Latest / Reformed Thinking / Offense, Uprooting, and Blind Guides: Christ’s Verdict on Man-Made Religion (Matthew 15:12–14)
Transcript
- 0:00We'll come back to reformed thinking.
- 0:01We are opening up a stack of sources today.
- 0:05That feels honestly a little dangerous.
- 0:08Yeah, it really does. We are looking at a moment in
- 0:10the Gospel of Matthew where the tension isn't just high, it is
- 0:15snapping, right. We are talking about Matthew
- 0:17chapter 15, specifically verses 12 through 14.
- 0:20It is a pivotal moment in the text.
- 0:22It really is to. Set the stage here because I
- 0:24think you as a listener need to feel the room before we get into
- 0:27the heavy theology. The disciples are panicked.
- 0:30Oh, full blown panic. Right.
- 0:32They are acting like modern public relations managers who
- 0:36just watched their CEO insult the biggest investors in the
- 0:40company. That is a very accurate way to
- 0:41put it. I call this the pragmatic panic.
- 0:43The pragmatic panic. I like that a lot.
- 0:46So here is the setup for you. Jesus has just had a massive
- 0:50confrontation with the Pharisees, heavyweights, yeah,
- 0:53the religious heavyweights of the day.
- 0:54And the disciples come to him basically whispering and say, Do
- 0:58you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this
- 1:01saying? And that question, do you know
- 1:03they were offended, is the hook for our entire deep dive today.
- 1:08It really exposes everything it. Does because it exposes A
- 1:11perennial temptation for the Church, the temptation to
- 1:15measure faithfulness by the reaction of influential people.
- 1:18Rather than the verdict of God. Precisely, it is the fear of man
- 1:21versus the fear of God. And what we are going to see in
- 1:24these sources is that Jesus doesn't apologize.
- 1:28He doesn't say, Oh my bad, let me issue a clarification for the
- 1:30press. He double s down with a.
- 1:32Terrifying diagnosis, honestly. He says that false religion is a
- 1:36weed, it has no divine origin and if you follow blind guides
- 1:40you don't just get lost. You have been a pit.
- 1:42A pit of ruin. So our mission for this deep
- 1:45dive is to look at this through the lens of Scripture and the
- 1:48Westminster Confession of Faith. Right, because that gives us the
- 1:51framework. Going to unpack the danger of
- 1:55offense, the doctrine of divine uprooting, and the command to
- 1:59separate from false teachers. Let's get into it.
- 2:01OK, before we get to the panic in verse 12, we have to
- 2:04understand what actually caused it.
- 2:05We need the context. Yeah, what on earth did Jesus
- 2:09say that made the religious elite so incredibly angry?
- 2:13Well, to see that we have to look at the 1st 11 verses of
- 2:17Matthew 15. The context is a showdown.
- 2:21And notice who shows up. Right, Matthew tells us it was
- 2:23scribes and Pharisees which were of Jerusalem.
- 2:26Which means these aren't just the local guys.
- 2:28No, they aren't the guys from the synagogue down the street in
- 2:31Galilee. This is the varsity team.
- 2:33Yeah, Jerusalem is the religious center.
- 2:36These are the theological gatekeepers.
- 2:38They've traveled all the way N to Galilee specifically to
- 2:43inspect and really to challenge Jesus.
- 2:46So what is the charge? I mean, if you were sending a
- 2:49delegation from headquarters, you would expect a major heresy
- 2:52trial. You would think so.
- 2:53But the accusation seems minor. On the surface, yes, they ask
- 2:57him, why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the
- 3:00elders? For they washed out their hands
- 3:02when they eat bread. Hand washing?
- 3:04Are we talking about hygiene here?
- 3:05See that? Is where we have to be really
- 3:07careful. A modern reader sees washing
- 3:10hands and thinks, well, that's just good advice.
- 3:13Germs are real. Right wash before dinner.
- 3:15But this had zero to do with hygiene.
- 3:17Nothing at all. It was a ritual, A ceremonial
- 3:19practice, OK. Unpack that.
- 3:21The tradition of the elders had built up this massive fence
- 3:25around the Law of Moses. They believe that if you didn't
- 3:28perform this specific ritual washing, you were ceremonially
- 3:33defiled. You were unclean.
- 3:35Right. It was a badge of holiness for
- 3:37that. So it is not about getting dirt
- 3:39off your hands, it is about signaling that you are one of
- 3:42the spiritual people. That is it.
