I want you to notice that this
psalm begins in verse one by saying, I will bless thy name
forever and ever. And then it ends in verse 21
with my mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord and let all
flesh bless his holy name forever and ever. We're going to be looking
at the names that the Lord gave us of himself and praying that
the Lord will be pleased to show us who he is in light of the
revelation of his name. Let's read together Psalm 145
verse one. I will extol thee my God, O King,
and I will bless thy name forever and ever. Every day will I bless
thee. I will bless thy name forever
and ever. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised and his
greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise thy
works to another and shall declare thy mighty acts. I will speak
of the glorious honor of thy majesty and of thy wondrous works. And men shall speak of the might
of thy terrible acts, and I will declare thy greatness. They shall
abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness and shall
sing of thy righteousness. The Lord is gracious, full of
compassion, slow to anger, and of great mercy. The Lord is good
to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works. All thy
works shall praise thee, O Lord, and thy saints shall bless thee. They shall speak of the glory
of thy kingdom and talk of thy power, to make known to the sons
of men his mighty acts and the glorious majesty of his kingdom.
Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth
throughout all generations. The Lord upholdeth all that fall,
and raiseth up all they that be bowed down. The eyes of all
wait upon thee, and thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest thy hand and satisfieth
the desire of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all
his ways and holy in all his works. The Lord is nigh unto
all them that call upon him, and all that call upon him in
truth. He will fulfill the desire of
them that fear him. He will also hear their cry and
will save them. The Lord preserveth all them
that love him, but all the wicked will he destroy. shall speak the praise of the
Lord and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever. Let's pray together. Our merciful, gracious and glorious
Heavenly Father, we pray that you would reveal
to us this night more of your glory. We ask that you would
send your spirit in power, that you would open the mystery of
the gospel to our hearts and reveal to us the glory of Christ.
We pray that you would give us faith to rest our hope in him
and to find our joy and our salvation in him. Lord, we pray that the
love of Christ would cause us to be repentant of our sin and
Lord, that you would reveal more of your goodness causing us to
flee to the Lord Jesus as our righteousness, our savior, our
sin bearer. Lord, we thank you for your word.
We thank you for the many acts of goodness that we enjoy from
your hand. And we ask, Lord, that you would
forgive us for our cold and presumptuous hearts, that you would revive
us this hour in Christ, for it's in his name we pray, amen. Number 168 in the hardback temple
will sing this acapella. Please stand together. 168. Lord, I hear of showers of blessing,
Thou art scattering, full and free. Showers the thirsty land
refreshing, Let some drops now fall on me. Eve and me, Eve and
me, let Thy blessing fall on me. Pass me not, O tender Savior,
let me love and cling to Thee. I am longing for thy favor, whilst
art calling, O call me. Even me, even me, let thy blessing
fall on me. Pass me not, O mighty spirit,
thou canst make the blind to see. Witness, sir, of Jesus'
merit, speak the word of power to me. Even me, even me, let
thy blessing fall on me. Love of God so pure and changeless,
blood of Christ so rich and free. Grace of God so strong and boundless,
magnify them all in me. Even me, even me, let thy blessing
fall on me. Pass me not thy lost one bringing,
bind my heart, O Lord, to thee. While the streams of life are
springing, blessing others, O bless me. Even me, even me, let thy
blessing fall on me. Please be seated. Still have your Bibles open to
Psalm 145. We'll begin there in verse one. I will extol thee, my God, O
King, and I will bless thy name, thy name, the name of God. Names mean something. Your name
means something to you. A good name is rather to be had
over silver and gold, the proverb says, and God's name reveals
to his people who he is. In Proverbs 18, verse 10, it
says, the name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous
runneth to it and are safe. The name of the Lord is a strong
tower. We know that the Bible is a revelation
of God. That's what he's doing. He's
making himself known to his people. And there's no clearer revelation
of who he is than when he gives us his name. And his name is holy. When our
Lord taught us to pray, he said, when you pray, pray like this.
Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Holy is your name. Lord, it's
an exalted name. It's a name that reveals your
glory, your person, your character. And when we pray, we pray our
father. You know, I used to think about that. The Lord Jesus referred
to his father as my father. But then when he spoke to the
disciples, he said, tell the disciples that I go to my father
and to your father. And when he taught us to pray,
it was our father. And that's not just because of
our part in the church. It's because of our union with
Christ. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ could refer to his father
as my father. But the only way that God can
be our father is by virtue of our union with the Lord Jesus
Christ. And so for for us, it's always our father. We would not
presume to think that God could be my father outside of Christ. And so his name is holy. The third commandment that the
Lord gave in the Ten Commandments is, thou shalt not take the name
of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him
guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Now, surely taking the
Lord's name in vain involves using it in profanity, but it's
more than that, isn't it? Because to take his name in vain
means to empty it of its meaning, to speak of the Lord name and
deny his ability to save without man's participation or contribution
is to use the name of the Lord in vain. To be irreverent with
our Lord's name. You know, people throw around
the name of our Lord as Jesus without any regard to him being
Lord or God. And I fear that we run the risk
of being irreverent if we don't speak of the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is God. And so we always want to use
his name in the most reverent way. To use his name in any other
way is to empty it of its meaning. And when we do that, then we
have nothing that draw us to him. The righteous hear his name
and they run to it. So I hope tonight that the Lord
will cause us to reverence Him, to extol Him, and to be drawn
to Him in light of who He is. We started Sunday morning looking
at the Jehovah's that are mentioned in the Old Testament, and these
names involved the nature of God. They are true of God the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. When our Lord reveals himself by his name.
He takes that word Jehovah and he says, I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world.
I am the resurrection of the life. And so our Lord takes the
name of God that was given to us throughout these Old Testament
passages and takes it to himself. And his enemies wanted to stone
him. And he said, for what good works
do you stone me? He said, not for your good works,
but because you being a man, make yourself out to be God.
You've taken the name of God unto yourself. And that's blasphemy. Well, if he wasn't God, it would
be. But the Lord Jesus Christ is revealed to us all throughout
scriptures. And he gives us so many different
names of himself. And as I said, names in the Bible,
some people don't even know what their names mean. Names don't
mean much to us today. And yet your name is precious
to you, isn't it? They say that the one word a
person wants to hear more than anything else is their name.
The one thing that gets your attention more than anything
else is when someone speaks your name. And how important that
is to us. It's who we are. representing
a body, it's our person, it's our character, it's our life,
it's attached to that name. And I love it when, you remember
when Elimelech in the book of Ruth took his wife Naomi to Moab,
and in Moab, Elimelech died, and her two sons died, and she
came back different than she was when she left. And her friend
saw her and said, is this Naomi? And Naomi said, oh, don't call
me Naomi. Naomi meant one that was delighted
in. She was now Mara. She said, because the Lord has
dealt bitterly with me, my name is Mara. And she was to recover
that name, Naomi, when Ruth was redeemed. Naomi was returned back to her
place but you see in that where her name didn't fit her situation
and so she changed her name and oftentimes God changed men's
names. translated means one to be desired. And, you know, King Saul, there
was head and shoulders over all the Israelites and they saw him
and they saw his kingly stature and they said, this is gonna
be our king. And Saul confesses in his testimony
that he said, I excelled above my peers and I was one to be
desired until the Lord put me in my place and changed my name.
to little. From one who was head and shoulders
above all my peers, one that was proud and self-righteous,
and one who was the envy of man, now I'm a little man. Before
God, I've been humbled in his presence." Names represent, particularly
in the Bible, And no place does it do that more truly than when
it comes to God's name. I've never met anybody by the
name of Judas. I've never met anybody by the
name of Jezebel. Why? Because those names are
attached to a character that no one wants anything to do with.
And so that's the importance of names, is all I'm trying to
say. And when we see God in light
of his name, he's revealing his character to us, his person to
us. And when he speaks that to our
hearts, then he causes us to run to his name. And he does
it for his namesake. How many times do we see in the
scriptures that I didn't do this because you were greater in number
than other nations, but I did it for my namesake. I signed a covenant back there
in eternity. My name's on that contract. And
my name, because it's holy and because it's got to be maintained
in its perfection, I'm going to fulfill this covenant. And I will be your God, and you
will be my people. I'm going to fulfill the covenant
on both sides. I'm not going to depend on you
to do your part in order for me to fulfill this covenant,
this covenant of grace, I'm going to provide everything that you
need, including a new nature, a new heart, a desire to follow
after me, and my name's on the line." And so when the Lord,
eight times in the Old Testament, The Lord gives us his Hebrew
name. We looked at two of them Sunday.
