You're listening to Key Life Fellowships Pulpit ministry
podcast. We thank you for tuning in as we
learn from God's Word together. If you would like more
information regarding Key Life or to speak with one of our
pastors, please visit us at keylifefellow-ship.com.
If you have your Bibles, if you would turn to Exodus and the
34th chapter of Exodus. Now I know this is not the norm,
right? When we finish something, we
usually go to a book, right? But I'm going to take some
liberty for just a a little while.
I, I took a little liberty and preached a series entitled There
is one Gospel and we've covered what the true gospel is and what
it's not. Unfortunately, we see more of
what it's not than what it really is in, in the church
today that we live in and the culture that we live in now.
But I'm going to also just extend that liberty just for a
little while longer before I go verse 1 of chapter 1 of whatever
it is that God wants us to do next.
And I want to speak to something that has been on my heart now
for several months, if not longer than that, but really
intensely for for several months.
And let me give you a little background to Exodus 34 and
where we're going to pick up today, because we're only going
to look at one verse, which one verse mentions something that we
don't talk about a whole lot. In fact, in in racking my brain
to try to remember, I don't think that I've ever set in a
sermon about this particular subject.
But that will all change after today for many of us.
But to give you a little backdrop, when we look at Exodus
and we know in chapter 20 that the Lord gave to Moses the
Decalogue, which we know the Decalogue has the Ten
Commandments where he revealed his perfect standard to to his
people through giving them the 1st 10 commandments of the law
and then the subsequential 613 commands that go along with
that. And as we kind of Fast forward
just to kind of give you a family over from chapter 32 to
chapter 34, some interesting things happen.
And I want to give you the brief synopsis of this.
I just want to encourage you go read this when you have an
opportunity. But what happens there in in
chapter 32 is Moses returns from Sinai.
We know he went up to Sinai. He received the commands from
the Lord. He received the entirety of the
law. And we know now in 32, he
returns from Mount Sinai. He's coming down off the
mountain only to find that God's people are worshipping an idol
that they talked Aaron into crafting and fashioning together
for them. This idol was taken from
earrings and jewelry that they had, and it was then placed in a
fire where it was molten and then shaped and formed into a
golden calf of all things. And they began to worship this
golden calf. In fact, in chapter 32, verse 4,
as they begin to give the glory that belongs to the Lord for
rescuing them out of their slavery in Egypt to this
inanimate golden calf that they had gotten Aaron to craft
together for them. Moses, as we know the story
goes, in his anger he throws the tablets of the 10 commandments
on the ground and they break. And then we know that Moses.
Then takes the calf and he melts the calf and and then destroys
it because he didn't want the Hebrew people to continue to
give glory to something that was not God at all.
It was simply just a man made idol.
And we know that that idol that was made by man stems all the
way back to Satan. Satan desiring to have worship
over the fact that God deserves our worship.
So Moses breaks the tablets, he melts the golden calf, and then
he instructs the Levites to take out the sword and to slay 3000
people who participated in this idolatry.
Then we know after this that God strikes the people with a
plague. But God, in his grace and His
mercy, instructs Moses to get two more tablets together.
He takes those. Tablets and God then inscribes
again, etches on those tablets to 10 commandments again, so
that they could have the table of the law before them, he
instructs Moses. That they're about to go into a
land that is inundated with paganism and idolatry.
In fact, that's one of the reasons that God gave this land
to the people that Moses was leading.
And he let them know that they are prone to this idolatry if
they're not careful. Now we come to this verse that
we're going to look at today, verse 14 of chapter 34.
And it says this. Just simply do not worship any
other God. And we know that He has already
given them this command. Have no other gods before me and
don't make for yourself any idols.
But he reiterates this in verse 14 of 34.
He says do not worship any other God, for the Lord whose name is
jealous is a jealous. God, let's pray to God the
Father, in the name of Jesus, we come to you, thanking you for
your word. Lord, as we have seen already
unveiled in one verse today that You are a jealous God, as we
attempt to learn what exactly this means, Lord, give us
insight through Your Word by Your Spirit.
Teach us who You really are according to Your Word, not
according to what we think or that we would see.
And we would understand that You are a jealous God, and
rightfully so, that we would refrain in our lives from
provoking or arousing Your jealousy.
And we would refrain in our lives from any activity or any
idolatry. It would attempt to steal your
glory. Thank you, Lord, for loving us
with such a powerful love, love that would do anything to rescue
your children. Because of the love that you
have for us, may we be forever indebted to that love, or it
comes from you. We are indebted to you.
We pray all these things in Christ's name, Amen.
And so we see from that one verse that God is a jealous God.
Now I know that's oftentimes in our thinking, a rather confusing
statement, but I want you to understand that it is a
forgotten. Truth.
It's a forgotten truth and that has great implication for the
believer. And I want us to remember that
truth. In fact, I'm going to take the
next several. Weeks.
And what we're going to look at is the forgotten jealousy of
God. Today we will be looking at how
God's jealousy is provoked, right?
Because when you hear that God is jealous, I know my first
instinct is to say I don't want to provoke his jealousy because
I want to honor him and I want to love him and I want to
respect him for who he is. When we talk about the jealousy
of God, there's some things that we really need to have clarity
on. And so let's.
Begin with some of those things before we get into our message
today, the things that we need to know concerning God's
jealousy. First, I want you to see this
that God's jealousy is completely different from.
Ours because when we're jealous, usually it's because of
selfishness or envy or covetousness.
But when God is jealous, it is completely pure and it is
completely holy and it is completely right, and it's
completely pure and holy and right because everything that
God is and everything that God does is completely holy and pure
and right. And so when we say that God is a
jealous God, we're not bringing some accusation against him that
has some kind of negative context.
We're saying that God is jealous because the word of God says
that he's jealous, and rightfully so.
He's worthy to be jealous. In fact, he is that faithful
husband who is forever faithful to his bride, and he is worthy
of being jealous when his bride is to stray away from him.
We know that to be true in our lives, right?
A husband who has been completely faithful to his
bride, only to have his bride stray away and become unfaithful
to someone else. None of us would get upset if
that husband was stricken with jealousy.
