We come this morning to, I trust
the last of our messages on this foundational chapter of Acts. When the Lord lays foundations,
he lays them firm and strong. And if you are building a huge
edifice, then you make sure that the foundations are strong. And
the remarkable thing about foundations built upon a rock is that the
more that is built upon them, the stronger and more stable
they are. Some of the stones they used
in the building of Solomon's Temple are just enormous. They're
about as long as this building and nearly as high. They're just
absolutely huge. We don't know how they're moving
around. But such is the foundation, I
believe, that God the Holy Spirit has laid for us in the Book of
Acts. It's the foundation upon which
the early Church began its proclamation of the Lord Jesus, and it's a
foundation that's so firm and strong that as the tides of time
and sin have moved on, it's remained firmer and stronger. It is the
foundation upon which the Church, until the Lord Jesus returns,
will be built. It is the proclamation of our
great triune God in covenant mercy and promises that were
made before the world began and now before the eyes of men and
written in history for all time, there they are fulfilled. He
is our Lord Jesus Christ, as Isaiah says, He is the covenant. He is the One to whom all of
the people are gathered. It is a glorious sermon, it's
a glorious declaration. And as I trust we go through
the Book of Acts we will see that what's been laid down has
just been reinforced again and again and again. I thought we
might just read some verses from it this morning as we begin and
then trust the Lord might guide and direct our thoughts and as
we've read in Psalm 25 that He might teach us. That He might
teach you. He might teach you personally.
He might teach you powerfully. He might teach you in such a
way that you come away from hearing His word proclaimed and say,
I have been in the presence of God and He has dealt with me. I'll start in verse 36 and we'll
go down to verse 47. And therefore let all Israel
of the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made that same Jesus
whom you crucified, you have crucified, both Lord and Christ. And now when they heard this,
they were pricked in the heart, and said unto Peter and the rest
of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter
said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in
the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you
shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is
unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off,
even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many
other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves
from this untoward generation. Then they that gladly received
his word were baptized, and the same day there added unto them
about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly
in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in the breaking
of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul,
and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all
that believed were together, and had all things common, and
sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as
every man had need. continuing daily with one accord
in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, did eat
their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising
God and having favour with all people, and the Lord added to
the church daily, such as should be said." You might have noticed
as we went through there, there is a repetition, there's a repetition
of the work of the Lord in the lives of His people. They continued
steadfastly and then they, verse 46, they continued daily and
they continued in fellowship. They continued with one accord
and they continued breaking bread and they broke bread from house
to house. They received the word gladly, did eat their meat with
gladness and singleness of heart. And the Lord added to the church
even as many as the Lord our God would call. There are things
repeated here, but in the midst of it all is a foundational thing
that happened In the lives of these believers, and I think
Paul, I mean Luke, the Apostle Luke is a first-rate historian. Every single time Luke has been
checked by the history recorded by the Romans and the Greek and
the others, they have never found him to be anything other than
a perfectly faithful witness. What else would you expect? My
point is that in the midst of all of this, after these people
had been pricked in the heart, after they had been made to cry
out to God, what shall we do to be saved? After they had received
the blessing of the Holy Spirit as promised, after they had received
the Word of God gladly, after they had been baptised, after
they had joined the Church in fellowship, After all of those
things we have this note that may seem as if it's incongruous
in all of the context. Such rejoicing at salvation and
yet in verse 43 we read, and fear came upon every soul. It is one, like all the other
things we've seen as we've gone through this, it is one of the
foundational works of God in the gathering of His people.
And as I said, it came upon these people having been saved, having
been delivered by the hand of the Lord Jesus Christ from the
wrath to come. It is a promised blessing. It is a foundational blessing. And I'd like us, if the Lord
will, allow us to examine it today in light of the scriptures.
And may it become something that is both experienced by us and
rejoiced in. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
you have promised to be the teacher of your people. You have promised
to reveal the truths of your word to your people through the
proclamation of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And our
Father, we do pray that you would cause us to walk before you and
be taught of you today We thank You again that we are utterly
and totally dependent upon You in all spiritual matters, Heavenly
Father, and we thank You that You place in Your people the
Lord Jesus Christ, us in Him, and Him in us. And therefore,
Heavenly Father, when you teach your people, you teach your people
to their hearts, but not only that, you teach your people in
their hearts. We pray that that might be our
portion this morning, Heavenly Father, that you might use us
for your glory and your word might be magnified before us.
