Latest / The Immutable Word / EP034 Why the Bible Is Our Final Authority — A Sermon from Psalm 119

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EP034 Why the Bible Is Our Final Authority — A Sermon from Psalm 119 · The Immutable Word

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Welcome to another episode of The Immutable Word. I do apologize as we have
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not released our episode at our typical time, which is Friday,
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so we're making up for that today, due to Robert and my chaotic schedules as of late.
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Some of our responsibilities, commitments, and everything else in between has
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pulled us both away, unfortunately.
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However, we plan to get back on track with the many things we were planning
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to cover and are pretty eager to get them out to you.
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So thank you for being patient with us as we work through that.
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We do have a lot planned, especially in the area of mystery.
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I know that's a bit vague and I dare say mysterious.
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So I'll just leave you with that to speculate on what that might be.
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But Robert and I are pretty excited about it. But if you think about it,
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we talk about the mysterious in every episode.
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That Bible is a mysterious book. It's paranormal nature when you think about
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it, which makes sense because it's not written by any man.
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And when you think about that and try to wrap your mind around that, you come to realize that,
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You have something that you're able to hold in your hands knowing you have access to the mind of God.
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So that in itself is pretty amazing. But the things that we're working on,
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some of the things that we're thinking about releasing here pretty soon,
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I think you'll find pretty interesting.
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So stay tuned on that. The other thing, speaking of things to cover,
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if there are other topics that you'd like us to dig into, please let us know.
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We also like that you like it, so give us a thumbs up. It helps us out and gives
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us areas we can concentrate on when it comes to content, especially when we
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know it helps you and provides encouragement. It's why we're here.
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But in the meanwhile today, I'd like to share a great message that Robert preached
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on why the Bible is the final authority.
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This aligns with our theme, and you'll find that it's packed full of good information
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all through the lens of Scripture.
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So he's preaching out of Psalm 119 and does cover a good deal,
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so I'll leave you with that. And I do look forward to seeing you,
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or we look forward to seeing you, on our up-and-coming episodes coming out here
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pretty soon. All right, let's get over to the preaching.
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Psalm 119, before we stand and read, just by way of introduction, kind of a recap.
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You know, this is a very interesting chapter. I believe we've seen that over the last few messages.
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The largest chapter in your Bible that's about the Bible, amen?
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You have 176 verses that are broken up in eight verses of 22 stanzas.
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Each stanza is preceded by a letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
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And it's very interesting to see that because...
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Obviously, with each one representative of the Word of God, we see from Aleph
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to Tau, from the first letter to the last letter of Hebrews,
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it's all-encompassing of God's Word.
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God's Word was the wisdom that God and the revelation that God gave His people.
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And what's interesting about that is you find over there with the written Word,
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you have it encompassing the entire Hebrew language from start to finish.
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In Revelation 1, you have the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, who is the Alpha
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and the Omega, the beginning and the ending and the author and the finisher
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of our face, because he is the wisdom of God.
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And he completed the revelation of the New Testament of God.
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So it's interesting to see that correlation.
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But what we see, at least from this, is that God's word is always going to be sufficient.
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The Bible tells us in 2 Timothy 3, it says, All scripture is given by inspiration
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of God, is profitable for doctrine, proof, correction, instruction,
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righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect.
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You know, it's interesting. You have a lot of people today that argue over whether
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or not the Bible is your final authority.
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You know, there's different types of authorities in somebody's life.
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In most religion, it's either tradition,
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it's either their church or it's scholarship or their experience.
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But at the end of the day, when we call ourselves Bible believers,
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what we believe is that when it comes down to the final standard by how we should
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practice our faith, how we should worship God, it's going to be by what the word of God says.
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Bible says, the book of Isaiah, it says, if they speak not according to this
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world, it's because there's no light in them.
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And so a lot of times I don't think we understand that to its fullest because
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we'll tend to make decisions without ever consulting God's words.
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But if it's profitable enough for us to be throughly furnished unto all good
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works so that we may be perfect.
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It doesn't say necessarily, and trust me, I understand according to Ephesians
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4, the importance of the church and 1 Timothy and so forth, that it's the ground and pillar of the truth.
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But at the end of the day, the Bible says it's the scriptures that make us perfect.
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So when we ignore or neglect the scriptures in our life, people may not realize
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it, but you start to stunt in your spiritual growth.
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And what's interesting here in the Psalms is each stanza, each of those eight
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verses, draw a general theme.
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Look at Psalm 119. We're not reading yet, but Psalm 119, look at verse 9 just
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as a way of an example. But here in verse 9.
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You have the second word, the Hebrew word, Beth. It says, wherewithal shall
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a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word.
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So it's really clear that if you're going to cleanse your way,
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if you're going to clean yourself, the Bible talks about in Ephesians 5,
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that it's the daily washing of the water of the word that washes and cleans us.
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John 15, Jesus Christ speaks to his disciples. He says, ye are clean through
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the word which I have spoken unto you.
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He says, wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed, obedience.
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And then look at the next couple of verses. With my whole heart have I sought
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me, O let me not wander from thy commandments. You want to be clean?
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Then you need to have your whole heart seeking and obeying and following after this word.
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Verse 11, thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee.
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You want to be clean? You need to hide the word of God in your heart.
