Should We Refer to God by Sacred Names

The title, Should We Refer to God by Sacred Names? And this may not affect anyone in this room, but it is one of those doctrinal topics that tends to recycle itself in the Church of God body. Every decade or two, there are certain ones, there are calendar questions that keep coming back. Well, calendar issues, sacred names.

These, in my estimation, are in the same ballpark. But there are those who claim that we must speak of and speak to God and Jesus only by their sacred names, which means the Hebrew names. And by that, they mean Yahweh and Yahshua, or Joshua as it would be anglicized. Are they right? Or does God allow for the translation of His name into other languages? Well, we're going to look at that today. Some of you may remember, and I could not find, I think I've got the old article, The Plain Truth About the Sacred Name, written by Herbert Armstrong. Then there was a smaller booklet by the same title. And I think it's interesting to note that the sacred names movement began in the 1930s. There's no record of it being around before that time. And Herbert Armstrong knew the people who were involved in that.

In fact, they were a part of the Church of God Seventh-Day Oregon Conference. He knew them. He dealt with that. He wrote on the topic, pointed out some of the fallacies in their conclusion that they came to.

The bottom line with the position that you must call God Yahweh and call Jesus Yahshua is that I shouldn't say all, but many who do so believe that it makes you more spiritual, closer to God. And I think, again, we need to file that away, at least be aware of that. Let's start in Acts 4. In Acts 4, let's first read verse 12, where Peter, in speaking, filled with the Holy Spirit, we're told in verse 8, says in verse 12, "...nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven, given among men, by which we must be saved." You could ask, well, what is this name? Well, it's answered up above in verse 10, right in the middle, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

And this book was written in the Greek language, something close to Iosos Christos, Jesus, the equivalent of the Hebrew Joshua or Yahshua, meaning Savior. The Savior, Christos, meaning the Anointed One, the name of Jesus Christ. But as God inspired the book of Acts to be written by Luke, the words in the Greek manuscripts are the Greek words.

It does not say Yahshua. At creation, God made no command that His name must only be spoken in Hebrew. And frankly, we do not know if Hebrew was the original language given to Adam and Eve. Obviously, when God created them, a part of the creation was He gifted them, gave to them the ability of language. We know that because in due course Adam was asked to name the animals. And then when Eve was created and brought to him, he said, this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, etc.

So there was language that was a part of creation. It may or may not have been Hebrew. It may have been something completely different. We frankly do not know. Now, we have Old Testament manuscripts and that story was written in Hebrew, but we don't know if that was what they were speaking. Probably a good conclusion, but again, we can't know a certainty. Now, as you get to the story of the Tower of Babel, here we have a time where, again, God had created an original language, but there in Genesis 11 you have people just after the flood.

And frankly, I believe it's people rebelling against the command of God to go and spread out and replenish and fill the earth. And they were hovering around together and possibly because of what they had heard of with a flood, they're building a tower to get up above the flood waters. But God confused the languages. Man is the confused part. Man was the evil part. What God had created and given originally as language was not the problem.

And then God, we could say, created many different types of languages. There are various families of languages that have existed for a long, long time. But in the name of Jesus Christ, names we know are important to God. We would see that in our day and age if the United States sends an ambassador to, say, the country of Thailand, that ambassador, he or she represents the name of the home country of the United States of America.

God uses names. God named people by certain names. He told Joseph, don't put away Mary. Go ahead. Take her as your wife. A son will be born. You will name him Jesus, which means Savior. He did not say, name him Yahshua from the Hebrew.

But it is a matter that God changed the names a number of times of some of His servants so that their name would better represent the calling God had given them. So, Abram was no longer just Abram, the father. He was now Abraham, a father of all these people. Jacob was no longer the supplanter, the deceiver. He was now Israel, the prevailer with God. So, God has changed names before. But these names were changed within the confines of their native language, not into a completely different language.

Now, God revealed His name. God revealed, I should say, a number of His names through the pages of the Bible. I think that's one of the fallacies of the sacred names teaching. Yahweh, the Y-H-W-H, Yahweh, as it may or may not be pronounced. And I'll come back to that later because we frankly don't know. Yahweh is only one of many names by which God revealed Himself. But God did use the name, does use the name, Yahweh. And the first time we find it is in Genesis 2, although it is in telling the story of the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

Lord, in all caps, is from the YHVH, known as the tetragrammaton. I know you're just on the edge of your chair with some of these points.

