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Preacher: Ross Macdonald
Scripture: Exodus 20:20
Well, prior to this past week when we considered Psalm 128 up in Jaffray, New Hampshire, we had closed with Exodus 20, v. 17, and with it the Ten Commandments. Now we're finishing out Exodus 20 before we jump over to the Sermon on the Mount.
But this morning, we're going to begin really with v. 20. Then next week, we'll look at v. 18. Perhaps not to v. 26. We might do that over two weeks. But at least we'll begin with v. 18 next week. The reason I want to focus on v. 20 this morning is because it dovetails so well with so much of what we heard and received over the weekend.
And so when I consider the fear of the Lord and look at v. 20, I think it crowns so much of what we've received and what we don't want to forget. Let me begin reading in v. 18 just to set the context of v. 20.
Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. And when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. Then they said to Moses, you speak with us and we will hear.
But let not God speak with us lest we die. And Moses said to the people, do not fear. For God has come to test you and that His fear may be before you so that you may not sin. We read that God is now speaking to His people.
Of course, this is almost a summary and it functions really as a prologue to the book of the covenant that begins with v. 22. God has spoken. The mountain is thick with smoke. Deuteronomy 5 .23 says that the mountain is on fire.
It's a fiery blaze. So we have the thick enveloping smoke, the clouds of darkness, as it were, and the fiery torch, the fiery presence of God. This is the theophanic presence of the Holy One, God manifesting Himself in this way as He has already in the book of Exodus and even prior to this in the book of Genesis, appearing as both fire and cloud to His people.
Here the fire and cloud has descended upon, even consumed the entire mount of Horeb. This is the manner that God chose to reveal Himself. This is the manner that God chose to speak. And the result is the people say, don't let Him speak to us anymore.
This is how God reveals Himself. This is how God speaks forth His law, His covenant. And the result is the people are shaking in their sandals and saying, please make Him stop. We'll hear you, Moses. We can look to you, but we cannot dare look at the Holy One.
We dare not hear His words or we die. Now, of course, we take a big step back from Horeb and we consider, almost in a devotional sense, the way that God often speaks to His people. I was driving the other morning, early in the morning, and as I was driving along, I couldn't help but notice a few birds diving.
You see a flash of red and you're like, oh, a cardinal and some chipmunks scattering across the road. I don't know why on this particular morning it was like a chipmunk gauntlet and I actually ran over one.
I felt really bad. I heard a little funk and I looked in the mirror and it was like, oh, the Kamikaze chipmunks running across the road. But as I saw these little critters scattering forth to their little burrows, I couldn't help but reflect on the fact that God is sovereignly upholding all of this.
His eyes on the sparrow, He's taking care of the flowers of the field, the birds of the air. These are the things that are expressed in the hymn. This is my Father's world. He shines and all that's fair.
In the rustling grass, I hear Him pass. He speaks to me everywhere. And that's certainly true. God speaks to us. This is in terms of the glory of His work as our Creator and Sustainer. He speaks to us in everything that's fair.
He shines. He speaks to us everywhere. Well, here in Exodus 20, the Israelites would love for God to speak in this way. To hear Him whisper through the rustling grass. To hear Him shine in the lilies that are white.
He speaks everywhere and they would love for the Maker's praise to be declared in that way, but God is not revealing Himself generally to the Israelites through chipmunks and grass and flowers and cardinals.
No, God is revealing Himself uniquely, covenantally. He's revealing His very presence to them and what's the effect? Not the warm fuzzies, not being one with creation as so much of our world tends to be veering toward.
It's absolute terror. Absolute terror. God is not speaking everywhere here in Exodus 20. He's speaking through the fire and through the smoke into the very conscience, into the very core of His people.
And so He's not whispering. He's not refracting or shining as an afterglow the glory of who He is as Creator, but who He is as the holy and righteous God of all. The dread majesty of the Holy One. He speaks, they quake.
The mountain melts before His presence. And so we see thundering, lightning, flashing, the sound of the trumpet. The mountain trembling as the people tremble. They wanna send Moses as we read in Hebrews 12, even Moses is quaking with fear.
This is what it is to stand before the Holy One. But Moses, knowing who God is, having experienced as a microcosm the same fiery presence of God on Horeb so many decades prior, when it was just the bush that was enveloped in fire and yet not consumed.
And there Moses fell on his face, knowing he was in the presence of the Holy One. But now that thicket, that fire, has consumed the entire mount. Moses not feeling confident and yet faithfully trusting the character of the God who not only revealed Himself, but the God who delivered them.
The people probably thought they were about to be consumed. Moses remembers, God is the one who's delivered us. If we were to be consumed, it would have happened long ago. But we have these precious promises.
He's the one who brought us through the Red Sea, saved us from the clutch of Pharaoh. If God were to destroy us, He would have done it then. If God were to destroy us, it would have been when we were grumbling in the wilderness.
But God has saved us. Surely His purpose now is not to consume us. And so recognizing this, Moses is able to say to the people, do not fear. Though he himself was fearful as they were. He was able to look at the character, look however faintly it may have been.
