I believe the devil wants to take over the church. I believe the devil wants to take over this church one person at a time.
We have before us the opportunity to forge for ourselves and for future generation a new world order.
Close your windows. Go back inside your houses.
Go back inside right now.
I am inside.
We have a real chance at this New World order, an order in which a credible United Nations can use its peacekeeping role to fulfill the promise envisioned by the UN's founders.
After 1989, President Bush kept saying this phrase that I often use myself, that we needed a New World order, and, instead, it looks like we got a lot of disorder.
It's been a long time coming. Because of what we did on this day, at this defining moment, change has come to America.
President Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon today, calling for a New World order to tackle our global economic crisis.
The affirmative task we have now is to actually create a New World order.
Its task would be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period when, really, a New World order can be created. It's a great opportunity.
We talk about the New World order defined as you have as being Luciferian.
Yes.
How do you know that?
My investigations lead me look at the back of the American dollar, and I found these strange seals on the dollar here. They're Illuminati seals, which was a secret society set up in the 1776 by a man called Adam Weishaupt. On the back of the dollar here, you see the seal on the left-hand side. There's an eye in the triangle. It's the eye of Horus in Egyptian mythology, now, called the eye of Lucifer or Satan.
The 2 words at the top, Annuit coeptis stand for "announcing the birth of," and down the bottom, Novus ordo seclorum.
Fe
that great seal of the United States has on it Novus ordo seclorum, a New Order.
People should be asking the question, "What is an Egyptian pyramid doing on the back of the American dollar? What link up is there between America and Egypt?" The answer is none at all, except in the field of the occult. And, thus, we see we're dealing with a Luciferian plan. People need to recognize the god of Free Masonry will lead the world into this peculiar and particular purpose for which America will set up, which is to lead the whole world system into a one-world government, a one-world religion, a one-world law system, and a one-world money system that the Bible calls the mark of the beast.
Basically, what we know for a fact that there is going to be a change over from the Old Order to a New Order a rule by Satan himself. That's what that symbol refers to, and that's what the New World order refers to. The King James 2nd Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new." Notice how the New English Bible renders this verse. It says, "The Old Order is gone and a New Order has begun." They're using the same language. The King James says, "Which stood only in meats and drinks and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation," talking about Christ's coming, but notice the NIV calls it "until the time of the New Order." They're preparing people.
Now, I want you to notice this. In Isaiah 28:16, in the King James, the Bible says, "Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, 'Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation.'" This is referring to Jesus. Right? I want you to notice that, in the King James, they're telling you that Jesus is the corner stone of the foundation. Now, where's the foundation in relation to a building, on the top or the bottom? On the bottom, isn't it? Okay? When they say that Jesus is the corner stone of the foundation, that's down here, right? "Unto you therefore which believe he is precious," this is the King James, "but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner," again, on the foundation.
Notice that the NIV calls him "the capstone." They're saying that that symbol that you see represents Christ. It doesn't. It represents who? Anti-Christ.
I pray that you will stay, however, my friends, with this great book, the Word of God. This truly is what we need to turn to. The time is short. A great falling away from the truth, it's happening. It's right here now.
Steven:
My name is Steven Anderson, pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. Our church is King James only. A lot of people don't understand why. The purpose of this film is to show the dramatic difference between the King James Bible and all the other versions.
My name is Roger Jimenez. I'm the pastor of Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento, California. The reason I'm excited to be a part of this film is because the Word of God is under attack today. We need to take a stand for the Bible so that we can engage Him in a spiritual warfare.
Steven:
My name is Dennis McCain Dennis. I'm the pastor at Northside Baptist Church in Modesto, California. I've been pastoring here for 16 years. I've been in the ministry as a missionary church planter for almost 40 years.
Now, there's an agenda today, and it's a satanic agenda to change the Bible. A lot of people just think, "Well, the King James Bible is a great translation. It's, it's very poetic, and these other versions are inferior. Maybe they're not as well translated," but I'm here to tell you it goes much deeper than that. These new versions are actually Satan's attempt at corrupting the Word of God. I'm going to show you that these changes are not just accidental. They're not just minor, inconsequential changes. I mean, these changes are strategic changes. They're calculated to attack specific doctrines that the Bible teaches.
The Bible tells in Ephesians 6:12, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high place." There are people who have many millions and even billions of dollars who have an agenda to put out corrupted bibles and then promote them through advertising, promote them through retail stores that will put them front and center, and it will show people this is the Bible you ought to be reading, get rid of the King James Bible, get the newer, better, improved version.
Now, I did some research on what the most popular versions are today. This is the most current list. I checked this with a bunch of different sources, and they all came up with the same 5 bibles. The number 1 Bible today is not the King James Bible. It's the New International Version, the NIV. Number 2 is the King James Bible. Number 3, the New Living Translation. Number 4, the New King James, and, number 5, the English Standard Version or the ESV. The different lists I looked at had those in a slightly different order, but they all had those 5.
Most people don't realize that there are hundreds of translations. Obviously, we don't have the time to go through each and every one of them.
It would make a lot of more sense to just focus on the 4 corruptions that are the most popular. The NIV is missing 16 entire verses from the New Testament. I mean, just right out of ... Before we talk about all of the thousands of changes, these 16 verses are completely missing. Matthew 17:21, gone. Matthew 18:11, gone. Acts 8:37, that verse is gone from the NIV, gone from the ESV, gone from the New Living Translation, completely gone. Acts 8:36, King James Bible, "And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water, and the eunuch said, 'See, here is water. What doth hinder me to be baptized?' And Philip," that's the [inaudible 00:09:14], "said, 'If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.'" The eunuch, that's the sinner says, "What's hindering me, what's stopping me from getting baptized?" Philip, the [inaudible 00:09:22] says, "If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest." He, the eunuch, answered and said, "I believe that Jesus Chris is the Son of God."
What just happened to the eunuch? He got saved. Why? If we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in our heart that God has risen from the dead, thou shall be saved. He believed in his heart. He confessed with his mouth. He got saved. What do they do? Verse 38, "And he commanded the chariot to stand still, and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him." Verse 36, "What's stopping me from getting baptized?" Verse 37, as long as you believe and get baptized. He confessed with his mouth, believed in his heart. Verse 38, they baptized him. Amen.
What does the New International Version say? "As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, 'Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?' And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and Philip baptized him." Now, did you just catch what happened? What was missing? I don't know if you noticed. The entire verse 37 was missing.
According to the New International Version, they're going on the road, he says, "What's stopping me from getting baptized?" According to the NIV, "Nothing. Let's just baptize you." What's missing? Believing on Jesus Christ. What's missing? The gospel. What's missing? Why are these bibles attacking Jesus Christ? It doesn't make any sense to me. It would make sense if you realize that Satan is behind it.
Not only did they remove 16 entire verses from the NIV, they also put notes on 27 other verses saying, "These verses were probably not in the original," again, causing you to doubt God's Word, versus like Mark 16:15, "Go ye, therefore, into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature," versus like, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." They haven't removed these verses, but they put a note next to it that renders it in the reader's mind null and void, saying, "Well, this probably wasn't in the original anyway. This doesn't really have any authority anyway."
We believe that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh.
Audience:
Amen.
This is something that these modern versions constantly change and attack. Let me give you some examples. 1st John 5:7, "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one." That's where we get the word "Trinity,' three in one. These three are one. The NIV, on the other hand, just says, "For there are three that testify." It doesn't mention the Father. It doesn't mention the Word. It doesn't mention the Holy Ghost and does not mention that the three are one.
Look what they've done with 1st Timothy 3:16. The Bible reads, " And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness." Watch this. "God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." It was God that was believed on in the world. It was God that was received up into glory. It was God who was made flesh and dwelt among us. The Bible is crystal clear in 1st Timothy 3:16 that Jesus Christ is God.
In 1st Timothy 3:16, it's an important passage because I would often read the footnotes in the New American Standard that I had in the seminary and, later on, in the NIV and other passages, and they would say in the footnotes or they would say in their commentaries or those teaching from the NIV or the New American Standard they'd say that there isn't any difference in theology, it doesn't affect any doctrinal perspectives. Obviously, there's a difference between [Haas and Theas 00:12:57]. If you take "He who was," Haas, instead of Theas and instead of it being God, it obviously weakens the text because you have to assume that Christ is God and made manifest. In Theas, there's no wondering about what the text says. It's God who was manifest in the flesh, and that's got to be the person of Christ. That certainly influences people's thinking on the deity of the Lord Jesus.
Right.
Another great proof of the fact that Jesus Christ is God is Hebrews 1:8, "But unto the Son he saith, 'Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.'" What is the Bible calling "the son" there? It's calling him God. It says, "Unto the Son, they throne, o God, is forever and ever." Listen to the NIV, "But about the Son he says."
Recently, I was talking to a Jehovah's witness in the train station I would pick my wife up. The Jehovah's witness was starting to read to me out of a devotional book she had, but I saw her New World Translation, so I said, "Well, is the New World Translation from the Greek?" She said, "It's from the Wescott and Hort Greek New Testament." I said, "Is it accurate?" She said, "Of course." I said, "Have you had Greeks?" She said, "No." I said, "What would you do if Jehovah himself spoke to Jesus and called him God?" That had never happened, so I quoted for her Hebrews 1:8. "Unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever." She became so excited, so upset, she took her bags and rolled out the door. I followed her out the door, talking to her. When I read from the New World Translation later, it completely has been changed.
