Whispers of Grace
Walking with God is filled with mountaintops and valleys. Join passionate yet flawed Jesus-lover and mother of four Julie Colbeth as she delves into the Scriptures each week with a refreshingly honest perspective that will bring hope and encouragement to your day.
Whispers of Grace
Golden Calf - Part 2
The Life of Moses- ep. #26 💚Why would a loving God be jealous? Join us on this episode of Whispers of Grace as we unpack the often misunderstood concept of divine jealousy. Through the lens of Exodus 32:7-14, we scrutinize God's intense anger and profound jealousy when the Israelites worship the golden calf at Mount Sinai. Is God's demand for exclusive worship tyrannical, or is it a rightful claim rooted in His love and sovereignty? As we reflect on Matthew 22:37, we delve into the implications of loving God with all our heart, soul, and mind.
Continuing our exploration, we draw compelling parallels to marriage in examining God's righteous zeal, using the poignant story of Hosea and Gomer. JC Ryle's insights guide our understanding of divine jealousy as an extension of God's covenant love and sovereign purpose. Discover how God's unwavering commitment to His people reflects His desire for our ultimate joy and fulfillment. This episode encourages us to align our hearts with God's purpose, reminding us that His jealous love and devotion are the keys to our lasting happiness and spiritual well-being. Tune in and let this profound truth sink into your soul, inspiring gratitude and worship.
Kia ora, and welcome to Whispers of Grace, a place for women to be encouraged by God's Holy Word. I'm your host, julie Colbeth, and I am overjoyed to dig into the Bible with you today. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Whispers of Grace. I am so happy to be with you guys today and we have such an interesting topic that the Lord has provided through his word. Today we are going to study and talk about jealousy, the green-eyed monster which makes many of us think of being possessive or controlling or demanding or domineering. Google tells me that Gen Z would call it jelly or salty, which I love. That's so funny. But jealousy most often we think of it as such a negative thing. But today we're going to look at how our perfect God says that he is jealous, that his name is actually jealous. This is a little bit confusing, right, but it's intriguing. It draws you in, so I'm excited to think through it with you and to search the scriptures and see what they say. So, just for a little bit of a recap, our last episode we looked deeply at Israel's idolatry. They are still at the base of Mount Sinai, which it feels like we've been there forever, but there's so much history that takes place at the base of Mount Sinai. But they're here. Moses is up on the mountain with God. He's receiving the Ten Commandments. Everyone has just seen God show himself in amazing, incredible ways. But they start getting antsy and anxious because Moses has been gone for a long time over a month up on the mountain. So they choose to make this golden calf and to worship it and to say that this is the God that brought us out of Egypt. That's a lot of what we talked about last time this false comfort that they chose in idolatry instead of having faith and patience. So the last episode we focused a lot on our own hearts and we drew a lot of parallels between Israel and ourselves, and hopefully you were able to see some weak areas in your own life, areas that we can bring to God for sanctification. But today we are going to focus on God, on God's reaction to this idolatry, and look into what divine jealousy really is. One of the important things when we come to the word is to ask what can we learn about God? So in this section we're going to say what can we learn about God through his response to Israel's idolatry?
Julie:So we are back in Exodus, chapter 32, and I'm going to read to you verses 7 to 14. And the Lord said to Moses Go, get down, for your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf and worshipped it and sacrificed to it and said this is your God, o Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. And the Lord said to Moses I have seen this people and indeed it is a stiff-necked people. Now, therefore, let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them and I will make of you a great nation. And then Moses pleaded with the Lord, his God, and said Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you've brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians speak and say he brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from your fierce wrath and relent from this harm to your people. Remember Abraham, isaac and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self and said to them I will multiply your descendants as the stars in the heavens and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your descendants and they shall inherit it forever. So the Lord relented from the harm which he said that he would do to his people.
Julie:So this is a really interesting section to look at to see the interaction between God and Moses, which we won't have time to get into today. That's going to be next time. But today we're going to focus on this holy, righteous rage that God is feeling towards Israel. And it's interesting because the section starts out with God saying to Moses get down off the mountain, for your people, who you have brought out of the land, have corrupted themselves. So it's almost like God is disowning them because they have fallen away. And Moses is quick to give them right back to God. When he responds he says your people whom you brought out of Egypt. So it's interesting, this back and forth play between the two of them, which we will get into more next week. But for today we are going to focus on that jealous wrath. In verse eight we read exactly what the sin is that these people fell into. It says they turned aside, they made an idol, they worshiped it, they sacrificed to it and they gave the idol the praise and the credit for their freedom. So if you've been listening to the podcast, you're very familiar with this, because this is what we spoke about last week. But this is what God is responding to.
