Blessed Trinity

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Well, good evening, everyone. Welcome to Sunday evening service. We're doing ice cream afterwards.
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Is that correct? Is that right? Good deal for those of you like me who have sort of a gift of perspiration.
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I know Mike can relate to that. Why don't you turn with me to John chapter 1.
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It's not the epistle of John, not 1 John. It's John chapter 1. What we'd like to discuss with you tonight, let me ask you actually first, how would you explain the doctrine of the
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Trinity to someone who had never heard of Christ? Maybe a pagan, maybe somebody from another culture.
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How would you explain the doctrine of the Trinity? How can God be three persons, yet one
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God? How does that work? How does that happen? Some people you'd have to say, they'd ask, is that even biblical?
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Is that even in the Bible? So this evening what we're going to do is we're going to talk about the triune nature of God, God the
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Father, Son, Holy Spirit, also known as the Trinity. Now Trinity is not a word found in the
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Bible. How many knew that? Trinity is not in the Bible. A lot of you knew that. It's not in the Bible. Does that mean it's not a biblical term?
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Well, we're going to find out tonight. I think you know the answer already. You would explain that to somebody.
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Let me start that way. How would you explain the doctrine of the Trinity? Would you use analogies? Maybe you'd say, well, it's like a shamrock.
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It's what St. Patrick did to the people in Ireland, right? He said, well, here's this shamrock.
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He picked it up, showed it to the pagan druids in Ireland and said, here's what
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God is like. Three leaves. God is three persons. And he used that analogy as a bridge to help reach those people with the gospel of Christ.
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And sure enough, Ireland was converted under the preaching of St. Patrick. Another analogy, like an egg.
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An egg, you have a shell, a yolk, and a white. Is that what the Trinity is like? Or maybe humans, we have a mind, we have a body, we have a spirit.
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Maybe that's what the Trinity is like. Is that what you would do to explain the Trinity to someone? Well, I hope what you would do,
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I think you're trained to do, is take them to the Bible, and that's what we're going to do tonight. Analogies are fine, but here's the problem with analogy.
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With analogy, it only takes you so far. All analogies, by definition, are imperfect. It's only going to get to that shamrock is going to break down at some point.
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It's not going to follow all the way through. There's going to be some point where it's going to turn into a heresy if you just use one analogy.
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So what we have to do is go to the Word of God, and the best place I know of to find that doctrine centrally taught is in John 1.
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Now, you could ask yourself, am I a good theologian or a bad theologian?
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I think Pastor Steve said a few weeks ago, we're all theologians. So are you a good one or a bad one?
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Well, part of the goal tonight is I want to encourage you and challenge you to become a better theologian.
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Even non -Christians are theologians too, right? It's just that they have a non -biblical theology.
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We all have a vision of God, good or bad. Did you know, according to Phil Johnson, that all heresies attack either the nature of Christ or the nature of salvation?
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I'll say that again. Every single major heresy attacks either the nature of Christ or the nature of salvation.
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You wouldn't think, well, that's for those Jehovah's Witnesses or for those Mormons. That's somebody else. Well, who's ever heard of the
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Weigh Down Workshop? Gwen Shamblin. Some people have heard of that. Did you know that she is anti -Trinitarian?
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She does not believe the doctrine of the Trinity. There are a lot of evangelical churches that have that ministry in them.
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So if you think it's just a problem outside these doors, it's inside as well. So we need to be ready to defend the doctrine of the
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Trinity both inside and out the church. Well, tonight we're also going to take a look at a heresy called
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Arianism. What Arianism was, it's named after around the 4th century, the year 300, a man named
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Arius and his followers. A modern offshoot of that is the Jehovah's Witnesses. And so if you come up with somebody who's just maybe
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Jehovah's Witnesses, maybe not. I had a gentleman email me recently, a friend I hadn't seen, a coach
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I used to coach with a long time ago. Recently got back in touch with me, got my email, and almost the first thing he said is, hey,
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I heard you're in Bible school. How about that doctrine of the Trinity? That's not even in the Bible. I said, whoa,
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I wasn't ready. Hi, Charlie, how are you doing? But immediately he put that heresy before me.
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Well, the good news is we have a lot of resources, so I was able to find the answer and email him back. But you know what?
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In the 3rd century, they didn't have that. There was no CBD sales, right? There was no
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Wayne Grudem. They just did not have that, so guess what? The church was in trouble in the 3rd century.
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We're going to talk a little about the history of the heresy that almost became the official doctrine of the church.
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It was that close. Well, tonight we're going to discuss a little of the history. We're also going to look at a few passages.