Jehovah-Jireh is the name that Moses referred to the Lord as
in Genesis chapter 22, and that name means the Lord sees and
provides. Isn't that glorious? Our God
sees. He sees everything. He sees all
our needs. He sees our fears. He sees our troubles. He sees
our sin. And He provides. He provides for us. He provides
a sacrifice to atone for our sins and put them away. And He
provides His Spirit and He provides His love and His mercy to carry
us. He sees and He provides. That causes me to want to run
to Him, to know that, you know, We get this idea that, you know,
we're going to hide something from, we're not going to hide
anything from God. He sees everything. And, uh, he saw Abraham and Isaac
on that mountain and he provided a sacrifice, a blood sacrifice
caught in a thicket by its horns, uh, behind Abraham. And the Lord
provides himself. He says, he told Abraham, he
said, I am thy shield and thine exceeding great reward. It's
not just that he provides in our circumstances a way out,
he provides himself as that way out. He provides himself as our
comfort and as our hope. And so the Lord sees us, he sees
us weak, he sees us poor and needy, he sees us afraid, he
sees us sinful, and he provides himself to comfort us in our
troubles and to give us hope in him. That's Jehovah Jireh. And then Moses, when he was leading
the children of Israel through the wilderness and the Amalekites
were attacking them from behind. You remember they were picking
off the weaklings at the back end and they were just a trouble
to the children of Israel? Well, they continued to be. And
it's a picture of our flesh. It's a picture of our sin. And
Moses went to battle against the Amalekites, didn't completely
defeat them. Matter of fact, the Lord told
Moses at the end of the battle, he said, you're going to be fighting
these Amalekites the rest of your day. They're not going to
go away. And you're going to fight the
Amalekites. You fight them every day, don't
you? And Moses called that place Jehovah Nisi, the Lord is my
banner. He's the one. I'm engaged in
a warfare, a spiritual warfare against my flesh and my spirit.
against sin, against principalities and powers, in darkness. But here's my hope. The Lord
Jesus Christ has already defeated the enemy. He's already put away
my sin. He's already conquered death
and hell. He's already established a righteousness before God. He's
seated at the right hand of God as my advocate before the Father.
And so he's my banner, Jehovah Nisi, he is my banner. I will
follow him in this battle. And if I'm looking to Christ,
looking to his obedience, then his strength is made perfect
in my weakness. Paul said, the Lord, remember
Paul said he had a thorn in the flesh and he pleaded with the
Lord to take it away. You've got a thorn in your flesh,
don't you? Sure you do, we all do. It's our sin, it's our unbelief. You know, people try to figure
out, well, what was Paul's physical malady that he was referring
to as a thorn in his flesh? Don't worry about that. The scripture
doesn't say, and when the scripture's silent, we must be silent. We
can't speculate on that. But we know the spiritual application
of it is, what'd the Lord say to Paul? My grace is sufficient
for you. Paul, you're going to have this
Amalekite thorn in your flesh the rest of your life. But my
grace is sufficient for you. And my strength is going to be
made perfect in your weakness. And your old man's going to serve
your new man. And you're going to keep looking
to the Lord Jesus Christ as Jehovah Nissi, your banner, the one whom
you follow. You don't go into battle on your
own, in your own strength and in your own power. You look to
the Lord Jesus Christ. we sing that hymn, Jehovah Sidkenu. And that comes from Jeremiah
chapter 23, where the scripture says that his name shall be called
the Lord our righteousness. And then later on 10 chapters
later in Jeremiah chapter 33, and she shall be called the Lord
our righteousness. And the Lord Jesus Christ, Oftentimes
when we think of Him being our righteousness, we think of His
perfect obedience to the law. We think about what He did to
save us, fulfilling the law, satisfying the demands of God's
holy law, even unto death. But it's more than that. The
Lord Jesus Christ himself is our righteousness. It's not just
what he did. He didn't just settle a score
or settle a debt and pay that debt. He himself is our righteousness
before God. It's not just his obedience,
it's his person. And it's not just a righteous
person, But it's righteousness. It's not just his right. He is
our righteousness. The Lord Jesus Christ himself
is our righteousness before God. And outside of him, we have no
righteousness. He has revealed himself. God has made him to be for us
our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption. And so we're extolling his name. His name is who he is. We get
to know a person by their name. I guess it was Juliet that said
