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NAMES OF GOD SERIES
THE NAMES OF GOD REVEALED TO MOSES:
JEHOVAH RAPHA, JEHOVAH NISSI, JEHOVAH MEKADESH
Exodus 6:1-4 Then Yahweh said to Moses, "Now
you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand he will let
them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land. And Elohim spoke to Moses and said to him: "
I am Yahweh. I appeared onto
Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob by the name of El Shaddai.
But by My name Yahweh I was not known to them. I have also established my
covenant with them to give them the
God
specified that He has revealed the name of El Shaddai
to Abraham. In Genesis 22 when He tested Abraham God revealed Himself by the
name of Jehovah Jireh. But it was Abraham naming the place Jehovah Jireh and not so much as God revealing His name as Jehovah Jireh. Incidentally, Yahweh
or Jehovah are
both transliterations of the same Hebrew name for God YHWH. However, Bible
scholars think that Yahweh is a more
accurate rendering of the name YHWH. Although the name Yahweh was already known
during the time of Abraham, the people have not understood that special name of
Jehovah until Moses came along.
Moses
was given three revelations of Jehovah’s name, i.e. Jehovah Rapha, Jehovah Nissi
and Jehovah Mekadesh
whereas Abraham was given one, i.e. Jehovah
Jireh. The other revelations of Jehovah's names
are found in the other parts of the bible, which we will look at later.
Jehovah
Rapha
The first revelation of Jehovah that Moses had is
found in Exodus 15. Earlier on as God sent Moses God had revealed His name to
him, as I Am the I Am, the pre-existing one I Am Yahweh. But here He comes into the details and revealed
Himself to Moses as Jehovah Rapha.
Exodus 15: 25 So he
cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the
waters, the waters were made sweet. There He made a statute and an ordinance
for them, and there he tested them, and said, "If you diligently heed the
voice of Yahweh your Elohim and do what is right in
His sight give ear to His commandments and keep all His statues, I will put
none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am Jehovah Rapha."
Now in some of the older English translations, the Bible
translators used the name Jehovah Rophika, which means the Lord that healed you
instead of calling Him Jehovah Rapha, which means the Lord is healing. The actual Hebrew translation is Rapha. The Hebrew sound and pronunciation is Rapha.. Healing is a part
of His name.
Now in that healing He revealed to us how to reach Him as the healer. It is
just like a person who can have many intimate titles. A person may be called honey, darling, and sweetheart. So how do you reach that person at each level? For us
humans who are so limited, they all mean the same thing. But with God each
intimate title is special and each has to be reached by special principles. And
the principles to reach Him in each intimate title are always enclosed and
discovered in the first occurrence where the intimate title is mentioned. The
first time that the name like Jehovah Jireh was mentioned is found in Genesis 22, when
Abraham was tested in his love and obedience for God. The intimate title Jehovah Rapha is
first used in Exodus 15 and there are four principles in knowing God intimately
as Jehovah Rapha.
Number one, you will diligently heed the voice of your God. Number two, you will do what is right in His sight. Number three,
you will give ear to His commandments and number four, and you will keep all
His statutes.
Number one, you will hearken to His voice. And the
first point means that we have to be led by the Spirit. You can keep all the
other laws and if the Spirit does not lead you, you will still loose your help
and loose your healing. Hearing the Holy Spirit is a part of knowing the
healing powers of Jehovah Rapha. We know that even in
prosperity, you can be doing all the right things but if the Spirit does not
lead you and you are in the wrong place and at the wrong time, you won’t get
your providential supply from God. It is important to be doing the right thing
and being in the right place and at the right time for the supply of our God to
come into our life. Healing operates in the similar way. The leading of the
Spirit and the word of God works together. You can keep on uttering God’s
biblical promises for healing all the time, but if the Holy Spirit tells you to
cut back on eating all those kind of food and you are not listening to the Holy
Spirit, you can still be sick. If the Holy Spirit tells you not to nurse
resentment and grudges against somebody, and you don't listen, you can still
suffer bodily aches. You are just trying to keep the letter of the Lord without
following the Spirit. The healing law may not work. Because God knows the
causes of sicknesses and diseases, He tells the Israelite people to observe His
laws.
