Let us turn again to the Word
of God and especially this morning to that chapter that we read
in the Book of Exodus in chapter 34 and verse 14. In the Book of Exodus, chapter
34 and verse 14, For thou shalt worship no other god for the
Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God. And it's especially
that last part of the verse that I would bring before your attention
this morning, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous
God. Well, I suspect most of us, when
we think of the word jealous, we probably think of it as something
negative. If I was to ask you to describe
a jealous person, you would probably end up describing someone not
very nice. We tend to think of jealousy
as something bad, something evil even, something sinful. Today the word is really, usually
means the same as envious. And we know that envy is a sin,
is a sin that we often have spoken of in the New Testament. When
Paul writes to the Galatians, he includes envy in that list
of the works of the flesh, that he contrasts with the fruits
of the Spirit. And you can see the kinds of
things that he puts it alongside. The works of the flesh, he says,
are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations,
wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness,
revelings and such like. of the which I tell you before
as I have also told you in time past that they which do such
things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Envy, he says,
is one of those works of the flesh to be listed alongside
things like idolatry and drunkenness and murder and adultery. Something that comes from the
flesh, from the sinful nature that we have, And again, when you read through
the epistle of James, you will find him speaking against envy,
speaking of envy as something harmful, as something damaging,
as something that is to be avoided and turned away from. And I'm sure you can perhaps
think of people in your own life who are envious people, who are
jealous people, and we know how destructive that spirit can be
and how damaging it can be to ourselves and to others. You
can think of many examples from the Bible. You can think of Cain
and Abel and that first murder. And how did it begin? Well, it
started really with envy. Here are these two brothers,
Cain and Abel, the two sons of Adam and Eve, and they both bring
offerings to God. And Abel, he brings a lamb for
the first things of his flock, and Cain brings of the fruit
of the ground. And God has respect unto Abel's offering, but unto
Cain, unto his offering, he had not respect. And Cain was very
wroth, and his countenance fell. Why was he so angry? Well, it
wasn't so much that God had rejected his offering, No doubt that hurt
him, but surely what made it even worse was that God had accepted
the offering of Abel. If God had rejected both offerings,
perhaps Cain would not have been so upset. But when God accepts
the offering of Abel and rejects the offering of Cain, then Cain
is full of anger. And we know the consequence,
how eventually Cain rises up against Abel, his brother, and
kills him. Again you think of Joseph and
his brothers and how envious they were against him. He was
his father's favourite son and of course we can all ask the
question as to whether his father was very wise in making it so
obvious that he was his favourite. But his brothers looked at him
with his coat of many colours and they hated him because they
saw that he was more loved than they were. And again you know
the outcome, how they sold him into Egypt You can think of Saul
and his relationship with David and how especially towards the
end of the reign of Saul, when it becomes clear that Saul is
being rejected by God and is no longer going to be king over
Israel and he sees David going up in the world and destined
to become king and he becomes envious and hateful and he seeks
to kill David. Time after time as you look through
scripture and no doubt as you look through your own experience
you can see how destructive that spirit of envy can be. We know
it from our own experience when we become envious of other people.
When we look at people and we look at what they have and we
say, well I wish I had what they have. And we begin to think that
life is not fair and we begin to think that we're being denied
what is our right. And it poisons our whole attitude,
doesn't it? It poisons our attitude, especially
towards God. It's the very opposite towards
the spirit of thankfulness that we ought to have. When we begin
to complain and to say, well, all these things that I have
are all very well, but it's not so good as what he has. Solomon in the Proverbs, He speaks
of envy and he uses very striking language concerning it. He says
envy, it's the rottenness of the bones. In Proverbs chapter
14, verse 30, a sound heart is the life of the flesh, but envy
is the rottenness of the bones. That's what Solomon saw concerning
envy. That's what it does to us. It's as if it rocks us away
from the inside and it destroys all that is good. Well, you may find it surprising
then, perhaps even shocking, to find God described as a jealous
God. Thou shalt worship no other god,
says the Lord to Moses, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous,
not just that he is Jealous, but his name is Jealous, that's
his very character, if you like. You think of someone, if you
met someone and you said to someone, what's that person like? They
said, well, you could almost call him Mr Jealous. Well, you'd
think that person was a terrible person. And yet here we have
this spoken concerning God himself, the Lord, whose name is Jealous.
