The Unfrustratable God and the Happy Nation Text: Psalm 33:10-12
Introduction: Two Kinds of Counsel
We live in an age of frantic, godless planning. Our political masters, our media jesters, and our academic high priests all gather in their various committees and think-tanks, burning the midnight oil to devise their grand schemes for humanity. They draw up their blueprints for a new world order, a great reset, a progressive utopia, and they do so with a straight face, as though the Almighty in the heavens is not laughing at them. They believe that if they can just get the right policy, the right funding, the right five-year plan, they can finally build their tower to the sky and make a name for themselves.
But Scripture teaches us that there are only two kinds of counsel in this world: the counsel of Yahweh, which stands forever, and the counsel of the nations, which Yahweh nullifies. There is no third way. There is no neutral ground. Every human plan, every political strategy, every cultural endeavor is either submitted to the eternal counsel of God or it is a grand exercise in futility. It is either anchored in the bedrock of His unchangeable will, or it is a sandcastle built in the path of a tidal wave. The nations rage, the peoples plot in vain, and God in the heavens holds them in derision.
This is not some abstract theological point for us to file away. This is the central issue of our time. We are witnessing, in real time, the frantic death throes of a civilization that has rejected the counsel of Yahweh. We see them trying to redefine marriage, mutilate children in the name of compassion, and manage economies by printing Monopoly money. They are frustrated, angry, and confused because their plans keep blowing up in their faces. They are like Wile E. Coyote, constantly ordering new contraptions from the Acme Corporation, only to have them backfire in the most spectacular ways. They cannot understand why their brilliant schemes result in chaos, misery, and ruin. The psalmist tells us precisely why. It is because Yahweh is actively frustrating their thoughts.
This passage sets before us a stark contrast. On the one hand, we have the fleeting, impotent, and ultimately laughable plans of rebellious man. On the other hand, we have the eternal, immutable, and triumphant counsel of the sovereign God. And flowing from this great contrast, we are given the simple, profound definition of what makes a nation truly blessed. It is not its GDP, its military might, or its cultural influence. A nation is blessed when it knows its place, when it acknowledges the God who is, and when it is chosen by Him as His own inheritance.
The Text
Yahweh nullifies the counsel of the nations;
He frustrates the thoughts of the peoples.
The counsel of Yahweh stands forever,
The thoughts of His heart from generation to generation.
Blessed is the nation whose God is Yahweh,
The people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance.
(Psalm 33:10-12 LSB)
The Divine Veto (v. 10)
The psalmist begins with the negative side of the ledger, showing us God's relationship to the plans of a rebellious world.
"Yahweh nullifies the counsel of the nations; He frustrates the thoughts of the peoples." (Psalm 33:10)
The word for "nullifies" here means to break, to shatter, to bring to nothing. God looks at the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, the secret cabals and the public pronouncements of the proud, and He snaps their plans over His knee like a dry twig. He doesn't just out-maneuver them; He cancels them. He exercises a divine veto. The word for "frustrates" has a similar force. He thwarts them. He makes their brilliant ideas come to naught.
This is a direct assault on the autonomy of man. Modern man, and particularly political man, believes that he is the master of his fate. He thinks history is a story he is writing. But the Bible tells us that God is the author, and impenitent men are simply characters in His story, and not the heroes they imagine themselves to be. Their most defiant acts of rebellion are woven into the fabric of His sovereign decree. Think of the tower of Babel. Men gathered to make a name for themselves, to centralize their power in defiance of God's command to fill the earth. What did God do? He didn't send a thunderbolt. He simply introduced a little bit of grammatical confusion, and their grand, unified project collapsed into a babble of frustrated, scattered tribes. He frustrated their thoughts.
Think of the cross. The rulers of the earth, Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, gathered together to execute their plan. They counseled together to put the Son of God to death. And in doing so, they accomplished precisely what God's "hand and His counsel determined before to be done" (Acts 4:28). Their greatest act of rebellion was, in fact, the centerpiece of God's plan of redemption. He did not just permit their sin; He harnessed it for His own glorious purposes. He frustrated their ultimate intention, which was to eliminate Christ, by using their immediate intention to enthrone Him.
This should be a profound comfort to the believer living in a hostile world. When we see wicked men proposing wicked laws, do not despair. When we see global elites announcing their plans for our future, do not fear. Their counsel is subject to cancellation without notice. God is in the business of frustrating the schemes of the proud. He lets them go so far, He lets them build their towers just high enough, so that when He topples them, everyone can see that it was His doing.
The Unbreakable Plan (v. 11)
In glorious contrast to the flimsy, breakable plans of men, the psalmist presents the eternal counsel of God.
"The counsel of Yahweh stands forever, The thoughts of His heart from generation to generation." (Psalm 33:11 LSB)
The counsel of Yahweh "stands." It is established. It is firm. It is not subject to revision, amendment, or repeal. It stands forever. This is not just for a long time; it is for eternity. The "thoughts of His heart" are not fleeting whims. They are the eternal purposes of the triune God, established before the foundation of the world. What God has purposed in the secret chambers of His heart, He will perform on the stage of human history.
