Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.
that's true we guide us as we get into your word this morning jesus name we pray amen amen [Music] um actually well here we go messing up already oh you got it okay um anyway um this morning i think we're going to start on the series about the word of god and where our bibles came from and no better place to start than with the bible itself um this may take a few weeks to get through um but i think it's very important because there is a war against the bible and let me just add this to the equation this morning as well there's not only a war against the bible in society and even within what we call the church world or the church realm there is a war over the word of god it's been going on a long time ever since the garden of eden the devil hates the word of god because once god speaks a word and once it's written down or or it doesn't even have to be written down but once god really speaks and it is established the devil's job after that is to do what he can to undermine it so as as you look at this title of this this morning the war against the bible honest i'm going to say this there's not only a war against the book that's in your hands this morning against the written word of god but there is a war against the word of god in your own life there will always be a war are you going to believe every word that god spoke are you going to do your best to obey it and yield to it are you going to believe it this is the problem once the devil can cast doubt or confusion or contradiction once he can get that into your mind against something that god has said let me just say this you're headed down the hill you're headed down a road that's going to end up either with some hurt some pain some rejection some offense whatever you want to call it but the bottom line is is that there's always going to be a war over the word that's why you know there's churches out there that you know you know we discussed this a few weeks back there's some churches out there that juco might go sit in and experience less warfare why is that because they don't preach the word that they're doing the
devil's job they're preaching psychology they're preaching doubts they're preaching cultures but they're not preaching what god said god's word will always cause a law because it is truth it is a two-edged sword and it's against everything in the society whether it be in the in religion or whether it be in secular culture or even within true born-again christians there's this war going on first of all did god say it i think there's a lot of christians right now that even doubt scripture listen let me let me put it to you like this first as we get into this i mean not too many months ago there was a person who had is spirit-filled christian meaning they speak in tongues they believe in the gifts of the spirit they grew up in a church basically that taught the word [Music] right they taught the gifts of the spirit they taught the word of god and yet this person went through the secular uh secular university world academia and some of you don't know who i'm talking about but here's a person who says they're a christian and of course i'm beginning to wonder if any anybody even knows what that means anymore but this person we're sitting there across a a table talking about the scriptures and this person tells me now a born-again christian for 30-something years tells me that they don't know or they don't believe that the writings of paul was scripture inspired by god i'm sitting there going well that's more than half the new testament so you tell how long have you lived this way that you don't believe i mean this means you don't believe romans that means you don't believe first and second thessalonians that means you don't believe first and second timothy that means you don't believe titus that means you don't believe first and second corinthians i'm sitting here going what in the world is going on and then i sit in a church when nancy and i started dating and we're engaged and the church that she was attending in um over in mcdonough georgia had started to slide away from the word of god and i went to church with her one sunday morning and the pastor's wife was actually speaking that morning and began to basically teach that homosexuals practicing homosexuals could be saved as well still be saved and going to heaven almost began to to lean into universalism later i actually confronted her husband the pastor and he was trying to redefine even what repentance was what is repentance what is the line
and all of these questions and then you know then we have pastors now come out like rob bell come out with there is no hell or if there is it's not eternal for those who go there they'll eventually get out basically a roman catholic doctrine of purgatory that's not in the bible there's this constant war over are we going to accept what god says even when we don't understand fully or we don't like it but do we really believe it and satan's been working really really hard i mean in in our own family there's there's a young man who grew up in a baptist church grew up in a baptist church his dad's a baptist pastor who does not believe the bible he says it's a bunch of junk and now he's into taoism and other things of that nature the moment you reject the scriptures as being the inspired infallible word of god the moment you reject now let me say this the moment you reject any of it you're headed down satan's road you're headed down a path of deception and destruction and division and offense and and many that have done this created their own religions so we need to know as christians we and one of the reasons i do this i remember a couple of years ago i did a two-part series on on proving the divine inspiration of the bible but i see the need to come back to this because even the question of transmission how did we get the bible you know i'm going to eventually get into the series on islam but you know what one of islam's um accusations about the new testament is their accusation is that christians that they that we don't really have the word of god that christians over the centuries changed the the new testament so that the quran is the word of god even though the quran came 500 and something years later after the new testament was completed and contradicts everything that the new testament says almost everything they admit jesus's mother was mary they actually admit in the quran that he was born of a virgin which is amazing but they also in the quran deny that jesus is the messiah or god in the flesh or even the son of god so the quran is full of contradictions in that regard as one i just threw out right there but the bottom line is they say that the bible was changed that the bible that you and i have today is not what was originally written well guess what to somebody they're right we do have a bible that is
