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Pastor David Mitchell
Be turning in your Bibles to Isaiah 52 and we'll start with about verse 13 while you're turning. I want to read a quote to you man named Streeter who wrote a book called the four Gospels where he's studying the.
He was also commenting on manuscript evidence behind the versions and so forth and He's quoting Westcott of the infamous Westcott and Hort team who came up with all of our Or behind all of our modern revisions especially in the English Bibles and he's quoting Westcott here and making a point so listen with me if you would.
Westcott says this. The value of the revision is most clearly seen now. He's talking about revising the King James Version. That's exactly the topic. This is what this was all about. This revision committee was it was elected To make certain small changes in the King James Version if they saw fit.
That's what they were commissioned to do and as you know historically when Westcott and Hort got control of the committee they totally went around what the committee had been asked to do and they did a major revision with with multiplied thousands of changes and even Went away from the received text that had been used through the years and created an entirely new Greek text and.
Yet, this is what mr. Westcott by the way Westcott and Hort were merry worshipers and Also Hort was into witchcraft. We've proven this in early messages. We have we have copies of letters that they wrote back and forth and you can get hold of those and read them.
But this is what Westcott said about revising the Bible. The value of the revision is most clearly seen when the student considers together. When the student considers together a Considerable group of passages which bear upon some article of faith that means to us like a doctrine.
The accumulation of small details then produces its full effect. Ponder this now. Mr. Streeter quote quoted that and then he said Streeter says ponder this way every word carefully of what Westcott himself said.
Westcott himself let quote the cat out of the bag. Do you see what Streeter is pointing out. Westcott himself said it is the accumulation of small details that produces its full effect on your doctrinal beliefs and You will recall all the little verses we've read where they've changed a little word here a little word there.
Most of them have to do with the deity of Christ. They have to do with salvation by grace they had to do with the lordship of Jesus Christ and Those kinds of things there are places where they have added there are places where they've subtracted.
I would say most of the time they subtract a Couple of examples we've had in case you weren't here last time. I remember we talked to one about G Joseph and Mary in the book of Luke. Where the new versions called Joseph and Mary the parents and.
And then when it comes down to the verse where it's supposed to say Joseph and his mother Mary which Distinguishes the fact that Joseph is not the blood parent of Jesus. That verse is removed or it is changed where it calls Joseph his father and his mother.
Well that comes all the way back from origin who was an Aryan who was the first Bible Corrector who did not believe Jesus was God nor the Son of God and so therefore he wanted Joseph to be his father.
That's just one example. We've had we've done many many examples and we've taken two full services reading Bible verses in the different versions but I want to want you to Go, I lost my page. Oh, no okay, turn to Isaiah 52 and Let's see Brother Russell, let me pick on you one more time.
Would you read Isaiah 52 starting with verse 13? Through 15. Everyone listen very carefully because what I'm about to do is I'm going I have a book here. I've Surely been blessed by the Lord to have a pretty extensive library and even more blessed in recent days but Years ago.
I had a friend who was in seminary Dallas Theological Seminary, which at that time was perhaps the best conservative seminary in the world and He quit and went to law school Shortly before graduating and I got all of his books for a dime on the dollar.
That was a blessing. This is one of those books, but if you can see this picture on the on my left this is a picture of a Targum and What a Targum was in the years before Jesus Christ was born into this world.
The Jewish people had ceased to study from the Bible now they had the Bible and I'll tell you one of the reasons we're not studying the Old Testament when we deal with manuscript evidence is because they were so careful with the Copying of the Old Testament that there's no debate on it.
We know that the Masoretic text is the Word of God and we know that it is extremely the copies we have today are minutely accurate and So they had the Masoretic text of the Old Testament just as you have it today.
The only difference was it the books were not in the same exact order. They were all there, but they were in a little different order than ours but they were exactly the same books and they had the Old Testament, but they didn't study from it and The teachers did not teach from it what they taught from were these books called Targums this is an actually a picture of Isaiah chapter 52 and 53 in the Targum and They were for all practical purposes what we would call today a paraphrase.
Now who can tell me who can name a modern paraphrase and the name of one. Some people think it's a Bible version, but it's actually it's a paraphrase. The Living Bible is an excellent example. There's one other one.
Can you think of it? No, no. Ryrie does a pretty good work. He he has. Of course he he's got New American Standard he puts it in but he also does the King James. But it's the name of a Bible. Which one?
Well, we we learned on our trip as a matter of fact that It is in effect a type of a paraphrase. I never considered it. I thought it was a translation, but apparently it is a type of a paraphrase, but there's one other one I'm looking for.
No. Anybody you don't hear about it as much but back when I first got saved. There was one called the good news for modern man. You remember that one. Did anybody ever read from it in here? You did it reads kind of like a funny book, doesn't it?
Okay, well, I'm a little distracted here folks. I've lost my Page here when I've turned over it'll show you that picture. I took Took my hand out of there. Let me find it just a second because I've got a quote.
I want to read to you from this very Targum. Just a second, I know where it is. I just got to find it apologize for this. Okay, here we are. Put a marker in at this time. Okay. Anyway a paraphrase like good news for modern man the Living Bible.
They are not actually Translations of the Bible what they are is there one man's idea of what the Bible says and that we call a paraphrase. Do you get the difference the translation? It's very fascinating to study translation, too.
I've done that before but it wouldn't. I don't really believe it would interest you a whole lot. So I'm not getting into that in this study, but translation is a science that is very fascinating. We've got some interesting information on that when we were out there with dr. MacArthur, too they had a class on how to pick a good Bible version for your church and The man who taught it was one of the men who edited the New American Standard Bible.
So naturally his view was different a little different than than what I believe the truth is on the manuscripts. But he was an authority and it was interesting that he had one chart where he showed a graph.
It listed all of the English versions and showed which ones are the most accurate Translations as far as bringing it into the English exactly from the Greek and the old and the Hebrew in the Old Testament.
The King James was at the top of the list. It is the most accurate English translation and even those who don't ascribe to the manuscripts behind the King James which we think are the preserved Manuscripts.
Not everyone believes that in fact as I told you when we started there aren't many living scholars who would agree with me. But there are many Who have passed on to the Lord. If you read their books, I think they blow away these modern guys.
I mean, that's just my humble opinion, but I and in fact, I don't argue the case I let them argue it and if I'm gonna give you a bibliography when the whole thing is over and you can go get these Books read them for yourself get to get now this what's interesting about this book.
This is written by the other camp. I got it as many of those as I do. The other I like to read them both, but eventually you've got to come to a place where you decide because the Bibles don't match they don't say the same things and If God has preserved the Word of God to us to this generation.
Then it's somewhere and it's not enough for us to say. Well, it all has 90 of the truth in it. I don't believe God would expect us to defend that to a new believer. You take a new believer and say well.
