Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 27, 2019 | The Names Of God - Yahweh Tzva'ot

Transcript

October 27, 2019 | The Names Of God - Yahweh Tzva'ot · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing today?
0:03
SPEAKER_00: We're in a series called The Names of God.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: Did you know that God knows your name?
0:08
SPEAKER_00: He'd like you to know his name.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: So we've been going through the names of God.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: Let's review.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: I think we've done seven so far.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: Say them with me.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: The first is Elohim.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: This is God the Creator.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: We worship this God.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: Then comes Adonai.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: He's our Lord and Master.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: This is a so we obey him.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: We submit to him.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: The third name was God's personal name, used more than all the others combined.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: Say this with me.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: Say this again.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: Right?
0:40
SPEAKER_00: This is the God who is here for us.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: We talked, that was in the third week, about why we say Yahweh and not Jehovah.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: The fourth name was Elroe.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: Elroe, this is Hagar, the Egyptian maidservant's name, the God who sees me.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: The fifth name was El Shaddai.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: You know this, God Almighty.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: Then came Yahweh.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh will provide.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: The doctrine of God's providence.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: God provided, remember the ram on the hilltop, the sacrifice in place of Isaac, and he's provided his son Jesus Christ for us.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: Last week, one of the easiest to say, one of the most complicated to think about was El Olam, that is the everlasting God, the God who is in time yet above time and surpasses time.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: This morning, the hardest name of all to pronounce, and just like all of these names are doorways into understanding, special understandings and glimpses of God's attributes.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: This one is a doorway into an attribute which some of you will really like, and some of you may not like so much, but most of all you're gonna have to learn how to pronounce this name.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: It's pronounced Yahweh Tsibaot.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: You don't find, yeah, right, you're laughing.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: By the end of this day, you are gonna be just swinging around saying tsibaot all day long, I promise you.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: So three three constants in a row that we don't see together very often in English, or in fact, never.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about this, talk about how to pronounce it, let's talk about what it means.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh tzabaot means Yahweh of armies, or Lord of hosts, is oftentimes how it's translated in the Bible, which means we think that he throws good parties.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: Lord of hosts.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: But no, this is meaning the host.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: These are the armies.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: So Yahweh tzabaot means Yahweh of armies.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: If you ask how do I pronounce it, the problem is there's two words that you need to learn how to pronounce.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: My favorite one, and the one that you're gonna like better is a word that's used commonly in Israel even today.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: Hebrew word sabba.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh tzabaot, in Hebrew uh pronounced tizi, tsa baot.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: Say that with me.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: Tsahbaot.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Say it together.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh tzbaot.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: Say it again.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh tzbaot.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: You need to know how to how to pronounce this because if you pronounce it, you win like special prizes, okay?
3:19
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you win.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: But there's an English word, English and British, the same as Yahweh Sabaoth.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Sabeoth.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh say this, Yahweh Sabaoth.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: So you will see this sometimes in a translation.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: Or for instance, we sang a mighty fortress as our God, and as Martin Luther wrote it, it went like this: Dust ask who that may be, Christ Jesus, it is he.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: Say it with me.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: Lord Sabbat, his name from age to age is the same, and he must win the battle because he's Lord Sabbath, he's the Lord of hosts, that is, he's the Yahweh of armies.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Now, thumbs down on a couple of things.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm always in a snit about this, and I'm sorry.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I don't like Jehovah Sabbath.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: Why not?
4:12
SPEAKER_00: Because Jehovah's not even a name, right?
4:14
SPEAKER_00: Jehovah's just a combination of vowels and consonants that some people made up who didn't know what they were doing, okay?
4:20
SPEAKER_00: So, okay.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: So, sorry, sorry, I'm in charge here.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: So, the Lord of hosts, reason I don't like that so much is that Lord's not capitalized.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: And for some reason, even though in your Bibles, uh when when the personal name of Yahweh is in the Hebrew, which it is 6,828 times in the Old Testament, almost always, or always, it's supposed to be capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
4:51
SPEAKER_00: Capitals, because they don't want to put the real name of God in there.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: Because they know if they do, they won't sell any Bibles.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: Because the Holman Christian Standard, Southern Baptists tried it and they didn't.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: So they got rid of it.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: So the Lord of hosts, I don't like it because it implies this is Adonai of hosts.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: NIV is even worse.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, forgive me.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: I know the NIV's nice.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we got them all in the pews in front of you, and some of you love your NIV, and I I oftentimes do, but the last week or two, I I'm a little, I'm not, I'm a little carnal about this, okay?
