Jehovah Gmulah: The God of Recompense
I recently saw a meme on FB that if God exists, and He knows and sees everything, then He knows about every child molestation and rape that has ever happened. The meme is a strike against God that He is powerless to do anything and thus unworthy to be worshipped. It is an extremely foolish statement to make, because there is a side of God that wicked man despises. God is a God of recompense, a God of vengeance, and a God of justice.
Those who cite these memes and think they have won an argument against God are also those who will whine and complain about how and when God DOES carry out judgment. When nations made it their religious practices to burn living babies alive to death to appease the god Molech, He sent Israel to wipe them out. These scoffers then whine against God committing genocide. It’s not as well known, but one of the reasons for that conquest was not because Israel was so special, but because those nations were actually committing the sexual sins listed in Leviticus 18 (see verses 24-30 in particular).
God will execute judgment against the wicked. All those innocent child molestation victims are crying out to God for justice and they will receive it. Why doesn’t God carry it out immediately? The answer is simple: He longs for those criminals to repent. He does not want anyone to perish, but rather seeks they all repent and be saved. If God were to carry out judgment immediately, there would be no opportunity for Him to showcase His mercy.
“But, but, that’s letting criminals off the hook!” Yes, that is an argument I’ve heard, even recently. I had a scoffer tell me that the cross is nothing more than a “get you off the hook” excuse to do whatever you want. That is not true at all. I told that person that he really doesn’t understand the cross at all, let alone what is coming on Judgment Day. But there is another aspect I bring up. If God were to immediately punish every child molester, every thief, and every murderer, then He would also have to immediately punish every idolater, every mocker, every doubter, and anything and everything that scoffer did himself. If God were to prevent every crime the scoffer sees as evil, God would also have to prevent that scoffer from even being able to scoff, let alone question God. They are all the same ultimately: sin. That’s the big picture. In the same way speeding and murder are still violations of the civil law, every sin is violation of God’s laws. Not every sin yields the same punishment, but every sin does prevent man from entering paradise with God.
God is going to avenge His people. He will avenge the weak, the innocent, the downtrodden, and the poor. He cherishes those people, so when the nations or even us as individuals look down upon them, God is going to make a case for them. He still allows us to make our choices and lets our choices ripple down to affect others. The scoffers who whine about “rich churches” in America while the starving in Africa are perishing don’t realize many things. They put the blame on God for that, when they should be putting it on corrupt governments preventing that aid from getting there. What is more is that they don’t see WHO is actually giving them the most aid: the Christians.
God is going to avenge those who have been stolen from. He is going to give justice to those governments who refuse to take care of their own people. He is going to take revenge against those who have harmed His precious ones. Jesus did not mince words when He warned about causing a little one to sin. He said it would be better to have a millstone tied around your neck and cast into the depts of the sea than to cause one of His own to sin. That’s why I take what I teach and write so seriously. I refuse to allow false teachings to enter in, and often I am not always the “nicest person” to be around when I see it. Why am I so strong against them? Because I am a watchman (as every Christian is), and anything that gets past me is my responsibility. If I allow false teachings into my circles, it basically means I have endorsed them. I gave their approval to come in (or simply was asleep on the watch, which in most militaries is a treasonous action deserving the penalty of death). Either way, if I let them in, even if they come with a fellow believer, I am held responsible for letting them in. That said, I also must let in anything that is truly from God. It is a HARD job to do, which is why it is critical I check with the Holy Spirit on what is approved and what is not. I don’t want to know what is worse than that millstone, yet so many take that position so frivolously.
Because God is the God of Recompense, we do not have to stand up for our own rights and our own privileges. We don’t have to make a stand for ourselves when we are mocked and ridiculed. It’s tough. The Apostles were frequently insulted and jeered by the ruling authorities, let alone the mobs, yet they rarely made any stance for themselves. Paul did a couple times, but there were others where he took a beating when it was illegal for it to happen (due to him being a Roman citizen) and did not complain. This is a tough one for me because of what I just described above. I can’t stand false teachings being presented, so it often becomes a battle of “who is right” instead of “what is truth.” But if I am working under the Holy Spirit and am partaking in a move of God, I don’t need to defend God. He does a fine enough job without me. All those mockers and scoffers will get what they desired: that justice be done. But they will also get it upon themselves unless they repent.
When God summoned Jehu to wipe out the line of Ahab, two of Jezebel’s servants went to meet him, and Jehu ordered them to stand with him or perish in the cleansing. This is a small picture of what God calls for us: to stand with Him when He comes to wipe out evil or perish with it. It is a frightful thing to fall into the hands of a Holy God. He is Jehovah Gmulah, the God of Recompense. He will see justice done for all the evil done against us, but also for all the evil we have done too. Let that make us turn to the cross and plead for His mercy because we need it more than all those we think need to repent.
This post concludes my series on the Names of God. There are others I could have addressed, but I sense this is where this series needs to end at this point. I pray this series has helped you get to know who God is better and to pursue Him with all you have.
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Jehovah Sabaoth: The Lord of Hosts
Last week I wrote about how God is the God of peace, and as a peacemaker He comes to rule and bring His government. How does He do that? As I mentioned last week, when Rome came to take over a nation or tribe, they sent an ambassador to negotiate peace before the army would arrive. If the people agreed to the terms (which were Roman terms, rarely if ever negotiated), the army would rule over them, but the people would be allowed to retain their general identity. But if they refused, then the army would still come and wipe them out.
God is the Lord of Hosts, the commander of the army of heaven. He’s got an army to which there is no comparison. In The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Aragon raced to recruit the “men under the mountain,” an army of undead because the forces of Sauron coming against the city of Minas Tirith was too big. This army alone was so powerful because no weapon other than Aragon’s sword could touch them. And this army effectively won the battle single-handedly.
We see a few glimpses of this the heavenly host throughout the Bible. The first is found in Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden of Eden. The entrance to the garden was protected by an angel with a flaming sword. Another incident is found right before Joshua advanced upon Jericho. This was no ordinary angel, but rather Jesus, fully dressed in His armor, as Commander of the Hosts of Heaven.