Whereas, in the King James, you can't misunderstand it, but not only that, but they attack Christ's virgin birth. Go to Luke chapter 2:33. The Bible says, "And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him." The NIV on the other hand and the ESV and the New Living Translation say, "The child's father and mother marvelled at what was said about him." Right there we see that the NIV and these other modern versions are calling Joseph the father of Jesus Christ, something that the King James Bible is careful to never do.
Was Joseph the father of Jesus Christ? No, he was not. He was the stepfather of Jesus Christ. I'll give you that, but he was not the father of Jesus Christ. In fact, later in this same chapter, Mary refers to Joseph as Jesus' father and he corrects her immediately. It says, "When they saw him, they were amazed. And his mother said unto him, 'Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.'" Didn't she just refer to Joseph as Jesus' father? Watch how he immediately corrects her. "And he said unto them, 'How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my father's business?'" He said, "Look, I'm about my father's business when I'm preaching the Word of God, because Joseph is not my father. God the Father is my father."
People who believe the NIV, they're so blinded. I've actually had them show me this and say, "See? This is the Bible calling Joseph Jesus' father." No. That's Mary calling Joseph Jesus' father, and she'd immediately rebuked. Somebody needs to rebuke the NIV. Somebody needs to correct the New Living Translation. Somebody needs to rebuke the ESV and say, "Wait a minute, you're wrong. That is not Jesus' father. Jesus' father is God the Father."
They say, "Well, they're just a little easier to understand. Well, the changes don't really affect doctrines." These are some pretty important doctrines, aren't they? The deity of Christ. The virgin birth. Not only that, they attacked his eternal preexistence. See, Jesus Christ did not come into being in Bethlehem's manger. Jesus Christ did not come into being in the womb of Mary, but, rather, Jesus Christ has always existed and always will exist. He is the first and the last. He is the alpha and omega. He is the beginning and the ending. That's crucial to his deity. If he's a created being, he can't be god.
The Bible says in Micah 5:2, "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel whose goings forth have been from of old," watch this, "from everlasting."
Here in Micah 5:2, the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is from everlasting. Those are two very powerful words because they speak to the eternal preexistence of Jesus Christ. He had no beginning. He is not a created being. He was God in the flesh. He was in the beginning with God and he was God.
Now, everlasting means it goes on forever, it lasts forever. From everlasting would be something that comes from the eternal past or something that comes from the infinite past, something that has always existed. Listen to the NIV, "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel," watch this, "whose origins are from of old, from ancient times."
Now, what's an origin? That's when something starts to exist, isn't it? When something originates, that's when it start to exist. Look, did Jesus start to exist at some point? No. He's from everlasting in the King James Bible. According to the NIV, he had an origin. If Jesus Christ had an origin, then he's not God because God was and is and is to come. God has always existed. God is not a created being. This is where the NIV really just delivers the coup de grâce.
Isaiah 14:12 says this. "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer." Only one place in the entire Bible do you find the word "Lucifer." Once. Here, we actually put a name on Satan, calling him "Lucifer." If we were to talk down the street and just ask people who is Lucifer, what is Lucifer, they'd all say it's Satan, it's the devil.
Do you know who Lucifer is?
An angel that was cast down from heaven. Satan.
Satan.
Satan.
The devil.
Fe
The devil.
He is Satan.
Fe
Satan.
Fe
Satan.
Fe
The devil.
Fe
The devil.
Fe
The devil.
All right. Who is Lucifer?
Fe
The devil.
All right.
That's an easy question. I know. That's perfect.
Fe
Satan. Yeah.
The only way you and I know that Satan's name is Lucifer is because of Isaiah 14:12. "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer." Now, I want you to notice it gives us his name and it gives us his title, "O Lucifer, son of the morning." What's the title of Lucifer? Son of the morning. Right?
Revelation chapter 22 verse 16, the King James version says this. "I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am," this is Jesus speaking, "I am the root and the offspring of David," this is Jesus speaking, "and the bright and morning star." Do you see that? What did Jesus call himself? The morning star. That's his title.
Both the King James and the NIV in Revelation 22:16 state that Jesus Christ is the morning star. What does the NIV call Lucifer falling down from heaven? How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn? Instead of Lucifer being cast out of heaven in Isaiah 14:12, in the NIV, you have Jesus being cast out of heaven. Now, look, the Bible has told us that Lucifer or Satan was cast out of heaven for wanting to be like the most high, wanting to be like God. Look, the NIV, after attacking Christ's deity, after attacking his preexistence, after attacking the fact that hew as born of a virgin, that he had no beginning, that he had no ending, that he was God in the flesh, it's now accusing him of wanting to be like the Most High. He is the Most High.
Audience:
Amen.
According to your NIV, Jesus fell from heaven and not Lucifer.
The people who are behind these versions are of Satan. Satan wanted to corrupt the Word in the garden of Eden, and we are not ignorant of his devices. See, the Word of God has great power. The Bible reads, in Hebrews 4:12, "For the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." The devil knows that, if he can disarm us as Christians, he can defeat us.
The goal is and always has been to disarm us of our weapon. Look at history. When evil men want to conquer a group of people, you know what precedes the conquering? They disarm those people of their weapons. See, the government tries to tell you, "We want to remove your weapons because we're going to protect you." Look, if someone wants to take your weapon away, they're not trying to protect you, they're trying to make sure that, when they come after you, you can't fight back.
In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control.
Between 1929 and 1953, 20 million political dissidents were killed. In 1935, Germany established gun control and began to disarm its people. Between 1933 and 1945, 13 million Jews and others were killed. In 1935, China established gun control and began to disarm its people. Between 1948 and 1952, 20 million political dissidents win China were killed.
In 1970, Uganda established gun control and began to disarm its people.
Between 1971 and 1979, catch this, 300,000 Christians were killed.
In 1956, Cambodia established gun control and began to disarm its people. Between 1975 and 1977, 1 million Cambodians were killed.
You got to understand this. The enemy is constantly trying to take your weapon away not to defend you, but so that you cannot defend yourself.
Evil dictators have always disarmed the population to make them defenseless, to make them slaves. Governments know that if they can disarm the people, they'll be defenseless against their tyranny.
Is there an attack on the Word of God today? Of course, there is because, if Satan can disarm you from the one thing you've got to hurt him, from the one thing you've got to engage him in battle, if he can disarm you, then it's easy pickings.
The devil would love nothing more than to take the two-edged sword of the King James Bible out of our hand and replace it with a butter knife called the NIV, replace it with a butter knife called the ESV, replace with a butter knife called the New King James. He doesn't want us to be armed. He doesn't want to be able to do battle with the rulers of the darkness of this world. 2nd Thessalonians 2 reads in verse 3, "Let no man deceive you by any means for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition."
The Bible tells us that, before the anti-Christ can come, before the one-world government can come, before the New World order can come, there has to come a falling away first. What is falling away? Apostasy. I believe that these modern Bible versions are key to the devil's plan for a one-world religion, a one-world government, a New World order. The Bible tells us that, before Christ's second coming, there will be a great falling away The apostasia, the great falling away before Christ's second coming will be as a result of these false, lying modern Bible version that are twisting and changing God's word and changing the doctrines of Christ.
I mean, they're putting mistakes in our Bible, and then people are doubting the Bible, they're doubting God, they're believing in evolution, they're believing [inaudible 00:24:58]. All it's doing is promoting a one-world government. Why? Because it's promoting a falling away.
What's interesting is that people often, when they refer to the one-world government or the one-world religion that's coming, they often refer to it as the New World order. Right? [inaudible 00:25:14], the New World order.
It is a big idea, a New World order.
It would rush into the home in an armored line, guns at the ready.
It is a New World order.
We've got to give them a stake in creating the kind of world order that I think all of us would like to see.
Are you optimistic a global system can happen from what we've heard so far?
It could happen. In fact, it's in the works.
The people that are behind this treaty want that world government, and, in their minds, this is a step towards it.
Fe
[inaudible 00:25:46] controlling controlling the amount that's available and, eventually, controlling the market.
Eventually, controlling all of us.
Here's what's interesting. Did you know that the NIV uses the term "New Order" about the coming of Christ? In the King James Bible, Hebrew 9:10 says, "Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings and carnal ordinances imposed on them until the time of reformation." Now, that's talking about something that's already happened in the past. Right?
The time of reformation is a reference to the coming of Jesus Christ. Now, you got to understand it. That is a reference to the first coming of Jesus Christ. We no longer do the meats, the drinks, the divers washings, the carnal ordinances. We no longer do any of that. Why? Because of the time of reformation came when the Lord Jesus Christ came.
Listen to the NIV. External regulations applying until the time of the New Order. Then, if you read verse 11 in the NIV, it makes it sound as if that's something that's still coming in the future. The New Order was not just the first coming of Christ, but that the second coming of Christ is what's referred to by the New Order. The Good News Translation comes right out and says it. These are all outward rules which apply only until the time when God will establish the New Order.
The New English Translation also calls it the "New Order." The Common English Bible also calls it the "New Order." The bestselling Bible in America today calls the coming of Christ the "New Order."
Guess what, there is coming an anti-Christ, and, when he comes, it will be the time of the New Order. That's not what Hebrews is talking about.
There's a lot in these new bibles that tamper with end-times Bible prophecy in order to prepare people to accept the anti-Christ, in order to prepare people to be sucked into this New World order, in order to prepare people to be deceived by this global government, one-world religion, one-world system of the anti-Christ and to receive the mark of the beast.
Pastor Jimenez, you're [inaudible 00:27:44]. Do you believe in the New World order?
