The book of Romans, it's been
said by many, most profound piece of literature ever written. But it's not just literature.
It's God's word. It's the mind of God to men. And so we want to read the last
few verses of chapter 11, Romans 11, 33. The apostle says, 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 hath known the mind of
the Lord, or who hath been his counselor? Who taught God how
to do things? Who straightened him out when
he got off track? Who hath been his counselor?
Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto
him again? Here's the big story. For of
him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory
forever. I'm particularly interested in
verse 33, which has been on my mind and heart all week. 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. These verses conclude the doctrinal
section of the book of Romans. As you know, chapter 12 begins
the practical, in which Paul beseeches us in verse 1 to present
our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. So this little passage we've
read here is the transitional point in the epistle, from the
doctrinal to the practical. And in the first 11 chapters,
we have a record that First of all, that all are guilty before
God, both Jew and Gentile. That all have sinned, come short
of the glory of God. They're all gone out of the way.
There is none that doeth good. No, not one. And then he moves on into declaring
justification by faith. And then the struggles. of a
believer that we all have with sinful flesh. Then he goes on
into the eighth chapter and talks about the preciousness of the
law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which has made
us free from the law of sin and death. And then the Israel of
God, made up of Jew and Gentile, chosen in Christ from eternity,
And as Paul comes down to the end of this great doctrinal discourse,
to the verses we read this morning, it is not without excitement
and emotion that he concludes with these verses. And of course,
this is evidenced in verse 33 with the first little word, O. Oh, the depth. It implies much
feeling and heart emotion. The noted commentary Matthew
Henry said, God sees all things by one clear and certain and
infallible view. All things that are or ever were
or ever shall be. All. is naked and open before
him. He knows and sees all. The Psalmist David said in Psalm
139 verse 6, he said, such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is
high. I cannot attain unto it. It's beyond me is what David
is saying. In this great wisdom and knowledge,
God acts deliberately in all that he does. That's kind of
hard for us to get a hold of. We say so many things and do
so many things along life's way and say, well, I wish I hadn't
have said that. I wish I hadn't have done that. That has never
been the case with our God. All that he's ever done, he's
done deliberately and never messed up. That's just beyond us. It's impossible that he be deceived
in any measure about anything. He acts in full knowledge of
all, knowingly and deliberately. Job said, Job 23, 13, that God
is of one mind and who can turn him? In other words, he's got it settled,
he knows, has known forever what he's going to do. And what his
soul desireth, even that he doeth. God acts independently. And I
realize this already is pretty much over our heads. It is sad
in this hour that we're in of religious society. People think
that God is not more than a step or two ahead of us. He's way
ahead of us. And that I might could just inform
him a little bit about what to expect out here or there about
this or that. Uh-uh. No, He's way, way ahead. He knows
all about all. He's God. And He acts independently. He does not need the approval
of anyone. He does as he wills because he
wills, when he will, with whom he will. And I've made this statement
before, everything God does, he does simply because he wants
to. Job 33, 13, why dost thou strive
against him? For he giveth not account of
any of his matters. He answers to none. And yet there
is no unrighteousness with him. And here Paul says, oh, the depth. And this term depth is applied
to anything vast and beyond comprehension. As the ocean depths are unfathomable,
So the depths of God's wisdom and knowledge is unfathomable. So the term depth here means
that which human minds cannot perceive and words cannot express. The psalmist said in one place,
thy judgments are a great deep. In other words, we can't reach
the bottom, we can't get to where God's mind and wisdom and knowledge
extends. Now Paul is not so overwhelmed
with all this in matters of creation and nature, though all that's
wonderful. But he's just unfolded for 11
chapters the great marvel and mystery and glorious truth and
depths of God's wisdom and knowledge in the work of redemption. Redemption. It's as if Paul is saying, who
but God would have ever thought of this? Who but God would ever do something
like this for such as we are? Who but God could do anything
like this? for such as we are. And verse
33 concludes by saying, how unsearchable are his judgments. How impossible
it is to figure God out. His ways are past finding out. And that phrase, past finding
out, it means to track or to trace out. How untraceable is
God in His wisdom and knowledge from eternity. Scripture said
that His goings forth are from everlasting. He has forever been
headed this way to do what He did at Calvary. A lot of people
think when Adam fell, God responded to a crisis. and said, Oh, I
got to do something. I'll send my son. No, no, no.
The scripture teaches that Christ our Lord in the mind and purpose
of God was a lamb slain before the foundation of the world.
God knew what he would do. Oh, yes. His goings forth are from everlasting
and he's left no trail. It's untraceable. You can't catch up with him.