This is the bedrock of a Christian worldview. History is not a random series of events. It is not a cyclical pattern of meaningless repetition. It is a linear story, moving from creation to consummation, and every event in that story is governed by the unchangeable counsel of God. As Isaiah says, "I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose'" (Isaiah 46:9-10).
This is why we can have confidence. Our salvation is not dependent on our wavering will, but on His eternal counsel of election. The triumph of the church is not dependent on our clever strategies, but on His promise that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. The ultimate victory of Christ's kingdom is not a possibility we hope for, but a certainty He has decreed. The thoughts of His heart extend from generation to generation. He does not get distracted. He does not forget. He does not change His mind. The plan He had in the time of Abraham is the same plan He is working out in our day, and it is the same plan that will be brought to its glorious conclusion when Christ returns.
This great truth, the sovereignty of God, is the foundation of all genuine human freedom and responsibility. Because God's plan is absolute, our choices are meaningful. He is the playwright, and we are the actors. A good playwright doesn't make his characters puppets; he writes their freedom and their choices into the script. Shakespeare is 100% responsible for every word Hamlet says, and Hamlet is 100% responsible for saying them. So it is with God and man, only with an infinite difference in the levels of reality. God's sovereignty does not crush our responsibility; it establishes it.
The Definition of a Blessed Nation (v. 12)
Flowing directly from this contrast between God's counsel and man's, we arrive at the great conclusion, the definition of national happiness.
"Blessed is the nation whose God is Yahweh, The people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance." (Psalm 33:12 LSB)
What does it mean for a nation to be blessed? The word "blessed" here means happy, fortunate, prosperous in the truest sense. Our secular leaders think blessedness comes from a rising stock market, a powerful military, or a robust welfare state. But the psalmist cuts through all that. A nation is happy when it gets its theology right. A nation is blessed when it acknowledges the one true God, Yahweh, as its God.
This is not a call for a bland, generic civil religion where we mention some vague "deity" on our coins. This is specific. The blessed nation is the one whose God is Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This means a nation, as a nation, must confess the true God. It must order its laws, its culture, and its public life in submission to His revealed will. A nation cannot be neutral. Every nation has a god. If it is not Yahweh, it will be the state itself, or Mammon, or Moloch, or some other foul idol. To reject Yahweh is not to enthrone neutrality; it is to enthrone a demon. And a nation ruled by a demon is not a blessed nation; it is a cursed one.
But there is a second clause here that is absolutely crucial. This blessed nation is also "the people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance." This is not about ethnicity or bloodlines. This is about divine, sovereign election. A nation becomes God's people not because they first chose Him, but because He first chose them. The blessing is not earned by a popular vote; it is bestowed by divine grace.
In the Old Testament, this referred specifically to the nation of Israel. But the New Testament expands our understanding. The church, made up of Jews and Gentiles, is now the "chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession" (1 Peter 2:9). The promise of national blessing is now extended to any nation that turns to Christ. When the gospel takes root in a people, when a nation as a people group turns to Christ and begins to order its life around Him, that nation becomes a blessed nation. This is the heart of the Great Commission, to make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to obey all that Christ has commanded.
This is the vision of Christian Nationalism that is so hated today. It is simply the belief that what is true for an individual is also true for a nation. An individual is blessed when he repents of his sin and confesses Jesus as Lord. A family is blessed when it does the same. And a nation is blessed when it does the same. To say that God cares about personal piety but is indifferent to our public and political life is to create a false dichotomy that the Bible does not recognize. Christ is Lord of all, and that includes the city council, the state legislature, and the halls of Congress. The blessed nation is the one that joyfully confesses this reality.
Conclusion: Aligning with Reality
So we are left with a choice. We can align ourselves with the counsel of the nations, with their frantic, failing, and frustrated plans. We can tie our hopes to the political platforms and the cultural movements of men who are shaking their fists at heaven. Or we can align ourselves with the counsel of Yahweh, which stands forever.
To align with the counsel of the nations is to book a stateroom on the Titanic. The band is playing, the drinks are flowing, and the ship is unsinkable, they say. But God has an iceberg with its name on it, and He will frustrate their proud thoughts.
To align with the counsel of Yahweh is to be in the lifeboat. It may seem small, it may be tossed by the waves, but it is tethered to the eternal purposes of God. It cannot sink. The thoughts of His heart are from generation to generation, and His great thought is to sum up all things in Christ.
Our task as Christians is therefore simple. We are to live as citizens of that blessed nation, the church. We are to be a city on a hill, a model home for the nations. We are to show them what it looks like when Yahweh is God. And we are to call upon our own nations, our own peoples, to repent of their idolatry and to kiss the Son, lest He be angry and they perish in the way. For His counsel will stand. The only question is whether we will be found standing with it, or being crushed by it.