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Proverbs chapter number 25 begins with this really interesting verse. Number one, these are also proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah, copied out. And verses like this are really interesting because they give us a little bit of insight into where the Bible originally came from or how it was copied or transmitted from one generation to another, how it was assembled. Because if you put your finger here in Proverbs 25, flip over to Proverbs chapter one verse one, because you're going to find a couple other places in the book of Proverbs where we have a statement along these lines. In chapter one verse one, it just starts out by saying the Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, to no wisdom and instruction. And then it rolls into the subject matter. And of course, we know that chapters one through nine form a really cohesive unit where they aren't just a bunch of individual proverbs like we've been seeing over the past few months on Wednesday nights, but rather each chapter is telling one big story. So chapter one is one big flowing story and chapter two, chapter three. So everything flows really well. Those sermons were a lot easier to preach. When I started this series, the first nine sermons were pretty easy to preach because the chapters were one cohesive connected whole. But then flip over to chapter 10 verse one. And in chapter 10, we entered a new section of the book of Proverbs where each verse is sort of just its own individual thought. And so you'll have one chapter with like 25 or 30 separate thoughts. And so it's been kind of a challenge preaching through these chapters because there are just so many thoughts. It's like each one could be its own full sermon. But look at chapter 10 verse number one, it says the Proverbs of Solomon period. And then it starts to give us those Proverbs. And like I said, it's a totally different style because chapters one through nine, the whole chapter is a thought. Whereas starting in chapter 10 with this new heading, the Proverbs of Solomon, we just have individual Proverbs, right? Totally different style of proverb. Instead of being a big long speech, it's just one little statement at a time. Okay. Then when we get to where we are tonight, chapter 25, we have another subheading. These are also Proverbs of Solomon. So it's saying, hey, we've already had the Proverbs of Solomon chapters one through nine. We've had the Proverbs of Solomon chapter 10 until now. And then these are also Proverbs of Solomon. And what's different about these is that these are Proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah, the King of Judah copied out. Now, what do we make of this? Well, some scholars will come along and say, well, you know, when we have these different parts of the text that are a different style, you know, that means it's a different author. And the thing that is foolish about this is that I've read books by authors that I absolutely loved and I'll read one of their books and I just love it. And then I'll read another book by the same author. And it's just, it's, it's garbage. And I'm just like, how could this even be the same author that wrote this one book that I love? And he wrote this other book that I totally hate. Like, here's an example that maybe a lot of people read of classical literature. You know, I really liked the book, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alessandro Dumas, but you know, The Three Musketeers by Alessandro Dumas, great candy bar, but it's, the book is horrible. And I tried to read it multiple times. I couldn't even get through it. It was such a stupid book. I absolutely hated it. So, you know, the same author could write a great book and a book that I hated. And these were only written a few years apart. Okay. But other authors will sometimes write books in dramatically different genres where sometimes they'll even use a pseudonym. They'll use a pen name and write as a different name because they want to write something just so different. I mean, think about it. Obviously authors could write in different styles or what about this? What if someone wrote something when they're 20 and then they write something when they're 40? You think it's going to read the same? You think it's going to seem like the same person wrote it or the same style? There are going to be some dramatic stylistic differences. If you looked at sermons that I preached 15 years ago versus sermons that I'm preaching now, they're not going to be the same style. I'm going to be saying a lot of the same things, but the style is going to be different. So it's really foolish to say, well, you know, when you read the book of Isaiah, there's clearly at least three Isaiahs here, you know, three totally different authors or whatever. You know, it could just be three different phases in Isaiah's ministry or something if the style is so different or whatever. But, you know, people come out, look, the Bible says that these are the Proverbs of Solomon. Then guess what they are? They're the Proverbs of Solomon. Okay, so chapters 1 through 9 are the Proverbs of Solomon. It's a certain style. Chapters 10 through 24 are also the Proverbs of Solomon, little different style, but these are still Solomon's Proverbs. And then starting in chapter 25, we have another set of Proverbs from Solomon. And of course we know that the important thing is that this is ultimately inspired by God. So this isn't just Solomon speaking as a human being and just laying on us his own human wisdom. He's also speaking by the Holy Ghost. And so the Holy Ghost has come upon him and he is speaking God's word. He is inspired by God. And so the Holy Scripture is not coming about by the will of man, but holy men of God, like Solomon, spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. So God is moving upon Solomon. And so what he writes is ultimately absolute truth. It's the word of God. Okay, now you say, well, how can the Bible be both the word of God and also written by human authors? Because I just talked about style, didn't I? Now, what about when we're reading the New Testament? Isn't there a certain style that the apostle Paul has and a certain style that John has? I mean, you can tell, even if you don't know the Bible super well, if you heard something written by John, you could kind of be like, okay, that sounds like the book of John. Even if you don't know which chapter it is, it just kind of sounds like John versus sounding like Luke or sounding like Paul. I mean, you'd have to be blind not to see that the New Testament authors each have their own distinct style and that the book of John is a different style than Luke. And then when you get to first, second, and third John, you know, it feels pretty similar to the Gospel of John, doesn't it? And a lot of the same type of themes and ideas are going to be brought out. Well, guess what? The Bible is both human and divine. The Bible is written by human beings, but it's also the word of God. Now, how can these things both be? Well, it's sort of like Jesus Christ is the son of God, but Jesus Christ is also the son of man. Jesus Christ is fully human and also fully divine. He's the God man. I mean, he is God in the flesh, but he's also the son of man. He's also human. And so just as Jesus Christ is both human and divine, the Bible is both human and divine. It's coming from two sources, just like Jesus came from