by Brother Larry Lafferty
Genesis Chapter 17
1And when
Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto
him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.
2And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will
multiply thee exceedingly. 3And Abram fell on his face: and God
talked with him, saying,4As for me,
behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many
nations. 5Neither shall
thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father
of many nations have I made thee. 6And
I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings
shall come out of thee.7And I will establish my covenant between me
and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting
covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.
I want to look at some very familiar scriptures, and I want you to see that it
begins (1And when Abram was ninety years old and nine,)
Now that’s a very old person. I
presently know one person, a woman, this age, and that’s when most would think
that they are living on borrowed time. But
I want you to see that it was not, to this point, that Abram understood the
Almighty God. Now we live in a very
different day today, and you often hear people swear and say “God Almighty!”
They do not know what they are speaking of.
Almighty God means just that, the root word being ALL and MIGHT –
Almighty God! Power is given to the
Lord God of Heaven. Abram had had a
couple of experiences with Him, but he didn’t know Him.
After this experience Abram, or Abraham, knew God.
I want you see that it is a specific time in his life, his ninety-ninth
year that he began to know God. Notice
it says (the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty
God;) I want you to see the way that Abram learned this was two ways.
Number one he saw God, or He appeared to him – he was in His presence,
we’ll put it that way. I’m
not sure that he “saw” Him. And
secondly it says that He spoke to him – “I am the Almighty God.”
That is still the way that it comes.
If you ever understand the Almighty God it will be because you have an
experience with Him, because He manifests Himself to you.
Notice verse two.
(2And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will
multiply thee exceedingly.) I want
you to see that, up to now, everything was initiated by God.
Abram did nothing on his own. You
don’t see Abram saying, “Hey God, I want to hear from You.”
You don’t hear him saying, “Hey God, can we have a little time
together, I need to speak to You.” God
initiated the contact – that is a real experience with God.
When God speaks to you, that is an experience with God.
Notice Abram’s response (3And
Abram fell on his face: and God
talked with him.) I want you to see
that the supine position, flat on your face before God.
Several years ago I did a series of sermons on real prayer and we all
came to the conclusion that flat on your face was the position for prayer. No
doubt in my mind, if you want to get serious with God that is the position –
just flat on your face before Him. Abram
was not in that position, but after this experience, he was. It was a result.
It wasn’t something he did that prompted God to do something, but it
was quite the other way around. He
had this experience with God and that was the result – he found himself before
God on his face. Now let me say
this, if you have not known many ninety-nine year old people, it is no small
thing to get a ninety-nine year old person flat on their face.
This was a very real thing for Abram.
Then notice God doing the speaking (4As
for me, behold, my covenant is with thee.)
Then God defines the terms of the covenant.
I think that is the problem today, we want to say, “I’ll serve you
God, if…” If you give me a nice
three bedroom brick home, and a $15.00 an hour job, and if you’ll give me a
pretty wife, and on and on it goes, and then I’m going to serve you.
But as this covenant comes into being between Abram and God, you see that
God defines the terms of the covenant and that Abram just receives them.
Again notice (4As for me,
behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many
nations. 5Neither shall
thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father
of many nations have I made thee.) Now,
that literally means father of multitudes. (6And
I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings
shall come out of thee.) If you
think about the terms of this covenant and consider the power of our God, he’s
telling a ninety-nine year old man, that he is going to have many descendants.
Up to this time, he and Sarah had zero.
Now he ended up having the child with Hagar, and that ended up being more
of a problem and a threat to the real nation, but he had no children up to now.
And God told him (6And I will make thee exceeding fruitful,
and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.
7And I will establish my
covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an
everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.)
So we see that the first way that you can learn about the Almighty God
and all His might and know who God is, is that He will speak to you.
Now, you think very carefully about what you are trusting for salvation,
and be sure that it is on those terms. Nothing
of this life could be of any more importance than that you are genuinely saved.
That you became aware that your condition before God was hopeless and
that He save your never dying soul. We
see that is the first way.
Now who is the Almighty God?
What is this term Almighty God about?
He says, “ I am the Almighty.” Look
in the book of Exodus and it is very clear who the Bible is speaking of.
Exodus chapter 6
3And I
appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God
Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.
