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OK, so I guess I'm without a microphone, but that's OK. Proverbs chapter 14. And we are going to look at the whole chapter. Again, we'd go almost spend a whole night on a particular verse. And so we are, at least in some of the chapters, we are focusing in on themes.
In other chapters, we're focusing in on the whole chapter or portions of it. And then at other times, we're just going to look at a verse or two. And so that's what I would like to do this evening. And not only that, but I'm going to make it two parts.
The first part tonight, second part next Wednesday night, and then the following Wednesday, Brother Keith will be back, and he will deal with chapter 15. So I want us to focus in on Proverbs chapter 14 and verses 26 through 27, because it's what started me down this course of what I hope to show you and hope to look at with you over the next two weeks.
It caught my mind and heart as I was reading through it. So let me ask you to read the verses with me. So Proverbs chapter 14 verses 26 and 27, it says, in the fear of the Lord, there is strong confidence, and his children will have a place of refuge.
Fear of the Lord is a fountain of life to avoid the snares of death. In the fear of the Lord, there is strong confidence, and his children will have a place of refuge. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life to avoid the snares of death.
And as I looked at the chapter, as I said, this began to hold me and cause me to think about this whole concept of the fear of God, but in some ways, in a particular way, not just in a general way. And so what I want to do is to spend a couple of evenings together thinking of what the fear of the Lord is and using that phrase, the fear of the Lord is.
And maybe you do, maybe you don't, but I find it encouraging at times in my own personal study and even when I'm preparing for something to speak about, I find at times encouraging to take a phrase and to follow that phrase throughout the scriptures and to allow the scriptures to define what it means rather than running to a commentary right away or running to some sort of biblical tool.
But I do think that if we study that way sometimes, allowing God's word to be its own dictionary, that we avoid making some mistakes along the way. So as I began to think about that truth of the fear of the Lord, and I started to search through the scriptures to see that, in that phrase, the word of the Lord is, again, I came up with 11 specific times that you will find the fear of the Lord is.
And again, not exhaustive, certainly if we were to try to open it up, the fear of God in its completeness or even try to attempt that, we would be here for a month of Wednesdays and then probably another month of Wednesdays.
So what I am trying to do is to look at the term the fear of God is and then try to make applications for us in our lives. And I hope that it will be edifying as we do it. And there are eight of them in the Old Testament that I found and chose.
And then there are three in the New Testament that we will look at. And so I don't know how far we'll get this evening. And wherever we stop, we'll pick up next week. But some of these will tell us what the fear of God is.
It'll say the fear of God is, and we'll see it. So some of the times it's the fear of God is, and then there are other times where it'll say the fear of God is something, but it doesn't necessarily confine itself, but it rather, not only what the fear of God is, but what it does.
And I think that's important for us to think about. In other words, if you think about it, whenever we look at the scriptures, we want to understand what God is saying, but then we also want to understand what's our response to what we see God saying.
Because again, other than that, it's of no real transformative use. In other words, and I don't, this is where I start getting off and I'll never get to where I want to be, but just think about it. If the word of God is not that which moves us to be different, then we have missed, in many ways, the very purpose for God giving us his word.
And so again, it's essential for us as we consider these things, and we see sometimes what God, the fear of the Lord is, and then other times what the fear of the Lord does in the heart of those who will consider it.
And again, there are many people who, if you and I talk about the fear of God, they just blow it off as if it's just a myth or a story or an old fable. But we know differently, I hope we know differently that God's word is living and it's powerful and it doesn't return void.
And so, in that sense, as we look at this, it ought to transform us, it ought to make us different, it ought to create in us things that, in many ways, weren't present before we were captured by Christ.
And I say that because I truly believe it that way and I hope you do too, that when someone comes to Christ, it's because he has captured us, he has taken us to be his slave, taken us out of the slave market of sin and brought us into his kingdom and now we become his servants, and so certainly something to think about.
So, with that in mind, again, I'll try to keep a lookout for the time. I want to begin, and if you would just, and if you want to follow me, that's great, I hope you will, go to Psalm 19 and this is where we'll see the first one that I want to consider, and again, as I said to you, I am not going to pretend that I have looked at every single scripture that deals with the fear of God, but rather trying to put together enough so that it becomes clear in a way that will affect us.
So, in Psalm 19 and verse nine, and of course this is a very familiar Psalm, I hope, to all of us about the heavens declaring the glory of God and so on and so on, and then you come down to verse nine and here is that phrase, if you will, the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.
The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. That word clean really carries the thought of purity. It really means that not only should we think of it in that way, we should think about it as unmixed, without any pollution.
