AROUSING GOD’S JEALOUSY AND ANGER
By comparing the worldly kingdoms of religion with God’s kingdom we can begin to understand why God considers the religious people (i.e. nations) who occupy the world to be his enemies. Simply put, the ways of religion are nothing like God’s ways. The way of religion always includes a religious leader (e.g. pastor, rabbi, prophet, teacher, evangelist, etc.) who presumes to speak for God by interpreting the literal Bible to a congregation that trusts that religious leader and travels to listen to a sermon/message about the Bible. In God’s view, people who choose the way of religion have chosen to listen to Trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God’s way is that his people choose to listen to his spoken voice which is a Tree of Life. When people do not listen to his voice, his jealousy and anger is aroused.

The way God sees it, the difference between his way and the ways of religion place religious people in direct conflict with him. In God’s typical way of overstating matters to make a point, conflict means warfare with enemies.

Since the potential territory (i.e. land/earth/people) that any kingdom can occupy is subject to change, religious kingdoms are in constant competition for the hearts and minds of people who will support them with money, service and loyalty. Running a worldly kingdom, including a religious kingdom, is not cheap. Human resources, communication systems, money, organizational structures and other kinds of worldly resources are necessary to keep religious kingdoms viable. Kingdoms that have more of this support are more attractive. They have newer, nicer, bigger buildings; they have better musicians and sound systems; they have more staff and programs, attractive websites, and more and better of everything that enables them to compete for customers that buy religious commodities. It is all about branding and marketing commercial, religious products and services. Religions that stay up to date with all of these visible features are able to entice member/citizens of other religions to transfer their loyalty and personal resources (e.g. money, time, talents, etc.) to a different kingdom that suits their needs better.

It is critical to recognize that God’s kingdom requires none of these worldly resources to establish his kingdom and maintain order in it. God’s kingdom is a spiritual (i.e. it has no physical substance) kingdom that requires none of the material/worldly resources and tools used by worldly/religious kingdoms to attract and retain citizens. Nor does God require any human person to establish or administer (i.e. mediate) his kingdom. Rather, God manages his kingdom through spiritual — not human — laws that he writes on the hearts of New Covenant disciples so that they live by faith and not by sight.

God has only one weapon that he uses in his competition with religion for the hearts and minds of his people: His spoken voice/word. He wields this weapon directly and through his chosen/anointed agents: true prophets, angels, messiahs, high priests, witnesses, and warriors. He sends then into battle to speak for him to religious people who do not know how to hear his voice.

The problem for Old/First Covenant religionists is that they understand none of this. They are so accustomed to practicing religion and listening to false prophets that they don’t know that they should be listening to God’s voice. Worse yet, they do not understand that failure to listen to God’s voice is sin. They wrongly believe that having a religious leader listen to God for them and report what they hear (e.g. through a sermon, book, music, etc.) to an attentive congregation satisfies God’s expectations for listening to him. This is wrong thinking.

The reality is that God does not want any human mediator between him and his people. He considers failure to listen to his voice rebellion which is sin. Rebellion angers God just like any father is angered when his children refuse to listen and obey when he gives them instruction. And just like any father will discipline a rebellious child whom he loves, God is compelled our of love to discipline his children for their rebelliousness.

But God, in his wisdom, does not take his misbehaving (i.e. sinful) kids out behind the woodshed for a licking, send them to the naughty corner for a time out, or deprive them of some physical thing that they cherish. He does not discipline as human parents discipline. His chosen form of discipline is to let his children have the desires of their heart for a time but then bring judgement later on for pursuing the desires of their heart. If they want to listen to false prophets, whom he considers to be other gods, he lets them have their way with confidence that, sooner or later, they will see things his way and repent for going their own way and for listening to false prophets. In the meantime, if they want the kind of meat that religion offers instead of spiritual food, he lets them have it until they get sick of it. But, in the interim, while they enjoy the forbidden fruit of religion, they must suffer the consequences of their disobedience: Separation from God (i.e. spiritual death, exile).

Religious people understand nothing about Godly discipline. Because they have only known religion and have never really known God, they do not know that while they are religious (i.e. fail to obey all of God’s commands — including the commands to tear down high places and set captives free) they are exiled/separated from God. In ignorance of their exiled condition, any trouble they might experience is attributed to random evil, demons or Satan. They have no idea that trouble comes as a result of the curse of disobedience. They have no idea that they need discipline because they are thoroughly convinced that their religion makes them righteous and protects them from trouble.

