The Names of God: El(ohim) Olam

Isaiah 40:28-31 (KJV) Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God , the LORD , the Creator of the ends of the earth , fainteth not , neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. 29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. 30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: 31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

I was watching a BBC (British Broadcasting) Show on Netflix, a nature show called Inside Nature’s Giants. It’s a fascinating series that I generally enjoy. On this particular show they were looking at the camel. The camel is a fascinating creation of God. I learned that the camel can go six months without water in climates hot as up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Scientists were looking at this half ton creature to see why it can do this. Human blood cells are round, so as we lose water our blood thickens and can clot and kill us. Camel blood cells are oval and thinner, and do not clot when the blood thickens. When we get hot it can cause brain damage, but the camel nose has a special device in it that in essence refrigerates the air breathed in. This cooled air crosses over the artery that provides blood to the brain protecting the creature from overheating. The camel’s legs are designed so that they store energy. A camel can run longer and farther than a human without breaking a sweat. Even the camel’s urinary system is designed to use only the amount of water necessary to remove toxins. No water is wasted. And camels – when near water – can drink up to 30 liters per hour, storing water in their tissues – NOT in the hump. The hump(s) is where fat is stored for energy. A camel can go a long time without food!

As I was watching this show I thought

“How fantastic our God is. This creature is obviously designed, and God is the Designer”

But then the Atheistic Scientist Christopher Hitchens came on the screen and explained – and I paraphrase here because I cannot find a transcript of the show –

“It is amazing how NATURE and EVOLUTION designed this fantastic creature!”

Sadly this foolish man is now gone from this earth, taken by esophageal cancer. God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11), but wants all to be saved. If anyone should have seen the design of God through nature, it should have been this man.

Our God is the Everlasting God, El Olam, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning of all things, the first cause of life.

Isaiah 40:28 (KJV) Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.

This is not the first time that this name of God – The Everlasting God – is mentioned. It is first mentioned in:

Genesis 21:33 (KJV) And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the LORD, the everlasting God.

God had promised Abraham that “I will make your name great” (Genesis 12:2). Abraham followed and loved the Lord. Though Abraham was not perfect (the story of Hagar is mentioned in this very chapter, one of the low moments of Abraham’s life) he loved God. And God loved Abraham. Though Abraham was a stranger among the Canaanites he was respected and well treated.

While in Canaan a band of soldiers from Philistia took one of Abraham’s wells by force. Abraham called on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God and the Lord caused Abimelech, and Phichol his prime-minister of state and general of his army to come and see Abraham – not to attack him but to return what was taken, and to surrender to him.

The King said:

Genesis 21:22-23 …. GOD IS WITH THEE IN ALL THAT THOU DOEST: 23 Now therefore swear unto me here by God that thou wilt not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son’s son: but according to the kindness that I have done unto thee, thou shalt do unto me, and to the land wherein thou hast sojourned.

Abraham had a large household and many camels and men, but he did not have near the volume of what the Philistines had. Yet the Philistines approached Abraham and – on bended knee – sought a treaty with him.

They treated Abraham as if he were Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan, a world conquerer. Why? Because Abraham loved the Everlasting God, and El Olam loved Him.

1 Our God Is Bigger Than We Can Even Imagine. We don’t read much anymore, but we as Christians should. I read a lot – not just Scripture, but books that teach on Scripture. Years ago I read a book that really revolutionized the way I thought about God. It was by a man named J.B. Phillips called Your God Is Too Small. In that book he noted that people often develop an unbiblical view of God.

To some God is a Policeman who only steps in when the law is broken. Otherwise He remains in the background.
To others God is a Grand Old Man or, as one child put it, “God is a very old gentleman living in Heaven”.
Some think God to be Meek and Mild – Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look upon a little child.

God is often thought of as a Cross you wear around your neck, a rabbit’s foot or buckeye in your pocket, or a pocket sized god you can pull out and pray to when needed, but hide when you don’t. Our God is the Everlasting God. Phillips wrote:

“God will inevitably appear to disappoint the man who is attempting to use Him as a convenience, a prop, or a comfort – for his own plans. God has never been known to disappoint the man who is sincerely wanting to co-operate with His own purposes.”

