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Nothing
Is Impossible |
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A Pocket Paper Robert J.
Morgan Today is the fourth Sunday of the Advent Season, and I am devoting these Christmas Sundays of 2004 to a study of the Annunciation—that remarkable rendezvous in Luke 1 in which the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would bear the baby who would become the King of Israel and King of kings. Let’s read the passage again, beginning in Luke 1:26: In the sixth month, God
sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to
be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said,
“Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled
at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do
not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth
to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called
the Son of the Most High. The
Lord God will give him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over
the house of Jacob forever; His kingdom will never end.” “How will this
be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High
will overshadow you. So the holy
one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going
to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her
sixth month. For nothing is
impossible with God.” “I am the
Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have
said.” Then the angel left
her. Week by week, we’ve been working our way through this passage, and this morning we’re coming to the ringing, six-word avouchment and affirmation of the omnipotence of the Lord God Almighty in verse 37: “For nothing is impossible with God.” This is the declaration on which the Christian’s faith rests. It’s one of the most powerful sentences in the Bible, for it nutshells the truth of the omnipotence of God. When we look at these five words—Nothing is impossible with God--there are two logical assumptions that come to mind. First, that there is a God. And second, if there is a God, nothing is impossible for Him. Sometimes I talk to people who have trouble with the miracles of the Bible. They ask things like: Do you really think a virgin bore a son? Do you really believe a whale swallowed Jonah? Do you really think water became wine? Such people seem to think that miracles are illogical and hard to believe. Ever since the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason, which had its beginnings in Europe in the 1600s, it has been intellectually popular to deny the existence of miracles and to disavow the supernatural. We could find ten thousand illustrations of this, but for the sake of time, I’ll give you just one. In Germany in the 1940s there was a theologian and a philosopher by the name of Rudolf Bultmann who set out to demythologize the Bible. In keeping with what we would expect from the liberal streams of German theology, Bultmann denied the virgin birth, the miracles of Christ, the resurrection of our Lord, and all the elements of the supernatural that we read in the Gospels. According to Bultmann, it is not reasonable to expect anyone in the modern world to believe these things in order to become a Christian. Bultmann believed that authentic Christianity was simply adherence to that which is symbolized by the cross. He didn’t think it was necessary to be encumbered by the supernatural and supernal. You can be a Christian, he asserted, without believing the miracles of the Gospel. But I’d like submit a contrary opinion. I’d like to suggest that adherence to such a view is not only unbiblical—it is illogical for everyone except for one person. There is one person and only one person in the world who can successfully deny the possibility of miracles, and only this one person can do so with intellectual consistency and credibility. It is the person who can prove that God does not exist. If you can prove that God does not exist, then you can make a case for the denial of miracles and of the supernatural. The brilliant professor and apologist, William Lane Craig, in his wonderful and insightful book, Reasonable Faith, writes “Only if atheism were proved to be true could one rationally deny the possibility of miracles.”[1] Of course, there is not a single soul in this world who can prove that God does not exist. Therefore there is no way that any one person on this planet however brilliant can, with intellectual credibility, deny the possibility of miracles. The real question is not: Did miracles occur in the Bible? The real question is: Is there a God? If there is a God, then by the very nature of the definition of the word God He is omnipotent. And by the very nature of the definition of omnipotence, He can do whatever He wants. As William Lane Craig put it: “Since God is omnipotent, miraculous events are no more difficult for Him than regular events.”[2] This is the logic behind what
the apostle Paul said to King Agrippa about the resurrection in Acts
26:8: Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the
dead? If you accept the fact that there is a God, then you must accept omnipotence. And if you accept the fact that God is omni (all) potent (powerful), then it is not incredible (it is not illogical) to believe that God raises the dead. Somewhere recently I read about a young college student who came home for a break and told his father that he was having intellectual trouble with the story of Jonah and the whale. His father was a clear thinker and a puissant man. He said, “No you aren’t. You’re having intellectual trouble with God. If there is no God, the story of Jonah and the whale is clearly a fabrication. But if there is a God, then He is by definition omnipotent. And if He is omnipotent, He can create a whale anytime He desires. Your intellectual challenge is not Jonah’s whale. It’s Jonah’s God.” The young man later said that the simple logic of that answer saved him from infidelity. And thus the Bible teaches that our God is a God of miracles and He is able to do the impossible. “Nothing is impossible for God.” Now in practical terms what does this mean for you and me? We Should Obey Him with Alacrity First, we should obey Him with alacrity. Look at verse 37 and 38 again: “For nothing is impossible with
God.” --- “I am the Lord’s
servant,” Mary answered, “May it be to me as you have
said.” This is sheer acquiescence and obedience. Mary was saying, “You are my omnipotent God, therefore you are my Sovereign Lord, and therefore I am your willing servant. Use me as You will.” When we trust in God’s omnipotence, it makes obedience a simple matter. Take the matter of tithing, for example. Last year I heard a woman from the Philippines describe her upbringing in a poor family overseas. She watched her mom prepare supper every night. The mother would take out nine handfuls of rice and throw it into the pot for the family to eat at supper, then she would plunge her hand into the sack and draw out another handful to set aside to be given away. They were so committed to the principle of tithing that they even tithed from their rice. That act of dedication was based on confidence in the power of God to meet their needs by His omnipotent hand. Obedience is generated within a heart that is full of faith in the mighty power of the God who can do anything and everything, and for whom nothing is impossible. That’s the great lesson of Hebrews 11: Ø By faith, Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. Ø By faith, Noah, being warned of God about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark for the saving of his family. Ø By faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. Ø By faith, Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born because they saw he was no ordinary child. Ø By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing to be mistreated with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Ø By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down, after the people had marched around them for seven days… Why did the children of Israel
do something that appeared as foolish and pointless as to march around the
city of Jericho thirteen times in one week? For the simple reason that God
commanded them to do it; and they obeyed because of their faith. And by faith, the walls of Jericho
fell down after the people had marched around them for seven days. Does God tell us to tithe? Does He tell us to avoid sexual
immorality? Does He tell us to
come to church and assemble together for worship? Does He tell us to bear His message
across the street and across the seas?