We would say what He has every right to be what jealous.
And so I want you to see today that God has every right to be
jealous. God's jealousy is not based, as
ours would be, on envy or insecurity, right?
God is not jealous because he's afraid that some other idol is
going to take his place. No one's going to take his
place. He is sovereign God over all.
He is God Almighty. He is supreme, whether you
recognize that or whether you don't.
He's not afraid of losing his position.
So God's not provoked to jealousy just because he's
insecure and he's not envious of a position that is given to
someone else. He knows who he is.
He's right. And his jealousy.
Jealousy is not based on envy or insecurity, but instead I want
you to follow this. His jealousy is based upon his
pure and perfect love that He has for his people.
I want to stop and to think about that for a second.
That God would ever be jealous of a dirty, filthy, wretched
center such as Kirk Hall. But yet it is in His jealous
love that he did pursue me, that he could redeem me and wash me
and cleanse me. And so when we talk about the
jealousy of God, we have to understand that it's based on
that pure and that perfect love that He has, because his love,
because he is pure and perfect, can't be anything other than
pure and perfect. Now I I know nothing of this
kind of love because the love that I love with is not pure and
perfect because it's flawed by my humanity.
But God's love is not flawed at all, and his jealousy is not
flawed at all because it is driven by that pure and that
perfect love. God's jealousy, in fact, is
toward His covenant people. Why?
Due to a covenantal love. He has promised to love them and
will always love them and as a result of His people offering
themselves to other things or other idols or other.
Person instead of the one true God, He is then provoked to holy
jealousy and rightly so. Ji Packer.
And I'm just going to give a little spoiler to you ladies who
are reading the book entitled Knowing God by Ji Packer and
going through that Bible study together.
You're going to get to this in the 17th chapter.
I know most of you don't remember anything that I say by
the time you get to your car, but hopefully you will remember
this when you get to it. In the 17th chapter of Knowing
God by Ji Packer, he is going to say it like this.
He says God's jealousy is not a compound of frustration, envy,
and spite, as human jealousy so often is.
Isn't that true? That's why we're jealous.
God's is not like that. But it appears instead as a
literally praiseworthy zeal to preserve something supremely
precious. What Packer is saying this is
God's love reveals that that he is preserving that which is
precious to him. In his jealousy, it is showing
to us just how much he really loves us and how precious we are
to Him. As his covenantal people.
So when we think about this. Let us understand is that God's
jealousy is the reason that he's rescued us from our sin.
God's jealousy is the reason that He rescues those who he has
a foreknown, those who He has intimately loved in eternity
past. You do a little word study on
foreknown and you will find out that His foreknowledge is His
eternal love for His covenant people.
It is that jealous love He has foreknown us with causes Him to
elect us from among the unbelievers.
So if you're here and you're in Christ today, know this that He
chose you from among the unbelievers from even out of
your own unbelief. And the reason that he did this
is because he was jealous for you with a holy and right
jealous love, not allowing you to continue to bow down and to
worship idols of the past or or immorality and sin in your life.
But rescuing that you from those things and church is high time
that we learn to be. Thankful for the jealousy of
God, because it's in His jealousy that we really do see
His full extent of His love, that He would no longer tolerate
us committing spiritual adultery with anything or anyone else.
But He sent His only begotten Son to this earth to demonstrate
His great love for us, just as Romans 58 tells us that He
demonstrates His love for us in this, that while we were still
sinners, chasing after the things of this world, whoring
after immorality, He demonstrated his love for us in
that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Oh, you see the extent of God's jealousy for His covenantal
people. And in the weeks to come, I will
describe for you and hopefully teach you more about what it
means to be loved with that covenantal love from God.
I just know that it's real and that it does exist.
And so our intentions as His bride, what a faithful groom we
have. When you stop and you think
about that for just a moment, how many times you've been
unfaithful to the Lord only to have Him continually be faithful
to you simply because He has made a covenant to do so.
You think about that for any amount of time.
And surely you will come to this conclusion that I don't want to
do anything to provoke or to arouse the jealousy of the lover
of my soul. And if I am doing anything that
provokes or arouses the jealousy of the lover of my soul, I am
going to return unto Him, and I'm going to confess my wrong,
and I'm going to repent of my wrong and bow at His feet and
thank Him once again for His love and His faithfulness that
He continually gives me that I do not and could not ever
deserve. So today as we take this one
particular verse that discloses for us along with many others
but one thing that they all have in common.
When we see the jealousy of the Lord mention, it is because His
people are offering themselves to things that they should not
offer themselves to be that idols or sexual immorality.
What are the distractions of this world?
So when we think about the jealousy of God, I begin here
with with looking at how God's jealousy is provoked.
Because for me, that's the first question that I want to ask.
Because I see how great this love is that he lavished upon
me, that I should be called a son, a child of God.
And the last thing that any of us who are truly in Christ
should ever want to do is to provoke that jealousy.
As we see the Israelites throughout history provoking his
jealousy. Over and over and over and over.
Again, and suffering the consequences therein.
Let it search out the truth today and to see how we could
potentially and possibly and maybe actively are provoking the
jealousy of God in our lives. We start with the first point
today. God's jealousy is provoked.
When we offer ourselves to idolatry over and over and over
again, we see God's people prone to idolatry.
In fact, John Calvin in his institute said this.
He said the human heart is a perpetual idol factory.
Yeah, that means just that. In our wickedness, we are
constantly coming up with ways to stray away from God and to
chase after false little G gods, and it is who we are by nature.
Oftentimes we read the accounts of of God's people in the Old
Testament and we think to ourselves, how in the world
could they stray away so much from a God who did so much from
them, has been so faithful to them, and has showered His love
upon them over and over and over again.
And we look at them without analyzing ourselves and
recognizing that we do the same thing, that we have the
propensity to chase after idols that are not God.
So how do you know we have this propensity?
Go back to the 10 commandments, Exodus chapter 20.
We see them there for the first time.
What does God? Say you shall have no other gods
before me. You know what God was doing.
He was graciously letting you know that if you're not careful,
you're going to put something in the place of God.