Our God is EVERLASTING. He is the FIRST CAUSE of all things.

Isaiah 57:15 For thus saith the high and lofty One that INHABITETH ETERNITY, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

The world loves to speak of a tiny god and a BIG HUMAN. The world thinks that God should be little “g”, non-intrusive but always at Mankind’s (BIG M) beck and call. Yet the God of the Scripture “inhabits eternity”.

He is high and lofty, but we are not. He is eternal, but we are not. God came to Abraham because Abraham was contrite and of a humble spirit. Abraham knew himself to be mortal and fallible, but God to be EL OLAM, the Everlasting God.

Abraham was great because he was not defined by those fallen creatures around him. He was defined by EL OLAM. He moved forward on the promises of EL OLAM. He listened to the Word of EL OLAM. He obeyed what EL OLAM said.

a Are You Living Life DEFINED By God? How Big IS Your God? (Follow The Commas)

“Everlasting God” in Isaiah 40:28 is not EL OLAM but in the Hebrew ELOHIM OLAM. You might ask what the difference is. EL is the singular name of God, but ELOHIM is the plural or Triune name of God. EL would be used to describe God the Father OR God the Son OR God the Holy Spirit. But ELOHIM OLAM refers to the Trinity of God (Father-Son-Spirit) working together. We are told several things about the Everlasting God – ELOHIM OLAM – in this Scripture. Notice that right after “Everlasting God” we see several commas with statements within the commas.

The Everlasting God , the LORD

The Triune God Is Everlasting Because He Is LORD. Anytime you see LORD in all capital letters in the King James this is the name of God YAHWEH, the Most Holy Name of God. This is the name that God gave to Moses at the burning bush. “Who shall I say sent me?” Moses asked God. ELOHIM told Moses in Exodus 3:14 “I AM that I AM. Tell them I AM sent you”. From this phrase the eternal name of God YAHWEH developed. God is the Everlasting God because He is the Eternal I AM. God has no beginning and no end. Moses prayed:

Psalm 90:1-2 LORD, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were born, Or Thou didst give birth to the earth and the world, Even from EVERLASTING TO EVERLASTING, Thou art God.

A child asks “If God made all things, who made God?”
The answer is “No one made God. God IS God.”

As humans we think in terms of time. But God is outside of time. He is the I AM from Everlasting to Everlasting. When space was nothing, and no planets were, God was there. When space dissolves under the judgment of God, and

2 Peter 3:10 … the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

God will still be there. God is ever constant, never changing. The world changes, but ELOHIM does not.

b God Is The Creator. Not evolution, Not nature, but ELOHIM OLAM. We see now the second comma:

The Everlasting God , the LORD , the CREATOR of the ends of the earth

When we open our Bible to its very first page we read:

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

In the beginning of human and angelic history God (ELOHIM) created. There is no explanation as to where God came from, because God IS. Man is created. The planets and stars are created. The things on this earth are created. Space itself is created. Animals are created. Angels are created. Everything is created ….. but God. God existed before all things, and He Himself brought something out of nothing. God is eternal. ELOHIM is self existent. He is the ONLY Being who does not owe His existence to another. God has life in and of Himself. Our Lord Jesus said:

John 5:26 (NET) For just as THE FATHER HAS LIFE IN HIMSELF, thus he has granted the Son to have life in himself …

Only God has live in Himself. When He creates, He creates from out of Himself. We are because God is. It was ELOHIM OLAM who said in

Genesis 1:26 “Let US make man in our own image and after our own likeness”.

The ancient world believed that the universe was eternal and whatever gods existed were finite parts of this universe. The modern world also believes much of this absurd and untrue claim.

Job 38:4-5, 8-11 (ESV2011) Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. 5 Who determined its measurements … Or who stretched the line upon it? … 8 “Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, 9 when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, 10 and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, 11 and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?

It is ELOHIM OLAM Who …

Isaiah 40:12 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

God “measured the waters”, the oceans and all large bodies of water. He holds all the seas in the hollow of His hand.