- 3:44It was a spiritual test they used to condemn others.
- 3:46Yeah. If you don't wash like we do,
- 3:48you aren't holy. And Jesus, well, he doesn't play
- 3:53that. Game he does not.
- 3:54He launches a counter attack that is absolutely.
- 3:56Devastating. He flips the table on them.
- 3:58He asked them why do you transgress the commandment of
- 4:01God by your tradition? Wow, notice the contrast there.
- 4:05They accused him of breaking tradition.
- 4:08Man made. Rules, yeah.
- 4:09But he accused them of breaking God's commandment.
- 4:11That is a massive escalation and he gives a specific example,
- 4:17right? Something about Corbin?
- 4:18Yes, and this is crucial to understand why they were so
- 4:21offended later on. Let's hear it.
- 4:23Jesus brings up the 5th commandment.
- 4:25Honor your father and mother. Which implies financially caring
- 4:28for them in their old age. Basic biblical morality, yeah.
- 4:32But the Pharisees had this loophole called Corbin.
- 4:35Loophole. Yeah, a man could take his money
- 4:37or his property and declare Corbin, which means given to God
- 4:42or dedicated. OK, once he said that magic word
- 4:45he could say to his needy parents, Sorry, I can't help you
- 4:48with rent or food. This money is dedicated to the
- 4:50temple. Wait, but did they actually give
- 4:52it to the temple right then? That is the kicker.
- 4:54No, they. Have got to be kidding.
- 4:56Often they could still retain the use of it for themselves
- 4:59during their lifetime. It was a deferred gift.
- 5:01So it was a religious trick. A trick to keep their money
- 5:04while pretending to be pious, all while letting their parents
- 5:07literally starve. That is sickening.
- 5:10It is hypocrisy in its absolute purest form, and Jesus calls it
- 5:14out right to their faces. He doesn't hold back.
- 5:17He says you have made the commandment of God of none
- 5:20effect by your tradition. And then he quotes Isaiah.
- 5:23Isaiah 29 verse 13 This people draws nigh into me with their
- 5:27mouth, and honors me with their lips, but their heart is far
- 5:31from me. Worship with the lips, rebellion
- 5:33in the heart. The theological principle here
- 5:36is vital for you as a listener to grasp human tradition acts as
- 5:41a solvent. A solvent like acid.
- 5:43Just like acid, it dissolves the authority of scripture.
- 5:47When you elevate man made rules to the level of divine law, you
- 5:51end up nullifying God's actual law.
- 5:53Because only God has the right to bind the conscience.
- 5:56Spot on. That is a Hill reformed theology
- 5:58is willing to die on. Sol the scriptura in action.
- 6:01Absolutely. So Jesus exposed this hypocrisy,
- 6:04but then he does something else. He turns to the crowd.
- 6:07He turns to the multitude and basically redefines their entire
- 6:10understanding of religion. He calls the crowd over and says
- 6:13hear and understand. He wants the common people to
- 6:15get this. He says not that which goes into
- 6:18the mouse defiles a man, but that which comes out of the
- 6:21mouth, this defiles a man. Which sounds simple enough to us
- 6:24today, right? But for a 1st century Jew living
- 6:27under this Pharisaic system, that must have sounded radical.
- 6:30It completely dismantled their whole worldview.
- 6:32How so? Well, the Pharisee.
- 6:34He's taught that Holiness was about external management.
- 6:36Avoid this food. Watch these hands.
- 6:38Touch this, don't touch that. It was outside in.
- 6:41But Jesus says no. The problem isn't dirt on your
- 6:45hands, the problem is the filth in your heart.
- 6:48Real defilement is internal. Right.
- 6:50It is not what you eat. It is what you say.
- 6:53Because what you say comes from the heart.
- 6:55Murder, adultery, theft, false witness, These things start in
- 6:59the heart. So Jesus is diagnosing the core
- 7:02human condition. He is saying you can scrub your
- 7:05hands until they are raw, but your heart is still a factory of
- 7:08idols. That is the context.
- 7:10Jesus just told the most respected religious leaders that
- 7:13they are hypocrites who break God's law.
- 7:15Yes, and he told the people that the leader's entire system of
- 7:18external purity is completely useless.
- 7:21And that right there brings us to verse 12, the.
- 7:24Panic, the panic. The disciples come back to
- 7:28Jesus. I imagine they are pulling him
- 7:30aside, looking over their shoulders, making sure no one is
- 7:33listening. Whispering.
