GOD, OMNIPOTENCE OF

And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a Name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.

—Rev. 19:16

1967 The Rock Didn’t Move

A sailor in a shipwreck was thrown upon a rock where he clung in great danger until the tide went down. Later a friend asked him, “Jim, didn’t you shake with fear when you were hanging on that rock?”

“Yes, but the rock didn’t,” was the significant reply. Christ is the Rock of Ages.

—Sabbath Reading

1968 Hanging Upon Nothing

Martin Luther wrote to the prime minister in Germany: “I have lately seen a miracle. I looked out of the window at the stars in God’s whole heavenly dome. I nowhere saw any pillars where the Master had placed such a dome still stands fast. There are some who seek such pillars and would like very much to feel and grasp them; because they cannot do it, they tremble and write as if the heavens would certainly fall for no other reason than that they cannot seize pillars. I would sooner expect to see the heavens fall than to see one jot or tittle of all the Word of God fail.”

—The Bible Friend

1969 God Disposes Of Napoleon

It is said, that, on the eve of Napoleon’s departure on his Russian campaign, he detailed his schemes to a noble lady with such arrogant positiveness, that she tried to check him saying, “Sir, man proposes; but God disposes.” “Madam, I propose and dispose too,” the emperor haughtily replied. A few months after, the disastrous retreat, and the loss of his crown, army, and liberty, vindicated the power of God.

—Foster

1970 Jonathan Edwards’ Conversion

Jonathan Edwards was suddenly converted, as by a flash of light, in the moment of reading a single verse of the New Testament. He was at home in his father’s house; some hindrances kept him from going to church one Sunday with the family. A couple of hours with nothing to do sent him listlessly into the library; the sight of a dull volume with no title on the leather back of it evoked curiosity as to what it could be; he opened it at random and found it to be a Bible; and then his eye caught this verse: “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen!”

He tells us in his journal that the immediate effect of it was awakening and alarming to his soul, for it brought him a most novel and most extensive thought of the vastness and majesty of the true Sovereign of the universe. Out of this grew the pain of guilt for having resisted such a Monarch so long, and for having served Him so poorly. And whereas he had hitherto had slight notions of his own wickedness and very little poignancy of acute remorse, now he felt the deepest contrition.

—C. H. Robinson

1971 He Carried Boy And Burden

A preacher was busy in his study, while his little boy looked at a book of pictures by the fireside. He suddenly wanted a large book he had left upstairs, and asked his boy to go for it. He was away a long time, and after a while the father heard the sound of sobbing on the stairs. He went out, and at the top of the staircase he saw his son crying bitterly, with the large book he had tried to lift and carry, lying at his feet. “Oh, Daddy,” he cried, “I can’t carry it. It’s too heavy for me.”

In a moment, the father was up the stairs, and stooping down, took up both the book and the little fellow in his strong arms, and carried them both to the room below. “And that,” he found himself thinking later, “is how God deals with His children.”

—Methodist Recorder

1972 Unsinkable Ship

At the time of the sinking of the Titanic, one of our great American preachers was in Belfast, Ireland. The Titanic had been built in Belfast, and there was a great local pride over the mighty ship. She had been heralded far and wide as “the unsinkable ship.” Sixteen members of the church in Belfast, all skilled mechanics, went down with her. The mayor said that Belfast had never been in such grief as that which came over this terrible tragedy. When the news finally was verified that the gallant ship was certainly lost, so deep was the grief that it is said strong men met upon the streets, grasped each other’s hands, burst into tears, and parted without a word.

The visiting American preached the Sunday after the tragedy in the church to which the sixteen members who had been lost belonged. Not only was the building packed with peoples but on the platform were lords, bishops, and ministers of all denominations. In the audience, many newly-made widows were sitting and orphans were sobbing on every side. The great preacher took as his subject “The Unsinkable Ship.” But he did not apply that term to the Titanic which on her first voyage had gone out into the Atlantic and crashed into an iceberg, carrying her precious cargo of human lives down to watery death.

No, the preacher’s message was about that other “unsinkable ship”—the frail boat on the sea of Galilee, unsinkable because the Master of land and sea was asleep on a pillow in the afterpart of the vessel. Thank God He still lives and rides the billows and controls the storms, and when the children of men take their only true Pilot back on board, we will ride out the present storms and He will bring the vessel through to the fair harbor of our hopes.

—American Fundamentalist

1973 Matter Into Energy

In northern Alabama some of our electricity comes from the Brown’s Ferry nuclear plant near Decatur, Alabama. This is the world’s largest nuclear energy plant. Its fuel is uranium. When just one gram of Uranium 235 fissions, it creates energy equivalent to 20 tons of TNT. One gram is about what a small birthday candle weighs. The candle, if burned, could hardly warm a cup of coffee.

This little one-gram candle, however, if converted 100% into energy, according to Einstein’s equation, could produce the energy of 20,000 tons of TNT or 26.6 million kilowatt hours of electricity. What makes the difference between a one-gram birthday candle that could hardly warm a cup of coffee and the same one-gram candle that could provide the energy of 20,000 tons of TNT?

Einstein’s equation is E equals MC². The E represents energy in ergs, mass grams and the C² is the velocity of the light squared. If we leave out the C² we get one erg is equal to one gram. One erg is less than the energy required for a mosquito to become airborne. If we add the C² we get 9 x 1020 centimeters per second. Thus we get one gram times 900,000,000,000,000,000,000 (nine hundred quintillion) centimeters per second, equals 900,000,000,000,000,000,000 ergs of energy.

This one-gram candle, then, if transformed totally to energy is equivalent to the enormous power that a city of 40,000 people would use in one day. All of this when one gram of matter is changed into energy! God’s creation pulsates with His might.

—The Bible Friend

1974 Epigram On God (Omnipotence of)

•     The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent upon it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.

—Galileo

•     An hour in prayer can give the believer enough power from God to overcome the second most powerful force in the universe (Isa. 40:31).

—The Bible Friend

See also: Energy Shortage ; Heavenly Phenomenon.