Talk—Josh Stewart
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I would like to share a few meditations that I've enjoyed.
On how God's love is a jealous love. This is something that the Lord is increasingly and repeatedly speaking to me about, so I just want to share it with you.
We'll start with a verse in the Song of Solomon.
Chapter 8.
Song of Solomon, chapter 8.
And verse 6.
Set Mia as a seal upon thine heart as a seal upon thine arm.
For love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave. The coals thereof are coals of fire, which have the most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contempt.
We read these verses a lot of times on Lord's Day morning.
When we are thinking about the Lord's death for us and the love that he had in going to the cross.
We speak about a love as strong as death.
Tonight in the Gospel meeting, it touched my heart as our brother was describing the cross.
And how the Lord Jesus was nailed to that cross.
And how that cross would have been stood up and fallen down into the hole.
And that verse, all my bones are out of joint.
Think of what the Lord Jesus suffered and His love for you and me. Was anything too strong for His love? Nothing.
And that was just what he suffered at man's hand. Think of what he suffered.
In bearing our sins, His love is so strong. But you know, there's this part of the verse that.
Maybe we don't think about it says jealousy is cruel as the grave. Maybe there's an aspect of God's love or something about it that we don't consider very often, and that's that God's love is a jealous love.
The word jealous is kind of interesting because as time goes on we use words differently and jealousy is one of those words that when we use it, it doesn't mean exactly the same thing as it means in the Bible.
So I'll ask one of these children, maybe here on the front row, if you.
Are at a birthday party and you see somebody get something that you want.
Yourself and you see them open their present, and you think to yourself, I wish I had that. What do you call that?
Jealousy. That's what I would call it too. But you know what? The Bible actually has another word for that. The Bible calls that envy when you want something that somebody else has.
And the Bible uses the word jealousy for when you want to guard something.
That you have so that nobody else can have it. So jealousy would be like if you had a toy.
Or something that you got for your birthday and you wanted it for yourself and so you wouldn't share it with others. That's jealousy. You see how they're they're similar, but a little bit different.
Oftentimes jealousy is a terrible thing. A lot of times it comes from our flesh. It is comes from selfishness, it comes from greed, and it's a bad thing. But sometimes jealousy is a good thing.
In fact, we read in the Bible that God is a jealous God.
So there's a kind of jealousy that the Bible calls godly jealousy, and it's a good jealousy.
Jealousy means a burning passion to guard or defend what's ours.
You know the word jealous, The root word for it means to kindle a fire.
And when we're jealous, when we feel like something that's ours is going to be taken by somebody else, don't you feel that little fire, that little flame heating up inside you? That's jealousy.
And often it's a bad thing, as I already said. But you know what? It can be a right thing. And in the case of God.
God is perfect and it's completely proper.
00:05:01
God is a jealous God.
So let's look in the Old Testament at a verse in Exodus.
Just to see that.
Exodus chapter 20.
In verse 4, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above.
Or that is in the earth beneath. Or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down.
Thyself to them, nor serve them. For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God. I the Lord thy God am a jealous God. Now let's look over in chapter 34, Exodus chapter 34, just for one more verse.
Verse 13 speaking about the Canaanites when Israel came into the land.
But ye shall destroy their altars, breakdown their images, cut down their Groves. For thou shalt worship no other God. For the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God. His name is jealous.
That's something to really think about.
You know, God is jealous of a number of things, but I think first and foremost he is jealous of his own deity. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
It offends the heart of God when His people worship anyone or anything but Him.
And when our hearts go out after something other than Him.
It Kindles a flame of jealousy in the heart of God. It's a holy jealousy.
And that's what I wanted to talk about tonight.
You know, the gods of the Canaanites were not jealous Gods. Dagon. Was he jealous? Was he jealous of Chimash? Was Chimash jealous of Bail? No. Those were false gods. They were. They were nothing.
But Jehovah, the one true God, he was a jealous God. Do you remember what happened when the ark, the presence of the Lord, was brought into the House of Dagon?
What happened? What did they see in the morning?
Dagon fallen over and parts of him were cut off. God is a jealous God. He will not give his glory to another, says in Isaiah. He will not share his glory with any other.
And he will not share.
The hearts of his people with another God.
You know it says in first John chapter 5 the very last verse. Does anybody know what it says without looking at it the last verse of first John?
Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
Just as an application of that, there are so many things in my life.
That I can allow to be an idol, something that I can worship, something that I can glory in.
That takes the place of God.
And you know, God is a jealous God and His love is a jealous love. He doesn't want my heart shared with another object, a brother that this afternoon spoke about Christ as our object. Have I an object, Lord below that would divide my heart with Thee? He doesn't want to share that with anybody else. It belongs to Him. Why does it belong to Him?
Why does he have a claim on our whole heart?
Because he died for us, He gave his life for us. There's a hymn that we sometimes sing. It goes like this. Love that transcends our highest powers, demands, I don't know if I can, Our soul, our life, our all.
