The Fear of God (01) Introduction — Don Courville

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

Let's pray. Now, Father, this is an amazing word that You've given us, and I know from the little bit that I've learned from meditating on this in the last month or so, it has hopefully began to affect me to the good.

And I pray for the fresh anointing of Thy Spirit upon us this morning, to look at Your Word and to receive it. And may You truly speak into our hearts, our spirits, on this subject, a wonderful subject about Thyself.

And as we approach You and we come to the throne of God and we attempt to learn something from You, we cannot do that in ourself, no more than we can do anything to save ourself. And so we'd ask that You'd have mercy upon us and reveal the greatness of Thy person to us.

We invite You, Holy Spirit, to completely take over and reveal the Word of God to us in Jesus' name, amen. I don't know how I got into this. I guess it was because I was sharing with Byron about some things.

I was learning this when we went down to Louisiana a couple weeks ago, and I must have mentioned that I was going to share it. It's beyond me to share it. And then he reminded me this week that I'd said something about it, so I took it that God really wanted me to share this.

But it's beyond me. But when we were over in London, I guess the last time Joy picked up a book, there's this bookstore there, and she picked up this book by Bunyan on the fear of God. And I decided, well, I'm just going to look at that.

And I began to look at it, and I thought, well, I'm going to do more than look at that. I'm going to meditate upon this in my mornings, in my devotion time. And so I began to take notes. And so what I have today is just, it's from Bunyan.

I thought I could dress up like Bunyan and come here and put on a hat and a coat and whatever, but I don't think I'd persuade you. We did see his grave, an amazing man of God. And so I'm just going to share with you his outline and verses, a lot of verses, a lot of Word.

I don't have a lot of stories and illustrations that I went into this. I think a lot of it's self-evident. And maybe you have had the opportunity to see the fear of God come upon somebody or maybe upon yourself.

A Personal Illustration of the Fear of God

It's an amazing thing. Some, I don't know, back in the 60s, later 60s, we were tearing down a sheep building in Omaha. Omaha was a big place for slaughterhouses and things. And this was an old thing that somebody had bought and a man had hired us.

I don't know how I got into it, through a friend. And we were up in the rafters and knocking the rafters apart. And there was an older man there near me, and he had a sledgehammer, and he just let out an awful string of curse words, and using God's name in vain.

And the next thing he did is he swung and he missed. And he fell about 20 foot straight down and landed right on his face. And bounced about that high off of probably 40 years of sheep manure. Got back up, came back up there, and was very quiet the rest of the day.

If there hadn't have been 40 years of sheep manure, he knew he would have been a dead man, a fearful thing. The last thing he said was just using God's name in vain. Well, I'm going to take, and I'm really, I was thinking I would attempt to go through this whole thing.

And I don't know if I can do it. I've set myself here a watch, to sort of watch myself, because I have a lot of stuff. I don't have a lot of illustrations, but I think the Word of God should do its work.

It has been affecting me in a way that I needed affected, because I tend to be, if the glass is half full, it's half empty, you know, the negative side of things. So it's been helping me to see God and to respect God more, and not to pay, I'm not even hardly paying any attention to the news and stuff like that.

You do that and it's going to take you down and get you discouraged and whatever. Just focusing on God and listening, not even listening to radio programs, I like to listen to some preachers, just mostly just listening to God.

So I'm going to share with you. And I've got a lot of verses, and basically I'll give you an outline of what I'm going to do. And if you want to get my notes, I've got this outlined here, afterwards you can copy.

Bunyan's Outline: Why Should We Fear God?

But why should we fear God? There's a question I ask myself. And so I have an introduction, I'm going to say some things by way of introduction. And Bunyan had this for chapter one, the objects and reasons of fear.

And he had five or six sections in that, in his book. And number one is he said it helps us to understand God himself. And so we're going to focus underneath that today on helping us to understand God himself.

And there'll be three main things that I share with you on that. We'll look at his presence, being dreadful. In his presence, it's just dreadful, it's a dreadful experience. So it'll help us to understand about his presence, and then we'll look at three things under that.

Then a second thing will be about his name, that his name is dreadful, coming from Bunyan. And then the third thing, we'll look at his worship, is to be fearful in the church, Bunyan said. And we'll look at four things under that.

Then I have four statements in conclusion and eight lessons. Now that's probably the way I go in my sermons about two hours later. But we'll see if I go all the way or not. Okay, fear, fear, fear of the Lord.

Peter said in 1 Peter 2, 17, fear God, honor the king. He said, honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, fear God, fear God, and honor the king. And the word means to be terrified, basically it means to have deep reverence and respect when it's used in a general sense.

