If you turn in your Bibles to 1
Kings chapter 18, I believe the Lord has
a story for us to understand what happens
when the fear of the Lord is not
amongst His people.
As you're turning, I wanted to read this
Psalm to you, it's Psalm 89.7. It
says, God is greatly to be feared in
the assembly of the saints, and to be
held in reverence by all those around Him.
This is our God.
It says, God is greatly to be feared
in the assembly of the saints.
That's us.
We're assembled here together.
We worship Him.
But do we fear Him?
Do we fear God?
Do we fear His presence?
Not because of judgment, but because of His
glory and because of His power.
God is greatly to be feared in the
assembly of the saints.
Our God reveals Himself throughout Scripture, through the
totality of the Word of God, from Genesis
to Revelation.
He reveals Himself as a loving God.
He reveals Himself as a holy God.
He reveals Himself as a merciful God, and
as a compassionate God, and as a kind
God, that He draws us to repentance in
those ways.
But He also reveals Himself to us.
He's chosen to reveal Himself to us from
the pages of His Word, from the depths
of His heart, as a God of wrath,
as a God who avenges sin, as a
God who is jealous for His people when
they don't fear Him, as a God who
is jealous for His people when we depart
from Him.
And above all, He reveals Himself as a
God who is greatly to be feared in
the assembly of the saints.
And if we only take the things that
we like, that God has revealed Himself as,
and we only walk in those things, and
we only walk in those truths, and we
only adapt those concepts into our hearts, we've
done nothing more than make a God in
our own image.
We've done nothing more than make a God
that we want after our own likeness.
It's nothing more than the philosophies of men,
the doctrine of humanism, the doctrine of liberalism,
making a God into our own likeness, a
God that will be only concerned about our
happiness.
But the Word of God says that we
were not made so that we might walk
in happiness, but we exist for God's glory.
God is more interested in our holiness than
He is in our happiness.
And what happens is when we reject, and
when we resist, and when we don't walk
in the things that God chooses to reveal
Himself to us, when we only take part
of what God has said about Himself, we
have a skewed view of who our God
is.
And the Lord wants to express His heart
to His people.
The Lord wants to reveal Himself to His
people.
The Lord wants to retain the place of
honor and of glory that has always been
His.
He wants to hold the supremacy in our
hearts and in our lives.
He wants to be the pre-eminent One,
for He alone is worthy to hold that
place in our lives.
And He will not allow anything to contend
with Him.
In 1 Kings chapter 18, we see a
situation that is very similar to what has
gone on in our day.
There's a wicked king named Ahab who has
led the people of God into idolatry.
A wicked king who has not only walked
in his own ways, not fearing the Lord,
but he's led the people of God away
from God.
And God wanted to move His people back
to Him.
And in order to do that, God called
a drought on the land.
It wasn't a natural drought, it was a
supernatural drought.
And He spoke it through the prophet Elijah,
except at My word there will be drought
on the land.
And for three years this drought consumed the
land.
The harvests were bleak.
The Spirit of God seemed to be nowhere.
There was no rain on the land.
There was no abundance on the land.
There was no prosperity in the land.
And this drought consumed the people.
But what did the people do?
They didn't seek God.
They didn't cry out to God for rain.
They didn't cry out to God in repentance.
It says that they continued to worship this
God named Baal.
They worshipped this God on the high places
where God was meant to be glorified, where
God was meant to be worshipped.
They worshipped this false God named Baal.
And this false God was a God that
was meant to bring fertility, a God that
was meant to bring rain and abundance and
prosperity.
Instead of seeking the God of heaven who
controls the rain of heaven, they sought this
false God.
And they thought, oh, if we could just
seek this God, He'll restore the drought.
But they didn't realize that it was a
supernatural drought.
They didn't realize that only the God of
heaven could restore.
And so after three years, the word of
the Lord came to Elijah.
And He said, go up, go speak to
Ahab.
Go tell Ahab I'm going to send rain
on the earth.
But there was something that happened, had to
happen first.
There was something that had to take place
before God's rain could come, before the drought
could be ended.
Elijah called all the prophets of Baal, all
the prophets that ate at Jezebel's table.
And he said, meet me on Mount Carmel.
You assemble on your side.
I'll assemble by myself with the Lord.
You take a bowl and you put it
on your altar and I'll take a bowl
and I'll put it on my altar.
And whatever God answers by fire, behold, he
is God.
He is God, the God that answers by
fire.
And the people said, okay, we like that
idea.
That's a good idea.
We'll do it.
And all day long, the prophets of Baal
called upon their God.
They cut themselves.
Nothing happened.
It says that no one answered.
No one responded to their cries because their
God was not God.
Their God could not answer by fire.
And then Elijah called the people to him.
He said, come near to me, O children
of Israel.
And in verse 30, it says, so all
the people came near to him and he
repaired the altar of the Lord that was
broken down.
In the presence of the people, Elijah repaired
the altar of the Lord that was broken
down.
This altar represented a place that God should
have been worshipped, a place that God should
have been glorified.
But this altar was lying in ruins.
It was broken down.
It was in rubble.
The people have been worshipping God on their
own altars, the God of fertility, the God
of the false God of rain, and nothing
happened.
But Elijah repaired the altar of the Lord
in the presence of the people.
And I believe that the word that the
Lord has for us is that in the
church of Jesus Christ, our bride, this body,
the body at large in the world, the
broken altar represents the fear of God.
God's people do not fear him.
God's people do not tremble at his presence.
