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Subject 11 : The Tabernacle
[11-3] Yahweh the Living God (Exodus 34:1-8)
(Exodus 34:1-8)
“And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Cut two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I will write on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke. So be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself to Me there on the top of the mountain. And no man shall come up with you, and let no man be seen throughout all the mountain; let neither flocks nor herds feed before that mountain.’ So he cut two tablets of stone like the first ones. Then Moses rose early in the morning and went up Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him; and he took in his hand the two tablets of stone. Now the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.’ So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped.”
We Need to Find out Who Really Is This God in Whom We Believe
Let us begin by turning to Exodus 3:13-16: “Then Moses said to God, ‘Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?’ And God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’’ Moreover God said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.’ Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and say to them, ‘The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared to me, saying, ‘I have surely visited you and seen what is done to you in Egypt’’”
Who Is Yahweh God?
The name of the Lord in Hebrew is Yahweh or Yhwh, traditionally Jehovah, and Yahweh means He who exists by Himself. God is, in other words, not a creation, but He who exists by Himself, the Creator who made the whole universe and everything in it.
Let’s take a look at Exodus 6:2-7: “And God spoke to Moses and said to him: ‘I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name LORD I was not known to them. I have also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, in which they were strangers. And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. Therefore say to the children of Israel: ‘I am the LORD; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the LORD your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.`’’
Verse 3 above says, “I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name LORD I was not known to them.” In the King James Version, the clause “by my name LORD” is written as “by my name JEHOVAH.” The Hebrew word JEHOVAH means “the existing One” or “the proper name of the one true God.” God had not made His name of Jehovah known to the mankind before. So people at that time just called Him as God. But now, to save the people of Israel, God wanted to let His name of Jehovah be known to all the people of this world. “I am Jehovah. I am Yahweh. I am who I am, He who exists by Himself.” God wanted to thus let Himself be known.
God is He who exists by Himself, “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” He has been alive even before the most ancient times, even before the very beginning of everything. God, in other words, lives and exists eternally. God had allowed that the people of Israel, the children of Abraham, to be enslaved in Egypt for 430 years, and then He had promised that He would deliver them from their slavery and lead them into the land of Canaan. Just as He had thus promised, Jehovah God appeared after 430 years, and commanded Moses to deliver the people of Israel from the persecution of Pharaoh. “I am Jehovah. I am who I am, your God. Let My people go.” For the sake of His people, He manifested Himself before Moses, and commanded Pharaoh to let His people go, for Jehovah God knew of the sufferings of the people of Israel. Because He knew that His people were moaning under their sufferings, God said that He would deliver them from their slavery.
After 430 years since He made His promise to Abraham, God came to the people of Israel and manifested Himself to them. “I am Jehovah. I am God. I have come to fulfill the promise that I made to Abraham, your father, that I would lead his children out of Egypt into the land of Canaan. And I also know all your sufferings. Now go to Pharaoh and tell him so.” This is what Jehovah God said.
We must realize that God is in fact the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God is also our own God, of you and me. What, then, is His name? His name is Yahweh, meaning He who exists by Himself. God has existed even before the creation of the universe, as He who exists by Himself, whose being came not by someone else, but by Himself.
We Must Understand the Meaning of God’s Name
It is critical that we realize and believe that God is actually He who exists by Himself, the One who has made us, who rules over us, and who has delivered us from our sins. We must believe in Yahweh God as our absolute God, for this Yahweh God did in fact create the whole universe, and does continue to exist even as now.
Like the people of Israel, you and I also believe in God, and have also received His commands before His presence. Just as the people of Israel had failed to keep all the Law, we, too, have failed to live by the Law. As such, because of our sins before God, we were also the kind of beings who could not avoid but be subjected to the fearful judgment of sin. Because of our sins, in other words, we actually could not escape from being condemned by Him for our sins.
This is why every one of us should pay a ransom to God to atone for his/her own sins. To be saved from our sins, we had to give to God the Father the wages of atonement equal to our own life, with our faith. We had to actually give the sacrificial offering equivalent to our own life in order to satisfy His just judgment and to reveal the merciful love of God. Only by giving the actual atonement of life for our sins could peace be restored between God and us the mankind. It is only through faith that we can be delivered from all our sins and condemnation.
Because this indeed is the case, whenever we go before God, we had to admit, because of the sins that we have committed before Him, that we could not help but be judged and punished for these sins. When we believe in God as our Savior, we must actually recognize and admit that we are bound to hell because of our sins, and believe in the Messiah, who has paid the wages of our sins and delivered us from the judgment of sin, as our own Savior. When we go before God, we must believe in the baptism and blood of Jesus Christ, the sacrificial offering of our sins, believe in Him as the Messiah, and recognize Him as such. We must admit that we have all become sinners before God because of our failure to keep His commandments, and we must believe that Jesus Christ the Messiah has delivered us from our sins.
