Names of God: Yahweh Sabaoth (S09, E06)

Greetings and welcome to the Faith Chapel podcast. My name is Jason and I'm

the pastor of Faith Chapel.

In the podcast today, we are continuing to go through an eight-episode series on the names of God.

In the teaching today, we are going to be learning about the name of God,

Yahweh Sabaoth, which means the God of the angel armies.

This name of God shows us that God leads the army that is stronger than any earthly army.

Thanks for joining us as we dive into this,

Exodus, Exodus chapter 14, verse 14.

Exodus 14:14

There's a very powerful verse, but let me set the scene first.

The Israelites have just left Egypt after the 10th plague that God has sent

upon Egypt to disrupt Egypt's gods, to let Egypt know who the real God was.

And so the 10th plague comes, It's the death of the firstborn sons and the Pharaoh

of Egypt at that time tells the Israelite leader Moses, get.

I don't want to see your face again. I will destroy you if I do.

And so Moses gathers all of the Israelites together and they start walking away from Egypt.

After some time, the Egyptians are rethinking what they just did.

They let their slave labor force go and it made them very, very mad.

And so they mustered all of the troops that they had and they went out to go

and capture these Israelites again.

God took and led the Israelites by a very unique way to get out of Egypt because

he took them right to the shore of the Red Sea.

And so the Israelites, when they turned around, they saw an Egyptian army all around them.

And when they looked in front of them, they saw a very deep body of water that

was blocking them from leaving or moving.

And so they were really stuck with no place to go.

And so what did the Israelites do? They complained to Moses.

They griped about how they were in this predicament that they should have never

left Egypt, that it would have been better for them to be enslaved in Egypt

than to be out here in this predicament.

But Moses says to them, guys, today your God will fight your battle for you.

Just relax. And then God sent the strong wind, the waters of the Red Sea parted,

the Israelites walked through to safety.

God will fight your battles for you.

God is fighting your battles for you.

And that's what the video showed.

A very unique story in the Old Testament where Elisha, a prophet, he

was somebody who was close to God and this army was surrounding their town because of him.

They wanted him and they wanted him gone.

But Elisha's servant is the one that was scared.

He was the one that was like, what are we going to do? And Elisha was the one

that said, you need to calm down.

Our God is fighting for us. And then he prays, God, open his eyes so that he can see what I see.

And all around them in the hills and mountains surrounding that town were thousands

and thousands of chariots that were on fire,

and angels of God ready for war.

And as we continue our series on the names of God, we are going to look at today

the name of the God of the angel armies.

It is the name Yahweh Sabaoth. Yahweh Sabaoth.

And it's translated in three different ways depending on which translation of

the Bible you read. If you read the NIV and others like it, it's going to translate

this phrase as Lord Almighty.

If you look at the ESV and others like it, it's going to translate it as the Lord of hosts.

If you look at it in the New Living Translation, which is what I'm going to

be reading from today, you're going to see that it's called out the Lord of the angel armies.

And all of these symbolize something very profound about the character of God.

It shows us how strong he is.

It shows us that he is commanding an army that is greater than any force we will face.

And he is its commander.

Our God, the one we pray to, the one we serve, the one we learn about,

is the one who is in charge of the strongest army ever.

And that should give us a lot of hope and peace.

And our scripture lesson for today will come to us from the book of 1 Samuel chapter 1.

1 Samuel 1 · chapter mention

But before we turn there, let me pray.

Lord God Almighty, we come before you today and we ask that you will give us

eyes that see you, ears that hear you, and hearts and minds that know you and love you.

We pray, Father, that your word will be a lamp into our feet and a light into

our path. And we pray that your spirit will be here.

Even if we need to hear one word, give us the ability to hear and to fixate

that one word that we need to hear that will draw us into a closer relationship with you.

And Jesus, I pray that we will be able to tell you how priceless you are as

we go through the reading of your scripture.

Jesus, I pray for this in your name. Amen.

So in 1 Samuel 1, we meet a family.

The patriarch is a guy by the name of Elkanah, and he has two wives.

One is called Hannah, and the other is called Peninnah.

And these people, this family group, makes a yearly trip to Shiloh,

a place in Israel, to sacrifice to the Lord.

So I just gave you a quick recap of verses one and two, and we're gonna pick it up in verse three.

Each year, Elkanah would travel to Shiloh to worship and sacrifice to Yahweh

Sabaoth, the Lord of heaven's armies at the tabernacle.

The priests of the Lord at that time were the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas.