Julie:God is enraged and thinking about God's jealousy and his right to exclusive worship and exclusive love. At first glance to some people can seem immature or selfish or wrong or twisted, or like he's some self-serving God or almost like an insecure tyrant that is demanding attention. I think it's easy for people that don't know God, don't understand him, and even for Christians, to see his jealousy and his demands and not understand really the heart of why they're there. Because God does demand all of us. He demands all of our affections and all of our obedience and all of our attention and the focus of our greatest love and devotion. This is what it is to love and follow Jesus.
Julie:Matthew 22, 37 says this and Jesus replied you must love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all of your mind. So there's no room there for anything else. The word says all over and over again in that scripture. Matthew 10, 37 to 39 says this If you love your father or your mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you Again this strong language that talks about a love for a father or a mother, or even yourself, that you are not worthy of following Christ if you love these things above loving our good God.
Julie:Now, in Deuteronomy, chapter 4, 23 and 24, it says this so be careful not to break the covenant that the Lord, your God, has made with you. Do not make idols of any shape or form, for the Lord, your God, has forbidden this. The Lord, your God, is a devouring fire. He is a jealous God. So here we see that connection with God being jealous and other things being worshiped or put above his name. Exodus 34, 14 says this you must worship no other gods, for the Lord, whose very name is jealous, is a God who is jealous about his relationship with you. So in Exodus 34, it actually says that his name is jealous.
Julie:And again, for many people when they hear these demands, when you put all of these scriptures next to one another, these requirements for total love and worship very often that sin of Eden that is in all of us. It rears her head and it says don't tell me what to do. Right, we grasp for what we perceive to be our freedom, leaking away in this God that is asking for all of our attention and time and focus and our restless and rebellious nature. It tries to buck off anything that we perceive as restriction or command Our flesh just. It struggles, and once again Satan would have us swallow the lie of Eden that God is untrustworthy, that he is keeping from us what is best or most fun or most fulfilling, and we can get sucked into the lie that we know better than God does. That lie goes all the way back to the beginning of the garden and sometimes, when we read these verses, it can rear its head and you can not understand it and want to shrug it off, because how is it possible that jealousy, that's usually seen as a vice in humans, can be holy and virtuous in God?
Julie:So, as we kind of unpack this and think about it, one of the first things I want to explain to you is a very big word, but don't worry, we'll talk about it. It's called anthropomorphism. Now, this big word, anthropomorphism means characteristics or attributes of humans that are applied to the behavior of God. So it's taking human qualities and applying them to God, for example, when it talks about the finger of God or God breathing, or the ear of God listening, applying these anthropomorphisms to God. They help us to grasp a frame of reference for the Almighty God. It helps us to picture things about of reference for the Almighty God. It helps us to picture things about him and begin to understand him.
Julie:But the problem is it's an imperfect system because God is spirit, so he's not limited to a body. He doesn't really have ears or breathe or have fingers. He's not limited in that sense. But the problem is that human language, it just can't adequately represent the depths of God's personality or his traits, something that JI Packer, who is a great theologian and author, says man is not the measure of his maker. So we were certainly made in the image of God and there is reflection of him in us, but we are not the measure of him, because he has none of our limitations, absolutely none, not one. And God is not corrupted by sin. So when we apply these anthropomorphisms, it helps us to grasp God, who is so infinite and vast but at the same sense it can almost limit him in our minds because we can't get a full picture.
Julie:So back to our definition of jealousy. Most of us, when we think of jealousy, we think of being possessive or controlling or demanding. But if you look at the Greek and Latin definition of jealousy it actually means full of zeal or to be zealous, and I think that definition kind of unlocks something new, at least in my heart and brain, to help me understand a little bit more about God that he is zealous. Ji Packer said this about God's jealousy God's jealousy is not a compound of frustration and envy and spite, as human jealousy so often is, but it appears instead as a literally praiseworthy zeal to preserve something that is supremely precious. I'm going to read that one more time because there's a lot of good stuff in there.