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Verse 12, blessed art thou, O Lord, teach me thy statutes. and if you allow
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God to teach you, the Bible says that a wise man will hear and will increase in learning.
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If you let God teach you, then guess what? He's going to cleanse your way.
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Verse 13, my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth.
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Listen, when you get to the point where you start talking about the Bible and
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it's part of your everyday language, you know that God is starting to cleanse your way.
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And then look at verse 14, I've rejoiced in thy testimonies,
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in the way of thy testimonies as much as in all riches.
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If you value the word of God more than your money, then God will allow that
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word to start cleansing your way.
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Then you see verse 16, I will delight myself in thy statutes.
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I will not forget thy word. You delight yourself.
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You run to the word of God as if you're trying to find hidden silver.
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And you know what happens is that Bible starts to work inside of you.
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Over there, the Thessalonians, Paul says, he says, the word of God,
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you didn't just accept it as it is the word of men, but you accepted it as it
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is in truth, the word of God.
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And he says that it's able to sanctify them and cleanse them and so forth and
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so on. That's where they find that sanctification is in the word of God.
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I wouldn't know how to live for God if I didn't know what God said about how to live.
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I wouldn't know how to manage my money if it wasn't for how God said to manage my money.
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I wouldn't know what kind of a husband I needed to be until I read what God
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said what kind of a husband I needed to be. This Bible is extremely important.
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Now, if you will, turn back to Psalm 119, look at verse 89, and we'll read my text.
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And just for context, I want to read the next through verse 96 to show something
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very important. But go ahead and stand.
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Psalm 119, verse 89, and we'll start verse 89.
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The psalmist says, Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven,
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thy faithfulness is unto all generations.
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Thou hast established the earth, and it abideth. They continue this day according
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to thine ordinances, for all are thy servants. Unless thy law had been my delights,
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I should have perished in my infliction.
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I will never forget thy precepts, for with them thou hast quickened me.
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I am thine, save me, for I have sought thy precepts.
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The wicked have waited for me to destroy me, but I will consider thy testimonies.
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I have seen an end of all perfection, but thy commandment is exceeding broad.
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Let's pray. Heavenly Father.
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Lord, we're humbled by your word, Father, that you would preserve it and you
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took it upon yourself to make sure that each one of us had a copy of your word
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to live by, to study, to hide in our heart, Lord, that it would cleanse our way.
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Father, help us, God, to have the right mind, the right spirit, Lord.
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We pray, God, that it's not me that can teach your people, Lord, it's your spirit.
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And we ask, God, that your word would have the preeminence tonight,
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Lord, and we sure love you, Father.
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We thank you for all that you've done for us and your mercy that you've shown
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us. In Jesus' name, amen. Go ahead, be seated.
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So here in Psalm 1, 1989, that's a year after I got saved.
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I don't know why I thought that. Anyway, verse 89, he says, Forever,
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O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven.
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Now, some people use this as an attack on the King James Bible because they
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said, well, if you want a perfect word, well, it's up in heaven.
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And it's a convenient excuse for them because, you know, you can't attack a
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book that's in heaven. You can't correct it.
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You could say that it's your final authority, but the problem is,
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is you could never produce it.
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And the truth of the matter is, it's not the Bible that's in heaven that's under attack.
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It's the one that's in your lap. That's the one they hate.
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And people may not understand. And they say, well, you know what,
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Brother Gamis, we've heard the King James Bible's word of God,
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and I've heard sermons on it.
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And listen, sometimes these battles, especially something as fundamental as
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the word of God, being in a translation, and we're going to talk about that here in a bit.
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But the fact is, it's so fundamental. Sometimes these are the things that need to be reinforced.
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There's a lot of new Christians that have been saved recently.
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And I know I've talked to a few of you and some have been, you know,
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some have struggled to say, well, Brother Gammas, how do we defend this?
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Or how do we, you know, try to defend a perfect word?
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Or why do we believe the King James Bible is the word of God? And you know what?
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Christians should always have a good reason for why they believe what they believe.
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So, you know, 1 Peter 3, he says that we should always be ready to give an answer
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for the reason of the hope that's within us.
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And so we should always have good reasons. We don't just blindly believe the
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King James Bible because our grandma used it.
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I mean, if I didn't believe this was absolutely 100% perfect,
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I would never put my confidence and my soul and my eternity and my life and
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my family into what this book says.
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If I didn't believe that, I'd at least try to be honest.
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But you know, you have people, they can't accept the fact that there's no perfect
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word. So what they'll say is, well, it's settled in heaven.
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Now, the problem is, is the next six verses, six or seven verses.
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Look what he says in verse 90. He says, thy faithfulness is unto all generations.
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That means there was a witness to God's faithfulness in every generation, practically speaking.
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That means in their hands, they had access to the word of God.
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We understand it's settled in heaven, but God used that as the launching platform
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to produce what we believe are the scriptures today.
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Now, look at verse 91. they continue this day according to thine ordinances.
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He's talking about that he established the earth and it abideth.
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And he says, these things, they continue because of your ordinance,
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because God, when he spoke the worlds into existence, he did it through the words of God. Amen.
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He spoke the worlds into existence. Unless, verse 92, unless thy law had been
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my delight, I should have perished in mine affliction.
