The Fear of God & Pastoral Ministry - Dr. Tom Ascol

It is a joy to be here with you for this conference and appreciate the invitation, appreciate all the efforts that have gone in to providing for us.

And I bring you greetings from Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral. The folks there have assured me that they'll be praying for our time together.

And I also bring you greetings from Founders Ministries and the Institute of Public Theology. If there's any way that we can serve you through Founders or IOPT, please let us know.

You can go to the website founders .org and get all the information probably that you would ever want to know about Founders and also ways to communicate with us if you think of ways that we can be of service to you.

Well tomorrow I intend to address that verse that was read earlier, Acts 20 -28, about the role and responsibility of pastors.

And tonight what I want to do, kind of as preface to that, is to talk about a subject that we don't hear much about anymore in our churches or in the way that we talk about those who follow

Jesus. But there was a time when people talked about in our churches far more than they do now the fear of God.

And we referred to those who are following Jesus Christ as God -fearing people.

But we don't talk like that much anymore and there's probably a variety of reasons for that. But one significant reason is that there has been some teaching that has come into evangelical churches over the 20th century that could best be described as kind of a hyper -dispensationalism that has looked askance at the idea of fearing

God being a part of new covenant spirituality. That is, fearing

God being appropriate for Christians in this era. Psalm 19 verse 9 says, the fear of the

Lord is clean, enduring forever. And C .I. Schofield, who has a study

Bible that helped to preserve in some ways evangelical orthodoxy on the main doctrines of scripture in the early part of the 20th century, also spread the worst elements of dispensationalism through that same mechanism.

His notes on Psalm 19 verse 9 says this, the fear of the

Lord is a phrase of Old Testament piety. In other words, he was saying that this is appropriate for Old Testament people who knew

God but no longer appropriate for those who are knowing

Jesus Christ under the new covenant. Well, that way of thinking and dividing the

Testament so severely has its roots in 2nd century Marcionism. Marcion was a heretic who said that the

God of the Old Testament is not the God of the New Testament. The God of the Old Testament is angry and full of wrath.

The God of the New Testament is full of love that we know in Jesus. So in the Old Testament era, being fearful of God was an appropriate form of piety.

But in the New Testament era where we know God is love, that place for fearing God should no longer be recognized among God's people.

Well, I hope that tonight we will be able to see and be convinced that the idea of fearing

God is not something that stopped with the close of the Old Testament canon.

But it's very much part and parcel, indeed I would argue the heart of New Testament piety as well.

A simple study of the phrases fear of God or fear of the Lord will reveal that those phrases are used over 150 times in the

New Testament. And when you couple with the exact usage of those phrases, ideas and illustrations where the fear of God is being commended and described in positive ways, well, we have to conclude that certainly fearing

God is a major theme of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments.

Not only that, but the Bible repeatedly commends leaders of God's people, being those who lead in the fear of the

Lord. For example, when Jethro gave counsel to Moses about dividing up the leadership responsibility of the newly exiled

Israelites who had been led out of Egypt, Exodus 18 .21 records this part of his counsel.

He tells Moses, look for able men from all the people, men who fear

God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe and place such men over the peoples as chief of thousands of hundreds of fifties and of tens.

They fear God, making them trustworthy, making them impervious to being bribed from doing something that God would call them to do.

Deuteronomy chapter 17, God gives instructions about the kind of man that should be anointed as king in Israel.

He says, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law approved by the

Levitical priests and it shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the

Lord, his God, by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes and doing them so that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers and that he may not turn aside from the commandment either to the right hand or the left so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children in Israel.

Make sure that the man who would be anointed king among you is a God fearing man so that he will keep my commandments, that's what

God says, so that he will not turn God's people away from the way of the

Lord. The last words that are recorded of King David found in 2

Samuel chapter 23 makes the same point, listen to this, the king said, the

God of Israel has spoken, the rock of Israel has said to me, when one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth.

It is a blessing to be led by a man who fears

God because he knows that he answers to far more than the people to whom he gives leadership.