The first time we see an army of angelic hosts is in 2 Kings 6. Elisha had been warning the king of Israel where the Syrian army was moving and their intentions so the king of Syria sent his army to take out one man. Elisha’s servant panicked but Elisha didn’t. The prophet instead asked that God open the eyes of his servant and thus show him the countryside was surrounded with flaming chariots. We see this army show up from time to time throughout the Bible.
There is one major difference between God’s army and this undead army: the undead army was cursed because of bad choices; God’s army has always been completely faithful to the end. This army does not fight with conventional tactics or weapons, though the Bible often gives imagery related to physical war. In one instance, the Angel of the Lord wiped out 185,000 men of the Assyrian army in a single night, thus preserving Hezekiah. When Jehoshaphat faced three armies, God told him he would win the battle without having to raise a sword. When the king arrived at the place of battle, he sent his worship leaders as his front line, believing what God had said. There he found all three armies having wiped each other out. Even when King Saul and Jonathan faced the Philistines, Jonathan attacked with his armor-bearer alone and God’s army came in, causing confusion among the enemy. While Jonathan only killed about twenty men, even more died by the Philistines killing each other. When God’s army fights, His people always win.
What about our battles today? Does God fight for us today? He most certainly does. It doesn’t always come in the form of overtaking a physical enemy. There are spiritual forces we face, and the Old Testament’s physical enemies gave us a physical picture of how we should engage them. When God told Joshua to march around Jericho, He was demonstrating to Joshua that this conquest would be done by His hands, not by military talent. Likewise, that physical battle gives us a picture of how some spiritual battles need to be fought. Numerous prayer groups would march around a property they knew God was leading them to get. Sometimes they would march around a city or around a neighborhood, but the idea was to surround the territory to be claimed with a proclamation that it belongs to God.
One of the key things I am still struggling to truly grasp is that God is the one who fights God’s battles. We get to participate in them, but more often than not we are mere spectators in the battle. We are in the thick of it and we battle in prayer, but ultimately it is God fighting that battle. When God is the one fighting, He is the one who will win. He has an undefeated record and there are no ties in this war. Any time we experience a loss, it is not because God did not come through, but because we did not believe or because there was sin in the camp.
Right after Joshua’s most famous victory over Jericho, he got routed by the tiniest force in Canaan at Ai. Look back to my post on the “Effects of Sin” earlier this year. Achan thought taking a few things would not affect anyone except him. Turns out it cost Israel the battle. It wasn’t because God failed them, but because Achan’s sin prevented God from being able to bless them. Achan’s choice, which he thought would only affect him, held back the armies of God because God cannot bless sin. He told Joshua what the deal was and to go address it. In Joshua’s eyes, let alone God’s, Achan’s sin was considered treachery. It cost Israel a battle and much more.
Am I saying God’s armies can be restrained with sin, as though we have power over God? Not at all. God is still going to see what He wants done through to the end. The one who loses out is us, not God. God promised to bring Israel into the Promised Land and after hearing the spies’ report, they chose not to believe God. So, God chose to wipe out every adult in the camp except for the two spies who believed Him from the beginning. God’s plans were not waylaid. It was only delayed in seeing its fruition. It still got done. The next generation entered and then proceeded to take over the land.
God is Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of Hosts. He is the Commander of the armies of heaven, and He never loses a battle. It always amazes me how many people try to fight against Him when it is truly a futile effort. God doesn’t lose His battles. He doesn’t settle for draws either. He only knows how to win and He wins every time. And He asks of each and every one us this: “Which side are you on? Mine, or against Me?” Choose you this day whom will you serve. I have chosen to serve the Lord, albeit far from perfectly. What about you?
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Jehovah Shalom: The Lord is peace
We live in a world where this is no peace. Violent mobs destroy property and loot in the guise of “protesting.” Some political parties advocate that unless they regain control there won’t be civility. Mass shootings and a constant state of fear abounds. There is no peace in today’s world.
There would not even be peace even if our political realm “returned back to normal.” The Communist countries had no war within them, but there was no peace. During our previous U.S. political administration, there was no peace, even though one party pretty much had full control. During our current one, we certainly don’t have peace either.
But peace will not be achieved no matter whose political ideals are realized. Many people are not at peace even when everything going around them is smooth. Peace is not defined as “lack of war.” Peace is much better defined as “all is as it should be.” We live in a fallen and broken world. Something is drastically wrong with this world and every person is either asking or seeking how to make that which is wrong to be right. There will be no peace until that which is wrong is made right.
What is wrong with this world? We are. We are the ones at fault. Man is the crowning glory of God’s creation and we are the ones who messed it all up. It is our sin that has wrecked this world and created the lack of peace. Man has been trying to fix it up the best way he knows how – without God – and each attempt fails miserably. In the grand epic story we call world history, man plays the role of both the villain and the damsel in distress. Who is the hero in this epic? Jesus Christ. He came to deal with what is wrong with this world, sin, and to rescue His bride, us.
Jesus made the way to make peace between man and God. He is the one and only mediator. He is the one who was both God and man at the same time was able to take upon Himself the wrath of God, thus enabling peace to be achieved. We celebrate this moment in which the “peace treaty” was signed today, and call it “Good Friday.” It is the day in which we celebrate what Jesus did on that cross, and in two days we will celebrate the completion of that work on Resurrection Sunday. And now we who have been justified by faith now have peace with God. Jesus ended the war between God and man, however just because the treaty has been signed, that does not mean all factions are recognizing it. Therefore, God has sent us to be ambassadors to the lost in this world to implore and encourage that they make peace with God before He comes in.
When Paul wrote about ambassadors, he had a Roman ambassador in mind. When Rome set its eyes on a foreign nation or people group, they sent an ambassador ahead of them to negotiate terms of surrender. This would enable to nation or tribe to retain most of its identity and culture, and they would just need to pay tribute and submit to Roman rule. If the nation or tribe refused the terms, the Roman army would come in and clean house. The image relates to us in this way. God is coming to claim that which belongs to Him. He sends us as His followers to plead with the people to make peace with Him and to surrender to His rule before He comes in with His judgment against sin and to set Jesus Christ on the throne of this world where He rightfully belongs.