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We're in John 1. Let me read it for you. Before we do that, let me open with a word of prayer.
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Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you this evening that you have brought us all together to learn at your feet, as it were, from your
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Word. And Lord, I pray that your Spirit would illuminate our minds as we listen to the doctrine about your beloved
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Son, Jesus Christ. And Lord, we do thank you that you have given us this
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Word and other resources to know the truth. And we pray, Lord, that we would be attentive, and Lord, that we would be inclined to obey more importantly.
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In Jesus' name, amen. Well, John 1, beginning in verse 1, says this,
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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
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Word was God. He was in the beginning with God, and all things came into being through Him.
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And apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
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The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. Well, a lot of people would like to turn to the first chapter of John and use this as a proof text.
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So what we're going to do tonight, we're actually going to look at not only John chapter 1, for a couple of the reasons why
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Jesus was God. So if you're taking notes tonight, this is reasons to believe in the deity of Christ, or reasons to believe
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Jesus is God. And before we actually dig into the text, what I want to do is just take you back about a month or so when
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James White was here. You remember he had a session on the Trinity? I just want to refresh your memory for a minute.
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What he said was, the Trinity can really be described as a triangle. And I don't have his PowerPoint projector here, so you just have to sort of use your mind.
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The Trinity is, there's three basic truths that we have to keep in perfect balance.
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If any one of those is lost or is out of balance, then what happens is you lose the biblical doctrine of the
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Trinity. The first one, the top of the triangle, so to speak, is monotheism. Deuteronomy 6, 4 to 8, says this,
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So we have monotheism as the top part of the triangle. The other part, the second part of the triangle, is
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God is three persons. If we go to Matthew 3, verses 16 to 17, we see clearly there the baptism of Christ.
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And after being baptized, verse 16, Jesus came up immediately from the water, and, behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the
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Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on him. And, behold, a voice of the heavens said,
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This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. So we have monotheism is the first pillar.
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The second pillar is God is three persons. The third pillar, and this is where the
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Arian heresy and the Jehovah's Witnesses fall short. Each of these persons is fully God, co -equal as God, and co -eternal.
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It wasn't God the Father first, and then came God the Son. They both were co -eternal, and that's what we'll see in the text here in John 1.
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Well, the first proof, the idea here in John 1, really every phrase of John 1 is full of meaning.
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And what we're going to do is go phrase by phrase and just look through this and see what this teaches us about each person.
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In this case, Christ is fully God. Now, a lot of people don't have a problem with God the
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Father. God the Father is God, yes. God the Spirit, okay. Less problem,
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God is Spirit, okay. But once you get to Jesus, that's where a lot of people fall short, and that's where a lot of people go astray.
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So what we really want to concentrate is on Jesus, because that's where the objections are going to come. Because why?
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Well, Jesus was human as well, okay, and that's where people fall. This is where people stumble, and that's where they have a problem.
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So we want to understand how Jesus is God. And so we look at the very first phrase there, in the beginning, where else have we heard that?
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That's from Genesis 1. Obviously, John is taking us back to Genesis 1, time eternal.
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This is time immemorial, eternity past, if you will. This is where the
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Gospel is said. This is where Jesus, the Word, is begun. Did he have a beginning?
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No. He was there in the beginning. So it gives us our framework, it gives us our point of reference that Jesus was there in the beginning with God.
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And we'll get that in the next phrase. The apostle here is saying that the Word was what we call preexistent.
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Okay, the Word of God was preexistent. The Word existed before creation.
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And that's just one little phrase. And in fact, in the Greek, it's exactly the same. In the Greek version of the
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Old Testament, the wording is exactly the same. So John is pulling that out, pointing us to the fact that this
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Word, this is where we start. If you want to understand this Jesus, if you want to understand this Word, this is where you go, back to the very beginning, before creation began.
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Well, the expression doesn't really refer... I want you to understand this. When we say, in the beginning, you know, if we say, well, this sermon had a beginning, or this service had a beginning, you think, well, time started.
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Well, that's, in this understanding of the beginning and what that means, it doesn't mean that at all.
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It's an eternal term. It means eternity. So it's very important that the essential elements, one of the essential elements of God is that He is eternal, and we need to understand that that applies to Jesus as well.
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So John is clearly stating, this Word that I'm giving forth to you is eternal.
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So the second phrase there, if you look in John 1, in the beginning was the Word. The Word of God was in the beginning.
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Where did this term come from? Well, it came originally from Greek philosophy that was used there, but even it was a pagan term, and F .F.
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Bruce says this. He says, It denoted a principle in Greek philosophy of reason or order in the universe.
