The Sovereignty of God

Hello, how's it going? This is Truth In Love Network, and this is the Pastors Panel Podcast.

And tonight, you have Dan and myself, I'm Robert, and hopefully, maybe, we will have some other friends to join us if they can.

And tonight, we're going to be talking about the sovereignty of God. We need to know what is truth in love.

That's my attempt at a little video or a logo video.

I don't know the technical terms for these things, but I'm going to have to work with Brother Claude. He's really creative.

He's really talented at making these things, so maybe he can help us make one, but that was my attempt.

I hope it was okay. You're fine. Cool. Cool. So, yeah, tonight, we're going to be talking about the sovereignty of God, and first of all,

I think we need to just say why that's important. I think of all the doctrines of Scripture, to understand them, to have a right understanding of them, to keep us going in the right direction.

We need to have a firm understanding of the sovereignty of God, what the

Bible says about the sovereignty of God. Is God sovereign?

I mean, you have to ask that question. Is He sovereign? What does that mean? What does that look like?

And by answering that question, it keeps us in the right position.

It keeps our eyes looking in the right direction. It keeps us on the right path. And that's the case with any doctrine, of course, but especially the sovereignty of God, knowing the sovereignty of God, and it steers us in the right direction as we look at other doctrines.

We are going to start a series, and this is the first of that series, and of course, what

I just explained is the reason why we want to start with the sovereignty of God, because it's going to be the foundation of these other doctrines.

And the other doctrines that we're going to look at, Dan, what would you call these doctrines?

We're going to be looking at the acronym TULIP, Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the

Saints. So does that acronym, does that branch of theology and doctrine, does that have a, what would you label that?

Well, Spurgeon labeled it the gospel. Okay. But a lot of people will take issue with that.

So I guess we'll call it by Doctrines of Grace. You can know it by the name of Calvinism.

Some people like to fight about that because they say, well, you're making your doctrines after some guy who lived several hundred years ago, which isn't the case, it's just the one who kind of,

I don't know, he said it really well. So people kind of went with his name.

Yeah. Yeah. You can say a whole bunch of stuff. I'd say a couple most popular would be the

Doctrines of Grace or Calvinism. Yeah. And I don't see any difference learning from Calvin and giving it a label, and I think

I've read somewhere that, well, I don't want to misquote the person about Calvin rolling over in his grave for some reason, but there will probably be a reason why he would roll over in his grave, but I don't want to misquote somebody.

But using Calvin, using that label is no different than every denomination has their boundaries, which we would call our confessions or our creeds.

And so it's no different than that. It's just giving it a label. So we're not, nobody is worshiping

Calvin or getting their doctrine from Calvin. He is just pulling from scripture, what we see in scripture as well, and we just use that label.

Right. Yeah. It's basically just saying that we think Calvin said it really well. Kind of like the

Lutherans, they don't worship Luther. They don't do anything like that. They just say, we think

Luther was onto something. And so we're kind of following after what he did by looking to the scriptures and living how we believe would be consistent with being faithful to God.

Yeah. Really. Yeah. And same thing would be true with the Westlands and the

Methodists and John Wesley or the Presbyterians with John Knox. The Baptist with...

Don't say John the Baptist. We'll fight. If, what are those folks?

The Amish? No, not the Amish, the folks that want to trace their lineage all the way back to John the

Baptist. Oh, the primitive Baptist? It's not primitive

Baptist. It might be the primitive Baptist, but that's not the one that I'm thinking about.

It'll come to mind later. Holding the trail of blood theory?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Church history is slipping my mind right now, but I'll think of it in a little bit.

Oh, Thomas, you got Thomas Helwes, but I don't think Baptists really have a real main figure up top.

Billy Graham. That's cool. So, yeah, nobody worships those folks. Oh, we've got two comments already.

And I cannot read it. It's in Arabic. Interesting.

So, let's see. The sovereignty of God. Are you tempting to read it? You're looking...

No. I'm... Halfway decent at Greek and Hebrew.

No Arabic. I know it's barely Arabic. I was going to give you a chance. I know you were looking pretty intently at it.

Well, I was hoping maybe if I just stared at it, it would, I don't know, maybe highlight it and press translate.

I don't know. Yeah. There's no translate button. So, we are... It's a YouTube viewer, which is cool, pretty cool.

So, let's start with the sovereignty of God, and that will help us.

I believe this video will help us. I think there's misconception of the sovereignty of God, just like there is with Calvinism, different avenues of teaching what it is.

So, let me start with two definitions. I think that's the direction that I'd like to go, is two definitions.

One that I think that you and I and the rest of the folks on the pastor's panel would agree with.

And another one, I've got a label for it on my paper, but I'm not going to give it a label here in our video, but a definition that we may not agree with exactly, but I think is also a popular definition that others may take.

So, here is one definition of the sovereignty of God, and I'm going to be pulling from...

Tonight, I'm going to be pulling from... I want to reference John Piper and things that I looked at what he did.

So, I want to give him credit for the study that I did and the work that he's done.

So, the definition, the first definition is powerful and authoritative to the extent that he is able to override all other power and authorities, and nothing can stop or thwart

God's will. Do you have a similar definition?

Yeah, I like that. Okay. Yeah. Powerful and authoritative to the extent he's able to override all other powers and authority and nothing can stop or thwart

God's will. That's one definition that I think we would probably agree with.

Here's a second one that I think is popular. There's other folks that would say they believe in the sovereignty of God, but they would have a slightly different definition.

They would say, we believe in the sovereignty of God, but God's sovereignty has limited control in relation to man's freedom and their response to it.

Would you agree that that would be another popular definition? I'd say that that's probably the definition that a lot of people have in the church today, the broad church.

That would probably be where a lot of folks are coming from. I think they would probably nuance it a little bit more than that.

They would probably feel that God can do anything. He can override people, but he has chosen to allow our free will to run amok for a time and then he will deal with us accordingly at the end.

So maybe, I just want to get clear in my mind exactly what you were saying, that God's will and man's will can't coexist at the same time?

Well, I heard one guy say that in God's sovereignty, he chose to allow our free will to reign for a while.

I don't think he used the word reign, but he chose our free will to take control for a while, knowing that he will push it, nudge it, know the history and everything on down the line, but he'll generally allow man to run his course while controlling the big portions of history.

