and he must win the battle. And though this world, with devils
filled, should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God
hath willed his truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness grim,
we tremble not for him. His rage we can endure, for lo,
his doom is sure. one little word shall fail him. That word above all earthly powers,
no thanks to them abided. The Spirit and the gifts are
ours through him who with us saddeth. Let goods and kindred go, this
mortal life also. The body they may kill, God's
truth abideth still, His kingdom is forever. Good morning. His kingdom. His kingdom. The kingdom of God is a benevolent
monarchy, a theocracy in fact, where God's citizens are glad
to not have a vote and they're glad to not be rewarded for their
works. They're glad that the Lord Jesus
Christ himself has accomplished all the work necessary for their
salvation. and they love him for it and
more importantly he loves them he loves them we live in a capitalistic democracy
and the scripture says that you thought that I was altogether
such one as thyself most the folks in America thinks that
the kingdom of God is capitalistic we get rewarded based on our
works And they think that it's a democracy. I get to vote. I
get to make a decision about when I'm going to be saved. No. No. Don't think that. It's not
true. The kingdom of God is nothing
like the kingdom that you and I live in. It's a spiritual kingdom. The Lord told Pilate, he said,
my kingdom is not of this earth. If my kingdom was of this earth,
my disciples would fight. Oh, may God be pleased to reveal
to us the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ this morning. And I ask
you, if you will, to turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm 65. Psalm 65. His kingdom is forever. I started
to title this message, Our God is Terrible. But then I thought,
if that's in print, there may be some folks that'll misunderstand
what I'm saying, and so I've titled it The Fear of God. The
word terrible comes from the word to be terrified, terror,
and it's most often translated in the scripture to fear, to
fear. The Word of God says that there
is no fear of God in their hearts. What is the fear of God? Is it
a slavish, cringing fear of judgment and wrath? What does God say
the fear of God is? That's what we're going to be
considering this first hour this morning. Will you bow with me
for a word of prayer, please? Our merciful Heavenly Father, how hopeful we are that you would
be pleased now in this hour to send your spirit and power to
open the eyes of our understanding, to cause your word to be living,
sharper than any two-edged sword, able to divide asunder the soul
from the spirit and the intents of our hearts, and most importantly,
to reveal to us the glory of thy dear son. We pray for that
spirit of fear that is from you. Lord, we pray that you would
deliver us from the fear of the flesh, from sinful fears, and
that you would cause us to bow in worship and in submission. We pray it in Christ's name,
amen. There are in fact three types
of fears There is a natural fear. We all know what that means. If a full-grown hungry lion was
to burst through those two doors right now, we would all be paralyzed
with fear, wouldn't we? Well, some of you all get paralyzed
with fear when you see a spider, you know. But, you know, you
see what I mean by fear. There's a certain self-protection
that we all have that causes us to be afraid of those things
that are that are dangerous. And then there is a sinful fear.
And that's the fear that religion plays on. All men know in their
hearts that there is a God with whom they must do. All men know
that they've got a problem with that God that needs to be resolved. And so religion plays off of
those two general truths that everybody knows and uses men's
fear of God to cause them, to motivate them to do better. If
you'll just work harder, if you'll do better, if you'll change the
way you are and become a better person, You can atone for those
sins that separate you from your God, and you can make things
right with God if you'll give more and do more. And that's
what religion is based on, that sinful fear of God that men use
to motivate one another to their religious commitments. And then
there is the fear of God. And God says, perfect love casteth
out fear. So when the love of God in the
finished work and glorious person of the Lord Jesus Christ is made
known to the hearts of God's elect, they are for the first
time in their lives delivered. Maybe not from the natural fears,
those things don't, you know, but from those sinful fears.
The fear that I've got to do something in order to avoid the
wrath of God. Once we come to see by the grace
of God that all of God's wrath has been poured out in its fullness
on our sin bearer, our substitute, and that God is satisfied with
the sacrifice that he made of himself, now, now there's no
more fear to motivate us to try to atone for our own sins. They've already been atoned for.