The fear of God has departed.
And just as the fear of God had
departed from this people, and there was drought,
and there was no rain, and the gods
did not answer by fire, I believe that
the church at large is not experiencing revival.
It's not experiencing the reign of God's blessing.
It's not experiencing the fire of God, because
the fear of God still lies in ruins.
And God is calling us, repair my altar.
Repair my altar.
Begin to fear me.
For when we fear God, when we fear
the Lord, the altar is rebuilt.
What happened after this?
Elijah had them douse the altar and the
sacrifice with water three times to show that
it was not the hands of men that
could do this thing.
And he said, hear me, oh God.
Hear me.
Answer by fire.
And it says the fire of God descended.
The fire of confirmation upon the altar being
rebuilt.
The fire of confirmation that he alone is
God, and greatly to be feared in the
assembly of the saints.
The fire of God descended, and it consumed
the sacrifice, and it consumed the altar, and
it consumed the water in the trough, and
it even licked up the dirt.
It blew away all the chaff and all
the people.
The fire of God descended.
And God wants to do that in our
lives.
God wants to do that in our midst.
But before that can happen, the altar must
be rebuilt.
The people of God have to be returned
back to the fear of God.
Turn with me to the last verse in
the book of Judges.
It's just a few books left.
Joshua, Judges.
The last verse in the book of Judges.
A very similar situation was going on.
If you're not familiar with the history of
the book of Judges, God had been insulating
this nation to go before him to receive
the law of God, to ultimately prepare the
way for the Messiah, to be a light
to the Gentiles, to speak forth the word
of God, to be a city on a
hill, to proclaim his name.
But instead of doing that, they drew away
from the Lord.
They ceased to fear God, and they walked
in idolatry.
And each generation was more consecutively wicked than
the previous one.
And God had to raise up deliverers to
set the people free.
When they were caught up in iniquity, when
they were caught up in sin, they cried
out to God and said, Lord, help us,
deliver us.
We're under bondage, we're under tyranny, help us.
And God would deliver them.
He would show great grace, great mercy, great
deliverance, for that is who their God was,
and that is who our God is.
But each time the Lord would restore them
to himself, it wasn't long before they would
begin to err in their hearts and begin
to depart from the Lord.
The fear of God departed from them, and
no sooner was it that they had prosperity,
and that they had just the blessings of
the Lord, that the fear of God departed.
And each generation was consecutively worse, and worse,
and worse, and worse.
And the people abused God's grace, and the
people abused God's blessing.
Because the grace of God will always be
abused when it's not coupled by the fear
of God.
The grace of God will always be taken
advantage of when the fear of God is
not there to hold it, and to keep
it, and to complete it.
And so in the last book of the
verse of Judges, the last verse in the
book of Judges, we see a tragic thing,
one of the most tragic verses in all
of the Bible.
It says, in those days there was no
king in Israel.
Everyone did what was right in his own
eyes.
Everyone did what was right in his own
eyes.
Despite all the blessings, despite all the deliverances,
despite God's great grace upon this people, everyone
still did what was right in his own
eyes.
Is that not the philosophy of the world
today?
Is that not the philosophy of humanism?
Do whatever you need to make yourself happy.
The ends justify the means.
Do what is right in your own eyes.
And that is what took place in the
people.
The psalmist had an insight, David, in Psalm
36.1. You don't have to turn there.
The God gave him an insight into what
was going on.
How could this be?
Why do people just continue following in wickedness?
Why do people continue to sin against the
Lord and depart from their God when they
continually experience his grace, when they continually experience
his blessing?
Why is that?
In Psalm 36.1 it says, an oracle
within my heart concerning the transgression of the
wicked.
Something tells me in my heart when I
see this happen.
This is the answer that God gave him.
It's because there is no fear of God
before his eyes.
There is no fear of God before his
eyes.
Where is the fear of God?
Where is the fear of God in his
people?
The Holy Spirit took this word and he
spoke it loud and clear to all of
mankind in the book of Romans.
In the book of Romans chapter 3, the
Holy Spirit has all the world in his
courtroom.
Both Jews and Greeks charged under sin, it
says.
For we have previously charged both Jews and
Greeks that they are all under sin.
That's the Jews, that's the Greeks, that's you
and me, that's the Gentiles, that's all the
people of God, all standing before God in
his courtroom.
And the Holy Spirit brings us all in
and he lays out accusation after accusation, indictment
after indictment against the world so that no
man could justify himself before God, so that
no man could be found to be righteous
in his own eyes.
And the Holy Spirit lists the offenses that
the people that God has created have committed
against him.
And he says there is none righteous, no
not one.
There is none who understands.
There is none who seeks after God.
They have all turned aside.
They have all together become unprofitable.
There is none who does good, no not
one.
Their throat is an open tomb.
With their tongues they have practiced deceit.
The poison of asps is under their lips,
whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.
Their feet are swift to shed innocent blood.
Destruction and misery are in their ways and
the way of peace they have not known.
God wants to seal in the people.
God wants to speak to our hearts.
We cannot be righteous before him.
He wants all the world to become guilty
before him so that all the world will
cry out for repentance.
But any good prosecuting attorney knows that you
have to save your final indictment, your final
accusation for last, as the final nail in
the coffin.
And the Holy Spirit uses the next verse
to seal man's fate, to seal against man
our sin.
In verse 18 of Romans chapter 3 he
says, there is no fear of God before
their eyes.
All the world, all of mankind, there is
no fear of God before their eyes.