- 7:35Yeah. Do you know that the Pharisees
- 7:37were offended? You can hear the sheer anxiety
- 7:40in the text. Do you know?
- 7:43As if Jesus was unaware. As if he accidentally slipped up
- 7:46and ruined the whole campaign. They still viewed the Pharisees
- 7:49as the good guys, didn't they? Or at least as people you
- 7:52desperately need on your side. Absolutely.
- 7:54The Pharisees were the cultural gatekeepers.
- 7:56They control the synagogues. They had the respect of the
- 7:58people. To be on their bad side was
- 8:01social suicide. So the disciples are thinking
- 8:04pragmatically. They are thinking about
- 8:06platform. They are thinking, Jesus, we're
- 8:08trying to build a movement here. You can't just alienate the
- 8:11leadership. It is the modern parallel that
- 8:13really hits home for me here. It is everywhere.
- 8:15How often do we see this in the church today?
- 8:17We are terrified of offending the culture or the Academy or
- 8:22the big denominational elites. It is the exact same dynamic.
- 8:26We have this pragmatic panic, we think, if we preach on this
- 8:31specific doctrine. Or if we call this sin a sin.
- 8:33People will be upset, we might lose our tax status, we might
- 8:37get cancelled on social media. We want to be winsome.
- 8:40That is the buzzword, right? Winsome.
- 8:42We make an idol out of winsomeness.
- 8:44Now don't misunderstand me. Christians shouldn't be jerks.
- 8:48Right. We shouldn't be offensive just
- 8:50for the sake of being offensive. But that is not what is
- 8:52happening here. Jesus wasn't being rude, he was
- 8:55being truthful. Spot on.
- 8:57The word offended here is the key.
- 8:58Everything in the Greek it is a scandalous Thezan.
- 9:03A scandalous Thezan, and that comes from Scandalon.
- 9:06Yes, a scandalon. And what does that literally
- 9:08mean? It literally refers to the
- 9:10trigger stick of a trap, a snare.
- 9:13Like a mousetrap. Very similar.
- 9:15It is the part that when you touch it, the trap snaps shut.
- 9:18So when the text says the Pharisees were offended, it
- 9:21doesn't just mean their feelings were hurt.
- 9:23No, it means they were tripped up.
- 9:24They were ensnared. Ensnared by what, though?
- 9:27By the truth, by their own self righteousness colliding with the
- 9:31stone of stumbling. The unvarnished truth of Christ
- 9:34is a trap for the reprobate mind.
- 9:37They heard the truth and because they love their tradition more
- 9:40than God, they stumbled. They were.
- 9:42Caught. So their offense wasn't a sign
- 9:44that Jesus did something wrong, it was actually a sign that they
- 9:47were rejecting God. That is the crucial take away
- 9:50for you as a listener. The disciples thought offense
- 9:53was a metric of failure. Oh no, they are mad we messed up
- 9:56the ministry. Jesus teaches us that offense
- 9:59can actually be a sign of faithfulness.
- 10:01If you preach the true gospel, the gospel of grace, of human
- 10:06depravity, of the necessity of Christ, the natural man will be
- 10:10offended. I have a quote here from Charles
- 10:13Spurgeon that was in our source stack for today.
- 10:15I think it fits perfectly. Let's hear it, he said.
- 10:17If you preach truth, you will have enemies.
- 10:20Preach half truths and you have the blood of souls on your
- 10:23hands. That is a heavy reality.
- 10:25The church today desperately needs to hear that.
- 10:27We treat public backlash as proof of error.
- 10:30Oh, the world hates us? We must be unloving.
- 10:32No, the world hated Christ. Why do we think we should be
- 10:36applauded? So the disciples are shaking in
- 10:38their sandals, worried about the PR disaster.
- 10:42And Jesus, well, he doesn't comfort them.
- 10:45He gives them a verdict. He moves straight from diagnosis
- 10:48to judgement. Verse 13 But he answered and
- 10:51said, Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted
- 10:54shall be rooted up. This is an agricultural
- 10:57metaphor. We have moved from the dinner
- 10:58table to the garden. Yes, and the Greek word for
- 11:01plant, here futea, refers to something cultivated.
- 11:05A garden plant, not just wild grass, right?
- 11:08The Pharisees thought they were the choices, vines and God's
- 11:11vineyard. They thought they were the
- 11:12heritage of Israel. They were the established
- 11:14religion. They had the history, the robes,
- 11:17the buildings. And Jesus calls them weeds.
