Why One Way, Session2

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That's one nice thing about speaking from an iPad, you always have a clock right in front of you as long as it's active, but I'm not sure that I'm going to be looking too much at that.
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This morning what I wanted to do, assuming that a Sunday school context is going to be primarily
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Christians, you were here last evening, you know that we sort of presented a foundational presentation about why
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Jesus is the only way, in the sense of discussing how the world thinks, how the world thinks that any religious opinion is equal to any others, no one's right or wrong.
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Thank you very much. We have numerous water bottles now, which means people are expecting me to go for a long time, so much for the 10 -15 thing.
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We thought a little bit about that, one of the points that I made last evening was that Jesus is not just another teacher, he's not just equal to Muhammad or Buddha or any of the other philosophers of ages past, that if Jesus was who the
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New Testament says he was, then obviously his words have ultimate authority.
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What did we say about Jesus? We said that Jesus was God incarnate. What does incarnate mean?
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Well, in the flesh, God having come in the flesh, and that's obviously a belief that Christians have held for nearly 2 ,000 years now, but I think you need to be aware of the fact, everyone, young and old, needs to be aware of the fact that there is much that calls itself
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Christianity today that has departed from the beliefs that marked
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Christianity for a very long period of time. There was a man about 100 years ago by the name of J.
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Gresham Machen, and Machen wrote a book called Christianity and Liberalism, and in that book, his thesis basically was that Christianity and liberalism are two completely distinct religions.
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It's not that you have liberal Christianity and conservative Christianity, when you really listen to what the liberals are saying, they believe in something completely different than what we believe in.
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And while there are many churches here on Long Island, if you would walk into many of them this morning and ask them about the central doctrines of the
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Christian faith, you would discover they no longer believe what Christians have believed for a very long time, and this is especially true about who
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Jesus is. Most of them would believe that Jesus was a Galilean prophet, that Jesus believed that the end of the world was at hand, and that the reason that we should read his words today is, well, because we can learn good moral precepts from Jesus.
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But if you were to ask them, do you really believe what the creeds say, do you really believe that Jesus is the eternal son of God, that he eternally preexisted, that all things were made by him, and things like that, they'd go, no, not really, because to believe those things, you have to have the highest view of Scripture.
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The only reason that anyone has ever believed in something like the Trinity, the only reason anyone has believed in the fact that Jesus, a man who walked amongst us, who walked the dusty roads of Galilee, is actually our creator, is because they were forced to believe that by the entire witness of Scripture.
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Once you no longer believe God has spoken with clarity, you do not believe what is found in the page of the
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Scripture, there's no reason to believe things like the Trinity, the deity of Christ, or the doctrine of the atonement, or the resurrection, there's really no reason to believe those things.
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Christianity is a supernatural religion, and if you don't believe the supernatural anymore, if you believe that there is a natural explanation for everything, then there's really no reason to believe in these things, and liberal denominations no longer believe in these things.
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They may still say the creeds, but they say them out of tradition. This sort of connects us to the generations who went before us, but we really don't believe that the words mean anything anymore.
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So, when we ask the question of how we respond to the world today, and its assertion that, well,
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Christianity is fine for you, Buddhism is fine for that person, Islam is fine for that person, atheism is fine for a growing number of people today.
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Obviously, the number of people in our society who today say, I have no religion,
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I have no concern for any religious belief at all, is growing very, very rapidly as our society becomes more and more secular.
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And people say, all of those are just fine. All of those are equally good, because we don't really know if there is a
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God, and we don't really know what truth is in the field of religion. Well, if Jesus was who he was, then that whole attitude is saying he was wrong.
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And I mentioned last evening, we need to recognize that the world is demanding of us that we compromise on what we believe about Jesus.
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Because if we really do believe that Jesus was the word made flesh, then the authority of his words cannot be made equal to the authority of anyone else who was not
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God. In other words, his words and his word in scripture has to be given ultimate authority.
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So, the question really for us is, for everyone in here, whether young or old, is why do we believe what we believe about Jesus Christ?
