I wanted to talk about the fear of the Lord. We read in Isaiah chapter 11 that the Lord Jesus Christ was given. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge, and the fear of the Lord. And shall make him, verse three, make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. And he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears.

And the fulfillment of that is in Hebrews chapter 5, if you turn with me there. Speaking of the glorious priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ, which we just sang about in that wonderful hymn. Twas for us thy blood was spilt, bruised bridegroom, take us wholly, take and make us what thou wilt. Thou hast borne the bitter sentence passed on man's devoted race, true belief. and true repentance are thy gifts, thou God of grace. All of our gifts and all of the blessings are blood-bought blessings.

Listen to what the Lord says of his son, He says he's a priest forever in Hebrews 5, verse 6, after the order of Melchizedek. Listen to this description of our Savior. Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, pleas that is, with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and he was heard, in that he feared.

I've entitled this message, Do I Fear God? If I'm in the Lord Jesus Christ, I feared him perfectly. I feared God in my Saviour. Though he were a son, Yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. You think of the garden and you think of Golgotha and the cross of Calvary. And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him, called of God and high priest after the order of Melchizedek. He feared. He feared perfectly. He feared. as the Spirit declared that he feared.

Do I fear God? In all the trials of life, especially the trials of ministry, I have reason to ponder that because I'm challenged about whether I am someone who is sent of God. And if I am not, you ought to be fearful. You ought to be very fearful. I want to fear God. I want to reverence God Almighty.

The people that Jude speaks of over and over and over again, he calls them ungodly men. Ungodly, ungodly, ungodly, ungodly. And that word ungodly means they are without any reverence for God, without any awe of God, ultimately without any fear of God, without any worship of God, because they do not know him. Those who have met him fear him.

And there is a fear of men, but there's another fear that is men. in the Scriptures a treasure, a blessing and the beginning of wisdom and it's a New Covenant blessing. Turn with me in your Bible, Sir Jeremiah 32. I want you to look at this. Jeremiah 31 is that glorious chapter which speaks of the New Covenant in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we spoke last week about the law that he puts in the hearts of his people. And I will be their God and they shall be my people is the glorious declaration.

But over in Jeremiah 32, He says, let's begin in verse 37. Behold, I will gather them. These are the Jeremiah's writing at the time when Jerusalem was destroyed, being destroyed and had been destroyed and the people were scattered to Babylon and to other places as well. And he says, Behold, I will gather them out of the countries whither I have driven them in my anger and in my fury and in great wrath. And I will bring them again unto this place and I will cause them to dwell safely. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I want to be a child of God. I want him to say to me, you're mine. You're mine. You've always been mine.

And listen to what his promise is in Jeremiah 32 verse 39. And I will give them one heart, and one way that they may fear me forever for the good of them and of their children after them. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good But I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me. Yea, I will rejoice over them, to do them good. I will plant them in this land, assuredly, with my whole heart and with my whole soul."

Isn't that a glorious word written to the children of God in the midst of a desolation and a captivity in a foreign land from which, from a human point of view, there was no escape? Don't you love the I wills of God? I will gather them. I will give them one heart and one way. And the result of having one heart and one way is that they may fear me forever. They may reverence who I am forever.

I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Mark, chapter 4. I want us to, before we begin and go too far... Turn with me to Mark, chapter 4, verse 35. There is a story here which there are several sorts of fear in the scriptures, but there is a natural fear which is in man and it's based on the circumstances around us and it's based on us as fleshly creatures in a world that can do extraordinary things to us.

I just love this story because it speaks of two sorts of fear and I think that's the essence of what the fear that Jeremiah is speaking about there, a godly fear. And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship, and there was also with him other little ships. And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow. And they awake him and say unto him, Master, carest thou not of this? that we perish.

These are experienced fishermen in a boat that was big enough to hold at least 13 people. So it's not just a tiny little thing. It's not the boat that Norman Beth had struggles with the other day. They know about what this is like. Beth was telling me. And they say unto him, they awake him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose and rebuked the wind and said unto the sea, peace be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?

He brought the great wind. He caused them to be terrified. But don't forget what he said in verse 35. He says, let us pass over unto the other side. Will they pass over to the other side? Does it matter how big the storm is? Does it matter how big the wind is? Does it matter how much is against you? Will you pass over? Of course you will. He's promised them that they're going over. That's why he was asleep. Anyway. Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?

Listen to this. And they feared exceedingly. All of a sudden there was a new fear that they had. And it wasn't the fear of drowning in the bottom of the Sea of Galilee and perishing in that storm. What manner of man is this? that even the wind and the sea obey him.

The fear that is the beginning of wisdom, the godly fear, is not the fear of men. It's not the fear of circumstances in this life. It is the fear of God as God Almighty. God's children fear him. They reverence him. They reverence him. And that, in a sense, is the difference between the saved and the lost in the Book of Jude. They have no fear. They have no reverence for God. They have no worship of God. They have no knowledge of God. And Jude says that they are without the Spirit, because those who have the Spirit of God revere and are in awe of God because they're in His presence.