So, the fear of the Lord is clean of all impurities, the fear of the Lord is clean in that it has no pollution in it. In other words, the fear of God causes no harm. The fear of God does not harm, it truly helps.
It is an aid for us if we understand what the fear of God is and I'll spend some time throughout this night and even next night trying to help us define what the fear of God is. Because I think sometimes we have mixed thoughts about the fear of God is what I mean and what I hope to present to us is that the fear of God is that reverence, that awe, if you will, that we have of him for who he is and for what he does.
In other words, that we consider the fear of God in a very reverent way, in a way in which we see him for who he really is and that we're not afraid of that because the true fear of God is clean, there is no harm in it.
Again, many people would kick their heels about that and say, well, you know, you Bible toters and all you talk about is the fear of God because the fear of God is clean, it's pure. It's not only harmless, it's so helpful.
It stands in such contradiction, if you would, to everything or to many things in this world and I thought about a couple different things. I thought about how if you and I were to drink a glass of pure water.
Now, I'm not talking about the water that they sell for $12 in the store. If anybody wants to buy that smart water for $12 a bottle, God bless you. But you ever just drink a cold bottle of water or a cold glass of water and it almost tastes pure?
It does something, it doesn't harm, does it? No, it helps. It does something, especially when you're thirsty because sometimes if you drink a soft drink or you drink this or you drink that, all it does is make you more thirsty.
But sometimes when you take in a glass of water and you drink it and it almost seems as if it just filters throughout your whole body and refreshes and again, because there's no purity and what a distinction that is between that and maybe going down into a mud hole and filling up a cup with a bunch of yuck or just some contaminated water and you go to drink that and ugh, right?
You're all, because you realize that there's harm in it. You realize it's harmful, you realize it's mixed, you realize it's contaminated. But you see, the fear of the Lord is clean, friends. It's pure, it's of pristine nature.
I was thinking about how we live in a world of such impurities. There's so many things that people tell us that we ought to fear and we ought to consider and all they do is cause us to feel harmed and threatened and we need to run from them.
See, the fear of God is so clean, we ought to run to it, not away from it. But again, that's because we live in such a day and such a time where so few hold God in reverence. So few hold God in awe. We talk about God like he's the next door neighbor or he's my best bud.
I don't know about you, but I would never address God as my best bud. I've heard people address God as dude. Now again, I'm not trying to pick at language in and of itself, but what I'm saying is what's the posture of our heart?
The fear of the Lord is clean, it's pure. It's not contaminated. It is to be held and considered in reverence and in awe because the reality is God is light, pure light. No darkness, that's what it says, right?
In him is what? No darkness. The fear of the Lord is clean, fear of the Lord is pure and it says in Psalm 19, not only is the fear of the Lord clean, it endures forever. See, something that's pure will always be pure.
Something that is without contamination will remain without contamination. And so certainly this reality of the fear of God is something that you and I ought to consider that it endures forever, that it has a cleansing effect in us.
You show me in man, woman, young, old, I don't care where we fall in on the stations of life, you find someone who has a right fear of God and I will guarantee you, you will find somebody who's moving closer to God, not further away from God.
Again, we live in a day when all we wanna talk about is in many ways and even in the churches, all we wanna talk about is things that make us light and fluffy and make us happy and make us feel accomplished and make us feel wanted and make us feel satisfied.
Well, I say to you that in many ways, we miss the mark because the fear of God is clean, it's pure, it endures forever. Let me ask you this, when you think about heaven and I'm sure we have many thoughts about heaven, right?
And we even have some understanding, streets of gold, but I was thinking about, do you ever think of heaven as a dirty place, a contaminated place, a place where there's things that are garbage and trash and pollution?
I mean, you look at most of our major cities and none of us would say, well, our major cities are really clean. They're not, they're terrible, they're disgusting. So you and I, when we think about it and we think about the fear of God is pure, it's clean, it's without pollution and as we even come into God's presence, we ought to consider that because it'd be absolute purity.
There'll be no trash. Sorry, if you wanna be a garbage picker in heaven, ain't gonna work. But you and I need to see God for who he really is and I think that's very difficult for us at times. I think it's difficult for us to see God for who he is because many times we have already, in a way, thought of what God ought to be instead of who he is and so as you read through these words in God's revelation, that's what God is doing.
He's telling us who he is and so certainly, we ought to hold that in the highest of esteem to see him as the high and the holy one who inhabits eternity, that you and I would understand that the fear of the Lord is clean.
It will never harm us. It will truly be a great aid to us if we see it and see him for who he truly is. So that's one time in which that phrase is used. All right, I'm gonna ask you to look at another one and it's in the Psalms also.