The Lord Jesus lifted up and we might see him as glorious
and we might walk faithfully and in fear with him. So we pray
in his precious name. So the first question I answered
and I was surprised. Sometimes I read the commentators
and I'm really surprised at where they get their notions from.
But some of them want to say that fear came upon all Jerusalem
and I'm sure there were at times. there was a fear that came upon
the people of Jerusalem as the apostles who had been cowered
by their weakness and their sin were then made to be bold and
as they performed many wonders and signs in Jerusalem. And the
question is, who is this? What is going on here? There
would have been many who were in some way moved by Peter's
testimony about the fact that with wicked hands they had crucified
their Messiah. There were probably many, as
the Pharisees that the Lord Jesus spoke about in John's Gospel,
who said they believed but weren't prepared to openly confess their
belief because of fear of the Jews that they might be kicked
out of the Sanhedrin. But I think it's very evident
from the text here, isn't it? It says that many souls 3,000
souls were added to their number. The Lord added 3,000 souls, so
the church at the end of this Pentecost day was 3,120. What a remarkable outpouring,
what a remarkable testimony of the power of the Lord Jesus Christ
who sits in heaven and has pulled forth this. What a remarkable
testimony to the power of God the Holy Spirit to actually take
people out of darkness. and bring them into the Kingdom
of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a remarkable act of God
that these people on that day, as they lay their heads on their
pillows, were perfectly fit for Heaven's glories forever. Such is the completeness of what
had happened. Such is the wonder of the Eternal
Covenant. So the souls that this fear came
upon I think is so clear from the text that it's actually these
particular 3,000 souls. It is, as I said earlier, a distinguishing
feature of those who have had a wound in their heart. They
have had God revealed to them in such a way that they bow,
that they are fearful. It is a real fear. It is a real fear. in distinction
from the other fears that men have. It is a fear that God calls
a godly fear, a holy fear. It is a reverential awe, but
it's much more than a reverential awe. We have in the Scriptures
many, many examples of people who were troubled by fear, weren't
they? Felix trembled before Paul as
he spoke of righteousness, temperance and judgement to come. Herod
feared John, knowing that he was a just and holy man. James
says in James 2.18 that the devils believe and tremble. King Saul
trembled and was made fearful of David, and he spoke highly
of David and highly of his anointing by the Lord. We have in the Scriptures
different fears, aren't we? There are the natural fears that
all of us feel in this world. There are so many things that
come before us that cause us to fear. There is sadly, even
as we speak, shocking things happening in London that are
going to cause multitudes again to fear. to fear in places where
they felt so extraordinarily safe. There is a natural fear,
there is a sinful fear, there is a fear of your sins being
exposed. One of the things that they used
to do to trouble people in our days in religion was say that
one day God's actually going to put a movie up on the screen
and before all of the world there will be the movie of your life
Beth Day and we will see it all. and you will be cringing, you
will be clinging to the seat saying, no, not me. There will
be, there will be for all of God's blood-born children, there
will be a proclamation of their lives on that last and great
day. And it will be all about Him
and nothing about us. One of the glories of the Gospel
is our lives are hidden with Christ in God. He's put our sins
away, brothers and sisters, as far as the East and the West.
