Tozer Talks

“All Things are Possible With God”

There are two verses, two parts of verses, just words, the words of Jesus. One is found in Mark 10:27, these words, six of them. With God, all things are possible. With God, all things are possible. And then in the ninth chapter, the 23rd verse, all things are possible to him that believeth.

Now, there is the same thing said about God and about the believing man: all things are possible. I see no poetry here, no figure here. This is not figurative language. It is blunt statement of truth. The whole passage is without figure or metaphor. We need not discount this in any wise. It stands just as it is bluntly, all things are possible to him that believeth, and all things are possible with God.

Now, the text, all things are possible with God, is one that we can take standing up and without a problem, as I have pointed out on a previous occasion some, I think, years back now, that nobody ever feels when he hears the text, with God all things are possible, that he’s been jarred in it. He does not stagger at that statement through unbelief. With God all things are possible. The eternal God, the omnipotent God, the God who is plenipotent, who has all the potency that there is, all the power that exists is in God. And nobody feels jarred or disturbed. Nobody runs to a pastor and says, what does this mean? Nobody writes to an editor and says, will you please give your opinion of verse so and so, all things are possible with God? Everybody knows that’s true, and nobody questions it. That is, anybody who’s ever read the Bible at all or been brought up in the Christian tradition.

But the other verse, all things are possible to him that hath faith. Now, we might just as well say that we’re in trouble here. There isn’t any use to look pious and impassive and pretend that this also is easy for us and it’s old stuff. It’s nothing of the sort. It is very difficult for the human mind to grasp, even the Christian, human mind, because it says the same thing about a believing man that it says about God. It states that the God of heaven can do everything. And then it states that the man who believes can do everything.

Now, God declares His total ability to do, His total ability to do. I’ve been praying over and wondering what I should be talking to the people in Canada about as they’re gathered, will be gathered there from all over. And there will be men there, very greatly my superior in every possible way that I know. Such men as Dr. Jones and this Hashi, a very famous theologian from Switzerland. And I can’t go there and hope to be able to stand up along with those very great and learned and gifted men. And I have wondered whether maybe I shouldn’t just go there and talk about God. I wonder if that might not be, just go there and talk about God. Because they usually don’t do that. They find God in everything, but they don’t talk about God too much. Maybe that will be my contribution, just go there and talk about the Triune God. And among the things that I want to say, will be that God declares His total ability to do. God can do every thing. That is, He can do everything that He desires to do.

Believing in the omnipotence of Deity does not require us to believe that God can do what He does not will to do. God cannot, for instance, tell a lie. God cannot, for instance, break a promise. But anything God wills to do, God has total ability to do. And no thing and no matter and no body and no circumstance or no law and no enemy and no opposition from anywhere can stop God from doing exactly what He wills to do. Now, we want to get that settled. The great God whose we are and whom we call Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, can do whatever He wills to do and all that He wills to do.

But now the same thing is true of him that believeth. God shares His omnipotence with that person He calls, him that believeth. With whom does God share His omnipotence with? About whom does God say, he’s equal to me, in a relative way and by My grace and permission and promise, he can do what I can do. Or because I do what I do through him, about whom does He thus speak? Is it a genius? Is it some religious genius more brilliant? No, he could be a genius, but it’s not with geniuses that God shares his total ability to do. Not with some powerful personality.

I’ve said I suppose too often already here, that the cult of personality has become a deadly and dangerous thing in our time. That this cult of personality that magnifies Apollos and puts a leay around his neck, of the fragrant flowers and offers sacrifice to him, this has become a dangerous thing. And God did not say that man of powerful personality can do whatsoever he wills. He said, that the man who believeth has the power to do whatsoever he will.

Now, this person may not be a superior one. And he may be no wiser and no more influential and no more powerful than the rank and file, because the power is not his. The power belongs to God. You see, if I know that the power belongs to God, this takes all the strain off so there isn’t any effort A man walks in with a subconscious feeling, partly conscious that he’s got to do it, he attempts to do it either by forcing his voice or by gesticulations or by some other method. He tries to do, by his own power, that which only God can do.