That's not really where I wanted to have you go but it's in Proverbs and it says that the fear of God, don't go to Psalms, the fear of God is the beginning of what? Wisdom. There's that phrase. The fear of God is clean.
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and it's interesting how it's said out to us. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, right? What does that mean to us? Why does it say it's the beginning?
Well, one reason is because it's not the end. And it's not something that you and I can ever fully comprehend but the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. If you and I rightfully think about it, it is a continual growth on our part to esteem God, hold him in reverence, hold him in awe, consider him for who he truly is and it ought to be something that has a beginning and grows.
That it's not something that's stagnant. It's not something that you and I say, well, God has given me wisdom, I've reached where I need to be. That is truly not wisdom at all. That's, in truth, foolishness.
But ask ourselves and think about it. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. So if I lack wisdom, would I be right in a way of saying perhaps the reason I lack wisdom is because I don't rightfully understand the fear of the Lord?
Are we able to say, I believe we can say that. I believe we can say that because it truly says to us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and that you and I are those who have come by his grace into a position where we have been born again and if you think about it, we have been born again and then when we are born again, God takes out that heart of stone, puts in a heart of flesh, writes his laws in our minds, writes his laws in our hearts, the Holy Spirit comes and it possesses us and abides in us and that creates in us a fear of God that we never had before.
See, there are many people who say they fear God but they don't know what it means or it only means what they want it to mean. But the reality is that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and that you and I, when we're born again, God himself begins to apply his being, his attributes, his majesty, his glory, he begins to apply it in our lives and we begin to see it and because we begin to see it, we begin to become wise in ways that we could not be before.
It allows us to apply truth to our lives. It's amazing to me how there are so many people who are more than willing to tell us how wise they are. It could be politicians, it could be opinionists, it could be professors, it could be, there's a whole gamut of people out there just waiting for us to come and sit at their feet and to learn wisdom and that if we would only listen to them, we would be able to come into a right understanding of the ways of the world.
Well, I say to you and I say to us that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and that the person who fears God is the person who is able to begin to have a right worldview and that those who do not fear God cannot, cannot have a right worldview.
They cannot because they don't fear God, they don't hold God in the esteem he ought to be held in, they don't hold God as the sovereign one and therefore they cannot truly speak in a way which is based in wisdom.
Remember what James said. The wisdom that is from above is pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, without hypocrisy. You see, the fear of God, it not only creates a new desire in our heart, it creates a new way in which we see things, that the fear of God causes us to see that this is God's world, that he rules, that he reigns, that he does whatever he pleases to do and that you and I are, even as the prophet said, we are less than grasshoppers in his sight, that you and I can begin to have a right, it's just so disturbing and I don't wanna go down too far this road, but it's so disturbing as I listen to all these people about this Roe versus Wade decision and these pro-choice people and how they feel that they have the wisdom and that it, no matter how you get to the end, it doesn't matter because you're right, they're right and they're fools, they're absolute fools and I guarantee you, anyone, well, I can't get, I submit to you, anyone that truly fears God, anyone who truly understands who God is must have a different view about life, that God is the giver of life and therefore, as God says, he alone gives life and he alone has the right to take life and you come up with all the wisdom you want, all the scientific thinking of this many weeks and that many weeks and this trimester and that trimester, yuck, the simplest of God's children can read in his word where Jeremiah says before, when I was in the womb, you sanctify me.
Simplest child of God can see that John the Baptist in the womb leaped at the coming of Mary. I submit to you that the simplest child of God is wiser than the wisest man of the world and you know why?
Because they know where they came from. They know they didn't come from some space ooze. They know they didn't come from some toad who eventually crawled out of the water and turned into a lizard or a gecko and then I get particularly disturbed but I love watching the animal shows, I truly do and Shark Week, can't wait for Shark Week but people will just spew out and they make it sound as if they're so wise.
Well, this shark has been around for 430 million years. Dude, how in the, where did you come up? Well, you know, you just, you're really too simple to understand but the simplest child of God has more wisdom.
They know that they came from God and they know why they're here. They're here to glorify God.
And they know where they're going.
They're going to be with God. Is that not wisdom? Is that not what so many do not have? Perhaps it's a result of their neglect of the fear of God because the fear of God is, as I said, the beginning of wisdom but it's only the beginning.
It is to be something, listen, you and I are to grow in grace, right? And in the knowledge of the son of God who so loved us that he gave himself for us. The fear of God ought to be something that grows bigger in our lives, not less.
We ought to hold God in higher regard as we continue on in the Christian life, not less. If you and I are still at the first step and we never really progress and we never really see God higher and higher.
