We can get the idea that Passover came about because the Lord wanted to deliver the Israelites out of slavery and kill some Egyptians, but that was not really the reason.
Basically, God wanted to introduce Himself as Yahweh.
The Passover is to mean much in the way of real experience in God, but we cannot have a real experience without having a real revelation of Him.
God brings us to a place where, in a very real sense, He reveals Himself to us; for we cannot really know how to call upon the Lord unless we know who He is.
When we read the Scriptures, we are accustomed to using the names for God as they have been translated.
Yet Bible translations that give His original Hebrew names provide a revelation of Him in certain things that happened.
The Passover must be viewed as a revelation of Yahweh, which has been translated as Jehovah.
However, the word Jehovah is a poor translation, a distortion of the real meaning of Yahweh, a Hebrew name for God.
We need to learn about Yahweh and also about Yahshua, His Son.
When we say that we worship God, what do we mean?
The word god originally referred to a pagan deity ( the Assyrian deity Gawd ).
We might as well face the fact that we do not know much about the name of God.
Yet we are coming to the great Passover of the ages in which God will give us a new name, and He will reveal His name to us.
Revelation 19:12 describes our blessed Savior and Lord by saying, "He has a name written which no man knows."
It would be good for us to go back to the original names of God and study them.
We can find them in two translations of the Bible: The Restoration of Original Sacred Name Bible and The Holy name Bible ( twenty years in the making ).
These translations give the true Hebrew name of God instead of the translated distortions of His names.
As we compare passages from these and other translations, it is not that we are assuming a negative attitude about speaking the name of Jesus; rather we want to be brought into a greater understanding of the Lord.
God leads us slowly into some revelations so that we come to believe truths which we may have rebelled at when we first head them, because of our past conditioning.
We know only a small fragment of what we will know.
We believe only a small portion of what we will come to believe.
How wonderful it would be if God combined in our minds revelation with a pure objectivity.
So that we would begin to weigh the things that God speaks and learn by them.
So that His voice will be heard in the land again, and so that every word will be confirmed with great accuracy to our hearts.
It is important for us to see how the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, first originated.
The second chapter of Exodus ends with God hearing the groanings of the children of Israel in their bondage.
Their cry for help rose up to God and He heard them.
If you have ever felt that God does not hear your prayers, why not try groaning?
Chapter 3 begins with Moses pasturing the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law.
In verse 2 we read that the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses.
Who was the angel of the Lord?
In his book What The Bible Teaches, R. A. Torrey shows that in the Old Testament our blessed Lord Jesus Christ was often referred to as "angel of the Lord."
Jesus also appeared as the angel of the Lord to Manoah, the father of Samson ( Judges 13 ), as well as to others.
He came as the angel of the Lord.
It was the way He chose to manifest Himself.
The Phrase "the angel of the Lord" is only mentioned once at the beginning of Exodus 3.
In the rest of the passage, He is referred to as "the Lord."
And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed.
So Moses said, "I must turn aside now, and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up."
When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look ( notice that it says, "the Lord" ), God called to him from the midst of the bush, and said, "Moses, Moses!"
And he said, "Here I am." Exodus 3:2-4, NASB.
What was really being said in this passage?
In The Holy Name Bible we read: And the Angel of Yahweh appeared unto him in a flame of fire.... Verse 2.
And when Yahweh saw that he turned aside to see, Elohim called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses!
And he said, Here am I. Verse 4.
Some Scholars have erroneously taught that "Jehovah" and "Elohim" were not the same God.
The Scriptures show us that Elohim said, "I am Jehovah."
In Exodus 6:3 God told Moses, "By My name Jehovah I was not known in the generations past."
In effect, He was saying, "But now I have come to Introduce Myself."
God was not changing His name.
He was saying, I want to reveal another name to you so that you will understand."
Moses' response when God ( Elohim ) called to him from out of the burning bush is very significant.
He said, "Here I Am," just when God was about to say, "My name is I AM" ( I AM THAT I AM ).
This is how the Passover started.
God had heard a few people groan, and He started to do something about it.
He had to convince them first, and so He came down and revealed Himself.
He wanted His people to know who He was.
After God had Moses' attention, He said, "Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."
( In Joshua 5:13-15 we read that the Lord said the same thing at the Passover on the plains of Jordan when He appeared to Joshua as the captain of the host of Israel. )
He said also, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."
Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
And the Lord said, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings.
So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.
"And now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them.
Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt."
But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?"
( It is not important who you are; it is important who He is.)
And He said, "Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you; when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain."
