Grace Bible Church
Pastor Teacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
Wednesday April 1, 2015
We have now established why we should believe in the doctrine of the Trinity and the difference between monotheism and polytheism.
We believe in the doctrine of the Trinity and the fact that there is one God with three distinct personalities who we call the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The word for God is Elohim in the plural and in the Hebrew it refers to more than two and therefore, it denotes one God but made up of the three different parts.
We have the pronoun Elohim meaning God in the plural and then we have the words Us and Our, all of which back up and support out doctrinal view on the Trinity.
REV 1:17 And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as a dead man. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying, "Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last,
Here we have the mention of the entire Trinity, the Lord God refers to the Father, Me refers to the God the Son, and His Spirit refers to God the Holy Spirit.
Notice in verse 16, there is mention of the Spirit and in verse 17, the phrase My beloved Son refers to God the Father and TLJC, God the Son.
2CO 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.
Butts are for goats not for sheep.
Unlike the Three so-called "Wise men" who were polytheist and believe that TLJC was one of many gods, we are monotheist, we believe
in God being One in essence with three distinct personalities, all who are One and all who are God.
There was "A GROUP OF MEN" who were watching the prophecy that Daniel spoke of in DAN 9:24-27, who were waiting for the prophecy to be fulfilled.
These men were known as the "Three Wise Men" as history records for us but even history misses out on the details concerning THEM, because they were really known as the Magi and were made up of more than just three.
1. Gold--Daniel said in 9:25 that the coming Messiah was to be a "prince," a term that reveals royalty and the perfect gift for a king.
2. Frankincense-- an incense that was used for the "purpose of cleansing and putting perfume upon a corpse.
3. Then thirdly, there was Myrrh--The Jews used Myrrh for embalming bodies for burial preparation.
The Daniel prophecy contained all the information which the Magi needed to know what gifts they should to the new born king.
How did the Wise Men know that the star they saw in the Heavens was so special that they were willing to travel hundreds of miles to Jerusalem?
They were followers of a Pagan god called Zoro-as-ter who also promoted astrology and the reading of the stars.
Even though they do not believe in God or in Jehovah Elohim in the sense of trusting Him for salvation, they did, however, respect His word, though not concerning their need for salvation.
Just believing in the truth doesn't always count, it's knowing and trusting and relying and humbling yourself to the point of applying that which you know that really counts and matters.
These men were not even Jews; many believe they were Iranians or Iraqis as followers of King Nebuchadnezzar.
TLJC said, "that horrible judgments would come them because they did not know or recognize the time of their visitation." (LUK 19:44)
The Lord had every right to expect the people would know precisely when He would appear, because He had revealed the precious secret over 600 years before His birth to the prophet Daniel.
Had the Jews of our Lord's day been aware of this ancient prophecy, they would have recognized instantly that Jesus was THE Jewish
Messiah -- just as the Wise Men knew when they came to see TLJC once they had seen the "Star in the East."
If your spiritual eyes are open and receptive to the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit, how your faith would be dramatically increased.
The fact that Daniel was a high official of the royal government of Babylon is also highly significant in our study, because only high government officials or high religious leaders had access to books.
The Wise Men were Magi, and at the time they were of the order of the Pagan Medo-Persian religious god called Zoro-as-ter.
The Magi were ancient interpreters of dreams and were astrologers (monthly prognosticators), enchanters, sorcerers, and magicians, we call them today titles like prophets, warlocks, or witches, etc.
In the ancient world, any pagan king of that day who conquered another nation, would take their best young men and their best "Wise Men" to his court to advise him.
The Magi had always held Daniel in very high esteem, because he had saved the lives of the Magi in Daniel's day.
What happened is that King Nebuchadnezzar had a horrifying dream sent to him from God, a dream he could neither recognize the details involved nor what it meant.
The King gathered together all his "Wise Men", including Daniel, and demanded that they tell him what the dream was and what it meant.
As the King's soldiers were rounding up all the Wise Men to put them to death, Daniel asked for a one-day extension.
That night, after much prayer from Daniel and his three friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, God revealed the dream to Daniel.
God made the dream known to Daniel and King Nebuchadnezzar spared the lives of Daniel, his three friends, and all the Magi.
They did not become believers in God as the only god of the universe; rather, they believed Him to be the most powerful god of that time period, and certainly very powerful during any other age.
They were worshippers of the legendary Zara-thus-tra, whom many Satanists consider to be the forerunner of the real Antichrist, including a lot of those in Iraq and Iran who follow the Sun god even up to this day.
The Magi knew of all Daniel's writings, and undoubtedly had copies of the Book of Daniel, and therefore, they knew of the prophecy of DAN 9:24-27.
At the time of the appearance of the Star, they knew they were within a lifetime of this prophecy coming to pass.
When they saw the Star, their knowledge of this remarkably precise prophecy, plus the promptings of the Holy Spirit, caused them to embark on the very long journey to Israel to pay their homage to the Jewish Messiah.
God foretold to the exact day when the Jews would be officially presented their long-awaited Messiah! [Fulfilled to the letter, MAT 21:1-11.
DAN 9:24 "Seventy weeks or 490 years have been decreed for your people [Daniel's people - the Jews] and [Daniel's] holy city [Jerusalem],
We need to be sure we understand the significance of the phrase in verse 24 "Seventy weeks" which according to other references is "Sseventy Sevens" referring to 490 years.
Some have argued that the text is not speaking of years, but weeks or months.
Shabuim translated even in the simple basic concordances such as the Strong's Concordance, as years.
It is translated as years in DAN 9:2 as well as in the book of Jeremiah.