Julie:God's jealousy is not a compound of frustration, envy and spite, as human jealousy so often is, but it appears instead as a literally praiseworthy zeal to preserve something that is supremely precious. So God, in his jealousy, is looking to preserve his name, to preserve the absolute truth of the universe, that God is the underpinning of everything that is supremely precious, and he has zeal and jealousy over that the word also says God is jealous for the spirit that he put within us, for that peace of God that for all of us that call ourselves believers that we walk around with. He is jealous for that peace of his spirit that he left with us. And this praiseworthy zeal to preserve something supremely precious can be seen and mirrored, and a little bit better understood by our minds, in the covenant of marriage, because we know that marriage is an imperfect picture of the commitment and the union of God and his people. So the earthly union of one man and one woman, promising fidelity and love and loyalty and trust and respect and honor, regardless of the difficult times or circumstances, this deep relationship that we find in one another. This is a metaphor for the covenant love of God and it helps us to start to understand a bit about the holy, zealous jealousy of God. This is something that can be understood really well through the book of Hosea.
Julie:The entire book of Hosea is devoted to God expressing his anger and rightful jealousy towards Israel through the metaphor of marriage. So there was a prophet and his name was Hosea, and God told Hosea to go and take a wife of a woman that was a prostitute. So he marries a woman named Gomer who is a prostitute, and they are married, they have children together, they have a life together. But Gomer keeps running away from home back into her own life, back into prostitution, and there is a continued unfaithfulness. That is pictured in this man's life and it was a literal picture of what Israel was doing with God being betrothed to him in love and union and then constantly running back to other lovers.
Julie:If you've never read this book through, I would encourage you. It's a short read but it helps to understand God's heart for Israel. In Hosea, chapter 2, verse 19 and 20, it says this this is God speaking. I will betroth you to me forever. Yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness and justice, in loving, kindness and mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness and you shall know the Lord. This was God binding himself to his beloved people, to himself, and we see the picture of a spouse that is unfaithful. When a spouse cheats, it is painful and there is a rightful jealousy because there's broken trust and there's a righteous anger that's associated with it.
Julie:If we can take this picture and apply it to what's happening with God and Israel back at the base of Mount Sinai in the golden calf. It helps us to understand God's jealousy, for Israel's affection is an aspect of his covenant love for them, because the covenant is a promise, a promise of loyalty. So when Israel made this golden calf and bowed down to it and worshipped it and gave it thanks for freeing them from slavery in Egypt, they were actually committing spiritual adultery. They were breaking their covenant vows, which they had taken only a few weeks before, and they walked away from God. They threw themselves wholeheartedly into the arms of a lover. And while this was all happening, god and Moses are planning the future of Israel up on Mount Sinai. He's writing laws to govern them and keep them safe and holy. He's telling Moses how to build the tabernacle which is going to be this special meeting place for intimacy and purity. And while all of that's happening, they're committing spiritual adultery down in the valley. And this provokes a holy and jealous vengeance from God, because he is passionately in love with Israel and they are bound to him.
Julie:I have a really great quote from another awesome theologian called JC Ryle. He says this God's jealousy over his people, as we have seen, presupposes his covenant love. And this love is no transitory affection, accidental and aimless, but it is the expression of a sovereign purpose. The goal of the covenant love of God is that he should have a people on earth as long as history lasts and after that should have all of his faithful ones of every age with him in glory. Covenant love is the heart of God's plan for his world.
Julie:God seeks what we should seek his glory in and through men, and it is for the securing of this end, ultimately, that he is jealous. His jealousy in all its manifestations is precisely the zeal of the Lord Almighty, as it says in Isaiah 9, 7, for the fulfilling of his own purposes of justice and mercy. I am the Lord, that is my name. I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. For my own sake. For my own sake, I will do this. How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield my glory to another. So here JC Ryle is putting together these scriptures that help us to understand that God's jealousy is kind of linked to the fabric of nature, because God must be glorified and he seeks his glory in and through man. In Isaiah 48, 11 it tells us that God will not share his glory with another. He can't. He's God. Hebrews 1, 3 tells us that God upholds all things by the word of his power. Now, I've been thinking about this one all week and it has been blowing my mind. It says that God holds all things together by the word of his power. So again, that truth of the glory of God holding together the fabric of the world is amazing. It's a crazy thought and it made me think of in Luke, chapter 19,.
Julie:When Jesus enters into Jerusalem on a donkey, it's called the triumphal entry. Probably studied this as a kid if you went to church and everybody said Hosanna, hosanna, and they laid down palm branches in their coats and Jesus entered into Jerusalem. So all of these people were praising God and worshiping. And it says that if the people didn't praise and worship and acknowledge Christ in this moment, that the stones of the earth would literally cry out. It says that the stones would cry out because the God-man had finally come to redeem the world and because the world is held together by the word of his power. Even nature was saying yes and amen to the things that were happening. And nature understands, because it is his handiwork, that he must be worshiped as God, he must be exalted and God is jealous for that truth and we, being created in his image, are here to love him, to bring him glory and to enjoy him always. And when we don't, when we cheat on God, it goes against the created order and it unleashes vengeance and chaos. This spiritual adultery is the exact opposite of God's plan. It is sin and Satan at work to destroy things.
