The Bible Baptist Church, located
at 2015 Beulah Road in Madisonville, Kentucky, would like to invite
you to listen to a message of the sovereign grace of God in
the Lord Jesus Christ by their pastor, David Edmondson. In Jeremiah 32, verse 17, the
prophet Jeremiah makes a very confident declaration concerning
his God. In just a few short words, he
proclaims the sovereignty, the omnipotence, the power of his
God, and he proclaims to his God, there is nothing too hard
for thee. Then, just a few verses later,
the Lord asked Jeremiah the prophet the same question who had made
this self-confident statement. He asked, Jeremiah, is there
anything too hard for me? Now this is why a true child
of God never brags on their faith. The only bragging a believer
does is in and on their Lord, the Lord Jesus, who is faithful,
that promised. Jeremiah said to the Lord, there's
nothing too hard for thee, yet deep within the recesses of his
own heart there is unbelief. and the Lord finds it necessary
to put the matter in the form of a question to him and ask,
is there anything too hard for me? The Lord had given Jeremiah
a great deal of insight to his own heart. Speaking to Jeremiah
directly in Jeremiah chapter 17, the Lord said, blessed is
the man that trusteth in the Lord and whose hope The Lord
is. But then the Lord warned Jeremiah,
and he warns us, and he warns us of the enemy within, and writes,
the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. And who can know it? I, the Lord,
search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according
to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. Now,
I'm into my 67th year on this earth, and I have often heard
it said that we are our own worst enemies. And according to the
scriptures, I believe that's true. Our hearts, by nature,
are so wicked and deceitful that God calls them deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked, and who can know them? Only God
can. Paul said, I know that in me
that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. The apostle Paul
said, for the good that I would do, I do not, and the things
that I do that I hate, that do I. And what was Paul's conclusion
of himself? He said, O wretched man that
I am. Not I was, but I am. You know, the greatest men and
women of faith will find a great deal of skepticism lurking within
their hearts, waiting for the opportunity to show itself. And
only God can overrule what rules within and without. Now, the
story of Jeremiah here in chapter 32, a powerful enemy of Israel,
the Chaldeans, had surrounded Israel. Jeremiah had warned the
king of Judah that this would happen according to verse one.
And this is a word of the Lord given to Jeremiah for King Zedekiah. It wasn't Jeremiah's word to
the king, it was God's word to the king. You know, folks often
get upset with the message and want to shoot the messenger.
Why? Because they can't get their
hands on the one who sent the message. And that's exactly what
King Zedekiah did. He threw Jeremiah into prison
for prophesying and warning him and telling him the truth of
what God said. And most folks don't want to
hear the truth. They want to hear what they believe
the truth to be. And while Jeremiah is in the
prison, the Lord told him that his cousin, his uncle's son,
would come to him in the prison and want to sell him a piece
of ground, and that Jeremiah was to buy it. That's what the
Lord told him. You buy that. He tells him for
how much. Tells him to get all the papers
filled out correctly. Tells him to have them witnessed,
notarized, and sealed. Tells him to have everything
done according to the law and have those papers put away in
a safe place. Now, Jeremiah is buying a piece
of property that would soon be taken from him. Now, what sane
and sensible man would buy a piece of land that he knew would soon
be taken away? And that's exactly what preachers
who believe that you can lose your salvation do. Now, I find
no comfort in that. If I can be saved by something
that I do, then I can be lost by not doing something that I
should or by doing something that I shouldn't. But if an omnipotent
God saves me, then the same powerful, almighty God keeps me, and none
can pluck me from his hand. But God had also told Jeremiah
something else. He told Jeremiah that he was
going to give the land back to Israel someday. And so in verse
7, Jeremiah says, Oh, Lord God, behold, thou hast made the heaven
and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there's
nothing too hard for thee. But then just 10 verses later,
it seems that the Lord finds it necessary to remind Jeremiah
of what he had himself confessed. And in verse 27, the Lord asks
Jeremiah, is there anything too hard for me? Do you really believe
that nothing is too hard for me? You see, again, the strongest
in faith has to be reminded over and over again that God is almighty
and he's powerful and he can do anything and he can do everything. And that's why I'm often inclined
to pray as that poor father did, Lord, I believe, but help thou
my unbelief. Is there anything, dear listener,
great or small, that's too hard for God? God challenges all with
this question, Is there anything too hard for me? First, we must
consider that the hardest, most inconceivable things have already
been done by God. How about the work of creation?
Jeremiah said himself in verse 17 that Jehovah had made the
heaven and the earth by His great power and stretched out arm.
