From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: We are considering, as most of you will remember, this great doxology which we have at the end of the 11th chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans, in verses 33 to 36. "O 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 counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen."

Now, we started our consideration of this great doxology last Friday night. We see that here the great Apostle stands back at the end of his mighty exposition and display of Christian doctrine, and especially what he has just been saying with regard to God's future purpose with respect to the Jews as a nation. As he contemplates this great plan and purpose and scheme of God, he bursts forth in this magnificent and tremendous doxology.

The first thing that strikes him, as we saw last Friday night, is the depth of all this, the profundity. That is something which we should constantly stress and emphasize. Any preaching of the gospel or any claim to be an exposition of the gospel that doesn't give this impression of depth and of profundity is not a true representation of the gospel. It is always profound. That doesn't mean to say that it's complex or complicated, but there is always this element of depth and profundity in it.

We further saw that the Apostle illustrates this depth in three main respects: first, with regard to the riches, which is God's grace; then the wisdom displayed by God in this plan and purpose of salvation; and finally, the knowledge of God, which guarantees that it covers every conceivable eventuality. Now, I suggested that you can divide this doxology into four main sections, and that was the first section, which emphasizes the depth of it all.

The second section, the one to which we come now tonight and to which we must address ourselves on this occasion, is one that follows of necessity from what we've just been saying. It follows by an inevitable, logical necessity. It is, of course, the utter incomprehensibility of God's way and God's great plan and purpose of salvation. The Apostle puts that in these great words: "how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!"

Now, that's another way, as I'm saying, of representing this category of depth and of profundity. But he elaborates it, you see, by these two words. The first word is the word "unsearchable," which means inscrutable. All your examination will never bring you to a full understanding of it. It's beyond us. It is beyond searching, beyond all our investigations and all our efforts and endeavors truly to grasp it and to comprehend it. Or, if you like, you can say that it is, in terms of the idea of depth, it is unfathomable.

You can go down as far as your measures will take you, but still you haven't plumbed the depth. It is unfathomable. So great, so vast, so deep that it baffles all the efforts of men at searching it out and really being able to say that he's measured it and comprehended it. It can't be done. As the same Apostle puts it in writing to the Ephesians in chapter 3, he says that it "passeth knowledge." He's very fond of saying that. You remember the peace of God that "passeth knowledge" and the love of God in Christ again, "passeth knowledge." Well, it's the same idea that we have in this word "unsearchable."

Then there's this other interesting word, "past finding out." Now, that's an interesting word. It seems, according to the authorities, that this is a word which carries the original meaning of tracing out or tracking out. You know how huntsmen in ancient days used to track out an enemy. They were anxious to catch the enemy or to kill the animal, and what they did was they first of all discovered a track. There'd be the marks or the imprint of the foot of the animal, and there they follow the track. If you only follow that track properly and thoroughly and keep on doing it, it will eventually lead you to the animal that you're anxious to catch or to kill. You track him. It was something which farmers and others in ancient times used to go in for a great deal.

Now, that's the word that the Apostle uses. What he says is that God's ways are untraceable or untrackable. You think you're on the scent or you've got the scent and you're on the track, and you think, "Ah, now then, I've only got to follow this and I'll arrive at the limit. I will have arrived at an end." You never will. You'll end your life, says the Apostle, still going onwards, and the track still goes on and on and on, and it'll go on to all eternity. It'll go on to infinity. God's ways cannot be tracked out. They cannot be traced out. They are so immense and vast that they elude all the efforts and the abilities of men.

Well, now then, here I want to put to you this evening is a most vital and all-important statement with regard to the gospel. This is a great statement of doctrine, and I want to show you that it is of particular importance just at this present time through which you and I are passing. I want to show you that this statement, this important statement, this vital and crucial statement, really does, it seems to me, provide us with the great divide which I believe is dividing the Christian church at the present time and will do so more and more in future months and years.

