My hope is that this series will offer my readers a chance to consider the names, characteristics and descriptions of our God in the Word.
The remaining Names of God in this series might be considered descriptors, or characteristics of the Lord. We have reviewed the three primary Names of God, along with nineteen compound Names of God in our previous posts. As we venture through these descriptors of our God, I hope we will recognize all the many characteristics of our God that we tend to take for granted.
The Word is truly rich with descriptions of the Living God, and this effort of searching in the Word was quite illuminating. He truly is the ultimate subject of the Word, and His revelation of self-descriptions, or the accolades offered Him by His priests, prophets, kings apostles and faithful truly is a blessing.
May the Name of the Lord be praised, and by thinking on His name, may you have a blessed day.
31
ANGEL OF HIS PRESENCE
Isaiah 63:9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
This passage is found in a chapter of Isaiah that recounts the Lord’s Day of Vengeance, and of the Lord’s mercy. After describing the vengeance of the Lord, of God trodding the winepress alone, of trampling them in His wrath, and of their blood staining His garments, Isaiah reminds the audience of the Lord’s mercy, of the steadfast love of the LORD.
This steadfast love of the LORD is described in our verse as a love that took action, joining those who deserved suffering in the suffering. This love of God took part in the affliction. He was afflicted with them in all their affliction.
Does this refer to the cross alone, or to the ever-present pain the Godhead experiences due to our consistent and stubborn rejection of His Kingship over us? This I cannot answer and may not be of any practical significance to us, for if we take anything away form this short consideration, we should realize that our God is a suffering God, and that He is present in our suffering.
But this is not the only activity Isaiah brings to our attention, for God is not simply suffering with us, but that in the suffering, His presence saves them, redeems them, lifts them up and carries them.
He is with us, in our suffering, providing deliverance, redeeming those who are “irredeemable”.
He is good, and He is good all the time. May the Name of the Lord be praised.
I would love to hear of your favorite name, characteristic or description of the Living God. Please leave me a comment, and I will include it in the list!
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion.
My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.
This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.
I pray I can communicate a portion of the blessing we receive from this wonderful book.
16 – But I call to God, and the LORD will save me. 17 – Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice. 18 – He redeems my soul in safety from the battle that I wage, for many are arrayed against me. 19 – God will give ear and humble them, he who is enthroned from of old, Selah because they do not change and do not fear God.
In our last post we considered Davids thinking in his prayer for confusion of message in the planning of his son Absolom. David now speaks of his confidence in God’s deliverance in his life. He speaks of God’s delieverance, and yet immediatly speaks of his complaint and moaning in front of God contuinually.
What am I missing here. Are we not to leave our concerns before the Lord, trusting He will take care of our trials. Is not David’s continual returning to God with his complaints and moans an expression of faithlessness? How does my reader understand this apparent conflict in David’s prayer?
God will save David, that is he is confident of God’s deliverance, and yet David keeps begging, complaining, moaning and coming to God.
As I grow in my walk with the Lord, I am sensing this very tension in some areas of my own experience. Granted, David is experiencing this tension with greater clarity, but as I grow older, I also see where my confidence is focusing on God Himself and not the circumstances we are in. That is too easy for me to say, for my situation is no where near the condition David was in the midst of in this psalm. In all that, I am understanding the end of our faith is to love God, and to accept His will for our lives. Is David accepting God’s will when he is moaning day and night before the throne?
I would strongly suggest David was doing exactly that! How can we know the will of God if we do not test it, seek how our wills are to align with God’s will, push the limits to determine God’s direction. I would suggest that David knew that generally speaking, God would save him, deliver him from his foes in battle, and in the end, prove to be the God who saves!
In between, in the specific way this deliverance is provided, David is in prayer. And this is the great blessing our God has given us to not only change us but to change God.
WHAT? Carl – you cannot be suggesting that God will revise His plans and decisions based on the requests of His children! But my friend, the Word gives us this hope and privilege.
Although I could suggest a number of times where a believer’s prayer influences God’s actions, I would love to hear from my readers. Take a few moments to comment on your most recent answered prayer, and how the Lord redirecting an almost certain situation into one that included your plea.
My hope is that this series will offer my readers a chance to consider the names, characteristics and descriptions of our God in the Word.
The remaining Names of God in this series might be considered descriptors, or characteristics of the Lord. We have reviewed the three primary Names of God, along with nineteen compound Names of God in our previous posts. As we venture through these descriptors of our God, I hope we will recognize all the many characteristics of our God that we tend to take for granted.
The Word is truly rich with descriptions of the Living God, and this effort of searching in the Word was quite illuminating. He truly is the ultimate subject of the Word, and His revelation of self-descriptions, or the accolades offered Him by His priests, prophets, kings apostles and faithful truly is a blessing.
May the Name of the Lord be praised, and by thinking on His name, may you have a blessed day.
29
ANCIENT OF DAYS
Daniel 7:9 “As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire.
Who is this “Ancient of Days”?
We find our passage in Daniel as he is in the midst of describing his vision of the four beasts, coming up out of the sea. Four beasts, with descriptions given that mix animals with birds, or animals with men. Each of these beasts had characteristics that were frightening, even as you consider the first one, which was given the “mind of a man”. Consider the mind of a man, without the conscience or a soul connection with God. Truly terrifying if true!
Each of the four beasts exhibited aspects that instilled fear, power and dominion over others!
Then Daniels attention is grabbed by some commotion out of his line of sight. The true reigning monarch shows up.
He, the Ancient of Days, took His seat, His throne, and His appearance was that of purity, of a fiery judgement or cleansing power, with millions at His feet, serving Him. The formerly described beast that was so mighty, was simply killed, and that not of any active judgement from the Ancient of Days, but by His sheer presence, and the record of the books.
He was the Supreme Ruler, the Ultimate King over all, until…
Until the son of man was presented before the Ancient of Days.
At that point, in my understanding, at the point of the Lord’s ascension, the son of man was …
given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.
The Ancient of Days, the Father of Glory gave to the Son the Kingdom. A Kingdom that will never end, and that shall not be destroyed. In the end, as Paul tries to explain, (or at least I try to understand), the Kingdom will be brought to the Father.
1 Corinthians 15:24 Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.
Somehow, in some manner beyond my comprehension, the Kingdom will transfer to the Father, with God becoming all in all.
1 Corinthians 15:28 When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.
All will be subject to the Son and to the Father. Harmony will be reestablished in creation, and we shall be happily and wonderfully subject to the true King.
May the Ancient of Days be honored in our lives today
I would love to hear of your favorite name, characteristic or description of the Living God. Please leave me a comment, and I will include it in the list!
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion.
Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
I was listening to a podcast recently – forgive me if I don’t recall the name of the presenter, but as I was listening, he told a story of a scientist who drowned rats for science sake. Yes – rats! I told my wifey ’bout this and she was all in – She hates the vermin and would like to see them all perish.
Nevertheless, this scientist spent copious amounts of time studying rats and their responses to being in a tub filled with water. Two types of rats were studied. First, a dozen or so of the domesticated rat, the type that experienced interaction with humans. These rats, once they were placed in a tub they could not escape from, were initially docile, floating about for a short period of time. Eventually, within a minute or so, they began to swim about in the tub, looking for a way of escape. A few drowned fairly quickly, (do I hear my wife cheering?) but a majority of these domesticated rats swam valiantly for days, finally drowning from exhaustion.
