Psalm 111. Now the article that
I wrote for our bulletin this week, it's on the back of the
bulletin, I wrote that and printed it up,
but I could not get this subject off of my mind. So this morning
I would like to address in the message
this subject of the fear of the Lord. It says in verse 10 of Psalm
111, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And
if you look down at the next psalm, the very first verse,
praise the Lord. That's actually the Hebrew word
hallelujah. Blessed is the man who fears
the Lord. I've heard a good many messages
in my lifetime about the missing note in modern preaching. And they were good messages.
And you know, as men go about their religious pursuits, They wander around. They find
this form of doctrine interesting for a while, and then they eventually
get bored of that, so they go off onto something else, and
then does something else. So at any time, you might speak
of the missing note in modern preaching, because their pursuit
of every new thing that comes down the pike means they are
most of the time missing the important things. They may be interesting things,
and it isn't easy for us to get interested in these things. I remember back when I was still
living in Kentucky, I heard some guy start, he was supposedly
a preacher, Well, he was a preacher, but he was supposedly a good
preacher. At least that's what he wanted
everybody to think, so they'd send him money. And he started
talking about the Great Pyramid and how all of prophecy could
be determined by the structure of that thing. And it caught
my attention. And I even went to the library,
got me a couple of books, and started digging around. And like
many who preach such foolishness, he had one verse of scripture
to go with. And I believe it's in Isaiah,
though I can't remember. But it said that God said he
would set up a memorial in the midst of Egypt. And the way he
had somehow interpreted that, you know, it
was going to be that great pyramid. And, you know, it had to do with
the way it's perfectly aligned with North and South and the
dimensions. And then there's, of course,
the tunnels they built into it and then a tunnel that just got
chiseled through it so that, I guess, some of the builders
could get out or whatever. I'm not sure. But he was saying,
you know, that this represents this time period. And this over
here, this is the rapture when the church gets out. That was
the tunnel that was You know, all this. And it just caught
my fascination. And I chased it around for a
while. And once I kind of wore myself out on it, I thought,
boy, that was a waste of time. We can easily be distracted.
So yeah, missing note. And it's missing because they're
taken up with other things. But there is something that has
troubled me. for a long time as I listened to preaching. And it's this thing called the
fear of the Lord. I don't hear much about that. The Bible speaks often of it.
It describes man's sinfulness. You know, when Paul was making
his prosecution of man in the book of Romans, and he starts
with the Gentiles in Romans 1 and later picks up with the Jews.
And finally, there in chapter 3, he gives this long list of
Old Testament scriptures describing sinfulness. And he ends all of
it with this. You can just imagine a prosecuting
attorney making his closing argument, and his last sentence was, there
is no fear of God before their eyes. Everything that came before
that was because there is no fear of God before their eyes.
And when I listen to the preaching that goes on in, well, most of the guys on television,
and I don't listen to much of it. Actually, it's not even television.
Usually I see this kind of stuff on YouTube and things like that.
And it's astonishing to hear some of the things they say,
but what's most astonishing of all, it seems they have no sense
of reverence for God at all. That's what the fear of the Lord
is about. It's about reverence. It's about understanding who
he is and standing in awe of him. And I don't hear people speak
after that fashion when they're preaching. They don't talk about
a God that should make people tremble to hear about it. They talk about a God who's pretty
much like a doting grandfather. who can find no fault with his
grandchildren, though they are full of mischief. They seem to believe, in fact,
they'll... Recently I heard of one of them
calling him the God of pronouns. He has prayed a prayer and addressed
God as the God of pronouns because of today's transgender movement. saying that God is not limited
to two genders. And I'm thinking, do you have
any idea who you're talking about? I mean, despite the pure foolishness
of thinking there's some other gender besides male or female,
but to actually call upon God in such a way as to find fault
with the way he made things, and to utterly misrepresent him.
