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

All right, before I even get into this passage and what we're going to be focusing on this morning, just a few comments I want to bring up about, you know, the things that I hold dear, and I think our whole entire church holds dear here, when it comes to just the truth and seeking wisdom and having knowledge, right? The Bible talks a lot about wisdom and wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom. And with all that getting good understanding, you know, the entire book dedicated to just receiving wisdom and having instruction. And when it comes to our faith, just in general, now, on the one hand, we know that like, in order to even have faith, like faith is something you can't 100% completely just give this, you know, proof for some mathematical equations is proven to like, see, this is this is true. There's an element of faith, we have a faith, we have a faith in God, we have a faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ, we have a faith in the Word of God. But I've said this time and time again, that our faith is not a blind faith, or just some unreasonable faith. And and oftentimes, people will mix the two or kind of make bad arguments against faith. So well, it's not scientific. So you know, that's foolishness or stupidity to have faith and say, No, it's not. So there's a lot of very good reasons to believe what we believe. It's not just completely out of left field. It's not just some ramblings of some person who's possessed, just walking around and saying a bunch of foolishness. Oh, well, I have faith that, you know, what's the big deal? Why can't I have faith in that? Well, that's, that's stupid. It's foolish. It's not exactly the same thing at all, as people who have faith in Jesus Christ and faith in the Holy Bible. Now, I'm kind of taking a little bit of extended time laying this groundwork because it is important when we're trying to share our faith with other people, which is extremely forward, which is the most important thing is having faith or having faith in Jesus Christ. He's the Savior, if you don't have faith, you're going to hell, right. So this is the most critical thing that anybody can have is to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. So when we try to show people that and we try to share our faith, and we try to show people why they should have faith in God, in the Bible, in Jesus Christ, of course, we're going to use the Word of God, but we're also going to use words and try to reason with them and try to get through to them and try to connect to them to show them, hey, this is true. This is the truth. And you know, you ought to believe that. Now when we go about trying to convince people of things, first and foremost, with the Gospel and salvation, but even any doctrine, any truth that is worth teaching, it is important, it is very important that we do so one, honestly, and two, by using the best argumentation, using the best reasons and the best facts to support why we're trying to convince people of a certain position of a doctrine, whatever that may be. And that we're not using faulty, you know, thinking or logic or even evidence to make a claim. I've said this plenty of times before when we go out soul winning, you know, you may have a verse that sounds great. And you can use to teach something that you already know is the truth. But if in the context, that's not what it means, don't use it to teach a truth that you know is true. Hey, just because that truth is true, don't use things that in the context do not support what you're saying. Because what that's going to do, it's going to do more damage to your cause than good. You can say, yeah, but who cares? I mean, it's still true what I'm saying. Yeah, but what you're going to do then is if that person actually looks up and checks out what you're trying to show them, and they see that's not what this is saying in the context, they're not going to believe anything that you have to say. So when we go about teaching and instructing on anything, we really want to be diligent and careful that what we're saying is actually true and we're not using bad argumentation to try to convince people. You know, like I said, faith isn't above facts. A fact is true, and faith is faith, and we put our faith in the truth, right? So you know, as children of God, we're supposed to be walking in truth. And when we have evidence and we have facts and we know that things are true, we need to use those things. And we need to get some understanding and some education also. This is important. It's great. You know, everyone that puts their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, amen, right? You're saved, child of God, awesome. And I want to see as many people as possible, but if we're going to be more effective, we need to get education, we need to get wisdom, we need to get understanding, we need to start learning and understand the way things work and the way things operate and the way things have operated. We need to learn history. We need to learn a lot of things to be more effective in general. I mean, the more truth that you have, the more knowledge that you have, the better you're going to be at convincing people on a variety of subjects. Now, what we're covering this morning is found in the title of the verse is coming from Matthew chapter four. Look at verse number four is when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by Satan. Jesus answered Satan here, he 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 I say, amen, I love this verse. And I love using this verse to prove and to teach that God has preserved his word and continues to preserve his word in perpetuity, because how can we possibly live by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God, unless we have every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God, right? I mean, that just makes sense. And 100% without fail, we have that in the King James version of the Bible, it's been a while since I preached a sermon on the King James. And it's