Tonight I want to get my text
out of verse 11. God has spoken once, twice have
I heard this, that power belongeth unto God. I want to deal with
the power of God. Look at the power of God. The power of God, if you define
it, means that His has the ability, God's power has the ability and
the strength by which He can bring to pass whatsoever He pleases. You know, you and I can't, we
don't have that kind of power. We can't do what we please, we
don't have the authority, we don't have the power, but God
does. Whatever He wants to do, He has the ability and the strength
to do whatever He pleases to do. And as holiness is the beauty
of all of His attributes, you can put holy in front of every
one of God's attributes. Holy right, He's holy, His wrath
is holy, His love is holy, His righteousness, His Anger is long so you put holy
in front of everything But you can't put love in front of everything
like everybody seems to think that you can But God's holiness
is his beauty. He dwells in the beauty of holiness
And that's his power. That's the glory of all of his
attributes. He's holy he the holy and lofty one inhabits eternity
and when Job I mean, excuse me when Isaiah saw him he saw his
glory and And the seraphims were crying out, holy, holy, holy
is the Lord God. So He is holy. You can put that
in front of everything. His Word is holy. God is holy. He tells us to be as holy as
God is holy. But His power, His power is that
which gives life, gives action to all the perfections of His
holy nature. Now let me tell you what I mean. How vain would the will of God
be without power to carry it out? If He didn't have the power
to carry out His will, it'd be vain, wouldn't it? It'd be useless. Without power, you know what
His mercy would be? Just feeble pity, that's all
it would be. Without power, his promises would
be empty, just empty words. Empty words, because he wouldn't
have no power to carry them out. But God's power is like himself,
infinite, eternal, incomprehensible. The scriptures tells us that
no man can stay his hand to say unto him, what doest thou? that
He does according to His will in the army of heaven and among
the inhabitants of the earth, and nobody, nobody can stop Him. Isaiah 14, 27 says, As He is
purposed, so shall it come to pass. Now it says here in our
text tonight, Psalm 62 and verse 11, God has spoken once. That's all it takes. What else is necessary? If God
speaks just once, what else is necessary? You know, a fellow
wrote a whole book on how to be born again. And our
Lord Jesus just told Nicodemus, said, Nicodemus, you must be
born again. He just said it once, you have
to be born again. And a man writes a book and tells
us how to do it and Christ just said you have to do it. And he
didn't then, he told Nicodemus how it was accomplished. And
it wasn't John 3.16 is how his new birth was accomplished. His
new birth was accomplished because as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
That's how man gets the new birth. And the Spirit blows word and
lifts us. We see the evidence of the wind
blowing. But when the wind, the Holy Spirit
blows on us, believe me, your effects of it's gonna be left
on you. And that's what he is talking about. So all God's got
to do is speak once, that's all it takes. Heaven and earth shall
pass away, but the word of God will never pass away. And now
listen, when he says here spoken once, it's telling us his authority. All power, all power. Twice have I heard this, that
power belongeth unto God. We heard it once in the scriptures, then we heard
it a second time in what God did for us in our hearts and
in our souls. And I tell you, all other people
and all other things in this world, get all of their power
from Him. There is no power that anybody
has in this world except God give them that power. They say
the President of the United States is the most powerful man in the
world. Where'd he get that power? God
gave it to him. That's exactly right. And when
God gets through with His power, He'll give some power to somebody
else. That's the way it always been and always will be. And
I tell you, God did not acquire His power like a president or
a senator or a king. He didn't acquire His power.
It don't depend upon Him being recognized by any other authority.
You know, they asked our Lord, they said, where did you get
this power? Where did you get this authority to do what you're
doing? Where did you get it at, to do all the things that you,
where'd you get this authority? He said, I'll ask you a question.
Where does John, did his baptism come of heaven or was it of men?
Say, well, if he saved us from the heaven, then well, he'll
say, why didn't you believe John? If he saves us from death, people
get mad at us because they know John's a prophet. So you see,
that's the first thing to ask Christ, where'd you get this
authority? Oh listen, he don't have to be
recognized. God don't have to be recognized
by any other authority. He has to recognize other authorities.
He has to give them authority. Look over here in John chapter
19. Look here what happened in John
19. You know, our Lord Jesus, He don't have to say, you know,
God has spoken once. That's enough. God has spoken
once. Look here in verse 10 and 11. In verse 8 it says, When Pilate
heard that he made himself the Son of God, Pilate heard that
saying, and he was more afraid. And he went again into the judgment
hall and saith unto Jesus, Whence are you? Where are you from?
