Wednesday, January 11, 2023 PM

Sunnyside Baptist Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:09

She was like, who do I evangelize to? I've got these children, who do I talk to?

00:14

And I told her to pray for opportunities to evangelize. And I think it was that week, a couple of young ladies came knocking on the door.

00:23

The Jehovah's Witness came to talk to her about their good news. And we're like, well, that's not what the

00:30

Bible says. And so all of that kind of got us studying what we believe. We knew we had been taught that, but we wanted to know what it said in the

00:39

Bible, what the Bible has to say. So that's what I'm gonna go through tonight and the next couple of weeks.

00:45

We're gonna talk about this idea of the Trinity. So the first thing

00:50

I'd like to say is as we're reading our texts in the Bible, we can see that the

00:57

Trinity is apprehensible. Not reprehensible, it's apprehensible. We can see that it's trying to tell us something.

01:06

Even if we don't understand it fully, we can apprehend the doctrines there.

01:12

There is one God in three persons. The way that it talks about it is unique, it's different.

01:21

And we can see he's not just saying he's one God and one person. They're taking the time to say

01:27

God is unique and he's different, so we can apprehend. So one thing that I like to do to kind of point this out is

01:36

God, when we talk about God, that is a what? That is a being.

01:41

So we are human beings, that's what we are. So if I were to ask Holly, what are you?

01:48

You're a human being, right? So then if I asked your husband Kyle, what are you?

01:54

And he said human being. And if I said, okay, then you're the same person. No, that's not true.

02:00

You're both your own person, right? So when we talk about what we are, we are human beings.

02:07

But then we talk about who are you? So if I said, who are you?

02:12

You would say, Holly. If I asked your husband, who are you? He would say, Kyle. So I wouldn't say, oh, then you're not the same being because you're different.

02:22

No, you're both human beings, but you're different people. And that's what it's like with God. When he's talking about what he is, he is

02:30

God. He is unique. There is nothing like him. But then throughout scripture, and even in the

02:37

Old Testament, not just the New Testament, we see places where there are different persons that are

02:45

God. So there is one what, God, in three persons. And so it's apprehensible.

02:52

We can see that's what it's saying. But a second part of that is, it's incomprehensible.

03:00

We cannot comprehend it. There's something mysterious about it.

03:06

Because he is unique, and because there is nothing else in this world that is like that, we cannot comprehend it fully.

03:15

So when we're talking to people about it, and one thing I like to point out, oftentimes in the different cults, where they go off is a misunderstanding of one of the persons of the

03:28

Trinity. Oftentimes it's Jesus, like with Jehovah's Witness, who think Jesus was

03:33

Michael, the archangel, or the Mormons who think that he's the spirit brother of Satan.

03:39

That's not what the Bible teaches. So they're talking about something different. They misunderstand the person of Jesus.

03:46

And so oftentimes that's what they do in the cult. But when we're talking with them, we can't pretend that we comprehend it fully, and we have all of the answers, but we can say we have the scripture,

04:00

God's speaking to us, and we can read it and know that he is saying something unique about what he is and about who he is.

04:10

And this was a problem that we ran into when we were talking with the Jehovah's Witness, because they have their own translation, and it's vastly different.

04:20

We thought we were just talking and they couldn't understand where we were coming up with the Trinity, and we couldn't understand why they were missing it.

04:28

And then I got my hands on a copy, and they've ripped that out of their translations. And they've not read our translations, so they don't know that it says something different.

04:39

And so I went through and said them side by side and said, look, they're saying something different.

04:46

This is why we hold to the Trinity, because the Bible says so. So those are a couple of things.

04:52

So one definition I'm going off of is, within the one being that is

04:58

God, there exists eternally three co -equal and distinct persons, the

05:05

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, okay? So that's kind of the definition that I'm going off of.

