Destined for Victory

Guest (Male): In Deuteronomy chapter four, you will find another indication of who our God is. There you will find in verse 24 that our God is a consuming fire and a jealous God. And then in that same passage, in verse 31, you will find that he is a merciful God.

It may seem strange that a loving, merciful God is also a jealous God. Up next, you'll see why he has every right to be. Hello and welcome to Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Sheppard. We all know what human jealousy looks like, but divine jealousy is different because God himself is different.

Today, we'll show you what God's brand of jealousy looks like and why it's righteous, holy, and justified. We hope you'll visit us at pastorpaul.net when you have some time. That's where you can listen to any of our recent messages on demand, including today's. That's pastorpaul.net. Now, let's get started with today's Destined for Victory message, "Jesus in High Definition."

Paul Sheppard: We are looking at Jesus in high definition. In our opening message in this series, we discussed the fact that the book of the Revelation is not only a revelation from Jesus Christ—it is from him—but it is also a revelation about Jesus Christ. I want to encourage you to not be so thrown off by the symbolic language of this apocalyptic book that you say, "I just don't want to have anything to do with it."

Because in these passages, in the midst of symbolism, you will find a very clear picture of our God and of his Christ. You will see the Lord in what I am calling high definition. You will see him in a multifaceted way and you will be able to appreciate the glory and the splendor of our God.

And so, in the opening message, we looked at the fact that Jesus is depicted here as the one who is, and who was, and who is to come. We said that Jesus is the eternally present one. The way I phrased it is: Jesus has eternal is-ness. He is always present. He said to Moses, "I AM that I AM."

We use "was" and "will be" because we are locked in this thing called time. But God is a God who created time but who stands outside of time. He is not the least bit moved by time. Time is a function of the here and now; it is a function of the universe he created. But God stands outside of that, so he is eternally present.

When we talk about was, he is eternally past. He is eternally present, and he is right now. God doesn't have a prime where he is on the other side of his prime and getting old now. We said that he is the eternally present one. Then we began to look at the first of just a few passages I want to mention that describe the is-ness of God.

A quick sampling of just a few passages that tell us who God is. In our last message, we talked about the fact that God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should repent. That is in Numbers chapter 23 and verse 19. God is not a person. You have got to understand that God is not like us.

When the Bible says we were created in his image, it simply means that we were created as spirit beings who have souls, who live in bodies. But we have an eternal spirit, and in that sense, we were created in God's image. He has made us to be able to exist with him for all of eternity.

But you are never God. You are not going to ever be promoted to God because you are automatically disqualified by the fact that you have a beginning. You had a birthday. There was a day when you began to exist. There was no day when God began to exist.

God is from everlasting to everlasting. You say, "I don't understand that." Right. That is exactly why he is God and you are not. He is not a man. When people talk glibly and say, "Oh, I was talking to the man upstairs," there is no man upstairs unless you are at your uncle's house or something.

There is no man upstairs. He is the God of the universe who created the heavens and the earth. He is full of majesty and glory, dominion and power. There is no one like him. He is God all by himself. He is the eternally present one and he is not a man that he should lie.

Let me look with you at another passage that helps us understand God. In Deuteronomy chapter four, you will find another indication of who our God is. There you will find in verse 24 that our God is a consuming fire and a jealous God. He is a consuming fire and a jealous God. And then in that same passage, in verse 31, you will find that he is a merciful God.

Let me give you the context, and I want to spend just a little time there because we need to understand the nature of the God with whom we have to do. God, we are told in this passage, is a consuming fire and a jealous God. What is the context? Moses is talking to Israel before they are to go into the Promised Land.

You know very well that God had made clear to Moses, "You are not going to get to go into the Promised Land because you offended me in the wilderness." The context, of course, is that there was an occasion when those grumbling, murmuring people began to rail against Moses because he brought them into the wilderness and they could not find water.