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Does the Bible really teach that? I mean, there's entire denominations, I guess I shouldn't use the term denominations, religions, that are built upon the idea that the
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Bible does not teach the deity of Christ. And in your area, you have a large number of people who go door to door, and they're dressed very nicely, and they knock on your door on a
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Saturday morning, and they want to hand you very colorful, somewhat dated literature.
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And eventually, they're going to have to go to Glossy Print. They're just going to have to give up and go to Glossy Print. But they're going to hand you literature, and they will be more than happy to argue with you from the pages of the
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Bible to say that Jesus was not God. They will tell you that Jesus, actually, the
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Jehovah's Witnesses believe he was Michael the Archangel, that he's the first and greatest of God's creations, and that through Michael, God created everything else.
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That's their belief. And they know their Bibles pretty well. Of course, what they really know really well is what the
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Watchtower teaches, not so much what the Bible actually does teach, but that's another issue. There's all sorts of folks out there, so why do we believe what we believe?
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What I wanted to do this morning as part of our study is to remind us of the key evidences, not so much to arm us, but to remind us of the key evidences from the
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Scriptures regarding the subject of the deity of Christ, because his authority is ultimate.
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And we are making an amazing statement to the world. If we're going to say Jesus is the only way, we didn't know what
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Jesus we're talking about. It's sad that in so much of Christian proclamation today, we say
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Jesus is the way, and then when someone says, well, tell me about Jesus, they're like, well, we know stuff about the cross, we know stuff about the resurrection, but we should not be fuzzy in what we believe about the relationship of the
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Father and the Son, for example. This is important not only for our understanding in this area, it's also important for our worship.
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It's important for our prayers. For example, if you ever listen to public prayer, doing what
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I do makes me a little bit, the tendency would be to become hypercritical, shall we say at times, in listening to prayer.
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But there is very often, especially amongst evangelicals, a lack of precision when it comes to our prayer life, because we're not really clear about the relationship of who is the
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Father and who is the Son and who is the Spirit. I remember once I went into a church in Florida, and I got to role play.
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Can't do that much anymore thanks to YouTube. But back in around 2000, before YouTube, I could actually sneak into churches and play a
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Mormon or Jehovah's Witness or something like that. And especially amongst junior high school students, that was about the only way to get them to listen long enough to actually accomplish anything, is we'd come in and the youth minister would say, now we've been studying these groups.
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We've been studying what Jehovah's Witnesses believe. Well, here is Elder Lucas from the local Kingdom Hall. And he's going to talk to you.
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And they're like, they're wondering if mom and dad know about this. The youth minister's gone insane.
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He's bringing cultists in. And I'd start talking to them and dialoguing with them and just ripping and shredding them.
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Or I would have a dialogue with the youth minister. And I was in this one church in Florida.
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And within about 45 seconds, I had the youth minister spouting heresy. And he didn't even know it.
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And so that's not how it should be. Now, of course, by the way, what we do is after about half the class, we'd stop, let them know who
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I really was, and they'd all breathe a sigh of relief and then stop listening to what I was saying. So it really wasn't the intention, but that's how it worked out anyway.
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But we'd sort of try to undo the damage we had done. I don't know of anyone who ever became a Jehovah's Witness by my role playing a
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Jehovah's Witness, just so you know. I want to make that clear right from the start. But anyway, can't really do that anymore.
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But it is helpful to be able to explain that these folks have their arguments. They have their arguments.
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And they can sometimes be difficult to deal with. But we as believers, especially in our worship, need to be very clear as to what we believe about the
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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So we're making an amazing claim. Why do we believe it?
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First of all, Jesus is called God a number of times in the New Testament.
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And generally, the argument in response to that is, well, he's just representing God or something like that.
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But the reality is, the New Testament writers, who were themselves monotheistic
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Jews, they were Jews who believed that there was only one true God. They didn't believe in the plurality of gods.
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The Jews had lived amongst people who believed in multiple gods for many, many years.
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And so even, for example, in Jeremiah chapter 10, the prophet had given to the people the very words that they should speak when they were invited by the
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Babylonians to engage in idolatrous worship. They were given the very words that they were to speak in response to that, to say that any god that did not create the world will disappear from the world, will pass away.
