Man, Exodus chapter number 6 here. If you remember at the end of Exodus chapter 5,
the children of Israel had been disgruntled because of the fact that
Pharaoh had put all these extra burdens upon them. He's persecuting them, but
often in the Bible, great persecution or hard times come right before deliverance.
You know, if you think about what it's gonna be like in the end times, there's
gonna be the greatest tribulation that the world has ever seen right before the
second coming of Jesus Christ. So that's the relief after the struggle. So we have
to, through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom of God. And so the children
of Israel, they're going through a really hard time of persecution right now
before they get out of bondage. And they're not having faith like they
should because God has already told Moses, Moses has already told them that
this is part of the process. They should have expected this, but they were very
disgruntled at the end of chapter 5. So then it starts to rub off on Moses. Moses
goes to God and says, God, what's going on? You haven't delivered these people at
all. So then we pick up in chapter 6 verse 1,
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. He's saying he's not only gonna let them go, he's gonna be
shoving them out the door. He's gonna want to get rid of them because I'm
gonna put him through so many bad plagues and things, and he's got all
kinds of things that are coming. And so it says in verse number 2, And God spake
unto Moses and said unto him, I am the Lord. And I appeared unto Abraham, unto
Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty. But by my name Jehovah was I
not known to them, and I've also established my covenant with them to
give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were
strangers. So I want to stop and talk about verse 3, because verse 3 is
extremely important. What it says here, that he appeared unto Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob by the name of God Almighty, but by his name Jehovah he was not known unto
them. Now today we have a group of people called the Jehovah's Witnesses, and they
claim that Jehovah is the only name of God, and that everything else is just a
title or something, which is a totally unbiblical concept, because the Bible
refers to these other designations as names. God the Father is a name. If you
look up the word name in any dictionary, you'll see that God the Father is a name,
the Holy Spirit is a name, God is a name, Lord of Hosts is a name, you know, these
are all names of God. God has multiple names, okay, and God reveals different
names at different times, and there's great significance when God reveals a
new name. But whenever God reveals a new name, he does not discontinue the old
name. The old name continues to be his name, but he's known by many different
names, not just one name. So when people think that God only has one name, they're
completely wrong, okay. And even in the future, the Bible talks about how God is
going to write upon them his new name, you know, there's going to be other
new names that we learn even in the future, even when we get to the
millennium and beyond the millennium, there will be a new name. So one thing I
want to explain, though, is how the King James Bible designates these
different names, and why certain things are in all capital letters, and certain
things are in lowercase letters. Now why does the King James Bible take the Old
Testament name of God, which we know as Jehovah, and why does it translate it
into English as the Lord, okay? Other languages don't necessarily always do
this, like for example, in Spanish, if you read the Old Testament in the Old
Reina Valera Bible, you'll find over 7,000 times in the Old Testament,
heova, heova, heova, heova, over and over again. Whereas the King James doesn't do
it that way. The King James doesn't put Jehovah over and over again. Instead, it
translates it as the Lord in all capital letters. So you'll see there at
the end of verse 2, I am the Lord, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. And I
remember when I was a teenager, the Jehovah's Witnesses came to my door, and
this was the one question where I had no answer for them. They kind of stumped me
when they said, you know, why doesn't your Bible say Jehovah? Why did it take out
Jehovah so many times? And I was ignorant. I didn't know this issue, so I had no
answer for them. I knew that they were wrong for a lot of other reasons, but
that was one thing that I thought to myself, wow, you know, they actually have a
point on that. You know, why doesn't it say Jehovah? But then later I understood
why. The reason why is because the New Testament never uses the term Jehovah,
not even once. Never one time will you find that name which is known as the
tetragrammaton, okay? And this is just a fancy way of saying a four-letter name,
all right? Tetra, think of the game Tetris where it's all these little groups of
four blocks falling on the screen. Tetra, four, grammaton is letters, okay? So it's
a four-letter word. Yod-he-bav-he, right? Jehovah. But in Hebrew, it's all
consonants. So in the Hebrew Bible, there are no vowels. And if you ever looked at
Psalm 119 in your King James Bible, you'll see that it's broken into 22 sections.
And each section says Aleph, Bet, Gemel, Dalet, and all the different letters
there. Well, all 22 of those letters that you'll find in Psalm 119 are all
consonants. None of them are vowels because of the fact that Hebrew is one of
the earliest alphabets, possibly even the earliest alphabet known to man. So it's
the oldest alphabet ever because any older writing forms like, you know,
Egyptian hieroglyphics or cuneiform or something, they're not alphabets though.
They're just, you know, pictures or symbols representing syllables and words.
