God Has Spoken: Appointment of His Son, Part 2

If we enter the question, what
happened? A question that the world may
answer when we try to speak of Christ, of Christ at Christmas,
born after all some 2,000 years ago, and though the account presents
The beginning has off to a very good start. There’s a star and
lots of worshippers and lots of providential oversight. Something
must have happened in the 2002 and year, because it just seems
as if God has lost control. It just seems as if what started
off as such a good story of redemption, that of God saving His own son, I took a lot of ground, run out
of gas. I’ll take you to Edith, Chapter 1,
and remind you of where we started last week with a sovereign Edith. With the pronouncement of the
king and not just any king, but the king of kings. which is reported
in Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1 and 2. God, after he spoke long ago
to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many
ways in these last days, has spoken. God has spoken. That’s essentially the simple
sentence. That’s essentially the main thought of those verses,
is that God The all-powerful king has spoken. He has issued
a proclamation which is once for all time. This is the final
word of the king himself. God, after he spoke long ago
to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many
ways, in other words, through the prophets and the various
messages that are contained throughout the Old Testament, God has spoken. But now he says in these last
days, God has spoken to us in his son. It’s God’s final word.
And this sovereign king has not lost control, not now, not ever. The same message that he advanced
in those opening chapters of Matthew and Mark’s, Matthew,
Mark, and Luke’s Gospels It is still relevant today. It is still
living and active. God is still sovereign, absolutely
still in control. Nothing has changed. God has
spoken. And the Lord Jesus Christ, as
the writer of Hebrews points out, in him we have God’s final
word in his plan of redemption. We began to focus and just to
remind ourselves that God is sovereign, God is still in control,
that this great ruler of all ages and all the world is yet
on the throne. We saw that regarding the birth
of the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ had already shown himself
sovereign. God was sovereign in the overall
plan of redemption. Remember from our consideration
of the book of Acts months ago, Acts chapter 2. which was recorded,
man of Israel, listen to these words, Jesus the Nazarene, a
man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs
which God performed in him, in your midst, this man delivered
up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, God
was sovereign in sending Christ to the cross, God was fully in
control of that, God was sovereign even in the timing of Jesus’
birth and arrival. Paul records it in Galatians
4, when the fullness of time came, according to who? According
to whose watch? God’s. When the fullness of time
came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the
law, so that He might redeem those who were under the law,
that we might receive adoption as sons. God is sovereign. How
was Sovereign in the timing of the sending of His Son? God was
Sovereign in the overall plan of redemption. God was Sovereign,
as we saw last week, in the choice of a young woman named Mary to
be His mother. You have a finger in Matthew’s
Gospel. Let’s also allude to Luke chapter
1. I just want to remind you how
Sovereign God wasn’t. And we don’t want to make an
idol of Mary. There are others who have done
that and carry forth that evil to this day, but in Mary we do
need to acknowledge God’s sovereignty, that God looked upon her and
God favored her. Look at verse 26 of chapter 1.
Now, in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a city in Galilee called to a virgin engaged to a man whose
name was Joseph, of the descendants of David. And the virgin’s name
was Mary. And coming in, he said to her,
Greetings, favored one,” literally, graced one. The one who is graced
is graced by God. Greetings, favored one, the Lord
is with you. But she was very perplexed at
this statement and kept pondering what kind of salutation this
was. Mary didn’t think, in and of her heart, she was deserving
of this. But by God’s good favor, by God’s
grace, she had found favor in God’s eyes. The angel said to
her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with
God. And that’s tough for us, for
us to wrestle with. That there was something in Mary,
not unlike Noah, not unlike Abraham, not unlike David, that God looked,
that God was pleased with Mary, and God sovereignly picked Mary. Verse 31, And behold, he will
conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his
name Jesus. He will be great and be called Son of the Most
High, and the Lord will give him the throne of his father
David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and
his kingdom will have no end. Now at this time, jump down to
verse 39, now at this time, Mary arose and went in a hurry to
the hill country, to the city of Judah, and entered the house
of Zacharias, and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting,
the baby, her own baby, leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was
filled with the Holy Spirit. And she cried out with a loud
voice, and said, Blessed are you among women. She acknowledged
that God had favored her, that God had blessed her, that God
was sovereign and looked down upon her and favored her. Look at verse 45. And blessed
is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what
had been spoken of her to her by the Lord. God was pleased
in her response to the angel’s message. And finally Mary’s response
So simple. Verse 46, My soul exults in the
Lord. My spirit rejoices in God my
Savior. For he has had regard for the
humble state of his bond slave. For behold, from this time forward,
all generations will count me blessed. God was sovereign in the selection
of Mary. And as we were reminded last
week, God was sovereign in the conception, in the virgin birth,
in the miraculous conception of the Christ child, and God
was sovereign also in the preservation of Christ’s family tree, in His
lineage, in preserving Joseph and not allowing Joseph to put
Mary away. God was absolutely sovereign.
