The Jealously
Have we not all one father? Hath not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?
11 Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god.
12 The LORD will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the LORD of Hosts.
Malachi 2:10-12
Now have we entered into a great mystery as seen here in the text. Remember before how that Hosea's marrying Gomer was a picture of this. Gomer was a wife who loved to wander from her husband and family at will. How she is like some of us, oh so prone to wander from our God. I am hardly calling the Lord a jealous husband, but of course. He does get jealous for his people, does he not. Nor is it the sort of jealousy this world gets that feels that your rightful place has been taken away. Some people too think that jealousy is something borne from success. Just know this, though, that our God is for you whether you are with him or no. Wherever you wander, no matter how far from home, is he not there. It is almost like that sort of jealousy that does not wishes no harm to his people. It is that sort of thing that will guard them ever so carefully from danger, whether to others or that of themselves. So too will the Lord safeguard from danger, whether physical, spiritual, or otherwise. After all, is he not the best guard over our hearts and minds that I know. Regardless of all that, there remains a separate issue, that of the people departing him having chased after strange gods. You know of what sort I am talking about. These gods neither see, nor hear, nor are able to move being made from the same material as their creator himself, that one of man. So it stands to reason then that none of these are able to help in time of need. Yet our God remains, a very present help in time of trouble, waiting still in the very same place we left him behind. That is like the issue faced here in the text. God we see is the one our forefathers served and the ones before that. In fact, even before Abraham was, our God called into being. It could be said then that he was our very first Father and Creator of man. It is not for nothing that we call him I Am, who was, and is, and is to come. Then again, the story doesn't stop there. It winds round the ages of man and ends up with our God reigns. There is too some brother's keeper, like the story of Cain and Abel, to be seen here in the text. You know, so often when you do something it doesn't just affect you. It spills over throughout the whole house. Then at the last, you're sitting there with your head in your hands sick and tired of praying to idols, wondering where it ever went wrong. This is the abomination that has been committed then of leaving off to follow the Lord in place of everything else. So too it is a fearful thing to sin against love. Judah did so knowingly, so much so that it hurt. God in his mercy and gracce though will not let us alone. When it comes to the impending strange nuptuials, our God has something to say. For all our having forsaken him, God himself seems very strange and far away. The Father's house also with it appears, as some distant mirage. Come now, the Lord says and let's reason together. Man might have many reasons for doing this thing. Yet the Lord has only one, that of himself. He alone belongs in his rightful position, high and lifted up where the train of his glory fills the whole house. There is room for no other inside. It is not for no reason then that he comes attacking his house. His house will not be empty and wasted however, not for a moment, though for ever so long. It seems that here as in Gomer, there is something to be seen for his people. So then, let us do right by his people and trust him with all of our lives to so keep his house and wear it quite well.