The Bible in 16 Verses: 6. Judah The King

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May 12, 2024

The Bible is 16 Verses is a biblical theology course that will take us from Genesis to Revelation and show us what the unfolding plan of God is for His Kingdom, His people, and His entire creation. Join us as we go through the book chapter by chapter.

00:09: So as you can see we're still going through the Biblical theology. So we're still in the
00:16: Old Testament which means the time is coming. These are all the things that are going to point us forward to the New Testament.
00:22: Creation, Genesis 1, human beings, creation of Adam and Eve, the fall, redemption promise,
00:28: Abraham. This morning we're going to go over Judah the King. And this is our last lesson in Genesis.
00:36: That'll make six lessons out of 16 total. So it's a little bit more than a third of all of our lessons are rooted and grounded in the book of Genesis.
00:45: We'll get to the Passover lamb, King David, the suffering servant, the resurrection promise and the new creation.
00:51: And then we'll finally get to the fulfillment of the promise, the coming of the Messiah, the cross, the resurrection, justification and glory.
00:59: So last year, just as a last year, last week, as a quick reminder, we went over the seed of Abraham and God's covenantal faithfulness.
01:11: God promised that in Abraham, his seed, through his seed, all the nations of the earth would be blessed.
01:17: And God is going to be faithful to keep that covenant because Abraham was put to sleep and the flaming torch and the pillar of cloud walked through the cut animals.
01:26: So basically God was guaranteeing that this covenant would be fulfilled. It's not based on anything that Abraham did.
01:33: So our study so far, this is the synopsis. And by the end of the study, we're going to have a complete synopsis from Genesis to Revelation of what the scriptures are about.
01:43: So God created a very good kingdom of which he is the king. He created human beings, his children, to represent him in that kingdom and they were responsible to expand it.
01:53: Through their sin, Adam and Eve rejected God's commission and rebelled against their father and creator. Yet God proved his covenant love toward them despite their unfaithfulness.
02:03: Very good did not turn into very bad. It just proved the character of who was always very good.
02:09: There will be ongoing enmity between the offspring of the woman and the offspring of the serpent from now on.
02:15: But God promised a redeemer who will crush the head of the enemy and secure God's victory. With this promise, very bad turned into very hopeful.
02:24: Next, God chose Abraham, an idolater, to bring the seed through whom the covenant blessings would come to all the families of the world.
02:32: So that's where we're going to start. Today's verse is the scepter shall not depart from Judah.
02:39: And our quote is Narnia was never right except when a son of Adam was the king. We'll get into what that means in a minute.
02:47: All right, so the scepter, what is the scepter? It's a long staff with an ornamental head and other decorations used to represent royal authority.
02:57: A shorter staff was used as a battle mace to symbolize royal military power. It is of more than passing interest that those two ideas are also conveyed by the
03:06: Bible when the word scepter appears in a passage. The scepter of royal authority is referred to in Genesis 49 .10,
03:14: indicating that Judah's descendants would exercise royal authority. And in case you don't know what a scepter looks like, this is a picture of one.
03:23: In fact, when the king extended the scepter to Esther, she was able to approach the king, showing that he had authority.
03:31: She was not even able to come to him until he pointed the scepter towards her. So the scepter, as we're going to read in a second, is a symbol of authority.
03:40: So like throne and crown, the scepter in the Bible is a symbol of kingship and its accompanying authority and power.
03:48: In the Egyptian writing system, the scepter is the key symbol in the word to rule. In the
03:54: Old Testament, we find scepters made of gold and iron. The psalmist speaks of God's scepter as a scepter of justice.
04:02: And the author of Hebrews applies that figure to Christ. In fact, in Psalm 110, the
04:09: Davidic king is assured, the Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion. You will rule in the midst of your enemies.
04:17: That was promised to David and will subsequently come to the one who
04:22: David is a type and shadow of. Throughout the
04:28: Bible, we hear a lot about God's promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, often called the patriarchs. His covenant with them carried forward the promise that God made to Adam and Eve in the
04:37: Garden. And was the way which he planned to bring the blessing of his presence back to the world. While other covenants would be introduced, they would build on each other as God worked to fulfill his promises to Abraham.