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Only the one true God that created all things is the true and living God. And so they were used to this.
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And this is all the disciples were Jews who believed. Well, what did every
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Jew say every morning when they would get up? It's called the Shema. Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Elohimu, Yahweh our
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God. Hero Israel, Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one. Actually, Yahweh is one,
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Yahweh is our God. And so this is what defined their religious belief.
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So these disciples then had to deal with who Jesus was. And so you see at the end of the
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Gospel of John, for example, Thomas, when Jesus is resurrected from the grave, he's not present when
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Jesus first appears to them. He says, I'm not going to believe unless I see the wounds in his hands and his feet and so on and so forth.
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And then Jesus appears to him and he invites Thomas to do that. By the way, there's nothing in the
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Bible that says Thomas did that. I don't think he needed to do that. But what is Thomas' response to seeing
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Jesus? It's in John 20, verse 28. Thomas answered and said to him,
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Hakodiasmu kaihateasmu, my Lord and my God. Now, amazingly,
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Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, and others will say what
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Jesus said was, my Lord, my God, as if he was talking to two different people.
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There is nothing in the original language that indicates that. If you'd like to see that actually happen, we just recently posted a video of a debate that I did at the
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University of Johannesburg last year in South Africa. And I debated a Muslim who was a student of Ahmed Didat, who was the most popular
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Muslim speaker in the world before his death. And that's exactly how he tried to respond to John 20, 28.
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What Thomas said to Jesus was, my Lord, my God, which is an amazingly shallow response.
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But there's really, what else can you say? I mean, the words are so clear, especially in light of the fact that the original language indicates that both words are being addressed to Jesus.
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And then what's Jesus' response? If Jesus was, as the Muslims say, a mere prophet, what should
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Jesus' response to Thomas have been? It should have been rebuked. It should have been, how dare you say such a thing?
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Remember when John tried to bow down and worship the angel in the book of Revelation? It showed him so many wonderful things.
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What does the angel do? Do not worship me, worship God alone. And so when
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Thomas says, my Lord and my God, to Jesus, what's Jesus' response? Because you've seen me, have you believed,
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Thomas? Blessed are those who, having not seen, believe. So he blesses Thomas' faith statement in him as his
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Lord and his God. That term, Lord, by the way, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament is the term that is used of the word
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Yahweh, the personal name of God in the Old Testament. So, very, very high terminology that continued on in the early church.
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For example, in Paul's letter to Titus, Titus chapter 2, verse 13, he says we are looking for the blessed hope, which is the appearing of our
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God and Savior, Jesus Christ. And the rule in the original language is that both terms are being used of one person, our
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God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Peter does the exact same thing in 2 Peter 1 .1.
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It uses the very same construction to say our God and Savior, by the faith in our
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God and Savior, Jesus Christ. And so it was standard language for the early church writers to refer to Jesus in this way.
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In Romans 9 .5 you have another reference where the term God is used of Jesus. It's possible that in Acts 20 .28
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the term God is used of Jesus, though there is some ambiguity at that point. It's possible 1
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John 5 .20 also uses the term God of Jesus. Now is that the only evidence we have? No, it is not.
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In fact, one of the real problems I think that a lot of conservative Bible -believing
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Christians have is that we limit the range of biblical information that we use to be able to understand who
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Jesus really is. We allow ourselves to be pushed into the position of always defending our beliefs rather than saying to the other side, well you need to show me where you get your beliefs from the
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Bible. You're demanding that of me. Let me ask you how you would define who
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Jesus really is. For example, the strongest evidence we have in the
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New Testament of who Jesus is, and by the way I'm not even dealing with the Old Testament because when you look back at the prophecies that were written hundreds of years before Jesus, when you look back at the prophecies, you look at Isaiah 9 .6.
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Remember around Christmas time we very frequently talk about the prophecies that are found in the
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Old Testament about the coming of Jesus. In Isaiah 9 .6 we have that tremendous passage.
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A couple chapters earlier we had Emmanuel, God with us. A virgin shall be with child, of course
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Matthew quotes. But then we get to Isaiah chapter 9 and there's this prophecy of this one who is to come.