Have you ever looked into someone's eyes?
You just know, does not walk with God,
does not fear God.
There is no fear of God before their
eyes.
There is no fear of God before their
eyes.
And maybe you're thinking, well that's just speaking
of of man at large.
Maybe you're just speaking about man in general.
But we hear statistics.
We hear things about the church of Jesus
Christ.
We hear about sin coming into the church.
We see the philosophies of this world coming
into the church.
We see humanism.
We see liberalism.
We see pastors falling.
We see congregations being divided.
We see pastors embezzling money.
We see pastors falling into fornication and adultery
and committing gross wickedness.
Members of the congregation causing division.
And one time I was in prayer and
I said, Lord what is going on with
the body of Christ?
What is going on with your people?
Why is it that your people seems so
much like the world?
Why is it that the sin of the
world seems to be on the sin of
on the church?
Why isn't there a separation?
Why isn't there a distinction when you've called
us to holiness?
What has happened to God?
And I believe he spoke to my heart
and said, it's no different with my people.
Yes, I spoke that against all of mankind
in Romans chapter 3.
But my church, my bride, my body, it
has gotten so bad that that verse is
now true of them.
That verse is now true of my people.
There is no fear of God before their
eyes.
There's no fear of God among the nations.
There's no fear of God among countries.
There's no fear of God among the cities
that we live in.
There's no fear of God among individual people.
Sin runs rampant because of the absence of
the fear of God.
When the fear of God is absent, sin
is present.
When the fear of God is present, sin
is absent.
God's fear always accompanies him.
God cannot be in a place and his
fear not accompany him.
If the fear of God is present, God
is present.
But if his fear is absent, God is
absent.
There are churches in this world, there are
churches in this country, there are churches in
this nation where the pastors will not address
sin, where the pastors will not speak about
heaven and hell and the things of eternity.
And why is that?
It's because there is no fear before their
eyes.
They're not concerned with the people's souls.
They're not concerned with the people's hearts.
They're concerned about numbers.
They're concerned about losing people.
They're concerned about their church and their financial
endeavors.
They are not concerned about warning people to
flee from the wrath to come.
And they're willing to do that because there
is no fear of God before their eyes.
And that has been spreading.
Lukewarmness has been spreading into God's church and
into God's bride and into God's house.
Jesus flipped tables because of things like this.
When the people of God could not receive
the heart of God, when man intervened in
the place of God and did not allow
the people of God to hear his voice,
Jesus came in and cleansed the temple.
And if Jesus were to come back and
walk among us, I believe he would claim
the pulpit.
He would begin to teach the fear of
the Lord.
The Bible says that in Jesus, his delight
was in the fear of the Lord.
If you want to know how God feels
about when the fear of God is absent
from the heart of his people, you can
hear exactly what God's heart is in Jeremiah
2 19.
It says your own wickedness will correct you
and your backslidings will rebuke you.
Know therefore and see, know therefore and see
that it is an evil and bitter thing
that you have forsaken the Lord your God.
It is an evil and bitter thing that
you have forsaken the Lord your God and
the fear of me is not in you.
That's how God feels about it when we
do not fear him.
He says it's evil and our lives will
become bitter.
It is absolutely bitter when the fear of
God is not on our lives.
Our lives are bitter when the fear of
God is not in his church.
The church is bitter and when the fear
of God, which is not in the world,
this world is bitter.
This world is devoid of God and it's
because the fear of God is not in
this world, but it is not supposed to
be so amongst his church.
It is not supposed to be so among
his people.
The fear of God is what is meant
to separate us and sanctify us and call
us out and identify us all throughout the
word of God, all throughout the word of
God, consistently from Genesis to Revelation.
The people of God were separate and distinct
from the world for this one reason, they
feared God.
When Paul even addressed the people of Israel
in the book of Acts, he said, men
of Israel and you who fear God, it
was a statement, it was a purpose, it
was a way of identifying.
Can we truly say we are identified with
God because we fear him?
Are we identified with God because of what
we want him to do in our lives?
Because of the blessing that we want him
to give us?
Because of the happiness we want him to
bring?
Or can we receive that he is jealous
for his glory and he wants us to
fear him?
In the book of Proverbs, there's a testimony
that speaks loud and clear about the testimony,
the epitaph of the people's lives in the
Bible who did not fear God.
It says Proverbs 129, because they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the
Lord, did not choose the fear of the
Lord.
The fear of the Lord is a choice.
It's a righteous choice.
It's a holy choice.
It's a choice that the people of God
must make or they will suffer the consequences
of knowing that evil or knowing that bitterness.
The fear of God is not meant to
bring evil or bitterness.
The fear of God is meant to bring
life and blessing.
Just a few people who did not walk
in the fear of God.
A few people who did not choose the
fear of God.
Cain murdered his brother way back at the
beginning of time because he did not fear
the Lord.
Cain murdered his brother because he did not
fear the Lord.
Lot's wife cast longing eyes towards Sodom.
In the midst of deliverance, she could not
depart from her sin.
In the midst of deliverance, she still wanted
Sodom and Gomorrah because she did not fear
God.
She cast longing eyes.
How many of us come and we spend
time at the church in the morning?
We lay our lives and our sin upon
the altar, but before we even reach Monday
morning, we're already casting longing eyes upon the
things that God is wanting to deliver us
from.
Pharaoh did not fear God.
He hardened his heart.
He did not choose the fear of the
Lord.
He hardened his heart.