You think it's crazy to think that there are bankers and people out there trying to bring in a one-world government. I don't know if you've ever red the book of Revelation, but the Bible tells us that the anti-Christ is going to bring in a one-world government. The Bible tells us that the anti-Christ is going to bring a one-world religion. I don't think it's that far-fetched that people are saying, "Oh, the bankers are bringing in a New World order with a one-world government."
Now, they may think [inaudible 00:28:09], they may think, "Oh, it's just the bankers. It's just this," but we know in the Bible that the anti-Christ is bringing in that [inaudible 00:28:14]. That's what the Bible says. From the garden of Eden, there's been an attack on the Word of God. Even before the Bible was completely written down, there was an attack on the Word of God. You think it's different today? It's not. You got to understand this. Today, the Word of God is under attack.
The modern Bible versions are clearly different than the King James Bible. You've got to ask yourself this question. Why? In order to understand the difference, you need to understand the history of the English Bible.
It turns out there's a Bible museum right here in Phoenix that has one of the largest collections of rare English bibles in the world. The museum director, Joel Lampe, is going to let us actually look into these rare first-editions of the bibles leading up to the King James and the King James itself. He's going to explain to us the history of our King James Bible. He is going to take us all the way from Erasmus Greek New Testament, the original Textus Receptus, and he's going to take us through the history of all these English bibles all the way up to the King James Version.
Let's start with Erasmus.
Joel:
What you see here on the table, Pastor, is, in a nutshell, the history of the King James Bible. Remember, this King James Bible was printed in 1611, and there's a common misconception out there that it was the first English. It wasn't. There were numerous other English examples before 1611. What you see here starts with the original Greek, as you just said, Textus Receptus done by Erasmus of Rotterdam. This literally changed everything from what we know today in church history as well as in just secular history. It's called the 1516 Erasmus of Rotterdam's Greek Latin New Testament.
Let's just call Erasmus what he is, the smartest man that ever lived, non-deity factor. Jesus, of course, is the smartest man that ever lived. Solomon's up there as well, but, even today, we consider Erasmus the smartest. Whether it's in sciences, theology or philosophy, he was just that smart.
This is the original Textus Receptus right here?
Joel:
The original Textus Receptus.
Wow.
Joel:
Please, take a look at it. It's generally considered the most important book that was ever printed. This is the book that launches the reformation. Even as an atheist, you acknowledge that this is the most important book ever printed. The Renaissance was launched from this. The truth comes from this book, and so we see just how imperative this book is. What it also did was to cause an enormity of problems. What do I mean by that? The money stopped flowing to Rome. There was a building under construction. There was a very famous interior designer down there that was hired to decorate it. Of course, I'm talking about the Vatican, Michelangelo, the Sistine Chapel. That money stopped flowing. The church started putting bounties on people's heads saying, "You can't teach this. This isn't what we consider accurate," even though Erasmus said, "We kind of got a problem here," and thus say metanoia, not pay a fine.
We're going to have to address this theological issue, but the Protestant movement was birthed from this book. What does the Protestant movement action mean? To protest.
In this edition that you're showing me, Erasmus has put the original Greek next to the church's Latin ...
Joel:
That's correct.
... and it makes it very easy to see the contradiction between the two.
Joel:
Of course.
Is that right? Okay, just making sure I understand.
Joel:
That's why it changed everything, because it showed what we were doing wrong. It showed what it should be, but he didn't translate it to show what it should be until later.
Okay.
Joel:
Okay. That wouldn't be until 1519.
Right, so these are two contradictory things side by side.
Joel:
All he's doing is just showing the evidence.
The church's Latin corrupted version and then the original Greek Textus Receptus. He just put it side and just basically let the reader be the judge.
Joel:
This is the bullet that basically effectively killed the church.
Right.
Joel:
What you see here is what we know today as the first-edition Coverdale Bible. What really it is though is the work of William Tyndale. As we know, Tyndale is the inventor of the English we speak today. He's also the inventor of our very first English Bible translated from the original languages. Tyndale, in England, wanted to do the same thing Luther was doing in Germany. He went underground and, with the aid of Luther's library, books like this here and later-editions of Erasmus' work, Tyndale would produce the very first New Testament. It becomes the most hunted book in the history of England. The king wants this thing burned.
England was still totally under the control of the Catholic Church at the time that Tyndale was producing his New Testament in 1526.
Joel:
It is a book that's basically an assault on the established Catholic Church of [inaudible 00:32:49] at that time. This became a monumental achievement because Tyndale, in the last years his life, spent most of his time translating from the Hebrew and the Greek to produce this book.
The rest of the Old Testament, some of it, they weren't able to get it done from the original Hebrew by the time this book came out.
Joel:
No, because Tyndale was arrested in 1534.
Right.
Joel:
He was held under house arrest for 500 days.
Okay.
Joel:
On the morning of October 6, 1536, he's taken out and burned. In that incarceration period, Myles Coverdale finished that which Tyndale had started.
Got you.
Joel:
Now, what I love more than anything that we have in this room is this text here. This is the 1537, what we call the Matthew's Bible. What is this? It's nothing more than a completed this.
Right.
Joel:
Now, remember, when Tyndale dies, his last words as he spoke [inaudible 00:33:43] were, "Lord, open the eyes of the King of England." Now, what happened in that prayer? Tyndale could have said a million things. Why waste your last breath saying, "Lord, open the eyes of the King of England?" Tyndale knew that, no matter how crazy Henry VIII was that, if he could get Henry VIII to break what the established Church of Rome, England would be one and protected. It's one thing to have a personal relationship with Jesus. It's another thing to have a personal relationship with Jesus with somebody wanting to wake up and kill you every morning. That was their mission. Finally, Henry VIII permitted the Bible to go free based on one thing, a divorce. These two texts obviously changed England. You could truly have a personal relationship with Jesus from these two books.
Yeah, that mediator of the church ...
Joel:
You have to have someone.
... instead of just Jesus Christ being the mediator.
Joel:
What we call today the confession booth.
Right.
Joel:
Forgive me Father for I have sinned. It's been two weeks since my last confession.
This defeated the confessional booth.
Joel:
It got rid of it completely. There was no need anymore. You didn't have to have a man tell you what your penalty was for this crime that you committed against God. What we have today is called the Great Bible, or the Bible that was actually authorized and permitted by Henry VIII, King of England. That would become [inaudible 00:35:04] a couple of things. A later edition of Erasmus' work was done by a guy named Beza. Another work that we're most familiar with though is this one here done by Stephanus. Now, Stephanus is important because he gives us the Greek that are Geneva Bible or the Bible done by the reformers of John Calvin, William Whittingham. Those guys, they used this Greek text to translate what their English Bible is known as today as the Geneva Bible. It's famous because it's the first one with the verses. That's why the Geneva Bible is so familiar to many of us is like where did John 3:16 come from? It came from these guys.
They divided it into chapters and verses.
Joel:
Into verses. The chapters were already there ...
Yeah, the chapters were already there.
Joel:
... but the verses weren't.
Got you.
Joel:
After Henry VIII, his son takes the throne. We know him today as Edward VI. He died very young. He was only on the throne for 4-5 years, but, in that time, he permitted the scriptures to go free as well. He, too, had no spouse and no kids. When he doesn't have an heir, who ends up taking the throne? His sister, who we know today as Bloody Mary. We don't call her that because you like vodka, tomato juice with a splash of Tabasco. We call her Bloody Mary because she was responsible for, literally, over 7,000 of her own people's death.
Wow.
Joel:
Here's a perfect example. Here's a family pastor in Bloody Mary's reign. Here's five mothers and five fathers, all being burned at the stake. For what reason? They taught their children the Lord's Prayer in English.
Wow.
Joel:
She had them burned at the stake.
In her zeal for the Catholic Church, she's killing these people.
Joel:
The parents were teaching their kids.
Okay, and they only wanted the Church to them.
Joel:
The Church to teach their kids. We weren't qualified pastor to teach our children.
Basically, they're being burned at the stake for homeschooling ...
Joel:
That's basically what it came down to.
... if you think about it.
Joel:
No. In a sense, it was. They wanted complete rule.
Wow.
Joel:
During that uprising, men of courage decided that we're going to rebel. What were their names? John Knox, John Foxe, William Whittingham. They fled England and they go to work on a brand new text. What do we call that text today? We call that the Geneva Bible.
It says right on there, it says, someone has written here, "Family Bible."
Joel:
That's right. That's what it truly was, the very first family Bible.
Right.
Joel:
What we know today as the Textus Receptus, it will go to produce what we know as the very first home-school Bible, the Geneva Bible.
Right.
Joel:
This was the book that [inaudible 00:37:53] over on the Mayflower.
Got you.
Joel:
That's the Bible that [settles 00:37:55] Jamestown. After Bloody Mary's terror, she had a sister, we, of course, know her name as Queen Elizabeth, to win the hearts of the people. She gave us the Bishop's Bible. This was done by bishops, done by pastors.
They're building upon the work of the Geneva Bible.
Joel:
They just wanted something that was a little more authoritative.
Right.
Joel:
This comes from people you trust.
Experts.
Joel:
Hebrew, Greek experts, but the truth is never settles with the people. It was a glorious work.
Somehow, it just didn't catch on.
Joel:
It just never caught on.
Maybe God just knew that something better was coming down the pike.
Joel:
That, of course, she didn't have a spouse, no kids, so who would take the throne? Her cousin from Scotland. Of course, we know him as King James. That big, tall Bible that you see down there closest to you, that's the first edition of the King James Bible. A year later, he allowed the folks to buy one in a bookstore. You're holding the very first King James New Testament.