- 11:19He basically says my father didn't plant you.
- 11:21That is terrifying, every plan that my Heavenly Father has not
- 11:25planted. This brings us straight into the
- 11:27heart of reformed theology. Because this is about the
- 11:29sovereignty of God. Yes, look at the agency in the
- 11:33sentence. Who does the planting?
- 11:34The Heavenly Father. Not the plant, Yeah, not the
- 11:37soil. The Father.
- 11:39This points us right to the doctrine of unconditional
- 11:41election. Which connects to what we find
- 11:43in the Westminster Confession Chapter 3.
- 11:45Exactly. Salvation is a monarchistic
- 11:47work. Define that for us.
- 11:49Monarchism means 1 energy, one worker.
- 11:52God alone saves. Versus synergism, which is
- 11:56working together, right? Jesus is saying that true
- 11:59spiritual life, true religion, originates solely with God.
- 12:04If a person or a movement or a tradition isn't initiated by
- 12:07God's sovereign grace, it is nothing.
- 12:10It is a weed. So this is a total rejection of
- 12:13the idea that we plant ourselves by our own free will.
- 12:16Completely. Our sources are very clear on
- 12:18this. This is a polemic against any
- 12:20theology that suggests human free will or human works
- 12:23contribute to the planting. Whether it is Arminianism or
- 12:26Roman Catholicism. Or anything else.
- 12:28If the Father didn't plant it, it doesn't matter how zealous it
- 12:31looks on the outside. And the Pharisees were zealous.
- 12:34They were super committed. But their zeal was man made, it
- 12:37was self generated. Therefore, Jesus says it will be
- 12:40rooted up. Rooted up, that sounds violent.
- 12:43The Greek verb is, and again it is a divine passive.
- 12:49A divine passive, meaning God is the one taking the action.
- 12:52Yes, the plant is the recipient of the action.
- 12:55It will be rooted up. By whom?
- 12:57By God? It implies a total forceful
- 13:00removal. So it's not just pruning.
- 13:02No, it is not just trimming the dead leaves to help it grow
- 13:05better, it is complete extraction.
- 13:06When does this uprooting happen? Well, there is an immediate
- 13:10sense and a future sense. Immediately Jesus is exposing
- 13:13them right then and there. Their authority is beginning to
- 13:16wither. But in the end.
- 13:17In the end, this is an eschatological warning.
- 13:20It is about the final judgement. So at the end of days, any
- 13:23religion, any ministry, any person not planted by the
- 13:27Father. Gone.
- 13:28Every man made system, every tradition that obscured
- 13:31scripture, every seeker sensitive compromise that
- 13:33diluted the truth. It will all be torn out.
- 13:36That is a sobering thought for anyone in ministry, or anyone in
- 13:39the Pew, honestly. It should be.
- 13:41It challenges you to ask a hard question.
- 13:44Is my faith rooted in God's Word and His sovereign grace, or is
- 13:48it rooted in my culture, my parents tradition, or my own
- 13:51moral performance? Because only what God plants
- 13:54will survive. Only what God plants.
- 13:57But there's a flip side to this, right?
- 13:58It is not just a threat. No, it is a solid comfort for
- 14:01the elect. If you are a true believer, who
- 14:04planted you and if the father plant you, can you be rooted up?
- 14:08No you cannot. That is it.
- 14:10My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me,
- 14:13and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.
- 14:16If God planted you, you are secure.
- 14:19Your security doesn't lie in your strength as a plant.
- 14:21It lies in the competence of the gardener.
- 14:23That is the beauty of the sovereignty of God.
- 14:25It crushes pride, but it establishes total hope.
- 14:28Amen to that. But for the Pharisees it was a
- 14:30death sentence. They were not planted.
- 14:32So Jesus has declared their doom.
- 14:35They are weeds destined for the fire, but the disciples are
- 14:39still standing there, probably still anxious.
- 14:40OK, Jesus, but they are still powerful right now.
- 14:43What do we do now? And that leads to the command in
- 14:46verse 14, a command that is incredibly counter cultural
- 14:50today. Let them alone.
- 14:51A feat Otis, leave them. It sounds passive, like just
- 14:54ignore them. It is not passive in the sense
- 14:57of just don't care. It is a decisive withdrawal.
- 15:00Decisive withdrawal. Yes, it means do not hold on to
- 15:04them, do not follow them, dissociate from them.
- 15:06So separation. Yes, separation.