God the Father on one hand and the Virgin Mary on the other hand, right? He's the son of God. He's the son of man. And that's Jesus. The Bible is the same way. It's basically the word of God, and it also has human authorship. But here's the thing about Jesus. Even though Jesus is both man and God, he was sinless. Well, guess what? Even though the Bible is both human and divine, it is also without flaw, without error. There's nothing in the Bible that isn't true. Even though human beings are being used, their personality is coming through, God's using them to speak. Because they're speaking by inspiration of God, their personality doesn't get in the way of the absolute truth that God is communicating. And what you have in the end is something greater than if, say, God had mechanically dictated the Bible. Now, some people have a view of inspiration called mechanical dictation, where they basically believe that God just dictated the Bible word for word and that the human authors are nothing more than just scribes writing down God's exact dictation. Now, obviously, parts of the Bible are like that. Like, for example, when Moses goes up on Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments are written with the finger of God. Well, yeah, I mean, that's mechanically dictated in that sense. Okay. Or portions where God speaks verbally to man, like at Mount Sinai, when he speaks verbally to Moses and it's written exactly what God said. But other portions of the Bible are written by human authors, where the apostle Paul, he's writing a letter to the church at Corinth. He's writing a letter to the churches of Galatia and he's writing what's on his mind. But the Holy Spirit of God is also speaking through him. And so the product is absolute truth. And so at the end of the day, the most important thing to understand is that the Bible is not the product of man's will, that man wanted to give us these teachings or ideas, but that ultimately God wanted to give us these teachings and ideas. And so the words of the Bible are the very word of God, even though they're written by a human being like Paul or like James or like John. And what's important about that is that God's word is sinless. It's perfect. It's without fault, meaning that everything in the Bible is true. There's nothing in the Bible that's erroneous or not true because some of the liberals will come along and say what they would say, well, you know, this part of 1 Corinthians, that's, you know, Paul's a little bit wrong here. You know, Paul's just a product of his culture and he's kind of just getting it a little wrong here when he's against homos because, you know, back then, you know, everybody was against homos back then or, you know, well, this part where Paul says that women should keep silence in the church. Well, that's just because he lived at that time. He's being influenced by it. No, my friend, because God inspired the scripture that Paul wrote. And so whatever Paul wrote in these epistles in our New Testament is absolute truth. And by the way, Paul makes that claim himself when he says that if any man think himself to be spiritual among you, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of God. And by the way, Peter in 2 Peter says about Paul's epistles that in them are many things that are hard to understand, hard to be understood. He says that in Paul's epistles are many things that are hard to be understood. Which they that are unlearned and unstable rest or twist as they do also the other scriptures. And so 2 Peter calls Paul's epistles scriptures and says, hey, people will twist what Paul said the way they twist other scriptures. And the Bible says all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for proof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness. And so understanding that the Bible has human authorship does not take away from the inspiration of the Bible, the divinity of the Bible, no more than saying that Jesus Christ is human takes away from his divinity. Now, some people are just like, well, no, you know, I'm just, I don't believe there's any human authorship involved. And I think it's just mechanically dictated by God. And if you believe that, you know, I, I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with you believing that, but you're wrong if you believe that, because it's clear that God used human beings to write the Bible and that their personality comes through. And I think that makes them, I think that increases the magnificence of the Bible instead of decreases it because it's this wonderful marriage of divine and human authorship producing a perfect book that we connect with as human beings. You see, Muslims believe that the Quran was just mechanically dictated to Muhammad and they have this really simplistic view because they're dumb. Okay. So they have this really simplistic view about everything. And the Quran is one of the dumbest books that I've ever read in my life, by the way. Okay. And I wasted many, many hours reading that sucker and it's, it doesn't have, it has no merit as literature and supposedly it's just straight out of the mouth of God. Yeah, right. If, if something came straight out of the mouth of God, it's going to be awesome. It's not going to be the stinking Quran. Okay. Now here's the thing about the Bible. The Bible's awesome. Now the parts where God speaks directly are awesome. The parts at Mount Sinai or something like that, the parts where it's just quoting Jesus Christ, the red letters where Jesus is just speaking directly. But guess what? Even the parts that are not dictated directly from the mouth of God, but the parts that are written by a human author, like for example, 1 Corinthians 13 is considered one of the greatest passages of the Bible. And I agree that it's one of the most powerful, beautiful passages. 1 Corinthians 13 is written by the apostle Paul. Okay. And it's just as magnificent as something that God spake out of the cloudy pillar at Mount Sinai, isn't it? And also the Psalms where we get very deep insight into the thoughts and heart of David, where David is, is feeling forsaken by God or David is weeping and sorrowing and going through all these things. And here's the thing about it. The Bible says that the Holy Ghost is speaking by the mouth of David, the prophet, but yet we get insight into things that David himself is feeling at the time as well. And so it's more complex. What I just explained to you is a more complex view of inspiration than the mechanical dictation view. So I think that maybe simple-minded people might kind of gravitate to like, give me a doctrine I can explain in five seconds so I can go back to my cartoons. But the thing about that is that, you know, just because something's really simple and easy doesn't necessarily mean that it's correct. And again, I'm not saying that anybody who has the mechanical dictation view is dumb. All I'm saying is that I could see why people would sometimes find a view like that appealing because it's so easy, but it isn't true. It's not accurate. It falls apart pretty fast. What about when the apostle Paul says, well, to the rest right eye, not the Lord. How is that mechanically dictated from God? Paul saying, well, God's not saying this. I'm saying it. I mean, that's kind of a tough sell that that's mechanically dictated. You know, anyway, that's a little bit of a tangent, but I think it's important to talk about that and understand that. And I mean, no