The Name Jehovah

Again, before reading from the scriptures, let's pray. God and Father, we are thankful for that which we've already heard concerning this unique invitation to come unto the Savior. All ye that labor and heavy laden and I will give the rest and to take his yoke upon us.

We're thankful for the exhortation of the greatness of the Word of God and the necessity that we would have of using it for our guidance and for our blessing. We're thankful for the greatness of our God and the many blessings that we have that we can come together, that we can listen to thy voice and to learn of thee and to know more of thee and that we can be instructed by thee. We do need, once again, thy help in the exposition of thy Word, the teaching of thy Word.

We need help in applying it to our hearts and applying it to our lives. And we would think of so many needs amongst the Lord's people and great diversity of needs. And we just ask that throughout this conference that thou wouldst be able to meet every need.

Those that need encouragement, those that need guidance, those that need consolation. There are so many needs and we know that thou art able, thou art the all-sufficient God. And we are thankful for thy ability to meet each and every need.

And we ask that it may be so even today and tomorrow in thy will as we would gather to listen to the teaching of thy Word. Give help then, just now we pray, in the name of thy Son, the Lord Jesus. Amen.

I'd like to read in Exodus chapter 3 this morning. Exodus chapter 3. If you were here last evening, I tried to speak upon Abraham and the different names of God and the different titles of God that are used in the story of the life of Abraham with the intention or the purpose of trying to stimulate our interest in studying God and thinking upon the greatness of God. I'm tempted to reread the quote that I read last night that you would find in J.I. Packer's book Knowing God, where he quotes Charles Spurgeon.

And Spurgeon is emphasizing the greatness of the study of God. And the remarkable thing is, if you have an opportunity to read that quote, that at the time, Charles Spurgeon was only 20 years of age. And it's a really remarkable quote for a young person to have such a deep desire to study and to know God.

I'd like to try to continue a little bit of that theme of the study of God. And on this occasion, we will read from Exodus chapter 3. Exodus chapter 3. This is the story from the life of Moses and his call from God to go on to deliver the people of God that were enslaved in Egypt, the story of the burning bush. So we will not read the entire chapter, but rather break into the story at about verse 13, where Moses is speaking with God.

Verse 13 says, And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they shall say to me, What is his name? What shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I am that I am. And he said, Thus shall you say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God or Jehovah God, The Lord God or Jehovah God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob hath sent me unto you.

This is my name forever. And this is my memorial unto all generations. Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say unto them, The Lord God or again, Jehovah God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob appeared unto me saying, I have surely visited you and seen that which is done to you in Egypt.

Now turn over to chapter six for several verses. And in a moment, I will explain the context of this particular chapter. But for now, we'll just read a few verses.

Exodus chapter six and verse one. Then the Lord said unto Moses, Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land.

And God spake unto Moses and said unto him, I am the Lord or I am Jehovah. And as I continue reading, just observe the number of times that God says, I am the Lord or I am Jehovah in this particular chapter. Verse three, And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty.

That's what we noticed last night in Genesis chapter 17, God Almighty or El Shaddai. But by my name Jehovah was I not known to them. And I have also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers.

And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered my covenant. Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord or I am Jehovah, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm and with great judgments. And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God, and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God, or I am Jehovah your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

And I will bring you in unto the land concerning the which I did swear to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I will give it to you for an heritage. I am the Lord, or again, I am Jehovah. That will suffice for the reading of the Scriptures.

If you want to, you can turn back to Exodus chapter 3, where we will begin, and it might be of a help to have your Bible open before you, so as I make reference to different verses, you can identify what we're trying to communicate. Moses had been raised in in Egypt, as you would know, and after 40 years fled to the desert, where he was there another 40 years. As chapter 3 unfolds and begins, Moses is a pastor, or a shepherd, sorry.

He is a shepherd. He is tending to the flock. He is on the backside of the desert, and for Moses in chapter 3, it is just an ordinary day.