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That was the Greek idea. It was just this idea of this nebulous ordering principle. Well, John took that much further.
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He used the Hebrew term and the Hebrew idea, because if you look at Psalm 33 .6,
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here's what it says. By the Word, and that's that same Greek word,
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Lagos, by the way, for the Greek students, Lagos. By the same
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Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and the starry host by the breath of His mouth.
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So really here, John is hearkening back to this Hebrew idea, not just a simple
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Greek term, which was empty, and it really was this nebulous term, but he's saying, No, it's a creative element.
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In the next phrase, actually, you're going to find that this word was instrumental in the creation of the world.
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So the question comes, How could He be a creature? We'll get to that, because that's what
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Arius and his followers believe, and the Jehovah's Witnesses today. So it goes way beyond just speaking something.
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When God spoke the world into existence, it's not just He said it, but there's a creative process going on here.
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So really, you have to get a deeper understanding of what the word means in the Greek, the Lagos that he's referring to here.
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It's an activity. It's a creative capacity of God. And clearly in this context, it's a reference to Christ.
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Let's look at the next phrase here, And the Word was with God. And the people that deny the divinity of Christ, they will say,
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See, it says the Word wasn't God. It says the Word was just with God. So how can the
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Word be with God and God at the same time? And it makes them stumble. But really, this is wonderful, because John is really pulling apart.
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He's not saying that the Word is exactly the same as all of God, but he's saying that the
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Word was with God. So you have God the Father. You have God the Son here at the beginning.
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And John's making a very clear statement that the Word was a distinct person from the
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Father. And remember the triangle. You need three persons for the Trinity. You need one God, and you need that they're both co -equal or both fully
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God. And so what he's saying here is not only that he is there at the beginning, is eternal, but that he's also with God.
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But that leaves us a little bit hanging, so we have to go to the next part of this phrase. And this is where the
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Jehovah's Witnesses translation, I believe it's a New World translation, has a different translation. And it says this,
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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Well, that's just a bomb.
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If you are reading this Gospel for the first time, the Word was God, that is an amazing statement for John to make.
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But he just builds upon it. The Word was eternal, the Word is another person of God, and the
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Word was God. So putting all these things together is very, very essential to do in understanding how to defend the doctrine of the
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Trinity. You go to Jehovah's Witnesses, they're going to bring out their translation, the Word was a
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God. Well, which is it? Well, without knowing Greek, it's very, very hard to take somebody to this passage in dispute.
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My Bible says the Word was God. Yours says the Word was a God. Well, you know what? You've got to actually ask them a couple of questions.
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First of all, this exact Greek wording of God is translated 282 times in the
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New Testament. Almost every time it's translated as God.
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Okay? In Greek you have the article, and you have an article is the word the in Greek.
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Well, here it's God does not have the article. Well, that could present a problem because, you know, if we have something that's indefinite, we use our little
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English word a. Well, here it doesn't have the definite article saying the one God.
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So they justify it by saying, well, it doesn't have the article. It mustn't be God. He's a
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God. Well, what do you open up then? You get rid of monotheism. You just toss that out, and now you're back to tritheism.
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So if somebody challenges you, you have to ask them, so how many gods do you want? How many gods do you believe in?
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And so the error that they replace traditional orthodox belief with in the biblical teaching is much worse than what they're trying to avoid, that Jesus is
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God. Well, I don't have time to really go much further into this because what
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I want you to do is I want you to get a broad picture of what it says regarding Jesus and the divinity of Christ.
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Again, this is proof number one, that Jesus is God because the Bible clearly says he was
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God. Now, let's look in verse 2 to find out what else it says. In verse 2, he was in the beginning with God.
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Now, he is referring obviously to the Word. So again, he's saying that this is a distinct person who is also
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God. Okay, so this does not say that, okay, he's not
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God. It's just saying that here we have the second part of that Trinitarian understanding, the
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Word was with God. In verse 3, he was in the beginning with God and all things came into being through him.
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Apart from him, nothing came into being. In him was life and life was the light of men.
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The life, excuse me, was the light of men. Let's stop there. In verse 3, what
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John is saying is that all things came into being through him. Now, that's an astonishing statement as well.
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Not only was the Word God, but all things were created or came into being through that very same
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Word. So, this term created really is reserved for God alone.
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Okay, we can be creative in one sense, but the creation and everything that was created only comes from God.
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Now, what Arius and the Jehovah's Witnesses would argue is that Jesus was a created being.
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This disproves that. This says that, no, Jesus was not a created being. He himself was the creator.
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Again, an astonishing statement because anybody who reads the rest of the Gospel of John would say, but he's human too.