He was looking to the ultimate purpose, the promise of God. And he was saying, do not fear. God has come in part so that His fear may be before you. It was the words of John Trapp who said, verse 20 says, fear not, and yet fear.
Fear not, and yet fear. Do not fear. God has come so that His fear would be before you. It's the same word. These aren't two different words. These aren't two different concepts. There's just a right and a wrong fear.
Everything that we received from Michael Reeves last week. So we want to consider the wonder and the effects of God's presence here on the mount, having brought the covenant of the law to His people. We want to consider all that His presence means and how Moses points us not only to the one who by faith walks into the darkness, pierces the veil, but Moses as the type and the shadow of a greater mediator yet to come.
The one who alone can go forth into the presence of the fiery one. The one who alone pierces the veil of darkness. And so we want to consider that, but not this morning. As again, we're jumping ahead to verse 20.
So we want to consider the fear of the Lord and what the fear of the Lord produces in the lives of those who fear Him rightly. What the fear of the Lord means for you and I if we are those who, like Moses, know the character of God and are trusting in His promise.
Moses said to the people, do not fear. God has come to test you. That His fear may be before you, that you may not sin. So this morning we want to consider the fear of the Lord in three ways. First, we want to consider the fear of the Lord that proves, that proves.
Secondly, the fear of the Lord that perseveres. And then thirdly, the fear of the Lord that purifies. So the fear of the Lord that proves, the fear of the Lord that purifies. And finally, the fear of the Lord that perseveres, the fear of the Lord that purifies.
That's how we'll approach verse 20 in the time that we have. First, the fear that proves. Moses said to the people, do not fear. God has come to test you. This is a reason Moses gives, not the whole, but in part, the reason that the people are not to be afraid.
He says, don't be afraid. God has come in order to blank. Now, if we were to fill in that blank, if we were to answer why we should not be afraid, I would venture to guess, you probably wouldn't put at the top of your list, don't be afraid because God has come to test you.
You'd probably say something like, don't be afraid, God has come to love you. Don't be afraid, God has come to bless you. Don't be afraid, God has come to be with you. Now, all of these things are true.
But before you come to these things, Moses recognizes God has a purpose to test, a purpose to prove. Do not be afraid, God has come in order to test you. This is not the first time that God has come in order to test His people.
On the other side of Horeb, on the way toward it, we read that at Merah, God was testing Israel. We read in Exodus 16, the Lord said to Moses in verse four, behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you.
The people will go out and gather a certain quota every day. Why? So that I may test them, whether they'll walk in my law or not. Now, this testing comes across rather harsh, but again, for Moses, it's a reason not to be afraid.
God has come in order to test you. Here's the reason you shouldn't be afraid. God hasn't come to bully you. God isn't coming to ambush you. God isn't coming to do some sort of street fighter sweep kick and get you stumbling in your walk.
That's not the way that God comes. He's come not so much to test as a challenge, but rather to prove as a refiner, proves the work that has begun, proves how much dross has been consumed, proves in a sense that His workmanship has shown forth.
That's the way that God seeks to prove His people. And again, this proving, this testing, it's a searching, it's a seeking, it's a finding out. Deuteronomy 8, two, you shall remember the whole way the Lord your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness so that He might humble you.
What's one of the things that leads to humility in the life of a believer? You shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness that He might humble you, testing you.
To know what was in your heart. That's where humility comes from in the life of the believer. You remember what God has done, how He's proven you. And if He's proven you, you've been humbled to His purpose, His patience, His grace in your life.
Why? Because when He proved you, He was knowing what was in your heart. Not that the omniscient one lacks knowledge of something, but rather He was manifesting it, demonstrating it. If not to others, then at least to yourself, He was proving what was in your heart.
Consider that this was the case even for the father of faith, right? It's not that this is for those who have a lesser quality or a lesser degree of faith in their life. You could be the father of faith, as Abraham was.
And even Abraham must be tested. In Genesis 22, we read, it came to pass after these things, God tested Abraham. God desired to prove the work that He had begun in the life of this man, whom He had called out of Ur of the Chaldeans into a land that He had not received, but was given to Him by promise.
God plainly desired to prove the faith of Abraham, to know what was in the heart of Abraham. Over the years, of course, leading up to Genesis 22, God was very active in pulling down the fleshly efforts and earthly schemes that Abraham tried to mount up.
And all along the way, you can almost get the sense that Abraham's just looking for that place that he can coast, that he can sort of plateau in his walk with the Lord. And it's as if the Lord never quite lets up.
He's proved almost at every turn. Even when the Lord doesn't appear. For decades at a time, we don't have any sense or semblance of revelation or presence of God. We find that Abraham's faith is being tested in that very way.
Whether through presence or through deprivation, God is proving His servant. Maybe Abraham thought Ishmael would have been the final test. Now he had sent him away. Everything's cleaned up. His wife is happy.
