Jealous for the Jealous God

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Nahum 1:2

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Amen. Turning your Bibles to Nahum, chapter 1.
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I had a different introduction thought through this morning, but let me just shorten it.
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To my mind, last night and this morning was brought Psalm 50, verse 21.
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The Lord says, Behold, you thought
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I was one like yourself. And it's quite an indictment from the
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Lord, and I believe that it's applicable today, that it has been said,
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God made man in his own image, and ever since, man has sought to return the favor, meaning mankind seeks to make a
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God in their image, in their thought. But God is not like us.
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And that's what we've come to see as we've begun this series in Nahum, that God is not like us.
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And this is a good thing. So we come today to consider the jealousy of God, and the sermon title is simply
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Jealous for the Jealous God. That will make sense, I hope, by the time we conclude.
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Nahum, chapter 1, we'll read verses 2 through 8 for context, but we're still in verse 2. Would you stand with me as we honor the reading of God's word?
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The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. The Lord is avenging and wrathful.
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The Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power.
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The Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in the whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
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He rebukes the sea and makes it dry. He dries up all the rivers, Bashan and Carmel wither.
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The mountains quake before him, the hills melt, the earth heaves before him. The world and all who dwell in it, who can stand before his indignation?
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Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire and the rocks are broken into pieces by him.
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The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in him.
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But with an overflowing flood, he will make a complete end of the adversaries and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
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Father, if we leave here with nothing else this morning, may we leave with this reality that we have met with God, we pray for our nation, we pray for our our friends and neighbors in Perry County and beyond.
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Oh, God, would they come to know you? Would we recover, as it were, a fear of you, a holy and righteous awe of the great
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God that you are? I pray that's true of our church. Lord, help us to to be in awe of you and to understand your holy jealousy and understand why it's a good thing and that we would be a people jealous for the jealous
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God. Give us resolve and courage as well as compassion. Help us to understand your text this morning, give us grace, give us
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Christ. May the gospel be made plain. Help us help me help the pastors of this church to fear you more, to serve you better, to love you more.
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Oh, God, increase our love. For you. We pray for repentance in our nation, for revival.
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We pray that truth would prevail, that Christ would be owned as king and we pray it all in his name.
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Amen. You may be seated. So last week, really, I had a four point sermon and we really just got to the first point.
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So that's it's in your outline. It's kind of a helpful maybe the first point last week, just a little bit of review briefly.
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We talked about the jealousy of God defined. I'll give you another definition, Wayne Grudem, helpful definition.
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He said God's jealousy means that God continually seeks to protect his own honor.
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God continually seeks to protect his own honor. That's really what we looked at last week.
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And so in our text, for God to protect his own honor means that Nineveh will not get off the hook.
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The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. The Lord is avenging and wrathful. The Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies.
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Nineveh will not escape the vengeance of God. So let this serve as a warning, we don't believe this nearly enough as we need to.
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We always think everything will be the same. We've grown accustomed and complacent, but there does come a point in the life of nations when
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God says, I have had enough. And that nation will be no more, it's true in our text of the
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Assyrians, as we said last week, the church should be confident that all her enemies will ultimately be defeated by God.
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I understand some people don't like to, you know, talk about these things, but I'm just going to mention it.
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You may think somebody like Joe Biden can ride off into obscurity and never have to face any sort of punishment for his evil.
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But I tell you this morning, and this is true of every political candidate, if they don't repent and believe the gospel, there will be a day of reckoning.
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That day is coming and no one will escape God's judgment because of God's jealousy, the enemies of the church
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I speak of. OK, we're going to leave that there. That's just a reminder. And we'll press on today to point two, three and four point two.
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So the jealousy of God defined. Secondly, the jealousy of God despised. So the text says very clearly the
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Lord is a jealous and avenging God. Now, this doctrine is despised today and I'll put it to you this way.
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It's it's intentionally despised. And maybe we could say unintentionally despised, but I'll get to that in just a minute.
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But there is an intentional despising of the jealousy of God in the sense that so many who hear of the jealousy of God, they hate it.
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They hate it. Some may not say it this way, but the reason they hate it is because they've put themselves on par with God or maybe even above God.
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And so what they want in the world today is the world to revolve around them. They want the world to revolve around their desires and their plans and their dreams.
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And so to say that God is jealous means that there's competition. Oh, God's not jealous. They believe
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God has no right to tell them that they can do this or not do this or what they can or cannot do with their bodies.
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The idea of transgenderism really is an affront upon the sovereignty of God.
