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Brother Russell, it was understanding of the Word, it was advancing the Spirit, and it's able to understand the Word. Thank you for praying with us, amen. Men, it's great to be here once again, and this is the first time being in the new building, and so I love the way everything looks. Beautiful job with all of this, and it's good to see all of you once again. Keep up the great work down here, and I know that Brother Russell's doing a great job down here, and so keep it up. Tonight, I'm preaching on Satan's attack on the Word of God. The devil is out to attack the Word of God. Obviously, all the way back in Genesis chapter three, the very first thing we see the devil do is to question the Word of God and say, "'Yea, hath God said?'" And of course, the Word of God is powerful. It's sharper than any two-edged sword, and so if the devil wants to resist the will of God, he has to find a way to neutralize this powerful tool of the Word of God, and so the Word of God is today under attack, and it really has been under attack throughout the entire history of Christianity. And tonight, I'm gonna go over different ways specifically that the Word of God has been attacked, and that the devil has used to try to corrupt God's Word over the years. So the first point tonight is that sometimes the devil will try to add to God's Word. One way to attack the Bible is to try to add to it and dilute it with a bunch of junk that is not inspired by God and sort of mix that in and try to get you to think that that stuff is also the Word of God. So look what the Bible says where we just read in verse number 18, "'For I testify unto every man "'that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, "'If any man shall add unto these things, "'God shall add unto him the plagues "'that are written in this book.'" And of course, if you read the book of Revelation, the plagues are pointed at and directed at unsaved people. So this is another way of saying that this guy is gonna be damned. And then in verse number 19, it says, "'And if any man shall take away "'from the words of the book of this prophecy, "'God shall take away his part out of the book of life "'and out of the holy city "'and from the things which are written in this book.'" And again, the book of life has to do with salvation, so the place where their name would have been is gone, meaning that they have no opportunity to get saved. You know, once someone adds to or removes from God's Word, they have sealed their fate that they will not have the opportunity to get saved, okay? And so this is a very serious curse, and it's interesting because the Bible's this giant book, and this is just the very end of the Bible. It's like the last thing that God says at the very end of the Bible is like, I love my word, right? Don't add to it, don't take away from it. And so that gives it a special place of emphasis, how important it is that we don't add to or remove from God's Word. But see, the devil's already damned anyway, and so he would love for more to be added and for things to be removed, and that's what he and his minions are at today. So here's another verse, you don't have to turn there, but if you would flip over to 1 Peter chapter two. But the Bible says in Proverbs 30, every word of God is pure, he's a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. Don't add to God's Word. Now, how has the devil added to God's Word over the years? Well, first of all, sometimes he's tried to add entire books. So we've got, of course, the books of the Apocrypha that are not inspired by God, that have been brought into the Bible by the Roman Catholic Church, and they've tried to smuggle in this garbage into the Bible as if it's inspired Scripture when it's not, okay? The Apocryphal books, some of them don't even claim to be the Word of God, they're filled with factual errors, doctrinal errors, and they're not even good literature, they're just boring. It's hard to get through them. You know, reading the Bible is a pleasure, amen? I mean, I enjoy every day opening my Bible and reading it, there's so many great things and it's a joy. But trying to grind through the Apocrypha, just don't even bother because it's just so boring because it's not even good, it's just not the Word of God. So there's adding entire books, Apocrypha, the Book of Enoch, the Gospel of Thomas, the Epistle of Barnabas, it's the devil that's behind these attempts to add to God's Word. Or even the Book of Mormon, which that's trying to add a whole testament at that point. But not only just adding entire books, but sometimes the devil will try to add entire chapters. You know, for example, there are extra chapters for the Book of Daniel, story of Susanna, story of Belle and the dragon, this is uninspired junk that should not be added to the Word of God. And then there's just adding words and phrases into verses, okay? Now I'm gonna show you how the modern versions are corrupting God's Word by adding to the Word of God in 1 Peter chapter two, verse two. Now this is a really famous verse that a lot of us are probably familiar with. As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow thereby. That's a great verse. It's one of the most famous verses in Baptist churches. And it makes sense when you get saved, you're born again. And so if you're born again, you're like a newborn babe and you need nourishment and nutrition in order to grow. So you're a newborn babe, you desire the milk so that you can grow and become an actual mature Christian and not be forever a baby Christian. Listen to what the ESV says, which is one of the popular modern versions of today. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation. Now do you see how just adding these two words into salvation completely changes the verse? And now the verse is a lie. It doesn't even make sense. Because here's the thing, if you're a newborn babe, that means you've already been born. What happens first? Do you get born first or are you a baby first? Obviously a newborn babe who's sucking at the teat of his mother has been born. So if you're a newborn babe desiring the milk of the word, you're already saved. So why is he saying, oh, desire the milk of the word so you can grow into salvation? That makes it sound like salvation is something that you have to keep working on even after you're already born again. What's going on with that? It turns the verse into nonsense. It doesn't even make sense. Listen to the New Catholic Bible. Like newborn infants, long for pure spiritual milk so that by it you may advance on the path to salvation. So you see how both the ESV and the Catholic Bible are adding this idea that you're growing into salvation. Whereas we're already saved, we're just growing as a Christian so that we can go from being a baby Christian to a mature Christian, but either way we're saved because salvation is a one-time thing. It's by grace through faith. Huge difference, isn't it? Okay, so number one, adding to the word of God, but number two, the devil's attack on God's word is to remove from God's word, to take things out from the word of God. Now, if you would flip over to Deuteronomy chapter four, while you're turning to Deuteronomy chapter four, Jeremiah 26 two says, thus saith the Lord, stand in the court of the Lord's house and speak unto all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in the Lord's house. All the words that I command thee to speak unto them, diminish not a word. And so God is telling the preacher, hey, when you preach my word, don't leave anything out. Don't even diminish a single word. Again, this shows that God isn't just concerned with the general gist or idea of what he has said, but he wants every word to be preached, every word to be believed. So the devil wants to take things away from the word of God. So number one, he wants to add, like where he added that foolish phrase into salvation in that famous verse, but other places he wants to take away. Look at Deuteronomy chapter four verse one. It says, now therefore, hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and