To God, Heaven is but a “span” – the distance between your thumb and the middle of your middle finger.

ELOHIM knows how much dust there is in the earth because He made it. God knows the weight of the mountains, the size of the hills. Nothing is randomly made. God deliberately made all things.

Isaiah 40:13-14 Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counselor hath taught him? 14 With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding?

No one had to tell God how to do anything. From the tiniest ant to the camel of the desert or the huge sperm whale of the sea, God made it and founded it. God wrote the book on everything, but needed no tutorial. He knows, He is everlasting in knowledge. He is EL OLAM.

Isaiah 40:15-17 Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. 16 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. 17 All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.

The works of man – the size of our technology, the precision of our sciences and our medicines, our sky scrapers and super computers. God looks at these things and says “So what?” It is to Him as sophisticated as is a 4 year old child’s crayoned drawing is to an MIT graduate!

Isaiah 40:22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:

El Olam “Sits on the circle of the earth”. He is everywhere at the same time, and man is to God “like grasshoppers”.

Isaiah 40:26 (KJV)26 Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.

God makes every star – and calls them by name. Scientists have counted as many as a “septillion stars” – that’s a 1 with 24 zeros behind it. By the way, no human can count that high in their lifetime. It takes a human counting one number a second nearly 32 years to count to to a billion. A quintillion is a million billions.

c God MUST Be Tired After All This Creation. No, He’s not! Look at the third and fourth commas:

The Everlasting God , the LORD , the Creator of the ends of the earth
, fainteth not , neither is weary

The “God Who is our God for ever and ever (Psalm 48:14) does not get tired or wore out. God established the Sabbath for us, not for Himself (see Jesus’ words in Mark 2:27).

The Everlasting God – Elohim Olam – does not go to bed at night because He can’t keep His peepers open! God is sufficient in Himself, limitless in power, immense and immeasurable. Richard L. Strauss writes:

“God’s self-sufficiency has practical application to our lives. If He possesses everything needful, and He has offered to come into our lives and share Himself with us, then obviously we can find all that we need in Him. That is exactly what the Apostle Paul stated about Him. Speaking of God the Son, he said, “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete” (Colossians 2:9-10).”

2 El Olam – The Everlasting God – Is Big Enough To Bless Us If We Will Come To Him.

Isaiah 40:29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increaseth strength.

Our God “gives power to the faint”. What has God done for us? The Bible says:

Romans 5:6-11 (KJV) For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. 11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

When the time was right God sent forth John the Baptist to announce the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ our Lord. He is the one mentioned in our text at:

Isaiah 40:3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. (see also Matthew 3:3; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4; John 1:23)

John came preaching that the Messiah was coming. Man is a sinner in need of the Savior. Man is temporal in need of the EL OLAM, the Everlasting God. Our condition is that …

Isaiah 40:6-8 (KJV) The Voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: 7 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. 8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

This life shall fade, and surely pass.
Yet the life lived for Jesus shall ever last!

God sent His Son to us while we were yet sinners. God sent salvation through Jesus Christ to all who will believe on Him. God sent His Son saying “In Him I am, well pleased – believe on Him”. God loves ever person, and wants to save us from broken an imperfect lives. Jesus Christ, the Great Shepherd, call whosoever will come to Him to rest in His arms, to lay our burdened lives down before Him.

Isaiah 40:11 (KJV) He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.

Oh, how Christ loves! Oh how He would cherish every soul that came to Him in faith. God has promised salvation to all who come to Him through Christ. He has promised everlasting life, and everlasting strength, and everlasting love to those who follow Him. He has promised:

Isaiah 40:30-31 (KJV) Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: 31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Oh how I wish I had time to preach this. Those who WAIT upon the Lord – expectantly looking toward Him, seeking His face, turning from their own resources to God’s Resources – “they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint”.

We all need the Lord. Turn to Him. Wait on EL OLAM, the Everlasting God. Trust Him. Obey Him. Love Him. Follow Him.

May God touch your hearts with His Word!