Totally oblivious of their exiled condition and the fact that they are being disciplined, they are very proud of their righteousness. When God says that they should have no other gods before him, they cannot fathom the idea that they could be guilty of worshiping another god. Their self-righteousness blinds them to the possibility that their religion is not what God wants. They comfort themselves with the fact that they are not like other religions or pagans who worshiped idols of wood and stone. They never consider that idols can be human and conceptual as well as physical or that there could be any flaws in their religious doctrines. Thoroughly intoxicated with self-righteousness, they never consider that humans who teach the doctrines they believe are false prophets, gods or idols in God’s eyes.

Being misinformed, uninformed or ignorant about the symbolic meanings of gods, idols and the fact of false prophets is not a valid excuse in God’s eyes. In their blind ignorance of Biblical symbols, they deny the truth that all scripture is profitable for training in righteousness and effectively treat God as though he is a liar. Their wrong thinking based on the literal; Bible convinces them that scriptures about idols do not apply to them because they do not worship idols or gods of metal, wood or stone. They would do well, therefore, to take God very seriously on all points of scripture — no matter how unimportant, archaic, nonsensical or irrelevant they might seem — and seek to understand the symbolism of idols and other gods and learn to identify false prophets.

When we discount, minimize, ignore or dismiss any scripture because we think it is unimportant, archaic, irrelevant, ambiguous, or even nonsensical, one or both of the following attitudes apply:

These attitudes indicate lack of trust and rebellion toward God. Since Jews and Christians like to believe and represent that they do trust God and are faithful to obey him in all ways, both religions should want to come to a good understanding idolatry in our own lives that might arouse God’s jealous anger toward us. If we really want to be on God’s good side, we should make every effort to study with the hope of learning if we need discipline so that we might correct our attitudes and behaviors, repent, and return to God.

What we should want to do is understand the symbolism of the Bible instead of applying our own intellectual reasoning and knowledge — or the reasoning of knowledge of others whom we think know more about God than we do. We should want to do this so that we do not sin by not listening to God’s voice. If we listen to the voices of false prophets and do trust that we can really hear God’s voice ourselves, we effectively place those false prophets between us and God in terms of the source of truth, knowledge and wisdom. That is idolatry. By placing these idols between ourselves and God we show that we do not really love God enough to seek him by understanding the deep mysteries of scripture. And there are few matters of scripture that are more important and more difficult to understand than idols and idolatry.

False prophets are only too glad to come to rescue people who struggle with difficult scriptures. Serving as trusted watchmen for their followers, they convincingly and proudly represent that they know and understand God and the Bible. And people trust that these watchmen will tell them what they need to know so they can be right with God.

Therefore, if religious leaders do not preach/teach about idols, people think they are OK on that account because they do not worship material idols. And if their chosen teachers do not preach about idols, that must mean that they as watchmen do not see idols as a problem. Neither the watchmen nor the people know that they have spiritual idols and are not right with God. To make matters worse, most people, being too lazy and too inexperienced to understand difficult scriptures through their own study, relax in their trust that whatever religious teachers tell them is true. This is a very bad deal for both the teacher and the one who listens to the teacher.

God, as the author of spiritual truth, takes offense when worldly (i.e. human) knowledge taught by false prophets is represented as spiritual knowledge and truth. He takes offense when individuals privately apply human knowledge to their understanding of God and his ways. Moreover, he is offended when religious organizations practice deception and create religious doctrines based on such knowledge and lead ignorant people astray. Thus he gave us the fourth commandment to warn us about misrepresenting and misquoting him. Because God is not a man that would do religious activity, people who want to be Godly should not do religious activity and violate this commandment.

We should not be surprised, therefore, that God is strongly aroused to jealous anger and vengeance when his name (i.e. character/reputation) is profaned and brought into disrepute (i.e.blasphemed) through misrepresentation, misquoting, false teaching and religious activity. He becomes very jealous of his name (i.e. his reputation based on how people think of him when they see supposedly Godly people doing religious things) when people wrongly represent him to the world. So God is jealous on two accounts: Religion seduces God’s wife and misrepresents his character.

God’s anger is further aroused by the fact that a multitude of different religions, all purporting to represent God, have their own individualistic religious rules and rituals and teachings about the character of God and the kind of worship that he expects from his people. These different teachings compound and confuse an already distorted view of God and raises doubt by non-religious watchers about his influence over his people. How can they possibly follow the same God if they look and act different and follow different rules? And if they are not following the same God, which god or gods are they following? Non-religious watchers might reasonably ask: “Which is the real god that guides these people — if indeed there is a real god? ” For all these reasons it can be said that religion provides no real benefit to God and actually misrepresents him to a world of people that need him.