04:49: So God is the one pushing time forward and bringing his promises to pass in creation.
04:56: But when we look at the behavior of the patriarchs and ourselves, we don't exactly see an exemplary track record.
05:03: Not much about them would lead us to believe that they would be instrumental in God's redemptive purposes for the world.
05:10: What would happen if God's promise was based on our behavior? Time would have stopped a long time ago.
05:20: Everything would have been done. This is based on God's promise, his covenantal faithfulness, his sovereignty over all things, and him actually using evil mankind to bring forth the promises.
05:34: We're going to see that in a second. Abraham lied about being married to Sarah and put her in danger of being raped, twice.
05:41: His son Isaac followed in his father's footsteps, denying that he was married to his wife Rebecca to save his own skin.
05:48: Isaac's son Jacob manipulated his father and brother Esau in order to get a bigger inheritance.
05:54: He's the conniver. And then Esau threatened to kill Jacob, so Jacob had to live in exile for decades.
06:01: While he was in exile, he married two sisters. Remember Rachel? Laban's daughters.
06:12: While he was in exile, he married two sisters because their father tricked him into marrying a different sister than the one he loved.
06:18: From those two wives, along with their servants, Jacob had 12 sons. But he loved the 11th son,
06:24: Joseph, most, which led to Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery and telling their dad that he was dead.
06:31: That's only part of the story so far. This is really where the term soap opera should come from.
06:37: This is constant chaos, constant trouble. This is the picture of humanity.
06:44: And so many people are like, yeah, but free will. Yeah, free will. That's what it gets you, exactly.
06:51: Free will. Yes, error begets error.
06:57: Even in the midst of all this dysfunction, God was working through to preserve the promise line of Genesis 3 .15.
07:05: And this teaches us that God's saving purpose ultimately does not hang on any mere man.
07:13: If it did, we would be done. As God promised Abraham, he would take on the weight of both sides of this covenant.
07:20: But still, he pledged himself to work out his promises through the family line of Abraham. Through Abraham is going to come the seed through which all humanity would be blessed.
07:33: If you've read the book of Genesis, you know that Joseph plays an important part in the last part of the book. The promise to Abraham's family is the reason why
07:40: Joseph had such a role. God used Joseph to preserve Abraham's line, the line of promise.
07:47: Through God's providence, Joseph ascended to the rank of second in command in Egypt. If Joseph did not become second in command, the whole tribe or all of Jacob's sons might be dead because of the famine.
08:01: God used Joseph, raised him up to the second in command, who storehoused all the grain which would eventually feed his brothers and bring forth the line through Judah.
08:13: Through God's wisdom and sovereignty, Joseph prepared the population of the entire region, including his brothers, to face a seven -year -long famine.
08:20: When the brothers came to buy the grain Joseph had stored away, Joseph was reconciled to his family and his father along with all of his brothers who came to live with him in Egypt.
08:32: So Joseph's life was not about a technicolor drink coat. And it was not even about Joseph's moral fiber, his integrity, though that was certainly an important factor.
08:43: No, the story of Joseph was about God's promise to preserve his people, even in the face of seeming death.
08:51: While the line of the serpent was trying to snuff out the line of Abraham, God preserved Joseph so that he could preserve his brothers.
08:59: You see what's happening? God is continually sustaining and pushing forth the line, honoring his promise and bringing it about despite the evil actions of mankind.
09:12: We also see something very important that Joseph reveals to us when he speaks to his brothers. He tells them, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring about that many people should be kept alive as they are today.
09:30: So do not fear, I will provide for you and your little ones.
09:36: And the scripture says, then he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. Despite our sinfulness, despite our willingness to go the other way and do things that God continually commands us not to do,
09:50: God's still going to accomplish his purpose. Because what we mean for evil, he somehow or another means for good.
09:57: Now our intentions are what matters in our own heart and when we stand before God.
