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The sermon presents God’s unshortened hand as the answer to human calculations, fear, and unbelief. God is sovereign and powerful in creation, providence, the Church’s mission, salvation, and judgment. Spurgeon emphasizes that Christ’s atoning blood is sufficient for the worst sinner and urges immediate faith in the willing Savior. The sermon also warns that God’s power to save is matched by His certainty in judging those who persistently reject Christ.
Theological center: The omnipotent God faithfully fulfills His promises through Christ, sustaining His people and judging those who reject Him.
Applications: Trust God’s omnipotent promises · Advance the gospel confidently · Reject unbelieving doubts · Believe on Christ for salvation
Primary texts: Numbers 11:23 · Matthew 6:25-30 · Hebrews 4:12
“And the LORD said unto Moses, Is the LORD’S hand waxed short? thou shalt now see whether my word shall come to pass unto thee or not.” Numbers 11:23 GOD had made a positive promise to Moses that for the space of a whole month he would feed the vast host in the wilderness with flesh. Moses, being overtaken by a fit of unbelief, looks to the outward means—calculates his commissariat—and is at a loss to know how the promise can be fulfilled. Shall the flocks and the herds be slain? How, then, should they have cattle wherewith to stock the land upon which they hoped soon to enter? And if they should slaughter all their beasts, there would not be food enough for ravenous people for a month. Shall all the fish of the sea leave their watery element and come to the tables of these clamorous hungry men? Even then, Moses thought there would be scarcely enough food to feed so vast a host for a month. You will see, my brethren, right readily the mistake which Moses made. He looked to the creature instead of the Creator. Does the Creator expect the creature to fulfill His promise? No, He that makes fulfills. If He speaks, it is done—done by Himself. His promises do not depend for their fulfillment upon the cooperation of the puny strength of man. God as a sovereign gives an absolute promise and He can do it without fear of mistake, because He has Omnipotence wherewith to fulfill His greatest word. It was an error, indeed, to look to the sea for fish, instead of waiting upon heaven for the promise—to look to the flocks for food, instead of believing on Him to whom belongs the cattle on a thousand hills. Suppose, my friends, an invasion should be threatened to this country by some foreign power, and you in your wisdom, full of trembling, should say to those whose province it is to guard our happy island—“I fear this land can never be protected, for the Emperor of China has but very little power. The Presidents of the Republics of South America have but little influence”? You would be stared at. Men would ask, what has that to do with the question. The troops of Britain are to defend the land, not the troops of China or Bolivia. What matters the weakness of those republics or kingdoms? They are not expected to defend our land! You would be absurd in looking for help where help was neither expected nor promised. And yet how commonly we do the same. God has promised to supply our needs and we look to the creature to do what God has promised to do. And then, because we perceive the creature to be weak and feeble, we indulge in unbelief. Why do we look to that quarter at…