The Names of God: El Shaddai
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El Shaddai
El Shaddai
OPENING REMARKS
Our text today is Genesis 17:1
1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless,
1 וַיְהִ֣י אַבְרָ֔ם בֶּן־תִּשְׁעִ֥ים שָׁנָ֖ה וְתֵ֣שַׁע שָׁנִ֑ים וַיֵּרָ֨א יְהוָ֜ה אֶל־אַבְרָ֗ם וַיֹּ֤אמֶר אֵלָיו֙ אֲנִי־אֵ֣ל שַׁדַּ֔י הִתְהַלֵּ֥ךְ לְפָנַ֖י וֶהְיֵ֥ה תָמִֽים׃
Until God revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush as YHWH, He was known by another name, a precious name, a cherished name. That name was El Shaddai, translated in English as God Almighty, in Greek Theos Pantokrator , in Latin Deus Omnipotens. It is an ancient name and it appears around 48 times in the Old Testament mainly in the books of Genesis and Job
3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them.
Today I believe God wants to breath fresh encouragement and renewed hope into us through this name. Knowing and believing that He is El Shaddai will:
Reinvigorate and enlarge your faltering faith
Help you to walk well through difficult seasons in life
Make you a more patient believer, able to wait in faith to see His promises come to pass.
You will all remember growing up that you had that one friend who would say ‘yeah i’ll be round in ten minutes’ and an hour later you’d still be waiting. Over the years your trust in their word ‘I’ll be ten minutes’ would wane and wane to the point where you’d basically just drop any expectation of punctuality from them. You would have no faith in their promises. If they say they’ll be round at 10am you may as well not bother getting dressed until 11! Because the level of faith that you have in someone ought to be dependent upon their character. If someone has shown themselves to be consistently and egregiously untrustworthy with money, having faith in them to take care of your life savings is manifestly foolish.
Now when it comes to God, many have such a low view of Him, such a wordly bound understanding of who He is that they are only able to muster up a little faith in Him. A little faith in a great saviour is enough to save anyone thanks be to God!
20 He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”
But living with low expectations of God as Christians can leave us in danger of experiencing something like what Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones called ‘Spiritual Despression’. To someone who is living with low expectations of God, difficulties and troubles that are like mere mole hills feel like mountains, they are easily frustrated and unless they are helped in these trials are given to despair.
Sin at the bottom of it very frequently has its origin in low thoughts of God. - Spurgeon
So if low expectations of God flow from a low view of God, then surely great expectations of God flow from a greater view of God.
Let’s look at the text in Genesis 17 . This isn’t the first time that God has spoken to Abraham and made a covenant with him. Many years before God had spoken to Abram in a vision and promised that his offspring would be as numerous as the stars. Abram had believed God we’re told in Chapter 15 verse 6 and it was accounted to him as righteousness.
But a short time later after this promise Sarai comes to Abram and says:
2 And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.
So Abram takes Hagar, Sarai’s servant as his wife and she gives birth to Ishmael. Thirteen long years pass before God shows up to Abram again. By this point Abram definitely thought that God’s promise was going to be fulfilled through Ishmael, his son with Hagar. He would have had that mind set that so many Christian pragmatists have today - On one hand thankful to God for His goodness but on the other congratulating himself and his wife for having the wit and ingenuity to help God bring about His promise. “Phew, it’s a good job we’re such practical people, Sarai! If you hadn’t thought to give me Hagar then what would have happened to God’s promise?! It’s a good job God’s got people like us to help Him out isnt it?!”
So many people think like this today - “Well, God helps those who help themselves.” They are called pragmatists. They are people who are determined to help God acheive His ends by any means possible, even if the means are questionable. Just like Abram they are prepared to do things that God never commanded them to do, they will use people in a strategic and manipulative way to acheive what they believe God has promised, they don’t believe God is truly able to fulfil His promises so they lower the bar to make them acheivable.
God has to remind me again and again that He’s not in a rush, He’s not in a hurry, so why do I live trying to rush and hurry His purposes for me into existence? I think if there’s one fruit of the Spirit we all need to grow in as the Church it’s patience. We can make such a mess trying to force God’s promises into existence before the proper time, just like Abraham did. Abram and Sarai’s choice to try and rush through God’s promise left a trail of havoc, pain, rejection and hurt. Now, in the end, God being who He is, even blessed their mistakes, and God is able to do that for us when we’ve made a mess in trying to follow Him. He doesn’t take away the damage done, but He does redeem it.
When God comes to Abram again, Ishmael was around 13 years old, and Abram was 99. And what is the first thing that God says to Abram? He doesn’t say; ‘now Abram remember who you are, remember your identity in me!’ He says ‘I am El SHADDAI, God Almighty.’ Isn’t that interesting? The first thing God does isn’t to remind Abram of the promise, or to tell Abram who he is supposed to be. The first and most important thing was that Abram know who God is! He is ALMIGHTY. He is sovereign, He is all powerful. He is abundantly able.
Abram needed reminding of who God was. He hadn’t forgotten the promise God had made, he hadn’t forgotten his identity, he had forgotten who God was!
