The God Of Wisdom, Judgment And Mercy

Alba 4-17-2022

THE GOD OF WISDOM, JUDGMENT AND MERCY

Romans 11:32-36

Fridtjof Nansen was a Norwegian explorer and statesman who lived in Norway between 1861-1930. He once tried to measure an extremely deep part of the Arctic Ocean.

The first day he used his longest measuring line, but couldn't reach the bottom. He wrote in his log book, "The ocean is deeper than that!" The next day he added more line but again had to record, "Deeper than that!"

After several days of adding more and more line he gave up without learning its actual depth. All he knew was that it was beyond his ability to measure it. However hard he tried, his conclusion was “Deeper than that!”

When it comes to the love, mercy, kindness and grace of God, these things are always deeper than we can ever measure. They are limitless, boundless, beyond our description and our comprehension.

Unless we accept that God’s greatness and capacity to love is beyond our ability to truly grasp, we will minimize who He is and what He can do.

Psalm 145:3 says, “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; And His greatness is unsearchable.” The NIV has it this way, “His greatness no one can fathom.” It is too deep.

The apostle Paul in Romans chapter eleven says the same thing about God, that He is a God of love, of mercy, of wisdom, of judgment and knowledge beyond our ability to fully know.

Here's what he says in Romans 11:33-36. 33 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!

34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?” 35 “Or who has first given to Him And it shall be repaid to him?” 36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

This doxology of praise begins by declaring that God’s ways are unsearchable and untraceable. The apostle Paul isn’t praising the Lord because he has found answers to all the questions and solutions to all the problems.

Rather, Paul is declaring that God’s dealings with mankind generally, and with the nation Israel specifically, are beyond our comprehension.

God’s wisdom is so deep, and His judgments are unsearchable. That means that we cannot get there from where we are. It is beyond us. It is so deep that no one has been, or could be, His counselor ever.

Verse 34 in Romans chapter eleven tells us that there is not anyone here who can be God's counselor. What could we teach Him that He doesn't already know? We don't have the depth of wisdom and knowledge that in anyway equals that which God has.

God's wisdom is certainly more than any of ours. In Isaiah 55:9 the Lord says, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.”

There are some things about God that are truly beyond us. Augustine, one of the early church fathers, was walking along the seashore one day and he came across a boy who had dug a hole next to the edge of the water.

He was furiously going back and forth from the sea to the hole, with his little bucket, filling it up with sea water and then emptying it in the hole. Augustine asked him, “What are you trying to do?” The little boy responded, “I’m pouring the sea into this hole”.

Trying to wrap our finite brain around something as infinitely magnificent as God is like trying to fit the sea into a hole on the beach. It isn’t going to happen.

But if God's wisdom is so far above our ability, how can we know what we need to know for our salvation? Well God has a plan.

I Corinthians 1:21 states it plainly: 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

So as long as there is a message preached, it brings salvation? No!

God, in his infinite grace and mercy, has extended the invitation to salvation through His son Jesus Christ. That's the message.

That is why the next verses in I Corinthians chapter one say this:

22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

There is only one message that saves, the message of Christ crucified. And that He who was crucified is now risen from the grave. That is the message the world needs to hear today.