God had a plan, and God, Himself, is executing that plan. Would
you glance down at Matthew, Chapter 1, now? Matthew, Chapter 1. Let’s take it in full. Matthew,
Chapter 1, beginning in verse 18, all the way through verse
25, where we see that God has indeed
spoken in the appointment of His Son. Now, the birth of Jesus
Christ was as follows. When His mother Mary had been
betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was bound
to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph, her husband,
being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned
to send her away secretly. But when he had considered this,
behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying,
Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your
wife, for the child that will be received in her is of the
Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you
shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from
their sins. Now all this took place in fulfillment
of the spoken by the Lord through the prophet. Behold, a virgin
shall be with child, and shall bear a son, and they shall call
his name Immanuel, which translated means God with us. Joseph awoke
from his sleep, and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him,
and took Mary as his wife, but kept her a virgin until she gave
birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus. As I said last week, we started
by consideration of this. of these passages that God has
indeed spoken, God is still sovereign, God had exercised His sovereignty,
first of all, in the miraculous virgin birth. We learn about
that in verse 18, that the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. When His mother Mary had been
betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found
to be with child by the Holy Spirit, and we consider the virgin
birth in full that it was a miraculous event. This was an event that
no one could have seen coming, especially not Joseph. Joseph
had his eye on Mary as his wife-to-be, and the furthest thing from his
mind was pregnancy, and certainly pregnancy by divine appointment. We also saw that God was talking
about the preservation of that family tree, the lineage that
we spoke of, the lineage of David. And we’ll touch upon that again
this morning. But Joseph was desiring to put
Mary away, desiring to divorce her. And that’s exactly what
needed to happen according to the laws of marriage. The betrothal was just the first
step of the marriage. But it meant that it was binding.
And for Joseph to get out of this, he would have to divorce
her. And there were only two options available to him. One
was a very public, very shameful event where Joseph would haul
Mary literally into court and deal with her sin in a very public
fashion. The only other option open to
him was to quietly and peaceably divorce her. A very rare event
for someone to do that, especially since this brought disgrace on
Joseph as well, or so he thought. But the angel will have none
of it. God will have none of it. This is God’s plan, and God
must preserve that Davidic line. God must preserve the family
tree of Joseph and the tie back to the Davidic line, and God
shows himself faithful throughout this. Look at verse 20. As soon
as Joseph had concocted this plan, when he had considered,
when he had mulled it over, and this is what he had arrived at,
An angel said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take
Mary as your wife. And God sovereignly insisted
on His wife, that His plan would go forward, that Jesus would
truly be in the family line of David. As one said, Regarding this child
who had been conceived in Mary of the Holy Spirit, there is
much more in this chapter than the crude fact that Jesus Christ
was born of a virgin mother. The essence of Matthew’s story
is that in the birth of Jesus, the Spirit of God was operative
as never before in the world. No wonder Joseph didn’t see this
coming. The Holy Spirit was being poured
out in a whole new way. He goes on to say it was the
Spirit who brings God’s truth to men. It is the Spirit who
enables men to recognize that truth when they see it. It was
the Spirit who was God’s agent in the creation of the world.