We must recognize that we could not avoid but be subjected to God’s punishment of sin. By thus admitting our sinfulness, we became qualified to receive the blessing of the remission of sin that God has given us, and we were able to build the foundation of our faith that can garner God’s mercy and receive His remission of sin.
To make us His own children, God made us in His own image, but He allowed us to be born in weaknesses. As the descendants of Adam, we all are born as sinners, but this is God’s profound providence to make us His children.
We were such beings that could not avoid but be judged for our sins, but to fulfill His will, God sent His own Son to us, and has forgiven us of all our sins. Jesus, the Son of God, received His baptism and died on the Cross in obedience to God’s plan. Jehovah God therefore has given new life to those of us who believe that all the sins of the world were passed onto His Son with His baptism from John, that He saved us from all our sins with His blood on the Cross, and that He thus bore all the condemnation of our sins.
The baptism of Jesus and His blood were the sacrificial offering that was more than enough to allow us, when we believe, to receive new life, to be saved from all our sins, and to become God’s children. We must be saved from all our sins by believing, and with our faith in the blue, purple, and scarlet thread and the fine woven line, we must have the kind of faith that allows us to become the people of God. It is the absolute truth, in fact, that only those who have such faith can indeed become God’s own people.
All the Deities of the Religions of This World Are Merely the Creatures of Mankind’s Own Making
Apart from Jehovah God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, all other deities are just worldly deities made up by the mankind itself. Except for God, there is nothing in this world that exists by itself. This is why Yahweh God said, “I AM WHO I AM.”
If there, in fact, anyone who exists by himself? Buddha was born from his mother’s womb, and so he is only a creature of God. So is Confucius, and so is Mohammed, for they were all born from their parents, and therefore are merely creatures made by God. The statues of Buddha that his followers have molded or carved out are also merely man’s own creation, made with the stones or metals that God Himself created. Everything, from the sun to the moon, the stars, the water, the air, and the galaxies of the universe, was all made by God. There is nothing in this world that was not made by God. Even angels, the spiritual beings, were also made by God.
Only the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in whom we believe, is Yahweh God, He who exists by Himself. Yahweh God was not made by anyone else. Only He exits by Himself, only He is the Creator of the whole universe, and only He is the One who made you and me. Only this Yahweh God has planned in His will to save us from our sins and make us His own people.
It is because God has thus planned that He made us be born into this world while crying and return empty-handed, and it is because of this plan that He has allowed us to suffer in this world, so that we could not help but search for God and meet Him.
When we say that we believe in God, we must actually admit that we are the kind of beings that, because of our sins and our failure to keep God’s commandments, cannot avoid but face the punishment of death, hell, and fearful sufferings before God. Before we believe in Jesus Christ the Messiah as our Savior, we must first recognize ourselves as sinners who cannot avoid but face the fearful judgment of sin and be cast out to hell.
Yahweh God Is Omniscient and Omnipotent
Only God is the omniscient and omnipotent God who truly made us and rules over the world. After recognizing this, we must then admit before God just what kind of sinners we really are—that is, we must admit that because of our sins, we cannot avoid but be subjected to the fearful wrath of God. And we must believe in the truth that by believing in the Lamb of God who came to deliver us from all our sins, and by passing all our sins onto this sacrificial offering by laying our hands on His head, all our problems of sin are resolved. It is we who must in fact be judged and died for our sins, but because this sacrificial offering took upon all our sins with His baptism, our sins could be washed away. We must believe in this truth. We must recognize that through this sacrificial offering, God the Almighty, for whom nothing is impossible, has indeed saved us, we who could not avoid but be bound to hell, from all our sins. People who believe so are true believers of Jesus Christ the Messiah.
It is, in fact, wrong to believe in the Messiah arbitrarily. When we say that we believe in God, our faith must be established on the biblically sound foundation. And we have to set the very first and powerful foundation of truth on His Word, which said, “I am who I am. I am Jehovah.”
The people of Israel failed to keep the Law that God had commanded them to follow. The commandments that God gave to the Israelites were also given to those of us who are living in today’s age. If you really want to believe in God, and if you really want to become the children of Abraham with your faith, you must recognize that God has given the 613 commandments not only to the Israelites, but also to us, to everyone in this world, and to the entire universe. And we must actually recognize that we have also failed to keep the commandment, like the Israelites, and thus we are destined to death, for “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).
We must believe that God has forgiven our sins with the truth of the blue, purple, and scarlet thread. To do so, we must go out in search of the truth of salvation, by which our Lord has delivered us from our sins and the condemnation of our sins.
Despite having failed to keep God’s strict commandments, if we do not realize that we are terrible sinners, and if we do not admit that we are bound to be judged for our sins, then we would never be able to believe in the Messiah. If people were to believe that they would enter Heaven even though they remain sinful, when, in fact, God has already recorded their sins in the Book of Judgment, they would then be changing God’s Law on their own, committing the sin of calling God’s name in vain. Such people will not ever be able to be saved from their sins. They will be eternally judged of their sins, and be condemned with the punishment of hell, for regardless of whether they believe in God or not, they have not recognized God. These people must repent at once and turn away from their unbelief.
