With God All Things Are Possible
By A. B. Simpson
Pray for the impossible! These words belong to the language of faith and the kingdom of heaven. God loves hard things. God combines the little and the great. It is His glory to treat the hardest and mightiest things as mere trifles.
When promising one of His greatest miracles, through the ancient prophet, He added, “This is but a light thing in the sight of the Lord...” (2 Kgs. 3:18).
When Jesus was about to heal and save the poor paralytic His words were very strange and striking, “Whether is it easier...?” (Mark 2:9). But man would have said, “whether is it harder?” But the greatest thing was very easy for Him.
All God’s greatest acts have been things impossible for any but God. Creation was making a universe out of nothing. Redemption was overcoming a difficulty that was absolutely impossible for any human wisdom or power, to be just and yet the justifier of the ungodly.
Of the salvation of the rich, Christ Himself says, “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:16-26). The sanctification of an unholy soul is simply impossible. “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing? Not one” (Job 14:4).
The promise to Abraham, the father of believers, was something impossible. It was when his body was as good as dead – that God called him to believe in the birth of a son, and then fulfilled that promise by giving him Isaac, when he was past age (Heb. 11:8-12).
Israel’s deliverance did not come until they had reached the lowest depths of despair and all human hope was dead. God’s hour is the impossible, and God’s opportunity is man’s emergency. The support of Israel, as a nation in the wilderness for half a century, was a miracle of Providence.
David could not have his kingdom until he was reduced to such a helpless condition that it had to be a miracle of divine power.
Jehoshaphat’s mightiest victory came in the hour when baffled, perplexed and helpless, he could only say, “...We have no might against this great company…neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon Thee” (2 Chr. 20:12).
Hezekiah’s healing came after even God had declared that he must die and could not live (2 Kgs. 20:1-6).
Daniel’s wonderful deliverance was accomplished after Darius had labored till the going down of the sun to find some way of escape for him, and had found it impossible (Dan. 6:12-22).
Esther was used of God to save her people even after the decree of doom had gone forth irrevocably from the king, and even he could not take it back (Esth. 9:25-32).
Jeremiah’s mightiest promise came to him when he was shut up in the inner court of the prison, and the Chaldeans were thundering at the gates of the city, and all earthly hope was cut off. Then it was that God made him step out before the people and perform the mightiest act of faith of his whole life – by purchasing the field in Anathoth, as the pledge of the restoration of the land (Jer. 32:1-15).
One of Christ’s sweetest parables is the story of the friend at night, the hour of service past, the house closed, the family in bed, the time too late for any reasonable hope of help, but it was then that the friend proved himself a friend indeed, and rose and gave him as much as he needed (Luke 11:1-13).
It was when Paul reached a physical condition of helplessness and self-despair and having the sentence of death in himself – that he was able to rise to the very height of faith and victory, and write that wonderful passage: “We would not…have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: but we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: who delivereth us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that He will yet deliver us” (2 Cor. 1:8-10).
Surely, with these examples before us, we need not fear to pray for the impossible; to claim our Master’s glorious promise, “...If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth” (Mark 9:23). And again, “...If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you” (Matt. 17:20; cf. 21:21).
Beloved, have you some loved one or friend beyond the reach of all human help? Pray for the impossible! Have you a temptation that you have been unable to overcome and that has for many a year baffled, defeated, and trampled you in the dust? Pray for the impossible!
Have you a physical infirmity beyond the reach of human skill, threatening your life and destroying your usefulness? Pray for the impossible! Have you trials and difficulties in your pathway – too hard for you and too difficult for any human power to remove? Nothing is too hard for God, pray for the impossible! (Matt. 19:26).
Have you work you long to do for God? Are your resources cramped? Is your strength insufficient? Does it seem too vast for even the highest faith and the strongest hand? God loves a hard work and chooses the weak things to confound the mighty (1 Cor. 1:26-31) – pray for the impossible – and you yet shall sing with a joyful heart:
“Nothing is too hard for Jesus,
No man can work like Him.”