Julie:So I'm going to geek out for just a second, because I was born in the 80s and one of my favorite movies growing up was the NeverEnding Story. If you haven't seen it, it's a story about a boy named Bastion who's kind of bullied and he ends up reading this epic story and kind of takes part in what's happening. So it's this world of Fantasia that's incredible and has all these creatures and there's a luck dragon named Falcor that he rides on, and it's just. My tiny brain was just blown by this incredible movie when I was a kid, but thinking about what we're talking about here, the greatness of God and how it's woven into nature, it made me think of this movie.
Julie:Because in the movie, fantasia, which is this fantasy world, is actually falling apart because there is something called the nothing that is slowly disintegrating the world. It's just this dark, stormy nothing. And it manifests itself in this wolf that's constantly chasing after Atreyu, who's one of the main characters in the story. But this wolf called Gmork is chasing him and he's just a representation of the nothing that is trying to just destroy the world, that's. Its only goal is to take all of the beauty and light out of the world and just turn it into nothing. And at the end of this story, the thing that saves the world is that the empress, she needs a new name. So the nothing is coming to destroy. But the thing that saves this world is shouting out the name of the empress. And I just thought how perfect of a picture that is of God and the power that is in his name, that it holds all things together. And at the end of the movie, the nothing has almost overtaken the entire world. And finally Bastion, the little boy that's reading the story, cries out the name of the Empress, except all of Fantasia had been destroyed, except for a single grain of sand. So the nothing had destroyed everything, except for a single grain of sand. So the nothing had destroyed everything. But then the childlike empress is sitting there at the end with Bastion and she's holding this single grain of sand, but she's telling him that it is powerful enough to completely recreate the world. It's the single grain of sand and after that the whole world is remade and everything's bright and beautiful again, because the Empress now has her name and her name was strong enough to like remake the foundations of the world.
Julie:Now, I don't think that's what they were going for, is the analogy that I'm making here, but my mind it just. It captured this idea and I got way too excited about it. But God is a lot like this, his greatness. It is woven into the fabric of nature, his glory and the fact that he must be exalted, he must be worshiped against all others. It holds the world together.
Julie:Like Jesus said that the stones would cry out if the people didn't worship. It's like that with this idolatry, the people. They were created to worship. God brought them into this relationship to exalt and glorify and they were not fulfilling their purpose with the spiritual adultery. So God is jealous for their attention. But God is also jealous for his name to be exalted and seen as what it is the foundation of the very world, the fabric of nature.
Julie:But the crazy thing is we are totally and utterly dependent on God for our greatest and our most lasting happiness and our all-satisfying pleasure. It can only be found in God. So to deny the greatness and to deny the all-sufficiency of God, to ignore or to mock this truth, to commit spiritual adultery and to worship something other than God is to embrace the nothing. Instead of calling out his name, it invokes the rightful jealousy of God and the world crumbles and we are miserable because of it, because we can find no greater satisfaction than in our God.
Julie:So instead of pushing away the jealousy of God because it seems too threatening or something that we don't understand, we as believers, we can rejoice in it. We can revel in that passion and the zeal that God has for us. We can embrace his deep commitment and know that he will never leave us and never forsake us. He cares for us so, so deeply, and he is jealous of our attention and our affections. That is beautiful.
Julie:All of us desire so deeply to be wanted, to be desired, and God is so passionate for us. So we can rest in that passion. We can rest in the power that his name is in the truth, that God is our greatest joy. Nothing can supplant him, no idol can replace him or even come close, because God is our only hope of salvation. He is the balm for our soul that we need to heal. He's the cure for heartache and for loneliness.
Julie:He is the God that sticks closer than a brother. He's the all-sustaining one. He holds all things together by the word of his power, and this God, this big, amazing God, is jealous for our fellowship and for our attention. This should drive us to be more aligned with his heart and his purpose and cause us to worship and rejoice and sing of his praise, because we have been chosen to love this big God, to be committed to him, to take part in that covenant love, and nothing in all of this world can replace that. So, as we kind of go about the rest of our day, I hope and I pray that you can think about this and feel so seen and feel so precious, incredibly desired, because all of these things are true. He desires you, he loves you, he is so devoted to every piece of your life. It's just incredible. So why don't we take today to worship and praise him for it? You.