10:03: God intends it all for the good of those he loves, which we're going to get to in a second. God is sovereign over the affairs of men,
10:11: Proverbs 19 .21. Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the
10:16: Lord that will stand. So man intends and purposes one thing, at the same time,
10:22: God is using that purpose and intent for his accomplishment. He has a purpose and intent for everything.
10:29: So when we say that God has a decree for all things, what we're actually saying is that God has a purpose for all things, including evil.
10:37: So a lot of people want to ask, why is there so much evil in the world? It's going to glorify God and show that he is sovereign over that evil.
10:45: You would intend it for evil, he actually intends it for good. We have two things going on.
10:51: The will of man, stained by sin, prone to sin, dives into sin, and God's will, which is always good, only good, for all time.
11:01: Right? It's important. Proverbs 135, for I know that the
11:07: Lord is great, and that the Lord is above all gods, whatever the
11:12: Lord pleases he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all the deeps. Is this not what we pray in the
11:18: Lord's Prayer? Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven? We don't pray,
11:25: Lord, my will be done on earth as it is in heaven. If we had free will and that's such a good thing, why don't we pray that?
11:32: Because we know better. We know the proclivities of our own heart. God reveals to us how sinful we are, so that we pray, no, no, no,
11:39: Lord, your will is always good. We pray your will be done. God has a purpose for evil in his sovereignty.
11:50: The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. Wicked humanity was created by God and has a purpose.
12:00: Wicked humanity will be held responsible for what they do because they freely did it. But God has a purpose for them.
12:07: And although evil exists and is part of God's plan, Romans 8, 28, and this should comfort everyone here, we know that for those who love
12:15: God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
12:28: And those whom he predestined, he also called. Those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified.
12:36: The scripture will go on to say, if God be for you, who can be against you, right?
12:43: We stand on the promise of God, knowing that he's in control. And if he's for me, who should
12:50: I fear on the earth? Who? Why are we so afraid? Over and over and over.
12:56: Scripture tells us, be strong and courageous, do not be afraid. Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid. And every time
13:02: God tells us to be strong and courageous and to not be afraid, you know what follows it? I will be with you. I will be with you till the end of the age,
13:10: Jesus says. Why are we afraid? Fear is contagious, it's a tactic to the enemy, fear paralyzes you.
13:17: I will tell you now, do not be afraid. Philippians 1 .27, do not be afraid in anything of your opponents, as that is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but you of your salvation and that from God.
13:31: When we're not afraid and we go out boldly, that sends fear into the hearts of the seed of the serpent.
13:38: And it also is an indicator for those people who are following the seed of the serpent, wow, maybe
13:44: God is bigger than this. And my sin, God's going to judge my sin, maybe
13:50: I need to repent. It's a sign to them of our salvation, that we trust
13:55: God and we have a Redeemer who called us to do these things. Don't be afraid.
14:00: Why? God's promise is unbreakable. God's sovereignty is the pillow upon which we put our head on when we go to bed.
14:10: We know that God's sovereign, even if bad things are happening in the world. And you look on the internet, you look on the news, everything is bad.
14:18: Everything. There's like very little good going on. That's why I love coming to church. We read about God's promise.
14:24: You know what? That's good all the time. Never have to worry about bad news in church. The bad news is that you're a sinner in need of redemption, but the good news is that Jesus paid the price for sinners.
14:35: If you repent and place your faith and trust in Him, everything becomes good news after that. It doesn't mean everything is good.
14:43: Right? God works it together for good. So as we round the bend to our next text,
14:49: Genesis 49 -10, we'll see that while God used Joseph to save the family from famine and death, He chose another brother to lay the foundation for a royal dynasty.
14:59: Adam and Eve were created to help manage God's kingdom and rule on His behalf. In a way, they were supposed to be a king and a queen.
15:05: So we should not be surprised to find that God makes royal promises, talks about a king, kingdom, king and domain.
15:14: When Jacob, Abraham's grandson, lay on his deathbed in Egypt, he blessed each of his sons, which are tribes.
15:21: Each son becomes a tribe. And he blessed them in different ways. But when he came to Judah, he gave a royal blessing.
