He Is God Almighty

Turn to Genesis chapter 17. I just needed a little more exercise this morning, I guess. I think Al was trying to hide my sermon from me again. I'm just kidding. It wasn't his fault.

Alright. Genesis chapter 17. What is God like? He is God almighty. God almighty.

Genesis 17 and verse one. And when Abraham was 90 years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him, I am the almighty God. Walk before me and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and I will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face and God talked with him saying, as for me, behold my covenant is with thee.

And thou shalt be a father of many nations, neither shall thy name anymore be called Abram, but thy name shall be called Abraham. For a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful and will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant To be a god unto thee and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger.

All the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Dear heavenly father, thank you Lord for your word today. Thank you Lord for the beautiful message, the wonderful message that is therein for us to receive. I pray Lord that your holy spirit would give us understanding.

As we preach and proclaim it as we hear it might hide it in our heart that you might guide our steps and make us more like you, that we might come to know the God we serve better, and be able to tell others about how wonderful he is. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In this passage, God comes to Abram or as we normally call him Abraham. A matter of fact, God changes his name in this passage from Abram, a b r a m, to He says, because I will make you the father of many nations.

And that's the difference in the name. Abraham Abram is just the father of a nation or a multitude. Abraham is the father of many nations or many multitudes. He says, out of you will come kings. He says, and your your descendants will possess this land of which you are a nomad and a stranger in at present, the land of Canaan, we often call the promised land.

And all of that's great and wonderful except for what? Except for Abraham didn't have any children. And that was a problem. God told Abram, you will have a child, you and who? Sarah.

Not you and Hagar, you and Sarah will have a child. And of that child, I will make a great nation that will possess this land. And Abram left Ur of the Chaldees to follow the Lord trusting that God was going to do that very thing. When he and his wife were already past childbearing rears, particularly his wife at the age of 80 when God first came to them. Now he is 99 and she is 90.

And she is still not yet had that child that God has promised through whom Abraham would become the father of many nations. It does rather seem impossible, does it not? For one, they've been all these years and haven't had a child, and now she is 90 years old and hasn't had a child. But the Bible tells us, with God, all things are what? With God, all things are possible.

Matter of fact, sometimes God waits so that we might see that when it is impossible for man, it is yet possible for who? For God. And the gift that we receive is not by our own means or effort or the hands of men, but indeed of our loving, gracious, wonderful, almighty God. Sarah did have a child, and they called his name Isaac. Because when God said to Abraham, you're gonna have a child, Abraham under his breath laughed.

And later, when he said it again on the other side of the curtain of the tent, Sarah laughed. And so God said, you name him what? You name him laughter. Because you're gonna laugh when you see what God will do and how you doubted. In Genesis seventeen one, God introduces himself by a name he has not introduced himself by up to this point in scripture.

Genesis 17, let's one, let's read again. When Abraham was 90 years old and nine, he appeared the Lord appeared to Abram and he said unto him, I am the what? The almighty God or God almighty. This is a different name from the names that God had used for himself up to this point in scripture. This is the first time this name is used.

It is used many times following this passage of scripture, but this is the first time that we see it used in scripture. The most common word in scripture that is used for God is Elohim. Elohim means God or the supreme one. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That is Elohim.

And that is the most common name for God in the Old Testament. When you see Lord in all capital letters, that is a unique name for God, that is his personal name. We often pronounce Jehovah or Yahweh in the Greek or in Hebrew. We're not sure exactly how it was originally pronounced, but we know that it is God's personal name. It is used of no other God but the God of Israel and our God, the true and living God.

But Elohim is used as translated God all throughout the Old Testament. And then there is Shaddai. Beneath it there, you see. Shaddai is an adjective. It means mighty, almighty, all sufficient.

Okay? So in this particular passage, the name that God uses for himself is El Shaddai. It is a conjunction, compound name consisting of Elohim and Shaddai put together. So it is El Shaddai. El Shaddai means God Almighty or the all sufficient God.

So God comes to Abraham and he doesn't introduce himself as Jehovah, though the Abraham knows him as that. And he doesn't introduce him just as Elohim, meaning the God or the supreme one. He specifically uses this name El Shaddai. And the question is, why not just Elohim or El, why not Jehovah here? Why does he say I am the almighty God?

To make a point. With man, this is impossible. But with God, what? All things are possible. As God comes to Abraham and he tells him once again, you're 99 years old and you haven't had a child.

