My boat of life sails on a rugged sea. Ever there's a wind in my sails. But I have a friend who watches over me when the breeze turns into a gale. I know the master of the wind. I know the maker of the rain. We can calm the storms and make the sun shine again. I know the master of the wind. Sometimes I soar like an eagle in the sky Among the peaks and my soul it can't be bound An unexpected storm may drive me from the heights and bring me low but never bring me down. I know the master of the wind I know the maker of the rain and make the sun shine again. I know the master of the wind. Do you know the master of the wind? Do you know the maker of the rain? He can calm your storms and make the sun shine again. Do you know the master of the wind? We can calm your storms and make the sun shine again. Do you know the master of the wind? All right, open your Bibles over to 1 John chapter 5, if you will. My brain is not exactly clicking very good, so if I stumble and stagger. For some reason, my brain's not clicking today. A lot of stuff crowded in there. 1 John chapter 5 is where we'll start tonight. Now, the way I would do this, and I apologize by those watching by way of live stream, sometimes when I ask a question of the congregation and they respond, they can't hear that, and I'll try to repeat what they say, if it's worth repeating, if you don't want me to repeat it. And I got tickled at Marsha when I asked her that question. And see, Marsha's like Belinda in that Belinda was taught, women, you don't talk in church. And when we get into our study of the church, which will be part of this study, we'll talk about that somewhat. Sometimes we can take that a little bit too far. So I'm not in the pulpit tonight, ladies. I'm inviting you, if you want to make comments or ask questions, do that. But I do agree, and we'll talk about women being silent in church when we get into the study of the church later on. So I thought I'd throw that in free of charge. I told Belinda a long time ago I can't read lips. So when I ask her a question, she's not usurping authority over me if she answers the question. Unless she wants to argue with me in public, then that's a different question, but that's a different thing. There's some, and I hope that you don't mind the way that I'm trying to do these lectures, because with each one of these things that we've studied up to this point, we could be on them for several weeks. And I'm trying to introduce them to you without getting lost in the weeds. And so consequently, I'm leaving a lot of things out. This tonight's subject is not one of those exciting subjects, kind of like, you know, unlike the subject last week. The subject last week had a, has potential, and we talked about the will and decree of God. It has the potential to have a lot of debating going on because that is something that men have debated for generations. I don't think this will be much of a debate, especially among us tonight. We are still under the heading of theology proper, which is the study of the Godhead. We've talked about the existence and nature of God, the attributes of God, last week the will and decree of God. And tonight we're going to be talking about the Trinity, also called the unity of the Godhead, the tri-unity of the Godhead, the triad, it goes by all kinds of different names. But I'll say this, that the doctrine of the Trinity, of the Godhead, is one of the most foundational truths of the Christian faith. Now, it is a subject, and I'm going to ask Nathan to stay ahead of me, he's already done that, except when he gets to the next one, just freeze on that one for a minute until I tell you to leave it. But it is a subject that even when you try to prepare yourself to teach on this subject, It just twists your mind because there's no way. And my favorite theologians that I like to read after, of course, T.P. Simmons always ranks right up there at the top. James Boyce, who was an old Baptist theologian. back in the 1800s and also Augustus Strong is another of my favorite theologians that I read after. And so I was reading after them this morning and Danny Juanita came in and rescued me from that because my mind was just about warped. But I read those guys who were far greater scholars than I. And I watch them wrestle with trying to explain this thing of the triunity of the Godhead. It really does, it's beyond our understanding. Now as I said to you before, if we had a God we could really understand, He wouldn't be God. Right? He's not a God worth having if finite minds can really grasp Him. So even while I teach this, I'm telling you that It's beyond my capabilities of understanding. However, it is taught in the Word of God. In 1 John 5, verse 7, by the way, the newfangled translations that some people like to go crazy over, they've thrown out 1 John 5, 7. Well, it's in my Bible, and I'm going to leave it there, and I happen to like this verse. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and it says these three are one. That's one of the strongest verses in the New Testament that gives evidence of the biblical doctrine of the Trinity. Colossians 2, I threw that in there, verse number 8 and 9. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit. And by the way, we'll talk about some of that philosophy and vain deceit in connection with the before we finish tonight. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Now listen to this. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. So there is a Godhead. There's no debating that. And this really staggers the imagination. Also, Paul said, in him, or in Christ, dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Now, roll that around in your mind and consider what that means. Now, someone has said... Go ahead and go to the next one, Nathan, here, and freeze there for a little bit. I like what somebody said. He said, to understand the Trinity, try to understand the Trinity and you'll lose your mind. Because as I throw this out to you, you'll understand why they say that. But to deny the Trinity and you'll lose your soul. You're denying the very essence of God. The cults, JWs, Mormons, people like that do not believe in the Trinity, triunity of the Godhead. There's an extreme branch of Pentecostalism called Jesus-only crowd that deny the triunity of the Godhead at all. You try to understand it, you lose your mind, but you deny it, you're in danger of losing your soul. Now, let me just ask you a question. In your own words, I'm just taking a straw poll here. How many, wait, stick, if you believe in the Trinity, the Trinity of God, stick your hand up. Now, I know nobody's here brave enough to stick it up if you don't. I hope you're not, so I'm gonna ask you that. So everybody, I think everybody here says, yeah, I believe in the triunity of the Trinity of the Godhead. Well, define it for me. In your own words, what is the Trinity? Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, all right? Okay, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, who's equal in all authority and attributes and everything. Anything else you would add to that? Three distinct personalities, one God. Okay, y'all doing pretty good. I don't have to teach you, so I can just sit down. You're doing pretty good, but have you ever really thought about anything else you'd throw in? Now, how many of you have seen or heard all the illustrations that teachers have used to try to, for our little minds to understand the Trinity, such as the three stages of water, which is gas, liquid, and solid? They think that describes the Trinity, but it really doesn't even come close. Or the triangle, have you seen the triangle? There are three parts, three points of the triangle, but it's yet one triangle. That doesn't really even come close because those are three separate points. There's no separation between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. When it says in Him or in Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. So each one of them are completely God. uses the trichotomy of man. Trichotomy just simply speaks of the three parts of man. There are some people that believe, and this is where I disagree with T.P. Simmons. T.P. Simmons actually believes in dichotomy of man. I should wait until we start talking about creation, that man is body and then soul and spirit are one and the same. I disagree with Mr. Simmons on that. I believe in the trichotomy. Man is body, soul, and spirit. Well, God said, let us make man in our image and after our likeness. So he's a triune being. He created us as a triune being also. But that doesn't really even come close to what, it's probably the closest. My point is, it is really hard to define what the triunity or the trinity is. I prefer the phrase triunity of the Godhead, and I'll explain why. So let me give you some definitions. By noted theologians, A.H. Strong, who's one of my favorite, says, in the nature of the one God, there are three eternal distinctions which are represented to us under the figure of persons, and these three are equal. What I like about that is that he says they're represented to us under the figure of persons. There are not three individual people. They are personalities. You say, explain that. Just let me get it out, because I can't explain it to you. There are three personalities, yet there's one God. By the way, what is it that makes a personality? I've told you this before. Three things, intellect, Emotion and will. That's what makes a personality. That's what makes us a person. Each of us possess intellect, some more than others, some less than others. But we all possess intellect. Each of us possess emotion. And each of us possess a will. We make decisions every day, right? That's what makes a personality. Well, each one of the members of the Trinity possess all three of those things. As we get into this, I'll show you in the scripture. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and their doctrinal statement, I like the way they said this. And by the way, the Southern Baptist used to be real solid at one time. Overall, they're not anymore. There's still some Southern Baptist churches that are still fairly solid. Why in the world they stay in the Southern Baptist Convention, I'll never know. But they are. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary says, God is revealed to us as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature or essence or being. That's where it gets almost impossible for our finite minds to grasp. The doctrine of the Trinity is a central tenet of Christianity that describes one God existing in three distinct persons. The Father, Son, Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit. The doctrine asserts that these three persons are co-eternal, sharing the same divine essence. Let me stop right there. I shouldn't jump ahead, but I'm going to. We believe that they have been eternally that way. In other words, the Son did not become the Son in incarnation. He has eternally been the Son of God. The Holy Spirit has been eternally the Holy Spirit of God. So they're co-eternal, sharing the same divine essence while being distinct in their personhood. It is hard to grasp that, isn't it? The Trinity emphasizes the complexity of God's nature in his relationship with humanity, highlighting all three persons are worth the same worship and obedience. You got that so far? Now, I threw in... Genesis chapter 1, I've got about 14 of these so I want to move through these quickly. I threw in Genesis chapter 1 because this is actually the first reference that we have of a plurality in the Godhead. Because God said, let us, the word for God there is Elohim, which is in the plural form in the Hebrew. God said, let us make man in our image and after our likeness. Then it says, so God created man in his own image. So we have both the singular and the plural form there of the Godhead. Everybody just is, you know, you sit there trying to muddle this thing out in your mind, it'll drive you nuts, won't it? Still, it goes back to if I could really understand him, he wouldn't be a God. He wouldn't be God at all. Now, I stole this directly from T.P. Simmons in his theological book, which, by the way, is out of print. I've tried to get my hands on more and pass them along. If you can lay your hands