I want you to see that first of all when it speaks of Almighty God it is
speaking of God the Father, Jehovah God. Jehovah
is not a bad word. Don’t let
anyone convince you of that. Jehovah
God is a very wonderful term. It
very much describes the God that we love and lifts Him up.
Don’t be afraid to say it, don’t say it under your breath.
Jehovah is a good name. We
see that when we speak about God Almighty, it is not swearing, we’re speaking
of God the Father, it should be done very reverently.
It should be done in a way that shows respect from you.
So we see that is who it is speaking of.
It is interesting to note that the phrase God Almighty is not mentioned
in the New Testament but about three times.
Revelation 21
22And I saw
no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.
I want you to see that distinction of the two of them together, The Lord God
Almighty – the Father and the Lamb – The Lord Jesus Christ.
As wonderful and marvelous and how irreplaceable the Lord Jesus Christ
is, when you say “God Almighty”, you are not referring to Him. You are
referring to His Father; you are referring to Jehovah God.
As we look at this study, keep that in mind, whom you are addressing.
There are many ways to learn the Almighty – ness of our God.
That really stems from His sovereignty.
The God we serve does as He will. The
Bible says “Can any man give council to God?”
Certainly not! We can’t
give Him advice, He doesn’t need it. He’s
completely sovereign and completely powerful, He doesn’t need your help.
He doesn’t need your opinion. That
is the God we serve. Now out of that
comes this, the ways we learn He is mighty.
Have you ever known anyone who was really strong?
That really is what might is about. I’ve
known a few. There was this boy when
I was growing up and he wasn’t that big but he was muscular and he could bench
press about 300 pounds. To me that
is what you think of when you think of might, you think of strength.
How are you going to learn about Almighty God; about His might, His
ability? Well, it may not be the
ways that you think. Look with me in
the book of Ruth.
Ruth Chapter 1
18When she
saw that she was stedfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto
her. 19So
they two went until they came to
Bethlehem
. And it came to pass, when they were come to
Bethlehem
, that all the city was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi? 20And
she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt
very bitterly with me. 21I
went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty: why then
call ye me Naomi, seeing the LORD hath testified against me, and the Almighty
hath afflicted me?
I want you to see the way that Naomi (sweet) or Mara (bitter) as she wanted to
be called, she learned about the Almighty was that He dealt with her very
bitterly. She learned about His
strength in that way. Now, let me
say this, she had a little plan and agenda of her own.
She and her husband Elimelech thought they knew more than God.
There was little bit of drought in the are, people started to get a
little bit hungry, and they said, I know we’ll go to another country.
There was no temple there. There
was no place to worship God there. They
took their sons down there, and first Elimelech died, and then both of the boys
died, and she was left with nothing. Listen,
when you go against God’s plan that can happen to you too.
She learned about the strength of God the hard way.
We live in a day and age where people think that God does not deal with
His children harshly, when in fact he does. In
fact the Bible states that if you be without chastisement, then are you bastards
and not sons. So if this chastisement never comes, then you probably don’t
have anything to start with. So we
see that is one way, being dealt with bitterly and being corrected in a ver7
harmful way, is one way that the Almighty shows Himself.
Now look with me in the book of Job.
Let me say this, and this was a blessing to me when I began to study it.
In your King James Bible, the word Almighty, referencing God, occurs
fifty seven times. Of that fifty
seven, thirty two occur in Job. That
tells me that he learned the hard way. You
will find Job giving praise and glory and honor to the Almighty but he learned
the hard way. You have a lot of
people today saying, “Well, God wouldn’t do that”, yes He most certainly
would. If he wants you to learn a
lesson, and if He wants you to understand His strength and power, He is going to
teach you. The Bible says that Job
was a righteous man; in fact He looked at the devil and asked have you
considered My servant Job? He knew
what Job was about before it all began. But,
you know what; he defended those ten children a little too much.
And he learned it the hard way. That
is very much a blessing that he learned his lesson about the Almighty God.
Job Chapter 5
17Behold,
happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the
chastening of the Almighty
Job, in a sense defending himself to his three so called friends, saying I’m
not upset about this thing. I’m
not angry about this thing. I do not
despise what God is doing. Now
nobody says that Job chapter six is my favorite book in the Bible.