offense to anyone of a different viewpoint, except Muslims. I'm not taking back anything I said about Muslims because Muslims are following a literal pedophile, okay, who they all know married and consummated with a nine-year-old girl. And he's rotting in hell right now, that stinking evil pervert. And so I can't say enough bad things about Islam, period. But, you know, like I said, people have a mechanical dictation view of the inspiration of scripture. It's not heresy, you know, because we both agree that the Bible is perfect. We both agree that the Bible is the word of God. It's not heresy. It's just, it's just kind of, in my opinion, is a little bit silly to think that way. And, you know, the Bible is clearly the product of human beings that are working under divine inspiration. Okay, so what's going on with this verse in Proverbs chapter 25, verse one? Well, if you remember, in the days of Hezekiah, there is a great revival in Israel, right, in the land of Judah, specifically the southern kingdom, they're having great revival. And so during this time of great revival, they're obviously churning out copies of scripture, because in a time of revival, you're going to want to put the word of God into people's hands. You're going to want the word of God to be preached throughout the land, okay? Obviously, it needs to be preached at Jerusalem, but you know what? You're going to want to be preaching it in the towns and villages. You're going to want to be preaching it in the northern kingdom of Israel, and you're going to want to evangelize other areas. And so you're going to be writing out handwritten copies because of the fact there's no printing press. So this is a time of collecting scripture, copying scripture, mass producing scripture, so that things could be preserved, and so that things could be disseminated, and so that the word of God can go forth, and so that these things can be read out loud to large groups of people all over the country, all over the world, right? Because that's what God's people do. You know, we take the Bible in written form, and we take it to the uttermost part of the earth. I mean, that's what we do when we go soul-winning, right? We take a written copy of the word of God, and we take it to someone and read it to them, and we show them how to be saved. So obviously, they want to get the word of God out there to get people saved, but also to educate them and teach them in the right way to live their lives as God's people. And so what we clearly have here is we have one collection of Proverbs, and then another collection of Proverbs, and then, oh, here's another collection of Proverbs that was specifically copied out. Maybe it was one that hadn't been popular in a while, or people hadn't necessarily been reading it as much or hadn't heard it as much, and in the days of Hezekiah is when they're basically assembling it as another part here. They're obviously taking three books of Proverbs and putting them together. Does everybody see that? Like, here's a book of Proverbs from chapters 1 through 9. Then we've got this other book of Proverbs over here from 10 to 24. Then, oh, yeah, here's these other ones that were copied out by Hezekiah's men. Here's another set of Proverbs from Solomon. They're being all put in the same book, and then, by the way, chapters 30 and 31 are not written by Solomon. One of them is written by a guy named Agor, and another one's written by a guy named Lemuel. So you have three authors of the book of Proverbs, five different documents minimum, being put together, all compiled into our present day book of Proverbs. Now keep your finger here and go to 1 Kings chapter number 4. 1 Kings chapter number 4. 1 Kings chapter number 4, and look at verse number 32. Actually, let's start reading verse 29 while you're getting there. And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding, exceeding much and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the seashore. And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the East country and all the wisdom of Egypt, for he was wiser than all men. So according to the Bible, Solomon was literally the smartest person on the planet when he was alive, right? He was wiser than everybody. And it says he was wiser than all men. And then it gives some examples. You know, he's wiser than Ethan the Ezra-hite and He-man and Calcol and Darda and the sons of Mahal, and his fame was in all nations round about, and he spake three thousand proverbs and his songs were a thousand and five. So notice, Solomon is a super intelligent man. He's been given great wisdom and intelligence by God. He's just a smart guy. Not only does he write three thousand proverbs and one thousand songs, right? But look what else it says. Three thousand proverbs, a thousand and five songs. Look at verse 33. It says, and he spake of trees from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon, even under the hyssop that springeth out of the wall. So he's basically cataloging plants, giant cedar trees all the way down to like a little invasive plant that springs out of a wall of a building, a little hyssop plant spring out of a crack in the wall. And he spake also of beasts and of fowl and of creeping things and of fishes. And there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon from all kings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom. So did Solomon only talk about and teach about the things that we have in the present day book of Proverbs? Well, here's the thing. Three thousand proverbs, the book of Proverbs isn't that long. The book of Proverbs has less than nine hundred proverbs that are written by Solomon. So where are the other two thousand one hundred and some proverbs? What about the, how many Song of Solomons are in your Bible? I only have one. But he actually wrote a thousand and five songs. So he's a pretty prolific author of songs and proverbs. And I mean, this guy has a huge catalog. It's all gone, except we have less than nine hundred proverbs out of three thousand and we have one song and we're missing the other thousand and four. You know, he, you know, it was just, he was kind of a one hit wonder. Only one was worth preserving, you know. But the point is, it's like, God bless him. You know, you wrote a thousand and five songs. One of them has been preserved. What do we make of this? Here's what we make of it is that God has given us the things that Solomon wrote that were divinely inspired. OK, so, oh, man, these twenty one hundred and some proverbs that we're missing. Where are they? Here's the thing. They weren't divinely inspired because when God divinely inspires, his word is preserved. Whatever God wants us to have in the Bible, we have in the Bible. It's not like somebody accidentally lost most of the book of Proverbs. Somebody messed up and we're stuck with this. God purposely allowed those other proverbs to be lost because they're not for us. He didn't want us to have them. This is exactly what he wanted us to have. And that's what we need to understand is that the Bible's text in its final form is the perfect, complete, infallible, preserved word of God. And anything that's left out was supposed to be left out. And everything that's included is supposed to be included. OK. And so when you're reading in the book of the kings and it says, you know, the rest of the acts of King so-and-so, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? And then you go over