This morning Scripture is from
Exodus 3410 to 14, the
revised standard version.
And he said, Behold, I make a covenant
before all your people. I will do marvels
such as have not been wrought in all
the earth or in any nation, and all
the people among whom you you are shall
see the work of the Lord. For it
is a terrible thing that I will do
with you. Observe what
I command you this day. Behold,
I will drive out before you
the Amorites, the Canaanites, the
Hittites, the Parasites, the Hivites, and
the Jebusites. Take heed to yourself
lest you make a covenant with
the inhabitants of the land whether
you go. Lest it become a
snare in the midst of you, you
shall tear down their altars, and break
their pillars, and cut down their
asherim. For you shall worship no other
God. For the Lord whose name is
jealous is a jealous God. This is
the word of the Lord.
Picture this scene with me
if you would.
A man comes home, enters his
apartment. There's a spacious apartment.
He's well dressed, he's obviously well
to do, but as he goes
around the apartment calling out a
name, he gets increasingly agitated.
Because the place is empty, he runs
back outside. It's the middle of the
night, and it's also in the middle
of a storm. He's
not wearing a coat, but he doesn't seem
to care. The rain's pouring down upon him
as he stomps through the streets.
He doesn't have time for a subway. He
hails a cab. He gets in
the cab. And
barks at the cab driver take me to
this address.
Then he sits back in his seat.
And he's a statue. His
muscles are tense, his hands
are clenched. And
he doesn't move except to lean
forward and again snap at the
cab driver. Go faster.
Cab driver at this point is too afraid to
do anything but to obey him. He pulls up
to the curb of a brownstone. The man
whips out his wallet, rips out some cash,
throws it on the seat.
Not caring, not noticing how much
he's overpaid. Jumps out
of the cab, runs up the steps.
And breaks through the front door.
Hardly, you know, breaking his stride.
He bounds up the stairs of the apartment.
Building down a hallway.
To Adore takes his thumb, Rams
his thumb against the buzzer of
the door, but he doesn't let
go. He.
But that's not good enough. He
starts banging on the door. Let
me in open this door, oblivious
to who might be sleeping in
the building.
Finally. The
door cracks open. Opened by
another guy, but the man puts his
shoulder against the door and forces his
way through, breaking the little chain
off the door.
And as he stands there across the room,
the door to a bedroom open and out opens
it outcomes. The man's
wife in a bathroom.
She sees as her husband. At first, she's
shocked. Then her
expression hardens into into a face
of defiance, and a wry smile
curls across her face.
She says yes.
Here I am. The
man reaches behind his back, pulls out a
gun. She sees the gun.
She's taken aback. Then
she says don't be ridiculous, this isn't
that serious.
The husband answers yes, it
is that serious.
He puts the gun on the table, walks up
to her. Right
to her face. And says
you have dragged my honor through
the gutter.
I've loved you.
You belong to me.
The words hang in
the air.
What have I just described to
you?
Huh.
What I just described to you is
jealousy. Jealousy in all
its intensity. Because if there's one
thing that jealousy is.
It's intense.
We're continuing our study, our series on
what God is like by looking at
the attributes of God as revealed in
the Scriptures of the Old and New
Testament. And we come this morning to
a very curious statement in this passage.
About jealousy.
It's a statement that's made in the
context. Of a covenant.
But we need to realize the fierceness of
what it is that we're looking at here.
As Solomon said in the
Proverbs. Anger.
Is wrathful Anger is
fierce, wrath is overwhelming.
But who can stand
before jealousy?
And we're taking a look here at God,
trying to understand Him so that we can
know Him better. We're taking a few weeks
this summer to look at his attributes, to
know Him better, but also to inform our
worship how it is we come to Him and
worship together. And so we come to this
statement in the book of Exodus is smack
dab in the middle of the worship section.
This latter part of the book of Exodus
is all about how to worship under the
Mosaic covenant. It's a statement
within the covenant of Moses, and it's
prescribing how people come to God.
During that covenant in that time.
Prescribing worship. And so we notice in
verse 10 starts out the passage that
this is this thing that we're reading
about is in the context of of
a covenant that God is making with
them. And it's a curious statement
indeed. Yabe kanah samu El kana.