Basically, I'd say that God in his sovereignty has stepped aside a little bit to allow for man's moral responsibility and free will.

Okay. All right. Well, I'm ready to look at scripture and we're going to go through, hopefully, a good bit of scripture tonight and just exposit the scripture, look at it, see what it says and we want to determine which definition out of these or maybe another definition that we can pull out of the scripture, because the scripture is

God telling us who he is and what he wants us to know, so we want to understand what

God thinks or how God describes his character, nature and his sovereignty. So that's what we want to do tonight is look at scripture.

All right. So our first one is, this is the one that Jason gave us in our chat earlier, and let's see what it says.

Daniel 1 to the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the vessels of the house of God, and he brought them to the land of Shinar, the house of his

God. He brought the vessels into the treasury of his God. Okay. I'm not sure where Jason was going with this one.

Did he say Daniel 1, 12? I thought I saw it. I may not have.

Was it 1, 12? I'm not sure. We can read it anyway. Reading the Bible is never wrong. That's right.

Please test your servants for 10 days. Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink.

Well, that's not relevant at all. Let's go to the scripture that I have.

Yeah. He said Daniel 1, 2. We'll have to ask him about that.

Sure. Daniel 4 .35. All right.

All the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing, but he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.

And no one can ward off his hand or say to him, what have you done?

So I have to say this to myself because I've heard this.

This comes up, I think, in the conversation of Calvinism and Arminianism, free will and God's sovereignty.

When you get to the verses that have the word all in it, it's pretty popular for somebody to say it.

All means all, all the time. Always means all. All means all, and that's all all means?

That's right. That's right. That's exactly right. And so that's true. And we believe that, but all always means all in the context of where all is.

So we've got to keep it in this context to understand what the word all means. So here, all the inhabitants of the earth, and I think that's pretty explanatory, are counted as nothing, but he does according to his will in the host of heaven.

So it looks like Daniel's saying that God has power and authority.

Yeah. And in contrast to man not having power and authority. Right. In heaven and on earth.

So both locations. And among the inhabitants of the earth, that would be us and all of mankind.

No one can ward off his hand, literally strike against.

No one can come against, ward off his hand. And if my understanding is correct, the word hand is often used as a sign of authority.

How would you understand hand there? Yeah, it's talking about authority or strength or ability to do something.

It's one of those things where it speaks of a smaller portion of his body or a small portion of something in order to talk about the larger thing.

So in this instance, it's saying no one can ward off his hand, which leads you to think of doing something or working or God's action, but not just his hand or his action, but his whole being.

No one can ward off what he does. Nobody can counteract what he is.

He is no top dog. And it's not even really close because he's not like he's the greatest among like like entities or like people or like things.

He is by his very nature greater than we are.

And we can't slip by the fact that it says it says no one. No one can ward off his hand.

Let's see what let's see what our friend Tim has to say. Tim says a friend used to say as an example of the context for the word all is that all the is that all the coffee obviously not meaning all the coffee in the world, but all in our coffee pot.

Yeah. And that's determined by context. If I could be all the coffee in the world.

I'm right there with you. But I'm not all of the coffee, so. So I'm thinking about I'm thinking about that phrase and no one can ward off his hand.

So we're going back to our definitions and I'm thinking about our definitions. And it fits with the first one that God has all power and authority.

He's powerful and authoritative to the extent that no one can override.

And that's basically what that's saying. And no one can ward off or thwart or stop his hand. And that goes along well with our definition.

But as we're looking at it, I'm thinking about the other definition and how you you tweaked it and talked about it and the definition that your person your acquaintance made.

God chose to for a limited time. So that person would probably say with this verse, we're in that time period.

So how would you answer that person? So say that again.

I had an answer for you. My brain turned off. So so thinking about our second definition, that God has limited control relation to man's freedom and their response to it.

And an acquaintance of yours made the comment or gave an understanding of this concept to the to the idea that God is sovereign, he's in control.

And with that power and control, he stepped back and he is he is allowing man to reign for a period of time.

So sure, I've got I've got a couple of things to say.

It all came flooding back. Plus, I got a new illustration in my head, so it kind of helps. I don't know how familiar you

I'm I'm kind of a sci fi nerd. I enjoy different sci fi stories and whatnot.

I don't know how many people would be familiar with the show Doctor Who. But Doctor Who is a story of a time

Lord, somebody who traveled in space and time, and they kind of go through and make sure that that everything that happens throughout all of history is, you know, as it should be.

And their understanding of time is that there are fixed points in time that can't be broken. And then there are a lot of other things that can be broken or moved or changed or malleable.

So certain events are going to happen almost like fate, while other certain things can be moved or changed or not happen, you know, in a linear fashion, or you could go back and change things.

Another way to understand it, if you've had someone try to give an example for time management, if you try to fit in for your into your day, all the things that you need to do, you can fill up your, your time with a bunch of little stuff that doesn't really need to get done and you miss out on the big things.

They call this the concept of big rocks and small rocks. And what they do is they'll take a jar or vase or something, and they'll have several other jars of large rocks, small rocks and sand and they'll say, well, the big rocks are the very important things for that you want to do the small rocks to the medium importance and then the sand is no stuff that is not very important.

So if you go to fill up this jar and you put the sand in first, and then you put the middle little pebbles in, you won't be able to fit the big rocks.

So if you fit the big rocks in place, they're fixed and they're in the jar, then you can fit other things around them.

So you fill up your jar. If you think of time like that, I think a lot of people think that God is sovereignly ruling over our time like that.

Like God has placed those big important events as unmovable fixed points in time.

He was going to talk to Abraham. He was going to put Noah on the ark.

He was going to have David reign. He was going to come and deal with sin in Jesus Christ during the first century.

The temple veil was going to rent in two. You go on, the apostle Paul was going to be a person.

The big major events of history are set in time. And then he kind of just let humanity throw in pebbles and stones or pebbles and sand wherever.

It'd be like the little rocks would be people of major influence. They get to drop their stuff in and then the sand is, maybe

I want biscuits and gravy today. Okay, cool. Throw my little sand pebble in there.