Number
two, is to do what is right in His sight. Now the Hebrew word for do is actually stronger. The word do is the word work. You will work at what is right. Righteousness
and healing flow together. Righteousness and healing are twins. They go
together. Do you notice in 1 Peter 2:24 speaks about righteousness? Let me just
read it. Many quote this scripture because it says by His stripes I was healed.
But if you read carefully it says, 'who Himself bore our sins in His own
body on the tree that we being dead to sin might live for righteo
g usness by whose stripes you were healed.' Living and working out righteousness is an
important law to tap on Jehovah Rapha. There is no
point trying to get healed if you are living in sin. A lot of people don’t get
healing because they still want to live in sin. Remember that it is sin that
brought sicknesses, diseases and death in the first place. Not all sicknesses
are caused by personal sin but some are. And some could just be sin of omission
rather than sin of commission. But they will all still cause us to loose
contact with Jehovah Rapha. We have to live
righteously to tap on His laws of healing.
Number
three says give ear to His commandments. The word commandments refer back to
His word. The word of God is help and healing to all those who find them. When
the word of God comes into our life, health and healing can spring forth.
Hence, it is important to meditate on the word of God.
But
number four is interesting, which is seldom mentioned as one of the laws of
healing. It says keep guard over His statutes or ordinances. Keep guard over His statutes actually
should be stated as guard His statutes
carefully. Those statutes are what we call an ordinance. What are statutes?
Statutes are ordinances or methods that God has ordained. In the Old Testament
the statutes involved all the different types of offering that they must bring
to God. And it involved all the ceremonies that they have to follow as part of
the Jewish form of worship. In the New Testament, we still have some
ordinances, which are also known as sacraments. We have the ordinances or
sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Matrimony, Anointing of
the Sick, Reconciliation, Holy Communion or the Lord’s Supper, Holy
Orders etc. God says to guard these ordinances. If God appointed or ordained
these sacraments, they constitute part and parcel of our relationship with
Jehovah Rapha. Which is why when a
person is baptised in water he can be baptised into healing also. It is
an ordinance that God has sanctioned. The laying on of hand and the anointing
of the sick is found in James 5. And God is saying don’t despise these things,
work with them and guard them. In 1 Corinthians 11 we have people who fall sick
and die because they ate and drank the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner. I
Corinthians 11: 27-30 Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup
of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the
Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink
of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks
judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this reason many are
weak and sick among you, and many sleep.
These four keys are part of relating to God as Jehovah
Rapha. He is not playing around. He is telling us
that all these four principles relate to knowing Him intimately and powerfully
His healing found in His name, Jehovah Rapha. Number one, hearing His voice. Number two,
righteousness. Number three, putting the word first in our life. And
number four, keeping the ordinances of God.
Jehovah
Nissi
In Exodus 17, God gave Moses the second revelation of Jehovah, Jehovah Nissi.
When
Exodus 17:8 Now Amalek came and fought with
This
is the first revelation of God as a man of war in Jehovah Nissi.
Therefore all the principles found in this account are important. What are the
principles to tap on God as our man of war? This is one aspect that David knew
about. There are many areas of God that we need to learn and know. You may
relate to me as a preacher. So there is a part of me that you know. But a part
of me that you may not know is that I love football. Then there is another part
of me that I love science. Then there is another part of me is that I am a
chess player. So there are all these various aspects you can relate to me.
Likewise, we need to know how to relate to God in all these various aspects.
When do I need to relate to Jehovah Nissi as the Man of War? When you are fighting spiritual
battles, you need God as a Man of War and to understand all the principles that
are involved. What are the principles? You notice immediately that the two
persons are very special, Aaron and Hur. We know who
Aaron is. He is the elder brother of Moses who was appointed to the priestly
ministry under Moses. But who is Hur? According to
Jewish traditions, Hur is the grandfather of Bezalel. Bezalel is mentioned in
Exodus 31: 1-3 Then
the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: :See, I have called ny
name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of
Moses
had all the plans but Moses was not an engineer. Moses was not skilled in
casting gold or silver. But Bezalel and Oholiab were. Their grandfather, Hur
represented the ministry of helps. Now Hur had also
been said by Jewish tradition that he is also Miriam's husband. That will make
him the brother-in-law to Moses. But these are all Jewish tradition and are not
found in the scriptures. Hur as we put it represents
the ministry of help. Aaron represents the five-fold ministry. So you have
Moses who was like representing the choice of God. And Aaron was holding up one
hand of Moses and Hur the other hand. Thus, the five-fold ministry and the ministry of helps come
together in the spiritual warfare against Amalek.