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And this is the God that we believe in. This is the God of the Bible. Fully human, fully divine.
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The other part of it is not only the creative aspect. Let me give you a cross -reference for that.
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We have in Colossians, Paul says in Colossians 1, 16 and 17, for by him, referring to Christ, for by him all things were created both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.
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All things have been created through him and for him. Now listen to this.
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He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. So we have
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Christ here, not only creating things but holding them together. The Word of God, the
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Son of God, as we will read later, clearly identified as the Son of God. He is the creative power.
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He is the one who holds everything and sustains everything. It is created by him and for him.
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Just an amazing thing to hear. But it is the truth. It is God's Word. Hebrews 1, 1 -3 says,
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God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days he has spoken to us through his
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Son, whom he appointed heir of all things and through whom he also made the world. And he is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature.
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And he upholds all things by the word of his power. And when he made purification of sins, he sat down at the right hand of majesty on high.
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Again, teaching that this Word, this Jesus, is fully God, that he has all the creative capacity of God in person, that this is
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Jesus. John is making no mistake about it. He wants you to understand right up front in his Gospel. He is writing the
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Gospel so that we believe in Christ. He states that in John 20. But he is also saying, I want you to know who this
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Jesus is. No doubt about it. No mistakes. This Jesus is God.
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So in summary, just in this first proof that Jesus is God because the Bible clearly states he was
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God, we see from John 1, 1 -5 that Jesus was co -eternal with the
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Father, that he was co -equal with the Father, and he has the personal qualities of God, the creative nature and the creative duties of God, if you will.
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And he is a different person from the Father. But he is the same divine essence as God the
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Father. Jesus is God, the second person of the Trinity. The Bible clearly states that.
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And we only looked at three places, but you could look at many more. Well, the second reason that we believe that Jesus is
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God, or proof number two, is that Jesus Christ is God because he did things only
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God can do. Now, we've just looked at the creative aspect, and this is clearly stated in John 1, 2, or John 1, verse 2 and verse 3.
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One commentator said, This verse may seem to be repetitious, verse 3 he's going back to, but it succinctly summarizes the truths taught in verse 1 by means of restatement.
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Pre -existence, distinctiveness, and deity. Some other examples of what
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Jesus can do that only God can do. God can forgive sins.
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Jesus forgives sins. In Mark 2, when
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Jesus heals the man, in Mark 2, verse 7, he says your sins are forgiven, and the
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Pharisees get upset because they clearly understand that the only one who can forgive sins is
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God. And they accuse him of blasphemy because he was claiming to forgive other people's sins towards God.
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So clearly that was a statement that he was God. So Jesus can forgive. Jesus is creator.
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He's forgiver of sins. And in 2 Timothy 4, verse 1, Christ is judge.
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And not only does the Bible state clearly that Jesus was God in those elements where it clearly states he's the exact nature of God, but also
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Jesus does things that only God can do. That's proof number two. Proof number three,
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Jesus is God because he fulfilled Old Testament prophecies of a divine Messiah. In Psalm 2, it's a
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Messianic Psalm. Worship Jehovah and do homage to the Son. This is
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Psalm 2. In Acts 13 .33, the same exact title of Jehovah is applied to Christ.
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Worship Jehovah and do homage to the Son. Now in Hebrew, Hebrew parallelism, when you get
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Hebrew parallelism, when you have one phrase, typically it's equivalent. So you have in Psalm 2, worship
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Jehovah and do homage to the Son. So in that sense, he's equating
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Jehovah God with the Son. And so in that sense,
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Jesus is fulfilling and these Old Testament prophecies were applied that were originally written about Jehovah, were applied to the
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Son of God. In Psalm 110, Jesus existed before David.
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And it states clearly there in Matthew 22 that he's referring to David. He's superior to David.
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He is the divine Messiah as referenced in that passage. Why don't you turn with me for a minute to Isaiah 9 .6.
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And we'll further deal with this third proof that Jesus fulfilled divine prophecy or prophecy that there would be a divine
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Messiah. In Isaiah 9, excuse me,
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I just swallowed some water. In Isaiah 9 .6,
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we have a prophecy, excuse me, we have a prophecy of the divine
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Messiah. And in that prophecy, Isaiah is stating, and we usually hear this right at Christmas time, but Isaiah is stating that the people in verse 2, who walk in darkness will see a great light.
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Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them. Now, let's jump down to verse 6 of Isaiah 9.
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For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulders.
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And his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
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There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on forevermore.
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The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. So we have here clear statements about titles that can only apply to God.