an important truth. This has come up recently, I've been talking to someone at work about this subject. And to be honest with you, this is a deep subject, there's a lot of things involved in this subject. And even with him, you know, I'm telling them, you know, look it up, you could you could find a lot of information out there. This is not something that I can just tell you, you know, just take five minutes and explain all the details behind the subject of, of, you know, the, where the Word of God comes from, how it's been passed down through history, through to the translations and what we have today in English, and there's a lot of argumentation all along the way. But one thing's for certain, is that God has promised to preserve his word, that we know that the words of the Lord are pure words. And we know that he is responsible for keeping them, and that we can see this evidence of preservation all throughout the Scripture. Now, before I get even any further on this, because this is undoubtedly a foundational element of our faith that we stand on here at Stronghold Baptist Church, that the King James Bible is the inerrant Word of God preserved for us 100% perfectly in the English language, for us today, and that is the only version of the Bible that we recognize, and it is 100% true. Now, I also want to just point out, though, the carefulness, and I've done this in many other sermons in the past as well, of how literally we want to take things. When we're studying our Bibles, when we're looking at doctrines, when we're studying everything out, how literal, first of all, we want to say, you know, in general terms, I still use, I tell people, you know what, we believe the Bible literally. People say, well, what makes your church different? Well, we just believe the Bible literally. Is there anything wrong with saying that? No, of course not. There's nothing wrong with saying you believe the Bible literally, because what you mean by that is saying, you know there's a lot of churches out there that'll try to make excuses for passages, the Bible clearly makes a statement, but then people don't like what it says, so they try to come up with other ways of spinning it and changing it to mean something different than what it actually says. So when we say you believe the Bible is literally true, of course you believe it's literally true. If it says something, basically it's going to mean what it says. Now when you start digging, that's a great general statement, but as you start digging, you're going to find some areas of Scripture where there may be hyperbole being used, there may be some exaggeration, and it's part of the language. It's part of the way it's written, and it's designed to get points across, which is why we have to use discernment and understanding when reading the Bible so that we come across with the right meaning that are behind the words. And just a real quick example of what I mean about getting too literal, being careful of I brought this up, I think when I preached on flat earth or something like that, but that's a perfect example of how people can look at the same words that you look at, but they just kind of dig in, I don't know, maybe too deep, deeper than they need to be looking at for the surface meaning of what the Bible is saying. I have an example here that I picked from Genesis 32, verse 31, the Bible reads, And as he passed over Penuel, the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh. So just to phrase the sun rose upon him, I mean, if you start getting really, like, did it rise upon him, like the sun was like literally on him, or is it talking about the sun beams coming from the sun, you know, that you would, there's no reason to go in depth and explain a verse like that, because as you read it, you already understand and know what is it talking about when the sun arose and came upon him. Well, the sun came up, right? Now, does that mean that the Bible is not literally true if we're actually spinning on a ball? Look, that's foolishness, and we've covered that before, and I don't want to get into, that's a concept of taking things way, way, way too literal than just understanding what the words mean that we're trying to understand here. And you know, turn if you would to 1 Corinthians chapter 2, 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Because when it comes to the word, having every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, you can come into a danger, fall in the danger of taking this also too literally. Because if you say, well, how can we have every word that proceeds out of the mouth, if you have every word that literally proceeds, if you start taking this really, really, really, literal, every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, well, you'd have to have the exact language, the exact, you know, like just getting super explicit on every single element of the literal word. Now, this has to do with understanding translation also, which is very important, because you don't want people taking things just too far to an extreme. You know, every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, amen. And we could have every word, but it doesn't mean that you have to know the language of the word that God spake when He spake a word or gave a word to a prophet. Does that make sense? I mean, you understand what I'm saying here? If you look at this and you say, well, wait a minute, if I'm supposed to have every word, then maybe that means that I need to learn Hebrew, I need to learn Greek, and not just modern. I mean, I have to learn the way that it was when God gave it, because I need to have every word in order to live thereby. And if you take it like that and start taking it, you know, I call that literal, I mean, it's really more of just a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of what the verse is saying. But you can say, no, it says you have to have every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. I mean, if it came out of His mouth, He wasn't speaking English, was He? He wasn't. So we don't have the word that came out of His mouth because it's not English, because we just have English here. That's how people can take this, and I want to make sure that we don't get faulty in any direction on our understanding of translations and how it works and how the Word of God is preserved and infallible and inerrant, even though we do have a translation in the English language. 