The Consuming Fire of a Jealous God | Sunday, July 12, 2020

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... for the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. (Deuteronomy 4:15-24)

When we refuse to worship the one true God, we don't worship nothing—we worship anything, and stain His glory in the process.

A Word About This Moment in Church History

Before we venture into Deuteronomy this morning, I want to express my perspective on how and why we are doing things as we are at this moment in church history. This is a moment that, should the Lord delay His return, will be remembered and studied for decades and centuries from now. For the last eighteen weeks we have been disconnected. Cross Connection Church is all about living life in connection with God and one another, but since March 15th we have not been gathering 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 on Sunday morning. Preaching is something I've loved doing for the last twenty-one years and looked forward to each week, but preaching to a camera week in and week out has not been nearly as enjoyable. I do it because God has called me to it, and because I love to preach God's Word—it has been one of the great joys of my life.

Why We Are Not Yet Gathering

The obvious question, which some of you have asked, is why not just begin to meet again? Other churches are doing so. Those are good questions, to which I can only say that, to this point, our pastoral leadership has not sensed the peace of the Lord in doing so. I'm not fearful of the government, and we're not overly concerned that we couldn't fulfill CDC guidelines—we certainly could. The bottom line is that we sense this is what the Lord would have us do. First and foremost we serve Christ and seek to please Him. When it seems good to us and we sense the Holy Spirit leading differently, we will change course. Until then, this is our new normal, even if I don't entirely like it.

I've also received questions about the length of my messages. You're not imagining it—my online messages have been shorter, typically between eighteen and thirty minutes, whereas in person I preach about forty. 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. It does bring a smile to my heart to know you want me to go longer, so when we gather again and I preach for fifty minutes, I expect you'll never complain.

I have been prayerful that God would give me clarity and wisdom in how I lead and preach during this time, and that the messages would stir you to dig deeper into the Scriptures for yourself. Take advantage of the tools we've built: Pastor Mark's Prayer Minder, the Daily OT and listening plan, and the Questions Podcast.

Breathe, Count to Ten, Breathe Again

There are a lot of conflicting reports about coronavirus. Confirmation bias abounds—you can easily find information online to confirm whatever views you already hold. Some say the virus is extremely dangerous and we need to shut down longer; others say we should open up and accept it as a bad flu. As a result, some people we're connected to are deeply fearful, and others are frustrated and angry, ready to throw caution to the wind. We're told not to gather for church or sing, while at the same time we see protests filled with thousands of people in close proximity, yelling and sometimes even singing. If you're fearful, I understand. If you're frustrated, I get it. Breathe, count to ten, breathe again.

As your leaders, we have sought to be as compliant as we felt we could within local and national guidelines, in line with our scriptural convictions, sensitive to those concerned, and a good witness to our community. At the same time, you are sensible adults. If you'd like to gather with a small group within the church 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 so for weeks. If you're immune compromised or fearful, you don't need to gather; but if you are healthy and would like to, you're adults, and this is still the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Statutes and Judgments

That's probably enough soapboxing. We're in Deuteronomy chapter 4, two weeks into a new series I've entitled Statutes and Judgments, in which Moses reminds Israel of God's law. Let me read our passage as a whole:

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... and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars... you feel driven to worship them... For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

"Something About That Didn't Feel Right in My Spirit"

A number of years ago I came upon a video of Oprah Winfrey speaking about the point in her late twenties when she effectively gave up on the Baptist faith she'd been raised in. She described sitting in church listening to a charismatic minister preach about how great God is—omniscient, omnipresent, God is everything—and then he said, "And the Lord thy God is a jealous God." She was caught up in the rapture of that moment until he said jealous. She thought, "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 you, or me, then 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.

You Saw No Form—Make No Image

Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb... lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves carved images... 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 many years I've made it one of my aims to overlay the Scriptures upon the times in which we are living. This is important because a growing number in our society neither know the Scripture nor recognize its value. We are far removed in time and space from people living thirty-four hundred years ago, and we tend to assume their irrelevance. But 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 are fond of didn't arise out of nothing or by chance.

I think there is a direct relationship between the current destabilizing circumstances in our nation and a decreasing awareness of the principles in passages like these. This is why what we began last week in the New City Catechism matters so much—we must teach these truths to our children. They will not learn them in government schools, so they must learn them in our homes. As Moses says in Deuteronomy 6:

These words which I command you today shall be in your heart; you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.

The Corruption of God's Glory

So what are these words to be written on our hearts and taught in our homes? Take careful heed lest you make for yourselves a carved image and feel driven to worship and serve it. The worship of idols is a corruption of the glory and majesty of God. So basic is this principle that it forms the foundation of the Decalogue:

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

We Were Made to Worship

Here is the challenge: you and I were created to worship. Worship is an aspect of our makeup, our nature, and our purpose, which means we will invariably worship something. It is 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 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 not 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, for He is the maker of all things. The creation is useful in directing our worship toward Him, but it is never to be the object of our worship.

Romans 1: The Descent into Idolatry

This is exactly what Paul opens his letter to Rome with:

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 they thankful... 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 says such people did not like to retain God in their knowledge. But when men choose not to worship God, they do not thereafter worship nothing; instead they worship anything. And such idolatry is subtle. Sometimes the idols of our life 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 an idol. Men, you can be so devoted to your job and your vocational identity 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 things may seem good, but they can become gods—lowercase g—in our lives, and we unwittingly become idolaters who tarnish the glory of God.

Moses Misrepresented God

And here is the larger problem: when we are subtly seduced into idolatry, we not only corrupt the glory of God, we also 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... but I must die in this land. (Deuteronomy 4:21-22)

That seems to fit oddly with what he's been saying—like one of those squirrel moments. He's talking about the danger of idolatry, then digresses to being kept out of the Promised Land. But it isn't a strange digression at all. Why was Moses kept from the Promised Land? Largely because he misrepresented God to God's people by striking the rock when God told him to speak to it (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.

A Consuming Fire, a Jealous God

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. Remember that God is greater than all things, that as the creator of all things He deserves glory over all things He has made—and He is jealous for us and for His glory. God is not jealous of us; He is jealous for us and for His glory. And 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: 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 to that question, 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 that they would compel us to seek after You and worship You more fully. I pray, God, that during this time when many of the superfluous things of this culture have been stripped away—no sports on TV, less ability to go out to restaurants or the beach—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.