Shall We Provoke the Lord to Jealousy?
Notes
Transcript
Our text this morning comes from 1 Corinthians 10:14-22:
Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?
May God bless this, the reading of His holy and infallible Word.
As Paul continues to address the issue of idolatry, he says something that sounds strange to our modern ears, “Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy?” It sounds strange because the way we use the word “jealousy” is used in modern English it has become synonym of “envy.” Envy of course, is a great evil. We saw this in last week’s sermon. However, “jealousy” was not originally a synonym of “envy”. Jealousy is the righteous and loving desire to preserve a right relationship with others.
Let me illustrate the differences between jealousy and envy:
A young woman can be “envious” of other women who are vying for the affections of her boyfriend. It is envy, because she has no right to claim ownership over the affections of her boyfriend. They are his to give to whomever he wants. However, once this young man becomes her fiancé, and especially after he becomes her husband, it is a totally different situation. Now his affections and desires are hers and hers alone. He has no right to give them to any other woman. It is right and proper for her to be “jealous” of his affections and desires. If she were not jealous, it would be evidence that she does not properly value her relationship with her husband.
In both Testaments, God’s people are called His “bride”. This is done to communicate the intimacy and fidelity of God’s relationship with His people. This is why God is a “jealous” God. He is “jealous” not because he is envious, but because He is loving and righteous.
This bring us to the first point:
God is Jealous to Preserve Pure Worship
God is Jealous to Preserve Pure Worship
God is the one and only true God. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul is making a very clear allusion to Deuteronomy 32. Deuteronomy 32 is one of the most important passages in the entire Bible. It is called the “Song of Moses”. A song Moses composed shortly before his death and after a lifetime of ministry. It is both a reflection upon the past and a prophetic look into the future. In this song, we find the following key statement:
“ ‘See now that I, even I, am he,
and there is no god beside me;
I kill and I make alive;
I wound and I heal;
and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.
God is unique; there is none beside Him. In addition, God is essential; there is no life without Him!
Unique and essential! This is why God is a jealous God. Imagine with me if God were not jealous to preserve His relationship with us. Imagine if He did not care if we worshiped and trusted in other gods. What would we lose? We would lose everything!
In that same song, we hear Moses sing:
For their rock is not as our Rock;
our enemies are by themselves.
If you reject God, you are by yourself!
Moses continues:
Then he will say, ‘Where are their gods,
the rock in which they took refuge,
who ate the fat of their sacrifices
and drank the wine of their drink offering?
Let them rise up and help you;
let them be your protection!
Let us rejoice this morning that God is a jealous God. He cares enough to care!
In those last two verses I read, Moses speaks of eating and drinking. This brings us back as to why it was so bad for some of the Corinthians to participate in the sacramental meals that were being held at the local pagan temple.
Eating and Drinking With Demons
Eating and Drinking With Demons
In our passage, Paul compares the Lord’s Supper to these meals being held in the local pagan temple. To understand this comparison, you need to understand what a sacrament is.
A sacrament is a divinely ordained means by which we participate in the life and power of a deity. Some in the Christian tradition that believe that the Lord’s Supper and Baptism are only ordinances. According to this view, the Lord’s Supper is a memorial and Baptism is an initiation rite. The Lord’s Supper and Baptism are most certainly these things, but they are much more, they are a means by with we participate in the life and power of Jesus Christ. This is clearly seen in our text:
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.
In Romans 6, a parallel passage speaks of baptism:
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
This participation is also true of the “sacraments” of idolatry:
No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.
We can draw from this several applications. First, the materialistic, anti-supernatural worldview that dominates our society is naive and misguided. This worldview is the driving force behind theological liberalism. A belief system that attempts to remove from Christianity all reference to the supernatural and miraculous, including the virgin birth and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Although most of us would not go that far, I am afraid many of us so remove the spiritual realm from our thinking that we live our day-to-day life like atheists. Demons and the spiritual realm are real and we need to be on guard.
This brings me to the second application, because the spiritual realm and the demonic are real, we need to be careful not to participate with them. As I warned you about several weeks ago, many of the activities we engage in may seem like harmless fun, but in reality, they are far from it. Palm reading, Ouija boards, horoscopes, and witchcraft may seem like harmless fun, but they are far from harmless. They act like conduits to the spiritual realm and they can bring us under the influence or even the control of demons.
The final and most important application has to do with idolatry. Because pagan “sacraments” bring us into a relationship with the demonic realm, they are idolatrous and...
Idolatry is Exchanging the Best for the Worst
Idolatry is Exchanging the Best for the Worst
God is not envious of demons. Even the most powerful fallen beings, including Satan himself, are nothing more than flies on the wall that can be smashed by God’s might in a moment! They really, truly are nothing, compared to God. Compared to us, their power is vast and they should not be taken lightly; but compared to God they are nothing!
This is why God is so jealous. God loves and cares for His people. Let us look again at the Song of Moses:
“The Rock, his work is perfect,
for all his ways are justice.
A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,
just and upright is he.
Moses however, prophetically foresaw what would happen:
“But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked;
you grew fat, stout, and sleek;
then he forsook God who made him
and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.
They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods;
with abominations they provoked him to anger.
They sacrificed to demons that were no gods,
to gods they had never known,
to new gods that had come recently,
whom your fathers had never dreaded.
You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you,
and you forgot the God who gave you birth.
Do you see what Israel did when they committed idolatry?
Do you see what we do when we commit idolatry?
We exchange good for evil, the powerful for the powerless, and life for death!
If God were not jealous, He would not be loving; and so He responds to idolatry appropriately:
“ ‘And I will heap disasters upon them;
I will spend my arrows on them;
they shall be wasted with hunger,
and devoured by plague
and poisonous pestilence;
I will send the teeth of beasts against them,
with the venom of things that crawl in the dust.
This is why we do not want to provoke the Lord. We are not stronger than the Lord. If we are committing idolatry, we will be cut down as Israel was cut down.
However, in the midst of God judgement against idolatry, there is always mercy!
In mercy, God always preserves for Himself a righteous remnant:
For the Lord will vindicate his people
and have compassion on his servants,
when he sees that their power is gone
and there is none remaining, bond or free.
Brothers and sisters, we live in a day when sadly many, if not most, professing Christians are provoking the Lord to jealousy. We have a choice before us today: will we join them in their idolatry or will we remain steadfast in our faith and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ? Let us not provoke the Lord to jealousy.