You can't figure him out. You can't read him by human reasoning
and human wisdom. His ways are past finding out. And connected with the meaning
here is that of a jury which cannot reach a verdict. We just
can't. There's no way of knowing for
sure about this or that. He's past finding out. Now in God's marvelous work of
redemption, just for a few minutes, I want to draw a picture from
the Old Testament and hopefully see in just a small measure the truth concerning God saving
his people. In Genesis 12, God made some
promises to Abraham. And I want to read you a couple
of verses, Genesis 12, 2 and 3. The Lord said to Abraham,
and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee
and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And
I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth
thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. And we talked last week about
that not being national Israel, but it's Christ. The blessing
of God is in Christ. He said in Galatians chapter
3, Paul did, that the Lord said to Abraham, and to thy seed.
And it said, he saith not, and to seeds, that is of many. Not
talking about national Israel or the natural Jew, but as of
one seed, which is Jesus Christ. The blessing of God to fallen
humanity is not through Judaism. It's through Christ. And I hear
so many people say, and I don't want to get off on this sidetrack
here on this, and I sure don't want to make anybody mad at me
this morning. But people say, well, boy, God's
good to America because we're good to the Jews. No, if you
want God to be good to you, you've got to be good to his son. The
blessing of God is through Jesus Christ. That's the story. But God made Abraham beautiful
promises here. That's to come about through
the generations, through his descendants, to Christ, who is
the true blessing. But now there's three chapters
after he made those promises we just read in Genesis 12. Three
chapters later, in Genesis 15, he told Abraham something that
totally was a different nature. He said, before this great nation,
I'll make of you, even starts to develop, there's going to
be a 400-year delay. Wow. Well, Abraham wasn't going
to live 400 years. That'd be just like somebody
saying, I'd like to give you $10 million, but I'm not going
to give it to you for another 200 years. I'll say, gee, thanks. All this is going to happen,
Abraham, but not for 400 years. In chapter 15, And verse 13, he said this, and he said unto Abram, know
of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that
is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict
them four hundred years. And also that nation whom they
shall serve will I judge, and afterwards shall they come out
with great substance. Now, this 400 years is as much
God's promise as the promise in chapter 12. It has to happen. Well, when Abraham and his son
Isaac, for the most part, they lived and died in the land of
Canaan. And then comes Jacob. Abraham's
grandson, and he has a big family, 12 sons, and looks like the nation
is starting to develop. Jacob had spent time many years
away from home, but now he's old. He's settled in Canaan. He's not planning to leave. His
sons are not planning to leave. How is God going to get this
family, Abraham's descendants, down into the land of Egypt to
stay 400 years. They're not planning on it. They
are not planning on it. How is God going to bring to
pass what he said to Abraham? He's going to do it through the
most awful, inexcusable, shameful, sins and crimes within a family
that you could ever imagine. The sons of Jacob have one brother
they hate. And they hate him so much they
want to kill him. And they hate him simply because
the father loves him. Don't miss that. They hate him
because the Father loves him. That's why the world hated Christ.
And these brothers are determined to kill him. And to increase their hatred,
Joseph had some dreams. And he told them about his dreams.
He said, I dream that one of these days all you are going
to bow down to me. They already hated him. How do
you think that went over? I can imagine they cussed and
fumed and said, we'll never bow to you. Uh-uh. They said the same thing concerning
the Lord Jesus, remember? We will not have this man to
reign over us. Uh-uh. So you see the picture? Joseph and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, finally the day came that these brothers shamed Joseph.
They threw him in a pit. Wasn't going to let him die there.
Had the idea, let's pull him out and sell him. Let's make
a little profit. So they shamed him. They sold
him as a common slave. Then they crushed their father's
heart when they took him Joseph's coat dipped in animal blood. Joseph, as it were, died in their
minds and hearts. They'd killed him. They'd killed
him. He died in that sense way before
they did. He went to Egypt before they
did. So Christ, our Redeemer, died
in the mind and purpose of God, Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. He is the Redeemer before we
needed a Redeemer. He accomplished it before creation
in the mind and purpose of God. So Joseph was shamed. He was sold. He suffered. Oh, how he suffered. He was made
of no reputation in the form of a servant in Egypt, just as
we read of the Lord Jesus in Philippians 2. But Joseph is
faithful in all his suffering, all the pain and all the shame
and all the abuse and the accusation and the prison. And finally,
you know the story of Joseph. It begins in Genesis 37 all the
way through Genesis 15. And finally, Joseph is exalted
in Egypt. You'd have to know how much the
Egyptians hated these outsiders, these Israelites. You'd have
to know their hatred to see the miracle of Joseph even surviving
in Egypt, let alone ever able to live free
in Egypt. let alone ever be promoted to
governor in Egypt. What a miracle it was. Second
in command, answering to none but the king. What a miracle.