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And Isaiah is saying here, a child will be born to us. A good verse to reference this with is
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Isaiah 7, verse 14, where it says a child will be born and they will call him
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Immanuel, which means God with us. So this is a very important point because people get the idea, well, the
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Old Testament had this idea that there was no divine Messiah.
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There was no idea that the Son would have the nature of God, when in fact that's not true at all.
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And this is one of probably the main, if you were to take somebody to the Scriptures, this is one of the main passages you want to take them to,
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Isaiah 9, verse 6. Let's look at the titles. His name will be called
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Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God. That is an incredibly strong description that is an incredibly strong name of God used in the
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Old Testament, used in other places as well, referring only to God Jehovah, God the Father.
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Eternal Father, Av Olam, that is a term that can only mean Father Everlasting.
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Again, the eternal element that this divine Messiah was going to not only be there at the beginning with God, as we saw in John chapter 1, but He's going to be the everlasting
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Father here. Again, the eternal element, the quality of God as applied to Christ.
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And Prince of Peace, as we know, He brought peace in the hearts of men who would believe.
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And so, this is a third proof that Jesus was divine.
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Not only was, did the Bible clearly state that He was in many places, not only does
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He do things only God can do, but He also fulfills the
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Old Testament prophecies that clearly state that there would be a divine Messiah. Well, there are other proofs, and let me take you quickly to, just to a couple others.
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I'm not going to take you to these passages, just let me read them to you. Jesus is God because He claimed to be God. In John 8, verse 58, before Abraham was,
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I am. That I am statement, that again, when
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He appeared to Moses in the burning bush, when Jehovah God appeared to Moses, that was the name that He asked to be referred to.
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I am who I am. And Jesus here is referring to I am. I am
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God. Before Abraham was, I am. Not I was, but I am.
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And clearly, the Pharisees understood what He was saying because they react to it.
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And they say that we're blasphemy, we're going to stone you for blasphemy because you, a mere man, claim to be
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God. So there's another proof. Jesus Himself claimed to be God. And there are other places. Actually, let's turn to Revelation chapter 1 quickly.
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Revelation chapter 1. Again, Jesus claims to be
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God. You know, a lot of times I've had Jehovah's Witnesses very infrequently come to my door. They deny the deity of Christ.
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And I'm not sure how much traction you'll make discussing, without a knowledge of Greek, discussing John 1 with them.
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But you can point out the inconsistencies there. But, if you take them to Revelation chapter 1 and verse 8.
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And here, God is speaking and He says, I am the Alpha and the
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Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the
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Almighty. So you take somebody who doesn't believe in Trinity and say, who is that speaking of? They'll say, well, it says right there, the
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Lord God. That's exactly right. Well, turn over to me the
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Alpha and the Omega. Turn over with me then to Revelation chapter 22. Revelation chapter 22 and verse 12 to 13.
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Revelation 22 verses 12 to 13. And this is just an amazing, again, passage where Christ is claiming that He is
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God. In verse 12 it reads, Behold, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me, to render to every man according to what he has done.
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I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
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And you ask the person, who is that speaking? You look down to verse 16 and it says, I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify these things for the churches.
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So you take them to Revelation chapter 1 .8. There's the Lord God saying, I'm Alpha and Omega. Take them to Revelation 22 .13.
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Jesus saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the one who is the first and the last, the one who is the one who is to come. So Jesus is clearly stating, again, that He is
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God. Well, some other proofs quickly. Jesus is God because He received worship that belongs to God alone.
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The Bible says He's God. He does things. He has qualities only God has.
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He's omniscient. He's judge. He's creator. He also fulfills the
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Old Testament prophecies that refer to the divine Messiah. And here in John chapter 20, verses 25 through 28, we have the password, doubting
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Thomas wasn't present, but now he is. It's the upper room. Or it's the disciples' room. I'm not sure it was the upper room.
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It wasn't. But we have the disciples meeting and Jesus appears to them and Thomas is now present.
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And Thomas says... Jesus says, feel my hands.
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Feel my feet. Stick your hand on my side. I am risen from the dead.
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And Thomas can only say, my Lord and my God. That reaction, if Jesus was not
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God, what would He have done? He would have said, no, no, no. You don't worship me. But no,
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He commended him and says that, blessed are you, Thomas, because you have seen me and believe.
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But blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. So Jesus received worship as only God can receive worship.
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In other places, the Apostle Peter, preaching near the temple, they told him to stop preaching in the name.
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He was... They wanted to worship. Paul, for example, in Athens. They wanted to worship him.
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They said, don't worship us. We're just men. Paul and Barnabas. They refused worship because worship belongs to only God alone.