And they said, "We are thirsty. There is no water over here. We wish we had never let you lead us over here." And they began to really get on Moses' case as if Moses was the problem. You know, sometimes people who are in really bad shape—the worst thing about being in bad shape is they don't know they are the ones in bad shape.

And they were in the wilderness by their own doing. God did not want them in the wilderness. He had promised to take them into Canaan. It was their own fear, their own unbelief, their own rebellion that kept them from going into the Promised Land. But they are here in a wilderness and they were complaining.

And they got Moses so upset he went into the tent of meeting, fell on his face before God, and said, "Oh, Lord, please bail us out. Help us. You know I am having to deal with these raggedy people." That is my version of what he said. And the Lord told him, "I want you to speak to the rock and I will cause water to gush out of the rock."

Moses called the people together and he stood there at the rock. He was still angry because of their rebellion and because of their murmuring and complaining and what have you. The Bible says he struck the rock two times, and that was an offense to the Holy God.

Because he certainly was simply instructed by God, "Speak to the rock." And even if he were to strike it, it should not be in anger. The fact that he struck it twice simply lets us know how angry he was. And in that moment, he dishonored God because the rock is a symbol of Christ with them.

Because the rock was going to take care of their need; it is a symbol of Christ. And if he were to smite it, it could not be out of sinful anger and he certainly could not smite it more than once because Christ was afflicted only once for our sins. The fact that he struck the rock twice meant he was good and mad.

So mad that he was not in that moment honoring God. And the Lord said, "Because of this offense, you will not go into the Promised Land." But you know the story. I love God. I love that even when he offended God, the Lord knew that he messed up on that one, but God still loved him. He still loved him in a significant way.

At the end of his life, over in Deuteronomy chapter 34, you see him coming to the end of his days. And the Lord walked him, as it were, up at Mount Nebo and said, "I want you to look over and see the land I am going to give the people. I already told you years ago you are not going to get to go in yourself because of your offense against my holiness, but I am going to let you see it anyway."

And he walked him up on the mountain and showed him the Promised Land and said, "That's what I'm going to give to the people, and that will be theirs for generations to come." And then the Lord himself, the Bible says on that mountain Moses died and the Lord buried him. You are bad somebody when God preaches your funeral.

God preached his funeral. When you say, "Well who gave the eulogy?" God. "Well who were the pallbearers?" God. You are somebody. And the Lord walked with Moses as a friend, buried him himself, and to this day, we don't know where Moses' grave site is because the Lord picked it out and the Lord buried his servant.

Guest (Male): Still ahead, the second half of today's Destined for Victory message featuring the teaching ministry of Pastor Paul Sheppard. If you haven't already, don't forget to download our free mobile app. Search "Destined for Victory" in the App Store and listen to Destined for Victory wherever you go.

Visit pastorpaul.net for more details or to find out how you can listen to Destined for Victory in your favorite digital platform. Up next, three very good reasons why God can be jealous over us. So let's listen closely to the rest of today's message, "Jesus in High Definition."

Paul Sheppard: Here in this context, Moses is instructing the people: "When God takes you into that Promised Land, you are to make sure that you do not practice idolatry. Because if you dishonor God over there in that land, if you practice idolatry, you will discover that your God is a consuming fire and he is a jealous God."

Let me tell you something: God is the only being in the universe who has every right to be completely jealous. You have got to understand: the reason why the Bible says he can be jealous is because we are God's on three levels. We are his by creation. The Bible is clear: we are his people, we are the sheep of his pasture.

We are God's by creation. He created us for his own purposes, so we are his by creation. Secondly, we are his by redemption. When man fell, God had a plan to restore us to righteousness and to fellowship with him. In fact, the Bible tells us that he had that plan before the foundation of the world.

God did not just make it up. He did not see man fall and just say, "Oops, oh man, they are really in trouble now. Let me figure out something." No, before he ever created us, he knew we would fall and he so loved us that he had a plan to redeem us. To redeem is to buy back that which was once yours, but now you buy it back.

