I'd like to say, first of all, it is a great privilege and honour to be invited to address you this evening on the subject of the pretensions of the English Standard Version. And I want to turn you, first of all, to the Word of God and to the Book of the Psalms and the Psalm number 12. and to the verse 6. The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. And there the picture that is brought before us is of the silversmith who receives the silver ore and he puts it in a crucible in the earth And then he heats that crucible up to 964 degrees Celsius, the melting point of silver. At that high temperature, the silver in the ore melts and is drained away and collected, leaving in the crucible just the base metal and the dross. And then the silversmith takes the crucible and empties it, tipping out all the base metal and all the dross. And then he gets the silver that's been refined and he puts it back into the crucible and heats it up again and once more he tips the dross out on the base metal and he repeats that seven times so that the silver which emerges after that seven-fold refining is the purest silver imaginable with no trace whatsoever of base metal or dross Now, says the psalmist, the words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times, so that Agur can declare in Proverbs 30, verse 5, every word of God is pure. That's why we are not to add to the word of God. And that is why we are not to take away from the word of God. We are exhorted to diminish not a word. And we ought to be those who tremble every time we open the pure word of the living God. And so as we look at this question, the pretensions of the English Standard Version, I want to begin with a quotation that comes to us from the pen of J.C. Philpott in 1857. In that year, he anticipated the mischief that was about to be foisted upon the churches by Westcott and Hort. And he asks the question, and then having asked the question, he gives the answer. The question he asks is this, would it be desirable to have a new translation of the scriptures? It would unsettle the minds of thousands. as to which was the word of God, the old translation or the new. What a door it would open for the workings of infidelity or the temptations of Satan. What a gloom, too, it would cast over the minds of many of God's saints to have those passages translated in a different way, and how it would seem to shake all their experience of the power and preciousness of God's word. But besides all this, there would be two Bibles spread throughout all the land, the old and the new. And what confusion would this create in almost every place? If the new translation were once to begin, where would it end? It is good to let well enough alone, as it is easier to marve and to mend. The Unitarians, would blot out God in 1 Timothy 3 verse 16 and strike out 1 John 5 verse 7 as an interpolation. One set up a notice, the old Bible to be mended and there would be plenty of workmen who trying to mend the cover would pull the pages to pieces. All our good Bible terms would be so mutilated that they would cease to convey the Spirit's meaning. And instead of the noble simplicity, faithfulness, and truth of our present version, we should have a Bible that nobody would accept as the Word of God, to which none could safely appeal, and upon which none could implicitly rely. Instead of our good old Saxon Bible, simple and solid, With few words obsolete and alike majestic and beautiful, we should have a modern English translation in the pert and flippant language of the day. Besides its authority as the word of God, our present version is the great English classic, generally accepted as the standard of English language. The present English Bible, that is the King James Version, has been blessed to thousands of the saints of God, and not only so, it has become part of our national inheritance, and we have received it unimpaired from our fathers, and we are bound to hand it down unimpaired to our children. It is, we believe, the grand bulwark of Protestantism. It is the safeguard of the Gospel. It is the treasure of the Church. How prophetic were those words of J.C. Philpott. I've recently returned from Northern Ireland, having conducted three and a half weeks of ministry for the TBS in Northern Ireland, and whilst there, there was a newspaper article that was written by the former Presbyterian Church moderator of Northern Ireland, and he was responding to a question, is the King James Bible still the best? And part of his answer was this. Given the weight of evidence, it is intellectually honest for the ESV translators to point out these variants, Mark 16, 9-20, John 7, 53-8, 11, and to place them in brackets. The answer to the question, is the King James Bible still the best, must be in the negative. By including insights of the 400 years of biblical scholarships in 1611, modern conservative translations such as the English Standard Version reflect a more reliable and accurate text of the Bible. And it would seem that here in Michigan, as in the United Kingdom, the version that churches are turning to now is the English Standard Version. And what can we say? When I was converted in 1968, and I had had no church background whatsoever, I was given a Bible in 1965 and challenged to read the Word of God. And I thank God it was a King James Version I was given. And I read that Bible for two and a half years before I was converted. But when I was converted, there was not a church in the whole of England that claimed to be evangelical that would touch the revised Standard Version published in 1952. That version was rejected by all who were orthodox in their theology. What then