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The government will be upon his shoulders and then his names are described. He's to be the
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Prince of Peace, for example. And we think of the peace that Jesus brings.
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He's to be wonderful, counselor. And then we have this phrase El Gabor in Hebrew, which is translated as mighty
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God. And some people say well what that means is like a valiant warrior or something like that.
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The problem is that very same phrase El Gabor is used in the very next chapter in Isaiah 10 .21
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of Yahweh himself, of God himself. In fact he's called everlasting father.
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Not that there's confusion of the father and the son, but in the Old Testament the father is primarily the one who creates all things.
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And I think that's a fulfillment of what we have in Colossians chapter 1 where Jesus describes the one who creates all things.
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So we have Old Testament prophecies like that as well that I'm not really spending a lot of time on, but they are there.
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But the strongest evidence of the deity of Christ is to be found in the use of the name
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Yahweh. Now you've heard Yahweh before, but you've heard it as we slaughter it in English.
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Does your hymnal use much of Jehovah? It's in there once or twice, yeah.
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I'm a Reformed Baptist and we have a Trinity hymnal and it's all over the place. Before Jehovah's laws...
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Anyways, so Jehovah is probably the name that you have heard. Now of all the pronunciations of those four
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Hebrew letters, the one that we know is not right is Jehovah. It's funny,
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Jehovah's Witnesses run around and they want to demand that you use that pronunciation, but it's just not possible that that was the way it was originally pronounced.
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It is most probably pronounced Galway. And this is God's specific covenant personal name in the
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Old Testament. It's used over 5 ,000 times. In other forms, over 6 ,000 times in the Old Testament.
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So it's very, very common. In fact, when you're reading your Bible, if you're not familiar with this, I think it's important that you be familiar with this.
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When you're reading your Bible, if you run across in the Old Testament the word LORD in all capital letters, now the
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O and the R and the D will be a little bit smaller font size, but they'll still be imprinted in capitals.
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That's the English Bible translator's way of letting you know that you're reading the original Hebrew word
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Galway. If you see L -O -R -D with the O and the R and the D in standard smaller forms of those letters, that's the term
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Adonai, which is our normal word for Lord. So when you see Lord God, that's
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Yahweh Elohim, Yahweh God. And it occurs all the time in the
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Old Testament. It's important that you be able to recognize that. The reason being that there are a number of places in the
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New Testament where the New Testament writers, knowing the Old Testament very well, take passages that were about Yahweh and only about Yahweh and apply them to Jesus in the
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New Testament. Remember, these are people who believe there's only one God. They believe there's only one
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God, Yahweh. So if they're going to take words and statements and verses that were originally only about Yahweh and can only be true of Him and apply them to Jesus, what does that tell us about what they believe about Jesus?
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Nowhere will you find anyone doing that with Moses or Isaiah or David or Abraham or anything like that because they recognize that these were just mere creatures.
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Now, let's also keep this in balance, folks. Remember, there's all sorts of places in the
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New Testament that talk about Jesus becoming tired and eating food and walking dusty roads and He's called a man and a prophet.
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All those things are true. What happens is people from various backgrounds want to try to flatten
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Jesus out. They want to try to just—Jesus could only have been smaller than He is in the
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New Testament. You can only believe a part of these things. My Muslim friends, for example, are always saying, well, see,
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Peter said that Jesus was a man who was testified to you to be a prophet. Well, there it is.
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He was a man who was a prophet. That's it. And I go, yes, He was a man. The Word became flesh in 12 months.
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If He hadn't been a man, He could not have been the sacrifice for our sins. He was truly man, and yes, He was a prophet, and He was a king, and He was a priest, and He's the
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Son of God, and He's the Son of Man, and He's God and Yahweh. All these things are true statements from a biblical perspective of who
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Jesus was, and only by cutting stuff out can you come up with a littler Jesus, which fits into the other world religions.
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And so, where would you go to demonstrate that Jesus identified as Yahweh? Well, there's two places specifically that I would suggest you.
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By the way, this is the most effective way to talk to the folks who knock on your door on Saturday morning.
