AC 1976 Lesson 34 Redemptive Names for God: Jehovah
AC 1976 Lesson 34 Redemptive Names for God: Jehovah
Format: mp3
Publication Date: 1976
Victor Paul Wierwille was a Bible scholar and teacher for over four decades.
By means of Dr. Wierwille's dynamic teaching of the accuracy and integrity of God's Word, foundational class and advanced class graduates of Power for Abundant Living have learned that the one great requirement for every student of the Bible is to rightly divide the Word of Truth. Thus, his presentation of the Word of God was designed for students who desire the in-depth-accuracy of God’s Word.
In his many years of research, Dr. Wierwille studied with such men as Karl Barth, E. Stanley Jones, Glenn Clark, Bishop K.C. Pillai, and George M. Lamsa. His formal training included Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Theology degrees from Mission House (Lakeland) College and Seminary. He studied at the University of Chicago and at Princeton Theological Seminary from which he received a Master of Theology degree in Practical Theology. Later he completed his work for the Doctor of Theology degree.
Dr. Wierwille taught the first class on Power for Abundant Living in 1953.
Books by Dr. Wierwille include: Are the Dead Alive Now? published in 1971; Receiving the Holy Spirit Today published in 1972; five volumes of Studies in Abundant Living— The Bible Tells Me So (1971), The New, Dynamic Church (1971), The Word's Way (1971), God's Magnified Word (1977), Order My Steps in Thy Word (1985); Jesus Christ Is Not God (1975); Jesus Christ Our Passover (1980); and Jesus Christ Our Promised Seed (1982).
Dr. Wierwille researched God's Word, taught, wrote, and traveled worldwide, holding forth the accuracy of God's "wonderful, matchless" Word.
34-Adv-1976_Redemptive-Names-for-God-Jehovah-
… talks about Jehovah our Shalom, our peace. You’ll hear the word salaam, which is a take-off …which means… I don't know who takes, who speaks Salaam. Is that Arabic? {Yes.} And Shalom is Jewish background. And, you know, they use the same words in the Far East – only, you know, in Hindi and stuff.
The blood covenant in the Bible and the Salt Covenant and this word Shalom are real interesting pieces of research and work. Shalom means peace. Bi is brother. Aleichem is my. And when people say to you, and they greet you, like in the King James, it says salute, it's the word Shalom. Peace. That's the salute. It isn’t this.
And if someone would say to you, Shalom aleichem bi, peace to you my brother, you can trust him with your life. But as long as they just say Shalom, don't trust them with anything. But when they say bi, brother, then they’ll protect whatever they're responsible for because they've called you brother. The covenant of salt, the covenant of blood, and this covenant of brother. Those things are real interesting in the Word.
Now we go to Psalm 23. This one some of you know from memory if you went to Sunday school.
Psalm 23:1:
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
The word Lord is Jehovah. The Lord my shepherd. This is the fifth redemptive name for God in the Old Testament, and it is Jehovah-Raah. Jehovah-Raah; the Lord my shepherd.
Now, I know that we are not the Lord's sheep, we’re Sons of God, I know that. But understanding what Jesus Christ came to do for Israel, and what worked out for our good because Israel rejected it, the Lord is still our caretaker.
In… Where is that where it says, cast all your what? {Cares.}Is that, Philippians? {1 Peter 5.} Yeah.
1 Peter 5:7:
… [Cast] all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
The Lord is our caretaker. He is our shepherd in that sense. Not that we are His sheep, but that we are His sons. And this psalm is really great because the shepherd gives you a beautiful picture of what Jesus Christ did when he was here upon earth. How he took people and he led them in green pastures, or pastures of tenderness as one translation added - which means tender grass. New grass in the spring is always tender after it has the hot sun beating on it and it just subsists. That's all. Then it gets hard. But in the spring the grass is tender. That's what that verse is talking about; tender grass.
He takes us, in other words, to the tender places to feed us. And he leads us beside still waters.[1] A sheep cannot drink from a bouncy creek or like this. If the waves go like that, it can't drink. A sheep will only drink when the water is still. I mean really drink. They go up and if it's bouncy like that, you know, and they don't get much. But when the waters are still, then the sheep can put its little old mouth down there and get something to drink.
