Why we’re King James version only
Category: Bible Study & Scripture
Key Passage: Genesis 3:1-3
Speaker: Paul Chisgar
Date: June 7, 2024
If you want to turn over to Genesis chapter number three while we’re doing this. And our Sunday school teachers did a great job last Sunday covering this subject: Why we used the King James Version. And, of course, I wouldn’t hear Brother John Casey taught my class and probably did a better job I could do with it.
But I’d planned, even if I was here that night, to just—I felt like the Lord wanted us to go over this, just to touch maybe deeper on this subject. It’s been several years since we’ve done so, and we’ll mention it from time to time.
But typically when you come to this subject, there are about four groups of people. One, they’re King James only, and they know why. They’re able to articulate that to someone. Why? Hope that’s you. It’s a good category to be in.
Some are just King James only. This isn’t bad, but they’re just King James only because that’s what they grew up on. That’s what granny used, you know what I’m saying there, and that’s not a bad thing either. And maybe you could grow a little bit if that’s your category.
Then some just say, “I just don’t know anything about the matter.” And then some say, “Well, I’m not King James only, and I don’t plan to become.” And I’d say if that’s your category, I don’t think there’s many, but maybe you’re there, maybe even kind of inside you’re there a little bit. Would you just maybe look at the facts a little bit tonight about the situation?
But I’d like to kind of just give us maybe a little bit more boldness, a little more information on the subject. And some of you have heard, and we’ll look at a chart. Everybody get the chart tonight. Look at the chart. Brother Frank, you got those? Oh, good deal. We’ll get a chart for you. Some of you have been through the chart with me before. But I like for you to kind of know what you believe, why you believe from the Bible. We’re just going to talk a little bit about how we got the King James, a little bit more in depth, and how the new versions came, a little bit more of those things tonight. And they’ll pass out a little chart. It’ll be a little bit later on in the service; we’ll use that.
But I just felt like the Lord wanted us to go over. It’s been a while since we really have. I thank God in the day and time when so many things are changing and you just don’t know if to put your faith in, we have something we can put our faith in.
I remember sitting down with a man I was going through discipleship with—oh, I think it’s Cosemel’s restaurant over there—and he said, “Why is it important we use the King James Version?” And, of course, they gave him stuff. But I told him, I said, “One thing: if I’m staking my everything, my eternity on a book—everything, my finances, my marriage, children, everything—on that book, I want to make sure I got the right thing. I mean, we’re talking about heaven or hell for eternity. I want to make sure I’ve got something that’s real and true and right.”
And such a vital subject here about the King James and why do we use the King James Version Bible in our church? And we covered it last Sunday in Sunday school. We’ll go a little bit more from a different angle, a little bit more in depth about it.
And Genesis chapter 3, are you there tonight? Amen. Amen. Oh, my goodness. We’ve got Brother Patterson, maybe a couple over here. Are you already in Genesis 3 tonight? Amen? Amen. Good, good, good. You can’t be it. Oh, now you’re looking at the chart. That’s what it is. Oh, my goodness. We should have passed that out now. And we’ll get to it just a little bit here. And…
Just lost you for about five, ten minutes there, didn’t I? I tell you what. And Brother Dumpur says he’s going to give me about—oh, I got his attention. I got his attention. I got him teasing.
Would you please stand as we read the Word of God together? Genesis three, Genesis three, and the first three verses we’ll focus on. This is the first recorded words of Satan in the Bible. So this is the first time God—if you’re just reading through your Bible—it’s the first time God tells us what Satan says as you’re reading through the Bible. That’d be significant to me, of God Almighty, God’s word, the first thing he tells me about Satan, right? And actually gives us the words of Satan. It seems like that’d be important. So let’s look and see the first thing that God tells us, and God tells us that Satan is saying. Let’s look at it. Here it is right here. Genesis 3, verse number one: “Now the serpent”—of course, that was Satan working through him; I understand that from Revelation and other places—“was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made: and he said unto the woman, Here it is, first words of Satan right here in the Bible: ‘Yea, hath God said?’”