It is just at this point, I think, we find the great divide between all who are truly evangelical and those who are not. That is the only real division. There are many other divisions, but they seem to me to be comparatively unimportant. The Christian church, as you know, is divided up into many groups and denominations, and they differ about various matters of ceremonial and different points of view about this and that. I am saying that as I see things, at any rate, and as I believe the Bible teaches as I'm going to try to show you, there is only one vital, real division.

It is between those who hold what I'm describing as the evangelical view of salvation and those who don't. I think all the other categories can be subsumed under these two main headings. Now, the point I'm establishing is that in this particular statement, we are given the great divide. Our attitude towards this statement of the great Apostle determines which of the two sides we are on.

Now, let me put it to you like this. The real division today, and in a sense it's always been the case, is not the division with regard to certain details or particulars. That's not the real division. The real division is about this: our whole approach to the gospel, our fundamental view of the essential character of the gospel. Let me illustrate what I mean. There are disagreements amongst people with regard to sacraments, the baptism for instance, who do you baptize, when do you baptize? Differences with regard to the Lord's Supper, many divisions and subdivisions and classifications. Differences on prophetic matters and so on.

Not only that, there are certain divisions about particular statements that men may make with regard to many other aspects of the Christian faith. Now, what matters above everything else, before you come to such details, is your total view of the gospel of salvation. That is the thing which is held before us here because, you see, the Apostle makes this statement. He says not only "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God," but he goes further. He says, "how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!"

Now then, I want to try to show you that that statement of the Apostle's, which is the typical characteristic statement not only of the whole of the New Testament but also the whole of the Old Testament as well, that is precisely the statement that is being not only questioned and queried but actually being denied at the present time. To me, there is nothing more important than this. What is at issue at the moment is the whole nature of Christian salvation.

Now, let me show you what I mean. Let me quote to you first of all to show you how this statement of the Apostle is actually being denied, openly denied. These are words quoted in the Guardian yesterday as having been uttered by the Archbishop of Canterbury the day before, this very week. Here are his words: "The secular world is, for all its estrangement from religion, still a part of God's world. It is for the Christian teacher to be a person of sympathy and sensitivity, not to talk too much but to listen and learn. The way of approach from the Christian to the secular world is the way not of proclamation but of dialogue."

Now, there is a perfectly clear statement. We agree, of course, entirely with the statement that the teacher should be a person of sympathy and of sensitivity. That's quite all right; that carries universal assent. But what about the rest of the statement? Here it is, you see: "It is for the Christian teacher to be a person of sympathy and sensitivity. Not to talk too much, but to listen and learn. The way of approach from the Christian to the secular world is the way," notice, "not of proclamation but of dialogue," which means discussion, allowing the other man to speak, and of course, as he says, to allow him to speak at least as much if not more. The Christian mustn't speak too much; he must listen and he must learn. Dialogue, exchange of views, exchange of opinion.

Now, you will realize, of course, that this is the popular attitude at the present time, which is being given great publicity. There it is stated only this very week. But we are familiar with it as it has been expressed so much in the last few years. The whole idea at the present time, and this is the most popular, prevailing teaching in the Christian church, is that our starting point must always be the man of today, that your whole approach, your whole thinking must be governed by the man of today and by modern knowledge.

What may have been all right in the past, we're told, is no longer all right because we are in this new age, this scientific age. We've got all this knowledge. There are certain things that are quite impossible to the modern man, so you mustn't approach him along those lines. He doesn't believe in the miraculous and the supernatural and so on. Very well, it's no use speaking to him in such terms; he won't have it. In other words, you start by saying, "Now then, look at the modern man, what is his position?" and the whole of your attitude and approach must be governed and controlled by that. Your preaching and your methods, your message and your method, must be governed by that and must be accommodated to that. That's why we are hearing so much of a gospel for the atomic age or for the scientific age and so on.

Now, this is a very, very serious matter because it does seem to me to be saying the exact opposite of what the great Apostle tells us here, which, as I'm going to show you, is typical of the whole of the teaching of the Bible. Nothing can be more serious than this. Here is something that is bound to divide us utterly and absolutely. There is no connection, it seems to me, between these two positions. Therefore, let me put it like this to you. Why do I say that this modern teaching, this modern approach, is a denial of the New Testament teaching? Well, I say so for these reasons. Here's my first. It is, first of all, a blank contradiction of the practice of the Apostles.

