to say anything else I don't want to. And what verses did I give you, brother? 38 through 50. Perfect. Hear the word of the Lord. Now John answered him saying, teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us casting out demons in your name and we forbade him because he does not follow us. But Jesus said, do not forbid him for no one who works a miracle in my name can soon afterwards speak evil of me. For he who is not against us is on our side. For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in my name because you belong to Christ, surely I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believed in me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into the life maimed rather than having two hands to go to hell into the fire that shall not be quenched where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It's better for you to enter life lame rather than having two feet to be cast into hell into the fire that shall never be quenched where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. For everyone will be seasoned with fire and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. Salt is good, but if the salt loses its flavor, how will you season it? Have salt in yourselves and have peace with one another. That's the word of the Lord. Brother Ronnie, could you come back here for a moment? I'd like you to reread 43 through 49. You did it right the first time. Anyone see anything that bothered you? Yeah, I hear you back there. All right, I want you to read 43 through 49 one more time. And this is for our benefit, thank you. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame, rather than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter in the kingdom of God with one eye rather than having two eyes to be cast into hellfire where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. For everyone who is seasoned with fire and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. Thank you. So hopefully you noticed at that time. If you do not have a King James or New King James Bible, we're gonna explain why yours read differently. We're gonna go, once again, through our three goals of me being with you here tonight behind this podium in this worship service. The first reason is because there's something in our hearts and lives that is unique to you that needs to be fixed, and the Lord is gonna use preaching to do it. Ordinary means. He's going to meet you right now, all of you, all, hundred and some odd people in here, and he's going to meet the need right now that you have. The second reason is because you are being equipped. Frankly, those who are not here tonight are missing out. They can't say it any different than that. I don't think there's anything more important other than providential hindering itself that keeps you from being equipped with the body. That's not going to be a shock to some of you that I think that. The third thing is that there is a preparation for the rest of your Bible study. And there will not be a follow-up on this on a Wednesday night, but when you see this and you see margins in your Bible that have notes on them that tell you why your version reads differently than the person you're having devotions with, you need an answer. If you're a wife and your husband's Bible reads differently, you probably need to know why. If you're a man and your wife's Bible reads differently, you probably need to know why. If you are a man or a woman and your pastor's Bible reads differently than yours, you probably need to know why. These are major issues. So let's We've already prayed. I don't want to do things just to do them. Let's get on with our conversation tonight. A paradox, the top item there, is something that is not contradictory, but it appears contradictory. In this passage, you have a start with verse 36. He took a little child, set him in the midst, See verse 37, whoever receives one of these little ones in my name receives me. And you can see that in verse 38, John said, And you'll notice what he says in verse 39. Jesus, don't forbid him. In verse number 40, he who is not against us is on our side. Then you're going to notice verse 42. Verse 42. Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me. Right away, you might take a pen and circle little ones and draw an arrow up to verse 37. It's very clear that in the context, we're dealing with that. He says that some of you are going to cause little ones who believe in me to stumble. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. We need just a little bit of immediate context here as to what in the world are these little ones believing. Well, you'll notice in chapter 9, verse 31, in the context, Jesus is preaching the gospel. 931, he taught his disciples and said, That seems just nothing but something that's going to happen in history. So what is... I mean, if you're sitting there right now, you're thinking, hopefully, I hope Jesus doesn't die. But if he does, so what if he does? I mean, what's the point of him dying? I don't expect him to die. I hope he doesn't die. I wish he wouldn't die. But so what if he dies? What's the purpose of his death? You look at chapter number 10. Go with me there and look at verse number 45. There is literary context as well as historical context. Historical context is what is happening in the story that I need explained, but literary context is understanding that not only were these occurrences, but they were written down and they're put next to each other because Mark has a mission. He has an agenda. He's doing something with his writing. And so in 1045, you have Jesus saying, the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve to give his life a ransom for many. Now, Jesus's death has a purpose, literarily. His death has always had a purpose. I don't mean it just got one tonight. I'm