p. 213 | DIVINE ABILITY

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 8, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 14.

DIVINE ABILITY.

“But our sufficiency is of God.” 2 Cor. 3:5.

ALL persons trust in some thing or some power outside of themselves to do what they do in life. Many trust in others or in some condition of life for a future life. Some trust in social position, some in wealth, some in man, and many in good works. Our text says, “Our sufficiency is of God.” Wealth may rust and decay; it may take wings and be gone in a moment; social position and man may fail us; good works may prove a ladder too short to reach the tree of life, but God can never fail. “Our sufficiency is of God.”

What is God able to do for us? Let us read 2 Cor. 9: 8: “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.” Then if God is able to do this, what difference does it make how weak and inefficient we are? He makes up all our lack. As a good brother used to say, “The Lord and I are as strong as the Lord and anybody else.” Then do not go about empty, bare, and barren, talking of your weakness, but trust in his great strength who is able to do these things for you.

Again, we have God’s ability mentioned in Eph. 3: 20. “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.” You never can reach the height of that promise, or its depth, its length or breadth. Do you know what it means? A poor widow in Israel in the days of Elisha the prophet was in trouble. Her husband, dying, had left her in debt. The creditors were coming to take her two sons to be bondmen. In her distress she looked to the Lord. “What have you in the house?” said the prophet. “Not anything but a pot of oil.” “Borrow all the vessels you can of your neighbors, borrow not a few.” She did, and began to pour out the oil in her humble home, alone with God and the two boys. How wonderfully the oil ran that day. At last the vessels were all filled and the oil stayed. “Sell that thou hast, pay thy debt, and live then upon the rest.” She only asked for present need, and got it supplied and some for future use. She realized a little of what this promise means. So did the lame man at the gate Beautiful. A penny or two was all he asked, but Peter in the name of Jesus bids him be made whole, and he walks and leaps and praises God.

Again, let us read 2 Tim. 1: 12: “For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.” Why try so hard to keep yourself, to keep your religion? Let it keep you. “Kept by the power of God through faith,” says Peter. Then commit your all to him and let him keep you and it. He can take care of the home, the family, the business, our all, better than we can, because he is able. Let him. Here is a text for an unsaved one. Heb. 7: 25: “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.”

Then come to him and be saved. “Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.” He does not save in sins, nor does he let us keep our sins. No, he takes us out of sin, and sin out of us so completely that all who are “in Christ Jesus are new creatures.” Praise his name! And he can save now, to-day, in a moment. . . .

“But I am so weak I am afraid that I shall not hold out.” Here is a promise of God’s ability for you. Jude 24: “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.” “Able to keep you from falling,” then you need not fear to start on the journey to the kingdom of God. He will hold you up. “The Lord upholdeth all that fall.” Ps. 145: 14. What does this mean? If you stumble he will catch and uphold you. Then trust him. It is for us to start; he will carry us through.

Finally, he is able to make us like himself. Phil. 3: 20, 21: “For our conversation is in Heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.” Yes, Jesus is not only able to save from sin, to change the heart, to make us new creatures in him, but his ability to save touches the physical nature. God has undertaken to save the whole man and he will do it. Let us, then, trust in his ability, ever remembering, as he has told us, “Without me ye can do nothing,” and do not forget that “our sufficiency is of God.”—Selected.