And Isaiah, I think I shared something with you about this, about Isaiah a few weeks ago, a couple or three weeks ago, and I'll just hit it again lightly. Because this is one thing that really began to get me to look at this, and I don't think it was in the book, in his book, but I began to look at the thing about the Lord Jesus Christ when it talked about Him, and I don't even know if I marked this, yes, I guess I did.

The Fear of God in Christ's Life

In Isaiah 11, there was a sevenfold, six or seven things about Christ, depending on how you interpret it. But it said in Isaiah 11, two, and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, and the spirit of knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord, and then it clarifies, and of the fear of the Lord, and it says, and shall make him, in verse three, of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord.

And I did a study on that, I wondered, well, what is that, quick understanding? One commentator said three things about that. He said it's an evidence of holiness and piety in the life, in a life that's lived to please the Father.

And two, he said it consists in a reverence for the divine commands of God, a divine reverence for God's Word is in the life of Christ. So it was evidenced in his life by this holiness, this piety, that he had to please the Father, a reverence for the Father's commands.

And then a third thing, he said it was a dread of offending God. It's a dread of offending God. He lived his life in such a way that he did not want to offend God. And the Bible says that the fear of the Lord is clean, Psalms 19.

And so I began to look at that, and I'm wondering, what is this about Christ? And as I dug into it deeper, it was really quite a mystery. It was quite intriguing. It was quite baffling as I got into that.

And it basically gets into the area of his judgment and his discerning and his inerrant, imperfect life, being the God-man. And what it meant that the Messiah would take complete pleasure in delighting in the holiness of Yahweh, as one commentator said, in the holiness of God.

His whole being was saturated with loving the Father and pleasing Him. And here's what the root meaning of this is in the Hebrew, it really was strange, but it had to do with smell, a fragrance, an aroma.

And it went back to Genesis 8 .21, using this, and the Lord smelled a sweet savor, a savor of rest. Wow. And so what this meant from my weak understanding of this, is that his life was a sweet smelling flavor to the Father.

All those 33 years, his life was an aroma, well-pleasing. Go into a room and you may have a sweet aroma. And what this also went on into is that it would give him understanding of the Father's will, it would give him wisdom beyond his years.

It's a strange interpretation, but it said, shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord would give him unusual wisdom and understanding. That's what I learned. And so you have things like he said, I do always those things that please Him.

And things that come out of His mouth, all that heard Him were astonished at His understanding and His knowledge and all those things that come out of His life, all that heard Him. And so he understood what He was doing, he understood why He was here, he understood what pleased the Father, he desired to spend a lot of time with the Father, getting up really early.

And someone had said the fear he had was a holy reverence to the Father, a holy love, and a desire just to please the Father. No fear of man. No fear of man in his life. And so that's what got me off onto that, and I said, wow, if that was in the life of Christ, then I think I'll pursue this a little bit farther.

And so I asked this question, why should we fear God? It's the duty of man, Solomon said, it's the highest thing that we can do on this earth is to fear God and not to fear man, not to fear the circumstances that are around us.

And it helps us to get grace. Hebrews 12, 28, 29 talks about us fearing God. I have a few passages marked, and some of them I'll read, some of them I might just give you the reference. Let me read that one to you.

Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably, and I'll come back to that word acceptably again, with reverence and godly fear. I was thinking about this, how many times do we have communion, and we really don't take time to examine ourself like we should?

And God has said, if you don't examine yourself, I will examine you. And most of the churches, if you go into them, if they have prayer, you look at their prayer lists, and I do this, I pay attention to it, and almost all the time, there's hardly anything about somebody that's lost, but a lot of requests on sick people.

Interesting observation. Okay, here's some reasons why we should fear God. Number one, it helps us understand God himself. This is the first thing. Genesis 31, 42 -53, the scripture says that Jacob, it said he was Isaac's fear, the dread, and that, and I'm going to go back to there for a second, because this is an amazing passage, that when Jacob in 31 and 42, in there, when Jacob had his encounter with God, and this was a fearful thing, he'd said in 42, except the God of my father and the God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac had been with me, surely thou hast sent me away empty.

God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked thee last night. He's talking about his relationship there with Laban, and he'd had an encounter with God going before he met Laban, and then coming back out, he's talking about it was the fear of Isaac.

If the fear of Isaac had not been with him, he said he wouldn't have made it through that experience, his 20 years with Laban. But he goes on to say in 53, in that verse, the scripture says, the God of Abraham and the God of Nahar, the God of their father, judge between us, and Jacob swear by the fear of his father Isaac.