on T.P. Simmons' theology book. It's worth your effort. Every time I get one, I may have one or two extra in there if you want one. T.P. Simmons, he said, in light of those definitions that we've given, there's four important considerations that we take into account in regards to the Trinity or the triunity. The Trinity does consist of three distinctions. God does not just manifest himself in three different ways. We're gonna talk about that. That's a very grave error that has crept, it creeps sometimes into our churches. It's not that God just manifests himself in three different ways. But there are actually three distinct personalities in the Godhead. There are three distinctions into God. And number two, these three distinctions are eternal. As I said earlier, He has always been the Son of God. It has always been the Holy Spirit of God. God the Father has always been the Father. They do not become it. God is immutable. God does not change. You understand. Now, of course, you're familiar with the scriptures I gave you there. I didn't write them all out. We'll see them a couple times tonight. John chapter 1, verse 1, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Key phrase, two key phrases there. Number one, the Word was with God. He did not become the Word when he was incarnate on this earth. You understand? He's eternally been the Word of God. And the word was God. The New World Translation put out by the Jehovah's Witness, false witness, I should say. I don't even like calling them Jehovah's Witness. They're not Jehovah's Witnesses. We are the true Jehovah's Witnesses, right? They're Jehovah's false witnesses. But in the New World Translation, I had, they don't show up much anymore. They actually mark your house. But I had one of them show up one morning. I had been out late that night working, not running around. But I'd been out late that night and they pecked on my door and I went down my hair, I had hair, more hair back then. My hair stuck up 40 ways from Sunday. You know how you're staggering down the steps to get down to answer the door and there they stood. And I knew them right away. And they said, we're out passing out literature for a donation. I said, really? I said, who's your publisher? and it was a young couple, and the older couple was in the car, they were training them, and they said, they kind of looked at one another, I said, what's Tower Bible and Tract Society? Yeah. I said, I'll tell you what, you can keep yours, I'll give you mine, you don't have to give me a donation. And they said, no, we can't do that. I said, well, okay. I said, I'll trade you even. No, we can't do that. I said, well, you know, I'll just give you mine. You can do with yours what you want. No, we can't do that. I said, well, what you can do is get off my porch and don't ever come back. Their translation says the Word was a God. It's not what it says. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God, right? Revelation chapter 22, I'm Alpha, that's where in verse, I don't know why I put verse 14 there, but verse 13, I'm Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, saith the Lord. Hebrews chapter 9, verse 14, where it talks about the eternal spirit. So I throw all that in. These three distinctions are eternal. These three distinctions are represented to us under the figure of persons, but there's no division of His nature, essence, or being. It is not tritheism. We don't believe in three gods. We are monotheists. We believe in one God, okay? And the three members of the Trinity are equal. Are you with me? Have I lost you yet? All right. We'll run through these next few very quickly, I'm running short on time, but some scriptural proofs. Number one, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are all recognized as God. It's important that it's not an order of rank. That's another error that creeps into our churches. It's not the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. It's Father, Son, Holy Spirit. They're all equal. Fathers recognize the God, of course. I'll give you John 6, verse 27. We're not for the food that perish, but for the food which abideth unto eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you. For him the Father even God hath sealed. So the Father is God, let according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. The Son is recognized as God, if you go to the next one, Brother Nathan. John 1, I already gave you. John 20, verse 28, and Thomas answered unto him and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Which, by the way, let me throw in my pet peeve. You don't mind if I do this sometime. In modern evangelism, I know I sound harsh sometimes, but we've let this Easy believism creeping to our Baptist churches. I've been in meetings where they'll preach a 20-minute sermon and give about a 45-minute invitation, and they're not going to let anybody go until somebody walks down the aisle. I don't need to help the Holy Spirit out. But what they say is, you receive Him as Savior. They're missing something. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ. You don't receive him as Savior without receiving him as Lord. He's Lord. This easy believism is killing our churches. 1 John chapter 5, we know the Son of God has come and he hath given us understanding that we may know him that is true even in his Son Jesus Christ. That is the true God in eternal life. So the Father is God, the Son is God. Number three, obviously, the Holy Spirit is God. And this is very, very important because we almost get the impression that the Holy Spirit is just a force. He's not just a force. I've used this illustration before. It's like Star Wars, the good side of the force and the bad side of the force, you know, and the Holy Spirit's the good side of the force. He's not just a force. The Holy Spirit possesses intellect and emotion and will. We know he possesses emotion because you can grieve him, you can quench him, right? He grieves. So the Holy Spirit is God. And again, I gave you the story of Ananias when Peter says, why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost to keep back part of the prosperity? Listen, you've