He goes on and he says this, You shall not make for yourself an
idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth
beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them
or worship them. He says, don't have anything in
my place, and don't make for yourself some tangible thing
that you call God. And of course, we know just a
few chapters after he told the people this the first time, here
they were. Doing it just as unfortunately
we find ourselves doing sometimes, he says.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord
your God, am a jealous God. He reiterates that term.
Punishing the children for the sin of their fathers to the 3rd
and the 4th generation of those who hate me, but showing love to
1000 generations of those who love me and who keep my
commands. What are the specific commands
that he's talking about here? He's commanding them to refrain
from idols. He's commanding them to refrain
from making anything in their life and putting it in the
position of God. He said, well, we don't do that.
You think that you don't do that?
John Calvin goes on to say in his Institutes in regard to
Exodus chapter 20, he says the purpose of.
This command is that the Lord's will alone be preeminent among
His people and to exercise complete authority over them.
He calls himself jealous because he cannot bear a partner.
God is not going to share you with your idols, He is not going
to share you with anything or anyone else.
And we all know in our sick, deranged society that we live
in, there are many people who they claim to have an open
marriage. That is where a husband and a
wife, they have been legally married and made a covenant with
one another. They are legal by the laws of
the state. But they say this, yes, we are
legally married and yes, we're going to stay married because,
you know, divorces are pretty expensive, but let's just have
an open marriage. You sleep around with who you
want to sleep around with, and I'll sleep around with who I
want to sleep around with. And everything will just be OK.
Well, the problem with that is everything won't be OK, but I
use that illustration. To teach you this, God will not
accept an open marriage from any of us.
He did not send His only begotten Son to this earth.
To die, to rescue sinners so that they can then whore after
the things of this world. We offer ourselves to idols more
often than we would probably willingly admit.
What does it look like? What is it when we offer
ourselves to idols? Well, you write this down.
When we offer ourselves to idols, we are committing
spiritual adultery. How many times in Scripture do
we see that beautiful picture of God being our husband and we
being his bride? And again, he's not going to
accept an open marriage. He expects loyalty from us.
He expects faithfulness from us, and when we are not faithful and
we are not loyal to Him, chasing after whatever idol it may be,
we commit spiritual adultery and there's no if ands or buts about
it. Many of you would say, well I
would never commit adultery against my spouse, yet you were
constantly committing adultery against the Creator who made
you. You're committing that adultery
by chasing after the things that your flesh loves.
Fact in Hosea the entire book of Hosea is written so that we can
understand God's feelings about his people chasing after idols
committing spiritual adultery against him.
In fact, he tells Hosea to do the unthinkable.
In Hosea chapter one verse 2, he says this when the Lord began to
speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, go take to yourself
an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness because the
and is guilty of the vilest adultery and departing from the
Lord. He says, I want you to
experience what I experienced from my people, the whole land
committing spiritual adultery against me constantly.
And so that you'll know what this is like, Jose, so that you
can communicate this effectively, you take an
adulterous wife unto yourself. That's what we do when we chase
after other idols, isn't it? We commit spiritual adultery
against God. I know what you ask, Pastor.
I don't bow down to a graven image and I've never had a
golden calf. But can I say this to you?
When we give to something or to someone else, what belongs to
God isn't that worship? Couldn't we all agree that
that's worship, giving what belongs to God to someone or
something else? And so we could commit adultery
spiritually like this, giving our time to something or someone
else? It's interesting that we live in
a time where nobody has time, and they especially don't have
time for God. What a sad testament when we
don't have time for God. What a sad testament when we
have time to do everything under the sun.
But we can't find time to commune with God in his word, to
commune with God in prayer, to commune with God on the Lord's
Day with other believers. We simply don't have time.
The truth be told is you're giving your time away to your
mistress. Whatever that may be, whatever's
consuming all of your time, How about this?
Your talents. You use your talents for
everything under the sun. You'll use your talents to make
money. You'll use your talents to gain
friends. You'll use your talents to gain
acceptance. But are you using your talents
for the glory of the Lord? If you're not, you're giving to
someone or something or belongs to God, who do you think blessed
you with those talents and why do you think that He blessed you
with those talents? He didn't bless you with those
talents so that you can use them on your lovers outside of Him.
He bunched you with those talents so that you can bring
Him glory by using your talents for Him.
How about your energy, right? We all need more of that.
There's energy drinks, man. You're going to the store.
You can't even find a good old Coca-Cola anymore because all
the shelves are stacked with energy drinks.
Everybody's looking for more energy.
It's because you're giving your energy to things that don't
matter, giving your energy to things that are fleeting.
I can promise you this, if you're giving your energy to the
Lord, He will give you the strength to endure.
About our resources, resources that we give to idols, the idols
that we've created in our mind. It's true.
Whatever we offer ourselves to, it is an idol in our lives.
Whether you want to accept that or whether you don't, God's Word
is very clear about that. In fact, in.
Deuteronomy 32 verse 16 it says this.
They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him
with their detestable idols. You want to know what provokes
God's jealousy? You want to know what provokes
God to righteous anger toward His people When you offer
yourself to idols, giving him or it what belongs to God and God
alone? When we offer our worship to
lesser things, right Our devotion to temporal or our
earthly pursuits. But you know what I'm talking
about American Dreamers. You're all here.
You're in a country where it's easy to do right, to follow the
idol of the American dream. We all fall into that trap at
some point in time. Let me make this known.
It's a trap. That trap is driven your desire
for more. And so you devote yourself to
temporal or earthly pursuits, only giving God what's leftover
at the end. What a sad day when professing
Christians are only giving God what's leftover at the end of
the day. Oh, if you're not completely
exhausted, you're not completely worn out, you're not completely
spent on chasing after all the endeavors of the world, you
might give God some time, but if not, maybe tomorrow.
We're content in His church. Unfortunately, today, giving him
leftovers. I want to help all of you out.
Guys not interested in your leftovers?
He's not interested in your leftovers at all because he
knows exactly what they are. In fact, that offering is not
acceptable. You've already offered your
yourself to everything under the sun, and whatever you have
leftover, you're just going to toss it to God.
