyway, is that the Bible is a really old book, so it's probably going to sound kind of old when you read it because it was written a long time ago. And what I mean by that is that even if we were translating the Bible today and we brought it up into the English up to the minute, I mean 2023 American English, it would still sound old in some places because of the fact that a lot of the concepts are old. What do you do with the word concubine? You got a modern equivalent for that? You could think of a lot of modern equivalents, but none of them is really going to encompass what a concubine is because of the fact that we don't really have concubines per se in America in 2023 exactly what the Bible is referencing there. And so the problem with a language update sometimes is that it's not that words are archaic, it's just that we don't use them because we live in a different culture. Like you read a bunch of stuff in the Bible about sailing and then you don't know those words and you're just like archaic, archaic, archaic. No, no, you just don't know anything about sailing. You're reading Exodus. It's like, oh, I found all these archaic words. And you find all these lists online. Look at all these archaic words in the KGB. A lot of them aren't even archaic, it's just the guy making the list doesn't know them. So here's the tendency, somebody reads the King James, they come to a word they don't know, archaic, another archaic word, archaic, no, no, no, you just don't know that word. Look, I read a lot of books besides the Bible. And when I read books besides the Bible, and I'm talking about books that have come out in the last five years, guess what? Every single time I read a book, there's a word in that book that I've never heard before or seen before. And I have to look it up in the dictionary because I don't know every word in English and neither do you. And so guess what? When you read the King James Bible, you're going to run into some words that you don't know. But I got news for you, if you get an NIV, you're going to run into some words you don't know too. If you get an ESV, you're going to find words that you've never heard of that you don't know that you're going to have to look up. It's just the nature of reading a book that's thousands of years old. Some of the concepts are going to be a little archaic. It covers so many different subjects, sewing, clothing, farming, sailing, there are going to be a lot of terms that we just don't even know in any language. And that's the issue, okay? Now, but you say, well, yeah, but it just sounds old with the the and the now. Who cares if it sounds old? It is old. I mean, this guy sounds like he's talking a long time ago. Well, yeah, he did talk a long time, you know. This almost sounds archaic. Yeah, it happened 4,000 years ago. You're reading a story of something that happened 4,000 years ago or 2,000 years ago and you want everybody to be like, hey, what's up, bro? It's like, it sounds old because it is old. Excuse me. So this idea of expecting the Bible to sound super modern is foolish on so many levels. Number one, it's an old book. It's going to have archaic concepts in it. You're going to have to use archaic words sometimes for archaic concepts. Number two, a lot of these words aren't even archaic because you just don't know them because you don't know anything about sewing or whatever. And then, you know, the other issue is that it's different when you're talking versus writing because a lot of people will be like, well, people don't really talk the way the Bible talks. If you read any book, it's usually not written the way people talk because there's the written language and the spoken language. If you transcribe my sermons and put them in a book, people would be like, what is this? It wouldn't read like a book. It would be like a very strange book if it was just my verbatim words. In order to turn my sermon into a book, you'd have to totally change the way that I'm speaking into a writing form. And when I write things, I've written something out. I wrote this really long essay and then I made a video where I was just reading it out loud and people couldn't believe that it was me. They're like, it just didn't sound like you. But it was because I wrote it instead of speaking it. And it's just a different style. This is a book. This isn't your buddy that you're talking to at high school. So, yeah, it's going to sound a little bit fancier than the spoken word. And when people talk to each other, yeah, they talk differently because it was a long time ago. But again, it's not that it would be inherently sinful or wrong to update the language because it wouldn't be. And you know, we've always been saying this, Pastor Jimenez back in 2013 preached from the pulpit. He said, if all the New King James did was update the language, we wouldn't even be talking about it. There'd be no issue. And that's in the New World Order Bible versions film. That's what we've always said. That's what we've always believed. And people have lately accused me of setting myself up or positioning myself to update the KJV. I'm not going to update the KJV, period. Number one, it doesn't need to be updated and it will never need to be updated in my lifetime. Now, two or three hundred years from now, if the Lord has not returned, then it might need