We don't really have the Bible what we have is. It's mostly in there and I can show you where it is and he's thinking how are you smart enough to know which is which? That's what he's thinking. And that's what I think every time I find a scholar who says well I can correct this and make it better.
I'm thinking well, how do I trust him? Do I do I you know for one thing? He's a Catholic. He's a Mary worshiper and he's into witchcraft and he says he has found the Bible after 1800 years. It's bizarre to me, but I have read the other view and given it a fair chance.
I promise I have. I'm not trying to win an argument. I stopped doing that when I was about 39 years old. The last one I lost was with my wife and she won and I said, you know what? I'm not always, right?
And I learned at that time to listen to my wife that's a great revelation to me because it had been opened the door for me to listen to others and To care and not just to be sitting there thinking what I'm gonna say back when they're talking I'm listening to what they're saying because they might be right.
I've learned probably I've learned awful lot from Russ Halk in working with him. He came from a Pentecostal background. Now he believes most of that's hokey-pokey hocus-pocus and fake stuff. But I'll promise you that his view of scriptures comes out at a different direction than if you grew up in a Baptist Church.
So I I've learned a lot of interesting things that my eyes never would have been open to just because he has a different approach. And I dare say he's learned a few things from me if you're listening to this tape brother Russ.
He learned something today, too. But anyway He likes it because I get the pulpit and he doesn't so When we have arguments if they ever come into preaching I always win because I get the pulpit. So that's that's good.
But Anyway, my point is I'm not trying to win an argument here. I want to see the truth. I want to find the truth the best we can find it. I happen to believe that this particular concept does fall a little bit in the area of what we talked about in Sunday school because if you remember our key verse in the Psalms where it says that God's given it down to us through earthen vessels and so forth.
That's a mystery. I mean, that's an amazing thing that God has chosen to use men. Imperfect men to give us the written Word all from the beginning all the way from Moses all the way down to today to those That scribes that copied it to the to the guys that first got into the printing presses.
Every one of them is just we're just like you and me. They're imperfect. They're wrong sometimes and yet he said he would preserve his word to each generation and he's done it through imperfect vessels.
That is amazing. That's a big God. That is a God who can control everything and still you are used with your your personality your vocabulary. Everything about you he uses in his work and he uses you as much as he does these people.
It's just in different ways, but the great miracle about it is we will not fully ever I don't think understand how he preserved his word for us. We just know that he did and I do think we have to take it as far as we can to know which Bible well to teach our children which in the English version, which one should we use is there a better one and we I think we should answer those questions, but I don't think we'll ever get to the bottom of how he did it till we Get to heaven and maybe he'll show it to us.
Maybe he won't. But to make a point once again this morning, I love the quote from mr. Westcott. He said it's the little changes that make a difference. See that violates what so many want to say to say?
Well, it doesn't really matter all the Bibles have the doctrinal truths in them. Westcott didn't believe that Westcott believed that little changes here and there or what over the period of years of reading it is what formulates your Bible doctrines.
It's interesting to me that Where we have changes there nearly always removals of information removing information because once it's removed you can't have it if it's not there you can't have it and they accuse Someone that they can't name somewhere in the past of adding to The received text is why it has the verses that the other doesn't so they turn it around the other way now.
You're confused, aren't you? Who's the author of that? Satan is so he's been at work. Brother Russell mentioned an interesting thing coming out when we prayed before church this morning. He said isn't it wonderful how God has given us men like like John Burgin and some of these great men who?
Gave their entire life to study the manuscript evidence because they were fighting a battle against liberal lost People who were studying like crazy. And I'll tell you this folks if you study this and you read the books on this subject.
You will find that those who propagate the Westcott Hort theory and all the modern Bibles and all of that they are very akin to the same battle that happened about the same time period between evolution and creation the same line of Scientific method is used to try to change the Bible that Darwin used when he tried to change the whole worldview of where we came From it is very similar.
It's the same mindset and that Westcott and Horton men like that some of the German theologians. Which is where most of this comes from even Alan the more modern book. I've been studying from that that Russ gave me.
He's German. All of his works are written in German have to be translated into English. There's been a real attack by Satan on the German speaking world from the and I'll tell you why. I mean this is theory so this is not Bible here my opinion is because God shined the light through Martin Luther and Calvin in that part of the world and Satan came back and said well I'm gonna bring some darkness from that part of the world too, and he began to attack immediately.
But Russell's comment was isn't it wonderful that some men like burgeon and hills and Scrivener and some of these men have born-again. Believers have given their life to study this to fight this battle and I said it is wonderful.
But isn't it frightening to think that just as God has raised them up and called him to that work Satan has raised up his emissaries and call them to a lifetime of work. To correct a Bible when they don't even believe the thing they're reading anyway, so why are they doing it?
Pride and money they sell Bibles the bestseller of all time is the Bible always has been and still is. And I was sorry to find that even with the study of Allen which I was beginning to think was a little more neutral.
I get to the middle of the book I find out that his name is on the most modern Nestle dash Allen Greek New Testament so he's selling his Bible and So it takes away a little bit of my confidence in his ability to be neutral because now what I liked about him was he?
Was blowing away the Westcott Horthy and I loved the first half of the book. I'm saying man this guy he sees it and then he comes in he blows away the received text. So he blows everything away except the Nestle Allen text.
Which sells for quite a problem. I don't know what that book would sell for if you bought it probably 30 bucks apiece millions of them sell. I Don't know it just to me. It's kind of like being in a court of law and all we have is evidence.
You know in the OJ Simpson case. How much evidence did the prosecutors really have. I mean you looked at it, and you thought they had a lot didn't you? They had bloody gloves. You've tried to put most of this out of your mind.
I'll bring it all back up, but they had footprints. They had wouldn't you say they had a lot of evidence. Did they win the case? No, they didn't you know why because all they had was scraps and pieces of evidence.
And that's what we have believe it or not. That's what we have when we study this manuscript evidence we have bits and pieces of evidence and I'm asking you to look at this like you would if you were on a jury and You just take the facts that are there and you weigh the facts and forget all the terminology forget the emotional part.
Forget what Bible you like and read you like I started out when I was saved New American Standard was my Bible in fact. The one bill is holding if you look at the front part and through it. You'll see it's marked up.
I love that Bible and I studied probably the most Bible study I ever did was the first year of my Christianity and it was in that Bible but I gave it up as soon as I started finding some of this information out and.
So don't you know let that go and just be a jury in a court take the evidence as it is be honest with it weigh it and Then make a conclusion. Now let me take you into Isaiah 52 with Russell here for a minute to read this.
I Want to take you back and show you that Westcott was right when he said if you just change a few little words. It's the little details that add the whole picture. And I want to show you what the Jews were were studying.
