Num 11:23, And the Lord said to Moses, "Is the Lord's power limited? Now you shall see whether My word will come true for you or not." 
    	In this morning’s reading, there is so very much that could be discussed. We have the fact that only days into the journey unto the Promised Land, the Israelites are grumbling and complaining against the very provision of the Lord. We could look at the fact that the manna provided was more than sufficient to meet the needs of the people in their sustenance, but they were ungrateful and even spiteful against the Lord. We could look at the complaint of Moses as the leader of the people, taking to God even the request that he be put out of his misery in dealing with this obstinate and stubborn people whom God had rescued unto Himself. We could deliberate about how the first 10 chapters of this Book of Numbers was all preparation for the march to the Promised Land, and how the people did all in accordance to the Lord’s direction, until they actually began the journey. Once more they declared their desire for the supposed better situation of their slavery in Egypt. All of these themes and more fill this 11th Chapter of Numbers and would be fit to reflect on in greater depth and measure. Especially in this, is the reality that God was gracious and merciful to His people, despite their continual moaning and groaning and complaining and disobedience and ingratitude and stubborn denial that His was a far more gracious life than they previously known.
	However, the overriding emphasis upon my heart in the reading of this chapter is that of the passage that we have in verse 23. This truly encapsulates exactly what each one of us, young or old, needs to know about the Lord God Almighty, full of grace and mercy. He is the One Who rules and overrules in every realm of our lives on this earth. If we know God in the fact of His Omnipotence and His faithfulness, we can face everything that this world tries to use to derail and to sidetrack and to discourage and to defeat us. How do we truly answer this question that was posed to Moses when he challenged the fact that God could really supply meat to the whole nation that was now marching in the desert regions? 
	One can understand Moses’ frustration and his attitude of disbelief when we consider how little food was available in the arid lands of their traveling. The miracle of the provision of Manna was certainly more believable in the sense that it would be found after the morning dew each day. But food consisting of actual game, meat to fill the bellies of this entire population, that was beyond the comprehensible thoughts of Moses. It was utterly impossible except for the fact that he was dealing with the Lord God Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, the One by Whom everything has come into existence and has its being. We each need to come to the place of knowing God in that reality if we truly desire to grow in our relationship with Him. 
	It is too frequent that we might just take the Word of God and the stories and the details therein described as merely that, stories that allegorically contain essential bits and pieces of the theological constructs around which doctrines and religious dogma are molded and patterned. Because we have a need to believe upon something bigger than ourselves, we accept those associations which give some emphasis to a divine being that can fill our imaginations and our hopes and settle our fears of the unknown. This can give our lives some purpose and bring some sense of order into the chaotic realm which we navigate on a daily basis. 
For many people, this is the essence of Christianity. They do not really know the God of Abraham, Issac, Jacob, and Moses. They do not seek to know the One Who spoke and brought forth life. They have no real knowledge that truth is the person of Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of the Father. He truly came to this earth and lived a sinless life, and offered Himself up as the perfect sacrifice for the transgressions of all who would but call upon His name for salvation. 
His resurrection power is, to many cultural adherents of Christianity, not a living, daily truth. It is an ideal that has been propagated by the religious orders of humanity to enslave, in theological bondage, those who are seen as weak-minded and gullible. 
We must, if we are truly Christians, know the utmost certainty the answer to this question and grasp the full measure of God’s own declaration of faithfulness - "Is the Lord's power limited? Now you shall see whether My word will come true for you or not." Our surety of response to this all-encompassing question is the very basis of what we know as the truth of God in our life. It is that vital! And, it is that telling in the course of our walk on this earth in a living relationship with Our Creator!
Moses was not the first to be faced with this question of the reality of God in all His essence. In Gen 18:14, we have the Lord asking Abraham this essential question with regard to the Promise spoken to Him. Abraham and Sarah were well advanced in years, far beyond the scope of child-bearing. Yet God had promised that Abraham would be the father of a great and innumerable nation. By all human understanding and appearances it was far too late for this elderly couple to have any children, yet God went right to the heart of the matter with Abraham. Gen 18:14, "Is anything too difficult for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, at this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son." 
    	It was beyond all human sense that they could have children, but God directly asked Abraham the question that is the core truth of our belief in the Word of God spoken to us, Is anything too difficult for the Lord? Too often, we are like Sarah, who laughed at even the thought that such a thing could happen. 
We have so little faith in the fact that God is exactly Who He tells us He is in His Inspired Word. We, also, tend to just chortle and chuckle and try to do the best that we can in the time that we have on this earth. Of course we believe in some higher power, but that does not alleviate the fear and the frustration and the need to do everything we can to make a life for ourselves here and now. So often we just think, when we are completely honest with ourselves, that it will all be ok in the great by and by, when we get to heaven. Until then, we need to eek out the best means of providing for ourselves and just hang on.
	We often feel that we are on the same plain as Job, suffering and beset with difficulties and issues that are so beyond us. We, too, just want to sit on the trash heap and cry and moan and groan and let the dogs of this age lick our festering sores for some meager sense of relief. 
Yet, even Job, as we have recorded for us in Job 42:2-6, had to face the truth that is before us concerning the fact of Who God is. This was after all the cajoling and bemoaning, and crying out was coming to an end. 