1 Corinthians chapter 2, we're going to start reading in verse number 9. But as it is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. Now again, another point to living by every word of God, what exactly does that mean? Are the words important? Yes, they're important, but why are the words important? The words are important because they're conveying a meaning. The meaning is being represented by the words. The meaning is important and so are the words, but I would say the meaning is more important than the words because the words are the tool used to convey the meaning. Words, just random words by themselves are going to do no good to anybody. The words need to be collected and they need to be put in a certain order, they need to be put in the right place, and the right words need to be used, amen and amen. And thank God that we have a book in the English language that has all of the words that he said, even though it wasn't in the same exact language, but we can trust that the meaning behind all the words that he said is exactly retained in the English language of the Bible. In the King James Bible, we have every word that he said with the meaning behind those words, there's no extra hidden meaning in the words that he used in some other language that hasn't been conveyed also in the English language. Again, this gets to be a really complicated subject when you start looking at all the various translations and all the various translation methods and the way that people did things. Before I even get into that though, I just want to point this out about the words having meaning and this is why the Bible says here that we have the mind of Christ, because we have the thoughts, we have the meanings behind the words that he has preserved for us. And since we know we don't need to get, and here's, man, I'm sorry, my mind is going faster than my mouth is going right now, and there's a lot of information that I'd like to convey, and I think you've probably heard some of this before, but I really want to make sure everyone has a very firm understanding of how translation works and how language works. Now, how many people in here have at least some knowledge of another language other than English? Awesome. Well, that's great. I mean, the vast majority of people in this room already have been studying, have some understanding of other languages, and this is extremely important. If you don't, I encourage you to try to get some understanding, try to learn some other languages, because it's just going to be more knowledge that you have, and it helps you just, in general, understand things and understand the way that translations work in general when you know that. And this is what I've always said to people, because people will tell you and come up with this argument, oh, well, something's always lost in translation. Isn't that common argumentation against how we can have the perfectly preserved, inerrant word of God in English, as opposed to Greek or Hebrew, you know, whatever language that God gave his word. You say, well, there's always something lost in translation. That's false. And when you start to learn other languages, you realize that even when you have situations where you have a word that may not exist as a direct translation into another language, you can always convey the meaning of the word behind the translation. Behind what you're trying to say, which does the exact same thing, because you're communicating, you're helping someone to have an understanding, and trying to put the mind in them of whatever it is you're trying to communicate. You're using words to do that. You need to use the right words to do that, but you can still get that, the whole point is that meaning. I was looking up yesterday some words in Spanish, because I think that's probably what most people probably have an understanding with. And I wish I would have put this in my notes. I decided not to, but it's just cool. There's some words. I looked up what words exist in Spanish that don't exist in English. There's just no 100% match for match word that matches. And it's sobre mesa was one of the ones I looked up. And this is something that I think it's more like it's a cultural word. And it describes the time of fellowshipping with people after a meal. So after you're done eating and everything, you're spending time still sitting at the dinner table and having conversation. Well, in Spanish, there's a word for that, for that exact event where you're sitting around a dinner table, after sitting around a table, just communicating and having a conversation. It's called sobre mesa. And mesa means table, and it's up on the table, whatever. If you translate it literally, you're not going to get the same meaning as what it actually means in Spanish. But here's the thing. Is it really that hard to explain what that means? And if someone wrote something in Spanish and they used the word sobre mesa, would it just be, well, it's impossible now. We can't do a translation of that because that word doesn't exist. Or would you write accordingly to convey what that word means using the words we have in English? Of course you would do that. Of course you're going to do that. And are you losing anything by not using that exact word? And you can see where I'm going with this, right? Where the Bible says, well, we need to live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Well guess what? When you do a translation, you're going to have to do things similar to that. Where you're taking a word and you have to represent the meaning and give the understanding of the word in order to even do a translation. And don't get hung up on terms that people use. Oh, that's dynamic