We were lost in the fall but restored through redemption. So we belong to God by creation, we belong to God by redemption, and then we belong to God by covenant. Here in the Old Testament, they had the covenant, the law that God gave to Moses.

He promised that he would raise up a people all the way through Abraham, and that began to be established through the covenant that was established with Moses. So they were covenant people. They could not just act any kind of way. They could not just be like pagans and heathens around them.

They were to be a holy nation unto their God. And so Israel was God's by creation, by redemption—the redemptive plan that was in motion even in the Old Testament—and they were his by covenant. You and I also are God's by creation. It is he that have made us and not we ourselves.

We are his by redemption. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. And we are his by covenant. We have a new covenant that has been written on the hearts of those of us who are born again, where we don't need tablets of the law telling us the "thou shalt nots." If you walk with God, you are to walk with him in faith and obedience to the new covenant.

So God has a right to be totally jealous. He is the only being who has a total right to be jealous. Now, some of us have some limited way in which we can be jealous and it would make sense, but certainly not in this way. Number one, we did not create each other.

They were created as free moral agents. The people in your life were created with their own free will. And so you cannot say, "Well you're my creation." You can't even call your kids your creation. God used you, but he brought them into the world. It was God's doing.

And so there is no way in which we can say we created one another for our own purposes. And so we only have a limited sense. We certainly did not redeem each other. You did not pay for anybody's sins; you could not even pay for your own.

The only way in which we can say we have a right to be jealous is when you talk about covenant. The covenant, for instance, between spouses, made in the presence of God and witnesses. Or the covenant that is made informally between friends. "I'll be with you. I'll stand with you. I am your boy, you can count on me."

And you had that kind of covenant. In those ways, when people share with you their commitment, you have a right to expect that they will live up to the promises they made to you. But that is the only way in which we really can be jealous, and we have all learned that that is very limited.

But the fact of the matter is God can be totally jealous. He is the only one who can say, "I am a consuming fire. I am a jealous God. You cannot practice idolatry and be blessed of me. You have no right to have any gods beside me or before me. I am a consuming fire."

So we can't relate to that. We just have to know that is the nature of our God because we don't walk in that. We can have jealousy, but it's on a human level. And I've seen folk get jealous for absolutely no reason at all. I've seen some people get jealous and you don't even have a covenant with them.

Have you ever seen that? Jealousy practiced and there is no basis for the jealousy. You have a right to be jealous if you have a spouse who committed their life and their affection to you and then they betray that trust. You have a right to be jealous if you think that somebody else or something else is taking your place in the life of one who committed him or herself to you.

But I've seen folk practice jealousy for no covenant. They just want a covenant. I've seen it. I've seen folk single and jealous. You can't be jealous and be right as a single person. There is no covenant. So you have got to learn to live the way God called you to live.

You have got to learn to date the way God called you to date. It is going to drop out, but I am going still be preaching. You have got to do this right. I remember years ago when we were single people in our church. There was a little season where people wanted to get hooked up.

And there were some folk who picked somebody in their mind in the church that they wanted to marry, and they began to have expectations of hooking up with that individual whether the individual signed off on it or not. Some thought they got a word from the Lord in prayer: "That is your husband. That is your wife."

And they began to think of them as husband or wife without the covenant and without the other person saying the same thing. Let me help you, singles. You can't do that. You cannot choose for somebody else. If you choose them, they have got to choose you back. If they don't choose you back, there is no deal, there is no covenant.

Never forget one sister who had a brother picked out in our church growing up in her mind, and she saw him talking to somebody else and she got upset. Told one of her friends, "He should not. He knows I told him that God said we were supposed to be married." She told one of her friends, "I told him God said we're supposed to be married and he ought to be respecting me more."

And she had to be helped to see: no, until God tells him, there is no deal. You have no basis for a covenant. That is why you singles, you have got to date right. If you do it the Bible way, if you date for a little while and it doesn't work out, the other person doesn't want to cut covenant with you, you date in such a way that all you have lost is a little time.