The year Jesus Christ was born and if you ever ask yourself the question, maybe it's a new Christian. You said well one thing that's a little unbelievable about this Christianity stuff to me is why did the chief Jesus is Jewish?
Why did the Jews miss their Messiah that doesn't quite add up to me? And I thought through that when I was first saved it bothered me. I said, you know. You got all the apostles were Jewish the early Christians first 5 ,000 of them say probably mostly Jewish.
Jesus was a Jew. How could the Jews miss this if he truly was the Messiah? How could they mean they've been watching for him their whole lineage forever and ever? Well one day I got the answer in this book right here.
And I praise the Lord for weeks after I saw this because I got the answer and the answer is right here. He's gonna read from the Masoretic text, which has been translated into our King James Bible. Then I'm gonna read from the from the Targum that the Jewish people were studying from the year Jesus was born you read first.
Okay now In the Targum. In verse 13. Or verse 14 as many were astonished at thee his visage was so marred more than any man. His form more than the sons of men. Who is this speaking of? It's the Lord Jesus and if you were ever going to witness to a Jewish person, this is the Romans road for him.
It's the Isaiah the Isaiah road because he doesn't believe your New Testament. Anyway, if he's Jewish. So you take him into Isaiah 52 and 53 and you reveal the suffering servant to them in the Word of God.
Let me read to you what the Targum that they were studying from now. You follow along your Bible and you watch the words while I read these words that had been dealt with in their paraphrase. And this is what the people were being taught.
I'm gonna start with verse 13 of chapter 52 behold my servant Messiah will prosper. So it does mention that there will be a Messiah. He will be high and will flourish and be very powerful. Now what part of a Messiah does that speak to his suffering or his reign in the millennial period?
All right verse 14 as the house of Israel hoped for him many days when their Appearance was diminished among the nations and their countenance more than the sons of men. So whose countenance was marred in that verse.
The nation well in my Bible and in their Bible the same one they had at the time. It says his Visage was marred. They simply changed one word. They changed his to our now brother Russell. Read on go down to 53 and read verse 2 and verse 3.
Chapter 53 verses 2 verses 2 and 3 who is the despised one? Jesus Christ our Lord let me read it to you in the Targum and See the righteous one will grow up before him. See how some of the truth is left in it.
It's always you you leave if you're Satan you leave most the truth truth there to dress it up or it's not a Bible anymore and see the righteous one will grow up before him like blossoming shoots and Like a tree which sends forth its roots by streams of water.
So will the holy generation flourish in the land which was in need of him. His appearance is not that of any common man. Nor is his all the awe inspired by any ordinary person and a countenance of holiness is his countenance.
Which all who see him will look earnestly upon then the glory of the kingdoms will be an object of contempt and Will be cut off. See they will be weak and sad. Like a man suffering pain and appointed to afflictions.
Condemned and discrip disregarded as though the face of the Shekinah had departed from us. What happened all of a sudden it's back to the kingdoms which which have the contempt not the Messiah subtle little changes and All the way through this passage and I could read on and on it's it's it's amazing to see it.
But all the way through the passage Every time you see the Messiah suffering it is not the Messiah. It is the Jewish nation the Messiah never suffers in the Targums. So why is it that when Jesus came and told them I you can destroy this temple?
But in three days, I'll raise it up again. Why do they have problems and what you mean destroy that you're not gonna die. Why is it that Peter himself came to Jesus and said we will not let you die. You can't die.
Why what did he think he should do? Mm-hmm. Exactly, why do you think Judas? Took the money and went and cut a deal. Wanted to force it to a head. Well, surely, you know, they come to they come to take him.
Judas is thinking they come to take him. He'll have to show his strength and power and I'll be sitting right next to him in the kingdom. Why did they all think that way they had never ever their whole life been exposed to a suffering servant?
Why the Bible had been changed? Now that's that is a power little subtle shit like one word one word in the verse has changed and this has been going on since that time to the present day and It goes on and God's people yet as as we read in one of our verses in Sunday school this morning Apostle Paul said yeah, but but our hearts, you know our heart.
I don't remember how he phrased it, but he said our hearts can tell the difference and on what's the truth and what's not and if you're born again and you're in the word and you're walking with the Lord and All of a sudden you've got a version where it removes The deity of Christ and tries to make Joseph be his father.
You go. Nope red flag red flag something's wrong here and. So you start looking at it at all of these things in more and more detail. Well, I'd like to get into a little bit more of the technical aspects for a few minutes this morning give you some more Things to be thinking about.
Remember last time at the end I told you that there are basically three suppositions that the Westcott Hort theory stand upon. Number one that the existing text can be categorized according to families and that there are at least three to four different families.
Westcott had four families. Because he created a fourth one called the neutral text which was the Vaticanus The Roman Catholic manuscript that he had gotten he didn't even never saw it. He just saw copies of it, by the way.
He may have seen it though because he was Catholic. I take that back. No Protestant scholar has ever actually seen it has been allowed to see it. But to him that was the neutral text now. He divided all the other Copies into families.
He used the same line of argument that Was used in the theory of evolution. This idea of families and that one thing comes from another and the interesting thing about Westcott Hort theory. Same thing that's true of evolution.
There are no missing links that have ever been found. It's totally fabricated. There are no missing links that take you and where you can take all of this vast number of manuscripts and take them all the way.
Back here and they go to a single corrupted copy that supposedly happened in Syria. Sometime before the year 400 that's never been proven. It's all theory and they invented this all this whole thing in their mind.
This idea that you can assume that it goes back to a single corrupted Bible. In all the modern all in other words the received text goes back to a place where it was corrected. Well, it's funny because the King James people do the opposite they take all the modern texts say they go back.
And but the nice thing is they say we think they don't say it happened. They say we think that it is a strong possibility. It goes back to Origin and there is a strong possibility that it does and so what Westcott Hort did was they took?
Some of the same ideas just turned it on its head in the day that they lived. No one agreed with them. None of the Bible believing people that you would walk with in church like we're sitting in this church with us today nobody like that agreed with that theory when it happened and I'm gonna read some of the comments that were made back in the 1800s when this first happened because it was a battle and Unfortunately the born-again people walking with God are always caught a little bit behind.
It's just kind of like the United States at the beginning of World War two. Well, I mean we didn't have enough ships. We didn't have enough anything the enemy attacks. It took us a while to catch up, but we caught up and it's always that way.
It was that way in evolution when Schofield and all of those good men came up with these ideas like the gap theory to try to cover their bases because they were so Afraid that Darwin had proven the Bible's not accurate in the early portions of Genesis.
They said well, it's accurate if you put a gap between verse 1 and 2 of Genesis 1. We know now that the gap theory is hogwash. But they were scrambling and the same thing has happened with this when Westcott and Hort came out with their ideas.
