5 - The Names of God

Well, welcome to the Striving for Eternity Academy's School of Systematic Theology. Tonight we have a very exciting lesson. Tonight we're going to be looking into the names of God, which we might think of going, well, gee, how's that exciting?

You're going to see as we go through this that when we examine the names of God, after looking at the attributes of God, we're going to see some of the character and some things that are going to help us and encourage us and get us at points where we're kind of struggling with things, how the names of God actually reveal His character to be an encouragement to us.

Now, speaking of the attributes of God, if you are a student of the Striving for Eternity Academy, I hope you got in the email something, well, it won't look yellow like this, but it's a two-sided, two-page overview of the attributes of God.

So all of the attributes that we looked at are all right here on the sheet that you got. I happen to put it on a hard stock paper so that I can keep it with me when I pray. And it has a lot more of the verses than are in your syllabus.

So if you're a student, you should have gotten that this weekend. If you did not, please do us a favor and contact us at the Academy email and we will make sure that you get your copy. The Academy email should be down below me right now.

If you're on our Facebook page, the Striving for Eternity Facebook, you should have, someone posted something like this. I'll zoom in and I should have like taken a picture and given it to the person to get it all in the show.

But that's on our Facebook page, the group page. Someone had found that and it kind of gave an overview of some of the different passages that we looked at or the different attributes we looked at. So those are there.

But if you, we should first also welcome some of our new students. We have a new student, one new student. I mean, we have a couple of new students, but one is from Lima, Peru, which is our first student from there.

So we hope that the syllabus got out to you. All right. We hope it's there in time for tonight's class. If not, it should be there by next week's class, but that is one of the things you get as a student.

You get the syllabus, which is an 80 page syllabus with all of the notes and the passages that we look at and go over also with some fill in the blanks for you to have. And you are going to need to get your pen ready for tonight because tonight you're going to be taking some notes.

All right. And so we're, we have a lot of fill-ins there and we're going to go through these. We're going to see if we can actually get through this entire lesson in one lesson, but real quick, just so you know where we are.

We are in the systematic theology book one. Book one means that there's going to be more than one book. We are in book one, which is the, what we call the throne room of God. There's going to be a total of four books.

We're in section one, which is the doctrine of God. And this week we're going to look at the names of God. We're going to look at the names of God. So as we look into this, if you look in your syllabus, this is lesson four, names of God.

And you see there, right in your syllabus there that the names of God give us further evidence of his existence and his character. Now in the book, the name of names of God by Nathan Stone, he writes this quote, a name in the old Testament was often an indication of a person's character or some particular quality, but what one name could be adequate to describe the greatness of God or God's greatness.

And that's something that is, so it's unquote. And so when we look at the names of God, the names of God give his self-revelation is what he is saying his name is, which is different. We were given a name.

Now, any of you that happen to know my family, you know that my family is, has some Asian origin, not on my side, but on my wife's side. And my children have American names, but they also have Asian names, Chinese names.

And those were names that were given with very specific meanings. So my son, oh good. He's not here. So I won't get in trouble. I'm going to give away his Chinese name. My son's name is Sungye. It means to rely on Christ because my wife had a very difficult time through the pregnancy.

We just didn't realize we were going to have to keep relying on Christ with him. Yikes. No, he's, it was tough in the beginning, but you know, you look forward to those years where they start to mature.

My son becoming a man now and just seeing the changes in him, we're relying a little bit less on Christ. But, but my daughter's name is, means additional grace, Ga-Yun. And she was an additional grace after my son.

So they have names that have a meaning to us. That is the idea of the names of God. But this is God giving himself a name. Now this lesson is going to focus primarily on the names of God in the Old Testament.

In the New Testament, names of God will be discussed when in the next lesson we discuss the triunity of God. The triunity of God or trinity of God, whichever way you may be used to hearing it, but I'm going to argue for triunity next week.

We'll also look at the deity Christ and the deity of the Holy Spirit. We'll see the names there. Now, right as we start, when we talk about names in the Old Testament, I have to start and address something that may not be familiar to all of you, but some of you maybe have heard of this and we need to address this when we discuss the names of God.

