Knowing the Fear of the Lord — Al Whittinghill

Experiencing the Holy Presence of God

I wonder if you've ever been in a meeting like we sang earlier when that song all rise and the presence of the Holy One, if you've ever been in a meeting with a group of men in prayer or just with two or three alone, just talking or maybe in a room, just fellowshipping.

And all of a sudden you are so aware of the presence of God, it's just like an invasion of his presence. It's just a strange something comes over the group and there's an unmistakable holy hush, almost an embarrassing silence, a sense of awe.

And what happens when that takes place? What happens? I mean, people get up and start singing these little gay little happy little songs. Not necessarily. I'll tell you, the times that that's happened to me, I remember us all just stretching out on the floor and sheer silence laying before God and then abandonment coming to hearts and unashamed worship and a sense of awe and freedom and release.

And it's those moments you can't capture and you certainly can't counterfeit true amazement. Well, that's kind of what the Lord wants us to live in moment by moment and too bad they're seasonal. And that's what I want to talk about this session this morning.

We started last night with setting before us the true nature of God's love toward us and its greatness in the Father's love unconditionally toward his own creation, his plan. Then we talked about being sensitive to him, knowing what he wants in his calling for us, his leading in our ongoing experience of walking with him and being sensitive as we remain on this earth to the will of God, to the way of God, to the work of God and to the people of God.

The Fear of the Lord as a Central Biblical Theme

Now, there's a word for all that summed up in Scripture, and it's spoken of more than even the love of God in the Scripture, believe it or not, and it's what God wants for you and me. Did you know that this truth has has an effect on the heart that once you see it, I promise you, it'll grip your heart and you can't get away from it.

I've been meditating in this for about two months. I tried to think on other things, but I just can't. I wake up in the night thinking, thinking about it. It's overwhelming to me. It's not really even this morning a message as much as it is a body of truth.

I mean, it is going to be a lot of Scripture on a certain issue that's on God's heart. It's dear to his heart that I trust will grip you and you'll never be the same. And I hope you'll let it do what he wants it to do.

I urge you to take down these references. You probably will not be able to turn to them before we go to another, but I'd urge you to write them down and take notes or prayer and reflection will give you enough in this session to feed you later as you meditate in the Scripture on this absolutely vital and needful topic.

Did you know there's three hundred and sixty five fear knocks in the Bible? Do you know that one for every day? What about leap year? Well, rejoice evermore. You can take that one. But fear has been a negative force in so many of our lives.

We've grown up in different kinds of fear and we've all suffered from it. Therefore, as a man, we may be reluctant to to really be open when we're told that there is a kind of fear that we not only should have, but that we are commanded by God over and over in the Scriptures to have.

We're not really open to anything that sounds like fear, but you see all other fears in our lives that are harmful, that we have result from not having this one fear. It's the reason. And if we've lost this biblical fear, it will give rise to a thousand lesser harmful fears.

It's called in the Scriptures the fear of the Lord. And as I said earlier, it's mentioned more than the love of God. Our harmful fears arise. Get this from unworthy thoughts of God. All harmful fear in your life and mine is a result of a lack of knowing who God is in some portion of his character or his revealed will or word.

It's a distrust. It's a disregard. It's a disrespect that may be purposeful or even unconscious, but it's of God. So the godly fear that is proper to a believer, it arises from a right view and a reverence for the character of God.

That's what happens. And a supreme desire for his favor of this one that has been revealed to us graciously. And once we have the fear of the Lord, if you fear God, you'll fear no man. If you fear God, nothing else can move you.

It's a it's in the sense of the presence of God. Our heart is filled with awe, like in that meeting when God just moves in. And all of a sudden, all human talk is put aside. Human plans wither and they're just gone.

And suddenly there's no time and everyone's on their face and they're silent. They don't know what to say. And they weigh their words carefully because we are aware that God is there. God is there. I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears over 300 times in the Bible.

The fear of the Lord is connected directly with a gripping awareness of the majesty of God and the holiness of God and the presence of God. And when the sense of God's holiness and majestic presence is not felt, what you will find is that our view of God will grow lower and we will begin, as we said, to supply our own ideas, try to put God in a box and we will lose that sense of awe will become overly familiar with holy God and will become just filled with a great flood of evil in the church.

One of the characteristics in Romans three of ungodliness in that long list, it says there's none that seeks after God. There's none that that does the right thing. None righteous. No, not one. It says in Romans three, 18, there is no fear of God before their eyes.