It'll fall in wherever it does in time and great, it doesn't really affect anything. All the big things are in place, but we're able to, with our free will, help

God fill up the fullness of time with our will while God is still in control of the big portion.

I think that's what a lot of folks think of when they, when they view

God and sovereignty in time. But what you see here in this verse in Daniel is that he does according to his will.

And among the inhabitants of the earth, no one can restrain his hand or hold his hand back.

No one can say, what have you done? So what you're looking at there is not so much

God only being in charge of the large things, but God being in charge of every single thing, being in control of the situation in every single aspect of our lives, big, small, indifferent, we're working according to God's plan.

Now, people will push back against that and say, Oh, so you think we're robots or puppets or something?

We have no will. And that's just a foreign concept to the

Bible, which we'll get to, I saw your verse list. We'll get to that when we, when we look at Genesis is actually probably be helpful to go back to Genesis one, two, and three real quick, and then look at 50, but I'll let you control the, where we go, the big rocks, if you will, do you want to go there now or do you want to?

Oh yeah, we can, we can do whatever. Okay. Genesis chapter one.

Yeah. I'd start right at the beginning. Okay.

Ask if you just read a couple of verses, ask yourself some questions and then look at what

God does. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Yep. And the earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

Right. Um, now could, could or would God create something that he couldn't control or that he didn't have authority over?

Um, you know, is, is that thing, uh, could, could God make a rock big enough to where he couldn't move it?

Well, that's a logical, um, that's a logical, uh, uh, fallacy, like it doesn't work like that.

Like if you're all powerful, then no, you don't have the ability to do things that are illogical or inconsistent with, with reality, obviously, because otherwise, then that would be a new reality.

It doesn't, it doesn't make any sense. So if God makes something, I mean, I just think about stuff that I make, um, no,

I, uh, I've gotten into making my own fishing lures and, uh, and roasting, uh, my own coffee and stuff.

And if I go in and put in the work, no, I mix the plastic saw and the little flakes and I mix it up,

I'll put it in the injector, put it in the mold. If I pull my, my fishing lures out, then all of a sudden someone, um, comes up to me and says, well,

Hey, you don't really have the right to take that fishing with you. I'm going to say, get lost.

I bought the material, I put it together. I'm going to go fishing. I'm going to catch the biggest fish you've ever seen. Just watch.

Uh, and I don't see how it's much different with, with God and the entirety of creation.

There was nothing. God spoke it into existence. Why is it not his to do with as he sees fit?

And I don't think many people would argue with that in the broad strokes. Um, it's when you get down into the details, uh, so, and the details come pretty quick.

If you look down at verse 26, yeah, 26, uh, he says, uh, then

God said, let us make man in our image. According to our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over the earth, over the ever creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in his own image and the image of God, he created him male and female. He created them.

Then God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea of the birds of the air, every living thing that moves on the earth.

And people will say, Hey, look right there. God gave, um, authority to men over the earth.

So God stepped back in his sovereignty in order to, um, give some of his authority to mankind.

And I don't think that's what's taking place now.

God did give us responsibility and that responsibility is, is inherently moral because we have the choice to either obey or disobey our creator.

We can live in the world that he's created as his creation in the way that he has put forth for us, or we cannot, which they choose later on to not.

And it goes haywire. You know, we're still feeling the effects of that one, uh, fairly, fairly strong.

Uh, if you move on to chapter two, uh, verse 15, it goes over this, the same concept says, then the

Lord God took the man, put him in the garden of Eden to tend it and keep it. So we were given responsibility and authority over the garden in order to take care of it and make sure that it was, it, it was a, it wasn't a autonomous authority.

It was a, uh, authority that was underneath the authority of God. So he was still in control, gave us the responsibility to take care of his, his, his things.

And the Lord God commanded of the man saying of every tree of the garden, you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.

So even in our, um, authority over the garden, even in our responsibility to tend and care for it, even in with our, you know, authority that God had given us to take care of his creation, we were still responsible to God for how we did that and what we did.

Um, so we had a true moral responsibility and in chapter three, we see where we, uh, ran afoul of that.

Um, God said to us, no, Hey Adam, where are you at? He said,

I'm hiding cause I'm naked. He's like, how do you know that you're naked? No, I didn't tell you about that.

It was, he was feeling the shame of his sin. And then we see that God, uh, in his sovereignty as ruler and judge of the earth in verses 14 through 20, he goes to, to Satan, the woman and the man, uh, all of humanity that would come from man and woman and to Satan himself, who was the father of lies and sin and deceit in the world.

Um, and he said, you all are cursed and here's what's going to happen to you as you now live in my world.

You're going to live under a curse and, um, you're going to do so because you have rebelled against me.

So what we see is we have a true moral responsibility, but God still retains that authority over us.

He's still sovereign, a ruler, a king over his creation. He has the right to tell it.

Yes, you may do this. No, you may not do that. He has a right to allow them to go into their folly or to restrain them from their folly.

But he still maintains control over every single thing that takes place on the, on the planet.

And, uh, uh, yeah, and I think that's, that it doesn't show that God gave, that God stepped aside to allow mankind to do whatever he wants to in the earth.

It shows that he gave us true, real moral responsibility for our actions while maintaining his complete control over creation.

And now I could understand how people would just going through Genesis one through three may may fight or buck against that idea a little bit, but when you come to Genesis 50, you see an actual situation where the same action of, of men would, was used by the men for one purpose.

And yet God allowed those actions for a completely different purpose, his own purpose, and the

God's purpose wasn't evil while the men's purpose was evil. Yeah.

Yeah. Just as 50, 20, um, as for you, oh, go back to 19. It's important to, yeah, good stuff.

But Joseph said to them, do not be afraid, am I in God's place?

And what is God's place? Yeah. If we look at it from Genesis one through three, he is the ruler creator.

He's in charge of his creation. He can be judged. Um, and that's what they're, they're saying.

They're, they're before him and they're like, oh no, Joseph, you're going to, you're going to smite us. And he probably should have, or at least we would have in his situation been tempted to,

I would say. Yeah. Um, and then, uh, verse 20.

Well, and I was just thinking too, but he's also thought about how he's, I guess the law would have been, uh, eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, um, in Old Testament economy.

