THE LORD OF SABAOTH STILL ROARS
There are several names used in the Bible to
describe the nature of God. One of the names for God is Jehovah-Sabaoth (săb'ā-ŏth), the
Lord of hosts.
If you have a concordance and want to study
this out, you will find that “hosts” are all the physical elements of the earth
and beyond, and also angels. Whenever God reveals himself as the Lord of
Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts, watch out. This is where people get the idea of
“the fear of the Lord” or the “anger of the Lord.” Yes, God does get angry even
though He is still love. He gets furious when his people get hurt, when his
people are oppressed and treated wrongly. He gets angry when leaders of His
people keep on doing evil things in His name—acting real religious but totally
against His will. He’ll put up with it for a while, waiting for someone to do something, but even God can only take
so much, and then the Lord of Sabaoth comes into the situation, and the effect
is extremely powerful.
I want to give you a very practical example of
the Lord of Sabaoth working in everyday life. James 5:4 says: “Behold, the hire
[money] of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept
back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into
the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.” In other words, the money is trying to get to
the workers, and the workers are crying out to God for their rightful money. The
Lord of Sabaoth doesn’t like His children to be cheated.
This is what happened: I had worked a full week, and it was pay day,
and I was going out of town for a few days. When it came to getting my check,
my boss said he didn’t get paid, so I wouldn’t get paid. I was shocked and
depressed. I told my friend who had been studying the Lord of Sabaoth with me.
She was very quiet at first, and then she exploded.
All of a sudden, she opened her mouth, and she
was furious, so mad that it even scared me. I tried to get her to calm down,
but she wouldn’t. The fire came out and kept coming in peals of anger, fury, and
roaring; it escalated. Then we both stopped and realized: This is the Lord of hosts.
This is the Lord of Sabaoth who’s really angry! The message was to call my boss
and demand my money. We were working in one of the casinos, who refused to pay
him right away, so he tried to delay me. I’d done the work and expected to be
paid, and I told him so. I wouldn’t be put off. I insisted, and he managed to
find the money and paid me in cash. He never tried to pull that again. Once we
realized what was going on and took the appropriate action, the Lord of Sabaoth
was quiet.
Knowing about the Lord of Sabaoth is certainly
not an excuse for justifying anger. The only way to really know if it’s your
anger or God’s is to study the Lord of Sabaoth from the Bible and ask God to
show you in your own life experience.
There are lots of examples in the Bible of how
the Lord of Sabaoth works. Take the record of what happened with Sodom and
Gomorrah as recorded in Genesis 18 and 19, for instance. Abraham’s nephew, Lot,
was living there. He allowed all kinds of evil to take place, and he never
stood against it. Finally, it got so bad that even the earth itself couldn’t
take it. The Lord of Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts, was there, and only Lot and
his children were saved. Paul states: “Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a
seed, we had been as Sodom, and been made like unto Gomorrah” (Rom.
It was the Lord of Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts,
behind the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the saving of Lot. The hosts
in this situation were the physical elements of destruction—fire and
brimstone—in and above the earth and the angels that came to get Lot out.
Another example is with Noah: “And God saw
that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). Man became so
evil that he corrupted everything, including the earth itself. Man was given
dominion over the earth, and sin continues to affect it in a destructive way.
The Lord of hosts was there for Noah to allow the flood and save Noah and his
family.
The following section of Psalms 18 shows us
how God works as the Lord of Sabaoth to rescue David from the oppression of
evil men. God will do the same for us. David says:
“I will call upon
the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.
The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me
afraid. The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented [were
before] me.
“In my distress,
I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his
temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears. Then the earth shook
and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken because
he was wroth.
“There went up a
smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were
kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also and came down: and the darkness was
under his feet.
“And he rode upon
a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind…. The Lord
also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and
coals of fire…. He sent from above, he took me; he drew me out of many waters.
He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: for they
were too strong for me” (Ps. 18:3-17).
Yes, there are times when things or people are
too much for us. We can’t handle everything. Some things are too much for even
the strongest of us, and God can only put up with so much abuse toward His
people. It is then that the attributes of God as the Lord of Sabaoth goes into
full action.
So how does this apply today? The Lord of
Sabaoth still roars. As Christians, we have God in Christ in us. That means
that every aspect, every characteristic of God, is in us, including the Lord of
Sabaoth. David didn’t have this. God, in Christ, in an individual, wasn’t
available in Old Testament times, but He is now. Think about it. Have you ever
felt so angry that you could hardly contain it? I’m not talking about fleshly
anger. I’m talking about a spiritual anger, a holy anger, an anger that rises
up from deep inside you, an anger that is unusual, kind of just out of nowhere.
You might even wonder, “Why am I sooo angry?”
That’s the Lord of Sabaoth.
We’ve got to get to where we recognize the
Lord of Sabaoth. If no one has the guts to allow the Lord of Sabaoth to
operate, then the devil will just continue to walk all over God’s people and
hurt them and abuse them just like with Lot, Noah, and David, and the devil
will have the opportunity to win in their lives.
In Isaiah and Jeremiah, God says we are the
watchmen on the towers of the walls of the cities, there to watch and sound the
alarm when the enemy comes against God’s people. In Ezekiel
When God works through us or someone we know
in the capacity of the Lord of Sabaoth, it’s strong and often scary and
uncomfortable. I have seen two friends allow the Lord of Sabaoth to work in
them. One friend is very aware of the Lord of Sabaoth and has studied this
aspect of God and experientially knows when the Lord of Sabaoth is brewing in
her and ready to roar. The other friend may be more like the rest of us who
have experienced the Lord of Sabaoth at times but haven’t really known what it
was. The second friend is generally a quiet person, but one day I heard her
just get so supernaturally angry that the guy she spoke to backed off and left
her alone with a new respect for her from that day on!
Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:26: “Be ye angry
and sin not.” In the notes for The Companion Bible, E.W. Bullinger
explains that the word “angry” is in the imperative mood, [which indicates a
command or strong request], and it is a positive command showing that righteous
indignation is referred to. We are to allow the Lord of Sabaoth to work in us
and not be afraid of it or second guess ourselves. We need to just let it fly,
knowing that it is in love that we act, to defend and protect and rescue. The
Lord is willing to teach us how to know the difference between our own anger
and His. Our part is to believe and step out in faith.
Recognizing and allowing the workings of the
Lord of Sabaoth in our lives is an important aspect of our spiritual growth.
Love, Carolyn
Here are some other places in the Bible that
you can learn about the Lord of Sabaoth:
Lord of Sabaoth, Lord of Hosts:
1 Samuel 1:11
1 Samuel 15:1-3
1 Samuel 17:45
2 Samuel 5:10
2 Kings 19:31
1 Chronicles 11:9
Psalm 24:10
Psalm 46:7
Psalm 59:5
Psalm 84:12
Isaiah 1:24
Isaiah 3:15
Isaiah 9:7
Isaiah 10:33-34
Isaiah 13:4, 13
Isaiah 14:27
Amos 4:13
Amos 5:15
Zephaniah 2:9
Haggai 2:6, 8
Malachi 1:14
Watchmen:
Isaiah 56:10
Isaiah 62:6
Jeremiah 6”17
Jeremiah 51:12
Ezekiel 22:30
Power in us:
John 17:23
Galatians 2:2
Philippians 2:13
Colossians 1:27
Ephesians 1:18-20
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