from the original greek text in hebrew text and we have bibles that are not now they say it's all not so they're half right but how many christians don't even know what how how we got our bible how we got our english translation of the bible which one's right because if one's like this and one's got 10 000 different words in it or 10 000 changes it can't be the same book and god promised he would preserve his word forever to all generations every jot every tittle would in no wise pass so either god failed in his promise or we do have a preserved word from the lord and it can be proven or we don't and this is something i i really believe we're gonna we're gonna deal with now let's we're gonna move on here because i'm going to just be addressing some of the scriptures this morning say what what is going on there that's the one i want i wrote this down because this is very important beware of wikipedia all right this could just be said about the internet in general but this this particular article this is one of the reasons i said this i just looked up criticism of the bible right first thing that come up is this article criticism of the bible in wikipedia now do y'all know how wikipedia works does anybody know anybody can write an article for wikipedia right it's only as good as the references in which they use so you really have to check out their references but what's interesting about this article is it tells just flat-out lies about the bible for instance one of the things it says and i'm only going to bring out this one point is it says that there is and they quote several archaeologists so their quotes are correct but they quote these archaeologists who are against the bible and against god but they quote these archaeologists as saying that there is no archaeological evidence to prove the bible true i couldn't believe it now how many people will just go to a wikipedia article read that see a quote from an archaeologist maybe in jerusalem or another archaeologist and say well there's no archaeological evidence to the bible and go on their way and say the bible is full of junk guess what i have books by archaeologists i have several books that i'm looking at right there that show archaeological discovery after archaeological discovery that confirms everything written in the bible a matter of fact it's overwhelming and it keeps happening and then i just sit there and think what about the dead sea scrolls
have we forgotten that one what about the the stone they found dated to a thousand bc confirming the kingdom of david i mean we could just go to one after the other after the other even going all the way back to ancient sumeria ancient babylon where they found records written records from these heathen countries that there was a flood [Music] i mean i'm sitting here going how can someone say that and keep a straight face it's just an out and out lie against the bible but this is what's happening people are believing lies about the word of god like it's just written by men it's full of contradictions really it's full of contradiction show me see people just make these statements and people because they want to believe that something's wrong with the bible that it's not inspired by god that it's not god's word that it's not god's authority so that they can live any way they want to live and do what they want to do they make up stuff and there's a lot of lies out there thrown around i mean i mean for instance you know the english bible that we use the king james bible i mean there's lies thrown out about king james that he was a homosexual do you know that there's no historical evidence that he was a homosexual do you know as a matter of fact that his enemies that hated him said he was a very godly man his enemies said that about it but one man after he died threw out that he was homosexual and then liberal theologians that wanted to attack the king james bible says he's homosexual but if you go back to quote after quote after quote of men who knew him and worked with him men who agreed with him men who disagreed with him he was a godly righteous man one of the most righteous kings that ever ruled england we'll get to that about the king james bible and all this eventually but i want you to say beware of the internet are there a lot of good things you can learn on the internet yes are they just out now write out lies that these people think this is an an encyclopedia just read stuff and believe it even when i was writing my book and i would use wikipedia and i did use wikipedia some but i would check their references and if their reference is checked out then i would use their stuff i didn't just take their word for it right and the mouth matter of fact this is a biblical principle in the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established amen now we're going to look at this and i'm going to show you and you have to understand within the theological world when i talk about the theological world of academia i'm talking about among theologians in america primarily in europe all right across the world you might as well say
but i'm just focusing on my people right now right bottom line is you have two schools of thought just like we do in politics there is there is a big group who are now the majority of liberal theologians and then there's a group of conservative theologians and this can be traced all the way back to even the reformation in before okay there's always been and i'm going to show you there's always been a war over the word the catholic church has been one of the primary enemies to the people of god having the word they burned people at the stake and killed people that tried to translate the bible and get it to the people this is historical fact right so there's been a war i mean what's interesting it's funny they tried to kill even tried to kill king james in the whole english parliament and the guy the roman catholic that was assigned this job they caught him underneath the parliament building had it full of gun pattern was about to blow the place up as king james was addressing the british parliament because they knew he was a righteous man and he was against roman catholicism and was pushing protestant christianity so they were going to try to kill him i mean true you you get into history listen most of this stuff's left out of the history books because liberals have ruled the