I want to deal today with this subject, Do Bible Versions Matter? And I want to make this a little serious, because I don't know if you've done the math, but we're poised on the 400th anniversary of the authorship of our King James Bible. And it's coming around very, very soon here. And so I'd like to talk about this Bible, and if it's really God's Word, and do Bible versions really matter? I think you'll find it very, very interesting. The Bible says that the gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation. Welcome to Pulpit Power, featuring Pastor Tony Skeving, Senior Pastor of Fargo Baptist Church in Fargo, North Dakota. Today's message was previously preached before a church audience. And now, here's Pastor Skeving. Well, let's take our Bibles at this time and turn to 2 Timothy chapter 3. 2 Timothy and the 3rd chapter. I want to deal today with this subject, Do Bible Versions Matter? Do Bible versions matter? And I want to make this a little serious, because I don't know if you've done the math, but we're poised on the 400th anniversary of the authorship of our King James Bible. And it's coming around very, very soon here. And so I'd like to talk about this Bible, and if it's really God's Word, and do Bible versions really matter? I'd like to promise you at the outset, it won't be dry. It might sound a little dry, but I think you'll find it very, very interesting. In 2 Timothy 3, in verse number 13, it says, But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them. and that from a child that has known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, truly furnished, unto all good works." Now this is a passage that the Apostle Paul has written to his son in the faith, Timothy, admonishing him to be faithful to the Word of God, and it's talking about the Scriptures. And so I'd like to bring a message from the Bible, on the Bible, on this subject. Do Bible versions matter? Do they really matter? Let's pray before we begin. Our Heavenly Father, we ask You, dear Lord, that You would bless this time as we study Thy Word in this Bible study today. We just pray that You'd help us to listen carefully, and so that we would know why we believe what we believe, and to be able to earnestly contend for the faith in this subject. We pray for Your help to listen and to understand, and to retain that which we hear as we comprehend it. We ask it all now, in Jesus' name, Amen. Well, it's been a while since I've actually talked about the Bible as far as Bible versions go, and I'm a believer that the Bible defends itself and God can defend His Word. And yet, I believe God's people need to know why we use the King James Version of the Bible. We're told in 1 Timothy 3.15, to sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of hope that is in you. And we've got a lot of new folks here. And if somebody came up to you and said, well, why do you use that Bible? It's so full of these and those. It's kind of old and dusty and ancient and archaic. And certainly there are modern versions that are easier to understand. Why do you use that book? Would you be able to give a ready answer to those who ask a reason of the hope that is in you? Do you know what you believe in this area? Now, there are some, and they're not even aware there's an issue here. And there are some listening right now, you go, what's the deal here? And maybe it's not a big deal to you, but it's a very, very controversial subject in the realm of Christianity. I promise you that. Years ago, somebody wrote a letter to the editor of the local forum, the paper here in Fargo, and they were slamming Bible Christianity, really your kind of Christianity, and they were ragging on some things, and they were a skeptic in it all. And one of the statements they made is, these people are so adhered to that now defunct version of the Bible, the King James. Called it the now defunct. In other words, it's useless, it's outdated, it's history. Well, that was a very silly, foolish, ignorant statement to make by somebody who really doesn't know what they're talking about. This old King James might be 400 years old, but it is far from defunct. God is still using it in a great, great way. The fact is, we've had a couple of saved here over the past couple of weeks from this book. Years ago, I had the opportunity to go to the East Coast and I went to Plymouth Rock. It was the first time I've been there a few times, but there at Plymouth Rock we find the place where our forefathers, if you will, landed there. They got off the Mayflower in 1620 and kind of founded this new land here. And we remember that date, 1620. But a lot of people don't do the math, they don't connect the dates that just nine years prior to that, This book was written in 1611. Folks, this is the Bible that primarily set the standard for Bibles in the English language at that time and has ever since. This is the Bible that our forefathers as Christian people founding and forging this nation used to make this the great nation that it is. This nation was not built on a modern version of the Bible. This nation, if it's known any semblance of greatness in the