Abraham's life is used to illustrate the significance of names and God's power as El Shaddai, the Almighty. The sermon explores how God changes Abram's name to Abraham, signifying his destiny as the father of multitudes, and how God's name, El Shaddai, reveals His limitless power to fulfill His promises despite human limitations. The core lesson is that God's power is absolute, capable of overcoming any impossibility, and that new names given by God signify a divinely ordained destiny and a call to wholehearted responsibility. The message concludes by emphasizing that submitting to El Shaddai's power, rather than trying to manipulate it, leads to a glorious, incomprehensible destiny with a new name for overcomers.
Restored with Diffio
Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 2.45 → restored 4.51
We always hesitate to talk about money, don't we? It's particularly going to have to do with the Lord's work. So he has all kinds of terms like ministry and fellowship. Maybe I told you the occasion when a man who had no familiarity with our terminology came into our local assembly in Florence, and we were going to have a local preacher visiting us for a series of special meetings and a group of the men got together and said, how much fellowship should we have with him? This man says, I'll have him over at my house one night for supper. Amen. Totally foreign terminology. What we're talking about is money. I happen to be one of those visiting speakers, and you all are very generous to the visiting speakers. But I think, too, the people who just stick around here and do all kinds of ministry and all you think about sometimes, I don't know whether it's true or not, but usually what happens is the visiting speaker is the star.
And everybody, on an emotional basis, will give money to the visiting speaker. And the people who grind things out week in and week out are very largely forgotten. Now, I don't know that that's true here, you understand. But if my experience in other places is any indication, it's probably true here. And we pre-Madonna's, and you ought to pray for us because after a while you may begin to think that, that you're a pre-Madonna. And then God has to knock you in the head to get you back down to size. But prima donnas travel around the country, and they're the star of the show. But I hope you're praying and thinking about the people who hang in here and work day in, day out.
I didn't, yeah, I guess I did mean to say that, because I said it. Now, there are two books that I wanted to mention tonight, out of the many good books that are in there. And I hope you become readers if you're not a reader. Here's a re-publication of a little book that helped me a great deal when I was a young man. J.S. Strongbeck's book shall never perish. It's a book on eternal security. Now, I haven't read Mr. Barker's book that's out there, though it's been highly recommended. Same idea on eternal security. But this book was a great help to me a good number of years ago. And if you yourself struggle with a problem or you have people who struggle with that problem of security, here's a very good book to put into their hands. It's not an aggressive book.
You needn't be afraid to give it to anybody. It doesn't tear everybody apart who disagrees with the author. It's a very good presentation of the truth of eternal security. So never perish by J.F. Strombeck. It's a very helpful thing. It would help you if you just read it. Refresh your own soul about that particular truth from the scriptures. This is Francis Schaefer's book, True Spirituality. If you're not familiar with the writings and the work of Francis Schaefer from Labrie in Switzerland, I would suggest that you begin to read some of his writings. He is again a modern-day apologist for Christianity, particularly to the intellectuals, but a very unassuming man.
I was in a large college audience a few years ago where he was lecturing, and he came onto the platform in those those Swiss leather shorts and those hoes up to his knees and just, you know, didn't bother him. He was there for another purpose. But let me tell you about Francis Schaefer. Maybe a little glimpse into him. Maybe I mentioned this last year. Why we're in Chicago, there were two debates held at the University of Chicago involving the late Bishop James Pike. All of you probably are familiar how it's how he would weigh out into left field.
One of those debates with Bishop Pike was conducted by a well-known evangelical scholar in the field of apologetics. And when that debate was through, he had cut James Pike to ribbons. There wasn't anything but bleeding tatters on the stage at the University of Chicago in that room. But he had also lost his audience. Some time later, James Pike debated Francis Schaefer. And Francis Schaefer was just as firm in his presentation of Christian truth, but his attitude was totally different.
And Francis Schaefer not only won the debate, he won his audience. And he walked off the stage with his arm around Bishop Pike, and the sequence to it is, He had a private visit with Bishop Pike in California, again getting the claims of Jesus Christ across to this churchman. Now this is not easy reading. Francis Schaefer is thinking of the intellectuals who determine the thinking of the masses of people. You'll run across ideas from philosophy in this book. But it is an exam, this book itself, true spirituality is an examination of the work of Jesus Christ freeing us from the bondage to sin and our identification with Christ in his death.
