Okay, it's good to see you here for our evening service. If you have your Bibles, turn back to 1st Peter and chapter 1 as an introductory verse. we're going to try and wrap up the series we've been doing on the King James Bible so if you're new tonight or just coming in on this series I encourage you to go back and listen to the other 11 messages because we are getting towards the end and for you to make sense of things it's important to have that background information that we have covered. So what I want to do tonight and probably in one more message to finish the series is deal with some common objections that come up to the KJV, to the King James Bible. And I trust that this will be a help to you. There's a lot of anti-KJV propaganda out there and it's helpful to just think through some of these arguments, some of these objections and know how to answer them. for an introductory verse let's just re-read those verses that we began memorizing as a church tonight, wonderful verses about the Word of God and recently started memorizing through the book of 1st Peter and just found these verses the last couple of weeks a tremendous blessing as we think about the fact that the Word of God is eternal. So 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 23 down to verse 25, the Bible reads, being born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away, but the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you." And so we have this wonderful description of the eternality of the word of God. And all of mankind is likened in this verse to grass. we're living at the moment through a bit of a drought period and it's a reminder, isn't it, that grass can be very green one week but it doesn't take too long without water for that grass to fade, to die and to just wither away. And that's an accurate picture of mankind, their one moment, gone the next. But it goes on, it says, all the glory of man as the flower of grass. So you think about the glory of man, think about some of the famous people in the world, presidents, princes, kings, queens, sports stars, people who have tremendous glory in this world and yet they're just gone, they're there one minute, all of their glory, think of some of the world's richest people like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and some of these people, I mean from a worldly standpoint, they're glorious people, the glory of man, wealth, fame, power and God said, it's just like the flower of grass, it just falls away, just like you'd see maybe a little flower in a clump of grass and it's there one moment, it droops the next and it's gone. and that is the reality of the glory of man. Think about it, you go back a hundred years, all the rich and famous people, probably none of us have even heard of them, just fades away. But the contrast, but the word of the Lord endureth forever. Don't you love that contrast there? You look at all of man and his glory and it's just transient, it passes, it fades away, But the Word of God endures forever. Aren't you thankful that the Word of God is unchanging, it's eternal, it's pure. And so there's a little devotional thought to get us started tonight as we go into this next segment on the King James Bible. Let's pray first though and ask for some help from the Lord as we go through this lesson together. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to be in your house tonight. I pray, Lord, for fresh strength and grace, Lord, to be able to teach this lesson, that we might be equipped to answer these objections that sometimes come up against your Word. We thank you we do have the pure, preserved Word of God here before us in the English language. We thank you for that and for how your hand has been upon history in giving us this wonderful Bible and we just pray that you would help us now bless this time together in Jesus' name, Amen. King James has really been viciously attacked throughout its history, especially in the last 150 years, really from the time of the revised version of 1881 and the process that led up to that until now. really continues to be attacked like no other version in English. You think about that, you don't really hear a great campaign against any other version of the Bible but the campaign against the King James Version of the Bible is relentless and no wonder because the devil hates King James Bible because it is based upon the preserved Greek and Hebrew texts, it's a faithful translation of those godly manuscripts and it's the preserved Word of God there in the English language and Satan hates it with a passion because it's the Word of God and it has done so much damage to his kingdom. The devil hates it because it is the sharpest sword, is the sharpest sword and it's really almost impossible to fully put into words the impact that the King James Bible has had on the world for the Gospel and for godliness. So we shouldn't be surprised therefore that the reader of and the believer in the King James Bible is often confronted with a barrage of criticism, negativity about the King James and we want to try and spend a bit of time talking about this, some of these common objections that come up and some of you have helped me with sending me some of your ones that you have heard and we'll cover some of those tonight. and then God willing we'll cover some more next week. We may not be able to cover all of them but we'll try and cover the key ones. Now, there are some who promote these arguments against the King James because they have an agenda against the King James, they want to undermine it, they want to damage it, that is their agenda. Then there are others who are are ignorant of the issue and there's a lot of people in that category and I don't say that in a condescending manner but sometimes people just parrot stuff that they've heard and how many people are there that have picked up some anti-KJV slogan who've never bothered to even read about the issue, investigate the issue, in fact it's quite alarming sometimes, you try and encourage someone, have you thought about looking into this and they're simply not interested. they just don't want to know, they don't want to look into it. Maybe it's their pride because they don't want to have