Should We Fear God?

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles, and we're going to be turning to the book of Proverbs this morning.
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Proverbs chapter 9 and verse 10.
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Many of you have heard or used the word phobia before, and you understand what a phobia is.
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A phobia is a fear of something.
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It comes from the Greek word phobos.
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It simply means to have a fear.
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Most of you are familiar with the term arachnophobia, which is the fear of spiders.
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There is agoraphobia, which is the fear of crowds or going outside.
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There is a couple of aerophobias, the fear of flying.
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Acrophobia is the fear of heights.
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Claustrophobia is the fear of being trapped in an enclosed area.
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There are even some very wild phobias, some that are hard to pronounce.
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Arachibutyrophobia is the fear of getting peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth.
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Bibliophobia is the fear of books.
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And atmosophobia is the fear of an atomic explosion.
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I think we all have that one in some form.
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I don't know anyone who says, well, that's fine.
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Well, today we are going to be looking at a common phobia that many people do not realize that they have, and it is in regard to God.
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And it is something that actually affects us all, and rightly so.
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It is a fear called xenophobia.
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Xenophobia is the fear of that which is different or foreign or outside of your comfort zone, if you will.
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And the reason why I say xenophobia applies to our relationship with God is that there is really no greater foreigner than God, in the sense that God is so far outside of us.
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In the sense that He is so much greater, He is so much more powerful, He is so much more intelligent.
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We cannot even begin to express how far God is outside.
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And yet at the same time, God is so far outside, He condescends to us.
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That's the powerful thing.
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The thing that we find, though, is in His condescension, when He comes to us, because we obviously can't go to Him, when He comes to us, it inspires within us a sense of fear.
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That's where the xenophobia idea comes from.
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So today, the question is, should we fear God? That's the question for the morning, that's what we're going to discuss, that's the subject of the sermon, and we're going to be looking at Proverbs 9, 10.
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We will read it together, and then we will have a word of prayer.
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Let's stand as we read the text.
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It says in Proverbs 9, 10, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
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Our Father and our God, we thank You for Your Word.
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We thank You for this opportunity to study Your Word together.
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I do pray, O Lord, as I seek to give insight to this passage, that You, O Lord, would first and foremost keep me from error, that You would open up the hearts of the congregation to the truth, that You would put a hedge of protection around them, Lord God, during this time.
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And Lord God, also keep us focused on the Word, so that through the study of the Word, You would be glorified, and Your people would be edified.
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And all of these things, Lord, we ask in Jesus' name and for His sake.
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Amen.
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In the church today, there is much said about the love of God.
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And the love of God is something that we should talk a lot about, because it is a glorious truth.
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To consider the fact that the God of the universe loves us, and the God of the universe cares enough for us to send His sons down across for our sins.
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All of these things are amazing.
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They are wonderful truths, and they are things that should be exalted.
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But one thing that is often not discussed, one thing that is often left out of our conversations, is the subject of the fear of God.
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We talk about God's love and our love for Him, but do we talk much about the fear of God? Well, I would have to say that we don't.
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In fact, there are some who would even argue that such an idea is antiquated.
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That to discuss the fear of God, I mean, that's such an outdated concept.
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That's so old.
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That's backwoods.
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That's not the kind of thing that modern folk ought to be discussing, is the fear of God.
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In fact, Pastor, you had to go all the way back to the Old Testament to find the...
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I mean, look at you.
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You proved your point right there.
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You had to go back to the Old Testament to see where it talks about the fear of God.
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But the reality is, the idea of fearing God, the idea of the fear of God, is not something that is limited to one passage of Scripture, and it's not something that's limited only to the Old Testament.
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We find it in the Old Testament, but we also find it in the New Testament.
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It's all through the Bible.
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Matthew 10, and verse 28, that being the New Testament, Jesus is speaking, and He says this, Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.
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But rather, do what? Fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
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Jesus uses there, clearly, the word fear in referring to God.
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And of course, we see this all through the Old Testament as well.
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Proverbs 1.7, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
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Proverbs 14.26, In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence, and His children shall have a place of refuge.