about the English Standard Version? Well, I need to give you a little historical background to the English Standard Version. because the background actually goes back before 1901. It goes back in reality to 1870. On the 7th of July that year, 1870, the Revised Version Committee invited a team of American scholars to participate in the project of the Revised Version. Dr. Philip Scharf was chosen to enlist a group of American scholars. A group of nine American scholars were chosen from nine denominations and on the 7th of December 1871 began work at Bible House in New York. On the 4th of October 1872, they considered the work already done by the British Committee. Scholars from New England by and large were involved in this. Very few, if any, came to the conservative South. The American Committee worked for 29 years up to 1901. For the first 10 years they met on the last Friday and Saturday of each month and they reviewed the work that had been done by the London Committee, made suggestions for its improvement. When the British Committee was disbanded in 1881, the American Committee continued to produce a version more acceptable to them. They had promised they would not publish it within 14 years of the publication of the revised version. Indeed they waited 20 years before they published it. But the American Standard Version published then in 1901 was never popular here in North America, so much so that Thomas Nelson allowed International Council of Religious Education to purchase the copyright in 1928. was then appointed to revise the American Standard Version. In 1937, 32 scholars were involved, and the New Testament was published in 1946. And that was severely criticized by such reformed scholars as Oswald T. Alice of Westminster Theological Seminary. In 1948, this is what he had to say, If by a liberal version is meant a version which represents a lax and liberal attitude to the question of the plenary and verbal inspiration and divine authority of Scripture, then the RSV is clearly such a version. That was Oswald T. Alice declaring that the Revised Standard Version was a liberal version. And that's why evangelicals would not touch it. The Old Testament was published in 1952, and when the word virgin was removed from Isaiah 7 and verse 14, it led to the public burnings of the Revised Standard Version by Orthodox evangelicals. Evangelicals, and particularly the Reformed constituency, vehemently opposed the rank liberalism of the Revised Standard Version. Now I say that because in reality the English Standard Version is but a very light revision of the Revised Standard Version. And the Westminster Theological Seminary are promoting the ESV even though it is based upon the Revised Standard Version which was condemned by Westminster Theological Seminary 60 years ago. How things change so, so quickly. Indeed, the English Standard Version differs only 2% in 2% of its text from the Revised Standard Version. Dr. Jim Packer, the General Editor of the ESV, writes this in the preface, We are standing on the shoulders of all who went before us. Think of that. Standing on the shoulders of a William Tyndale. Standing on the shoulders of those Geneva exiles that produced the Geneva Bible. Standing on the shoulders of those 47 godly scholarly men that translated the King James Version. We are standing on the shoulders of all who went before us. We are drawing on commentaries which roll up the press in great numbers these days. I think the ESV is going to go beyond all its predecessors. and established itself as the King James Version for the 21st century. That's an astonishing statement. So what can I say? Well, let me begin with the positive. I don't have much to say, but I will say a little. On the positive side, there has been a light evangelical revision. For example, In Romans 3 verse 25, where the Revised Standard Version has the words expiation, the word propitiation is correctly put back where it ought to be. In Isaiah 7 and verse 14, where the Revised Version removed virgin and put young woman, the ESV correctly has virgin. In Romans 9 and verse 5, where the Apostle Paul, speaking of the Jews, he puts it like this, in Romans 9 and verse 5, "...whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen." The Revised Standard Version would read like this, whom God put forward, to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, full stop, God, blessed forever. So in the Revised Standard Version you cannot see that it is Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. And quite correctly, the editors of the English Standard Version have put the comma back instead of a full stop, and you can see in the English Standard Version at Romans 9.5 that it is Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. So, there are some welcome improvements. And then again, it is a far more literal translation than versions such as the NIV. In many respects, some could argue that perhaps it is a good translation, but it's a good translation of a poor text. And then again, the 14-member Translation Oversight Committee all claim to be committed to the historic evangelical orthodoxy, to the authority, to the sufficiency, to the inerrancy of Scripture. But sadly, their view of inerrancy is limited to the autographs, that is, the handwritten copies that came from the pen of the Moses, of the prophets, of the evangelists, and so on, and not to the apographa, the copies that have been accurately taken. So, those then are positive things, but what are the problems? First of all, the Greek text which they chose for the New Testament. They did not base their translation upon the Textus Receptus which underlies the King James