Too Big for God?
THE challenging subject for an address, not too long ago, by “Reverend” M. R. Nelson of Minneapolis, was “Too Big for God”. Bemoaning the sad state of affairs found in politics, the prevalence of gambling, large numbers of drunks, low morals, etc., the minister explained: “To effect the changes that we should make is too big a job for God alone. . . . Making life better is too big a job for God alone.” This address was enthusiastically received by a large gathering. Hence, it appears that there is a growing belief that Almighty God is not so almighty any more. Must God now depend on man? And is there really anything “too big for God alone”?
There was a time when God was completely alone. Yet without anyone’s help he created the Logos or Word who later became Christ Jesus. As a mighty spirit creature the Logos was “the beginning of the creation by God”, and “all things came into existence through him”. (Rev. 3:14; John 1:3, NW) Through God’s power this master workman created myriads of spirit creatures and inanimate bodies. All this he did without first creating man; in fact, God did not need man’s advice in the creation of our home-town planet. Jehovah himself declared his absolute independence of man: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if you have insight. Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loosen the girdle of Orion? Can you send forth Mazzaroth in its season, and lead forth the Bear with its satellites? Can you send forth the lightnings that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are!’?”—Job 38:4, 31, 32, 35, AT.
There is no instance in the Bible where a job was ever too hard for God. Jehovah’s power is supreme and unqualified. “For he spoke and it was! He commanded and it stood fast!” (Ps. 33:9, AT) Man plunges into puny insignificance whenever God demonstrates his power. The universal deluge of Noah’s day overwhelmed all mankind except those who believed in Jehovah’s promises and power. Supreme power was also demonstrated when, with fire and sulphur, Jehovah devastated Sodom and Gomorrah, the incorrigibly wicked inhabitants not being too big a problem for God. In fact, Jehovah sent just two angels to Sodom, they themselves declaring: “We will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxed great before Jehovah; and Jehovah hath sent us to destroy it.” (Gen. 19:1, 13, AS) Was it a big job, then, for God to blot out Sodom? No! for only two angels were sent to do the job, and Jehovah has at his command all the armies of heaven, numbering not less than 200,000,000!—Rev. 9:16, NW.
CHRIST VERIFIES GOD’S OMNIPOTENCE
Jehovah has repeatedly demonstrated that he will make life better for man in His due time. By means of the healing miracles that Christ Jesus performed, Jehovah gave a preview of what his power will accomplish in the new world on behalf of his people. It is interesting to know that the miracles of Christ recorded in the four Gospels are so numerous that, for example, nearly one third of the book of Mark contains descriptions of them. These miracles are woven so inextricably into the text that they cannot be removed without disrupting the continuity. Out of all the miracles that Christ worked about three fourths of them pertain to healing and health. No disease or deformity was ever too big a job for Jehovah’s physician: “And they brought him all the ailing ones afflicted with various diseases and severe complaints, demon-possessed and lunatic and paralyzed persons, and he cured them.” (Matt. 4:24, NW) Lunatics cured without psychiatrists! Diseases cured without penicillin! And there was no lack of power when Christ resurrected Lazarus.—John 11:17, 40-44.
When he was betrayed by Judas and the mob closed in to seize him, Jesus raised a provocative question: “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father to supply me at this moment more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt. 26:53, NW) To rescue Jesus from the mob would have been a big job for his disciples, but it was made plainly clear to them that there was a tremendous heavenly army available should Jesus request it. Today the word “legion” may not seem so significant, but to the ancient Romans and to people under their control the word immediately conjured up catapulting and colossal power, for it meant a body of soldiers numbering, at different times, 4,500 to 6,000. Would not Jesus’ disciples understand, then, that he had an army of more than 72,000 angels at his command if he should request them from the Father? Again it should be remembered that it took only two of Jehovah’s angels to annihilate Sodom and Gomorrah!
How do the holy angels themselves appraise God’s power? We have the testimony of the angel Gabriel: “With God no declaration will be an impossibility.” (Luke 1:37, NW) What all-embracing power that means! We have no reason to question the truthfulness of Gabriel’s statement, for he said he “stands near before God”; moreover, his message to Mary of Jesus’ impending virgin birth occurred exactly as stated.—Luke 1:18, 26-38; 2:1-21, NW.
