Proverbs 19.23, the fear of the
Lord tendeth to life, and he that hath it shall abide satisfied. He shall not be visited with
evil. Now we know in the scriptural
sense from all the scripture regarding the fear of God and
fearing the Lord that it's to reference Him, to be in awe of
Him, give him glory. When Romans 1 says they glorified
knowing God, they glorified him not as God. The fear of the Lord
is the opposite of that. It's to know him and to glorify
him as God, to respect and reverence him as God. And it doesn't completely
exclude being a little bit scared of him. He told his disciples,
fear not them that can kill the body and have no more that they
can do unto thee, but fear him which hath power to kill both
body and soul. And so it's to realize that to
deal with God is of eternal consequence. To seek
his glory and not our own glory, to respect and obey what he says. If you reject the Lord's counsel,
you cannot truthfully say, I fear the Lord. And we know that we
can't meritoriously obey the counsel of God. In other words,
when we do, even our obedience is mixed with sin. It doesn't
measure up to God's standard of holiness and goodness when
we obey him in this world. But turn with me please to Romans
chapter seven, and let's see that that inability to please
God in the sense of perfect righteousness, being in sinful flesh, having
a sinful nature, we can't perfectly obey God in thought, word, and
deed. But that inability is tempered
with something else. Look at Romans 7.15. Paul acknowledges
that he can't obey God in that strict sense. For that which
I do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that I do. He's talking about sin. Now God's
given him the nature of the Lord. Christ dwelleth
in us. We have his holy nature, but
also a sinful nature. And so, Because Christ does dwell
in us, we have the desire, we do hate sin, but Paul is honest
about it. Even the sin that I hate, I do
it, I commit it. I'm selfish, I'm proud, I'm evil. But look at what he says in verse
16. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that
it is good. I can't obey the law up to God's
standard of holiness. but I acknowledge that the law
is right and I'm wrong. The law is good and I'm evil.
It's not a problem with the law, it's a problem with me. Now then,
it is no more, verse 17, now then it is no more I that do
it, but sin that dwelleth in me. He's not excusing himself,
it's the sin that dwelleth in him is his nature, it's who he
is by nature. But he's also saying in the sense
that we walk not after the flesh as believers, but after the spirit.
It is no more I. I'll tell you this, it's not
the I that God sees that does it, because he finds no iniquity
in his sheep. The I that Paul is talking about here is
the one that God sees, the one that he has given us, the nature
that he's given us. Verse 18, for I know that in
me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. For the will is
present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would, I
do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that,
I would not, and there's no more I that do it but sin that dwelleth
in me. So yes, clear acknowledgement
that I can't obey God in the sense of perfect, sinless obedience
to His law, and therefore acceptance with Him on the grounds of the
law. But by His grace, I want to.
By His grace, I acknowledge that His law is right. That's fearing
the Lord, to reverence Him as God, to take His side against
us. If I'm evil, The law is good. God's holiness is not tarnished by my inability
to keep it, to keep his law. And our text says that, and think
about this, Paul could not, as he acknowledged, in the strict
sense of measuring up to God's law, be good, but by God's grace,
he could fear God. He could acknowledge God. He
could defer to God. And we're told, and that's by
the way, us also as believers, if you know the Lord, if you've
believed on him, you acknowledge that everything you do is sinful
because of who you are, because of your nature. But you also
express and truly have the desire to honor him because he's God.
That's the fear that we're talking about. To respect, revere, and
honor him as God. So those two can go together.
We can be sinful and not be able to do anything right, and yet
fear God by his grace, not by nature. We'll talk about that
a little bit in a minute, Lord willing. But that's us too. Now we're told of the very moment
in which Paul began to fear God. That's very interesting. We know
exactly when he started fearing God. When he met the Lord Jesus
Christ on the road to Damascus, he went in a moment from persecuting
Christ, that was his life's goal, was to persecute the people of
God, but the Lord said, you're persecuting me when you persecute
them. But he went from that to, Lord,
what would you have me do in a moment? as soon as he realized
who he was dealing with. And from that moment, he began
to fear God. By God's grace, God did a work
in his heart. That's the living definition
of fear. When you go about despising God,
opposing God, rejecting God, hiding from God, having no interest
or use for God, say, Lord, I'm yours. What do you want me to
do? What's your will? What's your
desire? Not my will, but thine be done. Not unto us be glory,
but unto thy name give glory, O Lord, for thy mercy and for
thy truth's sake. That's when you begin to fear
God right there. And that's an act of his grace. Now our text
says that this tendeth to life. And the word tendeth there is
not in the original text, so it's just, it's to life. Fearing God is to life. And the
truth here is that the fear of the Lord is a trait, it is an
attribute of those who have life. It's a quality of the new nature,
which is life. The old nature is dead in trespasses
and sins. We're alive now. We're dead to
sin and alive and to God And that Is a quality of the fear the
fear of the Lord is a quality of that And you might think well,
you know people that hate God they're alive too no, they're
not No, they're not. They just think they are in the
truest Since the sense in which it matters they're dead Paul
said in the very context of where we read in Romans 7 who shall
deliver me who shall save me from the body of this death by
nature We're dead in trespasses and sins and those that don't
know God Have no life He that hath the son hath life and he
that hath not the son hath not life to have not life means to
be dead and So if you have no fear of God before your eyes,
you're dead while you walk. You're dead while you live. The fear of the Lord is to eternal
life, which also is what matters. It's the same life that's in
us now. The life of God is eternal. When this flesh dies and the
old nature dies with it and perishes with it because flesh and blood
can't inherit the kingdom of God and neither can corruptible
put on incorruption. But that life of God in us is
eternal. And it's not just That it has
no end, that it'll never cease, that like our physical life comes
to an end. But this life, it's endless,
but it's more than that. It's beyond, it's altogether
different than physical life. It's true life, it's abundant
life. And this is the only life that
matters. If we in this life only have
hope, we're of all men most miserable. The fearing of the Lord is a
sign of spiritual life. It's to that, it's unto that. I can't look at you and tell
whether you're alive or dead. There may be some dead people
sitting in here this morning in the spiritual truth. sense
of the word But if you fear the Lord Or if you don't fear the
Lord you can't hide that you can't hide that It's a sign of spiritual life
and that spiritual life is Christ that liveth in me Paul said I
live yet not I but Christ that liveth in me That's life eternal
to have Christ living in you, and to be in his good time glorified
and made exactly like him, to have him change our vile bodies
and fashion them like into his glorious body. John 17, three,
and this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. It's just knowing
God. Those who know God fear God.
