For today I'm bringing Part 4 in our sermon series that is both from and about the Bible in which we've been explaining and proving why the authorized version of the Holy Bible, otherwise known as the King James Version, is for this church and should be for every English-speaking Christian the final authority as to the content and intended meaning of God's inspired Word. as given to mankind through His holy prophets and chosen apostles. As it has served, by the way, for the past 400 years as God's perfect word as given to man. For today, in part four of the series, I want to begin to answer some of the objections and the accusations that have been leveled against the King James Bible, alleging that it contains errors, discrepancies, and contradictions therein. For today we'll be looking at just two passages of Scripture in particular that contain very important verses that are correctly included in the King James Bible, but that have been omitted and or, in fact, satanically deleted from the modern counterfeit perversions of the Bible. Which counterfeit perversions? Including the NIV, the NASV, ESV, ISV, CEV, etc. ad infinitum, ad nauseam. All of which I also want to prove today are in fact productions of the Vatican in Rome, the Roman Catholic papacy, which of course has been the agency through which the devil has coordinated his attacks against the scriptures and the truth of the Christian faith for many, many centuries. And that most certainly has not changed in the present time. We'll be going first to Acts chapter 8 after a somewhat lengthy introduction. In part one of the series, we looked at the long history of Satan's ongoing and continuous attack against the revealed word of God that began with this first record of words as uttered to Eve in the Garden of Eden, yea, hath God said, did God really say that? And then in part two, we looked at some of the actual alterations and deletions from the original inspired Bible as perpetrated in the modern corrupted perversions. And then finally in part three, we analyzed and exposed many very serious flaws and corruptions in John Calvin's Geneva Bible of 1560 that disqualify its use as a viable authority. And we also exposed the woefully corrupted New King James Version, or NKJV, along with other modern Bible versions that claim to follow the same TR received text from which the King James Bible was translated. But that in fact failed to do so and that therefore should be rejected and discarded. For this installment then I need to begin with a brief summary and then continue with the history of the English Bible that I began in part one, in which we reviewed how several Christological and other damnable heresies, as Peter called them, were introduced into the early New Testament church. reaching a crescendo then in the 3rd to 4th century school of heretics at Alexandria, Egypt, which was headed by one of the most villainous Bible corruptors of all time, a Gnostic heretic named Origen, who in order to promote his own apostate blend of Gnosticism, Greek Platonism, and Christianity, produced a highly corrupted New Testament text in which he deleted or revised thousands of words and removed scores of passages and hundreds of whole verses of scripture. Origen's corrupted text was then published by his student, Eusebius, who was commissioned by Roman Emperor Constantine to produce 50 copies of the scriptures, with which Constantine hoped to unite his empire into one united religion and one universal or Catholic church also to be headed at Rome. Those corrupted texts form what we refer to today as the Alexandrian line of Bible texts. However, they were never used outside of Egypt, they were never translated into other languages until the latter part of the 1800s, and they don't agree with the majority of Greek manuscripts in existence. Which text of the true New Testament scriptures originated at the church at Antioch? and Jerusalem, and were then copied, disseminated, and also translated into many other languages throughout the centuries, and were the Scriptures used by true Christians for almost 1,800 years, having been finally compiled and printed in Greek by Desiderius Erasmus in 1522 into what is called the Textus Receptus, or the TR, also known as the Received Text. The TR was first translated into German by Martin Luther, and then into English in the Tyndale Coverdale Bible, for which translation in the year 1536, William Tyndale was arrested, convicted of heresy, and strangled to death by a Roman Catholic Jesuit henchman, after which his body was burned at the stake. However, within another 20 years, the Protestant Reformation had spread like wildfire and had carried away two-thirds of Europe from the clutches of Rome. Germany, England, the Scandinavian countries, Holland, and Switzerland had become Protestant while France, Poland, Bavaria, Austria, and Belgium were moving in that direction. And it can be rightly said that the compilation and publication of the Texas Receptus by Erasmus was truly the match that ignited the fires of the Protestant Reformation. And had it not been for the clandestine and the continued efforts and attacks against the scriptures by Ignatius Loyola's Jesuit order, the Roman Catholic Church and Popery itself would probably have been destroyed altogether. Several other English translations from the TR then followed Tyndale's. including the Great Bible of 1539, the Geneva Bible in 