a language update at that point. But it certainly doesn't need one now or any time in the near future. And so, and number two, I would be not a good person to do that because I am a terrible writer. Okay. I'm not a great speaker, I hope, but I'm a terrible writer. And so my writing skills are trash. So how can I update the King James Bible when the King James Bible is so magnificently written? You know, I am an oral communicator. I am not a written communicator. And so people just like to lie and make false accusations against me that I'm somehow, you know, wanting to change the King James Bible or update the King James Bible. In fact, let's get on these people for a while, these bunch of phonies. Okay. Let's get on them for a while. Because there's a over-the-top, radical, King James-only-ism that's out there that is wrong. And I want to talk a little bit about that, okay. The people that freak out about changing eternal to everlasting or sayeth to says. They say that'd be a corruption of God's word. Folks, it's crazy. It's absurd. But why do they believe this? I'll tell you why. And sometimes this doctrine is called Ruckmanism because it's famously taught by Peter Ruckman. But here's what these people believe. They believe that the Bible was basically re-inspired in 1611 with the King James version. That God re-inspired scripture. Now here's the problem with that. There are a bunch of problems with that. One of the problems with that is that it's an attack on the preservation of God's word. If God's word is preserved, then it wouldn't need to be re-delivered in 1611 because it would have already been there in the 1300s, the 1400s, the 1500s. It would have always been around. God's word did not disappear and have to be brought back. This is something that the Mormons would believe, like, oh, the word of God's been corrupted. We need a new revelation for Joseph Smith. Or this is what the Muslims would say, like, oh, well, God delivered the word, but it's not preserved, it's not been corrupted. We need Mohammed to be re-inspired with the word. No, my friend. God's word is inspired by God, and it's been perfectly preserved and providentially kept pure in all ages. It is the perfect word of God today, but it always has been on this earth somewhere. It's always been preserved. It's always been used and preached. It never went away. This is why we believe in the traditional text of scripture, what's been out there and used throughout the centuries. We don't believe that God's word needed to be restored. And here's what's so foolish about this, and let me just hit you with some common sense arguments here before I get into some of the biblical things, okay? Here's some common sense arguments. If God's word was preserved, then why would it need to be re-inspired in 611 in English? Because, you know, you already have it in Greek and Hebrew, it sounds like you just need to translate it into English. Number two, if it's re-inspired in the King James Version in English, well, then why do you need 54 scholars? Why is it going to take 54 people? Because according to these people, you know, God basically told the translators what to write, and God inspired them and told them what to write, and they were under divine inspiration, and so the KJV is divinely inspired. So we can't change a jot or a tittle in the King James Version. If you change eternal to everlasting, oh, you've corrupted God's word. Okay. Here's the thing about that. Why do you need 54 scholars then, if they're just going to be divinely inspired anyway? Why do they even have to be great scholars? So these same people will brag about how smart the King James scholars were and how they knew all these foreign languages and they're experts in all these things. Why would they need any of that if they're operating under divine inspiration? Can you explain that? Because God could have just used lesser men. Why couldn't he just inspire Tyndale like that? Why didn't he just inspire the guys over in Geneva like that, right? Why didn't he just inspire the crew that made the Bishop's Bible, which is a great version of the Bible that came right before the King James? Why not just divinely inspire the scholars who made the Bishop's Bible? Why have a bigger crew work on the King James than on the Bishop's Bible? Why have 54 scholars? Why does it matter? But it sounds to me like their expertise didn't even matter. Their knowledge doesn't even matter, because isn't it interesting that when God first delivered the Bible, he did not choose expert scholars in most cases. Because let me ask you this, were Peter and John expert scholars according to Scripture? So God originally gave us these masterpieces of literature, the Bible, in 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, the Gospel of John. He used an uneducated man. He used a fisherman, a common man, a blue-collar man. But why is it so awesome? Because it's divinely inspired. Why is the King James awesome? Because it's divinely inspired again in 1611? Or maybe because it was put together by 54 super smart experts who were really good at translating and really good with the poetry of the English language. Otherwise, why do you even need all these scholars if it's just going to be poof, King James falls out of the sky, golden tablets, Joseph Smith style, this message