to Romeo, you know, rose by any other name is still a rose. Well,
you know, that that's just Shakespearean. That's not, that's not scripture. You change the name of God and
you change his character. You, you, you, you, you, you've
taken his name in vain. We're not to do that. We wanna know, Lord, what does
your name mean? Who are you? Reveal yourself
to me. We just sang that in a hymn,
didn't we? Lord, just call us to yourself
and make yourself known. And that's what our hope is right
now. David said, surely one will say,
in the Lord, I have righteousness and strength. in the Lord, in
Christ. His righteousness is not a pasted-on
righteousness. It's not a legal document. It's Him. It's who He is. He is righteousness itself. By virtue of our union with Him,
Scripture says, as He is, so are we in this world. And that's
the confidence that we have. The confidence in our hope is,
Lord, if you're going to judge me based on anything other than
the Lord Jesus Christ as all my righteousness before thee,
I've got to be found in him, not having my own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that righteousness which is by his
perfect obedience. the faith of Jesus. That's one
of those verses that I mentioned Sunday. There's six of them in
the New Testament, the faith of Jesus Christ, not my faith
in him. Although we do have faith in
him, but it's his faithfulness. He is our faithful advocate,
our righteous advocate before the Father. And so he reveals
himself to us as the Lord. Jehovah, I am your righteousness. Oh, there's our hope. There's
our hope. We've got a man, the God-man. There's one man between God and
men, the Lord Jesus Christ, our substitute, our sin-bearer, our
surety. What is a surety? A surety is
one who provides everything needed to pay a debt and to meet the
requirements. And that's who the Lord Jesus
Christ is. So we extol his name. Lord, we don't want to use your
name in vain. We don't want to speak. And yet there is a certain
degree of vanity every time we speak of him, because we can't. Well, I love what our text says. And I brought this out Sunday.
Let's look at it again. Look at verse 3. Great is the
Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable. We don't want to speak your name
in vain. We don't want to empty it of its meaning. And yet, every
time we speak of you, we realize we're dealing with something
here that's unsearchable. We can't honor you as we ought.
We can't extol you as you ought to be. We can't praise you in
the way you should be. Lord, you're unsearchable. Would
you just be pleased to reveal a little bit more of your glory
to my heart? a little bit more of who you
are by your name, Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Nisi, Jehovah Sidkenu,
or this is who you are. You're the one who sees my need.
You're the one that provides. You're my banner in this constant
warfare. You're my commander in chief.
You're the one that goes before me. You're the one that's already
defeated the enemy. So I know that in you, I'm more
than conquerors, more than conquerors. And it's what it is to overcome,
to overcome this world is to get out of this world alive,
to get out of this world in Christ, to be found in him. It's not
to walk in a certain you know, spiritual cloud above
the things of this world. Lord, I'm way too bound up in
the things of this world, way too attracted to them, way too
caught up in them, way too influenced by them. But if you'll be my
banner, then I'll be a conqueror and I'll be an overcomer for
your namesake. Because this is who you are.
Lord, you'll get all the glory for it. It's not anything I've
done. You're gonna have to keep me and lead me. In Judges chapter
six, the Lord gives us another name of himself. And it's a name
that you already know, but you remember the story of Gideon?
The scripture says the Midianites were terrorizing the Israelites
so that they were living in caves. They were hiding out from the
Midianites because every time they would get together in a
town, the Midianites would come in and kill them and rob from
them. And so they were all divided
up and hiding out in caves. And a man by the name of Gideon
was threshing his wheat. The scripture says behind the
wine press, he was hiding so that the Midianites wouldn't
see him and come take his wheat away from him. And the Lord comes
up to Gideon, and here's what he says. The Lord is with thee,
thy mighty man of valor. And Gideon looks around and thinks,
surely he's not talking to me. I'm the least of the children
of Israel. I'm the least in my household is what he says. My
family's nobody, and I'm nobody in my family. You're calling
me a mighty man of valor? The Lord said, I'm going to. I'm going to use you, and I'm
going to show forth my glory, and we're going to defeat the
Midianites. Remember Gideon chose 300 men?
Well, God chose, picked out 300 men and Gideon divided those
men up into three groups. This all in Judges chapter seven.
