Page 185 - Ephesians

great epitaph for a tombstone? If it were true in my life, I would
love somebody to put that on my tombstone. Well, with that
statement, the Holy Spirit summarizes Abraham’s life: “He
believed God”.

In the Hebrew, the word believe is the word, amen. He
amened God. He amened God and it was counted as
righteousness. I love simple truths, and this is one of the
simplest. I love the word amen. I really do. Some people think
amen means the end. It’s over. You know, you come to the end
of a prayer and you say, amen. Well, amen does not mean the
end. I am glad it doesn’t.

You probably have heard that the word literally means, “So is it”,
or, “So be it”. I don’t like that because that comes across in my
mind as wishful thinking. You know, you say a prayer and you
say amen, so be it. In other words, I hope so. I hope God
answers this prayer. I wish that would be so. Amen does mean
so be it, but it is stronger than that. It means, “So is it because
God says so”, and “So will it be, because God says so”.

In the Hebrew language the word amen was built on an acrostic.
You know what an acrostic is? It is when you take the first letter
of every word and then you make another word out of it. And
there were three Hebrew words. The first was Al, sometimes
spelled El, meaning God. The second word was Melech, which is
the Hebrew word for king. And then the third word is Neman,
and it means trustworthy. And those three words form an
acrostic. Al-Melech-Neman. You take the first letter and you
have AMN. Amen. And out of those three words we get the
Hebrew word, amen. And it means: God, king, trustworthy. God
is a trustworthy king. And when you put that at the end of your
prayer or I put it at the end of my prayer - don’t just say: Amen,
we’re done, over and out. You say: Amen, so is it because God
said so. So will it be because God said so and God is a
trustworthy king.