15:28: And it reads like this. The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him.
15:37: And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. This is a promise of a king who will come from the line of Judah.
15:47: Very important. God's covenant is going to be with David to be a king. He's going to promise him that a king will always sit on the throne.
15:54: To the tribe of Judah, though, is where this particular person is going to come from. And that's real important.
16:01: How could God promise a king from the tribe of Judah if he's not sovereign over all things?
16:08: If man had free will, and so many people think God has this will and we have to find the perfect will of God, and they're trying to make this decision when they get married, am
16:19: I going to marry the right person? Well, you realize that if you marry the wrong person and God had a different person in mind, you screwed it up for everyone because now that person is married to you when they were supposed to be married to somebody else.
16:30: And that someone else was supposed to be married. You screwed it up for everyone. That's not how it works.
16:38: God's clear in helping us make decisions. If you're a man and you want to be married, 50 % of the world is female.
16:45: That's where you start. Is this person a Christian? Yes. Okay, that rules out another two -thirds of the population.
16:52: You narrow it down and find the one that's right for you. God doesn't have this, well, if you don't marry this, you screwed everything up.
17:01: That's it. Humanity is destroyed. How could God possibly bring forth a king from the line of Judah if he is not sovereign over all things and can use our sinfulness to bring this about?
17:15: Well, it only got worse from there. While Joseph languished in Egypt, Judah's first son died without children.
17:21: As was the custom, Judah's second son married his twin brother's widow. But he too died childless.
17:29: Instead of letting Tamar, his daughter -in -law, marry his third son to carry on the family line, Judah sent her away.
17:36: But Tamar, posing as a temple prostitute, tricked Judah himself into sleeping with her.
17:42: And he had twin sons. So he was both father and grandfather to his grandsons. It would be hard to make this kind of thing up, right?
17:52: So here you've got a guy whose lineage is going to bring forth the king, and he's doing wicked things, right?
18:00: So when you look at when Jesus comes on the scene, and you look at his lineage behind him, filled with sinners, ugly, filthy sinners, right?
18:12: And when you look at Jesus' children, ugly, filthy sinners saved by grace, right?
18:20: Now we're called to be obedient, and we have to, we want to strive for obedience. But sometimes we sin, right?
18:27: That doesn't stop God, is my point. And it didn't stop God from bringing forth the king from the tribe of Judah.
18:36: It was to this broken family line that God promised the scepter of kingship, the ruler's staff.
18:41: But the descendant of Judah would not only be king of Israel, he would also be king over all the nations.
18:48: Jacob prophesied that tribute and obedience of the nations would come to the royal son of Judah. An amazing promise to make to such a sinful man.
18:58: These promises about the nations should not catch us completely off guard. Remember the promise to Abraham, in you, all, and all means all.
19:06: Like as Calvinists, we always get that question, oh, all doesn't mean all? It means all, all the nations, all the families of the earth will be blessed.
19:15: If it was God's intention to restore and even expand the commission of Adam and Eve to help him rule his kingdom worldwide, and it was, then we would expect that the blessing of Abraham would go to the nations through a royal descendant of Abraham.
19:27: This is exactly what is happening. I was on Facebook the other day, going back and forth with somebody with regards to covenant theology, and I said, look,
19:35: Adam, Gentile, Noah, Gentile, Abraham, Gentile, Isaac, Gentile.
19:42: It was only until Jacob that Israel was introduced, right? Jacob becomes the father of all the kids who would represent the tribes of Israel.
19:54: That's why they're called the tribes of Israel. Jacob's name was changed to Israel. Now we got these promises to Israel to bring forth the
20:00: Messiah. They weren't chosen for salvation. They were chosen to bring forth the Messiah.
20:07: Once the Messiah came and they rejected their Messiah, what happened? God destroyed the temple. So from Jacob to the temple,
20:16: Israel's promise was fulfilled. Now because the temple is destroyed, they have no more forgiveness of their sin except through Jesus.