1560, and Bishop's Bible in 1568, finally followed by the authorized King James Bible in 1611. But now back to the corrupted line of texts. Two of those corrupted Alexandrian texts produced by Eusebius in the fourth century later resurfaced. One in the 15th century known as Codex Vaticanus and another Codex Sinaiticus in the mid-1800s, which were then incorporated into the Westcott and Hort Greek text published in 1881, which text was subsequently the basis for the Nestle-Alon slash United Bible Society Greek text, referred to today as the NU, Nestle-Alon slash United Bible Society, or the critical text. from which all modern so-called Bible translations are translated, including the NIV, NASV, ISV, ESV, NLT, et cetera, ad infinitum. All of which then include the same alterations and deletions begun by Origen and continued by Westcott and Hort, for which reason I refer to all such modern pseudo-Bibles not as Bible versions, but as perversions. I want to add today, and we all need to see, that not only are these publications perversions of the Word of God, but as mentioned up front, I need to state that all of these are also indeed Roman Catholic Vatican Bibles produced with the full cooperation and oversight of the Vatican in Rome. Not only were Brook F. Westcott and Fenton J. A. Hort, closet Catholics working for Rome, but so indeed were the editors of the NU Text, which included East German Lutheran theologian Kurt Aland, along with Bruce Metzger, who was an American theology professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, and he was also a board member of the United Bible Society. That board of editors of the NU Text also included a man named Carlo Martini who was also, by the way, well known as Roman Catholic Cardinal Carlo Martini who was a Jesuit. And in addition to the inclusion of a high-ranking Roman Catholic Jesuit on the board of editors of the NU text, the fact that these men collaborated with the Vatican in production of the NU text is well documented within the very pages of the publication itself, which states as follows on page 44 of the introduction to the text, which I have included a copy of in your bulletins today, It says, quote, the text shared by these two editions, which is the Nestle-Aland and the United Bible Society editions combined into one NU text. The text shared by these two editions was adopted internationally by Bible societies and following an agreement between the Vatican and the United Bible Societies, it has served as a basis for new translations and for revisions made under their supervision. This marks a significant step with regard to inter-confessional relationships. What does that mean? That means reunification with Rome, with the Roman Catholic Whore of Babylon. Look what they say next. It should be naturally understood, it should naturally be understood that this text is a working text. It is not to be considered as definitive, but as a stimulus to further efforts toward defining and verifying the text of the New Testament. In other words, we don't really know what God said in the New Testament. Yea, hath God said, did God really say that? These are the people that are following their father, the devil, in editing and rewriting the counterfeit perverted Bibles, so-called Bibles, that most marginal and pseudo-Christians are reading these days. These so-called scholars say the New Testament text is not to be considered as definitive. But I've got news for you today. God's Word is definitive. God says, that's why God says in Deuteronomy 4 verse 2, that you shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish not from it. That's also why the Apostle John, as directed by the Holy Ghost in Revelation chapter 22, said in verse 18, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city and from the things which are written in this book." God's Word is definitive and that includes the New Testament. Continuing though with further proof of Rome's authorship of these new perversions, this is from the Vatican's own website. This is from a page on the Vatican's website dedicated to what they call the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the PCPCU. And the webpage is regarding the Vatican's collaboration for diffusion of the Bible and it states as follows, quote, following the responsibility undertaken by the then secretariat for the preparation of the dogmatic constitution on divine revelation, they say. the PCPCU, was entrusted with promoting ecumenical collaboration for the translation and diffusion of Holy Scripture. In this context, it encouraged the formation of the Catholic Biblical Federation, with which it is in close contact. Together with the United Bible Societies, it published the Guidelines for Inter-Confessional Cooperation in Translating the Bible. that was published in 1968 with a new revision in 1987. And so there's more proof from the Vatican's own website of its role in producing the modern perversions. Also, on March 15, 2013, upon the election of Marxist Jesuit Pope, Jorge Bergoglio, also known as Francis, the United Bible Society issued the following statement. The election of Pope Francis, a longtime friend of the Bible Societies, is an encouragement to the United Bible Societies, UBS, to work even harder to make the Bible available to everyone. He is a man of the universal church, with an ecumenical spirit, and he is a pastor who really knows the reality of simple