Please turn in your Bibles to the book of James, chapter 3. James, chapter 3. I'll begin reading at verse 13, down through chapter 4 and verse 6. James, chapter 3, verse 13. Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exists, there is disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members, you lost and do not have, so you commit murder? and you are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose? He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us, but He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Let's once again pray together. Father, we do ask Your help and blessing upon Your Word as It is preached as it is heard here this morning, and we pray that you would give us the grace in our hearts to receive the word implanted, which is able to save our souls. We pray that you would take away everything that would hinder us, distractions of this world and life, and remaining darkness and hardness that is within us. And we pray that your word would have great power to sanctify us, to purify us, to enlighten our minds, and to teach us great things concerning yourself today. We ask your blessing, Lord Jesus, upon us, each one of us, according to our need. In Jesus' name, amen. Last Lord's Day, we began to look at this passage, and we saw here that the Apostle James takes the role of a spiritual physician. And from the end of chapter 3 into James chapter 4 and verse 4, he diagnosed the spiritual disease of his readers. And his diagnosis was that they had a very serious and a very dangerous disease. It was a disease that rose from the power of their remaining sin in their hearts. There was bitter jealousy and selfish ambition among them. There was a lust for the pleasures and the friendship of the world. And it came out in these quarrels, conflicts, and strife among them. And after hearing how serious this diagnosis was, we might despair and think that this sickness that James describes in this passage is beyond all hope. And we might wonder, is there any cure for such a disease as we find here? Is there anyone who is able to heal this disease and to remove it from the hearts and the lives of men and women, God's people. And to our amazement, James does not leave us in despair. And in beginning in verse 5 and following down through verse 10, James begins to give us the cure of this terrible disease. And it is a certain and sure cure. Last week, last Sunday evening, we looked at verse 5. And we saw that in the first half of the verse, James is introducing an Old Testament teaching. He says there in verse 5, or do you think that the scripture speaks to no purpose? And so he is introducing an Old Testament scripture teaching. He does not introduce a particular passage, but a general teaching of the Old Testament as we see in what follows. And then in what follows, we saw that as we examined that second half of verse 5, we came to a different translation other than that which we find here in the New American Standard. And we came to a translation in which the spirit, which we regard as the Holy Spirit, is the subject of the sentence, and the second half of the verse should read like this, the spirit which he has made to dwell in us yearns jealously over us. This is a translation that is used by many good commentators and other English Bibles, very similar to the New King James Version, which is shorter and even more direct. The New King James reads, or do you think that the scripture says in vain, the spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously? So the Holy Spirit is the subject of the sentence. And here James brings to us two great teachings of the scripture. First, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in every believer from conversion. And secondly, God's jealousy, God's jealousy over his people. James brings both of these together in this one sentence, and he tells us not only that the Holy Spirit dwells in us, But He tells us what the Holy Spirit is doing as He dwells within us. He is yearning jealously over us. His great interest here is the purity and the sanctification of God's people, and so it should be our great interest as well to know what James is telling us here in verse 5 and following, because this cure that he gives here is a cure not just for the particular sins that he mentions in the previous verses, but here we have a cure for the disease of sin whatever it might be within us. So what we want to do this morning is consider a little more closely the truth of the second half of verse 5, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and also especially the jealousy of God over his people. James is writing to Jewish people who had been converted from Judaism to Jesus Christ through the Gospel. And as Jews, they knew the Old Testament Scriptures, and we can see this if we look at different passages beginning back in chapter 1 and verse 1. James here, he introduces the letter in verse 1. James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, tells us what the Holy Spirit is doing as He dwells within us. He is yearning jealously over us. His great interest here is the purity and the sanctification of God's people, and so it should be our great interest as well to know what James is telling us here in verse 5 and following, because this cure that he gives here is a cure not just for the particular sins that he mentions in the previous verses, but here we have a cure for the disease of sin whatever it might be within us. So what we want to do this morning is consider a little more closely the truth of the second half of verse five, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and also especially the jealousy of God over his