Welcome to the Further Gospel Podcast, where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Kosti Hinn, and this is episode number five in the Names of God series. And the name we're talking about today is the Hebrew name El Kanah, which means jealous God. And at first that might be one of the strangest names of God to our modern ears, maybe one of the most concerning, because if I told you that someone was jealous, you probably wouldn't think that I was complimenting them because jealousy makes us think of insecurity, possessiveness, controlling people, suspicion, all of that, envy even. And we've all seen jealous people like spouses and coworkers and siblings and friends. You know, human jealousy can get ugly pretty fast. But I've got my Bible open to Exodus chapter 34, verse 14, where we see this name of God for the first time. And I'm not just pulling this from some abstract passage and then saying, oh yeah, God is like this. I mean, the Bible literally says something maybe you've never read before or even thought about. For you shall not worship any other God. Okay, for the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God. It's that first part we're pretty familiar with. You can't worship any other gods. Like, yeah, obviously not. But the reason for that is for the Lord whose name is jealous, is a jealous God. This is as blunt as it gets. God does not mitigate, he doesn't apologize for it. There, there's no kind of, well, here's what it means. Oh no, his name is El Kanah. He is the jealous God. And I want to understand this Hebrew word kannah a little bit more. It carries the idea of jealousy or intense zeal. It appears six times in all of the Old Testament, all in the Pentateuch. And this particular Hebrew adjective is used exclusively of God. You see it in Exodus 20, verse 5, in Exodus 34, 14, the passage I just read to you, Deuteronomy 4.24, Deuteronomy 5.9, and then Deuteronomy 6.15. And almost every time you find it, the context involves idolatry and worship, which tells us something really important: that God's jealousy is his holy zeal for his own glory and his covenant relationship with his people. And there's a key truth here that I want you to understand. It's that El Kanah means that God refuses to share the worship that belongs exclusively to him. And in that, there's a clue here to probably the most obvious question that anybody would ask. How can jealousy be sinful for us, but holy for God? And the answer, the answer is really simple. There's a sinful jealousy and there is a righteous jealousy. Sinful jealousy is, you know, to want something that rightfully belongs to someone else. Whereas righteous jealousy protects something that rightfully belongs to you. What is righteous or proper jealousy? Imagine for a moment a husband who watches some other man just pursue his wife. And nobody in their right mind would ever praise that man and say, you know, I'm so glad that, you know, he didn't get jealous. It'd be really weird. And if that man said, you know, I don't want to be possessive, I don't want to be envy, I don't want to be jealous, you know, I'm I'm fine with her sharing her affection. Of course not. Something would be wrong with a husband who felt nothing for his bride. Marriage establishes an exclusive covenant relationship, and therefore there's this kind of jealousy that is entirely appropriate. It is protecting what rightfully belongs. In fact, Paul uses this same language and the same idea in 2 Corinthians 11, verse 2, where he tells the church, I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. And so there's such a thing as godly jealousy. And God's jealousy is infinitely more pure than ours because God never envies anybody else. He doesn't have a sinful level of insecurity. He doesn't feel threatened. He doesn't look at some other God and worry about the competition, because there are no other gods actually able to compete with him. It's just that he won't share what rightfully belongs to him. Isaiah 42, verse 8 says, I am the Lord. That is my name. I will not give my glory to another. And so the reason that he declares that is because his glory actually belongs to him. If I demanded that everyone worship me, I would be a narcissist because I'm not worthy of worship. No one is. But when God demands worship, he is demanding what is rightfully his because he alone is God. And so he's not a narcissist and his jealousy is not sinful. El Kanah is all about his own glory and what rightfully belongs to him. And that makes me think of another vital truth here is that God takes our worship far more seriously than we do. I don't know if the church really understands how serious worship really is. And it doesn't mean that we have to be miserable and frightful and not joyful in our worship, but the idea of what belongs to God is a big deal. Our worship belongs to Him. All of these warnings in the Old Testament, where Elkanah is mentioned, are about God's jealousy because Israel constantly struggled with this idea of worship and sharing God. They rarely stopped believing in Yahweh altogether. There are some cases where they did, but they just kept adding other gods alongside him. So in a sense, they were polytheists. You know, even though the term's a bit academic, the problem is completely modern. They were like that, and so are we. We may not bow down to golden calves like they did, but we're still still tempted to give created things the affection and the trust and the identity and the time and devotion that belong to our creator, God. I would just say it this way: our idols, our modern idols, have just gotten better branding. You know, money can become an idol, success, an idol. Your career, an idol. Your children, we love our children, but they can become idols. Marriage, such a good thing, can become an idol. Politics, comfort, sex, fitness, ministry, all of it. Your reputation, even your own plans, like what you want to do, all of those things, they're good things, but they tend to rebrand themselves to look like the ultimate things, and they're competing for the throne of your heart. And El Cana will not peacefully coexist with any of those idols, my friend. And so you've really got to see this idea of God's jealousy through the lens of his affection for you. And that's really what El Cana starts to shed light on. And so I want to give you some points here. If I were to kind of uh umbrella this, as we have in different episodes, what El Kanah means for Christians would start with number one, that God wants more than part of your heart. El Kanah means God wants more than part of your heart. He's not just one little aspect of your life. One of the great temptations in Christianity is to make God one important part of an otherwise crowded life, you know, family and career and hobbies and goals. And we got God in there too. You know, he gets his part. But Jesus said in Matthew 22, 37, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. He is to be the centerpiece of your life. And God doesn't ask to be, you know, one affection among many competing affections. He demands first place because he deserves first place. And so El Canah means there's no corner of your life where Jesus gets told, you know, you can have everything except this. Lord, this is mine. No, it all is his, you are his. Number two, El Canah, this idea that God is jealous, means your idols are way more dangerous than you think. Now, let's define this first. An idol is anything that begins receiving what belongs to God. And so I want you to ask some important questions. If you're watching this on YouTube, these will be on the screen. If you're on the go here, let me just read these to you. Number one, what do I fear losing the most? Number two, what controls my emotions? Number three, what do I think I need in order to be happy? Be careful. That could become an idol. Number four, where does my mind constantly wander? And number five, what am I willing to compromise when it comes to obedience in order to keep? So I will actually disobey God in order to keep this thing. All of those questions can expose your idols. John Calvin, famous kind of reformed quote that the human heart is an idol factory. That's what it's constantly producing. That's why 1 John ends with this simple warning. He says, Little children, guard yourself from idols. El Canah loves you so much that he's jealous for you, and he will not casually stand by and watch you destroy yourself by worshiping something that can never satisfy you. And so, number three, El Canah means that God will discipline you, and it's evidence that he loves his people. That he's a jealous God means that you're gonna experience some rebuke if you start worshiping idols. And sometimes we wonder, maybe you've wondered this, why God interrupts things that you love, or why he's exposed your sin or frustrated your plans, or he's removed something you were leaning on to way too heavily. And I think sometimes, if not maybe even all the time, besides trials and certain enemy attacks, of course, there's spiritual warfare. But many times over, for us as Christians, if you think, God, it looks like you have just removed this, or you're being harsh with me, or you're coming down hard on me, here's the key truth: God loves us too much to let the gift ever replace the giver. And Hebrews 12, 6 says, like a good father, God disciplines those he loves. And so if you've experienced the discipline of God when it comes to your idols, if El Kanah has burned with jealousy towards you and then pulled things from your life because you were sharing him with other things, that means he loves you. What a blessing. I think it's important for us to even ask sometimes, Lord, why aren't you dealing with this in my life? Don't you love me? God is not indifferent towards his children. He will correct us, he will expose us, he will redirect our hearts. And he presses right in on that thing. And El Cana will go after the very thing we're clutching. And the idea is that nothing can be your God if he is. And finally, number four, Elkanah means Jesus wants a faithful bride. All of these Old Testament Hebrew names are not detached from Christ, even though in our Bible we might say, well, Jesus didn't show up till the New Testament. Oh, he's all throughout the pages of scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. And the jealousy of God runs all the way from the Old through into the New Testament. And the church is repeatedly described as the bride of Christ. And this idea of godly jealousy absolutely flows into the new covenant. That's why Paul says in the back half of that passage I mentioned earlier in 2 Corinthians 11, 2, about his godly jealousy, I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. The idea is that the church is a bride being prepared for Jesus Christ. And he purchased the bride, and he sought to redeem this bride for himself. Titus 2.14 says Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a people, the Bible says, for his own possession. And so think about those words for a second. To purify a people for his own possession. Christ died for you, his bride, and he desires relationship and love and focus and attention on him. And redemption is the seal on that promise. And so what do you do with this Hebrew name, El Kanah? Maybe the best question that you should ask is not, do I believe in God? Maybe you should start asking, you know, what competes with God in my heart? What gets the best of your affection? What gets the first of your attention? What are you terrified to lose? And what are you trusting to give you what God can only give? Maybe there's something in your life right now that's a good thing, and it's slowly become the ultimate thing. Put it back in its proper place. Enjoy God's good gifts, love your family, work hard, build things, have goals, enjoy life. But my friend, worship God alone because El Kanah is not jealous because he he needs something from you. He's jealous because you belong to him. And instead of feeling like all of this is some legalistic or limiting thing, start seeing God as jealous. And that's a comfort to you. Because the God who saved you is not casual with you. The Jesus who purchased you, ha, he's never gonna surrender you. You're his. So remember your God is El Kanah. He is jealous for you because he loves you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching, and thank you so much for your support of for the gospel. We still have a little more runway in this Names of God series, and then we're gonna start another series about God that I think is gonna transform your thinking. We're gonna look at the attributes of God. It's gonna be an amazing time. I've been already studying and preparing for it. I can't wait to dig in, but we're not gonna overlook this last name of God coming up. I want to remind you as well that everything in our ministry is available for free. All of our content there on our website. If you're looking for articles, videos, teaching series. If you want to check out the podcast in other ways, maybe other topics, go look back. I've literally got a few hundred episodes, and then we have our playlists on YouTube. And all of those topics are their multi-video series, and I hope that they really bless you. Also, just want to thank you for your prayers and for your support financially for this ministry. Everything we do is because of your faithfulness and God choosing to use this work to minister to hearts and provide sound doctrine for everyday people around the world. And so thank you for all that you've done to support us. If you are new to our ministry, be sure to check out our website at forthegospel.org and you can follow us across all social media platforms. I'll be back next Monday with another episode. Keep on living for the gospel.