Now, there's a stupid doctrine out there that we dealt with earlier this year in our church,
this foolish heresy that crept into our church called "modalism" or "Pentecostal oneness"
doctrine.
And it's got to be the most foolish, unbiblical garbage ever.
And here's what it basically teaches.
It teaches that the Father and the Son are the same person, that basically there is no
three persons, one God that the Trinity teaches, which is what we believe and what all of Orthodox
Christianity believes.
That there are three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, who collectively
make up one God.
But they actually believe, "No, no, no.
It's just one spirit, one entity, one God, one person just manifesting himself in three
different modes or in three different ways."
And the illustration that they used was that of a one-man band.
And they said it's sort of like a guy who, you know, he's playing the guitar, then he
switches over to the drums, he switches over to the trumpet, or maybe he's playing them
all at once, you know, like a one-man band.
That's the illustration that they used, the heretics who were perverting this doctrine
and teaching this in our church, who we threw out of the church for teaching these lies
and heresy.
Look, it's so unbiblical, because then you know what you end up with?
You end up with God loving himself.
God loving himself, God sending himself.
That doesn't even make any sense, no.
The father sent the son to be the savior of the world.
The father loveth the son.
And so we have the son obeying the father.
We don't just have God sending himself, obeying himself, loving himself.
It's foolishness, it's stupidity.
It's proved wrong on every page of the New Testament, literally.
I mean, people, every week since that happened, people bring up to me different proofs.
That I didn't even think of.
And they even told me, they're like, "Pastor, now that you've talked about this and now
that we made a big deal out of it with this heresy of the oneness doctrine," he said,
"Now, no matter what I'm reading in the Bible, it's like, it's on every page.
I can't even, I'm not even thinking about the Trinity, it's just on every page."
You know, like, Revelation 1-1, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him.
But according to that, well, he just gave it to himself, right?
And this is not, he prayed to himself.
He prayed to himself, obeyed himself, gave himself, gave revelations to himself.
It's stupid.
It's false.
Over and over again, the Bible describes this relationship between father and son.
And look, of course we believe in the deity of Jesus Christ.
We believe that Jesus Christ is God, because God is the Trinity.
God is made up of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
And let me tell you something, God has always been Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
This is known as the eternal sonship of Christ.
I believe in it.
You know why?
Because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.
If Jesus Christ is the Son of God now, He's always been the Son of God, and He always
will be the Son of God.
That's why He's called the Son, even in the Old Testament.
What is His name?
What is His Son's name, if Thou canst tell?
Proverbs 30 verse 4.
And not only that, Jesus Christ is human, Jesus Christ is man.
He didn't become man, He's always been man.
That's why even in the Old Testament He appears as a man, in Genesis 18, Genesis 14, many
other places.
Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday and today and forever.
And Jesus Christ has always existed.
He's not a created being.
He is God Himself.
He has always existed.
He was in the beginning with God, and He was God.
Both.
Why?
Because of the Trinity, that's why.
The word God in the Bible can either refer to the entire Godhead of Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost, or the word God many times in the New Testament is only referring to God
the Father.
Like where the Bible says that the head of the woman is the man, and the head of the
man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God.
That's not saying He's His own head.
It's saying that the Father is the head of the Son.
Why?
That's authority right there.
It says the wife should obey her husband, the man should obey Christ, Christ obeyed
the Father.
He said, "I always do those things which please Him."
Let's look at some scriptures on this from the book of John.
Look at John chapter 4 verse 34.
The Bible says, "Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me
and to finish His work."
Oh, just kidding.
I sent myself.
See, He says right there that He was sent.
He was sent by the Father into the world.
Look at John chapter 5 verse 30.
John chapter 5 verse 30.
It's important to note the word "self" in the Bible.
What does the word "self" mean?
Because these modalist heretics, these oneness preachers will say, "Oh, He prayed to Himself.
He sent Himself.
He loved Himself."
Yet whenever you see the word "self" coming up in the Bible in relation to Jesus, it's
distinguishing Him from the Father.
Look at the Bible in John chapter 5 verse 30.
"I can of mine own self do nothing.
As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will, but the will
of the Father which hath sent me."
He clearly did not send Himself, because He said, "I can of mine own self do nothing is
the Father that sent me."
Look if you would at verse 36 of the same chapter, "But I have greater witness than
that of John.
For the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear
witness of me that the Father hath sent me."
Flip over to John chapter 6 verse 29, get ready to turn pages fast, we're just going
to crank through some scriptures in John on the fact that the Father sent the Son to be
the Savior of the world.
He sent Jesus to be our Savior.
It says in verse 29 of chapter 6, "Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God
that ye believe on him whom he hath sent."
Look at verse 38, "For I came down from heaven."
So that right there proves that Jesus existed before Bethlehem's manger.
Jesus is not a created being.
He already existed in the beginning with God, and He was God.
Why?
Because God, one God, made up of three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
He says that I came down from heaven, meaning Jesus was up in heaven before He was born,
before He was conceived, and then what did He do?
He came down from heaven, didn't He?
I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me.
And this is the Father's will, which hath sent me.
How many times are you going to say it?
That of all which He hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again
at the last day.
And this is the will of Him that hath sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son and
believeth on Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise Him up at the last day.
Notice it doesn't say, "Hey, this is the will of Him that sent me that everybody who
goes to church will have everlasting life."
Is that what it says?
"This is His will that everybody who gets baptized will have everlasting life."
Is that what it says?
"This is my will that everybody who repents of all their sins will have everlasting life."
Is that what it says?
"This is the will of the Father that everybody who lives a really good life."
No, no, what does it say?
"The will of the Father is that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have
everlasting life."
It's believing on Christ that gets us everlasting life, not our works or our deeds that we do.
And I will raise him up at the last day.
Look at John chapter 7, John chapter 7 verse 16, "Jesus answered them and said, 'My doctrine
is not mine.'"
Well just kidding, it is mine because I'm just God the Father in another mode, right?
Jesus answered them and said, "My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me."
Same person, different person, pretty clear, isn't it?
Verse 39, and this is the Father's will, or no, I'm sorry, are we in chapter 7?
Sorry about that.
Verse 28, "Then cried Jesus in the temple as he taught, saying..."
And by the way, the reason I raise my voice when I preach is because Jesus cried when
he preached, and this isn't saying wept, crying out means to lift up your voice, to raise
your voice, to shout. "Then cried Jesus in the temple as he taught, saying, 'You both
know me, and ye know whence I am.'" Whence means from where. He's saying, "You know where
I'm from, and I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not."
Verse 33, "Then said Jesus unto them, 'Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go
unto him that sent me.'" Look at John chapter 8, this is not an obscure doctrine.
Say, "Well, the Trinity is only mentioned in a couple verses." Really? Maybe the Trinity
itself is only described in a couple of verses, but we certainly have a multitude of verses
explaining to us that there's the Father and there's the Son, and it's not himself in a
different form, it's a different person. God the Father is distinct from God the Son, and
God, the Holy Spirit. The three together make up one God.