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The fact that I know that I can't perish in my affliction and be so overwhelmed
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by the things of this earth is because God settled his words and then gave me access to them.
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Verse 93, I will never forget thy precepts, for with them thou hast quickened
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me, thou hast made me alive, thou hast given me understanding.
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The Bible talks about that we're born by the engrafted word which is able to save our souls.
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This Bible produces life. Why? Because God settled it in heaven.
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And he says, I'm thine, save me, for I've sought thy precepts.
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He says that, listen, I can find salvation because your precepts are something
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that are established. they'll never change.
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They'll never be altered. He says over there in Psalm, I believe,
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89 to the promises of David, he says, once I've promised what I said to David, I'll never alter that.
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I'm paraphrasing it, but he basically said, I'll never change what I said.
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And then he says here, he says, I'm verse 95, the wicked have waited for me
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to destroy me, but I'll consider thy testimonies.
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I don't have to fear the wicked because his words are established and I can
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trust those words. verse 96, I've seen an end of all perfection.
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You've read the end of the book. You see there's going to be the heavens and
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earth are going to finish and they're going to be completed.
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And he says, but thy commandment is exceeding broad.
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Jesus said, heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
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So his words are established forever.
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So when we see this, The theme is here is that God had cut to the context is
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that he has given us his word and it's forever established that we can trust it.
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Each verse is dependent upon God's eternal, unchanging, immutable word.
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Three things real quick in verse 89, and I want to kind of go up,
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explore a couple things.
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But in verse 89, we see this, forever, O Lord, that's eternal.
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He established his word in eternity past.
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Long before Moses ever penned a word, long before Jeremiah ever wrote,
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long before he established his word.
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That's why man can, that's why there's so many, there's three prohibitions to
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adding and modifying and taking away from God's word.
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That's why when the devil approached
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Eve, the very first thing out of his mouth was, yea, hath God said.
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And then of course, the first time the devil tempts our Lord and Savior,
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he starts quoting scriptures to him because he knows that those scriptures have authority.
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The Bible tells us 1 Peter 1.25, for the word of the Lord endureth forever.
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So forever, O Lord. And he says, thy word. It's God's words, not man's words.
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I don't have to worry about my Bible having mistakes. Matter of fact,
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most of the mistakes that I've ever heard people say are in my Bible.
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And I tend, listen, you know what you have permission to do when somebody attacks your belief?
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Is make them prove it.
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Somebody always tell me, well, that Bible is full of mistakes.
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Oh, wow. Okay. Give me an example.
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I have yet to hear an example. Matter of fact, one time I was on 6th Street,
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I said, I'll give you a couple examples.
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Adam and Eve disobeyed God. That was a bad mistake.
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I said, Peter denied the Lord three times. That's a pretty bad mistake.
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There's all kinds of mistakes in the Bible.
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But the problem is, is when people try to attack that word, you know what you ought to do?
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You ought to be able to push back a little bit because we have a world that
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is against God and against God's word.
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And, you know, I understand there's people who say, oh, you know, the Bible is like a lion.
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You just let it go and defend itself. You know what God's given us a responsibility to do?
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You read over there in the book of Acts, Paul would go into the scriptures and
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he would sit there and prove his faith according to the evidence of what God said.
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He did that over and over again. Matter of fact, when Paul gave you the resurrection,
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the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15, you know what he did? He gave you eyewitness testimony.
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Evidence is okay to use. And guess what? We do have the evidence, but here's the thing.
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This, this word, he says, it's, it's thy word. It's God's word.
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That means it cannot be corrupted. That means it's objective truth.
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It's not subject to your emotions.
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It doesn't change because somebody's morality changes.
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That's why what God said 2,500 years ago is still true today.
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That, you know, there's, there was skeptics in history. Voltaire,
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he was a French philosopher. he held up the Bible and said, you know what?
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In 15 years before my lifetime is over, he goes, this book will be no more.
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When he died, the Geneva Bible Convention bought his house and started shipping
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Bibles for the next several decades.
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You know why? Because God's word's eternal. You can't alter it.
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Not only that, it's settled in heaven. It's fixed.
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It's unchanging. It's immutable.
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You cannot change God's words. And so what does this all mean?
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And why is this even really important? Because before, like I said,
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Moses penned anything, God's words already existed.
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There's an interesting statement you see in your Bible.
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You ever read the phrase that says, the word of the Lord came to Hezekiah,
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the word Lord came to Jeremiah, the word Lord came to Micah,
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to Hosea, to Jonah. We just heard about Jonah.
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The word of the Lord came as if it had existed prior to coming to that prophet.
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You know, it's interesting. Look at 1 Peter or 2 Peter chapter 1.
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We know this verse, 2 Peter chapter 1.
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That phrase, the word of the Lord came, shows up 92 times in your Bible.
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And it's interesting because look what the Bible says. We know many of us have
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read this passage, but look at 1 Peter chapter 1 and look at verse 20.
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2 Peter chapter 1 verse 20. The Bible says, knowing this first,
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that no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation.
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So we've read that before and I've always read it and understood it to being
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that you cannot privately interpret the word of God.
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And trust me, I'm not trying to say you're not yours. You can.
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I'm saying that the only true interpreter of scripture is the Holy Spirit.
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Joseph admitted that. Daniel admitted it.
