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

The title of my sermon this morning is The Precision of God's Word. The precision of God's Word. The Bible reads in Galatians chapter 3 verse 16, Now to Abraham and his seed where the promise is made, he saith not unto seeds as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed which is Christ. If you would jump down to verse 29, and if you be Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. Now right here we can see an example where when we read God's Word and when we interpret God's Word, every word matters. And God's Word is very precise in saying exactly what it means. Because it says here that he didn't say seeds plural, but he said seed singular. And so even just that one letter or even just changing that word from singular to plural changes the meaning. And God is showing us here the importance of the precision of his Word. What am I talking about? I'm saying that when we read the Bible, we're not just getting the general idea of what God says or the general thought or just kind of the gist of things. But actually God's Word is precisely what he said. The Bible says in Matthew chapter 4 verse 4, you don't have to turn there, But he answered and said it is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. So he didn't just say every thought or every idea or every concept, he said every word. Matthew 5 17 says, Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets, I am not come to destroy but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. And then Matthew 24 35 of course says, Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. So over and over again in the Bible, there's this emphasis placed on every word, the words of God, not just the doctrines or the teachings, but the actual words that God said. You know a lot of people, they just look at the Bible as just sort of a general guide. And you know, it teaches basic morality and you know, you just gotta get the kind of general message of the Bible. You know, love your neighbor. You know, don't do anything to other people that you wouldn't want them to do to you. And you know, there's a sort of a creator up there and you know, it's all about love and you know, and you know, they just get these really vague things. But no, we need to look in the Bible and read exactly what God says because he very precisely told us what is right, what is wrong, what is the truth, what is the way of salvation. It's not just the general idea. Now here's an interesting note from history is that the Hebrew alphabet is literally the oldest alphabet in the history of mankind. Look it up. The Hebrew alphabet is the oldest alphabet in the history of mankind. Now did people read and write before the Hebrew alphabet? Yes, they did. But if you know anything about ancient forms of writing, of course in Egypt you have the hieroglyphics and in the Mesopotamian region you have cuneiform and different kinds of wedge writing and so forth. But those aren't an alphabet, okay. An alphabet is where you have one symbol, you know, representing a certain sound. You know, B says buh and C says cuh and D says duh. Not a letter representing a whole syllable or a picture or a word or an idea. And what's interesting about that is that if you think about it, Hebrew is the oldest alphabet in the history of mankind. It's only consonants, no vowels. But basically God allowed the first alphabet to be invented just so that he could deliver his word with precision. Have a think about that. Because God didn't want his word to be delivered in hieroglyphics because then there'd be too much open for interpretation, wouldn't there? It wouldn't have the precision of telling us word by word exactly what he's saying, spelling it out literally, okay. It's funny, I was listening to a lecture given by this linguist about all the different language families of the world and this guy was not a Christian. This guy was not looking at it from a biblical perspective. You know, he's talking about evolution and everything else. But yet he said that the first alphabet in the history of mankind is the Phoenician alphabet or the Hebrew alphabet. It's the same thing at that time. The Phoenician alphabet or Hebrew alphabet. And he said that it was developed around 1800 BC by laborers in Egypt. And I'm thinking to myself, hmm, laborers in Egypt, 1800 BC. Well let's see, Moses is around 1500 BC. So you know, the children of Israel went into Egypt around 1900 BC, roughly. And they're in Egypt and they're laborers. And the reason that they know that is because the oldest examples of the Phoenician alphabet or the Hebrew alphabet come from around that time, 1800 BC. And they studied the Hebrew alphabet and they realized that it's derived from Egyptian hieroglyphics. It's basically like a simplified version of certain hieroglyphics converted into an alphabet. Now that's pretty amazing that it just happens to be that the first alphabet in the history of mankind is the Hebrew alphabet developed just in time for Moses to get the word of God at Mount Sinai and write it down with precision and actually spell out the words, not just draw a picture, but to actually spell out the words and then God could say in Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 3 that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. That's not a coincidence, my friend. It's almost as if the alphabet exists to communicate God's word and that's why it was even first invented. And here's what else is interesting. The first alphabet in the history of mankind that contains vowels is the Greek alphabet. So the oldest alphabet is the Hebrew alphabet and then from the Hebrew alphabet you get the Greek alphabet. That's why it's called alphabet because the first four letters in Hebrew are aleph, bet, gimel, dalet and then that becomes of course alpha, beta, gamma, delta in the Greek alphabet. And our alphabet that we have today, if you would turn over to John chapter 19, our alphabet that we have today is the Latin alphabet, right? That's what we use in English. Our alphabet wasn't derived in England or something. It was actually just the Roman alphabet, the Latin alphabet, right? So here's the history of alphabets. First alphabet is the Hebrew alphabet. Any secular historian could tell you that. They might call it the Phoenician alphabet because modern Hebrew uses the Aramaic alphabet but the ancient Hebrew alphabet is the first alphabet in the history of mankind. The first alphabet with vowels is