a few questions and they're almost all on the one subject. I haven't had a chance really to look into them very much. I just got them this morning. But you may, if we get on in time. And when are we to be finished, Norris, on this? After the intermission before 7 o'clock. After the intermission before 7 o'clock. Yeah, well, bye. Bye. This one says, please tell us why we should use the authorized version and why the New American Standard is not a good version and the background from which it came. Now that almost, if I could answer this, would take care of almost all these others. What is your opinion of the 1881 and 1901 and the revised versions and other variations of the Bible in relation to the authorized version? Also, I have heard it said that the Septuagint is what was used during Jesus' day. Is this true? Let's see if we have one or two others here. I think they're all on this same line. Now here's some questions about Hebrews, some verses here in Hebrews, we'd like to get around to that. Can a man, well here's one that's different, can a man be born again of the Spirit of God and deny any or all of these doctrines? Which doctrines are they here? The deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, including the virgin birth, bodily resurrection, salvation by grace only, bodily return of thee to the earth of the Lord Jesus Christ. First Thessalonians 4.16, the shout, the voice of the archangel, the trump of God, and then in juxtaposition, side by side, Revelation 17.4, called, chosen, faithful. I'm not so sure that, maybe I could talk to my dear sister who gave me this. I was rushing and I'm afraid I didn't get quite the font there. Now, may I point out to you very specifically, not that you do not know, but to stir up your pure mind for way of remembrance, we are in the end time. And this end time is characterized by a falling away, and of course that is apostasy, that's the meaning of the word, falling away from truth. Now when there's a parting away from truth concurrently there's always confusion because they're sort of Siamese twins you know where there's confusion then of course there is mental and heart disturbance and people naturally come short of a high standard of the Lord. Everything we have or ever will have will be found here as we said so many times to you, all that God does for us, in us, with us, through us, to us, must come away this word. It's the only material the Spirit of God uses to produce life and to promote it, name it, and it has to be here. So you can understand why the arch enemy of God and man would want to do something to destroy this book. Now, I ought to whisper to you, and this is no compliment to the devil, but he knows it can be destroyed. He tried to destroy the Living Word. You don't see this depicted on Christmas cards, but the night Jesus Christ was born, the devil was there in that stable with one-third of the fallen angels whom he had dragged down to do what? To devour the man-child as soon as he was born, Revelation 12.5. Now he couldn't do it. Just think, Satan was there when Jesus was born with all of those cohorts of fallen angels for one purpose, to devour the man-child. He couldn't do it. So failing to abort the Saviorhood of Jesus Christ, both at the manger and at the cross when he said come down from the cross that is before your work is finished come down don't finish your work come down failing there he's going to do what he knows is the next most effective thing and that is try to destroy the written word you understand I'm sure that there are places in this book where you can't differentiate between the living word and the written word you know that John 14.6, I am the light. John 6.63, my words are light. Different light, same light. Same light. You can't differentiate because after all the written word is the breath, if you please, of God and Jesus Christ is God made flesh of the word that came to earth. But nevertheless, getting back to this, the devil is too wise to try to destroy the Bible. He knows he can't. He can't destroy the word of God. but he can do a lot of things to try to supplant it or to corrupt it in the minds and hearts of God's people now he can only do it in one of two ways either by adding to the scriptures or subtracting from the scriptures and you mark it down in your little red book he's too wise to add to because those who have been in the word for a long time would say, wait a minute, this is not in the Bible, you know. So he subtracts from the deletions are absolutely frightening. For instance, there are in the revisions that this one question asks about 1881 and 1901, so we're told 5,337 deletions. subtractions, if you please. And here's the way it's done. It's done so subtly that very few would discover it. For instance, in the New American Standard, we're told that 16 times the word Christ is gone. When you're reading through your press, you wouldn't miss many of them. Some you might. And then 10 times or 12 times the word Lord is gone. For instance, if you were If you were in a church when the pastor's speaking on the words of the Lord Jesus in his temptation, get thee behind me Satan, you had a new American standard, you wouldn't even find it, it's not even in