We have this idea in our century that we're going to just stroll into heaven and run up to Jesus and slap him on the back with our living Bible and say, great to be here, master. And I tell you, it is not going to be like that.

John’s Vision of the Glorified Christ

You think of the Apostle John, who who laid his ear on the chest of Jesus at the Last Supper and who loved he knew he was loved by God and loved by the Lord Jesus. He knew him as well as anyone. He was in that secret group that would go in and see the dead raised.

And he was in Gethsemane. He could have heard the greatest prayers of the Lord Jesus. But yet when he was on Patmos, after having been boiled in hot oil for us for a moment and it didn't kill him, they put him on Patmos in exile.

But he didn't go on exile. He was in the spirit on the Lord's Day and he heard a voice behind him as if it were the sound of great waters and trumpet. And he turned around to see the one that uttered this voice.

It was the Lord Jesus when he turned around, but not the Jesus that he saw that we see in the pictures that we're familiar with. He saw one whose hair was quite like wool, whose face was shining brighter than the sun in its noonday blaze, as is the flame of fire clothed with the garment of light feet as if burning in a furnace.

And John fell at his feet like a dead man. And he knew he better just lay there. And the Lord Jesus came over and says, fear not. In other words, don't have a bad kind of fear. It's OK what you're fearing now, but don't fear an ungodly way.

He says, I am he who lives. I was dead, but I'm alive forevermore. And John exhibited what I will call the fear of the Lord. What is the fear of the Lord? Well, I'll tell you, an old saint named William Newell said to fear the Lord is to have such a due sense of the majesty and holiness and justice and goodness of God that we are afraid in the right sense of offending him.

Awe, Reverence, and the Presence of God

What does it mean to have the fear of the Lord? Well, Psalm 33, verse eight says, let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe to stand in awe of God, to be totally overwhelmed by like what we covered last night when we first began to really see who this amazing God is.

There's a sense of fear that grips our heart. And in Malachi, it equates the fear of the Lord with a sense of awe. He talks about Levi, the priesthood. He says, I will reward him for the fear that he has for me with the way that he held my name in awe.

He'll have a priest standing before me. So it's that attitude of mind of the person who is always aware of the presence of God. There's no gaps in their consecration. Therefore, every word, every action, every thought, every moment is lived in the conscious respect of who it is we're dealing with.

It's a disposition, the fear of the Lord, but it's a gripping sense of who God is. Now, I want to take you through some scriptures and show you the place of the fear of the Lord in the scriptures. Listen to these verses.

Psalm 111, verse 10. Look at what it says. Psalm 111, verse 10. Wake up, guys. Turn in your Bibles. Some of you are sitting there. What did he say? Wake up. You got to be quick. You're going to have to move on here.

Psalm 111, verse 10, that sense of God, it says Psalm 111, verse 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It's the starting point. When I began to see who it is that I'm dealing with and his character, it is the beginning of wisdom.

It's when you begin to experience what you think you know about God. Wisdom is knowledge experienced. It's the practical outworking of the things that you've heard in messages. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding or the beginning of wisdom.

A good understanding have all of they that do his praise. So Proverbs nine, 10 says the same thing about the fear of the Lord. Exactly. It says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

So it's the beginning of wisdom. But not only is the fear of the Lord, the beginning of wisdom. It says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge as well. In Proverbs chapter one, verse seven, I would just advise you to write these down, because by the time you get there, I'll be gone.

Proverbs one, seven, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. So it's the beginning of wisdom. It's the beginning of knowledge. And it also says in Proverbs 15, verse 33, that the fear of the Lord, Proverbs 15, 33.

Listen to this. The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom. And before honor is humility. So God says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning. It's the fear of the Lord is the instruction and it'll keep you going.

Job says this. The fear of the Lord is wisdom and to depart from evil is understanding. So the actual wisdom that God wants is to bring us to the fear of the Lord. Listen to what the book of Ecclesiastes says.

This this really blows my mind, because not only is it the beginning and not only is it fear of the Lord, the way to continue. But listen to Ecclesiastes chapter 12, verse 13 and 14. The wisest man, we call him, wrote these words.

Let us hear Ecclesiastes 12, 13. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man, for God will bring every work into judgment and every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil in the light of who God is and what he has said so clearly.

The conclusion of the whole matter is be astonished by him, hold him in awe, respect him, treat him with the honor, do his name, stand in awe of him and fulfill his word. Give honor to his word and trust him.