the Greek alphabet which comes directly from the Hebrew alphabet and then our Latin alphabet comes directly from the Greek alphabet. So it goes Hebrew to Greek to Latin alphabet, okay? Now look if you would at John chapter 19 verse 17, and he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha where they crucified him and two other with him on either side and Jesus in the midst and Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross and the writing was Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. This title then read many of the Jews for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city and it was written in Hebrew and Greek and Latin. So isn't it interesting that the history of our writing system is basically the history of God's word because you have Hebrew, Greek, Latin, right? Those are the three alphabets. The first one, the intermediate, and then where we are today with our English alphabet. And not only that, but if you think about what are the three languages that are the most significant in regard to the Bible? Well obviously the Old Testament is delivered in Hebrew, the New Testament is delivered in Greek, and then Latin and later English would be the languages where it would be the most widely disseminated, the whole book put together, Old and New Testament in one volume spread to the world in millions and millions and billions of copies. And isn't it just so interesting that above Jesus' head on the cross these are the three languages that testify about who he is, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. I'm sure that's all just a coincidence. You know it's almost as if our writing system exists first and foremost to give glory to God and to facilitate God's word. And here's another interesting coincidence for you. You know when the printing press was first introduced in Europe, the first book that it printed was the Bible. It's almost as if God allowed that invention to be invented so that God's word could be printed and put into the hands of the common man. You know the Bible says in Revelation 4-11, thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory and honor and power for thou has created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Everything was created in order to glorify God including human language and including our writing system. And not only is it interesting that the first book ever printed on the printing press was the Bible, but also God worked things out so perfectly to where he allowed the Jews to be kicked out of Spain in 1492. He allowed Constantinople to fall in 1453 so all the Greeks would flee Constantinople. So in the 1400s you have all these Greeks and all these Jews fleeing into Europe, fleeing into England, and guess what they're bringing? Knowledge of the Greek and Hebrew languages into Europe at that time. Just in time for the printing press to be developed so that therefore when they started churning out the Bible on those printing presses, you know what, they could churn out the right Bible by actually going back to the original Greek and Hebrew, not the Roman Catholic Church's corrupted Latin version, but they could actually go back to the original Greek and Hebrew and produce accurate Bibles in the languages of Europe, in the languages of the common man, and most notably in the English language with our King James Bible. Isn't it interesting that God worked everything out perfectly to where those texts of the Old and New Testament could be locked in to the textus receptus and lock them in and then print millions of copies and God's Word could go forth all over the world. God cares about precision is what I'm preaching this morning. God cares about the precision of his Word. If he said seed, he didn't mean seeds. He meant seed, okay? So he allowed thousands of years mankind didn't have an alphabet. They're doing a bunch of pictographs, right? But isn't it interesting that when he says, okay, I'm going to deliver my word at Mount Sinai, you better get an alphabet to receive this thing so that we can document it with precision. So he gave us that alphabet. And then when it's time for the printing presses to start mass producing God's Word, he made sure that the knowledge of Greek and Hebrew showed up at just the right time so that they could go through and edit those documents and create the textus receptus and the Masoretic Hebrew text so that it could be accurate, so that it could be precise, so that it could be right. Well, you know, just the Latin, churches, Vulgate's good enough. Nope, it's got to be every word. It's got to be precise. It's got to be right. It matters. God cares about the accuracy and precision of his word. That's why he said in Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 2, 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. He said don't add to it, don't take away from it. Jeremiah 26 2, 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. He didn't say, hey Jeremiah, give this general message to the children of Israel. He said no, you need to preach all the words and I don't want you to diminish a single word from the message. Give them what I gave you to the word. Revelation 22 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 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. Psalm 12 6, the words of the Lord are pure words as silver tried in a furnace of earth purified seven times. Psalm 119 140, thy word is very pure, therefore thy servant loveth it. You know as if it weren't enough to just say that God's word is pure, the Bible says it's very pure. It's been purified seven times. It's like fine silver. The Bible says in Proverbs 35, every word of God is pure. He's a shield unto them that put their trust in him. God thou not unto his words lest he reprove thee and thou be found a liar. Now this is why it's so important that our church is King James only, because the modern versions are not just translating differently or bringing the language up to date, but rather they are actually corrupting God's word. They are changing God's word. Now obviously there's more than one legitimate way to translate something into English. You know as long as the meaning is the same. And when the Bible talks about having every word of God, that's not saying that we have to go back and read it in Hebrew or that we have to read it in Greek. You do not have to go back to the original language to get every word, okay? Because of the fact that if you translate every word accurately into English, you have