You know at the beginning of his troubles, Job says in
1:21
the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.
But in chapter 6, you find a very different Job.
He is tired of God’s plan. He’s
tired of where he is at. And those
three friends jump on his back and dog him out and he was just tired of the
whole circumstance. You never hear
anyone say this is their favorite part of the book but you see that Job makes
this statement in chapter six, verse four
Job Chapter 6
4For
the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up
my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.
Very difficult terms here, learning about
the Almighty God. He says first of
all that he had been shot by His arrows. What
were those about? Well, he lost his
fortune, he lost all ten of his children, his wife survived but looked at him
and said ‘Curse God and die’, she was sickened even by his faithfulness and
said to him ‘Get it over with Job.’ And
so we see those arrows, as difficult as they are, are a way to learn about the
Almighty. When he shoots them at you
and hits home, right where it needs to be, then you’ve learned a good lesson.
I want you to see also that there was poison in them.
You know what poison does to the body when it enters, it stings, it
hurts. And he says that this is the
way that I learned of the Almighty. Notice
it says (the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit:)
that is little ‘s’ spirit, it had taken all the wind out of his
sails. Then he named a third thing,
the terrors of God. That is not
something you hear a great deal about today, but Job was scared of God.
Job feared God, and he said ‘those terrors are on me.’
He was able to say that was the Almighty.
If you know someone who could take your life, or give you your next
breath that is somebody you would fear, somebody you would respect.
And Job understood God in those terms. Now look with me in Job chapter
23. This is in response to what
Eliphaz had just said.
Job chapter 23
16For God
maketh my heart soft, and the Almighty troubleth me:
Now he makes two very important statements here.
First he says “God maketh my heart soft.”
You know if you become concerned about your soul, it is a work of God.
It is not because of you. That
why preaching escaping Hell fire is not a good prelude to people “accepting
Christ.”: I use those terms very loosely. God softens the heart; He’ll do a
job that you can’t do. It says
that “the Almighty troubleth me.” Now
I want you to see this troubling is essential.
This is how you first learn about God, is when you first become concerned
about your soul. There is an inner
man. This flesh will pass away.
If the Lord tarries His coming, I am going to die some day.
I hope by that time there is a cemetery by the new church building.
My friends that are left will lower me in the ground and say ‘Well,
there is what is left of Larry Lafferty.’
That would be more than fine with me.
But that inner man is going to live on.
And he says here that this Almighty troubleth me.
Have you ever been troubled about eternity?
Do you know where you are going? Do
you know where you are spending eternity? See
that is what accompanies true salvation. If
you just simply went through a routine, or you were just baptized, or you just
followed somebody directing you in some little pitty-pat-prayer, my dear friend,
and it lacked the troubling of your soul, then you still have a problem.
The Almighty will show you Himself by troubling you.
Now, just as correctly, if you are out in sin, He is going to trouble
you. If you have gotten cold, He is
going to trouble you. It is a very
compelling thing at the time that it happens, and it is not the best thing you
feel is happening, but it is a wonderful work of God and you’ll know it.
Being troubled, you know it is kind of like that feeling you used to get
when you were called to the principal’s office and you knew you’d had it.
It’s trouble, you’re in trouble, He troubleth me.
And it is very essential to your soul.
Job Chapter 27
Here Job makes a turn in the way that he presents how God deals with His
people and this is a wonderful truth and we see that this is not the only way
that we see the Almighty.
2As
God liveth, who hath taken away my judgment; and the Almighty, who
hath vexed my soul;
Now, I want you to see that he does two things here and he talks about two ways
that the Almighty presents himself. The
second one in this verse we are going to talk about first.
It kind of completes the harsh ways that God is going to deal with you.
It states that He would vex your soul.
He will vex your soul. Now a
vexed soul knows that he is hell deserving.
A vexed soul knows that without the help of God, there is nothing else
left. That baptism, church
membership, the rosary, none of those foolish religious things will benefit you.
It is just dependant on the blood of Christ.
A vexed soul will bring you down to that point.
And it is not a pleasant thing, you know when your soul is vexed you are
not going to be walking up and down the pews glorifying God because you’ll
know you’re number is up, the gig is done, you are on your way separate and
apart from the mercy of God. It is
separate and apart from His mercy and grace that you will split hell wide open,
and that is the way that the Almighty shows how Almighty He is.