people. James is writing to Jewish people who had been converted from Judaism to Jesus Christ through the Gospel. And as Jews, they knew the Old Testament Scriptures, and we can see this if we look at different passages beginning back in chapter 1 and verse 1. James here, he introduces the letter in verse one, James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he writes to the 12 tribes who are dispersed abroad. The 12 tribes dispersed abroad, a reference to Jewish believers from Jerusalem, Judea, who had been dispersed into foreign lands by the persecution that arose against them. If we look down to chapter 2 and verse 8, chapter 2 and verse 8, James writes here, if, however, you are fulfilling the royal law, according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well. And then he says down in verse 11, he says, for he who said, do not commit adultery also said, do not commit murder. Now if you commit adultery but do not commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So James here is referring to the Old Testament law, the law of God given in the Old Testament. He assumes that his readers were well aware of that law. If we look down to chapter 2 and verse 21, James says here, verse 21, he says, was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac, his son, upon the altar? Abraham was the father of the Jewish nation. And James refers to him here as Abraham, our father, the father of the Jewish people. In verse 23. He says, and the scripture was fulfilled, which says, and Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. And he quotes there from Genesis chapter 15 and verse 6. And then he says at the end of verse 23, and he, Abraham, was called the friend of God, which refers to Isaiah chapter 41 and verse 8, in which God himself called Abraham, my friend, down in chapter three, and at the end of verse nine, he speaks of men who have been made in the likeness of God, and that comes from Genesis chapter one in the creation. And then down in chapter 4, in verse 4, he calls them, you adulteresses. He is accusing them of spiritual adultery, an idea based in the Old Testament Scripture where God was like a husband to his people in a marriage covenant and their idolatry was, he often called, an adultery, a spiritual adultery. So James here, throughout this letter, he is speaking to Jewish believers whom he assumes were well acquainted with the Old Testament Scriptures. They were people who knew the history of the Jewish nation and the Old Testament Scriptures as well. So when he comes here in the second half of verse 5, and he speaks of the jealousy of God. James is assuming that his readers have a background from the Old Testament concerning that great teaching of the Old Testament, the jealousy of God. The jealousy of God, an important doctrine of the Old Testament scripture, the character of God, and as we'll see, it carries into the New Testament as well. So if we are to understand what James is saying here in the second half of verse 5, then we ought to understand something about the jealousy of God as it is revealed in the scripture. The spirit whom he has made to dwell in us, what is he doing in us? He is jealously yearning over us. So we want to look this morning at the jealousy of God in the scripture. And we begin back in Deuteronomy chapter five, in the book of Deuteronomy chapter five. And in Deuteronomy chapter 5, Moses was preparing the people of Israel to enter into the promised land of Canaan. And he recounts here in this chapter the scene at Mount Sinai 40 years before when God took his people out into the wilderness To that mountain, they surrounded the mountain. God descended upon the top of the mountain in majesty and glory. And the entire mountain quaked. And the top of the mountain, the smoke was ascending like the smoke of a furnace. And God spoke his 10 commandments from the mountain with his own voice. And Moses reminds them of this here in verse 4. And following, he says, the Lord spoke to you face to face at the mountain from the midst of the fire. While I was standing before the Lord and you at that time to declare to you the word of the Lord, for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain. He said, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. And then in verse seven, we have the first commandment. You shall have no other gods before me. The nations at that time were polytheists, which means that they had many gods and they sought to worship the many gods at the same time. The God of the rain, the God of the sun, the God of the stars, many different gods among the nations. But the Israelites were to worship only one true God, Jehovah. The God of the creation, the God who sustains all things and made all things. He must be the only object of the affections of the hearts of his people. You shall have no other God, he says, before me. Fallen man by nature is a polytheist in his heart, always trying to find another God to worship. And so anything that we delight in, anything that we take pleasure in, set our affections upon it, have joy and hope in it, so that it begins to have a place upon the throne of our hearts, that thing has become a false god, another god to us. Matthew Henry writes, pride makes a god of self. Covetousness makes a god of money. Sensuality makes a god of the belly. Whatever is esteemed or loved, feared or served, delighted in or depended upon more than God, whatever it is, we do, in effect, make a god of it. So the first commandment is given, and then we have the second commandment now in verses eight through 10, and this commandment is concerning the legitimate worship of God, and here we find the jealousy of God, verses