to admit that the version they're using is corrupt, I don't know necessarily all the reasons for that but you've got those, really those two categories of people, people who know what they're doing, they're passionately opposed to the King James, they want to just destroy it, they want to tear it down. Then there are others who maybe don't really understand the issue, who just voice things because they've heard those things and they just pass them on. Some are even sincere in their objections but mistaken. And so tonight I want to just cover four common objections to the King James Bible. And the first one is this, number one, The King James Version is outdated and too hard to read or understand. How many of you have heard that objection? Okay, most of you here. When I sent out the text message, that was the first one that most of you said. I personally have heard this many, many times. and it's often the first line of attack that people use against the King James. Now again, I understand that there are some people who do genuinely struggle with some of the old language of the King James and we're going to address that in this presentation. But this objection comes in various forms, such as follows, the King James Version is too difficult, hard to understand. The King James has thee and thou words. The King James is like Shakespearean English, that's not true, we'll talk about that later, or the language of the KJV is outdated. Now there are two things to consider with this objection. Number one, the language of the King James is a challenge for some, but it is not an insurmountable challenge. Okay, so on the one hand, we can't just dismiss this objection because some people do genuinely have some difficulties and we need to acknowledge that. But on the other hand, it is often used, it's way overused, it's way over emphasized and the issue is blown way out of proportion by the opponents of the King James Bible. Now, in my personal observation, the ones who struggle the most are those who are trying to make the switch from the modern versions to the King James. And I don't say that, if you're in that case and you're going through that struggle, I'm compassionate towards you, stick with it, you'll get through it, okay? But if you start your Christian life on the King James, even if you aren't the best reader, you will get used to it from the start and I've seen that as well, where people have been saved, maybe they haven't had a very good level of education, but they started with the King James and guess what? They've been able to handle it. bus kids have been able to handle it, people who've been saved off the streets have gotten a hold of the King James and started to understand it and made it the Bible and the foundation for their lives. And so, it often tends to be those who are trying, who've been accustomed to reading the modern versions, trying to make the switch, that particularly struggle. That's just my observation. So, It is a challenge for some, so we can't just dismiss it, but it's not a challenge that can't be overcome and the issue has definitely been blown out of proportion. In other words, the readability issue of the King James is not as bad as the critics want us to believe. not near as bad as what they want us to believe. But like I said, it's often the first argument that is thrown out there against the King James and I'll give you an example. Sister Katie gave me a book this morning and it's an anti-KJV book and I just had a little bit of a browse through the first few chapters this afternoon and guess what their first argument was against the King James? It's outdated. can't understand it. He contradicts himself because then he admits that growing up he was raised with the King James and he understood it fine but anyway, he's got an agenda and this is the first line of attack, okay, and it's an example here, I'll just give you one quote that I picked up this afternoon of a typical anti-KJV argument. It's from a man by the name of Mark Ward and he's a graduate of Bob Jones University. Sadly, Bob Jones University has really become a hotbed of scepticism, textual criticism, and we have to be very careful. Now, in the past they had a good reputation for some of their publications and Bob Jones Senior, I think, would roll over in his grave if he knew what they were doing to the school he started. He was an old-fashioned Bible preacher, he used the King James but today we've got to be careful, okay, sometimes we occasionally buy a book from there but you do have to be careful now with a lot of the newer stuff that's coming out of Bob Jones because they are definitely on the slide massively when it comes to the King James, Calvinism and a whole bunch of other issues. So here's what he says, he was recounting the story of how the NIV came about and he says, given all the things we'll lose if we, the English-speaking church, continue to give up the KJV, we'd better have very good reasons for giving it up, weighty reasons. So he actually is quite clever, you can see he's got an agenda, he starts off with a chapter talking about the good aspects of the King James but his whole agenda is to really draw you away from the King James. And so he now says, I can think of nothing more weighty than the single reason embedded in Long's story, I can't understand this. So see what he's saying? And it's a little bit hard to, in the context of what he's saying, he was referring to a conversation between this evangelist with the last name Long and this other unsaved person and, you know, he's telling the story of how the NIV came into being. But he says, So that is the first argument that he puts forward. He's saying the King James Version can't be understood, It's old English, people can't understand it, therefore what's the point in hanging on to it and then he's going to try for the rest of the book to convince you to give it up. So that's a typical example of this kind of argument that is used against the King James but I want to prove to you tonight that that is really not accurate, that this problem has been overblown and overemphasized and blown out of proportion. So, our answer to this criticism is as follows. Number one, there are some