Ask Cain how that worked out for him.
And so we provoke God's jealousy continually by offering
ourselves to idolatry. And Paul says it like this in
Romans chapter 12, verse 11. In fact, he's instructing a
group of people who are inundated with paganism and
idolatry, he says in verse 11 of chapter 12.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer
your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to
God. This is your spiritual act of.
Worship. What's he saying?
Offer your entire selves to God. This is true worship where we do
just what Jesus said, we deny ourselves.
What percentage should we deny pastor 100%?
We should deny 100% of ourselves giving ourselves as an offering
unto the Lord. The sad thing is we live in a
church age and a church culture where no one is is instructing
you and no one is encouraging. You to give all of yourself to
the Lord. I long for the day where there's
a group of believers who are giving everything to the Lord,
loving Him with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, and
loving their neighbor as themselves.
Fulfilling. The law of Christ offering
themselves as living sacrifices. Or may we stop committing
spiritual adultery, acting as if it is an idolatry?
So we commit these acts of idolatry, offering ourselves to
idols by committing spiritual adultery, but also when we're
controlled by senseless passions, driven by things of
the flesh, controlled by those things that are not God.
You know what those things are? We.
Have to ask ourselves what do we love most?
Because the things that we love most can quickly become idols in
our lives, can't they? How about your family?
Seen many a family make their children idols and worship them.
I've seen moms do their entire identity as being a mom.
Godly moms, listen to me. Don't let your identity be being
a mom. Let it be Christ and you
identify yourself with Christ and then your children are going
to see that and you are going to leave a lasting impact upon
their lives. Dads, stop worshipping your
children, living your life through them, through all their
sporting events, through all the things that they do.
You're leading them into self worship.
Stop it, live for Christ, let Christ be pre eminent in your
life. And see your children as a
blessing that come from the hand of God.
And pray that God gives you the wisdom to be a good steward, not
making them an idol for you to worship, spending all of your
time and all of your resources, all of your money, trying to
make these little sinners happy. Teach them about where true
happiness, true joy is found, and it's found in Christ alone.
And you teach them that by your example.
How about finances? Offering ourselves to idols
means that we're controlled. By senseless fashions such as
our finances, Right? You're you're more concerned
with the stock market than you are the return of Jesus Christ.
May we cease to be distracted by the idol of finances in this
world that we live in. The whole reason that you exist
is to make money. Ma'am, Sir, listen to me.
At that point, this has become an idol to you.
See it for what it is. You're worshipping the almighty
dollar. You're offering yourself to an
idol. In doing so, you are provoking
the jealousy of the God who loves you and who sent His Son
to rescue you from this world of chaos and sin.
Well, how about the idol of friendships or relationships,
right? Some of you.
You come to church because this is where your friends are.
Please cease to think like that today.
It's great that we have friends. It's great that we have
Christian fellowship. God has given us those things.
But if you'll go back with me into time, into the Old
Testament, God gave the people at one time a pole with a
serpent on it, so that if they were bit by a snake, they would
then be healed from that snake bite.
But where the people erred, here's what happened.
They began to worship the pole with the serpent on it, and some
of you worship your friendships. You come on a Sunday morning not
to exalt God, not to lift Him up, not to bow down and to
humble yourself before Him, but to visit with your.
Friends and it's high time we take back these institute's.
They call themselves churches, but are nothing more than a
social gathering, a Country Club.
We return to worshipping and honoring the one true and living
God with every fiber of our being.
About your future plans and Speaking of your senseless
passions, right? You're planning for the future,
right? What you're going to do when you
retire? I wish I could give you the list
of all the people who had those plans, never got to enjoy.
Not one single one of them. They did in opposition to what
James said. They counted on tomorrow, when
tomorrow is no guarantee and tomorrow never came.
Oh, let us worship the Lord with all of our intensity and all of
our fervor while we still have today, because tomorrow is not
guaranteed. So many people are following the
idol of their future plans, storing up treasures on earth
that you can't take with you and you're not guaranteed to ever
possess, when you could be inundated with worship toward
the one true God who's worthy of all that worship, experiencing
that communion with Him, not distracted by these things.
Instead, we offered ourselves to idolatry, being controlled by
our senseless passions. So it brings us to a question,
what's your passion? What drives you?
Why do you wake up every morning?
Do you wake up every morning for one of these things that I've
mentioned? How do you see every day as a
blessing for God, a blessing that He has given you for His
glory straight from His hand? Lord, you've blessed me with
another day. Let me obediently serve you and
worship you with this day because I'm not guaranteed the
next. I wish that God's people would
understand the seriousness of this.
And whatever you're passionate about, it's really what you
worship. Some of you are passionate about
sports. Some of you are passionate about
finances. Some of you are passionate about
your families. Some of you are passionate about
all your entertainment and all the things that this world could
throw at you with little passion at all concerning the Lord.
You've been distracted. You've been distracted with
covetousness, lust, greed. And can I insert here that greed
in the New Testament is called idolatry?
It's not called that by accident.
In fact, in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 5, here's what Paul says.
He says for all of this you can be sure no immoral, impure or
greedy person such a man is an idolater, has any inheritance in
the Kingdom of Christ and of God.
He says your greed is a mark of your idolatry.
You're offering yourselves to your greed, proving that you
don't understand the love of God at all.
In fact, in Luke chapter 12 verse 15, it says then he said
to them, Speaking of Jesus, watch out be on your guard
against all kinds of greed. Why?
Because a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his
possessions. But yet we live in a country.
That is so retail driven trying to talk you into something all
the time that you have to have. Know everything you have to
have. God will provide for you.
Stop chasing after your greedy desires.
Because your greed is an indicator that you are offering
yourself to an idol and that idol is called greed and it
arouses and it provokes God's jealousy.
That's why Paul says Corinthians and 1st Corinthians chapter 10
verse 14, he says flee from idolatry, flee from anything
that distracts you from giving God what belongs to God.
Flee from anything that causes you to offer yourself to
anything or anyone who is not God.
