Wednesday, January 11, 2023 PM

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

The Jehovah's Witness came to talk to her about their good news. And we're like, well, that's not what the 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 Bible what the Bible has to say. So that's what I'm going to go through tonight in the next couple of weeks. We're going to talk about this idea of the Trinity.

The Trinity Is Apprehensible but Not Comprehensible

So the first thing I would like to say is as we're reading our texts in the Bible We can see that the Trinity is apprehensible not Reprehensible it's apprehensible. We can see that it's trying to tell us something even if we don't Understand it fully we can apprehend the doctrines there.

There is one God in Three persons the way that it talks about it is unique. It's different and we can see he's not just saying he's one God and one person. They're taking the time to say 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 God when we talk about God that is a what that is a being so we are human beings. That's what we are. So if I were to ask Holly, what are you?

You're a human being right? So then if I asked your husband Kyle What are you and he said human being and if I said, okay, then you're the same person. No, that's not true. You're both your own person, right?

So when we talk about what we are we are human beings, but then we talk about who are you? So if I said, who are you you'd say Holly if I asked your husband, who are you he would say Kyle. So I wouldn't say oh then you're the same.

You're not the same being because you're you're different. 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 God. He is unique.

There is nothing like him. But then throughout scripture and even in the Old Testament, not just the New Testament We see places where there are different persons that are God so there is one what God in three persons and so it's it's apprehensible.

We can see that's what it's saying but a second part of that is It's Incomprehensible we cannot Comprehend it. There's something mysterious About it because he is unique and because there is nothing else in this world.

That is like that. We cannot Comprehend it fully. So when we're talking to people about it And one thing I like to to point out oftentimes in the different cults Where they go off is a misunderstanding Of one of the persons of the Trinity oftentimes, it's Jesus like with Jehovah's Witness who think Jesus was Michael the Archangel or the Mormons who think that He's the spirit brother of Satan.

That's not what the Bible teaches. So they're talking about something different. They misunderstand the person of Jesus 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 God 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 and this was a problem that we ran into when we were talking with Jehovah's Witness because they have their own Translation and it's vastly different 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 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 and So I went through and said them by side-by-side and said look they're saying something different.

This is why we hold to the Trinity because the Bible says so so those are a couple things so one Definition I'm going off of is within the one being that is God there exists eternally three Co-equal and distinct persons the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The Meaning of Lord, Adonai, Elohim, and Theos

Okay, so that's kind of the definition that I'm going off of and then one thing I'd like to point out as we get into our text in English. You may notice I've got some words appear on the board. We've got Lord.

We've got Lord and we've got God. Okay in in our text I want you to notice that sometimes the word Lord is all capital capital O capital Capital L capital O capital R capital D all uppercase. That's Lord.

That is the tetragrammaton the Yod. Hey, wow. Hey, that's Yahweh, that's his name that he gives himself. Okay, so that's his name. The next one with a capital L and the rest lowercase Lord that is typically the word Adonai.

Which is a title. It's not a name. It's a title which means Sovereign one or master and oftentimes it's ascribed to God. But it's a title Adonai. In the Old Testament, we have the word God and that can be Elohim.

Which in Hebrew that that ending heem makes it plural. But it's singular. It's one God singular and we'll see that in our text tonight. Also, you can see the word El and that's also the word for God and we get that if you've heard Handles Messiah or read in Isaiah the mighty God the everlasting that mighty God that's El Gabor.

That means mighty 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 Lord It's giving the name if you're seeing the Lord the lowercase Lord.

It's giving the title Adonai meaning sovereign one and this is important because in other False Translations like the Jehovah's they don't have that distinction. They rip it out and they just give Say Jehovah, which is actually a mixture of Yahweh and Adonai if you'll notice here Yahweh.

It's just Y H W H. There's no vowels there. So how do you pronounce that? Well, they took the vowels from Adonai and They put them into the name Yahweh and so it Transliterates into Jehovah and so that's where they get that they combine a name and a title to make Jehovah.

And so as we're going through the text Take note of those terms 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 Theos where we get theology, which is the study of God.

Theos and in the word Lord is Kyrios. Which is the equivalent? to the Old Testament Adonai Sovereign one master Kyrios and so that's what we get in the New Testament. So with those kind of definitions, let's jump in to our study so Foundational truth number one.

I've got three of them. I'm not going to do them all tonight. We'll probably just get through the first one, but foundational truth. Number one. There is only one God. And so we call this monotheism. So this is foundational truth.

Number one. There is only one God and if you didn't get those terms I'll be writing them down the next couple weeks so you can get them. So turning your Bible to Deuteronomy chapter 6. Deuteronomy chapter 6.