- 15:09Jesus is prohibiting the disciples from trying to explain
- 15:12themselves further. He is saying stop trying to win
- 15:15them over. Stop trying to find common
- 15:17ground. They are rejected.
- 15:18Walk away. Wow, we live in an age that
- 15:22idolizes dialogue. Ecumenical Unity.
- 15:25We are told we need to keep a seat at the table, keep the
- 15:27conversation going forever. And Jesus says there comes a
- 15:29time when that is actually a sin.
- 15:32There is a time to stop engaging with those who obstinately
- 15:35reject scripture. If you keep trying to appease a
- 15:38false teacher, you eventually get pulled into their air.
- 15:41You can't bridge the gap between truth and error without
- 15:44compromising the truth. Correct.
- 15:47And Jesus explains why we must leave them alone.
- 15:50He gives the diagnosis. They'd be blind leaders of the
- 15:53blind. Blind guides.
- 15:55To Floyd Hudugoy, this is a terrifying image if you think
- 15:59about the terrain of ancient Judea.
- 16:00Cliffs. Ravine.
- 16:02Open cisterns everywhere. And you have a guide who says
- 16:05follow me, I know the way, but he has his hands over his eyes.
- 16:09It is worse than that, actually. He thinks he sees.
- 16:12That is the nature of this spiritual blindness.
- 16:15It is total depravity. So it is not not just that they
- 16:17are missing some information. Their hearts are darkened.
- 16:20They are morally incapable of seeing the Kingdom of.
- 16:23God what? They are confident.
- 16:24That is the real danger. Think about it.
- 16:26A blind man who knows he is blind asks for help.
- 16:30He says lead me. A blind man who thinks he sees
- 16:32becomes a leader. And that is what the Pharisees
- 16:35were. They were confident,
- 16:36credentialed, authoritative, and stone blind.
- 16:39And Jesus says, And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall
- 16:42into the ditch. The ditch or the pit?
- 16:46Bothunos. It is a trap, a cistern.
- 16:48It implies absolute ruin, destruction.
- 16:50But notice the word both. Yes, that is the chilling part
- 16:54of the text. We like to think that the poor
- 16:57followers are innocent victims. Oh, I was just listening to my
- 17:01pastor. I didn't know he was a heretic.
- 17:03I was just sincere in my faith. Jesus destroys the fallacy of
- 17:07sincerity here. Ignorance is no excuse.
- 17:10If you submit yourself to a blind guide, you share in his
- 17:13judgement. You are accountable for who you
- 17:15listen to. You absolutely are.
- 17:17Gullibility is not innocence. We are commanded to test the
- 17:21spirits. If you hand your conscience over
- 17:23to a man, whether it is a cult leader, a liberal theologian who
- 17:27denies the resurrection. Or a prosperity gospel preacher
- 17:30who promises you a Ferrari. You are walking straight toward
- 17:33the pit. And when you fall in, you can't
- 17:35say, but I thought he knew the way.
- 17:37The pit doesn't care what you thought.
- 17:38Gravity doesn't care about your intentions.
- 17:41Blindness leads to the pit, period.
- 17:44This connects back to the idea of the guides of our day.
- 17:47We have so many. Too many influencers, authors,
- 17:51podcasters. It is an era of unparalleled
- 17:54access to teaching. And that means unparalleled
- 17:57danger. We have people with millions of
- 18:00followers on YouTube who are, theologically speaking, blind
- 18:04guides. They deconstruct the faith.
- 18:06They mock the holiness of God. They elevate the self.
- 18:09And what does Jesus say? Let them alone.
- 18:12Don't subscribe. Don't hate watch, Don't try to
- 18:15reason with them in the comments section.
- 18:17Leave them. Save yourself and your
- 18:19household. It is a call to serious
- 18:21discernment. It is a call to theological
- 18:23survival. So we have walked through the
- 18:25text, we have seen the context of the conflict tradition versus
- 18:28scripture. We have seen the offense, the
- 18:31trap of truth. We have seen the uprooting Gods
- 18:34sovereign judgment on false religion.
- 18:36And we have seen the command separate from blind guides.
- 18:39It is a complete dismantling of man made religion.
- 18:42Yes. So what does this mean for you,
- 18:44the listener? Let's pivot to application.
- 18:46How do we synthesize all of this?
- 18:48We usually talk about head, heart, and hands.
- 18:50Let's start with the head, the doctrine.