Faithful leaders are those who lead in the fear of the Lord. Well, why is it that the fear of God is such a major theme in the

Bible? There's a simple answer to that question, because the

God of the Bible is a fearful being. The scripture describes

God for us and calls upon us as creatures made in his image to respond to this

God the way that he truly is. Psalm 89 says this, for who in the skies can be compared to the

Lord, who among the heavenly beings is like the Lord, a God greatly to be feared in the counsel of the holy ones and awesome above all who are around him.

After recounting some of the mighty works of God, in Psalm 38 we read, let all the earth fear the

Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. The God of the

Bible is so fearful of a being that the only appropriate response for creatures made in his image is indeed to fear him, to be in awe of him.

In fact, Psalm 67 says that fearing God will be the result of the word of God going out to the ends of the earth in power.

Listen to the way the psalmist puts it. Verse 7 of Psalm 67 concludes by saying,

God shall bless us, let all the ends of the earth fear him.

Well, if the Bible speaks of the fear of the Lord so frequently because God indeed is a fearful being, and if we are rather infrequent in our consideration of God being fearful, then what does that suggest about our thoughts of God?

Suggests that perhaps our thoughts of God are too light, they're not significant enough, that the reality of God doesn't rest heavily enough upon our thinking.

If we allow our thoughts of God to remain this way, then we will continue to drift further and further from the way he's revealed himself to us until ultimately we might drift away from the true

God revealed in Scripture. There may not be a concept in all the

Bible that is more misunderstood than this idea of the fear of the

Lord, and because of that, I want to take some time this evening to survey what the

Bible has to say on this subject, and in doing so, I want to encourage all of us to measure our own attitudes by what we will see in the

Scripture concerning how we ought to think about God and cultivate fear of God.

The late Scottish theologian John Murray begins the last chapter of his classic book Principles in Conduct with this sentence.

He writes, The fear of God is the soul of godliness. In other words, genuine biblical spirituality is cultivated in, it's nurtured in a healthy fear of God.

In order to see what Murray's talking about here as we survey some of the biblical passages on this theme, hopefully

God will help us to elevate our own sense of the priority of fearing

God for true biblical spirituality. Psalm 111 verse 10 is a great passage that expresses what is found elsewhere in the

Bible. After extolling the greatness of God's work and the way that these works reveal His grace and power, the psalmist concludes in Psalm 111 verse 10 with these words,

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All those who practice it have a good understanding.

His praise endures forever. Wisdom begins with the fear of God, and a good understanding comes with the practice of the fear of the

Lord. And that's just as true for pastors as it is for everyone else.

So if a pastor is going to be wise, if he's going to grow with a good understanding, and if he's going to be effective in leading people to be wise and also to have a good understanding, then he must cultivate a proper fear of God.

What this means is that faithful pastors will fear God and will teach others to fear

God as well. So I want to ask three questions of this subject tonight and then search the

Bible for answers of them. The first is how should Christians fear

God? The second is how does the fear of God encourage spiritual growth and holiness?

And then thirdly, how can the fear of God be cultivated? What can we do in order to grow in this?

So what is it exactly that the Bible has in mind when it talks about the fear of the Lord? What is it?

In what way should Christians fear the Lord? Well, we need to understand that the

Bible talks about the fear of God in different ways. It's not monolithic in that sense.

On the one hand, the Bible holds out the fear of God as an essential characteristic of a spiritually healthy child of God, what

Murray calls the soul of godliness. But on the other hand, you have the

Bible condemning fear as, for example, in 1 John chapter 4 verse 18 where John writes,

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.

For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

Now what this means, obviously, is there's got to be more than one idea about fear that we've got to come to terms with and make sure that we don't confuse the two.

There's a fear that results in dread and causes people to run away from God, much like a thief runs away from a police officer when he recognizes that the officer is about to catch him.

But then there's the fear that the Bible commends, fear that doesn't drive us away from God, but actually draws us to God.

Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther and many of the Puritans all distinguish between these two ways of fearing

God by describing the first as a servile or slavish kind of fear, and the second as a filial or godly kind of fear.

Servile fear is the fear that a slave has of his demanding taskmaster, fearful of what will happen to him if he does not do what the taskmaster requires of him.

He'll be punished, and so he's fearful of that punishment. Filial fear or godly fear, by contrast, is the fear that a son has toward his powerful father.

The son is moved by his father's greatness as well as his goodness. He fears his dad, but he fears him in the sense that he hates the thought of disappointing his dad and not doing what his dad has called him to do.