It would be the furthest thing from God's mind to embarrass
His blood-bought Bride who was presented before the Father,
holy, spotless, unblameable, unrepeatable. How on earth can
you possibly think that on that day He would want to embarrass
His Bride? He'll want to honour His Bride,
but in honouring His Bride, He'll be honoring His dear and precious
Son. It'll all be about Him. Our lives are hid with Christ
in God, brothers and sisters. But there is that fear, isn't
it? And you know about it, don't
you? We know when we fall into sin, the last thing we want to
do is have it exposed. The last thing we want to do
is have it exposed before men and people go to enormous lengths
to cover it all up. There is a fear in the face of
great danger. But this fear that God is speaking
about here is a fear that we read about in Psalm 25, and you
read about all through the Scriptures. It's a remarkable thing, and
I know word studies don't help us particularly at all, but in
the Scriptures the word fear is mentioned 450-something times. The word love, 270-something
times. It's far more spoken of, far
more spoken of than the love of God. This fear came upon these people
after they had found that their sins had been washed away, their
sins had been remitted by the Lord Jesus Christ. After they
had joined with the apostles, after the receiving of the blessed
promises of the Gospel, then comes this fear. Then comes this fear according
to our text before us. There is in the Gospel accounts
a lovely picture of that. I think it's something of what
this fear means. You might recall the story about
chapter 4 as the apostles went, took the Lord Jesus across the
Sea of Galilee, and he was asleep on the back of the boat. He said
to them, let us pass over to the other side. He'd made a promise
to them, and he was tired and he fell asleep. And he just had,
he had in that boat himself and the Twelve, and on the sea that
evening were lots of other little ships, as they're called. in
our version. 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, the Lord Jesus Christ, asleep on a pillow, and they
woke him, saying, Master, don't you care that we're going to
perish? The boat's full. These were experienced fishermen.
They weren't fearful like we would be in a storm-tossed sea. They actually knew how dangerous
it was. They had many compatriots who
were on the bottom of that sea. Don't you care? He arose and
he rebuked the wind and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased and there
was a great calm. So the wind had ceased and there
they are sitting, secure in their boat, on a calm sea. And he said to them, why are
you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?
And then God the Holy Spirit records for us that they feared
exceedingly. They feared exceedingly. They
had feared the storm and now they feared exceedingly. And they said one to another,
what manner of man is this? Even the wind and the sea obey
him. The things that are so significant
in that story aren't there. On that sea that night there
were the 13 of them in that one particular boat and many other
little ships out there with no doubt all sorts of people on
them, crew and fishermen and others. All of them. All of them had that fear of
the storm. All of them had that fear of
drowning. All of them knew the peace when
the storm had calmed and the waters are still, and now they're
safe. And only those in that boat,
only those feared exceedingly. See, what was the cause of the
fear? The fear comes It comes with the revelation of God. That fear that they feared there,
that exceeding fear, came because the Lord Jesus Christ, as He
did so often, didn't He? The veil of His humanity was
peeled back just a little bit and you had a glimpse into the
fact that this man was God Almighty. The wind and the sea obeyed Him
because it was His sea and His wind and He controlled it. He
ruled the storm, He brought the storm. And it was His to control,
like all of nature and all of humanity, everything in this
universe is His. It is this fear that came upon
these people in Acts, I believe, is a fear from the Lord Jesus
Christ revealing Himself as He really is, as God. He's really revealing himself
to a cut and wounded heart as God's Christ, as our Lord. The revelation of Him as God. No longer, no longer in those
pricked the heart is He that is someone that can be tampered
with. No longer is he someone that
can be manipulated. No longer is he someone that
can be treated with lightness. No longer is he anything other
than what he really is in the eyes of his people. He is God
Almighty. He rules over all things. And the remarkable thing, as
you go through the book of Acts, you will find that rather than
this fear being diminished, this fear grows. We'll come in Acts
chapter 5 to the story, the horrible story of Ananias and Sapphira.
And they were just executed, summarily executed by God. And both of them fell down dead
before the Church, for lying to the Holy Ghost. And it says
that fear came upon all of them. In fact, by the time we get to
Acts chapter 9, even in a period of rest, after Saul's conversion,
and the Church was scattered, But then the churches had rest,
Acts 9.31, throughout all Judea, and Galilee, and Samaria, and
were edified, were edified. And walking in the fear of the
Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost were multiplied. So rather than this fear being
diminished, This fear grew and this fear was a fear that caused
their edification. Great fear fell upon them all. But also accompanying, as we
saw in Acts 9.31, it is the comfort of the Holy Ghost to bring this
fear to people by the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's often stated, and I
think it's correct, that this fear means reverential awe and
wonder at the revelation of God. But I often think that that word
reverential awe doesn't go deep enough. I don't think it sufficiently
explains what happens. You can have reverential awe
in all sorts of situations. People have reverential awe in
these magnificent cathedrals that seem to reach to the heaven.