is a jealous God. And this is not the only time
we have him described in these words. Very often, as you look
through the Old Testament, you will find God described as a
jealous God. And you might wonder, well, is
there a contradiction there between the Old Testament and the New? The New Testament seems to tell
us that envy is something sinful, that envy is something destructive,
that envy is something to be avoided. And yet here in the
Old Testament we're told that God himself is jealous. The Lord whose name is jealous
is a jealous God. Well, it goes without saying,
I'm sure, that God is not envious. God has no cause to be envious.
What is envy? Well, envy really is a resentful
desire after what someone else has, isn't it? If you're envious
over someone else's possessions, they've got a better car than
you, or a nicer house, or a better job, and you look at them and
you think, well, I wish I had that. And you become resentful
of them. And really it can turn into hatred,
can't it? It can turn into a personal dislike
of that person, even though they might be a very nice person really,
but just because they have something better than what you've got,
you come to dislike them. And it can lead to a desire to
try and pull them down, can't it? You see them in a better
place, as you think, than you are, and you think, well, if
I can't climb up to their level, perhaps I'll try and pull them
down to mine. And it can turn into hatred, envy, dislike. This is the work of the flesh
that Paul speaks of. This is what is so destructive.
The rottenness of the bones. Well, of course, God is not envious. It's not that God looks at any
other being and says, well, I wish I was like them, or I wish that
I had what they had. That's not what is meant by the
word jealous, as we have it here to refer to God. It doesn't say the Lord whose
name is Envious is an envious God. It says the Lord whose name
is Jealous is a jealous God. And we need to recognise and
understand that jealous has a much wider meaning than envious. And especially
in the time that this Bible was translated into English, really
the word jealous had a quite different meaning to the meaning
that we attach to it today. It's very similar to that word
zealous, isn't it? Only one letter different, jealous
and zealous. And really, when the Bible was translated, those
two words were very similar in their meaning. And you would perhaps describe
someone as jealous if they were very enthusiastic, very devoted
to a cause, very fervent. Nowadays we would describe such
a person as zealous, as full of zeal. But in those days you
perhaps might have described them as a jealous person. When it speaks of God as a jealous
God, it doesn't mean God is envious. Envy relates to other people's
possessions, doesn't it? Envy is something that we have
when we look at what other people have. But jealousy, in the meaning
that we have it here, it refers to one's own possessions. You
can be jealous of other people's possessions, but you can equally
be jealous over your own possessions. And we use the word sometimes
in that sense today. You can talk about someone who
has a secret, and you say, well, it's jealously guarded. A jealously
guarded secret, that means it's my secret, and I want to keep
it a secret. And so I guard it jealously.
I don't want anyone to know about it. In that sense, we would talk
about being jealous over something rather than jealous of something. And Paul uses the word in that
sense, doesn't he, when he writes to the Corinthians. Towards the
end of his second epistle, he speaks of himself as being jealous.
And again, he's not saying that he's committing a sin. He's not
saying that he's envious of them. but he's saying he's jealous
over them. In chapter 11 of his second epistle to the Corinthians,
he says, would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly,
and indeed bear with me, for I am jealous over you, with godly
jealousy. Godly jealousy. Well, if jealousy
was a sin, there couldn't be such a thing as godly jealousy,
could there? If jealousy was the same thing as envy, there
couldn't be such a thing as godly jealousy. But here Paul says,
I am jealous over you with godly jealousy. He's not jealous of
them, but he's jealous over them. And why was he jealous over them?
