What Is Godly Christian Zeal?

Alright, let's change gears here. I'm curious, how many of you saw the PBS special on the Roosevelt's? Some of us saw that. For those of you who didn't see it, if it's on demand, if you can get a hold of that, it was an outstanding series of seven parts, each part two hours, going through the life of the various Roosevelt's. You got a really good inside look as to what it was, the Bea Roosevelt, just really illuminating. Willow Run got a nice shot out there in the, I think it was the sixth segment. You know, we think of Willow Run Airport. We don't really see it from the freeway. We see the sign for it. But back in World War II, that was a huge bomber plant. They made the B-24 Liberator. If you've ever seen films or documentaries on the Second World War, the Liberator was that bomber that had the double stabilizer in the back. You know, a lot of times it's just this kind of a deal, but this was the two. But as they were talking about it, they were saying, you know, your average vehicle coming off that Ford assembly line had 15,000 parts. 15,000 parts. They said these Liberators had 1.5 million parts, and they got one of those out every day. And I'm lucky if I can find my glasses in the morning. You know, they're putting together one of these things every day. A huge plant. It was a really interesting thing. But anyhow, Ken Burns put out this series on the Roosevelt, and he always does a wonderful job. If you ever saw some of his other series on the Civil War or baseball or jazz, you would know that. But I saw a little anecdote about Theodore Roosevelt. Of course, they discussed his life. You know, Roosevelt, Theodore Teddy Roosevelt, growing up was a rather frail, maybe sickly little guy. They might explain why he just always felt the need to do all these manly things in his life, just kind of pushing himself, proving to himself that he wasn't a sickly person. Of course, he died when he was 60, and FDR, his fifth cousin, died when he was 63. But as a little child, Theodore Roosevelt was afraid to go to church. He refused to set foot in that church if he was by himself, and his mother asked him, says, well, and of course she had a pet name for him. She called him Teddy. Teddy, why don't you want to go into church? And he said, he looked at his mother, you know, bright-eyed, and, Mom, they got a zeal in there. And she said, a what? She said, a zeal. Now, can you imagine some little boy, probably three or four years old, he's scared, he's, you know, just looking at his mama, he wants the mama to protect him, and their zeal's about. And so she didn't really comprehend what was the problem, so she got her concordance out. She started reading different scriptures about zeal until she came to John chapter 2, and then he said, that's it! So, let's go to John chapter 2 and see what Teddy Roosevelt, one of our most masculine presidents of all time, what was the deal there? Of course, he was a little guy.

John chapter 2. And in verse 17, John chapter 2 and verse 17. Then his disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for your house has eaten me up. So the poor little guy, he thought if he stepped into that church, something that that zeal was going to get at him, starting on on the leg or something. And so he didn't want to go to church. But, you know, brother, there's a very serious point here, and that is that we are preparing for the upcoming Feast of Tabernacles. And we want to go to the Feast, and we want to be zealous. We want to be as zealous as Jesus Christ. We want to follow him in all ways, and certainly we want to follow his zeal. One chapter over in John chapter 4. Let's take a look at Christ's zeal. John chapter 4.

And verse 34. Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to finish his work. Christ was a man full of zeal. He had a job to do. He did his job. And, you know, he was on a time schedule. He had to fulfill all the Old Testament prophecies about his first coming. He had to establish the ministry, establish the New Testament, New Covenant Church, do all those things. And, of course, Satan was after him every step of the way. There was not a single second in Jesus Christ's life where he had a moment's peace from Satan. You know, he couldn't say, well, you know, I'm just... He couldn't relax. He was a moving target all the time. Because if he relaxed at all, he could have sinned. And if he would have sinned, we wouldn't have a Savior, and he too would die. It would have been possible for him to have sinned. Revelation chapter 3. Let's see the other side of the story regarding zeal.

We think of the name Laodicean, and it's just the opposite of zeal.

Revelation chapter 3 verse 14. And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, these things says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. I know your works that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So here we've got a group of people. They weren't zealous. They were tepid. They wouldn't move one way or another. They weren't outstanding one way or another. They were just kind of there.

So then, because you are lukewarm and either cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth.