Who?
Yahweh cannot shamu El tanahu.
This God is not only
jealous.
His name?Is
jealous.
His name is jealous.
Friends, this is not an isolated
statement in the scriptures either. In
fact this is this is a reiteration of the
idea we find in the law in the in the
10 commandments back in Exodus 20.
Remember, God says you shall not make a
graven image. Because I the
Lord your God. And a
jealous God.
So this is not a fluke, a slip of the pen
of the writer. Hard to
get around this. If you
believe the Bible that this is.
This is an essential characteristic of
who God is.
A central aspect of his
character.
Well, what does it mean to say that God's
are jealous? They're jealous of what?
Well, it seems to be connected to his
name. Ezekiel 39
Thus says the Lord God, Now I will
restore the fortunes of Jacob, and have
mercy on the whole House of Israel, and I
will be jealous for my holy name.
Something to do with His name, read in
other places, has something to do with
His glory, His honor. He says I
will not give my glory to another.
My glory, my honor, I will not
give to another. So
his name, his honors, his righteous
glory. For these things he is
jealous. Now I
know that as soon as I start talking like
that. Some of you stumble
in coming along with me, some of
you for this, for this. This presents
an obstacle for you.
And you think of this, well it
it sure sounds like God is very
self-centered, right?And we, we think
about this when we encounter it in
people, right? And they're so they, they
always have to, you know, you know,
people like this, they always have to be
the center of attention, right? They, and
they can't be outside of the center of
attention or they can't be, they can't
bear to have you look at them with less
than adoration. Right. And these
kinds of people, they're enjoyable to be
around, aren't they? Just like John
Malkovich and the great Buck Howard. He
saw he, he, he couldn't, he couldn't
spend time with people without making
sure they knew his character, that he had
been on Johnny Carson 62 times.
They had to know that. And if he didn't
know that, if they didn't know that when
they were talking to him, he made sure
that they knew that. And we, we, we
experienced these people around us. We
say, hey. I don't like
that. So
this is this seems to be making God
out to be, you know, just this, this
self centeredness, this kind of pettiness
about him.
But what you have to realize, friends,
whenever you're talking about God, you're
talking about a singularity. You're
talking about God, somebody, something
who is different than us.
Than anybody else. There's not a category
for God. In this way, we're talking about
someone. The difference between God and
us is that God's should be at the
center of our attention. It should be at
the center of our actions.
And that's a big difference when you're
thinking about God's jealousy for his
name, you know?It would
be as if, if you want to complain about
this, it would be as if, you know,
Jupiter turns and complains to Saturn and
Neptune. Say what? What? What about that,
son? Why is the sun always in the center,
you know?Never, never mind.
That's the reason Jupiter's around.
Never mind. It depends on the sun to
exist there. Jupiter, say. Well, you
know, I'm kind of big. I have my own
moons. One, I've got one. I get to be in
the center sometimes. Why it's always him
in the center, this son.
Never mind that you could fit about 1000
Jupiters in the sun.
Nine, 920 actually. But Jupiter has
nowhere near enough gravity to be the
center of the of the solar system.
The whole things together.
God belongs in the center.
And so it's wrong for us to be
this way, but it's absolutely right for
God. He's deserving of our honor and our
worship because he made it all, John says
in in the Book of Revelation. Worthy you
are, O Lord, to receive glory and honor
and power, for you created all things.
And by your will they existed and were
created. And we saw, as
we were saw last week, God his power. God
is perfect. So, for
instance, to adore him is to
correctly assess our reality.
And so it's good for us, it's healthy
for us to settle in our minds that
God is is worthy of honor and glory,
should be jealous of these things.
And he's, he alone, is worthy of infinite
praise. I like the way one theologian,
Wayne Grudem, put it, he said. To to
realize this fact and to delight in it
is the secret of true worship.
To adore him, I would say, as
I said, correctly assess our reality.
Now that's an aspect of God's jealousy.
But we we don't need to stop there.
There's more to God's jealousy than that.
