I the Lord your God am a jealous God

Last week, I preached on the first part of the second commandment, and I challenged us to deal with the fact that God is warning us against images and their potency, against making images of himself and, by extension, all the members of the Trinity, and that we're not to worship God in, by, or through an image. And I challenged us to consider the day and age in which we live and how prevalent images are in our society and to not be so proud that we think that we've progressed so far beyond our ancestors and the warnings that are given throughout all of the Old Testament against images and against what, and to think that we don't struggle.

with the second commandment as we do with all the other commandments. We're tempted to jump directly to spiritualizing the second commandment and not dealing with the simplest meaning, that images can be very deceitful and that we need to be on guard against them. Remember what Hebrews 11.1 says, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, and how often images are used to the detriment of words. Now, Originally, I was planning to move on to the third commandment. However, as I was thinking about this passage, I decided that it would be beneficial to consider, and more particularly, what God is teaching us, especially in verses 5 and 6, and that I'd be remiss to just skip over those. Part of what decided me in this was, usually on Saturday, our habit with family worship is to sing through the Ten Commandments song.

and then just talk about one of the Ten Commandments. And so I read this passage of the Second Commandment to us, and Jeremiah said, wait, how can God be jealous? Isn't jealousy a sin? And God can't sin. So why does it say that God's jealous? We talked about it, and I decided, you know, we need to consider God's jealousy and how... that relates to idolatry. And then later, as I was talking, I heard that other children in our church have asked that exact same question. So I thought, yes, this is what we need to talk about. So if you would, please stand with me and let's read God's holy word. Let's read it together. You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.

You shall not worship them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Let's pray. Father God, we come before you and we ask that you would be with me as I preach your word, that your Holy Spirit would convict our hearts, that you would help us to see the truth of your word and how we live contrary to it, that you would strengthen us to obey you and to hate our sin and to put it away from us. And we ask that if anything is spoken amiss, that it would be forgotten and blown away as the chaff.

but that your word would go forth and bear great and mighty works in our lives. We pray this in your son's name. Amen. My desire for us today is to consider God's great and awesome jealousy and the impact that his jealousy should have on our lives. And there are two overarching ways that I think it should impact us. One is it should cause us to fear him. And two, it should cause us to love God. And it should give us a great security in him and inspire obedience and love in our lives. Now, you may be asking, is God jealous? I guess, I mean, it says it here, but like, how jealous is God really? Is it really something we should focus on? Like, is that how important of a characteristic?

is jealousy in God's life, or in God, is this characteristic, this attribute of God. And to the extent that you're skeptical of God's jealousy and you don't think about it or consider it as being part of the nature of God, I'm afraid that you betray your ignorance of the Old Testament and of God himself. Because if you were to do a study of the Old Testament, there are over 28 passages where God is described explicitly as being jealous and as responding jealously to what's going on. I have a list of them, and if you want it, we can get it to you. Or you can get a concordance. But it is something you should look up and consider, that God...

says in Exodus 34 that his very name is jealous. And so it makes us uncomfortable though, right? The jealousy of God is something that, you know, at least two of the children in our church heard it and were like, wait a minute, God's jealous? So if you search definition of jealousy, what's going to come up is feeling or showing envy of someone or their achievements and advantages. The second definition is fiercely protective or vigilant of one's rights or possessions. And part of our confusion with jealousy is because we think jealousy is synonymous with envy. We use them synonymously. And envy is a sin. It's a wicked sin. And so when we think of jealousy, we think of Our brother got a really sweet Lego set, and we didn't, and man, we wish we had it. And so we're jealous of the fact that he got something that we want. Or maybe we're jealous of something our friend got to go do. Maybe we're jealous of a co-worker who got promoted, the neighbor's car, someone's house, their boat, their lawn is perfect. How do they do that? Maybe we're jealous of another mom because her baby sleeps through the night.

