Everything starts with God. All we are, all we see, began with Him. Mankind makes Him small in an effort to control and humanize Him. The Creator of universe is our God. What can we say to these things. Nothing can come against us. (Genesis 1:1; Roman’s 8:31; Kings 6:14-18)

Speaker(s): Bob Colban, Avery Powers
Sermon 12438
6:30 PM on 1/8/2023

Avery Powers –

It’s great to be with you guys on Sunday evening. I see Richmond is here. Richmond in the house. This was
the Richmond harvest, right? How long were you there for? A week. If you’re here from
Richmond and you went on the winter harvest raise your hand? Wow. Wow. That’s awesome.
That’s awesome. What an amazing thing. What an amazing thing. We want to hear more about
that, Jesse. See Jesse after service if you want to hear more about the Richmond experience.
Okay. Pray with me. (Prayer).

Turn with me to 2 Kings. I wanted to start there. I had a neighbor – actually it’s still my neighbor
back in Massachusetts. I was talking to him. We were talking about God because I was telling
him I wanted to come down to Bible college and go to Baltimore. He was, he’s Catholic and he
was telling me – I forget exactly what we were talking about – but he said something to the
effect of man has made God in his image. Kind of twisting the whole adage. God made man in
his image. Thinking like evangelical Christianity is made in the image of man.

And I just thought that was kind of interesting and it kind of stuck with me. Like wow, cause he’s
got God in a box. He’s kind of figured God out so to speak. He’s put him in his place. Like, you
know, he knows all the things outside of Christianity maybe what he thinks is Christianity. He
has this idea like oh, yeah. All that’s a set of rules that we are supposed to abide by and all
these different things. He’s got his own god, little ‘g’ and he’s following his perception of it.
But there’s no like as P. Schaller says, there’s no plumbline. Have you heard that? There’s no
plumbline that we can adjust to.

This is my perception of what God is but then I bring that to the
cross. I bring that to the plumbline that we have, the Bible, and I adjust. I make a course
correction. And what an amazing thing that we have, the Bible, that we can course correct at
any moment and readjust our perception. Undoubtedly, the natural man does not understand
the things of God. The natural man does not understand God’s ways, God’s mind, God’s
character. This is the spiritual man and this is in 2 Corinthians 2:14.

But God is so much greater. I just wanted to talk about that a little bit tonight. God is so much
greater than our perception, our natural understanding of what we could ever make God out to
be. So, 2 Kings 6. In this chapter, we see Elisha and his servant. The Assyrian king comes to kill
Elisha because he knows Elisha – he catches wind that Elisha is kind of telling the king of Israel
what to do and how to out maneuver the king of Syria. The king of Syria says who’s this guy that
knows the inside information. He even knows what I am saying in my bed, in my privacy. Who is
this? We need to kill him. He finds out it’s Elisha.

So, he brings his army in vs.14. He brings his army and is coming around Elisha and his
servant. vs. 14-16. And I’m sure at this moment the servant is like, what are you talking about?
It’s just the two of us. What are you talking about? And Elisha prays in vs. 17. This is an
amazing picture right here. If you just imagine yourself in your situation or situations, whatever it
may be. And you just imagine the spiritual war that’s going on and there’s chariots of fire and
horses surrounding you.

This is what we have. This is our God. This is the mighty God that we serve with chariots of fire
that’s around us, fighting for us. It might not be that we have an understanding that we want
something and God might not want that for us cause it’s not good. So we have to recalibrate,
right, our understanding of what is good. What is good? What is good for me not from what I
understand good to be but what is good in your eyes, God. In your mind what is good for me
and I trust that is better. And so anyways, here we see basically I’m not going to go through
much more of it, but Elisha has a different – like the chariots of fire and the chariots of horses,
they don’t come down and fight sword by sword with the army of Syria. That’ s not what
happens. That would be the natural understanding. Oh, cool. There’s this great army and they’re
going to come down and we’re going to fight and we’re going to win because we got these
chariots with army and fire. But thats not the case.

