God Can!
And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God. Lu 18:27
Governments can’t. Banks and lending institutions can’t. Doctors, nurses and hospitals can’t. Lawyers can’t. Kings and presidents can’t. But God Can!
You may have encountered impossible situations and circumstances in the past. You may be now facing things you can’t do. You can’t . But God Can! The Bible declares:
And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God. Lu 18:27
There is nothing too hard for God to do and nothing too “broke” for God to fix. “But you don’t know what great needs I have.” It doesn’t matter what you need. God can get it to you. “But you don’t understand how bad off I am.” It doesn’t matter how bad or impossible your condition may be. God can fix it.
Years ago I received a call from a mother whose son was dying. He had undergone several critical surgeries, was in the ICU on life-support and not expected to live. The doctors admitted “he can’t live.” “There is no way he can survive.” “He is living now only because he is connected to the life support system. “ The lady asked desperately for our church to pray. The call now was from this mother and was literally shouting over the phone… “Oh, I am so happy. I just about can’t stand it! My son has recovered and is doing well! They are removing him from ICU and he will be home in a few days!” Doctor’s can’t. God can.
I want you to see and understand the power and ability of God in impossible situations. “Is anything too hard for God?” (Gen 18:14) And the obvious answer is a resounding “NO!” Listen to this:
Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me? Jer 32:27
When others can’t, God Can. When nations can’t, God Can. When presidents and kings can’t, God Can. We live in a culture that is saturated with a negative, pessimistic, fatalistic, impossibility mind set. “It’s too hard.” “It’s too difficult.” “It’s too expensive.” “It’s impossible.” “There is no way out.” This kind of thinking and talking is a bill of goods we have bought from the devil. He has lied, intimidated and threatened to keep us discouraged and dismayed. He has made us think that our problems are beyond repair. He has attempted to keep us stressed out and running scared.
The negativism we live in is not only personal, it is national and international. No jobs. Lay offs. Energy crisis. Shaky stock market. Nervous banks. Shrinking dollar. Failing economy. Foreclosures. Financial uncertainty and insecurity. Seems that on every hand there is pending panic and wide-spread pessimism.
The fact of wide spread terrorism and radical Islamic threats fills the airwaves and newspapers. Civil war and deadly demonstrations are causing governments and kingdoms to fail and are fueling the fear and emotional distress that covers a large part of today’s world. Our society is sinking and no man can anything about it. Our nation is staggering in unrest and political turmoil and nobody can fix it. Looks like the world is a time-bomb just moments away from self-destructing. And nobody can stop it. At least that’s what the devil would have us think. And he is the father of lies.
Satan has even had the nerve to attack me. He’s had the audacity to attack our church. He has threatened us and intimidated us. He is on the move. But God is, too! Some have told me “Bro. Dick you are dreaming. What you are talking about will never happen. The things you are declaring that will come out of this little congregation is foolishness. It is impossible.” That’s exactly what I am aware of and that is exactly why I know God Can.
We as believers are facing a formidable task. The world is desperate for a spiritual awakening. The nations are ripe for a harvest. There are billions of people living in darkness and ignorance who will never get to heaven unless we tell them about Jesus.
We are commanded to take the whole Gospel to the whole world. The need is to see those depressed and overwhelmed and held in bondage set free. Masses are held captive and defeated by the powers of darkness. The job we have to do is impossible. The job we have been assigned is financially unreachable. The job is too big, too hard, and too impossible. We can’t do it physically. We can’t do it numerically. We can’t do it naturally. But God Can!
It doesn’t matter how small we are. It doesn’t matter how weak we are. It doesn’t matter inadequate we are. It doesn’t matter how limited we are. We can’t. But God Can.
What are you facing in your Christian walk? How vicious is the devil tormenting you? What are your limitations? How can you accomplish the impossible in your situation? I am tired of the devil making a mess out of lives that have been redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus. I am tired of Satan intimidating the Body of Christ; vexing and tormenting; lying and stealing; slandering and accusing… Are you tired of his demonic attacks and relentless harassment? You may be aware of your weakness and failure to break loose…. To get free… Do you think you can’t? Then God Can! And God will! You have already been redeemed from the curse by the finished Redemptive Work of Jesus Christ. What you cannot do and what the church cannot do… God Can Do!
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: Ga 3:13
God’s Word tells us He Can
God Can because His Word says He can. His Word is established from everlasting to everlasting. Nothing is too hard for God. All things are possible with God. All through the Bible, there are powerful testimonies that declare God Can.