But the first true alphabet, the oldest true alphabet that we can find is the
Hebrew alphabet or other Semitic alphabets, okay? So it doesn't have any
vowels. It only has consonants. So because of that, because this is so many
thousands of years ago that the Bible was written, and because it's in all
consonants, nobody's really sure how it's pronounced. So you could pronounce it
according to the rules of modern Hebrew, and you could look at it and it would be
pronounced something like Yehova, okay? But nobody knows if that's what it's
pronounced like. You know, back in the Middle Ages, that's what they guessed at
it, that it's something like Yehova or Jehovah, but nobody knows, okay? But here's
the thing about that. That four-letter term, however it's pronounced, is never
found in the New Testament one time. So the New Testament's obviously in Greek,
the Old Testament's in Hebrew. Well, in the New Testament, they're often quoting
the Old Testament, right? So think about this. If the book of Matthew being
written in Greek is quoting the Old Testament, which is written in Hebrew,
it's basically having to translate things from Hebrew into Greek, right?
They're having to take an Old Testament scripture and translate it into Greek. So
what did Matthew do? What did Mark do? What did Luke do? What did John do when
they quote an Old Testament scripture that uses the name of God, this
four-letter name, Jehovah? You know how they translated it? They translated the
Lord. So stop and think about this. If the Holy Ghost led Matthew, Mark, Luke, John,
Paul, Peter, James, Jude, all of them, whenever any of them translated something
from the Old Testament, they always translated it as the Lord. They didn't try to
just transliterate Jehovah. You know, they could have just spelled out something
like Jehovah with Greek letters, but that's not what they did. They use a
Greek word that means the Lord. So when the King James translators come along,
what do you think they're gonna do? Oh, the apostles are wrong. Let's put Jehovah
7,000 times. If the apostles are gonna translate it as the Lord, then they're
gonna translate it as the Lord. Doesn't that make sense? So, you know, that's what
I wish I would have known back when I was a teenager and those Jehovah's
Witnesses came to my door. I could have said, hey, I got a better question for you
guys. Why is the word Jehovah never found in any New Testament? Not in the
Greek, not in the English, unless you get Jehovah's Witness Bible where they just
add it over and over again. They take the word Lord and just swap it out for
Jehovah when it's convenient for them. Certain places they don't. Like, how
about this one? That every knee should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the
glory of God the Father. They don't switch that out for Jehovah. You know,
that every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Jehovah. They don't like that.
So they pick and choose, but if you are reading the New Testament in Greek, it's
just like in English. The Lord, the Lord, the Lord. No Jehovah. Okay? So what the
King James Bible does, though, just so that we know the difference between the
name the Lord and just the word Lord, what they do is when it's the name of
God, when it's that four-letter name of God, well, it's pretty convenient that the
word Lord also has four letters, right? So they just put Lord in all caps. So
whenever we see that in the Old Testament, chapter 6, verse 2, where it
says Lord in all caps, that is a name. Now, when you see Lord in lowercase, where
it's just like a lowercase L, lowercase O-R-D, that just means Lord as in, like,
master or boss or ruler, right? Because we could talk about somebody being the
Lord of the manor or lords and ladies over in England. They have the House of
Lords, but that's not talking about deity, is it? Or like when when Sarah called
Abraham Lord, she's not calling him deity. She's not calling him Jehovah. She's just
basically calling him sir, calling him the boss. That's all that means right
there. So we want to be able to differentiate between those two things,
the capitalized Lord and the uncapitalized. Now, if you see the word
Lord and just the first letter is capitalized and everything else is
lowercase, it's referring to God, but it's not that four-letter name of God. Instead,
it is the word Lord as in master, okay, which is a different thing altogether. So
I have a chart here that I think could help a little bit to understand this. And
and by the way, just just so you know, if you do see in the New Testament, Lord in
all caps, that is not the name Jehovah. That is not Tetragrammaton. That is just
basically something that the printer did, but it doesn't have the same meaning as
in the Old Testament. So we're talking about the Old Testament when we talk about
Lord in all caps. So these are basically the the seven most significant names for
God that you're gonna find in the Old Testament, okay? So these are the seven
significant names. Obviously, the first one is just God, right? You find that a
lot. And then you find the Lord God, okay, or just the Lord in all caps, right? So
when we see Lord in all caps or Lord God, what is that right there? What do we know
we're looking at? Jehovah, right? So this is the term Jehovah. And then when we run
into this right here, Lord God, this second God in all caps, that is the word
Jehovah. The word God in all caps, okay. So the difference between these two
things I've drawn on the back here, okay? So when you have Lord God and the Lord's
in all caps, Lord is Jehovah, right? Because it's all caps. And then the God
in all caps is Jehovah. So why is this? Because over here you have Jehovah
paired with the word for God, Elohim. So you have Lord God, but over here you have
the other word for Lord as in a master paired with Jehovah. So it becomes Lord
God, all right? So anyway, this is just so that without knowing any Hebrew or
anything, you can just read the Old Testament in English and see these
capitalizations and know exactly what's going on. And you don't feel like you're
you're missing any meaning or or losing something in the translation because you
can, you know, look at this and understand what's going on, what the difference is.