Job 42:2-6, "I know that Thou canst do all things, And that no purpose of Thine can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' "Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know." 'Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask Thee, and do Thou instruct me.' "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees Thee; Therefore I retract, And I repent in dust and ashes." 
 	Job came to understand, in the full measure of reality, that despite everything that had happened to him, God could do all things. No one and nothing could prevent God’s plan from coming into full fruition. The plans of God are certain and He is ever faithful to do everything that He states He will do. Job learned this in the innermost core of his heart and it caused him to simply turn to the Lord and trust Him, despite all that had happened.   
Another who dealt with the fact that God will do everything that God stated He will do was the Prophet Isaiah, as in Is 50, verse 2. The Lord spoke directly through the Prophet to make very clear to those who would listen that God was able to save all whom He chose to save. God could not be hindered nor prevented from saving to the utmost His chosen. He is the Lord of Heaven and earth and everything must do as He deems necessary, whether that be man, beast, or the very forces of nature. 
Isa 50, verse 2, "Why was there no man when I came? When I called, why was there none to answer? Is My hand so short that it cannot ransom? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, I dry up the sea with My rebuke, I make the rivers a wilderness; Their fish stink for lack of water, And die of thirst. 
    	Then, later in Isa 59:1, the Lord again reinforces the truth that His arm will save and that He does hear the cries of His people, even when they feel that He is not near to them. Isa 59:1, Behold, the Lord's hand is not so short That it cannot save; Neither is His ear so dull That it cannot hear. 
When we call out to God, He hears and He responds in the manner which He has deemed the best response. Sometimes we may not like His response because it is not the answer we want. It is, however, always, always the very best since He, Alone, knows the end from the beginning and He, Alone, makes the every provision for His will to be done in our lives.
	Another Prophet with this knowledge of the immeasurable power of God in action for the sake of His own people was the Prophet Jeremiah, as we find in Jer 32:27. Jer 32:27, "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is anything too difficult for Me?" 
	Here, again, we have the question put before our hearts in the course of our relationship with God. Is anything too difficult for God? There are many, many times that our behavior and our decisions seem to indicate that that is exactly how we feel about Him. We act as if we do not really know that He is at work manifesting the full measure of His Essential Being on behalf of His testimony and His glory in our lives. We struggle and we fret and we aggravate ourselves and others in the most discouraged course of our walk on this earth, as if it is all too difficult for the Lord.
	Another prophet, the Prophet Zechariah, was given exactly the response of God in the course of this despondent attitude of the people before the Lord, in Zech 8:6-8. Zech 8:6-8, "Thus says the Lord of hosts, 'If it is too difficult in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, will it also be too difficult in My sight?' declares the Lord of hosts. "Thus says the Lord of hosts, 'Behold, I am going to save My people from the land of the east and from the land of the west; and I will bring them back, and they will live in the midst of Jerusalem, and they will be My people and I will be their God in truth and righteousness.' 
  	God promised that, despite the unfaithfulness of His chosen people and their lack of ability to do that which was required of them, God would still bring forth all that He had purposed and planned. He is not like humanity, unable to do what needs to be done. He is more than able and willing and focused on the complete fulfillment of every single detail that He has promised from the Garden of Eden, through Abraham, and Moses, and the prophets onward.
	This brings us to Luke 1:35-37, where we have our next example of those who came to know the fact that what God said He would do, would be accomplished, no matter how impossible it might seem to be. This was His Word to Mary, promising the virgin birth of His Only Begotten Son. 
Luke 1:35-37, And the angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God. "And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age; and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month. "For nothing will be impossible with God." By this impossible birth, the whole of humanity, who would believe upon the Son of God, would be saved.
	Jesus, Himself, declared, in Matt 19:26 the truth that He knew from before the eternal ages ever came into being. Matt 19:26, And looking upon them Jesus said to them, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." 
There was no hesitation in His heart and mind concerning the full measure of what He could, and would do in absolute accordance with His Word to men. 
There was doubt all around Him in the fears and the anxiety and the woes of His disciples, but Jesus knew the full measure of the Omnipotence and Omniscience that is at the very heart of God’s essential Being. Nothing would stop His plan of salvation from coming forth in full and abundant magnificence.
	Again, in Matt 24:35, Jesus encouraged His disciples with the fact that everything spoken and promised by God throughout the entire lifespan of humanity would be fully accomplished by the divine power of the Almighty. Matt 24:35, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words shall not pass away. He spoke with the full authority that was vested in Him as the Son of God and the Son of Man. All would take place in absolute accordance with the awesome power of the marvelous grace and mercy and love that is the Lord God Almighty!  
	Everything is summed up for us by the Apostle Paul in Rom 4:20-25, if you would please turn to that final passage of the morning. In it, we are reminded of the faith that was instilled in Abraham with regard to His walk with God. He came into the full recognition that God is Who He says He is and that God will do what God says He will do. All the history of mankind is bound up together into the continually renewed knowledge that we serve the Lord God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient One. He will do all that He has determined to do. Nothing can stop or thwart His plan in any measure in the accomplished and triumphant victory of Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God.
	Rom 4:20-25, yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what He had promised, He was able also to perform. Therefore also it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Now not for his sake only was it written, that it was reckoned to him, but for our sake also, to whom it will be reckoned, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, He who was delivered up because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification. So be it!
And the Lord said to Moses, "Is the Lord's power limited? Now you shall see whether My word will come true for you or not." Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Ps 19:1. The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Amen.