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

Grab your red and green hymnals and turn to song number 294, Stepping in the Light. Welcome to Shure Foundation Baptist Church. You can find your seats and grab your song books and turn to page number 294, Stepping in the Light. Song number 294, Stepping in the Light. Song 294, let's sing it out on the first. Trying to walk in the steps of the Savior, trying to follow our Savior and King, shaping our lives by His blessed example, happy how happy the songs that we bring. How beautiful to walk in the steps of the Savior, stepping in the light, stepping in the light. How beautiful to walk in the steps of the Savior, letting paths of light, pressing more closely to Him who is leading when we are tempted to turn from the way. Trusting the arm that is strong to defend us, happy how happy your praises each day. How beautiful to walk in the steps of the Savior, stepping in the light, stepping in the light. How beautiful to walk in the steps of the Savior, letting paths of light, walking in footsteps of gentle forbearance, footsteps of faithfulness, mercy and love. Looking to Him for the grace freely promised, happy how happy our journey above. How beautiful to walk in the steps of the Savior, stepping in the light, stepping in the light. How beautiful to walk in the steps of the Savior, letting paths of light, trying to walk in the steps of the Savior, upward still upward we'll follow our guide. When we shall see Him, the King in His beauty, happy how happy our place at His side. How beautiful to walk in the steps of the Savior, stepping in the light, stepping in the light. How beautiful to walk in the steps of the Savior, letting paths of light. Amen. Good to see you brother Eli, could you open some water prayer? Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you so much for this day. Father, thank you for the opportunity to come hear your word of praise, Father. So thank you. We'll preach your word to others, Lord. I pray you help us to be quiet, help us to be attentive, Lord, and fill us with the Spirit. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Our second song will be song number 325, Trust and Obey. Song number 325, Trust and Obey. Song 325, Trust and Obey, 325. Let's sing it on the first. When we walk with the Lord in the light of His word, what a glory He sheds on our way. While we do His good will, He abides with us still, and with all who will trust and obey. Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. Not a shadow can rise, not a cloud in the skies, but His smile quickly drives it away. Not a doubt or a fear, not a sign or a tear, can abide while we trust and obey. Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. Not a burden we bear, not a sorrow we share, but our toil He doth richly repay. Not a grief nor a loss, not a frown nor a cross, but is blessed if we trust and obey. Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. But we never can prove the delight of His love until all on the altar we lay. For the favor He shows and the joy He bestows are for them who will trust and obey. Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. Then in fellowship suite we will sit at His feet or we'll walk by His side in the way. What He says we will do, where He sends we will go. Never fear, only trust and obey. Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. Good morning, welcome to Sure Foundation Baptist Church. Let's take our bulletins and go through them. If you need a bulletin just slip up your hand and Brother Ramon will bring you a bulletin or Brother Ryan. On our front cover we have our verse of the week. It says, For a day and night courts is better than a thousand, I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. Psalm chapter 84 verse 10. That's a great verse there. And our service times are Sunday morning at 10 30 a.m., Sunday evening at 3 30 p.m. We'll be in Genesis chapter 31 tonight and our Thursday Bible study is at 6 30 p.m. And we'll be back in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and at least one more time, possibly two more times. But it's a big chapter. It's like 58 verses I think. Is it 58 verses? Yeah, so that's a lot of verses to try to get through in one night. So anyway, our sowing times are listed below. Now there's been a change for the sowing times and days. So Tuesday is no longer an option. Monday. OK, so let me go in order here. Today we have sowing at 1 p.m. If you're planning on going sowing, please let Brother Brandon know. Brother Brandon, where are you at? He's back there and he's the sowing leader for Sundays. And then Monday we have a change in the time. It's going to be 4 30 p.m. and it's going to be Sean Conlon that's going to be leading that time. Tuesday and Wednesday are no longer days that we're doing. It's just because of the, you know, we don't want to have our people out in the dark, you know, every single night. So it's going to be in the dark a little bit. But on some of these times, but we don't want just everybody going sowing until like 8 o'clock at night or something. So it's going to get dark today. I think of like 4 or 4 30, maybe something like that. So anyway, Thursday is still on for 4 30 p.m. and that is Sean Conlon also running that time. Brother Sean Harrington still going to be at 3 p.m. and then Saturday sowing 3 p.m. also. So please text in the WhatsApp group if you're running late. And if you don't, if you're not in the sowing group, the WhatsApp group, please let me know and I can add you or my wife to it. Yeah, Thursday is still on. OK, so and then let's see, we have regional sowing captains. And so you'd have to get with those specific people to get the times that they go. But I know Brother Cody Chandler is the newest one on there. And he does Yakima. And so they've been getting people saved pretty much every week. Brother Robert Larson had one saved yesterday. So they had two, I think, in Yakima yesterday and one in Tri-Cities. And then Brother Neb had, I believe, two in Tacoma. So, you know, we're trying to reach out as much as we can. We had 10 salvations this last week. So praise God for that. And nine so far for the month of November. So we're off to a great start. I would like to hit 500 for the year, but we got we're at 444 or something like that. So it's going to be tough, but we'll try to get it done. Baptisms, we have 47 for the year. And then you can see our attendance totals. And again, on the events, the upcoming events, don't forget to sign up for family pictures. Your last chance is going to be November 21st. We have made an end to it. So November 21st will be the last time you can do it, unless you are really nice to Kylie and buy her a coffee or something like that. I don't know. Maybe she would let you in the door. But it doesn't have to be family pictures. It could be just you by yourself, like, you know, Brother CJ used to have his little pose ones that he'd do. The inspiration for the wolf killer picture. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then we'll talk about it after church. But anyway, so it'll be your last chance to get it done on November 21st. November 14th, which is next Sunday, Pastor Roger Jimenez will be preaching for us at the PM service. So looking forward to having Pastor Jimenez up here. And so it'll be a blessing like it always is. We'll try to figure out something we can do maybe after the church service, maybe go out to the tent that is golden or something like that. So anyway, November 21st, the following weekend after that, we have Brother Jason Graber preaching for us from our church plant up in Spokane. And Brother Jason is one of the people that started that church and got it going. And I remember there was just him, Daniel, and Rudy were up there. And so our church has grown a lot. It's grown, then it's decreased, but it's doing great up there. Brother Jason preaches on a regular basis up there, so it'll be great to have him come and preach for us in the AM service November 21st. And we'll have a Thanksgiving potluck right after the service. And there will be a kids' choir practice, and I still don't have a time for that. I'm guessing it's probably going to be sometime in the evening. So if that's something you're interested in, letting your kids do the choir for our Christmas service, then if you have any questions about it, just see Brother Rylan. He's the one that's leading that up. And December 11th, we have a ladies' cookie exchange and white elephant game at 1 p.m. And was I right about the elephant prize only being $10 or under? $10 or more? Or more? I was up and saying under. Man, we've got to get our act together. But $10 or more? There should be a cap on it, though. I don't think that it should be $10 to $20 at the most, right? $15? I'm hearing a voice saying it's just at least $10. Oh, at least $10, okay. So don't go to the Dollar Tree and get some graven image animal or something. Anyway, yeah, so at least $10, but I wouldn't go much more than $10, okay? Because we don't want to hurt people's feelings, and we don't want ladies beating each other up with their cookie bags in order to get the white elephant gift. So anyway, speaking of that, please bring three dozen cookies or treats, Christmas-style treats or whatever, and a container for goodies. If you've never been to the ladies' cookie exchange, they always have a great time. And that will be at the Bender home at 1 p.m. If you need to know where that's at, just ask Brother Rylan or Miss Julene, and they would happily give you the instructions on how to get there and where to park and all that stuff. So December 19th, we have our Christmas service. So I'll be preaching a sermon that's kind of Christmas-centered, and then the children's choir will sing that morning also. We'll have a prime rib dinner after the morning service, and that's usually a great treat. December 23rd, we have our candlelight service. We did one last year, and it went pretty good. So we're going to do that on the Thursday the 23rd. So December 31st is Pray in the New Year game night ping pong tournament, foosball tournament. I don't know if I spelt foosball wrong. It could be wrong. It didn't do like an autocorrect little line on it, so I don't know if it's wrong. Just somebody tell me, and I'll fix it next week. So anyway, we're a family-integrated church. That means the children and infants are welcome during the church services. Please use those rooms to train, and if the children become super disruptive, like screaming or loud crying, just take them in there. And utilize that room for whatever you need to feed your baby or to change them or whatever you need to do. So anyway, the mother-baby room is located right back there where it says mother-child room, and then the dad-baby room is located right there in the corner. So if you need to use those rooms, they're available for you. And please reserve the back rows for families with young children. Rockers are for pregnant and nursing mothers and elders only. Please know men allowed in the mother-baby rooms and vice versa. No unattended children in any area of the building, please. And please know food in the assembly area. Silence your cell phones, if you would, at this time, please, or put them on airplane mode. Escorts to vehicles by ushers are available. And now that it's getting dark, it probably might be a little more prevalent where you would need to do that. And online donations are available on our website. There's a text-giving number there if you want to do that. We have lots of options where you could just give in service or whatever you want. So, ties and offerings, you can see the total that we had for the month of October, and that was the final total. And we have some birthdays to sing for tonight or this morning. Julene's birthday is actually today. Where's Julene at? Hi, Julene. We went over and smoked her at some games last night, so I'm just kidding. And then, let's see, Selah is on the 11th, Selah Lambert, and she'll be two. She looks like she's two, yeah. Okay. And Kylie is, her birthday is on the 13th, my daughter-in-law Kylie right there, the picture taker. So, and I think that's it for birthdays. Let's sing Happy Birthday. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, God bless you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday. All right, that's all I have for announcements. All right, let's sing another song and we'll receive the offering. All right, turn in your Bibles to Psalms 117. We're going to sing Psalms 117. Psalms 117. We're going to repeat this twice. Psalms 117, let's sing it out on the first. Oh, praise the Lord, all ye nations. Praise Him, all ye people, For His merciful kindness is great toward us, And the truth of the Lord endureth forever. Praise ye the Lord, Praise ye the Lord, Oh, praise the Lord, all ye nations, Praise Him, all ye people, For His merciful kindness is great toward us, And the truth of the Lord endureth forever. Praise ye the Lord, Praise ye the Lord. Amen. Good to see you, brother. Sean Comlin, could you bless the offering? Father in heaven, I thank you for this day and this opportunity to be in church today, Lord. I pray that you would just bless this offering. Lord, I pray that you would bless both the gift and the giver. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right, go ahead and open your Bibles to the book of Psalms, being Psalm 12. Psalm number 12, if you don't have a Bible, raise your hand. One of the ushers will bring you one. Psalm 12. Psalm 12, the Bible reads, Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth, For the faithful fail from among the children of men. They speak vanity, every one with his neighbor, With flattering lips, and with a double heart do they speak. The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips, And the tongue that speaketh proud things, Who have said, With our tongue we will prevail, Our lips are our own. Who is the Lord over us? For the oppression of the poor, for the sign of the needy, Now will I arise, saith the Lord, I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him. The words of the Lord are pure words, As silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever, The wicked walk on every side, When the vilest men are exalted. Brother Drew, will you pray for us? Amen, alright, well the title of the sermon this morning is God's Preservation and Providence. God's Preservation and Providence. I kind of got like a little bit of a weird ring going on up here. Thank you. Can you guys hear me? Alright, God's Preservation and Providence. And what's sticking in Psalm chapter 12, just keep your finger there and we're going to go and look at 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 23. And I'll kind of explain a little bit about the sermon while you're getting there. So, God's Preservation, the Bible is preserved, God promised to preserve his word. And it's preserved forever, and it's perfect. And there's multitudes of Bible versions out in the English language today, it's over 400 different Bible versions. And so, if they say different things, can they all be right? No, they can't. And so, that's just common sense, but there's people out there that believe that the newer versions are better than the King James, or better than the older versions. And I would just say this, that God's preserved his word and he uses providence to do that. We don't understand how we came to have this perfect Bible, the King James. We probably don't see in history the things that were done in God's providence, but I want to show you an example today of what I believe God's providence is in order to preserve the King James. And I'll get into those definitions here in just a minute. But I want to preach about the Bible today, and it's a subject that I like a lot and I definitely need to preach about it at least once or twice a year. And why do we use the King James? Why do we use the King James as opposed to other versions? Well, I'm not going to get super into that, but I believe that the King James is where God's preserved his word for the English-speaking people. Now, a lot of people in the world speak English. The King James is the top-selling book of all time. It's the most printed book of all time. And I would say this, it's the greatest book of all time. So as far as like English-speaking people, it's the word of God. And so where other versions will deviate from the text, there are texts, so there's the issue of the text. So you got the Texas Receptus, which basically means the received text. The text that was used down from the ages when it was first written down in Greek and Hebrew, those are preserved in the Texas Receptus, okay? And so if you don't understand all that, well, I mean, you can watch the film New World Over Bible Versions. It really nails it down for you. But I would say this, there's a textual problem. There's a textual issue between the modern versions and like the King James. So the textual problem is that they spliced a bunch of, you know, they found old copies of Bibles in like a trash bin. Where else? They found them in the basement of the Vatican, you know, the Roman Catholic whore of Babylon. So, you know, can we trust things like that? Is the word of God preserved in some ancient text that's found in a pottery vessel in the Middle East or something? We just didn't have the right word of God until somebody uncovered that or somebody rescued it out of a trash can at the Mount Sinai monastery or someone just happened to find the true word of God in the Vatican in a basement someplace. I don't believe that. I believe that God's been allowing us to use his words from this generation and forever. So I believe that there's always been an inspired word of God. Even if there was only just one copy, God still kept one copy available for people to use. If you think about Josiah, they found the word of God when they were renovating the temple there. And Josiah, I don't know if that was the only version or the only Bible left in the world at that time. I doubt that, but I know that the people in Judah were not using it. They weren't using it. They found the word of the Lord there in the temple, and when Josiah heard it, you know, he made a lot of changes because the word of God's very powerful. The Bible is powerful, and you can tell the difference between a powerful version of the Bible, like the King James and some modern perversion where it changes things. So, you know, what's a good example when it says he has shown the oh human one in some other version so that they can make sure that it's, you know, instead of saying man, he has showed the oh man. You know, and in the modern version, it says he has showed the oh human one. I mean, that sounds like a robot is teaching you or something. So the word of God is powerful. I mean, we have to take it by faith. You know, we have to take the Bible by faith that it is the word of God. You know, obviously people say, well, you use circular reasoning and saying that in the Bible it says it's preserved, but you know, the fact that it is preserved and one of the most readily available copies of the word of God, you know, there's thousands of different copies of the word of God, you know, and it's an ancient book. So in like Greece, we only have like I think a couple copies of Homer's Odyssey. There's just not a lot of ancient books that are available for you to read, but you know what? The Bible stands the test of time. So you're in 1 Peter chapter one verse 23. It says, being born again not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible. So how are you born again? By incorruptible seed, and you think, well, what does that mean? It means that it's not been corrupted. It's incorruptible. The true Bible is incorruptible, but there are versions that are corrupted. How do we know the difference? Well, hopefully by the end of this sermon, you'll kind of see that there is a big difference, but it says, but of incorruptible. We're born again by the incorruptible word, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for how long? What does it say? Forever, right? So it's alive. This book is not just some normal book. It's not just some book written by men. You know, maybe it was penned down by man, but it was not just written by men. And see, that's the big difference between people that are saved and people that are unsaved. They can't understand this book, and why can't they understand? Because it's spiritually discerned. So it says, for all flesh is as grass, and the glory of man as the flower of grass, the grass withereth, the flower thereof falleth away, but the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word, which by the gospel is preached unto you. So Peter's sitting here. He's telling us that the word of, there's an incorruptible word of God, and that incorruptible word of God is what gets people saved, okay? It's not just some Bible of the month club where they change all the verses, and if it's corrupted, it says it's not of corruptible seed. The gospel is not of corruptible seed, so someone that is using a modern Bible version that corrupts the text, that Bible version cannot get you saved. Isn't that what it's saying? I mean, am I just reading into that more than, you know what, people will say, I've heard this excuse. People will say, it's just Jesus, okay? Well, you don't just walk up to someone's door and knock on it, and as soon as they answer, go, Jesus, and people get saved. That's not what it's talking about. You have to use the Bible to get people saved. That's what it's teaching is that the incorruptible word of God is what gets people saved. So when you have someone going around with a Bible perversion that has changed all the verses, and they don't make sense, or they're just completely changed, then that Bible can't get you saved. If the verses are exactly the same, then I would say that those verses that are exactly the same are the word of God, are they not? But the Bible itself is corrupted and changed. The NIV takes out thousands and changes, it takes out, what is it, 16 whole verses? And then, and one of them is Acts 837 that says you have to believe with all your heart in order to be baptized. That's a big scripture. You know why they don't want that in there? So people will just get baptized and think that baptism saves you. That's why. So is that a corruption? Why would they take that out? Because they want you to be able to be baptized and not have, and have people say, well, I don't know if I believe with all my heart. Well, then you can't be baptized. That's just the simple truth of it. Now, Hebrews chapter four verse 12 says for the word of God is quick and powerful. That word quick, it means it's alive and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to 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. This book right