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Ecclesiastes 12.13, which we read this morning, Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.
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Fear God and keep His commandments.
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I mean, the command is right there.
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That's in the imperative.
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Fear God and keep His commandments.
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Psalm 33.8, Let all the earth fear the Lord.
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Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.
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Proverbs 14.27, The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life to depart from the snares of death.
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And of course, Proverbs 111.10, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
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A good understanding have all they that do His commandments.
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His praise endureth forever.
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And beloved, that's just a few of them.
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You can find all through the Scriptures, these reminders of the fear of God.
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And I know what some people have done in their minds and in their hearts to try to satisfy this because they want to look at God as sort of a cosmic grandfather.
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They want to look at God sort of as a cosmic Santa Claus.
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You know, very benevolent, kind of older person.
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Their idea of God is this person you sort of climb up on his lap.
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You sort of nuzzle with him and you sort of ask him what you want.
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And sometimes he says yes, and sometimes he says no, and sometimes he says maybe.
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And we come up with all these ways that we talk about how we relate to God.
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But the reality is when we look in the Scripture, there is this fear that overcomes those who are actually in the presence of God that we don't discuss, that we don't emulate, that we don't even consider.
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And what happens is we end up living our lives without a fear of God.
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And do you know how the Bible describes people who live without the fear of God? Well, let me show you.
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Because this is very valuable for us to remember.
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Turn in your Bibles to Romans 3.
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Turn in your Bibles to Romans 3.
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When you get to Romans 3, we're going to go in Romans 3.
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And we're going to start at verse 9.
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The Apostle Paul here is talking about all men being in sin.
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He says in verse 9, What, thee or we, any better than they? No, not at all.
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For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are all under sin, as it is written.
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And then he begins this litany of statements that he's quoting to express the sinful nature of man.
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Starting in verse 10, he says, There is none righteous, no, not one.
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No one understands, no one seeks for God.
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All have turned aside.
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Together they have become worthless.
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No one does good, not even one.
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Their throat is an open grave.
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They use their tongues to deceive.
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The venom of asps is under their lips.
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Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.
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Their feet are swift to shed blood.
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And their paths are ruined in misery.
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And the way of peace they have not known.
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And then verse 18 brings together this solidifying of all the things that he has said up to this point.
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He says, There is no fear of God before their eyes.
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Beloved, as I look at our world, as I look at our nation, I see a nation which has lost the fear of God.
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I see people who live daily in constant rebellion, who have lost the fear of God.
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And we see the result of such behavior.
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As our opening text says, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
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But yet, what do we see in our culture? We see a culture that is devoid of wisdom.
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It has replaced wisdom with feelings.
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And it's not anymore about what we know to be true.
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It's what we feel to be true.
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We've become a culture that is committed to what is in our heart, rather than what is in our mind.
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Oh, well, that's good, isn't it? Because I once heard a pastor say, you know, the 18 inch gap.
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I need God in my heart, not in my mind.
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And see, we've devoided ourselves of intellectualism, and we've replaced it with a very shallow emotionalism.
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And we have gone from being wise to being fools.
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And that's what happens.
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Everything is about feelings now.
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Everything is about what my heart feels.
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Listen to your heart.
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There are songs about it.
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Heard a person the other day.
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Well, you know what's right.
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If you listen to your heart, it'll tell you what to do.
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The Bible says the heart is desperately wicked.
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It is a liar.
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Isn't that hard to hear? Because you're always thinking, well, you know, I know if I do what's right in my heart.
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The heart lies to us.
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Because the heart is part of the flesh, and the flesh is part of what we battle with.
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The Scripture says we have three enemies.
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Satan, the world, and what's the third one? The flesh.
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The battles we fight are with Satan, the world, and the flesh.
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And beloved, the heart that doesn't fear God is the heart that lives in rebellion to Him.
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And that is what we see.
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We see a culture that doesn't fear Him.
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We see a culture that if we went down through Romans 3 here, and we walked just through this text, and we saw that no one understands, no one seeks for God.
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Isn't that what we see in our culture? But pastor, churches, I see churches with 40,000 people in them.
