in our study of the attributes of God that we've studied for the past several weeks. I don't really have any rhyme or reason to the order that we're doing them. Just in my reading, I'm just making a list of the ones that I think would be good for us to meditate on. One of the attributes that I think is good for meditation is the attribute of God's wisdom. We don't talk about God's wisdom much, but it's an attribute that can really stretch our minds and humble us and give us a more proper understanding of our relationship to God. When we meditate on His wisdom, we begin to understand more clearly the infinite gap between us and Him. which is really an understanding that we should have. Too often we don't maintain a proper view of our relationship with God, that He is infinite, that we're finite, that He's all-powerful, that we are not, that He is all-knowing, and we are not, that He is all-wise, and we are not, and we can just keep going down the list. We need to remember If we're going to keep a biblical perspective that God is unimaginably greater than we are, which should actually be comforting to us if we believe He is truly on our side in everything that we do. Or as Paul asks rhetorically and at Romans 8.31, if God is for us, who can be against us? But concerning our study today, there's so much to consider when we delve into God's attribute of wisdom. And to begin with, we want to see the relationship between God's knowledge and his wisdom. We already looked at the attribute of God's knowledge last week. But how does that relate to his wisdom? The knowledge of God is simply informational. It's really God's divine database. When we say that God is all-knowing, we mean that He knows everything that can be known, both actual and theoretical. And last week I gave you a lot of examples of God's actual knowledge, but God also knows things that can happen but never do happen. For example, you can turn to Matthew 11 just for a moment. Jesus gave us an example of God himself as God, knowing things that could happen but never do happen. Theoretical knowledge or hypothetical knowledge. And he gave us this when he rebuked the cities that would not repent of their sins as a result of his miracles and his preaching. In Matthew chapter 11, Matthew says, then Jesus began to upbraid the cities in which most of his mighty works had been done because they did not repent. Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." Now you can't help but notice that this is a hypothetical situation. Jesus is referring to something that could have happened. It's an if-then. If this did happen, then this would happen. But it didn't actually happen. Tyre and Sidon never saw Jesus' miracles. They were pagan cities that Jesus never did miracles in. But if he did do them there, they would have repented. That's what he says. He doesn't say they might have repented. He says they would have. And of course he's comparing the hardness of the hearts of Chorazin and Bethsaida, which were the Jewish religious centers in Galilee in Jesus' day. And he was showing how obstinate they were, how rebellious they were, how hypocritical they were, comparing it to the pagans who would if they saw the same miracles that Jesus did in Chorazin and Bethsaida, where they did not repent, if they saw those same miracles in Tyre and Sidon, completely pagan cities, they would have. So we have an example of God knows, Jesus knows, Not only what's actual, but what is hypothetical or theoretical. So God's knowledge is theoretical knowledge. It's part of his infinite knowledge. But again, this knowledge is purely informational. God just knows these facts infinitely. There's nothing he does not know. Wisdom, on the other hand, is more than God's knowledge. God's wisdom is the application of His knowledge in order to arrive at specific ends. In other words, God employs His infinite knowledge in the best possible way to accomplish everything He sets out to do. There is one more caveat to God's wisdom. He always employs His wisdom to bring Him the most glory. Since God always does all things to bring himself glory, he must employ all of his attributes by his wisdom to bring the most glory to himself. To do something that would bring God a lesser amount of glory than he could receive otherwise would be imperfect and therefore must be rejected as not worthy of God since he's perfect in every way. And I think this is something we need to think about. Whenever God does anything, and He's doing something all the time on multiple levels, it's always for bringing Him the most glory. In other words, God isn't sleeping part of the time. When we see disasters occur, when we see things happen that seem to be completely unrelated to what we're going through or anything related theologically to God or to us, God is always doing everything. He's working out His decree meticulously that in things that we don't even notice or would consider, He's bringing Himself the most possible glory. Because we don't see it doesn't mean he's not doing it. The angels see it. There are other believers that see it. So a good working definition of God's wisdom would be this. His wisdom is that perfection in him whereby he employs his infinite knowledge to the attainment of the best possible end in order to bring him the most glory. That's pretty clear and concise, a definition of His glory. Now, given this definition, we have to assume that if God is perfect in all of His attributes, which He is, particularly His attribute of wisdom, He always takes the best possible route in bringing Himself glory. This does not mean that it's always the quickest way or the least difficult way to accomplish what he intends, but only the way, whether quickest or longest, most difficult or least difficult, to bring him again the most glory. And I want to give you a couple of examples of this. Could God have created everything in a moment instead of taking six days? and another day to rest. He could have. But according to what we know about His wisdom, taking six days to create everything and then resting the seventh day was the wisest way to bring about creation and bring Him the most glory. It wasn't four days, it wasn't eight days, it wasn't instantaneous, he picked six days and a seventh day to rest, and he did it for a reason. Now if you turn with me to Exodus, chapter 31, I can give you at least part of the reason. Here he told the children of Israel, Exodus 31, 15. Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Therefore, the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed. Here we have a reason, I'm not saying it's the only reason, but we have a reason, a primary reason, why God took six days to create everything and then rested on the seventh day. It was to be a perpetual reminder to His people to do the same thing. That's what He told Israel. You work for six days, you rest on the seventh day, just like I did. So it's really irrelevant whether God could have done this in a moment or not. If He did it in a moment, it wouldn't have been an example to Israel to work for six days and rest for seven, which is the way He made man. So if God created everything in a moment, or if He literally took, here it is, millions of years to create everything according to the evangelical day-age theory where every day God took a million years or several million years to create everything. How would that be an example to His people Israel? This completely contradicts what God just told Israel in Exodus 31. They were supposed to work several million years and then take a couple of million to rest? Is that what God was communicating? Genesis 1 and Exodus 31 are literal. Otherwise, you can't have one literal and one literary or allegorical. Otherwise, what God told Israel is a lie. God created everything in six literal 24-hour days and rested on a literal 24-hour day in order for him to provide a perfect example to his people to do the same thing. That's what he says. And that's one of the reasons we believe that God created everything in six literal 24-hour days. It would be absurd to think that He took millions of years to create everything if that was to be an example to Israel. For them to work six literal 24-hour days and then rest for a 24-hour day. It's ridiculous. Another example of God being all wise is when He allowed Israel to wallow in their sin for 820 years. From the time they left Egypt in 1446 BC until the time they were taken into captivity in 586 BC. 820 years. Why did God wait so long to discipline Israel? Why didn't He discipline them immediately when they sinned with the golden calf at the beginning of their journey? or after many times that they went into idolatry over that 820 year period. Why did He pick 820 years? There's only one possible reason. It took God 820 years in allowing Israel to continue in their sin to bring Him the most glory. There is no other explanation. God is not reactionary. He's not, well, I'll just give him a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, you know, like we are as parents. God's not like that. He sees the end from the beginning. The 820 years were determined by God because that's what's going to bring him the most glory. Could it have been 819 years or 821 years? No, it couldn't. 820 was the time it took Him to bring the most glory. So how does this relate to us? Well, if we transfer this reasoning to our own lives, since God is a never-changing God, since He's immutable, He must do the same with us. Many times we ask questions. Why is God taking so long to answer my prayers? Why is God dealing so severely with me? Why doesn't He lighten up on me? The answer lies in His wisdom. He's not too busy. You know, that's not a good reason not to evangelize. You know, I don't want any more saved, because then God's got more people He's got to take care of. That's not good. He's infinite. He can multitask. We have to remember that God always does whatever is necessary in any given situation to bring Him the most glory. But there's more to it than that. And this even relates back to Israel. Concerning God's people, He always does whatever is necessary to bring about what is the absolute best for them, which in our case is conforming us into the image of Christ. We'll touch on this a little bit later, but we also want to look at, secondly, I guess that's the introduction. Let's look at God's wisdom in creation. We've looked at a little bit of this. I want to take it a little bit further. If you would turn to Psalm 19. It's obvious to us And we looked at some of this already, as I already said, that God first supplied His wisdom in creation. And that's what David is speaking about here in Psalm 19 in the first six verses. He says, the heavens declare the glory of God. And the firmament shows his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and there were words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tabernacle for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices like a strong man to run his race. Its rising is from one end of heaven, and its circuit to the other end, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. The first thing we see here in verse 1 is that the end of creation, the purpose of creation, is God's glory. The heavens declare the glory of God. Then, how creation declares God's glory is seen in the following verses. So we have the purpose in verse 1, and then how he does that in verses 2 to 4. And creation is described here as screaming of God's existence and perfection. It's just screaming. Just as God's Word is perfect, as David states in verse 7, so God's creation is perfect as he describes it in verses 1 to 6. Now, in verse 2, God's creation is seen as animated, actually 2 through 4, continually talking of God's existence and perfections. During the day, creation utters its speech, and at night it reveals knowledge. I'm talking about the knowledge of God, the knowledge of God's existence, the knowledge of what God is like. Verse 3 and the first part of verse 4. say that no person can go anywhere on the planet without the ear-splitting sound of creation aimed at him or her as it resounds the knowledge of God and what he is like. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. I'm talking about the voice of the firmament and the heavens. You can't go anywhere. It doesn't matter if you're here in the United States, if you're in Australia, the opposite side of the world. It doesn't matter. God's creation and what it tells every human being transcends culture, transcends language, transcends geography. Then in the last half of verse 4, David picks up the crown of God's creation from man's vantage point, and it's the sun. This is the crown of his creation from how we view things. And God has arranged his creation in the heavens to be like a tabernacle for the sun, a house for the sun. That's the way it appears to us when we look up in the sky. The Son, then, represents the strength and pride of creation which God has set in place as a bridegroom is proud and as an athlete is strong. That's the comparison that David is making here. This proud and strong sun sends its light and heat to reach every corner of the earth, as far as the east is from the west, and it reveals more than any other part of creation that man can observe with the naked eye. The sun is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, rejoices like a strong man around its race. Its rising is from one end of heaven, and its circuit to the other end. And there is nothing hidden from his heat, or from its heat, the heat of the sun. Why does creation bring so much glory to God? Why does it bring imperfect glory? It's because of his wisdom. That's the way He designed it. He's an all-wise God. Could God have made fewer planets? Yes. Could He have made more stars? Yes. Could He have made fewer moons and more meteors? Yes. Yes. So why didn't He? Because the arrangement that He made brings Him the most glory. God just doesn't, you know, God at the beginning just didn't throw a bunch of stuff out there and let it start floating around. There was a reason behind every single planet. Listen, He knows the name of every star. That's what it says in Isaiah 40. We can't even count the stars. We have no idea. We're talking trillions of stars. He knows everyone by name. This is order. This is a wise God. He knows everything about His creation. And He places it right where He wants to place it. Not one centimeter to the right or to the left of where it is right now. It's perfect, just like He is perfect. We've talked here about the universe. Why don't we bring God's wisdom down to the other end of the spectrum, which is the design of us, the smaller part of His creation. Over 150 years ago, Charles Hodge, a master theologian at Princeton Theological Seminary, said this of God's wisdom in the design of the human body. Now, keep in mind, 150 years ago, didn't have computers or these crazy type telescopes and microscopes that we have today. And he's a theologian, he's not a doctor. But he says, in the eye, for example, there is the most perfect optical instrument constructed in accordance with the hidden laws of light. We find there the only nerve in the body susceptible of the impressions of light and color. That nerve is spread out on the retina. The light is admitted through an orifice in the ball, which opening by the most delicate arrangement of light, which falls on the retina, which enlargement of the contraction, is not dependent on the will, but on the stimulus of the light itself. Light, however, merely passing through an orifice would make no image of the object from which it was reflected. It is therefore made to pass through lenses, perfect in form, so to refract the rays as to bring them to a proper focus on the retina. If the inner chamber of the eye were white, it would so reflect the rays entering the pupil at every angle as to render vision impossible. That chamber, and that alone, is lined with a black pigment. By a delicate muscular arrangement, the eye is enabled to adapt itself to the distance of the external objects so that the proper focus may be preserved. These are a small part of the wonders exhibited by this single organ of the body. This organ was fashioned in the darkness of the womb with a self-evident reference to the nature and properties of light of which the creature, for whose use it was fashioned, had neither knowledge nor experience. Isn't evolution great? You've got to be kidding me. I mean, this should cause every human being on the planet to fall down on their face and repent and cry out to God. Just the eyeball. Hodge goes on to describe the human ear as a work of an all-wise God. The same remarks apply to the ear. In its cavity lies the auditory nerve, A torturous, twisted passage is formed in the bony structures of the skull. The orifice of that passage is covered by a membrane to receive the vibration of the air. On the center of that membrane rests the termination of a small bone so connected as to convey those vibrations to the only nerve capable of receiving or interpreting them or of transmitting them to the brain. It is by this organ constructed according to the hidden principles of acoustics that our intercourse with our fellow man is principally kept up, through which the marvels of speech, all the charms of music and eloquence become possible for man. He follows up God's wisdom in the description of the design of the eye and ear with