What happens is Elisha brings him to the king of Israel and they offer him food. And they eat
with them. They’re kind to them. Elisha prays that they are blinded. The Syrians are blinded.
Then he prays that their eyes are opened. So, there’s this theme in this chapter about spiritual
understanding, our spiritual blindness and our spiritual eyes being opened to what’s really going
on. That theme that God is bigger. God is bigger.

So, in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, if you turn there with me. Staying on this theme, we look to eternal things.
We look. This natural life, the things in this life, they pass away. We have an understanding of
that yet we still tend to cling to the things in this world. We tend to gravitate towards them and
fall in love with them and make them idols. But of course we know in Psalm 135:5-18, these things
they don’t speak. They’re not flesh. They don’t have eyes. They don’t have legs. They can’t
walk. They can’t breathe. But our God has all of these things. You can read that portion right
there. You can say, okay, our God has flesh, right, in the form of Jesus. He has, he is not
created. We are created. Our God has a mouth that speaks and eyes that see.

Ears that hear. Our God has breath in his mouth, right? He breathes the breath of life into creation.
So, on this theme, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 and then 5:1. And just this idea focusing on the eternal,
focusing on heaven. Heaven. What is to come. Our hope. Our anticipated hope of what is to
come. Nothing in our life can compare to what’s to come. Nothing. You challenge me on that.
Challenge God on that. Nothing in our life in the immediate could compare to the glory that is
coming. The glory that is awaiting us. And just focusing on that, recalibrating that, coming back
to that. And do you trust, do you believe that God is greater? Do you believe in the greater God,
the bigger God and not little ‘g’ god.

One more portion of Scripture. Matthew 23 and the woes. Matthew’s woes. Christ’s woes of course.
The portion of Scripture after the Pharisees kind of come to Jesus and they challenge him. The
Sadducees as well. They challenge Jesus with these questions. They have three different
questions that they ask him. And Christ comes back at them. You don’t have the right
understanding. You’re not on the same page as who God is. And he goes after this into 23 with
woes. It’s an incredible portion to read if you have the time.

But understanding that the Pharisees are putting on heavy burdens in vs. 4. They bind heavy
burdens hard to bear and they lay them on their shoulders, vs. 4. They’re giving these burdens
out and the people of Israel are taking these burdens on. In a sense, they are oppressed by the
Romans but they are also oppressed by the Pharisees, by their burdens that they are imposing
on their religion. And they are saying, I got to go to temple. I got to offer my dove. I haven’t
prayed enough. I haven’t prayed enough. I haven’t gone to temple enough. Oh, man, you know.
God must be so angry at me. Oh, man, I got to do this.

I haven’t tithed enough. What is God going to think of me. I haven’t tithed enough. And these things, this is what Israel was faced with. This can sound familiar to ourselves right now, can’t it. I haven’t tithed enough. I haven’t
gone to church enough. I haven’t prayed enough. I haven’t read my Bible enough. I don’t even –
you know, if you find yourself, trust me. I’m the first one to say I felt this. But this is a heavy
burden. This is such a heavy burden and God’s like that’s not the motivation. That’s not the
motivation I want for you to read your Bible. That’s not the motivation I want for you to pray. I
don’t want that to be your motivation that I haven’t done it enough and you have a quota that
you’re going to have on your mind that you’ve come up with. Fifteen minutes a day. I heard a
pastor say if you haven’t prayed ten minutes a day, if you haven’t read your Bible for ten minutes
a day, prayed ten minutes a day, then you’re not even a real Christian. And it’s like, I haven’t
been a real Christian for a lot of days, you know.

But these are heavy burdens that Pharisees will apply on – I’m not saying he’s a Pharisee. I’m
just saying that these are heavy – if you find yourself feeling this weight, God is not imposing
that weight. He’s not. We heard last week, P. Schaller saying the talents. You thought I was a
hard taskmaster. You knew that I was a hard taskmaster he’s basically saying. You understood
me to be a hard taskmaster, so I’m going to be a hard taskmaster. But that is not my nature.
God’s nature is not a hard taskmaster.