The difference between these two is found in the relationship that exists between the one who is to be feared and the one who is to fear.

Now, God provokes both kinds of fear in people.

The Bible makes a distinction between these two different ways of fearing God, but it acknowledges rightly that God provokes both of them in His creatures.

In Exodus 20, we get this two ways of fearing God side by side after the

Ten Commandments have been spoken by God from Mount Sinai. Moses said to the people, do not fear, for God has come to test you, that your fear of Him may be before you that you may not sin.

So the people were commanded not to fear so that they might fear.

The scene, obviously, was smoke, lightning, thundering voices.

The people have been warned not to come to the mountain, not to touch the mountain, and now then this

God that has just delivered them from Pharaoh, humbled the mightiest emperor on earth to deliver them, is speaking audibly to them.

And they're terrified at the sight, at the sound, and Moses tells them, put off your terror so that you might appropriately revere and stand in awe of this

God who has delivered you, who has saved you out of your bondage. Both aspects of fear, terror and awe, are provoked by the reality of God being revealed to His creatures.

Again, John Murray writes, these two meanings of fear enter into the concept of the fear of God.

There's the dread or terror of the Lord, and there's the fear of reverential awe.

There's the fear that consists of being afraid, it elicits anguish and terror.

And there's the fear of reverence, it elicits confidence and love.

Our God is a consuming fire. He's sovereign.

He is almighty. He rules over all the earth.

Empires and emperors, kings and all those in authority are placed where they are by His decree.

He raises up and He casts down. He hates sin. He's angry with the wicked every day.

He will not let the guilty go unpunished. He is jealous for His own glory.

The world and everything in it was created by Him and for Him and owes its existence and honor to Him.

That such a one as He is should not evoke fear in sentient creatures is a testimony of irrationality that exists in humanity.

It is a testimony to spiritual and moral blindness that has been induced by sin.

Where God is known or acknowledged even in a small degree, the only reasonable response by sensible beings is fear.

And the fear that He provokes can be distinguished in two categories depending upon the relationship.

of the beings to the Creator. Servile fear, slavish fear, is found in the person who is confronted by the reality of God but because of his rebellion against God due to his sin hates

God. This is what we see in Adam after his sin and disobedience to God's command that put him in a rebellious relationship against his

God. Genesis chapter 3 verse 10, when God called for Adam in the garden, Adam responded and said,

I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid. He was afraid because he had rebelled against the

God who brought everything into existence. That's why he hid. This sort of terror at the thought of the

Lord is often downplayed. Sometimes it's denied outright by people who feel the need to rehabilitate

God's reputation in our judgmental world. Yet the Bible makes it abundantly clear that when a rebellious sinner is confronted with the reality of God, the only rational response is to be terrified, to be sobered, to be scared.

Revelation chapter 6 describes such a scene when the Lamb opens the sixth seal.

Listen to the way that John describes it as it was revealed to him. When the

Lamb opened the sixth seal, John said, I looked, verse 12, and behold there was a great earthquake and the sun became black as sackcloth and the full moon became like blood and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale.

The sky vanished like a scroll that's being rolled up and every mountain and every island was removed from its place.

Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the

Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come and who can stand? Think of that scene.

Generals that lead armies into battle, kings, mighty ones, rich people who've been able to do anything they want to do, when the revelation of the true

God, the Lamb who has wrath is made known to them, they're begging the mountains to fall on them and hide them from this

God. There's no question about whether this being should be feared or not.

The only question is how can we escape his presence? This sort of fear is both real and rational for people who do not know

God. But this is not the kind of fear that the

Bible commends to believers in Jesus Christ. The kind of fear that is essential for spiritual life and vitality is phileal fear, relationship fear, gospel fear, godly fear.

This is the fear of a son toward his father. The fear that does not repel us from God because of our sin, but draws us to God because of his grace.

This fear doesn't see less in God than servile fear does.

It sees more in him because this fearful God is seen and known to be full of grace and mercy and salvation.

Jerry Bridges in his excellent book, The Joy of Fearing God, tells the story about a young Marine recruit by the name of Butch McGregor, who during basic training was confronted by a two -star general who came and chewed him out.

