Paul Carrington's sermon on the second chapter of the Second London Baptist Confession explores the profound and complex nature of God and the Holy Trinity. He emphasizes that the knowledge of God is foundational to wisdom, fellowship, and worship. The sermon highlights the historical challenges to the doctrine of the Trinity, such as Modalism and Arianism, and the importance of maintaining a clear understanding of this essential doctrine. The speaker stresses that God is infinite, self-sufficient, and unchanging, and that our understanding of Him should be based on scripture. The sermon also delves into the roles of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the divine economy and the importance of distinguishing between academic and experiential knowledge of God. Carrington encourages the congregation to deepen their relationship with God, urging those outside of the faith to repent and those within to seek a more profound experiential knowledge of God. The sermon concludes with a reminder of the ongoing theological debates within the church and the importance of upholding the truth as revealed in scripture.

What we're going to be doing tonight is we're going to be taking a look at the second chapter of the Second London Baptist Confession. Amazing, an amazing chapter of God and the Holy Trinity. And you know, as I was preparing for this, I was saying, how in the world can you capture in 30 minutes this subject that is something that you can't even, it's an eternal subject. You know, John the apostle, when he finished his writing, he ended with this, speaking of the Lord Jesus and his earthly ministry. And there are also many things that Jesus did which if they were written one by one I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

And so in 30 minutes, how do you capture, that's just the Lord Jesus in his earthly ministry, let alone what God has been doing from eternity past and what he'll do in eternity future and who he actually is. And so tonight, that's really our aim is to take a look at, you know, how would you answer the question, who is God and what is he like? But before we jump into that, why don't we pray? Heavenly Father, we come before you this evening, Lord, in the name of your Son. And Lord, we are humbled by this grand subject that is you, oh Lord.

We can't even attain to the foothills of it, Lord, in this mortal life, but we are so thankful that you have allowed us to apprehend some things, that you've revealed yourself to us, Lord. We thank you that we have a sure foundation and that you've not left us to wander. Lord, you haven't left us in ignorance, but you've given us a taste of who you are, though it's but a small one. And we just pray that tonight, as we go through the second chapter, Father, that our hearts would raise in worship to you, that our minds would be filled with thoughts that exalt you and that we leave this place Lord with a deeper understanding and a greater hunger to walk with you to love you more Lord so be with us now we pray in the name of your son amen amen and so this morning this evening you know what we're gonna be looking at is the fact that the knowledge of God, who he actually is, is the most important subject in the world. And really why I say that is it's only through the knowledge of God that we can actually see ourselves clearly.

It's the beginning of knowledge, the beginning of wisdom is to fear the Lord and only when we have that sense of who he is do we begin to even have an opportunity to have true fellowship one with another. But even more importantly it's the knowledge of God that leads us to even greater heights of worship of who he actually is. You remember when the Lord is speaking to the woman at the well and he says to her, you worship you know not what. They had such a small view of God. They didn't understand the breadth, the ocean that God was And so as a result of that their lives wouldn't have been as deeply Affected but this knowledge that we have is to to lead us to a greater worship and and to be set free It's it's rooted in the knowledge of God that we are actually saved That's why the Lord Jesus Christ when he when he was saying his high priestly prayer, he says, and this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

And so this is the very basis of eternal life, what we're gonna be talking about today. And you know, as I was going through this, I was really asking the Lord, I don't wanna just go through this to acquire knowledge of you. I remember a few months ago might have been in the in the wintertime where when Mr. Brown was preaching he said so often we can be so cerebral you know in our approach to God and we kind of can check the box and we can have these grand discussions back and forth, but my hope is that I'd be led to a greater view of him, to worship him more. In one particular line, it's in the second chapter, and we'll get into it in the second paragraph, it was so startling to me, but what they actually say is this, that he is the alone fountain of being, and it goes on from there.