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So I believe that there's only one interpreter, but that's not the context. Look at verse 21.
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For prophecy, what's that next word?
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Came not in old time by the will of man.
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That means that Jeremiah wasn't one day sitting there going,
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hmm, I think I'm going to write down something and say God said it.
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It wasn't the private opinion of Hosea and Micah.
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That Bible, whenever that prophecy came, it wasn't by the will of man.
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It was by the will of God because he says this, holy men of God spake as they
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were moved by the Holy Ghost. Why?
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Because God's word was already settled.
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He just, he spent that time with that particular prophet to manifest himself
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through the words of God.
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That's how God operates. Like God could have written something in the sky and
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say, hello, I am God, I created you.
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But you know what? People today would look at that and go, wow,
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that's a hallucination.
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Oh, look, UFOs. That people will come up all kinds of excuses.
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But you know what God did is he permanently recorded it in a record that we can hold and test.
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You know, the Bereans, the Bible says they were commended because they searched
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the scriptures daily to see whether those things were so.
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I wonder if that can be said of us. How many times have we believed something
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and we believed it just because somebody told us, but we never took it upon
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ourselves to study the scriptures, to see whether those things are so.
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The Bible talks about us being ashamed of God has to do with our study of the word.
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But here, look at Matthew chapter 24. I'm sorry, Matthew, John chapter 12.
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John chapter 12. So we see that prophecy came because it already existed.
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John chapter 12, Jesus Christ is speaking about something that's going to judge man in the last days.
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Look at John chapter 12, starting in verse 44.
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John 12, 44, the Bible says, Jesus cried and said, he that believeth on me,
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believeth not on me, but on him that sent me.
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And he that seeth me, seeth him that sent me.
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I am coming to the world that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.
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If any man, watch what he says in verse 47, John 12, 47.
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And if any man hear my words, see that? And believe not, I judge him not.
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Verse 48,
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That tells you the authority of God's word, right? But look at verse 49.
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For I've not spoken of myself, but the Father which sent me,
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he gave me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak.
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And I know that his commandment is life everlasting.
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Whatsoever I speak, therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.
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Why? Because God's word was forever settled.
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Jesus Christ, his job was to tell you exactly what God wanted you to know.
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And if our Savior would submit himself to God's words, God forbid that we would
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neglect him when we're witnessing to others.
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Listen, I'm all for giving people your testimony.
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I think it's a powerful way to witness. But one of the most powerful ways to
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witness to God's truth is to give people the word of God.
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Because what you do is when you give them the word of God, you're eliminating
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your preference and your opinion because there's times I heard preachers that
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have had, you know, that were converted.
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One brother, he was a Catholic and he said that a Marine came and was witnessing
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to him and every time, and he was a Catholic and he would sit there and respond
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back about something, some Catholic doctrine and that preacher,
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that young Marine would say, well, the Bible says this.
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Well, look at what the scripture says.
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And he started getting really frustrated. This preacher, you know, eventually got saved.
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And he said, you know what? He said, I realized after two or three or four visits,
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I wasn't arguing with that Marine.
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I was arguing with that book.
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And he got under so much conviction. And he says, either I'm right or that book is right.
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But listen, if God's words were not settled, they wouldn't make that kind of
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an impact on a person's conscience.
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These are powerful words. You know, there's times that I've read and read and
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read my Bible, and there's times that sometimes it just goes right over my head.
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I don't get it, but that's okay.
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God never commanded me to understand his Bible. He just commanded me to believe it.
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And whenever I would choose to do that, there was times where God,
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and sometimes it took years, but God would clarify things in my life.
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God would show me things. You imagine that if I neglected God's word,
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that would be completely shut to me.
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I wouldn't have that kind of light, but his words are settled.
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So we see that his, the origin of scripture and scripture all came from a location that was settled.
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Now, why does all this matter when we talk about that we have something accessible.
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Because most of the critics, this is what they'll claim, the people that don't
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believe you have a perfect Bible, you know what they'll say?
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Well, only the originals were inspired.
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No translation can be inspired of God.
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And I'm not going to go through inspiration necessarily, but I'm just going
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to tell you what they do is so they could sit there and go, well,
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that King James has a bunch of mistakes.
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And we would think like, okay, well, maybe they prefer the ASV.
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No, they don't prefer the ASV either. They don't prefer the NIV.
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They don't prefer the New American Standard.
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They don't, the New Living, the Paraphrase Bible, the Living Bible, you name it.
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They don't prefer any of those. You know why? Because they don't believe any of those are inspired.
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But it's funny how they always just attack one. It's always the King James.
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And they hate you for believing that book and loving that book.
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We don't worship this book.
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I don't, how How many of you actually have nailed down to this book and prayed to it?
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Nobody does. That's not what I do. That's not, I reverence it because I believe that it's perfect.
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And I don't believe I can correct it. I believe it corrects me.
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And so when I approach the Bible that way, you know what I've seen is God starts to clear up my mind.
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You know, that Bible said in 2 Corinthians 10 that it's the spiritual warfare, right?
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And we have to cast down imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself against what?
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The knowledge of God. Where do you get the knowledge of God from?
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So the skeptics, the problem is, is they can't address the actual issues of the Bible.
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So back in the late 1800s, early 1900s, you had German critics attacking the Bible.