I don’t know exactly how the tone or, you know, it’s very important how you say something. I don’t know. Maybe he said, “Yea, hath God said?” I’m not sure. I’m old, but I’m not that old. I wasn’t there, okay?
Talking to Eve, first saying he’s, “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?”
And the woman said unto the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.”
I should not—we don’t have time to go back when you look at the chapter earlier, I believe it’s verse number 17. God gave the instructions to Adam, and actually God didn’t say, “Don’t touch it.” There are some words added there.
But the first saying Satan recorded in all the Scripture, the first thing Satan is recorded doing, he’s casting doubt on God’s word. The very first thing. No new thing under the sun. Satan’s still doing the same thing. First thing God reveals to us in the Bible, if you’re reading it through, about Satan: He’s casting doubt in the words of God. Same thing you’re doing today.
Would you just pray with me that God may ground us a little bit stronger in this subject of our King James Bible? Father, Lord, we do come. We need you tonight. Lord, you know there are people that are much more intelligent than I. But, Lord, would you take the truth and the facts, just seeing your Spirit grounding us in the Bible we have? Thank you for it. Thank you, Lord, for those that gave their life really to give us this book. Thank you for it, Lord. It happens to be more confident in it after tonight. Well, thank you, Lord, for what you do. Father, I’m asking for that. Would you please do so? In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.
Satan loves—he just loves to cast doubt on the Bible. There are over—this is an old number; I need to get an updated number—but there are well over 400 new English versions out there. They say at least every six months they come out with a new one.
Time magazine said this years ago. They said, “There is an unprecedented confusion of choices in Bibles.” Now, that’s what a preacher says, but that’s what Time Magazine said: “There’s an unprecedented confusion of choices in Bibles. Never have so many major new translations been on the market.”
Friend, you realize the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 14, “God is not the author of confusion.”
I think about this. Think about if you get a guy off the street and he comes into one of these churches, he uses all the other versions. And he comes in and he doesn’t know. And he comes in, he sits down in church, and we’ll just say the fellow up front, he uses the ESV, we’ll say. And then the fellow to the left of him will say he has the NIV. The fellow over here, he’s got the Holman Christian Standard. I don’t know. Maybe they have a Pew Bible, and it’s the New King James or whatever, you know.
And can you imagine if they turn to scripture? And sometimes, sometimes we’ll do this: we’ll read verses out loud. We’ll just say they read a verse out loud. And the guy from the pulpit is reading the ESV, he’s reading the NIV, he’s reading the Holman Christian Standard—I can’t remember what it is—and he’s got the Message or whatever. Can you imagine in his mind, this fellow doesn’t know anything? Just goes, “Wow. Are all the Bibles different? Is it just the one you pick up? It’s the right one for you? How does this thing work?” You know what about there? Sure.
You know, we have a fellow, Jim Riddick, he’s moved away on us. And my brother Jim went to witness to some of his family members. And one of his family members said, “Well, how do y’all know what Bible? Y’all got so many nowadays.”
I myself, and many of you, we have heard it from a lot of different soul-winners out witnessing people. And you talk to a Muslim. I’ve had them say it to me, “Well, which Bible? You guys got all kind of Bibles.” They think they got one up on us because in their opinion they only got one in the Koran, you know. Praise the Lord, we got something to stand on. If we didn’t have something to stand on, they’d have something on us. We’d say, “Hey, we’d just go by one. We go to the King James Bible.” We really don’t have anything to say after that.
But you understand, they’d have something on us if we just believed in all of them. The importance of a Bible you can put your faith in—it’s so crucial. Man, if I have Satan, I go after the Bible. You realize in Ephesians 6 it gives six pieces of armor: the helmet of salvation, breastplate of righteousness, girdle of truth, and feet shod of the Gospel of peace, shield of faith—five of them all defensive. Notice that. Every once in a while, if you get lucky, maybe you can club them over the head with your shield, you know. But for the most part, they’re defensive. But the only offensive weapon the Bible records over there in Ephesians 6 is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. It’s our offensive weapon.