And you can tell this because whenever
you read about God's jealousy in the
Scriptures, there's something you read
about close by, somewhere before or after
it, something that's precipitating it,
and that's idolatry, the idolatry of his
people. So whenever he's jealous, he
seems to get stirred up, and it seems
to be on the heels of idolatry.
Deuteronomy 32. They have made me
jealous, says the Lord, with what is no
God. They provoked me to anger with their
idols. Joshua 24. He's
a jealous God. If you serve foreign gods,
he'll bring disaster on you after he's
been good to you.
Because, you know, jealousy cannot exist
in a vacuum. Even if you're jealous
about the honor of your name, it has to
do with other people that you value who
will give you that honor.
So his jealousy always seems to flare
up. In the presence of the
idolatry of the people he values.
And so you see it in our passage, don't
you? We were focusing on verse 14 where
he says His name is Jesus. But look at
the verse just before it. Look at verse
13. What's he really concerned about?
Tear down their altars. Smashed
the idols. It's
about idolatry.
This, this this repays meditation
friends. It's it's
odd that that God's jealousy
presents an obstacle to to
many people because.
It's the very thing, actually, that
our hearts want, because it occurred
to these people that for God
to be jealous over you means
He has to be focused on
you.
His attention must be there. This is the
same people who are bothered by God's
jealousy would walk around and complain
that God doesn't care about anyone.
And so there's a, there's a narrative
that comes forth that God, that this idea
that God would be jealous is primitive,
that this, it really is connoting some
kind of insecurity and primitive ideas of
God that that he would require jealous in
this, require worship in this way.
And he's, it makes him very demanding and
self-centered, you know, And so it's all
really about a petty human emotion that
we might be putting on God, that human
writers might be putting on God. And I
guess the most recent example of that is
this recent book by Robert Wright called
The Evolution of God. Now two weeks. On
the New York Times bestseller list.
Nonfiction. Two
weeks, it got a good review. So it's,
it's been in there for two weeks. And
he's, you know, rights argument is, is
precisely this, he said. There's, there's
a, there's a kind of moral progression in
the history of religion. That
there is an arc here and that the
idea of God has been evolving since
primitive times, primitive being the Old
Testament and before and and the sort of
rise of of monolatry to monotheism. He
goes through and shows and tries to show
that God, the idea of God has been
evolving and getting more and more and
more. But the
God back then?Was deeply
insecure about his status. That's the way
Wright puts it. But now our idea of God
has evolved into a more peaceful and
loving God. Certainly not a God who's
going to offend us with jealousy over
idolatry.
Now. A lot of
issues to take on this book. It's a big
book, big book. Besides
the fact that, again, the arguments being
made that somehow the God of the
New Testament is different than the God
of the Old Testament, which, friends, is
untenable. It is untenable besides that
facet of his argument.
You know, the real problem is that right
leaves God as he's, especially as he's
going to develop in the future, in in
the way he's describing him as very
positive, very unoffensive and without
passion.
The modern God, according to Wright, is
just is. It's really good. And
of course this has to do with Robert
Wright's idea of what really good is. But
a big feature of is that he won't offend
us with things about jealousy and over
us. About idolatry
and you see the very thing that right
rejects. Or calls us to
reject now in supposedly a next step in
this evolution of of God. God's
jealousy is the very thing according to
the Bible, whole Bible.
Makes God what he is.
His passion for his
people.
His passion for his people. And so
actually the reviewer got it right at one
point he says, you know, if we agree with
right on his God, then then we end up
with a God that nobody really wants to
worship.
Let's look at this passion. Look
back at verse 10.
Notice again that that God is describing
his jealousy in the context of a
covenant. That means a sacred agreement
that he is making with his people. He's
making a sacred agreement with his with
his people, called a covenant.
Now this is important for us because it
allows us to make a comparison with the
other place that we find jealousy
discussed in Scripture, I mean God. The
Scripture talks about God's jealousy,
also talks about jealousy in another
context, the context of another covenant,
a covenant called marriage.