What do I mean by the practice of the Apostles? Well, I mean, of course, what you read of in the book of the Acts of the Apostles. There you have this great standard and pattern as to how Christian teachers and preachers have always conducted themselves. You find it immediately on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem when Peter gets up with the eleven and lifts up his voice and says, "Ye men of Judaea, and all that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words."

He didn't suggest a dialogue, a discussion. He's going to address them. He calls upon them to listen. He's going to preach. "And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you," declaring unto you, "the testimony of God." And of course, he reminds them of the same thing in the 15th chapter: "Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, and which also ye received, and wherein ye stand." What you get, in other words, in the whole of the New Testament is the apostolic practice, the apostolic method, and way of proclamation, declaration.

Of course, that has been precisely the same in the great periods of reformation and revival ever since in the long history of the Christian church. Well, there then is my first proof to you that this modern idea is a blank contradiction of the teaching of the New Testament. But it not only contradicts the practice of the Apostles, it contradicts this plain, direct, and unequivocal teaching concerning this very matter.

Look, for instance, at that passage which we read at the beginning out of the first chapter of Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians. What does the Apostle argue there? Well, his argument is this: he says the Jews require a sign, the Greeks seek after wisdom. They want this discussion. So he said, "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" The Jews require a sign, the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach. This is declaration. This is proclamation. "Christ crucified."

Then he goes on to say, and this is absolutely crucial in this matter, "Ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things," etc., "that no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." Now, the whole purpose of that statement is to say that man as he is by nature is incapable of understanding this, and therefore you have to declare it to him.

Then he says exactly the same thing in the second chapter in verse 14: "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." Now, the Apostle wrote this whole section of the First Epistle to the Corinthians to say that you must not bring in this philosophy and argumentation and dialogue and listen to the other side and have a debate and a discussion. He says the thing's impossible because of the condition of the natural man. There's only one thing to do, and that is to preach, to proclaim, to declare unto him the message that has been delivered unto you.

But not only does it contradict the practice and the direct teaching of the Scripture on this point, it also contradicts the indirect teaching of the Scripture at this point. What do I mean? Well, I mean this. Here is typical, characteristic New Testament teaching: Matthew 18, verse 3, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." Could anything be plainer? You've got to be converted, says our Lord. You've got to become as little children. It's the only way of entering into this kingdom. You don't remain as you are. You've got to be converted; you've got to go right back to the beginning. You've got to become as little children.

But all this, of course, is put yet more plainly in the famous incident of the interview between our blessed Lord and Nicodemus, as it is recorded in the third chapter of John's Gospel, particularly from the third verse onwards. Here's this man going to our Lord by night and praising him and saying that he's a teacher come from God, "for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." Our Lord interrupts him and says, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

Can anything be more explicit than that? Here comes this great ruler, you see, and he approaches our Lord more or less as an equal. He praises him, of course, because he admits that our Lord has worked miracles that he hasn't been able to do and that he's obviously a teacher come from God. But he's in a little bit of perplexity, so he wants to discuss this matter with our Lord. Our Lord rejects the discussion. He won't have it. He will not have a dialogue. He breaks across him and he says, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

Then Nicodemus puts his clever questionings, but our Lord keeps on answering, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit."

You see, there's no discussion, there's no dialogue. Our Lord is just telling him. He says, "As you are, you're hopeless. You've got to be born again." Nicodemus can only ask plaintively, "How can these things be?" And the answer he receives is, "Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness." You see, the thing is perfectly plain and clear. This is the doctrine of the absolute necessity of regeneration.

Man as he is by nature, though he be a master and a teacher of Israel, he can't take it. He's got to be born again. He's got to go back to the foundation. He needs a new life. He must have a new principle. As he is, it's hopeless. So the Apostle again puts it in 1 Corinthians 3: "If any man will be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be made wise." Which means this, that if you really want to be wise, he says, you've got to become like a little child. You've got to become a fool. You've got to say you know nothing. Then you'll be made wise. He says that he himself has become a fool for Christ's sake, dismissed by the learned and the philosophical, regarded as a fool. He doesn't mind. He's become a fool for Christ's sake. It is the only way to get this knowledge.

