The One Thing God Cannot Do

Introduction

Église Évangélique Paris Métropole launched its new season with a series titled "Gathered: Living the Extraordinary Together in the Ordinary." The model is the first church, where believers were together "with one accord" (Acts 2:46). Acts 2:42 says the first Christians devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. For Christian Robichaud, to persevere does not mean to hang on like a marathon runner at the end of his strength. It means to take something to heart. The first Christians took the word of God to heart.

A question follows: if the word of God is so powerful, why do so many people resist it? The pastor opens his message with that tension, and with a title that surprises: "The One Thing God Cannot Do."

To answer it, he tells the story of three kings, three generations of the same family: the grandfather Hezekiah, the father Manasseh and the grandson Josiah. Three different ways of receiving the word of God. Then he ends with the author of the best-known Christian song in the world, Amazing Grace.

Outline of the message

1. One thing God cannot do

• God created the universe by his word: "God said, 'Let there be light,'" (Genesis 1:3). So why did he not stop Eve from disobeying?
• Why could he bring Egypt to its knees, but not keep his own people from doubting him in the wilderness? Why could he move empires, Assyrians and Babylonians, around Jerusalem, but not keep a king from turning to witchcraft?
• The Sanhedrin, the highest religious authority of the day, saw Stephen's face "as if it were the face of an angel" (Acts 6:15). That did not stop it from stoning him. And why does God bless the person sitting next to me, and not me? "Those are real questions."
• We sing that nothing is impossible for God. Yet the Bible says there is one thing he cannot do. In his last letter to Timothy, "almost like his testament," Paul writes that God "can't deny himself" (2 Timothy 2:13).
• God will never go against what he has made. Of all creation, he made only one living being free to rebel, to doubt, to argue and even to persecute the Church: the human being. Angels obey God, the devil obeys God, the elements obey Jesus as he walks on water and calms the storm. "But man, no, that's different."
• "God doesn't want robots, he doesn't want automatons." He longs for a relationship, a communion, a friendship that is not forced, that comes from your own thinking and a free decision: "OK, I'm putting my hand in God's hand and I'm going to walk with him."
• There have been moments when God put something in a man's mind for a specific plan. But there is one thing he will not do: "He will not force you to love him." He does not need your love, but he wants you to love him.

2. God works on the circumstances of your life

• How will God go about it? He will use the outward elements of your life, which are all in his hand and under his authority. He manages circumstances to get your attention and awaken you, until you say: "This can't be, there must be something supernatural."
• The goal is the decision James 1:21 speaks of: receiving with meekness the word that has been planted in us. That meekness is a spirit of humility.
• Man's number one problem is his ego: "Our big problem is that we don't want God to be the boss."
• "The all-powerful word of God, the one that created the universe, stops at the threshold of your heart." Like a gentleman, God knocks very gently so that you will open your heart yourself.

3. Hezekiah: the word that avoids disaster

• Hezekiah loves God and walks faithfully before him. Yet a very great trial comes: an immense Assyrian army surrounds Jerusalem and the balance of power is bad. The pastor answers the objection in advance: "I'm a good person, I believe in God," and yet enormous problems can still come.
• Rather than trusting in God, the king runs to human means and sends envoys to Egypt: "Help, come and help me, sell me chariots."
• God sends the prophet Isaiah: "Woe to the rebellious children," who carry out plans without him, who go down to Egypt without consulting him, to take refuge under Pharaoh's protection and in the shadow of Egypt (Isaiah 30:1-2).
• "You have not asked my mouth." Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). In other words: "I have a word for your situation. I can step in, but you have to come to me."
• Hezekiah reverses his decision, goes to the house of God, tears his royal robes and repents. In a single night, God strikes the enemy army (2 Kings 19:35). The next morning, the problem is gone. "God can turn a situation around just like that."
• First lesson: if you take God's word into account, it can spare you disaster. The pastor often receives in his office people who did not listen and who went through disasters. The Bible, he says, holds principles for living worth their weight in gold. Even people who do not believe in God would make wiser decisions if they simply read the book of Proverbs.

