Today on the Verdict with Pastor John Monroe. Is God all powerful? Of course He is. God is all powerful. He can do all things.
Jeremiah thirty-two. Oh Lord God, behold, You've made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm. Is there anyone here who can think of anything too difficult for the Lord? Of course you can't. God can do all things.
He's all powerful. Welcome to the Verdict, featuring the Bible teaching of Pastor John Monroe. Is God truly all powerful? Is there anything He can't do? We're addressing the subject of God's power today on the Verdict, as we near the end of our series.
What would you ask God? We're going to realize what God's awesome power means for our lives and our faith.
Now, with the introduction to his latest message, is God all powerful? Here's Pastor John Monroe. In 1715, King Louis XIV of France died. He had called himself Louis the Great. During his funeral in the cathedral, there was a candle burning to symbolize his greatness.
But during the service, the presiding bishop snuffed out the candle, saying, "Only God is great." In our current series, we've been asking a number of questions about God. Today's question is an intriguing one: Is God all-powerful? I believe that God is all-powerful. He is the infinite God. Do you have a correct view of God?
How do you decide what is true about God and what is false? The true God has communicated His Word, the Holy Scriptures, the Bible.
So let's open our Bible and listen to what the Bible says about God being all powerful. A little boy was sitting on a park bench, with one hand resting on an open Bible, and he was loudly praising God: Hallelujah, Hallelujah. God is great! He shouted. A man happened to be passing.
A man who had just completed some theological studies in religion at a local university happened to hear the little boy and inquired why the boy was shouting. And the boy said to this man, "Don't you have any idea what God is able to do? I've just been reading my Bible and I've read that God opened." The waves of the Red Sea and led the whole nation of Israel right through the middle. This man who looked on himself as a bit of expert in religion and the Bible laughed, sat down beside the boy and began to try and open the little boy's eyes to the realities of the miracles in the Bible. He said, "Oh, that can easily be explained." You got to understand that modern scholarship has come to the conclusion that the Red Sea was only ten inches in that area where the people crossed.
No problem for the Israelites to wade across ten inches of water. Little boy was stumped, and his eyes looked to the man and back to the open Bible. The man, content that he had enlightened this rather naive young man, moved away. Scarcely had he taken a couple of steps when the the boy began to shout even louder. The man turned back and said, "What's going on now?" Wow," said the boy.
"God is greater than I thought. Not only did he lead the whole nation of Israel through the Red Sea, he topped it off." By drowning the whole Egyptian army in ten inches of water, we say with a little boy, "God is great." And from Genesis to Revelation, this great truth leaps out: that God is all powerful. In the Old Testament, He's called in Hebrew El Shaddai. That is the Almighty God. We're introduced to that concept in the book of Genesis.
When we come to the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, and as we think of that great Hallelujah chorus of Revelation 19, throughout heaven resounds this song: "Hallelujah, for the Lord our God, the Almighty, the Omnipotent God reigns." That's right. God is Almighty. God is All Powerful. God is able to do all things. Today's question is: Is God All Powerful?
And if you've been coming to this series about God, you should have no difficulty in answering the question. God, we have learned, is infinite. That is, God has no limits, and the infinite God. Has infinite power. God can do anything He wills to do.
Obviously, God can do that which is inconsistent with His own decrees, inconsistent with His own nature, or inconsistent with His own attribute. Therefore, God cannot sin, for He is perfect. He cannot change, for He is immutable. He cannot lie, for He is faithful and true. But do you believe that God can do anything?
I want to consider the power of God, the omnipotence of God, in three main areas. But first of all, we want to read our basic text, which comes from Psalm 139, verses 13 through 18. David is saying to the Lord, "For you did form my inward parts; you did weave me in my mother's womb." I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes have seen my unformed substance, and in your book they were all written. The days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them. How precious also are thy thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.
When I awake, I am still with you. We're going to learn first of all that God's power is seen in creating us. God's power is seen in creating the whole world out of nothing. We've learned this before that God, when He creates, creates ex nihilo. He creates everything out of nothing.
Only God can create something out of nothing.
So Genesis one, verse one, the first book, the first verse of the Bible. In the beginning, God. Created the heavens and the earth. Nothing cannot produce something, but God is so great that He produces the whole universe out of nothing.
Now that's power, divine power. In the New Testament, Paul says in Romans one verse twenty: "For since the creation of the world, His visible attributes, His eternal power." That's it. God's eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen. Paul's argument in the opening verses, then of Romans, as he's going to present that no one has any excuse. As he deals with a person who has never heard the gospel, he says, "As they look at the universe, they can see." That God exists, and that He is all powerful.
He has eternal power. When God created the universe in the beginning, He didn't need any assistance. He didn't ask for anyone's help. He didn't need any tools. No, the whole universe was created instantaneously by His spoken word.
