Using a couple of our recent vocabulary words, let me say that … I hope to keep this wonderful subject from hebetation, by asking you to earnestly cerebrate with me about the wisdom of God. In simpler terms, if we will both use our hearts and minds, we should be able to keep this message from becoming dull or obtuse.
You and I are suppose to show symptoms of wisdom. But are we supposed to be wise in sin? Certainly not! Perhaps wise about sin, but not in sin. And “be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.” Earlier in Romans Paul said, “Be not wise in your own conceits,” and “For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.”
In the midst of what the Bible says about human wisdom, how is “God ONLY wise?” As the theology books put it, “Wisdom is a perfection of God, and in him is its utmost perfection.” Jehovah possesses consummate and infinite wisdom. A being possessing less than absolute wisdom cannot be God, therefore there is no God but Jehovah. No less than three times the Bible declares that our Lord is the only wise God. Besides this scripture, Paul makes an even more emphatic statement in I Timothy 1:17 – “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, THE ONLY WISE GOD, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” And Jude reiterates the thought – “To THE ONLY WISE GOD our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.” Incidentally, all of these declarations are made in doxologies – expressions of praise to the Lord.
Now here is the point – You and I have our areas of expertise and relative wisdom. You may be able to look at a sheep, or a tree or one of your children, and immediately know what ails them, but I might not. You might be able to listen to the engine of a car, and know what condition it is in, but I might not. I might be able to give you advice on some matters, but not on financial investing. Each of us eventually gains wisdom in certain areas of life, because of the time that we spend there. We should possess wisdom in some areas, but it would be impossible to extend that very far. On the other hand, Jehovah is, among many other perfections, essentially wise – naturally wise. For us, wisdom comes with time and experience – often negative experience. But only God is wise from within to without – He is wise in essence, not in experience.
Furthermore, the Lord is the fountain of all true wisdom. A lot of what man calls “wisdom” is nothing more than a conditioned response. Is a dog wise, which learns that a certain kind of behavior will bring punishment? Much of our wisdom is of that variety, and that is not necessarily bad. But such wisdom is not the case with the Lord. His wisdom is unlearned – it is underived. Romans 11:33 – “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!”
From where did the wisest man in Biblical history get his wisdom? The Lord came to Solomon at the beginning of his reign and asked him what was important to him. Out of an almost infinite number of possible answers, Solomon asked the Lord for a heart and mind capable of being a good leader for the Lord’s own people. In other words he asked the Lord for sufficient wisdom to be a good king. He didn’t ask for a powerful army, or a wealthy people and healthy economy. He asked for the ability to lead Israel in a fashion that glorified the all-wise God. So that is exactly what Jehovah gave him. “I – I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.” In essence that event has been replicated in every heart where true wisdom has been found. Wisdom is the gift of God, who only is truly wise. “Christ Jesus …of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.”
When was the last time that you thought about the intricacies of chemistry and physics? I think that we are all agreed that the material things of this world are made up of atoms. And from what little I know, atoms are made up of tiny, tiny materials that are hardly material at all. Atoms consist of electrons, neutrons and protons, which appear to be made up of even smaller things. God, in his infinite wisdom has made those electrons, neutrons and protons universal throughout creation. And technically speaking they can be exchanged, replaced and shared with neighboring atoms, forming a variety of other more complex materials.
Being reintroduced to children’s toys after 25 or 30 years, I am surprised the way that toy-designers are making their various products interchangeable and linking them to other products. Of course the idea is that grandparents have to keep buying, and buying, and buying the inter-related parts. The Creator did that in the very beginning but on a much grander – or is it – a smaller and more important scale? If hydrogen couldn’t link up with oxygen, there wouldn’t be water or the possibility of life. If carbon couldn’t unite with hydrogen where would we be? The evolutionist marvels and rejoices, but the Christian marvels and praises the wisdom of God.
Mark Twain once said, “Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” And it is a good thing too, because despite the anomalies, like hurricanes and tornados, God has created a pretty good system. We may grow tired of the rain or snow, depending on which kind of winter He chooses for us, but it’s that rain and snow which feeds our aquifer, and puts some of the best water in the world into our homes. Often in the past, I’ve pointed to the way that ice expands and floats, how water evaporates and then condenses, how it fills just about everything and how important it is. The atheist is delighted, but has no explanation. I have an explanation – it is by design – and not just intelligent design, but by divine design. It has been devised by the wisdom of GOD.
Often, we have talked about the intricacies of the animal world. That funny-looking giraffe with his extremely long neck requires a special heart and blood-flow system that couldn’t evolve in a million years – or even in ten billion years. Jehovah made that creature, just as He did the whale, the walrus and the wren warbler. The human eye, or the eye of any other creature, has so many parts, and they all had to work together perfectly the very first time or the survival of the fittest could never have come into play. The eye, the cardiovascular system, the endocrine system, the renal system, are all a part of the perfect wisdom of God. Artificial intelligence is still a subject for science fiction, but human intelligence is a matter of real science, because created into man the ability to think. Sadly very few of us do much thinking, beginning with many scientists and most politicians. There may be some simple artificial intelligence, but there is no such thing and artificial wisdom. And yet, everywhere we turn in creation we see the wisdom of God.
We see that wisdom in providence as well. We might summarize providence as the way that God has ordained that His creation should work. Despite the evil things in this world, the Lord still manages to make everything reach its proper, God-glorifying, conclusion. I should probably pursue this line, but time doesn’t permit, and there is something more important.