Why do we do those things?
We do them because He is worthy of our faith and obedience. Our natural response to His power is
to say, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have
said.” We Should Worship Him with Awe Second, because nothing is
impossible with God we should worship Him with wonder and awe. This was also Mary’s response
and we look down at verses 46ff: And Mary said, “My soul glorifies
the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of
the humble state of His servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One
has done great things for me—holy is His name. The worship of God is the loftiest activity which can occupy the human heart, and as we worship God we focus on His various attributes and qualities. One of those is His omnipotence. We worship God because He is all powerful, and because nothing is too difficult for Him. With God nothing is impossible, and He shall reign forever and ever. We strike this note with many of our hymns and songs of praise, such as: I sing the mighty power of God, that made the mountains rise, That spread the flowing seas abroad, and built the lofty skies. I sing the wisdom that ordained the sun to rule the day; The moon shines full at God’s command, and all the stars obey. We Should Pray to Him with Assurance Third, because nothing is impossible with God, we should pray to Him with assurance, with utter confidence. I’d like for you to notice how this became the fulcrum for one of the prayers of Jeremiah the prophet. We don’t have time to study the entire story, but notice how Jeremiah began the prayer that he offered in chapter 32 of his book: Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you… (v. 17). And now drop down to verse 26
and notice the Lord’s response:
Then the word of the Lord came
to Jeremiah: “I am the
Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” When we pray, we can do so with confidence and assurance when we’re truly aware that God is utterly omnipotent, that nothing is too hard for Him, and all things are possible with God. This doesn’t mean that God will do whatever we ask, or that He will perform miracles randomly at our bidding, for God is also sovereign, omniscient, and infinitely wise. He knows what is best and what isn’t. He isn’t a genie. But when we pray in faith, trusting Him to answer as He sees fit, it brings into our lives the overruling power of the God who can do the impossible. Let me give you a great illustration. In the 1960s there lived in central Africa a missionary couple named Burleigh and Virginia Law. Burleigh was later killed in Africa in 1964, and his wife Virginia wrote the story of his life and of their work. Burleigh described himself as a “jack of all trades,” and among his skills was that of being a jungle pilot. On one occasion, Burleigh was making a flight across the country that was estimated to take about an hour. There were no weather reports in that remote area, but the sky was clear, and he took off. A short way out, he noticed thunderclouds in the distance, and in a few minutes these thunderheads seemed to be rushing together at a startling speed. The sky closed in, and Burleigh began looking for an emergency airstrip, but he couldn’t find one. There was nowhere to land, and the storm was surrounding him on every side. But here and there openings appeared in the clouds, and he kept turning his plane toward those openings, following the little patches of blue that appeared through the darkened sky. It was like a needle threading its way through fabric, searching for the pathway of least resistance. He was totally lost in the skies, depending entirely on visible navigation. Finally he saw a little landing strip beneath him, and he circled to check it out. It seemed clear, and so he landed and breathed a prayer of relief that he was safely on the ground. He had hardly stopped the motor when a Landrover came racing up. A nurse jumped out and ran to the plane, saying, “I don’t know where you came from, but I know you are an answer to our prayers.” The nurse was staying with a missionary couple who had been isolated on this remote mission station for three months, and due to the unsettled political situation they had been cut off from all communication with the outside world. The roads were impassible and the bridges were out. There was no communication and no mail service. The missionary wife had become seriously ill with a high fever, and added to their other concerns was a fear of rabies. Early that morning they had called together the Christians in the village, and the church had gathered for earnest prayer that God would send them help. And that very day, God arranged the storm clouds in the sky to direct and guide Burleigh Law and his little plane to that very spot of earth.[3] Adoniram Judson said, “I never prayed sincerely for anything but it came, at some time… somehow, in some shape.” With God nothing is impossible, so we should obey Him with alacrity, praise Him with awe, and pray to Him with assurance. We Should Trust Him with All Our Hearts Finally, since nothing is impossible with God, we should trust Him with all our hearts. This is what Proverbs 3 tells us to do: “Trust in the Lord with all your hearts, and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.” Isaiah 26 says: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee. Trust ye in the Lord forever, for the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength” (KJV). Two or three years ago, when I was deeply troubled over a problem that seemed to have no solution, I looked up verses in the Bible on this subject and jotted them down for myself. I’d like to quote them for you now, for they bolster and confirm the words Gabriel speaks in Luke 1: ·