05:13

And then one thing I'd like to point out as we get into our text, in English, you may notice

05:19

I've got some words up here on the board. We've got Lord, we've got Lord, and we've got

05:24

God, okay? In our text, I want you to notice that sometimes the word

05:30

Lord is all capital, capital O, capital L, capital

05:35

O, capital R, capital D, all uppercase, that's Lord. That is the

05:41

Tetragrammaton, the Yod, He, Vow, He. That's Yahweh, that's

05:47

His name that He gives Himself, okay? So that's His name. The next one with a capital

05:53

L and the rest lowercase, Lord, that is typically the word Adonai, which is a title.

06:01

It's not a name, it's a title, which means sovereign one or master.

06:07

And oftentimes it's ascribed to God, but it's a title, Adonai. In the

06:14

Old Testament, we have the word God, and that can be Elohim, which in Hebrew, that ending him makes it plural, but it's singular.

06:28

It's one God singular, and we'll see that in our text tonight. Also, you can see the word

06:33

El, and that's also the word for God. And we get that if you've heard Handel's Messiah or read in Isaiah, the mighty

06:41

God, the everlasting, that mighty God, that's El Gabor, that means mighty

06:46

God. So that's where we get that. So that's in the Old Testament. So as we're reading through our text, if you see capital

06:54

Lord, it's giving the name. If you're seeing the lowercase Lord, it's giving the title

07:01

Adonai, meaning sovereign one. And this is important because in other false translations, like the

07:09

Jehovah's, they don't have that distinction. They rip it out and they just give, say

07:15

Jehovah, which is actually a mixture of Yahweh and Adonai. If you'll notice here,

07:20

Yahweh, it's just Y -H -W -H. There's no vowels there.

07:27

So how do you pronounce that? Well, they took the vowels from Adonai, and they put them into the name

07:35

Yahweh. And so it transliterates into Jehovah. And so that's where they get that.

07:42

They combine a name and a title to make Jehovah. And so as we're going through the text, take note of those terms.

07:50

And then when we get into the New Testament, which is written in Greek, you'll notice we have the word God. In New Testament, it's

07:57

Theos, where we get theology, which is the study of God, Theos. And then the word

08:03

Lord is Kyrios, which is the equivalent to the

08:08

Old Testament Adonai, sovereign one, master, Kyrios. And so that's what we get in the

08:14

New Testament. So with those kind of definitions, let's jump into our study.

08:22

So foundational truth number one, I've got three of them. I'm not gonna do them all tonight.

08:27

We'll probably just get through the first one. But foundational truth number one, there is only one

08:34

God. And so we call this monotheism. So this is foundational truth number one.

09:17

There is only one God. And if you didn't get those terms, I'll be writing them down the next couple of weeks so you can get them.

09:25

So turn in your Bible to Deuteronomy chapter six. Deuteronomy chapter six.

09:45

Looking in verse four, and we'll be going through several texts. So you'll wanna have your

09:51

Bibles ready to flip to other texts. But Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four, it says this.

09:57

Here, O Israel, the Lord, all capital, is your

10:03

God. The Lord is one. So here we have

10:09

God naming himself using the divine name, Yahweh.

10:15

He says, here, O Israel. He's talking to his people. He says, Yahweh is our

10:22

God. Yahweh is one. There is only one

10:28

God, okay? Turn to Isaiah 43 .10.

10:41

And this is the famous text that Jehovah's Witnesses get their name from.

10:46

They use this text, Isaiah 43 .10. It says, you are my witnesses, declares the

11:01

Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.

11:12

Before me, there was no God formed, and after me will be none after me.

11:21

So here's a statement that God is saying about himself. There is only one

11:27

God. There are no gods formed before him, and there were no gods formed after him.

11:35

One God, there is only one God. Same book, Isaiah 44 .6.

11:49

Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the

11:54

Lord of hosts, I am the first, I am the last. There is no

12:00

God besides me. So again, we have him using his name, all capital

12:07

Lord, and we also have God, Elohim. So he's saying, I am the only being that is

12:14

God. There are no other beings that are God, only me. Isaiah 44 .8.

12:26

And this is 8B, and you are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me?

12:32

Or is there any other rock? I know of none. Now, God is all -knowing.

12:39

He isn't saying that he's lacking knowledge here. He's not asking the questions like, I don't know of any other gods.