Well, it was because he loved them, wasn't it? He's concerned that they're being
turned away. from the simplicity that is in
Christ. As he goes on to say, I fear,
lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety,
so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in
Christ. And he speaks of one who would
come preaching another Jesus or another gospel. And he says,
well, I don't want you to hear that kind of person. I don't
want you to hear another gospel. I don't want you to hear about
another Jesus. I'm jealous of you. I want you
to be kept from turning away and from being deceived. And
as I say, that jealousy was built on love, as he says again later
on in that chapter. He talks about the way that he
ministered amongst them, that he served them, that he robbed
other churches, taking wages of them to do you service. And
he says, wherefore, because I love you not, God knoweth. In other
words, he says, I did these things for you because I love you. His jealousy was built on love. It was because he loved them
that he was jealous over them. He didn't want them to be turned
aside. He didn't want their minds to
be corrupted. He didn't want them to turn aside after another
Christ, after another gospel, after another spirit. No, he
says, I am jealous over you. I want you to be kept. I care
about you. I love you. And again, you can
think of that great prophet Elijah. You remember the time in his
life when he has to flee from that king, King Ahab? There's
been a great famine in the land because there's been a drought.
There's been no rain upon the earth for three years. And Ahab, he holds Elijah responsible
for this. And Elijah has to flee into the
wilderness. And when the word of the Lord
comes to him, and the Lord says to him, what doest thou hear,
Elijah? He says, I've been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts.
He doesn't say, I've been very jealous of the Lord God of hosts.
That would be quite a different thing, wouldn't it? And he certainly
doesn't mean he's envious of the Lord God of hosts. He certainly
doesn't mean, well, I wish I was the Lord God of hosts. That again
would be a terrible sin. But he says, I've been very jealous
for the Lord God of hosts. For the children of Israel have
forsaken thy covenant. thrown down thine altars, and
slain thy prophets with the sword. And I, even I, only am left,
and they seek my life to take it away." He's jealous for the
Lord God of hosts again. Why is he jealous for him? Because
he loves him. And because he wants him to be
glorified. And he wants the children of Israel to worship him. And so when he sees the children
of Israel forsaking God's covenant and throwing down God's altars
and killing God's prophets with the sword, he's jealous over
it. He doesn't like it. The Lord, whose name is Jealous,
is a jealous God, not envious, not an envious God, not envious
of what other people have. but jealous over certain things. Really the word here is to be
understood in the way that we might understand it of a husband
and a wife. And you would expect a husband
to be jealous over his wife, wouldn't you? And the other way
around. So if the husband sees the wife going off with another
man, It's not just that he's envious of the other man, but
he's jealous over his wife because he loves his wife, and he wants
to bring his wife back again. That's the meaning that we have
here in the context, isn't it? Thou shalt worship no other God,
for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God, and he speaks
about the risk of making a covenant with the inhabitants of the land
that they were going to, and worshipping their idols and sacrificing
unto their idols. He says, I don't want you to
do that, because I'm jealous. I'm a jealous God. And again,
that jealousy, it springs from his love. In fact, if we were
reading from the translation of the Bible that John Wycliffe
translated, you would find it translated
in this way. He says something like this, the Lord, whose name
is a jealous lover, is a jealous lover. He saw that
same truth, didn't he? That God's jealousy was built
upon God's love. It was the kind of jealousy that
you would expect to see in a husband over his wife, or indeed of a
father over his child. It's a jealousy that is built
upon love. And you see that love, don't
you, here in the context? I mentioned before we read the
chapter something about the context in which these words sit. Now Moses is called up to the
mountain to receive that covenant, those 10 commandments and that
law that God gave him. And he's up there for 40 days
and 40 nights. And what do the children of Israel
do while he's away from them? Well, it's not that they sit
waiting patiently, is it? When they see that Moses delays
to come down from the mountain, they gather themselves together
unto Aaron, and they say unto him, Aaron, make us gods, which
shall go before us. For as for this Moses, the man
that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we want not what
is become of him. They say to Aaron, well, Moses,
it seems has gone up into the mountain. We don't know whether
he's coming back, but we need something to lead us. And they
forget God, don't they? They forget that it was God that
brought them up out of the land of Egypt. And they say, well,
that was Moses. And now Moses is gone. We need something else
to lead us. Why don't you make us? Make us gods, Aaron. And
Aaron, he does what they ask. And there's a golden calf that
he makes and they begin to worship him. And all this while Moses
is up there in the mountain and God is giving him a covenant,
a promise, relating to the children of Israel. And God knew what they were doing.