He ordered the execution of babies.
He ordered the execution of the children of
Israel's babies because he did not fear the
Lord.
Samson did not fear the Lord.
He was one of those deliverers in the
book of Judges.
He was one of those deliverers that God
raised up with a mighty hand and outstretched
arm.
With one hand, he slayed a thousand men
with the jawbone of a donkey, but it
wasn't moments later before he took that same
hand and he defiled his body by sticking
it into a carcass of a lion to
dip in honey.
He didn't fear God.
God had told him, you cannot touch a
dead thing.
You cannot lie with the harlot.
Samson, what are you doing?
You just were used by God and now
you're lying with the harlot.
Now you're defiling your body.
You're abusing my grace because you do not
fear God.
Saul, made king, raised up by the Lord
in a mighty way.
The Lord was moving on his life, but
he got arrogant.
I used to think that pride was the
root of all sin, but God has been
revealing to me it's the absence of the
fear of God.
Just like we saw in Romans 3.18,
the absence of the fear of God in
our lives leads to pride, leads to haughtiness,
leads to destruction.
Saul tried to be priest and king.
That right is reserved alone for the Lord
Jesus Christ.
He tried to burn incense as priest.
God said, I'm removing you.
I'm giving your kingdom to someone who is
better than you.
You do not fear me.
But David, in the contrary, feared the Lord.
He feared the Lord.
He wrote in 2 Samuel that God showed
him he had to rule in the fear
of God.
Judas did not fear God.
How do you fear God when you dip
your bread with him in communion at Passover?
When you have sweet fellowship with him, when
you follow God, when you see his miracles,
when you're used mightily of him, and after
dipping his bread with communion with the Lord,
he went his own way.
He departed with the money box and immediately
Satan entered him.
Satan had his way because he did not
fear God.
How many of us dip our bread with
communion with the Lord and we experience that
communion with God on Sunday mornings, but the
rest of the week we let Satan have
his way in our lives because we do
not fear God.
Ananias and Sapphira, a New Testament example.
They didn't fear God.
They lied to the Holy Spirit.
They lied to God.
They brought a reproach on the church.
And in lying, in lying to the Holy
Spirit, the Lord struck them.
The Lord allowed there to be a purging,
a cleansing from his church, a cleansing in
his body.
They did not fear the Lord, but on
the contrary, the public judgment and execution and
righteousness against sin caused the fear of the
Lord to come upon the early church.
And that's the way it's supposed to be.
When we see sin judged righteously, for we
have a God who avenges sin, yes, we
receive forgiveness from the Lord.
But in that same verse in the Psalms,
it says, your forgiveness is with you that
you may be feared.
Forgiveness before the Lord does not bring a
flippant attitude.
It brings fearful expectation that we would walk
in that sin again.
It brings fear and trembling into our hearts
that we would not turn from God, that
we would not walk in that sin again.
If someone is relieved from a mighty crime
in the courts of men and the judge
shows mercy and lets them go, do they
skip on the way out?
No, their heart is fearful.
They're gracious.
How much more when we're acquitted in God's
court?
How much more when we receive his forgiveness
and grace should our hearts fear before him?
On the contrary, people who feared the Lord
that the God used.
In Genesis chapter 22, we see the heart
of God revealed and the reason why he
asked Abraham to offer his son Isaac.
The reason why God asked Abraham.
God wanted to use Abraham as a father
of nations, to be the father of faith.
Why was God testing Abraham?
Why did God bring him up to that
mountain?
Why would God do such a thing?
God interrupted the sacrifice and he said, do
not lay your hand on the lad or
do anything to him.
For now I know that you fear God.
He didn't say, now I know that you
trust me, although fearing God led to trust.
He didn't say, now I know that you
love me, although fearing God led to Abraham
loving him.
He did not say, now I know that
you have faith in me or that you
will obey me because the fear of God
leads to these things.
He said, now I know that you fear
God.
I can entrust this message.
I can entrust the seed of my servant
to you.
I can entrust the Messiah to come through
your family because I know that you fear
God.
By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things
not yet seen, moved with godly fear, moved
with godly fear, prepared an ark for the
saving of his household by which he condemned
the world and became heir of the righteousness
which is according to faith.
Noah's life was moved by the fear of
God.
The fear of God stirs us to obedience.
The spear of God stirs us to respond
to the Lord.
It was the fear of God that moved
Noah.
If Noah didn't fear the Lord, he would
not have built the ark.
If Noah feared man, the reproaches of man,
building this ark in a desert, building the
ark when there's never been rain.
If Noah didn't fear God and listen to
God, you and I wouldn't be here.
But it was the fear of God that
moved Noah.
And then notice what it says, he prepared
an ark for the saving of his household.
Noah saved his household by walking in the
fear of God.
God wants to rescue the households of the
church.
God wants to rescue the households of America.
And the answer is not found in the
courthouse or in the White House.
The answer is in God's house.
When we return to the fear of God,
when the fear of God is brought back,
the fear of God is brought back, that
altar is restored.
If you want to save your household's men,
fear the Lord.
If you want to save your marriages, fear
the Lord.
Return to the fear of the Lord.
Invest the fear of God in the hearts
of your children.
You want your children to be saved from
this perverse and wicked generation?
Invest the fear of God into their hearts.
It is a consistent teaching all throughout Genesis
and Revelation that the fear of God is
something that is to be taught and to
be passed on.
Come to me, little children, and I will
teach you the fear of the Lord, David
said.