So obviously Christ doesn't like somebody who lacks zeal. Because you say, I am rich. And here Christ is talking about how they felt about themselves spiritually. Because you say you are spiritually rich and have become wealthy. You have all this knowledge and so forth. And you have need of nothing and do not know that you are spiritually wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire. In other words, golden character. That you may be rich, spiritually rich, and white garments. That you may be clothed. That the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed. And oint your eyes with eyesab that you may see. Yet all these are talking about spiritual issues. Make sure you can see yourself for what you are. And notice now verse 19, as many as I love I rebuke and chasten therefore be zealous and repent. So here's a church that's the epitome of people lacking zeal. Now this is a church of God. These are these are church of God people. These are converted people, but they are not in a very good state at all. So the question I want to ask is you and I prepare for the feast. And of course this sermon applies to the rest of our lives. I want to ask and answer a question. The question is this. What is godly Christian zeal? What is godly Christian zeal? How do you know if you have it? If you don't have it, if I don't have it, what steps do we take to get it? What is godly Christian zeal? I think many times it's helpful for us to know what something isn't. In the first portion of the sermon I want to go through and show you some of the things, not all the things, but some of the things that are not characteristic of godly Christian zeal. Let's see what it isn't. Letter A. Godly Christian zeal isn't self-righteous.

Godly Christian zeal isn't self-righteous. Let's go to Romans chapter 10.

Romans chapter 10 verses 1 through 3.

Romans chapter 10 verses 1 through 3. Paul writing here to the church in Corinth. Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all of our fathers were under the cloud, all paths through the sea. Oops, I got the wrong thing here. I'm in Corinthians. I want to be in Romans. Sorry about that. Romans chapter 10. In my zeal I turned to the wrong place. Romans chapter 10 verse 1. Brother, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness, are seeking to establish their own righteousness and have not submitted to the righteousness of God. So you can be zealous and be going the wrong way. You can be zealously driving the car going the wrong way and be really lost, right? The zeal can be good or bad depending upon the origin. Is the origin God? Is the origin Satan? Is the origin you or I? What is the origin of our zeal? The zeal can be good or bad depending upon how it's used. Is it used to become more like God and Jesus Christ? Or is it used to become more like somebody that you think you should model your life after? Somebody in the world? In that regard, there was an anecdote I want to read to you. At their school carnival, our kids won four free goldfish. So I went out to find an aquarium. The first few I price ranged from $40 to $70. Then I spotted one right in the aisle. A discarded 10-gallon display tank, complete with gravel and filter for a mere five bucks. So guess which one he bought? He bought the $5 model. Of course, it was nasty dirty, but the savings made the two hours of cleanup a breeze. Those four new fish looked great in their new home, at least for the first day. But by Sunday, one had died. Too bad. Had three more. Monday morning revealed a second casually. By Monday night, a third goldfish had gone belly up. We called and an expert member of our congregation was a 30-gallon tank. It didn't take them long to discover the problem. I had washed the tank with soap. An absolute no-no. My uninformed efforts had destroyed the very lives I was trying to protect. Sometimes they're in our zeal to clean up our own lives. For the lives of others, we unfortunately use killer soaps. Condemnation, criticism, we think we're doing right, but our harsh self-righteous treatment is more than others can bear.

You know, this is something, brother, and I have seen in every church I've ever pastored. Every church I've ever pastored, there's always somebody, you know, they are it when it comes to Christianity. So this is something that this is not a part of true godly zeal. Paul says, they, being ignorant of God's righteousness, they sought their own righteousness. They didn't submit to God. They had a zeal, but not according to knowledge. We want to make sure that our zeal is proper, not self-righteous. Let's move on. Letter B. Godly zeal isn't injurious.

Godly zeal isn't injurious. Turn over to Acts chapter 26. I've quoted, I've referred to this on many occasions, but I've not often read this. Let's go to Acts chapter 26.

We're going to take a look at Saul of Tarsus, a zealous young man. Very zealous. But again, his zeal was not the proper kind of zeal. His zeal did injure people. Acts chapter 26 verse 9. Indeed, I myself thought I must do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. So obviously, he's going the wrong direction, isn't he? This I also did in Jerusalem, and many of the saints I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests, and when they were put to the death, I cast my vote against them. And I punished them often in every synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme, and exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities.

