The Consuming Fire of a Jealous God | Sunday, July 12, 2020 (Full Service)

Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure... and take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars... you feel driven to worship them and serve them... For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. (Deuteronomy 4:15–24)

God is not jealous of you—He is jealous for you and for His glory, and that glory burns like a consuming fire.

A Word About This Season

Before we venture into our study in Deuteronomy, I want to express my perspective on how and why we are doing things as we are at this moment in church history. Should the Lord delay His return, this moment will be remembered and studied for decades and centuries to come. For the last eighteen weeks we have been disconnected. Cross Connection Church is all about living life in connection with God and one another, yet since March 15th we have not gathered in our normative fashion.

Can I just say that I am tired of this? I don't like preaching to a camera. I would much rather see you face to face. It occurred to me weeks ago that preaching—something I've loved doing for 21 years—has not been nearly as enjoyable. Why do I preach? Yes, because God has called me, but also because I love to preach God's Word. It has been one of the great joys of my life.

The obvious question some of you have asked is, why not just begin meeting again? Other churches are. To this point, I and our pastoral leadership have not sensed the peace of the Lord in doing so. I'm not fearful of the government, and we certainly could fulfill CDC guidelines. The bottom line is that currently we sense this is what the Lord would have us do. First and foremost, we serve Christ and seek to please Him. When the Holy Spirit leads us differently, we'll change course. Until then, this is our new normal—even if I don't entirely like it.

Shorter Messages and Tools for Growth

Some of you have noticed that my messages have been shorter—between 18 and 30 minutes rather than my usual 40. This is intentional. As a parent of four kids eleven and under who watch the services with us, I realized quickly that the messages needed to be a bit shorter. I'm grateful you want me to go longer; it brings a smile to my heart, and I trust that when we gather again you'll never complain about a 45- or 50-minute message.

I've been prayerful that God would give me clarity and wisdom in leading and preaching during this time, and that the messages would stir you to dig deeper into the Scriptures for yourself. To help you, take advantage of the tools we've built: Pastor Mark's Prayer Minder at prayerminder.org, the Daily OT and listening plan, and the Questions Podcast.

Breathe: A Word on the Times

There are conflicting reports about the coronavirus, and confirmation bias abounds—you can easily find information to confirm your already-held views. Some people we're connected to are deeply fearful; others are frustrated and ready to throw caution to the wind. We're told not to gather for church, or that if we do we cannot sing, while we see protests of thousands in close proximity yelling, chanting, and sometimes singing—and the same outlets say those are fine. So breathe. Count to ten. Breathe again.

As your leaders, we have sought to be as compliant as we felt we could within local, state, and national guidelines, in line with our scriptural convictions, sensitive to those concerned among us, and a good witness to our community. At the same time, you are sensible adults. If you want to gather a small group to watch our services as a watch party and feel you can do so safely, then I think you should. Several groups have already been doing this for weeks. If you're immune compromised or fearful, you don't need to gather; but if you are healthy and want to, you're adults, and this is still the land of the free and the home of the brave.

"Something Didn't Feel Right in My Spirit"

We're continuing our series in Deuteronomy, which I've entitled Statutes and Judgments, where Moses reminds Israel of God's law.

A number of years ago I came across a video of Oprah Winfrey describing the point in her late twenties when she effectively gave up the Baptist church and faith she'd been raised in. She told of sitting in church while a charismatic minister preached how great, omniscient, and omnipresent God is—"and the Lord thy God is a jealous God." She said, "Something struck me. I was about 27 or 28. I was thinking, God is all, God is omnipresent, and God's also jealous? God is jealous of me? Something about that didn't feel right in my spirit." She went on to say, "I believe that God is love and that God is in all things, and so that's when the search for something more than doctrines started to stir within me."

Something about that didn't feel right in her spirit—and I agree with her. If the Scripture said God is jealous of Oprah, or of you and me, that would be off. But God is not jealous of us. God is jealous for us. There is a difference, and we'll get to it. But first we have to back up.

Why an Ancient Text Still Matters

Take careful heed to yourselves... lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves carved images in the form of any figure... and take heed lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars... you feel driven to worship them and serve them. (Deuteronomy 4:15–19)

For many years I've made it one of my aims to overlay the Scriptures upon the times in which we live, to see how the eternal truths of the Bible speak to our issues. This matters because a growing number in our society neither know the Scripture nor recognize its value. We are so far removed in time and space from these people of 3,400 years ago that we assume their irrelevance. Yet if you love the freedoms we enjoy in our country, you must recognize that passages such as these are the substructure upon which our culture is constructed. The Enlightenment values we're so fond of didn't arise by chance.