What is your need today? What is that crying, burning desire of your heart? What is the deepest longing of your soul? God’s Word says He Can. He can meet that need. He can satisfy that desire. He can hear and answer your cry.
I was noticing some of the names of God that are used in the Old Testament. And I discovered that the names of God declare that God Can. Listen to what His Name declares that He can do:
- Jehovah Jireh: God is our Provider
- Jehovah Ropheka: God is our Healer
- Jehovah Shalom: God is our Peace
- Jehovah Rohi: God is our Shepherd
- Jehovah Shammnah: God is ever-present with us
If God’s Word says He Can, then He can. He is not a man that He should lie. God is Truth. His Word is True. Jesus is called the “Truth.”
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: John 14:6
God Has Done it in the Past
God Can because He has done it in the past. You may think you are in a tight situation. You may feel that your back is against the wall. It may seem there is no way of escape. Perhaps you even think you have it worse than anybody else. Remember, you have been caught in bad situations in the past and yet, you are still living and breathing. You made it. God saw you through. God was faithful and you did not crash and burn as you surely thought you would. You survived and succeeded and came out the winner and not the loser. God Can because He has done it before.
Cheer up. It does not matter what you are going through or about to go through… you have been Born into the Family of God and you are going to come out the winner and not the loser. God is obligated to safely bring you through your trial and test.
There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. 1Co 10:13
God made Abraham a daddy when he was a hundred years old and Sarah a mother when she was ninety. He led 4 million Hebrews out of Egypt and into the promised land with Pharoah’s army in hot pursuit. They had no way of escape. Mountains were on one side, the desert on the other and the Red Sea in front of them. But that was no big deal for God. The Word says that those four million Hebrews passed through the Red Sea in one night. Do you know it would take a hole at least five miles wide to get all of them through in just one night? Even then, they would have to march through five thousand abreast in order for them to get to the other side with their animals, their possessions and their families. When God does something, He does it big. He literally blew a hole five miles wide in the Red Sea and they all walked across on dry land. God Can.
Once they got on the other side Moses was faced with the formidable job of feeding and caring for four million Hebrews and all their livestock. So every day for nearly 40 years God opened the windows of Heaven and sent four thousand tons of manna. That is over fifty-eight million, four hundred thousand tons of manna that fell from the sky over a forty year period. Then, they needed water. Lots of water. It took twelve million gallons of water every day to quench their thirst and the thirst of all their livestock. That means God provided sixty thousand tons of water every day in the middle of the desert where there was no river, no spring and no rain. God Can.
I figured that it would have cost God over ten million dollars a day to feed four million people and the animals they owned. The entire bill for getting the Children of Israel out of Egypt and into Canaan was an expense in excess of a hundred BILLION dollars. God Can.
God can because He delivered Daniel from hungry lions. God can because He saved Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from the fiery furnace heated seven times over. God can because He made the sun stand still for Joshua. God can because He made fire fall from heaven for Elijah. God can because He saved Jonah alive in the belly of a great fish. God can because He made a virgin have a Baby. God Can.
God can because He has done it in my life
I know God can because He’s done it for me. At the age of four, while living in an upstairs apartment in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, I because seriously ill with double pneumonia. This was before the “miracle drugs” of penicillin and other medicines had been developed and which could have been used in cases such as this. My Mom and Dad were Christians but they did not have the full revelation of God’s healing power. So, nothing they did for me could stop my convulsions or make my high fever go down.
There was an old man who every day would sit on a bench in courthouse square in the middle of our small town. There was something unique about this stooped, white haired old man. He always had a big black Book opened up in his lap. My mother and daddy would take me walking down Main Street, and as we passed the courthouse square, I would see him sitting on the bench and reading that big black Book.
One day I said: “Mother, what’s that old man reading?” She said, “Son, that’s the Bible. That man is Uncle Tom Cubley. Everybody knows Uncle Tom. He’s one of the best Christians in Hattiesburg.” She added: “He reads his Bible on the courthouse square every day.”
When I was upstairs, feverish and convulsing, the only thing I could remember was Uncle Tom. I said, “Daddy. Would you please go get Uncle Tom to come up here and pray for me?” I didn’t know anything about healing in answer to prayer. They were fearful for my life. Daddy left immediately. He went to the courthouse square and got Uncle Tom and brought him and his big black Book back to my bedside. I remember that day very well when Uncle Tom came up the stairs and into my bedroom. He laid his big old callused hand on me and he prayed. And I didn’t die. God Can.