And the last half of the book has to do with our release from the results of that bondage to sin. Our bondage to sin has had all sorts of results in our own personalities, for instance. And Francis Schaefer talks about the work of Jesus Christ in healing. those effects in our own personalities, in our relationships with each other, in healing the effects of our bondage to sin. So if this could be an introduction to the writings of Francis Schaefer, I would be very, very happy if I got you introduced to those. But I must admit I'm disappointed not to find the writings of my favorite author back there, and that's C.S. Lewis. We'll just have to remedy that and get some of C.S.
Lewis's writings and get you reading C.S. Lewis. He's my favorite, absolutely my favorite. There's nobody like C.S. Lewis. So having said that, maybe you'll get some of those C.S. Lewis books in here. I better not keep talking about books. I better get to the scriptures. But I would suggest you begin with C.S. Lewis fairy tales, all right? The Narnia series. And my wife and I got far more out of those than our kids did, but that's the way he writes. kids get it, but oh man, the impact of the message. Let's turn tonight to the book of Genesis again, chapter seventeen. By the way, before we're through with this series, I want to look tomorrow morning at Abram as the friend of God and the friend of sinners.
Abram, the friend of God and the friend of sinners. And then tomorrow night we'll see Abraham repeat an early mistake that he made. Years and years after great spiritual progress, he falls into the same trap he fell into once before. Friday, I want to see Abram in that great peak of faith and offering up his son Isaac. And finally, on Friday night, Abraham and death, as he faces it in the death of his wife Sarah, as that comes up in the book of Genesis. chapter twenty three. But tonight I want to look at the seventeenth chapter of Genesis, at least read the early part and the later part of the chapter, at least a few verses from the later part of the chapter.
And let's begin with verse one. Genesis chapter seventeen verse one. When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God almighty. Walk before me and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you and will multiply you exceedingly. Then Abram fell on his face, and God said to him, Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham. For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come forth from you.
And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your descendants after you. And I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. Verse fifteen. And God said to Abraham, As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai. But Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her. And moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her.
And she shall be a mother of nations. Kings of peoples shall come from her. Then Abram fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah who is ninety years old bear a child? And we'll pick up from there tomorrow morning, Lord willing. Now, I take it, by the way, just before we look at this chapter, that the laughter of Abraham in this chapter was quite different from the laughter of Abraham, laughter of Sarah in the next chapter. Sarah was a laughter of doubt, and I take it, Abrams was a laughter of faith. He was just so delighted that God was going to do what he'd been promising for twenty-five years. Isn't it wonderful?
Man, a hundred years old, going to be a father. And he just couldn't get over it with sheer delight. In the seventeenth chapter of Genesis, there are three new names that come to us. And what I would like to just talk about to begin with is what in the world we have names for anyhow. When I was a boy, the chief function of a name, at least my chief interest in a name, was some way that I could get called for supper because I loved to eat. I found, however, there was also a good handle by which I was called in to do something I didn't want to do. But when I heard that name, there wasn't any question as to who was being called. But what's the purpose of a name? Surely it's not just to distinguish us from each other, is it?
So when I say Mary, everybody knows I'm not talking about Sarah. Is that the purpose? No. Why not then do what our country is eventually going to do and give everybody a number when they're born? And then when you go out tonight, I could say, good evening, Mr. two, three, nine, seven, six. How are you? What's wrong with that? And right away you see the difference between having a number and a name. Having a number is such an impersonal thing. Having a name is something very, very personal. That's why the beast is going to identify his followers with a number. God identifies his followers with a name.
There's a personal relationship to God. There's no personal relationship to the beast. And our Western society is going the way of the beast, not the way of God. We are depersonalizing ourselves as human beings. We are becoming not men who run machines, we are becoming part of the machine. We are simply part of the program. So names are not just given to us to distinguish us from each other. There's something very, very personal about our name.
They tell us who we are. It's even more true in biblical times. Names could be given and names could be changed depending upon the parent's hopes or as they face the reality of what their children had grown up to be. Many Christian people still give their children biblical names in hope. that by the grace of God the child will live to fulfill the meaning of the name. But in the ancient Near East, the name was connected with the very essence of the person, so that if you knew a person's name in the suspicions of the Near East, you had control of that person's life.
