Friday, August 24, 2018

HOW CORRECT ARE SOME POPULAR BELIEFS? – (PART V)


4. “With God all things are possible”

The Almighty is Omnipotent, being the Source of all Power. This Power created, maintains, sustains, heals and develops Creation. In addition, the Lord God is omnipresent and omniscient.


The all-powerful and ever-living God in His Power and Wisdom also created the Laws that maintain His Creation. These Laws are the expression of His Will. He speaks and manifests to His creatures through these Laws which are perfect and do not change!

Some believers think that the Almighty can do everything and that with His omnipotence He can act arbitrarily. This is not so. Arbitrariness is only an attribute of humans who in their weakness and foolishness try to show off their abilities in this way. The Lord is however perfect and His Laws are the same yesterday, today and forever. They do not change. So the Lord will not for example go contrary to His Laws, or do anything impure, unjust or act out of hatred. Neither will He demand of His creatures abominable practices such as human sacrifice or self-punishment.

Many will here mention miracles as proof that God can do anything. They think that miracles are happenings which are impossible and are only brought about by arbitrary acts of the Almighty. This is not so. The fact that they happen shows that miracles are indeed possible and it is only men in their narrow mindedness who think they are not. However miracles such as many believers imagine do not exist. Such people only see the hand of God in things which are outside of the Natural Laws. Such happenings cannot be attributed to the Creator and are impossible anyway. Miracles therefore are natural happenings but the difference with a miracle is that the process which according to earthly or human conceptions should take a longer time occurs with immense rapidity and so appears miraculous by reason of its extraordinary speed.

When during the life of Christ on earth events were recorded which are miraculous, it reveals to us that He acted with Divine Power but still within the Laws of Nature which Jesus proclaimed He had come to fulfill. The fact that Jesus will not do anything contrary to these Laws was displayed when He firmly refused the temptations to turn stones to bread or to jump down from the pinnacle of the Temple. We should not forget that the suggestions to do these arbitrary things came from Lucifer who will not suggest anything which accords with the Will of God. 


The popular meaning which today has been given to the words “With God all things are possible”, do not belong to these words at all! The true meaning and the background of these words can be found in Scripture (Mark 10:26, 27). It happened that Jesus was talking of the high demands of the Kingdom of God on any man who wishes to tread the path leading upwards to Heaven. The disciples on learning of the Lord’s strict demands were amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?” We are then told that Jesus looked at them and said, “With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible”. Therefore, in the context in which they were used, the words mean that the way of salvation though difficult for man, is possible to tread with the help of the Most High. Provided, of course that the man has first decided firmly to follow the Holy Word of Truth!


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