past, was founded and built upon this King James Bible that you hold in your hands right now. Now, it goes back actually eight years prior to that. It wasn't 1611, but it was 1603 that King James was coronated. I've seen the chair over in England, the coronation chair that he was coronated on. And he became the King of England, of the UK actually at that time in 1603. The very first act he did by 1604, one year later, within one year, was to commission 47 brilliant scholars with seven alternatives, but primarily 47 scholars to hammer out this Bible and translate the Old Testament Hebrew into English and the New Testament Greek. It took them years. These were some of the brightest men. In fact, they talk about writing another Bible version in English and assembling scholars. They'll never be able to do that again. I don't have time to talk about those 47 men, but many of them knew several languages by the time they were 7 and 8 and 9 years of age. Many of them did nothing but study Hebrew for 10 hours a day and Greek 12 hours a day. I'm telling you, they will never put together a group of men like that ever again that can put together a Bible version like this. But they got together, and over those years, over those eight years, they divided up into different groups, and they translated different books of the Bible, and they compared notes, and they're so meticulous. And finally, they had this book completed. And they took the New Testament from what's known as the Textus Receptus, or the Received Text, And they translated the Old Testament from the Masoretic text, and in the weeks to come, don't worry about those terms, we'll learn more about them. But they put together a beautiful edition of God's Word in the English-speaking language. It is not copyrighted, by the way, today. It's the only English version of the Bible that anyone can publish and print, and I thank God for that. They're making money off of every other version but this one. But this Bible quickly became the standard for the English-speaking world. It also became the source of much slander. We'll learn in just a moment why Satan hates this version of the Bible. But they begin to slander the book, and they begin to slander the man that this book was named after, King James. Have you ever heard that King James was a homosexual? I heard that in Bible college. That was the thing that was going around, and even being repeated by preachers in our camp. Well, you know, God can use a homosexual, I guess, to translate the Bible. King James was not a homosexual. He was married, he cherished his dear wife, they parented nine children together. Nothing could be further from the truth. They also said that King James was a drunk, and he was a babbling idiot, and all kinds of things were said by his enemies. You've got to understand something. He was the first Scottish king to become the king of the whole UK. And if you go to England and Scotland to this day, they still don't like each other. They're still bitter enemies, and I saw that when I was over there. And so now they have a Scottish king ruling over the whole UK, and all kinds of things are being said about this man that they don't really like. Plus, the Church of Rome at that time absolutely despised this man. They hated him. Henry VIII had been the one, of course, who switched the UK over into what we call Protestantism. I'm not a Protestant, I'm a Baptist. We were around before the Protestant Reformation. But he was a Protestant. It's a whole thing how he wanted to divorce his wife and marry somebody else and the Pope wouldn't let him. And so he pulled England out of the Catholic Church. But his daughter Mary, Bloody Mary as you know her, pulled it back in, and the head started rolling once again. And when she was out of the scene, her half-sister Elizabeth kind of nudged it back toward Protestantism again. But her successor, King James I, was the one who fully brought it out of the Catholic Church, and they absolutely hated him for that. In fact, there were a number of assassination attempts that were made on his life. And when we were over there not too long ago, I think it was just last year about this time, they were celebrating Guy Fawkes Day. And you say, well, what was that? Well, Guy Fawkes was a Catholic who, behind the Jesuits, tried to assassinate King James. This is all known historically. He was going to blow up the whole Parliament. And his plot was discovered, and him and his co-conspirators were put to death. And they still celebrate November 5th to this day. But the Jesuits were trying to bump off King James over and over again. And they wrote this about him. They said the king is a Protestant trying to extend his religion to the entire island. And the king is a bitter enemy of our religion. And so they started trying to do things to kill him. They made up rumors about him. Those rumors, actually many of them really picked up steam long after the guy was dead. Now I've had lies told about me and I'm still alive. But imagine anyone can lie about somebody years after they're dead. So don't you believe lies told about King James. I've studied