- 18:52The head application is clear. We must affirm God's absolute
- 18:56sovereignty in election. We have to get comfortable with
- 18:59the fact that God is the gardener.
- 19:01He plants and He uproots. We need to lose our confidence
- 19:04in human effort entirely. And we need to regain our
- 19:07confidence in Scripture. The authority conflict in verse
- 19:103 is the same conflict we face today.
- 19:13Tradition, culture, feelings, none of that can bind the
- 19:16conscience. Only the Word of God has that
- 19:18authority. If we lose that, we lose
- 19:20everything. Absolutely everything.
- 19:22OK, what about the heart? The affections.
- 19:25We have to kill the idol of approval.
- 19:28That is the hard one. It is so hard.
- 19:30We want to be light. We want our church to be
- 19:32popular. Sure.
- 19:34But we have to reach a point where we stop trembling when the
- 19:39world's offended. When a major news outlet writes
- 19:42a hit piece on biblical morality.
- 19:44Or when your denominations elites sneer at your theology,
- 19:48your heart should not panic. We should expect it.
- 19:51We should expect it, and we should rest in the fact that the
- 19:53only approval that matters is the Father.
- 19:55'S and there should be gratitude too, right?
- 19:57Oh, immense gratitude if you see the truth today, if you
- 20:01understand the gospel, if you love Christ, it is not because
- 20:05you are smarter than the Pharisees.
- 20:07It is not because you were more open minded.
- 20:09Is because the Father planted you.
- 20:11It is sheer sovereign grace. That should produce true
- 20:13humility. Why me, Lord?
- 20:16Why were my eyes opened when the religious experts were blind?
- 20:20And finally, the hands practice. Active discernment.
- 20:24We need to identify the blind guides and actually let them
- 20:27alone. That might mean unfollowing some
- 20:29people online. It might mean changing churches.
- 20:32It definitely means prioritizing the local church over the
- 20:35Internet. You need a shepherd who actually
- 20:37knows your name and preaches the whole counsel of God.
- 20:40Not someone who just trims the doctrines to keep people
- 20:43comfortable. Right.
- 20:44Seek shepherds who preach. Reach the Bible, not just life
- 20:46tips. And when we worship, we approach
- 20:48the Lord's Table not as people who earned our spot by washing
- 20:52our hands. But as those who are washed by
- 20:54the blood of Christ. That brings us to the
- 20:56conclusion. Yeah, because we can't end this
- 20:59deep dive without looking at the Savior.
- 21:01We always must look at Christ. Think about the contrast here.
- 21:06The Pharisees are blind guides leading people into a pit.
- 21:09But Christ is the Good Shepherd, leading his sheep to living
- 21:12waters. The Pharisees are offended by
- 21:14truth. Christ is the truth.
- 21:16And here is the beautiful gospel connection we talked about, the
- 21:19rooting up the judgment. Every plant my Heavenly Father
- 21:22has not planted will be rooted up.
- 21:24There was one plant, the true vine, who was rooted up, but not
- 21:28because he was a weed. Talk about that.
- 21:31Isaiah 53 says he was cut off from the land of the living.
- 21:35He was uprooted. Christ entered the ultimate pit,
- 21:37the pit of death, the pit of God's wrath against sin.
- 21:40He fell into the ditch that we deserved.
- 21:43He took the fall. He took the uprooting.
- 21:45Why so that we wild olive branches, weeds by nature could
- 21:50be grafted in? So that we could be eternally
- 21:53planted by the Father. That is the substitution right
- 21:55there. He was rejected so we could be
- 21:57accepted. He was treated as a weed so we
- 21:59could be the fruit bearing branches.
- 22:01So if you are listening to this. If you are an unbeliever or if
- 22:05you've been following blind guides, stop.
- 22:08The pit is ahead. Repent.
- 22:11Turn from the guides who flatter you and look to the guide who
- 22:13died for sinners. And if you are a believer?
- 22:16Rest you are planted. The storm can blow, the
- 22:19Pharisees can rage. The culture can cancel you.
- 22:22But if the Father planted you, you are not going anywhere.
- 22:25The safest place is not in the approval of men, no.
- 22:28It is in the care of the one who sees.
- 22:31I think that is a profound thought to end on.
- 22:33Actually. Excuse me, A weighty thought to
- 22:35end on for you to Mull over. Ask yourself who is guiding you.
- 22:39That is where we will leave it. Thank you for joining us on this
- 22:42deep dive into reformed thinking.
- 22:44It was a true privilege. We will see you next time.