to the book of Chronicles and it isn't there. Or you're in Chronicles and it says, oh, it's written in the book of the kings. And then you go over there and it isn't there. Why? Because there obviously used to be a super long book of the kings and a super long like stack of Chronicles of Israel, where they probably wrote down like what happened every single day in Israel, right? They're just chronicling like, oh, this week we did this, this week we did this, every little thing. And look, I'm glad that the Bible isn't the size of an encyclopedia. It'd be too much. The Bible is the right length. You know, God gave us the parts of the Chronicles that were divinely inspired. It's the finished product that is the divinely inspired word of God. And so sometimes the Bible will also say something like, oh, you know, it's written in the book of Jasher. Folks, just because something's written in the book of Jasher and the Bible refers to that book doesn't mean that that book is Holy scripture. You know, I could say that something's written in the encyclopedia Britannica or something, you know, and I might just refer to that in a sermon. It doesn't make that divinely inspired. The Bible is just making reference to maybe secular books, but then there's always going to be some bozo who comes along and writes a fake book of Jasher. He writes a fake book of Enoch. He's going to write a fake book of Nathan, the prophet, the gospel according to Bartholomew, the gospel according to Judas Iscariot or whatever, you know, and you're going to get all these crazy books of people just trying to fill in gaps or when Paul talks about writing an epistle to the Laodiceans. So then there's some fake epistle to the Laodiceans, you know, all these different, you know, the epistle of Barnabas or whatever, right? These things are not God's word. They're not scripture. They're fake. Now, are we as Christians somehow missing something because we don't have that epistle that Paul wrote to the Laodiceans? No, we're absolutely not missing anything because either A, whatever he wrote in that epistle to the Laodiceans, maybe we have it in another book. Maybe he wrote the same thing to the Laodiceans that he wrote to, you know, that he wrote in Philippians or Ephesians or, you know what I mean? Like, we got all that material somehow, and it would have been redundant. Or B, what he wrote to the Laodiceans just wasn't divinely inspired scripture. It was just Paul writing a letter, right? I mean, Paul obviously wrote things besides the Bible that were just maybe just his own views. For example, in 1 Corinthians, he talks about earlier writing another letter to the Corinthians before that. And then when he writes 2 Corinthians, you know what he says? This is the third time I'm writing to you. So where's that, where's the zeroth epistle to the Corinthians? We don't have it. We don't need it. You need to understand and believe and trust that what God has delivered to us, this received text, this canon of scripture as we have it today, the textus receptus, the traditional text that has been handed down to us is the perfect, complete word of God. We believe that by faith. And the Bible also said, here's a great verse on this, you know, speaking of Solomon, here's what Solomon said in Ecclesiastes chapter number three, verse 14. He said, I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it. And God doeth it that men should fear before him. You know, God's word is preserved. The Bible says, heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. The word of our Lord endureth forever. And the Bible says the words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in the furnace of earth, purified seven times, thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. And so we have all these verses about the preservation of God's word. Therefore, if something's not preserved, it's not God's word, because God has preserved his word for us. So if they dig up some new book of the Bible tomorrow, and they're like, wow, the missing book from the New Testament, I'll just be like, that's for sure fake, because God's word is preserved. And that wasn't preserved. That is a forgery. It's a fraud. And so I think it's good to understand these things about where the Bible came from. Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. God used human authors to give us the Bible. And sometimes that human author had some source material that he's drawing from. Okay. So the author of 1 and 2 Chronicles sits down, and he's got a stack of Chronicles this high, right? And he sits down and writes the book of 1 and 2 Chronicles, drawing material from that source. But he's divinely inspired as he writes the finished product, the final book of 1 and 2 Chronicles that we have today. Okay. And obviously God's providence is guiding this assembly of the book of Proverbs by taking two separate books of Solomon's Proverbs, and then adding this third section that's copied out by Hezekiah's men, so that probably the finished form of Proverbs as we have it today is not from the days of Solomon, but it's from the days of Hezekiah. Hundreds of years later, right, in the time of Hezekiah, we have this book that's drawing from material from hundreds of years ago, maybe just things that have been written down, things that have been memorized, whatever. And it's all being put together into this book as we have it. And that doesn't take away from the perfection of God's Word. You need to not fall into this trap of thinking that the Bible is authentic because of some historical way it was put together or something, like, well, you know, I can really trust Mark, you know, to tell me the life of Jesus. I can really trust a guy like Luke. No, no, no, it's really, we're trusting in the divine inspiration at the end of the day. Okay. And by the way, while we're on the subject, let me just say this, you know, because we just had our friends at Steadfast Baptist Church put out this wonderful documentary that we watched on the preserved Bible. Who has seen the preserved Bible documentary? Put up your hand. Okay. Now, who has not seen it? Okay. You need to watch it immediately. Okay. You all have homework. So go on YouTube, watch the preserved Bible documentary. It's so good. It has a lot to learn in there. It's a fantastic documentary on the preserved Bible. And, you know, at one point in the documentary, they point out these Ruckmanites, and also even some guys that are not followers of Peter Ruckman, independent fundamental Baptists, who used to hang around with us until they became too holy and too separated for us. But these guys were saying all those absurd Ruckmanite things in the video where they said things along the lines that, you know, if, you know, if you change sayeth to says, or if you change strengtheneth to strengthens, you've corrupted God's Word. I mean, that's just crazy. That's absurd. It's bizarre. But one of these same guys just flat out said in a sermon that the King James Bible translators were inspired by God, that when they translated the Bible, that it was by divine inspiration. Folks, that is stupid, ridiculous. And let me tell you why it's such a false doctrine and why it's such garbage. Because why would God have to re-inspire the scripture in 1611 if he promised to preserve it in every generation? So if God's Word has been preserved and kept pure in all generations, why would he have to re-give it to us in the early 1600s? He