his life. I've been to the castle in Edinburgh where he was born, the very room he was born. I've been to Stirling Castle where he was coronated and ruled for many years in Scotland before he was coronated King of the UK. And I've been to the final resting place of King James there at Westminster Abbey. And I've studied many, many things about him. He was a godly man. In fact, he wrote to his son these words, and this is recorded. He said, son, diligently read his words, speaking out of the Bible, and earnestly pray for right understanding thereof. Search the Scriptures, saith Christ. The Apostle Paul saith, the whole Scriptures are profitable. Now, I could tell you a lot of things about King James and we could talk about the man himself, but this series is about the book that bears his name, the King James Version of the Bible. And here in our text we find in verse 16 primarily that it says, "...all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, Now, there are many skeptics who debate the validity of the Bible. They debate the The fact that the Bible was inspired by God. Folks, there is absolutely no question in my mind whatsoever that God inspired His Word. Inspiration is not the question. In fact, verse 16 says, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. So let the skeptics debate that one. I just believe the Bible. God inspired His Word. Inspiration is not the question. Preservation is the question. Did God preserve His Word? We believe He inspired it, but was He able to preserve it? Or was it only perfect in the original manuscripts? In other words, what Moses wrote, what Jeremiah wrote, what David wrote, what Paul wrote, is that the only place you can find the preserved words of God? Because obviously, the original writings aren't around anymore. They have long since decayed and fallen with the sands of time, and today we have copies of copies of copies of copies of copies. Is God's Word still preserved? Is it still accurate? Have you ever played that little game as kids where you whisper something in somebody's ear and then they whisper it to the next kid and it makes its way around the circle and when it gets back to the first person you all laugh because it's so off the mark of how it originally went out? And that can happen on the telephone with women or anybody for that matter. But once something is told and retold and retold, it kind of gets off the mark, doesn't it? And you would think human rationale would tell you, well, that's what happened with the Bible. You know, we have copies of copies of copies. And so, there's bound to be some errors in it today. It can't be as accurate as the originals. And I've heard people say that. There's contradictions in it now. And I even heard a preacher years ago in my pulpit say, well, there's just a few errors, but not many. Folks, if there's any errors in it at all, who's to say where they are? Right? I mean, maybe they're on salvation or something dogmatically important. Well, turn to Psalm 12. Really what this whole issue boils down to is this. Did God promise to preserve it? And does God keep His promises? Can we count on God to keep His word? Well, in Psalm 12, here's what the Bible tells us. Psalm 12, verse 6, it says, The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord. Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. Now there's a promise from God. And by the way, there's over 7,500 promises in the Bible from God. The question is, does God keep His promises? And so if He does, and we believe He does, then did He keep this promise? Thou shalt preserve them, the words of the Lord, thou shalt preserve them, O Lord, forever, from this generation forever. Now, we could spend a lot of time splitting hairs about whether the Bible is preserved, and you get some scoffer and some skeptic who would come along and say, well, we got this so-called proof and so on, but God has already said He is going to preserve His Word. I've chosen to just preach it, alright? I'm not going to spend a lot of time defending whether we still have the Word of God. God can do that. God is able to defend Himself. A lion doesn't need a mosquito to defend him, does he? And God doesn't need me or anyone else to defend Him. In fact, look in Psalm 138 if you would. God will defend what is precious to Him. I'll defend what's precious to me. I'll defend my wife over there. I'll defend my children. I'll defend this church. Whatever is precious to you, you don't have to be irked to defend it. Well, God's Word is very precious to Him. You say, how do you know that? Well, look here in Psalm 138 and in verse number 2. The psalmist says to God, I will worship toward thy holy temple and praise thy name for thy loving kindness and for thy truth, for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. God has magnified his word above his name. Jehovah. Elohim, Adonai, Yahweh, whatever you want to call Him. God says, I've magnified My Word above all My name. God's Word is precious to Him. And God will defend His Word. That brings me to my first thought as we talk about Bible versions and so on. First of all, I want to deal with