under the judgments which I teach you for to do them, that you may live and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you. You shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish ought from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you. So it's funny because when I was a kid, what I would always be faced with, whenever I would show people that verse in Revelation 22, hey, we're not supposed to add to God's work. We can't remove from it. There's this major curse. I can't even count. And you might even find this hard to believe, but I can't even count how many times somebody said to me, well, that's just talking about the book of Revelation. Who's ever had somebody say that to you? Isn't that so weird? What in the world? Like God's just like, go ahead and mess with the rest of my word, but leave Revelation alone. It doesn't make any sense. I mean, if we're not supposed to mess with Revelation, why would it be okay to mess with anything else? But here's the thing, even in Deuteronomy, he's saying, don't add to it, don't remove from it. It's the same thing. So don't ever entertain that foolish thought of, well, that's just revelation. Okay. And then look at chapter 12 of Deuteronomy. And we find a similar statement, Deuteronomy 12 verse 32. It says, what thing soever I command you, Deuteronomy 12 32, observe to do it. Thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it. Don't add, don't take away from it. That's what God's saying. Now let's give an example of the devil doing this in our modern time, where he takes something away. Well, for example, in Matthew chapter 5 22, the Bible talks about that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of hell fire. Because what the whole portion there of the Sermon on the Mount is trying to get at is that everybody is a sinner and that no one is good enough to go to heaven on their own righteousness. And so he says, well, yeah, okay, you know not to kill, but he says, but I say unto you, even if you're angry with your brother without a cause, if you say to your brother, thou fool, you're in danger of hell fire, right? And so what's he getting at? He's getting at, even if you haven't murdered someone, you're still a sinner because you've been angry with your brother without a cause. You got mad and yelled Rekha on the playground. You said thou fool, you know, wrongly, but the key word is without a cause. You know, whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. Okay. And ultimately at the end of the verse, it's about being in danger of hell fire because of the fact that the whole point is in order to escape hell and go to heaven, you're going to have to get saved through the blood of Jesus because your own righteousness is never going to cut it. Yeah, you've never committed adultery, but whosoever looking on a woman to lust after, yeah, you've never committed adultery, but he that marrieth her that is put away committed adultery. You know, he's explaining all these ways that we're all ultimately guilty of some sin. Okay. But here's the thing in the modern versions, that phrase without a cause is taken away. And it's just whoever's angry with his brother is in danger of the judgment. Well, here's the thing. There's a legitimate anger. There's a righteous anger. And we know that there were times in the Bible that Jesus Christ was angry. And so by saying that, oh, just if you're angry with your brother, you're in sin, that would make Jesus a sinner because Jesus looked around at people in anger. The Bible says in the book of Mark, he was angered by their unbelief. He was angered by the hardness of their heart. There is a righteous anger. And so by taking away that one phrase without a cause in Matthew 5 22, it's a corruption of God's word. It's an attack on God's word. It's an attack on the consistency of God's word. Here's another example. Go if you would to 1 Kings chapter 14. So number one, we said adding to the word of God. Number two, we said taking away from the word of God. And we saw a few examples of that. Number three, how about just changing the word of God? Just changing something, just twisting something, altering something, corrupting something. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 2 17, for we are not as many which corrupt the word of God, but as of sincerity, but as of God and the sight of God speakly in Christ. So the apostle Paul said, we're not like many people who corrupt the word of God. So even in the apostle Paul's day, people were already corrupting the word of God. People are corrupting it today. And I looked up the word corrupt in the dictionary. And one of the definitions for to corrupt was to alter a text, to alter a text. And it said for the worse in parentheses, you know, you're altering it and not in a good way. You're corrupting it. And that's what we're talking about with corrupting scripture, altering scripture. Look what the Bible says in 1 Kings chapter 14 verse 24. It says there were also sodomites in the land and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord cast out before the children of Israel. Now there are many verses in the old Testament that bring up this subject of the sodomites. And that say, you know, King Asa got the sodomites out of the land. King Jehoshaphat broke down the house of the sodomites. He got the sodomites out of the land. Why did I pick this reference? Cause I could have picked any of those. The reason I picked this one is because it says there were sodomites in the land and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord cast out before the children of Israel. Okay, that's context there. Here's why it's important. Here's what the ESV says in 1 Kings 14, 24. And there were also male cult prostitutes in the land. So instead of sodomites, the ESV says male cult prostitutes. So you see how they changed what the Bible says. Okay. And who's right? Who do we trust? You know, the King James or the ESV. Well, here's the thing about that. If we look at the context here, it says that they did according to all that the nations of Canaan did before the Lord cast them out, right? Well, guess what? If you look up in the Mosaic law chapters 18 and chapters 20 of Leviticus, it talks about men lying with other men and how it's an abomination. And then it says that the people of the land, the people of Canaan, the Hivites, the Jebusites, the Peresites, they've done these things. They've done Leviticus 18, 22. They've done Leviticus 20, 13. But you know what I didn't see in that list? I didn't see any male cult prostitutes in Leviticus 18. I didn't see any male cult prostitutes in Leviticus 20. This is a concept that is foreign to scripture. Can someone show me the Bible verse or Bible story that explains what a male cult prostitute is? Where does that come up in the Bible? Is it in Genesis? Is it in Exodus? Is it in Leviticus? Is it in Numbers? Is it in Deuteronomy? Is it in Joshua? Is it in Judges? It isn't in the Bible. And so here I am reading my old ESV, reading my Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and then all of a sudden I get to 1 Kings and it's like, well, you know, the male cult prostitutes. I'm like, huh? What? Excuse me? What is a male cult prostitute? Folks, this is some made up junk that came from somewhere other than the Bible. And let me explain something to you about the ancient world. Let me explain something to you about time periods like when Abraham was on the earth, which is around 2000 BC. Let me just explain some of you. History doesn't go back that far. You understand? I mean, you have just barely little scraps and fragments and legend, and there's very little of anything historical, okay? History doesn't even really start to pick up. You know who's considered the father of history? Herodotus, 5th century BC. That's who's called the father of history. Now, obviously he's not the first guy. There's nothing new under the sun, but the point is, and even Herodotus is super sketchy, okay? And, you know, really not until you get into modern times do we have what we would consider really good history. Like really accurate, quality chronicling