So that this teaching that what you do when you approach the unbeliever is to have a dialogue and a discussion, that you listen to him and learn from him even, instead of proclaiming and declaring to him, it is really a denial of the doctrine of the rebirth, which is the plain teaching of the Scripture. The natural man must be born again before he can possibly receive these things. He is that natural man who doesn't and cannot receive these things because they are spiritually discerned.

Very well, but furthermore, unregenerate man proves that the biblical teaching is right and that this modern teaching is wrong by his very attitude to the gospel when he hears it. What is that? Well, he doesn't understand it. He doesn't know what it's all about. He understands politics; he understands political sermons. He understands morality in a sense, so he can understand moral and ethical appeals, and he approves them and he thinks that that is Christianity. But when he hears a doctrine such as is unfolded in the Epistle to the Romans, he doesn't understand it, as Nicodemus didn't.

And thereby he proves the truth of what the Scripture teaches. The natural man constantly misunderstands God's way of salvation. Now, we've seen that at great length many times over in the Epistle to the Romans. Take the Jews. They completely misunderstood the purpose of the law. Men are still doing the same. They think they can make themselves Christians by keeping a law. That's to misunderstand the whole of God's way and plan of salvation. Man by his misunderstanding constantly reveals that he can't receive it.

And when you come to the other great doctrines that we've been considering together, and how men argue against them and say, "I can't see this," they're really saying that what the Apostle says is true: "how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" The natural, unregenerate man himself gives proof of the truth of the statement. But still further, he doesn't merely fail to understand it. He doesn't only misunderstand it. He goes further; he ridicules it. As the Apostle says, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. And they are still foolishness unto him.

The natural man ridicules this gospel. Listen to men and women speaking about the blood of Christ, and the sarcasm with which they do so. The way in which they ridicule a gospel that says that it is the death of our Lord upon the cross that in particular saves us, and that without that we are lost. They'll rise up in fury against it. And likewise with the doctrine of the rebirth and all these great doctrines that Paul has been unfolding to us in this Epistle to the Romans.

So you see, the natural man by his very objection to the gospel, and especially by the element of ridicule and contempt, is demonstrating what the Apostle says here: that God's judgments are unsearchable and his ways past finding out. But let me come to my fifth, which is the ultimate argument in this matter, it seems to me. No, no, says Paul. It's not a question of having a dialogue or a discussion. The natural man can't teach me anything about these matters. He doesn't know. I've got to tell him. I've got to proclaim to him. I'm a debtor to him.

He says that in the first chapter of this Epistle to the Romans, you remember: "I am a debtor," he says, "both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also." Always preaching, proclamation, declaration. Why is this of necessity true? Well, for this reason: that these matters which we are considering together are not ultimately a matter of the intellect or of knowledge at all, but are entirely a matter and a question of man's relationship to God.

Now, that is the fallacy, of course. All this modern popular teaching starts on the assumption that it's an intellectual matter. So you find out your modern man: what does he know, where is he, what does he believe, what views does he hold? Now then, you've got to make contact; you've got to accommodate to that. It's purely a matter of understanding and of reasoning it out together. Now, the whole of the Bible says it isn't that. What is it then? Well, it is a matter of man's relationship to God. Not a matter of grasping certain ideas or accepting a point of view or a teaching, but a man's total relationship to God.

And the moment you put it like that, you see how what Paul says must be right for this reason. He says, "how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" Why must this be true? Well, because God is God. Because God is infinite. Because God is eternal in all his attributes and powers and propensities. He is from everlasting to everlasting. He is omniscient. He's omnipotent. He's omnipresent. He is light and in him is no darkness at all. God is absolute. He's infinite in every respect. And he is holy and just and righteous and pure.