What did the scientist learn? At this point nothing to speak of other than the hope of the domesticated rat was quite amazing.
The second stage was to use wild rats, rats that had to continually fight the elements, swim through rivers and fast rushing streams, fighting off all enemies. First thought as I listened was that these rats would survive much longer than the “soft” domesticated rats, but such was not the case. After a few minutes of discovering their predicament, all the wild rats simply rolled over and died.
Did you expect that outcome? Do you have any idea why this unexpected outcome occurred? Let’s push on to the next stage in this scientists study. This next stage may hold a key to this mystery.
The scientist tried the same experiment with a twist. Using domesticated rats again, the scientist placed a number of the rats in the same tub, and proceeded to let them fight for their lives. At the point of drowning and succumbing to death, the scientist pulled each rat out of the water, dried the rat off, resuscitated the rat and provided care to a level state of life.
Once the rats had been stabilized, the scientist placed them in the same tub.
What might you expect from these rats. The scientist discovered these rats would fight for far longer than the previous struggle, and the only difference was that the rats had HOPE, hope of being rescued from a death experience.
HOPE.
Without it we are just waiting for our death. With it we can experience far greater perseverance than previously thought possible. Of course we are greater than rats, yet at times we may sense we are only treading water, waiting for the inevitable. We are just keeping our nose above the waves, second by second, minute by minute. But for us as believers, there is hope of rescue, for we have experienced that first “plucking out of danger”, as the rats were plucked from the water and resuscitated. We have a new life and a living hope, granted to us by our Savior. He provides that hope, and from that hope, we can exercise a tenacity to hang on in the darkest of situations.
If you are suffering through a difficult time, hang on. He is our Hope, our Saving God, and He has impeccable timing.
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion
My hope is that this series will offer my readers a chance to consider the names, characteristics and descriptions of our God in the Word.
The remaining Names of God in this series might be considered descriptors, or characteristics of the Lord. We have reviewed the three primary Names of God, along with nineteen compound Names of God in our previous posts. As we venture through these descriptors of our God, I hope we will recognize all the many characteristics of our God that we tend to take for granted.
The Word is truly rich with descriptions of the Living God, and this effort of searching in the Word was quite illuminating. He truly is the ultimate subject of the Word, and His revelation of self-descriptions, or the accolades offered Him by His priests, prophets, kings apostles and faithful truly is a blessing.
May the Name of the Lord be praised, and by thinking on His name, may you have a blessed day.
28
AMEN
Rev. 3:14 And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.
Our God is named Amen. But other than our using this word at the end of a prayer, do we understand what it means? Prior to doing any further reading, take a second and consider what you think “Amen” means.
Take a look at the Hebrew word translated as amen in the Old Testament – אָמֵן ʼâmên, aw-mane. Ok now take a look at the Greek word translated as amen in the New Testament – ἀμήν, Hebrew אָמֵן.
See any similarity?
You should since the Greek word is the Hebrew word. The similarity is that the Hebrew word is the Greek word, it did not go through a transformation to be included in the Greek vocabulary.
Take a second look at the Greek term – ἀμήν. By replacing the Greek letters with the English equivalent, we get amen. The word refuses to change or to be morphed by the sands off time. And that is somewhat typical of the word meaning itself, for it has a root meaning of firmness, faithfulness.
To be the amen, is to be the faithful one, the one who is firm, unshakable, true and trustworthy.
The Laodiceans were to understand that God’s name, the name of Jesus Christ, is trustworthy, firm, and faithful. The phrase immediately after our Name of God being considered, is reiterates the very same thought.
He is the Faithful, Firm and Trustworthy God, who is the faithful and true witness.
Can we trust Him?
I would love to hear of your favorite name, characteristic or description of the Living God. Please leave me a comment, and I will include it in the list!
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion.
My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.
This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.
I pray I can communicate a portion of the blessing we receive from this wonderful book.
12 – For it is not an enemy who taunts me– then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me– then I could hide from him. 13 – But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. 14 – We used to take sweet counsel together; within God’s house we walked in the throng. 15 – Let death steal over them; let them go down to Sheol alive; for evil is in their dwelling place and in their heart.
In our last post we considered David’s prayer for confusion on the counsel to his son Absolom, in the beginning of the rebellion. David, if my understadning of this psalm is correct, addresses Ahithophel. Ahithophel, who was David’s equal, a familiar friend, a companion. David, in using the term companion, is describing Ahithophel as a friend who is gentle, one who is docile towards him. No violence, no treachery, no underhandedness. As David speaks of him as a “familiar friend”, he introduces the concept of knowledge, of understanding each other as friends. Ahithophel was not an aquaintence of David, but had a deep friendship with the king, appearing to be open and honest with each other.
The king speaks of the sweet counsel he shared with Ahithophel, even in the temple of God. While David was in the temple, Ahithophel was with him. David and Ahithophel shared times of being before God together, sharing a faith, and communing with God together. Who could David trust more? To whom would David share his greatest vulnerabilities? Who could hurt David the greatest?
It is obvious in this passage that to be a familiar friend, a companion, a man that has your trust, is to open yourself up to the greatest treachery. But to love and to be loved, this consideration cannot be considered. It will poison the relationship, so if there is a back stabbing, it will not only come as a stunning surprise, but the pain and shock associated with this turn will be deepest! So it is for David, and so is his reaction so understandable.
In our past we had some believers turn on us, believers we trusted, and that we thought were trustworthy. For the period when we experienced abandonment and rejection, shock carried the day. How could this happen? I will not detail it out for it is in the past and the Lord has provided healing for us, and hopefully for them. Nevertheless, to be betrayed by a friend is a very deep cut!
And David wanted blood! He is a warrior, a fighter, a man who enters battle intent on winning, dominating over the enemy, crushing those who oppose him.
Let death steal over them; let them go down to Sheol alive
For David to speak thus is to see his pain come out, to see his sense of justice come to the surface. In no uncertain way was David going to allow this to go unpunished, and he sought justice before the Lord, asking the Lord to let them enter Sheol alive! Whatever that specifically meant for the Old Testament believer is beyond me, but it can’t be good!
During our time of betrayal, when the shock lessened and I had some lucid thoughts, I must confess I had evil thoughts towards my friends who hurt us. The Lord moved us on, and a healiing eventually came, but I can somewhat identify with David’s heart.
There is One who did not seek death over His enemies, but entered into death for His enemies. He is altogether different than David in this regard, and exercised grace greater than any I entertained within my own life.
He is the One who did not seek justice over his enemies, but showered grace and mercy upto those who spit on Him, cursed Him, whipped Him, and nailed Him to a cross, eventually killing Him through a slow agonizing death. He is so much greater in His acts of love, grace and mercy, than we can imagine, little llone to compare with His weak and fragile creation.
He is the Lord, and He has experieinced the treachery of His creation, reacting to it in grace and love towards us. He is so different!
My hope is that this series will offer my readers a chance to consider the names, characteristics and descriptions of our God in the Word.
The remaining Names of God in this series might be considered descriptors, or characteristics of the Lord. We have reviewed the three primary Names of God, along with nineteen compound Names of God in our previous posts. As we venture through these descriptors of our God, I hope we will recognize all the many characteristics of our God that we tend to take for granted.
The Word is truly rich with descriptions of the Living God, and this effort of searching in the Word was quite illuminating. He truly is the ultimate subject of the Word, and His revelation of self-descriptions, or the accolades offered Him by His priests, prophets, kings apostles and faithful truly is a blessing.
