Omnipotence

There’s a verse in the tenth chapter of Joshua that has been used to a great effect by Leland Wong, an evangelist out in California. It’s Joshua 10:13, which says, “The sun stood still.” At the top of his letterhead, Leland Wong has printed three verses. The first is this one from Joshua 10. The second is II Kings 6:6, which says, “The iron did float.” And the last is Psalm 48:14: “This God is our God.” I’ve often used those verses to stress that we believe in a powerful God, the great God of the Bible who is able to do miracles. But did the iron really float? Did the sun really stand still?

By this time, the battle had gone on for some time. The sun was passing through the sky and perhaps was soon to set over the Mediterranean to his right. He must have recognized as soon as he looked up and saw the sun that he didn’t have enough time to achieve the kind of victory that the military situation presented. So Joshua did an utterly unprecedented thing. He prayed openly in the presence of Israel, “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and moon, over the Valley of Adullam.” The next verse, verse 13 says, “So the sun stood still. And the moon stopped till the nation avenged itself on its enemies.” And the text goes on to say, “There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a man, for the Lord fought for Israel.”

Yesterday we concluded our study by mentioning the first explanation for the miracle of the sun and moon standing still. The second explanation is that the sun and moon appeared to actually stop because the earth itself actually stopped. Now as I say, anybody who believes in an omnipotent God in the final analysis doesn’t really have difficulty with that. “Omnipotent” means “all-powerful.” And if “all-powerful” really means what it says, then to God all things are possible. The Lord Jesus Christ said that. He can stop the sun, the moon, and the stars. He can stop the earth; and He can do it without all of the bad effects that we suppose would have to follow on the basis of our knowledge of physics.

The first thing we’re to learn from a passage like this is that nothing is too difficult for our God. If the situation involves miracles, that is not too difficult. If it involves a prolongation of a day, that is not too difficult for Him. Our God is a great God. He’s a big God. He’s a sovereign, omnipotent God.

The final lesson I see is this. Although God intervened here in a great way and gave a marvelous victory to Joshua and the Jewish troops, I notice that this did not relieve Joshua of his own responsibilities. He didn’t cease to be a soldier because God was about to perform a miracle. He didn’t stop fighting just because God had sent the hail. Joshua was preeminently a soldier, and he was faithful in his responsibility from beginning to end.