And he takes a hundred to three, 100 groups of men and has them
have them put a torch in a, in a jar and had a sword and a trumpet. They all had a trumpet. They
all had a sword. They all had a torch. And at a certain time
they were to blow the trumpet, which is the preaching of the
gospel. They were to break the jar, which is the showing of
our, you know, we've got this treasure in earthen vessel and
the light shines forth only when the flesh is broken. And they
all hollered. And you know what happened? The
Midianites killed each other. They got so scared, they turned
on one another and they killed each other. And the scripture
says, and for the next 40 years, Gideon judged Israel and Gideon
called that place Jehovah Shalom, Jehovah Shalom. The Lord is my
peace. And before that battle with the,
before that, that destruction of the Midianites in chapter
seven, in chapter six, the Lord comes, Gideon realizes it's the
Lord. And he says, you know, let me
bring a sacrifice. And so Gideon kills a, a, a kid
and brings the meat and brings the bread and brings the water.
And God said, put it on that rock right there. And the angel
of the Lord took a staff and touched it and fire consumed
that sacrifice on the rock. What a picture of Christ. The
Lord Jesus Christ, he's our rock. He's the rock of ages. He's the
rock on which the church is built, on which our lives are built.
He's the rock that followed the children of Israel through the
wilderness from which the water flowed. And the staff is a picture
of God's wrath and judgment and the fire that came down on Calvary's
cross. That's what that's all a picture
of. And that's when Gideon said, Jehovah Shalom. We will have
peace with God only through the sacrifice that the Lord Jesus
Christ has made of himself. He's the Prince of Peace and
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We can't
make peace with God. We can't be sorry enough for
our sins. We can't make a sacrifice that's
gonna satisfy God. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one that could do that. And so we look to him as Jehovah
Shalom, as our peace. And the only way that we can
have rest and peace and forgiveness of sin and union with Christ
and the hope of eternal life is because of what the Lord Jesus
did on Calvary's cross when he consumed the fire of God's wrath
and made himself a sacrifice for sin, put our sins away once
and for all. So he calls himself Jehovah Shalom. All of these names just tell
us more and more of who he is and his glorious person. In Ezekiel chapter 37, after
the valley of dry bones, the Lord reveals himself to the prophet
as Jehovah Shammah. And that translated means the
Lord is here. And he was talking about the
city of Jerusalem, when God said this is the whole house of Israel.
And then in chapter 38, he gives promises to the prophet as to
how he will provide for his people in that holy city, Jerusalem. And he says, Jehovah Shammah.
He said, I will be here. And there's our hope. There I
am in the midst of them, where two or three are gathered together
in my name. There I am. We come here, every
time we come here, our hope is that the Lord will be pleased
to show forth his glory and receive our worship and reveal more of
his person to our hearts. That's our hope. And the reason
for us to be able to hope that is because He's promised to be
Jehovah Shema. He's promised to be here. And I, if I be lifted up, that's
what we try to do every time we come together is lift up Christ
with our singing, with our prayers, with our preaching. And I will
draw all men unto me. There I am in the midst of you. We pray, Lord, bow down the heavens
and come down, rend the heavens and come down, visit us, reveal
yourself to us. My greatest fear is that the
Lord would leave us to ourselves. My greatest fear is that he would
write Ichabod, the glory of the Lord has departed, and we wouldn't
know it. That we would become so lukewarm,
we would become so much like the Laodiceans, that the Lord
would depart from our presence. Every church has gone down that
road. And they don't know it. The Lord
departs from them and they just keep doing the same old thing.
And they don't know that the Lord's left. They've grown cold
and indifferent. And that's my greatest fear. Lord, be Jehovah Shema. The Lord is here. He's present.
Lord, show forth your glory. Convict us. Somebody, I think Brian, you
were saying the other day when we were talking about the message,
and he said, you know, I was convicted, I was encouraged,
I was admonished, and that's what the scriptures did. That's
the Holy Spirit. That's the presence of God. Scripture is given by inspiration
of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness. I was taught. I was instructed.
I was corrected. I was admonished. I was encouraged.
My faith was good. And I saw Christ. I saw that's
the evidence of him being here. That's the evidence. Faith and
repentance is the evidence. And those are two sides to the
same act. The act of of coming to Christ
is evidenced by faith and repentance. Lord, you've changed my mind. I was so caught up in worldly
things and in my fears and in my sin and my own belief, and
Lord, you've given me hope in Christ again, and you've changed
my mind once again. And that's a daily need, isn't
it? That's not a one-time experience.
