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

So, with that Bible reading and the memory verse, does anybody want to take a guess as to what I'll be preaching on tonight? What do you think? What do you think it was, Michael Jr.? What do you think I'll be preaching on tonight? The preservation of God's word. The preservation of God's word. Yeah, and as a church, and I hope this is your position at a church, but my personal opinion is that God has preserved his word in the King James Bible. As far as the English is concerned anyway, you know, the King James Bible, and I even question whether there is another language that has the perfect preserved word of God in its own language, like perfectly. I'm saying that there are a lot of languages that have actually used the King James Bible for their translation. In fact, I have one lady who visits us once in a while, she's from Papua New Guinea, up on the Sunshine Coast, and she brought, a few weeks ago, she brought and gave me a King James Bible on one side, and then, I can't remember, was it Pidgin? Papua New Guinean language? That was a recent translation, so sort of this side-by-side English with the native tongue, but the people that had translated it to their native tongue hadn't gone back to their Greek or Hebrew, but they went back to the King James Bible and translated the English into that tongue. So, I truly believe the King James Bible is a special book. It's not just another translation, but that it is the perfect preserved word of God. So, Psalm 12 verse 6, if you have your Bible there, Psalm 12 verse 6, let's read that again. It says, the words of the Lord are pure words. What does it mean to be pure? It means it's perfect. There's no corruption. Somewhere in the world, there's the word of God that's pure, perfect, without corruption. And then it says, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Now, I don't know if you understand that, but when someone takes like a precious metal, like a silver, or like gold, once it's mined out of the earth, it doesn't come pure silver or pure gold. You know, there's dirt. There might be other types of metals that need to be taken out of that to create purity, to create pure silver. And quite often, it's tried in the furnace. It's put under extreme heat, and when it's put under that extreme heat, the dross, or like the Bible calls it, the reprobate silver, gets removed out of the pure, the purity silver. And so the Bible says, look, His words are like this perfect, pure silver that's been perfected seven times. And if you know your Bible, number seven often means the number of completion. Okay, so there's something completed, something perfect, something pure available to us, and then verse number seven says, Thou shalt keep them, O Lord. So whose job is it to keep those words pure? It's not my job, is it? It's not some church's job. It says, Thou shalt keep them, O Lord. The Lord God is the one that's going to preserve them, to keep them. Thou shalt preserve them from this generation, what generation? The generation that the Son was written at least, forever, forever. So the Word of God, you know, from what we read here, it's pure without corruption. God Himself promised that He's going to preserve it, and it's preserved forever. There's always a perfect Word of God available to us today. And yet, how many English Bibles, how many English translations exist today? Hundreds, okay, literally hundreds. And so the position of this church is that we are King James only. The Bible that's going to be preached from by me, or if someone else gets behind hearing preachers, it'll be from the King James Bible. Our ministries, our door-to-door sovereignty ministries will be from the King James Bible. And any other future ministries this church ever has will be based on the King James Bible. And so I want to talk to you, the title of this sermon today is the King James Bible. I wanted to talk to you about the Word of God and why we hold this as our highest authority. I wanted to make sure that this was one of our first early sermons that we talk about so everybody understands why we use the King James Bible as our standard. Now, if you've ever done any research in this, probably a lot of things that I'm going to talk about you may already know. So I'm hoping to give you some new things that maybe you haven't considered before. But when we look at Psalm 12, if you look at the early verses there, let's have a look at verse number 2. Talking about men, right? They speak vanity, every one with his name. What does it mean to speak vanity? It means emptiness. It has no value. And then verse number 2, with flattering lips and with a double heart they speak. We might say that's a double-tongued person. They say one thing but they actually mean something else. Or they say one thing to that person and they'll say the opposite thing to another person to keep everybody happy. And what I believe Psalm 12 is about is comparing the words of men that are vanity, that's full of flattery, that's empty and double-tongued versus the Word of God which is perfect and pure and preserved. It doesn't matter how much wisdom a man has, how eloquent they are with their speech, their words come second, or not even second sometimes, to the Word of God which we have. The Word of God is the foundation of this church. It is what we build our faith upon. It is what we build our work upon. But it's also not just a foundation, but it is the authority. It covers all the way. Anything that gets preached by me will come from the Bible, come from the Word of God. And we are sure that there is a preserved Word of God today. And the people that laugh at us for believing that the King James Bible is perfect, ask them the question, is there a perfect Word of God available today or not? And if they say yes, we'll say, well, put it in my hand please. Can I see it? Can you please put it in my hand? And this is what they'll say, oh, it's in the original Greeks and the Hebrews. Okay, put the original Greeks and the Hebrews in my hands. They won't even be able to do that. Now, there is a Greek translation which they say the King James Bible has been built upon. But that same Greek translation that gets given to people was actually built from the King James Bible, believe it or not. Because back in 1611 when the King James Bible was translated, they had about 5,000 texts. The translators, 40-some translators, had the text. They put it together. But it wasn't like the single Greek text that they took it from. They took it from the majority text, over 5,000 texts. And so you don't have this single volume Greek that you can give someone and say, well, here it is. In fact, that single volume Greek, like I said, was built using the King James Bible. They've gone back to the English and said, okay, they must have taken it from these passages and then put it together. What I'm trying to say to you is that Greek translation is younger than the King James Bible. So this is something for you to think about. But let me give you some Bible facts. First of all, the Bible was written during a period of 1600 years. 