That's how wonderful God is. He is our shepherd and He watches over every sheep. And the 99 that are safely in the fold, remember that one? He goes out in the wilderness looking for that one and brings that one back.
And being our shepherd is also really great, in my mind, because the sheepfold has no door on it. The master, the shepherd is the door of the sheepfold. He lays across the entrance to the sheepfolds when he rests. And if any enemy is going to come in, they've got to walk over him. If anybody is going to get to the sheep, they've got to cross over him and get to him first. That's right. He is the door of the sheep gate. He is the sheep gate. He is the door of the sheepfold.
[Chuckles] The walking over the shepherd to get to them. The Lord is my shepherd reminds me of the old church in New Knoxville. Old doc Kuntz. He was really the last man of God they had there. And he was the man under whom I was raised in the church. Wonderful man of God. Great man. [Chuckles] That old bird, {audience laughter} he was great. I liked him. He always smoked a cigar. And I could still see him right now in my mind's eye, coming down from the old parsonage. The old parsonage is where Fred and Ellie lived. They bought the old parsonage and they lived there.
And now, old doc Kuntz used to come out of that place on Saturday morning at nine o'clock. We always had catechetical instruction for three years. And that's, of course, when I got this vivid picture. But he'd come trouncing out of that old house, you know. And he was always a real, real great man. He walked tall. He wasn't too tall. He was perhaps 5’8”, 8½, 9. But he always walked straight and he walked briskly. He’d have that cigar in his mouth, wouldn't touch it. And whenever he'd walk he’d go, pfft, then you see a puff of smoke, another puff {audience laughter}. He’d just suck on that thing coming down that walk to the church.
And, then when he’d get to the church, he’d turn in the first door on the left hand side – it's still there, same door. But before he turned in, he would take that cigar and lay it on the windowsill. And of course us fellows never touched it, you know [Dr. Wierwille and audience laughter].
And it was from him that I learned a great deal regarding respect, position, a lot of other things. Because in the church at New Knoxville in his day, he always prayed in his office before he came in. And when Dr. Kuntz walked into that church, every member was there, the choir was in. He was always the last one in. And he never waited on the choir to come in. They’d better be in there when he got in.
And when he walked through that door – and I could take you all in there and show it to you, just line by line, the stuff’s still there. Whenever he'd walk through that door, the choir was all standing. When he walked in, everybody in the congregation stood. They stood – man, woman, boy and girl. Everybody.
He'd walk to that old pulpit and take out that old hymnal and he'd…he'd say, we turn to such and such a page and they'd sing. And they’d remain standing because he was the one that taught us in the catechetical class that the people must have respect for that Word of God. And the only way they can show that respect is to show it for that man of God when he walks in. That's where I learned from Dr. Kuntz.
And [chuckles] they had a thing come up over there that… You know, the young people were going to St. Mary's to dance, and they were gone to New Bremen to dance, and Wapakoneta to dance. And so the top echelon of the church figured that, in order to keep your young people at home, you better give them some place to dance in New Knoxville. So they drew up all their plans, had them all blueprinted or whatever you do, had it all figured out. And old doc Kuntz knew about it all the time, but he never said a word, see.
Then one…one S…one week, they said well one Monday morning they going to start building. They had the ground bought, everything in great order and they're going to start building, on Monday morning, the dance hall in New Knoxville. That Sunday morning, old doc Kuntz stands up in that pulpit, you know, and he looks at those men. He says, “You an elder? You ain’t no elder for God. You a deacon? You ain't no deacon for God.”
How would you have felt? {audience chuckles} That's about right. {audience laughter}
Then he made this statement. He said, “You can build…” and he…broken German, because, you know, German, learned English the hard way. And he said, “Ja [Yah]” he said, “you can’ta build that’a dance hall tomorrow morning. That's all right.” But he said, “You build it over my dead body, cuz I stand at the entrance to the place.” [chuckles]
Who do you think was there before daybreak the next morning? Old doc Kuntz. Not a man showed up. [Dr. Wierwille and audience laughter] That's right. And to this day, sir, they've never had a dance hall in New Knoxville. {audience laughter} They may need one, I don't know, but they don't have one to this day.
