HATRED AND JEALOUSY: THE DESTRUCTIVE DUO

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.

This is the account of Jacob.

Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made a richly ornamented robe for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

Genesis 37:1-4

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Hate and jealousy.

There are not too many other emotions that are more deadly and ruinous than these two.

You know, it’s been said that a majority of murders are committed because of one of two root motives, love or money, and based on what we see and read in the news every day, it’s hard to argue with that theory. Now obviously, people don’t get murderous because they love the person they kill; rather it’s usually because they have hated them for whatever reason and jealousy is too often the bed partner of hate.

Given this, it’s little wonder that the Holy Bible would offer us so many more verses on love and so few on hate. For it is the will of our Lord that we love one another, not just some of the time but all of the time, and this was certainly reinforced through the life of His only Son Jesus, the One Christians are to model their lives after.

Indeed, if we let our guard down as a believer, we will find sin, which breeds hatred, ready to step in. Friends, this can only happen if we stop living like Jesus did, the One who was perfect love personified.

The truth of the matter is that when we find ourselves distanced from our Savior, we are in closer company with Satan and vulnerable to his attacks. And just as love can be edifying and beautiful, hate is destructive and repulsive. Go back to the fourth chapter of Genesis and we can see this represented perfectly. There, you’ll remember what hate did to Cain for it led him to kill and destroy his brother Abel. Dig deeper and you’ll find jealousy was the root cause of the hate-driven murder.

With this as a backdrop, we come to the opening verses of Genesis, chapter 37 and pick up on the story of Jacob, who we know God also named Israel. Look again at those verses here:

Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.

This is the account of Jacob.

Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made a richly ornamented robe for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. Vv.1-4

In today’s scripture passage, we see Old Testament history repeat itself.

Jacob has lost the love of his life, Rachel, and his father, Isaac, and we can’t help but think that he went through some significant grieving for a while after those deaths. We read where Jacob seemed to find great happiness and joy in his son Joseph who he loved “more than any of his other sons” because “he had been born to him in his old age”. I can’t help but think that some of Jacob’s feelings toward Joseph came from him being the first son born of his now deceased wife Rachel.

In a display of his special love for Joseph, the scriptures tell us that Jacob made him as “richly ornamented robe", a robe that has been referred to many times as the “coat of many colors”. More than just a mere outer garment, the robe became a symbol of Jacob’s preference for Joseph and a constant reminder to the other eleven sons that they all came in second, a feeling that led to their hatred of Joseph which was so intense that they couldn’t even "speak a kind word to him." And as we’ll see, this hatred would soon bubble over and lead toward thoughts of…you guessed it…murder.

This message today forces us to self examine ourselves to see if we are harboring any anger, hatred, or jealousy toward anyone. If so, we need to turn to Jesus this very moment and repent for as with Cain, “sin is crouching” at our door and “it desires to have” us (Genesis 4:7) .

The bottom line is that hatred and jealousy, the destructive duo, are not of God; rather, they are of the enemy Satan and we need to know and trust that he only wishes for our downfall. It is the very reason he exists and his chief goal, each and every day, is to destroy every good and perfect thing that the Lord has made and that includes us.

The good news is we have a choice. We can proclaim the name of Jesus when Satan comes calling, denying him the victory and in doing so, we can fulfill the exhortation of our Savior’s half brother James when he wrote these words:

"Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God  He will come near to you." James 4:7-8

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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