Let there be light, and there was light. Psalm thirty three. He speaks, and it's done. He commands, and it stands fast. He creates, he sustains, and he controls the whole universe with his spoken word.
Listen to Psalm fifty, verse one. Psalm fifty, verse one. The mighty God, in Hebrew, El, God, Elohim, the Lord Yahweh, has spoken. What's he done? As he speaks, he summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.
What majestic power God has to create the whole universe, as well as to design the diversity and beauty of every individual snowflake. Every individual DNA structure, every individual fingerprint, created by an all-powerful God.
Now, in Psalm 139, David personalizes it. Look at verses 13 and 14. He's saying that God's power is seen in our individual creation. I want you to personalize this. You.
Are personally made by God. You did form my inward parts, verse thirteen. You did weave me in my mother's womb. You are the product of God's miraculous handiwork. And in verse thirteen, we got to remember the Psalms are poetry.
David uses two metaphors. God is like the master potter who takes clay and molds it. God is like the master weaver, taking painstaking care, weaving together our fabric, our skin, our muscles. Skillfully weaving it all together, we are creations of wonder. Verse fourteen: I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well. As you look at yourself, as you think of how you are made, we are creations of wonder. Evidence of the great power of God.
Now, when we come to verse fifteen. David is referring to the mother's womb, the time when he was in his mother's womb. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Your eyes have seen my unformed substance, my unformed body. A reference to the embryo in the mother's womb.
Isn't this marvelous? Three thousand years ago.
Nowadays, we know we can, with the wonders of modern medical technology, we can see right in to the mother's womb, and we can see, as many of you have seen, your own little child, a few weeks old, a few months old, in your own womb. But three thousand years ago, before all of that medical technology, here is David writing under the inspiration of the Spirit of God and saying, "Your eyes have seen my unformed body, my unformed substance." David is made in secret, in the very depths of the earth—a reference to his mother's womb. You, God, he's saying, skillfully wrought; you wove together me. This word, skillfully wrought or woven together, is used in Exodus of the man and the woman skillfully weaving together the beautiful fabrics of the tabernacle, weaving together the splendid, colorful, high priestly garments. David is saying.
That what develops in the mother's womb is not of man's design or plan. No, the all-powerful God, the omnipotent God, Almighty God, the Great Weaver created you. Take this very personally today. Created you in the from the very moment of conception in your mother's womb. No wonder he says in verse fourteen, "We are fearfully and wonderfully made." The human body is an intricate combination of bones, muscles, nerves, and blood vessels.
I've never seen my kidneys, and I hope I never do. But I'm told that my kidneys are amazing, containing approximately two hundred and eighty miles of tiny tubes. In the course of a day, filtering out one hundred and eighty-five quarts of water from the blood, and then there is our heart, an unbelievably rugged organ, four chambers, four valve pump, which handles five thousand gallons of blood a day, supplying and circulating the system with with twelve thousand miles of vessels. In the course of a lifetime, the average lifetime, the heart beating two and a half billion times. All of the blood in our body is pumped through our heart every minute, and our heart beats a hundred thousand times a day, and it's kept in place by the spoken word of God.
God is the all-powerful creator; His power is seen in our very creation. We are fearfully and wonderfully made.
So that's the first thing we want to see—that God's power is seen in creating us. Secondly, God's power is seen in saving us. The Christian is saved not by human eloquence, not by manipulation, not by playing psychological tricks on ourselves, but the Christian is saved by the power of God. Romans one. Verse sixteen, Romans is the great exposition of the gospel, and Paul says in verse sixteen, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ." Now, some people are ashamed of the gospel, but Paul says, "I, for one, I am not ashamed of the gospel." Why, Paul?
Are you not ashamed of the gospel? I am not ashamed of the gospel. For it is the power—the Greek word "dunamis," from which we get our word "dynamite." It is the power. It is the dunamis of God to everyone who believes. That's why we have missions.
That's why we take the gospel to the orphans in Kenya. That's why we take them to the remotest part of the world. Why? Because God's power. Seen in the gospel is so great that it is a universal message.
God's power is seen in creation, but I want to tell you His greatest power is not seen in creation. His greatest power is seen in redemption, is seen in the salvation of souls. In the gospel, the power of God is demonstrated as God takes the guiltiest of sinners, the worst of sinners, the vilest of sinners. And does what makes us saints? He takes the worst of people, clothes them with the righteousness of Christ, so as Jude would say at the end of his little epistle, so that he would, so that we would be presented faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.
Can you believe that? That's power. That God would take someone like you. And God would take someone like me, and save us, and present us faultless to this holy, eternal God before His presence with joy. That's power—the power of God revealed in the gospel, changing lives inside out, not being manipulated.
Not a faith just of the lips, but of the heart. And of the whole life, that's power, and that's what the gospel of Jesus Christ does. Let me ask you a question: Has that kind of power gripped your heart and gripped your soul? See, from our perspective, we may sometimes think it's impossible for certain individuals to be saved, but the gospel. Comes to the rich and it comes to the poor.
