Looking at Questions in God’s Word - 1

 Looking at Questions in God’s Word - 1

Subject – Is the Lord’s Power Limited?

By Rick Welborne

Numbers 11:21&23 (NASB)
²¹  But Moses said, "The people, among whom I am, are 600,000 on foot; yet You have said, 'I will give them meat, so that they may eat for a whole month.'
²³  The LORD said to Moses, "Is the LORD'S power limited? Now you shall see whether My word will come true for you or not."

Numbers 11:31-32 (NLT)
³¹  Now the LORD sent a wind that brought quail from the sea and let them fall all around the camp. For miles in every direction there were quail flying about three feet above the ground.
³²  So the people went out and caught quail all that day and throughout the night and all the next day, too. No one gathered less than fifty bushels! They spread the quail all around the camp to dry. 

--Today, at the beginning of this new year I want to challenge you to be fasting and praying with us. Please join us tonight to seek the Lord. The Church and our nation needs us to pray.

--This sermon is the reason for me choosing the series Looking at Questions in God’s Word. I preached much of this on a Wednesday night in December. Many of you were not there. It started me on a journey.

--I want us to look at with Moses when he saw God send more quail than you can shake a stick at. God asks Moses a question, but more than a question…it is really the question for all of us here today.

--Your answer to this question…the question…will determine the size of your prayer. Is the LORD’s power limited? The answer is ‘no’! God is omnipotent which by definition means there is nothing He cannot do.

--Are your problems bigger than God? God is infinitely bigger than your biggest problem or biggest dream. By the way, just in case you have forgotten or maybe didn’t know, He is infinitely bigger than your biggest sin. 

Psalm 103:10-12 (NIV)
¹⁰  He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.
¹¹  For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him;
¹²  as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. 

1. In regard to this question do you have a low view of God or a high view of God?

A.W. Tozer – A low view of God is the cause of a hundred lesser evils, but a high view of God is the solution to ten thousand temporal problems.

--As I hear a quote like this I always wonder is there a place in the Word that makes such an outstanding statement about the big difference in serving God compared to this world. This came to me:

Exodus 20:5-6 (NLT)
⁵  I am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me.
⁶  But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands.

--If what Tozer said is true and I believe it is, your impending divorce, your failing business, or the doctor’s diagnosis is not your biggest problem. Are your problems bigger than God, or is God bigger than…problems? 

--The truth is; our biggest problem is our small view of God. That is the cause (according to Tozer) of all lesser evils. It is a high view of God that is the solution to all other problems.

--Is the LORD’s power limited? There are only two options: yes, or no. Until you come to the conviction that God’s grace and power know no limits, you will pray small prayers.

--Once you embrace the omnipotent God, you’ll pray larger God-given, God sized dreams. Before you criticize someone’s dreams you may want to see how big their God is.

--How big is your God? Is He big enough to heal your marriage or heal your sick child? Is He bigger than the latest MRI that had bad news or the negative prognosis? Is He bigger than your secret sin or your secret dream?

2. In regard to this question the size of your prayers will be proportional to the size of your God.

--Moses was perplexed by the promise that God had given him. How could God possibly provide meat for a month for 21/2 million people? It didn’t add up!

--This is that moment for Moses and for us, when a decision has to be made whether or not we will believe the promises of God…God poses the question:

Numbers 11:23 (NASB)
²³  The LORD said to Moses, "Is the LORD'S power limited? Now you shall see whether My word will come true for you or not."

--The size of your prayer depends on the size of your God. And if God has no limits because of His omnipotence then neither should our prayers. He is not bound by the laws of man or nature.

--If He can bring water out of a rock, if He can make a sea and a river part and dry up, if He can make an axe head float, if He can heal leprosy…He can take care of you by His power!

--Is the Lord’s power limited? Let’s look at this just for a moment in the story of an axe head floating. 

2 Kings 6:4-7 (NLT)
⁴  So he went with them. When they arrived at the Jordan, they began cutting down trees.
⁵  But as one of them was cutting a tree, his ax head fell into the river. “Oh, sir!” he cried. “It was a borrowed ax!”
⁶  “Where did it fall?” the man of God asked. When he showed him the place, Elisha cut a stick and threw it into the water at that spot. Then the ax head floated to the surface.
⁷  “Grab it,” Elisha said. And the man reached out and grabbed it. 

--God is wanting us to know that He has the power of divine reversal, annulment, cancellation, negation, revocation, undoing when it is needed in our lives. He can change the natural order of things.

–Everyone knows that steel does not float...unless God reverses the law of gravity. Everyone knows that hungry lions would devour whoever is thrown into their den...Unless God reverses their natural instincts. 

–Everyone knows that anyone thrown into a fiery furnace which has been heated 7 times hotter would die instantly...like the men of valor unless God was with them in the fire and cancels the power of the flame.

–Everyone knows that someone born blind (John 9) will never see unless God. He can reverse any damage in the eyes and make them perfect.

–Everyone knows that after being dead for 4 days...no way to live...He revokes the power of death.  Takes away the stink of life! Ask Lazarus. Is the LORD’s power limited?

3. In regard to this question there is no degree of difficulty with God.

--This is so difficult for us to comprehend but with God there is no big or small, easy or difficult, possible or impossible. It is hard for our earthly minds to understand this.

--We are all subject to the natural laws God has instituted but He is not limited to anything or by anything. He is the beginning and the end. The Alpha and the Omega!

--To the infinite (God) all finites are equal. Even our hardest prayers are easy for the Omnipotent One to answer because there is no degree of difficulty for Him.

--It is humorous for us humans when we receive prayer request that we deem to be the most urgent or on the edge of impossible…we totally change our voice…the volume and intensity.

--We use big words and quote certain verses hoping that because of our loudness and being demonstrative, God will hear us. Does God perform because of our loud words?

Isaiah 29:13 (NIV)
¹³  The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.

--It all comes down to the question: Is the LORD’s power limited? The obvious and only answer is “no”.

--With God, it is never an issue of whether He can…we all know or should know that this great omnipotent God can do anything He chooses to do. Because we know that He can we can pray with a holy boldness:

Hebrews 10:19-23 (NLT)
¹⁹  And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus.
²⁰  By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. 

²¹  And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, ²²  let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.
²³  Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.