Latest / Reformed Thinking / Higher Than Our Thoughts The Merciful Majesty of God (Isaiah 55:8-9)

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Higher Than Our Thoughts The Merciful Majesty of God (Isaiah 55:8-9) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to Reformed Thinking. Yeah.
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  So think about the last time your life, you know, just
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  completely fell apart. Oh wow, yeah, starting right in
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  the deep end. Right.
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  I mean, maybe it was a lost job or a terrifying medical
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  diagnosis or even just a sudden betrayal by someone you really
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  trusted. Yeah.
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  What was your very first instinct?
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  If you are like most people, you immediately try to kind of math
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  your way out of it. Oh for sure, we all do that.
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  You tried to calculate a solution, you know, you weighed
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  the variables, you plotted a timeline, and you tried to
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  engineer a way out of the crisis.
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  Well, today we are looking at a text that tells you your math is
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  not only wrong, but the calculator you were using is
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  entirely, fundamentally broken. That instinct to calculate is
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  just universal, isn't it? When human logic tries to
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  diagnose the ways of the Almighty, we assume our
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  reasoning is, well, neutral. Right and capable.
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  Exactly, or rather spot on. We assume we hold the absolute
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  standard of truth. The essays we are looking at
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  today point out that humanity operates under this devastating
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  delusion of intellectual autonomy.
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  And that brings us to the mission of this deep dive.
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  We are unpacking 2 highly dense, rigorous theological essays.
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  Very rigorous, yeah. And they analyze Isaiah 55
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  verses 8 and 9. You've almost certainly heard
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  them before. Oh, absolutely.
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  For my thoughts, or not your thoughts, neither your ways, my
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  ways, declares the Lord. Famous verses, right?
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  But our goal today is to rescue these famous verses from being
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  treated like a casual bumper sticker.
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  Yes please. We are going to uncover how
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  these verses completely shatter human pride and really reveal
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  the staggering scale of God's pardoning mercy.
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  The problem is that the fallen human mind assumes it can just,
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  you know, sit across the table from God and negotiate terms.
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  Like a business meeting. Right, Isaiah 55 steps in.
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  To violently disrupt that assumption is a massive
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  confrontation. So, as you were listening to
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  this, think about your own life. When you face confusion, a
• 2:01
  sudden tragedy or a closed door, your default is often to look
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  for an earthly explanation. By the end of this conversation,
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  you will see why relying on your own intellect is a total dead
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  end, and why God's higher thoughts offer genuine, lasting
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  comfort. That is the goal.
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  Let's unpack this, starting with what the source is called the
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  Great Misquotation. Yes, the misquotation is rampant
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  in the modern church. These essays stress that people
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  frequently use Isaiah 55 as a well, like a blanket explanation
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  for whatever is confusing in their lives.
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  You know, a sudden illness strikes, a business venture
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  fails, a relationship ends, and someone will invariably shrug
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  and say, well, his ways are higher than our ways.
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  Right, right. They use it like a theological
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  Band-Aid. Yes, and to be fair, it makes
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  sense why people do that. I mean, it technically works to
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  say God is mysterious, but using this magnificent passage simply
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  to explain a bad day at the office is like using a surgical
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  scalpel to open a cardboard shipping box.
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  That is a great visual. Right.
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  Like sure it cuts the packing tape, but it entirely misses the
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  sheer magnitude of the instruments intended design.
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  That analogy captures the misuse perfectly.
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  The profit's point is infinitely more precise and vastly more
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  gracious than just a generic statement about mystery.
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  The Lord is not just saying you cannot understand my daily
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  schedule. He is saying you would never
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  have invented my mercy. To grasp the weight of this, we
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  really must look at the historical dirt.
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  The essays we are reviewing root this text firmly in the 8th
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  century BC, specifically in the southern Kingdom of Judah.
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  Let's set the stage there. We're talking about the reigns
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  of King Zuziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah.
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  Yes, this was not a peaceful era.
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  Oh, far from it. This was a world characterized
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  by immense geopolitical terror. The Assyrian Empire was the
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  great military threat of the day.