equivalence or that's, you know, whatever. When you start to understand the language, it doesn't matter what term you put on it. It matters what actually is being done. And there's a reason why we can have faith even in our King James Bible other than just blind faith that God's preserved his word. You can actually look back and see the scholarship and the work that was done from the Greek received text as well as the Hebrew text. You know, you could learn and study and look into it and see the similarities and the reasons and, you know, how the translation works and understand that process. And it's there to understand. Now, you don't have to go that deep in studying to have the faith that we have the preserved word of God. But I'll tell you what, it's still based on fact. And we can't turn around and get screwed up in our reasoning and logic and say that, well, because I have faith that this is true, that this is going to be better or usurp anything prior to it. That doesn't make sense when you preserve your this is a preservation, a continued preservation of the word of God, which has always existed and has been in other languages. And now we just happen to benefit. It's not like English is the only language or English is superior than everything else. We do have an every word Bible. Well, what exactly does that mean? It means that every word in the KJV accurately states exactly what God said, even though he wasn't speaking English when he said it. Every single word, it's accurate, 100% accurate. It is inerrant, it is preserved, and it is not bound by one particular language. Sorry, I have a lot more written down here than I normally do. I just want to make sure I haven't missed anything in my notes. All right, yeah, I'm going to I'm going to continue on with this here. Turn if you would to John 21 while while I'm getting my thoughts together here. And to the point that I was just making about, you know, some words not exactly always lining up 100%. translations are interesting because they inherently have to make some changes in order to be a proper translation. So if you were going to try to do some, you know, extremely literal translation, it's not going to come out sounding normal or even right. If you just do a direct dictionary definition one for one. And you know, honestly, that's what the the software is out there that do translations, if you want to understand what how that sounds and what that looks like, just go to Google. Now Google Translate getting better because they're adding more logic and reasoning understanding into it to make the right equivalence. And is it but that's putting more into it's not it's doing more, it used to be more just pretty dictionary based. And just say, Oh, when I see this word, it's this one, I see this word, this, they've gotten better with adding more and more, you know, logic and understanding to it, that you could be all programmed in there. But still, it still doesn't come out perfect. And if you can, if you understand two languages, you'll see that and you just put in and you even have to you don't even have to know two languages, find something printed in one language and just some language you don't even know, put it into Google Translate, let it figure out what language it is, and then read what the result is. And you'll see it's not, it's not going to be perfect. You can't do translations like that and have them be good or even 100% right. But if you have someone that has understanding of both languages, then there should be no problem with doing the translation at all. So you know, that may be scary when you again, if you take it to the well, we have every word of God, wait a minute, he didn't use that word. When you translate it, you changed it to a different word. It's the same meaning. It's the same thing. So what if you need to use two or three words to say the same thing as one word in different language? That that's not the point. You're getting too focused on one little minutia instead of the big picture, right? We don't want to get we don't want to get to the point where we where we don't see the forest for the trees, right and get so focused on trees like no, there's a whole forest here. And when a translation is performed, and just think about doing the work of translation, there's choices to be made on which words to use. Sometimes you may be translating a word from one language that has multiple synonyms in another language. And when I say synonyms, I mean exactly the same. Sometimes you have choices of words that have nuanced meanings and slight variations. But sometimes there is no difference in meanings. And you have multiple words that say the exact same thing. I mean exactly the same thing. And it's gonna have no difference at all on anybody's understanding at all of what something means. When you're communicating, you can say the exact same thing without using the exact same words. Now, the problem you get with that, and again, everything needs to be in the right balance. You don't want to get so loose where you just start paraphrasing things, and calling that a direct translation of what something says. And you know what a lot of modern translations, they do that. They'll take the text and just give a paraphrase of what it means. That's not what the King James Bible does, and that's not what any valid translation would do if you have integrity with trying to retain the exact direct meaning of the words. You do it in the most literal way that you can, but you're gonna have to make some changes in order to retain even that literal sense. And you have to go through the translation process to see that there definitely are places where you have to do that. Now, people will take these areas of translation and try to make you think that you need to learn Greek in order to understand the New Testament, or get some extra meaning out of the Scripture. And that's patently false. We don't need to have that understanding of their words and their definition in order to have the Word of God or understand it better. And a great example of