I know God can, because He’s done it for me. He called me to preach when I was just a smart-aleck young man. He delivered me from religion and baptized me in the Holy Spirit. Supernaturally He has led us over the years in establishing and developing a successful ministry that has reached tens of thousands over the past 50 years. God Can.
God can because His Word says He can. God can because of His record in the past. God can because He’s done it in my life.
God can because He’s done it in our ministry.
I came to Mobile in 1962 as a fresh graduate of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary… a great and blessed institution in the Southern Baptist Convention. The church I was called to pastor was a small community church made up of sweet, friendly and spiritually hungry folks. As a matter of fact, some of them were hungrier than me. They began to sort of slip away to special prayer meetings in various places and while doing so, received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. They would witness to me about this experience but I really was not that interested since I knew what happened to Baptist Pastors when they got “involved” with Pentecostal practices. But my sweet wife received the Baptism sovereignly, while she was alone in worship and prayer. Following her encounter, God was gracious enough to lead me into that wonderful experience.
I gave my testimony to the little Baptist church and they kindly agreed for me to stay as their pastor and teach them the Word. And so we did. However the time came when there was such a burning desire in my heart as well and in the hearts of many others, to be free from any sort of restriction or limitation in our quest for more of God. We longed to be free to serve God and to follow His leadership in any direction. So, we had to make a choice. We were either going to be a conventional, denominational church or we were to be an independent, cross-cultural, interfaith church.
I remember the night that the deacons, the assistant pastor and I met in the old building which then served as our auditorium. We spent a good part of one Saturday night praying because the next morning I was going to call for a vote. We are either going all the way or we are going to quit. I plan on going all the way and you will have to decide what you will do.
So that Sunday morning, I announced to the congregation that I would stay as their pastor, but only under certain conditions. And the conditions under which I would stay would be quite radical for a congregationally-ruled church. One condition was that we would cease to be a denominational church and become an independent, cross-cultural, interfaith congregation. Another condition was that our congregational form of church government would be scrapped and a new form of government established. One that would recognize the Pastor and a select group of spiritual individuals serving as elders would comprise our decision-making board and we would no longer have congregational “business meetings.”
When the vote was taken, much to my surprise, the congregation chose for me to stay, and that was a miracle. However, inside of three months, the little church split three times. We were met with a critical financial crisis. Many were saying; “Well, Bro. Dick, you finally did it. You messed up royally. You split the church and now you are at your Waterloo. You’ve had it. The church is finished. It’s gone. And they all will be laughing at you and the foolish decision the church made to have you stay.”
We were slandered. We were called a “cult.” A local television station came out and did a news story on us right after the Jim Jones fiasco in South America. We were threatened, accused and cursed. We were laughed at. But we survived. God can.
In the middle of that crisis when we were down to fewer than a hundred faithful souls, God spoke to my heart and said, “Build a new auditorium that will seat a thousand.” “But,” I responded, “first,we don’t have enough people. Second, we don’t have any money and third, I just can’t do it.” And God said, “That’s right. You can’t, but I can.”
The bottom was still falling out. Things were not getting any better, they were getting worse. People were leaving. Bill were piling up and I was getting more and more depressed. I feel on my face in my study and said, “Oh, God! Have you forgotten me? Have you removed the anointing from my calling? Why is all this happening? I’ll tell you what, I give up. I give up. I give up. I’ve done everything I know to do. I’ve used everything I learned in college and seminary and in my short preaching experience. I have tried and cried and sighed. And nothing has worked. I give up!”
God answered, “Good. I’ve been waiting a long time for you to give up. You have tried to manipulate things and operate in your strength and ability. Now that you have taken your hands off of MY WORK, I can turn your ‘can’t’ into my CAN!’” When we give up God shows up.
God can because He says He can. His Word says He can. God can because He has done it in the past. God can because He has done it in my life. God can because He has done it in our church and ministry. And because God has done it for me, He is certainly capable and able to do it for you.
He can save you.
He can fix your messed-up marriage.
He can heal your sickness and disease.
He can deliver you from your addictions.
He can free you from worry and fear.
He can supply all your needs.
He can restore everything the devil has destroyed.
He can and He will!
Because He loves you
dickbraswell 
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