not lied on the men, you've lied on the God. No, you're not your temple. You are the temple of God and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you. So, I threw all those things in. You can go to the next one. Could have went into a lot of other things and I'm going to when we get talking about creation and the different theories of creation. But I didn't want to get all of that out in one little lecture tonight. The Father, Son, Holy Spirit are one God. It's not three gods. Your God is one Lord, John 17, three, this is life eternal, they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. So we're still monotheist, but we recognize that there is but one God. Now, I hope I've made sense, and you're sitting there looking at me saying, who can understand that? None of us. Really can't. Yeah, that's another illustration I've heard before. You get that, Sandy? Redeem. Purchase salvation. Yeah. Sure. Yeah, and the problem is, of course, we talk about creation. God spoke. The Spirit moved upon the faces of the deep, but yet in John 1 it says He's created all things, you know, Christ has created all things. So there's different works, but they work harmoniously. They're not distinct in that respect, because there is a, for Livestream, what Sandy was talking about, she was talking about the fact they are, there are one, and yet you have God the Father who planned out redemption or chose us before the foundation of the world. God the Son redeemed us, God the Holy Spirit draws us. But they're all working, as a unit in relation to salvation. Now that brings up another point because there's two very serious errors that it's amazing how quickly Satan does this because this is back in the second century when both of these came into being. And men trying to understand the Trinity, they come up with these two ideas, and one of them especially is still with us today. A fellow by the name of Sebelius in 250 AD, here's what he says, it's called the Sebelian theory. He said that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are mere developments or revelations to creatures in time of the otherwise concealed Godhead. That's just a fancy way of saying that God is a, it's just, that's just different ways God manifests himself in time, in three different ways. but there's not three distinct personalities, okay? That's still around us somewhat today in this Jesus-only crowd also that denies the triunity. The Arian theory came along, the Father is the only divine being absolutely without beginning, the Son and the Holy Spirit through whom God creates and recreates, having been themselves created out of nothing. The JWs, that's what they tell you. The Mormons, that's what they tell you. The Mormons have a saying that as God is, man once was. As man is, God shall be. They say that Christ was created by God and he evolved into being deity. And so all of us will evolve into being little gods. It's dangerous heresy. It's called the Aryan theory. And they're still with us today, okay? I like what A.W. Tozer said. A.W. Tozer said, a popular belief among Christians divides the work of God between the three persons, given a specific part to each. This is what Sandy was talking about, and it's true to a degree, even he acknowledges that. But they say they give creation to the Father, redemption to the Son, and regeneration to the Spirit. This is partly true, but not wholly so, for God cannot so divide himself that one person works while another is inactive. So they're all three working in salvation and in creation and everything that God does, okay? In the scriptures, three persons are shown to act in harmonious unity and all the mighty works that are wrought throughout the universe. I wish I could stand here and tell you, yeah, I've got the language down pat and I could stand here and try to impress you with some of these theological terms that goes along with this. There's no way on earth my little finite mind can grasp this idea, but I'm glad it can't. Because God is so awesome and so beyond us that we cannot fathom it. Yeah, there is a triunity, but there is only one God. Now, I asked you a question several weeks ago just for the fun of it because nobody can answer it. My mind gets me in trouble when I start thinking about things like this. About when you get in heaven, will you see one or three? In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. I don't know for certain, but I think just the rapture of seeing my Savior is going to suffice. If you can answer that for me, you just let me know, would you? God sent him in his own right hand. That's what Scripture says. I somewhat... That is a position of authority, obviously. But when you get in Revelation chapter 5, when he saw that throne, and one that sat on that throne, and then he says, in the midst of that throne stood a lamb as it had been slain. And so I read... Then in Revelation chapter 20, when it says... I'll get the quote out here in a minute, my mind is not working as I said. Revelation chapter 20 when it talks said, I saw a great white throne, it clicked in. And him that sat on it from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away and has found no place for them. Who was the one, it was the Lord Jesus Christ sitting on the throne. You get all that figured out, you let me know. Yeah, that's cool. Yep. Give me another verse that, I don't think anybody can, I've quoted it to you many times. Maybe in the third chapter of the book of John, when Jesus said, you can look it up, I think I'm quoting him verbatim, but he's close to it. When Jesus said, no man hath ascended up into heaven, save he which came down from heaven. even the Son of Man, which is in heaven. You figure that out, Rob? I just believe it. I don't know. If I could figure him out, he wouldn't be God. I just know that it's true. Next week, I don't know if it'll be Sunday night or Wednesday night, we'll start into Christology and we'll talk a little bit more. I didn't get into it so much tonight. We'll talk a little bit more about the sonship of Christ, the eternal sonship of Christ and things like that. Okay, let's stand together. It's 8 o'clock.