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  And they were terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.
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  We need to understand that the Assyrians were not just another
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  army. They were a brutal expansionists
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  force. They were known for
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  psychological warfare. Flaying their enemies.
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  Yes, flaying enemies alive, Mass deportations.
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  They were devouring surrounding nations 1 by 1 and beyond the
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  immediate Assyrian threat, Isaiah's prophetic vision
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  projected forward to the looming disaster of the Babylonian
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  exile. So a double threat.
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  Right. The original audience and the
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  future exilic generation were staring down the barrel of total
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  national catastrophe. They were facing the reality of
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  being violently uprooted, the temple reduced to ash, the
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  Davidic throne seemingly severed.
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  You can imagine the panic in the streets of Jerusalem.
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  Oh, total panic. And this panic is where the
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  conflict of ways and thoughts really begins.
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  OK, I'm back that. The people of Judah were
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  operating entirely on human ways.
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  They looked at the geopolitical landscape and decided they could
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  just, you know, outmaneuver the existential threats.
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  By doing what? Through clever political
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  alliances with Egypt, through amassing Chariots and armaments,
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  I see they were trying to secure their borders using secular
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  statecraft while completely ignoring Jehovah's covenant.
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  They figured they could play the earthly political game to save
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  themselves. They calculated the odds, looked
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  at a serious troop numbers and decided they needed Egyptian
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  horses to balance the Ledger. Yeah, and what about their
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  theology? Yeah, because they were still
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  religious. Right.
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  Oh, they're very religious, but their theology was thoroughly
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  corrupted by presumption. How so?
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  Well, they assumed that because they possessed the physical
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  temple, the ironic priesthood, and the historical Davidic
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  promises, God was obligated to guarantee their political
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  security regardless of their rampant, unrepentant idolatry.
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  Their thoughts were that God was bound to protect them on their
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  own terms. Isaiah's prophecy was a
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  devastating historical critique of that pragmatic self-reliance.
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  I want to pause here and mention a specific detail from one of
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  our sources. Sure, One of the essays
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  maintains a strict dispensational framework
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  regarding this historical context, and for those who might
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  not be familiar with that term, this framework argues that these
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  promises of restoration in Isaiah were spoken directly to
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  ethnic national Israel. Yeah, concerning A literal
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  future national restoration. Right.
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  Pointing toward a premillennial earthly Kingdom, the author
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  firmly rejects any interpretive model that strips these specific
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  national promises from the Jewish people.
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  But at the same time, the source that the mechanism of that
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  grace, the reality of God's unsearchable grace and
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  unilateral action, applies equally to all who are brought
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  into the New Covenant by Christ. Yes.
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  We are just laying out that perspective objectively so you
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  can understand the theological lens of the text we're
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  analyzing. That historical and theological
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  context is vital, and regardless of 1's millennial views, the
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  historical failure of Judah provides the perfect backdrop.
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  Yeah, it really does. They trusted in the strength of
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  men, they trusted the Chariots of Egypt, and God declares
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  through Isaiah that human statecraft is bankrupt.
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  Bankrupt. I love that word for this.
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  His sovereign administration over the nation's operates on a
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  plane vastly superior to diplomatic maneuvering.
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  The historical devastation that followed prove that Covenant
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  rebellion is not a minor issue. You cannot fix it with a treaty
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  with Pharaoh. Right.
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  The Holy God does not overlook sin, and human political
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  maneuvering cannot bypass His judgement.
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  No, it cannot. That brings us to the actual
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  words the Prophet used to confront them.
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  Let's move into the exegetical structure, the grammar of grace
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  and the demolition of pride. This is where it gets really
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  good. The source has spent a lot of
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  time on the syntax here. Verse 8 opens with a very
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  specific Hebrew conjunction. Yes, the Hebrew particle chi it
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  translates to four or because the single conjunction is the
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  exegetical key to the entire passage, it explicitly links
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  verses 8 and 9 directly back to verse 7.
