The Fear of God (02) Fathers and Their Responsibility — Don Courville

Let's pray. Father, we ask you to bless the reading of your word, and we ask that you would have mercy upon us as we meet this morning, that we would hear what you have to say to us, as a body and also as individuals.

Lord, I pray that you would fill us afresh with the Holy Spirit, anoint our ears to hear, our eyes to see, our tongues to speak. You are to be reverenced, you are to be loved, you are to be honored. And Father, we confess that many times we have not done these things, even this week.

And we ask you to have mercy upon us, cleanse us by the blood of the Lamb, rebuke the enemy away from us and meet with us. May we know, Father, that when we have left here today, that God has blessed us, that you have blessed us with your presence.

Bless your word now, in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. I don't have a lot of word pictures. As a matter of fact, I don't have one. I don't have a lot of stories and illustrations. If I have one, God will just have to give it to me as I go along.

Fathers and Their Responsibility

But the subject is fathers and their responsibility. This will be the second in the series on the fear of God, its rule in our lives. And I was asking the Lord what he wanted us to do and I thought he was going to have me share on something else, but I decided I better take some time and be quiet before the Lord.

Back earlier in the week, I don't remember what day it was, I think it was Wednesday. And I was just there and the Lord just brought into my mind Deuteronomy 6. I said, Deuteronomy 6. And as I meditated upon it and I listened, I saw what he was trying to say to us.

And so I'm going to try to share this. I'm not adequate. There was one of the speakers at the conference that we were at last week, Mr. Sibley, he had two messages for us there for the church. And he said he didn't want to give either one of them.

But he did and they were powerful messages about our condition and what we need to do. And I sort of feel like that I want to give the message, but I'm not adequate to give it. So you pray that God can open up our eyes.

On the subject of fathers, some of us may have fathers still alive and some may not. I'm grateful that my father is still alive. And I was just thinking as I was praying earlier some of the things that I'm just really sorry that I did as a kid.

And a lot of them I had to pay for it. But just come out of not honoring my father and doing what he wanted to do. And my father and I, the best times that we had were when we went fishing. And that was our time together.

We might drive 45 minutes and not speak a half dozen words the whole time there and about that many on the way home. Except if we had a good fishing trip, we might talk a little bit more. We just didn't talk.

We didn't talk much, but it was time together. And there were some good times. I remember the time that Dad swung my end of the boat around into a wasp nest or yellow jackets or something. And they got me four times before I got in the water.

And Dad thought that was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. He was laughing, and I'm standing in water about up to here. And so we had some memories. The time we was in a storm, my cousin and I, we thought it was a great storm.

It was really a lot of fun. And Dad was holding our boat behind and had the boat in front and running the boat motor and trying to get back so we didn't die out in this lake. And the waves were big, and trees were falling over, old dead trees.

And he was my father trying to save us, and my cousin and I thought, this is great. You know, this is exciting. So as kids, we didn't always have the right perspective on things. So I'm trusting that God will give us something today on a right perspective towards our Heavenly Father.

And to be a father is an awesome responsibility, a fearful responsibility. And most of the times when we go into marriage and we get married, we're not really thinking ahead that we may be a father. Then all of a sudden, one day, you've got a bunch of them to be a father of.

And then all of a sudden, you realize you've got some responsibility. And so Deuteronomy 6 has given us some tremendous insight about being fathers. Now, I want to get on into this. I might go a little fast, so you might want to take notes.

I didn't bring any paper for you to take notes on, but there will be verses you might want to jot down. Paul, on the fear of God, I started a couple months ago or so studying on this from a book by John Bunyan.

And he said this in regards to Psalms 34 11, Come, you children, hearken unto me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Come, you children, hearken unto me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

There's a lot in the Bible on this subject. I never realized how much there was. And I went back and I looked at verse 4 of Psalms 34 and come on down. And David said, I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears.

The fear of the Lord has to do with us being delivered from all our other fears. In other words, if we fear God, we've got nothing else to fear. But we need to understand fear in God. Because it's not like it might sound.

Because the Bible says if we perfect love, cast out all fear. But yet he talks about his fear in God, so this is what we want to continue studying. And he said, they looked unto him, and verse 5 of Psalms 34,.

And were lighted, and their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusteth in him. Oh, fear the Lord, ye his saints, for there is no want to them that fear him. This is an important subject. It's really an important subject.

And it has all to do about obeying God and loving God. Matter of fact, it might surprise you that that's what the book of Deuteronomy is about. Fearing God and loving God. And being loved by God. And I'm going to say some things about that in a minute.

