Luke 12, four and five, our Lord
is speaking to an innumerable multitude. Think about that. Even in a large stadium, you
can pretty much estimate how many people are there. No idea,
you couldn't even number how many people were there. And he
began to say unto his disciples, first of all, and I think that's
key again, we've mentioned that, but what he's gonna say In these
next two verses, I believe he's saying directly to those who
are following him, who have believed on him. And he says, Beware ye
the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. There's nothing
covered that shall not be revealed. You may put on a show, these
hypocrites now, they'll play act in front of men, but you
can't play act in front of God. And whatsoever you've spoken
in darkness, you think you know. It's a secret. There are no such
thing as a secret. Maybe secret to somebody. There's
no such thing as a secret. Did you know that? No such thing. And I say unto you, verse four,
my friends, be not afraid of them that kill the body. And
after that, have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn
you whom you shall fear. Fear him which after he hath
killed hath power to cast into hell. Yea, I say unto you, fear
him. Now one of the things that our
Lord did in all of his teaching is distinguish between his people,
his disciples, who he spoke to first of all here, his sheep,
his elect, he distinguished between them and this world. He taught
them that way. He's the one that made the difference
between them. And he taught them that there's a difference. And
we know that there's no difference by nature. I want you to listen
carefully to a passage of scripture you're very familiar with, because
I want to establish this first. There's no difference in us by
nature. It's important to see that first, because when we see
the difference, we understand what that difference is and why
there is one. By nature, there's no difference in men. All flesh
is as grass. All have sinned and come short.
Listen to it. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall
no flesh be justified in his sight. There's not some that
have kept the law and some that haven't kept the law. There's not anybody
that's kept the law. Doesn't matter what they say.
No flesh justified. For by the law is the knowledge
of sin. You can know by God's grace, God uses the law to reveal
sin. He never uses the law to make
anybody righteous. Never has, never will. But now
the righteousness of God without the law is manifested. In other
words, there's a righteousness that sinners can and do have
without keeping the law, without the deeds of the law, being witnessed
by the law and the prophets. God's been telling us about it
from the start. Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of
Jesus Christ. It's by something of Christ,
not something of you. And that word faith there is
faithfulness. It's by what Christ did, not what you do. Unto all, it's unto all and upon
all them that believe. It's not of you, but it's unto
you. Very clear now. For there is no difference It's got to be that way, doesn't
it? If there's going to be a difference, it's going to be something he
did, because there is no difference otherwise. There is no difference. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Now, he started
out that passage by saying, you can't be justified by the law.
There's no difference in your law keeping and my law keeping.
It's all sin. But there was a difference made
by God, by the Lord Jesus Christ in the person of his son. God
made a difference. There's no difference by nature.
Plainly stated there is that there's no difference between
a Jewish sinner and a Gentile sinner. There's no difference
between a good sinner and a bad sinner. You may call them good
or bad. A good person, bad person. They're
a sinner. No difference. A religious sinner, a pagan sinner,
sin is the great equalizer. We're all exactly on the same
level in our sin before God. If you're a sinner before God,
and you are, it doesn't matter much else what you are. Except, it also states in that same passage
there that we read that God has made a profound difference between
sinners. He justifies freely Without their
keeping the law without consideration in any way to their natural condition
before his law He justifies them freely without a cause in them
By his grace, that's the cause that's not in you. That's in
him Freely by his grace And how can god do that through the redemption
that's in christ jesus? He can't just say well, I I want
you to be justified and so you'll be justified He does say that
but he does it on the basis of the shed blood of his son or
else there ain't no doing it. Christ's precious blood does
not provide an opportunity. It does not inspire a decision. It does not make anything available. It separates. It divides. It distinguishes. It profoundly
and eternally distinguishes between those who are redeemed by it
and those who are not. Now we're establishing this before
we get into the actual language of our text here. All through
his teaching he distinguishes, he is the distinction between
this world and his sheep. He said, I laid down my life
for the sheep and they're not going to perish. And then he
turned and said to the religious world, you're not of my sheep,
you don't believe on me because you're not my sheep. Boy, night
and day. distinction. He plainly stated
that now in John chapter 10. The reason that his sheep will
never perish is that he laid down his life for them. And he
plainly states that the reason that the religious Jews did not
believe on him is because they are not his sheep. Therefore
there is no redemption for them, no difference made, no change. Now the difference is made for
his people and a difference is made in them. They're a new creation
in Christ Jesus. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. Our Lord made a distinction between
them and everybody else in his teaching. We saw this in the
very context. Our Lord's pronouncement of woe
upon the Pharisees. Woe unto you Pharisees, you hypocrite. Our Lord taught his disciples,
don't be like them. He made a distinction, didn't
he? This is what they do. Don't do it. Don't pray like
them. Don't give like them. Don't fast like them. Don't preach
what they do. Beware their doctrine and avoid
them. Beware their hypocrisy and don't
be that way. He clearly drew a line between
his disciples and everybody else in Matthew 16, 13. When Jesus
came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples
saying, whom do men say that I, the son of man am? And they
said, well, they're saying all kinds of stuff, Lord. Some are
saying you're Elijah and some say you're John the Baptist.
