Our God is Omnipotent (Part 3)

What’s interesting just as kind of a side note is that you think about the various gods that have been believed in or have been invented over the years, over the millennia.

I don’t know why I was on this but I think I was reading something and it mentioned like a, I know I was grading my kids’ score and they were reading like some, one of the part of the epic poems or something like that and it was talking about some of the Greek gods, some of the mythology and the descriptions of those gods creates contradictions because they’re attributed, to them is attributed omnipotence but when you see the way that they act in the myths, they create contradictions where omnipotence can’t be and I noticed that as I was studying it but omnipotence is an essential attribute of God that is a part of his nature, his character.

He can never, God can never be anything but omnipotent. Otherwise he wouldn’t be God and as we’ve seen with other attributes of God and then so we saw it in creation, we saw it as a title, we saw the omnipotence of God as seen in miracles. Now just as a little quiz, how do the miracles of God define or demonstrate the omnipotence of God? Anybody wanna take a stab, Sam?

How do they define the natural laws? How do they define the natural laws? Right, and so the natural laws are by the power of God and when God performs the miracles, he overrides his own natural law that he set in place and that he established which was done by his omnipotence. He exercises omnipotence over his omnipotence when he performs a miracle and of course the greatest miracle that we’ve seen, that’s ever been performed is the miracle of the, come on now, come on, the resurrection of Christ.

The resurrection of Christ is the greatest miracle and so that’s the power and the usage of miracles and how they demonstrate God’s power and then we also saw, we also looked at several specific miracles in scripture, the first of which we saw last week in which the power of God is specifically cited as the effect of or a demonstration of that miracle and the first miracle was the Exodus.

When the children of Israel left Egypt, all of the, the children of Israel were delivered from Egypt, not only the Red Sea but everything up to the Red Sea, all of the plagues, all of those things were done as a demonstration of God’s power, specifically in scripture. As an example, Deuteronomy 9.29 says, “’Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance “’which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power “’and by thy stretched out arm.’” So God’s power is shown in the way that he delivered his people out of Egypt.

Now, I just wanna give just a brief word of thanksgiving to God because yesterday, of course, we had Abby and Louis’ wedding and if you follow the weather, literally all week long, they were saying that Saturday was going to be a soaker. Saturday was gonna be rain, rain, rain all week long and of course, we were praying about that and the owner of the venue was also praying about that as she told us later.

But last Sunday, we were talking about that, remember? And we were talking about how that God is the one who establishes, has the power to establish the weather and we talked about how the power of God is seen in the weather, in tornadoes, in hurricanes, in storms and you think about the wind blowing and the power of a bolt of lightning and the thunder, all of those things are demonstrated, are demonstrations of God’s power but then the fact that we can pray to God who hears us and we’re not, it’s not fantasy land, it’s not fantastic, it’s fantastic, it’s not wishing upon a star or anything like that.

It is our sane and rational petition to a God who has almighty power to do something that we can’t do, in other words, affect the weather and God can do that. You could say, I mean, someone would likely say, in fact, probably 99 of 100 people would likely say, oh, well, that was just a coincidence that it cleared. Okay, that’s fine if a person wants to think that but it was a coincidence that happened as a direct result of God’s people who were praying for that specific thing and we watched as storms passed to the south of us.

You could see the dark clouds yesterday and so an atheist, an agnostic looks at that and just kind of rolls his eyes, whoop-de-doo, he rolls his eyes but to the believer who is praying to the God who is omnipotent, it is not just a hope-so kind of thing, it is the confident petition to God that God, even though we have no power to affect something like that, God has power and he hears us is the connection between our prayer and God actually affecting the weather on our behalf.

Now we see that, we see it in scripture a bunch of times where God has done that and greater things than that. There is no reason, there’s no reason at all to believe that God cannot for sure and God will not do those things in answer to God’s people petitioning him and so our prayers need to be as big as the power of God. Do they not?

