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Let them also that hate him flee before him, as smoke is driven away, so drive them away, as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God. But let the righteous be glad, let them rejoice before God, yea, let them exceedingly rejoice. Sing unto God, sing praises unto his name, extol him that writeth upon the heavens by his name, Jah, and rejoice before him. A father of the fatherless and a judge of the widows is God in his holy habitation. God set at the solitary and families. He bringeth out those which are bound with chains, but the rebellious dwell in a dry land. O God, when thou wennest forth before thy people, when thou didst march through the wilderness, Silah, the earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God. Even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel. Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain, whereby thou didst confirm thine inheritance when it was weary. Thy congregation hath dwelt therein. Thou, O God, has prepared of thy goodness for the poor. The Lord gave the word, great was the company of those that published it. Kings of armies did flee apace, and she that tarried at home divided the spoil. Though ye have lean among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with white gold. When the Almighty scattered kings in it, it was white as snow and salmon. The hill of God is as the hill of God is as the hill of Bashan, on high hill as the hill of Bashan. Why leap ye, ye high hills? This is the hill which God desireth to dwell in, yea, the Lord will dwell in it forever. The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels. The Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place. Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive, thou hast received gifts for men, yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them. Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation, Selah. He that is our God is the God of salvation, and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death. But God shall wound the head of his enemies, and the hairy scalp of such an one as goeth on still in his trespasses. The Lord said, I will bring again from Bashan, I will bring my people again from the depths of the sea, that thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same. They have seen thy goings of God, O God, even the goings of my God, my King, in the sanctuary. The singers went before, the players on instruments followed after, among them were the damsels playing with timbrels. Bless ye God in the congregations, even the Lord, from the fountain of Israel. There is little Benjamin with their ruler, the princes of Judah, and their counsel, the princes of Zebulun, and the princes of Naphtali. Thy God hath commanded thy strength. Strengthen, O God, that which thou hast wrought for us. Because of thy temple at Jerusalem shall Kings bring presents unto thee. Rebuke the company of spearmen, the multitude of the bulls with the calves of the people, till every one submit himself with pieces of silver. Scatter thou the people that delight in war. Princes shall come out of Egypt. Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God. Sing unto God ye kingdoms of the earth. O sing praises unto the Lord Selah. To him that writeth upon the heavens of heavens, which were of old, lo, he doth send out his voice, and that a mighty voice. Ascribe ye strength unto God. His excellency is over Israel, and his strength is in the clouds. O God, thou art terrible out of thy holy places. The God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power unto his people. Blessed be God. Father in heaven, thank you for the church today, and please bless Pastor Anderson as he preaches your word and help us, your children, get better and better with regards to the word which is yours and the faith which we had when we believed in your son Jesus Christ. Lord, strengthen us in the faith and in your word, Lord. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. Psalm 68 is a chapter that's all about God's power, God's greatness, God's magnificence. It says in verse number one, let God arise. Let his enemies be scattered. Let them also that hate him flee before him. And this actually goes all the way back to the Mosaic law. At the end of Numbers chapter 10, the Bible tells us that Moses would say this every time the cloudy pillar would move. If you remember when the children of Israel are wandering in the wilderness, when the cloudy pillar moved, they were supposed to move their camp, and then when the cloudy pillar stood still, they would stand still. Well, every time the cloudy pillar would move, Moses would say, arise O Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered. It says in verse number two, as smoke is driven away, so drive them away. As wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God. So the Bible is describing in Psalm 68 God's power and his greatness. It talks about how even the forces of nature are subject unto him. You know, you think of Jesus Christ being on the ship in the Sea of Galilee, and they said even the wind and the waves obey him. And so it talks about his enemies fleeing before him, melting, being destroyed, and then later talks about mountains shaking and being moved out of their places at the presence of the Lord. I love this image where it says in verse 2, as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God. You just picture, you know, like a crayon that's left in the sun or something just melting, and the wicked, no matter how big they talk and how arrogant and proud they are, you know, God can bring the wicked down from their place, and those that walk in pride, the Bible says, he is able to abase. Let the wicked perish at the presence of God. Verse 3, but let the righteous be glad, let them rejoice before God, yea let them exceedingly rejoice. Sing unto God, sing praises to his name, extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name, Jah, and rejoice before him. Now what is this talking about here, his name, Jah? That's not really a name that we think of or use very often unless we have any Rastafarians out there today, but there is a false religion known as Rasta, who knows what I'm talking about, and a lot of people think of Rasta as being like the main religion in Jamaica. They expect that when you go to Jamaica everybody's a Rastafarian, but it actually turns out that it's a very small percentage of people who live in Jamaica who follow this religion. Most people in Jamaica are evangelical Christians, there are Catholics and Baptists and Seventh-day Adventists, and there's actually, I believe, don't quote me on this, but I want to say it was only like less, less than one-tenth of the people there subscribe to this, and I think it might have even been a lot less than that. I remember looking at the demographics back when we did the Jamaica missions trip, but Rasta is a false religion that springs out of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and then there was this guy in the 20th century, Haile Selassie, and they declared this guy to be the second coming of Christ, and he never even claimed that about himself, but that's what they said about him, and at one point people told him, hey, maybe you should tell these people in Jamaica that you're not actually the second coming of Christ, and he said, well, who am I to ruin their dream, or who am I to mess up