Jesus himself feared the Lord.
If anyone was to set an example for
what it meant to fear the Lord, it
was our Lord Jesus himself.
In Isaiah chapter 11, verses two and three,
it speaks about how the Spirit of God
was on Jesus when he was on this
earth.
The fullness of the Spirit, the full manifestation
of God's Spirit was on Jesus Christ bodily.
It says the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit
of knowledge and of the fear of the
Lord.
The fear of the Lord is a manifestation
of the Spirit of God in our lives.
But next, the next verse, it says the
most important thing out of that aspect of
the fullness of the Spirit.
Isaiah 11, 3, it says, his delight is
in the fear of the Lord.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in the
flesh, on earth, it says that his delight
was in the fear of the Lord.
He went to the cross because his delight
was in the fear of the Lord.
He went to Gethsemane because his delight was
in the fear of the Lord.
He rose from the dead because his delight
was in the fear of the Lord.
He left nothing undone from the Father's will
because his delight was in the fear of
the Lord.
If Jesus's delight was in the fear of
the Lord, how much more should our delight
be in the fear of the Lord?
Oh, that God would give us a heart
to delight in the things that he delights
in.
That the delighting in the fear of the
Lord would so quench anything in this world
that we're allowing ourselves to delight in, that
everything that is frivolous and temporary and not
expedient for His glory would pale in comparison
to the glory of God and to the
fear of the Lord and to His presence
in our hearts.
Without the fear of the Lord, Abraham would
not have offered Isaac.
Without the fear of the Lord, Noah would
not have built the ark.
Without the fear of the Lord, David would
not have ruled in the fear of God
and become the type of Christ as king
on the throne.
Without the fear of the Lord, Jesus' prayers
would not have been heard.
It says in Hebrews 5, verse 7, speaking
of Christ, who in the days of His
flesh, when He had offered up prayers and
supplications with vehement cries and tears to Him,
who was able to save Him from death
and was heard because of His godly fear.
When He sweat great drops of blood in
the garden, He's crying out to God.
The Father heard Him because of His godly
fear.
If you want your prayers to be heard,
oh, embrace the fear of God.
Embrace the fear of God in your life.
Don't hate knowledge.
Choose the fear of the Lord in your
life.
Some of you are thinking maybe, how has
this happened?
Why is it that maybe more recently the
fear of God has been a broken altar?
How has this come to pass that the
fear of God is not amongst the people
of God?
It happens in many ways.
There are many ways that the fear of
God has been strained out of the teaching.
The fear of God has been left out.
In Dr. Robert Murray's book, Fearing God, he's
done extensive study, extensive research, and while he
attributes it to many things, I believe one
of the most fascinating and important yet tragic
things that he says is that through the
adoption of the philosophies of men, through the
adoption of liberalism into the church, through the
adoption of worldly thinking, through the adoption of
humanism, these things begin to permeate into the
seminaries.
And the seminaries cease teaching the fear of
God because they start to doubt the relevance
of the word of God.
They start to doubt the accuracy and the
authority of the word of God.
And they're more consumed with how to build
churches and how to be pastors by vocation
and how to have financial prosperity, how to
grow.
And if the seminaries produce these pastors that
get filtered out into the churches and then
the pulpits are absent and void of the
fear of God because these pastors have not
learned the fear of God, then it begins
to spread to the congregation and the fear
of God is no longer taught to the
people.
The fear of God is no longer taught
to the people.
Then ultimately it goes into our families.
When we don't hear it at church, we
don't bring it at home, we don't bring
it into our families.
Fathers stop fearing God.
Mothers stop fearing God.
Children stop fearing God.
The youth stop fearing God.
This generation stops fearing God because it has
not been passed down.
In Jeremiah chapter 5 verse 30 and 31,
I believe the Lord speaks prophetically into this
scene.
It says, An astonishing and horrible thing has
been committed in the land.
This is the only way to describe what
has happened.
An astonishing and horrible thing has been committed
in our land on our watch.
It says, The prophets prophesy falsely.
The prophets don't teach the whole counsel of
God.
The pastors, the people who are meant to
proclaim God's word, the fullness of God's counsel,
the fullness of who He is, not just
all love, grace, and mercy, but a God
of wrath, a God of jealousy, and a
God who is greatly to be feared.
The prophets prophesy falsely because they fear man.
Because they fear man.
In verse 31, it says, And the priests
rule by their own power.
A great Chinese missionary came to America and
visited.
And when he went home, people said, What
did you think about America?
What did you think about the church?
He said, It's amazing to see what those
Americans and their churches can be like without
the Spirit of God.
The prophets prophesy falsely and the priests rule
by their own power.
The Holy Spirit is not leading the church
because there's no fear of God.
When the fear of God is absent, God
is absent.
His presence is absent.
God's presence cannot be accompanied without His fear.
But the worst thing of all, the thing
that perhaps drives everything, is that it says
in verse 31, And my people love to
have it so.
My people love to have it this way.
And you know what?
Churches are being built all around the world
because people go and canvas neighborhoods and they
say, What do you want in this church?
We're getting counsel from the ungodly and the
heathen what they want to see in the
church.
Because the people love to not have the
fear of God.
The people love to have priests who rule
by their own power.
And the people love to have smooth words
prophesied to them because it is too heavy
and it is too hard.
There is no fear of God before our
eyes.
What is the fear of God?
What is the fear of the Lord?
God has been making it very evident and
abundantly clear that we need it.
But what is it?
