Righteous Jealousy

September 30, 2009 at 8:42 am | Posted in Biblical Violence | 7 Comments
Tags: 1 John 4, Biblical catastrophes, droughts, floods, forest fires, God's love, God's wrath, hurricanes, mudslides, Nahum 1, Oprah Winfrey, Psalm 11, storms, tornadoes, volcanoes

A currently popular television talk show host grew up attending traditional Christian churches, holding to fundamental Biblical teaching and preaching. She recently explained her rejection of these beliefs by referring to something, at the age of 28, she heard preached in church: The God of the Bible is a jealous God. This struck her as very strange. How could God, Who is all-powerful, and Who owns everything, be jealous of human beings? What a tragic misunderstanding, and what a shallow view of Scripture.

Oh, God is jealous, alright.

God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.

Nahum 1:2

But He is not jealous of what people have or what they are able to do. He is jealous because of the love He has for his Own people. We might say He is jealous over His people, not of His people – the way a loving and faithful husband would be jealous over anything that would tend to steal his wife’s affection away from him.

God loves His people very much. And although we would rather hear about the love of God, we must not ignore the fact that God reserves wrath for the enemies of His people. Did you know that, even though God is love (I John 4:8), He also hates (Psalm 11:5)?

Recently, my wife and I visited California. On the flight I was reading Nahum Chapter 1, and looking down at the tops of the clouds, which the Bible calls “the dust of his feet,” and I got to thinking about some of the ways the Lord shows His righteous anger, and His power over His creation.

The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

Nahum 1:3 (tornadoes, hurricanes, and storms)

He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers: Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth.

Nahum 1:4 (droughts)

The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein.

Nahum 1:5 (earthquakes, mudslides, and forest fires)

Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him.

Nahum 1:6 (volcanoes, avalanches)

But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies.

Nahum 1:8 (floods)

Most people, when asked to quickly name the opposite of “love,” will blurt out, “hate.” But this is incorrect. The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference. And our loving and just and jealous God is anything but indifferent.

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Good post. Our God is a jealous God. We had this come up recently in a Sunday School class and the debate began to ensue over “healthy jealousy” and if there even was such a thing. God’s communicable attributes do include jealousy (or better put “zealousy”) that are transferable to us. We pervert this and other attributes and make them sinful, such as love/lust, righteous anger/fleshly anger, God-centered worship/god-centered worship, etc.

Saying that, your statement that “We might say He is jealous over His people, not of His people” really sums it up well. Thanks for this great blog post!

Fran

Comment by Fran— October 7, 2009 #
Fran: Thank you for reading and commenting. We studied the same thing in my Sunday School class once, too, and you are right. We as fallen human sinners, even those who have been redeemed by God and His grace, have an amazing capacity to take the feelings, emotions, and desires God gave us when He originally created us in His image, and to twist and pervert those desires into something sinful. Thank God He loves us enough to be jealous over us!

Comment by Ministry Addict— October 8, 2009 #
[...] is as if God is saying, “You’ve been away from Me, and I had to chasten You. But I am a jealous God. I am jealous of my people, and I am coming back.” It was a great blessing for the Lord’s [...]

Pingback by The Possessiveness of God « The Deep End— April 6, 2010 #
“There will be no peace on Earth until My Son’s Kingdom. I will crush every kingdom now standing and rock the earth off it’s foundation. I Yahweh will destroy every enemy to My throne, and who can stop Me? Who can turn back My anger? No one.”

Christ Jesus said at Matthew 10:34 “Don’t assume that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

While Satan works to maintain “peace on earth” and halt prophecy, mankind is alienated from God. What was prophesied long ago is currently taking place and will continue to until the battle of Armageddon.

Ezekiel 29:8 “Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: I am going to bring a sword against you and wipe out man and animal from you.”

Yes, that means God is angry.

Revelation 16:21 “Enormous hailstones, each weighing about 100 pounds, fell from heaven on the people, and they blasphemed God for the plague of hail because that plague was extremely severe.”

We are currently in the Tribulation and the severity is about to become much worse. If you think things are bad now, you can’t imagine how bad they will become.

Satan is not the cause of what is occurring in the world via natural disasters, plagues, pestilence, financial crisis and all the rest. It is Yahweh’s will and it comes directly from Him. He is the One in control, and the One whom is nature.

Psalm 83:18 “May they know that You alone – whose name is Yahweh – are the Most High over all the earth.”