Your wife is 90 and she hasn't had a child yet, but she is going to have a child. And I am going to make you, of you, and Sarah, and the child you have, a nation with descendants as the sand of the sea and as the stars of the heaven when you look up into the sky. Now, that was hard to believe. They hadn't had any children yet, not together. How was this going to be possible?

With God, all things are what? The almighty God is able because he is what? He is almighty. He is all powerful. There is nothing that he is not capable of doing.

He says to Abraham, you can trust me. This is going to happen. I am the what? The almighty, all sufficient God. And I can and I will make this happen.

The words here we're reading in Matthew nineteen twenty six are the words of who? The words of Christ. As he says to his disciples, with man this is impossible, but with God all things all things are possible. The God we serve is the almighty, all powerful God who created created it all. The creator of the universe.

In the beginning, God, Elohim, created the heavens and the earth. Now when you read heavens in scripture, in many cases, heaven is not referring to the place where God dwells, where his throne is, but heavens is what you see when you look up. It's where at night you look up and you see the stars and the planets or the sun or the moon, sun in the day and the moon at night. Out there in space, those are the what? The heavens.

And all of that, it simply says God created the what? The heavens and the the earth. And that's everything that's down here of which everything is made. God created the heavens and the earth. Everything material and immaterial that exists in this universe was made by God.

Does that make him pretty powerful? Yeah. It does. Matter of fact, we're told in the New Testament that Jesus created all things because he, being the second person of the trinity, God the son is God is Elohim too. John one one through three, in the beginning was the word, that's Jesus.

The word was made the word was with God and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. Does it leave any doubt that Jesus is God? The beginning was the word, the word was with God, and the word was God. All things were made by who?

By him. Who is that? That's Jesus. All things were made by him. Without him was not anything made that was made.

God, Jesus made what? Everything. Everything you see, touch, smell, hear, it was all made by God. And Jesus is God. Colossians one sixteen and seventeen, it says this, for by him, that is by Christ Jesus, we're we're all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for him and he is before all things and by him all things consist.

In other words, if it weren't for him, none of this would what? None of this would be here. You wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be here. He made it all.

All the intricate and amazingly beautiful design which our universe exhibits is a reflection of the almighty, all wise creator who made it all. Why are so many people determined to convince you that God didn't do this? Because the enemy, Satan, doesn't want you to know. The enemy, Satan, does not want you to realize that you are a creation of almighty God and that he sits on his throne. That the God who made everything that is, who made you, cares for you, that you're accountable to him.

The Bible tells us he spoke it into existence. He said, let there be what? Light and there was light. He didn't take stuff that was already in here and just form it like we do. We create pews and pulpits and lights and walls and buildings.

But we make all those things out of things that God created out of what? Out of nothing. He spoke them into existence. Hebrews eleven three, through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. So the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

What does that mean? God spoke those things into existence. They weren't here and then they what? And then they were. You say, well, that's hard to believe.

Well, you either have to believe that or you have to believe that whatever blew up that's that scientists say that it was already here and then it popped out of nowhere. I tend to believe in eternal God who made it all, then eternal what? Antimatter? He spoke it into existence. That's how powerful he is, More powerful than any big bang.

He established the bounds for the laws thereof which govern it. Laws that we are still discovering. The workings of the galaxy and the solar system, of the water cycle, of the weather, of the patterns of the wind, of what's going on beneath our feet, which is still a great mystery. The laws of physics that govern this world, They don't change, but our understanding of them change constantly because we're still what? We're still learning.

But they are the creation, the bounds that God created, that govern his creation. We still do not have a firm grasp on what causes gravity. We all enjoy it. If it weren't for gravity, I wouldn't be standing here, would I? I would be floating up there somewhere.

Gravity is important. We can measure it. We can say if a planet is so big, it has so much gravity or if a sun is so big, it has so much gravity. Problem is we don't know what causes it. We just know how to how to measure it.

It just is. We still do not have a definite understanding of light itself. We can use it, make it. We still don't quite understand it. We don't understand exactly what animates life, where it came from.

I can tell you where it came from. It came from who? It came from God. We've tried to replicate it in the laboratory. With all of our great knowledge and science and advancement, we cannot create life.

We cannot animate anything because all life comes from who? From God, the ever living one. The universe did not come into existence with a big bang. It came in existence in response to the authority and power of almighty God. It appeared suddenly.

Yes. It didn't come into existence with a big bang, but it will go out with a big bang one day. You see, God is the one that holds it all wide. By him, all things consist. There's this forces in physics called the strong force and the weak force, and those forces hold atoms together, that hold everything together that our universe is made of.