saying if you're reading Mark for the first time, now you understand why 931, he promises he has to die, but he's gonna rise from the dead. Still, even if he's gonna rise from the dead, why does he have to die? Mark is careful in this piece of literature that has got inspired to explain it in 1045. And what is the reason? Yep, hostage exchange, he's given his life, a ransom for many. So when we are in chapter number nine and we read that there are people in verse number 42 that can actually cause a little one who believes to stumble, then I hope you get, I hope you understand that you are in verse number 43, 42, one who believes, you see what they're believing in. There's not a different plan of salvation for children. Here, it says that they would believe, but they're made to stumble. On their way to belief, they're made to stumble. I'm gonna just pause here for a minute and remind everyone in the room, it's not mom has to put faith in the gospel because she's in her 30s, but Junior can ask Jesus into his heart when he's four and get saved. There aren't two plans of salvation. Little ones have to believe the gospel to be saved. So don't mistrain our little ones into believing that salvation is an answer to prayer. It is an answer to faith in the gospel. These are huge differences we need to continue to make or we're gonna continue to see children getting baptized seven times. That's gotta be fixed. You don't get saved by praying. You don't get saved by taking a hand and repeating something for a sucker. You get saved by believing in Jesus. And it is determined contextually what that means. Now after the little one puts faith in the gospel, wonderful. Let's close in prayer. You tell the father what you've just done. And hopefully they're gonna come out with something that sounds like a salvation testimony. And if they don't, you just keep preaching the gospel to them, because you can't fix and open their heart anyway. But the paradox that I need you to see is that the Lord Jesus, while he would not say that any of us in the room put someone in hell, he would say that we can help someone stay out of heaven. Let's put two things together here again in the passage. Verse 42, whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it'd be better for him if a millstone hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. The idea there is that you have a little one that loves Jesus and you're keeping them from believing in him. And then just when you think that that little one is off the hook, you see that in verse number 45, Jesus goes out, verse 43, if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It's better for you to enter into life maimed rather than having two hands to go to hell. Does anyone have a different word than hell in their version? Say again, please. Gehenna. That's the Greek word, gehenna. And it is what we would normally say is the place where the body and the soul will go after the judgment. If you want to, you can write down in that passage, Matthew 10, 48. Fear not him who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear him whom can kill both body and soul in Gehenna. That's Matthew 10, 28. So apparently, there's a particular body, and you can write down Revelation 20, verses 11 through 15 if it'll help, John 5, 26 through 29. Apparently, even the lost will be raised and will be put in a final place called Gehenna. And Jesus here says, It's better for you to go into heaven, life, you see verse 43, it's better for you to go into life. Verse 45, it's better for you to go into life. Verse number 47, it's better for you to enter the kingdom of God. That should tell you that life, life, and kingdom of God are all the same thing. So heaven, everlasting life, and entering the kingdom are the same. I'm getting that from the passage. 43, 45, and 47. It's better to enter life with a maimed body than it is to have a whole body and be pitched into the lake of fire. The paradox here is that Jesus is both warning you and I, the individual, about making sure that if we're going to die, let's die right. And if we're going to die with all of our faculties, let's make sure we go to heaven, life, the kingdom. And Jesus says that there's a way in which you can cause a little one to stumble. I wanted you to notice both of these on the way to our teaching point. that in our lives we need to deal with the possibility that though we don't have the sole responsibility of making sure someone goes to heaven, that's settled in a book. There is in this passage a real possibility that you and I can have adverse actions that result in someone not entering. So if it were possible to enter to heaven with one hand, wouldn't this be a charming message to preach at a graveside service? The truth is Jesus is speaking in hyperbole. If it were possible for you to be raised, it'd be better for you to be raised with a maimed body than to go to hell with all of your faculties. All right, so we're gonna move on now. I wanna talk to you about, we're gonna pass on that for a moment, and that, we're gonna handle those at the same time, and that. All right, why are we in this passage tonight? Look at verse number 49. Everyone will be seasoned with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. Does anyone's Bible read differently? Can you lift your hand? Okay, there's a good many whose Bible reads differently. I would be willing to suspect that out of the following verse, everyone will be seasoned with fire, that's where your version ends. What does yours say? For everyone will be salted with fire. Okay, okay. But the last phrase is gone, yes? Okay. So I'd be willing to say that in many cases, the Bible that you have in your hand is missing that last phrase. We're gonna have a conversation about two things, especially before we close tonight, and I'm gonna