God reveals Himself as El Shaddai, the Almighty and Nourisher, to Abraham, signifying His strength and His provision for believers. This divine revelation, meaning "the strong one" and "the mother's breast," underscores God's capacity to sustain and bless those who trust in Him. The sermon emphasizes that while humanity has free will and can reject God, ultimately, all will face the Almighty God who offers satisfaction and eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. The message concludes by highlighting God's eternal nature, as expressed in "I Am That I Am" to Moses, urging readiness to meet Him through Christ.
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Before leaving the Gospel by John, the series of broadcasts we've had covering the Gospel by John, I wish to look at the Great I Am's, I-A-M-M, that the Lord Jesus used in the Gospel by John. There are several places where he used the expression, I-A-M. But to get a background for these great statements pronounced in the Gospel by John, we need to turn back to the Old Testament.
For again, in the Old Testament the principles of God are based and laid down, and the principles of God are expounded then in the New Testament. So going back to the book of Genesis, the first book in the Bible, in the seventeenth chapter, we find God speaking to that great man Abraham who was termed the friend of God. The only person in Scripture that gets that expression and that title, the friend of God.
In the first verse of Genesis seventeen, where God is revealing to Abram God's character, not ever known by any other man, God revealed himself to Abraham in perhaps fourteen different characteristics. And we have one of them here. When Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him, I am the Almighty God. I am the Almighty God. No one ever knew God as the Almighty God before this expression that was made, this revelation that was made, to Abraham.
Or as his name is here, Abram, his name was changed in this same chapter, but later in the chapter. And here the significance is that God says, I'm the strong one. I'm the almighty one. The scholars tell us that the word here is a double word, L and Shadiai, which means L, E, L, means the strong one. And the qualifying word Shadiai means not only Almighty, but it means Shad means the breast.
It means the mother's breast. So that God here is revealing himself not only as the strong one, but the one that is the nourisher. He nourishes the children of men that are believing in Him. He gives them strength. He's the strength giver of all that are believing to Him. He pours out these great blessings into and upon the believer in God. And now in the New Testament language, believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of mankind.
God pours out these blessings, these wonderful blessings, upon the children of men who accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their own personal Savior. So El Shadiah means the nourisher, one who cares for his people, one who provides for those who trust in him and believe in him. He is the strong one. In that sense, he is Almighty. There is no effort he can't fulfill.
There is no work he can't accomplish. He does everything after the counsel of his own will. And Elohim means more significantly the all-mightiness of God or the all-sufficiency of God. Nevertheless, whether it's one place or another, this sterling fact remains that God is the Almighty God. Overall, blessed forever, one who does everything after the counsel of his own will.
He is the one who controls the universe and holds it in his hand because he made it out of nothing. He spake the word and worlds came into existence. He created everything from nothing. He made it after the counsel of his own heart. He made it to bring honor and glory to himself. And in order that he might love, and express his love and have a place for his love to flow. He made man, and he made him in his own image and his own likeness.
He made him a perfect man, and as long as man obeyed him, man enjoyed the rich presence of good continually, a communion, a fellowship that was mutual and continuous. And was man who used his own identity and his own self-will. God made him a free agent. He wasn't made a robot. He was made with a will, with a mind that he could make his own decision. He could determine what he wanted to do here upon this earth.
This is the very grave danger, friends, that we can say no to God in some respect. We can say no to the Lord Jesus. We don't want you. We can. We go on without Him when we know we should receive Him and trust Him. We're saying, in effect, I don't want you. And man can do this for a long time. But down at the end of the road, friends, we're going to meet. God, the Almighty God, the one who would have saved us and nourished us and strengthened us and made us happy and secure and satisfied.
For the baby is satisfied at its mother's breast. God would satisfy us if we just trusted in him. He'd strengthen us. He'd give us all that we need. The true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has everything. He's an heir of God and a joint heir with the Lord Jesus Christ. He has an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled. It fadeth not away. That's reserved for him in heaven. He's the richest of the rich. He's satisfied even in this world, for there's none but Christ can satisfy.
The hymn writer put it, none other name for me. There's love and life and lasting joy, Lord Jesus, found in thee, only found there. Nothing in this world will satisfy completely, nor eternally, not one single thing. But the Lord Jesus alone can give you peace and rest and joy and happiness that will never, never end. The great advantage, then. as a sinner now, accepting the Lord Jesus' death on the cross for your sins, to know you're forgiven, and to know the Lord as your own personal Savior that you can say he is my Savior.
I've made him mine by an act of my faith in him, my trust in him. I've received him as the one who died on the cross for me. So, to Abraham, he said, I am. Oh, the greatest, the power, the majesty of that expression, I am. Ever was. Always was. I am. The great one of the present. Never was there a beginning. Never will there be an end. For God, the Almighty God. And a little later on in the book of Genesis, or Exodus rather, we've got in the third chapter of Exodus and the fourteenth verse, we find that the Lord spake unto Jehovah's spake unto Moses when Moses was to go into Egypt and to appear before Pharaoh and ask for the liberation of the children of Israel down in Egypt.
And this is Hebrew history and it should and is. warm to the heart of every Hebrew, every Jewish folk. Moses appeared before God, and when God said that he was to go down into Egypt, Moses said, well, what is his name? What will I tell him? Whom will I tell sent me? God said unto Moses, I am that I am. I am that I am. And he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am, I am, A-M, has sent me unto you. So here again God refers to himself in those majestic yet simple words, I am, ever am, ever in the present.
Never was any time there wasn't a God. Never will there be any time that God doesn't live. He lives forever. He is eternal. There's no passing away. And friends, we must meet him. Are we ready? Oh, in the Old Testament we read that wonderful statement. Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. At the end of the road, friends, we must meet God. The great, eternal, ever-existing, the wonderful, precious, Lord God of heaven, the eternal one, the nourisher of those who will come to him.
We must meet him. If we meet him without knowing the Lord Jesus, we can't enter into his heaven. The Lord said, No man cometh unto the Father, but by me this is final. Come now and trust him today. Bless thy word, precious Father, and may many trust the Savior today. the one who is able to save to the uttermost. Bless our president, our government, all our people in the name of the Lord Jesus, our Savior. Amen.