It wasn't something unexpected to God. It wasn't something surprising.
It wasn't something that God suddenly has to, as it were,
react to. He knew what they would do. And
he says to Moses, doesn't he, go, get thee down, for thy people,
whom thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted
themselves. And he threatens to destroy them. And Moses has
to intercede for them, doesn't he? And he does intercede. all those wonderful promises
that God was giving to Moses, those promises concerning the
tabernacle, you're familiar with them. He says to Moses, you're
to make a tabernacle and it will be the place where I meet with
you and it will be the place where I speak to you face to
face and the tabernacle, it will be sanctified by my glory. There
I will meet with the children of Israel and I will sanctify the tabernacle
of the congregation and he gives this tabernacle to the children
of Israel and he gives these promises to the children of Israel
and all the while the children of Israel are down there building
a golden calf and worshipping it. And Moses intercedes for the
people and he pleads that God would
forgive their sins And God reveals himself to Moses
in that special way that we read about. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first. And I will
write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables.
How longsuffering, how loving God is, how patient he is. He
reveals himself to Moses, doesn't he, as merciful and gracious,
longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth. And we see
that. Another table. Another covenant. All those promises, all those
words that were on the first tables, they're going to be put
onto another set of tables. His patience, his long suffering. And you see that throughout the
history of the children of Israel, don't you? Even from the very
beginning of their existence as a separate nation. They constantly
are rebelling against him, and he constantly is being patient
and long-suffering with them. You see it on their journey through
the wilderness, how often they complain. They come to Moses
and they say, well, there's no bread, Moses, there's no water.
And God gives them water from the rock, and he gives them bread
from heaven, and they even complain about that bread, don't they?
They say to Moses, well, we're sick of this bread that we have
to eat every day. It comes down from heaven, we're
bored of it. We want something different, we want flesh. They're constantly complaining.
And you look at them, how they behave when they come into the
Promised Land. And all through the long history that you can
read about. And so often they turn away from
Him. And they worship other gods. And they live as if they're just
like the other nations round about them. And yet God is so
long-suffering, isn't He? The wonderful phrase that we
have there in Isaiah's prophecy. towards the end of that prophecy
and it really characterises the ministry of Isaiah, doesn't it?
The evangelical prophet. God says through Isaiah, I have
spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people. This
nation of Israel that was so rebellious and yet it's as if
God is constantly spreading out his hands to them and inviting
them back to himself. I have spread out my hands all
the day unto a rebellious people that walketh in a way that was
not good, after their own thoughts. They were his chosen people,
weren't they? That's why he was so long-suffering, so patient.
They were chosen not because they were more than any other
people, not because they were better than other people. No, says Moses, the Lord did
not set his love upon you, nor choose you because you were more
in number than any people, for you were the fewest of all people,
but because the Lord loved you. because the Lord loved you. The
cause of love was in himself and he loved them and because
he loved them he was jealous over them. He was jealous over
them, his people. He says in Amos, doesn't he,
you only have I known of all the kingdoms of the earth, therefore
will I punish you. He punished them because he loved
them. I'm sure all of us who have had
children have had to say that to our children, haven't we?