This is a key to understand about peace. My pastor made a very interesting connection about peace a couple year ago when he did the Advent studies of joy, peace, hope, and love. He cited Isaiah 9:7 and noticed that you cannot have God’s peace without God’s government. Since peace is properly defined as “all is as it should be,” then how can that be possible unless a pure, perfect, righteous, holy, and just God rules over it? Things went wrong when man decided to defy God’s rule and try to do things his own way, and they can only be made right by God intervening and setting them right.
Gideon gave God this name Jehovah Shalom when he was summoned to deliver Israel from Midian’s hand. But what did Gideon do immediately afterwards? That very night, he went and tore down the altars to Baal and Asheroth in his town and replaced them with an altar to the Lord. To make peace with God, he had to declare war on the false teachings and idolatry which itself was waging war against God. In order for peace to be acquired, all that which rebels against God must be put down and that which God established must be erected.
If we want peace in our lives, we must submit to God’s rule. The Apostle Paul made it clear that we are either slaves to sin or slaves to Christ. Only one of those is a Perfect Master: Jesus Christ. When we submit ourselves to and obey Christ, then no matter what goes on around us, we will have peace. Yes, the Christian can have peace of mind even when Hell is throwing everything it has at us. When things go wrong, when the car suddenly breaks down, when heavy traffic makes you late, when someone tells lies about you, or the government has shown to sell itself to the devil, we can still have peace. Why? How? It’s simple: God is still in control and nothing takes place without his permission or allowance. Such chaos approached Hudson Taylor while he led missions in China. He heard the bad reports and he just leaned back on his chair and started whistling. He was at peace. The man bringing the news was confused. How could he do that? The answer was that he just rolled the problem onto Jesus. Taylor didn’t have to take responsibility for the problem. He gave it to Jesus and waited for Him to take care of it. That doesn’t mean he did nothing, but that he recognized it was under Christ’s rule, therefore it was Christ’s responsibility. He only had to worry about obeying Christ, not solving all the problems he faced.
There is one more aspect of God’s peace I’ll address. God did not come to be a peace-lover; He came to be a peace-maker. What’s the difference? A peace-lover will surrender everything to not have to make a stand and not have to work to make something happen. They don’t know true peace and just want to get along in one big kumbaya with everyone. A peace-maker, on the other hand, will go deal with the situations and if necessary remove those disturbing the peace. They will go and set things in order, settle conflicts by a standard of truth, and get the job done. God is a peace-maker and He will set things straight. The question to us is this: will be part of the clean-up process, or will we be the ones God need to clean out? He’s going to set His rule here on earth one way or the other. We have a choice to stand with Him and be part of the process, or we can try to continue doing things our own way and be part of the problem for Him to deal with. Let’s not be part of the problem.
God is Jehovah Shalom, the Lord of peace. He is the ruler of this universe and He is returning once and for all to make all things that are wrong to be right. He delays His day of coming so we might make terms of peace before He takes us out with the trash. Will you make peace with God? Now is a better time than ever. Ask me or any of us at Worldview Warriors how to do this.
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Jehovah Nissi: The Lord my banner
I’ve never been the kind of person that does war cries or chants or pep talks or what not. I know their purpose and their intent to rile someone up, get them on an emotional high, and spook out the opponent. It doesn’t matter whether its in actual war, a sport, or even a business meeting. I’m simply not that kind of person. I find shouting at your opponent is a waste of energy while I simply stand there with confidence of “Watch out!”
There only time I’ve ever actually enjoyed a war cry is from Eric Ludy’s short sermon on the Israel’s war cry which I wrote about in one of my first blog posts for Worldview Warriors. RAK CHAZAK! Be strong and courageous! Do not give in to fear! That is the only one I’ve ever been able to buy into.
The purpose of war cries and chants is to get the people motivated, and there’s something about crowd mentality in that too. When you see a group of football players getting into their rhythm, you don’t want to interrupt that, because they are a force to contend with. When the group gets a high morale, it is tough to break. Likewise, when the morale is down, it takes a leader to raise the banner, the flag, or the symbol of what you fight or play for and call for everyone else to bring on their best. In the movie The Patriot in the final battle, the American lines fell before the British troops and Benjamin Martin, played by Mel Gibson, grabbed a U.S. flag from a retreating soldier and rallied the troops to where they soon claimed victory.
The Bible has such a moment too, and that is where the name Jehovah Nissi came about. In Exodus 17, Amalek rose up to try to stop Israel from crossing the wilderness and reach Mt. Sinai. Moses sent Joshua out to lead the battle while he climbed a hill to oversee it. Moses lifted his hands and as long as his hands were up, Israel won, but when they fell, Amalek gained ground. Aaron and Hur realized this and rushed to Moses’ aid, holding his hands up until victory was achieved. Moses’ raised hands was little different than raising a flag or a banner and as long as it was up, the people’s morale remained high. Moses knew he was nothing special in this, but it was God the whole time. So, he gave God the name Jehovah Nissi to commemorate that battle.
In each of these cases, we see a leader or a banner, some image that represents all the athletes and soldiers stand for. It is the rallying point, the signal caller, and the hope of the combatants. When a fort surrenders, they lower the flag. When a fort is in distress, they fly the flag upside down to notify those outside there is danger in the fort. When a fort or nation is in mourning, they fly the flags at half-mast.
What should be the most famous case of a flag flying can be found at Ft. McHenry in the War of 1812. This was the moment in which Francis Scott Key penned the Star-Spangled Banner. The British troops pulled their entire armada to shell the fort only to be stopped by surrender, as recognized by that flag on the fort ramparts. The people knew precisely what that flag meant and despite being shot down again and again, the people ran to that flag throughout the night and held it up in person. That is something we Americans don’t understand anymore: the courage to “rather die on your feet, than live on your knees” (quote from movie clip cited above). But it is also something missing in our Christian lives as well.