And so if this goes over the head of some, that's okay. Don't worry about it. It's not a big deal, son, that you'll, as you go on and you continue in your studies, you're going to see this stuff. But there is a very liberal view of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, Penta being five, and it's referred as the J-E-P-D writers.

And so what that is, it is the idea that there's three main Old Testament names for God, Jehovah, Elohim, and Adonai. Now, when we look at those names, they say that there were, the liberals try to argue because they want to remove the supernatural nature of creation and the supernatural work of God in the Bible and specifically in Genesis in the first two chapters, but throughout the first five books.

And what they do is they come up with this idea that Genesis was actually written by four different writers and they're supposedly identified by the individual names they used for God. So the J is for Jehovah, the E is for Elohim, the P is for Adonai, and the D is for Deuteronomy.

In other words, they think that Deuteronomy argued, wrote the entire book is how it's argued, one writer. But the other four books had different writers that kind of just interplayed with one another.

And so that's the way that this is argued. Now, the issue that we have with this is that when we look at it, we're going to see that throughout this lesson tonight, it is very easily to understand that the different names are not different writers, but it is different characteristics that God wanted to make known about himself.

And so this theory of the two, it's really started in a way of creating a theory to answer what is thought of as a two creation accounts, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, as if those are two different accounts.

And yet there are not two different accounts of the creation story, one in Genesis 1 and one in Genesis 2. Genesis 2 is a further, more detailed explanation. Genesis 1 goes through all six days, seven days actually of creation, six days of creation and a day of rest.

And then Genesis 2 is specifically the sixth day focusing on the creation of man. So it's not two accounts. It's just that one is a 10 ,000 foot view and then chapter two is going in much deeper at a specific level at looking at just specific things.

And so we will see that as we look at the names of God, we're going to see that we very quickly are going to see these names have meanings and the meanings are what is going to help us to understand what the writers of the first five books were trying to emphasize because God was emphasizing his character.

We're going to see some things about his character. So let's look at his character and we're going to start with the first name for God and that is Elohim. Now, if you see there, L is the singular, but the name that we see is Elohim.

Let's look at that. If you're looking at filling in your blanks there in your syllabus, the name means strong one or almighty. So when we look at Elohim or L, it means a strong one or a mighty one. That's the idea behind the name of L.

Now the word is often in a plural identifying the majesty of God, the majesty of God. So the word is often used in plural to identify the majesty of God and allows for the teaching of the triunity or trinity.

So what we have here in this name for God, Elohim, is the name that we see through Genesis chapter 1 -1 all the way through to Genesis chapter 2 -4. So this is the name that we see used of God, the strong one, the almighty one.

And it's used in plural. Now God is one, he makes that clear throughout, but we already see right from the very first book, the very first verse of the very first book of the Bible that God is already laying a groundwork for the trinity.

So people who say the trinity is not in the Bible, the very first verse when it says God, it is a plural name. You wouldn't use a plural name if there's only one God. Now we're going to have to get into that when we look at next week's lesson.

This name though, if you look at your syllabus there, the name of God focuses on his attribute of omnipotence. Omnipotence and class, what is omnipotence? I'm waiting to see that those in the chat room are going to be jumping at the answer to tell me that omnipotence means all powerful.

I knew you guys knew that. You're so good class. Yeah. Some of you are not paying attention. All right. Now what we end up seeing is the word El is the singular, right? So you have El meaning almighty one.

Okay. The strong one or almighty. What we have here is we see with this, that in this name, with all the names, we're going to see that there's compounds. There is a compound that we will see with these names.

All right. So the compound names tell us a little something about God. All right. So let's look at the first one here. And as you can see, that is El Elyon. El Elyon. This is the first of the compounds in your syllabus.

And this is translated, the translation is most high God, the most high God. So let's take a look at a passage with this. And that is in Genesis 14, Genesis 14, we see and Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine.

He was priest of God most high. That is a word El Elyon here. Okay. And he blessed him and said, blessed be Abraham by God most high professor of heaven and earth and blessed be God most high who has delivered your enemies into your hand.

And Abraham gave a 10th of everything that he had. So what we see with this is that this describes God as not only being the strong one, but it's compounded with the God most high. So here is Abraham.

He is with Melchizedek, which I would argue is a prefiguring of Jesus Christ. It's Christ in his pre-incarnate form. We're going to see that when we look into the deity of Jesus Christ and the ministry of Jesus Christ.