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  Verse 7 being the staggering command and promise, Let the
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  wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts,
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  and let him return him to the Lord, and he will have mercy
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  upon him and to our God, for you will abundantly pardon, yes.
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  The Chi tells us that verses 8 and 9 are the logical grounding
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  reason for the promise of that abundant pardon.
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  I see this raises a massive question.
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  How can an infinitely holy, impeccably just God abundantly
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  pardon wicked, treasonous rebels?
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  Right, because if God used human logic, we would be in serious
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  trouble. Oh, absolutely.
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  You'll be instantly condemned. Because human jurisprudence
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  demands strict, unyielding retribution if a King's subjects
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  commit high treason, human logic dictates the king must
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  definitively crush those subjects.
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  To maintain his throne. Precisely to maintain the
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  integrity of His rule, we measure mercy by the narrowness
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  of our own hearts. We forgive reluctantly.
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  Oh man, we remember injuries meticulously.
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  We assume pardon must be purchased, earned back over
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  time, or just rationed out slowly.
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  If God's thoughts were our thoughts, no Sinner would ever
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  be justified. Which makes the poetic structure
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  of verse 8 so striking. The sources point out this ABBA
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  chiasm, yes. Not your thoughts, my thoughts
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  neither. My ways, your ways.
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  It is like a mirror reflecting the total incompatibility
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  between US and God. A perfect mirror.
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  How does this poetic structure actively force the reader to
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  confront that gap? Well, a chiasm functions by
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  drawing the reader's attention to the center, creating this
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  emphatic reversal. It highlights a diametric
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  opposition. OK, you have human cognition on
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  one side, divine cognition on the other, and the structure
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  itself visually and audibly refuses to let them blend.
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  Wow. Furthermore, we must look at the
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  specific Hebrew vocabulary used here.
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  The word translated as thoughts is majubot.
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  Let's break that down. What does that word carry in the
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  original language? It derives from a root, meaning
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  to reckon or calculate. Like we talked about at the
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  beginning. Exactly.
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  But when applied to Yahweh, it does not mean God is sitting in
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  heaven trying to figure out a puzzle, right?
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  He is not acquiring new information or weighing
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  probabilities. In Reformed theology, these
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  thoughts refer to the sovereign decrees and eternal counsel of
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  God. His immutable plan?
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  Yes, his immutable plan ordained before the foundation of the
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  world. So not a reaction to events on
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  earth, but an eternal decree that shapes the events on earth.
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  That is right, and the word for ways is derakim.
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  Derakim, OK. Which denotes roads or courses
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  of life. It refers to God's providential
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  execution of those eternal decrees in the theater of human
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  history. OK, I am tracking with you.
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  The text declares that his act of Providence, His ways, and his
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  eternal counsel, his thoughts are completely distinct from
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  ours. There is also a really
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  aggressive syntactical feature here that the essays highlight
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  the emphatic negation particle the word low.
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  Yes, low stands at the absolute head of the sentence.
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  The literal reading is for not. Your thoughts are my thoughts.
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  That feels very abrupt. In Hebrew syntax, placing the
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  negation at the absolute front is incredibly forceful.
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  It violently confronts human pride before any further
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  explanation is offered. Like a wall.
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  Yes, it acts as a definitive stop sign to human philosophy.
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  It is like trying to run a quantum physics simulation on a
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  1980s solar powered pocket calculator.
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  The calculator is not just too small, it lacks the foundational
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  architecture to even process the input.
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  The negation at the start of the sentence tells us our
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  calculators are useless here. Totally useless.
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  There is no syntactical room for a cooperative understanding of
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  the universe. That is a fitting illustration.
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  The negation strips away any illusion that we can sit at the
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  negotiating table with God. But if human syntax completely
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  locks us out of the negotiating room, how does a holy God
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  actually solve the problem of our treason?
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  Right, You cannot just leave that negation hanging in the
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  air. No you cannot.
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  The sources argue that this grammatical dead end is what
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  makes the cross of Christ an absolute necessity.