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And that is you want to look at God and be able to say you have no right over my body or or maybe worse, they say that God is
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OK with whatever it is that they do. The sinful heart, as I said, loves to create
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God in its own image. Many people serve a God in which everything that they want to do,
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God gives a thumbs up. Everything that they want to do, God is OK with because they believe that God is ultimately after their self exaltation.
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He's ultimately after their self happiness. He never contradicts what they want to do.
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Oh, they pray about things, but maybe what they're praying about really is they pray just to pray, but they always know that God is for whatever they want to do.
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And then there is what I'll call maybe the unintentional despising of this doctrine, where we don't really want to deal with the
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God of the Bible as the Bible presents him. The text says clearly that the
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Lord is a jealous and avenging God. But then we we remember
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Genesis three and, you know, Satan, the whole point, he says to Eve, he's like, well, God doesn't want you to eat this because he knows that in the day that you eat of it, that you'll be like him, knowing good and evil.
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And so we're like, well, hold on just a second. Don't we need to defend that? Well, we can't think of God as jealous because that's not a good thing.
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And so what we do is it makes us uncomfortable. And so we just never deal with the doctrine or I should put it this way.
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We despise the doctrine by never dealing with the doctrine. We kind of pretend it's not in the
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Bible and we relegate it to some systematic theology book that we'll never read.
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But the problem is it's plainly revealed here, right? The Lord is this is as plainly revealed as God is love or God is holy.
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The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. If it was only in this one verse is the only place you had it.
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We would have to deal with it and deal with it rightly. But as we saw last week, and I won't go over these verses again, it's not only here, it's all over the
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Bible that God is jealous. The problem is mankind in and of ourselves.
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We push back upon the revelation of God in Scripture. I'll put it to you this way, what we want in God is for him to be tameable.
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We want a tameable God. The jealousy of God greats against this desire, and I'm telling us this morning, we need to let that we need to let the jealousy of God great against the desire to kill our desire for a tameable
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God. Friend, we do not need a tameable God. We need the
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God of the Bible. So let this move us to our third point. The jealousy of God defended, so the jealousy of God defined.
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The jealousy of God despised. Thirdly, let's consider the jealousy of God defended. I don't mean that we need to defend
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God, but I'm just going to offer some reasons on why the jealousy of God is a good thing.
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The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. Our text says John Owen says the holiness and jealousy of God, which are the cause of insupportable terror and to convince sinners, driving them from him have towards believers only a gracious influence into that fear and reverence, which causes them to cleave more firmly to him.
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Let me just say it to you this way. If you're a believer here this morning, the jealousy of God rightly understood doesn't drive you away from God, it drives you to God.
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It drives you to worship God all the more. So let me make the argument this morning why we need the jealousy of God and why the jealousy of God means he is worthy of our worship.
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Let me say it like this. We don't worship God in spite of verses like Nahum 1 -2.
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We worship God all the more because of verses like Nahum 1 -2.
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Jealousy is. It's about our honor being offended.
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It's about something that is ours or that we think is ours or we think should be ours.
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It's taken from us or it's infringed upon by someone else.
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Now, most of the time, let's be real. This is a this is bad in human relationships.
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So the wide receiver is jealous that the quarterback got a better contract.
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That's not a good thing. Your child is jealous. Parents, this is not relatable to you, is it?
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Your child is jealous because the cupcake they got is point zero zero zero zero three percent smaller than the cupcake their sibling got.
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That's wrong. That's not good jealousy. The honor has been offended and they are jealous about it.
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And if we are not careful, we'll apply this to our text. The Lord is a jealous God. And so we think, well, that's how
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God is. That's what it's saying. God is. He's throwing a tantrum. He's an egomaniac. He is anxious.
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He's not in control. He feels like he's losing control and he's got to do something about it. But listen, friends, none of that is true.
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God is never wrong to seek his own honor. Why? Because he is fully deserving of his honor.
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It's not wrong for God to be jealous because God is rightly owed his honor.
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He's rightly owed his praise. All praise is properly due our triune
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God. You understand this morning. It's not just it's not just that God is worthy of all praise.
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God is owed all praise. In fact, I'll put it to you this way.
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It would be wicked for God not to be jealous when his honor is offended.
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And I'll try to explain it like this in the human relationship.
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When we really think about righteous jealousy, it is right for husbands and wives.
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It is right for a husband and a wife to be jealous of one another. Now, let's walk through this for a second, because even this, we mess it up a lot.
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So I don't mean overbearing. I don't mean anxious. I don't mean fretful.