We have seen this many times in the small town where we preach the gospel, where the flocks are confined inside the community, or in the town. They would have little holding pens, and then during the day, there would be shepherds that would lead the flock out into almost a wilderness, or barrenness, where there's a little bit of grass, and there's some shrubs, and there the shepherd would be tending to the flock the entire day. It would seem to me a rather boring job, but the shepherd would be there, and he'd be watching the flock, and he'd be observing the flock, and tending to their needs, and he would spend the entire day there.

Well, this is how Moses's day begins in chapter 3 of Exodus. He's tending to the flock, just like any other day, just a normal day in his experience, spending time with the flock in the wilderness, trying to meet their needs, perhaps a little bit bored, when suddenly there is a bush that is burning. Now, likely Moses had seen an event similar to this on many occasions, but this was very different, and it attracted his attention.

The bush burned, but was not consumed. You know what happens when something is very dry, a bush or brush, and you light it on fire, it is quickly consumed. The flames spark up, shoot up, and in a matter of seconds, it's gone, it's over.

Well, before the day was done, Moses was going to have an encounter with the great I Am, with Jehovah God. I don't know how your day started out today, perhaps just an ordinary day, an ordinary week, but really what we need is to have a fresh appreciation, a fresh encounter with the great I Am, to try to understand who Jehovah is in his greatness and in his person. And for the remaining minutes, I would like to try to examine this title of God or this name, better said, this name of God, Jehovah, the great I Am, and try to examine exactly what it means and what it implies for us and what it meant to Moses and his experience.

Moses is one of the most impressive figures of the Old Testament. Moses is a remarkable man, a man that dealt with murmuring and with uprisings and being not appreciated by the people, and yet he was very faithful in his service. If you've never examined Moses in that aspect, it's a worthwhile study to examine the life of Moses, but I'm getting a little sidetracked.

So here is Moses, and he turns aside to see this great sight, the bush that has not been consumed by the fire, but continues to burn and to burn and to burn. And Moses is spoken to by God. He says, I'll turn aside and see this great sight, and God begins to speak with him, and God is telling him that he has seen the affliction of his people, the burdens of his people.

He has heard their cries, and he's going to send Moses as their deliverer. And so Moses comes up with a question where we began to read in verse 13, and he says, so if I'm going to go to the people of God, they're in Egypt, and I'm going to just show up after having been in exile, after having been away for such a time, they're going to probably have a few questions. And one of the first questions that they might have is, what is the name of this God that appeared to you? And perhaps they were thinking they would like to know the name because the Egyptians had a multitude of gods.

Polytheism, very popular in Egypt, and a multitude of gods, and would like to know the name, or perhaps there were other motives. Whatever the reasoning for Moses's question, the answer is what is of interest to us today. And God says to him, you will say unto them, God said moreover unto Moses, thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, I am that I am.

I am that I am. That might seem a bit of a difficult answer to understand, I am that I am? I am hath sent me? Further down, if you notice in verse 15, it is obvious that the Lord is referencing his name of Jehovah, because God said moreover unto Moses, thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, the Lord God, or Jehovah God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you. This is my name forever, Jehovah God.

Now the first little paragraph that I'm going to share with you is a little bit technical, so if you have a pen and paper, it might be of help to try to follow it. If not, it might be a little bit difficult to follow, but if you try to stick with me, maybe you'll get the gist of it. And hopefully I've got this right, depending upon other scholars and other sources.

You notice that in verse 14, there is a verb. I am, or the verb to be, or the verb to become. That is a verb.

The Hebrew word for become, you understand that the Old Testament was written almost exclusively in Hebrew, except for a few chapters in the book of Daniel, but that the Hebrew word for to become or to be would be spelled with the letters h-y-h, h-y-h. The translators have transliterated that word as h-a-y-a-h. What is transliteration? Well, you know what the word translate means.

Sometimes in Mexico, for example, when somebody would come to visit us and they don't speak Spanish, or when we first went and didn't speak Spanish, we would have to speak via translation. And one person would be speaking in English, and the other person would be translating, taking the English language and translating it into Spanish. And as mentioned, the Bible written in the Old Testament, written in Hebrew, was then translated, for example, in English.