May the Name of the Lord be praised, and by thinking on His name, may you have a blessed day.
27
ALTOGETHER DESIRABLE
Song of Songs 5:16 His mouth is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable. This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.
This passage is found in the Song of Songs, otherwise known as the Song of Solomon. It is an erotic poem between a young woman and a man, likely Solomon. As a literal poem it speaks of the physical love experienced between and man and a woman, and in parts, becomes very explicit.
Yet, as a believer, if we consider the Word to always represent Christ, to picture Him, to foreshadow His person or mission, it is not difficult to see this forgotten book as a wonderful expression of the intimate love God desires with His people.
This should not shock my reader, for Israel was considered the wife of Yahweh, and we are the Bride of Christ. Our lives are but a shadow of the reality, and the relation a man has with his wife includes not only a friendship that surpasses any earthly competitor (or at least it should) but a sharing of our bodies with each other. This is a tremendous blessing from God and only because of the warped society we live in do we shy away from this truth.
After her beloved had attempted to find her, and yet missed meeting with her, she lamented His disappearance. Her heartbreak in not being with Him pored out in a description of His person.
Take a few seconds and consider this love struck ladies description of the only one she wanted.
Song of Songs 5:11-15 His head is the finest gold; his locks are wavy, black as a raven. His eyes are like doves beside streams of water, bathed in milk, sitting beside a full pool. His cheeks are like beds of spices, mounds of sweet-smelling herbs. His lips are lilies, dripping liquid myrrh. His arms are rods of gold, set with jewels. His body is polished ivory, bedecked with sapphires. His legs are alabaster columns, set on bases of gold. His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars.
After this description of her lover, she speaks the verse we are considering today.
He is altogether desirable.
She found nothing in this man undesirable, and the combination of all his attributes only increased the total effect He has on her. She was awestruck, and as she expresses earlier on, she is sick with love. He consumed her attention so she saw no one else.
Jesus is altogether desirable, if we have eyes to see!
I would love to hear of your favorite name, characteristic or description of the Living God. Please leave me a comment, and I will include it in the list!
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion.
Jesus in the Old Testament is a series of posts that will offer my readers a chance to consider pictures or shadows of Jesus in the Old Testament. As mentioned in the introduction to this series, some may be obvious, some may be not so obvious, and some may simply be a facet of the Lord those reading may not have considered previously.
I hope as we venture through this series, we will see the Lord in many wonderful pictures throughout the Old Testament.
SEEING JESUS IN
ADAM
His Death Provided Her Salvation
Genesis 3:6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
Hebrews 2:14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,
Adam joined his wife in death, but was not the one to deliver her. In his decision to join her, he sacrificed his life for her, as did Jesus for us.
Although it is hypothetical, consider the ramifications for Eve if Adam had not joined her in this decision. If he had not joined her in death – she would have had no hope of any offspring and therefore no deliverer to rescue her. No – in joining her in death he suffered for his decision. He, as we all are, was impotent to save himself, little lone his wife. Yet even in this act of joining her in death, it reflects the Lord’s heart for His bride, in that He suffered through death to be the Deliverer, the Savior of all.
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion.
My hope is that this series will offer my readers a chance to consider the names, characteristics and descriptions of our God in the Word.
The remaining Names of God in this series might be considered descriptors, or characteristics of the Lord. We have reviewed the three primary Names of God, along with nineteen compound Names of God in our previous posts. As we venture through these descriptors of our God, I hope we will recognize all the many characteristics of our God that we tend to take for granted.
The Word is truly rich with descriptions of the Living God, and this effort of searching in the Word was quite illuminating. He truly is the ultimate subject of the Word, and His revelation of self-descriptions, or the accolades offered Him by His priests, prophets, kings apostles and faithful truly is a blessing.
May the Name of the Lord be praised, and by thinking on His name, may you have a blessed day.
26
ALPHA AND OMEGA
Revelation 1:8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
Recently we were considering this verse regarding the description of Jesus as the “Almighty, the One who has authority over heaven and earth.
In this description of God, John is speaking of the Lord God’s message, for both of alpha and omega are letters of the Greek alphabet, the beginning and end letters of the Greek alphabet.
When we think of the alphabet, we are considering the very building blocks of all written communication. To reveal that He is the Alpha and Omega is to speak of Him as the foundation of God’s written communication for us.
John speaks of Jesus as the Logos in an earlier writing. Jesus is the Word, the message that we need to hear, the full communication of God to man.
God’s full message in living form!
Matthew 17:4,5 And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” (emphasis mine)
Jesus. Listen to Him.
I would love to hear of your favorite name, characteristic or description of the Living God. Please leave me a comment, and I will include it in the list!
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion.
My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.
This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.
I pray I can communicate a portion of the blessing we receive from this wonderful book.
Psalm 55.03
9 – Destroy, O Lord, divide their tongues; for I see violence and strife in the city. 10 – Day and night they go around it on its walls, and iniquity and trouble are within it; 11 – ruin is in its midst; oppression and fraud do not depart from its marketplace.
As suggested in our first installment on this Psalm, I am of the opinion this psalm is cry out to God in relation to the rebellion of David’s son Absolom, and his trusted advisor, Ahithophel, Bathsheba’s grandfather. David understood that success for the rebels depended on good planning, and wisdom in the fight. David resorted to a two pronged approach. Seeking the Lord for his safety, and strategic use of available resources.
First off, this prayer is David’s cry for help to the Lord in a very specific way, as he seeks to defeat those who rose up against him. Secondly, to divide (or confuse) the message Absolom hears will bring the greatest oppotunity for David to survive this threat.
David’s strategic use of available resource becomes available when he flees the city of Jerusalem, at such a low point in his life. As he is ascending the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went, barefoot and with his head covered, he was informed that Ahithophel, his counsellor joined with his son Absolom in the rebellion. With Ahithophel, success (humanly speaking) was guaranteed for Absolom.
Yet in this lowest of low points for the king, a man comes to his service. Hushai the Achite arrived before the king with his coat torn and dirt on his head. He was in deep sorrow for the king and faithful in his friendship to David. As he presents himself to David in his sorrow, David – the warrior that he is – is not shy is seeing Hushai as a resource to defeat the rebellion. He surely is a bright star in David’s dark night.
Also note that Ahithophel and Hushai had history in David’s inner circle, and I assume they knew each other well. For Hushai to take on the espionage that David requests is very dangerous, for Ahithophel must surely know of Hushai’s prinicpal station in life as David’s friend.
1 Chronicles 27:33 Ahithophel was the king’s counselor, and Hushai the Archite was the king’s friend.
Having laid the background to my understanding of this time in David’s life, and having Hushai go into the enemy camp with the goal of frustrating Ahithophel’s wisdom for Absolom is genius. But it is only the plans of a man, of a king on the run. Hence the cry out to God in verse 9 of our psalm.
Destroy, O Lord, divide their tongues; for I see violence and strife in the city.
David saw the opportunity with Hushai, but realized the only success he truly had was in God providing the confusion needed for Absolom to make a critical mistake. Without Hushai, Ahithophel would have singular influence over Absolom. David may have seen this this as the critical point of success or failure in returning the the throne.
David’s prayer of confusion, of dividing thier tongues, of have two conflicting messages provided to Absolom, was only a plan, good as it was, but the execution and direction of Absolom’s decisions were dependent only on God. And David knew it!
