Becoming Better Theologians (part 21)

Our Father in Heaven, Lord, we come before you this morning just so thankful, not just for the opportunity of being here, of gathering with your people, of coming to hear your word, but thankful that you have redeemed a people for yourself, for your own glory.

Lord, we rejoice that you would condescend to do such a great work. Father, would you bless us this day as we gather to learn more about you, to contemplate the great things that you have done on our behalf, and Lord, the great things that you continue to do for us daily.

Your mercies are new each morning. Father, bless our time in Christ's name. Amen. Well, last week we continued to talk about God's revelation to us, and we're going to be, hopefully,

I think this morning, wrapping that up and then moving on to the names of God, and the first one we will discuss will be

Yahweh, but we talked about the different ways in which God has revealed himself.

I don't really think we've talked about how God reveals himself in special works, what

Culver describes as special works. This angle is really going to weird me out, but that's the way it is.

Okay, we've talked about how he reveals himself in creation.

We've talked about somewhat how he's revealed himself through scripture, but there are extraordinary events.

What would be an example of an extraordinary event where you would get to learn something about God? Now, I know for my dad, what my dad would say is an extraordinary event was the birth of his children.

The birth of his grandchildren, the birth of his great -grandchildren. What is an extraordinary event?

Like the parting of the Red Sea, or what we would call a miracle. We've talked before in the past about miracles.

How would you define a miracle? How would someone here this morning define a miracle? The Red Sox winning the

World Series is not a miracle, just to give you an idea. It is not a miracle, because it's happened several times.

Something that cannot be explained by natural laws.

Is there a flaw in that description? Only God can do it. God has set up the law.

I had heard at one point in time that God has habits. We think of it as a law is immutable, but to God it's a habit.

This is the way that I tend to do things, but at a certain point in history I can change. Okay. Peggy said that it's something only

God can do, special work only He can do. Daniel said that we tend to think of the laws of nature as laws, immutable, cannot be violated, but that God more or less views them as habits.

Things that typically happen, but that He can do as He wills. I'm going to define a miracle a slightly different way, because I think there are laws.

God has certainly set up laws and rules by which

He runs the universe. A miracle I would define as God entering the space -time continuum and interrupting the natural flow of events in a way that only

He can do. Let me try that again. God entering the space -time continuum and doing things that only

God can do. When we think about parting the

Red Sea, Moses didn't say when he got up there,

Moses, also known as Charlton Heston, when he got up to the

Red Sea and he said, Behold my mighty hand. He didn't say that.

Right? In other words, it was clear what Charlton Heston even said in the movie, in the script.

It was, Behold his mighty hand. It's the work of God. No one else could do that.

We could go on and on about how the liberal critics of the

Bible try to say, Well, you know, it wasn't so much that God parted the

Red Sea. It's that Moses was very clever, and he discovered a little path across the, or, you know, it wasn't really the

Red Sea. It was a little pond over here on the side. Praise God, because he drowned the whole thing.

Yeah. Daniel's exactly right. I think someone else has said this before. I think it's maybe

R .C. Sproul or somebody else, you know, cleverly said, Well, praise the Lord that he was able to drown the

Egyptian army in two inches of water. You know, that's pretty amazing, right? They get through, and then in comes the water.

But something that only God can do, and what does it tell us about him?

His ways are higher than our ways in this sense because he does, again, he does things that we can only just go,

Wow, I can't believe he did that. That's amazing. And it does imply, certainly, what

Daniel was saying before, that the laws of God are the laws of God, and he's able to, you know, whether you want to call them, break them.

I wouldn't call them, break them, but he's able to supersede them, to interrupt them, to do what he wants.

Bruce. That's excellent.

It puts to the lie this whole idea that God is somehow uninterested, that he's uninvolved, that he doesn't get his hands dirty, that he's this deistic cosmic watchmaker who just basically wound it all up and just let it go, and now he's just kind of watching.

This is a God who, anthropomorphically speaking, gets his hands dirty.

He's involved. He's into the details. He is caring for his creation and for his people.

It says something, certainly, about his power. When we talk about a miracle, we see that God is doing something that only he can do.

It reminds us of what? Of the gap that exists between God and us. Because it's unimaginable.