And just thinking of these small god thoughts versus big God thoughts. Small god thoughts
could be “God can’t use me because of who I am, what I’ve done.” Or maybe “my limited
capacity.” What you’re saying about yourself. My limited capacity. But like read 1 Corinthians 1:26-27.
I’m up here because of that. God calls the foolish. God calls the foolish. He doesn’t call the
mighty of the world, the wise of the world. He calls the foolish. He calls the foolish and look
around. Look up here. 2 Corinthians 3:5-6, God’s the one that qualifies. Who are we to disqualify
ourselves or count us out. That’s up to God.

Another small god thought. God can’t help me or answer my prayers because of my
weaknesses, my failures so I may as well not even pray at all or even apply faith at all. A big
God thought answering that would be 2 Corinthians 12:9. God is strongest in my weakness, right? 2
Corinthians 12. Another small god thought: God is upset because I don’t read – that’s the one I just said
– I don’t read my Bible or come to church enough. Romans 8:28-32, he didn’t spare his own Son.
He didn’t spare his own Son. How is he going to spare giving you all things, right?
And submission. If you think about obedience, I want to obey God. I want to obey God. But you
need to be submitted to God first before you can obey God. Obedience that can happen without
any submission. You see that in governments.

You see that in all sorts of areas of the world. People are obeying the government but they are not submitted. You can obey, but you’re not submitted. You can obey, and your heart is far from the act. God is saying I don’t want that. I
don’t want that. I don’t want your obedience. I want your submission and after submission you
will find yourself obeying, right? You will find yourself obeying when you are submitted.
Christ comes in Mt. 6 and he’s upping the ante. I’m not after you just not murdering. I’m after
you not hating. I’m after your heart being applied to this and you can’t do that in your natural.
You can’t do that in your natural. I can’t do that in my natural. I have to submit to God and give
God what I have. And say God I understand. I recalibrate. This is your Word. This is who you
are and I am over here. Like readjust me. Do that in me so that I could find myself desiring the
things of you, desiring your thoughts, desiring your mind and your ways. I’ll find myself walking
in those things, right? Okay. That’s it.

I was just thinking because if you think about like just this one thought. The burdens, right? And
you think about following God. Following God. It’s the burden is light. Think about that. The
burden is light and it’s easy. My burden is light and my yoke is easy. Don’t take that as it’s going
to be easy as in rainbows and butterflies and floating on the clouds, right? No, it’s not easy in
that sense.

It’s easy in the sense of like white water rafting. Think about white water rafting. Okay. The
Pharisees are implying and saying go up the river white water rafting. Go up it. You’re going to
take your kayak and you’re going to go and you’re going to try to go up the river. You’re going to
go backwards, right? You’re going to go the other way. But what Christ is saying is go white
water rafting down the river. Go correctly. He’s saying he’s recalibrating everybody. You got to
go down the river. This is how you go white water rafting.

And you’ll find yourself it’s not easy in the sense that white water rafting is easy. But you’ll find
yourself it’s going with the flow. You’ll find that things are working out. You’re going down. It’s
challenging. You’re facing difficulties and bumps and rocks and different things to avoid and stuff
but you’re doing the thing that is the right thing. The right way. The right. You’re going with the
flow like literally. So, just that one thought to end. God being bigger and God being greater. And
following God is not hard. It’s easy but it doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, if that makes sense.
Okay. (Prayer)

P. Bob Colban –

Okay. How many have ever heard the story, I was just thinking of it as I was
walking up here. When somebody asked Dr. Stevens, very seriously asked Dr. Stevens what’s
the last thing you are thinking about as you are walking to the pulpit? I think a lot of you know
the story, right? And so, the person was expecting this incredible answer, you know. I just want to hear – whatever. And he said, I always check to make sure my fly is up! Not exactly what they
expected to hear. Which is what I did as I walked up here.

Okay. Post it notes. Excuse me. I want to continue actually on the theme that Avery started
which is on the greatness of God. A full disclosure. We did talk about it yesterday, so I’d love to
say the Holy Spirit gave us the same exact message but we did talk about it as far as a theme
for today, a theme for tonight. Excuse me. Because I feel like P. Schaller in some of his
messages recently – I don’t know if you’ve noticed. But it’s not always the topic of the message,
but he’ll throw in these little things like do you know we are traveling seventeen thousand and
something miles an hour through the universe? And that’s like you know these things that are
kind of, I listen to those things and I say wow! That’s amazing! That’s God. Like I don’t feel like
it. I don’t think you guys feel like we are flying through the universe, spinning around on this little
ball, but this is the reality and this is the greatness of our God.