If religion does not represent or benefit God, then we must ask who does it represent and who does benefit from it? If we could get inside the minds of those who observe religion as outsiders, we would find that what they see is that religious people are slaves to religious traditions and sensual activities that make them feel good about themselves because they are doing things that they believe make them righteous in God’s eyes and in the eyes of their fellow religionists. This observation is not far from the truth, but it is only one of many problems that outsiders have with God because religion misrepresents him. So who can blame God for being angry? Anyone would be angry with someone who was publicly misrepresenting  and defaming them.

Practicing religion makes religionists feel good about themselves and secure in their beliefs because people who share their religious beliefs and practices affirm their righteousness and spirituality. That is how they think but in fact, religionists have entered into a covenant of death with each other. They deceive one another into believing that they are all close to God because they practice what they believe is the one, true religion that God approves. Religion provides for them a community in which they find acceptance — at least until they break the rules. These are the compelling reasons for becoming religious and for staying religious. But they are all fleshly reasons.

It is imperative for Jews and Christians to understand that God is not impressed by religious behavior– even if it is performed with all sincerity by people who say that they love him and use his name often in conversation and in their religious services. The only people who are impressed by religious activity are those who are engaged in it and publicly affirm their belief in it to one another. In other words, religion is play acting in high places where religious communities reward (e.g. applause, affirmation, praise, money, etc.) each other for their righteousness as they understand it. Among other labels, God calls religion hypocrisy because it is not what it appears to be.

One of the seductive tactics that religious leaders use to attract and retain followers is to ascribe to themselves high-sounding titles that suggest legitimacy and closeness to God. In doing this, they violate God’s command that we should not take on titles such as rabbi, teacher, father or leader because we already have a father to teach us. In God’s view, when a religious teacher willfully places himself/herself between God and his people, that teacher effectively makes himself/herself an idol. When anyone willfully inquires about God from a human teacher, that person effectively makes that teacher an idol. The teacher and the one who listens to the teacher have both violated the First Commandment.

Obviously, all religions, not just Judaism and Christianity, have leaders with titles that imply superiority in the ability to teach and lead. In other words, all religions have idols. Jews and Christians compound their sin by also violating God’s command that his people should not intermingle with religions and follow their customs or religious practices. Jews and Christians, therefore, are not really any better or worse regarding idolatry than any other religion. Idolatry is still idolatry even if it is dressed up with fine sounding religious language and titles.

The Bible has much to say about God’s feelings about obedience to his commandments. Some commandments are easier to recognize as commandments than others. Commandments about destroying neighboring nations, intermarriage, making covenants and setting captives free are among those that for which understanding is obscure and therefore harder to obey. Obscure or not, they are God’s commandments and he expects his people to obey them — even those that seem minor, irrelevant or unreasonable.

Religious people who who read their Bibles literally, or not at all, might want to dismiss the commands about following the religious customs of other religions and prohibitions against idolatry. If they do dismiss them, they would do well to re-evaluate the quality of their love for God. There is a big disconnect if they say they love God but are not willing to give up their religion because they think that one or more of his commands are minor, irrelevant or unreasonable. They never realize that their unwavering devotion to their religion is idolatrous. So, setting aside those things that they do not understand or agree with, they focus on those things that they can easily perform according to their literal interpretations of the Bible. Unfortunately, the laws/commandments that God wants them to obey are those written on the tablet of their heart — not with ink. If they think that they are safe in their religion which is based on their literal interpretations of the Bible, they are deceived and will suffer curses and disaster at God’s hand because they love their idols and religion more than they love God.

It helps to appreciate how God feels about idolatry if we accept that God looks at Israel (i.e. Jews and Christians) as his wife. This relationship is symbolically represented in the terms of the New Covenant. It is no mystery, therefore, that God would want to destroy religious kingdoms that have seduced (i.e. tempted) his wife so that she would join them in their religious practices. This is no less than any loving, jealous husband would do. God wants his adulterous wife (i.e. us) to repent of her/our harlotry and return to him and remain faithful to him.

This ongoing competition for affections characterizes the conflict (i.e. warfare) between God’s kingdom and the religious kingdoms of the world. If we don’t see this constant theme in Bible stories, we will not understand how the Bible instructs us in righteousness.