You can have reverential awe in the forest that Norman Beth
ran down in Victoria just a few weeks ago. It is just awe inspiring. There are times on this planet
when God's activities in creation just take your breath away. I
haven't seen very much of it, but I've seen enough to just
feel reverential awe. This is a work in the hearts
of those people. They were cut in the heart. They were cut in the heart by
God the Holy Spirit. And I think because of that,
it is something that distinguishes the child of God from all other
people. It is something that comes upon
God's children. And we don't like in gospel churches. We don't like talking a lot about
the experiences of men, because soon as someone talks about their
experiences, other people will think, well dear, oh dear, I
haven't had that, therefore I'm a second class citizen or somehow
God hasn't smiled upon me. But these things are experienced,
brothers and sisters. They are felt. This was the felt
experience of all of those people. It was in the lives of the apostles
that felt experience of them. They were in awe of the Lord
Jesus Christ, but they feared when He was revealed in extraordinary
ways. You think of them on the Mount
of Transfiguration. Peter didn't have a clue what
to say. He was undone in the presence
of the Lord Jesus Christ as revealed on that mountain. It is a special
gift of God to have this fear. And like many of the true experiences
of God's people, it is one of those things that is promised
by the Lord as we read in the Psalms and we'll read in many
other scriptures as we go along. It's one of those things that
is promised and is the real and living experience of God's people.
And it is very, very troubling that its absence seems to be
so evident in others. It's one of those extraordinary
acts of God which almost is more evident in its absence in religious
people than it is in its presence in the people of God. It is a
result of cutting to the heart. Cutting in the heart. I'd like
you to look at some verses with me. As we know, with all of the
blessings of God, as with the work of the Lord Jesus in this
earth when He walked and lived amongst us on this planet earth.
He was a living testimony. He was just living out the promises
of the Old Testament. And in the work of His people
after Pentecost and in this life that we now live, His promises
are worked out exactly the same way. In Jeremiah 32, if you turn
there and have a look at this extraordinary passage, It talks
about the Lord gathering His people. He says in verse 37, Jeremiah
32, Behold, and I love the promises of God, I love the I wills and
I shalls of our great God. Every time you read an I will
from God, you know it will happen. I will gather them out of the
countries where I have driven them in mine 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, and I will give
them one heart and one way." Isn't that exactly what we've
been reading of this early church? They were of one accord. They
had one message, they had one experience, they were joined
as one. I will give them one heart and one way, that they
may fear me forever, for the good of them. To fear God is
for the good of his people, for the good of them and their children
after them. Verse 40, 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. You see,
the fear of the Lord is a New Covenant promise. It's a New
Covenant, Eternal Covenant promise and a blessing from God. And this fear, as we've seen
earlier, this fear comes by revelation. It comes by revelation. that all
the people, Joshua declared it, that all the people of the earth
might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty. This is before
he conquered those peoples there in that promised land. That the
hand of the Lord, that it is mighty, and that you might fear
the Lord your God forever. In fact, as we know so often,
These descriptions of God's activities are very much and very often
a description of His very name. Jacob said of it, didn't he?
He said, the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the fear
of Isaac. Genesis 31, 42. So this fear
that I'm speaking of, this fear that these people experience,
this fear that the people of God are promised to experience
in their meeting, it comes from a personal meeting with the Lord
Jesus Christ. And people meet Him, as the people
did on the Day of Pentecost, they meet Him in the Gospel proclaimed.