And then other significant names of God are God Almighty, which is used
frequently in Genesis in the book of Job. And then the Lord of Hosts, which is
Jehovah, but then you have this aspect added being the Lord of Hosts. And this
in the New Testament a few times, it says the Lord of Sabaoth, right? And if you
compare Scripture with Scripture and you look at that verse in Romans 9 where it
says, except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have been like unto
Sodom and been made like unto Gomorrah. If you look up that verse in Isaiah
chapter 1, it doesn't say Lord of Sabaoth, it says the Lord of Hosts. So that tells
you, oh, Sabaoth means hosts, okay? It's not Sabbath. Sometimes people read that
and think, oh, Lord of the Sabbath. That's not what that is. It's Lord of Shavuot or
the Lord of Sabaoth or Shavuot or however you pronounce that. So basically,
that's an important name. That comes up a lot in like the books of Samuel and the
Kings and Chronicles because the fact that God is, you know, seen as the Lord of
Hosts, like he goes with the armies of Israel. So you'll see it in those type of
contexts, the Lord of Hosts. Because hosts means like great armies or just huge
amounts of people following him to battle, okay? And then, of course, you see
the term in the English Bible in the book of Psalms one time, Jah, which is
basically just short for Jehovah, right? So don't get all Rastafarian on me
here. But anyway, Jah is just short for Jehovah. That's a term that's used that's
important. And then you have just the term the Most High or the Most High God,
like Melchizedek was the priest of the Most High God. So one thing I just want
to drive in and emphasize about all seven of these terms, which I believe, and
there are some other significant terms for God like the Ancient of Days or
other things, but these are what I felt like are the seven most significant
names. But what I want to strongly emphasize is that all seven of these
names refer to God in general. God in general. None of these are exclusive
to God the Father. All of these names and the term Ancient of Days, any
Old Testament term for God, can be applied to the Father or the Son or the
Holy Ghost or all three collectively. These are names of God in general. So you
could refer to Jesus as God. You could refer to Jesus as the Lord or Jehovah.
And the Bible does that many times. You can refer to Jesus as God Almighty, Lord
of Hosts, Jah the Most High. All of these names are applicable to Jesus Christ
because they are all names of God in general. And you can find references in
the New Testament that will prove that Jesus is included in these names. You
know, where Jesus, for example, says, you know, before Abraham was, I am. And we know
that the word Jehovah is a derivative of the term I am. Because remember when he
rolls out this name, we just saw it a few weeks ago in Exodus chapter 3, he said, I
am that I am. Tell the children of Israel that I am hath sent me unto you. So
anyway, I hope that helps break that down for you to help you understand the
different names that the Bible uses throughout the Old Testament. Those are
the seven most significant. Now, why does this matter? Well, it can just help you
understand the Bible when you're reading it to know whether we're talking about
the Lord, God, or just Lord in general as in a master or a boss. Sometimes that
will affect the meaning. And that term, Lord in all capital letters, is used
approximately 7,000 times in the Old Testament, making it the most frequent
noun. So it's an important term. Now, one thing that's interesting about this is
that in certain places in the Bible, it can help you to understand when that
book of the Bible was written or where that scripture comes from. And probably
the two most obvious examples of this, go to Genesis chapter 1 if you would, the
two most obvious examples of this are in Genesis and Job, okay? The book of Genesis
and the book of Job is where this will really jump out at you. Because what is
it that God said here in Exodus 6 3? He said, I appeared unto Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob by the name of God Almighty, but by my name of Jehovah was I not known unto
them. So he says, I was known to them as God Almighty. They didn't think of me as
Jehovah, they thought of me as God Almighty. So therefore, this can show us
the dating of some of the books of the Bible or some of the chapters of the
Bible because of the fact that anything that uses the term Jehovah as the main
or primary way of referring to God is obviously coming after the burning bush.
It's obviously coming after the time of Moses when that became the way that God
started to refer to himself as his primary name during that period.