I think so much of the problems in our Christian walks today; weak faith, persistent sin, luke warm devotion would be cured by knowing God better, knowing Him as Almighty, as El Shaddai.
And He says to Abram - I am El Shaddai, I am Almighty.
Whereas “Elohim” is the God of creation and nature, “El Shaddai” is the God who makes all the powers of nature subject and subservient to the work of grace. - Bavinck
So what are we confessing when we believe in God, El Shaddai?
We are believing that He is the God who:
Works all things according to the counsel of His will. (Ephesians 1:11)
We believe that this good God, after creating all things, did not abandon them to chance or fortune
but leads and governs them according to his holy will, in such a way that nothing happens in this world
without God’s orderly arrangement. Yet God is not the author of,
and cannot be charged with,
the sin that occurs.
For God’s power and goodness
are so great and incomprehensible
that God arranges and does his works very well and justly
even when the devils and the wicked act unjustly. - Belgic Confession Article 13
That He works all things together for good to those who love Him. (Romans 8:28)
That nothing is impossible for Him.
26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
When God appeared to Abram at the age of 99 he had given up on ever having a son with Sarai, it was impossible, hopeless. He even laughed when God told him that Sarai would have a son!
16 I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” 17 Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?”
Are there promises over your life, prophetic words, or big hopes and prayers that seem impossible? Then know today that God, El Shaddai is Lord over your life. He knows what those hopes, prayers and dreams are better than you do even, and He is more concerned to bring them to pass than you are! And most importantly He is able and He will do so but in His sovereign timing.
We’re not to try and force God’s hand, take His promises into our own hands and make them happen from a place of unbelief like Abram and Sarah did, but equally we’re not supposed to just sit back on our laurels and idly wait for God to act!
Watch the very next thing God says to Abram after He introduces Himself - It’s a command: “Walk before me and be blameless that you may multiply greatly.”
Note that this is a conditional clause: if you will do this - then I will do this. God says ‘if you walk before me, and walk in a manner that is holy, then the promise I have made to you will come to pass.”
God doesn’t come and give Abram practical advice as to what He can do to speed up the process of procreation! He doesn’t come with a spreadsheet of Sarai’s ovulation cycles and point out the best times to get pregnant! He doesn’t get tactical. God’s concern was with the integrity of Abram’s life.
So often we are in a rush for God to bring about all of His promises in our lives. We calling on Him for strategies to help us be more effective and more fruitful in our lives and He is just saying - ‘Stop striving and simply walk before me in integrity, in holiness and all will come to pass in my timing.’
What is it to walk before God? I believe it’s to order each step of your life in the conscious awareness of the Presence of God.
this is the mark of the truly sanctified man of God, that he lives in every place as standing in the presence chamber of the divine Majesty; he acts as knowing that the eye which never sleeps is always fixed on him. - Spurgeon
It’s as we daily commit to this walk that El Shaddai will bring His word to pass in our lives.
11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
Our role is to keep our eyes fixed on Him, and centre our lives around His presence. Ordering our steps according to His word and always be mindful of His Spirit with us and letting Him do the impossible on our behalf. Of course even this is impossible for us unless He is working in our hearts!
Remember holiness is a flower, not a root; it is not sanctification that saves, but salvation that sanctifies. A man is not saved by his holiness, but he becomes holy because he is already saved. - Spurgeon
Finally - El Shaddai is a covenant keeping God. What is a covenant? Well it’s like an agreement between two parties. If certain conditions are met then the blessings of that covenant are released from one party to the other.
There are many covenants in the Bible that God made with men, and the Bible is one long story of men time and time again breaking their covenant with God because of their sinfulness. But there is something different about the covenant that God made with Abram here in Genesis. In Abram’s time, when a covenant was made an animal would be chopped in two and both parties would walk between the slaughtered animal to signify what would happen to the one who broke the covenant!
But in Genesis 15 when God made the covenant with Abram, a deep sleep came upon Abram and it was El Shaddai alone who walked between the carcasses, signifying that by His strength alone He would keep the covenant, and that the blessings would come upon Abram not through any work of his own.
The Abrahamic covenant is the basis for the new covenant that we have in Jesus. El Shaddai, God Almighty made a covenant with Himself, the Father making a covenant with Jesus Christ His son to save a people for Himself through His life and death by the power of the Holy Spirit.
1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
So we are saved by the power of El Shaddai, God Almighty, not by our own works. Since none of us can actually walk before God completely blamelessly God sent His son Jesus to walk a blameless walk on our behalf and to die the death that should have been ours. His victory over sin, the flesh and the devil was proven in His resurrection, and that victory belongs to all those who believe in Him. Just as righteousness was accounted to Abram because He believed, so the righteousness of God is reckoned to all who believe in Christ.
The work of salvation from beginning to end is a work of El Shaddai, God Almighty, just like Abram was put to sleep and could do no work in the covenant, so too our works are not needed in the covenant of grace, we are saved by His works and His works alone, all we need do is believe.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
So the name El Shaddai gives us a picture of a God who is all powerful and who perfectly brings His promises to pass in the lives of all those who have a covenant with Him. He is the all mighty, covenant keeping God!
Pray