We have a banner, a rallying point, and a symbol that represents who we fight for and who we represent. That banner is God himself: Jehovah Nissi. He is not only the one we turn to for shelter, but He is the very symbol that brings us together, riles us up, and sends us charging back into the battle for souls. God is the one telling our souls to get up, to get back into the fight, to rise up, and engage the spiritual forces holding people hostage.
The problem is so few of us only turn to God for our immediate needs and not as a rallying point. We go to church mostly for the social gathering or for listening to a good talk, but church is meant to be so much more than that. Church is meant to be a place where the flag of Jesus Christ flies. It is a place where a pastor sounds the horn to rally the troops, give us our orders for engaging this world, and send us back to battle strengthened and encouraged. So few pastors see their role that way. Even though I lead a Bible study group at my church, I often don’t think of it this way either. But imagine the change of church behavior and attitude if we did.
Do we have someone calling to us to rally us together? Do we see the banner to be raised? In this sermon excerpt, Paul Washer says what costs him sleep is this: “To pace a room at night, saying ‘There is a place. There is a place, where He is not worshiped, where He is not worshiped. There is a place where He is not worshiped. I cannot sleep. There is a place where He is not worshiped. There is a place where the flag of Zion does not fly.’” Who thinks like that? It’s supposed to be Christians. Not super-Christians, not elite Christians, but everyday Christians. Our job as ambassadors is to not merely plead with people to come to Christ but to expand the territory of the Kingdom. Do we think that way?
To whom do we rally? To what cause? For which kingdom? Sadly, many of us fight for something other than Christ and His Kingdom, and especially when we do so under the guise of doing just that. It’s a clever trick of the enemy and he’s good at it. Instead, let us raise the banner of Christ high and let the world know that we proclaim the name of Jesus, Jehovah Nissi, the Lord my banner. He is our war cry. He is our rallying point. He is our motivator. He is our general who gives us His orders. Let us rally together at the banner that is Christ and see to it that His name be raised and glorified in every aspect of our lives.
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Jehovah Rapha: The Lord who heals
Many skeptics laugh at the idea of praying to God for healing. A common question is: “If you were sick, which would you expect results from: an actual doctor, or an invisible sky daddy?” There have been numerous cases of religious couples who would not let their child see a doctor because of their convictions and the child died as a result. Skeptics love to cite these as examples of “prayer not working.” They also try to cite statistics in that in only 50% of cases do people praying actually get better. Let me set the record straight here. This is not what we are called to do to pray for healing, and that is not what prayer is; it’s not a magic formula that can be scientifically examined.
In 2 Chronicles, Asa was the first good king after Solomon. He walked in the ways of the Lord and tore down the high places. Yet at the end of his reign, he stopped seeking the Lord, namely in his last two years. He got a foot disease and instead of turning to the Lord, he turned to his physicians. Now the prophets in those days were not doctors, however they had access to the Master Physician who knew the whole story. Asa died of his disease because he would not seek the Lord.
Later in 2 Kings, Hezekiah got sick and was dying. He sought the word from the Lord through Isaiah and was told he would die. Hezekiah prayed and sought the Lord and his life was extended for 15 years. It could be argued if this was a good thing or not because Hezekiah’s sins as king were done in those 15 years, however the point was made. He sought the Lord first.
There is nothing wrong with going to see the doctors. God gave us medicine and plants to heal all sorts of things, and He gave us knowledge and wisdom to discover those uses. He gives doctors wisdom in how to treat patients. However, He wants us to seek Him first. Who knows more about our bodies and what we are facing – an educated doctor, or our Creator? God may have us go see the doctor. The stories I have heard of Christians getting cancer so that we can be a testimony of Him to those doctors and nurses are numerous.
There is a woman at my church battling her third round of cancer in the last few years right now. While the skeptics may say, “Obviously that prayer didn’t work,” what we are saying at my church to that cancer is, “Three strikes and you’re out.” To this day, not a single person who has come to our church has died of cancer in 16½ years. And while we have a small church body, we don’t have a small sample space of cancer patients who beat it. How do they continually beat it? We know the Master Physician: Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who heals.
I am a personal story of God showing up when the medical field could not deliver. When I was 4 months old, I got sick and was dying, and the doctors had no explanation. They said to pray and my parents and my church at that time prayed. The next day we found dead bacteria in my spine and I was healed. God allowed that to happen because that incident provided, through insurance, for the 9+ years of physical and tactical therapy I would need growing up.
So why do people who pray die? Why does He take the mother of a child who begged God to let her live? That was the backstory to Professor Radisson played by Kevin Sorbo in the movie God’s Not Dead. The truth is, we don’t know why God does what He does and why He doesn’t do certain things. Sometimes, it is simply a result of the curse due to general sin. Sometimes it is due to personal sin. Sometimes it is mercy from something we could not see in the future. Sometimes it is because God needs to work in the people around that person. What I do know is that God is in control and He understands precisely why He does what He does. We don’t, except when He gives us a glimpse of the bigger picture.
A skeptic may say, “You’re just giving God an excuse.” Am I? The same skeptic will give the experts they trust the benefit of the doubt. Why would I not be allowed to give God the same? My response to those who want to blame God for those issues would to take it up with Him. God never backs away from an honest skeptic. Just ask Job. God let all these things happen to him simply because Satan accused God of bribing Job to worship Him with blessings and protection. Yet Job got frustrated with his whole life being stripped away from him. His children slain in one go, his entire financial status gone, his physical health gone, and his closest friends and wife put the blame on him and on God. Job refused to curse God to His face, but he challenged God to find out why it all happened. God’s answer showed up in Job 38-41 and in those four chapters, God put Job into his place and reminded him that God is God and we are not. Job had the correct response in saying, “I know nothing and spoke that which I knew not.” Let us keep that mindset when we go through things in which we don’t understand what is happening.
