Nothing Too Hard for God
“Ah, Lord God! behold Thou hast made the heaven and the earth by Thy great power and by Thy stretched out arm; there is nothing too hard for Thee” (Jeremiah xxxii: 17).
Jeremiah had climbed to a very high mountain peak, although he was in a dungeon at the time that he made this prayer. Very often when we are cast down, and are in our lowest position in the sight of the world, God lifts us to the very heights of glory.
I used to think that I should like to have lived in the days of some of those Old Testament prophets. I have a great admiration for the men who stood up boldly for God in those dark days. But I long ago got over wishing to have lived in their day. When a prophet makes his appearance on the horizon you may know that the world is about as bad as it can be.
When Moses, that prince of preachers, appeared in Egypt, Israel’s condition seemed, humanly speaking, to be hopeless. There was not one star to relieve the midnight darkness. Israel had settled down apparently to the idea that thejr were to be bond slaves forever. The promises to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob must have died out of their memory, and their hopes must have perished. It was at this time that Moses appeared.
Again when the star was fading away in Shiloh, and Eli’s family drifted away from God, Samuel appeared. Later still, when it looked as though the whole nation had forgotten God, when Ahab and all the royal court had gone after Baal, Elijah appeared.
So it was in the days of Isaiah and Jeremiah. It was as dark as midnight. Here was this weeping prophet. The people jeered and sneered at him, and ridiculed his tears and his prayers, and at last they cast him into a prison; and if God had not been with him they would have slain him. They called him a pessimist. Nebuchadnezzar had already brought up his mighty legions from Babylon and had laid siege to the city. In a little while the nation was to go back into bondage on account of their sins and iniquities. Undoubtedly if theT had listened to this weeping prophet, as he declared the warnings of God, the city and the nation would have been sparedj for in all ages when man repents and turns from his sins God hears his cry and turns his captivity. But the people would not hear the word of God, and cast Jeremiah into prison, and in prison he makes this wonderful prayer. He had a wonderful vision of God’s marvelous power.
The first time I went across the continent to California, I thought what a vast country this is! Afterwards when I crossed the Atlantic and saw that mighty ocean, I thought what a wonderful God I have. Yet this planet is a mere ball thrown from the hand of its Creator. This earth is one of the smallest of the planets, and a million of them could be thrown into the sun and there would still be room for three hundred thousand more. Vet we are told that there are eighty million other suns in the universe. The mind cannot take it all in. There is nothing in heaven, earth, or hell, too hard for our God, and it is a good thing for us to start out with this thought that God is able to do above all that we dare think or ask.
It pleaded God to have Jeremiah bring forth this argument in prayer, for we read in verse twenty-seven: “Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for Me?”
How searching are God’s questions! Those He put to Job are perfectly overwhelming. It is worth going to prison to hear God speak as He spoke to Jeremiah.
Some of you are in fields of labor which you think are very peculiar and hard. You are ln a worldly church, where your testimony seems smothered by false doctrines and creeds. New Yorkers say that theirs is the hardest city on this continent to reach. Many of the middle class have gone over to New Jersey to live, leaving the very rich and the very poor behind. In one part of the city there are a quarter of a million Jews, and there are so many’ foreigners and so much whiskey that the obstacles seem insurmountable. But let us fall back on Jeremiah’s words:
“There is nothing too hard for God.”
Think of it! Do you suppose that New York is as dark as Babylon was when Daniel went there? And 3’et God used that man to illuminate the whole city, and lead that great monarch, Nebuchadnezzar, unto the God of the Hebrews. Think of the obstacles he had to encounter! A despised Hebrew captive, and Tet he felt there was nothing too hard for God, and God stood 0y him, and for twenty-five hundred years his light has been shining, and is brighter to-day than ever.
Boston people say that theirs is the most difficult city on this continent to work in, that there is more unbelief, more skepticism and other “isms” there than in any other city. Fall back on Jeremiah’sword:
“There is nothing too hard for God.”
Is Boston as hard as Egypt when Joseph was taken there? The whole land was lit up by that man because he believed that nothing was too hard for his God, and he let God use him.