Proverbs 21:1 The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.
The Lord indeed turns the heart of a king (and serf) wherever He wills, and David, in his prayer, was not shy about seeking God’s favor in the current crisis. David used the offer of Hushai’s service to set up a situation that God could turn Absolom’s decision into foolishness.
I believe David’s specific cry for help had this background in his mind. He sent a spy into the midst of the enemy, and provided an alternate message to Ahithphels counsel. Now it was up to God to steer Absolom’s decision. For further reading, see 2 Samuel 17:1- 23 for Hushai’s success with Absolom. Note how Hushai catered to Absolom’s pride with his counsel!
Considering the situation, that is Hushai’s sudden turn from his friend David and Ahithophel’s suicide based on Absolom’s decision to follow Hushai’s counsel, for Absolom to continue with Hushai’s counsel seems most unwise for Absolom. Why did he continue with his decision? Do I hear that pride motivator Hushai introduced into the argument ringing in the air?
Proverbs 16:9 The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.
God is good, and God can use even the pride of man to bring glory to his name. May his name be praised.
My hope is that this series will offer my readers a chance to consider the names, characteristics and descriptions of our God in the Word.
The remaining Names of God in this series might be considered descriptors, or characteristics of the Lord. We have reviewed the three primary Names of God, along with nineteen compound Names of God in our previous posts. As we venture through these descriptors of our God, I hope we will recognize all the many characteristics of our God that we tend to take for granted.
The Word is truly rich with descriptions of the Living God, and this effort of searching in the Word was quite illuminating. He truly is the ultimate subject of the Word, and His revelation of self-descriptions, or the accolades offered Him by His priests, prophets, kings apostles and faithful truly is a blessing.
May the Name of the Lord be praised, and by thinking on His name, may you have a blessed day.
25
ALMIGHTY
Revelation 1:8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
We have earlier considered the Old Testament reference to “Almighty” in our fifth post in this series, as in Names of God – EL SHADDAI (ALMIGHTY GOD) – 5. The passage we considered was in the early narrative found in Genesis 17, when God spoke to Abraham at 99 years old!
This Greek name bears much of the same message, yet I sense an expansion of the thought.
Let me try to explain.
The term for almighty in the Greek is παντοκράτωρ pantokrátōr, made up of πᾶς pâs, referring to each, all, any or everything and κράτος krátos, referring to dominion, power and strength. Now at first glance, you may ask what is the difference in this description beyond that in the earlier post, when Abraham was spoken to. And granted there may not be much, for I do not want to go beyond what the Word is trying to communicate to us.
Yet when Abraham was spoken to, it was in relation to his own life, his progeny, his offspring. It was in relation to a single individual, a man of faith, following God to the best of His knowledge.
In our current study, this message is given to multitudes of believers, and speaks of national, even global dominion as the One who was crucified has been granted all authority on earth and heaven.
Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Although I cannot speak for how Abraham understood the self revelation of God in relation to being almighty, we New Covenant believers have no reason to limit the extent of His control of the universe. As John records, multitudes are now expressing the truth of His reign over all!
Revelation 19:6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.
All things are within His sight and as the King, He has control over all things. He decides to allow or to redirect, to permit or to restrict, to let happen or to force change.
He is the Sovereign King and as the King, He is the Almighty. Can we rest in that truth?
I would love to hear of your favorite name, characteristic or description of the Living God. Please leave me a comment, and I will include it in the list!
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion.
Jesus in the Old Testament is a series of posts that will offer my readers a chance to consider pictures or shadows of Jesus in the Old Testament. As mentioned in the introduction to this series, some may be obvious, some may be not so obvious, and some may simply be a facet of the Lord those reading may not have considered previously.
I hope as we venture through this series, we will see the Lord in many wonderful pictures throughout the Old Testament.
SEEING JESUS IN
ADAM
DEATH IN A GARDEN
Genesis 3:23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.
John 19 41 Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.
When I speak of death in the garden, I am not referring to the act of dying in a garden, for we know that Jesus did not die in a garden, but on a rugged hill named Calvary, the place of the skull. Not a picture of life and abundance, but of death and suffering.
Yes, John says there was a garden “in the place where He was crucified”. My understanding is that the garden was close by and could be generally considered to be “in the place” where He was crucified. The garden would be His final resting place, until He ruined the plans some had.
For Adam, his rebellion was in a garden, and the judgement of God came down upon Adam in the garden, for the Lord sent him out of the garden to work in a broken world. Jesus entered the broken world, being judged and condemned by sinners, only to enter death willingly through His obedience in a garden. His prayer to the Father in the garden set Him on a path of suffering and death that Adam had once experienced in kind. You see, Adam lost his unending fellowship with God, which is all he had known, and his fall into sin must surely have been horrific!
Jesus in all of eternity past, had never experienced any loss of fellowship with the Father ever. After the garden, Jesus entered into a death march.
Adam in a garden due to rebellion resulted in rejection from a garden into judgement and death.
Jesus in a garden, due to obedience, resulted in a judgement and death on a cross and into a tomb, representing death, in a garden.
The message of this word picture is that a garden was originally a place of life for Adam. Though he lost that life, a new (and better) life has been restored to us by Jesus, for in the garden, Jesus brought life and immortality to all of creation.
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion.
My hope is that this series will offer my readers a chance to consider the names, characteristics and descriptions of our God in the Word.
The remaining Names of God in this series might be considered descriptors, or characteristics of the Lord. We have reviewed the three primary Names of God, along with nineteen compound Names of God in our previous posts. As we venture through these descriptors of our God, I hope we will recognize all the many characteristics of our God that we tend to take for granted.
The Word is truly rich with descriptions of the Living God, and this effort of searching in the Word was quite illuminating. He truly is the ultimate subject of the Word, and His revelation of self-descriptions, or the accolades offered Him by His priests, prophets, kings apostles and faithful truly is a blessing.
May the Name of the Lord be praised, and by thinking on His name, may you have a blessed day.
24
ADVOCATE
1 John 2:1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
An advocate is an old term we don’t use often in our society, as we commonly think of one who argues in our favor as a defense attorney, a lawyer that we pay to defend us in front of a judge. The lawyer performs his duties being motivated by a paycheck at the end of the week, as one who stands before a condemning judge, physically apart from us, pleading before the judge, seeking to the judge of our innocence, sometimes by revealing a partial truth, or by exposing only some of the facts. Of course, I may be a bit jaded towards lawyers, for I am sure there are some who seek to do right, speak the truth and desire justice to be performed.
Our Advocate in heaven is quite different.
He is the truth, and will not shy away from expressing the “guilt” of our actions, for John notes that “if anyone sins”. Jesus is our advocate, and John reminds us that He is righteous, not us!
He is in relation with us, and not simply seeking a paycheck. He is not motivated by “filthy lucre”, as the old KJV sometimes refers to money.
He is beside us, associating with one of God’s children that has sinned, standing beside me, representing me as the Righteous One before the Father.
No – let’s reread that passage once more – the passage says we have an advocate with the Father. Our advocate in not merely standing in front of the judge, representing his client, but is an advocate with the Father. Am I pressing this too much to think that the personnel relationship Jesus has with the Father, that this relationship also bears weight in our representation before the Father?
Not only has He died for our sins, and out of that tremendous gift of grace towards us, have the right to defend us before a judge, but on top of that advantage, Our Advocate is with the Father.
