May the Lord be pleased to bless
us together this morning as we meditate in his word. Let us
turn to the prophecy of Jeremiah, chapter 32, and we'll read verses
26 and 27. The prophecy of Jeremiah, chapter
32, and reading verses 26 and 27. Then came the word of the Lord
unto Jeremiah, saying, Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all
flesh. Is there anything too hard for
me? It's a question which is spoken
by God. And the question the Lord poses
is this, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh, is there anything
too hard for me? So there is the question. And how do we respond to that
question this morning? Won't it be a great blessing
if God grants us living faith? To be able to recognise and to
appreciate and to know that there is nothing that is too hard for
God. There are many hard things which
we can read of in the Word of God and we can read of them many
times when God appeared, when God did great things. Nothing too hard for God. Our trouble is our faith is very
weak and we do not pray in faith. And if we come praying in faith,
or think we pray in faith, we often do not have a right motive.
Our motive, remember, must always be for the honour and glory of
God. That's the end result. The honour
and glory of God. Therefore, whatever we may pray
for, whatever need we may have, in our natural lives, in our
spiritual lives, the end result should be for the honour and
glory of God. And that is a very important
consideration. As you and I come in our prayers
to God, and I hope we all pray, all of us pray, the children
and the middle-aged and the old people and the young people,
may we all be found praying unto God. But the important thing
is that Those prayers, if they are answered,
must bring honour and glory to God. And may we always be active
in thanking God and proclaiming what God has done. And not to lie, such answers forgotten
in unthankfulness or without praises die. We are a dire people,
aren't we? How sad it is, how sinful it
is, that we perhaps do pray and perhaps we do receive answers,
but do we really thank God and thank Him from our heart and
men and women and boys and girls shall know that the Lord has
heard and answered our prayers. We know this morning, I hope
we know, I hope we can believe that this word is true. That
there is indeed nothing too hard for our God. In answer to this
question, is there anything too hard for me? Well, there's not.
In an earlier verse, in the 17th verse of this same chapter, we
have Jeremiah speaking. And Jeremiah says, Our Lord God, behold, thou hast
made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched
our arm. And it's good to remember that,
and it's good to recognize that we don't read only of God created
the heaven and the earth in Genesis. We read it throughout the Word
of God in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. So let
us be thankful for that. And here he says this, and there
is nothing Too hard for thee. That was Jeremiah's testimony. Now we ought to just recognize
that here was Jeremiah in prison. We might think, well, surely
Jeremiah, you would have been praying that God would have delivered
you and brought you out of prison. Well, Jeremiah knew that there
was nothing too hard for God, but that the Lord has his way
The Lord had his plan for you and me. And it may be that we
are found, I hope not in natural prison, although perhaps sometimes
God's people are there. I remember Ian Paisley was put
in prison in Northern Ireland when he was speaking out against
the things which were contrary to the word of God. And he was
put in prison. and remember when he was in that
prison he says that when the door clanged shut the Lord came and was with him
in that cell so we should not think that perhaps because we're
Christians that we should not perhaps have to face such a situation
as that but nonetheless it's good if the Spirit of God should
be with us in such a condition. But it may be in our spiritual
life that we find ourselves in prison. And we don't seem to
have liberty. If you're in prison, generally
speaking you're in a cell. You're not free to open the cell
gate or door and to wander about where you want to. You're stuck
there. And it's only when the jailer
comes and opens the door that you're allowed out. And so it
may be in our spiritual life we may be found as it were in
prison. And we can't seem to get ourselves
out. Well, it's a good thing we can't. Because what we will need is
God to come and to deliver us and to bring us into a condition
of freedom and liberty. And when I say that, I mean of
course in a spiritual way that God will bless our souls and
enable us to enjoy that liberty which is enjoyed by the true
Church of God who walk before Him in the light of His countenance. They walk before Him and God
is with them. and God reveals himself to them
and God speaks to them and what a blessing it is therefore if
we are brought out of prison and we come into the great and
glorious light of the gospel when the Lord Jesus Christ comes
and draws near to us and reveals himself to us there we've been
in prison there's been no light You know, some cells are dark.