the importance of the Bible. Now, turn to 1 Peter chapter 1 if you would. How important is the Bible. Good question. I mean, why is it such a big deal that we have an accurate, preserved translation of the Bible? Well, here's why this is very, very, very, very, very important, because it is through the Bible that we get saved. Now we're talking the difference between heaven and hell. That's how important the Bible is. Well, let me show you what I mean. 1 Peter 1, notice with me, if you would, verse 23, where it says, being born again. not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever." Now, I don't know if you caught it, but there's another point for preservation, that liveth and abideth forever. The word of God will live and abide forever. But notice this part, being born again, just like Jesus called it in John 3, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, more about that later, by the Word of God. You could take the middle out of that, that parenthetical part, and it would say, being born again by the Word of God. Why is the Bible important? Because it's the route to salvation. It is the way you get saved. You need the Word of God to get saved. It is instrumental. The law of the Lord is perfect. converting the soul. That's how important the Bible is. It's got to be there for the conversion of the soul. We read in James 1.18, it says, with the Word of Truth. That's another way of saying, born again again. Begat He us of His own will, begat He us, or made us born again with the Word of Truth. I believe the Bible is one of those two seeds that Christ refers to in John 3, 5, where He talks about the washing of water and then the sanctifying of the Spirit. And the water there is a picture of the Word of God. And there's a lot of verses that compare the water to the Bible, a lot of people get tripped up and, oh that's baptism, it has nothing to do with baptism. It's the Word of God. The Word of God is one of the two seeds necessary that must come together for somebody to be born again spiritually. I believe the Gospel of the Bible must be present for somebody to be saved. We read in Ephesians 1.13, speaking of Christ, it says, in whom ye also trusted, after that you heard The Word of Truth. The Gospel of Your Salvation. Notice, you trust Christ when? After that she heard the Word of Truth. That's this book. The Gospel of Your Salvation. You get the connection? Why is the Bible so important? Because it is instrumental in the salvation of a soul. The Word of God. Not a contemporary Christian music rock concert. The Word of God. Not some Christian cantata. The Word of God. Not some Christian drama, the Word of God. Not some movie on the rapture, the Word of God. I've heard of people, I got saved after this Christian rock concert, I got saved after watching six movies in a row that scared the devil out of me on the rapture and so on. And listen, was the Bible preached? Was the Word of God there? It's got to be through the Word of God. Look back in 2 Timothy 3 again, where we started, if you would. We hear about the seed of the Word. It is one of the seeds necessary for salvation. In fact, in the parable of the sower, Jesus talked about the sower going forth to sow seed. That's the Word of God. That's the preaching of the Word of God. That's the gospel. And that's why we use the Bible. There's a real dearth of Scripture being used in modern-day preaching. I hear even in some of our circles, some preacher will stand up and give a half a verse and say, close your Bibles and let me tell you a bunch of stories. Let me tell you, around here you're going to get the Word of God. If you take the Seven Steps to God Bible study, you're going to get Scripture after Scripture. That's where my confidence is. Not in me, not in you, not in methods of man, but in this book. And it works here, it works over in Africa, it works in Thailand. If we'll just use this book, God will win people to Himself. The Word of God is the catalyst. The Bible is the catalyst that brings forth that salvation. Notice here, I don't know if we caught it earlier, but in 2 Timothy 3, where Paul is writing to Timothy in verse 15, he says, Thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus." More about faith in just a moment here. But we find out that Timothy got saved as a result of knowing the Scriptures. And so again, how important is the Bible? Why is it such a big deal that we have it preserved? Because it's the way to salvation. I don't believe there's any salvation aside of it. Now, let's connect the dots here a little bit with a very familiar verse, Ephesians 2.8, which says, For by grace are you saved through faith. How do you get this grace for salvation? Through faith. So that brings up the question, Where does faith come from, right? How do you get faith in order to get the grace in order to be saved? Well, Romans 10.17 says, So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. See how it all ties together and God connects the dots for us here. And so why is the Bible important? Because it brings us to salvation. If you miss heaven, you've missed everything. You can make all