His home is intact. The promise is secure. Genesis 22, verse one, must have come like some artillery shell in the middle of the night. Abraham must have thought, the hardest has been behind me now. But this is always the case with the life of faith.
God desires to know what's in our heart. To make it manifest. To humble us. To prove us. To see whether we'll walk in His ways or not. And so we can expect, as an old preacher said, as we grow in the Christian life, our trials will multiply.
Don't think that as you grow in God's grace, the path will become smoother. In fact, often it becomes much rougher. It's just that your feet, your skin, is half an inch thick now. You have Johnny Appleseed feet.
Because God has proven you o 'er and o 'er. In proving you, He's proven Himself. His own preserving of you. His own faithfulness to you. It works this way in the military, right? You don't send the green recruits, wet behind the ears, fresh out of Paris Island to the hardest battles, to the decisive battles, to the front.
That's for the battle-hardened. That's for the mature. That's for men who know how to carry themselves and self-control. Who know how to fight on with courage and boldness. And so it is with a ship.
You don't send it into the roughest seas when it's fresh out of the boatyard. It's when it's proven itself. When it's seaworthy. When it has barnacles, as it were, sealing in the gaps. Then you can send it through the baring straits.
And so in the Christian's life, God proves His people. Not because it's a coast downhill, this easy way, this by-path meadow, but no, He proves the work as He continues to refine. And in some ways, the heat always turns up just a little bit hotter in the Christian's life.
And yet they seem, for that reason, to be a little more mature, a little more patient, a little more gracious, a little more fruitful in their life in Christ. So expect, brothers and sisters, your trials to multiply.
And then whatever the Lord has gifted you with, whatever He's called you to do, He needs to prove it. Has He called you to something? He'll prove that call in your life. Has He given you some blessing?
Has He brought you through some trial? He's going to prove the fruitfulness of that. He's gonna prove His work in you. It will accord with His calling. It will accord with His trial in your life. Some of you are being tried right now in this very season, in the very circumstances that you're facing.
And you have to hear exactly what we're saying. No strange thing has overtaken you. The Lord is desiring to prove you. It's not so much the trial that proves us, but it's what's produced through the trial that proves us.
That's how God knows what's in our heart. That's how our way, our thoughts, our regard, our love for God is manifest, is made known. Our faith in the midst of trial. Our perseverance in the midst of struggle.
Our hope in the midst of pain. Our advance in the midst of tremendous setback. That's what Paul holds forth in Romans 5. He says, don't we also glory in tribulations? The world doesn't know how to glory in tribulations.
The least of believers know, or at least has the acorn of knowing how to glory in tribulation. Newborns can't do much, but newborn believers know how to glory in tribulation. Because often, tribulation is right outside of the birth canal of regeneration.
As soon as someone becomes a Christian, and that's made known among the family members or among the colleagues at work, tribulation comes. There's a lot of watchful eyes to see whether he's just another hypocrite that we can soothe our own consciences with.
And tribulation comes. A distancing comes. Stumbling and shame and humility comes. Trials come. I finally lay a hold of the truth. I thought everything was getting better, so why has life gotten harder?
There's a song, this worship CD that we listen to every now and then on the ride, and the last track has that lyric. Why did life get harder the moment I believed? And for some reason, my girls have fallen, they're infatuated with this song.
They listen to it 20 times a day. And I sort of rebuke them like, you're five years old, your life has not gotten harder. I don't know that you're believing. You really don't know the fullness of what this song has to express.
But where this song is sung, in the ghettos, in the inner slums, that's exactly the message they're putting forth in worship. And of course, the whole song moves to take heart, Christ has overcome the world.
Why would brand new believers in these church plants, in these slums, in the inner city, need to hear a message like that? Because God is always proving His work, that's why. And life does get harder when you believe.
And if you want it to stop getting harder, stop believing. Stop walking in His ways. Stop hiding His Word in your heart. Stop trying to conduct yourself in fear. Stop trying to live in a way that reflects His law, His holiness, His character.
If you want life to get easier, just go your own way. But life gets harder, why? Because tribulations produce perseverance, and perseverance, character, and character, hope. You see the chain links in that glorious sentence from Romans 5, 4.
Tribulation produces something. That's the way that God proves His people. Tribulations prove because tribulations produce. And so we look very carefully to the branches, the day-to-day branches in our lives, and we say, what has God's way with me produced?
Knowing He is a God who is pleased to know me, to know my heart, to prove me, what has His way, His providence in my life produced? Jesus is ever the one who goes to the fig branches and looks for fruitfulness, whether in season or out.
That has not changed. And this is very easy to dismiss. In fact, when you're in the midst of a trial, when you're gripped by deprivation, or some fiery trial has overtaken you, overwhelmed you, we tend to hear verses like this, and we dismiss them.
We roll our eyes cynically. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, tribulation, character, perseverance. No, but you don't know what this is like. You haven't gone through this. That way of thinking has not arrived at God's purpose, at what God is seeking.
