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NAMES OF GOD SERIES
THE NAME OF GOD REVEALED TO GIDEON: JEHOVAH SHALOM and THE NAME
OF GOD REVEALED TO DAVID: JEHOVAH RA'AH
The Name of God
revealed to Gideon: Jehovah Shalom
Now
lets look at the fourth revelation of God’s name, and
that is to a man named Gideon in the book of Judges. God was looking for a man
to be a judge. Gideon is known for his band of three hundred. But behind that
band of three hundred fighting men was the revelation of God's name as Jehovah
Shalom to Gideon. It is a different revelation from Jehovah Nissi.
Judges 6:11-13 Now the Angel of the Lord came and
sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash
the Abiezrite, while his son
Gideon threshed wheat in the wine-press in order to hide it from the Midianites. And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him and
said to him, "The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valour!" Gideon
said to him, O my lord, if the Lord is with us why then has all this happened
to us? And where are all His miracles, which our fathers told us about, saying,
"Did not our Lord bring us out from
It is always like this. Whenever people run into a
problem, they blame God. Here he is almost blaming God. If God is with us, why
do these things happen? We forget the sins of our forefathers. We forget that
present circumstances and societal woes may have their causes in the sins of
the preceding generations. If the preceding generation was faithful, then the
next generation gets blessed. If the preceding generation is sinful, the next
generation suffers the consequences. However by the grace of God, the faith in
God and the mercy of God, we can get out of whatever predicament our
forefathers have put us in.
We need to recognise this. We cannot blame God. Whenever the bible uses the
permissive tense, it does not mean that God was the active cause. For example,
you will find in the book of Chronicles that God killed Saul. We know that God
didn’t kill Saul but He allowed Saul to be killed as a consequence of his own
disobedience. Or at the end of the book of Job it says God delivered Job and
set Job free from all the captivity that God sent to him. We know in Job
chapter one and two God was not the one who sent suffering to him. But the word
sent was used in a permissive tense. It was permitted because of broken
law. It may not be a law broken by a person who suffered the consequences. But
in the dispensation of God a broken law allows sin, sickness and suffering to
come in.
Here
Gideon asks that if the Lord is with us where are all the miracles?
He doesn’t know that you can live in any generation, in any time, that you
could have the same miracle if you have the same faith. God was trying to raise
his faith level up. Then the Lord through the angel said, "O mighty man of
valour, go in this might of yours. You shall save
And in Judges 6: 17 Gideon replied, "If now I
have found favour in your sight, then show me a sign that it is you who talk
with me." Now this is in the Old Testament. In the New Testament you could
not ask for signs. If you ask for a sign, you may just get a sign board that
says, "Read the Bible." This is the Old Testament where they do not
have the Holy Spirit falling on them. They were not born again. They have not
been washed in the redeemed Blood of the Lamb. So they were different. Gideon
asks, "Give me a sign." Judges 6: 20-21 And the Angel was gracious
and said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them
on this rock, and pour out the broth." And he did so. Then the
Angel put out the end of the staff that was in His hand and touched the meat
and the unleavened bread; and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat
and the unleavened bread. And the Angel of the Lord departed out of his sight. It
is wonderful to see all these things. If you have faith miracles can happen.
But sadly a lot of people don’t have faith. They have doubts, faith, doubts,
faith, then end up with doubts. They don’t really know what faith is after all
the teaching on faith. Understand that when you have faith in God, it is an
immovable solid trust in God. That trust in God affects your inner being, your
emotion, your conviction, your mind, your mouth, your eyes, your ears and your
fellowship and as a result of that, your action is faith filled.
So all these signs were
given to Gideon. When Gideon saw all these things, you will expect the
mighty man of valour to say, "All right, let us go." But when Gideon
saw the fire coming out and all these wonders, he actually said, "O Lord I
am going to die now." Judges 6: 22 he says, "Alas, O Lord God! For I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face."
Yet God has chosen this man to do international war. How is God going to
transform his life? God knew how to transform this fearful and trembling little
man. Imagine he was hiding in a winepress threshing wheat. God is going to
transform this man by the revelation of His name. In Judges 6: 23, Then the
Lord said to him, "Peace be with you, do not fear. You shall not
die." And Gideon had a revelation of the peace of God. It looks like a
small thing. But this man means what he said. He really thought that he was
going to die. And God reveals that he is not going to die. To him it was like
he had a new life. It was like he was given a new lease of life. God says peace
to you. He knew that somehow he had that revelation and he was going to live by
that revelation. Then the next verse is where the name is mentioned. Judges 6:
24, So Gideon built an altar to the Lord and
called it Jehovah Shalom. But it is a powerful name. Peace is not weak. And
as we have mentioned whatever name God revealed or whatever facet of His glory
He reveals to a man, that is the manifestation that he will carry all the rest
of his life. Gideon had only one revelation of God, Jehovah Shalom but that was
enough to change him powerfully.
