MY GOD CANNOT
2 Timothy 2:13 "If we believe not, yet he abides faithful: He cannot deny himself."
INTRODUCTION: There’s a children’s Bible song that says, "My God is so big… There’s nothing my God cannot do." The Bible does, however, tell us that there are some things that my God cannot do. This morning as we consider these things, I believe you will see how great and marvelous our God really is.
I. God cannot be contained, put in a test tube and analyzed.
A. Job 37:23 "Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out: he is excellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice: he will not afflict."
B. I have observed the power of the watermelon seed. It has the power of drawing from the ground and through itself 200,000 times its weight. When you can tell me how it takes this material and out of it colors an outside surface beyond the imitation of art, and then forms inside of it a white rind and within that again a red heart, thickly inlaid with black seeds, each one of which in turn is capable of drawing through itself 200,000 times its weight—when you can explain to me the mystery of a watermelon, you can ask me to explain the mystery of God. - William Jennings Bryan
C. 2 Chronicles 2:6 "But who is able to build him an house, seeing the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him? Who am I then, that I should build him an house, save only to burn sacrifice before him?"
D. Dwight D. Eisenhower said, "It takes no brains to be an atheist. Any stupid person can deny the existence of a supernatural power because man’s physical senses cannot detect it. But there cannot be ignored the mystery of first life … or the marvelous order in which the universe moves about us. All of these evidence the handiwork of a beneficent Deity. For my part, that Deity is the God of the Bible and Christ, His Son."
E. John Wesley captured that truth of the incomprehensibility of God. "Give me a worm that can understand a man," he wrote, "and I will give you a man who can understand God." And in Psalm 145:3, David said of God, "His greatness is unsearchable."
II. God cannot sin.
A. James 1:13 "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts he any man:"
B. God is compelled to conceal himself in a measure from the natural world, for the divine illumination would blind the eyes of mortal man were it to shine upon him in full strength. L. S. Thornton
C. Habakkuk 1:13a "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity…"
D. There is a danger of forgetting that the Bible reveals, not first the love of God, but the intense, blazing holiness of God, with his love as the center of that holiness. Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)
E. Psalms 5:4 "For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee."
III. God cannot change.
A. Malachi 3:6 "For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed."
B. The law of mutation belongs to a fallen world, but God is immutable, and in him men of faith find eternal permanence. A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)
C. What peace it brings to the Christian’s heart to realize that our heavenly Father never differs from himself. In coming to him at any time we need not wonder whether we shall find him in a receptive mood. He is always receptive to misery and need, as well as to love and faith. He does not keep office hours nor set aside periods when he will see no one. Neither does he change his mind about anything. Today, this moment, he feels toward his creatures, toward babies, toward the sick, the fallen, the sinful, exactly as he did when he sent his only begotten Son into the world to die for mankind. A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)
D. James 1:17 "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."
E. God is not affected by our mutability; our changes do not alter him. When we are restless, he remains serene and calm; when we are low, selfish, mean, or dispirited, he is still the unalterable I Am. The same yesterday, today, and forever, in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. What God is in himself, not what we may chance to feel him in this or that moment to be, that is our hope. Frederick William Robertson (1816-1853)
F. Gladys Aylward, missionary to China more than fifty years ago, was forced to flee when the Japanese invaded Yangcheng. But she could not leave her work behind. With only one assistant, she led more than a hundred orphans over the mountains toward Free China. In their book The Hidden Price of Greatness, Ray Besson and Ranelda Mack Hunsicker tell what happened: "During Gladys’s harrowing journey out of war-torn Yangcheng ... she grappled with despair as never before. After passing a sleepless night, she faced the morning with no hope of reaching safety. A 13-year-old girl in the group reminded her of their much-loved story of Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. "’But I am not Moses,’ Gladys cried in desperation. ’Of course you aren’t,’ the girl said, ’but Jehovah is still God!’" When Gladys and the orphans made it through, they proved once again that no matter how inadequate we feel, God is still God, and we can trust in him. - Jonathan G. Yandell. Leadership, Vol. 16, no. 1
IV. God cannot break His word.
A. Titus 1:2 "In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;"
B. Hebrews 6:18 "That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:"
C. Absolute truth belongs to God alone. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781)
D. Deuteronomy 32:4 "He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he."
E. Truth lies in character. Christ did not simply speak the truth; he was Truth-truth through and through, for truth is a thing not of words but a life and being. Frederick William Robertson (1816-1853)
F. Proverbs 6:16-19 "These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that devises wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaks lies, and he that sows discord among brethren."
V. God cannot save those who will not believe.
A. Mark 6:5-6 "And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.And he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching."
B. Mark 16:16 "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."
C. Hebrews 5:9 "And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;"
D. During the presidency of Andrew Jackson, George Wilson, a postal clerk, robbed a federal payroll from a train and in the process killed a guard. The court convicted him and sentenced him to hang. Because of public sentiment against capital punishment, however, a movement began to secure a presidential pardon for Wilson (first offense), and eventually Jackson intervened with a pardon. Amazingly, Wilson refused it. Since this had never happened before, the Supreme Court was asked to rule on whether someone could indeed refuse a presidential pardon. Chief Justice John Marshall handed down the court’s decision: "A pardon is a parchment whose only value must be determined by the receiver of the pardon. It has no value apart from that which the receiver gives to it. George Wilson has refused to accept the pardon. We cannot conceive why he would do so, but he has. Therefore, George Wilson must die." George Wilson, as punishment for his crime, was hanged. Pardon, declared the Supreme Court, must not only be granted, it must be accepted. - George Maronge, Jr., Birmingham, Alabama. Leadership, Vol. 12, no. 3.