But here he is, and we see him being described as the God most high. In other words, God is far above us. That may be news to some earthlings. All right. Some human beings kind of have this issue where they think like God needs to answer to me.

I have questions for God. You know, Job made that mistake, right? Job said, when I see God, I got some questions for him. And what ended up happening? When God spoke, Job's mouth was shut. Yeah, he felt pretty bad when God finally spoke.

And so what we end up seeing is that this is a name to identify that God is far above us. And we kind of tend to think that we're up there. We're not up there. God is up there. All right. So let's take a look at the next compound, and that is El Shaddai.

Some of you may be familiar with this one. There's some songs out there that talk about this, but El Shaddai, the translation means God Almighty. It is God's all sufficiency. So those are your blanks there.

The translation is God Almighty, and it highlights God's all sufficiency. Let's take a look at a couple passages with this. And as you see here in this passage, we have Genesis 17 .1, when Abraham was 99 years old.

I know that's what you think. Some of you think I am. I'm not that old yet. But when Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to him, I am God Almighty. That's the El Shaddai. Walk before me and be blameless.

Genesis 28 .3 is another. God Almighty, blessed be you and make you fruitful and multiply you that you may become a company of peoples. So El Shaddai gives us this understanding or this view of God's all sufficiency.

All right. And so the question that we end up seeing or the issue characteristic we see there is that God is as a all sufficient sovereign being and self-existent one that we can rest on the fact that in His sufficiency, He doesn't need anything.

All right. Which may change the way some of people share the gospel. What do I mean by that? Well, because some people actually share the gospel and they make it sound like, you know, God did so much for us, but He needed us.

He created man because He needed man to have a relationship with and a fellowship with. I got news for you. God did not need you and I. God had fellowship within the Trinity. He didn't need us. When we talk like that, it's as if we're making us more important than God.

The central theme of the Bible is not man and his salvation. It's God and His glory. That's the difference. And when we share the gospel with people, it's not centered on man and what God did for man.

God is sufficient without men. He didn't need you and I. He chose to create us. He is completely self-sufficient, all sufficient. He doesn't need us. I hate to burst some of your bubbles. Let's look at another one, El Olam.

El Olam. And this one here, we could translate. The translation for this is everlasting God. Everlasting God. And it highlights God's eternality. It highlights His eternality. Let's take a look at a passage and see what Genesis 21 says.

And it says, Abram planted a tree. I don't know how to pronounce it. Temesker tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God. So that talks about the character of God being an everlasting God.

He's not only a strong one, He is an everlasting one. So we have the idea there. It tells us about Him. He's not going to go out of existence. In other words, there's not going to be some being greater than Him that's going to knock Him off.

Let's move on so we can get through these. And that is El Roya. El Roya. Now this one we would translate as God who sees. The God who sees. Now real quick for those in the chat room, what would this highlight?

If this is the God who sees, then what might be the thing that this is going to highlight? The attribute of God that we got done looking at that this one would highlight. If He's the God who sees, it would be that He is all-knowing or omniscient.

And that would be what it highlights. It highlights God's omniscience. God's omniscience. Let's take a look at a passage of scripture. This is Genesis 16. And it says here, So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, you are the God, you are a God of seeing.

That's our name, El Roya. For she said, you truly have seen Him and looked after me. So this is now dealing with the time when Abraham had Hagar. Hagar runs away and God sees her and says that the child in her womb will have a future that he will be blessed.

So now here's some of the things I want to point out. If you have some of the modern translations and you want to see when does the word El or Elohim get used. It's used over 2 ,500 times in the Old Testament and it is often translated, if you look in your syllabus you have it there, it's usually translated God.

And that's a God with a capital G lowercase od. Most of the modern translations translate this way. This is a helpful way for us when we read the Old Testament to know which of the names of God are used.

So if we look at some of those passages, let's just bring any one of them up. Okay, that one's fine. You see that it's God of seeing. You see that God, G-O-D. The G is capitalized and then the lowercase od, that is, we say that because that's going to be different than what we're going to see in a few moments when we're going to look at some of the other names, actually the very next name, when it's going to also be of God but it's going to be in all caps.

