So I was given an article by a good brother, and very graciously given, and he asked the question, what do you make of this? Without offering an opinion of his own, just, you know, what do you make of this? And so I was taking a look at it this week, and I'm actually not gonna talk about the article per se, but what's behind it. Because what's behind it is more important than the question it raises. And that's what got me. And there's a reason for that. And it's been around for a generation. And ministers have not been doing their jobs. It's really not the fault of the rank and file Christian, because the ministers have failed in their task. to remain faithful to what the scriptures teaches in this regard. You say, what in the world are you talking about? I'm talking in vague terms. Well, we're going to get to it. In fact, I'm going to talk about it both this morning and this evening. It's just that important. And the question was a good question. I got it here. I think I do. It was a good question. And I say it was a good question because I think it's completely common nowadays to ask this kind of question. And it's everywhere. It's almost everywhere you go, this kind of question can be asked. And I understand that. I understand that because it's being taught everywhere. But it's not being taught here. But it's being taught everywhere. And that's just the way that it is. And it really came about in the late 1800s. But it didn't really become a thing to, I'm going to say the 60s or 70s, but really the 70s. That's when it really started. And from then on, it overwhelmed the Christian community. So it seems to be the only thing that they know. And so we want to, that's why I think it's a very, very good question. I'm glad it was brought to my attention. Not that I didn't have, I know people were doing this. And I've referenced it before. I've already talked about it. We're actually talking about Revelation 25, chapter 20, verse five. And I've talked about that before, but not in the more fundamental way that I'm gonna do today. I mean, I have years ago. And the article is entitled Revelation 20, verse five, A Maliciously Inserted Delay. And it's put out, now there's no name of an author to the article. I can't stand it, go online, they do that. But it is attached to an organization or a website called Christianity Original. I didn't know anything about it, so I looked it up, Christianity Original. And they're a non-Trinitarian, Jesus is not good, contrarian sort of website. They like to be, Different and they say that they're authentic and they're the original thing which is what everybody says But I don't believe I wouldn't trust the source, but that doesn't matter because untrustworthy sources can say true things. And just because the source may have problems in this area doesn't mean they're not having a valid contention in that area, right? So I always use the example of C.S. Lewis. I don't trust C.S. Lewis, and you shouldn't trust C.S. Lewis either. I don't care if he's the darling of evangelicals in the Oxford Don. He can't be trusted. He's a socialist and a Marxist. Not a hardcore Marxist, but a soft European socialist, who thinks the kingdom of God is a redistribution of wealth, just about. And he doesn't believe in the Bible. I mean, he believes in the Bible, he believes in the resurrection of Jesus, and that's what I wanted to say. He's so bad, oh yeah, he's all pro-evolution. He can't stand the Psalms, we shouldn't sing them. There's a whole bunch of bad things with C.S. Lewis. He married a Jewish woman who belonged to the Communist Party. She divorced her husband. She went to him as a Christian minister, and he counseled her. She lived in the United States. And he got her to divorce her husband. She moved across the ocean and married him. And both her and her husband belonged to the Communist Party. That's C.S. Lewis. Now, I'm sure she was saying, well, I left the Communist Party. But when I read the details, you know, it's kind of like the neocons were former Jacobins. Well, maybe. But C.S. Lewis says, you know, so every time I hear C.S. Lewis, I say, yeah, well, whatever he's saying, I'm not saying. Well, you know what, C.S. Lewis says he believes in the resurrection of Christ. Well, you see, I can't be so stupid to say just because it's him saying it, it's wrong. So you gotta be careful not to do that. So I wanna treat the point irrespective of the source of the organization that's making it. Or the, I don't know if it's an organization, just the website, I suppose. But anyway, about Revelation 20, verse five, I suppose we should look it up just to remind you what it is. Although we're not really preaching on it today. Revelation 20, verse five. And this is in the context Satan's throwing the bottomless pit, right? And then the martyrs of the tribulation are killed, and they live and reign with Christ a thousand years. And then verse five, but the rest of the dead live not again till a thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Now they're talking about verse five. And what they're saying is the first part of verse five, that first sentence should not be in the Bible. It needs to be cut out. It needs to be deleted. And the only thing that belongs there is this is the first resurrection. Now, I told you a long time ago, verse five is a point of contention for all eschatologies. And so, obviously, it makes life easier for all sorts of different kinds of people to snip it out of your Bible. And this is what they're basically saying. I'm just gonna read a couple excerpts, so you understand the issue. Now, for instance, there's a section on manuscripts, and they write, when we search the earliest manuscripts, ooh, the earliest, we arrive at the findings below. The sentence of verse 5a, the first part of verse five, is not found in the oldest and most reliable manuscripts, including, okay, you know, wait a minute now. The oldest and most reliable. If I've not heard that a thousand times, then I've heard it 10 million times. And every time you see oldest and most reliable, put your radar up. And that's the revolution right there. That's the revolution. And it's printed time and time again in all your modern Bibles. The sentence of verse 5a is not found in the oldest and most reliable. Says who? Who says that the oldest manuscripts, of which there's a handful compared to over 5,000, who says those so-called oldest manuscripts are the most reliable? Oh, I know. Westcott and Hort. That's who. So we'll, between today and tonight, I might get to details of Westcott and Hort, but I might not. I got too many things in the Bible to talk about, but when you get involved with Westcott and Hort, you say, you want to trust them? That's like trusting C.F. Lewis. Anyway, all this is the most reliable. Says who, I say? The next point they say, about 40% of the 200 available manuscripts of Revelation do not have the first part of verse five. 200 manuscripts. Well, that's because there's not a lot of manuscripts of the book of Revelation, for whatever reason. Not as many as some of the other books, like Romans, you get thousands. So you get 200 manuscripts, and they say, well, 40% of the manuscripts available don't have it. Yeah, so what's the point? I mean, even if you want to just go by plain majority, you lose. I'm not saying even that necessarily is what you want to do, but okay. Then they tell us 50% of the earliest manuscripts, oh, you mean the junk ones, from the fourth to the 13th century, you mean the handful, do not have it. And then they go, well, let's see. Then they tell us a little bit later, the anchor Bible describes the manuscript evidence against the first part of verse five. Who cares what the anchor Bible says? So that's not much of a point. Yes, it is because that, yeah, it is a point, but I'm not gonna take the time to talk about it. Now listen, the thing gets me. Thus, when we verify the manuscripts, verify the manuscripts, when we verify the manuscripts, we find that this portion that says the rest of the dead did not arrive to life until the end of a thousand years was not really part of the original Bible. How do they know that? They make