try to do it with enough precision so that you can ask questions. Why are we here in this passage? The reason we're here in this passage is because this is the only verse in the entire New Testament that quotes the second chapter of Leviticus. Verse 49, everyone will be seasoned with fire. That's not out of Leviticus 2. The next phrase is, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. They came out of this morning's verse of focus, Leviticus 2.13. You will add salt to the meal offering and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. So just for that reason, I was going to end there this morning in this verse, and I thought, no, no, no, no, no. Pastor John and I talked about this, Pastor Jordan and I talked about this, Pastor Randy and I talked about this. You know, when a verse is only quoted one time in the New Testament, and it's missing in many Bibles, we need to have a conversation about it. I kind of compromised between two ideas. One, the church needs to hear this, and the church doesn't need to hear this. But here's what I'm trying to picture. I'm trying to picture your friends saying that the Bible's been translated so many times you can't trust it, and the Bibles aren't all the same. That's what I'm picturing. And I'm supposed to be equipping you for ministry. I'm not supposed to win your friends to Jesus. You are. I'm not supposed to be knocking on the doors right next to your house. You are. I'm supposed to be equipping you and providing for you a good explanation for the stuff that we don't have answers for all the time. So I'm going to try to do that with a small discussion. Let's see how this goes. Those are usually famous last words. So here we go. We're gonna let it load, then we're gonna go to an open page. We typically, and rightly, have a problem with new religions that show up in the last few hundred years. Here's why. Here's the age of the apostles. Here's the time of the cross, 30 AD. About 90 AD, or so, John the apostle, the only apostle we know of that wasn't martyred, dies. And we would say at this point, most of the gifts of the apostle, 2 Corinthians 12, 12, died with the apostles. We're not saying necessarily that they don't happen, we're saying they don't regularly happen and normatively happen. They shouldn't be expected as a normal part of church life if they're apostolic gifts. Why? The apostle is dead. Now, here is typically an explanation of a particular religion that started, we're gonna start with an easy one, 1517. In 1517, a really good man was rescued out of lostness in the established organizational church called the Roman Catholic Church. This man's name was Martin Luther. Martin Luther, according to the special talking point, he wanted to reform the Catholic Church. He didn't want to start a new one. But people that followed him, chiefly a guy named Philip Melanchthon, who was far more Lutheran than Luther was, Decided that they needed to have a new state church in Germany and listen, I'm making it really simple but the bottom line is that here around 300 AD when it became Imperial Christianity through the auspices of the Roman Empire They would say that about this time the church left planet Earth, you know it that's my way of saying it went all the pot Okay, the church the truth left. Okay, and and all of a sudden a monk in Germany finds it. Truth returns and Martin Luther finds it. And all of a sudden now you have two choices if you're a Christian, Catholic and Protestant, but Lutheran is a type of Protestant, Sandy, so I like what you're thinking there. So the idea here is that you're either a Protestant, and the root word of Protestant is what? Protest. So the implication there is that if you're not Catholic, you once were, or at least your forefathers were, you have to have been, because that was the only true thing, according to Catholic doctrine, is that this thing actually existed here. And so, real truth came back here, says the true Protestant, and it's been dark ages ever since. The Bible believer says that that is bunk. Because we were told by Jesus in Matthew chapter 28, and you might have heard part of this in March, I know, Jesus told us before he went to heaven, Matthew 28, 19, make disciples of all nations and baptize them and teach them everything I've taught you. And in Acts 2, they do that through the continual starting up of these little things called ekklesias. And he said, last phrase of Matthew 28 20, as you do this, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. So unless Jesus was wrong, this really occurred, even if it's not recorded by the people in charge. So we come to the discussion with a belief that the Bible's right and everyone else is stupid if we're made to make a choice. Like, dumb, like they don't know. So if we believe Matthew 28, 18 through 20, ah, I forgot all about that. Then, oh, don't do that. Then we have to believe that Jesus was telling the truth when he said there would be ekklesias, starting ekklesias until the end of the world. So that means that this view right here is bunk. Apparently, true Bible-believing, immersing churches have always existed. Now that is the one that we're a little slow on. We have some issues there. But then there are other explanations. And we usually jump on this one because it's super easy for us because usually they're not here to defend themselves. But 90 AD, usually it's told by a particular modern religion that the truth left, you know, went away again. And then over here in the early 1800s, it came back to a special profit. And our argument against that is no different than our argument from the first one. I need you to pay attention to this. This is a really decent argument here. We're saying that that's not possible because Jesus knew what he was saying when he said it will happen all the way until