“For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” Exodus 34:14
There is a jealousy that is godly. There is a jealousy that even our own Lord has. It says His Name is Jealous. Everyone knows Jehovah Rapha, Jehovah-Nissi, and El Shaddai. Well, how about “Jealous”? This is one of the names of God according to Exodus 34:14. Jealous for who? Jealous for what? Jealous for you! He doesn’t need items; He wants you. He is a burning flame, a jealous fire, and He will consume everything that gets in the way of His burning desire for us. The jealousy of man is this: Man wants to be their own God, just like satan. Then another man is able to exalt themselves higher or be exalted, and man gets jealous because someone else’s idolatry is higher. Jealousy comes from the root of pride wanting to be higher than the rest. The same thing that took out satan is the same thing that satan used to take out man. Satan was jealous of God, wanting to be God, and satan tricked man with the same thing. “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods” (Genesis 3:5).
See, there’s a desire in the Adam nature to be God! To be the highest of all. And if we do not die to that, we will be consumed with jealousy because there will always be someone better, and no one will be greater than the Father! You see, jealousy never stops burning. It starts with one thing, then another. Then when your jealousy is gratified, then you’re jealous for the next thing. Jealousy never ends. It’s like wood on the fire. It never puts the fire out, but just makes it stronger. Such is God's Jealousy! Satan’s jealousy never ended. He coveted God’s position and became the god of below, the god of the world. The spirit of the antichrist entered the world. But now it’s not enough for him to have God's position. Now he wants God's creation, His people, but this he will not have because God's name is Jealous, and He burns jealous for His bride. Who or what can stand the fire of His jealousy for His people?! Not even satan himself!
Jealousy is desiring things inordinately. See, the Bible says ask and you shall receive. And then it says ask and you do not receive that you may spend it on your lusts. Jealousy is driven by lust, and lust to gratify, to please yourself. Lust is not just sexual. It’s anything we desire with the wrong heart. The Bible says to covet not thy neighbor’s items. Though then Paul says covet earnestly the best spiritual gifts! We weren’t meant to covet what our neighbor has. Although who said we could not covet what Christ has? Because now we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. We are co-heirs, meaning co-inheritors with Him in His inheritance. Now as He is, so am I. The same glory the Father gave to the Son, the Son has given to the sons! See. We covet spiritual things, not earthly things. God will give us earthly things as we need them for His purpose, but the Bible says to store your riches in heaven where moth and rust cannot corrupt. The earthly riches are for a purpose; these heavenly riches are forever! There’s nothing wrong with having riches but there’s everything wrong with a covetous heart. The rich young ruler couldn’t even follow Jesus because his heart was too connected to the riches. Solomon, they say, was the richest man to ever live. Solomon didn’t covet earthly riches. He coveted heavenly riches - wisdom, and God gave him both!
What is the difference between Judas and Solomon? Judas had the money bag, right? Which wasn’t even his money anyway! But Judas’ riches were in his hands on earth, but Solomon had riches in both realms! God wants us to have His riches in both realms! You want riches in this earthy realm, but riches are going to perish with you! You cannot bring what is earthly into what is heavenly. It says the works that you have, two that were saved at the judgment. One whose works or possessions were burned by fire, and another whose works or possessions were not burned. Why? Because they were not material! Fire can burn material things, but fire cannot burn heavenly things! Heavenly riches! Spiritual things! But fleshly things will burn to a vapor of smoke.
The Bible says to think on these things which are above. To covet below is to be guilty of the commandment, coveting thy neighbor’s items. See, God has prosperity, and it is for us, but the prosperity gospel of today turns into covetousness because it has gotten us focused on earthly things, not on eternal riches. There is a prosperity gospel, and this prosperity gospel is prospering us in the riches in heaven where moth and rust cannot corrupt! You can be poor, but God calls you prosperous. You can be rich and live in a mansion, but God calls you poor! Some saved rich folks will be surprised how much richer the saved poor man was that was storing his riches in heaven. Though we want the best of both realms like Solomon! If God wants us to have something, we will have it. If God doesn't want me to have it, I don't want it! Earthly riches are a vapor, but heavenly riches are forever!