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I'm not going to ask how many of you have all of a sudden become very quiet when the doorbell rings.
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I understand, and to be honest with you, if you're not ready to talk to them, that may be the best thing that you can do, but then again, we have a missions field on our doorstep.
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We don't even have to send somebody someplace else. It would be good if we are ready. It would be good if all the members of this church had a big
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X on the Jehovah's Witness street map. Do not go to this house. Knowledgeable person here, you know.
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That's why they never, I watch them. They come down my street, they go to my neighbors, and then they just go walking on by my place.
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Ooh, the weird one there. So, really, they mark the territory.
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They know where the active opposers are. That's what they call us, the active opposers. And so, that happens all the time.
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So, where would you go? Well, there's two that I have found to be particularly effective in sharing with Jehovah's Witnesses or with others.
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But just for us to recognize, once again, the authority of Christ, very briefly, what you do is you compare an
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Old Testament text with a New Testament text. And what you do is I ask them to open up their Bibles to Psalm 102, 25 -27.
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Psalm 102, 25 -27. And I ask them to read that, and they can even use their own
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Bible if they want to. Generally, the New World translation of Jehovah's Witnesses is a really, really bad translation to utilize.
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But it doesn't really cause a problem at this particular juncture in time.
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And so, here's what the text says. Of old you found the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.
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Now, you can actually go back a few verses. You'll find the word Yahweh used. It's addressed to Yahweh.
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Of old you found the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. Even they will perish, but you endure. All of them will wear out like a garment.
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Like clothing, it will change them, and they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will not come to an end.
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And so, here is a description of God. Here is a description of God's immutability.
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Immutability means He does not change. He does not age. He does not grow old.
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The passage of time does not have the effect upon Him that it has upon us. You know, when
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I first came here to Long Island, I had hair. And my goatee was nice and dark.
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And now it's all white. And the hair is gone. And that's the effect of the passage of time or friendship with Chris Arntzen.
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Whichever one you want to blame upon that. And so, but God doesn't experience that.
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And so, what you have here is the contrast between all of creation, which grows old.
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And God, who does not. So, He is immutable. And so, what I do is I ask them, now is this true of anyone else?
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And they will say, no, this is only true of Yahweh. Only Yahweh is uncreated.
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Only Yahweh is immutable. Only Yahweh is unchangeable. And so, I say, okay, keep that in mind.
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And they'll be a little bit surprised if you even know about that. And then I take them to Hebrews chapter 1.
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The book of Hebrews chapter 1. And if you go, notice verse 8.
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It says, but of the Son, Son of God, Jesus, He says. And that continues on in verse 10.
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And, so this is also said of the Son. Notice what we have. And you, Lord, in the beginning, laid the foundation of the earth.
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And the heavens, the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain. And they all will become old like a garment, like a mantle.
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You will roll them up like a garment. They also will be changed, but you are the same. And your years will not come to an end. So, here the writer of the
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Hebrews takes the very same section of scripture. That they just agreed can only be true of Yahweh God.
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And applies it to the Son. In Hebrews chapter 1. Now, most
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Jehovah's Witnesses have never seen this. They've never seen it. And this is just sort of a little practical witnessing tip here.
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For those of you who are wanting to. You see these folks and you feel horrible that they are so willing to give their lives in defense of a lie.
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So you want to give a testimony to them. One little witnessing tip here.
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There comes a time when you're witnessing to someone. Where you ask them, hopefully, a question that they've never heard of before.
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They don't have an answer to. The temptation on our part is to go. I got you.
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I got you. And you want to pull out your theological sword. And run them right through.
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I am super Christian. And I have banished the cultists. And all the rest of that kind of stuff.
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Well, there are a lot of people who do that, unfortunately. And if you want to do it in this instance. You get out your sword and you go.
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So, what do you think about that, Mr. Witness? See, you're a part of a cult. Well, that's going to be the end of your witnessing opportunity.
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And that's going to be the last time you ever see them. And what you said probably isn't going to have any impact upon them at all.
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What happens is you have a brief moment of time. When they're thinking.
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If you force them to answer at that time. They'll come up with an answer. It may be the dumbest thing they've ever said in their lives.