5:24
SPEAKER_00: So every time you find the Lord of armies or the Lord of hosts in the Old Testament, they've changed it to the Lord Almighty.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: And I'm saying, we've already got El Shaddai, and it doesn't mean Almighty, and I happen to know why they did it, and it's not a very good reason, so I'm not going to embarrass them by telling you what it is.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, but that's why sometimes you will see the Lord Almighty on signs and so forth, and it should be the Lord of hosts.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, that's just my negatives, and I'll move on from there, and we'll get into something worthwhile.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: Okay, here's my summary.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh tzabaot, say it with me one more time.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh tzabaot, Yahweh of armies, he's the commander of the armies of heaven and earth.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: Let me explain.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: He's not only the commander of the heavenly, the God of angel armies, he's the commander of earth's armies and commander of the stars.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Yahweh of armies or Lord of hosts or Yahweh Tzaba'ot is used three different ways in the Old Testament, 278 times, sometimes of human armies, usually of Israel's armies.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: He's the commander of Israel's armies, but sometimes when he decides he's going to spank Israel and use Egypt's or Babylon's armies, he calls himself the Lord of their armies, okay?
6:33
SPEAKER_00: Number two, he's the he's the uh he's the commander of the angel armies.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: Usually this means the good angels, but a couple of times, you know, when the demons think they're pretty cool and they have armies, he points out that he's he's the lord of their armies as well, and they can't even move left or right or up or down without him.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: So he's actually the commander of all armies.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: And third, sometimes it says that the stars, the host of the stars, the army of stars, fought on the side of Israel and fought for the side of good.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: And so, in a sense, he's the he looks at the stars actually.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: He leads them out.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: Remember, he calls them by name, they're like his troops as well.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: So actually, that was just academic stuff.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: So you can forget about it.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: That was just, you know, for for that was for Dave Robinson who visits today, and he's really smart.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: So that was for him.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, um, I want to tell you a story.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: It's a cool story, it comes from 2 Kings chapter 6, and it illustrates this thing I'm trying to talk to you about today better than anything.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of a funny story, although it's not your kind of humor, mine, although it's it's kind of sarcastic.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: Not as bad as pastor humor, but it is, it's it's a good story, okay?
7:43
SPEAKER_00: And I'll show you where it's funny.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's a battle between two kingdoms in 800 BC.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: All right.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: One kingdom is up here with a capital at Damascus, and that would be today's country is called what?
7:55
SPEAKER_00: Capital Syria, right.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: And you know all about Syria today.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: It's, you know, it's bordered by Turkey up in the north, and so the Kurds are getting squeezed in between and killed.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: So that's all in today's news.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: But back then, uh we have a king of, it was called Aram, A-R-A-M, the Arameans, and he his throne was in Damascus, and he and Israel didn't get along well.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: It's the northern kingdom of Israel.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: He had fought with King Ahab, who's the father of the present king, whose name is Jehoram, who's almost as bad as Ahab was, and their capital is in Samaria.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
8:30
SPEAKER_00: Here's the uh Sea of Galilee, Jordan River, Dead Sea, right?
8:33
SPEAKER_00: About a hundred miles from here to the Sea of Galilee, another hundred miles down here.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: So he's he's he doesn't like, he's decided to start sending raiding parties.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: He's sending raiding parties across the border as this story starts in 2 Kings chapter 6, 8 through 23.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: Feel free to open your Bible and make smiley faces where I tell you to.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: When the king of Ariam was waging war against Israel, he conferred with his servants, My camp will be at such and such a place.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: Meaning, okay, I want you to lead a raiding party and I want you to mobilize down here in uh the valley of Megiddo, and uh, and I want you to kill all those people and bring their cows back, or whatever.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so he makes plans with his uh around the table as they look at the maps and so forth.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: And so he's sending them down and they're crossing over and and they're and they're raiding.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's something interesting that happens.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: The man of God, and we we find out later, that's Elisha, and he's living in a town called Dotan, or Dothan, if you want to use the English term.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: So he sends word to the king of Israel, Jehoram, 11 miles south.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: They usually don't get along because he's a man of God and he's a jerk, okay?