4. Manasseh: the disaster that brings you back to God

• With Manasseh, Hezekiah's son, it is the opposite: he turns away from God, and it is disaster that will bring him back.
• He sets up the worship of Baal, which offered access to the divine "in complete immorality": partying, drunkenness, debauchery, and even adultery as a fertility rite. Men left in the morning with an offering in hand, assuring their wives they were not going to cheat: they were only going to meet a "sacred prophetess" for the fertility rite. "It's incredible what man can invent to justify evil."
• It becomes the national religion: "Do what you want, how you want, with whoever you want. Have fun, live your best life." The God of Israel, who asks for a moral life, is set aside.
• Manasseh bows down to the host of heaven, practices magic and sorcery, sets up sorcerers everywhere, places idols in the house of God and makes his sons pass through the fire in honor of the god Moloch. He leads the people to do more evil than the neighboring nations and sheds so much innocent blood that Jerusalem is filled from one end to the other (2 Kings 21:16): without justice, the city becomes a place of score-settling.
• God sends messengers, but Manasseh does not listen to them (2 Chronicles 33:10). "You don't mess around with God." God sends the army of Assyria, the same one he had defeated in his father's time. It does not besiege Jerusalem: it comes for one man. They put shackles on his feet and take him away to Babylon (2 Chronicles 33:11).
• At the bottom of his dungeon, at the end of himself, he struggles "like a wild horse," cries out to God and repents. God is moved, after all the evil this man had done (2 Chronicles 33:12-13). Back in Jerusalem, Manasseh cleans house, fortifies the land, protects the people and becomes a good leader.
• God did not put into Manasseh "a kind of magic wand" so that he would suddenly love God. He worked on the outward elements of his life. "And God still does the same thing today."

5. Josiah: a heart that seeks God

• With the grandson, Josiah, it is something else entirely. God does not send him a prophet. Josiah does not even have a Bible: he belongs to generations that never heard of God.
• The pastor affirms that Josiah himself was "passed through the fire" of Moloch, like Manasseh's sons, and carried the burn marks on the back of his neck all his life.
• Yet while he was still young, he began to seek the God of David (2 Chronicles 34:3). "Do you see how free man is to seek God, to take an interest in God, to take God seriously or not?"
• As a man, he sets out with his army, the leaders and the Levites, and travels the whole territory to destroy the altars of the idols. It takes him six years: "Imagine, you buy a house and it takes you six years to get rid of the cockroaches."
• Then he turns to the house of God, neglected for decades, and organizes a collection to rebuild it. The pastor adds: "I'm not trying to manipulate you into giving money to the church."
• He compares the situation to a France where there would no longer be a single Bible: no one knows who the God of Israel is anymore, or what he asks. "They have everything but no interest in God. He has nothing but is interested in God."
• During the work, a dusty scroll is found: the book of the law (2 Chronicles 34:14-19). It is as if lawyers in France discovered the civil code, lost for fifty years. It is read to the king, who tears his clothes as he realizes how far the people are from God.
• "Tear your heart, and not your garments" (Joel 2:13). To tear your heart is to break your pride and say: "I really need God. I have to stop arguing and fighting with God."