Who are the Amalekites? Amalek means war like. So he is talking about warring demons, fallen
angels and Satan who are at war with the body of Christ. We are in the
spiritual warfare. There are spiritual warfare involved in all our problems and
all our situations. We under estimate the battlefield.
Ephesians 6;18 tells us that we wrestle not with flesh and blood but with
principalities, powers, wicked rulers of the darkness of this age and wicked
spirits in the high places. Many major problems have a demonic force behind it.
Now I do not want to move to that extreme of blaming every problem of the flesh
as a problem with Satan and demons. But whether they are problems of the flesh
or not, directly or indirectly, Satan and his demons are involved.
And
if we know Jehovah Nissi, and fight our spiritual
battles in our prayer closet, we will have very little difficulty outside. So
how do we fight? There is first of all the rod of Moses. Moses hastily
instructed Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek: to morrow I will stand on the top of the hill with
the rod of God in mine hand (Ex.17: 9).
Amalek's attack
upon
The rod of Moses also represents both the anointing and
the name of God. By lifting up the name of Jesus Christ and the anointing of
the Holy Spirit, which involved the gifts of the Spirit, we are able to battle
and wage warfare. You are willing to tap on the gifts of the Spirit that will
work in your life. Suppose you are a businessman, and you have a certain
project. You don’t just depend on your experience or your knowledge or your
training. You are faithful to use all the training you have. But you depend on
the gifts of the Spirit working in your life. In the decision-making on your
life, you depend on the guidance and the leading of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit
can speak in a dream. He can speak in a vision. Dreams and visions have changed
the entire course of my ministry. I am not talking about being just being led
by dreams and vision. I am talking about being sensitive to understand that all
spiritual warfare needs the gifts of the Spirit. Our weapons are not carnal. No matter how great your intellect is, it is all
under carnality. No matter how great your experience is, it is all the flesh.
The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They are
mighty to God through the pulling down of strongholds. We have spiritual
weapons. And the gifts of the Spirit can work the word of knowledge, the word
of wisdom, and He will tell you things to come. The Holy Spirit has every time.
100% of the time the Holy Spirit has told me what will happen next. In all the
major decisions of the church, in all the major decisions of the ministry, when
something comes up, it never surprises me. The Holy Spirit has told me before.
It is important for us to wage our warfare with the gifts of the Spirit. That
is the rod that Moses held up.
Number
three is the five-fold ministry represented by Aaron. Jehovah Nissi God is my banner. But God cannot be your banner if
you are out of fellowship. If you are functioning like a lone ranger with no
local fellowship and you are not submissive to any spiritual leadership
anywhere at all, you are a god unto yourself. Jehovah is not your banner. Part
of Jehovah being our banner is being able to relate to the entire five-fold
ministry. Let the five-fold ministry have an impact on your life and you being
able to relate to the five-fold ministry. That will form part of your spiritual
warfare. If Satan can isolate a person then he can defeat him. If Satan can divide
the church, then he knows that we cannot overcome him.
The
third is a neglected area. You can do everything right in the Spirit, but if
you don’t know how to organise, if you don’t know how to administrate, if you
don’t know how to tap on the ministry of help, Satan can still destroy you. Hur represents the ministry of helps. Ministries of help
are the entire natural gifts and natural talents and natural abilities that are
submitted to God. They are not obtained just by mere training. Bezalel received his gifts through the Holy Spirit. The
Bible says that God filled Bezalel and Oholiab with his Spirit. God gives gifts of administration.
God gives the ability in the natural to do something for God. That is having
God as our banner.