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I don't mean controlling. I mean, things like this. A wife is jealous, rightfully so, of her husband's time.
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So, husbands, it's OK for a wife to meet us on Saturday morning and say, honey, you've been working all week.
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I haven't got to spend time with you all week. I'd rather you not go to the lake all day and fish.
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I'd rather you spend time with me. It's not wrong for a wife to be jealous of her husband's time.
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Or husbands and wives should be jealous of their spouse's intimate affection.
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Unwilling, unwilling to share that with anyone else. Can you imagine, my wife is so controlling, she will not let me be intimate with any other woman.
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Of course, right? It's right for her. That's not controlling. That's a righteous jealousy.
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Um. Let me give you some words, in fact, that we can associate with godly jealousy in the marriage.
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The first would be exclusivity. That is, this is not an open relationship.
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It's one on one. No other intimacy is allowed in my heart or my mind or my physical actions than this marital love for my wife.
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It's exclusive. Secondly, protection. So because I'm jealous for my wife,
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I will protect her. I will protect her honor. I will protect her physically.
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I am willing, and I say this very openly, I am willing to cause someone else physical harm in defending my wife if necessary.
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Right? I mean, this is not foolish. Like, your wife has red hair. Slap. You know, that's not talking about that. But someone tries to harm my wife,
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I'll step in the way. And then there's also pursuit. So exclusivity, protection, pursuit, jealousy for my wife does not produce passivity.
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But pursuit, I'll text her, I'll check on her, buy her gifts, date her, those things.
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Now, again, we have to be careful here because we're fallen and we can really even mess all that up.
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But do you understand how jealousy in this way and for these intentions is not a bad thing?
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It is a very good thing. And you understand exclusivity and protection and pursuit are beautiful things in a marriage relationship that rightly flow out of a godly jealousy over what is ours.
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So consider verse two, the Lord is a jealous and avenging
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God. When we see this in God, we see that it is even infinitely more pure and holy and righteous.
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We in marriage, we get a very small taste of the rightness of jealousy.
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But we must magnify that times a trillion to merely begin to understand the righteous jealousy of God and why it is a good thing.
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God in this world today is after the glory of his name.
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And I submit to you this morning that this is the highest good in the universe.
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This is the best thing for the universe, namely the glory of God.
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And if God is pursuing the glory of God, he is then pursuing the best thing for the universe.
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He is pursuing the highest good, his own glory. Isaiah 48, 11 says,
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For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it. For how should my name be profaned?
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My glory I will not give to another. God will not give his glory to the
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Ninevites. God will not allow the Assyrians to go on this way forever.
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And so we see this in his jealousy. He is zealous in pursuit of his own glory.
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This means that he is jealous for what he is owed. Let me break it down like this.
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Now, let's fix and get practical for you. So listen to me. God is owed and is therefore jealous of your time.
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The way you spend your time, your time with him, your time at work, your time in the deer woods, your days on earth, your time with your children.
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I'm telling you this morning, it is all his time. The time that you do not pray, the time that you do not read your
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Bible, the time that you engage in sin. It's all his time. He is jealous of how you spend your time.
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He is owed your time. He's owed your affections.
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He's owed your heart. He's owed what captivates you. He's owed what keeps you up at night, what you daydream about, what you meditate on.
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He is jealous of your affections because they belong to him. He is jealous of your goals, what you are working toward.
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Oftentimes, when we think about our goals, we think first and foremost, what do I want? Well, God is owed your goals, what you're saving up to buy, what your plans are for your retirement, what you want to see your children become.
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He is jealous for it. And I could go on and on and add more stuff. But the point is this, God is owed your all, your whole heart is due him, your whole heart and soul and mind and strength.
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He is worthy of your everything. And you remember those words that we just used for marriage?
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Exclusivity, protection, pursuit. This is God's disposition towards his people.
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Exclusivity. He will not let another God in the relationship.
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It's only him. Protection. God will defend his honor.
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God will defend his honor in your life. Sometimes God will bring things into your life because he's defending his own glory and his own honor.
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But also, he will protect his people. That's where Nahum 1 .2
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comes in. The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. This was written. Remember, this was written, not preached.
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It's not written to give the Ninevites a chance. It's over now for them, right? They've sealed their own fate, as it were.
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It was written so the people of God would read this and be reminded, God will protect us. God is avenging.
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God is jealous. He demands exclusivity and protection. And then, of course, pursuit.
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God, in his jealousy, actively pursues his people by his sovereign grace.
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He is willing to go to great lengths that you have no other gods before him.
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So far, to kill his own son on the cross, to raise him again from the dead.