will self-destruct right after you're done translating it. Because that's what these people are teaching and believing. Do I believe that the King James Bible is inspired? I believe it's the inspired word of God, but it derives its inspiration from the inspired original. See if you take the inspired original Hebrew and translate it into English, it's still inspired by God. It doesn't lose its inspiration in the translation. It is still every word of God. It hasn't lost anything as long as you've translated it accurately. And the King James Bible is accurately translated. Here is our statement of faith on the King James Bible. We believe that the King James Bible is the word of God without error. And that's a very strong statement on the King James. It doesn't get much stronger than that without getting into rucktardia. But that's not enough for these people. That's not enough. But let me tell you this, and think with me for a moment. It was the word of God when it was in Hebrew. It was the word of God when it was in Greek. It didn't disappear. It didn't fall off the face of the earth. It was translated into English. The reason it's so good is because there were experts. Now there were 54, right? Now let me ask you this. What if there were only 27 of them? Would the King James have been quite as good as it is? Now according to the ruckmanites, yeah, because it's divinely inspired. What if there were just five guys doing it? Would the King James be as good? And of course, because it fell out of the sky in 1611. Because they're divinely inspired. God told them what they're right. Okay, well then we don't believe that, do we? We actually talk about the fact that these guys are smart and that they knew these languages because we think that that actually mattered for the quality of the work. Okay. Now let me ask you this. What if instead of 54 expert scholars, you had 540? Would the KJV perhaps be a little bit better in certain places or a little bit smoothed out or a little bit cleaner? I say yes. I say yes. But Pastor Anderson, the KJV is perfect in every way. Yes, the KJV is the word of God without error. But let me explain something to you. There's more than one way to skin a cat. And guess what? The bishop's Bible does not word things exactly like the King James in every place. Is it not God's word in those places, even when it means the exact same thing? It's the same thing. It's still God's word. This is perfect. This is God's word. This is without error. But you know what? There are certain parts in it that you could say maybe sound a little bit awkward, that could be smoothed out. But you know what? The people who go off into rucktard la-la land, they want to believe that basically it fell out of the sky, it's divinely inspired, so you can't even change a single word of it without corrupting it. Folks, you know what? It's a false doctrine. Just compare the Old Testament quotes to the New Testament quotes and tell me that you can't say the same thing using slightly different words with the same meaning and it'd still be God's word. In fact, how about this exact verse? How about this exact verse? It said, look down at your Bible. And I guarantee you, there are people in this room right now that are uncomfortable with what I'm saying because they've been infected with this wrong viewpoint. Look what the Bible says in Deuteronomy 8, verse 3. It says at the end that man did not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of the Lord did man live. What did Jesus say in the New Testament? He said that man does not live by bread alone. So instead of only, it says alone. Is that a meaningful change? No. That means the exact same thing. So let me ask you this. What if the King James in the New Testament, what if the translators had just said man does not live by bread only? Could they have corrupted God's word? Were they wrong? Is it inferior? No. It'd be the same thing. And then how about the fact that it says but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of the Lord. What did Jesus say? Every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. What if I told you that God and the Lord are the same? You say, well, yeah, but those words, you can't interchange those words. Okay, that's kind of funny because the most common noun in the Bible is the proper name of God, the tetragrammaton, which is translated into the King James Bible about 7,000 times as the Lord, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, except for when it's translated instead as God. So the same word, the tetragrammaton, is translated as Lord 99% of the time, and then one or two percent of the time, it's translated as God. So whenever you have Lord in all caps, it's a tetragrammaton. When you have God in all caps, also the tetragrammaton. But no, no, no, we can't interchange God and Lord. That's a corruption of God's word. Really? So here's the thing. You can deny fact, you can deny reality, or you can realize that when God says man should not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, what he's saying is that everything that God said, every word that God spoke, is what we need to grow and live by and read, and we need to make sure that our Bible contains every word. That means if we have an English Bible, it accurately translates every word in the Hebrew and