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  That is our next point of analysis, the cross as the apex
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  of the infinite chasm. To see this, we have to look at
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  the literary context of the Book of Comfort that spans Isaiah,
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  chapters 40 through 66. Chapter 55 does not exist in a
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  vacuum. It flows directly out of the
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  Servant songs. Specifically, the
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  substitutionary atonement described in Isaiah 53.
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  Exactly. He was wounded for our
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  transgressions. He was bruised for our
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  iniquities, yes. The free offer of grace in
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  chapter 55 is exclusively grounded in the finished blood
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  bought work of the suffering servant.
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  OK. The cross of Christ is the
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  supreme demonstration of God's thoughts being higher than our
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  thoughts. Because human wisdom would never
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  design salvation this way. Never in a million years.
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  Never. The logic of penal
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  substitutionary atonement is completely alien to human
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  justice, right? Think about the expectations of
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  the time. Human wisdom, saturated in a
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  desire for power, expected the Messiah to be a conquering
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  political monarch. They wanted a warrior.
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  They wanted a king riding a War Horse to slaughter the Roman
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  oppressors and establish a political utopia.
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  But divine wisdom ordained that a sinless servant would be
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  despised, rejected, and hang on a Roman gibbet to absorb the
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  wrath of God. The idea that an impeccably
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  sinless king would willingly die for his treasonous subjects
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  cannot be invented by a mortal mind.
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  It just doesn't compute. Right.
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  Human logic says strength saves by domination.
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  God says salvation comes through substitution.
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  Human logic says guilt must be hidden, excused, or balanced out
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  by good works. God says guilt is laid entirely
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  upon the Lamb. You see this so clearly in the
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  historical reactions to the cross.
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  Absolutely, though to the Jews it was a scandalous stumbling
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  block. The idea of a cursed, crucified
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  Messiah was offensive to their legal and political frameworks.
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  To the Greeks, the philosophical elites, it was sheer,
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  unadulterated folly. They thought it was absurd,
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  right? How does that historical
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  reaction validate Isaiah's claim about human cognitive failure?
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  Well, it proves that the unregenerate mind cannot grasp
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  the logic of heaven. The cross exposes total human
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  inability. Inability to even understand the
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  rescue. Yes, the Greeks wanted
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  philosophical sophistication. The Jews wanted a miraculous
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  display of earthly might. And neither got what they asked
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  for. No, both groups projected their
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  own thoughts onto God, and both were offended when God's actual
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  ways involved bleeding on a piece of wood for sinners.
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  So what does this mean for you, the listener?
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  Let's connect this to your own conscience.
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  Have you ever felt like you have sinned too much to be forgiven?
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  I think we all have. Right.
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  You look at your track record and your internal logic says
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  there is no way God wants me back.
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  I have burned too many bridges. I know what I would do to
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  someone who betrayed me this many times, so God must be done
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  with me. That is the human default.
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  When you do that, you are projecting human vindictiveness
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  onto God. You were assuming he thinks like
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  you do. Which is a terrible mistake.
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  Right. But God's pardon isn't reluctant
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  tolerance. It isn't a heavy side, an eye
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  roll. It is an open feast.
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  That is a staggering comfort. When a contrite Sinner believes
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  their sin is greater than God's promise.
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  They are essentially saying my thoughts about my guilt are more
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  accurate than God's thoughts about His grace.
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  Oh man, that is convicting. It is we measure him by our
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  reluctance to forgive others. But look at Christ crucified and
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  risen. God's promise is to abundantly
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  pardon. Since the cross exposes the
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  total failure of human logic to invent grace, the source has
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  transitioned to how this text aggressively confronts modern
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  attempts to rely on human intellect.
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  And they go hardier. Let's look at how the essays
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  handled demolishing modern idols and ideologies.
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  The authors pull absolutely no punches.
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  They. Systematically dismantle several
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  pervasive theological and cultural movements using Isaiah
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  55. Let's take them 1 by 1.
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  OK, first they target open theism and process theology.
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  Let's slow down and unpack the mechanics of those systems.
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  How do they operate and why do humans invent them?
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  Open theism and process theology are systems that strip God of
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  his absolute omniscience and immutability.
