Sunday – July 24, 2022
Word On Worship – Sunday – July 24, 2022
Romans 11:33-36
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments,and His paths beyond tracing out! “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?” “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?” For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.
If history has shown the Word of God to be absolutely trustworthy, both the Scriptures and history have shown God’s wisdom to be infinitely above that of mortal men. All that has happened to Israel and through Israel to the Gentiles is precisely what God purposed and promised. All of this was, is, and will be a mystery to fallen men, because the wisdom of God is vastly higher and infinitely superior to the wisdom of men. Who could ever have thought of a plan so wise as what Scripture has foretold and which history has unfolded?
The life of faith is trusting God in the midst of the mystery. Because God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts and His ways are higher than ours, we will find that we are unable to reason out what He is doing at any particular moment in time. We shall only understand fully when we are with Him, in heaven. Did the Israelites know how they would survive trapped between the sea and Pharaoh’s army? But when all was done, the sea was the instrument of Israel’s deliverance and Egypt’s destruction. Did Abraham understand what God was doing when He commanded him to leave his homeland and go to an unspecified place? Did he know what God was doing when He commanded him to sacrifice his son? All Abraham knew was that God was faithful and that He promised him a land, a host of descendants, and blessings for the whole world.
Romans 9-11 are a beautiful illustration of Romans 8:28. God does cause all things to work together for the good of the elect and the glory of God. Jewish unbelief has prompted Gentile evangelism; and this Gentile evangelism will provoke the Jews to jealousy. Those things which ‘appear’ to be tragic and catastrophic are but a part of a much larger picture, which contribute to the accomplishment of God’s holy and perfect will, a will which for the Christian is always good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:2). Whenever we find ourselves in circumstances that appear to be counter-productive to our spiritual advancement, we must assume that our situation is like that of Israel described in Romans 9-11. That God is at work in a way which we could never have devised to promote God’s glory and our good.
I suspect that God’s work in your life is a mystery at this very moment. You may have lost your job or your mate. You may be facing circumstances which seem to promise only defeat or disaster. But if you are a child of God, you know that He is in control of all things. He is working out your good and His glory by means of the very circumstances that puzzle you. You do not need to know the secrets which God has chosen to conceal. You only need to know what God has promised and to trust and obey. This is what the life of faith is all about. God is in control and He has promised to bring about wonderful things for His people.