I think there is a direct relationship between our nation's current unstable circumstances and a decreasing awareness of the precepts found in passages such as these. This is why it is so important that we teach these truths to our children, as we began last week with the New City Catechism. They certainly won't learn them in government schools, so they must learn them in our homes.

These Words Shall Be in Your Heart

These words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children... (Deuteronomy 6:6–7)

So what are the words to be in your heart and taught in your home? Take careful heed to yourselves, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image and feel driven to worship and serve them. The worship of idols is a corruption of the glory and majesty of God. This is so basic that it is the foundation of the Ten Commandments:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt... You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image. (Deuteronomy 5:6–8)

Among its meanings, the word worship means to ascribe value, render devotion, and bestow reverence. For us to value anything more highly than God, or render greater devotion to anyone other than Him, is to tarnish His greatness and glory. In idolatry it's not necessarily that we lift something up to or above God, but rather that we bring Him down and stain His glory with the feeble things we worship. This, the Scriptures repeatedly announce, is an abomination.

We Were Made to Worship

Here's the challenge: you and I were created to worship. Worship is an aspect of our makeup, our nature and purpose, which means we will invariably worship something. It's not possible for us not to worship. G.K. Chesterton was noted for saying, "When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing; they then become capable of believing in anything." If I may slightly alter his words: when men choose not to worship God, they do not thereafter worship nothing—they instead worship anything, and by doing so they corrupt and dishonor the glory and majesty of the one true God.

When you met God at Mount Horeb, you didn't see an image. You heard His voice and saw His consuming fire, but no likeness. So be careful that you don't seek to represent Him with the likeness of any human, animal, bird, insect, fish, or even the sun, moon, or stars. God is unlike any likeness we would attribute to Him. The creation He has made is useful in directing our worship toward Him, but it ought never be the object of our worship.

What Paul Says in Romans

This is exactly where the Apostle Paul opens his letter to Rome:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness... For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen... so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful... professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. (Romans 1:18–23)

Paul goes on to say that such people did not like to retain God in their knowledge. They did not want to follow, serve, worship, and revere God. But when men choose not to worship God, they do not thereafter worship nothing—they worship anything.

The Subtlety of Acceptable Idols

The challenge is that such idolatry is subtle, and sometimes the idols of our lives are socially acceptable and even seem to be good things. Moms, you can be so devoted to your children and your identity as a mom that both become idols. Men, you can be so devoted to your job and your identity within your vocation that they become an idol. Millennials, you can be so dedicated to CrossFit, your education, your appearance, or your side hustle that it becomes your idol. All these may seem good things, but they can become gods—lowercase g—in our lives, and we unwittingly become idolaters and tarnish the glory and majesty of God.

Why Moses Was Kept Out

And here's the larger problem: when we begin to be subtly seduced by idolatry, we not only corrupt the glory of God, we misrepresent God to others. This is exactly what Moses addresses next:

Furthermore the Lord was angry with me for your sakes, and swore that I would not cross over the Jordan, and that I would not enter the good land... but I must die in this land. (Deuteronomy 4:21–22)

That seems out of place—like Moses had a squirrel moment, suddenly digressing about being kept from the Promised Land. But it isn't a strange digression at all. Why was Moses kept from entering? Largely because he misrepresented God to God's people by striking the rock when God told him to speak to it. (You can read the story in Numbers 20.) Moses misrepresented God, and as a result the Lord swore he would not cross the Jordan. God will judge misrepresentations of His glory.

Jealous For Us, A Consuming Fire

Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you... for the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. (Deuteronomy 4:23–24)

Take heed to yourselves. Remember that you are a child of God, and that God is greater than all things. As the Creator of all, He deserves glory over all that He has made—and He is jealous for us and for His glory. God is not jealous of us; He is jealous for us. His glory is so great that it will consume, like a consuming fire, everything that exalts itself in His presence. He will judge all misrepresentations of His glory.

That leads to a logical follow-up question: what can we possibly do if we happen to misrepresent God's glory through idolatry—if we do what our very nature compels us to do and worship something other than God? To get the answer, you'll have to wait until next time.

Closing Prayer

Father God, I pray that You would cause Your Word to sink down deep into our hearts, and that these things from Deuteronomy chapter 4 would bring conviction if that's what's needed, or, Lord, that it would compel us to seek after You and worship You more fully. I pray, God, that during this period when many of the superfluous things of this culture have been stripped away—sports, restaurants, the beach, and other distractions—You would help us refine our worship of You, that we would grow in our devotion and reverence. Do a work in us to make us more worshipful of You. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.