Transliterated is a little bit different. Transliterated, or transliteration, is when there is no corresponding word. So you have a word, for example, if somebody were to begin speaking in English and we were trying to translate it in Spanish, and it just happened that they would say a word that didn't exist, for example, in Spanish, that a word perhaps then would be invented.

I don't know if John does this, but I do it frequently. I invent words all the time in Spanish that really aren't words. That's not really what we're talking about.

But transliterated, or transliteration, would be taking almost the same letters and forming a word in the other language. Technically, it is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters. And the word baptism, you often hear that they speak of baptism as being a transliterated word.

Well, the transliterators transliterated this word, H-Y-H, to say H-A-Y-A-H. Now, if you're following, if you're writing this down, you understand that verbs have different tenses. There's first person, second person, third person, et cetera, of verb tenses.

So that the verb I am, for example, the first person is I am, second is you are, the third is he or she or it is. The third person of that transliterated word are the letters Y-H-W-H. I told you this was a bit technical.

But how would you pronounce that in English? Y-H-W-H. You would need some vowels, right? Kind of hard to speak the English language without vowels. So the transliterators supplied vowels.

And thus you would get the word Yahweh, which you would find in some translations of the Bible for Jehovah, or the name Jehovah. So all that to say that basically the meaning of the name Jehovah means to be. Let me read you some more simple quotes that are of value and much easier to follow.

John Grant in his volume on what the Bible teaches in the book of Exodus has this to say, the name I am, that I am, contains each tense of the verb to be. We're just talking about the verb to be. I am.

Thus it could be translated I was, I am, and I always shall continue to be. I was, I am, and I always shall continue to be. In English it has been pronounced Jehovah or Yahweh.

The name of God is indeed a revelation of his character. Now that is very interesting, especially when you come to the book of Revelation. You remember there in the book of Revelation that God says this, I am alpha and omega, the beginning and the ending.

And then what does he say? Thus saith the Lord which is, present tense, which was, past tense, which is to come. And what does the Lord Jesus say about himself in Revelation chapter 1 and verse 18? I am he that liveth, present tense, and was dead, past tense, and am alive forevermore, future tense, to be. Was, is, will be.

That concept or the understanding of that would lead us to understand that God is eternal. Always was, presently is, always will be. Let me read you just a couple other quotations that are worth reading.

J. I. Packer, again on the meaning of Jehovah in his book, he says this, this name is not a description of God but simply a declaration of his self-existence and his eternal changelessness. A reminder to mankind that he has life in himself and that what he is now he is eternally. William Tyndale wrote about the divine name, about Jehovah, Jehovah is God's name.

Neither is any creature so called and it is as much to say as one that is of himself and dependeth on nothing. The name I am or the name Jehovah implies at least two or three characteristics of God. Number one, that he is eternal, which we've briefly mentioned.

Number two, that God is self-existent. Self-existence means that God does not depend upon anything for his existence. He merely exists.

There's a question that surprisingly we get often in the work that we're in and that would be, well, where did God come from? Who created God? Well, the idea of self-existence is that God had no beginning. He has no end. He is the alpha and the omega and he always was and always will be.

He is eternal. He depends upon nothing. You and I, for example, are not self-existent.

There are many things that we need just to exist. Physically speaking, just air, food, water, clothing, shelter, many, many things that we need for our existence. We owe existence to God.

As God would say in the Old Testament or as Daniel would say, your breath, your life is in the hand of God. But God is self-existent. Other characteristic that we see of God is the one that I would like to perhaps spend a little bit more time on, is that this name, I Am or Jehovah, would imply that God is immutable.

Immutable. Now, just for perhaps some of the younger ones that may never have heard that word before, immutable, it means that God cannot change, does not and cannot change. As the one quote that I read mentioned, it emphasizes His changelessness.

What He is today, He is eternally. What He is today, He was from eternity past. God does not change.

He is immutable. We, on the other hand, are mutable. We change.

What we were, we may not be today. What we are today, we may not be in the future. But God is immutable.

He does not change. A. W. Tozer said something of value. Referring to and regarding the immutability of God, he said the following.

