Have you ever found yourself reading Paul's letter to the Romans, scratching your head in confusion?
Well, by definition, some of God's thoughts are much higher than our own. When the Apostle Paul reached the theological peaks of Romans chapter 11, He found himself like a mountain climber standing at the summit of Mount Everest. Words simply couldn't capture what he witnessed. Today, on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindahl points to three magnificent descriptors in this passage. They're reserved exclusively for the infinite God who defies human measurement.
Chuck titled today's message Unsearchable, unfathomable, and unmatched. One of the magnificent. scriptures in all the Bible Is now laid out before us in these last few verses of Romans chapter 11. We're reading from the inspired word of God. Romans 11 verse 30.
For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient. That because of the mercy shown to you, they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience.
so that he may show mercy. to all. O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became his counselor? Or who has first given to him that it might be paid back to him again?
For from him. And Through him. And to him. or all things. To him be the glory forever.
And all God's people said. Amen. You're listening to Insight for Living. To dig deeper into the book of Romans on your own, be sure to purchase our Searching the Scriptures Bible Study Workbook. by going to insight.org slash offer.
Chuck titled today's message Unsearchable, Unfathomable, and Unmatched. It was Socrates who said on one occasion, when realizing he could not put the truths into words. Words are stupid things. At times we realize that more than others. It always occurs when we come to that place in life when we cannot describe in human vocabulary.
With sufficient superlatives what it is we're trying to communicate. The Himalayan mountain peaks range four and a half to five and a half miles. above sea level. They have been the climber's dreams since the beginning of the whole thought of climbing, though no one attempted to scale the peaks until. 1920.
And between 1920 And 1953. Eleven expeditions were attempted. The first ten were failures. One of them was attempted by two men, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine. They were last sighted at 28,200 feet.
still a thousand feet below. the peak of Everest. And they never returned. They were lost forever. It was twenty-nine years later before.
Finally, Sir Edmund Hilary, and his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norge, took on that task. On the 29th of May 1953, For the first time in all of time, a human boot. was felt at the peak. of Everest. 29,000.
28 feet above sea level. The freezing wind-beaten peak of Mount Everest. felt its first human foot. And unlike the one who stepped on the moon. Edmund Hillary to my knowledge, never recorded.
what he saw. He told of the climb, but I've never read in all my research. The words he used to describe what he saw. and what he felt. I would say the reason is Because words are stupid things.
When trying to describe The panoramic peaks of the Himalayas. Perhaps only one could really identify with him. 1900 years earlier the Apostle Paul sitting in the city of ancient Corinth. with stylus in hand, Writing his magnum opus to believers in Rome. Came to the place where he again found himself.
Well Like the Psalmist Feeling it is high, I cannot attain to it. How can I put into words the truths? of what God has revealed to me. As he walked the Himalayan heights of theology, we have felt the winds of ice-like.
sovereignty of God kniving their way through us. We have also seen the peaks of human responsibility and the remarkable plan of God's grace in setting aside the Jew, albeit temporarily, while allowing the Gentiles, like most of us. into his family by his grace. Paul has been building toward this point, this peak. And when he comes to it.
Mm. It's as if he has run shy of superlatives. What words do you use to describe the mountain peaks of God's greatness? You're shut up to words like unsearchable and. and unfathomable and Unmatched.
Unfortunately, those words are used. They're overused in our day. When the little Dodson A sports card came out. All the ads read Awesome.
Now I have looked at the old Dodson sport car. I've never seen a thing awesome about it. Doesn't even have the same name today. No car is awesome. That's a word reserved for only God.
Be careful about awesome. Everything is now awesome movie, awesome music. Awesome person, no? Only God. Unfathomable, no.
Only God. No truth you've learned, no invention you've studied. No person you've met. is unfathomable. Oh my god.
That's as it should be.
Now we are inserted into the picture of all things, we of all people. Because of God's unsearchable mercy.
