A0059_Nothing To Hard For Thee
Date: 20th January 2002 Ref: A0059
Place: Kambah P.S.
Title: Nothing To Hard For Thee
Text: & Jer 32:17
Illust: While witnessing a young man once asked me, if God was all powerful, I Said yes, he then asked me if God could make a rock so big that he couldn’t lift it. I wasn’t ready to answer him so I floundered around a bit. In hindsight it’s a dumb question. There are 3 things God cannot do. 1) He cannot lie, 2) He cannot sin, & 3) He cannot act contrary to His nature. This is not a limitation of His power, but a self limitation of His Will. God will not do what is contrary to His nature, nor what is a contradiction in terms.
I. Ah Lord God
A. The Purchase
i. Jeremiah is praying to God & he opens his prayer with this verse. To understand this verse & the incredible faith presented in these few words we need to understand a little bit about what is happening here.
ii. In the previous verses Jeremiah had been told by God to buy the field of his cousin & v 6-7. Who then came to sell it to him & Jeremiah brought it. & v 8-9. Sounds like a relatively straightforward transaction.
iii. Some things you need to know:
· The purchase was not as we would do today “fee simple” it was more like a lease, where you only really brought the use of the land. It had to stay in the tribe. If you were from another tribe & had brought the land but a near relative wanted to purchase it back they could. Also in the Year of Jubilee it reverted to its original owners. Why? Because actually God owned the land. Similar in sense to the ACT. Who retains ownership? – Commonwealth. In Israel it is God.
· Anathoth was a Levitical city about 5km (not very far, for all the feasts etc sort of like living in Bungendore) NE of Jerusalem & Jeremiah’s birthplace. – Pretty good bargain?
iv. So despite some cultural differences it seems like Jeremiah is making a good buy.
B. Confusing Situation
i. Just one small problem. You need to understand that Jerusalem was in probably around about the ½ way point of what would turn out to be a 17 month Siege by the Babylonian Army, nobody got in or out & the countryside around was overrun by the Babylonians.
ii. Not only that, for 40 years Jeremiah had been prophesying that the Babylonians were going to destroy Jerusalem & carry Judah captive. What good was the property going to be to Jeremiah? – Sounds like his cousin ended up with the better deal
C. Obedience & Faith
i. 2 things I want you to see. 1st How often does God tell us to do something that clearly is for our best, yet we don’t obey? ~ Despite the fact that this made no sense, God told him to do it & he did. Jeremiah was obedient to the word of God despite how insane the situation looked. {cost 17skl}
ii. 2nd Jeremiah took his confusion to the lord in prayer & he prayed for understanding. Notice how he starts Ah, Lord God! ~ This is a cry from the depths of his soul the Hebrew reads Ahahh Adonai Yhvh ~ “Ahahh” is just as it sounds an exclamation of pain of anguish, a cry for attention, “my sovereign Lord & master, the True God. ~ Can you relate to this? ~ It isn’t Jeremiah saying “ah Lord have you got a minute?” This is confusion, - I don’t understand, - what’s going on!!!!
iii. Behold ~ an exclamation designed to draw attention to what is coming next. You have made the heavens and the earth ~ everything that is around me, the boundless sky as far as man can see, the realm of God beyond sight & the earth on which I dwell. Everything.
II. The Power Of God
A. Great Power
i. By your great power. J recognises & acknowledges that it was by the incredible power of God. He has a revelation that you & I need to get. That is, everything we see & even everything that we can’t see was created by the great power of the God we serve & pray to.
ii. We even have something more to reference off & Ehp 1:18-23. The fact that we can be saved, pardoned from the eternal punishment we owe for our sins. By the exercise of His mighty power.
B. Outstretched Arm
i. and outstretched arm. Picture this, the outstretched arm of God. It is not crossed. Crossed arms are the sign of intransigence. To do anything you must stretch out your arms.
ii. When God stretches out his arm he is going to do one of 4 things
· Create: as in our text, he stretched out his hand to create, to make everything.
· Punish: Jer 21:5 I Myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger and fury and great wrath.
· Destroy: Jer 15:6 You have forsaken Me,” says the Lord, “You have gone backward. Therefore I will stretch out My hand against you and destroy you;
· Deliver: & v 21. Praise God for this one. We have been rescued by God stretching out his hand to draw us out of the pit of our sin. ~ Deliverance from all of our trials. ~ God Fighting for you
iii. It should be evident that when God stretches out his hand he can do whatever he wants. No limits ~ the last words of this verse say it all. ~ There is nothing too hard for you.
III. Nothing Too Hard
A. Circumstances turned Around
i. So here we have J, he has obeyed God yet is still confused so he cries out to God, & he starts by devoting the 1st 8 verses of a 9 verse prayer acknowledging that God is all powerful, knows everything that is going on & it that everything happens as God says it will. Then in the 9th verse he puts his question to God.
ii. We need this revelation that nothing is too hard for God, nothing. Not a circumstance that God can’t change, not a situation that God is not in control of & when God says He will do something then that is what will happen.
iii. No matter what is happening in your life, how confusing it may seem God is in control, acknowledge His lordship, majesty & power and then; Phil 4: 6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;
B. Lives Changed.
i. When God stretches out His arm, to deliver there’s not one person that can’t be saved, healed or delivered. Remember nothing is too hard for God, nothing. This includes the salvation of our relatives, friends and work colleagues.
ii. We need to get a revelation of who God is. ~ God is omnipotent that means all powerful, as J so eloquently puts in our text. And then we have God’s answer to J In the form of a rhetorical question & v 26 and a detailed answer to his prayer following, that offers even greater promises than J could have envisaged.
iii. God wants to answer your confusion, your disappointment your prayer. & Eph 3:20