And in fact, we follow it through. The
teaching of the Scriptures is that this
is the whole point of marriage. Marriage
is a profound metaphor, a profound
analogy to the covenant God is making
with his people. In fact,
that's the point of marriage. That's why
we have marriage. We thought it for other
reasons. The Scriptures say no, actually,
this is the point of marriage. To show
you this profound analogy to a greater
reality. Reality, Excuse me, the covenant
that God is making with his people.
God loves his people exclusively,
demands the same from His
people definitively.
So that you follow that through that
comparison, that would mean that
idolatry. We were invited
to understand that as as similar
to adultery.
It's just as serious. That's why adultery
is so serious. Capital offense in the Old
Testament. It's a it's a grounds for
divorce in the new. By
the way, I would say I would agree with
right that there is a progression. You
could trace a progression in the
scriptures, but it's more progression in
the people, not a progression in God.
But why is this so serious?
Because of the profound analogy that
marriage bespeaks. And just as just
as adultery is a tearing of our lives
apart, so idolatry is a tearing of our
souls. And
and that's why we find in
marriage. Jealousy.
And we do find that in marriage.
Proverbs 6, as Solomon notes.
Jealousy makes a man furious.
And he will not spare.
So it might be a little bit difficult to
understand this because you say jealousy.
A lot of people, they think maybe of a
fellow and his green eyed monster, you
know, and and the fact that it drove him
to such awful acts.
And people have misunderstandings about
God's jealousy, what he's talking about,
because we see human kind of fallen
jealousy at times. We see envy times.
Sometimes people confuse jealousy with
envy, but they're distinct concepts in
Scripture. Envy is certainly something
that's sinful. It's wrong. That's not
what God is talking about. Here, you
know, there's one little girl who wrote,
wrote a letter to God and said, dear God.
How can you be a jealous God? I
thought you had everything.
Signed Jane.
Well, dear Jane, you're thinking of envy,
that God is not covetous of things that
are not rightfully His.
Sometimes people could think of of
jealousy as as insecurity and a lot
of, you know, a possessiveness that comes
from insecurity. And
that sometimes happens in marriage, you
know, and that was under, that's
understood by the Bible. You know,
there's an Old Testament law, Numbers 5,
called the law of jealousy.
He said this is the law of jealousy. The
spirit of jealousy comes upon a husband.
Here's what he's got to do. He's got to
go to the priest. And he's
got to take a grain offering. And then
they go through this very strange thing.
It's very hard for us to understand at
this cultural distance, but it really
seems to be at the law is there to
protect the wife from what's going to
happen when the husband gets jealous.
And but the but the law says you go and
you deal with your jealousy this way. OK,
then you'd be innocent. And we're going
to, you know, help determine if the if
the if, if the wife is really guilty or
if there you need some perspective here.
On things.
So people look at that says, you know, it
makes it sound like maybe God is, is
expressing some kind of codependence in
his jealousy. He's, he's insecure about
his position, his status. No friends,
it's not that way. What God has, what God
gives us is pure jealousy.
God doesn't have these unfulfilled needs
that drive him. He's purely, righteously
indignant. For his
name and his people's edification.
And so that's why you have to try to
separate that out and realize that fiery
jealousy is a part of love.
So says the wife of Solomon, Song of
Solomon 8. Love is as strong as death,
she says. It's jealousy,
unyielding as the grave. It
burns like a blazing fire.
Like a mighty flame. Very important for
what she's expressing, which is righteous
jealousy over her husband.
And so God, you realize, expects A
passionate zeal. To guard the
exclusivity of marriage. And
that relationship, that's why God's
jealousy is explained the same way as
a fire. Deuteronomy 4 your God's a
consuming fire, a jealous God.
And I want you to try to press into
this friends, because, you know, there
can be a problem. There can be problems
sometimes in a marriage, one partner
being possessive, overly possessive, you
know, kind of in a, in a codependent way.
But I'll tell you these days, that's not
the usual problem that I see anyway.
That's not the common problem. More
commonly, the problem is just the
opposite. More
commonly, problem is we have a dearth
of jealous husbands.
And you know, many, many of our wives,
if, if they were honest with us, they
would say, you know, I wish I would see
more passion than you for me.
What's she talking about if she says
that? Jealousy. Actually, I wish she
would be more jealous. Of me.
