This sermon gives a biblical and Spirit of Prophecy defense of the everlasting nature of the three members of the Godhead. It exposes the errors of some of the recent anti-trinitarian and semi-Arian concepts that have come into certain segments of Adventism.

<p>This sermon gives a biblical and Spirit of Prophecy defense of the everlasting nature of the three members of the Godhead. It exposes the errors of some of the recent anti-trinitarian and semi-Arian concepts that have come into certain segments of Adventism.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Stateline Ardmore Seventh-day Adventist Church

Norman McNulty

The Everlasting Godhead

Our Father in heaven, we thank you for this Sabbath day, that we can worship you, and I pray that you would speak through me now in a way that will bring honor and glory to your name, and that Jesus Christ will be lifted up in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and that we would have a clearer understanding of who you are and what your plan is for our lives at this time of Earth's history.

So I pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.

The title for our sermon this morning is The Everlasting Godhead.

I am thankful for the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost and the role that they have in my life and in your life.

And I have found in my own study of God that the more that I study God, the deeper I come to appreciate who He is.

And it's a bit surprising to me that I find it necessary to preach such a sermon, but surprisingly there are Seventh-day Adventists who are questioning the biblical understanding of the Godhead.

And I am going to address that issue today.

So this may not be the most typical sermon you ever hear, but it will certainly have plenty of inspired evidence to back up what I am presenting today.

And I'm going to start with a statement in Testimonies, Volume 5, page 707, written by Ellen White, where she says, God will arouse his people.

If other means fail, heresies will come in among them, which will sift them, separating the chaff from the weeds." So the first thing that I would say is this, it is so easy for us as Seventh-day Adventists to be in a Laodicean stupor where we stop studying our Bibles and we take for granted the truths that we have always held, and so God allows heresies to come in to wake us up as a people so that we will study the scripture more carefully.

God uses heresy because we are so sleepy and we're not studying, and then people come in with these fanciful ideas saying, well maybe Jesus really isn't God the way the father is, and maybe the Holy Spirit really isn't the third person of the Godhead the way we've always said, and we're like, whoa, I better wake up and start studying a little bit.

God will arouse his people if other means fail.

Heresies will come in among them which will sift them, separating the chaff from the wheat.

The Lord calls upon all who believe His word to awake out of sleep.

Precious light has come appropriate for this time.

It is Bible truth showing the perils that are right upon us.

This light should lead us to a diligent study of the scriptures and a most critical examination of the positions which we hold." Friends, just saying, well my pastor told me this is what the Word says, isn't going to be enough.

We need to know for ourselves what the Bible says.

Now speaking of heresies that are going to come in, there have already been heresies that have come into the Adventist Church.

And around 1900 Ellen White addressed 1 of these heresies that came in.

This is Selected Messages Volume 1, page 200.

In the book Living Temple there is presented the alpha of deadly heresies.

The omega will follow and will be received by those who are not willing to heed the warning God has given." Now then she goes on 3 pages later to say, "...few can discern..." so this is page 203, "...few can discern the result of entertaining the sophistries advocated by some at this time.

But the Lord has lifted the curtain and has shown me the result that would follow." Now listen to this, the spiritualistic theories regarding the personality of God followed to their logical conclusion sweep away the whole Christian economy.

Now, what she was addressing in 1900 was Dr.

John Harvey Kellogg and his pantheistic or panentheistic ideas that said God is in everything.

God is in the grass, God is in the trees, God is in the flowers.

Maybe we don't need to follow the God in heaven if he's already here on this earth.

That was a spiritualistic manifestation or misunderstanding that was brought in to the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

And amazingly, 1 of the messengers who Ellen White said was giving the third angel's message in Verity, Dr.

And he read through the book Living Temple.

He was on a committee for the general conference and he recommended that the church publish the book.

Thankfully they lost the committee vote 3 to 2 and the book wasn't published by the denomination.

But here was a man who had been under the influence of God, Dr.

Kellogg had been as well, and they fell into this trap which was called the Alpha of Deadly Heresies, which was over a misunderstanding of the personality of God.

Now I cannot claim to understand exactly what the Omega is or what it will be, but it would make sense to me that the Omega of apostasy, as it is coined in other places, would have some relation to a misunderstanding of the personality of God.

And I'm not necessarily saying what I'm going to address is the omega, but what I'm saying is we need to be very careful about misunderstandings of the personality of God.

Another very interesting statement, this is Letter 240, written in 1903, those who seek to define God are on forbidden ground.

