The Unassailable Throne
Introduction: The Babel Project 2.0
We live in an age that is utterly besotted with its own cleverness. Our world is drunk on expertise, on data, on five-year plans and ten-step programs. We have life hacks for our schedules, strategic initiatives for our businesses, and sophisticated political theories to fix the world. We are convinced that with enough information, enough funding, and enough sheer brainpower, we can solve any problem. We can manage economies, eradicate disease, stabilize the climate, and usher in a secular utopia where everyone is safe and happy and autonomous.
But we must see this for what it is. This is not a new project. This is the Babel project with better technology. The language may have changed from bricks and mortar to algorithms and policy papers, but the architectural goal is precisely the same: to build a tower that reaches to heaven, to make a name for ourselves, and to secure our own future, independent of the God who made us. It is the ancient human rebellion, dressed up in a lab coat and carrying a clipboard. The goal is to seize the steering wheel of history and declare that we are the captains of our own fate.
Into this cacophony of self-assured planning, the Word of God speaks with a quiet and devastating finality. The book of Proverbs is intensely practical, but it is not a book of sanctified life hacks. It is a book about the fundamental grain of the universe. And our text today is God's absolute, categorical, threefold veto of the entire human project of autonomous rebellion. The point is not simply that fighting God is immoral. The point is that it is cosmically stupid. It is an attempt to cancel the law of gravity while standing on the ledge of a skyscraper. It is an exercise in ultimate futility.
The purpose of this sermon is to understand the categorical futility of opposing God, and to rejoice in the glorious liberty that comes from aligning ourselves, our families, and our culture with His unassailable counsel. All other ground is sinking sand.
The Text
There is no wisdom, there is no discernment
And there is no counsel against Yahweh.
(Proverbs 21:30 LSB)
A Threefold Nullification
This proverb is a masterpiece of Hebrew poetry. It is compact, comprehensive, and utterly final. It presents a threefold demolition of all possible opposition to God, covering every category of human ingenuity. Let us take them one by one.
"There is no wisdom..."
The first category is wisdom, the Hebrew word chokmah. This refers to skill, technical expertise, and raw intellectual horsepower. This is the wisdom of the engineer, the philosopher, the military strategist, the cunning politician. This is the ability to get things done, to make things work. The Bible has a high view of this kind of wisdom; God is the one who gives it. Bezalel was filled with chokmah to build the tabernacle. Solomon asked for it to rule the people.
But the proverb places a crucial condition on it. When this human cleverness, this technical skill, sets itself against Yahweh, it is instantly nullified. It ceases to be wisdom and becomes a higher and more destructive form of foolishness. The smarter the rebel, the bigger the crater he makes when he finally blows up.
The Bible is a history book filled with examples. Think of the "wisdom" of Pharaoh. His plan was to secure his kingdom by enslaving the Hebrews. It was a shrewd political and economic move. But because it was a plan set against Yahweh, that very wisdom became the instrument of his own destruction. Every clever move he made just tightened the divine vise. Think of the "wisdom" of the Sanhedrin. Their counsel was to kill one man, Jesus, in order to save the entire nation from the Romans. As Caiaphas said, it was expedient. But because their counsel was against the Lord and His Anointed, that very act of political expediency led directly to the destruction of their nation in A.D. 70. Our world is filled with this kind of wisdom, sophisticated plans for human flourishing that begin by locking God out of the discussion. They are all just elaborate schemes for rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
No Discernment
The second category is discernment or understanding.
"...there is no discernment..."
The Hebrew word here is binah. It refers to insight, the ability to distinguish, to understand the connections between things. This is the gift of the analyst, the sage, the commentator who can see what is really going on behind the scenes. This is the person who has the inside scoop, who understands the deeper patterns of history and culture.
But again, when this insight is arrayed against God, it is struck with blindness. It cannot discern the most fundamental reality of the universe, which is the sovereign rule of Yahweh. It can analyze everything but the one thing that matters. It is like a brilliant mechanic who can take apart an engine and name every part but has no concept of what a car is for.
The classic biblical example is Ahithophel, the counselor to King David and then to the usurper Absalom. The Bible says his counsel was like that of one who inquires of God; he was that good. His military advice to Absalom was tactically brilliant. From a purely human standpoint, it was a guaranteed checkmate against David. But God had purposed to defeat the counsel of Ahithophel. And so this man of unparalleled discernment saw his brilliant plan fall apart for no good reason, and he went home and hanged himself. His insight was vast, but it was set against Yahweh, and so it came to nothing. The modern world is full of Ahithophels, brilliant analysts who can explain the geopolitical landscape with stunning clarity, but who are utterly blind to the hand of God in history. They think they have unmasked the whole affair, but they are like a man in a dark room analyzing the texture of the wallpaper, completely unaware of the ten ton elephant standing right behind him.
