The Impossible Becomes Possible
Scriptures: Hebrews 11:1; Joshua 2:15-19; 6:1-25
How many of you have ever heard of Chesley Sullenberger? How many of you have ever heard about the pilot that landed the Airbus A320 in the Hudson River after a flock of Canadian geese flew into the engines? How many of you know that it is supposed to be impossible for a plane to “ditch” in water and all passengers survive? How many of you know that prior to Capt. Sullenberger doing it, it is rumored to have only happened once in Russia in the early 1960s? I just asked you four questions that maybe you knew the answer to one or two of them. If I asked you if you ever heard of Sully, some of you (depending on your age) probably would have recognized this name. If you are younger you might have thought of Sulley from the movie, Monster’s Inc. However, the adults would have remembered what happened on January 15, 2009.
On that January day in 2009, Capt. Sullenberger was pilot in command of US Airways Flight 1549 that took off from LaGuardia Airport. Shortly after takeoff, the plane struck a large flock of Canada geese and lost power in both engines. Quickly determining he would be unable to reach any airport, Sullenberger piloted the plane to a water landing on the Hudson River. All aboard were rescued by nearby boats. He was the last one to exit the plane after ensuring that all the passengers were safely out. After the incident and the following investigation, Sully became a national hero to everyone except himself. Although the New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg dubbed him “Captain Cool” because of how calm he was in handling the crisis, Sullenberger suffered symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in subsequent weeks, including sleeplessness and flashbacks. He said that the moments before the ditching were “the worst sickening, pit-of-your-stomach, falling-through-the-floor feeling” that he had ever experienced. He also said: “One way of looking at this might be that for 42 years, I've been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience, education and training. And on January 15, the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal.” Capt. Sullenberger believed that he could land that plane on the Hudson River and he did!
I have flown many times and I will tell you that when the flight attendants began their safety briefings I usually tuned them out because I had heard the message so many times. That being said, I have always paid attention to the part about in case of a water landing the seats could be used as a floatation device. I always wondered why they bothered to deliver that part of the message because everyone knew that planes cannot land on water without breaking apart. However, if it did happen and since there could be survivors who would need that seat cushion I listened just in case. But keep in mind that I have seen many movies of planes crashing in water, tearing apart, sinking and almost everyone perishing. I had not seen one movie where this did not happen. So when the flight attendants got to this part of their presentation my mind went to “you’re wasting your breath because planes do not land on water!” This is the movie that played through my mind for years up until January 15, 2009. On January 15, 2009, I, along with the rest of the world, witnessed a plane landing on water without tearing apart and all of the passengers surviving. Seeing that on TV erased all of the movies I had seen of planes crashing in the water. Before January 15, 2009 the movies in my mind showed that it was impossible for planes to land on water. However, I now have a new movie playing. The impossible became possible. The title of my message this morning is “The Impossible Becomes Possible.”
Last week I shared with you that in order to stop being confused we had to change the movies that we are watching in our minds that contradict what God has already said in His word. All of us have faced what we thought were impossible situations. We have had time when the movie playing through our minds showed us that it just could not be; that our situations were just impossible. We watched the movies and believed what we saw until we saw something different that caused us to change our belief. Someone or something had to prove to us that the impossible was possible in order for us to change the movie we were watching in our minds. When it was proven to us that the impossible was possible, we permanently erase the movie showing the impossibility. Let me give you an example. You have students that do not make good grades so the teacher thinks the students are incapable. The parents see their report cards and accept that this is the best their child can do (for the most part.) The students, having reinforcement from their teacher and their parents, now plays the movie that shows they are incapable to making good grades. Believing this movie they now stop trying because they know that it is not possible. (Sounds familiar?) Enters the new teacher who does not know the students are incapable of making good grades. The new teacher has the audacity to believe that the students have potential and can make better grades. The new teacher, not accepting what is being shown by the students, begin to push the students. This teacher starts telling the students that he/she believes in them. This teacher says “You can do this, try harder.” Over time the students’ grades begin to improve. As the grades improved, the students’ movie began to change. The students began to change how they saw themselves and what they could do. Eventually the students were making very good grades. What happened here? A new teacher decided to make the impossible possible. A new teacher decided not to accept what has been for what could be.
Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” In other words, faith is making the impossible possible. We quote this Scripture but we may not live it. Have you ever considered the first word of this verse? The word “now” means at the present time, often as opposed to in the past.” This word places the emphasis on the present. Because Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected, “Now……” Let me share just a few “Nows” with you:
“Yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death.” (Col. 1:22a)
“For now we really live, if you stand firm in the Lord.” (1 Thess. 3:8)
“For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls. (1 Pet. 2:25)
“Now may the Lord of peace Himself continually grant you peace in every circumstance. The Lord be with you all.” (2 Thess. 3:16)
You have watched all of the movies of impossibility but now you are ready to start seeing the impossible become possible, not just because of what you read in the Bible or what I have told you, but because the Spirit Himself will reveal it to your Spirit if you are listening. Now is the time to move beyond our pasts! Please turn with me to Joshua chapter six and we will read verses one through five and verse twenty.