God is Jehovah Rapha, the one who heals. God may not heal us immediately in this life, but He will heal us ultimately in the next. We are all going to die at some point, by sickness or by age or by other means. But if we put our trust in the Great Physician, He will one day grant us bodies that will not wear out, nor decay, nor experience death. And in all cases, let us turn to Him first before we turn anywhere else. When we have a word from God, we’ll know how to approach our doctors with confidence that we will beat it or that we will go out in glory. I cannot tell you how many doctors get hope when they get to treat a patient who knows their God. It gives them hope that their job is worth it. Trust in Jehovah Rapha and He will preserve us until our time has come.
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Jehovah Shammah: The Lord is present
When I wrote about the attributes of God, one of the ones I addressed is omnipresence. God is everywhere, at all places, and all at once. He is not limited nor can be defined by a physical location. He is right with me as I type this post and is at the same time right with you as you read this post, even though weeks are separating these moments. That should both comfort us and scare us.
Many of us live our lives as though God is not around us. We say things we should not say, think things that are not wholesome, and participate in activities that do not edify, and for some reason we think that God doesn’t know about it. Many of us know intellectually that God is with us, but I would suggest few of us live like it. Many speakers and preachers have asked: “If you knew the President was going to be in your house in ten minutes, what would you do differently?” Many of us would clean up quickly and prepare our best clothes and appearance. Yet God is always with us, seeing us in our glamour and in our anything but.
Many people don’t like the idea of God being around everywhere because then they can’t do what they want to do and get away with it. The real reason many of us do not sin so horrifically that Hitler would look angelic is because God is right there with us, actually protecting us. I have recognized to some degree what the grace of God has protected me from, but I don’t always thank Him enough for it.
But I don’t want this post to be a judgment post on God always being there when we sin. God is also always there to get us out of trouble and to save us. The child in trouble on the streets with no help in sight is always relieved to see dad show up, even if it means he is about to get a whopping. God is our very present help in time of need. He is there to rescue us if we call for it. But God’s presence means much more than that.
Jesus told his disciples at the Great Commission, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” This promise is in conjunction with “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.” God is ever-present with us as we go about to fulfill our commission. He guides and directs us at our different turns. Sometimes He’ll let us wander off a little bit, but He’s always there to make the corrections when we are ready to listen. Before we make that wrong choice, though, He is there to warn us and caution us against making that choice.
But it is much more than that. God goes before us, coves our flanks, and follows behind us. He is our shield and strength. He protects us, never allowing us to be tempted beyond what we could bear, yet always providing a means of escape from it. He never promises to not give us more than we can bear in general; He promised no temptation would be too strong for us without an escape being offered. Sometimes that escape means to lay down your life or your job or your friends. We have to be ready to know how to answer at those moments before we get there, because if we don’t, we’ll cave. But God is with us. He is present with us. God did not protect Stephen from being stoned, yet He was with him the whole time. Stephen looked up and got a standing ovation from God for being the first born again Christian to die at the hands of those who hate God.
God is present. While God allowed Stephen to be stoned, that was because it was Stephen’s time. When it is not our time, and we are obedient to the will of God, we will be invincible. Look at Paul. He was stoned twice, brutally whipped 5 times, shipwrecked, left in the cold, left hungry, imprisoned multiple times, and even bitten by a viper. In all that, he could not be fazed because he still had a job to do. Paul never even flinched when the lethal viper bit him.
God did not change His character when the New Testament was completed. He protected His saints throughout their ministry lives until He needed to them to take a hit. He still does today. Just read Christian biographies. I’ve got quite a collection and I keep seeing story after story after story of God coming through and being with those who love and serve Him. If we don’t see that today, is it because God left us, or because we don’t believe He is actually with us and will protect us?
The Lord is present. Why should we fear? What’s the worst that can happen to us? Loss of jobs? We’ll lose those in a few short years anyway due to moving, quitting, or retiring anyway. Loss of friends? If they leave us for following God, can we really say they were our friends to begin with? Loss of family? While the pressure is real, they too will die at some point as well as you. Your own life? What’s ultimately the difference between dying now when your life is being asked for in standing for Christ and dying 20, 30, or 50 years from now knowing you renounced the name of Christ? The difference is how you stand before God on Judgment Day. The Lord is present. If He needs you to lose something, it’s not to steal your joy. It’s actually to replace it with something far better: Himself.
Jehovah Shammah: the Lord is present. He is there when we sin; He is there when we follow Him. Let us continually run to Him and let Him be everything we need and beyond.
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Jehovah Tsidkenu: The Lord My Righteousness
Jehovah Mekoddishkem: The Lord My Sanctifier
The names of God are numerous mostly because our human minds cannot truly grasp an infinite description of an infinite being. Much of the names of God we find are based off His character and His actions. Here we see God being the standard of righteousness and the One who separates His people to be holy and pure, unique from this world.
I chose to tackle these two names of God together because they both address the same core process: taking sinful man, declaring him righteous, and making him holy. Christianity makes absolutely no sense at all to the natural man. It is not merely that we have a crucified Savior, but that we have a pure, righteous, and holy God administering perfect justice and justifying the wicked. It is called the “Scandal of Grace.” Yes, a “scandal” is an appropriate term, yet it was done without breaking any laws nor violating any part of God’s character. Let’s dig into this scandal.
Everything always should start with the character and nature of God. The whole story is about Him. God is a Holy God. He is pure, perfect in every detail and aspect about Him. He is righteous and just. He rewards those who do good and gives those who do evil their just reward. Every man will reap what he sows, whether good or bad. The problem is once Adam and Eve sinned and ate of the fruit, it wasn’t just them who were affected, but all of their offspring were affected too.
People complain that it wasn’t fair to be judged for a sin we didn’t commit. That is true. We did not eat of that tree, however Adam and Eve gave us that nature. That which is corrupted cannot produce that which is pure. We understand this in genetics. When a mutation in a parent takes place, that mutation is then carried on to the offspring. It is not the fault of the offspring, but it does not make situation the offspring is in null or void. We inherited the “mutation” of sin from our parents, but unlike a mere genetic mutation, we have each partaken in our own sin and that is what we will be held accountable for. We won’t be held accountable for the sins of our fathers, just the sins we commit.