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And these scholars, rather than try to defend the word of God,
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they just started running back to the originals.
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Well, only the originals are perfect.
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Only the originals are without error. Only the originals are inspired.
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Do you know what the implication of that is? You don't have a perfect Bible.
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You don't have access to it. So here's the problem. What if one verse in your
26:10
Bible happened to be incorrect?
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What if that verse was, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved?
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What do you do? How do you trust anything else in that Bible if there's mistakes, actual mistakes in it?
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They don't produce mistakes, the critics. You know what they produce?
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They produce a preference.
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They go, oh, well, that shouldn't be translated Easter.
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My preference would, it should have been translated this way. By whose standard?
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Who's the judge? Who's the one to say they're right?
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I remember asking a Greek scholar one time, guy, he was popular.
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I'd written into his show years ago in the 90s. And I said, hey,
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you claim to be, you know, a Greek expert. You know, all the Greek declensions
26:56
and all this other stuff. I said, you're a really smart guy.
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I said, what happens if you approach one verse of the scripture and you say
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it should be translated this way?
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And I go to an equally credible Greek scholar and that Greek scholar says,
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no, it should be translated this way. I said, which of you two is right?
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You see the problem you run into? You know what the temptation was in the garden?
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Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And that's what a lot of these people
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become, is they become gods over that book.
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And they'll tell you what God said instead of it.
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And listen, skeptics, they don't want to attack the Bible in heaven.
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They want to attack the one that you have.
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So, but here's the problem is the originals, when you look at the word of God,
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God doesn't care about the originals.
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You have to ask yourself, how much value does God put on the originals?
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Well, Moses broke the originals. They're gone.
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Ezekiel chapter three, Ezekiel ate the originals. What do you do then?
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Jeremiah, whenever he approached King Jehoiakim, King Jehoiakim over there in
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Jeremiah 45, you know what he does?
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He takes the Jehoiakim, takes it and then cuts it up and then throws it into a fire.
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There goes the originals. You know what God told Jeremiah to do?
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Why don't you go write what I told you before? And by the way, add some stuff to it.
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You know what God told over there in Jeremiah 51? He tells them to write the
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words of the book on a scroll.
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Then he tells Jeremiah, take that scroll and toss it into the Euphrates River.
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The last time I checked, that's not good for a book.
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You know what? You know, you should put as much value on the originals as God does.
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And if the originals were so important to God, are you telling me why couldn't
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God have preserved one of them?
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Nobody has an original and the Bible skeptics know it. They'll say the same
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thing. Nobody has an original.
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That's why their job is trying to reconstruct it.
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But when you go back to Psalm 119, look at verse 90 again.
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He says, thy faithfulness, Psalm 119 verse 90, he says, thy faithfulness is unto all generations.
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That means God had a faithful witness or a witness to his faithfulness in every generation.
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Somebody will attack your King James and go, well, where was the Bible before 1611?
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Well, I mean, people may not think about this, but you know,
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the book of Acts is a rich book on the history of the birth of the church.
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You see people, thousands of people getting saved.
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You see the development of the church in Jerusalem and Antioch.
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You see the salvation of Paul, the apostle.
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You see all this great stuff happening in the book of Acts. Did you know that
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by the end of Acts, there might have been maybe one or two of your New Testament books written?
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That means God somehow saved thousands of souls.
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Saved the apostle of the Gentiles, started the development of worldwide missions
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without one single text of the New Testament completed, or very,
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probably maybe two of them, maybe three of them at most.
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Because your Bible wasn't finished until 90, 96 AD, the book of Revelation.
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They were written very late.
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So you're telling me God can accomplish all that without, so my question to
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them would be, Where was the Bible when Paul got saved?
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Where was the Bible when 5,000 people were saved in Acts chapter 2?
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Or 3,000 souls? How do you explain that?
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How did Cornelius get saved? How did the Ethiopian eunuch get saved without a Bible?
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You see, it's a silly question because it exposes their hypocrisy.
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They just hate this book. You know what that means? because every generation
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had a witness to God's faithfulness.
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Now, he didn't have all, matter of fact, your entire Bible, there was no place
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in scripture where you had 66 books completed. Didn't come until later.
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That means God used what was available to manifest and reveal his truth to his
31:18
people and God held them accountable for what they knew.
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You know, when we just heard about Jonah and remember the king and all the animals
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and everybody sackcloth and ashes repented over maybe an eight word sermon.
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From a heart that did not want to preach it. You know, they had,
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how much Bible do you think Nineveh had?
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And their entire city got saved. And you know what's interesting about that?
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Is later on, Jesus Christ says, he says, behold, Nineveh, they repented.
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And yet a greater than Jonas was here, right? And you know, he was talking to Capernaum.
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And he was talking to the places where he did most of his miracles.
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Where they had a lot of witness.
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And he says, Nineveh had nothing. They had one preacher that didn't want to preach anything.
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He gives them eight words and they completely repent.
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He goes, they're more justified than you who have more knowledge of the word of God.
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So God holds you accountable based off the revelation he gives you over time.
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So you see, so I'm not here to try to argue about the translational history.
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I'm just trying to show you that the arguments that people make about the originals
32:37
do not hold up in scripture.
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So when we look at this, we see that God had to have a faithful witness in every generation.