education realm both the theology side the seminary side and the secular side now for decades they've been invaded by jesuit priests and others who have basically weeded out truth weed it out changed history and you really have to dig back to some of these old documents you dig back to the 1300s when john wycliffe was calling the roman catholic church and the pope the antichrist and standing up against the king of england and copying having the translating the bible until they tied him to a post and strangled him to death and then burned him at the stake [Music] i'm sorry that was tyndale wycliffe died on his own of a stroke but the the catholic church hated him so bad for translating the bible into english that 40 years after he died the roman catholic church the pope had his bones exhumed so they could burn his bones i mean the hatred and war against anyone trying to get truth to people has been going on for a long long long time all right now one of the books that we're going to use here see maybe we can get it is this book right here now again this is a book that i ordered but uh it's called defending the king james
bible like i said we're going to get to that but this man is a theologian and i want you to see his credentials okay before we get into this because he's not a dummy now i don't know if you can read that but this right here is on the back of the book okay so i'm going to use this guy but i'm also going to use a lot of people he quotes so i'm going to be using a lot of theologians i'm talking about guys this guy particularly has two doctorates in hebrew greek no dummies here okay but anyway i want to just read because we're going to use a lot of dr waite's material as we get into this but it says pastor d.a waite has a thd which is a doctrine in theology and a phd anyways the author of this book he received his bachelor of arts in classical greek in latin from the university of michigan in 1948 he received his master of theology with high honors in new testament greek literature and exegesis from dallas theological seminary in 1952 he received a master of arts in speech from southern methodist university in 1953 he received a doctor of theology with honors in bible exposition from dallas theological seminary in 1955 and a phd in speech from purdue university in 1961 he holds both new jersey and pennsylvania teacher certificates in greek and language arts he's been a teacher in the areas of greek hebrew bible speech and english since 1950 in nine schools including one junior high one senior high three bible institutes two colleges two universities and one seminary he served his country as a navy chaplain for five years on active duty pastored three churches was chairman and director of the radio and audio film commission of the american council of christian churches since 1971 he's been the founder and president and director of the bible for today since 1978 he's been the president of the dean bergen society has produced over 700 other studies books cassettes videos so on down the line his radio program in defense of the traditional bible text is on the internet and so on and so forth so we're going to be using a lot of dr wake's research but of course he's not the only one um he's president what's interesting just so you know he's president of the dean bergen society and it takes its name from john william burgum from 18 who lived from 1813 to 1888 he was the dean of i believe that's chester in england or harvey said i'm not sure and then basically whose tireless and accurate scholarship and contribution the area of new testament textual criticism whose defense of the traditional greek new testament text against its many enemies and of whose firm belief in the verbal inspiration and inerrancy of the bible have all been unsurpassed
before or since his time he dean bergen was in he he was there when they began to corrupt and changed the text that we that the bible was translated from the original greek and hebrew text and anyway so that just gives you a little bit about him he spent 30 years tracing the history of the bible collated 150 greek manuscripts collected 86 000 quotations more than 4 000 of them were written by writers who died before 400 a.d can you imagine the research that this man did without the internet or computers matter of fact his um i've read some about him some of his notes and his detail stuff are in a museum now in in england because it there's nothing quite like it done by hand it's quite amazing he documented um unbelievable quotes uh from early church fathers from 150 a.d through up until 400 a.d which shows what text that they were quoting from it's it's just unbelievable the work that men have put into this and many um of course have died and of course i'm not going to read this but he says the testimony of john bergen is god's people believed for centuries that god had preserved his word all right so this is what we're going to talk about right here god promises to preserve his word forever and we just need to look at that because see here's the thing we're going to look at what the bible says first because you know what if the bible says and we can find this from writers in the old testament like david solomon moses we find these comments made by them and we find these comments made by by apostles of the lord jesus in the new testament either these men were lying to us or they're telling us the truth and as christians we're either going to believe that god preserved his word that he kept his promise to preserve his word forever and that we have it today or we don't believe that it's that simple and the christians who don't believe this are falling away from god left and right they're falling into all kind of unbiblical doctrines like universal salvation and universe straight up universalism all religions lead to god all these different things are because they get away from this book now i'm only going to use this right here because i didn't need to print it off again he goes down a list of scriptures so you get ready to turn in your bibles and look at these scriptures
