Sermon Central
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Elohim "The Mighty" Or "Strong One" Series
Contributed by David Scudder on Feb 28, 2011 (message contributor)
Summary: One of the popular Christian choruses is: "Lord I lift your name on high..." That's a great chorus, except we can't lift God's name on high if we don't know what His names are or what they mean. How many names for God do you know, and do you know what the
"The Mighty" or "Strong One"
Purpose: To show the power and majesty of our God.
Aim: I want the listener to see God as powerful and therefore see and how foolish it is to oppose Him.
INTRODUCTION: Names are very important in the Bible. How many names do you have? I have three, but they only designate who I am they do not describe who I am. Names in the Bible are used to describe the character of a person. God has dozens of names that He has revealed to us and at least one He hasn't told us about yet.
One of the popular Christian choruses is: "Lord I lift your name on high; Lord I love to sing your praises; I'm so glad you're in my life; I'm so glad you came to save us." That's a great chorus, except we can't lift God's name on high if we don't know what His names are or what they mean.
How many names for God do you know, and do you know what they mean?
Why is that important? We must enrich our understanding of who God is before we can really lift up, or glorify His name.
Glorifying God means: giving an accurate understanding of God's character.
So, HOW do we glorify God's name? Jesus answered that in Matthew 5:16 "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. (NAS)
We can't glorify God unless we are living our lives acting as if God is (as we will learn today): "The Mighty" or "Strong One." The bottom line is this: Do we believe that God is strong enough to control our circumstances and our futures? As a rule our anxiety reveals a lack of faith in who God is.
David tells us:
Psalm 9:10 those who know Your name will put their trust in You, for You, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek You. (NAS)
As we approach a study of God's names it is very important to understand that God revealed those names to us. We all received our names from our parents, but this is not true of God. God is self-revealing. These names are not just man's attempt to get to know God, or man's attempt to explain what they think God is like. The names of God in the Bible were given to us by God Himself.
There are three basic names for God in the Old Testament; Elohim, Adonai and Yahweh. Elohim is always translated "God" as in: Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (NAS)
Adonai is always translated "Lord" as in Exodus 4:10 Then Moses said to the LORD, "Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue." (NAS)
Yahweh is always translated "LORD" (all capital letters) as in: Exodus 7:1 Then the LORD said to Moses, "See, I make you as God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet (NAS) or "GOD" (all capital letters) as in Genesis 15:1--2 After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, "Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; Your reward shall be very great." Abram said, "O Lord GOD, what will You give me, since I am childless..." (NAS)
The very first name for God given to us is Elohim; it is also the most common name for God. It is used over 30 times in Genesis chapter one, 198 times in the whole book of Genesis and 2,570 times in the Old Testament. It comes from the root word "EL" which means "strong" or "mighty."
"By itself it refers to a god in the most general sense. It was widely used in ancient eastern cultures whose languages are similar to Hebrew and therefore may refer either to the true God or to false gods. The highest Canaanite god was El whose son was Baal. In the Bible the word is often defined properly by a qualifier like Jehovah: "I, the LORD (Yahweh) your God (Elohim), am a jealous God (El)"
I. What can we Learn from the Name Elohim?
We can learn five things about God from His name ELOHIM.
A. Elohim infers the Trinity
Just because ELOHIM is plural does not necessarily mean that it teaches that God is a trinity, but it does suggest the idea. The "im" ending of Elohim is a plural suffix. This is similar to cherub becoming cherubim, and the plural of seraph being seraphim.