But when we think of who he is, he is the alone fountain of all being. It's from his overflow that we get anything and everything else. And so because of all that's wrapped up in an understanding of who God is and how it's pertaining to eternal life to actually know God, This is probably the most attacked doctrine that there is if you go back all the way through church history. You know, I was looking at various things. We just came out of the book of 1 John and right there we saw attacks on the very deity of the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

You know, you had Dossetism where people were saying that he just came as a spirit and therefore if he just came as a spirit then he didn't actually die this substitutionary atoning death for us and then you go down the line a 200 years later and you get men like Sibelius who promoted an idea of a modalism you know where you have God and he comes in various modes. Sometimes he's the son, sometimes he's the spirit, and so on, and all of this confusion that came from that. And then we all probably have heard of the debates that happened in the fourth century when you had men like Arius promoting false doctrine and then you had men like Athanasius stand up against him and declare what the Bible actually says about who God is. But after the Reformation, you know, you had other men come up on the scene and one of the philosophies that were promoted was something called Sassinianism, which is kind of the father of modern day Unitarianism, where people have this distorted view of who God is, completely denying the deity of Jesus Christ. And then of course we've got all our modern cults like Jehovah's Witnesses, and we've got things like the Mormons and all these different things that have come up.

So you, all the way through history, the, who God actually is has been attacked over and over again. And even in our day today, you know, with so much pluralism and so much even fuzzy thinking in the church, where a lot of Christians probably don't have a very solid view of who God actually is. It lends itself to low views of God. And so we ourselves can become culprits in a sense because we don't fully understand what can be grasped about God or we become content with just kind of getting our ankles wet as opposed to waiting out further into understanding who he actually is. And so this leads to all sorts of problems and man himself what we see over and over again in Romans 1 declares us that man is constantly going about trying to redefine God, trying to create a God in his own image, right?

Why does he do that? Because he wants to escape accountability to who this God is. And so the question that I was asking myself is, is there any other doctrine that has undergone the wiles of Satan as much as this doctrine that we're gonna be looking at tonight, and yet the citadel of God's word stands as firm as ever. It's been attacked, but not one chink has been made in the wall, and that's because it's built on the solid word of God. And so just to comment on why is this chapter two, if you have, I handed out a few, I think a few outlines, but why is this chapter two?

The question immediately that rose in my mind and I read some notes that McDavenport sent over to me is why is this chapter 2? You would think that well this because it's pertaining to God would be chapter 1 but I think the reason why is you know on my flight I was headed to the west coast just this past week and I sat beside a Mormon and we had a conversation And throughout the course of the conversation, I was asking questions to do with the nature of who God is. And he was telling me all sorts of things about where they get their beliefs about God. And you know, it's some really wild, wild beliefs. And I asked him, well, where do you base these things on?

And he says, well, I prayed about it. And God revealed it to me, and it's true. And if you do the same, it may be that God will reveal it to you as well. But if you look back to chapter one of the second London Baptist Confession, it's to do with the Holy Scriptures, which is the foundation. So the Holy Scriptures set the context for who God says he is.

That's why it's chapter two as opposed to chapter one. And so we can't pursue a right or full understanding of God unless we first go to his Word and find out who he is from there. And so throughout the Scriptures, you know, we find that God reveals himself and he declares his will to his church. And so I'm going to break it down maybe into three. These paragraphs can be broken into three different areas.

The first paragraph deals with the one living and true God and then chapter paragraph two deals with the relations of God to his creatures you and I and everyone who's ever lived and then paragraph three has to do with the actual Trinity which we'll we'll talk to But one note I want to make to the young people that are here this evening is this. You remember in the days of Joshua that you know the scriptures tell us in the book of Judges that here was a man who he lived and he was a firm man as for me in my house we will serve the Lord. But it says that there came a time when when Joshua died and then it says and the elders that outlived Joshua also died. And one of the most terrifying verses that you can read in Judges is this. It said when all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work that which he had done for Israel.

And the scripture immediately goes on And it says, then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they went after all the other Baals. And so it's important, you notice, they did not know the Lord. They had heard about him, of course, they had heard about the Red Sea, but there was no experiential knowledge with this God, and Immediately they went after all of these false gods. And so for us young ones that are here today It's not good enough to simply be under the hearing of the Word of God. Is He your God?

Is this the God that you can call and if not The call is being made to repent and to believe and to trust in him. And so I'm going to read this first paragraph and we'll get into it here. The first paragraph says, The Lord our God is but one living and true God, whose subsistence is in and of himself, infinite in being and perfection, whose essence cannot be comprehended by any but himself, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts or passions, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, Who is immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, every way infinite, most holy, most wise, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will for his own glory. Most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. The rewarder of them that diligently seek him, and with all most just and terrible in his judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty.

