Latest / Reformed Thinking / Jesus Christ, the Root of Jesse: King, Covenant Fulfillment, and Hope of the Nations

Transcript

Jesus Christ, the Root of Jesse: King, Covenant Fulfillment, and Hope of the Nations · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  If an arborist looks at a chopped down, dried out stump,
• 0:04
  the diagnosis is pretty binary. I mean, it is dead.
• 0:08
  Biology dictates it will never grow again.
• 0:10
  Welcome to reform thinking. Yeah.
• 0:12
  And today we are looking at a king who completely defies that
• 0:16
  biological law. A king who is simultaneously the
• 0:20
  descendant of King David and the origin of King David, right?
• 0:23
  It is a staggering paradox. We are looking at a progression
• 0:26
  of events that moves from absolute human ruin, which is
• 0:29
  represented by that dead stump, to a cosmic, eternal reign.
• 0:33
  And along the way, this analysis aggressively challenges modern
• 0:37
  assumptions about grace, about justice, and, you know, about
• 0:39
  the nature of the church itself. And the goal of our time with
• 0:42
  you today is to unpack all of this thoroughly.
• 0:44
  We're initiating a massive deep dive into two incredibly
• 0:47
  thorough theological tactics analyzing Isaiah Chapter 11,
• 0:51
  specifically looking at the title given to Jesus Christ, the
• 0:55
  Root of Jesse. This is not some abstract
• 0:57
  biblical Riddle meant for a seminary classroom.
• 0:59
  This is a core truth that reorients how you view history,
• 1:03
  how you view your own salvation, and how you view the future of
• 1:08
  the entire cosmos. But to understand this shoot
• 1:12
  that brings life, we first have to look at the Deadwood.
• 1:15
  Right, we have to go back to the historical background of the 8th
• 1:18
  century BC. Because we are talking about a
• 1:20
  period of absolute geopolitical terror.
• 1:23
  The historical context here is vital.
• 1:26
  You have to transport yourself to the ancient Near East during
• 1:29
  a time when the entire known world was shaking.
• 1:32
  Oh, absolutely. The Northern Kingdom of Israel
• 1:34
  and the Southern Kingdom of Judah are locked in this vice of
• 1:37
  fear. The Neo Syrian Empire is
• 1:39
  expanding under the leadership of a ruthless military commander
• 1:43
  named Tiglat Pilasser the Third. Right.
• 1:45
  And to understand the psychological weed of this era,
• 1:47
  you have to realize this was not a minor border dispute.
• 1:50
  The Assyrian war machine was swallowing up surrounding
• 1:53
  nations with unprecedented violence.
• 1:56
  Yes, they were notorious for psychological terror, mass
• 2:00
  deportations and absolute devastation.
• 2:03
  I mean, they would leave pyramids of skulls outside
• 2:05
  Concord cities to send a message to anyone who dared oppose them.
• 2:09
  Which is just a horrifying visual.
• 2:11
  And right in the middle of this panic, you have the southern
• 2:14
  Kingdom of Judah and a king named Ahaz sitting on the throne
• 2:18
  in Jerusalem. Yeah.
• 2:20
  Ahaz is faced with a terrifying political squeeze called this
• 2:23
  Cerro Ephraimite coalition. Basically, Resin, the king of
• 2:28
  Damascus, and Pika, the king of Israel in the north, form an
• 2:31
  alliance and they want to force Judah into a rebellion against
• 2:35
  the Assyrian Empire. They figure if they could force
• 2:37
  Judah to join them, they might have a fighting chance against
• 2:40
  Tikloff Palace of the Third. But A has panics.
• 2:42
  And King Ahaz fails spectacularly.
• 2:45
  He acts as an absolute coward instead of trusting the Lord.
• 2:48
  Instead of leaning on the promises God made to his sister,
• 2:50
  David A has commits an act of total apostasy.
• 2:54
  He actually loots the gold and silver from the temple of God
• 2:57
  and sends it to Assyria as a bribe.
• 2:59
  He essentially sells his nation into Pagan vassalage.
• 3:02
  The texts point out that this is a direct violation of the
• 3:05
  Davidic covenant established back in Second Samuel Chapter 7,
• 3:09
  where God promised that David's house and Kingdom would be
• 3:11
  established forever. Right.