9:47
SPEAKER_00: But once in a while, you know, they get along.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: So he sends word and he says, you need to be careful passing by such and such a place, because the Arameans are going to go down there.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: Because he's like a fly on the wall, Elisha is up in Damascus, constantly listening to plans.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: God's telling him the plans, so he's passing on the plans to the king of Israel, and consequently, the king of Israel sends word to the place that the man of God told him about.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: So these raiding parties come in and they get met and they get squashed, all right?
10:20
SPEAKER_00: So uh here's a really nice picture.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: We've got a photo of Elisha, he's got great teeth, as you'll notice, and uh, sort of balding, and Elisha at Dotan is sending messages 10, 11, 12 miles south to Samaria, where the king of Israel, who's really happy because he's getting Elisha's being nice to him, so he's getting the messages, and they are uh they're frustrating the plans of the king of Syria.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: The man of God repeatedly warned the king, so the king would be on his guard.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: This happened more than once or twice, the Hebrew text tells us.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: And the king of Aram, as you can imagine, as the raiding parties come back home and they're bruised and bloodied, and we didn't get any cows, and he gets mad.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: He's enraged because of this matter.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: And you can imagine what he thinks.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: He thinks someone, we're in a private meeting, someone is a traitor.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: And so he calls the servants and he demands of them, tell me which one of us is for the king of Israel.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: Right?
11:15
SPEAKER_00: And one of his servants said, No one, my lord the king.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: Elisha the prophet in Israel tells the king of Israel even the words that you speak in your bedroom.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: That little zinger right there at the end, you know, must have been fun for the servant, for the lieutenant to say, because there's no evidence that that God allowed Elisha to be a fly on the wall of the bedroom.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: But so this is where the funny stuff starts, okay?
11:42
SPEAKER_00: Now, how did he know?
11:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm guessing he was part of a raiding party, and then after they got squashed again for about the seventh time, one of the Israelites was just holding aside laughing, and he went over and said, What what why are you laughing?
11:55
SPEAKER_00: He said, Because we know every place you're going, because Elisha tells us.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: So he comes back and he reports, okay?
12:01
SPEAKER_00: And even knows the words you're speaking in your bedroom.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: Really?
12:05
SPEAKER_00: So the king said, Go and see where he is.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: So, another funny.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: So Elisha always knows where the king and his troops are, but the king of Syria has no idea where Elisha is.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: Go and send, so I can send men to capture him.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: You send people, he knows you're coming already from 200 miles away, as if this is gonna work.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: Well, when he was told Elisha is in Dotan, he sent horses, chariots, and a massive army there.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's gonna really help.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: But he goes, they went by night and surrounded the city.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: Here's Elisha, who knows everything that he's doing.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: He's a fly on the wall, and he sends this huge army, but if they tiptoe through the night, maybe we can surprise Elijah.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: Again, not as bad as pastor humor, it's smart humor.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: This is God humor, this is sarcasm.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: So here's the truth.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: So he's he sends this huge army 200 miles down, and it says they surround Dotan, the city.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: When the servant of the man of God, his assistant, the guy who lives with him, lives with Elisha, when he got up early to go out and get donuts in the morning or whatever, he discovered an army with horses and chariots surrounding the city.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: And his first thought is, huh, Elisha missed one.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Elisha's been really good about finding out, you know, knowing where all the other raiding parties are, but he missed the most important one, the one that's coming to get us.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: So he asked Elisha, literally in Hebrew, Alas, alas, oh my master, what are we to do?
13:39
SPEAKER_00: Elisha's cool, Elisha's unperturbed, Elisha, of course, knew this was coming.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: And the reply he gives him is on posters everywhere, everywhere but bumper stickers.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: 2 Kings 6.16, Elisha replied, Do not be afraid, say it with me, for there are more with us than there are with them.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that a great line?
13:59
SPEAKER_00: If we understood that there are more with us than there are with our enemies, that would transform our attitude, wouldn't it?