And so some comments on this first chapter, I was reading a little bit on Louis Berkoff who's a theologian and one statement he made is man can know God only in so far as the latter actively makes himself known. So it's not by us searching that we find God as much as it is by God revealing to us. And so as a result of that there's really nothing for us to boast in even when you attain a certain knowledge of God but it's also something to really consider that we are so feeble and undone except God makes himself known to us. And he's done that through his word both the written word and his incarnate word in his son Jesus Christ and so this this paragraph when you kind of look at the spirit of it it's a worshipful paragraph that exalts God in such a way it's not just a again and just an erudite kind of just doctrinal statement but it's one that's exalting God and the bold declaration that they make right from the beginning quoting from Deuteronomy 6 verse 4 is that there is only one God. It's a bold declaration.

The beginning of this second chapter starts with monotheism, that there is one God. And Deuteronomy 6, 4 says, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you remember that the Lord Jesus Christ himself even quoted that. And when we look back in Isaiah, The thing that we remember seeing over and over again is that idols the actual word idol actually means nothings They're nothing. They're nothing at all.

They have no power no life at all and we're contrasting Everything with the actual living God because nothing else possesses deity nothing else possesses life in itself except for this God that we're speaking about. And that statement it says infinite in being and perfection is an amazing statement because as humans we have no idea what infinity is like. Like how do you describe infinity to a child? If you think about our Sun, it's 93 million miles away. But what does that mean?

I mean, it takes light eight minutes to travel from the Sun to the earth. And light is the fastest thing that you can imagine that's in creation. And the nearest star after the sun to our planet is Alpha Centauri, which is four light years away. It takes the light four years from that star to reach here. And that's the closest star to our solar system.

And even that doesn't begin to help us grasp this idea of infinity. But God is infinite in being and perfection. He's unsearchable. And you think of everything else that there is, even when you and I try to do something good, right, there's this admixture, there's this mixing of motives, there's no one that does anything purely good for a good motive. If you search down deep enough you'll find something to hang your head in some way just because there's no one that does good, but God is infinite in his perfection.

And this is not only pointing to everything that he does, but it's pointing to who he actually is. All of his attributes come from this particular description that he's infinite in perfection. When we look at love, when we look at other things like grace, when we look at his omniscience. And you remember a few weeks ago, I think it was Mike was speaking about the communicable and the incommunicable attributes of God. Some of the things that we are made partakers of like love, like grace, but then there's some things like perfection.

We have no lot, no pardon in sovereignty or in knowing all things. We have very, we have no lot at all. And so these things are kind of describing God in that sense. And it says that his subsistence is in and of himself. And that means he absolutely needs nothing.

There's nothing that he needs from outside himself. No one adds or subtracts anything to God, whether you worship God or you deny God. You're not impacting him in any way. We do it to our own destruction perhaps but we don't impact God in any way and even when we worship Him we're the ones that actually become the benefactors of that worship and yet He deserves the utmost worship and praise and we'll talk about that more in the second paragraph but what they do and one part of the thing I really like what they do in this first paragraph is they talk about the fact that we are limited. It talks about the fact that God is incomprehensible.

So even when I take a thimble full of all my knowledge, if I'm the most seasoned theologian, it's like a thimble full compared to the ocean that God is. It's necessary, but it's a thimble full compared to who he is in reality. And 1 Timothy 1, 6 is mentioned here speaking of God who alone has immortality, dwelling in an unapproachable light, whom no man has seen, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen. And we'll remember that when Isaiah was taken up in Isaiah chapter six, we remember that when we went through that, how he had to cover his mouth and say, woe is me.

And even the seraphim, they had wings covering, you remember that? Wings covering their feet and wings covering their faces. And then with wings they flew. But the humility that they were before the very throne of God, it's really something to strike us and to consider, that he's incomprehensible. And yet, the beauty is that through Jesus Christ, we can enter into the holy of holies.

Not because we have all the knowledge of God but because we have knowledge of God revealed in him. Remember when he said, I think it was to Philip, you know, have I been with you so long and you have not known me? Speaking of, if you've known me, you've known the Father. He is the express image of his person. So what we can know about God has been revealed to us through his son, Jesus Christ.