The Lord Jesus Christ is our atonement and God Almighty saw
the travail of His soul on Calvary's cross and God said, I'm satisfied. Perfect love casteth out fear. Romans chapter 8 verse 15 says,
you have not received the spirit of bondage unto fear. We don't use fear, sinful fear,
in order to try to get folks to do better and do more. That's the bondage of the law.
Men put one another under the law. trying to keep the law better. And you can't satisfy God's law. If you're under the law, you're
only going to be judged by that law. The law cannot be satisfied
by a sinner. The law could only be satisfied
by one who is holy. undefiled and separate from sinners
and that's the Lord Jesus Christ himself. He's the only one able
to satisfy God's law. But the bondage of fear is that
bondage that religion uses to, well, try to get you to do more. Try to get you to atone for your
own sins. You have not received the spirit
of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit
of adoption, which causes us to cry, Abba, Father. Now, the fear of God is a childlike
fear. What does a child do when they
feel insecure, when they feel threatened? I'm talking about
a small child. That sinful fear is seen in what
Adam did when he hid from God in the woods. He fled from God. That's what sinful fear will
do. Sinful fear will cause you to flee from God, hide from God,
try to cover up your nakedness with fig leaves, your own works,
and that's sinful fear. Adam was afraid. He was afraid
of God after he had sinned. And if a child feels like they're
going to be chastised corrected or judged, perhaps their misbehavior
will cause them to avoid the parent. That's not what I'm talking
about. I'm talking about a childlike fear where a child feels threatened,
a child feels insecure, a child feels unable to deal with the
circumstances that are around them. What does that child do?
No, he doesn't run from his daddy, does he? Oh, he runs to him. and he puts a death grip around
his leg, or he jumps into his arm and he hides his face in
the neck of his father, trusting his father. That's, that's the
fear of God. That's the fear of God. Do you
feel threatened? Do you feel insecure? Do you
feel unable to deal with the circumstances, not only of this
life, but most importantly of the life to come? Run to your
Heavenly Father. run to him. You know what you're
going to find not to happen when you run to him? He's already
there to run to you. You remember the story of the
prodigal who spent all of his inheritance on riotous living
and ended up in a pig pen eating the same food that he was given
to the pigs to eat. And you know what that's a picture
of? That's a picture of a person
who goes to religion. a legalistic, free will, works
religion, and becomes a Sunday school teacher. And begins to,
I mean, they've spent their life out in riotous living, and so
now they're going into religion in order to try to what? Atone
for their sins. And as they're feeding the other
swine in that pig pen, all they have to eat is that which they've,
which they're giving out to others. You know the demons of moralistic
religion are seven times stronger than the demons of irreligious
immorality? That story is given to us in
Luke chapter 11 when the Lord says there was a man who cast
the demon out of his house. And after the demon was gone,
he garnished his house. Oh, he painted it, he put up
flowers, he dressed it all up. Now that's a picture of a person
who has found themselves like the prodigal and caught up in
riotous living and they've decided that they've had enough and now
they're going to get rid of that demon and they're going to garnish
their house with religion. And that demon went out and came
back and he saw that there was no one guarding the house. and he brought seven demons back
with him. So in the end, the man's condition
was worse than it was at the beginning. Now, that's a story that's played
out every day in the lives of people. People think, I'm going to make
things right with God. I'm going to atone for my sins.
I'm going to get rid of these demons. I'm going to garnish my house.
And what they find is that the demons of moralistic religion
are seven times stronger. It's a whole lot easier to talk
to somebody who's bound up in some sort of life-destructive
behavior than it is to talk to somebody who's comfortable in
their religion, isn't it? They have no fear of God. You
hear a person talking about their free will, all they're saying
is they have no fear of God. You hear a person talking about
what they're doing for God and what they're going to do to atone
for their sins with God, they have no fear of God. They're
not like that child who... What happened to the prodigal?