But Jesus gave him no answer. Then said Pilate unto him, speakest
thou not unto me? You're not gonna answer me. I've got the power. I'm the man
that can save you. Listen to what he says. Knowest
thou not that I have the power to crucify you and I have the
power to release you? You know what our Lord said?
Thou couldest have no power at all against me except that were
given thee from where above. He told old Pilate, you ain't
got no power. You ain't got none. You don't
have any. You know where you got this power
at? From God. From God. And let me tell you
something. There's no danger of him being
overthrown. People overthrow kings and kings
and overthrow governments all the time. But there's no danger
of him being overthrown by any other power. There's no danger
of him being voted out of office. There's no danger of a great
delegation and a great commission getting together and marching
against him and trying to tell him to give up his authority
and his power and reign it in. You got too much. Oh, but power is His name. Power is His name. Our Lord Jesus
says, you wait, He said, you wait until you see the Son of
Man coming in glory and in power and sitting at the right hand
of the majesty on high. God and power are inseparable. When you mention God, you automatically
think of authority and power. When you mention power, infinite
power, eternal power, you can only think of one being, and
that's God himself. Oh, let me show you. These are
part of these ways. Now, I want you to look with me in Job 26.
You know, when we talk about God's power, God has spoken once,
yea, twice have I heard it. Look in Job 26, in verse 14. You know, we talk about God,
I talk about His attributes, I talk about His eternality, His sovereignty, and here we
talk about His power, His power. In Job 26, in verse 14, it says
this, Lo, these are parts of his ways. It's just part of his ways. He's
just part of his, listen to this. How little portion's heard of
him? How little, how little portion do you reckon we know about him?
How little a portion? He said, it's just parts of his
ways. And if he, you know, we're actually seeing through a glass
darkly. You imagine what it's gonna be
like whenever this, if I take my glasses off, are you all just
a blur to me? Just blur, just blob sitting
out there. Put them on, I don't see you. But you imagine what,
when God takes our eyes, these natural eyes, and make them perfect
spiritual eyes, and we'll still just see portions of his ways.
And look what he says here. Well, no portion has heard of
him. And the thunder of his power, who can understand it? Well,
that power just, he shakes the building when he sends thunder. And oh my, how little is heard
of him. I'll tell you, Habakkuk said
it like this. He's hiding his power. What does
that mean? That means he has to call some
of it back. He don't let it all go out at
one time. If he did, what would happen? Huh? What would happen? Oh, we behold
God's power in creation? Oh, what kind of power did it
take to create this world? Let me say a little bit about
creation. There's people now in religion and well-known people
that's trying to teach that creation and evolution can go hand in
hand. That they can say that the earth
was so many billions of years old and all these things and
dinosaurs was on it and then God come along and he decided
that he was going to do away with all that and he took all
that stuff that was there and he started anew. He recreated. And then you know so then they
got evolution and they got creation. You can't have both. You can't
have both. You gotta have a place where
man starts. Well how in the world did man start? God made him.
God created him. How did he make him? With his
power. With just his word. And I tell you, He created this
world with just His Word. He created light with just His
Word. He created light and darkness
with just His Word. And just like in salvation, you
know how He gives us life and creates Christ in us and gives
us a new nature, makes us new creatures in Christ, by His Word. Everything He's done, He's done
by His Word. God has spoken. And when He speaks,
beloved, I'm telling you when He speaks to somebody, believe
me. They say, I believe God's trying to tell me something.
No, He ain't! If God's got something for you
to understand, something for you to know, believe me, you're
gonna know it. You may, it may take a lot to
get my attention. Shirley tells me all the time,
you don't listen to what, don't you remember you telling you
this? I say, sweetheart, I swear I don't, I don't. But God's not like that. Oh,
no, no, no. It ain't creation. When God speaks to us, we gonna
listen. Yeah, and I tell you what, in
judgment, everybody's gonna listen. Man, Bruce Crabtree was talking
about how long it would take for God to judge this world.