And so what we're doing here tonight is we're really studying, hopefully, to worship him better and deeper. It goes on to say, who is immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, and in every way infinite. And when Solomon, you remember when he dedicated the temple, this is what he said, he says, "'But will God indeed dwell on the earth? "'Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens "'cannot contain you, how much less this temple which I had built." That's who we're speaking of, this God who is so immense that not even heaven or the heaven of heavens could contain him in terms of him filling all space. And Exodus 34 is really take up a good bulk of this paragraph here.

And that's basically saying that, and the Lord passed before him, speaking of Moses, and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. And what you see here in this particular paragraph is the word most being used to describe God. He's most, you know, and you fill in the blank, most pure. He's most holy. These are great descriptions because there's no one above him.

But I'm just going to pick on one particular phrase and that's the word gracious. You know I kind of camped on this just looking at this like this word gracious that God is most gracious and I was talking to somebody when I was in California and he says how is it that God if God does he actually like How is he good then to all these people? 170, 000 people milling around without a thought of God and yet the Bible the Lord Jesus says how he sends his reign on The just and the unjust he doesn't give us what we deserve in terms of the wrath that should be poured out You know if I were God, what would I do if I were slighted? But look at the long-suffering and the graciousness of the God that we serve. It's really something to consider.

And so there's so many, I can't get into all these, there's so much there. I mean so many adjectives that bring out and try to bring out who he is, but we gotta get to paragraph number two. And this is speaking of the relation of God to his creatures. And so it says this, God, having all life, glory, goodness, blessedness in and of himself, is alone in and unto himself all sufficient, not standing in need of any creature which he has made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto, and upon them. He is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and unto whom are all things.

And he hath most sovereign dominion over all his creatures, to do by them, for them, or upon them whatsoever pleaseth him. In his sight all things are open and manifest. His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature. So as nothing is to him contingent or uncertain, he is the most holy in all his counsels, in all his works, and in all his commands. To him is due from angels and men whatsoever worship, service, or obedience as creatures they owe unto the Creator and whatever he is further pleased to require of them." So this is this chapter, this particular paragraph here again, it's entirely God-centered even though it's dealing with his relation to his creatures.

It's speaking of the fact that God possesses all life in himself and anything that has life has borrowed life. Think about that for a moment. Anything that has life has borrowed life that should that should cause us to be humble when it says in Isaiah that that basically man don't fear man whose breath is in his nostrils I mean one breath and he's God could just shut him down just like that and he's no more And this is who we're speaking of. And before creation, think about that, that God possessed all life in and of himself. You can't even think of what life was like before creation.

Your mind can't even go back. What was it like before anything was? And God was there. Not even the angels, nothing, but God himself was there. And he had all fullness and all life and he just had to speak and creation came from there.

And so anything that has goodness, it's a derived goodness, not in and of itself. And so it goes on to say in need of any creature which he has made nor deriving any glory from them but only manifesting his glory in by unto and upon them and to me it just begs the question you know what kind of benevolent God is this He needs nothing from us and yet he gives us all things. He makes us partakers. He brings many sons to glory. It's like he wants to draw us into fellowship with him and freely give us all things.

Not because he's under any obligation, but it's solely of his goodness. What kind of response? If you're sitting outside the camp today, what kind of response does such a message as this play upon your heart? That though he needs nothing from you and freely gives you all things. You would still remain beyond and considering yourself, well maybe I'll think about it later on or what have you.

And it says he's not deriving any glory from them but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto and upon them. And you think of a beauty, the beauty of a rose or the human body or or something along those lines you know a man a God who can simply speak and everything forms not just like a model but fully functioning and then able to reproduce And then you think of not only the physical, but when you think of what he does in a soul. Recently we were talking about John Newton reading and watched a documentary on the salvation of this man. Or you think of other men like Adoniram Judson. Men who were God awful, terrible men at one point, and then the mercy of God overtaking them, or Paul the apostle himself, or even in your own life, how God comes in and he regenerates you, he recreates in you, like he said in the beginning, you know, when it talks about, let there be light, that's what he does when he he comes into your heart this is the God that we're talking about and the next section goes on it says again that one part that he is the alone fountain of all being and and it's the overflow of this fountain that we get life it's the overflow of this fountain that we will draw eternal life forever and ever and even in eternity we won't even perhaps acquire a full knowledge of God because of his eternality and how grand and how great he really is.