“Now Jericho was tightly shut because of the sons of Israel; no one went out and no one came in. The LORD said to Joshua, ‘See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and the valiant warriors. You shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days. Also seven priests shall carry seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark; then on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people will go up every man straight ahead…… The city shall be under the ban, it and all that is in it belongs to the LORD; only Rahab the harlot and all who are with her in the house shall live, because she hid the messengers whom we sent……So the people shouted, and priests blew the trumpets; and when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted with a great shout and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight ahead, and they took the city.” (Joshua 6:1-5; 17, 20)
Do you know that there are many “learned” scholars who do not believe that this story ever happened? I choose to believe! The walls of Jericho were built for protection; from floods as well as from any army that might attack the city. The wall was approximately 6 ½ feet thick and 12 to 17 feet high. It was surrounded by a ditch that was 27 feet wide and 9 feet deep. If you were an Israelite approaching this city it would look impossible to defeat it. God told Joshua exactly how the city walls would come down. He told him to walk around the city walls once for six days and on the seventh day, they were to walk around the wall seven times and then shout. When the people did as God commanded, the walls were literally pushed flat into the ground and the Children of Israel walked into the city without having to circumvent debris from its fall. I want you to see the impossible becoming possible.
If you go back to chapter two, Joshua sent two spies out to view the land, especially Jericho. As they entered the city, they stayed at the home of a harlot names Rahab. When the king of Jericho found out that they were there he sent men to capture them. Rahab, believing that God had given them the land because of all of the stories they had heard about the Children of Israel and the God they served, hid them and sent the king’s men in another direction. Because she had saved them, she asked them to do the same for her and her family when they overtook the city. Joshua 2:15-19 records the following: “Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the city wall, so that she was living on the wall. She said to them, ‘Go to the hill country, so that the pursuers will not happen upon you, and hide yourselves there for three days until the pursuers return. Then afterward you may go on your way.’ The men said to her, ‘We shall be free from this oath to you which you have made us swear, unless, when we come into the land, you tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window through which you let us down, and gather to yourself into the house your father and your mother and your brothers and all your father's household. ‘It shall come about that anyone who goes out of the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we shall be free; but anyone who is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head if a hand is laid on him.”
Did you catch this? Rahab lived on the wall. In order for the Children of Israel to take the city they had to get past the wall. The way that God would accomplish this is that the walls surrounding the city would have to come down. The spies told Rahab to gather her family into her home and her home only and they were not to leave the house. The spies did not know “how” God would give them the city but that He would do it. They did not know He would bring the walls down, but they did know He would save Rahab and her family. Now turn back to chapter six. Let’s begin reading at verse twenty-two.
“Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, ‘Go into the harlot's house and bring the woman and all she has out of there, as you have sworn to her.’ So the young men who were spies went in and brought out Rahab and her father and her mother and her brothers and all she had; they also brought out all her relatives and placed them outside the camp of Israel. They burned the city with fire, and all that was in it. Only the silver and gold, and articles of bronze and iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD. However, Rahab the harlot and her father's household and all she had, Joshua spared; and she has lived in the midst of Israel to this day, for she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.” (Joshua 6:22-25)
Did you see it? Joshua told the two men that he had sent out to go into Rahab’s home and bring her out. How is this possible when in verse twenty it said that the walls fell down flat and the people walked in and took the city? God honored the promised of the men who told Rahab that she and her family would be spared. Now here is what I really want you to see. When the walls came down, the wall on which held Rahab’s home remained. When the angels of God pushed the other walls straight down into the ground, her home was not damaged. (You do understand how walls are constructed right? The four walls surrounding the city were interconnected so based on the construction if one wall fell the others would be heavily damaged with it.) In this case, however, all the walls fell except the north wall where Rahab home was located. We serve an awesome God!!! But the story does not end there. Archeologists through the years have excavated the site and they have identified the walls of Jericho. What’s very interesting is that they did find one wall still standing and guess what, there were homes built in the wall. A team in 1907-1909 found that on the north side there was a stretch of the lower city wall that was still standing. There were houses built against the wall with the city wall forming the back wall of the houses. This would have made it not only possible, but likely, that the spies escaped this way and the north side of the city was just a short distance from the hills of the Judean wilderness. God brought the walls of Jericho down and in doing so preserved the wall on which Rahab’s home was built. Hebrews 11:31 records, “By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies in peace.”
Faith makes the impossible possible. Some of you are facing what seems to be an impossible moment currently. This is your “now” moment to believe that the impossible can become possible. This is your “now” moment to believe that what isn’t can be and what seems to be does not have to be. This is your “now” moment to change the movie script that you have been watching all your life and take a chance on Jesus Christ.
I want to close with this. Remember what was recorded in Hebrews 11:1? It says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” To this verse I want to add one more from 2 Corinthian 5:7. It says, “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” Faith is not about what we can see it’s about what we can’t see! We can always recognize the impossible, but it’s the possible that we cannot see which is why some things seem to be impossible. If we walk only by what we can see we will never imagine something different. It does not matter what you are faced with today, imagine the possible. Jesus said and I believe Him, “.....With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matt. 19:26) Enough said.
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