a description of oxygen and its relation to the blood in human life. We cannot live without a constant supply of oxygen, which must every moment be brought to act upon the blood to vitalize it. And by combining with the carbon, it contains fit it for renewed use. The infant, therefore, comes into the world with an apparatus prepared for that purpose. In its formative state, it did not breathe, yet it has lungs. They were given for a foreseen necessity. Nothing can exceed the intricacy complication or beauty of the organ or system of organs thus prepared for the absolutely necessary and continuous purification of the blood and for its distribution in an uninterrupted flux and reflux to every part of the body. This process goes on without our supervision. It is as regular during sleep as during our waking hours." This is how God made the blood. the lungs and everything that contributes. Hodge then turns to the digestion of food. He said, food is as necessary for our support as air. The unborn infant needs no food. It is included in the circulation of its mother. In the state on which it is soon to enter, food will be necessary. Full provision is made beforehand for its reception and use. Teeth are embedded in the jaw for its mastication, salivary glands to furnish the fluid for its chemical preparation for the stomach, and esophagus to convey it to the stomach, where it meets with a fluid found nowhere else capable of dissolving and digesting it. It then comes into contact with a set of absorbent vessels, which select from it the elements suited for the wants of the body and reject all the rest. The valuable portion is poured into the blood by which it is distributed, each constituent going to its own place and answering its predestined purpose, carbon to be consumed to keep up the vital heat, lime to the bones, fiber to the muscles, phosphorus to the brain and nerves. We can get all the best scientists in the world to come together and try and make this, and they'll never be able to do it. Impossible. We can't even get computers to work on it and get them to do it. Then he talks about the wisdom of God in bones and muscles. The child before birth has no need of organs for locomotion or apprehending external objects. But it was foreseen that it would need them, and therefore they are prepared beforehand. The bones are grooved for the reception of muscles and have projections for points of support. Joints of all kinds hinge in ball and socket for the flexing of limbs, the instruments for motion, decontracting fibers arranged and attached according to the strict laws of mechanics so as best to secure the two ends of symmetry and power. Thus the body is a perfect marvel of mechanical contrivances. The several organs, therefore, of the animated frame viewed separately present the most incontestable evidence of foresight, intelligence, and wisdom. Now he talks about animals and relationships between the organs in animals, one kind of animal and another kind of animal as it relates to God's wisdom. Every animal is a complete whole. Each part has a designed and predetermined reference to every other part. The organs of sight, hearing, breathing, nutrition, locomotion, etc. are so arranged and adjusted as to answer a common purpose to the best advantage. Besides, these organs, although common to all animals, at least to all above the lowest, are modified in each genus and species to meet its particular necessities. If the animal is to live on the land, all its organs are adapted to that condition. If it is to live in the water or move through the air, all is prepared beforehand for that destination. And more than this, if one organ be designed for some special use, all the rest are modified in accordance with that purpose. If the stomach is suited for the digestion of flesh, then the teeth, the limbs, the claws are all adapted to secure and prepare the proper organ that is supported by the other organs. So complete is the adaptation that the anatomist can determine from a single bone that genus or species to which the animal belonged. Birds, which wade in the water, have long legs and long necks. Those which float on the surface have webbed feet and feathers impenetrable by water, two things which have causal relation and which are united by a kind of intelligence external to the animal itself. Birds which fly in the air are fitted for their destiny by hollow bones, widespread wings, and great accumulation of muscles on the breast. Those which climb trees have feet and tails adapted for that purpose, and as in the case of the woodpecker, a sharp bill for boring the tree and the barbed tongue to seize its food. These modifications of animal structures are endless, all showing intelligence cognizant of the necessities of every distinct species. I mean, I said this a couple weeks ago, this is killing a gnat with a sledgehammer. I mean, how do you argue against this? You have to have something mentally going on there. And obviously, the sin condition doesn't help. Now he shows the organs in relation to the instinct of different kinds of animals. There is a correspondence between the organs of every animal and the instincts by which it is endowed. Beasts and birds of prey, having the instinct to feed on flesh, have all the organs requisite to satisfy this inward craving. Those having an instinct for vegetable food have teeth and stomachs adapted to that purpose. The spider furnished with the peculiar viscid matter and apparatus for spinning it makes a web and watches for its prey. So it is throughout all animated nature. Here then are two very distinct things, instinct and corporal organs. The instinct cannot account for the organs, nor the organs for the instinct, and yet they are never found the one without the other. They of necessity therefore imply an intelligence which implants the instinct and furnishes the appropriate organs. Of course, the intelligence Hodge is referring to is God in His infinite wisdom to design and create so many different animals and men to function in their surroundings and adapt to their circumstances. That's God's wisdom in creation. I'm not going to go through the Psalms that we talked about. I've read them more than once of how Everything on the planet is dependent on God and how every different type of animal gets his food and is protected by God in every different way that God sees fit for that particular species. Well, let's look at God's wisdom in Scripture. Seeing His wisdom in creation, let's look at His wisdom in Scripture. We're still in Psalm 19. 