pastor steve: El-Shaddai (God Almighty of all-sufficiency)

Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon, May 31 2009

Genesis 17:1, “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD [Yahweh] appeared to him and said, ‘I am God Almighty [El-Shaddai]; walk before me and be blameless. I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.’”

All-sufficiency… Today, I want to introduce to you another new name of God from the Old Testament. El-Shaddai captures God's attribute of all-sufficiency. Elohim the Creator God and Yahweh the relational and holy redeeming God is God Almighty, El-Shaddai who is all-sufficient God.

1. El-Shaddai: Only all-powerful God can be all-sufficient God.

Let me start off by showing you a clip from Bruce Almighty featuring Jim Carry and Steve Carell. It is about Bruce getting back at Evan after being endued with divine power.

God who is not all-powerful cannot be all-sufficient. In God’s name El-Shaddai, we see God as all-powerful. El-Shaddai is a Hebrew compound word formed by El and Shaddai. El is even more generic word than Elohim and it means God with power and strength occurring about 228 times in the Old Testament.

Here are some examples that show El as mighty God in his power and strength. Psalm 77:14, “You are the God [El] who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples.” Psalm 68:35, “You are awesome, O God [Elohim] in your sanctuary; the God [El] of Israel gives power and strength to his people.” Psalm 18:2, 30, 32, 47, “my God [El] is my rock, in whom I take refuge… As for God [El], his way is perfect… It is God [El] who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect… He is the God, [El] who avenges me, who subdues nations under me, who saves me from my enemies.”

As El-Shaddai, God is powerful in his might. This attribute of power is well reflected in the translations of El-Shaddai in English Bibles as God Almighty. We might assume that El-Shaddai, God Almighty must be able to do anything and everything. But, the truth is El-Shaddai doesn’t do anything and everything that would not reflect who he is. For example, Can God lie? Titus 1:2 says, “God, who does not lie,” and Numbers 23:19, “God is not a man, that he should lie…” Andrew Juke says, “Almightiness is the power to carry out the will of a Divine nature… He must be able to carry out His own will and purpose to the uttermost.”[2] Another word, in whatever God does he is always true to who he is. He doesn’t act inconsistently to his attributes. El-Shaddai, God Almighty, is always powerful to carry out his purpose according to his will and his character to completion.

Elisabeth Elliot wrote in Shadow of the Almighty about Jim Elliot who was killed by Auca Indians in Ecuador along with his four other missionary buddies. The title comes from Psalm 91 which invites readers to consider God’s protection for his people. Specifically, the book’s title comes from Psalm 91:1, “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty [Shaddai].” The psalm further spells out how God protects his people against fowler’s snare, the deadly pestilence, the terror of night, the arrow, the plague… Psalm 91:10-11, “no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. For he will command his angles concerning you to guard you in all your ways.” Psalm 91:13, “You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent.”

Now consider the five young missionaries who were speared to death in the hands of Auca Indians. Doesn’t it seem to betray God’s promise from Psalm 91 to protect his people from physical harms? Was God Almighty, El-Shaddai, not powerful enough to protect these five young men from being killed? John Piper notes in his sermon that Elisabeth Elliot “called her book Shadow of the Almighty from Psalm 91:1 because she was utterly convinced that the refuge of the people of God is not a refuge from suffering and death but a refuge from final and ultimate defeat.”[3]

When we take a long view of life, God’s ultimate goal is to present each of us to himself as pure and blameless overcomers who are molded into the image of Christ. El-Shaddai is powerful to carry out his purpose in spite of all our temporary setbacks, difficulties, trials even seemingly untimely death like Jim Elliot and his four friends.

Satan told Jesus in Matthew 4:6, “If you are the Son of God… throw yourself down. For it is written.” He then quoted from the same Psalm 91, specifically he quoted from Psalm 91:12, “He will command his angels concerning you… they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” (Matthew 4:6, c.f. Luke 4:10-11). To this Jesus answered, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the LORD your God to the test.’” I like what VanGemeren has to say about this. He says that he who knows and trusts in the power of God and God’s protection walks securely while acting responsibly. So, testing God by subjecting themselves to harms and troubles to see how far God would go to protect them is no sign of faith.[4] To test God like this is to view El-Shaddai, God Almighty as nothing more than an insurance against accident rather than truly all-powerful God.

2. El-Shaddai who is all powerful is all-sufficient God.

As the word El helps us understand El-Shaddai is all powerful God, Shaddai helps us understand El-Shaddai is God Almighty who is all-sufficient God.

God told Moses in Exodus 6:3, “I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty [El-Shaddai], but by my name the LORD [Yahweh] I did not make myself known to them.” In the generations belonging to patriarchs of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they knew of God as El-Shaddai. So going back to Genesis 17:1 where God’s name, El-Shaddai first appears 17:1 we see “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD [Yahweh] appeared to him and said, ‘I am God Almighty [El-Shaddai]; walk before me and be blameless. I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.’” Later God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, from “exalted father” to “father of many nations.” So, we read in Genesis 17:5-7, “No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.”

