Man, the title of my sermon this morning is The Names of God.
The names of God.
Now we're going to go through mainly the seven major names that God goes by in the
Old Testament, and we're going to get into some strong meat this morning.
But first I want to lay down just some basic principles before we get too deep into
this so that we can understand this subject.
Let me just lay out a couple basic principles and prove these from the Bible.
Number one is that the words God and Lord are names.
A lot of people try to deny this and say, oh, those aren't names, those are just titles.
Well here's the thing, you didn't get that from the Bible because if you look up the
word title in the Bible, the only time it uses the word title is like when Jesus
died on the cross, he had a title over his head and it basically was something that
was written on a signage that said, this is Jesus, the King of the Jews.
Another time somebody looks at a gravestone in a cemetery and read the title on the monument.
And then another time a guy named Elihu, who was a vain guy who clouded words without
knowledge, just said, well, I don't give people flattering titles.
That's it.
But there's nowhere that you could point to in the Bible that says that God or Lord
is a title.
In fact, those are names, I'm going to prove that to you.
Number two that I want to prove to you is that God does not have only one name.
God has many names.
And then number three, God's names are cumulative, meaning he doesn't replace one name with
another.
When he gets a new name, he keeps the old name.
So I'm going to prove those things to you from the Bible.
First of all, let me just read to you what the dictionary definition of a name is.
The dictionary says that a name is a word or a combination of words by which a person,
place, or thing is designated, called, or known.
So a word or a group of words by which something is called, designated, or known.
Well, of course, God is called the Lord.
He's designated as the Lord.
He's known as the Lord.
People will ask questions like, well, if the son's name is Jesus, what's God the Father's
name?
Here's what his name is.
God the Father.
That's his name.
God the Father.
That is a group of words by which that person is known, designated, and called God
the Father.
Well, what's the name of the Holy Spirit?
You're not going to believe this.
Holy Ghost.
The Holy Spirit is his name.
These are the names.
God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost.
Those are the names.
Okay.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
We need to focus on the Old Testament this morning.
These are names.
Now, before we go to the Old Testament, though, look down at your Bible in Revelation
19, 6, 9, excuse me, look down at your Bible at 1916 of Revelation.
I'm going to show you that these things are true.
What does it say in verse 16?
And he had on his vesture and on his thigh a name written.
Does it say he had a title written?
He had a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
So that's a name, according to the Bible, if we make the Bible our final authority.
Back up to verse 12, it says his eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were
many crowns, and he had a name written that no man knew but he himself.
Now, if the Jehovah's Witnesses are right when they claim that, you know, that God only
has one name, and that name is Jehovah, well, here we see the Lord having a name that
nobody knows except he himself, right?
And then it says in verse 13, he was clothed in a vesture dipped in blood, and his name
is called the Word of God.
So there's another name for Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
His name is the Word of God.
His name is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Those aren't titles, they're names, according to the Bible, if we let the Bible define
it for itself.
Now flip over to Psalm 83.
This is where the Jehovah's Witnesses will turn you when they want to prove to you
that God is only named Jehovah and that he doesn't have any other name.
And in fact, often I've been at the door of a Jehovah's Witness preaching to them
the gospel, and they'll interrupt the gospel presentation, even though it has nothing to
do with what you're saying, and they'll say, turn to Psalm 83, turn in that Bible to
Psalm 83.
Who's ever had one do that, just randomly just turn to Psalm 83?
This is the basic key verse of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
I mean, this is what their whole religion is based on, this one verse, and here's
what it says in verse 18 of Psalm 83, that men may know that thou whose name alone
is Jehovah are at the most high over all the earth.
Now keep your finger there, go to Psalm 148.
Keep your finger there, go to Psalm 148.
So they are misreading this verse, they think it's saying that God's only name
is Jehovah.
When it says that his name alone is Jehovah, here's what the verse is actually saying,
it's saying that no one else is named Jehovah.
It's not saying that that's his only name, it's saying that he's the only one
who has that name.
Now let me prove that to you, if you go to Psalm 148, verse 13, it says, let them praise
the name of the Lord, for his name alone is excellent.
His glory is above the earth and heaven.
So both of these verses use the same wording.
One of them says his name alone is Jehovah, the other one says his name alone is excellent.
You know what that means?
He's the only one who is named Jehovah, he's the only one whose name is excellent.
It's pretty simple, right?
But if you take the Jehovah's Witness interpretation, his name alone is Jehovah, meaning that that's
his only name, then you'd have to say, well, his only name is excellent, and you're
going to have to start another cult and call it the excellence witnesses, the most
excellent witnesses.
Maybe you could start it in Southern California, you know, around Dana Point or something.
But the point is that they're misreading Psalm 83, and if we compare scripture with
scripture, you see Psalm 148 that shows what it actually means, and there's no way
to misinterpret it at that point.
Now go back, if you would, to Exodus chapter 6.
Remember, we're starting out with just some basic principles that number one, God and
Lord are names, that number two, God does not have only one name, God has many names,
and then number three, God's names are cumulative, meaning that when he reveals
a new name, he still keeps the old name.
He doesn't replace names, he just keeps adding names by which he reveals himself to us.
Look at Exodus chapter 6, verse 2.
The Bible reads, 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.
So that shows you right there that he has another name, God Almighty, that was the
primary name that he used when he revealed himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
By his name Jehovah, he was not known unto them.
That's the name that he reveals at the burning bush, and going forward after the burning
bush, after Moses, after Mount Sinai, that's the primary name by which God is referred
in the Old Testament.