their, well, it's like, well, actually you need to tell them that, but he acted like, well, I'm just gonna let them think that, you know, that's pretty weird, but anyway, you'll run into these people sometimes out soul winning, I know I've run into them, especially in the Caribbean, I've run into them sometimes soul winning, and I've been able to win some of them to Christ, some of them aren't interested, but it's, it's, it's a strange religion, you know, you think of Bob Marley, and you think of smoking pot, and declaring this random guy to be the the son of God, and so forth, but they call God Jah, so a lot of times when people hear this word Jah, they just think Rastafarianism, but in reality it's a biblical word, I mean, it's right here in the King James Bible, praise him by his name Jah, now what this is, is just a shortened, or abbreviated form of Jehovah, ok, so Jehovah in Hebrew is a four letter word, known as the tetragrammaton, and this is just a shortened two letter version of that, and we have this actually in other places in the Bible, because when we have the word Allelujah in the New Testament, in Revelation 19, that's actually meaning praise Jah, so you're probably sitting there thinking to yourself, you know, I'm delinquent, because I haven't been praising God by his name Jah, but in reality if you've ever said Hallelujah, then you have praised him by his name Jah, because Hallelu means praise ye, and Jah is the Lord, so Hallelujah means praise Jah, so that's all this is, it's just a shortened version of Jehovah, it's one of the important names of God found throughout the Old Testament, so it says praise him, sing praises to his name, extol him that writeth upon the heavens by his name Jah, and rejoice before him, a father, and by the way, Hallelujah, you know, when you spell it out, it's spelled with the J, but you pronounce it Hallelujah, and this is because J's and Y's throughout history are very closely related letters, a lot of people get this weird idea that the J sound didn't exist before three or four hundred years ago, just because the letter J is new, have you ever heard these black Hebrew Israelites claim that well the letter J's only been around for three or four hundred years, so how can our Savior's name be Jesus, have you heard people bring that up, and they'll attack the name of Jesus by bringing up the fact that J is a new letter, but here's what you have to understand, is that all a J is, is just a stylized I, okay, it's just an I that acts as a consonant, and it's styled with that little thing hanging on the bottom, so if you actually go back to the back of the auditorium where we have a replica of the original 1611 King James, and it's a faithful representation of exactly how the original looked, well then you'll see that it is spelled I-E-S-U-S, when it says Jesus, it starts with an I, Jerusalem also starts with an I, and any J words start with an I, but here's the thing, they were still pronounced with a J, in 1611 they weren't saying Jesus, they were saying Jesus, it was just written with an I, so do you really think that for the last 6000 some odd years no one ever made a J sound, like the J sound is just this radical new sound that came out in the 1600s, J, obviously that sound has always been around, it was just spelled differently in other languages, and in English it used to be represented with an I instead of a J, that's all, no big deal, nothing to see here folks, but here's the thing, I remember my first day in Spanish 3 class in high school, I walked into my high school Spanish 3 class and the teacher kept using this word Joe, Joe this and Joe that, and I'm like what is he saying, because you know I couldn't figure out how to spell that, I'm looking at a Spanish dictionary and I just keep hearing Joe, Joe, Joe, and it turned out what he was saying was yo, and when I took Spanish 1 and 2, obviously I wasn't paying much attention, I learned Spanish, I speak Spanish now because I learned it later on my own, but in Spanish 1 and 2 everything was pronounced where the Y is a Y sound, yo, and that's the way most people pronounce Spanish, but people from South America pronounce it as a J, so they'll say Joe soy, or instead of saying hermosillo down in Sonora, sometimes they'll call it hermosillo, you know what I'm talking about, people from South America especially do that, and that goes to show you how this y, j sound is so close that even in one language Spanish in 2020, some people are saying y, some people are saying j, because their mouth is in almost the exact same position, and I remember we had a lady in our church that was from Columbia and when she was speaking English she would say Jess, Jess, oh Jess, so to sit there and say well his name's not Jesus and that J's a new letter and how dare you call it Jehovah, here's the true story, we don't know exactly how language was pronounced 2,000 years ago, we don't know how language was pronounced 3,500 years ago, and so what we need to understand is that the English language is what we speak and his name in English is Jesus, that's what the Bible says and the Greek New Testament spells it basically in the equivalent letters of I, E, S, O, U, S, so I, E, S, O, U, S equivalent comes in the English as I, E, S, U, S and it gets pronounced as Jesus, so it's really that simple, so understand that the letters J and Y, those two sounds have been interchangeable and we don't know whether the ancient letter of the Hebrew alphabet that started the name of the Lord had a little bit of a j to it or a y to it, who cares, it doesn't matter, but these Hebrew Israelites are the ones who obsess over this and demand that you pronounce it a certain way, but then next year they'll want to pronounce it differently, because sometimes they want you to say Yeshua, Yahashua, and sometimes it's all different variations of that, Yeshua or whatever the flavor of the month is on that, I'm going to stick with what comes from the Bible Jesus, and so when you see Jah here, think Hallelujah and see how the Y and the J sound have been switched there, so look if you would at verse number 7, Oh God, when thou wentest forth before thy people, when thou didst march through the wilderness, Selah, the earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God, even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel, thou O God did send a plentiful rain whereby thou didst confirm thine inheritance when it was weary, thy congregation had dwelt therein, thou O God has prepared of thy goodness for the poor, so what we see in these first 10 verses is sort of a back and forth, there's this dichotomy where the wicked are just driven away from before God, they just melt at his very presence, all the enemies and haters of God are just wiped out, whereas God's people are singing praises to him, they're blessed, he's a father to the fatherless, he's the God and the judge of the widow, and he brings the solitary out and sets them in families and does all these things, so it kind of goes back and forth between God being someone's enemy and being a blessing unto someone, and if you would, back up to, or if you would look at verse number 10, it says, thy congregation hath dwelt therein, O God, thou O God has prepared of thy goodness for the poor, and what the Bible's saying here is that basically the wicked people that are in high places, he's able to bring them down from their lofty heights, and then he takes the lowly