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  OK, mechanically they suggest God experiences time much like
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  we do, moving from past to present to future.
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  Like he is trapped in the timeline with us.
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  Yes, they argue he learns new information as history unfolds
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  and that he does not have exhaustive, definite
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  foreknowledge of free human choices.
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  Why would someone invent that theology?
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  Humans invent these systems primarily to solve the problem
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  of evil, and they want to exonerate God from tragedy by
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  making him a sympathetic, surprised observer rather than a
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  sovereign ordainer. They want to let God off the
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  hook. Basically yes.
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  And how does Isaiah 55 obliterate that philosophical
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  architecture? Because if God is learning, his
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  thoughts are contingent. They are dependent on human
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  ways. Oh, I see that.
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  Reduces the Almighty to a reactor peering helplessly
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  through the corridors of time, waiting to see what we will do
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  before he makes his next move. Right, which totally contradicts
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  the text. Isaiah declares God's thoughts
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  are autonomous, eternal, and entirely independent of human
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  action. That makes a lot of sense.
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  The sources also confront Arminianism on similar grounds.
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  Yes they do. Unpack that critique.
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  The authors reject the Armenian idea that God's eternal decrees
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  are based upon his foreseeing human faith.
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  OK, if election is based on foreseen human choices, then
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  divine thoughts are downstream from human ways.
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  And the verse says his ways are higher, not downstream.
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  Exactly. The essays argue that his ways
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  are not synergistic. They are entirely sovereign and
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  unilateral. The critique gets incredibly
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  specific regarding the modern church too.
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  The sources take a hard swing at the seeker sensitive movement.
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  Oh yes, the critique there is focused on the mechanics of
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  pragmatism. OK, lay that out for.
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  US the seeker sensitive model heavily relies on sociological
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  demographic studies, marketing strategies and entertainment to
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  draw a crowd. Trying to figure out what the
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  consumer wants. Right.
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  The authors of our sources label these as carnal ways and human
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  thoughts. They argue this methodology
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  vainly attempts to build the church through earthly corporate
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  mechanics, completely bypassing the ordinary means of grace.
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  The ordinary means of grace being the preaching of the Word,
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  the sacraments, and prayer. Yes.
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  When a church leadership team asks what draws a crowd in our
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  demographic, instead of asking what has God ordained in
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  Scripture, they are substituting human ways for divine ways.
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  That is a sharp critique. Furthermore, the sources
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  explicitly reject charismatic mysticism, which seeks fresh,
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  extra biblical revelations. How does Isaiah 55 address
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  mysticism? I mean, seeking a word from God
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  sounds good on the surface. The essays affirm a closed Canon
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  stating that God's thoughts and ways for his church are
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  permanently sufficiently inscribed in the written word of
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  God. Seeking private mystical
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  impressions implicitly insults the text by suggesting the
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  Scriptures are lacking. I get it.
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  It assumes we need a new word because the ancient word is
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  insufficient. And it's fascinating how the
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  authors of our sources apply this to modern sociological
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  movements as well. Yes, they cast a wide net.
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  They specifically call out things like the Prosperity
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  Gottable, the social Gospel, and critical race Theory.
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  They do. According to the essays these
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  frameworks operate is purely human thoughts attempting to
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  bypass the biblical reality of total depravity and original
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  sin, right? The authors argue that these
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  ideologies attempt to solve human brokenness through earthly
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  redistribution of resources, completely ignoring the
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  necessity of a new heart wrought by the Holy Spirit.
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  Mankind constantly attempts to drag God down from heaven,
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  subjugating his decrees to cultural shifts in human ethics.
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  That captures the core issue. Human ideologies attempt to
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  domesticate God. But God's thoughts are immune to
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  cultural shifts. So completely amused.
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  Which brings us to the actual cosmic analogy used by Isaiah in
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  verse 9. We're moving into Section 5, the
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  cosmic measurement of sovereign mercy.
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  This is a beautiful part of the text.
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  Isaiah literally points the reader to the stars, Verse 9
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  reads. For as the heavens are higher
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  than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my
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  thoughts than your thoughts. Let's ground this analogy.