When we punish them and we have to say to them, I'm doing this because
I love you. And I'm sure all of us can remember when we were
children and our parents said that to us and we thought, oh
yeah, I'm sure. But it's true, isn't it? We punish
our own children because we love them. We don't punish other people's
children. You see your own children misbehaving
somewhere and they're with other children, what do you do? Well,
you don't go and punish all the children. You don't take them
all to one side and say, well, look here, you shouldn't be doing
that. But you take your own children to one side and you punish them
because you're jealous over them, because you love them, because
you care about them. The Lord whose name is Jealous
is a jealous God. He was jealous over his people. He was jealous
over his people. And that is the reason why he
was so long suffering with them. And that is the reason why he
punished them and corrected them, even to the extent of allowing
them to be taken into captivity and to be taken into a foreign
land and kept there. Why did he do that to them? Why
did he allow that to happen? It wasn't because he hated them.
It was because he was a jealous God, jealous over his people,
but also jealous over his own reputation. That's the argument that Moses
makes, isn't it, when he intercedes for the people in chapter 32,
after their great sin with the golden calf. And God says to
Moses, well, look, I'll just get rid of them. I'll consume them and I'll take
you, Moses, and I'll make you a great nation. And what does
Moses say in response? Well, he says, in effect, well,
think of what the Egyptians will say. if you destroy the whole
of the children of Israel, the Egyptians will say that you did it because you couldn't
bring them into the Promised Land. Wherefore should the Egyptians
speak and say, for mischief did he bring them out, to slay them
in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth?
Turn from thy fierce wrath and repent of this evil against thy
people, And he also reminds God of his own promises, doesn't
he? Remember Abraham, Isaac and Israel, thy servants, to whom
thou swearest by thine own self. He says to God, don't you remember
what you promised to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob? You said they would multiply
their seed as the stars of heaven and bring them into the promised
land. Moses says, remember these things. And he pleased with the Lord
on the basis of his own promises. And the Lord repented of the
evil which he thought to do unto his people. Because he's jealous
of his own promises, he's jealous of his own reputation. He wants
to be seen and known and understood as a God that does what he says. And so he doesn't destroy the
children of Israel. His whole character, his whole reputation
is bound up in these people. He's promised to bring them into
the Promised Land. He's promised to make them a great nation.
And so he won't destroy them, however much they deserve it. Because he's jealous over his
own reputation. And he cannot deny himself. He
cannot deny himself. The Lord whose name is Jealous
is a jealous God. Well, what does it mean for us
today? It's all very well to understand
something of God's attitude towards the children of Israel. But you
might be ready to say, well, so what? This is just ancient
history. What does it mean for us? Well,
He hasn't changed. God has not changed. He says, I am the Lord. I change
not. I change not. He is still the
same God today as he was in the Old Testament. It's not that
there was one God in the Old Testament and now we have a different
one in the New Testament. It's the same God. He hasn't
changed. And just as he was jealous over
his promises in the Old Testament towards these people, the Jews,
so he is jealous over his promises today. And his promises today are not
to the Jews only, are they? but they now are extended to
all nations. That was what was revealed, wasn't
it, in the early church to the apostles, step by step. On the day of Pentecost, when
Peter preaches to the multitude, he says, it shall come to pass
that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be
saved. He's quoting from the prophecy of Joel, isn't he? But
he seems to be gradually coming to this realisation and you can
see it happening step by step over the subsequent chapters.
He seems to be having this revelation that it's not just the Jews now.