It's like the old jail up there. Until they built that new trip up there, we had a jail, a cell, a hundred years old, not a man or woman ever spent one night in it. {audience laughter} And it wasn't because those boys were so good, but because the Word of God was in some of those old men and they drove that Word of God to the people. They didn't need the jail. [taps on desk several times] That’s right.
Oh, I've come through a little of this background with some men that stood [taps desk]. See. And it was he that I finally saw when I graduated from Princeton, before I went into the ministry of the first church we took in Payne, Ohio. You know, it's supposed to be spelled P-A-I-N {audience laughter}. But uh…And I saw him in Philadelphia – he was retired at the time, of course. And the last thing he said to me when we shook hands, he looked in my eyes he said, “You preach the Word.” He said, “Better they like it or better they don't.” He said, “You preach the Word.” That's the last thing he ever said to me. Those are the last words he ever spoke to me. I never saw him again because he died. That's Dr. Kuntz.
And that reminded me, over here, the sheep gate. Jesus Christ, he's the shepherd. The shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. He lays across the entranceway. He's the door to the sheepfold. See.
Can you imagine a minister in this town standing up on Sunday morning and say, “Look, turn that stink off over there.” Nah. There's so mealy mouthed and piddly. They haven't seen any men of God that have taken a stand, do or die. I happen to be raised under one. See.
Those little things make an impression on a young man. Because he wasn’t piddly widdly say one thing to one person and something to somebody else. That's right. [chuckles] Quite a man. I could tell you some other great stories, but wouldn't relate to, the Lord is my shepherd. [Dr. Wierwille and audience laughter] Oh, shoot.
Psalms 23:3:
He restoreth my soul:…
Did you see that one? He restores it.
Psalms 23:3:
… he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness [because of his name]…
And his name is my name, therefore, he doesn't want me in all that unrighteousness junk so he leads me in paths of what? {Righteousness.} Wouldn’t you do it for your kids?
Psalms 23:4-5:
… [Even], though I [would] walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I [would have no]… fear no evil: for thou [the shepherd are]… with me;… [your] rod and… [your] staff… comfort me.
…[You even prepare]… a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:…
And I eat steak while they eat horseshoe nails {audience laughter}
Psalms 23:5-6:
…thou anointest my head with oil; [which is a blessing] my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
What a psalm. The Lord, my shepherd. Jesus Christ, the door. He is our protector, our… You know, the one who takes care of us. I think you understand.
Jeremiah. The uniqueness of where these appear is also significant in the Word. Jeremiah 23.
Jeremiah 23:1:
Woe be unto the pastors… [who] destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD.
Isn't that something? Pastors who destroy and scatter.
Jeremiah 23:2-5:
Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel against the pastors that feed my… [sheep]; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the LORD.
And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase.
And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them: and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, saith the LORD.
Behold, [verse 5] the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise [up David] unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a little more of that today?
Jeremiah 23:6-:
In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
And that is the sixth one, which is Jehovah-Tsidkenu. That’s the sixth one. The Lord our righteousness, Jehovah our righteousness. And certainly there must come verses of scriptures from the epistles into your mind about Jesus Christ being our what? Righteousness. The righteousness of God unto all and upon all that do what? {Believe.} See? Just fantastic.
The Lord, our righteousness. Righteousness that execute judgment and justice. And the Lord, as our righteousness, relates itself to the government of the people. That it is to be a righteous government, a righteous justice, a righteous judgment.
Because the people had been scattered. They were being destroyed. And the reason they were being scattered and destroyed is because the pastors were doing it. They were not laying the Word of God on the people. They weren't rightly dividing the Word. You could take this section of scripture in here and really work this, even though it's addressed to Israel and to Judah, and apply it in the truth of our times [taps on desk twice], and have a fantastic teaching.
Jehovah, in relationship to his remnant, his believers, is always righteousness to them. The Lord our righteousness. And he wants the judgments of the people to be in righteousness.
That that should be written in Jeremiah is quite significant. They called him the Weeping Prophet. They said he was always crying about something. If he wasn't crying about this, he was crying about that. Had he lived today, they’d have said he was the… “You’re always negative, Jerry.” That's what they’d have said in the newspaper about him. “Don't listen to old Jerry. He's always negative. He's always against everything.”