Version, but rather they base their translation upon those Alexandrian texts first put together by Westcott and Hort in the 19th century. They claim that they are following in the Tyndale King James legacy. They make that statement in the Prefix. And that's a bold statement. Let me remind you of William Tyndale, the man who on the 6th of October 1536 was tied to the stake and strangled, but not to death. And then his body was burnt that we might have the word of God in the English language in all its purity. This is what that godly Man, the greatest of all Englishmen had to say, For I call God to record against the day we shall appear before our Lord Jesus, to give a reckoning of our doings, that I never altered one syllable of God's Word against my conscience, nor to this day, if all that is in the earth, whether it be pleasure, honour, or riches, be given unto me, Here was a man that wouldn't alter a syllable of God's Word. A man who believed that every word of God is pure. And 90% of our King James Version New Testament comes virtually direct from William Tyndale. And some would say 40% of the whole Bible comes from him. And yet, because they choose the wrong text. They choose a text from Alexandria, and this Greek text has 2,886 words less than that Greek New Testament, which means the two cannot both be right. As I said to the students this afternoon, either this is guilty of adding 2,886 words or that is guilty of removing 2,886 words. The two cannot both be right. And when you see that this one, the words that are removed and the words that are changed have to do with the doctrine of the person and of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, And with the doctrine of eternal punishment, then I think you will see that it is that one that is guilty of removing from the Word of God. And therefore, in the English Standard Version, the following verses are missed in their entirety. I just list them for you. Matthew chapter 17 and verse 21 is missing in the English Standard Version. as is Matthew 18 and verse 11, as is Matthew 23 and verse 14, as is Mark 7 and verse 16, and Mark 9, verse 44 and 46, and Mark 11, verse 26, and Mark 15, 28, and Luke 17, verse 36, and Luke 23, verse 17, and John 5 and verse 4, Acts 8 and verse 37, Acts 15, 34. Acts 28, 29. Romans 16, 24. 1 John 5 and verse 7. And yet they tell us they are standing on the shoulders of all who have gone before us. I don't think so. William Tyndale would not have missed those verses out. I want to turn you to some of those verses. I turn you, for example, to 1 Timothy and to chapter 3. a verse that I briefly touched on with the students this afternoon, but it is a key verse. I turn you to 1 Timothy 3, verse 16. Here the Apostle is speaking of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He tells us six things about The Lord Jesus Christ, in verse 16, He says, and without controversy great is the mystery of godliness. 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. Six wonderful things concerning the person of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. But it is that very first point that I draw your attention to He says He is God, manifest in the flesh. This is remarkable. This is wonderful. The Lord Jesus Christ. We are clearly told here that He is God, manifest in the flesh. He is perfect man. He is perfect God. And these two perfect natures are to be found in the one glorious yet complex person, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the altogether lovely one and the chiefest among ten thousand. And this wonderful, this glorious truth, Paul tells us, is without controversy. And it is without controversy in the church of the living God, which is the pillar and ground of the truth, verse 15. It is a remarkable statement. Do you remember Solomon? at the dedication of that first temple in Jerusalem in the prayer that he prays, one of the longest prayers recorded in the Word of God. During the course of that prayer, he lifts his eyes toward heaven and he says, But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house that I have built Solomon looks into the first heaven. Behold the heaven, the first heaven, the atmosphere enveloping the earth to a depth of eleven miles at the equator in which the birds fly and the clouds float. He looks into that first heaven. It's too small to contain thee. And then he looks into the azure vault of the night sky in which the stars have been fixed in their farthest galaxies. The sun has a diameter of 864,400 miles, and yet our sun is only an average-sized star in the suburbs of the Milky Way, which in itself is a gigantic, disk-shaped galaxy which stretches 621,000 million million miles across, containing 100,000 million stars. And there are other galaxies, the megalanic clouds so far away. And beyond them another 30 galaxies complete what astronomers call the Andromeda spiral. And there are galaxies beyond. And the largest star known to astronomers is the Betelgeuse in the Orion constellation, 200 million miles in diameter. One astronomer has calculated that if the seven billion people living upon the earth could have the stars equally divided amongst them, then every one of us here and everyone in the whole world would have two trillion stars each. He made the stars also. And Solomon looks into that second heaven That vast, illimitable region of space is too small to contain Thee. And yet, wonder of wonders, mystery of mysteries, miracle of miracles, the Holy Ghost overshadows Mary and prepares a body for the eternal Son of God, And he who cannot be contained in the first heaven, nor in the second heaven, is contained in flesh made in the likeness of