Welcome to our fourth lesson in Psalm 2. And I've entitled it Christ, Begotten Son, Christ, Lord of Heaven. And we're going to be looking at three verses today. Psalms chapter 2, verses 7 through 9. Let's go through and read those. And I will tell of the decree The Lord said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall rule them with a scepter of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Now before we get into the changes I made in the reading, and I'm reading in the ESV, but it's pretty consistent throughout all the English translations, let's look at a couple of slides from our last lesson that's going to help us get back the proper frame of mind to understand what God is talking about here, not only to us, but to the Jews specifically of the time. Because remember, these were written probably fairly early on. If they're from David, they're at least 900 BC. And if they're nearer Moses' time, well, that's just a lot longer. God is not offensive. We need to fix this firmly in our mind. He is not the offensive one. He's not on the attack. He's not coming through as a mighty king to lord over us and to crush us. which is basically what sinners want to do, and thus that's how they paint God. Thus they reveal to us, like politicians, their own desires. They tell us what it is they want us to do, but they paint it on God so that they drive us, this is their intention, drive us away from God and to them, like beaters in the bush. hidden, beating drums, making noise, driving the game toward the hunter. This is how Satan works. This is why he's a roaring lion. Lions, in the way they hunt in a pack, don't normally show themselves or make noise unless they're driving you toward the one that is going to make the kill. And so, as we talked about in our last lesson, Christ is God's king. And Christ is building his citadel, his fortress, but it is a fortress of defense. Because God is the absolute powerful one. We are the absolutely weak ones. Hence, as we said from the very beginning of this song, there is no chance that we are any threat to anyone but ourselves. Certainly not God. Certainly not the angels. And they are misunderstood creatures anyway. We thanked him to be all-powerful, and we worshiped them. And we see in Revelation that John was told a couple of times, at least, don't be doing that. You're embarrassing yourself. Guys, I'm going to be serving you here in a bit. So this is very unseemly. So in their delusion, they seek to control God through His Son. Now, they're stupid, but they're not idiots. They're not going to replace God. God is infinite. He is the creator of all. He is the creator actually of heaven, their abode. Why would they try and destroy Him? First of all, it's possible, and second, even if they did, Everything would dissolve, including themselves. Yes, you don't get judgment, but you don't get nothing. And this is the problem. They want everything. Though in and of them own selves, and our own selves, we can have nothing. Everything around us, even the body we inhabit, comes from God. Everything. Even the very soul we possess comes from God. We have nothing in and of our own selves, and yet we walk around, even Christians, as if we owned everything. And we own nothing. And we control almost nothing. We grasp for control. We covet control. That is the main force of covetousness right there, which is the basis of all sin. Control. So his son is given kingship over all nations for his faithfulness to death. Christ's citadel is built in the Zion without hands. not of this material creation. Christ's citadel can never be defeated by Satan or man because it's built on the infinite Father. Imagine that. We're going to take Zion that's built upon the Father and make it filthy with our sinfulness, like that's ever gonna happen. This is the foolishness of sin. This is why time after time after time in Proverbs, the wisdom of man is called simple. Because we act like village idiots. God is infinite. Hey son, and we're gonna get into more detail on this, comes from God, exhibits the qualities and characteristics of the Father, and existed with the Father in eternity past. He's infinite. And we who are finite, especially right now in the flesh, very finite, we are but a blink of an eye, if even that much, in the whole scale of this creation. And yet we act as if we are lords of everything. Christ has been preparing His spiritual citadel because it's not made from fleshly hands and physical materials. Remember Hebrews 11.3, that which is seen is built upon that which is not seen. And Christ has been preparing this spiritual citadel since creation. In fact, he told the false Jews, the Sadducees and Pharisees, that when, not if, when they destroy his temple, meaning his fleshly body, he will rebuild it. In three days. They looked at him like he's some kind of idiot. Say in three days, it took 46 years for Herod to build this temple, and you're going to do it in three days? You're not very credible. Once again, they show their complete ignorance of scripture. Because obviously he's not talking about the physical, which does not matter. True Jews and all believers build on Christ's new body, which he received at his resurrection. This is the new covenant, indwelt by the Spirit, which