• 3:12
  He trades divine sovereignty for a cheap, pragmatic political
• 3:16
  alliance. Yes, he looks at the terrifying
• 3:18
  Assyrian army and decides that God's promises are not enough to
• 3:22
  protect him. And that pragmatic alliance does
• 3:25
  not save them in the long run. It just delays the inevitable
• 3:28
  and compromises the nation. The historical record traces
• 3:31
  this downward spiral all the way to the Babylonian exile, which
• 3:35
  we read about in Second Kings 25.
• 3:37
  That's forward a few generations, and the mighty
• 3:40
  sprawling tree of David's royal line is chopped down by the acts
• 3:43
  of divine judgement. Jerusalem is destroyed, the
• 3:46
  temple is burned to the ground, and the Last King of David's
• 3:49
  line to sit on the throne, Zedekiah, is forced to watch his
• 3:52
  own sons executed right before his eyes, which.
• 3:55
  Is so brutal. It is, and then his eyes are
• 3:57
  gouged out. He is LED away in bronze chains
• 4:00
  to Babylon. And that is a specific imagery
• 4:03
  of the stump. The visible monarchy is entirely
• 4:06
  cut down. The crown is cast to the dirt.
• 4:10
  To the human eye, the royal covenant looks like it is
• 4:12
  completely collapsed. The people are scattered in a
• 4:15
  foreign land. It is a scene of total
• 4:17
  desolation and apparent covenant failure.
• 4:21
  When an Israelite looked at the royal family line after the
• 4:23
  Babylonian exile, they did not see a thriving tree.
• 4:26
  They saw a rotting, lifeless stump in the ground.
• 4:29
  Which brings up a fascinating detail in the text that we have
• 4:32
  to pause and look at. Why does the prophet Isaiah say
• 4:37
  a shoot will come from the stump of Jesse?
• 4:39
  Yeah, that is a great question. Why not say the sump of David?
• 4:43
  I mean, David was the great ping, the one who built the
• 4:45
  empire, the one who conquered Jerusalem.
• 4:48
  David is the name associated with glory and triumph.
• 4:50
  Naming Jesse points to the total reduction of the royal house.
• 4:54
  By invoking Jesse, the text strips away all the palatial
• 4:57
  glory of Jerusalem. It bypasses the gold, the
• 5:00
  Chariots, the ivory palaces and returns the family to its pre
• 5:03
  monarchical humble status. Jesse was not a king, he was
• 5:07
  just a farmer in Bethlehem. He was a commoner keeping sheep.
• 5:11
  The royal line has been humiliated and reduced to the
• 5:14
  dirt. God is signaling that the coming
• 5:17
  restoration will not rely on the remaining prestige of the
• 5:21
  Davidic dynasty because there is no prestige left.
• 5:24
  It makes me think of a famous billionaire dynasty.
• 5:28
  Imagine a family that builds a massive global empire over a
• 5:32
  century. They have huge skyscrapers with
• 5:34
  their name on them, private sheds, incredible wealth and
• 5:38
  immense political influence. And then, through sheer
• 5:41
  corruption and terrible decisions, they lose absolutely
• 5:43
  everything. The empire goes bankrupt, the
• 5:46
  mansions are seized by the bank, the legacy is destroyed in
• 5:49
  public scandal, and the great grandchildren of the founder are
• 5:52
  reduced to the identical obscure working class state that their
• 5:55
  great grandfather started in, sweeping floors or working on a
• 5:57
  small farm. That is what happened to the
• 6:00
  line of David. They are back to square one,
• 6:01
  living in obscurity in Bethlehem, far removed from the
• 6:04
  throne room. That analogy captures the
• 6:06
  humiliation well. The text forces the reader to
• 6:09
  confront the reality of this total devastation.
• 6:12
  And from that lifeless, humiliated stump, a biological
• 6:16
  impossibility is introduced, a green shoot pushing up from
• 6:19
  Deadwood. Which brings us into the
• 6:21
  specific Hebrew vocabulary used by Isaiah.
• 6:24
  And this holds a massive theological Riddle sitting right
• 6:27
  there in plain sight. Let's investigate that
• 6:29
  vocabulary, because the linguistic precision here is
• 6:32
  incredible. In Isaiah Chapter 11, verse one,
• 6:34
  the text uses the Hebrew words choder, meaning a shoot, and
• 6:38
  netzer meaning a branch, to describe what grows from the
• 6:41
  stump. It implies something springing
• 6:43
  forth from the lineage, a direct biological descendant.
