Name Of Yahweh@Christian Disciples Church

2/20/14

Day 7 The Hebrew word - Elohim

Judges 6:10

"I am Yahweh your God do not fear the god of the Amorites.

"God" in Hebrew is Elohim: אלהים

Elohim is not a name but a generic title.

You need to understand this important point: Most of the time, when the word 'Elohim' is used, it refers to Yahweh God. Other times, it refers to 'false gods' or 'angels' and even 'human beings'.

This means that the word "elohim" has many meanings.

a. Elohim can refer to God or to false gods

The following 2 verses have "elohim" appearing twice in the same verse. They don't refer to the same elohim. One refers to Yahweh God (Elohim) while the other one refers to false gods (elohim).

Judges 6:10

"I am Yahweh your God (Elohim); do not fear the god (elohim) of the Amorites.

Here Elohim refers to both God and false god. In Hebrew, there are no capitals. We make that distinction in English by using a capital "E" to signify God, and a small "e" to signify false god. But in Hebrew, אלהים can refer to either God or false god. There are no capitals to distinguish them.

Exodus 34:14,

"For you shall worship no other god (elohim): for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God (Elohim).

Elohim refer to either God or false god. In the Hebrew language, there is simply no distinction made.

b. Elohim can also refer to angels

Psalm 8:5, "You made man a little lower than the angels (elohim).

When אלהים (elohim) is used in this verse, it refers to angels. It's not referring to Yahweh God or to false gods. But the same Hebrew word is used for this verse.

c. Elohim can refer to human judges

Psalm 82:1, God stands in the congregation of the mighty; He judges among the gods (elohim). Here elohim refers to human judges or rulers.

Again אלהים (elohim) is used to refer to human judges. It is the same Hebrew word but it does not refer to Yahweh God. In Hebrew, you need to read the context to understand what 'elohim' means.

Now, we begin to see why God wants us to call on His Name in prayer.

The title "Elohim" can refer to many things. When you call 'God', this generic term can refer to false gods, angels or human beings.

People all over the world pray to many different elohim.

Paul says in 1 Cor 8:5, "For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"). There are many gods and lords out there.

When we enter into prayer, it is important to train ourselves to focus & to be specific: to call on the One true Elohim. How? God has given us His Name - Yahweh, so that we can call on the One true Elohim. God's Name "Yahweh" distinguishes Himself of the One true God.

God desires that we call on His Name Yahweh.

Here, we see that the Name of Yahweh is important as it draws a sharp distinction between Him and all other false gods created by men. It also distinguishes him from all human beings called lord.

"God' or "Lord' are titles. They are not names.

God did not ask us to call on His titles.

We too need to place the emphasis on God's Name 'Yahweh' when we pray. As we move along in this study, you will begin to see the importance of this matter. May Yahweh God reveal to you in one flash.

Application:

For a long time in my prayers, I only addressed God as Lord or Elohim. Not that it is wrong to address God as Lord or Elohim, but the crux of the matter is that I hardly called out to Yahweh all these years.

Why is that?

What does that say about my inner prayer life?

Even though I already learned about God's Name is Yahweh back to my seminary days in the 80's, it never occurred to me to call on God's Name, Yahweh.

Tonight, when you do your quiet time, learn to call on God's Name "Yahweh". This will transform they way you pray!

2/19/14

Day 6 "Yahweh" is #1 Most Frequent Noun in the Bible

Gen 2:4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when Yahweh God made the earth and the heavens.

As early as the time of creation, God has already revealed His Name, Yahweh, to us. Yahweh God created the earth and the heavens.

After I discovered that God's Name "Yahweh" appears so many times in the Bible, I

I checked the statistics in the concordance.

Lo and behold, the following truth was revealed to me:

Yahweh is the No. 1 Most Frequent Noun in the Bible.

Isn't this incredible?

What does this tell us?

When a word or a topic is frequently repeated, and not to mention that it ranks as the first most frequently used noun in the Bible, we best take note of its SIGNIFICANCE.

Take a look at the following word study statistics

You will be able to feel the IMPACT yourself.

1. Here is a list of 35 most frequently used words in the Bible. Here, I am using the KJV version.

2. The first 10 most frequently used words are all prepositional words, articles and conjunctions. Prepositions are needed for sentences to make sense grammatically. They will of course occur frequently.

For eg. "AND' appears 28,364X. This is a conjunction, a word we often use in our everyday expression. It would be ridiculous to say the word "and" is the most important subject in the Bible. This is not even a noun, a subject matter.