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This is God's jealousy. And what I'm saying this morning is that this is good. I'm telling you this morning, this is the purest of loves.
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By God pursuing the glory of his name, he is pursuing the highest good of his people.
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So Nahum 1 .2 is certainly a warning. The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. You must not trifle, listen, you must not trifle or play games with this
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God. If you read this and you're and you're comforted, you're like, oh, well, that just means that no, you must not trifle with such a
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God as this. But this is also a great comfort to the people of God. We can rest in this.
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We can hope in this. We can and must preach this since God is after the highest good in the universe.
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Namely, his own glory, that means he's after our highest good as well. That is
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God's glory. And our eternal satisfaction are not at odds.
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Let me say that again. God's glory and our eternal satisfaction are not at odds.
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You only think that they are at odds because your view of God is too small.
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I think it was just coming to me. So if I failed to quote it correctly, you can correct me later.
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But I believe it was C .S. Lewis who said, our problem is not that we're this week, our van door,
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I don't understand how this stuff happens to me, it's stuck open. I actually got pulled over because I was driving around with it stuck open, trying to like trying to get it to close, it wouldn't close.
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A police officer was nice, like, I just want to make sure you knew your door was open. I'm like. Yes, yeah,
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I was trying to get it closed, but super nice. Anyway, stuck open. I have no idea why this kind of stuff happens to us and it happens to us and other people in crazier stuff than that.
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And it happens all the time. But I am tempted to believe that I will be satisfied if I if I if I just had a working van door,
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I'd be satisfied. But that's not true. You see, God allowed my van door to be broken, not to make me unhappy, but to increase my happiness in him.
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You understand to wean me from the foolish and temporary happiness rooted in created things and to lift my eyes and heart into satisfaction in him.
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And how did your pastor do? Did he pass the test? Well, no, not every moment.
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Certainly not. But we need to be reminded, friends, of the goodness of God in these things.
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God is so good. God is so jealous that he will not share his glory with my satisfaction in lesser things.
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If I become complacent or satisfied in the things of the world, sometimes
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God is willing to bring things into my life to shake me out of that complacency.
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And he does it in your life, too. And don't miss these things. You allow the blessings of life, you attribute those to God.
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And then the frustrating things in life, you attribute it to something else. But I'm saying all things flow through the hand of a holy and jealous
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God who is pursuing in all things his glory. And this means it is your highest good.
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By the way, this is a serious blow to the prosperity gospel.
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Follow God and get stuff, live good enough, and you get more stuff.
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Now, God does bless his people sometimes. Amen. All the time, all the time. And sometimes there is certainly blessing associated with the obedience.
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Absolutely. Sometimes there's trial associated with obedience. But the point
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I'm saying is, you can't say follow God to get stuff because God is not going to share his glory with stuff.
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Do you understand what I'm saying? We do not worship God in order for there to be a higher end.
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We do not worship for a higher end. Worship is the highest end. You understand?
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In worship, God gives us what he is most jealous of, namely himself.
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Worship is why we were created, to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
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So Hebrews 12, 29 reminds us our God is a consuming fire. God takes the manner and method and object of our worship with the utmost jealousy.
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How we worship matters to him. And like fire that consumes a helpless forest, remember, he's a consuming fire.
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God will consume those who worship the wrong God or try to worship the right
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God in the wrong way. Hashtag Nadab in a bayou. Because he's zealous for his own glory.
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I cannot emphasize this enough. It is a very dangerous thing to worship God flippantly.
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It's going to blow your mind that I would ever say you'd probably never think you would hear me say this. But there are some people who don't need to go to church on Sunday.
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What? What do you mean? What I mean is now the right thing is to repent and to worship
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God rightly. But if the choice is I'm going to go to church and worship God flippantly or I'm not going to go to church.
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Better to not go to church and just be resolved to worship God flippantly because he may destroy you.
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He may consume you. You understand I'm saying this a bit tongue in cheek. The absolute best thing is to repent of false worship, to repent of idolatry and to worship
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God as he has revealed himself. But don't you dare walk in this place and say
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I'm going to worship God cavalierly. I'm going to worship God in a flippant manner because God is owed more than this.
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We try to squeeze God into our schedules on Sunday. I'll check him off the box or we come to church and our mind and our focus is on other things.
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We come to church and we can't get off this. Right. We treat God like a divorced dad and we give him his weekend visits.
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But I'm telling you this morning, our Lord is a jealous and avenging God. He is worth more than this.