El-Shaddai who promised Abraham to increase his numbers, to make him father of many nations, and to make him very fruitful is God Almighty, is all-powerful God who is all-sufficient to bless Abraham abundantly.

When you read the rest of Genesis, you can see this promise for El-Shaddai’s abundant blessing passing down through the generations after Abraham to Isaac, to Jacob, and even to Joseph.

Genesis 28:3-4, in Isaac’s blessing for Jacob, “May God Almighty [El-Shaddai] bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples. May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham…”

In Genesis 48:3-4, when Jacob was ill and wanted to bless his sons, he retold his son Joseph of what El-Shaddai, God of all sufficiency promised him, “God Almighty [El-Shaddai] appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and there he blessed me and said to me, ‘I am going to make you fruitful and will increase your numbers. I will make you a community of peoples, and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you.”

In Genesis 49:25, we see Jacob blessing Joseph, “your father’s God [El], who helps you… the Almighty [Shaddai] who blesses you with blessings of the heavens above, blessings of the deep that lies below, blessings of the breast and womb.” El, God who is mighty to help you is, Shaddai, who blesses with abundant blessings for he is all-sufficient God.

El-Shaddai, is all-sufficient God who seeks to bless you abundantly. Do you know El-Shaddai?

3. To know El-Shaddai, God of all sufficiency, you must give up your self-sufficiency.

Consider Genesis 17:1 again. Yahweh revealed himself to Abraham and told him, “I am God Almighty [El-Shaddai]; walk before me and be blameless.” To understand this verse we need to consider the context of God revealing himself as, “I am God Almighty [El-Shaddai] and commanding Abraham, “walk before me and be blameless.” Nathan Stone says, “Abraham’s faith had been marred by the fleshly and self-sufficient expedient to which he had resorted. The mighty all-sufficient One demands and deserves our complete faith-a wholehearted faith.”[5]

God first appeared to Abram in Genesis 12:1 where God told Abram to leave his country, his people, his father’s household to the land which he was going to show him. And, in Genesis 12:2, we see God making the promise to make Aram into a great nation, to bless him, to bless all peoples through him. And, we see in Genesis 12:4, “Abram left, as Yahweh had told him.” So, early on, we see Abram walking in faith.

But, as time went on, his faith was tested. When he got to Egypt, he was fearful of what might happen to his wife Sarai. So, he told her to lie to the Egyptians by saying she was his sister. Abram did this because he didn’t fully understand El-Shaddai was all-sufficient God, powerful to protect him and his wife. Abram took the matter into his own hand rather than trusting El-Shaddai, all-sufficient God. When we take matters into our own hands, we don’t make things better, we make them worse. Pharaoh thinking that Sarai was available took her into his palace to make her own. God intervened by inflicting serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household and Sarai was protected, untouched (Genesis 12:10-20).

How about the time when Sarai told Abram in Genesis 16:2, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I cam build a family through her.” And, Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So, there was Ishmael born to Abram not by Sarai, but by her Egyptian maidservant Hagar. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagan born him Ishmael (Genesis 16:16). Over ten years has passed since El-Shaddai promised Abram would become a great nation. And, El-Shaddai’s promise wasn’t fully realized yet in their lives. They kept their faith in El-Shaddai’s promise to them. But, as time went on without immediate fulfillment, their faith in all-sufficient El-Shaddai was tested. We see how much their faith had wavered when we consider Sarai who assumed that El-Shaddai kept her from having children. What’s not written explicitly we can understand implicitly that Sarai and Abram didn’t trust in El-Shaddai as truly all-sufficient God to fulfill his promise to bless them with a child.

What was El-Shaddai doing in Abram and Sarai’s life? He waited until when all seemed to have failed. This is precisely when God revealed himself to Abram as El Shaddai in order to perfect him in his weakness.[6] It is precisely when things were dark and hope was fading that God intervened to change Abram and Sarai’s names. When we are weak and have little to go on, it might be a blessing in disguise for we may experience El-Shaddai as Abraham and Sarah did.

Andrew Juke said, “Thus His Almightiness comes to us in what appears to be our helplessness. The less of self, the more of God.[7] Nathan Stone agrees, “to experience God’s sufficiency one must realize one’s own insufficiency. To experience God’s fullness one must empty self… The less empty of self we are, the less of blessing God can pour into us; the more of pride and self-sufficiency, the less fruit we can bear.”[8]

4. Conclusion

Has God renamed you as he did with Abram and Sarai, to chang them to Abraham and Sarah because now they finally understood El-Shaddai is all sufficient and all powerful to fulfill his promise to bless them?

[1] http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:R6h3hAJK2oYJ:www.ccel.org/ccel/smith_hw/comfort.XVII.html+all+sufficiency+God+illustration&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

[2] Andrew Jukes, The Names of God. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. 1889, p. 63-64.

[3] http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/BySeries/1/454_My_Name_Is_God_Almighty/

[5] http://ldolphin.org/nathanstone/

[6] Andrew Jukes, The Names of God, London: Longmans, Green, and Co. 1889, p. 62

[7] Ibid., p. 72.

[8] http://ldolphin.org/nathanstone/