But you've honored God. That's the Bible way. And if you do it the worldly way, if you do it the pagan way, if you do it the heathen way, you are going to get pagan, heathen results. If you practice friends with benefits, the Bible calls that fornication. You can call it whatever you want.

The Bible calls it fornication. It is sin and it will cause you to run into a consuming fire who is a jealous God. You can't live any kind of way and expect to live under the favor and the smile of God. You have got to do it God's way. If you date right, you won't have lost anything but time.

You don't lose your heart to somebody who is not cut covenant with you. You are not to lose your body to somebody who has not covenanted with you. And it is a covenant before God and it is to be done the right way. There is only one place the Bible says being in the bed with somebody of the opposite sex is honorable, and that is in marriage.

Your Bible said marriage, the marriage bed is undefiled. Marriage is honorable in all things, and it is that bed that is undefiled. Every other bed is defiled. And you can't change it. And guess what? People's attitudes doesn't change the will of God.

Have you noticed how normalized sin has become? Just normalized now, just everyday. What's the big deal? What's with you old-fogy people still acting like this some standard, some old obsolete standard certain things you can't do? Why don't y'all get with the 21st century? Because we serve the God who is, and who was, and who is to come.

God is not changing with the times. God is not saying, "Well, I used to be upset about that, but y'all go ahead on, knock yourself out." No, no, no. God is the same today, yesterday, and forever. And he said, "I am a consuming fire. I am a jealous God and you cannot disobey me and be arrogant without consequence."

So we have got to live it God's way. And you have got to understand he has a right to be jealous over us. He has a right to say, "I created you for my own purposes." He is a jealous God. He is a consuming fire. So if you want to do it right, if you want to have the right to have even that limited ability to have expectations of another person, say in a romantic relationship, you have got to do it God's way, which is to get married in the presence of God and witnesses legally.

I want to encourage you, if you come to faith in Christ and you are living unmarried with someone in a marital-type relationship, that is not marriage. You can't sub it for marriage. You have got to do it the right way. The world says, "What's a piece of paper?" My answer is, "It's God's will. That's what it is." It is God's will. "Well, we're married in our hearts." That doesn't count.

You can't revise the scriptures to suit your situation. You can't move second base because you want to steal second base and it's too far away. I'm going to preach if you like it and preach if you don't.

Guest (Male): So glad you stopped by for today's Destined for Victory message, "Jesus in High Definition." If you joined us late or if you want to hear the full message one more time, visit pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net. You know, one of the reasons Jesus sets us free from bondage is so that we can go out and help others find that same freedom in Christ.

It takes all of us working together to reach the world with the gospel. And today, we're inviting you to help us do just that through the Destined for Victory media ministry. When you choose to invest in Destined for Victory, we have a great thank-you gift to share with you.

It's our latest booklet, *Clothed in Love: Seven Gifts for the Ones Who Matter Most*. In this message drawn from Colossians three, verses 12 through 15, Pastor Paul challenges us to direct our best selves toward the ones who matter most.

As you learn about seven powerful virtues—compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance, and forgiveness—you'll discover what it truly means to honor your mother and how giving these gifts can transform your most important relationships.

Again, it's called *Clothed in Love: Seven Gifts for the Ones Who Matter Most*, and it's our gift to you today by request for your generous gift to Destined for Victory. You can give by phone by calling 855-339-5500. That's 855-339-5500.

Or visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. Or mail your gift to Destined for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California, 94538. Divine jealousy is far different from human jealousy; so is divine mercy. Here again is Pastor Paul.

Paul Sheppard: I am here to tell somebody who is living right now in that place of disobedience, somebody who knows that you have messed up big time and your life bears the fruit of it. I've got a word for you: God says if you turn to me with your whole heart, I will let you see that I'm not just a fire, I'm not just jealous, I'm also merciful.

Guest (Male): The majesty of mercy on our next edition of Destined for Victory. Until then, though, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.