So if God can do that, nothing else is too hard for Him. There
was a time when there was nothing and God dwelt alone, and only
God can create something out of nothing. What can he not do
after doing that? With whom did God take counsel,
the scripture asks? Who hath instructed him? God
of his own will piled up the mountains. He himself dug the
foundations of the deep. Everything was in darkness until
God said, Light be, and there was light. He alone divided the
land from the sea, and He alone painted the skies with the clouds. He bent the rivers to flow as
He saw fit. He held the oceans to its boundaries. The earth He created was void
and without form, and darkness was upon the deep. And God simply
spoke, let there be, and there was grass and herbs and trees
and the waters full of fish, and the birds filled the sky.
And whenever we doubt the power of God, we ought to read again
the first chapter of Genesis. Secondly, what about God's work
of destruction? Over and over again in the scriptures,
especially in the Old Testament, the Lord shows us how easily
He can rid Himself of adversaries. when God's patience and long-suffering
in the days of Noah reached its limits. He spoke, and down came
torrential rain with tremendous power. The mountains were covered,
and the whole earth became one great sheet of water. And it
was the power of God and his anger that overthrew in a moment
Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring cities thereof with brimstone
salt and burning. And friends, it was the power
of God that destroyed Egypt with the plagues and preserved his
people without so much as a fly, a frog, or a gnat being found
in the land of Goshen where his people Israel dwelt. And this
was why God raised up Pharaoh, Paul tells us, that he might
show his power and declare his name throughout all the earth,
Romans 9, 17. And it was the Lord that smote
the firstborn of Egypt and brought forth his people when they came
to the Red Sea. And it was the power of God that
he departed the Red Sea and his power that brought the waters
back together to destroy the armies of Pharaoh. You see, dear sinner, there's
nothing too hard for the Lord. Thirdly, this is seen in his
sovereign power of providence. He led his people through the
wilderness and fed them for 40 years while they never plowed
or farmed. God dropped manna from heaven,
bread from heaven for millions, and caused a flowing fountain
of water to come out of a rock. Israel's garments never got old,
neither did their feet swell. And I ask you, if God can accomplish
all that, surely He can take care of us. Fourthly, nothing
is too hard for God in His great work of redemption. God, in the
person of Christ, came to earth to be born of a virgin, sheltered
in a stable, cradled in a manger. And this is the wonder of wonders,
that God should take upon himself the form of a servant, and made
in the likeness of man, and yet more amazing still, took upon
himself the sin of his people. He was made sin, so that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. God became a man
to bear man's awful transgressions, and Christ alone took the burden
of punishment, drinking the cup of God's wrath dry for his people. And never was God's power seen
in omnipotence so potent as when Christ died upon the cross that
chosen sinners might live. The Lord told Jeremiah to buy
a piece of gram. The world around him said, well,
you can kiss it goodbye. The Chaldeans are going to take
it. It's gone. Your deed is worthless. It's
gone. Your money is wasted. But the
Lord said, you put that deed up. It's going to be a while,
but that is your land. Don't you give up hope. You're
going to possess that land. And friends, every believer,
every child of God has purchased a piece of ground just like Jeremiah
did, but it cost them nothing. The Lord bought it with his own
shed blood. And the deed had been signed
by the blood of Christ. And it's bought and it's paid
for. And we build our house, and we
build our hope upon that precious real estate, Christ, the solid
rock. And the rain will descend, and
the floods will come, and the winds will blow upon that house,
and it will not fall. Why will it not fall? because
it was built upon Christ, the solid rock. On Christ, the solid
rock, I stand. All other ground is what? Sinking
sand. You see, this is for sure. This
is for certain. This is forever. Whatever the
Lord has promised to do, He is able to do, and He will do according
to His Word. How do I know that? The Lord
told us, is there anything, is there anything too hard for me? God can do anything and God can
do everything. Hope thou in him. You have been listening to a
message by David Edmondson, the pastor of Bible Baptist Church
in Madisonville, Kentucky. If you would like a copy of this
message, or to hear other messages of God's free, sovereign grace
in Christ, you can write to our mailing address at P.O. Box 652
Madisonville, Kentucky 42431. or log on to our website at FreeGraceRadio.com. If you would like to come and
worship with us, we meet at 2015 Beulah Road, Madisonville, Kentucky. And our service times are Sunday
morning Bible study at 10 o'clock AM. Worship services begin at
11 o'clock AM. Wednesday evening services at
7 o'clock PM. Please tune in again next Sunday
morning at 10 o'clock AM for another message of God's free
and sovereign grace in the Lord Jesus Christ.