GOD DOES UNSEARCHABLE THINGS
JOB 5:9 “Who does great things, and unsearchable, Marvelous things without number”
God’s wonders are supernatural acts beyond human understanding. Through extraordinary signs, the God of wonders demonstrates His limitless power, His inescapable presence, His divine protection, and His sovereign purposes. These marvelous works by the God of wonders are unique displays of divine power that go far beyond human ability and power. God has done great things and shall do great things for ever. All His works are full of order and comeliness: He does His work exquisitely. Even His works, that man see as nothing and deformed, are full of orders. His works are unsearchable.
Man loves to search for new things. Great explorers such as Christopher Columbus searched for new lands. Great scientists like Albert Einstein researched to explain great scientific mysteries. Great inventors like Thomas Edison sought and discovered new devices which have enable man to enjoy modern conveniences. But there are some things that are far beyond the research capabilities of human investigations. Yet, they are understandable to the believing heart because these unsearchable things are near to the heart of God, who made us in His image. Job said, “As for me, I would seek God, and to God would I commit my cause, who does great things and unsearchable, marvelous things without number (Job 5:8-9). “Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable” (Psalm 145:3). “There is no searching of his understanding” (Isaiah 40:28) “Great is our Lord and of great power: His understanding is infinite” (Psalm 147:5). There is far more to be discovered concerning God and His great creation than all the scientists can ever hope to discover in this life. However, those who love Him will have an eternity of time to search out the majestic complexities of His infinite universe, for “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10).
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God’s greatness is unsearchable. The vastness of the greatness of God is like the universe and just seems to go on and on. David was in awe of God’s greatness and he meditated upon it often. He also believed all should declare God’s greatness to the coming generations: “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts. I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty, and on Your wondrous works. Men shall speak of the might of Your awesome acts, and I will declare Your greatness” (Psalm 145:3-6).
Unsearchable imply the search of those things which are most abstract and secret; just like the heart, which only the Lord can search (Jeremiah 17:15). The heart lies too low, not only for the eye but for the understanding of man. The foundations or deep places of the earth cannot be known except by deep searching. But Nobody can search the works of God nor search His Understanding (Isa 40:28).
There are some works of God, which are not to be searched into; they cannot be found by inquiry but they are to be adored by believing them. Many of his judgments are so unsearchable and it is not our duty to search into them. Romans 11:33 – “O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God” How unsearchable are his judgments”. As those unspeakable words, which Paul heard in the 3rd Heavens, are not lawful for man to utter (2 Corinthians 12:4), so the unsearchable judgments of God are not lawful for man to search. God can never be fully known. In His sovereign wisdom, God has chosen not to reveal some things: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29). Many would label it unloving for God to decide to withhold some information from his people. They wrongly believe God should reveal everything they may want to know. Yet, as with all good fathers, God’s wisdom leads him to refrain from answering all the questions His children ask him, and this contributes to His incomprehensibility. Such prying into the works of God, is as dangerous, as prying into the Ark of God (1 Samuel 6:19). It is more profitable for us, and more honorable to God, if we search our own secrets rather than God’s.
There are other works of God, which shouldn’t be searched, yet we may search them. It is our duty to study them, though we cannot find them. We may search and find many of the works of God with our senses; there are others which we cannot find, though we search for them with our reason and understanding. The mind of God is legible in many of His works, and we may read them without a comment or interpreter. His other works are mysterious and enigmatic.
The fact that "His ways are past finding out" is the cause for much frustration in our Christian walk. We want to find out God's ways. We want to know what He is thinking when He allows certain things to happen. But as God told Isaiah, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways…For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9). God is working out a plan that we are not privy to. We can only understand His will as it is unveiled day by day. Though at times we don't understand the dark valleys He leads us through, once we reach the mountain top and look back, we will see the path that led us there. And we will understand what He was doing. We'll understand that we could never have reached the heights if we had not first come through the depths.
HIS UNSEARCHABLE WISDOM
"Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the LORD? Or who has become His counselor?” (Romans 11:33-34).