Jacob’s mom, Christy, I believe it is, we’re trying to give assurance after she prayed and asked the Lord and said, “I want to give her a Bible version.” I told her, “Hey, this is the thing: Satan’s going to try to make you doubt this thing, and the things you’re going to fight against the devil with is the Bible. Don’t you think the devil wouldn’t mind taking our offensive weapon from us? Casting doubt on it. How do you know? How do you know which one’s right?”
By the way, if they’re copyrighted, if they’re all the same, friend, that’s plagiarism. How many ever got in trouble in school for plagiarism? Anybody? Anybody honest enough to admit it? I don’t know if they ever did. But we had a couple people raise their hand. We had a lady pointing over this guy right here, got called out on it, you know. And they’ve got to be different in order for there to be a copyright on it. You understand? That’s just the laws of it, the importance of it.
So then, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Psalm 11, verse number three: “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” He’s putting a question. I just think that’s one of our foundations right there: the Bible.
I remember going to a Lord’s conference years ago, and they had a fellow speak who pastors in Florida. And the reason why he had to speak is he went to a university every year, every year he’d go there, and there was a religion class. And then they’d invite the local pastor in there to let him speak. And when he was done, they had to have questions and all that. But the teacher that let him come in every year said, “You know, I want you to know something. I want you to know, I have rabbis come in here, Catholic priests come in here,” he said. “I have Mormons, I have everybody come in here.” And he said, “Basically, these students—maybe it was a graduate level in the class, I’m not sure—but he said these students basically almost always just chew them up and spit them out. But they never do that with you.”
The university professor is telling the preacher, he said, “They never do that with you. And he said, I’ve watched this year after year. They never get you.” And he said, “Really, the reason why I think that is, one, because you believe what you say. And number two, because you just, whatever they say, you just go back to that book right there. You just have something you go by, no matter what they say or do. You don’t try to logic your way out and try to figure it all out. You just use the Bible every time. And they really can’t stand up to that book you got there: the Bible. It’s the key.”
My wife, she’ll get on a soapbox about this. She’ll preach a little bit about this here. There’s a creationist debating—what’s the atheist that debates creation? All that? You know who I’m talking about, I’m sure. Or some atheist guy that debates creation, all that. And she said the creationist just kept trying to logic with him, telling all the facts about creation, all these other things, and they’re super accurate things. But that fellow was ready for all that. He studied science just as much, if not more, than this fellow. But the one time the creationist used the Bible, the atheist didn’t have anything to say. He just couldn’t stand up to that.
Friend, it’s sharper than any two-edged sword. And sometimes I get frustrated. People try to get just the right argument. Friend, use the Bible. It is the right argument. Satan loves just getting the Bible out of our heads. He loved that. It’s the key.
It’s amazing, but, you know, the verse thing we mentioned this morning: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” It’s our food; it’s our spiritual food; it’s your nourishment.
Psalm 138:2: “For thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.” And at the name of Jesus, everyone is going to bow one day. And yet God said He has magnified His word above all thy name. That’s amazing to me. Of course, we know about the name of Jesus and so on from the Bible. But the Bible—so very, very important. The Bible.
John Wesley said this: “I build on no authority, ancient or modern, but the Scripture. I want to know one thing: the way to heaven, how to land on that happy shore. God hath condescended to teach the way. He hath written it down in a book. Oh, give me that book at any price! Give me the book of God”—the Bible.
Now, I want you just take the chart here. Let’s just kind of go through it real quickly here about how we have—how we got our English King James Bible. How do we have our King James Bible? Can I say this? The English language is so very vital. It’s the—it’s known as the world language, English is.
Brother Cal is not here tonight. He’s got his pilot license. Brother Cal can tell you this, but international airports and pilots, you know, the language—the international language they use—is English. You’ve got the Olympic Games, and you’ve got every language in the world there. What’s the language you’re going to, you know, the one, the common denominator? They go, “English.” You understand the importance of the English language in us having a Bible that we can trust in the English language.
So our chart there: How did we get the Bible? You studied this last Sunday in Sunday school. “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” God used men to pen this book. You say, “How did that work for them?”