there. And there's so many such deletions, so in order to get around it and to further blind the hearts and minds of people, even though it may be done conscientiously, there isn't any worse kind of error than to have conscientious error, you know. If you're conscientiously wrong, it's a terrible situation to be in. But nevertheless, where there is an omission that might be observed, they put in the margin not in the oldest manuscripts, but they don't tell you what those oldest manuscripts are. What oldest manuscripts? Or not in the best manuscripts. What are the best manuscripts? They don't tell you. You see how subtle that is? The average person, he comes down and sees a little note here, sees a letter or a number, and he looks over at the corresponding one in the margin and says, not in the better manuscript, so he takes it around to those scholars, and they must know. And then it goes on. That's how one can be deceived, and how easily one can be deceived. Now, I think with most of these, we ought to start with this one because it will encompass most of them. What is your opinion of the 1881, 1901, and other variations of the Bible in relation to the authorized version? Now, to begin with, that question is very clearly worded. This is not the King James Version. Never was, isn't, and never will be. Not many perhaps have caught this, but when King James gave his seal to the order to have the Bible translated. It was just, if you please, the permission or the authority to go ahead with it. It wasn't his Bible. And for some 200 years his name was not connected with it. He didn't want his name connected with it. And long, long after he had gone from this thing In some sly, clever way, King James was attached to it. You see, that's attaching God's word to a man, or a man's name to God's word. And it shouldn't be. It really shouldn't be. It's the authorized version. The authorized version. Now, let me see how far I can go back in this. Let's go back to say 352, that's A.D. in the year of our Lord. when Constantine, the old pagan wolf he was called, was concerned because his kingdom was threatened with a schism or a break, a division. Due to what? Due to the fact that the Babylon doctrine, with the mother and child coming up through history, came up to where the Roman doctrine of mother and child came into being. Up until not too many years ago, even ungodly people had a certain respect for the Bible. They'd say it's a good book or something like that, you know. And way back in those days, for those who didn't know the Lord even, the book meant something. So, we're told that Constantine the pagan wolf, in order to cement his kingdom, felt that he ought to bring about, or have brought about, a Bible that would satisfy both sides. That's exactly what we're doing today. I mean, what is being done today. I'll tell you about that in just a moment. So, he called upon Eusebius. There were two of those, but Eusebius the historian. Well, who was Eusebius? Since we never met him, and some of you perhaps haven't become too well acquainted with him, even through reading. Well, he was a protege of Oregon. and who was Oregon. Oregon was one who believed that Christ was a created being like the Jehovah's Witnesses, therefore he's not divine. Now a man who studies under a teacher like that certainly would imbibe some other, but nevertheless, Eusebius brought into being a Bible that would somehow or other not offend those who had the Babylon doctrine or those who had the Roman doctrine of the mother and the child. Now, there are two of those in existence. Extant, in existence. A and B, the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus. And where are they? They are in the custodial care of Rome. Now, almost all, and I'll get back to this later, almost all of our revisions of recent years in particular, come through that stream. demands that I make this comment, that necessitates this comment, there's the false and the true. Both in the book we have today, there's the false and the true, and either our manuscripts come through the false stream or the correct stream, or that is, through the approved stream of manuscripts. People say, well, when they speak of the oldest manuscripts, they usually mean the A and the B, the Codex Uniticus and the Codex Vaticanus. But nobody's seen either one of those for 500 years. They've been under lock and key in Rome. And the only copies we have are the copies that Rome decided to give to the outside world, and I don't trust them one inch. Never, never, never. And I can tell you why in just a moment. Now nobody, none of our students, none of our scholars today have seen either the A or the B unless they've seen just a page or two through a glass case but that's not enough to get the feel of the whole thing just to see the pages open at one place So here we have the stream of manuscripts and the stream of Greek texts coming down through the custodial care I put that in quotations, custodial care of Rome. And if it's in the custody or care of Rome, I don't want anything to do with it. And I've come to the place now, I can't stand toe-to-toe with the scholars, those who have delved into all of these things, the manuscripts and textual criticism