They need to match that power, yes ma’am. I want to say three years ago my mom was on her deathbed and the doctor said she was gonna die and she said she’s still alive. Yep, God has mercy, God has power, power of death, right? And so the things we’re talking about with the omnipotence of God are not just theory, they’re not just kind of theological, they really in every part of what we’ve studied every single attribute that we’ve studied has had a practical element to it that’s real.

That I mean not that the other is not real but that is real to us in our everyday life. And so we gotta keep that in mind about the power of God.

And so we saw the Exodus, children of Israel come out of Egypt, the Exodus is something that is constantly repeated over and over throughout scripture as a citation of a demonstration of God’s power. And so the children of Israel were supposed to look back on that, that’s why it’s repeated so often later in scripture. They were supposed to look back on that to get, to kind of derive the faith for this moment, right?

Is that not how it works? That’s like Tammy just mentioned her mom. So if there was another incident, hopefully that never happens but we don’t know. If there was another incident, would not Sister Tammy look back on that and cite that to God in prayer and say, Lord you did this before, you can do it now. Lord do what you’ve done. And that’s exactly what they were supposed to do with the Exodus, to call upon God and his power based upon what he had done.

Well you know the Exodus is just a bunch of, just a bunch of oral tradition that’s been passed down. You see how problematic those kinds of ideas are? If it’s not real and it’s just, imagine going to God and say, Lord you know how diatrophes the God of the Greeks did so and so. It’s all fake. Who care? I mean anybody can write anything a book or Lord of the Rings or what?

I mean I don’t know what people, the orcs or I don’t know. Any of y’all know anything about that kind of stuff? You could cite that but it’s all fantasy. If the scripture’s fantasy you have no basis to cite that. You have no basis upon which to trust that God can do now what he has done in the past if it’s not real, if it’s not historical.

You see what I’m saying? And that these things are all connected when we’ve seen this before. So now we’re gonna go to Genesis chapter 18 and we’re gonna look at another demonstration of God’s power. Let’s pray and then we’ll begin reading in verse number 14. Our father thank you for the chance to meet together in Sunday school once again. Lord would you please strengthen our faith. Lord encourage our hearts, help us to set our eyes upon you.

Lord the God who has all power, who can do all things. And that’s not just things in this physical world but also in the spiritual realm as well. Lord you know so often it seems the hardest problems are not problems even of weather but the problems of the human heart. And Lord we pray that you would help us to take courage in these truths, to live by them.

And exercise faith in you by them. And to call upon you with the confidence of these things we see in scripture. So Lord help us we pray. God our study bless and help your people. In Jesus name, amen.

Oh that was Thomas. He’s great. All right Genesis 18, if you’ll see verse number 14. The Bible says this, is anything too hard for the Lord? Is anything too hard for the Lord? Now I mean of course that as a stand alone phrase is a great question to have. People have sung songs on that. You probably know the song I’m referring to. I’ll just leave it with you because I don’t want to ruin that memory of yours.

But that is anything too hard for the Lord? Is anything too hard for God? But read the broader context. It says this, at the time appointed I will return unto thee according to the time of life and Sarah shall have a son. Okay so is anything too hard for the Lord is cited in reference to Sarah having a baby.

So this is another demonstration of God’s power. Of course in verse 12, when the angel visited them Sarah laughed within herself because she was old. She said, after I am waxed old shall I have pleasure my Lord being old also? And the Lord said unto Abram, wherefore did Sarah laugh saying, shall I of a surety bear a child which am old? And then verse 15 Sarah denied laughing.

But the idea with this was that even though natural law said that she was beyond the age of childbearing, yet God was going to overrule that as a demonstration of his power. And of course Abraham was even older than Sarah. In other words this was a natural impossibility. Now it was a natural impossibility. Let me just pose a question to you. Now I know Abraham and Sarah did not ask God to give them a baby, at least not in direct terms like maybe like we would say.

As far as I know having read the narrative many times in my Bible reading, I can’t think of an example where Abraham says, Lord give me a child of Sarah. It was Abraham scheming. Now he did say at one point, he did say, what am I to do? I don’t have an heir. He did say that to God. But in his mind it was gonna be via like someone else, not his wife, which was of course a problem.