or the clothing that she has, or the jewelry that she has, or her house is perfect, and our house has so many issues. You name it. There are many things that we can be envious of that others have been blessed with that we don't have. And all of these kinds of jealousy, it's envy, and it's wicked. This type of jealousy robs us of any sort of joy, and it blinds us to God's mercies and the blessings that he's given us. in our own lives. Another reason we may bristle at the fact that God's described as being jealous and his name is jealous is because we view jealousy as being a controlling thing. You know, your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend, your friend, they don't want you to do something because they're jealous of the time that you're spending away with your friends or whatever, right? We all, we all think, well, that person who's significant to me is jealous of me, and so they want to restrict what I do. And this is going to be a key distinction between the jealousy of God and the jealousy that we often feel and indulge in. That our jealousy, the envy, right? If we think of jealousy as synonymous with envy, which is the wicked kind of jealousy, is often over something that's not ours.

that we don't necessarily have a right to, that's not been the lot that God has given us. Now, let's look at our passage again. And let's notice what is provoking God to jealousy in this passage. Then God spoke these words saying, actually, I'm going back to verse 1. Verse 1, this is what God says. I am the Lord your God. who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Then he says, you shall have no other gods before me. Then he says, you should not make for yourself an idol. You should not have the likeness of anything, and you should not worship and serve it, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. The reason that God is jealous is because he's God.

He has delivered and saved his people so that they would worship, serve, and glorify him and him alone. He says, I am the Lord your God. Every sermon I've preached in this series so far, I've emphasized the completeness of that statement. In Sunday school, we looked at creation, right? And the authority that God has from creating the world. Well, he created man. What's the first catechism question? What is man's chief end? Why did God create man? Man is created to glorify God and enjoy him forever. And so that's our purpose. He says, I am the Lord your God. Then he states that he bought the people. If you're a Christian, you've been bought. And he bought you for the purpose of glorifying him, worshiping him, serving him.

him. So when we commit idolatry, we're refusing to worship, serve, and glorify God, which he is owed. And so he is jealous because he actually is owed our worship, service, and glory, and he deserves it. And so there's this giant distinction between The jealousy or the envy that we feel over things that are not ours and not given to us and God who is to be given all glory and honor. Thus, God's jealousy is based on his right to our worship and our affections that are to be given to him. Now, in scripture, in the Old Testament, you read through the prophets and idolatry and marriage are connected.

God's jealousy is because he has covenanted with his people. And then when his people go and serve other gods and fall into idolatry, they have left that relationship. And so it's very helpful for us to consider the relationship between a husband and wife. It is a sacred union, a one flesh union. It's exclusive between one man, and one woman. And so any attempt by another man or woman to insert themselves or to insert someone else into the relationship, it's a violation of that relationship. And it should actually be a cause of jealousy. If a husband were to hear of another man who flirted with his wife or sent love notes or sang a love song to her, and he isn't provoked to jealousy, There's something very wrong in that relationship. If a man gives into sexual lusts and it doesn't provoke jealousy in his wife, something is broken. The marriage covenant is exclusive, and so any intrusion between a husband and wife ought to provoke a righteous jealousy as they have been covenanted together. They've made promises to each other to give their love.

and their bodies to one another. And the insertion of anyone else into that relationship is an attack on the other person and on the love and the unity that is exclusive to that marriage relationship. And if this is true, the relationship between a husband and wife, how much more so is this true of the relationship between God and his people? Worship, praise, honor, and adoration belong to God alone. For only he is truly worthy of it. Therefore, God is rightly jealous when worship, praise, honor, or adoration is given to idols. That is, things other than him. Or when we worship him improperly in a way that he has not called and taught us to worship him. God is the creator of us. He's our redeemer. And he has commanded you to worship him and him alone.

So when our love and affection are given to something other than God, that is idolatry. Or when we give it to God improperly, such as worshiping him through an image, we provoke him to jealousy. Now, when I say that we worship him improperly, maybe it would be helpful for us to think about marriage again. When it comes to loving each other, when you get married, And it takes time to learn. You begin when you're dating, but it takes time to learn how to love the other person. And generally, what we start with is we think, I like to be loved by getting gifts. So then we try to love our wife by getting her gifts or whatever. Ruthann would prefer that I do the dishes than that I just buy her something else, right?