men. And in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He is God manifest in the flesh. What a Saviour! What a Redeemer! What a wonderful person! And this is without controversy, Paul says. But the English Standard Version immediately introduces controversy. Because the English Standard Version, like many of the other modern translations, simply read, he was manifested in the flesh. He was manifested in the flesh, so no longer Do we have a clear statement that my Saviour and my Redeemer is God manifest in the flesh? We are simply told the obvious. Of course, He was manifested in the flesh. And there is nothing mysterious about that because every one of us in this church building tonight are manifested in the flesh. The inner man, within the outer man. And I want to know, is Jesus Christ God manifest in the flesh? Not according to the English Standard Version, which seems to follow much of the other English translations. Mr. Spurgeon made a comment on that. He said, does it tell us that a man was manifest in the flesh? Assuredly, that cannot be the teaching, for every man is manifest in the flesh, and there is no sense in making such a statement concerning any mere man, and then calling it a mystery. Was it then an angel, he asks? But what angel was ever manifest in the flesh? And if he were, would it be at all a mystery that he should be seen of angels? Is it a wonder for an angel to see an angel? Can it be that the devil was manifest in the flesh? If so, he has been received up into glory, which let us hope is not the case. Well then, if it were neither a man, nor an angel, nor a devil who was manifest in the flesh, surely he must have been God. He is God manifest in the flesh. Let me give you another verse. Let me give you, for example, the Acts of the Apostles and chapter 8 and verse 37. You'll be aware, of course, that this chapter, towards the end of the chapter, we have this eunuch from Ethiopia, this man who is the treasurer in the court of Queen Candacy. But the gods of Ethiopia cannot satisfy the longings and the desires and the seeking of this man's heart. But there in Jerusalem God is known and God is worshipped, so he goes to Jerusalem. And no doubt he goes into the temple and there he sits at the feet of the scribes and the rabbis. But he does not find God in Jerusalem. and is returning home, and is in his chariot, is in the Gaza, and he has The Old Testament parchments open at that which we know to be Isaiah chapter 53. And he is reading the Word of God. And meanwhile, Philip is caught away from revival in Samaria and told to go and join himself to the chariot which he does. And as he does so, the eunuch is reading that glorious verse. We take the story up there in verse 33 of chapter 8. In his humiliation, his judgment was taken away. who shall declare his generation, for his life is taken from the earth.' And the eunuch answered Philip and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? Of himself or some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached unto him, Jesus. Oh, Mr. Eunuch from Ethiopia, You're reading the prophet Isaiah. Did you not read earlier on that when Messiah comes, he will come born of a virgin? And you've just been to Jerusalem, Mr. Eunuch. Did you not hear what they did to Jesus of Nazareth? How he was taken by wicked hands, how he was nailed to that shameful tree. And you have just been reading, Mr. Eunuch. That there, as He was nailed to that cross at Calvary, the Father laid on Him the iniquity of us all. And He who was and is without sin was made sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. And Mr. Eurekas, as the Father laid on Him our sins and our iniquities, He bore our sins in His own body on the tree and put away our sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Oh, he preached unto him Jesus, and the eunuch believes. And in verse 36, 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 baptised. And verse 37, and Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still, and so on. A wonderful conversion. But then every conversion is wonderful. It takes the power of Almighty God to convert a soul, to raise one who is dead in trespasses and in sins to newness of life. As much power to convert a Lydia as to convert a Philippian jailer. So every conversion is wonderful and remarkable. But here this man is converted. And Philip said, if thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest him without any hesitation. He declares, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. What think ye of Christ, Mr. Eunuch? I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. But what about the English Standard Version, which claims to be the pinnacle King James Version legacy? which Mr. Packer says, we are standing on the shoulders of all who went before us. Verse 36, here is water, what hinders me to be baptised? And then the very next verse you read, he commanded the chariot to stand still. And the whole of verse 37 is not to be found. in the English Standard Version, which claims to be in the King James Version legacy? I think not. I think not. I could give many more examples of that kind of missing out of verse. But let me give you a couple of other verses. Let me give you, for example, 1 Corinthians and chapter 5 and verse 7. You will be aware of course in this chapter that the Apostle Paul has to rebuke the church at Corrin. There was a case of gross immorality in the church and that had not been subjected as it ought to have been to church discipline. And so the Apostle rebukes them in the first part of this chapter and then in verse 7 he says, "...Purge out there for the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us." And it's that last phrase I draw your attention to. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. And more important, it is those last two words. They are vital words for us. Those two words, in my opinion, contain one of the most vital doctrines of our most holy faith. What theologians refer to as the doctrine of penal substitution. That there upon the cross at Calvary, Jesus Christ, who was without sin, was dying in the room, in the place, in the stead, of His people, that vast multitude given to Him in eternity by the Father. When I was seeking the Lord, having read the Bible for close on two whole years, not having listened to sermons, not attending a place of worship, but reading the King James Version Bible as I was reading the Word of God, After two years, the Lord was searching my heart and convicting me of sin, of righteousness, of judgment to come. There were times when I feared to go to bed, lest I wake up in hell. And there were times I feared to be awake, lest the ground open up and swallow me alive into the pit. And the one thing I was desperate to know, did Jesus Christ die for me? Did He die in my room, in my place, in my stead? Did He shed His precious blood to redeem me? I was desperate to know that. And how grateful I am for those two vital words, for us. But had someone put an English Standard Version in my hand, I would have had no way of knowing that verse. Because it simply reads, for even Christ our Passover is sacrificed. Full stop. Just a historical fact, with no bearing upon me the sinner, and the same two vital words are also missing in 1 Peter chapter 4 and verse 1. But that does not surprise me, because the two men, Westcott and Hort, who put that together In their autobiographies, the two of them speaking of the doctrine of substitution, Westcott says it is grossly immoral. What a shameful and wicked thing to say about the Word of God and the doctrines of the Word of God. Oh no, my friends, I could give many more examples of omissions, of vital changes to doctrine. You see, all The problems associated with all the other modern English Bibles are just repeated in the English Standard Version. And I'm not questioning the editors. I don't know much about the editors. I'm not questioning their orthodoxy or their spirituality. What I am saying is this, that they use the wrong Greek text. A text traced to Alexandria. A text which is known to be corrupted. and because they use the wrong corrupted Greek text those corruptions have come out in the English Standard Version. But let me make another comment. The footnotes that you come across in the English Standard Version, in the footnotes that they attempt to inform the reader of textual changes made to the text. And so there are comments such as, some manuscripts are this. And it seems to me the footnotes both in the English Standard Version and in the New King James Version are really questioning the authority of the Word of God. Yea, hath God said. Are there two sections John chapter 7 verses 53 to chapter 8 and verse 11, the case of the woman taken in adultery. Twelve whole verses in the English Standard Version are put within double square brackets. And then the following footnote, the earliest manuscripts do not include John 7, 53 to John 8, 11, Others add the passage after 21-25 or after Luke 21-38 with variations in the text. And then I quoted that moderator, former moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Northern Ireland, and he said this of those 12 verses, no essential truth is lost. Well, try asking the woman taking in adultery. Because if those are missing, she's lost her salvation. But what about the truth of the doctrine of Holy Scripture? Is every word of God pure? Has God preserved His Word as He said He would? Is all Scripture given by inspiration? The very doctrine of Scripture is affected by these footnotes and these changes questioning the authority of the Word of God. And then the other passage is at the end of the Gospel of Mark, Mark 16, verses 9 to 20. Again, in the English Standard Version, it is put within double square brackets, and these words, some of the earliest manuscripts, do not include chapters 16, 9 through to 20. What they failed to tell us, and In fairness, I have to say the New King James Version in the margin do tell us, but the English Standard Version do not tell us this, that only three manuscripts do not include them. Codex Vaticanus, and that should raise our suspicions, and Codex Sinaiticus, and minuscule manuscript 304, And yet there are over 930 manuscripts of Mark's Gospel that do contain these 12 verses. Again, let me quote this moderator. He says, Most of the content of these disputed verses at the end of Mark is found elsewhere in the New Testament, and no key Christian doctrine is affected by the presence or absence of Mark 16, 9-20. Given the weight of evidence, It is intellectually honest for the ESV translators to point out these variants and to place them within brackets. Some of you students may have got the commentary on the Gospel of Mark by the renowned Reformed biblical commentator of the last century, William Hendrickson. But William Hendrickson says this, there is considerable doubt about their authenticity. When the manuscript evidence is properly evaluated instead of merely counted, the balance swings heavily toward the omission of these contested verses. So we have renowned Bible commentators questioning these and suggesting they are not authentic. And the weight of evidence swings heavily against their exclusion. Well, it was Professor Hawke, who came up with a wonderful mathematical formula that would have baffled even Einstein. Because this is his formula. 