The Apostles’ Creed: God The FatherSample

God’s Unlimited Power: Isaiah 46:10-11

Scripture describes the Father as having power to do anything he wills to do. And it demonstrates this unlimited power in many different ways. It speaks of him as having the power to create the universe and to destroy it. It says that he has power to control the weather, to defeat his enemies in battle, to rule and to control human governments, to perform mighty miracles, and to save his people. Consider how the prophet Jeremiah described the Lord in Jeremiah 10:10-16:

The Lord is the true God; he is the living God, the eternal King. When he is angry, the earth trembles; the nations cannot endure his wrath... God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding. When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses... He is the Maker of all things, including Israel, the tribe of his inheritance — the Lord Almighty is his name (Jeremiah 10:10-16).

God ultimately controls every aspect of the created world. He has the power to do whatever he pleases. In Isaiah 46:10-11, the Lord himself summarized his power this way:

My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please... What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do (Isaiah 46:10-11).

God’s omnipotence is a good reminder to us as believers that when the world seems like it’s spinning out of control, feels like it’s descending into chaos, it’s not. God cannot be bound by another source or power superior to his. The world, whatever else it may seem like, is not spinning out of control. God is sovereign. We may have confidence that he has not been overpowered, and it gives us strength to walk with faith in those times that appear mysterious to our limited perspective. When we don’t see all that God sees, it is good to know that God has not had his control or his power wrested from him against his will. Whatever is coming to me, whatever is taking place in my life, is taking place under the authority of God’s loving hand. And I can take confidence, even when I can’t explain my circumstances that I know the God who sustains me and walks through this with me. – Dr. Robert G. Lister

Throughout the Bible, Scripture commonly points to God’s redemption of his people as an ideal demonstration of his power. In the Old Testament, we frequently read that he proved his power in the Exodus when he smote the Egyptians with plagues, freed the Israelites from slavery, sustained them with food from heaven for forty years in the desert, and gave them conquest over the Promised Land. In the minds of ancient Israel, the Exodus was the greatest example of God’s redemptive power they knew.

We find references to God’s power in the Exodus throughout the books of the Law, in passages like Exodus 14:31; Numbers 14:13; and Deuteronomy 9:26-29. We also see this theme in every other part of the Old Testament. We find it in the historical books in 2 Kings 17:36; in the poetic books in places like Psalm 66:3-6; and in the prophetic books in places like Isaiah 63:12.