When Jesus calls Lazarus forth from the grave, I can imagine that the people sitting there that morning weren't thinking, well,

Lazarus is going to come out, you know, no doubt about that. It's unimaginable.

Who could possibly do such a thing? Only God. Culver goes on and he says, we truly do not know how he works either creation or providence, as the

Almighty overwhelmingly reminded us in Job 38 and 39. Let's just open up to Job 38.

We'll just get a little bit of a flavor here. You know, all this kind of debating, why these terrible things have happened to Job.

You know, where is God in all this? And when

God, or where is God in all this? You know, how does he view

Job and his situation? And in Job 38, God answers.

Then the Lord. And again, I want to draw your attention to this, because this is what we're going to be talking about, not next week, but the weeks following.

The Lord, when you see all capital letters, that is Yahweh. Yod -Heh -Vav -Heh. W -H -Y -H.

Meaning the covenant name of God. Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

Dress for action like a man. Again, I will question you and you make it known to me. Where were you when

I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements?

Surely you know. Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk?

Or who laid its cornerstone? When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of glory shouted for joy.

Or who shed in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb? When I made clouds its garments and thick darkness its swaddling band and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors and said, thus far shall you come and no farther.

And here shall your proud waves be stayed. Have you commanded the morning since your days began and caused the dawn to know its place that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth and the wicked to be shaken out of it?

And on and on and on it goes. He just says to Jacob, or to Job, again and again, basically, who are you, old man, who answers back to God?

I know everything, and in comparison to me, you know nothing. God's power,

His ability to intervene, arises in special cases.

Let's look at Exodus 5 .2. And when somebody has that, if they would read that, please.

Exodus 5 .2. Go ahead,

Casey. But Pharaoh said, Who is the

Lord that I should obey His voice and let Israel go? I do not know the

Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.

So Pharaoh says, you know, basically, Moses, you know, why would

I let Israel go? Who's this guy you refer to? Who's this God that you refer to?

I don't know who He is. And so what does the Lord do in response?

He lets loose with the plagues to show Pharaoh exactly who He was.

God purposed that Pharaoh and all of his people would learn some things about the Lord God of the Hebrews. Moses said to the

Egyptian king during one of the plagues, I will stretch out my hands to the Lord, the thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the

Lord's. He is in control of everything. Let's also look at Exodus 10 verses 1 and 2.

And who would like to read that, please? Go ahead,

Harry. Then the Lord said to Moses, Go into Pharaoh, and that you may tell him the hearing of your son and of your grandson that have done among them that...

Okay. What is a sign? What was the

Lord speaking about when He talked about a sign that He had done? Intervening in the time -space continuum of special events.

It's one of those interventions of God in the space -time continuum where He did only what

He could do. And notice at the end of that passage that you may know again that concept.

Why is He doing these miracles? God doesn't do miracles just to show off. He's not some kind of big magician with a finale and all that, and all the big flowers or fireworks or the poofs of smoke.

He has a purpose in it. Throughout biblical and Christian history, people have learned many things about God through biblical miracles and the providences of God.

The providences, or the prophets, frequently rebuked Israel of old for forgetting about God's miracles of deliverance or for misinterpreting them.

I mean, you would think... And this is something... I mentioned this before, but this really is true.

Atheists, hard -hearted people, they say, if God would show Himself to me,

I would believe. But I've mentioned before that people followed Jesus around, they saw the miracles, did they believe?

No. But what's worse? What's worse, I think, is the case of Israel.

Because here you have miracles where people are literally taken out of the heart of the most powerful nation on Earth.

And they see miracle after miracle. And they don't believe. And even after, you know, 40 years in the wilderness, being fed manna, do they believe?

The answer is no. There's never enough miracles for them. People don't look at the miracles of God and say, wow, what a powerful

God, therefore I believe. They say, wow, what a powerful God, and then five minutes later, however long it takes, they're off to their next sin.

But that is the special revelation of God, the special messages that He brings to His people via miracles.

We learn about God through miracles. Pam? Just give me something

I can see. And God says, I'm going to give you something you can see. And you see death all the time.

Cemetery, all we see. We can't get away from it. You know, so God has given us something we can see all the time.

Yeah, Pam points out that we have something that we can see, and we see it all the time, we see it every day, and it's called death.