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And he knows it. And he's jealous for his glory. But for those who believe this and rest in Christ, this is for our good because we are never more alive.
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We are never more human. We are never happier than when we are satisfied in all that God is for us in Jesus Christ.
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OK, we need to move on. Jealousy defined, despised, defended. The rest of the sermon will be on the
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Lord's jealousy demonstrated. Fourthly, the Lord's jealousy demonstrated.
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So the text, the Lord Yahweh is a jealous and avenging
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God. So know this, all that God does flows out of who he is.
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So God's vengeance upon Nineveh flows out of his jealousy for his name and his glory and his people.
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The vengeance of God is a demonstration of the holy jealousy of God.
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But I need to remind you of something in this case, like Nineveh, you understand, is not the only place that God destroyed in his vengeance.
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So a couple of places won't shock you. You'll remember Sodom and Gomorrah or remember the judgment he brings on Babylon.
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But, you know, in AD 70, he he destroys
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Jerusalem with General Titus out of his holy jealousy.
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He demonstrates his jealousy in his vengeance. Each of these cities,
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Sodom and Gomorrah and Babylon and Nineveh and Jerusalem, they offended his holy honor.
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Which ought to bring to your mind this morning, how many times we have offended
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God's honor. If you really let this settle on your heart and your mind this morning, that God is jealous for his glory.
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God is jealous for what he is owed. God is jealous for your time and your affections and your pursuits and your dreams and everything about you.
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Then it ought to bring to your mind, if you're really understanding this, then you ought to think, well, I have offended God. Our sins of omission,
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God has commanded us to do things and we've said no. Our sins of commission, God has commanded us not to do things and we've done them anyway.
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And these have offended God and they've provoked God. They've provoked his jealousy.
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We don't preach this way or talk this way, but this is why we need a constant reminding of the gospel.
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Because you understand that the jealousy of God is demonstrated on the cross. You understand?
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What is one thing the cross is about? Well, we might say love and that's true. We might say justice and that's true.
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We might say mercy and it's true. We might say grace and it's true. But it's also about if you were to say, what is the cross about?
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And someone answered the jealousy of a holy God. So too is that true. He will have his honor.
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And so on the cross, he takes his vengeance upon his own son who stands in the stead of ruined sinners.
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But as we dig into the gospel, we also see that Jesus is not a bystander here.
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He has a holy zeal for the glory of God. For example, in John 2, 17, we see that Psalm 69, verse 9 refers to Jesus when it says zeal for your house will consume me.
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Jesus came to earth because he is jealous for the worship of God. Or in Ephesians 5, it says
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Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Jesus is jealous for the people of God.
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John 6, 38 says, I've come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
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Jesus is jealous for the glory of God, that God would have a people for himself, forgiven of their sins and reconciled him.
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Jesus is jealous for these things. Do you remember that song, Above All?
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I used to like it. It's kind of catchy, but you know a song, Above All. And I'm just telling you it's wrong.
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It says he took the fall. And thought of me. Above all, false.
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It's not true. He didn't think of you. Above all, he is not beholden to you.
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As the highest good of the universe. Because you are not the highest good of the universe.
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But God's glory is. And in pursuit of God's glory, Jesus willingly lived a righteous life.
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Died as a sin bearer, a propitiation, a wrath satisfying sacrifice. And he rose again from the dead.
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Why? For the glory of God. In so doing, he satisfied the vengeance of an offended
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God. And he won for himself a people for his own possession, who would be zealous for good works.
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That's Titus 2, 13 and 14. This is the gospel. This is the gospel of a jealous
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God. And this is good. And I have more application for us.
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But before moving to that. I feel it. Prudent to just pause for just a second here.
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An issue, an invitation to come to Christ. Listen to me clearly, the jealousy of God is not at odds with your salvation, it is the means of your salvation.
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The God who is jealous for the glory of his name has satisfied his vengeance against sin and sinners in Christ for every soul who will call upon his name.
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For every soul who will repent of their sins and believe the gospel of the jealous God. So how are you going to read this?
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The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. The Lord is avenging and wrathful. The Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies.
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How are you going to read that? And hear the gospel and then think this, I'll just take my chances with my sins and with my own way and with pursuing my own goals and my own plans.
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I'll just take my chances. I know that I'm outside of Christ. I know that I'm pretending.
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I know that I'm here today and no one else knows I'm an unbeliever, but I know I'm an unbeliever. But I'll just take my chances with a wrathful and avenging and jealous
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God. I say to you today, don't do that. God has provided everything you need, everything you need for the salvation of your soul, everything you need actually for the satisfaction of your heart.