Alright, and so you can take note of this because we'll get to it again but if it's in all caps, either Lord or God, it is this next one. And this next word, so the next main word that we see for God, we see, we saw Elohim, alright.

Now the next one that we'll take a look at is Yahweh or Jehovah. Now let me just take a quick, as we look at this, I want to just show you that you see the four letters there, the Y-H-W-H. Why do we have two names?

Why is it Jehovah? Why do we sometimes see it that way? Well, first off, let me say this. The name, for those having taken notes in your syllabus, the meaning of Yahweh or Jehovah, it means self-existing one, self-existing one, that's your first blank, self-existing one.

The name means self-existing one and is used in reference to God's covenant relationships, His covenant relationships. So this is where He's having a relationship with man that He's building a covenant and He's going to use this name, alright.

But it has the idea of self-existing one and it comes, we'll see from meaning this Yahweh, oops, sorry, wrong one. That one, yes, thank you. Gen Exodus 3, 314. This is where we see it used and it is God said to Moses, I am who I am and He said, say to the people that I am has sent me to you.

Now notice the I am in this passage in all caps. It's that way because that is our word here for Jehovah. Now why Jehovah? This is an issue here that what we see, one of the Ten Commandments was that you could not use the Lord's name in vain, okay.

So not using the Lord's name in vain, what the Jews would do is to not use this word at all. So when we would say in Hebrew and we come upon something that would have the word for Yahweh, now remember in Hebrew we had only the consonants written, the vowels were not written.

So you do not have vowels. So we do not know the vowels for this name. We only have the consonants written down because what would happen would be is when people would come to the reading of that name, they did not want to say it so they substituted another name.

The latter name we are going to look at next, Adonai. So almost all of the prayers that Jewish people would have would say, blessed be the Lord, Baruch Atah Adonai. But the word would not be Adonai, it would be this word that we have here, okay, Yahweh.

But now what would be is because people would use Adonai, what they did is they took the consonants that were there and they replaced them with the vowels for Elohim giving us Jehovah. So Jehovah is how we most often use it.

Now it becomes an interesting thing because if you get someone that is a Jehovah Witness and we are going to talk about them in a little bit, they hold this name as very valuable. This is what they would say is just a name solely used of God, the Father.

And they would see a separation because God the Father is God but God the Son and God the Spirit are not. That is how they would see it. I am going to give you a verse in a couple of minutes, one passage of scripture that just blows the Jehovah Witnesses out of the water, okay.

They have a real problem with it and they are not ready to handle it. But we see that this is the name. Now I am going to say this, when we look in the New Testament, do you remember when Jesus said, He called Himself I Am?

And what did the Jews do in John chapter 10? They picked up stones to stone Him because He being a man claims to be God. They understood very well what He said. He was using for Himself the specific name for God that is never used of men.

It is only used of God and He used it of Himself. Remember when the men came in the garden to take Jesus by force because they were going to arrest Him and He said I Am? Most of our translations say I Am He but if you look the He is in italics because it was added in.

He claimed to be I Am and they fell backwards on the ground and they got up and He again said who do you seek? And they said Jesus of Nazareth and He said I Am. Twice He claimed to be that specific name only of God.

So we see here that this has the meaning of a self existing one and it highlights God's covenant relationships. Let's take a look at some of the compounds with that. This is one that again there are some songs written about this so maybe some of you have seen this name before.

It is Yahweh or Jehovah Jireh. This name Jehovah Jireh maybe some of you know it right off the bat from songs but it is the Lord. It's translation is the Lord provides. The Lord provides. Let's look at a passage of Genesis 22 verse 14.

So Abraham called on the name of that place the Lord. Notice that is in all caps. That's for Jehovah. The Lord will provide. This is Jehovah Jireh. As He said this day on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.

So this is the name if you remember this is the situation here where Isaac is being offered and a ram was provided instead and we see here that this is a case where we see that the Lord provided another sacrifice other than Isaac.

So the Lord is a provider. Now maybe some of us in America don't appreciate that enough but there are those around the world our brothers and sisters who are very very thankful that God is a provider.

He provides their needs. We don't appreciate that enough but I just got done watching something from Voice of the Martyrs on the underground church in Colombia and seeing how there's orphanages that try to take these children in whose families have been killed by the parents have been killed by gorillas and they have enough food to feed the kids twice a week.