antiquated words in the KJV but they are fewer in number than is often implied. So you read a quote like that or you hear an argument like that and you assume that the King James Bible is just full of archaic and outdated language, correct? That's the assumption there, that it's just all, you just can't understand it, it's difficult, but in actual fact, there really are not that many words that are archaic. For example, the Trinitarian Bible Society, which is a good Bible society to refer to, they only publish the King James in English and other faithful translations in other languages based on the Textus Receptus, they have compiled a list of archaic words, or words that are not generally familiar to the modern reader, into a booklet and they have a list of 618 words. you say, oh that's a lot. Well not when you consider that there's somewhere in the order of 783,000 words in the King James. So when you think about it, out of 783,137 words, I'm not sure if that's accurate, I've tried to find an exact word count but some say it's more than that, but somewhere in the order there of 783,000, 84,000, 85,000 words, only roughly 600 would fall into the category of words that are archaic and need to be explained. That's not a high percentage, is it really? Okay, and we actually have... I've actually printed off some of these, it's freely available, we have a whole pile of them over there on the table. If you'd like to take one and make it a companion to your Bible study, we'll talk about some other Bible study resources a bit later, but it's very helpful. It contains some of those older words, you can just simply look them up. So, some examples would be as follows, carriages means baggage. Charger, a platter. Devotions, objects of worship. Conversation refers to lifestyle or conduct. We do you to wit means to make known to you. Fetch the compass means to circle. By the way, many of these words can actually be understood by reading the context. As you read through, you get a sense from the passage itself what they mean. then you can easily look them up, it's not that hard, look them up and find out what they mean. The word let means to restrain, meet is a general term for food, prevent means to proceed, room, seat, script, bag, take no thought means be not anxious, noised means reported, quick, the Word of God is quick and powerful means living. So again, this problem has been Blown out of proportion. It can easily be overcome by the use of good Bible dictionaries. There is no reason why you can't do that. And by the way, it wouldn't hurt for you to expand your vocabulary a little bit in this social media age of trash language. Aren't we supposed to be trying to lift people? In fact, you know, when you get saved, First and foremost, it's wonderful that you're saved from hell and saved from sin, you've got a clean heart, but did you know that your education often improves then as a Christian as well? I mean, you think about it, there might be some of you here tonight who probably hardly ever read before you got saved. Now you read the Bible, you're reading Christian books, and it's amazing how the Christian faith can actually lift people's education, tremendously. and the King James does that, we'll talk a bit more about that in a moment. So number one, there are some old words but they are much fewer in number than is often implied. Roughly around, somewhere between 6 and 650 words in the list there. Number two, the reading level of the King James is actually not very high. It's written about on an 8th to 10th grade level and this was proven in the 1980s by computer analysis made by Dr Donald Waite who dedicated much of his life, he just died last month actually, to the research of the King James, the defense of the King James and he spent a tremendous amount of time on studying various aspects of this issue and he ran several books of the King James through the Right Writer program and found that Genesis 1, Exodus 1 and Romans 8 are on the 8th grade level, Romans 1 and Judah on the 10th grade level and Romans 3, 1 to 23 is on the 6th grade level. And David Cloud comments, I would assume that many parts of the four Gospels are on that same level, if not lower. So, the impression that the King James just can't be understood, that it's all outdated and ancient, is just simply not accurate. In fact, you read most of it, it's just very understandable. Once you get used to some of the phraseology, and you understand some of the these and the thous and some of those aspects, it just unlocks, it comes alive to you. Number three, interestingly, the King James Version has a relatively small vocabulary compared to other works. So people who say, oh it's just like Shakespeare in English, are not actually correct. Because what's interesting is while Shakespeare used a vocabulary of roughly 21,000 English words, the vocabulary of the King James Bible is composed of only about 6,000. Understand? So in other words it's a much smaller vocabulary and that compares favourably to the vocabulary of the Hebrew Old Testament which is 5,642 words and the vocabulary of the Greek New Testament which is about 4,800 words. So interesting, when God inspired his word in Hebrew you've got about five and a half thousand words that were used by the Holy Spirit to give us God's word in the Old Testament. When it came to the New Testament about 4,800 words were used by the Holy Spirit to give us the New Testament and you see the King James using about 6,000 are pretty well on the level there as far as the size of the vocabulary. Now, this charge that the King James is just like Shakespeare would have to be put forward by people who've never read Shakespeare. How many of you ever studied Shakespeare at school? How many of you remember it being extremely difficult to understand, much more difficult than the King James? I did school for a year and we studied the taming of the shrew. just to illustrate this for you, just listen to this line, we had to memorise our lines and recite in front of the class and that's where my King James background, I absolutely knocked the socks off the rest of the students, they had nothing, they couldn't, they were struggling to read it, I memorised my lines, I got top of the class, anyway, that's just my little bragging point there but, but I remember memorising this particular line but see if you can understand it. Basta condent thee, for I have it full. We have not yet been seen in any house, nor can we be distinguished by our faces for man or master. Then it follows thus. Thou shalt be master, Triano, in my stead. Keep house and port and servants as I should. I will some other be, some Florentine, some Neapolitan, or mean a man of Pisa. Tis hatched and shall be so. Triano, at once uncase thee. Take my colored hat and cloak. When Biandello comes, he waits on thee, but I will charm him first to keep his tongue. Do you understand? It's very complicated English and very complicated. The King James, it's just not realistic to compare it. Listen to some words from the King James in comparison and its simplicity. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters. Can you understand that? restoreth my soul, he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.' And so, the King James used a much smaller vocabulary than some of these other works, so that's another point that disproves this whole readability argument. The fourth point I want you to understand is that the King James Version actually tends to use simple words with only one or two syllables. Now, what's a syllable? Well, a syllable is an uninterrupted segment of sound which is formed by the opening and closing the mouth to form vowels. So you have the word, well let's take the word syllable, sy-la-ble, right? So you have three syllables, there has to be a vowel, right? And you have one syllable words, like Kate, it's a one syllable word. Simeon, that's three syllables, right? Daniel, two syllables. understand? Nathaniel, three syllables. Alright, so here's another, we're back to school tonight, okay. Cat, that's one syllable. Apple, two syllables. Zebra, two syllables. Banana. Okay, do you understand what a syllable is now? Okay, alright. So, have very long words or often you might have four or five syllables and there are some of those in the King James but it's actually very interesting when you look at this to see how simple actually the wording of the King James is, it's actually the opposite to what often is argued. sometimes, actually, the modern versions will substitute a one-syllable word in the King James for a multi-syllabled word in so-called modern English. You say, why would they do that? Why would the NRV, for example, change house, one syllable, to habitation, four syllables? Well, because they want the copyright to make more money. Simple, you've got to just change stuff. So the entire King James averages 1.3 syllables and 3.9 letters per word. So generally, fairly simple, straightforward words to pronounce. Okay, and this word length puts the King James in the same readability category as the children's books. So if you look at Psalm 23, again as an example, Of the 119 words in this psalm, only 24 are more than two syllables. So think about it, the Lord is my shepherd, two syllables, I shall not want, that's all one syllable words. He maketh, two syllables, me to lie down in green pastures, two syllables. He restoreth, three syllables, my soul. See? Where does it go from there? Let's turn there. What's the next verse? He leadeth, two syllables, me in the paths of righteousness, three syllables, for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley, two syllables, of the shadow of, shadow, two syllables, of death, I will fear no evil. So, see that just illustrates? Mainly, one syllable words, and out of the 190 words in that psalm, only 24 are more than two syllables, and only five are three syllables. And we could give many other examples of this. So, contrary to what is often claimed, the King James Bible is actually marked by a wonderful simplicity, at the same time, real majesty. Yes, there is some old words there, but it's not like it's half of the translation. It's only really a very small percentage and that can easily be overcome with a good Bible dictionary or two. Okay, fifth consideration on this issue. Number five, the most important thing with the Bible translation is that it is faithful to the original text. That is first and foremost the most important thing, not necessarily its readability. Now readability is important, And the King James translators actually, as illustrated by Shakespeare, did not use a lot of the highfalutin, sophisticated English that was accessible to them. Don't forget, these men were educated to a level that just blows the mind. If they really wanted to make the Bible complicated and use that really airy, fairy, flowery language, no doubt they could have done that. But they didn't, they wanted to make the Word of God clear and understandable in English. To quote Dr Donald Waite again, he made a good comment on this matter of the accuracy of translation. Listen to what he says, I think it's very good, the Bible is not a first grade primer, it is God's book. It is a book that must be diligently read. It is only by searching the scriptures that we find what pertains to life and death. It tells of creation, of the mighty universe, of the future or the past, of the mighty God and his wonders, of the Holy Spirit's ministry among Christians, of the Son of God's great sacrifice for sin, of home in heaven for the believer and of a fiery hell for the unsaved. How dare we assume that his word can be capsulated in a comic book or a version that reads like the morning newspaper. Some people say they like a particular version because it's more readable. Now, readability is one thing, but does the readability conform to what's in the original Greek and Hebrew language? You can have a lot of readability, but if it doesn't match up with what God has said, it is of no profit. the King James Bible the words match what God has said. You may say it's difficult to read but study it out. At times it's hard in the Hebrew and Greek and perhaps even in the English in the King James Bible but to change it around just to make it simple or interpreting it instead of translating is wrong. You've got lots of interpretation but we don't want that in a translation, we want exactly what God said in