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But they'll probably go to their grave defending it. Because you forced them to take a stand at that point.
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Here's what you want to do. At least I hope you want to do. In that awkward moment of silence.
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Jump in before they start to answer. Now, if you've never looked at this before. I'm certainly not going to ask you to give me an answer.
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I'd just like to ask you. Would you look into it and get back to me on that? Because I'd really be interested in what you have to say.
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You've now given them space. But you've also put them in a situation where they're actually going to have to think about it.
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And think about it past just this one moment. And then, I've never had one say no to the next question.
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And then I say, can I show you another one? Now you've opened up the opportunity for a second moment of witness.
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And I've never had one say, no, no, no. I've got to get out of here. That's my wife calling. That type of thing.
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That's never happened. And so keep that in mind. When you see a person struggling.
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When you see they don't know how to answer. You can either use that to your advantage and to their advantage.
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In the sense of their soul. Or you can whip out the sword and do the easy thing.
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And that really is going to have a whole lot of long -term effect. Generally when I say, can I show you another one?
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They say, yes. And so what I do is I go to John chapter 12. The Gospel of John chapter 12.
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And I read them. These words from the end of Jesus' public ministry.
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And it says in verse 39. Now have you ever thought about verse 41 before?
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These things he said because he saw his glory and he spoke about him.
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Now, anybody have the NIV? If you have the NIV, the NIV actually puts the word
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Jesus into verse 41. The word Jesus is not in verse 41.
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What the NIV does is if it uses pronouns. And you've gotten a little bit far away from the subject.
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It will reinsert the subject, the proper noun rather than the pronoun. That can be a little bit of a problem in dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses.
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Because theirs isn't going to have the word Jesus in it. So they're going to distrust you at that point. But with ESV, NESV and others, it will simply say the basic translation.
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Which is, these things Isaiah said because he saw his glory and he spoke of him. Now I'm not going to spend too much time on this because we're running out of time.
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But when you look back at what John has just quoted. He's quoting from Isaiah chapter 6.
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In Isaiah chapter 6, you have Isaiah's temple vision. Where he sees
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Yahweh sitting upon his throne. And so, when you listen to what John's saying.
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Basically, if you ask Isaiah, who did you see upon the throne? Isaiah's response would be,
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I saw Yahweh. If you ask John, who did Isaiah see sitting upon the throne?
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John's answer is, Jesus. He saw Jesus upon the throne. And for those of you who are really into digging deep on a text.
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By the way, I've done debates with some of the best Unitarians on the subject. They're available on our website.
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We go deeply into the original languages and all the rest of the stuff. One really fascinating thing to me that I've always found very encouraging.
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Most of you are probably aware that when the New Testament was written. Most of the people to whom it was written.
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Would not have been able to read Hebrew or Aramaic. They read Greek. If you lived in Ephesus or Glossy or someplace like that.
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You would read what's called Koine Greek. And the Bible translation that they utilized is called the
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Greek Septuagint. Traditionally translated by 70 or 72 Jewish elders.
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About 200 years or 250 years before Christ. The Greek Septuagint was really the
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Bible of the New Testament writers. The vast majority of the time the New Testament writers quote the
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Old Testament. They don't quote the Hebrew. They quote the Greek Septuagint. There's a textual variant in the
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Greek Septuagint. In Isaiah chapter 6. And it's a fascinating one. If you remember how
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Isaiah 6 begins in the Hebrew. It says, in the year that King Uzziah died.
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I saw the Lord. Lofi lifted up. And the train of his robe was filling the temple.
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That's what the Hebrew says. The Greek is very similar. But there's one interesting difference.
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Instead of the train of his robe was filling the temple. It says his glory was filling the temple.
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Why is that relevant? Look at verse 41 again. These things Isaiah said because he saw his glory.
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And he spoke of him. You see someone reading the Greek translation of Isaiah 6.
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And then reading what John says. Would make the immediate connection. Because it's the only place where Isaiah says anything about seeing
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God's glory. Is that very same text. So he makes the connection even more strongly than we might see.