We have riches in heaven, but God says His riches are us! The treasure is in the field! See, the more souls He gets, the more prosperous He is. We’re looking for things but God's looking for souls. He sees souls as pearls, rubies, and diamonds. Go look in a city square…There are precious jewels everywhere we walk the streets. Souls and hearts of men, desired by God, for He wishes that none should perish but through His Son, they may believe and be saved. We are God's riches. He gave us His riches so that He could be rich with us. He doesn’t care about silver or gold. He wants to make us the silver and the gold. What does the Bible say? In a house, there are vessels of wood and earth, vessels of gold and silver. Vessels of honor and of dishonor. We are His vessels of honor, His gold and silver, not of the earth, not made of wood that can burn up. Gold and silver cannot be burned up. It cannot disappear but it can be refined just like us! Although the fire may refine us, it will not burn us because we will live forever.
God's not jealous for the world; He's jealous for us. He will let them have their gods. Though He says to us you will have no other gods before me! God cares for His gold and silver(us), and He will not let the evil one snatch them out of His hand. He will let the hay, wood, and stubble burn up, but the pearls He will guard closely.
Eternal life is not a place; it’s a person. The Bible says eternal life is to know God, so He will not let us know anyone else. That’s why He sounds so cruel to His churches in the book of Revelation because He is a Jealous God! And He will not let you have any other God before Him. Thank God! Because if God hid his jealousy, He would be hiding His love! For an open rebuke is better than hidden love. See, when God rebukes us, He's expressing His jealousy for us! He's expressing His desire for us. This love is not just love, it is a jealous love. Whatever He has to do to have us, have her, His bride, His people, His sons, His daughters, He will do it. God’s jealousy is unlimited, God will do anything He needs to do to have you, all of you because His love is never-ending, and He burns with this love so much that it burns in jealousy. He will flip tables in the temple to have you. He will even take His hand off your life to have you, like Job. He will send a storm, and you are rebuking that storm and God is saying that I sent that storm, Jonah! I sent that storm (put your name here), and you are rebuking it, but you are rebuking my Love! I sent the storm, I sent the whale, and it was all so that I can have you!
God, why are you so jealous? Have you ever seen a person flirt with someone else, and the spouse questions it, and that person says why are you jealous? “Oh, don’t be jealous!” Why are they jealous? Because they love their spouse! Because the imagination of their spouse turning over bothers them. And don't you think it bothers God the same way when we turn to other lovers? Other lovers are other gods. Other gods back then were made of clay or wood or gold and silver, built by the hands of men. Though when they were building their idols, they weren’t building some god that they were hearing tell them to do it. They were just building themselves. They were calling the god that they made another name, but really, they were the god, and they made the god in the image they imagined, according to their image or the desires they have. You look at all these religions. It started with men that had a god made in their image. God made us in His image. But idolatry is making a god in your image. There Is no other god. You can’t make another god. Every other god is dead or doesn’t exist. There is only one true God! So, what are you making? A god of yourself! You are not making a god unto yourself; you’re making a god of yourself!
In the Old Testament, they would act like it was a separate god, but now it’s revealed – the idol is you! Whenever we choose our own image or heed the desires of our own likeness, like the Bible says, we were made to walk in the same image and likeness of Christ. Now we have an image and likeness of ourselves, and when we heed to that or build that image and likeness of our own hands, of ourselves, God calls it idolatry because you were made in my image. Why have you now changed my image and likeness? You don’t even have to have an item. The item is just to please you. Idolatry back then was to please an item. Now we take items to please ourselves. Idolatry has always been to gratify the desires of their idols, themselves! See, God's jealous for us when we do this! People say, “This person is my idol”. No, you are your own idol because you want that person’s image and likeness to be your image and likeness! You are trying to carve out an image of yourself to be like that. God wants to make us in His image but first He needs to break our images. In the last days, they will worship the image of the beast, the image of satan, but they already are because the image of satan is walking the same way he walked, being his own god. You might not say that or tell anyone you’re a god, but you sure act like one when you do, say, and go where you want when the Bible says this life is not your own. But you have been bought with a price and your life is now Christ. That’s walking in the image of the beast and that is how you worship it.
