What God Cannot Do

worlddic.com, T. Taylor, D. D.

Titus 1:2

In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

Truth once reigned supreme upon our globe, and then earth was Paradise. Man knew no sorrow while he was ignorant of falsehood. Falsehood is everywhere; it is entertained both by the lowest and the highest; it permeates all society. In the so-called religious world, which should be as the Holy of Holies, here too, the lie has insinuated itself. We have everywhere to battle with falsehood, and if we are to bless the world, we must confront it with sturdy face and zealous spirit. God's purpose is to drive the lie out of the world, and be this your purpose and mine. After wandering over the sandy desert of deceit, how pleasant is it to reach our text, and feel that one spot at least is verdant with eternal truth. Blessed be Thou, O God, for Thou canst not lie.

I. THE TRUTH OF THE TEXT.

1. God is not subject to those infirmities which lead us into falsehood. You and I are such that we can know in the heart, and yet with the tongue deny; but God is one and indivisible; God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all; with Him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

2. The scriptural idea of God forbids that He should lie. The very word "God" comprehendeth everything which is good and great. Admit the lie, and to us at once there would be nothing but the black darkness of atheism forever. I could neither love, worship, nor obey a lying God.

3. God is too wise to lie. Falsehood is the expedient of a fool.

4. And the lie is the method of the little and the mean. You know that a great man does not lie; a good man can never be false. Put goodness and greatness together, and a lie is altogether incongruous to the character. Now God is too great to need the lie, and too good to wish to do such a thing; both His greatness and His goodness repel the thought.

5. What motive could God have for lying? When a man lies it is that he may gain something, but "the cattle on a thousand hills" are God's, and all the beasts of the forest, and all the flocks of the meadows. Mines of inexhaustible riches are His, and treasures of infinite power and wisdom. He cannot gain aught by untruth, for "the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof"; wherefore, then, should He lie?

6. Moreover, we may add to all this the experience of men with regard to God. It has been evident enough in all ages that God cannot lie.

II. THE BREADTH OF MEANING IN THE TEXT. When we are told in Scripture that God cannot lie, there is usually associated with the idea the thought of immutability. As for instance — "He is not a man that He should lie, nor the son of man that He should repent." We understand by it, not only that He cannot say what is untrue, but that having said something which is true He never changes from it, and does not by any possibility alter His purpose or retract His word. This is very consolatory to the Christian, that whatever God has said in the Divine purpose is never changed. The decrees of God were not written upon sand, but upon the eternal brass of His unchangeable nature. There is no shadow of a lie upon anything which God thinks, or speaks, or does. He cannot lie in His prophecies. How solemnly true have they been! Ask the wastes of Nineveh; turn to the mounds of Babylon; let the traveller speak concerning Idumea and Petra. Has God's curse been an idle word? No, not in one single case. As God is true in His prophecies, so is He faithful to His promises. His threatenings are true also. Ah! sinner, thou mayst go on in thy ways for many a day, but thy sin shall find thee out at the last.

III. HOW WE OUGHT TO ACT TOWARDS GOD IF IT BE TRUE THAT HE IS A "GOD THAT CANNOT LIE."

1. If it be so that God cannot lie, then it must be the natural duty of all His creatures to believe Him. if I doubt God, as far as I am able I rob Him of His honour; I am, in fact, living an open traitor and a sworn rebel against God, upon whom I heap the daily insult of daring to doubt Him.

2. If we were absolutely sure that there lived on earth a person who could not lie, bow would you treat him? Well, I think you would cultivate his acquaintance.

3. If we knew a man who could not lie, we should believe him, methinks, without an oath. To say "He has promised and will perform; He has said that whosoever believeth in Christ is not condemned; I do believe in Christ, and therefore I am not condemned," this is genuine faith.

4. Again, if we knew a man who could not lie, we should believe him in the teeth of fifty witnesses the other way. Why, we should say, "they may say what they will, but they can lie." This shows us that we ought to believe God in the teeth of every contradiction. Even if outward providence should come to you, and say that God has forsaken you, that is only one; and even if fifty trials should all say that God has forsaken you, yet, as God says, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee," which will you take — the one promise of God who cannot lie, or the fifty outward providences which you cannot interpret?

5. If a man were introduced to us, and we were certain that he could not lie, we should believe everything he said, however incredible it might appear to us at first sight to be. It does seem very incredible at first sight that God should take a sinner, full of sin, and forgive all his iniquities in one moment, simply and only upon the ground of the sinner believing in Christ. But supposing it should seem too good to be true, yet, since you have it upon the testimony of One who "cannot lie," I pray you believe it.

worlddic.comLessons: —

1. If God cannot lie, then whatsoever His ministers promise or threaten from Him, and out of His Word, is above all exception; seeing He hath spoken it, who cannot lie, deceive, or be deceived; which should stir up every man to give glory unto God (as Abraham did) by sealing to His truth — that is, by believing and applying unto his own soul every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, for whosoever thus receiveth His testimony hath sealed that God is true, than which no greater glory can be given unto Him. Whereas not to believe Him on His Word is as high a dishonour as any man can cast upon Him, for it is to give God the lie; he that believeth not hath made Him a liar, which in manners and civility we could not offer to our equal, and which even a mean man would scorn to put up at our hands.

2. Seeing God cannot lie let every one of us labour to express this virtue of God — first, and especially the minister in his place, seeing he speaketh from God; nay, God speaketh by him, he must therefore deliver true sayings worthy of all men to be received, that he may say in his own heart that which Paul spake of himself, "I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not," and justify that of His doctrine which Paul did of his writings, "the things which now I write unto you, behold I witness before God that I lie not."

(T. Taylor, D. D.)