How many of you eat twice a day? They eat twice a week but God provides. They can use some help in that provision by the way. Just saying. But this is a Lord who provides. I experienced that in a time in my life when I was out of work.

I was living on someone's couch paying them $50 to stay on their couch or $50 a week and had no food. But God provided throughout that and that became something where I realized I was too proud to actually tell anyone I had needs.

Some stupid thing that we do isn't it? I actually at the time was a deacon in my church and I was in charge of the deacon's fund which was really messed up that I'm giving taking care of other people's needs but I was too proud to say that I had need.

But even in my pride God knew my needs and took care of me by sending people with food to me that never even knew my needs. But He did send one special person who found out my need. See I had gotten a job and I went to go eat lunch with some other Christians but see I didn't have enough money for lunch for about two days because I had to get to work so I put the money in for gas.

That was all the money I had waiting for the paycheck and a special girl that I met at my job found out that I wasn't eating lunch because I couldn't afford it. And the next day there were two bags of groceries on my desk.

Later she told that story in church and someone in her church gave me $50 which was enough money for me to have gas the rest of the week until I got paid. The food that she gave me was enough to feed me for those two weeks until I got paid.

It must have really made an impression on me because I married that beautiful lady. So the Lord provided even through my future wife. Let's look at the next one. Jehovah or Yahweh Rapha. This translated is the Lord our healer.

The Lord our healer. Let's take a look at a passage of scripture here with this. And this is from Exodus 15 saying if you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God. Notice Lord there is all caps Jehovah.

Notice the word God that tells us what this is the name for God as Elohim. So here you see both of them being used. Jehovah your Elohim. And do that which is right in his eyes and give ear to the commandments and keep all his statutes.

I will put none of these diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians for I am the Lord your healer. I am the Lord your healer. That is the idea here. That is the idea that God is a healer. He is the great physician as we know in the New Testament.

He can heal and he did heal throughout time and can heal today. It doesn't mean he always heals. But he can because that is the kind of God he is. Let's look at the next one and this is Jehovah Nitze or Yahweh Nitze.

Now this one here is a little bit different. This one would be translated for us the Lord our banner. The Lord our banner. Now this one we need to take a look at a passage of scripture for this with some explanation.

This is Genesis 17 15. It says Moses built an altar and called the name of it the Lord my banner Yahweh Nitze. Now let's get the context of this so that we understand what's going on. In Exodus 17 this is a case where what is happening is that Moses if you remember a time when the Israelites are fighting the Amalekites God told Moses to go out and hold up a banner.

So he had to hold it up high. When he held up the banner up high the Israelites would win the battle. But when he lowered it because his hands got tired they would lose in the battle. And it was a symbol for the Israelites their dependence on God's protection.

So as he lifted up and if you remember the story he lifted up high and as he was lifting it up on high they stuck something underneath his arms to hold his arms up. They stuck sticks underneath his arms so his arms would stay in the air so that they'd win the battle.

This talks about God as a protector. He protects his children. He takes care of us. He not only provides for us he not only heals us but he protects us. Now you say well then how do you get those people that in the in some countries that are being killed martyred for the gospel?

How is that protection? And though we may not always understand everything that God is doing we know that God is good. And so we have to understand that there are times when we can't understand everything of God.

And we must remember that okay that God is doing things we can't comprehend. His protection doesn't mean that he's going to keep us from harm all the time but there are times where he will. Now this next one this next one that I want us to look at is really good if you're talking to a Jehovah Witness.

And that is oh sorry that's next one sorry I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm just so excited. It is this one is Yahweh Mekadeshrem. This is the Lord our sanctification. The Lord our sanctification. All right and let's take a look at a passage for this and that is Genesis sorry Exodus Exodus and chapter 31.

All right Exodus 31. All right that says, You are to speak to the people of Israel and say above all you shall keep my Sabbaths for this is a sign between me and and you throughout your generations that you may know that I the Lord sanctify you.

That is the name here Mekadeshrem. And so what you have here is the idea of the Lord who sanctifies us. And this is important to us I would hope because we would hope that we are being sanctified being made more in the image of God more saint like.