wouldn't, because we already have, we have a traditional Hebrew text right here. We have a traditional Greek text right here. And the KJV translators did what? They translated the Hebrew Old Testament into English. They translated the Greek New Testament into English. Now, let me ask you this. Can anyone bring a clean thing out of an unclean according to the Bible? No, not one. So is it possible to translate a perfect Bible from imperfect source material? If the Hebrew Bible has not been preserved, how are you going to get a perfect Bible in English from a Hebrew text that's bad and a Greek text that's bad? Perfect English Bible. Well, here's what you'd have to have. You'd have to have divinely inspired translators who got the inspired translators who God is re-breathing his Word in English because the original Greek and Hebrew has been lost. And that, my friend, is garbage. Because what does the Bible say? The Bible says preserved in all generations. That means before the King James Bible, God's Word was on this planet. Are you going to tell me that there's no right version of the Bible before 1611? Because that is to say that God didn't preserve his Word. If it had to, if it was gone and it had to be re-breathed, re-inspired in 1611, you're basically saying that the original Greek and Hebrew weren't preserved, and that's a denial of God's promise to preserve his Word. Now you say, well, no, that's not what they meant. They just meant that, you know, God made sure that they translated it right. Now here's the thing. I will say this. God knew in his providence and in his wisdom that English is going to be the most important language in the world, which anyone would pretty much agree that English is the big one in 2023. And over the last few hundred years, the English language has been used like no other language to disseminate God's Word all throughout the world. Okay. So obviously God knew that English is important. So God worked through events in history so that English would have a Bible translated not by one guy like a Martin Luther or a couple guys over here in Geneva, Switzerland or something, but that rather we would get a Bible translated by 54 expert scholars over the course of six years, and that God allowed all these things to come together to where they had the right Hebrew text, the right Greek text, expert scholars. And here's what's so funny is that these these rucktards will literally talk about how smart the guys were that translated the King James Bible, but then turn around and say that they did it through divine inspiration. Then why does it even matter? Because they did it through divine inspiration. It doesn't matter how many there were, how smart they were. All you need is just one guy, one divinely inspired guy to just, you know, why not just inspire William Tyndale to just get it right the first time? Right. Why didn't William Tyndale just get divine inspiration to just churn out a perfect English Bible? Because God uses human beings to do his work. And so the reason why the Bible is what it is, which is a perfect translation of the original Greek and Hebrew, I believe that the King James Bible is the word of God without error. You know, that's not a radical enough statement for these people, though, because they want to believe that it's actually separately inspired by God in 1611, that God used divine inspiration to give us our English translation. You're going to have a really hard time finding anything like that in the Bible, anything like that teaching. And in fact, it's a denial of the preservation. Because otherwise, why would you even need that? You say, well, you know, they just needed divine inspiration in order to translate it correctly. Then why do you need 54 of them? And why do they need to be the smartest people in all the land? Because God's using human beings and through his providence, through events, through history, he's making sure that God's word doesn't get lost or forgotten, but that it gets translated perfectly into our English language so that it could be preached and used. I mean, does everybody understand what I'm saying? I mean, God worked through history to give us the King James Bible and we're thankful for it, but it didn't fall out of the sky. Okay. It is just a translation of the original Greek and Hebrew that happens to be flawlessly executed. And you say, well, human beings are always going to make a mistake. You know, human beings are always going to make, well, you know, they're probably a lot less likely to make mistake when there's 54 of them. And every text is being looked at 12, 13, 14 times. But again, of course, the first edition of the King James did have some typos in it from human error down at the print shop, but I don't believe that anything went wrong in the translation. I believe the translation itself is flawlessly executed. And once the typos were ironed out, we have what we have today, which is the perfect word of God in our mother tongue English. And I don't think that there's anything in the world wrong with saying that God answered the prayers of the translators, because by the way, before they even started translating, they met together on a daily basis for a very extended period of time where they would pray together for hours. And they're praying and asking God to help them do a good job and help them to get the translation right. So they're all getting together and having prayer meetings and praying to do a good job. You believe God answered that prayer? Absolutely. So yeah, Lord, please help me to do a good job as I translate this. God answers the prayer and 54 expert scholars translate it correctly, combination of their own scholarship, studiousness, hard work of studying and learning all those languages in the first place, combined with answer to prayer. And God worked through that through his providence so that we could have the word of God so that God could preserve his word through men. Makes sense to me. But you know what? There's a big difference between saying that and, oh, they're inspired by God. You say, well, it's just semantics. No, my friend, because you just crossed a huge line when you say it's inspired by God. It's one thing to say, hey, the original is inspired by God. It was given by inspiration of God and it's been perfectly preserved. Therefore, the King James Bible is the inspired word of God because bringing it from one language to another doesn't remove the inspiration. It doesn't lose its inspiration when it goes from Hebrew to Greek. Therefore, it doesn't need a new inspiration. The translators don't have to be inspired by God. I mean, look, when I get up and preach, I pray that I'll do a good job when I preach. And sometimes if I'm preaching on a complicated or difficult subject, I'll even pray and say, God, please help me not to say anything inaccurate, Lord. Help me not to make any mistakes in the sermon. Help me to preach what's correct and right. Now, if God answers that prayer and I get up and preach a sermon and I don't say anything wrong in that sermon and everything I say, does that mean that I was divinely inspired by God and my sermons are divinely inspired? Because I prayed that everything I said would be right and everything I said was right. Therefore, let's transcribe that sermon and tack it into the back of our Bible as divinely inspired. Because divine inspiration should be reserved for the biblical authorship only. Do you understand what I'm