But man is finite. He's limited. There's a very definite limit to all our knowledge. Even at our best, we are small. We are limited. How little we know! And the more that's being discovered, the more it reveals to us our ignorance and how little we really do know. Man is a very finite creature. He's a small creature. But unfortunately, that isn't the only thing that we have to say about him. He is a sinful creature. He is a perverted creature. He's a creature whose faculties have all been tarnished, have all suffered from the result of the fall, and none of them are working perfectly.

You get that brought out in statements like this: "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." It isn't his mind that makes him say that; it's something deeper. It's the state of his heart. "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." Or as the Apostle has put it for us in this Epistle to the Romans in chapter 8 and verse 7, he says, "The carnal mind is enmity against God: is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Now, that's the whole trouble, you see. Being a Christian is not a question of understanding a certain philosophy. No, no, it's this whole relationship of mine to God. And by nature, I am at enmity against God, not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can I be.

And on top of all that, there is something which is even worse, and that is the power and the activity of the devil. That's what makes this same Apostle say in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians in the fourth chapter, verses 3 and 4: "Listen. If our gospel be hid, it is hid," the gospel is hid to the natural, unregenerate man, the vast majority of the people in this country don't believe the gospel because it is hid to them. "If our gospel be hid, it is hid," he says, "to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them."

Now, that's the trouble with the modern man. It isn't that he lives in mid-20th century. It isn't that he happens to belong to the atomic age. Man by nature has always been in that position. He is sinful. He's got a carnal mind. He hates God. And the devil, the god of this world, hath blinded the minds of them that believe not. Doesn't matter how clever, doesn't matter how able, doesn't matter how philosophical, the devil blinds their minds lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. That, according to the Apostle and according to the whole of the scriptural teaching, is the one and only explanation as to why men and women do not believe.

Therefore, what am I to learn from such a man? Why should I listen to such a man? What does a man who's blinded by the devil got to tell me about these matters? Why should I have a dialogue with him? No, no, I'm sorry for him. The man is blinded. He's ignorant. He knows nothing. I have the knowledge which alone can help him. It's not mine; it's been given to me. It's been revealed to me. And it's my duty to tell him. I'm doing him a disservice by letting him talk. He's not capable of expressing an opinion. He's in the dark. He's dead in trespasses and sins.

That's the whole of the scriptural teaching. But you see, this modern teaching denies it utterly and absolutely. And this is the spectacle by which we are confronted: that the modern church is paying compliments to the unregenerate man and says, "Now we must preach less. We've been speaking too much. We've been declaring too much. We've been proclaiming too much. Now let's sit down and you talk, and I want to listen, and I want to learn from you." My dear friends, I don't hesitate to assert that that is a denial of Christ. Not only do I not learn from the natural, unregenerate man, I don't learn from the Hindu or the Mohammedan or the Confucian or the Buddhist. They have nothing to tell me.

This and this alone is the knowledge, and it is given by God. And it is our business to call upon the natural, unregenerate man to be silent, to listen, to learn. We're to say to him, "Hearken unto me. Whom you ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you." The greatest need in the world tonight is the authoritative proclamation, declaration of this one and only gospel.

You see the importance of this statement: "how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" We mustn't be interested in what the unregenerate man has got to say. He knows nothing. Man at his best can never reach it, can't arrive at it, can't possibly understand it. Indeed, the Apostle, as it were, drives this home with great thoroughness in the next two verses. Let me just read them to you. I hope to deal with them next Friday evening, but here they are, you see. This idea that we've got to listen to the unregenerate man and to learn from him. The Apostle says, "For who hath known the mind of the Lord?" Where is the man who has understood and known the mind of the Lord? "or who hath been his counsellor?" who can add anything to him, who can give him any knowledge or information or any one of his people? There is no one. And to suggest that the unregenerate man has any contribution to make is, as I'm saying, a denial of the very heart and center and foundation of this gospel of salvation.

Very well, let's turn away from that and let's look at what the great Apostle is saying positively. What he asserts, of course, is nothing but simple fact, and it's proof positive of what I've been trying to say. "His judgments," says Paul, "how unsearchable are his judgments." The natural man can't understand them. What are they? Well, his decisions, his thoughts, his plans. The Psalmist had already said it: "Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep." Psalm 36:6. Even they had seen it, and they were only looking at it and seeing it afar off. "Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep."