And as you begin to grow in a relationship, you begin to learn that we all have different ways that we feel loved. And often conflict in our relationship arises from when we don't love our spouse in the way that our spouse wants to be loved. And we just insist on doing what we want to do. And so there can be offense or jealousy on that. Well, this is like worshiping God in ways that he hasn't prescribed. Only more so. God is not wrong in how he requires worship of himself. And so when you try to love God or worship God in a way that God has not commanded, it's an offense to him. He has taught us in his word how he's to be worshiped. And so we must worship him in the ways that he has prescribed.

jealousy works out in a couple different ways. Isaiah 42, 5-8 says, Thus says God the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and its offspring, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it. Notice it's starting with creation and teaching us something about who God is and God's right. to require the things that he requires. I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. And I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you. And I will appoint you as a covenant to the people and as a light to the nations to open blind eyes and to bring out prisoners from the dungeon and to those who dwell in darkness from the prison. I am the Lord. That is my name. I will not give my glory to another.

nor my praise to graven images. God is jealous for his glory. He will not share his glory with anyone else. He's not willing for us or any other person to give praise to someone else. And this is something we should be careful to notice. When you watch a nature documentary and they praise nature, and they talk about, you know, it's interesting when scientists talk about, creation, and how often they wax eloquent. They won't acknowledge God, but they almost make nature a deity. And in it, you should hear someone giving glory to something other than God. We should not give glory to political heroes, to our sports stars, anything that attempts to get us to worship it and give it glory. Glory is given to God. In the Old Testament, This jealousy of God for his glory is often what leads to him disciplining his people by sending natural disasters and nations to discipline them for giving glory to others and not to him. The other aspect of it is God is not just jealous for his glory, but he's also jealous for the affections of his people. And so the question is, what do you give your affections to?

What do you worship? Because what we worship is what we love. And so part of the jealousy that God has is for when his people reject him by giving their affections to things other than him. And when I ask you what you worship, I'm certain that everyone in this room would tell me, I worship God. But then my next question is, what does... Your times say that you worship. If we examined your calendar and your phone, what would it say that you worshiped? What does your wallet say that you worship? What would your husband, your wife, your parents, your friends, your elders, what would they say on examination of your life that you worship? This jealousy leads God to redeem his people and punish the nations who have sinned against his people.

You see how there's these two threads of jealousy that God has. One is for his glory. And when his people don't give him glory, God punishes his people. But then he's jealous for the affection. And so his discipline of them for giving glory to others is in order to bring them back because he's jealous for the affections. And he wants to bring you back to worship of him and to stop worshiping idols. How serious is the sin of idolatry? It's a very serious sin. God does not take idolatry lightly. Idolatry puts us in very grave danger. If you want to know how serious a sin is, how serious God takes something, then what you need to do is look at the consequences that God gives for that sin. Well, what are the consequences? It says in our verse, I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. God takes idolatry so seriously that the consequences of it go beyond the life of the person committing idolatry. Now this is one of Scripture's hard teachings. It's a hard thing.

What does it mean that God will visit the iniquity of fathers on the third and fourth generations of those who hate him? Does it mean that kids are to be punished because of their father's sins? How is that just? The first thing, before we talk about what it means, the first thing is you must be humble when seeking out the meaning of what these verses say. We are not God's judge. And we must be very careful that in... Wondering about what God is saying here, we do not put God on trial. We are not God's judge. We can ask and we can think about what this verse means, but do not let your pride accuse God of wrongdoing. God is the judge and we are not. We do not fully understand how God works, nor did he intend to fully explain himself, and nor is he under obligation to do so.