every word of God in your own language now. And it's not any less God's word when you put it from Hebrew into Greek or from Greek into English or whatever. It doesn't cease being God's word when you translate it. As long as it's translated properly. As long as you bring over the meaning. If you're ditching phrases and meanings and changing things and adding things, well then it's no longer God's word at that point, okay? But bringing it into English does not prevent it from being God's word. You know, a lot of people have this attitude of, well you're always going to lose something in the translation. You know, I don't buy into that philosophy. And it's funny how many people I've heard that from that only speak one language. But they're the experts on that to tell you how, oh well, you know, you lose something. You know, and I speak several languages and I can tell you right now that I don't believe that that's true. I believe that you can accurately translate God's word into any language and no, you're not losing the meaning. You're still getting what God has for you. And I believe that when you read the Bible in English, in the King James Version, you are getting everything that you need from the Word of God. You're getting everything that God said. You have every word of God right here in your English Bible. You don't have to. And look, I've read the Greek New Testament many times in Greek and yet I never saw anything where I was like, whoa, I really miss this in English. You know, I really miss this teaching or I really miss this, this phrase or this sentence. Folks, it's all there. Right there for you in English. And so don't, don't buy into that philosophy that tells you you can't have the Word of God in English because you can. And by the way, it's always false religions that try to tell you that you have to do it in another language. The Muslims, they tell you it's got to be in Arabic. You know, you can only do the Quran in Arabic. Here's the problem with that. Most Muslims don't even speak Arabic. And that's how they're able to keep people in that religion because if they actually knew what the dumb thing said, they probably wouldn't believe in it because the Quran is such a piece of junk. But they don't even know. And by the way, even modern Arabic speakers speak a totally different form of Arabic and they sing, they have to sing the Quran to make it sound better because if you just read it, it's so lame. It just says literature. You know, I could just read the Bible monotone and it's still awesome. You could get the worst narrator in the world to narrate the Bible. It's still going to be awesome. You can't even ruin it. Let alone, you don't have to sing it in order to get the meaning. But think about the Hindus. You know, all the Hindu scriptures, oh, you got to do it in Sanskrit. And they go to their Hindu temples and it's like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And none of it is in the language of the people. It's all in another language. And then you go to the Roman Catholic Church until recently and the whole thing's in Latin. And you can't understand it. Or people in the US would go to even a Greek Orthodox Church and it's in Greek and they don't speak Greek and it's just right over their head. Isn't it interesting how false religions always tell you that the scripture's got to be in the original language? And then what do the Mormons tell you? Oh, well, we believe the Bible as long as it's properly translated. Except, hey, here's the thing. Every time there's some in the Bible they don't like, it happens to be not properly translated. Folks, let me tell you something. We as Bible-believing Christians, we believe that our English Bible is precisely what God said and that it gives us everything we need for faith and godliness. And we do not believe that you have to go to the Greek or Hebrew to get the precision of God's Word. Folks, the precision of God's Word is still there in translation. We have it in English and I would always be very wary of any teacher that tells you, oh, you know, you got to go to Greek to get the real thing. You got to go to Hebrew to get the real thing because you know what they're trying to do? They're trying to take the Word of God and make it inaccessible to you and say, hey, you need me as a middle man. I'm going to be the mediator between you and God and I'm going to tell you what it really means because, let's face it, 99 percent of people are never going to invest the thousands of hours necessary to learn Hebrew or Greek. You know, they have other things to do with their lives and that's a huge investment of time. What they're basically doing is setting themselves up as the only real interpreter of God's Word. When in reality the Bible says you have no need that any man teach you, but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things and is truth and is no lie, even as it hath taught you, you shall abide in him, the Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth. If you've got it in English, King Jay's Bible, and look, are we Mormons or something? Like, well, you know, so long as it's translated, hey, let me just get up and just say it. It is translated accurately. Not if. Well, if, that's a big if. Because then that, you know what, that gives them an out. Every time the Bible says something that conflicts with their doctrine, oh, that's one of those times, you know, where it's not translated right or whatever. And they don't know anything about the translation. They don't know anything about what the original says. It's just that they just, every time they don't like what the Bible says, oh, this is one of those times. Folks, the Word of God right here, the King Jay's Bible in English, is what God has said. This is our final authority for faith and practice. This gives us what we need. And the modern versions are not just an update of the language, they're actual corruptions of God's Word. It's not like they just changed, you know, everlasting to eternal, or they just took the th at the end of a word and turned it into an s, changed goleth to goes. Folks, if that's all they did, then there would be no issue, there would be no problem. It would be a non-issue, it would be a big nothing burger to get up and talk about how they updated the language. That's not the point. They have corrupted and changed God's Word and we need an every word Bible. Now this shouldn't surprise us because there have always been corruptors of God's Word out