But what about before that?
Before that, people knew God by a different name.
They knew him as God Almighty.
Now flip over to Romans chapter 10, if you would, Romans chapter 10.
And also if you would, go to Genesis 12, if you want to put your finger in both places.
Genesis 12.
And this is all just kind of a foundation, then we're going to get into the seven
main names of God in the Old Testament.
But if you go to Romans chapter 10 verse 13, it says, for whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Now, this is connected with verse number 9.
How do we know that?
Because every verse between 9 and 13 has a conjunction, do you see that?
It says in verse 9 that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt
believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation.
For the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek.
For the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Now the word for means because.
So he starts out by saying, hey, if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and
believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved because
this, because this, because this, because this, because this, because this, and ultimately
because whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
So therefore, according to this scripture, when you call upon the Lord Jesus or confess
with your mouth the Lord Jesus, you're calling upon the name of the Lord.
Even though what word are you using?
Jesus.
Right?
When you call upon the Lord Jesus, you're calling upon the name of the Lord.
Okay?
Now go back to Genesis with that in mind.
If we were to look up this quote of Romans chapter 10, of course it's found in the
book of Joel chapter two, one of the small minor prophets.
You don't have to turn there, but in Joel, when it quotes this and it says that whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, we are talking about the capital
L, capital O, capital R, capital D of Jehovah God, the name of God, the four letter name
of God known as the tetragrammaton Jehovah, right, whosoever shall call upon the name
of the Lord, whosoever shall call upon the name of Jehovah shall be saved.
But in Romans 10, it said if you, if you call on the Lord Jesus, you're fulfilling
that.
Everybody following so far?
Okay.
Now let's go back to Genesis chapter number, which, which chapter did I tell you to go
to?
Go to Genesis chapter 12 and we see Abraham in verse eight.
He removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent
having Bethel on the west and Haai on the east.
And there he built an altar unto the Lord and he called upon the name of the Lord.
You see that in all caps there?
Look at chapter 13 verse four.
Into the place of the altar which he had made at the first and there Abram called
on the name of the Lord.
Now if you would flip over to chapter 26, Genesis chapter 26.
It says in verse 25, and he built in an altar there and called upon the name of
the Lord and pitched his tent there and there Isaac's servants digged a well.
You say, where are you going with this, Pastor Anderson?
Here's where I'm going with this.
The Bible told us in Exodus chapter six that God was not known unto Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob by the name of Jehovah, but that he was known unto them by another name.
What was that other name?
God Almighty.
So when it says Abraham called upon the name of the Lord, when it says Isaac called
upon the name of the Lord, what name did they actually call?
Did they call Jehovah?
That's not the name that they knew him by.
What name did they call?
They called on the name of God Almighty.
What name did you call on when you got saved?
What name did I call on when I got saved?
It was the name of Jesus.
But you know what?
We were still calling upon the name of Jehovah, weren't we?
We were still calling upon the name of the Lord.
Why?
Because Jehovah has another name, God Almighty.
Because Jehovah has another name, Jesus.
Why?
Because Jehovah is not the only name of God is what I'm trying to show you.
Because if Jehovah were the only name, then it would be impossible for Abraham to call
upon the name of the Lord without knowing that name.
It would be impossible for Isaac to call on the name of the Lord without knowing
that name.
But the Bible tells us that they did call on the name of the Lord, and the Bible
tells us that they did not know the name of Jehovah.
So there's just a lot of evidence that proves that Jehovah is not his only name.
Jehovah is one of his names.
So again, the three principal foundations that God and Lord are names.
Number two, God doesn't just have one name.
He has many names.
And number three, his names are cumulative.
So when we get to the New Testament, and he reveals another name to us, Jesus, when
he reveals other terms whereby he's called, he doesn't stop being Jehovah.
And when he was revealed as Jehovah at the burning bush, he doesn't stop being God Almighty.
He's God Almighty, and he's Jehovah.
Okay.
So the names are cumulative is what the Bible's teaching.
Now what are the seven names of God in the Old Testament?
And there are more than seven.
I'm just giving you the seven main names, the ones that are used the most, the ones
that are most important.
Now before I go through these names, I have to explain something to you about the way
the King James Bible is laid out.
Our English King James Bible in the Old Testament actually does some special things with the
name of God so that we can know exactly which name is being used.
Now I already mentioned a moment ago that when we see Lord in all capitals, that
is the word Jehovah.
Okay.
That is that name of God.
It's a proper name.
It's called the tetragrammaton, tetra, four, gramma, letter, four-letter name, right?
That word Lord in all capital letters is that name Jehovah, the one that's revealed
at the burning bush, the one where he said that he, you know, revealed himself a different
way to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, but now he reveals that name at the burning
bush.
Okay.
So when we see that, the translators are showing us that that's that name Jehovah
by putting it in all caps.
That's only in the Old Testament because the name Jehovah never occurs in the New Testament,
not even one time.
So when we're in the Old Testament though, we see that all capital Lord and we know
that that's what it is.
Now another thing that we'll see sometimes in the Old Testament is we will see the
word God in all capital letters.
Who's ever noticed that and wondered about that?
Just the three-letter word G-O-D, all capital letters.
You know, what is that about?
Well, that is also the tetragrammaton.
That is also Jehovah.
And I'm going to explain to you in a little while why it's laid out differently.
And then when we see obviously Jehovah, that's just them spelling it out for us and they
do that a few times in the Old Testament.
But most of the time, approximately 7,000 times, the term Jehovah is translated as the
Lord.