But this leads to the grand conundrum. How can God be a perfect and righteous God and show mercy to wicked sinners? If God does not punish sin, He cannot be righteous. Yet how can God be merciful if He punishes every sinner? The answer is found in Jesus Christ. I like to use the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant to illustrate this point. The first servant had a completely unpayable debt and begged for mercy to repay it. It would take him multiple lifetimes to have a hope of repaying it. Yet the master forgave it. The debt didn’t go away; the master simply did not hold the servant responsible for repaying it. So, what happened to the debt? The master took it upon himself. The master “ate the bill” so to say. The parable goes on to show this servant never paid attention to what happened to him, but my point is made here. Jesus enabled the Father to forgive us by taking on the debt we owed. Because Jesus was without sin, He had no debt against God himself, and therefore He was able to repay that debt. But that debt was death. Jesus paid the debt with his very life and did so by becoming a man, living as a man, and doing what man was always intended to be able to do.
There is so much more to say on this, but here is the short and skinny: when Jesus died, all who believe in Him and have been born-again, everything that originally belonged to Christ was imputed, transmitted, onto us. His righteous, His perfect, His purity, His holiness, His standing with the Father, is given to us. This is why we can call God, Jehovah Tsidkenu, the Lord my righteousness. It is not of our own doing, not of our own works, not of our own efforts, but of Christ and Christ alone.
Jesus Christ is our righteousness. When God looks upon us, He does not see the scarlet red of sin but instead sees the red blood of Christ. He sees the debt we owed as settled and cancelled. In God’s eyes, we are not seen merely as though we never sinned, but even better. The term is “restored.” When a car guy restores a car, he takes an old car that was used, abused, and no longer as good as it used to be. He strips it down to its core chassis and then begins the restoration process. He gets new parts, new paint, etc. and eventually the car ends up looking exactly like the original, only now it is far more valuable than it would have been brand new from the factory. That is us. We are going through the restoration process. The theological term for this is sanctification.
God is Jehovah Mekoddishkem, the Lord my sanctifier. He takes us through the restoration process which first must strip us down to the core being and from there He can begin putting us back together the way he intended. As a clay potter must work out the stones and hard chunks before he can mold the clay into the shape and vessel he wants and as a goldsmith must melt the gold so the impurities can be scraped off, God must remove the sin in our lives so He can work with the pure substance. This is not a fast process. While the formal moment of salvation, the moment of spiritual re-birth, is instant, sanctification is not. If the goldsmith rushes the process, he’ll lose a fair amount of gold with the impurities. Likewise, if God were to just instantly wipe out our sin, He’d lose much of us in the process.
But while the process takes a long time, we can be assured that God will see the work He started through until it is completed. That said, the process can certainly take much longer than it should if we don’t cooperate with God. Very often, God has to break someone down to powder so in order to be able to rebuild him back into what He wants. It is HARD to die daily but that is what it takes to be sanctified and to be made into the image of Christ. However, when we surrender and let God do His work, the end result will always be worth it. Let us put our trust and let Jesus Christ be Jehovah Tsidkenu, our Righteousness, and Jehovah Mekoddishkem, our Sanctifier.
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Psalm 23 is perhaps the most famous single chapter of the whole Bible. Its opening line is “The Lord is my shepherd.” While the original Hebrew would best be written as ro’i, most commonly we see this word written as rohi, so that's what I'll be using in this post. Check out Katie Erickson’s blog post here for more on this.
God is our shepherd and we are His sheep. Jesus spent a fair amount of John 10 describing how he is the Good Shepherd. He is the one who guides us and directs us while tending to our needs, cleaning up our messes, going after us when we get lost, and protecting us from wolves. Now I never grew up on a farm, so I truly cannot attest to this from experience, but in everything I have heard, shepherds never were the most desired job to have, and yet it was one of the most critical jobs in the agrarian culture of Bible times. When one thinks of “shepherd” in the Bible times, it is quite similar to that of “custodian” in the modern day. It is one of the least prestigious jobs one could have. It is menial labor usually reserved for the poor and for those who can’t afford nor have the skills for better jobs.
Sheep are stupid animals. My pastor grew up on a farm and he tells a story of how anther farmer was trying to get his sheep into a truck to move them and one sheep jumped off the ramp into the trainer and like the blind following the blind, the rest did the same. Why? Because the one in front of them did it. I heard another story that if one sheep is sick and starts to throw up, suddenly other sheep watching them suddenly start feeling sick. I’m not sure if this one is completely true, but apparently if a sheep is rolled onto its back, it cannot get up by itself. It must have help from the shepherd. Sheep must be frequently shaved. A while back a sheep named Shrek escaped and went without being sheared for six years. Sheep must have a shepherd.
That description of sheep really does a good job at describing us. We have such a crowd mentality where if we see someone doing something, we will respond in kind and follow them. Just ask any teenager why they did something. The answer is often along the lines of, “Everyone else is doing it.” I’ve used that one myself. And don’t get me started on social media and politics because much of the battles we are fighting is perfect evidence of how man is. An appropriate term is “sheeple.” Jesus wept over Israel because the people were lost, blind, and in trouble because they had no shepherd. God was particularly ticked at the prophets and priests of Israel because for the most part, they did not seek to protect the sheep; they instead conspired to devour the sheep. There was only one solution: God himself had to be the Shepherd.
The job of shepherd is not a fun job as I already mentioned. They have to lead the sheep to places where they can feed and drink water. Sheep also don’t drink out of just any water. It has to be still and gentle water. They won’t drink from rushing waters. Shepherds often would have to be very knowledgeable about the caves and places for shelter in storms, because they typically would be miles from home often days out at a time. When at a pen or a cave, the shepherd would sleep at the entrance so not only the sheep could not get out, the wolves could not get in. That is why Jesus referred Himself as the Door. The only way in is through Him.