And he describes this general as steely -eyed and McGregor was terrified of him.

Well, as would happen later in his career, McGregor winds up being the chauffeur for this general.

And the general is kind of distant from him, but he thinks he likes him and he likes the general well enough, but there's that distance between them until one time in a war zone they're driving through a field and the vehicle hits a mine, a landmine, and it explodes and the general is expelled from the car and McGregor's pinned in the car.

And the general, though he's severely wounded, makes his way back to the vehicle and rescues

Sergeant McGregor. And McGregor goes into the hospital for weeks and every day of every week the general comes to visit him.

And during that time, Sergeant McGregor realizes, the general loves me and I love him.

And he couldn't wait to get out of the hospital to go back to being the chauffeur for this general.

And he continued to salute him and he continued to say, yes, sir, and no, sir, because he's a two -star general.

But the relationship was transformed from being one of terror to one of love.

Godly fear, filial fear, is what Christians are to cultivate in our lives day by day.

It's that relationship that grows because we know this fearful

God that causes generals to want mountains to fall on them rather than face them.

In Jesus Christ is their God and Father, the God who loves us, the

God who gave up his son for us. All the things that make God terrifying and true, or terrifying and causing fear in people who would run from him are still true.

But because of his grace and mercy, this God who is fearful in every dimension of his being is for us.

He loves us and he's drawn us to himself. This is what

John means in 1 John 4, 18 when he says, perfect love casts out fear.

It casts out that kind of terror. Why? Because that kind of terror, that kind of fear has to do with punishment.

As Christians, we know that our sins deserve to be punished eternally by the wrath of God. And that's a terrifying thought.

When you think honestly about your sin and honestly about what God says about sin and what you know your sin deserves, it's a horrific thought.

But as Christians, we also know that every last one of our sins has been paid for fully by Jesus Christ on the cross.

And so we don't bear our sin anymore. And there's no condemnation for us because we are in Christ Jesus and it is his stripes that have reconciled us to God.

Because of Christ, our relationship with God has been transformed. We're no longer criminals who have to run from him, but we're children who are invited to run to him.

We're welcomed at his table. And this relationship of sheer grace is what enables us to fear him without being paralyzed with terror of him.

This is what we see time and time again in the early church. In Acts chapter 5, when

God killed two church members in Jerusalem for lying. What do we read?

We read this, great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard these things.

Their fellow church members were killed by their God. They were worshiping a God who kills people and yet they kept worshiping him.

They kept living for him. They kept evangelizing for him. We read in Acts chapter 9 that this fear of God is what enabled the church throughout

Judea and Galilee and Samaria to go on spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ and Luke describes it as having peace, that church had peace, they were being built up while walking in the fear of the

Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

Walking in the fear of God and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. Those aren't things that are incompatible.

They're not mutually exclusive. When we know the fearful God through faith in Jesus Christ, we have the spirit and can walk in the comfort of the spirit while we walk in the fear of this

God. That's what the early church did. It's possible to experience both fear and comfort at the same time.

And I would argue it's not just possible, it's essential for vital biblical spirituality.

John Calvin correctly said, nothing prevents believers from being afraid and at the same time possessing the surest consolation.

Fear and faith can dwell in the same mind and they will where we are growing in our understanding of and devotion to this fearful

God who gave up his son for us in Jesus. Well having considered the kind of fear that Christians are to have toward God, let's now consider how this fear of God encourages spiritual growth, encourages pursuit of holiness among God's people.

Ephesians 4 verses 11 through 13 teach us that Christ gives pastors to churches to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the

Son of God to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

So pastors exist for that purpose. Pastors are given to churches so that churches might grow up in Christ, so that believers might become more mature.

Well what place does the fear of God have in that process? Well the scripture teaches that godliness arises out of fear.

It arises out of the fear of God. We see this in the way scripture connects the fear of God to salvation itself.

So as we read in Psalm 111, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That's said again in Proverbs 9 and 10, the fear of the

Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 1 and 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Proverbs 14 and 27, the fear of the

Lord is a fountain of life that one may turn away from the snares of death. This language is language of salvation, saving knowledge, saving wisdom, saving life.

