The All-Powerful God

[0:00] Please turn with me to Isaiah 40. Isaiah 40. If you're new, you're just tuning into us for the first time. We're in the midst of a series of the attributes of God.

[0:13] Just as we are in this COVID pandemic, one of the inabilities that we have is to serve ourselves as freely as we would like to.

[0:25] But there's an opportunity that we have to know more about God, to know more about our Savior, our Creator, our Maker.

[0:39] So just to give you guys a quick update of what's going to be coming as you're looking for Isaiah 40, I will actually be on vacation for the next three weeks. So Pastor Dave's going to take over, and he's going to tie in a great series on the Trinity.

[0:54] Just answering, dealing with issues that come with a Trinitarian focus. And then when I return back in mid-August, hopefully COVID will be all done, and everything will be great and normal here, right?

[1:10] Anyhow, let's take a look at the prophet Isaiah's words in chapter 40, beginning in verse 28. Have you not known?

[1:24] Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth.

[1:37] He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might, he increases strength.

[1:56] Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted. But they who wait on the Lord, that wait for the Lord, shall renew their strength.

[2:15] They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Welcome to the omnipotent God, the all-powerful God.

[2:33] Any right conception of God has to be about or begin with God being all-powerful.

[2:46] In fact, a being could be the wisest, the holiest. He could be perfect in knowledge. He could be everywhere at the same time. He could have absolute sovereignty, and he could be perfectly good.

[3:01] But if he were not our all-powerful, he could not be God. Think of the world's greatest architects.

[3:12] The best architects are the ones who are capable of actually making the building. Not the one with the best design, with the best plan or the best idea, but the one who can actually do what he wants to do.

[3:32] For God to be God, he must be both sovereign, that is the right to rule, and powerful, the ability to rule.

[3:44] A king or a man or a woman may have the right laws that state that they are the royal king or queen. They may have the right bloodline to rule, but if they do not have the power to claim the throne, they are just somebody with a shiny hat.

[4:09] The short definition of this attribute, the omnipotence of God, is that God must have all power to rule.

[4:23] He must have all the power to rule. The biblical term that theologians have given this is omnipotence, all-powerful.

[4:36] If you were to read your Old Testament, the Bible also gives a word to define the all-powerful God, and it is called almighty.

[4:47] Almighty. A.W. Tozer is known to have said, God possesses what no creature can, an incomprehensible plentitude of power and a potency that is absolute.

[5:12] The Bible tells us about this power. Romans 1.20 says, That this power is clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made.

[5:29] And this is one of the aspects of God's attributes. We are clearly able to see this attribute of God.

[5:40] This morning, I want to use five descriptions of this power of God. I want to use these five words to describe the almighty God, which hopefully will give us a better, more well-rounded idea, understanding, knowledge of this attribute.

[6:02] not only do I want to see you have the extent of God's power, but my heart's desire is that your worship would be deepened through greater knowledge of our God.

[6:17] My prayer is that your faith be strengthened and ultimately, humbly come to see yourself in light of an almighty God.

[6:30] The early church father, Augustine wrote, However strong may be the purposes either of angels or of men, whether of good or bad, whether these purposes fall in with the will of God or run counter to it, the will of the omnipotent is never defeated.

[6:55] So the first attribute or the first descriptor of the omnipotent God is almighty God has infinite power.

[7:06] Almighty God has infinite power. Tozer wrote, Since God is at his command all the power in the universe, the Lord God omnipotent can do anything as easily as anything else.

[7:22] All his acts are done without effort. He expends no energy that must be replenished. His self-sufficiency makes it unnecessary for him to look outside of himself for renewal of strength.

[7:42] What that means is when he gives part of his energy or power elsewhere, it's not as if he's drained of it. He has complete eternal power.

[7:53] It is infinite power. He's got all the power to give away and it does not affect him one iota. God is all-powerful.

[8:06] What does that mean? It means that he is infinite, is powerful, and that there is no end to his power. There is no time where it will ever end.

[8:17] He is unlimited. There is no limits to his bounds of power. Simply put, God gets to do whatever he pleases because he has the power to do what he pleases.