Who can search this? It's impertinence, it's ignorance, it's arrogance to suggest that anybody can. His judgments, what are they? Well, look at what he allows. How can a man understand God? Look at God, what he allows. He's allowed evil. You and I would never have allowed evil, would we? That's why we argue so much about it. Why has God allowed evil? You say if God is God and God is perfect as you say, well then, why did he ever allow evil to come in? Why didn't he make this perfect world and leave it at that? Why did he ever allow it? But he's done it, you see. You can't understand it, can you? I can't. And I'm not fool enough to try to. I know that his judgments are unsearchable. He decided to allow it. I don't know why. It's a standing mystery and we'll only know the answer when we get to the glory.

And look at the devil. How did God ever allow the devil to come into being and to work as he has worked and to do what he did? Why did he ever allow him to go and tempt Adam and Eve? Why didn't he protect them against him? Those are your questions, the natural man. You don't ask them still, my dear friends, do you? Of course you don't. We know that this is a great mystery. And look at the way God has tolerated the manifestation of evil. Look at the world before the flood and how God allowed it to develop and to fester. Why? I don't know. "How unsearchable are his judgments." He decided it, was his judgment.

And look what he's tolerated and allowed since. Oh, his judgments are unsearchable. Look at the whole plan of salvation. Who would ever have thought of it? In Jesus Christ sending his own son. By faith alone. You and I would never have planned a salvation like that, would we? We would have planned a salvation of good works, good behavior, doing good deeds, and thereby putting ourselves right with God and making ourselves a Christian. God does the exact opposite. How unsearchable are his judgments, his decisions. By faith alone.

And then the mighty doctrine of election. The whole world is not to be saved. There are the elect and the lost. Why? The natural man says, "Why?" The answer of Paul is: "How unsearchable are his judgments!" What amazes me is that he ever decided to save anybody. None of us deserved it. We were none of us righteous, no, not one. And if you feel like arguing, the Apostle's already answered you in chapter 9: "Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God?" How unsearchable are his judgments!

And then take another aspect of his judgments. Look at the people he does choose. Fancy choosing the Jews. But they were the people he chose. They are his chosen people, the Jews. How unsearchable are his judgments. Fancy choosing Jacob rather than Esau. There was no comparison between them as nice fellows and decent men. Esau, open man, huntsman, man enjoying a free life, and the other schemer staying at home, always at his mother's apron strings, Jacob. Yet he's the one that God has loved and has chosen and not your fine fellow Esau. O how unsearchable are his judgments.

And then you come to the New Testament and the Apostle puts it all before us. God acts in a way that nobody can understand. "Ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called." You would have thought and I would have thought by nature that the first people to be saved would be the great philosophers and the Roman government authorities. They were not. The people who were saved were the offscourings of society in seaports like Corinth and other places. "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty." Do you understand that sort of thing? Are you mad enough to try to? No, no, there's only one thing to say: "how unsearchable are his judgments!"

And look at a man like this Saul of Tarsus. Who would have ever thought that he would have been a Christian? And not only a Christian but an apostle and the greatest of them. The thing is madness, the thing's impossible. It's the sort of thing God does. That's one of his judgments, his decisions. Oh, how unsearchable they are.

And as regards his ways, says the Apostle, they are past finding out. What's the difference between judgments and ways? Well, it's the difference between decisions and methods. Ways means plans or methods or dealings or, if you like, paths. And what he says about them is that they're untraceable and untrackable. Job has already said it: "I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause: Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number." And Isaiah in his day and generation looking at the ways of God says, "Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour." He says, "You know, I've given up trying to understand you. I thought it was going to be hopeless. You're a God who makes streams in the deserts, you turn the mountains into plains and you exalt the plains into mountains. Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour." His ways are past finding out.

Have you ever considered the ways of God? He doesn't always act in a direct manner, does he? He sometimes acts indirectly. He seems to be doing the opposite of what we'd expect. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." He seems to deal very hardly with his chosen children and gives a very good time to those who are not. His ways are past finding out. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth."