the Hebrew or Greek brought over into English. So I would rather have a translation that maybe I have to work a bit harder at to understand that is accurate and it's telling me exactly what God said than something that's been dumbed down and watered down and put into trashy modern language. Now I did mention this before in one of our previous lessons but just to highlight again that the King James translators didn't just give us Elizabethan English or Shakespearean English Actually, their style of English is unique in the King James. that's because they were actually trying to give us a sense of the original languages. So just to read this quote to you again from Edward Hills, the King James Version defended, says, the English of the King James Version is not the English of the early 17th century. To be exact, it is not a type of English that was ever spoken anywhere. It is biblical English which was not used on ordinary occasions even by the translators who produced the King James Version. H. Wheeler Robinson pointed out, one need only compare the preface written by the translators with the text of their translation to feel the difference in style. Have you ever tried to read through the full preface to the King James? How many of you have read that? Have you noticed how difficult that is to understand compared with reading the actual King James? That shows you that's when they're talking in that real high academic language. they didn't use that style for the translation, did they? Okay, they tried to give us, as best as possible, the exact sense of what was being said in Hebrew and Greek, transferred over into English. And the observations of WA Irwin are the same to the same report. The King James Version, he reminds us, owes its merit not to 17th century English, which was very different, but to its faithful translation of the original. Its style is that of the Hebrew and of the New Testament Greek. Even in their use of thee and thou, the translators were not following 17th century English usage, but biblical usage, for at the time these translators were doing their work, these singular forms had already been replaced by the plural you in polite conversation. So even in general conversation, people weren't using thee and thou. The reason they used those words was to give us greater accuracy. I'll just skip this next quote for sake of time. but I hope you get the sense of that. So it's important that we have a Bible translation that is faithful to the original text. I think there's actually some positive, I'd like to think about the old words in a positive light. Okay, it's often thrown up as a negative, the old words, but I like to think of them in a positive aspect. And they're positive in this respect, the old words can be a positive thing in that they encourage study. actually find it helps. You're sometimes reading the Bible and you say, I don't know what that word means, what does it encourage you to do? To go and find the answer, to find the definition. So I think, looking at it positively, some of those old words are actually useful because they help encourage study. We are living in a day of tremendous intellectual laziness in the technological world we're living in, true? People are just used to just thinking on a very shallow level. See the guy there trying to do his smartphone? Okay, and just getting there, you know, just this light and shallow sort of culture. It won't hurt us in this age of intellectual shallowness to expand our vocabulary. You say, oh, but my brain's going to be overloaded. Do you know it's almost impossible to fill the storage capacity of your brain? You didn't realize you're so smart, did you? you have enough storage capacity to basically handle the National Archives of Australia. They estimate that we have about 2.5 petabytes of storage capacity. So what's that? Well, one petabyte is equal to one quadrillion bytes, which is one million gigabytes. So some estimates hold that a petabyte is the equivalent of 20 million tall filing cabinets or 500 billion pages of standard printed text. you can memorise the Bible all your life, you're not going to use up all that brain capacity. Okay, learning a few hundred words in the King James, you'll be right, you'll be fine, trust me, you'll live, you will live to tell the story. to study, aren't we? To show ourselves approved under God. I like what Leland Rykins says in his book, Hear the Word of God, in English. He says, instead of lowering the Bible to a lowest common denominator, why should we not educate people to rise to the level required to experience the Bible in its full richness and exaltation? Instead of expecting the least from Bible readers, we should expect the most from them. The greatness of the Bible requires the best, not the least. That's the right attitude, isn't it? The most difficult of modern English translations, the King James, is used most by segments of our society that are relatively uneducated as defined by formal education. Research has shown repeatedly that people are capable of rising to surprising and even amazing abilities to read and master a subject that is important to them. Previous generations did not find the King James Bible with its theological heaviness beyond their comprehension, nor do readers and congregations who continue to use the King James translation find it incomprehensible. be not conformed to this world. Do you understand what that means? I don't know what that means, I need a modern translation. Well, it's not hard to understand, is it? Neither of my parents finished grade school, he says, and they learned to understand the King James Bible from their reading of it and preaching they heard based on it. We do not need to assume a theologically inept readership for the Bible. sometimes there's a bit of arrogance there, or that people aren't going to understand it. No, don't assume that people don't have the capacity, put in them by God, to actually grow and learn. Again, I've seen people who've been quite uneducated and through the King James Bible and the Word of God, learn and grow, become quite good thinkers. Some of you still working on that, we're all working on that. Alright, furthermore, if modern readers are