Wisdom, Knowledge, and Obedience

So when Solomon was asked by the Lord to pray for anything he wanted, what did Solomon pray for? He didn't pray for riches. He didn't pray for power. He said, Lord, give me wisdom. But the Hebrew word is a listening heart, listening heart.

And the father comes in and says to him in first Kings three, he says, because you didn't ask for wisdom, because you didn't ask for riches and all these other things, I will give to you your request.

I'll give you wisdom and I'll give you the others as well. He gave him the fear of the Lord. He gave him wisdom. He gave him the understanding of God's will. Listen, Isaiah calls the fear of the Lord.

Isaiah 50, excuse me, Isaiah 33, verse six, says the fear of the Lord is his treasure. I'll tell you a heart that fears the Lord is to be desired more than anything else, that fears and respects and owns God as he is.

Proverbs 813, listen to another definition so clearly of the fear of the Lord. Proverbs 813, it says the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. You see, not just to hate evil for what it costs you, but to hate evil because, as Raleigh said last night, because of what it costs, God, what evil costs God.

The Fear of the Lord and Hatred of Evil

You see, there are four motives in a man's four possible motives as to why you leave evil. The first motive is fear of consequence because you're afraid of what will happen. You don't murder someone because you'll be thrown in prison.

You don't steal because it'll ruin your good name that you think you have. So it's fear of consequence. It's a good motive. But I'll tell you what, a lost man can have that motive, fear of consequence.

The second one is pride or self-righteousness. I don't do that because I'm not that kind of person. And we don't do those bad things because we're just we're taught better than that. And and that's an OK motive not to do something because of that.

And that's OK. Our family is not like that. You know, that's that's another motive. But the third motive is a love for God. I love him. I'm grateful for who he is. And I won't do that evil thing, even though I want to.

I won't do it because I love him so much. I won't do it. That's a third motive to leave evil behind. But the fourth motive and the one we're talking about here, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. It's when you come into a harmony with him of heart to where you don't do that thing, not because you're denying yourself like a muzzled dog because you love God, but because you hate that thing.

He's brought your heart into that same hatred. That is the motive God wants in every heart. It's the fear of the Lord. I will not lust after women, Lord, because not because I just still love women, even though I love you and I'm just living in a contradiction.

Oh, God, how can I handle this? You may stop that for the reason that you love God, but he wants the fear of the Lord to free your heart to where you hate to look on a woman like that. That's what God is after.

And that's the fear of the Lord. And that's why it says in Proverbs 14, verse 27, these words. Listen to this about the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life to depart from the snares of death.

The fear of the Lord is like a fountain of pure living water that we drink from and we depart from the snares the devil has for us. Listen to Psalm 19 as it talks about the fear of the Lord in verse seven.

It says the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, making the heart rejoice. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

And then it says the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. So the fear of the Lord endures forever. Look at Psalm 34. Turn there. Psalm 34. I want you to see the promises of God, the promise of God to those who fear him.

Psalm 34, it's an exhortation from the spirit of God. Verse nine. Let's read verse eight first. Oh, let's read verse seven. Oh, let's read the whole song. No, verse seven. The angel of the Lord encamps round about them who fear him and he delivers them.

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Quoted by Peter in first Peter to bless it is the man that trusts in him. Then verse nine. Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for there is no lack or want to those who fear him.

That's a promise that God says, if we fear God, there will be no lack in your Christian life. I believe this difference, that the reason for the lack and the churches of our day, the reason that our gatherings sound more like cattle auctions than worship services, the reason that we just trivial with God and treat him as a cosmic need meter.

I'll tell you, the reason for that is there's no fear of God. We've lost the fear of the Lord. And the reason there's no revival is because we've lost the fear of the Lord. And when revival comes, I can promise you this, that men will be on their faces, first of all, and they will be silent before him.

We will be on our face and reverential. Oh, it'll be a glorious thing. He says here, if you fear God, there'll be no lack in your life. If there's lack in my life or yours, it's because I haven't laid hold fully of what he wants.

Well, look at verse 11. God says, Come, you children, hearken unto me. Listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord. God promises that he wants to teach us the fear of the Lord and it's got to be learned.

So I don't know about you, but I want to learn the fear of the Lord. I want to learn to please him. It's not even an option. It is a command. The Bible commands us. I want you to see it's consistent all the way through.

Israel’s Call to Fear and Serve God

Now, run these references with me and then I'll give you some scriptures after that. But look at Deuteronomy, chapter 10, Deuteronomy, chapter 10, and you'll see God's dealings with Israel. Deuteronomy 10, verse 12, look at this and see it in the context of what we're saying.