20:25: So dispensationalists like to point to the church and say, the church is a parentheses in which
20:30: God deals with the church, raptures them out, and then gets back to dealing with Israel. Can I suggest to you that Israel is the parentheses?
20:40: Okay? And he destroys the temple. It's not that the nation of Israel is gone. It doesn't mean that Israelites are gone.
20:46: But now the promise that God was bringing forth through Israel is Jesus the
20:51: Messiah is here. Everyone now can find salvation in him. He's the point.
20:57: He becomes true Israel. So the nation of Israel is not the timepiece of God.
21:04: The timepiece of God is his sovereignty and his covenant. That make sense? So a descendant of Abraham, and more specifically, as of this text reveals to us, a descendant of Judah would not only bless the nations, but in doing so he would renew and even expand
21:21: God's kingdom presence in the world. So in Genesis 49 we discover that the seed of Abraham is also a royal seed, a king through whom the nations would be blessed.
21:33: As we look back on the way that God preserved his people through Joseph and even used the upside -down actions of Judah to preserve the line of promise, we can see his relentless commitment to keeping his saving promises.
21:45: Okay, now I'm going to try to jog your memory back a little while. I'm going to do a little dream sequence here, right? Way back when, when
21:54: I went through the book of Nahum. Anybody remember what the word
21:59: Nahum means? Let's see. No one. It was a very impactful study,
22:06: I can tell. His name means comfort. So God brings the prophet Nahum to speak to the southern tribe of Judah.
22:16: Why? Well, humanity continued to do what humanity does, right?
22:23: So the kingdom came to David. David had a son, Solomon. Solomon had two sons,
22:29: Jeroboam and Rehoboam, and the sons couldn't get along. What a shocker, right? So Jeroboam was in charge of the green part over here, the top ten tribes of Israel.
22:42: Rehoboam was given the tribe of Judah. He was in charge of that one. They were both warring against each other.
22:51: Rehoboam kept the temple in Jerusalem. Jeroboam decided to set up a sanctuary in another temple in Bethel.
22:59: There was only supposed to be one temple, right? He set up a second. He also had the kingdom, the capital in Samaria.
23:07: That becomes very important because we hear the parable of the good Samaritan. The Jews hated
23:14: Samarians. Why? Because they represented the ten tribes of Israel to the north that turned their back on God, intermarried with all the other people.
23:25: Yet they were claiming that they were still Jews. So this is going to become important because, in a second we'll see, this was the size of Assyria, the darker green.
23:39: That was the size of Assyria before David. Within 150 years,
23:47: Assyria took over this whole lighter green area. So their kingdom was expanding.
23:55: Now, who? Well, let me go forward. See that Judah? That's little compared to everyone else.
24:03: Assyria is coming in and dominating all the nations, destroying them. Judah ends up surviving because God sovereignly wills it.
24:14: How? Let me show you. Okay, before I do that, Nineveh. Who knows who started the city of Nineveh?
24:22: Yes, Nimrod. And when did that happen? The Tower of Babel.
24:28: Babel, Babel, whatever. Nimrod comes out of that and he's the one who starts this city.
24:34: Again, that's the seat of the serpent. Still around. This is
24:40: Judah down here, little tiny Judah. And now Assyria destroys the top ten northern tribes of Israel, deports them, intermarries with them, basically dilutes the family line.
24:59: All that's left is Judah. And guess who's in the sights of destroying
25:04: Judah? Assyria. They want to take Judah over because that's the quick way into Egypt.
25:11: They didn't have to go all the way down and over. They go right through Judah. So Judah's up next. That's where we went through the
25:17: Book of Nahum to go through all that. So here's what happens. Providentially in our study with R .C.
25:24: Sproul, Dust of Glory, he talks about this event. 1 Kings 11 .30. So he's now going to tear up the kingdom.
26:13: The northern tribes are going to be given to Jeroboam. The southern tribe is going to be given to Rehoboam.
26:19: He's going to be the one who's in basically charge of Judah. And how does
26:25: God do this? Isaiah 10. Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger. The staff in their hand is my fury.