Beyond all human wisdom is the wisdom of God - a wisdom self-sufficient; derived from no other source; a wisdom of which, indeed, all human wisdom is a faint reflection. Take the very wisest of men - men like Socrates, Plato, or Seneca: how foolish were some of their thoughts, their proposals, or their actions! Take the very wisest man whom you know, and he will be glad sometimes to take counsel of someone else. Indeed, in this the wise man shows his wisdom. It is fools who despise reproof, and who will not take advice. But God needs no advice. He makes no mistakes. This thought of the unsearchable wisdom of God teaches us a lesson of faith and trust. God's dealings are often mysterious to us, but there is an infinite wisdom behind them all. We do everything based on what runs on our mind and that is usually based on what we learn through our senses. If we rely on the limited knowledge we have, we cannot shine in this world. That is why people do research and accumulate knowledge. Yet the wisdom of the world cannot be compared to the wisdom of God. We should always remember that God chooses the foolish things of the world to shame those who confide in their wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:27) and so we should look to God to be led by His wisdom. The Bible clearly says in Proverbs 21:30 that "There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord". Only when we look to God for wisdom, God will establish our steps (Psalm 37:23).
He does all things well. It teaches us also a lesson of obedience. God's way is always wisest, safest, best, happiest. It might be said to us as Moses said to the children of Israel, "Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me. Keep therefore and do them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people." (Deuteronomy 4:5-6).
HIS UNSEARCHABLE KNOWLEDGE
“All the treasures of this wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ Jesus” (Colossians 2:3).
We have made much progress in scientific knowledge and yet how limited is human knowledge! How many things in medicine, in geology, in astronomy, are still unrevealed! No man can say that he knows all about science, though he may have given a lifetime to study it. But the knowledge of God is unsearchable; unfathomably deep. "Oh, the depth of the riches of the knowledge of God!... Who has known the mind of the Lord?" (Romans 11: 33-34). Nothing is hidden from him. He knows all recorded facts — all the facts stored in all the computers and all the books in all the libraries in the world. Every part and path of the universe is known to him. Every nation is known to him - its national history, its national sins. Every family is known to him. He knows all events that happen in human minds and wills — all volitional, emotional and spiritual events — all thoughts and choices and feelings (Past, present and future). He knows every event that has ever happened and ever will happen at every level of existence: physical, mental, volitional. And he knows how all facts and all events, of every kind, relate to each other and affect each other. When one event happens, he sees the eternal chain of effects that flow from it and from all the billions of events that are unleashed by every other event. (An example is the Corona virus (COVID-19) Pandemic that started in China (November 2019) and had spread to all parts of the world within few months). He knows all this without the slightest strain on his mind. That is what it means to be God.
The secret thoughts, the secret motives, the secret plans of every life, he knows them all. This thought carries with it great comfort. "Your heavenly Father knows what things you have need of, before ye ask him." (Matthew 6 :8) He knows all our difficulties and all our wants. And as we look forward to the future, to the judgment-seat, is there not a comfort in feeling that God's judgment on us will be a perfectly fair one, because it will be based on a complete and accurate and perfect knowledge of our lives? Our motives may be misunderstood by men; but God knows all about them. "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." (Matthew 13:43). It carries with it also solemn warning. If God knows all about me, I should be careful to live as in his sight! I should be careful to live as in the presence of the judgment-seat! "For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; nor hid, that shall not be known."(Matthew 10:26).
God is infinitely wise. He has always been able to conceive and carry out plans that have good goals and that make use of all that knowledge to bring to pass what he purposes. He knows how to use all the facts of the universe and guide all the events of the universe to achieve the best end.
HIS UNSEARCHABLE MERCY
God is rich in mercy (Ephesians 2:4) yet He doesn’t give His mercy to all people with the same measure. He lavishes His mercy on some people while He withholds mercy from others. God chooses to show mercy to some, and He chooses to harden the hearts of others so they refuse to listen. He showers His mercy upon Moses and the Israelites, while choosing to harden Pharaoh’s heart. There is a mystery in the distribution of God’s mercy which is unsearchable. He chooses to show mercy according to His own will upon us. Even when we don’t deserve His mercy, His grace is sufficient for us (2 Corinthians 12 :9).