Now, gestures and gesticulations are normal. You and I have that much Jew in us that when we make a point we like to do it with our hands. And we talk with our hands and that’s perfectly normal and all right. But there is such a thing as going into a pulpit or before a class or wherever, and trying by putting what they call, body english into it. Do you know what body english is? It’s to hit it and then turn and hope and help the thing to go where it ought to go by sheer physical, by overpowering the thing. But after it’s left the club, you can’t do a thing with it then. But people try that, as I try on an airplane to keep the thing balanced. I always lean the other way from the way it turns. If they bank to the left, I lean hard to the right so it won’t turn over. But that’s strictly and purely a fallacy of the mind.

And we can try in our prayers to strain and wrestle with God and get things done by our power. My brethren, the Bible didn’t say, all things are possible with God, and all things are possible with the man or woman who can wrestle enough. He said, All things are possible to him that believeth. We ought again to release wonderful, marvelous faith into the church of Christ and see what faith can do. That is, not the faith you hear about over the radio: somebody upstairs likes me. Not that kind of pagan faith, but the faith in God. Now, this takes, I say, all the strain off so that you’re not trying to do it. And it takes all the glory away from you. I wonder how many people there are who serve God sheerly for God Almighty’s own glory without wanting a little cut on their own. Now, I seriously do.

I wonder how many men write a Christian book and commit it to God so completely that they’re willing for it to fail? I wonder how many people teach and commit it to God so completing that they’re willing to fail if God orders it. Mostly we want to serve God by winning and keeping up a good front ourselves. But it should not be because the power belongs to God and to Him alone, and all the glory must be taken away from you or me. Remember this, I am Jehovah and there is no other and My glory will I not share with another. And the work that is being done in the world, the truly eternal work that is being done, is being done only by those who don’t want any share in God’s glory, but give all the glory to the Godhead, to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Now, our Lord Jesus Christ is absolute Master. I wish you’d read your Bible with that in mind. I wish you’d read your New Testament more. Read Acts and read Colossians and learn how God has elevated His Son to the right hand of power. And even while He walked on the earth, He manifested His absolute mastery over everything. Over the realm of nature, the wind and the sea obeyed Him. And over human flesh, He healed the sick. And over the soul, He forgave sins. And over the spirit, He cast out devils. And in the realm of the dead, for He spoke and the dead walked out of their graves alive. So, our Lord had all power. He manifested it while he walked on Earth. And when He went to the right hand of God, if there was such a thing as any realm where God had for the moment in His plan, restrained Him, He took those restraints off. Then Jesus said, all authority is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. And then He said, as my Father sent me, so send I you. And in Mark 16:20, these disciples believed this and they went forth, says the Scripture, and preached everywhere. And the Lord went with them, confirming the word with signs following.

Now, it says that in the Book of Mark, but somebody would want to tell us that that was for the Apostles and belonged to another day. Isn’t it strange? I pointed out one time, just at the conclusion of a sermon, how unbelief works. Unbelief says somewhere else, but not here. Some other time, but not now. Some other people but not us. And I had the pleasure of hearing that sermon preached back to me by a young preacher who’d heard that and develop them into a beautiful sermon. I heard it. He had to point. And it was a good sermon, all right, because that’s the way unbelief does. Unbelief is willing to believe anything provided it isn’t now. Anything, provided it isn’t here. Anything, provided it isn’t us.

And there are those of you listening to me right now that pray for the Danis and the unpronounceables up there in the Philippines. And you wouldn’t be even a little surprised if the message came that God had done wonders there. But you can’t bring yourself to believe God will do wonders here. Do you know that? If it’s far enough away, you’ll believe it. But if it comes close enough, you begin to stagger. No doubt if Abraham had heard a story back in antediluvian days, an old man, 100, with a wife, 90, had had a child. He’d have taken it in stride. But it was something else when God said to the old man, your wife, Sarah shall have a son.

Now brethren, let’s get away from this thing. And let’s remember that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the God of the Reformers and the God of the Revivalists and the God of the great pioneer missionaries. That is our God. He is our God. But you say, yes, but they deserve it. You see, brethren, we still have the Roman Catholic idea that the saints are much more beloved than we are. That if you were virtuous enough to be a saint, God loved you more and would do more for you. But that is a subtle suggestion that God gives us things because we’re saintly.