less adept at theology than they can and should be, it is the task of the church to educate them, not to give them Bible translations that will permanently deprive them of the theological content that is really present in the Bible. Do you understand? There's tremendous illiteracy out there, when it comes to basic Bible doctrine today. So if the purpose of these modern versions was to help everybody understand the Bible better, why is it that we're living in the most ignorant time, probably, in the church age, when it comes to basic Bible truth? The plethora of modern versions has simply not done what they said they would do. And do you know what? You probably won't actually... you'll be fine with the King James as long as you don't listen to people who tell you otherwise. I was listening to a presentation by a preacher from the King James Research Council in America, he's been a preacher for 50 years or so, and he pastored for many years and he recounts a story where he had an Indian family come and join his church, they came from another church and English was their second language and they had a 12 year old daughter and they came for six weeks and seemed to be enjoying it and all of a sudden they came to him after about six weeks and said, pastor we're going to have to leave the church and he said, well why? They said, well because our daughter won't be able to understand the King James. someone had told them, oh don't go to that church, they use the King James, your daughter won't be able to understand. And the 12 year old girl popped up and said, dad please don't take me to another church, I've learned more from the Bible in the six weeks we've been here, than all the other years in the other churches you took us to. So there's often that assumption and often the thought is unfortunately put in people's heads, it scares people, oh no, you can't understand the King James, you can't understand the King James, oh you'll find it hard. No, encourage people, you can understand it, here's a good Bible dictionary, here's a few tools, make use of them and you will find that you can learn after all. So the King James language is useful in that it can encourage you to be a student of the Word of God. I was just reading through Job recently and I came across, I love this word now, and it's the description of Leviathan and in Job 41.18 it says, by his kneesings a light doth shine. I thought, what on earth does kneesings mean? It means his sneezes. I mean, when Leviathan sneezed, stuff happened. I mean, Whatever this creature was, it seems to be describing a dinosaur, that's the only way I can explain it, a dinosaur, and when this bloke sneezed, watch out, I mean, when he sneezed, the light shined. I don't know what that means, but there you go, he definitely was not COVID compliant, that's for sure. Sneezing was not banned for him, but there you go. But the point is, I read that word the other day and I thought, I remember, I'm sure, I think that means sneezing, but I looked it up again. And it keeps you interested, it helps you to dig into words, because after all, the Holy Spirit gave His Word in words, we should be word-studiers. let me give you just a few recommendations of some basic tools that can help you with word studies. Firstly, the American Dictionary of the English Language by Webster but the 1828 version, okay. Webster was a Christian and what I like with his dictionary is he very often uses phrases from scripture or biblical words to illustrate in his definitions. it's a very Christian dictionary and it's a very, very good resource for understanding the King James Bible. Most of those older words in the King James Bible are defined in this dictionary. Now you have to be careful because sometimes the meaning of words changes over time. So if you just run to a modern dictionary to study the King James Bible, you may be misled. All right, it's important to go back to some of these older dictionaries because he was writing in a time when the King James was the only translation amongst the English-speaking world, or the primary one anyway, the dominant one, and so he tends to define the King James words very, very well. You can actually just get that on an app now. got that on my phone and just look up very quickly. It doesn't have all of the commentary that the full version has, I have a, thankfully someone brought me one over from America because they're extremely large, heavy and very expensive. I should have got you to bring me one, another one, I could have sold it at a profit to some hungry Baptists, but anyway, it's a great resource to have. So, but you can just, you can just, you can look it up online. In fact, when I'm studying the Bible throughout the week, I always, I have my web browser open, I have about three dictionaries, And my children are always laughing because when I'm instructing them, often they say, Dad, you always use big words. I'm sorry, I just live, that's my life, I live with words, I love it. And so I've got three different dictionaries that I like to consult. I've got a modern dictionary just to help me with sometimes outlining or just looking up just basic English words because I want to make sure I'm using the right words sometimes when I'm preaching to you. but I have Webster's Dictionary there and the thing is, there's just so many tools at our fingertips now, in fact we've never had more tools than we have now to understand the King James Bible, there's no excuse, there really is no excuse, there's just so many good resources you can easily find the answers to words or the meaning of words very quickly. Strong's Concordance is a very useful resource. Now James Strong himself unfortunately ended up participating in the revised version project but I'm not going to deprive you of that as a resource. The Strong's Concordance, I agree with David Cloud, is probably one of the most significant Bible study books that ever has been written in the English language. with its numbering system and its definitions, it's very, very useful for doing word studies. So you can again get that on Bible apps and things and that's often what I look up as well, you can look up, just to get you a quick definition of a biblical