Now, that's just one example. But then you get to the conservative
preachers, and they're preaching a God that nobody has to be afraid
of. They're telling people, God loves you. Well, if God loves
me, why do I have to be afraid of him? Bible says, perfect love
casts out fear. So if God loves me, I have no
reason to fear him. They'll put forth some ceremonies
for you to do, some moral actions for you to perform, as though
by doing these pitiful things that somehow or another God can
be appeased by them. We have a small God. Of course, the reason they have
a small God is because they have a big man. You will always find
that to be true. Where men are lifted up, God
is diminished. And where God is lifted up, men
are diminished. But popular religion wants to
appeal to men, and you can't appeal to men by telling them
of the greatness of God. of his absolutely strict justice. They don't want to hear about
that because that finds fault with them and they won't bear
a message that puts them down any. And so they'll rail against God
and they'll rail against those that preach him as he reveals
himself. People don't fear the Lord because
they've not heard about a God worthy of any fear. But you know,
I am most disturbed by the preaching of those who hold the true doctrine,
such as you and I believe. But they do so in such a manner,
it's obvious they're very puffed up with pride that they believe
these things. I've seen them. They've caught
a hold of a few doctrines, and they think suddenly they're You
know, these experts in theology, and they get on Facebook, and
they just tear into faithful preachers. They'll look around
and wait for them to find some little quote, some little nugget
of something that they preached, and they'll twist that, and they'll
condemn them and call them false prophets and all this, all the
while claiming they're the defenders of the truth, claiming they're
the ones that hold faithfully to all things. And I look at that, and to be
honest with you, I don't see any of the fear of the Lord in that. That doesn't mean that the one
who fears the Lord cannot call out error, or that the one who
fears the Lord cannot say, you know, This man is not telling
the truth. He claims to be a prophet. He's
not telling the truth. That means he's a false prophet.
We can do that. But when we do that with malice
and when we do that in such a way that it tends to lift us up instead
of lift up the God of truth, then we have no more fear of
the Lord than someone who's preaching the God of freewillism or the
God of ceremonialism or what? Paul said this regarding Some
who he called enemies of the cross. He said, even now with
tears, I tell you, these are enemies of the cross. Why was
it with tears? He was broken hearted because
he realized these enemies of the cross did not have the fear
of the Lord and that would end in their destruction. Yes, we may rightly call out
those whose doctrine is wrong, but If we find a man that we
thought for a long time was a faithful preacher, or even just a faithful
believer, and then they just wander off, they go off into
something else. Can we watch that happen and
not be brokenhearted? Or do we get so full of ourselves
and so empty of the fear of the Lord if we forget how serious
it is for someone to abandon the path. When any turn from Zion's way,
alas, what numbers do, it seems I hear my Savior say, will you
forsake me too? If it never crosses your mind,
you could be one of those. It probably has to do with the
fact that there is not within you a sufficient measure of the
fear of the Lord, an understanding of his greatness that makes you tremble to think
you could be found on the wrong side of him. I've seen some preachers, I'm
sure I've even done it, and I'm not here, this is not one of
those us-them things, because I see it in me. I see it in some
of our brethren who I count faithful, because none of us are perfect,
but I've seen preaching going on, and I've described it, you
know, they get up there and they They get on some point of doctrine,
and they fight about it, and they argue about it, and they're
pounding their fists about it, and all of this. And I look at
it and said, this is like one of those gladiator battles that's
just being done for show to impress the crowd. The enemy's not here. The people listening agree with
everything the preacher's saying. Or worse than a gladiator battle,
it looks to me sometimes more like professional wrestling.
A bunch of slamming, but nobody's getting hurt, and nobody's really
doing any wrestling. It's a show. Oh, God save us
from religious spectacle. God save us from, God save you,
because not many of you are preachers. God save you from me coming up
here and trying to put on a show of what a preacher is supposed
to be. Things are much too serious for
that. The things we deal with are much too serious for us to
be playing games with it. The God we worship is too great
for us to trifle with Him and act as though His doctrines are
little toys like a child might play with and then just set them
down when they want to go and do something else and come back
and pick them up later. These are the matters of eternal life.