12:45

Maybe there are some, but no, he's not saying that. Oftentimes when a question is asked, a rhetorical question, the answer is no.

12:53

There are no other gods besides him. He knows of other, and he's all -knowing. So there are no other gods.

13:01

Same book, Isaiah 44, verse 24. Thus says the

13:07

Lord, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb. I, the

13:12

Lord, am the maker of all things, stretching out the heavens by myself and spreading out the earth all alone.

13:23

So these are some pretty definite statements about the one being

13:28

God. There is only one God. He created himself by himself.

13:35

Look at Isaiah chapter 45, five through seven.

13:42

I am the Lord, and there is no other. Besides me, there is no

13:48

God. I will gird you, though you have not known me, that men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides me.

13:58

I am the Lord, and there is no other. The one forming light and creating darkness, causing well -being and creating calamity.

14:07

I am the Lord who does all these, right? So most of these have been out of Isaiah.

14:15

But just so you don't think it's one prophet saying there's one God, let's turn to Jeremiah. Jeremiah chapter 10.

14:31

So looking at Jeremiah chapter 10, verses 10 through 12. And something interesting about this text, this is one of the rare occasions that Aramaic is used, and it's done by God.

14:47

So in verse 11, he switches from speaking Hebrew to speaking Aramaic, giving the

14:54

Jews the words that they're to say to the other countries. He tells the

14:59

Jews what to say to the other countries in their own language. But this is what he says.

15:05

So Jeremiah 10, verse 10 through 12. But the Lord is the true

15:11

God. He is the living God and the everlasting King. At his wrath, the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure his indignation.

15:21

Thus you shall say to them, the gods that did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.

15:31

It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding, he has stretched out the heavens.

15:41

So again, this is Jeremiah saying there is one Lord. The Lord is the true

15:48

God. In comparison to the other gods that did not create, and he uses a lowercase

15:54

G there. He says, they don't exist. They will perish. There are no other gods.

16:02

So from this truth, we learn that there is only one God. So we call this monotheism.

16:10

So I'd like to point out some other texts, but I wanna take a moment here to point something out.

16:16

We call this monotheism, meaning one God. But we say the word trinity.

16:23

Tri meaning three and unity. So three and one is what we often say.

16:30

What we're not saying is that there is one God and that there are three gods, right?

16:38

That would be tritheism. We don't believe in three gods. We believe in one

16:43

God. This one God has three persons. So it's not the ignorance of a doctrine, not knowing about this does not condemn a person, but the denial of it.

16:56

So when we run into people that have trouble explaining the trinity, maybe they affirm it like, yeah, three in one, but it's like this.

17:09

And maybe they stumble on explaining the trinity. That's not what condemns a person. It's someone that outright denies the trinity that says there are many gods, which we would say is polytheism, right?

17:22

They believe in many gods. No, the verses we just looked at says there is only one

17:27

God, okay? So the trinity is clearly taught in the Bible. It's absent from the

17:36

Jehovah's Witness translation. It's not there. They've ripped it out of there. And then the Mormons just use different books that aren't even the

17:44

Bible. They'll say use the King James, which has the trinity, but then they go to other books that aren't part of the

17:51

Bible. So one thing I'd like to point out, when we start talking about the trinity, oftentimes the topic of analogies come up.

18:00

So when we try to explain the trinity, oftentimes people will try to use an analogy.

18:07

And maybe you've been taught one or you yourselves have taught one. I know that I have, but oftentimes there's problems with using analogies because what we're trying to do is take something that was created and saying,

18:22

God is like this thing. And we have it in reverse because God is not like these things.

18:30

These things that are created came out of the mind of God. So we can see his attributes and what has been made in creation.

18:40

But to say God is like this, there is nothing that is like God.

18:46

So I'm gonna give a couple examples. And again, this isn't condemnation, but let's see if we can flesh some of this out.

18:53

So I myself am a person, but when I got married,

18:59

I became a husband. And when I had kids, I became a father.