That's how these believers came to have this fear. It came upon
them. And God lays a foundation that
never needs to be changed. He is the author of this fear. He is the proclaimer of it. He
is the one who promised that it would happen. And He is the
object in relationship with Him. is the whole purpose of it and
its fruit is to be with Him forever. You see it's only when the entrance
of His words gives light that people see who He is. And I have gone through them
and you can recall them again and again, the people that met
God. The people that met God in the scriptures, for every
single one of them, it was reverential awe, but much, much deeper than
reverential awe. You think of Isaiah, you think
of Job, you think of Saul on the road to Damascus, you think
of Ezekiel meeting God. And he went back, you read those
early chapters of Ezekiel, he saw the likeness of the appearance
of the glory of God, He was taken to see God in His glory again
and again and His throne and these giant wheels of His sovereign
providence that see everything and rule over everything and
crush all of His enemies. Ezekiel was so overwhelmed, he
went back to the exiles there at the Kibar River and he was
so overwhelmed, for a week he couldn't speak. When Paul was
taken to heaven, he saw things that he can't speak of. When
John, an old apostle, without any doubt whatsoever of the Lord's
love and the Lord's hand upon his long, long life, when he
was an old man, maybe in his nineties or older, he was taken
to heaven and he met the Lord Jesus Christ. And what happened? When the Lord Jesus was revealed
to John, he fell down. I fell at his feet as dead."
When people meet God, that is the testimony of scripture from
beginning to end, brothers and sisters. And the glorious thing
about those who fall down as John did, what did he do? What did the Lord Jesus do? He
loves His people everlastingly. He brings them to this place
of fear as He did those apostles on the Sea of Galilee, and then
He restores them again in His presence. What did He do? And
He laid His right hand upon me, His hand of power and His hand
of authority, and He said unto me, Fear not. I am the first
and the last. I am he that liveth and is to
head. And behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And have the keys of hell
and death. Now you can go and write some
things, John. Now that you know who I am, now you can go and
pick up your pen. This fear in our text says that
it came upon the souls of those people. This fear came upon them.
And that word is a word that has reference to something coming
to path but also has reference to something that comes into
existence, that's something that becomes, that is made, it's done. It's not something that's superficial,
it's an act of God, a powerful act of God upon those people,
and it came to those who were pricked in the heart. And in
the rest of the New Testament and as in the Old, we find that
the blessings of God, the eternal covenant blessings of God, are
so often attached to those who have this fear. It is, as Psalm
110 verse 10 says, it is the beginning of wisdom. The fear
of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It is the foundation
of wisdom. If that's where you begin, you
never lose your place on that foundation. The eye of the Lord
is upon those who fear him, Psalm 33. I love what Psalm 112 says,
the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him. Don't you love that story when
Elisha's servant goes out and sees this great army out there?
Great army on those hills and he's terrified, isn't he? And
he comes back to Elisha and says, there are just multitudes of
them out there. You can read it in 2 Kings 6. And Elisha says to him, open
his eyes, Lord, that he may see. And what did he see? The chariots
of the Lord standing between them and Elisha and his servants,
the angels in camp around. See the question again, brothers
and sisters, always is, is reality what we see with our eyes or
is reality what God says it is? For Elisha's servant he had a
reality that terrified him. For Elisha there was a reality
that was much, much, much, much, much more comforting and much,
much more real. That's how it is with our God.
He creates reality by His Word. He creates faith. He brings His
people to Himself and He works in their hearts. And every new
teaching that comes from the Lord, that really comes from
the Lord, brings more of this and lays it again on this foundation
of fear for him. It is a foundational blessing
of the early church. In the fear of the Lord is strong
confidence. And the more we know of the character
of God, And the more we see of the wonder of who he is, the
more this fear grows. It's not diminished as Christian
life continues, brothers and sisters. And like I said earlier,
as I said earlier, its absence is terrifying. Its absence causes
me great, great grief. You like me, brothers and sisters,
have had the opportunity to bear witness as we have over this
last 10 or 15 years here in this district and in many other places. We've had witness again and again
that should cause us to walk very humbly before our God. and
plead with him for his mercy and grace that we might fear
him. The number of conversations that
you have had where you have laid out before people very clearly
the gospel and the truths of the scriptures and people have
just responded with utter contempt again and again and again. See, when people fear God, when
people have this fear of God, they want to hear what God says.
They're not going to argue with His word. They're going, as these
people did in Acts chapter 2, they're going to the church.
They want to hear what God says. They want to know what honours
Him. And what man does and what man
offers and what this world offers is of no value whatsoever compared
to knowing Him. You see the effects are flowing
from this fear in the hearts of these people on the day of
Pentecost was that there was a turning away from that religion,
wasn't it? There was a turning to the Lord
Jesus Christ, away from all of that religion and all of that
heritage and all of the self-righteousness. They had to escape. What shall
we do? What we have done is put us in
a situation where all we have is wicked hands and all we are
joined to is a crooked, a crooked generation of religious people.