It's not the kind of humility to recognize what is His way, what would He produce in my life? He is the God who proves His people. And so this is one of the first things we notice about the fear of the Lord.
The fear of the Lord is productive in the life of a Christian. Where are the bare branches, brothers and sisters? Almost certainly it is for lack of the fear of God that your life is not as fruitful as it ought to be.
Certainly that's true in my life. The Lord reveals Himself. It produces this fear, not a sinful, servile, slavish fear that causes us to put leaves over ourselves and pretend we can hide from God's presence, but quite the opposite.
The kind of fear that puts a knot in our stomach as we take step-by-step into that darkness, knowing that somehow behind that darkness is the brightest light, and behind that providential frown is the widest smile.
And so we persevere by faith, and we enter into that presence with boldness. So how will you be proved? Let me give you three encouragements. Three encouragements toward this proving. First, you must have a firm grasp of the sovereignty of God.
So many have not been productive in their trial because they don't even recognize the trial as being from God's hand. They don't see God's purpose in it. Perhaps the most they see is, well, this is just something that I'm supposed to get through.
They can mark it up to God, but they've somehow abstracted or distanced it from who He is in His holy presence, in His holy purpose. Somehow God is not in it. Somehow God is not with them. God is not the vinedresser.
He's not the pruner. He's not the cultivator. It's rather, this is just, you know, these things happen. I know that somehow God will use it. He's not some divine algorithm. It's not that somehow this will all calculate in the end.
No, He's the God who's near. So you have to have a firm grasp on the sovereignty of God, not as some abstract doctrine. Let me rephrase it. You need to have a firm relationship with the sovereign God.
You have to have a theology of in order to, which is how we should read this. Do not be afraid, for God has come in order to prove you. You have to have a theology of in order to. Things happen in order for other things to be produced.
That's what it means to understand the sovereignty of God. Look at the life of Joseph. He has a deep theology of in order to. Here's the promise, the promised blessing. So why am I cast away, as it were, effectively murdered by my brothers?
Well, somehow this is in order to bring about God's promise, God's blessing. And so he walks in that way. He walks in the character and the integrity of a God-fearing man. And where does that lead him?
To the very height of Potiphar's house. And then he's cast down into the pit again. But because he has this firm grasp on who God is, God's promise never changing, never shrinking, never failing, he recognizing somehow even this is in order to bring about his promise.
And so he perseveres. That tribulation gives way to perseverance, which gives way to a holy character, to hope. So you have to have a firm grasp of the sovereignty of God, a firm relationship with the sovereign God.
That's first. Secondly, you must recognize yourself in contrast to the Holy One. There is for some reason in our lives, in the Christian life, this effect that takes place whenever we enter into a serious trial.
Somehow a trial triggers this secret air pump. This sort of motor begins spinning and all of a sudden we become inflated. All of a sudden, everything else is drowned out. We feel like the weight of the world is on us in a trial.
We begin to think low on everything else, low on everyone else. No one gets me. No one cares. No one sees this. This is awful. This is hard. I'm alone in this. And we become this Goodyear blimp. We've lost sight of the perspective of who it is that has brought this trial and what He's seeking to produce.
It's not to inflate us and put the attention on us. It's to deflate us. It's to winnow us. It's to bring us down to the earth so we recognize God alone is in heaven. And so you have to recognize yourself in contrast to the Holy One.
That's always the effect of a trial when it's had its good work done. An old Puritan exclaimed, remember who it is that you worship. Don't let a trial ever become a chip on your shoulder. You've come into the presence of the One who does no wrong, the One who has no shadow of turning within Him.
Job made this mistake. As holy and God-fearing and righteous as the man was, his trial became a chip on his shoulder. He began so afflated that he began to question who God was. It took a lot of patience for God to let him air out.
And He's often patient with us in the midst of trial. Praise Him for His patience. It's part of His character. But there does come a day, there does come an hour when Job has to hear God say, that's enough, Job.
You let me talk now. Let me unplug your little blimp of an ego and show you who you really are before me. Remember who it is you worship. What place is left for yourself to cling to yourself when your eyes are fixed upon the Lord in all of His dreadful majesty?
Do you feel your own weakness? Do you feel your own need for Him? These are the kind of questions you ask, you examine your heart. If you're going to be proved by God, you better ask these kind of questions that you may be proved rightly.
Do you feel your weakness? Do you feel a need for Him? Do you know your own sinfulness? Do you long for His righteousness? Are you lacking any self-confidence so that your trust is lying in Him and in Him alone?
Are you prostrate before Him? So secondly, you must recognize yourself, not who you think you are, not what you think you deserve, but who you really are before the infinite one. And then thirdly, you have to have an unflinching grasp of God's character, an unflinching grasp of God's character.
A part of knowing not only God's sovereignty is recognizing rightly His mercy, His love, His faithfulness, His surety. If a trial begins to make God seem austere and black and distant, you are not looking at the trial all right.
Trials in the lives of His people have the paradoxical effect of drawing closer to the very verge of saying, though He slays me yet I praise Him. However painful the trial may be, however unpleasant the chastisement of the moment, you know as a Christian in the very marrow of your bones, the Lord is good.