Bunyan said this, that is when he said, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. He comes on down in verse 11, he says, Come, you children, hearken unto me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord. David learned something.

And he said, I want you to understand the fear of the Lord. Bunyan said, that is, I will teach you the fear. I will teach you the commandments, the statutes, the judgments of the Lord. I never realized until I studied on this this week that the fear of God has a lot to do with the Word of God.

Matter of fact, when God speaks, it's His Word. At His words, the Bible talks about many times people trembling at His Word. And so it has to do with trembling. Deuteronomy 6 .20, And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, say, And what mean the testimonies, the statutes, the judgments which the Lord our God commanded you?

Then he's going to go in to explain, to bring some things into your life. Proverbs is such a wonderful book. I just want to read a few verses. I'm giving you, this is all introduction. 1, 1, 2, To know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding.

And it goes all down through these things. A wise man will hear in verse 5, 6, To understand the Proverbs. And then 7, he says, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom.

I can't go back and review what I did two weeks ago. But I started off about the Lord Jesus. How the fear of God, the fear of the Lord would make him of quick understanding. And that just intrigued me.

And when I got in there to see what that really meant. That it would be of such a nature that He wanted to live His life in such a way that everything He did pleased His Father. And the fear of the Lord was that He would not honor God every step of the way.

When He came to the cross and He looked into that cup that He was going to bear in the garden of Gethsemane. He was trembling because He was going to go through something that no one had ever done before.

And no one ever will before. And He wanted to honor the Father. Because at any point He would have said, No, it would have been all over. And we would have died in our sins. We would have had no substitute.

He would have gone back to the presence of the Father to be the great three in one as they had been for all eternity past. But His great love for us and for the Father carried Him on through. So among the many things the Father is to do.

He's to provide, protect and all these other things. But He's to instruct. It's one of the most important things is we are to give instruction to our children. And the fearful thing about that is what we say is blah, blah, blah, blah.

But what we do is whoa is what's going to come out. And that's the fearful thing to us is what we do, how we live. Instruction used 30 times and it's used many times as a word for chasing, chastisement and different things.

Deuteronomy’s Call to Fear and Love God

Now, the basic challenge from Deuteronomy and that's going to be our basic book that we're in. Is these two things as I said to fear and to love. Look at 6 .2. That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God.

And then look at 13. There's three times fear is mentioned. That thou shalt fear the Lord thy God. And then 24. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes to fear the Lord. And then to love the Lord in verse 5.

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart. And back over in 5 .10. Showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. So love is all through there. Over in chapter 7.

A lot of times I'm going to flip back over to 5 and 7 just to sort of stay in the neighborhood. And sometimes I'll get a little bit farther away. But like in chapter 7 in verse 7. For thou and a holy nation.

For thou and a holy people. Unto the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself. Above all people there upon the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love upon you nor choose you because you were more in number.

And then in 8 he said because the Lord loved you. And one of the things about love. I got an evangelist friend. He goes into Detroit now. Witnessing to Muslims. And he's got a powerful way of doing it.

He just loves them. Because that's one thing they don't have in their lives. They don't have that in their teaching. It's just not there. It's hate. A lot of that's just. And so he loves them. He said they don't know how to handle that.

But that's what brings them to Christ. But if you love someone. What you like is you like someone to love you back. Now God loves you. And he likes to be loved back. So this book is about fearing God and loving God.

And that goes together. Now let me give you a little run down on the background. This book is a review of their desert experience. God brought them out. Brought them up. Two years. He brought them up to the promised land.

Said now go in. And this is a new generation. And they wouldn't go in. The old generation wouldn't go in. So they had to wander around in the desert for 38 years. So they all died off. And so now he's bringing them back.

And he's going to teach them a few things before they go in. And the theme is he's going to teach them about loving and obeying God. J. Vernon McGee said obedience is man's response to God's love. And that's just what Jesus said.

He that hath my commandments and keepeth them. He it is that loveth me. And so it's not the saying it. It's the doing it. How we love God. So Deuteronomy is the product of Moses now walking these 40 years with the children of Israel in the desert.

And he's had 40 years back in the first part of his life in the palace. Then he got 40 years in the desert with God. Learning to know God in the desert. And now his last 40 years he's been wandering around with these people that wouldn't believe.

And now he's got his final words he's going to say. Final words are usually pretty important. And so this is important. And now this new generation since the old couldn't enter in. They broke God's law.

They failed to believe God. They failed to fear God. They failed. Just failed, failed, failed. The new now needed some things pointed out to them. And he's going to give them a lot of good instruction.