people. They say that the new Pope is a truly biblical person whose faith and actions are deeply rooted in the Bible and inspired by the Word of God. They continue, as a longtime friend of the Bible Society's, Pope Francis knows that our raison d'etre, which is a French term meaning the reason for existence, is the call to collaborate in the incarnation of our Christian faith, end quote, says Mr. Perrault. He said, they continue, we assure Pope Francis of our renewed availability to serve the Catholic Church and her endeavors to make the word of God the center of new evangelization. I just want to pause momentarily and state that these are some of the most outrageous, noxious, and satanic lies I've ever heard in my life. The UBS says Pope Francis is a truly biblical person. whose faith and actions are deeply rooted in the Bible and inspired by the Word of God. This Pope, Pope Jorge Bergoglio, the Marxist Jesuit from Argentina who formally instructed his fellow Jesuits in the spiritual exercises of Ignatius Loyola, which are witchcraft in other words, is anything but a truly biblical person. His idolatrous faith system is not rooted in the Bible, but instead in pagan rituals, pagan beliefs, a pagan priesthood, and pagan worship of the Babylonian goddess Ashtoreth, the queen of heaven, that his false church conveniently renamed as the Virgin Mary, to whom they direct their prayers. The UBS says this pope is a man of the universal church with an ecumenical spirit. That much, may I say, is true. He is a man of the only universal church that exists on this earth, which is the universal church of Satan, for whom his very ecumenical spirit has done and is doing more than any pope before him to unite all religions of the world into the global worship of Lucifer. which is why he has stated publicly and repeatedly that Muslims and Christians and Jews can all unite together because they all worship the same God. And that's why he has also overtly reached out to Hindus and Buddhists as well, even stating publicly that even unbelievers and atheists can go to heaven. Lies of the devil. The UBS statement says twice that Jorge Bergoglio is, quote, a longtime friend of the Bible societies. I'd submit that's because the UBS, the United Bible Society, which produced the underlying text for all of these modern Bible perversions, is staffed primarily or entirely by closet Catholics and full-blown Jesuits. Which is why they then say, we assure Pope Francis of our renewed availability to serve the Catholic Church and her endeavors to make the Word of God the center of new evangelization. So then, there you have it. These few points of proof which will suffice for this message, were excerpted actually from a much larger 31-page article by Will Kenney that we recommend and that we have a link to on our website, on our King James Bible page. That provides even more proof that just as the original Alexandrian text produced by Eusebius, commissioned by Emperor Constantine, who by the way in many ways founded the Roman Catholic Church via his Edict of Milan in 313 AD, just as that text was indeed a Roman Catholic text intended by Constantine to unite the empire in a universal religion headed at Rome, So it is with the NU text and all Bibles translated therefrom. They are all Vatican approved Roman Catholic Bibles. The agenda behind which, all of these modern Bibles that follow the NU text, which by the way means all modern translations produced since the 19th century that are currently available in print. The agenda behind all of those is to reunite Protestants with Rome. And most Protestants, along with most pseudo-Baptists, have fallen for this deadly Vatican-Jesuit deception hook, line, and sinker. And what makes me sick, what makes me sick, and what I believe infuriates our Lord, is that most of those who have been so deceived won't even give the matter a second thought when informed and warned about the corruptions in these modern counterfeit Bibles. When we try to warn them, That brings us finally, after that long introduction and expose of these Bibles to Acts Chapter 8. As stated, the NU text from which all these perversions are translated from, they are all Vatican approved Roman Catholic Bibles, the agenda behind which is to reunite Protestants with Rome, which is why they all, the NIV, ESV, the CEV, the Chuck Missler's International Standard Version, ISV, the New English Translation, the JW's New World Translation, all of them delete verse 37 of this chapter altogether, along with hundreds of other verses, of course, but they had to get rid of Acts 8, 37 in particular, because it clearly forbids both infant baptism and baptismal regeneration. the religious ritual upon which the Roman Catholic Church bases its idolatrous religion and relies upon to sustain its pagan priesthood. And by the way, that is also still practiced by Rome's Protestant daughter churches, Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist, and Presbyterian. Acts chapter eight, I'll begin reading in verse 26. And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south, and to the way that goeth down into Jerusalem, unto Gaza, which is a desert. And he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, and eunuch of great authority under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for her worship, was returning, and sitting in his chariot, read Isaiah the prophet. Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest? And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he should come up and sit with him. The place of the Scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb done before his shearer, so he opened on his mouth. And his humiliation, his judgment was taken away. And who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth. Verse 34, 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. And as they went on their way, they came to a certain water. And the eunuch said, see, here is water. What doth hinder me to be baptized? 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. He commanded the chariot to stand still, and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found in Dezotus, and passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea." There are several things that we need to observe from this text of Scripture. First of all, notice in verse 34 that this man of Ethiopia had no idea who Jesus was. This man was a very important diplomat, a man of great authority. We read here in charge of the Queen's treasury. We read that he had come to Jerusalem to worship. So he was obviously a very devout Jew. We have no idea how much time had passed here since Christ's crucifixion until this event. But we do know it was sometime after Stephen's martyrdom, and actually after a great persecution of the church we read about earlier in the chapter, that followed Stephen's martyrdom, which then caused the church to be scattered about. And so this was sometime thereafter. And it appears this man had been to Jerusalem, and he still had no idea who Jesus was. As he said to Philip, I pray thee, if whom speaketh the prophet this of himself or some other man? Verse 35 contains a very simple but rather vague statement. It says, Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus. That verse doesn't really tell us exactly what Philip said. as he preached unto him Jesus. But we can conclude several things about what he did preach from the eunuch's response in verse 36. First we see in verse 36 that as a result of Philip's preaching, the man wanted to be baptized. And so clearly one aspect of Philip's preaching included a statement that if the man believed the gospel, he needed to be baptized. Philip then responded in verse 37 that if he believed with all his heart, he may be baptized. By the way, Philip didn't just say, if he believed. He said, if you believe with all your heart, that's a very important statement there. Philip said, if you are truly saved, basically, if you are truly saved, you may be baptized. Baptism again, by the way, is for those who have been truly born again. That's what Philip is saying here. If you believe with all your heart, if you've been truly born again, baptism is not for make believers. It is not for newborn suckling infants who are incapable of believing the Gospel. That's what this passage says. The eunuch replied further, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And that reply actually tells us quite a bit more about what Philip had preached to him when he simply preached unto him Jesus. First he believed that Jesus is the Christ, meaning the Messiah of Israel. This man had been reading Isaiah chapter 53, which describes the Lord Jesus suffering in our place to pay our penalty for sin. I'm sure Philip preached to him about what that whole passage meant. And as that passage also says that the Lord had laid on him the iniquity of us all. And further, then also that Eunuch also believed that Jesus is the Son of God, not that He was the Son of God. And so that statement actually also acknowledges that Christ had risen from the dead and was alive forevermore, and that He is also the Son of God, meaning God incarnate, in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily, as Paul said in Colossians 2. So this, by the way, was, in all respects, the same confession of faith that Peter declared in Matthew chapter 16, when the Lord Jesus asked the disciples, whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? Read in verse 14 of Matthew 16, they said, some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elias, and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He said unto them, but whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." And so that revelation is what Philip preached to the eunuch. As soon as the eunuch repeated that same confession that Peter had given, he immediately baptized the man. Verse 37 of this chapter, then, as it stands, is clearly the most powerful proof in the Bible that, in effect, the early church was what we would today call a Baptist church, that they held to the Baptist doctrine of believer's baptism, that a man had to be saved before he could be baptized, and that, therefore, a man's baptism had nothing whatsoever to do with his salvation. This doctrine is, of course, supported throughout the New Testament, elsewhere in the New Testament, especially in Paul's statement in Ephesians 2 that we are saved by grace through faith, not of works. And also this presentation in Romans 3-4, the doctrine of justification by faith alone. We are justified by faith alone apart from works. which doctrine also the Lord Jesus preached Nicodemus in John chapter 3 when he said that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. It's that belief that saves, not baptism. That said, however, this verse clearly, absolutely, and without allowance for