so thankful that our God is eternally faithful when we believe not and we do that often. Yet he remaineth faithful for he cannot deny himself. He sees his people in Christ and the Lord Jesus said in John 17 as The father has loved the son, so he's loved us. To be found in him, he's always faithful. I want to ask you, if you open your Bibles with me, to the book of Joel. Joel. There's another verse in John chapter 17 I'd like to be reminded of again tonight. We've quoted often. I think it's verse three in John 17, when our Lord was praying for his church. And he said, I pray not for the world, but I pray for them which thou hast given me out of the world. And then he went on to say, I pray not only for these, speaking of his disciples, but I pray for them that will believe because of their testimony. And so the Lord Jesus, the night before his crucifixion was praying for his people. And in that prayer, he said in verse three, this is life. This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. To know God. Paul said in Philippians chapter three, He said, I've not yet apprehended that which has apprehended me. But this one thing I do, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling. What was that? To know him. The power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his suffering, that I might just know him. If we're going to know him, he must reveal himself to us. We can't know him any other way. if the Lord's going to reveal himself, it will be by the revelation that he's made about himself in his word, in his word. So we come together, we open God's word in hopes that the Lord will open our hearts and that he will reveal from his word who he is and put in our hearts the faith to believe what he's revealed. In Joel chapter 2, the Lord reveals himself as a jealous and pitiful God. That's the title of this message, a jealous and pitiful God. My hope tonight is that when we leave here that we will By God's grace and by his spirit and revealed in his word, we will come to believe more of what the Lord has taught us about his jealousy and about his pity. His pity. For us, jealousy is a sinful, selfish emotion. Not so with God. Look at verse 18 in Joel chapter 2. Then will the Lord be jealous for his land and pity his people. Then will the Lord be jealous for his land and pity his people. Joel chapter 2 verse 18. To back up to see what the prophet is referring to when he says then, we obviously need to consider the verses before that. This is what's going to happen when the Lord becomes jealous for his land and when the Lord becomes pitiful toward his people. And by pitiful, I mean full of pity. James uses it in that regard. James says, remember the patience of Job, how that the Lord was pitiful toward his suffering. And we need, I need a God who's gonna pity me. And I need a God who is jealous in a holy way to keep me and to protect me. And that's what the Lord has revealed himself. He has told us, I'm jealous and I am full of pity. Now, as I said, to understand this verse, this one verse in the Context, let's go back to where we were Sunday in verse 12. Go back to where we were Sunday in verse 12. Therefore also now saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart and with fasting and with weeping and with mourning. This is the spirit of grace and supplication that Zacharias speaks of. This is what the Lord is calling on us to do, he must provide. Always. Always. What he requires, he provides. And he only accepts that which he provides. And everything that he provides, he provides in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is going to be glorified in everything that the Father provides. And so, when we read in the Bible what the Lord is calling on us to to turn, repent with all of your heart, with fasting and weeping and with mourning, this is that spirit of grace and supplication that the Lord pours out on his church when he reveals, at least in part, at least in part, something of his glory. And in light of his glory, we see something of the evil of our own sin. And we mourn after him whom we have pierced, looking to Christ and what he did in order to accomplish what we read earlier in Psalm 103, separating our sins from us as far as the East is from the West and remembering them no more. That was only possible because of what the Lord Jesus accomplished at Calvary's Cross. But what hope we have in knowing that this is our God. Look at verse 13. And rend your heart, not your garments. We looked at that in detail Sunday. What a blessing it was to think about how, by nature, we would just clean up the outside of the cup and not give any mind to the condition of corruption that's in the heart. Left to ourselves, we would whitewash the tomb and not know that it was still full of dead man's bones. This matter of salvation is a matter of the heart. Man looks at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart. We need a heart transplant. We need God to do a work of grace in our hearts and take out the heart of stone and put in a heart flesh and he's reminding us don't do like men do in religion and just think turning over a new leaf and cleaning up your life is salvation yes that will come but the issue is the matter of the heart and as goes the heart so goes everything else rend your heart and not your