They said wow, look at all these big words. They're using look at all these scientific methods. They're using and really they created the thing. They made it up. It was new just like all of Darwin's jargon.
He invented it. But it's he used such large words and big ideas and put it together. So eloquently and beautifully that the world goes. Wow. Look at this and the whole Christian world did that when Westcott and Hort and the revision committee came.
But a few born-again believers said they're wrong. I'm not sure. I know how yet, but I'm gonna figure it out and you go read their books. They finally figured it out. It's amazing. So the first presupposition is this idea of the families?
The second idea is that the Byzantine text is late and corrupt. Now, that's the received text. It's called one reason this is a little confusing. It's called several things. It can be called the Byzantine text the Syrian text the traditional text, which I love that phrase for it.
The traditional text is what virgin called it the Byzantine text. But that's all the received text that your English King James Version came from is behind it and that Martin Luther's German version. All of the Protestant Reformation people used it.
Which speaks for itself as far as what they believed was the right line because they had access to some to Jerome's Bible. Which is very similar to the Westcott Hort text. They had access to those but they threw them out and disregarded them.
The third presupposition is that the oldest Greek manuscript or that are always the best. So you have these three the existing text can be categorized into families accurately. Number two the Byzantine text which is one we believe in is late.
Which means it's not old enough to be accurate and it's corrupt and number three. The oldest Greek manuscripts are the best if we could take any one of those three and disprove it. We've destroyed Hort's Theory, but let's look at the three theories.
First. Let's talk about the one about all of these. That you can take the lines and take them back into families and it is all clear-cut and simple and and it's very obvious that the West that the Sinaticus and the Vaticanus are the neutral text and all these others go back to a single corruption somewhere.
Let's see if it's really that clear. Modern textual criticism since before Westcott and Hort has been based upon the premise that the same methods used in profane writing Would work with the Bible in other words if you take Homer or you take even Shakespeare or something like that and you're going to go back and take the text that we still have and Try to prove they're accurate.
Well, they've developed scientific methods for that. The Westcott and Hort theory and even a couple of guys before them that perhaps they learned it from such as tichendorf. They use that same scientific method and and criticize the Bible with it.
Well, the problem with that is that those books don't have religious people trying to prove their doctrine and changing it on purpose. But the Bible does and so that is not a safe premise to use for for looking at the Bible evidence.
But that is what they base. There's on now Hort. I'm gonna quote Hort and here's Part of his whole premise is based on this statement and you decide if you think this statement is true because if it's true.
Maybe he's right if he's true and this is right, then the modern versions may be accurate. But you tell me if you think this is right. This is quoting Hort. It will not be out of place to add here a distinct expression of our belief that even among the numerous Unquestionably spurious readings of the New Testament there.
There are no signs of deliberate falsification of the text for dogmatic purposes. He's saying I can't find in any even the ones I disagree with. I don't see anywhere where anybody ever changed one for a doctrinal reason.
Now based upon that if you accept his premise It's so easy to read a scholar and just go with him and say you get down you have his same Conclusion because you skipped over his premises too quickly and you didn't think about him.
See they lay the premise out at the first of the book and they're going fast and they're giving you a lot of information. And they lay the premise out and if you swallow that like a big old bass does this time of the year?
He's gonna reel you right into that boat and put you in the in the cooler. Because if you accept the premise, which is the first thought this is the truth. Then this is true. Then this leads to this this is connected this this comes over here and this comes around under here and over here and here's the Solution my version is better than the one all the Saints have had going all the way back to 400 AD.
My solution is better. Well, his first premise is that you can't find anywhere where anybody ever deliberately changed the New Testament. For dogmatic purposes. He goes on and he follows this with another premise then the principles of criticism explained in the foregoing section, which means the modern critical methods of looking at profane literature like like Chaucer or Just people that wrote poetry or literature the principles of criticism explained in the foregoing Section hold good for all ancient text preserved in a plurality of documents.
Now that's true. Maybe if you're talking about profane literature. He but he's gonna tie it in and say so therefore in dealing with the text of the New Testament. No new principle, whatever is needed or legitimate.
And you've got to understand that to understand where all the new Bibles came from. He laid out two premises if you accept them. Then you're gonna follow his conclusion and most of the seminaries today have one of the only ones I know of it.
Didn't is the Pensacola? Baptist seminary there in Florida and they are strong King James and they fight the whole religious world over it. Which is sad, but they at least take a stand on it. But the first premise is that first of all, none of the ancient documents have ever been corrupted.
For doctrinal reasons to prove a doctrine. So they changed it kind of like the Jews did on the Targums there or you change a word because you don't want to believe. He's a suffering servant. So you just change one or two words.
He said that's never happened. He says therefore the modern ideas of how you criticize an old document that applies to Shakespeare Chaucer and all and and going on back as far as you can go those same Ideas will work with the Bible.
Now if that's true his conclusion is therefore we need no other principle to use to do this. Which means we don't have to even consider the group of people that the documents came from where they like from Antioch where they were first called Christians and the missionaries were Sent out from there and I've found three scholars that say that they believe when John before he died that John Compiled the New Testament into a group put some of it together.
And that it was in that part of the world is where it was when the copy started being made. We don't consider any of that. All we consider is modern Textual criticism theory and methods and he not only says that that will work, but he says it is the only one that's legitimate.
Now that's where your scientists really come in and make you feel really ignorant. You know when they write about burgeon today they say well he was ignorant. He didn't understand the idea of families of lines of manuscripts.
They're lying to you because if you read burgeon's writing. He says I understand the families of lines manuscripts problem is I can't find one. They don't exist. He says they're like magic. They've just created them out of a hat.
So he did understand it. He just disagreed with it. And so he's branded as ignorant and yet he's a scholar. Taught in In seminaries and so forth now so Hort gives us this idea of the families now. Do modern scholars still?
Believe or does anybody believe that his statement is true that no one ever corrupted the Bible for dogmatic reasons. Well, let me give you a quote a quote from Metzger Who writes on the early church fathers and he Quote, he he makes the point that the early church fathers that we can read of in their writings disagreed with Westcott's theory and Hort's theory that no one ever corrupted it.
The early church fathers Arrhenius Clement of Alexandria Tertullian Eusebius and many other church fathers Accused the heretics of corrupting the scriptures in order to have support of their special views.
This is what Hort and Westcott said never happened. But the evidence is that it did so they knew this evidence. Westcott and Hort knew this evidence but they withheld it from you thinking you won't go find it and Then you all you've all you do is read their book.
It says this evidence this never happened and you never go look to see then you accept their false premise. Do you see how this works? You have to watch scholars all the time because they're going to prove their point and they leave out vital information.