• 6:47
  But down first hand the text shifts its vocabulary entirely.
• 6:50
  It uses the word sharesh, which translates to root.
• 6:54
  It says the root of Jesse will stand as a signal for the
• 6:56
  peoples. This is the absolute core of the
• 6:58
  text. This shift from shoot to root is
• 7:00
  not an accident of poetry. So wait, how does this work
• 7:03
  practically? A shoot grows out of a stump
• 7:05
  above the ground, taking life from the tree.
• 7:08
  But a root is what exists under the ground before the tree even
• 7:12
  grows, providing the life to the entire Organism.
• 7:15
  How can someone be the offspring of a family line, the shoot, and
• 7:19
  the root of that same family line at the identical time?
• 7:22
  The authors connect this directly to the hypostatic
• 7:25
  union, the two distinct natures of Jesus Christ united in one
• 7:28
  person. Yes, as the shoot or the branch.
• 7:32
  Jesus is fully human. He is legally descended from
• 7:35
  David through Mary and Joseph, as we see carefully recorded in
• 7:38
  the genealogies of Matthew chapter 1 and Luke chapter 3.
• 7:40
  Right. He was born in the lowly,
• 7:42
  obscure town of Bethlehem, fulfilling the prophecy of
• 7:45
  returning to the days of Jesse. Exactly.
• 7:47
  I mean, he shares our human nature entirely.
• 7:49
  Facing temptation, hunger, and physical exhaustion, yet
• 7:52
  remaining entirely without sin. He is the genuine biological
• 7:56
  fulfillment of the promise made to David's physical lineage.
• 8:00
  But as the root, He is the eternal God.
• 8:03
  He is the self existing Creator. The Gospel of John and the
• 8:07
  letter to the Colossians make it clear that all things were made
• 8:09
  through him and in him all things hold together.
• 8:13
  Before Jesse was ever born, the eternal Son of God existed.
• 8:17
  He gave Jesse his very breath, his very existence.
• 8:20
  He is the divine source that kept the Covenant alive when the
• 8:23
  human elements failed. He's the one sustaining the root
• 8:26
  system underneath the soil of history, long before He
• 8:29
  incarnated as the shoot above the soil.
• 8:31
  And we see New Testament echoes of the specific Riddle.
• 8:35
  Jesus actually poses this theological puzzle to the
• 8:38
  Pharisees in Matthew 22. Oh that is a great connection.
• 8:41
  He asks them, if the Messiah is the son of David, how can David,
• 8:45
  speaking by the Spirit, call him Lord?
• 8:47
  The Pharisees cannot answer because they only see the
• 8:50
  Messiah as a human shoot, not as the divine root.
• 8:53
  And in the very last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22 verse
• 8:57
  16, Jesus claims both titles explicitly.
• 9:00
  He says I am the root and the descendant of David.
• 9:03
  He claims both the origin and the conclusion of the covenantal
• 9:05
  lion. This proves absolute covenant
• 9:07
  fidelity. The unconditional royal grant
• 9:10
  given in Second Samuel Chapter 7, that David's throne would
• 9:14
  last forever is fulfilled completely.
• 9:16
  It proves God does not break His promises even when human kings
• 9:20
  fail miserably. Yeah, A has failed.
• 9:23
  Zedekiah failed. The entire line of physical
• 9:26
  kings rebelled and brought destruction upon themselves.
• 9:29
  But God himself steps into history to fulfill the
• 9:32
  requirements of the covenant from both sides.
• 9:35
  He provides the human descendant required while being the divine
• 9:38
  King who ensures its success. Because this king is divine,
• 9:42
  because he's the eternal root, his rule looks drastically
• 9:45
  different from the corrupt kings of Judah, and drastically
• 9:48
  different from any modern politician.
• 9:49
  Yes, the text transition from his origin to the nature of his
• 9:53
  reign, focusing heavily on the spirit endowed nature of this
• 9:56
  new monarch. Let's look closely at Isaiah 11,
• 9:59
  verses 2 through 5, detailing the sevenfold Spirit resting
• 10:02
  upon him. It lists the Spirit of wisdom,
• 10:04
  understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and the fear of the
• 10:07
  Lord. This is not a partial endowment.
• 10:09
  It is the absolute fullness of the Holy Spirit.
• 10:12
  Unlike King Saul, who experienced the Spirit
• 10:14
  temporarily, or the other kings of Judah who wavered in their
• 10:17
  devotion, this king is permanently endowed.