One final thought to consider in this passage is that John does not refer to our Father as a judge in this passage. Our advocate is with His Father.
Truly, I am sure that as we consider the descriptions of the Lord, we will find more than we expect, as we slow down and consider the ramifications of the passages we sometimes gloss over.
Our Advocate is much more that a legal representative before a judge due to our sin.
So much more!
I would love to hear of your favorite name, characteristic or description of the Living God. Please leave me a comment, and I will include it in the list!
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion.
My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.
This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.
I pray I can communicate a portion of the blessing we receive from this wonderful book.
Psalm 55
4 – My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen upon me. 5 – Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me. 6 – And I say, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest; 7 – yes, I would wander far away; I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah 8 – I would hurry to find a shelter from the raging wind and tempest.”
Oh my goodness, do I resonate with this passage.
How often have I been under some type of stress, and my first reaction is to flee. Run away. Some nights my stomach is in knots, fearing the day’s events. As I take my time in the morning on my walk, I often want to succumb to the temptation to simply walk away from the days events. Don’t get me wrong, for these events are not life and death situations as we know David is impacted by, but though the depth of my fears may be far less than David’s, the reality of wanting to escape is just as real.
At times, the only thing that pulls me back from the brink of escaping a pressure situation is that there is no advancing in the faith if the wind is always at your back. An old Scottish preacher, by the name of Alexander Maclaren, made a statement that rings true for all believers.
“So the psalmist’s wish was but a wish; and he, like the rest of us, had to stand to his post, or be tied to his stake, and let enemies and storms do their worst.”
Remember that David is facing near death on a daily basis within this psalm, and to make matters even worse, the threat is from a close friend. The wind in his face was tornado-like, and his daily experience was one of anguish, terrors of death, fear, trembling and horror.
Horror! This term is rarely used in the Old Testament, and David is admitting to being overwhelmed by this horror. What he was experiencing I cannot tell, and cannot relate to. Yet this passage smacks of the suffering the Messiah experienced on His way to the cross. He did not turn back, nor fly away on the wings of a dove, but fully embraced God’s will. And out of that obedience, He sent the Holy Spirit to comfort us in our times of anguish and fear.
My hope is that this series will offer my readers a chance to consider the names, characteristics and descriptions of our God in the Word.
The remaining Names of God in this series might be considered descriptors, or characteristics of the Lord. We have reviewed the three primary Names of God, along with nineteen compound Names of God in our previous posts. At this point in our study, we will begin with “A God Merciful and Gracious”, the twenty-third Name of God on my list. As we venture through these descriptors of our God, I hope we will recognize all the many characteristics of our God that we tend to take for granted.
The Word is truly rich with descriptions of the Living God, and this effort of searching in the Word was quite illuminating. He truly is the ultimate subject of the Word, and His revelation of self-descriptions, or the accolades offered Him by His priests, prophets, kings apostles and faithful truly is a blessing.
May the Name of the Lord be praised, and by thinking on His name, may you have a blessed day.
23
A GOD MERCIFUL AND GRACIOUS
Psalm 86:15 But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
What a good way to start out with on our third phase in the Names of God series. Merciful and Gracious. As I new believer in the church, I was told that grace is getting what you don’t deserve, and mercy is not getting what I deserve.
Does that make sense?
Yet, this merciful term has a bit more to it that just not getting what we deserve, as if that didn’t provide enough to be blessed by. This word “merciful” also includes the concept of compassion and somewhat surprised me when I think of merciful. Remember, merciful, in my mind, speaks of the refrain of some action or judgement upon a person that deserves it. To add the idea of compassion brings to mind the motivation behind the my concept of mercy.
When I consider the mercy of God, I commonly think only of the actions of the Lord (or better said, the refraining of rightful actions) and not His motivation in refraining from a judgement. Yet our God is a compassionate God, a God whose heart is that of a Father, seeking the best for His children, teaching, guiding, warning and loving His children.
The second term only strengthens this thought, for the psalmist reminds us of the graciousness of our God, a descriptor that blows up for us in the New Covenant. But for God to be understood as gracious is definitely not only a New Testament descriptor, for there are multitudinous passages referring to our God as gracious in the Old Covenant.
Moses, the law giver, did not understand God to be a harsh, dictatorial God, but when Moses met God, after he destroyed the first two tablets of the law, God began His self revelation to Moses, with the very same description we are considering today
Exodus 34:6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
Moses, out of anger in seeing the Israelites sinning, through down the tablets of the law, a picture of us all “breaking the law”. And God reveals Himself as a God merciful and gracious.
Our God is a most surprising God and His name is to be praised
I would love to hear of your favorite name, characteristic or description of the Living God. Please leave me a comment, and I will include it in the list!
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion.
Jesus in the Old Testament is a series of posts that will offer my readers a chance to consider pictures or shadows of Jesus in the Old Testament. As mentioned in the introduction to this series, some may be obvious, some may be not so obvious, and some may simply be a facet of the Lord those reading may not have considered previously.
I hope as we venture through this series, we will see the Lord in many wonderful pictures throughout the Old Testament.
SEEING JESUS IN
ADAM
HIS DOMINION
Genesis 1 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Matthew 28: 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
In Adam’s creation, God granted him dominion over all created beings, even over “all the earth”. Did Adam do anything to deserve this tremendous act of benevolence? Dang, the only thing he did was to “become”, if you know what I mean. He was completely passive in his own creation, and all of creation previous to his own. He came into this creation with nothing but the love of God shining down on him, and the beauty of creation encircling him.
Within this condition, God provided Adam the kingdom of the earth, for that is what dominion is speaking of, that is Adam was granted the right to rule over the entire creation. This appointment of ruling was granted out of absolutely nothing Adam did. Please understand my point for it may seem I am laboring to make it.
I assume by now you understand though Adam and Jesus were both granted dominion, Jesus far excels the example of Adam, for He did not have a perfect creation to rule over as Adam, but took a broken world, and suffered to redeem it, and out of a sinless life and vicarious death for our sake, was granted all dominion (authority) in heaven and earth.
A picture they say is worth a thousand words, but the picture of the “dominion of Adam” over earth barely scratches the extent of Jesus’ kingdom. And to return to the thought of deserving the kingdom, as we said with Adam, he did nothing to deserve the dominion over God’s creation. Jesus did everything to deserve the dominion He has been granted. And why? Because He is worthy!
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion.
My hope is that this series will offer my readers a chance to consider the names, characteristics and descriptions of our God in the Word.
Our next set of names (#4 through #22) are considered His compound names, which typically uses His primary name and attaches a specific descriptor to it. These are the names that originally got me chasing this topic, and now it has developed into a much bigger study than the original intent, but I digress, for I have already mentioned this!
The Word is truly rich with descriptions of the Living God, and this effort of searching in the Word was quite illuminating. He truly is the ultimate subject of the Word, and His revelation of self-descriptions, or the accolades offered Him by His priests, prophets, kings apostles and faithful truly was a blessing.
May the Name of the Lord be praised, and by thinking on His name, may you have a blessed day.
22
EL QANNA (JEALOUS GOD)
Exodus 20:5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,
Whenever the concept of jealousy comes up in relation to the LORD, I fear we bring to mind the image of a drunken, insecure man wearing a “wife beater” shirt, ready to blow up at the hint of any disappointment or challenge in a relationship. Granted, this is how much of our experiential jealousy works itself out in our world (minus the shirt thing!) but as I found out in a previous study series (A Jealous God), for our God to be jealous is everything we should ever want.