Some say you're one of the other prophets. Yeah, but who do you
say I am? Who do you say I am? Simon Peter
answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living
God. He distinguishes between them
and everybody else in Matthew 13, 11. He answered and said
unto them, because it is given unto you to know the mysteries
of the kingdom of God, and to them it is not given. And that given or not given is
everything. It's everything. It's eternity.
It's life and death. Just being who he was and saying
what he did caused division and distinction. John 7, 40. Many
of the people, therefore, when they heard this saying, and if
you look at the context, he's just telling them the truth concerning
himself. When they heard it, they said,
of a truth, this is the prophet. Others said, this is the Christ.
But some said, shall Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the
scripture said that Christ cometh of the seed of David and out
of the town of Bethlehem where David was? So there was a division
among the people because of Him. That's what we're talking about.
In our text, our Lord teaches us not to think of life and death
as others do. Don't think of life and death
the way men do. Just as in all these other cases,
He is the reason not to think that way. Notice how He begins
the exhortation, My friends, and remember how
it says in verse one that he spake unto his disciples, first
of all, and he speaks to them of fear and death. He spoke,
that's his subject of this message in these two, fear and death. Why? Why speak? Because the difference
that he has made Is going to cause those who are not redeemed
by his blood the difference that he made by that blood Is going to cause those who are
not redeemed by to hate you They're going to despise you and they're
going to try to kill you That's what he's saying here Abel offered
the lamb And God accepted him and Cain
hated him Our Lord addresses in the last part of the previous
chapter how that the Jews of old had killed the prophets and
he told the Pharisees that they were just like them. You brag
on dead prophets and kill the ones that are preaching to you.
And after our text, our Lord speaks of the time that his disciples
will be brought. Verse 11, before the magistrates
and the powers and arrested and persecuted for Christ's sake. And so now he's teaching them
this. Don't think of death. Don't think of life. Don't be
afraid like this world is of things like that. Don't be afraid
of them that kill the body and then that's all they can do.
You know it's unnatural. He's asking you to do something
completely unnatural. Everybody's afraid of harm and
of death. It wouldn't be natural not to
be afraid of that. If someone had a gun to your head, would
you be afraid? This whole world is afraid of
dying. That's exactly what our Lord is saying. You're not this
whole world. You're not like them. You're not one of them. He's not saying that it's evil
to be naturally afraid for your life. That's not what he's saying.
You have to take the whole statement together to understand what he's
saying. Of course, naturally, there's an instinct within us
to shy away from harm, to avoid death and harm, physical harm.
But we don't think the way this world does concerning that. Yes, it would be tragic if somebody
murdered you. But our Lord puts the whole thing
in a heavenly perspective when he says, after they're done doing
that, they're done. That's all they can do. Don't
be afraid of them. Of course they can't do that
without him. No more that they can do. What
would happen right now if somebody murdered you? We've talked about
this before. In this day and age, I don't
want to scare anybody, but in this day and age it has to cross your
mind. What if somebody walked in the back of this building
some day and just started shooting people? That's the world we live
in now. What if that happened and somebody
shot you dead right here this morning? If you're a believer
in the Lord Jesus Christ, What would happen? Are you afraid
of what would happen? When Stephen was stoned in Acts
chapter 7, that was a very tragic and terrible thing, there's no
question about that, but remember what happened. Remember what
happened. Acts 7.54, when they heard these
things, they were cut to the heart when they heard Stephen
preach the gospel to them, and he destroyed their religion.
He destroyed their man-made, free-will, works-based religion,
Jewish religion, and set forth Christ as the only hope for the
sinner. And when they heard that, they
were cut to the heart and they gnashed on him with their teeth.