It is the Spirit alone who can recreate the human soul when
it has lost its life that it ought to have. It is the Holy
Spirit that is in the focus in this great passage. I want to look this morning at
a third. element of God’s sovereignty,
a third exercise of His sovereign dominion in the appointment of
His Son. Look, if you would, at verse
21, as we look at the naming of the child, at the simple naming
of the child, this Messiah who was born, where the angel continues
and says, She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. where he will save his people
from their sins. The angel doesn’t equivocate
here. He doesn’t suggest a name. He
doesn’t present the top ten most popular names in Nazareth at
that time. He said, let me tell you what
the child’s name is going to be. By divine appointment, let
me tell you. The god was sovereign in the
selection of his name. Meaning the child typically was
the father’s legal right. The interesting thing is that
Mary was likewise instructed. Just listen in your mind’s eye
as I take you back to Luke 1. The angel said to Mary, Do not
be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God, and behold,
you will conceive in your womb, and bear a son, and you shall
call his name Jesus. And so this one common fact would
be to Joseph a tremendous confirmation and encouragement to him, that
both were told by the angel of the child’s divine and given
name, the name of Jesus. By actually going through the
process and assigning that name to that child, Joseph had officially
accepted the child as being his. And that would give, ultimately,
the child as the status of a descendant of David. As one said, on this
particular occasion, the name was not left to the discretion
of the parents, Because this child was special. He had a destiny
that was expressed in the very meaning of the name. What is
the meaning of the name? What is the meaning of the name
Jesus? Jesus was the Greek rendition
of Joshua, which meant, God is help or savior. Jesus is the Greek form, as I
indicated, but Joshua represents the Hebrew form of the exact
same name. As one said, like Joshua, who
led Israel into the promised land, Jesus was to be the leader
and ruler of his people, the captain of their salvation, under
whose guidance they would be delivered from all dangers and
brought safely to their heavenly rest. Jesus. was to be His name. Jesus essentially
points not only to His literal name, it points to His mission,
that He was going to be the Savior of His people. He was going to
step in and be the intercessor and redeemer of His people. As another pastor said, Jesus
means Savior. This is his special office. He
saves his people from the guilt of sin by washing them in his
atoning blood. He saves them from the dominion
of sin by putting in their hearts the sanctifying spirit. He saves
them from the presence of sin when he takes them out of this
world to rest with it. Now you say, why is all this
so important? Why did God worry about what
they would call His Son? After all, He would still be
the Savior of the world. Because, essentially, the name
Jesus proclaims Christ’s mission. It tells the world who He is. It tells the world exactly what
was indicated and what followed. For you shall call His name Jesus,
for it is He who will save you. In other words, you will call
His name Jesus because that will be a clear and constant declaration
that Jesus Christ’s purpose on earth was to save. Jesus Christ
came to save. Look again at verse 21, He will
save. Jesus Christ didn’t come to offer
salvation. Jesus Christ didn’t come to secure
the possibility of salvation. Jesus Christ came to save. He will save. It is He who will save His people. And God was absolutely sovereign
in the support of Christ’s purpose, His mission, His efforts. Jesus
Christ came to pay the penalty for sinners and to save them
in that process and in that offering. He, and no other, is He who will
save. There is no doubt about it. It
is not a matter of making them save a whole, not helping them
to save themselves, not being a good moral example to them,
not living a life of good works. As a testimony, Jesus Christ
came to save them. And all the scriptures testify
of that one truth. Look to your level. Today, in
the city of David, there has been born for you a Savior. If a Savior doesn’t save anybody,
he’s not a Savior. Today, in the city of David,
there has been born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord. What
was his purpose? Luke 19.10, the Son of Man comes
to see and say, that which was lost. John 3.17. You hear a lot about
John 3.16. What about John 3.17? God did
not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that
the world might be saved through Him. He came as a Savior. Acts 4.12. There is salvation
in no one else. There are no other options. There
are no alternatives. There is salvation in no one
else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given
among men by which we must be saved.” 1 Timothy 1.15. It is a trustworthy statement,
deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners, some of whom Paul says are foremost of all. He will save His people from
their sins. On the face of it, it does appear
that Jesus would save the chosen people of God, His sheep, He
elects the nation of Israel. But it didn’t work out that way,
did it? It came for Israel that ultimately
people here must have a much broader spectrum. with the population in general,
