Deuteronomy six, verse four hear, O Israel, Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one. This is in Judaism, probably the most fundamental and basic description of God in all of the Bible. It is foundational to Judaism as a whole. This statement comes after the Ten Commandments, which we read earlier tonight for a scripture reading. It is the introduction of Moses's farewell speech to Israel. Moses winds up in his farewell speech in Deuteronomy four, explaining why God has called Israel and led them to the Promised Land in Deuteronomy five, setting the Ten Commandments as kind of the, the, the headstone, so to speak, the capstone over all of the rest of the laws. And the Deuteronomy six is what starts Moses's farewell speech to Israel, and he begins it with telling Israel that Yahweh, their God, is one. This is a very common expression that is said all the time. It is memorized in Hebrew Shema Israel, Adonai eloheinu Adonai echad hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. Now this is fundamental to Christianity, and it is why the Nicene Creed begins where it does. We believe in one God. Eternity is the doctrine that we believe in a God who is one. Now, of course, the Trinity is the doctrine that we believe in a God who is one in three. And this is the main point tonight we believe in a God who is one and three. But listen carefully. He is not one and three in the same ways. That would be logically contradictory and nonsense. You can't say God is one and three in the same ways as each other. He's one in some ways, and he's three in other ways, and he is not three in the ways that he is one, and he's not one in the ways that he is. Three. And so it falls to us as we read the Bible to navigate what that means. In what ways is God one? In what way does Moses mean when he says, Yahweh your God? Yahweh is one? And like I said, this is the the heading for his farewell speech. This is not some footnote somewhere in a systematic theology. This is the introduction to it. And what ways is God one? And that'll be our outline that guides us tonight. We believe in one God, one God. And there are lots of ways we believe in one God. But I'm going to choose three of them tonight. We'll go through the the names of God as we cover this tonight. First, God is often referred to as Adonai Adonai, which is the Hebrew word for Lord, not Lord, with a capital L, so to speak, but Lord as the. You know, it's a title for someone who who rules lands. You can be lord of a house. Sarah called Abraham. Lord. The New Testament tells us Lord has slaves. The Lord has somebody who has land and has people and has things that are under his influence and leadership. That's what it means to be Lord. Alex, I might need an intercept here. Now, when we say that there is one Lord, what I mean by this is a couple of different ways. First, there's one Lord in authority. There's only one who has authority. There's only one who has authority. This is what Adonai means. That Lord, there's only one true Lord of the universe, and that's Lord in relationship to us. When you speak of God as Adonai, that's speaking of God as He relates to us. God relates to us as our master. And there's only one. Now, there's all kinds of implications from this. When we say that there is only one master, what we mean by that is that you cannot serve in the New Testament sense. You cannot serve both God and money. For example, you can't make money at God and God a God, and serve them both. Your loyalties will be divided. There can only be one true God. But in a more practical sense, Deuteronomy six doesn't simply mean you can't serve both God and money. It's in the backdrop here of a polytheistic world. It's in the backdrop of a world where there are lots of gods. And it's a declaration that despite the world declaring that there are many gods, we're saying there is only one true God. The most exaggerated form possible of the polytheistic world is the Greek pantheon, the Greek and Roman pantheon. They had a massive amount of gods, each with their own mythology behind them, their own origin stories, their own strengths and their own weaknesses, their own accomplishments, their own failures. That's the Greek world. The Greeks had temples to their gods. They had stories about their gods. In contrast to that, the Christian world says, no, there's only one god. All of those gods are false gods. There's only one true god. Greek pantheon is the most exaggerated form. But in the Israelite world, the world they're going into, it was also polytheistic. There was a multiplicity of deities. And the most basic part of Israel's identity is that they wouldn't be like that. Now. There's we have, well, is often called an Aristotelian worldview and a worldview that comes from Aristotle's concept of form and substance. Your crash course in that for 30s is that, uh, you know, we use language. Everything fits into a category. We have a category. Every logic book uses dogs and trees. You know, there's a category of dog and there's a category of trees. And there's an idea. If I say dog or I say tree, you have an idea of a dog or a tree in your head. That idea that you have is the is the form. It's the pattern. It's the ideal. And that idea takes on flesh in the real world. I say picture a dog and you're picturing a dog. It may or may not be your dog, but it's not your actual dog. Your actual dog has fur and a tail and all that. You have an idea of a dog that's different than your actual dog. And we have language, and we live in a world where there is this concept or this idea of something that then gives rise to the categories of things in the world. And so there's lots of dogs in the world, there's wolves and chihuahuas, and somehow they're the same category of thing. I don't know, Aristotle. We could have had another category there. There's trees and they're different than shrubs and and all of that. We have categories for things. There's lots of kinds of dogs, lots of kinds of trees. When it comes to God, there's only one God. There's not a form of God that exists in different