Wow. Then, when we get to 1603, we have King James becoming king, King James the VI of Scotland. He became the king, and it was said unto him that a new translation should be brought forth of the scriptures. The reason why is that you got a lot of people using the Geneva Bible, but then they go to church and it's the Bishop's Bible. There were two main versions, and both of them had issues. The Geneva Bible had some issues. The Bishop's Bible had some issues. They said, "Let's just take the time to do it right." They got the best scholars in the land together and they said, "We're not trying to replace a bad version. We're going from good to better to best here. I mean, these are good translations. The Geneva Bible is good. The Bishop's Bible is good. We're just going to perfect it and get it just dialed in."
From 1604 to 1610, the KJV was translated by 54 of the greatest scholars that existed at that time. Just to give you one example. One guy, Lancelot Andrewes, was an expert in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldean, Syriac, Arabic, and he also spoke 15 modern languages. That's one guy out of the 54 people that translated the King James Bible over the course of seven years.
There were those who were Arabic scholars. There were those who were Greek and Hebrew scholars. There were Aramaic scholars. They were men of great intellect, all of them, and their knowledge of the scripture was varying. They may have held some different beliefs or different areas of theology. It might be slightly different from one to the other translators. What they did was they divided themselves up into six groups. These six men translated this six books of the Bible and so forth. When they did this, then they compared them all together. Each of the six groups did this, and then they chose one leader out of each group to evaluate all six groups.
What happened was every passage of the scripture was evaluated 15 times, and then, at the end of it, all of them came into agree with what was translated based upon the correct verbal dynamic that they used that is for what it says, that's what it means, even if it was in slight contradiction to what they might think.
The king in 1603 said, "Okay. I'm going to organize a committee. And, no matter how long it takes, you're going to go to work using tools. Old Testament must be translated from the Hebrew. New Testament must be translated from the Greek. And I am going to give you all the resources humanly possible to make this happen." The best Hebrew of that day, the best scholarly Greek of that day in 1603, 53 guys were hired. They go off and, for seven years, they worked on what we know today as the most important book in the history of man, the first edition, the first issue, the first printing of a King James text. It took them seven years. They did a phenomenal job.
The King James that you and I read today, of course, comes from that 1769 revision, but this was the anchor of the text. This is the product of it. In 1612, he gave us what we know today as the first handheld King James New Testament.
This what caught on.
That's what caught on.
The handheld New Testament.
The king says that, if you can afford it, you can own it. Every bookstore in London sold it, and it would take off, and then it would become and always has been the number 1 selling book in the history of man. No book has ever outsold this text or ever will.
When we look at the Bible versions that led up to the King James, Tyndale, Matthew, Coverdale, great Bible, Bishop's Bible, Geneva Bible, they all line up with the King James. They all basically say the same thing as the King James. The King James Bible is the culmination of the bibles that preceded it. If the King James Bible is consistent with all the other English bibles that led up to it, why are these modern bibles so different?
Dr. James White is a guy who has debated against people that are King-James-only. He's written a book against those that are King-James-only. He is considered to be the expert of why King-James-onlyism is wrong, so we're going to go talk to him and figure out what his arguments are.
James? We have guests.
All right. How are you doing? Dr. James White, thank you so much for speaking with us today.
James:
Glad to be with you.
Can you just give me Codex Sinaiticus in a nutshell and Codex B in a nutshell?
James:
Both Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are the primary objects of the vitriol of the King-James-only movement because of the fact that they were so central in the development of a New Testament text other than the Textus Receptus.
Two men by the names of Wescott and Hort put together a critical text mainly based on two manuscripts known as Sinaiticus or Codex Aleph and Vaticanus or Codex B. These two manuscripts were thought by Wescott and Hort to be older and, therefore, more reliable than the other Greek texts that had been used in the Textus Receptus.
The modern bibles are supposedly the result of modern archaeology and modern scholarship and modern discovery. I mean, even the people who promote these modern bibles will tell you the modern publishers just have more resources available to them today. They just have manuscripts that just weren't available to the King James translators. That's why the modern bibles are better, they'll say. The reason they say that is because the manuscripts that the modern bibles are translated from, the NIV, et cetera, are newer discoveries, meaning, that they were buried for centuries.
Now, let me ask you. Do you believe that the true Bible was buried for centuries? I mean, do you really think that God would allow his people to be using the wrong Bible for hundreds and hundreds of years and then, all of a sudden, in the 1800s, were going to find the right manuscripts? It doesn't make any sense. I mean, God promised to preserve his Word to all generations, but they're basically believing that God's Word in its true form was buried somewhere and that for all these centuries everybody is reading and preaching and believing something that's wrong and then, thank God, for the archaeology of the 1800s to dig up these new manuscripts, the true Word of God that's been buried for all these years.
Look, if God took so much time and effort to bring us the Word of God through all the prophets and holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost over the course of hundreds, yay, thousands of years and then He just let's it get buried? No. These ones that have been dug up of late, these newer, better manuscripts are fraudulent. They have names like Codex Vaticanus. Now, what does that call to mind? Codex Vaticanus.
Because it was found in the Vatican or it's Vatican-related, to me, it makes it immediately suspect.
Right.
There are more than 5,200 Greek fragments and portions of the New Testament that are available for study, and 45 of those are predominant texts that are used by translators for outside the King James Bible. That's 1% of the manuscripts available. The King James Bible uses 99.06% of those 5,200 and 55 texts to translate them. This is why it's party called the majority text.
Right.
You have to also note, and I don't think this is mentioned that often, in the Gospels themselves, between Sinaiticus and also the Vaticanus, there are over 3,000 differences, so how do we know which one is the correct difference or the correct passages that should be used unless it's validated by the other 43 sources that they used. If I have two manuscripts, A and B, that are in conflict just in the Gospels in 3,000 places, how do I know which one is reliable? I'd rather trust in the predominance of manuscripts that gave us the Textus Receptus.
If we find something that's been buried and it says something different than what's been received, the received text, the Textus Receptus, the Bible that people have used for centuries, then that must be fraudulent. It must not be the Word of God if God didn't preserve it. They're basically rejecting thousands of bibles in all different languages that are all saying the same thing. Instead, they're going to go with Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus just because they're supposedly older. Okay, but just because they're older, it doesn't mean that they're right. It doesn't mean that they're not fraudulent.
Look, Paul told us in 2nd Corinthians 2 that people were corrupting the Word of God even in his day. In 2nd Thessalonians, they were already writing a false scripture pretending to be from the apostle Paul. In Revelation 22, God was already warning people who would try to take away from or add to God's Word. That's already been taking place. Just because you got a manuscript that's from 200 years after Christ, "Oh, there's no way it could be tampered with, right?" Of course, it could. There are many the Bible tells that corrupt the Word of God, not a few, but many.
These two manuscripts do not stand alone. Today, [inaudible 00:48:21] 28th Edition [inaudible 00:48:22] corrected, there are a number of places where not only the Sinaiticus disagreed with Vaticanus, though they frequently go together. They don't stand alone in light of the papyri, imbalanced prejudice on the part of Wescott and Hort for Aleph and B. They were working before the papyri, too. Anything before the papyri is, today, primarily irrelevant.
It's become outdated because of newer discoveries of manuscripts.
The discovery of the papyri, which of course came from Egypt and various other places.
Alexandria is a city in Egypt. Egypt is a nation in the Bible that's always associated with that which is ungodly or sinful or wrong. For example, in Revelation 11 verse 8, the Bible reads, "And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified." When God wants to use a place in the Bible to represent wickedness, to represent that which is ungodly and satanic, he uses Egypt to represent that. Egypt in the Bible is a symbol of wickedness, of ungodliness.
The readings of those early manuscripts, [P66, P75, P72 00:49:39] have verified and demonstrated that the textual tradition found in Sinaiticus and Vaticanus was not unique to them. I mean, there's theories running around now that these were Roman Catholic forgeries and all the rest is kind of silliness like that.
You might not think that the NIV is a Catholic Bible. They'll go, "Oh, it's Evangelical. It's for baptists." You know what, I'm going to show you all the Catholic doctrines that it props up because it's from these Catholic manuscripts. Acts 8:37 has been removed from the modern Bible versions because it condemns infant baptism.
This is why we don't do infant baptism. You know why? Because according to the Bible, what's stopping me from getting baptized? You got to believe and then be baptized. An infant can't believe. An infant is not even condemned. Infant dies, they go to heaven. A Catholic could read that and say, "Oh, infant baptism, go ahead. What's stopping you from getting infant baptism? Nothing. Let's just baptize them." No. Something is stopping you from infant baptism. It's believing. It's just missing in your mind.
The Catholics teach a doctrine that Mary was still a virgin all the way throughout her life. Now, we know that, of course, Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus Christ, but the Bible is clear that, after that, she had other children. In fact, it lists four of Jesus' half brothers, James, Joses, Judas and Simon. He gives the names of the brothers, and then it says his sisters are they not all with us. Jesus had at least seven half siblings, maybe even more.
Now, here's a great proof of that in Matthew 1:25, "Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife, And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus." It doesn't say that he never knew her. It just says that he knew her not until she had brought forth her firstborn son. It says in verse 25 in the NIV, "But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son, and he gave him the name Jesus." What's missing? Firstborn. If Jesus is the firstborn son of Mary, that tells me there's a second born. The NIV removes that so you can say, "Well, you know, that was the only son that she had."