Obviously, in the New Testament, that's no longer the primary way God refers to
himself because now he's primarily referred to as either the Lord or God
the Father or Jesus Christ or the Holy Ghost and terms like that. So if you look
at Genesis chapter 1, it's very clear the change that happens because
all throughout chapter 1, you just have over and over again God. So you see
almost every verse, you don't even have to read the verse, you can just glance
verse 3 and God said, verse 4 and God saw, verse 5 and God called, verse 6 and
God said. So virtually every verse here is just mentioning God, God, God, God, God,
but what you don't find anywhere in chapter 1 is the Lord. It's just the word
God over and over and over again, right? And that takes us through the six days
of creation. Well then when you spill over into chapter 2, you get to the
seventh day and again it's just God. You know, he blesses the seventh day and he
rested and everything like that. Then you have a gear change in verse 4 because in
verse 4 it says, these are the generations of the earth when they were
created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens and every
plant of the field and he starts a whole new narrative. He starts a whole new
telling of the story and instead of saying God, notice now every single time
from verse 4 on, look what it says, the Lord God in all capitals there. Do you
see that? Verse 5, Lord God. Verse 7, Lord God. Verse 8, Lord God. Verse 9, Lord God.
So what this obviously points to is the fact that the children of Israel, even
back when they were in Egypt, even before Moses and the burning bush, they already
knew this story of the creation of the world which makes perfect sense that the
children of Israel for 400 years in bondage in Egypt or even before that
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it's not like they were totally in the dark about how
the world was created. Wouldn't it make sense that they would know how the world
was created? So remember before the Bible was written down, holy men of God spake
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. God who at sundry times and in divers
manners spake in time past to the fathers by the prophets. So even before
Moses came along and they actually had a written book of Genesis, book of Exodus,
book of Leviticus, book of Numbers, did they have God's Word at all? Of course
because man has always had God's Word. Where does faith in God come from? Faith
coming by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. If you don't have the Word
of God, you don't have faith. If you don't have the Word of God, you don't have
salvation, right? Because salvation comes through God's Word quickening us. Even in
the Old Testament, David said, thy word has quickened me. So what I want to
emphasize to you is that God's Word has always been around on this earth. Now not
all of it. Obviously it was revealed more and more over time. So Moses did not
have as much of God's Word as David did. I mean by the time we get to the time of
David, there's more of it. And by the time we get to Ezekiel's day, there's even
more of God's Word. When we get to the book of Daniel, there's even more for
Daniel to refer to. Daniel can read the book of Jeremiah. Daniel could read the
law of Moses. He could read the books of Joshua and Judges and Ruth. So he had a
lot more scripture. And by the time we get to the time of Christ, they have the
entire Old Testament. I mean they have 39 books worth of God's Word. But even
before the flood, men of God preached God's Word verbally, and so God's Word
was out there. And then even in the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Word of
the Lord was around, okay? Even before it was written down. So this creation account is
not really that complicated in Genesis chapter 1, 1 verses Genesis chapter 2
verse 3, and this is something that people obviously had memorized. The Holy
Ghost had moved upon men of God to preach this creation account, and this
was something that they already knew, they already had, it was already there. It
wasn't being revealed new with Moses. They already had it. And I'm sure that
they already had a whole bunch of other stuff too. We don't know exactly what
they had and what they didn't have, but I think it's pretty obvious that this is
one of the things that they would have, which makes perfect sense that they
would at least know about the creation of the world, because that's something
that you want to know about. So everybody's always known this story
basically, okay? Even before the name of Jehovah was revealed, this creation story
was already around. Now other people will take it a step further, and this is where
they're wrong. Other people will take it a step further and say, well, the whole
Genesis 1 through 11 was already written down in a book, and they already had it
in Egypt and whatever. Who's ever heard that thing taught before, where they say,
oh yeah, Genesis 1 through 11 already existed. They already had that. Well,
here's the problem with that. Genesis chapter 2 is Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah,
Jehovah, Jehovah. Well, guess what? That shows that it's new in the sense that
it's being revealed in the time of Moses. That's why it's using names for God
that are the names that he was known by in that period. So it helps you kind of
figure out the timing. And then the other one where it's very obvious, if you would
go to the book of Job, turn to Job chapter 1, is that some people will try
to say that the book of Job is the oldest book in the Bible. And I was, you
know, when I was growing up, I heard that a lot. I was taught that a lot. But
it isn't true because of the fact that you can tell that the book of Job is
written long after the events in the book of Job. Now, how do we know that?