And so it talks about the fact that he has sovereign dominion over all his creatures. And you know, we read this in Isaiah, where it said in Isaiah, surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass, and as I have purposed, so it shall stand." God says, and however long it takes, he will bring his will to pass. Man will never thwart it. We saw Sennacherib try to thwart God's will. We saw the various kings try to do it, and he always brings it about to his end.

Whatever he wants, whatever he purposes, that's what he actually ends up achieving in the end. And so he has most sovereign dominion over all his creatures. That's why God, Proverbs says this, that the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord. And like the rivers of water, he turns it wherever he wishes. And you can contrast God with the fickle gods, the pagan gods, that we had a storm yesterday.

They might think they're being judged or destroyed. They have no concept. They're constantly moved and shaken because They have no sense of what's right, what's wrong, up and down, they're constantly being moved. But to think that our God is sovereign and he's over all things, working everything according to the counsel of his own will is really something to think about. And I read this statement from James Buchanan, or I listened to it, my wife sent it to me.

But listen to this, speaking of God, and his sovereign knowledge of everything, it says this, his eye is directed to every event that may befall any of his creatures. The sparrow that falls to the earth is not less an object of his regard than the seraph that stands before his throne. Nothing escapes not only his gaze, but nothing escapes his control and his bringing about his own will and purpose. And so I'm gonna jump down here to the last line just very quickly, but it says here, "'To him is due from angels and men, ' that's all of us, mankind, "'whatsoever worship, service, or obedience "'as creatures they owe unto their creator, "'and whatever he is further pleased to require of them. And what this is basically saying is that it is God's due to be worshiped and adored.

You don't give anything, like I said earlier, to God, but it's God's due to be worshiped and adored, served and obeyed, not only by men, but by angels as well. And so we gotta get to the, stay with me here, we're gonna get to the third paragraph, which is the Trinity. And this is one that probably requires a lot of thought, especially because there's so much debate even now going on about the wills of God and I'm sure our elders would maybe bring us up to speed on what's actually being debated right now in kind of churchdom but it's it's a really interesting debate and it says this about the Trinity. In this divine and infinite being there are three subsistences, the Father, the Word or Son, and the Holy Spirit, of one substance, power, and eternity, each having the whole divine essence, yet the essence undivided. The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding.

The Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son, all infinite without beginning, therefore but one God, who is not to be divided in nature and being, but distinguished by several peculiar relative properties and personal relations, which doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of all our communion with God and comfortable dependence on Him." And so we saw in paragraph one that there is but one God, But alongside that truth and in perfect harmony with it, this paragraph addresses that the fact that God is actually triune. You know, that we, the term the Trinity, obviously it doesn't appear in the Bible, but Tertullian, he existed in the second century as a theologian. He coined the term Trinity. And as we will see here, the Trinity is an area of essential doctrine and maintaining orthodoxy on this point is a non-negotiable for the Christian faith.

It's not, again, an area that we should be fuzzy on but we should understand it. And there are so many attempts you know even as I was looking how do you describe the Trinity and you've seen all these different types of things people pull out like a three leaf clover and try to say well you know it's all one clover and eat completely wrong. Or they'll say, well, if you look at something like water, it's a liquid, it could be a solid, it could be a gas. Again, that's modalism. And you get into all these attempts to take something that's natural, like a man, and say, well, he's a father, he's a son, he's a husband, or something like that, and try to make it work, but there's nothing that can come even close to describing an eternal being that has three persons.

So it's futile to try to kind of come up, I haven't heard anything, maybe someone else can enlighten me, but I can't find anything that seemed to cord and actually describe it without going into heresy. And so there are three kinds of beings that are personal. You have God himself, you have mankind, and you have angels. And this is what James White said. It's really important to understand the idea of beings here.