Okay.
I'm trying to put this on the bottom shelf where even a theologian could understand this
morning.
I don't want to confuse anybody.
I want to help you understand this when you're reading your Bible.
Because I remember when the Jehovah's false witnesses knocked on my door when I was
a teenager, they stumped me with this.
I knew they were a cult.
I knew that they had false doctrine, but I could not answer them this question.
They stumped me and this is how they stumped me.
They came to me and said, well, why if God's name is Jehovah and if that name occurs 7,000
times in the Old Testament, why did the translators of the King James, why did they put Lord
instead of Jehovah?
That's a reasonable question, right?
I mean if it says Jehovah, why did they put Jehovah sometimes, but 99.9% of the time
they translated it as the Lord.
Now if you read a Spanish Bible, it's not like that, right?
If you read a Spanish Old Testament, Reina Valera, it's like, Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah,
Jehovah, right?
It's Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah.
And they said, why did that King James Bible translate it as the Lord?
I didn't have an answer.
I was kind of wondering that myself.
It kind of threw me for a loop, okay?
But I have the answer now and the answer actually proves their religion to be completely
ridiculous because here's the answer.
The answer is that the word Jehovah is never used in the New Testament, not even once.
In the Greek New Testament, you'll never find the word Jehovah.
So what does it say instead?
Because the New Testament is constantly quoting the Old Testament, right?
When the New Testament quotes verses that use the tetragrammaton or the name Jehovah
or that capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, so when Jesus quotes the Old
Testament and when the apostles quote the Old Testament and when the New Testament
quotes the Old Testament, what do they say for Jehovah?
You know what they say?
The Lord.
So if Jesus quoted the Old Testament and he took that name Jehovah and said the Lord
there, and if the apostles quoted the Old Testament where it said Jehovah and they
said the Lord, then wouldn't it make sense if we're bringing the Bible into English
to bring it into English the same way they brought it into Greek, the Lord?
Does everybody see what I'm saying?
So it makes perfect sense that our English Bible says the Lord 7,000 times in the Old
Testament.
It's correct.
Our King James Bible is once again shown to be correct because it's following suit
of what Jesus and the apostles did and of what the New Testament itself did.
If we just have to say Jehovah, why did Jesus never say Jehovah?
So I was preaching in the community college this week and I'm preaching the gospel.
I'm going through the plan of salvation and this Jehovah's Witness guy was kind
of belligerent and he's interrupting me and he was just really wanting to talk
about the name Jehovah and he said, you know, why aren't you using God's name?
Why won't you call him by his name?
Lord's a title.
God's a title.
So I was just kind of blowing him off because I was trying to get through what
I was preaching, right?
But when I was all done, I wanted to address what he was saying.
So I said to him, why don't you explain this to me, sir?
You keep saying how the name Jehovah is used 7,000 times in the Bible.
How come 100% of those times are in the Old Testament?
I said, you're rebuking me for getting up and talking for 10 or 15 minutes and not
using the name Jehovah.
Well, the New Testament authors, they wrote 260 chapters and didn't even use it
one time.
So I can't talk for 10 minutes without using it?
Without you being offended?
And he's like, well, it's in the New Testament.
I said, no, it's not.
He's got a false Bible.
He's got this New World translation.
And this is the new silver one that removes the slimy juice of the marshmallow.
I've been making fun of the Jehovah's Witness false version for years and years and years
for about 12 years now.
And I would always turn to Job 6 where it talks about the slimy juice of the marshmallow.
Finally they got wise and they changed it.
And I'm not the only one who's made fun of it.
Other preachers have brought that out as well.
I learned it from someone else when I was a teenager.
But they brought out a new one right after our New World Order Bible Versions movie
came out where we showed the slimy juice.
They came out with a new edition.
And now people said we lied because it doesn't say marshmallow.
But for 50-some years it said marshmallow.
They just changed it.
So if you have the black one, it still says marshmallow.
If it's a silver one, it just says mallow.
Now it just says the juice of the mallow.
It took out the slime.
It took out the marshmallow.
So anyway, this guy, he pulls out this book.
And he's like, get a show it to me, you know, Jehovah in the New Testament.
Where's the thing?
This book adds the word Jehovah 237 times in the New Testament, even though it's not
in the Greek.
So this isn't a translation.
This isn't translating.
This is just somebody changing what the Bible says to fit their religion, to fit their
agenda.
But in the back of this book, it has like a little cheat sheet to help the Jehovah's
Witnesses, you know, show people the name of God.
So he's trying to scramble through this because I said it's not in any Greek New
Testament.
He said, oh, yes, it is.
I got pictures of it right here.
So he flips through this and he shows me a picture and he says, see, it's right there.
It's in the Greek.
I said, that's Hebrew.
Okay, let me show you.
Oh, this one.
No, that's paleo Hebrew.
Oh, this one.
That's Hebrew too.
Oh, this one.
That's English.
That's Hebrew.
Because they basically just put all these black and white pictures in the back of this
thing showing the sacred name as if it's the only one.
They're just trying to just flood them with pictures, but they can't answer the
million dollar question, where's a picture of the name Jehovah in the New Testament
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?
It isn't there.
And you lied when you put it in 237 times in your false version.
So finally he says, I found it.
It's right here.
He shows me a picture and it says, Aloha, Jehovah.
I'm like, that's not Greek because Aloha is not Greek.
They literally, it says right here, because he's like, it's right here, Mark chapter
12 verse 29 in Hawaiian from 1816, he's like, it's right here, here's the evidence.
