MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 21:30-31
COUNSEL AGAINST THE LORD
I. Only those plans succeed which harmonise with the will of God. This is of course true only in regard to the ultimate and final issue of men’s plans and purposes. Sometimes, and indeed oftentimes, counsel against the Lord is very successful for a season, and for a very long season, but it is only for a season.
1. This is obvious if we consider God’s knowledge of the future. It is inseparable from His Divine nature that He shall be able to “declare the end from the beginning,” and therefore He says “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:” “yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it” (Isaiah 46:10-11). Imagine the general of a vast army being confronted with a handful of blind men, would there be any room to doubt who would have the victory? If a traveller whose eyesight is so dim that he can only see a step or two before him has to travel an unknown road, will he not do well to take the arm and avail himself of the guidance of a man whose sight is perfect? The plan or purpose of our life is the road we desire to walk upon, and as we “know not what shall be on the morrow” (James 5:14) we can only hope to attain our desire if we enlist the All-seeing God on our side, and in order to do this our counsel must be in harmony with His.
2. God’s Almighty power, also, ensures the success of His counsel. “The horse is prepared against the day of battle,” but what is the united force of a world compared with the might of Him “who hath comprehended the dust in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?” … The prophet answers the question, “The nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of a balance” (Isaiah 40:12; Isaiah 40:15). The knowledge that our guide has of a dangerous path—the fact that he is acquainted with it from the beginning to the end—may not ensure our arrival at the desired goal. He and we may together be attacked by powerful foes, and power to protect is as needful as knowledge to guide. When we commit our way to God we have omnipotence as well as omniscience on our side.
II. Yet men are ever opposing their finite wisdom and strength to the almightiness and infinite knowledge of God. The proverb embodies a truth so palpable to any who will look facts plainly in the face—it contains an inference so obvious to an unprejudiced mind that it would seem unnecessary to write it if we did not know that sin has so distorted men’s mental vision—so biassed their reason—that they are ever imagining a “vain thing” and taking “counsel against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us” (Psalms 2:2-3). The world is full of confirmations of the fact, and it also contains abundant evidence of the truth of the inspired word. “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision.”
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
It would be a strong sentence if he declared that counsel against the Lord could never amount to anything.… But he does something more clear than that. There is no (such thing as) wisdom, etc., against the Most High. They could do nothing if they were; but wisdom never could be enticed to that side. The sentence embodies both ideas. There is no wisdom that could avail against God; but secondly, there is none that would ever attempt it. The expressions are peculiar. There is nothing of wisdom. The word is repeated: “Nothing, nothing, nothing.”—Miller.
We may, perhaps, consider the wise man as pointing out three modes of covering and effecting evil purposes: in the twenty-seventh verse, the mask of religion; in the twenty-eighth, false testimony; in the twenty-ninth, the assumed boldness and look of innocence. But (Proverbs 21:30) “there is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel, against the Lord.” There may be against men. In one, or other, or all of these ways they may be deceived. There may, in many cases, be “wisdom, and understanding, and counsel” more than sufficient to impose upon and outwit them. But God knows all. His eye cannot be eluded; His designs cannot be thwarted; neither His promises nor His threatenings can be falsified, by any artifice, or policy, or might of the children of men—no, nor of any created being.—Wardlaw.
Wisdom is that which is gotten by experience, understanding that which is gotten by study, counsel that which is gotten by advice … but let all be put in the scales against the Lord, they are but as the dust of the balance unto Him … For if wisdom be gotten by experience, He is the Ancient of days; He was ancient when days began. If understanding come by study, He hath all understanding of Himself at once.… And the whole world is His common council, and that not to give at all, but to receive counsel from Him.—Jermin.