Especially years ago, there wasn't any natural light and there wasn't
any artificial light and they were dark. Sometimes in a spiritual
life, our souls are in a dark condition and we cannot see the
light and we cannot get ourselves out of that light. But if we
are like that, let us just remember the occasion referred to in the
life of Jonah. And again, there may be similarities
in our lives. You may say, well, hold on a
minute, I'm not sure if I've been like Jonah. Well, you may
have been. We may have run away from God. We run away. Jonah didn't want
to do what God told him to do. And therefore he thought, I'll
escape, I'll escape. And off he went. Got on a ship,
paid the fare. Yes, and he was so unconcerned
about what God had told him to do, he went to sleep. But you
see, God knew where Jonah was. And God knows where we are. He knows where we are in our
natural life. He knows where we are in our
spiritual life. And you know, it may be that
we are running away from God. Well, Jonah thought he would.
He thought he'd be alright. Well, everything went okay to
begin with, didn't it? It was a nice smooth path. It
may be so when you might think, well, I've got away with this.
I don't think I've got to obey God's voice. No, I can carry
on. God's hand was upon Jonah, and Jonah was going to learn
a very hard lesson, a very painful lesson. You know, of course,
that the great storm arose. God, of course, was in that. He brought the storm, and he
brought the storm with such ferocity that there was no option but
eventually to throw Jonah overboard because he confessed he was the
problem. But God in his mercy prepared that great whale, that
great fish, to swallow up Jonah. And there he was. Where was he
then? He was in darkness. He was in prison. He couldn't
get himself out, could he? Just imagine, stuck in that whale's
stomach, right in the midst of the sea, not able to free himself
in darkness, gross darkness, no light at all. And yet Jonah
was a man of God. But Jonah had disobeyed God.
It may be in our lives that we disobey God and we are in darkness.
Well, what was the turning point in the life of Jonah? What was the turning point? The turning point was this. When
he prayed to God, when he prayed to God, he said, I will look again to
thy holy temple. He prayed to God. And God brought
him to that position where he had to say, without any doubt,
salvation is of the Lord. The deliverance of his soul was
of the Lord, and also a physical deliverance was of the Lord.
And what had happened? God's work had been accomplished. Jonah then was vomited out of
the fish's belly onto dry land. And then you see when God's word
came to him, well he didn't demur then did he? He went to Nineveh. He preached the preaching that
God had given him to preach. And of course it had a wonderful
effect. Well, Jonah was in prison. God delivered him. My friends,
Jeremiah was here in prison. Now, Jeremiah was here not because
he was unfaithful, not because he didn't believe the word of
the Lord, but because he told the king the truth of God's word,
and the king didn't like it, and he was put in prison. Again
there may be those situations when we are honest and truthful
in the things of God and we don't receive the acknowledgement that
we think we should and perhaps we're looking for and in fact
it seems that things are in the opposite way, again wrong. Well don't be discouraged because
God has a purpose. And God had a purpose in the
life of Jeremiah. And that's why, by faith, Jeremiah
was able to say, and there is nothing too hard for thee. And that's a wonderful blessing.
When you and I are able, by faith, to come and acknowledge to our
God, there's nothing too hard for God to do. The things which
are impossible with men are possible with God. And today we have a
great God. And so here we have this statement
by the Lord when he said, behold, you and I are to see, to acknowledge,
to realize. Behold, these words, I am the
Lord, the God of all flesh, Is there anything too hard for me? There is nothing too hard for
our God. Nothing too hard for our God
to bring us out of a condition of darkness in our soul. It may
be perhaps that the Lord has brought us there to show us perhaps
something of ourselves, our own sinfulness, the pride of our
hearts, The pride of our life, the lust of the flesh, they're
all there. And sometimes we may be sailing
on, just living with these evil things and assuming, well, that's
just one of those things. Well, when the Spirit of God
comes upon us, and shows us the wrongness of such views and thoughts
and actions, and directs us then to our condition. And it may
be that we find ourselves in darkness, we find ourselves in
prison, so that the Lord may revere Himself and give us in
that condition a real prayer A real prayer. Jonah had a real
prayer, didn't he? It took him three days to get
there. But he got there in the end. My friends, it may be perhaps days, it may be weeks,
it may be years. It may have been years. But you
see, the Lord will appear. The Lord has a time. The Lord
has a perfect time. We have a time. It's usually
a wrong time. God has a time. And God's time
is a right time. And God's time is a perfect time. And God's way is a right way. And God's way is a perfect way. Yes, God knows what he will do. The Lord knows what he will do.