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There are certainly people out there who are seeking after God.
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I'm not going to say that all big churches are bad, because that would be false.
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John MacArthur has a fairly good-sized church, and I know they do a great attempt at preaching the Gospel.
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R.C.
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Sproul has a decent-sized church, and they have a great attempt at preaching the Gospel.
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But I will say this, many, many of these so-called mega-churches have become the Walmart of the Gospel, where they will do anything they can to get you to sign a card, to raise your hand.
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They will not preach on sin.
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They will not preach on the Scripture.
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They will only preach these happy-go-lucky, everybody's great and doing fine messages.
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And what can you do to make your bank account bigger, your parking space better? Whatever.
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They will not confront sin.
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They will not confront you with the Gospel of Christ.
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In fact, if this is the Gospel, at the end of a 20-minute self-help message, if you say to someone, oh yeah, by the way, Jesus loves you and has a good plan for your life, you need to believe in Him, and that's the Gospel.
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That ain't the Gospel.
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And that shows a preacher who has no fear of God.
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Beloved, the fear of God must undergird all that we do.
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Now, Pastor, by fear, do you mean reverence? Yes.
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But it's more than just reverence.
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Do you want to know what the fear of God looks like? Go with me to Isaiah chapter 6.
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Because some people, they say, well, fear is just reverence.
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That's all the word fear means.
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No.
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I'm not going to argue with you, but linguistically, no.
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There's no debate.
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It's fear.
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There's a word for reverence.
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We use it.
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This ain't it.
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I mean, there's a word for fear.
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There's a word for reverence.
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Does fear involve reverence? Yes.
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Does fear have more connotations than just reverence? Yes.
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So, what does fear look like? Isaiah chapter 6.
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One of the most powerful passages of Scripture in the Bible, often overlooked, but shouldn't be.
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Dr.
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R.C.
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Sproul wrote a book called The Holiness of God.
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I commend to you its reading because what he says in regard to this passage is much more than I could do in one sermon.
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We actually bought copies of it years ago for folks and had them in the Narthex.
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We don't have any left, but I'd certainly be glad to do it again if anyone needs them.
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The Holiness of God, one of the most powerful works on this subject.
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But he talked about the fear of God in that book, and this is the passage.
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Most of you have been Reformed for a while.
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You've read this passage before, but it's just my heart.
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In the next few weeks, as I've said, I'm going to be in the Old Testament.
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Start looking at certain passages that really should move us to a better understanding of God.
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Last week, we were looking at a certain aspect from the Old Testament.
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In the weeks to come, we're going to be in the Old Testament just for a little while.
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But I just thought this week, holiness and reverence and fear is what we need to see because that's what's missing in so many churches.
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But look at what it looks like here.
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Look at what Isaiah says.
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In Isaiah 6, verse 1, in the year that King Uzziah died, I, the person speaking here is Isaiah himself.
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He's writing.
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This is him.
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In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne.
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Now, what we must understand is that when he says that he saw the Lord, that this is actually a pre-incarnate vision of Christ.
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John, if you want to write a note beside your Bible, John 12 and verse 41 makes this clear because in John 12, verse 41, it says that Isaiah said these things because he saw His glory and spoke of Him and the Him and His in there is Jesus.
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He saw Him and saw His glory.
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So that's important.
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This is a pre-incarnate vision of Christ that Isaiah is seeing in the temple.
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In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple.
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Now, that doesn't mean a lot to us because we are not familiar with royalty and how royalty operates.
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Certainly, we're not familiar with 1st century royalty and how 1st century royalty would have been understood, or rather, pre-1st century royalty because this is, of course, the Old Testament about 500 years prior to the 1st century.
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This is an antiquated concept.
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But in this time, the King's robe was a picture of His power.
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The bigger and more expansive the train, the bigger His power was understood to be.
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The more He had under Him.
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It was a symbol of His authority.
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So that is why when Isaiah here says, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple.
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It was expansive.
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It was massive.
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And it says in verse 2, above Him stood the seraphim.
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Now, seraphim were a type of worshiping angels.
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I've taught on angels before.