Is anything too hard for the Lord?—Genesis · The Lord is able.—2 Chronicles 25:9 · Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You.—Jeremiah 32:17 · Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?—Jeremiah 32:27 ·
And He said, “Abba, Father, all things
are possible for You.”—Mark · I know that You can do everything.—Job 42:2 · God is able.—Matthew 3:9 ·
The things which are impossible with men are
possible with God—Luke ·
Jesus looked at them and said, “With men
it is impossible, but not with God, for with God all things are
possible.”—Mark ·
Jesus said to him, “If you can believe,
all things are possible to him who believes.”—Mark · Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.—Matthew 17:20 ·
For with God nothing will be
impossible.—Luke It has been so encouraging to my faith and to my soul to review these verses during times of anxious worry. Missionary Amy Carmichael once said, “When you are facing the impossible, you can count on the God of the impossible.” One of my favorite writers, J. Oswald Sanders, said, “(God) encourages us to ask as freely for the impossible as for the possible, since to Him all difficulties are the same size—less than Himself.” And evangelist Michael Guido once said, “You cannot bring a burden too heavy for God to lift or a problem too hard for Him to solve or a request too big for Him to answer. God does things no one else can do.” In the book about Ruth Bell Graham entitled Footsteps of a Pilgrim, Gigi Tchividjian tells about a time her mother, Ruth, was visiting her in France. The Tchividjians at that time lived in the French countryside, and one day Gigi invited some friends over for supper to meet Ruth. These friends were Jewish by birth, but not religious at all. As they prepared to entertain, the telephone rang. It was an old-fashioned phone, and difficult to use. Gigi answered, “Hello… hello… hello…” Finally an overseas operator broke through the static. It was a call for Ruth. It was her husband, Billy, who was in Tokyo. He had bad news. There was a serious problem with one of the children, a nineteen-year-old prodigal. Ruth would have to return home as soon as possible to deal with it. As Gigi listened to her mother’s side of the conversation, she saw the concern sweep over Ruth’s face. But she also heard Ruth say to Billy over the phone, “Well honey, don’t worry, the Lord will work it all out. He is still in control.” All day Ruth was making—or trying to make—phone calls as she planned an emergency trip home, and by and by Gigi asked, “Mother, wouldn’t you like me to cancel the dinner guests tonight?” “No, dear, please don’t do that. I’m okay.” Around 6:30 the doorbell rang and the guests arrived. The subject of the day’s difficulties never came up, and the guests lingered until nearly midnight, enjoying Ruth’s animated conversation. Several weeks later, the friends remarked to Gigi about what a wonderful evening they had spent. But the thing that struck them most and made a lasting impression on them was the sense of peace they felt coming from Ruth all evening.[4] I read that story while I was struggling with a particular concern of my own, and I was ashamed that my faith wasn’t strong enough to generate the same peace. So can we really believe that a virgin conceived and bore a Son? Can we really believe the miracles of the Bible? Can we really believe that God has the power to raise the dead? Yes. If we believe in the reality of God, we must believe that He is omnipotent. And if He is omnipotent, then nothing is impossible with Him. And if nothing is impossible with Him, that we should obey Him with alacrity, we should worship Him with wonder, we should pray to Him in confidence, and we should trust Him with a sense of perfect peace. An old Polish Christmas carol sums it all up nicely: Infant holy, infant lowly, For His bed a cattle stall; Oxen lowing, little knowing, Christ the Babe is Lord of all. Swift are winging angels singing, Noels ringing, tiding bringing: Christ the Babe is Lord of all Christ the Babe is Lord of all. And with Him, nothing is impossible. _________________________________ [1] William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1994), p. 144. 2 William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1994), p. 133. 3 Virginia Law, Appointment Congo (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1966), pp. 20-21. 4 Ruth Bell Graham, Footprints of a Pilgrim (Nashville: Word Publishing, 2001), pp. 109-111. Copyright StatementWe grant permission for any edition of The Pocket Paper to be photocopied for use in a local congregation or classroom, provided no more than 1,000 copies are made, the material is distributed free, and the copies include the notice: "Copyright (year) The Donelson Fellowship."For any other use, advance permission must be obtained from The Donelson Fellowship church office. |
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[1] William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1994), p. 144.
[2] William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1994), p. 133.
[3] Virginia Law, Appointment Congo (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1966), pp. 20-21.
[4] Ruth Bell Graham, Footprints of a Pilgrim (Nashville: Word Publishing, 2001), pp. 109-111.