there. The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 17, for we are not as many which corrupt the Word of God. So he's saying there are many people out there that corrupt the Word of God and we're not them. So that's already going back almost 2,000 years and he's saying, look, there are a lot of people corrupting the Word of God. Not only that, but you wouldn't have all these commands over and over again in Deuteronomy and Revelation telling us not to change God's Word if someone wasn't doing it. If God commands not to do something, it's because somebody's doing it. He doesn't just make rules that no one was going to break anyway, that would be a waste of time. But not only do modern versions add to and subtract from God's Word, they've also dulled the precision of God's Word by using vagueness, by being vague, okay? Now if you were to turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 3, 2 Corinthians chapter 3, so you know these modern versions of the Bible, what am I talking about? I'm talking about the NIV, I'm talking about the ESV, and you know, it really doesn't matter which one we talk about because they're constantly coming out with new ones. If someone were to listen to a recording of the sermon like 50 years from now, the ESV is not even going to be a thing. The NIV is not even going to be a thing, they're going to be on some new stupid version, but everything I'm saying in the sermon will still apply because it doesn't matter whether you're on the New American Standard or the ESV or the NIV or whatever, it's all the same junk. It's most of the same changes, the same corruptions, and so this sermon will be relevant even 30, 40, 50 years from now because of the fact that whatever junk version they come out with next year, I'm already condemning it in the sermon. But if you look at these, so here's the thing, if you hear me preaching about the NIV, I don't want you to walk away and say, well, sure, that's the NIV, but you know, the ESV, it's fine. Well, you know, yeah, okay, the ESV's got, but the New American Standard. Folks, the stuff I'm saying applies to all of them, okay? And one of the big things, of course, is that they delete 16 entire verses from the New Testament. I mean, that's a big deal. And there are 16 very significant verses, there are doctrinal verses, there are important verses, 16 entire verses, but then that's not even really giving you the full picture because there are so many other places where they delete the equivalent of a verse without actually deleting a verse. Like, for example, in Acts chapter 9 verses 4 and 5, or maybe 5 and 6, they delete like the second half of one verse and the first half of the next verse and if you add it together, it's like bigger than a verse that they delete. They delete like a giant chunk where it says, it's hard for thee to kick against the pricks and salt, you know, trembling and astonished said, what wilt thou have me to do? You know, it's like a whole, it's a big giant section. I might have been quoting that wrong, but it's big enough to be a verse even though it's not numbered as a verse. You know, there are giant phrases and sections, not only that but just things that have been changed, things that have been added and they affect doctrine, you know. Like for example, here's a really famous verse, 1 Peter chapter 2, you know, where he says, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. That's a pretty good verse, huh? You know, newborn babes, you're babes in Christ, right? When you believe in Christ, you're born again, so you're a child of God, you're a babe in Christ and so you want to desire the milk of the word so that you can grow thereby. And you think about Hungary, a little newborn baby is, just wants milk, milk, milk, wants to eat, eat, eat. I mean, they want to eat not three times a day, you know, they want to eat every hour or two. They're just voraciously just gobbling up all that milk. Why? Because they grow so much. Look how much a child grows from a newborn to a two-year-old. It's like tripled in size. I mean, can you imagine just, you know, from, from age 12 to 14 just like tripling in size? You know, it doesn't, that's the time in a child's life when they're growing the most, right? I mean, it's at the beginning that they're just growing and that's why they eat so much. I mean, it's just, they got to keep taking in food, they got to build all those new cells. So if you think about that verse, it makes sense, right? You're a new believer, you're newly saved, you're a babe in Christ and so, God willing, the fastest growth is going to happen at the beginning. Just like a newborn baby, right? Because once you get to be pretty mature in the faith, you're just kind of slowly adding growth. But at the beginning is probably the biggest growth because you, because you've got a long ways to go, you know, because you're, you, you're, you're probably so worldly or just, you know, you don't know much about the Bible so everything's new. You know, a, a, a Christian who's been saved for 30 years, they might come to a sermon like this and maybe learn one thing or learn two things. But a new believer, they're learning everything. Everything's new. Everything's new. Everything's new, right? It makes sense. You get saved, you're a babe in Christ, you desire the milk of the Word and you grow based on taking in God's Word, right? The more God's Word comes in, the more you grow. But what do the new versions do to this wonderful verse? They completely destroy it and turn it into something perverse and corrupt by changing it to, desire the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow thereby into salvation. So they turn it in, they turn it from a powerful, important verse into something stupid that makes no sense that teaches a wrong salvation. Like you gotta grow into salvation. Now here's the thing, if, if you're already a babe, you're saved. You're a babe in Christ, the newborn babes, you're, you're saved, you're, you're, you're, you're going to heaven, you have eternal life, you're in Christ, you're a babe in Christ and the milk is just to help you grow. But just by adding that little phrase, grow into salvation, what have they done now? Now it's like, alright, gotta work on getting saved, right? Gotta keep growing until we can eventually reach salvation status. That is horrible. It ruins the verse and, and let me, let me explain something to you. That's not just a different translation. That's coming from a different Greek