He said, it won't take long. I said, no, I don't think it'll
take no more than just a, no more than the blink of an eye
for God. The judgment's already set. There's a multitude that
God's already gave up. There's a multitude of false
prophets that were ordained to this condemnation. There's the
reprobate, and then there's the elect. There's those that God
saves and God passes by. There's those He raises up by
His power just to let people know how much power He's got,
like Pharaoh. But I tell you, and you know
when we behold His power in the creation, we behold His power
in the new creation when He created us and made us new creatures
in Christ. You know how much power it took for Him to save
us? The Scriptures tells us over in, I'm pretty sure it's Ephesians
1, that the same power He worked in us is the same power that
He raised Christ from the dead in. And so that's exactly what
he tells us, he says, when Christ was raised from the dead by the
power of God, by his own power, that resurrection power is what
he manifests towards us and giving us life. Resurrection, he raises
us from the dead and gives us new life. And I tell you, people say, well,
he will if you let him, oh. And then God's government in
this world, providence, we call it providence. But oh, providence
just means Him carrying out His government in this world. Carrying
out His will in this world. That's all providence means.
You know what I know what God's providence for me is by the time
I go to bed? Whatever happened today. And
you know what I know what His providence is tomorrow for me?
And for the world. And for our government. And for
everybody else and we get to the end of tomorrow. We'll know
what happened in our government. We'll know what happened with
this one and that one. All these things are going to
happen. You just look and you'll say, well, God's will was done. You know, God's providence worked
out just right today. And then, oh, how much power
to redeem us, to bring us off a slave market of sin, to save
us from our selfishness and our self-righteousness. And I'll
tell you something, only just a tiny, tiny bit of his power
is all we, as he has to manifest to do something for us. Job 9,
Job said this, he said, he walks upon the sea. And he also said
in one place, he walks on the circuit of the earth. You hear
these people talking about flat earth? He said he walks on the
circuit of the earth. You can't walk on a circuit if
you're walking on something flat. And I tell you, he walks upon
the wings of the wind. All is under his feet, all beneath
his control. And all, let's go over here to
Psalm 33. I've quoted this so many times,
but look at it. Look at it, I tell you what,
I might have looked this other day or one of them, I was looking
somewhere and I said, you all need to mark this down in your
Bibles. Of course, I have not marked in this Bible, this is
the only Bible I've ever had in my life, and I've done, went
through several of them, but I've not made a mark in this
one. Not a mark. But look what it said here in
Psalm 33, in verse 6. By the word of the Lord were
the heavens made. He spake, he hath spoken once,
and all power belongs unto him. By the word of the Lord were
the heavens made, and all the host of them, listen to this,
by the breath of his mouth. He got so much power in his breath
that he can create the heavens. And listen, he gathers the waters
up in the sea to gather us just a heap. He just piled it up.
He layeth up the depth in storehouses, Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the habitants of the
world stand in awe of Him. For He spake, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast. Can you imagine the power that's
manifested in that? Huh? Oh, my. Oh, He just said it. It is. You
know, if you and I make anything, we have to get tools. We have
to buy materials in order to work. Not God. Not God. You know what? He took people like us. The scripture
says He took nobodies and nothings. That's what He says. Not the
wisdom of the world. Not the might of the world. The
base things. The lowest things. The things
way down yonder. He took the lowest possible things,
the worst creatures on this earth and he said, I'm going to put
my power on them. I'm going to manifest my power
to them. And out of nothing, that's what we are. He said,
without me you can do nothing, and that's exactly what He means.
We couldn't do nothing before, we can't do nothing after, and
we'll never ever be able to do nothing without Him. Ain't that
what He says? And I'll tell you what, when
He saved us, as old Scott said, He said, you know what nothing
is, is a donut hole. Well, that's what God did for
us. He saved a bunch of nothings. And you know how we know we're
nothings? God's power taught us we're nothings. You know what nothings are? If
I had a pencil, a sharpie, I'd show you something. But I ain't
got a sharpie. But I'll give you an illustration
if I can. That's three zeros. How much
are they worth? I'm gonna do three more zeros
and I'm gonna put a comma between them two zeros. That three and
this three over here, and then I'm going to do three more zeros
put a comma You know what you got is it worth anything? Zeros ain't worth nothing But
you put a one in front of it Just a one And you got something
then something gets you attention Well, that's the way we are Zeroes. Zeroes and zeroes and zeroes
until Christ saves us by His grace. And He makes everything
right. He makes us worth something just
because of Him. He views us as something. Oh
my, I bless His holy name. And I tell you, God spake and
it was done. He commanded us to it fast. And
let me tell you something else, I'll try not to take too long.