In Chicago, too, they will tell you that that is the most difficult city on this continent to reach. Ninety-one per cent of the population is either foreign or of foreign descent. There are forty thousand Bohemians, and sixty thousand Italians, and one hundred thousand rermans, in separate quarters of the city. Almost even- tongue under heaven is spoken there. The theatres are open on the Sabbath, every barge and train is chartered for Sabbath excursions, and nearly every band of music is out. People say that it Is beyond the reach of men. So it is, but it is not beyond the reach of our I rod.
Do you think Chicago is as dark as Samaria in the days of Elijah, when Ahab and his court had gone after Baal, and people were banished from the country or put to death because they loved God The seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal were hidden away somewhere, but God can use His people, and how bright the light when it shines out in the darkness. These men shine out because they believed that nothing was too hard for Cod.
I is a great mistake to be looking at obstacles when we have such a God to look at. How many people in New York and Boston are spending whole nights and days in visiting the abandoned and the outcast? Perhaps there has never been a day when so much work was done in these dark cities as during the past twenty years. Our God is just the same as He was in the days of Jeremiah, and if we call upon Him in faith I believe that these dark waves will go rolling back into the pit whence they came.
Look at Israel in the time of Saul. The people forgot God, but David came along, and believed that nothing was too hard for God, and, meeting the uncircumcised Philistine, slew him. No army could stand before Israel when there was no strange God among them, but sin brought the people into weakness and bondage. The same thing will happen to us if we allow sin to come into our lives. Let us keep ourselves unspotted from the world and look to God to do things which man cannot do. Who would have thought that God could have fed three million people in that desert — homeless, shelterless, shoeless. But God gave them bread from heaven, and water from the rock, feeding them and clothing them and bringing them safely through the desert. Our God is the same to-day. He constantly refers to that scene, so as to remind us of His power. There is no such thing as a hard field if we are right with God.
Look at Jerusalem in the days of the apostles. The Captain of their salvation, the Prince of Life, had been slain by an ignominious death, and had been put into the grave. He had risen, but no one of prominence in the city believed it. A few unknown men and women, who professed to be Llis disciples, believed it, but there were no scholars or men of letters among them. But those few men believed that nothing was too hard for God, and they prayed, and shook the city to its foundations. The fires of Pentecost are still burning, and they came in answer to prayer.
Some think that their husbands are too far gone in unbelief to be reached, or that their brothers are too steeped in infidelity to be brought back. I believe that it is dishonoring to God to talk in 41iat way. Look at Saul of Tarsus, present at the killing of Stephen and going off with letters to Damascus. One ray of light from God smites him, and the persecutor of Christ becomes the champion of the cross and one of the grandest preachers that this world has ever seen. These men who have spoken bitterly against Christ and Christianity may become mighty instruments in God’s hands for doing His work if we will only have faith to believe that our God is able to bring about the reformation.
People say they have sinned, and get discouraged; that their life is so dark and gloomy. Did you ever think how dark it must have been before God created light? But God said, “Let there be light.” Cannot He drive away the darkness, and the fog, and the mist that has gathered round ‘our path? Do not be talking about the difficulties in your life when you have such a God to call upon. He says, “Call unto Ale, and I will answer thee, and will show thee great things, and difficult, which thou knowest not.”
It is a great thing for a mighty God to permit sinful men like you and me to call upon Him. When men get great we cannot get a chance to call upon them, but it is not so with our God. He commands us to call. Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, filled Jemsalem with blood, and is supposed to have had Isaiah sawn asunder. Manasseh was taken a prisoner to Babylon, and there, in his fetters of brass, he called upon his father’s God, and God turned his captivity, brought him back to Jerusalem, and put him on the throne. If God will hear a wicked Manasseh and answer his prayer, will He not save every man and woman to-day who calls upon Him?
But perhaps your prayers do not seem to be answered. There is a reason for it. Jeremiah’s prayers were answered because he was right with God, but I believe that a great many of our prayers weary God. Mark that. They are a burden and an abomination unto Him, for “if I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me.” If there is some cursed sin in your life, and you are living in willful disobedience to God, you cannot expect Him to hear and answer your praj-er.
If there is anything in your life which you know to be wrong, do not sleep until you have the thing settled with God. Then you will get the greatest blessing you have ever had on earth. God delights to give gifts to the sons of men. “He that spared not His own son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” Mark, God gave His Son without our asking, and now with Him will He not freely give us all things? Let us expect God to hear and answer our prayers because we have turned away from everything that is contrary to His will, and because we believe that nothing is too hard for our God.