and to say that Jesus came to save all people, categorically. That word is often used specifically
of the people of God. What Matthew does here, under
the direction of the Holy Spirit, is introduce us to the that God
has a people in mind, and it is those for whom Christ is coming. He is coming to save a people. As John Gill, the great commentator
and pastor, said, by his people, he means not all mankind. They are not, nor will they all
be saved by him, nor also the people of the Jews. for though
they were his nation, his kinsmen, yet they were not all saved by
him. But by them, by the people, are
meant the elect of God, whether Jews or Gentiles, who were given
to him by his Father. Jesus came to save his people. And we’ve been looked at, and
we don’t know who his people are. And we ought to be people
to take the gospel to all the people. Not knowing who are the
people of God. Not knowing who God has set his
love upon, but Jesus came for one specific purpose. To save
his people. And note again what the passage
says, to save his people from their sins. Jesus didn’t come
to set them free from the political rulers. Jesus didn’t come to
set them free from financial oppression and difficulty and
poverty. Jesus came to set them free from
their sins. That was their worst sin. From
all of their sins. From their secret sins, to the
sins that everyone knew about. From the sins that were deep,
trapped within, that only they themselves knew, to the sins
that were notorious throughout the communities and nations in
which they lived. Sins that they committed, and
sins that they committed by not doing something. Everything is
a sin. As one said, contrary to the
thought of many, many Jews, the salvation which Jesus brought
was not to be a saving from the Roman or Herodian rule, but a
life protected from sins. That’s why the Messiah came. The Messiah did not come to the
Jews, commonly supposed, to simply save His people from the dominion
of foreigners. It was something deeper, higher. He would save His people from
their sins. Jesus came to save. No wonder the message to Joseph
is so profound, so simple, yet so overwhelming. Joseph couldn’t
possibly entertain for a moment, continuing on with his plan, as lethal as it was, to divorce
Mary and to put her aside, So, God had a plan in preserving
Joseph, and God had a plan in issuing forth the very name of
the child that was to be born to him. Of that name, one puritan
wrote, while some trust in chariots, and some trusted horses in physical
strength, knowledge, reputation, prestige, position, magnificent
and impressive machinery, influential friends and inspective generals,
none of these, whether operating singly or in conjunction with
all the others, is able to deliver man from his chief enemy. Suppose it is little by little
destroying his very heart, namely sin. For us here, sins, those
of thought, word and deed, of omission, commission, inner disposition,
all of those various ways in which man misses the mark, God’s
mark. God’s glory, it takes no less
than the atoning death of Jesus and the sanctifying power of
His Spirit to cleanse hearts and minds. God was sovereign. God was sovereign in the way
that Jesus was to be born, born of a virgin. God was sovereign
in the preservation of the family lineage. God was sovereign in
even the selection of the name of the child. There’s a fourth
mark that we want to consider this morning, the fourth mark
of God’s sovereignty on the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. Look,
if you would, at verse 22 and 23, where we learn of the incarnation. God was sovereign in the being
of Christ. What kind of being would it be
if God was absolutely sovereign? where Matthew picks up and says,
Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through
the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall give
birth to a child, and shall bear a son, and they shall call his
name Emmanuel, which translated means God with us. We looked at Isaiah 7.14, the
last Lord’s Day. We’ll look at it again briefly.
Because there’s a different point in view here. What was implied
in verses 18 and verse 20, that the child was by the Holy Spirit
and of the Holy Spirit, is now stated absolutely explicitly,
that God has come to take on human flesh. This miraculous
blending of divinity and humanity was prophesied by Isaiah 700
years earlier. The first of more than 40 such
prophecies directly quoted by Matthew. Here Matthew cites with evidence
Isaiah 7.14. We look at it, as I said last
Lord’s Day, we look at it at length last year in its entire
context there in Isaiah 7. But the verse that he references
is Isaiah 7.14. Therefore the Lord himself will
give you a sign, behold a virgin will be with child and bear a
son, and she will call his name Immanuel. Now, we began to look
at the context of this last week, and just a very brief review
of it. The bottom line of this prophecy
is that it was an absolutely unsolicited sonnet. King Ahab
is preparing to make a pact with two evil kings because he’s desperately
trying to preserve his kingdom and the divinic line, and he
feels that if he takes matters into his own hands instead of
going before the Lord, that somehow he can accomplish what perhaps
God cannot. His instruction to ask for a
sign, and piously, and hypocritically, he says, no, I won’t. I can’t
do that. I won’t do that. Isaiah says, you’re going to
have a sign. Here’s the sign. The virgin shall
be with the child. And his name will be Emmanuel.