of what's going on that we would refer to as history, okay? So you know what we have to go on for the days of Abraham? The Bible, okay? The times in which Moses lived, 1500 BC. There's not all this secular history out there about that time period, no. You know, we could just read and read and read about all the male cult process. No, folks, this is some made up junk from some theologian somewhere that just said like, oh, well, you know, they have these male cult prostitutes. And you know what? You want to know the real agenda behind it? Is that they want to defend the homos. So basically what they want to do is be like, well, it's not that they were homos, it's just that they're selling it. You know, it's not being a homo, it's the fact that they sold being a homo. But here's the thing. If we go with the King James reading, sodomite, and we all understand that a sodomite is a homo, it's nothing else than that. Now let's compare scripture with scripture. When we get to 1 Kings 14, 24, are we going to be like, oh, no, because we're like, oh yeah, I remember the story of Sodom. It was a bunch of dudes who wanted to get with other dudes. And then we're like, oh, they did according to the abominations of the land? Yep. Leviticus 18 told us that. Yep. Leviticus 20 told us that. So look, the King James Bible is being consistent with itself. That a sodomite is a homo, which is consistent with Genesis 19, consistent with Leviticus 18, consistent with Leviticus 20. This male cult prostitute, it's a totally foreign concept that you can never read about anywhere in the Bible. Who would even want to read about such a thing? Okay. And just some egghead theologian somewhere, you know, dug up some Philistine, you know, piece of toilet paper or something and is, you know, telling, oh, you know, male cult prostitutes. Folks, no. Do not be deceived by this. So, you know, you don't even need to even be an expert to know who to trust because one of them is consistent with the rest of the Bible. The other one is just a made up thing thrown in. And you can see what the agenda is. They don't want it to be a homo. They're like, it's a cult prostitute. It's, you know, it's just, it's not that it was two dudes. That's not the problem. It's that it was a cult thing. It's that it was a prostitution thing. Wrong. Okay. So you see how that's a corruption of God's word. It's a corruption of God's word. Okay. But if you would go to 1 Corinthians chapter seven. So what I'm doing today in the sermon is I'm giving you general ideas of how the devil corrupts God's word. And then I'm also showing you specific examples of how the modern versions are doing the devil's work by corrupting God's word. And they're under that curse of adding, number one, adding to God's word. Number two, removing from God's word. Number three, changing God's word, changing it from sodomite over to this foreign concept that has never existed in the Bible. And you just, you get there and you're just like, huh, because it doesn't even jive with the rest of the Bible. But the fourth point I want to make tonight is that the other attack on God's word is just to translate it wrong, just to translate it badly. You know, not just adding, removing, changing things. How about just a bad translation? Okay. And again, we're going to talk about, you guessed it, the ESV, which is a really bad translation. And we're going to look at 1 Corinthians chapter seven. And this example is going to be a little bit of a lengthy example, but I think it's worth parking on this point because it just shows you how bad the translation is in these new versions. Because they say, oh, the ESV is so accurate to the original. It's much more accurate than the King James. Because, you know, you got your NIV, you got your New Living, you got the NASB, but the people who promote the ESV, one of the things that they bring up is just how accurate it is. Oh, it's just, it's really true to the original, really accurate. Who's heard somebody say something along those lines about the ESV, you know, specifically that it's really accurate. Okay. Well, let's see how accurate it is in 1 Corinthians seven. Look at verse 25. Now concerning virgins, and this is the key word I want you to notice, virgins. Okay. Does everybody know what a virgin is? Okay. A virgin is someone who has not had a carnal relationship, right? So basically this is someone who's not married and they've not committed fornication, right? Because that physical act is meant to be reserved for within marriage. And so a virgin is someone who has not committed fornication and they have not been married. So they have not had that carnal experience yet in their life. That's a virgin, right? So we talk about the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. What are we saying? Mary knew not a man, right? Mary had not lay with a man. And so she was a virgin and she gave birth to Jesus. Okay. So the Bible says now concerning virgins. So does everybody understand who we're talking about? I have no commandment of the Lord, yet I give my judgment as one that has obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful. I suppose therefore that it is good for the present distress. I say that it is good for a man so to be. So is it good to be a virgin or is it something to be embarrassed about? It's a good thing. Bible says, yeah, it's good to be a virgin, right? If you're not married, you ought to be a virgin. The goal is to be a virgin when you get married. And then that's when you lose your virginity as a married person. And this goes for male and female because it doesn't just say it's good for a woman to be a virgin. It says it's good for a man to be a virgin too, right? It says, art thou bound unto a wife? Seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife. But, and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned. And if a virgin marries, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless, such shall have trouble in the flesh, but I spare you. So is it a sin to get married? Getting married is good, right? Something wrong with getting married? It's great. Now, if you're not married, be happy being single. Be content with what you have. You know, a lot of people, they're single and they're just upset and they hate being single. And you know, sometimes being single can be a drag, but the Bible is saying, you know, be content if you're single. If you're married, be content. Don't wish you were single. You know, if you're married, be glad you're married. If you're single, be glad you're single. But if you're single and you want to get married, get married. And if you get married, nothing wrong with that. It's a good thing. It's not sinful. Everybody understand what we just read? Now let's see what the ESV does here. You're going to look down at your Bible there in verse 25 in the King James. I'm going to read for you from the ESV. Now concerning the betrothed, I have no commandment from the Lord. Now notice what has changed. Instead of concerning virgins, it says concerning the betrothed, I have no commandment from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy. I think that in the view of the present distress, you're following along in the King James, right? In verse 26, it's good for a person to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Seek not to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But if you marry, you have not sinned. And if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned. Now stop and think about how ridiculous and absurd what I just read to you was. Because what does betrothed mean? Well, I looked it up in the dictionary. I looked it up in several dictionaries. Just to make sure I had all the definitions. Your betrothed is the person who you're engaged to. To be betrothed is like being engaged. To betrothed, according to the dictionary, is to promise to marry. So to betrothed is to what? To promise to marry. To enter into a formal agreement to marry. So think about how ridiculous this is. The ESV is basically saying, if you promised to marry someone, it's okay if you do that. What would the other