And as humans, yes, we are prone to this.
Stop thinking that idolatry is just some Old Testament thing
that doesn't happen any longer. You are constantly being drawn
to be distracted by things. I won't harp on it, but I will
mention it again. You have an electronic device
that is distracting you constantly in your pocket or in
your hand most of the day. You say, well, pastor, are you
preaching against cell phones? Absolutely not.
But I am preaching against idolatry, and the Saints of old
join with me and they agree because the word of God has
spoken on idolatry. It provokes God's jealousy.
That's why John says in his first epistle, chapter 5, verse
21, he says, dear children, keep yourselves from idol.
What is an idol again? Anything that takes your
attention away from God. Anything that distracts you,
it's when you give something to someone else that rightfully
belongs to God. And you, ma'am, you Sir, who
professed to be purchased by the precious blood of Jesus Christ,
you are not your own. You were bought with the price.
Therefore he says, honor God with your body.
Everything you have belongs to him.
Give it all. To him.
And when you're not giving it all to him, you're giving it to
something else. And at that point in time, you
were offering yourselves to idols.
Be very aware of this, because when we offer ourselves to
idolatry, we provoke God's jealousy.
Secondly, God's jealousy is provoked when we offer ourselves
to iniquity, to any and every type of sin.
And I want you to go here with me in your mind and in your
heart for just a moment. Oh, to think and to contemplate
this. That God loved me so much that
he sent his only begotten Son to die on a cross, a brutal and
horrific death, to ransom me, to pay my sin debt, to wash me and
cleanse me of all of my my defilements.
To free me from the wrath of God that I deserved, and placed it
upon the very back of Jesus the Christ, and then for me to only
then turn and return to the life of.
Sin and filth that he saved me from.
Doesn't he have the right to be jealous?
Doesn't he have the right to be provoked in that jealousy?
To think that he offered so much to express his love for us, and
then in return we constantly find ourselves offering
ourselves back to iniquity again, falling back into the
same thing that Jesus died. For you to be freed from You
offer yourself to iniquity, provoking God's jealousy.
You offer yourself to iniquity. When you watch this, write it.
Down so that you will know. Return to the filth, Jesus.
Rescued you from. And if anyone would be honest in
this room, you would agree with me that when Jesus rescued me,
he rescued me from the mud and the mire.
He rescued me from the filthiest of filth.
If you're in Christ, He did the same for you.
Oh, you weren't probably as bad as you could have been, but you
were bad. And you were completely bad.
In fact, you were totally depraved when he rescued you.
And he rescued you from your filth.
Not so that you can then use Grace as some cheap excuse to go
live in the filth again. He rescued us and He made us
clean so that we would not return to that filth.
What does that look like? We we return to our filth when
we revisit our old sinful habits.
Oh, there's no need to hide under the chair, because I know
that there has to be someone here who is revisiting their old
sinful habits, those things that Jesus freed you from.
Through His death, His burial, His resurrection, expressing to
you just how much God really does love you and in return you
slap Christ in the face and you go back and you pick up those
things that he freed you from and how can it be?
In fact, Ephesians chapter 4 verse 22 says you were taught
with regard to your former way of life.
Why don't you love how the life of sin was always talked about
in past tense in the New Testament, your former way of
life, He says to put off the old self, which is being corrupted
by its deceitful desires, to be made new in the attitude of your
minds and to put on the new self created to be like God and
through righteousness and. Holiness, He gives no room there
to return back to that which he has rescued you from.
Your old, filthy, sinful habits. Leave them where they belong.
They belong in the past, in fact.
We know the scripture says to lay aside every weight and sin
that so easily entangles us to get rid of that thing, let it
go, not revisit our old sinful habits, offering ourselves to
iniquity, provoking the jealousy of God.
How about when we recklessly offer ourselves to sin, right?
Well, we just don't care all just this one time, I'm just
going to indulge. And many a man who one time
indulged and it cost him his entire life.
We run into sin recklessly. Oh, I'm saved, and I know I'm
saved, and I know that I'm going to heaven because I know Christ.
So just this. One time what I'm going to do is
I'm going to offer myself recklessly to sin.
What a shame that is because we see that it's very prevalent
isn't in the lives of those who profess to know Christ.
Romans chapter 6 Paul says this. He says in the same way, count
yourself dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies so that
you obey its evil desires. What is he telling us here?
That if we give sin an inch, it's going to take a mile?
Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of
wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who
have been brought from death to life, and offer the parts of
your body to Him as instruments of righteousness.
You know what he's saying. Don't dabble in sin any longer.
Don't give one inch to your sin. Because before you know it, as
many of you would testify, that sin is back in the driver's seat
in your life, controlling you. You're bowing down.
You're offering yourself to that, even against your own
redeemed will, because you recklessly offered yourself to
sin once again. When you offer yourself to
iniquity, provoking the wrath of God, when you return to the
filth that Jesus rescued you from, revisiting your old sinful
habits, recklessly offering yourself to sin.
And when you resemble the ungodly in your behavior and in
your life. I would to God that Christians
would see how important it is that we don't resemble this
world any longer, not in the language that we use, not in the
places that we go, not in the substances that we partake in.
That we reflect God in every area of our life resembling the
one who bought us. Is that not what His Word
teaches us? That those He foreknew He did
also predestined to conform to the image of His Son?
I find myself asking this question quite often.
If we were conformed, or we were destined to be conformed to the
image of His Son, why do so many professing Christians look like
the. World.
Why do they resemble the ungodly?
Why could you put the two right next to each other most of the
time, with maybe the exception on a Sunday because you come to
church because your Mama told you to?
But why can we set them side by side most of the time?
There's so many of you in the so-called church offering
yourselves to iniquity resembling the ungodly and your
life. First Thessalonians chapter 4,
verse 3 says it is God's will that you should be sanctified,
that you should avoid sexual immorality.
Sexual immorality, the sin that he is addressing specifically
here, but it would encompass all sin.
He said that each of you should learn to control his own body in
a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate
lust like the heathen. What is he saying?
The heathen just whatever their, their flesh lusted after, they
just ran and they didn't, he says.