But he said that. But so this is what we’re reading here with Sarah is not exactly an answer to prayer. But I do want to pose this question on that basis which is this. Have you ever prayed for God to do something that was absolutely impossible?

Something that could not happen as a coincidence. Let’s go back to the weather example with the wedding. Some of you that were there were like, I kind of wish it had rained. It was kind of hot.

But going back to that example. Now we can look at that and we can say, well that’s coincidence. It’s the weather patterns and all that. Because we live, in other words, it’s a natural occurrence. It’s a natural occurrence. Now this is why understanding God’s power is so important. Because God is omnipotent and he is the source of natural things as well as supernatural. That’s why it’s so important to know that because otherwise you would never recognize God’s hand in the natural world, in the regular things that happen.

So that’s vital. One of the most atheistic things that we can do as Christians is live as if, or think as if, especially in our world view, to think as if the natural things that happen in this world are not the result of God’s work. That’s atheistic thinking. As if the natural world can be without God’s involvement.

Like it exists independent of God. It doesn’t. It is upheld by his power. We often want to look at the miraculous, but just don’t forget about the natural. But have you ever asked God for something that could not happen in the natural world?

You know, we do that more often than we think. But maybe we don’t think of it in these terms. But when you pray for a person who is unconverted to be saved, you are praying for what is a miracle. Because you know why? The human heart is so set on sin. And it will carry its sin to hell. A human being will carry his sin to hell.

He loves it that much. And the only thing that changes that is the intervention of God himself. That’s it. The only thing that changes that is the intervention of God. It’s not like human beings wake up and we had a conversation, I think, on Wednesday night. Someone asked me because we were, no, it was last Sunday night. Because we were talking about whatever it was anyway. They posed the age old question, what about the heathen in the jungles who’ve never heard about Jesus?

Did they also go to hell? And one of the responses I gave when I was talking to that person was this. We have this caricature. We have this imaginary idea that there’s something imaginary idea that there’s some, you know, there’s some pygmy in Africa with a loin cloth running around, you know, with a bone through his nose, who with pure and sincere heart is just waiting for God to reveal himself.

That doesn’t, those people don’t exist on the earth. They don’t exist. They don’t exist. And if there ever is a person who does, who is seeking God, they’re not seeking God naturally. They’re seeking God because God has intervened. Because he’s seeking all men. He wants all men to be saved. And he reveals himself in various and diverse ways to different people. And people respond to that in different ways and all of that.

But this caricature, this idea that men are just in the jungle, just waiting on God, these pure hearted savages who are literally eating the brains of their neighboring tribe, and this is real, right? That’s not a real thing. That’s not a real thing. So you kind of start with a premise that’s false, right? What about those poor heathen? Well, you mean what about those evil savages who are killing each other?

And you know, but I mean, but the human heart is the same here as it is there. Manifested differently perhaps. But the human heart is the same. So when God interrupts and intervenes in the life of a person, and that person is miraculously born again, that person is created anew, that is an act of God. That cannot happen naturally. It doesn’t happen because you get baptized. It doesn’t happen because you join the church.

It happens as an act, a sole act of God in response to a person’s simple trust in Christ. That’s it. So it is miraculous, okay? So you probably pray for that miracle, that supernatural thing more often than maybe you thought you did. But outside of that, is there any way that you pray for something that is absolutely impossible naturally? Well, this is exactly what the Lord is doing in the life of Sarah.

Romans 4.19 says this, And being not weak in faith, he considered not Abraham, his own body, now dead when he was about 100 years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb. So Abraham, it’s not like they didn’t know that it was impossible for her to have a baby. They knew it and still believed God. Then you go to Luke 1.37. Look at that if you would.

Luke 1, chapter one. Of course, this is another good one to kind of quote, memorize, hint, hint. Luke 1.37, for with God, nothing shall be impossible. But again, that’s in what context? Verse 30, verse 30, verse 30, verse 30, verse 30, but again, that’s in what context? Verse 35, and the angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee.

Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. It is very simple. It is not possible for a human being to be conceived in the womb, much less be born, except a man be involved. It’s literally impossible. That is the way God has set up the laws of his world. And yet here, again, in the context of a baby’s conception and birth, the Lord says nothing shall be impossible.

Isn’t it interesting that in two cases, when a baby is involved, the Lord says, the Lord actually makes a statement about his omnipotence, both with Abraham and Sarah and with Mary and baby Jesus. God does what is impossible. God does what is impossible. Now look if you would at Ecclesiastes chapter eight.

Ecclesiastes chapter number eight. So we’ve seen these various miracles that overrule the natural laws to show God’s power. Ecclesiastes chapter eight, notice this one. There is no man that hath power, note the word power, over the spirit to retain the spirit. Neither hath he power in the day of death. And there is no discharge in that war. Neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.

So Ecclesiastes eight, eight is reminding us that when it comes time for our life to end, nothing, literally nothing, you say well, doctors and hospitals. No, not that either. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing has the power to overrule death. So you know what it does? It presents death as something that holds power. And a power that nothing can break, nothing. Just meditate on that a minute.

Meditate on that a minute. If you have an illness that destroys your body in some way, you know, maybe, you know, whatever. Say you have pneumonia and you can’t transfer oxygen because, you know, your lungs aren’t working. They don’t work right. And your oxygen level begins to fall. And it gets into 80 or it gets into 70, right? Your oxygen saturation.

If it continues to fall, is there anything you can do to stop from dying? I mean, that’s, I mean, that is the, that is the, that is, that is exactly the definition of weakness. Like you have no power. You are literally just a passive victim of the power being exercised upon you when you die. That’s a terrible thing to think about, but that’s what’s being described here.

That’s what’s being described here. Look at Psalm 49. Psalm 49, verse number, 15. Psalm 49, verse 15, says this, but God will redeem my soul from the what? From the power of the grave. So he acknowledges that death has power. So we saw in Ecclesiastes, he acknowledges that, but then he also acknowledges that God has power that supersedes that, that God can exercise his power such that death’s power is broken.

Look at Hosea. Look at Hosea, Book of Hosea, chapter 13. Hosea 13. Look at verse 14. Look at verse 14. God’s speaking here. He says, I will ransom them from the power of the grave. I will redeem them from death. And then God does one of his things he does in scripture a lot. He directly addresses death. He says, oh death, I will be thy plagues. Oh grave, I will be thy destruction.

Repentance shall be it from mine eyes. So God is basically saying, I’m taking your power away from you. Now all of you know kind of where this goes, right? You know we’re not going there yet, but the idea here is that God tells us, he prophesies, he predicts that he is going to deliver Israel. Now that’s the context here. He’s going to deliver them from this power so that this power no longer has power over them.

Man, imagine, listen, imagine, and this will be true one day for all people who know Christ. It will be true one day that death will no longer be a thing to fear. No longer be a thing that ever comes up in our mind as something to be concerned about or something that has any power over us. Think about that. One day that will never enter our mind again.

That idea will never have power over a believer. When the Lord redeems us from the power of the grave. Right now the grave still has some measure of power over us, but it will not be like that forever. And then of course, go to Matthew 24, another manifestation. So we’ve looked at God’s power demonstrated in the Exodus, God’s power demonstrated in the birth of babies, God’s power demonstrated, or related to the power of death.

And now look at God’s power demonstrated in his second coming. Matthew 24, you should be familiar with this as much time as we spent here. Matthew 24 verse number 29 and 30 says this, immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened and the moon shall not give her light. The stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.

So we talked about that. Again, the very things that God has by his power established to rule the natural world, he will undo, he will shake them, he will start to unravel them, which will cause all kinds of terrible things to happen prior to his revelation. Mark 13, 25 says, and the stars of heaven shall fall and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. Luke 21, 26, men’s hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

Verse 30 in Matthew 24, and then shall appear the sign of the son of man in heaven and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn and they shall see the son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. So his coming is a coming of power such that everything that we rely on as our security in this world, the powers that be will no longer be as they are, they will be loosened.

