Again and again in Scripture, God reveals His infinite strength. Thus a Psalmist sings, “Great is our Lord, and of great power” (Ps 147:5), but he is not merely giving his own opinion or the opinion of those with whom he associated. These words were inspired by God Himself; they are His words; therefore they are entirely reliable. Ethan the Ezrahite expresses the same truth, but in the form of a question: “O Lord God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto Thee?” (Ps 89:8). And the answer to the question is so obvious that it does not need an answer. Yet, immediately afterwards, Ethan gives an example of God’s great power: “Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, Thou stillest them”. And anyone who saw the tremendous power of the sea, in south-west England, for instance, in the early part of this year will understand that this is saying a great deal.
God’s great power is even more wonderfully revealed in creating the world and every other part of the universe. At the start of God’s inspired revelation, we are told: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen 1:1). Apart from a materialistic bias, people generally would surely recognise that it was impossible for such a wonderful world as ours, albeit now spoilt by sin, to come into existence except through divine power. And to study the marvellous, intricate ways that the various parts of the body function should bring us to the same conclusion.
Again, God has been revealing His power in providence; and Scripture provides us with an inspired commentary on many of God’s works in providence. Among these great works, His deliverance of the Children of Israel from Egypt stands out prominently. It is hard to imagine any course of purely natural events which would have delivered the Israelites from slavery under Pharaoh, who was so determined not to let them go even when he and his people suffered one disaster after another. Yet Israel did go free, and Pharaoh, in his mad pursuit of Israel, lost his life, as did the rest of his military forces. Rahab and the rest of the citizens of Jericho were among the many tribes who were impressed by what they had heard of God’s might as He acted on behalf of Israel. The people of Gibeon also, another of the Canaanite cities,
were so impressed by reports of what the Lord had done in Egypt that they, deceitfully, came to Joshua seeking sanctuary.
Thus the Lord speaks of Himself as “the mighty One of Israel”. In Isaiah 1:24 this expression is used to indicate how He can restrain, and punish, His enemies – as happened in Egypt. It is dangerous for people to resist God’s authority. Many may not be conscious of actively resisting His authority, yet they are acting as His enemies. This is true, in particular, of those who, outwardly, live upright lives but refuse to submit to the authority of God when He calls them to trust in Christ alone for salvation. J Julius Wood once wrote, “There are no atheists in hell. The inhabitants of that awful place are convinced, by experience and without doubt, of the existence of God, and they tremble under a dread of His displeasure and of the punishment which their wickedness merits at His hand.”1
In the verse last referred to, God also describes Himself as “the Lord of hosts”. J A Alexander thus explains the expression’s significance: He is “the Sovereign Ruler of heaven and earth and all the host of them”.2 If we think of the “hosts” of stars and other heavenly bodies, we should again be impressed by the power of God in creating them and in keeping them in existence, so that they give glory to Him by continuing to fulfil the purposes for which they were designed. We may get some sense of the greatness of creation – and therefore of the power of the Creator – if we note that, on present estimates, “a typical galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars, and there are more than 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe”.3 And if we think of the “hosts” of holy angels, we should be impressed by the divine power that created them, so that they “excel in strength”, yet “do His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His word”; they are His “ministers”, or servants, doing “His pleasure” (Ps 103:20,21).
After God had created man, Satan came into the world, a fallen angel yet a powerful being. He applied his powerful mind to tempting Adam and Eve away from God and from the state of blessedness in which they had been created. In this he was successful. He is the “strong man armed” who, when he “keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace” (Lk 11:21) – while he keeps control of fallen sinners, he has them under his power; they cannot escape. But, strong as he is, he is not infinitely strong, and the Saviour points to Himself when He continues: “But when a stronger than [Satan] shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils” (Lk 11:22).
1In The Christians Daily Companion, Glasgow, 1845, p 678.
2Alexander, The Prophecies of Isaiah, Zondervan reprint, 1978, on Isaiah 1:9.