brings it over into English. Now is it going to be word for word the same from English to Hebrew or English to Greek? No, because that's not how languages work. So things are going to be worded a little bit differently, but you're going to get the same meaning across, okay? Because if you translated word for word from Hebrew into English, it would be like a Google Translate. It would sound horrible. You couldn't even read it. It would be terrible. Same thing if you did it in Greek, although it wouldn't be as bad. But the Hebrew to English would be absurdly hard to understand, okay? Because translating involves wording things in English, okay? It involves... Now, why is the King James Bible so much better than the Bishop's Bible? Here's why. It's better because of style. The biggest problem with the Bishop's Bible, it's not that it was corrupt or false or wrong. It was just not as majestic. It didn't have as much style. It wasn't as well done in English. And so when I say, could the King James Bible get slightly better, I'm talking style. Only style, my friend. But see, I've already lost the Ruckmanites in the crowd. They don't get it. Okay. Well, here's the thing. So, you know, I've been preaching this stuff. My whole ministry, I'm trying to preach a King James Bible only-ism that actually makes sense, right? That actually preserves the doctrine of preservation, where we've always had God's word. Because here's the thing. If you're going to take this Ruckmanite view, you'd have to condemn all the English versions before the King James, and you'd have to condemn every version in every other language. And by the way, these Ruckmanites, they're not satisfied with any Bible in any other language. Everything's good enough in virtually any other language for them. Because everything has to be worded exactly like the King James. Because they believe the King James is divinely inspired. So I got an email to the church email a little while back. It said this, brothers of Faithful Word Baptist Church, a brother, now it literally says a bother from Boyle's church. It is a bother. But I'm pretty sure he meant brother. So he said, a brother from Boyle's church passed along a very astonishing video interview by a few brothers showing the inspiration of the English, all caps, the inspiration of the English Bible and how it must and does, therefore, supersede the Hebrew and the Greek. So here's what we believe. We believe that the Greek and Hebrew originals are preserved by God. Obviously, when we say original, we're not talking about the one that Paul actually physically had in his hand or something. We say original, we mean the original language. The original Greek and Hebrew have also been preserved. Otherwise, what were the King James translators even translating? Something that's self-destructed? No. But this guy says the English supersedes the Hebrew and Greek. They show the thousands of mathematical perfect computations in the KJV that the originals do not have. Please take a look. There's a link to a video. Live stream with Brandon Peterson, author of Sealed by the King. So I click on the YouTube link. Takes me to a video. First person I see on the screen is Robert Breaker. And I'm just like, oh, man. So here's what Robert Breaker is saying in the video. The KJV is mathematically perfect. Math proves that the KJV is the word of God. You can't argue with math. That's the exact transcript of what he said. Minutes later, he said, math is over my head in a lot of ways. I'm not the biggest math fan. I'm not that great at math. OK, well, let's help him with his math a little bit. So here's what he says. I'm going to give you the quotes. Everything's divisible by 7 in the King James Bible. And he starts hitting you with all these stats. In Christ, 77 times. All the forms of baptized, 77 times. Amen with a capital A, 77 times. Rock with a capital R, 7 times. Thus saith the Lord, 49 times. Word of God shows up 49 times. Lord God, 14 times, which is 7 times 2. So he does know a little math. Husbandman is found 7 times in the King James Bible. So he's going on and on about all this stuff, right? So I did a little fact checking. So here's what's going on. In Christ actually occurs 78 times, but it's in 77 verses. I'm going to get back to why that's important. All the forms of baptized, 77 times. I looked it up. The term baptism is used 22 times. Baptiseth, baptized, baptized, all those forms, 73. And baptism's 1 for a total of 96. So he failed at the counting. Only in the King James. Amen with a capital A, 77 times. It's actually 78 times, but one of them isn't capitalized. Thus saith the Lord 49 times. Actually, thus saith the Lord occurs 415 times. But don't worry, because it's in 413 verses, and 413 divided by 7 is 59. Now, let me explain to you the problem with this logic. And then here's what he says. Either this was these really smart men that translated the King James Bible and they did this, or the Lord did this through them, and they didn't know what they were doing. I tend to lean that way. God was right there doing this. Now, here, let me help you with math. What if I told you that out of all the numbers in the world, 1 7th of them are divisible by 7? Everybody understand that? We take all the numbers, 1 7th of them are divisible by 7. That means that I can just list off