Solomon Aggrey - Following His Glory

‘God is Light and there is no darkness in Him at all … But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son cleanses us from all sin.’ You see, we take this metaphorically and see light as referring to goodness, excellence, purity, truth, knowledge, wisdom, and happiness, which is true. But the true fact is that God is literally Light, and so you must walk in this literal light of God. The question is do you walk in the invisible Light of God? What sort of light are you walking in? What lamp is under your feet? What light lightens your path? Many of us are not walking in the true Light of God even though we pretend we are? Sometimes half-light or half-truth is more dangerous and more deceptive than darkness.

The I AM

Moses had had a live encounter with the living God, and he was in the process of being sent to go back to Egypt to redeem the children of Israel from slavery and hard bondage. Moses had lived in Egypt before. He knew the might of Pharaoh and the power of the Egyptian army. Egypt was the most powerful nation at that time. God did not offer Moses any army or any special weapon to use, so he rightly questioned his own identity: ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?’ In other words, ‘I am just an ordinary shepherd.’ ‘I am nobody before Pharaoh; the greatest king in the world, and His army.’ ‘You need a more powerful army and an army general, not me.’

God’s answer to Moses’ question was, ‘I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.’ (Exodus 3.12).

If Moses understood it right, God was saying that His presence was more powerful and more potent than Pharaoh and the Egyptian army. He might have been even more bewildered. Well! Moses said, ‘Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?’ The name of God is the epitome of who He is; what He carries, His authority and power. So Moses was asking, ‘Who are you? Which type of God are you? What power and authority do you have and carry?’ In other words, ‘In what power and authority are You sending me?’ Moses was asking, not only for the children of Israel but also for Himself.

‘I AM WHO I AM. And He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’’

Exodus 3.14

Who is I AM? The Hebrew word translated as I AM is ‘hayah’, which means ‘to exist’, ‘to be’, ‘to become’ or ‘to come to pass’. In other words, He is the life of everything. Everything exists because He Is. He is the being of everything without Him nothing is. He is timeless and the source of everything. I AM is thus a self-existing and self-sufficient God, He does not need man, animal, or anything in order to exist; rather, He is a life giver. That was the God of the burning bush. He did not need the bush to exist; completely self-existing and self-sufficient. He is the source, beginning and the end of everything. God signalled that ‘I AM’ was to be His proper and personal name.

The Hebrew word, Jehovah/Yahweh translated as ‘Lord,’ is derived from the same Hebrew word, ‘hayah’ meaning self-existing and self-sufficient God. According to Jewish tradition, the name Jehovah/Yahweh was too holy to be mentioned, so it was usually written without the vowels as YHWH (Tetragrammaton). The children of Israel instead would use the word Adonai as a substitute of Jehovah/Yahweh (Genesis 18.3).

Jehovah is a God of intimacy who seeks and encourages a closer intimacy with Him. Jehovah God breathed Himself into Adam and Adam became a living being. Adam therefore had God’s DNA or nature inside of him. Jehovah God was one with Adam before his fall. Jehovah God put Adam in the garden in Eden and endowed him with glory, honour, and dominion (Psalms 8.5-8). So there was a natural affinity and bonding between Jehovah God and Adam, to such an extent that Jehovah God used to visit Adam and Eve in the garden. In whatever way one sees it, relationship, love, friendship, intimacy, or sonship, there was a close bond between Jehovah God and man.

‘Moreover God said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel; The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generation.’’

Exodus 3.15

God later revealed to Moses saying, ‘I am Lord (Jehovah), I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty (El Shaddai), but by My name Lord (Jehovah)! I was not known to them. I have also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, in which they were strangers.’ (Exodus 6.2-4).

When Adam and Eve sinned and lost their communion with God, it was Jehovah Elohim who sought them, killed innocent animals, and clothed them with the tunics (Genesis 3.21). Though Adam and Eve lost their intimacy with God, Jehovah did not abandon them. He chastised them for their sin, but He also sought to redeem them from the mess they had put themselves in. He is still Jehovah God to us; sorting out our mess. God has revealed the attributes of the name Jehovah in many ways, but the first distinct revelation of the name Jehovah was in connection with the redemption of Israel. Therefore I AM (Jehovah) is a powerful redemptive name of God.

Through the revelation of the name Jehovah, God began to unfold a personal relationship and communion with man, not only His works but His manifest presence. Mankind through God’s dealing with Moses and the children of Israel began to know who God was personally, His nature and His character. In that relationship Jehovah had to deal with three things:

1 His holiness in relation to man’s sinfulness (Leviticus 11.44-45; 19.1-2; 20.26; Habakkuk 1.12-13).

2 His response to sin (Genesis 6.5-7; Exodus 34.6-7; Deuteronomy 32.35-42; Psalms 11.4-6; 66.18).

3 His love for the righteous redemption of sinners (Genesis 3.2; 8.20-21; Leviticus 16.2-3; Isaiah 53.5-10).

Jehovah is the God who manifests His Presence; “My presence will go with you.” He is the God of signs and wonders, as He demonstrated to Moses and all Israel. Jehovah is the God of love, mercy, compassion, and grace. The manifest presence of God also manifests His attributes, who He is, and opens up the resources of heaven,

Apostle Paul ended Hebrews chapter 11 with these words, ‘And all these (men of faith) having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise. God having provided something better for us that they should not be made perfect apart from us.’ (Hebrews 11.39-40). Of all the mighty works the patriarchs and mighty men of old did, they did not receive the complete promise. The word ‘perfect’ means completeness and wholeness as we have seen. It shows that God planned that the mighty men of faith and the prophets of old should not complete their works but wait for us, in the end time, to join hands together with us to complete their works.

God will therefore release their mantles upon us and/or send them here on earth to encourage, strengthen, direct, guide and empower us to fulfil the complete plan of redemption and restoration. They have a share in it. They sacrificed so much for it. We have many examples of this in the Bible. One clear example is when Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus at the transfiguration and spoke to Him about His death on the cross. Why? Couldn’t God have strengthened Jesus Himself? It was God’s administrative style and His governmental process. It was God’s will and pleasure. The eleventh-hour saints shall receive as much as the first-hour saints. It is still His will and His pleasure. No one can do anything about it. It is not only Elijah who will come back again before the coming of the Lord, but Moses too will come back again in one way or the other.