garments and turn unto the Lord your God for he is gracious and Gracious. He freely gives. That's what grace is. We don't buy it. We can't earn it. We don't deserve it. It comes freely. He's gracious and he's merciful. And just to remind us, the difference between grace and mercy is that grace is God giving to us what we don't deserve, eternal life, fellowship, forgiveness of sin, mercy is God withholding from us what we do deserve, wrath and judgment. And so the Lord Jesus, when he was on Calvary's cross, was made sin. He was made sin and he suffered the wrath of God's justice that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. This is the double blessing. Grace and mercy is the double blessing that Isaiah talked about. When Isaiah said in Isaiah chapter 40, comfort ye, comfort ye my people, speak ye comfortably unto Jerusalem and tell them that their warfare is accomplished. Tell them that their iniquity has been put away and that they've received of the Lord's hand double for their sin. The double blessing, grace and mercy. That's what we need. That's what we need. If we're to have grace and mercy, we need a God who's jealous and a God who's full of pity. He's slow to anger, verse 13, and of great kindness and repent of him of the evil. He will withdraw from us the judgment and wrath that we are deserving of. Who knoweth if he will return and repent and leave a blessing behind? That's what we need. We need the Lord to leave a blessing behind. You remember what the Lord told Moses on Mount Sinai? When Moses said, I wanna see your face. And God said, I'm gonna put you in the cleft of the rock and I'm gonna cover you with your hand and you're gonna see my backside. You know, that's all we ever see of God. One day we'll see his face. Right now, all we can see is what he's left behind. We look back to Calvary's cross. We look back to the covenant of grace that we sang of earlier. We look back to all the blessings of God's mercy that he's shown toward us. But we can't look forward in that we don't know what God's going to do tomorrow. We don't know what trials and troubles and tribulations and persecutions might come. But he says, who knows that he will leave a blessing behind. That's our hope, that he would leave a blessing behind, even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the Lord your God. And we know who that meat offering is, except you eat of my body and drink of my blood, you shall have no life in you. For my body is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed. the body of Christ, our righteousness before God, the blood of Christ, our justification before God. We must have a righteousness given to us, imputed to us, charged to our account, a righteousness that we could not achieve, and that's the righteousness of Christ. We must have taken from us the judgment of our sin, and that's the blood of Christ. That's the blessing that we hope the Lord will leave behind. Lord, leave a blessing behind. Leave me Christ. Enable me to eat his body and drink his blood. Enable me to rest in his perfect life of obedience and to trust his sacrificial atoning death for the forgiveness of my sin. There's my only hope. Lord, would you leave a blessing behind? Now, blow the trumpet. Here's the preaching of the gospel. This is what we're trying to do right now. This is what we try to do every time we come together. Blow the trumpet. Declare it from the housetops. You don't put a candle under a bushel. You set it up on a hill. Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, and call a solemn assembly. When we assemble together for worship, it's a solemn affair. This is a solemn time. Gather the people, sanctify the congregation. This word sanctify means to be set apart. When we come here, what do we hope? Lord, I my my mind and my body and my I've been so involved in things of this world Lord set me apart from this world it for this hour Lord let me give my attention to the matters of my heart and the matters of Christ or don't don't let me Don't let me be distracted in this solemn hour. Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and those that suck the breast, let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber. That's Christ. And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to me. When we preach the gospel, we're attempting to lift up the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our salvation. He is the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and our completeness is only in him. And when the bridegroom comes forward, then the bride comes out of her closet. The bride might be shy. She might be timid. She might be fearful. But when she sees the bridegroom, she comes out of her closet. and she embraces him. This is the work of God's grace in the heart. And this is what all of this is in light of. Verse 17, let the priest, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, spare thy people, O Lord, we're pleading for God's mercy. Lord, we're not deserving. Lord, spare us. Lord, forgive us. Lord, have mercy upon us. Lord, reveal yourself to us. We have no claim on God. We can't force his hand. We can't obligate him in any way. Oh, Lord, give not that inheritance to reproach. Lord, there's so much reproach in my life and in my heart and so many things that this world, Lord, don't