THINGS GOD CANNOT DO
Titus 1:2 (KJV)
In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;
Years ago I heard J Vernon McGee say,
“Some day I want to preach a message on things God cannot do.”
He is dead now. I don’t know if he ever preached that message but I want to preach to do it tonight.
THINGS GOD CANNOT DO.
It sounds almost blasphemous to say that there is something God cannot do.
God is all powerful.
The Bible tells us with God all things are possible.
God is capable of doing anything He chooses to do.
· God can make the sun and moon stand still
· God can turn time back when He chooses
· God can hold the waters in a heap
· God can heal the cripple and the lame
· God can raise the dead back to life
· God can walk on water and make the blind to see
· God can forgive the sin and save the soul of the most wicked sinner
He has the power. God can do everything.[1]
But God has personally elected never to do certain things.
And there are other things that God’s own nature will not allow Him to do.
We begin with,
I. GOD CANNOT LIE
Titus 1:2 (KJV)
In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;
The Bible plainly tells us this.
It is an impossibility.
God simply cannot lie.
Because God cannot lie, there are certain things that we can be sure of:
A. God will never destroy this world by total flood again
Genesis 9:11 (KJV)
And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
Genesis 9:15 (KJV)
And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
The promise is clear.
God destroyed all living on the earth with the exception of:
· Noah,
· his wife,
· his three sons and their wives, and
· the animals on the ark.
He cannot destroy the world by Flood ever again, because He has promised not to.
B. God cannot contradict the Bible
Matthew 5:18 (KJV)
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Luke 16:17 says,
It is easier for heaven and earth to pass than one tittle of the law to fail.
What does this mean to us?
1. It means that if God’s Word says it, we can believe it.
This book is wholly reliable.
God wrote it, it is true, and truth will not change.
2. It also means that if you are looking to know God’s will or direction for your life trust the Bible first.
·If you believe God wants you to do one things but the Bible tells you it is wrong,
God does not want you to do it.
·If somebody tells you, “God wants us to do this,”
But God’s Word says the opposite, the person is a liar.
·According to the Bible, even if an angel were to speak to you, if he spoke something contrary to God’s Word
That anger is a devil – let him be accursed.
People are giving way to feelings and false teachers every day, being drawn away from Bible truth because their feelings are so strong or leaders are so charismatic.
It does not matter how strong our feelings are nor how convincing a speaker is, if it contradicts the Bible is is of Satan.
Our text here in Titus 1:2 says that
C. God cannot lie about eternal life
God cannot refuse to save anyone who calls.
Romans 10:13
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
If a person called upon the name of the Lord asking to be saved and God refused to do it, God would be a liar.
And God cannot lie.
This leads me to say two things:
First,
If you are not saved, and you believe the Bible about sin, death, hell and salvation through Christ, all you need to do is call upon the name of the Lord.
He has promised to save anybody that will do that.
Really, what does this world have that is so great that you would rather have it than heaven?
All of the pleasures this world might give will not make the sufferings of eternal hell worthwhile.
If you have never called upon Christ to save you, please; in a few moments we will have an invitation.
Come, let us show you how to be saved.
Second,
If you are a Christian, if you know a time in your life when you did call upon the Lord to saved you, be assured of your salvation.
Satan delights in trying to make us doubt we are saved.
If he can cause us to doubt that Jesus saved us when we called, he can then cripple us so that we aren’t at all the good Christians God meant for us to be.
God cannot lie.
His Word promises if we will call, He will save.
If you know that you sincerely called either God saved you or else God lied and God cannot lie.
This is why this is why 1 John 5:13[2]says we can know we have eternal life.
It is based on the promises of God, who cannot lie.
Number two,
II. GOD CANNOT BE TEMPTED WITH EVIL
James 1:13 (KJV)
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
God is not tempted to commit sin.
Here we learn some things
about God and sin:
A. God cannot sin
That is the holiness of God
He is 100%
· good,
· holy and
· perfectly sinless.
Jesus was God in the flesh.
Hebrews 4:15 says
He was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin.
Even though Satan tempted Him to sin Jesus did not yield to the temptation.
He could not be tempted with evil.
He was perfectly sinless.
B. God cannot be in the presence of sin.
Isaiah 59:2
But your iniquities have separated between you and your God and you sins have hid his face from you that He will not hear.
This is the Sanctification of God
God cannot be in the presence of sin.
So our sins and iniquities separate us from God.