7 to 9 talk about God's wisdom in Scripture. David not only tells us of the wisdom of God in the world, he also tells us of the wisdom of God in His Word. He says, The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous all together." And there's so much here that relates to God's wisdom, but His Word is perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, and true and righteous all together. In other words, God's Word cannot be improved upon. What He has given us is perfect. You cannot improve on perfection. Could God have given us more? Could He have given us less? Could He have arranged scriptures differently than they're arranged? The answer is no. They're already perfect. If you change what's there, they're not perfect anymore, at least by God's standard. There's no such thing as being more perfect. You're either perfect or not perfect. God's Word cannot be more perfect, more sure, more right, more pure, more clean, more true and righteous. It's as perfect and sure and right and pure and clean and true and righteous as God could possibly make it. For some reason, I think sometimes we think that, you know, God gives us something, but maybe there's not a lot of thought put into it. We have to understand everything God does is the best. Everything. God doesn't go, you know, good, better, best. He doesn't do that. We do that. Everything's the best. His Word is the best that He can give us. Why? It's because of His wisdom. He's given and arranged every portion of Scripture to bring Him the most glory and mankind the best possible good. I don't understand how people can say that the Bible's not relevant. I'm talking about people in the church. Rather hear stories and anecdotes and, you know, see movie clips and Really? This is the best that we can have from God. And we want to give people the best that man can give them? Why would we want to do that? David said, the Scriptures are perfect. You can't improve on it. Speaking of many things, but particularly God's Word, 2 Peter 1, actually I read it for our weekly reading. Peter says, by God's divine power, He has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness. through the knowledge of Him who has called us by glory and virtue." Through the knowledge He's given us. Of course, the knowledge He's given us is through the scriptures. It can't be improved upon. The verb, given, here, He has given us all things, is a perfect middle verb. Perfect tense means once, forever settled, it cannot be changed or altered. The middle tense means God himself gave us a once, forever settled word. And of course, doesn't Jude tell us that? Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith, and the faith there is the body of truth of the Word, he's talking about, earnestly contend for the faith, which was once delivered all to the saints, or once for all delivered to the saints. You're not getting any more. That's it. He's given us everything that pertains to life and godliness. It's not everything plus psychology. It's not everything plus sociology. It's not everything plus whatever ology you want to put in there. Everything that pertains to life and godliness is right here. That's it. Jesus said the Word of God is so unbreakable, so unchangeable, so immutable, so unalterable, that not one jot or tittle can be taken away from it. Not a period or a bump on a Hebrew letter can be altered in God's Word. Can't. It has to stand as it is. And if someone and God's Word clash, you don't change the Word of God. You've got to change the person. God said His Word forever is settled in heaven. That's it. perfect in all His ways, the exact length of it, the exact arrangement of it, the exact tenor of it, the exact meaning of it, without addition or subtraction. Why? In order to bring God the most glory and the most benefit to mankind. And He's done it because of His wisdom. He's an all-wise God. Well, why don't we consider for a moment God's Wisdom and His providence, that's third. His wisdom and His providence. In case you haven't noticed yet, I'm just giving you a bunch of mini-sermons here. So we're on the third mini-sermon. God either works directly or indirectly in His creation. Two ways He works, directly or indirectly. When He works directly, we call that a miracle. A miracle occurs when God suspends the natural laws of physics that He set in place and works apart from those natural laws. He set the world up to run in a natural order. When He does a miracle, He invades the natural order and sometimes goes completely against it. He can do that, right? It's His world. For example, when the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea, God parted the sea for them to march across. That was what we call a miracle. That doesn't happen every day. It's never happened before, never happened since what it did when Joshua crossed the Jordan. But ever since those two instances, it hasn't been duplicated. It never happened before those two instances. And in this miracle, there were actually several miracles that occurred, not just one. Several events where God suspended the