There are many times where the Apostle Paul, after his conversion, talked about how he was chief among sinners. As I may mention to you on a number of occasions, brethren, how would you enjoy the fact that I would be announcing someday we're having a guest speaker come? And a guest speaker comes up here to the lectern, and this the gentleman who's about to address you tortured your mother, or threw your spouse in jail, or had your kids tortured, or had your family run for their lives and they were financially ruined. How would you enjoy that? How would you respond to that? Well, first century Christians had to respond to that. Paul became a Christian. They had to deal with Paul, but Paul had to look them in the eye, realizing what he had done to their families and so forth. That's one of the reasons why Paul did say that he was a chief among sinners. And yet here we see a man full of zeal, but a man who caused an awful lot of damage.

Godly Christian zeal isn't injurious. If you find, or if I find, that as we go through life and we think the word zealous and we leave a wake of broken people behind us, something's wrong.

Something's wrong. John chapter 18.

John chapter 18 and verse 10.

John chapter 18 and verse 10. Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant and cut off his right ear.

Again, an example of great zeal, but this zeal was very injurious. You know, you'd lop off somebody's ear. That's not too terribly good. Sometimes, brethren, we have a desire to do things. You know, we're Americans. We are people of action. We want to rush in and do things. But too many times when you're shooting from the hip, you're hitting people, you're hurting people, you're maiming people. We need to focus on the big picture in terms of our zeal, making sure our zeal is always in tune with what God would have us do. And we'll talk about that later on in the sermon. So letter B is, Godly Christian zeal isn't injurious. Let's go to letter C. I've got four of these here for you. Letter C, Godly Christian zeal isn't emotionalism. Godly Christian zeal isn't emotionalism. You know, you've got those people in the world who are very cerebral. The doctor spots among us. You've got other people who are very emotional. There's nothing wrong with being cerebral. There's nothing wrong with being emotional. But when we go to either extreme, then we can have some issues. Luke chapter 22. Luke chapter 22 verses 31 through 34.

Luke 22 verses 31 through 34. And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, indeed Satan has asked for you that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you. Pause. You know, on trumpets over in flint, I made mention about two different examples in the scriptures that always give me a great deal of encouragement. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were going through their difficulty, they were thrown into a fiery furnace. Now, that fire that being thrown into the furnace, the fall itself could have killed them. It didn't. And the fire was killing those people who were just bringing them up to be thrown into the furnace. Didn't touch them at all. But when you read the story there in Daniel chapter 3, and we're not going to turn there, but in Daniel chapter 3, you have King Nebuchadnezzar looking in. He appears and he says, now what am I seeing here? He looks more close. He says, didn't we throw three guys in there? They said, yeah, King, we threw three guys in there. And then Nebuchadnezzar says, but I see four people in there.

And sure enough, that fourth person was Jesus, the one we would come to know as Jesus Christ.

So, brother, when you're going through trials, we want to make sure that we appreciate the fact that Jesus Christ, as it says here, he's standing with us. He still goes Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. When Stephen was being persecuted, and he was being killed, one of the first martyrs of the church, as he was dying, God gave him the opportunity to have a vision. He looked up into heaven and he saw Jesus Christ standing at the right hand of God. Jesus Christ wasn't sitting someplace. He was standing at the right hand of God. We have prayer requests. We've talked about various ones like Cap Hatmaker and the Murries and the Zirimans. We're so happy when people pray for us. Many times we'll ask other churches to pray for us. But have you wrapped around your mind that Jesus Christ goes to God on your behalf? That Jesus Christ prays for you? That's awesome. That is awesome. I think sometimes we've got, in my thinking, this is my thing, sometimes we feel that the more people we've got praying, the better for us. I don't necessarily subscribe to that. You know, if I've got one righteous person who is really close to God praying for me, I don't care if I've got a army of a thousand people who are lukewarm. It's not a matter of numbers. It's a matter of being close to God. But here we see that Jesus Christ is praying for Simon Peter. That your face should now fail, and when you have returned to me, strengthen your brethren.

Verse 33, he said, Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.