He said, there are only three ways in which someone can change or something can change. And this helps you, helps us perhaps understand what it would imply if God was not immutable, or if God was mutable. He said this.

He said, in one way in which something can change is that something can improve, right? We constantly hear about improvement and trying to make things better, and that is change, and people are thinking of trying to improve and to make things better. He said, well, God cannot be improved upon, right? If God was mutable, or if God was able to change, that would mean that it would be possible for God to actually improve, to be better. Well, you know, that is completely ridiculous that God is perfect.

The other possibility is something can go from better to worse, right? If something is mutable, if something can change, there is the possibility that rather than improving, that it could go from this state to actually something worse, can degenerate. If God were mutable, if he were able to change, that would imply and mean that God could actually go from perfection to less than perfection. So, you can understand why this is very important, why that it is essential that we understand that God is immutable.

He cannot be improved upon, and he certainly can be nothing less than perfect. And thirdly, A. W. Tozer mentioned that something can change from one state to a completely different thing, which in the application to God, again, is completely unreasonable. Now, if you look at this particular chapter, chapter 3, which we just read a few of the verses, even without arriving at the name of God, we see some sense of these two concepts of mutability and immutability.

For example, when Moses is observing the bush, it is burning continually. That is what attracted his attention, that the bush wasn't consumed, it just kept burning and burning and burning, and there wasn't a change until God withdrew himself. An indication or almost like a figure of the immutability of God, something that goes on continually in a continual state without ever changing.

Then you remember that in this chapter, Moses was a bit hesitant to go to Egypt to liberate the people of God, and God gives him three signs that he should perform. Did you ever notice that all three of the signs have to do with change? First, he has this shepherd's staff or the rod in his hand, and God asks him to cast it down, and the staff or the rod becomes a serpent. There's change.

And then he takes it by the tail at God's command, and it's changed back to a staff. Then there's the sign of his hand. His hand is whole, and he places it next to himself and pulls it out, and it's leprous.

Change. And God asks him to again put it close to his side, and he pulls it out, and it's whole again. Change.

And God says if they won't believe these two signs, there's a third sign that you will perform, and that is the sign that you will take water out of the river Nile, you'll pour it out upon the land, and the water will turn to blood. There will be change. So all throughout this chapter, there is that idea of mutability and immutability, and that God is immutable.

He does not change. Why is that important to Moses, first of all, and this story that we've read, or part of this story? Well, you know that Moses finally is convinced that he's ready to go to Egypt. He's ready to do the will of God and to liberate God's people.

And in chapter 5, he arrives in Egypt, and he begins to tell the Israelites about the mission that God has entrusted to his care, and they're ready to accept him and to believe him. Perhaps seeing the signs, they believe Moses, and they're all on board. And Moses marches in to see Pharaoh, and Pharaoh says this, who is the Lord? Who is Jehovah? That I should obey his voice and let Israel go.

I know not the Lord. I know not Jehovah neither. Will I let Israel go? You can see Moses all full of enthusiasm and energy, and he's in emotion, right? Having been away for such a long time, and he comes back filled with emotion and energy and enthusiasm and excitement about what God's going to do, and the people are on board, and he marches into this Pharaoh, this extremely powerful individual, lays out God's plan before him, thinking that Pharaoh's going to pull out his rubber stamper and stamp his seal of approval and sign off on it.

And Pharaoh said, wait a minute. And Pharaoh becomes rather aggressive and angry, and begins to lay upon the Israelite people greater burdens. And instead of things getting better, instead of God's plan unfolding the way Moses thought it might, everything is going completely in the opposite direction.

And if you look just at chapter 5 and verse number 22 for just a minute, that the officers or the officials of the Israelite people had just met with Pharaoh and the taskmasters, and they're suffering because their burdens have been increased, and they're angry with Moses, and Moses goes back to God to complain. And this is what Moses says to God, Lord Jehovah, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this people? Why is it that thou has sent me? He's questioning God's plan, God's ability. For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, I've been pronouncing this name of Jehovah.