Tetragrammaton speaks of the four letters. Basically, as that's transliterated into English, the Y is a Y, the H is an H, and so on. But the YHVH. Are we to only use the name Yahweh to refer to God?

Or can we address Him by many of His other names?

Well, again, those who subscribe to the Sacred Name, Sacred Name's movement, would say you have to call God the Father Yahweh. Now, something that is curious in that is to realize that the Yahweh of the Old Testament was actually the one we know today as Jesus Christ, not God the Father.

Let me read just a little bit here, and I'm going to just hit Exverbs. This is from Encyclopedia Judaica on this YHVH.

The personal name of the God of Israel is written in the Hebrew Bible with only four consonants.

Okay. My name is David. If my name David was going to be written with only consonants, it would be D, V, and D. See, they named the little movie discs after me. Don't put that in your notes. I made that up.

Okay. So with God's name, four consonants, YHVH, this is referred to as the tetragrammaton.

At least until the destruction of the first temple.

Okay. Solomon's temple made it until 586 BC fell to the Babylonians. It was destroyed.

At least until that time, this name, the YHVH, YHWH, was regularly pronounced with its proper vowels, as is clear from the Lachie's letters written shortly prior to that date.

Okay. So at the time the temple was destroyed, man knew how to say YHWH.

In other words, they knew the vowel sounds that went along with those four consonants.

But by the third century BC, the pronunciation of YHWH had begun to be avoided. In other words, they felt it was so sacred. It is so special of a name.

We dare not even pronounce it. And so the practice among the Jews was to substitute Adonai, which is another name of God that was translated Lord. Now, Lord, but not with all capital letters.

All right. Oh, that's that's the end of the Jewish encyclopedia. We find Yahweh. Now, I'm saying Yahweh, we find the YHVH, YHWH, throughout Genesis. It is in writing the story he is referred to as the YHVH or the Lord God, Yahweh Elohim. And that was during the time of Adam, Noah, Enoch, through the time of Abraham, all the way through to Joseph, through the book of Genesis.

The time came when God decided to reveal Himself as YHVH. Who was the first person that God revealed that name to and said, this is the one, this is my name, you'll call me by this, Moses. All right, I'll buy that. Let's go to Exodus chapter 6 because you see, Yahweh is to become the covenant name of the God of the Old Testament, the God of Israel. Exodus chapter 6. And this is where God tells Moses, this will now be my name, but those before you didn't know be my by this name.

Exodus 6 verses 2 and 3. Verse 2. And God spoke to Moses and said, I am the Lord. Now notice the practice, I know at least of the King James Version and the New King James Version is, if it is, you've got a larger capital L, but then you still have, they're smaller, but you still have capital O-R-D. That is the King James, New King James Code that denotes that this word comes from the YHVH. And God, I skipped over that, that comes from Elohim. Elohim spoke to Moses and said to him, I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as, and in the Hebrew is El Shaddai, God Almighty. But by my name Yahweh, I was not known to them.

Now, if you want to do a search sometime, you can look up the Hebrew number, Strong as Hebrew, word number 3068. And the YHVH appears a lot of places throughout the Old Testament.

The word means the self-existent one, or the ever-living one, or sometimes it's just referred to as the Eternal. But it is interesting here to notice that the YHVH is not the only name of God.

And in fact, we're not even talking about the Father here. This is the God of the Old Testament, who became Jesus Christ, appearing to Moses, giving him his charge and what he's going to do.

The YHVH refers to the covenant God of the Old Testament. Think of the extreme limits of the teaching of some elements within the sacred names movement. And again, I'm trying to be careful. I don't mean to paint them all with a broad brush, because you've got a lot of variation. But there are some that take it to the extreme to say that you have to address God by Yahweh or Yahshua, if you are going to have salvation. There are others who say you've got to use those names, or if you use those names, you'll be closer to God than others. But if salvation can only go to those who use the name Yahweh, where does that leave those who came prior to this story?

Where does that leave Abel and Noah and Enoch and Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph?