Then Moses said to God, "Behold, Im going to the sons of Israel, and I shall say to them, "The God of your fathers has sent me to you."
Now they may say to me, "What is His name?'
"I AM WHO I AM"; and he said, thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.' " Exodus 3:5-14, NASB.
Verses 13-14 in The Holy name Bible tell us: And Moses said unto Elohim, Behold, when I come unto to the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The Elohim of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is His name?
What shall I say unto them?
And Elohim said unto Moses, AYAH-ASHERAYAH ( an idiom meaning, "I will be all that is necessary as the occasion will arise," He is the All Becoming One) .
And He said thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I WILL BE hath sent me unto you.
The word that God used to express His name is a verb that means "to be."
It refers basically to the future tense.
However, you must understand that in the language of the Scriptures, God was not saying, "I am going to be something to you in the future."
He was saying, "Moses, you are going to go to My people and tell them what I will be to them in the present."
The future tense was used to express that God was determined to be a present manifestation to them.
The Passover was to change the concept that they had of God.
Instead of worshiping someone who had been a great God to Abraham, the God who had worked a miracle in Sarah, the Israelites were to know Him in a greater way.
God said, "I will come and manifest Myself to them as a God who continually manifests Himself to His people."
And God , futhurmore, said to Moses, "thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, "The Lord, the 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-name to all generations." Exodus 3:15, NASB.
God is speaking the same things to His people today that He spoke to the children of Israel.
He does not intend to be something of the past upon which you can hang your religion and your traditions.
You cannot say that you have faith in God just because you believe that all the miracles actually happened.
Neither can you say that you have faith in God because you believe that all promises will eventually happen- that you will die and then be resurrected and all the promises will come to pass.
God is saying, "Believe that I am your God right now, the right-now Jehovah" ( the right-now Yahweh ) .
"I am going to be real to you now."
This was very difficult for the Israelites, they were faced with the fact that they had to accept God in the present tense.
If the Christian world today had to accept Christ in the present tense, they would stand rebuked, chagrined, condemned, and very embarrassed because they would have to accept Him, and all that He says, in a present application.
It is easy to believe that Jesus spoke the truth when He declared, "I am the resurrection and the Life."
Lazarus sister Martha believed Him, but only to the extent that eventually there would be a resurrection day.
However, Jesus went on to say, "he that believes on Me shall never die" (John 11:25-26 ).
How many times this truth was presented in the Scriptures, in one way or another, and yet people found it difficult to accept it.
Once even some of the disciples told Christ, "This is a hard saying. Who can hear it?" ( John 6:60 ) .
Most Christians resent anyone insisting that Christ be a practical realty to them in their present.
They dislike that.
They prefer the kind of religion which puts the great reformers and founders of the past on a pedestal - men like Luthur, Zwingli, Huss, Savonarola, and Wesley.
They talk about all of these men, saying, "Weren't they great men? And the Lord Jesus Christ- wasn't He wonderful? And the prophets of God- weren't they fantastic?"
To the religious leaders of Jesus' day, He said, "Woe to you. Your fathers killed the prophets, and you build the monuments to them" ( Luke 11:47 ).
In This day we can point out how wicked those Pharisees were, that they did not recognize and believe the Lord, but what are we believing?
Do we believe that one day in the millennium we will see the Lord?
That one day the Kingdom of God and everything that is written in the Scriptures will come to pass?
Or are we truly claiming the fullness of God now in the present?
In Revelation 1:8, our Lord called Himself the One who is and was and is to come.
He was conveying a truth about Himself which Moffatt tried to explain by calling God "the Eternal."
In the preface to his translation of the Bible, Moffattr told how difficult it was to bring forth an accurate explanation of the name of God.
By calling God "the Eternal," he was trying to convey that in the past, the present, and the future, He is the eternal One who manifests Himself in any generation.
The translation of Moffatt is always appreciated, and yet it is not an accurate translation.
It is a liberal translation in which much is lost.
However, Moffatt tried to convey the fact that the name of god is usually not properly translated.
Rotherham's translation is one of the finest ever of both the Old and New Testaments.
He was probably one of the best scholars of Hebrew and Greek, and yet he faced the same problem in his translation: how to express the name of God.
The King James version translated most of the names as "Lord," which incidentally is a translation of Baal and Adonay, both of which were pagan deities.
The Masorites were Jewish scholars who brought error to the manuscripts by substituting Adonay (Lord) for God's unspeakable name YHWH (Yahweh).
The Old Hebrew scholars did not even speak His name Yahweh.
