Psalms 33:11

The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever.

The immutability of God’s counsels

Let us make some remarks.

I. upon the divine counsels generally. There are such, and they show--

1. That God concerns Himself with our world.

2. They are of deliberation and wise purpose. Of the works of God in the material world we may indeed say, “In wisdom hast Thou made them all.” How vast and orderly is the frame of the world! But in Nature, wonderful as are these operations, there is nothing to resist, to repel, to dispute. All are His servants, and every thing fulfils His word. He saith to one, Go, and it goeth; to another, Come, and it cometh. But in His moral kingdom we see a world in rebellion. There is not a principle naturally in our hearts, but it is a rebel principle also. Every affection, every will, is ready to start up in defiance, wrestling with His authority, and pursuing a course contrary to His commands. If His government were one of rigid justice only, there would be no difficulty here. But judgment is “His strange work,” and mercy the delight of His administration. The counsel, in this case, is to make good triumph over evil, and evil itself the occasion of good. How adorable is that wisdom which, influenced by goodness, wins back a rebellious heart to love and obedience without violence to its freedom! which makes our very “wickedness to correct us, and our backslidings to reprove us!” and which, finally, although by the mysterious permission of evil, sin hath abounded, yet makes grace much more abound; so that, “as sin hath reigned unto death, even so doth grace reign, through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord!” Well may we say, with St. Paul, when one branch of this great subject was before him, “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!”

3. They are supreme and uncontrollable. This it is which gives to good men so entire and joyful a confidence: “There is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord.”

II. But our text calls us to consider the stability of the divine counsels. “They shall stand for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.” We may illustrate this--

1. By ancient instances of the fulfilment of delayed purposes. See the birth of Isaac, long promised, given at last. The promised seed of the woman--how long before that appeared.

2. The steadfastness of His holy law. He never swerves from it. Go to the right hand or to the left, and you fall not only into a sin, but into a peril or a misery. Other maxims deceive: His never.

3. The constant connection of painful fear and misery with sin.

4. The established order of human salvation. I see man in all ages a sinner and miserable. But there is hope for him. He was forgiven, and assured, and became both a justified and a holy man. Ages have since elapsed, but every pardoned and accepted sinner has been saved in the same way. (R. Watson.)

The counsel of the Lord

I. How blessed is it to have a personal revelation of God in the character of his son. His majesty and mercy are revealed in Christ, tested in honour and ignominy, in power and in pain. There is uniformity and radiance, a joy and rest to man in this revelation of God’s character and counsel.

II. No knowledge is so important and so practical as that of God’s plan. None so personally, universally and eternally affects us. In this plan happiness is made to correspond with piety, sorrow with sin, and the plan works with certainty; inexorable, yet simple. The force that binds the moon to the earth and the earth to Sirius is simple but sure. So in the sweep of the ages, God’s truth standeth for ever and the thoughts of His heart to all generations. Eternity itself shall emphasize and illustrate it.

III. in the development of this plan we may expect surprises to us. The plan is eternal. We are of yesterday. You admire mosaic painting for the beauty of its tint, the free, flowing majesty and grace, the delicacy and beauty of its delineations. But should a child in the artist’s studio take up a bit of ruby, turquoise, agate or pearl, and ask you what its relation was to the scene depicted--the Crucifixion or Resurrection perhaps--it might not be easy for you to explain its use, or mark its place till the master’s work was complete. When Jerusalem was razed, the early Christians were surprised and alarmed. But that event led to the spread of the Gospel, just as the Jewish act of homicide end decide instrumentally led to man’s salvation. So each event in God’s plan has its place as each capital and gargoyle has its fitting location in the cathedral. (R. H. Storrs.)

The thoughts of His heart to all generations.--

Divine thoughts

God thinks of us, and He intends that we in return should think of Him. And for us to do this rightly is true religion. What condescension and kindness are shown in God’s thinking of us. “I know the thoughts that I have toward you that they are good and not evil.”

I. the nature of God’s thoughts. All existence is the embodiment of God’s thought, but it is only as He reveals His thoughts to us that we can form any conception of them. And He has done this. The Bible is the unfolding of God’s thoughts to us as they bear on our recovery from bondage and sin. And every one desires to know what are God’s thoughts upon our sin. The sense of guilt is universal. Now God tells us that His thoughts are set on our salvation. None but He could have introduced a plan of restoration like that which the Gospel brings. And His thought includes our regeneration and renewal as well as our forgiveness. For they include the promise of the Holy Ghost. How precious, then, are God’s thoughts unto us.

II. the permanence of God’s covenant. It “standeth for ever.” (John Glanville.)

God’s thoughts

I. God has thoughts.

1. Independent--in their origin, character, manifestation.

2. Complete: they grasp the whole of a thing, and the whole of all things.

3. Unsuccessive: one thought does not start another, as in our ease.

4. Harmonious.

II. God has thoughts for humanity. Three things are necessary before humanity can get any benefit from his thoughts--

1. God must reveal them. Unless He express them we shall never know them.

2. There must be a capacity to appreciate them. Without this capacity the revelation is useless.

3. There must be meditation. We cannot reach the great thoughts of a great man without study; how, then, can we expect to attain the thoughts of God without it?

III. God’s thoughts for humanity are permanent.

1. Because they embody absolute truths. They will always be what they are; they never can change.

2. Because they will ever be congruous with the moral nature. They are to the moral nature what air and water are to the body, fitted for it, and necessary to it, Without them it will die. (Homilist.)