And that is that in this matter no one should wrong his brother
or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all
such sins, as we've already told you and warned you.
He says there's going to be consequences for you who profess
Christ and who behave like the world.
Please understand that the author of Hebrews is very clear
that whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and he chastens
with a rod. And if you were without
discipline, you don't belong to Him.
I tell people quite frequently when I talk about the discipline
of God, I tell him this. I'm so thankful for God's
discipline. It reveals to me His jealous
love for me. But it reveals.
To me, that I am his son. I have faced the Lord's
discipline on so many occasions that I know this.
I know I am His because He won't let me be anything else.
And if you, ma'am or Sir, can live any way that you want to
live and still profess Christ, I want to help you.
That is a hollow profession because the Lord has promised to
discipline those who belong to Him.
And if you are truly in Christ, you belong to Him.
And so if you can do whatever in the world you want to do, you
can look like the world, act like the world.
There's no conviction, There's no discipline that comes upon
your life. You can do all the things that
the world does. You are the world.
Without exception, you're not truly in Christ.
Because if you're in Christ, His jealous love would pursue you.
His jealous love would discipline you.
He would not let you continue to resemble the ungodly.
He has freed you from looking like this world in your life.
These people not only returned to the filth that Jesus rescued
them from, offering themselves to iniquity, provoking God's
jealousy, they refuse to die to their sinful desires and the
cravings of the flesh. What are they doing?
They're neglecting to mortify their sin.
As Christians, we all know this. We have the same sinful desires
that we once have, right? She's thankful that in Christ
there is now another option, and that option is to die to the sin
and the desire of your flesh and is to live unto Christ empowered
by the Holy Spirit. Galatians 516 says that if I
walk in the Spirit, I will not fulfill the lust of my flesh.
It doesn't say that I won't have them.
I won't fulfill them. But what I have to do is I have
to mortify my sin at every occasion.
And I can't speak for you, but I can speak for me.
That's multiple times daily. Then I have to literally kill my
sin that craves the things of the flesh.
I have to mortify just as Paul says in Colossians chapter 3.
He says in verse 3, for you died and your life is now hidden in
Christ, in God, with Christ, in God.
When Christ who is your life appears, then you will also
appear with him in glory. Amen.
I'm thankful for that. But now he tells me my
responsibility as I wait for that.
Watch us put to death. Mortify.
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly
nature. He's going to give us a list
sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed,
which is idolatry. He says because of these, the
wrath of God is coming. He's saying you have been freed
from the wrath of God, therefore you do not need to participate
in the things that bring God's wrath upon this earth.
You've been bought. You've been purchased.
Stop refusing to die to your sinful desires and your cravings
of the flesh simply because, well, I'm just a human and
you're true. You are just a human.
You are a human if you are in Christ, who is now indwelt by
the power of the Holy Spirit, the same power of the Holy
Spirit. It's the same Spirit that Christ
walked in while He was here on this earth and He lived a
righteous and perfect life before men.
Mortify your flesh. Walk in the perfect life that
Jesus Christ has made for you to walk in his very own life.
Is that not what Paul said? Your life is hidden in him.
Problem with the American churches.
You still think you have your life.
If you think you have your life, your life is not hidden in
Christ. Because if your life is hidden
in Christ, when Christ appears, your life will appear with him.
That's why we look for that day. Until then, we mortify our flesh
long for what we one day will be in our glorified state because
of Christ. Some refused to die to their
sinful desires and the cravings of their flesh offering
themselves to iniquity, even though they professed Christ
only provoking his wrath, subjecting themselves to sins
potential control. Again, as we've already seen in
Romans 6, Paul talks about, but also forgetting the sacrifice of
our blessed Savior. I think this is where we often
jump off the track. We forget what Christ has done
for US. First Peter chapter 2 verse 24
says he himself Speaking of Christ bore our sins in his own
body on the cross so that we might die to sins and live for
righteousness. Paul simply telling us this, or
Peter, excuse me, simply telling us this, that when we think of
Christ and the fact that He bore our sins on the cross, that
ought to be motivation for us to mortify and to die to our sins
and to live for righteousness because of the love that He
displayed for us in rescuing us on the cross.
But often times we let that just go to the very back of our mind
instead of every day rising from our sleep and saying, Lord
Jesus, thank you for your sacrifice that you made.
Thank you for rescuing me from me, bearing my sin and my shame
on the tree, so that I can now live a life of righteousness
unto God for His glory. Teach me to do this by the power
of your Spirit as I walk with you.
So God's jealousy is provoked and we offer ourselves to
iniquity. When we choose sin over
holiness, we provoke God's jealousy, rightly so.
Shouldn't He be jealous and His faithfulness to us?
We continually run after unfaithfulness to Him.
Thirdly, you'll be happy to know.
Lastly, today God's jealousy is provoked when we offer ourselves
to pay attention to this not often talked about any longer in
the church. God's jealousy is provoked when
we offer ourselves to inconsistency.
You said Kirk, what do you mean inconsistency?
I mean, if we're going to understand.
This that we. Have to turn our attention to
Revelation chapter 3 where we see the church at Laodicea.
Mentioned the church at Laodicea there in Revelation chapter 3.
Heard from Jesus himself. And he proclaimed to them just
how unacceptable inconsistency and indifference toward Christ
really is. In fact, the term lukewarm was
used. You're very familiar with this
term. What does this mean?
It means that they were inconsistent.
He said you're neither hot nor cold.
He said I would rather you be hot or cold, but you're neither.
You're waver back and forth. You're inconsistent in every
area of your life. And he calls them to repentance
for their inconsistency. No, I know we live in a church
age, in a church culture where no one calls the church to
repent of inconsistency. That change is here now because
inconsistency has become an idol in the church.
We're. One way on Sunday, then we're
another way the other days of the week.
In fact, we're so inconsistent that our.
Unbelieving friends don't see any difference between them and
us other than we give up our Sunday to come to church because
you're right there partying with them.
You're right there, you're drinking with them, you're right
there, you're laughing at all their filthy jokes.
Fact probably given giving them new ones to tell at their next
encounter. And we're OK with it.