Um, but, uh, he, he didn't follow that. He, he followed, um, the teaching of the

Messiah, teaching of Christ, um, where you have mercy and grace. He was, he was, um, he was falling after the, the, the true nature of, of God's work.

You know, God is, um, God is just, but he's, he's also has, has mercy and grace.

So you see that aspect, uh, but also he's, um, he's echoing the sentiment of what we just read in Daniel, where that, that last phrase that says, um, no one can say, uh, you know, why did you do this?

Basically. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's what he's getting at. Yeah. And then you get to, uh, verse 20 as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result to preserve many people a lot.

Right. Joseph is Joseph is saying, Hey, I'm not God. I'm not going to punish you or say that what you did was, was, uh, punishable by me because this is bigger than, than the, what the 12 of us is, is bigger than that.

God is doing something here. You did something absolutely wicked, but you did it.

Um, God meant those wicked actions of yours in order to preserve alive many people in the land.

Remember the famine, it would have killed, you know, thousands of people. I don't know how many people were in that area of the world at the time, but if you don't have food, the region will die.

I mean, people would just collapse. We may not have heard of Egypt or at least the history would have been much, much shorter.

There would have been no Exodus, uh, because Egypt would have died out before the enslavement of the people.

Um, there would have been no protective environment for the children of Israel to grow while they're in captivity.

Um, you see, Joseph says, you did this because you're wicked.

You have true moral responsibility for your actions, but God is controlling what is happening in his world.

And he's doing it in such a way that even your wickedness is God's goodness.

And that you don't want you on that one for a while, because it sounds like I just contradicted myself a little bit.

But what, what they meant on purpose for evil,

God meant those same actions, those same actions of sinful men for good.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you do have to sit on and chew on that, that verse and what it's saying.

You do have to sit and chew for a while, um, to let it speak to you, let God speak to you about what he's, what he's getting at, what he's saying.

And, and to me, this goes back to, um, that question that we were talking about earlier about going to, to your acquaintance, who was explaining, um, his definition of sovereignty of God, that, that God is sovereign.

God is in control. He believes that, but he's, um, in his decision -making, he steps back and lets man's will reign for a while as he steps back.

And, but, but here, if you look at what he's saying there, I need to get in front of the camera so you can see my hands.

I really want to talk on my hands. Um, so you have his, his concept of, um,

God stepping back so they can't co -exist man's will and God's will.

They can't co -exist because one, one has to override the other. Uh, but here, this is what

God is showing us in scripture that you have, you have two intentions going on at the same time.

You have man's intention and you have God's intention. But what we see is that God's intention, it is the one that is, has dominion over the other intention because it's the one that, um, has the results.

The, the, the ultimate, the ultimate conclusion, um, the, the intention that has the, the conclusion that, that comes out or that, um,

I don't know how, what I'm trying to say, but it's

God's intention that, that is the one that, that overrides, that has dominion, that, that shows the results, um, you know, they,

Joseph says, you meant it for evil. Okay. So which one out, which one in the end, was it the evil or was it a good, well, it was the good because it was

God's intention that had dominion over man's intention, you know, they were, they were going simultaneously.

And I think that helps us answer that question, um, to that person that thinks

God stepped back. Well, no, he doesn't step back. Right. Both are going on at the same time and God has dominion over the other.

Right. We have to remember that the God's will is a, is a determinative, determinative will.

Whereas ours, it, ours is not determinative so much as is reactionary.

God knows what he's doing in the world over the course of all history and in his creation that he's made.

We are not in that position where we made the world and this is ours to do with as we please.

We, we, by, by our nature, no, I didn't show up at creation. I showed up, you know, six to 10 ,000 years later, however you want to date it.

Um, young, young earth, of course. And, uh, we'll talk about that one later if somebody wants to.

Uh, but I, I showed up then I have to react because there's, there's history before me.

There's going to be history after me. Um, I'm, I'm reactionary.

God's not reactionary. What God's doing is he is, he's being determinative throughout history. And what

I really, uh, just hit me. Um, if what God's doing is reactionary saying, well, how can

I use these evil actions for good? Then, um, it's almost like he's trying to, uh, make, uh, make chicken salad.

I'm sure you've heard that expression before. Um, you gotta take, uh, uh, chicken, chicken poop.

And what do you do with it? And turn it into chicken salad. Uh, you take, uh, lemons and you make lemonade.

Right. Yeah. That's probably a cleaned up version of the lemons and lemonade. Life, life gave, gave

God lemon. So he made lemonade with it. Right. But that's not what happened at all. And look at, look at, uh, verses 19 and 21.

Um, understanding that God meant those actions in verse 20 in verse 19, he says,

I'm not in the place of God. Don't be afraid. Uh, don't be afraid.

I will provide for you and your little ones. So he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

And why? Because he recognized what God was doing and what God was doing was through the actions of evil men, preserving many people alive.

So Joseph's reaction wasn't that, well, God just made the best out of this situation. Whew. That was, that was close.

I don't know what happened, but God sure made it look good. No, God was doing something great and amazing.

And Joseph, a true believer, looked at those actions and acted accordingly. What was

God's purpose in having these evil things happen that many people would be made a lot preserved alive.

So what's his reaction to the whole situation? Do I want vengeance on this, this situation where many people were preserved alive?

No, I want to act like God did. I want to show kindness and mercy to those who are without food.

I want my friends and family to be provided for, you know, because God is sovereign, because he's doing it like this, because he took those actions and made this happen.

So I would be here to provide food for, you know, half the world. I'm going to do that.

I'm going to provide food for my family. I'm not going to get vengeful.

It's the same thing when we come up against things in our life. What are these things that are happening to us?

And he says the same thing in Romans. The Holy Spirit through Paul says the same thing in Romans. Oh, what, he says, what can separate us from the love of God?

Can peril or famine or sword or that? No, and all of these things and all of that wretched stuff is happening.

We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. So what are we called to do when we see persecution and we see evil pushed off against us?

Do we react saying, well, I'm sure God will turn this into something. He's a, he's a good guy. Or do we recognize that all these things work together for my good?

And so what do I do? Because these things work together for my good. I'm going to take that goodness and love and show it to the rest of the world by pointing them to the

God who can save people from their sins. We're showing them the forgiveness that I have found the one who won't let me fall out of his hand because he is sovereign.