But isn't that funny that the Jehovah's Witnesses in the back of their Bible, in
order to prove to you that Jehovah is in the New Testament, can they show you a Greek
New Testament of Mark 12, 29?
No, they found it in the Hawaiian from the 1800s, Aloha, Jehovah.
Well, you know, in this case it's Aloha, Jehovah's Witnesses, but that means goodbye
also, right?
Like, see ya suckas, because I mean, come on, you're grasping at straws when you're
pulling out a Hawaiian version to show us the authority of scripture.
I mean, is it a good night?
Is that funny or what?
It literally says Aloha right in front of it, it's like, come on.
But finally I proved the guy wrong and he just said, I don't have an answer for
you.
I don't have no answer.
I'm going to have to talk to somebody.
I'm going to have to ask somebody.
And I said, well, do you have a pastor or, he said, well, I have an elder.
I said, you go ask your elder to show you Jehovah in the New Testament, in a Greek
New Testament or any, and I said, you know, don't let him snow you with a bunch
of fake Hawaiian jazz that he's going to show you just to try.
You know what I mean?
That's what people do when they want to distract you.
They just start showing you, oh, look at all this evidence.
Look at all these millions of witnesses, you know.
But when you look at each one, none of them hold up.
None of them hold water.
All right.
So I don't want to just spend the whole time talking about the Jehovah's
Witnesses.
Go to Exodus chapter three, Exodus chapter number three.
We're proving the basic principles this morning on the names of God.
And then we're going to get into those actual names.
I got to hurry up here.
Exodus chapter three verse 13 says, And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I am coming
to 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 shalt thou 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, notice the all caps there, The Lord 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.
So let me ask you this.
Does the name the Lord or Jehovah or the great I am, does that ever stop being his
name?
That's his name forever.
Now you say, well Pastor Anderson, you just made a big deal about it being not mentioned
in the New Testament.
It's not because it stopped being his name.
It's just because we're dealing with new names in the New Testament.
We're dealing with a new era in the New Testament where the key name that we need
to be emphasizing is the name of Jesus.
So just because it's not mentioned in the New Testament doesn't mean it stops being
God's name.
But what it does mean is that it certainly isn't God's only name because why would
God never mention his only name in the entire New Testament?
It makes no sense because the Jehovah's Witnesses are false because his name alone
is Jehovah, meaning he's the only one named Jehovah, but Jehovah is not his only
name.
Okay, let's get into the seven main names by which God is called in the Old Testament.
You're going to have to really pay close attention here as I tell you these names because
they look differently based on spelling some of them.
The first name whereby we know God in the Old Testament, you may want to write these
down if you want to take notes or you can just go back and listen to this if
you can't grasp it all the first time.
The first name is the name God, okay?
And this is what we see over and over again in Genesis Chapter 1.
This is the only name that we see in Genesis 1.
Over and over again it's, and God said, and God created.
It's just God over and over again, right?
So that first name is God.
That's number one.
Number two is the name Lord in all caps, which we know as Jehovah, right?
So we've got God.
Then we've got Lord in all caps or Jehovah, okay?
Number three name of God we have is the lowercase Lord, okay, which this is not the
name Jehovah.
When we see Lord in lowercase, this is Lord just simply meaning boss, master, that word
Lord, but that is also a name of God.
And this is the one that we see coupled with the capital G, capital O, capital D.
So when we see Lord God and the G, the O, and the D are all capitalized, what's
the G-O-D that's all capitalized?
What word is that?
That's Jehovah, right?
What about the Lord that's next to it, okay?
That's just Lord as in master or boss, but that's also a name of God, okay?
The fourth name would be God Almighty.
We talked a little bit about that or just the Almighty.
The fifth name is Jah, which is just a shortened version of Jehovah, a shortened version of
the same thing that we see with the capital O, capital R, L-O-R-D, okay?
So that's Jah would be the sixth one.
And then the seventh one would be the Most High or sometimes the Most High God.
So these are the seven terms that I feel like are the most significant, the most
important, the most repeated in the Old Testament are God, the Lord, the other kind of Lord,
God Almighty, and I skipped one, the Lord of Hosts is another major name of God, Jah
and the Most High or the Most High God.
Now how many times are these used in the Old Testament?
Well the term God is used over 4,000 times in the Old Testament.
So that's a pretty important significant name of God.
Lord Jehovah, Tetragrammaton is used about 7,000 times.
Lord that's not in uppercase, Lord that just means master but it is a name, is used
around 50, I'm sorry around 400 times, approximately 400 times, a little under 400.
The term Almighty or Almighty God is used around 50 times.
The term Lord of Hosts is used a little under 300 times, which is a lot, right?
Lord of Hosts.
Jah is only used once in English but it's used about 50 times in the Hebrew but you'll
just see it as the capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. I'm going to get to
why that's an important name on my list even though it's only used one time in the
English Bible.
And then lastly would be the Most High or the Most High God which is used around
30 to 50 times depending on how you count because sometimes it could just be saying
that God is Most High as an adjective, not necessarily as a name but frequently it is
a name of God.
Like for example the first time it's mentioned is when Melchizedek in Genesis 14 was the
priest of the Most High God and he said, you know, blessed be Abraham of the Most
High God and so forth.
So those are the big ones in the Old Testament.
Now let me give you the Hebrew words behind these names because these words you've heard
them before and you'll actually find them in your English Bible in various formats and
in various ways.
So first of all, or most of them that is, the ones that are important.
First of all, God is El or Elohim.
Who's heard that term before, Elohim, right?