But not only we see his power in creation, he just spake and
it was done. He commanded and it stood fast.
And how about his power in preservation? In preservation. You know, I
believe in perseverance, but I tell you what, if we wasn't
preserved, we wouldn't persevere. Who in the world can preserve
themselves Can you preserve yourself? Can you preserve yourself in
righteousness? Can you preserve yourself in
life? Can you preserve yourself in justification? Can you preserve
yourself? Anything in this creation, can
it preserve itself? Can a tree preserve itself? Can
an animal preserve itself? Of anything that's preserved
on this earth, God's the one that does the preserving. Nothing can preserve itself.
Trees die, animals die, people die. And if God didn't preserve
us and keep us, there's no telling where we would end up. And I
tell you, not only that, but God takes man and He feeds man. And He feeds all the animals
that's in this world. How in the world, when it gets
miserable cold in this world, and you got deer all over the
place, and everything, all these things out here, how in the world
do they eat when it's snowing cold? God said He feeds them. And I tell you what, all He's
got to do is take the water off the earth, and how long would
we last? Oh my! And I tell you all things by
the word of His power. You take an infant in a womb,
you take just a baby, an infant in a womb, how in the world does
that infant live? How does it live? Can't see, can't hear, can't
breathe, yet it lives. How can that be? Because God
said He holds the soul, the soul of a life in His hands. Oh my. And then not only does He preserve
us, but He preserves the earth. And he preserves, and the sea,
I want to show you something. I know this from experience.
I've been at the sea several times. Job 38. I've been at the
ocean lots of times, on both coasts, and South China Sea,
and all kinds of places. But Job 38. Look down in verse eight. Who shut up the sea without doors
when it break forth as it is issued out of the womb? Now listen,
you know, you go someplace, the first thing you do is you find
out what the tide chart is. Low tide and high tide. And when
it's low tide, you go out and stay out just long until the
high tide starts to come back in. You know why it goes out
and don't go no further? It can only go so far. God said,
that's where I want you to go. People talk about the sea is
going to end up covering over this place and going to cover
up that place and this other place is going to go down. Listen,
God said, see, you can go this far and you can't go no further.
Huh? Look what else he says now. When I made the cloud, the garment
thereof, and thick darkness as a swaddling bland for it, Oh,
here's this thick garment, this cloud way up there. He wrapped
it up in darkness. And break it up for my decreed
place, and set bars and doors, and said, oh, when the rain's
fixing to come. And said, hitherto shalt thou
come, but no farther, and here shall thou proud waves be stayed. Oh, my. Here, see, you can go
this far, and you can't go no farther. My, my, and you see
that all the time. He preserves the seasons. You
know, we've taken out of the earth, you know how much food's
been taken out of this earth since Adam? You know how much food's been
taken out of the sea since of Adam? You know how many animals
have been taken off the face of the earth since Adam? And they're still taking food
out of the earth, taking food out of the sea, taking food out
of the animals, taking food out of the gardens, and you don't
see how many meals we missed. So he preserves the whole earth.
People keep saying, we're going to run out, we're going to run
out. Well, they've been doing it since Adam. We ain't run out
yet. Ain't that right? We're talking about God's power.
How in the world does that happen without God? God's power keeping
those things, preserving those things. And I'm going to tell
you His power in government. I already told you that the government
or no other power in this world has any power except God gives
it to them. There's not a government no where,
there's not a person in position, there's not a person in power
that God didn't give them that power. He said all powers that
be are ordained of God. He restrains the devil from his
malice. If the devil had the will and
the power to carry out what that like God did, what in the world
would possibly happen to us? I heard Bruce Dake Crabtree tell
this story the other day. John MacArthur, preacher from
out in California, well, well-known preacher. There was a bunch of
Pentecostals there and he serviced one night and they asked the
service over and said, some one of these men come up to him and
said, some Pentecostals back there want to talk to you. So
they come and they talked to him and they said, He told him
his story. He said, we went to this Pentecostal
church, and the preacher and the pastor got up, and there
was this young man there, and he was bragging about this young
man. God's gonna really use this young man, and this man's got
so many gifts, and God's gonna really use him. You need to pay
attention to this man. And then all of a sudden, he
dropped dead of a heart attack. On the spot, dropped dead. And everybody just goes, Shocked. It's a true story now. I'm not
making it up. MacArthur told it on his self.
