JEHOVAH - SABAOTH One of the problems some people have with the concept of God is that they consider Him to be of limited value. Sad to say, some believers have left off from coming to the place of prayer because of God s apparent lack of taking notice of their prayers It begs the question then, How real is the God you believe in?! On Sunday morning we shall begin a series, simply and very basically entitled, Why Pray? Prayer can be a difficult labour. Sometimes it is hard to find the time to pray; sometimes it is hard to muster the energy to pray; and sometimes it is hard to have the faith to pray As a consequence, the promise made when entering into membership to uphold the church at the Prayer and Bible Study Meetings has fallen by the wayside and the promise made in the presence of God has not been honoured. Very basically and very simply prayer depends upon Who you consider God to be and that is the central focus of our study. If you believe God is a great God, you ask Him for great things but if you doubt His power it is demonstrated in your relationship with Him. The title, Jehovah Sabaoth [tsaba], the Lord of Hosts, occurs 245 times in 235 verses in the Old Testament. It is found twice in the New Testament, Romans 9:29 & James 5:4. At the very outset we need to be very careful of its spelling, - it is sabaoth, and not sabbath. The word means hosts. Just to fill in some of the background John MacArthur tells us that the hosts can refer to human armies (Ex. 7:4 Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth mine armies, and my people the children of Israel), celestial bodies (Deut. 4:19 lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven), heavenly creatures (Josh. 5:13 And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? 14 And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant? 15 And the captain of the LORD'S host said unto Joshua, Loose thy
2 shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so.) Jehovah Sabaoth emphasises the Lord as sovereign over all of the powers in heaven and on earth, especially over the armies of Israel. Warren Wiersbe writes, This is the military name of God, for hosts comes from a Hebrew word which means to wage war. The Lord is the Commander of the hosts. Matthew Henry tells us that our God is the Lord of Sabaoth, that is, the Lord of hosts [for] all the host of heaven and earth are at His beck and disposal. As with all the titles for God it is impossible to review satisfactorily we would need eternity to try but let s just simply consider Jehovah Sabaoth in a very condensed way under three titles, The Meaning of the Lord of Hosts The Revelation of the Lord of Hosts Living in the Light of the Truth about the Lord of Hosts. THE MEANING OF THE LORD OF HOSTS Your faith depends upon Who you understand God to be Amos 4:13 For, lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The LORD, The God of hosts, is his name Is. 6:3 one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. Sometimes you hear even professing Christians referring to God in a slight manner, the Man upstairs or some other equally repulsive title Some of these movie stars who profess to become born again describe their experience in a manner tantamount to being high on drugs but there is something about our faith in God, said A.W. Tozer, that is different, that is above us transcendent. We must be humbly willing to throw our hearts open and to plead, God, shine Thyself into my understanding for I will never find Thee otherwise. God is so great, and even though His whole Person is beyond our comprehension the Holy Spirit shows Him to us in the Bible as the One Who is the Divine Creator and the Divine Controller. As I was visiting the other day, I was reading to those whom I visited the well-known words of Job, 23:10 he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. 11 My foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept, and
3 not declined. 12 Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. 13 But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth. 14 For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him. Yes, He created me and He sets before me the path I do travel; the Amplified Version makes the words of Ps. 139:16 more understandable, Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book all the days [of my life] were written before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them. In this Name the prophets enjoyed such a confident hope, - Haggai mentions it fourteen times in two chapters, Malachi uses it twenty-four times, Isaiah uses it fifty-four times and Jeremiah uses it seventy-one times, Zechariah uses it fifty-three times. In Gen. 2:1 we read, the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them, - from the beginning of the Bible our God is the Lord of hosts! Seventy times in seventy verses we read the servants of God declaring in the power of His Name, Thus saith the Lord of hosts. When the people of Israel were marching out of Egypt Moses described the scene, Ex. 12:41 it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt. In the beautiful passage in Joshua 5 the children of Israel were on the edge of Jericho, fearing to go any further because of the defences of the city. And then Joshua had a meeting with God, 5:13 behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? 14 And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant? 15 And the captain of the LORD'S host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so. The Man with the sword in His hand was none other than the Son of God in the Old Testament (Christophany/Theophany), - the captain of the LORD'S host. The writer to the Hebrews takes the same language and also applies it to the Lord Jesus, 2:9 we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. 10 For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