Nobody goes to battle without an organised army. Some
of the smallest army has overcome greater armies because of good and efficient
organisation. You can have one hundred thousand people. Another person can have
fifty thousand soldiers. The difference is that strategy and organisation and
military technique can overcome the shortage of two to one. It is important for
us to understand that Jehovah Nissi involves
Spirit-inspired organisation.
If you are in the business world and you want God to
be your banner in your spiritual warfare, you will have to go on your knees to
ask God how to structure your business. Ask God for the wisdom and the
organisational structure. Believe me He can organise better than any Business
school can teach. He created the heaven and the earth. Think about God being in
charge of the whole universe. That is a vast organisation system beyond men's
comprehension. But not many people ask God how to organise. They do it themselves
without asking God. I believe in asking God. If you organise any work or
ministry for the Lord, you have to get on your knees before God and get His
ideas. You don’t just get it by sitting in a seminar or by reading a good book.
You get it on your knees before God. And you ask God to teach you to organise.
Organisation or the ministry of help is an important part of knowing Jehovah Nissi.
Then
we have the fourth point. The two stones that were put under Moses hands
represent the rest of the body of Christ. In order to wage spiritual warfare,
you don’t go against what the body of Christ is doing. You flow along and bring
them along. There is always a direction of a flow. The two stones represent the
church in general. You can’t do spiritual warfare if you work against the
church. If you do something against what believer’s conscience
tell you, there is no way that you could battle it out with God. That is
the fourth point in Jehovah Nissi.
Jehovah
Mekadesh
The third and last revelation that God gave to Moses
is Jehovah Mekadesh.
Mekadesh comes from the word kadesh, which means I am the
Lord who sanctifies you. We find that the name Jehovah Mekadesh
is revealed to Moses in Exodus 31.
Exodus 31:13 -14 "Speak also to the children
of
Now the name Jehovah
Mekadesh, first revealed to Moses is repeated
many times in Leviticus. We have the word here holiness onto the Lord. The word sanctify
means to be made holy. And now He
takes them onto Himself as a separated holy people. As we have said, the first
occurrence where a new intimate title of Jehovah is first revealed gives us
principles on how to tap on that part of Jehovah. But the revelation
given on how to relate to the holy God is spread out over about four different
places in the revelation given to Moses.
The first principle on how to relate to Jehovah Mekadesh found in Exodus 31:14 you shall keep the Sabbath
holy. Now it doesn’t just talk about the Sabbath as a Saturday today. The
Sabbath is the only one in the Ten Commandments that are not repeated in the
new. You can find all the Ten Commandments except one in the New Testament, and
that is the Sabbath. Because the law of the Sabbath has been
changed from a day into a person. Jesus Christ is our Lord of Sabbath.
Hebrew 4:1 therefore since the promise remain of entering into His rest.
That is His Sabbath rest. And verse 6 since therefore it remains that some
must enter it and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of
disobedience. Again he designate a certain day saying in David today after such
a long time as it has been said today you will hear his voice and not harden you
hearts. In verse 9 there remain therefore a rest or a Sabbath for
the people of God and that is found in Jesus. In verse 10 he who has entered
his rest has himself also cease from his work as God did from his.
The
first principle in relating to Jehovah Mekadesh, the
Lord who sanctifies you, the God who is holiness is to cease from your work.
That is what it means by honouring the Sabbath. We must learn not to do
anything when God didn’t ask us to. We never thought that is related to
holiness. But holiness is learning to wait on God and not to do anything when
He didn’t ask us to. We need to be obedient to God when He speaks to us and He
tells us to do something. But we also need to learn the secret when if He doesn’t
tell us to do anything, we must continue to patiently wait on Him. It is a
virtue to be able to wait and do nothing. By waiting and doing nothing, I do
not mean being lazy. I mean being in His presence. Just being
with Him.