Maybe at one point in your life those were empty words. Not when you've been proven. The Lord is good. The Lord does all things well. That's what it looks like to be proven. And with this look at His character, you don't fix your eyes on the momentary.
You don't fix your eyes on the pinch, on the pain. You fix your eyes on the purpose. Deuteronomy 8, 16, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, and why? So that He might humble you and test you.
Yes, we've seen that, right? Humble you, prove you, but why? How does His character affect any of this? So that He might humble you and test you to do you good in the end. That's where the character comes in.
Oh, I know He's humbling me. He always finds a way to humble me. If this is the kind of attitude you have when God is proving you. Well, I tried to serve Him more than most, and I've got the least. What has that amounted to my good?
This kind of reasoning, this kind of thinking. And maybe you can nod and agree with me. Yeah, I know that He's humbling me. I know I need to be humble. I should not speak. I cover my mouth with ashes.
I know that He's proving me. I know that this is a test too. I know that I'm failing all the time. But brother, sister, do you recognize this is for your good in the end? Blessed is the one who can say He does all things well now, rather than with tears at the end.
Saying, I'm sorry I couldn't see it at the time. Truly now I know you do all things well. I wish I could have praised you with sincerity of heart then. This is the fear that proves. Secondly, the fear that perseveres.
The fear that perseveres. So we see not only a fear that proves, do not fear, God has come to test you, that is prove you. Same word, same translation. But also, secondly, that you may persevere. That His fear may be before you.
There's an idiom in Hebrew, often you is your face, before your face, ever before you. And I like to think of that more directionally. It's not just staying and standing where you are and having His fear before you, but it's walking with Him ever before you in the way He's leading you, in the things He's given you.
His fear is the thing that's driving you, leading you. It's the only thing you can see. It's just like the Israelites with the fiery pillar, the cloud. It's before their face and so they're pursuing it.
And so the godly man, the godly woman, His fear is ever before their face. It's a fear that perseveres. God's presence here causes Israel to fear. They're trembling. But you know what? That fear is not gonna last long.
They're shaking. They're convinced we'll never be the same. But soon that sight, that noise of the horn, of the thunder, the flashing of the lightning, the heat from the fire, the terror, deep in their conscience, deep in their soul, soon that will vanish from their eyes.
And soon they'll stop talking about it and sharing it. And soon it won't be a part of their acting, thinking, and then it won't even be a part of their memory. By the time we get to chapter 32, what are they doing?
Are they quaking? Have they been indelibly marked by the fear of God? No, what are they doing? They're dancing around a golden idol. We see that God doesn't just seek to prove His people in a moment. The fear that proves, brothers and sisters, is a fear that perseveres.
It's a fear that perseveres. God doesn't prove His people in a moment, but across their walk, across a length of their days. And that means the godly fear that proves also perseveres. It's all too easy for the thunder of God to sort of break out over our heads, over our thoughts.
We have an encounter in but a moment. We're struck to the core. We feel changed. We feel that we'll go on being so much different. We're convinced there's a real desire now that hadn't been there even moments before.
There's a real sense of power now. Now I have resolve. Now I have clarity. I've had this encounter. But tragedy of tragedies, what happens? By the time you get in your car, it's halfway dead. It's suffocating.
And by the time you get home, you're exactly who you were before that encounter. I had a friend that was always the ostensibly God-fearing young man. And even in our little circle of friends, he'd always get teased or picked on for that reason.
There was all manner of ways that he wouldn't be foolish as we were foolish at that age. And for years and years and years, this was his testimony, this was his character. And he served in a church. And he withstood friends pursuing the world, loving the world, and he was just in the Lord's way, in the Lord's will, resolved.
So much of that had been produced in his life through his family, through his parents. And when their marriage blew apart, and his home sort of disintegrated, and his sibling went off to the world, and he wasn't rocked, he stayed the course.
And so I remember spending some time with him some years ago, many years ago, 12 years ago. And just seeing for the first time some of the fissures, some of the cracks in his resolve. And he was burnt out and he said, I'm thinking I'm gonna change things.
I'm gonna go kind of see some of the rest of the world and he did that. And by the time he got back, I remember seeing him. He was with a group of friends that were now unbelievers. They'd all grown up with reverence for this holy man.
And they said, what did your time, your year walking through the nations and having jobs and just living in these different places, what did that show you? And he said, well, it showed me that everyone has beliefs that probably are more unique to their setting, to where they are, how they were raised.
And of course, these unbelieving friends are just, yep, yep, yep, you're finally seeing the light. And I'm there thinking, what has happened to you? What you think is enlightenment is blindness. And now he has nothing to do with the Lord.
He's living in open sin. It's easy for us to think somehow these moments, these encounters, these affections are the things that really change. And all we need is to string them together. What I lack most right now in my walk is that encounter, is that emotional fervor.