You can't lose me because he made that determination. He got me. I'm not going anywhere.

Absolutely. Well, what I'd like to do is, is go through these other verses. I want to get through all of them because I think,

I think they want to enforce, they will encourage, they will help us to understand what we need to understand about God's sovereignty.

And I don't want to neglect looking at them before we run out of time. So let's, you know, let's make a brief comment on these verses.

Isaiah 46, 9. Remember the former things long past, for I am God and there is no other.

I am God and there was no one like me. Good stuff.

That's even more incredible. When you think of the, the section of Isaiah that's coming from Isaiah 40 through 48 is, has been nicknamed the trial of the false gods.

He says he is the one who declares the beginning from the ending. Know what he did in ancient times.

He's accomplishing his purpose. He's doing what he wills. I think it's even back in chapter 40.

He kind of, he kind of yells at him. He's like, Hey, which one of these has ever done anything?

You know, have them tell us what's coming up or, or even what happened in the past and why it happened. He's like, they can't do it.

But look at me. I'm the one who declares the end. No, I'm telling you what's happening then.

Way back here. I'm going to tell you about stuff that's going on.

I'm going to tell you my purpose, my reasoning behind it, and I'm going to accomplish all my good pleasure. No, he's in charge.

Yeah. And, and verse 10 cannot be more clear. Right. He, he is the one there's, there's no other, just him.

He is the one declaring the end from the beginning. And from ancient times, things which have not been done saying my purpose will be established.

There we go. But our definition, his purpose will be established and it can't be thwarted. He says,

I will accomplish all my good pleasure. We have a question from our viewers.

Wonderful lady upstairs. How do you answer someone who uses the God, God changed his mind as to according to God's sovereignty.

God, God repented. God changed his mind. Those type verses.

Yeah. A lot of times those things are best understood in is best understood.

Look at what Jonah did. Jonah went to Nineveh. To preach a message of destruction.

This is what's coming to you. God is going to destroy you. Repent, turn from your sin. God, they, they did.

And what was it that God did? It says that God, uh, relented or turned, turned away or, or changed his mind or repented.

Did God actually change his mind or was

God's purpose in telling them, this is what's going to happen to you. Um, what's his purpose behind that to say, don't do it, no turn from your sin or you will find yourself in this situation.

Um, or like when, when Moses, um, God said, no, get out of my way. I'm going to smite these people.

These people are terrible. No, Moses, get out of my way. I'll start over a nation with you. And he said, no, don't do that.

Like you're going to ruin your reputation with the nations out here. Now don't start over with me. No, we can work through this.

You're, you're a good God. And he's like, okay. And the Lord repented of, or turned from his intention to smite the people.

Um, there are purposes. And I don't think God was, I don't think

God was showing so much. What? I don't think he, he changed his mind as much as he was showing the, the, in the situation.

What exactly was, was what, what the situation that the people were up against, you know, what was

God's purpose? God's purpose was to have a mediator come in between, uh, the people and, uh, their destruction to plead for their deliverance.

That person was Moses, Moses being a type of Christ. No. Is it that God turned from or, or changed his mind or repented or, or, um, changed what he was doing?

Um, not so much. He was calling out, no, this is what's going to happen if you are in your sin.

And then what changed was that the people repented or there was a mediator who stepped in the way.

Otherwise, none of us would ever find salvation. Yeah. Yeah. I think these questions try to, uh, they're, uh, gotcha questions.

And I think they, they go back to what you were talking about earlier. Um, reactionary

God, God's a reactionary God. See, he has to be a reactionary God because, um, this happened, man did this and he had to change his mind.

So God is a reactionary God. And they'll use verses like this to, to, to say that. Um, but, uh, based on what we've looked at so far, from my understanding, this is the way

I would look at it. You know, we, we've talked about, um, you know, God declaring the end from the beginning.

And, and those that want to use this as a gotcha question would have to say, or they try to say that, um,

God had to come up with a plan B because he's reactionary. He had to, um, uh, figure out something because man did this.

So he, he changed his mind. He relented. He repented. Um, but the way I would understand it would be that, no, this changing of his mind, quote, unquote, or repenting or relenting is that same plan.

A that, that, that was part of his plan. He's, he's, that's what he's declared from the beginning, from the end or from the beginning to the end.

It's his plan. Right. I've, I've told my children several times that there was punishment coming to them.

And because of their, uh, repentance, they're turning away from their, their disobedience.

Um, that, that punishment didn't come to them. No, because it's like, Hey, you're going to get a spanking.

All right, dad, I won't do that anymore. All right. It doesn't change the fact that you fall back into that disobedience and that sin.

Yeah, there's still that punishment there. Um, don't take me down YouTube.

I don't know about spanking over here. I'm going to get arrested up here in the old communist state of New York.

Oh, I'm, I'm clicking on the wrong screen. Um, we'll see. Ephesians four 11 and he gave some as apostles, some process.

Some might the right one. It's good.

I don't know if it's relevant, but it's good. Wow. That's the, that's the second time tonight.

We were professionals. Really? Well, we're like GMC over here.

We are professional grade. Oh, for two.

Oh my. Yeah. Really? There it is. I like that one. There we go.

Someone 35, six, whatever the Lord pleases. He does in heaven and in earth, in the sea and in all the deeps.

Yeah. Whatever, whatever the Lord pleases. No one and no one can afford it.

Yep. And what is it? Psalm. I forget.

I should know this. Let's say.

I don't know.

At one point in the song, it says, our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases. Oh yeah.

Yeah. And here we see a Matthew that they're amazed because even the winds and the waves obey him.

Yeah. That, that goes back to to his, his power over creation.

He's not doing some demonic parlor trick where he's bending the reality or changing things from a spirit.

He is in control of the wind and the waves. Like he just speaks just like he did in creation and what he has created obeys, which goes to show that, you know, even like Nebuchadnezzar, no,

Nebuchadnezzar was, was big and bold and God spoke and he turned into a werewolf and ate grass for a while.

No. And then all of a sudden he said, okay, your time's done. And he came back to his right mind. He was, no,

God is incredible. He is in control. He does whatever he wants to in heaven and on earth. Yeah.

And that helps. That helps to direct us in how we quote question God. So when, when the tsunami tsunami comes or when the earthquake comes and folks want to question

God, um, what that means and what that should look like is, um, what are you doing in this?