Many are even making an image of a christ of their own making. What does it say? Many christs shall arise; in other words, many images shall arise! Every time you preach another gospel, you’re preaching another christ and presenting another image! What are these other christs? Basically, they are the images of the people that are preaching them. The christs that they imagined but not the Christ that appeared! See, Christ appears to some, and to others, they imagine an image. Why are there thousands of Christian denominations? Because many christs, many images, have arisen. And He said you shall have no graven images before me. We think of physical things, carved or painted, but how about the image that we carve out in our mind that are made by the hands of man and not from above? Though only one image shall arise and stand at the end of the day. Every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess, and every other christ is an idol!
The preaching of the Word, the power of God, is to transform you, for you were called before the foundations of the earth to be conformed into the image of God by the transformation of the Word of God. The power of God shall conform you into the image of God.
See, it’s the image that God hates, not just the idol! I hate what you try to make yourself look like. I hate how you think you should live this life. These are the other gods. These are the other christs that you have put before me. In the Old Testament, He said to have no other gods before me; now He says, have no other christ's before me. For many christs have arisen. These are the words of a jealous lover. He wants to destroy our altars of worship. Altars are for sacrifice. Now there are altars for God and altars for our idols, ourselves, and what do we do with altars? We sacrifice our time, our money, strength, energy, everything, for what? Either God's altar or the altar to yourself. Choose this day whom you will serve. Who is your God? If it be God, then serve Him; if it be you, then serve yourself! You cannot choose both, for you will either hate the one or love the other.
God told His people in the Old Testament not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land. The land that God had for them was the Promised Land. Anywhere else they were to just pass through to be a pilgrim, a sojourner. And now He says to us do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of this land. What land? The world. When we make an agreement with this world, with things below, with the mountains, God calls it a covenant with the inhabitants of the land which He commands against. For He has a land, a place above for us to inhabit. I want you to be in this land but not of this land. I want you to be in this world, but not of it! See, to be of the world is to be in covenant with the world, to be in agreement, and what agreement does the temple of God have with the temple of idols?
You cannot make a covenant with any earthly thing because anything earthly is temporal! Covenant is forever. You cannot have a covenant with something that does not last forever. The only thing you can have a covenant with is God and His people because they are the only two things that will last forever. Everything else will fade away. Everything else ends. Heavenly things never end. We need to make covenant with things that are eternal! Who is eternal? God is eternal. You can make covenant with Him. Who is eternal? The Body of Christ! Now we have a wellspring inside of us springing up unto Eternal Life, and now we are eternal and forever with Him! Now I’m forever; Now you’re forever. He's always been forever. Now we are in covenant because we are forever. That's why the Bible says do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers because you cannot make a covenant with an unbeliever because they will not last forever unless they get saved. You might even have a covenant with an unbelieving believer. They say they believe but they don’t believe because it says these signs shall follow those who believe. They shall cast out demons, heal the sick, and cleanse the lepers. Are they walking in these signs?
There's a Holy provoking that God does. He even said to the Jews, I will provoke you to jealousy, and l call a people that were not my people, my people. The Jews were God's people by the flesh but now anyone in Christ is a new creation, now we are the sons of God, now He has made us His inhabitants, now we are the Israel after God, now we are the new Jerusalem that comes down from heaven, a bride adorned, the Body of Christ. Now we are the temple, the temple of the Holy Ghost. God does not just have one house now. He has many houses. He has many temples. And it’s not a building. It’s each and every one of us! Nobody has more homes than God, not even the devil. For it says many tribes and kindreds and nations that are without number shall be saved. And whether everyone else makes Him the Lord of their life or not, every knee shall bow! He will take away every possession and home from the devil, for the Bible says all souls are His! And He will take out from under the devil his throne as god of the earth, and He will make him lower than the worst human being. He is a Jealous God! The earth is His footstool. The one that opened the door to jealousy on the earth will be brought to justice for going after what is God's! He's Jealous for me; He's Jealous for you. And He's coming back for a bride without spot or wrinkle, without blemish, without idols, a Church where the gates of hell shall not prevail! Just as He provoked His people who were His people by the flesh, He is provoking us who are in the Spirit now that we may be saved, and we may be His and only His!
By Joe Pinto
Exodus 34:12-16, Romans 10:19, Romans 11:11-14, 2 Corinthians 11, 1 Corinthians 12, 2 Corinthians 6:16-18, Exodus 20:17
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