because we're going to look at what the bible says the promises god made to preserve his word so you can turn to psalm 12 6 through 7 we're going to start there y'all don't mind this do you want to learn something don't you all right see here here's something the reason i'm doing this i believe that we have every word in the bible that god wanted and we'll get to this verse in a minute but i believe what jesus said when he was being attacked by the devil and tempted by the devil in the wilderness and he said it is written quoting deuteronomy he said it is written man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of god now every time that jesus spoke to the devil to resist him he said what it is written you don't come up with anything new it is written man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of god now why is this important see this is why y'all want to know why i preach like i preach and and the reason that i i take such strong firm stands is because ever since i came to the lord i've always believed that every single word in the bible was important that god put it there for a reason that he didn't waste his breath that he meant what he said he said what he meant and we didn't have to change it we didn't have to think about it we just needed to know what he meant we needed to know what that word meant and we needed to know that that word is important amen and if if you have somebody come along you either take the principle of translation a word for word translation and if you don't do that from the greek text and you start paraphrasing things what have you done so i pretty much tell you that all the modern translations are paraphrases they're not word for word and jesus said man shall not live by bread alone but by every word sometimes you think about it one word in a verse could change everything could change the whole meaning of the verse you leave out the word not in a verse well the verse says should not and you leave out not it says should that's a big change right i can i'm going to end up showing you where there's been a lot of changes but not just show you that there have been changes i'll show you who did it who did it what they believed
and why they did it and when they did it and then you can decide for yourself right all right let's look at these verses psalm 12 verses 6 and 7 the words of the lord are pure words as silver tried in a furnace of earth purified seven times thou shalt keep them o lord you shall preserve them from this generation forever everybody see that all right turn to psalm 78. love it from this generation forever somebody say how long is forever forever right god promised to preserve his word all right so david was either a man of god and inspired by the holy ghost that the anointing was upon him when he wrote this down or he was a liar one of the two right psalm 78 all right verses one through seven it says give ear o my people to my law incline your ears to the words of my mouth i will open my mouth in a parable and i will utter dark sayings of old now let me just say this is a verse that's quoted in the new testament concerning the teachings of jesus so this is both saying that this is the word of god the old testament and what jesus would say the parables that he would come and tell would be scripture okay i just added that in there but he said give ear o my people to my law incline your ears to the words of my mouth i will open my mouth in a parable i will utter dark sayings of old which we have heard and known and our fathers have told us and we will not hide them from their children showing to the generation to come the praises of the lord and his strength and his wonderful works that he has done for he has established a testimony in jacob and appointed a law in israel which he commanded to our fathers that they should make known to their children and that the generation to come might know them even the children which should be born who should arise and declare them to their children and see here is this is the where the word is preserved from generation to generation it says that they might set their hope in god and not forget the works of god but keep his commandments so again we have it in the psalms go to psalm 105 verse 8. i love this one psalm 105 verse 8. i'll slow down i want you to see it
and remember about the psalms what did jesus say remember in luke 24 when jesus was walking with the two in the road to emmaus and it says he began to expound the scriptures all things that were written about him it says in the law in the prophets and in the psalms so there you have it jesus considered the psalm scripture right so the psalms psalm 105 verse 8 says he has remembered his covenant forever the word which he commanded to a thousand generations now let's look at this if it he says here dr white says this he says if a generation is 20 years this would be 20 000 years if a generation is 30 years it would be 30 000 years god wants us to see clearly his promise of bible preservation i mean there's only been 6 000 years of known human history get the point a thousand generations he's promised it's not going anywhere right psalm 119 verse 89. we'll be in psalm 119 for a few minutes psalm 119 stay with me everybody there verse 89 somebody read that for me what's it say [Music] how long forever oh lord thy word is settled in heaven let's go go down a few verses to to psalm 119 verse 11 what's he say here thy testimonies have i taken as a heritage forever for they are the rejoicing of my heart if you take god's testimonies as a heritage forever they must be preserved if we are to keep them amen uh verse 152 concerning thy testimonies i have known of old that thou has founded them forever right psalm 119 still verse 160 thy word is true from the beginning and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth forever you hear what i'm saying you hear what the word of god is saying god made a promise through david and david even said god spake through me amen the man after god's own heart wrote these words down and the men that he discipled some of them that he discipled wrote word these
words down as well but what'd they say god promised to preserve his word forever let's jump over to proverbs proverbs 22 remember i told you was we deal with david then with solomon right it's quite fascinating stuff matter of fact i'm going to tell you i'm going to give you some some interesting stuff in here in a minute proverbs 22 verse 20 through 21. here's what it says have not i written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge that i might make thee to know the certainty of the words of truth that thou mightest answer the words of truth to them that that sinned unto thee now here is a clear statement by the lord that he has given us things in writing so that we might have certainty about them the only way that we can have certainty today is for god to have preserved every one of his words of truth this truly is a prime a promise of bible preservation amen flip over another couple of books there our book ecclesiastes 3 14. everybody there ecclesiastes314 and you know i know i may be preaching to the choir this morning about this you may say well pastor dean i already i believe the bible cover to cover yep but you still need to know it there's something peter said he said i will not be negligent to bring these things to your remembrance he said though you may be you may know them and be established in the present truth right i think if anything sometimes refreshing on this stuff will just build our foundation we want to have strong foundation amen ecclesiastes 3 14 says this i know that whatsoever god doeth it shall be forever nothing can be put to it or anything taken from it and god doeth it that men should fear before him well that's a good one right there i know that whatsoever god doeth whatsoever god does it shall be forever [Music] boy that's isn't that good i said if god has done anything or given us anything it is perfect he has given us his word therefore his word is perfect we can't add to it or take away from it it has been preserved