Salvation is described in all of those terms. John 17 verse 3, in Jesus' high priestly prayer, he says, and this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true

God, in Jesus Christ whom you've sent. In 1 Corinthians 1 .30, Paul writes that Christ has been made for us wisdom, the wisdom and knowledge that we need to be right with God, it begins in the fear of God.

All saving wisdom and knowledge find their starting point when a person experiences the fear of the

Lord. This is why we repeatedly see in the book of Acts when

Gentiles who are either on their way to or becoming sensitized to the

God of the Bible or else have recently been converted through faith in Christ to the God of the

Bible, are described as God -fearers. People like Cornelius who is described in Acts 10 as a devout man who feared

God with all his household, who prayed continually to God. Or Paul in the synagogue in Pisidia of Antioch, or Antioch of Pisidia, he said none of Israel and you who fear

God, listen. And later in that same setting, Paul said brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, he's talking about Jews, and those of you who fear

God, Gentiles who were learning of this God and had a right reverential respect toward him.

He said to us has this message of salvation been sent. You remember the thief on the cross?

He recognized the importance of fearing God when he realized that he was next to someone who was not like him and his fellow thief, and he asked

Jesus to remember him when he comes into paradise and the other thief cursed Jesus.

This one said, do you not fear God since you're under the same sentence of condemnation?

It is this reality that also explains why those who are enslaved in sin are described in the scripture as having no fear of God before their eyes.

Spurgeon describes this initial fear of God as the lowest grade of godly fear, but he goes on to say that all true piety takes its rise from this lowest grade.

Listen to the way he explains it. By nature, the sinner does not dread the wrath of God. He thinks sin is a little thing.

He looks upon its pleasures and forgets its penalty. He declares he dares the almighty to war, and he lifts up his puny arm against the eternal.

No sooner, however, is he awakened by God's spirit than fear takes possession of his heart.

The arrows of the almighty drink up his spirit. The thunders of the law roar in his ears.

He feels his life to be uncertain and his body frail. He dreads death because he knows that death would be to him the prelude of destruction.

He dreads life, for life itself is intolerable when the wrath of God is poured out into his soul.

To know God is to fear him because, as the author of Hebrews reminds us, our

God is a consuming fire. It's therefore impossible for a sinner to be reconciled to this

God against whom he's rebelled without at least some measure of fear arising in his affections.

So our evangelism must not neglect sounding this note about God in very appropriate ways, even as we evangelize our children.

King David says in Psalm 34 .11, Come, O children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the

Lord. We mustn't withhold the truth about God, even from our dear little ones, but remind them that they too have been made by him for him and must be reconciled to him in the only way that he has provided.

Well, not only does true godliness arise out of the fear of God, but it also is nurtured by the fear of God.

Philippians 2 .12 has Paul admonishing us to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.

This indicates that spiritual growth in the Christian life is to take place with a proper kind of trembling before God, a proper kind of fear of God.

When Christians have a godly fear of the Lord, it will cause them to grow spiritually.

Let me point out three specific areas of your life that will be impacted as you cultivate a godly fear.

It will promote holiness in your life. We see this with Joseph when he was being seduced by Potiphar's wife.

When Joseph resisted her finally and ran from her, he said that he could not do this great wickedness and sin against God.

He was thinking of God. First Peter 1 .17, Peter writes, if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.

Colossians 3 .22, bond servants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye service as people pleasers, but with a sincerity of heart fearing the

Lord. Why do you do what your master says? Because you fear

God. Why do you do what your employer says? Why do you not cheat him?

Some time for the full day's pay you expect, not because you're afraid of getting caught, but because you fear

God who sees you. Ephesians 5 .21,

we are to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. That's the word fear there.

Out of fear for Christ. In 2 Corinthians 6, the last part of that chapter, into chapter 7, it's a wonderful description that Paul gives to us there about how we are to live together, being separated from those that don't know our

God and being careful about how we walk, and then he says this at the beginning of chapter 7, since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

Holiness grows, it matures in the fear of God. When Nehemiah was appointed governor in Judah, he didn't conduct himself the way that pre - vious governors had conducted themselves.

He didn't indulge in tyrannical practices, and listen to the way he describes how he conducted himself in Nehemiah 5, verse 15.

The former governors who were before me laid heavy burdens on the people and took from them for their daily ration forty shekels of silver.