That's a pretty common term and you can actually find these terms in the Bible a
lot.
Like for example it'll explain this to you as it goes along like Jacob called the
name of that place Bethel.
He said this is the house of God, right?
Beth house El God.
So if you study the Old Testament, you'll figure out a whole bunch of Hebrew words
like without ever even picking up a Hebrew dictionary or anything because a lot of it's
explained in the Old Testament itself.
So you can find the term El a lot of times in different words and you can even find
a derivative of the term Elohim in Genesis 3320.
You don't have to turn there.
You can if you like.
Genesis 3320 says he erected there an altar and called it El Elohim Israel.
Which means El God, Elohim, God again, of Israel.
El Elohim Israel, God, the God of Israel.
You know specifying which God we're talking about, the God of Israel, okay.
So that term God is El or Elohim.
Then of course we already talked about the Lord in all caps is Jehovah.
You've obviously heard that word many times.
Then the Lord God, where the God's in all caps but the Lord is in lower case.
That term Lord is Adonai.
Who's ever heard that word before, Adonai?
And again you'll find this word in the King James Bible in the form of people's
names like Adonai-zedek or Adonai-jah or Adonai-rom or Adonai-kom.
You'll find a lot of names that are derived from these.
Just like you'll find a lot of names derived from Jah.
Like for example Elijah, right, and things like that where it's part of a name.
And then God Almighty, it's not really important what the Hebrew is of that unless you're
a big Amy Grant fan and you like that song El Shaddai, which I'm not a fan.
And then, and then the Lord of Hosts.
This one's pretty interesting too.
The Lord of Sabaoth is the Lord of Hosts and we'll get into that in a moment.
And that's in the New Testament as such and I'll show that to you.
So anyway that's where these names come from.
So why is this important?
Why does this matter?
Because these seven different names that I'm showing you this morning, they all speak
to different attributes of God and they tell us something about God.
If you think about it, names say something about the person.
Now when we name a baby we don't really know what they're going to be like.
But sometimes we name them based on what we want them to be like or what we hope they'll
be like or based on another character who lived up to that name.
But when God rolls out names about himself they have to do with something about his attributes.
So let's think about what some of these names of God are and what they say about
God's attributes.
You know, first of all, when we think about the name Jehovah, which derives from the
term I am, right, because he said I am that I am and he said tell them that I am
sent you.
And then that is where we get the name Jehovah derived from the Hebrew for I am.
What does that mean?
This speaks to the fact that God has always existed.
He exists right now and he always will exist.
And this is something we see over and over again in the book of Revelation, don't we?
I am he that is and was and is to come the almighty.
So over and over again the Bible uses that term I am, I exist.
A lot of atheists that scoff at God and scoff at the Bible, what is it that they
criticize?
Well who made God, right?
Well who created him?
Where did he come from?
Well here's the thing about God is that he just is.
He has always existed.
He always will exist.
So his name Jehovah has to do with the fact that he exists eternally past, present, and
future.
And so you could call it the self-existent one.
That's what that could be determined as.
You could say that's what it means in a sense.
But what it means is that I am that I am.
He exists simply.
He was, he is, and he is to come.
Now when we think about the term Adonai, or Lord in lower case, what does it tell
us about God?
It tells us he's the boss.
It tells us he's the master.
It tells us that we need to obey him.
That he is the ultimate authority in the universe and in our personal lives.
When we see the name God almighty or the almighty, that tells us that God has all power.
Might is a synonym of power.
Another synonym of this in the book of Revelation is omnipotent.
Omnipotent means the exact same thing as almighty.
It means all powerful, meaning that God has all power.
There's nothing that is beyond his power.
When we think about the name the Lord of hosts, what does that tell us about God when
we see the Lord of hosts?
And again, this is used almost 300 times.
And then if you include God of hosts, you know, you get another 40 mentions.
What is this Lord of hosts?
Host means army or multitude, right?
When we say the Bible, we see a great host, it means a huge group of people.
So when we see the Lord of hosts, you know, that shows us that God doesn't have
a small following.
You know, one of the rabbis, when we were making marching design, mocked the Lord Jesus
Christ and said, well, he only had 12 disciples and that's not a lot, which is
obviously foolish because he had what?
Multitudes following him, multitudes listening to him.
The 12 disciples were on a higher level of discipleship.
But he's the Lord of hosts.
Why?
Because he has hundreds of millions of angels at his command, which are called the heavenly
host.
And also there are hosts of people on this earth who believe on Jesus Christ.
And when we get to heaven, it's not just going to be a couple of people up there.
It's not just going to be 144,000 Jehovah's Witnesses.
It's not just going to be some small little cultic group.
No, when we get up there, there's going to be a great multitude that no man can
number.
Why?
Because he's the Lord of hosts.
That's why.
His armies are very great, the Bible tells us.
He is going to return in Revelation 19, specifically the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
will return on a white horse and the armies of heaven are going to be following
him.
Why?
Because he's the Lord of hosts.
God's great hosts.
So that tells us something about God's attributes.
And obviously when we hear the term the most high or the most high God, that tells
us that you can't go any higher.
He's the top of the totem pole.
He's the top rung.
There's not some other God or some other level that's above him who created him.
No, he exists simply and always has and always will and he's the most high.
You can't go any higher than at the top where the Lord is located.
So we see these names, they tell us something about him.
Now another thing that's interesting about these names is that based on these names
we can tell when the Bible was written or different parts of the Bible were written.
They help us kind of get a feel for the timing.
Why?