Now, you and I should rest in that. But in resting in that,
it means that we should come and cast our care upon Him and
desire that He would instruct us and He would show us if we
are wrong and where we are wrong and how we should react and what
we should do and what we should say and how we should pray. We're very ignorant and foolish,
aren't we? We are fools, you know, and we turn away so often
from the Word of God and we think we can analyse our situation
ourselves. Or perhaps we're not very worried
and we don't try and analyse our condition. But it's good
when the Holy Spirit does come and directs us to seek his direction
and to seek his will. Now this chapter that we read
in Jeremiah is very instructive and I hope you followed it through
as I read it. I hope you didn't just think
about other things. I hope you followed it through
because it spoke there of God's dealings with his people. and how they were going to go
down into captivity. Because they rebelled against
God. Because they turned their back
upon God. They had given him the back and not the front. Have you done that? Have you
turned your back upon God? It's a very sad place. But if you have, The Lord gives
strength and grace to seek his face. And the Lord, when that
work of correction is done, he will remember you. He remembered
Jonah. He didn't leave him. But you
can easily come into that condition and turn your back upon God.
Why do we do that? We don't want to do the will
of God. That's what it is, isn't it?
We don't want to do the will of God. So we turn our back upon
God. And what does that produce? Darkness. And what is darkness? No light. What does that mean? It means
barrenness in our soul. That's what it means. And the Word of God tells us,
the rebellious dwell in a dry land. That means there's no water
to drink and that means there's no spiritual blessing for us
if we have rebelled against God. And sometimes we're not always
aware that we have rebelled against God. But if we are disobeying
God's word, disobeying God's commands, then we are walking
contrary to God. And the word of God is so clear.
As it occurred to Israel, they walked contrary to God. And what
did God say? If you walk contrary to me, I will walk contrary to
you. God doesn't tell lies. And don't
think that you and I can therefore get away with it. You may get
away with it for a while. You may think you escaped. Jonah
thought he had. But you see, God knows. God knows
how he's dealing with us. And it's a great blessing to
be dealt with by God and not left to fall into hell. Dealt with by God. Now then,
here we have these words. Is there anything too hard for
me? No, there's nothing. Too hard
for God. And God can come, and God can
deliver, and God can restore, and God can bless. Well, you
may think, well, I don't think that applies to me. Yes it does.
It applies to the whole Church of God. God is able to do far
more, exceeding abundantly, than we can ask or even think. You
know, it's sinful to limit God. Because what it means is we are
unbelieving. We're not believing that God
speaks truth. These words are here. Is there
anything too hard for me? No, there's not. You and I believe
that with our whole heart. Or do we think, well, I do believe
it, but it doesn't apply to me. That means you're not believing
it. That means you're turning your back upon God. That's a
very solemn and very tragic thing, isn't it? To turn our back upon
God? We are to face God. We are to look to God. We're not to turn our back upon
Him. We're encouraged to look to Him. And that means not to
look to yourself and think you can cure the problem. No, we're
told, the Lord has said, I will be inquired of by the house of
Israel that do these things for them. that naturally speaking
the Lord does use means and that's right and proper but it's still
right to pray to God that he will bless the means and use
the means and direct the means but more so of course with regard
to our spiritual deliverance to be brought out of that time
of darkness into the glorious light of the everlasting gospel
and In a dark room, perhaps in a dark cell, with no natural
light or no lighting of any kind, it's exceedingly dark. But in
that dark room, if a match was struck, it would give an amazing
amount of light, an amazing amount of light. And if then perhaps
a candle was lit, which stayed for longer than a match, You
know, that single candle would give an amazing amount of light.
Well, so it is, wonderfully, in the things of God. When the
Lord comes and shines His light, it may just seem to be a little
light. Bless God if you and I are granted
a little light, a little light, so that it changes our darkness.
And now, instead of darkness, we just see there's a light. It's not all that clear. There's
light all round. And a little light will light
up all the room in some measure. And I believe that is so in a
spiritual way. When the Lord comes and gives
us a little light in a dark condition, what happens is we have a little
light in the whole great plan and work of God. It's just amazing. There we were in darkness, and
there the light shone. What has happened? The Lord has
done it. Is there anything too hard for
me? Well, here were Jeremiah in this
dungeon and he was speaking to Israel and telling them what
would happen because of their disobedience. And so that which
the Lord had prophesied and spoken through Jeremiah came to pass. But also in this chapter, we
also read how there would be a deliverance a deliverance,
a return from captivity. And if we are in captivity now,
captivity because of our sins. That's why Israel were there.