What we say, and this is what James White said it's really important to understand the idea of beings here. What we say, and this is what James White says, what we are saying about God is that his being is not limited and finite like a creature's. His being is infinite and unlimited and hence can in a way completely beyond our comprehension, be fully shared by three persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The divine being is one, the divine persons are three. While the Father is not the Son, nor is the Son the Spirit, Each is fully and completely God by full and complete participation in the divine being.

Unless we recognize the difference between the term being in person, we will never have an accurate or workable understanding of the Trinity." And so we talk about this idea of three subsistences and I think the way to understand subsistences would simply to be thinking about it in terms of persons. There are three persons and so the confession goes on to kind of go through the names of the three persons, you have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and it talks about the equality of the three subsistences in terms of their substance or essence, their power, their eternity, all three of them individually divine, and there's no inferiority in the Godhead and yet in terms of the economy the relationship of how they actually carry out their work you do see elements of submission where the Son submits to the Father or the Holy Spirit would submit to the Son and so on And they have different roles in salvation, right? You see that in everything that goes on even in your own life. And so you see the Father sending the Son, the Son is atoning for our sins. And then you see the Holy Spirit actually living, dwelling among us, in us, convicting us of sin.

So each one active in the whole work of salvation and yet one God. And so James White, he goes on to say this, when we speak of the relationship shared by the Father, Son, and Spirit, we use the term begotten and procession. Again, I sound the warning. Define these terms within the context in which they are being used. That is, don't think of begotten in human terms, but divine.

Don't think of procession in a finite, creaturely sense, but in an eternal, unlimited, timeless sense. We must do so, for we are talking about the infinite, timeless God, being of God. And so this is our foundation, the understanding of the Trinity for our communion with God, understanding how He interacts, how they interact among themselves, and then how is their outworking. Remember in the beginning of 1st John we're invited into that fellowship that our joy may be full. It's a fellowship of joy and of love that we're being invited into and so it's so foundational that we not just be ignorant of this and just shrug but it's worth pondering and going into and deeply considering because it talks about the last line.

It says it speaks of this comfortable dependence that we can have on God as a result of understanding who he is. So it's amazing. So it speaks of the fact that he's trustworthy and that we should have an experiential knowledge. Again, it's so important that it's an experiential knowledge of God and to know him as he's revealed himself. And so these are the basic three paragraphs to go through.

I just want to end quickly with three questions for three groups of people that inevitably gather any time a group, a church gathers. And the first one is for those who... It's a question, do you find yourself outside of this fellowship today? Do you find yourself outside looking in? Not you may have been even you know made a profession of faith and so on but but do you know in your heart that you're outside of the fellowship of God?

It's worth pondering and if so that you can repent still and put your trust in Jesus Christ and the one whom we can have comfortable dependence. And the second question is this, for another group, is do you find yourself in this fellowship, but perhaps flagging in your love or distracted or disinterested, going through the motions, yeah, okay, sounds great, but, and you leave unchanged. Well, perhaps these feelings are traceable to a lower, inaccurate or fuzzy view of God. Most likely that would be the case. And perhaps your academic knowledge of God vastly outweighs your experiential knowledge of God.

An inflated understanding, again academically, you can quote and go through and say what so-and-so said, but do you know this God? And this is what the church at Ephesus was warned about. They were doctrinally sound, but the Lord says you forgot in your first love, and then he says remember from whence you have fallen. Repent and do your first works. It's worth thinking do I fall into that category?

God wants nothing more than your love to be revived and to grow stronger and Spurgeon said this, such an intelligent scriptural and experiential belief in the Trinity is yours if you truly know God and such knowledge brings peace indeed. So the fire of God's love can be rekindled in your heart. And finally the last group, do you find yourself encouraged going on to the Lord seeking him diligently? Rejoice but remember humility. That all you know is simply what he's revealed.

Remember all you've got at the end of it all is a thimble full in comparison to the vastness that he is. It's really something that should draw us to humility like Job if you read that last chapter the book of Job and so what we ought to do is just revel and worship him and thank him and rest in him but understand that you can still much more fully know him and God will likely just keep drawing you and keep pairing off things that draw you away from him so that you might walk in him. So there's three groups, those who do not know, those who know but are flagging, and those who are going on in the Lord. Anytime we gather and the right knowledge of the holy, of this holy God that we're talking about, Remember it's a foundation for everything else. And lastly I'll just quote from Daniel 1132 it says, but the people that know their God shall be strong and carry out great exploits.