Something had influenced him from Isaac in this relation to fear God. And, he had, I might come back to this a little bit later, but he had, when he had that experience with God and he wrestled with probably a theophany, an appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he went through that experience, it was a terrifying experience to him.

But Nehemiah had said, he is great and terrible. Job had said in 37 .22, with God is terrible majesty. Isaiah 8 .13, sanctify the Lord of hosts himself, let him be your fear and let him be your dread.

God's Dreadful Presence

I want to share with you three things about his presence, understanding God himself. His presence is dreadful. As you go through the scripture, and while we're right here in this passage, or at least I am, in Genesis 28, when God appeared to him, and he had this dream at Bethel.

God is coming down and he's trying to encourage him. In 28 .15, and God had said to him, and behold, I am with thee and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land, for I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.

What did he say? Oh, okay, thanks God, I really appreciate that encouragement. It's been pretty rough behind, and it's good to know that you're going to be with me going ahead. You know what he did? The scripture says, and he was afraid, and said, how dreadful is this place!

This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. It terrified him. It terrified him, just like when Moses came into the presence of God at the burning bush, he was ignorant of God, and God had to help him understand, your own holy ground, take off your sandals, take off your shoes.

So God has to help us sometimes understand, so his presence is dreadful, and so he said he was afraid. And then he said this interesting thing, he said, in my life is spared, Jacob called upon the name of the place Peniel, face of God, for he said, I have seen God face to face in 3230, and my life is spared.

So after his encounter with God, he said, it's amazing, I'm even alive! And we're just going to bop into God's presence, so how are you doing God? Thought I'd chat with you a few minutes, on my way to work, on my way to get some groceries.

We don't know God very well. Listened to a tape by Ralph Barnard, I don't know if I said his name right, and he said in the old days, I mean the old timers, it might take them 15 or 20 minutes just to address God in their opening prayer.

Great respect. His presence is dreadful, the early church, that's one of the first things that they experienced, why has Satan filled thine heart to lie, was it not in thy power, all these questions, why hast thou conceived this Saint Peter, said to Ananias and Sapphira there, and whatever he has, and how is it you've done this, and then the results was four results, great fear, and great fear in verse 11, and then great respect amongst all the people, and then great growth.

They learned to fear God, even the unbelievers. We don't have that in the church today. Jesus taught, he said, fear him which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell, yea, I say unto you fear him.

So you really don't need to fear Satan, or fear man, or fear the circumstances, but we better fear God, and what we're going to learn a little bit about, what is this, a fear in God. J. Vernon McGee said he believes there's three things in fearing God in a believer's life, it means reverence, it means worship, and it means obedience, and each one of those things branches out into a whole aspect of God.

Twenty-five years ago when we were having revival in western Nebraska, that impacted some lives very deeply, one of the things that was said by the evangelist over and over again, he said, it's better to offend man than to offend God, and people do get offended, and they did get offended sometimes, because, you know, some of them showed up with their musical instruments, and some of them showed up thinking that they maybe ought to get to preach, or give this, or do that, and whatever, and when you're sensing God's not in on it, they get all huffed up and puffed up and stuff, and when you go through two years of that, you begin to learn, as you're going around different places, and you see where God is wanting to work, and where man is trying to get in, and get his two cents in, and they're trying to figure out how come they need revival, and that's why they need revival, they need to get out of the way.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of God. Yeah, I think if we would see God come in power and revival, it would produce in our assemblies a great fear of God, and great power, and it would have amazing effects.

God's Greatness, Human Sinfulness, and Divine Goodness

Okay, three things that make his presence dreadful. His very presence is dreadful. His very presence is dreadful, Bunyan has said, and he says some things about that. He says, one, his greatness and his majesty.

Revelation 117, when John, who is the disciple of Jesus, leaned on his breast, sees him again after he's gone, what does he do? And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. It's just about the shock of being in the presence of Christ about killed him.

I fell at his feet as dead, Job 13 .11, shall not, this is very interesting, I went back and I looked at that and I said, I wonder how this started off with Job and his friends. Because he came out and he made this amazing statement in, where did I say, in Job 13.

11, I go back to 12 when he starts off, and Job answered and said, no doubt, but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you. They're having a nice conversation. His friends come down there to help fix him up, and they're just making matters worse.

And we know the story, when they were done, God come in there and, so to say, cleaned their plow, but he said in 13 .11, this amazing statement, shall not his excellency make you afraid, and his dread fall upon you?

I think the fear with God would probably affect the way we judge each other. Light judgments. Job 13 .21, he went on to say in that passage, withdraw thine hand far from me, and let not thy dread make me afraid.