saying? That the scripture is given by inspiration of God. Okay. But it's not translated by inspiration of God. That teaching is not found anywhere in the Bible. And it's a subtle attack on the preservation. Well, I don't think that's what they meant. Okay. If that's not what they meant, then explain to me why I said to Patrick Boyle, there is not one manuscript on this planet of the Greek New Testament that literally says God forbid in the book of Romans anywhere. There's no, like you can look up, you know, you know the one where it says, uh, shall we, should we, um, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may bow? God forbid. I told him, I said, there is no Greek New Testament in the world that says the word God or the word forbid in that verse. There's not none. None of them says God. None of them says forbid. So the King James is not translating literally there, but rather the King James is translating a phrase that literally means may it never be, may it never happen. Let it never come to pass. But here's the thing. That's what God forbid is expressing. Okay. So God forbid is a dynamic equivalence, not formal equivalence, because it's not a literal word for word translation. It's sort of like, if I said me llamo Esteban, if I said me llamo Esteban, what does that literally mean? I call myself Steven. I call myself Steven. It doesn't mean my name is Steven. It means I call myself Steven now, but what if I were translating me llamo Esteban into English? Am I going to write, I call myself Steven or am I going to write my name is Steven? Which translation is better? Which translation is a better translation of me llamo Esteban? Is I call myself Steven a better translation? Is that really getting at the truth of what I was saying or is my name is Steven a better translation? Who thinks my name is Steven is a better translation? So guess what? The literal translation isn't better. In fact, the literal translation sounds dumb because it's not the way we talk. Have you ever been reading instructions and you're like, the person who wrote this was speaking another language and this has been translated in English poorly? Why? Because a good translation sounds like it was always in that language. Here's the thing. When I grew up reading the King James Bible as a little tiny kid, I assumed God only speaks English in heaven and that I thought Peter, James and John were all speaking the King's English. And people often make fun of King James Bible believers for thinking that the Bible was written in English. But you want to know why people who read the King James Bible who aren't educated on these things, you know why they think it was written in English? Because the translation is so good, it sounds like you feel like you're reading the original because it sounds so good. That's what a good translation does. A good translation isn't a literal, if you want a literal translation, go to Google Translate. But you know what? If I were a professional translator and I gave someone a literal translation, I would be fired immediately. Why would you need 54 scholars to give a literal word-for-word translation? Folks, you don't need 54 scholars to give a literal word-for-word translation. If you want a literal word-for-word translation, all you need is one guy with a dictionary. Right? What else do you need? You need 54 scholars to accurately communicate the text in English, the English that we speak, the English that sounds good in English. Okay, so there's no Greek New Testament in the world that says literally that the thieves that were crucified with him cast the same in his teeth where you can't find the word teeth in the original Greek. That's just an English expression that the translators are using in order to express what the original said. Now, look, there are no hidden meanings in the original Greek New Testament. I'm telling you that if you spend years and years learning Greek, which it does take years to learn, you know, not like these bozos who go to Bible college for two semesters and think they know Greek, if you actually spend years learning Greek and you spend years and years learning Greek and then you read the New Testament in Greek, you know what you're going to find? You're not going to find anything exciting because you're going to find that it says the same thing in English, but it just says it in Greek. But is it going to be word for word, worded the same way? Absolutely not. But when I said to Patrick Boyle, you know, there just doesn't exist a Greek text that says cast the same in his teeth with those exact words of teeth. Okay. There just doesn't exist a Greek text that says God or forbid in this verse, like those exact words. And here's what he said. Then all those Greek New Testaments are wrong. Okay. He stood this far from me and told me that all of those Greek New Testaments are wrong and that the KGB translators must have had something else that they were using. I guess they had some Greek New Testament that self-destructed like when they were done with it. It was like the golden tablets that Joseph Smith had with the Book of Mormon, where the angel came and took him back to heaven or something. Folks, this flat earth mentality that just denies reality. I have no patience for it. It's garbage. Okay. Facts are facts. And you're not being extra godly or extra spiritual or extra pious when you just say, well, I just believe that the King James Bible is, was, was in, that the translators were inspired. And if you remove a comma, you've perverted God's word and the capitalizations are inspired by God. And if you change the spelling of the word, you've corrupted the text. That just makes you sound like a lunatic who thinks that somehow the Bible was rewritten by God. And then they say, well, you know, changing strengthen at the strengthens. What gives you, who gave you permission to do that? Who gave you the right to that? I don't know who gave the, who gave the King James translators permission to translate the Bible in 1600s. Did an angel come to them? Did an angel come down from heaven and say, you have my permission to translate the Bible? You know, last time I checked, we can translate the Bible whenever we want into whatever language we want. I mean, what if I was going to be a missionary to Africa or something and I, and I'm going to some language where they don't have a good Bible, would I just be like, I don't know. I haven't been given permission. Nobody's given me permission. I mean, you know, what I'm translating says the exact same thing as what it said in Greek and Hebrew, because guess what? Me llamo Esteban and my name is Steven are the exact same thing. Exact. Well, now, cause it's like how myself? No, it's exact same thing. When someone says to me, Me llamo Esteban, they mean the exact same thing as my name is Steven. Now, if, if, if, if the original Greek said, you know, Me llamo Esteban, and then the King James said, my name is Steven. Do we have every word of God? No, cause we didn't get the call word. We, you know, we got I instead of me. We got name instead of call. Do we have every word of God or not? Because if you say no, then you're basically going to have to believe that. I guess every time a translation of God's word is needed, the word has to be re-inspired in the new language. And then nobody's allowed, nobody's allowed to substitute anything for it ever again. Yeah. So what if I, I mean, what if I'm preaching the gospel