Saul feared many things in his life. He met the Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, and all of a sudden, he had another fear altogether. He was in the presence of God Almighty. To fear him is to have been in his presence. And so these, in verse 19 of Jude, these are they who separate themselves, sensual, not having the spirit. essential. Their religion is just a religion that's come up from the exercise of natural emotions, natural activities in a natural man.

Isaiah 29 speaks of those who learn about the fear of God And you can learn about the fear of God. If Saul of Tarsus had been asked in his studies under Gamaliel to write a dissertation on the fear of God in the Old Testament, he would have astounded you. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of verses he would have brought out. He had no knowledge of it. Listen to what Isaiah says. Isaiah 29 verse 13. You might recall the Lord said this of the religious people in their day. What an appalling state to be in, to speak about God, to know something about God, and to have a heart that's removed far from Him. I pray the Lord causes us to fear, to fear that.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 9 was fearful of him being found a reprobate. None of the Lord's people grow prideful as they grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's man teaching another man about the precepts of God. What's missing? Jude says they don't have the Spirit. Jude said that they do this just naturally. I pray that we might be rescued from that very, very great, great evil.

These are without fear. They're spots at your feast of charity. They feast with you, feeding themselves without fear. Clouds they are with water carried about of the winds. Trees who fruit withereth without fruit. Twice dead, plucked up by the roots.

I pray the Lord will teach me to fear him. I would pray that the Lord will teach me to fear him more and more greatly. I fear lying about him. I fear deceiving people with feigned words. I fear giving people an opinion. which is not founded and grounded and established in the word of God. We read earlier in 2 Peter about people making merchandise of men's souls with feigned words, with plastic words. And it's extraordinary that 2 Peter is one of those books right at the end of the New Testament that has one of the most famous modern verses in all of modern religion.

is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness and then listen to what they say, not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance. How many times have you heard that? God doesn't wish for anyone to perish and he wants all to come to repentance. What did I leave out of that verse? Because that's left out so often in the Declaration. The number of people I've taken to that passage of scripture and said, read it with me again and read exactly what it says. He's long-suffering to us-ward and the us-ward are described at the beginning of the letter. Those that have obtained a like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, can he lose one of them? He can't lose one of them. God doesn't want anything. God has a purpose and God achieves his purpose.

With feigned words they make merchandise of people, and when they are challenged about it, I have yet to find someone amongst the religious people of this world who have said to me, wow, I got that wrong. I've been lying to people. Not one. Why? There is no fear of God.

While we're in the book of Peter, I can't help but be reminded of the time when after we brought the gospel to a religious body around here, and in frustration, they brought down the smartest and most intelligent and most gifted of their so-called evangelists in Sydney. and he preached a blasphemous sermon on Sunday morning, and in the evening he is preaching again out of 1 Peter 3, verse 18.

And he happened in the providence of the Lord to be sitting at a table with half a dozen of us. And I slid across the Greek New Testament to him and said to him, that word is not in the Bible. He used a translation of 1 Peter 3.18, and I'll read it to you. For Christ has also once suffered for sin, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. And in the dodgy modern translation of the NIV, it says that he suffered once for all.

And so his sermon in the morning said, for all, for all, for all, for all, all the way through, for all, for all, for all. He died for all because that was the issue. We had one issue. The Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We have one issue. The glory of God. as revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. And he just made this big thing about that. And I slid across the New Testament, the Greek New Testament to him and said, that's not in there.

And in front of us all, he acknowledged that that wasn't what the verse said at all. It doesn't mean that, it doesn't say that at all. And he even knew the Greek words and knew the, because he was studying, he was doing a PhD in New Testament Greek theology. And he got up five minutes or so after that, and I thought, well, this is going to be very interesting. This is going to be really interesting.

In his sermon in the evening, it wasn't a sermon, it was a talk by a religious man, he emphasised it even more strongly and more repeatedly And out of all of that great group of people, he knew, there were four or five people down there, he knew that he was lying. He knew that he was lying to them all. With feigned words, he was paid to come and take the gospel from those people and make sure that they would never hear it. and that they would treat with contempt the messengers of God.

What was the problem? What was at the heart of the problem? He didn't know God, and he didn't fear God, and he was in the employ of men. I want us to reverence our God. Jude wouldn't be led of the Holy Spirit to speak so regularly about people who are ungodly. They don't worship God, they don't revere him. I want us, and I pray the Lord would grant us, just the fulfilment of his promises to put his fear in our hearts.

The fear of the Lord is a new covenant blessing and it's the grace of the Holy Spirit. He says in Hebrews 12.28, I just want to read some verses about the fear of the Lord, and I want us to have some of this in mind as we go through the rest of Jude. But the writer of the Hebrews said, let us have grace whereby we may serve the Lord acceptably, Hebrews 12.28, with reverence and godly fear. That's that fear that Jeremiah spoke of. As we all know from Psalm 110 and other places in the scriptures, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It is the foundation of wisdom. Christ is our wisdom and when Christ works and reveals himself to people, there's a reverential awe of him. There's a hatred of anything that denies his deity, denies his work, and denies all of what the scripture speak so gloriously of our great God and Redeemer.