And yet, even as people stare death in the face, do they say, I'm going to bow the knee to the God I know exists by virtue of creation and everything else?

The answer is no. Because people love their sin. All right, briefly, we're going to talk about something that we will develop more, but the message that comes from God through Scripture.

He describes it as a special category because it is perfect revelation and includes all the other, all the other ways that we know about God.

He says the Bible claims not to be one, well, I would say this, that the

Bible is one message about God, but it is a series of messages about God, right? We would agree with that because it is a series of books, 66 of them written by 40 plus prophets or apostles or the associates thereof.

We can see the gospel of Christ promised in the Old Testament and fulfilled and spelled out plainly in the

New Testament. Then he notes this, and I think this is great. The Scriptures are a complete guide to what we must believe as well as all the information we need for service and holy living.

Say that again. The Scriptures are a complete guide to what we must believe as well as all the information we need for service and holy living.

What do we need that we don't have in the Word of God? And the answer is nothing. Lastly, the last revelation about God that we're going to talk about is

God's unique revelation in his Son. Let's open our Bibles to Hebrews 1.

And who would read that verses 1 and 2 for us? Now, there's a common error, and I spoke about this a couple months ago.

When we see this, he spoke to the fathers in many different ways. What do people still expect today?

Some people expect today. They expect him to speak in the same way.

But look what it says here. This is basically, if I were going to describe it this way,

I'd say, you know what, this is how God used to speak to mankind. And he used a multitude of ways, and now he has spoken to us in a final way through his

Son, Jesus Christ. That's the Steve Amplified version. Thank you. He says here, he says, the

Greek text does not furnish, and this is interesting because literally in the Greek it says that he has spoken to us by a

Son, not the Son. So he says, Culver notes, the Greek text does not furnish the or his before the word

Son. The point of emphasis is that though Revelation in the Old Dispensation, in the

Old Testament, had been through authentic prophets, in the New Dispensation, Revelation comes through one of a superior order, that is, a

Son of God, not a Son of man. In other words, the differentiation being between,

I mean, how many times would we hear in the Old Testament, Son of man, when he was talking to a prophet, whether it was

Daniel or somebody else, he'd say, Son of man, tell the people that it's Son of man, this, Son of man, now he says, no, no, this is entirely different.

He used to speak through a Son of man, but now he speaks through a Son of God, and in fact, the only

Son of God. His very name, Emmanuel, means God with us, in Isaiah 714.

Of course, now in Matthew 121, this was on our quiz the other night in Bible boot camp, and people missed it, which was amazing, because it was open

Bible, but that's beside the point. Matthew 121, you shall call his name

Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. What does that mean, Jesus?

MacArthur notes that it means Savior. I think that's kind of shorthand, because what it really means is, and we'll develop this, it means

Yahweh saves, God saves. It's so interesting, and we'll get into this when we get into the names of God, but just to give you a little bit of a preview, when we think about how people named their children in the

Old Testament, in the Jewish economy, it was vastly different than we do now. Now we pick out a name that we really like, and we, most of us don't even,

I've given away too much, but we don't even know what the name is, right? And then it would be something like, not my son, or, you know, or something to do with God generally here, and in this case, the name is given to him, and it is

Yahweh saves, or God saves. But how important is

Jesus, because, well, let's look at John 1, and I want somebody to read verses 14 and 18, please.

In fact, if you want, you can read 14 through 18, that's fine. KC. You want all of it, or?

Yeah, 14 through 18. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only

Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness about him and cried out,

This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.

And from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, and grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the

Father's side. He has made him known. This is, to summarize, this is

God's final word. This is his final revelation. Why? Because it is the perfect revelation.

Through Christ, God has made himself known. When we think about some of the things that Jesus said,

If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. He said, I and the

Father are one. This is God's perfect personal revelation to us.

When God had finished speaking through our Lord, what else was there to say?

So the risen Christ ascended. The risen, ascended

Christ sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High, Hebrews 1 .3. God's work as revelator and Christ's work as revelator was essentially finished.

Here's something I bolded and put in big red letters. God presently has no new avenues of revelation to open.

God presently has no new avenues of revelation to open. Now this is something that we intellectually know, but again and again and again, and no matter how many times we talk about it, we struggle to get this, and I'm not really sure why.