this, why I had you turn to John 21, and you may have heard this brought up before by other preachers who love to try to show how smart they are by going back to the Greek and give you this extra hidden meaning that you never would have gotten in English, is they use the words for love in Greek. And again, I am not a Greek expert, okay, but I know enough about language in general to have done enough study on this one particular word group and have the understanding of this being false, of what is being claimed and what is being taught. So they'll use these words, and if I mispronounce it, I apologize, agape and phileo, okay, and those words are Greek words with my American pronunciation. And what people will say is that the one, and they're both translated in the King James Bible, is love, okay? That's one word that's used, and you can say, well, wait a minute, I mean, we're supposed to live by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God, and if that's what came to us in Greek, how can we have one word, love, but they have two different words? I mean, they're two different words. We obviously don't have every word now because there was two different words. Look, they mean exactly the same thing. Now, what some people did is that some scholars will try to go back and say, no, they actually mean something different. So you don't really get, see, there was something lost in translation there. The King James Bible isn't completely 100% without error or whatever because you don't understand that there are these differences with the word love, and they'll make that claim. Now, here's how I was able to do the study to just see that this is patently false. It's real simple because we have access to the underlying Greek text, and again, without having to know all about Greek, I can see all the passages where those two words are used just in the New Testament. I pulled up all the passages and read the English verses of where they're used, where the English is saying love, and you won't believe this. They're used interchangeably. So here's what they'll say, though. I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. Look at verse number 15 in John 21 because this is what they'll try to teach. So when they had dined, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, loveth thou me more than these? He saith unto them, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love these. He saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith unto him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, loveth thou me. He saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, loveth thou me. Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Loveth thou me. And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. Now, what's taught here is that in Greek, the first two times that Jesus says, you know, do you love me? Loveth thou me. He uses one word, and then the third time he asks them, it's the other word, right, whether it's agape or phileo, doesn't matter. He uses these two first, and then he uses this other one, and then he says, you know, and they're saying, see, the reason why Peter got so upset, he was really upset, is because he asked them the third time this different love, it's a different boy, it means something different, and that's what they'll claim is going on here, when in Scripture, as I mentioned, they're used interchangeably, and I'm going to give you one example of this. In Matthew 23, 6, the Bible says, talking in reference to the Pharisees, and love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, right? Familiar verse, probably remember that verse, about talking about the chief, they love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and then in Luke 11, 43, a parallel passage says, woe unto you Pharisees, for you love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the marketplace. So, loving the uppermost rooms, loving the seats, right? He's using agape in one place, and phlayo in the other place. It's the same exact love, it hasn't changed their love for those seats, in Matthew versus Luke. Obviously, it's, you know, and again, you don't have to be a full-on expert in the Greek language to understand, well, I mean, if you're using these different words, and the English is translated as love, and it's the same context, and it's the same basic verse being translated here, essentially, you know, not 100%, but still, all the things that you could possibly reasonably think of, it's going to go out the window of saying, yeah, these do not mean anything different. They can't have a different meaning, at least when used in the Bible. Now, maybe in, you know, because languages change over time, I'm not saying that those words today don't mean something different, or haven't in the past meant something different, but when we're looking at the Scripture, which is what's important, which is what you want to have the understanding of, it didn't have a difference because the translators were, or not even the translators, because God was using those words interchangeably, and it didn't matter. So, the fact that the King James Bible just says love, love, love, love, when those, has no consequence at all. Now, I'm taking the time on this because what we don't want to do is go the other direction, and in the reverse, and try to say that other things are wrong because they're using synonyms. That is a perfect example of synonyms in Greek being used interchangeably and only being translated as one word. Don't get so caught up on what we have everywhere. Look, I know we have every word of God, and I'm not advocating to change any of God's word at all, and I don't know anyone who's KJV only that is advocating to make any changes to the word of God. It's right, it's perfect, it's inerrant, and there's no reason to change anything, and no one is saying, let's change anything. But you know what is being stated is, how about getting a little bit of understanding and education about how translations work? I think it's a good idea for people to understand the process and understand, so