ways in the world. That's what polytheism would have you believe. There's lots of these different people, or beings or agents or actors out in the world that all have something in common, and that something they all have in common is their godness. And that's why they would say there's many gods. Augustine, in his book City of God, spends probably the first, I don't know, forty percent of the book. Fifty percent of the book making fun of that concept, making the exact point I just made that in the Greek world, there's all these different gods, and they're all coming from the same concept of what God is, but they can't define what that is. They're just using the word God and say, this is a God, and that's a god, and the other person's a god. What do they have in common? We don't know, but they're all gods into that. The Bible inserts the statement there is only one God. There is not many people who are like God. There's not many concepts of God. There is only one God. And here's the place where form and substance become the same thing. The idea of God is God. There aren't different concepts of him in the world that are true. There is only one God. The idea and the substance is one in the same. What that means is that every encounter with the true God in the Bible is the same God. The God who creates the universe is the same God who walks with Adam in the garden. And that's a very jarring example, isn't it? That's a very jarring juxtaposition that God says world and makes the world. He says universe and makes light and darkness and separates dry, dry ground from the the sea and plants and makes the animals and all of that, that God, with just an unsurpassed and unimaginable power, walks with Adam and Eve in the garden. That's the same God. That goes on all over the the Bible. God is called the Father of Israel in Isaiah sixty three. He's the spouse to Israel in Hosea two. He's more compassionate than any mother in Isaiah sixty six. In the Greek world, that would be three different gods, but in the Bible it's the same God who is father, the same God who is provider, the same God who spouse, the same God, who is more compassionate than any mother, while also being the warrior of Exodus fifteen. By the way, all the attributes of God are on display in relationship to us. He's the God of justice and he's also the God of Mercy. You can start to see the allure of polytheism, can't you? Because if you have a concept of justice that is is perfect and a concept of mercy is perfect, how can they reside in the same person? You would develop different gods. One God for justice, one God for mercy. He's the God of wrath and he's the God of compassion. But all of those are resident in the same God. Now those descriptions God of wrath and compassion, justice and mercy, those are all descriptions of God as He relates to us. That's why I have this under the heading of Adonai. As he relates to us, God has perfect compassion and mercy, justice and wrath. There's only one true God. If there were multiple gods, then there would be multiple patterns. This goes back to Augustine's book City of God the Aristotelian worldview. If there were many different concepts of God, there would have to be either one pattern that is played out in many different gods or many different patterns for God. And if there were that, how would you compare gods? How would you know that this God is better than that God? Unless there was some third category that judged them both. Your loyalties would be divided. If you lived in a polytheistic world, you could serve this God if you needed strength, and that God if you needed compassion, the true God would be contingent on your own needs. The Bible rejects such a concept and says in Deuteronomy six four, there is only one Lord. This refutes the way of relativism that what works for you works for you. That's fine. And we say no, there is only one Lord. From that we move to one in the world. There's only one in authority. There's only one who reigns over us and relates to us in a true way. And all the presentations of God are the same God. If it's the true God. And secondly, there's only one actual God in the world. This is coming from the title Elohim. God is often referred to as Elohim. The Hebrew word Elohim just simply means deities. And it was a very common word. It's what all the the people of the world used to describe their own gods, Elohim. But Israel took that word and used it for the true God. And that's not without controversy. I remember a few years ago there was a big controversy in the missions world when people who, I don't think rightly, understand how translation works found out that some Arab Arabic Bibles were using the word Allah as God, as the Christian God. Well, it's just the word for God. That's how it gets translated. And yet it set people on edge. That's in our world today. Imagine in the Israelite world, when you find out that the Jews were using Elohim, the word for the for the gods of the world, as the word for the true God. In fact, the Jews, because they don't want to say his name. When they do the Shema, they say Elohim Shema Israel, Adonai Eloheinu, our God is one. This declaration of the unity of God again occurs against the backdrop of religious diversity. Most of the nations to which Israel was surrounding the Amalekites and the Philistines, they believed less about polytheism and what is often called. They were often what's called henotheistic henotheistic. Heno is just the Greek word for for one. They believed in one God. They believe it's different than monotheism. Monotheism is what the the Jews were. That there is only one God. Henotheism is what all those other nations were. which says there may be lots of gods, but our nation is going to choose to only worship one. We have a true God in our nation. Other nations have their own true gods. That's the way most of the world around Israel in the ancient Near East understood deity that every, every nation has its own god. Every zip code has its own God. And God in turn, would fight for his particular people. And so they