the end of the world. This little selection and starting of little Sandy Ridge Baptist churches will continue until the end of the world. So we don't need a gap here because somehow the true gospel, as we find in scripture, persisted and existed all the way through human history and then church history, even up until the end of the world. Why? The explanation is the same as it is for the Protestant argument. We don't believe that the gospel had to be restored here. We don't believe the gospel had to be restored here. We believe that the gospel has existed in real biblical churches the entire church age since Jesus left planet Earth. Okay. Now, let me tell you about the reading of Mark chapter number 9 and verse number 49. Okay. It's interesting that this verse, and you, hmm. So much to tell you. It's interesting that this verse is found in John Wesley's personal translation dated 1765. Now I'm talking about the last part of verse 49. Every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. Now see, what's at risk here is that the point changes. There's a two-edged sword that we love to ignore. It has two results. I need you to hear me. I'm giving you two normal arguments that we don't always give a whole lot of credence to. This is the first one. We say a couple things here. The church has always existed. And then we come back later and say, but they didn't always have the Bible. I'll demonstrate that. John Wesley, in his translation, 1765, had that verse. The Geneva Bible, the 1500s, had that verse. The Jerome Latin Vulgate, after a conversation with Brittany Bonnet, has this verse. I thought it did, but I don't read Latin, so I showed it to her. It has this verse. The Texas Receptus of 1550 has the verse. The El Xavier Texas Receptus of 1624 has the verse. What do all of these have in common? These all have in common. I'm going back to black now because we're back to the timeline here These all have in common something. That is that they were before 1860 so now we're not talking about the existence of churches now we're talking about the Word of God existing for the Church of God and We're saying that the church had the word of God all the way up until 1862-ish, and then, and then some things started happening. Everything that I've just given you, the Bible between, any Bible that you find before 1862 has that verse. Why does the King James have it? 1611. Why does the New King James have it? It's a translation, kind of a revision of the 1611. So why doesn't most Bibles after 1862-ish have it? The answer is because archaeology has really picked up. And in the mid-1800s, a man named Tischendorf found an old manuscript in St. Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula, and it was thought to be, because of dating methods, the oldest available manuscript. And Sinaiticus, is what it's called, became a real piece of romance in the biblical talk of Britain back then. There was a lot of famous guys living in England at the time, a guy named Charles Spurgeon for one. And he put almost no faith in any reading that was found in a monastery in St. Catharines of Mount Sinai, the Sinai Peninsula. This Tischendorf guy was a money-making kind of dude. He had appointments with the Russian Tsar, and then he was invited by the Pope to come and see this other strange old manuscript that is known as Vaticanus, or Vaticanus, where you might get the word Vatican. And Tischendorf was a very prolific guy. He's an Anglican priest in England, and he was well-known for being really non-Orthodox in his doctrine. But what I want you to see is the main point. I don't want to give you any ad hominem arguments. I don't really care what kind of a guy he is. I want you to see 1862. Now we have a lot of differences in our Bibles. And so what we're led to believe is that the Bible used to read how it now reads when there's a difference between the Bibles. It used to, and then this was corrupted somehow, and then archaeology is helping us recover the real, true, first Bible. Even if you have a Bible that's King James, if it's got a publisher like Schofield, in the margins it'll say the oldest authorities do not have this passage. Okay, fair enough. But I want you to see that the argument I'm making tonight is not one of why you should trust one manuscript over another. I just want you to look at the hard data here. Before this, all the Bibles read alike. And so you're led to believe you had a almost 1,760 year period where the Bible was corrupted, But thanks be to an Anglican priest in Britain who was wandering around the Sinai Peninsula, we now have an entire new science called textual criticism. Now, it existed before, but it wasn't nearly as dramatic. Now, I love the Bible that you read, and I frankly don't care what it says on the spine. I hope my father-in-law never sees this video. Or my dad. I am new King James kind of guy because I feel like it is closest to what older Christians are used to in the old King James and yet I am fine with NIV ESV NASB whatever you I I just want you to read it and Then if you come across a difference in how they read I want you to at least know this history Jesus told the devil man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So we're led to believe that after Jesus said that, he didn't mean it in the written word sense. His church could exist for 1,750 years without a real assurance that they had every word. You should see that as a problem. Keep the Bible that you have, enjoy it, read it, but when you see notes of some versions with inferior manuscripts have this verse, but we've taken it out for you. Just be aware of the talking point. Now, this has, here's my point. We often, we often talk about and romanticize about expositional, exegetical preaching. What is the argument of exegetical, expositional preaching? That