I’ve heard that the most dangerous calls law enforcement responds to are the domestic kind. Especially disputes between a husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend. These are the house calls that kill people. Stepping between two lovers, especially in the jaws of jealousy, can be deadly. It’s been said that more police officers have died coming between a man and his wife than any other police intervention.

When we think about love bringing death this way, we usually assume some rejected guy has gone off the deep end because his lover tried to leave him, but I’ve been studying the Old Testament lately and the most deadly lover I’ve ever read about is God.

That’s right, God. The ‘God who loves everybody,’ I have heard a hundred times over. But if you really read the Old Testament (check out Deuteronomy), this God that we hear today loves everybody, actually slays men, women, and children by the city full. And the reason God kills all these people is simply because they will lead His beloved Israel astray. Not only does God wipe out other nations for Israel, the people of Israel who betray God get the ax as well. Yep, God puts His own people to death for being unfaithful to Him.

But we live by the New Testament now, Christians tell me. God isn’t like that any longer. Grace is here. God is love now.

But let me tell you, God does not change. The God of grace is the same God who killed all those people in the Old Testament. God’s raging jealousy has not abated. He’s as crazy in love with His people as He’s always been. And just as willing to kill for them.

God himself proclaims how jealous He is: “… for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God…” Deuteronomy 5:9.

So what really is grace? Where did it come from and why do we have it?

Actually, grace comes from the ultimate jealousy killing. The God who does not change has demanded blood since the days of Cain and Abel. Not just a little blood, buckets of blood. Again, read the Old Testament. The pages of this book are soaked with blood. Someone or something was always being slaughtered so people could get right with God. That’s what it took: blood and death to bring us into the presence of God and keep us there safely.

In the New Testament, blood and death are even more significant, but we’ll get to that in a moment. I’m not finished with the bloody Old Testament yet.

I encourage you, if you really want to know God the Father, dig into the Old Testament. The Bible says, “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,” Proverbs 1:7.

What I have found is that fear of God is also the beginning of salvation. It is the beginning of your relationship knowing God. If you have no fear of God, it is because you do not know Him. When Jesus really wanted to make a point, He repeated Himself, so I say it again: if you have no fear of God, you really don’t know Him.

I’ve pretty much stopped asking people if they are a Christian. The majority of Americans will tell you that they are. I don’t even ask people I minister to any longer if they are saved. Here is what I ask: “Do you know God?” If they answer yes, then I say, “Do you fear Him? Tell me the truth, are you really afraid of God?”

This question often stumps people. People have said to me, “Why should I be afraid of God?” And then comes the famous line, “God loves everybody.”

Actually, what the Bible says is this: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16.

It doesn’t say, God loves everybody. It says, “For God so loved the world…” The world.

If you’re from my generation, you may remember that Michael Jackson song, We Are The World. But are people really the world? How arrogant is that for human beings to say?

Another scripture says, “I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.” Proverbs 8:17.

And still another scripture spoken by Jesus states, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him…” John 14:23.

The Father who kills people right and left in the Old Testament, this Heavenly Father who does not change, who is still so jealous He will kill for you, or maybe kill you if you stray, will come to you…

You know, if I didn’t understand how grace works, I certainly wouldn’t want this fiercely jealous God to arrive at my door.

So here is grace as simply as I know: the cross. And on the cross hangs Jesus. And he’s bloody and dying for you. Why is Jesus bloody and dying for you? Because God is so jealous for your love that He put his own Son to death because of you. Because you strayed. Because you were unfaithful. Because you have cheated on God and the Almighty cannot live with your unfaithfulness. So God demands blood and death. Not just any blood and death, your blood and death. But God loves you so much, He cannot bear to kill you. So the Father puts Jesus to death in your place.

This is the grace of the jealous God who loves you.