He wasn’t. He was just highly in favor of God. But he had to tell the truth, that he got by revelation. And they didn't like what he said. Like, what do you think about those pastors? Do you think they liked when Jeremiah said this? Oh, no. And they most likely said, “You stupid bird, you don't know what you're talking about. You think you're so religious, always crying about something.
Well, he still said it; the Lord our righteousness. And he was right and all his critics were wrong.
Therefore, it's never… Truth, class, is never question of the amount of people, it's always a question of quality. Truth is quality, not quantity. And if one person speaks the truth and the whole world would say he's wrong, he would still be right. It's not a numbers. It's in truth [heavily sits fist down]. That’s right.
Sort of interesting that that one should be in the Word.
Number seven is Ezekiel. Ezekiel 48. You go much further, you run out. Verse 30.
Ezekiel 48:30-32:
And these are the goings out of the city on the north side, four thousand and five hundred measures.
… the gates of the city shall be after the names of the tribes of Israel: three gates northward; one gate of Reuben, one gate of Judah, one gate of Levi.
And at the east side four thousand and five hundred: and three gates; and one gate of Joseph [300, 500, 3 gates; one gate of Joseph], one gate of Benjamin, one gate of Dan.
I suppose later on you’re going to teach them all this, aren’t you? Gail? Francis? Does this come up in your class? It’s nice.
Ezekiel 48:33-35:
And at the south side four thousand and five hundred measures:… [then you put] three gates; one gate… [for] Simeon, one gate… [for] Issachar, one gate… [for] Zebulun.
[And] At the west side four thousand and five hundred,… [there you put] three gates; one gate of Gad, one gate of Asher, one [for] of Naphtali.
It was round about eighteen thousand measures: and the name of the city from that day shall be, The LORD is there.
The Hebrew is, Jehovah-Shammah. The Lord is present. The Lord is present. [long pause]
The Lord is present. Jehovah in relationship to His people, He is present. Present in that city.
[Long sigh] When you study the Word and you study the…the a…the arrangement of the city and the walls of the city and the gates that are in it, even the placement of these different gates and the names of the different gates are really significant in their usage. And the walls were placed as a protection for the people on the inside, not as a protection for the people on the outside. That's why the wall is called in the Greek polis. P-O-L-I-S. Which is transliterated into our English word police.
The polis, the polis around the city was built to protect the inhabitants inside. To guard them. To watch over them, because these are the people in the fellowship. These are the people in the fold. These are the people who belong to our city, or our ministry, our work. And uh…they need protection from the outside, from the enemy. That's why they built the wall.
And that is why it's called the polis. And the job of the police is to protect the people on the inside from the enemy on the outside. The job is not to whitewash the enemy at the expense of the inhabitants.
These words have continued in usage in our country, in cities like Annapolis, Maryland. Annapolis, Indianapolis. Any city that has a ‘polis’ at the end of it, P-O-L-I-S, means that it is supposed to be the wall to protect those inhabitants.
The Lord is present. The Lord is present. Present to do what? To take care of his people. But the people of the Lord must also help to take care of themselves. He said, build the wall. He said, put in the west these gates. I think he started out, didn’t he, with the… with the…What side was he? North, wasn't he? Going out on the north side. That's where he started out, on the north, and he just keeps going. East, south, then west. North, east, south, west. Goes all the way around.
Why would he have named the north first? Why didn’t he go south first? Heh-heh-heh [Dr. Wierwille and audience chuckles] You’re wonderful. Do you know there are no stars in the north? When you look due north on into the heavens, there are no stars due north. You've got the bright star in the evening star, you’ve got the morning star, you have the North Star. But the North Star is not on that horizon of the north. It's way up there riding around at the tail end of the Big Dipper or something. Off of the Big Dipper. Why? It’ll tell you in the Word if you work it. A lot of things.
You see, these are things that intrigue me to the depth of the greatness of the Word, and most people never have any appreciation for this Book. Someone said to us this noon, if you’d have told me six months ago we'd be carrying a Bible and going to class, both my husband and I would say you're absolutely nuts. Just heard that this noon, right? That was something. Now they're no longer ashamed of the Book.