Yes, they were down there in Babylon. And it was a sad time,
wasn't it? Because we're told, the people
of Babylon said, sing us one of the songs of Zion. Sing us
one of your hymns. How shall we sing the word of
God in a strange land? You see they hadn't got that
blessing with them. They were far off physically,
they were far off. No doubt their heart went back
to Jerusalem and they remembered how they had been allowed to
worship God and yet They'd worshipped Baal and they'd worshipped the
stars of heaven and so on. They'd been disobedient. Now
there they were. And here was this prophecy, you
see. They would go down to Babylon. And they did. And they did. You and I cannot sin against
God lightly. Don't think you can. Don't think,
well I can just do that and there won't be any problem. Yes, there
will be. Yes, there will be. It was for Israel, wasn't there?
Seventy years. Seventy years. A long time, wasn't
it? A long time. But God came. And he turned their
captivity. He turned their captivity. And the Word of God here, which
we've read about, tells us Behold, I will gather them out of all
countries, whither I have driven them in my anger, and in my fury,
and in great wrath, and I will bring them again unto this place. And I will cause them to dwell
safely, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. And I will give them one heart,
and one way, that they may fear me forever. for the good of them
and of their children after them. And I will make an everlasting
covenant with them, and I will not turn away from them, to do
them good. But I will put my fear in their
hearts, and they shall not depart from me." Well, we could go on.
But there's the truth of God. That was the prophecy. They must
have held on to that, mustn't they, in their dark condition.
And perhaps you and I in our dark condition as it were in
Babylon, does our faith rise up to come and to trust in the Lord? Does it rise up to trust the
promises of our God? Does our faith rise up to believe
in His faithfulness? What God has said will come to
pass. And therefore we then come in
faith to pray to our God. Well, the Lord gloriously grants
a restoration, didn't he, to Judah after those 70 years. And of course, it was in an amazing
way, wasn't it, when the king in Babylon encouraged them, was
instructed by God to allow them to go back to Jerusalem, once
again build the walls and rebuild the temple. Yes, God's mercy,
God's grace. My friends, it hasn't changed
today. God is still a God of mercy. He is still a God of grace. What a mercy it is to realize
that we come before that same God. And so may we come rejoicing
today in that great truth that Jonah was blessed with. Salvation
is of the Lord. What does that teach us? It teaches
us this, that our hope, our salvation is not in anything that you and
I can do in and of ourselves. It is free grace, and it's the
revelation of Christ to our souls as our Redeemer, as the only
one that can deliver us from the wrath to come, the only one
that can save our souls, the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, my friends, then, what
a blessing it is Perhaps we've been brought down into that place
where we've had to recognise by the grace of God, the Spirit
of God has spoken into our hearts. It's as it were the lights shone. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord. You
know, the Apostle Paul, when he wrote to the Ephesians, and
he wrote these words in the third chapter of Paul's epistle to
the Ephesians. We read this. Now, unto him that
is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think,
according to the power that worketh in us, unto him Be glory in the
church of Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.
Amen. So the revelation by the Spirit
of Christ to our souls will direct us to this statement, unto him
be glory in the church, because it's what he has done. in coming
to us, bad as we were, bad as we are, unbelieving as we were,
unbelieving as we are. He is able. He is willing. I am the Lord. I am the Lord. Do you and I believe this today?
We're here, aren't we? In the attitude of worship, do
we believe that we are in the presence of almighty God? The
one who rules and reigns. The God of all flesh. Yes, the
God who is in every place, beholding the evil and the good. And you
see, with this spiritual understanding of the greatness of our God,
my friends, may we have it, may we come before God as the great
God, and may it be a solemn realisation, and may it be a blessed realisation
to know that we have a God who, although He marks everything
that we do and say and think, He's a merciful God, and yet
he's a God who looks upon his people and remembers them for
good. And he will not leave us, and
he will not forsake us. So may we thank God that we have
this God. And so we're thankful to know
that we worship the unchanging God, the unchanging God. Well, what a mercy then if we
have the evidence in our hearts. And that's what we need, my friends.
It's not just some natural understanding in our mind. Many people today,
with a good theoretical knowledge of the things of God, but they
remain dead in trespasses and in sins. But, you see, when the
Lord God gives light, he gives life. And that is eternal life. And that's what we all need to
know, that we possess the life of God in our souls. We all possess natural life.