The
first entrance to the holiness of God is to
be still and know that I am God. How do we tap on the holiness of God right
here in this place? In our gatherings, we can come with prepared agendas and
things to do. We can fellowship and we can have a good time but we will not
have Jehovah Mekadesh showing up. Then what must we
do? We must all be still and listen to what does God wants to do. If we
approach Him like that, we will see God manifesting in His holiness. There is
too much activity that is not of God. There are a lot of things we can do
without prayer. And it is dangerous when we learn to do without prayer. Because
unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain who build it. We want that
awesome presence of God. We want to be a part of the presence and the move of
God that transforms this earth and prepare the Bride of Jesus Christ, ready for
the coming of Jesus Christ. Every body can have good ideas. But my question is
have we prayed about it? Is it our idea or is it God's idea? We don’t to back
slide until we become a dead, unspiritual church that
can have a lot of ideas, but nothing from God. When the Holy Spirit is absent,
we won’t know it. I mean when the Holy Spirit is absent we should know it.
Which is why the first key is learning to be still, to be quiet.
A
lot of people are not still enough to hear God. Guess what is in God’s sight?
They are not holy. Holiness doesn’t just mean without sin. If you are without
sin you are just righteous. Holiness means being set apart only for Him. The
angels that are waiting on God up there are not doing something while waiting
for God. They would just be still. Waiting on God. We
are talking about the presence of God. Think about the four creatures around
God’s throne. They are always just in a position of service waiting on God.
Elijah knew that secret. That is the first key. Honour the Sabbath. And the
modern way of doing it is to cease from your work and just come before God. And
say Lord if you don’t reveal what to do, I will not do anything. I will wait on
you. I will worship you. That is the relationship that you have with God
that you develop. Then you learn the secret of John 15:5 without Him you can do
nothing. We need to learn that aspect of holiness.
The
second principle of relating to Jehovah Mekadesh is
found in Leviticus 20:8 and you shall keep my statues, and perform them: I
am the Lord who sanctifies you. I am Jehovah Mekadesh.
The second key looks like the same principle of tapping into Jehovah Rapha. But here again we see the same word statute.
Now a statute is different from a commandment. A statute is a sanction method.
Do you know that when you set aside time in the morning or with your family and
you partake of the Holy Communion as an ordinance or sacrament, you are tapping
on Jehovah Mekadesh? You hold the ordinances of God
as sacred. And you are faithful to hold fast to them. Whenever you take oil and
you put them on your children every day and you lay hands on them and bless
them and pray for them, you are sanctifying your family. You are tapping on
Jehovah Mekadesh for your whole family. It is
important to do that. When you refrain from going into waters of baptism, there
is a part of you that does not feel satisfied and not sanctified. It is because
it is relating to the ordinance of Jehovah Mekadesh.
So don’t take it lightly. With the anointing of oil or with the laying of hands
it is the sacred and holy ordinance that God has given to the New Testament
church. These are areas that we sanctify God in our midst. We are tapping on
God as Jehovah Mekadesh.
The
third principle is found in Leviticus 21:8 Therefore you shall consecrate
him, for he offers the bread of your God. He shall be holy to you, for I the
Lord, who sanctify you, am holy. Know the third principle is interesting.
There are two parts to it. The first part is every ministry that is done onto
God, whether big or small, whether it is arranging flowers or preaching the
word, or laying hands on the sick, the ministry of God is holy. And when it is
holy you take it as something special and you do your best. So when you don’t
do something small or big onto God in your best way, you are not sanctifying
God in your heart. Which is why when we do something for the Lord, we have to
offer God the best. We don’t want to have the Cain spirit. Do you know what a
Cain spirit is? When he saw Abel offering his offering, Cain
said, "Let me do something too." But he didn’t offer from his
heart. And he didn’t offer his best. Abel offered the firstborn of his cattle,
the best. Cain was the tiller of the ground. If he really offered his best, the
bible would have said that he offered the first fruits of the ground.