In his encounter with God and talking with God, withdraw thy hand far from me, and let not thy dread make me afraid. He was having an encounter with God. God was doing something in his life, so his presence, his very presence is dreadful, and his greatness is revealed in his presence and his majesty, but there's a second thing, and that's because of what his majesty reveals in us when he shows up.

And later on, Job said, behold, I am vile, and he wasn't saying that when he started. And if God would bless you with an encounter with him, and I think I have had an encounter of this sort, where you go through an amazing experience, and God's hand is in on it, and you're trying to stop it, and it's horrible, and God is doing something you don't understand.

He's bringing you into a closer relationship with him. And when you're done, and you've learned the lesson, you realize you didn't understand what all was going on, and you got excited, and you panicked, or maybe you fought, or you resisted, or whatever, but when he's done with you, like Job, we cry out, behold, I am vile, and then you quiet down, and you recognize that he is God, and he can do what he wants.

Daniel said in Daniel 10, 8, By the vision of my sorrows are turned upon me. And he goes into the terror of just even seeing an angel of God, what it produced in him. Isaiah 6, 5, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the King of the Lord of hosts.

And so, his majesty reveals ourselves, what we really are. And all of these people that are saying, oh, the big guy up in the sky, and all of this blasphemous type of stuff, someday, if they don't meet Christ as their Savior, and get themselves turned around, they're going to find out, it's not like that at all.

He's a dreadful God. Peter said, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man. There's a third thing, his greatness and his majesty is revealed by his presence, his being dreadful, it reveals to us, his greatness and majesty, what we are, but also, and this is interesting, when his presence comes, God's goodness is revealed to us.

It makes his presence dreadful, his goodness, even how he's good to us, can be a terrifying experience. Just think what he did for Israel, when he showed up for them. And he was good to them, he got them out of prison, he took them out there and he gave them water and he fed them.

And then as he appeared to Moses on the mountain, and he just had nothing but goodness and blessing for them. Even the law he gave was goodness, his goodness, and it terrified them. They backed off after they began to see, wow, this God is something.

Hosea 3, 5, Israel will someday fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days. Latter days. Go over to Jeremiah, I want you to see this, this is an amazing passage, amazing passage on the goodness of God.

I never saw this before, never understood this, Isaiah, Jeremiah 5, verse 22, just go down, follow along if you're there. Fear ye not me, you know, there they are, messing around with God again, fear ye not me, said the Lord, will you not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, and he goes into this study, this science study on sand.

Listen to what he says, by the way, all the people worried about global warming and the water's going to come, the water's not going to come over the bounds of the sea, the beach is going to be there, because God said it was right here.

For the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it, and though the waves there have tossed themselves, yet can they not prevail, though they roar, yet can they not pass over it. But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart, they are revolted and gone, neither say they in their heart, let us now fear the Lord our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter in his season, he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest.

Notice he's sensitive about this, that they don't have a respect of him and a reverence, let us now fear the Lord, they weren't doing that, and so he goes on and he says in 25, your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you.

To fear God will bring his goodness upon us, his blessing, and he said you didn't want it. For among my people were found wicked men, they lay wait as that set of snares and set the trap, and they catch men, and he goes on into this stuff about them.

Over in Jeremiah 33, you know, one of our favorite verses, call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. If we go on down into verse 8, he goes into another spill about his goodness.

He said, and I will cleanse them from all their iniquity whereby they have sinned against me, and I will pardon all their iniquities whereby they have sinned and whereby they have transgressed against me, and it shall be to me a name of joy, of praise, he says I'm going to get the last word in.

I am going to be glorified and I am going to be reverenced in this stubborn nation. Or maybe you or me is a stubborn person. He is going to be glorified, but he goes on to say in verse 9, and it shall be to me a name of joy, a name of joy, a praise, an honor before all the nations of the earth which shall hear all the good that I shall do unto them, and they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it.

Thus saith the Lord, again there shall be heard in this place which ye say shall be desolate without man and without beast, even in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate without man and without inhabitant, without beast.

The voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of them that say, praise the Lord of hosts for the Lord is good. You go on down through there, he keeps on going on what he's going to do.

He's going to bring goodness to those. And 16, in those days shall Judah be saved and Jerusalem shall dwell safely, and this is the name wherewith she shall be called the Lord our righteousness. It hadn't happened yet as far as I know.

Now let's say, let's just go on. First Samuel 12, when they were asking for a king, you can read that, 15 -19, I'm not going to read that, but that got God stirred up because they're rejecting him and they're not fearing him.

They're wanting a king, and so he put the fear of God on him through the prophet. And so his presence is dreadful, just his very presence, just touching on a few things. But what about his name? I was thinking about this morning, man, this world hates the name of Jesus.