We are to enter into no controversy regarding God, what He is and what He is not.

He, the omniscient 1, is above discussion." Now when she says omniscient that means he is all-knowing.

Those who express such sentiments regarding him show that they are departing from the faith.

Now listen, friends, you better be very careful if you fall into a camp where you fall into following a speaker who says, I know who the true God really is, and the other persons that we thought from the Godhead really aren't God the way we thought they were.

You might just be departing from the faith.

1 of my friends made an interesting statement recently where he said, I find in every error the tendency to make plain statements seem complicated.

Now, there are a host of heresies that have come into the church, and thankfully most people don't fall for them.

And of course that minority will then use the fact that Jesus was a minority, that most of the church rejected him, that Martin Luther was a minority, that the Catholic church rejected him, and so he stood alone, and if it wasn't for him there wouldn't have been the Protestant Reformation.

And while those things are true, Jesus stood for truth, Martin Luther stood for truth, and don't confuse fanatical heresy with standing for truth.

When we start to take plain statements from the Bible and plain statements from the Spirit of Prophecy and say, I know it says that but what you really have to know is this.

And when it takes 50 Bible verses and 100 Spirit of Prophecy quotes to try to prove your point and when we're done listening to you it's still as unclear as it was when we started listening.

There's something wrong with your theory.

The Bible and the spirit of prophecy are clear, they are straightforward, they are easy to understand and God has made it very clear who he is.

There is an attack against the personality of God that is sweeping again into some portions of the church today.

It is the doctrine of anti-Trinitarianism and the doctrine of semi-Arianism.

Now let me define these terms briefly and then we're gonna get into the word.

Anti-Trinitarianism teaches, And these ideas are connected, anti-Trinitarianism, or the semi-Arianism idea.

They teach that God the Father is the 1 true God.

And the Holy Spirit is simply the Spirit of Christ.

So Jesus is the son in bodily form, And the Holy Spirit is simply the Spirit of Christ.

So Jesus is the Son in bodily form, and the Holy Spirit is simply the Spirit of Jesus that can be everywhere.

Now interestingly, semi-Arianism comes from Arianism, and Arius taught that there was a time in the past where Jesus was not.

Semi-Arianism says, well, that's kind of true.

Jesus was always in the Father, and at some point he proceeded forth from the Father and became his own being.

Interestingly, some of the early Adventist pioneers believed that.

But thankfully, Through a deeper study of the Bible, and then from clear statements from Ellen White, we have come to an understanding that these ideas simply are not true.

That there truly is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

And interestingly, 1 of the more recent variants of this anti-Trinitarian view teaches that the Holy Spirit did not come into existence until Pentecost.

So just a few thoughts that are roaming out there.

Now, let me hasten to add, don't go and listen to these guys, okay?

Romans chapter 16 verse 17 says, I beseech you brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them.

Now I have done some study in this because it is necessary for some of us to warn the rest of the church, but that doesn't mean that all of you have to go listen to everything that they say.

I would encourage you to study the Bible for yourself and refresh yourself on these things, but don't go listen to those who are teaching things contrary to the plain teachings of Scripture.

Jesus makes it very clear in Matthew 28, 19, before He ascends to heaven, Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." Here Jesus speaks clearly of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Now interestingly go to 2 Corinthians 13, verse 1.

2 Corinthians 13, verse 1, and perhaps you have not thought about this with respect to the Godhead before.

But in 2 Corinthians 13, verse 1 we read, and this is Paul at the end of his 2nd epistle to the Corinthians, he's been to them once in person and he's written them 2 epistles and this is what he says, this is the third time I am coming to you.

In the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses shall every word be established.

We have a tried and true understanding that no single Bible verse stands alone, that we have the entire Bible to support every doctrine that we believe.

And here Paul is saying, in the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses, every word shall be established.

Now fascinatingly, at the end of the chapter, in verse 14, he says, "...the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all.

Amen." Here he identifies the 3 persons of the Godhead.

Jesus the Son, who's the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit.

Now, when it comes to the Godhead, Each person or being in the Godhead has 2 witnesses to speak of himself.

The Father has the Son and the Holy Ghost to give witness to the Father.

The Son has the Father and the Holy Ghost to give witness to Him, and the Holy Ghost has the Father and the Son to give witness to Him.

There are 2 witnesses that testify of the other member of the Godhead.

So, each member of the Godhead has 2 witnesses.

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The Everlasting Godhead

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