here can tell you what your heart, what's on your heart. And there's no other book like that. You might cry at some romance novel or something like that, but that's not gonna help you, is it? You know, reading about Fabio is not gonna help you get your life right, you know? So reading, you know, scientific journals is not gonna get your heart right with God. You know what gets your heart right with God? The word of God, and it's a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. You know, the Bible says the heart is wicked. It's desperately wicked. And so if it's desperately wicked, don't you want God's word to show you where your heart's wrong? That's the problem is a lot of people don't want their heart to be revealed, but the Bible will reveal it. You know, sin will keep you from this book. That's just a fact. If you're in sin, you're not gonna be reading the Bible because you don't want to get right with God because the flesh doesn't want to get right with God. But if you take this book and you read it every day, it's gonna correct you. It's gonna teach you doctrine. So now flip back to Psalm chapter 12 verse six. If you kept your finger there, you should already be there. This is our text for the day. And so because I'm preaching about God's preservation, what do I mean that God preserves his word and he promised to do that? Look at verse number six. It says the words of the Lord are pure words. As silver tried in a furnace of earth purified seven times. So when you take and you make metal, any kind of metal, but you want to purify that metal and make sure it's as pure as you can possibly get it. When people cook down gold that they find or whatever, they get all the impurities out of it. And what's called dross is the stuff, the scum that rises to the top and you scrape that dross off, right? If you're doing that with silver or gold or any kind of precious metals, then you have to scrape that. You have to melt it down and get that dross and get all those impurities out of it. So that's kind of what the picture of the Bible is telling us here is that it's as silver tried in a furnace of earth purified seven times. So they boil it down, they get the scum off, they let it harden back up, they boil it again, do it again, seven times. So that means it's pretty pure silver. It's like 100% silver or whatever. And so that's what God is saying that the Bible is. The pure words of God's word, the words that God spake unto the prophets, the words that God spake unto the people that wrote down the Bible, they're pure words. They're purified seven times. So that just tells us that the Bible is perfect, right? Thou shalt keep them, O Lord. So whose responsibility is it to keep these words preserved? It's God's responsibility. It's not our responsibility. Now I believe that God moves men to help keep it preserved and in different situations like that. And somehow we have a perfect book that's thousands of years old, thousands of years in the making. And so we still have it. So God's promise is true, is it not? That we have a preserved Bible. It says, Thou shalt keep them, O Lord. Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. So it's God's responsibility to preserve it. And you know what? He takes that responsibility very serious. And we have a great Bible translation here from the original text, from the Hebrew and the Greek and the Aramaic, and it's perfect. We should be able to trust this because God said that he would preserve it. Now you're like, well, what about all the other versions? Well, if they have strange interpretations, they take whole verses out of it, then how is that the word of God? If they take 16 whole verses out of the NIV and they change thousands of others, how is that the word of God? It's not preserved. And there's even English translations that were before the King James that were not necessarily corrupt, but they weren't perfect. So I mean, there's never someone intentionally corrupting something and someone just not being a very good translation person. Some people, we have translators in the world, all over the world, and people are paid to translate. People say, well, there's a lot lost in the languages. But if you understand Greek, you know what? You're gonna get the same exact reading that you're gonna get out of the English. God is the one that invented languages. God is the one that changed everybody from having one language to having multiple languages. And so God can still preserve his word in other languages. So people that say, oh, it's lost in the Greek. No, it's not lost in the Greek. It says the same thing. People just want to spiritualize the Greek and Hebrew and make it some magical, mystical languages that unless you read it in those languages, then you're not really getting the true word of God. See, that's what the Catholics used to do is they would teach all the stuff in Latin and people couldn't understand what they were saying. They did that intentionally so that people wouldn't know the true word of God and what it was saying. But people can still communicate all over the world speaking different languages. You know why? Because people speak multiple languages and people can translate those languages. So you had some of the smartest men in the world that translated the King James and really the King James was almost all the way complete anyway when they got that but they still went through every single book and cross-referenced and spoke to each other about it and these councils and meetings and they came up with the perfect translation. Now, you have like the Geneva Bible, the Matthews Bible and all these other Bibles, the Tyndale Bible. William Tyndale did a really good job translating the text that he did before he was killed for translating the Bible. There used to be a time when the people wanted a Bible in their own language but couldn't get it. William Tyndale actually translated it and he was on the run through a lot of the time that he was translating, riding on the backs of horses, going from place to place, having people have to take him in and for what? Because look, the devil doesn't want God's word to exist. That's why you have countries all over the world today that ban the Bible and don't even allow its use in their country. If you're caught with a Bible in North Korea, guess what's gonna happen to you? You're gonna be tortured, you're gonna be killed. And why? Because this book is powerful, this book changes lives, this book changes the way people think and it's perfect. Now what does it mean to preserve? It means to maintain something in its original or existing state. Let me say that again. God said, so God said thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever, the words of the Lord. To preserve means to maintain something in its original or existing state. You're like, well we don't have the original autographs Pastor Thompson. I know. But we still have a Bible that has its original or existing state, the words are still there, the words are still preserved. And whether it's in English or Spanish or whatever word it is, God has preserved his word for us. And there's, you know, the King James is probably the most powerful translation that's existed. I mean, obviously you had a lot of people that spoke Hebrew and stuff like that, but on a worldwide scale, the King James has been used greatly over the last 400 and however many years it's been. So it's a great translation. I got saved out of the King James. And so someone took me with this Bible and showed me what the Bible said in the King James and I got saved. And so how many millions of people have been saved by the King James in the last 400 years? Probably a lot of people. Because the modern Bible perversions, these corrupted manuscripts didn't start really getting made until like the 1800s and 1900s. But people just don't understand the Bible version debate. Why are the other versions bad? Well, because they say different things. Because they're corrupted, because they take things out, they add things in there that they shouldn't be adding. So God said he's gonna preserve his word and that means he's gonna keep it in its original or existing state, regardless of what language it's translated into. Now I'm gonna read you some stuff about how the King James came about. And this isn't from kjv.org or something like this. This is from just a secular website. And I don't agree with everything that's in this article, but they draw conclusions in here that I believe are true. And I'm not a big fan of the History Channel, but this is where I got the article from, is from the History Channel. So again, I don't agree with everything it's saying. Don't think that I think that. But it's just kind of a brief summary of the King James Bible and how it came to be. In 1604, England's King James I authorized a new translation of the Bible aimed at settling some thorny religious differences in his kingdom and solidifying his own power. So basically what the problem was is that you had the bishop's Bible being read from the pulpits, and then people would go home and use a different Bible version than Geneva or a different type of Bible version. And also, there's a lot of footnotes in the Geneva Bible. The Geneva Bible is a popular translation, but it had a lot of footnotes with Calvinistic leanings to it. Now people will accuse King James of being this ardent Calvinist or whatever, but here's the thing. Why would he be mad about a Calvinist spin in the footnotes of this Bible if he was some hardcore Calvinist? So I don't believe he was a hardcore Calvinist. He was actually angry about the fact that they would spin things the way they did in the commentaries. And I would just say, here's just a freebie. If you're using a Bible that has a bunch of commentaries and study Bible notes in it, you're gonna end up on a part that you don't fully understand. You're gonna go down to the notes and you're gonna look at the footnote and say, oh, well that's what that is. But that's man's opinion. That's man's opinion. So we're supposed to be reading the words of the Lord, and God will teach you what is right and what is wrong, and maybe you don't fully understand everything that he's trying to say. Well, just ask for wisdom. God will liberally give you wisdom and help you to understand it. Maybe it's just not time for you to understand it. We learn doctrine line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little. You're not gonna just come to church one day and then you know all the doctrine of the Bible. You're an expert in everything of the end times after one sermon. That's not how it works. When you read the Bible over and over again, you're gonna catch stuff that you didn't catch before, and that's because God's just gonna give you a little bit at a time. It's not like you can plug in some kind of device into your head and now all of a sudden you know the whole Bible by heart, you know every doctrine by heart. It'd be kind of cool if we did, but I think that God doesn't allow us that because we would be overloaded by that. I just think that God wants us to read the word over and over again so that we'll learn at the pace that he wants us to learn, but if you're not reading it day and night, if you're not reading the Bible day and night, you're not gonna get that doctrine. You're gonna have a slow grow. You're gonna be a little baby toddler Christian for a long time if you just don't read