Watch the way in which he allows evil apparently to triumph. Oh, how many times has he done this? The Apostle has used the case of Pharaoh in chapter 9. The poor children of Israel, taskmasters, whips, bricks without straw, everything shutting in upon them. And then they seem to have a way of escape, and on they go, but suddenly they're in front of the Red Sea. Pi-hahiroth, Baal-zephon, there they are, absolutely shut in: Red Sea, mountain, mountain, hosts of Pharaoh. They're finished. Not at all. But God allows it to develop until it seems completely hopeless. And then suddenly and unexpectedly, he tells Moses to turn to the children of Israel and say, "Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward," and the sea opens. His ways are past finding out.

A man who tries to understand the ways of God is a man who'd better discover whether he really does believe in God or not. The very fact that you're trying to shows there's something radically wrong with you somewhere. You see, you can't understand him. God sometimes uses his enemies. It was God who raised up the Chaldeans to destroy Israel and to take them to the captivity of Babylon. It was God who did it. He raises a pagan nation to destroy his own people temporarily. He uses a man like Cyrus, "I have called him, surnamed him." You can't understand. The children of Israel couldn't understand and because they kept on trying to, they got into trouble. Oh, that they'd come to see as Job saw at the end, as this great Apostle sees from the very beginning. His ways are past finding out.

And we've already seen in this chapter he uses unbelief. He used the unbelief of the Jews to bring in the Gentiles. He's going to use the Gentiles again to bring in the Jews. The whole chapter has been devoted to this great theme. His ways are indeed past finding out. It's not surprising the Apostle says this at this particular point.

And then look at his patience and what we regard as his delays. The answer is, of course, that with God a thousand years are as one day and one day is as a thousand years. You can't understand him. The whole Bible is a book of romance and of mystery. Take the case, the whole story of Gideon. You remember what happened: the Midianites come up and attack, and Gideon has an army of 32,000 men. And you and I would have said, "Now very well, let's get our strategy and our tactics in order." But God doesn't. He says, "Look here, get rid of those men." He reduced 32,000 to 300 against the hosts of Midian. And how were the 300 to fight? Well, you remember, it was a trumpet in one hand and the pitcher with a lantern in it in the other. And they were to smash the pitcher and show the light and blow the trumpet, and they conquered.

"He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh," says the Psalmist. I believe he does, and especially at our foolish questionings and at our attempts to try to understand his ways. My dear friend, the ways of God are past finding out.

You see it supremely, of course, in the case of our Lord. Having planned in his judgment this way of salvation, he sends his son into the world. How would you have sent the son of God into the world? You'd have sent him to Buckingham Palace, wouldn't you? Or some other palace. But he wasn't sent to such a place. He was sent to a stable. You would have sent him to a place of wealth and of affluence. He was born in abject poverty in the most lowly manner conceivable. You would have sent him to study in the greatest schools of rhetoric and of philosophy. He was a carpenter and had no learning. And you would have arranged that he should save the world by uttering some great statement, some liberating word. He didn't. He saved the world by dying in utter weakness upon a cross. His ways are past finding out.

And then when the son of God goes back to heaven in the glory, who's going to carry on his cause? Well, now then, surely at this point you must call in the philosophers and you must call in the best men that Rome can provide. No, no. Ignorant and unlearned men. Fishermen. The most ordinary men conceivable. And how is this message to be made known, how is this great salvation achieved by the son of God on Calvary and in the resurrection and ascension, how is this to be made known unto the world? Well, now at surely at this point you must call in these great philosophers. No, no. Let there be a dialogue at any rate, let there be a discussion, give and take, listen and learn, share, exchange of views. No, no. The foolishness of preaching. When the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching, which means not only the foolishness of the thing preached but even the very method. Preaching, proclaiming, declaring these ignorant and unlearned men, and yet they turned the world upside down.

