Such were the various measures and various modes in which "God spake in times past unto the fathers, by the prophets" (Heb. i. 1.); and the believer, under this dispensation or economy, as possessing the Spirit of sonship, can say, It was my Father who thus revealed Himself, thus spoke, thus acted. Nothing can be more interesting or practically important in its way than to follow out those great dispensational titles of God. These titles are always used in strict moral consistency with the circumstances under which they are disclosed; but there is, in the name "I AM," a height, a depth, a length, a breadth, which truly pass beyond the utmost stretch of human conception. "When God would teach mankind His name, He calls Himself the great 'I AM,' And leaves a blank--believers may Supply those things for which they pray." And, be it observed, it is only in connection with His own people that He takes this name. He did not address Pharaoh in this name. When speaking to him, He calls Himself by that commanding and majestic title, "The Lord God of the Hebrews;" _i.e._, God, in connection with the very people whom he was seeking to crush. This ought to have been sufficient to show Pharaoh his awful position with respect to God. "I AM" would have conveyed no intelligible sound to an uncircumcised ear--no divine reality to an unbelieving heart. When God manifest in the flesh declared to the unbelieving Jews of His day those words, "Before Abraham was, I _am_," they took up stones to cast at Him. It is only the true believer who can feel, in any measure, the power, or enjoy the sweetness, of that ineffable name, "I AM." Such an one can rejoice to hear from the lips of the blessed Lord Jesus such declarations as these:--"_I am_ that bread of life," "_I am_ the light of the world," "_I am_ the good Shepherd," "_I am_ the resurrection and the life," "_I am_ the way, the truth, and the life," "_I am_ the true vine," "_I am_ Alpha and Omega," "_I am_ the bright and morning star." In a word, he can take every name of divine excellence and beauty, and, having placed it after "I AM," find JESUS therein, and admire, adore, and worship. Thus, there is a sweetness, as well as a comprehensiveness, in the name "I AM," which is beyond all power of expression. Each believer can find therein that which exactly suits his own spiritual need, whatever it be. There is not a single winding in all the Christian's wilderness journey, not a single phase of his soul's experience, not a single point in his condition, which is not divinely met by this title, for the simplest of all reasons, that whatever he wants, he has but to place it, by faith, over against "I AM" and find it all in Jesus. To the believer, therefore, however feeble and faltering, there is unmingled blessedness in this name.