original that adds that phrase in there, a corrupt piece of junk, Greek text that's been rejected for centuries and centuries, pulled out by some German atheist scholars in the 1800s to tell you, oh, this is more accurate. Grow into salvation. No, it's garbage. It ruins the verse. It makes no sense. It teaches a false doctrine and look, that's one example. I could go on for hours just giving you the examples that actually affect doctrine, let alone the whole verses that are taken out and added to. But not only do modern versions add and subtract from God's word, and you can see how just adding that phrase is pretty bad, huh? You know, we're freaked out about the 16 verses that are missing, but you know what, how about the additions? Oh, grow into salvation. That's a dangerous addition, isn't it? But not only do they add and subtract, but they also dull the precision of God's word by making it vague. The word of God is not vague, my friend. The word of God is clear. It's sharper than any two-edged sword. Piercing even the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. God's word is sharp. It cuts. It divides. It's dull and blurry and vague and fuzzy. But the modern versions are. Let me give you some examples of how they do this. Well, why don't we start with, we'll first look down at your Bible in 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 12. It says, seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech. We use plainness of speech, right? That's what the apostle Paul is saying here. And that's how the Bible is. The Bible is precise, sharp, clear, plain. Well let's go back to our example of Galatians chapter 3. And if you would, flip back to Genesis chapter 12. Because remember, we started out the sermon about the precision of God's word by showing how God distinguishes between seed and seeds, right? Showing how precise that is. You know, that's why he didn't just want to use a hieroglyphic of a picture of a seed or something. You know, he wants to make sure that we have it letter by letter and actually can know what's being said. And so we have that precision of, hey, I didn't say seeds, I said seed. Okay, well, let's say I look up that verse in the NIV. So I look up Galatians 3.16 in the NIV and here's what it says. The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say and to seeds, meaning many people, but and to your seed, meaning one person who is Christ. So that's still saying the same thing as far as, hey, it better be seeds and not seeds. But here's what's funny. There's a footnote. You know when you're reading the Bible, it tells you where to go to get the cross reference. So like let's say you're reading in your Bible there in Galatians 3, there might be a little note there pointing you to the Old Testament of, hey, here's where you can go look up where it said seed. Well here's what's funny. In the NIV, there's a footnote here that says look this up in Genesis 12.7, Genesis 13.15 and Genesis 24.7. All right, let's look those up. So you're looking down at your King James Bible there, aren't you? Look down at the King James in Genesis 12.7. Here's what the NIV says. The Lord appeared to Abraham and said to your offspring, I will give this land. So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. Now look at Genesis 13.15. I'll read to you from the NIV, the non-inspired version. You will be looking at the King James version. Genesis 13.15. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. And you look it up in 24.7, same thing. To your offspring will I give this land. Now hold on a second. Does that make any sense? The NIV just told us in Galatians 3, hey, he didn't say seeds as of many. He said seed. Here's three places to go look it up. And then you go look up those three places and it doesn't say seed. Now guess what? Every single Hebrew Bible on the planet says the Hebrew word for seed in these verses. That's what it says, seed. Zara is the word, not that that even matters. But the point is the Hebrew says seed. The King James Bible says seed. The New Testament author said seed. The NIV is even telling you, hey, if you go back and look it up, it's going to say seed. But then what do you find when you go back? You find this word offspring. Now let me ask you this. Is offspring clearly singular? At all? Well, I mean, he didn't say offspring. He said offspring. Why? Because guess what? Offspring is plural. It could be singular. Could be plural, but, you know, seed, when it gets plural, it becomes seeds. But do you like how the NIV is not even agreeing with itself? It's like the two false witnesses that they found to lie about Jesus. They couldn't even get them to agree with each other. You know, and just like Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are the two false witnesses that disagree with each other so much. And here even the NIV can't even agree with itself because it turns this into offspring. And by the way, guess what? The ESV does the same thing too. So much for the ESV being such a literal translation. Well, isn't that interesting that it changed it to offspring? And I'm sure there's no Zionist conspiracy to see here, folks. Move right along. And you know, these things matter because there's doctrine that's based on this. That's important in regard to Israel. But how about something that's a little bit closer to home that actually affects people's Christian lives even more deeply? How about the fact that the modern versions change the word fornication to sexual immorality? And by the way, it's not just the NIV. It's not just the ESV. The New King James does this too, the so-called New King James. Well, what's wrong with the New King James? It's also about as sharp as a butter knife compared to the two-edged sword of the King James Version. The New King James changes fornication to sexual immorality. Now here's the problem with that. If I look up immoral in the dictionary, here's what immoral means in the dictionary. Violating moral principles, and listen to this, don't miss this, not conforming to the patterns of conduct usually accepted or established as consistent with principles of personal and social ethics. I want you to pay attention to what it said there, not conforming to the patterns of conduct usually accepted. Now is that our standard for right and wrong according to the Word of God? Hey, are your practices conforming to what's normally accepted in our society? Because if not, you're immoral, buddy. You think that's how God teaches right and wrong