option be? Promising to do it and then not doing it? Like what does that even mean? But I haven't even shown you where it gets real wild. That's nothing. Okay, look at verse 34. There's a difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit, but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. And this I speak for your own profit, not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that you may attend upon the Lord without distraction. But if any man think that he behave with himself uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower of her age and need so require, let him do what he will. He sendeth not, let them marry. Nevertheless, he that standeth steadfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well. So then he that giveth her in marriage doeth well, but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better. Okay, now let's see what the ESV does. Okay, verse 34. His interests are divided, and the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and in spirit. Now, think about, first of all, just how bad of a translation is. The King James says that the unmarried woman cares for the things of the Lord. How does that sound to you? An unmarried woman, she cares about the things of the Lord, whereas the married woman, she has to spend a lot of time caring about the things to do, you know, to keep her husband happy, right? That's something that's on her mind. That's one of the cares that she deals with, keeping her husband happy, whereas an unmarried woman could theoretically be just really focused on serving the Lord. Does everybody get that? But here it says the unmarried, instead of, it says the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord. Like anxious about things of the Lord means like I'm kind of nervous, you know, a little anxious about things. It sounds like you have anxiety. It doesn't sound good. But then it also says, but the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I'm reading from the ESV. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order, blah, blah, blah. Now stop and think about this. According to the King James, the virgin or the unmarried is able to just focus totally on the Lord. According to the ESV, it's the betrothed that can totally focus on the Lord. But hasn't she promised to marry a dude? So how is she totally focused on the Lord and just not thinking about this dude that she's betrothed to? That doesn't make any sense. But wait, just keep going. It gets weird. Verse 36, I'm reading for you from the ESV. You're looking down at the King James. If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong and it has to be, let him do as he wishes, let them marry, it is no sin. But whosoever is firmly established in his heart, being under known necessity, having this desire under control and have determined this in his heart to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well. So is this saying that you're just gonna be betrothed forever? Is this like a 20 year engagement? A 30 year engagement? We've been betrothed for the last 40 years. This is what the ESV is saying. In what culture does this exist? On what planet does this exist? Think about it. On what planet do you promise to marry someone and 30 years later it's like, we're godly by not getting married. What is that? Does everybody get what I'm saying here? Okay, let's keep going. So then he who marries his betrothed does well, but he who refrains from marriage will do even better. So the best thing you can do, guys, according to the ESV, is to get engaged to some chick and just never marry her. Just string her along for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 30 years, just keep stringing her along. That's the ESV dating plan. This is stupid. And by the way, you say, well, but you know, if you go back to the Greek, okay, well, here's the thing. You don't even need to know much Greek, okay? The Greek word here, because what does the King James say? Virgin. Virgin. What did the ESV say? Betrothed. Are those the same thing? A virgin is just someone who's single and inexperienced. Amen. Okay, that's a virgin. So you could see how a virgin or someone who's unmarried for another reason, like maybe they're widowed or divorced or whatever. The virgin, the widowed, the divorced, the virgin, the unmarried could be without carefulness as far as a husband, because they don't have a husband. Is the betrothed in that situation? No, because she has a dude that she's committed to. Did she promise to marry? Nuts to him. I'm not thinking about him. It's all about the Lord. Makes no sense. Okay, so you got these two words, virgin, betrothed. Okay, the Greek word here is just the most standard basic word for virgin that's translated as virgin. It's just parthenos. And there's a really famous building, who knows what the building's called? The Parthenon, right? So if you go to Greece, the number one tourist attraction in Greece is the Parthenon. And you know why it's called the Parthenon? Because they're worshiping Athena, who is just eternally engaged to some dude. No, Athena is a virgin goddess, and that's why it's called the Parthenon, because they're worshiping the Parthenos there. And this is the most basic word that anybody would know means virgin. In fact, in the ESV, at the bottom of the page, it says, oh, in Greek, it's virgin. That's what it says at the bottom of the page. There's a footnote saying, Greek says virgin. Well, then why don't you say virgin then? So even the ESV is like, oh, by the way, Parthenos means virgin. It says that at the bottom of the page. But then they're telling you, hey, man, if you are okay with just having her as your betrothed, just drag this thing out until Jesus comes. Poor girl. Yeah, let's just have a 30-year betrothal, a 50-year betrothal. Let me tell you something. That doesn't exist anywhere. And well, you just have to understand the culture back then. Folks, there's no new thing under the sun. That culture doesn't exist. But you know what? It's funny because I had the Roman Catholic Church in our town. They mailed me this pamphlet, explaining to me where all their Catholic beliefs, how they get them all from the Bible. And it was all a bunch of garbage, obviously. They're like justifying, worshiping Mary and calling the Pope father and all the things that Catholics do, right? And one of the things that it said in this pamphlet was, it said that Mary and Joseph were never gonna sleep together even before they heard about Jesus. And it's like, excuse me, weren't they betrothed? Weren't they espoused? Weren't they gonna get married? It says before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost, right? And then the angel came and visited Joseph and explained to him what was gonna happen. And then the angel came and visited Mary and explained to Mary what was gonna happen, right? So both Mary and Joseph, they got visited by an angel that explained to them, hey, what's conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost, she shall bring forth the son, thou shall call his name Jesus. And then it says that Joseph knew her not until she had brought forth her firstborn son. Now, first of all, it says he knew her not until, because guess what? After that, he knew her. And until she brought forth her firstborn son, which guess what? Which guess what? If you have a firstborn, you got a second born. And by the way, the modern versions in Matthew 125, I'm sure the ESV is this way too, take out the word firstborn in Matthew 125, okay. But the Roman Catholics in this pamphlet that they sent me, they literally said that, oh, Mary and Joseph, yeah, they were a spouse, but they were gonna do this thing where he's just like her guardian, but they never sleep together. And it's just kinda like this celibate marriage thing. Cause you know, that was the culture back then. Folks, what planet was that ever the culture? That's never been the culture anywhere. That's stupid. That's foolish. That's ridiculous. That makes no sense, okay. That's just made up Catholic mumbo jumbo. Isn't it interesting how many of the junk things we find in the ESV end up