for years and years. I've had too many other things to do. And you have been able either, so what do you do? I don't argue with them anymore. I'm not going to argue with any of them. I'm just going to ask, on what manuscript or manuscripts is this version based? And if it's in, if it's based upon a manuscript that came down through this Roman stream, I don't want anything to do with it. I don't want anything to do with it. Now you say, how can we know? Well, when God was ready to tell the world through a converted monk that the just shall live by faith he raised up a man and I'm sure that God raised him up couldn't be otherwise by the name of Erasmus now Erasmus is said by those who seem to know scholars we have to take the word for some things I'm sure that he was the wisest man this side of Solomon that ever lived It was said that he could do 10 hours work in one or 10 days work in one day. Brilliant. I've forgotten how many languages he spoke. He was at home. He could say that he could move around among these various languages, 18 or 20 different languages just as we can move around in the English language. It was just that much at home. He knew the manuscripts that were available and he brought about a Greek text. Now he was so brilliant that the Pope offered him, that is to keep him I suppose from doing this Greek text, offered him the position of a Cardinal, which is a high ranking position for those in the Roman Catholic Church and I know a little bit about it because my father's people were from Ireland, they're Roman Catholic all the way back, I have three cousins in Chicago who are priests and And you have a letter of mine, don't you, from my Louise? I just thought of it that minute. I have a cousin also in the Chicago area who is a nun. She's at the DeKalb, it's called Notre Dame High School. But that was quite an offer, to be offered the position of a cardinal. He refused it, turned it down. The British government, I'm told, offered him the highest position and one of the highest positions possible I suppose that's the way we should put it in the British Commonwealth and the way I read it as I recall at his own price he turned it down Germany did the same thing because he felt God had called him to bring about the Greek text, a pure Greek text now just hold that, all of this goes on in so many areas We have a friend in one of our Baptist churches, Brother Mike knows him, very delightful chap, very well educated, and he speaks against Erasmus because he has some attachment to the Roman Church. Even our friend Peter Ruckman speaks against Erasmus. But how could you speak against a man claiming that he's Roman when he turned down the offer of a cardinalship and campaigned against monasticism, that is, against the liturgy and so on of the Catholic Church, and was detested by the Catholic people. And not only that, listen to this. Of the, what is it, 39, 29 or 39 Catholic organizations of men, the Augustinians and the, well, I've forgotten the various names down the line, right down to the Jesuits. Do you know why the Jesuits, one of the main reasons why the Jesuits came into being under Ignatius? Loyola, do you know the Loyola doctrine? Casuistry, what does it mean? It means the end justifies the means. And to work that out, their main project was to supplant the Erasmus text, get it out of the way somehow, just undermine it. And this is their pledge. You can find this, anybody can find this in some books. I saw some of the books in some of the homes there. But you can find a lot of books. You can go to the library and get a direct if you care. They said, in order to supplant the Erasmus text, we'll put our men in Protestant, send them to Protestant seminaries, Protestant Bible schools. We'll get them in teaching positions in seminaries. We'll get them in pulpits of churches, and I'm sure there are some in pulpits of churches. To do what? The whole aim around the world is to destroy the Erasmus text, and this of course came, the authorized version came, the Erasmus text. But getting back to this one matter that really impresses me a great deal. When God was ready to tell the world that the just shall live by faith, and He got hold of the heart of Luther, And he climbed the steps on his knees and tacked his thesis to the door, that just shall live by faith, and took all of the persecution that comes from one who turns against the Church of Rome. If the just shall live by faith, where do we get faith? Romans 10.17, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. If you're going to have pure faith, you have to have the pure word of God. Doesn't that make sense? And so here, God raised up Erasmus to bring about what was called a pure Greek text. And had it completed when Luther came thundering forth that just shall live by faith, and here he had the Greek text of Erasmus to translate. Somebody put it this way, that Erasmus laid the egg and Luther hatched it. just at the right time he had the wherewithal and all he did was translate it into German and so beautiful the way he translated it I read to you the other night Let me see if I can read it again. 