And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? But to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways and to love him and to serve the Lord your God with all your soul and with all your with all your heart and with all your soul.

Look at verse 13 to keep the commandments of the Lord and his statutes, which I give you this day for your own good. This is what God wanted for Israel. This one thing to fear the Lord. And it's manifested by walking in his ways, loving him to know God as he is.

Look at God's desire back at chapter four of Deuteronomy. And you see it again. Verse 10, chapter four, verse 10. I feel we can't do anything better than read the word together. He's warning them to take heed to themselves and to not forget and to remember the day that they came to the Mount Sinai.

Verse 10, chapter four, he says, remember the day that you stood before the Lord, your God in Sinai or Horeb when the Lord said to me, gather the people together and I will make them hear my words that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live upon the earth and that they may teach their children.

He wants them to learn to hold him in respect and awe and love him as a God that he is. And he yearns for this. In fact, in chapter five, verse twenty nine, look at God giving a glimpse of his heart. Chapter five, verse twenty nine, he says, oh, that there were such a heart in them that they would fear me and keep my commandments always that it might be well with them and with their children.

When a father fears the Lord and holds the Lord in the proper place, God says, at last I can bless him and I can bless his children. This is such a principle of scripture that the writer in Proverbs wrote these words, write these references down, just just write this down.

Proverbs twenty three, verse seventeen, and it's a command. It tells us Proverbs twenty three seventeen. Do not let your heart envy centers, but be now in the fear of the Lord all the day long. God says you walk in the fear of the Lord all day long.

Christ’s Prayerful Reverence and Christian Holiness

That's what he wants. Did you know that the Lord Jesus Christ, when he was on Earth, had this perpetual, continual fear of God, even though he was God? He manifested it. In fact, one of the most amazing scriptures that I've ever read is in Hebrews five, verse seven.

It describes the prayer life of the Lord Jesus when the days of his flesh. It says Hebrews five, seven in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplication with strong crying and tears unto him who was able to save him out of death.

He was heard in that he feared the Lord. Jesus was heard in his prayer because he had that attitude, even as the God man of fear of God. That is a mysterious scripture. It's an amazing scripture. Look at First Peter, chapter one, the New Testament, not just Deuteronomy, but the New Testament.

First Peter, chapter one. You say, Al, guys can't handle this much scripture in the morning. I know. Isn't it a shame that we've let ourselves get into this situation, that we can't get our minds and hearts on God this early?

But that's the one thing he says to do early in the morning. Wake up and I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go. I'll dig your ear. We need to have him steam shoveled out. First Peter, chapter one, right after the Lord says to gird up the loins of your mind, tie up the loose ends.

And and like obedient children, verse 15, he has called you as holy. So you'll be holy in all your way of life because it's written, I be holy for I am holy. Look at verse 17. This is an exhortation to you and me.

And since you call on the father who, without any respect of persons, red and yellow, black and white, whoever they are, rich, poor, bond, free, stupid, smart, whoever they are, without respect of persons.

He keeps on judging, according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here on Earth in fear. God will not just because he loves you blink at his word and say, I'm not going to have this principle.

If don't be deceived, God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, he will reap whatever he sows to the flesh. If it's corruption, he will reap it. Even if he's Moses, if he forgets to circumcise his son, then God, it says in Exodus, sought to kill Moses.

And his wife came in and said, don't forget to circumcise your son and through the foreskin of his son, his feet and save Moses's life. He began to presume upon God, like so many who are in the ministry today, thinking they can get by with things and cutting corners and forget who we're dealing with.

Pass the time of your temporary dwelling on Earth here in fear, it says. And over in First Peter, chapter two, verse 17, it says, honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God to command. We are to fear God.

Fear in the Early Church

Now, this was the secret and the attitude of the early church. We just missed right over this. I mean, I sit here and think, when was the last time I heard a message on the fear of the Lord? When was the last time I heard anybody talking about the fear of the Lord?

I mean, we want to be happy people. And let me tell you, happy is he who fears the Lord, the Bible says in the way the Bible says to be happy, but not the giddy kind that we think we want. Look at Acts chapter two, and you see on the day of Pentecost, when God swept in and people saw the glory of God, it says in chapter two, verse forty one.

Then they that gladly received his word were baptized the same day. They were added to them. Three thousand souls. They continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and prayers.

And look what happens. And fear came upon every soul. That's the good kind of fear. And many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And the unity that was manifested was absolutely incredible. They were united in the fear of the Lord.