lining up with like a Catholic Bible or a Catholic doctrine? And this, it seems like maybe this 1 Corinthians 7 is from the same backward weirdo who doesn't sleep with his wife or something, you know, who translated the ESV or something. Or maybe he's still engaged 27 years later or whatever. But instead of just the clear obvious translation of just taking this obvious basic word, like knowing that parthenos means virgin, it's sorta like knowing that amigo means friend or something. You know, you don't really have to be fluent. You know what I mean? And so, and they're even admitting it. And do you see how they've turned this passage on its head? And in reality, when it's talking about like his virgin and so forth, it's actually what it's really talking about. And I don't really have time to break all this down within the scope of the sermon. Maybe I'll do a sermon soon where I break down 1 Corinthians 7. It's actually talking about like basically the father not giving her away in marriage. Okay, is what's actually being referred to. That's why it says in verse 38, so then he that giveth her in marriage doeth well, but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better. Whereas the ESV turns it on its head so that he that marries his betrothed does well. Well, yeah, I guess that's great to marry the one that you promised to marry. Good job. But he who refrains from marriage will do even better if you can drag that sucker out for as long as possible. So this just goes to show you how the ESV is pretty accurate, huh? Just telling you exactly what the Greek says, right? Just giving it to you straight. Now, and that's just one example of the kind of garbage you're gonna find in the ESV, okay? But moving on, we said, number one, that the devil wants to add to God's word. Number two, he wants to remove from God's word. Number three, he wants to corrupt God's word and change things. Number four, he wants to just get you reading a really bad translation, a really stupid translation like the ESV that just turns things on its head and they don't even make sense anymore. And somebody's got some commitment issues down at the ESV committee. Somebody's girlfriend is crying themselves to sleep tonight. But number five, another way that the devil attacks God's word is by getting these translators to not even translate the actual text of the original languages. And that's what we see with that. They say, well, the Greek says parthenos, but we're gonna give you something else. What is that, right? That's their interpretation, which is ridiculous. It's absurd, okay? But also sometimes what they're doing is they're translating something completely different. Like for example, in the Old Testament, in Genesis chapter six, you have the famous passage about the sons of God and the daughters of men, right? Well, in the NIV, it doesn't say sons of God. In the NIV, it says angels. But then there's a footnote at the bottom of the page that says Hebrew says sons of God. Now I always wondered about that. Like, well, if the Hebrew says sons of God, why don't you say sons of God? But here's what they mean by Hebrew says sons of God is that in those places, they're not translating from the Hebrew. They're translating from what's called the Septuagint, okay? Now here's what's going on. The so-called Septuagint that we have today is way worse than the ESV, okay? It's a very messed up translation, okay? Oh, and by the way, unlike James White and probably half of the bozos that work on the ESV and everything, I've read the Greek Septuagint in Greek cover to cover, the entire Old Testament Septuagint, okay? I wonder how many of these guys on the translation committee have done that, okay? And let me tell you something, having read the whole thing cover to cover, let me tell you something. It has a lot of problems. It has a lot of error in it. And I'll tell you this, as being someone who's actually read the whole thing cover to cover, that certain books of it are translated way better than others, and that there's absolutely no way that the same person or persons worked on that entire translation. What I mean by that is that when you're reading Exodus in the Septuagint and you're reading 1 Kings in the Septuagint, there is no way that the same person or group translated those two books, because the style is so dramatically different. And when you're reading the Septuagint in Exodus, all of those words about like pins and bars and the hooks and the rings, when they're building the tabernacle, pretty much all of those are getting translated into Greek. But then when you get to 1 Kings and Solomon's building the temple, all those words are just left in Hebrew. And they're just transliterated from Hebrew to Greek, meaning that I guess they don't know what they are in Hebrew. They don't know what they are in Greek. They didn't know, like they don't know what they are, so they're just transliterating. But it's funny, whoever translated Exodus seemed to know all those carpentry terms and all of those hardware store terms. But then all of a sudden, when you get to 1 Kings, they don't know the hardware terms at all, or they're just choosing to leave them in the original language. It's not the same thing. And not only that, the Septuagint that we have today is from hundreds of years after the time of Christ. And so here's the true story. And I'm not trying to get too technical or go down too deep here, but I want to explain this because it's so important because people try to pull the wool over your eyes with this stuff. Oh, the Septuagint and all this stuff. Here's the deal. There were lots of Greek translations of the Hebrew Old Testament, right? I mean, a bunch of times, the Hebrew Old Testament got translated into Greek. A lot of them haven't survived. Some of them have survived. Bits and pieces of this, that, and the other have survived. The one that we have today, the so-called Septuagint is just one of them or a few of them and it's junk, okay? And it doesn't match the original Hebrew. But what you'll have with these modern translators is instead of just translating what the Hebrew Bible says into English, they're going with the Septuagint instead and saying, we're going to translate from the Septuagint. We're translating from a translation. So they're giving you a translation of a translation instead of giving you from the original Hebrew. And here's why. You say, why would they do that? Why wouldn't they just translate? Because here's what they say, well, the original Hebrew is corrupt. So we have to use the Septuagint here. Well, last time I checked, Jesus said that one jot or one tittle would in no wise pass from the law until all be fulfilled. So is the Hebrew Old Testament corrupt? No, it's been preserved by God. It's been kept pure throughout all ages. So it's like, well, the Hebrew is corrupt here, so we got to go to the Septuagint, which by the way, the Septuagint is so different. I mean, in 1 Samuel 17, the story of David and Goliath, literally approximately half of the chapter is gone in the Septuagint. Half the verses are removed. And in the book of Job, I think it's something about like 300 lines missing. It's like a Swiss cheese book of Job when you read in the Septuagint. Okay. And the Septuagint is where all these apocryphal books come from as well. They're from the Septuagint. They're not in the Hebrew Old Testament. The Hebrew Old Testament, you want to know what's in the Hebrew Old Testament? The same books that are in your King James Bible? You know, the Hebrew Bible, the Hebrew Old Testament contains those 39 books that you have in your King James. That's what they have in Hebrew. So where's all this Tobit, Judith, Maccabees, all that stuff coming from? It's coming from the Septuagint. Okay. It's coming from a corrupt Bible that adds in all these janky books and that changes things, take things out. And the one that we have today, who knows where it's from? Because it's a mix of different translations. Because like I said, it's not from one source. As someone who's actually read it, you can tell this is not from one source. Okay. Because