he was indwelt in his old body, just like we, when we're saved in our fleshly bodies, are indwelt by the Spirit. But at some point, we will take on the new body, like him, like he did, later. False Jews and sinners, though, they build on the rebellious flesh, which is destined to die. When I say die, I mean remain eternally separated from the Father. Now, Christ is the cornerstone on which God establishes His kingdom. Now, Satan and man, you know, they got a different plan, because the Father already laid His stone in Zion. Now he's heavenly Zion. We know that those things which are here on earth are shadows of things which already exist in heaven. Kudos to Plato. However, we are not to strive here on earth to make them as the things in heaven because impossible and pointless. Because God will bring that which is in heaven down to earth in the new earth. So what's the point? He's already going, he's already provided, and at some point in the future he's going to bring it. He doesn't need us to build it. So there goes post-millennialism out the window right there. And even on millennialism. Jews were to be the messengers, priests, and witnesses to us, the Gentiles, faithfully managing the establishment of God's kingdom on the coming Messiah, or Christ in the Greek. Who is the cornerstone? Exodus 19.5. That is why God called them out, to be a nation of priests. Now in the Millennial Kingdom, they will be that. Isaiah and Zechariah tell us this. The prophets and faithful Jews submitted to God, but the majority of Jews rejected the Father and His humble Messiah, His Son. They wanted to enslave men. They wanted a conquering Messiah. They wanted Him to march at the head of their armies and do what they could not do, kick butt, take names, and make everybody their slave, because that's what's in minds. They wanted to be loose socialists. Socialism is not new. It didn't spring forth from the filthy, perverted mind of Rousseau and the demented, tormented soul of the Jewish Marx who hated and rejected God. Not at all. It came from the rebellious mind of Satan. And it's always been his form of government. So they wanted to enslave man. They rejected the Father's cornerstone. They wanted to build their fortress, and that's offensive fortress, on the flesh. All it's gonna result in, though, is self-enslavement, because you're a slave to sin. Satan and man conspired to murder the cornerstone to rule themselves, but all it did was fall on them. Putting Christ on the staros did not eliminate Christ, it fulfilled his mission. And God poured out his wrath on Christ. for you and me. Not that we deserve it. Not that we can say, hey, me, because I was better. Yeah. Like Paul, I was very bad. If you'd be honest with yourself, you would realize how desperately wicked you are. Totally depraved. Most people don't get to see that, though. Don't want to see that and will not see that. Thus the immature in Christ, which is how we all start out, fall into this trap that, oh, the Bible says we're not better and we try not to be better, but in my heart of hearts, secretly, my secret sin, I'm better than everybody. No, you're not. So here we are in Act Three of Psalm Two. And Acts reveals one of the most misunderstood acts preceding creation. And it really centers around the begotten Son, the Lord of creation. Now each of these slides probably, I could make an entire lesson out of it. But that's not the point of this psalm, is to dive into such detail that by the time we get to the end of the psalm, we forgot what the beginning was. That's why the psalms, by and large, are fairly short. And they're made to recite. It's an oral tradition. And often, it's an oral musical tradition. Because remember, lest you forget, music is worship. What you sing, what you listen to, is what you worship. You may choke on that. That's like saying video games beget violence. No, they don't, in and of themselves. But what you do in the video games You act in such a manner that you would never act in real life, usually. But as you immerse yourself in this game over and over and over and over and over again, you take on the characteristic of dealing with people immediately in violence. And that's so conditioning yourself That is your first go-to reaction in life. Now we see this time and time and time again. The cops pull a person over. He starts arguing with a man with a gun. Okay, right there's the first sign of stupidity and insanity. You don't argue with the guy with the gun. You go with him, and you have your day in court. No, we're going to argue it out right here, and then I'm going to grab something. And of course, you're going to get shot, because the guy with the gun. Doubt is the fruit. of immersing ourselves in a reality, a false reality without consequences, in which I just come back to life and do it all over again. Only now I know what's happening, so I'll do it better. No, that's not how it works. See, in real life, you don't get come back and do it over again. It's right there, and if you're not saved, that's not a good outcome for you. But in your sin, you really don't care. But I digress. We want to talk about this monogenesis, this only begotten. Now, for most evangelical Christians, this is a familiar term. That may be for non-evangelical Christians. Christendom. Remember, Christendom pretends to be Christians, but are not truly saved. They just make up their own doctrine out of the Bible and through eyes of Jesus, and onward they march into a not quite user-friendly eternity. But here we see this. Let's turn to Isaiah 55 verses eight and nine. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. This is the background of the monogenesis. There's only one way to really understand this correctly. Because I am not saying that Christ was created. I'm not saying that at all. I'm not saying that Christ did not exist with the Father in eternity past. That's not what I'm saying. Because that's not what the Bible says. The Bible clearly teaches that Christ has always existed eternally with the Father, in the Father. However, at some point, in preparation for this creation, this physical material creation, the Father monogenesis, only one time, only this once, made the son separate from him, so that he became the interface between the father who is infinite, and this physical, infinite material creation, I'm man. This is John 1, 1 through 18. No one, no one, no one, no one. Can I repeat it one more time? Because people tend to think they've always seen the Father. No one has ever seen the Father at any time ever. So when it says in the Bible, and they saw God, they had not seen the Father. They'd hear the Father. And they're not really happy when that happens, Exodus 20. They don't want to hear the Father, because that's just scary. And they said, well, Moses, you go up on that mountain, and you talk to Him, and then you come down and you tell us, and that'll be fine. And Moses said, you know, that's the way it works. Because Moses was just a forerunner to the Son, who when He came would be the permanent intercessor. In fact, He always was. As Moses saw God in His holiness passing by, he was not seeing the Father. Or should we go back to John 1 again and repeat that? He was seeing pre-incarnate theophany of Christ in His holiness. And he didn't like sin. So the psalmist here repeats God's declaration to Christ in the Eternity Pass at some point before this creation, this Ebarad, something out of nothing. And it's beyond man's conception. So you get modalism, you get all sorts of heresies that spring from misunderstanding this. You get other religions rejecting us for idolatry and calling us hypocrites and everything, but we're not saying there are three gods. They're all interdependent. It's how the Trinity works. It's an example to us because as people, we are to be interdependent. In fact, that is essentially what the body of Christ is all about. We are interdependent via the Spirit. When Christ took on sinful flesh, he was interdependent with the Father via the Spirit at the baptism. So whatever God has done amongst The Father, the Son, and the Spirit is an example to us, and Paul has laid it out for us, which is why you need a different view of Paul in his writings, because you just don't like that. You want your own religion that makes you number one, just like somebody else in Scripture, Satan. He was the father of all sinners. He was the father even of us. A liar and a murderer from the beginning, John 8, 44. But we, for whatever reason God chose, and he didn't tell us, as he tells us in Romans 9, I'm gonna tell you why he did it, but I saved you. And I decided to, in Ephesians 1, 3-14, an eternity passed before there ever was a creation, so you got no say in the matter, you got nothing in the matter. He said, well, how can you condemn sinners then? And Paul talks about that in Romans chapter 9. Because you love your sin. You reject God. You do not see God. Well, God doesn't like me. He's not going to save me. That's not how it worked. You say, I don't want God. I'm going to build my worldview without God. Romans 1, 18 through 28. You have condemned yourself by agreeing with your sinfulness. Does God motto Genesis, the sun before creation, to be the agent and heir of creation and salvation? Now, the sun is personified in Proverbs as God's wisdom, especially in Proverbs 8. That's verses 22 down to 36, I believe. In fact, Hebrews chapter 1, and we need to go there. Verse 5 for right now, For to which of the angels did God ever say, You are my son, today I have begotten you? That'd be none. And one of them didn't like it. He thought, well, that's not right. I'm supposed, I was created to be the best, the highest, control of everything in heaven. I have control of everything. And you're not, what is this? That's not the agreement. He's usurping my place. I have to serve him now? Why? Thus he became, in man's parlance, Satan became a freedom fighter in his own mind. And he persists in that. And those nations that believe that they have to revolt in order to obtain freedom, are falling in Satan's footsteps, not God. You might slap God all over your slogan. That doesn't mean that it's of God. That just means you're delusional. And again, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. And of course he says, I'll let all the angels worship him. And most of them were happy, some of them not so much. But he became the monogenesis, thus he was the most beloved. Now really, he did this, as I said, to be the only intercessor between Holy Father