viewed wars between nations as a war between their gods. This is the way even many Jews understood this. Do you remember when Moses's grandson became an idol worshipper and got all his idols stolen? In the book of Judges. And he starts weeping and saying, there goes my God, stolen from me. You want to take Deuteronomy five and hit him upside the head with it? There's many commands in the Bible that make sense in the backdrop of Henotheism, for example, the the Ten Commandments that begin with, ye shall have no other gods before me. Sometimes that rubs our ears wrong. We think, what do you mean? She'd have no other gods before me. Isn't there only one god? Yes, but he's going into a world. The Israelites are going into world. They're going to be surrounded by other so-called gods. And their temptation will be to worship the gods of the people who are there. And, you know, that's a temptation because you've read the rest of the Bible, haven't you? You know, they always do that. This doesn't mean when the when the Bible says, have no other gods before me that the Bible is granting that are actually the gods. Of course not. Deuteronomy thirty two seventeen says the other gods that are worshiped are actually demons. Isaiah forty five verse five makes clear, I am Yahweh, and there is no other. Israel, when they were renewing their covenant with God before entering the Promised Land. What we're reading about in Deuteronomy six, they renew their covenant covenant to one God, namely Yahweh. They're not going to bring with them the gods of Egypt, and they're not going to take on the gods of the Philistines. They're only going to worship the true God. Now, I want you to understand how how jarring this would be, because in that world the gods had, you know, domiciles, they had they had zip codes that they were in charge of congressional districts. They were bigger than zip codes, but they had congressional districts. Every congressional district had their own God, and they did not have gerrymandering. It would get super confusing. And so what about Yahweh? Where's his zip code? What congressional district belongs to Yahweh? Where did we find out Yahweh's name? I mean, in Egypt. But he first speaks to Abraham, who's from the Chaldeans, and there is no people called Israel when Yahweh first speaks to them. And by the time there is a nation of Israel, they're in Egypt. So where is where's Yahweh's ZIP code. Is he homeless? And the point is that he is the only true God. He doesn't dwell in a temple. In a temple made by human hands. You know, for the Philistines Dagon's existence depended on the Philistines worshiping him. The moment the Philistines stopped worshiping Dagon, Dagon poof disappears. The moment they stop worshiping Baal, Baal is gone. You know, today if you go see a temple of Baal, it's it's it's in ruins. It's just the wire frame of what used to be a cow or something. It's. It's nothing. Because they stopped worshiping him. Those gods, when they cease to be worshiped, disappear because they don't exist. Now, with that as the background, I want you to flip over just a few pages to Joshua twenty four. This is a very well-known passage, but I want you to read it again in the back against the backdrop of Henotheism, the idea that each of these nations had their own gods. Again, very well known passage. But see if you read it differently. Now verse fourteen, therefore Yahweh says. Fear Yahweh, and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the river and in Egypt, and serve Yahweh. Now sometimes people read this and think, oh, they must have had the idols with them. I mean, maybe they had the idols with them. They probably did smuggle out some idols. That's true. But it's also not really the point here. The point is that they're leaving Egypt. Leave the gods of Egypt behind. Put away them. Verse fifteen, if it is evil in your eyes to serve Yahweh. Choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your father served in the region beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. That's Joshua's challenge for them. Listen, the Amorites have a God. Worship him. The Egyptians have a God. Worship him if you want. If you're not going to choose Yahweh, better to choose Yahweh, because he's the true God. Now the people, of course, answer, far be it from us that we would forsake Yahweh to serve other gods. I mean, come on, we would never we would never forsake Yahweh to serve other gods, the Israelites say. I mean, there's a trail of idols behind them. It is Yahweh our God who brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who did those great signs in our midst? Verse eighteen Yahweh drove out before us all the peoples and the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve Yahweh, for he is our God. So they're still not quite getting it. Do you see it like, yes, we will serve Yahweh because he beat the Amalekites. That's not the strongest argument for monotheism. That's the one they make. And Joshua said to the people you are. I mean, he's hearing them talk, and he says, you're not able to do this. With that attitude, you cannot serve Yahweh. He's a holy God. He's a jealous God. He's not going to forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake Yahweh and serve foreign gods, he will turn and do you harm and consume you. Even though he's done you good, then he'll do you harm. Now again, the contrast here between Yahweh and the gods of the Amalekites and the Philistines. Those gods only exist if their people worship him. And so it's always a war to get the people to worship their God. That's how he exists. Notice the difference between Yahweh. The followers of Yahweh are like, yeah, we think we'll worship you. And Yahweh's prophet is like, yeah, I don't think you guys can. God doesn't need our worship. He exists whether or not we worship him. And that leads to a question if if God's people, the Israelites, can't prop his name up And make sure that he's worshiped. Who's going to advance his cause in the world if the Israelites aren't going to prop him up and advance his cause, who's