3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into the world and, whenever He came into conflict with the evil one, particularly on the cross, He overcame him. And now Jesus is sitting on the throne of glory and dividing the spoils; He is powerfully drawing sinners out of Satan’s kingdom to Himself, through the Holy Spirit. Satan lacks the power to resist effectively, in spite of all the efforts he makes to keep sinners entangled in sin and away from the Saviour. See, for instance, how the risen and exalted Saviour overcame one of Satan’s most promising servants, Saul of Tarsus, when he was so enthusiastically doing his master’s will by persecuting the Church. Through the work of the Spirit, Saul was made willing to give up his self-righteousness, his ways of thinking and his opposition to Christ. It was a remarkable instance of divine power. On the other hand, young Timothy, for instance, may not have appeared to be a servant of Satan. But he was – until the Holy Spirit, for Christ’s sake, began to work in his heart, however hidden that work was which made him a sincere follower of Christ Jesus.
This divine, powerful work has gone on, more or less, ever since. Sometimes the Lord operates on a wide scale; at other times He is pleased only to rescue a few sinners from Satan’s kingdom. The Reformation period was one when the power of the Lord was clearly demonstrated in turning large numbers of sinners, from the ways of superstition and ignorance, into the narrow way to everlasting life. Many histories of the Reformation, though they supply the facts – about Martin Luther, for instance, and the 95 theses he nailed to the door of the Wittenberg church; about John Calvin and the influence he exerted from Geneva on Reformed communities elsewhere in Europe; or about John Knox as the leader of the Reformation movement in Scotland – yet one vital matter is missing. It is God’s power in bringing about a saving change in these men, and His power accompanying the sermons these men preached, so that many people “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God”, as happened in Thessalonica (1 Th 1:9).
Among the volumes available in bookshops in recent years, probably only a minority would remind their readers that, beyond all the historical events which they record, is the almighty power of God bringing these events about for His own glory, for the purifying of His Church and for the good of multitudes of souls. One historian who did wholeheartedly acknowledge that God’s power lay behind the events he described was J H Merle d’Aubigné; he wrote, “Whenever society enters upon a new era, it requires the baptism of faith. In the sixteenth century God gave to man this consecration from on high by leading him back from mere outward profession and the mechanism of works to an inward and lively faith.”24
24D’Aubigné, The Reformation in England, Banner of Truth Trust, 1962 reprint, vol 1, p 23.
A religious history written from any other point of view is not a complete presentation of the facts; it omits the most significant fact of all: the power of God working in human affairs for His own glory and the good of souls. In particular, such history lacks a proper sense of the effects of gospel preaching; this preaching not only informs the minds of the hearers about, for instance, idolatry, leading them to detest that sin and, possibly, take practical steps to remove idols from their neighbourhood – that is what secular history will record. But there is also the saving effect of gospel preaching in transforming the hearts of some, perhaps many, of the hearers as the Holy Spirit applies gospel truth to their souls, bringing them to trust in the Saviour. This is the way in which the history of the early Church is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. And even when the hand of God is not specifically mentioned in some part of Scripture – most obviously, in the Book of Esther – we are still clearly intended to see God working powerfully, as He ordered His providence at that time to protect His people the Jews.
We can also conclude from the narrative in the Book of Esther that nothing is too hard for the Lord. Jeremiah also believably understood how God had made known His power in creation. So in his dismal situation, when Judah’s spiritual declension was far advanced and the Babylonian armies had invaded the land, he prayed, “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).
Many people in the Western world today assume that there is no God, and they certainly live as if there is no one to whom they will have to give account at last for how they have lived; they swallow the message that evolution, rather than the Creator, is responsible for the existence of the universe and everything in it; they watch Christianity becoming weaker and less influential in many parts of the world, and they assume that Christianity will continue to dwindle away to nothing.
But this will never happen. God does exist; it is He who made the world; He will at last judge all its inhabitants by His Son. He, the all-powerful One, is ruling in heaven and on the earth; He is fulfilling all His purposes, in spite of the devil, unbelief and false religion. So when the waves of unbelief arise, God will still them, in His own good time. And there will stand at last before the throne in heaven “a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues” (Rev 7:9), all of them delivered from Satan’s evil kingdom by gracious, divine power. Let us then be encouraged to pray for God’s blessing on our unbelieving generation using Jeremiah’s words: “Thou hast made the heaven and the earth by Thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for Thee”.