The Dreadfulness of God's Name

Well you can go pray about any kind of name, but if you come into some place, and a lot of Christians are afraid to do it, to pray, and close a prayer in Jesus' name. It used to be, it was done all the time.

Nobody said a word. But when we are afraid of man, afraid of offending somebody in another religion or whatever, in our country, we're saying to God, we're shaking our fists, we don't respect you too much anymore.

His name is dreadful and to be feared, Deuteronomy 28, 58 and 59, if thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, the Lord thy God, then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful.

You go into it, he said, you better respect my name, you better. You know, when you hear somebody's name, it tells you who they are. Their name, we're identified by our names, and so his name, we can go off, we're not going to go off on all the study of God's names, all the different names, it's wonderful.

But Psalms 111, 9, listen to this, he sent redemption unto his people, he had commanded his covenant forever, holy and reverend is his name. Don't call me reverend, don't. Nobody is to be called reverend but God.

I've got into a lot of funerals and they'll put in there reverend Corville or whatever, oh Lord, they don't know. Only God is reverend. He had commanded his covenant forever, holy and reverend is his name.

It means dreadful, his name is to provoke some fear in you and respect. Holy and reverend is his name. And then listen to verse 10, Psalms 111, 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, a good understanding have all they that do his commandments, his praise endure it forever.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, a good understanding have all they that do his commandments. And I thought, understanding, I'm going to do a little research into that. And I come up with this, good success.

Good success. That's an interesting definition of understanding, a good understanding, good success. What's that mean? Means if we fear God, it's going to produce into our life a successfulness. Now to ourselves, we may not think we're successful.

To others, we may not look like we're successful. But if we're living to please God and we fear him, we're going to be successful. Now let me illustrate this. The secret of success, I did a little research on this, and the secret of success is a very interesting thing.

Back when I was in Bible college, there was an evangelist there, he died at the age of 39, he had a car wreck, but he was always saying this, a young man. If opportunity arises to serve Jesus, let's do it.

In other words, if you get an opportunity to do something for the Lord, do it. Do it. And I probably gave a lot of money away to beggars and whatever that just taken advantage of me, but I'm afraid to miss an opportunity for the Lord.

Maybe an angel unaware. The secret of success then is to do what you ought and then some extra. It's the extra. Who taught us that? Why, Jesus did. He taught us that back in Matthew and chapter 5 in the Beatitudes.

Going the Extra Mile in Witness and Service

He taught us to go that extra mile. He taught us to do that little extra. Listen to what he said in 540. And if any man will sue thee at the law, go get your lawyer and turn around and sue him back. You can't do that to me, you haven't got my rights, no.

He says, whosoever shall, if he shall sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. Hey, by the way, take my cloak too. You are saying, God, I am afraid to take vengeance on this man.

If I do, I make myself God. And that's what bitterness is, is making yourself God. Revenge is making yourself God. And we do not have a fear of God enough to fear for them. Oh, God, I fear for this person that's done this to me.

I pray for them, have mercy on them. You've heard that it had been said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say unto you that you resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Going that extra mile in 41, and whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. You know what happens in the extra? In the extra, you break down the resistance, you break down the barriers, and you get an opportunity to do something for them.

It breaks down, wow, this is strange. You only had to go a mile with me to carry my bags, why are you going another mile? Well it's because of this Messiah that visited us, that changed my life. Let me tell you about him.

I had a strange experience this week. I got a chance to do something for a man. We were picking up a pizza at Papa Murphy's and standing there, and watch this guy come by in front of us, and here's the way he went by in front of us.

You think he's drunk? He gets over to the curb, and I thought, this is going to be interesting, he can barely get one foot in front of the other. How's he going to go over this little curb area? I think he's going over to McDonald's to get something to eat.

And so when he got there, he lost his balance. So what do you do? You laugh? Ha ha, look at the guy, he's... God said, that's an opportunity. Most people wouldn't get involved. We're in a drive-thru lane, a couple cars pulled up, I got out, I went over there, and I said, let me help you up.

And I did, I helped him up, and I could recognize, this man just has a problem. I didn't smell liquor or anything, and I said, you've got a problem, and he said, yes, I left my cane, and I didn't have it, and I need it.

And I said, well, okay, and I helped him up, right here, I want to give you a track, pulled out and gave him a track, this is about Jesus. And he said, where was Jesus when I fell down? Jesus didn't help me, I'm a Buddhist.

I said, but listen, sir, Jesus sent me over here to help you up. Who did Buddhists send? It totally shocked him. He said, you've got a point there. Amen! Hallelujah! But you've got to take those opportunities, you've got to get out of the fear of man, and what are people going to think?