We have to be saved from the temporal consequences of our
sin as much as we have to be saved from the eternal consequences. We look to the work of Christ
on the cross to put away our sin, that we might stand accepted
in the presence of God. But this problem we have with
sin is a daily thing, and we never grow beyond, Lord, save
me. Save me again and again and again. Save me from myself. Save me
from my sin. If he does, it'll be because
he's pleased to make himself known when we gather together
for worship. Jehovah Shema. Psalm 23, verse one, the Lord
is my shepherd. And in the Hebrew, it is Jehovah-Raha. He's my shepherd. I shall not
be in want of anything. I'm a dumb, dirty, dependent
sheep. And I'm looking to the shepherd
to feed me To keep me, to clean me, to provide for me, to come
fetch me when I stray from the flock, to protect me against
the wolves. Lord, I need a shepherd. And
believers rejoice in having the Lord as their shepherd. Jehovah-Raha,
he, turn with me to Psalm 80. Psalm 80. I will extol thee and bless thy name forever and
ever. This is who he is. He's revealing
himself to us by these different names that he takes of himself.
Just like we would talk about an individual and use their name
and say, well, this is what they're like. Look at verse one of Psalm 80,
and this is Jehovah-Raha. Give ear, O
shepherd of Israel, thou that leadeth Joseph like a flock,
thou that dwellest between the cherubim, shine forth. God told Aaron, he said, you
take the lamb, slay it, shed its blood and take that blood
into the holies of holies and put it on the mercy seat. The
mercy seat. And there I will meet with you.
And that's exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ did when he died
on Calvary's cross. He took his blood and he put
it on the mercy seat. The scripture says not one that
was built with the hands of men, but the mercy seat in heaven.
He put his blood there, and God saw the blood, and God said,
I'm satisfied, and I'll pass by them, and I'll hide them under
the shadow of my wings. Those cherubim's wings, they
touched together in the middle of the mercy seat. There was
no part of the mercy seat that wasn't underneath the shadow
of those wings. And that's what the Lord says
about his people. I'm gonna meet with you. I'm
the shepherd. I'm gonna provide for you. in
every way, everything you need. You're there in Psalm 80, turn
over just a few pages to Psalm 103. Psalm 103. Look at verse one. Bless the
Lord. That's what we're trying to do
right now. Just bless him. Just extol him and praise him
and lift him up for who he is. Bless the Lord, oh my soul. This
isn't something we just do with our mind or with our body, it's
something we do with our soul. This is something God has to
do in our soul, isn't it? And so he said, bless the Lord,
oh my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. His name, this is his name. Jehovah
Jireh, Jehovah Nissi, Jehovah Sidkenu, Jehovah Shalom. These are his names whereby he
reveals himself. Look at verse two. Bless the
Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. The different
names that he gives us shows us a little different part of
his benefits. And then look at the next verse.
Who forgiveth all thine iniquities and healeth all thy diseases. Jehovah Rapha. the God who heals. And that's the disease that we
need to be healed from. The leprosy of our sin, that
disease that will be terminal to the soul if we don't have
the Lord Jesus Christ to stand in our stead and heal us. We
pray fervently that the Lord will heal our bodies, but the
greater need that we have is that by his stripes, Isaiah 53,
by his stripes we are healed. Lord, I need faith to look to
the Lord Jesus Christ as the one and only one who's able to
heal me of my sin. And then there's one more. There's
eight of these in the Old Testament. Turn with me to Exodus chapter
31. And I'm not even going to try
to pronounce this one. You can look it up if you want.
It's a long Hebrew word, but look what the Lord says in Exodus
chapter 31 at verse 12. And the Lord spake unto Moses
saying, speak thou also unto the children of Israel saying,
verily my Sabbath, verily my Sabbaths you shall keep. Now
how do we keep the Sabbath? How do we keep the Sabbath? By
looking to the Lord Jesus Christ for all our rest. He's the one,
he's the one who finished the work before the foundation of
the world. That's, we rest in his, if we
put our hand to the altar, if we try to hew the stones, if
we pick up sticks on the Sabbath day, If we add anything to the
finished work and glorious person of the Lord Jesus Christ, we
are violating the Sabbath. And most people who try to keep
Sunday or Saturday as the Sabbath by putting rules and regulations
as to what you can do and can't do on those days are in fact
violating the Sabbath in their attempt to keep it. That's all
Sabbatarianism is. It's a violation of the Sabbath.
