Don’t see the audio player? Click here.
In 1927, James Weldon Johnson wrote a book of sermons entitled, God’s Trombones. In one sermon he said, “Your arm is too short to box with God,” meaning “You cannot outwit God.” The ancient Sadducees tried it and lost. Not believing people rise from the dead, they asked Jesus a question they hoped would stump Him. “Teacher, Moses gave us a law that if a man dies, leaving a wife and no children, his brother should marry the widow and have a child to carry on the brother’s name. Suppose there were seven brothers. The oldest one married and died without children. So, if all seven married her, whose wife will she be at the resurrection? For all seven were married to her.” They wait expectantly. Jesus said, “You are making two mistakes: 1) You do not know the Scriptures and 2) you do not know how powerful God is. When the dead rise, they will not marry nor be given in marriage. In this respect, they will be like the angels. But as to whether the dead will be raised, in the story of the burning bush, long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, God said to Moses, ‘I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So He is the God of the living, not the dead. You have made a serious error.” So today, when we try to contradict what God has revealed in His word, we soon discover—our arms are too short to box with God.