You see, nobody's ever really taken a look at this. All they do is criticize it. We're not interested in the criticism, we're interested in building the integrity of it. Let the Word speak. Work the Word to show ourselves approved unto Him. And we have not nearly exhausted it, I guarantee you {audience chuckles}. I don’t know how many reincarnations that takes [Dr. Wierwille and audience chuckles].
The reason I don't get all shook about that either is, suppose we never do, there's a day coming and we shall know even as also we're known. Then I don't have to work so hard {audience chuckles}. But we're still to study to show ourselves approved.
But the Lord is present. That's what I want you to see. But the Lord will only be present if you build the wall and put the gates right. That's His promise. Remember? I read it to you. He said, do the trip. Go out of the city so far, you build a wall four thousand… four thousand five hundred measures away and then you put three gates in there after the names of the tribes of Israel: three gates northward; one gate of Reuben, gate of Judah, gate of Levi.
Reuben was which son in the family? {The oldest one.} The oldest one. Right? How’s come we do…? Is there a tribe of Reuben? Reuben did some trip with a chick that God didn't like. What was that? Wasn’t that Reuben? {audience inaudible} And then, what happened to him because of that? Didn't hear that. {lost the birthright} Oh, that's what happened to him. Lost the birthright, didn't he? Because… {blocked a portion}Huh? {he blocked himself a portion}Oh, he kept half of it? {And then he slept with one of his father’s wives} And then he lost half of it or lost all of it? {audience inaudible}
I know something happened. Why would he have put that gate on that north side. Why would you put the gate of Judah on the north side and the gate of Levi? When the truth of the matter is, in practice, that the children of Judah were the children of Benjamin and the territory of the tribe of Judah. Real interesting. You talk about working the Word, now, just that one again is worth a PhD. If you had to do it in an academic institution of learning, it would be worth a PhD. To go through the whole Word and find out, why would Judah be there?
I don't know if you can find it. I found a few things there, but I don't know how much you can find. But it's sort of interesting.
And when man does this, if he does what he is supposed to do – which we know from the Word, right, what we have to do as born again believers today. If we build and take care of what we're supposed to do, then the Lord takes care of what he's supposed to do, which means he is present to bless those people.
That's why I'm so interested in the household. Because when that household is tight; not the family, the household; the Lord is present. When there's only the family left, yes he’s still, but not in the sense that he would be if we’d built the fence and walls and had them all intact. For when that household is tight, and they all speak the same thing with the same mind [taps three times], that Lord is present to bless exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think. And it's in that household that you have to be tight.
Someone said to me today that they were just so thankful for the Corps, because in the Corps they had learned the family; what it really means to be a part of a family. Which is true. We speak of it as the family, but really when you get the Corps tight, it's a Corps household. It's a household. It's the unity, the tightness. See. As long as you hang around the place and don't leave, you belong to the family.
But you could be living here and be a part of the family, but your head not be in the completeness of what we're supposed to be doing, then you wouldn't still be in the household. It’s the household that has the greatest joy in it, greatest blessing.
Then the Lord is present. The Lord is present. And that's why you see so many blessings, signs, miracles, wonders, everything else. Because when the Lord is present, that's just axiomatic. They just happen. They just come to pass, because the Lord is what? Present.
Those are those seven great redemptive names of God, each one starts with the word Jehovah and each one represents a complete whole. Like, the Lord will provide, is complete. The Lord that healeth, is complete. The Lord the canopy, he covers completely. The Lord our peace. The Lord is peace.
It's significant that love and joy are not mentioned. Because in the fruit of the spirit, I think it's love, joy, peace. Ha-ha. It is because the Lord will provide, he healeth, and he is the canopy, which is all love of God. And the joy of God doing it, therefore He is our peace.
When the Lord is peace, there will be joy, there will be love, for the Lord is the peace. And it's the love of God, you know, where He provides. It's just a great joy. The Lord is my shepherd. The Lord our righteousness. And the Lord is present. Never leave the nor what? {Forsake thee.} isn’t that something?
The Lord is present; first to the individual, then to the household, the family. Whatever is in there [taps four times], the Lord will still be present to the faithful. It's just the way God did the trip. That's all.
Well, I don't think I can handle the next section in 15 minutes. Only got 15 minutes left in this hour, according to Big Ben, Western Union {audience chuckles} alarm clock up here. So um…hmmm.
[1] Psalms 23:2: He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.