In Proverbs 8, 13, it says that the
fear of the Lord is to hate evil.
The fear of the Lord is to hate
evil.
We don't live in a generation where evil
is called evil anymore.
Wickedness is called good.
And good is called wickedness.
It's a good thing to abort a baby,
but it's a wicked thing to put your
dog on a leash on a tree.
Just before Nineveh was judged, just before Nineveh
was judged, God had pity on them and
He said, They don't even know their right
hand from their left.
This nation needs a Nineveh-like repentance if
God is going to rest you.
I believe the church needs a Nineveh-like
repentance before God is going to pour out
His Spirit and send His reign.
If we don't hate sin, if we don't
let the fear of God purge our hearts
from what the world says about sin, we
will not fear God.
The fear of God is to hate evil.
Maybe you're struggling in sin this morning.
Maybe there's something you've been fighting for years.
I'm telling you, in all honesty and in
all truth, it doesn't matter how much you
come to church and how much you pray.
It doesn't matter how many growths and confessions
you go to.
You will not be delivered from your sin
until you hate your sin.
Until it's wicked before your sight.
The fear of God is to hate sin.
Paul came to that conclusion in Romans 7.
I do the things I don't want to
do.
I don't do the things I know I'm
supposed to do.
That which I hate, that I do.
Thank you, God, through Jesus Christ my Lord.
The fear of God gripped his heart.
When Potiphar grabbed Joseph and said, Lie with
me.
How can I do this wickedness in the
sight of my God?
He saw it as wickedness.
The fear of God had gripped him.
He was able to depart from evil.
That's why it says, In mercy and truth,
atonement is provided for iniquity.
And by the fear of the Lord, one
departs from evil.
What else is the fear of the Lord?
The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom.
And the knowledge of the Holy One is
understanding.
It all begins with the fear of God.
It all begins in knowing and walking with
God and the fear of God.
But when we depart from the fear of
God, our lives become evil and bitter.
Proverbs 14, 27 says, The fear of the
Lord is a fountain of life.
A fountain of life.
Perhaps that devastates your concept about what the
fear of God is.
The fear of God is not meant to
be something that brings condemnation and judgment and
terror.
The fear of God is meant to be
a fountain of life in your heart and
in your life.
The fear of God produces life.
The fear of God does not drive us
away from the presence of God.
The fear of God keeps us in the
presence of God.
The fear of God is a fountain of
life that we are meant to have in
our lives.
I know a brother, a dear brother to
me, whose heart has recently been exploding in
the fear of the Lord.
His household has changed.
His life has changed.
His walk with God has changed.
His victory over sin has changed.
There is a fountain of life in him
now because of the fear of God.
And if every Christian apprehended the fear of
God the way that God intends it for
us to, we would all be walking in
that victory.
If every Christian apprehended the fear of God
the way he wants us to, we would
have revival.
We would not have to cry out and
cut ourselves to the balls because God would
quench the drought with His rain.
The fear of God is a fountain of
life.
In Isaiah 33, verse 6, it says this,
Wisdom and knowledge will be the stability of
your times and the strength of salvation.
The fear of the Lord is His treasure.
His treasure.
Not even our treasure.
It's God's treasure that He wants to give
to His church.
But we keep rejecting it and neglecting it.
This is not a new message.
This is just a neglected message.
We love the grace of God.
And it's a very polished message in the
church today.
But when the fear of God is not
taught with the grace of God, it leads
to licentiousness.
It leads to the abuse of His grace.
And His grace is no longer precious.
It's no longer holy.
It's no longer cherished.
It's trampled.
The other side of that coin is the
fear of God that's dusty, that's lying in
ruins, that God wants to resurrect, that God
wants to instill into His people.
He wants to give it to us as
a treasure.
And He wants us to treasure it as
a treasure.
There are privileges and blessings only for those
who fear the Lord that are not spoken
of or given to any other people or
to any other reason in the whole of
the Word of God.
And I wish we had three more hours
to go through all of them, but we
don't.
So I just want to read a couple
to you.
It says, Who is the man that fears
the Lord?
Him shall he teach in the way he
chooses.
You want God to teach you.
You want God to show you His heart.
Fear the Lord.
Malachi 3.16 Then those who feared the
Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord
listened and heard them.
So a book of remembrances was written before
Him for those who fear the Lord and
meditate on His name.
God listens in when His fear is spoken
about.
When our hearts turn back and people talk
about what it is to fear the Lord,
it says God listens in.
God's ears tune into a conversation on the
fear of the Lord, and He writes those
things down in the book of remembrances.
I want to have conversations like that with
you guys.
I want to fellowship in the fear of
the Lord.
I want to fellowship and meditate on the
name of our almighty God.
I want my conversations not to fall to
the wayside and to be counted as chaff
when I stand before Christ.
I want my conversations to go down written
in God's book because He listened.
I want my conversations to catch the ear
of God.
The secret of the Lord is with those
who fear Him, and He will show them
His covenant.
You really want to get near the heart
of God.
You really want to know the secret of
what God is truly feeling in His heart.
Fear the Lord, and the Lord will speak
to you, and the Lord will show you
how do we receive the fear of the
Lord.
It's abundantly clear that God wants us to
fear Him, but how do we receive the
fear of the Lord?
It says in the book of Jeremiah, chapter
32, when God is speaking His new covenant
to His people, you see, He instilled His
fear in His people all throughout the Old
Testament through various external ways.
He put His fear in His people's heart
when they were at Mount Sinai receiving the
law.
