PREVIOUS SERMON  (sorted accordingly,starting from recent )

Today we ask ourselves: Is God’s peace an attainment –something we strive to achieve, something we can have –or is it an obtainment –something He gives us as a free gift? I believe it to be an obtainment, something we can have from Him once we are able to keep ourselves subjective to Him in sincerity and in love of Him. This puts the latch low enough for it to be within the reach of the least and most humble of His people. Are we really for our Lord God? One minister cried out to the Lord in an impetuous moment, ‘Lord, I’d give my right arm to get this.’ In response the Lord seemed to say, ‘I don’t want your right arm. Just give me your hand and I’ll lead you into it –free.’ The minister admitted that this revelation of God’s willingness to lead him into something he genuinely longed to receive changed his whole perspective on life and what life is all about. Sometimes people think that they can approach God with a business sense as if God is we humans that use one thing to gain another, No! From then on, this minister said, ‘The universe became a place of open and infinite possibilities for my power to receive as infinite as I am able.’ In other word, this minister realized that there are so much that God has freely given to our reach and it all depends on the amount of faith that we can foster and exhibit in Christ. Remember that God’s peace is obtained not by the shedding of your blood but by the shedding of His God’s own blood! Do we realize that? In the book of Hebrews there is a rest which is spoken of as ‘His rest’ as seen in Hebrew 4:1, in which we are required to enter. After the conquest of Canaan the Israelites should have entered into ‘God’s rest’ –a rest foreshadowing that which is referred to in Hebrews 4:1. But because of disobedience they failed to gain or enter into that rest. How sad it is that millions of Christians, who have been freed from bondage through the shed blood of God’s Paschal Lamb, His Son Jesus Christ as seen in 1 Peter 1:18-19, fail to enter into the rest provided for them by Jehovah Shalom—‘the Lord is Peace or the Lord is our Peace’. In Hebrews 4:4 this rest is spoken of as a Sabbath rest because the Sabbath was a day when work and struggle ceased; for us it is a day to accept the gifts of God, to be quiet and receptive with our heart and mind centered on God. Don’t struggle to gain peace by attainment; all you need to do is to empty your hands and take the gift. In other words, empty your heart and allow God to place His Peace into it! Remember the other names of our God: Jehovah Rapha—the Lord who heals; Jehovah Rohi—God our Shepherd; Jehovah Adonai—My great Lord.

We are acknowledging that when we lose the things we have depended on and which have acted as props under our feet, we then truly discover that God alone is our true and only security –one that is sure and certain; this is why we trust in Him. Apart from Him all other securities have upon them the stamp of failure, death and decay. If we do not learn this all important lesson, and learn it soon with all the dependence and trust that it requires, then life will be filled with many dampening disappointments and discouragements, making it seem as if life is not worth living whereas life is one of the greatest gift God Almighty has given to man. Some time ago when the world’s news headline carried reports of an oil crisis. I turned to my Bible to see what God had to say to me. I came across some words that have become exceedingly precious to me over the past few years. Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful … “28 Let us therefore, receiving a kingdom that is firm and stable and cannot be shaken, offer to God pleasing service and acceptable worship, with modesty and pious care and godly fear and awe;” (Heb. 12:28). The message seemed so personal, so appropriate and so to the point, giving us the great hope and divine expectation. All around us at the moment in this current universe there is a great shaking of earthly values and earthly kingdoms and when you imagine the degree of the current earth’s shakable nature, one wonders if the earth is really worth living in, but thanks to our Lord God Almighty Who gave us a firm promise of hope for a New Earth. This is the time, I believe, that God wants us the true Christians to look up and see that He is still Adonai –the Lord of the universe and Master of every situation and the Great changer of things. He is allowing kingdoms to be shaken so that men and women might discover the one Kingdom that is unshakable –the kingdom of God and His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. The kingdom of materialism is shakable. To survive it has to be held together by force. Relax the force and, as we have seen, it goes to pieces. The kingdom of finances is shakable. The kingdom of health is shakable. The doctor announces, ‘You’ve got an incurable illness.’ Shakable! Extremely shakable. But in a world of flux and change, be assured of this; God is an unchanging Person and dwells in an unshakable kingdom, this is why He gave us a modality in Christ on how to live our life in this shakable earth so as to be qualified to live or dwell with Him in His unshakable kingdom.

