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God is not one who says I was, I am, I shall be, but always and ever he remains I am.
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The names of God and what we can learn about him and his character from them is our focus this week on RENEWING YOUR Mind. Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham and welcome to this Tuesday edition of Renewing youg Mind. I'm glad you're with us. Before we get to today's message, I want to ask you if you joined us last month for a special online event. We called it Fighting the Good Fight of Faith. Chris Larson and I shared stories and testimonies from the field. We heard from Christian teenagers and their present day challenges and we shared how your support is by God's grace has had an impact this year. So especially as you consider your year end giving, I would encourage you to visit ligonier.org goodfight and watch the replay. I trust that you'll be encouraged as you hear of the work of the Lord through your support and be challenged as you hear Dr. Ferguson open God's word. So please watch Fighting the Good Fight of faith@ligonier.org GoodFight well, here's RC Sproul on the name Yahweh.
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I want to begin our study of these titles with the name of God. That is his proper name that he reveals in the Old Testament. It is the sacred name of God, the name that is protected by the law, the name that is the ineffable name, the name that is the holy name of God, the name Yahweh. Now we get this personal name for God in one of the most dramatic episodes, not simply in biblical history, but I think in the history of the whole world. We're familiar basically with the story of Moses, how as a child he was set adrift in the bulrushes by his mother, trying to protect this baby from the edict of the Pharaoh to destroy the male children of the Israelites. And how Moses was found by Pharaoh's daughter and then was reared in the court of Pharaoh, being educated in all of the arts and the sciences and the medicine, for example, of the Egyptian realm. But when he became a young man, we remember that Moses saw an officer of the guard beating an Israelite slave and Moses intervened to stop that travesty. And in his anger he struck the Egyptian guard and the guard fell and was killed. Moses looked around to see if anyone had witnessed the occasion and thinking that he was safe, he hid the body and went about his business. But somebody seen it and because of this, Moses was forced to flee into exile and certainly it seemed to Moses that the significance of his life was over as he wandered for decades in the barren wilderness of Midian. And he had moved from the court of Pharaoh to the life of a shepherd in the wilderness. And then the dramatic moment came when on that occasion, in the middle of the noontime heat, Moses was tending his flocks and he noticed something strange. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a bush that the scriptures tell us was burning. It was in flames, but the bush was not being consumed. And Moses was intrigued by this. And he stepped closer to investigate this phenomenon that we couldn't understand. And as he was peering into this burning bush, he hears the voice of God speaking to him audibly from heaven. God cried out to him, moses, Moses, put off thy shoes, from off thy feet, for the ground on which you are standing is holy ground. So Moses removed his shoes and replied, who is it, Lord? And God said, I have heard the cries and the groans of my people. And then God went on to explain to Moses that he wanted Moses to be God's spokesman to Pharaoh, to go to the courts of Pharaoh and to give the commandment of God to the ruler of the mightiest nation in the world, whereby Moses was to go and to say to the Pharaoh that God had said, let my people go. Now, we all know the consequences of this encounter. That it was through this moment of encounter that Moses was called to be the prophet of God, to be the mediator of the old covenant, to be the one who would lead the children of Israel in the Exodus experience. And so, as an old man, Moses embarks upon his career, his vocation. You know, sometimes I think about how strange that is, that a man of his age doesn't really make his mark in history until he's well past the age of retirement. Two men, giants of the 20th century, could be seen in a similar category. Winston. Winston Churchill had a checkered career and was really at the time of the age of retirement when the English people looked to him to lead them through the crisis of the Battle of Britain. Douglas MacArthur came out of retirement to head the military operations of the United States army in the Pacific Campaign in World War II. I. Two Titans of our day who did not really make their mark on history until the elder years of their life. But it was on this occasion of his call that when God told Moses to go to Pharaoh's court and to demand the release of the slaves from Egypt, that Moses asked two questions. The first question he asked was this. Who am I? You're asking me to do this, the first question was about his own character, about his own identity, about his own ability to fulfill this task. Let's read what the Scriptures say in chapter three of Exodus. Beginning at verse seven, we read this. The Lord said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard their outcry against their slave masters. I have taken heed of their sufferings, and I have come down to rescue them from the power of Egypt and to bring them up out of that country into a fine, broad land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey, the home of Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. For the outcry of the Israelites has now reached me. Yes, I have seen the brutality of the Egyptians toward them. Come now. I will send you to Pharaoh, and you shall bring my people Israel out of Egypt. And here's where it is in the text that Moses asks the first question. But who am I? That I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt? God answered, I am with you. That's all you need to know, Moses, about who you are with respect to this task. I am with you. You are the man I have chosen. You are the man I have summoned. You are the man I have sent. And I am not asking you to do this for me. I am asking you to do it with me. I'm not sending you in your own power. I'm not sending you into the valley of the shadow of death alone. But I am with you. This shall be the proof that it is I who have sent you, that when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall all worship God here on this mountain. And now Moses is moved to ask the second question. And then Moses said to God, if I go to the Israelites and tell them that the God of their forefathers has sent me to them, and they ask me his name, what shall I say? You understand what's behind this? Moses knows that when he asks the people of Israel to revolt against the tyranny of Pharaoh, that he will be asking them to risk their lives and the lives of their children against the mightiest power on earth. I've often said what Moses is going to be suggesting to them is the largest wildcat strike in history. A massive slave uprising. And Moses said, if I go and tell those people, follow me, we're leaving. And I say to them, I talked to you in this bush out here in the Midianite wilderness. Nobody's going to believe that God, they're going to want to know who you are, what God has commissioned the Exodus? Who is this God of the desert? Who is calling us to this action? What name shall I give them? Moses asks. And God answers Moses question with the simple response, Yahweh. Yahweh, which is the Hebrew word that means literally I am who I am. You tell them that I am has sent you. Now, this sacred name is made up of four consonants. The Hebrew language is strange in this regard, that the words in Hebrew are printed just with the consonants and they don't have the vowels. In fact, when first time I started to study Hebrew, it was very disconcerting to me. And I wanted to raise my hand and see if I could buy a vowel to understand these words. But there is a certain procedure that is used to add vowels to the consonants. But these four consonants, most Jewish words, Hebrew words, have only three consonants. This one has four. And these four consonants are called in literature the tetragrammaton. The tetragrammaton, the four letters that stand for and signify and communicate the sacred name of God. And given the vowel points, the name is then spoken Yahweh. Now, I don't know what Bible you're reading, if you're following along today in the text, but many English Bibles translate this sacred name by the English word Jehovah. There is no Hebrew word Jehovah. The word Jehovah comes from the root consonants for the name Yahweh, with the vows from the title that we will look at later, Adonai added to the consonants from the name Yahweh. And there's a reason for that, and that is to guard against a misuse of the sacred name. But in any case, the proper name for God, not a title, but his personal name, is the name Yahweh. And it means I am who I am. Other translators render it this way, I will be what I will be. Some others even say that it means I will do what I will do, indicating God's right and sovereign ability to decide for himself what he is going to do in the future, that he is not contained or controlled by any human rule or wish or government. But the majority of scholars believe that the name properly should be translated according to the traditional form. I am who I am. Now, it almost sounds like the absence of a name, doesn't it? And some have speculated, as we looked at in our last lesson, that in the case when Jacob wrestled with the angel and Jacob asked the angel to give him his name, that Jacob was trying to get the angel to submit to Jacob's authority. And some have looked at this text and say, well, Moses is trying to get control over God. Moses is trying to exert his authority over this one who is speaking to him out of the bush. I don't think that fits the context at all. Because Moses, if anything, is being completely humble here in this event. Who am I to do this? And he obeys every command that God gives him. Here he takes his shoes off and he's standing there awestruck by this outward visible display of the majestic holiness of God. I don't think this is a moment that Moses was exercising his pride. But some do think that what God is saying when he says, I am who I am, is that what he's doing in effect, is refusing Moses request, refusing to reveal his name. I personally am not persuaded by that. I think the name of God here is so perfectly fitting for the Old Testament concept of names, indicating