Godly Jealousy by Brother Duke Hansen

         Good morning everyone. If you would, turn in your bibles to the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 11. We are going to be reading a few verses from there this morning. There is either encouragement or discipline given to the early churches in the letters of Paul. There was constant in Paul's life through all the different moments and that was the search for the truth. Paul was pretty plainspoken in his letters as we will see in a moment.

        Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me.

        Paul was displaying a little sarcasm in this opening verse.

        2 For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.

        The first 10 chapters of this letter are of correction to the church of Corinth, In chapter 11, Paul switches gears in his direction. 

        3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

        What Paul is saying in the text is that he is supposed to present the church as a chaste virgin to God and not one who has played and mingled about with other various spirits. The simplicity of the gospel is so man is deliberately confused by it. All of us are tainted and corrupt by generations of lies and falsehoods. Even the more mature of believers aren't immune to this corruption. Old lies get packaged as new revelations and instead of studying how to be more closer and holy before the Lord, man studies to see if angels mated with humans. How many giants were in the Bible. Did Jesus really mean hell itself when he said it or was it a site outside the gates of Jerusalem where city waste and refuse were tossed. Nonsense like this consume the faith and sense of the believer! 

        Bear with me- I know you don't care about all my opinions, but deal with them. Paul wanted the early church to do better. He had a godly jealousy for them. Some jealousies are caused by wither action or word. God doesn't want to share you with others, yet, he's also not clearing a straight way path for you to walk on. You come to him as he waits patiently. He's not chasing you down like in a romance where the guy and girl get together in the end. There is a godly and righteous jealousy that is counter to our fleshly jealousy. 

        Ask yourself how does a grown woman get conned by a serpent?  Subtlety feeds your flesh slowly and quietly. There isn't something immediate or instant that occurs in your thinking. It's more of a long game at play. Through subtlety you can twist plain words to suit your limited knowledge and preconceived notions. You may run across a believer who will tell you that a pretty cut and dry verse of "no" is really vague because of the root word in Aramic or Hebrew or Greek means two or three different things. Our flesh is always looking for the path of least resistance or easy walk. 

        Espoused to one husband is God and the church. If you are surrounded by lies long enough, you start to think they are truths. If hope is a commodity sold in the world, there is none to give to God. The hope towards God is genuine while in the world it's phony. The devil used God's own word to beguile Eve in the garden and still uses God's own words through false preachers. 

        4 For if he that cometh preaches another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him. 

        The world spirit of rebellion is the antichrist of the church and it has grown and flourished over the last 20 years.

        5 For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.

        What does the word whit mean to you? The word whit means a small amount or part of an amount.

        6 But though I may be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge; but we have been throughly made manifest among you in all things.

        Our aspirations should be to be more holy in our walk. To be above the base nature and traps of our flesh. That aspiration or desire is coated in our flesh man which lends to you being rude. Most of our time our flesh is in the way. Shouldn't we be jealous in a godly way? Paul then continues about the Corinthian church not being present to help because there was a lot of contention amongst themselves. In fact, the opening chapters he addressed the charges among them that he wasn't who he said he was because he was put in prison so frequently. That was one thing the church could come to an agreement about. 

        God didn't design his people to be a pack mule carrying their pasts, faults, mistakes, and burdens. You will never live in victory when you continue to carry your past. Your way is not the only way to get a job done right. When you see someone's life as a train wreck and you can help them? You will understand what Paul was writing.

        If God has a hard time talking to you on the simplest of terms, he will let you do it your way. His words aren't some inescapable prison or a cast iron chain to a no fun rock. If you obtain yourself more knowledge in this scripture, actual knowledge you came to, not someone else's take, nor books opinion, you get yourself, you will get rude at times when in the company of supposed like minded believers, for example, who in conversation say it's all good to drink in excess because Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding he attended in the book of John.

        Everything in society today has been sourced in something wrong or evil. It may have the appearance of good and lawful at first, but it's always something selfish and self serving. We will do all things to numb our pain whether it's prescriptions from a doctor, excess in anything, or leaning on our own personal idols instead of not removing the pain. God looks at you with hope despite all your talk, your actions, mistakes and folly.