But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly
into heaven and saw the glory of God, even Jesus standing on
the right hand of God, and said, behold, I see the heavens open.
and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God. And then they cried out with
a loud voice and stopped their ears and ran upon him with one
accord and cast him out of the city and stoned him. What a horrible
way to die. And the witnesses laid down their
clothes at a young man's feet whose name was Saul and they
stoned Stephen calling upon God. I love to read it that way because
they didn't stone Stephen. They stoned Stephen calling upon
God. Is that who they'd shoot if they
shot you? You calling upon God and saying,
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled down and cried
with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.
And when he had said this, he fell asleep. Does falling asleep
scare you? Are you afraid to fall asleep
when you lay down your head at night? Oh boy, I don't want to
go to sleep. I'll drink a bunch of coffee. No, I kind of like
going to sleep, don't you? I kind of look forward to it
sometimes. But the real perspective here
that our Lord puts on this whole matter comes from the rest of
the Lord's statement. Fear Him. The fear of Him drives
out all other fear. Not completely and utterly because
of our sin nature, but no other fear will be what it is to this
world if you fear Him. It's all become new now, isn't
it? Once you fear Him, Notice he
said, I will forewarn you whom you shall fear. He doesn't just
say, don't fear them, fear me. I'm forewarning you. What does
he mean by forewarning you? Well, that's the reason I said
what I did a while ago. I'm warning you before you come
to the place where they're going to harm you physically and maybe
even kill you. They're going to bring you before
the magistrates and the powers. They're going to arrest you.
They're going to persecute you and maybe kill you. Maybe steal
everything you had. That was common then for them
to just confiscate all the goods of those that they didn't agree
with in their religious foolishness. I'm warning you before that time
comes, don't be worried so much about the body. But think about
the soul. Notice the word body in verse
4. They're able to kill the body. They're not able to kill you.
They'll kill your body. But they can't kill you. And listen to Matthew 10, 28.
Matthew's account of this same language. He said, and fear not
them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.
But rather fear him which is able to destroy both body and
soul. Inhale. And this is very important. In our text and what we read
in Matthew, listen to what he said, fear him which is able
to destroy both soul and body in hell. It's very important
that we understand and notice that he didn't say fear going
to hell. A lot of people are afraid to
go to hell and so they get religious. He didn't say be afraid to go
to hell, he said be afraid of me. Big difference. Who is it that
has the keys of hell and of death? Revelation 1.18. It's the Son
of God, the one speaking to them. When he says, fear him, he's
saying, fear me. Fear him, not hell. In other
words, fear the one who decides who goes to hell and who don't.
Don't fear hell, fear him. Quit making decisions and fear
the one who decides everything. Quit saying and thinking and
listening to people who say salvation is up to you and fear the one
who it is up to. If you don't hear anything else
I said this morning, I'm going to say that again. Quit listening
to and quit thinking and quit hearing, quit saying that salvation
is up to you and be afraid of the one who it is up to. If you
fear him, you'll never have to fear hell. He's not saying fear
hell. In fact, he says plainly in the
context. This is why, notice what he said,
let's read a little further, we won't look. Verse five, he
said, fear him which after he hath killed hath power to cast
into hell. Yeah, I say unto him, fear him.
And then in verse seven, he says, even the very hearers of your
head are known, fear not therefore. Well, what's he saying, fear
or don't fear? Both, clearly both. So how do you reconcile
that? There's no need to reconcile
it. He's saying in verse 5, fear me. In verse 7, he's saying don't
fear anything else. You mark it down. That's what
he's saying. He's saying fear me and in verse
7, fear not anything or anybody else. Fear not danger or threats
or harm whatsoever. Not one hair of your head is
going to fall to the ground. If you fear me, don't be afraid
of any harm. Don't be afraid of any man. Those
that fear him fear nothing and no one else, not really. We have
a little residual of that, some instinctual residual of that.
But if you fear him, you don't really fear anybody else. There is still a primal fear
that this flesh has of harm and death, but we're not the same
anymore. All things are new, and that includes this. He's
made a difference. Don't be afraid of what everybody
else is afraid of. Fear me. As in everything else, he's the
difference, isn't he? He's the reason that I don't
have a real fear of death or harm or men that can inflict
these things. He's the reason. By God's grace,
I fear Him. And this is especially important
now. What I'm about to say, listen carefully. It's the reason that
I began this study the way I did, talking about the difference
that our Lord makes. This fear of the Lord changes
and informs and defines all of our thinking. All of our attitude,
all of our understanding, all of our perspective of everything,
whether you fear him or not, affects all of that. Your thinking,
your attitude, your perspective on things, the decisions you'll
make. Remember Proverbs 1.7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning
of knowledge. But fools despise wisdom and
understanding. Why? There's no fear of God before
their eyes, that's why. The fear of the Lord is just
the beginning. Proverbs 9, 10, the fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And the knowledge of the holy
is understanding. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of knowledge and of wisdom. And these are not just repetition.