19:05

And so oftentimes we try to explain the trinity in terms of our position. I was a husband and I became a father in a different role.

19:15

And so someone may try to explain the trinity like that, where you have God the father, and then he became

19:21

God the son, and then he becomes the spirit. But that's not the way the

19:27

Bible speaks because all three persons are distinct. You have the son talking to the father.

19:35

You have the son saying, I will send a helper, the Holy Spirit. He's a distinct person.

19:43

He doesn't just change roles. Like when he's in the heaven as the father, he has

19:48

God the father mask on. And then when he becomes the son, he's wearing the son mask.

19:53

No, he's not changing his role. He is a distinct person. I think of John 3 .16,

20:00

for God so loved the world that he sent himself. This says that he sent his son, his only son, a distinct person.

20:10

Another analogy that I've heard is water. You'll say that water can be in three different forms.

20:18

It can be a solid in ice. It can be a liquid in water, or it can be in gas.

20:24

But that's the same type of air. We're trying to say God is like something that he created.

20:31

No, God is distinct. He is one being in three persons.

20:37

That's unique. I can't think of anything that's like that. God is unique in that aspect.

20:43

And so there are different errors that have been made trying to explain the Trinity, but we should see, no, there is one

20:51

God in three persons. So I wanted to look at a couple of more texts on that first foundational truth.

20:59

There is only one God. If you'll turn to Psalm 96. Psalm 96, nine, six.

21:17

And look at verse five. Psalm 96, verse five.

21:27

It says, for all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord has made the heavens.

21:35

And this is in contrast to what we read earlier, Deuteronomy 4 .35. To you, it was shown that you might know that the

21:41

Lord, he is God. There is no other besides him. And then there's places that the

21:48

Lord alone has made the heavens. So if there's the gods of the people who did not make the heavens, then they don't exist.

21:58

Those are things that the people have made up in their own imaginations. It says, the

22:04

Lord alone has made the heavens. Deuteronomy 4 .39.

22:11

Know therefore today and take it to your heart that the Lord, he is God in heaven.

22:17

He is God in heaven above and on earth below and there is no other, right?

22:24

So this becomes very interesting when talking to some of the other groups.

22:31

So Mormons will teach that there are many, many gods and that you can become

22:39

God one day. That when you die, if you're good in this life and you go to the third heaven and you can get your own planet and be

22:46

God of that planet. It's polytheism. There are millions and millions of gods in their view.

22:53

But here in the Bible, which is interesting because they'll use the King James.

22:58

So if you're talking to Mormons, you can use the Bible that they use and show them these verses and saying,

23:05

God says there are no other gods. What do you do with that?

23:12

And just ask them, what do you do with that? Should I believe you that's telling me that I can become a

23:18

God and that there are many gods or should I believe God who says there were no gods before him and there are no gods after him.

23:27

There's only one. And this is also the same with the Jehovah's Witness. So, and we'll get into this next week in John 1 .1.

23:39

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was

23:46

God. Jehovah's Witness changed the translation. In their translation, it says, in the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the word was a

23:59

God. That's very different. If the word is a God, then there are many gods, which is what the

24:06

Jehovah's Witness teach that Jesus is a lesser God of God the

24:11

Father. But that can't be given what God says in the

24:17

Old Testament over and over again, as we've read, there is only one God.

24:22

There are no gods before him, no gods after him. There's only one God. So Yahweh, capital

24:33

Lord, takes great pains in the Old Testament to make sure that Israel knows that there is only one

24:40

God and that Yahweh is his name. There's only one being known as God.

24:47

And there are no other types of beings that can take that designation, that can be called that being.

24:54

Just like we are human beings and we have angelic beings, there's only one being that is called

25:00

God. There are not many gods. There's not greater gods and lesser gods, right?

25:07

That's the way the Jehovah's Witness try to get around it, that he's a lesser God. One thing they'll do is they'll take

25:13

El, where it says El Gabor in Isaiah, and it says mighty God.

25:19

They'll say, well, it doesn't say almighty God. It just says mighty God. So almighty

25:25

God is talking about the Father and mighty God is talking about the Son. No, read these texts over and over again.