There
are a lot of people who don’t serve God in sanctity. They don’t understand the
idea that when you do something for God as a ministry for God, they have to do
and give their best. It has to do with the attitude of their heart. And a lot
of people are so used to the idea that you give something to the ministry when
you cannot use it at home. It is second hand; it is rotten. Give it to some
preacher. Some ministry needs it. I can understand that is charity. But the
ministry is not charity. One of the ministries of God is the ministry of
charity. But sometimes people end up with a certain attitude. Let us say they
have a fridge at home. It is so run down that they cannot use it anymore. They
say, " I think the church needs it. Let's give it
to the church." It has become an attitude in our heart. If I can’t use it
anymore, I will give it to the church. It is not good enough for me, but it is
good enough to be used for the Lord. It has a Cain’s spirit when it involves
not giving God our best, and not sanctifying God. Now we do not mean the
opposite attitude that when you do something for the Lord, it has to be the
most expensive. We are not talking about that. That will be on the extreme
realm of luxury. But we are talking about an attitude of heart. It doesn’t have
to be luxurious. But if it is not good enough for me, it must not be good
enough for the Lord. Because I love the Lord more than I love
myself. The difference between righteousness and holiness is two
different Greek words. Righteousness has to do with conformity to the law.
Holiness has to do with something above and extra. David had a different
attitude and said, " I am not going to give
something that costs me nothing. I am going to pay for it. It is a part of my
offering onto the Lord." Although many people who bring their offering or
gifts can’t see the Lord in an open vision but in their heart it is done onto
the Lord.
The
second part of sanctifying the Lord in the ministry works in three ways.
Firstly, those who are in the ministry should regard that ministry as
consecration to the Lord, as working onto the Lord. Not working for man. Not
working for the finances. Not working for our needs. But
working as onto the Lord.
Secondly,
sanctifying the Lord is treating the man of God, the servants of God well.
Exodus 28: 41 "So you shall put them on Aaron your brother and on his
sons with him. You shall anoint them, consecrate them, and sanctify them, that
they may minister to Me as priests." God is
saying you must regard Aaron whom I set apart as holy and as my property. So
how do you treat my property? If I am going overseas and I say, "These are
my car keys, can you take care of it?" How do you
treat my property? Usually when you drive somebody else's car, you are usually
extra careful. But here He is saying Aaron has become His property. How I treat
Aaron is how I treat God. How I treat Moses is how I treat God. When Jesus sent
His disciples out two by two, He said that if they don’t receive you, they do
not receive Me. Although sometimes we wish God will
come in other forms, in other representatives, we can’t get what we wish all
the time. You can get what you need. But you can’t get what you wish all the
time. That is what God is saying here, "If you can’t love those whom I
sent you, you can’t love me."
Thirdly,
sanctifying the Lord means loving His people as well. Most of
the time you can’t see God except when He reveals Himself in a vision.
But you can see the people of God. How you treat a brother or sister in the
Lord whom you can see is how you actually express how you love God. If you have
a bad attitude towards them, that is expressing your attitude to God. Some
people who say that they love God with all their heart, mind and soul but who
do not have a loving attitude to their fellow brothers and sisters can't really
be serious that they really love God.
There
was a person who died and went to heaven and came back. Jesus met that person
and said, "You don’t really love Me." He
replied, "Yes, Lord I do. I spent four hours with you. I read your word. I
preached, I have won souls for You, I have done this, I
have done that." Jesus said, "You don’t really love Me." In the end the Lord said, "You have this
wrong relationship with that other person who is a part of my body. If you
can’t love him, you can’t love Me." In the
epistle of John, John says if you cannot love your fellow brothers or sisters
whom you can see how can you say you love God whom you have not seen? That is
what God is saying. We must be able to love those whom we can see. Although
some of those we can see may not be that loveable, but if they are
representatives of God in whatever sense, we need to love them.
In
Acts 9, when the Lord met Paul, he got the biggest surprise in his life. The
Lord said, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Now Paul had not
even seen Jesus. But everything that Paul did to the church, he did it to
Jesus. Jesus didn’t say, "Why do you persecute my church?" He said,
"Why did you persecute Me?" And the Lord is asking many Christians today,
"Why are you persecuting Me?" Perhaps the
answer is, "Lord, I didn’t persecute you." The Lord says, "Yes.
You spoke against brother so and so. He is part of my church." Jesus says
as much as you have done to these little ones, you have done it to Me." Jesus spoke to another group and said, "You
have fed Me, you have clothe Me, you have done this to
me." And they ask, "When did we do it?" He says, "As often
as you have done to these little ones of mine, you have done it to Me." That is the third point of relating to
Jehovah Mekadesh: to love the members of the Body of
Christ.
