WHO COULD ACT AS GOD'S ADVISOR?
JESUS has already conquered the world so we can find our rest and peace in Him
Sakkie Parsons
Someone wrote to me:
Can you please explain ROMANS 11:33 to 36 to me?
Let's just read the passage again:
ROM 11:33-36
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34 "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?"
35 "Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?"
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
The Amplified Bible read as follows:
ROM 11:33-36
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unfathomable (inscrutable, unsearchable) are His judgements (His decisions)! And how untraceable (mysterious, undiscoverable) are His ways (His methods, His paths)!
34 For who has known the mind of the Lord and who has understood His thoughts, or who has (ever) been His counsellor? (Isa 40:13-14)
35 Or who has first given God anything that he might be paid back or that he could claim a recompense?
36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. (For all things originate with Him and come from Him; all things live through Him, and all things center in and tend to consummate and to end in Him.) To Him be glory forever! Amen (so be it).
Paul, specifically, was here in amazement at the 3 attributes of God's way of thinking regarding God's great mercy on all mankind, whether they are good or bad in our opinion and whether they are saved or unsaved.
You see this if you start reading just a little earlier in the chapter from verse 31, but I would now like to draw this passage and the 3 attributes of our Lord, that bring Paul (and also me) in great awe and amazement, to you and my circumstances today.
Paul speak of the depth of our Lord's riches and our Lord's wisdom and our Lord's knowledge.
The word "depth" that Paul uses here is very powerful and appropriate to me.
It is a very appropriate word for us ordinary people to show how impossible it is for me, an ordinary human being, to understand the riches and wisdom and knowledge of our Lord.
If I may explain it like this:
We have already walked on the moon, and we are already flying around with helicopters on Mars, but we have not yet been able to get in any human way close to the deepest place in the sea on our own planet.
The most foolish thing one can do today in his 'trying to be smart' is to try to understand our Lord, our Creator's depth of His riches in wisdom and knowledge.
HE Himself say to us:
ISA 55:8-9
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.Our Lord in His precious Word ask us:
ISA 40:13-14
13 Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD, or what man shows him his counsel?
14 Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?
To now draw the passage that was asked of me to our circumstances today:
We hear of all the wrong things around us. I don’t have to name them to you. Just think what you see as a child of our Lord wrong and evil around you and you may also experience very difficult circumstances in your own life.
I want to plead with you –
If you are looking at things around you and satan wants you to question your and my Creator, or to call Him to order, that He should tell you why He does this or that – and why He allow this or that –
Then remember with me, that we, our Lord's creation – who He created to His glory, to glorify Him and that we must then remember, no matter what our circumstances are:
ROM 9:20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" (Or allowed this or that in my life?)
ROM 9:21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use?
The Potter, our Lord, has the right to do with us, and everything in and around us, as He think best, and we can look at it with our little minds and see a mystery that we sometimes do not understand at all – but in the knowledge:
1COR 13:12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known
Therefor –
Even though I do not understand all the, for me 'personally wrong', that I see and experience myself – I know, because my God had it written for me in His word:
ROM 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those (this include you and me) who are called according to his purpose. (Also, your and my life.)
ROM 8:29 For those whom he foreknew (you and me as His children) He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son,(how absolutely wonderful!) in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. (Just think – you and I are going to be a sister and a brother of our God and Saviour)
Therefore –
If you ever wonder again and want to question GOD, your Creator, in some way and ask Him for an explanation or reason, why He now allow this or that in, or around your life – Remember then, and rejoice together with Paul, who, when he wrote these things, he was waiting to be beheaded:
ROM 11:33-36 (The Passion Translation)
33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay them?” (Who has ever first given something to God that obligates God to owe him something in return?)
36 For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen. (And because God is the source and sustainer of everything, everything finds fulfillment in Him. May all praise and honor be given to Him forever! Amen!)
While in your heart you have this great certainty regarding yourself, because you and my God and Saviour have said to you and me – and I use His own words:
JOH 16:33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world."
He is not going to conquer the world, He already has:
JOH 16:33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world."
Greetings,
Sakkie