1,600 years. Why? Because the Bible is not one book, is it? The Bible is a collection of 66 books. And that word Bible, if you know Spanish, we've got a word, sorry, the Latin word is biblios. And if you know Spanish, we've got the word biblioteca, which comes from that biblios, meaning library. And what's a library? A library is a place full of books. The Bible is not this one singular book. It's 66 books. I mean, obviously, if you know your Bible, if you've read it, you'll realize that. And you'll understand that not every book is alike. Some of the books are songs. Some of the books are poetry. Some of the books are history. Some of the books are letters written to churches. Some are letters written to single people, a singular person like a Titus or a Timothy. Some of it's history. Some of it's been written by kings. Some of it's been written by fishermen. Some of it has been written by shepherds. All across the board in the 1600 years, the 40 authors that offered the Bible were from all walks of life. And you might say, well, does that mean those 40 authors? No. The fact that the Bible is so consistent, the fact that the Bible has no contradictions proves that there's one offer. There's one offer, and that offer being our Lord God. And people say again, people laugh at the Bible and say, well, you know, it's there to control the masses. But hold on. 1600 years, 40 different authors from all walks of life put together the Bible, and it's perfect. How can you say this is controlling the masses when a fisherman, for example, why would they want to control the masses? What are they going to gain out of that? Maybe a king would, maybe like a King David or something, but surely not people from other walks of life. There's 66 books, Old and New Testament. The Old Testament has 39 books, and the New Testament has 27 books. Obviously, the Old Testament, if you looked at it, is much larger than the New Testament alone. And, did you know this, but the Bible's been translated in 2,454 languages, at least when I last looked. Maybe it's been translated in more since then. 2,454 languages. That would include dialects of other nations as well. This book has gone out throughout the whole world, you know, has gone throughout all the major nations in many, many tongues. There's no excuse for not knowing the Bible. Even if you grow up in a nation that is not Christian, because the Word of God is available in those languages. Now, you might say, well, why do you believe the Bible? Why do you believe the King James Bible? Why do you believe it at all? I guess the natural answer to that is I grew up in a Christian home. I grew up with Christian parents, mum and dad being here right now. Fantastic. Grew up in a Christian environment. They held the Word of God as the final authority. They took me to church. I learnt about the Bible there. My mum read to me the Bible before going to bed at night. That's one key reason why I believe the Bible. But the other reason, if I didn't grow up in a Christian home, the other reason I believe the Bible is exactly what I just told you. 1,600 years, 40 different authors all writing about God, and it's perfect. It's consistent. There's no contradictions. Like, could you imagine taking us, this group that we are right now, what's something we all have in common? Let's see. I don't know. Sydney, I guess. We have Sydney in common, right? Let's say we all wrote a chapter. We all decide, hey, let's all write a book on Sydney. You can write about history. You can write about Sydney poetry. And we all wrote about that. Do you think, and we're all here. We're all together. We can all talk to one another. But do you think we're going to create a book, if we all took a chapter each, do you think we're going to create a book that's consistent and perfect without contradictions? Of course not. You know, someone's going to get their history a little bit mixed up this way. Someone's going to say, well, this happened first and this happened. Someone else will contradict that. Some people would have a political view this way. Others would have a political view that way. There's going to be contradictions. There's going to be conflict no matter how. And look, we're all together. We all live in the same city. Could you imagine 1,600 years, 40 different authors, many of them that did not know one another, get together and write this book on God, on faith, on Jesus Christ, and get it all 100% correct. There are no contradictions. There are no contradictions. To me, the Bible is an impossible book. We couldn't do it. We couldn't do one book about Sydney without contradictions. No way. To me, something that is impossible for man, but it proves that it is possible by God. And so if God ever wrote a book, it would be the Bible. That's why I believe the Bible is so important. It's impossible for man. And let me just quickly read to you from 2 Peter 1, verse 20. You can turn there if you want. 2 Peter 1, verse 20. This is Peter speaking. He says, Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. So these authors, yes, they wrote it down, but it was the Holy Ghost that moved in them. It was God that drove them to write down these words. And if God of the universe, the Creator of all things, can create this whole world in six days, surely putting down the Bible, writing down so many different things, wouldn't be that difficult for him, right? Because these men had the same God, the same Holy Ghost moving in them, and they were able to jot down these words. I'll quickly read to you from 2 Timothy 3, 16. The Bible says, All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. The reason why God has left us His word is so that we can be fully furnished, that we can be complete as believers, to know the wisdom of God, to know the knowledge of God, so we can get through this world until we reach eternity. There's a whole purpose for having the word of God. My point is the Bible is impossible for man, but it's totally possible for God to put together. Now when we talk about the King James Bible, we're going to get back to that topic, and then we talk about the English language, okay? Now when we think about the English language, wouldn't you agree that today is the international language? I mean, every nation under the sun learns English in school. It doesn't matter where you're from now. You're learning English at least as a second language. And wouldn't you say it's also true that most missionaries that have been sent out throughout the whole world have come from an English speaking background? Like a Western nation has sent them out to go and preach to the whole world. So if that's the case, do you not think that God in His infinite wisdom would know He would need to have the perfect word of God in English? And yet again you say, well hold on, there are literally hundreds of English translations. How do we know it's the King James Bible? That's correct. So even though there's over a hundred English translations, even though that's true, there's really only two Bibles. There's only really two English Bibles available. And the first one, like I said to you, is based on the majority text. When the King James translators back in the 1600s put together this book, they had over 5,000 manuscripts to work on. And these manuscripts largely agreed with one another. There were some differences. There might have been some differences on how they spell someone's name. For example, it might be Matthew, or it might say Matthew, or it might say Matthias. There might be variations of how that name was said. There were these differences, but by and large these 5,000 manuscripts agreed with one another. And this is what formulates the majority text. If you've heard that word before, the majority text was put together by a man named Erasmus, and there were other editors that took these 5,000 texts, and would create a Greek text from these manuscripts. And Erasmus was one of the main ones that did that, and the one that Erasmus put together was called the Textus Receptus. I don't know if you've heard of that phrase either. But there are different types of Greek texts that come out of the majority texts. I'm just quoting you the most common ones. Now, as far as the English Bible is concerned, the King James Bible is the only one that's in current use today as something that is sold on a regular basis and read on a regular basis that comes from that majority text. Every other modern Bible that's at least popular, that's used in a lot of churches out there, that is not the King James Bible, is another English text, or another Greek text I should say. And that is from the minority text. Now think about this. If there's over 5,000 manuscripts, and today it's more like 9,000 manuscripts because they keep finding more and more, that agree with one another, and that's what you're going to base the Bible on, how many texts do