But the Bible doesn’t teach that. The Bible teaches that God gives us things because God is good and we’re in need and grace operates. And Saint Augustine, could not get a thing that you can get from God. St. Augustine never had one-inch closer entrée to God Almighty than you have right now. The well need not a physician. The healthy man doesn’t need a doctor. It’s the sick man. And I believe we have a right, and I have written it into my little prayer book, and I take it before God. I believe we have a right to believe that God will bless us in inverse proportion to how bad we’ve been. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

What do I mean by that strange expression, in inverse proportion? I mean that I have a right to go to God and say, O God, You boasted about your grace and your mercy and your willingness out of your own good heart to bless people that didn’t deserve it. Well, I’m a candidate. I’m the worst and therefore God give me the most. I believe we have a right to go, and I think God would smile and listen if we went to Him and say I’m bringing Thee no soft odors. I’m bringing Thee no garments redolent of sainthood. I am bringing Thee no past that can be written in a book. I am bringing Thee a past that I don’t want written in a book. And I am bringing Thee not the smell of heaven but the savor of earth. I’m bringing Thee raggedness and scattered, staggered and unworthiness. And now God, make good on your promise and bless me most because I’m worse. And give me greater help because I need it the most.

I believe that God smiles at that kind of praying to go slithering into the presence of God with a waxy smile and say, God, I’m not as other men. This harlot over here, this publican over there, that politician over yonder, I’ve always been a good boy and stayed in church. And I have five Bibles at home that I earned in Sunday school. And you know, Father, that I never did anything worse than drink a bottle of Coke. And I’m a pretty good boy, Lord, I think God will turn His back on that kind of self-righteousness, but knowing what I am and knowing what we are. But because Jesus Christ’s blood is of infinite capacity to purchase merits for us, we go straight into the presence of God paying no attention to the merits of the saints.

Don’t allow yourself to be hooked by that old error that the saints piled up merits. If the saints got their merits, they would all be in hell now, every last one of them. If they got only what they deserved from Augustine and St. Teresa, and all down to this present hour, they’d all be in hell and they all knew it and all said so. And they were the first ones to say so. I’ve got their lives and devotional works and I read them. I know what they believed. And this idea that there is a what they call it, a superarrogationist idea that you pile up merits.

But I and Brother Thomas and Brother Chase and Brother McAfee were four good boys and when we die, we’ll leave behind us a little merit. Which if you can get it, it will help you. Paganism, my brethren. There’s not a line in the Scripture about it. Its paganism. I will not leave any merits behind me. I’ll leave demerits, 100% solid. But I have all the merits of a risen Jesus, all the merits of a risen Jesus. Not superarrogation, but vicarious death and resurrection. It gives me everything that I need, everything, everything.

Jesus Christ is made to me all I need. All I need, He alone is all my plea. Here’s all I need, wisdom, righteousness and power, holiness forevermore. My redemption, full and sure, He is all I need. And the only plea we have and the only one we need before our Father’s face, because I was a guilty sinner, but Jesus died for me. And the Father hears my prayer and answers it as if I had been an unfallen angel in heaven above and had never known the pollution of iniquity. He restores moral innocency through His forgiving love and establishes us so that we can talk to Him. And we can get things from Him if you want to put it on that low level.

Well, he says, they went everywhere and the Lord went with them. And the Lord confirmed everything and proved to them that He meant what He said when He said that everything they needed they could have just as He could do anything He wanted to do. Now where may we expect that power in the next seven minutes? Where may we expect it in personal salvation and life? No sin, no habit, no weakness, nothing, can stop the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing can stop the Lord Jesus Christ.

Can you imagine a gnat flying around trying to escape a nighthawk? A nighthawk sails and bank and turn and curve and make their beeping sound all over Chicago. You’re not naturalist enough to know when a nighthawk is flying. He’s hunting gnats. He eats them, lives off of them. That’s where he gets his food. He doesn’t sit down on the dirty earth and pecks. He goes up there and flies around takes it on the wing.

Well suppose that this gnat has escaped a night hawk and he sees a DC-7 roaring in and says I’m going to bring that one down and he flies into the propeller. You know what happens to him. He’s history from that moment on. And when anything says, well God Almighty, He can’t do it. You say, God can’t do it brother. God in His pity may close His eyes and wait so as not to crush you, but God can do anything He wants to do. Don’t think he can’t. And there isn’t an enemy anywhere that can stop Him.