Another doctrine of the Catholic Church that is supported by the NIV is the doctrine of beating yourself, and, yes, you've heard me correctly, self-flagellation or beating yourself. Now, you're Catholic friends that you know in the United States probably do not beat themselves, but, throughout history, the Roman Catholic Church has taught and encouraged the practice of beating yourself. Okay? In fact, when Henry VIII made Catholicism illegal in England and kicked the Roman Catholic Church out of England, he also at the same time passed a law against beating yourself. Even today, in the Philippines, the devout Catholics will beat themselves. Today, in 2013, in the Philippines, they crucify themselves, they beat themselves, they crawl on their knees till they're bleeding. I mean, they do these type of acts to themselves.
Look what the Bible says in 1st Corinthians 9:27, " But I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway." The NIV says, "I beat my body." Most of the modern versions say something along the lines of "I beat my body and make my slave."
Subdue it. Yeah.
No. No, they don't say "subdue." They say [crosstalk 00:53:02].
That's what [inaudible 00:53:03] says.
Oh, okay, but I'm telling you the NIV says, "I beat my body." The 2010 edition of the NIV, "I strike a blow to my body. I buffet my body."
Don't think I'm going to be defending the NIV.
Okay.
I will-
It's the bestselling translation in America 2013.
I doubt that.
I looked it up in many sources.
I think-
It is number 1. The ESV-
Okay, if you include-
The ESV is number 5. I did a lot of research on this.
Okay, if you include liberal denominations maybe.
1st Corinthians 9:27, you're not going to defend the NIV's "beating yourself" because it's Catholic. I mean the Catholic Church. Good night.
That's not working for them.
Hold on a second. Are you going to say that Catholics don't beat themselves till this day, they don't practice self-flagellation? Are you going to say that Henry VIII-
Some few do. The vast majority don't even show up at mass. They're not going to be whipping themselves.
Okay, how about from history?
Okay.
What about in England when Henry VIII kicked out the Catholics and he made beating yourself illegal the same year?
Steven, what does that have to do with the NIV translations? You see, just because-
[crosstalk 00:54:09].
Just because [crosstalk 00:54:09] has done it in the past, it doesn't mean that that's what they intended by it.
That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that Satan is Satan. Okay? The same Satan that got people to beat themselves in the Middle Ages is the same Satan that put a passage in the NIV telling you to beat yourself. That's where I've drawn the connection.
Even with the rendering of the NIV, it's obvious what's it's talking about and it's obvious metaphorical.
Okay. The amplified version, I don't know about you, but the amplified version was always too loud for me. I never even got it. Anyway, listen to the amplified version, "But like a boxer, I buffet my body." Now, let me ask you this. Have you ever known a boxer who beats himself up, because I haven't? The common English Bible really, really makes it easy to understand for you, because isn't that why you like these new versions because they're easy to understand? Rather, I'm landing punches on my own body and subduing it like a slave.
Look, beating yourself is not a biblical doctrine. You say, "Well, he's just meaning it figuratively." What about all these people who actually beat themselves? It's a strange doctrine, my friend. I don't believe in it. The Bible says in Matthew 6:7, "But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." The Bible is teaching us here not to just vainly repeat things over and over again, thinking that if we say something over and over again, God is going to hear us more than if just said it once.
What's a repetition? Saying the same thing twice or three times or five times. He's saying, "Look, don't use vain repetitions as the heathen do." Okay. The NIV on the other hand, and all the modern versions pretty much changed this, "And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans for they think they'll be heard because there are many words." Babble is when you're just talking about meaningless things and going on and on and on just blabbering. It's not the same as vain repetitions.
If I say to a Roman Catholic, "You know, you're repeating the same prayer of the Our Father over and over and over and over. You're not going to be heard for your much speaking. That's a vain repetition. You need to say that one time and be done with it and not just keep repeating the same thing over and over again. That's supported by Matthew 6:7. If I say to them, "Hey, stop babbling like a pagan," they're going to say, "Well, this isn't babble." They're going to say the Lord's Prayer is God's word, because it is God's word. Right? I'm not going to chant that or repeat that in a vain way to God. The Catholic Church teaches vain repetitions so that alteration has been made.
Not only that, but the Catholics have a very strong doctrine of confessing your sins to the priests. I'll take you to James 5:15, and in the Catholic Bible, there's a note in the column that says, "Hey, this verse is telling you to confess your sins to the priests." It says that, for example, in the Douay–Rheims Catholic Bible. In the notes, that's what it says. James 5:16, "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."
Now, listen to what the NIV and the modern versions changed this to. "Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." That's the NIV. Now, you say, "Well, that's the same thing." It's not the same thing. First of all, if you go back to the original language, if you go back to what it actually says in the Greek, the word is "fault," it's not "sin."
In the Textus Receptus, it uses the word for "faults" "paraptomata," which comes from "paraptoma," which means "faults." I think sometimes people, when they read the wrong thing there, that they're too busy confessing their sins to men rather than their sins to God, so that if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Whereas, I confess my fault to you and I might say, "I'm weak in this one area in my life. I need to be strengthened, and will you pray for me?" so, when I confess my fault to you, I'm not going to confession, nor am I confessing my sin to you, but I'm confessing the faults and the weaknesses that I have personally. There is a difference in the understanding of the words between "sin" and "faults" themselves.
Evangelical Christianity historically has not accepted Catholicism as being true Christianity. It used to be when I was a child that the Christian bookstore would have books and literature exposing the Catholic Church, warning you about the Catholic Church. Now, you go to a Christian bookstore and they have rosary beads, they sell Catholic bibles, they sell Catholic paraphernalia. What we're seeing is a blurring of the lines between Evangelical Christianity and Roman Catholicism. People are being prepared for a one-world religion that unites Catholicism, all denominations of Christianity, in fact, all religions of the world.
Those who push for a global religious organization believe that all religions, while different on the surface, are each valid pathways to God.
Instead of all these different gods, maybe there is one God who manifest himself and reveal himself in different ways to different people. What about that?
Do we all worship the same God, Christian and Muslim? I think we do. We have different routes of getting to The Almighty. Do Christians and non-Christians, the Muslims go to heaven in your mind? Yes, they do. We have different routes of getting there.
I think everybody that loves Christ or knows Christ, whether they're conscious of it or not, they're members of the Body of Christ. That's what God is doing today. He's calling people out of the world or his name. Whether they come from the Muslim world or the Buddhist world or the Christian world or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ because they've been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know in their heart that they need something that they don't have and they turn to the only light that they have. I think that they are saved and that they're going to be with us in heaven.
Until I die, I proclaim nothing but love for all my brothers and sisters in Christ, my Catholic brothers and sisters, Protestant brothers and sisters, Christian Reformers, Lutherans. I don't care what label you are.
Fe
Jack, there are so many other Protestant ministers who are doing the same thing as you.
Yes. Yes.
Are you comfortable with the Vatican?
Oh, I'm very comfortable with the Vatican. I've gone to see the Pope several times. They believe in Christ. They believe in the death of Christ on the cross and his resurrection. I feel that I belong to all the churches. I'm equally at home on an Anglican or Baptist church or a brother in the assembly or Roman Catholic Church.
You know what, we don't all have the same views. I realized Mormonism is not traditional Christianity, but I'm probably a little broader and more open in the fact that when somebody loves Jesus and believes they're the son of God, that's good for me.
Fe
Robert McGinnis, with the Family Research Council, says it appears the hidden agenda is to unite people under one religious organization so they will peacefully accept UN goals such as population control, abortion rights and one-world government.
They are all coming together as one under the authority of Lucifer.
The devil knows that, in order to get people to accept the New World order, to accept false religion, he has to make changes very slowly. He's not going to jerk the steering wheel. The devil is slowly chipping away at the foundations of our religion. The devil is slowly chipping away at the foundation of the Word of God. He's slowly chipping away at true biblical Christianity so that he can replace it with a new global religion where the anti-Christ will be worshiped as the Lord Jesus Christ.
Do you believe that modern Bible versions are going to play a role in that New World order?
I think it's very possible because the more translations that come out, the more liberal they seem to become and more acceptable to the general population. There's over 200 now, 200-plus. In these translations now, we have people throwing in translations for those who are gay and lesbian. We have people throwing in translations that are removing "he" or "she," making it "it." I think, in the modern translations and the one that are coming out there, they're becoming more and more liberal, allows all faiths of all different types of people and beliefs to come together and not be offended by any particular thing. That's ecumenical in nature. Ecumenism is part and parcel with the end-time.
The King James Bible uses the word "hell" 54 times. I mean, you read the Old Testament in the NIV, there's not even one mention of the word "hell." You don't even read the word "hell" in the NIV until you get to the book of Matthew. Now, supposedly, these new versions are being written so that they'll be easier to understand and, yet, if we were to ask anybody on the street what hell is, they would be able to tell us that hell is a place of fire and torment. It's a place where go after they die to be punished and to suffer. If we ask them what "sheol" means, most people aren't going to know.
What does the word "sheol" mean?
Sheol means a protective cover.
Fe
Say that again.
Sheol.
Fe
Say it again. Spell it out.
S-H-E-O-L.
Fe
I'm not sure on that.
Okay.
Fe
No.
Fe
No.
Fe
No, I do not.
Fe
No.
No.
Fe
No.
I don't know.
Fe
S, what?
S-H-E-O-L. Sheol.
Fe
No. Oh, sheol? No.
I can't remember off the top of my head.
S-H-E-O-L? I'm not sure. I've never seen that word.