you think that minority text, the second Bible, is built on? It's only two. It's only two texts versus thousands of texts. And those two texts are two manuscripts that were discovered in the... Well, one of them is called the Sinaiticus text, which was found in a trash can in a monastery in 1844. Found in a trash can. It was rubbish. The monks of that monastery put it in a bin. They didn't need it. And it was discovered, and they found, wow, this is such an old manuscript. It must be really good because it's so old. The second one is called the Vaticanus manuscript, and that was discovered in the Roman Catholic Vatican library back in 1481. And so you've got these two texts that are really old. And you might say, well, Kevin, why are they really old? They're really old because nobody read them. Nobody cared about them. That's why it lasted for so long because if you're... I'm sure some of you guys have had Bibles for a lot of your life, and if you've read them a lot, after a few years, your Bible starts to fall apart, doesn't it? I mean, you either need to replace it or you get it rebound or something, especially if you read a lot in it. And so a Bible that's being used, paper that's being used time and time again is going to deteriorate. But Bibles or texts that are not being used and nobody cares about it, just shitting on a shelf, they're going to be able to preserve longer because nobody's opening and closing it. And back then, obviously, you had the scrolls and all that kind of stuff. And so these texts weren't even being used. And based on these two texts, these two manuscripts, they created all these other versions of the English translation, the NIV, the ESV, the New King James Bible even. And so my point is there's only two Bibles in the world, as far as the English is concerned. The King James, which is based on a majority text, and pretty much every other modern translation, which is based on these two manuscripts, this minority text. And by the way, within those minority texts, there was hundreds of contradictions between them. So how did they choose which one to use? I have no idea. Now, the reason why they've gone with these two texts, these two manuscripts, is because they say, wow, they're older. Yes, we have less of them, only two, versus the thousands, but they're older than the majority texts. Like I said, why are they older? Because nobody used them. And so they think, well, naturally they think, well, because they're older, they must be more reliable. They must have less errors in them. That doesn't prove anything, just because they're older. It just proves that nobody used them. They knew it wasn't legit. Back then, even if you read the Bible, Paul is saying there are people that are changing the Word of God. Even back then, in the first century, Christianity. So just because you find older texts doesn't prove that it's better. It just proves that they're older. That's what it proves. But even if that was their go-to, it's older, the problem with that is, these texts are said to be from the fourth century, so from the 300s, the fourth century. The problem with that is that there are Bible translations, and I'll just quote some of them to you. I don't even know what it is. But old translations from the second century, so a good 200 years before these texts were supposedly written, which is the Peshitta Bible, the old Latin Vulgate Bible, there were some Waldensian translations, and these Bibles that are older translations than these minority texts we're using will agree with the majority text. So if you're going to go with older is better, well then the earlier translations, even before these discoveries, they're older, they were agreement with the majority text, not with the minority text. So even that argument doesn't really measure up in this argument. So let's move on. Let's move on. Let's talk about the best-selling Bibles. So I've done a Google search, I looked at what the five best-selling Bibles are in Australia, and these are the top five selling Bibles, or maybe even in the whole world. The best-seller right now is the NIV, the New International Version. Now what's funny about that is that the NIV publishers have come out with a more recent upgrade, which was the TNIV. And even though they say this is better, people are still buying the old NIV. That's the top seller. The second best-seller is the King James Bible, which is amazing, because you have everybody saying it's so hard to read, we can't even make it out, but yet it's the second most best-selling Bible right now. The third best-seller is the New Living Translation, the fourth best-seller is the New King James Bible, and the fifth best-seller is the English Standard Version. Now, when it comes to the King James Bible, let me give you some reasons why I believe it's preserved. First of all, when you talk about anybody that believes in a preserved Bible, someone that believes we have a perfect, preserved Bible, what are they going to say is the preserved word of God? I mean, if somebody actually believes that, what do they usually quote? They always say it's the King James Bible. I mean, somebody that believes in a perfect, preserved word of God, they always say it's the King James Bible, don't they? Like, if you ask me, Kevin, what is the preserved word of God available to us today? I would say it's the King James Bible. But have you ever heard anybody say to you, well, the NIV is the perfect, preserved word of God? Even the people that use the NIV, have you ever heard them say this is the perfect, preserved word of God? It doesn't happen. What about the New King James Bible? Doesn't happen. The English Standard Version, it doesn't happen. The only people that would stand up and say we have a perfect, preserved word of God in English, and you ask them what it is, it's the King James Bible. Now, we'll talk about that in a minute, but let me just say this to you. What's so special about the King James Bible is that there's been over one billion copies produced of the King James Bible throughout the whole world. Even though it is the second bestseller Bible, it's been selling since the 1600s, and there's been over a billion copies of that. That's a thousand million copies. It is the most sold and the most produced book of all time. I mean, if God was going to give us the perfect, preserved word of God, wouldn't we expect it to be the best-selling, most produced book ever created? Number one is the King James Bible. The second most selling book of all time is a book called Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong. It didn't sell 900 million copies. It was produced by Communist China and pretty much given to every person in the population. There was 900 million of those produced. So even the second most produced book of all time is not even a Bible translation. But the best-selling book of all time and the most produced book of all time is a Bible, but it happens to be the King James Bible in English. So it's just amazing in and of itself. The other thing about the King James Bible, if you don't know this, you might say, well, why do we call it the King James Bible? Are we holding King James as a high authority? Well, back in the 1600s, King James authorized translators to put together an English Bible that all the churches would use in England and in Scotland and throughout the whole world. But back then when it was translated, it was not called the King James Bible. Do you want to guess what it was called? It was called the Holy Bible. It was called the Holy Bible back then when it was translated. It didn't have King James' name on it. The reason we call it the King James Bible today is because, again, we're dealing with 100-plus Bible translations. And so to separate it from all the others, we call it the King James Bible today. But back then, it was simply translated as the Holy Bible. It's not like King James wanted to lift his name up above the word of God or anything like that. So that's why it's called the King James Bible. Now, you might say to me, well, why, Kevin, why do you believe the King James Bible is a preserved, perfect word of God today? Number one, please turn to 2 Timothy 2. 