Maybe it comforts us to think that there's some new way that God can speak to us, that he is going to whisper in our ears or give us some kind of sign or something like that, but we don't have anything like that.

And I think Pastor Micah said it well. If the Bible isn't enough for you, if Christ isn't enough for you, then you will go off and you will find new things, and in my opinion, eventually you will find trouble.

Culver says, as we reflect on the variety of modes of acquiring knowledge of God discussed in this chapter, it becomes apparent that very little of God's grace and redemption are known to us, apart from the last three mentioned.

God's providential and miraculous works, the Scriptures, and the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words,

God's works, the Scriptures, and the Lord Jesus Christ. What else do we need? The other sorts of revelation, each valid in some circumscribed way, are inadequate.

We're talking about general revelation. We've talked about how you cannot be saved, and this is an important point, and another one that people missed on the quiz.

No one can be saved by just merely looking at the world and observing that there is a higher power, a

God. That doesn't work. You have to know Jesus Christ specifically.

The Bible occupies a unique place in revelation. It's a report of ancient history.

A ritual revelation, while incomplete, is sufficient for all the information we need to have and the only dependable one we need.

Let's go on to the names of God. We don't need to read far in the

Old Testament until we learn that personal names and many other proper names are important.

They are important because they each have meaning. For example, what does the word

Adam mean? Okay. It means man, but it is the word for ground, soil, earth, dirt, signifying that the human body is taken from natural elements in the soil.

Right? Adam was formed from the soil, so God called him Adam. Eve means life.

I was interested to note that it's also the same name as Ava. That's what the

Hebrew is. Who knows what Cain means? I thought of this and I immediately thought of Andrew.

Not because he killed his brother. Cain means smith or metal worker, indicating the origin of metallurgy.

I can speak. Metallurgy. I almost asked for help. Among his progeny, his children.

Who knows what David means? This is fitting too.

Beloved. Culver says some names indicate the one who bestowed it, hoped it would develop in the character or history of the person designated.

You know, when we named our daughter Kristen, I won't tell you what her name was originally going to be because it wasn't so great.

We didn't take a vote and decide how to change it, but when we decided on Kristen, I remember looking through the baby book and thinking

Kristen. Christian is what it means. And then her middle name is

Elizabeth. So here we were, pagans, and we named our child

Christian Gift of God. I think that's pretty cool.

And I think Megan means pearl. I'm sure it does. And then Caitlin is strong, so it's strong pearl.

Okay. I only know each dollar. No, that's the other pastor who does that.

But, you know, sometimes there's a hope when you name a child, certainly in the Old Testament, that that's what they would do.

But talking about the names of God, several of God's names arose out of believers' experiences with him.

They gave insights to God's way of dealing with us. Before I go to that,

I just have to give you one more name. It's been a long time since I talked about it.

Anybody remember what Samson's name means? I mean, if you know the story of Samson from Judges 13 to 16,

Samson is someone who was prophesied of or told.

His parents were told by the angel of the Lord, in other words, the pre -incarnate Christ, that this special child was going to be born.

And told of all the things that he would do, or some of the things he would do, the great way that he would be used by the

Lord. And so they named him after a pagan god, the sun god of the local region that they were in.

And you just go, okay, these people were not too, you know, adept in the ways of the Lord here. Names, what's in a name?

Okay, but talking about the names of God, a lot of people know what

Jehovah -Jireh means, which is the Lord will provide.

How about Jehovah, now let's see if I can say this, Tzedeknu, close enough.

God our righteousness, or Yahweh our righteousness. Theological writers emphasize that these are the ones that most distinctly draw analogies, or make comparisons between human beings and the creator

God. In other words, they are the most distinctly anthropomorphic.

By understanding the language, we can understand something true about God.

Jerome, ancient theologian, following the Jewish custom of the time, said that there are properly 10 biblical names of God.

And Culver says, well, these are important Old Testament names, but it does not carry over the New Testament.

But there are other metaphors in the New Testament, such as Shepherd and other things. Now, I want to invite you, before we get to what

I really had prepared this morning, let's look at Genesis 15. I want us to get an idea.