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A good righteous Jew would have understood that. So Jesus was saying something that was totally radical.
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I am God. He received worship as God. And there are many other proofs.
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There are many proofs. You can't take people to one proof text. It would be great if you could just say, oh, here's the Trinity. It's here in one chapter.
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John 1, verses 1 -5 is about as close as we get. But it's important to know that these arguments go one on top of another and they prove that Jesus was the
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Son of God, the Divine Messiah. Well, what
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I want to do for the next few minutes is just take you... bring you an illustration from church history of where the divinity of Christ was in serious jeopardy, as I said at the beginning, and was almost lost.
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You know, before about the year 300, Christianity was legalized.
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Emperor Constantine became a Christian. Well, before that point, what was going on? There was a lot of persecution.
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And basically, the church had all it could do to survive. The persecution was so strong that the church really didn't have time to deal in all these doctrinal issues the way they would like to.
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Well, peace came. The empire became Christian, so to speak. And so the church didn't have to worry about survival.
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So the situation was ripe for this kind of controversy to erupt. Not only that, but as I said before, you didn't have the resources.
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You know, you didn't have the Greek studies. You didn't have the knowledge level that we have today to determine, to answer a question.
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And somebody comes up to you, and for example, the first person that really brought this to a head was a man named
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Arius. Now, Arius was in the north of Alexandria, Egypt. And Arius was less than a bishop.
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He was more of a pastor. But he heard his bishop give a sermon saying that Jesus was exactly the same nature as God.
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And he accused him of what we call modalism, that Jesus was the exact same thing as God the
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Father. They were exactly the same. They weren't separate persons. So he accused him of heresy. Well, he used proof texts like Luke 2, 42, and 52.
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Well, it says that Jesus grew in wisdom. Well, if Jesus was God, how can he grow in wisdom? That doesn't make any sense.
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Jesus at the well, John chapter 4, you have Jesus said, I thirst,
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I'm thirsty. Well, if he's God, how can he thirst? God doesn't thirst. And other verses like Matthew 24 in that end time chapter where Jesus said, the end will come and no one knows the day or the hour but the
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Father in heaven. They say, see, he's not God. God would know what time the end time would come.
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And then John 14, 28, the Father is greater than I. There's the perfect proof text for Jehovah's Witnesses.
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The Father is greater than I, therefore he's not God. He's God, I'm not. It's like he's preaching
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Aryan heresy. Well, how would you answer that? How do we answer that?
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Well, basically what they do is they took these proof texts out that clearly teach the humanity of Christ. They rip them out of context and say, see,
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Jesus is not God. He's just a man. Well, again, what we have to understand and this is a later controversy,
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Christological controversy where Jesus is fully God and Jesus is fully man. How do those two mix? That's a different question.
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But to take those verses and say, look, Jesus is not God ignores the whole other half of the biblical witness.
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And so we have to point out to these people, hey, look, you're ignoring the half that says he's God. All this says is he's fully man as well.
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What we have to do is we have to go to Philippians 2 to understand about how
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Jesus emptied himself, willfully emptied himself of all his rights as God, of all his privileges as God and became a man to die for the sins of the world.
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And that's what these folks have to understand. Well, in the 4th century, as I said, this man
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Arius brought this to a head. He refused to repent. It was a mass support movement.
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So what Arius did is he taught slogans to workers in Alexandria and the most popular slogan was there was when he was not, speaking of Christ.
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There was a time when Jesus Christ was not. He claimed that Jesus was a created being. Now this fit in great with Greek philosophy because they had a lot of smaller deities.
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They had a lot of other little sort of a chain of being where they would sort of line up these
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God, the Almighty God, these transcendent God and then these lesser gods. They were increasingly more human.
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So Jesus fit perfectly into that as they understood it. So he went with that and he went all out denying.
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It actually was an all out denial and an onslaught, an attack on the deity of Christ in the 4th century.
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Well, along came a man named Athanasius. And Athanasius wrote a book called On the Incarnation.
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He wrote it when he was 20 years old. Now, I know I wasn't doing anything like this at 20 years old but Athanasius was an incredible godly man and he was an incredibly learned man.
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He was exactly the man God needed to use at this point in time providentially to stem the tide of this heresy.
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Well, he was the main defender of biblical doctrine and he expressed the conviction that the incarnation is the central, the central point of all
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Christianity. And if Jesus was created, he was less than God and it was struck at the heart of the
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Christian faith. One historian says if Arius argued Christ was not fully
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God, a series of devastating implications followed. First, it was impossible for God to redeem humanity as no creature could redeem another creature.