26:34: Against a godless nation. Who's that? Israel. Against the godless nation,
26:41: I send him. God is the one sending wicked Assyria into the 12 northern tribes of Israel to destroy them.
26:50: And against the people of my wrath, I command them to take spoil and seize plunder and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
26:58: But he, Assyria, does not so intend. His heart does not think so. But in his heart, it is in his heart to destroy and to cut off nations, not a few.
27:08: In other words, God is using Assyria to come in to decimate the 10 northern tribes of Israel.
27:16: Assyria is like, we want to kill them. So it was in their heart to kill Israel. God's using them to come in and destroy the northern tribes of Israel.
27:26: Isaiah 10, 13. For he, Assyria says, by the strength of my hand, I have done it. And by my wisdom, for I have understanding,
27:33: I remove the boundaries of peoples and plunder their treasures. Like a bull, I bring down those who sit on thrones.
27:39: So Assyria is now boasting, we're going to destroy Israel. We have the power to do it.
27:46: Who sent them to do it? God. God is the one bringing judgment upon the northern tribes of Israel for rejecting his commandments, for disobeying him, following other gods, doing things that they were not supposed to do.
28:02: Look at God's sovereignty. Shall the axe, which is Assyria, boast over him,
28:10: God, who use it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?
28:15: God was the one who is chopping the northern tribes of Israel down, and he's using
28:22: Assyria to do it. Assyria, not aware of God, thinking we're doing this in our own strength.
28:29: God is actually using a wicked nation to come bring judgment upon the Israelite tribes. And saving
28:35: Judah. Here's God's sovereignty. He promised that there would be one who would come out of Judah, whom the scepter will not depart from.
28:45: The ten northern tribes get destroyed. There's only one tribe left. There's a little bit more than that, but Judah. That's, in fact, how they come to be known as the
28:53: Jews. The ten northern tribes are called the lost tribes of Israel. They're gone, right?
28:58: All that's left is Judah. So in Genesis, we learn that the seed of the woman, the promised seed of Abraham, and the royal seed of Judah will be the agent through whom
29:08: God will fulfill his commitment to crush the head of the serpent. But at the end of this first book in the Bible, the seed of Abraham, the promised one, has not finally and fully fulfilled
29:17: God's promises. At least not yet. But it's coming.
29:24: It's coming. God is going to fulfill his promises. Any questions up to this point?
29:31: Okay. We're only a third of the way done, and we still haven't made it out of Genesis.
29:37: This will be the last lesson in Genesis, by the way. And this is intentional because our goal is to walk through the storyline of the
29:42: Bible by looking at just a few key texts, 16 in total. To grasp the basic storyline of the
29:48: Bible, however, we have to get a clear understanding of the beginning. In fact, there are many more parts of Genesis we could and perhaps should examine, but we just don't have enough time, basically, to get through this at this rate.
30:00: We haven't spent much time on the flood, judgment, the land promises, or the hints about sacrifices that we see in the stories of Cain and Abel, Noah and Abraham, but we have seen the basic covenantal structure in Genesis, and this is the foundation for the rest of the
30:15: Bible storyline, and in fact, the rest of history. Everything God does with humanity is covenantal.
30:22: It's a covenant with his people. Still there's a covenant of Adam that everybody is born into.
30:29: Then there's the new covenant, which you need to be born again into. The Christians know, and the
30:39: Bible knows, democracy is medicine, not food. You can't live on medicine because it's medicine.
30:45: We have to have a democracy because human beings are so sinful that none of us really are fit to rule, but we need a king.
30:52: We were built for a king. Now, don't hate on me because I quoted Tim Keller. He's got good stuff to say, okay?
30:58: What he's telling us here is that humanity was built to be led by a king, one king.
31:08: The problem is we have many kings. Everybody wants to be king. When we're born into this world, we want to be the king of our life, right?
31:18: In fact, the illustration I used to use when I used to do evangelism explosion was before God knew me, before he changed my heart,
31:28: I used to sit on the throne of my heart, and I directed where Anthony went, what Anthony said, and what
31:33: Anthony did. What I had to do is get off the throne of my own heart and allow Jesus to sit on the throne of my heart and direct me where to go, what to say, and what to do.