Arrhenius Clement of Alexandria Tertullian and all these fathers Said that scriptures were changed in order to support these heretical views in the mid 2nd century. Marcion Expunged his copies of the gospel according to Luke of all references to the Jewish background of Jesus.
Did you hear that we know that Marcion Removed any mention of the Jewishness of Jesus from his copy of the book of Luke. Now what if several copies hundred copies were made of Marcion's? Greek Luke passage and they come down to today.
What do you have? All of a sudden Jesus is not a Jew. He's a blonde-headed German and there are people who believe that. So now there's a Bible out there that proves that and we know and trace that back to Marcion.
Tatian's harmony of the Gospels contain several textual alterations which lent support to Ascetic or in crate Ike views now. These views are views of practicing strict self-denial as a measure of personal and especially spiritual Discipline so they these were they believed in asceticism.
Cut yourself equip yourself crawl up a Mountain on glass on your knees and that's how you please God and it's very clear here that Tatian changed his Bible. To reflect those kinds of views. All this was done back before 300 AD.
Most of it done the first 100 years after Christ died. Gaius who wrote between 175 and 200 AD. Said quote now remember this was written about 175 AD. John died 180. This is 75 years after the Apostle John went to heaven.
Gaius wrote this the divine scriptures. These heretics have audaciously corrupted. Laying violent hands upon them under the pretense of correcting them. It is interesting to see how Gaius then went on to prove his accusations.
Now follow me this is very I know this is not Exciting. This can be dry because it's information, but you need this because if you don't have truth, you can't conquer error. Gaius went on to prove this.
Now remember Westcott and Hort just stated very clearly at the first of their work that this never happened. No one has ever corrupted any Greek New Testament for religious reasons never happened. And we have here a man in 175 AD saying that it happened and that he saw it happening.
And he says that I bring no false accusation. Now look the Gaius here in 175 AD. He's arguing that some copies of his Bible have been tampered with and he's having to defend it. People don't want to believe him.
So look how he proves it. I bring no false accusation. Anyone who is despised may easily convince him. Who is disposed may easily convince himself. He has but to collect the copies belonging to these persons these heretics.
Collect the several copies of the scriptures that they have. Then to compare one with another and he will discover that their discrepancy is extraordinary. What does that tell you that Gaius knew 175 he knew that the line of manuscripts that were of God agreed with each other and that these Disagreed even with each other.
They not only agreed with the line that he considered to be the true line of manuscripts. But they disagreed with each other. Those of Asclepius. Asclepius at all events will be found discordant from those of Theodotus.
It's like you take the Vaticanus that Westcott Hort loved and the Sinaticus that they loved if you look at them together. They disagree with each other in thousands of places. So how can they both be the Word of God?
At least one of them is wrong and this man back in 175 AD is using the same logic. Now plenty of specimens of either sort are obtainable in as much as these men's disciplines have industriously multiplied the so-called corrected copies of Their respective teachers which are in reality nothing else but corrupted copies with the foregoing copies again.
Those of hemophilus will be found entirely at variance. So now he's named a third one. He said no three of these agree as for the copies of Apollo 90s. They even contradict one another. Now this is the same kind of reasoning that John Burgeon used in the 1800s to fight this battle against the Westcott Hort theory.
He said you're you're the ones that you erase the received text gone all the way back as far as we can look in history. And you're changing it based on two copies that disagree with each other same argument so Burgeon was therefore correct in recognizing that the New Testament was not to be approached in the same way as the Greek Classics.
Does that make sense to everybody? You can't use the same scientific method of textual criticism. To examine the Bible because the Bible has been changed by corruptors who did it on purpose. So it's not enough to say well, I found the oldest version over here in this.
Out in the desert here in the Sinai Desert and I found it over here and it's old. And so therefore it's got to be the most accurate because it's older than anything. We can find the received text written on.
That's not always true. Hort's mistaken perspective led him to bring over into the textual criticism of the New Testament the family tree method of genealogy as developed by students of the classics. Bruce Metzger said this about Burgeon.
He mentions Burgeon. What Burgeon was apparently unable to comprehend now listen? This is how the enemies attack Burgeon. What Burgeon was apparently unable to comprehend was the force of the genealogical method.
By which the later Conflated text that's supposed to be the one we have Conflated means you took a bunch of different things and added them together and you got more words in it. Kind of like the passage we where you ask the crash question birds last week where you got one talks about parents and right two Verses later.
We've got one that said Joseph and his mother Mary and what we didn't notice. I went home and look but in that same Chapter there's another place identical only is talking about different information.
The context is different. But it's identical in the fact that it mentions Parents again and two verses later comes back and says Joseph and his mother both places in the same chapter. So they say that's conflated that they took one version over here that had parents another version over here that said Joseph and his mother they put it all together and conflated it and that's where the received text comes from.
That's what the modern critics say. People like virgin say no, that's not right the originals were this way and then the Western critics like origin removed this verse and in the I'm sorry the Alexandrian like origin removed this verse and the Western Roman Catholics added this verse removed this verse and He looks at it the other way.
So they've turned it all upside down now. They say that virgin didn't understand the family tree. The fact is let me read you a quote from virgin and see if you think he understood the family tree. I Think he understood it.
He just disagreed with it. Virgin says this and I quote high time. However, is it to declare that in strictness all this talk about genealogical evidence? When applied to manuscripts is moonshine. Now remember this man lived in the time when this whole battles already taken place.
We don't even have to debate it today. It's already but taking place. It's all there to read all we need to do is examine it like a court of jurors. Yes, but then it happens. Unfortunately that we are Unacquainted with one single instance of a known manuscript copied from another known manuscript.
Not one example, there's no missing link where you can prove one was copied from a more ancient one. That was corrupted and Perforce all talk about Genealogical evidence where no single step in the descent can be produced in other words where no genealogical evidence Exists is absurd.
Now they come back years later and they say this man didn't understand the family tree method. Is that true? Shake something. Is that is it lunchtime. Not quite. Okay, so they lied would you agree. You're the juror now.
The opposing lawyer gets up. Metzger gets up on the chair bill goes over and interrogates him. You look kind of like a lawyer. I'm sorry. I shouldn't say that. But he goes over and interrogate. He looks at his watch.
When's he gonna quit. He goes over and interrogates him. One time somebody did that when Rocky was preaching there was a big clock on no. No, there's something some guy looked at his watch when he was preaching.
He saw him and looked over and said my soul. Why'd you even come here? And then he went right back in just kept preaching and I'm preaching the Word of God. Well, you you're okay because I'm reading from books.
That's different, but. You're you're you're you're gonna go interrogate. You're gonna go interrogate this guy and he says that virgin is simply ignorant. And then you come and you produce a quote the virgin is signed.