God is well within his rights to do what he does. He created the world. He's the potter and we're the clay. God is good and just even if we cannot plumb the depths of his justice. We are clay questioning the potter. Whatever conclusion that we come to on this passage, we need to feel the weight of what God says here. And any explanation that allows you to slip past without feeling the weight of this verse, is not a helpful explanation. God says hard things, and we must be aware of pat answers, of answers that are so simple and easy, so prepared, that they allow us to ignore the hard things that God's Word says. And so theology is good, and it's helpful, but don't use it as a way to escape the weight of God's Word. This is a warning.

And we need to feel the weight of this warning. So with those cautions, what is God teaching us? Idolatry is not a light matter. God takes it seriously. That means you should as well. When you're in a close relationship with someone, if something is really important and serious to them, by default, it should be serious to you. If God says it's serious, it's serious. Last week when we were talking about idolatry and what it means, it's like, don't lightly assume that we're just fine with images and that this passage doesn't have something literally to say about images in our storybook Bibles or in our houses or wherever, right? Like, it's serious. We've got to deal with it. Two, our sin affects the lives of our children and grandchildren. And that's true of every one of you who have kids.

and who have kids in the future. And we don't have time to go into the whole life of Jeroboam. But this truth is illustrated very well in the life of Jeroboam. See, Solomon was a wicked king. He was righteous. He did good things. He turned back to the Lord in his old age, but he was wicked. He allowed his wives' idolatry to lead his own heart astray. And because of that, God said that he sent the prophet to Jeroboam, who was a servant of Solomon, and he ripped his cloth into 12 pieces. And he gave 10 to Jeroboam, and he said, I'm going to rip the kingdom away from my servant David because of Solomon's sin. But, well, I'll read to you 1 Kings 11, 38 and 39. Then it will be that if you listen to all that I command you, so this is the prophet speaking to Jeroboam.

If you listen to all that I command you and walk in my ways and do what is right in my sight by observing my statutes and my commandments as my servant David did, then I will be with you and I will build you an enduring house as I built for David and I will give Israel to you. Thus I will afflict the descendants of David for this, but not always. And so what you begin to see here after the reign of Solomon is that 10 tribes are... taken away from the house of David. But David is given one. And again and again throughout the history of Judah, God says he's going to afflict his people, but not always because of the faithfulness of his servant David. And yet what we see in Israel is he says, I mean, do you notice what he's saying here to Jeroboam? He's saying, I will build you as an enduring house is David's.

If you will follow me. Well, then we get to 1 Kings 14. Again, the prophet comes to Jeroboam, and this is what he says to Jeroboam. You also have done more evil than all who were before you, and have gone and made for yourself other gods. Molten images. Notice, the sin of Jeroboam is idolatry. To provoke me to anger. That's God being jealous. and have cast me behind your back. Therefore, behold, I am bringing calamity on Jeroboam. Yes, on Jeroboam, but listen, calamity on the house of Jeroboam. And I will cut off from Jeroboam every male, both bond and free in Israel, and I will make a clean sweep of the house of Jeroboam as one sweeps away dung until it is all gone. And anyone belonging to Jeroboam who dies in the city, the dogs will eat.

So we have this picture played out in the life of Jeroboam of what God says right here in the second commandment of sins of the father being played out. And Jeroboam's son is a wicked man, and he dies quickly. And then, again, you see these kings. And you get to one of the other kings who God raises up Jehu. It's a J name. God raises him up, and he wipes out all the prophets of Baal, and yet he doesn't worship God. And so God gives him like four generations of ruling Israel, and yet none of them follow God, and again, the destruction. And so we can see throughout Scripture examples of how wicked men, who are idolaters, sin, gets worked out in the lives of their sons. Now, notice how God says that it's visited on those who hate him. This means that these generations have continued in the rebellion of their fathers and that they're not innocent people being judged simply because they have wicked fathers. I think that's often why we resent this statement is because we feel like, well, it's not fair.

The people that God is meeting this judgment out on are ones who hate him. Their father's sin has become their sin. They've walked right in the ways of their fathers. They haven't rejected it. Those judged have adopted the sins of their fathers and made them their own. There are not righteous descendants who are unjustly suffering the wrath of God. This is very connected to God's predestination and wrestling with how God has chosen to give some faith and not others. And we just want to sit in judgment of God and think that, how dare he? And we want to take man's side against God. And Paul warns us that we don't have right. We're treading on very dangerous ground. What right does the clay have to say to the potter? Why have you made me a vessel for destruction? But we can get so tied up in this that we don't.