2 Corinthians 5, 21. He who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Imputation. Christ took all that was ours that he might give us all that was his. And this is the way Luther translated it freely from the Erasmus text. Same message, identically as we have in the Authorized Version. Thou, Lord Jesus, art my righteousness, and I am become thy sin. Thou hast taken what was mine, and given me what was thine. What thou hast not, thou didst become, that I might become what I was not. I think I mentioned the other night, since there's so much concern about these versions and paraphrases and so on, marvelous opportunity for the devil to get in his strokes, you know. Through computerized procedures they've tried to determine the accuracy right down the line. Now you have lists of those in various books. If not, you go to your library and get it. The authorized version is right at the top. Friends, you can say the authorized version is absolutely correct. How correct? 100% correct because Biblical correctness is predicated on doctrinal accuracy, and not one enemy of this book of God has ever proved a wrong doctrine in the authorized version. Think of it. You've never heard of anyone's intellect being thwarted because he believed this authorized version, have you? And you never will. You've never heard of anyone, any time going astray, who embraced the precepts of the authorized version. You never, never will. I tell you, I used to laugh with others. I've stopped it. When a person will say, well, reflecting upon the intelligence of perhaps some mountaineer or some elderly person who said, well, if the authorized version is good enough for Paul, it's good enough for me, and you get a lot of ha-ha's, say, that perhaps is true. If this is the word of God, Paul had the word of God, then things equal to the same thing are equal to each other. We have the book that Paul had. Now, it's true, it's true there could be And perhaps should be some few corrections of words that are archaic, and a few places where it could read just a little more freely. But after all, as I said to the men this morning in the class, this came up in one area, just think of the countless million dollars of God's money, it could go into God's service, spent on all of these translations and versions, 100 of them right now, 100 of them, think of it. The Living Bible, so-called, and it breaks my heart to even say Living Bible, that sort of indicates that nothing else is living. Even this, you know. And it's not a Bible, it's a paraphrase. And the manuscript was submitted to me before it was ever printed. It's done by one of my best friends, one of the dearest men of God you ever met. Isn't anybody finer than Ken Taylor? when he's home one day and we can on a business matter and they were eating their evening meal and he said would you like to see my family went in there were five children one side five on the other and the little mother at the one end and the dad up at the other end beautiful to see dear sweet fellow no question about it but I he said give me a frank appraisal I didn't know whose it was and I wrote him I said I don't know whose this is maybe it's one of my good friends but it should never be printed you can ask him he gave me a nice check for my effort but I thought it should never be printed, but just think in something like two years, 22 million dollars. And those books are then sold, 22 million. Year and a half, the royalties, something like 1,500,000. Now you multiply that, all of the others down the line, 100, the countless millions. If the Spirit of God were leading in all of this, And if people really meant to get God's word out, if that's what they have down deep in their hearts, you know what they would have done? The Spirit of God would have led this way, couldn't have led any other way. They would have taken just one little pinch of these countless millions of dollars and had some scholars make these few simple corrections. Nothing about doctrine. These simple corrections, spent the other millions to get this corrected word out to the ends of the earth. When I say corrected, I mean just some of the archaic words, such as he who will come, he who lets, will let till he's taken out of the way. Now, we don't use the word that way, but you can find out what it means in just a moment. Back in Jeremiah 4, 22, my people are savage. Now, there wouldn't be two people in a congregation who would know what that means, but I like it because when I looked it up, I found it had more meaning than any other word that could have been put there. It means thick-headed. God says he can't get through to you because you're thick-headed. And maybe he wants it to stay there. If a person looked it up, he'd get a better understanding of it than if one word that man had put in there to change it. And we were talking out at Roberts the other day. There are places where I believe the Spirit of God led the translators of the Authorized Version. And you read their biographies. They were mighty men of God, spent as much as five hours a day in prayer, and in some of the new twenty-some languages. And it was before modernism filled the air, and before their attention was diverted by so many other things, television and so on, that they were men of God. And I think they helped us in certain