1. For the one who is not saved this is why they will eventually end up in eternal hell.
God will have no choice but to sentence them to eternal separation from His presence.
I do not believe God wants anybody to go to hell.
But God cannot be in the presence of sin.
Hell is the only place an eternal soul can go and be out of the presence of God.
2. This is also why Christians must not yield to sin and must confess the sins we do commit.
Although we are saved and are assured of a place in heaven, our sin does separate us from God.
· He will not answer the prayers of the sinning Christian.
· He will not accept the worship of a sinning Christian.
· He will not be in fellowship with a sinning Christian.
We must as believers flee sin and confess our sins.
C. God cannot ignore sin
This is the justice of God
If God is going to remain just, He must deal with sin or else He would no longer be just.
But God has effectively dealth with sin in the person of Jesus Christ.
Listen to 1 Peter 2:24
Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes we are healed.
You see, this was the reason Jesus Christ came to this world.
He came to carry our sins to the place of punishment and to suffer what we deserve to suffer so that, because of Him, we might not have to suffer.
There is a choice here:
· We can choose to accept what Jesus did for us ad be saved from the wrath of God against sin.
· Or else we can choose to bare our own sins and suffer the wrath of God upon us which would be eternal hell.
But either way, God cannot ignore your sin.
Either you will allow Christ to suffer for it, or you will suffer for it yourself.
All we are asking is that you seriously consider the consequences of you choices.
My last point is,
III. GOD CANNOT JUDGE THIS WORLD WITH THE BELIEVER’S STILL PRESENT
Genesis 19:16-22 (KJV)
And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his twodaughters; the LORD being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city.
And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.
And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord:
Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die:
Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.
And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken.
Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.
You know the story of LotandSodom and Gomorra.
The Lord had come down to destroy those wicked cities.
The Lord had come down personally to see if the wickedness was according to the cry of the city.
God was going to rain fire and brimstone and wipe them out.
But God said He could not do it until the believer named Lot, and his family were removed.
2 Peter 2:5-9 (KJV) shows how God delivers the believers:
And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;
And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:
(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)
The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:
· First He saved Noah,
vs 5
· Next He saved Lot
vs 7
· Then He saved the godly
vs 9
In the first two cases God provided deliverance for the believers before judging the wicked.
God promised in the 3rd case to do the same in our day.
We call this the doctrine of Pretribulational Rapture.
Before God begins the worst tribulation this world has ever seen, He will remove all the Christians to heaven.
I find this doctrine all around the New Testament:
·1 Thessalonians 1:7-9 (KJV)
So that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia.
For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing.
For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;
While the Lord is taking vengeance, we will be resting in heaven.
·2 Thessalonians 2:3-8 (KJV)
Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?
And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.
For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:
I believe that what is withholding Anti Christ is the presence of the Believers.
When we are removed then Anti Christ will be revealed and the Tribulation will begin.
The Book of Revelation describes in detail the terrible Tribulation period.
·In Revelation 3:10 (KJV) God says.
Because thou hast kept the Word of my patience, I will also keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth.
How will He keep us from it?
By taking us to heaven before it begins.
·Revelation 4:1 (KJV) is an interesting verse.
I believe it pictures how believers will be removed before the Tribulation.
After this I looked and behold a door was opened in heaven and the first voice which I heard was as it were a trumpet talking with me which said, COME UP HITHER, and I will shew thee things which must be here after.
As soon as John was in heaven the Tribulation started and you do not read of the church again.
Why?
Because it is gone in to heaven, watching safely the Tribulation of the earth.
How will we get to heaven?
One of the most beautiful passages of all the Bible is
·1 Thess 4:13-18 (KJV)
But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
Believers, take comfort.
Rejoice and be of good cheer.
God cannot, will not destroy this world or cause the Great Tribulation
Until you are safely seated in heavenly places.
But if you are not saved, another warning.
According to 2 Thessalonians 2:11, if you procrastinate until after the rapture before accepting Christ i will be too late.
God will send strong delusion so that you will believe a lie and will not get saved.
Now is the day of salvation.
Conclusion
I read a bumper sticker once that said,
“Most people who plan to seek God in the 11th hour die at 10:30!”
We don’t know when the Lord will rapture the saints to heaven and begin the Tribulation.
We do know that day will come like a thief in the night.
It could take place today.
If you wait it might be too late.
Jesus said,
Therefore by ye also ready for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man doth appear.
Are you ready?
[1]Job 42:2 (KJV)
I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee.
[2]1 John 5:13 (KJV)
These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