But there's that wonderful Gospel word, whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. And as he says towards
the end of that address on the day of Pentecost, the promises
unto you, he's talking to the Jews primarily, and to your children,
but then he says unto all that are afar off, even as many as
the Lord our God shall call. And you turn over the pages and
you go through those early chapters of the book of Acts. And what
do you find? Well, you find Paul preaching
in Antioch, And again, he's in the synagogue. He would have
had primarily a Jewish audience. And he preaches concerning the
forgiveness of sins. He says, through this man is
preached unto you, you Jews, the forgiveness of sins. But then when the Jews have gone
out of the synagogue, the Gentiles, they come and they ask Paul to
preach the same message to them on the next Sabbath. And when the Jews reject the
gospel that Paul preaches, Paul says to them, it was necessary
that the word of God should first have been spoken to you. But
seeing you put it from you and judge yourselves unworthy of
everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. And he went
to the Gentiles with that same message. And he preached unto
the Gentiles the forgiveness of sins, those promises of God
that are bound up in Christ. until finally Paul writes in
the Romans, doesn't he, and he says, well, there's no difference
now between the Jew and the Gentile. It doesn't make any difference
whether you're Jewish or whether you're not Jewish. The promises
now are not just restricted to one nation, but they go out across
the whole earth. God's promise is not to the Jews
only, but to Jew and Gentile, and God is jealous over his promises. God is jealous over his promises
and when he promises that whosoever shall call on the name of the
Lord shall be saved, he's jealous over that promise. And so if you are one who calls
upon the name of the Lord, if you have called upon the name
of the Lord, if you are calling upon the name of the Lord, then
you can, as it were, remind God of that promise in your prayers. Just as Moses did when he said
to God, well, didn't you promise to bring them into the promised
land? And so we can come to the Lord if we are those that call
upon him and we can say, well, you said, whosoever would call
on the name of the Lord would be saved. I call upon your name,
save me. And he will do it because he
is a jealous God. He's jealous over his own reputation,
his reputation that is bound up in his promises. And again,
just as he was jealous over his people, the Jews in the Old Testament,
he has a people today. You read through that 10th chapter
in John's Gospel, where Jesus speaks of himself as the Good
Shepherd, and he refers to sheep from other folds, doesn't he?
He says to the Jews, other sheep I have, which are not of this
fold. In other words, he says, I'm going to collect a flock
of sheep from all nations. My sheep hear my voice, he says,
and they follow me. My sheep hear my voice and they
follow me, and sheep still hear his voice today, and they follow
him. That's the only sure sign of
a hearing, isn't it? If you ask the question, how can I know
whether I've heard God's voice? It's not a case of having certain
feelings. It's not a case of having certain
emotional reactions. You can find people from all
sorts of religious backgrounds that will talk about those things.
The primary evidence, the main evidence, the only reliable evidence
is this. Are you following him? If you really have heard his
voice, you will. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and
they follow me. And you know God was jealous
over the Israelites in the Old Testament. He cared about how
they lived. He cared about how they behaved.
And God cares about His people today. He cares about how they
live. He's jealous over them. And so He corrects them. When they go wrong, He puts them
right again. He doesn't just let them do what they want. He
doesn't just let them live as they want to. If they want to
live in defiance of his word, if they want to backslide into
sin, if they find themselves falling back from him, he'll
do something about it because he's jealous over them. And he'll put them right again
as he did with Peter, didn't he? When Peter denies the Lord
Jesus and says, I never knew him, don't know what you're talking
about, I'm not one of his followers. Jesus turns and looks upon him.
He turns and he looks upon him and it was a look of love. And
it was the means of Peter's restoration, wasn't it? Why did Jesus do that?
Because he loved him. Because he was jealous over him.
Because he cared about him. He is a jealous God today, and
he is jealous over the behaviour of his people, about how they
live, about how they speak, about how they act, about how they
behave, how they dress. He is a jealous God. Well, we should be concerned
then, if we find that we can sin and not suffer for it. If
we find that we can sin and not be corrected for it. If we can read the commandments
of God and say to ourselves, well, it
doesn't really matter because we're all forgiven up and we're
all Christians. All these pieces of advice about
how we should live, about how we should think, about how we
should behave. It doesn't matter whether we pay too much attention
to them because he's forgiving. Well, if we choose to live in
that way and he doesn't correct us, we should be concerned about
that. Because he is a jealous God,
he corrected his people in the Old Testament. If he doesn't
correct us, what is it? It's a sign, it's not a sign
of his pleasure. It's not a sign that he loves
us. It's a sign that he doesn't. If he lets us go in the way that
we choose, If he lets us sin without consequence, and he doesn't
put us right, and he doesn't bring us back, we ought to be concerned about
that. And then secondly, he's a jealous God, so don't
despise his chastening. That's what Paul had to teach
the Hebrews, wasn't it? And he has to remind them that
if they are chastened, they shouldn't despise him. They shouldn't say,
well, it's not fair, why is God dealing with me so harshly? Why
is he chastening me? I thought I was one of his sons.