And it won't be bad for us to follow it either. One of the things I was just looking just to give you an idea how practical it is. In chapter 20 he gives instructions on how to go to war. And if you look at the details of that.

There's spiritual warfare principles that the apostle Paul taught. Where did he get them? He got them out of the Old Testament and a lot of them in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 20 has some powerful spiritual warfare principles.

How to go to battle. But fear is used over I think around 30 times in this book. In Deuteronomy. And so we're going to look at this. Final instructions. Before they enter into the promised land. Deuteronomy 6 .10.

And it shall be when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land. Which he swearing to thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. To give thee great and goodly cities which thou buildest not.

He's going to instruct them on how to do that. Now I want to bring you on in to this book. This chapter. With these five questions. Why? God has given the fathers the responsibility to teach. In verse 7.

Deuteronomy 6 .7. And thou shalt teach. He's given them the responsibility to teach them about God. To teach them the Word. And so I ask this question. Why? In verse 1. There are several that's. In verse 1.

That ye might do them. There to teach. Look in verse 6. Now these are the commandments. Or verse 1. The statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God commanded to teach you. That ye might do them.

In the land whither you go to possess it. So he said I'm giving you these things fathers. That you can do them. So that your doing can teach your children. And not only the doing but also the teaching of the Word.

So in 7. And thou shalt teach them diligently. Diligently. So that's why. They're to do that. How are they to do that? Is taught in this book. Look at verse 5. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.

The how they were to teach. And the how they were to love God. Is all thine heart. With all thy soul. With all thy might. They were not to be half hearted. Half way Christians. So to say. They were to follow God with all their heart.

So that was how they to do it. And it just goes on down through verse 9. On how they were to do that. And then what? God wanted them as fathers to teach their children to fear God. Actually He wanted them to fear Him.

In verse 2. In verse 3 and 4. He wanted them to hear. Hear therefore Israel. And observe. And do it. And that word that is planted all down through there. In verse 6. That ye might do them. In verse 2.

That thou mightest fear. In verse 2 also. That thy days may be prolonged. And we'll come back and talk about that. And then He says. Hear therefore in 3. Therefore O Israel. And observe to do it. That it may be well with thee.

And that you may increase mightily. So I think this is a pretty important book. And that's the why and the how. And the what. The fear. To hear. To love. To meditate. In verse 6. These words which I command thee this day.

That's the what. And the when. Verse 7. And thou shalt teach them. When are you supposed to do it? Well you're only supposed to do it. Here's what He said. Teach them to thy children. Shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house.

You only have to do it when you sit in your house. Also though when thou walkest by the way. And also when thou liest down. And also when thou risest up. And it just covers every minute of the day. They were to teach.

And so that was when. But there was one more thing. That they were supposed to get across. And that was the who. And that was the Lord. They were to teach them about God. Their whole life was designed to be given to God.

Their whole life was to be given to living for God. Loving God. And being an example to the other nations of God in their life. God in their camp. And God glorified in everything they did. And 22 times in this chapter in verse 6.

You will find the word the Lord out of 25 verses. And this doesn't include other verses referring to God. And so the who is what it's all about. It's about the Lord. So the first thing is they are to fear.

And they are to love the Lord. And then also they are to serve. And we'll point that out. As a matter of fact, in 10 .12. All back and forth through Deuteronomy. These things all tie together in 10 .12.

Chapter 10 and verse 12. And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul?

13. To keep the commandments of the Lord and the statutes which I command thee. Now, let's get into some things here. I asked myself a question. That's a good way to learn, is ask questions. I had a teacher in our church, oh, I don't know, back in 1977, I guess it was or so, when he came in.

And we had four of our families, four of the couples in the church. They'd gone to Bible colleges. And he was just like an eighth-grade education guy. And he kept everything all stirred up. We'd be there, and he would come along with a question that would blow all our Bible learning apart.

And God would get us to see, oh, wow, we were just learning some things of man. But ask a question. It's a good way to learn. Why was it so important that the fathers taught just this area of the fear of the Lord?

Why was, and we won't go into the love area, why was it so important that these fathers taught the fear of the Lord? And I'm going to share with you about five reasons. Now, I've got something for you young men to do.

When we're done, I'm going to try to not go too long. I won't have a lot of illustrations and things. But I want you to do what I usually do for the last part, is come tie things together with lessons.

I think I had seven lessons on the first one. I want you to get some lessons. A lesson is a principle that you can apply to life. It's something, I've got, you know, I've got a lot of them. Every now and then I'll remember one.