2 Timothy 2, verse 8. 2 Timothy 2, verse 8. Why I believe the King James Bible is the perfect, preserved word of God for us today, number one, is because the word of God is not bound and it's not restricted. The word of God is not bound. Let's look at 2 Timothy 2, verse 8. So this is Paul saying, hey, I'm currently in bonds. Because I went preaching the gospel, I've been thrown in prison. But then what does he say? The word of God is not bound. What he's saying though, even though I'm in prison, the word of God, the gospel, is not bound. It's not being restricted by prison. It's not being restricted by anything. The word of God is free to go throughout the whole world, even though I myself am in bonds. The word of God is not bound. It is not restricted. And you know, when we talk about all these other Bibles, guess what? They're bound. They're restricted. It's called copyright. Okay? It's called copyright. Let me explain this to you very quickly. So I was just looking at these four other translations, obviously. The NIV, the most popular ones, the New Living Translation, the New King James Bible, the ESV. All of them have something similar like this written into it. I'll just read it to you. I'll read it from the NIV, but they all kind of say something similar. It says, the NIV text may be quoted in any form, written, visual, electronic, or audio, up to an inclusive of 500 verses without express written permission of the publisher, providing the verses do not amount to the complete book of the Bible, nor do the verses quoted account for 25% or more of the total text of the work in which they are quoted. What does that mean? It means, yes, they allow churches to use the NIV, but if a church or a person wants to publish an NIV using more than 500 verses, they have to get permission from the publisher. That's a restriction. They say, well, maybe the publisher will say, yeah, that's fine. No. What they mean by permission is they want to be paid a royalty. Okay? If you're going to publish this much, it's going to cost you this much. Okay? So the NIV and all these other translations are restricted or are bound by copyright. I'm not against copyright in and of itself, but the Bible, the Word of God, is bound by copyright in these modern Bibles. He said, well, isn't the King James Bible copyrighted? In fact, if you look at your King James Bibles, there may be some of them that do have copyright. I'll explain that to you in a minute. But when I looked up the copyright requirement on the King James Bible, it says the King James Version is public domain in the United States. It's the same for Australia as well. It's public domain. What does it mean to be public? It means it's available to anybody. You can create your own Bible without getting in trouble, without having to ask permission. You can take the words of the King James Bible and publish your own Bibles. And you say, well, hold on. My King James Bible has copyright on it. I'll tell you what the copyright means on your King James Bible. It means that the publisher of the King James Bible, the fonts they used, the way they structured those words, that was copyrighted. So you can't just take somebody's like, let's say, whoever the publisher was for this one, the Trinitarian Bible Society, I can't just photocopy all of this and create an identical Bible basically using exactly the same format that they've done. But the words themselves are not copyrighted. You understand the difference of taking somebody, the way they formatted it and broke it up and published it? I can't just make a copy of all that and publish it. That would be copyright. But the words are not bound. The words can be taken. You can create your own Bible using the King James Bible, but you won't be able to do that with all these other modern translations. So one reason why I believe the King James Bible is the true word of God today, it is not bound, it is not restricted. You can use as much Bible as you want. You can use all the words you want without having to ask permission to anybody. God has given us the freedom to use His word. The second reason why I believe the King James Bible is our perfect preserved word of God is because it is the indisputable English standard. You say, well, no, no, it's the English standard to you, Kevin. Remember last week I spoke about standards and samples and how Jesus Christ is our standard, He is the one that we look to, we don't look to men. Well, when it comes to the King James Bible, believe it or not, everybody, those that love the King James Bible and those that hate the King James Bible, they all agree on one thing. It's the indisputable English standard. And I'll prove this to you in a minute. But if you've got other Bibles, let's say you've got an NIV or whatever, or even the King James, some of them have a little introduction and it's sort of a letter to King James saying, hey, we've translated your Bible, it can now be used, blah, blah, blah. Well, a lot of the modern Bibles also have an introduction explaining why they translated this Bible, explaining, oh, it took this many people, it took this many years, the reason we did it was this reason or that reason, whatever. They give a just full introduction as to why they translated that specific Bible. Now, let me read to you the introduction to all these other Bibles and notice one thing. I'll read to you from the NIV. I'm just reading portions of it from the NIV. So this is before you even get to Genesis. This is the beginning of it. It says this about the NIV. The initial vision of the project was provided by a single individual, an engineer working with General Electric in Seattle by the name of Howard Long. So this man Howard Long, it was his idea to come up with the NIV. Now, it says this. Notice this. Long was a lifelong devotee to the King James Version. Why do you have to mention the King James Version? So this man that came up with the NIV was a lifelong devotee to the King James Version. But when he shared it with his friends, he was distressed to find that it didn't connect. Oh, hold on. I love the King James Bible so much, but when I share the verses with my friends, they can't connect with it. So I'm going to come up with my own Bible. Is that how it works? Look, we go out soul winning every week. We use the King James Bible. We speak to people that have never read the Bible in their lives. We speak to people that have never been to church in their lives. And we read it, and they scratch in their heads, I don't understand what you're talking about. You know? For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Oh, I can't understand. I can't connect with that. What is that going about? Can't you do a NIV? Can't you do something more modern, something easier to understand? No. You know, it's easier to understand, right? You know, um... Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. You know? For by grace that ye are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God. Not of works lest any man should boast. Is that hard to understand? Of course not, okay? But it's interesting that in the introduction they have to point to the man they come up with, oh, by the way, he loves the King James Bible. You know, we've got to mention the King James Bible because everybody knows that's the standard. And they know that every Bible gets compared to the King James Bible. Even the publishers of these modern Bibles know what the standard is. And they have to explain why they've done a new translation. And when they explain it, oh, because the King James Bible is hard to understand. Okay? I'll finish reading here. It says, how long saw the need for a translation that captured the truths he loved in the language that his contemporaries spoke. So, he loved the King James Bible. We want you to know that if you're buying the NIV, the guy that came up with the idea loved the King James Bible. Why? Why? Why did they say he loved the English translation, the English standard version? Or he loved the New Living Translation. They never say that. They always go back to the King James Bible. Let me give you the introduction to the ESV, the English standard version. It says this. The words and phrases themselves grow out of the Tyndale King James legacy. So, the words in the English translation grow out of the King James legacy. And most recently, out of the RSV, we have the 1971 RSV text providing the starting points for our work. So, again, yeah, we've got a new Bible, but we want you to know that it's come out of the King James legacy. What does that mean? It's used in the minority texts, which have nothing to do with the majority texts, which the King James Bible have translated from. What legacy are they following? They're not following the King James. But notice again, they have to. The King James Bible, we want you to know, it's the legacy of the King James. No, it's not. And they know, they know exactly what they need to compare themselves to. What about the New King James version? I read the New King James for a lot of my life. It was one of my first Bibles, the New King James Bible. It has nothing to do with King James. At least the King James Bible was commissioned and authorized by King James himself to go and to get people to go and translate it. King James had something to do with it, okay? But the New King James Bible is a modern translation long after King James was already dead. It's not an update to the King James Bible. Again, it uses the minority texts, but a bit of a mixture with the majority texts as well. But here's what's interesting about it. The New King James Bible, I'll just read the introduction bits here. It says, commissioned in 1975, so over 300 years later after the King James Bible, by Thomas Nelson Publishers. Now why don't they just call it the Thomas Nelson Publishers version? Why do they call it the New King James version? It's got nothing to do with the King James version, nothing at all. But if they called it the Thomas Nelson Translation, nobody would buy it. So what do they need to do? They need a consumer to think, oh, I'm getting a King James Bible with updated English. That's not what they got. They got the Thomas Nelson Translation, okay? But then this is what it says. 130 respected Bible scholars, church leaders, and lay Christians worked for seven years, now pay attention to these words, to create a completely new modern translational scripture. So they want to call it the New King James, but they themselves say it's a completely new translation. That means it's not even the same Bible. It's not even comparable to the other one. Create a completely new modern translational scripture, yet one that would retain the purity and stylistic beauty of the original King James. So what are they saying? The translators, the publishers are saying, we want a Bible that's beautiful like the King James Bible, and it is beautiful. The King James Bible truly is a beautiful book to read, but it's completely new as well. What? So it just shows you that even though they call it the New King James Bible, they themselves admit it is totally new, totally different to the King James. We just want it to make it sound like it. But again, they've got to go back to the King James Bible. They don't say that we're trying to sound beautiful like the NIV, right? No, they say we're trying to sound beautiful like the original King James Bible. And then for the New living translation, the New living translation, this is what it says. In the past 150 years, scholars such as Tischendorf, Trigelles, Westcott and Hort, and by the way, it was Westcott and Hort, two guys that took these minority texts, the Vanakanis and the Sinai Atticus, and created a new Greek text, which is what all these other modern English translations are translated from. So they mention these people that came up with this new text, Nestle and Alland, and look at this, have produced editions of the Greek New Testament based on the evidence of the earlier and superior manuscripts. They say, well, see, these are superior manuscripts. In these editions, most of the scribal expansions that appear in the Texas Receptus have been eliminated. So we've eliminated scribal expansions. What does that mean? They're saying we're removing parts of the Bible for you because that was expanded in the Texas Receptus. But now we know better that those verses and those chapters, they're not really meant to be in the Bible, so they call it expansion, you know, and we've removed that so it's more accurate apparently. It's been eliminated. Thus, modern translations based on these Greek editions also differ from the King James Version and New King James Version. But look at this, especially in the Gospels. So they're like, hey, you know, we differ from the King James Bible, especially in the Gospels. We're going to read about Jesus Christ the most. Where do you learn about Jesus Christ, who he was, how he lived, what his ministry was, you know, why he came to the earth? We read about all that in the Gospels. And they're saying in the New Living Translation, oh, we're totally different in that area, you know, like it's a good thing. Seen in this light, the reader must realize that modern translators have not removed anything from the scriptures. In other words, the King James added things to the scriptures, is what they're saying. Rather, they have simply translated a Greek text that is closer to the original Greek New Testament. So, you know, we've just been innocent. We're just translating a better text apparently. But now look at this. This is what I find so funny about the New Living Translations translators. If the translators of the King James Version were alive today, they would have done the same. So if they were still alive with us, they'd be with us. They would be translating this New Living Translation with us. And then it says, in their day, they used the best Greek text available to them. So it's like they didn't know any better, and so if they were living the other day, they would have done the New Living Translation just like us. No. Because they knew about the Vaticanus. That was found in the 1400s. And some 200 years later, they translated the King James Bible. And guess what? They completely ignored the Vaticanus. Okay? So that's not even true. They knew about it. It was available there for hundreds of years before they did the King James Bible, and they ignored it because it didn't line up with the majority text. Okay? It was contradictive. It had the missing verses, which they say they've eliminated, you know, the so-called verses. So I just wanted to show you that all these other best-selling Bibles, what do they point back to? The King James Bible. Never themselves. Never themselves, right? The NIV's never like, hey, the New Living Translation has served us well up till now, but now it's time for the NIV. No. It's always the King James Bible is great, but now we need a new version. All of them are saying the same thing because they themselves know what the English standard is. The next reason why I believe the King James Bible is the perfect Word of God, it is because it is truly pure. It is truly perfect without error. Okay? Now, I had a... When I preached this sermon in Caloundra, I literally had two cups. Two cups of water. So I'm just going to get you to picture this in your mind. Two cups of water, and then I'm spitting one, but I won't spit in one this time. I'll just pretend I'm throwing dirt in one. I'll get another cup just to illustrate this. All right. In fact, I'll put some water in it. Just to illustrate the purpose. All right. I've got two cups of water right here, okay? You can drink both of them, okay? Both of them will satisfy your thirst to some extent, okay? It's water. It'll satisfy your thirst. Let's pretend this one over here that's closest to me represents the King James Bible, and this one represents the NIV, the ESV, the New Living Translation, the New King James Bible, et cetera, okay? The minority text. Now, the other reason, like I said, that I believe the King James Bible is perfect is because it's without error. Now, please turn to 2 Samuel 21. 