that declaration, that's just an assertion. And they say, this would imply that someone inserted this part in the later manuscripts with potentially ulterior motives. Snidely whiplash. And God was watching him do it and say, oh, I better leave him alone. That's what my sermons are about for tonight and this evening. Now, I know the average Christian. They're not thinking in these terms. They're like, hey, what the scholars say. They read that and they say, oh. And that would be like 99% of people. And I understand that. I did that. I mean, I used to walk around with an NIV Bible in my evangelical days. I didn't know any different because no one said anything. Why didn't they say anything? Everybody likes their modern Bible because they read easier. And if you make a suggestion that might make things just a little bit harder for them, They can go pack their bags and go elsewhere. So ministers is just path of least resistance. And then we're told at the end here in the conclusion, no sound biblical scholar will now consider it worthy of reliance. the first part of verse five. No sound biblical scholar will now consider it worthy of reliance. Well, that's funny because all your modern versions have the first part of verse five in them. Some of them will put an asterisk saying, this shouldn't be here. Some of them will put it in brackets, this shouldn't be here. They don't quite say it that way. That's exactly what they're saying. And some of them don't say anything, the modern ones. It's, and I, you know, the list I usually use is like 26, you know, 26 versions. I was gonna bring it in and read them to you, but what's the sense in doing that? Every single one of them had it in there, so a few of them had brackets, but most of them didn't. There's only one version that clipped off the first part, and that was the Aramaic Bible in plain English. But your NIV, ESV, the RSV, the Good News Bible, it's all in there. So if this is so outrageous and the evidence is absolutely clear, and they verified the manuscripts, the originals don't exist, they verified the manuscripts and it's not part of the original Bible as they claim, then what'd you put it in there for? Why'd you put it in there with a note saying this shouldn't be here? If you're so sure of yourself, you don't put it in. That's to add to the word of God and say, well, but maybe you could consider it. You put it right in the text. Which means even though scholars know, the argument isn't secure. That's why it's included. And they'll put a footnote. But the truth is, most of them don't even have a footnote. But they want to be able to say it. Because in the end, it's what enables them to sell Bibles nowadays. Now, having said that, this is what we're going to be talking about. I'm going to be talking about Revelation 20 verse 5, because like I said, I understand people having questions in Revelation 20. I've been raising questions in Revelation 20 verse 5, and people don't want to hear that kind of question because it makes everybody uncomfortable. They just wish it would go away. Hey, we can cut it out. So I've been saying, no, don't. I've been raising that question. But the premise by which these men are going to solve their eschatological schemes, the premise used to make their theology come in a nice, neat package, because they demanded of God, is to take part of the Bible away. Now they'll say, that's not part of the Bible. That was added in by a malicious scribe years later. It started in the margin. And then one day a new scribe came along and then he put it right in the text. Would you have the video rolling for that? Now look, there are scribal errors in copying Bibles. It's eye hand errors. And if anybody wanted to do something malicious, they're going to stick out like a sore thumb when you compare it to all the other manuscripts. And you're going to say, hey, what's up with this guy? Where do you get that from, right? But there's going to be human error in scribal work. We understand that. And we'll talk about that more later. But understand the foundation of the argument is 100% The foundation of the argument to say let's remove the first part of verse 5 of Revelation 20 from the scriptures, 100% of that argument is built on neo-evangelical, the postmodern device of higher criticism. So let's talk about higher criticism for a moment. What is it? Well, first we can deal with lower criticism, which you usually don't hear that phrase much at all. But lower criticism is the attempt to find the original wording of a text of scripture. I mean, we don't have the original manuscripts that were originally authored and penned under inspiration, right? Those are gone. So we've got copies of copies. That's what everything is. And so you compare copies and there can be some differences for whatever different reasons, right? And so sometimes, and particularly if you're going from say like Hebrew or Greek to English. Now you've got another layer of difficulty and challenge before you. And so sometimes the exact wording, or sometimes even in the Hebrew, you could be reading a Hebrew, but some of the markings, it's handwritten. So you know how it is to read handwriting, you know? So when you read handwriting, like, well, does that word say this or does it say that, right? You can get that. Thankfully, when you've got thousands doing it, there's sort of a consensus out there of what was probably there, but a few over here struggled with it. So that's going to happen, we understand. And that's why lower criticism is valid. So what is the proper wording of this text? And that's a discipline. That's lower criticism. Higher criticism questions the authenticity and the genuineness of the text itself, not its wording. But now that we think about it, is that really God's word, that little verse, that phrase, that sentence, that paragraph? That's higher criticism. So the assertion that's being made in the article is based 100% on higher criticism. Now, if we concede the principle of higher criticism as a valid discipline, of removing text from the Bible, then we are conceding to the notion that we do not really know if we can trust the particular part of scripture we're reading. We're conceding that argument. And I want to say this up front because I want to actually say it several times in several junctions if I remember to. I want to say it now in case I forget to at all those other more important junctions. The doctrine of Bible preservation is not something we conclude through science. The doctrine of Bible preservation is something that is believed by faith. So you're gonna either rest on what's called science or you're gonna rest on faith and what the Bible says. Now you say, does science go against faith? Real science doesn't. But what men say is science sometimes does. And if we're not scientists and we're not qualified to argue that, they can sound very right, you have no way of answering them, but they could be 100% wrong. So what are we supposed to do? All become scientists? Now I'm not necessarily talking about putting things under a microscope, particularly when it comes to this. We're talking more of the science of linguistics and language studies and things like that. But we're talking ancient texts and then piecing things together when there's holes there. Anyway, so if we concede to the idea that of higher criticism, that there are certain texts we need to evaluate to see whether they belong in the Bible, we're conceding to the notion that we don't really know if we can trust a particular portion of scripture we're reading. We're conceding to the notion that other portions of scripture that we take for granted are rock solid today, might be held in question tomorrow. Because they're gonna discover something tomorrow, they'll tell us, that we didn't know today. And then we'll have that question. You say, couldn't men do that? Sure, men can do that. My question is, does God allow that? And what does the Bible say? See, that's the more fundamental question. I don't care what man says. I put over what man says, I care what God says. I mean, maybe one day they'll come back and say, what about that John 3.16 over there? You