A good shepherd knew each of his sheep by name. I have heard numerous accounts of shepherds who would gather their flocks together and put them all into a single pen for the night because it would be easier to manage them as a group. But no shepherd needed to worry about losing track of his sheep because all he had to do was called them out or whistle his whistle. Each sheep knew the shepherd’s voice. The sheep which did not belong to that shepherd would not respond to that voice. The same is true about us. There are only two primary voices we can hear: God’s and someone else’s. Which one we listen to reveals who we belong to. Which voice do we listen to? God makes his voice clear and understood, but it is up to us to respond to it. If we choose not to, then can we truly claim God is our Shepherd?
Another job a shepherd has is to fight off the wolves. This is a harder topic for me to truly grasp than I often would like to admit. It is NOT the sheep’s job to defend himself. He can’t. A sheep is totally powerless to defend himself. Even a mass of sheep together cannot defend themselves. The wolf will always win. The sheep’s only reliable defense is the Shepherd. Now unlike actual sheep, there is one small difference between us and them. God often requires us to take a step of obedience in engaging in that battle and He wants us to exert the authority He’s given us as His children. However, for any Christian, if they are to truly fight God’s battles, it is through prayer and through God actually doing the battle. It is not the sheep defending himself; it is the sheep calling upon the Shepherd to defend him. Yet, talking about myself, I often try to defend for the faith in my own power and own intellect instead of going to my Shepherd in His power to defend His Kingdom and His Truth. Please pray for me that I may turn over the battle to God and let Him defend Himself. He doesn’t need my help. He only asks that I join and partake with Him in that battle, and mostly that partaking is simply to watch the battle. Yet even in this, God does the most miraculous thing: His sheep beat the wolfpacks because it is God doing the actual fighting.
God is Jehovah Rohi, my shepherd. He is the provider and the source of my protection. He is the one who equips me and trains me and cleans me up. He shears me so my “wool” can be used for His purposes. He protects me from the wolves, though often when I wander from Him, He allows the wolves to get a few bites to let me know to keep coming back to Him. Yet when we follow Him and obey Him, He will lead us to the ultimate paradise: a land where we will have everything we could ever want and where we will finally be able to see the Shepherd face to face. I look forward to that day. Next week, I’ll look at Jehovah Tsikednu: the Lord my righteousness.
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The name Jehovah is frequently used in the place of the most holy name of God, transliterated as “Yahweh.” It means Lord or something along the lines of “the Supreme One.” It was a name so holy that the Jews did not dare properly state the name lest they in their sin commit blasphemy. Jehovah had numerous particular descriptors to give Him “definition” or description that man could understand. Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Rohi, Jehovah Tsikednu, Jehovah Macceddeshum, Jehovah Shammah, Jehovah Rapha, Jehovah Nissi, Jehovah Shalom, Jehovah Sabbaoth, and Jehovah Ghmola will be the ones I will address in this series.
Jehovah Jireh is one of the most well-known of these names. While the original Hebrew would best be transliterated as 'yireh,' most commonly we see this word as 'Jireh,' so that's what I'll be using in this post. Jehovah Jireh means God is my provider. The first place this idea or concept is brought up is in Genesis 22. This is the account of when Abraham’s faith was put to the final test: he was to surrender, to sacrifice, the very son whom was promised to him years earlier. Abraham obeyed without question and even in his obedience, he believed Isaac would return with him. God stopped Abraham right at the moment he was about to strike him and instead God provided a ram in Isaac’s place. But God’s provision extends far beyond that.
God is the source of my being, my sustenance, my food, my life, my finances, my hope, and everything I need. I don’t always recognize it, but if any of us were truly honest about it, there is absolutely NOTHING we have that God did not provide. I truly mean that. You can do absolutely nothing apart from God. You cannot even breathe without God giving you that breath.
Some of you may be thinking, “What about my work? Don’t I earn my paycheck?” To which I reply, “Yes, you did work and you did provide for your needs, but who gave you that job? Where did the talent for that job come from? Where did the ability to study and learn to get that job come from?” It all goes back to God. The sooner man realizes this, the better off he is. God literally has given us absolutely everything for what we do. He gave us the physical bodies we have. He gave us the mental capacity to do what we do. He gave us the raw natural talent to do what we do. He gave us the food and supplies we need to survive. He gave us the air we breathe. He gave us the provisions for our clothes. He gave us the raw materials for our scientific and technological developments.
There is the classic joke of the scientists who goes to God and says, “God, we have advanced so high in society that we no longer need you. We can even create life.” So God says, “Ah, interesting. Let’s have a contest, shall we? Let’s take some dirt and make a man. I did it before. Surely you can it too.” The scientist agreed and bent down to scoop up some dirt. God stopped him and said, “Hey! No, no, no. You get your own dirt.”
In man’s defiance of God in proclaiming his knowledge and expertise, he fails to grasp that anything he ever could do was a gift from God to start with. They seek to use all sorts of laws of science to try to explain the origins of the universe without God, and yet in doing so, they invoke procedures and processes that make absolutely no sense for their existence unless God upheld them. Why does gravity work? Why do forces work? How did they come about? We never invented the laws of science. We only discovered them and gave them mathematical formulas. It is God who upholds them. God is the Creator who provides for everything we use to live.
But God does much more than merely provide the raw material for us and life to exist. He also cares about our intimate “small” needs as well. I can testify to God’s provision in more ways than I can count. In 1995, my dad quit his well-paying job to go full-time in ministry. He went from a good job at a government plant (we were not wealthy, but we weren’t poor either) to having zero income. Yet, we never went hungry. For six months we got donated day-old bagels and bought flats of expired yogurt and eggs for a buck a piece. We had bagels in more ways than you can image. Bagel sandwiches, bagel chips, bagel this, bagel that. We understood why Israel complained about the manna, yet we even had an advantage over them. We had different flavors. But God provided.
He got creative with his provision as well. When I lived on the mission base where we housed and facilitated mission teams, we would get some very interesting donations. Some came from people getting rid of their Y2K stock. (For those that don’t remember, Y2K was a panic that swept the country because when the computers turned from 1999 to 2000 on the calendar, everything would shut down. Nothing ever panned out.) We got all kinds of canned goods which not only supplied us as a ministry staff but also supplied a food bank we ran. We got to try out emu and ostrich meat from one of the most famous steakhouse restaurants in Texas that was only 8 miles away. On one occasion, the freezers to the local grocery store (where I worked at the time) went out so they had to get rid of it all. We got two 4x4x7 foot pallets of ice cream, ice cream bars, Haagen Dazs pints, Ben and Jerry’s pints, fruit popsicles, and the like. We not only ate it, we got to give it away with our food bank ministry which at that time served 80-100 families a week… for three months.