turn me over to the reproach of sin. that the heathen should rule over them. Lord, if you take your hand off of me, if you let me go, if you lead me to myself, I will be, I will drown in the darkness of this world, no question about it. Lord, if you don't save me and you don't keep me, that's the prayer, that's what the elders are praying now. O Lord, give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them. Wherefore should they say among the people, where is their God? Lord, don't let the unbeliever look at my life and accuse me of being godless. Why should they say about me, where is his God? Look at him. Lord, if that's gonna happen, you're gonna have to You're going to have to do this for me. You're going to have to reveal yourself as a jealous God. And you're going to have to reveal yourself as a God who is full of pity. Jealousy for us is generally a sinful emotion, envy, resentment, fear, and anger. And I said the title of this message is a jealous and pitiful God. Normally we use the word pitiful to refer to someone that's pathetic or someone who is distressed. Oh, how pitiful they look. But James uses it to refer to the Lord as one who is full of pity, full of pity. That's what I need. That's all I need from God is pity. I don't want justice. I don't want fair. I want pity. I need pity. Whatever attributes are given in God's word to the Lord, you can be sure of this, they are nothing like these things are in us. They're nothing like that. All of his attributes are holy. They're perfect, they're glorious, and they are saving. If the Lord's pleased in this hour to reveal a glimpse of his jealous nature and of his pity towards sinners, we have the hope of leaving here Rejoicing. Rejoicing. Jealousy for us, as I said, is always rooted in sin. A man who is jealous for his wife or vice versa, usually is justified in that jealousy. The lack of trust in a marriage is generally caused by unfaithfulness. And when that happens, there's a jealous spirit. And until that trust is earned, that jealous spouse will be suspect of everything they see. They'll think something's going on in every indication. These feelings of jealousy never really go away in those circumstances. And they're mixed with anger. And that anger is rooted in the fact that The victim in that relationship has been disrespected. They've been humiliated. They feel as if their honor has been taken away. In those situations, there's strong feelings of fear caused by a lack of control. dominates their emotions. Many heated conversations come in these situations, and many empty promises are made in an attempt to reestablish trust. But when one continues to be unfaithful, the marriage is doomed for failure. Now, I want to draw from that That example, a contrast and a comparison to God's jealousy. A marriage covenant between a man and a woman is a covenant of works. It's a covenant of works. Now, if the individual, the husband and wife are both believers, they're in a covenant of grace with their God. And what a blessing that will be in working out the covenant of works that exists between the husband and wife. Why do you say it's a covenant of works? Well, because they've made promises to one another. And that marriage is only as strong as both of their faithfulness to keep that promise. That's a covenant of works. I'll do, you do, and we'll and we'll have a happy marriage. The marriage will only be as secure as both parties are faithful to their promises. Here's where there's a great contrast. There is a comparison. We see it in the story of Gomer and Hosea. Gomer, the Lord telling Hosea, a type of Christ, to take to himself a woman of harlotry. And Gomer, his wife, being a picture of the bride of Christ and how unfaithful she is to her husband. And yet, Gomer takes her and loves her and keeps her. And certainly there is also a sense in which our unfaithfulness to our husband has offended his honor, much like it would be in a human relationship. We've disrespected him. And yet, unlike us, He doesn't need the honor of man. He doesn't need the glory of man. We need his honor and we need his glory. The unfaithful wife is the one who is lesser and who is depleted when his honor is sacrificed. It's not him that he's never changed. He doesn't need the approval of man. He doesn't need the honor that comes from man. He doesn't need our worship. Never has he needed anything from us. We need everything from him. That's why the marriage that's made in heaven between the Lord Jesus and his church cannot be a covenant of works like our marriage relationships are. It must be a covenant of grace. He must bear the full responsibility for maintaining the union. And that's exactly what he's done. The strength of this marriage is not determined by the faithfulness of the bride. The strength of our marriage with Christ is determined by the persistence and faithfulness of the husband. His love for her will make her want to stay home and love him back in return. She'll never go back to that abusive man who would beat her with law and make her salvation dependent upon something that she has to do to earn favor with God. She'll never go back to a false gospel. That's a work of grace that the bridegroom does in the heart of his wife. when he causes her to see what he's done in fulfilling the law for her. And