debate or controversy, proves that saving faith must precede baptism. And therefore the Roman Catholics who rely on religious ritual and sacrament to justify and maintain their blasphemous priesthood had to read the Bible of this verse. And that they did. So that the verse is taken completely out of the new perversions. For example, we read in Chuck Missler's ISV, Heretic Chuck Missler's ISV, verse 36, as we're going along the road that came to some water, the eunuch said, look, there's some water. What keeps me from being baptized? There is no verse 37. It just goes right to verse 38. So he ordered the chariot to stop, and Philip and the eunuch both went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. They just remove verse 37. All the new perversions do that. NIV, ESV, CEV, NET, etc. ad infinitum. They all do the same thing. Except for the NASV, the New King James Version, which they include the verse in brackets or in italics and have a note in the margin saying that that verse is not in the oldest, most reliable manuscripts. But I want to assure you today that Acts 8.37 was without question a part of Luke's original manuscript and therefore does indeed belong in the Bible. It's true that the verse was omitted from the Alexandrian line of text. There are several manuscripts and fragments dating back to the 3rd and 4th century that omit this verse. All of which, though, by the way, are Egyptian, emanating from Origen's Alexandrian school. The oldest manuscript in existence that actually contains chapter 8, verse 37, dates from the 6th century. And so it is true that the oldest manuscripts don't have it in there. But again, they're older. But just because they're older, it doesn't mean that they're the most reliable texts. They were corrupted by Origen and were preserved somewhat intact because they were never used. And so that said, we also do have though external proof that verse 37 was indeed in Luke's original text, which again comes from early Christian writers that predate those Alexandrian texts. For example, Irenaeus writing in about 180 AD in his huge volume Against Heresies. In Book 3, Chapter 12, the chapter is titled, The Doctrine of the Rest of the Apostles. He quotes in this chapter extensively from the Book of Acts, because Luke's writings were accepted by the Church as Scripture. And he says this, in that chapter. But again, whom did Philip, priest to the eunuch of the queen of the Ethiopians, returning from Jerusalem and reading Isaiah as a prophet, when he and this man were alone together? Was it not he of whom the prophet spoke? He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb done before the shearer, so he opened not the mouth. But who shall declare his nativity? For his life shall be taken away from the earth. Philipp declared that this was Jesus, that the scripture was fulfilled in him, as did also the believing eunuch himself. and immediately requesting to be baptized, he said, I believe Jesus Christ to be the Son of God." Acts 8.37. So Irenaeus quoted that verse. This is interesting. Irenaeus says, This man was also sent into the regions of Ethiopia to preach what he had himself believed, And that there was one God preached by the prophets, but that the son of this God had already made his appearance in human nature and had been led as a sheep to the slaughter, and all the other statements which the prophets made regarding him." End quote from Irenaeus. Irenaeus actually adds that detail there that Luke omits, which is that following his conversion to Christ, this eunuch was sent. He says he was sent, presumably meaning by the church, back down to Ethiopia to evangelize in his home country. He was sent down by the church, which means, by the way, that not only was the man immediately baptized, but he also apparently joined himself to the church at Jerusalem for a while. Another ancient Christian writer, elder and writer, named Cyprian of Carthage, In his Treatise 12, Book 3, which I think dates from about 250 AD, which is before the Alexandrian texts, he also quotes Acts 8.37 directly, saying as follows, And the Acts of the Apostles, quote, Lo, here is water. What is there which hinders me from being baptized? Then said Philip, If you believe with all your heart, you may. The Supreme of Carthage quotes Acts 8.37. So these quotations again predate all the Alexandrian texts that omit the verse. And I think that's pretty good external proof. From the external evidence I do believe it appears that this verse that is missing in early Egyptian churches shows that the Latin churches had the verse in their Latin Bibles and perhaps even in their Greek copies as well. So the Bible critics argue that the verse was added in to some text while proponents of the Textus Receptus and King James Bible argue that it was omitted from the Alexandrian line of text. It is true that very early on actually, beginning late in the 1st century, early in the 2nd century, infant baptism did begin to be practiced and in fact by the end of the 2nd century did become the popular practice. That's a fact of history. Even Cyprian of Carthage who wrote the previous quote, quote of verse 37 as being part of the text of Acts 8, he also argued in a separate writing for the practice of infant baptism. as it arising about the same time. So on that basis then, since infant baptism had become commonplace, it would be far more likely that the verse was omitted from