We think we know where that leaves them, because all eight of those names are listed in Hebrews 11 among the Hall of Fame of Faith. And they looked to that city whose builder and maker was God, and they have not yet received the promises, but they will. Even though they did not know God as the YHVH, the Yahweh, we expect them to be in the kingdom of God.

Now, let's consider what languages were used to write the Bible. How many languages were used?

Three, at least. Greek, no question. New Testament. New Testament, Greek. Old Testament, vast majority Hebrew, but we should realize that there are portions in Daniel and in Ezra that are written in Aramaic, which is one of the old Syrian, Calvian languages.

And then, actually, there are words in Job and in other places that appear to come from another dialect of the old Calvian language as well. But Aramaic is not the same as Hebrew.

Now, let's go to Daniel first. Daniel, the book, is curious, because here he gets started, and he's on a roll with chapter 1, telling about what befell Daniel and his friends. And then you get going in chapter 2, and partway through verse 4, he shifts from Hebrew into Aramaic. Daniel 2 verse 4, then the Calvians spoke to the king in Aramaic.

Now, if you have the old King James, it says that they spoke to him in Syriac.

And then, where it begins, O king, live forever, Daniel, the book of Daniel, is written in Aramaic all the way through the rest of chapter 2 through chapter 3, and 4, and 5, and 6, and 7.

So, you've got half the book of Daniel in Hebrew, and half the book is in Aramaic.

And in those chapters, in fact, let's go to Daniel 2 verse 19. In these chapters, where God inspires Daniel to be writing these stories, it is written in Aramaic, and when Daniel comes to the need to write the name of God, what did he do? He used the Aramaic name of God. He did not suddenly shift back for the Hebrew word. Daniel 2 verse 19, then the secret was revealed to Daniel in a night vision, so Daniel blessed the God of heaven, and God there is from the Aramaic Elah. That is not a Hebrew word. Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God Elah, for ever and ever. Verse 23, I thank you and praise you, O God, Elah of my fathers. So, it's an interesting part of a piece of the puzzle to file away.

We have portions of Ezra as well, where Ezra was writing in Hebrew, and then he shifts to Aramaic.

And I'll just give you these verses. You'll have to dig to find the difference.

Ezra 4 verse 8 through Ezra 6 verse 18. So, that's most of chapter 4 and all 5 and 6. And then you have a portion of chapter 7, chapter 7 of Ezra verses 12 through 26.

These are written in Aramaic, and then he shifts back to Hebrew. And in these passages, as well, we do not find Yahweh, we do not find the whites VH, we do not find Elohim, we do not find El Shaddai, we find Elah, the Aramaic word for God. So, God sanctioned that. God stamped that. God approved that. God had this precedent set for us, I feel, so that we will know what to do so many thousands of years later, and the Bible is translated in all kinds of languages.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, we read, and so God inspired the use of Elah, the Aramaic term for Yahweh, where it might have been Yahweh or might have been Elohim.

On Daniel 2 verse 4, let me read just a little bit from Albert Barnes' commentary on that book, on this verse. The word means Aramaic, and the reference is to that language which was known as East Aramaic, a general term embracing the Calvii Syriac, the languages spoken in Mesopotamia.

This was the vernacular tongue of the king and his subjects, and was that in which the Chaldeans would naturally address him. It is referred to here by the author of this book, perhaps to explain the reason why he himself makes use of this language in explaining the dream.

The Calvii was doubtless well understood by the Jews in their captivity and was probably spoken by them after they returned to their own land. Okay, end of the quote there from Barnes.

Now, New Testament. New Testament was written in Greek with two possible exceptions. I say possible because we don't have a single manuscript extent existing today that was written in Hebrew of the New Testament. There are somewhere around 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. There's not one Hebrew. There are some in the Sacred Names movement that go so far as to posit that, well, the New Testament was written in Hebrew but then changed over later.

Or that the original Greek New Testament used the terms Yahshua and Yahweh, but then they went back and changed them later. Well, I'll come back to that thought here in a little bit too. Talk about something nigh to impossible. 5,000 manuscripts, something like 665 uses of the word kyrios, the Greek that's used in the place of the Hebrew Yahweh. And you're going to go find all those manuscripts and you're going to correct all 665 in each of 5,000 manuscripts. I think we can set that one to rest. Back to the possibility that a couple of books were written in Hebrew.