eight through 10. He says, you shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments. Now, if all that we were given were the first commandment, that God is the only God, It would not be sufficient because we need to also know how we should worship this God. And since He is the only true God, He alone has the right to command men on earth how He is to be worshiped, and that's what we have in His commandments of worship. in his word. If you look down at the end of verse 10 when he speaks of keeping my commandments, he is speaking here in the second commandment regarding worship. So the commandments that he's mentioned there are especially the commandments of God in regard to worship. Moses had God's commandments in regard to the tabernacle in the wilderness. David added to God's commandments in the temple in Jerusalem. And we now have his commandments in the gospel worship of the New Testament church given to us by the head of the church, Jesus Christ alone. The second commandment regarding worship forbids idolatry. because an idol can never represent the nature, the true nature of the living God. God is alive, an idol is dead. God is infinite, an idol is finite and limited. God is a spirit, but an idol has a body. God has power, an idol has no power. God has all wisdom and idol has no wisdom whatsoever and so on and so an idol, any idol, any creation of man's hands, anything that man can do, any art form that man can create, it is all a lie. And it can never accurately represent the glory of the great and mighty God. So the meaning of the prohibition here against idolatry is that God must be worshiped in spirit. in a way that is consistent with his nature. He is a spiritual being. He must be worshiped in spirit and in truth, as Jesus said. And when he speaks here in verse eight of all these different kinds of idols, of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth, what he is really saying is he is embracing all inventions all the imaginations of men, all man-made additions and mixtures of human will, which men bring and corrupt God's worship. God must be worshiped, he says, according to his commandments alone and not by the desires and the attractions and the entertainments of men. He says in the beginning of verse nine, you shall not worship them nor serve them. And then to enforce the commandment, he speaks of himself. The reason why this is so, he says, is for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. A revelation of himself to us. This is who he is in his nature. He says, I am a jealous God. Now when we think of human jealousy, We know that it's often mixed with selfishness and sinful motives. But jealousy in itself can be for something that is good and right. For example, a man may be jealous over his good name and his reputation. A man may be jealous over the faithfulness of his wife. A man may be jealous over the concern for the welfare of others. Paul speaks in this way in 2 Corinthians 11, in verse two, he said, I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, for I betroth you to one husband, that is to Christ, that I may present you as a pure virgin. So jealousy is like anger. It may be righteous in itself, but it is often sinful in men. But in God, in God, the holy and great God, the jealousy of God is always pure and holy. And he is jealous over two things. He is jealous over the honor and glory that is due to him. He is the only supreme being in all the universe. There is none other like him. He stands. In a category all by himself, he is infinitely separated from all other beings. He is exalted above all others. There is none other like him. He says, I am God, and there is none other. And so as the supreme being, the God of heaven deserves all honor, praise, and glory, and he is jealous for the glory of his own name. He will not share his glory with any other. The second thing he is jealous over is over his people. He is jealous over the purity and the holiness of his own people. He is jealous because His name is upon them and His character ought to be seen in them, and He is jealous over them here especially that they would obey His commandments and accurately reflect Him in their lives and in their worship. And this is seen now in what follows in verses 9 and 10, in the rest of verse 9 and 10, God expresses his jealousy here in two ways. Or I should say his jealousy is seen, manifested in two ways. It's important for us to see this here. After declaring himself to be a jealous God in verse 9, I am a jealous God, now he states two ways in which his jealousy is made known. First, in terror upon those who provoke his jealousy by disobeying his commandments of worship. And second, in sweet blessings, sweet promises of blessings upon those who obey his commandments of worship, we might call this the blessing and the curse. First comes the curse. Upon those who provoke his jealousy, in the middle of verse nine, he says, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. He takes the violation of his worship so serious. The violation of his commandments, he is not indifferent to or careless over. He takes it so seriously that those who violate his worship, he says they provoke his jealousy, and he regards them as his enemies. He wants men to have reverence. He wants men to have fear as they come into his worship. So he makes this most terrifying statement to them, and he tells them here, I am a jealous God over my worship. And if my jealousy is provoked, it will not die down quickly. It is so intense that it will burn down to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. There are consequences to false worship that extend generation to generation. Children