He’s been throwing these little things out like that like about the human body. About science.
And it has really prompted me to think about this theme how great God is. Or you can say it this
way: how big God is like Avery said and how small sometimes we make God. And so, that’s
kind of the theme and if you have your Bible turn to – this is the first verse in the Bible I ever
read in my whole life and it’s Genesis 1:1. Cause when I first picked up a Bible, I started at the
beginning. I thought that was what you’re supposed to do. So, let me just read the verse first.
Genesis 1:1, in a sense, we could stop right there. Doesn’t that say everything that we need to know
about God? Like in the beginning.

So, the word “beginning” – first in place, time, order or rank. So, what does this verse say? Before God created heaven and earth, there was nothing. There was him but there was nothing as far as the earth goes. In the beginning, the first thing, the first thing that happened was God created the heaven and the earth.
I look at this and say this should be our starting point. Anytime we have questions about God or
confusion or misunderstanding, we should always come back to this verse and say, in the
beginning, God created heaven and earth. In the beginning, God. That’s where it all started.

And I just want to say this. If I say something today, don’t get offended in the sense like I am not anti-
science. I am not anti-doctors. I am not anti-physics. I am not anti – I don’t know enough about these topics to even be against them, you know. I am not anti-math or anti-education or
anything like that.

But the thing I want to say is before all these disciplines existed, before there was a physicist,
before there were astronomers, before there were mathematicians, before there were doctors
and scientists that were all examining God’s creation; but before those guys even existed or any
of those disciplines existed, in the beginning God. He existed before all these disciplines. Do
you understand what I mean by that?

God created all this and man for the last X number of years – 10,000, 20,000. Who knows? Has
been trying to figure out what God created. So, I say this to say is God bound by these laws?
And I say, but really we have to say it this way: these are the laws that God created. So, what is
a scientist discovering? Is he discovering like, you know, the beginning of God or trying to
explain life without God? And God says, I created life. Like you are trying to explain things about
me and I created all of this. In the beginning, God. That’s what we have to say. A physicist
wants to argue with me, probably all I would say to him, in the beginning, God.

This is interesting. There’s a guy. He was an astronomer. Anybody ever hear of Dr. Carl Sagan?
Really? Wow. I didn’t think that many people would. So, I saw him many years ago on the
Johnny Carson show. Anybody know Johnny Carson? Okay. Sometimes in my Bible college
class, it’s me at 70 years old and a bunch of 20 year olds and I use these examples that I think
are great and they’re all like [straight face]. Like who’s that you are talking about? There’s a
generational thing there.

But Carl Sagan was on Johnny Carson. Johnny Carson asked him something about the age of
the universe. And the guy goes – he said it like this: “billions and billions of years ago.” Carl Sagan said – how did he say it? – if we see the light of a star. This is what he said. He said it
takes light years, whatever that means. That’s a calibration. Millions or billions of years for the
light from this star to reach the earth. So, if we can see this star, it means that that light left
billions of years ago for us to see it. Do you understand what he’s saying? If we can see that
star, it’s so far away, then that light had to leave a billion years ago for us to see it here on earth.
And in one sense to the natural mind, that makes sense.

Yeah, it’s billions of years for the light  to get here, so therefore, that light had to be created a billion years ago for us to see it now. But then we say, but in the beginning, God. And couldn’t God – I remember watching it and
saying that’s foolish. Isn’t God who created everything able to put a star in the sky that the light
takes a billion years, but he puts it in the sky and we can already see the light. Like is that hard
for God? Is that impossible for God? Do you understand what I’m saying?

Like here’s man trying to figure out all these things about God and God says I just put it up
there, I put the light already shining. It was no big deal for me because I am God. He put the
lights in the sky. He put the moon, the sun, the stars, all these things.