In fact, in Egypt, to efface a person's name from his monument was to doom him to an endless wandering existence in the afterworld. You had destroyed him by removing his name. And the name stood for the person. And in the scriptures in this chapter, we've got three new names, all with great meaning. And I want to begin with the name of God. And all of you know, if you have any sort of a Bible with references or footnotes, that the name of God that we first run across in chapter seventeen is El Shaddai.
And I want to talk a little bit about that name. The first part of that name, El, is the singular of the common name God, the common word God, Elohim. in the Old Testament. Now I think we ought to be aware that the word Elohim is not a name, but a proper noun. That word tells us the class of being we are talking about. It's like the word angel. It's like the word man. It's a proper noun that describes a class of being. It was an old Canaanite word that God used to talk about himself.
And it tells us that the kind of being we are talking about is not a human being, not an angelic being, but we are talking about the divine being when we use this word God. And it is one of the evidences the way it is used in the Old Testament, of Jewish monotheism. The great creedal confession of Judaism, repeated in every synagogue service, here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
And stamped into the foundation of Jewish religion, there is only... one who occupies the class of being called God. That, by the way, is why it is absolutely impossible to translate John one one in beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was a God. That verse was written by an Orthodox Jew. There is no way an orthodox Jew could write a statement that would say, the word was a God.
As though there were other gods. There is only one in that class of being called God. There are multitudes in the class of being called angels. And multitudes in the class of being called men. There is only one in the class of being called God. And so that word L tells us we are talking about that one divine being, that one God. But now in that basic Jewish confession, hero Israel, the name of that being is Jehovah.
That's his name. God made that revelation to Moses at the burning bush. That's his name. This being we are talking about, the only one who is in the class called God, has a name. And his basic name is Jehovah. Now I know that, but when certain people come to my door and ask me, do you know what the name of God is? I know who they are, and I know what they want me to say, and I know what they want to say, and I come right back and say, yes, I know what the name of God is. The New Testament tells me that the name of God is Father, Son, Holy Ghost. That's the name of God. Isn't that what it says? Baptizing them in the name singular of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
So when they asked me, do you know what the name of God is? Of course I know what the name of God is. It's Father, Son, Holy Ghost. That's the name of God. But in the Old Testament, his basic name is Jehovah. Now we don't know whether that's the correct pronunciation of it. I don't get upset about that. I remember shaking as a ninth grade biology student when the teacher who knew biology but knew absolutely nothing about the Bible, went to great lengths to tell us that we were all wrong, that Jehovah wasn't his name, Yahweh was his name. And that's a big deal, you know. His name is Jehovah. Now what does that tell us? That tells us that that one being in this classification called God is a personal being.
He has a name. He is a personal being. And he has told us what his name is. And in the whole Near Eastern culture, if you know a person's name, you know the person. And God tells his people what his name is because he wants us in a personal relationship with himself. And the God we have has a name because he is a personal God. who wants us in personal relationship to himself. But here we've got a new name for God.
Oh, the God is called Shaddai. Now really we don't, I realize if you're reading the Schofield Bible and you've got a footnote there, Schofield says it's the many-breasted God, but that's a very doubtful derivation from the root idea of this word Shaddai, Shaddai. It's meaning as you look at various translations and is more a designation of power. Luther, in his translation, translates it the Almighty God. The Latin Vulgate gives the Latin from which our word omnipotence comes. And the Greek translation of the Old Testament made about two hundred years before Christ, translated by the Greek term which means all-powerful.
And the basic understanding of the term seems to be the all-powerful God. This God who is a personal being with the name Jehovah has this title that tells us this God is limitless in his power. And so we talk about the doctrine of the omnipotence of God. There is no limit to the power of God. So don't get yourself all tangled up in that. And you have smart Alex who come to you with all kinds of stupid questions about the power of God. God can do anything consistent with his own character.
And somebody comes along and says, if God is all powerful, can he make an object so big that he can't pick it up? And C.S. Lewis's response to that is nonsense is still nonsense even if you're talking about God. And to talk about making an object so big that you can't pick it up is simply talking nonsense. And because you happen to stick the term God in there doesn't make it unless nonsense is still nonsense. Or can God make two plus two equal five? What connection is there between power and mathematics? We're dealing in two different realms. How much power would it take to make two plus two equal five?