know, we've been doing some studying. We found some ancient manuscripts. Or what about 1 John 1.9? Or what about Genesis 1.1? Well, they've already been fiddling around with 1.1 and 1.2. They stamped it in their Schofield Bible. Well, it could be the gap theory. Or it could be the day-age theory. Or, wait a minute, he's throwing out multiple theories to account for evolution, so he didn't, you know, Schofield didn't even want to use the King James Bible. I think he wanted to use the RSV, I believe. But they said, nah, you know, you're gonna lose conservatives. So okay, so that figure, you know, just so you know. But if you read the first chapter notes of the Schofield Reference Bible in Genesis 1, it shows you, just, you know, pick your theory. But we can't go with the Bible, see? So that's the camp that writes new Bibles. Now I'm gonna show you that between this morning and this evening. And a lot of people don't know that. Who's telling them? I mean, years ago, there'd be some that would tell them. Years before that, there'd be a lot that'd tell them. Years before that, most everyone would say it. But now... Who's gonna know unless some man tells them? I don't need any teacher. The Bible says we won't need teachers. That we'll be taught of the Spirit. And I was just reading some guy online saying that. We don't need teachers, we'll be taught of the Spirit. The eunuch says, how can I know except some man show me? You know, a little humility opens up the opportunities for learning. Self-righteous pride in one's own opinion closes those doors. Because it's easy to keep proving to yourself what you already believe. That's not really a difficult thing. So if we concede to the notion of higher criticism, we're opening up to question. do we have the Bible? What parts of the Bible can we believe? What parts can't we believe? And that can be an evolving thing and it can change over the course of time. We're conceding to the compromise of the authority of the Bible and that the authority of the Bible is now subject to the opinions of the ruling elite in the academic intelligentsia. And if those are the people you want to trust to say, what portions of the scriptures do we throw out, then go to it. But I want to explain why I don't think that would be a good idea. And besides, most of that intelligentsia that's involved with that are either lukewarm, backslidden compromises, liberals, or outright Bible deniers. Yet they're still in the business. You know, that's just the way that it is. To believe the foundation of their arguments, the higher critics, is to concede to the notion that God, in his infinite wisdom, power, sovereignty, and incomprehensible providence, and control over all things, has failed to preserve his own word. Why did he do that? Maybe it wasn't as important as we thought it was. See, we're gonna be talking about that this morning and this evening. By the time we're done looking at the scriptures, what they say about themselves, the plausibility of their argument, it just seems to me, has to fall to the ground. And it just changes the frame of mind and the lens through which we see things. Would God allow his word to be doubted by his children? so that they would now have to hold in question, what did the Lord say? You say, well, it's the sin of man that did it. And God allows men to sin. To what degree does he allow it? To this degree? Well, that's what we're going to try and figure out. So for today, without going into the weeds of the particular argument of Revelation 20, verse 5, I just want to look at the philosophical underpinnings of the arguments that those gentlemen were asserting, the philosophical underpinnings which give them their opinions, and is it proper higher criticism? Now, we have to understand. if we embrace this contention, I keep saying that, if we embrace this contention, because there's all sorts of fallout from it, that there are parts of the Bible that are not the Bible. And if you take out an NIV or an ESV, you can get to certain sections where there's like a paragraph that long, and it's in a big, long bracket, and there's a footnote. The oldest and most reliable manuscript. He's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. It's saying to me, God doesn't care, or God's not able, or God doesn't love his children, or the Bible isn't as important as it needs to be. It's saying one of those things. We'll be talking about that at length. But you get this big long section like this, particularly that section about taking up snakes. That was one of them. You know, they take up snakes, they drink poison. Oh, that doesn't belong in the Bible. Get rid of that. That makes us look like a bunch of hillbillies from West Virginia. And on and on it goes. Well, once we do that, we're conceding to one of two things. Well, we're conceding to two things. Number one, God has failed to preserve his word for future generation of believers. Well, maybe God just wants to test us. From whence then shall we draw our strength? And the knowledge that undergirds whatever strength God gives us. We'd have to concede that. And we'd have to concede that God's word cannot fully be trusted. We don't really know what we don't know, so the passages that are gonna be held in question tomorrow, we don't know about those today. So what kind of things will we be doing that we didn't have to do or shouldn't have done? Or believing that we shouldn't have believed? And on it goes. So it's either you gotta concede those two things, or either that, Or God tried to preserve his word, and I don't know anyone to claim this one, there's probably someone out there. God tried to preserve his word, his holy righteous word, for his children's benefit for future generations, but he couldn't do it. So I wanna consider what the Bible says. And that's what we're gonna be talking about. We're not gonna be talking about Revelation, we're gonna be talking about what the Bible says about itself and what we see in the Bible that helps us to understand, does God preserve his word? Now, you cannot separate, it seems to me, I'll start off this way, it's very broad, tonight we get actually a little bit more detail, but you cannot separate the doctrine of the verbal plenary inspiration of scripture from the doctrine of providential preservation. You cannot separate those two things, it seems to me. You say, well, what is verbal plenary inspiration? Okay, well, I think we know what inspiration is, and it's right in the Bible, God breathed. So we're told that the scriptures are God breathed, that's the Greek terminology, God breathed. which is to say that they come from the breath or the mouth of God. Now God created by speaking things into his existence. The words of God are powerful. They don't go out and they're not non-void. They always achieve their intended purpose. And the biblical teaching that the scriptures are God-breathed indicates they come from God. It is the word of God is what we're being told. And God moved upon the authors of the Bible, and there's many of them, he moved upon the authors of the Bible to write what they wrote, so that they would communicate the exact thing he wanted them to communicate. And all you gotta do is read in the Old Testament, particularly around the time of Moses and stuff, and the prophets. If he says to a prophet or to Moses, you say this to the people, you need to say that to the people, not something else, you know? Because the Lord's listening. Well, he stopped listening. That's the modern scholarship. He stopped listening. Yeah, as long as we get the general idea, that's OK. Because God's love. God's the same yesterday, today, and forever. He wants us to be accurate. He speaks. We need to give the people his words, not our summations of the ideas. And that's what a lot of Bibles do. Not all of them do that, particularly, but a lot of them do that. So that's inspiration, it's God-breathed. Now verbal inspiration is, verbal and plenary, I should say this, the definitions verbal and plenary describe the extent of that inspiration. So when we talk about verbal inspiration, and it's pretty much like what it sounds like, verbal inspiration means that every word of scripture as is found in the original manuscripts. Because God didn't inspire, say, the King James, and I'm looking at a sentence, for Demas hath forsaken me, however loved his president were. He didn't inspire for Demas hath forsaken me. That's English. He inspired the Hebrew and the Greek and any Aramaic where it may be. That's what he inspired in those original autographs, which are gone, okay? But people made copies of them, all right? So verbal inspiration means every word of the scriptures are inspired. Not just the ideas and the thoughts behind them, but the words themselves are inspired. An example of that would be Genesis 3.16. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, and to seeds as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. He argues on just, well, in our English, just one letter. You know, that's in our English. Not to thy seeds as of many, but to thy seed. So Paul's saying, in the Hebrew, it's in the singular, not the plural. So the apostle Paul is arguing something down to the division of a word. So we know every word is inspired of God. Paul built his doctrine on the promise made to Abraham and to the fathers about Abraham's seed. He built in part, he built it not just in that, but he built it in part upon the argument of quoting the Old Testament and dividing a word between singular and plural. So yeah, I think we can say the words were inspired of God. And there's many verses. I don't think most Christians, they're not going to argue verbal inspiration. Plenary inspiration, go a step further. Plenary inspiration, plenary means full or complete. So you got, I've got some managers in this part of the country, managers in that part of the country, managers here, managers there. Then you're going to have an annual meeting and it's going to be a plenary meeting, which means they all are going to come together, all of them, full, complete. So plenary inspiration means all parts of the Bible are God-breathed and therefore are equally authoritative. And this is why, brethren, just so you understand, although there's not many of these around, I don't know if the Trinitarian Bible Society, I don't even think they still do it. I could be wrong. Maybe I'm not wrong. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe they still do this, but very few, but it used to be more would do it. They wouldn't even print Bibles with red-lettered editions. Because they say, well, why put Jesus' words in red? All over the words of Jesus. What's the implication? The words of Jesus are more authoritative. Are they more authoritative than when the Father spoke in the Old Testament? You say, well, I wouldn't say that, but they're probably more authoritative. What, more authoritative than what Paul said? Paul said only that which the Spirit of God led him to say, and Jesus and the Father are one with the Spirit, God, All scripture is equally authoritative. Now, I'm not a legalist. I don't take offense at red-letter Bibles. You know, when you're trying to find a quote that Jesus said and say, well, it's easy to find, like looking at it visually on the page. I mean, I understand that. As long as you understand, then those words aren't more important. Because every word in the Bible is as if it came from Jesus himself. Because in essence, it did. So every part of the Bible is equally inspired. Now, just to show you that, go to 2 Timothy, where we were, and well, verse 16 is a verse we all know. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable, 2 Timothy 3.16. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. Well, that almost sounds like the whole kit and caboodle of Christian living. Yeah. And we're told all scripture is given by inspiration of God. And all scripture is profitable for doctrine. All scripture is profitable for proper reproof. All scripture is profitable for correction. All scripture, not some, not most, all the ones except the ones with the asterisk, no, all scripture is profitable for instruction in righteousness. All. If you go to Romans 15, you say, but who's all? Well, you know, we'll get to that. Romans 15 and verse four. Paul writes, for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. So we're talking about plenary inspiration. All scripture is equally authoritative. Well, that's why Paul says, for whatsoever things were written aforetime. It could be Moses, could be Jeremiah, could be David, doesn't matter. It's all authoritative, and it was written for our learning, Paul said. And that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures, see, all of them are the scriptures, not most all of them, or most of what all said, You don't see that division. Well, how can we believe that's true today? Well, stop worrying about that for now. Let's just see what the Bible's saying. So there is, we accept the whole of scriptures, you know. Lots of people questioned whether we should have the book of Revelation in the Bible. There's still people that question that. There's only 200 manuscripts, you know. Now I, from a logic, just from pure human logic, without faith, I do understand the arguments. But then when I add faith into it, no I don't. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Things change. Because I have different priorities, you see, than apparently what they do. Or they're just not thinking of it, right? They haven't had these things, I guess, maybe explained. You know, Jesus has a view. about all this. In Matthew chapter 5, Matthew 5, verse 18, Prevarily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. So Jesus said, not one jot or one tittle. So a jot, the Greek word is iota, and that's the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet. Little tiny thing, right? And that little tiny thing, it also can be considered the Yod of Aramaic, which is like the smallest letter in the Aramaic alphabet. It's just this little tiny marking, really. And the jot in the Greek, the iota in the Greek, just came to be used to refer to anything small and insignificant. Just generally, they used it that way. and the jot and the tittles, you see. And the word tittle, the Greek word there is karia. And karia, it literally means a little horn. You know what? A little horn. Well, pick up, you know, if you're drawing stick figures and you draw a horn, what's it look like? Well, there you go, that's the tittle, right? A little horn. So some guys will argue, some about what it ultimately points to, but pretty much they're in agreement that it's an apostrophe kind of mocking, just like a little apostrophe kind of mocking that sometimes will put on Hebrew letters in the alphabets, on Hebrew letters in the alphabet, to distinguish them from other similar looking letters. and that would just help with the distinction. It was also used, their own form, their own kind, in Aramaic. So, what all boils down to this, and everybody agrees on it, and in every evangelical church I've ever been in, I've heard this a bunch of times, the jots and the tittles is to say, to cross your I's and cross your T's. And what most people don't realize, the English phrase, dot your I's and cross your T's, did I say cross your I's and dot your T's? Dot your I's and cross your T's, that little phrase, hey, did you dot your I's and cross your T's? That actually comes from this. The phrase came from this. So what Jesus is saying is, for verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise, in other words, no jot or tittle shall pass from the Lord till all be fulfilled. Well, that means we have to have the jots and the tittles to know that. He believed from the jots and the tittles, from the law. Now the law goes back a long time before Christ spoke that. He believed in the jots and tittles. Jesus did. You know, I came across a quote. And in Jewish law, they say that the guilt of altering just one tittle, one koriah, if you just alter a jot, if you fail to dot an I or cross a T, they said, It's so offensive, and the wrong is so pronounced and great that, quote, if it were done, if someone does that, fails to dot the I across the T, if it were done, the whole world would be destroyed. The Jews always do that, you