The LORD God Almighty is a Jealous GOD

Several years ago, I saw a video clip of a famous talk show host in which she said that, as a teenager, she began being skeptical about the God of the Bible when her church kept speaking of God being a jealous God. Her thought was something like this: “How small and petty God must be that He wants my stuff.” I recall thinking, “She does not know what jealous means.”
 

But, she is not to be blamed for her misunderstanding, for the meaning of jealous is somewhat different from what it was in the days when the KJV was translated. Now we consider jealousy and envy to be very nearly synonymous. But that was not always so. Long ago, jealous and zealous were essentially the same word. Both come from the same Latin background but each entered our vocabulary through different languages.
 

But eventually, jealous became associated with one’s possessions. The idea is that one was fiercely or “zealously” protective of what he had. So, at that time, the distinction between envy and jealousy was that you are envious of the possessions of others but jealous with regard to your own things.


Given this understanding of the word “jealous,” we learn from the Scriptures that: God is jealous for His glory. Isaiah 42.8 says, “I am the LORD, that is My name; and My glory I will not give to another...” It would be improper for us to be so protective of our own glory, but it is perfectly suitable that the One who spoke the heavens and the earth into 
existence and provides all living things with their sustenance would be protective of the glory due to Him. We are not to seek our own glory, but all things were designed and ordered by God for the very purpose of revealing His glory to His creatures, and He is absolutely insistent that His glory and praise will not be given to another. Romans 1.21 says that the beginning of the degradation of human society began,  “because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God.”
 

God is jealous for His throne Isaiah 46.10 reads, “... My 
purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.” God 
is absolutely sovereign over all things and will not allow 
His eternal decree to go unfulfilled. So “sovereign” is God, not only does He do everything He wants to do, no one is allowed even to question Him about His actions (Daniel 4.35; Romans 9.19-24.)
 

God is jealous for His people. All things belong to God 
for, “The earth is the LORD’s and everything in it.” All 
people are His by virtue of the fact He has created them. 
But there is a people whom God has claimed as
especially His own, assigning them the destiny of being 
with the Lord Jesus and like the Lord Jesus for all 
eternity. In John 6.39, the Lord said, “And this is the 
Father's will which hath sent Me, that of all which He 
hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it 
up again at the last day.” 


God is jealous of His people, utterly unwilling that any of them should be lost. He entrusted them to the care of His Son (John 17.6), and the Son will not lose any of them. God’s chosen people are dear to Him and He is jealous of them. The book of Revelation is a long testimony of the jealousy of God for His people. 

Though all the world be against them with its seductive powers, political powers, and false religions – the world cannot deprive the Lord of a single one of His elect. It is written that Babylon (symbol of a godless world) is destroyed because “in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.” God’s jealousy ensures the complete salvation of all God’s church (the elect) and the complete destruction of all her enemies. God is a jealous God, and I am glad of it!

-preacher Joe Terrell 

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