If God doesn't increase and we don't decrease, then you have to ask yourself, do I really know the fear of God? That is why you meet someone who's been a child of God for any period of time. You will begin to see what wisdom looks like.
Now again, gray hair is no guarantee. There are many fools with gray hair. So that's why you shave it. Nobody could tell whether it's, what color it is. But my point is we ought to be those who are growing in wisdom and the fear of God is the beginning of it.
And that's a great thing, isn't it friends? Because think about it from this standpoint. If God is eternal, if God is immense, if God cannot be found out in completeness, which he cannot, he alone what?
Dwells in light that no man can approach. Well then our perception of God, our reverence for God, it ought to be something that eternally progresses. Again, what do you think when we see Christ? Do you think we're going to just say, well, I'm glad we met and I'm glad I got here.
Friends, we are going to forever and ever and ever be filled with wonder of the majesty of the person, of the sheer immensity of God. Isn't it great how scientists, they find out more and more, there's more and more constellations and there's more and more of this and space seems to go on forever.
And to me, it's just an example. Man in all his wisdom, he gets to this point and then all of a sudden he says, well, wait a minute, that's not the end. And it goes further and further and further. And that ought to be the way it is with us friends, that the fear of the Lord is beginning of wisdom.
Another way in which that term is used, it says that the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge. Now, you might say, well, you just talked about wisdom. Isn't knowledge the same thing? My answer would be absolutely not.
There's a difference between knowledge and wisdom. And I suppose I could have put knowledge before wisdom because really if you don't have knowledge, it's kind of hard to have wisdom because wisdom is really knowledge applied.
So if you don't have knowledge, it'd be quite difficult to have wisdom. But the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. And again, it is just the beginning. Knowledge is the ability to take in fact, take in truth, take in, if you will, take in God's revelation, take in God's creation, take in the things that are before us and to be able to take them in and to use them to not only be wise, but to grow within.
That the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Let me say it to you this way. People who do not fear God in the right way are again, absolutely clueless. Their minds are darkened. They are alienated in their minds.
I remember years and years ago, I heard a preacher and what I saw like about him was he wasn't afraid what other people thought, not like today's world where everybody's so afraid of what somebody's gonna say about what they said.
Well, anyway, I remember him one time he got up and he was talking something along the same lines about the fear of God and how people cannot have true knowledge or we could have knowledge of many things, don't get me wrong, and praise God for the knowledge that men have, but that knowledge will only take you so far, right?
It'll only take you to the grave. And he said one time that those that do not fear God and do not have a right knowledge of God are insane. And I've always thought about that. I probably heard him 30 years ago say that.
And you know what? I absolutely agree with him. Unsaved people, unsaved people being those who do not have a right fear of God, right? Unsaved people are insane. Now you say that in the next group that you encounter and you might get some real interesting reaction, but I believe it's true.
Again, the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. That understanding of who God is, of his might, of his power, of his being, of his attributes, of his glory, of all those things, those are things that create knowledge within us.
And again, we ought to grow in our knowledge, grow in our knowledge of everything. And again, it's not just you sitting and you're afraid to do this and you're afraid to do that because of the fear of God.
Because if you remember what John says in his first epistle, he says perfect love has what? Cast out fear.
Why?
Because fear has torment. The fear of God does not torment us. The fear of God draws us. It attracts us. It's glorious, it's beautiful, it's pure, it's untainted. It's high, it's holy, it's lifted up.
And it does, it transforms our lives. I mean, you can't just sit at home and wait for your Christian life to grow. I mean, as if you're gonna see it grow. It's not like an apple tree. I guess you could put a camera on an apple tree with, I don't know, slow, whatever they do, slow motion.
And you could actually see the, you can't do that with the fruit of the spirit. It just manifests itself. Well, how does it manifest itself? Because these things, these truths are embedded by the spirit of God and they're blessed by God and they begin to grow and to flourish.
Before you know it, someone who was ignorant and clueless about the things of life, all of a sudden, they begin to have a knowledge they never had before and a wisdom they never had before. And it shines brighter and brighter and brighter.
I remember when I first started to read the Bible. It was like, it was almost every day, there was, the lights were just beaming. It was like I was being flooded with knowledge that I, and not only knowledge, but shame because I thought I knew something about something and I realized I knew nothing about everything.
You see, again, friends, the fear of the Lord is something that is marvelous. It's something that you and I should long to have and hold and not run from, but run to. Okay, one or two more. I wanted to ask you to consider this.
Another way in which that phrase is used is the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Well, just think about that a little bit. To me, that's amazing. To me, that's something that transforms a life.
The fear of God, holding God in right esteem, holding God in right reverence, holding God in awe, holding God in a way in which we are amazed at him and his being and his works, that it begins to transform us so that we begin to hate evil.