Because of the fact that, first of all, at the very end of the book of Job, it talks
about how Job had children and children's children and children's
children, and he died being a very old man. So somebody's having to write after
he's died, which was way after the story, because they have to basically say, okay,
this guy died, and he had four generations of kids, three generations,
whatever, and so therefore the book is being written way later. Now you say,
well, you know, how could anyone accurately remember, you know, what a life
has said, you know, 200 years later, 300 years later or something. You know, first
of all, this doesn't bother me at all because the Bible is inspired by God. So
it's not reliant upon human memory. And this is what I was talking about on
Sunday, too, when I preached about this a little bit, is that the Holy Spirit is
speaking through these men. He's inspiring the scripture, and so they
don't have to rely on their memory. It's not like Matthew just had to remember
everything perfectly when he's writing the book of Matthew. And look, if John
were relying on his human memory and writing down the book of John, he's gonna
make mistakes, because we all, when we tell stories, you know, you get together
with two people that were at the same event, and sometimes they're both just
sure that it happened a certain way. Oh, I know it happened this way, right? And
they tell the story completely different than someone else, because
their memory is wrong, and sometimes you're so sure about things, and he
turns out you're wrong. So if these guys were relying on human memory, I don't
care if they're eyewitnesses, years and years later, they're not gonna have the
memory. Not only that, they would not be able to write, if they were just human
beings sitting down to write the Bible, they're not gonna write the greatest
literature that the world has ever seen. A bunch of fishermen are just gonna
write the most mind-blowing book that's the best-selling book for the next 2,000
years straight, right? And that is just such excellent literature that people
are in awe of it, and it's been often tried where people would imitate the
Bible or try to write other Gospels or other books, and they can't even come
close, they can't even hold a candle to it. Why? Because it wasn't just John
sitting down to write the Bible, it wasn't just Matthew saying that, and what
do Mark and Luke know? They're not the 12 disciples, right? Folks, holy men of God,
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. So these guys, yeah, they had their
sources, yeah, they were eyewitnesses in Matthew and John's case, or Mark and Luke
talked to the first-hand witnesses and they got that information, but when they
sat down to write, they were moved by God, the Holy Spirit inspired them, and they
ended up writing the Word of God. Not the Word of Man, but the Word of God. So
that's what's so cool about the Bible. I love the fact that the Bible is written
by human beings and divinely inspired, it's without error, and it's written by
human beings. That's amazing, you know. Now that's not what the Quran said. The
Quran said that God showed up just and spoke Arabic and just, wow, it's a piece
of junk, and you know what, that's why anyone, there's no one who's not a Muslim
who likes the Quran, no one. Show me a non-Muslim who says, well, I'm not Muslim,
but man, the Quran is just a great book. I just, I love reading it. I really enjoy
sitting down reading the Quran. It doesn't exist. Show me somebody who reads it for
fun. Show me somebody who says, well, I'm not Mormon, but the Book of Mormon is a
really cool book. Nobody. It's not out there, but you know, there are millions
and millions of people, even hundreds of millions of people, who will just flat
out tell you, I don't believe the Bible, but they'll sit and read the Bible and
say, man, the Bible is great literature. The Bible is a great book. Folks, we could go to
any Ivy League school, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, you know, and we could go to these
fancy schools, and you know, all of them have whole departments studying the
Bible, and they have a teacher that gets up and teaches the Bible, and they have a
classroom full of students who believe the Bible, and none of the students believe the
Bible, and the teacher doesn't believe the Bible is God's Word. Literally. I mean,
isn't this a funny sight to imagine? A teacher who spends his life teaching the
Bible, and he'll flat out tell you it's not the Word of God. He believes in the
Big Bang, evolution. I'm not kidding. Folks, this isn't one school. This is every.
Ivy League College has a department like this, and all the students are there,
and they're all studying Genesis, and they're studying Exodus, and they're
studying the Gospels, and they're studying the Epistles of Paul, and they'll flat out
tell you, I don't believe the Bible. Why are they studying it? Because even they
recognize the impact on civilization, the impact on mankind, and they will say that
this is the greatest literature of antiquity. That's what they'll say. It's
the greatest literature of all time. Show me another religious text that
non-believers enjoy and say this is great literature. The Bible is beyond
anything man has ever written. In any genre, at any time period, the Bible is
the ultimate book. Okay, and so this proves its divine inspiration, because
never man spake like this man. Okay, so it shouldn't bother us to find out
that the book of Job is written a hundred years later, 200 years later, or
however many, I don't care how many years later it was written. That doesn't
bother me at all, and it's proven by the fact that the end of the book, it flat
out tells you, hey look, Job lived way after this, and he had all these kids, and
grandkids, and great-grandkids. So anyway, with that in mind, look at chapter 1 of
the book of Job. Okay, so chapter 1 here, if we take a look, for example, at verse
7, we see the Lord in all caps, right? We see it in verse 6. We see it in verse 8,
verse 9. I mean, you can just kind of just lean back from your Bible and look
at the page here of Job chapter 1. Don't you see the Lord in all caps a lot? So
the Bible is primarily referring to God here as Jehovah. Chapter 2 is the same
way. So in chapters 1 and 2 is the introduction of the book, but then what
you'll find is that as soon as we switch to Job and his three friends talking, you
know what they call him over and over again? God Almighty. The Almighty. Almighty.