exactly see men that say let me just listen any man i don't care if he has a theological degree from dallas theological seminary or southwestern or fuller or wherever if that man says well we've got a good idea of what god said no we either have the exact words that god gave his prophets and his apostles or we don't it's that simple now here's what's even frightening how in the world these men i mean i understand some of the heretics in the first early second century got in and started trying to change and come up with their own greek text the devil was going to try that from the beginning but it's interesting god preserved that text the other text and it preserved its way thousands of years you can find it all the way back to the first century you can find etc you can find it in the third century you can fight but you also find that corrupted one but here's the thing all the churches and i'll cover this i'm giving you a little i'm going i'm jumping ahead but all the churches the waldens the anabaptists all those early church fathers second century iranis polycarp all those guys guess what text they use that traditional text they even talked about marcion and some of the other heretics simon magus and some of the others that came up with their own greek text out of alexandria i'm going to show you where it all began but here's what's happening churches for hundreds of years rejected the corrupted text that basically is the latin vulgate the catholic bible comes from churches protestant churches true christian churches rejected it for hundreds of years and then in the 1800s they began these these liberal theologians at oxford and there in england begin to decide you know what let's go back and take from these corrupted texts they're older let's take from them and make a new greek new testament and and and in hebrew old let's take it and make us a new one and when they did that they went in and they said well i don't we don't like the way this is said so let's change that and i don't like the way this is said you know what the bible says about people do that the end of the book of revelation is very clear it says if you take from anything from
god's word he will take your name out of the book of life it is an eternal damnation sentence he says if you add to it he will add to you the plagues written in this book can i say there's an eternal plague it's called hellfire and worms eating you forever and that's what that boy's got those two westcott and hort we'll cover them later those two guys they're in hell i'm just going to tell you they're in hell because they change god's word and what's frightening is your niv bible your new american standard bible all of them are taken from westcott north all the new ones and they got that little lie and they got it into the theological world in america and england and they turned conservative theologians against the original texts saying they had a better one and they started changing god's word and i'll show you i'll show you but anyway let's keep going here matthew let's jump over into the new testament matthew 5 17 and 18. everybody ought to know this one this is part one of probably three or four or five parts i've been doing my research though uh matthew 5 verse 17 and 18. here's what jesus said concerning the law and the prophets everybody there matthew 5 17-18 jesus made it clear to his disciples to all the jews listening to him to the pharisees to the sadducees to the scribes to the lawyers to ever made it very clear [Music] he said think not that i am come to destroy the law or the prophets i am not come to destroy but to fulfill [Music] for verily i say unto you till heaven and earth pass one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled now you have to remember that jesus point was referring to the old testament and what he was talking about a jotten hebrew scholar explains this in here and he says there are letters that look similar in the hebrew he said but they might have just a little line like this he said that's a jot or a tittle
he said just a little you know how sometimes how we write the the a you know our cursive little a and we come we come around and we come down and we put that little curl on it that's what he's saying not even that little curls so you'll know it's an a amen god promised that level right of preserving the word let's go to another verse in matthew matthew 24. matthew 24 this ought to be familiar what did jesus say here 24 35 the lord jesus speaking says heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away so the lord is talking about his words here the new testament so he's clearly saying my word shall not pass away then he promises go to go to john 14 26. [Music] he told his disciples now remember he's speaking to the 12 there and what does he tell them john 14 verse 26 he says but the comforter which is the holy ghost whom the father will send in he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever i have said unto you so see that's why we know that we have the words of jesus because jesus i'm gonna send the holy spirit think about it with jesus for over three years teaching they saw his miracles there's no way you walk with somebody for three years and you remember everything i wanted you to remember saying i mean sometimes just like us years ago i remember it but i mean details but maybe nancy remembers another part of the details she goes you remember when that and it jogs my memory a little bit it's to you and he's gonna worry of everything that i said and you're gonna write it down so here even jesus is saying there is going to be divine inspiration from the holy ghost so again the apostles were telling the truth of what jesus said or they were liars you with me