The Fear of God (06) Shoes for the Road — Don Courville

Passage that Joshua read in Psalms 139 is an amazing passage of scripture. If you go back and look at that, David is sharing his heart on understanding God, and it was quite a understanding when you put in the light of his life the tremendous responsibility that he had, the privilege, and the awful terror of his own failure.

And it's in our failures that we really come to understand ourself, and that without the Lord we cannot do anything. Well, I'm not here to be dramatic, and I don't think I will be. I started this series on the fear of the Lord several weeks ago after studying it for several months, at least two or three, and every week it's just been, OK, I'm done.

And I'm not done. As a matter of fact, God showed me something yesterday afternoon that so propelled me I had to stay up until I couldn't stay up anymore last night. Normally I have a sermon. I jot down my notes.

Sometimes I preach, especially in other places, without notes, but I like to do it here so I stay right on track, and sometimes I just get way off. Usually six or seven pages, but as I've studied this week, I've got, I think, nineteen pages.

Yeah, I'm up to nineteen. I'm just jotting down things that God was teaching me, and all week I was on a certain text, just meditating on that, studying everything I could about that text, asking God, What's this mean?

Looking at the Scriptures, looking up the words, the meaning of the words, looking at everything I could in the context. And that text was Acts 9 .31, Then had the children rest throughout all Judea, and Galilee, and Samaria, and were edified, and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied.

And so all week, even up until yesterday, I had to go out of town for a while. I was asking God, What does this mean? And studying it. Well, if you want a title for this message in this series of the fear of God, it would be Shoes for the Road.

Shoes for the Road. Walking, generally you want some shoes. Walking in the fear of the Lord is a concept that the church has lost. And it wasn't until yesterday afternoon, I've been listening to this message over and over again by A. W. Tozer on an audio book.

I hadn't found all the tapes, so I kept listening to the same thing over and over. And in his book The Pursuit of God, he has one section over there on the universal presence. And finally, I don't know, I must have listened to that thing 7, 8, 9 times.

It hit me yesterday afternoon what he was talking about. And it's like when he did, it just opened up a whole thing. When I woke up this morning, my mind just, all these scriptures were just racing through there, coming there one after the other.

It wasn't racing, I mean, they were just coming by God and just showing me these things. Now I'm going to share with you on the subject of the fear of God and walking in the fear of the Lord, some things that God has showed me.

I don't exactly know how to do this. There's not a lot of razzle and dazzle. I don't have a lot of stories and illustrations planned. And it wasn't until I got back, a lot of this is all foundational, it's all good that I've got.

But back at the back, last night, and I'm not even finished. As I was going through this and I was getting some lessons, I've got five lessons out of all of this on walking in the fear of the Lord. So I think I'll give you a little bit of the foundation and I may jump over to one of them that was the most impressive to me.

I was sharing with a couple of the men while we were back there praying. I might at least share that one with you. But I want to just come back and go through some basic things so that we can be where God wants us to be.

Revival, Spiritual Pride, and Walking in the Fear of the Lord

A lot of you know I'm interested in revival. I've been interested in this area and the revival ministry for twenty-five years. God has opened up for me to travel a lot, share in some different countries and a lot of the states, be in a lot of churches and get into a lot of situations and be in my own situations.

And I think that what I have been shown today is really putting it all together of twenty-five years. And we've touched on that last week on the subject of spiritual pride, walking in the fear of the Lord and the subject of spiritual pride, which I already shared with you last week.

If it really did something for you in the hour and twenty minutes or whatever, all week, it was rough. When God goes into your heart. Now, we started this thing off with Isaiah a while back talking about the Lord Jesus in Isaiah chapter 11 and his walking with the Lord.

And this one verse is what had stuck out after also Ecclesiastes 12, 13, where Solomon gave the conclusion that the whole matter was to fear the Lord and walk in his commandments. But this thing here, I really got to meditating on it.

And if you meditate on the word, you can learn a lot. And shall make him a quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. Shall make him, this was Christ, shall make him a quick understanding in the fear of the Lord.