At present we are looking at ways in which our Good Shepherd Lord Jesus Christ guides His sheep. So far we have seen that He our Lord God guides through circumstances, through other individuals, and through the group of believers with whom we have close Christian fellowship. God guides also through our own spiritually developed reason and discernment. Any scheme of guidance that neglects the mind is not helpful. God wants us to love Him with the whole of our being –including our mind/heart. Guidance will flow into our mental processes if we are inwardly honest with ourselves and accept all the facts, and He will enable us to think things through to the right conclusions without overriding our personalities. He guides, remember, not overrides. Another way God guides us is through the inner witness of His Spirit to our hearts. Some call it the ‘Inner Voice’. For instance, Peter heard it when the Spirit said to him, ‘Simon, three men are looking for you. So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them’ as seen in Acts 10:19-20. Sometimes we need a special word for a special situation. Then the Inner Voice speaks. And when God speaks, believe me, you will know it, for the message is self-authenticating. The fact that God is Jehovah Rohe –the Lord my Shepherd. This means that in the life of every one of us the Good Shepherd is guarding, guiding, and governing with the most tender and loving care. On their earthly pilgrimage God guides His sheep by suiting or tailoring His guidance to their individual need. Sometimes He guides us through circumstances. Perhaps a door opens before us unexpectedly, and as we walk through it we find that this has been God’s way of directing us, or He may close a door in front of us, and the closure of that door proves to be His preventative guidance against what otherwise would have been a disaster. But, remember, God shuts lesser doors so that He may open bigger ones. In all of these, sometimes we do not understand exactly what God is doing! Our Divine Shepherd guides us not only through circumstances but also through those with whom He brings us in contact. Finally, however, we must always remember that God’s chief way of directing us is through the Scriptures. In fact, all guidance, however it comes, must be checked against the Bible. Lord Jesus said, ‘You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures’ (Matt. 22:29). The way to keep from erring is to know the Scriptures. If you ever receive any ‘guidance’ that is contrary to the Scriptures then think again because God never guides in opposition to His Word. Sometimes you have got your wires crossed.

We shall divert our attention from Jehovah titles and instead examine another name for God –Adonai. The Hebrew name Adonai is translated in the NIV as ‘Lord’, using only an initial Capital letter ‘Lord God’, the rest being in lower case letters. This is to distinguish it, as we said earlier, from the Hebrew name ‘Jehovah’, which is also translated ‘Lord’ but using an initial capital and small capitals –‘Lord’ as Seen in Gen. 2:7 where our God is addressed as ‘Lord God’ which means Adonai. Although the first appearance of this word Adonai, which means ‘Lord God’ is used in connection with the patriarch Abraham, when he pleaded with God calling Him Lord to spare Sodom as Seen in Gen 18:27. I have not dealt with it before as I consider its meaning comes over with fuller force when seen in the context of the beautiful and moving we have just read –Isaiah 6. The literal meaning of Adonai is ‘Lord and Master’, and the word contains the thought of ownership, lordship, and divine authority. Following the death of the godly King Uzziah in 740BC after a long and prosperous reign, a period of national darkness settled upon Judah. In the midst of the crisis, however, Isaiah is given a vision of an eternal throne on which sits the Lord and Master of the universe Lord God Almighty. It is as if the Almighty is saying, ‘The throne of Judah may be empty and its occupant dead but such is the nature of Adonai’s throne that it is never unoccupied and never unattended, which makes the difference between the immortal God and mortal man’! From the vision of the holy, sovereign God who rules from His throne in heaven, Isaiah draws a good deal of comfort and courage, and moves forward into a powerful, prophetic ministry. How true it is that sometimes we do not see God as Adonai until an earthly power has let us down, then, and only then do we realize the extent our pride and ego have ruined us. Let us always humble ourselves before God realizing that He is the only One Who saves and gives eternal life!

Now we reach the last of the Jehovah titles –Jehovah Shammah –which means ‘The Lord is there.’ As we study the context in which this name of God is revealed, we will discover that it is a most fitting name with which to conclude the Old Testament revelation of God. It is not without some significance that the name Jehovah Shammah is found in the last verse of the chapter of the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel was called to be a prophet at a time when the people of Israel, in captivity in Babylon, were at their lowest ebb (Ezekiel 1:2-3), and he prophesied in Babylon for at least another twenty-two years (Ezekiel 29:17). The sun of Israel’s strength had long since set and the night was closing in. Israel’s spirit was broken. It appeared to the Israelites that they had been delivered from bondage in Egypt only to be sent into captivity in Babylon. By the rivers of Babylon, the Psalmist tells us, the exiles sat and wept as they remembered Zion (Psalm 137:1). Now that enthusiasm for Zion was beginning to wane. At this point God breaks into the situation and, speaking through His prophet Ezekiel, He assures the exiled Jews that a day will come when the full glory of Israel will be revealed. The nation would experience a revival and a restoration in a measure far beyond anything it had experienced in the past or could have ever imagined. It is as if God is telling His people that whatever lay ahead of them, whatever circumstance or situation they would meet, they should never forget that the God who brought them out of Egypt is also Jehovah Shammah –always there for His people. He would be with His people for ever, is His promise to them. Are you about to face a difficult day, or are you facing a difficult day now? Then take heart. Remember, the Lord will be there. Believe in Him and know that He is always in control of everything and knows what is happening, even ahead of time!