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Now, here's the thing. It's not about a King James translation.
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It's not about translations. The argument is not about that.
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Because if we drop the King James and we go started, you know,
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hey, we're ESV believers,
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ESV only church, they'd start attacking
33:02
the ESV because it's not about a translation. That's a distraction.
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You know what the issue is, is whether you have a perfect Bible or not.
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That's it. And that's usually the simplest question you can ask them.
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Do you believe there's a perfect Bible here on earth that I could hold in my hand?
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And they'll say, no, they don't believe that. So the problem,
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if you don't have a God, if you don't have a perfect Bible, you know what the problem is?
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And this is, people may not think of it this way, but that means two things. One of two things.
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If you don't have a perfect Bible, then God is either inept because he was incapable
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of preserving his words for you,
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and that he left it up to sinful scholarly men to reconstruct the originals, which they never have.
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We have over 300 plus English translations in this country alone. 300.
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That means the Bible had to be updated to modern language over 300 plus times.
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And if the principle is true that by their fruit you shall know them,
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if we had 300 translations of the English, English by the English language,
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then why is our country in the spiritual condition that it is?
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It's not about our country's full of sin. Our country is full of perversion It is beyond sin,
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And that's what the 300 plus modern versions have produced.
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You look at the 400 plus years of the history of the King James,
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it's produced the greatest revivals, the greatest missionary movements,
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the greatest preachers.
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Our country has founded, when we started studying the Constitution,
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we found out that over 1,500 references to the King James Bible was introduced
34:45
when they started putting the Constitution together.
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Listen, you become a Bible reader, you start to become an independent thinker,
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and God starts to use that book to produce results in your life.
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And here's the thing, if you don't have a perfect Bible, God's inept. He just couldn't do it.
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He could speak the world into existence in six 24-hour days,
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but he couldn't preserve one manuscript.
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Or he's a liar, because you know what he said in Psalm 12, 6, and 7?
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Thou shalt preserve them, O God. Thou shalt keep them his words from this generation.
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And if you don't have them, here's, you know why I know that's true?
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Because I can read my Bible and there's a command to study.
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There's a command to seek you out of the book of the Lord and read.
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Jesus Christ, he sits there and rebukes the Sadducees and the Pharisees because
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you know not the scripture nor the power of God.
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Jesus Christ over and over again appealed to scripture.
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He said to the devil, he says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word.
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And then you know what? In the book of Matthew 24, you know what he says?
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He starts talking about if you start seeing all these rumors of wars and stuff like that.
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He says, take heed. He says, if you read what Daniel said about the abomination
36:01
of desolations, you know what that means?
36:04
That means somebody in the tribulation yet future is going to have a copy of Daniel.
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After all the sin and idolatry of Israel, and they tried to get rid of God's book, here's Josiah.
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And one of the men cleaning out his temple happens to find a book.
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You know why? Because God promised to preserve it.
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It wasn't man's job. It was God's job to do that.
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So if you don't have a perfect Bible, then God was incapable or he lied.
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They will never address that.
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So what's the responsibility of the believer? Is it to try to relocate and locate
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and reconstruct the original, or is it to read, believe, and obey what God has preserved for you?
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It comes down to final authority. There's four professing types of,
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you know, professing types of Christianity in the world. You got four different
36:54
categories when it comes to final authority.
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You have final authority plus tradition.
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You have final authority plus scholarship.
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You have final authority plus emotion or experience. And then you have final
37:06
authority, the Bible plus nothing.
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Your Bible plus tradition, that's your Roman Catholics.
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And you know what that means? that means if there's a conflict between the Bible
37:16
and tradition, they'll always go with tradition.
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If it's Bible and scholarship, if there's a conflict between the Bible and scholarship,
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they'll always go to scholarship.
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And that's your evangelicals and those crowds, the scholarly crowds that think
37:30
your Bible's full of mistakes.
37:31
Then you have your Pentecostals, your charismatics, it's Bible plus emotion.
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And if there's a conflict between the two, they'll always go with their emotion.
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You can't have two final authorities. Do you understand? One of them is the final authority.
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So, that's the problem. When you get rid of a perfect book you can hold in your
37:50
hand, you have no final authority.
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So, let me shift real quick, and this is really where I want to finish at.
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The critics claim that no translation can be inspired of God.
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And if God, listen, if God was to have his words settled in heaven forever,
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but his intention was for us to read it, to propagate it, to preach it,
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to teach it, to live by it, to obey it,
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then that means that God had to put some process in place to ensure that every
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generation would have a witness to his faithfulness.
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And that's what translation does. But I want to first address this claim that
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no translation can be inspired.
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And this is my question. This is usually what I say is like,
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well, is that scripturally true? Can you prove that according to the Bible?
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Can you show me from scripture that no translation can be inspired?
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Here's an example, and I'm not going to go to them just for sake of time.
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But in Genesis chapter 42, you have Joseph.
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Remember, he's reunited with his brothers.
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And remember, he doesn't reveal who he is. So he's speaking to them in Egyptian,
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and then he's got an Egyptian interpreter who's interpreting it in Hebrew to his brethren.
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And then later on, you have Moses writing it down in Hebrew.
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Here's my question, which is inspired? The words that came out of Joseph's mouth in Egyptian?