and sinful man. And he did this by taking on sinful flesh to die for man. He had no sin. Even when he took on the flesh, no father. The infinite father was his father, not a human father. His body came from the maternal side. He also had ties back to David. That's why you have two genealogies. One is to trace his body back to the lineage of David. The other is to trace his right to rule back to the throne of David. If things had been different, Joseph would not have been a stonemason. He'd have been king. Things were not different. And we don't want to lose sight of that. When God declared Christ's son, heir, he made him heir as king. So there's one of his titles, king. But he also declared him high priest after the order of Melchizedek. So there's the priest part. It's pre-Aaronic. In other words, Melchizedek preceded the Levitical priesthood. And the writer of Hebrews goes into several chapters explaining this and why it's so. Actually, he was declared priest before creation. So he already had this title. And then he comes as prophet in the flesh, declaring the truth of God. Now, if you want to understand about Melchizedek, there is a brief, and I mean very brief, reference to him in Genesis 14, 17 through 20, and you'll slip right through that if you're not careful. Oops, yeah, he was there, I think I saw him. I think I glimpsed him. And you miss the significance of it. So later on in the scriptures, it has to be explained. why that's important. And Hebrews 5 picks up on that and summarizes it for us. So if we go to Hebrews 5, 5, who also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. And of course that word begotten is jena'o. I have brought you forth. Elsewhere, when it says only begotten, they emphasize the only and they say the mono or the one. I only did this one time. The monogenesis. And he said also in another place, because they're referencing back to the Old Testament, Psalm 110 verse four, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. And he did this. He accepted this. And then Hebrews chapter seven, the writer continues in greater detail. And I invite you to meditate and study on that for a few weeks. Today. We need to understand that word, today. Because what it actually is, is not today. What it actually is, is this day. Now, that's just the way it is in the original Hebrew and Greek. Now, I don't fault the early translators. Guys, when you're coming out of the dark ages and you're being exposed to these writings, you don't have an extensive body of knowledge to draw upon. You just do the best you can with what you got. Adapt. Improvise. Overcome. Clarify. At a great cost to themselves. I don't fault them. Later on, in the 19th and into the 20th century, we've had a couple hundred years of archaeological study and exposure to knowledge and resources these people never even dreamed of. And we persist in the same inexact translations just because now it's tradition. And we don't want to confuse people. Nah, we don't want to confuse people. We don't want to tell people the truth. They might get confused because they're idiots. That's what you're really saying. I just get frustrated, because I'm not a language or scholar or expert by any stretch of the imagination. But I look these things up, and I don't just look them up in some random book and pick out of a group of 50 words, oh, I like this better. You study it out, you look at the contacts. and you look at the literary genre. Because when we come to Genesis 1, it's a Va passage. Now, it doesn't mean anything to most of you, but when you have a lot of Vas, which is and, or but, or, it's how it's usually translated, but it has a significance showing that this is narrative history. So when you come to Genesis 1, this is narrative history. And the term yom, which is day, is defined between evening and morning. And thus we get our 24-hour period. But we have to get that from the context, because not every time we read Yom, does it mean a 24-hour period. You have to go to the context. And the literary genre. Psalm is poetry. It's not history. It may refer to history, it may reveal some aspects of history, but it is not in and of itself history. There's not a lot of ahs in most of the psalm. And it's also oftentimes prophetic. So it's both poetic and prophetic, which means that day is a metaphor, often, for a period. Now we have to define what that period is. And when I say we have to define, what I really am trying to tell you is, you get it from the context. You don't make it up. Stop doing that. That's what lost people do. They read it in the scripture. I won't demean this much, so I don't have to change anything I already believe in. Proverbs states that God's declaration occurred before creation, that is before time. Now let's go to Proverbs chapter eight, starting in verse 22. If you remember in previous slide, and I certainly hope you are following along with the slides, because that's where all the Bible references are. And I expect you to want to study the scriptures. I want you to hold me accountable, as well as yourselves. And the Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up at the first, before the beginning of the earth, when there were no depths. And I was brought forth