the Bible, and you're gonna throw fits, and you're gonna yell out. No, just kidding. You're gonna have problems because you're not growing at the rate that you should be growing because you're not reading God's word. Now I know that people, you have a bad day, or maybe you just have a really busy day, and you skip your Bible reading that day, but get back on the horse and do it again the next day. Don't just say, you know what, I failed at my Bible reading plan. I didn't read the Bible this day. No, go back to the Bible the next day, and rise up again and read God's word. So anyway, so King James had some issues with some of the translations that were already there, the spins that were on him. One of the things that I, I had some Bible, this guy that used to bring Bibles with him to churches. Have you ever been to a church service where the guy had all these Bible versions and showing, anyway, it was a Baptist thing, I guess. But anyway, he was showing us all these things, and he said that one of them was called, the Geneva Bible was known as the Britches Bible. You ever heard that before, the Britches Bible? Because in Genesis chapter three, verse seven, it says, then the eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made them britches. They made themselves britches. So, well, it says britches, okay? But britches is basically the same thing. You know, you're too big for your britches. You ever heard that before? Well, people mocked this Bible because they translated it like that. So they're saying that the first, you know, the Adam and Eve, the first thing they did is made pants for themselves. I mean, it was laughed at. So now, this is a good translation. It's good, but it's not perfect. So that's all I'm trying to say because in Genesis chapter, what does the Bible say in the King James? It says, well, Genesis chapter three, verse seven says, and the eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. So, you know, the King James just cleaned that up for him because the Bible, that's a bad translation. You know, there's other bad translations in the King, excuse me, in the Geneva Bible and I'm gonna show you that a little bit later. I'm just gonna give you like a couple examples later on in this sermon about the differences between, you know, that are, to me, are a big deal. If it says something that's not right, then it's not perfect, is it? If it says something that's not true, it's not perfect. So let me keep reading this article. It says, but in seeking to prove his own supremacy, King James ended up democratizing the Bible instead thanks to emerging printing technology and the new translation brought the Bible out of the church's sole control and directly into the hands of more people than ever before, including the Protestant reformers who settled England's North American colonies in the 17th century. Emerging at a high point in the English Renaissance, the King James Bible held its own amongst the most celebrated literary works in the English language. Think of like Shakespeare. Its majestic cadences would inspire generations of artists, poets, musicians, and political leaders while many of its specific phrases worked their way into the fabric of the language itself. So the King James Bible helped solidify the English language. There were transliterations that were made by William Tyndale, like the word baptism. Baptism is a transliteration from the Greek word, okay? And there's many times he did that in the Bible and there wasn't a word for it in English and so they were made up. The language was basically made in order to translate the Bible. So even now, more than four centuries after its publication, the King James, aka the King James Version, or simply the Authorized Version, remains the most famous Bible translation in history. Even today when most people, most churches are promoting the NIV, the NASB, and whatever per version of the week, the King James is still the most popular in history and one of the most printed books ever. It says one of the most. I think it might be the most. So I think it's pretty, that's an established fact, but it says one of the most. So anyway, when King James of Scotland became King, so King James, he was King James VI in Scotland and became King James I of England when he became the King of England in 1603. He was well aware that he was entering a sticky situation. For one thing, his immediate predecessor on the throne, Queen Elizabeth, had ordered the execution of his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, who had represented a Catholic threat to Elizabeth's Protestant reign. And even though Elizabeth had established the supremacy of the Anglican Church founded by her father, King Henry VIII, its bishops now had to contend with rebellious Protestant groups like the Puritans and Calvinists who questioned their absolute power. This is them saying this, okay? I'm not necessarily thinking that King James believed this, but they spin it because they always try to make King James out to be a villain. They try to make King James out to be a homo and all these other false accusations about him. And maybe he did have a little bit of a king complex. I don't know, but the king is supreme. The Bible says the king is supreme. Now obviously not supreme over God's laws and God's commandments, but the king was supposed to be supreme. When the United States rebelled against the king, I believe that they were wrong for that. People can get mad about that all they want, but I know that 1776 has been drilled into your head about how great it is, but rebelling against the king and killing the king is not something that was a normal thing, and it's not, in the Bible it's counted as something that's not right. It's wicked. So anyway, for one thing, his immediate predecessor, oh, I already read that, okay, let's see. So by the time James took the throne, many people in England at the time were hearing one version of the Bible when they went to church, but they were reading from another when they went home. While one version of Christianity's holy text, the so-called Bishop's Bible, was read in churches, the most popular version among Protestant reformers in England at the time was the Geneva Bible, which had been created in the city by a group of Calvinist exiles during the bloody reign of Elizabeth's half-sister Mary I. For the new king, the Geneva Bible posed a political problem since it contained certain annotations questioning not only the bishop's power, but his own. So in 1604, when a Puritan scholar proposed the creation of a new translation of the Bible at a meeting at a religious conference in Hampton Court, James surprised him by agreeing. So James agreed with this man and said, hey, we need to get one that's not skewed one way or another, something that all the people can read, something that everybody enjoyed, and it says over the next seven years, and it says 47 scholars, for some reason I think that the number's 53 scholars or 54 scholars, I don't know, but scholars, regardless, there was a lot of scholars involved and theologians worked to translate the different books of the Bible, the Old Testament from Hebrew, the New Testament from the Greek, the Apocrypha from the Greek and Latin. Much of the resulting translation drew on the work of the Protestant reformer William Tyndale, who had produced the first New Testament translation from Greek into English in 1525, but was executed for heresy less than a decade later. So he was executed for heresy for translating the Bible into English. I mean, that was his horrible crime. Published in 1611, the King James Bible spread quickly throughout Europe because of the wealth of resources devoted to the project. It was the most faithful and scholarly translation to date, not to mention the most accessible. Printing had already been invented and made copies relatively cheap compared to hand-done copies, says Carol Myers, a professor of religious studies at Duke University. The translation into English, the language of the land, made it accessible to all those people who could read English and who could afford a printed Bible, whereas before the Bible had been the sole property of the church, now more and more people could read it themselves. Not only that, but the language they read in the King James Bible was in English unlike anything they've ever read before. With its poetic cadences and vivid imagery, the KJV sounded to many like the voice of God himself. I agree with that statement, that when you read the Bible, the King James, there's something different about it. It's got power. And so like I said with these robotic versions and the NIV going gender neutral in their latest translation, they're not being faithful to the translation. And they're using a bad text on top of that. Now from Handel's Messiah, which is basically one of the most famous, what would you call it? It's basically kind of like a, huh? Yeah, it's like this chorus and it's really long and it's really famous. And a lot of people, Brother Sean actually took me and my wife and Miss Jessica to go see Handel's Messiah. It's the first time I'd ever seen it and it was really good. It's just basically scripture being sang and scripture being read and talked about about the birth of Christ. And then you got Coolio's gangster paradise. As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death is like one of the first things that he says in that song. I'm just saying that the King James has a lot of influence and had a lot of influence in culture. The King James Bible has inspired a wide swath of cultural expression across the English speaking world for generations. Writers from Herman Melville to Ernest Hemingway to Alice Walker have drawn on its cadences and imagery of their work. While Martin Luther King Jr. quoted the King James version of Isaiah from memory in the famous I Have a Dream speech. Beyond the countless artists and leaders inspired by the King James Bible, its influences can be seen in many of the expressions English speakers use every day. Phrases like my brother's keeper and the kiss of death, the blind leading the blind, fall from grace, eye for an eye, a drop in the bucket, the apple of his eye. Those are things that were drawn from the King James, these sayings that people say. To name only a few, all owe their existence or at least their popularization in English to the KJV. From the early 20th century onward, mainstream Protestants denominations increasingly turned toward more modern Bible translations, which have been able to provide more accurate readings of the source text. I told you, there's stuff I don't agree with in this. So, they're actually not correct about that. Thanks to those more recently discovered ancient Semitic texts unavailable in 1611. See, this is where the Bible corrupters come in and they have these opinions where, hey we found something that's newer, I mean older in some cave somewhere and that supersedes what the King James says. Now, I would say that the one that's been passed down and used for thousands of years is a lot better than one that you find that has all these alternative readings in some cave or something. And you know why that they're preserved like that? Because nobody used them. Because they knew they were fake, they knew they were spurious, they knew they weren't right. And that's the main issue between the modern versions and the King James and versions that were written