25:34

There's only one God. So you can't get around that fact. So when the

25:45

Bible speaks about Jesus being given a name above all names, it describes it in many different ways.

25:53

So in the Old Testament, you have Lord, all capital, and again, that's his name,

25:59

Yahweh. You have Lord with uppercase L, but the rest is lowercase.

26:04

That's Adonai, and that's an exalted title, sovereign one.

26:10

And that's where we get, say, king of kings, right? He's sovereign over the kings.

26:15

He's Lord of lords. He's the beginning and the end, which is interesting that he claims that alpha and omega, and God says, before me, there are no gods, and after me, there are no gods.

26:30

From beginning to the end, there are no gods. So we see throughout the

26:36

Old Testament that Yahweh speaks to another person.

26:43

And so if you'll go to Psalm, I believe it's 110. This'll be a preview for next week.

27:32

So this is verse one of Psalm 110. And notice again the way that the words are put there.

27:39

The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool.

27:49

So what's going on here? This is in the Old Testament. So I've heard some people say, in the

27:54

Old Testament, we learn about there being one God, and in the New Testament, we learn about the

27:59

Trinity. But the Trinity is taught all throughout scripture, not just in the New Testament.

28:05

Now, we see God working as one more often in the

28:11

Old Testament, but there are plenty of passages, like this one. So what's going on?

28:17

The Lord, who is that? All capital, who is that? Right, Yahweh, that's the name.

28:24

The Lord says to my Lord, who is that? That was

28:29

Adonai, right? So David is saying, the Lord, God, said to my sovereign one, sit at my right hand, right?

28:40

And in the New Testament, we know, there's all of this language about, Jesus sitting at the right hand.

28:46

That's right here. David tells us in this Psalm, that God, the one being

28:52

God, says to this sovereign one, to sit at his right hand, right?

28:59

So we see it even here, and these are verses that you can talk to the

29:04

Mormons, to the Jehovah's Witness about, and saying, look, I'm just saying, there's one

29:09

God, but there's more than one person here. And we have more than enough verses that show that there is only one

29:17

God. So you have to deal with that first. There's only one God, because in many of these cults, they're polytheistic, they believe in many gods.

29:26

So you have to show them, because if you say, no, there's three persons, they're gonna hear that you believe in three gods.

29:34

Well, you believe in three gods, so what's wrong with me believing in many gods? No, no, no, no, there's only one

29:40

God. So you start with that foundational truth. There's only one God, and you go to those texts.

29:46

God is even putting it as a question. There's no gods before me, none after me,

29:51

I know of none. Once you get that established, then you can go to verses like this and say, look, because of the text, because of the words, and again, in their translations, they'll pull, it doesn't say

30:07

Yahweh, and it doesn't have the lowercase lord, it says the same thing, so they don't have that distinction.

30:13

You can't tell that there's two people here, that David is saying, my lord said to my lord.

30:21

So that's an important distinction that you can bring up when speaking to them. And so foundational truth number one, there is only one

30:30

God. And so what we'll cover in the coming weeks is foundational truth number two, is that within that one

30:38

God, there are three distinct and co -equal persons.

30:44

There are three distinct and co -equal persons. And that the third foundational truth is that those three persons are co -equal and co -eternal.

30:55

So I'm hoping that next week, we'll look at what the Bible says about God the

31:00

Father, God the Son, as a distinct person, what qualities does he have, and God the

31:07

Holy Spirit, and then show that they are co -equal, one of them is not lesser than the other, but also that they are co -eternal.

31:17

So that's what I've got for tonight. I wanted to leave time for prayer. Next week's will probably be pretty long, but establishing that first foundational number truth, especially when you're talking to the cults, is you hit that, we are not polytheists, we are not tritheists, we believe in one

31:35

God. And that's what the Bible says. So then what else is it saying?

31:41

We can apprehend, we know enough to see that Jesus was trying to say something specific.

31:47

He was trying to say there is only one God, but he was saying something additional while not saying that there were many gods.