If I could just have but one glimpse, one glimmer of that, that will produce that kind of change, that kind of hope, that kind of character that I'm lacking. And I don't mean to discount, as you'll see next week, not for a moment, the power of the presence of God, what that means for our affections and the role of our emotions.
Not for a moment do I marginalize that, but hear me out, hear me out. We all think that power comes from blissful moments, emotionally charged moments, when in fact, so much of the power of the Christian life comes from perseverance.
It comes from persevering in the things that God has given to you, in the things that God has shown you. The power of Abraham's life was not in the bliss of being called out of Ur, but in decades of trusting in the promise when there was no earthly reason to continue doing so.
The power in Job's faith was not in the glory of having the stability and integrity to sacrifice morning and evening. It was to not lose heart in God even when his own wife said, curse him and die. Perseverance is so much of the power of a Christian's life, brothers and sisters.
And this means we live constantly with his fear before our face. That's what perseverance looks like. Why do you press on when others fall away? Why continue to miss out and to lose out? And to be disregarded, to be impugned, to suffer, why?
Why do you persevere? Because his fear is before my face. His fear is before my face, that's why. You see here that God's proving is not just a mere testing in the sense of a challenge, it's an inspiration.
He's imploring, he's urging his people to walk in his ways. And so that's why perseverance always is born of godly fear. Even though an emotionally charged scene or thundering words and the echo of conscience vanish, the fear that proves is a fear that perseveres.
It will continue on with integrity. With such integrity that you can invite the Lord to prove you. You've been persevering, you've been walking with fear before him, so you can actually pray to God, Lord, search me, know me, test me.
I've asked the Lord a lot of things in my life. I've never asked the Lord to test me. That's what David does in Psalm 26. In Psalm 26, David doesn't come away from a worship session on his harp and just feeling great.
Just feeling like the hills are alive with the sound of music, right? That kind of ah. He doesn't, this is how I feel right now, it's just so wonderful. Because when he asked the Lord to search him, he's not contemplating that moment.
He's like, search me quick, it's kind of fleeting, you know, 15 minutes, search me. He invites God to look upon his walk. Come look at my life, Lord. This is what, in older generations, they called divine scrutiny, right?
Careful examination, careful looking, scrutiny. Vindicate me, Psalm 26. Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity. This is going to be an inclusio. You'll notice he uses walked here and he'll use it again in a few sentences.
Vindicate me, O Lord, I have walked in my integrity. I've also trusted in the Lord. I shall not slip. Someone grab ahold of David and say, if you think you're standing, beware lest you fall. Right? Don't you have that instinct?
Oh, David, David, you're thinking too highly of yourself. Surely you need to be humbled. But he's saying, no, God has been proving me. I can see it, because his fear is ever before me. And now I have this perseverance in my walk, Lord, you know it.
You're the one who's producing it. Lord, come see, come prove, come show your work. Lord, vindicate me. This is not an empty claim. This is not something hollow. Vindicate me, Lord. I have walked in my integrity.
I've also trusted in the Lord. I shall not slip. Examine me, O Lord. Prove me. Try my mind and my heart. Is that a prayer that you could pray? Lord, come try my mind. Is that a prayer that you could pray?
For your loving kindness is before my eyes, right? The character of God. He really fears God, and therefore he knows who God is. He's gone through the black veil that chases lesser men away. And there he's found the bright presence of God.
And he says, there is loving kindness. There is covenant faithfulness. No wonder he's so confident. And I have walked in your truth. So David understands that proving is not in a moment or a glance, but it regards his entire walk.
He has persevered. You've perhaps known people in your life like I do. And their whole approach to God is to come to some worship service and be emotionally charged, like some EV battery in a parking lot.
Let me just park here, plug me in, and kind of charge me up. Get me in a friends meet. Get me barking and howling and running in circles. Get me doing some weird tap dance routine. Just charge my emotions.
I'll be weeping. I'll be awestruck. I'll feel like every molecule of my will has somehow surrendered to God. And it never makes it out the door. That kind of spirituality is about as thick as a nickel.
There's no death. Why? It doesn't persevere. It implodes almost immediately after. Because God is not shown in the fervor. He's not shown in the encounter. He's proven in the perseverance. And that means you have to learn how to fear God.
If it's a walk and not a moment, you have to learn how to fear God. This is what God says in Deuteronomy 4. Remember the day you stood before the Lord, your God, at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, assemble the people to Me, that I might let them hear My words, so that they would learn to fear Me.
All the days they live on earth. God knows it's not going to be in the moment. It's not going to be the flash in the pan. It's going to be a learning. All the days of our lives. This is how Moses learned.
Moses learned it. He learned it when it was the burning bush. He learned it again here. He learns. He trusts. He knows the character of God. He perseveres in faith. When things are falling to the left or to the right, when the people are at his very throat, he presses on, even though he's weary and often can join in the chorus of complaints, he perseveres.
Why? Why can he, like David, say, not just that your fear is before my eyes, but your loving kindness is before my eyes? It's because when he sees his sin, he owns it. That's part of walking with integrity.