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The Bible says very little about angels, but what we do know is there's two types of angels.
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You have the seraphim and the cherubim.
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And among those, there seem to be classes of archangels and things like that.
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But the reality is the seraphim, from all that we know from study, is that these angels are worshiping angels.
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And that they are designed by God for a very specific task.
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And that task is worship.
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It says each had six wings.
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With two, He covered His face.
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With two, He covered His feet.
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And with two, He flew.
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Now again, why? Well, this is what tells us about their worshiping angels.
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These angels are in the presence of God, so they cover their face so as not to look at God directly.
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They're in the presence of God.
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They cover their feet.
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Why cover the feet? Well, do you remember the story of Moses when he went before the burning bush? What did the bush say? Take thy sandals from off thy feet for the ground in which you are standing is holy ground.
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Right? There's something about our feet which speaks directly of our creatureliness.
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There's something about our feet which speaks of the separation between us and God.
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So, the seraphim, who are in the presence of God, who are worshiping God, are covering those.
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They're covering their creatureliness.
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They're covering their face so as not to look upon Him.
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And they're flying! And the text goes on to say, and one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
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The whole earth is full of His glory.
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Now, I've talked about this before.
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Some of you have probably even sat in on lessons where I've discussed this.
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But it's interesting to say and remind people that the holiness of God, that quality that God possesses, that only He possesses, only God is holy, and that which He declares to be holy.
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God is the only One who can declare something holy.
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He declares us holy ones.
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His holy ones.
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His separate ones.
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But only He can do that.
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But the interesting thing that I love about this verse, and I love pointing it out, is that this is the only thing in all of the Bible that God has ever referred to three times in a row.
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And in the Hebrew language, when you want to stress something, you say it twice.
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And when you want to stress something to the highest degree, you say it three times.
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Think about Jesus when He wanted to stress something.
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Truly, truly, I say unto you.
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And King James says, Verily, verily, I say unto thee.
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The truly, truly is the double.
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I'm saying something important.
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I'm doubling it to tell you how important this is.
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Simon, Simon.
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To say His name twice was to make a point.
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The using of the double was to make something more important.
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But to say it to the third degree was the highest degree.
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So when the angels say, holy, holy, holy, they are saying something about this aspect of God's character.
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In fact, there is no other place in the Bible where God has called anything to the third degree.
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He's never called love, love, love.
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He's never called justice, justice, justice.
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He's never called grace, grace, grace.
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Mercy, mercy, mercy.
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Anything else.
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Nothing.
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Only holy, holy, holy.
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Which is why I've often said that His holiness is the thing, it's the aspect of His character which undergirds all other aspects.
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When we talk about God's love, it's holy love.
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We talk about God's grace, it's holy grace.
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We talk about God's justice, it's holy justice.
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Because it undergirds all that which is God's.
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All of His attributes are designated by His holiness.
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Now, it says in verse 4, "...and the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of Him who called, and the house was filled with smoke." Smoke there representative of God's presence.
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It's all through the Old Testament.
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We see smoke as symbolic of the presence of God.
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You remember the time of the Shekinah glory? What was this Shekinah? It was a cloud that God's presence was in.
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It was over the tabernacle.
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We understand this is representative here.
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And verse 5, this is Isaiah's response.
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Now, if you listen to modern televangelists, I talk about this Wednesday nights.
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If you're here Wednesday night, you're going to get double shot.
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But this is Wednesday night.
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I talk about how a lot of guys, you'll hear them, and they'll say, you know, I spoke to God and I saw Him face to face and we had a conversation.
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I saw one televangelist tell people that he had been to heaven, he'd walked through heaven, he told one lady he saw her dead child, which is just terrible, and that he had seen all these things, that he went up, high-fived Jesus on his way to see God, and talked to God, and had all these conversations with God, and just like a day at the beach.
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But what does Isaiah say when he actually sees God? Because I tell you, it wasn't what this televangelist was saying.
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What does Isaiah say when he sees God? And I said, woe is me.
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Last week we talked about the word woe.
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We talked about the fact that the word woe...