See, love and fear are not incompatible. We think that if we fear God, we don't love him, but Deuteronomy 10 verse 12, Moses' last great and glorious sermon speaks much of the fear of the Lord. But in Deuteronomy 10 verse 12, he says, And now Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee? What does he require? but to fear the Lord thy God, and to walk in all his ways, and to love him." Those who revere him, those who are in fear of him, in reverential awe and wonder at how glorious he is, they love him. to walk in all his ways and to love him and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul. Those that know him and know his name will put their trust in him.

He says, in Deuteronomy 28 verse 58. If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this Lord that are written in his book, that thou mayest hear this glorious and fearful name, the Lord thy God. What is salvation? What is eternal life according to the Lord Jesus Christ? It's to know him. is to know the Father and to know Him. Not just to know about Him, but to know Him. To know Him, in the words of John 17, in a mutual relationship of love. A mutual union, an eternal mutual union of love. And that eternal mutual union causes us to reverence the glory of him and the glory of his word.

Listen to some of the promises that are attached to this fear of God. The eye of the Lord is upon those who fear him. Psalm 33 verse 18. I love Psalm 34 verse nine. Blessed is the man Sorry, Psalm 34 verse 9. We are in the presence of the angels. But there is one angel above all the other angels. The Lord Jesus Christ encamps around. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord. Psalm 112 verse one. The Lord will fulfill the desires of those who fear him. The Lord will fulfill the desires of those who fear him.

Turn with me to Acts chapter nine at the very beginning. of this gospel age, the Lord reminded his church of how extraordinarily holy he is in the death of Ananias and Sapphira. But in Acts 9, after the persecutions, it says, After Paul, Saul had come to Jerusalem and was introduced to the apostles and he was with them in Jerusalem. And he spoke 29, he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus and disputed against the Grecians. But they went about to slay him, which when the brethren knew, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him forth to Tarsus.

Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria and were edified. How did they walk? To edify is the word to use for building a house from a foundation. This is foundational Christianity. This is foundational work of God in his church. They were edified on this foundation. They were built on this.

Walking in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Ghost were multiplied. Were multiplied. That's how the church was edified. That is the foundation from which the church grows. A reverential awe for the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the glory of God who is our creator, for the reverential awe of God in whose hands we are. In him we move and live and move and have our being.

That's why the churches were comforted by the Holy Spirit. As Proverbs 14 verse 26 says, in the fear of the Lord is strong confidence. Strong confidence. Strong comfort from God. As the children of God grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, this fear is a treasure. I want us to have this in mind especially as we spend more time in the next little while in the book of Jude.

In verse 5 of Isaiah 33, the Lord is exalted, for he dwelleth on high. He hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness, and wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times and strength of salvation. The fear of the Lord is his treasure. That word treasure means a storehouse in which precious things are kept. We go back and back again to the storehouse of our great and great and glorious God. Maybe the Lord will let us look at this again more closely as we move through the book of Jude.

But in Psalm 25 is a remarkable verse that deserves much more pondering than we have time today. I trust you might go and look at it and study it and meditate upon it. But God says in verse 14, Isaiah 42 and 49 makes it abundantly clear the covenant is the Lord Jesus Christ. The covenant is the eternal covenant in his blood. And it's a secret. It's a secret. I heard a religious man the other day talking about the covenant, the new covenant in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ which is the food for the children of God and it's handed but we are not sufficient of ourselves as Paul says, to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiencies of God, who hath also made us able ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.

All God-made able ministers are saying this is the eternal covenant in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is who he is and this is how he saves his people and his people live in the delight of being in his presence. What's the fear of the Lord? One of the great fears of the Lord is the thought of ever being brought into the presence of God Almighty outside of the complete 100% covering of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what Paul said, I want to be found in Him. I want to be found so closely in Him when God the Father looks on me or He can't see anything at me at all. Nothing I've ever done and all He sees is His glorious Son.

Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make ye perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight. What is well-pleasing in his sight? A reverential awe and wonder that that God could call me his, and I can call him mine, and I can say, you're my God, and you're my Lord, and you're my Saviour, and it's all because of a work done by him. Working in you, that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Amen. Truly, truly, let it be as you have promised, Lord.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you again for your Word. We thank you that your Word is sharper than a two-edged sword and we pray, Heavenly Father, that it would cut us and wound us and remove from us All of those things which cause us not to look in awe and wonder and love and comfort in the finished work of your dear and precious Son.

Heavenly Father, save us from all that's false within us first, and then protect us as you promise and preserve us in your Son from all that's false in this religious world. Heavenly Father, you alone can make your people contend for this faith to stand as one, to stand together, to be united in the glory, the glorious privilege of being called the sons of God.

You alone can make us to eat and to drink worthily Heavenly Father, and to be worthy is to be found in your dear and precious Son. May that wound both cleanse us and wash us in his blood, that we might fear you and love you forever, our father, because we come to you in the name and in the presence and in the glory and in the person of your dear and precious son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

We pray for his glory. Amen.