The Omnipotence of God
Notes
Transcript
God possesses all power.
He not only has the will to do something, but the volition to be able to bring it to pass.
Even the power we have has been delegated.
To us
To governing authorities
to Satan
Five Categories of the power of God
Infinite power
Infinite power
He can do whatever He pleases.
We desire to do some things, but lack the strength the faculties to accomplish what we desire.
17 ‘Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.
There is nothing that God sets out to do that He cannot accomplish.
5 “It is I who by my great power and my outstretched arm have made the earth, with the men and animals that are on the earth, and I give it to whomever it seems right to me.
God not only is all powerful, but anyone who has power has been delegated that power by God.
26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
With us, we might have a desire to accomplish something, but we lack the ability. With God all things are possible.
If He wills, He will accomplish.
Irresistible Power
Irresistible Power
No one can defeat God, but no one can resist Him either.
44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
The word draw is not a loving drawing, but something that will be accomplish regardless of the will of the subject.
19 But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers.
6 He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, because of the quantity of fish.
A drawing that by the power of the one drawing, the subject is unable to resist.
2 “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
God has a plan, that plan will be accomplished.
He has no kryptonite or weakness.
27 For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?
We can’t make a mistake and the plans of God don’t happen, it doesn’t happen. If it could God would not be all powerful.
Inexhaustible Power
Inexhaustible Power
We get tired after we work hard. God doesn’t
He doesn’t have a “usta could.”
His power is never diminished.
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30 Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;
31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
The Lord doesn’t grow weary, He doesn’t get tired. He is able to strengthen those who are tired because of that.
25 Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.
26 They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,
27 but you are the same, and your years have no end.
Earth wasn’t built to be eternal. It will pass away.
But the Lord, the creator of it all will remain forever.
Incomprehensible Power
Incomprehensible Power
We cannot understand it. How the omnipotent power of God works, why He allows some things to happen or continue. All we know is that everything falls in His eternal sovereign plan.
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,
Far more abundantly than we can think.
Self-Consistent Power
Self-Consistent Power
His power works in perfect unison with the rest of His attributes, within His character.
He can do whatever He wills. (Some say God can do anything. That is incorrect because some things lay outside of His character which means that He doesn’t will to do them)
18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
In the midst of everything being said we see that God cannot lie.
Any form of unrighteousness is outside of His will, therefore he will never do it.
God’s Omnipotence in History
God’s Omnipotence in History
6 Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.
7 Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. And he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of ‘Grace, grace to it!’ ”
God is using Zerubbabel to bring about His will to re-build the temple.
Not by his power but by God would it happen.
5 “Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.
6 For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own.
God is using an ungodly nation to work His will on Israel to turn them back.
5 “It is I who by my great power and my outstretched arm have made the earth, with the men and animals that are on the earth, and I give it to whomever it seems right to me.
God is in control of all, if someone has power, God has given them that power.
Omnipotent Through Suffering
Omnipotent Through Suffering
We ask why does God let there be so much suffering, why is there evil?
He allowed Jesus to go through suffering.
10 For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.
Through suffering, Jesus is now able to relate to us in our suffering.
Jesus learned obedience through what He suffered.
A.W. Tozer- “God never uses anyone greatly until He tests them deeply.”
There was a dam that broke at Toccoa Falls in 1977 flooding the Toccoa Falls Bible Institute and drowning 39 persons.
The view that God cannot help was not what brought comfort to the Toccoa survivors; they found help in affirming the biblical view that God is sovereignly working out His purposes even through this. They saw life as meaningful, not absurd. By interpreting the disaster biblically, they came through this experience differently (and in a manner far superior to others).
17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,
God is in control of all situations. Why does He allow terrible things to happen. We might not know the full reason, but what we do know is that He is using all things including what we suffer, to prepare us for glory.