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Or is it the words of the interpreter that's interpreting his words in Egyptian into Hebrew?
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Or is it what Moses wrote down in the Hebrew when he wrote down the book of
39:29
Genesis, which is inspired?
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Here's another example. In Acts chapter 21, Paul is under arrest, all right?
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But he's before his brethren and before these governors and stuff and these
39:41
authorities that are trying to put him on trial. And he starts to give them a testimony.
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In Acts chapter 21, verse 40, the Bible says that he turned around and started
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speaking to the crowd in the Hebrew language.
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But Luke wrote it all down in Greek. So here's the question, which is inspired?
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What Paul said in the Hebrew, or was it what Luke wrote in the Greek?
40:06
And then later on, Paul starts to give his testimony about being saved on the road to Damascus.
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And you know what he says over there in Acts 26, verse 14? He says that I heard
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a voice from heaven speaking to me in the Hebrew tongue.
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And Paul is telling them what the Hebrew said that Luke wrote down in Greek.
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You know what the problem is? Is you have dozens and dozens of direct translations
40:36
like that in your Bible. There's over 66 of them.
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Here's another thing. Floyd Nolan Jones, a Bible believer, he wrote this.
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And I've seen different numbers, but this is a kind of a conservative number.
40:47
But he said that there's 263 direct quotations in the New Testament to the Old Testament.
40:54
And he says there's over 370 allusions of the Old Testament and the New Testament.
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That means you have over 500 translations from the Hebrew to the Greek.
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Are those inspired? If no translation is inspired, you better get rid of those.
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You see, the problem is they dig themselves in this hole deeper and deeper. You know why?
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It's real simple. The reason why is because the Bible is not their final authority.
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Their education is, their scholars are, their alma maters are.
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That's their final authority.
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But when you let this book be the final authority, God will clear up all that junk.
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Listen, as long as I've been saved, and you have to understand,
41:43
preaching on the street, I always tell people, if you want a master's in comparative
41:47
theology, go on the street.
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You will have every stinking weird belief you can imagine.
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And there's been times that they put me in a corner. I had no idea how to respond.
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But I can honestly tell you in 30 plus years of being on a street corner that
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I've never, ever, ever heard an accusation in this Bible that God didn't clear up for me. Never.
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Matter of fact, that's why I think it's healthy for us to examine these things.
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You know what's healthy for you to do is when you go to witness to people and
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somebody challenges your belief on a perfect Bible, challenge them.
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You don't always have to, they're not the police interrogating you.
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You ought to be able to ask them some questions.
42:31
You know, the word scriptures in your Bible shows up 53 times.
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And did you know that every time the word scripture shows up, it's never an original?
42:40
Jesus Christ, Matthew 4, he goes into a synagogue. He opens up the book of Isaiah,
42:45
he starts reading about the prophecy about himself.
42:48
And then he says, this day, this scripture is fulfilled.
42:52
He has the book of Isaiah. Do you think that's the original Isaiah from 700 years prior?
42:57
And then, you know, once you read over there in Acts chapter eight,
43:00
you see an Ethiopian eunuch in a chariot and he's reading the book of Isaiah.
43:05
I wonder if he stole it from that synagogue that Jesus was at.
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And then you see over there, second Peter or second Timothy chapter two,
43:12
where Paul is commending Timothy, he says, you should try to develop yourself
43:18
in your Christian walk in the things that you've been assured and taught.
43:21
And he says, from a child, thou hast known the scriptures.
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And he had, I believe he had, I think it was a Greek father, Jewish mother.
43:29
But here's the thing, you think that a half-breed Jew had the original scriptures.
43:35
See the problem? People don't think about what the Bible actually says.
43:40
See, the Bible, it's, and let me show you one last thing here. Go to Acts chapter 2.
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Can God use translations? And I'll tell you this, and I believe there's enough
43:52
proof and evidence to prove that this Bible, this King James Bible,
43:54
is the perfect preserved words of God in the English language.
43:57
I believe it to be true, historically, textually, but that's not the aim of the goal tonight.
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But you know the best way to measure whether or not it's the Word of God?
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You have to just ask yourself a few questions.
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Number one, is this Bible consistent from beginning to end?
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He said in Psalm 119, verse 160, he says, Thy Word is true from the beginning.
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All thy righteous judgments endureth forever.
44:20
Every Word of God is pure. Does it ever produce a real contradiction?
44:25
Not an apparent one, a real contradiction.
44:28
Is there really an error? Does it teach false doctrine?
44:32
Does it impugn or does it attack the character or the integrity of God?
44:38
If you have a Bible translation that does that and makes Jesus Christ a liar
44:42
or worse yet, calls Satan Jesus Christ, the morning star, then you've got a
44:46
problem with that Bible.
44:49
But look at Acts chapter 2. Look what it says there in verse 4.
44:51
So we know this is right after the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
44:56
Paul is preaching to a bunch of proselytes and Jews that have come to celebrate
45:01
Pentecost 50 days after the Passover.
45:06
And look what it says in verse 4. And they were all filled with what?
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The Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues.
45:18
There's at least 16 different regions and civic cultures that are represented
45:22
here. Now, why didn't God just stick with Hebrew?
45:26
Because the nature of the gospel was that they would go into all the world.
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And the only way God would accomplish that is through translation.