philosophy, that approach to preaching. What's the argument there? We're done with all the nerd stuff. Tell me, every verse, is preached, and we say that it matters. We say that every word matters. Is that right? Why does every word matter in a sentence? Yeah, okay, so it's God's word. All right, sure, but other than, other than the reverence we should have for what God says, take anything you write, anything you write, unless you're one of those weirdos at work that writes four paragraphs of emails when it should have been like a handshake at the water bubbler. When you write a paragraph, why do you use the words you do and not other ones? The flow of context. Say again. Yeah, understanding. So here's what Charles Spurgeon said to his students in 18-something in his book, Lectures to My Students. He says, you are so unwavering believing in the verbal inspiration theory, and yet when you stand to pray, you seem to quote whatever you want to. Here's what he says. You who are so unwavering believing in the verbal inspiration theory ought never to quote at all until you can give the precise words, because according to your own showing, the alteration of a single word, you may miss altogether God's sense of the passage. So he says that about prayer, and then we say, well, all Bibles are alike, it doesn't really matter. Because if you remove a whole phrase, it doesn't really change the message of the paragraph. You can't have it both ways. You can't say we're all about expositional, word-by-word, verse-by-verse preaching, and it doesn't matter if you lose a line. It doesn't matter if you add a line. It doesn't change the message. I just want us to be honest about this. Okay, pause. I'm gonna give you my bottom line in a minute. But what questions do you have about this? I'm arguing for the fact that the word belongs in there. The line belongs in there. It's not just the user-friendly argument of, well, if it's not in there, then Leviticus doesn't quote it at all in the New Testament. I think that's a good argument. But my argument is more of, look, are you gonna tell me that for the first 1,700 years of church history after the apostles, we had verses we shouldn't have had? Andrew? Great, and that is my bottom line. Is there any other questions? He said, who's buying ice cream tonight after the service? And we said, Sharon Turner. He said, how does this affect the overall message of tonight? Which is the point, right? Who cares if it doesn't? Any other questions? Virginia. Well, if we're in Acts 8, it matters a lot. If we're in Mark 16, it matters a lot. If we're in John 118, it matters a lot. 1 John 5, 7, it matters a lot. Revelation 1, 5, it matters a lot. It matters a lot here because it affects the message. So does it matter everywhere? I don't know. It depends on if you think God actually wrote particular words, and I would say you believe he did, so it matters a lot. Matt? No, I think that would be the opposite. I think that would be the other extreme, is that it affects nothing, and the other extreme is it affects everything. I'm not saying it affects everything. I'm saying that the Christian who just picked up their Bible for the first time this morning, and it opens up Mark chapter 9, is going to wonder if there's a resolution here. So I'm not saying that we're going to handle this philosophically in one night. I'm saying that when I come to the passage, I come to it with a presupposition. And my presuppositions are preferable to me, or I'd have yours. And the presupposition is that when I come to this passage, or any passage, I'm going to believe that what Jesus, two presuppositions. Churches have always existed, and whatever word of, whatever scriptures were prolific, they were widely available. I mean, because we're not arguing with the fact that, let's just say, the book of Acts, copied for the second-generation church. We're not saying that they couldn't have existed without Acts 8. We're saying it really matters the morning that that pastor preaches it. It matters. Do we have a question, is what I want to know. Do we have any questions? Go ahead, Sarah. Right, and what I want to make clear is not that your point isn't valid. There is a thousand or more manuscripts now than there were a hundred years ago. My point is I don't care because my presupposition is that the church of Jesus Christ had the scripture the entire church age. That we didn't need archaeology to tell us what God really said. That's my point. So I'm not saying that what you're saying doesn't matter in the discussion. It absolutely matters, but it doesn't matter in the bottom line, which is, did the church really need archeology to have the true scripture? And my answer is, it did not. No, it did not. And so do I need to be a gee whiz kid on church history to believe that there have always been little churches somewhere preaching truth? And my answer is no. Why? Because Matthew 28. And then, do I have to believe that archaeology was going to give us the real Bible? We call it the buried Bible theory, where another piece of pottery affects the last textual. That's why the Nestle Allen has 34 editions now? I mean, how many do you need in 130 years? 