going to fight for Yahweh? If the Israelites won't? That's the question. You can flip over to First Samuel chapter five, which has the best answer possible. First Samuel chapter five, page two twenty eight. If you're using the pew Bibles. The Philistines captured the ark of God. They caught Yahweh. They put Yahweh in a box and caught him. They think, and they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod, the place where they had the stones laid up. They called it Ebenezer. They brought it to their own capital. The Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it up beside Dagon. Dagon is the Philistine god. They captured Yahweh. So they think they you know they are. They have the arks. They think they have Yahweh in a box. And they. What are they going to do with him? So of course they put it. They put him in their temple, which is a very natural response, like they have this in their mind. They caught the God of the Israelites. What do you do with the God of Israelites now that you've caught him? Put him in the temple. It's like, you know, monopoly. When you bankrupt somebody, you get their their properties as well. That's what they're thinking. This is full on philistine monopoly right here. We bankrupted the Israelites. We have their gods. Let's just incorporate them into our temple. The phrase Philistine monopoly was original with me. I didn't get that from a commentary. Could you tell? When the people verse three of Ashdod arose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face down on the ground before the ark of Yahweh. Well, that's a problem there. God is bowing down before Yahweh. It was not supposed to work that way. They check in on. They pop in in the temple in the morning, expecting to see the box with Yahweh in it, just sitting there, and instead they see their idol bowing down and worshiping the ark. Better not let the people see this. So they grab Dagon and put him back in his place in verse three. But the next morning, behold, not only has Dagon fallen down on the ground before the ark of Yahweh, but this time the head and his hands were cut off and thrown out of the room. Sitting on the doorway, only the trunk of Dagon was left him, so his dagon's body is lying there. He's the fish god, by the way, and he's just. It's a whole mess. He got part of the fish worshiping the ark and the head and the hands and the flippers or whatever. Every which way. What a mess. This is why the priests of Dagon Hall, who entered the House of Dagon, do not tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day. So they deduce from this they're going to duct tape, you know Dagon back together again. And they're like, let's not step on the crack on the floor where his head fell. That's the way they respond to that. And they ship the Ark back to Israel. We can be done with that. Notice that's their worldview. Let's get Yahweh back out of our land so we can go back to worshiping Dagon. And let's not step on the ground where his head landed. What a contrast with Yahweh. He is the only true God in the world. And then third, God is one in being. God is one in being. He is one in authority. He's one in the world, and he's one in being. And this is from the name Yahweh. There is only one being who is God. There is not three beings who are God. That means there is only one God, not three gods, and certainly not lots of gods. Only one god. Which means there's only one source of wisdom, only one source of life. Only one God. Identity of God as Yahweh is independent of his creation. The identity of God as Adonai is dependent on his creation. I suppose he is only father to his created children. In that sense, he's only exercising authority over those whom he created. He's the only God in the world that he made. Ed. But when it comes to Yahweh, he is the only God in and of himself. Yahweh represents God as one in relationship to himself, not in relationship to us. He is the one who has always existed independent from us. That's what Yahweh means. I am that I am. It means he's the uncreated one. We're not like that. None of us have an independent existence. You are who you are in relationship to your parents, to your husbands, to your wife, to your boss, to your kids, to your coach. All of our identity comes in the context of other people. None of us have an independent identity at all. But God is who he is, independent of everyone and everything else. He is distinct from every created being. Theologians sometimes call this the doctrine of the unity of God that he exists as one being independent from everything else he receives his being from no one. That's what Yahweh means, Moses says, who should I say sent me? The Israelites are going to say, who sent you? And Yahweh says, tell them, I am that I am sent you. God alone has his being from no one else. Everything comes from him. So he is over all things and above all things, and independent of all things, because he made them so. His identity is distinct from them. But not only is he independent from them and that he doesn't need them, he's independent from them in that all of the good attributes in this world in any way, shape or form, have their supreme expression in God because he made them think of beauty. God makes beautiful things. You look at the sunset and you go, what a beautiful sunset. It shows God's handiwork. If God makes beauty in the world, that means that God is supremely Extremely beautiful. If the things that he makes express himself, then he is a supreme, beautiful being. He's the source of all intelligibility. If anything can be discerned or understood, you have understanding because God gives it to you. That means he's the source of all intelligibility. That means he is the only wise God that everything that makes sense is found in him. It's not just that he's smarter than us. He's the source of all wisdom and knowledge in and of himself. He's the only wise God. We have a concept called power in our world. So God must be the ultimately powerful being because our power comes from him. We have a concept of life in the world. So