You see, the moment you come to look at God's judgments and God's ways, you come to this only and inevitable conclusion: that his judgments are unsearchable and his ways past finding out. Let me end on this note. Why should we rejoice in this? Why should we reject this modern accommodation of the gospel to the modern man and listen to him and learn from him instead of proclaiming to him? Why must we reject this? Why ought we to rejoice in the fact that the gospel is as it is and not as we're being told today? Well, here's my answer. Because the gospel is God's power unto salvation and not man's. Because it is God's whose judgments are unsearchable and whose ways are past finding out. There's hope for all of us.

There wouldn't be hope for many of us, you know, if the philosophers had their way. It would be a salvation for just a handful of philosophers, and the vast majority of us would be without outside and without any hope. Thank God the gospel is entirely unlike everything that man has ever thought of. It's something that man can't understand, he can't receive, he can't grasp, he can't trace nor track it out. It turns him upside down, it shocks him, it amazes him. Thank God for it! It is because it is like that it holds out a hope for everybody.

You can take this gospel, you see, to the heart of Africa. You can take it to the Congo. You don't ask for a dialogue in the Congo, do you? The poor man brought up there, he's unable to have a dialogue with you. But you know, that poor man is in exactly the same position as your great philosopher in London or your great scientist wherever he may happen to live. In exactly the same position. God knows that; we don't. Thank God God does know! And what you do to the Congo, for the men in the Congo, is what you do to your philosophers in Oxford and Cambridge. You address them, you proclaim to them, you declare to them, whether they will hear or whether they will not hear.

Here is the only hope for all kinds and conditions of men. Here is a hope for all. Oh, I want to test you, my friends. I don't ask you merely to accept what the Apostle says. I'm going to ask you something much deeper. Do you rejoice in what he says? Do you with him burst out into acclamation and praise as you realize that God's ways are past finding out and that his judgments are unsearchable? Are you moved by it, do you rejoice in it? I'll tell you why you ought to be. I rejoice in it for this reason.

It is the only explanation of my being what I am. It's the only way I understand why I'm in this pulpit, and I'm amazed at it. And if all of us are not amazed at our being what we are, I don't think we are truly Christian. The Apostle never got over this. He says he called me and set me into the ministry, who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and an injurious person. He never got over this, that God had called him. You don't understand it, he says; I don't understand it. Thank God I don't. It's because I don't understand it that it's happened to me. It isn't as I would have worked things; it's as God has done.

And so, you see, all who truly understand this rejoice in saying with Charles Wesley, "And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour's blood? Died he for me, who caused his pain? For me, who him to death pursued? Amazing love! how can it be, That thou, my God, shouldst die for me?" You see, the Apostle, knowing that the judgments of God are unsearchable and his ways past finding out, feels that he must speak like that or like the men whose hymn we sang just now, "Jesus, what didst thou find in me, that thou hast dealt so lovingly? How great the joy that thou hast brought, so far exceeding hope or thought."

And Samuel Davies brings in his note, "Great God of wonders! all thy ways Are God-like, matchless and divine; But the fair glories of thy grace More God-like and unrivalled shine: Who is a pardoning God like thee? Or who has grace so rich and free?" That's why we should rejoice in it, my friends. And lastly, we should rejoice in it because it is the only thing that guarantees our ultimate glorification in spite of everything that may happen to us. And the world and the flesh and the devil and modern man and science and knowledge, they're all against us and would rob us of the glory that awaits us. But they cannot. Why not? Well, because it's God's way, not ours. We think the end of the church is coming. People say that. I read another article this week which says that the church is obviously finished. There's no point in having the church any longer. People can read now, so you don't need a Christian church. All this is said in the name of Christianity.

And you see, if it were our way, it would have finished, collapsed long ago and none of us would be finally saved. But when I look at it all, this is what I say. I am amazed at God's tolerance of it all, but I've given up trying to understand. God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. Listen to this, listen to William Cowper stating it: "Deep in unfathomable mines Of never-failing skill, He treasures up his bright designs, And works his sovereign will. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust him for his grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face." On he goes, "His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour; The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet shall be the flower. Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain; God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain."

Men can't interpret him. "Who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?" What has your unbeliever to say? Why should I listen to him? He can't. God is his own interpreter, and here is the inspired interpretation: God is his own interpreter, and he will make it plain. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!"