The
fourth principle in relating to Jehovah Mekadesh is
found in Leviticus 22:9 "They shall therefore keep My
ordinance, lest they bear sin for it and die thereby, if they profane it; I the
Lord sanctify them. If you remember the moment they started two persons
died. Two of Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu died. Why did they die? They didn’t take the
sacrifice of God seriously. And it is also found in Leviticus 22:16 'or
allow them to bear the guilt of trespass when they eat their holy offerings;
for I the Lord sanctify them.'' Then the Lord speaks about some sort of
sacrifice in offering onto Him. This is found again in Leviticus 22: 32, You shall not profane my holy name, but I will be
hallowed among the children of
Now
these three revelations that are given to Moses form three different aspects of
the contents of the ark found inside the Holy of Holies. And if you open the
ark, there are three things inside, the pot of manna, the rod of Moses and the
two tablets containing the Ten Commandments. Jehovah Mekadesh
is represented by the manna, which is something you have to eat every day. Man
shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes out from the mouth
of God. The manna speaks about the daily supply of God’s strength and
sanctifying power in our life. Jehovah Nissi is
represented by the rod of Moses and speaks about overcoming the devil in
spiritual warfare. The two tablets containing the Ten Commandments, which
contain the principles in Christian life for overcoming the world, represent
Jehovah Rapha. So the three revelations to Moses
covers revelations of how to relate to Jehovah Mekadesh
in order to overcome the flesh; how to relate to Jehovah Nissi
in order to overcome the devil; and finally on how to relate to Jehovah Rapha in order to overcome the world. So we have the three
full revelations that helps us to overcome the flesh,
the devil and the world.
Transformation
through revelation
You notice that the revelation of God that you receive
limits the measure of power you will experience from God. Your experience with
God can never go deeper than the revelation of God’s name revealed to you.
Moses reached beyond Abraham. Although Abraham went into faith and knew God as
El Shaddai and abundance and provision of Jehovah Jireh, yet there were some aspects that he didn't move into
that Moses experienced. Moses went into another level of revelation.
2 Corinthians 3:17-18 Now the Lord is the Spirit and
where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all with unveiled
face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into
the same image from glory to glory just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
We are transformed into God’s image and glory as we
behold Him proportionally to the glory that we see in the face of God. In other
words, how much we are transformed depends on how much we can see of Him. Now
we know that God is Almighty, Omnipresence, Omnipotent, and Omniscient. God has
so many facets. We look at different facets of God as we consider the names of
God. But as we look at all the names of God in order to consider Him in His
many facets of God, we need to bear these verses in mind in 2 Corinthians
3:17-18. As we see a facet of God, we are transformed.
We
see that as the names of Jehovah were revealed in the life of Abraham and
Moses, we see a corresponding transformation in them. When you think about
Abraham, what comes to your mind? You think of faith. You could also think of
the multitudes. And they were all born through the faith of Abraham. He saw the
multitudes that God promised him. And we are part of the seed of Abraham. You
could also think of abundance, silver, gold, blessing, and prosperity. Abraham
was an example of that great abundance because of the revelations of God given
to his life. The last revealed name given to Abraham was Jehovah Jireh or Yahweh Jireh, the Lord
who sees and who provides. Therefore he became the manifestation of the name he
received. As he saw Jehovah Jireh he became a
personification or an extension of God’s Jireh. As we
see His glory we are transformed.
And
then we have Moses who had three revelations of God’s name. Whatever Moses
became or whatever he manifests was because of what he saw in God. Moses was
the one who brought the healing covenant because he knew Jehovah Rapha. Moses fought battles successfully because he had the
revelation of Jehovah Nissi, God as the banner.
Therefore he knew how to fight the battles. Then was there was Jehovah Mekadesh where the holiness of God was manifested. When you
think about Moses, you think about the shining face he had where none dare to
approach him. What he is is because of what he saw
that God is. You cannot be more than what you can see of God spiritually
speaking. If you see a small God, you will have a manifestation of the
smallness of what God can do for you. When you see more of God, you can have
more of God working on your behalf.
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