the money and own all the land and have all the oil and gold you want, but if you miss heaven, you've missed everything. And you find heaven through the Word of God. So we see the importance of the Bible. Secondly, we see the issue of the Bible. Now, what is the real issue here? And what's really going on here with this whole Bible version controversy here? You know that Satan hates God. I don't know if I have to tell you that. You ought to know that instinctively. Satan absolutely despises God. That's where it all starts. Satan hates God. Satan wants to spite God. Satan can spite God, in his mind at least, if he can send people to hell. Now let's follow this thing through. If he can negate Calvary, if he can negate the cross, if he can negate the sacrifice of Jesus and the blood and all that, He can take people to hell. Now, couple that with the fact that misery loves company. So, he doubly wants to take people to hell. That's where he's going, okay? So, if salvation hinges on this book, Can you expect Satan to attack this book? I mean, let's get our head out of the sand, okay? Can we expect Satan to attack the Bible if he can get at God through it? Well, he will attack the Bible. He has attacked the Bible. In fact, there is a pattern. that started way, way back at the beginning, and it was an attack of Satan upon God's Word. And we know what happened back there in the Garden of Eden, and how God had placed Adam and Eve in that garden, and He said, "'Of every tree in the garden thou mayest freely eat thereof, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat thereof, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.'" And we find out that Satan slithers into the garden in Genesis 3.1 and it says, Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. Notice those words, Yea, hath God said. You know what he's doing there? He's putting a question mark where God placed the period. He's putting a question mark over the Word of God. He's planting a seed of doubt in the mind of the first people and saying, you know, God might have said that, but you really believe that? Today we have Bible versions that cast doubt on the Word of God. And there are Bible versions by the dozens out there that say, well, this verse wasn't in the original. And there's a footnote that says, not in this manuscript, or added later to that manuscript. And there are footnotes here and there. And there's words that say, ancient manuscripts omit this verse. and probably not in the original. You know that over a hundred times in the New Testament alone, you find that kind of stuff in the average modern version of the Bible. Now how do they know it wasn't in the original manuscript? How do they know it wasn't in the most ancient or the later added or whatever? All I know is they're calling God a liar. Because in Matthew 24, 35, Jesus said, heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. He's very specific there. He said, not one word of mine is going to pass away. Now, you can talk about ancient manuscripts until you're blue in the face. The bottom line is God promised to preserve every jot, every tittle of His Word. And in Numbers 23, 19 it says, God is not a man that He should lie, neither the Son of Man that He should repent. Hath He said? And shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken? And shall he not make it good? We find a promise from God, I will do what I say I will do. So the devil comes along and he casts doubt on the Bible by saying, not in the original manuscript, added later to the original manuscript, ancient manuscripts omit this, probably not in the original, blah, blah, blah, and so on and so forth. And that this doesn't belong in the Bible, and that doesn't belong in the Bible, and this is added to the Bible, and this is changed in the Bible. I heard a story years ago about a faithful man in a church who had been in that church for years, and they got a new preacher in that church, and that preacher started correcting the Bible left and right, and saying, this doesn't belong in the Bible, and that wasn't preserved, and this is not in the original manuscript. And so this guy sat through it all kind of confused, but taking it all in and just believing the preaching. Well, finally that dear old saint got old and he was on his deathbed and he called the preacher to his house and he said, preacher, would you pray with me? And the preacher prayed with him. And he said, would you read some scripture to me? And the preacher said, I'll do that. And he said, I don't have my Bible, no coincidence. And he said, but could I use your Bible, brother? And so his wife brought in that man's Bible and the preacher opened it and there was holes all over it. pages missing, and there were verses cut out, and it looked like the paper on a player piano, you know, and the preacher said, what's this? And he said, well, preacher, I just was doing what you said, you know, you'd preach and say this verse doesn't belong in there, so I'd go home and I'd cut it out, and this wasn't in the original, and I'd cut that out, and the most ancient manuscripts don't have that, and so I cut