Because here we see, here we see a Matthew, um, the winds and waves obey him.

He he's in control of those winds and waves. So the question is when we questioned him is what are you doing?

What, what can I learn? And then Matthew 10 29 are not two spares sold for a cent.

And yet not one of them fall from the ground apart from your father. Right.

So he had nominees. This is sparrows too. Yeah. Yeah. We go, we go from one spectrum to the other, uh, of great events, great catastrophes to small insignificant events, events that no one would ever even known that what happened, uh, a little bird that was out in the middle of the jungle.

Right. No one had ever saw falls and God, God is over that.

It doesn't, it doesn't fall apart from the bottom. Right. God has a, a, an incredible interest and a loving care for the microbes and bacteria that live on a planet, the circle, the star of Alpha Centauri way off in the distance.

People may say, why that's insignificant. And it's not insignificant because those microbes and bacteria way out there in those planets and stars that we never see, you know, why would it be?

It's so pointless for it to be empty, but it's not pointless at all because even those things out there are crying out the glory of God.

Right. Um, there's no people there, but when there's people not praising God, what did Jesus say?

That the rocks and the trees will cry out. Yeah. Um, and praise of the glory of God.

Right. So what are those things doing out there? Glorifying God through acting as they should in their created state.

Uh, something that we, uh, we don't, we don't always do. Second Chronicles 26.

And he said, Oh Lord, the God of our fathers, are you not God in the heavens? Are you not ruler over all the kingdoms of the nations, power and might are in your hand so that no one can stand against you.

So we talk about creation, catastrophe, small events. And I think we also need to think about too.

You were talking about the, the microbes and everything, um, you know, take it to its, to extremes.

Um, our, our genetic makeup, our atoms, you know, every, everything inside of us that makes us up to the largest galaxy and everything in between.

And then here in second Chronicles, we're seeing that, that God, um, is ruler has authority and power over nations and people.

And we talk about that in eschatology, um, that God is concerned and is, is loving and, and, and cares about the nations of this world.

Um, we're, we're to go and preach the gospel, baptizing the nations.

Uh, real quick. Are there other children in the nations? Other children?

Yeah. Other children in the nations. Yeah. Oh, okay. It took me a second.

You had to get that in there. I did. I was looking. And that's okay. That's okay.

That was the Baptist versus Presbyterian jab there. Some 3310, the

Lord nullifies the council of the nations. He frustrates the plans of the people. So he's, he's in control of plans.

Uh, I'll go on to the next one. Read, read, read the next verse. The council of the

Lord stands forever. The plans of his heart from generation to generation. Yeah, he, he's the, the council of the

Lord of Yahweh. Um, the, the wisdom, the, the determination, the will of God stands forever.

The plans of his heart, what he schemes and brings into being what he thinks is the same.

And it remains forever from generation to generation. No, the same, the same will of God that was around when no, my great ancestors were over there.

And, uh, wherever the Vikings were, we got, we just looked through our history and found out we had

Vikings. but way back then, same God, same plans is when you come to me and 40 generations in the future, same

God, same plans, same goodness, uh, from generation to generation.

Yeah. And those two verses put the popular verse, verse 12 in the context, instead of taking it out of context and using it however you want to, those two verses help us understand verse 12.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Um, who's in control of the nations, God, the people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance.

So yeah, he's in control of that. So let's look at, we've got others here, but let's look at one last one before we move on.

Our God is in the heavens and he does whatever he pleases. Hey, it was in there somewhere.

So we can't afford it. He has all authority and he has dominion over everything, control over everything.

Um, the smallest minute detail. Yep. Any other thoughts on that last verse?

Some one, 15, three, uh, the, the same sentiment is all throughout

Psalm two, uh, Psalm two actually gets into, you know, why it says, why did the nations rage?

Uh, why the people's plot of vain thing. It talks about the, the Kings of the earth setting themselves up against God.

They come together and say, let's throw off his yoke. We don't want any part of him. Whatever he says is ridiculous.

And so you've got a people who are rebelling against their creator and God, what does

God do? Um, he's not reactionary. He laughs. He said, it says, no, he who sits in the heavens laughs.

He will hold them in derision. And then he'll speak to them in his wrath and his distress, uh, and distress them in his deep displeasure.

And he, and he says, no, and this is why the people are plotting while they're trying to go against God. He says,

I've set my King already on Zion, on my Holy hill. He says,

I have decreed, I've declared the decree. And he talks about Jesus. Uh, you are my son today.

I've begotten you ask of me and I'll give the nations to you as an inheritance. Uh, and then he calls, calls them out in verse 12 and says, um, kiss the son, lest he be angry.

And you perish in the way when his wrath is kindled, but a little blessed are those who put their trust in him.

So what is the responsibility of the nations and the Kings and the governments of the world is to kiss the son is to pay homage to him, to recognize him as King, which is one of the reasons why the constitution is, uh, a little substandard.

It does not explicitly claim Christ is King. It kind of tries to skirt it.

In fact, it was one of the main things where people were looking at it. Um, and they're like,

Hey, uh, all these other governments, they're founding documents say Jesus Christ is

King. America comes along and says, uh, religious freedom.

Now that's not what God says. He says, here's my son. Here's the King. Kiss him.

Lest you perish in the way, pay homage to him. Um, so God is doing what

God is doing. And just because there's a rebellion in the kingdom does not mean that the sovereignty of the

King is in question. He is allowing us true moral responsibility.

In order. I mean, in, in the process, still ruling and reigning and accomplishing everything that he means to accomplish, even when people mean stuff for wickedness.

Right. Yeah. And there's no such thing as religious freedom. Scripture tells us you're either a slave to sin or you're a slave to Christ.

You know, one or the other. Better watch out. Baptist is going to come after you. Yeah. With their

American flags in their sanctuaries. Oh, goodness. Now we're stepping on toes, right?

Hey, well, yeah, we cross cross before the flag.

Cross above the Christian flag above the American flag. We take them both down.

I'm okay with the Christian flag. I mean, I will stick it in the ground and say this

Christ has dominion on the earth. That's not, that's how I would view it. That's how I look at it.

No, we'll talk about it later. Okay. But we agree about Christ to me.