It says I understand all this stuff, but I don't agree with it. What's the jury gonna find when you bring this out you bring this out of this liar? He's lying. Let me give you another quote. EC Caldwell wrote this in a book called.
What is the best New Testament? He said where are the charts which start with the majority of the late manuscripts? Incline back through diminishing generations of ancestors to the neutral and Eastern texts.
See neutral is one of Westcott's favorite ideas. He's saying produce these for me. You talk about them in your work your scholarly works use all these big words. Show me one. The answer is that they are nowhere.
All the manuscripts referred to are imaginary Manuscripts. The second limitation upon the application of the genealogical method to the manuscripts of the New Testament springs from the almost universal presence of mixture in these manuscripts.
Where there is mixture then the genealogical method as applied to manuscripts is useless yet Westcott and Hort's genealogical method slew the textus receptus and It did in the seminaries today, no one believes in it anymore.
So that carries it to the next generations of preachers. It carries it to the next generation of the proof of the pew and everybody's got. Every different version reads every different which way and no one has in the mindset of the church.
There are no word formulas that are dear to the heart anymore. I can get up and preach and I'll give you messages from the King James. Which I've studied ever since I laid my new American aside and give you those beautiful Phrases.
I don't ever remember the whole verse. I'll give you just a part of one and some of you that have studied from that Bible and it goes back for 400 years. Now as far as the received text being used among the Protestants and you go.
Wow. Yes, amen. I know that phrase that phrase means something in my heart because you've studied it in your closet but if I get up and I start preaching from a new American Standard or the Living Bible or or any of the new versions I Can read the same verse and it doesn't sing in your heart because you haven't been studying that version.
And neither did your mother and your grandmother and your grandfather and your great-grandparents. It's not in it's not there. It's not that it doesn't ring the bell. So what does it do it cools off the church services?
You don't have anybody saying much. Amen anymore. You don't have people. Yes preacher. I know that one. I know that truth. I've been there. Word formulas are very important. Burgeon made the statement that if a people use the same Translation we're talking about from the Greek into your language if they use the same Translation for three generations and then you try to change the translation you destroy a work.
That's been accomplished by God Through the preaching of the word in these word formulas and you have to rebuild the whole thing and start over. It's amazing to think about even if we couldn't prove the manuscripts were best.
We might still stay with the King James because it's in our hearts. But that wouldn't be enough for me. Because if we could prove that it wasn't accurate that wouldn't be enough. We'd have to change. But the best minds that have fought this battle.
Say that it's the most accurate and even the man I met three weeks ago or heard speak. Anyway, he was on the board that edited the New American Standard puts the King James up there as the most accurate Translation into the English of any of them.
If I remember was it number one. Y 'all are number two. I remember is it. I think it was number one. All right. Another quote from Matthew Black about this idea of the family lines the difference between sacred writings is constant popular and ecclesiastical use and the work of classical of a classical author has never been sufficiently emphasized in that in the Textual criticism of the New Testament.
He's saying there's a difference between examining Sacred writings and classical writings and he said people don't talk about this enough. They try to treat it like it's the same. It hasn't been sufficiently emphasized in the textual criticism of the New Testament principles valid for the textual risk restoration of Plato or Aristotle cannot be applied to sacred texts such as the Gospels or the Pauline epistles.
We cannot assume that it is possible by a sifting of quote scribal errors to arrive at a prototype or autograph text of the Bible writer. He's saying West Cotton Hort used the wrong method. Kurt Allen wrote this in 1965 and He's the one that I spoke of earlier in the message.
Look what he says. He's very honest about this. It is true and generally known that the principles of Stematology which means like stems on a tree like a family generation method Cannot be applied to the New Testament at least the scholars who have attempted to do So have been unable to state their case convincingly.
That's a knock at Westcott Hort Allen comes back and says in another quote I want you to listen because he speaks with the mind of a young man fresh out of seminary. Look what he says, and he's he's done this great study of the papyri the paper old ancient documents many of which have been found since Westcott and Hort's theory and He studied them and he's going back and he's showing you know with this new evidence.
We have the Westcott Hort theories been tanked. Well, he says p66 confirmed now p66 remember when we studied the manuscripts those are papyrus. Writings when it has like a capital P in front of it. P66 confirmed the observations already made in connection with the Chester Beatty papyri.
With p75 new ground has been open to us. Earlier we all share now. Listen, think of this man the scholar speaking as a young man out of college having listened to his professors. We all shared the opinion in agreement with our professors.
That's an honesty. You will never hardly ever find among scholars to say they were actually kids who were students one day. Who were drooling while the professor spoke? Oh this man's God. But that's how it works in it brother bill when you're in your 20s your early 20s.
And so he says we all were in agreement with our professors and in accord with New Testament scholarship. Before and since Westcott and Hort this modern textual criticism. We were in agreement with it that in various places during the fourth century recensions of the New Testament were made.
A recension is when you take a text that is established by critical revision, so we all believe that these Critically revised text of the New Testament existed and The text had been made from which the main text types then developed.
So we have been families of lines that come up that go back to this one that was rescinded or changed and now the others Came from it. So they're all corrupted. We spoke of recensions and text types and if you read Westcott Hort you get all these big words and all these big theories and If this was not enough we referred to Precessor Ian and other text types.
We referred to mixed texts and so on. I too have spoken of mixed texts in connection with the form of the New Testament text in the second and third centuries. But I have always done so with a guilty conscience.
Because he knew the facts. But he was still parroting what his professors wanted to hear. But now he's admitting it he's coming clean he says for according to the rules of linguistic philology, which that word means a historical and comparative Approach to linguistics comparing one old manuscript with another to find out where the accuracy is.
He says for according to these rules It is impossible to speak of mixed text before recensions have been made. They only can follow them. Whereas the New Testament manuscripts of the second third centuries which have a quote mixed text Clearly existed before the recensions were supposed to have been made.
It is impossible to fit the papyri from the time prior to the fourth century into these two text types. To say nothing of trying to fit them into other types as frequently happens by the scholars. The simple fact that all these papyri with their various distinctive characteristics Did exist side-by-side in the same?
Ecclesiastical province that is in Egypt. Where they were found is the best argument against the existence of any text types including the Alexandrian and the Antiochian. We still live in the world of Westcott and Hort with our conception of different recensions and text types although this conception has lost its raison d 'etre which means reason of existence or It needs at least to be newly and convincingly demonstrated for the increase of documentary Evidence and the entirely new areas of research which were open to us in the discovery of the papyri.
Mean the end of Westcott and Hort's conception and yet It's like still we study chemistry that we know is not right anymore. We're still studying the same. If you want to defend the new versions you go back to Westcott and Hort and They've already been proven wrong by modern scholarship and by the find of these old papyrus manuscripts.