all kinds of Jesus, God, Father, Son of God, Son of Man, Bread of Life. You start listing terms, and 1 7th of them are going to be divisible by 7, but actually, it gets better. Because if it doesn't add up, I can just cook the books a little. For example, I can say, well, let's just only do the ones that are capitalized. So now instead of having a 1 in 7 chance, now we probably have more like a 2 in 7 chance if you think about it, because we can do the number of mentions or the number of verses. You know, because it's used 413 times and 415 verses. One of them is going to be divided by 7. We've got about a 1 out of 3 and 1 half chance. OK, so you start looking long enough, and you're fine. This is what's known as the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. OK, here's the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. The Texas sharpshooter, he shoots at the barn. Then when he's done shooting at the barn, he goes and draws the target after he's done shooting. And then he always hits the bullseye. Because first he shoots, then he draws the target. That's what they're doing here. They didn't draw the target first like, hey, let's see if this adds up to 7. No, no, they're just checking everything. And 1 7th of what they check adds up to 7. And they're just like, it's so uncanny. I'm getting goosebumps. I can't even believe this. And then here's what's funny. Seemingly smart people will talk about this stuff. Like, what's this guy, he's like the worst Bible teacher of all time, Chuck Missler. OK, Chuck Missler, he was like a code breaker for the United States military. He's a cryptographer, a code breaker. And so he goes around lecturing, and he talks about all the same stuff. And I'm thinking to myself, if you're a mathematician, well, he did work for the government. But I'm like, if you're a mathematician, you must know that you're lying right now. You must know that everything you're saying is a lie. Because I did a little bit of cooking of the books myself. And I found that Satan is mentioned 49 times, 7 times 7. I found that Balaam is mentioned 63 times, 7 times 9. Now, Sodom is only mentioned 48 times. But if you include Romans 9, 29, where it's called Sodoma, well, now it's 49 times. 7 times 7, amazing. Only in the KJV. Did you know that dung is mentioned 28 times? 7 times 4. 4 is the number of the Earth. The dung falls on the Earth. I found that the word scab, like a scab, like don't pick at your scab. Did you know that scab occurs 7 times in the perfect KJV? Abner. You know the biblical character Abner? He's mentioned 63 times, multiple of 7. Giant or giants, because I can cook the books too. Giant or giants is mentioned 21 times, 7 times 3. Concubine is found in 21 verses, 7 times 3. Babylon is mentioned 294 times, which is 7 times 7 times 6. Amnon, 28 times, 7 times 4. Various forms of the word filth, filthy, filthiness, 35 verses. It's all sevens, my friend. Now, if I take devil, devils, hell, and bastard, and put them all together, I get 175 mentions, which is 7 times 5 times 5. But this is what they do. They're literally like, take Lord, and Savior, and add them up. And you could do this with anything. I just did. This took me like a few minutes. Honey is mentioned 56 times, 7 times 8. Goat is mentioned 35 times, 7 times 5. Moab is mentioned 168 times, 7 times 24. The word Duke is used in 14 verses. And what's funny is that these people, they're finding themselves in the Bible code as well. The guy in this video says at the one hour 29 minute mark that it was 7,777 days from the day that he was born to when he was born again. 7,777 days. This guy was just waiting to get saved on a really propitious day, or auspicious day, I should say. Well, you know what, I got him beat anyway because I got a birth certificate to prove it. I posted it on Facebook. I was born at 1611 in the afternoon, so beat that, buddy. I was literally born at 4.11 PM, which in military time is 1611. Hey, it's 1611 somewhere, you know? I looked up the seventh word, and then look out. But see, that's because you know what I was doing? I was doing the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. Because you're like, Pastor Anderson, dung, scab, concubine, but what are you doing? But here's what's funny. What you don't see is all the ones that didn't pan out. Because I'm only showing you the ones that worked, which is only like a third of things that I looked up. What about the 2 thirds of things that I looked up that didn't work? So now instead of using the Texas sharpshooter fallacy where we first fire the bullets and then see which ones hit and then draw the target around them, now let's just start just looking for things based on this seven logic. OK, how about this? The seventh word of the seventh verse of the seventh chapter of the seventh book. It's got to be something amazing. It's the word by, B-Y. I looked up the seventh word of the seventh verse of the seventh chapter of the seventh book in the New Testament. Were. Were. I looked up how many times God the Father's used 12 times. I looked up how many times Jesus is mentioned. 