It was as miraculous as one raised from the dead, and more miraculous. But God did it. Well, when the
famine came, which was no accident, When the famine came, it was
the God-given wisdom of Joseph that prepared for it. He saw
to it, had all the storehouses full of grain and ready, had
seven years to prepare, and then there would be seven years of
famine. And he was ready. And there was enough, not just
for Egypt, but for other peoples as well, outside of Egypt. When the word got out, they would
come to Egypt and buy corn. And so was the case with Jacob
sending his sons to Egypt to buy corn. But if you read the
story carefully, they were never allowed to pay
for a single grain of corn. Was Joseph giving it away to
everybody? No. But he was giving it to his own.
That's grace. That's sovereignty. Well, they had a savior in Egypt. They didn't know who he was. And when the whole truth came
out toward the end of the story, Joseph said to his brothers way
back yonder, when y'all throwed me in the pit and pulled me out
and sold me, he said, y'all were doing one thing. God was doing
something else. Genesis 50, 20. You meant it
for evil, God meant it for good. You were doing two different
things. Joseph could say it wasn't good
for me for a lot of years, 22 years to be exact. He was 17
years old when he left home and he's 39 now. But God meant it for the good
of the whole family. Christ our Lord never came into
this world and went to the cross as a private individual, but
he did it as a representative person. And that's what he said
in John 17 too, that I'm come to give eternal life to as many
as thou has given me. That's why he came. That's why
he died. And he told his brothers, it
was not, Joseph told his brothers, it was not you that sent me hither,
but God. If he hadn't been doing it, you
couldn't have done it. And then he told them, here's
the bottom line. God did it for this purpose, to save much people
alive. people starving, people as good
as dead. God, through sending me to Egypt,
gave people life. And through sending His Son into
this world to suffer and to die and be raised again and exalted
on high, God has given life to His people. First John He that
hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son hath
not life. Life is in the Lord Jesus Christ.
He that hath the Son hath life. He didn't say anything about
whatever else you may have or not have. That's not the deal.
But he that hath the Son hath life. How did it come about? Same as it did with Joseph. The
one beloved of his father the one hated by his brethren, the
one who did not deserve to die, was shamed and sold and abused
and given over to be crucified. And like Joseph said, it wasn't
men that did it, it was God. This is powerful stuff. This
is the gospel, folks. was God. And if God had done it, they
couldn't have done it. Acts 2.23 says that he was delivered
up, this is Peter preaching at Pentecost, said that Christ was
delivered up to be crucified. Delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. When was that? In eternity
past. The determinate counsel, who
was that? The Holy Trinity, Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost. Delivered up by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. And then Peter continued,
ye with wicked hands have crucified and slain. It's in that order. Men couldn't have done anything
had God not done his thing. So the Lord Jesus could look
at the mob and say, it's not you that sent me hither, but
my father, God. Same picture. Isaiah 53, Christ was smitten
of God and afflicted. It pleased God to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. He
hath made his soul an offering for sin. He's God's lamb. He's
God's sacrifice for the sin of his people. I just imagine anyone from anywhere
coming to Joseph down there in Egypt and Joseph has to tell
him, I'm sorry. The supply is short. We just
don't have enough. I just can't help you. No, the
supply wasn't short. There was plenty for all who
came. I'm sure there were some folks
starved to death in that famine, but they starved because they
never came to Joseph. Pharaoh told the people when
they started crying about the famine, he told them, he said,
go to Joseph. Look it up in your Bible, those
three words, go to Joseph. And Christ bids us, come unto
me, come unto me. I am the bread of life. You'll never hunger again. You'll
never perish. So Paul is saying here in Romans
11, What he is saying here is the
climax of this glorious work of redemption, God in Christ. That story of Joseph is just
a glimpse of the depth of the riches of both the wisdom and
knowledge of God. Who but God could have ever thought of it?
Who but God could have done it? Who but God would have done it? It is this great purpose wherein
He devised, purposed, and accomplished the salvation of His people before
the world began. Oh, it was acted out in history,
in time. Christ really did come into the
world. He really did die on the cross. But believe me, it was
a done deal in the mind and purpose of God before the foundation
of the world because God hadn't learned anything along the way. He hadn't decided on anything
along the way. He is of one mind who can turn
him. You're not going to talk him
into anything. You're not going to talk him out of anything. He's God. Paul told Timothy, 2 Timothy
1.9, that all this was given us. Some people don't like this.
I don't know why. Paul told Timothy, all this salvation. what we have
in Christ. 2 Timothy 1.9, it was given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began. You say, I thought God started
liking me when I started liking Him. Uh-uh. If that had been
the case, He never would have liked you. Because there's nothing
in you to start liking Him. There's nothing in us but Adam.
make us some fig leaves and run and hide. That's the story. Oh, but John said, we love him. Why? Because he first loved us. That's how it is. Oh, what a
story. What a salvation. What a Savior. What a sovereign God who purposed
it all. So it's no wonder Paul said here,
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. He's a great God. Thank you. Let's stand together.