God Can When Man Can'T

I believe I can prove that man can frustrate the movements of God by the following passage of scripture from Mark chapter 6 and verse 5, and he could do there no mighty work save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk and healed them. I believe the Bible is clear friends on the sad fact we can block God's activity with our unbelief. I believe we can hinder God in the following ways.

We can hinder God in sin and revival. We can hinder God in the spread of the gospel. We can hinder God with our unbelief and lack of faith and the activity around us.

We can hinder God in giving but not giving when we should or not give as we should and we can hinder God with a stale prayer life. We can hinder missionary enterprise by our lack of support. The title of my message today friends is God can when man can't and my text can be found in Genesis chapter 18 where we have God's promise of a son to old Abraham.

You can turn in your Bibles there now friends. God does his best work when all human hope is gone. I really believe that and here in Genesis 18 is an old couple way past the years of childbearing and we see God's promise to them.

Listen to God's promise to Abraham beginning in verse 10 and he said I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life and lo Sarah thy wife shall have a son and Sarah heard it in the tent door which was behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. That's old King English for her.

Biological clock had run out and Sarah gets a chuckle out of the thought of having a baby at her age and God says something to her here friends which rings down through the centuries for it's as true today as in Bible times. God states is anything too hard for the Lord? You may be in a hard place right now friend where all your human resources are gone and your situation seems not only helpless but hopeless. Let me assure you friend nothing is too hard for the Lord.

There isn't a problem you have that's too big for him to handle. Do you believe that? I hope you do. There's a hymn I like called he is able and in that hymn are the words he is able more than able to accomplish what concerns me today.

He is able more than able to handle anything that comes my way and it's true friend God can when man can't and God will when man won't. God's gonna get the job done his way and in his time. Listen to me friend and listen to me closely when God makes you a promise you can rest assured he will keep that promise no matter how long you have to wait and no matter how impossible the circumstances look God's Word is true and he is true to his Word.

I want us to look at the reality that God can when man can't. Look at the life of Abraham. Here in Genesis he was too old to have a child.

His wife passed the time a child-baron. They both were as good as dead in regard to having children when Almighty God appears to them and listen to how Hebrews describes Abraham. Therefore sprang there even of one and him as good as dead.

He was so old he had one foot in the grave so to speak when he had a son and Lazarus was already dead when Jesus called him forth out of the tomb. God works where man can't. No man can take the credit.

We have to give all the glory to God in Abraham's case. God did it when Abraham could not and that's what faith is friends. It's facing a humanly impossible situation and admitting our utter helplessness and then trusting God to do the impossible.

God does his best work when man comes to the end of himself. It admits his utter dependence upon God's power and spirit. Think of the prophet Elijah and how God maintained him and an old widow woman and her son on a cruise of oil that never ran out.

God can when man can't. God promised that old woman the barrel or meal shall not waste. Neither shall the cruise of oil fail.

God said it so it must be reality. Perhaps there's a place in your life friend right now that is a difficulty which is so overwhelming to you. You don't know how you'll ever survive it.

Listen to me friend. God has a cruise of oil for you that will get you through if you only believe. In the Gospel of Mark Jesus declared if thou can't believe all things are possible to him that believeth.

This message is about having that faith to believe friends. To really trust God to do what he said he will do no matter how or outward circumstances deny it. I've lived a long time friends and I can say this from my own walk of faith and I know firsthand that God can when man can't and God will when men won't.

I won't look to man but I will look to God and leave it in his hands. Let each one of us be strengthened in our own faith and rely utterly upon our God as we wait for him to be gracious to us. Let us pray.