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Because most of our translations don't tell us. What the Greek Septuagint read at that particular point. So it's fascinating.
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So there are a number of texts that we can go to. Where the New Testament writers demonstrate. That they were willing to take the very name of the
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Jewish God. Yahweh. And apply it to Jesus. Not just in some general or generic sense.
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As in well here's a text about God being king. Jesus is a king.
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We put them together. No. In very specific ways that could not be applied to anyone.
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But to Yahweh himself. And these are found in the New Testament. Is that all the evidence we have? Not by a long shot.
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In fact. Think about some of the other things that are said about Jesus. So. One of the key areas of evidence that we ignore.
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As believers almost all the time. And if you just put this in your mind. As you're doing your regular reading of the
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New Testament. You'll see this over and over and over again. Put the words of Jesus on the lips of any mere man.
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And see what happens. So much of what Jesus says. If it was
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Moses. Or David. Or Abraham. Or Isaiah. Or Jeremiah. Would be absolute blasphemy.
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Come unto me. All you who are weary and heavy laden. And I will give you rest.
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Can you imagine Moses saying that? Can you imagine Abraham saying that? Now we normally wouldn't think of that as an evidence of the deity of Christ.
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Because we know the deity of Christ. And we read his words in light of what the
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Bible says about him. But there are so many texts. Where if Jesus wasn't
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God. What he said in that text was absolutely amazingly blasphemous.
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But we don't see it that way. Because we recognize who Jesus really is. And so that's one of the places where we fail to see the evidence.
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Because we've allowed the critics to force us into defensive mode. And so we only focus upon the big texts.
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Rather than saying to them. Hey wait a minute. You're telling me Jesus is just a prophet? Then why did he say this? Why did he say that?
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Why did he act in this way? Why did he point people to himself? Big area of evidence in the
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New Testament. But think about how Jesus is described by his own followers. One of the most beautiful texts in the entire
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Bible. Is Philippians chapter 2. Verses 5 -11. Most scholars believe it's a fragment of an ancient hymn of the church.
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A little portion of the Baptist hymnal from Jerusalem. That has made it into the New Testament.
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Because Paul quoted it as a sermon illustration. And when you think about what it says.
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It says have this attitude in your own minds. Which is also in Christ Jesus. Who although he existed in the very form of God.
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Did not consider the equality he had with God the Father. Something to be held on to at all costs.
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But instead he made himself. Notice he made himself. Not he was made.
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But he made himself of no reputation. And how did he do that? By taking on human nature.
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By being found as a servant. By being made as a servant.
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And being found in likeness as a man. He became humble. He humbled himself.
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And became obedient to the point of death. Even death on the cross. Therefore God even the Father has highly exalted him.
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And given him the name which is above every name. That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow. And every tongue confess.
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Of those who are in heaven and earth and under the earth. All to the glory of God the Father. And when you think about it. That quote also comes out from the book of Isaiah.
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And was originally about Yahweh. Yahweh said to me every knee will bow.
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To me every tongue will confess. And now Paul applies it. Or it's not really Paul.
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If this comes before Paul. If this was a part of the hymnology of the early church. This was the common confession of Christians.
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In the very first generation. That this application of Yahweh Jesus was to be made.
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And in fact I brought that out in the debate that I did. At the University of Pretoria in South Africa.
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With Shabir Ali. One of the leading Islamic apologists in the world. We're actually co -authoring a book right now together.
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We're way behind. But we're co -authoring a book right now. And even he recognized it and confessed it.
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Clearly Paul believed in this. Of course that's why Muslims don't believe Paul was an inspired writer.
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But he certainly admitted that Paul held that perspective. And pointed this very text.
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So you have a text like that. You have Colossians chapter 1. For by Him were all things made. Whether heaven or earth.
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Physical or invisible. Principalities, powers, dominions or authorities. All things created by Him. For Him. He is before all things.
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And in Him all things hold together. Here the early followers of Jesus are describing Him as the creator.
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The one who's made all things. So they call Him God. They call Him Yahweh. They call
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Him Lord. Paul can even go so far in 1 Corinthians chapter 8. Verse 6 and 7.