These are the matter of our relationship with the Creator who made us,
who sustains us, and who has the right to do with us whatever
He wants to do. And we are not in a position
to find fault with Him at all. We show our lack of fear of the
Lord when we consent without regard to the God against whom
we sin. That bothers me a lot. I don't know about you. I only
know about me because I don't know what your life is like. But sometimes I just, I can't
believe that someone who knows God would dare to do the things
I do. would dare to think the things
I think would be so careless. And yet it happens. I've seen people use the freedom
of the gospel as a means for their own fleshly gratification. You know, I preach much about
the freedom we have. We are the freeborn sons of God. But I've also seen this, and
this is some stuff, I've heard about it among some people whom
I know, but I've seen it among some who became famous among
sovereign grace people on the internet. You know, I would see it and
I always kind of scratched my head when I'd see this, but I
think, oh well, you know, I guess it's okay. But I've seen them
and you know one of the guys I'm talking about, Derek Webb,
you know, I mean the guy wrote some songs. He was a good songwriter. I liked his music. And he would
take old hymns full of solid truth, and he would sing them. And I would be moved by it. And
I'd go to his website once in a while, and it'd be up there. Instead of there being something
on his website about Christ or about God or anything like this,
about how much he liked an album by one of the popular rock and
roll groups. Now, if you like rock and roll,
there's nothing wrong with that. I'm thinking, wait a minute.
You're putting yourself forward as a follower of Christ, as a
minister of his gospel, and this is what you've got on your website.
And then you talk about his favorite whiskey, his favorite cigar. I'm thinking, this is what the
worship of God is about? I'm not even saying those things
are sin. I'm not talking about that. He has the freedom. Every
believer has the freedom to use anything in this world in a proper
way. But that's not what we're about. I think that after Moses was
up on the mount, speaking with God, and then he comes back down and
the people have made themselves an idol, and the King James puts
it, they rose up to play. And as I pointed out, they weren't
playing hopscotch. They were involving themselves
in wicked, pagan, religious ceremonies. Perverse. But he didn't say, well, you
know, we have freedom in the grace of God. We can make a golden calf if
we want. We can drink if we want. No, he said nothing like that. We are free in Christ. Thank
God we are. But does not the fear of the
Lord show us and teach us what the
important things are? And that when we put our face
to the world, we're not saying, yeah, we're cool Christians,
you know, we can have a beer if we want. That's not our message
to the world. They've made God into an afterthought.
They think so little of Him that they think they need to appeal
to the world first with something else. It would be naturally appealing
to them. You know how I am about music.
Music, there's no such thing as holy or unholy music. It's just music. And any style
of music that a believer wants to use to praise God is just
fine. But you know as well as I do
that in many of these churches, the stage atmosphere, the performance
atmosphere, the whole worship team, worship leader, all of
that, it's to put on a show that appeals to humans. Hoping that they can somehow
or another take that appeal and the emotions that are brought
up by that And they can somehow get them to transfer that to
God. And what they're saying is, is they don't think that
God is great enough in himself, that he's not glorious enough
in himself, that they could stand up there without any instruments,
without any singing, without any entertainment, and just tell
people what God is, and that God would be able to work repentance
in the hearts of people. Well, Job was a believer. And I certainly would not want
to compare myself with Job, even though as time went by, he got
dragged into justifying himself. I think it wouldn't have taken
nearly as long to get me to the point. I don't know if I could
bear the trials that he bore. And one day, he lost everything. He lost all his wealth, all of
his children, all of them put to death. They were all grown
by this time, had their own families. He built himself up a nice nest
egg. He had flocks, herds. And one day, it's all wiped out. And then, on top of all that,
he gets covered in boils, physical pain, psychological torture. The Lord has given enough leash
to Satan to rob him of every joy in this life. The only thing
that they left Job was his wife. They said, well, that was a good
thing to do. Well, evidently not with this particular wife.
