The Hand Of God by Pastor Anwinli Ojeikere: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

When scripture speaks of the hand of God, it is not describing a physical hand, since God is spirit. It is a metaphorical expression for His active power, His divine intervention, His authority in the affairs of men. When the hand of God comes upon a life, the natural order is interrupted and things that were humanly impossible begin to happen.

Isaiah 59:1

The Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor His ear heavy that it cannot hear. No matter how far off a person feels, that hand reaches.

Isaiah 14:27

For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back? When God settles something, nothing can unsettle it.

Jeremiah 32:17

Ah Lord God, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm, there is nothing too hard for You. Reports, diagnoses, and long-standing barrenness do not limit that arm.

Four Dimensions of the Hand of God

1. It Causes Evangelistic Impact

   Acts 11:21

   And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. There is a ceiling to what human effort alone produces. The early believers preached, but the results followed when God's hand moved with them. Acts 5:12-16 shows the same pattern, multitudes healed, tormented spirits delivered, simply through proximity to where the power of God was at work. No strategy of buses, flyers, or campaigns substitutes for this; a person can copy the visible methods of a move of God and still see nothing happen, because it was never the method that carried the impact.

2. It Causes Deliverance

   Exodus 6:1

   Then the Lord said to Moses, "Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand he will let them go, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land." Israel had been in captivity for four hundred and thirty years under a Pharaoh who stood as an immovable obstacle, and yet a strong hand moved him. There are still voices in people's lives functioning like pharaohs, declaring that nothing will ever come of them. Exodus 15:6 says, "Your right hand, O Lord, has become glorious in power. Your right hand, O Lord, has dashed the enemy in pieces." Whatever has stood as a giant over someone's life, business, or family for years is not immovable to that hand.

3. It Brings Supernatural Speed

   1 Kings 18:46

   Then the hand of the Lord came upon Elijah, and he girded up his loins and outran Ahab's chariot to the entrance of Jezreel. God empowered him to physically outrun a royal chariot, a task entirely beyond natural ability. Isaiah 60:22 says a little one shall become a thousand, I the Lord will hasten it in its time. When the hand of the Lord comes upon a person, what would have taken years compresses into a season, and the pace of breakthrough exceeds normal expectation.

4. It Causes Favor

   Genesis 39:2-4

   The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a successful man, and his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord made all he did to prosper in his hand, so Joseph found favor in his sight. Joseph had been sold, rejected, and thrown aside, yet favor followed him into slavery and later into prison.

   Esther 2:15-17

   When Esther's turn came before the king, she requested nothing, yet she obtained favor in the sight of all who saw her, and the king loved her more than all the other women. She was not necessarily the most beautiful woman brought before him; her life simply drew favor. Favor is a spiritual currency that opens doors money and connection alone cannot open. Psalm 5:12 says the Lord surrounds the righteous with favor as with a shield, and Isaiah 60:10-11 promises that gates once shut will be opened continually, with even strangers, not familiar relations, moved to build up what has been broken down.