Have you ever been jealous? I know I have. Growing up in the 70’s there was a lot of ground breaking technology entering into the marketplace. I remember the uproar when my buddy down the street got a “Big Wheel”. How silly, it really was just a plastic tricycle with really cool stickers. One of my other friends “one-upped” him by getting a “Green Machine” which could do power slides because of it longer wheel base and rear wheel steering, and yet, it too was a plastic tricycle as well.
Jealousy is not limited childhood, obviously, we can see men flocking to car shows and the ladies pondering the latest appliances. The reverse of those situations can also occur. Looking at the television series “That 70’s Show” we even see an episode depicting the aftermath of Red’s mother dying. Red has one brother, Marty, and as children they shared a train set which their mother kept stashed away after their childhood. Red displays his jealousy over the train set by stating “Marty doesn’t deserve these, after all he never played with them right!”
Just before the episode ends we see Red on the floor playing with the trains and recalling his childhood. The key to the story comes when Red’s wife notices the situation and Red explains that Marty was the one that set up the track and that he had set everything just as it should have been set. The real issue was not Marty, it was Red’s jealousy.
Exodus 20:1-6 “And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
Thankfully verse 6 tells us “And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.”
The depth of this scripture is often lost on the majority. God’s jealousy is not about greed, He owns it all, it’s about relationship. God is asking humanity to eliminate anything and everything that can get in the way of our relationship to Him. God defines jealousy as mental uneasiness from suspicion or fear of rivalry, unfaithfulness, etc., as in love or aims.
Willingly choosing to act, behave, or move in a direction that creates distance from God is the object, or desire, that invokes jealousy. The result of this movement away from God is described for us in verse 5 in the visiting of retribution. God tells us here that it comes to the 3rd and forth generation, why?
Once a person has “come to themselves”, as in the case of the Prodigal Son, they realize that they have hurt the Fathers character as well as their own. This bring about remorse, which should bring about repentance. Notice I said “it should” as we live in a generation that increases in its propensity to distance themselves from God.
Luke 15:16-18 “He longed to eat his fill (be satisfied) from the carob pods the pigs were eating, (the worldly supply) but no one would give him any. (but nothing worked) When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have more than enough food, (there is a bounty) and here I am dying of hunger! I’ll get up, go to my father, and say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight.”
Just like any crime committed against the state there is always a penalty that must be exacted. Unlike the state, where the penalty is pronounced against the offender, God has the option of deferring the penalty until a later time. This is called Vertical Retribution. This is a HUGE theme in the Bible that is vaguely understood. So how does this apply to you and I?
Moving forward in Exodus 34:14-16 “For thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice; And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods.”
God is warning the people against seeking a relationship with these other ‘gods’. God does not want us to follow after the things of this world and Jesus tell us this in John 17:14-15 “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.”
1 Corinthians 2:12 “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”
There are competing spirits in this world. They are looking for you and I to worship them. They are very powerful and very real. Jude tells us “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation” these are the angels of darkness looking to capture mankind and divorce us from God. Paul tell us in Ephesians 6 “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
Satan has a title, talebearer, make note of T-A-L-E bearer, the father of all lies! Satan lied to the angels that left their first estate telling them they would be worshipped “like God”. The exact same lie he told Eve, that she could be “like God”.
So what does mankind do? Jeremiah 3:6 ”The Lord said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot.”
What exactly does that mean? It means they learned the ways of the people of the land they were going to inhabit. God had already told them not to do this! Deuteronomy 18:9 “When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.” These nations worshiped the ‘gods’ that were established by Satan and his dark angels. These people did just the opposite of Gods commands by making graven images to the dark angels and bowing down to them. They held festivals unto these ‘gods’ on the spring and winter solstices where they would offer up human sacrifice, more specifically infant sacrifice and practice fertility rituals. The festivities included massive amounts of alcohol and spirit channeling. The result was a frenzied mass of humans engaging in enormous orgy lasting several days. They would use evergreen trees to hide themselves from the eyes of God Almighty. Like that was going to work.