Remember 2 Corinthians 3:17 and 18. As we see Him we are changed. The only
blockage to you being transformed and renewed is your vision of God. It isn't
necessary to have an open vision. But we can see Him. Blessed are the pure in
spirit for they shall see God. Can you imagine the only blockage to you being
transformed in spirit, soul and body into the image of God is not what you do
but what you see? For when you see, then you can do. But what people want to do
is they want to do before they can see. But you cannot do unless you see. I
hope you see that that is the way of God. We need a revelation from God. The
only thing that prevents you from doing all that God wants you to do in His perfect
will is that you don’t really see God. You don’t see Him in His glory. You
don’t see Him in His fullness. You don’t see Him in His power. And therefore we
say we cannot do.
There are four major things that Gideon did. First of all, immediately after
getting the revelation of Jehovah Shalom, we see in Judges 6: 25-27 that he
went and did what God told him to do. Here was this weak prawn of a man, going
to the altar of Baal and breaking it to pieces and destroying it. He was a
different man now. That was his first achievement.
His second major achievement is in Judges 7 where he led three hundred soldiers
without weapons and they overcame the Midianites.
The third achievement was in Judges 8:1-5 when Gideon managed to pacify the Ephraimites who felt left out from joining the war against
the Midianites. We may think it is a small incident
but let me explain that if he did the wrong thing he could have led it to a
civil war. The Israelites will be fighting among themselves. For the people who
came after him was a fierce group of people, the men of Ephraim. And later on
when you read about the civil war at the end of the book of Judges, you will
find the Ephraimites involved. They were a fierce war
like people. And Gideon could have caused a civil war if he did not know how to
react. It was a major achievement in avoiding a civil war.
And in Judges 8: 22 to 24 when Gideon came back the men of
All the four areas that he achieved looked so diverse and different: destroying
the altar, overcoming the Amalakites, avoiding civil war,
and ruling over the Israelites. But they all revolved around one revelation
that he had: Jehovah Shalom. For the war he fought also was different. All
those achievements were the out working of Shalom or peace in his life. And
these are the four different aspects of Shalom that worked in his life.
The first aspect of peace in Gideon's life was that peace protected him. What
was he doing when he broke down his father’s altar? Judges 6:25 Now it came
to pass the same night the Lord said to him, "Take your father’s young
bull, the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal that
your father has, and cut down the wooden image that is beside it; and build an
altar to the Lord your God on the top of this rock in the proper arrangement,
and take the second bull and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image
which you shall cut down." So Gideon took ten men from among his servants
and did as the Lord said to him. However Gideon was still growing in that
revelation of Jehovah Shalom and he still feared his father’s household. So in the daytime he hid himself but in the night he carried out
the work (Judges 6: 27). The next morning when everybody went there,
they found the altar destroyed. And when they asked around and asked who did
it, they said that Gideon did it (Judges 6: 29). And all of them wanted to come
against Gideon. But in Judges 6: 31 his father Joash
said to all those who stood against him, "Would you plead for Baal? Would
you save him? Let the one who would plead for him be put to death by morning!
If he is a god, let him plead for himself, because his altar has been torn
down! Gideon's life was saved by the intervention of his own father. In
other words, there was a protection on Gideon’s life. Peace protects; Jehovah
Shalom protected him.
A lot of people are afraid of tearing down altars because they are afraid that
the spirits or the demons behind the altar would come against them. They have
no revelation of Jehovah Shalom. They are afraid spirits will follow them and
harm their family. And they forgot the God whom they serve. Jehovah Shalom
means that peace is on your life and nothing, no demon, no human being, nothing
in heaven or earth or underneath the earth can disrupt, remove and annihilate
or cancel that peace that protects your life. Everything that Gideon did was
because of the peace of God that he had received.
In Phil. 4:7 we are told by the apostle Paul about what peace could do. And
the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your heart and
mind through Christ Jesus. The word guard
means garrison. So we see first of
all that peace is a peace that garrisons us. It guards us and protects us. The
world around you can be in turmoil and can have economic recession, depression,
suppression, but when you have Jehovah Shalom it will not cause you to worry.