know, they always talk that way. Well, see, hyperbole, I mean, the Jews, you know, they're not dummies, they're not thinking, well, if some scribe does that, the universe is gonna be destroyed. Well, they don't really mean that, but they're communicating something through hyperbole. It's deadly serious. To the jot and tittle. Do we believe that? We need to. Jesus taught us to. Unless we think, well, he did that for the Old Testament, but then the Lord kind of loosened his grip in his providence over the jots and tittles of the New Testament. As if maybe the Old Testament's more important than the New. He showed more care for the Old, a little bit less care for the New. Can we concede that point? You see, so most ministers don't want to go into these discussions because people have their favorite Bibles now. And ministers, most ministers go to the pulpit and they say, well, this Bible says this, this Bible says this, this Bible says this, and when I do that, I'm just showing you, look, even they say what I'm telling you. Or I'm exposing their error in contradicting what the scripture says, see? But they just put it like, so how can we find the meeting? Well, let's take 10 Bibles, We'll read the same verse and we'll come up with the average consensus and that's what we're going with, you know. That's a little bit problematic in my opinion. So you cannot separate, is what I'm saying, you can't separate the doctrine of verbal plenary inspiration from the doctrine of providential preservation. Because if it's right down to the jots and tittles, then what do you expect God to do with that? So we have to develop that point and we're gonna keep doing it. Now let me say this, as preterists, we decry, improperly so, we decry the futurists amongst us, the futurist Christians, in their unwillingness to believe what Jesus said. Jesus said he was coming, was near, and at hand. It was soon. He was going to be in this generation. And he was at the door. The habitual was already at hand. We're told that. And then we say, well, yeah, but it didn't happen. That's what the Christian community says. So as preterists, we say, hey, you've got to start taking that serious. That's the word of God. And so this is fundamental to how all argument against the future is. We say it all day long when we rise up, when we walk by the way, when we lay down, because you feel like you can be attacked that way. If you're wearing your heart on your sleeve, people are going to say, hey, what's the matter with you? And then you're going to have to defend it. And you're talking about trusting the Bible. It's the heart and soul of our argument. We don't want to undercut our own argument. And I don't mean from a pragmatic viewpoint. I mean from a moral viewpoint. Although pragmatically it's true, but that's not how we operate. That's not how we want to operate anyway. So we keep saying to these people, look, you got to believe what Jesus said. Are you Bible believers? Yes. Do you believe in Jesus? Yes. Is he your savior? Yes. And do you trust Jesus? Yes. Then you have to trust what he said. He said his coming was near and sooner than hand in this generation. Oh, and on it goes, okay. But it seems apparent to me that Jesus himself believed in the principle of divine preservation. Go to Mark chapter 12. Mark 12. And starting at verse 18. Then came unto him the Sadducees, which say, There is no resurrection. And they asked him, saying, Master. Now see, they're trying to chip up Jesus, because they don't believe in the resurrection. They know Jesus does. They want to make him look foolish. So they put this scenario before the Lord. They say, Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man's brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. So your brother dies and he never had any children and now you're not married, go and marry his widow and provide his widow and your now deceased brother an inheritance in Israel. Okay? Verse 20, now there were seven brethren, and the first took a wife, and dying, left no seed, no children. And the second took her, the next brother, well, I'll fulfill my obligation for my brother's sake, and the second took her and died, neither left he any seed. And the third likewise, and the seven had her, left no seed. Last of all, the woman died also. Well, that's one sorry story. And verse 23, in the resurrection therefore, oh, there's Jesus, "'When they shall rise,' if there is such a thing, "'whose wife shall she be of them? "'For the seven had her to wine.'" See, they're not really concerned about the guy having an inheritance, like, well, if this resurrection story is true, so whose wife will she be in the resurrection? "'And Jesus answering said unto them, "'Do ye not therefore err, "'because ye know not the Scriptures?' Neither the power of God. They don't know the Scriptures. What is that? Verse 25, And when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels which are in heaven. And if touching the dead, that they rise, have ye not read in the book of Moses, he noticed how he says it by name, have you not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him saying, according Moses, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. He therefore do greatly err and Jesus puts him in his place. But my only reason to read that is to say that Jesus quoted Moses as Moses had been recorded in the scriptures many, many, many years before Jesus. And Jesus is implying by quoting him as being authoritative, And that Moses words as they were recorded and as the children of Israel would then have known them, he recorded them as divinely authoritative and obligatory on their consciences. Jesus believed that those words were preserved down to his day. I don't know, I say that's not true. He's basically saying to these people, well, you'd know the truth if you'd only read Moses. Now, Jesus, in that argumentation, is authenticating the preservation of the words of Moses in Torah. all through those years, and think about how backslidden Israel had become through the years. Think how bad they were. Yeah, they were up and down, up and down, but it was like, the general trajectory was, you know, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, until Christ has to come and take care of this problem, you know? And that's the general trajectory. But in spite of that, God preserved that word right down until the last people that were caretakers of it was Mystery Babylon. You say, well, these guys, they got so bad. Look what they're trying to do to Jeremiah. Yeah, I know. He preserved it right through Jeremiah. He can use even the bums, you see. Go to Matthew chapter four. And there'll be bums in the mix. It's always part of the equation. Matthew chapter four. We're emphasizing that Jesus trusted the words preserved in Scripture. In Matthew 4 and starting at verse 1, then was Jesus led up. of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he was afterward hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he said, if thou be the son of God, command that these stones be made bread." He is so hungry now, fasting 40 days. Turn them into bread, tempting the Lord. Jesus responds, verse four, but he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone. but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." He's quoting Deuteronomy 8.3. He's quoting Moses. He says, it is written. This is his defense against Satan. It is written. And he quotes Deuteronomy, which means Jesus trusted and believed and knew, no doubt, of the preservation of those words right down to his day. He would quote scripture. without doubt, and use it authoritatively. If we go back to Mark 12, where we were before, I should've went there before I went here, but back in Mark 12, if we go a little bit further in the chapter, in verse 35, Mark 12, verse 35, and Jesus answered and said while he taught in the temple, how say the scribes that Christ is the son of David? For David himself said, by the Holy Ghost, the Lord said to my Lord, sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool. David therefore himself called him Lord, and whence is he than his son? And the common people heard him