930 equals 1. We got that. 930 manuscripts from Antioch equal 1. Two manuscripts from Alexandria, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus equals 2. And since two is greater than one, the weight of evidence swings against their exclusion. This, my friends, is deceit on an unprecedented scale. The weight of evidence is clearly that they are part and parcel of the pure and the infallible Word of God. Let me deal with another problem, the problem of the language addressing God. The authorised version translators or the King James Version translators followed the Greek and the Hebrew text and therefore they used thee and thou and thine to indicate the second person singular and they used ye, you, your and you to indicate second person plural. Often the criticism is levied, and it's to be found in the prefaces to all the modern English translations, they focus upon these so-called antiquated pronouns. They claim no one speaks like that today as they did in 1611. But the interesting thing is no one spoke like that in 1611. And the proof is right at the very beginning of the King James Bible in the preface. And in the letter to the most high and mighty Prince James, by the grace... Listen to this. Great and manifold were the blessings, most great sovereign, which Almighty God, the Father of all mercies, bestowed upon us, the people of England, when first He sent Your Majesties. The language of 1611 is to be found in the preface, in the letters that you read at the beginning. And there isn't a thee and there is not a thou or a thine throughout the whole of that. And it's a different style of English, by the way. It's a Latinized form of English, whereas the King James Version is, by and large, Anglo-Saxon. So the point is that those pronouns were not used in 1611. But the King James Version translators, for the need of accuracy, reverted to that form of pronoun usage which hadn't been used for close on a hundred years. The Revised Standard Version abandoned that practice of differentiating second person singular and plural, but they retained thee, thou, and thine as a special form of language when addressing God. But the English Standard Version saw this as archaic and abandoned it altogether. But unless a Bible translator makes the distinction, that which results can never be deemed to be an accurate translation. I give you one example. There are many that one could quote. For example, in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 23, and at verse 31, Sorry, chapter 22 and verse 31. Luke 22 and verse 31. And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. And there in verse 31, the pronoun is you, meaning it is plural. So it is not just Simon whom Satan has desired to have. You means it's plural. It's all the disciples. But then verse 32, But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. What a comfort that would be to Simon Peter after he had denied his Lord three times. to know that his Lord had specifically and personally and directly prayed for him, thee. How vital that distinction is and there are many other places where that is so necessary. As I look at my watch I see time is rapidly going so let me just hasten on to make some concluding comments. And it's in the form of questions. The first question is this. Does the English Standard Version follow the legacy of William Tyndale and the King James Version as is claimed by Dr. Jim Packer? Well, the answer is no, it does not. First of all, the textual basis of the King James Version is the Masoretic Hebrew text of the Old Testament as found in the Bombert text and the Received Text of the New Testament. The ESV uses an eclectic Alexandrian text first put together by Westcott and Hort. So it does not follow the Tyndale, King James Version legacy. It goes well, well beyond the legacy of that godly man, William Tyndale. Another question. Does the English Standard Version use italics? No, it does not. But the King James Version uses italics to indicate places where the biblical language text did not have the words represented in the text, but were demanded by the grammatical structure of the Hebrew and the Greek. So, the King James Version translators inform us that those words in italic are not there, but they are needed to bring out the meaning. But there is no such use of italics in the English Standard Version. And then the final question is this. Is the English Standard Version the English Standard Version? Now I don't know how it is here in the United States and your definition of standard. I know we have a common language which divides us. But in the United Kingdom, that which is the standard is that by which everything else has to be weighed against or measured against. So the very title is most pretentious. It is claiming to be the standard version in the English language. A pretentious title. I agree with Mr Fulpot. This is the standard of English versions. It is this version by which all other pretenders have to be measured and weighed against. And when we weigh the English standard version against this splendid translation, we have to say it is weighed in the balances and is found wanting. I end with a quote from Bishop Thompson, and he puts it like this. Those who from deep conviction uphold the traditional text and the authorized version of the Bible are considered a nuisance, incomprehensible, cranks. But those who stand in the old paths of morality and of evangelical religion are content to bear reproach, confident that the Protestant Reformed theology built upon the Textus Receptus and the King James Version will yet be vindicated before the throne of God. Amen.