she can't go back to a false gospel. She won't go back. She won't go listen to a freewill works gospel. If she's able to go back, then she's only giving evidence that he hasn't revealed himself to her. as the one who is jealous for her. He's jealous for her, not in a sinful way, in a holy way. He is jealous for her. And whenever, whenever she has wandering eyes looking for happiness outside of her husband, he will remind her of his love for her. and he will call her back to himself. He's going to persist. He's going to pursue her. He's not going to leave her to herself. He's not going to let her go her way. It's a covenant of grace. He bears the full weight of responsibility in making sure I will be their God and they shall be my people. He will remind her again and again of his never failing love for her. And he will cause her over and over and over again to fall in love with him again. To repent, to come, to believe, to rest, and to rejoice in her husband. Turn with me to Exodus chapter 20, Exodus chapter 20. This is God giving to Moses the 10 commandments at Mount Sinai. Verse two, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage. That's our salvation. We're not under the law. We're not being beaten by our taskmaster husband. We're no longer being abused in an attempt to keep the law in order to be saved. He's brought us out of Egypt. Thou shalt have no other gods before thee. Or before me. Before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." That's why we don't wear crosses, and put up statues, and have these sort of things, stained windows, and whatever else men in religion use to have something to look at. We purposefully don't do that. And for the same reason, the Lord said, don't do it. Why do you say don't do it? Because that will become a substitute for you. If you're gonna see me, you're not gonna see me in a physical image. You're gonna see me through the eye of faith. You're gonna see me where I am, seated at the right hand of my father, interceding for you. You're gonna see me as I'm revealed in my word. That's the only way you're gonna see me. In verse five, and I shall not bow down myself to them nor serve them for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God. I'm jealous for you. You see the jealousy that the Lord, the Lord's telling us that he's a jealous God. He's jealous that he be our only God. To whose benefit is that? Does God have to protect his dignity or his honor like a cheated husband or wife might feel in a broken marriage? No, he doesn't have to do that. He's jealous for us, for our good. For our good. Turn with me to Exodus chapter 34. Look at verse 14. For thou shalt worship no other God, for the Lord whose name is jealous his name is jealous he is a jealous God now he's he's taking this matter of jealousy and actually making it his name it's his nature it's his character His jealousy is not something that's acted out of some emotional rage or some need to protect himself. Going back to our text in Joel, then I will be jealous toward that land. I will show them my jealousy. My jealousy is for their protection. My jealousy is for their good. I am jealous. That's my name. In the third century BC, when Alexander the Great was spreading the Greek culture all across the Middle East, the Old Testament Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek in those days. And it's called the Septuagint. So we have, that goes all the way back to the third century BC, a Greek copy of the Old Testament Hebrew Bible. The interesting thing about the Septuagint is that when the word jealousy was translated into the Greek, It was translated, zealous. Zealous. I'm zealous for you. That's a good translation. It's not a sinful emotion like we might experience. No, it's an unending, unrelenting commitment to his bride, to be zealous for her. and to keep her, however unfaithful she might be, he's going to remain faithful. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 11. Paul is talking about his jealousy for the church at Corinth. There was a lot of stuff going on in the Church of Corinth that they had to be rebuked for and corrected for. And they were. They heard what God said through the pen of the Apostle Paul. And God gave them a spirit of repentance. But look what Paul says to them. in verse two of chapter 11, 2 Corinthians chapter 11. For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy. So Paul's saying that the jealousy that God has, he's given to me for you. For I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, now that verse three has to go with verse two. What does he mean that I'm jealous for you with a godly jealousy and I want to present you as a chaste bride? I don't want you to have another husband. I don't want you to go after other gods. Our God is a jealous God and he's jealous for your good. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. I'm jealous for you because I'm afraid that you're going to look somewhere else. You're going to look to a feeling. You're going to look to an experience. You're going to look to a false gospel. You're going to look to a free will. You're going to look to your works. You're gonna look somewhere else other than the simplicity that is in Christ. Have no other gods before me. I am a jealous God, that is my name. Oh, what grace that our God will be jealous toward us and not allow us to go anywhere else but to Christ. Secondly, the Lord says in our text, let's go back and look at it one more time. In Joel chapter two, verse 18, then will the Lord be jealous for his land and pity his people. Verse 19, yea, the Lord will answer and say unto his people, behold, I will send you corn and wine and oil, and you shall be satisfied therewith, and I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen, but I will remove far off from you the northern army and will drive them into a land barren and desolate. with his face toward the East Sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savor shall come up, because he hath done great things. Fear not, O land, and be glad and rejoice. I'm gonna drive your enemy away from you. You're gonna see you're gonna see my hand of judgment against them and you're going to, you're gonna hate what I hate and you're gonna love what I love. Whereas before, you loved what I hated and you hated what I loved. Here's the evidence that God changes the heart. I'm going to be pitiful. I'm going to show pity." James put it like this in James chapter 5. He said, remember Job, how that the Lord was very pitiful and of tender mercy, and of tender mercy. Those who need pity are always happy to hear that God is full of mercy and pities his Children. He pities his Children. Now, the Lord, when he was going to the cross, there were some women that were weeping for him. He was Well, the Bible says he was not a man. You could not tell from looking at him that his visage was that of a man. He was so pummeled and beaten and beyond recognition and carrying a cross. And there was women that began to weep and feeling sorry for him. And he stopped in his tracks, and he looked at them, and he said, weep not for me. I'm not the one that needs to be pitied. but weep for yourself and for your children. You're the one that needs pity, not me. I'm doing this in order that you might be the recipient of God's pity. Turn to me to Psalm 69, Psalm 69. This is the Lord speaking through David of what would happen 1,000 years after David. David, many of the Psalms, David is speaking as Christ, the son of David. And he says here in verse 18 of Psalm 69, draw nigh unto my soul and redeem it. Deliver me because of mine enemies, the Lord Jesus crying, praying to his father. Thou hast known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonor, and mine adversaries are all before thee. Reproach hath broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness, and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. So the Lord Jesus is saying to his father, I was looking for pity, but I found none. He found none even from his heavenly father. When God made him to be sinned that we might be made the righteousness of God, the sky was blackened. God the father forsook his son. My God, my God, whyst thou forsaken me? He could find none to pity him. And he suffered. He suffered that lack of pity from all people in order that we might receive his pity. Turn with me now to Isaiah chapter 63. Isaiah 63. And we'll close. Isaiah 63. Look at verse 8. Isaiah 63, verse 8. For he said, surely they are my people, children that will not lie. So he was their savior. One of the evidences that God's spoken to the heart, changed the heart, is that we no longer lie about ourselves. We take sides with God about ourselves. We confess We confess that we're sinners. I said Sunday that you hear a preacher preaching on a particular sin, and you can be pretty sure that that's sin they're guilty of. And Adam brought something up after the service that I was very encouraged by. He said, what is the sin that we preach against? What is the sin that we preach against? Is it not the sin that doth so easily beset us? It's the sin of unbelief. And is that not the sin that we're most guilty of? But we own it. We don't deny it. We don't put it off on someone else. We say, that is my sin. We don't lie about not being a sinner. And we don't lie about who he is. We tell the truth about what he accomplished. in putting away our sin. We don't make up lies about him needing us to do something in order to make what he did work for us. We don't make God dependent upon us for anything. We tell the truth about who he is and about what he did. These are my children. They're no longer gonna lie. They lied before they knew me. They can't lie now. In all their affliction, he was afflicted and the angel of his presence saved them, and in his love and in his pity, he redeemed them. Who felt pity at the cross? No man pitied him, but he pitied every single one that he died for. He pitied them, and he still does. Our God, How's this verse finish? He redeemed them and he bare them and carry them all the days of old. Our God is a jealous God. Our God is full of pity. We rejoice because if we're going to be saved, That's what we need. We need a God whose name is jealous, who will maintain that covenant of grace even when we're unfaithful, and a God who will always show us his pity. Our Heavenly Father, thank you for the revelation that you've made of yourself. Lord, bless your word with faith that we might believe all that you revealed. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Tom? Number 12. Let's stand together. Number 12.