JEHOVAH- ELYON = Jehovah most high Psalms 7:17, 47:2, 97:9

Transcription

1 JEHOVAH- ELYON = Jehovah most high Psalms 7:17, 47:2, 97:9 El Shaddai [Almighty God], El Shaddai, El-Elyon na Adonai [God] El-Elyon God, The Most High. We have studied it, I mention it often it is one of the most important attributes of the Person of God and the title of our study this evening reminds us of it again, - The Sovereignty of God Jehovah-Elyon means Jehovah most high! What does it mean? How is He the most High God? He is the strongest of the strong. He is the wisest of the wise. He is the God Who surpasses all others, Is. 43:11 beside me there is no Saviour; 44:6 beside me there is no God. He is our Confidence, and because He is El-Elyon, - the Most High God, - He is our Strength. HOW IS HE THE MOST HIGH GOD? As believers, it is a matter of faith that we recognise Him as such. As you know, I like to keep abreast of all sorts of religious thought, philosophies and dubious writings. You can almost play a game you could call it Truth or Tripe! I was reading a publication that falls into the category of Tripe The author was asking the question, Does God know what we are going to think before we think our thoughts, or does God only know what we think as we begin to think our thoughts? Does God know what he will think before he thinks or know what he will do before He purposes? Before we were born, did He purpose that you should be saved and that I should be lost? Did he purpose at once all he has done or will do? Can he see his own plans before He purposes? Can he foresee and think about anything before it comes into his mind? Common sense must answer No to all these questions. That is the concept of God many people, - even believers, - have today! God is restricted because of His total lack of knowledge and His lack of being able to do anything about decisions man does not want to take! This kind of error is at the heart of what is known as the doctrine of Arminianism. God is restricted, limited and constrained by that which He has created! What a difference to the Sovereign God of the Bible! His authority is absolute and complete. His dominion is everlasting. Call it whatever you like, - predestination, foreknowledge, omniscience, - if circumstances and creation determine God s ways and God s will, then the Bible is not the Truth it claims to be!

2 2 Ah, but I believe it is the Truth, - it is either Truth or Tripe, - and I believe Jesus when He said to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jn. 17:17 Thy Word is Truth. King Nebuchadnezzar declared, Dan. 4:34 I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation. These words were spoken by Nebuchadnezzar! Nebuchadnezzar had marched into Jerusalem, - the city of God! He had ransacked its temple and carried off its priests and its people. Nebuchadnezzar had declared war upon God and yet God wonderfully, - in grace, - changed this man, - it proves God even works in the worst of men! Nebuchadnezzar threatened death to anyone who would not worship his idol and yet God miraculously showed His power over man s threats by saving the three in the fiery furnace. He again showed His power in the manner by which He raised Daniel to almost the highest authority in the land of Babylon. Where are the gods of Babylon today? They are no more. Where is the Most High God today? He has never been unseated or removed from the position He has always held! When nations have rebelled against Him and sought to remove His people and His influence He has removed the rebels, - He has done it with the ancient empires of Egypt, Babylon, Medes-Persians, and Rome with Communism recently not even Islam will survive when He decides to act upon it! Not even a man so wicked and evil as Nebuchadnezzar could hold back from including himself when he said for all to hear, Dan. 4:35 all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou? The once great king of Babylon had his heart so touched to recognise Jehovah as El-Elyon, the Most High God. I may be wrong, but I don t think I am I m expecting to see Nebuchadnezzar in Heaven and I m not the only one, because so is Matthew Henry and a number of the Puritan writers! God s kingdom is everlasting and He does according to His own will. His will is not dependent on man s intentions or opposition. The plans of men can never upset the plans of God not even when an ancient world-power like Nebuchadnezzar was at his most evil.

3 3 Habakkuk cried to God, 1:12 Art thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction. And so Nebuchadnezzar was a mere pawn in the overall plan of God to show His people His power and everlasting dominion. The history books record Nebuchadnezzar s great exploits, - for they were great, - but greater still was God, El-Elyon. He is the Most High God because there is none other like Him. How free was Satan allowed to be when he confronted Job? God placed limits upon the devil, and the devil could go no further than God allowed. Satan accused God, Job 1:10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Satan could do nothing more than God allowed him to do and the consequence of Satan s action proved the truth of the worthiness of Job as a child of God just as God had said, 1: 8 & 2:3 there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man. Jesus told Simon Peter, Lk. 22:31 Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: 32 But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. The point is Satan cannot touch a believer without the permission of El- Elyon; notice too what Paul, the often-persecuted servant, declared, Rom. 8:34 Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? What God intends happens! What He has planned cannot be changed. Nothing or no-one can stop His will, and His will always determines He receives Glory. He is the Sovereign, eternal God, - El-Elyon, the Lord Most High, - and He teaches you, even though as the psalmist said, Ps. 118:5 I called upon the LORD in distress 10 All nations compassed me about 18 The LORD hath chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over unto death. He teaches you, 23 This is the LORD'S doing; it is marvellous in our eyes. 24 This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. How far short it falls when we hear someone saying, Why has the Lord allowed this to happen to me? as if the Lord owed us nothing but good times!