areas. For instance this, the Lord himself should ascend with a shout. the voice of the archangel, the trump of God, the dead in Christ shall rise first, and those living and remain shall be caught up together and meet them with the Lord in the air, and so shall they ever be with the Lord." The next verse, the 18th verse of that fourth chapter of 1 Thessalonians says, we're for comfort one another these words. It isn't comfort at all. It isn't the word. What is the word for comfort? Some of you older mothers, the pacifier used to give to babies, it has a medicinal effect, starts with P, what is it? That's the Greek word. Paragorya. Paragorya is the word, that is the word. You know what the word is? Kaleo means to call, with the prefix para, beside, and when those translators, and I'm sure they must have been led of the Lord, when they were telling about the coming of the Lord and how wonderful it is, you can almost hear the old Warriors say, call God's people alongside this truth. It will comfort their hearts. I don't think something like that should be or needs to be changed. That is what we are talking about. Back in the 58th chapter of Isaiah, If you said, now let me read this and see if this is what you understand. But even a child could rearrange the words. You know, with all of the verses, and I used to know how many verses, but there are 1189 chapters in there. There are many, many thousands of verses. The copies, writing so many thousands, could easily, in copying, maybe transpose a word. But that isn't serious. But now listen to this, for instance. The 58th chapter of Isaiah, used to be in my Bible, here it is right here. Now see if this is what it means. I'll read it exactly. The 13th verse of 58th chapter of Isaiah, if thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath from doing thy pleasure on my holy day. Now that isn't what it means at all. It means the opposite. Here's the way you do it. You can see this is just a little bit of clumsy copying. Sometimes when I rewrite things I write, I have a dangling participle and I was thinking of the, you know, thinking of the content rather than the lines of syntax and so on. If thou turn away thy foot from, and just omit Sabbath for the minute, if thou turn away thy foot from doing thy own pleasure, On my holy day, what holy day is that? The Sabbath, that's where it belongs, that one word, and call the Sabbath a delight. Now, is there anybody here who couldn't, couldn't, just, it wouldn't, doesn't take very high IQ to do that, even I can do that. You know? But somebody want to complain about things like that, well at that perhaps the Sabbath could be put down where it belongs. It's not talking about turning away the foot from the Sabbath, at all. It's talking about turning away the foot from doing their own pleasure on the Sabbath. Well, now that isn't serious. Actually, after I've listened, and I have in so many places to all of these arguments, and I've listened to the scholars I've sat with, the translators, I, to be honest with you, I haven't done anything seriously wrong anywhere with this. Really. Really. Just a couple of words, as I said, archaic, that are not in use today, well, could be changed. I personally, it's just my own personal feeling, I don't think the thousands of these should be changed. Because, for instance, God's word, God's thoughts are above our thoughts, higher than our thoughts, and these words of the expression of his thoughts and I like to see it a little different here and there from men's ways and men's thoughts so that you see even that I actually I don't know anything wrong with this and it's been tested for 362 years are you ready to throw it overboard because some scholars have come along and said well now this is better it reads better you can understand it better let me tell you with all of their self-justification people know less and less about God's word less and less about God's word well At any rate, getting back to the question, time goes so quickly, we're getting out on some tangents here. The 1881. Now, to begin with, the revisers for the 1881 were to be revisers. They weren't to bring out a new book. They were revisers to bring up some of the words up to date because language has changed, especially the English language. Incidentally, God not only knew about Luther ready to present the gesture live by faith, when he raised up Erasmus, but he knew that the English language would cover the world when he raised up Tyndale to give us the English Bible. But nevertheless, they were to be revisers, but the fact is, and believe me, this can't be refuted, there wasn't enough in the authorized version to revise, to make it worth the while, to cater to the ego of students, of scholars. So when they saw that there wasn't much to revise here, they had their committee arranged. One was a Unitarian, a man by the name of Smith. That's why almost all of you find on verses concerning the Incarnation there's something wrong, such as 1 Timothy 3.16, with, My common consent, great is the mystery of Godliness. Don't you believe that God's mystery of Godliness is dependent upon what men think or their opinions. He who was manifest in the flesh, you've been manifest in the