And what more reliable testimony do we need than that of Christ Jesus, “he that descended from heaven”! He declared: “The things impossible with men are possible with God.” (John 3:13; Luke 18:27, NW) Thus the Son of God revealed there would be jobs too big for men but never too big for God.
WHY THE “TOO BIG” THEORY?
By virtue of Jehovah’s omnipotent power and infinite wisdom, he is the great timekeeper of the universe. To him time is limitless. To man time is limited, so limited that he is always saying: “I don’t have time for this or that.” And no wonder! “The days of our years are threescore years and ten, or even by reason of strength fourscore years.” (Ps. 90:10, AS) Naturally, then, man wants things done in a hurry. Seldom does he realize that God’s time schedule is run on a vastly different basis from our 24-hour-a-day one. “One day is with Jehovah as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.” (2 Pet. 3:8, NW) Because God does everything in his time, nearsighted man is inclined to view it as a weakness, as if something were too big for God.
Take, for instance, the increase of God’s visible organization, which, at one time, seemed impossible. But it was not impossible, for it had to come in God’s due time. Even in 1938 there were only 47,143 publishers proclaiming world-wide the good news of God’s kingdom, but by 1952 the figure had zoomed to 456,265! “The little one shall become a thousand, and the small one a strong nation: I, Jehovah, will hasten it in its time.”—Isa. 60:22, AS.
Moreover, how did man’s living become so degraded that its improvement presents such a formidable job? Is it not because man has failed to live by the principles set forth in God’s Word, the Bible? A world deteriorating in morals and teeming with greedy, ruthless and blood-stained hands would not be the result if man had followed the excellent advice of the Master: “All things, therefore, that you want men to do to you, you also must likewise do to them; this, in fact, is what the Law and the Prophets mean.” (Matt. 7:12, NW) Plagued with a wretched condition in the world, some people now say, “It’s too big a job for God alone.” Again man fails to listen to the Scriptural rule: “Sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily.”—Eccl. 8:11, AS.
Really, then, the job is not too big for God. The trouble is that man is not big enough for the job. Man’s scientific achievements have inflated his ego; now he has a “big head”. But it is not big to God, no bigger than the head of a grasshopper, and that is not very big. “Have ye not known? . . . It is he [Jehovah] that sitteth above the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers.” (Isa. 40:21, 22, AS) What does a grasshopper understand about the power of man? And what does man know about the power of God? “Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out: he is excellent in power.”—Job 37:23, AS.
The truth is that when man says a work is too big for God, he is impressed by his own importance. Today we have political luminaries from sixty different nations assembling at the U.N. in New York endeavoring to make the earth abound with peace and security. Said President Truman a few days before the inauguration of General Eisenhower: “If we can get peace and safety in the world under the United Nations, the developments will come so fast we will not recognize the world in which we now live.” And in his inaugural address, President Eisenhower called the U.N. the “living sign of all people’s hope for peace”. Soon now Jehovah will thwart the combined efforts of the nations: “The LORD [Jehovah] annuls the counsel of the nations; he frustrates the plans of the peoples.” “Whenever it is that they are saying, ‘Peace and security!’ then sudden destruction is to be instantly upon them.” (Ps. 33:10, AT; 1 Thess. 5:3, NW) Armageddon’s sudden destruction will leave the U.N. in smoldering ruins, and the earth littered with the bodies of the “slain of Jehovah”.—Jer. 25:33, 34, AS.
Finally, the biggest job of all, the annihilation of Satan the Devil, is accomplished with great ease by Jehovah’s “King of kings”, Christ Jesus. Christ merely seizes the Devil and hurls him into the abyss. (Rev. 20:1-3) By that awe-inspiring display of Jehovah’s matchless power a new world will be ushered in for the complete betterment of mankind. (Rev. 21:1-4) Then no one will ever again say that a job is too big for God. Rather, all the living will understand the rich meaning of the Most High’s words to Abraham: “Is anything too hard for Jehovah?”—Gen. 18:14. AS.