Plainerwords with God Nothing Is Impossible

January 26, 2005

PLAINERWORDS … WITH GOD NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE

According to the Scripture the only thing which God cannot do is lie. Other than that all things are possible with Him.

“In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began” (Titus 1:2).

“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” (Heb. 6:18).

In Numbers 23:19 it is stated that; “God is not a man, that He should lie.”

With the exception of lying, all things are possible with God. In the Gospel of Luke the Angel of the Lord appeared to Mary and told her she would conceive a child, having never known a man. Then the Angel of the Lord told Mary that her cousin Elizabeth, who had been barren, was with child. How could this be? Mary must have thought. The Angel said to Mary in Luke 1:37; “For with God nothing shall be impossible”.

A certain rich ruler asked the Lord Jesus what must he do to inherit eternal life? Jesus’ reply was for the ruler to sell all of his possessions and distribute the proceeds to the poor. When the ruler heard this he was very sorrowful: because he was “very rich.”

24 Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! 25 Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. 26 Those who heard this asked, "Who then can be saved?" 27 Jesus replied, "What is impossible with men is possible with God.” (Luke 18:24-27) NIV.

Jeremiah testified that there was nothing too hard for the LORD to do;

“Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee:”(Jer. 32:17).

God is incomprehensible to man. God is Spirit (John 4:24), He is not a man (Num. 23:19). All that can be known about Him is what He has chosen to revealed about Himself in the Scripture. There are some things that He has revealed about Himself that many Christians choose not to believe—there is nothing too hard for Thee; with God nothing is impossible; what is impossible with men is possible with God.

If He wanted to, He could turn a forest into an army of men. You may question, “Oh, yeah?” I’d reply, “Yes, He could.” Consider what John the Baptist said after the Word of the Lord came to him in the wilderness and he began to preach the baptism of repentance. The multitude who came to John, he called them a generation of vipers and said; “Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, ‘We have Abraham to our father:’ for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham” (Luke 3:8).

By divine inspiration John asserted that God could turn the surrounding stones into the children of Abraham had He so desired.

If God wanted to, He could turn a person into a chunk of coal. You may say, “Well I guess He could.” I would reply, “I don’t guess He could. I positively affirm that He could.” If He was able to turn a woman into a pillar of salt (Gen. 19:26), He could certainly turn someone into a chunk of coal. He is not limited to any of the laws inherent to man. In our thinking let’s not bridle Him with the limitations of human attributes.

If God wanted to, could he have walked upon this earth and visited men all through the times of which the Old Testament is history? He not only could do it, but He has done so. With God—the Infinite One—nothing is impossible.

In considering this, let’s keep in mind that the word “LORD” is the Hebrew word “Yahweh.” Yahweh is the Name He gave to Himself when He revealed Himself to His people. The New Testament Name for Yahweh is Jesus.

“The LORD appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground” (Gen.18:1-2) NIV.

In plainer words Yahweh appeared to Abraham in the form of three men. Since God is invisible and “No man hath seen God at any time” (1 John 4:12), Abraham did not see Yahweh, but Abraham saw Him manifested in the form of three men.

Abraham was divinely enlightened as to who the three men were—Yahweh—because in verse three he refers to them as “my Lord” in the singular, not “my Lords.”

“And said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant:” (Gen. 18:3) KJV. The notation in the Companion Bible, Appendixes 32, points out “Out of extreme (but mistaken) reverence for the Ineffable Name ‘Jehovah’ (Yahweh), the ancient custodians of the Sacred Text substituted ‘Adoni’ in 134 passages. The A.V. and R.V. are all printed ‘Lord.’ In all 134 times it should have been ‘LORD.’” Genesis 18:3 is one of those times.

Abraham washed their feet, and the told Sarah to knead and bake bread. He had a tender calf prepared and served to his Visitors. As they ate Abraham stood by them under a tree. Then continuing in Genesis 18;

9 "Where is your wife Sarah?" they asked him.

"There, in the tent," he said.

[Notice the transition from the personal pronoun “they” to the singular Name “LORD.”] 10 Then the LORD said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son."

Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. 11 Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, "After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?"

[Sarah did not laugh out loud, she laughed “to herself,” surely indicating the three men was the One and Only LORD, because He knew her thoughts as she laughed, and because of what is said in the next verse]

13 Then the LORD said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and say, 'Will I really have a child, now that I am old?' [that was what she thought] 14 Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son."

15 Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, "I did not laugh."

But He said, "Yes, you did laugh” NIV.

In verse 14 the LORD asked a rhetorical question “Is anything too hard for the LORD?” No really reply was required because the obvious answer was “no.”

As students of the Word we should recognize how the words are used interchangeably— the LORD, three men, they, He, and then lastly in verse 16, the men.

16 When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. 17 Then the LORD said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? 18 Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. 19 For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him." NIV

As the LORD appeared to Abraham as three men His essential Being was not diminished one iota. He retained all of His attributes as the Invisible God—the Infinite One. 20 Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know."

[He said “I will go down and see” (vs.21). He did go down to Sodom, but He did so in the Person of two the men.]

22 The men (i.e. two of the men) turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD. (NIV)

One Man stayed behind and continued talking to Abraham. When He was through talking, Abraham went home (vs. 33). The LORD, the man who stayed behind, and Who talked to Abraham in verses 23-33 vanished, or disappeared, or de-materialized. The two men who turned and walked to Sodom, were referred to as angels.

Genesis 19:1; The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground (NIV).

Read carefully Genesis 19 and it will be noted that the “two angels” are referred as “men,” and then as “He.” The words are interchangeable with each other.

The LORD appears as “two angels” or “two men” in Chapter 19. Not one of His attributes were diminished. Lot, his wife, and daughters and sons-in-laws almost had to be dragged out of Sodom. They were warned not to “look back” or stop anywhere on the plain (vs. 17). However, Lot’s wife didn’t heed the warning; “But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt (vs. 26). NIV.

Truly it can be said that nothing is too hard for the LORD. In this study we have seen that God was capable of projecting or inserting Himself into the affairs of Abraham and Sarah in the form of three men (Chapter 18). Then we noted that He walked to Sodom in the form of two angels, who had the form of two men. These were extensions of or projections of Yahweh Himself.

Tom L. Ballinger