No Counsel
The third category brings the first two into the realm of action.
"...And there is no counsel against Yahweh."
The word for counsel here is etsah. This refers to a plan, a formulated strategy, a plot. This is wisdom and discernment put into action. This is the committee meeting, the war room, the back room deal, the secret cabal. This is where the abstract ideas of rebellion are translated into a concrete agenda.
And what is God's response to these counsels? He laughs. Psalm 2 tells us, "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against Yahweh and against his Anointed, saying, 'Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.' He who sits in the heavens laughs." It is not a laugh of amusement; it is a laugh of derision. The idea that a committee of creatures could successfully plot against their Creator is the most absurd proposition in the universe.
The ultimate counsel against Yahweh was held at the foot of a cross in Jerusalem. There, Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, gathered together. Their plan, their etsah, was to extinguish the threat of Jesus of Nazareth once and for all. They pooled their wisdom, their discernment, and their political power. And in executing their rebellious plan, they unwittingly fulfilled the eternal counsel of God for the salvation of the world. Their ultimate act of defiance became the very instrument of God's ultimate triumph. God did not just overrule their plan; He enfolded it into His own, making their sin serve His salvation. This is the kind of God we serve.
The Unassailable Foundation
This proverb is not just a pithy piece of advice about how the best laid plans often go awry. It is a statement about the fundamental nature of reality. Why is it that no wisdom, discernment, or counsel can stand against the Lord? For two basic reasons: God is the Creator, and God is the Sustainer.
Because He is the Creator, all the raw materials of rebellion belong to Him. To plot against God, you have to use His logic, breathe His air, stand on His dirt, and use the cognitive faculties He designed. Every fact in the universe is His fact. Every law of cause and effect is His law. Trying to strategize against God is like trying to use a hammer to dismantle the man who invented hammers. It is fundamentally incoherent.
And because He is the Sustainer, or the sovereign Lord of history, there are no rogue events. He "works all things according to the counsel of his will" (Eph. 1:11). There is not a single rogue molecule in the entire cosmos, let alone a rogue committee of rebels that could somehow slip out from under His sovereign decree. This is what Joseph understood when he told his brothers, who had hatched a murderous counsel against him, "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Gen. 50:20). Their evil plan was real, and they were culpable for it. But God's good plan was more real, and He sovereignly worked their evil into His good.
Conclusion: Prepare Your Horse, Trust Your King
This truth leaves us standing at a crossroads. The world offers one path. It is the path of Babel, the path of Pharaoh, the path of Caiaphas and Pilate. It is the path of human wisdom, human discernment, and human counsel set against the Lord. It is a very broad road, paved with sophisticated arguments and detailed five year plans, and it leads directly and inevitably to destruction.
But God offers another path. It is the path of submission, which is the only path of true wisdom. As Proverbs tells us elsewhere, "The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom" (Prov. 9:10). Wisdom does not begin with our cleverness; it begins with our surrender.
Now, this is not a call to be lazy or thoughtless. The very next verse in this chapter says, "The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to Yahweh" (Prov. 21:31). We are to be diligent. We are to think, to plan, to work. We are to prepare the horse for battle. But we must do all of it with the fundamental, bedrock recognition that the outcome is His. Our plans must be submitted to His counsel, held with an open hand, ready to be amended or discarded at His command.
The ultimate display of this reality is the gospel. The wisdom of God is Christ crucified. To the wise of this world, this is the ultimate foolishness. A dying God? A crucified King? A salvation that comes through weakness and surrender? This offends every impulse of human pride and self reliance. But Paul tells us that "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men" (1 Cor. 1:25). The cross is the counsel of God that overturns all the rebellious counsels of men, defeats sin and death, and redeems a people for His own possession.
Therefore, the application for us today is profoundly simple. Repent of your autonomous counsels. Repent of the pride that says you know how to run your life, or your family, or your world better than God does. Bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ. Stop trying to outsmart God. Submit your plans, your intellect, your ambitions, and your insights to Him. Align your life with His revealed counsel in the Scriptures. For in that counsel alone is there life, and true wisdom, and a plan that cannot, and will not, ever fail.