You know, a lot of emotion here. But he can't back that emotion up. But he said, I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny me three times. Three times that you know me. You know, emotion only takes you so far. If you're running on emotion, you're going to run dry. You need more. You and I, we need to have the Spirit of God. Zeal isn't simply heightened human emotion. All that is is heightened human emotion. Robert Benson said this, and I think it was a good quote. He said, emotion should be servants and not masters, and certainly not tyrants. Emotion should be servants, not masters, and certainly not tyrants. Take a look at 1 Corinthians chapter 14. 1 Corinthians 14 deals largely with spiritual gifts, speaking in tongues and things of that nature. But notice what it says here in chapter 14 and verse 32. 1 Corinthians 14, 32, where it says, And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. You know, I have to ask myself, you need to ask yourself, when we get into emotions, it could be emotions, or emotions. It could be a melancholy, it could be depression, it could be anger, it could be any number of emotions. But are we allowing our emotions to be our masters? Are we allowing our emotions to be our tyrants? Ruling our life. Godly Christian zeal isn't emotionalism. Finally, letter D, and what things what is Christian zeal isn't, letter D. Godly Christian zeal isn't contrary to God's plan.

Godly Christian zeal isn't contrary to God's plan. Matthew chapter 16.

Matthew chapter 16 verses 21 through 23.

Matthew 16, 21. From that time Jesus began to show to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised the third day. I mean, this is the essence. You know, we heard Lee talking about this in the sermon today. The starting point for the plan of God is Jesus Christ as our Passover.

Starting point of the plan. But notice Peter is wanting to fight against and go contrary to God's plan. Verse 22. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, far be it from you, Lord, this shall not happen to you. Peter is saying, I don't want you to die on that staros. And notice with Christ, verse 23, and remember, Jesus Christ was the epitome of love. Jesus said, he turned aside to Peter and said, get behind me, Satan.

Well, that's certainly not politically correct. But Jesus Christ was saying this in love. Because Jesus Christ realized it was Satan who didn't want Christ to go to be crucified.

And I'm not saying here that Peter was being Satan-possessed or anything of the nature. But, you know, he just wasn't thinking. He didn't have, you know, he was not converted. He didn't have God's Holy Spirit in him yet. He wasn't really getting the fullness of the picture. And so, you know, Christ says, get behind me, Satan, for you are an offense to me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men. So there's a zeal there, but the zeal is very much misplaced.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, if everyone does not come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Now, Christ continually talked to his men about what the plan of God was all about and how they should be living their lives. Acts 5.

Acts 5.

Verses 34-39.

Now, here is a little bit of background in Acts 5. The apostles are being persecuted, and the discussion is bringing forth what should the people do with these men who are turning the world upside down. With that in mind, we break into verse 34 here in the context. Then one in the council stood up, a Pharisee named Gomeliel. Now, this is a man who was Saul of Tarsus' main teacher. Today, we would think of him as a Supreme Court justice. He was a very famous individual in that area. A Pharisee named Gomeliel, a teacher of the law, held in respect by all the people. He was a man of note. And commanding them, they put the apostles outside for a little while. You know, Gomeliel said, you know, we want to have a chat here, and I want to discuss things with you. Let's take these men and set them outside. Then he said, the men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what you intend to do regarding these men. For some time ago, the Theudists rose up, claiming to be somebody. A number of men, about 400, joined him. He was slain, and all who obeyed him were scattered and came to nothing. After that, this man, Judas of Galilee, rose up in the days of the census, and drew away many people after him. He also perished, and all who obeyed him dispersed. Now I say to you, keep away from these men, and let them alone. For if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing. But if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it, lest you even be found to fight against God. Fight against God. We don't want to do that, do we? So, Godly Christian zeal isn't contrary to God's plan. So, at this point, brethren, we've taken a look at what Godly Christian zeal isn't. It isn't self-righteous. It isn't injurious. It isn't emotions out of control. And it's not contrary to God's plan. So now let's take a look at the other side of the story, and explain a little bit about what Godly Christian zeal is. I may mention to the folks in Ann Arbor, I've got a definition here. I don't know where I got this. I should have written down the place where I got this. I just didn't do that. But when I was reading this, I thought, you know, this is a well-crafted thought as to if we're going to define Godly Christian zeal. Let me go through this with you. This writer says, Godly Christian zeal is an eager willingness to obey, serve, and please God. It is characterized by diligence, enthusiasm, hard work, and a balanced and lawful manner. Now that's a well-crafted thought. I want to read that again.

If you want to write it down, I'll try to go a little slowly. Godly Christian zeal is an eager willingness to obey, serve, and please God. It is characterized by diligence, enthusiasm, hard work, and a balanced and lawful manner.