off the Texas Receptus, they don't use the Texas Receptus anymore. They have a totally completely different underlying Greek that they translate from and so it might be a great translation of a bad manuscript. That's what the real issue is and some of it's just bad translating and a bad manuscript. So, the difference is the text. The text that they were drawn from is one of the main differences. Still, the King James Version remains extremely popular. As late as 2014, a major study on the Bible in American life found that 55% of Bible readers said that they reached most often to the King James Version. So, it's the most, it's still, even though it might not be the most, the best selling book in America now, it's still the most read. More people read the King James. So, you can have the NIV outselling it or whatever but nobody reads it. They don't actually read the Bible as it's not precious to them. So, they reached the most often for the King James Version compared with only 19% who chose the NIV, New International Version. First published in 1978 and updated most recently in 2011, the high percentage also likely included people who favor the New King James and update of the classic English text published in the 1980s. And I would disagree that it's a bad update, okay? You know, stick with the King James. It says it's clear that more than 400 years the King James Bible has more than proven its staying power for reading and worship services. It's much more majestic than the modern translation says Myers. It's had a very powerful influence on our language and on our literature to this very day. And you know why? Because it's the real deal. That's why. Because when people read it they have the power, they feel that when you preach the King James it's different than the other versions. Now, when I was King James only before I was even saved. So, how do you explain that? I don't know. But I think that God was just preparing the ground for me to get saved. That's providence. How did I become King James only? Well, I actually read a comic, like a comic book, that had the story of the differences between the King James and the modern versions and I immediately just changed. I wasn't even saved. I didn't even know anything about the Bible version debate but all it took is someone to explain it to me and I understood it perfectly. And so, at the time I was working for a whole company of Jehovah's Witnesses. I'm sure I've told you guys this before but my friend died. But before that happened they were trying to get me to go to their studies and stuff but I was already King James only so I was just challenging people as an unsaved man. Challenging the Jehovah's Witnesses and their translation. I mean, I don't know how you explain that but I was reading it and not understanding it. I was reading Matthew chapter 24. I was reading the book of Revelation but I did not understand it. Well, I didn't start understanding it until I actually got saved. And that's what the Bible teaches, that you're not gonna understand the Bible unless you're saved. You might understand that Noah had all these different types of animals he put on the boat. Unsaved people can get that but they're not gonna get the spiritual meaning out of the Bible. They're gonna get the carnal application. The carnal meaning of the Bible. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes chapter eight four where the word of the king is there is power. And who may say unto him what doest thou? So, King James put his stamp of approval on this book right here, the King James Version. And people will say, well, he was this homo and all this other stuff. That's just not true. That accusation came out 25 years after King James was dead. It's funny how people just wanna accuse people after they're dead. They don't wanna say anything while he's alive. Probably because they would've got killed but that's a nasty rumor that keeps coming up. Look at all these black Hebrew Israelites that will mock the King James Bible. A lot of people will mock the King James Bible and just say all kinds of nasty things about him. If you can't destroy the book, you're gonna try to destroy the character of the man that helped lead the translation of it. So, here's what God's providence means. Here's the definition of it. The protective care of God or nature as a spiritual power. So the protective care of God. Number two, timely preparation for future eventualities. Timely preparation for future eventualities. So, God's providence is that he takes care and protects and if it's his job to preserve his word, then he's gonna make sure that he protectively cares for the text so that the next generation can still have it. And he's preparing things for future eventualities. So, he's obviously guiding somehow how we get this perfect Bible in our hands in 2021. How do we have it? Well, number one, there was a copyright that was called the Crown Copyright, but you can take the bare text of the King James and make as many copies of it as you want. There's no copyright on it. In the Library of Congress, there's millions of books in there and you know what the only one without a copyright is? The King James Bible. If you have maps and footnotes and all this other stuff in there, there might be some kind of copyright on the maps in the back of your book or whatever the commentary, if it's a commentary Bible where it has a bunch of commentary then people could put copyrights on that, but the plain text of the King James, there is no copyright on that. It's the only book like that in the world. How do you explain that? God's providence, God's preservation, God's protection. And so, God is always gonna make sure that his book is taken care of. Obviously, there's other languages. I'm not saying King James is the best translation for people that only speak Spanish. That'd be ridiculous. It's still a perfect book, but if you can't understand it, you can't read it, then it's not gonna be perfect for you. I mean, it'll be perfect, but you just won't understand it. So, there's other versions of the Bible in other nations, other tongues that are good translations. So, there's good Spanish translations. There's good, you know, obviously Greek. Greek, the Texas Receptus in the Greek is obviously a preserved manuscript. So, I wanna tell you a story about how, and I am gonna read another article and I apologize for that, but it's kind of important because on the 5th of November, a couple days ago, you know, it's called Guy Fawkes Day. Who's heard of Guy Fawkes Day? Have you seen the Wicked Movie, V for Vendetta? That's, you know, that's not rightly showing the truth about the gunpowder plot. So, there's a gunpowder plot that happened in 1605 and basically, this is after, so King James wanted this book to be put forth. What year was it said, did it say? 1604, right? The gunpowder plot took place in 1605. So, what was the plot? Well, they wanted to, they took all this gunpowder and placed it underneath Parliament, where all the government, you know, that day was gonna be like a day where everybody shows up for the House of Lords. All the clergy, the king and his family, all the people that were involved in Parliament in the government were all gonna be there on one day and there was a plot, and it was a Jesuit plot, it was a Catholic plot, that's just a fact of history. And, you know, the Catholics were upset because, you know, they were basically banned from having priests, the priests were just kicked out of England. And if you didn't go to a, if a Catholic, you could be a Catholic, but you still had to go to church and if you didn't go to church, they put huge fines on you and things like that. But, I think that they just thought King James was gonna be a little more lenient than the other people who were in power. So, but basically, they just wanted to kill King James. They murdered his dad, first of all, and then his mom, he was taken away from his mom, I believe, didn't you say it was like when he was one year old? So, he wasn't even raised by his own parents. He was just shipped off to Scotland and protected. But King James was a really smart guy. He could speak fluent Greek, so he understood the problems in the translations to a certain extent, but these Roman Catholics and these Jesuits, Jesuits was like an order of priests that they did assassinate people. They did partake in trying to get the Bible destroyed. You know, who do you think burnt William Tyndale at the stake? It was the Catholics. So, they come up with this plot to blow up Parliament with all these people that are supposed to be there. Basically, essentially, it would've been the worst terrorism attack in history. It was the worst terrorism plot in British history, for sure, and basically, they would've killed everybody and then instituted their own monarch that was Catholic. So, now, so if you think about providence, God's providence is him preparing for the future and making sure that the Bible was gonna be, you know, that we were gonna have a perfect Bible, but say this plot actually worked, say they actually did blow up all those people, then that would've changed history as we know it, and you know what wouldn't have been made? The King James Bible wouldn't have been made. Do you think they were just gonna keep allowing the King James to be translated? So, it came out in 1611. The plot happened in 1605. Let me read to you about the plot here. In early centuries, often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason was a failed assassination attempt against King James I by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby, who sought to restore the Catholic monarchy from the Church of England after decades of intolerance against Catholics. So, this is a Wikipedia article. I don't agree with everything being said here either, but I don't want it to be said that I just go to the people that are my buddies or people that I agree with to get all my information. So, the plan was to blow up the House of Lords during the state opening of Parliament on the 5th of November 1605 as a prelude to a popular revolt in the Midlands, during which James' nine-year-old daughter Elizabeth was to be installed as the Catholic head of state. Catesby may have embarked on this scheme after hopes of securing greater religious tolerance under King James and had faded, leaving many English Catholics disappointed. His fellow plotters were John and Christopher Wright, Robert and Thomas Wintour, Thomas Percy, Guy Fawkes, Robert Cates, Thomas Bates, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Sir Everand Digby, and Francis Tresham. Fawkes, who had 10 years of military experience fighting in the Spanish Netherlands in the failed suppression of the Dutch revolt was given charge of the explosives. So this guy, Guy Fawkes, it's called Guy Fawkes Day in England and every year they celebrate this Guy Fawkes Day where Guy Fawkes was caught, saved the crown and the government and all the clergy and they do bonfires and they light fireworks off and stuff. It's kind of like Halloween mixed with the 4th of July type of thing or something. Anyway, but the plot was revealed to the authorities in an anonymous letter to William Parker, 4th Baron of Monteagle on 26th of October, 1605 during a search of the House of Lords in the evening on 4th, the 4th of November, 1605, Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder, enough to reduce the House of