Ten tons of dynamite? We're dealing with the area of truth there, not the area of power. Don't confuse the two. And you get all kinds of stupid questions about the power of God. It tells us that God is able to do anything consistent with his own character. God cannot lie. That's not a matter of power. That's a matter of truth. We're dealing with the area of ethics, not the area of power. But God has the ability to do anything consistent with his own character. And El Sharia tells us that. But I add that expression consistent with his own character. Because God is a holy God.
But what does this name tell us? Right in this particular incident in chapter seventeen, Abram has been waiting twenty-five years for the fulfillment of Genesis chapter twelve. He's still waiting for that seed. Ninety-nine years old. God now comes along as El Shaddai and says, you're going to have a son. And you're going to have that son through Sarah. And as we were looking at Abram's faith last night, here again he is faced with a staggering implication of his own age. his own physical powerlessness, Sarah's age, Sarah's powerlessness, and God comes along and says, you're going to have a son.
Sarah is going to bury you a son. Over against that physical impossibility, God reveals himself as the all-powerful God, El Shaddai. Is it a problem to God that Abram is ninety-nine years old? Is it a problem to God that Abram is no longer able to beget children? Is it a problem to God that Sarah can't bear children? Is that any problem to God? Once you posit God, from his viewpoint you've eliminated the problem. And the idea of miracles is no problem once you bring God into it.
If there is such a being as God, there is no problem with the idea of miracles. The only way you can have a problem with miracles is if you have the kind of God who is not Al-Shadiah. If he is a limited God with limited power, then you've got a problem with miracles. But once you bring Al-Shadiah into it, there's no more problem with miracles. Is the universe a problem to God? And so as Abram faces this great impossibility, it's El Shaddai, the all-powerful God who meets his weaknesses.
So that what God has promised to Abraham, God is able to carry out. He has never yet made a promise that he didn't have the power to fulfill. And Abram's physical condition is no problem to God. It is to us, but it isn't to God. There are other times that this name shows up in the book of Genesis, about six other times, primarily in the life of Jacob. And you see that poor man, Jacob, fleeing from home under the threat of murder by Esau. And he's on his way to Pad near him.
And that's when he goes with the blessing of El Shaddai. You see him returning after twenty years and he's going to face that murderous Esau. And he knows nothing of what's in Esau's heart. He knows what's in his own heart. He's coming back loaded with guilt. And he imagines that Esau has been holding the grudge for twenty years. Can you imagine what a grudge would be like if you keep it for twenty years? You hold a grudge for a week and you know what it's like. How would you like a grudge for twenty years? And Jacob comes back imagining that Esau has been holding this grudge for twenty years. You remember all the elaborate preparations he makes to ward off Esau's anger.
Who's the God who is with him when he returns? El Shaddai. Is Esau any problem to God? Is Esau's anger, if it's there, and all of Esau's armed servants? And that report came back to Jacob, you remember. Esau is coming to meet you. He's got all his armed servants with it. Do you think Esau's armed servants are any problems? Well, Shadi, I. That's the God who comes back with Jacob. When many, many years later he sends Benjamin down to Egypt in fear and trembling that he'll never see him again.
Oh, why did you tell the man you had a younger brother? I've already lost Joseph, and now you want to take Benjamin away from me. In whose name does he send Benjamin down to Egypt? Name of El Shaddai. Do you think Pharaoh's a problem to El Shaddai? Or the power of Egypt? Is that a problem to God? Jacob sends Benjamin down in the name of El Shadiah. And it's in the name of El Shadiah that at the end of his day, he blesses his son Joseph. Who was it that kept Joseph when Jacob thought he was dead?
Who was it that went with him through all the labyrinths and experiences of Egypt? Who kept him? God only. El Shadiah. What about ourselves? What about our own weaknesses? The areas of life we simply have not been able to handle. What about our own personal weaknesses? Those quirks of personality that have plagued us and tripped us up for years Those areas of weakness that we always call weakness instead of sin, weakness sounds better.
Do you think there are any problem to God? And as we have struggled and fought with them and tried to handle them ourselves, do you think that's a real problem to Al-Shadiah? Why not get God into our weaknesses as he stepped into the physical weaknesses of Abraham and Sarah? El Shaddai. Is there any problem too big for him? Let me throw in a word of caution, however.