All that having been said, let me give you some points here as to some guidelines for Godly Christian zeal. I'm going to enumerate these. We lettered the other ones. Number one, if we want to be Christians with a Godly zeal, we want to be zealous for the right things, for God's things, be zealous for the right things, for God's things. If you would turn to Psalm 42, and this is going to sound really familiar to you, Psalm 42, because Psalm 42 is in our hymnal. Psalm 42 is hymn number 121, as the deer. Let's take a look at Psalm 42 verses 1-3.

A little bit of background before I start reading. The person who wrote this psalm, one of the sons of Korah, was being hunted and hounded by his enemies.

As he's having awful, difficult time in the flesh, he's pursuing a stronger relationship with God. To him, this relationship means life itself. Nothing is going to keep him from this life-giving relationship. This zeal is for the things of God. Okay, with that in mind, Psalm 42 verse 1, as the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come up and appear before God? My tears have been food day and night while they continue to say to me, where is your God? So this whole man's, the whole focus for this man is on God, the things of God. How to properly live, have zeal, the proper kind of zeal. It's always pointed toward God. It's not pointed toward self. It's not pointed toward the world or other people or other things. It's pointed toward God. Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter 10 verses 38 through 42.

We've quoted this section a number of times. Luke chapter 10 verse 38. Now it happened as they went that he entered a certain village and a certain woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. She had a sister called Mary who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard heard his word. But Martha was distracted with much serving and she approached him and said, Lord, do not care that my sister has left me to serve alone. Therefore, tell her to come and help me.

Haven't we all in our lives, in our Christian lives, been Martha's? Haven't we all been distracted by, you know, we're doing so much for the church. We're doing so much here, so much there that we lose sight of what is the right thing?

Verse 41. In Jesus' answer, it said there, Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part which will not be taken away from her. You know, when you have Jesus Christ as a house guest, certainly you want to make sure that you feed him and you're hospitable and those sorts of things, but you want to take as much time with him as you can. And of course, the same thing is true for us today. You know, there are things that we have to do. We've got to go to work and so forth, but there's Christ here in verse 42, but one thing is needed. Speaking about our priorities, our first priority is always God.

Everything else comes after that, then family, then work. But always, God is first. So be zealous for the right things. Number two. Number two. Be zealous about your own business, not other people's business.

We could be pretty good at that, can we? We may not know how to live our own lives, but boy, we can live other people's lives. You know? What's wrong with that person? Well, if I was that person, you know, I would do this and that and the other. Be zealous about your own business, not the business of others.

Second Corinthians chapter 7.

Second Corinthians chapter 7.

Verse 11. Verse 13, verse 10. Second Corinthians 7.10. For Godly sorrow produces repentance, leading to salvation, not to be regretted. But the sorrow of the world, you know, mostly emotionalism, produces death. So verse 10 says, there's a right way to do things, there's a wrong way to do things.

There's a true repentance and there's a false repentance. There's real gold and false gold. You don't want the fool's gold, you want the real deal. So verse 11 tells us what real repentance consists of. And it's not just repentance toward baptism, it's repentance when you face anything in your life that needs to go. Verse 11. For observe this very thing you sorrowed in a godly manner. Then there's a laundry list here. So you know how you need to repent. What diligence it produced in you. What diligence? Are we diligent about our own lives? When we examine ourselves, are we examining ourselves and not everybody else? What clearing of yourself, not clearing everybody else, not trying to dictate to them or trying to clean their lives, but the clearing of yourselves.

What indignation? This is talking about a hatred, a hatred of sin that we see in ourselves, that we must rid ourselves of. What fear? A proper fear of what? Of God, having a proper awe and respect and reverence for the great God. What vehement desire? Now, I don't say emotion is bad, but emotion run amok is bad. What vehement desire? We want to have strong desire. That's what this is talking about. If we don't have strong desire to change something, we're not going to change something, you or I.

But notice what follows. What zeal? You have to back up that strong vehement desire with some action. Wishing and hoping and longing for something. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's got to be backed up with something more specific, something of more substance. So you've got the vehement desire, and then you've got the zeal to act on that vehement desire.

And then it says, what in my Bible here, the New King James, with vindication. In your authorized version, or the King James says, what revenge? And revenge is really a better translation in my mind. You want to have revenge on Satan. You do that by turning your back on Satan. You turn your back on him by having this revenge.