3. The first noun that appears the most is the word Lord.

**Please note: In most of our English translations, the word Yahweh is translated as LORD. Whenever you see LORD all capitalized in your Bible - the original Hebrew text is "Yahweh". As time goes on, I will explain to you why such an 'unfortunate' situation occurred in the translation.

Suffice for us today is to note the following:

a. The word "Lord" appears 7365X in the entire Bible.

b. 6828X refers to Yahweh, God's Name.

4. If you look further down the statistics, can you see which 'noun' has the NEXT most frequent occurrence?

Yes, the word 'GOD' - 4293X.

Yahweh has 6828 occurrences.

God has 4293 occurrences.

What conclusion can we draw from these insights?

**Yahweh - God's Name is much more important than the word 'God'.**

Think about this!

What does that reveal to you about the mind of God?

Application:

Meditate on this question before you move on to the next article.

I am using these questions to help you dig deeper into the Word of God so that you learn to think through the matters yourself.

When you discover the answer yourself, you always appreciate the answer more. These leading questions are very important for you to meditate deeply into God's Word.

2/17/14

Day 5 Yahweh in Hebrew

Exodus 6:2

"God spoke to Moses and said to him, 'I am Yahweh."

God often reveals Himself as "I am Yahweh" more than "I am God". "I am Yahweh" appears 207X. Do you realize this? And when God says that "I am God", He always has to make specific explanation that He is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, etc.

Following from yesterday's meditation, we discovered that the word "Yahweh" appears much more than the word "God" in the entire Bible. Let's see what this reveals to us about the mind of God.

We need to look into the original text in which the Bible was written:

a. The Old Testament was written originally in Hebrew.

b. The New Testament was written originally in Greek.

Today we will look at the Hebrew word for Yahweh

"Yahweh" in Hebrew

"Yahweh" is a four letter word known as the Tetragrammaton:

יהוה (Yod Heh Vav Heh) – Read from right to left

It is often transliterated to YHWH or YHVH. There is a long history regarding the pronunciation of YHWH.

It is generally accepted that we can pronounce this as "Yahweh" or "Yahveh".

Application:

When you have some spare moments, try to write the Name of God in Hebrew on a piece of paper.

Try to get used to this 4 letter word:

יהוה (Yod Heh Vav Heh)

Write from right to left:

1. Yod

2. Heh

3. Vav

4. Heh

2/16/14

Day 4 Significance of God's Name

Jeremiah 16:21

“Therefore I will teach them—

this time I will teach them

my power and might.

Then they will know

that My name is Yahweh.

God tells us His Name is Yahweh.

If you read through the Old Testament and pay attention to God's Name, you will notice that God's Name is everywhere in the Old Testament.

I never realized God's Name is so significant until one time when I attended a training session given by my teacher, Pastor Eric Chang telling us that the name of God - Yahweh appears close to 7000X in the Bible.

My immediate response was: "Wow! That's a lot!!!"

I went home and searched the concordance: Yahweh occurs 6,828 times in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia edition of the Hebrew Masoretic Text.

Take a look at the above Bar Graph of the occurrences of Yahweh.

Yahweh appears in the Bible 6828X.
The left column inside the red box contains the list of Old Testament books.
The green bar graph inside the blue box gives you a visual view of the number of occurrences of Yahweh in that specific book.

There are a lot of insights we can draw looking at this visual graph.

From the above Bible statistics, this should alert us that the Bible is Yahweh Centered.

1. Yahweh is the most important subject in the Bible.

2. God wants us to know His Name - Yahweh.

Application:

When the Name of God, Yahweh, appears so much in the Bible, we must put our focus on the Name of God, Yahweh, when we study His Word, when we share about God with others.

God places so much emphasis on His Name.

We too must put emphasis on His Name too.

:)

2/15/14

Day 3 Yahweh and LORD

Isaiah 42:8 I am Yahweh, that is My Name.

In most of our English translations, Isaiah 42:8 reads like this:

"I am the LORD, this is My Name."

No wonder for years, I never knew God's Name. I thought God is called the "Lord" because that is how this verse is written in my Bible. I thought "Lord" is God's Name.

"Lord" is a Title.

"Lord" is not a name.
Lord is a title.

Therefore God's Name is not "Lord" as the translations tell us.

God is Lord.
But "Lord" is not a name.

Isaiah 42:8 should read: I am Yahweh, that is My Name.

God has a Name.
God Himself tells us: "I am Yahweh, that is my Name."

God's Name is "Yahweh".
God's Name is not "Lord."

