God's Jealous Love For You Series

INTRODUCTION

 Today we are going to continue our look at the Attribute of our Awesome God.

 The attributes that we have looked at thus far are ones that we can easily relate to God.

 The attribute I am going to cover today is one that we may have some trouble attributing to God. It is easy for most of us to see that God is love or that God is faithful but today’s attribute is a bit more difficult.

 As a matter of fact it was so difficult that when I studied all of the passages in the bible on the subject and then went to the commentaries, most of them just skipped the verses where this attribute is mentioned in reference to God. I kind of felt like skipping this one, but the evidence from scripture would not let me do that.

 Toady we are going to look at God’s Jealous Love for You.

 The thought of God being jealous is a difficult thing to attribute to God since in many places in the bible, jealousy is not a good thing to posses (James 3:14-16, 1 Cor 3:3, Rom 13:13)

 Yet when you look in the scriptures, you see that God is called a jealous God. Listen to a couple of these verse:

 EXO 20:5 "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,

 DEU 6:15 for the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; otherwise the anger of the Lord your God will be kindled against you, and He will wipe you off the face of the earth.

 PSA 79:5 How long, O Lord? Will You be angry forever? Will Your jealousy burn like fire?

 There are others also. We find from other passages that God can be provoked to jealousy.

 PSA 78:58 For they provoked Him with their high places And aroused His jealousy with their graven images.

 DEU 32:16 "They made Him jealous with strange gods; With abominations they provoked Him to anger.

 In order for us to able to understand this most unusual attribute of our awesome God, we are going to look at the meaning of jealousy and then we will see what makes God jealous and finally we will see what right God has to be jealous over us.

 Two shopkeepers were bitter rivals. Their stores were directly across the street from each other, and they would spend each day keeping track of each other’s business. If one got a customer, he would smile in triumph at his rival.

One night an angel appeared to one of the shopkeepers in a dream and said, "I will give you anything you ask, but whatever you receive, your competitor will receive twice as much. Would you be rich? You can be very rich, but he will be twice as wealthy. Do you wish to live a long and healthy life? You can, but his life will be longer and healthier. What is your desire?"

The man frowned, thought for a moment, and then said, "Here is my request: Strike me blind in one eye!"

 My first-grader came home and proudly reported to her dad that she was now officially a "Brownie." Not to be outdone, her three-year-old brother, Christopher, rushed up to Dad and proudly announced he was a cupcake!

 Two cows were grazing in a pasture when they saw a milk truck pass. On the side of the truck were the words, "Pasteurized, homogenized, standardized, vitamin A added." One cow sighed and said to the other, "Makes you feel sort of inadequate, doesn’t it?"

 Is God jealous like the storeowners were? Is God’s jealousy something that bitterly wishes ill will towards others?

 Is God’s jealousy like that of the three-year-old who did not want to be out done by his sister? Is God’s jealousy like that of the cows where were envious over not having what the milk truck had?

 These are examples of jealousy that man generally has. Let’s look at what jealousy is.

SERMON

I. WHAT IS JEALOUSY?

 JEALOUSY is used in three senses in Scripture;

(1) As intolerance of rivalry or unfaithfulness. This would be like the jealousy that a spouse would have. They are married to their spouse and therefore have exclusive rights that go with that.

(2) As a disposition suspicious of rivalry or unfaithfulness. In other words this means that a person is always suspicious of the accomplishments of others. Saul in 1 Samuel 18:8 would be a good example of this when he became jealous of the attention that David was receiving for his military victories