that out, and he said, preacher, you know, I do believe if you stuck around much longer, I wouldn't have any Bible left. You know, there are preachers out there, and they're Bible correctors. And they say, well, this isn't in the ancient, and this isn't in the original, and so on, and all this. And folks, we're saved by faith, and the exact opposite of faith is what? Doubt. Doubt. And there are those who are casting doubt on the Word of God. Now where did some of these so-called ancient manuscripts and multiple manuscripts and majority manuscripts and all this stuff come from? And why is there a difference today between Bible versions? It can all be traced back to Alexandria, Egypt. I'll explain this more at a later time. But Alexandria, Egypt was the center of humanism, and the higher intelligentsia were there, and Gnosticism was there, and there were just men there who were changing the Bible to their own prejudice and their own bias, and they were Bible correctors. Now, your King James Bible, friend, comes from what we call the majority manuscripts. In other words, the majority of the ancient manuscripts agree with your King James. But they'll come along and they'll say, well, yeah, but we have the oldest ones. No, the fact is, the oldest manuscripts agree with your King James Bible. And it's a story that goes back, but our King James again, New Testament from the Textus Receptus, Old Testament from the Masoretic Text, and the King James Bible is the only one that can say that. I've got a story to tell you about the Dead Sea Scrolls in the weeks to come that is amazing. But I do want to say, sleep well tonight. You have God's Word. And don't you let any Bible corrector come along and tell you any different than that. Who is behind all this confusion? Well, my Bible says in 1 Corinthians 14.33, for God is not the author of confusion, but of peace. God is not behind this confusion, so who does that leave? Satan. And can we figure out how he works? 2 Corinthians 2.11 says, lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices. Now, we need the Word of God as Christian people. In fact, salvation starts with the Word of God. But in Ephesians 6.16 it says, above all, taking the shield of faith, there's that word again, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, that's Satan, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. You've got a dynamic trio there, salvation, faith, and the Word of God that gives us the faith. Unsaved people don't have that, and an unsaved person with the Word of God is dangerous. If you don't know the Author, if you don't have Him living inside of you, you can hurt yourself with this Bible, and others as well. And I've seen a lot of the higher intelligentsia hurting themselves. with God's Word. God's Word is a sword, and if you're saved, you can wield it. And we read in Hebrews 4.12 that the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to dividing asunder of soul and spirit. Folks, I have a sword right here for a Bible. I don't want a butter knife. I don't want a watered down translation full of corrections. I don't want something that the modernists and the liberals and Satan himself have tampered with and there are Bible versions out there with Satan's fingerprints all over them. You have a sword here, the Word of God. And some of you students here, you're in college, and maybe you'll stand in a religion class, or sit in a religion class, and Dr. Sounding Brass, a professor, a tinkling cymbal will stand up there and rip apart the Bible and say it's not God's Word, and so on and so forth. Let me just say this, doesn't matter how many degrees, how many PhDs somebody has behind their name, knowledge puffeth up, number one. It makes proud. And secondly, I'd rather get my theology from somebody who just got saved here last Sunday, or two weeks ago, or whatever it might be, who's a baby in the Lord, I'll guarantee you. As far as that crowd that rips the Bible, not many wise are called. God chooses the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. Jesus said, except we humble ourselves as little children, we can't even be saved. I have absolutely zero time for lost theologians who are hurting themselves and others with God's Word. Plain and simple. We see the importance. We see the issue, but finally we see the interrogation. Are all Bibles equal? Are all Bibles the same? Now, there are many, many Bible versions out there and they all have one thing in common. They all are different than your King James Bible. And that crowd even admits that. Radically different. So, how can they both be preserved? How can they both be perfect if they differ? And is your Bible totally reliable? Now there are many sincere people who are out there using other Bible versions. I'm not knocking them. Don't get me wrong. They're very sincere in what they're doing. That's the reason we're studying this. But you have a reliable translation of the Bible, the King James, and if it differs from theirs, where does that leave theirs? The issue here is not just updating the language. There are some, well, we've got to get rid of that archaic