It's a turning to the church. It's a turning to a new communion. You cannot break fellowship.
You cannot find any place of safety outside of where these
people are. It does, this fear, bring humility. It brings contrite hearts. It
brings a reverential awe. It brings a believing, a believing
in His Word, a believing in His Word of warning, and a believing
in His Word of promised blessing. Maybe if you speak to them, Simon,
they will. We are. I'm sorry about that. There is in the Lord's revelation
of Himself, there is a new sense of what sin is, isn't there,
altogether? There is a new sense that all
of what they were doing in their religion that they thought was
worthy of God's esteem and God's praise upon them, all of the
activities they have done are completely turned upside down.
God turns the world, the world of his people upside down completely
by the revelation of himself. You see that's why Isaiah 33
says that the fear of the Lord is his treasure. It's something
that is a treasure of God. It means it's precious and it's
protected and it's preserved. And what God treasures, His people
are made to treasure. Only those who have no sin in
the eyes of the Lord really know what sin is. They really have
some conception of what sin is when they see the Lord Jesus
Christ and Him crucified, Him suffering under the wrath of
Almighty God. And only those who have this
godly fear in their hearts have no reason to fear whatsoever. No reason to fear Him. The opposite. I'm sorry about
all these interruptions folks. The opposite of this fear is
to be presumptuous, isn't it? So much of religion is people
gathering together and patting themselves on the back and telling
them how wonderful they're doing and how they are highly esteemed
in that fellowship because of the things that they do. Exactly
what happened on the day of Pentecost. The people of God are made to
be of God to be taken out of all that religion, all that man-made
religion. They are made to see that the
teachers of that religion Zephaniah has a great description of them.
It says, Woe to her that is filthy and polluted to the oppressing
city! She obeyed not the voice, she received not correction,
she trusted not in the Lord, she drew not near to her God.
Her princes within her are roaring lions, her judges are evening
wolves, they gnaw not the bones to the marrow. Her prophets are
light and treacherous people. It's remarkable, isn't it? Her
prophets are light and treacherous persons. Her priests have polluted
the sanctuary. They have done violence to the
law. People do violence to the law
in two ways, don't they? They do violence to the law by
breaking the law, and they do violence to the law by thinking
that they can keep the law in any way possible to the pleasing
of God. The just Lord is in the midst
thereof. He will do no iniquity. Every
morning does he bring his judgment to light. He fails not. But the unjust know no shame. It is a treasure. It is a precious
thing from God. And this fear came upon these
disciples because they encountered the Lord in the preaching of
the Gospel. They encountered him when he
is raised up before them just out of the Scriptures. Peter's
sermon is simple, it is biblical, and every verse is a description
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every verse refers to the eternal
covenant and the promises. Every verse is about Him. You see, where the Gospel is
not preached, there cannot be this fear, brothers and sisters. Where there is no Gospel, there
is no fear of God before the eyes of men, because the real
God is not declared there, and His Word is not declared. It's
by His Gospel that the Word is preached to people. You can read
it in 1 Peter 1. By the Gospel this Word is preached. There cannot be this fear. No
wonder this religion has concocted these notions, haven't they,
that they tell everyone all the time. Instantly when you talk
to people, God loves everyone, Jesus died for everyone, God
desires the salvation of everyone, the Holy Spirit is trying to
save everyone. Where on earth can there be any
fear of God in that scheme? When I'm still sitting on the
throne with my free will and I can make a decision at my choosing,
at my time, and God ultimately is my servant and He's in my
hands. That is not the God that was
preached on the day of Pentecost, brothers and sisters. The God
that was preached on the day of Pentecost is a God who is
worthy of fear. What was happening at that very
day God the Father is making the enemies of the Lord Jesus
Christ the footstool for His feet. It means that He's putting
them underneath the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ and there they
will remain forever. He's not trying to save everyone.