Lords to rubble and arrested, most of the conspirators, excuse me, fled from London as they learned of the plot's discovery. Trying to enlist support along the way, several made a stand against the pursuing sheriff of Worchester and his men at the Hulbachee House, I think that's the way you pronounce that. In the ensuing battle, Catsby was one of those shot and killed. At their trial on the 27th of January, 1606, eight of the survivors, including Fawkes, were convicted and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. So, you know, the Bible has this principle where whatever you try to do to somebody else, then that will be done unto you. I'm not necessarily agreeing with how, you know, being hanged, drawn and quartered, you know, it was a pretty brutal practice and basically, you know, they would draw them with a horse, they would like tie them to a horse and like drag them around the streets. They would hang them until they were almost dead and then they would cut off their privy members, burn them in front of them, and then cut out their insides, burn those two, and then chop off their head and chop their body into like four pieces or something. Pretty bad stuff, right? I mean, it's a brutal practice, but, you know, obviously these people were trying to murder hundreds, maybe thousands of people that day and, you know, basically the attempt was failed. They attempted, I mean, they had all the stuff. Guy Fawkes was there ready to light the fuse. They found matches in his pocket and, you know, they tortured him in order to get the names for the other people. They caught all the people, they round them up, hanged, drawn, quartered. Now Guy Fawkes, he just jumped, he didn't get all, he wasn't awake during his, all that drawn, quartered and all that stuff. He just jumped and hung himself and snapped his neck. But details of the assassination attempt were allegedly known by the principal Jesuit of England, Father Henry Garnet. Although he was convicted of treason, and sentenced to death, doubt has been cast on how much he really knew about the plot. Well, if he was a Jesuit, he probably knew. Anyway, that's my interjection there. As its existence was revealed to him through confession, Garnet was prevented from informing the authorities of the absolute confidentiality of the confessional. Although anti-Catholic legislation was introduced soon after the plot's discovery, many important and loyal Catholics retained high office during King James I's reign and thwarting of the gunpowder plot was commemorated for many years after by special sermons and other public events such as the ringing of the church bells which evolved into the British variant of Bonfire Night of today. So it's a big deal. In England it's still celebrated today, Guy Fawkes Day, that they thwarted this plot that would have killed King James and all the people in the House of Lords and I believe that that was God's providence in not allowing him to be killed, not allowing all those people to be killed. I don't know if any of the translators were in the room at that time, but that might have, I mean, I don't know that for a fact, but I would guess that that could be true. Maybe some of the people that translated were in there. I'm not sure. But they failed. Guy Fawkes failed to kill King James. He failed to stop the Bible from being put into practice with the King James. He failed to stop the King James from being translated. He failed. But that was the plot. It wasn't just to kill them because killing them would have stopped the King James from going out. So do you see how that's providence? That's God taking care of and preserving his word because we wouldn't have this book today if they wouldn't have failed. Now Guy Fawkes, they have that anonymous mask. Have you seen the anonymous mask? That's what that's from. That's a Guy Fawkes mask. And now that's looked at as a way of rebellion. I mean, that just shows you the heart of people right now that they're gonna take some guy that was trying to murder a bunch of people, murder good people, and then use that as some kind of a thing of rebellion for us today in modern times. It's wicked. And that movie that it comes from is wicked. So it's just, you know, but God takes care of his word. God is gonna preserve his word. Look at, turn to Matthew chapter four. Matthew chapter four. I realize I had to read a lot of stuff there, but if you've never heard that story before, I mean, it's good to know things about history sometimes that especially affect how Christianity is today. So Matthew chapter four, verse number four. It says, 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. And we have an every word Bible here today for us to read and enjoy every day. Look, a lot of people had to go through a lot of things in order for us to get this Bible. Do you realize that? People were assassinated. People were murdered. Bibles were burnt by the thousands and all in order to stop this great book from being printed, this great book from being able to be placed in your hands today. Things could have turned out differently, but here's the thing. Even if they would have killed King James, I think that God would have somehow made, obviously because he's promised to preserve his word, so somehow that would have happened, but God put all these things in place so that it could be accomplished. That's what I believe. Matthew chapter 24, verse 35 says, Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Well, how do we know his words shall not pass away? Well, that verse is in your Bible. Jesus said that his words wouldn't pass away. Was he right? Yeah, because they're still here. 2,000 years later, we still can read that verse because his words have not passed away. Every word that proceedeth out of his mouth is there preserved for us to be able to read. Turn to Jeremiah chapter 36. I'm gonna read for you in Psalm 119, verse 89. It says, Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. There is a perfect version up in heaven, too, and it's been settled for a long time. God's word has always existed, and we have that for us. We have God's word, something that's always existed, something that's always been, something that's forever in heaven, settled, the words were settled, everything that was said was settled, and we have this in our hands. I mean, we take this for granted. I think a lot of people take for granted the fact that they have a perfect Bible that they can read. Not even every country can say that that's true. There's Bible versions that have gone by the wayside that were probably good translations, but they're not even in print anymore. It's hard to find the right one in France. It's hard to find the right ones in all these different countries. Why? Because it didn't resonate with the people. People did not continue to preach God's word. People didn't continue to go soul-wanting, and so when you have something like the French Revolution happen, where they're lopping people's heads off because of their Christian beliefs, or in Russia, when people were murdered and put into gulags, the Germans, they didn't have a perfect version. Their Martin Luther translation is not perfect, but you can just see the hearts of the people of Germany. There's most of the people there just don't care about the Bible, but you know what? People today in America, they've stopped caring about the Bible too, but we need to be people that not only we don't just say we're King James only, we read the King James. We should read this book every single day and not take it for granted. Jeremiah 36 verse one, where I had you turn, this is a perfect story about how God preserves his book and how he translates it. I'm gonna skip through some of it, but it is kind of a lengthy passage. Jeremiah 36 verse one, it says, and it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, that this word came unto Jeremiah from the Lord saying, take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel. So what's God saying? He's saying take a roll, take something that you would write a book with, because back then they had rolls, right? They didn't have books like this. And write therein all the words that I have spoken against Israel and against Judah and against all the nations from the day I spake unto thee from the days of Josiah, even unto this day. So the book of Jeremiah is what he's telling him to write. He's saying write down everything that I've said to you, write it in a roll, and it says, it may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I propose to do unto them, that they may return every man from his evil way, that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin. Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah, and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord. So who wrote the book of Jeremiah? Who wrote it down? Was it Jeremiah? No, it was Baruch at the mouth of Jeremiah, which he had spoken unto him upon a roll of a book. In the New Testament you have the apostle Paul saying I wrote these with my own letters, I wrote this with my own hand, but it was also written down. He dictated the Bible, the letters, to other people. So it says in Jeremiah 36 five, it says Jeremiah commanded Baruch saying, I am shut up, I cannot go into the house of the Lord, therefore go thou and read the roll which thou has written from my mouth the words of the Lord. So God gave him the words to speak, put them into Jeremiah's mouth, Jeremiah said here write these down Baruch, and Baruch wrote down the words that Jeremiah wrote. That's how the word of God was written, at least the book of Jeremiah. It says in the ears of the people, in the Lord's house upon the fasting day, and also thou shall read them in the ears of all Judah that come out of their cities. Now skip down to verse 14, it says therefore all the princes set Jehudi the son of Netheniah and the son of Shelemiah the son of Cushai unto Baruch saying, taken thine hand the roll wherein thou hast read in the ears of the people and come. So Baruch the son of Neriah took the roll in his hand and came unto them and said unto them sit down now and read it in our ears. So Baruch read it in their ears. Now it came to pass when they had heard all the words they were afraid both one and another. So the word of God has power. They heard the word of the Lord, what happened? They were afraid. And it says then, and said unto Baruch we will surely tell the king of all these words. And they asked Baruch saying tell us now how didst thou write all these words at his mouth? Do you think it's an accident that he's asking these questions? I don't think it's an accident at all. I think God is trying to show us how the Bible gets written. How the Bible gets written down, how it works. And it's very simple, look at verse 18. And Baruch answered, he pronounced all the words unto me with his mouth, I wrote them with ink in the book. That's not real hard. It's not some magical process or something like that. It's God speaks to the prophet, the prophet writes them down himself, or the prophet dictates to someone else to write it down for him, and all those words are what God intended to be put into that book. The book of Jeremiah. Now skip to verse 21. So the king sent Jehudi to fetch the roll, and he took it out of Elisha the scribe's, took it out of Elisha the scribe's chamber, and Jehudi read it in the ears of the king, and the ears of all the princes which stood beside the