in the Bible? Here's what else the dictionary said. Morals ethics refer to rules and standards of conduct and practice. Morals refers to generally accepted customs of conduct and right living in a society. Conforming to the individual's practice in relation to these, example, the morals of our civilization. How about this definition? Adhering to conventionally accepted standards of conduct. So when the Bible says flee fornication, hmm, I wonder what that means. Well if I look up fornication in the dictionary, here's what the dictionary says for fornication. It says voluntary sexual intercourse between two unmarried persons or two persons not married to each other. Voluntary sexual intercourse outside of marriage. That's what fornication is. It's sex outside of marriage. Any questions? You're not married and you go to bed together, it's fornication. And the Bible says flee fornication. But that's too hard to understand. The King James is too, it's too archaic. It's too hard to understand. I don't know what it means to flee. What does flee mean? Is that a bug? Flee means to run away, it means to run screaming in the other direction. It's saying don't play around with fornication, don't get close to fornication, don't get near it, don't toy with it, don't put yourself in positions where you're tempted with it. Run away from it. Flee fornication. But here's what the new King James says, here's what the NIV says, here's what the New American standard says. It says flee sexual immorality. So basically what they're telling you to flee is flee things that aren't conforming to the patterns of conduct usually accepted in our society. Folks that could mean anything you want it to mean. And you don't think there are people twisting that to mean what they want all day long? You don't think people are looking at that and saying, well hey, as long as you love each other, you know what, they could say, well immorality, that's when you don't love each other. Or that's when you're paying for it. Or well, it could mean anything. Whereas the Bible is giving us a very clear mandate here. And if you actually take that word, you can actually follow that word fornication through scripture and study it. Like you can look up every time fornication is used and read the mentions and then you know you're going to walk away with an understanding of, I understand what fornication means. I know what this means. This means I'm supposed to wait until I'm married to go to bed with someone. And you know what? If you believe that premarital sex is okay, you're an idiot. You're complete fool if you're going to say that you believe the Bible and that you're Christian and you believe that that's okay. It's insane. It's bizarre. You really think that God's intent is for people to go around and just be sleeping around and producing a bunch of bastard children and spreading disease. Folks, it's garbage, it's foolishness, it's ridiculous. And if you actually have a real Bible in your hand, it's going to tell you no to fornication over and over again. You must wait until you're married to indulge in that relationship. And then that relationship becomes a righteous relationship. That's why the Bible says marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. And so we're to flee fornication. Folks, that matters whether your Bible is telling you to flee fornication or just telling you, hey, don't be immoral. Because you know what? Our society is going to condone a lot. Our society is going to condone all kinds of premarital relations and tell you that it's fine as long as you love each other, as long as you do it safely, as long as it's consensual. That's the kind of things that they'll put under their morality. That's the morality in America today. You think the morality in America today is telling you abstinence, telling you, hey, you wait until you're married, you get married as a virgin, but you know what? You'd have to be a complete idiot to read the Bible and not walk away saying that God expects us to be pure until we're married. You'd have to be a complete idiot to read the Bible and think that God condones of premarital relations because it's so clear. But here's the thing. In the NIV it's about as clear as mud. In the ESV it's clear as mud and people can twist this. And look, I've, I've, I've been there, my friend, because I went to NIV preaching churches as a teenager and, and heard over and over again. This is not theory. This is something that I experienced where I heard adults and young people saying, yeah, but where does the Bible actually say that we, that premarital whatever is wrong? Where does the Bible actually say that? Does the Bible even teach that? I mean, it just says immorality. I've heard those conversations, friend, because that's people who want to justify their sins. Well, the NIV makes it easy for them. The New King James makes it a piece of cake for them because they can tell themselves that immorality is just whatever, whatever we decide it is this week in America, right? Folks, stuff that's considered right today in America wasn't considered right 30 years ago. You think, you think that a literal whore would have been elected vice president 20 years ago? Folks, people, even just 20 years ago, or a little more than 20 years ago, but less than 30 years ago, people were freaking out about Bill Clinton. You know, using the services of his intern and abusing his, his power and authority, but nowadays it's just, it's considered, uh, it's considered wonderful. It's considered wonderful for a 29 year old woman, Kamala Harris, to get in bed with some dude that's 60 years old and married to someone else and that's how she starts her career. I mean, it's an inspiration to little girls everywhere. I mean, it's like, I don't know, I mean, I was going to be a marine biologist, but it turns out that all I have to do is just be a whore with some 60 year old married man when I'm in my twenties and maybe I could become the vice president of the United States. Sounds great. Folks, that's the world we're living in today in America and you're going to let them tell you what the morality of the bedroom is when they fill the highest offices in our land with people who just say, oh well yeah, you just grab them by the whatever and they let you do it because you're a celebrity. That's our current president. And then we got our incoming vice president who is a literal prostitute. Somebody posts an article she wants to legalize prostitution. She wants to