[8:34] You and me, well, we might have a few aspirations, ideas, thoughts, things that might be really good, but often there is someone with more power than us that stops us from getting our way.

[8:52] With God, there is no such things. We lack strength to do them. God does not. You see, God has all the power to do all that he desires.

[9:07] God has all the power to do all that he pleases. Let's take a look at just Genesis 1. Just the entire chapter oozes with God's power through his word.

[9:23] He just creates not only the earth, the heavens, the birds, the animals, but he says, let us make man in our image after our likeness.

[9:36] And it just simply says, so God creates man in his image and the image of God he created them. We will learn later in Genesis that from the dust of the earth we are made simply by his breath.

[9:52] But not only does God create us, animals, birds, fish, but the whole ecological system that sustains them, the whole universe that holds every planet and star in place, every galaxy, everything is perfectly and powerfully made by God.

[10:17] Psalm 33, 9 simply says, for God spoke and it came to be. He commanded and it stood firm.

[10:30] Psalm 89, 11 to 13 says, the heavens are yours, the earth also is yours, the world and all that is in it, you have founded them.

[10:43] The north and the south you have created. Verse 12 actually names these mountains, Tabor and Hermon, and it states they joyously praise your name, meaning the mountains and what they are in the creation of this earth, sing his praises by being the examples of his creation.

[11:07] Verse 13, you have a mighty arm, strong is your arm, high your right hand. The reality is God has staggering power and combined with God's staggering wisdom everything is perfect.

[11:31] What does that mean for us? What does that mean? Have you ever been before the Lord in prayer and maybe thought it might be too hard for God?

[11:49] I know when we study this all-powerful God it seems absurd but we have those thoughts don't we? that what we are about to pray it's not that it's so remote or so beyond us but we actually wonder if God is able to answer those prayers.

[12:13] Jeremiah 32, 27 reminds us when he says behold I am the Lord the God of all flesh is anything too hard for me?

[12:26] What a question to ask God speaking down to us is anything too hard for me? So when we need strength from God when we need wisdom or when we need power from God is God strong enough to deliver?

[12:55] Does he have enough strength to strengthen us? Does he have enough wisdom to make us wiser? There's this interesting story in the gospel of Matthew in chapter 19 it's the rich man comes before God and the question is put before Jesus Christ and it's really can a rich man be saved?

[13:22] And Jesus actually gives an answer that is as good for a rich man as it is a poor man. That by one's own wisdom one's own strength one's own wisdom one's own riches or humility of poverty no a rich man or a poor man cannot be saved.

[13:44] But in verse 6 Jesus says with man this is impossible but with God all things are possible.

[14:01] Salvation is not too hard for God. As one of my professors so eloquently places it the hardest hearts the chief of sinners the blindness of the blind and the deaf of the deaf are not beyond the love of God.

[14:20] The hardest of hearts the chief of sinners the blindness of the blind and the deaf of the deaf are not beyond the grace of God. The hardest of hearts the chief of sinners the blindness of the blind and the deafness of the deaf are not beyond the sight and call of God.

[14:45] Psalm 89, 13 reminds us that you have a mighty arm, God. Strong is your hand. High is your hand. No one is outstretched beyond the hand of God.

[15:02] That's how powerful our God is. So when we pray for our loved ones, whether it be our friends from school or in the workplace or our families, this should remind us to pray, to pray boldly, to pray more frequently, to pray longer, and to pray always, believing that no one is beyond the love and salvation of God.

[15:35] There is none that is too hard for God to save. Not just in our family or our friends or in the government. There are those who are involved in national politics.

[15:50] God is able to save. Why? Because our almighty God has infinite power.

[16:02] The second descriptor of this attribute is that the almighty God has what's called irresistible power. God has irresistible power, which means there is nothing on heaven or earth or anywhere that can resist the power of God.

[16:19] Job 42.2 reminds us, I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

[16:30] God is invincible. He's indomitable. God is unassailable. He's unconquerable. He is undefeatable. He is insurmountable.

[16:41] All of God's purposes move forward. COVID, no problem. Government's changing, no problem.