Eusebius was an early historian. He claimed Paul wrote Hebrews and that he wrote it in the language Hebrew. Again, we don't have a single manuscript to prove that. He also claimed that Mark wrote, excuse me, Matthew wrote his gospel in Hebrew and it was later translated into Greek.

Again, there's not one single manuscript that has survived. And we have lots of manuscripts of Matthew that are in the Greek. Let's notice Isaiah 7. I think it is interesting here to look at some of the times because I meant to look it up, but the New Testament quotes profusely from the Old Testament hundreds of quotations and it always translates it into Greek. Or, perhaps I should add this, there's lots of evidence that in the New Testament the writers were actually quoting from the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament Hebrew, which is more likely. Isaiah 7 verse 14 verse 14. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgins shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel.

marginal note literally God with us. So God the Son is going to come and he's going to live with man.

Now let us tie in with that Matthew chapter 1 because Matthew's account quotes from that very verse. Matthew 1 verse 20. But while he thought about these things, this is Joseph, the angel has appeared, Mary is pregnant, so we're breaking out on that story. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you, Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. All right, let's go to verse 21. And she shall bring forth a son and you shall call his name Jesus. marginal note Savior. Jesus in the Greek something close to Jesus.

Okay, it means what's the equivalent of the Hebrew Yahshua or Joshua, and it means Savior.

Call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.

Verse 23. Here's the quote back from Isaiah seven. Behold, the Virgin shall be with child and bear son and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is translated God with us. Now, if it's written in Hebrew, if it's written to a Hebrew speaking audience primarily, why would he translate it right here in the text? But no, he says, Emmanuel. And then he says, by the way, that means God with us. He was a Hebrew word and the audience of the first century primarily spoke Aramaic.

It goes back to their coming out of captivity days in Babylon. And so many no longer spoke Hebrew as a native tongue. Aramaic was their first tongue and then a close second was Greek.

And so God chose the Greek for the New Testament scriptures. Now, in the Greek language, there are only two names, two words that are translated for God or Lord. We have theos, T-H-E-O-S. Theos is translated God. If you study theology, that is the study of God.

Then there is kyrios, K-U-R-I-O-S. Kyrios is translated Lord in the New Testament.

When the New Testament quotes from the Old Testament, as it does many, many times, and they come to the word the YHVH, they translate it through the used in the Greek, the word kyrios.

Now, let's keep your place right here in Matthew. Let's go back to Isaiah, but this time Chapter 40. Isaiah 40. Let us note verse 3. Isaiah 40 verse 3. You will recognize this statement from the New Testament. Verse 3, the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare the way for the Lord. Now, notice it's a larger capital L, but then the ORD is in capital letters. That denotes it comes from the YHVH. Prepare the way of the Yahweh. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Now, if we go to Matthew Chapter 3, we have that verse quoted here. Matthew 3 verse 3. For this is He, this is the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist. For this is He, who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight.

And Matthew wrote this Gospel, and he used the word, curios. And Matthew was one of the authors. He and John were trained by Jesus Christ a lot.

A lot of times, a lot of years together. Now, there is evidence that indicates that the New Testament was not originally written in Aramaic, and again, as some would seem to suggest.

Let's look at Mark 15. It's an interesting translation of a statement that takes place here.

Let's say Matthew, Mark 15. Mark 15. And let's notice verse 34. This is breaking in on the story right at the end of Christ's life, as he is crucified. Verse 34, and at the ninth hour, so that would equate to approximately three in the afternoon. Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, Lama, Sabastani. Now, do not assume that that is Hebrew. That is Aramaic.

And that is a quotation from Psalm 22, verse 1, that was written in Hebrew. Then he adds, Which is translated, My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me? And this is at the time when the darkness covered the earth, and symbolically God the Father, and Christ was separated from the Father as He became sin for humanity. Mark quotes from Psalm 22, verse 1, The words that he wrote were actually the Aramaic, which was the common language of the first century. Mark translated them into Greek in the Gospel he wrote, which is now translated for us into English. Okay, let's go to John 1, verse 41. There's another one. Translation here, or use of a particular word. And this is the beginning of John's Gospel, and Andrew goes and finds Peter his brother, and I found the one. John 1, verse 41, He first found his own brother Simon, and said to him, We have found the Messiah. marginal note, literally the anointed one, which is translated the Christ. Now, Aramaic words or statements are commonly quoted and translated into the Greek in the early texts, manuscripts, because the Gospel was primarily beginning to go to the Greek-speaking world. So, the Greek-speaking world would be unfamiliar with Hebrew. We are familiar with the term Messiah. That's the English or the Anglicized version.

