WHAT COMES TO YOUR MIND WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT GOD? #7

THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD - THE INFINITE RESOURCES OF OUR

ALMIGHTY HEAVENLY FATHER

Revelation 19:6 - “Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great

multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty

peals of thunder, crying out, ‘Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the

Almighty reigns.”

Great words, these. God reigns because He is Almighty. That means there

are no threats to His reign. He reigns because there is nothing in or beyond

creation that can end His reign. We all encounter opposition against the

power of our own beings. Age, death, weakness, limitations - all of these

make us aware of other factors bigger than ourselves. This is something an

Almighty God knows nothing of.

The word "omnipotent" is the word theologians use to describe the

limitless power of God. It actually occurs only in the King James Version,

and only in the opening text of this teaching: Revelation 19:6 - "And I

heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of

many waters, and as the voice of might thunderings, saying, 'Alleluia:

for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.'"

The word "omnipotent" comes from Latin roots and means "having all

power." The more common Anglo-Saxon word with exactly the same

meaning is "almighty". This occurs 56 times in the Bible and, very

significantly, is never used to describe anyone or anything but God. Never

angels, never demons, never principalities, never powers, certainly never

the Devil himself. In marvelous, bare-boned, stark simplicity, God alone is

almighty.

That's why the central conviction of the Scriptures is summed up by the

Psalmist - Psalm 62:11 - “Once God has spoken; twice have I heard

this: that power belongs to God....” Take special note, “power belongs

to God....” Other beings have power. But it doesn’t belong to them. Their

power is always derived power. Their power is always from another outside

source. Everything else that has any degree of power depends on God for

that power. Power belongs to God in a way that it doesn't belong to anyone

else.

The Bible keeps reinforcing this truth so it stays hot in our minds. Creation

itself only holds together - only stays “lit up” - because of the sustaining

power of God - Colossians 1:17 - “And he is before all things, and in

him all things hold together.”

What great words! The overworked adjective “awesome” truly applies to

the power of God. The seasons, winds, movements of planets - the life in

the soil - the power in the atom - all would lie silent and cold if God didn't

sustain everything by His strong arm. Only mindless, numb souls overlook

the fact that God is the power plant of all that is. Truly power belongs to

God.

We live in a world full of experts who have largely explained away the power

of God. We do it most commonly with our choice of words. Consider the way

we talk about the "laws of nature." Now, that word “law” can be used in

two different ways:

a) There is a law against robbing banks. It exists on the law books of

the land. That law is an external rule enforced by some authority.

The effect of that law comes into effect against the criminal when he

or she breaks it.

b) There are also what have loosely been called the laws of nature.

But we only call them such because our culture has separated them

from the existence of God. What we observe happening uniformly

around us, and call the laws of nature are simply the paths of God's

power and wisdom in His creation.

All we do is observe and record what we see God consistently doing.

We don’t create those actions. And even if we choose to call them

laws of nature, we certainly don’t create any such laws ourselves.

No court or laboratory created a law of gravity. We didn’t find it

written down somewhere. Careful scientists codify and keep track

what they observe of God's activity with material objects. The way God

consistently works is what makes the scientist's work possible.

Psalm 33:6 - “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,

and by the breath of his mouth all their host.”

Psalm 89:11-12 - “The heavens are yours; the earth also is yours;

the world and all that is in it, you have founded them. [12] The

north and the south, you have created them....”

Why does the Bible put such an emphasis on this seemingly obvious

truth? Because the danger of our secular age is we get so absorbed

with God's footprints in His creation that we forget about the One who

made those footprints in the first place. All we see is laws of nature

when we’re meant to marvel at the power of our Creator. Where the

saints of Scripture lived in a world where everything pointed to the

almighty activity of a God of love, justice and sometimes wrath, we

inhabit an age of mindless numbers and statistics. The hand of

Almighty God has been replaced with deaf and dumb laws of nature.

And the problem with all this is it gets harder and harder, even for

Godly people, to keep thoughts of their Creator close at the front of

their daily thinking. This is why Christians need to be deeply and

persistently intentional in the way they use their words. I try very hard

to remember in ordinary conversation, especially with unbelievers, not

to talk about nature. I don’t mean that it’s a dirty word. But I’d rather

use the word creation. Creation does the obvious. It points to a

Creator.

We should always try to trace everything back to Father God’s hand.

Say “grace” when you eat in a restaurant. Make it obvious that the

sushi in front of you didn’t just come from the kitchen. Before that it

came from our Creator. Fly the Creator’s flag over your life.

Let me make four statements about what the omnipotence of God

means to each one of us. We’ll study one tonight and three next week.

Each statement will begin with the same words - "Because our God

is almighty..."

1) BECAUSE GOD IS ALMIGHTY HE IS ABLE TO DO WHAT HE

SAYS HE WILL DO

Psalm 115:3 - “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he

pleases.”

Every so often our minds are relieved to find a short sentence that

says it all. This is one of those. Here’s how you know who God is.

You’ll know Him when you see Him because He’s the one who “does

whatever He pleases.”

The Apostle Paul describes God in the very same way in the New

Testament - Ephesians 1:11 - “....In him [Christ] we have obtained

an inheritance, having been predestined according to the

purpose of him [Father God] who works all things according to the

counsel of his will....”

People get so hung up on the doctrine of predestination that they miss

the last part of that terrific verse. Paul tells us how to identify God

Almighty. It works like this. You're at a party. You see someone you

don't think you know. Somebody starts to tell you - "O, you know

him. That's Gerry. He's the guy who..." And then they start to tell

you something about that person by which he can be identified by your

faltering memory.

That's what Paul is doing here. He says something about God starting

with that little word “‘who” about two thirds of the way through that

eleventh verse. Our God is specifically identifiable. There are ways to

remember Him. He’s distinct from anything and anyone else. God is

the one “who - works all things according to the counsel of his

will”(11).

That's who God is. You can't say those words about anybody else. No

matter how big or how powerful a person may get, nobody can do

exactly whatever he wants to do - nobody except God. That means

your life is always safe in God’s hands. Never go your own way