[16:53] There is nothing that can stop God's purposes. Question obviously always gets asked, what about the devil? The fact of the matter is, any power that the devil has is a power that has been given to him by God.

[17:11] You could have God, all the demons in the whole world against God in a big match of tug of war. God wins. Every time, no problem.

[17:25] There is absolutely nothing that can thwart the power of God. Tozer again states, God possesses what no creature can. An incomprehensible plentitude of power, a potency that is absolute.

[17:43] All the power that God gives away, he gives, but he is not lessened. All that he gives remains his own and returns to him again. God's power is not acquired.

[17:56] It doesn't need to be recognized. There's no authority that has to be given to him. It is his inherently. Isaiah 14, 27 says, For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it?

[18:14] Who will frustrate God's plans? Nobody, right? Isaiah 43, 13. Who can turn back God's hand?

[18:26] It's such a crazy question to ask. But sometimes we get in those moments and we believe that somehow God isn't sovereign or isn't powerful enough to do what he means to do.

[18:47] How foolish are we to fret even a little. Tell me this does not destroy any argument that we could ever use to be anxious.

[19:06] The almighty God has irresistible power.

[19:18] The third descriptor of the almighty God is that he has inexhaustible power. The almighty God has inexhaustible power.

[19:31] And I've touched on this briefly. God's power does not diminish. God's power is eternal, infinite, boundless, endless. It is beyond limits. God does not get old.

[19:46] Doesn't tire. Last week I went golfing. I came home. I felt like I got hit by a truck the next day. This is golf. The least non-contact sport of all.

[20:00] God does not fatigue. God does not tire. God does not get old. God is the same yesterday, today, forever. God is just as powerful yesterday in Genesis 1 as he is today, as he will be tomorrow.

[20:19] Have you not known? Going back to Isaiah 40. Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth.

[20:32] Notice what it says here in verse 28. He does not faint or grow weary. Do you get that?

[20:45] Since God's power is exhaustive, since God's power is limitless, notice what he gives us.

[20:59] going back to Isaiah 29. He gives power to the faint. And to him who has no might, he increases strength.

[21:11] Even youth shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted. But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.

[21:22] They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. God offers us his strength.

[21:38] God gives us his power. God causes us to not be faint. God causes us to not be weary.

[21:52] That power is there. That power is available. We all know the verse, right? Right? Philippians 4.13. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

[22:06] Now a lot of people believe this is some kind of name and enclaim it type of verse. If I believe all things, I can do whatever I want. That's not what it means. But there is a promise attached to the understanding that when God calls you to do something that is to him, he's calling you to act or think or have an attitude to be obedient to his word, when God calls you to do something that will glorify his name, that when God calls you to do something that is according to his will, God will give you strength.

[22:52] God will make you not be faint. God will make you not be weary. In your weakness, God will be made strong.

[23:04] In your timidity, God will make you bold. In your uncertainty, God will make you certain. And I know we get there sometimes, right?

[23:17] There's sometimes we have these aspirations of life. We really believe that God's placed it on our heart and we start going in that direction. Then we start asking ourselves, is this what God really wants? Because I see myself getting really tired.

[23:29] It's kind of interesting whenever I preach on the will of God, especially to younger audiences, the question is, well, what happens if I give myself entirely to God?

[23:39] Isn't God going to make me want to be a missionary in like South Africa? Because you know what? I don't do so well in heat and stuff. Or is God going to call me to northern Russia?

[23:51] Because I don't do so well in cold and stuff. What people don't understand that God does work through our desires as we grow and walk in him and we pursue him.

[24:05] God shapes our desires and our likes and our dislikes. You guys might remember my friend Nathan.

[24:18] He shared his testimony with us a couple years ago and this past Christmas season. We enjoyed his preaching. You know, ever since the moment he got saved seven years ago, he's got an incredible testimony where he just heard the gospel preached on a radio show.

[24:37] He was heavily involved in drugs and alcohol and his life was just literally destroyed in every way. He hadn't even seen his children in two years. Divorced, obviously.