Application:

Come to God in prayer today and thank Him for giving us His Name, Yahweh. It is in His Name that God wants to reveal Himself to you.

We see this promise in Jeremiah 33:2-3:

“Thus says YAHWEH who made the earth, YAHWEH who formed it to establish it— YAHWEH is his name: Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known."

1. The Name of God "Yahweh" is repeated 3X here.
2. It is in His Name Yahweh that God reveals Himself to us.
3. God is ever ready to tell us of great and hidden things of His plans. We need to call on His Name, Yahweh.

:)

2/14/14

Day 2 God Has a Name

Jeremiah 33:2-3

“Thus says the LORD who made the earth, the LORD who formed it to establish it— The LORD is his name: Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known."

How do we call out to God?

We find the answer in these words in Jeremiah 33:2-3.

When we call someone, we usually call the person's name. Here, we see that God has a name.

Did you realize that God has a name?

What is God's name?

Look at the verse again.

It says "The Lord" is his name.

What a funny name that is. He is called the LORD?

Bible in its original form

You need to understand the Bible written in its original form and Bible translation.

In the original Hebrew text, "the LORD" is YHWH, often times transliterated as "Yahweh" or "Yahveh".

In order to be consistent, I will use "Yahweh".

There is a long history behind why Bible translators substituted God's Name with "the LORD". This is an unfortunate situation because God's Name got wiped out in the process. You don't see God's Name in the Bible in most translations.

Bible Translators had complicated God's Name down through the centuries to cause this kind of confusion. There is also a long history behind the pronunciation of God's Name. I will explain more in detail in the future books in this series.

What is important for you to know is that God has actually given you His Name to call upon Him.

So the words in Jeremiah 33:2-3 should be read in this way:

“Thus says YAHWEH who made the earth, YAHWEH who formed it to establish it— YAHWEH is his name: Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known."

"Yahweh is his name."

Yahweh is God's name.

Do you realize that God actually has a name?

It never dawned on us to ever think about the fact that God has a name. That's why in the past, we never questioned or asked about what God's Name could be?

Application: When you start praying today, learn to call on God's Name, Yahweh. Learn to address God by His Name. Do not use the general terms: "God" or "Lord". Our Almighty God has a Name, just like you have a name.

:)

God's Name is Yahweh. He is a personal God with a Name.

2/12/14

Day 1 Prayer is to Call On God

Jeremiah 29:12

"Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you."

Calling on God is the first step to prayer.

Prayer is the most important aspect in our relationship with God. Without prayer, we do not make contact with God. And when we don't make contact with God, our prayer life is boring and meaningless.

I have discovered that calling on God is the foundation to our prayer life. So I want to start this series to share with you about prayer and the importance calling God's Name through prayer.

This will revolutionize your prayer life. This will help you to get out of your rut in your prayers to God. This will give you a breakthrough to make contact with God to come into His presence.

2/8/14

Introduction: Jeremiah 29:12-13

My name is Rosa. I am a coworker serving in Tsuen Wan Christian Disciples Church.

On January 6, 2013, the Lord laid upon my heart to preach on Jeremiah 29:12,13 to encourage our local congregation in TsuenWan, to set a spiritual vision before us for the year 2013.

"Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart."

From the beginning of that one message, God has been spiritually stirring among our brethren when it comes to prayer and deepening our understanding of God through His Name.

Today is February 8, 2014. A year has quickly gone by. The intention of just preaching one time on this topic became a series of about 12 follow-up messages on the Importance of Calling on God's Name. We are slowly realizing the significance of God's Name and what God intends to reveal to us through His Name.

This is a topic I had totally neglected in my 20+ years of serving the church. It's time I need to make up for this 'loss' to my brothers and sisters in Tsuen Wan. Under God's leading, this series will continue in our congregation.

With the encouragement of some brethren, I have decided to finally put together this website page to share our insights with you. I will slowly post short articles to help us build a firm foundation of understanding God's Name. The sermon messages were preached in Chinese, but I am only able to present this in English in a written format.

This series will be posted as short articles on a daily basis to help you absorb the content. After reading this "Introduction", please scroll down to read Day 1. Make your way to Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, etc.

The later articles build on the previous article.
So it is important that you read in that order.
Have fun! :)

I invite you to post your comments and feedback, so that together we can press on to know our God in a deeper and most meaningful way.

If you would like to continue to receive these articles, "Bookmark" this Page and 'Share" with your friends. Please spread the word out and invite your friends to join us also.

May Yahweh's Name be proclaimed in our generation.