Because her advice to Job, curse God and die. I've gone through some tough
times, and I'm sure glad that I had the wife I have. Because
her words to me were encouraging words. Her words were, words
that lifted me up and maybe quit looking at myself and start looking
at God and things like that. Imagine if you were, you know,
God had let these things happen to you. And then the one from
whom you should hope, you know, one person on earth from whom
you would hope to have some kind of help becomes a burden to you. That's where Job was. And at first he's talking very
good. But then his three friends come and they sit with him for
seven days. And that was fine because he
didn't say anything for seven days. But once they started talking,
they started accusing him. Saying, well, if you're a good
man, this wouldn't have happened to you. And is this typical? Job said,
what do you mean? I haven't done this. I haven't
done that. And before long, the whole mess has turned to where
Job is bragging about his own righteousness and questioning
God's treatment of him. And we find at the end of chapter
31 in Job, The words of Job are ended. That's one of the best lines
in this whole book. Job finally shut up. What does
it say about the law? The law speaks to those that
are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and the
whole world accountable to God. Job finally, I guess he ran out
of things to say. And Elihu begins to speak. And
when Elihu is done, God begins to speak. And both of them have
a similar message, which is essentially this. God is the creator and the sovereign
sustainer of all things. There is no single power or all
the collected powers of the universe that are not at his beck and
call to do with as he pleases. Who are you? Who are you? Paul said a similar thing in
Romans chapter 9. People made this accusation against
God. Well, why does God find fault with me if I'm simply doing
the things that he ordained? And Paul's response was, who
are you, old man, to reply against God? Now, given the God that
people are hearing about these days, that question makes no
sense. But if you understand something about who God is, you
would see it is utterly ridiculous for a human ever to call God
into question for what he's done. Eli, who begins to answer, look at chapter 34 beginning
at verse 5. Job says, I am innocent, but
God denies me justice. Although I am right, I'm considered
a liar. Although I'm guiltless, his arrow inflicts an incurable
wound. What man is like Job, who drinks
scorn like water? He keeps company with evildoers.
He associates with wicked men. For he says, it profits a man
nothing when he tries to please God. He's a lie who? saying to him, how dare you bring an accusation
of injustice against God? How dare you think that you are
righteous enough that God owes you anything other than an everlasting
hell? Verse 33. Should God then reward you on
your own terms when you refuse to repent? People make up their own terms
of salvation, their own way of salvation. And they say, God
should bless me because I did this, that, and the other. And
there's plenty of preachers out there that'll confirm what they've
come up with in their own mind. If you'll do this, God will do
that. If you'll do this, God will bless your family. If you'll
do this, God will make you rich. If you do this, God will give
you a long life. God doesn't bless us on our terms. He blesses us on his terms. We
can't dictate anything to God. Look over chapter 35. Verse two, do you think this
is just? You say, I will be cleared by
God. Yet you ask him, what profit is it to me and what do I gain
by not sinning? I would reply to you and to your
friends with you. Look up at the heavens and see.
Gaze at the clouds so high above you. If you sin, how does that
affect him? If your sins are many, what does
that do to him? If you are righteous, What do
you give to him? Or what does he receive from
your hand? Your wickedness affects only a man like yourself, and
your righteousness only the sons of men. What's he saying? Why
do you think that you are so big and so important that God
takes particular note of your sin and is so upset about it,
he changes the world order to make things tough on you? Do you think your sin is gonna
overturn God? You know, people, they like to
take pride in how humble they are about their sins and how
great they think their sins are. Do you realize, now, I'm not
minimizing sin here. Our sin's an awful thing, but
do you realize our sin has not affected God or his plan, his
purpose at all? He didn't up there, oh no, what
am I gonna do now? I was thinking that they, I thought
Adam wasn't gonna eat that fruit. Now look what he's done. What
am I gonna do now? God didn't break a sweat. God didn't get worried. And when
your righteousness, do you think that impresses him? Do you think
he's busy ruling the universe and you go out there and you
help, you pull over when you see someone with a flat tire
and you help him? Do you think he goes, wow? Do you think he stops doing? And I realize I'm putting this
in human terms, but that's the way Elihu was doing it. It's
though he's stopping his business of being God to take note of
your righteousness. What is Elihu saying? He's saying
we don't matter. He says of the nations, they're
a drop in a bucket to God. Listening on the news, you know
that war going on over there, Russia and the Ukraine. And it's
horrible, don't get me wrong. I sympathize with those caught
up in it. But do you think that God's up
there? I don't know how this is going
to turn out. I thought I had Putin under control. No. Look at chapter 36, verse 5. God is mighty, but does not despise
men. He is mighty and firm in his
purpose. What's he saying there? Well,
he's saying God is mighty and awesome. But understand this
about him. He doesn't despise men just because
he's in a bad mood. That's what he's talking about. If men suffer punishment, they
deserve what they're getting. It's not as though God is saying,
I'm in a bad mood today and I'm just, I'm gonna make it rain,
or if rain's what we need, I'm gonna withhold the rain. That's
not how God operates. And then beginning in verse 22
of chapter 36. God is exalted in power. Who
is a teacher like him? Who has prescribed his ways for
him or said to him, you have done wrong? Unfortunately, there are plenty
of people who've done that. But that's because they don't
fear the Lord. And then God begins to speak in chapter 38, verse 4. I'd say take the time and go
back to chapter 30, I think it's in 33, but whatever. Read this.