What’s interesting, we’ll look over in 2nd Samuel chapter number 2. I wondered, what was it like when David sat down and wrote some of the Bible? We know from Peter over there, 1 Peter 1, that it wasn’t the will of man. Jeremiah didn’t say, “Well, I’m going to sit down and write the book of Jeremiah.” That wasn’t the will of man. That’s what the Bible said. It wasn’t the will of man. They were moved by God.
So what was it like? What did it feel like? How did it work for those men? A little glimpse into it. David here speaking—here are some of his last words. Last words of somebody so vital. David gives a little insight, and God used David to write about half of the Psalms. 150 chapters, so around 75, somewhere along with there, chapters of the Bible, and David gives a little description of what it was like. Look over in 2nd Samuel chapter number 23. Look in verse number one. Second Samuel 23 and verse number one.
“Now these be the last words of David; David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel said.” It’s interesting, “sweet psalmist.” He wrote about half of those, penned them.
Verse number two: “The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue.” David didn’t say, “Well, I was such a good shepherd. I thought I’d sit down and write Psalm 23, the shepherd’s song.” No. David said, “The Spirit of the Lord spake by me,” and His word was in the tongue. See, these are—I’ll do—well, David said this and Paul said this and so on, and I understand that. I don’t know if that’s an error to say it, but if it gets a little bit technical, God said that. He used David to give it to us, but God said that. That’s how it all started. God used those. He moved them to pen the words of Scripture, the words of God.
Now, we’re going to get over here at our chart a little bit here. Some—some will say this: “Well, I believe the Bible in the originals.” Sometimes we get missionaries, and the first thing I check is, what are they standing on in Scripture? And you get so many—it’s an easy way to weed out something, to be honest with you. Sometimes, “Well, I believe in the Bible and the originals.” Well, here’s my first question: Show them to me. Where are they at? Read them to me. Find them. Are they in some museum somewhere? There are no originals, friend. And they’ve been gone a long time ago. They were written on skins. Those skins only lasted so long. If you just believe the Bible in the originals, friend, nobody has originals nowadays. That’s pretty sketchy at best. Because nobody had—you can’t go find, you can’t pull them up online—the originals. They’ve been gone a long time ago. So the originals—and be careful—“Well, I believe in the Bible according to the originals.” Well, you don’t know what you believe is honest truth because you don’t have them. Nobody does.
Then there are manuscripts. Those are copies, old copies, where people were copying the originals and so on. Now, it’s divided—of course, the Old Testament for the vast majority of it was written in Hebrew. We won’t take time to get into that, but I would say the text then I would use as the Masoretic text if we’re studying the original languages a little bit there. We’re going to deal basically with the New Testament over here, okay? That original language is Greek, okay? And we’re going to talk about that for a little bit there.
Now we’ll talk about the manuscript—the Greek manuscripts or the manuscripts of the New Testament. And there’s a little debate. Some will say not quite this much, but no one will argue there are thousands of them. Most would say, I think I’ve got the other 5,309 manuscripts. That’s pretty good for a book that old to have that many manuscripts. Let me give you some comparisons on that.
Plato’s Republic. All right, some of these smart people, Brother Frank, Brother Humphreys, they’ll know more than this hillbilly knows about Plato’s Republic, all right? It was around 380 BC. The earliest copies of it we have is 900 AD. You understand how far back? That’s what that is—1,300 years after. Okay, because it was 380 BC, the earliest copies we have are 900 AD. And there are only seven copies of it. And yet you go to the university, and they say, “Oh, man, that is a trustworthy work.” You only got seven copies of it, and that’s 1,300 years later.
Caesar’s Gallic Wars. It was just a little before Christ, 100 to 44 BC. The copies we have today are dated about a thousand years after he wrote it. There are only 10 copies. And they study them. They just—they hold them in high honor. Oh, look at this.
Friend, when it comes to the New Testament, it was written between 50 and 100 AD. There are over 5,000 copies of it. All of those copies are written within 50 to 225 years after the original writings. We have thousands of them. I’m just talking about the reliability of your Bible. You understand comparison? There’s no comparison, even other words, no comparison to the Bible.