Looking in verse 4 and we'll be we'll be going through several texts. So you'll want to have your Bibles ready to flip to other texts, but Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4. It says this Hear O Israel The Lord all capital is your God the Lord is one.

Okay. So here we have God naming himself. Using the divine name Yahweh. He says hear O Israel. He's talking to his people. He says Yahweh is Our God. Yahweh is one. There is only one God. Okay. Turn to Isaiah 43 10 and this is the famous text that Jehovah's Witnesses Get their name from they use this text.

Isaiah 43 10 it says you are my witnesses declares the Lord and My servant whom I have chosen. So that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me there was no God formed and after me will be none.

Will be none after me. So here's a statement that God is saying about himself. There is only one God there are no gods formed before him and there were no gods formed after him. One God there is only one God.

Same book Isaiah 44 verse 6. Thus says the Lord the king of Israel and his Redeemer the Lord of hosts. I am the first I am the last there is no God besides me. So again, we have him using his name all capital Lord, and we also have God Elohim, so he's saying I am the only being that is God.

There are no other beings that are God only me. Isaiah 44 verse 8. This is 8b and you are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me or is there any other rock? I know of none. Now God is all-knowing.

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

The answer is no there are no other gods besides him. He knows of other and he's all-knowing. So there are no other gods. Same book Isaiah 44 verse 24. Thus says the Lord your Redeemer and the one who formed you from the womb I The Lord and the maker of all things.

Stretching out the heavens by myself and spreading out the earth all alone. Right. So these are some pretty definite statements about the one being God. There is only one God he created himself by himself.

Look at Isaiah chapter 45 five through seven. I Am the Lord and there is no other Besides me. There is no 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.

I am the Lord and there is no other the one forming light and creating darkness. Causing well-being and creating calamity. I am the Lord who does all these. Right, so most of these have been out of Isaiah.

But just so you don't think it's one prophet saying there's one God. Let's turn to Jeremiah. Jeremiah chapter 10. 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. So in verse 11, he switches from speaking Hebrew to speaking Aramaic. Giving the Jews the words that they're to say to the other countries.

He tells the Jews What to say to the other countries in their own language, but this is what he says. So Jeremiah 10 verse 10 through 12. But the Lord is the true God. He is the living God and the everlasting King at his wrath the earthquakes and the Nations cannot endure his indignation.

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. 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. So again, this is Jeremiah. Saying there is one Lord. The Lord is the true God in Comparison to the other gods that did not create.

And he uses a lowercase g there. He says they don't exist. They will perish. There are no other gods. So from this truth, we learned that there is only one God. So we call this monotheism. So I'd like to point out some other texts, but I want to take a moment here to point something out.

We call this monotheism meaning one God, but we say the word Trinity. Tri meaning three and unity so three and one is what we often say. What we're not saying is that there is one God and that there are three gods.

Right, that would be tri-theism. We don't believe in three gods. We believe in one 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.

So when we run into people that have trouble explaining The Trinity maybe they affirm it like yeah three and one. But it's it's like this 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? They believe in many gods. No, the verses we just looked at says there is only one God.

Okay, so the Trinity is clearly taught in the Bible. It's absent from The 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 Bible.

They they'll say use the King James which has the Trinity. But then they go to other books and that aren't part of the Bible. So one thing I'd like to point out when we start talking about the Trinity oftentimes the the topic of analogies come up so when we try to Explain the Trinity oftentimes people will try to use an analogy 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 God is like this thing and we have it in reverse. Because God is not like these things.

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. But to say God is like this. There is nothing that is like God. So I'm going to give a couple examples and again, this isn't condemnation.

But let's see if we can flesh some of this out. So I Myself am a person. But when I got married I became a husband and when I had kids I became a father. 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. And so someone may try to explain the Trinity like that. Well, you have God the Father and then he became God the Son and then he becomes the Spirit.

But that's not the way the Bible speaks because all three persons are distinct you have the Son. Talking to the Father you have the Son saying I will send a helper the Holy Spirit. He's a distinct person.

He doesn't just change roles like when he's in the heaven as the Father. He has God the Father mask on and then when he becomes the Son, he's wearing the Sun mask. No, he's not changing his role. He is a distinct person.

I think of John 3 16 for God so loved the world that he sent himself. It says that he sent his son his only son a distinct person. Another analogy that I've heard is Water you'll say that water can be in three different forms.

It can be a solid in ice. It can be a liquid in water or it can be in gas. But that's the same type of air. We're trying to say God is like Something that he created. No God is distinct. He is one being in Three persons that's unique.

I can't think of anything that's like that God is unique in that aspect and so there are different errors that have been made trying to explain the Trinity. But we should see no there is one God in Three persons, so I wanted to look at a couple of more texts on that first foundational truth.