45:38
The very first act of the Holy Spirit after the birth of the church was translation work.
45:47
And people believe that there's no inspired translation. That wasn't inspired by the Holy Spirit.
45:53
There's so much overwhelming internal evidence to prove to you that God didn't
45:59
stop at the originals, and he didn't stop by preserving it in heaven.
46:03
That was just the launching point.
46:07
Every byproduct, every derivative of what we would call scriptures was the work
46:12
of God's hands, but he had already established it so that no man can ever change it.
46:18
I can only imagine that, you know, if they're saved, the translators of the
46:22
ESV and the NIV, and if you saw some of the people on those committees,
46:26
you wouldn't think they were.
46:27
But I can only imagine if they did make it to heaven.
46:30
And God says, oh, hey, come over here. You worked on the ESV? Take a look at this.
46:36
Here's what I established long before Moses ever wrote it. Funny,
46:41
it doesn't say what your Bible says.
46:44
You know, I heard a preacher say one time, I wonder who God will forgive most.
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Is he going to forgive the man who had a perfect copy of the originals in a
46:56
translation, but didn't believe it?
46:58
Or the one that didn't have a perfect copy of God's originals,
47:02
but believed it? I wonder which one God would have more mercy on.
47:05
I'm not going to tell you I know everything in this book that I can clear every
47:09
contradiction. I can't.
47:11
But I do know there is overwhelming evidence to prove to me that it was God's
47:15
business to take care of this.
47:18
And I can read my Bible and look at what people that, you know,
47:21
the longer that I've been saved, the more that I hear the attacks on the word
47:25
of God, I will hear them out.
47:27
Don't be afraid to hear it out because that's a good way to exercise your faith.
47:31
You need to be challenged.
47:33
Why do you think so many of those perverts are out there saying what they say
47:37
about our God and our religion and what we believe about this book,
47:41
it's because there's not enough
47:43
Christians to have enough guts to stand up for what God has preserved.
47:48
I would much rather be called a heretic and a cult because I believe the King
47:53
James Bible is the word of God and let God judge me than to have the fear of
47:57
man where it shuts my mouth and I can't say anything.
48:00
John Bunyan, he wrote Pilgrim's Progress. One man in 1680, a university man
48:04
met him on the road near Cambridge and said to Bunyan, how dare you preach when
48:10
you don't have the original scriptures?
48:12
John Bunyan says, well, do you have them? The copies written by the apostles and the prophets?
48:18
No, replied the scholar. But what I have, I believe to be a true copy.
48:23
The original, he had a Greek New Testament.
48:25
And Bunyan said, I too have. He goes, I believe the English Bible to be a true copy too.
48:31
There's another man, Benjamin Franklin Dearmore in 1900 said this,
48:34
as for me, I will take the King James translation as the very word of God for
48:39
the English people. I believe it's without error.
48:41
It is 100% correct. I do positively state that people who do not know a word
48:47
of Greek Greek can become real Bible scholars.
48:51
Many times their understanding is greater than the Greek scholars.
48:56
If the God of this Bible, who is the author of scripture, the one who inspires,
49:02
preserves, and grants understanding of it, if he is truly the author of this
49:07
book that I believe I hold in my hands, then you can trust what you have to
49:12
be the perfect words of God.
49:14
And when God makes certain promises to you in this book, you can rest assured
49:20
that God is right and everybody else is wrong.
49:25
You know what he says? He says, forever, O Lord, thy word is settled.
49:30
I remember I was struggling one time for many years, the first three or four years after I got saved.
49:35
I got saved in a charismatic church and then eventually got baptized in a Baptist
49:41
church. My dad helped me through that.
49:43
But I remember one of the biggest struggles I had was eternal security.
49:47
And, you know, one preacher opened up 1 John 5, 13.
49:52
And he says, these things have I written unto you that you believe in the name
49:55
of the Son of God, that you may know you have eternal life.
49:57
And he says, do you know you have eternal life? And I said, I think so.
50:01
I don't feel it. He says, read the verse again.
50:04
These things have I written unto you that believe in the name of the Son of
50:06
God, that you may know you have eternal life. Do you have eternal life? I said, I think so.
50:11
And he was getting upset. He goes, read it again. He made me read it like 10 times.
50:15
And then he said, read it slower. He goes, these things have I written to those
50:21
that believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know.
50:23
He says, what is the basis of you knowing you're saved? It's written.
50:29
Whether I feel it or not, whether I've gone the wrong way, whether I've messed
50:36
up, whatever the case is, I will either take God at his word or I'll let my
50:41
emotions become the final authority.
50:44
You can trust what God said because he settled his word and he just happened
50:49
to use translations to make sure that you have a copy in your hand today. Amen. Amen.
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Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank you, God, for your words.
50:59
We thank you, God, that it's absolutely perfect and we can have the confidence
51:03
and the assurance to know that what you said is absolutely true.
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Father, help us, God, that whenever our faith is weak, that you would strengthen
51:11
our faith and increase it, Father.
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You said that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
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Lord, if we're weak, if we struggle, Father, perhaps it's because we haven't
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taken the time to trust what you've said.
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We sure love you, Lord, and thank you so much for putting this book in our hands
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and help us to really understand and acknowledge the price that it costs to put it in our hands.
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We love you, Father. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.