31:43: I was dethroned, gratefully. At the time, it's painful. Who wants to repent?
31:50: In our sinful nature, we're like, no, we like this. No, you don't know what you're doing. Thankfully, God conquered and subdued my heart.
31:59: He didn't wait for my free will to be enacted so that I would follow him. Given that choice,
32:05: I never would. Like a lion who craves meat, humanity craves sin.
32:12: That craving can never change. We have free choice. We don't have free will. How do you change what you like and what you want?
32:21: That's like putting a plate of liver in front of somebody who hates liver and saying, not only do I want you to taste it,
32:27: I want you to like it. How do you make yourself like liver? You don't.
32:33: You can taste it all you want. You never really like it, though. It's the same thing with sin for a sinner.
32:40: We crave after sin. The only thing that changes us is God's spirit coming in and giving us a new heart, a new desire, so that we turn.
32:49: We see this in Psalm 2. The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the
32:55: Lord and against his anointed. He who sits in the heavens laughs. I have set my king on Zion.
33:01: O kings, be wise and be warned. Kiss the sun, lest he be angry.
33:09: All the kings of the earth, all humanity wants a king.
33:15: The problem is they think they're the king. There is only one king.
33:22: Only one. Narnia was never right, except when the son of Adam was the king.
33:28: Humanity and this world will never be right until they recognize Jesus is the king, and not just the king, the king of kings, the
33:38: Lord of lords. That's what God promised would come through the line of Judah, and he brought it about.
33:46: Despite Assyria, despite all the other nations trying to clamp down and destroy all the
33:52: Israelites, the seed of the serpent was at battle with the seed of the woman. The seed of the woman succeeded.
33:59: Why? Because God was behind it. So what have we learned? This session we learned about God's kingdom and his sovereignty.
34:08: He is sovereign over all things. There's nothing that's going to happen outside of God's plan that's going to overthrow or stop his plan from going forward, and we see the royal seed of Judah, which eventually we will get to that part of the story, which is
34:25: Jesus. He's the seed who comes through the line of Judah. In fact, he's called the lion of the tribe of Judah.
34:33: So here's our story so far. God created a very good kingdom of which he is the king.
34:40: He created human beings, his children, to represent him in that kingdom, and they were responsible to expand it.
34:46: Through their sin, Adam and Eve rejected God's commission and rebelled against their father and creator. Yet God proved his covenant love toward them despite their unfaithfulness.
34:55: Very good did not turn into very bad. It just proved the character of who was always very good.
35:01: There will be ongoing enmity between the offspring from now on, but God promised a redeemer who will crush the head of the enemy and secure
35:08: God's victory. With this promise, very bad turned into very hopeful. Next, God chose
35:14: Abraham, an idolater, to bring forth the seed through whom the covenant blessings would come to all the families of the world despite the sinful lineage of Abraham's family and specifically
35:25: Judah's royal seed. God is still faithful to bring the covenant blessings to the world.
35:32: God is sovereign over everything, orchestrating time, all for his purpose and for his glory.
35:41: Questions? Yes, Ted. It's a good point.
35:47: I wasn't going to have enough time to get into Babylon coming in and deporting the tribe of Judah.
35:56: And then God stirs up the heart of King Cyrus to let them go back to Israel to rebuild the wall and to rebuild the temple.
36:05: Talk about God's providence and his sovereignty and orchestrating the history to get to the point where he's intending.
36:14: So God's sovereignty, his hand is over all of this. All of time is under God's sovereign control.
36:21: So it's just a testimony to God keeping his promises and him being the king.
36:29: He rules over all. Now, one of the things we need to remember, sometimes we confuse
36:34: God's sovereignty with his providence. God's sovereignty means he rules over all.
36:42: God's providence is his sovereignty in action in time. He providentially brings about the actions that he wants to happen such that all things will glorify him, and everything that comes to pass is from his hand.
36:56: So sovereignty is his rule over all things and his power to do whatever he wants, whatever he pleases in the heavens and the earth and beneath the earth.