Part of walking with fear. And therefore, he knows God's forgiveness. He knows God's mercy. He knows that he could have, in fact, he should have been struck down a long time ago, but he's been spared.
Not even spared. He's been blessed. And so we find in Moses' own life, this encounter with God that still is so fearful, and yet, as he presses in that and perseveres in that, that perfect love of who God is casts away his slavish, servile fear.
He's a walking fulfillment of 1 John 4, 18 and 19. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. Why? Fear involves torment or punishment. Moses recognizes the reason that so many don't wanna approach you, God, is they're afraid of punishment, of torment, but I know you.
If you were gonna torment me, you would have done it. You would have snuffed me out a long time ago. And so though I quake and though I tremble, I press forward. Why? Because you have promised good to me.
You have forgiven my sins, so that your name may be feared. And like David, therefore, this perfect love of God has cast out this sin sinful, slavish fear. This love is now perfected in Moses. And what does that look like?
Well, Exodus 32. When Moses learns how to fear God, when he perseveres in walking with this fear and loving kindness ever before him, what happens in Exodus 32? Do you find him quaking with terror then?
No, what does he beg God? He says, Lord, show me your glory. He's not like the Israelites who say, we don't even wanna be near the mountain if God's presence is there. Moses says, I want more. That's what it looks like, brothers and sisters, to persevere in this fear that proves his people.
Indeed, we count them blessed to endure, James says. You've heard of the perseverance of Job. You've seen the end intended by the Lord, that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. And then third and last, the fear that purifies.
The fear that purifies. Moses said to the people, do not fear. God has come to test you that his fear may be before you so that you may not sin. So God is proving his people, right? He's come to prove you.
He's also drawing out of you this perseverance, this fear before your face. But this is also that successively, as you walk with his fear before your face, you'll be resisting and also purging sin in your life.
So we see here, the same fear that proves a believer, the same fear that causes a believer to persevere is also a fear that purifies a believer's walk. Now sin here, there's many different Hebrew terms for sin.
In this particular one, kata, in Judges, it's likened to a sling that misses its target. It's missed the bullseye. Missing the mark, going astray, that's the idea. You see again, now this is connected to a walk, to a perseverance, that you may not stray as you're walking, that you may not turn aside, that you may not turn back.
That's why his fear is ever before you. That's why he's come to prove you. That's why you should not be afraid. So God gives this manifestation that his fear is before us. We think of the Israelites here, if anything could awaken fear in them, the kind of fear that we're after, the fear that proves and perseveres and purifies, it would be this.
They've had a lot of fearful encounters. They've had Pharaoh's army about to collapse upon them. They almost were, as it were, drowned and slaughtered in the Red Sea. They've been through the harrowing of the plagues, but they've never quite had an encounter like this.
At least we've never read this kind of fearful reaction. And here I think we exhaust the power of the law to bring forth life, as Paul would say. The law doesn't know how to bring forth life. It only knows how to condemn.
Here you see that all of the thundering and all of the fire and all of the power, even at Horeb, is not enough to change an Israelite's life. What they need, as we'll see next week, is a mediator to go before them.
You know, there's a worldly fear, just like there's a worldly sorrow. And there's a godly fear, just like there's a godly sorrow. One of the things that's produced in the life of a believer by this fear of the Lord is this purification.
It's not that somehow there's less sin to be found, quite the opposite. When you're walking in the fear of the Lord, you feel as though you're the chief of sinners. There have been, are, and will be hypocrites, but I'm the biggest one.
We all sin and stumble in many ways. No one's worthy of grace, but I'm really unworthy. What the fear of the Lord looks like in the life of a believer. Paradoxically, the thing that brings forth purification often feels like we're more stained and defiled than ever.
The Spirit attends to us to keep washing out our blemishes and wrinkles, and it seems like for every wrinkle that's cleansed, there's three more in its place. It's the Medusa effect of sanctification.
The roots just keep going deeper and deeper. That's how it often feels in our conscience. And yet in our lives, all that while, we're becoming purer, brighter. Some people in this very room I've had conversations with, and in trying to get at things that should be clearly sinful, there's no register.
There's no recognition. There seems to be no sense of really owning or feeling the weight of the offense. In fact, there's nothing offensive at all. In its place, we have a laundry list of all the things that are admirable, that you've grown in so much better than it used to be.
And these are the kinds of conversations that fill me with concern. These are the kind of conversations that make me wonder, could you be drawing closer to that pure light if you feel so well about yourself?
That's not the purification that I know. But then I've had conversations with people in this very room that have come to me, even weeping, and saying, I just don't get it. I know more about the Gospel and more about the Lord than I've ever known.
I'm genuinely trying and applying and working, and it just seems like it's all collapsing and getting worse. And they're filled with dread, it breaks my heart, but I'm filled with confidence. That's what it looks like to walk with His fear before your face.
It may not feel like it in the moment, but you're well on your way to being purified if the weight of your sins leads you to the cross that God has appointed as the only means for forgiveness. You are well on your way to being purified.