word, it's good for cross-referencing and that sort of thing as well. Another Bible program that I would recommend, how many of you heard of eSword? Yes, oh good, okay, lots of you onto that one. You've got to have eSword, okay, and it's available for free download off of that website for your computer. Very, very useful because it's got the search function, if you're looking for a verse, if you can just even remember a phrase from the verse, you can search it or you can do a quick word search, you're studying a word, Maybe we should do a little demo sometime and show you how you can make use of that program, even to study some of the different ways words are translated. You can do that with a couple of clicks and you can see a whole list of how one word is translated in Hebrew or Greek. Very, very useful. We use this all the time. You can also get it on an app, so on your phone. I think it costs a few dollars but money well spent and again you can go on there and very quickly access good definitions for Bible words as well as some Bible commentaries as well, be careful what you read there though. I personally don't have a copy of this but I've seen this before. How many of you have got a defined King James Bible? One, two, three, the privileged three, okay, four. Is it good? It's good, isn't it? It's got the definition of words and that sort of thing. Maybe we'll get some in for the book table but I think this is produced by D.A. Waits or D.A. Waits founded the Dean Burgon Society and I believe they're the publisher. if I'm not mistaken, and what it does is basically, what I understand it is, is it defines a lot of those words we're talking about, so as you're reading the Bible there are definitions and things like that. So that's another resource you could look into. Then there's several lists available, this is one of them and as I said there's a whole pile of them over there so you can grab one of those, make use of that. This is another one that I think I've got a copy of that somewhere, the King James Bible Companion from Chick Publications with over 600 words defined. So you can easily have some tools available nowadays, electronic on your phone, a little booklet like that, buy your Bible and when you come across one of those difficult words, you can very quickly understand what it is. Now, here's a suggestion, what you might like to do is put a little asterisk next to that word and then write the definition in the margin so that when you come back to it again and you'll find over time that you more and more learn those words and what they mean and the Bible just unlocks for you more and more. Not that it was locked up to begin with but you understand what I'm saying, opens up to you. Alright, so there's a few resources I would recommend. Okay, second objection tonight. Sorry, I just got one quick testimony here from someone who responded to my survey this week to the church and I thought this was good. This was someone who came to our church a couple of years ago and has transitioned to the King James and I thought this was a good testimony. I asked if he'd be happy for me to share it without mentioning his name and this was the message. Good evening pastor, I saw your message re-issues with the King James KJV Bible. I must say that we struggled at first trying to make sense of the transcripts but we have found that persistence is key. if I struggle with a verse, I'll read it over slowly until it makes sense. That sounds like a good approach. Also, putting the singular verse in context with other verses each side of it, so in other words, reading the verse in its context. As I said, very often, as you read the context, you'll just get a sense for what that word is supposed to mean. Okay, so I thought that was a good testimony. So again, you can't just dismiss it. Some people do struggle initially. I know my wife, she was raised with the NIV and I think she says it took her about a year or two to adjust, about a year. about a year to adjust, just to get used to the language of the King James but it was well worth it. She's a King James girl all the way now and yeah, it's good, writing verses out and it's wonderful. So if you are one that struggles initially with some of the phraseology and some of the older words, just stick with it and it will bear fruit because in the long run you're going to be reading a Bible that is the preserved Word of God based on the correct text, very important, as opposed to the corrupt Greek text that we've been talking about in our series. So that, I want to spend, we've spent about 45 minutes on that, because I want to give that time because that is the most common objection. you'll get it thrown at you all the time or it'll come up, even sometimes it's a genuine objection but if people can just understand, often it's just blown out of proportion and you can help people say, do you know what, I know where you're coming from, a lot of people feel that way but let me encourage you, just start reading it and here's some tools that'll help you, look up the words, okay, just a little bit of effort, a little bit of study and you will be rewarded. Here's a second one and I've heard this a lot, King James was a homosexual, how many of you have heard that one? Okay, yep, number of people. This is one that's often thrown up to discredit the King James, which is interesting because on the whole the modern church is going very soft on homosexuality, all of a sudden it's a very grievous sin if it's related to the King James, but anyway. All right, so let's just deal with that. It's often made this charge by those who want to damage the King James but the facts simply do not back this charge up. The charge was first made after the King's death by his enemies, by a man named Anthony Weldon. He looks a bit devious, doesn't he? And Anthony Weldon had been expelled from his office by King James for political reasons and he swore that he would have his day of vengeance on the King. Do you think he's an objective source of information? Not only did Weldon hate James but he hated the entire Scottish race. He was an Englishman, he didn't like the Scotsman and King James was Scottish. English and the Scots haven't always got on