Let's finish that story. What happened to the prodigal? He
said, my servants back at my father's house have got it better
than me. I'll go back and I'll plead with my father and I'll
tell him, just let me be a servant. And the prodigal came home. And
the father was already waiting on him. He's already waiting
on him. You come home to God, you're
going to find him already waiting on you. The father was out the
end of the driveway watching all the way down at the end of
the road as far as he could see and he saw his son coming. And
the father ran down the road to his son and he lavished him
with kisses. And he called his servant, he
said, put a robe on his back, put a ring on his finger, put
new shoes on his feet and kill the fatted calf. My son, which
was lost has now been made alive. Oh, what a heavenly father we
have. Fearing God is a childlike fear
whereby we hide our face in the neck of our heavenly father,
knowing that we've got circumstances that we can't deal with. We're
not able. Do you feel threatened and insecure
by your ability, not only in this world but especially in
the world to come? Flee to Christ. Perfect love
casteth out fear. What happens to that child when
he's embracing his father? Oh, all of a sudden the fears
just go away, don't they? feel safe. Daddy's going to take
care of me. It's okay. And the father says
to the child, son, I've got this. You're all right. It's okay.
You're safe. You're safe. That's the fear of God. It's
a childlike fear. And the word that the Bible uses
to describe that fear is the word terrible. Look at, I ask
you to open your Bibles to Psalm 65. Look at verse 4. Blessed
is the man whom thou choosest. You did not choose me, I chose
you. A person who says, I don't believe
in election, they have no fear of God. They have no fear of
God. God will have me when I'm ready
to have God. That's an expression of no fear of God. Blessed is
the man whom thou choosest. Lord, if you don't choose me,
if you don't call me, if you don't cause me to come unto you,
I won't come. I won't come. I'm not able. I'm
not able to come to God. Well, see, what's the world doing?
The world's doing the same thing they did all the way back there
in the Tower of Babel. They've got bricks for stone
and slime for mortar, and they're building a city trying to reach
up to heaven. trying to atone for their own sins. And the believer
says, Lord, I can't. I can't do it. I can't do it. Are you going to have to choose
me? You're going to have to cause me to approach unto thee. You're
going to have to make me willing in the day of your power. That's
the fear of God. That's the childlike fear that
says, Lord, you're going to have to do it. I can't do it. I can't make a decision. I can't
perform a work. I can't get to where you are.
You're gonna have to bless me. Bless me by choosing me and bless
me by causing me to come unto thee. I told the story of Mephibosheth
Wednesday night. Don't you love that story? Where David says to his servant
Ziba, Is there anyone in the household of Saul that I might
show him kindness for Jonathan's sake? Now in that story, David's
a picture of God the Father, Jonathan's a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and Ziba's a picture of the Holy Spirit. And David
says to Ziba, go fetch him. Go get him. Cause him to come
unto me. He's hiding out in Lodabar. He's
not going to come if you don't go get him. And when David saw
Mephibosheth, who was the son of Jonathan, he saw the likeness
of his friend, Jonathan. And he said, oh, Mephibosheth,
Mephibosheth. And what did Mephibosheth say?
What would the king have to do with such a dead dog as I? Why
did you come? Mephibosheth, I'm going to show
kindness towards you. Now here's God the Father speaking.
Mephibosheth was crippled. In both his feet, he couldn't
walk. He couldn't stand. He was unable. Mephibosheth was showing, God
was showing kindness towards you and me who are crippled from
a fall. We fell in our father Adam. We've
been crippled ever since. And David is showing Mephibosheth
kindness for Jonathan's sake. Jonathan was dead. He died, the
Lord Jesus Christ died on Calvary's cross. And the father shows us
kindness for Jonathan's sake. And he sees the likeness of Jonathan
in each of his children. And he said to Mephibosheth,
sit ye here at my table and eat the king's fare the rest of your
life. Oh, what a beautiful story of
salvation. These are stories of salvation, aren't they? This
is God's mercy. Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest and whom thou causest to come unto thee, that he may
dwell in thy courts. That's our need. Our need is
to be in the presence of God, to dwell safely in his courts. this one thing I will seek after,
that I might dwell in the house of the Lord for ever, ever. That's our need. Our need is
salvation. Our need is eternal life. Our
need is to spend eternity with God in heaven. That's our need. You read the purpose statement
of most religious organizations that they call churches and They
talk about changing society and they talk about creating community
and every church has got its own. You could swap the purpose
statement of most religious organizations that call themselves churches
with the local Lions Club and you wouldn't be able to tell
the difference. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
Our purpose is to create community and to impact society. No. Our purpose is to preach the
gospel to sinners, that God might be glorified, and that we might
be saved. And that's all we do. That's
all we do. Why? Because that's the one thing
needful. That's the one thing needful.