Almighty. Almighty. Almighty. Over and over and over again, frequently in the
book of Job, God's primary designation is the Almighty or God Almighty. Now what
did God say in Exodus chapter 6 verse 3? He said, I was known to Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob by the name of God Almighty. So this shows you, okay, the events in the
book of Job happened during that time period when God was primarily being
known by the name of God Almighty. So that means that the book of Job, and if
you look at the names and the places and the people in the book of Job, it's clear
that the book of Job took place sometime after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but before
Moses and the Ten Commandments and the giving of the law and everything like
that. So remember that the children of Israel in captivity for 400 years. So
sometime during that 400 year period is where the events in Job are taking
place, okay, but when was Job written? Job was written after Moses because that's
how we get in chapters 1, 2, and then if we go to the end of the book, chapter 42,
again it picks up with the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the
Lord. Okay, why? Because at the end of the book now it's the narrator talking and
the narrator's writing in a time when God's primarily known as the Lord, but
when he flashes back to Job and his three friends, it's using the language
of their day, which is to call God, God Almighty. Does everybody understand what
I'm saying? So the events in the book of Job are pre-Moses, but the book is
written after Moses, therefore it's not the oldest book in the Bible, therefore
the oldest book in the Bible is Genesis, right? Genesis is the oldest book in the
Bible. The oldest five books in the Bible are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy. It's that simple. So it shouldn't bother you when portions of
Scripture are written way later, that's not even the issue. You say, well how do
we know which books are legitimate? Well, because any book that didn't make the
list is total garbage. Well, according to who? Well, according to me and the Holy
Spirit. How do you know? Well, you know, I have the Holy Spirit living inside of me.
Now some people can't understand that because they don't have the Holy Spirit
living inside of them, so that's a really foreign concept to them, kind of goes
over their head when you talk about the fact that you can discern the voice of
the shepherd. Well, when you're one of the sheep, you know the voice of the
shepherd. The goats have a hard time with that concept. So anyway, that was a big
rabbit trail, but very important teaching, so I always want to drive that in. Go back
to Exodus chapter 6. Exodus chapter 6. Because if the Bible is the final
authority in all matters of faith and practice, we should understand where the
Bible came from. We should understand how the Bible was written, okay? We don't want
to get wrong ideas about the Bible. We don't want to think, for example, the
Bible has errors in it, or that the Bible is wrong about certain things, or that,
you know, because some people will say this, well man wrote the Bible.
You know, the Bible was written by man. And what they mean by that is that it
has mistakes in it, because it's like it's just a guy sitting down and just
writing about his experiences with Jesus or something. No way. That is a lie.
But then on the other side, you don't want to have a Muslim
type view of the Bible that just basically says that the Bible was just
all 100% dictated from heaven, and somebody just wrote down exactly what
was dictated from heaven. That's not the way the Bible was given, because the
Bible was written by human beings with divine inspiration. And so that's the
balance of ideas here. You don't want to go to either of those two wrong extremes, okay?
The important thing to me as a Christian, and to you as a Christian in
2019, is just that we know that the Bible is telling the truth. That's all that
matters, right? As long as we can understand and comprehend the fact that
anything that the Bible says, I can trust. That's what matters to me, right? I just
want to know that when I open the Bible up to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, I'm
reading the absolute truth, and that Jesus actually said and did all those
things. And there's no question about that. That's the important thing. That's
what the Ivy League school is wrong on. Oh, you know, the Bible is just written by
man, you know. So, you know, I would be aware of people who say, oh, the Bible is
written by man. Even though the Bible is written by man, when they say it like that,
you know what they mean. They mean it was only written by man, when in reality God
wrote it through men. Okay, God used man to write the Bible, is the way we should
look at it. So anyway, the names of God are very important. He was not known to
them by Jehovah. Instead, he was named to them God Almighty. Verse 4, I'll just
hurry through the rest of this. It says, and I've also established my covenant
with them, Exodus chapter 6, verse 4, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of
their pilgrimage wherein there were strangers. And I've 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, 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, which bringeth you out from under the
burdens of the Egyptians. So what we see emphasized here is the fact there's a
covenant. So a covenant is like an agreement, or a deal, or a contract, and
he's saying to them, I remember the covenant I made with Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, and because of that covenant, I'm going to bring you out. I'm going to give
you the land that I promised to them. You're going to get that land as a
heritage. But here's the thing about this covenant that God made with them.