He saves His people. That's why the fear of the Lord
is so significant in the lives of God's people, isn't it? at
how it hinders hypocrisy, how it hinders shallowness. We are, as we read this sermon,
we are reminded again and again that we live in His world. under his all-seeing eye, and
he is sovereign, and he is God, and we are not. And Satan's lie
that you'll be like God's is burnt out of the hearts of these
people by the very revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. It
is a precious, precious gift from God. It's a precious, precious
gift from God because it acts on the new man. The old man of
your flesh and mine is going to fear all sorts of things,
brothers and sisters. It's the new man created in righteousness
and true holiness, the new man Christ in you that exhibits this
fear. And for those who live in his
presence, they find it delightful that he sees everything. I don't
know about you, but I love the fact that God sees everything
I do. I love the fact that Hagar declared him, as thou God seest
me. Thou God seest me, Genesis 6.13. You see me all the time. I am
never out of your presence. I am never away from your hand. No wonder, and we may not have
time to look at all this in great detail, but I'd like us to spend
a little time as we close looking at the verse we read out of Psalm
25. The secret of the Lord is with
them that fear Him, and He will show them His covenant. So the fear of the Lord is a
secret. It's a secret that's not known
to many. It's a secret that's revealed
by revelation, not by human activity. It's the sacred of the Lord.
It is the secret of the Lord revealing Himself. It is the
secret that is revealed, as the Holy Spirit does, as He was promised
by the Lord Jesus Christ, to take the things of the Lord Jesus
Christ and you could meditate for the rest of your days on
the things of the Lord Jesus Christ. His deity, His humanity,
His suretyship, His substitution, His death, His blood, all of
it, the things of the Lord, He takes them and He reveals them
to people. And He reveals us to be vile
and unworthy and polluted and unclean, and He reveals grace. He reveals that we are saved
by grace, pure sovereign grace. And we are saved because of the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, that He had determined
the salvation of vile riches such as us. While they were murdering
him with wicked hands, he was saving them from the wrath to
come. People in that situation don't
take God lightly. They don't play games with him
and they don't play games with his people anymore. I have a
reverential awe. It is with them that fear Him. It is with them. It's present
in their experience because it's a gift from God and it's a spiritual
blessing. Like all spiritual blessings,
they flow to us as blood-bought gifts from our crucified Saviour. They flow to us as a result of
an eternal covenant. It's with them in the sense of
the Lord's presence. His presence with us changes
everything, brothers and sisters. I love how Timothy, I mean Paul,
ended his life. There he was, abandoned by all,
about to be slain by the Romans for preaching the Gospel. And
there he was, as they all left me, he says, but the Lord stood
by my side. If the Lord stands by your side,
brothers and sisters, it doesn't matter how big and nasty Rome
is, and it doesn't matter how many people leave you. and how
lonely you feel in this world, if he stands by your side, if
his presence is with you, it doesn't matter what the world
does, it doesn't matter what Satan does, it doesn't matter
what men does. He says he won't leave his people
comforted, he's with them. So he's with them in communion,
with them to know his will, with them to be taught by him, with
them in teaching in such a way that these people gladly received
his word. with them, to feel his absence
as something which grieves us. And we hunger and thirst after
him to come and be with us and abide with us and speak to us. To hear a word from the shepherd's
mouth, just speaking to our hearts. To be with them to know His truth
with power beyond human understanding. With them to give them faith
and love. With them in communion. With
them in fellowship. With them to join them together
in fellowship. With them to grow that body together
with all the gifts that are perfectly suited to all of their needs.
He's with them. He's with them. We've met brothers and sisters.
They've been sent from the far corners of the earth here, brothers
and sisters. And when they come, there is
a communion and a fellowship with them that begins almost
instantly. Owen might be going to a wedding
up the coast in a few weeks' time, and I'm trusting that Janine
might be able to bring him by. And we smile as we think of him,
brothers and sisters, don't we? Thought that he might walk in
and have a cup of tea with us here. and worship the Lord together. And we think of Jerry and Peter
and Jill and so many others that the Lord has brought. And there's
a communion and a fellowship. It's with them, isn't it? It's
with them that fear Him, not some idolatrous notion of who
He is. And then there is this extraordinary
promise, isn't it? He will show them His covenant. He will show them His covenant.