In fact, Jesus says, "Well, it's kind of hard for a rich person to be saved." And the disciples say, "Really? Who then can be saved?" Jesus says, "Listen, with God, all things are possible." Don't tell me sitting here today, sir, madam, that you're beyond the grace of God. Don't tell me that you're too bad, that you're too intellectual, you're too rich, you're too poor, you're from a different country, that your life is in such a mess that there is no hope for you. There is the power of the gospel is such that it comes right down to where you are, changing us and saving us. And so I ask you: Have you experienced this power?
The power of the gospel, the power of Jesus Christ in your very soul, changing your life radically. The Christian is saved by the power of God. But furthermore, the Christian is kept by the power of God. Look at First Peter chapter one, verses three through five of One Peter one. Peter says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by thee." Power.
There's our word, dunamis. Protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed at the last time. Here is a wonderful truth: our inheritance is reserved for us in heaven, and it is protected by the power of God. My inheritance in heaven has my name on it. It's there.
It's reserved for me, and it's protected, not by my own endeavors, not by my own spirituality. Certainly not because I'm a pastor. It's protected by the power of God, and so is your inheritance. If you are a child of God, saved by the grace of God, that there is nothing in the whole universe which can take that inheritance away from you. It is reserved for you.
I've had the experience a few times in my life. I've gone to the airport and I've got my ticket in my hand. It's got my name on it, John Eichmanro. I've paid for it. I've reserved my seat, and I thought all is well.
And as I'm about to go on the plane, I'm told, "No, you can't go on." But I've got my ticket. I've got a seat reserved. I bought my ticket two months ago. I know that, sir. We're very sorry, but the plane is full.
You've been bumped. You are not getting on the plane. You had that experience. Really tests your sanctification, doesn't it? But you know that will never happen in heaven.
That will never happen to me in heaven. I am not going to get to heaven. And some angel or someone else say to me, John. Oh, I know you were saved on earth. I know you trusted in Christ.
I know you had an inheritance reserved. But I'm sorry, it's been given to someone else. No, Peter is telling us this wonderful truth: We who have been born again, we have an inheritance. It is reserved in heaven. It is imperishable.
It is undefiled. It will not fade away. It's reserved in heaven for you who are protected by. What the power of God protected, as a military term, shielded. God's power protects and shields us.
It's above us, behind us, around us. We are protected by the power of God.
Someone says, "Well, you can be saved and then lose your salvation." Absolutely not. Do you not think that God is great enough to make sure that not one of His sheep will be lost? You don't think God is great enough that the work that He begins in us, He will not bring it to completion? Of course He's great enough. Paul says, Philippians one six: He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
I left, speaking very personally, left to myself. I can't live the Christian life; it's too hard. In fact, quite honestly, I find it impossible—an impossible life, the Christian life. Impossible—that is, apart from God's supernatural power in my life. Paul says, "This is it.
This is the secret. If it is a secret of the Christian life, it is Christ living in us, kept by the power of God." And I can guarantee, sir, that if you put your faith in Jesus Christ today and trust Christ. That God's power will sustain you, and God's power will take you to heaven. Because not only are we saved by the power of God and kept by the power of God, the Christian will be raised by the power of God. Listen to Paul in First Corinthians six, verse fourteen.
Now God has not only raised the Lord, that is the Lord Jesus, but will also raise us up through His what power? Through His dynamis. Think of the power that raised the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. That's power conquering death. That same power is available to us.
God has not only raised the Lord. But will also raise us, believers, through His power. This is the verdict, featuring the Bible teaching of Pastor John Monroe. There's still more to hear when John returns in just a moment, so stay with us. From matters of truth and identity to the subjects of love and grace, our world seems more confused than ever.
But to find truth and certainty about who we are and find peace, we must turn our attention away from the world and look to the Word of God. To help you do that, John wrote a booklet titled "Eternal Security: Finding Certainty in a Chaotic World." Through this special resource, John shares his personal testimony along with a careful examination of Scripture to offer us clarity on matters of eternity. Get your copy today by visiting our website at theverdict.org. While you're there, consider making an investment in this Bible teaching ministry. Whether it's five dollars, fifty dollars, or more, your gift today helps cover the cost of sharing these gospel messages to listeners around the world.
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Now, here's Pastor John Monroe.
Well, what's your verdict? Is God all powerful? I believe that God is so powerful that He created everything from nothing. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and He also made each of us as unique human beings. And demonstrates His love for us in providing a way of salvation for us.
This is our all-powerful sovereign God. I trust you know this great God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Don't forget to join me next time as we continue to answer the question: Is God all powerful? Thanks for joining us today on the Verdict. I'm Michelle Davies.
Today's program with Pastor John Monroe was produced and sponsored by Calvary Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