6. John Newton: the man who fought with God

• Behind Amazing Grace stands John Newton. At seven, he loses his mother and never gets over it. His father is very harsh. As a teenager, he is forced into the English navy. He is even sold as a slave in Africa, gets out, then becomes a slave trader himself.
• A Christian sailor gives him a Christian book. He reads it with pride, sighing, but he keeps coming back to it: it reminds him of what his mother had planted in him when she taught him Christian songs. The pastor speaks to the mothers: "You can plant something in your children that will follow them all their lives."
• They called him "the monster." He held a grudge against God and against everyone. One day, a huge storm hits his ship off the coast of England, "like Jonah." He takes the helm: "Give me the helm, I have things to settle with God." He understands that God wants his soul, but he is too proud. "He's a Manasseh."
• He gives his heart to God during the storm, then takes it back. For six years, he remains a Christian more or less while continuing the slave trade. It takes an illness that leaves him unable to go back on board a ship. "God is ready to do anything to win a soul."
• Some understand very quickly, others do not. The pastor, a father of two daughters, knows it: "As soon as you have two children, you understand they're not the same." You tell one not to touch because she will get burned, and she answers: "Yes Dad, no problem." With the other, it is not the same story. "God has all kinds of children."
• God then puts a man on his path, Alexander Clunie, who spends whole evenings explaining the Bible to him: "You can't be a free electron, you can't just believe in God and live your life. You have to go to church." He points him to John Wesley and George Whitefield, who take time with him and bring him into the Word.
• John Newton becomes a pastor. Later, he supports William Wilberforce, whom the pastor presents as the first in England to stand up against the slave trade. According to him, Newton is the first former slave trader to testify publicly about the horrors committed and the forgiveness found in Jesus Christ.

7. Be a Josiah

• You do not have to be like Hezekiah and come close to disaster to return to God. You do not have to live through disaster like Manasseh either. You can be a Josiah, who had so little but sought God.
• "Yahweh is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him" (Lamentations 3:25). Seek God, the true God, not a religion that goes your way or a form of Christianity that lets you sin as much as you like.
• "Be like Josiah, seek the word." If going to church is still too much for you at the start of your faith, read the Bible. Go and check what the pastor said.
• To close, Christian Robichaud prays for the person who said recently: "I'm tired." "What if it was God using the things around you so that you would turn to him?" Not to the church or to a man, but to God: "Lord, I surrender like John Newton. Take my battles, my wounds, my anger, my questions."

Key takeaways

• God cannot deny himself: he made man free and he will never force anyone to love him.
• God works on the outward circumstances of your life to bring you to receive his word with humility. His word stops at the threshold of your heart.
• Listening to the word of God can spare you disaster, as it did for Hezekiah.
• When someone refuses to listen, God can use disaster to bring them back, as with Manasseh or John Newton. And he is moved by the one who returns.
• You can seek God starting now, with almost nothing, like Josiah: God is good to those who seek him.

Personal application

1. What circumstances in your life could God be using right now to get your attention?
2. In what area are you still refusing to let God be "the boss"?
3. When you face difficulties, do you run first to "Egypt," your human resources, or do you come and ask the mouth of God?
4. Do you see yourself more in Hezekiah, in Manasseh or in Josiah? What would it take for you to become a Josiah?
5. When will you open your Bible this week to seek God for yourself?

Verses cited

• Acts 2:42
• Acts 2:46
• Genesis 1:3
• Acts 6:15
• 2 Timothy 2:13
• James 1:21
• Isaiah 30:1-2
• Matthew 4:4
• 2 Kings 19:35
• 2 Kings 21:16
• 2 Chronicles 33:1-16
• 2 Chronicles 34:1-19
• Joel 2:13
• Lamentations 3:25

Frequently asked questions

What is the one thing God cannot do?

According to 2 Timothy 2:13, God cannot deny himself. Christian Robichaud draws a consequence from this: God created human beings with free choice and he will never go against what he has made. So he will never force anyone to love him. He wants a relationship that comes from your own decision.

How does God draw someone without forcing them?

God works on the outward elements of your life, which are all under his authority. He manages circumstances to get your attention and awaken you, until you recognize his hand and receive his word with meekness, as James 1:21 asks. His word stops at the threshold of your heart: he knocks, but you are the one who opens.

What do Hezekiah, Manasseh and Josiah teach us?

They are three kings and three ways of receiving the word of God. Hezekiah returns to the word and avoids disaster. Manasseh refuses to listen and it is disaster that brings him back to God. Josiah, who had almost nothing, seeks God from his youth. Christian Robichaud invites you to be a Josiah, because God is good to those who seek him.