There's plenty of places you can go for community. If you're
a believer, no place you can go for a community like this
community. But, all right. Childlike fear causes
us to see our inability and drives us into the arms of our Heavenly
Father. Turn to me to Jeremiah chapter
40, Jeremiah chapter 40. I'm sorry, chapter 32, verse
40. I misread my notes. Chapter 32, verse 40. And we're
not going to read all these verses,
but just scan your eyes down between verses 37 and 42 and
look at how many times God says, I will. I will. Free will. works, man-made religion
is all about man saying, I will. This is what I'm going to do.
God said, no, you won't. No, you won't. You're not able. But I will. I will. Look at verse 38, and they shall
be my people and I will be their God. I will give unto them one
heart and one way that they may fear me forever. for the good
of them and for their children after them and I will make an
everlasting covenant with them and I will turn away from them. I will not turn away from them
to do them good but I will put my fear in their hearts. And they shall not depart from
me. They shall not depart from me. Why? Because once God puts
His fear in your heart, you are convinced forever that you're
but a child. Lest you become as a little child,
you should not enter the kingdom of heaven. Suffer the little
children to come unto me, for such is the kingdom of God. Now
that's the problem with the pride of man. He doesn't want to be
a little child. He doesn't want to be a dependent infant. that needs his heavenly father.
He wants to take care of things himself. I can do this. No, you
can't. If God ever puts his fear in
your heart, you will fear yourself. You will fear the thought of
having to stand in the presence of a holy God without an advocate,
without a substitute, without the Lord Jesus Christ as your
As your surety representing you before God, you'll fear standing
in the presence of God apart from Him. Oh God, put thy fear
in our hearts, not the bondage of fear that leads unto death. Perfect love casts out that kind
of fear, that sinful fear that would cause me to think that
there's something I've got to do in order to atone for my own
sins. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
5, please. Hebrews chapter 5. We are under a law, but it's
the law of Christ. It's the law of the spirit. It's
the law of grace. What I'm saying to you is that
the written law, the Mosaic law, is not our rule of life. The
Lord Jesus Christ himself is our rule of life. We look to
him and we follow after him. And he feared God. Couldn't have been a slavish
fear. Oh, it had to be a loving, reverential, submissive, dependent
fear of his need for the Father. Look at verse 7 of Hebrews chapter
5, who in the days of his flesh, when he offered up prayers and
supplications with strong cryings and tears unto him that was able
to save him from death and was heard in that he feared. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
man of faith. And his perfect faith was expressed
in his total dependence upon his Father for everything. Everything. Every word I'm speaking, the
Father's giving me to speak. Everything that I'm doing, I'm
doing it in perfect obedience to my Heavenly Father. That's
the fear of God. He feared God perfectly. Truth is that you and I are not
able to fear God that way. We're not able. But we're looking
to the one who did. We're looking to the one who
feared God with all of his heart and all of his mind and all of
his soul. And we're saying amen. That's my need. Turn with me back to our text. When the Bible says there's no
fear of God before their eyes, we see that expressed in the
irreligious who think nothing of raising their fist to heaven
and cursing God for circumstances in their lives or using the Lord's
name as a byword as if it was nothing but a curse word. And that is a lack of fear of
God that a man would speak of God that way. But when a person
uses the name Jesus Christ and attaches it to a freewill works
gospel, they are most guilty of using the Lord's name in vain. They've emptied his name of all
of its meaning. They've taken to themselves the
name of a husband who's not their husband, who's not their husband. Now, if you did that in this
world, we would call that fraud. If you used another man's name
in order to get access to an account or in order to be able
to do something, that's fraud, isn't it? And that's exactly
what the religions of this world are. They're just fraud. God
knows it. And we know it. And they don't
know it. They don't know it. Verse 5 of Psalm 65, by terrible
things in righteousness wilt thou answer us. Terrible things in righteousness.