when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth. Before he made the earth with his fields of the first of the dust of the world. I be man to you. When he established the heavens, I was there. Of course, he's talking about wisdom personified, which is Christ. You want to know what God's wisdom looks like? Jesus. That's it, right there. Jesus in humility. Is wisdom personified? See, wisdom is not strictly knowledge, and it's not strictly facts. Though it encompasses facts and knowledge, which is context for the facts, it shows it in action. And Christ is the exemplar for us of what that looks like. And he also tells us what that looks like, which we'll cover in this lesson. Therefore, when he says today, that's a translation, it really means this day, ha-yom, ha-yom. refers to a period that begins some point in eternity past this day I begotten you and it extends through this creation into eternity future now I say eternity future what I'm really saying is the new heavens and earth. The entire period of the Bible. That's what I'm referring to. Because that is what the Bible refers to. That entire period of the Bible. We go to Hebrews 1 again, verse 8. Well, the Son, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever. Here we go. God is calling the Son, God. I remember Christ questioned the Jews about that. David, David, whose Lord is calling him Lord. Did you think on that one? No, they hadn't thought on that one. Because like most lost folks, when they see passages of the Bible they don't understand, they skip them. Well, I don't know what that means. I'll come back to it later, which means that, unless I'm forced to, I ain't never coming back here. I'm gonna skip this part. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. going to be important in a moment. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness, therefore God, your God, there's reference back to the Father, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. And that comes from Psalm 45. And you, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning. cited from Psalm 102, starting in verse 25. And the heavens are the work of your hands. Now this, John also picks this up in John 1, 1 through 18. Christ was the agent of this creation after the father, Barad, material out of nothing. He is the light in Genesis 1, 3. Thus, When the father says, this day, he's talking about the time period of the entire Bible. From that point in eternity past when he said, I have a mission for you. And he says, okay. You're gonna go die. Okay. That's not how he did it. He said, okay. Because he knew the plan. He agreed with the plan. And the plan was not for you to suffer and die for your own sin, which would be worthless. Another example of this day, referring to a time period, is also in the book of Hebrew. He wrote chapter three, seven through 11, and chapter four, six through 11. And we've looked at this several times during our look at Psalm. It says, this day, referring to a time period, which is one's life in the fleshly body. This day, Semiram, here. So Semaran is this day. Hear Christ. Do not harden your hearts. And of course, he's referring back to history in Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, like they did in the wilderness. Didn't work for him. Don't be like that. Don't harden your hearts. Don't stay lost. This day, if you will hear his voice, It's always this day. But what is this day? It is your life. That is the time period. You are a subset of this day for Christ. And it is bordered by your birth and your death. And when I say death, I mean your soul leaving the fleshly body. That is your time period. And if you decide, I don't want Christ, whoop, gone. You're gonna be like the rich man in Luke 16, who opened up his eyes in Sheol, the not good place in Sheol. Hades in the Greek, hell in the English, and you're not gonna be happy. because you've now confronted absolute truth, and it's not you. Hence this day, this creation, God uses to develop adopted sons in Christ. And of course, Paul picks up on this in Galatians 4, 4-7, and Ephesians 1, 4-8. Humble Christ. and Holy Royal Christ. Christ verse Advent, that means coming, required him to come as a humble slave of God. Every time it says servant in your Bible, you think slave because that's what the original language is telling you, Hebrew and Greek. Ibad in Hebrew, Delas or Deloy, Delas is one, Deloy is many, slaves. of God, to be the propitiation for our sins. That's a fancy English word translating a fancy Greek word, which means the sacrifice, poured out. And he came in the form of sinful man. He had to do that. Isaiah 53 talks about this. Romans 3, 21 through 26, tells us he was the propitiation for all sin, those that occurred before he entered into his fleshly body, into this point in time. His death stretched all the way back to Adam. And it stretches all the way forward to the end of this physical material creation. And he sustains us throughout all eternity future. Hebrews 2, 14 through 18 tells us why he had to do that. Since, therefore, the children share in flesh and blood, they'd be us. You want to know whom Christ was talking to when he said, allow the little children to come unto me? He wasn't just speaking to the four or five-year-old kids playing around him that