Why God’s omnipotence is good news in hard places

The funerals for those who died at Camp Mystic and other Central Texas flood locations are being held and are breaking the hearts of everyone who attends and many who are praying for those who attend. Not to mention those grieving for more than one hundred flood victims who are still missing at this writing.

Many of us are struggling with the perennial question: Since God created the natural world and can intervene whenever he wishes, why didn’t he prevent this tragedy? However, I’d like to take a moment to look at the natural world from a different perspective, one that I hope can offer hope for our hurting hearts.

100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets

My thoughts are prompted by this headline in today’s news: “Astronomers discover giant alien planet 35 times more massive than Earth hiding in a known star system.”

They named the newly found exoplanet Kepler-139f. Despite its giant size, it had evaded detection until now. One of the co-authors of the study reporting the discovery added, “It is likely that many planetary systems host unseen worlds, especially in their outer regions.”

Scientists now estimate that there are 100 sextillion planets in the universe. To put that number in numeric terms, they believe there are 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets like ours, many of them many times larger than Earth.

But they are only a small part of the galaxies in which they reside. And scientists estimate that there are between six and twenty trillion galaxies in the universe. (Let’s not pass over “trillion”—there are one thousand millions in a billion and one thousand billions in a trillion.)

If all of this “boggles your mind,” so to speak, that’s my intent.

Why the Greeks had so many gods

Like you, I am frustrated and grieved whenever God does not intervene in the natural world to prevent natural disasters and tragedies. But let’s not overlook the fact that he can.

The Judeo-Christian tradition is unique among world religions in its emphasis on a single deity who not only created the universe but also interacts with it today. Most religions known to history are polytheistic, comprised of deities limited to specific realms or locations. The Greeks and Romans had their god of the sea, for example, but he had limited agency in wartime over their god of war.

This is why they had so many gods. When a specific need arose, it was important to identify the particular deity who could help and then find a way to persuade them to act.

Even monotheistic religions such as Islam typically emphasize the sovereignty and distance of God over his personal engagement with humans. And none but Christianity dares to suggest that the God who made the universe then entered it so he could enter our lives today.

But this is just what the New Testament assures us:

• By creating our immeasurably large universe, our God shows that he possesses all the omnipotence we need to meet our needs (cf. Isaiah 40:12).
• By entering our world through the Incarnation, he shows that he can be present at every moment in every place in our world (cf. Matthew 28:20).
• By calming storms, healing the sick, and raising the dead, he shows that he is willing to intervene in nature.
• By virtue of his nature as the Supreme Being, he is unchangeable (Malachi 3:6) and thus can do anything he has ever done.
• By virtue of his character as the God who “is” love (1 John 4:8), he can only want what is best for us.
• By virtue of his Spirit who dwells in every believer now (1 Corinthians 3:16), he can do in and through us all that his omnipotence chooses to do.

All of this encourages us to say with Paul, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

Three reasons to pray

None of this tells us why our Father does not always intervene in nature as we wish he would. But it does assure us that he can. And it therefore encourages us to continue to pray for such intervention when the need arises.

But you might be asking: If we cannot be sure that God will do what we ask, why ask? Let’s consider three responses.

One: Prayer positions us to receive whatever grace chooses to give. 

Because God honors the free will he gives us, he will enter the door of our lives only when it is opened to him (Revelation 3:20). This is why Scripture says, “You do not have, because you do not ask” (James 4:2).

Two: Prayer connects us with God as one of the primary ways his Spirit molds us into the character of Christ (Romans 8:29). 

Right now, you and I are thinking about God. If we were praying, we would be talking to him. Such a connection enables him to shape and sanctify us by the transforming power of his Spirit. Prayer does not change God, but it is a powerful means by which he changes us.

Three: Prayer enables us to respond to crisis as the body of Christ. 

While you and I cannot do miracles, we can be the means by which miracles are done as we pray and then engage in the world (cf. Acts 3). And we can be the hands and feet of Jesus by which he weeps with those who weep and comforts those who mourn. When we pray, his Spirit directs us, empowers us, and works through us for God’s glory and our good.

All of this is possible because our Father is the omnipotent Lord we have been discussing in this article. And all of it is relevant because he loves us as much right now as when he sent his Son to die for us.

All of God there is, is in this moment.

Why is this good news for you today?

Denison Forum

The Jeffrey Epstein files saga is leading the news again.

To make a long story short, many people have believed for years that Epstein was at the heart of a child sex trafficking ring that involved blackmailing prominent people on a worldwide “client list.” Many also doubt the government’s statement that Epstein died by his own hand when he was jailed in 2019.

However, a memo by the Department of Justice and the FBI stated last week that such a client list does not exist and that no credible evidence that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals has been found. Reaction from longtime conservatives especially has been furious. Now comes news that Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend who is currently in prison on child sex trafficking offenses, is willing to tell Congress what she knows about Epstein.

Clearly, as many are warning, this story is not going away.

Why are people rewatching old TV shows?

Don’t you wish you could trust everyone who makes and reports the news?