It's not a one-sided deal, and a lot of people will teach that this is just an
unconditional covenant. Unconditional election, right? Folks, the children of
Israel being chosen to be God's chosen people is not an unconditional election.
If it were, they'd still be God's chosen people, but guess what? They're not, okay?
Now keep your finger here in Exodus 6, flip over to Exodus 19. Go to Exodus
chapter 19, and if you know 1 Peter chapter 2, Exodus 19 is going to sound
familiar to you, because 1 Peter 2 is referring back to Exodus 19. Very famous
passage in 1 Peter 2, 9, and 10, but look if you would at Exodus chapter 19. It
says in verse 4, you've seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bear you
on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore if you will obey
my voice indeed, what? If, if you will obey my voice indeed. Does he say, hey, no
matter what, you're thick and thin, doesn't matter, you're always going to be
my people. Is that what he said? He said, if you will obey my voice indeed and keep
my covenant. So is this covenant an unconditional covenant, an unconditional
land grant to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the children of Israel? No, this is
not unconditional. It's conditional. The covenant has obligations on both sides.
It's like if you hired a contractor for your house, you know, he's gonna do the
work, you're gonna pay money, okay? This isn't a one-sided, if he doesn't do the work,
you're not gonna pay the money. If you don't pay the money, he's not gonna do
the work, right? This is a two-sided deal, okay? So there could be a material breach
of contract where the covenant would be null and void. That's why God even said,
you shall know in the book of Numbers, I believe it is, you shall know my breach
of promise. Because his promise was not an unconditional promise. His promise was,
if you do this, I will do this, okay? So what does he say here in Exodus 19? If
you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then you shall be a
peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine, and you
shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words
which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. Now, the beautiful thing is
that in 1 Peter 2, 9, and 10, he applies this to the Gentiles. He's already moved
on, because he says, you're a chosen generation. You're a peculiar people.
You're the nation of priests. And he said, in time past you were not a people, but
now you're the people of God. So that's where the torch has been passed from the
Jews to the Gentiles, okay? The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, he told the
Israelites, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruit syrup. So in
Exodus chapter 19, he says, you have to do X, Y, and Z in order to be my people, in
order to be a nation of priests, in order to be a peculiar people, in order to
inherit these promises. So go back if you would to Exodus chapter 6, and in Exodus
chapter 6, it says in verse 8, and I will bring you in unto the land concerning
the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I
will give it you for in heritage I am the Lord. Now let me ask you something.
Did he actually give it to these exact people that he's saying it to? He says,
hey, I swear to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I'm gonna give it to you. Who's he
talking to? The children of Israel. Did these particular Israelites make it into
the Promised Land? Did Moses make it in? Did Aaron make it in? Guess what? 99.9
percent of these people didn't make it in. Two people made it in. Joshua and
Caleb. Nobody else made it in. Everybody else is gonna die in the wilderness, but
that's not the plan right now. The plan is for them all to make it in, if they
keep their end of the bargain, because they didn't keep their end of the
bargain. They died in the wilderness, and then their children who had the faith
enter the Promised Land. These people don't end up entering the Promised Land.
So you see, the promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not a promise to all
generations, because this particular generation doesn't get in. What about
when God takes them out of the land for 70 years in the days of Nebuchadnezzar?
That generation didn't get it, did they? No, they had to live somewhere else. There
are people who were born in captivity and died in captivity. The promise is to
Abraham and to his seed, okay? Who is the seed of Abraham, according to Galatians
3. It's Jesus, and if you're in Christ, you're Abraham's seed. So this
is not just a carte blanche that, oh, if you're a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, boy, this stuff's all for you. Wrong. No way. So he's saying, I'm gonna
bring you into the land. Did he actually bring them into the land? No, he didn't,
because he's going to bring them in, but they have to keep their end of the
bargain. And of course, he does keep this promise to everybody who's under 20
years old, and to Joshua and Caleb, but predominantly the children of Israel
missed out on this, right? So it says in verse 9, and just like, by the way, when
Jesus showed up, not all the Israelites rejected him. As many as received him, to
them gave you power to become the sons of God, even them that believe on his
name. So those people who got saved in the time of Jesus are like the Caleb's
and Joshua's and the people under 20 of their day, as it were. So verse 9, and
Moses spake so unto the children of Israel, but they hearkened not unto Moses.