He is jealous for our sake, not out of an insecurity of his worth, for He is certainly worthy, He is jealous for our sake, not out an emotional dependency He has, for prior to our creation, He was in full harmony within the Godhead. No, this jealousy, if I understand the Word properly, is a burden the Lord has taken upon Himself for our sakes, and not some knee jerk emotional reaction to the actions of others.
In our verse above, the context is the giving of the Ten Commandments, and the name He provides us is in relation the His people worshipping idols. Throughout the history of the Old Testament, for a father to allow idols usually plays out in the son worshipping the idol.
An example may help.
The patience of the Lord in the Old Testament regarding His people’s continual attraction to idols seems outrageous, for even King Manasseh – the king who typifies the idol worshipping king of Israel in my mind, was granted forgiveness, and restoration.
2 Chronicles 33:10-13 The LORD spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention. Therefore the LORD brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon. And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God.
This amazing repentance of Manasseh and personal restoration from idolatry by God for the king did not stop the degradation of the nation into captivity, for the children of the nation were on a course of self destruction, with each generation hardening against our Jealous God. Eventually, the beneficial aspect of God’s jealousy (that is, the actions of the Lord, intended for the for the people’s sake) became extremely harsh, for the nation who was granted this love continually spurned it.
Even in the Babylonian captivity, our jealous God continued to show His commitment to His people, using the captivity, not as a final judgement on the nation, but as a learning period for His people as a nation. He exercised the discipline the sons required in order for the restoration of the nation, knowing that the very nation would include those who would condemn the Messiah.
Yet out of this horrific exercise of hardened sinners, the jealousy of God was fully manifested, in that even in the rebellion of men, the grace of God provided for our benefit the gift of eternal life, the privilege of the Spirit of God, and the comfort of the Father’s love for the church.
He is good, and out of His jealousy for us, He has provided all good things!
I would love to hear of your favorite name, characteristic or description of the Living God. Please leave me a comment, and I will include it in the list!
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion.
My hope is that this series will offer my readers a chance to consider the names, characteristics and descriptions of our God in the Word.
Our next set of names (#4 through #22) are considered His compound names, which typically uses His primary name and attaches a specific descriptor to it. These are the names that originally got me chasing this topic, and now it has developed into a much bigger study than the original intent, but I digress, for I have already mentioned this!
The Word is truly rich with descriptions of the Living God, and this effort of searching in the Word was quite illuminating. He truly is the ultimate subject of the Word, and His revelation of self-descriptions, or the accolades offered Him by His priests, prophets, kings apostles and faithful truly was a blessing.
May the Name of the Lord be praised, and by thinking on His name, may you have a blessed day.
21
JEHOVAH-RAAH (THE LORD MY SHEPHERD)
Psalm 23:1 A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Out of all the Bible, this has to be one of the most recognizable names of our God. The LORD my Shepherd. We know it was revealed to us through David the shepherd king, yet He has always been a shepherd to His people. The idea of a shepherd began with the tending of sheep, of providing for these beasts of the fields. The first martyr was a shepherd, providing a glimpse in the Great Shepherd’s fate.
Genesis 4:2 And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground.
The term is sometimes translated as pasturing a flock, that is to take the flock to a place of sustenance, refreshment or safety. Many other men were famous shepherds. Abraham, Isaac and Israel, along with Moses, Amos and the shepherds near Bethlehem.
To be a shepherd meant to be alone, in the fields, amongst the wild beasts, in the cold of night, or under a blistering sun at high noon. To be a shepherd meant to forsake your will for the sake of some “dumb” animals, animals that were in constant danger, unknowing of any threat and requiring constant care. To be a shepherd meant to have animals as your closest friends, to identify with them, to plan for their survival, to seek their good, to search for the lost one, and to teach the wandering one difficult lessons.
Yes – The LORD is my shepherd, for He has acted like a true Shepherd, in that he has been all alone on the cross, fighting the wild beasts that want my soul, forsaking His will for the Father’s will, in order to seek and save a poor dolt like me. He is a constantly caring God, who seeks to be a friend, has identified with us, seeks our good, and teaches us difficult lessons.
I am thankful for the LORD my Shepherd.
I would love to hear of your favorite name, characteristic or description of the Living God. Please leave me a comment, and I will include it in the list!
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion.
Jesus in the Old Testament is a series of posts that will offer my readers a chance to consider pictures or shadows of Jesus in the Old Testament. As mentioned in the introduction to this series, some may be obvious, some may be not so obvious, and some may simply be a facet of the Lord those reading may not have considered previously.
I hope as we venture through this series, we will see the Lord in many wonderful pictures throughout the Old Testament.
SEEING JESUS IN
ADAM
IN HIS IMAGE
Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Luke 3:38 the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.
Both Jesus and Adam were in His image.
Of course Adam’s creation was all encompassing. Everything about Adam at his creation was in the image of God.
At the visit with Mary by the Spirit, Jesus earthly body was also created, and with that creation, the image of God had taken a physical form. Adam kept the image untarnished for a matter of hours, maybe a day. Jesus is the image of God, in all His glory, and has retained that image spotlessly from the very beginning.
Definitely Adam was a refection of the Lord, though the duration was fleeting. But He is the eternal image of God, and knowing that makes all the difference!
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion.
My hope is that this series will offer my readers a chance to consider the names, characteristics and descriptions of our God in the Word.
Our next set of names (#4 through #22) are considered His compound names, which typically uses His primary name and attaches a specific descriptor to it. These are the names that originally got me chasing this topic, and now it has developed into a much bigger study than the original intent, but I digress, for I have already mentioned this!
The Word is truly rich with descriptions of the Living God, and this effort of searching in the Word was quite illuminating. He truly is the ultimate subject of the Word, and His revelation of self-descriptions, or the accolades offered Him by His priests, prophets, kings apostles and faithful truly was a blessing.
May the Name of the Lord be praised, and by thinking on His name, may you have a blessed day.
20
JEHOVAH TSIDKENU (THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS)
Jeremiah 23:6 In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’
How New Testamental can a prophet get?
Notice that Jeremiah is not defining the LORD as righteous, though God is. No no no. The name we are looking at today is The Lord our Righteousness. God Himself is our righteousness, and none other. So what is Jeremiah telling us in this name.
When I think of righteousness, I sometimes fall into the thinking of sinlessness. Is that a correct understanding? Possibly. Could there be more to righteousness than just sinlessness? I am not sure but would like to offer my understanding, that hopefully will honor the LORD, in that He is our Righteousness.
In the English language, to be righteous is to act in accord with divine or moral law. It has implications of being virtuous, true, good and decent. All of these characteristics are gained by “keeping the rules”. And that is the rub! What rules? You see, the rules define righteousness acts. If the rules stated I need to skip instead of walk, walking would be considered sinful. (And girls would naturally be more righteous than boys – lol)
Therefore, if there are two sets of “rules” existing in a culture or society, there will be two sets of righteousness, both in conflict with one another. Does that make sense?
Let’s consider this concept another way. Some examples of two righteous ways of life are exhibited in the times of the Messiah. One righteousness was performed via the law of God, or at least the law of God as interpreted by centuries of men analyzing, arguing and reinterpreting someone’s interpretation. The folks that had mastered this righteousness were called the Pharisees.