He has to have it all because he gave everything for it.
And it's right that he have it.
Sometimes we can share our hearts with hobbies.
Maybe we can even put somebody else above God.
Maybe we worship ourselves.
All of this provokes the Lord to jealousy.
00:10:03
Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Is this just an Old Testament thing? No, the apostle Paul said those.
Very words in First Corinthians do we provoke the Lord to jealousy.
Well, let's go now to Second Corinthians for a verse.
2nd Corinthians.
11 I'm just going to read verse 2.
I am jealous over you with godly jealousy, for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
Here we find that Paul himself was jealous over the Corinthians with the godly jealousy he wanted to present them.
As the bride of Christ to Christ.
In a way, that was what's called chaste, or completely reserved for the bridegroom for a woman to be chased.
Is for her to remain completely reserved for her husband.
And that's how Paul wanted the Corinthians to be. And you know what? That is how God wants us to be, to be reserved completely for Christ.
You know, the picture of of the church as the bride of Christ we know to be marriage, but sometimes we think about marriage exclusively from our Western viewpoint. Oftentimes it's helpful to understand a little bit about when the Bible talks about marriage, that's very often looked at from the perspective of an Eastern marriage.
And in an Eastern wedding, there's there's kind of two parts.
The first is like our what we would call an engagement or an espousal, only it's a lot more serious than an engagement Over here, over here in the Western Hemisphere, we tend to.
Engagements are serious, but they can be broken off. But in Eastern cultures it's a very serious thing, so much so that they're actually, in a sense, considered married.
Not fully, but it says in Matthew chapter one that Joseph was espoused to Mary.
That means the first part had taken place and she was designated to be his, so much so that the the the Angel says, fear not to Joseph, fear not to take unto thee, marry thy wife. They were espoused, but she's called his wife. It's a very serious thing. And then a period of time elapses and then the actual wedding procession and ceremony takes place. And that's the second part.
We are called the Bride of Christ.
We're between those two. The espousal has already taken place, what we might call the engagement. We are the bride of Christ. We belong to Him. He has paid the dowry and we're just waiting for Him to come and take us to be with Him, to have that marriage supper of the Lamb, but in this period of time where we are His.
But we're waiting for that moment He wants us to be as a chaste virgin to Christ.
He wants our affections for him to be undivided. And you know what it says in Romans chapter 5?
That God has given us the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit is spreading the love of God abroad in our hearts.
While we're waiting for that wedding day.
The Holy Spirit is reminding us of how much the Lord Jesus loved us such that our hearts could be fully for Him.
And I speak to you as one who struggles with this, but I know it's what God wants for each one of us.
Christ will not share His bride with the world. He will not share His bride with anyone. What would you think of a husband who didn't care where the heart of his wife was? What would you think of a wife who didn't care about where her husband's heart wandered?
You would say she doesn't love him?
God cares about our hearts because he loves us. This is the great point.
Love that is strong as death comes with jealousy that is cruel as the grave. I'm just going to say that again because it's Song of Solomon 8 Love that is strong as death.
Comes with jealousy that as cruel as the grave.
00:15:01
That has a most vehement flame.
The reason why God is jealous of us and our our lives and of our hearts.
Is because he is serious in his love.
If he wasn't serious in his love, then he wouldn't care about our hearts. He wouldn't care how we spend our lives or how much of our affections are divided for other things. But He's serious and He has proven that by what he did on the cross and all we need to do to be reminded of how serious he is and his love for us.
Is to go back to the cross to see the Prince in his hands.
And the wound in his side.
To realize that he is serious.
And so it's a wonderful thing to satisfy God's heart.
By giving him ours.
There's one thing I just had on my heart that I did want to.
Just bring out, you know, I've been thinking perhaps there are some in this room that have been.
Thinking about.
Their desire to remember the Lord. And you haven't done it, and you haven't.
Asked to partake.
You know, in First Corinthians 11.
Paul says, I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus.
The same night in which he was betrayed, took bread.
And gave thanks.
And you know the rest. The very night in which he was betrayed.
He instituted his supper. The way that's worded is calculated to touch our hearts the very night in which everyone.
Turned against him, He thought about you and me, and he asked as his last request.
For us to remember him.
So that and so many other things we owe him because.
Of his love for us.
Somebody kindly wrote up a poem and I believe it's actually can be sung, but I asked for permission to just read it.
He loves me with a jealous love.
There is no love like this. He bought me with his precious blood and he has called me His.
Because he gave so much for me, He seeks to have my heart with such a love. How can it be I'm only giving part?
It should be this and nothing else.
Should occupy me more to be divided in myself as not to seek my Lord.
But then I see Him reaching out and speaking soft and sweet. Why are you troubled? Why those doubts? Behold my hands and feet, and seeing what it meant to Him to save my sinning soul. Just what excuse is left to me? Then I have to give the whole.