If you don't fear him, If you don't reverence him, if you don't
obey him, he said, if you love me, keep my commandments. Again,
not perfectly, we can't do it in this flesh. In this flesh
dwelleth no good thing. And because of that, even there,
what the Lord calls good works that we do are not meritorious. They don't, they're not acceptable
in the sight of God. Christ is our acceptance in the
sight of God. You are accepted in the beloved,
the scripture says. That's the only way we're accepted.
But those who have life, they fear God, they reverence God.
And this fear is not natural to man. Turn with me to Psalm
36, please. I wanna read you a contrast here
of what we are by nature and the remedy for it is found in
Psalm 36 one. Psalm 36 one, the transgression
of the wicked saith within my heart that there is no fear of
God before his eyes. We're all the wicked, sinful
by nature. There's none righteous, no, not
one. And so we are those wicked ones and there's no fear by nature,
there's no fear of God before our eyes. And notice here in
verse two and three, how that's where it starts. It's a lack
of fear of God. It's a lack of reverence, a lack
of acknowledging Him and glorifying Him and bowing to Him leads to
all this man, all manner of evil as described here for, Verse
two, he flattereth himself in his own eyes. Every time, it's
reciprocal. The less you think of God, the
more you think of you. And vice versa. The more you
think of yourself, you flatter yourself in your own eyes. We
are masters at justifying ourselves. blaming Satan or society or whatever, grew up with the wrong crowd. No, you are the wrong crowd.
You were and you are the wrong crowd. We flatter ourselves in
our own eyes. And that's a direct result, a
reciprocal result of not fearing God, not reverencing God. You're gonna reverence yourself.
until his iniquity be found to be hateful. Unless and until
God shows you the exceeding sinfulness of sin, as Paul describes when
he learned, when the Lord revealed the law in his own standing before
the law, he said sin was exceeding sinful. Verse three, the words of his
mouth are iniquity and deceit. He hath left off to be wise and
to do good. He's dumb and he's evil. On purpose, he hath left off.
He hath rejected that, the hope of that, the source of that. Verse four, he deviseth mischief
upon his bed. He setteth himself in a way that
is not good. Instead of laying there in his
bed, thanking God for all that he's done for him and asking
the Lord to be merciful and to try to reckon up before God all
the blessings he's bestowed upon us. By nature, we lay on our
beds thinking up evil stuff to do. Defying God in our hearts. He hath setteth himself. You
see the deliberateness of that? And that's apart from God's grace. We deliberately set ourselves
in a way that is not good. He abhorreth not evil. You remember
what the Lord said about Job? He fears me and he hates evil.
Not by nature he don't. He didn't develop that. Virtue. That's the grace of God. That's Christ dwelling in a sinner.
But look at verse five. What's the remedy to all that?
Thy mercy. Thy mercy. What we need is mercy. A sinner like that now, the way
religion describes a sinner, well, you know, you have this
disease that you were born with, and poor you. You know, you're
a victim. No, no, no, no. You're the devil,
is what you are by nature, deliberately. despicable and horrible and a
monster. What we need is mercy, not a
chance. We don't need to make a decision.
We need God to decide to have mercy on us. Thy mercy, O Lord,
is in the heavens. You got to be born from up there,
born from above. Born again means born from above,
is what the original language there is in John 3. Thy faithfulness
reacheth unto the clouds. Thy righteousness is like the
great mountains. Thy judgments are a great deep. You see the contrast? Our judgments
are evil. We lay in bed thinking the right
thing to do is evil. But God's judgments are a great
deep. O Lord, thou preservest man and
beast. How excellent is thy loving kindness,
O God. Therefore the children of men
put their trust under the shadow of thy wings because of his mercy,
not because of any inherent goodness in any of us. Our text says also
that he that feareth God shall abide satisfied. The fear of
the Lord tendeth to or is to a satisfied life. That doesn't mean that he's going
to be financially wealthy, but that's what religion promises.