gladly. Well, you see, Jesus quotes David. He quotes him and says, he was inspired of the Holy Ghost. Jesus believed those statements made by Moses and David were recorded in scripture and he would repeat it back to his antagonist to say, that's authoritative. And you have to go a long way back to get to Moses from Jesus. And so obviously those words were inspired, they weren't in question. And in Matthew 24, I won't bother looking at it, but in Matthew 24 in verse 15, Jesus makes reference to Daniel the prophet. Didn't Daniel tell you about the abomination of desolation? What's he referring to Daniel for? Because he knew that the Jews with whom he would have to argue and the disciples and all the people that he was speaking to at that moment, He would reference him and say, go back to Daniel. Go back to Daniel chapter nine and look at the abomination that makes desolate. And this is all part of what I'm telling you. You want a sign of my coming? How about the abomination of desolation? And he goes back, that's because that was authoritative. That truth had been preserved. Otherwise, if it was sullied and it was filled with error and stuff, he wouldn't reference it without correcting it. Can God preserve from Moses to Jesus but not from Jesus to us? Or does he not want to bother with us so much? Because it's not as important. And back in, well in Mark 12 and verse 24, and Jesus answering, said unto them, do ye not therefore err because ye know not the scriptures? So Jesus is calling Moses' writings the scriptures, plural, which means he's lumping them in with the balance of what you find in the Old Testament as if they were one book and they're all the scriptures because that's the level of confidence that Jesus had in those scriptures and he's implying they're trustworthy and have been preserved down to his day. And there are innumerable quotes in the New Testament like this by Jesus, by the apostles in their writings. They're always quoting the Old Testament, this, that, and the other. And by the way, you say, well, a lot of the quotes are very, very loose. That's right. But that's a Hebraic thing. That's a Jewish thing. There's a Jewish loose form of quoting. But they're not saying, when they're saying, have you read the scriptures? And then they're kind of giving their own paraphrase of it. And they're not trying to say, and now I'm quoting it verbatim. And that's, we look at it, hey, the Bible has an error here. That's not exactly how he said it. Well, you know, we're looking at it, you know, through the eyes of the critic that don't believe. But that was a thing with the Jews. I mean, let's face it, if you forget to dot an I, the whole world's gonna be destroyed. I mean, this is how they write, okay? And we ought to know that by teaching the doctrine of the parrhesia. So we go back to Timothy, Paul writing to Timothy and he says, all scripture is given by inspiration of God. Now he's writing in terms of New Testament times now, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. But now 1800 plus years out, we say, wait a minute, maybe not all. And we've got scientific archeological proof. You see, when I was originally sitting down to do a sermon about this, I was gonna go to the specifics. Because I did a sermon years ago about the different parchments, and the vellum, and the tischendorf, and what do you get out of the basket at Sinai, and then it was a perfect condition. That discovery is the foundation of all your new modern Bibles. along with other stuff like it. And they say, OK, so we've made some discoveries. Now, this particular vellum, and the vellum was very, very expensive. And it was just in perfect shape. And it was in a basket to be incinerated. Pitchendoff says, hey, can I have that? And so at first, I gave him something like 45 pages. He said, oh, we're going to burn it, but did you know something we don't know? Because it's all like, it's money. In this world, it's not this. It's this, not this. It's this. And so they said, well, did you know something? So we'll give you 45 pages. Well, I thought you were going to burn it. We'll give you 45 pages. OK, I'll take what I can get. And I guess he went back there like, I forget. 14 years later or something to get more. But the long and short of it was, and I read to you portions of a book years ago on that. It was a horrible rendition. It was on nice fine paper. Obviously, the guy who was paying the scribe was expecting something good. He got trash. That's why it was going to be burnt, and it was very old. They say that's one of the oldest manuscripts. Go back to the fourth century, and guess what? Why is it still in such a good existence? It's there, nice and clean, very neat. You know what happens when a text is really good and reliable? Everybody wants to copy it. So people, you know, and it's getting handled, and that's why the good ones end up being destroyed. You know the ones that survive? The bad ones. The ones that the true scholars say, eh. And they made mistakes, like saying, and the Lord said, let's say they were writing in English. And the Lord said, let there be light. So they'd say, and the Lord said, with L-O-R, get the end of the line or no more room, D. Space said so they would do stupid things like that and it was like all throughout and it was amateur hour for that scribe and So this but the thing is it's like so much older than the text that undergird most Bibles today And if he can convince everybody that this is a discovery that's gonna revolutionize Christianity We've got more of the Bible than we realize we have now we didn't realize how much error was in there But now I'm giving it to you Baby, there's copyrights to be made, brethren. Now, you can read the history of that. If you go to the John Burgin Society, oh, that guy, he'll give you the whole kit and caboodle of more detail than you want, and it's pretty dry stuff, but I went through a lot of that with you, you know, but it is kind of boring to go through. I say, you know, we don't have to do that. We don't have to do that. Let's go to the very basic, simple principle. That's why I knew I couldn't do this in one sermon. We have to do it tonight as well. So we agree, people will say to me, well, we agree that the scriptures are infallible in their original manuscripts. So look, we changed church to assembly. We're not saying that this English translation is perfect, although there's guys out there that do. Well, how are you going to do that? Church comes from Kuriakos, not from Ecclesia. But the argument that we're concerned is, what are the Hebrew and Greek texts that we should consult and compare in order to come up with what words were there in Scripture? That's the argument. And what they're saying is, well, we thought we knew we had the scriptures, but in the late 1800s, we made some modern discoveries that said, hey, wait a minute, there's a bunch of stuff in the Bible that don't belong there. Look at this, and look at the great quality of it. It's very clear, and it's very concise, and it's full and complete. And we can date it, and we know the date, and it's, oh, hundreds of years. Older than your manuscript, which means it's even closer to the apostles and therefore of necessity. It must be more accurate I'll tell you what Bernie Sanders is older than my dog and my dog has more truth than Bernie Sanders You know CS Lewis is no longer on earth. He goes back closer to the apostles than I do Closer to the apostles than you do does he have more truth than you do? That's not an argument Now, I know if on an equal plane, if everything was based on mathematics, the closer to the original, the more accuracy you should have if everything was in an equal plane and based on mathematics. But that's not how the human condition is. Otherwise, how do we have 1800 years of Christianity missing the first century Parisia? And then we're going to argue older is better. So this issue should not be resolved by consultant arguments of scholars. You'll go in circles, and there'll be no end to it. What I want to do is something more fundamental and give you something you can hold on to. And that is what the scriptures say about