Part 2: God Is A Consuming Fire
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Two androids (from the show, Dark Matter): when new one is introduced, the old one gets jealous because the new one can cook, massage, and play games while the old one is boring…but has literally kept everyone alive.
It’s as far fetched as anything on a show where six crew members and android are running as ship that can travel faster than the speed of light.
But it highlights how universal jealousy is. We have all experienced it.
We generally recognize jealousy as a negative, destructive emotion that is not healthy.
Transition
That recognition presents us with something of a problem when it comes to understanding God.
Instruction
There are a number of times where the Bible describes God as jealous.
15 (for the Lord your God is a jealous God among you), lest the anger of the Lord your God be aroused against you and destroy you from the face of the earth.
One Concept with Two Connotations
One Concept with Two Connotations
We generally explain it by saying that zealous and jealous are the same word, and come from the same words. Zealous has a positive connotation while jealous has a negative connotation. Obviously God is zealous.
It doesn’t really answer though because God is described as both zealous and jealous and if it should only mean zealous, why does it say jealous?
God Is Other
God Is Other
As we discussed last week (available online on our website), God is completely other than us. Since He is, we have to at least consider that He experiences emotions differently than we do. This allows us to ask if God’s jealousy is not negative and has a greater purpose. There are certainly some passages that hint that may be the case.
God Is a Consuming Fire
God Is a Consuming Fire
In Deuteronomy 4, Moses was reminding the people of Israel about the time that God appeared to them all at Mount Horeb. He appeared in the form of fire upon the mountain and spoke to the whole nation. Moses warns them...
23 Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you. 24 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
Far from incidental, this reminder ties God’s jealousy with a consuming fire. It also suggests the purpose for God’s jealousy.
Fire is something we do understand
Fire is something we do understand
Fire has four uses:
Comfort (heat and atmosphere)
Cook
Cleanse (purify)
Consume
The last two, cleanse and consume, are related: one destroys that which is undesired, the other destroys completely.
Fire is something we will face
10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. 11 For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 13 each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. 14 If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
The things that will get burned are the temporary, earthly things that are unrelated to our created purpose.
It turns out that God, in His jealousy, wants us to be all that He created us to be and wants to burn away the things that prevent us from being who we could and should be.
Conclusion
God will consume the wicked who refuse to live according to their created purposes
God will consume the elements of the righteous that interferes with us living according to our created purposes