language. No, no. The issue here is they have changed verses, they have omitted verses, they have changed words, And it's too obvious to be coincidental. They have made somewhere between 5,000 and 36,000 changes in their Bibles, and now they have Bibles that attack the deity of Christ, attack the virgin birth of Christ, there's no hell in them, the resurrection is messed up. It's too obvious to overlook, folks. It really is. All modern translations have one thing in common. By the way, they're all copyrighted, and they make money off them. But they have one thing in common, and that is that they disagree with the King James Bible. Now, how corrupt are some of these other versions of the Bible? Let's take just one subject in the time we have left and examine it. The deity of Christ, the fact that Jesus Christ was not just the Son of God, but God the Son. Why is it so important that we believe in the deity of Christ? We read in John 8.24, Jesus said, I say therefore unto you, talking to a lost crowd, that ye shall die in your sins, for if you believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins. Now one thing our King James translators were honest about is if there was a word that was not in the Greek, but it helped the sentence to make sense, they added it. And they italicized it if they did so we would know that. And the word He is italicized in the King James. If you believe not that I am He, But without that, Christ said, if you believe not that I am, you shall die in your sins. Christ is saying, if you don't believe in my deity, there is no salvation outside of it. How powerful is the I am? We read that when Christ was arrested in John 18.4, Jesus went forth and said unto them, Whom seek ye? They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am. Basically, and as soon as he had said unto them, I am, they went backward and fell to the ground. He was making a statement there of his deity. Now I want you to turn just back a few pages to 1 Timothy chapter 3, and let's study the difference between the deity of Christ in our King James and in those other versions. Back here in 1 Timothy 3 and verse 16, It says, and without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. Notice the next word. I've underlined it in my Bible. God was manifest in the flesh. It's obviously talking about Jesus Christ. Justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, and then received up into glory. All a description of Christ. But it calls Him God. Very important. I have here a New Testament English-Greek interlinear translation. In other words, you can come and look at this, I'll leave it up here, but it shows in English what's said and it shows right next to it what was written originally in the Greek and how it was worded and not any extra words were added unless they're italicized. Now, the word God here is the word theos. in the original. All right? Pretty simple. God was manifest in the flesh. You connect the dots and that tells us that Jesus Christ was God. Well, how does this verse read in the American Standard Version? Well, it says, and without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. He was manifest in the flesh. Well, now it's talking about Christ, but it's not calling Him God. You see what you've done there? You've undercut one of the greatest verses in the Bible on the deity of Christ with just changing one word. And that word, He, it is God in the original. They're dishonest. It's the word Theos. How about the New American Standard Version? Great is the mystery of godliness. He who was revealed in the flesh was vindicated in the Spirit. Now it's changing the whole direction of the verse here. And again, it takes the word God out. How about the NIV? It says, beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great. He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen of angels, and so on and so forth. Again, they've removed the word God. There's something rotten in Denmark here, right? I see Satan's fingerprints on this thing here, because they have removed the deity of Christ. How about the Living Bible? The way to live a godly life is not an easy matter, but the answer lies in Christ, who came to earth as a man, was proved spotless and pure in the Spirit, was served by... How would you like to memorize that, by the way? Good grief. Nothing about God was manifest in the flesh. Isn't your King James beautiful? By the way, they've proven with children by far the easiest version to memorize is the King James Bible. But you see what these other versions do to something as important as the deity of Christ? Now look in Romans chapter 14, if you would. Just turn back to Romans 14. In fact, keep turning. Turn to Acts chapter 20. And I'm going to skip that one in order to save some time. But in Acts chapter 20, and in verse number 28, Notice what it says. It says, Now notice it mentions the Church of God, which He, God, hath purchased with His own blood." It doesn't take a whole lot of rationalization there to follow through on what's being said here. Jesus Christ was the one who shed blood. But again, it attributes His name as God, to God. It