Which don't support them any more than they support the received text. They they support the received text too, but Westcott Hort said they never do. The ancient ones never do they were wrong now. That's about all the time you can stand and we just got one one one point out of the three.
So I don't know what to do with this. I Know there are folks or I perceive and I don't know this to be true, but I perceive there are folks that are ready to move on to something else. One of them's my wife.
She thinks that the people want to move on to something else. When I was 39, I started listening to her. When I turned 46 this year, I stopped again. And I keep saying we'll finish this, you know next week of the week after I really know we're close.
I mean I got it all right here. And it is finished. My study is finished. I'm just gonna be praying about rather just to give you the rest of it in manuscript form down here at the front and move On or what?
I know I'm gonna preach one more and that's the conclusion with the Bible. It's a Bible message. You'll think finally we're back to the Bible. It's a Bible message on this whole thing. But I hate to skip point two and three some beautiful quotes.
I wanted to give you a lot of quotes from burgeon. Just Amazing how he blows this away. How many of you would read it if I just gave it to you to print? I'm asking right before the chickens ready because if you're not gonna read it, I'm gonna finish.
How many of you read this would read it every word of it if I gave it to you? Okay. All right. Well, we'll pray about that then but let me I tell you at least let me do this. Let me read the one that I wanted to conclude with today.
Will you give me just give me ten more minutes and if you do I'll promise to stop this and go on and move on. Can you give me ten more. Okay, it'll save you two more Sundays. All right, what I want you to do Is turn to 2nd Samuel 2 21 and I'm gonna need my two gentlemen to do that in these Bibles.
I hand it out if you would. 2nd Samuel 2 21. Burgeon is not the only one who's written. It's just we have so little time in the pulpit. I mean, I probably will write a book on this. I I probably won't because I just.
To write a book you have to do nothing but write a book and that's just not what my life is is about right now. Maybe someday The Lord would allow me. It's hard to fit it into messages. But it's probably the most important subject.
You or a new Christian can study because if you don't know which Bible to read. How do you know what to do if you don't know which one to trust? How do you know you can trust John 3 16 as being a true verse?
And There's a man named Benjamin G Wilkinson who wrote a book called our authorized Bible vindicated. Obviously supporting the King James, but more than that. Most of these guys are supporting the received text.
The Greek behind it, but I want to quote a little bit and he's going to refer to 2nd Samuel 2 21. And he asked the question who killed Goliath. There is the idea in the minds of some people that Scholarship demands the laying aside of the authorized version of the Bible and taking up the latest revised version.
This is an idea. However without any proper basis. The revised version is in large part in line with what is known as modernism and is peculiarly Acceptable to those who think that any change anywhere or in anything is progress.
Those who have really investigated the matter and are in hearty sympathy with what is evangelical. Realized that this revised version is a part of the movement to quote modernize Christian thought and faith and do away with the established truth.
Now that was a quote from the Herald and Presbyter, which is a Presbyterian journal in July 16th 1924 in one of our prominent publications there appeared in the winter of 1928 an article entitled who killed Goliath and in the spring of 1929 an article named the dispute about Goliath.
Attention was called to the fact that in the American revised version, which is the same as the American Standard Version 2nd Samuel 21 19 we read that Elhanan killed Goliath not David a special cable gram from the quote most learned and devout scholars of the Church of England who was behind the revised version and also.
Which came some of the text of course Westcott or text came into the New American Standard later. This scholar said in substance that the revised version was correct that Elhanan and not David killed Goliath.
That there were many other things in the Bible which were the product of exaggeration. Which is what they say about the received text such as the story of Noah and the Ark. The story of Jonah in the whale of the Garden of Eden and the longevity of Methuselah.
You see liberals always think this way. I sat under them at Baylor University and they taught me that all of the miracles in the Bible can be explained Through natural phenomenon and I ceased to be a Southern Baptist a few years later because I didn't want my tithe money paying that man's salary.
These are the men that are behind the modern versions folks study it read it for yourselves. Compare the scholars. Compare the men who support the received text with the men who don't. The men who don't are not the ones you'd want to have preaching to you.
They're not the ones you'd want to have sit next to you in the pew. They're the ones who don't believe in Noah's Ark. They don't believe in Jonah in the whale. They don't believe that David killed Goliath.
So they're happy with the Bible that says it didn't now I'd like for you to read 2nd Samuel 2 21 brother. Is it it probably is 20. Okay. Let me see. It's right here. You're I'm sure you're right. 2nd Samuel 21 19 Is exactly what I'm looking for.
Yes. All right. So who killed Goliath? All right, Elhanan killed him now brother Russell readers in the King James. You second Samuel 21 19 I got Miss Redmond now who did who killed Goliath in this one or it doesn't actually say who killed Goliath, but who was killed in that verse.
The brother of Goliath. So does that then leave the possibility that David may have killed Goliath? It does doesn't it? Well, if you're looking at your King James Bible, you might notice that that's in italics.
However, so what would that make you think? What does that normally mean when in the English? It's. It's in italics. It means it was added in English to make the Hebrew make sense in English. Sometimes that's bad.
Sometimes that's good. Sometimes you'd rather read it without it. Sometimes you'd rather read it with it. But what's interesting in the Hebrew language? You cannot make a word-for-word translation into English.
Because the differences in the language sometimes you have to add English words to make it read, right? But if you study and we won't take the time this morning, but if you were to go back up to chapter 21 verse 15 and read all the way down through verse 22 then 22 makes sense where it says these four were born to the giant of Gath and Fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.
It would indicate that these were killed by David and his servants. But it also leaves the possibility that Goliath was not one of those four that he was a previous In the family line with these giants and that David had killed him previously.
It leaves that possibility and it certainly inserts the idea that this other man killed the brother of Goliath. So that it leaves open the fact that David killed Goliath and you say well, I don't like the italics.
Well, what's interesting if you go and go to first Chronicles chapter 20 in verse 5 where the same story is told. Let me read it to you First Chronicles 25 and there was a war again with the Philistines in Elhanan.
That's our gentleman that supposedly killed Goliath in the new versions. Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lami the brother of Goliath the Gittite whose spear shaft staff was like a weavers beam. And there are no italics in that verse.
So the Hebrew clearly says in the parallel passage that he killed the brother of Goliath. Which the King James brings through very clearly and all the modern versions leave out why. Because the Hebrew behind the modern versions leaves it out and the Translators were liberal and they don't care and they left it out.
So tell me which Bible reads the clearest who killed Goliath. What do you want to teach your children? How would you like to be teaching a miss Mitchell in your Sunday school class and you read that verse and you think you should.
You know, you know what you want to teach and you read that and say Ellen only the little hands goes up miss Mitchell. I Thought David killed Goliath. What are you gonna tell him you're gonna say? Well, he did and you're gonna go home and figure out why you know, you had the new American Standard perhaps or whatever so.