I've been telling, talking about the great I am, he that is immutable, that is eternal, that is self-existent. Since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people, neither hast thou delivered thy people at all. It's hard to tell the tone, right, when you're reading the scriptures, but those are pretty impactful words that Moses is speaking to God.

And at that moment is when God, again and again, refers to himself as Jehovah in chapter 6. Now you think about what God is saying in chapter 6. He makes reference to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob, that he had made a covenant with them to give them the land. But what has happened? Well, what has happened is that over 400 years of history have passed by without this covenant being fulfilled. 400 years.

When Jacob and his family at the end of the book of Genesis went to Egypt, there were a few people, a very small group of people. The people has multiplied greatly, but there have been many changes. For example, there have been political changes.

Pharaoh, the first Pharaoh or the Pharaoh under which Joseph ruled was very favorable to the Israelites. Gave them land to dwell in, received them very kindly, thought very highly, obviously, of Joseph. But the political landscape had changed greatly in the course of 400 years.

So much so that the beginning of the book of Exodus tells us that a new Pharaoh that had come to power knew not Joseph. I find it a little bit difficult to believe that he didn't know of him. Obviously, having passed 400 years approximately, there would have been no way that he would have known him.

But I find it hard to comprehend that he had no knowledge of Joseph and what Joseph had done for his country. But I suppose as we look at even U.S. history, many of us perhaps would be very ignorant of what past generations have done. So politically, things had changed greatly.

But not only that, things had changed greatly for, or socially speaking, for the Israelites, right? If you continue to read the beginning of chapter one of Exodus, the Israelites had become slaves. At the beginning, it wasn't that way. At the beginning, they had freedoms, they had land, but now they had become enslaved over the course of 400 years.

And there was persecution against them. Things had changed, I'm going to suggest, morally in Egypt. At the beginning, they had the freedom and they were multiplying greatly.

They were marrying, and there were families, and there were children born, and there was nothing that was impeding their growth. But as we come to Exodus chapter one, Pharaoh is promoting genocide. He's killing children that have been recently born.

Things likely had changed spiritually. Things had likely changed in terms of technology. Again, we're talking, why am I mentioning all this? Well, because the point is that God, over 400 years earlier, had made a promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And because of his immutability, because of his inability to change in his faithfulness to his promises, God, throughout that entire period, had not changed. Although there had been political changes, social changes, moral changes, and changes of all sorts throughout those 400 years. Now, do you see an application of that for us? Have things changed politically in your lifetime, socially? Speaking of Christian living and persecution against Christians and Christian liberties, have things changed morally? Things that are tolerated in this country and other countries? The danger is that we can change along with those things because we are mutable.

But the point is, God is immutable. He does not change. So, notice in chapter six, quickly to finish.

Let me get my glasses out to see the clock. Yep. God has not changed.

Look at verse six, and I don't, I won't take the time to do it, but if you have time to do it, verse six, chapter six, the number of times that God says, I will, I will bring you out, I will rid, I will redeem, I will take you, I will be to you a God, I will bring you into the land, I will give you. God is emphasizing again his promises, his immutability, that he has not changed. All that he has promised, he will do.

The result should have been unconditional trust by the Israelites in the Lord. He is immutable. What he has said he will do, he will do because he is unchanging.

But we know how things went. The implication of the great name I am, one of the implications, great name Jehovah, is that God is immutable. He has not changed, and he will not change.

Therefore, we can trust wholly, wholeheartedly, fully in the Lord and in his promises. Now we have to pray and give thanks for the food. Father in heaven, once again, we are thankful for thy great name and thy existence, self-existence, that thou needest nothing.

There's nothing that we can offer to thee or give to thee to cause thy existence, and there's nothing on nothing which thou does depend to exist. We are thankful for the greatness of thy name and the immutability of thy person, that we can trust fully in thee, that Jesus as well is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We are thankful for the blessings of being with thy people.

We give thanks for the food that has been prepared and for the needs that we have. We do look for the remainder of the day that it might be an encouragement, a blessing to us, giving thanks in the Lord Jesus' name. Amen.