All right and so what we have here is the idea that God is the sanctifier. It is God who's actually doing the sanctifying work through his children. He's purifying his own. All right let's take a look at one more this is Yahweh Shalom.

I don't know if any of you know Shalom. The name the word means peace. So this is translated the Lord our peace. The Lord our peace. Let's take a look at in Judges chapter 6. Judges chapter 6 and we see Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it the Lord our peace.

All right so we see there that that is the that the Lord brings peace. This is the name Shalom. We saw that actually earlier when we looked at Melchizedek. He was the king of Shalom or peace. This is also where Jerusalem gets its name.

All right and so this is actually a greeting that Shalom is a Jewish greeting. You say peace that's how you greet one another. Let's move on to the next one Yahweh Sabuth. Yahweh Sabuth and this is this one here is would be translated Lord of hosts.

The Lord of hosts. All right and so let's look at a we're not gonna have time to look at both of these. Let's look at the second one there in Isaiah chapter 6. You can see there in Isaiah 6 5 and I said woe is me for I am lost for I am a man of unclean lips and I do dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the king the Lord of hosts.

That is that word that we have here the Lord of hosts and this one is used to talk about the heavenlies, the host of heaven, the angel, the realm that we think of of God. All right because of time I want to move on to the next one here and that is Yahweh Ruhr.

Yahweh Ruhr is translated the Lord our shepherd. The Lord our shepherd. We'll see that in Psalm 23 1 right the passage of the shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. We see it right there Yahweh Ruhr. All right let's let this is the idea that this is the God similar to El Rory.

We saw that this compound with El the God who sees. This is the God who shepherds. So it has that same connotation with it. All right let's move on to the one I was telling you about with Jehovah Witnesses.

I want to get to this so we have time for this passage. Yahweh Sikkenu. It's translated the Lord our righteousness. The Lord our righteousness. So let's take a look at this and see that in Jeremiah 23.

Let me encourage you to get your Bible out real fast. I'm going to read verse 5 because this is how you use it with a Jehovah Witness. I do this often with Jehovah Witnesses. All right so let's take a look.

I don't have verse 5 up there. Sorry I didn't give that ahead of time. But if you take your Bible out Jeremiah 23 verse 5. And behold the days are coming declares the Lord Jehovah. It'll say Jehovah in their Bible.

You see it in all caps. When I will raise up for David a righteous branch and he shall be king and deal wisely and execute justice and righteousness in the land. And stop them at that point. Stop them and say okay who does that talk about?

Who's that referring to? And they're going to say Jesus. And when they say Jesus then ask them to read verse 6. And in his days Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely and his name by which he will be called is Jehovah Sikkanu.

The Lord our righteousness. Did you notice that was in all caps? That's Jehovah. Jesus Christ will be called Jehovah. Not only once in Jeremiah but twice in Jeremiah he does that. I don't have that passage, the other passage on me right now.

But there's two times where he does that. Alright. Let's look at the last one with this compound and that is Yahweh Shema. This is translated as the Lord is present. The Lord is present. Let's take a look at the passage here in Ezekiel 48.

And we see here in Ezekiel 48. Just look at the end of that passage real quick. And you'll see there that the Lord is there. That is that word right here. In other words the Lord is present with us. This is dealing with what attribute?

His omnipresence. So this deals with his omnipresence. He is present with us. Alright. Now if you look in your syllabus, those of you who have a syllabus, which I wish would be all of you. Some of you have not enrolled yet in the academy but you can enroll.

We'll talk about that a little bit more later. But you can enroll in the academy and with that you get the syllabus. It's one of the things you get. It has all these notes. The word Jehovah is used about 6 ,800 times in the Old Testament.

And like I said earlier you can identify this in most of the modern translations because it will be Lord or God in all caps. So if you see Lord God where one of them is in all caps and usually Jehovah will be the first one.

Lord God where Lord is all caps is Jehovah and the God is then referring to Elohim. If you see God in all caps and lowercase Lord, God is going to refer to Jehovah and Lord is going to refer to this next word that we have Adonai.

The translation of this is master or ruler. Master or ruler. Let's take a look real quick at the passage that we have for this and this is out of Exodus 4, 10 -12. I don't know that I'm going to have time to read all of this but you see there where it says, well let's try it.