Have you notice the communists have begun to talk like the Nazis now, boastfully, boasting. Hitler used to say I’m about run out of patience now. You, your country over there, I’m about run out of patience. He ran out of patience and then he ran out of time. And the day that he said, we know how to deal with you Bible-carrying Christians. I said, God thank you. He said it. He said it God. I knew he was finished. I knew he was done the day that he said, we know how to deal with you Bible-carrying Christians. And they’re still carrying Bibles in Germany. Hitler has been in hell, oh, these twelve years, eleven.

Brethren, there isn’t anything that can stop God. And don’t you ever for a moment think a thing is too big for God to do–nothing. All things are possible to him that believeth. And in our common needs, do you believe God is willing to help you in your common needs? I don’t want to stir you up to start praying about your little household affairs all the time. Put those in the hands of God and trust His providence. That’s the best way to handle that. But when the crisis comes, God is just as willing to help you with your household work as He is to help a missionary on the field or an angel at His right hand. I believe that God is perfectly willing to help.

We had a red-headed treasurer in this church in Indianapolis many years ago. I don’t know whether brother Thomas would know him. What was his name? I could think of it, Mr. Keller. And he was a Christian, a happy Christian brother. And you know how he got converted? He went to an Alliance meeting. And there was testimony meeting, and a dear old housewife, dear old lady got up and gave a testimony. And she said, I’d like to say to the glory of God, that I put my wash on my front porch for the laundry man and somebody stole it. And she said, I got on my knees and I said, God, I can’t afford to lose that. Please return it to me. And she said it was returned and placed back on my porch. Thank God, and she sat down. And this redhead sat there saying to himself, what infinite crust this is that God Almighty, the great God Almighty should be interested in a bag of wet wash. What does God care about that? But it got ahold of his hide nevertheless and it wasn’t very long until he gave himself to the Lord and was converted. I believe in these things, brethren, with all of my heart.

Why, don’t you remember that passage in the 12th of Acts when the Lord said to the angel, my boy Peter is in prison. Go down. And the angel started off, and just a minute He said, take a cloak with you. He said, take a cloak. So he took a cloak down. And he waked Peter and said, here, put this cloak on you. And then let him out through the gates. Who thought about the cloak? The angel? No. God thought about it.

And then think of that poor old prophet out there. Forty days journey from nowhere, in the woods. He had said he had run out of food and ran so far there wasn’t no food, and he’d been driven to dig for roots. But God said to an angel, here, go down and bake some pancakes for my boy Elijah. And down came the angel on broad white wings. And what did it do? Play a pipe organ or paint a picture or write a poem? No, it baked cakes for a prophet. There isn’t anything too small for God to be concerned with.

Dear old little old Julian; Ray calls her, my girlfriend. She’s been dead 600 years and I carry her little book around with me and read what she said about the Lord. She said, O Lord, Thou wilt never refuse to humble Thyself and serve in the least particular of our humble nature. And there isn’t anything in our poor nature, that the Lord won’t serve us in. She said, though He be so high, yet does He meek Himself to be so homely with poor sinners like us. Homely of course means familiar at home life. Well, she’s right. And there isn’t a thing, there isn’t a thing that God isn’t interested in, your common needs.

Now, I don’t mean that I want you to get your eyes on this world’s goods and begin to belabor God with requests for all things. The time was when a man came to Jesus and said, will you tell my brother that he divide? And the Lord knew He had a bad man on His hands. So, He said, who made me a divider over you and he turned His back and walked away, perfectly willing to help a woman find her wet wash. Perfectly willing to humble Himself to the lowest needs of our human nature, but unwilling to divide with a covetous man, and unwilling to become a lawyer to try to get a man, a wicked man who wanted money. No, God isn’t interested in that.

So don’t take advantage of what I’ve said and start any of this asking God to get your hair back. I know there’s one cult that promises that if you write them, I mean it. They say, write in and send us something and we’ll send you something and then you can get your hair back. And thank God, he counts every hair when it falls. He knows where they are, doesn’t he? I’m not worried about that. And I don’t want my hair back. I’ll go redhead one of these days.

