Romans 11: 33-36
Reactions to God's Sovereignty

I. .NOW LET ME GIVE YOU A SHORT BIBLE LESSON IN WHAT THESE CHAPTERS OF THE BIBLE ARE ABOUT. 

1. Once a Bible teacher, who had the irritating habit of "alliterizing" everything, was announcing his outline of Romans in a series of "shon" words.  Degradation: chapters 1-3; Justification: chapters 3-4; Sanctification: chapters 6-8; and then he jumped to chapter 12 with "Application."  Someone interrupted him in this flurry of "shons' with the objection: "You missed a section; What about chapters 9-11?"  His answer was: "Well, that's the Jewish nation."  Now, that may be outrageous alliteration but it is good analysis.  For, these three chapters deal respectively with Israel's past, present (i.e., "present" when Paul was writing), and future. 

2. Chapter 9 says that God called Israel by sovereign grace.  Israel had nothing to do with it. Verse 15: "I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."  God said to Abraham - chapter 9, v.7: "Through Isaac shall your descendants be named," it says.  The context is not God asking Abraham for his permission but was a divine decree. 

3. In chapter 10, where he deals with Israel's present rejection of the gospel -- i.e. present with reference to Paul's lifetime -- he asks the question: "Why did Israel miss the gospel and the Gentiles discover it?"  Partly, he says, it was in the plan of God, so as to bring the gospel to the Gentiles.  But at the same time, the reason was not just in God's sovereign decree, but in Israel's hardness against faith and the righteousness of God.  They sought after their own self righteousness, and in so doing, missed God's righteousness, i.e., the personal righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is imputed (or "charged") to everyone who has faith. 

4. But what about God's ancient promises to Israel?  Chapter 11 gives two senses in which God did not entirely reject Israel.  First, were the Jewish people who did accept the gospel at the outset of Christianity and all through the following two millennia. Some of the finest Christians in history have been Christians of Jewish stock.  In v.5 they are called "a remnant chosen by grace."  Then, he says, there will come a day when Israel will turn to the Lord en mass, at a time yet future to where we are now. V.26 says: "And so, all Israel will be saved."

II. NOW WITH THAT LITTLE BIBLE LESSON IN MIND LET ME SPEAK ABOUT MY MAIN POINT, THAT IS, PAUL'S REACTION TO THIS AGENDA OF GOD. 

1. Let me read again "vv.33-36."  Many modern Christians with a near, terminal case of 18th century enlightenment and complications of the infectious disease of German rationalism have responded to these kinds of revealed truth by simply redefining God.  "I like to think of God," as they frequently say, "as a celestial grandfather (or grandmother), as the person's p.c. loyalties might incline him."  "I like to think of God as a celestial version of my aunt Suzie or my uncle Bill," they might say.  They used to think of him in terms of Michelangelo's bearded senior citizen who is immovably fixed in a flying position on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  Nowadays he is more like Robert Schuler than like the great Creator of The Universe, in the minds of such people. 

But Paul's reaction is considerably different.  It is one of wonder, of appreciation, of humility and of the divine centrality in all things! 

2. It is, first of all, a sense of wonder that he expresses.  Paul is simply amazed at the complexity of the sovereignty of God. Look at "v.33."

And therein is a good lesson for us.  How can God so work things out that you can have the sense of freedom and choice and still be assured that God accomplishes his purposes?  It is because he is, as it says in the Westminster Shorter Catechism: "infinite in his wisdom and knowledge."  "How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways "v.33 says. 

And observe how God reached out to you through the seeming random events of your life and brought you to himself.  And since then, he has been marvelously "working all things together for good to (you) who loves God and are the called according to his purpose."  And marvel as you begin to understand: "O the depth of the riches of both the wisdom and the knowledge of God!" 

3. And Paul also reacts with an expression of appreciation.  This sovereign activity of God in history (and, thankfully, also in our own lives) was not an embarrassment to Paul; It was wonderful news.  Notice in v. 32: "Oh the depth of the RICHES of both the wisdom and knowledge of God"

It is a rich truth to you, also, my Christian friend!  God is able to keep his promises to you and to all of his people because of his sovereignty over all things! 

The next time you worry that some mini-monster in one of the Islamic dictatorships or theocracies -- or that nut case who is the dictator of North Korea is going to wipe everybody off the face of the earth by starting a war with one of their surplus atomic bombs, or when you worry that we will all be burned to death through ozone-layer depletion, or that the Clarke County Commission is going to tax and regulate us into oblivion, rejoice that God is King!  God is Governor!  God is Preserver!  And he is fully able to care for you, his child, and to keep his promises, which he has graciously made to you.  This is a great mine of gold that runs very deep: "O the depth of the RICHES of both the wisdom and the knowledge of God!" 