And they began to move away from that. And Ananias and Sapphira began to think that they could get by with a false consecration in the presence of holy God. And they acted like they'd given all their money when they hadn't.

God didn't care if they gave all their money. I don't suspect, but they tried to act like they had and fool the church and lie to the Holy Spirit. And it says that God came upon them, bang, and smote them dead.

If God did this in our day, we'd have a congregation full of dead people. And we ought to be amazed that he hasn't. We ought to be in thanksgiving that he hasn't, because we'd probably be dead, each one of us as well, trying to appear more spiritual than we are.

That's the only thing Ananias and Sapphira did. It says in chapter five, verse 11, after he smote them down dead, it says, and great fear came upon all the church and all the people that heard these things.

They didn't come to church lightly or pretending or whatever else from that point on. Look at Acts chapter nine. This is an amazing verse, Acts chapter nine, verse thirty one. It says, then had the churches rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria, and they were edified and they were walking in the fear of the Lord.

The churches were built up. They were full of rest and they were walking in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit. And they began to multiply. That's what God wants, but the spinal cord of it all was they walked in the fear of the Lord as they began to have edification and rest.

Worship Requires Reverence

So this is expected by God universally for all of his church. Just jot these scriptures down. Listen, we can't worship God without respecting him. We can't do it. You can't worship God if you don't hold him in astonishment.

It says in First Chronicles, I'll just read you these and save you the trouble of having to turn. But you can listen in First Chronicles, chapter 16. Listen to this as it talks about fearing God. First Chronicles 16, 25.

Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. He also is to be feared above all gods for all the gods of the peoples or idols. But the Lord made the heavens. We fear him because he spoke and it was created.

We hold him in astonishment. Glory and honor are in his presence. And verse 30, fear before him, all the earth, all the earth, regardless of who you are, fear God. Psalm 76, verse 11 says, Let all that be around God, let all that be around him bring presence unto him that ought to be feared.

Psalm 76, 11. He ought to be feared. Psalm 96, verse four and verse nine. He is to be feared above all gods. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. One of the songs, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

The next line says, fear before him, all the earth, fear before him. Someone quoted this morning from the book of Revelation, the song of Moses. But and they they actually read it out when they said, great and marvelous are your works.

The Everlasting Gospel in Revelation 14

Who shall not fear thee? When we begin to see who we're dealing with, a sense of awe and fear comes to our heart. Listen to what the angel says after the hundred and forty four thousand are sealed, the kingdom of God is going out in power.

And in Revelation 14, after these are on the mountain, following the lamb wherever he goes. Verse six, listen to what the angel says. Revelation 14. I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to them that dwell on the earth and to every nation and kindred and tongue and people.

This is a day coming, an angel with the everlasting gospel to preach to all that dwell on the earth. It's amazing because angels don't preach the gospel. And here's an angel with the gospel to make known.

And here's he's saying with a loud voice, what does he say? The everlasting gospel, he says, fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come. The commands all the earth to every nation and tribe and territory and tongue is to fear God.

Did you know that God considers it an evil thing for me and for you if we do not fear him? He considers it an evil thing. Listen to Jeremiah to 19. Listen to this. He's talking to his own people, the ones he had redeemed and brought out, he says in chapter two, verse 19, thine own wickedness will correct you.

Your backsliding will reprove you. No, therefore, and see, it is an evil thing and a bitter that you have forsaken the Lord, your God, and that my fear is not in the. Says the Lord, God of hosts, God says, I'm going to let your own mistakes, your own backsliding and your own evil in your heart that you thought you could coexist with, just like the children of Israel in Canaan.

They compromise. They left the things that God says, get rid of. I'm going to let those things be my threshing instrument. I'm going to let them judge your life. You've left them there. You haven't dealt with them and they will reprove you.

It's an evil thing that you've departed from who I really am and that there's no fear in your heart. You see that most of the problems we have are because we have a low view of God and we don't have the fear of God and we think we can coexist with things that God hates.

And he says, I'm going to let those things teach you who I really am. I will never compromise my holiness to show you love. You see, God will never show love at the expense of his holiness. He will wait on us to do it his way.

Motives for Fearing God

Now, what motivation is there for us then to fear the Lord? Well, list these out. These are the motivations for us to fear God. Write this down. Number one motivations to fear God. Number one, Revelation 15.

His mighty works, the holiness and the majesty of God. That's why everyone in this room should fear God. It says in Revelation 15, someone read it this morning. They sang the song of Moses, the servant of God, the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your ways.