are most precious to their parents, and so there ought to be Nothing parents fear more than to involve themselves in false worship and to provoke God to this jealousy against them. The second way his jealousy is seen is in his great blessing and favor upon those who keep his commandments of worship. In verse 10 he says, but showing loving kindness to thousands To those who love me and keep my commandments. Those who love him, they will show it in the keeping of his commandments. Love toward God is always seen in the keeping of his commandments. They are always together. So those here who love him, they do not add to his worship and they do not subtract from his worship. They keep his commandments just as he has given them. And when they do, the Lord promises here that he will show loving-kindness upon them, which is his mercy, his abundant mercy, his grace toward them. There is this river of loving-kindness that is very wide and deep that flows from God and it extends now down to thousands, to thousands, he says, showing loving kindness to thousands. So his loving kindness in verse 10 is much wider and greater than his curse in verse 9. He is a God who is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and mercy, and that's what he states here. So what we see here in regard to the jealousy of God, that he is jealous in two ways. First, in his burning wrath against those who offend and provoke him. And second, in his favor and blessing upon those who love him and keep his commandments. Of course, when he speaks of the keeping of his commandments, he is not speaking here of a sinless perfection, but a sincere and an earnest desire to keep his commandments. And those who walk in this way, they still need his mercy and his forgiveness at all times. And they shall receive it. And they shall receive mercy upon mercy, grace upon grace, favor upon favor. He is the God who will show mercy, loving kindness to thousands, to those who love him, and keep his commandments. It is if God here in the second commandment is setting before his people a choice in regard to his jealousy. Would we bring the curse of his jealousy upon us in violating his commandments? Or would we bring the blessing of his jealousy upon us by keeping his commandments? Matthew Henry says concerning those who keep his commandments of worship, he says, they shall receive grace to keep his other commandments. Keep his commandments of worship and other grace will come to other commandments. Matthew Henry says, gospel worship will have a good influence upon all manner of gospel obedience. We find the same thing, we look back for just a moment to chapter four of Deuteronomy, chapter four and verse two. Chapter 4 and verse 2, he says, you shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. He is speaking in this context of the worship of the people as they enter into the land of Canaan. And he's telling them here that if they are to keep his commandments, they must not add to his commandments. They must not take away anything from his commandments. It's the only way to keep his commandments as they are given. And then in chapter 4 and verse 23 and 24, he says this. Chapter 4, verse 23, he says, so watch yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you. And make for yourselves a graven image in the form of anything against which the Lord your God has commanded you, for the Lord your God is a consuming fire. Verse 23, he reminds them that when they enter the land of Canaan, they are not to worship by any graven image or in any way that he has not commanded. The reason is given in verse 24, for the Lord your God is a consuming fire and a jealous God. So we have seen something of the jealousy of God here in these passages from the Old Testament scripture. He is jealous over the honor and glory of his own name as God in heaven, and he is jealous over his people. A jealousy to bless them if they obey, but a jealousy to punish those who disobey. We ask the question, is God still a jealous God in the New Testament, under the new covenant? Is he still the same today as he was back then? The answer is absolutely yes, because he is an immutable God. He is unchanging in all of his character. He is always the same, yesterday, today, yes, and forever, the unchanging, immutable God. And we will see this in two passages, especially of the scripture. The New Testament will turn first to the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 10. 1 Corinthians. Chapter 10, and I'll read verses 14 down through verse 22. Paul says, verse 14, therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. Flee from idols. I speak as to wise men, you judge what I say. Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Look at the nation Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifices sharers in the altar? What do I mean then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No. But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to become sharers in 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. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? We are not stronger than he, are we?" The situation which Paul addressed here is that in the city of Corinth, There were temples dedicated to idols, and the unbelievers offered sacrifices to the idols in those pagan temples. And Paul will later admit that to eat the meat sacrificed to an idol is not sinful in itself, but what he is saying here is that if one attends a feast in the temple, to attend a feast in the temple, of a pagan idol, as some of the believers were tempted to do, would necessarily involve them in idolatry. They would be partaking of a sacrifice. To partake of a sacrifice or an offering to any so-called god necessarily brings one into fellowship with that god. His argument is one from analogy. Just as attendance at the Lord's Supper is an act of communion with Christ, so attendance at the feast of an idol in a temple is communion with that idol. He says in verse 20, I say that the things which Gentiles sacrifice He now tells us they are actually sacrificing to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to become sharers in demons. And the two things are incompatible with one another. As he says in verse 21, you shall not 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. What he is saying here is that you cannot serve two gods at the same time. Whether they be God and demons or whether they be God and riches or God and any other false God, God demands full and undivided allegiance, complete devotion to himself. We cannot share, he will not share his worship with another in the affections of the hearts of his people. So that's the situation. And then he says in verse 22, he says, or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? To engage in such behavior, he says, and try and worship the Lord Jesus and some other God at the same time, to do such a thing would be to provoke the Lord to jealousy and to kindle his anger against us. So Paul is warning them they cannot go to the pagan temple feast lest they would bring the Lord's displeasure upon them. The Lord that he speaks of here is the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of the church. And Paul is telling us here that the Lord Jesus is jealous over his people, over his church, and their worship here at the Lord's Supper. We see his jealousy in other places in the New Testament when he cleansed the temple, he is jealous. Earlier in the chapter, Paul has mentioned various occasions in the history of the nation of Israel in which they provoke God's jealousy and brought his judgment upon them. Back there, he mentions at the end of verse six, they craved evil things. In verse seven, he mentions their idolatry when they worship the golden calf. Then he mentions immorality, 23,000 fell in a single day. And then verse 10, they were grumbling and they were destroyed by the destroyer. In verse 11, what does all of this have anything to do with us? Yes, Paul says, these things happened to them as an example. that they were written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the ages has come and then he goes into this situation regarding the Lord's Supper and he speaks of the jealousy of the Lord. So what Paul is telling us here is that the God of the Old Testament in his jealousy, it is still the same today from our Lord Jesus in his jealousy over his church. The jealousy of God has not changed. And what we saw in the second commandment and the jealousy of God in either the curse upon those who disobey or the blessing upon those who obey is still the same today in the New Testament. And we see the blessing upon those who obey in verse 16. Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? is not the bread which we break, a sharing in the body of Christ. When we come to the Lord's Tufts Supper and we partake of the cup and the bread, there are spiritual blessings that come upon us and we become partakers in all the benefits and the blessings of the blood and body of Christ upon the cross. There are blessings upon those who keep his commandments. But for those who disobey, down in verse 22, they provoke the Lord to anger, he says. They provoke him to jealousy. Then he says at the end of verse 22, we are not stronger than he, are we? We are not able to stand against him if we provoke his jealousy against us, are we? And the answer is, of course, we are not strong enough to stand before him, and so let us do all things to make sure that we do not provoke the Lord Jesus to jealousy. So we notice here that this jealousy of Christ is in the context of the worship of the church when the church is gathered together for worship at the Lord's Supper just as it was in the second commandment in Deuteronomy chapter five. Unfortunately, it seems the Corinthians did provoke the Lord to jealousy. In other misuses of the Lord's Supper, Paul has to speak of this in chapter 11, verse 30. For this reason, he says, many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep as in death. So the jealousy of the Lord continues here under the new covenant. We turn to one other passage in the book of Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12. And verse 28 and 29. Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, Let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. So the apostle here is speaking to the New Covenant believers. In verse 28, he says that we do receive a kingdom that is unshakable, an eternal kingdom of Christ which can never be moved. And so we must come, he says, let us show gratitude, let us come with thankfulness and praise and honor to God. And then he says, by which we may offer to God, by which we may offer to him sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, offer to him his worship, language of worship. So he is speaking of worship and an acceptable service, an acceptable worship is what he speaks of. So what is an acceptable worship with God? With reverence and with awe, he says, with the greatest fear, with the highest possible respect for his greatness and glory. That's what acceptable worship is. Not all worship, the implication here is not all worship is acceptable to God. Our desire as Christians is to bring acceptable worship, worship that he will accept in heaven. Not worship that we feel good about, not worship that entertains us, but worship that is acceptable.