Now I've left out a section of Romans 11 deliberately because in good Pauline fashion he says the same thing again and again in different ways. And I think you've gotten it by now. I think you understand that the Jew has temporarily been set aside, put under discipline, if you will. And it's true, a few in the remnant have come to Christ. A few have been converted to Christ, and some of you are among us.
And some of those who have come to Christ we know personally, most of them we don't. But it's a remnant. Which is the word Paul uses when he describes those few. But during this period of time, God, by His mercy and grace, has allowed Gentiles to be grafted into the vine. And he describes that in the section we're leaving out.
We come to the climax of it at verse 30. Down through verse 32, the unsearchable mercy of God is highlighted. Before we read the word four times in three verses, Where we're shown mercy, we're shown mercy, mercy is shown us, we're shown mercy. Let's understand what mercy is. The theologian A.W.
Pink gave it this description. The ready inclination of God to relieve the misery of fallen humanity. Once again. Mercy is the ready inclination of God to relieve the misery of fallen humanity. That's all of us.
as we'll see when we get to verse 32. How grateful we are for the mercy of God. Remember Ephesians 2? We were dead in trespasses and sins. We were engaged in transgressions that at times were downright filthy, wicked to the core.
And God in His great mercy came to our rescue and relieved us from the consequences or the misery of our lifestyle. by delivering to us his Son, Jesus Christ. Who came to live inside us? That's called the mercy of God, His inclination, His ready inclination to relieve our misery. Look at the mercy of the Gentiles in verse 30.
Just as you. It's plural. Y'all. Paul was from the southern part of Turkey, just as y'all once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience. What's he saying?
The Jews, in their disobedience, finally God said, that's enough. You reject the Messiah, I have said. I will turn to the Gentiles. And God used Paul to reach the Gentiles. Our forefathers in Europe.
heard the gospel of Christ. We have no Abraham to point back to like the Jews. But the Jews in their disobedience turned from the Messiah, and the Lord said, Then I will turn to the Gentiles. And by his mercy, we heard. We received the gift of eternal life.
We were shown mercy because of their disobedience. But Paul doesn't leave the Jew out. He can't. He is one. He won't let us forget.
Verse 31 reminds us.
So these also now, meaning the Jews now. Have been disobedient that because of the mercy shown to y'all. They also may now be shown mercy. We saw that last time. Our lifestyle is to be lived in such a contagious way that the Jew who is lost witnesses what Christ can do in a life and will realize out of envy and jealousy what he or she is missing and will turn to Christ.
We are testimonies of that around us. All around us, how grateful we are. But God, in mercy, has not forgotten the Jew either. Verse 32 says there's mercy to all. Talk about unsearchable.
God has shut up all in disobedience so that he may show mercy. To wall. The next time you're tempted toward arrogance. The next time pride gets a foothold in your life, Remember verse 32. God's mercy has been shown to all of us.
I've left out words that we weren't allowed to say when we were little kids. Shut up. See verse 32. God has shut up. It's the word that means to enclose together.
The Greek term is a combination of two words to enclose. Together, it's the idea of a fish caught in a net. was said to be shut up in the net. An animal caught in a trap was shut up in the trap. In this case, Our prison is depravity.
Wesley realized it when he wrote, Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night. Thine eye diffused the quickening ray. I rose. Listen to these words. My dungeon.
Flamed with light, my chains fell off, my heart was free. I rose, went forth. And followed thee. What's he describing? Being shut up in depravity, called in his language.
of that grand hymn, And Can It Be a Dungeon. We have all been in the dungeon of sin. We are all depraved. Mentors used to say, if depravity were blue, we'd be blue all over. Isn't that good?
We're all Blue with depravity. How do we get free of it? How do we get out of the trap? How do we get released from the net? Mercy.
God's ready inclination. to relieve the misery. of our dungeon. James Montgomery Boyce has written a four-volume work on the letter to the Romans. In that third volume, he writes this about mercy.
Listen carefully. Picture the Ark of the Covenant in your mind. It was a wooden box about a yard long. Covered with gold and containing the stone tablets of the Law of Moses. The lid of this box was the Mercy seat.