Because if we know that the name Jehovah is revealed at the burning bush and that
becomes the main name whereby God is called after the burning bush, then that would show
us that scriptures that don't use Jehovah or events or people in places that don't
really use Jehovah is before that and ones that use it are after that.
Now what do I mean by that?
Well turn to the book of Job if you would, Job chapter one.
Job chapter number one.
And a lot of people have stated that Job is the oldest book of the Bible.
Who's ever heard somebody say hey the oldest book of the Bible is Job?
I don't believe that for one second.
And here's why I don't believe that Job is the oldest book in the Bible because
when you read the book of Job it's pretty clear in chapters one and two that whoever
the author of the book of Job is knows the Lord by his name Jehovah pretty well
because he keeps using it over and over again.
Just look down in your Bible there at the book of Job and you're going to see it
over and over again you're going to see verse six.
There it is right.
Do you see it in verse seven verse eight verse nine the Lord the Lord the Lord the
Lord the Lord in all caps right.
So it's pretty obvious that this guy's writing after Moses.
He's writing after the burning bush.
But here's what's interesting.
When you get to Job and his three friends talking you know what term they keep saying
over and over again.
Three times the almighty almighty almighty almighty God almighty almighty almighty almighty
almighty.
You don't see them saying over and over again the Lord the Lord the Lord the Lord
the Lord the Lord.
It's the almighty the almighty the almighty this the almighty that.
Also they don't make any reference to the laws of God and if you're if you're
going to accuse a guy of sinning wouldn't you make some references to the mosaic
law Mount Sinai if it took place after that.
So what does that tell us about the book of Job.
That tells us about the book of Job that the events in Job took place before Moses.
That's why they don't talk about Moses and that's why they're not constantly
dropping the name Jehovah.
But that the book is written after Moses.
Why?
Because of the fact that the narrator consistently says the Lord the Lord the Lord.
Then if you go to the end of the book the same thing.
You know the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind when the narrator's talking.
And then when the narrator's talking in chapter 42 verse 1.
Then Job answered the Lord and said.
And then all throughout chapter 42 you'll see the Lord in verse 9.
You'll see the Lord in verse 10 the Lord over and over again.
So that kind of shows you.
And it makes sense because what does it say in verse 16 of chapter 42 after this
lived Job 140 years.
So look after the events how long did Job live.
Okay so is this book written at the same time the events are happening.
It's written more than 140 years later at least right.
Because they're saying well hey after this Job lived 140 years and he saw his
sons and his son's sons even four generations so Job died being old and full of days.
Now this wasn't necessarily even written the day after he died.
I mean this could have been written 10 years after 20 years after 100 years after.
And you say well Pastor Anderson how could it be accurate if it was written 100 years
after.
Because holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
See the scripture is inspired by God.
It doesn't matter if it was written after the fact.
It doesn't matter if the person writing it was an eyewitness.
It matters that they're inspired by God and that God knows what was said.
God knows what was done.
And holy men of God, prophets of God, pen down the Bible after the fact.
They spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
The book of Job is not the oldest book in the Bible.
The oldest books in the Bible are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Why?
Because those were written during Moses lifetime.
They're written by Moses.
This is written after that by someone who's already aware of that name Jehovah and that's
his primary way of referring to God in chapters 1, 2, and at the end as well.
Now go to the first chapter of the Bible, Genesis.
This is pretty interesting.
Go to Genesis.
And you may have noticed this when you were reading the Bible and maybe you didn't
notice this.
But when you're reading your Bible, you may have noticed that when you read the
first chapter of the Bible, it just consistently says over and over again just God, right?
Which is our Hebrew word Elohim, just in the beginning God created the heaven and
the earth.
And the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep
and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said let there be light and there was light and so on.
And as we go down through this, it's just God, God, God over and over again.
But when you get to chapter 2, watch something change.
We finished the creation story at the beginning of chapter 2 where it says thus the heavens
and the earth were finished and all the host of them and on the seventh day God ended
his work which he had made and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which
he had made and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it he
had rested from all his work which God created and made.
Now that's clearly a natural stopping place because look at the next verse.
These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created in the
day that who?
The Lord God created, I'm sorry, the Lord God made the earth and the heavens and
every plant of the field before it was in the earth and every herb of the field
before it grew for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth and
there was not a man to till the ground.
Verse 7, the Lord God.
Verse 8, the Lord God.
Verse 9, the Lord God.
Verse 15, 16, 18, do you see how consistent it is?
Isn't that a major switch or gear change that in chapter 1 it's just God over and
over again and then in chapter 2 it's just the Lord, the Lord, the Lord.
And now with that, Genesis 2 is a retelling of events that have already happened in
chapter 1 because in chapter 1 we see God create male and female.
He creates both man and woman.
And in chapter 2 we back up and we get the details of God creating the woman where he
makes Adam fall asleep and he takes the rib out of Adam and out of the rib he forms
and fashions woman, he brings the woman to Adam.
That already all happened in Genesis 1.
You say, well why is that, Pastor Anderson?
I'll tell you why.
It's because of the fact that Genesis 1 is older than Genesis 2.
That's why.
Genesis 1 was something that was already well known and preached and established before
Moses ever wrote the book of Genesis.
That's why.
So what we're doing in chapter 2 is adding new material to something that was already
there.
Now you say, what in the world?
Think about this.
Do you think that before Moses started writing the written word of God, do you think that
there was just no God's word on this planet?
I mean did man have God's word in the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
He had to have.
I mean look, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
God who at sundry times and divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the
prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son.