It comes from the Hebrew, Mashiach. And if he had said Mashiach, they would have had no idea what he was talking about. The Greek equivalent of the anointed one, the Greek equivalent of Mashiach in the Hebrew, is Christos. And hence, the name Jesus had was Jesus. The Christos, the anointed one.

Again, this is a huge subject, but let's consider some have made the argument that the YHVH, the Yahweh, I'll say it that way, that that is the only true name of the Creator God in Hebrew.

The only name. Well, there's a problem with that, because God reveals Himself by a lot of names.

But they will come back and say, well, that was His name, and then all these others were just titles.

Now, it's not the way the Scripture reads. Let's go back to Exodus 3, because Moses specifically said, all right, if I'm going to go, who do I tell them sent me? Exodus 3 and verse 13.

Then Moses said to God, and that's from the Hebrew Elohim, Elohim, indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, the God Elohim of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, what is His name, what shall I say to them? And God Elohim said to Moses. Now, this is interesting to point out right here. Moses spoke to Elohim, and Elohim answered him, if what is purported is true, that you have to use the name Yahweh, or Yahshua for Jesus, I'm sorry, it falls apart right here. Elohim said to Moses, I am who I am, and he said, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am, and that's the Hebrew, ha'ah. Ha'ah has sent me to you.

Moreover, God said to Moses, you, thus shall you say to the children of Israel, the Lord God, that's Yahweh, Elohim of your fathers, the Elohim of Abraham, the Elohim of Isaac, and the Elohim of Jacob, have sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations. So if he says, well, now I am not only Elohim by which you called me, but I am the ha'ah, the I am, or the ha'ah, Asher, ha'ah, the I am that I am, then this is the name by which you will know me throughout your generations.

And he did say name, and name is from the Hebrew Shem, and it is a, you know, what we know as a name by which we address someone. Elohim, Yahweh, ha'ah, are all used here as God's name. We already read in Exodus 6 that they used to know me by Elohim, but now you will know me by Yahweh. If we go back even more to Genesis 17, we have the time when God came and appeared to and spoke to Abraham, and He gave him another name. Genesis 17 verse 1, when Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared. Now that's Yahweh, but again, this is a story that's being written, and He's not known by that name yet, we are told. But in writing about it, they do use the term Yahweh. He appeared to Abram and said to him, I am Almighty God, and that is El Shaddai. Walk before me and be blameless. I will make my covenant between me and you. Now let's go back to the YHVH, the tetragrammaton, and I think it's good that we also point out that man does not know how to properly pronounce that name. Now, if you go on some of the sites for the sacred names movements, then they realize they will claim that they have discovered it. There is a problem.

The Old Testament, okay, Hebrew is written only using the consonants. As it was written, all of the manuscripts that give us what we have here in our laps from the Old Testament, the portion that's in Hebrew, all of it is written with only the consonants.

Now, that presents an interesting challenge. It was passed on by oral usage. It, the proper pronunciation of this YHVH. But there were no vowel notations, not until hundreds of years after Christ. But back then they knew how. Obviously, God revealed Moses, and so by oral usage it was passed along through the generations. And yet, first Israel, then the house of Judah went into captivity, and a lot of things were lost. A lot of things were lost. The Jews came back from Babylon, and they decided we are going to add all of these extra regulations. We are going to be the strictest lawkeepers of all time. And somewhere shortly thereafter, they began looking at the name Yahweh.

Maybe they lost it in captivity. Maybe they lost it from lack of use. But they began to believe, well it is so holy, so sacred that we should not even be trying to say God's name. So they stopped saying it, and that's where they were then substituting Adonai when it should have been Yahweh or whatever. In the sixth to seventh centuries, 80, so long time down the line, there were a group of Jewish scholars known as the Masoretes. You may have heard of the Masoretic text, but the Masoretes, the scholars of that day, began the process of creating different symbols. In English we have five basic vowels, and a couple that are kind of semi.