They were terrified of the presence of God,
and they begged Moses to go before them
because God's presence was so glorious and God's
presence was so mighty.
Thunder and lightnings and power, earthquakes, these things
put the fear of God into the people's
hearts, and it was a glorious thing.
But God says, my people need to fear
me, and I want to ensure that my
people do not lose the fear.
I want to ensure that it's more than
just an external fear that they understand with
their senses.
It needs to be something that goes into
their hearts.
And so in the making, in the forming
of the new covenant that was given to
the nation of Israel, which we are partakers
of, it says in Jeremiah 32, then I
will give them one heart and one way
that they may fear me forever, not temporarily,
that they may fear me forever.
One heart, one way to fear the Lord
for the good of them.
That is why God wants to put His
fear in our hearts, not to make our
lives miserable, not to make our lives paranoid,
but it's to make us good for the
good of us and their children after them.
And in verse 40 He says, and I
will make an everlasting covenant with them that
I will not turn away from doing them
good, but I will put my fear in
their hearts so they will not depart from
me.
God wants to put His fear in our
hearts.
When the fear of God is in our
hearts, that fountain of life springs out.
It's not good enough to just know the
fear of God in our minds.
He wants to put it in our hearts.
How does that happen?
How does God put His fear in our
hearts?
Is it just a divine deposit?
If the divine deposit from the fear of
God just came into our hearts, every Christian
would receive it and walk in it.
But it's a choice.
It's a response.
It's a relationship.
God wants to put His fear in our
hearts, but we can reject it.
We can resist it.
We can refute it.
We can quench it.
They hated knowledge and did not choose the
fear of the Lord.
So as God's wanting to supernaturally implant His
word in your heart and His fear in
your heart, don't resist the Lord.
Don't resist the message that He's speaking.
Don't hate knowledge.
Don't resist the Lord.
How else?
How else does the Lord put His fear
in our hearts?
When we hear a message from the Word
such as this and the conviction of the
Holy Spirit is upon our lives and upon
our hearts, and we turn to the Lord
in brokenness and conviction and in repentance and
turn to God, His fear fills our hearts.
Repentance leads to the fear of God, but
the fear of God also leads to repentance.
When we walk in the fear of God,
we will walk a life of repentance.
We will walk in a life of brokenness.
We will walk in a life of meekness
and humility.
We will be those people that God says,
blessed are the poor in spirit, for they
shall inherit the kingdom of God.
How else does God put His fear into
our hearts?
When we see judgment on sin privately in
our own lives, but also corporately, when the
fear of the Lord fell on God's people
in the book of Acts, in Acts chapter
5 when Ananias and Sapphira were judged and
their lives were literally taken to them to
be a testimony of what the church is
supposed to be like.
Not a place of hypocrisy, but a place
of holiness.
It says that the fear of the Lord
fell mightily on the people.
The fear of the Lord greatly came upon
the people's hearts in repentance, in brokenness, in
responding to the Lord, in receiving it in
our hearts and not rejecting it, in receiving
His word.
It says in Proverbs 2, then you shall
understand the fear of the Lord.
Read the verses before that.
It has all these words, receive, know, seek.
Find all these words that call us to
respond to the fear of the Lord.
God brings it into our hearts, but we
must receive it.
We must receive it into our hearts.
We must allow the Lord to speak to
us.
When we're in the presence of God, when
God's presence comes down, some of you have
experienced the overwhelming power and presence of God
in your life.
And when His presence was upon you, whether
it was a prayer meeting or a Sunday
morning worship service, the presence of God is
thick and heavy.
The fear of God is in that place.
And you can surrender your heart to His
fear.
There's almost fear not to talk because God's
presence is so powerful.
That is the fear of God.
That is the fear being instilled into our
hearts.
Have you ever been in a prayer meeting
that was silent?
And the silence was more productive than the
prayer?
It's because we were not mouthing our petitions
to the Lord.
It's because God was instilling His fear in
His people.
God wants to do that to His people.
God wants to instill His fear in our
hearts.
And then lastly, as we already looked at
in Isaiah, it says that the fear of
the Lord was part of the manifestation of
the Spirit of God upon Jesus.
And when we are walking in the fullness
of the Spirit, the fear of the Lord
will be in our lives.
But when we are not walking in the
Spirit and we are walking in the flesh,
when we are walking in carnality, we will
not fear God.
We will fear man.
We will fear having a bad reputation.
We will fear our own reproach.
We will fear bringing a blight on our
own lives.
But walking in the fullness of the fear
of God, walking in the Spirit, they go
hand in hand.
Jesus delighted in the fear of the Lord.
And that's how the Lord moved in His
life.
And that's how the Lord used Him.
In Acts 9.31, this is speaking of
the New Testament church.
It says, Then the churches throughout all Judea,
Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified.
And walking in the fear of the Lord
and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit,
they were multiplied.
That is the way that the church is
supposed to be.
Walking in the fear of the Lord and
in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
We need the comfort of the Holy Spirit
so that we might enter His presence.
If we only have the Holy Spirit, but
we don't have the fear of the Lord,
we will not know His presence.
But if we just have the fear of
the Lord without the comfort of the Holy
Spirit, we might not enter His presence.
But the fear of the Lord and the
comfort of the Holy Spirit is meant to
be the testimony of the New Testament church.
And it says, And they were multiplied.
God multiplies a people when the fear of
the Lord and the comfort of the Holy
Spirit is upon them.