This is the context of what transpired. Essentially, it was a rebuke
to Ahaz. Here’s what’s going to happen
to Ahaz. God is absolutely sovereign.
God hasn’t lost control of the Davidic throne then, and God
hasn’t lost control of the Davidic throne now. Just like the message
to Ahaz, God hasn’t lost control. God hasn’t forgotten his promises.
2 Samuel 7-12, even if there were no other promises, and there
are dozens that are just like it. He has 7-12 and 13 of 2 Samuel,
when your days are complete, you lie down with your fathers.
I will raise up your descendants after you, who will come forth
from you. I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house
for my name. I will establish the throne of
his kingdom forever. So Ahazab was a rebuke. It’s an absolute rebuke to him,
and it’s a rebuke to any who think that God has lost control
of this great plan that he infected. As one characterized the testimony
to Ahaz, he put it in this context, a little over seven centuries
before the birth of Christ, the throne of Ahaz, king of Judah,
was being threatened by a coalition of the king of Israel and the
king of Syria. The threat of these two conspirators
was to destroy David’s dynasty and establish a king of their
own choice. And I mean, it looked ominous. It looked so utterly
plausible that this was going to happen. But Ahas and his lack
of faith, and instead of going to God based on his promise,
instead of going to the sovereign God, who is far more capable
of seeing through his promise by preserving Ahaz and preserving
the Davidic line. Instead, he contemplated this
association with them. One characterized this scene
and how it relates to Matthew’s gospel. He characterized it this
way. He said, the vision of the prophet
far beyond present events. In other words, it wasn’t just
about Ahab’s. We think even Ahab’s knew that.
Even the people, the Jews of Ahab’s day, knew that this wasn’t
just about Ahab’s. The vision of the prophet sweeps
far beyond present events, and he beholds in this son that should
be born, the child that should be given, would be none other
than the Messianic king. the security for the fulfillment
of the promises of David, and the hope for the future of the
world. The Jews did hold this. In time,
though very obtuse as it was, they did hold this up to be at
least a mysterious passage, an unfulfilled and unclear passage,
but one that held out hope for Messiah. A child was to be born. Look at the passage again. They
shall call his name Immanuel, which translated means God with
us. Now, we just read that the naming
right, normally that of the child’s father, was taken up by God himself. And the name that Joseph was
to call this one was Jesus. God picked it. Joseph was to
use it. And here in verse 23 we learn
that the child is to have a different name. And for some this creates
confusion and all kinds of difficulties easily exploited. One of the
names describes his office, the other one describes his nature,
both divine and human. As one said, J.C. Ryle capably
handled this when he said, The name Immanuel is the name which
is given to our Lord from His nature as God-man. As God manifests
in the flesh, it signifies God with us. There was a union of
the two natures, the divine and the human. The Savior was perfect
man as well as perfect God. We have a nature like our own
in all things, sin only excepted. So Jesus was witness in human
flesh and blood. He was, at the same time, very
God. So what? To name Jesus was a
literal name and proclaimed his mission. Immanuel, to refer to
Jesus as Immanuel, was to refer to his nature. That he was both
holy God and holy man. We don’t ever know. There’s nothing
ever recorded that Jesus was referred to as Immanuel, by name. That wasn’t the purpose of this
name. The purpose of this name was to point out who he was.