Now, so these manuscripts we’re getting here—we’re going to go down first of all here. It would be the left side just for a moment here. We’ll talk about the bottom of that will lead to the King James Bible. And it’s the Byzantine or the Antioch versions. By the way, the Christians were first called Christians at Antioch, just a hotbed of soul-winning churches in the early church, as a lot of these manuscripts are from.
But these manuscripts—all 5,300—they all agreed. At least in 95% of those manuscripts, they agreed. They didn’t contradict each other. You understand that? So all these thousands and thousands of manuscripts, and these early Christians were taking such careful account of copying them. And they all agreed for the vast majority. They all agreed. And from that, they compiled what is called the Textus Receptus, someone called the Received Text. Okay? That was a compilation of all those ones that are thousands and thousands that agreed. All right.
And from that, they got the Textus Receptus. Now, then in 1604, King James—it came to say, “Hey, we need the Bible in every man’s language.” And King James said, “I like that. I’ll authorize that,” right? And they found the best scholars they could find. I believe it started off with 54, if I remember right, he ended up with 47. And y’all learned this last Sunday. They divided them into six groups, and each group took a portion. They translated the Bible, and then they brought it back together, and all of them went through that. And then they selected even a committee out of that, and that committee went through the whole thing all over again. It took them seven years. It was interesting, seven years—seven, the number of completion in the Bible—seven years. In 1611, that work was finished.
That’s why sometimes it’s referred to as the Authorized Version because it was authorized by the king. You see, a sheriff or a local person could say, “No, you’re not allowed to have the Bible.” That was going on very much in Europe at that time. And no, no, the king authorized this: the King James Version. By the way, a good Christian man, not a Catholic. The Catholic Church hated him, threatened him, tried to kill him. But he authorized it. And the King James Bible is where we get it from.
Some will try to—and I’m getting old—some will try to smear King James. No, he’s a godly man. You can actually look up his writings and read them. Don’t read what somebody else says about him. Read what he wrote. And King James, King’s English, the most pure, the most perfect, the most beautiful, easier to memorize, very specific. Somebody said, “Well, language has changed.” They do. They go downhill like society. We’re very much more slang nowadays than we used to be. That one has just had its prime, so pure and so perfect, that’s when God had it translated.
Even the "thee"s and "thou"s and “ye” and “you” matters. “Thee” and “thou,” singular; “ye” and “you,” plural. That matters even. God had it wrote just like He wanted it. And don’t tamper with it. You’ll mess it up. All that’s important.
Now let’s go back up here and let’s take over the right side there. We’ve got the 5,309 manuscripts. And then you have the Alexandrian—Alexandria, Egypt. By the way, Egypt is almost always a picture of the world in the Bible. And they rely heavily on 5%. Remember I said it agrees about 95%? All right, that 5% that didn’t agree with those manuscripts, that’s what they’re relying on. They’re obscure manuscripts.
Two manuscripts they like to use a lot are the Vaticanus and the Sinaiticus. They really rely on them. I don’t even like it sometimes in my scope of Bible—not in the text, but in the scope of Bible—it’ll say, “Well, their manuscripts say this, that other,” and all these manuscripts don’t have that. I don’t like casting any doubt in the Bible. And King James translators had all of them. They didn’t want them; they’re obscure. They disagree with the other 95%. They knew all that.
But the Vaticanus, just for a moment, we’ll talk about these. It was found in the Vatican Library—Catholic—found in the Vatican Library in 1481. So they got the manuscript, this manuscript they hold up so high, found in the Vatican Library in 1481.
The Sinaiticus—there’s so much we can say about these. Brother Humphreys did a good job. I would have told them these manuscripts who I met—the Sinaiticus was found in a trash pile in St. Catherine’s Monastery, yeah, monastery, by Mr. Tischendorf. Yeah.