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And it is all found in him and what he has done in the life, death, burial and resurrection of the
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Lord Jesus. This is the gospel and the call of the gospel.
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Won't you believe this truth today? Won't you lay hold of the Christ offered to you today by faith?
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Won't you give it all over to him? Give it to him, your sins and your dreams and your family.
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Open every door we talked about last week, that corridor in your heart, every door, open every door, give it all to him.
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Your future, your children, your money, your sins, all these things run to Jesus, giving these things and be saved.
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Trust his goodness, the ship, if you will, of your of your life and the culture in America and all these things.
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The ship is on fire and it's sinking. But here comes a man on a lifeboat.
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He says, come. I'm here to rescue you. Jump. He goes, oh, yeah, but if I jump,
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I can't carry all this stuff with me. If I jump, I just got to go by myself. I can't carry all this baggage and all these things.
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And the ship is sinking. But the man says, come, come, come, children, come, jump, jump.
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I'll catch you. Come, I'll save you. Children, come and I'll save you from sudden destruction.
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Adults, come, come. Here's the man. He's a good man. Arms open. He bids you come.
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And you must respond to this invitation with repentance from sin and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Come and be saved. But I want to talk about some application here for those who are believers.
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Nahum 1 .2 is true, gloriously true. The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. God has redeemed us.
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God has forgiven us. God has given us a new heart. And so the question I have for us this morning is, if God is jealous for his own glory, shouldn't verses like Nahum 1 .2
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remind us that we too should be jealous for the glory of God?
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Now, you can't be jealous for God's glory in the same way that God is jealous for his glory. But should not the people of God be zealous for his name?
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Answer, of course, is yes. Let me give you a few ways to do that. In Psalm 23, you know the psalm, but have you ever considered it says he leads us in paths of righteousness?
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Or I mean, in the psalm, it says he leads me in paths of righteousness. Why? For his name's sake.
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Our holiness as a people extols the glory of God. If we are jealous for God's glory, then we are zealous for holiness of life.
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We are serious about conforming our lives and our worship in our church to the word of God.
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Jonathan Edwards said to love this God is the foundation of all true virtue. And do you love
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God? Then you love his glory and your love for God sets you on a trajectory of practical holiness.
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That's why there is no true virtue. There is no true morality apart from love for God.
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Love for God is the foundation of all true virtue. Or consider this 1
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Kings 19, 14. The prophet Elijah says this, I've been very jealous for Yahweh, the
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God of hosts. How had Elijah been jealous? Well, we see that in his showdown with the prophets of Baal, calling the people of Israel away from idols.
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And to worship God rightly, I'm afraid that people today in our society would have said Elijah, that was not very winsome.
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But Elijah. Was jealous for God. Friends.
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He was depressed at the state of Israel. And in 1
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Kings 19, God's grace encouraged him. But the point I want to ask you this morning is, when is the last time you might say with Elijah, I have been very jealous.
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For the Lord, you get frustrated and I do, too, about the state of our nation.
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I'm very frustrated to see the compromise. I'm always willing to rebuke the
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Democrats. Well, let me rebuke the Republicans. Very disheartening for me to see their compromise in abortion.
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We should hold them accountable, we should say, listen, guys, this ain't the way. Repent to see their compromise on same sex unions.
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But let me ask you this, has the state of our nation or churches driven you to prayer and fasting?
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I do not see this a lot in many places. What I see is the Titanic sinking while people are worried about their movies or their sports or their conveniences or their or their attaboys or whatever the case may be.
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And I'm asking us this morning, do you have a holy jealousy for God's glory? I'm not
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I'm not advocating for contentiousness, but was not Elijah driven by a zeal for God's glory to say he stood alone as it were, and he stood before the people and he said, how long will you go halting between two opinions?
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If Yahweh is God, serve him. But if Baal is God, well, then just go along and serve him.
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The people of God today have been conditioned into what I call an evangelical politeness.
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This politeness is actually not in line with the scriptures. When we see
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God mocked, when we see the family structure undermined, when we see unborn children slaughtered, are we not provoked to to to jealousy for God's glory to speak out?
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This is not violence we cannot take. Paul reminds us we cannot take vengeance. Vengeance is mine, saith the
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Lord. Nor am I saying that this is political activism. Don't confuse that. If we can just get the right people elected, everything will just fix itself.
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That's not true. Rather, I'm saying this is a holy jealousy to defend God's honor, whereby we vocally and publicly and passionately proclaim the truth of God's word unceasingly.
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We stop believing the lie that this is not the time to speak up. This is not the place. I better not do it.