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Remember how last week we were talking about in Psalm 12 about how the evil people strut when wickedness is exalted? That was the subject of last week's sermon.
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And how there was a declaration of woe against the evil.
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Well, Isaiah is proclaiming woe upon himself.
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Woe is me.
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The same word of judgment which is used throughout the Scripture for the most intensive judgments.
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Jesus said, Woe to you, Chorazon! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if that which was done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented.
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The word woe is judgment.
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And Isaiah says it about himself.
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He says, woe is me! Why? For I am lost.
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This is a prophet of God, y'all.
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This is six chapters in.
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So he's been at this a little while.
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What does he say of himself? I'm lost.
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I'm a man of unclean lips.
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And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
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For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
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And what did he see when he saw the King, the Lord of hosts? He saw himself for what he really was.
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He saw himself in the condition he really was in.
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He experienced the fear of God.
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I think about Simon Peter.
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Remember when Simon Peter first met Jesus? What did Simon say? Jesus got in the boat with him.
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They went out.
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He said, we've been casting our nets all night.
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He said, we'll cast them on the other side.
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He cast them, brought in all those fish.
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What was Simon's first reaction? Thanks, Jesus! You're the best fisherman ever! I'm going to hire you! It might be what we think today.
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You're the best! He said, depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.
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He said, leave me be! I can't stand to be in Your presence because I know who I am! I know my heart! I know who You are now and I can't take it! And what did Jesus say? He says, no, follow Me and I'll make you fishers of men.
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And I'll change you.
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But you see, Simon understood the fear of God.
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At that moment, his life changed.
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But it started with an understanding of who he was.
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It started with a broken and contrite heart before God.
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And it's the same thing we see with Isaiah.
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Woe is me! I am lost! My people are lost! Because we are, without excuse, sinful people.
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And beloved, I'm ashamed to say that we too, we're in a condition now where there's a loss of the fear of God.
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It seems to not exist.
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And even in the places where it's supposed to be preached, it is mocked, scorned and ridiculed.
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I have no surprise as to why there has not been a vast following for preaching like this.
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Because preaching like this is not the type of preaching that encourages mass audiences.
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Because mass audiences are looking for one thing.
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They're looking for that which satisfies the masses.
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And this ain't it.
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People do not want to be broken over their sin.
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People do not want their hearts broken over who they are.
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They do not want to fear God.
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It's easier to have a God you don't have to fear.
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It's easier to have a God whose robe doesn't fill the temple.
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It's easier to have a God who doesn't shake the foundations of our lives.
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It's so much easier to have a God who is an accessory.
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You know, that's how Jesus is talked about today.
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He's talked about it as an accessory.
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If you listen to a lot of preaching, it is almost the same as an infomercial.
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You need to take Jesus, because He'll make you happy.
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He'll make you feel better.
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He'll make your life better.
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It's the same as any new item that's on the local infomercial.
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If you get this, things will be more convenient.
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It'll be better.
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It'll be happy.
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You'll make more money.
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And there's no fear of God.
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Thankfully, this is not the end.
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Isaiah didn't just pronounce judgment upon himself and that was it.
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Isaiah pronounces judgment on himself and then God makes a motion toward him that changes him.
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Beloved, this is the thing that I want to stress today because our text for the morning is the fear of the Lord.
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It's the beginning of wisdom.
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The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
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And beloved, I'm going to stretch that a little.
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I'm going to say the fear of the Lord is the beginning of salvation because it's what precedes our calling out for a Savior.
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We recognize who we are.
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We recognize our need for salvation.
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And we call out for that salvation.
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That is what Isaiah has done.
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I am judged rightly before you, God.
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Woe is me.
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Now what? Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.
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Now, I don't know much, but I know this.
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That is hot.
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Because the angel had to use tongs.
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A lot of people miss that.
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We read right by it.
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But the angel picked it up with tongs.
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So that's hot.
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And he touched my mouth and said, Behold, this has touched your lips.
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Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.
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Now, beloved, I want to make something clear.