These are two different words. If you do not fear the Lord Jesus
Christ, you do not know anything. You haven't even begun to know.
Everything that you know is wrong if you don't fear him. And if you do not fear him, you
have no discernment or capacity to understand. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them because
they are foolishness unto him. No discernment, no capacity to
understand anything. It's not that the information
is not there. Naturally intelligent people are able to process information
on some level. The natural understanding processes
it, but because there's no spiritual fear and no spiritual wisdom,
no spiritual knowledge, the information, the truth of the gospel causes
hatred and not love. How can somebody come down here
and say, I'm going to set you free from all of your bondage
and you hate him for it? Because you're just not getting
it, are you? You don't care what he says because you have no fear
of him, no respect, no awe of him. He doesn't get your attention. Because there's no spiritual
understanding, the truth of God, it causes enmity and not peace. It causes rebellion and not submission. because there's no fear. Fear
is the beginning. Not only is fear of God the beginning
of wisdom, but it's also the end of wisdom. It's the end of wisdom. Solomon,
the wisest man that ever lived, concluded something. By the way,
he's the one that wrote Proverbs 1 and Proverbs 9 where we read
the fear of God is the beginning Listen to what he wrote in Ecclesiastes
12, 13. He said, let us hear the conclusion
of the whole matter. Let's hear the end of it all.
God gave him wisdom. He began to understand, he began
to know, to be able to perceive things on the basis of reality,
of the way God sees things and reveals things. And you know
what he concluded after he looked at this whole world and perceived
it all and experienced it all? You know what he said the conclusion
of the whole matter is? Fear God. It's the beginning and it's the
conclusion. Fear God and do what he says. For this is the whole duty of
man. Ecclesiastes 12, 13. Wisdom begins with the fear of
God and wisdom perceives and wisdom evaluates things. based
on the gospel, the truth of God, and wisdom experiences everything.
And as Solomon chronicles in this book of Ecclesiastes, in
the end wisdom concludes that the same fear that it began with,
the same fear of God that it started with, is also the point
of it all. Our service unto God is defined
by this fear. Hebrews 12, 28, wherefore we
receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby
we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. You can't serve God perfectly.
You can't establish a righteousness. You can't even do one righteous
thing in your service to God, but you can serve him with fear
by his grace. He gives us that, doesn't he? This morning if you are truly
worshiping God, you know something about this don't you? Because
those, listen to what David said in Psalm 5 7, as for me I will
come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy and in thy fear
will I worship toward thy holy temples. You can't worship him
any other way. You must see him as the awesome
all-inspiring God who this morning has already decided whether you
go into heaven or hell and you didn't have anything to do with
it. Until you know that God, you'll
never worship. Fear of the Lord is a big subject
in the word of God. There are many, many, many passages
of scripture we could turn to that would define for us from
the Bible. What it is to fear God and we'd
be here this time tomorrow and we still wouldn't have even gotten
started yet if we looked at them all But our text is clear about
some things. Let's just stick to the text
this morning. It is a fear First of all, we've already seen it's
not a fear of hell. It's a fear of a person Our Lord is clear
that those who fear him should not fear him Don't fear don't
fear one hair of your head Perishing it's not gonna fit It's not gonna
happen Fear me and then fear not. In that order, fear me and
then fear not. I have power to cast you in hell.
I have that authority, I have that power. But I'm saying to
you, who believe only in my disciples, my chosen, my elect, I'm not
going to let one hair of your head fall to the ground. Much
less but you in hell. Don't you fear hell, fear him.
Now what this fear is, is a respect, it's a reverence. No question
about that, it is to be in awe of him. But it's also to be plum
scared of him. If you're not scared of God,
you just haven't seen him yet. You just haven't. And the way that he words this
is clear about that. It includes just flat being scared
of him. He's God. Don't fear them once
you're able to kill the body and after that they can't do
anything else. Fear him who's able to kill you and then put
you in hell. There's a little bit of just flat old-fashioned
scare in that too. It's a reverence. It's an awe.