They wrote YHWH, but they would not speak it.
Their reverence for the unspeakable name brought about this great problem of the name of the Lord.
The same thing happened to the name of the Son, Yahshua, in the New Testament.
Jesus, Iesus, and Ea-zeus ( healing Zeus ) were substituted.
Zeus was the sky god, the chief god of the Greeks, and the name is also known as Deus in Latin, Dio in Italian, Dayus in Sanskrit, and Dieu in French.
One truth is important in all of this: God came down at the Passover to introduce Himself, to explain Himself, saying, "I AM THAT I AM,I AM THAT I WILL BE, I WILL BE THAT I WILL BE."
God uses a verb for His name, an expression of what He is and of what He will be.
The Scriptures speak of Jesus Christ, Yahshua Mashiyach ( yay-shoo'-ah maw-shee'-akh ), the same yesterday, and today, and forever ( Hebrews 13:8 ), trying to express the idea that God does not want to become a historical fact or a future fact; instead He wants to be an eternal expression of God to you in the present generation, in the life that you are living.
He can do it!
After God revealed to Moses His name and His purpose, He then told Moses, "Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and say to them, "The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, "I am indeed concerned about you and what has been done to you in Egypt. " ' " Exodus 3:16, NASB
Even though you believe that God surely delivered Daniel out of the lions den, you may feel that He does not care about you.
That is not true.
He does care.
He is concerned about you.
When we speak about God being a personal God, we do not mean that He can be defined as someone who we would walk up to, shake hands with, and say, "Hi, God!"
We call Him a personal God because we believe the He is a person.
But what kind of person is He?
That is difficult to explain.
His ways are past finding out ( Romans 11:33 ).
Yet we do know that we are created in His image. He made us in His image ( Genesis 1:26-27 ).
When the Scriptures speak about various aspects of His personality, we can believe it because personality started with a personal God.
He wants to reveal Himself to you.
He is concerned about you.
That is why the Father sent His Son, who was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
We do not have a high priest who cannot be touched by the feeling of our infirmities ( Hebrews 4:15).
The whole story of the new Testament is very beautiful because of the fact that Jesus always referred to God as "the Father."
The Father so loved us that He sent His Son in order that we would know what God is like, what He has to say, what He is thinking, and what He has in mind for us.
What was really being said in the story of the Passover?
Why should God bother about some slaves down in Egypt?
He had an integrity about some promises He had made to their fathers.
He was a person who believed, who had said something and was going to follow through with it.
He was that way then and He is that way now.
In Numbers 23:19 ( KJV) we read what Balaam said about God: God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent; hath he said, and shall he not do it?
Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
Because God is like this, the Bible is filled with accounts of prophets who spoke words of God which seemed impossible; but through the centuries those words came to pass.
He is still doing the same thing today.
His promises sometimes do not seem possible; but as you believe God, He works things out and they come to pass.
The Passover has to be a revelation of the Lord to your heart.
Let Him meet your heart in a way that you have never met before.
God wants to introduce Himself to you.
When God told Moses to go back down into Egypt, He told him to tell Pharaoh, "The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us.
So now, please, let us go a three days journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. " Exodus 3:18, NASB.
God told Moses what to say and when to say it, because He heard the groanings of the Israelites and had to come down to deliver them out of the bondage they were in.
In Exodus 6, after Pharaoh refused to let them go, we read, "Then the Lord said to Moses, "Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for under compulsion" (literally, "by a strong hand") "he shall drive them out of his land."
God was saying, "I am going to get tough with them; and when I am through with Pharaoh, he will be pushing you out of the land of Egypt."
God spoke further to Moses and said to him, "I am the Lord; and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name, Lord, I did not make Myself known to them.
And I also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they sojourned." Verses 1-4, NASB.
How does this same passage read in The Holy Name Bible with the original names of God?
Then Yahweh said unto Moses, Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh: for with a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land.
And Elohim spake unto Moses and said unto him, I am Yahweh: and I appeared unto Abraham unto Isaac, and unto Jacob as El-Shaddi, but by My name, YAHWEH, was I not known to them?
One verse destroys everything that certain higher critics have said about there being different "Gods" and different sources of manuscripts.
In this verse all three- El Shaddi, Elohim, and Yahweh are tied together. God is saying, "I am all of these.
And I have also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers. Exodus 6:1-4.
Look also at verse 7: And I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to you an Elohim, and ye shall know that I am Yahweh, your Elohim, which bringeth you out from under the burden of the Egyptians.