Now, that ties in and even gives more light after what I've learned this week. And so, walking in the fear of the Lord is walking in the presence of Christ. When Christ is there, it makes a difference.

In the text that I was meditating on, the church was walking in the fear of the Lord in the comfort of the Holy Ghost and they were multiplied. They were edified and they were multiplied. So, what I want to do after last week, I thought, Lord, it'd be good for us to maybe cover some of the positive aspects of walking in the fear of the Lord.

We've been, we've gone through a lot of the rough stuff, but there are such powerful aspects of walking in the fear of God that I've just been so impressed just to give you one. There are just dozens.

You go get your, go get them. In thy presence is fullness of joy. And in the book of Acts, you look there, in the presence of the Lord, they had boldness. They didn't care. They wouldn't throw you in jail.

We don't care. They were living and walking in the presence of God in the fear of the Lord. And this is what it said. They continued their walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost.

They were a terror to the devil because they didn't fear anybody but God. And their fear was a holy reverential worship. Just like the one Romanian pastor, the communist didn't know what to do with him.

So when they threatened to kill him, praise the Lord. I'll just go be with Jesus and my blood's going to spread this message more than I could ever do it on my own. Go ahead. And they were afraid to kill him.

The Manifest Presence of God

So what are the practical aspects of walking in the fear of the Lord? There's one main thing and that is the presence of the Lord. And there's one aspect of the presence of the Lord that just really opened up my eyes to see some things I never really understood.

I'm always looking to learn new things. Not to just learn new things, but I want to know new things. Paul was continually pressing forward that they might know Christ. That it all revolves around not knowing things, but knowing Christ.

New things that Christ is teaching us all the time. So it would be good to ask ourselves these questions. Are these aspects in my life that come out of knowing the Lord and walking in the fear of the Lord?

Are these aspects in our church? These things are important. Now let me go back over Acts just for a little bit and give you some background. And at some point before, I don't know how far we'll go. I don't know anything except I'm here.

I don't know if we'd do this next week. I didn't, I thought it was done last week, every week. But the Lord hadn't turned me loose. And I've been so blessed. All week though, I was struggling, going, digging, what is it?

But yesterday after God began to show me about his presence, that it's his presence, and I saw that walking in the fear of the Lord. But one special thing about his presence that really does something.

I'm going to go ahead and share it with you in case I die. The presence of the Lord is always with us. He said he'd never leave us. But I want to at least get this out in case the Lord comes and gets me before I get done.

It is the manifest presence of the Lord that just brought such powerful results. I'll give you an illustration. When the disciples were in the boat, Jesus was in the boat. He was present, right? And he was sleeping, right?

At that particular story. And the storm come up, right? And God brought the storm up, right? And they're bailing and grabbing sails and ropes and trying to do everything they could to save their lives.

And finally, at the last moment, just before it's all over, they run to Jesus and wake him up. And don't we do this? And when he woke up, they experienced the manifest presence of God. And Peter, was that the story where he said, depart from me for I am a sinful man?

I don't know if that's the same story, but it's the manifest presence of God that brought such a fearful understanding of his presence. He was there with them. They saw it like Jesus walking down the road to go heal somebody.

And the woman walks up behind him. She's in the presence of God. But when she reached out and touched the hem of his garment, she experienced the manifest presence of God in her life. And it was this manifest presence of God in the life of the early church that brought such fear upon the other people around them that they wouldn't even join them.

But yet they had a great respect for them. It was because God's manifest presence was there. And it's the fact that the manifest presence of God has gone in the church that the world doesn't respect us.

They don't care. And we're content to live without the manifest presence of God. I don't want to live my life without the manifest presence of God. And as God opened up to me this thing, and I look back over my life, I say, wow, God, I can see the times now.

I understand that there were times I knew God was present. There's been a few times when I was praying. I was praying for a brother one time, agony, off in another church, in a room, praying for hours for God, and God's presence came there.

And he took me into an agony of intercession for this brother. I mean, Jesus, he didn't show up. I didn't see him, but his presence was felt in there, and the anointing of his presence was powerful as I interceded for my brother.