it's not just that God has life and is the source of life, it's that he must be eternal life. Life to the maximum. He's a supremely beautiful being, the supremely powerful being, the only wise God. And to know him would be eternal life. Yahweh is a personal term towards himself. I am that I am. He is the God who is and was and always will be in and of himself. This leads to the doctrine of what is often called divine simplicity, that that God is not composed of parts because everything he is, he is perfectly, and all of his attributes collapse in on themselves. And we understand that, that you can't really distinguish between God's love and God's goodness and God's mercy and God's compassion. They all start to collapse in on themselves. God is compassionate in a completely loving way. He's not made up of different attributes. He is one. All of his attributes are one. We categorize his attributes. We'll you know, you get a systematic theology and has different chapters of all those attributes. And that's fine because he's an infinite being. So we have to use some categories to even begin to talk about him. But we recognize that the doctrine of simplicity means that all of God's attributes truly are one in himself. He's not righteousness plus goodness plus power. A little bit of mercy sprinkled in, stirred up. And you have God. No. All those words are concepts we have about him. Are just pale to express that he is the only wise, ultimately perfect God. God is infinite. We are finite. He's infinite. So think of how his attributes collapse in on themselves because he is one. Omniscience. God knows all things. Why does God know all things? Because he made all things. We have a word for that omnipotence. He has the power to create whatever he wants and do whatever he wants with it. Omnipresence. What do we mean by that? We mean that God knows everything everywhere and has the power to do whatever with it he wants. You can't escape from him. So even those most basic categories of omniscience and omnipresence collapse in on themselves. He is absolute. He is all of those things to the to the max. Some people misrepresent this argument from Aquinas as saying that if if there's a concept in this world, there must be the perfect version of that concept. And you know, by saying that if there's beauty in the world, there's got to be a supremely beautiful being. And they'll say, but if that being is beautiful, there must be one above it, and it goes on forever and ever and ever. That's not the argument. The argument is that everything that exists that is good and virtuous in our universe has its source in God. And if he made it, he is the perfect expression of it because he is the maker. It doesn't lead to a line of different gods. That's monotheism. There's only one God who is supremely perfect, and he made all things. He's absolute. Acts seventeen, verse twenty four. The God who made the world and everything in it does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything he himself gives to mankind life, breath and everything. Everything comes from him. This means God is immutable. He's unchangeable. Part of saying that God is one means he can not change. He is perfect in every respect. He's unchangeable. Malachi three verse six I, Yahweh, do not change. Understand that is an expression of his, of his unity, of his oneness. He cannot change. Isaiah forty six, verse nine. Remember the former things of old, for I am God, there is no other. I am God, and there is none like me. Romans eleven thirty six From him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Now God's oneness means, quite simply, that all he does to us and for us and in us cannot be dependent on us. This leads you to a robust understanding of the sovereignty of God. Let me say it this way. God says, I am who I am, that means he's independent of us. And then God says, I will be gracious on whom I will be gracious. This is Romans nine. I will show mercy on whomever. I will show mercy. If God is independent of us and sovereign over us, and the perfect expression of grace and mercy and all of that, that means he can dispense it as he sees fit, there's no other way for him to dispense it. He cannot act in a contingent way on us, or he would not be infinite. But he is infinite. And because he's infinite, there can only be one God. You don't have room for three infinite beings. There's only one infinite God. God is absolute. There cannot be more than one of him. God is perfect, and there cannot be more than one perfect being. Otherwise, how would you measure two gods against each other unless there is a third standard? So there's only one god. What does this mean? There's only one will in God. There's only one authority. In God There's only one source in God. There's only one eternal being called God, who was, who is, and who is to come. This is the most foundational part of theology. With the true God there is only one Lord. We're grateful for the unity in God. It gives us confidence that we are not subject, as James says, to shifting shadows, because in you there is no change or variation. It gives us confidence, as Samuel says, that you are not a man, that you would change your mind like a man would. He gives us the capacity to worship you because you are not created but are the creator. He gives us humility. We see the gap between ourselves on our best day and you who don't have this. You're the perfect uncreated one. We give you thanks in Jesus name. Amen. And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson. If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website. If you want more information about the Master's Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to TMZ.com. Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, DC area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel. I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service, but no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church. Now, may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly. Serve the Lord faithfully and share the gospel boldly.