And that's another thing scientists still don't understand because the one holding it together is who? God. And when he lets it go, it'll go. The Bible tells us that this heaven and earth will pass away one day and he'll make a what? A new heaven and earth without sin where we will live with him forever.

He is the source of all living things. He is the artist which designed the double helix, the DNA, the roadmap of life, which we're just now beginning to unravel. He is the engineer behind the human eye in every intricate system of nature. He is God Almighty. He made it all.

He is the God that made the sun to stand still in the book of Joshua. When Joshua went to the Lord, said, the day is the night is coming and the enemy is on the run. And God made the sun to stand still in the sky so the battle could be finished. Now, is that a small feat? What is that?

What has to happen for the sun to stand still? The earth has to stop what? Rotating. And it has to stop rotating in a fashion where everything doesn't come crashing. How did God do that?

I don't know. But he is God what? Almighty. And with God, all things are possible. That's why we call them miracles.

That's why we call it supernatural. That's when the God who made this world steps in and does things that don't happen naturally because he is God almighty and he can. Like giving a couple that's a 100 years old a child when it is clearly past time. He is the God that parted the waters of the Red Sea so Israel could walk across. And skeptics say, well, they just walked across the knee high water and, you know, it just had dried up recently.

Well, sounds good except for the fact that the Egyptians followed them into the Red Sea and their wheels got bogged down in the mud. And what happened next? The waters came crashing down and destroyed the entire army. Now how could that happen if they were in what? knee high Water.

No. Moses held out his staff and what happened to the waters of the Red Sea? They parted and Israel walked across. The Egyptians thought to follow and God destroyed them. He is the God that consumed Elijah's sacrifice at his request on the altar in first Kings 17.

As Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to a duel, so to speak, and said, let's build an altar and put a sacrifice on it and you pray to your God Baal or Baal, and I'll pray to my God and we'll see which God sends fire down from heaven to consume the sacrifice. And the prophets of Baal, they screamed, they hollered, they danced, they cut themselves. They did all kinds of crazy things all day and no fire from heaven. Elijah got down on one knee and prayed a little simple prayer. And God sent fire down from heaven.

He consumed the sacrifice. He consumed the wood. He consumed the stone. He consumed barrels of water that Elijah had dumped on it. Because he is God what?

Almighty. He is the God that destroyed the world of Noah with an all consuming flood. Skeptics again would laugh at that. That does kinda sound impossible, doesn't it? A worldwide flood.

But with God, all things are what? Possible. The Bible tells us when God created the world that he put an expanse, a firmament between the water that was above and the water that was below, which means that God originally, when he created the world, put a layer of water up in the upper atmosphere. What happened to that layer of water? It all came what?

It all came crashing down when God said so. The world was flooded and God started over with Noah, his wife, their three sons, and their three wives. He is the God before whom no army can stand, no giant, who slays the nations with the words of his mouth at his return in Revelation 19, who sits in the heavens and laughs at the pitiful attempts of man to throw off his authority and power. Psalm two. Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing?

The kings of the earth set themselves. The rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying, let us break their bands asunder. Let's cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall what? Laugh.

The Lord shall have them in derision. In other words, they're no match for God Almighty. They can imagine whatever they want, but he is God and we are not. Praise the Lord, he is God. If it's not, I wouldn't be here.

He is the God that fed 5,000 and more with only what? Five loaves, two fish. Possible? Not humanly speaking. Matter of fact, I I sat in a service one time where somebody got up and said, well, you know, the miracle here wasn't that that Christ actually fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish.

It was that the boy brought his lunch forward and then everybody thought, oh, well, that's nice, and they all shared their lunches and everybody ate. That's not what the Bible says. The Bible says Jesus gave, he broke the loaves, he gave them to those disciples, they distributed them among the people, and they picked up 12 baskets of what? Leftovers from five loaves and two fish. He is God what?

Almighty. Either believe it or don't. If he created the universe, can he feed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish? If he created the universe, he can do that because he's God. He is the God who calmed the sea.

The disciples looked at themselves and thought, what manner of man is this that even the winds and the sea, what, obey him? They thought their ship was going down. Jesus stood up and said, peace be still, and immediately it ceased. How is that possible? Well, Jesus is who?

Jesus is God and God is what? Almighty. He created that sea. God raised the dead. Jesus healed every manner of sickness and disease, mental, physical, spiritual known to man.

Nothing was impossible is impossible for him. He is the God who came to Earth as a baby, who rose again from the dead after he made atonement on the cross of Calvary for our sins by his sacrifice. He rose again from the dead. He said he would. He said, you'll bury me and three days later, what's gonna happen?