That, those times are rare. They do happen. One time I was praying, and I was asleep, and half-asleep in a warm trailer, and the manifest presence of God came as I'm praying. I'm preparing to go preach in a jail service, and Jesus came.

I was asleep and half-asleep and just sort of there, but he came. And when I preached in that jail, the anointing of God was so powerful that all those prisoners there gave their life to Christ. They just recognized the presence of God there, and it come out of that experience.

And you've had those. I've had several of those, but they're rare. I don't have a lot of them, but there is the manifest presence of God in our daily life that gives a testimony of Christ. Now, I'm sharing all these things.

I hadn't planned to share anything. Matter of fact, I'm sitting over there saying, God, I don't know what I'm going to say. You're just going to have to give me something to say. I've got these things that I've been learning, but you give me what you want.

I don't have stories and illustrations. You want me to share something. The manifest presence of God gives a testimony of the presence of Christ in your life. It gives a testimony of the presence of Christ in the life of the church, and when we don't have it, we go to substitutes, don't we?

Because the manifest presence of Christ affects people. It draws them to Christ. People love Jesus. They were drawn to Him by the thousands in Galilee. They could feel His love. They didn't feel the condemnation that they felt with the Pharisees.

And what did the Pharisees do? They repelled, and the people only come around them because they had to. The terror that they had was not the terror of the Lord. The fear of the Lord was the fear of man.

But when Jesus came walking, they experienced His presence, and then when He reached out and raised the dead man, or He reached out and healed the blind, then they experienced the manifest presence of Christ.

Have you had the manifest presence of Christ in your life? Can you look at some times and you see where God's presence manifested itself forth and touched somebody? Are you willing to live without that?

I'm not. And it may get you into trouble. With me, it just probably will, because the devil don't like it. Because he doesn't like Jesus, he doesn't like anything of Jesus to come out of your life. That's why sometimes so many Christians, if they're even Christians, don't bother the devil at all.

Your life, your prayer life, your spiritual life should bother the enemy. It should. So don't get all upset if you get attacked. That's part of the game. And Jesus, as He walked amongst people, drew people to Himself by His manifest presence.

All He did was exhibit God to them. All He did is exhibit God's love and care and concern for them. And He drew. Now, this passage in the book of Acts, going back from the background just quickly, in Acts chapter 2 and 43, Acts 2, 43, with the presence of God there and things happening and the preaching of Christ, Peter is the main preacher there.

And in 38, he's saying, repent, be baptized. He come on down through here. The word of God is working. In 41, they're gladly receiving those words and they're baptized. 3 ,000 added. In 42, they continued steadfastly in the apostle doctrine and fellowship and breaking the bread and prayers.

And what's going on? Jesus' presence is manifested there in the person of the Holy Spirit. He's the operating practical area of our life, is the Holy Spirit. Yesterday, did you have some conversation with God, the Holy Spirit?

If you didn't, you didn't walk in the Spirit, because that's walking in the Spirit. It's talking to the Lord and Him talking to you in your Spirit. And it goes on all the time for a Christian that's walking in the Spirit.

And they continued steadfastly in the apostle doctrine. And what happened? And fear came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And not only was there just fear come upon every soul and the wonders and signs, but it affected their heart.

And if it doesn't affect your heart, it's not going to affect your pocketbook. Because the next thing you see, and they all believe were together and had all things common. They sold their possessions, goods, part of them to all men, to every man had need.

And they continued daily. They were in one accord. All of this is a byproduct of the manifest presence of God. It's powerful. It's wonderful. All of a sudden, they are experiencing the presence of God in the midst of them.

And He lived in their hearts. And He's living through this life and that life. And they're having a powerful time like they've never had before. It's because Jesus has come in the person of the Holy Spirit.

And that's the comfort. The comfort. Walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost. Are we content to live without the comfort of the Holy Spirit? And I'll have to get over to that.

I don't even know if I get over to that today. But notice something else. In 45, "...and sold their possessions and goods and part of them to all men as every man had need.". Here, look at the trickle-down effect of the fear of God.

It broke them free of the fear of their finances. Where they didn't have to have that big savings account in case God didn't help them. In case God failed, they had this. Now all of a sudden, they are free.