Okay.
No, I'm not so familiar with that.
Okay. Okay. Yeah. Most people aren't familiar with that word. Do you think that those words are easier than the word "hell?"
No.
Okay. I believe that the King James Bible is the word of God. I believe that it's without error and I believe that the other versions that are coming out, the NIV, the New American Standard, that they're bad, that they're of the devil. In your book, it seems that you don't see at all that there could be anything nefarious behind any of these changes. You seem to not believe that the devil would ever tamper with his Word or that any of these changes were nefarious, that any of the textual variances have to do with the guy who says, "I'm going to change this because I'm evil, because I want to change God's Word."
I actually believe God has protected his Word.
You don't believe that there's a ... For example, you use the term "conspiracy theorist" probably 20 times in your book. Do you believe that there's no conspiracy to change God's Word?
No. I think the entire Bible translations exist today to change God's word, but they're obvious [crosstalk 01:05:19].
They could have existed back then also. If there are people today who are putting out something like the New World Translation, which is clearly a perversion of God's Word you read, so, if people are perverting God's Word today with the New World Translation, for example, they were perverting God's Word in Paul's day, he warned about it, why do you not believe that people were perverting God's Word in the 3rd, 4th Century, 8th Century, 9th Century?
We know that the New World Translation is a perversion of God's Word. It is easy to detect. The reason I use conspiracy theory is you have to have evidence to back these things up, not just, "Well, it looks like that to me." The only places where the New World Translation mis-translates stuff is that the very issues [inaudible 01:06:06] happens to disagree with biblical Christianity.
You must not have read Job 6 verse 5 in the New World Translation the.
Why?
Because, in Job 6:6, in the King James Bible, it says, "Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? And is there any taste in the white of an egg?" In the New World Translation, it says, "Is there any taste in the slimy juice of the marshmallow." That's something that they changed that has nothing to do with The Watchtower. All right? What I'm saying there is that-
You memorized that?
Could there be ... Yes, I did.
You memorized that? I didn't even know marshmallow had slimy juice.
I mean, if you have a New World Translation, I'd be glad to show it to you.
I do. I do.
Do you believe me?
Oh, but did you know something? There's a new edition that just came out last week.
I bet it still says, "Marshmallow," but I'll check.
I will have to look.
Anyway, here's my point with that though. What about all the people out there, and you've heard this a million times, I've heard it a million times, that tell you, "Oh, the Bible is filled with contradictions."
I hear it all the time.
Couldn't there be an agenda to create contradictions just to make ... or just to put stupid things in the Bible.
No. No.
What about this? Saul was one year old when he began to reign?
1st Samuel 13:1, in the King James Version says, "Saul reigned one year, and when he had reigned two years over Israel." In the English Standard Version, that's changed to, "Saul lived for one year and then became king."
1st Samuel 13:1 in the Douay–Rheims Version, which is the Catholic Bible, "Saul was a child of one year when he began to reign, and he reigned two years over Israel."
You know what that version's told us? That Saul was a one-year-old when he became a king. Here's the problem. 1st Samuel 9:2 says, "From his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people." According to the English Standard Version, he was one-year-old when he was head and shoulders above all the men. That was one big baby. I must tell you these bibles are dumb. Sometimes, when I'm [inaudible 01:08:04] and people will say to me, "I don't believe the bible because there's mistakes in the Bible." I'll say, "Show me one." They'll pull out an NIV. I'll say, "Don't show it to me. I can show you mistakes in the thing. I can show you contradictions in that thing. Show me one in the King James Bible. You won't find one."
Here's another change that the modern versions make. Galatians chapter 5, "I would they were even cut off which trouble you." The NIV says, "As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves." Now, does that sound like something that the Bible would teach, that the apostle Paul would say? You say, "Well, I don't think that's what they meant in the NIV." Is that why the Common English Bible translated it? I wish that the ones who are upsetting you would castrate themselves.
Or how about the Contemporary English Version, the CEV? I've seen this one on sale at the Christina bookstore. "I wish that everyone who is upsetting you would not only get circumscribed, but would cut off much more." I mean, are you listening to this? Because this term "cut off" has nothing to do with being emasculated or castrated or mutilating yourself. Paul is referring back to these Old Testament scriptures about people who disobeyed God's Word, that they would be cut off. Look, I don't have time to show you all the 100-and-some example of this. All he's saying there is that they need to be kicked out. He wished that they'd be cut off. He wished that they would be destroyed by God. That's what "cut of" means. They're going to be either destroyed by God, or cut off could mean that they needed to be kicked out of the congregation, kicked out of the assembly, kicked out of the Nation of Israel. That's the term "cut off."
These weirdos, with their modern versions, are having the apostle Paul saying, "Man, I wish those guys would just emasculate themselves. I wish they'd all castrate themselves. I wish they'd all mutilate themselves." I mean that is not what he was teaching at all. Very strange, indeed, but not only do these new versions contain a lot of crazy things that make the Bible look foolish, they also have a very specific agenda to prepare people for the New World order. Part of that preparation is to convince Christians to obey the government no matter what. The key passage that they tampered with is Romans 13.
I'm free to make myself a slave. I'm free to give up some of my freedom. I'm free, but I'm free to submit to the authority of my government. Even bad governments do God's work by keeping even a semblance of order in the streets. Even the government of the Soviet Union under Stalin was doing work for God. Even China, under Mao Zedong, was doing work for God. Honor the king. Do it anyway, whether the king deserves it or not. Honor your governor, honor your mayor, whether or not they deserve it. Honor the king.
No one will be able to be armed. We will take all weapons.
Today, in New Orleans, they got a lot tougher on the holdouts not only the flooded areas, but New Orleans's driest and wealthiest neighborhoods, too.
Gun confiscation is exactly what happened the state of emergency following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. US troops also arrived. Easing public fears and quelling dissent would be critical. That's exactly what the Clergy Response Team, as it's called, helped accomplish in New Orleans.
The primary thing that we say to anybody is let's go out there and get this thing over with, and then we will what the difference is once the crisis is over.
Such clergy response teams would walk a tightrope between the needs of the government versus the wishes of the public.
For the clergy, one of the biggest tools that they will have in helping calm the public down or obey the law is the Bible itself, specifically, Romans 13.
Because the government is established by the Lord. That's what we believe in [inaudible 01:11:59] stated in the scripture.
Wait a minute. What if a police officer just comes to my house and says, "Wash my car, slave?" Do the Bible require me to obey that?
No.
Okay, what if a police officer asks me to do something illegal? I mean, what if a policeman came to me and said, "You know what, I want you to climb over the fence into your neighbor's house and I want you to look through the winder and see what your neighbor is doing. I want you to spy on your neighbor for me?" I mean, do I have to obey that? You say, "You're picking stupid examples." Right, because there's never been a government anywhere that commanded people to spy on their neighbors or else. That's never happened. Right? There's no such thing as Nazi Germany. There's no such thing as the Soviet Union. Just shut up and obey what you're told.
Romans 13 is a passage that explains to us that the purpose of the government is to punish evildoers, not to regulate every aspect of our lives and tell us what to do and control us. Also, a key thing that is taught in Romans 13 is that we're to obey the higher powers. For example, in the United States, we have various levels of government, don't we? Now, what is the supreme law of our land? First of all, it's God's law. First, we obey God. After that is the Constitution of the United States because the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land.
You say, "Well, the Bible says to honor the king. Therefore, we need to obey Obama." Hold a second. Is Obama the king? Is our government run as a monarchy? I thought that we have elected officials that answer to the people and that they are not above the law and that the supreme law of the land is the US Constitution. If we're going to obey the government that has been set up over us, if we're to obey the law of the land, that means we're supposed to obey the Constitution.
The NIV just completely eliminates that teaching. It doesn't teach you to go with the higher power. It just says this. Everyone must submit to governing authorities. Instead of saying, "Let every soul be subject under the higher powers. There's no power but of God. The power is to be ordained of God," just referring to the fact that no one on this earth has any legitimate authority except coming from God. Why do children have to obey their parents? Because God said so. Why do we obey human government at all? Why do we even have any respect for human government? Because God told us that human government is something that we need to punish evildoers, to protect the innocent from those that would harm them.
Here's the New Living Translation in Romans 13:1. Everyone must submit to the governing authorities, for all authority comes from God. Watch this. Those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. Now, that is not true. The New Living Translation is saying that everyone in any position of authority has been placed there by God. That is not true because, one day, the anti-Christ is going to be placed in authority by Satan. The dragon gave him his authority, it says in Revelation 13. Not only that, but in Hosea, it says, "They've set up kings, but not by me."
There are times when human authority has been placed there by men against the will of God. Therefore, the New Living Translation is saying in verse 6, "Pay your taxes, too, for the same reasons, for governments workers need to be paid. They're serving God in what they do. Give to them what you owe them. Pay your taxes and government fees to those who collect them." Goodnight. Now, it's not just the tax, it's also the fees. Those are the worst. The King James is telling you to obey government within a certain scope, within certain parameters of what their job is, what they're supposed to be doing. Also, the whole concept of higher powers is there as a check and balance.
Why isn't the New King James inspired, because it uses the same manuscripts?
It doesn't. There are many places where the New King James departs from the Textus Receptus and departs from what the King James is saying.
Not in the New Testament.
It does, actually. Yeah, there are actually a lot of places where it departs from the TR.