You know, it’s interesting. I shouldn’t say that that much. But God put all the natural laws into
place. You know, there’s a portion in Scripture in Joshua – I think it’s chapter 10. I don’t know if I
wrote it down. Joshua was fighting a battle, and the battle is going well for the children of Israel
but it started to get dark. And Joshua prays that the day would be extended. I forget exactly
what his prayer was. And it says that God stopped the sun in the sky. You know that portion of
Scripture?

He stopped the sun and he held up the moon. If you read commentaries about this, people not
in the Christian world but people in the world will say that’s impossible. If you stop the sun and
that means – and they go through this whole list of things like that means the earth has to stop
spinning. And if the earth stops spinning, then people will fly off the earth and all this stuff will
happen, so it’s physically impossible for that to ever happen. That’s a mistake in the Bible.

Well, God created all these laws that keep us on the earth. God has put the sun in the sky. God
has put the moon in the sky. God can say, hey, hey. Just hold up a few minutes. He could – like
do we believe that God – let me say that differently. Like maybe I should say it like this: God can
do whatever he wants to do. Like I created the sun and the moon, all the systems, all the natural
laws that you are quoting to me. I created them all. They didn’t exist before me. It’s not like I
took a formula from somebody else and created the earth based on some other guy’s formula. I
created it all.

If I want to stop the sun so the children of Israel can win the battle, I just say it. Stop. Cause
that’s our God and that’s how great he is. He’s not bound by laws of time and space and all this
kind of stuff that I don’t understand because he created them all. If he wants to violate them – if
you even want to use that word – if he wants to change something, then he’s fully capable of
doing it and not having people fly off the earth. You know, isn’t this our God. This is the Creator
of our universe is our God.

I love what Avery said about his friend. In Rom. 1, it talks about man has – and if you read it all,
Kenneth Wuest does a great job on Romans 1. This is what he says. This is my paraphrase. He
says that mankind has put God to the test and that God has failed the test. In other words, this
is, mankind says this is the kind of God that we want and God, you are not that kind of God. Isn’t
that interesting? And they disaprove God. And they make God in their own image. That’s what
Avery was talking about. So, the god that people talk about is like this small god. Why did man
do that? Because man wants to control God. He doesn’t want to be controlled by God. I need to
make God very small so I can control him or put him in a box like Avery said. And God says, this
is mankind.

I was thinking today, you look at the Roman gods, the Greek gods, the gods of the Assyrians,
the Egyptians. All these great civilizations. All throughout history, mankind has been steeped in idolatry. All the way back at the time – one of the reasons why God created or chose Israel and
said you are now my chosen people is that he wanted them to represent him in this idolatrous
world. The world is filled with idolatry. We don’t see it all the time, but every civilization had
idolatry. All kinds of different abominations. Gods of different things. But they were always very
much like men. They were just a little bit stronger than men. They were a little bit wiser than
men. They were a little bit taller than men.

But our God is not like a man. Do you understand what I’m saying? I was thinking today like
people think of God like a superhero. You know, the superheroes that I grew up with. Anybody
know the Fantastic Four? Really? Wow! That’s three in a row! Okay. Three good examples. I
remember these guys. One of them was like a flame, right? One of them was really fast. The
Flash or something. Help me out. What is it? Stretchy Man. Okay. Stretchy Man. What’s the last
one? I can’t remember. He was the Hulk. Really strong. Like a rock. Okay. How did I get there?
Man! Avery, come and help me out here!

But this is, these are superheroes. Marvel Mystery guys, you know. None of them are like –
They’re all like men but just with something – this is going nowhere! They’re like men with – this
is the – man. I shouldn’t have gotten there at all. It’s Sunday night. Everyone just relax. I’ll dig
myself out of this. This is the way people view God. He is just a little bit above man.

I was going to bring up a stool and just step up on it and say to them, to most people, God is so
small. Like God is like he has some extra – I can pray to him and maybe something will happen.
Maybe God will do this or maybe God will do that. And he’s so small in the minds of people.
He’s like a mystery character. He’s like Bat Man. This is the way they view God like some kind
of little super hero that has maybe a little bit of power but he’s just kind of like us. Not much
greater than us. And God says in Isaiah, I think it’s 55, that my ways and – he says that heaven
is higher than earth. Okay. Heaven is not right next to earth. As heaven is higher than earth, so
are my ways and my thoughts higher than your ways and your thoughts. Like it’s not even close.
How can we compare man and his wisdom with God and his wisdom? How can we compare
God and his omnipotence, God with is omniscience and compare that to a common man? It’s
not like they’re close. They’re no where near each other.