There is only one God. If you'll turn to Psalm 96 Psalm 96 9 6 and Look at verse 5. Psalm 96 verse 5 It says for all the gods of the peoples are idols. But the Lord has made the heavens and this is in contrast to what we read Earlier Deuteronomy 435 to you.

It was shown that you might know that the Lord he is God. There is no other besides him. And then there's places that the 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.

Those are things that the people have made up in their own imaginations. It says the Lord alone has made the heavens. Deuteronomy 439. Know therefore today and take it to your heart that the Lord he is God in heaven.

He is God in heaven above and on earth below and there is no other right. So this becomes very interesting when talking to some of the other groups, so Mormons will teach that there are many many gods and that You can become 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 God of that planet. It's polytheism. There are millions and millions of gods in their view.

But here in the Bible, which is interesting because they'll use the King James. So if you're talking To Mormons, you can use the Bible that they use and show them these verses and saying God Says there are no other gods.

What do you do with that? Just ask them. What do you do with that? Should I believe you that's telling me that I can become a 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.

There's only one and this is also the same with the Jehovah's Witness. So and we'll get into to this next week in John 1 1 In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was 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 God. That's a very different if the Word is a God then there are many gods.

Which is what the Jehovah's Witness teach that Jesus is a lesser God of God the Father. But that can't be Given what God says in the Old Testament. Over and over again as we've read there is only one God there are no gods before him.

No gods after him. There's only one God. So Yahweh capital Lord Takes great pains in the Old Testament to make sure that Israel knows that there is only one God and that Yahweh is his name. There's only one being Known as God and there are no other types of beings that can take that Designation that can be called that being just like we are human beings and we have angelic beings.

There's only one being that is called God. There are not many gods. There's not Greater gods and lesser gods, right? 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 El where it says El Gabor in Isaiah, and it says mighty God.

They'll say well, it doesn't say almighty God. It just says mighty God. So almighty God is talking about the Father and mighty God is talking about the Son. No. Read these texts over and over again. There's only one God so you can't you can't get around that fact.

So when the Bible speaks about Jesus Being given a name above all names. It describes it in many different ways. So in the Old Testament you have Lord all-capital and again, that's his name Yahweh. You have Lord with uppercase L, but the rest is lowercase.

That's Adonai and that's an exalted title. Sovereign one and that's where we get say King of Kings, right? He's sovereign over the Kings. 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 from beginning to the end.

There are no gods. So we see throughout the Old Testament That Yahweh speaks to another person and so if you'll go to Psalm I believe it's 110. This will be a preview for next week. So this is verse 1 of Psalm 110 and notice again the way that the words are put there the Lord Says to my Lord sit at my right hand.

Until I make your enemies a footstool. So what's what's going on here? This is in the Old Testament. So I've heard some people say in the Old Testament We learn about there being one God and in the New Testament We learn about the Trinity, but the Trinity is taught all throughout Scripture.

Not just in the New Testament now We see God working as one more often in the Old Testament. But there are plenty of passages like this one. So so what's going on the Lord? Who is that? All capital who is that?

Right Yahweh. That's the name the Lord says to my Lord. Who is that? That was Adonai, right? So David is saying the Lord God Said to my sovereign one Sit at my right hand. Right and in the New Testament, we know there's all of this language about Jesus sitting at the right hand.

That's right here. David tells us in this Psalm that God the one being God Says to this Sovereign one to sit at his right hand. Right, so we we see it even here and these are verses that you can talk to The Mormons to the Jehovah's Witness about and saying look I'm just saying there's one God, but there's More than one person here and we have more than enough verses that show that there is only one 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 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. Well, you believe in three gods. So what's wrong with me believing in many gods? No, no, no. No, there's only one God. So you start with that foundational truth.

There's only one God and you go to those texts. God is even putting it as a question. There's no gods before me none after me. I know of none. Okay. 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 that they'll pull it doesn't say Yahweh and it doesn't have the lowercase Lord.

It says the same thing so they don't have that distinction. You can't tell that there's two people here that David is saying My Lord said to my Lord 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 God and so what we'll cover in the coming weeks is foundational truth number two is That within that one God there are three distinct and co-equal persons 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.

Three Distinct and Co-Equal Persons

So I'm hoping that next week. We'll look at what the Bible says about God the Father God the Son as a distinct person. What qualities does he have and God the 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. So that's what I've got for tonight. I wanted to leave time for prayer. Next weeks 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 do we are not polytheists. We are not tritheists. We believe in one God and that's what the Bible says so then What else is it saying we can apprehend we know enough to see that Jesus was trying to say something specific He was trying to say there is only one God, but he was saying something additional.

While not saying that there were many gods. He did not give up on Monotheism he affirmed that all the way through.