The blend of two Hebrew words, El, which is one of the common
words for God. Immanuel signifies witness, which
was a brief, it was a description of his character, his person. And you know, well, the Scripture
bears witness. of this union, a blend of the
human and divine in Jesus Christ. John 1.14 says, the word Jesus
Christ became flesh and dwelt among us. It doesn’t mean that
God set aside his deity, that Jesus set aside his deity in
order to take on human flesh. Berghoff capably said, when we
are told that the Word became flesh, this does not mean that
the Word ceased to be when it was before. Still fully God. Still fully man. Philippians
2.5-7 speaks of Jesus’ deity in humanity. Have this attitude,
an attitude ultimately that he points out as humility. Have
this attitude in yourself and also in Christ Jesus. who, although he existed in the
form of God, did not regard equality with God, a thing to be grasped,
that he ended himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, being
made in the likeness of men. Jesus wasn’t against taking on
human flesh. Jesus didn’t set aside his deity
in taking on a body, a physical human body. Romans 1. 2 through 5, verses we considered
in full months ago. He promised, speaking of Jesus,
whom he promised beforehand through his prophets and his scriptures
concerning his son who was born of the descendant of David according
to the flesh. As we looked at him, he was born
As a simple descendant of David, but he was declared the son of
God with power by the resurrection from the dead. It’s not that
that’s where his sonship began. He was God. He was fully God. One pastor said, nothing can
be plainer. that the Scriptures do teach that Christ is truly
God, that He is truly man, and that He is one person. They assert
of Him whatever may be said of God and everything that can be
said of a sinless man. They assume it as a certain fact
that Christ is God and a man in one person. had to wrestle with these truths
over the course of the centuries, and it wasn’t until the Council
of Chalcedon in AD 451 that they finally landed on a position
on this whole issue of the nature of Christ, although Scripture
had clearly proclaimed it for centuries. The Council of Chalcedon
in 451 finally put this down, that Jesus Christ possessed two
without confusion, without change, without division, without separation,
the distinctiveness of the natures being by no means removed because
of the union, the properties of each nature being fully preserved. In other words, they said Jesus
Christ was fully God and fully man. This is a big deal. If Jesus Christ had simply been
the Son of Joseph and Mary, He would have been no Savior. He
would have been a sinner just like you and I. He would have been able to save
Himself, unable to save Himself, much less save any of us. He would have been able to rescue
any of us from our sins, so the Redeemer had to be It had to
be a divine means, it had to be this virgin birth, it had
to be a wedding of the divine and the human, otherwise no one
would have been saved. Thomas Watson, the Puritan, said
it this way, that wise God sought the best way for our redemption,
that Christ should be incarnate. It was not fit for any to satisfy
God’s justice, but man, none could do it but God. In other
words, if you sent a million people to the cross, it wouldn’t
have paid for one sinner’s sin. But only God could do it. Watson
says, therefore, Christ being both God and man is the fittest
to undertake this work of redemption. See, our iniquities, our sins,
totally separates us from God, and only the God-man, only one
who was sent by God Himself, His only begotten Son, can do
that work for us. And we sing about it, right? Hark the herald angels sing,
second line, Christ by highest heaven adored, Christ the everlasting
Lord, laid in time, behold Him come, offspring of the Virgin’s
womb. Veiled in flesh, that God had
seen, tailed the incarnate deity, pleased His man with men to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel.” It’s a statement of awe. It’s a statement
that should have struck awe and did in Joseph. He called His name Emmanuel.
God with us, and at once Joseph was struck with the monumental
nature of what was transpiring before him. That God was sending
him to the world as Savior. The God-man has come, and it
is going to be the offspring of Mary’s womb. He must have
just been overwhelmed. Stephen Charkoff, the Puritan,
captured it well when he said, a God of unmissed blessedness. is linked personally with a man
of perpetual sorrows. Life incapable to die, joined
to a body incapable to live without dying first. Infinite purity
and a reputed sinner. Eternal blessedness with a cursed
nature. Almightiness and weakness, omniscience
and ignorance, immutability and changeableness, incomprehensibleness
and comprehensibility, that which cannot be comprehended and that
which can, that which is independent and that which is totally independent,
the Creator forming all things and the creature made were met
together in personal unity. God is solid. God hasn’t lost
control in one bit of the crystal soup. Come back next Lord’s Day
as we wrap up our study for consideration of God’s sovereignty. O merciful God, we humble ourselves
before a sovereign God who conceived of this great We’ve begun to apply it in the
world, even now to this day. We thank you and praise you for
the Christ, the Savior, and the King of Israel. We rejoice in
proclaiming throughout the world in which we live, that Jesus
may live eternally.