Now here are the things: Manuscripts that they’re relying on heavily, they’re putting so much weight on them—just those two manuscripts—they disagree with one another. This is 3,000 times in the Gospels alone. And that’s where they’re putting their weight on. You see, there’s a difference. Not just there’s a difference; there’s a reason why last Sunday in Sunday school, if you were there, when you read those verses, some of them were different because they’re going by different manuscripts. That’s the reason for that. And we’re diving in a little bit to that.
By the way, the only one that says they’re using the Textus Receptus is the New King James Version, but the only problem I have with that is every time they disagree with the King James Bible, they disagree—they agree with all these others. And every time they’ll go with those guys over there. So you can say what you want, but the proof’s in the pudding.
So, yeah, so they disagree with each other 3,000 times in the New Testament alone. But these obscure manuscripts, they relied very heavily on them. And then from that, these two men: Westcott and Hort.
How many ever heard their names, Westcott-Hort? You heard their—who in the world are these men? You hear—how did they come into play? Well, they began to compile some, and they relied so heavily—they compiled manuscripts; they relied so heavily on these five percent of obscure text. And they compiled—you can actually go online and buy one of these. I wouldn’t buy it by you, but you can buy the New Testament in the Original Greek. They don’t say, and they’re compiled by Westcott and Hort.
Both men—both men, these two men that compiled them—they believed in Darwinism. Both men believed in salvation through infant baptism. They believed in the sacraments of the Anglican Church. Friends, so they believed in that; they’re not believing fully on Christ. And believing on Christ is what saves. You’re talking about lost men. You read their letters they wrote back and forth, you’re like, “Wow. And I’m supposed to rely on that?”
Remember years ago he preached a message, which is pure, it’s amazing. Well, they compiled in 1881. By the way, check it out. After that, that’s what all the new versions started from because they went back to that right there. So, no, we don’t want to go to the Textus Receptus. We’ll go to this New Testament in the Original Greek. That’s where we started getting the Revised Standard Version and so on and so on. Check it out. By the way, if you don’t believe all these facts, study them out for yourself. I’m good with that. I hope you do, and I mean that. I don’t mean that in an antagonistic way. I want you to.
But then from that, we get the modern translations. I have copyrights on them. “For the love of money is the root of all evil.” Somebody’s getting royalties off of them. Thomas Nelson and all on and all, and you just go down the line, and somebody’s getting royalties. And all right, if you’re trying to make it easier, why you’ve got to come out with a different one every six months? Oh, somebody’s making a little buck off of that thing right there. Even, I was doing so this afternoon, studying a little bit, but you even go to Gateway Bible or all these different online Bibles. There are a lot of different ones out there, and you’ll pull up different versions. They’ll look down, and it’ll tell you who owns the copyright of that scripture. You can check it out. God’s word is not bound, the Bible says. Nobody’s got their binding on God’s. That’s God’s book. No copyright on that.
But from that, you get all the modern translations. That’s where they get them from. Somebody’s making a little bit off of them.
Dr. Gordon D. Fee, professor at Wheaton College—not necessarily, it’s not a King James only place—but he wrote this, and he said, in Christianity Today, he said, “The contemporary translations as a group have one thing in common: they tend to agree against the King James Version in omitting hundreds of words, phrases, and verses.”
As a journalist, Daniel Rodshay observed, “The familiar observation that the Bible is a best-selling book of all times obscures a more startling fact: the Bible is the best-selling book of the year every year.” Think about that when you talk about money—the best-selling book of the year every year. Has it might like to cash in on that?
Look over in Revelation 22. We’ve got to hurry along because our class has activity at Legend Steakhouse. The Dumpurs are buying for everybody, too. Ms. Dumpur says, “Oh, me on that.”
Revelation 22, Revelation 20—the last book of the Bible, last chapter of the Bible—God’s given us some closing things. Revelation 22, Revelation 22, verse number 18. Revelation 22:18. When you find it, would you say amen? Amen. Revelation 22, verse number 18: “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, for the things which are written in this book.”
Hey, what’s God saying? Don’t add to it. Don’t take away from it. Leave it alone. Don’t change it.