Let that law thunder. Let its floodlight open up all the crevices of your life. Great sinner, though you are, a greater Savior you have access to, one who will never turn away those who come to Him. So much of the fear that proves, so much of the fear that perseveres, so much of the fear that purifies is a fear that lays hold of Christ and turns into awe and humility and love.
When you love Christ, then it can be said that you feared God rightly. Until you love Christ, it cannot be said that any of these things have borne their intended effect in your life. Until Christ is worth more to you than any, until His name is more precious than any name, even your own name, until Christ is everything to you, it cannot be said that you've arrived at this fear of the Lord, nor will you be proven, nor will you persevere, nor will your life in any way be purified.
And so we see what Peter says in 2 Peter, right? There's a process here, he says. Giving all diligence, right? If you would persevere in this fear, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue to virtue, knowledge to knowledge, self-control to self-control, perseverance.
Always good to look at this and say, where am I stacking up on this golden chain of sanctification? To perseverance, godliness to godliness, brotherly kindness to brotherly kindness, love. Everyone thinks I have it all worked out.
Maybe I'm not as loving to my brethren, or maybe I'm just not a loving person as I ought to be, but I have all sorts of self-control, I have all sorts of perseverance and godliness. No, my friend, you don't.
You don't get the cart before you get the horse. You don't get the fruit before you get the seed. According to 2 Peter, love, as God calls it, brotherly kindness, as God calls it, comes downstream from godliness, perseverance, and self-control.
So don't think you can have what comes later if you don't have what comes before it. The result of having this purifying fear of the Lord is a consistent recognition of, Lord, why am I still so dull and stubborn?
Have you borne with me this long? Why do I keep going back to my vomit? Why? Why? Why do I choose stale crumbs that break my teeth when you spread a feast before me? Why? And so the delight of hearing him speak always has nestled within it the shame of having refused him.
The delight of knowing his presence always has intertwined with it the shame of having run away from him. This is what it looks like to draw close to the God who is infinitely holy, infinitely fearful, and yet perfect in love.
We come to him not as our creator, but as Reeves pointed out, our redeemer. Not as our maker, but as our Father. We come to him not as servants to be scolded, but as children who have grieved the Father who loves them.
And therefore, our tendency to be so passive, so resigned, so lazy, careless, worldly, it must melt away when God comes to prove us. It must melt away as step by step we persevere with his fear before us.
It must melt away. As even sins like that are purified. Spurgeon said, our tendency is to slur all that is spiritual until God makes us to see the plague of our heart against his awful majesty. And only then does the fear of the Lord which endures forever drive away the thieves in the temple place.
So question as we close now. Do you have this fear? Do you have the fear that we rehearsed over the whole weekend in Jaffrey, New Hampshire? The fear that is the delight, the fear that proves you belong to him, proves you really know him, proves you really know yourself against him, prove you have a grasp of not only his sovereignty, but of his character.
Do you have that fear? Do you have the fear that's persevering? People that walked the course for a decade and then fell away in the 11th year. Does that throw you? Does that curdle your affection for God?
Or does it sober you and say, few, few there are who enter. Does this fear of God make you not just pray, but be fervent in prayer? Does this fear of God not just make you show up to fellowship, let's go.
Bigger fish to fry, Celtics game too. Or does it make your fellowship sweet, rich? Something to persevere in, surely. Does the fear of God make his word sweeter than honey, sharper than a two-edged sword?
Or just a little fortune cookie to make you feel better for an hour? Let me give you these words and I'll close with Jude 24. These words and think through. In fact, you ought to write this down and meditate on this.
These words from Spurgeon, fear plows deep. Fear plows deep and then faith sows and then love reaps. Faith plows deep and then faith sows, but it's love that reaps. To him who's able to keep you from stumbling, to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.
Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Lord, may we be those who can distinguish worldly fear from this fear, from Abraham's fear, from Moses' fear, David's fear, Job's fear. Lord, we would have this fear that becomes both the shame of our humility, but also the very joy of our delight.
We would have this fear, Lord, that gives us that sterling character refined by your own grace as you prove us through the trials and providential dealings you have in our lives. Lord, that we would recognize you are the sovereign one ordaining every step of our path and that we would not miss or sin to the left or to the right, but Lord, that we would persevere with your fear ever before our face, our soul exclusive guidance.
And Father, may it be that fear that purifies these sins, both great and small, these affections that are so rebellious, these feet that often want to go after the way of the world in our own flesh. Lord, may we be purified.
To whom else can we go? And why would we go to anyone else but you? Lord, give us this fear, we pray. Lord, if there's one in this room that you're dealing with, perhaps even thundering in their conscience and their soul, let it not be that shallow fear that subsides.
Lord, let them not think somehow they can have this emotional change that will result in a real transformation of their life. Lord, may they recognize there's only one who can change. And may they flee to Him, lay hold of His cross, and allow His Spirit to do the work that only His Spirit can do.
These things we ask in your Son's name. Amen.