to somebody at their door and I'm preaching the gospel to somebody and I, and I'm saying, you know, the Bible says that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Right. Or if I say something like, you know, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus, what if I said to that person that if you shall confess with your mouth, the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God was raised from the dead, you shall be saved. And I'm breaking it down to them. Am I perverting the scripture by just bringing it into their modern vernacular? You know, if, if I said, you know, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Have I just corrupted God's word right now by, by putting that in our modern vernacular right now? Absolutely not. And these phonies will try to say that this is some new doctrine that I'm teaching right now. But yet we made a movie 10 years ago called what? New World Order Bible versions. They came out 10 years ago. We filmed that movie. It came out nine years ago, but we filmed it in 2013. It was released in 2014. And you know what Pastor Roger Jimenez says in that movie, New World Order Bible Versions? He says, if all the New King James did was just update the language, we would have no issue with it. We wouldn't even be talking about it if that's all it did. But guess what? We all know that the New King James does what? Makes changes to the actual meaning of the text. It makes dramatic changes. Corruption and perversion abounds in the New King James and in the modern English version and in other textus receptus based modern Bibles. Now look, I am not saying that we should update the King James Bible because I don't believe that there's a reason to update the King James Bible, because if it ain't broke, don't fix it. If we already have something perfect, if we already have something trustworthy and reliable that we've had for over 400 years, it has stood the test of time. Why mess with it? Leave it alone. Amen. I don't want to update it. I don't want to see anybody updated in my lifetime. But would it theoretically be wrong to update it? Absolutely not. Because theoretically, if our language changed enough to where this became unintelligible to the average person, then you would have to update it at that point, wouldn't you? And you wouldn't call it the New King James because King James can't reach up with his dead hand and sign off on it. There's only one King James version and it's the one that King James ordered and authorized and he's dead. And there can never be another version that's called the King James version because you can't just use his name on something that he had nothing to do with. And here's the thing. Do we have a bunch of expert scholars just ready and raring to actually do an update of the King James Bible with integrity and bring it into our modern vernacular without changing anything? No, we don't. And the chance of that happening are super slim. And here's the thing. If somebody came out with that tomorrow, I'd be super suspicious of it. And whenever they've come out, because you go looking through it and there's always, they always did something stupid. So what's the point? But there's a big difference between saying, hey, there's no reason to update it. It has a few archaic words in it, but suck it up because it's not that hard. At least we know it's right. At least we know we can trust it. At least we know it's reliable. There's a big difference between saying, hey, it's the perfect word of God. It's flawlessly translated. Leave it alone. Don't mess with it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. That's a big difference from saying you can never, ever update it or because no one gave you, you didn't get divine permission to update it. That's just stupid because they couldn't, you could say that to the King James translators who gave you permission to update Tyndale's New Testament, who gave you permission to update the Bishop's Bible. I mean, the Bishop's Bible is put together by a great group of scholars. The Bishop's Bible is a great Bible. The one that came before the King James, the Geneva Bible is not that great, but the Bishop's Bible is a great version. So what do we need the King James for? You know, because they say in the introduction, they're making a great version even better, you know? And so I believe that the King James Bible is the word of God without error. I don't believe that it needs to be updated. I don't think it's so archaic that people can't understand it because guess what? We take it out on the streets every week and we show it to the lost and people aren't like, well, what language is that in? I mean, when was the last time you went soul winning and said for all of sin and come short of the glory of God and had somebody say, what language is it? What is it? Do you have something in English? No, no, no. This is English. Really? I've never had anybody. I mean, and look, folks, I've done a lot of soul winning. You've done a lot of soul winning. How many times have you had someone say, I'm sorry, that Bible that you're showing me, I just. Who would say that they've done soul winning for more than a hundred hours in their life and they've never had anyone say, I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time understanding that particular Bible because it's too. Okay, look around folks. These people have done more than a hundred hours and have never had anyone say that. So I guess we're just surrounded by intellectuals. We only knock the doors of the most intellectual people in America. Or maybe today's people can understand the King James Bible maybe with just a little explanation sometimes. But yet all of our children, we've got children in our church, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine years old being taught every day out of the King James Bible in the home, being read the King James Bible every day out loud in the home. And my kids have never come to me and just said, man, just the language. I've never, I have 12 kids. Okay. And one of them is a baby. Okay. But none of my children have come to me and said, do you have something that's a little easier to understand? They all have no issue. I mean, in fact, if I said, if I were to say right now, Hey Miriam, you know, uh, you're, you're probably having a little trouble with the King James. Let me get you something a little easier to understand since you're a teenager. She, this is what she would say to me. She'd be like, dad, do you just think I'm a complete idiot dad? Like, like I can't read this. Like, do you think I just have no vocabulary? Do you think that I'm just a total Philistine dad? That I have no culture, no learning, no education. I mean, she would be super offended that I am playing. But yet when I was Miriam's age, my Sunday school teacher told me, Hey, you need to get a Bible that you can understand. Cause I had the King James. He's like, you can't understand that you need the NIV cause you need something that you can understand. And you know what I thought exactly what Miriam would say, like, dude, why do you think I'm stupid? Cause I understand there's no problem. But there's a big difference between saying that and saying, well, if it were theoretically updated, it's perversion of God's word to update the language. That's stupid. That doesn't make any sense because why would it be locked into this one era of time? Now it's possible that English will never change