flesh, I've been manifest in the flesh, God was manifest in the flesh. Do you see the Unitarian flavor there? He got in some bow somewhere and that must be one of them. But nevertheless, they didn't have enough to revise. Well, what were they going to do? Well, two brilliant Cambridge scholars by the name of Dr. Hart and Dr. Westcott had been collaborating on a new Greek text built on the Codex Sinaiticus, the Codex Vaticanus. which they believed were the very best manuscripts held by Rome. So they said to the committee, now there isn't, I don't know whether they said these words or not, when they discovered there wasn't enough to revise, they said, now we would suggest that we bring about a new version. And they pledged, had those men pledged themselves to secrecy that they wouldn't tell anybody about the text they were using until after the book was out. Afraid, I guess, that they would be curbed, that the King of England or somebody would prevent them. Twice British royalty refused to have anything to do with the 1881 revision. But at any rate, it was deception, you see, to begin with. Their own text hadn't even been published yet, hadn't stood the scrutiny of the public. So the 1881 was built upon that. And the only fundamentalist who stayed on the board was Dr. Prevenberry Scrivener, And before he died, he thought he had to break his promise to this group of men. And he let the world know that they took advantage after advantage. That's where we've gotten the number of something like 5,337 deletions. And he said, every time I registered an objection, I was voted down and they took liberties with God's word. He was right there in almost every meeting, maybe every meeting. And he revealed that to the world before he died. Now, When it came out in 1881, many people liked it because it said Jehovah instead of Lord in many places. Well, that's minor, you can say that. Say that with your own, I mean with the authorized version. But it was scarcely ten years before it proved to be a failure. That is, it didn't get anywhere. So within ten years they started communicating with spiritual leaders, religious leaders, they put it on this side of the water. to work with them on another printing called the 1901 edition. Feeling, I suppose, with the Americans cooperating that they would have a wider sales range. Well, just think, when the 1901 came out, it had already gone ten years when it was practically a failure. It was practically a failure because in 1911, in the first centenary printing of the authorized version, The publishers had 34 outstanding scholars to go over the authorized version and see what legitimate changes could be made here and there. You know, they took the 1901 edition and they could only take 2 out of 100 corrections in that. Only 2%. And immediately they discovered that the 1901 was not trustworthy. And it didn't go very long until it died out. In all of my pastures, I can only remember, now there could have been others without my knowing it, but I remember one person who ever owned one of those 1901 American standards. So, back in the, oh, when was it, 1956, 57? Mr. F. Dewey Lockman of the Lockman Foundation, one of the dearest friends we've ever had for 25 years. Big man, some 300 pounds, no white hair, one of the most terrific businessmen I've ever met. Oliver said he was like Nehemiah. He was building a wall and you couldn't get in his way. When he got his mind on something, he went right to it. Couldn't be daunted. Never saw anything like it. Most unusual man. Very unusual. Spent weeks and weeks and weeks in their home. Real close friends and family. Well, he discovered that the copyright was just as loose as a fumbled ball on a football field. Nobody wanted it. The publishers didn't want it. Who wanted it? Nobody wanted it. It didn't get anywhere. Mr. Loughlin got in touch with me and said, Would you and Anne come out and spend some weeks with us and we'll work on a feasibility report. I can pick up the copyright to the 1901 if it seems advisable. Well, up till that time I thought the Westcott and Hart was the text. You're intelligent if you believe in the Westcott and Hart. Some of the finest people in the world believe in that Greek text. They're the finest leaders we have today. You'd be surprised if I told you you wouldn't believe it. They have gone into it just as I hadn't gone into it. Just taking for granted. But at any rate, we went out. We started on a feasibility report. And I encouraged him to go ahead with it. I'm afraid I'm in trouble with the Lord. I encouraged him to go ahead with it. We laid the groundwork. I wrote the format. I helped to interview some of the I sat with the translators. I wrote the preface. When you see the New American Standard, they're my words. Well, when I got my copy, I got one of the 50 deluxe copies that were printed. Mine was number 7. Blue, light blue cover. But it was a big, rather big, and I couldn't carry it with me. And I never really looked at it. I just took for granted it was done as we started it, you know. until some of my friends across the country began to learn that I had some part in it and they started saying, what about this? What about this? Especially Dr. David Otis Fuller in Grand