• 10:20
  His mind is filled with divine truth, his decisions are shaped
• 10:24
  by perfect wisdom, and his authority is backed by
• 10:26
  omnipotent might. He does not need a cabinet of
• 10:30
  advisors. He does not need a strategy team
• 10:32
  to tell him how to govern. And that leads to a huge
• 10:35
  contrast in verse 3 regarding perfect justice.
• 10:38
  The text explicitly says he will not judge by what his eyes see
• 10:43
  or decide by what his ears hear. Think about human courts for a
• 10:47
  second. Even the best legal systems in
• 10:49
  the world rely on incredibly flawed mechanisms.
• 10:51
  We rely on biased witnesses who might misremember details or
• 10:54
  outright lie. We rely on circumstantial
• 10:56
  evidence. We rely on clever lawyers who
• 10:58
  can spin a narrative to convince a jury.
• 11:01
  Human justice is entirely dependent on external
• 11:03
  appearances and hearsay. But this king needs no jury.
• 11:07
  He needs no witnesses. He has absolute, omniscient
• 11:10
  access to the truth of every single human heart.
• 11:12
  This brings us to the holy severity of his reign.
• 11:16
  The authors highlight the specific causative Hebrew verbs
• 11:18
  used in verse 4. It says He will smite the earth
• 11:21
  with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he
• 11:24
  shall slay the wicked. His mere word has active
• 11:28
  judicial might. When he speaks, judgment is
• 11:31
  executed. There is no appeal process.
• 11:34
  His decree is absolute and final.
• 11:36
  The breath that sustains the universe is the same breath that
• 11:39
  strikes down the wicked. Which is a sharp pivot from how
• 11:42
  many people view him today. The texts use this passage to
• 11:46
  directly critique modern seeker sensitive models of church life.
• 11:50
  They do. The argument here is that a lot
• 11:51
  of contemporary religion prefers a version of Jesus who never
• 11:54
  confronts sin, never calls for repentance, and acts more like
• 11:57
  an affirming therapist than a sovereign monarch.
• 11:59
  Reshaping Jesus into a harmless, non confrontational mascot
• 12:03
  completely ignores the holy severity detailed in Isaiah 11.
• 12:06
  True justice includes striking down rebellion.
• 12:08
  A king whose belt is righteousness and faithfulness
• 12:11
  cannot trim his judgments to fit human marketing strategies.
• 12:16
  He does not soften his demands to increase attendance.
• 12:19
  And it is precisely this perfect, unyielding justice that
• 12:22
  paves the way for what comes next.
• 12:24
  Perfect justice clears the ground for perfect peace.
• 12:27
  You cannot have cosmic Shalom while rebellion is allowed to
• 12:30
  fester. The text dive into this
• 12:33
  incredible imagery of Edenic restoration in verses 6 through
• 12:36
  9. The wolf dwells with the lamb,
• 12:39
  the leopard lies down with the goat, the calf and the lion are
• 12:42
  together, and a nursing child plays near the whole of a cobra.
• 12:47
  Predators and prey living side by side without fear.
• 12:50
  Yeah, it is a beautiful picture. Now when I read about wolves and
• 12:53
  lambs hanging out, my modern brain immediately writes this
• 12:56
  off. It's just pretty poetry for
• 12:57
  World Peace. Feels like a metaphor for
• 12:59
  nations laying down their weapons.
• 13:01
  Are these authors actually arguing for literal biological
• 13:04
  changes to animal digestion and behavior?
• 13:06
  They absolutely are. The authors advocate for a
• 13:09
  literal, physical renewal of the earth.
• 13:12
  They operate from a premillennial view, meaning they
• 13:15
  anticipate a future literal reign of Christ on Earth.
• 13:19
  The texts specifically reject reading this as just social
• 13:22
  progress or a metaphor for human diplomacy.
• 13:26
  The curse that entered creation through human sin in Genesis
• 13:29
  chapter 3 is literally rolled back.
• 13:31
  The hostility in the animal Kingdom.
• 13:33
  The predatory nature of beasts is removed.
• 13:36
  Creation itself is liberated from its bondage to decay.
• 13:40
  And the text gives a specific reason for this safety.
• 13:43
  Verse 9 provides a direct causal link.
• 13:46
  The earth experiences this absolute cosmic safety because
• 13:49
  it is full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the
• 13:52
  sea, right? The universal Shalom is a direct
• 13:54
  result of the universal knowledge of God.