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It's a family function or or it's a it's a group of friends. I can't say anything. We have been conditioned to this and we must stop.
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Again, I'm not saying be rude or arrogant. Please don't misunderstand me. Guard ourselves against this.
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But we've got to quit playing the middle and nuancing the truth into oblivion.
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My grandson is gay and has invited me to the wedding. What should
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I do? You tell him you can't go. You tell him that what he is doing is not a wedding at all and that homosexuality is an abomination.
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You lovingly call him to repentance. You point him to Christ.
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But you don't understand if I do that, I may fall out of favor with my family.
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Yes, this is true. But it is better to fall out of favor with your family than to fall out of favor with God.
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Pray for them. Look for opportunities to serve them, to love them well. But you can't you can't you can't be silent on God's truth.
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There's never a day to be silent for God's truth. But listen to me, church. In 2024, as the
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West is crumbling before our eyes and we're on the brink of financial ruin as a country, who knows what's happening around the world in warfare and those sorts of things.
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You can't sit back and say it's not time to say anything. Yes, it is not not for the promotion of self or even the promotion of the nation, but for the promotion of the glory of God.
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These are the days I didn't want to be born in these days. Honestly, I could there's probably part of my heart says the same.
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The maybe the pinnacle of America is maybe, you know, financially and all those things, maybe, I don't know, the late 80s or early 90s.
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I don't correct me. I want to live there. I want to stay there. I don't have to deal with all these.
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But these are the times that God has given us. These are the days Esther. She didn't want to go.
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I don't want to call Mordecai. I don't want to go. Essentially, Mordecai is like, if you don't go, who else got to be done with you?
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He'll raise up someone else. You've been called to such a time as this. And I say to you, church, you've been called to such a time as this.
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Don't neglect the opportunity. Let us be jealous for the glory of God.
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Let the people of God stop playing the middle, speak out against sins.
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I don't know what to say about the Olympics. I had this thought. Can you imagine?
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Let's just play pretend. God, I got to give my voice a rest for a second. You bring to the future, you bring to the present.
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Godly men from 300 years ago, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Charles Wesley.
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You bring godly families from 300 years ago, you fast forward them to the future. You sit down in your living room.
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First of all, they're like, what's a television? You know, put that to the side. We're going to watch the
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Olympics. OK, I don't know that your
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TV would have survived. I'm pretty sure it would have been smashed. They wouldn't have understood.
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They would have fallen to their knees, crying out for mercy from God.
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This just shows us, I'm just telling you, we've been desensitized. We have been conditioned that the gross blasphemy and some people say, well, look, guys, y 'all misunderstand it.
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It wasn't and I don't really care about this part because it's foolish either way. Some people like that wasn't a depiction of the
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Last Supper. OK, so what you're saying is we had an embracing and celebration of pagan gods.
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Right. So like even if it wasn't that, then we celebrate pagan gods. We've made it better. Right.
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I'm just saying we've been conditioned to just put up with this stuff and to just love this stuff and just accept this stuff.
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And I'm just telling you, we must be jealous for the glory of God. We're not. Don't be a jerk.
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Don't be angry. Don't I mean, don't be unrighteously angry. I'm saying don't be rude, but don't be silent.
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Next, in 2 Corinthians 11 to Paul says, for I feel a divine jealousy for you since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
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In other words, Paul felt a holy jealousy for the church, the church at Corinth.
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That's what he's saying. 2 Corinthians 11 to I feel a divine jealousy for you. A jealousy among the people of God for the glory of God will create within them a jealousy for the church of God.
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That this institution would be what God has called it to be, that it would be ordered rightly, that it would be worshiping rightly, that it would be practicing biblical church membership, that it would be loving the word of God, that it would be loving one another, that it would be fellowshipping with one another, that it would be living lives together for the glory of God.
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What we think about the church, friends, really says what we think about God and his resplendent glory.
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You can't be jealous for God if you're not jealous for the church. They go together. The people of God have a holy jealousy for the glory of the jealous
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God. Now, again, this shows itself in holiness of life, speaking to our decaying culture, the truth of God, caring about a healthy church.
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Let me also mention Romans 1 5. Paul ties missions into this. He says that the gospel would go out for the sake of God's name among the nations.
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Are you jealous this morning for the glory of God? Then listen, we really care about spreading his fame.
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If you're jealous for God's glory, then you care about preaching the gospel.
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You care about one on one evangelism. You care about passing out gospel tracts.
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You care about supporting missions, which means investing in healthy local churches and the proclamation of the gospel, both right here in America and around the world.