If you plant the seeds and all that, this is more than earthly
increase. It doesn't mean that he's going
to be satisfied in that sense with all the good things that
the world has to offer. He may or may not be. but he
will be content with whatever his lot in life is. He will be
satisfied. Esau said, I have enough. And Jacob wanted to give him
that great gift. He said, I have enough to keep
your gift. He said, no, you take this because
I have everything. I have everything. And he wasn't
talking about the stuff he was talking about. the Savior. So this is more than earthly
increase. I'll have you turn there, but
we're out of time. So listen to Psalm 4.4. This
is a parallel to our text. You think about what our text
says. The fear of the Lord is to life, satisfaction, and protection
is the last part that we'll look at. But listen to that in Psalm
4.4, stand in awe and sin not. That word awe, stand in awe there
means tremble. Fear the Lord. The fear of the
Lord tendeth to life and to satisfaction and to safety. Next verse, Psalm 4.5, offer
the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord.
There'll be many that say, who will show us any good? Lord,
lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. That's good,
that's what's good. Thou has put gladness in my heart
more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.
What makes this world happy? Oh man, my crop was incredible
this year. Back then that was money, that's
what they had. Wine, they'd make wine and sell
it. They'd cultivate the land and that was
increase, their livestock and their produce. And they, boy,
that's what makes the world happy. They, you know, earthly gain. David said, this is more than
that. You put gladness in my heart that's so far beyond that. Satisfaction. It tendeth those
that fear the Lord will abide satisfied. Verse eight of that
Psalm. I will both lay me down in peace
and sleep for thou Lord only makest me dwell in safety. That's our text too. He shall
not be visited with evil. But let's talk about the satisfaction
part. So the fear of the Lord will
cause a man to say with Paul, he said to the church at Philippi,
I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at the last, your care
of me have flourished again, wherein you were also careful,
but you lacked opportunity. And not that I speak in respect
of want, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith
to be content. I know both how to be abased
and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things,
I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound
and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ,
which strengtheneth me. I can suffer, I can prosper.
But my happiness doesn't depend on either. Our gladness, what
puts gladness in our hearts is the Savior. Christ, which strengtheneth
us. I don't rejoice and I'm not strengthened
by the fact that I gain earthly prominence or prosperity. I'm
gladdened and strengthened by my Savior. Content because whatever the
Lord ordains for me and provides for me is right. And it's enough
and it's for my good. And then that last phrase, he
will not be visited with evil. That doesn't mean nothing bad
is gonna happen to you. Look at the Lord's people in
scripture. It doesn't mean that bad stuff
will not happen to you in the sense that we consider things
bad, such as sorrows, afflictions, loss, heartache. But what this
does mean, he will not be visited with evil. It's that even the bad stuff
is good and not evil when it is the Lord
which has ordained it and he has ordained it for our eternal
good. No evil can happen to you because
even if something that we call bad happens, it wasn't bad, it
was good. David said in Psalm 119.71, it
is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn
thy statutes. You see, you can read the Bible
and know the Bible like the Pharisees did, upside down and in and out.
They had this head knowledge of the scriptures. But until you experience what
you know up here. It is good for me that I've been
afflicted. It's good for me that I've, it's been proven to me. I've lived the fact that Christ
is enough. I've lived the fact that I can
sing even when I'm in the prison and I'm gonna be executed the
next day. I've lived it. Now I know what God said. Now
I know what he said. When it's not just a doctrine
to me, but it's reality. And I live in the conscious reality
of what God said. Psalm 119.75, I know, O Lord,
that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness
hast afflicted me. That's a beautiful verse there
in that same Psalm, by the way, just a few verses down. Psalm
119. but he acknowledges that it is
the Lord that afflicted him. My children didn't enjoy getting
spanked, but it was somebody that loved
them with all of his heart that did it. And it wasn't a bad thing,
they thought it was. They might've seen it that way,
I'm sure they did. That was a good thing. That's how our sufferings are
in this world. The God who has loved us with
an everlasting love, and when he chastens and afflicts, he
dealeth with you as with children. What a comforting truth. In faithfulness he afflicts me,
in faithfulness to his covenant, his promises unto me. Remember when bad things happen, and it seems like they
happen all at once, doesn't it? Sometimes it's overwhelming.
When it rains, it pours. But remember our Lord's sweet
promise. He says in Jeremiah 29, 11, I
know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord. You
may not know it, But he said, I know it. I know the thoughts
that I think towards you, thoughts of peace and not of evil. There shall no evil come to those
that fear the Lord. Thoughts of peace and not of
evil to give you an expected end. The expected, foreordained, and
promised end of the believer is that we are predestinated
to be conformed to the image of God's Son, to be like Him,
and to be with Him. Those that fear God have life,
they're satisfied, and they're under the wing of the Almighty,
safe though the worlds may crumble. Amen. Let's thank Him.