Then the first part of that verse is the one that should make you want to
shout and glorify God (As God liveth, who hath taken away my
judgment). You remember when the
Lord saved you and you knew for a certainty that you no longer had that death
sentence on you. That judgment was
gone. Now remember I told you that
judgment was issued from the judge. The crime has already been established.
Your guilt has already been established.
And the judgment is simple like ‘he is going to die, or he is going to
be in prison for fifty years.’ That
is the judgment portion of the law. It
says here that judgment is gone. That
is how the Almighty deals with you. You
think about the time that the Lord saved your soul and gave you new life and you
knew that judgment was gone. That is
how the Almighty reveals Himself. In
our state, there hasn’t been an execution carried out in about forty-six
years. And you know what has kept
them from happening? The last day,
the judge will issue them a stay of execution.
And that is exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ does.
That is how powerful He is. If
I went down to
Nashville
and there was someone I really liked that had committed a heinous crime and was
fixing to be fried in the electric chair, and I went down there and said ‘Now
don’t kill Mr. Smith, he is a nice guy.’ It would mean nothing.
It would be no benefit to that man whatsoever.
But if the judge comes by and says ‘No we’re not going to do it’,
it relieves him of that problem. And that is exactly how the Lord God manifests
Himself to people and they see His power.
Job Chapter 22
25Yea, the
Almighty shall be thy defence, and thou shalt have plenty of silver.
Now, another way that the Almighty shows His power is to be your defense.
God protects His people. That
is why I can plump up that pillow at night and put it under my head and whatever
happens, happens. He is our defense.
Have you ever had one of those experiences where nothing else could be
explained, except that God did it? Many
years ago, I was at a pool hall, had no business being there, it wasn’t a
pleasant place, it wasn’t where young men needed to be, but that is where I
was. And coming back home there is a
bridge across a creek and a sharp curve before you get to it.
I came around that curve a little too fast and my car was going sideways
toward the bridge. I didn’t put on
the brakes, I didn’t turn the wheel, didn’t let up on the gas and the car
straightened and I was on my way back home.
You know why? Because God
protects His people. He builds a
house of defense around them. That
is the Almighty. Another story, I
just heard today, a young man, thirty three years old, was going to see his mama
and daddy in
Alabama
. He had his three month old baby
with him. They don’t even know
where it came from, but a big semi truck brake shoe came through his front
window, hit him on the head, and killed him instantly.
The brake shoe went in the back and the baby was on the right hand side,
doesn’t touch the baby, doesn’t do anything to it.
The man holds the car on the road even though he is dead, until they pass
a ravine. Then he goes softly off
the right side of the road, doesn’t come into the on-coming traffic, if there
was any, goes quietly down a small embankment, knocks a tree just enough to stop
him. The man slumps over and falls
over his baby. That night was very
cold, nobody found them, and his body kept the baby from dying.
Now that is the God we serve. He
is able to get the job done. And
when you think there is no way, you depend on God, there will be a way.
When you think the money is run out.
When you think there is not one more problem you can stand, you remember
Job and Job says he is a house of defense. And
this one I love, (thou shalt have plenty of silver) Our definition of plenty and
the Bible’s definition of plenty is very different.
Plenty is enough to feed you. Plenty
is enough to keep you a place to stay. That
is plenty, you don’t need anymore. But
because we listen so much to the television and the world that the media has
created, we think wealth is the only way to go.
Wealth is not plentiful. Wealth
is not what people crack it up to be. We
are programmed to believe that is what we need and that is what is best for us.
We see that our God and His mighty power are displayed in His protection.
Job Chapter 31
35Oh that
one would hear me! behold, my desire is, that the Almighty would answer
me, and that mine adversary had written a book
Now the last way that I want to look at
that Job comes to, that the Almighty is transformed or He is manifested, is that
He will give an answer. He will give
a very very sure answer. You know,
sometimes God will place on your heart with that troubling, to redeemed people,
some very interesting things. You’ll
think, ‘God, why is that?’ Now
first of all, it’s not your place to question God’s plan.
But that will be your first impulse.