natural laws of nature and acted directly in spite of those laws he had put in place for the normal operation of creation. To begin with, he parted the sea, which in itself defied the laws of gravity. Water never stands up on its own without a brace or container to hold it up, because by God's natural law, through gravity and its being a liquid, it always seeks the lowest possible level. That's how God made it. That's the natural law. Water always seeks not only its own level, but the lowest possible level. by gravity. But in the case of the parting of the Red Sea, that law was suspended and God held the water up, thus making it a miracle. Also, the land that the children of Israel crossed over was dry land, just a few hours after He put the walls of water up. But when the water was suspended, it would have taken days, if not weeks, through the natural process for that land to become dry ground. I mean, when you have that kind of force, I'm not a hydrologist, but that kind of force bearing down on the earth, that water's got to go down way down. And it's going to take a long, long time for it to dry out. few hours. Children of Israel marched across on dry land. That was a miracle. God did it by wind, but even the wind wouldn't dry it out that quickly. Also, the Egyptians rode their chariots through the parted sea on dry land, but their wheels fell off. Not just one or two wheels, all of their wheels. So they couldn't drive anymore. So God could gather them all in the middle and then Go back to the natural order. That was a miracle. As a matter of fact, Exodus 14.25 is a bit more specific. It says, He, God, took off their chariot wheels. That was a miracle. They didn't fall off. He took them off. This was a divine invasion of the natural laws, or what we call a miracle. So in some cases, God works directly in creation through miracles. But more often than not, He works indirectly. And we call this providence. God's providence occurs when He uses indirect means to accomplish His ends. More specifically, he uses secondary, ordinary means to accomplish what he wants to accomplish. Now, it's obvious that God's wisdom is responsible for his miracles. God chooses the best way to impress upon man his existence, his power, his anger, his loving kindness, and every other attribute that he possesses. and whatever he wants to communicate to show man that he can do whatever he pleases. That's why God does miracles. He wants to be noticed. In miracles, God wants to break into the mundane and the ordinary and shock man with the unusual and the extraordinary to remind man that he is not alone in the universe, that there is a God. who He will one day be accountable to. In Providence, however, God is much more subtle, much less noticeable. Although creation is screaming out continually the knowledge of God, sinners by nature shut their ears to that screaming. They become numb to the blaring voice of God's creation by their own willful ignoring of it. Even though they are bombarded with God's knowledge every day, they gradually silence it until they are deaf to it. And New Testament calls this a seared conscience. They've cauterized their conscience so that they can't even feel their sin and they can't recognize God. That doesn't mean the creation still isn't screaming. You can scream in a deaf person's ear, he can't hear it. That doesn't mean you're not screaming, right? It's the same way with creation. But in spite of man's rebellion, God still works through his providence to accomplish his will. Just because people aren't listening doesn't mean God's not going to do anything. Paul says, let every man be a liar and God be true. Or God be true and every man a liar. It doesn't matter to God what we do. So this means that he uses non-miraculous means to accomplish his purpose and plans. If man will not respond to the clear evidence of God and what he is like in creation, God's going to use other means. And that's where we come to Romans 8.28. And I don't know if you've thought about this in this way. We're all familiar with it. We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called, according to His purpose, for whom He foreknew. He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom He predestined, those He also called, whom He called, these He also glorified, whom He justified, Whom He justified these, He also glorified." Now, here we see how salvation works for our good. The specific things here that Paul is referring to, the all things that work for our good, are actually stated in verses 29 and 30. First of all, he mentions the predestination of God's people to be conformed into the image of His Son. Don't get election and predestination mixed up. From a biblical standpoint, those are two very different things. We are predestined to become like Christ. We are elect to salvation. Those are two different things. One relates to our justification. The other one relates to our sanctification. That's from a biblical standpoint. The all things here that Paul is referring to is not necessarily unlimited things, although I think you could probably include that, but he's primarily referring to God's foreknowledge in verse 29. His predestination for us to become like Christ, His calling in verse 30, His justification and His glorification in verse 30. Those are the all things that work for our good. And of course, the ultimate good for us is to be saved and be with God forever. These are all God's supernatural works, but you need to get this, that He works out providentially. Is it a supernatural work when someone is born again? Absolutely. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4 that the same power that it took for God to bring light into the world, physical light, is the same power it takes to invade a sinner's heart and give him new life. So, these are supernatural things. When God justified me, when He glorifies me, those are supernatural works. Apart from glorification, all these other aspects of salvation are brought about providentially. God arranges our calling and justification in predetermined times and places, but they appear in ordinary circumstances of life. When God called me by the gospel, which he's talking about here, our calling by the gospel. It wasn't by an audible voice from heaven. That's not how I heard the gospel. I heard the gospel for someone who shared it with me, just in ordinary, everyday life. But that was God's providence to bring that about. Sometimes we can hear the gospel, in a sermon, in an evangelistic outreach setting. We can hear the gospel by reading the Bible, right? We can hear the gospel by reading a good book that really gives us the gospel. Those are all everyday circumstances we find ourselves in where God uses providentially to bring us to Christ. It's the same way with our justification. He justified us the moment we believed in Christ. But from our standpoint, we believed on a certain day at a certain time because the gospel made sense to us and we saw our sin and the trouble we were in with God and we repented and believed in all that Christ had done for sinners. Then after we believed in Christ, we began to grow in Him, in our sanctification. We began to lay aside the sins that controlled us and we began to latch on to what God wanted us to do. But in reality, God was and still is conforming us to the image of His Son. He does that through providence. It's not miraculous. I mean, sometimes we'll say, yeah, it's a miracle that he got saved, or it's a miracle that he's getting sanctified, but that's not really a miracle, not in the biblical sense. When I'm sanctified, God doesn't suspend the natural laws of nature. He doesn't stop the earth for 24 hours. He doesn't take me up to the third heaven. He doesn't have Jesus sit down in front of me and tell me this is what you're going to do and you need to check these things out. It's providential. I read my Bible. I pray. I fellowship with other believers. And I'm sanctified. Slowly but surely. Those are providential. Those things are providential. There's nothing miraculous about reading your Bible. I mean, by a biblical definition. I mean, God doesn't part the Red Sea when I read the Bible, you know. God uses ordinary means. And beyond what I already mentioned, He uses everyday trials, everyday events, everyday encounters to make us more like Christ. That's what He tells us in James 1. Count it all joy because I'm building your faith. I'm making you more like my Son because of the trials I'm putting you through. It's all by His wisdom. God predetermined His decree before the foundation of the world, all the circumstances around us, and all our personal striving and sanctification, and then works these things out in the complex web of life that appears to us to be random, happenstance, or just plain chance, yet it is by His providence that He works them all out through His wisdom and for His glory. Well, the last thing we'll talk about just briefly, and I actually started out, this was going to be the whole message, but I got sidetracked. But fourth, God's wisdom in redemption. And I mean, we could be here for more than one message on this. But I'll just pick out a small part of this. Of all of God's wisdom applied to His creation, His wisdom in redemption exceeds His wisdom in anything else. How can God fellowship with sinners? He came up with a plan. His holiness simply will not allow Him to fellowship with sinners. Habakkuk 1.13 says, God is of purer eyes to behold evil, cannot look upon iniquity. God can't get close to sin. But, in His wisdom, He designed a plan to save sinners. as Paul says, where he can be just on the one hand and the justifier of sinners on the other hand. And like all of God's other plans, this plan of redemption is a perfect plan. People always ask the question, could God have saved man any other way but through the death and resurrection of Christ? Absolutely not. There was no plan B. This was the plan that God designed to bring the most glory to Himself for the best possible end of those whom He saves. You know, God didn't have, you know, eight choices or a hundred choices or infinite choices, you know. This is it. He gave us His best. There wasn't anything else to give. There wasn't any other plan to be worked out whereby He could be just and the justifier of sinners. This is the only plan. On a grander scale, God doesn't just save the individuals, He saves groups of individuals, right? Israel, for example, in the Old Testament, He saved them physically many, many times. But not necessarily all individuals in Israel were saved in the soteriological sense, like we say, to heaven. As a matter of fact, we're told that only a remnant in the Old Testament was saved. But his design in the end is to save all believing and living Israel. That's what we learn from the New Testament, and even from the Old Testament, when they go into the Millennial Kingdom. Everyone will have the name Righteous written across them. In the New Testament, God laid aside His plan to save Israel's nation, which, as I said, He will do in the future. But for now, He is primarily saving Gentiles, like you and I. And He saves us in the church. In Romans 9, I'm sorry, Romans 11. I might have gotten that wrong. It should be Romans 11. Paul describes the plan that God designed. And it goes something like this. Because Israel rejected God's salvation in Christ, God set them aside as a nation in their disobedience and is now saving Gentiles individually in his church. So God laid aside the theocratic nation. He laid aside the millennial kingdom that Christ came to bring Israel. And he started a new plan with the church on Pentecost. Two distinct groups. One was a theocratic nation. The other one is not a theocratic nation. But when he is finished saving his predetermined number of Gentiles, which Paul talks about here in Romans 11, he will again turn to Israel in the end and save the entire nation. So it was not Israel's permanent disobedience that brought about the salvation of Gentiles in the church, only their temporary disobedience. God suspended His program in the Old Testament with Israel. He'll continue it in the future, but in the meantime, in between that is the church age. That's why there's 70 weeks to Daniel. 