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You care about spreading the fame of God among the nations because you're jealous for the glory of God.
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You spend so much time, and I'm guilty too, so much time. I'm going to promote my child's fundraiser, right?
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I'm going to share a friend's Facebook post in order to promote their business. I'm going to share a social media post in order to win a prize.
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I'm going to talk all day about sports or my job or politics or hunting or movies.
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But when it comes to evangelize, we are just so immobile as churches today.
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I can't do that. Well, it's not the right time to do that. It's not a good time to preach. I can't pass out a tract.
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I'm saying, though, a people who are hungry for God and zealous for the glory of God are a people who desire to spread the fame of his name to the nations.
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Are you zealous and jealous for the jealous God, then you are about supporting evangelism and healthy churches.
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And finally, I'll leave us with this. Luke 12, 32 says this, Fear not, little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
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In all this weighty consideration, I understand this is a lot, in all this weighty consideration of God's holy jealousy,
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I want to just pastorally leave you with some encouragement of why this is such good news for the
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Christian. God's jealousy, Christian, means that he cares about you.
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Can I just lovingly and pastorally tell you, quit chasing stuff.
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Quit. What are you going to do if you catch it like the dog chasing the tire?
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What are you going to do, man, if you catch that tire? It's not going to be what you thought it was. If you keep chasing stuff and you catch it, it's not going to be what you thought it was.
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Quit it. Quit giving your life to lesser things. Believe, believe what you've heard today.
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God is for God, but part of his plan is to magnify his name through a people he has redeemed in Christ.
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And the jealousy that God has for his glory spills over onto unimaginable love for his people.
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It is his good pleasure, the desire of his heart, his holy will to give you the kingdom, the kingdom.
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Why are you going to lay a hold of the things of the world when God says, I want to give you the kingdom?
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Believe, church, this truth. Repent of where you've fallen short. Confess sin, turn from it and rest in Jesus.
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Fear not, fear not. People mistreat you. People don't care about your schedule.
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Then people leave you out. People forget about you. People abandon you. But God doesn't.
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Look to the cross. God is for his people in Christ. Their debt of sin has been paid for and erased.
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Their justification is secured. Their sanctification is happening and their glorification is guaranteed.
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Everybody else forgets about you. Everyone goes about their merry way or they look for a way. They're always looking for a way to take advantage of you.
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The church is this little insignificant thing in the world today. All eyes are on the presidency.
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All eyes are on Bitcoin. All eyes are on global temperature. But God's eye, God's eye is on the church and all things that come into your life and all things that are happening in the world today, whether it's in Russia or Ukraine or China or Washington, D .C.
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or Perryville, Arkansas. All things are working for the good of the church and the glory of God.
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All things happening in the world today are happening for these truths. Can you not trust a
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God like that, please? Oh, how wicked and foolish we would be to hear of a
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God like this and to go back, to go back to our little playthings in the world, to give our hearts to another.
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Can we not behold the jealousy of God in all this morning? Can we not worship
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Nahum's God? The Lord is a jealous and avenging God.
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The Lord is avenging and wrathful. The Lord takes vengeance on His adversaries and keeps the wrath for His enemies.
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I'm not ashamed of that. I'm not scared of that. I embrace that and I give God the glory for it and I worship
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Him all the more because of this truth. Can we let this be a sobering reminder that God will have
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His vengeance to be a glorious reminder of what God has done in Christ, to let it be an encouraging reminder of God's plan in the world today through us, through His little flock, to let it be an indescribable reminder that the
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God of the universe cares about you and your time and your thoughts and your goals.
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Why can we not give it all to Him and resolve ourselves today by His grace to live for His glory?
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Behold your God, Providence. He's not like us and this is good.
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Let us adore Him. Father, we thank you for let us not just preach it and say amen to it, but let us believe it and widen our hearts.
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To know you more, to love you more, to embrace you, Lord, let us cast off the idols of this world.
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Some today, they they know that they've been chasing things that they shouldn't. I pray that you'd bring repentance.
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Some today, they need to be saved. There are some of my children who still need to be saved. There are children of other believers in this room that need to be saved.
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Why not today, O God, for the sake of your name, call them to yourself and may they be saved.
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Perhaps there are visitors here or members here who are not saved. And today is the day they must call upon Christ.
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Would you draw them, show them their sin and the heinousness of it, but the grace and mercy offered in what
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Jesus has done. And for the church, would you encourage us? To not trade the kingdom you wish to give us for the kingdoms of this world in Jesus name.