You know, one of the principles I learned from an evangelist that died when he was 39 years old. And the prime of his ministry and the prime of his life, he was our school evangelist when I was in Bible college.

But I'll never forget this. He said, and I've used this many times, If opportunity arises to serve Jesus, do it. Do it. And I've done a lot of things and got into a lot of different areas and got a lot of blessings by just remembering that I get an opportunity.

And that is a scriptural opportunity. I think it comes, one verse you can back it up with, it's Galatians 6 .10. As ye therefore have what? You have an opportunity to be a blessing to the brethren, do it.

That's not a translation, it's not anything close to it, but that's the idea in that verse. And I just thought of it. Now here, I'm going to go through this and I want you young men, I'm going to open up afterwards.

I'll give you a limit of five minutes to preach. But I want you to draw out at least seven principles as I go through here. And maybe you already got one or two that God has spoke to you about that you want to share with us.

Alright? I'm going to have five reasons that they are to teach the fear of the Lord. Now, the first one, and I believe this is important because it backed up by another passage of scripture, is that so that they would walk humbly with God.

Walking Humbly With God

So that they would walk humbly with God. And so that they would walk humbly with God, God designed it for them to live humbly. You know what it's like to live humbly? To live low? To live needy? We're not always happy with that.

Sometimes we'd like to live a little bit higher than God has us. But Deuteronomy 8 and verse 3 was the principle of them being humble. He said, and verse 2 also, he said, And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness to humble thee and to prove thee to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no.

And he humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger. God wasn't out of food the day they ran out of food. It was a test. And you're in a test right now probably, aren't you? There's probably not one of his here that aren't being stretched about something.

And once you get done with that one, God's got another one. But he's teaching us things and many times he lets us go through humbling situations. It's humbling. And so he said, humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger.

And what happened? And fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.

And so he's going to teach them the fear of the Lord so that they would learn to walk humbly with God. And I'm going to just say a couple of three things about humbleness here. And in this passage in relation to this.

It is to have a contrite spirit. You know, they could have been a little bit cocky after coming out of Israel. And they're all scared, huddled up at the bank. And then the water opens up and then they go across to the other side.

And then they see what God does to Pharaoh's armies. And all of a sudden they go from this cowardness and this fearfulness and everything and crossing through. And then they see what happens to the army.

And then they could have puffed up their chest. Yeah, that'll serve you right for trying to pick on us. You know, God could give you a great victory. And then you could all of a sudden think that you had something to do with it.

And so he said, no, God is allowing you to go through the trial you're going through to humble you. And one aspect of that is to be contrite. Do you know what it's like to be contrite? I was going to bring a word picture in here, but I forgot about it.

I was going to bring in a handful of dirt. That is a word picture of contrite. Matter of fact, if I got my Hebrew right when I looked that up, it's the word for dust. You can't get any lower than dirt.

And not only that, if you think you're really something, God says that's what you are. It's dirt. Dust. So what have you got to be proud about? And God put you together. And so Abraham, the friend of God, he says, which am but dust.

That's why God could be his friend. Because he recognized he was nothing but dirt in himself. So that's what contrite is. Poor. Lowly. Also it's used for afflicted. And we tremble at God's word. Isaiah has some amazing things to say about walking with God.

And you know this passage in Isaiah 57 verse 15. For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabited eternity. And God is wanting these fathers to teach their children this. When they come into the land, they are to walk humbly with God, whose name is holy.

He says, My name is holy. I dwell in the high and the holy place. With him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit. To revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

It's important that we teach and that we live in this area. I saw a verse over here in Isaiah 66. Listen to this verse. Verse 1 and 2. Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.

Where is the house that ye build unto me, and where is the place of my rest? For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord. But to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.

One of the things that they were supposed to teach was that to fear God was to tremble at His word. When God spoke from the mountain, they trembled. And God is expecting some respect. And when we respect Him and love Him and honor Him.

And I'm going to talk about some of these things. He likes that. He deserves that. He's God. But He wants us to be contrite. And this was about Jesus who humbled Himself. When God takes you to a cross and you refuse to humble yourself at that cross, that is the exhibition of pride.

But Jesus, when He came to the cross, what we're to do at the cross is to humble ourselves. And of course if we humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord, He will what? Lift us up. But if we lift ourselves up, He's going to what?

Help us get back down. Because God designed His people to live low. The devil designed His people to live high. And this is how you can distinguish the two. And there's not much that works in between either way to be any good.