And then in our services, our services. I think I ought to repent of something. Brother McAfee ribs me about it, and kids me. When I have a very important, what I consider to be a very important engagement coming up like the one in Canada soon, I sweat under it. And I say, oh, why did I promised to go. Brother McAfee said, now it’s starting. He knows that I have a little worrying to do. But I think that’s sinful. I think I ought to ask God to forgive me and I have for that matter. And I think I ought to quit it, because why should I worry when the Lord is going with me? And if I’ve got to do it, I’ll buy a ticket to San Francisco. But if I don’t have to do it, why should I worry? It just goes to prove Adam isn’t as dead as I wish he was. But I pray that God will give me faith to know that in my God-appointed work, I don’t have to do it. God does it. And when God does it why should I worry?

I preached before a bishop one time. That is, I thought I was going to preach before him, but he couldn’t make it. And I tell you, I sweat under that. And I have preached a few times in my life before some people so important that I felt that I couldn’t make it. But all that’s flesh. Who are they anyhow? No matter how many miters they have on their heads, they have still got breath in their nostrils. And no matter how many grandiose titles they’ve earned for themselves, they still have breath in their nostrils. And why should one man with breath in his nostrils be afraid of another man with breath in his nostril?

So, when your God-appointed task, remember with me, nothing is impossible to him that believeth. Nothing is impossible. But why do so few take advantage of it? In our church, God, let me live as I trust you will. I have no plans otherwise for the next while. When I come back, I want to preach some sermons. And I believe we’ve got a future. And I believe we’re going to see a great Fall and Winter. But if we do, it won’t be because anybody winds himself up tight. It’ll be because we learned that with God all things are possible and all things are possible to them that believe. Whether we’re known abroad or whether we’re not known round the corner of our own street, God isn’t worrying about popularity or fame. Any of His children can go to Him for anything and He will answer in his will.

So, we serve God, and while God owes us nothing yet God in His kind grace puts Himself under obligation to us where he has to listen. He in His infinite grace puts Himself under obligation so that He must hear us. Shall we not then pray these days just ahead of us? And let’s believe God all up and down these streets. They’ve come in over the last year, hundreds and hundreds of them. Children half-grown, little ones, hundreds, and they swarmed the streets. And there’s nobody reaching them and nobody helping them.

Why can this church take it on ourselves instead of our looking like a bird about to fly and say, we’ve got to go south. Why can’t we rather say, God sent them for us to evangelize? I believe, if we’ll believe, we’d see God do wonders yet in this church. I have that confidence that God will do wonders. I do not expect God, I do not expect God, ever expect that this shall be a popular church where the multitudes will flock. I’m no Johnny Ray nor Elvis Presley. Neither is McAfee. And so they’re not going to come in and faint and scream. We don’t carry on like that. I’m not thinking about size. I’m thinking about depth and intensity and permanence of service at home and unto the ends of the world. And all things are possible to God. And everything is possible to what? Him that believeth. Let’s do some believing and release the infinite powers of God into our life and into our church.

Now, Father, we pray thy blessing upon us. Oh, we scatter from this little building to so many places, so many responsibilities, obligations, and callings. Back to school for many. Oh, we pray that we’ll go with confidence that we’re not orphans of the storm. That we’re not bits of matter animated for a period, floating in space. That we’re sons and daughters of a God who has got His eye on every one of us and knows our name and number and face. And our High Priest carries our name on His shoulder and on His breast and on His forehead before the presence of God. Before the face of the Father stands our great High Priest, and we need no merit of saints. We need nothing but the merit of the great High Priest.

We thank Thee we can enter boldly into the throne of grace and receive mercy and grace to help in time of need. For He knoweth our infirmities, feels all the pinch and pressure of our weaknesses, for He is Himself, man and walked among us. Send us out with great hope and encouragement. Send these young people back to school, chins up and knees bent and eyes bright, knowing that the Lord is on their side and grace, infinite matchless grace, is greater than all their sins. And send us back to service and out to our labors confidently expecting we shall see the gifts of the Spirit restored to this church and that we shall see the mighty power of a risen Christ operating in this church. We ask these things in His name. Let us stand please.