Even at this very moment, God is in our hearts, and exists by Himself in all these spaces. And He knows everything about us.
Though God is alive, there are people who do not believe in Him, some even taunting Him. But we are all in need of sacrificial offerings for our sins. This is why God made the Israelites give the offering of atonement with their sacrificial offerings on the Tabernacle’s altar of burnt offering, in accordance to the way of salvation that God had set.
God is indeed He who exists by Himself. He is the One who was before, and is now. He is God who lived, appeared, and spoke to our forefathers of faith long before, the One who lives, appears, and speaks to us now, He who works among us, leads us, and rules over our lives.
The Truth That We Must Not Forget
Though we have been saved, there is one thing we must never forget. It is that though we could not avoid but to be judged eternally, with His baptism and by shedding His blood on the Cross, our Lord has delivered us from all such judgment of our sins. Until the day we stand before our Lord, in fact, we must never forget this truth and always believe it in our hearts. We must believe it even when we are in the Kingdom of Heaven praising God. We must thank God for allowing us, the very people who could not avoid but be cursed eternally and judged for their sins, to believe in our Lord as the Savior, and for giving us eternal life.
We must recognize the gospel of the water and the Spirit forever. What would happen if we do not admit that we are bound to be eternally judged because of our sins? There would be no reason for us to praise God. God has actually saved us, the mortal beings who could not avoid but be judged forever because of our sins. This is why we must believe and praise the Lord—because our Lord received His baptism and shed His blood for our sake. This is why you, too, must believe, and this is why we must all preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Those who believe in the baptism that Jesus received and the blood that He shed for their sins have hearts that praise God. Because the Lord has saved them from their sins and death, they praise Him every day with their faith.
The problem is that some people have misunderstood Jesus. Their knowledge of Him is one-sided and half-empty. These are the kind of people whose conscience has been corrupted, who do not even realize that they are committing sin when, in fact, they are indeed engulfed in all kinds of sin. Those who commit sin and yet do not even recognize it as sin—none other than these are sinners.
Though we are actually weak beings who cannot help but sin, we must admit our sins every time we commit them, and we must confirm the baptism of our Lord and His blood on the Cross—that is, the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We therefore in fact do admit that we cannot but be sinners before God. And by actually believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we can breathe in relief. Indeed, by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we have earned our peace of mind.
When I speak of being sinless, it does not mean that we would not recognize our sins even when we actually commit them. It does not mean that those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit need not recognize sin as sin. Though we have in fact been delivered from all our sins, we still recognize the sins that we commit for what they are—as our sins. What we must never forget is that though we could not avoid but be judged eternally because of our sins, our Lord has saved us from all our sins and the condemnation of sin with His baptism, His blood on the Cross, and His resurrection. We must never, ever forget that our Lord has saved us with the blue, purple, and scarlet thread, but believe in it and praise Him for it. We must remember how we were before. Remember that we once were such poor beings who could not avoid but be eternally judged for our sins. And we must praise the salvation of the remission of sin given by God, and thank Him everyday for His great grace of salvation. None other than this is the faith of the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Yahweh God Is Alive Even Now
Just as God was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He is now your and my God. “God is not the author of confusion but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33). He is not the God of those Christians who are of pretentious and flamboyant deeds, but He is the God of those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We have the faith that believes in the Word of God and obeys Him with “yes.” God is our God. When He actually tells us, “You are destined to hell,” we say to Him, “Yes, You are right.” When He tells us, “You will continue to sin until the day you die,” then we also say again, “Yes, You’re right.” And when He says to us, “But I have actually saved you with My blue, purple, and scarlet thread and fine woven linen,” we can only say, yet again, “Yes, You’re very right.” We have thus become the people of God who always obey Him with “yes.” I thank our God for His grace that has saved us with the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
We must believe and recognize in our hearts that our Lord has indeed saved us from all our sins through the water, the blood, and the Spirit, and has thereby made us the people of the Kingdom of God. Give thanks to the Lord by believing that the gospel of the water and the Spirit is the gift of salvation that God has given you.
I praise God forever with my faith for eternally saving me, who actually could not avoid but be bound to hell because of my sins, with the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Remembering that we were in fact all of bronze—that is, we could not escape the judgment of God—and we therefore cannot but praise God for our deliverance from sin, for saving us with His blue, purple, and scarlet thread and fine woven linen. And we must thank Him by believing in the truth of the gospel hidden in these blue, purple, and scarlet thread and fine woven linen.
Only Yahweh God is the God of the whole mankind. And He has become God the Savior of the entire human race. We must all believe in Yahweh God as our own God. Amen
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