supposedly, oh, 70 guys went on an island. Went on an island and they all translated it. No, that did not happen. I promise you that. Okay. It's a myth. So, and I want to talk a little more about this because I think it's important. Okay. Today, we have people who reject God's preservation of scripture. Okay. That reject the fact that the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament have been preserved by God and that the King James Bible is accurately translated from those original languages. And that we have a perfect Bible in English because it's perfectly translated. It's accurately translated from the original text. But we have today people that are called Ruckmanites who basically say, well, we don't have the Greek and Hebrew. And it's just, it's only the King James. And the King James, the King James corrects the Greek. The King James corrects the Hebrew. Now, this might seem like a new phenomenon, but isn't that the same philosophy that says that the Septuagint corrects the Hebrew original? So a few hundred years after Christ, you have these two Catholic famous Saint so-and-so's. You've got Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome, right? These are famous names, right? And Augustine said, oh, the Hebrew Bible's corrupt. It's gotta be the Septuagint. This is in the fourth century AD. And then Jerome said, well, no, we got, you know, the Old Testament's in Hebrew. We're going with the Hebrew Bible. Okay. And so they fought about this for years. They're arguing, they're writing letters back and forth. Jerome versus Augustine, they're fighting this out. Who's going to win? You know, is the Septuagint going to win or is the Hebrew Bible going to win? And guess who won the argument? Jerome won the argument. And the Vulgate, which is the Bible of the Catholic Church, ended up being translated from the Hebrew, from the original Hebrew. But the Hebrew doesn't have the, doesn't have the Apocrypha in it, does it? So the Catholic Church is like, hey, you got to put the Apocrypha in there. And Jerome's like, dude, I thought we're translating from the Hebrew. And they're like, well, yeah, but you know, we got to have Judith. We got to have Tobit. We got to have Belle and the dragon. We got to have Susanna. We got to have Maccabees. So there, so he's like, okay, but you know, oh, I guess I'm just going to have to translate those from Greek because I don't even have them in Hebrew. And he said, he called those books Apocrypha. So he named those books Apocrypha. What does Apocrypha mean? The word Apocrypha means hidden. And what he said is that, you know, well, if this was ever a Hebrew book, it's the original is hidden. It's missing. I can't find it. It's hidden from me. Now here's the thing about God's word. You know, God's word doesn't, you know, fall off the face of the earth for hundreds or thousands of years. Okay. You know, God's word is preserved unto all ages. And so you have these books that are labeled as Apocrypha because they're not from the Hebrew Bible. So you can see how this doesn't really make sense. If you're going to translate the Hebrew Bible, why would you include stuff that's not even in the Hebrew Bible? But that's what the Catholic church did. They said, well, we're going to do the Old Testament in Hebrew, but bring in this Apocryphal stuff. And then that's where Jerome labeled it with that label. He made up that word, you know, for that, as far as a term to refer to that. Okay. So that's what Apocrypha means. Okay. So when we get to the King James version, a lot of people ask this question. Well, why did the original King James have the Apocrypha in it? Who's had somebody bring that up to you before and say like, well, hey, you know, why the 1611 King James? Why is the Apocrypha in it? But here's what you have to understand that if you look at the King James replica, from 1611, that had the Apocrypha in it, cause it only had the Apocrypha in the first few editions and then they ditched it. Why did those first few editions have the Apocrypha in it? Well, because England had just been Roman Catholic a few decades earlier. And so they're trying to wean people off of all this Catholic junk. And so what they did was they went ahead and translated the Apocrypha, but they put it in a special section. So if you have a Roman Catholic Bible, the Apocrypha is all mixed in with the Old Testament. It's mixed in with the Book of Daniel, Esther, it's all mixed in, it's inseparable from it. Whereas in that 1611 King James, it's in a separate section that's labeled Apocrypha. And it even has notes from the translators that will say, this part's corrupt, this guy's copying Solomon, this isn't legitimate. And we don't have to wonder what the translators thought about it because the Church of England's statement of faith at the time that the King James Bible was translated specifically says no doctrine shall be based on these 14 books. These are not inspired scripture. And it lists the 14 books of the Apocrypha and says no doctrine can be based on these books. These are only for historical value or moral reading. That's it. So here's the thing. Yeah, if you get a 1611 King James, it's got all kinds of calendars and charts and all kinds of stuff. And it has the Apocrypha there as a reference so that you could basically refer to it and because they're weaning people off of it because they're trying to get the Catholics off of it, but they don't want to freak them out by jerking the steering wheel. It'd be sort of like if a, let's say a pastor's pastoring a church that use the ESV and he wants to get them over to the King James. Sometimes he'll like, he'll get them on the new King James, and then he'll like get them from there to the King James. Now I'm not saying that that's the right way to do it. I would just rip off the band-aid and say, it's the King James. But here's the thing. I can tell you personally, I've known a lot of people that did that. They went from ESV to new King James to King James. And they say, well, I'm just trying to teach my people over time. I'm doing it over the course of a few weeks. I'm doing it over the course of a few months. That's what they're doing. They put the Apocrypha in there as a reference, but they call it Apocrypha and put it in a separate section and put notes that are derogatory about it. And their statement of faith says, this is not inspired. This is not scripture. Does everybody understand what I'm saying about the Apocrypha? And so that's a little history on the Apocrypha. And it goes to show you that the Septuagint is the source of the Apocrypha. It's the source of a lot of the corruption in the modern versions in the Old Testament. It's the so-called, I call it the so-called Septuagint because it's some fourth century after Christ copy of many different Greek translations. Who knows where exactly it comes from and what it is. So I know that was a little bit maybe dense or dry and historical there, but I wanted to explain that though, because it's good for us to understand these things so that people can't pull the wool over our eyes. And so that we, you know, when somebody comes at you with the Septuagint, you know what that is. Hey, this is a Greek translation of the Hebrew that doesn't match the Hebrew. And it's very different, okay. When somebody comes at you and says, you know, oh, well the Apocrypha is in the King James, you could show them, well, here's the statement of faith of the translators. Here's the 39 articles of the Church of England where it says that it's not scripture. Here's where they put in a separate section unlike the Catholic Bible where it's mixed in with inspired scripture, okay. It's good to have a handle on these things because the Apocrypha is a major attack on God's word by adding to God's word. The Septuagint is an attack on God's word by saying, oh, the Hebrew is corrupt. We have to go to the Septuagint, okay. So basically, Augustine is one of the original Ruckmanites. He's like, the Greek translation corrects the Hebrew original. Septuagint is better than the original. Okay, that's absurd. Now look, I do believe that the King James