983 times, which is not divisible by seven. Christ is mentioned 571 times, not divisible by seven. Father is mentioned 1,126 times, not divisible by seven. You could go on and on and on with a lot more things that are not divisible by seven. And then these guys are also taking like, he's like, I'm starting in Genesis and I went to the 1611th verse. He goes to the verse, obviously it's going to be something good, the whole Bible's good. He goes to the 1611th verse, and this is what the 1611th verse says. Moses said, I'm slow of speech and slow of tongue. How am I going to go to Egypt? And then he's like, I looked it up and English is the slowest language. Please. Have you ever heard brothers say, gora preach? It's not the slowest language when he does it. English is the slowest language. And then Robert Breakers jumping in and like, well, I heard that King James had an oversized tongue and he had a speech impediment. And they're like, wow, amazing, it's even more. But here's the thing, no matter what you find, you're going to find some connection. And then he found like the 1611th from the end and it was something about making known the word of God. It's like, oh, well, but here's the thing. Virtually every verse, I mean, we could just like flip open the Bible and just grab a verse and it's going to be something cool. Now concerning the things whereof you wrote unto me, it's good for a man not to touch a woman. There you go, folks. Right? Rejoice ye in that day and leap for joy. For behold, your reward is great in heaven, for in like manner did their fathers unto the prophets. Woe unto you that are rich. Right? I mean, this is good stuff. The age of women likewise that they be in behavior has become a holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things. And the priest answered David and said, there's no common bread under my hand, but there is hallowed bread if the young men have kept themselves at least from women. So if I were one of these guys and let's say I typed in a cool number and that verse popped up, I'd be like, this is hallowed bread, folks. This is no common bread right here, buddy. This is the bread of life and it's not common bread. Because you could see, how many verses did I have to turn to define like a really killer connection? Right? Not very many. Just flip around a little and it's pretty easy to find. You just start typing in numbers. And what they don't tell you about is all the hundreds of numbers that didn't, when they were missing the barn and shooting all of it. You know, they only show you the one where they shot and then they go and adjust the target exactly where they landed the bullet. Now, I'm not trying to hurt anybody's feelings with this. I'm not trying to let the air out of your balloon. But you know what though? Is, do you guys care about the truth or not? You know, I mean, I thought we're all lovers of truth. So this shouldn't hurt your feelings because you find out the truth about this stuff. And any mathematician would laugh at this and scoff at it because they know right out of the gate, just right from the jump, one seventh of numbers on this planet are gonna be divisible by seven. Like just right away, you know? And I mean, the Bible's a long book. Listen, get off your Bible code. It's all a fraud. It's all a hoax. How about you read what the Bible actually says? And they're like, oh, this only works on the King James. They're counting letters. They're counting vowels. They're counting consonants. It's a bunch of superstitious, hocus pocus, dark ages, mumbo jumbo is what it is. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. I'm trying to enlighten you, okay? And look, I'm glad that you're King James only. I'm King James only too. And you know what? I've been King James only for a long time and I'm gonna be King James only for the rest of my life. I'm never gonna follow the critical text. I'm never gonna join the Bible of the Month Club. I'm never gonna be one of these people that is correcting the King James and saying, well, the King James is wrong here and it's an error here. Look, I believe that the King James Bible is the word of God without error. And I want you to believe the same thing. I want you to pick up the Bible and realize that you have an every word Bible. I want you to pick up the Bible and know that what you're reading in English is what God said. And if you read it in Hebrew, it would say the same thing. If you read it in Greek, it would say the same thing. Save yourself thousands of hours of learning Greek and Hebrew, unless you want to, unless you like it. Save yourself thousands of hours because there is no magical, mystical thing that you're gonna find in the original languages. You have the word of God in your language. And not only do you have it, you have it translated 100% accurately. God in his providence allowed all of the events of history to come together to provide the most important language in the world, which is English. I don't think anybody could argue with the fact that English is the most important language for the last few hundred years and especially now. And it's getting more important every day. It's the big one. God made sure that the big one had a really well-made translation with 54 expert scholars, linguists, and wordsmiths that did such a magnificent and beautiful job with the translation. But when we say that it's perfect, what we're saying is that it's saying exactly what the original says. It's perfect. We mean it doesn't have any errors in it. It has no flaws. It doesn't have any mistakes. But when these Ruckmanites hear the word perfect, you know what they hear? They hear, oh, it could not be any other way. It cannot be any other way. Well, you know what? We're going to have a hard time with that when we try to bring it into other languages because it's going to have to be another way in other languages because other languages are different. And when they hear that, it just can't be another way. It's perfect. Don't touch it. Well, here's the thing. We've already updated the spellings from 1611 to 1789. 