As the Israelites traversed the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land there was a band of people that followed them from these nations. They were riding the coattails of the Israelites for military protection. It was during these times that the people of God could hear the enticing chants of the party/orgy and they would go off to see what all the hub-bub was about. Once there they were caught up in the party and then into the hedonism. Eventually they wanted to have both worlds, the party and the protection of God. God says very plainly we cannot have it both ways.
Romans 12:2 “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” So what is the perfect will of God? The word ‘perfect’ is complete, complete holiness. Matthew 5:48 “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” We are to be holy as He is holy.
Psalm 19:7 “The law {instructions, Torah} of the Lord is perfect {holiness} , converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
Psalm 40:8 “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law {instructions, Torah} is within my heart.
Still yet the people of God in the wilderness did drift off into the idolatry of the pagan nations because it looked like fun, it appealed to their flesh and did not require sacrifice of personal desires. In Jeremiah 3:8 god tells us, “And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.”
Now what?! Look to Numbers Chapter 5 verse 14 “And the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled.” For the people of God, jealousy had come upon God and the “law” or Torah must be fulfilled, The law of vertical Retribution was coming into play.
Numbers 5:15-17 “Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and he shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense thereon; for it is an offering of jealousy, an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance. And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the LORD: And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water:”
The holy water would come from the brazen laver where the priest would wash from the actions of the sacrifice. There was both blood and water in the earthen vessel and he would add to it the ashes from the sacrifice given on the altar to God. Anything familiar about that?
John 19:34 “But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.” Yeshua our Messiah was the earthen vessel with blood and water, that became our perfect {complete} sacrifice! Hallel Yahuah!
Back to Numbers 5 we pick back up in verses 21 and 22 “Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The LORD make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the LORD doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell; And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen.”
The penalty due the woman, or better yet, the bride, should she be unfaithful was for her thigh to wither and her belly swell. This next part is not pretty but it is pertinent.
When a human being is crucified on a cross, called a death tree in the 1st century, they suffocate before they die of blood loss. As the body grows tired from the position on the cross, they sink down on the post. The largest muscle capable of holding them up are the thighs and they begin to burn, then ache, then are unable to hold you up. The result is the tops of the shoulders squeeze the neck and limit the flow of oxygen. The limited flow cause trauma to the lungs causing water and blood to collect in the chest cavity. This collection of water causes bloating and swelling of the belly.
Verse 27 continues with “And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people.”
The drinking of the water, or the cup is displayed in its fullness as well. Jeremiah 25:15 “For thus saith the Lord God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it.” Here we see that mankind is supposed to drink the wine of Gods fury for the abominations they have committed.
Matthew 26:42 “Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, Your will be done.”
Galatians 3:13 “The Messiah redeemed us from the curse pronounced in the Torah by becoming cursed on our behalf; for the Tanakh says, “Everyone who hangs from a stake comes under a curse.”
Deuteronomy 21:22 “And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree:”
The penalty for the sin committed by generations of mankind, the cup of wrath, the fury of God was now paid in full by the life, death and resurrection of Yeshua the Messiah!
God is calling us to Himself, and in doing so, He is asking that we do not mix the actions, traditions and ‘gods’ of this world with His holiness. Jesus confronted this topic some 1500 years after the wandering in the wilderness, after they people had entered into the Promised Land and after they had been divorced from God as his bride in Jeremiah 3:8.
Jesus says to the religious leaders in Mark 7:13 “Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.” These traditions were created by men, controlled by men and enforced by men, to make these men look higher in status and piety. Again Yeshua stops them cold when he says “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” in Matthew 15:8-9.
What things, actions or traditions are the people today mixing with the truth of God’s instructions? Are your “religious” practices, habits and traditions God ordained or manmade? Are you looking for truth or tradition? Faith or fallacy?
Can you find the direction for your religious actions in the scriptures? If not, they are vain worship.
Berean Breadcrumbs 
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