Absolutely. Dominion. Oh, feet planted firmly on the

Mount of Olives and all that. Absolutely. So. That'd be our last verse looking at, and there's other ones that there's many, many more that we could look at.

And also some incorrect verses that we've tried to look at that. Talk about God's sovereignty.

But one, just, just the fact that scripture teaches that God is sovereign, knowing that he is sovereign, that that should put some rest to our soul.

Absolutely. Going back to things you've mentioned earlier in the podcast about thinking things logically and what things aren't logical.

That's the most logical thing. That's the most logical path that you could take because if God is not sovereign, any, any other argument is illogical.

It is it's chaos. People being in control of their own lives being, there'll be no purpose on this planet.

Everything is relative doing whatever you want to do. There would be total chaos. And, and there were, if there's no purpose for anything, you know, speaking of the, the floods or the tsunamis or the tornadoes or, or any of the tragedies.

If, if there's no purpose in it all, then life is meaningless.

You cannot find any meaning in life apart from the sovereignty of God. And it's a hard concept.

And it's one that we, like we were talking about Genesis chapter 50, verse 20, those things you have to sit and chew on and meditate on.

But apart from the sovereignty of God, there's, there's no meaning. There's no purpose in this life.

No meaning to, to what you do. No meaning to how you live. What's, what's

John Piper's, his catchphrase, his, his theme, Christian, hedonism, hedonism.

It would be hedonism. Just, just live and party and have fun because all you're going to do is die.

And that's it. There's no meaning to your life. So the sovereignty of God is foundational to everything.

But secondly, just take a little further, take a little bit deeper before we end.

We know that sovereignty of God subject, we won't talk about first because it's a foundation of these, these next doctrines that we're going to look at the doctrines of grace.

But, but what about the sovereignty of God? What about the foundation of God's sovereignty and the consequences of God's sovereignty?

John talk, John Piper talks about they're, they're governed by certain things.

Let's look at those, those three things real quick. The first one is

God's sovereignty is governed. So not only does it keep life from being meaningless, but there is also, his sovereignty is governed by other characteristics within himself.

And one of those characteristics is, is his wisdom. So his, you can trust in his sovereignty.

You can trust in his purposes. Romans 11, 33, Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable is his way.

So we're just building a case. We're, we're, we're building a, not just foundation, but we're building a strong tower, a strong defense that we can find refuge in.

When we speak of God, his character, nature, speaking of his sovereignty, that is not only do we find the rest there because there's, it's not chaos, it's not meaningless, but we can trust in his sovereignty because it's, it's directed by his wisdom.

So what he does is going to be right. It's going to be good. And we may not understand these things on this side of eternity.

He may reveal his purposes at some point, like he did for Joseph and his brothers, but we can rest in the fact that he's, his sovereignty is being directed is his plan that he's declared from the beginning to the end.

He's being directed by his wisdom. Any thoughts on, on that character of God?

Maybe I zoned out only for a second. Yeah, I was,

I was looking for something. I may have found it.

All right. Yeah. In trying to, to understand or figure out,

God's sovereignty and a man's will, God's eternal decree.

And our agency, the Westminster confession, the Baptist confession, they both say that it's in chapter three.

It says God from all eternity did by the most wise and Holy council of his own will freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass yet.

So as thereby, neither is God, the author of sin. So God's not the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures.

So God isn't the author of sin. He doesn't do violence to our wills, nor is the Liberty or contingency of second causes taken away.

In other words, if you do one thing, other things naturally follow.

If you smoke for years and years, you may get cancer. If you do this and that things will follow.

But rather established. So what is saying there is that God has decreed all things in such a way that God is not the author of sin.

He doesn't do violence against our wills. He doesn't take away our Liberty.

He doesn't make this action or that action meaningless in the future, but rather he establishes those things or makes no.

Our wills and Providence and all of that. He establishes those things through his decree.

So he has decreed. So all things that we see in front of us are result of God's decree.

And yet we still get to act as free creatures in his world. So I don't know.

It may have made things more complicated, but it could because it's weird for us to think of things as reactionary, created beings instead of being because we will never have the point of view of God who is in heaven and he does whatever he pleases.

So it's good for us to trust in God who has revealed himself to us to be the one who is in control of all things, who makes things that look evil work together for our good.

So that way, when we go on and we look at these other doctrines of grace, no, our depravity is men.

Is God the author of sin? No, he's not the author of sin. We did that, but it was part of God's plan to show his own glory.

When we look at what will we do in our depravity? Well, we would continue on in our sin because we bound ourselves to sin.

And yet God looked at us and for whatever reason in his own wisdom, chose a people for himself, saved them, died for them, holds them, protects them, and in his sovereignty is in control.

And that does not mean that we have no responsibility. It doesn't mean that our free wills are done away with.

It means that you hear the gospel, you must repent and believe.

Simple as that. Yeah. Well, you went ahead and answered my last question because that's where I wanted to lead us and go to because I feel like a lot of people who would enter into this podcast, this video, or this conversation, they would say, you know, they would maybe track along with all the verses that we were talking about, but ultimately when we get down to brass tacks, what people are going to ask us is are we robots like you said before?

How do we reconcile God's sovereignty and man's free will? And so you went in that direction.

Yeah. And the thing is we make robots as humans. I mean, this wasn't always the case through history, but we make robots.

We even make artificial intelligence. It's just incredible to think that it would pull together information and make decisions.

I mean, just incredible technology. We still have not made a will. We have not made a human being.

We have not created something out of nothing as God did. So, yeah, we're kind of on a different playing field than God.

Not kind of. We are on a different playing field than God. Go ahead.

No, no. And I've heard it described as speaking of our free will. That's one of the arguments against Calvinism or doctrines of grace that we would, how do we answer free will?

Well, you know, it's, I don't know. I don't know that we see it in scripture that detailed.

However, I think what we would say is that within the boundaries of our nature, we are able to do what we want to do.

And we have a sin nature. And so we have boundaries and we can't step outside of that boundary and do something that's against our nature.

Right. Which would be to choose God or repent on our own. Right. Years ago when my wife and I were battling through these things on our own,

I described it to her this way. I said, it's kind of like we are in a bubble and we are able to jump up and down and do cartwheels and make breakfast and whatever we want to inside of our bubble.