The hypocrite living in pride, when he tries to give the appearance of living low, it just doesn't come out too good. Everybody can see it. But yet on the other hand, when we as the children of God are designed to live low, and try to live a little bit higher than we're supposed to, it shows too.

So it pays to live low. Because we get to experience the presence of the Lord. King Josiah is a great example. And this is in 2 Chronicles 34. I probably won't go into this very much. But it's a great example of what you're to do when all of a sudden God gives you light and revelation.

And Israel had got into their normal thing. Got in bad shape with God. It backslid and forgot His commandments. As a matter of fact, things had got so bad, they'd lost the law. And so they're coming back around.

They've got some money. They're going back into the temple. They're cleaning things back up. And while they're doing this, Hilkiah, the priest, found a book of the law. 2 Chronicles 34, verse 14. Of the law of the Lord given by Moses.

And Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. The scribes had even lost it. They were in bad shape. And they talked about this book. And so finally when they bring it around and they read it to the king, what does he do?

He humbles himself. Josiah humbles himself. And God comes along in 27. He said, Because thine heart was tender and thou didst humble thyself before God, when thou heardest His words against this place and against the inhabitants thereof, and humbled thyself before Me, and didst rend thy clothes and weep before Me, I have even heard thee also, said the Lord.

And he says he would gather him up in peace. God appreciates it when we humble ourselves. So as to be contrite, here's something else, though. And we don't like this one. About being humble. To recognize that we're thus, to be contrite, but also it means to be dependent upon God.

And this is just exactly what Deuteronomy 8 .3 was when I read that. God was humbling them so they would be dependent upon Him. He was doing that. And look at Deuteronomy 8 and verse 16 also. He said, Let me encourage you, if God is taking you to a low spot, I mean lower than the lowest, normal low, we're to live low, but sometimes God just seems to pluck a hole out in our life and lets us drop down a little bit lower.

And we get to look up at the bottom. He said, I'm doing that so I can do you some good. We don't always enjoy the process, but we do enjoy the product. And you know one of the best things that God can do for us is to knock all our props out so all we've got is God.

We're in the prop-making business many times. This is why we've got a lot of churches. They've got prop-making services and prop-making programs. They're going to try to prop up our own mess that we've got.

We don't want to look like that we are failing, so let's try to get some people in here so we look like we've got a church. So to go out there and get the world and bring them on in. But someday God, I mean He usually just leaves.

But if we'll hear Him, He's going to come in and He's going to knock out our props. So we get back down. And sometimes He lets us go through a little extra process. Now it's to make you dependent upon God.

Make you dependent upon God. And this is where He comes back in chapter 6. And you come down through there, 6 through 9. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them.

And He goes down through all these things. He said, I want you to teach your children to depend on Me and not themselves. And that's just something the heart of man doesn't like. You know we've got a bunch of girls running around our house, more than the normal amount.

And my daughter did something the other day that just really surprised me. And this is something that Joy had put together to get some girls to come and pray and seek the Lord. But she'd come into the room and she asked counsel about something they were going to do.

And I thought, wow, I just thought you guys, your girls, excuse me, were doing all the things you're going to do. But when she came in and did that, I thought, that is really wise. They've got their plans, so she's sharing with me what her ideas were, and then they're going to go off.

But that was very wise to do that, because they were covered. And what happens when we move out from under God's authority, we become dependent upon ourselves. When we become dependent upon ourselves, we become independent of God.

And God has designed us to live under authority. God designed the woman, the young girl, to always be under authority. When Eve listened to the snake, she moved out from under the authority of her husband, out from under the authority of God, and got us all into trouble.

And Adam even got sucked into the deal, and so we're in trouble because of the authority issue. It is to make you dependent upon God. And I thought that was a very wise thing to do, to just check. Because there may be something that God would say, hey, they're going to do this and this, but I think you ought to give a little direction on doing maybe something this or that or whatever.

And they had my blessing, I thought it was great what they were going to do, but I thought it was a very wise thing to ask counsel. You girls should always live under the authority of your father or your husband, or if you don't have a husband, you have to work under some kind of authority, have some authority to work under.

Now, a widow has to work right directly under God. She's in that position, but it's just the principle of being dependent upon God. There's one other thing here about humbleness, to be contrite, to be dependent, but He's teaching them these things so that they would be wise.

Look at Deuteronomy 4. Look at Deuteronomy 4 and look at verse 6. And I've got words highlighted. I've got hear and love and fear. Deuteronomy 4 and verse 6. Keep therefore and do them for this is your wisdom and your understanding and the sight of the nations which shall hear all these statutes and say, Surely this great nation is wise and understanding people.