Audio Transcript
Happy Monday morning, everyone. As we near the end of our fiscal year, I want to start with a note that this year at Desiring God we launched our Next Generation Vision to aggressively spread great joy in a big God to the next generation. You may have heard the updates. We’re upgrading our technology and expanding the distribution of our resources far and wide, all free of charge. And if you want to join us as we seek to reach the next generation, you can by giving a monthly or one-time gift to help offset the cost of free for thousands just like you. Go to desiringGod.org/give today. And if you already support us, we appreciate it greatly! Thank you for partnering with us.
Well, there’s a story in the Old Testament. We read it this week. We study it today, and honestly, it’s a bit terrifying. It’s about a guy named Jehu. Jehu pulls off a massive purge of idol worship in Israel. On paper, he’s a hero of the faith. He brags about his own zeal, but a few verses later, we get a bombshell that causes us to rethink everything about Jehu. Today on Ask Pastor John: zeal for God gone wrong.
This is the text that got Jared’s attention in Michigan. He wrote this: “Pastor John, hello and thank you for APJ! I am struck by the story of Jehu in the Old Testament. He was clearly zealous enough to declare openly, ‘Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord,’ in 2 Kings 10:16. And he did enact that zeal by purging Baal worship from inside of Israel, which was a big accomplishment. And yet the Bible’s final verdict on him just a few verses later is that ‘Jehu was not careful to walk in the law of the Lord, the God of Israel, with all his heart.’ That’s 2 Kings 10:31. It makes me wonder about my own motives. How do we guard ourselves against the self-deception of believing we are serving God passionately — even doing big things for him — when in reality our zeal is just performative, half-hearted, or driven by something other than true love for him?”
Tragic Zealot
Jehu is a tragic figure in Israel’s history. He was a king of Israel who became king by wiping out Ahab and his wife Jezebel and all his sons and heirs. It was complete carnage. God’s prophet Elisha had in fact given him a word from God to do just this. Elisha’s messenger said to Jehu, “I anoint you king over the people of the Lord, over Israel. And you shall strike down the house of Ahab your master, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants the prophets” (2 Kings 9:6–7).
“It is possible to have a kind of zeal for God that loves the external forms of Christianity but does not love God.”
And as Jehu finished off Ahab’s lineage, he said, “Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord,” in 2 Kings 10:16. That sounds so positive and so helpful. Who could find fault with zeal for the Lord? But what makes Jehu a tragic figure is that when the Bible sums up his life’s work, it reveals that his zeal was defective. Listen to this summary of Jehu’s life in 2 Kings 10:28–31: “Thus Jehu wiped out Baal from Israel.” That is, he wiped out the false god. He wiped out idolatry like that from Israel. But verse 29 reads,
Jehu did not turn aside from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin — that is, the golden calves that were in Bethel and in Dan. And the Lord said to Jehu, “Because you have done well in carrying out what is right in my eyes, and have done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.” But Jehu was not careful to walk in the law of the Lord, the God of Israel, with all his heart. He did not turn from the sins of Jeroboam, which he made Israel to sin. (2 Kings 10:29–31)
What a tragedy. God actually commended Jehu that he had “done well” (2 Kings 10:30). In other words, at the external level of deeds, he had been obedient. The Baal worship was destroyed. The murderous house of Ahab and Jezebel was wiped out. But there were two problems. Jehu still loved idols, if not Baal. And Jehu did not obey God with all his heart. Much of his heart was driven by his love affair with the golden calves of Bethel and Dan and by personal vindictiveness against Ahab and Jezebel. In other words, it is possible — this is the sobering part — to have a kind of zeal for God today that loves the external forms of Christianity but does not love God.
Defective Zeal
Zeal itself was not the problem. Zeal can be wonderfully good, even essential, I think. Isaiah 9:7 reads,
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
And Jesus himself was driven by a kind of Jehu-like zeal. When he turned over the money changers and their tables, John 2:17 quotes Psalm 69:9: “Zeal for your house has consumed me.” And Paul said to the Corinthians that their zeal had stirred up other believers (2 Corinthians 9:2). And he said to the believers in Rome, “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit” (Romans 12:11).
So, clearly, zeal is not only a good thing; I think it’s actually a crucial thing in the Christian life. God wants us engaged with him, not half-heartedly, not with lukewarm affection, but with all our heart, not just a fraction of it. Jehu is not the only biblical warning about defective zeal, though. Paul looked back on his own pre-Christian life and said with great regret, “As to zeal, [I was] a persecutor of the church” (Philippians 3:6).
“Am I excited about outdoing my friends with spiritual disciplines, or about Christ?”
And perhaps the most important warning of all was Paul’s amazing statement in Romans 10:2, where he says of his beloved kinsmen according to the flesh, his fellow Jews, “I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” In a sense, that’s very much the problem with Jehu: a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. And Paul was referring to his precious Jewish kinsmen because they were “ignorant.” This is Romans 10:3: “For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.”
Refined and Purified
So, both Jehu and the Pharisees (Paul was a Pharisee before he was a Christian) had a zeal for the law of God, but they were ignorant of the heart of the law. They thought that external compliance was the main thing, but authentic love for God himself as the all-satisfying treasure was missing.
And I think the answer to Jared’s question about how we guard ourselves against this self-deception of Jehu and the Pharisees is mainly answered by being aware of the difference between external conformity to rules and internal enjoyment of God. Because once we are aware of the difference between false zeal and true zeal, we can test ourselves. We can ask the crucial questions, like, “Am I excited about this new Christian political movement, or am I excited about Christ? Am I excited about outdoing my friends with spiritual disciplines, or about Christ? Am I in love with the name I am making for myself as an articulate religious zealot, or am I in love with Jesus?”
If we ask these questions honestly, I believe God will refine and purify our zeal. It will accord with true knowledge, and it will go deep into our hearts.