Bible is the word of God without error. But is it superior to the Greek? That makes no sense because how could a translation be superior to what it was translated from? You know what you're saying if you say that? You're saying that there's something wrong with the original. Because wouldn't you say that the Hebrew on a scale of one to 10 is a 10, the Hebrew Old Testament as far as holiness, power, awesomeness, divinity, what would you give it on a scale of one to 10, the Hebrew Bible? It's a 10, yeah. Is it 9.999? It's 10. Okay, and then it's like, okay, but then the ESV comes along and says, well, these go up to 11. But it's like, well, no, because 10 is the max. If you've already maxed out on holiness, if you've already maxed out on righteousness, if you've already maxed out on godliness, you can't go any higher. But then Peter Ruckman comes along, the KJV goes up to 11. It's like, well, no, we're on a scale of one to 10 here. If you say the KJV is superior to the Hebrew Bible, you're saying there's something wrong with the Hebrew Bible and the KJV came along and did something better. Here's what I would say. The KJV is equivalent to the Hebrew Bible. It says the same thing. The KJV is equivalent to the Greek New Testament because it says the same thing. Amen? And if it doesn't say the same thing, it's not a translation. It's a new revelation. And that's what the Ruckmanites sometimes even will say. And so this ends up being an attack on the word of God, because if you can destroy people's faith in the Hebrew original, if you can destroy people's faith in the Greek New Testament, well, then you're kind of pulling the rug out from under the King James because that's what the King James is translated from. Unless you think that God just came down in 1611 and just, you know, handed golden tablets to the translators or something, which obviously didn't happen. So number one, Satan wants to add to God's word. Apocrypha, Book of Mormon, Gospel of Thomas, adding little words and phrases like that into salvation example I showed you. Number two, the devil wants to remove from God's word. Removing 16 entire verses in the NIV, 16 verses missing in the ESV and so forth. Number three, he wants to corrupt the word of God. Just alter the text, just make little changes here and there that are significant. Number four, he wants the word of God to just be translated badly, just idiotic translations like, hey, you know, maybe you could just stay betrothed for the next 50 years. And you're like, what am I reading? What is this? But number five, he also wants to get us to basically do a translation of a bad translation and to try to get us to think that somehow God didn't preserve the Hebrew Bible or that God didn't preserve the Greek New Testament. Well, ultimately that pulls the rug out from under the King James itself, which comes from those documents. But sixth and lastly, if the devil can't get you to add or to remove or to change or to translate it badly or to translate from some other document like the Septuagint or something instead of the original. Number six, he wants to just attack the word of God by just casting doubt on it, by just getting you to doubt it, right? And all of the things that I just told you, they cause people to doubt. They confuse people. You have all these different versions saying different things. And then you have people come along and say like, oh, well, you know, so many versions saying different things. Who knows what to believe, right? You know, a patrolled virgin, who knows? I know. You know, those of us that are King James, we know. We have confidence. You know, I don't know about you, but when I wake up in the morning and I read my Bible, I don't read my Bible in the morning and be like, I wonder if this is actually what Moses received. Is that even going through your mind? I mean, when you're reading the Bible, are you like, hmm, I wonder if the King James has translated this right. I wonder if Paul even said this. I wonder if this has been changed over time. No, we aren't confused. We know what the Bible says. We trust what the Bible says. And we actually trust our own English Bible that we read our English Bible. And we can have a church and we can have a soul winning program and we can have a marriage and we can have a family and we can have a Christian life based on the English Bible. And we know that it's a rock that we're founded upon. Amen. But let me tell you something. If you are in one of these Bible of the Month Club churches, if you're in one of these liberal churches, you don't have that kind of confidence because I've been to the Bible studies where it's like, what does your version say? And sometimes, sometimes literally the entire lesson will be based on something that's not even in some of the Bibles in the room. And people are like, my Bible doesn't even say that. And then everybody walks away like, ah, maybe. That was kind of a cool lesson if it's even in there, if it's even real. God's not the author of confusion, but the devil loves to sow that doubt in your mind and get you just confused. And you know what? It's the same kind of argument like, oh, there's just so many religions in the world, who knows which one's right? So I saw some stupid meme on Facebook and said, oh, there's 4,500 religions in the world. Please. Really? How many can you count right now? 4,500? Really? Because there's pretty much Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism. And after that, they get real small. Judaism. Once you name 10 religions, they get tiny. Okay? You know, you're down to like, Scientology and stuff. You know, you're down to like, the spaghetti monster. Okay? There are not thousands of religions in the world. There are less than 10 basic world religions in this world. Like, as far as like worldwide religions, there are like five or six. You actually break it down. You say, well, yeah, but there's all these denominations of Christianity. Yeah, but how hard is it to figure out which one's actually reading the Bible? Right? If you actually care about the truth, you're going to figure out, it's the Baptists that are actually preaching and believing and reading the thing. You're not going to think it's the Pope. So the devil wants to get you confused, cast doubt. What did he say in the Garden of Eden? Yea, hath God said? I'm not saying he didn't. You know, but did he really say that? But then, a verse later, he actually just says, God didn't say that. So first he gets you to question it. But what's the end game of getting you to question it? The end game is so that he can get you to believe that it's not real. Right? Because first he says, well, hath God? Did God really say that? But then he says, he shall not surely die. So first he gets you to question it. And then what does that lead to? An eventual denial of God's Word. Okay. So what do you have in the modern versions? All kinds of notes in the modern versions telling you, this verse probably isn't real. So for example, you know, if you have an NIV or an ESV or one of these new versions, when you get, you know the story about the woman taken in adultery? Who knows that story about the woman that's taken adultery? He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her and all that. Super famous, right? John chapter eight, verses one through 11. If you have an NIV or an ESV, those verses will be there. But guess what it says right above that story? Oh, the oldest, most reliable manuscripts do not contain this story. This text is probably not original to, you know, they'll have some kind of a note along those lines telling you, nah, probably not real. And then when you get to the end of Mark, here's a verse that you might've heard before. Maybe you heard this one before. Go ye therefore into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Yeah, just an obscure verse. You ever heard that one? Well, that's part of a section that the NIV, the ESV and all of them label as oldest manuscripts don't have this passage. So what are they trying to do? They're trying to get you to doubt it. You know, yea, hath God said, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature? Yea, hath God said, he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her? Or how about this little, you know, unimportant kind of forgettable verse, father forgive them for they know not what they do? You ever heard that one? That's a pretty famous verse, right? I mean, look, how many times do we think about that verse? I mean, all the time, it's super famous. Father forgive them for they, father forgive them, thus did he pray. He was, well, but not in the most reliable manuscripts, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, they don't have this verse in them. Blessed confusion. So they just put this little note like, well, you know, the oldest, most reliable. And whenever they say the oldest, most reliable, they're talking about two documents, usually Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, which are both trash that should have stayed in the trash. These two garbage manuscripts, but they're, well, you know, the oldest. So what are they doing? They're saying, yea, hath God said, father forgive them for they know not what they do? They're putting doubt on the word. And you know what's so hypocritical is that all of the people behind these modern versions, they want to take out the woman in adultery. They want to take out the ending of Mark, but they know they can't sell as many Bibles because nobody wants to buy a Bible where that story is missing. So they're like, well, we'll put it in there. But you know, it's just so you know, it's not real though. It's not even real. And I'm out of time tonight, but let me just say this. Some people will ask this question. We talked about a lot of ways that the devil has tried to pervert God's word, all the different attacks, right? But really all six examples I gave, I was like King James versus modern versions. That's what I was really doing tonight, wasn't I? I was showing you how, yeah, the devil's attacking it six different ways and they're all in the ESV, okay? Because what's the point of my sermon? I want you reading the King James. And I want you to have confidence in that King James. And I want you to know that it is the perfect, pure, preserved word of God. And I want you to read it every morning and have confidence in what you're reading and not let these bozos shake your faith. Because remember, the same guy who's telling you which manuscript is the most reliable is the same one telling you to be engaged to your girlfriend for 50 years, okay? Just remember that. They professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. But here's a question that's often asked. Well, okay, yeah, the modern versions have problems, but what doctrine is affected? Is there really any doctrine that's affected? I mean, is there really any core biblical doctrine that's changed or affected? Well, first of all, even if it's not a core doctrine, I don't want any of my doctrine messed with by these bozos. But you say, yeah, but I mean, does it really affect any serious doctrine? Yeah, let me give you a major doctrine that's affected. The doctrine that we actually have the Bible. How about that doctrine? Well, is any doctrine affected by these changes? Yeah, the doctrine that the Bible has been preserved. That's the doctrine that's affected. Because if you are with these modern versions, you are saying, well, the Hebrew is corrupt, so we got to go with the Septuagint. Well, the oldest, most reliable manuscripts don't have this. But when they say oldest, most reliable manuscripts, do they think those manuscripts are perfect? Do they think Sinaiticus is perfect? Do they think, no, they don't think any, what version do they think is perfect? No version. What original Greek New Testament do they think is perfect? None. What Old Testament do they think is perfect? None. So they're like, we got to take a little Septuagint, little Oikibru, and just kind of like, see if we can get in the ballpark. Folks, the doctrine that is affected is the doctrine that we have God's word today. And isn't that the most important doctrine of all? Because the doctrine of where the word of God is, the doctrine that we actually can have a Bible that we can actually trust and rely on is the basis of our faith. Because you say, well, salvation is the most important doctrine. Okay, but how do you know you're saved? Because you're trusting the Bible to tell you that you're saved. Right? I mean, how do I know I'm going to heaven? Because the Bible says I'm going to heaven. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. And so if I don't have the Bible telling me that, or what if it's like, Jesus loves me, this I know, but the most reliable manuscripts don't have that statement. You know, it's just like, well, ah. Then you don't know much, do you? And by the way, James White, who's one of the poster children for these modern versions, he was asked this question. He was asked, you know, if new archeological discoveries came to light, would you basically, you know, change verses in the Bible based on those new findings? You know, like maybe would you change, like would you say, well, we found these documents and they proved the KJV is right. Or we found these documents and they say something different. And here's what he said. He said, yeah, he said, I'll change my position on any verse in the Bible based on new discoveries, new archeological evidence. I'll change the text of my Bible to match what we dig up. And he was asked the question, is there any verse in the Bible? Is there any verse where you know for sure what it says is right, and you would not be willing to change no matter what is unearthed? And he said, no. He says he's willing to change on every verse. That means Jesus wept is up for grabs. John 3 16 is up for grabs. Genesis 1 1 is up for grabs. He literally said that there is not a single verse in the Bible that he's not willing to change based on new evidence, because he's trying to be all scientific. Like, well, you know, whatever the science says, we just got to believe it. But hold on a second. The Bible is not a science book, my friend. This is not a science experiment. This is God's holy word that he promised to preserve. And so, no, Jesus wept isn't up for grabs. But you know what? Esther chapter 8 verse 9 isn't up for grabs either. I bring that up because the longest verse in the Bible. Okay, you know, John 3 16 isn't up for grabs because I'd hate to base my salvation on a verse. And then it's like, well, you know, wait till you see what we dug up, what John 3 16 really says. It's baloney. Folks, the most important doctrine is the doctrine that the Bible that you hold in your hand is God's word, because every other doctrine is based on what you hold in your hand. And so you've got to know that you got the word of God. Let's borrow this word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. What a treasure, Lord. And I pray that every single person that's under the sound of my voice tonight, pray that every single person in this auditorium would appreciate the fact that they have a perfect copy of your word preserved to the present day, that they don't have to go over the ocean to find it. They don't have to learn a foreign language, but that rather it's been faithfully translated into English, Lord. I pray that every single person, Lord, would renew their commitment to reading it. And they would understand the treasure that they have and that maybe in 2023, they could get through the thing cover to cover and read the entire Bible, Lord. What a blessing that would be to get your people all reading your word. And Lord God, I pray that every single person under the sound of my voice would, when they read the Bible, would have the faith and the confidence to know that what they're reading is what you inspired and that it is what the Holy Ghost gave us, not just close enough, but that rather it is 100%, Lord. And Lord, there's so much deception out there, there's so much garbage, but thank you, Lord, that we have such clarity that we know that if we got a King James, we got the real deal. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.