So we are introduced to this name of God in this third verse.

And this verse seems to be connected with Shiloh because this is the first place

we see this in scripture.

And Shiloh is the place at this moment in time where the tent of meeting is.

As the Israelites wandered the desert for 40 years, the tent of meeting was their worship center.

It was the place where the Levitical priests would go and they would offer the

burning incense before God. They would put the bread out, the bread of presence out in front of God.

And this is where outside this tent, right outside this tent,

they would offer the sacrifices to God. This was their centerpiece.

This was their place of worshiping God.

And in the inner sanctum of it was this place called the Holy of Holies.

This was a place where only one person could go one day out of the year.

This is where the Ark of the Covenant was, and the Ark of the Covenant was where

God's throne on earth was. This was where God's presence dwelled.

And as this Shiloh became this area where the Ark of the Covenant,

God's throne room, was for several years, this place became known as where God sends out his army.

From this place is where God becomes the commander of his angel army.

And so Elkanah goes here and he sacrifices to the general of the angel armies.

And he goes year in and year out. This is something they do all the time.

Continuing on in the story, we read, on the days Elkanah presented his sacrifice,

he would give portions of the meat to Peninnah, one of his wives,

and each of her children.

And though he loved Hannah, he would give her only one choice portion because

the Lord had given her no children.

So Peninnah would taunt Hannah and make fun of her because the Lord had kept

her from having children.

Year after year, it was the same. Peninnah would taunt Hannah as they went to the tabernacle.

Each time, Hannah would be reduced to tears and would not even eat.

Why are you crying, Hannah? Elkanah would ask. Why aren't you eating?

Why be downhearted just because you have no children? You have me.

Isn't that better than having ten sons?

That's okay to laugh at that, because that's a very crazy thing to say.

So what's happening here is that,

Hannah was battling a lot of different issues in her life at this time.

She was battling infertility, but that wasn't the main source.

Her main source of pain at this moment was the human pain that was inflicted

upon her by Elkanah's second wife.

And so she received these taunts and this ridicule, and this really, really pained her.

She also was dealing with her self-doubt. Am I not good enough to be a mom?

Am I not someone who God will bless with this?

And then lastly, she was also dealing with the struggle of, is God really good?

If I am going through this season, if I'm going through this hardship,

is God someone who is good?

And so she was dealing with a lot here. This wasn't just one issue.

She was battling many, many issues in this moment.

And you and I, we have a lot of issues that we are going through.

Like Cheryl said when she introduced the songs, this is something in the eye of the storm.

This is something we're all going to face. We will all have trials.

We will all have tribulations.

We will all go through pain and suffering in our lives.

No one is immune from it. And Hannah was going through one of these trials and it reduced her to tears.

And Elkanah, at least he was trying. At least he didn't just throw her under

the bus. He was trying to comfort her.

He was giving her a good portion. And that's a very interesting part of this verse.

This verse is a very difficult Hebrew phrase that no one really knows what it means.

Literally, it means two noses as one choice portion.

Two noses as one choice portion. And so some translations use a double portion

here, that Elkanah would give Hannah a double portion.

This chooses to say it's going to be a choice portion.

No one really knows what it means, but it's a very good part of the meal that

Elkanah gives to Hannah to try to comfort her.

And then he tries to comfort her with his words, which he is definitely not a wordsmith.

And he's kind of arrogant in that.

Look, I'm here. Aren't I enough for you?

And at least he tries. He's really, really trying to give Hannah the help she needs.

But Hannah needs help from someone else.

She needs help from the God of the angel armies. And that's where she turns.

In verse 9, we read, Once, after a sacrificial meal at Shiloh,

Hannah got up and went to pray.

Eli the priest was sitting at his customary place beside the entrance of the tabernacle.

Hannah was in deep anguish, crying bitterly as she prayed to the Lord, and she made this vow.

O Yahweh, Sabaoth, O Lord of the heavens' armies, If you will look upon my sorrow

and answer my prayer and give me a son, then I will give him back to you.

He will be yours for his entire lifetime. And as a sign that he has been dedicated

to the Lord, his hair will never be cut.

She is in the place where God's throne room is, where the general sits.

And she's calling out to him, oh, Yahweh of heaven's armies,

I need you to intervene here.

I need your strength. I need your soldiers on my side.

I need you surrounding me. And if you do this and provide this gift for me,

he will be yours. I will bring him back here after he is weaned and I will give

him to you to serve you all the days of his life.