we don't get too cultish around an ignorant belief system on going as far as to say that, well, because I know this is true, this is going to correct everything that came before it. No, it doesn't correct anything. There is no extra inspiration giving in the King James Bible. None of that's going on. We can trust this, but you know what? If the time comes in the future that English changes dramatically, as it has already in the past, now do I think that's going to happen? No, but we're saying if it were to happen, then what would be the big deal with keeping the meaning in words now that are lost or that language has changed? If you go to Middle English and Old English, those are completely, practically different languages. You're not going to be able to convey the same truth using these words. It would have to be a translation. It's going to have to be slightly different. And also, if you go back to the Tyndale Bible or the Bishop's Bible, if they used words that are synonymous, that are not exactly the same as the King James Bible, I don't think you could go to that and say that's an error. That is not the Word of God because they used Easter instead of Passover when those words were completely synonymous at the time. 100%, no difference in the meaning, especially since Passover was a created word for the Bible. It was invented to be used in the Bible. You cannot say, well, that's not the Word of God because this is the Word of God. You know what? They're both the Word of God. And I have no problem saying that because it's saying the same exact thing, which is why it's even possible to have God's Word in any language. That's why. Because you can use a word that means the same exact thing regardless of what language is, regardless of how it's spelled. It means the same exact thing. You're conveying the same truth. And I'm not saying it's only the thoughts that matter, but you know what? The reason why we have the thoughts is because of the words and the words have that are there for the reason of giving the meaning. We don't want to get so focused on the every word Bible that we do have because it is 100% true. There's nothing in there that shouldn't be in there and there's nothing left out that needs to be in there. It's all in there and it's all good and it's all right. But let's not make it become something it's not. Just as the Greek experts want to tell you that there's a special meaning in the Greek words that you can't get in English, don't start to think that there's a special meaning to the English word being used if there's an accurate synonym for it. Don't hypersensationalize English beyond what it actually is. Otherwise, how could you even do a translation from a language like Greek that may have multiple words for love into a language like English that has less options? Or forget Greek and English, how about any other translation? If you're going to make another translation in another language, they may only have one word that means eternal and they don't have a word that means everlasting as direct translation, but you know what? They've got that one word. Is that no longer the word of God now? Sorry. It says everlasting here, you can't use it. I guess you're stuck without a translation of the Bible. I guess you're doomed to not really have the full word of God because your language doesn't have the synonym in it. Even though you have a word that means the exact same thing, you don't have the synonym, sorry, can't be the word of God. That is foolishness and stupidity, and that gets very cultish. And look, that is an ignorant mindset to think that way, and you're taking things, look, I'm all for making strong stands. I'm all for making a strong stand that we have the perfectly preserved word of God. Amen and amen. And there is no part of me that's not King James only, and I'm trying to push down everybody. That's exactly what we are here, but let's not, through ignorance, let this language that we speak become more than it is. There are already people trying to corrupt the word of God out there, like the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 2 17, for we are not as many which corrupt the word of God, but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ. The Bible teaches us that holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. They spake God's word. God's breathed word, okay, that came out of their lips. They didn't even, you know, the writers of the Bible, often times they're not even the ones writing it down themselves. Read, and especially in the New Testament, the apostle Paul is speaking, he's orating, he's a holy man of God speaking as he's moved by the Holy Ghost, so the author, the Holy Ghost is giving him, you know, the words to speak, and someone else is writing those words down, and they're being kept and preserved by God. I believe God has had his hand in the preservation. He has to, he's the one responsible for it. I believe God had his hand in the work being done with the translators of the KJV. I believe God has had his hand in also other translations into other languages as well, because he wants everybody to be able to hear the truth in the language that they speak, and seeing that God is the one who is the creator of languages anyways, you go back to the Tower of Babel when everybody had the same language, and God confounded them, and they started speaking the language, people started speaking the language that they didn't know the day before. Nobody knew the day before, yet all of a sudden, God was able to imprint that on their minds of a whole nation of people for various nations that God wanted to split up and to separate, and he used language to do that. God didn't damn all the people that spoke all the other languages then at that moment, saying, well, you're not going to be able to understand me now, because I made you, you know, he created language. Obviously, he can communicate with them. We see in Acts 2 at the day of Pentecost, the Jews, the disciples that were there that didn't know all the languages of the people that were