When the Lord God said to me, ‘Larry, you need to go to
Dover
and start a new work.’ My first
impulse was ‘Lord, there is a sound church in Bumpus Mills.’
You know I was going to give God a criticism of His plan.
And he dealt with me, and dealt with me and dealt with me.
You know how the flesh is. I
was like ‘Lord, are you sure?’ ‘Are
you sure that is what you want?’ And
He gave me an answer. That is how
the Almighty manifest Himself. You
don’t have to live in oblivion. He’ll
give you an answer, He’ll reassure you. Are
you are concerned about what God would have for you, are you concerned about
where you soul is at, if you are genuinely redeemed?
He’ll give you an answer. Just
continue to seek him. Another way
that He manifests Himself is this.
2 Corinthians Chapter 6
18And will
be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord
Almighty.
Another way He manifests Himself and
shows that strength is that He says ‘You’re My son, you’re My daughter.’
And we’ve already looked at the provision of God, but that is just part
of being a parent. You know, of you
that are good parents this evening, that just being sure they have a warm place
to sleep and food in their belly, that there is more to parenting than that.
Number one, they have to know that you love them.
Now loving them, doesn’t mean letting them do whatever they please.
Loving them doesn’t mean giving them everything that they want.
That’s not love. They’ve
got to know that you love them. Sometimes,
and we’ve looked at that very closely, there is correction.
You bust that tail when they need it, very simple stuff.
He says, ‘The way that I’m going to be Almighty is that I’m going
to parent you.’ A lot of adults
don’t like that, especially men. You
see the hair starting to rise a little bit, but He is going to parent us, and we
desperately need it. We need to be
parented. We don’t have the view
that God does. You know why adult
people make good parents, because they’ve been around the block a time or two
and they can see a little bit further that children can.
God has the full view and that is why He is a good parent to you.
He can see the whole thing. We
know that He is Almighty, completely inclusive mighty by the way that He parents
us. Now the very last thing is in
the book of Revelation chapter four.
Revelation Chapter 4
8And the
four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were
full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.
Now the last thing about seeing this Almighty depends on what you do, in a
sense. Now let me say this, this
vision that John was getting on the isle of
Patmos
, that he saw there, what he beheld there was this worship scene in the third
heaven that he beheld, and he saw this beast, what I want you to see that it
said that it was full of eyes within. Now
it would be a very good thing for us to be full of eyes within.
You get down to the point where you could say ‘Lord God Almighty’
when you can see the inside pretty good. See
that is why they were able to do this and it was so beneficial and it was true
praise because they looked within. It
didn’t say that their eyes were looking out and trying to see who did what and
to tell their neighbor about it. It
says they were full of eyes within. They
were looking at themselves. And that
is exactly what we need to do. With
the help of the Lord you need to look at yourself and see exactly where you are
spiritually, if you’ve truly been born again, if you’ve not been, and see
where that’s at. And then notice
this beast says ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty’ If you remember when
Isaiah got in the very presence of God he said the very same thing.
And when you see yourself, and remember what Isaiah said, he said
‘Lord, I’m unclean.’ And that
angel came and stuck that hot coal in his mouth and then he said it too,
‘Holy, Holy, Holy.’ See, what we
need to do is see ourselves for where we are really at, and then you’ll learn
about God, you’ll see how gracious He is,
you’ll see how good He is, you’ll see how merciful and kind He is.
And you’ll be, pretty soon, just like this beast is here, ‘Holy,
Holy, Holy.’ He is a very mighty
God. We don’t serve no wimpy,
heathen god. Adam likes the Egyptian
culture. It was defeated by our God.
There was nothing left. It is
a little bit of interest, they had a god for everything.
One of their big gods was a beetle. What
is that? What kind of god is a
beetle? And they had a god for
everything. And if you remember, as
Paul was going through
Rome
, he was fixing to address those Roman people, they had a idol there for the
unknown god in case they had missed one. And
here you have the Almighty God Jehovah. He
deserves praise. You’re not going
to see any big visions, and all that foolishness that’s going around today,
but you’ll look back and see that house of protection, you’ll look back and
say ‘Well, how did I get through that?’
And you’ll know that it was the Almighty God, He did it, I’ll
guarantee you. That’s the Almighty
God and that is how you learn of Him. Amen