4 4 Indeed, it often seems easier to trust God with our eternal destiny than it is to trust Him with the day-to-day struggles and cares but what ought to be the end result if we believe God is El-Elyon, the Lord Most High, - the Sovereign God, - over everything? Surely He brings us to stand upon the firm foundation that absolutely nothing happens to the child of the living God that El-Elyon is not sovereign over and that He is high above the most difficult of circumstances, over every sorrow and over every tragedy. If God is not sovereign He is not in control. If all things are not under His dominion, then He is not the Most High and if He is not the Most High God we are either in the hands of Fate (whatever that is), or in the hands of men, or in the hands of devils. But our confidence is the same as the confidence Paul trusted in, for his God is our God, and therefore we can say with him, Rom. 8:37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. Satan is no match for the Most High God; there is no dictator, no government, no devil can match Jehovah-Elyon. Even when you are wronged and mistreated and you are going through all kinds of heartache and times of testing there is nothing God will allow to thwart His plan for you, which includes your redemption and your entrance into the home He has prepared for you in Glory. CONCLUSION Some might accuse us of studying subjects that are of little or no relevance to today. To many people, God is Who they might imagine Him to be; to different people He is different things and it doesn t really matter as long as you believe but it does matter, because how can you pray to anyone less than Jehovah-Elyon, the Lord Most High? What is the point? or maybe, therein lies the problem Maybe that is why many Christians no longer attend the place of prayer because the God they trust in has failed them. Without setting out to start an argument, you ask someone who doesn t attend the prayer meeting why they don t attend. One of the first answers you might receive is, I can t spare the time, I m so busy. Ok, to that you can reply, What! How can you be so possibly busy all the time that you cannot attend?!

5 5 Push a little further It s a very heavy meeting and I do be tired in the middle of the week. I find it hard to sit and listen to a long Bible study and then sit and pray for half-an-hour. Ok, why don t you attend one of the shorter prayer meetings to start with until you get used to the church s weekly prayer meeting gradually build yourself up? Come out to the short prayer meetings prior to the Sunday services. Push a little further still and you will hear their true reason, I have prayed for something for years and God has never answered me, and I m afraid I no longer see any point in prayer. That is the truth, God s people have lost confidence in God as Jehovah-Elyon! Before God saved us we were bound in sin, - chained; sad to say, some believers Whom Christ has set free have taken their eye of the Sovereignty of God and they have become shackled in unbelief again and the writer to the Hebrews tells them, 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses [i.e. those who have proved the faithfulness of God and the strength He gives to defeat every obstacle], let us lay aside every weight, and the sin [of unbelief, and doubting the power of God] which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2 Looking unto Jesus [focussing upon Jesus] the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. That is how important it is to believe in the God of the Bible and not in the subservient and false and impotent god man creates. Jesus did not say, truth shall make you free ; instead He told the Pharisees who were about to stone Him, Jn. 8:32 the truth shall make you free. Who is the Truth? Jesus answered that question too, Jn. 14:6 I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. And how should you worship Him, - this Jehovah Elyon? Jn. 4:24 they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Many of the Old Testament Jews had relegated Him to the level of the gods of the outside nations in just the same way that the ecumenists and the inter-faith spiritual adulterers do today. But when Jesus promised the coming of the Holy Spirit He also promised, Jn. 16:13 when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. Hold on to that great truth that God is always in control even when it might seem He is not, - He can no more cease to be in control than He can cease to be God! Even when it doesn t seem to be going His way, He planned it and He, - as Jehovah-Elyon, - makes the necessary provision for things to get done the way He wants them done, and come to the conclusion where He gains the Glory and His people gain the victory.

6 6 Our responsibility is to pray, to follow His leading, and to leave the results with Him. What He wants done, He will make a way! Someone has said, It is then that He turns the difficulties into opportunities. Listen again to how some of His servants relate their experience Ex. 15:11 Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? Deut. 33:29 who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places. Ps. 71:19 Thy righteousness also, O God, is very high, who hast done great things: O God, who is like unto thee! Ps. 113:5 Who is like unto the LORD our God, who dwelleth on high. Jehovah-Elyon, the Lord Most High our God, - personal, powerful, and beyond compare!