The other righteousness was exhibited perfectly by a lone preacher that was connected with His Father, with eyes that read the Word with light, understood the heart of God, saw that up was down, light was dark and right was wrong. He persistently understood the Old Testament in ways that shocked the experts, and from that understanding lived a life of sacrifice, not of religion, of denial, not of reputation, of service, not of self.
And these two righteousness clashed. One took the path of violence and envy, the other the path of peace of love.
The LORD our Righteousness speaks of our rejecting one righteousness, and a daily clinging to another righteousness, that is the LORD (a person, not a set of rules) as our righteousness. He is the One who is “the rule”, and by His very character defines what righteousness is, and then came to earth to exhibit that righteousness in front of our eyes.
What does this righteousness look like?
Watch a humble preacher teaching life altering words in simple stories, washing his friends feet, teaching the worst of sinners of the love of God, and then bleeding for His enemies.
His name is Jesus and He is the Lord our Righteousness.
I would love to hear of your favorite name, characteristic or description of the Living God. Please leave me a comment, and I will include it in the list!
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion.
My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.
This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.
I pray I can communicate a portion of the blessing we receive from this wonderful book.
Psalm 55.01
1 – To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Maskil of David.
Give ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy! 2 – Attend to me, and answer me; I am restless in my complaint and I moan, 3 – because of the noise of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked. For they drop trouble upon me, and in anger they bear a grudge against me.
The history of this psalm is unknown, but we can deduce a few items from the psalm to give us David’s situation. First off, it appears David is speaking primarily of a good friend who has turned on him, a betrayer, even called out as a covenant breaker!
Secondly, this is no idle threat, for David describes his condition including the “terrors of death”, and of horror overwhelming him.
David was in deep trouble, with his life on the line, not knowing how close he was to being destroyed. A constant stress, a continual pain and agony of mind and soul. A period of time when the Lord did not answer his prayers, for his repetition of seeking God to give ear, to not hide, and to attend to David, smacks of disappointment in previous efforts of prayer to God. The stress builds, and the heart is failing, and the LORD seems to be quiet.
Note that the basis of his prayer is depending on the mercy of God, that he realizes he has no other claim at this time. He is an experienced man of God, realizing his failings in front of God and depending on God’s mercy for his rescue. As the Lord had promised his kingdom to be forever, it was not promised to David that he would live a long and extended life and as such, David understood that his life could be cut short without any blemish on the Lord’s promises to him. Yet he calls on the mercy of God for deliverance in this time of terror.
What was the source of this terror you may ask? David gives us the reason in verse 3.
Noise of the enemy/Oppression of the wicked
As we have mentioned in earlier posts, the Old Testament prophets, when writing in poetry, would use a method of “rhyming” thoughts as opposed to our method of rhyming the last words in a couplet of phrases. In two verses, the author would say the same thing with a slight expansion or clarification of the previous phrase. I think this is happening here.
The oppression of the wicked is equivalent to the noise of the enemy. Threats, verbal attacks, intimidation causing a sense of imminent danger produced the stress residing in David’s heart. Words are powerful, and our words, whether intention or not, may cause tremendous stress in other’s lives. David’s enemies were certainly taking advantage of this type of warfare. Our enemy also does this!
An interesting connection, that will undoubtedly increase the readers understanding of David’s stress level is the two following phrases he uses in describing the type of stress he is undergoing. This is conjecture, but I find the connection interesting, and plausible.
When David speaks of the enemy “dropping trouble on him” this has a similar sound as when he was escaping from the City of David, from his own son Absalom’s treachery.
1 Samuel 15:14 And David said unto all his servants that were with him at Jerusalem, Arise, and let us flee; for else none of us shall escape from Absalom: make speed to depart, lest he overtake us quickly, and bring down evil upon us, and smite the city with the edge of the sword.
David continues with the description of the enemies motives, calling it a grudge. Both Absalom and his chief counsellor Ahithophel may be described in this manner.
We know the background to Absalom’s grudge, and his ability to hold a grudge for extended periods. When Amnon rapes his sister, he holds a grudge for two years before acting on it! But then his grudge comes to fruition (as unforgiven grudges always do) in his planning and executing the premeditated murder of his brother. Absalom’s next grudge is exercised when he spends 4 years after returning to Jerusalem, grooming the populace for his rebellion against the king. Grooming the populace to accept him in order to take the kingdom from his father. Right in the City of David, right under the nose of his father!
As for Ahithophel, David’s actions in having Uriah murdered in battle may be coming back to bite him. Consider Ahithophel’s relation to Bathsheba.
2 Samuel 23:34 – Eliphelet the son of Ahasbai of Maacah, Eliam the son of Ahithophel the Gilonite,
2 Samuel 11:3 – And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”
Catch it? Bathsheba, it appears, was the granddaughter of Ahithophel. Consider the ramifications of that.
This psalm may be speaking of David’s condition in the potential loss of his kingdom, and if the kingdom was lost, surely his life was forfeit! At the hands of his son and/or his friend.
Treachery, mirroring the very treachery of an apostle who turned on the Messiah. David was spared from experiencing the results of the enemies threats, but for the Messiah, the threats were realized, for He was crucified, He was put to death by His enemies.
He experienced so much more than we can imagine, and His cause was to rescue us from those who hate us. We are to walk in the same manner as He did, loving His enemies and proving it through His sacrificial life and death.
But let it be known that our deliverance may not be as David’s deliverance, but nevertheless, we can and should trust Him in the times when the noise of the enemy is loudest.
My hope is that this series will offer my readers a chance to consider the names, characteristics and descriptions of our God in the Word.
Our next set of names (#4 through #22) are considered His compound names, which typically uses His primary name and attaches a specific descriptor to it. These are the names that originally got me chasing this topic, and now it has developed into a much bigger study than the original intent, but I digress, for I have already mentioned this!
The Word is truly rich with descriptions of the Living God, and this effort of searching in the Word was quite illuminating. He truly is the ultimate subject of the Word, and His revelation of self-descriptions, or the accolades offered Him by His priests, prophets, kings apostles and faithful truly was a blessing.
May the Name of the Lord be praised, and by thinking on His name, may you have a blessed day.
19
JEHOVAH SHAMMAH (THE LORD IS THERE)
Ezekiel 48:35 The circumference of the city shall be 18,000 cubits. And the name of the city from that time on shall be, The LORD Is There.”
Let us remember the circumstances Ezekiel is writing under. The nation has been decimated by the Babylonians, Jerusalem sacked and the temple, the magnificent temple of Solomon has been cut down, destroyed. The people of God have been either killed in battle, underwent starvation and subsequent death, or carried off to a strange land to the north, amongst those who speak with a different tongue and worship a different god.
According to my research, Ezekiel receives this revelation of God’s name 25 after the deportation of the Jews into the strange land of Babylon. Two and a half decades of living in shock and confusion, for being away from the temple meant there was no ability to provide sacrifices to God, no priests performing the required rituals for the people.
And recently the people had been alerted that any hope of returning quickly to Jerusalem to be near the temple, well – that wasn’t going to happen! The Babylonians destroyed the Temple, and even the prophets were speaking of a long captivity, of 70 years away from the land!
Many of the Jews understandably may have lost heart, seeing that they would never survive the captivity, and then finding out that the temple was destroyed, accepted their destiny was to grow old in this strange land. With all the established physical connections with God broken, and experiencing the disciplinary hand of God, the Jewish people’s faith must have been crushed. A people without a home, a land, and seemingly without a God.