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And second, it followed that the Christian church was guilty of idolatry because Christians regularly worshipped and prayed to Jesus.
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So he clearly stated out, this is our dilemma. If the Jehovah's Witness is right, if Arius is right, we are polytheists and we are idolaters.
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But if Athanasius was right, then we worship Jesus as God and salvation can be accomplished for mankind.
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So you had two split sides of this controversy. Well, enter Emperor Constantine. We've all heard of Emperor Constantine.
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He's the one who legalized Christianity. Well, he was a key player in this because he had this empire.
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He wanted Christianity to sort of be this uniting force. He had his problems. Well, when he saw this controversy, he said, this church
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I've just become a member of that I see as this great unifying force is now getting ready to split in two.
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So what he did is he took the bull by the horns and he said, I'm going to call this council. That was the council of Nicaea from where we get the
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Nicene Creed. And that's the first time that the church actually developed the creed that said, that clearly stated the nature of who
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Jesus was. And so the amazing thing is how God sometimes uses doctrinal controversy to help the church nail down what it believes.
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It's like when my friend sent me that email. He said, what about this Trinity thing? Well, it forced me to go and look and research.
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And so I think it's important that we are equipped to understand and to be ready to make an answer for these objections because the answers are clear.
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If you do a little bit of study, you can be equipped to handle and defend not only the nature of Christ who we worship, but also to clearly set these people on the right path to give them the gospel as well.
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Which is really what they need. Well, the issue was actually settled quickly at this council, but for the next 50 years, the church went back and forth.
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Sometimes if an emperor was in favor of one man or the other, they were the ones whose position won out the day.
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What got to the point eventually, by the way, Athanasius, the defender of Orthodoxy, was exiled five separate times.
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He was kicked out of his post as bishop. And they put in an Arian, a heretic, in his position.
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Well, it's an amazing story. I encourage you, if you get a chance to study church history,
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I know the pastor recommends a lot of books, but I'd recommend a good church history book to you. See me after and I'll suggest some to you.
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It is just an amazing portion of church history that was really critical.
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It got to the point where Athanasius, basically every bishop in the whole church except for Athanasius, was either
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Arian or sympathetic to the Arians. Basically, Jehovah's Witness position. Well, one of his friends said to him,
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Athanasius, the whole world is against you. And he said, well, then it's Athanasius against the world.
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And that's the phrase he's most famous for. Athanasius against the world. You see, he stood even though he was the only one really left standing in the whole church.
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And because he did, we are able to worship God and the church took a stand, set down in stone, this is right, this is wrong, this is biblical, this is unbiblical.
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So really, since the end of the 4th century, there's been no doubt. If somebody has said Jesus is not divine, divine son of God, then they've been labeled a cult.
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And we can thank Athanasius for that. 1700 years later that he helped nail that down.
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Harold Brown, who wrote a book called Heresies, interestingly enough, stated it clearly when he said the religion of Arius elevates the view and efforts of man.
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That of Athanasius elevates the grace and the glory of God. Because if Arius was right, here's the implications.
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Jesus was just a creature. He's still different from God and likely does not have the divine power to save human beings from sin.
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The goal of the Christian life then becomes not to look into Jesus for salvation, but to look for Jesus as a teacher and example.
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Very different from biblical faith. And we know that Aston the Athanasius was right. And so what we believe is that Jesus is
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God incarnate. By contrast, that Christ has the same divine nature as the
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Father, thus upholding our view of the Trinity. He's able to provide salvation for mankind because only
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God can fully save. And the goal for the believer is to trust in him alone for salvation.
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Well, I like what C .S. Lewis says. He wrote a book called Mere Christianity. Most of you have read it. He talks about how radical an idea this was.
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He said, he talks about how the Jews demonstrated, God chose the
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Jews and demonstrated through them what he was like. And then he says, then comes the real shock.
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Among the Jews, there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if he was God. He claims to forgive sins.
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He says he has always existed. He says he is coming to judge the world at the end of time.
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Now, let us get this clear. Among pantheists, one might say he was part of God or one with God.
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There would be nothing very odd about that. But this man, since he was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God.
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God, in their language, meant the being outside the world who had made it and who was infinitely different from anything else.
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And when you have grasped that, you will see that this man was quite simply uttering the most shocking thing that was ever uttered by human lips.
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Why is the Trinity important? Because without it, Christianity is idolatry.
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If Christ is not divine, we are idolaters. Justification. Only God can save souls.
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Salvation is of the Lord. If Jesus is not God, then like Paul says, out of context
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I understand, but in 1 Corinthians 15, we are still in our sins. We have no hope.