people that actually love him, that are godly, and he actually lifts them up out of the dust, so when the Bible talks about the mountains being moved at the presence of God, this is not literal, this is not like God showed up in the Old Testament and Sinai's just like, I'm out of here, you know, and a mountain just took off, so we don't want to make the mistake of reading the book of Psalms when it's clearly poetic language, just assuming that it's always literal, you know, when it's saying God's riding on the heavens and the mountains are fleeing before him, you know, this is poetic language, and what it symbolizes here about mountains fleeing away, it's, if you study the Bible, a mountain is often like a kingdom or an empire, and the idea here is that God takes powerful people and he can bring them down, just as you would look at moving a mountain as an impossible task, you might think that someone is so powerful or so entrenched that no one could ever destroy their kingdom or their reign, but God is able to move them out of their place, like Nebuchadnezzar, the greatest king in the whole world over the great Babylonian empire, he was able to bring him down and reduce him to a person like an animal who's eating grass outside like an ox, so God's power is there to bring down whoever he wants to bring down and to lift up whoever he wants to lift up, so here it talks about God blessing the poor, lifting up the poor and the fatherless and the widow, but yet tearing down people from their high places, he says in verse number 12, kings of armies did flee apace, you know, so these great military leaders that you would expect to stand their ground, they go fleeing away and she that tarried at home divided the spoiled, so again, it's a role reversal here of the opposite of what you would expect, and so God is able to tear down those who are prideful and full of themselves and he's able to lift up the humble, the Bible says humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up, and it says those that walk in pride, he's able to abase, the Bible says in verse 5, a father of the fatherless and a judge of the widows is God in his holy habitation, God said at the solitary in families, he brings out those which are bound with chains, but the rebellious dwell in a dry land, so you see how he does good unto the poor and the lowly and he brings down the wicked that are in authority, it says in verse 11, the Lord gave the word, great was the company of those that published it, now this is a famous verse and it's a powerful verse, the Lord gave the word great was the company of those that published it, what does great mean? Great is referring to quantity, size, a lot of times when the Bible talks about people being great, it has to do with their power or their influence or it can sometimes just refer to their size and great in the Bible is often just talking about size, like a great city, this is a big city and so when the Bible says the Lord gave the word, great was the company, it's saying there were a lot of people who published it, the Lord gave the word, great was the company of those that published it, now that has always been the case, hasn't it? Has there ever been a time on this earth when the word of God was not being preached? Has there ever been a time when lots of people weren't preaching the word of God? No, the word of God has always been preached by a great company of preachers and when the Bible says the Lord gave the word, great was the company of those that published it, this is not published in the modern sense of the word, like hey I got my book published, you know we might think of a printing press but obviously printing presses did not exist when this was being written, when it says publish, it's talking about make public, basically proclaim publicly, so the Lord gave the word and great was the company of those that proclaimed it publicly, that made it public, that spoke it and that has always been the case that many, many people have spread the word of God, preached the word of God, evangelized the word of God throughout the world and this is one of the reasons why we know that the Bible that we have today is the same Bible that was originally inspired back when the Bible was given to us, because we think about the Old Testament, some of which was written down about 3500 years ago with Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, approximately 1500 BC is when those books were written down and then of course the entire New Testament was written in the first century AD, so almost 2000 years ago the New Testament was written, so how do we know that the New Testament that we have today says the same thing as the New Testament back then, how do we know that the Mosaic law that we have today says the same thing as what it said back then, well first of all and most importantly we have the promise of God, heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away, now that should be enough right there, end of story, God said it and when it comes the Old Testament he said till heaven and earth pass one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled and then he said my word shall not pass away, so there's a promise to preserve the words of Christ in the New Testament, there's a promise to preserve the Old Testament scriptures down to every jot and tittle, we have to believe that by faith, you know the reason that we know that the Bible says the same thing today as it said back then is a matter of faith, it's our belief that Christ was telling the truth when he promised that it would be preserved but if we were to ask ourselves the question humanly speaking how do we know, now of course first of all we need to just know it by faith because Christ said it but stop and think about this humanly speaking, if the Lord gave the word and great was the company of those that published it, that assures the fact that it's not going to be lost or corrupted, what do I mean by that, well let's say there was one copy of a certain document, someone could grab a hold of that one copy and they could alter that copy and change it and then we can say well how do I know that this hasn't been altered, how do I know this isn't original or that this is original but what if I had a newspaper and think about famous newspaper headlines, Hitler invades Poland or something like that, you've got these collectible newspapers that people have, what if I had a newspaper like that and someone questioned the authenticity of it and they said I don't think this is what the paper really said back in September of 1939, I believe that this newspaper has been altered, well how would I be able to check or verify whether that newspaper had been altered, well here's the thing, since there were so many thousands and thousands and thousands of copies of that newspaper then what I could do is I could look at other copies of the newspaper right and if I've got 20 of them that are all saying the same thing and then one of them says something different, which one do you think is probably going to be wrong, probably the one that's the anomaly right because it'd be pretty easy to change one book or one newspaper, especially when we're talking about handwritten documents, it'd be pretty easy for somebody to just copy something and make a mistake or even intentionally change something, you know when they're copying a portion of scripture but is it possible to go change all of them? So people