There are so many examples of this. Obviously time gets away from us so. And yet, mr. Wilkerson in his book Discusses this in detail and I'm gonna close with a quote from this same gentleman Benjamin Wilkerson in his book.
He says they're fundamentally there are only two streams of Bibles. Now, this will help. Melt it all down to a simple conclusion. They talk about all these different families these possible families and so forth.
I think we quoted at least three people who have now proven that all that stuff about the families. You can't rely upon it because there are too many texts that are mixed it have some of that. What you think is a family and some of that family in it.
So we've disproven that and so this gentleman says basically you boil it down. There are two streams of Bibles. Anyone who is interested enough to read the vast volume of literature on this subject will agree that down through the centuries.
There were only two streams of manuscripts. The first stream was carried which carried the received text in Hebrew and Greek began with the Apostle Apostolic churches and reappeared at intervals down the Christian air among enlightened believers.
Was protected by the wisdom and scholarship of the pure church in her different phases. Precious manuscripts were preserved by such as the church at Pella in Palestine where Christians fled when in 70 AD the Romans destroyed Jerusalem.
They were preserved by the Syrian Church of Antioch, which produced eminent scholarship. They were preserved by the Italic Church in northern Italy and Also at the same time by the Gallic Church in southern France and by the Celtic Church in Great Britain.
By the pre Waldensian the Waldensian and the churches of the Reformation which includes Calvin. I'll tell you an interesting bit of information. John Calvin himself said I believe that I am Kin to the Calvins of the Waldensia's who lived in the Alps.
So there you have a stretch of that same Bible manuscript that the Waldensians used which Fits the received text not the modern text reaches up to Calvin. Who Calvin and Baysa the man that took over his ministry after he passed away.
Baysa is one of the most common names you'll hear in connection with the received text and made many translations and They all were the received text which came known as the textus receptus. So it brings it all the way from the Apostles to the churches of the Reformation.
This first stream appears with very little change in the Protestant Bibles of many languages and In English in the Bible known as the King James Version. The one which has been in use for 300 years at the time of this writing.
In the English-speaking world these manuscripts have an agreement with them. By far the vast majority of copies of the original text. So vast is this majority that even the enemies of the received text admit that?
1920s of all Greek manuscripts are of this class and He concludes this way. So the present controversy Between the King James Bible in English and the modern versions is the same old Contest fought out between the early church and the rival sects and Later between the Waldenses and the papists.
That means the Roman Catholics who were killing them. Because their Bible version was different was one of the reasons from the fourth to the 13th centuries and Later still between the Reformers and the Jesuits in the 16th century.
The Jesuits were zealous Roman Catholics who went about killing all manner of Protestants and Baptists. One of the reasons they did so is because they would not use the Jerome Latin Vulgate which matches the modern versions.
They used the received text which matches your King James Bible and they were killed for it. Now folks, that's the history. It's not a new battle. That man said it so succinctly. In his conclusion He says the same old battle goes all the way back to the Apostles and the sects of their day the heretical sects.
And it can be followed all the way down to the Waldensias to John Calvin and all the way to our time when Burgin was fighting the battle against Titchendorf and Westcott Hort. You got to pick a side I'm afraid.
Now I will tell you this and I know that you that have been around me for a long time. Know that I'm not a preacher that's gonna tell you you got to dress a certain way. You got to wear your hair a certain way.
You got to walk a certain way. You can go you can or cannot go to this place or that or watch this or that or listen to this or that? I'm relying on the Holy Spirit to deal in your hearts. I think he'll deal more when I am able to preach the Bible message to conclude this which probably be Sunday after next because I'm gonna Preach the message on the resurrection the resurrected life next Sunday Lord willing but I think You know, I'm perfectly confident to let you take the same journey that I've taken and I feel you'll come with the same conclusion.
If you examine the evidence faithfully and without bias. The first time I studied this I didn't do it. I was biased. I wanted the King James Version to win. Funny thing was at that time. I was reading the New American Standard Bible.
But I read one the first book I read I believe it just sounded so great to me. Man these guys are right and that whole first time 10 back in the early 80s when I studied it I was biased this time when I studied it.
I wasn't. For one reason Russ had brought up some interesting questions. He had a book by Allen. He had read so I want you to read this book. It doesn't seem to agree with everything you're saying and so I just wanted to know the truth.
That's all I want to know at this point in my life and So, let's just take the facts examine them in an unbiased way take what the Bible teaches that God has preserved his word to Each generation and that's the written word.
It's not the living word. The living word doesn't have to be preserved. Does he? You can't preserve something that's perfect like he is but the written word came through earthen vessels. So it had to be preserved, but he promised he would give it to each generation.
What text has each generation had. Going back through the whole time all the way back to the Waldensies of 400 AD and back beyond that. It wasn't the Westcott Hort text. None of the believers in the 1800s went with it.
They rejected it and spoke of it as heretical and pointed out they were merry worshipers this they attacked him. They attacked Westcott and Hort. They tried to blow him out of the saddle. But you know what?
In these end days. Guess which one was accepted by the seminaries in a day where God says there will be a great falling away. Guess what the scholars say is the right one. Just weigh the evidence. Now let's stand and get lighter and pray and have lunch and fellowship together.
Thanks to my wife. You won't have to endure any more of this except for a Bible message on it to conclude it father thank you so much for these men who did give their whole life to the study of Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic and who ruined their eyesight by going over old documents and collating them and comparing them and matching them all for the purpose of defending a line of manuscripts that was purchased by the blood of people who believe like we do.
And Father we thank you for these people some who gave their lives For a different reading in a manuscript some who the Catholics killed because they wouldn't read like Jerome's Bible. Father we thank you for these people for without the little shreds that they left us the writings that they left us.
We would be at the mercy of the modern scholars. We thank you for these men. We thank you most of all though father for your word which gave us the promise that you'd preserve your word to each generation.
Seven times purified. Preserved and kept for each generation of your children. Thank you that we have the Bible that we can trust it that it is what you've given us and it's perfect. And that we can teach it to our children and our grandchildren.
Without worry of them finding something wrong like the wrong person killed Goliath. Father lead us in the right direction. May we keep and maintain unity with one another? That's the most important thing in our church is that we walk as one and that we follow our head the Lord Jesus Christ but help us to Not put our heads In the ground like an ostrich sometimes but to search truth when we need to help us to take a stand when we need to Help us to study and to prove that which is true and to try the spirits.
Because we live in a day of mediocrity. When folks don't want to do these things anymore help us not to go according to that mindset help us to follow our Lord Jesus Christ until he comes back father bless our meal together and our fellowship time and Put our spirits together as one with the Holy Spirit of God today and Bless our Bible study this afternoon and we ask it in Jesus name.
Amen.