Sermon Tone Analysis

Text: Psa 8:9 O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

Theme: God is real, and transcendent, but a person who desires to be known and encountered.

Dr. Lloyd Ogilvie, (who died in 2019) was a Presbyterian minister and who, for thirty years, was pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, Los Angeles.

He was also from 1995-2003 Chaplain of the United States Senate.

In an interview with Billy Graham, Ogilvie said that "Agnosticism is the silent agony of our age.

Millions of our citizens do not question the existence of God.

But they do question what He is like and how they can know Him.

They have unanswered questions about God's nature, about His character and about His will.

The ultimate question aching in the hearts of millions is: "What is God like — and how can I know Him?”"

In light of what Dr. Ogilvie writes, let me ask you an important question.

"What do you believe about God.

I mean, deep down, what do you really believe about God?" How you answer that question has significant impact on everything else you believe and how you act.

What you believe about God affects what you believe about all other Christian doctrines: Salvation, the person of Christ, the Holy Spirit, church organization and polity, sin, ethics and morality.

What you believe about God shapes your everyday life: It will determine your life-goals, and your life-style.

It will determine your priorities, your moral choices, and your attitudes toward people and events.

You will interpret and respond to the crises of life in terms of your understanding of who God is, what He wills, and how He acts.

Lastly, what you believe about God determines your worldview.

Your responsibility to others — both lost and saved, to the institutions of society, and to the physical world in which we live.

A faulty, inaccurate or unreasonable view of God will distort everything else you believe about life.

That's why I've chosen to examine God in a series of

sermons that will help us Know God through His names.

The best way to discover what God is like is to contemplate His character through the various names He ascribes to Himself in the Scriptures.

Those names give us a glimpse into God's personality and help us gain an understanding of who He is.

I. OUR GOD IS ELOHIM

1. the Bible begins with the simple statement: "In the beginning, God"

a. Genesis chapter one refers to God thirty-two times

1) nine times we read “And God said ... “

b. in Genesis, God reveals himself as Elohim — the Supreme One who stands over and above His creation

1) it is the first of many names by which the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob reveals his character and nature

2. God makes no logical of philosophical argument to prove His own existence

a. Biblical revelation simply assumes that “God is” and argues that He progressively reveals Himself though His great acts, and through His various names until He reveals Himself incarnationally through the person of Jesus Christ

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,” (Hebrews 1:1–3, ESV)

1) to see Jesus at work is the see God at work

2) to hear the words of Jesus is to hear the words of God

3) to believe upon Jesus and receive him into you life is to believe upon God and to have Him in your life

3. Elohim is the most frequently used name for God in the Old Testament — what some refer to as the generic name for God

a. it is used 2,532 times

4. Elohim is also the plural form of God’s most common name, and as Christians we see the hint of the Trinity in the name

a. one of the most unsettling verses in all the Old Testament is found in the opening chapter of the Bible

“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.

And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.””

(Genesis 1:26, ESV)

b. who is the “us” and the “our” of this verse?

1) the great theological confession of Israel is the Shema Yisrael — "Hear, O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is one"

ILLUS.

Observant Jews consider the Shema to be the most important part of the prayer service in Judaism, and its twice-daily recitation as a mitzvah — a religious commandment.

It comes right out of Deuteronomy 6:4.

Jewish parents teach their children to say it before they go to sleep at night.

5. in an era where every other culture in the world worshiped multiple gods, Israel worships one God — they are unique and alone in this

a. both Old and New Testament teach that God is One

b. yet, here in the opening chapter of Genesis we hear God say, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness

c. it obviously begs the question, Who’s the us?

1) is God referring to the angels?

a) this is the traditional Jewish explanation — God called a meeting with the angels and asked them for advice

b) there is no biblical basis for suggesting that angels took part in the creation of humankind or that humankind was created in the image of angels

2) is God actually a plurality of gods?

a) this is the explanation of religious cults

b) while other world religions have a plurality of god’s, nowhere in the Bible are we taught that God the creator is a god over a pantheon of other lesser deities

3) is this what some scholars call the plural of majesty — what we commonly refer to in our day as the royal we?

ILLUS.

It is a way for a monarch or other dignitary to refer to themselves in official capacity as leader of a nation or institution.

a) this is the explanation of the bible scholar who rejects the next view

4) the ongoing revelation of Scripture undergirds the us as one God revealed in three Persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — each eternally distinct

a) this is the only view that satisfies the “Us” in the passage

6.

El — which is the singular name for God — is a name we find incorporated into other names for God, into Jewish place name and also into personal names

a.

El in other names for God includes El Shaddai (God Almighty), El Elyon (God Most High), and El Roi (God who sees)

b.

El in Jewish place names: includes Beth-el (House of God), Jezre-el (God will sow) and even Isra-el (Prince of Israel)

c.

El in Jewish personal names: Dani-el (God is my judge), Nathana-el (Gift of God) Samu-el (Heard by God), and El-ijah (God is Yahweh)

II.

ELOHIM IS THE CREATOR GOD

1. the first characteristic found in the name Elohim is that God is Creator

a. Elohim tells us that God is uncreated, beginningless, infinitely transcendent over and above His creation

2. God did what we cannot — He took nothing and made something — In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, (Genesis 1:1)

a. how did He do it?

1) He simply spoke it into existence

ILLUS.

One of the most disturbing beliefs of the Prosperity Gospel is the heresy of the Word of Faith Movement that teaches that Christians can create reality by the power of our spoken word, because we are all just “little gods”.

False teachers like Creflo Dollar, Kenneth Hagin, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Paul and Jan Crouch, Fred Price, and Joyce Meyers all teach that Christians are little gods.

Kenneth Hagin has asserted, “man…was created on terms of equality with God, and he could stand in God’s presence without any consciousness of inferiority….

He made us the same class of being that He is Himself… “

Their primary proof text a passage in Psalms which reads, "You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you" (Psalm 82:6).

Such an interpretation of Psalm 82:6 is a classic example of taking Scripture out of context.

This passage is a warning to unjust leaders who consider themselves “gods” in their judgments upon others.

3. it’s the prophet Isaiah who best helps us understand Elohim as the only creator of the universe; there is no other creator but God (Isa 42:5–9)

“Thus says God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it: 6 “I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, 7 to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.

8 I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.

9 Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.””

(Isaiah 42:5–9, ESV)

III.

ELOHIM IS THE SUSTAINER GOD

1. the second characteristic found in the name Elohim is that God is Sustainer

a. God upholds the universe by His word of power

1) every universe, every star, every molecule is being held together by the power of God

b. if God would ... could ... somehow stop being God, the universe would simply devolve away

“in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.