Calamity will come upon mankind and it will be via Yahweh’s hand. Satan is powerless to stop Him and mankind is powerless to stop Him.

Ezekiel 28:23 “I will send a plague against her and bloodshed in her streets; the slain will fall within her, while the sword is against her on every side. Then they will know that I am the LORD.”

Yahweh is about to bring full rebellion to Satan’s empire. As hard as he works to try and keep peace, he will not be able to halt the people from rebelling against the governments. There is a reason the job failures and the staggering economy, and the lost homes. They are all designed to culminate against each government of every nation affected by this curse from God.

Malachi 1:4 “Though Edom says: “We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins,” the LORD of Hosts says this: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called a wicked country and the people the LORD has cursed forever.”

Satan will bring the nations back up from ruin for a short while, but they will not hold together. During that period of destruction, the people will curse God and seek their true benefactor that is opposed to Christ and Yahweh – Satan. The Antichrist will then make his appearance. The people will be awed by Satan’s regained powers and his strength to bring peace to this world of people. But it will not last. Yahweh will see to that.

Matthew 25:41 “Then He will also say to those on the left, ‘Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels!”

All of mankind is cursed except for the remnant. Think. How many people survived the Great Flood? Sodom and Gomorrah? It will not be any different. Those events were precursors to what will occur in these End Times.

Mark 11:12 “[ The Barren Fig Tree Is Cursed ] The next day when they came out from Bethany, He was hungry.”

Mark 11:21 “Then Peter remembered and said to Him, ” Rabbi, look! The fig tree that You cursed is withered.”

Satan’s family tree is barren and was cursed long ago. Mankind is withering under our Creator’s curse.

Jeremiah 17:5 “[ Curse and Blessing ] This is what the LORD says: Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind, who makes [human] flesh his strength and turns his heart from the LORD.”

Mankind is under a curse and belongs to Satan. It requires effort – action on the part of anyone hearing this wake up call to get out of Satan’s empire. Those that have remained are to receive the plagues just ahead. Everything else has just been foreplay. The worst is just ahead, and it’s all from Yahweh.

When Satan’s empire totally crumbles out from under him and them as their Antichrist, this is what will happen:

Ezekiel 33:27 “Tell them this: This is what the Lord GOD says: As surely as I live, those who are in the ruins will fall by the sword, those in the open field I have given to wild animals to be devoured, and those in the strongholds and caves will die by plague.”

Ezekiel 38:22 “I will execute judgment on him with plague and bloodshed. I will pour out torrential rain, hailstones, fire, and brimstone on him, as well as his troops and the many peoples who are with him.”

Habakkuk 3:5 “Plague goes before Him, and pestilence follows in His steps.”

That is the path Yahweh will lead Satan’s followers down.

Deuteronomy 28:16 “You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.”

There will be nowhere to hide.

For the so-called Christian churches that claim to reveal Yahweh’s Word in truth:

Revelation 2:23 “I will kill her children with the plague. Then all the churches will know that I am the One who examines minds and hearts, and I will give to each of you according to your works.”

They are cursed especially for their lying conduct in reference to Yahweh and Christ. Remember when Yahweh killed the first born males of ancient Egypt? Now He will kill the children of Satan that make up the false churches.

1 Chronicles 21:27 “Then the LORD spoke to the angel, and he put his sword back into its sheath.”

The only way this will happen is if they repent and accept Yahweh for who He really is – in Truth.

Otherwise, those churches professing to be true Christians will go the way of the rest of cursed mankind.

Revelation 2:11 “Anyone who has an ear should listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. The victor will never be harmed by the second death.”

Comment by Servant of Yahweh— December 2, 2010 #
Thank you for reading this post, “Servant of Yahweh.” I notice that all your quotes have Bible Verse references except for the first one. Since you seem to be speaking as God in the first person in the first quote, is that a Bible Verse that you neglected to site? Or are you claiming some special private revelation from God to you?

“For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Luke 19:10

Comment by Ministry Addict— December 3, 2010 #
[...] to my Bible, God is the One Who controls the weather (see Nahum 1:3-5 and Mark 4:37-39) – even here in South [...]

Pingback by I’m Just Sayin’ 7 « The Deep End— August 26, 2011 #
[...] opposites. The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference. God is certainly not indifferent! It might surprise many modern evangelicals to learn that the Greek word translated as [...]

Pingback by Fitted by God « The Deep End— October 28, 2011 #

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