Before there ever was a written word of God, before Moses brought down those tablets
of stone from Mount Sinai, and before God wrote all those words at the mouth of God
that gave us Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus, and Numbers and Deuteronomy.
It's not like they just had no Bible.
They didn't have a written Bible, but what they had was the prophets speaking God's
word.
They had it orally.
Okay.
And it makes sense that something as important as the creation of the world, something as
foundational as that, would have been something that's always been around.
So I believe that in the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they could have quoted
you this chapter.
They could have told you, hey, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Now they didn't know the name Jehovah yet, did they?
But I guarantee you they could have told you about day two of creation, day three,
day four, day five, day six.
This is obviously something that was already around.
And when the children of Israel are in bondage in Egypt for 400 years, guess what?
They knew about this stuff.
They knew who God was.
They were praying to who?
They're praying to the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.
They weren't saying Jehovah.
They certainly weren't saying Jesus.
They didn't know those names yet.
But what name did they know?
They knew, hey, he's the God of Abraham.
He's the God of Isaac.
He's the God of Jacob.
And I guarantee you that they could have told you, hey, in the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth, right?
So there are going to be a lot of things throughout the Old Testament that could be
scripture from an earlier period that's being included in the book.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
So obviously the creation story is something that they already had.
That wasn't like, wow, really, Moses?
You mean we didn't evolve?
But I guarantee you that, you know, when they first got Genesis from Moses, I'm sure
they learned a lot of new things.
Like, oh, man, I didn't know that about the story of Abraham.
I didn't know that about the rib or whatever.
But they knew the basic creation story because that scripture was already out there.
When we get to chapter 2, we're getting into new material.
And you say, well, that's kind of a strange concept.
Not really.
Because if you think about the book of Jude, it quotes Enoch.
Hey, here's what Enoch preached before the flood.
Well, Enoch was preaching stuff before the flood.
And you know who the first prophet in the Bible was?
Abel.
The Bible says all the prophets from Abel to Zacharias.
What did Abel preach?
We don't have any record of Abel's preaching.
But we know that he prophesied.
We know that he preached.
I guarantee you he preached stuff that's in your Bible.
You know, I'm sure he preached on Genesis 1.
And he preached on other things that are in the Bible.
You know, whatever word of God he had, whatever had been revealed to him, it's impossible
for us to know exactly what that was.
But we can get a hint of it when we see things like this, where it's just clearly
just, it's all about Elohim.
You know what I mean?
It's not talking about Jehovah, because we're not to that point yet.
So anyway, that's something that can kind of be useful if you're getting into like
advanced Bible study here, to be able to look at these names and see that all caps
and say, okay, I know what that is.
Or to see the all caps on the G-O-D and then understand that the Lord next to it
is talking about the fact that he's our master.
So it's pretty interesting to study these names and to see where they come about.
Now let me just explain to you briefly, because I'm running out of time, when were
each of these names rolled out?
Right?
When were these names rolled out?
Well, we know that the oldest name, the original name, is just God, right?
El or Elohim.
Then we know that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob knew him as God Almighty, right?
Let's see that in Genesis 17.
Go to Genesis 17.
This is when that name is first introduced.
Genesis 17.
So we've got the oldest name is just God, El or Elohim.
Then we know that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob knew him by the name of God Almighty.
Look at Genesis 17, verse 1, and when Abraham was 90 years old and 9, the Lord appeared
to Abram and said unto him, I am the Almighty God, walk before me and be thou perfect.
You don't have to turn there, but in chapter 35, verse 11, he says the words to Jacob,
I am God Almighty.
So he gives that name.
Go to chapter 15, verse 2.
When was the name Adonai rolled out or the Lord not capitalized, simply the master
or the boss is what that means.
That's laid out in Genesis 15 too because Abraham is already using that term to address
God.
And Abram said, Lord God, do you see the capital G-O-D there?
Lord God, what wilt thou give me seeing I go childless and the steward of my house
is this Eliezer of Damascus.
When was the term Lord of Hosts?
Where does that pop up in scripture?
The first time that pops up is in 1 Samuel chapter 1.
And so that's a name that God is known by in the time of the judges and forward.
We see that term a lot.
We see the Lord of Hosts and it's used very frequently hundreds of times.
Now let's take a look at that in the New Testament.
Put one finger in Isaiah chapter 1, I'm almost done.
Put one finger in Isaiah chapter 1 and go to Romans 9.
And I'm trying to, I know it seems like I'm covering a lot, but it's because I'm
just trying to give you an overview of the names of God.
I'm just trying to give you a foundation.
Tonight's sermon I'm going to hammer in on some specific points.
But first we've got to just kind of get an overview of the names of God.
So let's look at the Lord of Hosts.
Look what the Bible says in Isaiah chapter 1 verse 9, except the Lord of Hosts had left
unto us a very small remnant.
We should have been as Sodom and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.
And by the way, those Israelites that don't have Christ, that's about what they're
like.
They're about like Sodom and Gomorrah when they don't have that seed of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
But look at Romans chapter 9 now with that in mind.
Romans 9, 29 quotes Isaiah 1 and it says, and as Isaiah said before, except the Lord
of what?
Sabaoth.
Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, or I'm sorry, I'm quoting the wrong
one.
Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we'd been as Sodom and been made
like unto Gomorrah.
So what does Lord of Sabaoth mean?
Lord of Hosts, right?
So when we're in the book of James chapter 5 and he says, the Lord of Sabaoth, you might
be scratching your head like, what does that mean?
Is that the Sabbath?
Right?
Who thought that that was the Sabbath?