Is that possible? Not for me, not for you, but it is possible for who? For God almighty. He is the God who said that he will save all who come to him in faith. For whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be what?

Saved. He is the one that says he that cometh to me, will in no wise cast out. He is the one that saved and changed the life of a man named Saul who was dead set on killing and destroying those who believed in him. But as he went to Damascus to arrest Christians, to have them thrown in jail, he met who? He met God Almighty, and he became the greatest missionary the world has ever seen.

I have several stories I could tell how God changed the lives of people that you would never have thought possible. One of them is a fellow named Jerry. Jerry came to revival at our church. I'm not sure. I think a friend of his that knew him somehow invited him to come.

Jerry was big fella. I mean, taller than me, bigger than me. He he was wild. He was rough, but he met Jesus that week. Jerry, for the rest for a good bit of the rest of the time that I knew Jerry, he was our bus driver.

He picked up children to bring them to church. He had a heart of gold. He was a pussycat. He was kind and he was committed to Christ and to those kids. What happened to Jerry?

He met God almighty and God almighty changed his life. And God almighty can change your life. The God who created the universe, the God who sent his son, the God who took on human form, the God who died on the cross and then what? Rose again from the dead. The God who consumed Elijah's sacrifice, the God who enabled Israel to conquer a land that they were wholly incapable of doing, The God who saved Paul and the God who saved Jerry and the God who healed all manner of diseases.

The God who gave Abraham and Sarah a son and the God who gave Hannah a son and the God who gave Elizabeth a son when they were all had been barren for so many years. It's the God who cared for them also cares for who? Also cares for you. The God who loved them is the God who loved you. The God who died for them is the God who died for who?

You. The God who said he would save their soul and did is the God who can also save whose? Yours. He is the God who went to prepare a place for all who will trust in him, that he might take us there one day as he has promised to do and can. He is the God that invites us to come boldly before his throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need.

The God of the universe, the almighty one that made it all, the one who controls it all invites you to come to his throne. He invites us according to his grace, not based on our merit, not based on our our worthiness or that we deserve it, but just because he loves us and has sent his son to die for us, invites us to come before him in faith that he is God Almighty. And that as he did these things for them, he can also do those things for who? For us. So God says when you need help, come to who?

Come to God Almighty. Because number one, he cares. Number two, he can. And those are two very important things. It wouldn't matter so much that he could if he didn't want, if he didn't care.

And it wouldn't matter so much he cared if he couldn't do it. But you know something? Both of those things are true. But God God commended or proved his love toward us and that while we were yet, what, sinners, Christ died for us. When we were yet sinners, when we could not reach up to him, he reached down to who?

He came down to us in the form of his son. He died on the cross for our sins and he rose again from the dead And he did all that so that we might be saved because he is able. I can't save me. I can't save you. No doctor can.

No psychologist can. No priest can. But Jesus Christ can if you'll trust him. He can change your life. He can meet your needs.

He will hear your prayers. In Matthew seven, it says this. He says, ask and it shall be given. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you.

For everyone that ask and receiveth and he that seeketh findeth and to him that knocketh it shall be, it shall be opened. The door. Jesus said, I am the door. He that cometh to me shall not be condemned. Have you come to him?

Have you accepted his offer, his invitation to be the Lord and savior of your life? This God of which we speak, is he your Lord? Is he your God? Have you surrendered and accepted him by faith? Have you asked him to save your soul?

To forgive your sins? For whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. It's it's there for the taking. He is offering, but you must what? You must receive.

Have you received his offer? He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God. You must receive. You must accept. You must come to him humbly in repentance and faith, and he will save your soul, and he will change your life.

Maybe you are a child of God today and you're struggling. Don't listen to Satan. There is victory in who? Jesus Christ. That sin does not own you.

If you're a child of God, he owns you. Greater is he that's in us than he that's in the world. And there is victory in Jesus. Believe it. Trust him.

Let's pray. Dear God, thank you, Lord, for your word, for the reminder today that you are the almighty God, that nothing is impossible for you. There is no one beyond your reach. Lord, if there be one here today that's yet to accept you and receive your offer, I pray they would receive it by faith today. Lord, there is nothing too hard for you.

Lord, there is no no temptation that we might face that you haven't already conquered and that you can help us to do the same. Lord, I pray that we would embrace the Lord God almighty in faith. Recognize who you are, what you have done, and what you will do for us. And Lord, I pray if there's one here today, Lord, whose heart you are speaking to to receive you, that they would come as we give this hymn of invitation, that you might save their soul and give them a home in heaven. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.