And notice the very last portion of verse 11. All these things you've proved yourselves to be clear in this matter. In what matter? The matter if you are repentant or not. The matter if you are zealous about your own business or not. As I'm counseling people for baptism, we'll use that as an example, I go through this with everybody and I say, look, you need to see yourself on a scale from zero to 100.

If you look at some of these things and you're just not diligent at all, you don't hate your sin at all, if you're at zero on some of these things, you don't need to be baptized right now. On the other hand, if you see that you're at different levels of growth in this, then fine.

You're on your way. You've proved yourselves to be clear in that matter. So be zealous about your own business, not others. Number three, be zealous in a humble manner. Be zealous in a humble manner. Colossians 4, verses 12 and 13. Where it says, Epiphras, who was one of you, he was a citizen of Colossae, a bondservant of Christ, greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfectly complete in all the will of God.

For I bear in witness that he has a great zeal for you. And those who are in Laodicea, and those in Hierapolis. Notice, here's a man that says here in verse 13, who has great zeal. But notice how his great zeal is ascribed in verse 12, where it says, always laboring, working, diligent. He's laboring fervently. He's zealous in his labors, in those labors that are all the time. And those labors are in prayer. They're behind the scenes. No one's watching him. He's not doing it in the middle of a street. He's not doing it in the middle of a room. He's not doing it in the middle of a prayer meeting or anything like that.

As Christ said, let your prayers be in secret. Don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. So here you've got a man who's zealous in a humble manner. Zeal is not just always going out and slaying dragons. Everyone's seeing you slaying the dragons. Here's a man who, we can follow this example. It's a tremendous example. And be very zealous, and no one knows what you're doing. That's fine. No one needs to know what you're doing. God knows what you're doing, and that's all that's important. Luke chapter 21. Luke chapter 21.

Verse 1. Luke 21 verse 1. He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasure, and he saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. You know, these are very small little coins. Probably today we would think of them as pennies. I don't know if that's an exact analogy, but you know, just very little she's putting in. Verse 3. So he said, Truly I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all, for all those out of their abundance have put in their offerings, but God, for God, but she out of her poverty has put in all the livelihood she had.

She went full bore, full hundred percent. She didn't hold anything back. And here she is. She's a humble widow. She's not trying to make a name for herself. She's not trying to become famous.

But Christ makes sure that this story gets into the inspired Word of God, to let us know that if we want to be zealous, we can be zealous, but we can do it in a humble manner.

Lastly, number four. Number four. What is Godly Christian zeal? Number four. Be zealous at the right time. Godly Christian zeal is zealous at the right time. I think all of us can appreciate there's a time and a place for everything. There are times you want to say something, where your words are like water to a thirsty person. Then there are times when you and I could say something to somebody, and our words are like hugging a porcupine. Timing is everything. Ecclesiastes chapter 3 and verse 1, it says, to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. There's a great deal of wisdom there.

You know, you may know somebody that you would like to help, and truly they need help, and truly you do need to say something. God's put you in their life so that you can work with them and help them. But again, you've got to ask God for the wisdom as to when this takes place, and how this takes place. There's a right time. There's a wrong time. Godly Christian zeal finds the right time to do things. Mark chapter 1. Mark chapter 1. Mark chapter 1 verses 44 and 45. Let's move up a little bit here. Verse 40. Now a leper came to him, imploring him, kneeling down to him and saying to him, If you are willing, you can make me clean. Jesus then moved with compassion, stretched out his hand and touched him and said, I am willing, be cleansed. As soon as he had spoken immediately, the leper left him, and he was cleansed. I'll pause there for a second. We can read through this so quickly, but do we appreciate what's happening here? When you were a leper, at this time in history, in the Holy Land, you had to wear certain clothing that told everybody you were a leper. When you were walking through the street, you had to exclaim that you were a leper. Now, I think probably various ones of us in this room over the years may have had some issues with ourselves. But can you imagine if you had, you know, you felt you were inferior, or you weren't up to snuff, or you had these issues, and you felt you didn't have much self-comp. Can you imagine if you had to walk through society with clothes that showed you were a pariah, and then you had with your own mouth announce that you were a pariah? Can you imagine what that does to people? The Jewish tradition at the time said people should stay at least 100 feet away from a leper. So as you're going, you're walking through the streets, you've got people just walking away from you. You probably see little children looking at you in horror and running away, because they would be afraid that they would get leprosy.