The mercy of God is wider than all our creeds, and broader than the judgments of individual Christians. What a depth, what a breadth of mercy is revealed in those words of Christ, "God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life”! (John 3:16) There is hope for the guiltiest of sinners who will repent of his sin, and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. So, while we speak of the unsearchable things of God, we do not take the agnostic position. We do not say that God is unknown and unknowable. We do not know the depth of his wisdom and knowledge and mercy; but we do know that he possesses and manifests all these sublime qualities in his dealings with men. There are mysteries in God's Providences, but there is one great truth which will bring peace to every soul that acts on it; which will bring every soul that acts on it into the eternal presence and fellowship of God: " Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved."(Acts 16:31).
There are thoughts that are unsearchable about God, and yet they are thoughts that we can feel within our spirits as the very power of God unto salvation, even as we can feel the warm sunshine on our faces though we cannot walk along the bright pathway by which it comes. Jesus Christ is God's "unspeakable Gift;"(2 Corinthians 9 :15), yet many can say of him," I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."(2 Timothy 1 :12). The love of God is called "the love of God, that passes knowledge (Ephesians 3:19);" and yet many have experienced its power in their hearts. The peace of God is a peace "that passes all understanding;"(Philippians 4 :7) yet many have known how, in a time of disquietude or trial, that peace, like a sentinel, has kept our hearts and minds in quiet confidence and calm security. "Now we know in part; but then shall we know even as also we are known." – (1 Corinthians 13:12).
If the works of God are unsearchable, then how unsearchable are the counsels of God, the deep and secret counsels of God. The works of God are the visible counsel of God. Every work of God brings some counsel of God to light. Now if we are not able to find out His counsels when they are made visible in His works, how shall we find out His counsels, when they lie hidden in His breast?
OUR DUTY AS CHRISTIANS
1. There are some great works of God which are easy and plain. It is our duty to be acquainted with these works and learn from them (including the word of God).
2. We must search and labor to expound those works that are difficult to comprehend, with submission to the mind of God, not only for satisfaction to our own minds. We may search with desire to honor God; but not to humor ourselves. We may search them to make us more holy, though not barely to make us more knowing.
3. If the works of God are unsearchable, then we are to submit to the dispensations of God. Though we are not able to reasonably give account of them or the cause for which they were done, yet we must reverence them; and what we cannot believe by knowing, we must know by believing.
4. It is our duty, not only to shut our eyes and believe, or believe when we cannot see; but we must often believe where knowledge is shut out, believe when we cannot understand. By faith Abraham followed the call of God, even though he did not know where he was going (Hebrews 11:8). It is dangerous to follow men blindfold but it is safe to follow God blindfold (It is part of our duty). The lord knows (as Jacob answered Joseph) what he does, and it becomes of us to comply silently in what he does, though we don’t know it.
5. “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3). God offers to reveal things that cannot be discovered by any means apart from Him! What is concealed to the scientist can be laid bare to the person seeking the Omniscient God. In fact, the only means of discovering “unsearchable things” is by approaching God (He has the secrets of the Universe).
Though God cast thousands of souls into Hell, yet no man can question Him. When God turns Kingdoms upside down and send afflictions on His own people; When He gives them up to the power of the adversary and make all their enemies to rejoice, no man on earth dare ask Him question.
His works are unsearchable. It is beyond the line of a creature to put a question about the work of the Creator. "Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay?” (Romans 9:20 -21).
Some think they could do things better than God has done, or at least that God might have done better ; if they had the power in their hands, things should not go like this, what an insufferable indignity in this, to the wisdom and power of God, that He should be made accountable for His works that are unsearchable?
“O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” (Romans 11:33).
“Every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable”
(Psalm 145:1-3).
James Dina
james@mountzionblog.org
16th July 2020
https://mountzionblog.org/god-does-unsearchable-things/
(In my research for this sermon, I used JOSEPH CARYL outline from his works on EXPOSITION OF JOB with practical observation).