• 13:57
  Peace is not achieved by mankind finally learning how to get
• 13:59
  along. Peace is achieved because the
• 14:01
  King's holy presence saturates every inch of the globe.
• 14:04
  And that global reach is cemented in verse 10.
• 14:07
  The root of Jesse stands as a banner, a rallying signal for
• 14:11
  the Gentile nations. The apostle Paul quotes this
• 14:14
  specific verse in Romans chapter 15 to prove that God's plan
• 14:17
  always included saving people from every global tribe.
• 14:20
  He unites Jew and Gentile under one king.
• 14:23
  The localized promises made to the physical line of David
• 14:26
  explode into a global cosmic reality.
• 14:30
  The banner is raised high enough for the ends of the earth to see
• 14:32
  it and stream toward it. OK, so we've covered a massive
• 14:35
  amount of historical and prophetic ground.
• 14:38
  But how does this ancient royal prophecy impact how you, the
• 14:41
  listener, are saved today? The authors draw a Direct Line
• 14:45
  to the doctrines of grace. They explain how the stump
• 14:47
  imagery destroys human centered theology, specifically targeting
• 14:51
  systems like Arminianism or Synergism.
• 14:54
  The logic is quite stark. A dead stump cannot choose to
• 14:56
  grow. It has no internal life force
• 14:58
  remaining. It cannot generate a shoot
• 15:00
  through its own willpower. The emergence of the shoot is a
• 15:03
  sovereign, miraculous, monarchistic act of God alone.
• 15:06
  Monarchistic, meaning God acts alone in the work of
• 15:08
  regeneration. It is like trying to resuscitate
• 15:11
  a piece of chopped firewood. You take a piece of dry
• 15:14
  firewood, stick it in the dirt, water it all day, give it
• 15:17
  sunlight, maybe even speak encouraging words to it, but it
• 15:20
  is never going to grow roots. No, it is not.
• 15:22
  It needs a supernatural act of creation to bring it back to
• 15:26
  life. That is how the author's view
• 15:28
  the human heart before salvation.
• 15:31
  We are spiritually dead. Dry wood, The Holy Spirit has to
• 15:34
  perform a sovereign act of regeneration to give us life so
• 15:38
  that we can even recognize the King.
• 15:40
  We do not cooperate with grace to become alive.
• 15:43
  Grace makes us alive so that we can respond.
• 15:46
  That is the essence of monarchistic salvation discussed
• 15:49
  in the text. God acts decisively, and this
• 15:52
  fits seamlessly into the Reformed view of the covenant of
• 15:55
  grace. The authors stress that God's
• 15:57
  dealings with Israel and his dealings with the New Testament
• 15:59
  church are not 2 unrelated experiments.
• 16:01
  They are not disconnected backup plans or completely separate
• 16:05
  dispensations of grace. The promises made to Abraham
• 16:08
  about blessing the nation's, the promises made to David about an
• 16:11
  eternal throne, and the promises made to the church all find
• 16:15
  their single focal point in the root of Jesse.
• 16:19
  There's one unified plan of redemption running through all
• 16:22
  of human history. The Church is grafted into this
• 16:25
  singular covenantal olive tree. These doctrines do not just
• 16:29
  establish A theological framework, they actively tear
• 16:32
  down modern cultural frameworks that attempt to compete with the
• 16:35
  King's absolute authority. We need to look closely at the
• 16:39
  specific cultural critiques the authors raise, and I want to
• 16:42
  frame this carefully for you listening.
• 16:44
  We're looking strictly at how the authors of these texts argue
• 16:48
  against these movements. As reporters of their work, the
• 16:51
  authors explicitly call out several modern movements naming
• 16:54
  social justice and critical race there.
• 16:55
  Yes, they argue, these are secular Marxist derived
• 16:58
  ideologies of grievance that the church should reject.
• 17:01
  The rationale the authors provide is that true cosmic
• 17:03
  justice and equity are achieved only through the execution of
• 17:07
  the King's Law. They argue that attempting to
• 17:10
  achieve justice through political activism or treating
• 17:13
  the church like a political action committee replaces the
• 17:16
  sovereign action of Christ with humanistic schemes.