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  To an ancient Israelite standing outside without a telescope, the
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  sky represented the ultimate unreachable absolute.
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  Right. And this is not a lesson in
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  ancient cosmology. It is a theological analogy
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  using created space. The physical cosmos illustrates
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  the infinite chasm. The text is not just saying God
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  is a magnified version of a highly educated human.
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  Like a super genius in the sky. No, not at all.
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  It demonstrates that his sovereignty exists on a totally
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  different ontological. Wait, let's make sure
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  ontological plane is totally clear.
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  Good idea. We aren't just saying God is to
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  us what a human is to an Ant, because an Ant and a human are
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  still made of the same physical matter.
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  We are talking about a difference in the very category
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  of existence. That is the perfect distinction.
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  God is uncreated, we are created.
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  God is infinite, we are finite. The distance between the dirt of
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  the earth and the highest heavens is the physical metric
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  for the categorical difference between our corrupt minds and
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  the perfect mind of the living God.
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  But there is a massive nuance here that the source is
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  clarifying. I want to make sure we hit this
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  OK. This vast cosmic distance does
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  not mean God is completely unknowable or irrational.
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  No, and that is a vital boundary line.
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  Scripture never opposes divine transcendence to divine
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  revelation. Unpack that phrasing.
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  The mystery lies in the infinite height of the God who speaks,
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  not in a failure to speak clearly.
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  He has revealed enough for faith and obedience.
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  As Deuteronomy 2929 states, the secret things belong to the
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  Lord, but the revealed things belong to us, right?
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  We are not free to invent what God has not said, nor are we
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  free to reject what He has said simply because it exceeds our
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  limited comprehension. I want to push back on this a
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  little bit on behalf of the listener, because this is where
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  the tension gets incredibly real.
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  Sure, if God is on a totally different ontological plane.
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  If he is so infinitely far removed and his thoughts are so
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  far above mine, doesn't that massive distance create despair
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  for the contrite center? That is a very fair question.
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  Doesn't it make God feel cold, remote, and terrifyingly alien?
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  Human logic naturally assumes that we fear what we cannot
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  control, but the sources argue the exact opposite.
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  The massive distance is exactly what guarantees the mercy.
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  How does distance equal comfort? Think about the nature of
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  humanity. If God were only like us, His
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  mercy would be fragile. True, His patience would run
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  out. His covenant would be unstable.
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  A God who thought like us would hold a grudge like us.
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  Oh wow, yeah. He would keep a Ledger of our
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  failures and eventually cut his losses.
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  Because He is infinitely above us, His grace can exceed our
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  narrow, suspicious expectations. I never thought.
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  Of it that way divine incomprehensibility is not the
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  enemy of assurance, it is the absolute foundation of it.
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  The distance between heaven and earth becomes a guarantee, not
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  because we climb upward, but because His mercy descends like
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  rain. That is an incredible reversal.
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  The distance is the guarantee because he is not like me, he
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  will not act like me when I fail.
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  Precisely so. If he were like you, he would
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  have cast you off long ago. No kidding.
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  His transcendent height ensures that his pardoning purpose is
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  not limited by the despairing imagination of a guilty
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  conscience. Having grasped the sheer scale
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  of this mercy, we need to look at the strict, urgent demands
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  this passage places on the listener.
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  Yes, the application. Because this text is not just a
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  poem to admire. It demands a response.
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  Let's look at the urgent demand for intellectual surrender.
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  We're bringing the focus back to verse 7.
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  Verse 7 makes it clear that the passage is not a passive
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  philosophical observation. It is an urgent, non negotiable
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  command. Let the wicked forsake his way,
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  and the unrighteous man his thoughts.
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  So there is a 2 fold application here.
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  Forsaking the way and forsaking the thoughts.
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  Let's break those down. What is the way?
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  Forsaking the way refers to outward behavior, habits,
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  loyalties, and relationships. It means turning from open
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  transgressions, whether that is dishonest business practices,
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  immorality, or secret vices. But it goes deeper.