Now, people read the book of Job and they think that the book
of Job is a story about how to deal with uh... with trials and
troubles in life and how to get through and and uh... explaining
uh... suffering the book of job is
a message to god's church about the fear of god job didn't fear god no when all those things came
upon him he uh... He charged God with wrongdoing. And he actually said to God in
prayer, he said, let me bring my case before your tribunal
and I'll prove to you that I'm innocent. I don't deserve this. And when Elihu comes on the scene
and begins to preach the gospel to Job, the scripture says that
Elihu was angry because Job justified himself before God. Now that's
a person who has no fear of God. And so the Lord says to Job,
he says, Job, brace yourself like a man. You've been interrogating
me. Now I'm going to ask you a few
questions. And for the next three or four chapters, God begins
to interrogate Job. And chapter 41 is all about Leviathan. Now I know that the pseudo-scholars
of the Bible have said, well, that's a whale or that's an alligator. No, it wasn't. You read the description
of Leviathan in Job chapter 41 and there is no question that
it is a fire-breathing dragon. That's what it is. And Job knew
what it was. You don't think that, that, it's
extinct as far as we know today. But there were fire-breathing
dragons in the day of Job, and Job knew exactly what Leviathan
was. And God says to Job, Job, throw a hook out there and see
if you can catch Leviathan and bring him in. And he describes
his scales and he describes his breath as breathing fire. And right after God describes
Leviathan to him, Job responds by saying, I spoke without knowledge. I was a man without understanding. I now see myself for what I am and
I repent in dust and ashes. Now why did Job come to that
conclusion? What was God saying to Job about
Leviathan? Job, if my finger can create
something like Leviathan, how are you going to deal with me? That's what God was saying. That Leviathan is just one of
my creations. And he's more than you can handle. Job said, I spoke without knowledge.
I now know that I can do nothing. I had heard of thee by the hearing
of the ear, but now mine eyes have seen thee. and I abhor myself
and I repent and dust the ashes. Job was brought to fear God,
to bow in submission to God. What the Lord Jesus Christ said,
fear not them who can kill the body and can do nothing else,
that's all they can do, but rather fear Him who has the power and
the authority to cast both body and soul into hell. And then
in the very next verse, he says, consider the sparrows. Consider
the sparrows. They don't have a fret. They trust their Heavenly Father
to provide for them. How much more your Father loves
you than He loves them? Come to Him. In terrible things, In righteousness wilt thou answer
us. We see the fear of God most clearly
at the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. In terrible things, in
fearful things, God has shown us his work in righteousness. God's justice had to be satisfied. Sin had to be put away. A substitute had to take our
place. God will do terrible things in
righteousness. And when I consider how had the
Lord not sought me, had He not chosen me, had He not caused
me to come unto Him, had He not taken out the heart of stone
and put in a heart of flesh, had He not given me ears to hear,
had He not given me eyes to see, if the Lord had not given me
faith to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and rest the hope
of my salvation on Him, I'd be lost. I'd be I'd be condemned
to an everlasting devil's hell. And that's a fearful thing, isn't
it? Fear. My fear. Now. And I didn't fear that before.
Didn't fear it before. But I'm going to tell you what
every believer's fear is right now. That God would leave me to myself. You didn't fear that before.
You didn't want God messing with you. You thought, you know, I
can handle this. Leave me alone. I'm going to
do what I want to do and I'm going to be saved the way I want
to be saved. And now that God has done terrible things and
he's revealed to you the terrible things that he did on the cross
and the terrible things that he's done in calling you and
bringing you to himself, your heart is smitten. when you think of the possibility
of God leaving you to yourself. It's the worst thing God could
do, isn't it? And so every day, oh Lord, save me. Lord, don't
leave me to myself. All right. Our Heavenly Father,
we're thankful for the terrible things that you have done. We're
thankful for the work of salvation that you've accomplished. We're
thankful for election. We're thankful for calling us. Lord, how we pray that you would
cause us to be like that little child. Cause us to come unto thee. For
we ask it in Christ's name. Amen.