Amen. Let's pray. Father we we do thank you so much for these paragraphs that were written for our edification to fence us in, Lord, to give us an understanding to some level of who you are. Lord, you are unsearchable and beyond our comprehension, and we thank you for that, Lord, that not only in this life but throughout the ageless future in eternity Lord we won't fully grasp your greatness and wonder we just pray that you would put a hunger and a thirst in our hearts father to know you more to seek after you to desire you to have a diminished appetite for the world and its lies and all that it offers as we seek You and desire to draw closer to You. Lord, please be with us.

Help those who do not know you to know you oh Lord may you be mighty to save in our midst this evening in the name of your son we pray amen I just want to take a couple minutes if I could just to explain a little bit about the debate that's going on. I don't know how many of you are aware of it or not, but the thing is, is the church has to be the pillar and ground of the truth and over and over and over again. And so there have been some men that have been publicly called to task because of some of the things that they have been issuing forth. What they have done, you know, Paul talked about, you know, men try to take the clover or take water and argue from something here on earth to understand God and the essence of God. And there have been some men who have done that in their writings and other men have called them out on it to say, you're not representing what the creeds and the confessions have said.

And what it surrounds really is, Has the Son, He's always been the Son of God, but has He always been subject to the Father eternally from the past, or did that subjection start when he took upon him flesh. And it's an important doctrine. And if you look at the creeds and the confessions, they will say that if you argue the fact that he's always been subject to the Father, then now you have more than one will in the Godhead from all eternity." The manhood of Jesus Christ that he took on himself, and the confessions teach that, that he's always been God, but he took upon himself flesh and so continues now as both God and man. In doing that and taking on manhood, he has a second will. And we see that will in the garden where he says if there's any other way besides drinking this cup, oh Lord, my Father, make it so.

But if not, but if not, and he knew it was not as God, He says not my will but yours be done. But I stress this to say dear people, we're not done fighting for truth. This is still happening today and I just want to take a second to read. I'm going to call these men out. Bruce Ware is one of them.

Wayne Grudem is another. Some names you may be familiar with. These are the main men that at work were at the source of pressing forth wrong doctrine. And Mr. Grudem in writing to the men who oppose him said this, I do sense that one thing dispositionally different between us is that your go-to standard for truth seems to be the creeds and confessions, whereas I go first and foremost to Scripture while also having a deep respect for and a longing to be faithful to both the ecumenical creeds and our own traditions confessional documents.

But soul of Scripture reigns in my heart to be sure, and for this I make no apologies whatsoever." That sounds really holy, but what he doesn't understand is the go-to for these other men is the Scripture. But they're not willing to throw out the history of the church in working through these documents, working through the scripture to come up with these documents. And if you want to stand against the creed and confessions, you have to bring the word of God to show where the creeds and confessions are wrong. You can't simply say, my go-to is scripture. You have to show where they're wrong, or else you're standing against a whole witness of history And men who have fought for these things and ground that has been gained So realize that we still have to be careful with the truth what we say about the truth What we receive from the truth what says the word of God?

And that's why the study of this is so important, because you can have men saying, my go-to is the Bible. Well, dear people, our go-to here is the Bible as well. And that was the go-to of the men who formed this confession. And until somebody from the Bible can show where these confessions are wrong, we need to be part of what God's been doing for centuries through the work of his spirit. So the problem with saying that that the Son is eternally submissive to the Father arises, it was really sort of brought to bear because of an application that they were taking from that falsehood that the son, the Bible doesn't make it clear that the son is eternally subject to the father.

But what Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware did is they said because he is eternally subject to the Father so women are will be eternally subject to men for all eternity. Well that was a wrong application from a wrong theology so they took they they they took it so far and applied it in a way that the Bible doesn't really apply it. And that was the problem. And I think it was the way that they were applying it. In a book that a lot of us have read, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Most of the book is really, really good because it speaks of roles, and the roles in the Trinity do matter.

But they fail to make the distinction between the Son's submission to the Father in his incarnation only. And they rather said no, the Son has always been and will always be subject to the Father, creating two wills. So that's that was sort sort of the application of it.