[24:48] God reached down and saved him. And as he started to grow, he started feeling this call to continue the preaching of God's word. One of the places that he wanted to do was to attend the Master's Seminary.

[25:02] That's where I went to school as well. And it was interesting. So he and his wife have been talking about it and they were at one church and the leaders were discouraging him about this.

[25:17] They said that going to seminary would quite possibly be too burdensome for his family and they would not be able to handle it and it might cause division.

[25:28] So he ended up leaving that church just for some other reasons and he started attending another church where they actually encouraged him to pursue this desire that God had placed on him.

[25:44] In fact, they started a fund to raise this money. So just this past January after he preached here with us, him and his wife made the commitment that they were going to move down to begin school in September.

[26:00] Now it's not so easy to go down to school. You have to have a pretty big bank account to prove to the Americans that you're not going to be living off of their social structures. So you have to have, they believed they needed to have over $40,000 in the bank.

[26:17] So they set out raising money, selling. One of the things they did was collect cans all across Vancouver Island, raising money. And at the very end, they ended up raising over $40,000.

[26:31] In fact, at the garage sale, people had heard their story. And there was a story of an older lady who just said, when my husband was alive, he enjoyed listening to John MacArthur.

[26:42] I heard your desire to attend his seminary. Here's $500. He didn't even know this woman. People brought literally thousands of dollars to him over this time.

[26:53] Now, not only did this happen, but he was awarded a scholarship, which is going to pay his entire seminary bills. So the scholarship is worth over $40,000.

[27:06] So instead of going there with $40,000, they're going there with $80,000. And not only that, when they went to their employers to say what they were going to do, their employers did not fire them, but encouraged them and said, listen, we'll hold your spots here for you when you come back to Canada so you will know there's money for you when you get back.

[27:32] Incredible, right? But what was interesting just this last Wednesday as I was on the phone, been praying with him, the thing he was more nervous about than anything else was crossing the border.

[27:46] Would the Americans let him in? And we kind of laughed about this. And I said, look at all the things that God has done to get you where you are, including just his wife and his relationship with his kids.

[28:02] God has done some incredible things there. God brought $80,000 to you. He's got your workplace holding for you. All those things that can make you feel earthly secure.

[28:14] Do you really believe one lone customs border agent is going to thwart God on this? Right?

[28:26] Sometimes we think that way. Obviously, he got across. First thing in the morning, he texts me, I'm through. And today is the day that they'll actually arrive in California.

[28:37] And blessed to the seminary, they've already found him an apartment. And they're actually outfitting it for him with furniture, dishes, and everything that they would need. Sometimes we just need to look to God, but we need to trust God.

[28:55] We need to exchange our weakness for God's strength. The Bible teaches that the power of the Holy Spirit will strengthen us. The power of the Word of God will strengthen us.

[29:08] The power of the knowledge of God will strengthen us. God is always about doing His work for His glory.

[29:24] And when we are plugged into that, we do not need to fear. We just need to confess our fear and our unbelief.

[29:38] You know, none of us may not be, not every one of us may be called to go to seminary.

[29:50] But we are called to be loving spouses. We're called to be responsible employees, to be just employers, to be kids that honor their parents at no matter what age.

[30:07] and these are all heavenly, godly things that God has ordained for us. God will give you strength.

[30:20] These are the things that God honors. These are the things that God loves when we obey Him in these things and we call out His name.

[30:32] the Almighty God has inexhaustible power. That power will never end. The fourth characteristic of the Almighty God is that God's power is honestly incomprehensible.

[30:51] It is incomprehensible. Listen, we will never understand it. It's the power that spoke the universe into existence. It's vast. It's infinite that we can't even begin and it just happens with a word.

[31:07] Even our highest heights, our best thoughts, our most grandiose ideas are not even close to understanding God's power. What does this mean for you and I?

[31:19] If we take a look at Ephesians 3 20. We've studied that this past year through our study of Ephesians. Ephesians Paul writes, now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think according to the power at work within us.

[31:43] You see, God does things through us that we don't even think about. Right? Have you ever been that time you've known that you made an impact in someone's life? You weren't even trying to.