king. Now the king sat in the winter house in the ninth month, and there was a fire on the hearth burning before him. And it came to pass that when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with a pen knife, and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth until the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth. So what did he took? He took the original manuscript, the original thing that Jeremiah had Baruch the scribe write down on this roll, and what did he do? He cut it up with a pen knife, and threw it into the fire, the whole roll. So the original manuscript to the book of Jeremiah was cut up, and burned, and thrown into a fire. Now skip down to verse number 27. It says then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, so basically they didn't want to receive what happened, and Jeremiah rebuked them or whatever, but here's where it says, then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. After that the king had burned the roll, and the words which Baruch wrote at the mouth of Jeremiah, saying, take thee again another roll, and write it all the former words that were in the first roll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah hath burned. So what's he saying? Take a different roll. Write down everything that I just told you to do. Was this the original, or was it the second time it was written down? It's the second time, right? Now look at verse 32. It says then Jeremiah took another roll, gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book, which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire, and they were added besides unto them many like words. So he put more stuff in it, but the book of Jeremiah was the original manuscript, which these people that just love modern Bible versions, they're trying to get to the original, they're trying to go back in the past and find the oldest ones, and they'll say those are the best ones because they're the oldest. But that does not make sense because it doesn't matter what the original manuscript is. It just proved it right there in the book of Jeremiah. It doesn't matter if we have his original manuscript or not. It says that he put all the same words back into the book and then added other words besides those. So there's people that, you know, Pastor Jones calls them omos, original manuscript onlius, okay? And that's a good name for them because they believe that we don't have the true words of God in this book that you have to go to the original manuscripts to find out what God actually said. And let me tell you something, that's a lie straight out of the pit of hell. That's not how God looks at it. You know, we have multiple copies of the Texas Receptus, like five or six thousand of them, even up to this day. They have, what, one Homer Iliad or maybe one or two copies of that. God preserved his word in the King James, in the original, he preserved the original manuscripts, but we don't have the actual one that they first wrote down in a book. We don't have the original Jeremiah the prophet, but how do we know it's right? Because God said it was right because God told them to put the same words back into the next roll. And were they the same rolls or the same manuscripts? Yes, same exact preaching, same exact stories. Everything was perfectly preserved. And it was a copy of the one that was destroyed. So we have copies upon copies upon copies and, you know, obviously people can make mistakes, but you know who doesn't make mistakes? God doesn't make mistakes. God's gonna make sure that every word is in here that was supposed to be in there in the first place. So don't give me this garbage where you say we have to find the original language. You know, like you have to be like Indiana Jones, go find the oldest text or something before it gets destroyed. It belongs in a museum or whatever. You know, that's not how God operates. You know what I'm gonna trust? I'm gonna trust the one that's been used faithfully down through the ages and not the one that I find in a dumpster that has an alternative reading. So turn to Hebrews chapter one, verse one. Hebrews chapter one, verse one. Hebrews 1, one says, God who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets. So God who at sundry times, different times in history, in diverse manners. So he did it in different ways. So this might not be the way that was done in every other Bible, but you know what, we have to take by faith that God's word is preserved in this book. It doesn't matter how it was done. We just saw the process of how God told Jeremiah to do it, but there's other ways that it could be done. It says diverse manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets. Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son. Did Jesus Christ write down the book of Matthew? Did Jesus Christ write down the book of Mark? Did Jesus Christ write down Luke? Did he write down John? Did he write Revelation with his own hand? No. So it's done in different ways, but he spoke to us by his son, and we have the words of Jesus Christ in our Bible, don't we? You know, if you have a red letter edition, those are the words of Jesus Christ written in red so that we know when Jesus Christ himself is talking, but did he write it down? No, he didn't write it down. No, he didn't write it down. He got crucified and then rose from the dead, and then he went to heaven. We had other people write it down for him. That's why we have the Gospels that has his words in there. But do you believe those are really Christ's words? This is a hinging, this is such an important doctrine because, you know, do we have the right Bible or not? Can we trust the Bible that we have? Can we trust that God actually preserved his word? Did he say he was gonna preserve his word? Yes, he did, so if he said he was gonna do it, then guess what, it's gotta be somewhere on this planet somewhere, and it's not in an old dusty dungeon in the Vatican. You're not gonna find anything that's gonna supersede this book. You're not gonna find anything, you know, a different version of Isaiah, the prophet, that is gonna contradict what's in this book. I don't believe that. I don't believe we have to keep searching for the oldest manuscripts. I believe that we've had the Bible, you know, all throughout history. So, now, was it a perfect, was it a perfect Bible before the King James? I don't think it was. I think that there was mistakes or translational errors in it. Doesn't mean that the text was bad, though. It just means that maybe they just didn't, you know, they didn't have 53 scholars or 54 scholars, you know, to make sure everything was right. But, you know, and if one man just tries to interpret something and maybe he's not a language expert or something, maybe he makes a couple mistakes in what was being said. So, but that doesn't mean those versions, like the Geneva Bible, I don't think that the Geneva Bible is like a wicked corruption, but the notes in it are. That's why the king didn't like it, because this is like a fast simile of that book, and look, all the notes on the side telling you what to think. You know, you can't read the Bible for yourself. We have to tell you, the Calvinists have to tell you how to interpret it. That's what he didn't like. So don't say that King James was some crazy Calvinist when he didn't like the notes that the Calvinists put inside the Bible. You know, he didn't like it. So he said, let's do another one where there's not a bunch of, you know, footnotes telling you what to believe. You should be able to pick it up if you're saved and read it and understand it. First Peter, or second Peter chapter, actually, yeah, second Peter chapter one, verse 21. Second Peter chapter one, verse 21. The Bible says in second Peter 1 21, it says, 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. How do we get the Bible? Well, you know, God spake in diverse manners and unto us by the prophets and the fathers by the prophets and spoken, you know, he spoke to us through the Lord Jesus Christ, but he also says that holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. And so it's not just some book written by men. The Bible does not say that. The Bible says that it was not written by men. It did not come by the will of man. It came by the will of God. So, and just like, you know, if you say, well, all the Bible versions are just basically the same. Let me just do a little test with you here real quick. What time, men, do you have a watch on? Anybody have a watch on? What time does your watch say right now? Anybody blurt something out? 11.57, mine says 12.57, is that right? No, because I forgot to set it back, so it's wrong. Okay, who else has a different time than 11.57? You got a different time? What's it say right there? I don't know, maybe 58? So all these times are different times, aren't they? So the point I'm trying to make is they're not all the same. So one's right, though, and it's not mine. It might be your cell phone. I don't have my cell phone on me, but you see what I'm saying? Like, if they're different, they're not the same. One's wrong, you know, one is right, and some of the other ones are wrong. Some people in here might have the exact time, the same exact time, that's great. You know, if you have the watch that works the best or a cell phone that has the right time, then you have the right time. But if it's different, then you have the wrong time. So if a Bible version is different, a new Bible version says different things than this book says, then it's not the same. It's not right. Does that make sense? Hopefully that helps you illustrate the difference because if it says different things, it's not the same. Second Corinthians chapter two verse 17 says, For we are not as many which corrupt the word of God, but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ. So Paul's saying here, and this is 2,000 years ago, we're not as many which corrupt the word of God. There are people, even back then, there were many that were corrupting the word of God. How is it today? Well, if you have 400 and some odd English translations and they all say something different, then somebody's corrupting the word of God. So this one's 400 years old, over 400 years old. So in 2011, it was 400 years old. So we're about to have 410 years of the Bible, a Bible that we can trust, a Bible that is right. It's translated correctly out of the original tongues and languages. So why do you need to have a different one? Because you can't understand these, thou's, and ye's, and yours. Well, ye and yours is plural, thee and thine is singular. Case closed, is that really that hard? Now obviously there's some words that you might not understand here, but every single word in the King James is still in a modern dictionary. So it's not like it's just thrown by the wayside. Maybe we just need to get smarter. Maybe you just need to read some and figure out what the words say, figure out what they mean. We're probably guilty of reading over the Bible and not understanding what some of the words mean. But just take the time and look it up, compare it. So let me ask some man child boys in here some questions. One question, I just got one question. Gabe, is it okay if I ask them a question? Who killed Goliath? David. Does anybody else have a different answer than David? Does everybody in this room know that David killed Goliath? Anybody have a differing opinion on that? Well, let's turn to 2 Samuel 21 verse 19. 