2 Samuel 21, verse 19. 2 Samuel 21, verse 19. 2 Samuel 21, verse 19. In fact, I should probably turn there myself. 2 Samuel 21, verse 19. Now, before we read it, who killed Goliath? You know who killed Goliath? Yeah, you. Yeah. Who killed Goliath? Do you remember? Yeah. David, right? David, David, Goliath? Most people know this. I mean, you go and talk to anybody. Even the unchurched know that David killed Goliath, right? Even if you're watching a sporting, like let's say you're watching sports and there's like a weak team versus a big team, like a strong team, and quite often they'll say in sports, you know, this is a David and Goliath, you know, battle, you know, between the weaker and the greater one. Generally speaking, everybody knows this, you know, that David killed Goliath. And you would think the Bible translators would get this right, okay? Now, you read this, you look at this while I read from the English standard version the English standard version. It says this, in the English standard version it says, and there was again war with the Philistines at Gog, and Elhaddon, the son of Jeroghim, the Bethlehemite, struck down Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. So according to the English standard version, Elhaddon killed Goliath. You think, no way. Who's David? Well, English standard version says Goliath, you know, Elhaddon killed Goliath. So that's an error. I mean, look, we don't need to go back to the Greek, we don't need to go back to the Hebrew, we don't need to do, you know, some massive study, we can immediately see this huge fail in the English standard version. So can we say the English standard version is perfect? No, it's got error, all right? And I won't spin this cup, but pretend I've got some dirt and I'm gonna throw a little bit of dirt of error into this cup. It's still water, but I'm still gonna, I'm gonna throw a little bit of error, a little bit of dirt in that cup, okay? There it is. Now what does the King James Bible say? 2 Samuel 21 verse 19, it says, and there was again a battle in Gog with the Philistines where Elhaddon, the son of Jerogh, Arigim, a Baphometite, slew the brother of Goliath, the Gittites. So is it saying here that David killed Goliath? It's not saying that, but it's still accurate, it's saying that Elhaddon killed the brother of Goliath. That would be accurate, that would be correct. Why? Because we know David killed Goliath, okay? And so the King James Bible is accurate, it doesn't have a contradiction, it's perfect in this passage, but the English Standard Version, they were like, well, that's what the Greek text says, so we're gonna translate it. Well, you got the bad text. You know, you haven't gone with the majority text and it shows you how corrupt they've got the Bible. So let's say that was the one error in the English Standard Version, just a little bit of dirt in this water, would you still drink that water with a little bit of dirt or would you rather drink the water that's perfect and clean? You drink the one that's perfect and clean, the one that's pure, not the one with a little bit of dirt, okay? Okay. Please turn to 1 Corinthians 1, 1 Corinthians 1, verse 18. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 18. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 18. The Bible says in the King James Bible, it says, Preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God. Are you saved today? According to the Bible, it says which are saved, you know, past tense. It's happened already. You're already saved, okay? You believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. That means you are saved today if you've done that. If you've placed your faith in Jesus Christ. What does the New King James Version say? The updated beautiful, trying to be beautiful like the King James Bible, this is what it says. It says, For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. So according to the New King James translators, you're on your way. You're in a process of being saved. Why? Because they want to add works to the gospel. They want to say to one time event that you put your faith in Christ alone. No, that's not enough. You're being saved. That's step one, but now you've got to make sure, you know, you do your part to make sure that you're saved. Do you see how the New King James Bible has corrupted, not just text, but it's corrupt in the gospel. They say that they teach that salvation is something that you can attain, you know, if you, you know, keep on that narrow way or something, rather than the King James Bible, which says salvation is a past event when you've placed your faith on Christ alone. Okay, so not only are they corrupt in text, but they're corrupt in the gospel. And so if this cup represents the New King James Bible, you know, you throw a little bit more dirt of error in there, and you're going to drink that now. It's still, you know, putting a little bit of dirt in there, it's still drinkable. I mean, if you were sort of in a desert and you're thirsty, you'd probably still drink that, right? Because you need some water. You don't mind if it has a little bit of dirt in it, okay? It still has some elements there to keep you, to, you know, quench your thirst, okay? But at the same time, you're going to be swallowing a lot of dirt, okay? Now, let me move on. The New Living Translation. New Living Translation. And let's go to John 3.16, our favorite, you know, one of our favorite verses. John 3.16. And you might be wondering, Kevin, how can they mess up John 3.16? I'll show you in a minute. Go to John 3.16. John 3.16. You guys follow along in your King James Bible while I read to you from the New Living Translation. The New Living Translation says this. For this is how God loved the world. He gave His one and only Son. Let's pause there for a minute. What does the King James Bible say? His only begotten Son, right? The New Living Translation says His one and only Son. According to the New Living Translators, God has one and only Son. That is Jesus Christ. But is that true? Is that true? Because if you go to John 1, just go back a few pages there. John 1.12. John 1.12, it says, But as many as received Him, to them gave you power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name. So if you've trusted in Jesus Christ, if you've put your faith on His name, guess what that makes you? His Son. His sons and daughters. So according to the New Living Translation, God has one and only Son, which means you are not a son of God. But according to the King James Bible, we are sons of God, and what makes Jesus Christ the only Son of God in that sense is the fact that He's the begotten of the Father. The only begotten Son of God. Okay? And if you look at your King James Bible, any time it refers to Jesus as the only Son, it is always written as the only begotten Son. Every time. Because there are no contradictions in the Bible. In the true Bible. There's no contradictions in the King James Bible. But there are definite contradictions there in the New Living Translation. It wants to say that Jesus is the only Son, and yet we know when we believe on Jesus Christ, we become sons of God. They're trying to deny your sonship to the Father. Okay? Major error there. Major heresies that can come out of a book like the New Living Translation. So let's pretend again this represents the New Living Translation. We put a little bit more dirt in there. And by the way, guys, I'm just giving you some examples. Okay? And I'm giving you some examples of some mage doctrine. Could you imagine going through the whole Bible and seeing how many errors they've got, and then saying, hey, yep, I still want to read that. I still want to drink from