37:04: And because of his decree, he makes a decree that this is the way he wants things.
37:09: His providence is applying that decree to humanity and bringing about his sovereign will and his sovereign purposes.
37:17: Good. Any other questions? Yes, you're right.
37:22: A lot of times people come to church and they see everybody smiling, and what they don't realize is behind that smile is a ton of baggage, a ton of things that are going wrong.
37:32: But when you come to church, you recognize what you're here for. You recognize who's in control.
37:38: You recognize that despite my circumstances and despite the things that are going on in my life, God is using all those things, right?
37:45: All things work together for good for those who love God. So if you're a born -again believer and you love
37:51: God, you know that even the difficult things in life are being worked together for your good.
37:58: I would never have chosen the life that I live right now, right? Before I was saved,
38:05: I had a much different vision for my life. I would never have chose this.
38:11: Now that I'm in this life, I never would have chose what I used to have. Never. And it's not about possessions.
38:21: It's not about vacations. It's not about the things of the world, right?
38:27: Who? If you were given the choice of 10 different religions, and it was one religion that said, you know, love your enemies, bless them, don't curse them, deny yourself, pick up your cross, follow me.
38:40: Who would be like, yeah, yeah, that's the one I want. That's the one I want. There would be no
38:46: Arnold Horschak saying, ooh, ooh, pick me. Some of yous get it. Most of yous don't.
38:53: Nobody would pick that. Who wants to die to themselves? No one.
38:59: But God, in his love and his mercy, conquers and subdues your heart and brings you into the kingdom, not according to your free will, but according to his will, gratefully, thankfully.
39:12: When I look back, I'm like, my goodness. I was making a shipwreck of my life, right?
39:20: There is a way that seems right to a man, and in the end, it leads to destruction. I was headed, diving face first into hell.
39:29: Had God not stuck his hand underneath me, diving off that diving board and lifted me up, and sticking his hand in the bottom of that muck, that cesspool, picking me up, washing me off, and turning me around,
39:43: I would be there right now. Horrible. But for God, thank you, Lord, for your mercy.
39:49: My goodness. When you look at all the families, all of our ancestors, patriarchally, you look at their lives, and you're like, oh, my goodness.
39:59: When you start to really examine them, that's horrible. Hey, maybe I'm not so bad. Don't go there either because the intentions of your heart are just as bad as theirs.
40:09: God worked through them, and he can work through us. That's why I said don't be afraid.
40:15: God uses sinners. If God didn't use sinners, nothing would get done. He could do it himself, but he chooses to use sinners to do it.
40:25: So do not be afraid by anything in your opponents. It's a clear sign to them of their destruction, but for you of your salvation and that from God.
40:34: Fear is contagious. God says go, be strong and courageous.
40:40: I will be with you even to the end of the age. So I don't care if you're a Democrat, Republican, independent, whatever you are, your job is to proclaim the kingdom of God as his child.
40:53: There's one king. I don't want to say I don't care who's president. I do care who's president, but there's one king that I'm answering to.
41:00: I'm not going to kneel before the president and give an answer to him. I'm going to kneel before the king, the king of kings, who rescued me from my sin by his mercy for his glory.
41:12: That's all I'm concerned about. That's all we should be concerned about. Any questions?
41:19: Let's pray. Father, we are so grateful and thankful that you are the king of all kings and that it's not left into the hands of humanity.
41:29: Humanity's kings would destroy this world within a day. Father, we thank you for your mercy and your grace for saving your people.
41:37: And we pray that we would walk faithfully in your covenant, recognizing, Lord, that we're not going to be perfect in this life, but recognizing and trusting in the one who was.
41:45: Father, we thank you for your sovereignty. We thank you for your providence. We thank you for your perfect decree by which you will accomplish all of your promises.
41:53: We pray for this upcoming worship service, Lord, that we would come as people wanting to worship you, coming to bring our worship to you, not looking to receive anything from you, but to bring our worship to you.
42:05: May we, from the bottom of our hearts, be grateful and thankful and worship you with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.