The New King James is probably one of the most dangerous versions out there because it leads you to think, "Oh, it's the same as the King James. It's just more modern, updated work." If that's all it was, I wouldn't even bring it up because a lot of people who wouldn't touch the NIV with a 10-foot pole, they wouldn't touch the ESV or the New Living Translation with a 10-foot pole, but they say, "Come on, Pastor Anderson. The New King James, it's pretty much the same as the King James. It just gets rid of the "thees" and the "thous." It's just like the King James, except they're a little easier to understand."
Okay. Let me give you some stats on the New King James. The New King James omits the word "Lord" 66 times. It removes the word "God" 51 times. It removes the word "heaven" 50 times. It removes the word "repent" 44 times. The "blood" is removed 23 times. The word "hell" is removed 22 times, and it completely removes the word "Jehovah," completely removes the word "damnation," completely removes the term "New Testament," completely removes the word "devils." The Bible is not obsolete. You just need to get some smarts. You need to do some studying. You need to learn the language.
It's funny how my little children can understand it. You're an adult and you can't understand it? Isn't it funny how the same people that say the King James is too hard to understand? I'll tell you you need to learn Greek if you really want to know what the Bible says. Yeah, that's really going to be easy to understand. The King James is too hard for you. Here's a Greek New Testament. These people are nuts. Let's check out some verses and see which ones are easier to understand.
The King James uses a really hard word about a kind of tree. An oak. The New King James thought, "Well, that's way too hard. Oak? Are you serious?" They changed it to ["terabun" 01:17:54] tree. That's a little easier to understand. Right? Now, Judges 8:13 contains a really tough phrase in the King James, "the sun was up." Okay. I mean, that almost could be [inaudible 01:18:06]. The sun was up. They changed that to "the ascent of Heres." The ascent of Heres.
1st Samuel 13:21, the King James uses a really tough word, "file," so the New King James changed that to "pim." I mean that's probably good to know for scrabble, but I've never heard of that word. Okay? 1st Samuel 22:6 uses this really hard word, "tree," so the New King James decided to update that to "tamarisk" tree to make it a little bit easier to understand. 2nd Samuel 6:5, the King James says, "Cornet." Who knows what a cornet is? It's a type of horn, right? It's a type of trumpet. They decided to use an easier word, "sistrums." Sistrums, because everybody knows what sistrums mean. Who knows what "sistrums" means? Who knows what "cornet" means? There you go.
Isaiah 13:12 used the difficult word "man" in your King James Bible. I mean, goodnight, put the King James in a museum where it belongs. Man? Give me something I can understand. "Mortal" is way better, right? Daniel 6:2 used a really tough word, "princes," so they used the easy word in the New King James, "satraps." Band? "Band" in the King James, that's way too hard. Let's change it to regiment. Okay, and nobody is going to understand what "quicksand" means. That's so obsolete. "Quicksands" in Acts 27:17? "Syrtes sands" is a lot easier to understand. You better get a New King James, much easier to understand.
Is the New King James really that much easier to understand than the King James? I mean, that was a lot of examples where the King James is a lot easier. That wasn't a complete list. That was just a bunch of examples. It really has nothing to do with making it easier to understand. It just has to do with changing it, corrupting it, twisting it, perverting it. The only thing that they can really point to and say, "Well, this is where we made it a lot easier," is getting rid of the "thees" and the "thous," but you got to have the "thees" and the "thous" because the "thees" and the "thous" are singular and the "you," "ye," "your" is plural. The ones that start with the "T-H" are singular. The ones that start with the "Y" are plural. It affects the meaning because you often would have no way of knowing whether he's talking to one person or the whole group, unless you have the "thees" and the "thous" there to tell you that. It's important. It's all important.
Let me just show you some doctrinal changes that the New King James make that pervert doctrine. Go to 1st Corinthians 1:18.
"For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God."
[Brother Gary 01:20:58], read that for me nice and loud in the New King James.
Gary:
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Notice, in the King James, it said that we are saved. In the New King James, it said we're being saved. Big difference because salvation is not a process. Salvation happens in a moment of time, in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, we believe on Christ and we are passed from death to life. It's not a process. I'm not being saved. I'm done being saved.
Audience:
Amen.
2nd Corinthians 2:15 says this. For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish.
Read it for me from the New King James.
Gary:
For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.
Again, not "that are saved," but "those who are being saved," as if it's a process. Matthew 7:14, for example, in the New King James says, "Difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." King James says, "Narrow," referring to how many people are going, referring to the fact that there are few that'd be saved. The New King James says, "It's difficult." Now, if it were by work, it would be difficult. New Living Translation says, "But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it." The English Standard Version says, "For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."
Now, you say, "Well, Pastor Anderson, what's the big deal? Straight. Narrow. Narrow. Difficult. Difficult. Hard. What's the big deal. Here's the big deal. Is it hard to get saved?
Hey, Jesus did the hard part.
Audience:
Amen.
How hard is it to accept a gift? How hard is it to take a drink of water? How hard is it to walk through a door? How hard is it to eat a piece of bread? These are the things that Jesus compared salvation to because it's easy to be saved, because you don't have to work your way to heaven.
Audience:
Amen.
You know what, salvation is referred to in the Bible as, in the book of Hebrews, rest. Look, is rest hard?
Audience:
No.
Don't be deceived by these modern versions. You might be tempted one day, "Ah, you know, this church uses the New King James, but so what?" It's a big deal.
Do you think that we need 500 different English bibles?
No. In fact, I mentioned we have a glut. We don't have any need for any more. I don't think there's a good reason for why we've had the explosion of them over the past number of decades. I know what the reason is.
Right.
Real simple. It's the fact that, if you have a publishing house and you want to do a study Bible or something, which I'm not a study Bible fan ...
Me either.
... what they did is, if you're a major publishing house, you didn't want to have to pay royalties to somebody else, so they all made their own translations.
Right. There is a financial motivation that come out with all these different versions.
There is. No question about it. No question about it.
Does God expect the average Christian to learn the original Greek?
God expects the average Christian to utilize the information that is provided to him. We live in a day where we have more information available to us than any other generation ever has, and we need it right now because the attacks have never been more [inaudible 01:24:19].
Right. Do you a danger, okay, because here's my belief about it? I think, if someone learned Koine Greek and became fluent in it and could pick it up and read it fluently, that would be fantastic, but ...
A little Greek is a dangerous thing.
Steven:
Exactly. Don't you see a danger in someone who learns two semesters of Bible college Greek and, now, they're going to get up and say, like, even the King-James-only guy, he will get up, he's had two semesters of Bible college Greek, and he is going to get up and say, "Oh, the King James translators, they translated this wrong," and just with a brush of his hand, seven years of 50 brilliant scholars goes out the window for his-
Steven, any good thing can be abused. A little Greek can be a dangerous thing. I've heard entire sermons based upon really bad exegesis. Let me just mention that, years ago, I had a minister come to me and he said, "Hey, I [inaudible 01:25:14], but I never heard anybody say it before. You know Greek. Could you check it out for me?" I checked out for him. It didn't pan out. It was just one of those commentators sort of going off on a tangent. [inaudible 01:25:29].
Steven:
Just because he [crosstalk 01:25:32] such a great point.
Because [crosstalk 01:25:33] preached so good, oh, it's so great.
Steven:
That doesn't surprise me.
No. Unfortunately, it doesn't surprise me.
Steven:
Okay. No one disagrees that the originals were inspired. The Bible says, "Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," but they don't believe what we have today is inspired because they don't believe in the preservation of the Bible. The Bible says in Psalm 12:6, "The words of the Lord are pure words as silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord. Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever." The same God that brought us the inspired Word is the same God that's going to preserve the inspired Word. I think it's silly to think that God is powerful enough to use sinful men and make sure he gives us a perfect original and then that same God can't use sinful men and make sure it's preserved from this general forever. I believe God is powerful enough to give us an inspired Word. I believe God is powerful enough to preserve those same inspired words from this generation forever.
Now, let me ask you this. Do you believe that people need to learn the Hebrew or Greek or even English or should they, can they have the Bible in all languages?
They should have the Bible in all languages.
Steven:
Okay.
This is why we support translation ministries like Bibles International. The Textus Receptus is used and the Hebrew Bible is also used obviously to translate it into other languages, which would be the Word of God.
Steven:
We believe that every people should have the Bible in their language. In English, it's the King James Bible.
Let me just close by saying this. God's Word has been preserved on to us in this generation. Listen to Isaiah 59:21. As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord. My spirit that is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and forever. He said, "Look, Isaiah, the Word that you're preaching, your descendants will preach it. Your children and their children and their children from henceforth and forever will have these words. I believe that those are the words that are in my hand right now.
Audience:
Amen.
Steven:
Look, the modern versions, whether it be the NIV, the ESV, the New Living Translation or the New King James, that philosophy is a philosophy that says, "God's word is not preserved. We had to go dig up a new one. We had to go dig up an older manuscript to fix all the problems in it.' No. I believe that it's been preserved from the time of Christ until now. It's been passed down, and what we have today is a copy of a copy of a copy that has been passed down.
A lot of people wrongly believe that the King James Bible has changed over the years, that the 1769 edition that we use today is completely different from the 1611. In reality, the only thing that changed in 1769 were spellings, capitalizations, punctuation, some typos that were corrected. The words did not change. The words that we have today in our King James Bible are the exact same words that were given to us by the translators in 1611. The words haven't changed. The words have been preserved. That's what God promised that he would preserved. He says, "Look, heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." He didn't say the thought. He didn't say the ideas. He didn't say the doctrine. He said, "My words shall not pass away."