So are they receiving this preaching? No, they're not. For anguish of spirit and
for cruel bondage, and the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Go in, speak unto Pharaoh,
king of Egypt, that he let the children of Israel go out of his land. And Moses
spake before the Lord, saying, Behold, the children of Israel have not hearkened unto
me. How then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of uncircumcised lips? And the Lord
spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, and gave them a charge unto the children of Israel,
and unto Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to bring the children of Israel out of the land
of Egypt. So what does he mean there when he says he has uncircumcised lips? This
is just a figure of speech, meaning that he is not feeling qualified to speak
God's Word. And, you know, we'll find a lot of men in the Bible that are humble
like this, like Peter, where he tells Jesus, Just go from me, I'm a sinful man.
He didn't, you know, he's being chosen to be a disciple, but he tells Jesus,
basically, I'm not worthy. And Jesus says, Fear not, I'll make you a fisher of men.
You know, and he brings them along and turns them into someone great. Even
though he felt unworthy, Moses felt unworthy. That's that's all it means.
Obviously, Moses is circumcised, okay, because we know that there was that
issue about Moses' son not being circumcised in the inn, and they had to
get that done before they could even come to Egypt. So it would obviously be
ridiculous to think that Moses himself is not circumcised. It was only his son
that was the issue. Obviously, him not being circumcised would be an even
bigger issue, okay. So he's only talking about his lips there. It's a figure of
speech. And so then it goes into just some basically genealogical information
that I'm not gonna take the time to go over tonight, except just to say that if
you're interested, this genealogy is not complete. This is only giving the most
important people's names, because obviously this genealogy is not
covering the 400 years that they're in Egypt, because it only gives like three
generations. So what it is is just naming the important families, the people that
are gonna matter to the audience, which is the people who are going out into the
Promised Land, they're in the wilderness with Moses, when God's delivering this. I
mean, we don't really need to know every single little name, do we? I mean, who
wishes that there were just more lists of names in the Bible? I just wish God
would have given us more names here in this chapter. I know, I'm thankful that
this is an abridged list here, just only giving us kind of the key leaders. There
were other kind of no names in between in this genealogy is what I'm trying to
say. Little no-name guys that aren't significant, don't matter, maybe God
didn't like them very much or whatever, but either way, you know, I'm thankful
that they got left out, because I think it's the right length, you
know, there's just enough names where we can get all the baby names we
need and just, you know, read our Bible and just move on. Although 90% of these
baby names are not usable, right? So, you know, Elzaphan, you know, not usable.
A lot of these are non-starters. Ishar, Nephag, Zikrai, Uzziel, you know, you're
really scraping the bottom of the barrel at that point when you start pulling out
these Bible names. The Bible's got some great names in it, but these aren't them.
So I just want to just point that out just for somebody who's doing a real
serious study on this chapter, just to know that, hey, this isn't a
bridged list here, okay? It's not listing every single person in order. And then at
the end, he picks up the narrative at the end. He says in verse 26, these are that
Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said, bring out the children of Israel from
the land of Egypt according to their armies. These are they which spake to
Pharaoh king of Egypt to bring out the children of Israel from Egypt. These are
that Moses and Aaron. And it came to pass on the day when the Lord spake unto
Moses in the land of Egypt that the Lord spake unto Moses saying, I am the Lord.
Speak thou unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, all that I say unto thee. And Moses said
before the Lord, behold I'm of uncircumcised lips and how shall Pharaoh
mark unto me? Same objection from earlier in the chapter. And then God's
gonna again shore him up and motivate him and give him a pep talk at the
beginning of chapter 7. So let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father,
thank you so much for this chapter, Lord, and please help us to read our Bibles
every single day and to realize that we have a more sure word of prophecy. Lord,
the things in the Bible are certain and we know that the Bible is God's Word. We
know that every word of God is pure. We know that not one jot or one tittle
shall pass from the law till all be fulfilled. We know that the no
scriptures of any private interpretation but holy men of God spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost. All scriptures given by inspiration of God. Lord, help us
to remember that and to realize that every word matters and man does not live
by bread alone but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. And so
thank you that we have the Bible in our own language that we as English speakers
can open up an English Bible and read and understand your words all the way
from Genesis to Revelation, Lord. Help us never to take that for granted and help
us to preach that to this generation, Lord. This evil and adulterous
generation needs your word more than ever, Lord. And the lost that are on
their way to hell, they need your word in order to be saved. And so help us to be
faithful to preach it and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.