14:10
SPEAKER_00: And so then Elisha prayed, you know, going, My servant has no idea what I'm saying right now.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: So he prayed, Yahweh, please open his eyes and let him see.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: So the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he saw that the hill was covered with horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: It's no accident, in my view, that the Hebrew writer chose to use for all around the word sevivot because it sounds so much like tsvaot, to remind us that these people who are surrounding Elisha are the host, the armies of Yahweh.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: So this is interesting.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: The army from Syria, their eyes are open but closed.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: They have no idea they're outnumbered.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: They can't see anything.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: Neither could the servant, but now the servant can see.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: The story is a lot about people who can't see and people who can.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: And let me just stop for a second and share with you one thing that you're gonna go, that's kind of minor, Jim, but I'm upset by it, so you're gonna get upset by it, okay?
15:17
SPEAKER_00: I don't like the fact that every picture of this scene and every description of this scene pictures it as if the enemies, our enemies, let's say, are surrounding Topeka, and that the Lord's armies are on in the Rocky Mountains up there, you know, they're on the mountain somewhere, but they're gonna come and save us.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: But the people closest to us are our enemies, right?
15:41
SPEAKER_00: Here are the troops from Syria, and they're on the hills plural.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: And I know one or two of your stupid translations have hills as plural, but it shouldn't be, okay?
15:51
SPEAKER_00: So, because look at this, it's not that way at all.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: It's not as though the enemies are close to us and the Lord is hanging back on the other side.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: So the Lord opened the servant's eyes and us.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: He saw that the hill, singular, what hill would that be?
16:05
SPEAKER_00: It'd be the hill they're on, was covered with horses and chariots of fire.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: Where are they?
16:09
SPEAKER_00: They're all around Elisha.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: Here's the hill, it's just south of the valley of Armageddon.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: It's the hill of Dotan.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: As you can see, it's a couple hundred meters tall.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: It's a high hill.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: This is where Elisha and his servant had their house.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: This entire area surrounded by this massive army from Syria.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: Now, where were the armies of the Lord?
16:34
SPEAKER_00: Were they off here in the mountains of southern Galilee?
16:37
SPEAKER_00: And Noah says they were on the hill surrounding Elisha.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: So here's my point as I read this.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: I think this is important.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: When you and I are in a tough spot, it is not as though our enemies are surrounding us close by and the Lord is off in the distance, you know, waiting to swoop in.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: It's just the opposite.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: Our enemies are out there at a distance, maybe pretty close, but someone's closer.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Someone's actually on the hill with us.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: Someone is surrounding us and keeping the enemies away.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand why I'm getting excited about this?
17:13
SPEAKER_00: No, you think I'm stupid.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, okay, I know it's kindergarten level, but for me, it's cool.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: All right?
17:20
SPEAKER_00: He's right here with us, closer than our enemies.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: Now, when the Arameans did come against him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, please strike this nation with blindness.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: They're already blind enough so they don't see the enemy, the Lord's armies, but he wants them to be even more dazed and blind.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: And so God, who answers Elisha's prayers immediately in this story, struck them with blindness according to Elisha's word.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: And because the Hebrew word could be sun blindness, I like this picture.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: Then Elisha said to them, This isn't the way, and this isn't the city.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: Follow me and I'll take you to the man you're looking for.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: Which is funny.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: You can see they're having devotions in Israeli families, and the kids are going crazy right now.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: They're so excited about this that Elisha would actually walk up to them.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: I didn't mean to spit on you, I'm sorry.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: And that he would actually walk up to them and say, Hey, let me take you to the person you're looking for, okay?
18:19
SPEAKER_00: And they can't tell.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: And so he leads them 11 miles south to Samaria.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: So this is, thank you, thank you.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is good.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: You guys are good Israelis.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: So now let me just say that they can't be blind, blind, okay?
