Welcome to the For the Gospel Podcast, where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Costi Hinn, and last week we started a series on the names of God. And throughout this series, we're asking one simple question: What does God reveal about himself through the names he's given us in Scripture? Now, because the names of God reveal his character, they help us see more of who God is. And of course, you know, the more you see God for who he is, the more you can understand him, trust him, and worship him and live for him. Now, last time we looked at Elohim, the creator God, and today I want to look at the name El Shaddai. Introducing you to this name, I think, is going to really help you. And the moment we see this name come on the scene is in the life of Abraham. I'm going to turn in my Bible to Genesis chapter 17. If you're watching on YouTube, you can hit pause and go grab your Bible. If you're on the fly here, I will read this to you. And maybe you've heard it before, maybe you haven't. Pretty powerful stuff. Genesis 17, Abraham finds himself waiting on the promise of God. And we read now when Abram was 99 years old. The Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless. The Hebrew word translates El Shaddai, God Almighty. That's the name of God. Now, the timing of this revelation is everything because God doesn't reveal himself when Abram is strong and young and he's standing at the beginning of his adult life. No, he reveals himself as El Shaddai when Abraham, at the time still Abram, is 99 years old. You think the earlier the better. At least that's the way I imagine it as I study these things. But no, God chooses to reveal himself as El Shaddai when something impossible is before Abram. The promise isn't happening yet. At least he's so old. How can it happen now? God had promised Abraham a son, and he told him many years earlier, you're going to be the father of many nations. I'm going to make you into a great nation. Your descendants are going to be as numerous as the stars, and yet the problem is he doesn't even have a legitimate son. Now, Abram is almost a hundred years old. Sarah is 90, and she's Sarai. Romans 4 actually describes Abraham's body as being as good as dead. He's not going to be able to have children, and her womb is barren. And so God has waited until the situation is humanly impossible. And then he introduces himself as I am El Shaddai, meaning I am God Almighty. And what I love about this, and I think it's so perfect for our series, is this speaks to us because isn't it true that sometimes God allows our resources to run out completely before he reminds us that his resources never run dry? Isn't it in times of weakness that God shows his strength? It's the impossibility of our situation where God shows up and he reveals himself as the God of the impossible. In fact, I think when you really understand what El Shaddai means, this is exactly what God would do. It's consistent with his character and it's where God does his best work in us. He allows our human strength to deplete and to reach its limits so that he can show off his. El Shaddai is all about God's glory in the life of Abraham. It's two people that are too old to have kids, and the promise that they're going to have descendants like the stars isn't really making sense. The math doesn't math, to just use a phrase I think many of us are familiar with, it doesn't make sense. But in his name, El Shaddai, we are reminded to stop calculating what he can or cannot do based on what we can or cannot do. In a very real way, your math, my math, is not God math. He can make the world out of nothing. He can move the mountains that he made. And so maybe after today's episode, you think, huh, anytime I see God Almighty in the Old Testament, it's the Hebrew name, it's El Shaddai, and it's a reminder that your limitations are not God's limitations. That's a key truth that you need to know. And we make this mistake constantly, don't we? We look at what we have, what we know, what we feel, what we've accomplished, and we unconsciously project those limitations onto God. Maybe you've said, I know I have, you know, I don't think this is going to work out. I don't know how this is going to work. And because we don't see it, we think God can't. Because we don't see how it's going to work out, we think God can't work it out. And that couldn't be further from the truth. We know this, but we forget. Just because you can't see a way forward does not mean that God can't. His ability is not measured by your ability or mine. Just like Abraham's body couldn't produce the promise, Sarah, Sarah, her womb couldn't produce the promise. Human strength and ingenuity couldn't produce the promise, but God could. And based on the book of Genesis, God did. And that means one of the greatest lessons of El Shaddai is that God is sufficient where we are insufficient. We don't measure up. Well, thank God he does. Now, this doesn't mean that God promises to give you whatever impossible thing you want. People take this idea of El Shaddai, God Almighty, way too far. Abraham wasn't dreaming up his own future and, you know, just wants wealth and health and happiness. And he's like, God bless it. You are El Shaddai. No, God made him a promise, and that's what's really important because faith is not believing that God's going to do whatever you tell him to do or demand of him. Rather, faith is believing that God is powerful enough to accomplish whatever he has promised. Now, there's another place where this name appears, and I think it's incredibly helpful for our understanding of El Shaddai. It's in Genesis chapter 35. And I'm going to turn real quick in my Bible there. It's just towards, of course, the latter half, same book that we're in. And it's in the life of Jacob in Genesis 35, verse 11. It says, God also said to him, I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you. In this statement to Jacob, God is making a promise of multiplication, fruitfulness, descendants, promises that only he can ultimately accomplish. This is to Jacob. This is El Shaddai on the scene again. Later on in Genesis chapter 48, you