In Hebrew, I believe there are five. There's kamatsk et al. I used to, yeah, been too long.

As far as telling you whether it is, you know, an ah or a long a, you know, or... But you see, all of the Old Testament Hebrew texts do not have any vowels. It was passed along orally, and then it was lost. The Masoretes took some of the vowels from terms, other names of God, like Elohim and Adonai, and came up with Yahweh. Some later on, not the Masoretes, but some other translators didn't understand what had been done, and they came up with Jehovah. Jehovah comes from Yahweh, but Yahweh is probably about as close as we can guesstimate. And it is just that. It is an educated guess. Most, I think, a lot of Hebrew scholars today will admit that the exact vowel sounds enhance the pronunciation of the YHVH is uncertain. We do not know. And frankly, we probably won't know until Christ returns. So if you take a YHVH, and you know it is a name of God, and you are wanting to then learn how to pronounce it, you could have Yahweh, you could have Yova, you could have all kinds of combinations with different, and yet they are so absolutely certain that they know the right way to pronounce it. When in reality, it is lost. We do not know. Let's go to Mark 9.

I can tell you are having fun with this topic. This is exciting. It really gives me good feedback.

Everyone's eyes are not white, totally white from having rolled back. So that is good. Mark 9.

Interesting little story here in passing. Mark 9 verses 38 and 39.

Now John answered him, saying, Teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow us. Now remember John, the one who later on wrote so much about love, seemed to be so mellowed out. He and his brother James, Christ said, you're the sons of thunder. They wanted to call down fire from heaven.

Well, he seemed to be rather distressed, and sensed maybe, that this man was casting out demons in Christ's name. But Jesus said, Do not forbid him for no one who works a miracle in my name can soon afterward speak evil of me. Jesus did not say he is casting out demons in the name of Yahweh or Yahshua. It does not read that way in the Greek manuscript. And in fact, if we were to follow the term or the word the whites vh through history, some were either in captivity or soon thereafter they lost the true pronunciation. We don't have all pieces of that puzzle.

But as they moved toward Phariseeism, they came to the point where they wouldn't even speak it. And not only that, they attached penalties on top of it if anyone were to speak it. So the devout Jews of that day, this man's casting out, if he had been casting out demons in the name of Yahweh, they could have arrested him, tried him, possibly stone that man. Because it was not to be done in Jewish society of that time. But what we find here is God performed miracles through this man who very likely was using, in the common language, the most common language, was Aramaic. He was probably using an Aramaic name of Jesus Christ to cast out demons, and God honored that.

Would Christ have allowed the man to do that? Would he have said, forbid him not, if it was required that you do so in the name of Yahshua? A careful study of the Bible shows there are all kinds of names for God, names and titles, like in Isaiah, a wonderful counselor, mighty God, Prince of Peace, etc.

But in the New Testament, we find no Hebrew name for God used. Let's go to Luke 6. Luke 6. And this is where Jesus is having a discussion with some of the Pharisees about the fact that some of his disciples were rubbing out a little few heads of wheat in their hand and popping the grain in their mouth. They said it's not lawful to do that. Christ answers Luke 6, verse 3, but Jesus answering them said, Have you not even read this what David did when he was hungry? He and those who were with him, how they went into the house of God, took and ate the showbread, and also gave some to those with them, which is not lawful for any to do but the priests to eat. The account goes a little more detail in Matthew 12, but they were stressing the the letter at the expense of being blinded to the spiritual intent behind the law.

But they went into the house of God. And that word in the Greek is theos.

