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\u2026the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time\u2014if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and arousing his anger\u2026 you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess\u2026.The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive\u2026There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell. But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him. For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your ancestors, which he confirmed to them by oath (Deuteronomy 4:24-31).

In our text we find two statements about God that appear contradictory. The first is, \u201cthe Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God\u201d (24) and the second, \u201cthe Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your ancestors\u201d (31). Both describe God as equally passionate, one passion destroys, the other gathers and heals.

Can they both be true? Can God be \u201ca consuming fire\u201d and \u201cmerciful\u201d at the same time? Moses thought so. And God describes himself as such. Consider these things.

The Israelites had seen God\u2019s consuming fire from the foothills of Mount Sinai, ironically, they were not consumed. We commonly view jealousy as a negative reaction akin to envy or covetousness. However, in the Old Testament, it usually speaks of a legitimate passion aroused when a proper relationship is threatened by a third party. We still accept this type of jealousy as legitimate when someone attempts to woe a person already married. The Lord of Israel is an impassioned God, who treasures Israel as his covenant people. This jealous love is fueled, not by an abusive need to dominate, but by the zeal for Israel\u2019s well-being.

God\u2019s consuming fire on Sinai, demonstrated with spectacular cosmic pyrotechnics, was not meant to create physical fear, even though it did do that. Rather, it revealed the passion of his redeeming love which had brought his people out of the fires of slavery. Such love can tolerate no rival. He was committed exclusively to Israel to bring shalom to the world. Israel\u2019s only appropriate response is an equally exclusive commitment to God.

Thus, if Israel pursues another lover, she will arouse this jealousy. it would entail a reversal of the covenant with Abraham: \u2018only a few of you will survive\u2019 (27) clearly contrasted with the promise of \u2018descendants as numerous as the stars\u2019. Scattered into far away lands, the Israelites would worship man-made gods. God\u2019s irony: under judgment they will have to do what they had freely chosen to do, serve other gods. In exile, they would discover the powerlessness of those gods. If these gods cannot perform even basic human functions, what hope is there of any saving power from them?

But that is never the end of the story. No place would be too far and no time too distant for Israel to come back to God. Beyond sin and judgment there is always hope. Israel knew this already. After her apostasy with the golden calf (cf. Ex. 32-34), Israel discovered that her survival depended not on her ability to keep the covenant but on God\u2019s willingness to sustain it. God\u2019s forgiving grace and unswerving commitment to his promise to Abraham guaranteed Israel\u2019s survival. God would not forget God\u2019s word.

In Exodus 34 God identifies himself as, \u201cThe LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness\u201d (6). Thus, if scattered because of their idolatry, they turned back to God, he would allow himself to be found by them. Unlike the gods of the peoples, he is not limited to a place; rather, he is the personal God of Israel, his ear is always listening for his people. His mercy is warm and tender affection, like the love of a parent toward a child.

Like Israel, we cannot depend on our own righteousness. We will always come up short. But God has provided. Paul writes, \u201crighteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe\u201d (Romans 3:22). When we turn to him, we find God. Always. A jealous, consuming fire God? Absolutely. Zealous enough for us to enter death\u2019s dark domain that we might know his shalom. Turn to him and you will experience his mercy.