2 Samuel chapter 21 verse 19. This is the King James version. Now, I'm gonna read from you some different Bible versions. I'll tell you what they say and what the King James says, okay? 2 Samuel chapter 21 verse 19 says, And there was again a battle in Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan, the son of Jer, Origen, a Bethlehemite, slew, what does it say? The brother of Goliath, the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. So what does the King James say? It says the brother of Goliath. Now, if it said Goliath, would you be confused? Because we know who killed Goliath. A small child, every small child in this room that can read or has had their parents explain to them the story of David and Goliath understand that Goliath was killed by King David. But the King James says it was the brother of Goliath in this verse. Well, I got 2 Samuel 21, 19 in the Geneva version. This is the Geneva version right here. But I'll just read for you what it says in the Geneva version. This person online was saying, Well, is the Geneva better than the King James? What are the differences? And I thought of this verse right away. And it's the 1599 Geneva Bible. It says, And there was yet another battle in Gab with the Philistines, where Elhanan, the son of Jer-or-gim, a Bethlehemite, slew Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. So this version right here says that Elhanan killed Goliath the Gittite. So is it wrong? Now, people will say, Well, it's not in the original Hebrew. The word for brother is not in the original Hebrew. And I'll address that in just a minute. But is that a correct translation? It's not a correct translation because we know that Goliath was killed much earlier. Now, when I brought this to this guy's attention, he said, Well, this is probably a different Goliath. And, you know, did you happen to realize that it says Goliath the Gittite and not Goliath of Gath? And I just kind of, you know, I mean, I think that pretty much most people know that have read the Bible that if you're a Gittite, you're from Gath, okay? So it's like, you know, they have to make things up to make their story sound legit. You know, and when I showed him, I just kind of gave him the definition. Like, I just Googled Gath, what is a Gittite, and it says the definition is somebody from Gath. And I just, he's like, Well, that's real scholarly of you. You looked it up on Google. But anybody that's read the Bible knows that if you're a Gittite, you're from Gath. I mean, I just thought that was common knowledge. But see, this is the length that people will go to try to stick by a perversion in God's word. Now, the Hebrew word is for brother is not in there. So how do we know that that's true? Well, before I get to that point, I want to read you from the Amplified Bible what it says real quick. The same verse. There was war with the Philistines again at Gab, and Elhanan, the son of Jer, Oregon, a Bethlehemite, killed Goliath the Gittite. So that's the Amplified Bible. It's really loud, right? But anyway, so it says they killed Goliath. The ESV, which, you know, people are the most scholarly version of the Bible. You know, John MacArthur promotes it or whatever. Look what the ESV says. And there was again war with the Philistines at Gab, Elhanan, the son of Jer, Oregon, the Bethlehemite, struck down Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. I saw a version where it says that it was the length of a sailboat, a sailboat, whatever, staff or whatever. You know, what are they called? The mast, yeah, a sailboat mast. That's what it said. It's like, what? Anyway, so how do we know that brother is the right translation, though? First of all, again, everybody knows that Goliath was not killed, you know, by Elhanan. He was killed by David. Now, look at 1 Chronicles 20, verse 5. 1 Chronicles 20, verse 5. And look, I'm not trying to bash the Geneva Bible necessarily. I'm just saying, so, and if the Hebrew word's not there and they're translated in it literally, then yeah, they're technically right, but if you know that that's not true and you still put it in there, then you're putting something that's not true in the Bible. Does that make sense? 1 Chronicles 20, verse 5 says, And there was war again with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jer, slew Lami, and it says his name right here, the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spear staff was like a weaver's beam. Now, in the other one, the brother of is in italics, showing that it was not there in the original language or whatever, but if you go off of 1 Chronicles 20, verse 5, does that have italics there in your Bible? No, it doesn't. So, they're technically right. They're not technically wrong, but they are wrong because we know who killed Goliath, right? So, in 1 Chronicles 20, verse 5, it spells it out for us once again, and so the King James translators translated it correctly. They translated it correctly, why? Because it is in the original in this one, and it's telling the same story. It's not a doppelganger Goliath, you know, like this guy tried to report to me. It's not some second Goliath, the Gittite, instead of from Gath. I mean, that's just a bozo's way of trying to interpret it. That's just a wrong interpretation of it. Now, what's it say in the Geneva Bible? And there was yet another battle with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jer, slew Lami, the brother of Goliath, the Gittite, whose spear and staff was like a weaver's beam. But in 2 Samuel, how did they translate it? They said it was Goliath. So, do you see that there's a contradiction there? So, which Bible version is right? The one that has that he slew the brother of Goliath in both verses, or the one that one says he slew Goliath, and the other one says he slew his brother? Do you understand how that's a problem? And so, if you're saying the Geneva Bible's perfect, it's not perfect because it screwed up on that verse. So, 1 Chronicles 20, verse 5 in the Amplified Bible says there was war again with the Philistines and Elhanan the son of Jer, killed Lami, the brother of Goliath, the Gittite, whose shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. So, 1 Chronicles 20, verse 15, they have it right that it's the brother of Goliath, but in the other verse, what did it say? That he was Goliath the Gittite. So, wrong, it's not a perfect version. The ESV says, and there was war with the Philistines and Elhanan the son of Jer struck down Lami, the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam. So, they got it right in 1 Chronicles 20, verse 5, but they're like being ultra-technical, but yet they're putting something that's wrong in the Bible. It's not factually true. Do you understand what I'm saying? Like, they're contradicting themselves in every version. So, is the ESV a better translation of the Bible than the King James? No, because the King James has it right. In a Gittite, it's from Gath. So, that's a really bad argument. It's not a different Goliath. 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 13. Turn to 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 13. I realize I've got to end here, and this is the last verse I'll have you turn to. At some point, you're going to have to hear the voice of the shepherd. If you're not hearing the voice of the shepherd, maybe you have a bad Bible version. Maybe you're reading out of a poor translation. There's ones that are way worse. The Geneva Bible was actually translated out of the right text, but they just had some bad issues. That's why you have like six previous translations in English, and then you came up with the King James, and it was perfect. Look at 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 13. It says, For this cause also thank we God, without ceasing, because when you received the word of God, which he heard of us, you received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. So, what is Paul saying here? He's saying, hey, I'm glad, just to sum it up, he's saying, I'm glad that you received the word of God not as the word of men, but as in truth, as the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. The words of Paul right here are the word of God. And so, basically this is Paul just kind of doubling down and saying, hey, I'm glad that the letters you received and as they were the word of God. You know what, we need to receive the true word of God. We need to believe it and we need to be thankful for it. Because God preserved it for us so that we could have it to read because we need it. It's more important than our daily food. It's more important than anything else you have in your life. It's more important than your video games. It's more important than your movies. It's more important than sports or any other thing. This is the most important thing that God has given us. He gave us a book and a manual, how to live our lives and how to live as a Christian and everything that we need to know on this earth, He put it in this book for us. And so, you should appreciate that. God promised to preserve His words for us and He's responsible to keep it and He has kept it. And He takes it seriously. We have a Bible we can trust. And you know what, I hope you read it every day. I hope you let it guide your life. And if you're confused about the Bible translation issue, you know, just really quickly, if it's translated from a different text, it's not even the right text. So, like I said, it could be a good translation out of a corrupt text. If there is a corrupt text, there is a right text. This is translated out of the right text. So, you should be able to trust your King James Bible because ultimately, if you think the word of God is stuck in some museum somewhere and you don't have all the words of God, then you don't have an every word Bible. And then that would make God a liar, wouldn't it? God's not a liar. So, anyway, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for this great book that you've passed down for us, Lord, that you've made sure is perfect and put every word in it for us to be able to live our lives by it, that we can preach by it so we can just apply these things to our lives. Lord, I pray that you just help us to have a great respect for the Bible that you've promised to preserve and that through providence, you've made sure that we have in our hands today. I pray these things in Jesus' name, Amen. The last song will be song number 308, I Surrender All. Song number 308, I Surrender All. Song number 308, I Surrender All. Let's sing it out on the first. All to Jesus I surrender all To Him I freely give I will ever love And trust Him in His presence In His presence daily live I surrender all I surrender all All to Thee my blessed Savior I surrender all All to Jesus I surrender Humbly at His feet I bow Worldly pleasures all forsaken Take me Jesus, take me now I surrender all I surrender all All to Thee my blessed Savior I surrender all All to Jesus I surrender Make me Savior, holy Thine Let me feel the Holy Spirit Truly know that Thou art mine I surrender all I surrender all All to Thee my blessed Savior I surrender all All to Jesus I surrender Lord, I give myself to Thee Fill me with Thy love and power Let Thy blessing fall on me I surrender all I surrender all All to Thee my blessed Savior I surrender all Amen. Good seeing you, brother. Sean Harrington, could you close your water prayer?