look ahead and you see in verse 3, then Jacob said to Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me at Laz in the land of Canaan and blessed me. And he said to me, Behold, I will make you fruitful and numerous, and I'll make you a company of peoples, and will give this land to your descendants after you for an everlasting possession. That phrase again in verse 3, God Almighty, El Shaddai. I bring this up because it's really important when we're studying these things to understand El Shaddai in two ways. And it's not that God is two gods or there's there's two sides here. It's our perspective. You think about this. In the beginning, Jacob is looking forward, trusting El Shaddai's promise. Now, in chapter 48, different than chapter 35, Jacob had lived long enough to look backward and say El Shaddai was faithful. And I think this story serves as a great illustration for something that younger Christians sometimes struggle with. When you're 15 and you're 18 and you're 25, you know, you view yourself maybe as like younger Jacob type, you're mostly looking forward at promises that you haven't seen fulfilled yet. But when you've walked with God for decades, and this is the joy of getting older, even though you get uh saggier and weaker and older, and you think, I don't want to ever grow up and I'm gonna hold on to my youth. No, no, no. The older you get, the more seasoned you get. You're not looking at age in a worldly sense of like my body's not the same, this is terrible. No, you begin to see life through the lens of God. El Shaddai has been faithful, and you start looking backward at the faithfulness you couldn't see when you were younger. I was meditating on this recently, and it struck me that there are seasons when El Shaddai is the God you are trusting for the future. And then there are sweet seasons when El Shaddai is the God you are remembering. He's been faithful. And whatever it looks like for you, maybe you're on the third and fourth quarter of life. And as you reflect on El Shaddai, you think, God, you have been so faithful. Maybe you're on the younger end of your life. You're listening to this and you're in high school or college, or you're just starting out in some endeavor, or you're an entrepreneur, whatever that looks like, he's El Shaddai, the God you are trusting. You know he's faithful. You trust him. You just haven't seen it all unfold yet. Maybe somebody today in that first category, you're looking at something in front of you, and it just looks impossible. It's not actually exciting. You're not like an entrepreneur thinking, oh wow, let's take the mountain, or somebody on the younger end of your life and you have your whole life ahead of you. Maybe you're younger and there's a lot of fear, or you're at the precipice of some kind of adventure or decision or step of faith, and it looks kind of impossible. Look, I feel you in that. You might be exhausted, at a loss for words. You can't fix it. Maybe it's something going on in your marriage or a relationship or your life or dealing with people. What a great place to be. Your strength is run out. You don't have what it takes. That chasm is too far for you to take the leap and make it across. El Shaddai is your almighty God. He is able to do what you cannot. El Shaddai is resources that cannot be depleted. He is a well that never runs dry. Now, there's one final thing I want to emphasize here, and it comes from Genesis 17. And so I'm going to turn back there just for a moment to kind of unpack this. But God is revealing himself to Abram as El Shaddai. And he says something, and I read it earlier, maybe you caught it. I am God Almighty, so I am El Shaddai. Walk before me and be blameless. That's huge. El Shaddai doesn't say like, trust and chill. Like the great hymn, I read that and I think, trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. The revelation of God's character produces what in him? A response of obedience, walking in righteousness, because God is Almighty. He is Al-Shaddai. You should walk faithfully before him. So theology should produce obedience. And I hope now, again, you're reminded of why the names of God are so fun to study. They're also very significant for us spiritually, because they're transformational. If I really believe that God is Al Shaddai, then I should fear him in reverence and obedience. I don't manipulate circumstances. I don't need to compromise because I'm afraid that God won't do the work. I don't need to pull off the Abraham and Sarah and Hagar situation to try to produce my own Ishmael, so to speak. I don't need to panic because the outcome isn't under my control. No, God will come through. And funny enough, isn't that the lesson that Abraham had already learned when he jumps the gun? And Ishmael is the result, and it's disastrous. Trust him, he is God Almighty. So, how should we respond today? I've been ending these episodes by giving you just clear applications. The first one is to admit your limitations. You are not all-powerful, you are not all-sufficient, you are not El Shaddai, you were never meant to be. Admit that you can't do it. That's a great first step. Second, trust his promises. Faith is believing God is powerful enough to do everything that he's promised. You're looking out and you can't do it. You can't even always see it, but you trust him. So trust his promises, the ones he's made you. And third, stop measuring God by your circumstances. That's probably where a lot of our depression and depletion comes from. We're constantly measuring God by our circumstances, and our eyes are down and not up. Your circumstances reveal, yes, what you cannot do, but they don't ever determine what God can or cannot do. Since God is El Shaddai, I can obey when I don't understand, trust when I cannot see, and wait when I cannot control, because whatever runs out in me never runs out in him. He is El Shaddai. Thanks for listening today and watching. Thank you as always for those of you who are partnered with us. You give to for the gospel and make all of what we do possible. 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Keep on living for the gospel.