says, "...feed the church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood." What does the American Standard Version say there? Feed the church of the Lord. which he purchased with his own blood. Christ is called the Lord all over the place. It doesn't connect him with God here. And the word is again Theos. Feed the church of Theos, God. That's how it's in the original, which he hath purchased with his own blood. The Revised Standard Version. Care for the church of God. which He obtained with the blood of His own Son? It doesn't say that at all in the original. Can you see the dishonesty there? I mean, sneaky, sneaky here, but I find here no proof that Jesus was God. If a Jehovah's Witness knocked on your door and they don't believe in the deity of Christ, you couldn't take them to Acts 20.28 and defend the deity of Christ with that other version of the Bible. Now, also, if the deity of Christ is necessary for salvation, look what you've done here by undermining the deity of Christ. Look in John chapter 9. I'll just show you one more and then we're out of time here. But in John chapter 9, we find Christ talking to a man that had been blind, who he had healed. And I want you to notice something here, very important. In verse number 35, Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. Now notice, he says, do you believe on the Son of God? Did you know that the Muslims claim that Jesus Christ never claimed to be called the Son of God, never called himself the Son of God? Well, I beg to differ. In your King James Bible, it's very obvious here. Do you believe on the Son of God? Who is He, Lord? You've seen Him and it's Him who's talking with you right now. Doesn't take an Einstein to figure that out, does it? He's claiming to be the Son of God. There we see His deity again. Well, what would happen if you went to the NIV? The NIV says Jesus heard that they had thrown Him out, and when He found Him, He said, Do you believe in the Son of Man? Wait a minute. Again, it's the word theos in the original. Dost thou believe, Jesus said, in the Son of God? Not man. But they change it here. We find they change it also in the New American Standard. Do you believe in the Son of Man? Where'd God go? How about the Revised Standard Version? Do you believe in the Son of Man? Wait a minute here. Now, there are numerous other things that we could look at here in the deity of Christ. We could talk about those other modern versions and how they removed the word worship. You know, that only God is to be worshipped, and in our Bible we find the word worship and how they worshipped Him. They talk about bowing down to Him. Folks, you can curtsy or bow before the Queen of England. They bow over in Thailand when they shake hands, in the Oriental places. That's just respect. Worship is something altogether different. I'm glad I got a King James that says they worshipped Him, not just bowed down to Him. In 1623, two men by the name of Baker and Lucas came up with a print of the Bible, and it was called the Wicked Bible. You say, why? Was it ungodly and blasphemous? No, there was just one verse in it that they messed up in. Actually, just one word they messed up in Exodus 20. And it was the seventh commandment, thou shalt not commit adultery. They forgot the word not. Thou shalt commit adultery. Oh, really? Okay. And they called it the wicked Bible. And they had them all taken back in and burned. And the Royal Commission fined them for doing that. They were heavily rebuked for messing up one word of the Bible. Folks, where does that put all these other versions today that have changed all these other words? Let me just say, we could give you a lot of reasons why this is serious, but if you take a Bible version, I want you to turn to 1 Peter, and I'll close with this verse again, and you take words out of it, you change verses in it, you corrupt it, right? You're corrupting it. You're rendering it powerless. Now, why is that a serious thing? Well, because 1 Peter 1 and verse 23 says, being born again, Not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the Word of God that liveth and abideth forever. You see how serious it is to corrupt the Word of God? It says we're born again. Not of corruptible seed. Now, we could talk for quite a while on how corrupt the Bible can be before somebody can't get saved out anymore, and we'd only be speculating. You do what you want with that verse, but it's a very serious indictment against those other versions, is it not? Do we have the word of God here? I thank God we do. Do Bible versions matter? They certainly do. And in the weeks to come, we'll learn more why it is a very important issue. You've been listening to Pastor Tony Skeving of the Fargo Baptist Church in Fargo, North Dakota. If you would like a CD of today's message, you can obtain one by sending a gift of $2 to Fargo Baptist Church, 3303 23rd Avenue South, Fargo, North Dakota, 58103. That address again, Fargo Baptist Church, 3303 23rd Avenue South Fargo, North Dakota 58103. We hope you'll join Pastor Skeving next time right here on Pulpit Power. Pulpit Power is a production of Heaven 88.7.