Like he's the Lord of the Sabbath.
Yeah.
I thought that too.
You know, when I was a kid reading James, it's like the Lord of Sabaoth, that's
a weird spelling.
What's that O doing there?
But if we actually compare scripture with scripture, we see that Sabaoth is not the Sabbath.
Sabaoth means hosts, right?
It's pronounced Sabaoth and it means the Lord of hosts, right?
So the Lord of hosts is the one being referred to in Isaiah, Romans, James, et cetera.
That name is rolled out in first Samuel.
Now I've got, I've got so much more material this morning.
I don't want to, I don't want to overwhelm you with too much.
So I got to save some of this for tonight because there's just too much here to talk
about.
Let me just go ahead and close on these final thoughts, okay?
These are the two final thoughts.
Go to Psalm 138.
Psalm 138.
I'm going to give you two thoughts to close on.
What are the thoughts that we opened on?
If you only take away a few things from the sermon, you say, Pastor, some of this
just went over my head.
This is a little too advanced for me.
Well then stay home and watch cartoons tonight.
But anyway, you say, oh man, this kind of went over my head.
If a lot of it went over your head, let me just give you some basic things though that
you should take from the sermon.
What are the basic truths that we started on?
That God and the Lord are names.
I think we sufficiently proved that.
Old six ways to Sunday.
Number two, that God doesn't only have one name, he has many names.
And that number three, God's names are cumulative, meaning that once he has a name that
never stops being his name.
He'll always be God almighty.
He'll always be God.
He'll always be Jehovah.
He'll always be the Lord of hosts.
That's pretty clear.
Now let me close on two ending points.
Point number one is that God has magnified his word above all his name.
This is where the Jehovah's Witnesses have missed the boat again.
Look down at your Bible in Psalm 138 too.
I will worship toward thy holy temple and praise thy name for thy loving kindness and
for thy truth, for thou has magnified thy word above all thy name.
So what's more magnified?
What's more emphasized?
What's more important, God's word or God's name?
What's more important?
To magnify means to make something appear larger.
So we take a magnifying glass, it makes something look bigger, right?
So if we magnify God's word, what are we doing?
We're emphasizing it.
We're making a big deal out of it.
So what should we make a bigger deal out of?
Should we make a bigger deal out of God's word or God's name?
The word is what's important.
See the Jehovah's Witnesses, they throw out what the word says.
They pick up a Greek New Testament and throw it in the trash and say, we're going to write
our own Bible.
We're not going to translate from the Greek.
We're just going to make up our own English Bible and we're going to write 237 times
Jehovah, because we feel like it.
What are they doing?
They're magnifying that name Jehovah above the word.
What the word said.
The word said, Lord, in the New Testament.
They're like, no, no, no, we're going to magnify the name, let's change.
You know what?
You change God's word, you're cursed, the Bible says.
They changed God's word in their zeal to exalt the name above the word, right?
You know, you knock on the door of Jehovah's Witness, you try to show them the gospel,
they don't want to hear the word of God.
They want to talk about a name.
God's word is above all his name.
So what we need to emphasize, you say, well, how do I know if I have the right God?
You know how you have the right God?
If you have the God of the word.
Here's the right God, the God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the
God of Jacob.
If you have the God they had, you got the right God.
That's how you know.
We say, well, I don't think you're pronouncing that name right, it's Yahweh, Yehova, Yahweh,
and they, you know, it's all about the name.
We got to get the right name.
No, no, no, you better get the right word.
They're so worried about getting the right name, they've overlooked the right word.
Hey, newsflash, the right word is the King James Bible, this is the final authority.
The King James Version is my authority in the English language, not somebody telling
me, oh, well, the name is Yeshua or Yahshua, that's not in my Bible.
And I'm going to make a big deal out of this, not about how to pronounce a name.
God's word is magnified above his name.
That's point number one.
And closing thought number two is that the name whereby we must be saved is Jesus.
You know, we can talk about all these different names and they're wonderful names that we
should use.
We should use the name God and the Lord God and the Lord.
We should call him the Lord of hosts.
We should praise him by the name Jah or Jehovah.
We should call him the great I Am and talk about these names and talk about the
most high God and how he's almighty.
But you know, at the end of the day, there's one name only that saves.
Because the Bible says neither is there salvation in any other.
There's none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
You can't in 2018 go to heaven by calling on the name of Jehovah if you don't have
Jesus to go with it.
You can't just say, well, I don't believe in Jesus, I'll just take the Lord of hosts.
I'll just take God almighty.
No, no, those are all wonderful names for the Lord.
But there's one name associated with salvation.
The Bible says there's no salvation in any other for there's none other name under heaven
given among men whereby we must be saved.
So we need to understand God's word is supreme, number one.
And number two, the name for salvation is the name of Jesus.
That's the name that saves.
These other names are edifying.
We can be instructed.
We can learn.
We can praise God and hallowed be all of his names.
But when it comes to soul winning, when it comes to getting saved yourself or getting
someone else saved, the name that we need to emphasize is the name of Jesus, because
that's the name associated with salvation.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and we thank you for all these names
that you've revealed unto us, Lord.
And we just pray that you would just open the eyes of these blinded Jehovah's false
witnesses, Lord, that they might be saved.
Help them to see that they've been deceived, that their Bible is a false Bible.
It's a lie.
It's a fraud.
And Lord, help them to believe on you, Lord, and call upon your name and to emphasize
the name of Jesus, Lord.
We thank you for the gift of salvation, Lord, and we thank you for your word that we
could study and learn from and grow by.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.