Nothing Is Too Hard For Yahweh Series

Nothing is Too Hard for Yahweh

(Jeremiah 32-36 passim)

1. We are very complex beings. Even simple creatures are complex.

2. According to Creation Magazine, "When geneticists found that there were only 20,000 to 30,000 genes in the human ge’nome, [gee’ nome] on par with a ’simple worm,’ they were surprised….But…new research shows that our genes can multi-task. By a process dubbed ’alternative splicing,’ a given gene can produce multiple RNA transcripts…These in turn can produce very different protein machines with dramatically…different functions -- yet derived from the same gene."

3. When we look in either direction, through the telescope or the microscope, we are impressed with the genius of God’s design and the self-replicating nature of it all.

4. This can lead us to conclude what Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 32:17 and how God asks a rhetorical questions regarding Himself in Jeremiah 32:26, "I am the LORD…Is anything too hard for me?"

5. Because God is omnipotent, He has all power. Because He is omniscient, He knows all things. Because God is omnipresent, He is everywhere. The only limits God has are based upon His Nature. For example, God cannot sin because He is holy.

These chapters are not chronological, but thematic.

Main Idea: Because nothing is too hard for God, He will easily accomplish His purposes.

I. God Would RESTORE Israel (Chapter 32)

• The setting: Jeremiah is imprisoned in a courtyard because his prophesying was considered treasonous…against Zedekiah, Jerusalem will fall to Babylonians…

His cousin, Hanamel, has to sell his field; near relatives were obliged (Lev. 25:23-28)

A. Jeremiah buys a field while Jerusalem is under SIEGE

1. it was an action that symbolized hope.

2. Faith is always tested by works…sometimes personal sacrifice (throwing $ away)

--some of us may have certain idiosyncrasies (I do) about frugality or waste that can thwart our testimonies; frugality is a good thing, but God comes first --

--what idiosyncrasies might you need to sometimes sacrifice? What rules have you made up that you will not break for anything? In ministry, you often do what needs to be done-- period!

Alexandre Dumas, the elder, ate an apple at 7 a.m. each morning under the Arc de Triomphe.; Acquaintances recall James Russell Lowell removing and proceeding to eat with knife and fork a bouquet of flowers from the centerpiece at a literary supper in one of Boston’s great houses; Charles Dickens walked twenty to thirty miles a day. He also placed objects on his desk in exactly the same position, always set his bed in north/south directions, and touched certain objects three times for luck.

Hans Christian Andersen put a sign next to his bed that read "I am not really dead."

[source: http://www.judyreeveswriter.com/writing_life.htm]

--Having idiosyncrasies is one thing, holding to them rigidly is another--

3. Hope is a powerful virtue, in the same list with faith and love.

B. God will bring the Jews into singleness of HEART (37-40)

1. Israel’s current unbelief is often wrongly interpreted as indicating that God is through with this nation. That is a misunderstanding. It may look that way.

One woman came home to find her husband in the kitchen, shaking frantically with what looked like a wire running from his waist toward the electric kettle. Intending to jolt him away from the deadly current she whacked him with a handy plank of wood by the back door, breaking his arm in two places. Until that moment he had been happily listening to his Walkman. [source: sermoncentral, Brian Atwood]

Application: When you connect to God, you connect to a long-term perspective.

People need a cause that is bigger than them. They need a perspective that goes beyond this single life. They need a purpose that exceeds personal comfort.

How do we explain God’s restoring of Israel? Because nothing is too hard for God, He will easily accomplish His purposes.

II. God Would RESTORE David and Levi (33:14-18)

Chapter 33 same setting; Jeremiah confined in the early stages of the siege of Jerusalem.

A. DAVID

The line of David is the Messianic line… Jesus Christ…Millennium

In 2 Samuel 7:12-16, the prophet Nathan speaks the Word of the Lord to David:

When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.’ "