And, you know, you've got a heart. You've got feelings. You don't want to have people looking at you like you're some kind of a monster. And then, of course, this man walks over to Jesus Christ and says, would you heal me? And Christ said yes, and Christ heals him. Can you imagine his heart almost explodes in his chest? He's so happy. He probably can't express his happiness.

But notice verse 43. Christ strictly warned him and sent him away at once, and he said, See that you say nothing to anyone, but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing those things which Moses commanded as a testimony to them.

So Jesus Christ does this tremendous miracle for him, and this man felt being zealous, he was going to tell the whole world. Now, you and I understand that. If somebody released us from this sort of situation, we would want to sing that person's praises to everybody. But Jesus Christ said, Don't do that. And this is where we have to put emotionalism aside and say, Okay, now the man who healed me said, Don't do that. Now why? Verse 45. However, he went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the matter so that Jesus could no longer openly enter the city. So as opposed to this man being a sail to help the work, this man was an anchor. He was zealous, he was emotional, but he did some harm to the work of God. He didn't mean to do that. He thought he was doing good, but he wasn't doing good. So people had to go outside and they went outside, and in the deserted places they came to him from every direction. Now, nothing's going to stop the work of God, but Christ specifically said, Just don't do this. It's not the time for this yet. It's not the time for me to be hampered. I don't want to be hampered in this city.

So, brother, let's keep that in mind. There are times in our life that God says, You know, you need to put the brakes on. And in our life we might as well say, No, this is the time we want to put our foot down to the metal. But God says, No, that's not the time. So we want to be zealous at the right time for the right things. And that takes a lot of spiritual wisdom. That takes a good walk with God, knowing our Father, knowing our elder brother, knowing how they think, and imitating their way of thinking. People always come to me and say, Mr. Del Santor, what should I... I just don't know what to study. And as I've told so many people, you can go to our website, ucg.org. And there's so much there, so much there. Study guides and articles and this and that and the other. I lost track of all the stuff. I send out a midweek Bible study showing all the things that are available to us. Much more than we ever had in the worldwide Church of God. Much, much more. And there's no... we've got study guides on each of the minor prophets. We've got study guides on each of the holy days, each of the fruits of the Spirit. I think I added it up in that one midweek Bible study. If you just took a look at some of those things, you would have a study every day for at least six months. And that's not even going into great depth on the various things. It's just kind of a cursory goal over the things. So be zealous at the right time. Be zealous for the right things. So, brethren, today we've taken a look at the question, what is godly Christian zeal?

Hopefully, as you and I prepare for the Feast of Tabernacles, we'll keep these ideas, these points in our mind. We want to have a great Feast. Brethren, things are happening in this world. I think God is very much putting the characters on the stage. It may well be that we are seeing the formation of the King of the South. It may well be that we're starting to see the beginnings of the formation of the King of the North, with Vladimir Putin pushing against Ukraine, with people in Europe saying, you know, we really need a stronger force here to take care of this. With China now saying that China is watching Russia. Russia could just walk in. Worst case thing that we've seen since World War II, and it's walking in, well, we're going to carve off a piece of this country, a sovereign nation, because we want to, because they speak Russian. Well, that's what Hitler did. He walked into places where these people speak German. I don't know, walk in and take that.

And so, what does China see? China says, well, Russia's doing it. Now they're talking about islands they want to grab. And so, this world's going to become an armed camp. We're seeing things, you know, with ISIS and what's happening in the Middle East. Maybe ISIS is going to be destroyed, but maybe the people that destroyed this coalition, that it's coming together, this largely Muslim coalition, maybe that's going to become the King of the South. Brethren, we have to be zealous. I made mention here, what, two or three weeks ago. These terrorists don't have to come into this country in great numbers with bombs to make an effect. Remember what I said? That some of these terrorists will come into this country and they'll grab some of our citizens, they'll drag them off to some warehouse and they'll be head them, and then they'll put that on video and put it up on YouTube or something. Well, we had that happen. We don't know if it was a terrorist at this point, at least last I heard we didn't know if it was a terrorist, but that sort of thing can happen. Some of these radicalized Americans who have people off the street drag them someplace, chop their head off, put it on the net. So we need to be zealous. We need to be zealous. You never know what's going to happen to you. You just never know. So, brethren, the day of atonement is next Sabbath over in Ann Arbor. I look forward to seeing you then.