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To take that Jewish statement of faith. Called the
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Shema. Shema Yisrael Eloheinu Yahweh our God. And he takes that and he expands it out.
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And he says for us there is but one God the Father. For whom are all things.
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And we for Him. From whom are all things. And we for Him. And one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things.
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And we by Him. So he takes the very same words from the Greek version of the
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Shema in Deuteronomy 6. And expands it out to cover the Father and the Son in 1
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Corinthians chapter 8. And so you've got to keep something in mind. Some people say why don't we find something like the
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Nicene Creed. Or some nice creedal statement in the New Testament. That lays out for us the doctrine of the
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Trinity or something like that. Let me ask you a question. When was the Trinity revealed? When was the
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Trinity revealed? I would argue very strongly that the
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Trinity was revealed between the Old and the New Testament.
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You open up your Bible and go I don't see anything between the
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Old and the New Testament. I've got the final Italian prophet Malachi. And then you have
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Matthew. Am I missing something here?
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What is it? Well there was 400 years between Malachi and Matthew.
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And what happened during that time? Oh just the Incarnation. The entire ministry of Jesus.
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The founding of the Church. The revelation of the doctrine of the
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Trinity is found in the Incarnation of Christ. His death, burial and resurrection. And the outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God.
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Think about it. Why was Peter a Trinitarian? Because he had experienced the Trinity. What was it like to be
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Peter? You have for years walked with the Incarnate Son of God.
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You were on the mountain where the Father spoke from heaven and said this is my beloved Son. And now you're indwelt by the
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Holy Spirit of God. He was an experiential Trinitarian. He had experienced the
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Trinity itself. And so what the New Testament is is not where the Trinity is revealed.
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It's already been revealed. The only way to make sense out of the New Testament is to read it in light of what it tells us about the
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Incarnation, the outpouring of the Spirit. And so the New Testament becomes not where it's revealed but once we read it in light of that we see it all over the place.
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We see Trinitarian references. We see the New Testament writers who can go back and forth between Spirit of God and Spirit of Jesus in the same sentence without even giving it a second thought.
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They're not trying to prove something. They've already experienced the reality of this truth and their language then communicates that to us.
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And so it's important to keep that in mind when people try to undercut this
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Testament. So bring it back around to where we are. If we look at the
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New Testament and if we accept its authority and we interpret it as a whole, which very many people are not willing to do today.
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They want to try to cut it up into little pieces. But when we look at all that it says, the
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Jesus that is presented in that text. Yes, it's said to be a servant and gives his life a ransom for many.
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But also in the book of Revelation when he's seen there's a sword that goes forth from his mouth and he rules the nations with a rod of iron.
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And he's the coming king who's going to judge the living and the dead. And there's all this revelation who
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Jesus is. And if the world says, well, yeah, if you want to believe that, that's fine.
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What they're really saying is you can't believe that in such a way that you act on it.
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You can only believe it in a sort of parable way.
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To where you sit back and go, well, I'll take this lesson from that or that lesson from that. You can't really believe that this
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Jesus is really the exalted Lord and he really reigns from heaven. Because if you really believe that, then you're not going to be able to look at everybody else's religion and say, well, it's all evil.
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And so what we're really being asked to do is to compromise what we believe. To put it aside and say, well, we really don't believe that.
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We're not going to live our lives in light of that. And we can't do that. We cannot do that.
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And it's important for you and I to see when that temptation is being presented to us and that demand is being made of us.
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So it's important to see, yes, the New Testament does present to us this view of Jesus.
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There's so much more evidence that I could not even begin to summarize in the time frame that we have today.
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But there's a fundamental revelation of who he is. And therefore, in light of that, what he teaches about himself and about his gospel is absolutely central and absolutely important.
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Okay? All right. Let's close our time here. Our Heavenly Father, we do thank you for your word and we thank you for the witness he gives to us, our
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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Indeed, we do wake that heavenly hope, that great hope that is ours in the appearing of our
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God and Savior, Jesus Christ. We thank you for the preservation of your word, the truth of your word, the consistency of your word.
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We ask that we will remember these things as we have opportunity to be salt and light and give testimony in our world in this day.