We rejoice in being able to gather together on Sunday and being
able to rest on the Lord's day and be able to come together
and worship, but Christ is our Sabbath. So we keep the Sabbath
when we're looking in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ. Verily
my Sabbath you shall keep. And you do keep the Sabbath. For it is a sign between me and
you. This is the fourth commandment.
It's the only commandment in the Ten Commandments that's referred
to as a sign. It's a sign. That Old Testament Sabbath keeping
was a sign. It pointed to the fulfilling
of the Sabbath in the Lord Jesus Christ. It shall be a sign unto
you between me and you throughout your generations that you may
know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Now, like I said, I'm not even
gonna try to pronounce that word, but it's Jehovah, and then the
word sanctifyeth. And here's who he is. He's the
one who makes us holy. We can't be, you know, he that
sanctifies and they that are sanctified are all as one so
that he's not ashamed to call them his brethren. The Lord Jesus
Christ, when he went before God almighty and took with him the
names of those whom he lived and died for, he made us holy
in the presence of God by his very person. The Lord who sanctified
you. We can't sanctify ourselves.
Matter of fact, let me show you one other place where this word
is used. Look with me to Leviticus chapter
20. Look at Leviticus chapter 20
and be reminded. that what God requires, God must
provide. So look at Leviticus chapter
20 at verse seven. Sanctify yourselves therefore
and be holy for I am the Lord your God. Don't stop there, look
at the next verse. And you shall keep my statutes
and do them. I am the Lord which sanctifies
you. I'm gonna keep you, I'm gonna
make you holy, I'm gonna sanctify you. So we look to the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ as the one who not only makes us acceptable
in the presence of God, but actually makes us holy, makes us as holy
as he is. I will extol the name of the
Lord, all these names that he gives us of himself. These are
the names that the Lord Jesus took to himself when he said,
I am the bread of life. He that believeth in me shall
never hunger. We don't hunger for anything
outside of Christ, not from our faith, not for our salvation. We may lust after things of this
world, but we hunger and thirst after righteousness, after the
Lord Jesus Christ. He that cometh to me shall never,
I'm that bread, the bread that came down from heaven, Jehovah,
the bread. And then he went on to say, I'm
the light of the world. He that followeth me shall never
be in darkness. You know, we have a lot of cloudy
days and we have dark moments, but The Lord always brings us
back to the light, doesn't he? He always brings us back to Christ,
who is the light of God. And this light shines down from
heaven and reveals to us his glory, gives us hope in who he
is. And then in John 8, verse 58,
they said, they said, you're not yet 50 years old. How can
you talk about, Abraham, you knowing Abraham, he said, he
said, before Abraham was, I am, I am. Oh, and Abraham rejoiced
to see my day. He said, if you were the children
of Abraham, you'd believe, you'd believe me. Abraham believed
me. And, but they didn't. He said,
you're of your father, the devil, because you don't believe me.
I am that glorious Jehovah. that revealed himself to Moses
at the burning bush and spoke to the children of Israel throughout
the scriptures, who makes himself known in every situation. That's
who I am. I am he. I'm the door to the sheepfold. The robbers and the thieves come
in some other way, you're going to get into God's sheepfold,
you're going to have to come through one door. Just like the 12 gates of heaven
that John saw in the New Jerusalem, they were all of one pearl. There's
only one way. I am the way, the truth, and
the life. No man can come unto the Father but by me. I'm the
good shepherd. So the Lord Jesus takes all these
Jehovah's from the Old Testament and applies them to himself. I am the resurrection and the
life. He that believeth in me, though he be dead, yet shall
he live. And he that liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
Believeth thou this? It's not just a doctrine, Martha. You said you believe in the doctrine
of the resurrection, but you believe that I am the resurrection.
I'm the true vine. My father's the husbandman and
he prunes the vine that it might produce fruit. And the branch
that abides in the vine will live. Our Lord makes himself known by his names. There are many, many more of
them, but those are the Jehovah's and the ones that the Lord took
to himself, particularly in the book of John. Let's close by
reading this, these two verses again. Psalm 145 verse one, I
will extol thee, my God, O King, I will bless thy name forever
and ever. And then look at verse 21, my
mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord and let all flesh
bless his holy name forever and ever. God's people said, amen,
amen. Let's pray. Our Lord, we pray
that you would show forth your glory by the revelation you've
made of yourself in your names. Forgive us of our sin and unbelief. Lead us, keep us, save us for
your namesake. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. 272, let's stand together, number
272.