69 have already been accomplished. The 70th week is yet to happen where God pulls everything together for Israel. And Paul asks this in verse 11, if you look at Romans 11, 11, he's speaking of Israel. He says, I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? In other words, have they stumbled so that they should permanently fall or permanently fall into disobedience where they never return to God? That's the question he's asking here. And he says, certainly not. But through their fall, and you can really stick in there, through their temporary fall, and right now it's been 2,000 years, right? Who knows how long it's going to be before Jesus comes back. But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Now, if their fall is riches for the world and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness? So, if their disobedience brings us, the church, salvation, how much more will their obedience bring? Which is going to be blessings to the world, right, according to the Abrahamic covenant. He says in verse 15, for if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? I mean, when Israel comes to Christ and sees their Messiah, as Zechariah 12.10 talks about, it's going to be like a resurrection. For if the first fruit is holy, and the lump is also holy, and if the root is holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, he's talking about us, the church, we're the wild olive tree, they're the natural one. If the natural branches were broken off and the wild olive tree were grafted in to the natural branch, which is the trunk of God's blessing, and with them become a partaker of the root and the fatness of the olive tree." Don't boast against the branches. We're never to look down on Israel for being disobedient to God. Ever. Don't boast because God set them aside and made you part of the church. Don't boast because He's not saving them right now and He's saving you. Why not? If you boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you. I'm talking about God. You will say then, branches were broken off that I might be grafted in. I should be able to boast. Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off. And you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. Why? The same thing could happen to you. And one day it will happen to the church, right, when the church becomes apostate, and that's when Jesus comes back. The same exact thing is going to happen to the church that happened to Israel. For if God did not spare the natural branches, Israel, He may not spare you either, the church. No reason for boasting. Therefore, consider both the goodness and severity of God. On those who fell, that's Israel, severity, but toward you, goodness, if you continue in his goodness. Don't be like Israel. Otherwise, you also will be cut off just like them. They also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. It's a lot easier to graft a natural branch in than a wild branch. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature or grafted contrary to nature in a good olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree? He's talking about Israel's future salvation as a nation. For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion that hardening in part has happened to Israel, or hardening temporarily has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, until God is done with the Gentiles and all the Gentiles that He predetermined are saved. Then the program is cut off with the Gentiles, just like He cut it off with the Jews. And so at that point, all Israel will be saved as it was prophesied in the Old Testament. The deliverer will come out of Zion and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob for this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. I don't know any human being that could come up with this plan. It's perfect. It's absolutely perfect. And look at how Paul responds in verse 33 to this perfect plan of God. 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. It's all because he applied his knowledge and exercise through wisdom this perfect plan for Israel and the church. God's wisdom and knowledge and the knowledge that fuels that wisdom are beyond human comprehension. All we can do is marvel at it like Paul does. We can't understand it. We can't figure it out. The wisdom of God is unfathomable. I don't know, maybe we ought to meditate on it a little more than we do. Maybe it will draw us closer to Him and give us more comfort when we're going through difficult times, knowing that we have an all-wise God, that everything that happens in our life is absolutely perfect for us in every situation, regardless of how disastrous it looks to us. It's His promise. Thank you, Lord, for this time. No one over again. Didn't look at the clock. Just thank you for my brothers and sisters and their patience and their desire to learn your word. And thank you, Lord, for your wisdom. We haven't even scratched the surface of it. I pray that when we read your word, we will be constantly looking for the wisdom of God in everything that we read. And I pray that it will cause us to have great comfort and joy in Christ. And we just ask these things in His name, amen.