God revealed Himself in different ways throughout history.
To Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob He was El Shaddai.
Sometimes one Hebrew word can have many different meanings.
El-Shaddai can be translated, "That is enough," "The Great Breasted One, " "The Sufficient One."
He calls Himself Elohim, and that makes Him plural.
In Genesis 1:26 we see that Elohim said, "Let us make man in our own image."
It indicates a plurality; nevertheless, it is often used in the singular, as when Moses commanded Israel, "Hear, O Israel!
The Lord our God is one" ( Deuteronomy 6:4 ).
This study of the names of God is important, for you do not want to worship God because of Emotions or feelings or blessings that you think He gives you.
The greatest pursuit of all is that you come to know Him.
In Philippians 3:10, Paul expressed the desire of his heart, "That I may know Him."
There was nothing that he wanted more than to know the Lord whom he served.
God is saying to us, "I come to introduce Myself to you and to comfort you.
I come to show you that I am enough for you" ( El-Shaddi ).
"If you believe, if you will reach in, I am enough for you right now" (Yahweh ).
Do you want to be introduced to God?
If you look way up, you will not see Him.
He is right here with you.
Do you want to see God?
Look at your brothers and sisters in Christ.
He is living in His people.
That is where His Spirit dwells.
If you do not see Him in His servants, one day He will say, "I was in prison and you did not visit Me.
I was naked and you did not clothe Me.
I was hungry and you did not feed Me."
How does that happen?
"Inasmuch as you did not do it to the least of these My brethren, you did not do it unto Me"
( Matthew 25:35-46 ).
God is here.
His Spirit is right here with us.
We are moving into the days of the Kingdom and the Lord is coming forth, not out in the desert or in the inner chamber; rather, He is coming to be glorified in His saints and to be admired in all those who believe ( II Thessalonians 1:10 ).
Who is this God?
He is Yahweh, the God who manifests Himself in the present.
He has a past and a future, but He wants you to know Him in the present tense-in your brother and in yourself.
In Exodus 6:9 we see the Israelites' response when Moses brought the revelation of the Lord to them.
So Moses spoke thus to the sons of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses on account of their despondency and cruel bondage.
Sometimes revelation from the Lord is most difficult to receive when you are going through a situation that is very hard.
But if you cannot see God, cry a little.
Sometimes you can see God through the lens of tears.
A broken and a contrite heart reaches Him.
Because of their despondency and their cruel bondage, the Israelites did not reach Him.
Now, the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Go tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the sons of Israel go out of his land."
But Moses spoke before the Lord, saying, "Behold..."
God made the heavens and the earth and everything that is in them, but sometimes we may think that He does not seem to understand human beings.
Nevertheless, Hebrews 4:15 tells us that we have a great high priest who is touched by the feeling of our infirmities.
Moses tried to explain to God how hard his situation was by saying, "Behold, the sons of Israel have not listened to me; how then will Pharaoh listen to me, for I am unskilled in speech?" Exodus 6:10-12.
Moses was a stutterer.
He told God, "If Israel will not accept what I say, how am I going to get through to Pharaoh?
If God's people will not hear me, how will the world hear me?"
The same thing is true in this day.
God is bringing forth the Kingdom and restoring marvelous truths to His people, but most of the Christian world is not listening.
However, the day will come when they will listen to a Word from God.
In the meantime, God is raising up a few men all over the earth who are speaking the same thing.
How does God reveal Himself to us?
God hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may perform these signs of Mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and your grandson, how I made a mockery of the Egyptians, and how I performed My signs among them; that you may know that I am the Lord."
In The Holy Name Bible verse 2 reads, ...what things I have wrought in Egypt, and My signs which i have done among them; that ye may know how that I am Yahweh.
Acts 3:1-12 records the story of an amazing miracle.
A few years before the Temple was destroyed, Peter and John were going up to the Temple to worship.
When they came to the Gate Beautiful, the most beautiful gate that opened into the Temple, they saw a beggar there and healed him.
The people rushed on them because they saw a man healed in an instant who had been crippled all his life.
The man leaped and rejoiced.
When the people converged on them, Peter asked, "Why do you look on us as though by our power or holiness we had made this man whole?"
It was in the name of Yahshua that the man had been healed.
Peter had said, "In the name of Yahshua" ( Jesus ) "rise and walk."
God's name is very important.
The name of His Son is important.
He says to us, "I will give you a new name" ( Revelation 2:17 ).
Names are important when they are indicative of what you are and what you are manifesting yourself to be.