There will be peace that the world cannot give. It is something that holds you
up. Things may happen in your family. Things may happen in your home. Or
unexpected situations may occur. But there will be a peace that guards you. We
are trying to show that everything that Gideon did came from his revelation of
that one name. He was guarded because of Jehovah Shalom.
The second aspect of peace in Gideon's life was that peace crushed his enemies
under his feet. In Judges 7 when he fought with the Midianites,
he came down to three hundred choice people. And as he was ready to get into
battle, God wanted to encourage Gideon to show him what He can do. In Judges 7:
9-11 and it happened on the same night that the Lord said to him,
"Arise, go down against the camp, for I have delivered it into your hand.
But if you are afraid to go down, go down with your servant Purah
and you shall hear what they say; and afterwards your hand shall be
strengthened. So Gideon crept down to the camp. And I want you to know it
was a sight that would have frightened any other person. In Judges 7: 12 he saw
the Midianites and the Amalekites
and all the people of the east were lying in the valley as numerous as locusts;
and their camels were without number as the sand by the seashore in multitudes.
And over at his side Gideon saw that he had only three hundred untrained and
unequipped foot soldiers without any horses or camels.
As he looked at the numerous army encamped against him, it was like the story
of David and Goliath all over again. The story of David and Goliath was real.
The story of Gideon is real. The story of your life is real. Why don't we have
the same kind of faith that they had? Everything in the natural looks
impossible. But he had a revelation of God. It is not what you can do. It is
whom you serve. It is not what the natural eye can see but what revelation that
you see in God. So Gideon crept down to the camp and he overheard a
conversation. In Judges 7: 13-14 he heard a man talking to his companion, "I
just had a dream. To my surprise a loaf of barley bread tumble into the camp of
Midian it came to a tent and struck it so that it
fell and overturned and the tent collapsed. And the companion interpreted the
dream. This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of
In the battle Gideon and his people blew the trumpet in verse 20. And they all
cried," The sword of the Lord and of Gideon." And every man stood in
his place all round the camp. And whole army ran. Verse 22 Gideon's army didn’t
fight much. The Lord set every man's sword against his companion throughout the
whole camp. They just killed one and another. All they did was trusting in the
God of peace. It was not like Moses and Jehovah Nissi.
Here they just said the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. And suddenly the
enemies started fighting one another and killing one and another. This is a
different battle all together. It is the God of peace.
The third aspect of peace in Gideon's life was that he spoke peace. In Judges
8:1 when the battle had already been fought, the men of Ephraim came to him
looking for a quarrel. Just like some people do when you have finished
everything. They ask, "Why didn’t you call me?" But when you call
them earlier they don’t want to come. Gideon had called everybody to fight. In
the natural sense these people just want to partake of the spoil and the glory.
They don’t want to be part of the hard dirty work. Maybe they were afraid of
loosing. But when they knew they are going to win, they want to join. Some
people are like the men of Ephraim. When you speak about something of the Lord,
they say I am not sure it is going to succeed. But when you are three quarter
way, and they know you cannot fail but only succeed, they will come. The Bible
says that they reprimanded him sharply.
Now Gideon could have chosen to quarrel with them. He could have given eye for
eye for after all he was living in the Old Testament. But he had the revelation
of Jehovah Shalom, the God of peace. And so he became a man of peace. Judges 8:
2 So he said to them, "What have I done now in
comparison with you?" He spoke words that cooled down their anger. "Is
not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer."
And in notice in Judges 8: 3 Then their anger
towards him subsided when he said that. Only the one who had the revelation
of Jehovah Shalom can say those words and avoid a civil war. How did he get
that strength to do it? Peace guards the lips. It was still peace working.
Ephesians 4:3 Endeavoring
to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And involved in
keeping the peace is the ability to say words filled with grace, as in
Ephesians 4: 29, let no corrupt word proceed out of
your mouth but what is good for necessary edification that it may impart grace
to the hearers. So Gideon seeks to guard the bond of peace among the
Israelites. And he did it by humbling himself and he succeeded in chapter 8.
And finally, the fourth aspect of peace in Gideon's life was that peace rules. In
Judges 8:22 when Gideon came back the men of
We have shown in just one life that the revelation of the name of God
transforms a person accordingly. And his entire life became a manifestation of
Jehovah Shalom. It is powerful when we understand what the name of God is like.