• 17:19
  They frame these modern ideological movements as
• 17:22
  incompatible with the biblical mandate, viewing them as man
• 17:26
  made attempts to engineer a utopia without the requirement
• 17:29
  of the King's holy presence. The texts also systematically
• 17:32
  refute several other interpretations that they
• 17:34
  consider false. For instance, they critique the
• 17:37
  prosperity gospel. They point out that the king
• 17:39
  comes from a stump, which signifies a path of suffering
• 17:42
  before glory. There was a cross before crown.
• 17:45
  The promise is not earthly wealth or a life free of
• 17:48
  hardship. If the king of the universe had
• 17:50
  to be humiliated and reduced to a humble shoot before ascending
• 17:54
  to the throne, his followers should expect to walk a similar
• 17:56
  path of suffering in this life. They also reject mysticism.
• 18:01
  The texts warn against viewing the root as some sort of secret
• 18:04
  inner energy or hidden potential that individuals can unlock
• 18:08
  through special spiritual techniques.
• 18:11
  Faith must look outward to the objective historical, physical
• 18:14
  person of Jesus Christ, not inward to subjective experiences
• 18:18
  or emotional highs. Our salvation is anchored in an
• 18:21
  objective historical event, not in our fluctuating internal
• 18:25
  feelings. And they tackle religious
• 18:26
  pluralism head on. The authors insist that the text
• 18:29
  presents Jesus as the absolute only banner for the nation.
• 18:33
  He's entirely exclusive. He's not one path among many.
• 18:36
  He's the sole source of life for everyone, right?
• 18:39
  The text leaves no room for multiple valid religious
• 18:41
  systems. The nations must stream to the
• 18:43
  root of Jesse or they remain under judgement.
• 18:46
  Taking all of this massive theology into consideration, the
• 18:49
  texts bring it down to daily application.
• 18:51
  What does it look like to live under the authority of the root
• 18:54
  of Jesse? On a Tuesday morning, they
• 18:56
  explain a concept known as the third use of the law.
• 18:59
  Which means the believers, having been filled with the same
• 19:02
  Holy Spirit that rested upon Christ, now walking grateful
• 19:06
  obedience. We are called to exhibit wisdom,
• 19:08
  counsel, and the fear of the Lord in our daily vocations.
• 19:12
  The law is no longer a tool of condemnation that terrifies us,
• 19:16
  but a guide for how to live out our gratitude to the King who
• 19:20
  saved us. The authors also apply this
• 19:22
  authority to family structures. They outline the concept of
• 19:26
  complementarianism, arguing that the headship of Christ over the
• 19:29
  Church is the divine model for the home.
• 19:32
  It calls for the sacrificial leadership of husbands and the
• 19:35
  submission of wives, reflecting the order of the Kingdom in the
• 19:37
  domestic sphere. The home is meant to be a micro
• 19:40
  representation of the cosmic peace and order established by
• 19:43
  the King. Beyond the home, the text
• 19:45
  addressed the broader psychological climate of our
• 19:48
  time. When you look at modern anxiety
• 19:50
  and suicide rates, the cultural despair is palpable.
• 19:53
  People are terrified of the future.
• 19:55
  The text present the literal, physical return of Christ as the
• 19:59
  only genuine remedy for this overwhelming despair.
• 20:02
  We do not place our hope in human improvement, societal
• 20:05
  evolution or political saviors. We place our hope in a king who
• 20:08
  has already conquered death, who brought life out of a dead
• 20:11
  stump, and who holds the future firmly in his hands.
• 20:15
  I want you to think about the stumps in your own life right
• 20:17
  now. Maybe it is an area of absolute
• 20:20
  failure, a visible ruin, a broken relationship, or a
• 20:23
  physical weakness where you feel entirely depleted.
• 20:26
  The challenge presented by these texts is to rest completely in
• 20:30
  the sovereign King who brings life out of absolute death,
• 20:33
  rather than relying on frantic self help strategies or human
• 20:36
  pragmatism. If the King of the Universe
• 20:38
  deliberately chose to enter human history through a
• 20:40
  disgraced chop down family line to prove that salvation belongs
• 20:44
  entirely to the Lord, how might he be using the apparent ruins
• 20:47
  in your own life to display his undeniable sovereignty?
• 20:50
  You look at a dead tree and biology says it is over, but
• 20:54
  divine sovereignty says life is just beginning.
• 20:56
  Thank you so much for joining us for this deep dive into the
• 20:58
  Word. We look forward to our next
• 21:00
  conversation. Farewell until the next edition
• 21:02
  of Reformed Thinking.