They're set free. Sacrificial giving. You can go on down. Look at 46 of one accord. 47, "...praising God and having favor with all the people.". It's the presence of Christ. It's the presence of Christ in your life that draws the unsaved.

And many times it's sacrificial. It's something you're doing. Something that you wouldn't normally do. That you wouldn't like to do. But you're doing it because you're living in the presence of God. And you're obeying the Holy Spirit.

And He tells you to do this. And you do it. And people say, wow! Nobody's ever done it. And you get your stories. I mean, it may cost you to let God manifest Himself. Are you willing to do that? Back in the days when I used to pick up a whole lot more hitchhikers than I do now.

This is back in the 70s. That was wonderful. You got you a captive. He couldn't get out unless he's going to crawl out the window and jump out. But so many of them were the byproduct of praying. Getting in praying with God and then going about my business.

And then sometimes it would cost me to do that. One time we're coming back. I had a jail ministry. I was in a jail out on the east side of Omaha. We're coming back and picked up the hitchhiker. He had another guy or two with me.

And this guy was going somewhere. And we drove way out into Iowa. But it paid off. One time on a cold, wintry type night. It was rainy. It's cold. I'm heading back home. And here's a man and a woman. And I tell you this story before with a little child out there in the rain trying to hitch a ride.

God said, pick him up. The flesh said, Lord, I'm tired. I want to go home, go to bed. But I stopped and I picked him up and found out where they're going. 70 miles down to Peru. I think it was Peru or Purdue.

Purdue maybe it was. There was a university there. And so God said, take him home. It was a manifest presence of God doing it. So I did. I took him home. They invited me in for hot chocolate, shared Christ with him.

They believed on the Lord. We're saved. I think they were saved. You really don't know who saved or not. But it was what impressed them was Christ doing something unusual. We don't like to do those things, but it was his manifest presence that affected them enough to repent of their sins and turn their life over to Christ and rejoice.

It cost. Now, just going on down through there, look at four chapter four, just to give you the background on this four and 13, four and 13. Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled and they took knowledge of them that they'd gone to the seminaries.

No, that they had not gone to their seminaries, but they had been with Jesus. They had been with Jesus. Look at verse 39. And they had the boldness there. It's the manifest presence of God in our life that would bring forth the boldness to share Christ.

Christ is with you. He'll never leave you. He said he would. That's his word. You're sealed into the day of redemption. He'll never leave you. But it's when his manifest presence comes out, it affects people.

It just does. We just had a neighbor that moved a couple months ago, maybe less than that. And God had told us as a family, just love her, just love her. Unusual things, amount of time and sacrifice and things that we would do, living in a bad lifestyle.

But God, the Holy Spirit, said, let my presence be manifested through love. Don't come down and condemn. No, it's love. I believe God to save her someday. But look at 29 there. And now, Lord, behold, there are threatenings and grand things to thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak the word.

With all boldness. There again, it's the boldness of them. Look at chapter 5 and verse 4. Father, remain, was it not, in thine own hand? There's the thing with Ananias and Sapphira and the deal that they pulled off had what kind of effect?

Everybody saw, wow, this God kills people. Everybody, let's get out of here. In verse 5, it says,. And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and gave up the ghosts, and great fear came on all them that heard these things.

Everybody heard about it. The fear of God, the fear of the Lord came. Now look at verse 11. And great fear came upon all the church. After his wife kicked the bucket, great fear came upon all the church, upon as many as heard these things.

So what happens? Everybody gets away from them. They have their little holy huddle. No. Because of the manifest presence of God, the word went forth, and more power. And 12, And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people, and they were all one accord in Solomon's porch, and the rest does no man join himself to them.

But the people magnified them, and believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women. If we don't have the presence of God manifest amongst us, we've got to go get our church growth programs.

And it's our duty to make sure that Christ is known. But we've got to get our church growth programs, and we've got to go out and get them. Jesus said, you go out and preach. Just go preach the gospel and the power, and he'll do the rest.

It says the Lord added. Well, if the Lord's not adding, then we've got to do these things. And so there's signs and wonders. They're one accord. In 13, the ungodly are separating themselves, but they have great respect.