Notice what God says here. God's judgment is limited to three or four generations. Over and over and over, Scripture emphasizes the mercy of God. If you were to read the commentators and most of the people who talk about this passage, you know what we all focus on? We focus on how can God be just to visit the iniquity of fathers? on their children for three and four generations. And no one says, how can God be just to show loving kindness to thousands of generations of those who love him and serve him and obey his commandments? Isn't it striking? We just assume that it is right for God to show us loving kindness and that we deserve it, but we don't deserve his judgment.

We're so free to accept and assume that it's right for God to bless us and our descendants for a thousand generations, but we instantly want to sit in judgment of God for judging wicked generations. And doesn't that show our pride? It's like the famous example, right? The child who's angry at his father has to climb up in his lap in order to punch him in the face, right? It's like... We want to judge God, but he's the judge. He's the one who has created justice and goodness. We wouldn't know justice and goodness apart from him. 1 Kings 11.32 says, But he will have one tribe for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel. And this is a constant theme throughout the prophets.

in the books of history, in the Old Testament. God preserves his people because of the promises that he made to David and the fact that David was faithful to God. So what a great mercy of God that he will give us a godly seed. You know, how much of the wealth and the prosperity that we have in our country is due to the godliness of past generations? And it's so easy for us to despise our government and despise those in leadership. and end up despising our country, and not be grateful and thankful for the goodness and the good things that we have that are the direct result of men who are faithful men who feared God and went before us. And so we have this commandment which tells us not to make idols, not to worship images. We have to worship God as he has called us to in his word.

We do. It will be a blessing, both to us and to our future generations. But if we don't, we have this heavy warning that idolatry will bring about, that God is jealous of his glory and his worship, and it will bring about great discipline and destruction for us and for our descendants. And so as we think about, well, what do we do with this? What do we do with the weight of this passage? There are a few things. One is that we ought to worship God as he desires and as he proscribes, not as we feel and think. My God wouldn't do that. Well, I feel like God, no. We need to stick with what scripture tells us about God and his nature and who he is, not what our feelings want to tell us about God and who he is. God is a jealous God.

He is jealous of your affections. You ever think about that? That God is jealous for your affections. He wants you to love him and to give him glory and to praise him and to serve him and to obey him. And so we really ought to examine our lives and see where are our affections being given. Because if they're being given to anywhere other than God. If we're giving our affections to our stuff, we're committing idolatry when we give our affections to other things. What does your wallet say? What does your time say, right? What does your internet browser history say? What are we giving our affections to? Do you want your children to follow God? We have clear instruction in this passage. If we want our children to follow God, then we must love God and worship him. And we must give him our obedience. We must teach our children to worship God and not idols. And if we do so, then his loving kindness will be to a thousand generations of our descendants. And that means also that right now, even if you're not married, you can begin this. Because we're talking about people who aren't in this room yet.

that will be blessed or inflicted based on whether we live lives of worship and holiness or whether we live idolatrous lives. And so we got our work cut out. And finally, I do want to say that there is great comfort in knowing that God is jealous of our affections. Jealousy is an aspect of love. If God did not jealously guard our affections, then it would mean he didn't truly love us. If he was not jealous over Israel, when Israel went away, he would have just left them in their sin. But his jealousy over our affections means that when we give them to something false, he will discipline us in order to draw our affections back towards himself. That means we're secure in his love because he wants to discipline us to bring us back so that we will love him and serve him.

And so that we won't be caught up forever in worshiping false things. What a mercy of God. And so God is jealous. He's jealous of what we love. He's jealous of our obedience. And if we want our children to follow God, then we must follow God and we must love him. And that is the best thing that we can do in teaching them to have them follow him as well. Let's pray.