And in verse 5, Son of Man is, Lord also of the Sabbath. Lord comes from Kyrios. And so here are quotations from, of course, the story back in Samuel or Kings. I didn't look that up, but let's see. marginal notes says 1 Samuel 21. So the account back in 1 Samuel 21 is written in Hebrew. But Jesus, it was translated, and it was inspired then to be written, and it was written in Greek. I think I touched a little on this before. Some argue that all New Testament Greek manuscripts were corrupted and altered. Again, the claim that they originally had terms like Yahweh and Yahshua. And somebody went in and found 5,000 manuscripts. Kyrios appears 665 times. So 5,000 times 665 equals 3,325,000. I used the calculator yesterday. But you were there. I know, you were right there with me. 3,325,000 alterations of the text, and that's not even discussing the phios. Sounds pretty far-fetched. Matthew 24. Matthew 24 verse 35. The words of Jesus Himself. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will by no means pass away. If Yahweh and Yahshua had been in the original Greek manuscripts, they would still be there. Because last time I looked, I looked outside at about 10-5 this morning, beautiful moon shining. Beautiful morning. Heaven and earth have not passed away, so God's Word has not. Paul is an interesting study. Fascinating man. Highly educated. He would have been fluent in what? Greek, certainly. Aramaic, yes. Hebrew, surely. We know that from, well, it's toward the latter chapters, 21-22, somewhere there of Acts, where He has been taken captive there at the Temple Mount.

At the end of one chapter, He asks the commander, may I address the people? And the commander says, oh, can you speak Greek? And the next chapter, the first verse, He turned and He spoke to them in Hebrew. Now again, He's right there at the Temple Mount where you had your devout religious Jews, and Hebrew would have been the language to use there, and the people listened. So Paul was a remarkably educated man, and throughout all that he wrote, 13 letters for sure, and there's a really good possibility he's the author of Hebrews. Not one place does the Greek manuscript use the YHVH, or Yahshua. Not one place. We read Acts 4, verse 10. Let's go to Acts 3. Peter and John, by the power of God, are used as God's tools to heal this lame man. Acts 3, verse 6. Then Peter said, Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do I have I give you. In the name of, and in the Greek, Jesus Christos of Nazareth, rise up and walk. He took him by the hand and lifted him up.

Immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength, and he, leaping, stood and walked and entered the temple with them, walking, leaping, and praising God. He was healed in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. It's interesting to look at different languages today, and Jesus is spelled the same, whether it is English or whether it is Spanish. I believe it's true French and German.

All spelled J-E-S-U-S, but pronounced differently. We say Jesus in Spain or in Spanish speaking areas, it's Jesus.

A little different in German as well. Same wording, different pronunciation. Does that mean that someone addressing the Father? We had a prayer here in the name of Jesus Christ. If someone somewhere else in the world this morning opened church and said, well, in the name of Jesus, does that mean God didn't honor that? I think it's ludicrous. Acts 2, verse 38, baptism is to be in the name of Jesus Christ. Again, Jesus Christos. Keep your place here in Acts.

We're going to come right back. Let's go to John 17 for one reference.

Let's go to Matthew 7, verse 21. Matthew 7, verse 21. Matthew 7, verse 21. John, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Lord, Lord, kyrios, kyrios, not Yahshua, Yahshua.

Lord, Lord. Doing what Christ says, following in the example of Christ, living by every word is far more important than the word that we use, the name that we happen to choose to address him by. Now, let's go back to Acts, this time, chapter 2, because in my estimation, this really is the bottom line as far as answering this argument. And it'll come back.

So some of these, some of these, well, some of these teachings resurrect every so often, they come back. And I think it's good for us to look at it and just come, you know, just in a non-emotional manner, look at what does the Bible actually say and present. We have some material, if you want a copy of this is written by Ken Graham, the sacred name is a Christian required to use it.

There were some articles, you could probably do a search back in the old Good News or Plain Truth. There are some, there are some old articles and, you know, the same arguments, same answers are still valid today. But in Acts 2, we have that remarkable day of Pentecost. And so many times we've read the first few verses, Spirit of God came upon them.

But let's start in verse five. And there were dwelling in Jerusalem, devout men, Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. So all nations are represented.

We are told in chapter one that about 120 disciples were gathered there, but there were a lot of other people around. And after all, 3000 were baptized later that same day. Verse six, and when this sound occurred, the multitude came together and were confused because everyone heard them speak in his own language. They are hearing in their own language.

Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear each in our own language, our own dialect, the Greek dialectos, in which we were born? So that is their native language.

Now notice how many can we count here? There are some verse nine from Parthia, and Medes is two, and Elamites is three. Now it says those dwelling in Mesopotamia, those three peoples are over in the Tigris Ephrae-T Mesopotamian area. Judea, you've got some there whose native tongue would have been, first of all, Aramaic, secondly Greek, unless they're devout religious types and they would still speak Hebrew.