some texts, since it was deemed unpopular by many, rather than being added into the text by some so-called pious scribe, as alleged by modern Bible critics like Bruce Metzger. And so, in other words, it is highly unlikely that such a verse would be added in later at a time when infant baptism had wrongly become commonplace. And that, by the way, in contravention of the practice and doctrine of the early church of Jerusalem. It was, in fact, actually this verse, Acts 8.37, probably by itself. that caused many thousands of early Baptists, Montanists and others referred to as Anabaptists or Rebaptizers, to be willing to suffer martyrdom at the hands of the Roman Catholic executioners. This verse. The conclusion I think we need to draw is that Acts 8.37 belongs in the text of Scripture and is to be accepted as doctrine for today's Christians. And this verse clearly forbids infant baptism along with the heresy of baptismal regeneration. What hinders me to be baptized? If you believe with all your heart, you may. If you are truly saved, you may be baptized. Baptism is for those who have been truly born again, not for newborn suckling infants incapable of believing the gospel. Turn to 1 John chapter 5. I mentioned verse 7 of this chapter last week. Well, I have quite a bit I want to add regarding the proper inclusion in the Bible itself of this verse. First John chapter five, very controversial verse here. We read beginning in verse one. Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God. And everyone that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him." We love our Father. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments. Verse 3, for this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. Like Jesus said as well, right? And His commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God, overcometh the world. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Of course, we sing that song, right? Faith is a victory. Verse five, who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God. Verse six, this is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ, not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth." Verse 7, For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. Verse 8, And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood, and these three agree in one. Those last three verses, verse 6 through 8, flow very nicely and sensibly in the King James Bible, with verse 7 of course being the most powerful statement of the Trinity in all the Bible. That verse says that there are three separate persons in the Godhead, not one person with three offices. And it also says that those three persons are united in one, as one God, which we know from many scriptures is how God must be understood. We talked about that in the past. Each of these three separate persons is seen at one time and together at Christ's baptism. Each of those three separate persons are presented clearly as fully God throughout the scriptures. And yet many times throughout the Scriptures we read that there is only one God and that God is one. And so this is what Paul meant, by the way, in 1 Timothy 3.16, when he said, Great is the mystery of godliness. The mystery of godliness refers to the divine, incomprehensible mystery of the triune nature of God, of Emmanuel, God with us. Perhaps one of the greatest and most awesome truths in all of Scripture. that God himself would condescend to become a man, to become God in human flesh. So God as fully man could bear the sins of all mankind on the cross of Calvary. Just not completely fathomable to our limited minds. However, as mentioned last week, one of the greatest and in fact, most ancient of controversies about the textual issue is that verse seven of this chapter referred to by theologians as the Johanan comma. Theologians and Bible critics call this the Johannine comma. It's not found in many, or in fact, in most extant Greek manuscripts. And therefore, the verse has been completely removed from the modern perversions, most of which construct a new verse seven, either from part of verse six or from part of verse eight. and they reconstruct a new verse 7 there. This controversy is actually so ancient that some theorize that the verse was initially deleted in some texts, not by Origen, but much earlier, in fact, by the infamous Diotrephes, the tyrannical run-amok elder mentioned by John in 3 John 9-10. and where John states as follows. He says, verse 9, I wrote unto the church, probably referring to this epistle, the first epistle. I wrote unto the church, but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not. Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds, which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words. and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, nor the apostle, by the way, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church." So Diocletes would not let John as the apostle come and address the church. In fact, John sent a letter to the church and he wouldn't let the church read it. So that statement of John in verse 9 here that he wrote into the church is probably a reference to this first epistle of John which Diotrephes was not allowed to be read in the church as he rejected John's authority as an apostle. And so on that basis some have theorized that the reason this verse is missing from many Greek manuscripts is due to the rivalry there and the satanic mischief actually of the narcissistic Diotrephes. However, there are several reasons, supported by both external and internal evidence, that we really must conclude that verse 7 most definitely was in the Apostle John's original manuscript and therefore most definitely belongs in the Bible. First of all, for external evidence, while John's original autograph would have been penned in Greek, We know that very early on in the 2nd century, the letter was translated into, copied and disseminated in the old Latin language. The old Latin language of the Roman Empire, actually by the early ancestors of the Waldenses that occupied the mountainous alpine regions of northern Italy and eastern France, also known as the Vaudois. the Vaudois people. According to John Calvin's successor, Theodore Beza, the early Waldenses received the scriptures from missionaries from Antioch, Assyria in the 120s A.D. and they had finished translating it into their old Latin language by 157 A.D. This Bible, which included 1 John 5-7, was passed down from generation until the Reformation of the 1500s, when Protestants actually translated the Waldensian Bible into French, Italian, and other languages. And so while most Greek manuscripts don't contain verse 7, it is, that verse is in the vast majority of old Latin manuscripts, which actually outnumber the extant Greek manuscripts. And although some doubt that this verse, 1 John 5, 7, was part of Jerome's Latin Vulgate, and some say it was added in about 800 A.D. based on old Latin manuscripts, Jerome himself, actually in the 4th century, referenced the verse in his prologue to the canonical epistles written in Latin, acknowledging himself that actually some text omitted the verse, but that it was in fact included in the original. Other early Christian leaders, referred to by some as church fathers, also made reference to, and quoted this verse, Tertullian appears to have quoted the verse in about 200 A.D. in chapter 25 of his work against Praxis. And Cyprian of Carthage quoted the verse in 258 A.D. stating as follows in Volume 1 of his work on the Novations. The Lord says, I and the Father are one, and likewise it is written of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. That's only to be found in 1 John 5-7. And so that's Cyprian of Carthage in 258 A.D. That of course being a reference to 1 John 5-7. In about 350 A.D., another authority named Priscillian cited the verse in his Latin work, Liber Apologeticus, stating, as John says, and there are three which give testimony on earth, the water, the flesh, the blood, and these three are in one, and there are three which give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one in Christ Jesus. So he clearly quotes 1 John 5-7 there in 350 A.D. And about that same time, also, Athanasius, who was a defender of the Trinity and a staunch opponent of the Arian heresy, also referred to this verse in his work, De Incarnation. And also, a volume compiled by an unknown writer in about 380 AD, which was written also to refute the Arian heresy, titled the Verumatum. stated as follows, and John the Evangelist says, and there are three which give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one. And so there's plenty of external evidence that that verse was in the Bible. And additionally, the verse is included in many Greek texts that date between the 9th and 13th centuries. I want to add also that a false story fictional account, has been popularized by some, King James detractors, alleging that Erasmus, who compiled the Texas Receptus, refused to include 1 John 5-7 in his final edition of the Texas Receptus unless a single Greek manuscript containing it could be produced and given to him. and that a Franciscan friar named Froy then forged such a Greek text by translating the verse from Latin into Greek. As the story goes, Erasmus was then presented with this falsified manuscript and being faithful to his word, reluctantly included the comma, the first John 5-7 in his 1522 edition of the TR. However, even the well-known Princeton textual critic and King James Version detractor, Dr. Bruce Metzger. himself admitted on page 291 of his book, The Text of the New Testament, that a respected specialist actually on Erasmus named H.G. Dijonge has established that there is no evidence of such events, of that story ever happening, and therefore that that story should be presumed to be fiction. So that was a fictional account, not true. The fact is that there are several Greek manuscripts that predate Erasmus that do include 1 John 5-7, 12 of which go back to the 10th century. But then, that's external evidence. As for the very important internal evidence for this verse, that 1 John 5-7 does necessarily belong in the text. First of all, The structure and the writing style of the verse is distinctly Johannan, distinctly John, as the Apostle John would have written it. John is very unique in the way that he refers to Christ as the Word. And if 1 John 5-7 had been added later on as an interpretation of verse 8, as some have suggested, then we would expect the verse actually to use the word son instead of word. However, we see here the Greek word logos, which is uniquely in the style of John and provides the first evidence of its authenticity. But then also, and more importantly, the Greek language and text itself makes an even stronger case for inclusion of the verse. As many scholars have