that. You're going to get into major heresies, major problems. Go to Revelation 22, 16, please. Revelation 22, verse 16. Revelation 22, 16. Let me show you an error in the New International Version. And by the way, I had a New International Version. I had an NIV as well. I went to a Christian school, and the official Bible of that school was the NIV, the New International Version. I tried to read it. I couldn't read it. I don't know why, but I couldn't read it. It was very difficult to read. Revelation 22, verse 16. Actually, let me turn there as well. Revelation 22, 16. So I'm going to read to you from the NIV while you follow the King James Bible. The NIV says this. I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you a testimony, or this testimony, for the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David and the bright morning star. Now, the King James Bible says, and the bright and morning star. Not a big difference there. But my point is, both the NIV and the King James Bible here are in agreement that Jesus Christ is the morning star. Do you see that? Both the King James Bible and the NIV, great. The NIV got something right. Jesus Christ, one of his names, one of his titles is the bright morning star, the morning star. Now, please turn to Isaiah 14. Isaiah 14. And this was what ultimately got me to throw out my NIV and pick up a King James Bible. Isaiah 14, verse 12. Isaiah 14, verse 12. Now, you look at this while I read it to you from the NIV. Okay? The NIV, verse 12. Isaiah 14, 12. In the NIV, it says, How you have fallen from heaven... What does the King James Bible say next? Old Lucifer. Old Lucifer. What does the NIV say? How you have fallen from heaven, morning star. Morning star, son of the dawn. Who's the morning star according to the King James Bible, what we just read in Revelation? Jesus Christ. According to the NIV, who's the morning star in Revelation? Jesus Christ. Who fell out of heaven according to the King James Bible? Lucifer. Lucifer, the devil, was cast out of heaven. But according to the NIV, it's the morning star, Jesus Christ, who was cast out of heaven. How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn. You have been cast down to the earth... Think about this. This is a title of Jesus Christ. You have been cast down to the earth. You who once laid low the nations, you said in your heart, I will ascend to the heavens. I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit and throne on the mount of assembly, on the uttermost heights of Mount Zaphon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds. I will make myself like the Most High. Is Jesus trying to make himself like the Most High? No, Jesus Christ is the Most High. Jesus Christ is God. Right? And then verse 15. But you were brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit. This is a title of Jesus Christ. And the NIV says, hey, that Jesus of yours has been cast out of heaven. He wants to be like God, but he's been cast into the pit, into hell. Okay? Let me just quickly read to you from Isaiah 14, verse 12, in the King James Bible. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer? We all know who Lucifer is, right? There's no doubt. Do you talk to someone about Lucifer? They know that's a devil. They know that's a fallen cherub. It says, son of the morning, how art thou cut down to the ground, which did its weakest of nations, for thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. It's Satan who wants to be like God. It's Satan who's lifted up with pride. It's Satan who was cast out of heaven. It says, I will also sit upon the mount of the congregation in the sight of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High, yet thou shall be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. You know, the devil's ultimate destination is hell. That is not the destination of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God Almighty. He doesn't have to pretend to be like the Most High, and Jesus Christ was never cast out of heaven. And so as soon as I saw this in the NIV, I threw it in the bin. And I wish I lit it on fire or something. I just, I threw it in the bin, okay? But that's a major heresy, a major problem with the NIV. And if I had some dirt here, I would fill this whole cup with dirt, because that's how horrible that is. It's so horrible. Now you might say to me, well, Kevin, you know, this one, that's perfect. Pure, just 100% water. I got a bit thirsty again. Sorry, guys. I've got some water in there. You know, yep, you know, this one's got water. But you know what? Even though this one's full of contradictions, full of dirt, it's still drinkable. It's still, and it is still drinkable. But if you've got the option of pure water, would you really choose that? No, you wouldn't, right? And I've been told, someone said to me once, you know, Kevin, you're very prideful. You're very prideful to think that you've got the perfect Word of God available to you. I'm not prideful. I just believe what God says. God said He's going to preserve it from this generation forever. So it must be available to us somewhere. And if English is the international language, if all these Bibles are being translated from English, surely God will provide something to us in English that's perfect and not corrupted. So I'm not prideful. I just believe what God says, right? And I believe it, and it tastes good. I'll tell you what pride is. Pride is when you take the other cup full of dirt and say, well, I know it's full of dirt. I know it's fully corrupted, but I'm going to drink it anyway. That's prideful. That's prideful to think that you can read something or drink something when God says to you, that's corruption, but we have a perfect Word of God available for us. Yes, there's still some truths in there, but I'm not going to drink that if I've got this, if I've got the King James Bible. I'm not going to drink that and then fill myself, yeah, with a little bit of water, but also a whole bunch of dirt and a whole bunch of heresy. So I just wanted to explain to you why I believe in the King James Bible. I hope I've given you some reasons to think about. Let me give you one more thought, one more thought. So the memory verse was, actually there's two more things I want to touch on. I'm sorry, I know it's gone a bit long, but it's very important we cover this. So Psalm 12.6, I'll just read it to you quickly. It said, the words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in the furnace of earth, purified seven times. Purified seven times. And I know that number seven means perfection in the Bible, but it's interesting that the number seven corresponds with the King James Bible in many other ways. Not only is it perfect, not only is that, but did you know the King James Bible was translated in seven years? The work started in 1604 and it finished in 1611. It took seven years for the translators to come together and finally produce the word of God. Say, well, that's just a coincidence. Yeah, maybe, you know. But also, also, it is, English is the seventh major Bible translation in the world. Okay? We start obviously with the Hebrew. We have the Old Testament in Hebrew. You know, parts of it was in Aramaic. That's number two. You know, parts of Daniel, the Book of Ezra, was in Aramaic as well. And there are Aramaic Bibles in the world. That was the second major world translation. Then came the New Testament. The New Testament was in Conne Greek, ancient Greek. That's the third next. And then the whole Bible was also translated in Greek because in those days, Greek was the international language. Greek was a language of trade and a lot of people were able to speak in Greek. The fourth major translation in a language was Syriac. Okay, it was Syriac. There are some very early Syriac manuscripts and some of them are found throughout, like even as far as China and things like that. Even that version, that translation went throughout the whole world. Then it was Latin, the fifth translation, language