4 Spurgeon warned, Woe unto those who fight against Him, for they shall flee like smoke before the wind when He gives the word to scatter them. Even the powerful Nebuchadnezzar had to acknowledge God as the Lord of hosts, Dan. 4:34 at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and 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: 35 And 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? Over and over again through the Old Testament this title represents God as Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of all power and might, of heaven and earth, the only God and the only supreme Ruler of all we can see and everything beyond them too. And it is a personal knowledge; the psalmist said, 84:1 How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts! 2 My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. 3 Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God. 12 O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee. It is a personal confidence shared by every believer Nothing is outside of God s control, nothing is beyond Him As Job came near the end of his troubles he listened to the Lord speak of His great power and authority and then Job said to the Lord, 42:2 I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee and how beautiful the thought that this same Lord of hosts is our personal Lord and Father and Saviour. He is not separated from His people, - no matter how grand His unique character. In His plan and purposes He has made Himself known to His people. He is the Lord of Hosts and in the love song of Solomon, He has granted me with the undeserved and most precious of favours, and through Christ this same Lord of hosts has brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love (Songs 2:4). Let s move on very briefly THE REVELATION OF THE LORD OF HOSTS The faith of God s people was changed when they recognised God as Jehovah-Sabaoth. The armies and the walls of Jericho ceased from being the frightening spectacle they first seemed.
5 You can search throughout the Old Testament and see how the revelation of God as the Lord of hosts changed the lives of believers. In her home Hannah was insulted and mocked by Peninnah, - Peninnah had children, and Hannah could not have any and it broke her out. She came weeping to the Lord, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head, she prayed (I Sam. 1:11). The secret of King David s success was not simply in his prowess as a warrior king, he waxed greater and greater: for the LORD of hosts was with him (I Chron. 11:9) Such also was the secret for the psalmist s confidence, 46:7,11 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Isaiah saw the hand of God in the blessings and favour he received, 1:9 Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. The sinful nation of Israel required to be judged by the holiness of God and He declared, Jer. 19:15 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words; but He also promised them, - because they were His uniquely beloved people, 33:11 The voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the voice of them that shall say, Praise the LORD of hosts: for the LORD is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: and of them that shall bring the sacrifice of praise into the house of the LORD. For I will cause to return the captivity of the land, as at the first, saith the LORD. Micah prophesied, 4:1 in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it 4 they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken it. Through every period of their history God consistently showed Himself to be Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts, the Lord of His people and the Lord of all His creation. He has never once handed the reins over to another, He has never abrogated any of His responsibility, He has never abdicated He has and He continues to reveal Himself even today as the same Lord of hosts we find in the Bible
LIVING IN THE LIGHT OF THE TRUTH ABOUT THE LORD OF HOSTS No other God compared with the God of Israel, Is. 43:11 I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no Saviour; 44:6 Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God; 45:5 I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me 6 I am the LORD, and there is none else. 7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. 8 Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it 22 Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. It is the light of the truth about the Lord of hosts that the Holy Spirit shines into our hearts II Cor. 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The Lord of hosts is the shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy. I will abide in thy tabernacle for ever: I will trust in the covert of thy wings (Ps. 61:3,4). In the midst of all the winds threatening to blow them away Zech 4:6 brings the assurance to the child of God, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. CONCLUSION He is Jehovah-Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts, the captain of our salvation, He is the Father of the victory-people of God. Victory is ours because He is unconquerable, invincible and undefeated Who is a God like unto thee? Micah asked in amazement (7:18). He has lost none of His ancient power, He has given none of it away. He is the same today as He was in Bible times. Jehovah-Sabaoth is our God; we are included in His glorious army of His hosts and the Bible promises us with all confidence, Rom. 8:37 we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 6