Don't ever think that you've got your finger on the button of almighty power. And all you have to do is press the little button like you're flipping an electric switch and on comes divine power. Oh no, God is never going to let you put him in that position. That is neither Judaism nor Christianity, that's paganism. And the essence of pagan religion is you have a key by which you can manipulate your deity. And God has never put that kind of a key in our hands. There isn't any key by which you can manipulate God. and have him run at your beck and call and make him do what you want him to do.
And let me throw out that word of caution. It's not that we command El Shaddai, but that we submit to El Shaddai and let him do in his power whatever he wants to do. It may be we will discover, as C.S. Lewis suggested, instead of getting the immediate deliverance we are looking for, we get something else that God thinks is more important. Maybe one of the things we really need built into our character is endurance. Somehow, and I don't like this, the more I read the New Testament, the more I see God puts a premium on that virtue.
For some reason or other, God thinks it's very important that we learn what it is to endure. to develop the strength of character that is able to remain under. And God may give you that instead of the deliverance you're looking for. But that'll be His power. That'll be His power. He's able to do that. He's able to work endurance in your life. He's able to do that. so unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. How can you write that?
El Shadiah. Is anything too hard for the Lord? You're dealing with El Shadiah. And this is the name, the title of God, that comes to us in this experience of Abraham. That's his name, El Shadiah. And he can do for us everything that needs to be done. He's the all-powerful God. But don't forget He is the God, not us. It's El Shaddai. And He will retain the use of that power to His own discretion.
But there is no problem we face that He can't handle. Now there are two other names that come out in this chapter. One is for Abram and one is for Sarah. And I just want to look at that rather quickly. Perhaps not take Sarah. Now, why do we leave her out anyhow? But Sarah means princess, as you know, and that's what she was going to be. And Abram, which is that lonely high father, becomes Abraham, the father of multitudes because of what God said is going to happen here in chapter seventeen. But God is in the habit of giving people new names. He gave every one of the patriarchs his name. Isaac's before his birth. But Abraham and Jacob afterwards.
Abram, he changed to Abraham. Jacob, he changed to Israel. And you come to the New Testament. Jesus was in the habit of doing that with his disciples. Simon Peter, James and John, named them sons of thunder. And he's always changing names of people. Saul to Paul. Now when that happens in the scripture, not always, but parents sometimes do that, or a man changes his own name. But when God does it, it is usually indicative of the destiny of that individual. Abram, the lonely father, to Abraham, the father of a multitude, that's what God was going to make of him.
That was his destiny. That was his future. It's predicted. Just as when we name our children with a Bible name that has some significance to us, it's because we hope that's the way it's going to turn out. But when God gives the name, he isn't hoping. He's predicting. He says, this is the way it's going to be. And our Lord looks at this disciple that we know as Simon Peter. He says, this is what you are. This is what you're going to be. I am going to make you something. And so he changed his name in keeping with what he was going to make him. and poor twisted Jacob. Imagine this is the man that's given the name Israel, Prince of God.
That's what God was going to make of him. And his descendants forever after would be known as the children of Israel. And those changes in names are God's predictions of the destiny of these individuals. And that's what you have here. But along with that destiny, there goes a responsibility. God says to Abram, when he changes his name to Abraham, walk before me and be perfect. That goes along with the new name. It's not all privilege, it's responsibility. If you want to occupy the destiny, you have to pick up the responsibility. Now walk before me is different from walk with me.
To walk with me is to walk in fellowship. To walk before me is to walk in responsibility. I am aware that life is lived before God. And one day, I as a steward of that life shall examine it in the presence of Jesus Christ, or have him examine it, and hear it. His judgment, His evaluation of how I have carried out my responsibility. Now look, for all of you, the particular responsibility is not the important thing.
If God has called some to a ministry of prominence in the whole Christian world, and he has called you to a ministry of insignificance in the whole Christian world, the particular responsibility is neither here nor there. That's his sovereign choice. How we handle that responsibility is all important. And whether you are a king or a street sweeper is not important if that's what God wants you to do. it's how you do the job now when we think about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and we shall stand before him the important thing is not whether or not he comes in our lifetime whether he comes today or whether he comes tomorrow whether he comes a thousand years from now that's not the important thing and I'm a little afraid of the idea would you want Jesus to catch you doing that if he should come tonight what difference does it make whether he comes tonight or not if I'm doing it After all, when I stand at the judgment seat of Christ, what I am doing tonight is going to come up.