We're. OK with being inconsistent, but
let me tell you this God is not OK with it.
In fact, it provokes his jealousy.
The God who has loved you to the extent that He has loved you
too, and yet you were inconsistent toward Him.
When we go back to the ministry of Elijah in First Kings chapter
18, he addresses God's people for their inconsistency.
They were wavering. Watch how he says this in verse
21. Elijah went out before the
people and said how long will you waver between two opinions?
He says if the Lord is God, Callaway.
If he's God, follow him, but if if Baal is God, follow him.
But the people said nothing. They didn't respond because they
knew they had been caught in their inconsistency because
there were times when they were worshipping the one true God.
And then the next time that you would see them, they were
worshipping Baal. And Elijah had enough of it and
God had had enough of it because God was provoked in his jealousy
that he sent Elijah to deliver this message.
And he's telling them to stop wavering between two opinion.
If God is the one true God and Jesus Christ is the one true
Savior, live like it, act like it, love like it, serve like it.
But if your God is really the gods of this world, who are no
gods at all, then serve the world, partake of the world,
indulge in the world, and receive the world's reward in
hell. But pick a lane.
Choose which one you are in. Because inconsistency provokes
God's jealousy, He will not put up with it.
In fact, Joshua and his ministry in leading the.
Israelites. He calls the Israelites to do
just that. Pick a lane.
In fact, Joshua 24 verse 14, he says this now fear the Lord and
serve him with all faithfulness, not part faithfulness, not
Sunday morning faithfulness. He said with all faithfulness.
He said be faithful in every area of your life.
Throw away the gods your forefathers worship beyond the
river and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.
Now watch this. He gives them another option, he
says. But if serving the Lord seems
undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you
will serve, whether the gods of your forefathers, whether the
gods your forefathers served beyond the river, or the gods of
the Amorites, and whose land you are living.
And he takes a stand, he says, But As for me and my household,
we will serve Yahweh, we will serve the Lord.
What is Joshua? Doing there, he's calling the
people of God out and he's simply saying this.
Choose which side you are really on.
Stop going back and forth and back and forth.
One day you're worshipping the gods of the Amorites, the next.
Day you're worshipping Yahweh. This does not work.
It doesn't work for us either, because just as they are God's
covenantal people, so are we. And our covenant is in the
precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it's time that we
become consistent in our worship toward Him and our service
toward Him. God is not pleased with our
inconsistency. When we are inconsistent, we
offer ourselves to that inconsistency instead of
offering ourselves to God. How do we do this?
What does this look like in a practical sense so that we
understand it? Pay close attention to this.
We offer ourselves to inconsistency by wavering an
allegiance. We waver an allegiance between
the world and God and His church.
We partly embrace God and His Kingdom, and we partly embrace
the things of this world. We can't really make up our mind
for sure. James addresses this in James
chapter 4. He doesn't in a rather bold
fashion to which I appreciate. He says in verse 4 of chapter 4,
you adulterous people. That's what he calls them, you
adulterous people. Don't you know that friendship
with the world is hatred toward God?
Anyone who? Chooses to be a friend of the
world. Becomes an enemy of God.
Church, please listen to that warning.
Please. We are only going to be warned
of that so many times in our lifetime.
Heed that warning. Some of you are offering
yourselves an inconsistency. One day you're offering yourself
to the world. One day you're offering yourself
to God. Probably just this day because
it's Sunday and that's what you've been raised in the South
to do. But in doing that, your
inconsistency is provoking and arousing the very jealousy of
God. You waver to and fro, partnering
with the world on one day and partnering with the church on
another. Second Corinthians 6 Paul speaks
of this. He says in verse 14, Do not be
yoked together with unbelievers. That's not talking about just
marriage church. Sadly, that's the only time some
seem to use this. He's talking about everything.
He says do not be yoked together with unbelievers.
What do righteousness and wickedness have in common?
He's going to give you rhetoricals and they're all no
or nothing. Have nothing in common.
What fellowship can light have with darkness?
None. What harmony is there between
Christ and Blount? No.
Harmony at all? What does a believer have in
common with an unbeliever? Nothing, he said.
Well, I'm a believer and I have lots in common with my lost
friends. You better check yourself.
You better check yourself because you're claiming to be
light and saying that you have something in common with the
darkness, and God's Word says that is impossible.
Your inconsistency is seen very clearly just by that simple
statement that you made. Wavering an allegiance between
the world and God, partnering with the world, participating
with the world, drinking from the cup of the world.
Paul speaks of this in First Corinthians chapter 10.
Talking to the believers there at Corinth, he says you cannot
drink the cup of the Lord. What was he talking about?
You can't observe the Lord's Supper on a Sunday.
Recognizing the very blood of Jesus Christ, the blood of the
New Covenant and then turn around on Monday and drink from
the cup of demons. You can have a part in both the
Lord's table and the table of demons.
He said your fellowship can't be with Christ and Satan at the
same time. This inconsistency is
impossible. He says.
Are we trying to arouse the Lord's jealousy?
Yes, that question. Isn't it interesting that he
borrows that term from the Old Testament?
Are we trying to arouse his jealousy?
Not only are you trying to arouse his jealousy, you are
arousing his jealousy as we arouse.
Him to jealousy when we're inconsistent in our lives
wavering in our allegiance being double minded as James warns
about in James chapter 1 to verse 8.
What does he say? He says a.
Double minded man is unstable in all he does.
When you're inconsistent, it reveals your double mindedness.
Your double mindedness. Reveals who you truly are.
So we offer ourselves to inconsistency when we are
wavering in allegiance, but also when we're wavering in
affection, inconsistent in our love for God.
I'll say it in a way that you can understand it.
We're married to Jesus, but we still sometimes date the world.
We're married to Jesus and we know that, but by His precious
blood we are in a covenant. Sometimes we still date the
world. And why would He not be provoked
to jealousy when He faithfully rescued you from your sin, the
wrath that was to come upon you, putting you in the right
position with your Creator, putting you in that marriage
covenant with Himself, only for you to then turn and still want
to date the world? First John chapter 2 verse 15,
Speaking of our affections for the world, John says this do not
love the world or anything in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him
for everything in the world. The cravings of sinful man, the
lust of his eyes, and the boasting of what he has and does
comes not from the Father, but from the world.