According to Gallup, fifty years ago, 70 percent of Americans said they trusted the mass media. Today, less than half that number agree, an all-time low. Only 22 percent of US adults say they trust the federal government to do the right thing just about always or most of the time.

Office workers are feeling paranoid about job security, with fears of layoffs and being replaced by AI. Conversely, some are turning to AI therapy bots even though, as a Stanford study found, they fuel delusions and give dangerous advice.

As a sign of the times, The New York Times reports that many people are rewatching television shows made in the early twenty-first century. The article cites the shows’ quality and the nostalgia of watching them again. I also think they are popular in an unpredictable world because we like stories that we already know we like and know we like the way they turn out.

Numerous studies show that people value their earthly lives more today than ever before: we are willing to spend far more on healthcare, cutting back on teenage driving and motorcycles, reducing participation in extreme sports, and taking fewer social risks than ever. One explanation is especially foundational:

For most of human history, death wasn’t the end—it was a transition. Whether you believed in heaven, reincarnation, or joining our ancestors, mortality had an escape clause.

But as traditional religious belief declines, this life becomes all there is. The stakes of mortality go from high to infinite (their italics).

Putting gasoline in a diesel engine

When our boys were young, they found my father’s old manual typewriter in a closet. They pulled it out, tried to make it work, then gave up and asked me, “What is it?” If you’ve never seen one before, you might have the same question. It could function as a doorstop, a large paperweight, or a bookend. But it was designed to do what people of a certain age understand its function to be.

Why did our Maker make us? For what purpose are our lives intended?

God creates humans “in his own image” (Genesis 1:27). Like children who inherit their father’s DNA, we are made to be like our Father as members of his family.

Accordingly, he intends us to be “conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29). Our Father wants us to have such an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus that we become like him. He forgives our sins and saves us from hell not just so we can spend eternity with him in heaven but so we can extend his family as his Christlike children. As Jesus’ best friend said of his Lord, “Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6).

To be like Christ is why we exist. Nothing less will give our lives purpose and joy, because this is the joyful purpose for which we were designed.

If we live for any other purpose than this, our lives fall into brokenness and grief. Like a diesel truck fueled with gasoline, our engine fails and the truck stalls. We can push it ourselves, use it as a storage closet, or park it in front of our house as a decoration, but it doesn’t do what it was made to do.

Thus the distrust and anxiety in our secularized culture.

If we want what God wants

If you and I want what God wants for us, we want to know Christ so fully that we become like him and thus make him known to the world.

We may want far less. We want God to forgive our sins and save us from hell for heaven. We want him to answer our prayers and meet our needs. We may even want him to use our lives in significant ways in the world.

But how many of us get up every morning with the goal to be more like Christ today than ever before?

Imagine a world in which every government official and every reporter covering them acted with the integrity and servant heart of Jesus. Imagine a world in which the rest of us did the same. There would be no Jeffrey Epstein scandals, no sexual immorality or crime or wars to report.

Before you dismiss such a possibility as hopelessly naïve, remember that the Holy Spirit indwells every Christian for just this purpose. As Oswald Chambers noted, “The Holy Spirit is determined that we will manifest Christ . . . in every domain of life.”

Are you saying the Spirit is incapable of doing what the Father intends him to do?

Here’s my point:

The Spirit will see to it that we become as much like Jesus as we want to be like Jesus.

He will manifest the “fruit” or character of Christ in every life that is fully yielded to him (Galatians 5:22–23; Ephesians 5:18; John 15:5). He will empower us to resist temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13) and live as “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

And as with his first followers, the world will know that we have “been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

John MacArthur on “true discipleship”

Rev. John MacArthur, one of the best-known evangelical preachers and pastors of our generation, died last night at the age of eighty-six.

In his 1981 sermon, “Christlikeness: The Goal of Discipleship,” he quoted Jesus’ statement, “Everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40). Then he defined “true discipleship” very simply: “You are a learner growing toward Christlikeness.”

Will you be a “true” disciple today?

Quote for the day:

“There are many who preach Christ, but not so many who live Christ. My great aim will be to live Christ.” —Robert Chapman (1803–1902)

Our latest website resources:

• Mother, daughter shot while cooking lunch at their church
• When God doesn’t seem to keep his promises
• How to talk to your kids about the flooding at Camp Mystic
• Texas floods, responding faithfully to tragedy, Epstein list fallout & best movies of the 2000s
• Pastor: Is your spiritual life on cruise control?

Denison Forum

On July 13, 2024, a twenty-year-old sniper named Thomas Crooks fired an AR-15-style rifle from the roof of a building around four hundred feet from the stage where Donald Trump was holding a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. He killed a fifty-year-old fireman named Corey Comperatore, who died shielding his family, and critically injured two others.

The moment he fired, Mr. Trump turned his head to the right to point to a chart showing illegal border crossings. This caused a bullet to skim his right ear rather than hitting his head and killing him.

Secret Service agents tackled him to protect him, but when he stood to his feet again, he pumped his fist in the air. With blood running down his face, he shouted, “Fight! Fight! Fight.” Two days later, Mr. Trump made a triumphal entry at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

The day after the shooting, Mr. Trump told journalist Salena Zito, “It was the hand of God. He was there.” A month after returning to the White House, he said, “I feel, I feel even stronger. I believed in God, but I feel much more strongly about it.”