legalize herself. Folks, I don't care what the conventionally accepted standards of conduct are. I care what the Bible says. And you know what? The Bible says that a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves unto his wife and they too are one flesh, okay? And the Bible says, hey, I'm not going to take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot because my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and I'm not going to defile myself with fornication, I'm going to flee fornication. And when you get married, that is the only person you'd be physical with, period, okay? And this garbage of immorality. And why is the new King James doing it? Well, that's just because fornication is too hard of a word to understand. You know why fornication is a hard word to understand? Because nobody's talking about it anymore because we got a bunch of lame preachers who won't preach against it. You know, if every preacher had been thundering the word of God for the last 409 years, right? From the King James Version, from 1611 to 2020, if we had preachers getting up and yelling, don't fornicate, don't fornicate, don't fornicate, then everybody would know what that word meant. And you know why people have forgotten what that word means? It's because of the fact that nobody's preaching about it. They're too busy preaching sweetness and light and they don't even have a word for it anymore. So we don't have a word for this anymore. Well, let's just use immorality. I mean, I remember, look, when I first married my wife and I was practicing German and I was reading the Bible in German, she told me, she's like, I don't even think we have a word for fornication in German. I don't even think it exists. I'm like, come on, it's got to. And I went and looked it up and I found a word for it, unsucht. And she's like, well, I've never heard that used that way. I've never heard that. Because here's the thing, a lot of people aren't hearing about it in America either. It's called the word of God not being preached. Because if the word of God was being preached and being hammered, then people would walk away and you know what? They'd know what the word covet means. Well, we need to update the word covet. No, we need to just have some preaching against covetousness and then everybody will know what it means. You know, everybody will know what covet means, fornicate, everybody will know what a reprobate is if you'd actually preach about it. It's not that there's anything wrong with these words. It's that they're not being used because otherwise you'd be able to point to a new word that takes the place of it. What's the new word that takes the place of fornication? The reason that you don't have one is because the old one's just fine, it's just nobody's talking about it like they should. So the point is that these new versions have dulled God's word. It affects, number one, doctrine in the situation of Israel. People walk away with a screwed up Israel doctrine and their modern versions aren't helping. And then over here it affects the practice of the Christian life when you're watering down the teachings against fornication and so forth. But not only that, and I gotta hurry, but it can also have other unintended consequences. Like for example, look at Matthew 19, 9. This is the last place we'll turn, Matthew 19, 9. So I don't think it's a big deal to change fornication to immorality. What's the big deal? Well look at Matthew 19, verse 9, and the Bible has a very specific teaching here. It says, And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, excepted be for fornication, and shall marry another, comitteth adultery, and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. So here we're talking about divorce, and we have this exception, excepted be for fornication. Well here's the problem, in the modern versions, you know what they say? Well excepted be for sexual immorality. And you know what that basically means? Whatever you want it to mean. So basically, I've had men come to me and say, hey, my wife divorced me because I looked at pornography because the pastor told her that if you go back to the Greek, it's under that. You know, because immorality could be, I mean immorality, you could, so you could either go more permissive or more strict, and you could say, okay, well the Bible says not to even look at a woman to lust after her, or else you've committed adultery in your heart. So that means if a guy does that, his wife can divorce him. Because it's sexually immoral to look at a woman to lust after her. Do you see how dangerous this is? By putting this vague word, immorality, now basically men and women could be divorced all day long. They could divorce each other all day long because all they have to do is just point to some immorality. Whatever that, that could be a thought, that could be looking at something wicked, that could be, and look, I'm not obviously condoning the wickedness of looking at pornography, but I'm going to tell you something, you don't divorce your spouse over that. That's not what the Bible teaches, and that is not something that would fall under fornication. Okay, but here's the thing. If you got the NIV or the New King James or the ESV, I mean this, again, this can mean whatever you want. It's just immorality, whatever you want. It could be, I mean, I don't want to be, I don't want to be graphic or blunt or anything, but think about it, you could put anything you want in this immorality word. You could just say, well, my husband wasn't very loving with me the way that he did it and it was immoral. It's just like, you could say whatever you want. And let me tell you something, people who want to get divorced, they, you know what, when you give them an exception, they want to find a way to make their situation fit that exception. You know what I'm saying? Like if you, like you'll tell people, like I've been in churches where they said, well, if the unbelieving spouse depart, then you can get married to someone else. And then basically, then they're just on a crusade to prove that their spouse is an unbeliever. Even though their spouse has been a devout Christian for decades. But there are, because they want to get that, they want to get in on that exception. Or I've heard them say this, well, if they depart, well, I heard a pastor say, well, he had already departed emotionally. She departed emotionally or like, or like where the Bible says, well, if your husband's dead, then you can marry someone