18:34
SPEAKER_00: They gotta be blind like the servant was blind before.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: They gotta be blind like um any of you ever walk in your sleep.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm one of the 16% of Americans who've walked a lot in their sleep, but you know, you're you're not blind, but there's no connection.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: The synapses aren't working.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: You don't realize where you are at the time.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: And that seems to be what happened.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't leading them all by the hand, this massive army, so they could walk to Samaria, but they weren't really conscious.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: And when they entered Samaria, Elisha said, Lord, open these men's eyes and let them see.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: Same prayer that he had before for his own servant.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: Lord, open his eyes and let him see.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: And so the Lord opened their eyes and they saw, uh oh, they're in the middle of the capital city of Samaria.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: We're toasts, right?
19:25
SPEAKER_00: And here's the funny thing.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: So when the king of Israel, who's sort of a jerk himself, his name is Jehoram, right?
19:31
SPEAKER_00: He's not a good Christian man.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: And when he saw them, he said to Elijah, Should I kill them?
19:35
SPEAKER_00: Should I kill them, my father?
19:36
SPEAKER_00: And he replied, Shall I kill them?
19:38
SPEAKER_00: Shall I kill them, my father, like a four-year-old or like a six-year-old?
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Can I kill him?
19:41
SPEAKER_00: Can I kill him?
19:41
SPEAKER_00: Can I kill him?
19:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean it's just so, so funny.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: He asks it twice, like your six-year-old, you know.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: Shall I kill them?
19:51
SPEAKER_00: Shall I kill them?
19:52
SPEAKER_00: And and I love the reply.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: Elijah's so clever, and for this has got to be nice for those of you who hate guns and violence and war, and we all hate violence and war, though some of us realize that it is a reality of life in a fallen world where we have rebelled against God and where people are evil.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: But even if you're a convinced pacifist from A to Z and you hate all guns, and I love Bambi too.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I just logged that in there.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: So um, you're gonna like the way this ends.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: Elisha replied, don't kill them.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: Do you kill those you've captured with your sword or your bow?
20:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean, don't you, you know, follow the rules of war, Geneva Convention, that you put them in prison, but you don't kill them if you capture them, do you?
20:35
SPEAKER_00: And Jehoram probably hangs his head and goes, well, yeah, you kind of kill them sometimes.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: So, do you kill them and set food and water in front of them?
20:45
SPEAKER_00: Set food and water in front of them so they can eat and drink and go to their master.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: What is this a joke?
20:53
SPEAKER_00: So the king prepared a big feast for them, for them, them.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: That's not in the Hebrew there, the extra them.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: I have no idea where that came from.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: When they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away and they went to their master.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: Can you believe that?
21:05
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
21:06
SPEAKER_00: So they walk home and they knock on the palace door, and he let King of Aram's, you know, the king of Syria lets them in and goes, What?
21:14
SPEAKER_00: You guys look uh wiping crumbs off your beard.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: What's going on here?
21:18
SPEAKER_00: Well, he didn't have much success, but we got a great meal out of it.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that amazing?
21:24
SPEAKER_00: And notice the last line of the story the Aramean raiders did not come into Israel's land again.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: So why?
21:31
SPEAKER_00: You killed them, the angel armies could, of course, killed them in just a moment.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: They didn't kill anybody.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: Instead, what they did allowed uh established a peace between the Syrians and the Israelis for a hundred years.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: Just remarkable.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: Because they fed them and sent them home.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: Really great story, isn't it?
21:48
SPEAKER_00: But there's a picture of angel armies, and that's what I wanted to get to, and I'll whip through and give you then my six, seven uh uh lessons that we need to know from this.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Number one, quickly, you Yahweh our God is a warrior.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: It's just who he is.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: There's this great verse in Exodus 15 that says, the Lord is a man of war, the Lord is his name.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: Now that's actually the first lines of a song that Miriam Moses' sister wrote after God the warrior killed the greatest army in the world, Pharaoh Amenetep II, the mightiest ruler in the world, chased after Moses to the Red Sea, remember, following them in there.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: And then the Lord, the mighty warrior Lord, closed the waters down and destroyed them.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: And Miriam writes a song which the women's choir in Israel sang for hundreds of years, and is still one of the most famous old songs in the Bible.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: Begins Exodus 15, 3.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh is a man of war.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh is his name.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: So the point is that the Lord doesn't mind being known as a fighter, as a man of war, as a warrior.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 24 seems like this really sweet psalm, but notice how it ends.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: It begins the earth as the Lord's in all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: He's established it on the seas and found it on the floods.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: It's a wonderful world.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, Lift up your heads, O you gates, speaking to Jerusalem.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: Open your gates, Jerusalem, be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the king of glory shall come in.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: But who's the king of glory?