34 editions! So, I mean, every time they uncover some piece of pottery or a piece in a museum, they update the New Testament? So that's why my presupposition is not, ooh, we found something great, let's update the Bible. And I don't think that's yours. My presupposition is a pastor needs to believe that he's believed something that Christians before him believed. And therefore, when Jesus said, teaching them all things whatsoever I have commanded you, if I don't have something that I'm convinced makes that up, what am I doing here? So this is really, really important. So to your question, the passage at hand, why does it matter? Verse 49, here we go. For everyone will be seasoned with fire. And your question should be like, when? Well, verse 43, when you're put into hell with two hands. When we be seasoned with fire, well, verse 45, when you are put into hell with two feet. When we be seasoned with fire, well, verse 47, when you enter into hell with two eyes. That word everyone there should not be considered like every person because in the context it doesn't work. I've used this 20, 30 times. If I came in the room tonight and said, everyone is welcomed at Sharon Turner's house for ice cream. I contextually mean everyone in the room. I hope no one here would infer from that. Go call all your friends and have them meet you at Sharon's house. Context helps you define everyone. So here in verse 49, everyone will be seasoned with fire. What does that mean? Everyone who he warned about in the first several verses before this. And every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. We learned this morning, salt is a picture of Jesus Christ. And I think that you're gonna find here two realities. Both of them, first phrase of verse 49, everyone will be seasoned with fire. Last part of the phrase, every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. I think that you would see that it is a stretch that somehow Jesus is offering sacrifices to the Father by putting people in hell. Surely you would see that as a problem. But the fact that these two phrases go with each other, and don't forget what I would be doing if I was in Mark chapter nine. If I didn't make a decision, I can't exegete the passage for you. I would stand up here and say, well, it could mean this, I'm not really sure, and I would just be bumbling around like a man with no authority. So the verse either has that phrase or it doesn't. And I have to be the guy that makes that decision. We couldn't call a meeting before the service tonight and say, do we think the textual criticism gave us the right answer? Or should we believe what 17, 18 centuries before them did? So I had to make a choice. So what does it mean? The only place in the New Testament where Leviticus 2 is quoted seems to be saying this. Everyone who goes to hell is seasoned with fire in the same way in which every sacrifice offered on the altar is seasoned with salt. What are we saying? We're saying that either the Lord will be satisfied by putting people in hellfire or he will be satisfied when Christ the salt is put on the sacrifice. But either way, God will be satisfied. God will be satisfied with people going to hell or God will be satisfied with Christ being your sacrifice. Either one, but God will be satisfied. If this is difficult for you, I want you to rehearse with me one more passage before we close in prayer. Please go with me to Revelation chapter number seven. Revelation chapter number eight. Revelation chapter number eight. And we're looking at verse number four. The smoke of the incense. Looking at the end of verse three now. He was given much incense that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which according to verse three is the prayers of the saints. The smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints ascended before God from the angel's hand. So we have this scene in heaven where the prayers of the saints are pleasing to God. Aromas that are pleasing to God, like frankincense on the sacrifice this morning. Now look at chapter 14, chapter 14. We're looking at verse number nine. Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, if anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of his indignation, and he'll be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb, and the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever. So I want you to get two realities and then we'll close. The prayers of the saints please God in heaven. The smoke of the torment of the damned pleases God in heaven. If that shocked you, you weren't reading with me. It says in verse number 11, the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever. To where? Look at verse 10. End of the verse. They'll be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. You're supposed to get a picture here. Same book of the Bible. where our thrice holy God will be satisfied by either allowing Christ the substitute for people called saints or allowing those who will not have that to be salted with fire. But God will be glorified in both outcomes. Frankly, I can't preach that out of Mark 9 if it's not there. That doesn't mean that by itself that argument isn't helpful. It means that tonight, I hope, I gave you a peek into at least some semblance of the argument. We can't have an opinion on who's the best football team, the best soccer team, the best basketball team, the best type of music, the best drink to have with your steak. We can't be opinionated on that. And then when we come across a textual variant in our Bibles, we say, I'm not really sure. Have an opinion. It really matters that God's people have an opinion. Or you're gonna be like a 17-year-old Bill Sturm that went to his youth pastor and said, is this Bible perfect? I didn't know what I meant by that question, but I promise you I knew what I meant by his answer. No, there's all kinds of mistakes in it. I said, well then how do I know John 3.16 is okay? Well, we're sure of that one. Now his argument to a 17-year-old was, there's no variations between the manuscripts. But that seed of doubt was sown in my mind and I laid awake deep at night wondering what kind of God am I serving that can't even assure me I'm believing the Bible? This is not intended on criminating or incriminating anyone that has a Bible that reads differently than mine. But maybe it will at least help you understand the struggle that I had this week. Do I mention it at all? That was what was on my mind.