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  To the thoughts. Yes, the unrighteous man must
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  also forsake his thoughts. This refers to inner reasoning
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  schemes, assumptions about God, and intellectual pride.
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  So it is not just about stopping the physical act of, say,
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  stealing. It is about killing the internal
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  lawyer in my head that constantly justifies why I
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  deserve to take what isn't mine. That is a great way to put.
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  It the inner world of rebellion. That internal lawyer is the
• 25:10
  perfect analogy. The thoughts in this Hebrew
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  context refer to that exact kind of legalistic scheming sin.
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  It corrupts both the road beneath our feet and the
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  reasoning within our minds. The natural man's intellect is
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  fundamentally hostile to the logic of heaven.
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  So what does repenting of our thoughts look like in practice?
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  Repenting of our thoughts means we must stop placing God in the
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  dock when His Providence crosses our expectations.
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  Putting God in the dock like putting him on trial, yes.
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  When Providence involves sudden pain, a chronic illness, a
• 25:37
  terrible bereavement, or a permanently closed door, our
• 25:40
  natural intellect demands an explanation.
• 25:43
  We want to see the blueprints. Exactly.
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  We assume we have the right to peer review the Almighty.
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  Ouch. The sources demand an aggressive
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  repentance of this intellectual autonomy.
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  Humility does not mean pretending the pain is painless.
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  It means refusing to accuse God when our earthly sight is small.
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  So I want to address you directly again.
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  Are you willing to embrace a biblical truth that deeply
• 26:08
  offends the surrounding culture? It is a hard question.
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  The world tells you to trust your gut, to speak your truth,
• 26:16
  to follow your heart. Isaiah 55 commands you to upend
• 26:20
  and self trust entirely. Entirely.
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  The challenge is to stop trying to reason your way to heaven,
• 26:25
  because the stairs of human logic will collapse under the
• 26:28
  weight of divine holiness. The challenge is to trust the
• 26:31
  unsearchable decrees of God even when the path is completely
• 26:34
  dark. The required response is an
• 26:36
  immediate, humble return to the Lord.
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  We cannot use theological mystery as an excuse to delay
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  repentance, right? The text is designed to bring a
• 26:44
  person to the end of themselves, to silence their defense
• 26:46
  mechanisms and cast them entirely upon the grace of a God
• 26:49
  whose thoughts are unfathomably high.
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  Let's bring this all together. We started with the historical
• 26:54
  failure of Judah relying on their own political alliances
• 26:57
  and Chariots, completely missing the sovereign administration of
• 27:01
  God. We looked at the specific Hebrew
• 27:03
  grammar that emphatic 4 that links the command to repent with
• 27:08
  the reality of an infinite pardoning God.
• 27:10
  And the cross. Right.
• 27:11
  We saw how the cross of Christ is the ultimate proof that God's
• 27:15
  ways are not ours. A bleeding king substituting
• 27:19
  himself for rebels. Such a powerful reality.
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  And we saw how this text utterly destroys modern intellectual
• 27:25
  pride, demanding that we surrender our autonomy.
• 27:28
  The bankruptcy of human wisdom is total, but the sufficiency of
• 27:32
  Christ is glorious. It strips us of everything but
• 27:34
  Christ. I will leave you with one final
• 27:36
  thought, something rooted in the physical analogy Isaiah uses,
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  but something you can carry with you tonight.
• 27:42
  If God chose the physical distance between the earth and
• 27:44
  the heavens as the exact metric for how vastly his mercy exceeds
• 27:48
  your own reasoning, then perhaps every time you look up at the
• 27:51
  night sky you aren't just observing the physical universe.
• 27:54
  Oh, that is beautiful. You are looking at a visible
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  physical guarantee of the sheer volume of grace available to you
• 28:02
  in the exact moments you feel most unforgivable.
• 28:06
  Think about that the next time you step outside in the dark.
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  Look up and let your pride be silenced.
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  The calculator is broken, but the heavens are open.
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  To Him alone be the glory. Thanks for joining us on this
• 28:16
  deep dive.