in history, you can find that out. Sometimes they get married but that's, they lay down their arms. We're listening actually, we're listening at the moment to a very gripping audio drama we just got and it's all about the late 1200s and the King, is it John Wallace, famous Scots, Scottish warrior in the battles with the English and it's helping me understand the Tweedy family more, it's a rule, it's a... no, no, I'm just joking. But yes, the Scots and some of the things that went on there but this man, Anthony Weldon, he hated King James because he was Scottish, he hated the Scottish people and so he was the one who actually put forward this accusation after the king had died, because if he'd done it during the king's reign the king probably would have gone, off with your head buddy, find out the power of the Scottish sword there. But no, so one historian warns here, historian Maurice Lee Jr warned, historians can and should ignore the venomous caricature of the king's person and behaviour drawn by Anthony Weldon. Now let's look at some facts that disprove this charge. Firstly, King James fathered eight children, so he couldn't have been much of a sodomite. wrote love letters to his wife and referred to her as our dearest bedfellow. So he had a loving relationship with his wife, he was married to Princess Anne from Denmark and they had eight children, most of them died in infancy, it's common in those days. When John Reynolds, the Puritan, questioned the phrase in the Anglican marriage service, with my body I thee worship, King James replied, quote, if you had a good wife yourself you would think that all the honour and worship you could do to her would be well bestowed. that was his attitude about marriage. And King James also wrote a book to his son Henry entitled, Basilican Doron, or A King's Gift. And in that book, he gave instructions to his son and it's interesting to see what he said about sexual purity. Now, King James wasn't the greatest saint but he did have traditional views when it came, conservative traditional views when it came to morality. And here's what he wrote to his son, quote, but the principal blessing is in your marrying of a godly and virtuous wife. Being flesh of your flesh and bone of your bone, marriage is the greatest earthly felicity. There's an old word, what does that mean? I think it means happiness, check it out. He also said on page 44, keep your body clean and unpolluted while you give it to your wife whom to only it belongs for how can you justly crave to be joined with a virgin if your body be polluted? It's pretty good advice actually, to a son, keep yourself pure until you're married. When you were married, he wrote to his son, keep your promise made to God in your marriage. Another quote, abstain from the filthy vice of adultery, remember only what solemn promise you made to God at your marriage. So he doesn't sound to me like a man who was embracing the rainbow agenda. By the way, it's one thing that I hate at the moment, they try and go back in history and make everybody a sodomite. seriously, there's a big push that way. They try and find some little thing and they try to make a lot of historical figures sodomites. Now some of them were but they're trying to re-interpret history all the time through this rainbow lens, it's just not accurate. Moreover, he was very plain spoken in this same book to his son about the sin of sodomy. He said, quote, especially eschew to be effeminate, don't be effeminate as a man, he said to his son. he said this, there are some horrible crimes that ye are bound in conscience never to forgive, such as witchcraft, willful murder, incest and sodomy. So the King, King James was very clearly against sodomy, he wrote these words to his son and this accusation came from a very unsound source, someone who had an agenda to discredit James, he hated him because he had been dispossessed of his position in the king's court. Finally, I want to say this, in many ways the personal character of King James is irrelevant to the argument. about that for a moment. Let's say that charge was true, it's not, but let's just say it was. Would it actually discredit the King James? Did King James do the translation work? Yes or no? No, he simply, as the King, set the project in motion translation work was done by the approximately 50 men assigned to the task, many of whom were very godly men, very skilled men. So I would say this, if God could use pagan kings in the Bible to accomplish his grand purpose in history, like Cyrus, Darius and Nebuchadnezzar, do you think maybe God could use King James in English history, even if he wasn't the most godly man? Yes, but the charge of sodomy is incorrect, it's very suspect from the facts, but whether he was a really godly man or not, in some ways, is not the point. In that time of history we see God was able to work through kings and the Bible says that. Okay, Ecclesiastes 8.4, where the word of the king is, there is power. Proverbs 21.1, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water, he turneth it whithersoever he will. Hmm, I think we might stop there. So the readability issue, the King James is a sodomite issue, so that's just not true. So when someone throws that at you, you can say, have you ever read what King James said about sodomy? They probably won't have an answer for you. You better check your facts on that, okay? So it's about being equipped to answer these objections and these arguments that sometimes come our way. So next week, God willing, we'll pick up with where we left off. We have a couple more in the notes here, but I'm going to let you have, well, about a 10 minute early mark. Normally go for an hour, but it's 50 minutes, so. stop, let's pray. Father we thank you for your goodness to us tonight and we thank you for the Bible we hold in our hands, life-transforming, a powerful Word of God. Help us to be equipped to answer, Lord, some of these ill-informed and sometimes malicious attacks against your Word in English, that we might be able to take a stand for your Word and Lord, help us to understand Your Word, give us a love for it, a passion for it, a desire to study it, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.