something of the character who bears the name. God is saying, I am who I am. I am the I am. Because in this name, though the Old Testament does not spell it out here, in all the abstract theology that is attending it, the idea that is communicated is that God is a person, that God is a being who has the power of his being. Not from something that was generated in the past, not that something that sustains him in the present that he needs. And not a being who will pass out of existence in the future. Because for us, the three modes of time, the three tenses, the past, the present and the future, are a part of our experience. Because we're finite creatures. We're temporal creatures, creatures bound by time. If you go to a cemetery and you look at the tombstones, people's whole lives will be summarized by a name and by two the date of their birth and the day of their death. But for God, there is no birth date and there is no future moment of his death. Because God is not one who says, I was, I am, I shall be. But always and ever he remains I am. Which is saying so much about his character. And the first thing that's so obvious about it is that it calls attention to God's eternal, unchangeable nature. Yesterday God would say I am. Today he says, I am. Tomorrow he still will be I am. He's always and ever the same. There's no shadow of turning in his character or in his nature. He doesn't grow up. There's no evolution, there's no devolution in his character. He remains always the same One of the things that Jesus did in the New Testament that provoked so much animosity and hostility from his contemporaries was the way he used the phrase I am in John's Gospels. On several occasions, Jesus uses this phrase, and he uses the conjoining together of two Greek words, ago, which is the usual word that means I am, or imi, which is another verb that means I am. And Jesus simply would not be satisfied to say ego or ego or imi. But he would frequently say ego imi. He would put the two words together, which is what the Greek translators of the Old Testament did when they came to describe the name of God. They would translate Yahweh by this strange conjunction of two verbs in the Greek ego e me. And so Jesus, when he would talk to his disciples and to those who around him would say, for example, ego imi the good shepherd, I am the good shepherd. I am the door through which men must enter. I am the vine. Ego imi, I am the vine, you are the branches. And one of the most dramatic uses of this is when Jesus said, before Abraham was egoimi, before Abraham was I am. Not before Abraham was I was, but before Abraham was I am. See, Jesus is using this same concept by which God reveals his eternal character, his eternal deity to Moses in the Midianite wilderness. But oh beloved, that name Yahweh means so very much more that we're going to have to take a whole another message to explore it in its depths, which we will do in our next meeting.
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That was R.C. sproul and he'll be back in just a moment with another thought for you on this name of God. We consider it a great stewardship at Ligonier Ministries to care for, preserve, translate and distribute the immense and deep library of teaching that we have from Dr. Sproul. Your regular support makes this possible and it's a joy to be able to go back into the archives and feature a series like this one. One that has not been on Renewing your mind for many years. And today to thank you for your year end support@renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800-435-4343. We'll give you lifetime digital access to this 15 message series. Plus we'll send you three books, a copy of R.C. sproul's book what Are the Names of God? And two copies of his book the Great Rescue. The Great Rescue clearly presents the Gospel, so perhaps give them both away as you seek to share your gospel hope with those around you. Make your year end gift to ligonier@renewingyourmind.org or use the link in the podcast Show Notes. Thank you. Well, here's Dr. Sproul again.
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As we look at our practical application, our coram Deo for today, I want to ask you this question. Who are you? That's one of the toughest questions we ever have to answer, isn't it? We can give our name, but that's not enough to really define who we are. And when we try to get a handle on who we are, we look at our past. Well, I'm the one who does this or I did that. And I was born in such and such a place, such and such a time. And sometimes I muse in my own mind and I say it's hard for me to relate to the boy that played in the woods and in the hills outside of Pittsburgh 50 years ago. That boy doesn't exist anymore. He's gone. But yet there's another sense in which he does exist. The boy is gone, but the man is still here. And there's that boy is a part of who I am. That boy is still inside of me. That boy is part of my memory bank. That boy is part of my personality. But R.C. sproul as a person is always changing. I have continuity with my past, but I also have discontinuity. Only God remains the same. Only God can call Himself. I am.
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Be sure to join us tomorrow as RC Sproul continues to unpack the name Yahweh here on Renewing your mind.
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Sam.