the mature apostles were trying to keep away. He was talking to them because he's eternal. His knowledge is fast. And as smart as they thought they were, in the Gospels, we keep saying that they're like us, they're not really very smart. See, that's why you stay quiet most of the time, so you don't reveal to people how not smart you really are. You just stay quiet and you listen, and you let other people demonstrate how not smart they are. Because most of the time, they're trying to tell you how powerful and in control and smart they are, but that's not what they're really doing. They're really telling you how weak and impotent and not smart they are. And when you tell them that, then they get hostile and try and kill you, like they did Christ. He likewise partook of the flesh and blood body, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, Satan, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. Remember the slavery part? Remember, they're trying to enslave others and brag about their freedom, their liberty. They're freedom fighters, remember? Fighting against the oppressive slavery of God. And yet, all they're doing is wallowing in their own slavery. For surely it's not angels he helps, but he helps the offspring of Adam. Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect. So he'd become a merciful and faithful high priest by offering up himself to make propitiation for the sins of people. See, in the Aaronic priesthood, they didn't offer up themselves. They'd say, I'm not gonna run a fire. It was illegal to make other people suffer for it, because they're sinful. It's not gonna work. Only God who could provide Himself as the Lamb. Now, Satan won't tell you this. Lots of people won't tell you this. They want you to suffer. They want you to sacrifice yourself. Sounds like war, doesn't it? Join! Sacrifice! Fight for us! Die for us, we'll irony you, trust me. We'll build a couple of monuments in March every year. And if it sounds like I'm being hypocritical about it, well, that's what they are. They're very hypocritical about it. Because everything that you gave your life for, they then turn around and throw away. to expand their own control, their own lust. But with kinship comes the scepter. I know it says rod. And you go to Psalms 23 and you see the rod and your staff, they comfort me. And you just, they wax eloquent that the rod is a stick that he uses to beat the lions off the lambs and so on and so forth. It's just interesting. However, in alternate readings, and as we see in the Septuagint, which is the Greek, and the New Testament was written in Greek also, and as we read in Hebrews 1, it's scepter. So we're going to go with scepter. Now there's some textual reasons why I would do that. I'm just going to ask you to trust me on this right now. Our Hebrew version is the Leningrad Codex, which was actually formalized around 1000 AD. That's about a thousand years after the death of Christ in there. The sources they're based on are not as old or as complete as the sources, the LXX or the Septuagint. were based on, which was around 200 BC. So 1,200 years before the Leningrad Codex. So we have to kind of balance. And we've done this and explained this in other studies, not in Psalms, but in other studies. And so I translated this not as rod, but as scepter. He will rule. In other words, he will shepherd his people. That's why I said scepter. And in alternate readings of the Hebrew word, and this, the problem is Hebrew was written without vowels. And then up through the medieval period, up to around 1000 AD, they added vowels as to how they thought it should sound like. So we get the gist of it. And we compare manuscripts, old and new, and Greek and otherwise. I'm not saying we have a corrupted Bible. I'm saying we have a Bible that we have to look at through multiple lenses. And you say, well, in Bibles, what good is that? That's very good because it makes it hard to falsify. Just think, you'd have to go to a hundred places and change thousands of manuscripts to make them all read exactly the same to falsify a passage in Scripture. And none of these alternate readings change any major doctrine of salvation. So the scepter is a metaphor of the king's, in this case God's, authority to rule that he's given to Christ. Which Satan coveted, obviously, Hebrews 1. Iron denotes its immutability. Doesn't mean he's standing over you, beating the tar out of you to ride iron because you're stupid and sinful. And you go, beat you into shape. That's not what he's doing at all. That's not what's being said here. That is what we are perceiving it as. That is what Satan and the Lost want us to perceive it as. He's not doing that. The iron is immutability. That's what we draw from the context. In other contexts, iron might just be that weapon to beat tar out of you with, but not in this context. Note his immutability, the basis by which he rules. James 1, God does not change. God rules by, Christ rules by God's law, the 10 words. That's what he rules by. The Mosaic law was built off the 10 words. And the sacrificial system, to point back to Christ. But as he explained in the Sermon on the Mount, the law is the 10 words. He didn't sit down and discuss, now I'm on Passover day or Pesach, the high priest, he's supposed to be doing this way, you're doing it that way. That's not what God envisioned. That's not what he did at all. He did not discuss details of the Levitical, Aaronic, procedural law, the cultic law. He discussed how they messed up not understanding and implementing the ten words. Thus, they weren't transformed as they were supposed to. And into what were they supposed to be transformed into? Well, Matthew 5, verses 2 through 12 or so, 14 down to the end. That is the Beatitudes. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the mild. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst. Blessed! Why? Why are they blessed? They are walking as Christ is walking right now as the example for them. What we are going to be transmuted into with the indwelling new nature. That is a measure of maturity. It's not how strong I am. It's not how I'm marshalling the forces to charge the gates of hell. After God told you three times to stand there and not move a muscle, because the battle's His and He can handle it, I think. Because we're just going to get in the way. Christ explained how to understand the ten words by explaining two or three of them very briefly. Like murder. Murder doesn't mean just killing. It means, first of all, how you get there through anger. and how you stay there through lack of repentance. And Christ explained the 10 words well, never, never. Can I say it one more time? Never pass away. They are immutable. They are the immutable basis of the Father's nature. And the Father doesn't change. And His kingdom, eternity. Because remember, Zion is built on God's nature. Christ is the immutable reflection of God's nature. Remember the Apostle in John 14? You know, Christ, if you just show us the Father, we'll believe everything you're saying. He had me rubbing his head at this point. I'm going to die in a few hours and these guys just are not getting the message. He said, have you been with me so long and you're still missing the boat? You've seen me, you have seen the Father, the patience of Christ. More Luthian at times. He got a little, he got a little Kurt at times. He says, how was I going to tell you this? Well, they didn't have the indwelling spirit, so they were struggling. After they had the indwelling spirit, we see the amazing transformation of their knowledge base, of their speech. As 1 Corinthians 2.14, they were taught by the spirit. Well, we start off being taught by the spirit, unless we don't want to pay attention to the spirit. That's immaturity. And you're not the sharpest tack on the block when you do that. Then you have to stand before the Beamer seat and explain why you did that. And guess who's gonna be standing there witnessing? Well, they tried. With kingship comes accountability, like I just said. Beamer seat. Those closed in Christ's righteousness eagerly. And of course, this refers to the mature. And we all should be growing in maturity. We start off as infants in the Word. And we start out, that's why the salvation spirit is so wonderful for the first hour, day, or week, or whatever. Because you have no clue. And you are walking in nearly absolute ignorance of scripture. And you feel so good. And you should, because you have been freed from the body and curse of sin. You should feel good in your mind, not in the flesh. And then the flesh says, you know, okay, honeymoon's over. Now you have to mature, because you can't control the flesh. And the more you control the flesh, the more you crash and burn. You don't lose your salvation. But only the spirit can control the flesh. And it's a constant, ongoing battle. That's how strong the flesh is. And it never quits, never gives up, and never surrenders. It is absolutely unredeemable. just like your old nature was absolutely unredeemable. The lost believe they are the iron, but though hard of heart, they are as brittle as clay, of which they are made, baked in sin's fiery lusts, and they will be broken in judgment, shattered. This is the warning, but it is not yet that day. That's another technical phrase. You have this day and you have that day. That day is coming. That day doesn't just encompass the Great Tribulation. That day encompasses the moment you die and on earth in this current creation. It covers from the Great Tribulation onward through the end of the Millennial Kingdom when they're still rising in rebellion on that day. Then it ends. Because God's, okay, we're done. We proved everything we needed to prove. All Satan's objections have been dealt with, and the court rests in silence, and the Father has been vindicated. His judgment is true. Then we have the white throne stuff. For you, not for the angels, they go directly into the fire. You are given the honor, being made in the image of God, and the privilege of defending yourself. So you stand and defend yourself. And then your life testifies against you and there you go. So the false Jews did not mix the scriptures with faith and died in their unbelief. They died. Romans 11, 5-12, unbelief. They didn't mix it with faith. Hebrews 3, Hebrews talks about how God was not pleased with them, and they didn't hear His voice in this day, and they fell into the wilderness. True Jews were called by God, and they humbled themselves even to death. Hebrews 11, 