We're here today with a natural life. More important is that
you and I possess spiritual life. Our natural bodies will die.
Our soul will live forever. How stands the case, my soul,
with thee? For heaven are thy credentials
clear. Is Jesus Christ Thy only plea,
because He is the great forerunner there. He's there in glory. My
friends, are we pleading the name of Christ today? Are we
pleading for His mercy? Are we pleading to know His love? Are we pleading to know that
He's died for us? Nothing's too hard for our God.
You may be pleading. I am far off. You may be feeling,
I'm at the ends of the earth. You may be feeling, can there
be any hope for me? Yes, you can be encouraged because
of a word like this. Is there anything too hard for
the Lord? No, my friends. God is able to
do for us great things. Abraham proved it in a natural
way. Joseph proved it in a natural way. They both, of course, proved
it in a spiritual way as well. Yes, we've seen how God appeared
for them. We see how God's appeared for
his saints. We think of Daniel. Great deliverance
for him, great deliverance for those three Israelis' children,
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Yes, God appeared, didn't he?
He brought them out of the fire. And they weren't even affected
by it. This is the God that you and I have this morning, my friends.
But let us not only rejoice in it, let us tremble that we have
such a God who holds our breath in his hand, who can cause that
breath to cease in a moment. Let us realise we stand before
that God now, as we would indeed on that great day of judgement.
We stand before God now. Yes, it's a very solemn consideration,
isn't it? We tend to forget, don't we?
Go on our way. We don't think God sees us, and we do what we
want, and we think what we want. God is in every place. I am the Lord, the God of all
flesh. Is there anything too hard for
me? Well, we may have hard cases. There's no case too hard. You
remember there was that King Manasseh. He was a very wicked king, a
very wicked king. But God had mercy upon him. God caused Manasseh to pray unto
the Lord. And just a word of warning to
you young people, when you read the Bible, you may read a part of the Bible
and you may come to a conclusion and you may think, well that's
the answer to that. Well it may be the wrong answer. And you may say, well why do
you say that? Because the case of Manasseh, if you just read
his life in Kings, you would conclude that there was absolutely
no hope for such a wicked man as that. But if you read the
parallel case in the Chronicles, where again there's the life
of Manasseh set forth, you will see that how bad it was to start
with, in the end God caused him to pray to God for mercy. And God blessed him, blessed
him indeed. Now the lesson there is that
you and I should consider the whole counsel of God and therefore
not jump to conclusions and say, well, there we are, that's the
answer. The whole counsel of God, my friends, the whole word
of God. Blessing if you and I read the
Word of God I read in the press this day that they've done a
An analysis or whatever you call it with the Church of England
they reckon 60% of the people who attend the Church of England
never read the Bible 60% That's tragic isn't it and it probably
applies to all the other churches as well You and I my friends
are to read the Bible We are to read the Bible diligently
We ought to read it from Genesis to Revelation and then again.
Don't just have a favourite chapter. Don't just have a favourite book.
Read the whole Word of God. And the more you read it, the
more it will be blessed to you, I'm sure, and how you'll be encouraged
to know as you trace out the path of the people of God. You'll
find your paths there. You may be surprised. Well, this
person had this to pass through, and I'm passing through that.
And you'll be encouraged and blessed. And that really applies
to, perhaps, this book of Jeremiah. It's not a book very often read,
is it? But it's a good book, and it's
worth reading, and there's some good instruction in it. So read
the word of God. Read the word of God, and look
to the Lord that he may direct you. in your reading. If you
need direction, don't go and ask this person, that person,
what should you do, what should you say. Read the word of God. God will tell you. It may not
always be what you want. David sought the Lord's guidance
with regard to fighting. Many times the Lord said, go
up, fight. On occasion he said, no, don't
go up, don't fight. The Lord gives us direction.
What a wonderful thing to know that we have Almighty God who graciously condescends to
give us answers to our prayers. Remember, as I said already,
to pray in the right way. What a blessing it is to have
such a God who looks upon us as such unworthy sinners of the
earth. We don't deserve any notice,
do we? What compassion, what love, what
mercy. Well today, may we rejoice in
the goodness of the Lord. May we be thankful that we have
such encouraging words to realize we come before the almighty,
omnipotent God, who is able to do great things. Behold, I am
the Lord, the God of all flesh, is there anything too hard for
me? Amen.