23:28
SPEAKER_00: Verse 8 says, Who is this king of glory?
23:30
SPEAKER_00: Adonai, the Lord, strong and mighty.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: Adonai, mighty in battle.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: I am a warrior, God says, and I don't care if you wish I wasn't.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: That's just who I am.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: I need to be a warrior for the sake of my people.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: Monty was the leader of the British troops in World War II.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: He was, when he wrote these words to his army, on the eve of the landing at Normandy, when his troops joined the U.S.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: troops at Normandy.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: General Montgomery was his name then before he became field marshal, a godly man who read the Bible every day, Old and New Testaments.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: And he wrote a letter to his troops the night before the landing at Normandy that finished with these words We have a great and righteous cause.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray that, quoting Psalm 24, the Lord mighty in battle will go forth with our armies, and that his special providence will aid us in the struggle.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: And that prayer, thank God, was answered, a prayer that was built upon this psalm.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: Now, this psalm moves in its last two verses from Yahweh just being a warrior to being the commander of warriors.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: And so we read again: lift up your heads, O gates, lift them up, you ancient doors, that the king of glory may come in.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: Who is this king of glory?
25:03
SPEAKER_00: The Lord of hosts, or in Hebrew, Yahweh Tsubaot, he is the King of glory.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: And that moves us to our second point, which is that Yahweh is not just a warrior, he has an angel army, and he is its commander.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: Right?
25:21
SPEAKER_00: That's why the angels who are part of that army, the Seraphim in Isaiah 6, 3, the call of Isaiah, remember the temple filled with the train of his robe filled the temple?
25:35
SPEAKER_00: They call out, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of armies.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: The whole earth is full of his glory.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: Or kadosh, kadosh, kadosh is Yahweh Sava.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful, beautiful statement.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: And these are members of that army calling that out to each other.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: David adds to that in Psalm 103, praise the Lord, praise Yahweh, you angels, you mighty ones who carry out his plans, listening for each of his commands.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: He's referring to the fact that Yahweh is the commander of the angelic forces.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: For a testimony from the enemy, we go to Daniel, where Nebuchadnezzar was the God-hating, the Israel God-hating king of Babylon who had enslaved Israel.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: And you remember he got so proud that God stepped on him for seven years, turned him halfway insane, he crawled around like an animal.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: And once he regained his sanity at the end of Daniel 4, Nebuchadnezzar said, All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: God does according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: And no one can restrain his hand or say to him, What are you doing?
26:56
SPEAKER_00: Right?
26:57
SPEAKER_00: So, third, this warrior slash commander, Yahweh Tsuba'ot, has very strong emotion.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: Very interesting that in the 250 plus times this is used in the Old Testament, it seems primarily to be used in times of great crisis and great emotion, where God, the commander, is really upset about how his people are being treated.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: Or he's very excited about the establishment of his kingdom on earth.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: That's Isaiah 9, 6 and 7.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: Remember, and Connor will get into this more next week.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: He's wonderful, counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, and of the increase of his government.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: There'll be no end upon the throne of David, upon his kingdom, and so forth, henceforth forever.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: The zeal of the Lord of hosts of Yahweh will perform.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: The zeal is an emotion word, as another translation puts it, the passionate commitment of the Lord of heaven's armies is gonna make this happen.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: He is so excited to establish his kingdom on earth.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: It'll last a thousand years.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: It's the millennium, is what we generally call it.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: A few chapters later, speaking of delivering you and me, the people he loves, his beloved children, from our enemies, he says, the zeal of the Lord shall do this.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna deliver them.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: And eventually, of course, his zeal will include anger, and he will trample out the vintage of the wine press of his wrath.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: So I just thought I'd mention, this is not a, you know, Lord of hosts is not a God who sits back casually like 007 and is always cool and walks through casinos.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: This is a God who gets personally involved, a God who is really, you know, moves from being irate to tears to happiness and things like that.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: Number four, God's armies and Satan's armies happen to be battling over you at this moment.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Bible tells us, that they're battling.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: And this is what this is what uh lies behind David's words to Goliath.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: In 1 Samuel 17, he said to the Philistine, You come against me with a sword, spear, and javelin, but I come against you in the name of Yahweh Tzeba'ot, the Lord of hosts, it says in your Bible, the God of the ranks of Israel, whom you have defied.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: This is a battle of the gods.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: This is not just between Israel and the Philistines.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: This is between the God of heaven and the God of the underworld, Satan versus Yahweh.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: That's his point here.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: That's why C.S.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: Lewis wrote a book about it called the Screwtape Letters.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: You ought to glance at sometime.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: It purports, this book uh purports to be letters written by Screwtape, who's a high-up demon, to a low demon called Wormwood.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: And Wormwood has one person, could be you, could be me, you know, one of us, whom he calls, whom Screwtape says, This is your client.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: You have to make sure that he doesn't become a Christian.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: Or if he's a Christian, you have to make sure that he walks away from God and doesn't care about him.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: So it's letter after letter about this battle.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, screw tape's saying, you know, the enemy has his forces who are going to try to draw him in.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: You must fight against them, right?