And that preacher says, that pastor says, well, well, God
know, the devil know that God was going to use that young man,
so the devil killed him. And those folks heard that and
they went and told MacArthur, said, can we come here? Can we
attend these services? He said, well, of course you
can. We want to go someplace where the devil doesn't have
all the power and not made the sovereign one. We got so sick
of hearing about the devil and his sovereignty. I want to go
someplace else. The devil is on a chain. He's
on God's chain. Revelation tells he's on God's
chain. We've seen that he cannot do
anything unless God says, go ahead. And you can go this far
and you can't go no further. You can't do it. And God, bless
His holy name, if God didn't restrain man, And some he does
not restrain at all. He lets them go as far as they
want to go. If they want to be a serial killer,
God will let them be a serial killer. If they want to be a
rapist, God will let them be that. He'll let men go into the
depths of the sin that you cannot imagine. And he does that that
the rest of us might fear and trust him. And what we say, God,
please don't never, ever let me be left to myself. When we hear that awfulness of
human nature, it strikes fear to our hearts. And I tell you what, I'll hurry
up here. He has power in judgment. Oh
my, you're talking about power in judgment. He had so much power,
that He said, No, I'll propel you not, because it's going to
start raining. And He had the power for it to rain 40 days
and 40 nights. And the Scripture says there
was rivers and fountains that never had been before. The fountains
of the deep, they broke up and started coming up out of the
ground. Rivers that had never been just come up out of the
ground. Oh, and the flood come. Oh my! God's got the power to
cause a flood like that. And all these fossils that they're
finding, and they say that's a billion years old, isn't it?
They can't be older than the flood. And they always find them
at the bottom of something, they find them in rocks. They don't
find them on mountaintops, they find them down in low places.
And oh my, I tell you what, and he destroyed Solomon Gomorrah,
sending fire and brimstone. Pharaoh's army said, whoa, we're
going to get Israel. We're not going to let them go.
And God said he raised up Pharaoh
for one reason. He said, I raised up Pharaoh
to show my power in him. And I tell you, he got power
to create a new heaven and a new earth. God has spoken once, that's
what I read tonight. God has spoken once, yay twice.
He just speaks once, that's enough. And that's all it takes when
you've got all the power. You know, do you ever see parents
say, listen, I'm not gonna tell you again. I'm not gonna tell
you again. I'm gonna count to three. Well,
God just gotta speak once. That's all it takes. You don't
have to say nothing twice. God has spoken once. That's all
it takes when you've got all the power. In our Lord's incarnation,
God spoke in grace and truth. And when our Lord came to this
earth, He spoke once to lepers and said, I will be thou clean. He spoke once. to a dead man
in a grave four days, just once, and the dead came forth. He spoke
once to a sea that was raging, and said, be still. Stop just
that quick. There was a legion of demons
in one man. He just spoke for them to go,
and they went into a herd of swine. He spoke once to a man up a tree,
told him come down and he came down. So let's walk softly, let's
walk softly, tremble before the Lord and it's absolute insanity
to defy Him, to defy or deny Him. Oh my, God's got that kind
of power. I want that power to be on my
side. I want that power to be used
good for me. I don't want to be used against
me. I want it to be used in grace
towards me, in mercy towards me, in love towards me, in kindness
towards me, in long-suffering towards me, in patience towards
me. Lord, manifest your power, but
do it in grace and kindness and pity and mercy. Let your power
not destroy us. Please keep us and save us by
your power. Amen. Oh, our blessed God. You spoke once. That's enough. But then you turn around, you
spoke twice. You told us that all power belongs
unto you. Lord, we've experienced that
power in a wonderful way, gracious way, power to raise us from the
death of our sin, save us from the power of sin, save us from
the awful penalty of sin, and one of these blessed days we'll
be saved absolutely and completely and entirely from the presence
of sin, all because of your power. Lord, thank you. for being our
God, being our Father, being our Savior, being our Redeemer,
be our Keeper and our Preserver. We bless you and praise you in
Christ's name. Amen. Amen. There is a name I love
to hear. love to sing its earth. It sounds like music in my ear. The sweetest name on earth. Oh, how I love Jesus. Oh, how I love Jesus. Oh, how I love Jesus. Because He first loved me. See you Sunday, God willing.