The world and its desires passed away, but the man who does the
will of God lives forever. Church, it's time we stop
wavering in our affection, offering ourselves to
inconsistency, saying that we love Jesus, but showing that we
love the world. Because you can say that you
love Jesus all you want, but if you're not showing it, no one is
buying it. But haven't we embraced that in
our time? Oh, as long as you say you love
Jesus, it really doesn't matter how you live.
Oh, it matters because how you were living in your
inconsistency is provoking the jealousy of God.
And it's high time that you recognize that.
In fact, it's high time that you repent of that.
It's it's time that you get honest about that.
You approach the stone of grace that you may find mercy and
grace even this very day, because it's Jesus by His love
that He chose us out of this world.
Why do we continue to waver in our affection for the world that
He chose us out of? Is that what He said in John 15
verse 19? That He chose us out of the
world? Well, if He chose you out of the
world, and how did he do it? By demonstrating his love for
you on the cross. If he chose you out of this
world, why are you still inconsistently dabbling in it?
Do you like the thought of provoking the jealousy of God?
I don't have time today to tell you what happens when the
Israelites provoke his jealousy over and over and over again.
Please know this, you will not provoke his jealousy as one of
his covenantal people without there being a consequence that
comes from it. Many are wavering in their
allegiance and in their affection, proving their
inconsistency, pursuing the temporal things of this earth
instead of the eternal things of God.
That's why Paul tells the Colossians to set their minds on
things above, not on earthly thing.
Why? Because these earthly things are
fleeting, yet we spend so much time investing in them.
God's jealousy is provoked when we offer ourselves to
inconsistency. His jealousy is provoked when we
offer ourselves to iniquity. His jealousy is provoked when we
offer ourselves to idolatry. God has every right to be
jealous, doesn't He? We offer ourselves to these
things. We waver in our allegiance when
we waver in our affections. We bow to idle.
We cave to sin is every right to be jealous?
Oh, I say these things to you because we are going to begin a
study looking at God's jealousy in great detail.
But I told you when I began to study the topic, I said, you
know. One thing that I have learned
about God's jealousy, though I've only just scratched the
surface. One thing that I have learned is
I don't want to arouse and provoke His jealousy.
And I want the people who have been placed under my care to
know exactly how we can do this. I don't come to you today to
browbeat you a scripture to be harsh to you.
I come to just tell you the truth.
God is a jealous God. I encourage you to serve him as
the jealous God that he is because the fact that God is
jealous ought to call some things to happen in our lives.
Write these things down and I'll close this up.
For those of you who thought three points meant a shorter
sermon, you were sadly wrong. The fact that God is a jealous
God should cause you to release any affections for this world.
If you're in Christ, you are holding on to love for something
in this world. This day.
God will convict you and show you to release that thing.
It does not belong in your life. God's jealousy oughta calls you
to release that thing immediately, to confess it, to
repent of it knowing that He is faithful and just, to forgive
you of all of your sin when you confess it.
Secondly, and I'll cause you to repent of any and all
unfaithfulness that you were committing with idols.
Oh, I don't have time to tell you how many different kinds of
idols we could have. If you have an idol in your
life, I know this. And if you're a believer, the
Holy Spirit has convicted you specifically that this thing is
an idol in your life. I don't have to harp on that.
By now you know what it is. Repent of it.
Call it exactly what God says that it is.
Stop wavering. Thirdly, realize the depths of
God's love for His elect. And when I think about the
jealousy of God, it thrills my heart.
It thrills my heart. Many of you will leave and you
will say, man, that was hard. It's not hard at all.
This is true love. This is a loving message that
God would jealously pursue His people.
Now I'm so thankful for that, that He has loved me again and
again and again and will always love me with that jealous love.
Because I am His, He has made a covenant with me.
I'm secured by that jealous love.
Realize the depths of that love. Why?
Because in realizing the depths of that love, I'm going to
encourage you to respond with a deeper love for Him.
Thank you God, that You won't let me be what I used to be.
Thank you God, You have rescued me from myself and from my sin.
Thank you, God, that Your love holds me secure forever.
And lastly, refuse to offer yourself to anyone or anything
other than to the Lord. I told you when I started every
time that we see God's jealousy provoked in Scripture, it is
because it's people are offering themselves to something other
than God in some way, shape or form.
Church, may we stop offering ourselves to anyone or anything
other than the Lord, giving Him what belongs to Him, and that is
all of US. He purchased us by His precious
blood. He owns us and we need to live
like we realize that. To the unbeliever, I pray today
as God opens your eyes to your need for a Savior, oh, that He
would by His grace and His mercy, open your eyes to see
your need, the fact that you're a Sinner, you are in need of a
Savior. And that Savior who loves
sinners came to this earth. He died on a cross bearing the
wrath and the punishment that belonged to sinners.
He rose again on the third day so that you can receive new
life, forgiveness of sin, and eternal life.
In the heaven was God. Oh, I pray today you would trust
in this Jesus who came and who died.
You would trust in Him as Lord, forsaking yourself, repenting of
your sin, believing in Christ and Christ alone.
O may He unveil the depths of His jealous love for you today.
May He rescue you by that love. Let's pray together, Father, in
the name of Jesus, we come to you thinking you and you are a
jealous God, and rightfully so. And we bow our entire lives to
our God who will not tolerate His people offering themselves
to anyone or anything else. Lord, I pray that we hear and
that we heed the seriousness of this message.
That if need be, we repent and confess sin in our life that has
provoked your jealousy. God, I pray for the soul who's
here does not know Christ. I ask Lord, that you would show
them mercy today by graciously offering your Son as the
payment, the atonement for their sin, that today they would
believe on Christ and be saved. And we'll give you all the glory
for it in Jesus name, Amen. You've been listening to Key
Life Fellowships Pulpit Ministry podcast.
Join us each week for more teaching from God's Word.