I read through all of this last night. I was just captivated
by the arguments made here. But he says in chapter 38, verse
4, where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? We complain about this, complain
about that, find fault with God's providence, come up with our
own ways. God said, where were you when I made this place? Did
you help me with that? Or were you sitting over in a
corner watching? Do you really understand this
universe that I've made? Now, it's true that here, what,
probably 4,000 years later, something like that, we know more about
this universe than maybe Job did. But I'll guarantee you,
we barely scratched the surface in our understanding, even though
physicists, you know, they get there and they write on a chalkboard,
and they might as well be writing in Chinese, as far as I can tell.
But this math, and it's all about these weird ideas about the way
the universe works, and some of them have proven true. But
we still, we weren't there when he laid the foundations of the
earth. Scientists today, and I know
this isn't what's considered the educated opinion, but you
know, their concept of how the universe came into existence. Were they there when it happened?
How do they know? How do they know? Who marked off its dimensions,
verse 5? Surely you know. Who stretched
a measuring line across it? Or on what were its footings
set? Or who laid its cornerstone while
the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for
joy? Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb? When I made the cloud its
garment and wrapped it in thick darkness? When I fixed limits
for it and set its doors and bars in place? And I realize
that this is all speaking in a kind of a poetic sense of what
the Lord did. Have you ever been out to the
ocean? I mean, it's remarkable power there. And that's
even when it's just regular. You see those waves and the amount
of energy in those things. And they come up to the shore,
and that's as far as they get. And the Lord says, I'm the one
that has set the boundaries for everything. And I contain everything
within its proper place. And we cannot go through. everything
here. In chapter 39 he speaks about
providence. He talks about, in verse 1, do
you know when the mountain goats give birth? You know, our lives
are really so small. They're wrapped up in just a
small area. There's things going on all over
the world. There's animals God's feeding
every day. There's animals giving birth, animals dying, there's
animals getting sick, all this stuff going on and God's doing
all of that. And then we've got our eyes focused
on this little tiny part of the universe that makes up our lives
and we think we understand. He said, who let the wild donkey
go free? And he mentions other creatures,
and then he mentions two creatures that are a mystery to many, and
they're a mystery to me. Behemoth and Leviathan. He says
he made them. Behemoth, there's some that said,
well, maybe it's the hippopotamus or the rhinoceros. But it said
its tail is like a cedar tree. You ever seen a hippopotamus
tail? I can't tell you what it was
for sure, but I have to agree with believing scientists who
say it really sounds like a description of the dinosaur. They used to
call it Brontosaurus, now I think it's Apatosaurus. But the long
neck thing with the big tail out the other end, you know?
And he's saying, can any of you control that? I said, I made it. He speaks of
Leviathan. And Leviathan defies identification. Some said maybe it's the alligator.
Well, it talks about him puffing flames. And for all intents and
purposes, it sounds like a description of a dragon. They say, oh, dragons
are fiction. Well, I'm not aware of any around
now. You say, well, if an animal breathed
fire, it'd kill him. Well, I do know that there's
one beetle that actually will gather up a flammable gas and
ignite it, they call it a rocket beetle, and it'll pew, you know,
makes a little bit of fire there. I don't, I'm not saying that
that's what this is. I'm saying God can create anything
he wants. The thing may be extinct, whatever
he was talking about. I don't know, but I know this,
the way it was described, no man could control it. No man
could capture it. They stood in mortal fear of
it. He said, I made him. I control
him. We fear men. Why? God made them all, and every
one of them is in his hand, and he controls every one of them.