But our bubble is going to float where God has chosen for it to float.

That is kind of a way of thinking of our wills hem us in.

We are bound by our nature. We can do whatever we want to inside of our nature.

But at the end of the day, it's God who can regenerate the heart, who can change the nature, who can take you from one bubble and put it in another one, who can take your bubble of depravity from over here and then cause you to run into other bubbles over here.

They get pushed together and it's God who is in control. We are able to act freely within the confines of the existence and nature that God has placed us in.

The reality that we find in front of ourselves. But that doesn't mean that someone is not controlling the reality that we live in.

I think that's where people get mixed up. They think that if they don't have video game free reign all over the map, they don't have will.

But even then, you're still bound in by the creator of the map. You can do what you want to there.

There's consequences. You're going to lose health if you jump off a building. I saw somebody on Minecraft eat raw meat and got sick and lost health off of it.

You can do what you want to within the confines of reality. But reality is that God is in control of everything and God is doing what he's doing.

Our natures are sinful and depraved because we want them to be. It only changes when

God in his grace looks down at us in our poor and pathetic state and says, I love you and here's my son's blood to cover for your sin.

You made me think about Orbit Trail. Yeah, that's a good one.

Throw it back to the 80s kids. All right. That's right. Well, I guess how I would wrap up this conversation is and I don't remember who said it so that I can give them credit.

But and tell me what you think about this statement. And it goes back to us, not we will never be able to see things from God's perspective.

So our depth of understanding it is going to be based on his enlightenment for us.

But for us to understand our our will or our free will or however you want to phrase it and understand

God's sovereignty and the depths of it. God is so sovereign.

This is this is the quote or the my best.

Attempt at his quote, God is so sovereign. That he's even sovereign over our free will.

And that speaks to the depths of his sovereignty, which are which is unfathomable beyond our understanding.

Right. So he's he's so sovereign that he's sovereign over our free will.

Yep, I heard. I don't know who that was, but R .C. Scroll once said that God has free will and I have free will.

And when God's free will comes up against mine, mine doesn't stand a chance. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Well. Let's look at the last two attributes before we wrap it up.

The first one was God's wisdom. His sovereignty is governed and directed by his wisdom.

We look at Romans 11, 33, and the last two are are put together here.

I think this will be probably our last verse. But Isaiah, Isaiah 30, 18.

Therefore, the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore he waits on how to have compassion on you.

For the Lord is a God of justice. How blessed are all those who long for him.

So we can trust his sovereignty. We can rest in it because it's it's governed by his other characteristics, which are wisdom.

His mercy and his justice, he's going to do what's right. And he's going to have mercy.

And so there's all kinds of comfort. There's all kinds of rest when we know there should there should be that tension that a lot of people want to bring to God's sovereignty.

Right. I don't know if I'd say it's governed by it, but it's definitely consistent with it.

OK. Because then you get into big debates and we're not going to get into all that here.

But. But I was using John Piper's language there. Sure. As he was describing it.

But I see what you're saying. It helped me to find rest and release that tension that might be there with God's sovereignty.

So and then ultimately, it's all worked out for for his glory through the through the rescue of,

John Piper said, to the rescue of rebels. And going back to the verse that you quoted before, all things work together for good.

So those that love God are called according to his purpose. So all these things, his his sovereignty, his plan that he's declared from the beginning to the end is consistent with his wisdom, with his justice and his mercy for his glory and our good.

So I hope that was helpful. That was encouraging. If you have any questions, we would love to try to attempt to work that out.

And so just send us a message however you can. We'll try to work on that.

So so God's sovereignty and understanding that is going to help us to to shed light on these doctrines of grace that we're going to look at over the next few weeks.

And as Dan said earlier, God has sent his son to rescue sinners to shed his blood as the

Old Testament calls for without the shedding of blood. There's no remission of sin. And Jesus offered that of his own blood, which means his death in our place.

He took on the wrath of God in our place so that so that we didn't have to so that we could be rescued, so that we could be redeemed, so we could be saved.

And that's speaking of God's sovereignty and his plan that that concept of God.

Doing that for his enemies and making them his friends.

Takes the takes the depth of. These doctrines of mercy, of grace and compassion to whole new levels that, you know, we can never understand that someone would do that for their.

And then make them their friend. So God is gracious and God is kind, and he has done that to those who believe in him who would who repent of their sins.

So we we proclaim that to you tonight or whenever you watch this to recognize that we've all sinned.

We've all fallen short of God's glory. We've all broken his law. And if you don't think that you have

James chapter 1 verse 10 reminds us that if you've kept the whole long, it's something at one point you're guilty of it all.

And so we we are deserving of God's wrath. We are.

We can't make it up. We can't make up for it. And we can't do enough.

We are just we're helpless and hopeless because of who we are and what we've done.

But God's gracious, so gracious and merciful and kind that he sent us on Jesus to rescue us.

And so our response to be saved, to find that rest.

The only the only place that is in Jesus. So we encourage you to to come to him and repent of faith.

Join join his family, be in his kingdom and ask God to rescue you and to save you.

Any last thoughts on the subject? I don't know if I could get him out if I did.

Well, if are you able to close us in prayer?

If not, I will. OK, I'll close. Father, we thank you for allowing us to be together tonight.

We pray that you were glorified, that you were blessed. And we're imperfect in our explanation.

I know that I am. We pray that you would use this anyway.

What what truth that we were able to mine out of Scripture and out of the thoughts that we've had.

We pray that it will be useful for your kingdom, for your glory. And we thank you for your sovereignty, that things aren't chaotic, that things aren't pragmatic and relative.

And just. Bouncing things, bouncing everywhere without control.

Thank you that things are meaningless. Thank you that things have a purpose.

And we we want to. We want to use this time together to fulfill that purpose of your glory.

So, Father, we pray that. We pray for souls to be saved and for you to receive glory, that your truth would go out and.

Anyone would be edified, encouraged in our time together. We pray all these things in Jesus name.

Amen. Well, thank you for watching. We really appreciate it. And we always are. I like to remind everyone to to remember that Jesus is

King. Go live in the victory of Christ. Speak with the authority of Christ and continue to go out and share the gospel of Christ.