noted, with the verse removed from the text, with verse seven removed from the text, verse eight makes no sense. The grammar makes no sense. Now, I'm no Greek scholar, as I pointed out before, But just to provide the evidence here in this message, I'm just going to state what one scholar writes, which is as follows. He says, looking at 1 John 5.8, there are three nouns which in Greek stand in the neuter, spirit, water, and blood. However, they are followed by a participle that is masculine. The Greek phrase here, oe martyrantes, which means who bear witness. Those who know the Greek language, maybe like Jade back there, understand this to be poor grammar if left to stand on its own. Even more noticeably, verse six has the same participle but stands in the neuter, which is the Greek to martyron. Why are three neuter nouns supported with a masculine participle? The answer is found if we include verse seven. There we have two masculine nouns, father and son, followed by a neuter noun, spirit, etc, etc. I know I'm losing you all, but it says, with this clause introducing verse 8, it is very proper for the participle in verse 8 to be masculine because of the masculine nouns in verse 7, etc. So the problem with the Greek grammar is when verse 7 is deleted, verse 8 makes no sense. And this was recognized actually as far back as the 4th century by Gregory of Nazianzus who testified in his work Theological Orientations to the inconsistency in the Greek grammar if all we have are verses 6 and 8 without verse 7. Other scholars have recognized this as well, actually including Matthew Henry who includes a note in his commentary on this verse saying that we must have verse 7 if we are to have a proper Greek understanding in verse 8. And so much has been written about this verse alone and much more could be stated in this message. But to summarize regarding 1 John 5.7, although most Greek manuscripts omit the verse, and that possibly due to a very early corruption of the text by diatrophies or perhaps one like him, a great amount of external evidence makes inclusion of the verse absolutely possible. And beyond that, the internal evidence of the Greek language itself makes inclusion of the verse not only probable, but necessary to the text. And so therefore, my conclusion is that no one has any right to say that 1 John 5, 7 does not belong in the text. You can't make that conclusion. And we have every right to say that it should be there. And that once again, as always, the King James Bible is correct. reliable and faithful where all other modern translations are not. As stated last week, if these were the only instances where the modern Bibles have been corrupted, I would still reject them as our authority for God's Word. But again, these are just a couple of the literally thousands of alterations that occur in these so-called Bibles. As for other alleged errors in the King James Bible. I've covered the allegations that 1 John 5.7 and Acts 8.37 don't belong in the text. Lord willing I'm going to come back to some more of these accusations in a later installment in a week or two, a couple of weeks. And so once again my conclusion is that the King James Bible is the only Bible that is commonly available today in print in the English language that correctly and faithfully translates and that thereby perfectly preserves the entire and complete canon of the Holy Scriptures that God gave to man through divine revelation. One of the operative, again, one of the operative statements there is the phrase commonly available in print, meaning via mass production in book form and preferably in various print sizes and book sizes as well. So again, we can show it to folks as we're out knocking on doors, or we can hand out to folks and we can say, this is the word of God. They don't have to be, they don't have to have a computer, but to share that with them. Also, we can open it up together in church meetings and we can all be in unity as we are studying the scriptures together and we can all agree as to what the text is supposed to say. At present, the King James Bible is the only Bible on earth that qualifies in all these respects and therefore the King James Bible remains the sole authority for faith and practice and the standard of truth for this church. That's going to do it for today. Thank you for your patience. In closing, I'm just going to remind you that in Matthew chapter 4. The Lord Jesus confirmed the law of Deuteronomy chapter 8 when he responded to Lucifer the devil by saying, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And the good news for today is that everyone in this church and every English speaking person on top side of this earth can right now pick up a King James Bible in his hand and say, I hold in my hands every word that God has spoken that he wants me to hear. They're all here. And there's no other Bible like that on the face of the earth that I know of. Thank God, the King James Bible. Amen. Let's go ahead and pray. Father in heaven, Lord God, we do thank you for your word. We thank you for preserving it for us in the King James Bible. We just thank you, Lord, for this great treasure that we have. We pray that those here that have not been reading it would repent and that they would do so. Help us all to take your word seriously, to treasure it, to hide it in our hearts that we might not sin against you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.