Yesterday’s anniversary of the shooting raises again the question: Did God save Mr. Trump’s life?

The bullet that passed through Lincoln’s hat

Let’s begin with the biblical fact that he clearly could have.

The Bible proclaims, “Kingship belongs to the Lᴏʀᴅ, and he rules over the nations” (Psalm 22:28). Even a sparrow does not fall to the ground apart from his providential knowledge (Matthew 10:29). He sent an angel to free the apostles from prison (Acts 5:17–21) and to spare Peter from Herod’s execution (Acts 12:6–11).

The list of US presidents who survived assassination attempts is long. Among the most notable is a lone rifle shot fired in August 1864 by an unknown sniper that passed through Abraham Lincoln’s hat as he rode in the late evening, missing his head by inches. Another is the bullet fired by John Hinckley that lodged an inch from Ronald Reagan’s heart in March 1981.

However, we must obviously add that we have no biblical revelation by which to interpret the shooting in Butler or other assassination near-misses. We are left to employ what we do know of God’s character from Scripture as we seek to understand the events of that day or of any other.

Four approaches to divine sovereignty

One position is that God causes all that happens. The Lord declares, “I will accomplish all my purpose” (Isaiah 46:10). In this view, free will is only apparent but not real. As Solomon noted, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lᴏʀᴅ; he turns it wherever he will” (Proverbs 21:1).

If this is our only approach to the events of our world, we can credit God for saving Mr. Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, but we must blame him for the death of Mr. Comperatore. We can credit him when a natural disaster spares us, but we must blame him for the horrific July 4 floods in Central Texas.

The opposite position is that God causes nothing that happens. Deists believe that God created the universe as a clockmaker who then watches it run on its own, refusing to intervene in the natural world. Of course, the numerous miracles described in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation clearly teach otherwise.

A middle position is that God honors the free will he gives us, so the consequences of our sins are not his fault but ours (cf. Deuteronomy 30:19). But the Lord intervened to protect Peter from Herod, just as some think he intervened to protect Donald Trump from his would-be assassin in Butler.

Another middle position is that God allows nature to take its course, but he intervenes when necessary according to his providential purposes. Not every storm is his fault, but he can on occasion calm the storm (cf. Matthew 8:23–27).

The mystery at the heart of the issue

For reasons I explain in detail in a website article, I believe that both middle positions are correct: God honors our free will and the natural laws he created, but sometimes intervenes with both.

This leads to the mystery at the heart of the issue. If he spared Donald Trump or Ronald Reagan, why not Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre or John F. Kennedy in Dallas? If he rescued some at Camp Mystic and the other sites ravaged by the Central Texas floods, I don’t know why he did not rescue everyone else.

Nor would I expect to.

We know that “all Scripture is breathed out by God” (2 Timothy 3:16) as its authors were “carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). But the Bible is now a closed canon. None of us can claim revelatory knowledge with the certainty of God’s word. I cannot say with the prophets, “Thus says the Lord . . .” Nor can you.

If I claimed that God had declared audibly to me that he spared Donald Trump’s life a year ago in Butler, you would have as much right to doubt my testimony as I would if you made such a statement. I cannot think of any way the Lord could prove that it is so, either to me or to you.

“The whole reason why we pray”

Two consequences follow.

First, beware of conforming God’s will to ours.

If you are a partisan supporter of Donald Trump, you might wish I would more definitively agree with those who are convinced God spared his life miraculously a year ago. If you are a partisan opponent of the president, you might wish for the opposite. But neither opinion changes reality. God’s ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:9) and not subject to our subjective wishes.

Accordingly, the purpose of prayer is not to conform God’s will to ours, but the reverse. As Julian of Norwich noted, “The whole reason why we pray is to be united into the vision and contemplation of God to whom we pray.”

A second principle follows from the first: the purpose of life is to know God and make him known.

If we pray for him to use every circumstance and challenge we face as a means to this end, he will always answer our prayers. He may take us to heaven, where we know him as we are known (1 Corinthians 13:12). He may heal us or spare us. He may answer us by using our suffering to draw us into greater dependence on himself (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:8–10).

And God will help us know him so we can make him known to the world. Wounded healers are the most effective healers. He comforts us so we can comfort others (2 Corinthians 1:4).

As the saying goes,

“Sometimes God calms the storm, but sometimes he lets the storm rage and calms his child.”

Both are miracles.

Will you trust him for the one you need most today?

Quote for the day:

“I am certain that I never did grow in grace one-half so much anywhere as I have upon the bed of pain.” —Charles Spurgeon

Our latest website resources:

• When God doesn’t seem to keep his promises
• How to talk to your kids about the flooding at Camp Mystic
• Texas floods, responding faithfully to tragedy, Epstein list fallout & best movies of the 2000s
• Why a good God must allow suffering—even innocent suffering—to exist
• Why does God allow disasters like the Texas Hill Country floods?

Denison Forum