She makes what the Levitical law, what happens in the first five books of the

Bible, calls a Nazarite vow for her son.

And a Nazarite vow is three things. One, his hair will not be cut in the time

frame that is designated.

Two, they will not eat or drink from the vine.

And the third one has escaped me at the moment.

But that is what she's vowing for him. She is going after God,

and she is calling out to the one who leads the angel armies.

We learn in verse 20 that God answers this prayer, and then Hannah brings him

and dedicates him to the Lord.

And then in chapter 2, verse 1, we read this, My heart rejoices in the Lord.

The Lord has made me strong.

Now I have an answer for my enemies. I rejoice because you rescued me.

Salvation is what Hannah really needed.

Salvation is what she desperately cried out for.

And God vanquished all of her enemies, her self-doubt.

He vanquished her doubts of God's goodness. She vanquished Peninnah and her taunts.

She vanquished every one of her adversaries because our God is the God of the

angel armies, the strongest army in the world.

Our God makes miracles happen.

We come to this passage on a day where we dedicated seven children.

Hannah brings her son Samuel, who this book is named after, and she dedicates him to the Lord.

And so as we trust God with the care of these children, as we ask God to intervene

and to bless them and to keep them,

we are coming to the God of the angel armies, the God whose armies are undefeatable.

On Wednesday, when we were in our prayer study, we went over about what desperate

prayer looks like. And we looked at a passage in 2 Samuel where King David was desperate.

He had made a ton of mistakes recently.

He had killed a person. He had committed adultery. He was trying to hide up

that adultery and God was punishing him in that moment.

And he fell on his face for a whole week and he was desperately crying out to

God to take this penalty away, which was ultimately the child that came about as of the adulteries.

God said that that child would die.

And he got on his face and he fell and he was really pursuing God in desperation.

God did not answer the prayer in the way David asked and the child passed away.

You see, God doesn't answer every prayer in the affirmative.

God does answer our prayers and he hears our prayers, but they're not always a yes or a no.

Sometimes it's not now.

God is not a genie that we can ask for anything and he will grant it to us.

God knows what is best for us.

And so as we are like David and we're desperately calling out to God for these

children, we have to understand that God does not allow us to win every battle.

There will be hardships and tribulations. but what God does promise us and what

we can take to the bank is that God will win the war.

God is not going to lose in the end and that's something that we can hold on

to even when our battles are losing.

Even when we lose and we're falling at the feet of God and it seems to fall

on deaf ears our God will not lose the war.

One of the most memorable scenes from The Passion of the Christ for me is right

after the death of Jesus.

They show the character that plays Satan, and he's in this huge circle.

And Satan, as Jesus has died on the cross, he lifts up his voice and he screams.

I have always taken that to mean that Satan thought that he had defeated God.

God, I've always taken that to mean that he thought he was the king of this

earth now, but he's not because Jesus didn't stay dead.

Jesus had to die for our sins to be forgiven, but he rose from the dead and

conquer of not just sin, but also death, our last two adversaries.

Jesus is our victory.

This is what the God of the angel armies can do for us and has done for us.

If we just come under his lordship, if we come under him and say,

you are my king and my master,

and I trust you, you're not gonna win every battle, and I get that,

but you are strong enough to win every battle, and so I can bring every prayer

request to you because you're going to win the war and I'm going to be on your side.

It is such good news. And so I invite you, when you're feeling down,

when you're feeling like you're at the end of your rope, when you're feeling

like you can't take one step forward,

call out to Yahweh Sabaoth,

the Lord of the angel armies, to remind you that his is the victory.

Let me pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, we come before you today and we give you thanks and praise.

You are the victory.

No one,

will ultimately defeat you. You lead the strongest army.

And you love us so much that you are on our side.

I pray, Father, that we will humbly accept this gift of salvation and your victory.

And I pray, Father, that it will change us.

From just going through the motions to really being on fire for you.

Jesus, I ask this in your name.

For joining us in the discussion about the name of God, Yahweh Sabaoth,

which is translated in three different ways, depending on the English translation.

The translations are Lord Almighty, the Lord of hosts, or the Lord of the angel armies.

The significance to this name is that it shows God's strength,

and also that he fights for his people.

If you would like more information about Faith Chapel and its ministries,

please visit the website gofaithchapel.org.

Next week, we continue the series on the different names and titles of God in the Bible.

Each of these descriptors show us something about who God is.

Join us next week as we look at the name Yeshua, which is the name Mary and

Joseph would have put on Jesus' birth certificate. Have a great week. you.