We’re talking about in the beginning was God. It all started with him. And that’s our God, the
Creator of the universe. Man is always looking to humanize God. Make him no different from us.
Very small. More like a super hero. But God says like get to know me and my greatness. Get to
know who I really am. And this is what we do when we come here during the week for services
and reading our Bible. What does the Bible reveal to us? The greatness, the glory of our God.
You know, the world like I said tries to twist it. Tries to make God seem like – here’s another
example. I’m jumping around a little bit but just stay with me. A friend of mine and some of you
know him. I won’t mention him by name. He is like a brilliant research scientist for lack of a
better way to describe him. And his world, like he used to work for Hopkins.

He works somewhere else now. His research is inside the human cell. Do you understand? Like he goes
to work – I go to work. I work on houses. He goes to work, he dives inside a human cell and
looks at DNA and RNA and proteins and how this interacts with this and how the blood works
and all this kind of stuff. This is the world he lives in like stuff you can’t even see.
I asked him one time. I said, the deeper you go into the human body as he, you know, just goes
down to like the very essence of who we are and how our body works. I said the further you go,
does it draw you to God or does it take you away from God?

I thought it was an interesting question. And he said, of course it draws us to God. Like what we find when we go inside the human body and the breakdown and how everything works so incredibly. We are fearfully and
wonderfully made it says in Psalm 139. Like the more we see, the more it reveals that there’s no
way none of this could ever happen. It has to be a divine Creator. I thought that was interesting,
because I wasn’t sure what he might say. He’s a believer. I said what are your colleagues that
are not believers, what do they say? He said, well they can’t really acknowledge God. They
have to explain it some other way instead of acknowledging that there is a God who started everything.

In the beginning was God and he created everything. That’s our starting point like I
said earlier. So, this is the God that we serve. You know, we go through the Scriptures. I was looking – it was
a verse that Avery quoted. Hold on. Psalm 135. It’s an interesting psalm because the psalmist says
at one point, vs. 5-7. What is this? This is describing God to us. But then you go down a few
more verses, vs. 15. Like this is the gods that have been created by man in the image of man.
And as Avery quoted, “they have mouths but they speak not.” vs. 16-18. That’s interesting. They
that make them are like them. What a contrast just in this one psalm. Like God can do whatever
he wants and God has done whatever he wants. God created the atmosphere. God created
everything that we see. The air that we breathe.

Do you know that the earth – here’s another question. See if I get four for four. How many have
seen the Privileged Planet? Pretty good. Yeah. The Privileged Planet Planet just says if you
haven’t seen it, that the position of the earth has like in order to have life on the earth, the earth
had to be perfectly positioned exactly where it is. The makeup of the earth had to be exactly
what it is. If the earth was like any closer to the sun, we would burn up. If it was any farther
away, we would freeze to death. If the moon, our moon was a different size or in a different
place we wouldn’t be able to sustain life here. They go through I think it’s 11 or 12 or 13 things
that shows that the position of the earth in the universe, in our solar system is so precise that
any movement from where it is would be uninhabitable by human life.

And you might say, that’s incredible. But that’s God. God just says okay. I want to have this type
of life, us. This is what is going to inhabit the planet, so I need to put the planet right here and he
does. And that’s God. Hopefully, this is making sense to some. But that’s how, that is the nature
of our God. It’s perfect. People are looking for inhabitable places throughout the solar system. I
don’t know what’s out there. It doesn’t really interest me that much.

It’s interesting to see God’s creation in its fullness as they discover new places but if people would just look at the earth and its position and all that it took to have life here, they should fall on their knees and worship God.
And say this is a miracle. This should not happen. How can people say that was an accident?
They actually do the math in the DVD, the Privileged Planet. In order for that to happen by
chance, the number would probably go all the way across this chapel.