Our Sunday school teacher did such a great job, and I won’t do it, but just one verse—I won’t go through a lot as what I try to say—but I want to show you just the foolishness of some of these new versions. Look over in your Bible to 2nd Samuel chapter number 21. Second Samuel, chapter number 21, and look in verse number 19.
And let’s say, who’s the youngest person we have in the auditorium tonight? Who’s the youngest person? Brother Anthony wants to raise his hand. Michael, how old are you? 13. Anybody? Ms. Emily, are you younger? How old are you? 11. 11? Anybody be 11? My wife’s younger, but, you know, I mean, trying to score points with him. 11. Emily, would you help me out? Who killed Goliath? David killed Goliath. Did y’all hear that? 11-year-old girl, she knows David killed Goliath. Y’all with me on that? How many would agree that David killed Goliath? You agree with that? All right, good, good.
Let’s look and see what the Bible says over here. Second Samuel chapter 21. Look at verse number 18. Second Samuel 19: “And there was again a battle in Gath with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jair, or Jehoahaz, the Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.”
You all got that? Who’s got the Holman Christian Standard? A lot of people are going to that nowadays. Would you read that real loud for us, Brother Josh? Did you hear that? What was the name of the fellow that killed Goliath, according to that Bible? Elhanan. What do you think about that? They don’t even know who killed Goliath.
There’s a certain denomination or association that’s starting to go to the Holman Bible a lot. There’s a little bit that became their Bible for a while. I don’t know if they’re still there or not. That Bible, the Holman Christian Standard Bible. Who’s got the English Standard Version? A lot of intelligent people think this is the version; this is it: English Standard Version. Let’s see what it said. Brother Kevin, would you please, sir?
“Elnan is the one that struck”—didn’t say “killed,” but “struck down Goliath.” I thought David, with the slingshot, did that. How about y’all? Yeah, yeah. Who’s got the Message? The Message. Brother Marlon, would you read that one out now, please?
We’ve got an 11-year-old girl that knows better than these versions. David killed Goliath. We know that. And it’s amazing how many of them say that. We won’t take time—so many, and your teachers did a great job on that—but it’s amazing the changes. You cannot improve on perfection. Just leave it alone. You’ll mess it up.
Dr. Frank Logston, co-founder of the NASV, he wrote this, and I’m quoting: “I must, under God, denounce every attachment to the NASV. I’m afraid I’m in trouble with the Lord. I wrote the format. I wrote the preface.” When you see the preface to the NASV, those are my words. He goes on and says, “It’s wrong. It’s frightfully wrong.” He goes on and says, “The deletions are absolutely frightening. There are so many.” It goes on and says, “Are we so naive that we do not suspect satanic deception in all of this?”
I remember sitting in a Bible college class. I was a high school senior, and we were at a basketball tournament, and we had another Christian university, and I sat in one of the Bible classes, and I remember them reading a Bible verse. I really didn’t know all this. I really didn’t. My old preacher used King James, but it really wasn’t a whole lot of issue when I was young. And so it never had told us about these things. But they were reading, and I remember—I wasn’t just a teenager sitting there—and the college professor said, “Now for this verse, in my opinion, this version over here is the best for that verse right there.” And my little naive teenage brain, I thought, “Wait a second. You’re the judge? If you’re the one that says, ‘Well, that’s the best version for that verse,’ well, I might want to get by where I can do a certain sin. If I can find all the verses, find one that goes my way on that, I can be the judge of it.” Oh, you need a final authority, something you can just bank on that: that right there is God’s Word.
I honestly believe if you study it out and you do the end study, I believe you’re going to end up in landing that right there is the Bible. All the facts are going to point that way. At the end of the day, you’re going to have to have a little faith. God’s big enough to give you a Bible in your language. But, friend, we need that.