Now, let’s pretend that you were extremely intelligent and about as wise as humanly possible. (If that doesn’t work for you, or it makes you laugh, then picture it in me, which is even more laughable.) Now, as a very smart person, you are given permission to devise a way for human beings to be saved. What would be your plan? Remember that despite your brains, you are still a sinner, just like everyone else. And that is just the reason that you are mulling over this question – you are wise enough to know that you need to be delivered from your sins – you know that you need to be saved. If your name was Bill Wilson, crippled with alcoholism, you in your inebriated wisdom, might come up with the plan of Alcoholic’s Anonymous. I think that we can honestly say that AA has saved a few people from the long-term suicide of alcohol. But that doesn’t even come close to salvation from the sin itself. And then there are all the specialized rehab facilities that attack alcoholism, drug abuse, obesity and so on. There are places like Shick-Shadel treatment centers, which virtually guarantee salvation from addiction. There have been hundreds, if not thousands of other self-help programs and treatment centers, which, to the sinful-mind is a kind of salvation, but they have never dealt with the root of the problem – the sinful adamic nature.
But then, under this commission – given to you by the United States government, or the United Nations , or whomever – you turn education. If we can teach people that, what the religious people call “sin,” is actually physically harmful and dangerous then the average man, even in his limited wisdom, will make some right choices and save himself. If we educate the tribes of central Africa, they will stop killing each other and there will be utopia. If we teach the people of the inner city how to make money on the internet, their neighborhoods will be cleaned up and murder will only be found in the suburbs. When we teach everyone how to raise their own food, they won’t want to steal the other man’s food. “Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him.” How much evidence is there that tobacco is a poison? There is a commercial on television, where a man is spraying bug poison on his flowerbeds. Then toward the end of the 15-second spot, he turns the spray around right into his own mouth. Finally the announcer says, “Or you could just smoke.” How effective has been all the knowledge, all the talk, and all the commercials in stemming the tide of tobacco use? Education is not the salvation that a lot of wise people predicted. It cannot effectively attack the real problem – the real nature of sin. An aspirin cannot cure lung cancer or a brain tumor.
Among a multitude of other suggestions, you finally and reluctantly turn to religion to solve the world’s problems. In dealing with sin, all we have to do is somehow balance the evil with forms of human righteousness. Under your commission and in consultation with the wisest of religious leaders, you come up with other plans of salvation. If we can get the sinners of this world to inject their lives with lots and lots of religious ceremonialism that might do the trick. Let’s get them to baptize their babies, circumcise their little boys, eat holy wafers and drink holy wine. If they genuflect often enough and make the sign of the cross, count beads and say the rosary, their religious foolishness will offset their sins. If they confess their sins to their priests, and pay for enough candles and masses and other religious activities, the guilt that they feel for their sins will be obviated and they will be saved. No! They may feel as if they are saved, but saved from their sins they will not be.
If we filled the room with the smartest, wisest, most prudent and profound people in all the world, they would never have devised the redemption which the all-wise God planned and decreed. And the reason is that every one of them are sinners themselves and limited by the corruption of depravity.
We know that God is absolutely holy, and this is a great complication to the salvation of the sinner. The average lost man doesn’t have the wisdom or knowledge to recognize this fact. How can the Lord maintain his holiness and still be gracious towards us? There are eternal laws which most Christians understand – at least in their elemental form. In order to accomplish salvation, the penalty for sin must be paid – MUST be paid. And the “wages of sin is death” – which I believe is referring to ETERNAL death. But how can the sinner pay that eternal penalty and still live to enjoy his deliverance? He can’t. Ah, here is where the unfathomable wisdom of God is to be seen. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” In God’s plan of redemption, the Lord has maintained His perfect righteousness, while still being able to save those whom He would. “I will hear what God the LORD will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly. Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”
In the wisdom of God, the Second Person of the Trinity was born of a human mother. He took upon him human flesh, but since he had no human father, he was untainted by sin. Legally speaking He could voluntarily take the place of the sinner, suffering his punishment for him. This can be seen in all those thousands of substitutionary sacrifices in the Old Testament. In the wisdom and grace of God, Christ Jesus, chose to bear the sins of those He intended to save. In his own flesh, he bore our sins, not only dying a physical death, but also bearing the reproach and the rejection of the Father because of those sins. The wrath and vengeance of God was poured out upon the Son of God. There was no other way – it had to be – or there could never be salvation. If man had a trillion years of evolution to think about it, he would never have devised such a plan of redemption. The Lord even incorporated Satan’s hatred against God to accomplish His will – it was brilliant! The sinner is given no room whatsoever for boasting and self-glory – it is divinely perfect. “Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel … to God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever.”
Where is the wisdom of man in comparison to this wisdom of God? It is left in the dust. It is left in the dust until looking backward, wisdom can be seen in those people who repent before God and trust what the Lord has accomplished on their behalf. The wisest of human beings, is not the brilliant academic or scientist; it is that person who like a simple child will acknowledge his hopelessness and helplessness in trusting Christ to save his soul. There is true human wisdom – it begins with the fear of the Lord, and it ends in faith in the Lord.
Please listen to this fool as he tries to talk to you about the wisdom of God. Its greatest demonstration is to be seen in God’s salvation of sinful souls. Grasp the wisdom of God – repent before the Lord and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.