This is the kind of jealousy you've got
to talk we're talking about with God.
Not not Ethel's green eyed monster
which drives Ethella to awful deeds.
God's jealousy drives him to extreme
deeds. Drove into
an extremely, but a very different sort.
Think back with me to this.
Angry husband who's broken into that
apartment. The husband stands
there in a rage.
And the wife has defiance on her face.
Yes, she says. I've made my choice. I'm
going to be with him, and I've sealed
that choice. And the husband's
taken aback because what do you mean
you've, you've made, you've sealed that
choice. You, you haven't. Yes, I have,
she says. I've signed over power of
attorney to him. Now everything that's
mine is his and mine.
There's nothing you could do it. All
of it, Yes, A whole estate,
she laughs.
The man grows concerned. He
says you don't know this one. He
works for me. I could
tell you he can't love you.
He can't. He's he's, he's ensnared
you. Don't you see that?
She says well I don't care because. But
they're interrupted in their conversation
by another laugh, the laugh of the lover,
because he's walked over to the table and
as they turn around they see he's
snatched up the gun and he's pointing it
at her. And
he laughs and says, ah,
that's perfect setup.
That crime of passion, he says.
When a wife is killed by
her known to be jealous husband
with his own gun, no jury
in the world would suspect me.
Because he's not only devious, he's a bad
actor.
But this is what he does. He takes the
gun. He points it right at her. He says,
sorry, sweetheart, you've got to go
first. He fires it.
But the husband has jumped in front of
the wife to take the bullet. And
as it rips through his clothes and his
flesh and lodges in his chest, he
collapsed into her arms.
But at that moment, there's banging on
the door. And what TD
open up and the neighbors have noticed
the noise and called the cops and they're
banging in. They're just seconds away
from breaking the door down. And white
PD. And the lover realizes
the situation has only a second. He jumps
out the window to the fire escape,
disappears into the night. The door
bursts open. The police rush in.
Only to find this woman sobbing
on the floor with her husband's
head in her lap and his
bloody body stretched out on the
cold dark floor.
Now what have I described to you?
I've described to you the core of
righteous jealousy. You know what? You
want to know what God's jealousy is
this is it. A husband who cannot
bear. To live with
his wife, living with another who would
destroy her, who would ruin her beauty,
her personality, all the things that she
has as she pours them out for
him.
A husband who would give his life rather
than see that friends behold.
The God whose name
is jealous.
Look look back at verse 10 once more with
me these look at what God says there and
I'm going to make this covenant, he says
and I will do anything. For this
covenant, I will do anything necessary.
For this covenant, I'm going to do things
that people have never heard of before.
You see what he's saying in verse 10?
He's talking about his jealous love.
I will do these astounding deeds, these
mighty marvels.
That no one has ever seen before.
And he did do marvels. Especially
ending in the most intense Marvel
at all Marvel of all called
Jesus Christ. You
see, Jesus is the expression
of God's intense jealousy.
We ran from him into the arms of
destructive idols. But he didn't just
roll over and go back to sleep. Even
though, you know, he really didn't need
us. He he
came over to get us. That's
what Jesus Christ is. It's the coming of
God to retrieve us.
Emptying himself, taking the form of a
servant being born in the likeness of
men. But
not only that, he came to take the bullet
for our idolatry. Preferring to
die for us rather than leaving us in
the arms of that worship that would
destroy us.
Do you understand that about your God?
Paul says Second Timothy 2 says, you
know, if we are faithless, he remains
faithful because he cannot deny himself.
It's as if we're his, his own
body.
Behold the cross, and behold.
The jealousy of the Almighty God.
So I need to to bring us to a close. What
should this do to us?What
effects should this have on us?
Let me invite you to think in these three
directions as you, I hope, apply this in
your life. This scripture.
First of all. Husbands
and wives, be jealous.
Be jealous. Be
passionate about the exclusivity of your
marriage. She's yours, do you let her
know that?
You have every right to complain about
how she might be spending her time.
You know you have every right to to bring
up as a topic of discussion what that
baby is doing to your relationship.