1769, sorry. 1789 is the French Revolution, Fall of the Bastille, July 14th, viva la revolution, viva la republique. But anyway, the point is, these people think that the spellings are inspired. I'm not kidding. I mean, they believe that savior has to be spelled with seven letters. S-A-V-I-O-U-R. And they, I've been in church and heard them preach that S-A-V-I-O-R, six letter savior, is the antichrist. That spelling savior with six letters is the antichrist. And that seven letters, you know. But folks, my friend, that's a coincidence that it's seven letters. The world is filled with coincidences. Now, when we say nothing in the Bible is coincidental, incidental, accidental, we're talking about what the text actually says. And what's funny is that these people are not seeing the forest for the trees. When you read the Bible, you're supposed to be getting the message of the Bible. You're supposed to be getting the teaching of the Bible. You're supposed to be letting the Bible speak to you, not doing a bunch of numerology, word search, games, and whatever. It reminds me of the story about the guy, I used to hear this sermon illustration, about this guy who was locked in prison with the Bible for years and years, and then he died and they looked at his cell, and his whole cell, he had written all over the cell every stat about the Bible. How many verses, how many chapters, what these different words, he'd just done all the math about the Bible. And the message was always, he missed the point of the Bible. Instead of reading the Bible and being spiritually edified, he was just bored, so he just looked for codes and whatever. The Bible code, a hoax. It's all a hoax, okay? And this whole gematria, go back to the Hebrew, because here's the thing, every Hebrew letter has a number associated with it. So here's where they start doing the math of the numbers instead of just reading the text of what the Bible says. And then they do it in English. But in order to do it in English, they have to have this doctrine that the King James is straight from God. Well, guess what? No, the King James is not straight from God, because the King James is translated from the Hebrew that's straight from God, and translated from the Greek that was straight from God. And by the way, here, let me blow your mind even more. You know, the Hebrew Bible was written over the course of 1,500 years. Do you know how much a language changes in 1,500 years? Yeah, and there are some linguistic differences in the Hebrew Bible, but not 1,500 years' worth. You wanna know why? Because they updated the language along the way. Because that's not what God meant when he said that every word of God is pure, add not into his words. He means don't add to what he said. He's not saying that if you translate it into another language, it has to be, you know, just one for one straight literal translation. If the King James Bible were translated literally, it would sound like garbage. It would sound like Google Translate. That's what Google Translate does, right? Just literal. No, no, no. The King James Bible gets the feeling of the original, the spirit of the original, in addition to capturing the meaning, it also gets the feeling and the spiritual. Here's the thing. A good translation sounds like it was originally written in that language. When people read the King James, they think that Jesus spoke English. I grew up thinking, you know, when I was a little kid, I thought Jesus spoke English. And people make fun of King James only, yeah, you guys think you're gonna get to heaven and God's gonna speak English. That's because our Bible translation is so good that we expect God to just sound like Alexander Skirby and be speaking King James English. I mean, I'm expecting a literal English, well done, now a good and faithful servant, amen? I mean, I'm picturing Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and it's all English. What? Well, you know what? No child growing up with the NIV is gonna think it was English. Because it's so awkward and weird, they're gonna be like, well, this is like, this is like directions from Ikea or something. It's a bad translation. This was originally written in Chinese. You know, new evangelicals are gonna grow up thinking that Jesus was Chinese. Because the translation's so bad. Folks, thank God that the KJV's not literal. But you got all these people out there telling you, oh, the King James literal, the new versions aren't literal, that's the problem. No, the problem is that the people coming out with the new versions literally worship Satan. That's the problem, okay? They're literally corrupting God's word. The people actually behind it, if you actually go to the sources of where these texts come from, are not even Bible-believing Christians. A bunch of