These new versions are from a corrupt source and they have corrupt fruit. Look at the fruit of these new versions. Look at the way churches have become. Fun centers. Look at the way churches have becomes as a result of these new modern versions. Filled with unsafe people. Filled with people who don't know doctrine, don't care about doctrine, because when you're reading a book that's filled with contradictions, it's hard to care about doctrine. When you're reading a book that is perfect and pure and preserved, you look at every word and you care about doctrine and you care about what it says and you care about what it means not just, "Well, yeah, I kind of got the gist of it. Jesus died on the cross. I get it." No. I want to know specifically every doctrine that God has for me from the Word of God.
To touch this book and to study it is one thing. To appreciate it from a distance about what men, women, children had to go through so that you and I could read a book today called the Bible without fear of persecution, it's easy to say this number, 10,000 people burned, stoned, [deboweled 01:30:45] for reading this book.
Steven:
I study really early in the morning and, sometimes, late into the evening. I might wake up at 3:00 with an idea, and I go and I study that in the scripture. You realize the beauty of it and what it's conveying. You just sit there with tears rolling down your cheek because you recognize the greatness of what you're been given. When I study the King James Bible, I'm completely confident that what I have in my hand is the Word of God from cover to cover and that it's the same now as it will be an hour from now. [inaudible 01:31:17] preserved and it's the same. I have confidence when I open it up and preach it on Sunday and teach it on Sunday school or witness to people on the street. I know that this is the Word of God. We look forward to meeting the very Word himself in glory to testify to what we've been studying our whole life.
Roger:
God is not pleased with these men removing verses, adding verses, adding things, removing things. Go to Revelation. Revelation 22:18, "For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book." Do you ever read the book of Revelation? It's a lot of nasty plagues in that book. He said, "I'm going to give you those plagues if you add to my word." Revelation 22:19, "And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city and from the things which are written in this book."
These men that have changed the word of God, the Bible says they lost their opportunity to be saved. He said, "I will take away." He said, "In the same way you took away from my word, I will take away his part out of the book of life." He said, "I will make sure you are not saved because you have messed with my Bible." That sounds to me like God is pretty serious about this.
You say, "Hey, Pastor Jimenez, I agree. I understand. These bibles corrupt. They're corrupting doctrine. The King James Bible is pure. The King James Bible is the Word of God. I understand. What do I do with it? If you realize that you have God's Word in your hand, not the thoughts of God, not what he might have said, not what he think he said, but the actual words of God. Not just, but when you have the words of God, you actually have God. Not this book, but these words. When you realize that you have God's words, man, that should drive us to read the Bible. That should drive us to live by this Bible. This book has every answer for every question in life.
You say, "Pastor Jimenez, when I came to Verity Baptist Church, I really didn't come here to learn about the King James Bible. I came here to learn about salvation." We learn about salvation in the King James Bible. I really didn't come here to learn about this issue. I came here so that I can get help with my marriage. This book will help your marriage. I really didn't come here to learn about the King James Bible. I came here to learn about how to raise my kids. This book will help you raise your kids. It will solve all your problems. It'll bring you salvation. It'll do everything you needed to do. Why? Because it's the Word of God without error, perfect, exactly like God gave it to you. It gives me confidence to realize that the Word of God is perfect.
Do you know why so many people are not believing God today, not coming to church? Generations of young people are just leaving churches by the droves and never coming back. Because these modern Bible versions have been corrupted. There's mistakes in them, and it's caused them to doubt their faith in God. Not this one. This one's perfect. The King James Version is the Word of God. Read it. Learn it. Study it. Memorize it. Live by it. Preach it to others.
Let's vow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, Lord, we love you. Thank you for your word. Lord, thank you that you have not made us responsible to preserve your word, but that is a responsibility that you've given to yourself. You inspired it. You preserved it, and you have given it to us today. Father, we love you. Help us not to leave here today and just let this message go in one ear and out the other. Help to realize I have the Word of God. Maybe I should read it. Maybe I should study it. Maybe I should live it. We love you, Lord. In your precious name I pray. Amen.
I'd like to ask you a question. Do you know for sure if you died today would you go to heaven? You may say, "I'm not sure if I'm going to heaven." Maybe you've never even thought of it. The Bible says you could be 100% sure you are on your way to heaven. Now, according to the Bible, we need to understand a few things in order to be able to receive salvation. The first thing is this. The Bible says in Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." The Bible tells us that sin is a transgression of the law. When we break God's law, we sin. According to that verse, we've all sinned. I'm a sinner. You're a sinner. Unfortunately, there are wages for our sin. Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death." Now, the word "wages" means "payment." It's what you earn. When I go to work, they give me money. Those are my wages. Because of my sin, the wages is death. What I earn is death, "For the wages of sin is death."
Now, when we think of death, most people think of a physical death, but Revelation chapter 20 verse 14 and 15 says, "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire," a reference to hell. It says, "This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." According to the Bible, our wages for our sin is not just a physical death, but the second death ... What is the second death? Being cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. What we earn because of our sin is death, a physical death, a second death, which is being cast in the lake of fire.
Revelation 21:8 says, "But the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters," and that's a pretty bad list, murderers, whoremongers, sorcerers. Most people would agree, a murderer, oh, yeah, they're going to go to hell, but notice he says, "For the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and5 whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters," and, at the end of that list he says this, "and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." The reason he got to add that sin of lying at the end of that list, he's trying to make a point. This point is this. We're all sinners. Every human being has lied. He's trying to say there is none righteous. We've all sinned. We all deserve to go to hell.
Now, that's the bad news. I'm a sinner. You're a sinner. We're all initially condemned to hell. The Gospel is the good tidings or the good news. Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death." We understand what that means now. The second part of that verse says, "But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." The Bible says that God has a gift that he wants to give you, and that gift is eternal life.
Now, in Ephesian 2:8 and 9, the Bible says, "For by grace are ye saved through faith." The word "grace" means to get something you don't deserve. You didn't it. You didn't pay for it. "Are ye saved" is a reference to being saved from hell, because I don't want to go there. I'm sure you don't want to go there. "through faith," the word "faith" means to believe. It says, "for by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves." It has nothing to do with you. Here's why. "It is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast." A gift is not something you work for. A gift is something that's given to you. Someone else pays for it, but you don't pay for it. If I gave you a gift and asked you to give me money for it, that wouldn't be a gift. If I gave you a gift, but asked you to do something for it, that wouldn't be a gift.
Now, the gift doesn't cost you anything, but it cost the person giving it to you something. The gift of God is the exact same way. Jesus had to pay for that gift. Romans 5:8 says, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." John 3:16, the most famous verse in the Bible, says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
The gospel is this. Jesus Christ was born of a virgin. He lived a sinless life. He never sinned, never did anything wrong. He died on the cross, was buried. The Bible tells us his soul went down to hell for three days and three nights, and he rose from the grave, not to pay for his own sin because he had no sin. He died to pay for our sins. See, it's already been paid for. The gift has already been paid for. Now, you got to understand this about the gift. John 3:16 says, "Everlasting life." The gift is everlasting life. The word "everlasting" means it will last forever, a life that'll last forever. It's never going to end.
John 3:15 says, "Eternal life." "Eternal" means it'll never end. John 3:36 says, "Everlasting life." Romans 6:23 says, "Eternal life." All throughout the Bible you find this concept, eternal life, everlasting life, life that will last forever, life that will never end. According to John 3:36 you get it the moment you believe. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." Now, some people think, "Well, I can receive salvation, but, once I have it, if I do something really bad, like committing adultery, like murder, commit suicide, then God is going to take away my salvation." If he takes it away, then it didn't last forever. See, we got to understand that salvation is not something that we earn. Once we have it, it's not something that we keep.
The Bible says in Titus 1:2, it says, "In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began." See, our hope for eternal life is this. God can't lie. If God promised me eternal life, then, guess what, it's eternal life. He promised everlasting life. Then, it's going to last forever. You say, "Well, what if I do something really bad?" It's not of ourselves. It has nothing to do with me. It's a gift that will last forever.
Now, here's the only thing you need to do. Just like any other gift, you got a choice, whether you'd like to accept it or reject it. You may ask, "Well, how do I accept the gift of God?" Romans 10:9 says this, "That if," now, it says "if" because you get a choice. He says, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus." The word "confess" means to admit. You say, "What am I admitting?" You're admitting your a sinner. You're admitting that you deserve to go to hell, but you're asking for forgiveness. He's says, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus," but it's more than just saying words.
He also says, "And shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead." You're believing that Jesus Christ died on the cross, was buried and rose from the grave as a payment for your sins. He says, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead." The Bible says, "Thou shalt be saved." It doesn't say you might be saved. It doesn't say you hopefully will be saved. God says, "I will save you if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart." Notice, you don't have to go to church. It doesn't say you have to get baptized. It doesn't say you have to repent of your sins. It doesn't say you have to do anything. Simply believe and ask him to save you.
If you believe that in your heart, if you believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins, was buried, rose from the grave, he wants to give you a gift, this eternal life, then why don't you just confess with your mouth right now? I'd like to help you form a prayer. If you believe that, why don't you just pray with me right now?
Dear Jesus, I know I'm a sinner and I deserve to go to hell. Please forgive me of all my sin and give me eternal life. I'm not trusting in my works. I'm not trusting in my religion. I'm only trusting in you. Thank you for saving me. Amen.
If you prayed that prayer and you believed in your heart, according to the Bible, you are now saved. You have eternal life. Congratulations.