A couple years ago—well, it’s maybe been 10 years ago; I don’t know; maybe 12 years ago—but we had a couple. We did not lead them to the Lord. They got saved. I think she is saved, but he had just gotten saved. God just radically changed his life. He was on drugs and everything else, and God just changed his life. And he really got saved a lot by listening online to preaching, and then began to study. He’s a student; he’s an intellectual kind of a guy. He works a lot on Sunday, not here a lot of times, but when he’s not working, I’m sure pray he’ll get back in here. But he learned by studying it online that the King James Bible is right. And he never taught; he just studied himself, wanting to know the truth. And he’s a student. And he said, “Man, that’s it.” And he was going to church; they were using other versions here in Smyrna. He didn’t know any better, but he studied it out. And he said, “Man, that’s King James is it.”
And it bothered him. The church was using all these versions. So he went to them and he said, “Hey, I don’t know if there’s such a thing or not, but is there a church in Smyrna where all they use is the King James Version Bible?” And praise the Lord, someone said, “You need to go to Rutherford County Baptist Church.” In fact, he called. I had the privilege of answering when he called. And he said, “Hey,” he said, “I’ve been told—I don’t know much about all this stuff—but I’ve been told that all y’all use is King James. Y’all just use the King James Bible.” And I said, “Man, you found the right church. Come on, brother.” Pray the Lord for him and his wife now. They got married here. I say that to say, in the—already in time—there needs to be a church in Smyrna, and a lot of them—and there are others, I’m not saying we’re the only one—but a church in Smyrna that says, “Hey, we just believe in and use and believe in the King James Bible. It’s all said and done. That’s what I base everything on right there. I don’t want something, ‘Well, they might have a better one.’”
You realize that NIV, the most used of the new versions, it’s had four revisions. You understand that? Their last was 2011, and they—by the old—if you—there’s hard to find that the—the 1984—there are four of them all together—but the older ones, they say, the older NIVs say that this other Elhanan killed Goliath, by the way. You check them out, the old ones. Most of them online are now the 2011 ones. But they said in the revision, they said, “Now we got it right.” Well, I wonder if you come out with another later on, you got that one right?
But somebody just needs to say, “Hey, you know what? That Bible the granny was using, it worked real good back then. It’ll work real good today.” Someone said, “We don’t need to rewrite the Bible; we just need to reread the Bible.” It’ll still work. Still good.
I had to call a pastor there. He had called and asked for me to call him back, and he’s not—but we were talking to the pastor there in Smyrna; he’s not Independent Baptist. And he said—and he said, “I can’t remember exactly the words”—he said, “I heard you are King James only.” He said, “I’m not against that.” He’s not bad. But he said, “I heard you are just King James only.” I thought, praise the Lord, they’ve heard that. It needs to be some church that just has an anchor that’ll hold. Over 400 years, they said many, many times, “Well, the old King James will be obsolete one day.” Still doing pretty good, friend. Hey, praise the Lord. Thank God we’ve got something we can hold on to.
A couple years ago, Brother Frank bought a book at a yard sale, and I can’t remember all the details. I wasn’t planning on telling it. I hope I get it right. Brother Frank can correct me if I don’t. But the man in the book seemed like he was leaning towards you can lose your salvation. And Brother Frank was kind of showing what way do you think about all this. And here’s the thing. Here’s the thing: He was using another version that just changed the tense of a word. If I remember right, it changed it from “believe” to “believing.” And just changing the tense of the word changed it where, by his version, you could lose your salvation. Everything about that book’s important. Everything. Just leave it alone. It’ll work fine. You can’t improve on perfection. It’s fine. Praise God, we’ve got the Bible. Amen.
We’re so grateful. We’re so blessed. Some countries don’t have that. And we’re blessed to have it. Let’s just stick by it. Amen. Glad you’re here tonight. Thank you for coming. Thank you our guests for being with us tonight. Those in the class here, and I told them, “I want you to head over to Legend Steakhouse.” We’ll have a good time tonight. Fellowship over there. Looking forward to that. That’d be great. And praise the Lord, Jacob and Chloe saying tonight, what a blessing. And that’s great. Looking forward to Brother Jacob preaching for us two Sundays from now. That’d be a blessing. Excited about that. God just working. Let’s be grateful for what God’s doing. We’re blessed because of Jesus. Amen.
Original File: Why we’re King James Version only - Pastor Paul Chisgar Sunday pm 12421