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This is a unique experience in the life of Isaiah which is being told to us not as an example, not that we are all going to have this same vision of God where God is going to come and literally touch us and cleanse us, but it is a prefiguring of the work of Christ that Christ does do in us wherein when we come to Him in faith, when He opens our heart and we believe and trust in Him, He cauterizes our sin, if you will, just as He did with Isaiah.
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He cleanses us of our sin.
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Do you know what cauterizing is? Do you know what the whole idea behind that is? If you get an infection, well, if you burn it, it will kill all the infection.
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That's the picture here.
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Isaiah said, My mouth is sinful, so God burns His mouth as a picture of His cleansing.
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That's what baptism is.
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Baptism doesn't save anyone.
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I know plenty of people that have gotten wet and just as sinful on the way out as they were on the way in.
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You know, they go in, they get wet, they come out, they're still dirty because they haven't had a change of heart.
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But baptism is a picture.
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What's it a picture of? Romans 6 tells us, having been buried in baptism with Christ, we've now been raised to new life.
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That is why we baptize by immersion.
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We put you under the water because we believe it is symbolic of the death and the resurrection.
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There's a picture in that.
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So here we have Isaiah.
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He's been cleansed.
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He's been brought to a new place.
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His atonement has been made.
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And in verse 8, I heard the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then I said, here am I.
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Send Me.
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Beloved, this is a picture of what salvation is supposed to look like.
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Because think of what has happened.
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Isaiah has seen who God really is.
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He's understood who He really is.
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He's called out a proclamation of judgment upon Himself.
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Woe is me! Lord, I am undone! What does God do? God provides for him an atonement and then an assignment.
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And beloved, that, if you are a believer, is where you are.
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Your sins have been atoned for.
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The blood of Christ has covered you.
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You have been washed in the blood of the Lamb.
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You now live a life for Christ.
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But you are not supposed to live that life for Christ, just flailing along.
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God has given you a purpose.
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He has given you a gift.
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He's given you a calling.
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He's given you a mission.
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And now we are supposed to continue to live in that same fear we had in the beginning, following after Him.
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But the fear changes.
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It goes from being a fear of His presence to being a fear of not hearing those words.
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Well done, my good and faithful servant.
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Because that's the desire we should have now.
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And I tell you, that's the life I want to live.
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That's the life I hope you want to live.
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That when you finally see Christ, when you finally cross over into your new life with Him, that we would hear those words.
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Well done, my good and faithful servant.
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Because as followers of Christ, yes, we still live in awe of Him.
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We still live with that reverential fear of Him.
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But now our fear is what? Our fear is wanting to hear those words.
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We don't have to fear.
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We don't have to fear that.
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Because if we are in Christ, there is therefore now no condemnation for us.
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And when we face Him, we will hear those words.
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Beloved, the picture of Isaiah is a picture of our own salvation.
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It begins with fear and ends with a calling.
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The calling to live for Christ.
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Do we live for Him? Do we live with a desire to please Him? Or do we, like the world, live without the fear of God? That's a question only you know for certain.
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Let's bow our heads and go to the Lord in prayer.
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Our Father and our God, we thank You for this opportunity to have heard Your Word.
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We thank You that You have ministered to us through it.
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And I do pray, O Lord, that our desire would be to please You.
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That we would have a reverential fear of You.
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And Lord God, that we would live a life that continues to understand the blessing that You've given us in reaching down into the muck and mire of our sin, taking us out, cleansing us, and seating us in heavenly places with Christ.
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We thank You, Father, for the many blessings that You've given us.
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And I do pray, Lord, if there is someone here who has never heard the Gospel, that this morning they have heard it.
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That they have heard it clearly.
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That we are sinners.
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That on our own, we can do nothing.
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But by Your grace, You have provided us a sacrifice through Your Son, Jesus Christ.
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And that He has promised that His sacrifice was made on behalf of everyone who believes.
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And I pray, Lord, if there is one here who does not believe, that You would draw them to Yourself and use this preaching of the Gospel to change hearts.
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And for the believers, Lord, I pray that You would use this preaching of the Gospel to encourage them toward a closer walk with You.
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In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
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Let us stand now for our closing song.
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If anyone has a need for prayer, please come as we sing.