Even their servants lorded it over the people, but I did not do so because of the fear of God.

When you fear God, it will change the way you live. It'll change the choices that you make about how you spend your time, how you spend your money, how you talk, how you think.

You will not want to sin because you will not want to dishonor this fearful

God who is, through Jesus Christ, your loving Heavenly Father.

You want to please Him. You want to be holy before Him. Well godly fear also stirs up worship.

Hebrews 12, 28 and 29 says, Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence.

This word can be translated godly fear and awe, for our

God is a consuming fire. I wonder how much of our anemic worship, how much of the boredom that seems to permeate so many of our worship gatherings can be traced to this very reality that we forget in whose presence we come to worship.

We're coming before a consuming fire. And so when we think of this and realize that this is the

God of whom all the things we've just considered are true, but who in His Son has reconciled us to Himself, we won't be bored in worship.

We won't be satisfied with weak efforts of worship. Could it be that we have forgotten who it is so often, we forget who it is that we gather to worship.

Another impact is that godly fear motivates mission. You know

God's final sermon to the world is recorded in Revelation 14. There we read what

John writes, he says, Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, language, and people.

And he said in a loud voice, what's that gospel message going to be? Fear God and give

Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come, and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.

A gospel sermon calling upon God's image bearers to fear

Him. 2 Corinthians 5 .11, Paul writes, Therefore knowing the fear of the

Lord, we persuade others. Could it be that our evangelism is so indifferent, and we're so apathetic about trying to persuade people to turn from sin and trust

Christ. Could it be that the root of that is that we've just lost this fear of God, that we don't know, we don't experience what

Paul experiences when he says, Knowing the terror of the Lord, I plead with people, I try to persuade people.

So we see the fear of the Lord has a direct relationship to vital godliness, both at the outset of a

Christian's life, as well as the continuation of that life in our ongoing spiritual development.

Well having considered how the Bible instructs Christians to have godly fear, and what the relationship is between such fear and true spirituality, let's next think finally about how can godly fear of the

Lord be cultivated. And I have five considerations I want to set before you on this. This is certainly not exhaustive, but it is suggestive of other ways that we can begin to think holistically about what

God's called us to be, so that we might cultivate the fear of Him in our hearts.

First, recognize that godly fear has been implanted in every believer.

It is a blessing of the New Covenant to fear God. Listen to Jeremiah, describe it in Jeremiah 32, speaking of the

New Covenant. They shall be my people, I will be their God, I will give them one heart, one way that they may fear me forever, for their own good, and for the good of their children after them.

And I will make them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them, and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.

Every New Covenant Christian has, by virtue of that covenant, the fear of God implanted in his or her heart.

It is a part of our inheritance. But though that's true, we must also use the means that God's provided for us to cultivate a growing fear of the

Lord in our lives of devotion to Him. So we must pray, as we see in Psalm 86 verse 11, unite my heart to fear your name.

Don't let my heart run here and here, but get it together to see you and to respond appropriately to you in fearing you.

We must study God's works. Consider the way the Word of God shows us how to contemplate the works of God.

Jeremiah chapter 5, God rebukes Judah because of their hardness of heart and their failure to consider

His ways. Listen to what He says. Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear.

Do you not fear me, declares the Lord? Do you not tremble before me? I place the sand as the boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass.

Though the waves toss, they cannot prevail. Though they roar, they cannot pass over it. But His people has a stubborn and a rebellious heart.

They have turned aside and gone away. They do not say in their hearts, let us fear the

Lord our God, who gives the rain in its season, the autumn rain, the spring rain, and keeps for us the weeks appointed for the harvest, your iniquities have turned these away, your sins have kept good from you.

When my kids were little, we used to go to the beach, we lived by the beach, and I was delight in thinking of this passage and another in Job, and we'd go and look where the waves were coming up on the sand, and I would say, see if you can find the last grain of sand that gets wet with this wave.

And you know, we'd get down there and look and remind them, that wave goes only as far as God says.

God's the one that says, this grain of sand, not that one. That's how meticulous the care of this great and awesome

God is, and Jeremiah here is speaking in behalf of God, saying, look, God sends the rain,

God does this, God does that, and yet you refuse to fear this God. We need to be struck by wonder again.