who say well you know the Bible's been changed so many times, the Bible's been translated so many times, you know how do we even know that what it says today is what it would have said back then, you've heard people make that argument before, well first of all the Bible's been translated so many times, what if I told you that translating a document doesn't make the original disappear or change in any way, what sense does that even make, well the Bible's been translated so many times, it's like yeah but we still have it in the original Greek and Hebrew, it's not like we're translating from a language that translated from a language that translated, you know the King James Bible is directly translated from the original Greek and Hebrew, so there aren't these whole bunch of steps because people are like well first it was translated from Hebrew into Greek, then it was translated into Latin, then it was translated into, it's like no you're wrong, it was written in Greek and translated directly into English in the King James Version, it was written in Hebrew, translated directly into English, it didn't go from Hebrew to Greek, no it didn't, this book here, the King James Bible is translated from the original languages, okay, but how do we know that it hasn't been altered because in order for it to have been altered somebody would have had to alter all of them, now are there Bibles out there that are corrupted or altered, of course, there are Bibles out there that have been altered either intentionally or just they have typos in them or by accident but since the Bible has been copied so many times and there's so many copies of it, that actually gives us the assurance to know, okay, if we have thousands of manuscripts that are all saying the same thing, you know that gives us the assurance to know humanly speaking that okay, this is obviously what the original said because who could have changed all of these, who could have corrupted all of these, now the modern versions are not based on thousands of Bibles or you know the traditional text that's been used throughout history by millions and millions of Christians, the modern Bibles go with just a tiny handful of texts that say something different than what the majority of texts say, so for example we look at the say a version like the NIV, okay, well the two texts that are the primary underlying texts of the NIV for the New Testament are called Sinaiticus and Vaticanus and these two documents disagree with themselves constantly and they disagree with the majority mainstream textual tradition of the Byzantine Greek text of the New Testament, so you have all these thousands and thousands of handwritten manuscripts not just in Greek but also in other languages that go back, way back to the first few centuries after Christ, you have from the first millennium hundreds and hundreds of Bibles in other languages like Armenian, Georgian, I'm not talking about Atlanta now but Latin, all these different languages that the Bible was translated into in the early days and so you have all this evidence, you have over 10,000 handwritten Latin manuscripts, so you've got all this different evidence that's out there and then you know you have what Bible have Christians been using for the last couple thousand years, what's being preached, what's the traditional text and what we have in the King James Version is a translation of what's known as the textus receptus and that means received text, it's the traditional text that's been passed down. Then you have a bunch of guys come along in the 19th century which is pretty late in Christian history right, they come along in the 19th century and they say we believe the Bible's been corrupted, it has to be restored. They dig up you know this ancient scrap here and an ancient scrap there and they've got their Sinai Atticus and Vaticanus and they say well we think these are more reliable and more authentic based on what, they're filled with all kinds of anomalies, they have all kinds of things changed and redacted, they don't even agree with each other but the only reason why they're considered more reliable is because they're older, like well these are older therefore they must be reliable. That's not logical okay, just because something's older doesn't mean that it isn't corrupt because the Apostle Paul said in the first century to the Corinthians, he said we're not as many which corrupt the Word of God. So even in the first century people are already corrupting the Word of God. So just because something is older doesn't mean that it hasn't been corrupted. And here's what's going on, okay these manuscripts they virtually all, these ancient manuscripts they're virtually all from Egypt. What does Egypt represent in the Bible? Everything that's bad and sinful and worldly is not considered a godly place spiritually. And so you have all of these bad, wrong, corrupt manuscripts that have come out of Egypt. Now the reason why the oldest manuscripts come from Egypt just has to do with the weather there. So, and the material that they're written on, a lot of stuff from ancient Egypt has been preserved. That's why people are so into Egyptology because a lot of those hieroglyphics and ancient documents have been preserved due to the climate. So you're getting basically these outliers, these anomalies of manuscripts from Egypt that are contradicting what Christians have had and preached and believed for centuries and they're saying, no, no, we've got to restore the text to this ancient text. It's like, wait a minute, we don't have to restore it because it never went anywhere. If you believe that the Holy Spirit indwells believers and you believe that God is at work in this world and that God is leading Christians as they preach sermons and leading Christians to go soul winning and leading Christians to go on missions, why would he lead the Christians throughout the last few thousand years, all of them, to be using the wrong Bible and then just all of a sudden, lucky us, we dig up this Egyptian garbage and now all of a sudden we have the right Bible for the 20th century. Do you really mean to tell me that in the 1600s in English our Bible was totally wrong? In the 1700s in English our Bible was totally wrong. Throughout the 1800s in English our Bible was totally wrong, but then thank God for old Westcott and Hort to come along in 1881 and finally give us the right New Testament. That's insane. Why would God even inspire the Bible and give us the Bible if he's not going to preserve the Bible? Why would you go through the trouble of having the Bible written down in the first century, let it get corrupted right away, everybody's got the wrong one for well over a thousand years and then, oh, we found the right one. That's madness. You say, well, I don't know if you're an expert on the archaeology, here's the thing, you don't need to know anything about archaeology to understand what I just said. You don't need to know anything about textual criticism to understand what I just said because it's really that simple. Was the real Word of God in use, being preached, winning souls, nonstop between now and the time of Christ or was the real Word of God buried somewhere, hidden somewhere and had to be rediscovered in the 19th century. That's all it comes down to. And if you actually believe that something that was discovered in the 19th century could possibly be the true reading and the true Word of God, then there's