But it's an understanding of his power, of his holiness. But then that same one says,
fear not, if you're mine, if you fear me, if you're mine,
if you are my sheep and I've laid down my life for you, you've
got nothing to be afraid of, especially me. He's the one that
loved you. Now, religion is all confused
about that. They say, oh, Jesus died for your sins, but if you
don't live the Christian life, he'll throw you in hell. What
in the world did he die for my sins for then? If he's going
to put me in hell anyway. That's pretty confusing isn't
it? Oh no. Not my savior. This goes back here to this forewarning
now. It's a reverence. It's a terror. The word means literally terror.
But it also means reverence and reverential obedience. The word
fear involves obedience in it. And this goes back now to that
forewarning, knowing that the established religion of the day
would try to influence them and force them into renouncing Christ
and coming on board with them. You know, we'll be, you know,
you can be, we'll make you, you know, we'll promote you in the
church. But what he's saying is we owe
him a reverential obedience to the exclusion of all others.
Don't listen to them. We don't care what this world
thinks. We don't respect their opinions because we fear Him
and His word and His will. His will, He Himself, is our
concern and our desire. And this reverence and veneration,
that's another word in the definition, to venerate, it's to be rendered
unto Christ with regard to a certain aspect of His person. And I'm
going to close with this. Listen carefully. It's rendered
unto him with regard to a certain aspect of his person. We could talk all day about the
attributes of Christ, his holiness, his grace, his mercy, his longsuffering,
his gentleness, his kindness, his goodness, his righteousness. But notice what he emphasizes
here in this verse. In verse five, it says, fear
him who when he hath killed hath power. Fear him that has power. Now you think about this. Now
what does he have power to do? To cast you body and soul into
hell. Can you think of anything more
consequential More important, more vital, more consequential
than whether you will spend eternity in glory or in hell. Is there
anything that really kind of trumps that? Can you think of
anything more important, more vital than that? In that matter, Christ has power. You don't. Nobody else does nobody
if they can do there's there's things that they can do with
his permission He don't give permission With regard to where
you spend eternity You don't give that out He has the keys
and nobody borrows them The word power there If you've
never heard me say this you might think I made this up and I say
this because it's just so so clear and so perfect and goes
along with everything. Listen to what the word power
means. This is the primary definition. If you look this up in Strong's
Concordance, the broadly accepted authority on, I don't know Greek,
but I know how to read a book. By God's grace, I can read. And
here's the primary definition of the word power there. It means
power of choice, comma, liberty of doing as one pleases. If it makes him happy to put
you in hell, then you fix him to be in hell. That's who's saying
to you, fear me. Now I've gone word by word through
this. I haven't made any of this up. This is not my opinion. This
is who he is. He has the power of choice in
the matter of heaven or hell, life or death, salvation or eternal
damnation. And he says, fear me. You look to me, you obey me,
you bow to me, you reverence me. Forget about what everybody
else says, forget about what they can do and fear me. You see why it says in our scripture
there that we worship him in fear? The only one that you can really
worship is the one who decides. As long as you're making decisions,
you're not ever going to worship. You're never going to worship
God by making decisions. When you start worshiping is
when you look to him who decides everything concerning you. We worship him whom Nebuchadnezzar
worshipped. In Daniel 4.34 it says, he said,
at the end of the days after God wrung him out. If you want
to read that chapter, it would be a good one to read. At the
end of those days after God wrung him out, he said, I, Nebuchadnezzar,
lifted up my eyes unto heaven, and my understanding returned
unto me, and I blessed the Most High. Before that he was bragging
on himself. He was saying, look at what I've
done, look at this great kingdom that I've built. And God knocked all the stuffing
out of him. And then he said, God gave me
my mind back. He gave me my mind back. And
what a coincidence, he started thinking right and he feared
God. What a coincidence. No, it's not a coincidence. The
fear of God is the beginning of understanding. My understanding
returned unto me. When? When he blessed the Most
High and praised and honored him that liveth forever and ever,
whose dominion, whose rule is an everlasting dominion, and
his kingdom from generation to generation, and all the inhabitants
of the earth are reputed as nothing. Don't fear them, don't listen
to them, don't follow them, don't be like them. They're reputed
as nothing. And He doeth according to His
will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth and none can stop Him or question Him or say unto Him
what doeth. None can stay His hand or say
unto Him what doest thou. Lord, if you will, you can make
me clean this morning. You can save my wretched soul.
Or if you want to, you can leave me in my filth and throw me in
hell where I belong. Now, what are you going to say
from that place? What are you going to say when
you're on your face before that one? By His grace, here's what
I'm going to say. Lord, have mercy on me. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. You can throw me in hell and
you'd be doing the right thing. Have mercy on my soul by the
precious blood that redeems from all sin. Wash me clean. Let's
pray.