Cappadocia is five, Pontus is six, Asia, that other part around there of Asia Minor, seven.

Phrygia, eight. Pamphylia, nine. Egypt, ten. And parts of Libya, adjoining Cyrene, which is in Libya, there's eleven. Visitors from Rome, that's twelve, both Jews and proselytes. Cretans, 13, from the island of Crete. And Arabs, or the margin, Arabians, 14 different people anyhow. Different languages represented and we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.

As we follow through this story, we have the sermon that Peter preached. And Peter, in verse 16, begins to quote from the prophecy of the prophet Joel. In verse 17, it says, and it shall come to pass in the last days, says God. And in the manuscript there, he used the term Theos.

But it doesn't say Theos back in Joel. It says Elohim. I will pour out my flesh. Let's go down to verse 21. It shall be that whoever calls on the name of the Lord. And as they copy it, it has the capital L-O-R-D. It's from the Yahweh, but it's in the Greek written as Kyrios.

Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Then he addresses the people after that quotation. Verse 22, men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus. And that's in the Greek, Jesus, of Nazareth, a man attested by God. That's the Greek Theos to you by miracles, wonder signs, and signs which God Theos did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know.

And we could go on through the chapter. And there is not one. There is not a single usage of a Hebrew name for God. Devout men from every nation were present. They heard them speak in their own native dialect. 2 Timothy 3. 2 Timothy 3. And let's notice verse 16.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction of righteousness. Inspiration of God.

And that comes the only time this Greek word appears. It's theo-nustos, the Theos speaking of God. And it's the picture of God breathing his breathing life spiritually into us. Kind of a wordplay, a picture like back when God formed Adam out of the elements of the earth and breathed literally the breath of life into him. Scripture breathes life into us. It is by God's inspiration. And if we believe that, we have to accept the fact that God inspired and preserved the New Testament to be written in Greek. No, not one Greek manuscript uses terms Yahweh or Yahshua for God or Jesus. And let's turn over to Revelation a couple of places and we'll wrap this up. Revelation 3 verse 12. This is in the letter that is written to the angel of the church in Philadelphia. But just notice Revelation 3 verse 12. He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God, and I will write on him my new name. And when I read that, I wonder, does Jesus even know what his new name will be? We aren't told. To the back of Revelation chapter 22.

Revelation 22 verse 3 and verse 4. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall serve him. They shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads. Now, about three chapters earlier, it was talking about a mark of the beast, and you know, the mind, the head, the mind, the hand, the work that goes along gets into that system, but the time is coming when God's very name will be on the foreheads of his people in this sense. So, the Bible does not say that it is wrong for people to read the Scriptures in their own language. In fact, the Bible provides precedence of translating Scripture from one language into the other with God's sanction. It is not wrong to refer to God the Father or God the Son in our own native language. We can pray to God in English that most of us are trying to learn. We make no special points with God by praying to Him as Yahweh or Yahshua. We have many examples we can look at. Abraham interceded for Sodom, and he at one point there at the end of Genesis 18, at one point he said something about the judge of all the earth was the name by which he referred to God. The judge of all the earth and the judge of all the earth answered him.

We have Abraham addressing God as Adonai a few verses later, and God answered him.

During the plagues upon Egypt, the swarms of the flies, we have Moses going and entreating Yahweh. And God answered him. And when Jesus walked the earth, he used common Greek names for God when he spoke here on the earth. He stood up that Sabbath at Nazareth. They presented the scroll of Isaiah. He turned to what you and I know as Isaiah 61 verses 1 and 2. And there in the Hebrew we have the words Adonai and Yahweh, but he used Kyrios as he read the same passage as it is written. He taught us to address God as our Father, and that's the Greek potter. Salvation is not based on secret, mysterious pronunciations. Salvation is based upon the grace of God and involves repentance and faith, and walking in the Spirit and living by every word of God.

Let me close with a brief quotation from our booklet The Ten Commandments on the topic of the Third Commandment. In our booklet we write, God wants us to recognize and acknowledge him for what he is. Therefore, it is the meaning, not the sound or spelling of his names, that is of greater importance as the Bible is translated from one language to another.