Imagine the day is a different length of time. Imagine you see things, and I know this is part of the apocalyptic kind of thing. Whatever’s gonna destroy humanity, it always involves something coming from outer space and hitting New York. And that’s always part of it. But that’s actually gonna happen. Man, that’s terrifying.

You know, when you see all of these things you thought were settled and safe and they’re just being totally unraveled before your eyes, men’s hearts failing them for fear. It’s no wonder that people at that time, their hearts will absolutely fail them. And so all of these things, these miraculous acts of God are demonstrations of his power. Now, we have just a couple of minutes to introduce the next kind of set.

Now remember when we were talking about power, power was, you kind of divided up into two categories. All right, what are those two categories? Anybody remember? Get somebody, give me one.

What we’ve just gone over. The power refers to, it’s two A’s, two A’s. The first A is, A, B, I, L, I. Ability, correct, good job. Good job. Ability, and what’s the other A?

Authority, authority. And that’s what we wanna look at next, which is this. The second aspect of God’s power is not only his ability to do things, but his authority. Now these two are connected. Because authority deals with a structure and those under you and their requirement to obey, which is ability. Like for instance, I can make you do this, right? When someone has power, they say a thing, and the people under that authority, whosoever they be, those people must do the thing.

So in a way, it’s an extension of ability. I can make this guy do it. And that’s exactly what God’s power in the sense of authority means. Now I wanna bring you to one verse, and then we’ll close with this. But Romans chapter 13, Romans 13, because this statement is profound, and we probably need some time to think about what it means. Think about how profound and how broad this statement is.

Romans chapter 13, verse one. Now we know that God is omnipotent. We know he is called the Almighty, which is all powerful. And we think of that as God can do anything, and that’s true. But there is one other way that God is almighty. And what it means is that God’s authority, in the sense of power as authority, that if he is omnipotent, that if he is almighty, all powerful, that means no thing that has power, no thing that has authority has it outside of God’s authority.

That’s what the word almighty also means. Romans 13, verse one says that as well. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. Now this is profound. For the higher powers are the ones Now this is profound. For there is no power but of God.

The powers that be are ordained of God. There is no power but of God. Now I’ll say more about this next week, but when we think about political matters, we have this idea that the good guys are struggling against the bad guys.

And in a sense, that’s true, in a human sense, right? There are better and there are worse in the civil leaders. But we have this idea that God is behind the good guys and the devil’s behind the bad guys. And God’s just trying. He’s really trying to win the battle. But it’s a hard battle.

You got the devil fighting. If we could just vote for the right guy, and that’s not how it works. Because the Bible says that all power is of God.

In among us, we have people from New York, that, Louie’s family, and yeah, family, all family. They came to town, obviously, for the wedding. And they’re from a state where there are very wicked things that are sanctioned by the government, right? Very wicked things done by the powers that be. Does that mean that those that be in power that perform those and sanction those things, somehow their power is independent of God?

No, it’s not. It’s not. It’s easy to look at somebody that you like, you know, who’s in government, and you can say, well, he’s definitely of God. And then look at the bad guy, like in our case, in Romans chapter 13, like Nero or Claudius, or whatever the emperor was at that time. I think it was Claudius at this time. And look at them and say, well, you know, for the good guys, that means God’s power’s there.

But for these guys, no. Remember, he had a bad emperor. These guys were not good guys, but it was still true. Because it doesn’t matter what that power is doing, that power cannot exist outside of God’s power. So this idea that God is struggling with somebody else and like there’s this other power that somehow God’s trying, no, he’s not. He’s not struggling at all. He knows exactly what’s going on.

And so we’ll just think upon that, because that goes deep, that touches a lot of stuff. And we’ll pick up there next week. All right, let’s pray together.