translation. Then German, then English. English, for whatever reason, for whatever reason, was the seventh major translation that the Bible was translated into. Okay? But not only that, we talked about the majority text, right? The majority text being those 5,000 plus manuscripts that they took. Well, the King James Bible was not the first English Bible that was translated from the majority text. The first one was the Tyndale Bible, then the Matthews Bible, then the Cloverdale Bible, then the Great Bible, then the Bishop's Bible, number six was the Geneva Bible, number seven was the King James Bible, purified seven times. The King James translators took these previous English Bibles, not just the Greek text and the Hebrew text, but also these previous translations, and they worked on that, using those same translations to work out how best to express what was written and how best to translate it into English. Okay, so it's interesting that the King James Bible was translated in seven years, English was the seventh international language that it was translated in, and the King James Bible in the line of the English Bibles from the majority text is number seven. So I don't know if that's got anything to do with the verse that we memorised, but I thought it was just interesting, and I'll just throw that out to you, I think it's interesting. There's one more thing I want to touch upon, and I was asked a question. I was asked a question. Are you back in Psalms 12? Let's close off in Psalm 12. Go back to Psalm 12. Psalm 12, verse 6. I want to touch on this very quickly, just in case you get asked this question. But Psalm 12, verses 6 and 7, like we read. I'm almost done here, guys. Again, verse 6. The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver, trident, and furnace of earth, purified seven times. But then verse 7 says, Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. Now let me read to you verse 7 in these other versions. In the New International Version it says, You, Lord, will keep the needy safe, and will protect us forever from the wicked. Does that sound like the King James Bible to you? That's the NIV. Let me read to you from the New Living Translation, verse 7. Therefore, Lord, we know you will protect the oppressed, preserving them forever from this lying generation. That's the New Living Translation. The English Standard Version, ESV. It says, You, O Lord, will keep them. You will guard us from this generation forever. Now, they're all alike. Do you see that? These modern translations are basically saying, what God is preserving in verse number 7 are his people, are the needy. And I was asked this question, well, how do we know if verse 7 is actually talking about the preservation of the words of God? Or is it talking about the preservation of verse number 5? Look at verse number 5. For the oppression of the poor, for the sign of the needy, now will I arise safe for the Lord. I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him. So do you see how these modern translations take verse number 5 and they make verse 7 about the preservation of those in verse 5. So which one is correct? Is it God's people, the needy, let's say, that are being preserved? Or is it the words of God that are being preserved? I think it's a good question. Now, let me give you a few reasons very quickly why I believe verse 7 is actually about the words of God. Number 1, I believe it is the most natural reading of that psalm. Actually, let me give you number 1, let me start again, I didn't have this in my notes. Number 1 is that the modern Bibles all agree that it's not the words that are being preserved. So we've already proven how corrupt they are, we've already proven how they're full of heresy, so why would I even believe these guys when they're all in agreement with one another but it doesn't seem to line up with what the King James Bible says? That was not really number 1 in my notes, but it's number 1 now. Number 2, just a natural reading of the psalm, to me, makes the most sense. When you get to verse number 7, the antecedent of, thou shalt keep them, O Lord, the antecedent would be the words of the Lord which are pure words. I just believe that's just the most natural reading. Anybody that reads Psalm 12 from the King James Bible, without trying to be extra studious, just a Bible reader, I believe will conclude that what is being preserved there are the words of God. I believe that's the most natural reading. I believe it flows more naturally because of the natural antecedent, but not only the immediate antecedent, but also it'd be a bit disjointed, right? To talk about verse 5, about the needy, about the oppression of the poor and the needy, then all of a sudden, for some reason, mention the words of God, and then back to number 7, talk about the needy again. Verse number 6 will then kind of just be totally out of place, just this random insertion about the words of God. I think it'd be too disjointed for that to be referring to the needy there. But also, the second reason, the first reason I believe, well, the second reason now, is the natural reading of the Psalm, but the third reason I believe verse 7 is about God preserving His words is because of the use of the pronoun. So if you look at verse number 5, and it talks about the poor and the needy, it says at the end there, I will set him, talking about the needy, in safety from him, the one that's persecuting him, that puffeth at him, talking about, again, the needy. So when God uses that pronoun to talk about the needy in verse 5, He uses him, which is a singular, personal pronoun, right? A singular pronoun. If I say him, how many people am I referring to? Just the one, singular, right? But then when we get to verse 7, the personal pronoun is no longer singular. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord. When I say them, am I talking singular or plural? More than one, right? When I say them, it's more than one. So that's the third reason why is the use of the pronoun in verse number 5 is a singular, personal pronoun, verse number 7 is a plural, personal pronoun. So let me give you another example of this. You don't need to turn there just very quickly. I added this to the end of my notes just because I was asked a question. But in the Old Testament, in Exodus 35, verse 1, I'll just read to you quickly. It says, And Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together, and said unto them, These are the words, so pay attention to that, These are the words which the Lord hath commanded, that ye should do them. So even in the Bible, the words of God are not given a singular, personal pronoun to describe them, but a plural, personal pronoun. That ye should do them. Them being what? The words of God. So there's an Old Testament example, and very quickly, John 8, verse 47 in the New Testament, Jesus says this, He that is of God heareth God's words. Ye therefore hear them not. What's the them? The words. You don't hear them because ye are not of God. So the only reason I wanted to pull that up is just to show you that there are other passages in the Bible where the words of God are described as them. Which would line up with how Psalm 12 is using that personal pronoun. Singular. Singular. No. I'm getting myself. You know what I'm talking about. You get it. Alright guys, that's all I've got for you today. I hope that's given you some things to think about. I hope you learned to cherish and love your King James Bible. Be thankful that you know English, that God has put you in an English speaking country, and that you actually have the word of God in English. Don't feel bad for other nations that may not have those words. I mean the Bible has been translated in over 2000 words, or 2400 other languages. And a lot of that is being translated straight from the King James Bible. Like I explained to you, Papua New Guinea, a new translation straight from the King James Bible, not going back to the original Greek and Hebrew. Alright, let's pray guys.