Peter was linking himself to God when he asked, "Why do you look upon us as though we did it by our power or our holiness?"
The manifestation of power that healed the lame man had also revealed the character of God.
The power, the holiness, and the nature of the Father had been revealed in it.
Everything that god does has this quality about it.
he not only performs a miracle; he also reveals something of Himself in it.
Everything that the satanic world does can mystify you.
Devil power can perform strange signs and wonders, but Satan cannot manifest any indication of righteousness, because he does not have it.
There is no manifestation of good in his character.
All he can do is mystify you with his power and his abilities.
True character belongs to God alone.
He is the source of holiness and love.
Everything that God does is not only miraculous and wonderful, but it also reveals His nature and His character.
The Father wants to reveal what He is to you.
He is Yahweh.
He is I AM.
He is saying, "I want you to know that I really am, and what I am."
This is basic faith.
Hebrews 11:6 tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God.
He who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.
This brings us back to Yahweh.
We must believe that He is "I AM THAT I AM. I WILL BE THAT I WILL BE."
One of the strangest things that Jesus ever said is found in John 8:58: "Before Abraham was, I AM."
This was the only time that Jesus ever seemed to mix up His grammar.
He could have said, "I was before Abraham," or "I am after Abraham," or "I will be, as long as you ever think about Abraham."
Instead He said, "Before Abraham was, I AM."
He told the Jews, "Your father Abraham desired to see My day; and he saw it, and was glad" ( verse 56).
Abraham had reached into the timeless manifestation of Yahshua, the Christ whom we serve, of Yahweh, the Father whom we love.
How many are there?
One.
That is difficult to understand.
How many are there in the Body of Christ?
One.
That, too, is difficult to understand; but we know that it is true.
Jesus declared, "Before Abraham was, I AM."
that is like the burning bush incident when Moses asked, "Who shall I say sent me?"
In effect, the reply was, "I am about to introduce Myself by a new name.
I am the God of your fathers, and to you I will be Yahweh.
I Am That I Am.
I will be that I will be.
I am God who is manifesting Himself."
When the lord Jesus said, "Before Abraham was, I AM," the Jews picked up rocks to kill Him because He was saying, "I AM Yahweh."
They were very indignant that He claimed to be God; but He was and He is.
Do you believe that?
Do you believe that God dwells in you and that the divine nature is coming forth in you?
If you do not believe in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, then how can you believe in the divine nature that is coming forth in you?
On the other hand, if you can believe in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, you can also believe that He is coming forth in you.
This is the basic truth that you must grasp.
God may be speaking to you about your place, about who you are, and about what He is doing for you; but in the midst of it, He wants you to know who He is.
In your walk with God, the emphasis must be upon waiting on the Lord and seeking to know Him.
You did not start out in a walk with God to learn a way of life; you started out to know the Lord, and to build a relationship with Him.
God is not concerned about what you are doing as much as He is concerned about what you are becoming and what He can be to you.
Do not be concerned about the mechanics.
Do not merely go through the motions.
Unless you come to know Him in the power of His resurrection, your walk is nothing at all.
It has to be a deep personal conviction and a relationship with our blessed Master Himself.
God wants to introduce Himself and make Himself known.
The words Lord, God, Jesus, and Christ do not really give the meaning of His name.
This is not to say that we will change it, that we are not going to worship "Jesus" or "God" anymore, that we will not use those terms.
We will continue to use the terms we have used before, because the meaning we have attached to those words has been honest and sincere before God.
However, we must go back into the Word to find the meaning of the names that God gives to Himself.
Every word should have a meaning.
We cannot truly know Him unless we know the meaning of every name that God gives Himself.
We need to understand the many words that Yahweh takes upon Himself.
Why does God want to introduce Himself?
It is so that He can be to you in the present tense everything that you need in God.
If you really know what He calls Himself and what it means, you can come to trust Him with all of your heart.
***
Stay tuned.
In our next study we will go into some of the names of God and what they mean to us.
God has revealed some of His names in the Bible.
Yahweh-Ra-Ah
El-Elyon
Yahweh-Shammah
Yahweh-Jireh
Yahweh-Roi
El-Shaddai
Elohim
Yahweh-Ropheka
Yashua
Yahweh-Meqaddeshkem
Yahweh-Tsidkenu
El-Roi
And there are countless more names that God has given to Himself to reveal who He is to us.
These names of God have deep meaning for us.
We can use the Names of God in our devotions and in our application of faith in God.
Just knowing that God is all that we need and that His names confirm it is a real boost of anyone's faith in Him.
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