And you know, there are just some things, and I keep stressing this in the Thursday night class, there are some, look at that, the ever -shrinking pulpit.

There are some passages in Scripture that I just think we need to know backward and forward.

And if I'm talking to the group on Thursday night, I really want them to understand things like Ephesians 1 and 2,

Romans 8 and 9, John 6, a multitude of passages in the

New Testament. But here in Genesis 15, I think we have something that really just needs to be kind of tattooed in our minds.

When we think about the greatness of God, we need to think about this passage. Because it tells us something of the character.

Now look, chapter 15, verse 1, after these things, the word of the

Lord, Yahweh, covenant God of Israel, covenant

God of Abraham, we're going to learn something about the nature of this covenant

God in this passage. After these things, the word of the

Lord came to Abram in a vision. Fear not, Abram, I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great.

But Abram said, O Lord God, what will you give me for I continue childless and the heir of my house is

Eleazar of Damascus, a servant, a relative maybe. And Abram said, behold, you have given me no offspring and a member of my household will be my heir.

And behold, the word of the Lord came to him. This man shall not be your heir.

Your very own son shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said, look toward heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them.

Go ahead and count. I'll wait. Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be.

And he believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness. He imputed it to Abraham as righteousness.

He credited Abraham with righteousness for simply believing, for simply taking

God at his word. And he, God, said to him, I am the Lord, covenant

God, who brought you out from the from or of the Chaldeans and gave you this land to possess.

But he said, O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it? He, God, said to him, bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle dove and a young pigeon.

And he brought him all these, cut them in half and laid each half out over against the other.

But he did not cut the birds in half. And when the birds of prey, buzzards up in the air, whatever they were, came down on the carcasses,

Abraham drove them away. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abraham.

And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord said to Abraham, Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there.

And they will be afflicted for four hundred years, speaking of the captivity in Egypt. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve.

And afterward, they shall come out with great possessions. That's exactly what happened. As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace.

You will die in peace. You shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation for the iniquity of the

Amorites is not yet complete. When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.

On that day, the Lord, the covenant God Yahweh, made a covenant with Abraham, saying to your offspring,

I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river

Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the

Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Riffium, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the

Girgashites, and the Jebusites, and all the other ites. Lots of ites.

The point of, I mentioned this before, but the point of going through all those animal pieces, the point of a covenant, suzerain vassal covenant is this.

The suzerain, the king, the person in charge to his vassal, to his charge, to the person that he is promising to protect.

Typically, they would both walk these through this, these split animals together, with the idea two human beings would do this, with the idea that it's like signing a contract.

We're going to walk down this aisle together. Think of this in terms of a wedding. We're going to walk down this aisle together.

And if either one of us breaks the deal we're making today, our fate should be that of the animals, cut in half.

And so Abraham and God walk down the aisle, oh wait, Abraham was in a deep sleep.

This is a promise that God makes with himself. He makes it to Abraham, but he says, on myself, in my own covenant -keeping strength, in my integrity, in my honesty, by my power,

I will bring these things to pass. And if they don't come to pass, then may what is done to these animals be done to me, which is impossible.

The promises to Abraham are ironclad. They cannot be broken. God has sworn an oath.

He has walked that aisle. He has said, nothing will stop me from carrying out my intention for you.

Daniel? Are those symbols meant to be the Shekinah glory? The smoking pot?

That I don't know. Daniel asked whether that's to be taken as the Shekinah glory, the glory of the

Lord. I don't know. What we know... Cloud and fire. What's that? Cloud and fire. Right? What we know is, unmistakably, it is

God passing through those, and it's a representation of God passing through those animals.

Abram knocked out. There is no doubt that God will bring about every promise to Abraham that he made.

Every single one. And that's the nature of Yahweh as a covenant keeper.

He cannot say something and then not have it come to pass, or that would besmirch his name.

His character, especially in the Hebrew mind, we don't understand that always today, his character was entangled, it was enmeshed with his name.

Why don't you want to take the name of the Lord in vain? Because you are blaspheming his character. You're talking ill about God.

God will not have his name taken lightly. He will not allow it to be spoken negatively about, especially when it is a promise that he's made.

God keeps his promise, and that's what the nature of Yahweh is.