They're coming under conviction. There's high esteem for the church. In verse 14, there is the believers were more added. You keep on going, 15, sick or healed. Wow! Do you think that God could show up in a church and people not know it?

He's here. Where two or three are gathered together in my name, He's there. But when He shows up and when He makes His presence known, you're going to know it. I'm going to know it. How many times can you think of some kind of situation in your own personal life where you had a need, a personal need, and God showed up and took care of that need?

And you know God did it. One time, I had a need. A bill was being paid. I can't remember if it was one bill or several bills. I think it was one bill. It was $629. And all of a sudden, one day in the mail came all this money from somewhere.

I had a tax return from somewhere way back there. They figured something out. And all of a sudden, somebody sent me a gift here and there. All of a sudden, I got all this money to come in the mail. I'm going to open it up, put it there, add it all up.

Would you add it up to? Surely, it wouldn't have been $629. That was the manifest presence of God personally. He loves to do things like that. But first of all, He likes this to get us needy. We have an amazing God.

And you remember in Acts 19, I was looking over there at the sons of Sceva. They see all the miracles that are going on. In 1911, God brought special miracles by the hands of Paul so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs, aprons, and disease.

You think Paul is doing that? No, it's Jesus living through His life. You know, Jesus still does that. He still heals people. Over in India, they're seeing such miracles happen over there. Because of our theological correctness, we say, I don't believe in that.

Miracles ceased and all that. They haven't. But they're seeing this happen. Whole villages are coming to Christ. God is manifesting Himself through these people that are surrendered to Him, which is one of the conditions back here we get to it.

God's not going to manifest Himself to a half-hearted Christian. He's going to manifest Himself to those of us that are completely surrendered to Him. And so these sons of Sceva, they see what's going on and say, looks like a good deal.

Let's try it. And so in the name of Jesus, they try casting out some demons. You know what happened to the demons. They said, we know Paul and we know Jesus, but who are you? And they jumped on them. And that's what we're doing.

In a lot of our places, we're inviting the power of Satan to come in by trying to imitate the power of God. The demons are waiting for some kind of opportunity. And we're a mess. And you know, they got into a lot of trouble.

But in 17, after God straightened them out and the demons, they jumped in them and they took off. It says they were naked and wounded. They took off running. And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus.

Then fear fell on them all and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. Do you see how this works? The name of the Lord Jesus was magnified and many that believed came and confessed and showed their deeds.

And many of them also, which curious arts brought their books together and burned them before them all. We were in a church one time. They were living there and working in that church. And there was a cleansing time when we went through the houses, the homes of the church, everything that had any kind of connotation or connection with satanic or demonic power or whatever was brought, went out to a farm in the country and they had a burning just like this.

I can't remember how many thousands of dollars. Somebody said, I can't remember, maybe $50 ,000 or so worth of all of this, this movies and stuff, some of very demonic stuff and stuff that Satan likes to use, just burning, burning books.

And the word of God grew. Look at 20. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed through the manifest presence of God. Now our text in verse 31. And you know, the story, this is where, where Saul got saved.

He had his encounter with him and ends up going and Barnabas takes him under his wing and he goes through all of this stuff. This is where this come about. And this is where 31 acts 931 ends up. Actually the chapter doesn't end up there.

But in 31 after Saul was saved, it says, then had the churches rest. Now it didn't last for long. I was talking to a friend of mine in another state and said, what's going on? And wasn't too much going on.

And I said, well, I got a lot of stuff going on. But God gives us those times. I said, God gives us those times of rest. And you're in a time of rest. You have to have the, I was taught by a godly principle long time ago.

One of the three men that mentored me, he said, a church has to have rest times. Those churches that just go, go, go, go, go, go out the roof and they just go apart. He said, it's inclined and plateau.

I said, brother, you're in a plateau time. Enjoy that time. Rest up. Because a lot of times it's just things. And God uses this brother mightily, mightily. He sends me 2000 people. I don't know if they really got saved down in South America preaching.