30:17
SPEAKER_00: That's the screw tape letter, C.S.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: Lewis.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you can't read.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: That's too small.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: But I'll just tell you that in Daniel chapter 10 and 12, you have a story about how Gabriel, the angel, the angel, comes to Daniel, the lion's den Daniel guy, you know him.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: And says, From the moment you started crying out and humbling yourself and praying, I started heading.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: Your words were heard, and I've I came in response to your words, but I got held up.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: The prince of the kingdom of Persia, he's a bad guy.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: He's a demon, a high-up demon.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: Prince of Persia withstood me for 21 days.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: How's that for weirdness, right?
30:55
SPEAKER_00: Withstood me for 21 days.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: Then, behold, Michael, he's one of our guys, and he's one of the most mighty of angels on our side, right?
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Came to help me because I was left there alone with the kings of Persia, and now I've come on.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Michael helped him out.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: So this is part of this battle of the ages that's going on even now in what's called the heavenlies by Paul.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: That is this invisible realm that is parallel to our realm right now.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
31:22
SPEAKER_00: So that's this battle going on.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: And because our God, number five, is Yahweh Savot, his final victory in this battle is assured.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: It's guaranteed.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: Can you say amen to that?
31:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm glad to hear that.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: So let me just share with you a couple verses.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: We're heading toward the close here.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: Zechariah 14.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: This is the future.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: Get ready for this.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: This is what's going to happen.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna happen.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: It may happen soon.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: Behold, a day is coming.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: This is the end of the prophet Zechariah.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: And I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: And the city, that's Jerusalem, shall be taken and plundered.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: They'll be raped.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: They'll be exiled.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna look terrible one of these days for the city of Jerusalem, right?
32:03
SPEAKER_00: And then at the last minute, Yahweh will go out.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: That is, he will go out of heaven and he will fight against those nations.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh, my God, will come and all the holy ones with him.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: Revelation fills out this story.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: Then I saw heaven opened.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: So I saw heaven open, says John.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: And there was a there was a white horse and its riders called Faithful and True, and his eyes were like a fiery flame, and many crowns were on his head, and his name is called the Word of God.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: And the armies that were in heaven followed him on white horses, wearing pure white linen.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: And then I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the rider on the horse and against his army.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: And there was war in heaven, that is in the invisible realm right around us.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: Michael and his angels battled against the dragon.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: And the dragon and its angels fought back, but did not prevail, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: That is, they got kicked out of heaven, they got kicked down to the earth, where they are about to be defeated.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: And as we read in Revelation 19, but the beast and the false prophet were thrown alive into the lake of fire, and the rest were killed with the sword that came from the mouth of the rider on the horse.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: Notice, not killed by the angel armies, killed actually by the Lord Jesus Christ, by the sword, or perhaps a word, one little word shall fell him.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: Right?