The Name of God
revealed to David : Jehovah Ra'ah
There is one revelation given to David in Psalms 23. Ps. 23:1 The Lord is my
shepherd, I shall not want. Jehovah Ra'ah means The Lord is my shepherd. Some translations
call it Jehovah Rohi
but the exact Hebrew word is Ra'ah.
If there was any man in the Old Testament who had that revelation that the Lord
is my Shepherd, it was David. And have you noticed everything that David did
revolved around that revelation he had of God, Jehovah Ra'ah?
Before God chose him, his early profession was a shepherd. And in the end he
became a shepherd over the whole of
2 Samuel 7: 8 now therefore thus shall you
say to my servant David; thus says the Lord of the Host I took you from the
sheepfold from following the sheep to be ruler over my people.
From ruling over sheep to ruling over
The revelation of Jehovah Ra'ah in 2 Samuel 7: 8
involved the following:
First, Jehovah Ra'ah gave the anointing to David be a leader over
Second, Jehovah Ra'ah gave His presence to David as a Shepherd. 2 Samuel 7:
9 and I have been with you wherever you have gone. That is a shepherd’s
presence. God was with him. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Third, I have cut off your
enemies before you.
Fourth, I have made you a great name
like the name of the great men who are on the earth. That is the shepherd’s
anointing.
The first three are easy
to understand. But many people find it hard to accept the fourth because they don’t
understand that the glory of God and the honour of God are different. Do you
know that God honour people? In the early days of my ministry I confuse the
difference between honour and glory. Glory belongs to the Lord. Honour comes form the Lord. And when I did anything, I tried not to
put my name out. Then the Lord began to deal with my life to show the
difference between glory and honour. He said that just as my hands are tools,
my eyes are tools, He says a person's name is also a
tool of God. God can choose to use a person's name. He can use it as a dividing
line for people. That was when God began to deal with my heart.
I was going to write books and put the author as an unknown Christian. I found that
I would have legal problems too. First of all anyone can claim the authorship
and some people can try to duplicate. Then God began to deal with my heart and
said, "When you go to a bookstore and buy books, do you have time to read
through all the books and decide which one to buy? I said no. How do you buy
your books? I said I look for the authors. So He began to deal with my life and
said why are you ashamed? Remember this, when God
honours a name there will also be people who dishonour it. When you get into
public limelight you will have your share of blessings and curses. The Lord
asked, "Would you just let me use your name as a tool?"
Then God began to show me scriptures like the book of Joshua. As he was about
to launch into his conquest in Joshua 3:7 this day I will begin to magnify
you in the sight of all Israel. Was God sharing His glory? He was not, but
He was giving honour. And I never understood that until God began to show me
that a name could be used as a tool to reveal the hearts of people. How do I
know whether someone is opened to the revelation of the faith message? All I
have to do is mention, "Have you read any of Kenneth E. Hagin's books. If he replies, "No, never, his works
are heretical," then I know he has chosen not to accept the revelation of
the Faith Movement. See people go by name. Every person carries a certain
revelation in his or her life. When we reject a person who carries a certain
revelation, we actually are rejecting that message. And the Holy Spirit stops
working up to that point in that person's life.
And I began to see the association that has to do with a shepherd’s anointing.
God puts His honour on a person's name not because He wants to put His glory
there, but because that name becomes a dividing force. God is going to ask,
"How did you respond to that message?" And that message is embodied
in a person. Let's say if a person is not open to charismatic movement and you
ask him, "What do you think of Katherine Kuhlman? He replies, "No
way." See they have made a choice by their mouth and by their confession
they have cut themselves off from the charismatic move of the Holy Spirit. But
when someone says he has been touched by the charismatic move, he has read
their books and he cried etc, then you know that he has opened his heart to the
move of God.
And it takes some sacrifice to let God use your name in that way. You don’t
want to see your own name being dragged down. But yet when God says to you,
"Let me use your name as a tool", you have to be willing. It takes
much humility to allow God to use your name. In the early days of my ministry,
I never understood people like Billy Graham. He has a ministry called Billy
Graham Evangelistic Association. I didn’t understand why he should put his name
there. Later I understood his name has become a dividing line. When you speak
of Billy Graham people begin to choose which side they are going to be. They
are either fundamentalist or liberal. And the liberal theologians still go
against him today. Even before Billy Graham had his great crusade in
.
David did many things in his entire life and ministry. He brought all of
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