32-40, that's a horrible death. It is appointed once to die, and then the judgment. Hear Christ now. Hear Him. That's what the writer of Hebrews is saying. That is what the Scripture is saying. That is what the Spirit and the Bride are saying at the end. Come, hear Him. Why should you die? God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. long-suffering, not willing that any should perish. He's put his Son available as the propitiation for your sin. And you want to do what? That's not going to work for you, because you can contribute nothing. Jesus calls. Are you listening? Christians mistakenly believe Christ will forever remain the humiliated slave of God, whose only thought is to be your friend. Now, I want to tell you right now, right up front, that's blasphemy. That is just out-and-out blasphemy. You might as well just keep him on the cross, on the staros, crucifying him over and over and over and over and over again. Kind of what the Roman Catholics do. He's always on that cross. He's always on, he can't ever come down. But he did come down, and he rose. And guess what? He sits on the throne at the Father's right hand in the glory he had before his first Advent. Imagine that. And we see this in the first advent. Transfiguration, Matthew 17, one through eight. That's why he did it. And in the book of Acts, Stephen saw him in his holiness. Acts 7, 54 through 60. And Christ was standing to receive him. Mark of honor. As He does all who die in His name. He saw Him. And then He was with them. In holiness. We do not have His holiness. We do not gain our own holiness. We do not become holy in and of ourselves so that we can stand separate and distinct apart from Christ. We are covered, closed in His holiness. John the beloved apostle saw Him in His holiness when he saw the holy Christ priest. In Revelation 1, 17 and 18. And of course, that's nearly lifted right out of Daniel. So Christ, in His holiness, does not change. That's the holiness He had before He took on the flesh. And it's the same holiness He put on after He got rid of the flesh. Because remember, no one took His life. He says, no one takes my life. I give it up." And when it was done, He gave it up. He says, it is finished. Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit. Today, this day, Christ sits on His throne. in holiness until he comes again, the second advent. Now Jesus calls the saved, but not in blasphemous familiarity of sin. Remember John in Patmos. This is what people want to see. This is what the lost want to see. Yeah, I was shaving and Jesus and I were talking about the state of the world and how it shouldn't be that way. Or Jesus was standing there helping me make the bed. Excuse me? You didn't fall down? You didn't become numb? You didn't become aware of the utter sinfulness once you've encountered Christ's holy righteousness? Daniel did. Isaiah, oh, a man of unclean lips. Paul, he wasn't saved at all when he saw Christ. He got saved right then. And you say, well, the law says, well, if I saw Christ, I'd get saved. No, you wouldn't. That's works, that's not how it happens. But when he comes, Revelation 19, you will see him in his holiness, and you still will not repent. All his armies come together and join together against Christ, and they still do not repent. Then he speaks. And in his rule, in the millennial kingdom, nearly the entire world rebels. And yet he's there in his holiness ruling. And they do not repent. Don't tell me if you saw Holy Christ you would repent. You would repent. only in the mercy of Christ. In his last words, Jesus reminds us that he is holy. We come to him in humility, closed in his righteousness, for we are nothing without him. Nothing without him. Let's turn to Isaiah. 64-6. We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted, menstruational, filthy, bloody garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you, for you have hidden your face from us and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities. But now, O Lord, you are our Father, we are the clay, you are the potter, we are all the work of your hand." That is what reality is. This is what the writer in Psalm is trying to get across. Here is holy Christ called forth, the anointed one. And we're just standing around saying, who needs him? And we're better, and we're gonna build on our own. That's just not how it works. But that's how we persist. And thus He rules us in His righteousness. And those who will not be ruled, He shatters. He judges. They die in their sin, because remember, He lets us live in our delusion. It's not about forcing you. It's not about demanding that you kneel in worship. It's about revealing removing the scales and revealing the truth by which we call out Abba Father. We don't save ourselves. We don't recognize the truth. He reveals the truth to some. In other words, he saves some from their undeserved pathway and that destiny of hell. and others he allows to just live as they want to live. That's liberty. They want to live without God. He says, okay. Not gonna last forever. They think it will, but it won't. And in our last act, we shall see that even revealing himself, he still has mercy. There is mercy in the Old Testament because Christ is immutable. He does not change. Thank you.