So when Ezekiel starts to describe a future city, the people’s ears must have perked up. Ezekiel has already spent considerable time in earlier chapters describing a temple to be constructed after the captivity, but in our passage today, Ezekiel is describing a city, not a temple. And the name we are considering this fine day is “The LORD is There”. This is curious, for the careful reader will recognize that the name is not associated with a temple, as most would expect, but with a City, where day to day life happens.
My understanding is that Ezekiel is not only trying to encourage the remnant, but to expand their understanding of relating to God. No longer is a faithful one to meet with God in the temple on holy days, but that the faithful one would be living life, minute by minute, in the presence of God. Such a tremendous promise. The promise of permanence of God’s presence is provided to the faithful here, for the verse speaks of a city having this name “from that time on.” The city where the LORD is!
This series is not on eschatology, on when this blessing will occur, but is seeking to provide a vehicle for those reading to consider who our God is, through his names and descriptions. Personally, the understanding I have tried to explain above fits with our current church age, in that He is the ever-present One, the LORD who is There in the City of God. He is building this city, stone by stone, and He is There.
Hebrews 11:10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. Hebrews 11:16 …. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
What city do you dwell in?
I would love to hear of your favorite name, characteristic or description of the Living God. Please leave me a comment, and I will include it in the list!
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion.
My hope is that this series will offer my readers a chance to consider the names, characteristics and descriptions of our God in the Word.
Our next set of names (#4 through #22) are considered His compound names, which typically uses His primary name and attaches a specific descriptor to it. These are the names that originally got me chasing this topic, and now it has developed into a much bigger study than the original intent, but I digress, for I have already mentioned this!
The Word is truly rich with descriptions of the Living God, and this effort of searching in the Word was quite illuminating. He truly is the ultimate subject of the Word, and His revelation of self-descriptions, or the accolades offered Him by His priests, prophets, kings apostles and faithful truly was a blessing.
May the Name of the Lord be praised, and by thinking on His name, may you have a blessed day.
18
JEHOVAH SHALOM (THE LORD IS PEACE)
Judges 6:24 Then Gideon built an altar there to the LORD and called it, The LORD Is Peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.
Peace.
I often think of peace as merely the absence of war, and to a point that is accurate, depending on the war we are considering. International war is the predominant topic when the topic of peace is tossed about in discussions.
Why can’t we have peace? As Gideon has described our God in this verse, the LORD is peace!
So how do we make sense of this? Even the Lord in one of His final discourses warned us of wars in the future.
Matthew 24:6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.
So it seems evident that He didn’t come to immediately put an end to physical wars between nations. And yet He is peace. This is the nature of our God, and by providence, our last study in the Names of God was the LORD of Hosts, or the Lord of the armies! This is a conflict surely!
As mentioned in the introductory, we need to remember the context of the conversation. What war is being referred to, and does the peace spoken of merely refer to the absence of war?
I believe that God is One who works in the nations through changing the people within the nation. Of course He can change the “heart of the king” when His plans demand it, or in response to His peoples prayers, but at this point in my pilgrimage, I understand His ways are primarily with individual hearts and minds.
If this is true, we can see the LORD of peace fully displayed in the Lord Jesus. And per His teaching, His intent was not to rule over the kingdom of this world. No – this world, or world system must be destroyed
John 18:36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”
So when we read of peace in the Word, we should be careful to understand the Word is not primarily speaking of international peace amongst nations. When we read of peace in the Word, we should hear a fuller picture, a mental image including completeness or wholeness, safety, soundness, welfare, health, prosperity, tranquility, contentment.
Much more than simply the absence of war! As a matter of fact, one of the many blessings of being a believer is the fact that we can have this peace in the midst of outer turmoil, of international wars, of upheaval in our own nation.
Peace in the midst of war. Only the LORD of peace can provide this!
I would love to hear of your favorite name, characteristic or description of the Living God. Please leave me a comment, and I will include it in the list!
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion.
My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.
This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.
I pray I can communicate a portion of the blessing we receive from this wonderful book. Our last portion of Psalm 54 is David’s response to the rescue of God from the betrayal of the Ziphites.
Psalm 54
6 With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you; I will give thanks to your name, O LORD, for it is good. 7 For he has delivered me from every trouble, and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies.
A short review may be in order.
God has provided the nation of Israel a king, one who is in effect a replacement for God. This replacement has now become a rogue king, in rebellion against God disobeying direct commands from the prophet, and has been formally rejected by God as being the king. Ever the faithful one, Saul does not step down, but forges ahead, seeking to maintain his position in front of the people. A true politician, instead of finding his authority in God, seeking approval from the people.
Enter David, a youth obviously destined for the throne, being chased down by the rogue king, under persecution by his own father in law! Yes, Saul was David’s father in law when he married Saul’s daughter Michal! Death was David’s future if he was caught by Saul, for Saul’s intentions were made clear when he threw the javelin at him in his home, in front of Jonathon.
1 Samuel 20:33 But Saul hurled his spear at him (David) to strike him. So Jonathan knew that his father was determined to put David to death.
Beyond the hatred of a father in law, consider David’s clansmen, the Ziphites. Seemingly, David hid in the hills of the Ziphites land, due at least in part to a level of trust he had in his fellow clansmen of Judah. A man on the run doesn’t hide amongst his enemies – at least not yet! Out of this trust in his fellow Judahites, betrayal reared its ugly head, and his very clansmen give him up to a politician!
In summary, put yourself in David’s shoes (sandals?) Your father in law wants to kill you, The nation is under the rogue king, recognizing you as his greatest threat, and as the ultimate authority in the nation, has resources everywhere within the land of Israel. The citizens of Israel are seemingly following the current authority, at least passively. Brothers in your tribe actively inform this king, who is hunting you down, of your whereabouts, even going so far as telling king Saul they will give him up. Finally, your continual condition of being on the run, in hiding, away from your family, on the edge of death, must be taking a toll on you. Darkness and despair is an option for David at this point, and certainly a very real temptation for David to fall into at this time in his life.
As David writes this psalm, I want to think he is writing it as the pressure is on. Writing the psalm prior to the deliverance of God from the clutches of that king. If my assumption is correct, when David speaks next, his desire to offer a freewill offering is quite shocking.
Now a freewill offering is a offering of thanksgiving, an offering that is not required. It is simply an offering to God because of a thankful spirit, understanding the goodness of God and his provision and protection. Note also that his first reason for this freewill offering is the goodness of God’s name. Yes, David also speaks of the deliverance to be provided in the next verse, but the first thing on David’s mind is the name of God, the character of the God he worships. At this particular time of betrayal by the Ziphites – remember they tried twice to give up David to Saul, – God gave David respit from his enemy by pulling Saul away from the chase in order to fight against the Philistines.
So close to being caught by the enemy! I like the sentiment Spurgeon provides when he speaks of David’s life. “David lived a life of dangers and hair-breadth ‘scapes, yet was he always safe.”
Not so for the greater King, the Lord Jesus, for though He was persecuted by the politicians of His day, and was betrayed by His friend, as David was, He was overtaken by death. Yet the deliverance of God that was to be provided, was not protection from death, but the provision of life through death.
He was delivered from this enemy through the resurrection. God has truly delivered Jesus out of all trouble, and in this deliverance, secured provision and protection for those who follow after Him.
Considering the Bible 