Not just stay away from evil, hate evil. The true fear of God causes us to hate the evil that we once did. Now, I don't care how you came into the faith, whether you came from a Christian upbringing or you came from an absolute heathen upbringing, all I know is this.
Our new hearts creates in us a disdain for evil, the evil that we once not only did, but enjoyed. And again, maybe you came up in such a way that evil in your life was minimal compared to evil in another person's life.
But then there's the reality of the heart, isn't there, friends? And that's, listen, the heart of man is a cesspool. The heart is deceitful above what? All things and desperately wicked. And when the fear of God begins to manifest itself in our life, we begin to hate that evil.
We begin to love the light, hate the darkness. Isn't that the complete opposite? Remember when Jesus came? All men do what? They love darkness rather than light, why? Because their deeds are evil. When we come and when the fear of God is growing in our understanding and in our worship and in our adoration, we begin to no longer approve of those evil things.
We not only hate it because it's evil that manifests itself to other men, but mostly, mainly because it's an offense to God. At least I hope that's the case. I hope it's true that you and I fear God in such a way that we can find no satisfaction in the things that God hates.
And by the way, God does hate, doesn't he? In the Psalms, it says God hates, listen now, God hates all the workers of iniquity. I didn't make that up.
That's what it says.
Psalm 7, Psalm 511 and Psalm 74, this is pretty much Psalm 5, Psalm 7. God hates the workers of iniquity. And listen now, he doesn't just hate the sin. That's a misunderstanding, that's a misrepresentation.
God hates all the workers of iniquity. You can't separate the sin from the sinner. That doesn't mean God isn't kind to the sinner, but God's a purer eyes than to what? Behold evil. And he cannot look on iniquity.
And so the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Do you know what keeps me up at night sometimes? Besides eating too many donuts before I go to bed. You know what keeps me up at night sometimes? It's my own evil thoughts.
It's not just having them.
I hate them.
I know they're wrong. I know they lead to no good. I know they're not pleasing to God. I know they're not pleasurable to him. And they disturb him and they disturb me. And I thank him for it. And I pray that it would become brighter and brighter and I would be more and more disturbed.
Listen, the fear of God will disturb you because it will interfere with the remnants in our flesh. It will not allow you to entertain the same evil guests that we used to entertain. And if we don't, if we continually have evil thoughts over and over again, and they do not disturb us, I say to you, consider your state.
They should become maybe not less and less, but they should become more and more discomforting instead of comforting. Vengeance, hatred, lust, anger, those things ought to disturb us and we ought to be moving from them because those are the very things that God hates.
Remember, it wasn't long ago we looked at it, right? The six things that God hates, yeah, seven are an abomination to him. What was the very first one?
A proud look.
I should be disturbed at my own sinful pride, shouldn't I? The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. The pleasure of not only doing evil, but even considering evil is something that should become minimal in our lives and the things that please God ought to be those things that grow.
Again, if you think about it, friends, I mean, as we, I don't know how much further we could go tonight, and I know they wanna have some refreshments, so maybe we'll stop at this point, but just think about it.
The Christian life, it has many outward manifestations, right, fruits of the spirit, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, all those things, but I really believe that the real true Christian life is found in the wrestling in the heart, where we begin not only to see God for who he really is, but listen, the more we see God for who he really is, the more we will see ourselves for who we are not.
I guarantee you that's true. The more we see him and reverence him, the more we see him as high and lifted up, the more we see him as the absolute ruler over all, the less we will think that we are rulers over anything.
And so as we continue to consider this even next week, what the fear of the Lord is, I pray that it will be edifying to us and that we will consider it, that we will not just have it go in this year and out that year, but that it will begin to cause us to reflect more and more on this great God that has, in such amazing and abounding mercy, come to us while we were dead in sin and trespasses.
Even when we were dead in sin, he made us alive together in Christ. For by grace, we have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
So let's just close with a word of prayer. Our Father in God, thank you for who you are. Thank you, Lord, for the realization in our hearts that we do fear you. We fear you because you are worthy to be feared, to be held in reverence, to be held in awe, to be held in a way that transforms our lives and that honors and glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ.
Even as he said to us that we should not fear them who can kill the body, but fear him who after he has killed can cast both body and soul into hell. Be with us tonight, Lord. Be with those that are sick, be with those that are hurting, be with those who love you, be with those, especially Lord, who don't.
That some, some, many, Lord, many would come to see you for who you truly are, the Lord of glory. Be with us now as we leave. May we grow in that grace and knowledge. In Jesus' name, amen. So Rosanna,.