that much because of the fact that our language is pretty locked in right now because we have so many books and so many movies and audio files and everything that our language is changing extremely slowly right now. Whereas languages in the past, you know, English changed pretty rapidly from 1066 to 1150, very rapid change in the English language. But how much has English really changed from 1923 to 2023? How much has it really changed from 1963 to 2023? Not very much has it? How much has it really changed from 2003 to 2023? I mean, you have slang that comes and goes, but the basic language is 99.9% the same as when I was born in 1981. The language I was born speaking in 1981, or sorry, I wasn't born speaking, but that's, that's like, it sounds like a story out of the Quran or something, but you know what I mean? It's the same language that we're speaking right now. So in my opinion, but nobody can see the future, right? But in my humble opinion, 200 years from now, English is pretty much going to be the same as it is now. If Christ doesn't return by then, it's going to be pretty much the same as this. So the King James is probably never going to need to be replaced with a new vernacular Bible. But if theoretically 300 year, you know, star date 2300 and whatever, if we get to some form of the English language, that's totally different or that has changed too much. You know what? You're going to have to update it. Okay. And there's nothing wrong with updating it on the fly while you're preaching or while you're soul winning, just changing a T. I do it all the time. I do it all the time when I'm talking to people, you know, I'll say, you know, the Bible says right here, you know, believe on the Lord, Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved in your house. You know, like obviously when I'm reading them the verse, I typically show it to them. So I read it exactly as it's written. Thou shall be saved. But if I'm talking to somebody and just doing it verbally, and I know that the person I'm talking to isn't really necessarily that smart, then sometimes I'll break it down to them and put it in their vernacular. But according to these weirdos, these flat earth bozos, that's a corruption of God's word. And you know what? Any good doctrine can be taken too far. And hey, being King James only is a good doctrine because the modern versions are truly corrupt, but it can be taken to a point of absurdity because this, have fun with your word for word translation when you go to translate it into Chinese. I mean, have fun trying to translate the Bible, literally word for word into Chinese. So, so according to these bozos, if I change strengtheneth to strengthens, I've corrupted God's word. But if I change strengtheneth into ching chong, whatever, I'm not corrupting God's word. What's more different? Ching, ching chong, chung chao, chung li, or I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. All that, but because, hey, as long as the chung king, Chang, wow, Chung Lee means the same thing. You'd say it's fine. Wouldn't you? As long as it means the same thing, as long as it means I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me, which strengthened me, you'd say it's fine. As long as it means the same thing. Well, guess what? I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me, mean the exact same thing. There's literally no difference. It's just an update of the language. That's not what we're mad at the New King James. We're mad at the New King James because it says that difficult is salvation. When the Bible says that salvation is difficult for those who trust in riches, whereas the New King James just says that salvation is just difficult, hey, that's a problem. Because guess what? Salvation is only difficult if you're trusting in works for salvation. Okay, that's the problem. The problem isn't changing Jesus Christ to Christ Jesus, okay? The problem isn't changing strengthen it to strengthen it. It's the fact that changed the meaning, okay? And so we want to make sure that we don't get caught up in these overboard, infantile, extreme, absurd positions where it's just like it becomes basically this contest of who can out King James, the other person. Like my King James only-ness in my little finger is going to be thicker than Pastor Jimenez's King James only-ness's loins, right? And that's exactly what it is. Like Rehoboam, my little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins. We're so much more King James only, you know, than these other guys who are saying that it's the Word of God without error. You know, and it kind of ended up for them sort of like it ended up for Rehoboam, okay? Where 10 parts, you know, go the other way. But I don't even think two parts went with them, because what they're believing is so stupid and asinine and absurd that thinking people aren't going to walk away believing that God re-inspired the Bible in 1611. But brilliant scholars and it's always been preserved, but no Greek and Hebrew text is acceptable today. The King James Bible is perfect. The Greek New Testament on my desk in that office is perfect. Not just some, well, the original Greek somewhere that we don't have anymore. No, the Greek New Testament that is sitting in my office, that Greek New Testament is the Word of God without error, just as much as this King James Bible in my hand is the Word of God without error. And my Masoretic Hebrew Old Testament sitting on the desk in that room, not a theoretical Hebrew text that's gone, but the literal book that's sitting in there is the perfect Word of God as well. And these three are one. My English KJV and the Greek and Hebrew that it was translated from are all three the Word of God. And to say that any one of those three is not the Word of God is an attack on preservation. Because if you just say, well, it's only the King James, the Greek is corrupt, and this is what they also say, the English is superior to the Greek. What? If you're saying that the English is superior to the Greek, you're saying there's something wrong with the Greek. How can there be something wrong with the original document? But again, it's just that they're through ego and pride. They're trying to out KJV. You know, nobody out pizzas the hut, my friend. Okay. And you can't out KJV. People that are already KJV only that already believe that it's the inspired perfect preserved Word of God. If that's not enough for you, you're going to have to get into the UFO space alien, Peter Ruckman, flat earth type of a mentality. At that point, you're going to have to go out into the twilight zone. We're going to stay here with our feet firmly planted in the ground. And so I hope you enjoyed my verse by verse exposition of Proverbs chapter 25 tonight. Let's borrow that word of prayer. Dear Lord, thank you so much for your word, Lord. Thank you for the men, the holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Lord, thank you for not only inspiring the book of Proverbs, not only inspiring the words as Solomon spake them, but Lord allowing them to be written down and copied in the days of Hezekiah, compiled, transmitted to us today, translated into our English tongue so that Lord we could today in 2023 have a perfect, preserved, inspired, complete, infallible, inerrant book of Proverbs in our own mother tongue, English. Lord, thank you. Help us to read it every day and to love it. And in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.