Constructed of pure gold. with images of cherubim or angels on each end. Their wings spread backward and upward. Almost meeting over the center of the ark of God. I take it they were.
with their backs toward it. and their wings spread. Above it.
Now with that in mind Their wings went backward and upward, meeting over the center of the ark. God was imagined to dwell symbolically between those outstretched wings. As it stands, it is a picture of judgment. For what does God see as he looks down from between the wings of the cherubim? He sees the law that we have all broken.
He sees that he must judge sin. But here is where the mercy seat comes in and why it is called the mercy. Seat. Upon that covering of the ark once a year on the day of atonement. The high priest sprinkled the blood of an animal that had been killed just moments before in the courtyard of the temple.
The animal was a substitute, an innocent victim dying in the place of those who deserved to die.
Now, when God looked down from between the outstretched wings of the cherubim, what he saw was not the law that we have broken, but the blood of the innocent victim. He saw that atonement had been made and that his love was now free to reach out to save anyone who would come through faith in that sacrifice. What a grand portrayal of the ancient and most sacred piece of furniture in the tabernacle and later the temple. The mercy seat. That is the role that Jesus Christ filled when he came.
He became the once-for-all sacrifice for sins. And as Hebrews writes, if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctified to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ? Relieve us of our sins. God sees His Son. And sees the blood that was given on our behalf, and He in mercy saves the sinner.
How important is the mercy seat? My older brother Orville visited our home a number of years ago, and as he often does when he visits, he sat down at our piano. And I heard him playing an old hymn. It dates back to the 19th, early 19th century. I asked him what it was.
He said, Oh, this is a... Charles, this is a hymn you should know and you should learn. And Once again, older brother telling younger brother what to do. I listened and I realized he was again right. Marvelous hymn that we no longer sing.
though it is in our hymnal. From every stormy wind that blows, From every swelling tide of woe, There is a calm, a sure retreat. Just found beneath the mercy seat. Oh, whither could we flee for aid? When tempted desolate, dismayed Or how the hosts of hell defeat had suffering saints.
No mercy seat. Isn't that a great hymn? We have the mercy seat. The tabernacle is gone. The temple is gone.
Even the the ancient golden chest is gone. Never to be found again, for we no longer need it. We have the person of mercy who has come to our rescue. And he's rescued all of us. His mercy is unsearchable, and how grateful we are for that.
Now, this causes Paul to look across the theological mountain peaks. and began to describe. the greatness. Yeah. I just hope I can get through it.
Oh, Bathos. Writes the Apostle. Bethos. The Greek term is bathos. We get our word bath from it.
William Beebe was the explorer in the ocean depths when I was a little boy. Later came Jacques Cousteau with all of his interesting expeditions. But William B.B. invented. A spherical submarine.
a large steel encased submarine with Air, of course, going in and out. and one large window made of quartz.
so it could handle the depths of the ocean. and bright lights shone out all around this This globe-like submarine as it was dropped into the deepest parts of the ocean. He took the first pictures taken down deep. He called his invention the bathosphere. Bathos.
Speaker. The word means Depth as we see it rendered here. It's used in 1 Corinthians 2:10, the Spirit searches all things, even the baphos of God. The depths. The old Latin vulgate renders this Profunda.
Okay. The profound depths of God. No one can plumb the depths. A. T.
Robertson writes of it Paul's argument has carried him to the heights, and now he pauses on the edge of the precipice as he contemplates God's wisdom and knowledge, fully conscious of his inability to sound the bottom with the plummet of human reason and words. Once again, they're stupid things. unsearchable. Unfathomable. What is that?
Well, look closely. The depth of God's riches. The depth of God's wisdom. The depth of God's knowledge. If you and I could live 10 lifetimes, we would not ever come near plumbing the depths.
of any of the above. We live in a humanistic era when everyone, it seems, is important and influential people are again. Pointed out as being awesome in their presence. None of the above is true, only God. And when we reserve those thoughts for him, there is a respect that opens up and a trust.