Rapids. I've known him for 35 years and he'd say, he always called me Frank or called him Duke. He said, Frank, what about this? You had part in it. What about this? What about this? Well, first of all, no, wait a minute. Let's don't go overboard. Let's don't be too critical. You know how you justify yourself at the last minute. I got to the place, I said to Ann, I'm in trouble. I can't refuse these arguments. It's wrong. It's terribly wrong. It is frightfully wrong. And what am I going to do about it? Well, I went through hard search, some real soul searching for about four months. I don't know, I think about four months. And I sat down and wrote the most difficult letter of my life, I think. And I wrote to my friend Dewey and I said, Dewey, I don't want to add to your problems. lost his wife some three years ago. I was there for the funeral. The doctor made a mistake in operating on the cataract. He lost the sight of one eye and then had to have an operation on the other. He had a slight heart attack, had sugar diabetes, a man 74 years of age. But I wrote and said, I can no longer ignore these criticisms I'm hearing and I can't refute them. The only thing I can do, and dear brother, I have nothing against you and I can witness at the judgement seat of Christ. And before men were ever told that you were 100% sincere, he's not a translator, he's not schooled in language, he's just a businessman, he did the promoting, he had the money, he did the promoting. So I said, he did it conscientiously, he wanted it absolutely right, he thought it was right. I guess nobody pointed out some of these things to him when it was finished, but nevertheless, I said, I must, under God, renounce every attachment to the New American Standard. I have the copy of the letter, in fact I have his letter, showed it to some people, the Roberts saw it, Mike saw it, stating that he was bowled over, that he was shocked beyond words, said that's putting it mildly, but he said, I'll write you in a few weeks. And I still love you, to me you're going to be Franklin, my friend, throughout the course. And he said, I'll write you in three weeks. But he won't write me now. He was to be married. Sent us an invitation to come to the reception. Standing in the courtroom, I mean in the county court, by the desk, the clerk said, what is your full name, sir? And he said, Franklin Dewey. And that's the last word he spoke on this earth. So he was buried two days before he was supposed to be married. And he's with the Lord. He loves the Lord. He knows different now. Well, I tell you, dear people, you're going to... somebody's going to have to stand. And no matter... if you stand against the... everyone else, stand. Don't get obnoxious. Don't argue. There's no sense in arguing. But nevertheless, that's where the New American Standard stands in connection with the Authorized Version. Now, let me... I just jotted these down quickly to show you. That's what these many versions, paraphrases, and translations are doing. First, they cause widespread confusion. Because everywhere we go people say, what do you think of this? What do you think of this? What do you think of this? Well, what do young people think when they hear all of that? Two, they discourage memorization. Who's going to memorize when each one has a different Bible, different translation? They obviate the use of the concordance. Where are you going to find a concordance for Good News for a Modern Man or any of these others? You're going to find one. You're going to have to have a concordance for every one? Well, you'd have a lot of concordances. Four, they provide opportunity for perverting the truth. It makes a marvelous, with all of these translation versions, each one trying to get a little different slam from the others. Make a difference, but if it isn't different, why have a new effort? Marvelous opportunity for the devil to slip in his perverting influence. Five, These many translations make teaching of the Bible difficult, and I'm finding that more and more as I go around the country. I mentioned this thing the other night, but how could a mathematics professor or instructor teach a certain particular problem in a class if the class had about six or eight different textbooks? How about that? Where are some of these teachers? Where's Sister Arlene? Are you in here? I thought I saw you. How could you do it? How could you do it? They elicit profitless argumentation because everywhere we go they say, well now this one is more accurate. Well which is much more accurate? How do they know? And this is no reflection because I would have done press a few years ago. In Christian Light Magazine, I got this. My dear friend, Dr. George Sweeting, President of the Moody Bible Institute, one of the sweetest dears to me I've ever met. He's wonderfully named. He's starting today down right near my home at Southern Keswick. If I'm back by the end of the week, I expect to see him and go and talk to him about these things. When he was asked for his recommendation of the New American Standard, he said, I like it because it reads freely. You read it yourself. It's in the ad. in various magazines, and he said, I particularly like it because it's so near to the original. I'm