33:24
SPEAKER_00: So because our God is Yahweh Tzva'ot, his final victory is guaranteed.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: And finally, in the meantime, if you're on God's side, his angel army is protecting you.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: He really is.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: He's protecting you.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: We know that Michael the great prince, even now, is guarding the nation of Israel.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: We're told that in Daniel.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: We know in Psalm 46, that Psalm that says, God's our ever-present help in trouble, that psalm has two stanzas, both of which end with these words Yahweh Tziva'ot is with us.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: The God of Jacob is our fortress.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: And verse 11 the Lord of our heavens' armies is here among us.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: The God of Israel is our fortress.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: He is here to protect you.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: Here's John Patton.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: John Patton opened up a Billy Graham tells a story in his book Angels.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: John Patton, wonderful, very famous missionary, opened up an island in the South Pacific for Jesus Christ.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: These are cannibals, you know, it's a drawing.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: This uh in the early, about a hundred and less than a hundred years ago, but John Patton was this godly man, and he and his wife went down there.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: And they tried to minister the cannibals to this to this tribe, and they built a little hut and they stayed there, and it just didn't seem to be working very well.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: And one night the chief and the tribe, fortified by way too much whiskey, way too much wine, whatever it was, came with torches to burn down their hut and kill them.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: And John and his wife fell on their knees and they prayed to God there in the hut, waiting for it to be burned up, waiting for their death, willing to die for Christ, it didn't happen.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: They kept praying, it didn't happen.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: They could hear them screaming and yelling, encouraging each other out there, nothing happening, and they prayed, kept praying through the night, fell asleep, dozed off in the morning, woke up, crept to the window, looked out, everybody was gone.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: They decided not to say anything about it to the chief or to any of the people who had been there.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: They decided to keep witnessing to them, keep ministering to them, but a year later the chief came to Christ.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: John sat with him.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: He said, Do you mind if I ask you about something that happened about a year ago?
35:41
SPEAKER_00: Chief said, Go ahead.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, about a year ago, do you remember when you brought torches?
35:45
SPEAKER_00: You and everybody else came, you're gonna burn down the hut.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: You were gonna kill us.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: What happened?
35:52
SPEAKER_00: Chief said, You know what happened.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: He said, No, I don't know what happened.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, you had all those men with you.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: John said, I didn't have any men with me, it was just me and my wife.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: He said, No, there were a hundred men, they were big, in gleaming garments, they're all standing all around your hut.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: And swords had weapons.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: My men were too scared to do anything.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh Sabao.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: My brother reopened Sudan as a mission field years after Sudan and Terry Mission had opened it.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: One of the first missionaries to open the largest country in Africa, Sudan, which is presently divided between Muslim North, Christian South.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: One of the earliest missionaries was named Thomas Titcombe, Tommy Titcombe.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: They called him, and Tommy went out there and he was alone for a while, and he was mentoring.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: He had led eleven young men to Christ, and so they were surrounding him, and they said, We'll give our lives to you when a huge crowd, again, drunk, came to take Tommy and to kill him.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: And Tommy said, I want you to leave, and they said, No, we'll die with you.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: And this huge crowd, jumping, waving their knives and so forth, came running at them, and all of a sudden it was as though they hit a wall and they all fell down.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: They got up sheepishly, tried to come on, and they couldn't get any closer than 50 feet.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: And after a while, Tommy actually went out.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, how come?
37:22
SPEAKER_00: How come you're not killing us?
37:25
SPEAKER_00: And they said, Well, there's this there's a shield or something we can't get through.
37:32
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh Sabo.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: Whatever it will take, he will do, and he can do because he has angel armies at his side.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: I'd like us to recite this as a prayer.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: These are words to a song that you sang beginning this service today and that we'll close with in a moment.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: But would you say these?
37:58
SPEAKER_00: Speaking to the Lord, can we say these together right now?
38:02
SPEAKER_00: Let's say them.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: Whom shall I fear?
38:06
SPEAKER_00: I know who goes before me.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: I know who stands behind.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: The God of angel armies is always by my side.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: Our Father, we are so grateful that you are Yahweh Titzebao.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: That you are the God of hosts, you are the God of angel armies.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: And you put those in your service to protect us and to guard us.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: Because you love us as your children.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: I pray for those here who aren't sure they're on your side and they're being protected, Lord.
38:45
SPEAKER_00: I pray that today they would run to you, they would fly to you as their savior, as their Lord.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: And then as their defending warrior.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.