[31:53] You might have just been trying to get through a door and you just saw someone and you helped them instinctively. But it's even more than that. You see, God's power is found in salvation.

[32:09] God is in the business of raising dead souls. Not mostly dead, not kind of dead, not partly dead souls, but absolutely fully dead souls.

[32:22] In fact, we are considered enemies of God. We are cursed. Yet God makes us alive.

[32:34] God gives the unbelieving the power of faith. God gives the unforgiving the ability to forgive.

[32:50] God gives the completely worthless, broken man that I am. And he gives me the gift of regeneration. He renews me.

[33:02] There's nothing I can do to make myself a child of God, but God makes me his child. How? How? I kind of get it.

[33:15] Remember the prodigal son? He finally came home after throwing away all his riches and said, at least my dad is kind to the servants.

[33:27] Maybe my father will have me as a servant. As he walked home and afar off, his father saw him and ran to him and put on him the family robe and gave him the family ring.

[33:42] You see those blind eyes that don't see God? God opens them. Those deaf ears that don't hear God?

[33:54] God opens those too. You see God's saving power is beyond anything that we can wish or imagine. But our responsibility is to call upon it.

[34:11] Stephen Charnock wrote, the power of God is the ability and strength whereby he can bring to pass whatever he pleases. Whatsoever his infinite wisdom may direct and whatsoever the infinite purity of his will may resolve.

[34:28] As holiness is the beauty of all God's attributes, so power is that which gives life and action to all the perfections of the divine nature.

[34:40] how vain would be the eternal counsels if power did not step in to execute them. Without power, his mercy would be but feeble pity.

[34:55] His promises an empty sound. His threatenings a mere scarecrow. God's power is like himself, infinite, eternal, incomprehensible.

[35:12] It can neither be checked, restrained, nor frustrated by us. The last descriptor I want to touch on is the almighty God is self-consistent.

[35:29] Is self-consistent. And what I mean by this, and this is the most amazing aspect about God, is that every single one of the attributes, and that's what Charnock was talking about here, is that everything fits together perfectly to give us a perfect God.

[35:50] God's power works perfectly with his sovereignty. God's power works perfectly with his wisdom. God's power works perfectly with his goodness. God's power works perfectly with his love, his holiness, and his mercy.

[36:07] Is there anything that God cannot do? Yes. There are some things that God cannot do. God cannot lie.

[36:19] God cannot die. God does not increase. God does not decrease. God does not learn.

[36:31] forget. God does not forget. You see, these are not limitations, but these are attributes that are in perfect conformity with all his other attributes.

[36:49] The reality is God works in every single one of our hearts in different and unseen and mysterious ways. I am sure if we put together all the different testimonies of the church, some would be similar, but some would be so different and so unique to the individuals that we are.

[37:13] We know those stories. God called us by name. His hands were there and we reached out and grabbed it.

[37:24] I want to leave you with this one quote. Omnipotence is not a name given to the sum of all power, but an attribute of a personal God we Christians believe to be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and of all who believe on him to life eternal.

[37:51] the worshiping man finds this knowledge a source of wonderful strength for his inner life. His faith rises to take the great leap forward into the fellowship of him who can do whatever he wills to do, for whom nothing is hard or difficult because he possesses power absolute.

[38:18] this is our almighty God. Dear Lord, heavenly Father, we give you praise that you are almighty Father, I give you thanks for opening up our eyes and our ears both to see and to hear you, that your arm reached out, you gave us life and we grabbed hold of your hand.

[38:46] For some of those that are still not hearing or not seeing but want to, I pray that God would give you ears to hear and eyes to see the wonderful world, wonderful words of God.

[39:07] That you are loved, that you were created in his image, that you were created with a purpose which is to bring him glory.

[39:21] For some of you, you're unsure of what that purpose is. For some of you, you have known all your lives. I pray that we are people that pray for your power, that we would not be so foolish that we can do any of this with our strength alone.

[39:40] God, you are our God. you are our almighty God. And it is in your name that we give praise.

[39:55] Thank you, God. Amen.