And I love how it's cast in the future tense, isn't it? It is
the reality that that covenant is shown to His people. But for
those who feel that they don't have it, have some fear of Him,
but seem to feel so little of His covenant, He will show it
to them. And the covenant, of course,
is the Lord Jesus Christ. I love those verses in Isaiah.
I can still remember when they came to my soul with such conviction
in India many, many years ago. I still remember just being amazed,
having read them many times. But the Lord Jesus Christ is
the covenant. Every time we're talking about the covenant, And
we must talk about the covenant because God's ministers are made
servants of the eternal covenant. If they're not serving it, they're
not serving it to you and servants of it. They're not made by God
to be servants. I, the Lord, have called thee
in righteousness, I will hold thine hand, and will keep thee,
and give thee a covenant of the people. Both times in Isaiah
it's repeated so that we will get the emphasis. A covenant
for the people. and a light for the Gentiles.
Thus says the Lord, in an acceptable time I have heard thee, and in
the day of salvation I have helped thee. I will preserve thee and
give thee a covenant of the people to establish the earth and cause
to inherit desolate heritages. See Peter in his sermon, as you
go back through that sermon, I trust the Lord might take you
there again and again, you will see that again and again he referred
to the interactions between the members of the Godhead. The Father
anointing and appointing and aforeordaining and predestinating
all things. The Lord Jesus' coming is the
surety and the sacrifice and the substitute for His people.
The Holy Spirit bringing those blessings, the blessings of the
preaching of the Gospel and the blessings of the response to
the Gospel. They are speaking again and again about the eternal
covenant. It's called the covenant of grace
and it's the covenant of love and it's the new covenant. Because
it's newly revealed to the Gentiles, and it's new every morning, and
it's new to us, and it's fresh, it's as new as if it's just been
dropped into our laps. And we find it new on every page,
and it makes all things new again. It is the covenant in which the
Church should have stood justified before God, free of any sin before
a holy God from before the worlds were made. He is the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world. You see the promise here also
reveals those that find that covenant distasteful and find
the covenant engagements distasteful. The covenant speaks of eternal
redemption. The covenant speaks of eternal
justification. The covenant speaks, it's a covenant
in the blood. To deny the covenant and to kick
against it is to reveal so evidently that they weren't taught of God
because He's promised to teach them His covenant. He's promised
to teach them His covenant. He's promised that with the teaching
of His covenant those people will fear Him. Christ is the
covenant. He's the Christ of the covenant
and He's now the Christ in glory. It's the Christ that was proclaimed
by Peter. It's the covenant God shows His
people. It's this covenant that stands
sure. No matter what happens in this
world, this eternal covenant is sure. And for David, it was
all his salvation and all his desire. Do you find that you
desire it, brothers and sisters? I desire, I love to look at it
when I stumble and fall and collapse into sin and despondency again
and again. It's the covenant, isn't it?
It's the foundation. It draws you back and says it
was all done a long time ago. God's people were saved from
the foundation of the world. We were loved with an everlasting
love. He won't break his covenant.
Psalm 89 says, If the children forsake his law and walk not
in my judgments, if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments,
and they call his children doing this, then I will visit their
transgression with a rod and their iniquity with stripes.
Nevertheless, says our God, my lovingkindness will I not utterly
take from him, nor suffer, my faithfulness to fail, my covenant
will I not break, nor alter the thing that's gone out of my lips.
Now God's said it, and He's created reality by His words. Once I
have sworn by my holiness that I will not lie to date, I will
not lie. This is the promised blessings
of those who fear him. Shower by him his covenant. And there's just one last thing
I'd like to look at as we go, is that our Lord Jesus is the
great example and one of the wonders of the Incarnation, that
He walked on this earth and felt and experienced the things that
you and I experience and feel. And in the days of His flesh,
Hebrews 5.7, When He had offered up prayers and supplications
with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save
Him from death, He was heard in that He feared. Our Lord Jesus Christ, He knew
no sin, yet He knew what it was to feel the frailties of your
infirmities. that He reigns supreme over all
of that. His covenant is the comfort of
His people. It's the foundation. His covenant
brings with it a fear of Him, but it also brings with it the
most remarkable blessings that God Almighty can give to falling
wretched sinners.