He's a man that knows the power of the spirit of God. But rest was a result of Saul's conversion. It was just temporary. And there's the five words there. Main words, rest, edified, walking in fear of the Lord, comfort of the Holy Spirit, and multiplied.

Now, walking in the fear of the Lord means a God-governed people. Because God's presence, he's not going to sit back, okay, the deacons, they can run this show. Elders, they can run things. Maybe the janitor wants to run it or a church, somebody.

No. When a church is walking in the fear of God, the church is under the governing of God. And the church will appear to be totally weak, totally ineffective, totally maybe not know what they're doing.

But if the presence, because this is the way God works. A God-governed people. And that's because it's his body. And that's because when he's going to work, he's going to add to the church. He knows how to do that.

And so what we do, we try to go off and do it ourself if God's not there. So there's great fear on the church. Let me give you this principle. I'm sure you've never heard it before. But maybe you have.

But we just don't pay attention to it. Here it is. Matter of fact, it's an old principle. And it's this. God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.

Would you believe that's in the Bible? Psalms 89 .7. God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints. I would fear to fail him. I would fear to not please him. Wouldn't you? Edified. Let me go through some of these terms.

Basically, that means to be built up. And this is what God's going to do. He's going to build up the church. Essential thing. The devil's business to tear down. God's business to build up. Devil's business to divide.

God's business is to unify. So you can tell who's on God's side and who's on the devil's side by what they're doing. By their fruits you shall know them. And walking in the fear of the Lord. The church is not complete at this point.

And I don't think it's complete yet. He's still working on me. I've got a feeling he's still working on you. But it's in progress. It's looking forward to finality. But the church, even though it's not complete, is invincible.

It survived 2 ,000 years. Amazing, isn't it? It survived. But persecution hasn't wiped it out. There have been men, world rulers, that set about to do it. Worldliness does more damage than anything, but it still hasn't wiped it out.

It does great damage. The disease, the divisions, and all the fire that comes on them. But like a mighty army, it just keeps rolling on. It keeps growing on. Walking in holiness. Now, walking in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

Walking means going on your way. And Jesus gave us the commandment that as we go, we're to preach to God. But walking on your way, walking in the fear of God, it means it's walking on purpose. This is something I'm studying going through here.

Walking on purpose to pursuing. Paul said that I might know Him and the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings. It's walking on purpose. When I get up in the morning, the first thing I try to do is get my brain together to where it can think and then listen to what He has to say to me.

Does God have anything to say? I get in my Bible. Does God have anything to say to me? My purpose is to walk in the ways of the Lord. And it's walking in truth. It's walking in obedience and all these different things.

And our purpose is to persuade. When we go through the day, it's not, oh wow, God, I survived today. Nobody hit me. Nobody ran over me. No bill collectors got me. I made it through the day. Oh, thank you.

Nothing happened. I had no hits. I had no runs. I had no errors. I had no impact. We're going to have some hits and we're going to have some runs and we're going to have a lot of errors. But here's what Paul said.

Listen to this in 2 Corinthians. This man had got so plugged in to God that God was his life. And it so terrified him, that experience he had, wherever he got converted in there. It so terrified him and affected him, encountering the manifest presence of God.

He never got over it. It amazes me these Christians, they can get saved and get over it. I don't think they get saved. Now here, what are we to be doing? Here's what he said in 2 Corinthians 5 .11. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest unto God, and I trust are made manifest in your consciences.

He said, knowing, he experienced the terror of the God, knowing the terror of the Lord. In 14 he said, for the love of Christ constraineth us. He was not operating in, oh, I'm so afraid of God. No, knowing the terror of the Lord and what God had did for him, he was so propelled and his purpose was to expand the love of God.

Because this is what he said in 14, for the love of Christ constraineth me. It means it holds me fast, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead, and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again.

We've got a different type of Christianity that's taken over the church of unsaved Christians, isn't that something? Somebody mentioned in the testimony, I've got it in writing, they said they were an unbelieving believer.

There's also a section in hell for professing Christians. But anyway, this is what the fear of God did in Paul's life. It put purpose in his life. It propelled him. And not only that, in verse 15, 14 and 15, you come on down to 18, look at that.