around about them, the Holy Ghost came upon them. They were able to speak with languages that they didn't know in the past, and they were able to preach unto them the gospel of Jesus Christ and preach the word of God unto them, even though they didn't know. And guess who was doing the translating then? The Holy Ghost was. Do you think there was anything lost in the translation there? Absolutely not. But I'll tell you what, the words, I guarantee you the words changed. Again, changed in the sense that, not in the sense that it's a different meaning, but it's not the exact same word. It's not spelled the same way. It's not pronounced the same way. It's a different word, because it's in a different language. But they mean the exact same thing, because words have meaning, and that's ultimately what matters is that we're getting that. Now, again, you take that too far of saying, oh, well, I think this means this, so I'm just going to write it this way. That's not an accurate translation. When you take a translation, here's what it says, and you try your best to make it exactly the same, but you're going to have to have some level of giving the understanding. And that's why God needs to be involved in translation also. It's a very deep subject in itself. There's so many facets to translating that I recommend you start to understand and learn. But we need to make sure when you're trying to convince other people of why it's important to be a King James only, because it is, right? I mean, it is important that we're not using faulty arguments and faulty logic, because that's going to discredit your position. I never bring up, when I'm trying to explain to people why we use the King James Bible and you're comparing translations, instead of bringing up, oh, well, they do thought for thought, and the King James did literal and stuff like that, it's never 100% accurate to say it, because it's not all completely literal. And when you start getting into the, well, here it's not literal, but that's because it just tends to more confusion than anything. And they're going to be like, well, wait a minute, because people like to see things in black and white. And when you start getting into these areas where it's like, well, yeah, I know this isn't quite literal, and then you have these italicized words, and it's like, yeah, I know they're not actually there, but you need them in order to have the meaning. It all makes sense, and it's all something we should understand. But when you're trying to convince other people of these things, you should be able to answer objections if they bring them up. But I like just explaining to people this way, because this is very concrete, and this is very true, is that the sources of the modern translation is different than the sources of the King James Bible, which is the ultimate real reason, anyways, why you have so many differences, and the serious dramatic differences, the ones that really have the most meaning, it goes back to not as much how they did the translation, as much as where they got the translation from. That is the key point there. I'm not saying the way they do translation is right, you know, again, but the purpose of the main smoking gun is that, hey, they're not even using the same text evidence or text support to make their translations, which is why they're different, which is why there's verses that don't even exist in their versions, which is why they have extra words added, which is why you can read different passages, and they sound completely different. Because most people, if you try to show them verses that look almost identical, but they really only vary by a synonym or something, they're not going to take an argument of, well, no, no, this word has to be there, and this is right, and that's wrong. Because I said so, or because this is preserved, you know, you're going to have to look at it and say, you know what, that verse, because I can look at some verses and be like, yeah, I don't really have a problem with that as much. Not that I want to change it, but I'm just saying, you can look at verses and look at the New King James versus the King James and be like, you know what, these basically say the same thing. But you got to go to the places where they are definitely different, and then you can show people, and here's the reason why. The reason why they're different is because the source is different. That's the easiest, I think, the best way to explain to people that. Now, get the education, get the understanding behind it of all the aspects of the translation, but we need to make sure we're not getting too, I want to say the word extreme, because extreme isn't always bad. If you're extremely right, you're extremely right. God could be viewed as extreme, but it's that faulty logic, right? It's extreme in the sense that the Calvinists get extreme with their predestination. Instead of understanding, well, hey, God foreknew, so He's able to make these statements that all make sense, they kind of take that to another level of God picking and choosing, and you no longer having free will, and you receiving your ability to believe, which means He's already chosen you, and all this stupid stuff that Calvinists go into. But let's not do that with the King James Bible. There's a lot to it, but it's ultimately not that difficult to understand. Sorry, I had a lot of different thoughts I was trying to get out this morning. Hopefully it came out pretty clear, but let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you so much for preserving your word for us, and Lord, I love having confidence in your words, and I pray that you would please help us to do a good job as stewards of your word, to be able to persuade and convince other people of the truth, and help us to walk in the truth, and Lord, we love your word, and I pray that you would please just continue to increase our knowledge and our wisdom, Lord, and help us all understand the importance of having wisdom and knowledge to be able to reach more people. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.