OK. Whether that baby
is displacing you in the relationship
now, maybe you you young fathers need to
learn about what it takes to take care of
a baby. Maybe you need to pitch
in. Maybe you need to make make provision
for her. Maybe to understand
what it takes, but.
It's still an issue, a legitimate issue
to bring up. Whether
that baby's displacing her, displacing
you in in her love.
Tell you what that child needs as that
child grows up is to know that daddy and
momma's relationship is prior.
Even in all the ways that they are
sacrificing for this child.
Be jealous, wives, also be jealous.
You have every right to have a stake
in how your husband handles himself in
public, in social situations. If there's
something that's bothering you about
what, he's doing it among you, you
newlyweds. You have every right
to complain about the priority that work
is being given in his life. Ohh yes.
And certainly, you know, just in case
it's an issue, you have every right to
complain about *********** in your home.
That's that is righteous jealousy.
Yes, it certainly is hurting someone.
These are why am I comfortable commanding
these things, friends to you? Because
this is the very character of God. This
is an attribute of the Almighty, and if
you will, a communicable attribute.
And he's extreme about it. Extreme is the
cross. So
look, if you feel like it's an, oh, it's
not my situation, you feel like your
spouse is really going overboard, just
come talk to me, you know, bring a grain
offering. Yeah.
Just a couple times. I need a little
perspective. Is this stepping over the
line or is this we could talk to you,
talk to one of the elders.
But the more common problem, I suspect,
for instance, you don't go far enough.
In your mutual jealousy, be jealous. Be
very jealous. Secondly,
understand this in terms of your
relationship with God. See how feel
how God understands and feels your
idolatry. 2nd Corinthians 11
Paul says that Corinthians 11/2 says I
have a divine jealousy for you. He's
right into the Corinthians. He said, you
know, I feel God's jealousy for you.
That's kind of odd. I'm feeling they
were boasting and everything besides
Jesus Christ. He says I'm feeling God's
jealousy for you. Feel that he
cares very much about where your
affections lie. Idolatry
is like adultery to him. It's serious.
And these adulterous or or idolatrous
desires that rise up in you, breaking
all the bonds of of goodness out
of the bounds of what's righteous.
They're a snare to you. Like verse
12. You need to do violence
to them like verse 13.
Because he is ferocious about where your
heart is.
You know.
Our church could be a lot bigger if I
just told you that God wants you to be
happy. And he has a plan for
you. That is wealth and prosperity. That
is your best life now.
But it's not true, friends. Ohh. He, he
has a plan for you, all right, but it is
a plan for your heart. To be
purged of the things that destroy you.
Things that would ruin your personality,
your beauty, those things as you pour
them out for it. That's his
plan. Ohh yeah, there's an ultimate
prosperity for you. But you need to come
to come to terms first with a God with
whom you have to deal. His name is
jealous.
You cannot have a casual relationship
with this God. Don't even try.
This number two number three friends.
Our corporate worship. I
I need us to ask collectively as we
come together, be sure that we are not
multitasking God. Right. You know,
I mean like, you know how certain
activities in your life you can do while
you're doing other things. Maybe you
could while you're on that phone call,
you can check your e-mail, you know,
maybe you, you know, while you're
talking, you could read. Yeah.
Maybe, you know, you can monitor
something while you're doing something
else. Not with God, friends. This is a
jealous God. You can't multitask God. And
so that's a question we need to ask. Be
sure that we're asking coming into our
new worship space, you know, wonderful.
Things about this worship space, which is
wonderful. You know things about it.
It's it, it does create for us, it
does present to us a casual atmosphere.
So that means we have to work extra
hard, harder on coming together before a
jealous guy. And that's in
our attitude and all the ways we
approach worship means being sure to come
here on time for the Lord. It
means also, you know, making sure that
you're just bringing yourself into
worship here.
Your content, your attention, completely
devoted to him.
So that's.
That's what we really need to do. We have
to create what our architecture does not
here.
OK, OK, friends, you're not your
own. In the
covenant with this God and as we come to
the table, let's remember that the that
the cup that I'm going to pass to you is
the cup of passion, Christ's passion for
you. Receive that.
And let him let your let your let your
understand yourself as his possession.
Amen. Amen.