The fear of God produces holiness in our
lives.
The fear of God brings us and leads
us to holiness.
In 2 Corinthians 7-1, it says, having
these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from
all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting
holiness in the fear of God.
Perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
If you want your life to be cleansed
from sin, if you find yourself drowning in
wickedness, drowning in sin, drowning or snared by
the fear of man, walk in the fear
of God.
How is holiness brought into our lives?
How is holiness completed in our lives?
How are we made separate from the world
as God has called His people to be?
How do we allow God to separate the
light from the darkness?
When He says in Isaiah, You who bear
the vessels of the Lord have clean hands
and a pure heart.
My people, depart from them.
Touch no unclean thing, you who bear the
vessels of the Lord.
How does this happen?
It's by the fear of God in our
lives and it's by the fear of God
in our hearts.
In Hebrews 12, 28, it says, Therefore, since
we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be
shaken, let us have grace by which we
may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly
fear.
We are receiving a kingdom.
Our lives are not meant to be about
our own kingdoms.
Our lives are not meant to be our
own works and our own plans.
We exist for the glory of God.
He says, You're receiving a kingdom.
My kingdom.
I am the king of my kingdom and
I want to give it to you.
And I'm giving you my grace that you
might serve me acceptably.
But the manner, the attitude, and the spirit
in which I want you to do these
things is with reverence and godly fear.
He speaks this to his bride.
He speaks this to his church.
Going back to the story in 1 Kings,
Elijah cried out to the Lord.
Elijah cried out to the Lord after laying
the sacrifice on the altar.
And it says that God answered by fire.
God answered by fire.
After that altar, God answered by fire.
A fire of confirmation.
A fire of cleansing.
A fire that showed that He alone is
God and He takes delight and He takes
blessing in that restoration, in that message.
He didn't want the people to call out
to God of Baal any longer.
He says, Cry out to me.
Turn your hearts to me.
Turn to me and live, says the Lord.
And it says when the fire came down
and consumed everything, that Elijah cried out to
God.
Elijah cried out to God and said, Hear
me, O God of Israel.
Hear me, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.
Let this people know that you are turning
the hearts of the people back to you.
Let this people know that you are turning
their hearts back to you.
And after that, the people fell down on
their faces in the fear of God.
And they said, The Lord, He is God.
The Lord, He is God.
And immediately after that happened, they rose up
in victory.
And Elijah said, Seize the prophets of Baal.
And they were taken and they were executed.
When the fear of God comes into our
lives, prophets of Baal can be seized and
executed.
Sin is meant to be expelled when the
fear of God is in our lives.
Darkness is expelled when the fear of God
is in our lives.
And God moves in a powerful way.
And after these things, after the fire came
down and the sin and the darkness was
expelled, Elijah said, Go and tell Ahab, for
I hear the sound, the abundance of rain.
I hear the sound of the abundance of
rain.
Do you guys want to hear the sound
of the abundance of rain again in your
lives?
Do you want to see rain pouring out
on your families and on your workplace and
on your children?
Turn to the Lord with the whole heart
in the fear of God.
Let Him expel everything that is not of
Him.
The last verse I want to share comes
from the book of Amos.
It says, A lion has roared.
Who will not fear?
The Lord God has spoken.
Who can but prophesy?
This is the Lord of glory.
This is the lion of the tribe of
Judah roaring.
It's not a roar of laughter.
It's a roar of a battle cry.
He's calling out to His bride to be
separate from the world.
He's calling out to His bride to return
to the fear of the Lord.
The lion of the tribe is roaring over
His bride this morning.
And He's saying, return to the fear of
the Lord.
Who will but fear?
It's a fearful thing to hear a lion
roar.
How much more when our lion roars and
calls us back to His name and calls
us back to His heart.
This word must go forth.
Who can but prophesy?
His word must go forth.
Don't reject.
Don't resist what the Lord wants to do
in your hearts.
I know we've gone over.
I know we've gone long.
But the Lord wants us to respond.
This is not a message that can be
dismissed.
This is not a message that can be
turned aside or stacked upon another Bible study.
This word must be responded to.
So I urge you, by the mercies of
God, respond to the Lord however He asks
you to this morning.
However the Lord wants you to respond.
Lord Jesus, we come before You.
Lord, we hear Your cry.
We hear Your call.
And we hear Your roar, O God.
We know You are calling Your heart, Your
people to turn back to You.
And it is Your heart for Your people
to turn back to You, Lord.
We hear Your word, Lord.
We want to hear the sound of abundance
of rain, Lord.
And we know, Lord God, that revival always
comes when the fear of God and the
holiness of God and the glory of God
is given place.
And the people of God are filled with
Your glory.
And the people of God are filled with
Your holiness.
O God, give us hearts to fear You.
Give us hearts to know You.
Give us hearts to walk with You, Lord.
We pray that You would have Your way,
Lord Jesus.
We pray that Your Spirit would fill this
place, God.
I pray even now, Lord Jesus, that You
would quench the fiery darts of the evil
one that would pluck up this word, that
would take it out of our hearts from
being sewn deep down.
Lord, fight against the enemy with the sword
of Your mouth.
Pierce the darkness, Lord Jesus.
Let us walk in the light, Lord.
Let us return to You.
Let us respond to You with our whole
hearts, God.
Lord Jesus, please have Your way this morning.
Please have Your way in our hearts, Lord.
We ask, God.
We ask that You would have Your way.
We thank You and we praise You, Lord.
In Jesus' name we pray.