themselves. And then you come to the proper conclusion as a believer. So OK, the original autographs were inspired. So that means what? Now we don't know what the Bible is? Go to Romans chapter three. I'm trying to encourage confidence and faith in the scriptures for this generation. That's what I want to do. Romans chapter three and verse one. What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much in every way, chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. Think about that. I almost want to say, hey Lord, don't you think that's risky business? Well, if it was just up to them, but guess who's sovereign over those caretakers of the oracles of God? Even if they're corrupt, guess who's sovereign over them? God is. That's a matter of faith. It's not a scientific observation. That's a matter of faith. The Jewish scribes were given the responsibility to be the safekeepers of the oracles of God of the Old Testament. And they were. I was going to argue they're the ones who wrote it and copied it. and tried to be extremely careful with it. Would there be malicious people amongst them? Well, I'm sure there were some. But in whatever way God did it, he had a way of taking care of that. And so that his word preserved down the days of Jesus, because Jesus had full confidence in it. And if there's a reason to not have confidence in it, I think Jesus would be saying, hey, there's some corrections that need to be made. And if he didn't do that for the benefit of his people, why didn't he? We'll say, what about the New Testament? Go to John 16. In John 16, the New Testament has to have someone safeguard its truth. So in John 16 and verse 12 and 13, I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now, albeit when he, the spirit of truth, is come. The Holy Spirit, He will guide you into all truth, for He shall, He'll even give them the mystery of the gospel, right? For He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, the Spirit, that shall He speak, and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine and shall show it unto you. The apostles would be the recipients of New Covenant revelation. He would give them that word and they would be the caretakers of it. They would disseminate it, they would receive it and disseminate it and put it in print, okay? What is the sense of the Holy Spirit being sent to the apostles to guide them into all truth? What is the sense in him coming to them? and showing them things to come if, like within 300 years, it's all going to be compromised. It's okay. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years later, it's going to be somewhat fixed. That's the premise, brethren. The loss of God's Word. Go to Isaiah 40. They are promising their higher criticism on accepting the concept of the corrosion and the corruption of God's word in our hands, and we're struggling to find out the truth of what he really said. Now, I'm not talking about translations. I'm talking about the text itself, okay? So in Isaiah 40, they're talking about the text itself, Isaiah 40, And verse eight, that was a verse we all know. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever. Now, you can argue that you take it contextually, which we haven't looked at it. He's talking about Messiah and his ministry and the promises given to the fathers coming to Israel. And that will surely come to pass. And I don't doubt that that certainly applies to that contextual context in which this statement is made. But how can we deny it as a general principle, as it is stated? The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever. You know, that kind of makes sense. That the word of God will stand forever. And if you go to Romans 15, Romans 15, people say, oh, that can't be. I know, God's a God of miracles, but he can't do anything today. You know, there's people that think that way. I don't think that way. God can do whatever he wants whenever he wants. And if we learn about the nature of God, we'll get more into the nature of God yet and see how reasonable is this contention they're placing before us in the light of who God is. But we're kind of touching on that a little bit here. In Romans 15 and verse, Four, for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Well, is that only true of what was written in the Old Testament? What if all we had written was that which is in the Old Testament? Then how could we as Christians under the new covenant have any foundation for our faith because the new covenant is a different covenant and it's a better covenant. It brings out a lot of new true things that we didn't realize before, right? So why are they written? For the same reason the other stuff was written. There's a progressive revelation and we're told whatsoever things were written before time were written for our learning. So is God okay with our ability to learn of his truth being compromised now? Is he okay with that? that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures, but from whence can we draw that comfort if they're in question? And from whence do we draw our hope if we really don't know? See, that's why I'm saying this isn't a matter of studying this scholar, this scholar, and this scholar, and to examine all the details of these manuscripts. Because you basically could talk on a handful versus over 5,000. Say I'm standing with the 5,000, they're standing with the handful, because the handful is older. And therefore it must be better. And all the copyrights come from the handful that came lately. But even without that context, just reading the Bible and learning about God is very instructive. We get to some degree, learn and understand his nature. We can never grasp that fully, I know that. But Jesus said, every jot and tittle. Every jot and tittle. The jots and tittle matter. In Matthew 24, he references, well, he says, this generation will not pass till all these things be fulfilled. How could anyone evaluate the truthfulness of what Jesus said? if we're not sure we have all these things. How do we know if all that Jesus said in Matthew 24 is accurate? How do we know some scribe didn't add something in and then it got repeated and they say, well, that's a problem with the majority text. If someone made a mistake and then everybody just kept repeating it and that's why there's so many of those. Okay, that's a presumption. But see, we're all gonna operate on presumptions. That's all we got to go on. So the presumption is gonna be the few are superior to the many because they're older and that'll bring us closer to the word of God. Or, we believe that the many, God providentially preserved, and though there's errors with stuff, when you compare them side by side, you know which ones are the outlying errors, and you put them together, and there's a fundamental agreement to it, and you can know what the passage said. And we would say, God preserved his word, because that's what God does. So that's a matter of faith, it's not a matter of science. No one can make their argument fully from a matter of science, or archeology, or linguistics. I mean, they like to spin it like you can, because they want you in their camp. I mean, there's Bibles to fill. There's pews to be filled. You go around to King James Bible, people want to go fill those pews. Go, we'll switch to a Geneva. That ain't going to help them. The Woman Thou Art Loose Bible. This is actually a Bible. Woman Thou Art Loose Bible. Why is that? You know, I'm running out of time here. Oh yeah, I'm out of time. I'm out of time. So when Jesus said, man shall not be, man shall not live by bread alone, and he's quoting Moses. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then we need to have those words. And Jesus said, we live by every one of them. They can call me a country bumpkin if they want. Pastor Guggini used to say to me, Now, if you go before the press, they start saying, well, what's in this King James Bible? He goes, don't argue with them. He just says, as far as we're concerned, the word of God. He says, just say that to them. Like, don't get down in the weeds with those guys. I understand what he was saying. Now, some people would say, well, he's just afraid to make the argument, because no, he believed that God preserved his word. And there are reasons for it. Now, we're going to give a lot more reasons tonight. But I'll tell you what, let's just look up a couple things here and then we're gonna close. Ephesians 1. Ephesians 1. Ephesians 1 verse 11. Speaking of Christ, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. Being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. All things come to pass according to the counsel of his will. Does that include? us being able to have his word so we know what to do? Does that include us being able to trust his word? Or is that not included? And if it is included, and you go with the higher critics, then what are you saying about God and his word? I mean, you tell me. You don't have to turn there. Yeah. because we've all heard these scriptures before, but sometimes you hear the same scriptures, but you're reading them sometimes with something different on your mind. They all have, you know, the context in which you have in your mind when you're reading them can make a big difference. You know, so in Daniel chapter four and verse 35, we have that beautiful exposition, and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. And he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay his hand and say unto him, what doest thou? So notice, we're like nothing before God. He does according to his will in the army of heaven, but he also does his will among the inhabitants of the earth. And we will look at how much he values his word tonight. If you take that and connect it to that, connect it to Jesus' trust in the Old Testament, connect it to the fact that the same is true of the New Testament, you say, but then how does he preserve it? I don't even think that's that important. I mean, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord. He turns it with his whoever he will, whether he good, bad, or indifferent. and never contradicts the man's free volition while utterly controlling them. That's ridiculous, that's a contradiction. No, it is not a contradiction. I've explained that a bunch of times. I can't explain it to the nth degree. But if God wanted me to wear a different tie other than my Barney tie, I hesitated wearing a purple tie. I do kind of like purple, but Barney just ruined it. But God in his infinite sovereignty and power. Then he left his word on the side of the road for people to mourn. Say, well, my children will make the best of it. Would you do that to your children? So I guess the question is, how? does God preserve his word for the elect? And you're really left with two things, and we'll be talking about them more tonight. Well, either he's just, he hasn't, he hasn't preserved it. He's preserved it generally, but there's a lot of leaks in the boat, you know, and he didn't make sure the boat was secure before you get out into the ocean. And now the Lord's people are fighting about how to bail out the water and plug the holes. And God's okay with that. So either you gotta go with that, that's higher criticism, or you have to say, God providentially saw it to the preservation of his word. You know how? By use of the priesthood of the believer. You know, the Jews, for all their faults, the scribes fundamentally approach their jobs with great seriousness. And no matter what was really in their hearts, God knew how to motivate them and to cause them to be faithful in their renditions, even though there'd be errors of I and pen and that kind of thing, even though that would be there, but they'd be able to be corrected because you'd have scribe, scribe, scribe, scribe doing it, and then you put them together and you can see what happened. Either we believe in a providentially preserved Old and New Testament, or we believe one that hasn't been preserved, and we're working on it. That's the choice. And your King James Bible, your Geneva Bible, your Tyndale Bible, your Whitcliffe Bible, Martin Luther's Bible, they were all based on the same fundamental Byzantine text, the 5,000 plus manuscripts that made up, you say, well, what about the Greek Orthodox text? You want to become a Greek Orthodox? Do you know what they stand for? And people say, oh, they're really good. Well, they're really good in some things. That's true. Pay attention to them. You want their gospel? It isn't the one we're talking about. Just saying. You want a little bit of legalism? It's Roman Catholic, Roman, you know, it's that high church Roman sophisticated power structure, but just, you know, East versus West. You can go that route if you want, then go use their Bible. They'll play ball with you. Although they're saying what I'm saying. God preserved his word, but he preserved it in our text. That's what they're doing. I'm not saying it's in the King James. I'm saying the King James is using the right text. I wish they'd do an updated version of the King James to modernize some of the archaic words. So they did, the New King James. No, the New King James is built on the modern higher criticism. They would include all the passages of King James, but they put the footnotes saying, this is junk. They don't quite say it that way, but this is junk because we love Westcott and Hoare. That's New King James. Reformed Baptists made an error when they left the King James and went to New King James. They had to fight over it. The New King James people won. Then they had a battle after that, and this is the slippery slope. Then it was New King James versus ESV. They thought it was bad when they went to New King James, and then they went to ESV. So brethren, you know, they gave a lend of our building. Says Calvinist, oh, KJV. Nowadays, because of some fundamentalists and the KJV-only people and the way they interpret it, that could be misinterpreted, I understand. But it's a nice short designation for me to say, we believe God's preserved his word. And if someone asks me about KJV, then I'll say, oh, this is what we mean by it. And all we're saying is we believe God preserved his word, providentially. through the priesthood of the believer in his infinite wisdom. And we can trust him. And if things aren't out in our doctrine, let us do it within the context of that which is written. And if we can't figure something out, I'm okay with that. That's what I'm saying. Revelation 20 verse five, to me, I mean, there's an importance to it because a lot of things hinge on it, but nothing that's fundamental and life-changing. Jesus still came when he said he came. We can still trust all his words. We're still gonna go from life to life. The wicked must believe on him to be saved. This is an in-house argument of who's the most, excuse me, who's the most rightist. And when it gets down to it. There's a bigger fischer right here, and that is the integrity of the text. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Heavenly Father, We're humbled before your infinite sovereignty in the history of man, which is so confusing and complicated because man is corrupt. And so we'll find corruption in the Bibles that are written and reprinted and translated. Translational work is filled with corruption and scribal work will have corruption in it as well. And at the retail level, there's corruption to be added to it. Then there's corruption from the pulpits, there's corruption from the pews, because we're all human beings descended from Adam. There's turf to protect, there's reputations to uphold, and there's money to be made. And Father, we really don't want to base any of our decisions on these kind of things. We want to base it on faith in Thee, and faith in Your Word, which You have given, that Word which opened up to us the knowledge of Christ and the salvation that we have in Him. So we thank Thee for it, and we thank Thee for just bringing the issue to our attention because the truth is, this generation needs to understand what's at stake in what we're doing today with modern Bibles. So bless us, Father, and cause us to depend on Thee, and to preach Thy word faithfully, as Thou dost give it to us, to the best of our ability, and with Your help and grace, and we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.