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And then finally, the experience of salvation as Pastor Mike goes through Ephesians and finishes up.
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Do you remember when he went through Ephesians chapters 1, 2, and 3? God the Father chose from eternity past. God the
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Son redeems. And God the Spirit seals us and quickens us and regenerates us with salvation.
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So the Trinity is critical not only in bringing salvation to sinful human beings, but without Jesus being
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God, justification is not possible. There is one mediator between God and man, 1 Timothy says,
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Jesus Christ, the Lord. And so, it was essential that Jesus was divine.
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And so, we have these proofs. I'd encourage you to equip yourselves that when you do encounter somebody who questions this, that you be ready to make answer.
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To anyone who asks you. Well, I asked you at the beginning, are you a good theologian or a bad theologian?
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My desire is that we just become better theologians. Become better theologians than we are right now.
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One thing I want to really bring out, you know, us guys are in seminary right now. You know, we're learning a lot.
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But when you're in seminary, what can happen is, you get so caught up in learning and in the head part of it that you lose sight of the true nature of theology.
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So, you can grasp the nature of the Trinity. You could give people point by point, all these things.
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But the real goal of theology, it's really a means to an end. And that end is knowing
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Christ. You know, one guy came up to Howie Hendricks one time and he said, you know, prof finished first in his class.
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And he said, you know what? I finished top of my class but at the bottom of my spiritual life. And you know where you can pray for us?
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Guys in seminary, guys in the Bible Institute or anywhere, is that we wouldn't become so caught up in learning and in doctrine.
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And you wouldn't become so caught up that you lose sight of the fact that Christianity is a relationship. You know, as Mike said this morning, you know, we can lose our first love.
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We can leave our first love. And so, my exhortation and my encouragement to you is not to let that happen.
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Are you spending time with Christ and His Word every day? You know, it's a simple question. Only you know.
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Only God knows. But that's the one thing we can test ourselves and ask, are we really making our relationship with God a priority?
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Do we really love God enough to devote our time, our energy to Him and to meet with Him, to commune with Him, to pray to Him, to love
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Him, to praise Him? You know, if Jesus is God, we're right in worshiping Him as God. And that's the great thing.
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We know this God whom we worship. And so, it's not important only what we believe or why we believe it, but it's more important who we believe and we understand who that Jesus is.
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And so, this understanding of the Trinity should enhance our worship. It should make us just praise
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God and say, thank you, Lord, that you came to this earth. Thank you that you're the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the
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Prince of Peace. Thank you that you died for my sins. Thank you that you came up with this awesome plan that only
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God would think of. If man thought it up, it wouldn't be like this. You thought up. You lived it and you communicated to us.
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Thank you that you communicated to us that you are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we can praise you for that. So, it should enhance our praise.
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Well, the creed that came out of... Let me read the creed, a little bit of the creed to close. This Jesus, as I said, the
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Nicene Creed, which all major Christian churches and nominal
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Christian churches adhere to. This Jesus, the promised Messiah of the
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Gospels was God incarnate. Fully God and also fully man. He was crucified for our sins, died and was buried.
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On the third day He rose again. He is at this moment sitting at the right hand of God the
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Father and is interceding for us. He will come again to judge the living and the dead and His kingdom will have no end.
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This is the Jesus we worship. And what I'd encourage you this evening to do is to ask yourself one last question.
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Am I willing to do with the truth, for the truth, what others are willing to do for a lie? You know, you get
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Mormon missionaries or Jehovah's Witnesses missionaries. They go to the ends of the earth for a lie. That is so sad that we as Christians cannot get motivated enough like them.
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I understand they're doing it for workspace. They're trying to earn their salvation. I understand that. But we have a
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God out of love for what God has done for us. That should motivate us and should motivate us to take this gospel to the ends of the earth.
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And by the grace of God, we at Bethlehem Bible Church will do that. Amen. Let's pray.
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Heavenly Father, thank You for this time in Your Word, Lord. Thank You for the fact that You are
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God. You are Lord. You are Jehovah. You are the one who saves and You are the one in whom we trust.
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Lord, I pray that if anybody here tonight doesn't understand these things, Lord, that You would guide them into all truth by Your Spirit.
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And Lord, if anybody does not know You, has not trusted You for salvation, Lord, I do pray that even tonight they would turn to Jesus and be saved.
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And Lord, I thank You for everyone here, Lord, and I thank You that You do desire us to go to the ends of the earth with the gospel.
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And I pray, Lord, that You would motivate us out of love to go any distance, to do anything,
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Lord, to get the gospel to every creature. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.