Well, says Paul, the fact that he chastens you is evidence that
you are one of his sons. If he endure chastening, God
dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the father
chasteneth not? He wouldn't be a good father,
would he? If he looked at the son misbehaving and shrugged
his shoulders and said, well, it's not my business, nothing
to do with me, I don't care. He wouldn't be a good father
if he acted in that way. And so Paul says, if ye be without
chastisement, then are ye bastards and not sons, not true sons,
if he lets you sin and doesn't chastise you. Don't despise his chastening
then. In fact, be grateful for it. He's jealous over you if
he's continually putting you right and bringing you back.
It's because he's jealous over you. Well, if he's jealous over
you, make sure that you're jealous over yourself. The hymn writer,
he takes up the words of the church in the Song of Solomon,
doesn't he? In hymn 92. He says, I am jealous of my heart.
When he says, I am jealous of my heart, what does he mean?
He doesn't mean I'm envious of it. He means I'm jealous over
it. I am jealous of my heart, lest
it should once from thee depart. Then let thy name be well impressed
as a fair signet on my breast. He wants to be kept. He wants
to be upheld. He wants God to chasten him when he needs it. Despise not the chastening of
the Lord, and then in the third place, pray for that chastening. Pray that God would put you right
when you go wrong, because we all go wrong. We all find ourselves sometimes
almost imperceptibly backsliding, don't we? And our hearts become
cold, and our relationship with the Word of God and with prayer,
it becomes formal. And we need to pray to be brought
back, as Jeremiah had to. He says, O Lord, I know that
the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walketh
to direct his steps. He says to the Lord, in effect,
I can't keep myself. I've proved it again and again.
Even if I have the best of intentions, I find I can't do it. It is not
in man that walketh to direct his steps, and so he comes with
this prayer. O Lord, correct me. But with judgment. With judgment. That means with righteousness,
with wisdom, with fairness. Not in thine anger, lest thou
bring me to nothing. O Lord, correct me. Correct me. The psalmist had to pray, didn't
he? Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip
not. Pray for his chastening, pray
for his correcting. And he will correct because he
is a jealous God. Thou shalt worship no other God
for the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God. Well, again,
if we come to this word and we interpret it according to the
21st century of the meaning of the word jealous, we might come
to it and think, well, it sounds terrible. A jealous God is a
bad thing. Why would we want to worship
a God like that? But if we understand the true meaning of this word
jealous, then we will thank God that he is a jealous God. That he cares enough to act.
That he cares enough to do something when he sees his people turning
astray. And that he brings them back again. And we will pray that he will
correct us. As he corrected these Jews, as
he dealt with these Jews, as he chastised them when they needed
it. And we're going to sing about
it in our closing hymn in a moment. Now the hymn writer, he saw something
of this, didn't he? He says, happy the man that bears
the stroke of his chastising God. nor stubbornly rejects his
yoke, nor faints beneath his rod. They who the Lord's correction
share have favour in his eyes, as kindest fathers will not spare
their children to chastise. And he comes to this, then kiss
the rod, thy sins confess, it shall a blessing prove and yield
the fruits of righteousness, humility, and love. That is the effect of God's chastisement. That is the outcome of His jealousy. He is jealous over His people.
He is jealous over their behaviour. He is jealous over their words,
their thoughts, their actions. And He is jealous over His own
glory, His own reputation. And He will keep His promises.
For thou shalt worship no other God for the Lord, whose name
is jealous, is a jealous God. Amen.