It’s impossible for all of that to happen by chance, but God just says I have created the earth. I’m placing it right here
and it’s inhabitable for mankind. That’s our God. Not this small god. Not this god that is just a
little bit wiser than us. Not this god that is maybe a little bit stronger than us. Not this god that
has this wisdom that is just a little better. But this God, we can’t even compare ourselves to him.
Our God. He is like the Creator – I don’t know.

Like when I was thinking about it today. The Creator of the universe that we are talking about is
our God. That’s who our God is. Is there anything that he’s not capable of? There’s a story.
What did he do? There’s a blind man in John  9. Jesus spit into some clay. He stuck it in the guy’s
eyes. He said go wash in the pool and the guys sight was restored. That’s God. Like where is it
in the medical books that you heal a blind man with some mud in his eyes? And people would
laugh at that and say, well, that’s crazy. Like I don’t believe that. I can’t believe the Bible says
that. That’s impossible. God says, I can use clay. I can use mud. I can use water. Or I can just
speak it. Because the natural laws, I created them. If I want that guy to see, I just say “see.” But
the world and science and all these things say the natural laws say that that’s impossible and
God says it’s totally possible. I just did it. I just did it.

There’s the Syrian captain, Naaman, who had leprosy. The servant of his wife said if Naaman
the captain can go see the prophet in Israel, he could be healed. This guy had leprosy. He had
everything that the world could offer, but he was a leper. And this little maid who served his wife
who was from the nation of Israel. She was a captive. She said if he could go see the prophet
Elisha in Israel, he could be healed. And he goes.

And Elisha says to him, go down to the Jordan River and bathe seven times. And he resists and
he fights it and says that’s crazy. Then he finally says okay and he did it. And you know what it
says? His skin became like a newborn baby. His leprosy was gone by bathing in the Jordan
River seven times. Where is that in the textbooks? Where is that? This is God intervening in the
affairs of man and saying I can do, I want to heal this guy and this is how I’m going to do it. And
it happens because God is – how do I say it – in the beginning was God. In the beginning. How
could this happen? I don’t know. In the beginning was God. He created everything.

How can a guy be raised from the dead when he was dead for four days and he already stinks?
I don’t know but it happened because God is able to do anything because in the beginning was
God. That’s it. It’s kind of like what’s your fall back position for us as believers? In the beginning
was God. How do you explain it? I don’t have to explain it. In the beginning was God. And this is
my God and he can do anything. Any situation.

I think one time the children of Israel were surrounded by the Assyrians. And the Assyrians were
threatening the children of Israel. And the prophet said to the king of Israel, don’t worry about it.
I got this. Don’t concede to their demands. God will do something. They wake up the next
morning and 135,000 of the soldiers surrounding them are dead. How does that happen? There
wasn’t even an arrow shot at them. There was no attack. There was nothing. They’re dead. How
does that happen? Because in the beginning was God and he took care of his people. And
that’s our God. Maybe that’s just the message today. I had a conclusion, but maybe that’s the
conclusion.

What can we say to these things? It’s Romans 8. Is it vs. 31? Let me just close with this verse.
Romans 8, great chapter. All these things that are written prior to vs. 31 in chapter 8 of Romans.
Then vs. 31. We could say that to us right now. What could we say to these things we just heard
about? What can we say? It says in the King James, “if God be for us, who can be against us?”
And we could read that and say, I don’t know. Maybe God is, maybe God is not for us. That
word “if” kind of leaves some doubt in there.

But the way it’s written, Kenneth Wuest goes into this also very well. That “if” is not maybe or
maybe not. It’s if and it is. He says the verse should be read like this: in view of the fact that God
is for us, what or who could be against us? In view of the fact that this God that we are talking
about, in the beginning was this God. In view of the fact that he is for me, that’s crazy. He is for
you? That’s crazy. Like the God of the universe is for us? Like what can come against us? What
can come against us? Things can try to come against us, but we have the God of the universe.
Not some small god. Not some statue. Not some lifeless piece of stone or a piece of tree that
somebody has carved or melted out of gold. That’s not the God that is for us. It’s this God that is
for us. And what could be against us? In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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