Whether he caught me at it or not has nothing to do with it. When he comes, there will be an evaluation of all of my life, including tonight. And so we simply live life in light of that evaluation. not in fearful bondage, but in glad service. And in the happy realization that when He passes His verdict on it, we shall recognize it as the true verdict finally.
You see, you folks don't know me at all. All you do is hear me. And if in the grace of God, something helpful is said, you think the minister that says it is pretty good. And every one of us who ministers the Word of God is thankful to God that you don't know us. And some of you who do know something about us, evaluate what you hear in light of what you think you know. and you refuse the minister because of what you think you know about the minister.
And we make all sorts of value judgments about each other that are totally wrong and should never have been made to begin with. God has never given us the responsibility of judging each other. And you see, when you like what I say and it helps you, and you say so, then I think, oh, I'm glad you don't really know me. And when you think you know me and put me down, I always have hopes that you're mistaken. But when I stand before Jesus Christ, I shall know with gladness, this is the true evaluation.
That's exactly right. And that'll put us at peace. So the responsibility to walk before him. Now, read the Gospels, will you? As I said last year, not for the theology, not for the dispensational views of it. Try to read the Gospels once and forget all that. And see the Lord Jesus Christ. And see how those men that he called to be his disciples responded to him. What was it like for those men to live before Jesus Christ?
And you read the Gospels and you see that. One thing that stands out in my thinking as I read it is they were very much at home with him. Evidently, to live before him is not a fearful thing at all. They seem to be very, very comfortable with him. so that when my well-meaning brethren come to me and they try to make me uncomfortable in his presence, I reject it. Because his disciples were very comfortable with him.
Walking before the Lord Jesus didn't seem to inspire them with terror. It seemed to inspire them with joy. Our Lord in fact describes it that way. He says he and his disciples are like the bridegroom and his friends going to the wedding feast. So God says to Abraham with this new name, walk before me and be perfect. Now that's the idea of being whole, be complete. I think in the Old Testament when it's used of sacrifices, it means without blemish, but when it's used of human beings, it means to be wholehearted.
And I find this is one of the things God wants, not sinless perfection. We'll get that one day. But what God wants is wholeheartedness. And that's the thing that Peter appealed to when Jesus said, Peter, do you love me? You know that I love you. Sure I fell. But you know that at heart I am committed to you. I am wholeheartedly you. Perfect in the sense of sinless? No. But wholehearted. And that's why the Lord Jesus in the book of the Revelation speaks of a lukewarm church. I'll spew you out of my mouth. I'd rather have you cold than lukewarm.
But what I really want you is hot. But not lukewarm. What God wants is for us to be wholehearted. And you know, I wish there was some way. I have a deep longing in my own heart to get free of all the petty regulations that men impose on me that I'm afraid to cross. I want to be free to be wholehearted before Jesus Christ and make my mistake. But make them as a wholehearted Christian. and not have to worry about all the man-made regulations that Jesus Christ has nothing to do with to begin with.
Walk before me, not before my brethren, walk before me. Sure I want to consider my brethren, but I do not walk before my brethren. I walk before the Lord. Supposedly. No, I don't, but that's what I should be doing. Walk before me and be wholehearted. Now, I want to say more. Let me finish with one thing. If, as it seems in the Scripture, when God gives a person a new name, that refers to his destiny, I come finally to the book of the Revelation, and to the overcomer there is going to be given a new name.
Oh, what a destiny. What a destiny. And it's a name that only that individual knows. Each of us is still going to be a distinct personal individual. And each of us with his new name given to us by the Lord Jesus is going to have a tremendous destiny. Forever and forever. that individuality before Jesus Christ, that great destiny that He has planned for us. A new name.
Aha, it won't be Abraham then. A whole new name for a whole new destiny. What a prospect. What a future. A new name. Can He pull it off? Do you think you can pull it off? Aha, El Shaddai, the Almighty God. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we praise you and we bless you for that sacrifice on the cross that brought us to God.
and open for us a whole new life and a whole new destiny. And one day from your own hand we shall receive the stone with the new name and we shall enter in to what is now totally beyond our comprehension. that glorious destiny that you have prepared for each one of us. Help us in the freedom and the joy of being yours to walk before you and to be wholehearted.