nothing I could say to you because you're obviously blinded or under some kind of a delusion if you could actually think that God didn't keep his Word pure in all ages. How could you believe that it's just gone? And let me ask you this. The tree is known by its fruit, isn't it? So ever since we recovered this ancient text of scripture that the NIV and the ESV and all these new versions are based on, let me ask you something. Has Christianity just been doing better and thriving and the preaching has gotten better and the soul reading has gotten better or is it the reverse? And do we see today the churches that are preaching the hardest and winning the most souls, they're using the King James Version. King James Version's got power. The King James Version is the right Bible in English and other languages that have Bibles that are translated from the traditional text are the right Bibles in those languages. These new texts that have been discovered, you just wish that they would have been left in the garbage can that they came from. And you know what's interesting? The corruption in the New Testament of the modern versions comes from Alexandria, Egypt, which like I said in the Bible is symbolically a bad place. And then the corruption in modern Bibles in the Old Testament comes from the Dead Sea Scrolls. And guess where the Dead Sea is basically where Sodom and Gomorrah was. And you know, I think of in Revelation chapter number 11 when he talks about that city that spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was crucified. And I'm thinking to myself, the new versions are spiritually Sodom and Egypt. Old Testament from Sodom, New Testament from Egypt. And by the way, isn't it interesting how they removed the word Sodomite in the new versions and changed it to a male prostitute because they're trying to be queer friendly with these modern versions. Also by the way, the NIV in its newest edition is now more and more gender neutral. That was the biggest change that was made from the old 1984 NIV to the 2010 NIV was introducing more gender neutral language. That's what we need, right? That's what we need in 2020 America, a Bible with a more gender neutral language. You know what we need? We need to take out that word Sodomite. Folks, we need the word Sodomite in our Bible more than we've ever needed it. And I've already proved in the past that Sodomite is the right translation. I've made YouTube videos to that effect and went into all the evidence and proved that Sodomite is what that is talking about. It's talking about queers when it says Sodomite, by the way, okay? And so you have these modern versions based upon a buried text that's been rediscovered by a bunch of German atheists are now telling us, you know, which texts are right in their textual critical schools. But what does the Bible say? The Lord gave the word, great was the company of those that published it. So when God speaks his word, it gets preached by a lot of people. It gets disseminated by a lot of people. And that's how he preserved it by causing it to be copied and copied and copied so that nothing was ever lost. So that when an error entered in, it was able to be corrected. You know, look, every Bible I've ever had had a little typo in it. It'll be spelled wrong or a line will be repeated twice or something. But here's the thing. When you see those things, you spot them and you realize, okay, this is just a human error in the computer that produced this thing. Okay. But in the end, though, we all know what the text of the King James is, even though there's a typo in this one, a typo in this one, you know, we all know what the Bible says. We know what the Greek says. We know what the Hebrew says. We know what the English says. Okay. We're not wondering in 2020, where is the Bible, but you know, people like James White and his crowd that are part of the Bible of the month club, okay, they are willing to change the text of scripture. If new discoveries are found, he just said it last week, he was debating another pastor and he said that, that basically if new evidence were to come out, some new manuscript will be discovered, then he would be willing to change pretty much any verse in the Bible. Everything's up for grabs. I mean, can you believe that? Or he said, you know, he'd switch to King James readings if, if, if, if basically manuscripts were discovered and he said, well, isn't that good that he's just so open to evidence. He's open to, folks, that's crazy. Are you me, are you meaning to tell me that the Bible I preach today, the Bible that's been preached in the English language for over 400 years and born fruit, it's been proved to be reliable over and over and over again. It's the perfect preserve word of God. You mean to tell me that you're going to dig up something. What, what if the Israelis dig up some document and tell you, well, it turns out it actually says this, you're going to believe that why it's like, do you even believe in God? Do you even believe in the Holy Spirit? Do you even believe in Providence whatsoever? I mean, it's bizarre to think that people would just be that carnal in their understanding of the, of the preservation of the word of God, that they're willing to dig up something new and just change. We'll just change the Bible and then 20 years from now, let's change it again as we find more evidence. Folks, anything that's buried, it's because it was trash. You know what you do with trash? You bury it. Here's what I look throughout history. The materials to make Bibles were expensive. It's not like today where you just buy a pack of paper and it's, it's the cheapest thing in the world, right? You know, back then, obviously paper was more expensive or they're using like parchments and animal skins and papyrus and these different things. Well, these materials were sometimes hard to come by. And so a very common practice throughout the middle ages was recycling. All right, recycling is not new. Here's what they would often do that if they had a book that started to get old and faded and you can't really read it anymore, then what they would do is they would wash off the writing from it and then they would write something new over it. Manuscripts of the Bible have been found like that where it's like a totally different book, but then they realized, whoa, this used to be the Bible. So then they're like trying to hit it with all these different kinds of light and everything. You know, you know, when you erase something, it's still kind of there. They're basically like looking in and trying to find that underlined it. And there are Bible manuscripts that are like that where it got erased and written over because here's the thing. Throughout history, when people are done with the Bible, you know what they did when they're done with the Bible? They either threw it away or they recycled it. What are you going to do when your Bible wears out? I'll tell you what. I've known a lot of Bibles over the years and you know what I did when I was done with them? I threw them in the trash. So it's like, well, why don't we have more manuscripts, you know, that line up with the King James from the third and fourth century BC? Because why would a manuscript still be around thousands of years later if people were actually using it? If people are using something, they're going to drive it till the wheels fall off and then they're going to throw it in the trash or it's going to get recycled when it wears out. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? And so that's why you don't have Bibles that are a thousand years old readily available. How many Bibles do you have that are a thousand years old in your possession? How many books of any kind that are a thousand? How many items do you have that are a thousand years old in your home? Folks, we're constantly getting new stuff and throwing it away. That's history. So what I'd rather have is the Bible that got used, thrown away, copy it, copy. You say, well, you're reading a copy of a copy of a copy. So what? It doesn't matter. There are so many millions of copies that you can look at all these millions of copies and say, hey, the Bible is the same as it was. It hasn't changed. Rather than one Egyptian corruption that basically it was, you know what, you know what? It was owned by one of these people who doesn't actually use their Bible. You know, people who have a Bible and it just like looks good on their shelf. That's who owned Sinaiticus and Vaticanus because here's what I want to know if it was actually used by a Bible believing Christian, why is it still around? Because I would have used up that Bible by now. It is obviously just, it was just stuck somewhere in some monastery somewhere or some library somewhere. It wasn't the, look, I want the Bible that Christians have been using for thousands of years. That's the one I want. I want the one that was winning people to Christ, that was being preached from the pulpit that God used. The Lord gave the word and great was the company of those that published it. And because the company of those that published it was so great, you can't mean to tell me that oh, we all got it wrong. Not possible. Because right away the Bible was copied so many times, preached so many times, repeated so many times, memorized so many times. Look, if I have a passage memorized and then I'm reading a Bible, I'll spot a typo. I'll spot an error in it. But then you say, well, you might be wrong. Okay, but then I'll go pull another King James off the shelf and another King James. If I pull five King James off the shelf, probably the sixth one that's different is the one that's got the typo, wouldn't you say? If I'm getting it from different publishers and different, you know. So anyway, that was kind of a tangent that I went off on there. But it's important to understand that we believe that the word of God is preserved and that what we have today is exactly what Christ said. This is exactly what David gave us in the book of Psalms. The books of Moses are exactly what Moses brought down from the mount. We believe that God's word has been preserved supernaturally by God through his providential care over the last century's gay millennia. But the way that God did that, humanly speaking, was that great was the company of those that published it because so many people copied it. Look, think about the book of Revelation. Isn't the book of Revelation the one that says don't alter this? At the end of the book of Revelation, he says don't add to it, don't remove from it. Well, isn't it interesting that that book was written originally in seven copies? So right away, John wrote seven copies because he was supposed to send this to the seven churches in Asia. And so he's going to send it to Ephesus, he's going to send it to Smyrna, he's going to send it to Pergamos. That means it's not going to be altered because if one of them gets altered, you've got the other six. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? And so, yeah, do corruptions and typos enter in? Yes. But most of the time, typically, you can look at the preponderance of manuscripts and whatever the most manuscripts saying, the majority text is typically right. Now here's the thing. That's not always necessarily going to be the Greek majority because there are all kinds of Armenian, Georgian, Latin, Syriac, other Bibles as well. And here's the thing. I believe that the English evidence counts as well. See, these guys would just say like, well, you know, how many manuscripts? Okay, well, how many King James Bibles are there? Because God in his providence allowed this book to be the best selling book in the history of mankind, the King James Bible. But that's just meaningless? How does that not have meaning? God allowed this to become the Bible that has gone around the world in the hands of more missionaries, more soul winners, more preachers. Even the King James itself has been translated directly into multitudes of languages. And so God's hand is on this book. And if you don't believe that, you know, it's like, how do you believe anything? If you have so little faith, let me put it this way. If you have so little faith that you don't believe that God preserved his word, how do you even have the faith to believe Jesus died on the cross and rose again? How do you even have the faith to believe that God created this world? If you don't even have the – how do you have the faith to believe that God inspired the Bible if you think that we need some literal atheist or agnostic or someone who doesn't even believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ over in Germany to be sitting at a computer right now, programming an artificial intelligence to figure out what the Bible should really say? What's happening right now? That's what all the modern Bible guys are all excited about, and they can't wait for Skynet to tell them what the Bible really says. I'm not kidding, folks. They literally have a machine now deciding what is the word of God. You think that that – is that the God you believe in, that we need some pencil-neck German dweeb to tell us he needs to go back to making cars and harmonicas and all the other wonderful products that come out of Germany? He has no business reconstructing the Greek text using a supercomputer. That's madness. I don't need a supercomputer to tell me what the Bible is. I just believe it's the one that was handed to me, the one that's been passed down, providentially preserved, kept pure in all ages, the one that has been received in our modern time. Look, God worked it out perfectly. There's so many things that came together perfectly where you have the Greeks fleeing from the fall of Constantinople. You have the Jews getting kicked out of Spain, and they bring all their Hebrew books, and they bring all their Greek books, and it all hits England. You got all these scholars and everything looking at it, and they were able to hash it all out and spend about a hundred years dialing it in and producing this masterpiece right here, the King James Version, and all the other Bibles from that era that were all over Europe, that all agreed with this, but you'd rather go with Barabbas. You want Barabbas. Give us Barabbas. Give us West Cottenhorst. Give us Germany. Instead of give us what's been preserved and pure and passed down by godly people who love the Lord. Nothing against people in Germany who actually believe God's Word, but you know what? The German intellectuals behind all this liberal theology and liberal textual criticism have done more damage to the Kingdom of God than almost anyone, and that whole school of thought needs to be rejected. Anyway, let's jump back into this. The Lord gave the Word. It was the company of those that published it. Kings of armies did flee apace, and she that tarried at home divided the spoil. Jump down, if you would, to verse number 16. Why leap ye ye high hills? This is the hill which God desired to dwell in, yea, the Lord will dwell in it forever. The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels. The Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place. Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive. Thou hast received gifts for men, yea, for the rebellious also that the Lord God might dwell among them. I've got to hurry because of time. But basically what we see here is, again, the role reversal theme that we've had throughout this chapter. Remember at the beginning of the chapter, it started out talking about how the wicked are going to be removed from their place and brought down, and the kings are going to flee, and mountains are going to be moved. He's going to lift up the fatherless and the widow. He's going to take the solitary and put them in families, right? So basically you have roles being switched. Well that's continued in verse 18 when he says, thou hast led captivity captive. What does that mean to lead captivity captive? Well, this phrase is used in Judges chapter 5 in the Song of Deborah when she says, arise O Barak, and lead thy captivity captive. And what that means is that Barak had been, along with the rest of the children of Israel, in bondage. Because you remember there's that cycle in the Book of Judges where the children of Israel sin, they get away from the Lord, and they go into bondage. And then they turn to the Lord, and then the judge delivers them from bondage. And so when it says, arise O Barak, and lead thy captivity captive, what it means is that he was a captive himself. He was in a nation that was in bondage. And then he's basically going to take the enemy captive. He basically leads captivity captive. So he turns the tables on his captor. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? So he goes from being the captive to being the captor. He leads captivity captive, okay. Now go, if you would, to Ephesians chapter 4 quickly. Ephesians chapter 4, keep a finger in Psalm 68 there. And Ephesians chapter 4, this verse is quoted. So captivity captive occurs three times in the Bible. And the first time is where it's defined. Because the first time we see Barak leading his captivity captive. He was in bondage, now he's turned the tables on his captor. So a lot of times the first time the Bible mentions something is when it gets defined. So look at Ephesians chapter 4. It says in verse 8, Wherefore he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all heavens, that he might fill all things and he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. So the gifts that are being given are what? What he's giving them, he's giving them pastors, he's giving them teachers, he's giving them evangelists. Jesus led captivity captive. It says that he descended first into the lower parts of the earth and then it talks about him ascending up to the right hand of God. Now what often people will do with this passage is they'll say, well here's what it means to lead captivity captive. They claim Jesus went down into the earth and got all the souls that were in paradise, all the souls that were in Abraham's bosom and he took them all up to heaven and that's leading captivity captive. Folks that's not what captivity captive means and that's a lot of interesting things that you've put into that verse that aren't actually in the verse. You know you ask them, well where's this great event in the Bible where Jesus supposedly went down into Hades and brought all these souls from there in the underworld up to heaven. There's no such thing. And this is where they'll take you. Well yeah, I mean you led captivity captive. How do you get that out of captivity captive? Here's what it meant for Barak to lead captivity captive. Here's what it meant for Jesus to lead captivity captive. Jesus Christ, when he died on the cross, his body was buried in the tomb but his soul descended into hell for three days and three nights. Because the Bible says as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. So Jesus descended down into hell for three days and three nights and here's the thing. Hell is a prison. Hell is like jail. It's compared to that because you remember when the devil's cast into hell in Revelation chapter 20, it talks about the devil being loosed out of his what? Prison. The devil shall be loosed out of his prison. It's talking about him departing from hell. So hell is like a prison, right? So Jesus Christ was down in hell for three days and three nights but the Bible says that the bars of hell could not hold him. It was not possible for him to be holden of it. He basically defeated hell and death. He loosed the pains of hell and death and he led captivity captive meaning that he was in hell captive, so to speak, for three days and three nights and then he led captivity captive. That's why he said, I have the keys of hell and of death. He basically conquered hell. He loosed the pains of hell and he has the keys of hell and of death, the Bible says. So that's what it means when it says he led captivity captive is that he was dead. The Bible says, I'm he that liveth and was dead and behold, I'm alive forevermore and have the keys of hell and of death. So Jesus Christ turned the tables there where instead of him being in hell, captive in hell to him having the keys of hell and of death and leading captivity captive. That's what that actually means. You would go back to Psalm 68. And here's the thing, again, if you're going to be one of these people that says, well, I just believe that, you know, uh, when, when the Bible says that Jesus went to hell, that it's not really hell, it's actually just Hades or paradise or whatever. Well, here's the thing. Then basically you're saying the King James Bible is wrong because in Acts chapter 2 31, it says this spakey of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell now that is fleshy corruption and he said, well, you know, it was the good side of hell. There's no good side of hell. It doesn't have a cold spot. Okay. Hell in the look up all 54 times, the word hell is used is always a bad place. It's never a good place. And you say, well, when Jesus went, there was the good place. Okay. Then explain this to me. Why is he so anxious to get out of there? If it was so if it was paradise, I mean, why does he say the only reason that he has hope, therefore my soul shall rest in hope because that will not leave my soul in hell. Neither will thou suffer thy flesh to see corruption. You know, Oh, I, I just have, I just have hope though that I'm not going to be left in paradise. Folks being left to paradise is okay, right? If you're going to get left somewhere, might as well be paradise, but no, he wants to get out of hell. Okay. Because hell is a bad place. And why did he go to hell? He's basically suffering the punishment for our sins, which is death. The wages of sin is death. And guess where dead people go, they go to hell. Okay. And you know where dead people are right now? They're in hell right now because the people that are in heaven right now, they're not dead. People that are saved have eternal life. They live forever. They never die. Jesus said, whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. So is Abraham dead right now? Is Isaac dead right now? Is Jacob dead right now? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. God's the God of the living. Abraham's alive. That's why Jesus said, Abraham rejoiced to see my day and was glad. And Isaac and Jacob, he said, are the living. Okay. So wherever Abraham is, stop and think about this, wherever Abraham is, he's alive there. Amen. What about when Jesus walked the earth, wherever Abraham was, was he alive or dead? Jesus made a point. God's not the God of the dead. God is the God of Abraham. God is the God of Isaac and God's not the God of the dead, but of the living. Okay. Let me ask you this. If Jesus went to the same place Abraham went, then explain to me how is it that he's dead then? When Abraham's not, well, it's like, well, I'm dead, but you're not. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? Jesus was dead for three days and three nights. And then three days later he rose again. Well, guess where the dead are? They're in hell. Jesus had all the sins of the world on him. And so he died with all that sin of the whole world. He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And he went down into hell for three days and three nights. He conquered hell and death. He loosed the pains of hell and he rose again from the dead. His soul was not left in hell. His flesh did not see corruption. And so that is what is meant when it says he led captivity captive was that it's talking about his own captive. Oh, by the way, I've been quoting it wrong. This is what it said. Barack Barack Obama, you know, Barack. Let's do it the way we grew up with it. Barack lead thy captivity captive is what it actually says. If you go back to Judges chapter five, I was quoting the Psalm 68 wording and the Ephesians four wording. But actually in Judges five, it says, Barack lead thy captivity captive. So whose captivity is he leading captivity in? His own. And isn't that exactly what Jesus did? Yeah, he did. And so you say, well, what about, you know, what about today, shalt thou be with me in paradise? That's what people will bring up. But here's the thing about that is that Jesus in John chapter three said that he was in heaven right now because Jesus said, no man had to send it up to heaven. But he that came down from heaven, even the son of man, which is in heaven. So how could Jesus both be in heaven and talking to Nicodemus at the same time? Because of the fact that Jesus Christ is God and dwells outside of time. That's how, that's how Jesus could appear in the Old Testament before he'd even been born yet. We have Old Testament appearances of Jesus because Jesus Christ dwells outside of time. Okay. So, but actually when Jesus died on the cross, he went down to hell for three days and three nights and because he was dead for three days and three nights and three days later he rose again from the dead, not from the living. He rose from the dead. And so he did not go to Abraham's bosom. He went to hell for three days and three nights and then he rose again. And so if you actually do a study on that phrase, captivity captive, it's pretty clear what it's talking about. It's not what they're telling you. And like I said, if you're going to embrace that view that says, well, it's hell's not really hell, then basically the King James Bible translators, according to you, use the wrong word. And thank God for all these Bible correctors of the 20th century to come along and put the right word in there for you. Thank God for the editors of the NIV to change it to the grave and say that will not leave my soul in the grave. But that goes back to what I was talking about earlier, doesn't it? Are we going to trust all these Johnny come lately Bible correctors or are we going to go with the Bible that has been passed down and received and used by God? So it says here, lead thy captivity captive, verse 18 of Psalm 68. It says thou is ascended on high, thou is led captivity captive, thou is received gifts for men. What are the gifts? Well, Ephesians four applies this to pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth. Gave for the rebellious also that the Lord God might dwell among them. Again, stating the fact that even rebellious people have been given evangelists, prophets, teachers, and pastors to preach to them and publish the word of God unto them that the Lord God might dwell among them, you know, so that they could at least have a witness to God and his word and have the chance to get saved and hopefully eventually receive Christ as savior. Verse 19 blessed be the Lord who daily loadeth us with benefits. Even the God of our salvation, Selah, and we'll have to stop there for sake of time. This is a great chapter. It's a, it's a very long chapter. There's a lot going on and there's this dichotomy all the way through it of God swapping the tables, reversing the roles. And so what we need to understand is that if we are humble before God, God's able to lift us up, but the Bible says, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time. It's not necessarily going to happen right away, but if you stay with the Lord, if you trust in him, if you serve him, then eventually he will lift you up. Whatever bad situation you're in, he can pull you out of it and it's not necessarily going to happen super fast. We need to be patient, but in due time, God will lift us up if we humble ourselves and if we're proud, then you know what? God can take us down whenever he wants to. And there have been so many people that thought that they could never be taken down, but God can take down anyone. God can just snap his fingers and somebody could just stop breathing. God could just snap his fingers and kingdoms are overthrown. God could snap his fingers and countries are invaded. I mean, God has the power to lift up one and bring down another. So we need to humble ourselves before the mighty hand of God, before whom even mountains flee away and before whom the wicked just melt, right? God's power is tremendous and he holds our destiny in his hands. So we need to make sure that we are right with him and that he's pleased with us. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this great chapter, Lord, and we just pray that you would help us to have faith in your word, Lord. Help us not to be with these Bible correctors and so-called pseudo-scholars that claimed to be experts on the Bible, Lord, because we know that no one who's not saved could ever be an expert on the Bible. We know that the Bible is spiritually discerned and that only a saved person could be an expert on your word, Lord. Help us to reject these phony Bible-correcting evil reprobates, Lord, and help us to cling to the traditional text of Scripture that has borne fruit and authenticated itself over and over again to be your perfect word, Lord. Help us to be humble and to look to your word for guidance and not correct your word but to take it for what it says, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. Please take your hymnals, number 404. When the battle's over, number 404, we'll sing it on that first verse. Am I a soldier of the cross? Number 404. Yes, we shall wear a crown. Yes, we shall wear a crown. And when the battle's over, we shall wear a crown in the new Jerusalem. Wear a crown, wear a crown, wear a bright and shining crown. And when the battle's over, we shall wear a crown in the new Jerusalem. The sky been carried to the skies on flowery beds of heat, while others fought to win the prize and sail through bloody seas. And when the battle's over, we shall wear a crown. Yes, we shall wear a crown. Yes, we shall wear a crown.