4. But Paul's reaction is also an affirmation of OUR smallness and unfitness to judge or to criticize God.  It is indeed important and useful to struggle with intellectual problems you might have with the way things are, and to try to make all of your belief system harmonious in every part, but always remember we can't get outside of our earthbound, finite, shortsighted selves. "v.34-35" 

Of course, on the surface, these things seem like truisms.  No one ought to talk back to God or expect that God owes him something.  No one is smarter than God.  But in our generation there are people who are, in effect, doing all of these things with reference to God.

Please be careful in this!  We are strongly influenced by our own generation and it is so easy for us to be like them in this: a sense of casualness and flippancy and even arrogance about God.  His name and his titles are blasphemed.  He is dragged about in interminable exhaust fumes on people's back car-bumpers.  He repeatedly becomes a political prop in the presidential campaigns and he is dragged into all sorts of political and patriotic situations. 

Cultivate a sense of awe and reverence in the presence of the Almighty.  We are his creatures, not his colleagues: We who have accepted the gospel have been brought nigh by the imputation of our sins to the Savior and our dear Savior's righteousness to us.  It is a matter of unspeakable mercy that we may even speak his name, not to say, also, the inestimable privilege to come into his very presence.  Let us remember who He is, and who we are. 

5. Finally, Paul's attitude is an affirmation of the centrality of God in all things. 

Again, we realize that we live in a generation that puts itself in the center of all things and makes God merely an accessory to that fact, if indeed they deign to even recognize his existence.  There is a church with a lighted message-sign like you find on loan offices and porno shops, less than a mile from here.  And its message is astounding: I stopped my bike and wrote it down because it was so classically wrong: "Our God is the best, he passes all our tests."  That church needs a few dozen sermons on v.36 here.  I was not aware that it was our prerogative to give God tests and give him a satisfactory or unsatisfactory grade, but apparently they think that it is. 

Think of the vastness of the universe, almost immeasurable in extent -- indeed -- perhaps only measurable by God himself!  The number of stars and planets and moons appears to be almost countless and perhaps could only be counted by God himself.  A recent computer program estimated the probable number of stars, planets and moons in the universe.  And the amount is almost uncountable and certainly not comprehensible.  Its likely longevity is equally breathtaking though mortals throw around millions and billions of years as if they were some kind of experts in conceiving of and measuring such periods of time. 

We -- and the whole of our race --are only a tiny speck measured in terms of time or of space.  We are nothing.  And God is everything.  And it is not because of what we are, but that God has reached out to us, that we have become cosmicly and eternally significant.  And God, who alone makes things significant, is here in our lives and here in the Person of the Holy Spirit this morning to minister to us.  It is a matter of great grace in which God loans importance to our lives and souls for as "v.36" says: "For from him, and through him and to him are all things.  To him be the glory forever, Amen"

Take this when you plan out your life and go with God!  It is He who gives your life significance. 

Take this in your pain and disappointment!  Try to rise above your mundane hurts and failures and disappointments for "from him and through him and to him are all things.  To whom be the glory for ever, Amen." (v.36). 

Jean Massillon was the godly chaplain of Louis XIV to whom Louis complained, "I have been pleased with my court preachers but when I hear you it makes me dissatisfied with myself." 

He did not get called upon to preach very often.  But in 1715 Louis, the greatest King in Europe and, arguably, the greatest king of a dozen centuries or more in Europe, died.  And Massillon was called upon to deliver the funeral oration.  All the crowned heads of Europe were there in all their finery with all their symbols of power.  Joining them were the high nobility from all the western kingdoms, the rich, the famous, and most of the high clergy of Europe, packing that magnificent church of St. Denis.  Rarely had there been such an assembly of the world's greats. 

Massillon ascended the pulpit and with great emotion.  And as he looked out over that amazing multitude of the rich, powerful and famous, he began with the words: "In the hour of death, only God is great." 

It was a lesson they needed to hear and it is a lesson we need to hear and remember in all of our consideration of creation and its peoples; in all of our thoughts about life and success; in all of our understanding of sin, salvation and eternity.  Only God is great!  And he has mercifully reached out to us, and has given us status by his doing so. 

He has made us fit for his presence in eternity to come, through the saving work of our dear Savior!