going to say, now George, what is the original? Have you ever seen it? There isn't any original. There isn't any original. Some will say, well where did Erasmus get his manuscripts? Well let me tell you something, he didn't have to have any manuscripts. He did, but he didn't have... Well, where did Moses get his manuscripts? He didn't have any. Holy men of old were born along by the Holy Ghost, as God Almighty transmitted His Word to men. Peter and Paul didn't have any manuscripts, God spoke to them, and God could have spoken to Erasmus even without a manuscript, but he had manuscripts, and he knew them. Oh, lest I forget it, before I read these others, in one of these questions here, somebody says, how can we know we have the whole truth? Well, just simply by believing God. And what do I mean by that? John 16 13 when he the spirit of truth is come he will guide you into how much tell me tell me now all and if we don't have all truth the Holy Spirit isn't doing his work we have to have all truth for him to lead us into all truth and there are many many other that did I say that a little loudly again The many, many versions incur an enormous waste of the Lord's money. I commented on that just a little earlier. Just one in two years bringing in 22 million dollars. That could have sent a lot of missionaries out. And then this, let's forget, there's just so many facets, so many aspects of this. Everywhere we go people say this, exactly what my good friend Ken Taylor said when he got out the Living Bible, said he found that his children, couldn't understand the authorized version very well, but could understand if he stepped it down for them. Well, I want to tell you something. Up until recent years, till the devil started stirring up the atmosphere, nobody seemed to have any trouble understanding God's Word was born again. Why? Because you've heard this 101 times, would you let me make it 102 times? The Bible is the only textbook, now get this, the Bible is the only textbook that has the author present every time it's studied. Why, Robert Mermick changes the young man, died at 29, and Sister Eileen, he gave in to a lot of Latin, sometimes Greek, when he wanted to say something, he just poured out his heart in some other language. I mean, not an unknown language. such as, let me see if I can bring up one, one day he was troubled about himself, and he heard a preacher exalting the Lord Jesus, and he said, let me see if I can get this, would you go out just for a minute, Sister Arlene, I don't want a Latin teacher here, something like this, O quam humilium, sed diligentissimum, Oh, how humble and yet how energetic, you know. And then he listened and looked for it out of his heart. He said, Oh, quam dejectum, said Wigillum. So self-effacing, and yet so vigilant, so alert. And then he said to himself, as he thought of his heart, he says, Non pecum hobbit, my heart has no peace. Where? Why? Pecatum? Atwood, Forays, Maynard. Sin lies at my door." Then he said, what's the word for that? J-U-V-A. How do you pronounce that? Did you pronounce the J? But anyway, he cried out, Help, Pater, Fili, et Spiritus. Help, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You see, people who knew the Holy Spirit, knew God, they would say, well Lord, You can lead me into your truth. The great difficulty is we're trying to compensate for it. We don't know the Holy Spirit as we should. We don't know our teacher. We're not hearing. If we could hear his voice, we would have no trouble learning his word from the authorized version. And let me tell you this, you may not be able to answer the arguments. And you won't be. I can't answer them either. Some of these university and seminary professors come along and say, what about this? What about this? And they go into areas that I haven't even had time to get in. As I said to you a couple minutes ago, you don't need to defend yourself. You don't need to defend God's Word. You don't need to defend it. You don't need to defend it. You don't need to apologize for it. Just say, well, did this version or this translation come down through the Roman stream? If so, count me out. Whatever you say about Erasmus and Tyndale, that's what I want. And besides, we've had this for 360 some years. It's been tested as no other piece of literature has ever been tested. Word by word, syllable by syllable, and think even as of this moment, no one has found anything wrong with doctrine in it. And that's the main thing, you know. He that wills to do the will of God shall know the doctrine or the teaching. Where are we? I guess we're... Oh, time's up. We don't have much of an interim here. I didn't get around to very much because the preponderantly, the questions had to do with the versions and so on. Let's be people of the book. And it took my mother to heaven, my dad, my grandfather, my grandmother. It was Moody's book. It was Livingstone's book. J.C. Studd gave up his fortune to take this book to Africa. And I don't feel ashamed to carry it the rest of my journey. It's gospel. Our Father, we thank Thee and praise Thee for Thy Word. Help us to love it and preach it and teach it and tell everybody we can. The good news through Thy Word, in Jesus' name, Amen.