Not a one of them can do anything without his permission. The fear
of the Lord. Oh, to have some understanding
of the kind of God whom we worship, more importantly, the kind of
God that is. God is who he is, no matter what
we think or believe. Now, having said all that, if
the Lord's been pleased to give us any sense of the proper reverence
and fear we ought to have of him, let us also read this. Verse 14 of chapter 33, for God
does speak now one way, now another, though man may not perceive it,
in a dream, in a vision of the night. When deep sleep falls
on men as they slumber in their beds, he may speak in their ears
and terrify them with warnings to turn man from wrongdoing and
keep him from pride, to preserve his soul from the pit, his life
from perishing by the sword. Or a man may be chastened on
a bed of pain with constant distress in his bones so that his very
being finds food repulsive and his soul loathes the choiceless
meal, his flesh wastes away to nothing and his bones once hidden
now stick out. His soul draws near to the pit
and his life to the messengers of death." Now friends, providence is one
way God speaks. He reveals things. And you know
when you get really sick and particularly if you get so sick
you think you're going to die? That's God speaking, getting
your attention. But now notice what's said, verse 23. Yet, if
there is an angel on his side as a mediator, one out of a thousand
to tell a man what is right for him, to be gracious to him and
say, spare him from going down to the pit. I have found a ransom
for him. Then his flesh is renewed like
a child's. It is restored as in the days
of his youth. He prays to God and finds favor
with him. He sees God's face and shouts
for joy. He is restored by God to his
righteous state. Then he comes to men and says,
I sinned and perverted what was right, but I did not get what
I deserved. He redeemed my soul from going
down to the pit, and I will live to enjoy the light. Now here
is a man who's learned something of the fear of the Lord. He's
been brought to the edge of death. He's looked into the grave, so
to speak, but someone spoke up for him. And there's only one
who can speak up for men, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he says, spare him from going down to the pit. I have found
a ransom. And our Lord Jesus can say, I
have found a ransom because I am the ransom. Now this is all being applied
in kind of a natural way. People getting sick, maybe so
sick everybody thinks they're going to die, but God is pleased
to heal him and let him live. But think of this in spiritual
terms. Was there not a time when you were made aware of your condition
before God, when you realized that you were a sinner against
Him, and that there was nothing you could do about it, and that
left to yourself, there was only one place for you, that was the
pit, to go down not just to the death of the body, but to the
eternal death of the soul. And in the midst of your terror
of facing God in your sins, someone, someone came by your side. Someone,
a mediator. Someone who could tell you what
you needed to know. Someone who spoke to God on your
behalf, saying, spare him from going down to the pit. I have
found a ransom for him. John repeats this, saying, if
any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father. Oh, isn't that
something good to know? Oh, how precious is our Lord
Jesus Christ when we behold Him with the fear of God in our hearts,
knowing that it is He that has made it so that we can reverence
God, understand His greatness, understand
the awfulness of our sin against Him, and yet we don't have to
be afraid because a ransom has been found for us. Christ has
died for us. And the more we hear of this,
when we hear of it particularly, when we hear of it and our conscience
is troubled by a knowledge of our sin and God's greatness,
It's like our flesh is renewed like a child. Oh, when we hear
the word of grace come into our hearts, we are restored. We pray, and we find the favor
of God. We see God's face. Instead of
trembling in fear, we shout for joy. And he justifies us, declares
us once again to be righteous. And here's how you can know if
someone has been made to fear the Lord and experience His grace. He comes to man and says, I sinned
and perverted what was right. Boy, there's no more excuses
now, is there? Yeah, I was wrong. He was right. But I did not get
what I deserved. He redeemed my soul from going
down to the pit, and I will live to enjoy the light." The wonder of that can be understood
only by someone who has some sense of the fear of the Lord.
Think of the God against whom you have sinned, and then know
this. through Jesus Christ, all those
sins are put away, are gone, and we are treated as though
we had never sinned. And knowing the fear of the Lord,
let us never make little of the salvation of the Lord. Let us never take it for granted.
Let us never be neglectful in worshiping him and calling upon
his name. For he is a God great beyond
our comprehension. And there's absolutely nothing
we can do to gain his favor or withstand his purpose. But he
has been gracious. Heavenly Father, we thank you
for your grace, even though we don't understand just how great
it is. Give us some sense in our hearts of your righteousness and holiness
in exacting justice, so that in the face of that we may have
a greater appreciation for how gracious you've been to us. Bless
us as we observe your table. In Christ's name we pray, amen.