Just look at nature. Consider the storms, the mountains, the rivers that swell during rain.

This is our God's work. We should meditate on the things God has done. Isaiah 40 is filled with this.

Think of his creation, his providence, redemption. Think of King Nebuchadnezzar, this great, mighty king who's made to be like an animal at God's bidding, living for seven times out in the fields as if he's an ox.

God did that. Think of how God delivered David from the lions when those lions normally would have ripped him to shreds.

How he delivered the three Hebrew children from the fiery furnace that was heated seven times hotter than normal.

Think of the ways that he delivered his people from Exodus, the killing of Ananias and Sapphira. These are

God's works, and they're designed to cause us to back up and sometimes to just ask the question, who is this

God? Who is this God? Our God does these things, and that's the

God who gave up his son for us, that's reconciled us to himself. Fourthly, study

God's character, his attributes, his eternality, his uniqueness, his sovereignty. Have you ever tried to just stop and think about the eternality of God?

How do you think about it? How do you talk about it? You say, well, before anything existed, there was

God. Well, before is a time word. God's prior to that prior is a time word.

I mean, words break down because of this God. Think of his power when he sent his disciples out to preach in Matthew 10, 28,

Jesus said this to them. Do not fear those who can kill the body and cannot kill the soul.

Rather, fear him who can both destroy body and soul in hell.

This is Jesus talking to his disciples. Don't fear people who can merely kill you.

That's all they can do. Fear the God who has the authority and the power to kill you and cast your soul into hell.

Remember who he is. Finally, study God's grace in Christ.

John Bunyan wrote this, Godly fear flows from a sense of the love and kindness of God to the soul, where there's no sense of hope and of the kindness and mercy of God by Jesus Christ.

There can be none of this fear, but rather wrath and despair, which produces a fear that is devilish.

But Godly fear flows from a sense of hope of the mercy from God by Jesus Christ.

Consider the great love of God for sinners. He didn't spare his own son, but he delivered him up for us all.

He loved us, gave his son to be the propitiation for our sins. I mean, think about this.

We trivialize our sins. We justify our sins so quickly, but God would not reconcile us to himself without punishing our sins in his son.

When we treat sin lightly, we should ask God to help us quickly, quickly go back to the cross and realize that these little peccadillos that we so easily justify cost

God's son his life in order to rescue us. What kind of God is this who will not receive sinners to himself apart from full payment for the penalty of our sins?

Consider how the love and grace of God has come to us through Christ. How the

Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. How it was the will of the

Lord to crush him, to crush him. God would not save one sinner apart from crushing the son of his love.

The grace of God in salvation is calculated to evoke godly fear in those who experience it. This is why the psalmist prays in Psalm 130.

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared.

Forgiveness should evoke fear. Why? Because of the cost of our forgiveness.

The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. It's the soul of godliness. It's essential to faithful Christianity.

Without it, there's no biblical spirituality. Where it declines or is not cultivated, there can be no spiritual growth.

So in this sense, the lack of the fear of God is at the root of every problem our world faces.

Every sin, all unrighteousness, all the wickedness of all people at all times and all places.

It is, as Paul writes at the conclusion of that litany of rebellious life against God in Romans 318, there is no fear of God before their eyes.

That's a great tragedy. Because there's no one like our God, who is greatly to be feared in the counsel of the holy ones.

And all who fear, all who fail to fear him in this life with godly fear will come to fear him on that great day when

Jesus returns and they will enter into an eternity of servile fear for all the ages to come.

So, brothers, we should press this point to the consciences of our hearers in our preaching. If a person is not reconciled to God, the most rational response he can have toward God is to fear him.

One day, everyone will stand before him to give an account for our lives. We must warn people, if you don't fear him now, you will fear him on that day.

We must not entertain light thoughts about God and we must not allow our people to entertain such thoughts.

He's still a consuming fire. He still has the power not merely to kill the body, but also to throw the soul into hell.

So preach about the fear of God. Be amazed that this fearful

God is our father through the Lord Jesus Christ and lead your people to worship him, to honor him, to obey him, to trust him, to live for him by living in fear of him.

Let's pray. Father, our desire is to see you, to know you as you reveal yourself to be.

So help us, teach us to live in the fear of the Lord, seal to our hearts truth from your word.