Okay, now, let's look at Deuteronomy 32. We probably won't get through all this, but I wanted to just kind of introduce this idea.

By the way, I don't want to introduce the shame concept this morning, the concept of shame, but I will anyway.

For those of you who struggle to remember the books of the Bible in order, just know this.

Kaylee Blackstone has the first 15 books memorized, and she's on her way to all 66.

Every week she's like, Pastor Steve, what's my homework this week? Five more, Kaylee. Five more. Pretty scary.

Okay. Deuteronomy 32. Give ear,

O heavens. This is Moses speaking. Give ear,

O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the earth.

For I will proclaim the name of the Lord, all capitals, Yahweh, ascribe greatness to our

God. Verse four. The rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice, a

God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he. They have dealt corruptly with him.

They are no longer his children, because they are blemished. They are a crooked and twisted generation.

Now listen to this. Do you thus repay the Lord, Yahweh, you foolish and senseless people?

Is not he your father who created you, who made you and established you? Remember the days of old.

Consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show you.

Your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the numbers of the sons of God.

But the Lord's portion to his people, Jacob allotted his heritage. Now let's just kind of start working our way through this, just briefly.

Culver notes, near the end of his life, Moses, the great lawgiver, delivered a series of sermons to his people, the children of Israel.

They had conquered Transjordan, this whole area. They were poised to invade

Canaan, the Promised Land, under fresh leadership. Joshua, before taking leave to die, and Gohom and I like that, taking leave to die.

By the way, who wrote about Moses' death? Moses. Moses composed a psalm, which he recited before the assembled tribes.

That's what this is. And again, notice,

I mentioned it a couple times, Yahweh appears, and it appears throughout the chapter of Deuteronomy 32, in verses 3, 6, 9, 12, 19, 27, 30, and 36.

From the Old Testament point of view, Yahweh is the only proper name of the national

God of Israel. Therefore, it is not surprising when it appears most frequently. 7 ,000 times.

And in the psalms, nearly 1 ,000 times. I mentioned it before, it's

Yod -Heh -Vav -Heh, YHWH, also known as the Tetragrammaton, which means four -letter, four -letter name of God.

It can sometimes be just Yah, or Jah, which is an abbreviated form of the name.

In its abbreviated name form, it is very common in Old Testament names.

Can you think of some people who had those last three letters as their name? How about Elijah?

There are plenty of others. But how about, here's one,

Jehoaz. Prefix is the name, Jehovah. But there are plenty of people that, you know, if they have that, or even if you,

I mean, we have Yahweh, we also have El, as in Danielle. Plenty of names that deal with God.

But in Deuteronomy 32 .3, Moses says, for I will proclaim the name of Jehovah, of Yahweh.

And this is the personal, proper name that Israel had for their God. Later in the song, Moses says, for Yahweh shall judge his people.

Showing again the special character of the name as personal, and as having meaning for his people.

They were his people, he was their God. There was a special relationship that he had with no one else.

And that is, when we see Yahweh, that is the intention there. Let me just close with this.

What is the practical notion, whether it's in, or the practical takeaway here, whether it's in Genesis 15, whether it's in Deuteronomy 32, wherever it is, what do we know about God just by virtue of the name

Yahweh? We know that God is a covenant keeper, that he keeps his promises.

And how do we use that in our daily life? If we understand the nature of God, if we understand that he is a promise keeper, that he is faithful, that he always does what he says he's going to do, does that give us comfort, or does that make us worry?

The antidote to worry is understanding the nature of God. When you understand that what he has promised you is absolutely fixed, cannot be moved, cannot be taken away, cannot be spoiled, you cannot even throw it away, when you understand that, you trust in him more.

You walk by faith, not by sight. You get through daily life because you know at the end of this life, gain, benefits, the presence of God, perfect in all of its glory forever, because he's promised it.

Let's pray. Father in heaven, would you give us the grace to remember that when you make promises to your people, you keep them.

The history of Israel is one of rebellion against you, and yet over and over again, you showed yourself faithful.

Father, may that be a lesson for us as we live our lives kind of a

Paul, Romans 7 kind of way. We don't do the things we want to do. We do the things that we don't want to do, but you are faithful.

When we fail, you never fail. Father, teach us to trust you more each day and to live in light of that trust.