academics and theologians in Germany that deny the cardinal doctrines of the Bible. They're of Satan. They're of the devil. It's the devil's attack on God's word. That's what the NIV is. That's what the New American Standard is. That's what the ESV is. It's not an update of the language. It's the devil's attack on God's word. That's what it is. It's not that they weren't literal enough. Sometimes they're too literal. And so I hope that no one is hurt or offended by what I'm saying. And I'm not trying to downgrade the King James at all. The King James is magnificent. But guess what? Other translations in other languages could be great too. And you know what? The bishop's Bible is good too. It's not like the bishop's Bible is bad. And you know what it says in the intro of the KJV? They said, we're not replacing a bad translation with a good one. We're replacing a good one with a great one. And that's the truth. They're going good, better, best. Okay? But to sit there and to be, if you're uncomfortable when I say, well, there are a couple of places in the KJV that are maybe worded a little bit awkward, but it's 99.9% sounds awesome. Who cares? It's 99.9% awesomeness, but it's 100% accurate. And that's what matters. I didn't say it's 99.9% accurate. I said it's 100% accurate. The King James is the word of God without error. There's not one error in it. Everything in it is right. There's nothing in it that's wrong. Everything is 100% right. And 99% of it sounds awesome. Some of it sounds a little awkward or a little archaic. So what? You're never gonna improve on it in this lifetime. It was created by men that were literally brilliant, literal geniuses. It is amazing. But sorry, I'm not gonna go to the over the top crowd saying it fell out of the sky and everything is worded exactly the way God wanted it in English to the point where you can't even change an everlasting to an eternal without corrupting God's word. That is overboard, over the top. And again, if you say, well, I just believe it couldn't have been better, then why not? What if there were 55 guys working on it? What about 100? No, no, no, it's 54 because five plus nine is four and nine is the number of bearing fruit. But at the end of the day, my friend, God has given us the word of God in our language. You can go to sleep tonight and rest assured that when you wake up tomorrow morning, everything that you read is the inspired, perfect, preserved word of God. If you want something beyond that, well, then you're going too far and it's possible to take a good doctrine too far. Every word of God's a great doctrine, but it can go too far to where it's like, well, every word, so now the Spanish better worded exactly like the English because there's only one right way to do it and it's the way the King James did it. I mean, look, they that were crucified with him cast the same in his teeth. What does the original Greek say? It doesn't say that. Cast the same in his teeth. It just basically says that they reviled him. That's what it says. Cast the same as his teeth is an expression for reviling. So the meaning is there, the feeling is there, the spirit is there, it's right, it's accurate, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. But now does every other language in the world have to say cast the same in his teeth? Because according to these people, it does. And according to them, the Greek is wrong because the Greek doesn't say teeth. There's no mention of teeth there. And here's what's funny, but then they're like, well, you just got the wrong Greek. Throw out that Greek and get you and won the match as the King James. But here's what's funny. Go open the replica back there. There's a King James replica back there and you know what you'll find? You'll open it up and you'll find places where in the column, the King James translators say, here's what the Greek literally says and here's how we translated it. I made a whole video where I showed like 30 examples. So we know we don't have the wrong Greek because the Greek matches what they said in the column as the literal. But the literal didn't sound as good in 1611. So they made it sound the best they could and they did an amazing job, it's awesome. So anyway, I hope that you understood everything that I said and I hope that you will share my belief in the King James Bible as the preserved perfect word of God. But I hope that you'll do it for the right reasons, not because of superstition, because I don't want young people growing up believing it because of superstitious reasons, because then one day they might actually take a math class and then they're gonna lose faith in the Bible. But if their faith is actually in the right things, nothing can shake their faith. Nothing can shake my faith in the Bible. But if my faith was in this kind of numeric stuff, one math class would do it. One statistics class would fix that. Let's borrow another word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and I pray that everyone would understand the teaching tonight, Lord, and that we would believe in the need for an every word Bible, Lord, but that we would not take a good doctrine overboard. Lord God, most importantly, help us to wake up every single morning and gather that manna from your word every day. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.