That is then Ours to enjoy. We're trusting in an infinite. God. See the explanation that needs no proof? God knows no bounds.
God cannot be measured. God defies comparison. His activities have no human explanation. How often we find ourselves As Wesley put it, lost in wonder, love, and praise. Saying, what is God doing?
Why is God not changing? This situation. Why did God allow this to happen? You cannot get. the answers.
You simply trust him. And when you trust Him, you trust in One who is infinite. A.W. Tozer writes in his fine work on God's Infinitude: when we say that God is infinite, we mean. that he knows no bounds.
Whatever God is, and all that God is, He is without limit. And here again, we must break away from the popular meaning of words like unlimited wealth. And boundless energy. They are further examples of the misuse of words. No wealth is unlimited, and no energy is boundless, unless we are speaking of the wealth and energy of God.
Stay with me. It gets deeper. Again, to say that God is infinite is to say that He is measureless. Measurement is the way created things have of accounting for themselves. It describes limitations, imperfections, and cannot apply to God.
Weight describes the gravitational pull of the Earth upon material bodies. Distance describes intervals between bodies in space. Length means extension in space. And there are other familiar measurements, such as those for liquid and energy, and sound and light, and numbers for pluralities. We also try to measure abstract qualities and speak of great or little faith.
high or low intelligence. large or meagre talents. Is it not plain that all this does not and cannot apply to God? It is the way we see the works of his hands, but not the way we see him. He is above all.
Outside of it all. Beyond it all. Our concepts of measurement embrace mountains and men, atoms and stars. Uh Uh Nothing in God is less or more or large or small. He is what He is in Himself.
Without qualifying thought or word, he is simply God. Goth.
Now some of you right about now are going, what? Uh I understand. Because words are stupid things. I mean, we read that he's infinite. Here's this preacher trying to describe the infinite.
Out of my Former teachers at Dallas Seminary used to say, Lord, Humble us, guard us against trying to unscrew the inscrutable. He is inscrutable. Yes, God's ways are infinite and mysterious. But when circumstances overwhelm us, remember our limitless God specializes in impossibilities. of Him, through Him, and to Him are all things, and we're left to simply wonder and trust.
You're listening to Insight for Living. Chuck Swindahl titled this study in Romans 11 unsearchable, unfathomable, and unmatched. There is much more to learn from this challenging passage. As someone who loves the Bible and wants to learn more about the depths and riches of God's character, we have We highly recommend doing your own personal study. Paul's letter to the Romans is an essential book for believers to understand.
both seasoned students of the Bible and brand new Christians. To guide you in your personal study of Romans, Insight for Living offers an interactive spiral-bound Bible study workbook. It's part of our popular Searching the Scriptures Bible studies. And because of the scope of Paul's letter, our Bible study comes in two workbooks. You'll find all the details for ordering both volumes at insight.org/slash offer.
or call us at 800-772-8888. And then I'd like to draw your attention to a new book from Chuck called Looking in All the Right Directions. Drawing from Paul's wise counsel to his protégé Timothy, This book features the final five sermons Chuck delivered to the congregation that he shepherded for more than 25 years. From his heart, Chuck spoke about mentoring, enduring hardship, and using your God-given gifts. you'll want to absorb the biblical wisdom that's captured in this book.
It would also make a thoughtful gift for your pastor. Again, it's called looking in all the right directions. To purchase a copy, call 800-772-8888. or go to insight.org slash offer. Insight for Living is made possible not through the sale of books and resources, but by the generous gifts of grateful friends just like you.
To give a donation today, go to insight.org slash donate. Yeah. I'm Bill Meyer. Join us again when Chuckswindahl continues our study in Romans chapter 11. Friday on Insight for Living.
The preceding message, unsearchable, unfathomable, and unmatched, was copyrighted in 2007, 2010, and 2025, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2025 by Charles R. Swindahl, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.
