What we see and hear in the world today requires God’s people to stand in Peace in knowing that God is in complete and total control. He requires us to have knowledge of who He is because His Word in Hosea 4:6 tells us that we are destroyed for lack of knowledge. This is so powerful, because knowledge of who He is, is the weapon that we use against Satan and his demons. When you know who He is, when poverty tries to knock at your door, you are able to say, God is my….

JEHOVAH JIREH – He is God who will see that every need I have will be met. Just like He provided the lamb for His son Abraham in the midnight hour when things looked bleak and looked like the impossible was going to happen. Where could a sacrifice come from on a mountain top? Everything that could help was out of reach, but Jehovah Jireh supernaturally put an appetite in a ram that made his horns get tangled in a bush to be a sacrifice.

That is not all Jehovah Jireh will do. He is not just a supplier of material things, but He provided us a way out–that our sins were paid for by Jesus Christ, His Son–and He provided the Holy Spirit to help keep His Word. My God will see to it that I obey Him. He even provided the faith and strength to keep His Word by giving us the Holy Spirit.

EL ELYON – God Most High, Creator, and Possessor of Heaven and Earth. We know Him to be a God who is the Creator of all things. Nothing the world has to offer can compare to what God has created for you and me. Nothing the enemy can use–offerings of riches and to be famous–are all counterfeit because God owns it all anyway. Satan’s offers cannot be compared to what God has in store for you and me. I know who God is; He is the Possessor of Heaven and Earth.

JEHOVAH SHABOTH – The Lord of Hosts. God will go before you in the time of trouble and let you know you are not alone in this battle. There is a host of the army of the Lord all around you with their swords drawn ready for battle, just as He allowed Joshua to see when He was ready to battle Jericho. He revealed Himself to Joshua as Jehovah Shaboth, the Lord of Hosts.

Joshua had gotten in a place where the battle he was about to face was totally beyond his ability. If God wasn’t in it, then he was not going to be victorious. When the Man, big “M”, appeared to him with sword drawn ready for battle, Joshua didn’t question who he saw or why he said, “Are you for me, or are you against me?” When the Man, whom I believe was a shadow of Jesus Christ, answered, Joshua fell on his face and had an encounter with Jehovah Shaboth, the Lord of Hosts. This battle is not yours.

When you have established who God is just through these names, you have to have some peace that surpasses understanding. You will need Jehovah Shalom. The Hebrew word for Shalom is completeness, health, welfare, but my favorite is a state of being at ease, not restless, a place of being at peace inwardly and outwardly, spiritually and emotionally. That kind of peace comes when you know who God is and you know what He is able to do.

JEHOVAH SHALOM showed up in the midst of Gideon when God wanted him to be the one to set the children of Israel free from seven years of bondage from the Midianites. The children of Israel had allowed evilness to be their god. They worshiped Baal, even when God had warned them what the consequences of turning their backs on Him would be.

They cried out to God. Their tears were genuine repentance but not a heart repentance. Even as they were held captive and crying out to the Lord, they were still worshiping Baal. Gideon and his family were doing the same, but God used Gideon to set the children of Israel free.

However, Gideon had to encounter Jehovah Shalom. All that was happening in the land, Gideon had seen and endured all together. But the Lord knew him to be a mighty man of valor, meaning a man of fearless courage. Now how could that be so when Gideon used one excuse after another why it shouldn’t be him to save Israel. But God knows what you are capable of, and if He sends you, He and He alone will equip you.

Remember, if you know who God is, this battle is not yours. Gideon knew this to be true when he came face to face with the consuming fire of God. It reads in Judges 6:22 that he perceived who the angel of the Lord was. Gideon said: “Alas, O Lord God, for I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face.” Gideon had to build an altar right there and called it The Lord is Peace, Jehovah Shalom. An extraordinary presence of peace overtook Gideon, one that gave him inwardly and outwardly peace. It was a peace that gave him the ability to tear down his father’s altar of Baal and build an altar to the Lord in spite of the consequences.

You have to understand that Gideon questioned the Angel of the Lord saying: “If God says He is for us, then why has all this happened to us?” He forgot the warnings that God had given and the evilness that the children of Israel had done and still were doing.

How like many in the world today. Forgetting our complacency, we get with the unrighteousness that this world gives. How easy it is for Christians to submit to the ways of the world and allow unrighteousness.

It is easy to make excuses for watching ungodly things on TV and the Internet. How easy it is to hear God’s name taken in vain and somehow be at ease with it. How easy to allow the enemy to use you in situations that you know you shouldn’t allow. But we will be quick to repent when called out and quick to go back to worshiping “Baal” when no one is around.

Gideon had forgotten all about that but wanted to blame God for the situation not going the way it should. However, I believe Gideon was a man who worshiped God and knew who He was from all the stories that were told to him. And the Angel of the Lord knew what was in him, because he told him: “All this courage you have to stand and say what God isn’t doing and the knowledge of God that was told to you by your forefathers, go and save Israel, and I will give you the peace to do it.”

Whatever God tells you to do, you know Him already as Jehovah Jireh, the Provider, Jehovah El Elyon, the God Most High, Creator and Possessor of everything in Heaven and Earth, and Jehovah Shaboth, the Lord of Hosts.

The story of Gideon is a story about who God truly is. In this story, He allows us to see that He is the one who fights the battles. Gideon and his army of 300 men took down the Midianites with empty pitchers, and torches inside the pitchers, and trumpets. The men encamped around the enemy camp, and when Gideon told them, they blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers and cried out: “The sword of the Lord and Gideon.” The Midianites started fighting against each other and started running, and that is when Gideon and his men and all other neighboring places conquered the Midianites and others. God gave them the victory without a fight. That is what He will do for you and me. We don’t have to fight; just be obedient.