else if your husband's dead. And they're like, well, he's dead spiritually. You know, faith without works is dead and he's not doing works, so therefore he's dead. Folks, I've heard it all. It's out there. I'm not kidding. So, so here's the thing. You know, God here is given a real clear teaching, real, one clear exception that you can't really put a round peg into this square hole here when he just says, hey, except it's fornication. Because fornication has a really clear definition, okay. Whereas sexual immorality, I mean, people who want to get divorced and remarried are going to have a field day with that one. You know, oh, well, he looked at something inappropriate. Or I, I was out, I was at the mall and I caught him staring at some babe that went by or, or he looked at a dirty magazine or, you know, he wasn't loving to me. It was immoral the way that he treated me. It's just like, what? Does everybody see what I'm saying? It's a jungle out there when you get into this just interpretations of just vague language. Folks, there are already so many interpretations of the Bible when it's clear. We don't need some dolled up, muddied up, fogged up version, my friend. We need the precise, sharp, two-edged sword of the King James Bible. And folks, I hope that when you hear this sermon, you walk away saying, wow, it is important that we, that we're King James. Sorry, the New King James is not close enough, okay. And when you understand the fact that God gave us human alphabet just in time, thousands of years with no alphabet, but it shows up just in time to give us the Old Testament so it could be precise. God gives us that vehicle to carry his word to us with precision. It matters. Words matter. So I'll conclude with this. God has spoken and we know exactly what God said because of the precision of God's word. He has not left us in the dark. We don't have to wonder what the truth is. The Bible says we have the mind of Christ. The Bible says we have a more sure word of prophecy. And you know what? That should motivate you to want to read your Bible more when you realize that you're reading exactly what God said. Because I remember when I first learned about that, because when I was a teenager I didn't understand these things and I was going to churches that used the NIV, they used the New American Standard and it was all these different versions and they were saying different things and I kind of felt like, you know, that we just had the gist in a lot of places. But we don't really know exactly what God said. We'd have to learn Greek and Hebrew to know exactly. But I remember once I, once I figured out, no, these modern versions are corrupting God's word. They're not different translations. Because here's the thing, when you see these two dramatically different books and you think they're both coming from the same Greek, you're like, well, we got to go to the Greek to figure this out. Because look how different this is. But folks, as soon as I figured out these are coming from different Greek and I realized, no, no, no, it's not the translation that's the problem, it's the source that's the problem in most cases. Once I realized that the King James Bible was translating what the Greek said and that it was accurate and that it was God's word delivered faithfully into English, you know, it made me want to read my Bible more. When I realized that the King James Bible was not roughly what God said, but when I realized, hey, the King James Bible is precisely what God said. This is exactly what God said. God has preserved it for us. It's the inspired word of God preserved and transmitted into our native language. You know, once I realized, wow, this is exactly what God said and you might take that for granted, but to me this was kind of an epiphany when I was 16 years old and I realized that. It made me want to read the Bible so much more. It should motivate you to want to read the Bible more when you realize that you're getting not just the general thought or the general idea, but that you have the very words of God at your fingertips. Folks, what a treasure this is. But you know what? You got the New King James or the ESV or the NIV, folks, all bets are off. This is the only one that, you know, I'll stand up here and I will guarantee that everything in this book is right. I will guarantee, I'll stake my life on that. I'll stake my soul on that, that everything in this book is right. But you know what? With the NIV, the ESV, the New King James, well, good luck with that. Some of it's going to be right. Good luck figuring out which parts are screwed up because there's a lot. You got to get a King James and read this thing and understand that God's word is precise. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this wonderful treasure that we have in your word. Thank you for not leaving us in the dark and Lord, thank you for not giving us a picture book and making us sort through a bunch of hieroglyphs, Lord. Thank you for actually giving it to us spelled out in a language that we can understand, Lord. I just pray that your people would love your word and understand the importance of reading every word and that we would be a church that loves the Bible, reads the Bible, knows the Bible. And Lord, if there's anybody here today who's never read the Bible cover to cover, every single chapter, every single verse, Lord, I pray that 2021 would be the year, Lord, that they set that goal and that they get that calendar, they get that chart, they make that plan that they read the entire Bible cover to cover in 2021. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Let's take our hymnals and turn to number 314. Hymn number 314, more love to thee oh Christ. Number 314. Singing on that first verse, number 314. Verse number 314. My earnest plea, More love, O Christ, to Thee, More love to Thee, More love to Thee. Once earthly joy I pray, Stop, peace, and rest. Now be our Lord as He Give what is past, This all my prayers shall be, More love, O Christ, to Thee, More love to Thee, More love to Thee. Let sorrow do its work, Send grief and pain, See our life's destined turns, Sweet their refrain, When they can sing with Thee, More love, O Christ, to Thee, More love to Thee, More love to Thee. Thanks shall my greatest friend, Whisper Thy praise, This be the heart implied, My heart shall raise. This stillness prayer shall be, More love, O Christ, to Thee, More love to Thee, More love to Thee. That great scene this morning marks the best. . . .