Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:00 — )
PROGRAM D-8097
In looking at the topic of jealousy through the biblical account of Daniel, we see that Daniel had to deal with jealousy from his peers and subordinates, as told in Daniel 6. Because of Daniel’s hard and good work, he was promoted to the highest position in government—which made many of those people very jealous.
Frequently, jealousy leads people to all kinds of sin and evil. It certainly did in this situation. Notice what these jealous people did. First, they maliciously sought some evidence by which they could ruin Daniel and topple him from his place of prominence. However, even with the closest scrutiny of Daniel and his activities from morning till night, they failed to find even one small area of dishonesty or error on Daniel’s part.
They next resorted to deceit in order to try to get Daniel in trouble. They lied to the king, telling him that all the administrators, satraps, advisers, and governors had agreed that the king should issue an edict that anyone who prayed to any god or man except the king for the next thirty days would be thrown into the lions’ den. This wasn’t true, for Daniel certainly had not agreed to this edict, and he was the top administrator.
They were very cunning in their plan: they appealed to the king’s ego by pretending to do this to honor the king. But of course, that was a total deception since their only reason for suggesting such an edict was to set a trap for Daniel. They knew, of course, that Daniel would never pray to anyone except his God, and they knew that he prayed to his God regularly, three times a day.
Indeed, through this account, we get a good look at what jealousy does to a person. When you start to resent or envy someone else for what they’ve done or achieved, it’s an easy step from there to malicious intent to harm that person.
In Romans 13 Paul equates jealousy with drunkenness, immorality, and dissention. Proverbs 27:4 says “Anger is cruel and fury overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy?” We need to first be certain that we stand on guard against any jealousy in our hearts, no matter how small.
Have you allowed any jealousy to take root in your heart? You’re in dangerous territory when you do. Ask God today to show you any kind of jealousy lurking within you so that you can confess and forsake it before it erupts into something worse.