A couple years ago, I got into a wreck that totaled my car (we were all fine; it was ultimately just a fender bender, but it messed up the engine of my car). We thought about taking out a loan to get a new car for me, but decided we better wait and let God provide. About 6-9 months later, He did. A friend of mine gave me a car for free other than the cost of switching ownership. That car has been great and exactly what I have needed. God provides. And as I shared five weeks ago, God called me to teaching and after 6 ½ years of preparation, He gave me the job. Not only does he provide, His timing is perfect.
God is Jehovah Jireh. He is my provider. He is my source and my true sustenance. I sadly do not give Him the credit He deserves. I do not thank Him as I should nor as frequently as I should. There is nothing about me or that I do to deserve all God gives me. It is only because God loves me. God’s provision is a display of His Grace. He offers it freely, but it is up to us to take what He has offered and use it as He desires us to. Let us not usurp God’s provision and claim it for our own. That is called stealing because all our talents, all our skills, and all our resources, were never ours to begin with. And we will be held responsible for how we handled His provision. God is our Provider. If we have a need, all we need to do is ask. If He can give my family ostrich meat, ice cream, and a car, would he not also provide for you if you trusted him? Next week, I will look at Jehovah Rohi, my shepherd.
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I have spent the last three weeks alerting you to 18 different false Jesuses out there in American culture. Now it is time to start examining the real Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Eric Ludy has two powerful resources on who Jesus is. In this sermon, Ludy details how Jesus is the fulfillment of countless prophecies and even how the history of Israel gave snapshots of what kind of life He would live. Then for something much shorter, Ludy uses his church’s vocal talents to read off an extensive list of the names of God found throughout the Bible. Even then, I found that list to be inexhaustive, but good nonetheless.
Rather than piggy-back on what Ludy did, I want to look at the names of God. Because man is a finite being, unable to comprehend the infinite, we have images and pictures that describe who God is and what He is like. These images and pictures come nowhere close to giving His name justice, but they give us insight to know God as He has revealed Himself. A few years ago, I did a 13-post series on the attributes of God (here). It was not comprehensive, but it gave a good clear image that God is much more than most of us think Him to be. The same will be true in this series on the names of God. While at it, I would like to give a shout-out to reader Janette Eastman who specifically requested that we at Worldview Warriors do a series on this topic. So Janette, this series is for you. Everyone else gets to listen in. The first name I will address is “Adonai.”
Adonai is the Hebrew for “Lord” or “King.” God is not merely a king, but the king. In our culture of a constitutional republic, it is hard for us to understand the authority structure of a monarchy. In a monarchy, the king is the sole decider of all things. He is legislative, executive, and judicial branches all in one. There is no authority over him and what he says goes. While he may turn to advisors and while he may subject himself to a standard of law (think the Magna Carta), the king still has the ultimate authority.
Israel had kings rule over them for about 400 years. When God allowed Samuel to install a king (by demand of the people), He still reigned in the authority of the king’s position. The king was to be submissive to the prophets of God, and nearly every king (if not all of them) in the Bible had at least one prophet to deal with. The king was to make a hand-written copy of the Law for his own possession. That would ensure he knew God’s requirements (though from the accounts, this command was poorly enforced). Nearly all the kings of Israel did not turn out so well. I can only think of one king of all of them who did not have an explicit sin or bad moniker follow their names: Josiah. All the others one who were deemed good still had a major flaw.
But we have a King who is completely perfect, never makes a questionable decision, never leads anyone in the wrong path, always does what is best for His kingdom, and has complete dominion and sovereignty over everything. God is the ruler over this universe and He does what He wants to do as He pleases. However, God’s rule is not arbitrary. He does not decide anything on a whim. He always acts in accordance to His perfect character.
The Psalmist asked why the nations rage when the King is on his throne. It’s a legitimate question. The nations all strive to battle against God and defy His rule, and exactly what do they hope to accomplish? Freedom from God’s hands? That’s actually their thinking. “Let us break their bonds in pieces” (Psalm 2:3). They see God’s rule as oppressive and enslaving because His laws will not allow anyone to sin however he wants without consequence.
Many people do not like the idea that God is King because that means He makes all the calls and the shots. They would rather just have Him as a friend and a buddy who can save them out of trouble but not actually have command over their lives. Yet, God’s protection does not come without His rule. When Isaiah prophesied over Jesus’ arrival, he said there would be no end to the increase of His government and peace. Here, we see peace and government interlinked. There has never been a peaceful situation without a good government bringing it about and enforcing it. The greatest freedoms flow out of an organized structure; just ask any teacher or manager.
God’s rule does two major things: it grants us the freedom and authority to do what needs to be done and it limits, controls, and will eventually bring justice upon the wicked. Because God is sovereign and the King over all, the enemy can only do that which he has permission to do. He is not given free reign over us and even when he is given free reign (like with Peter or Job), he is limited in what he can do and how long he can do it.
If God is the King, what do we have to fear? Satan cannot touch us without permission and if he tries, he will have to deal with God for doing so as well. The kings of this world, all the experts, the mobs, the media, all of them can do nothing except that which God has allowed. As long as we are obedient to Him, we cannot be touched no matter what kind of bluster and boasting and noise they make. It’s all noise anyway. It’s mostly bark and the only bite they have is what God lets them have. And when He allows the enemy to bite, it is only for our benefit or for His kingdom’s benefit.
God is Adonai, the Lord and the King. He is ruler over all. His rule is everlasting. It will never cease and he will never step down. As I conclude this post and start working on the rest of this series on the subtitle of Jehovah, listen to this sermon excerpt from S.M. Lockridge: “That’s My King.”
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