Back to Psalm 128. The title of this psalm is a
family psalm. This is a family psalm like Psalm
127. It's really just more or less
an attachment to it. It's a family psalm. It's about
the family. And the first reference is to
Christ and his family. It fits him perfectly, this psalm
does. And the first thing he mentions
is a fear of the Lord. How can a fear of the Lord be
a blessing? Blessed, he says, blessed is
everyone that fears the Lord. How can that be a blessing? We
naturally, think of fear, when we think of it, it's always associated
with something unpleasant. We think of someone who's out
to harm us or someone who's against us. But here, in this verse,
it is a blessing. It is a blessing to be able to
have a right fear of God. Worship does not happen without
this right fear of God. It doesn't happen. There is a
right fear of God and those who have it are the most blessed of all people. To have a right fear of God is
to be happy. That word also, it says blessed
is happy. Happy. is everyone's. You see, this is a universal
blessing on God's children, that every one of them that feareth
the Lord, they are blessed of God. Now, what is it to fear
the Lord? I want this. I want God to give
me a right fear of him. I don't want, as it says in Isaiah
29, 13, I want you to listen to it. This is not the kind of
fear I want. In Isaiah 29, 13, wherefore the
Lord said, for as much as this people draw near me with their
mouth, they speak of me, and with their lips do honor me,
but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward
me is taught by the precept of men." Sometimes fear, as in this verse,
is put for worship. Their fear of me is taught by
the precept of men. It's not a real genuine fear
of the heart. It's just, it's hypocritical.
It's a hypocritical fear. I don't want that. God saved
me from that. I want a genuine, reverent, deep
reverent respect for God Almighty. And so what is it to fear the
Lord? Well, first of all, a right fear of the Lord comes from the
Lord. It's His work. It's the work
of the Holy Spirit in revealing God to us. Our Lord must make himself known
if we are to fear him. You can't fear someone you don't
know. You don't fear someone you don't.
Now we have unfounded fears, I know that. We have imaginary
things and we make ourselves afraid. But you can't fear someone,
you can't fear the Lord if you don't know him. If you do, it's
a wrong fear. It's a slavish, scared fear. The kind that when a preacher
gets in the pulpit, he scares you to death with the flames
of hell. You're going to hell if you don't
do this, if you don't believe. That's the wrong kind of fear.
We don't fear. This fear is not of a place. It's not of a place. It's of
a person. As I've told you this before,
but I have worked with a man And he had gotten religious. He was just a scoundrel, but
then he had gotten religious. And I was talking to him one
night, and he kept talking about hell. And I asked him, I said,
which do you fear the most, God or hell? He said, I fear hell. I don't want to go to hell. I
said, well, if you find favor with a judge, you don't have
to worry about the prison. I said, your fear is unfounded.
It's in the wrong place. A right fear is a right fear
of God. It's a right fear of a person.
God, not a place. Too many preachers are preaching
a place, and that's because they don't know the person. That's
the reason why they preach a place. But the Lord must reveal himself
to you and me in order for us to know him and to truly fear
him as he is to be feared. Someone wrote this, he said,
man has changed, God hasn't. God didn't change. When Adam
fell, Adam changed, but God didn't change. And the gospel has not
changed God. The gospel has not made God as
softer, kinder, gentler God. Those who die outside of Christ,
they find out real quick that God is a consuming fire. That's
who God is. In Christ, he's love and mercy
and grace. But outside of Christ, you don't
want to meet God outside of Christ. But man has changed. God hasn't.
And this fear of God was lost in the garden. This right, reverent,
deep, reverent fear of God was lost when Adam sinned. And what
it was replaced with was this slavish, scared death of God. God said, Adam, where are you?
And he said, I'm over here hiding. And he said, I hid. I was naked.
He said, who told you? And Adam said, I heard your voice
in the garden, and I was afraid. I don't want that kind of fear.
That's not the kind of fear that is reverent. That's not the kind
of fear that is saving. That's not the kind of fear that
leads to worship. That's the kind of fear that
leads to hiding behind a tree or anything else you can find
to hide by. That's the wrong kind of fear. A right fear of
God will bring you to Him, bow at His feet, and worship Him
for the first time. There's no true worship without
this fear of the Lord. It's of God. Now what does this
fear of the Lord look like in those who believe? What does
it look like? It is a reverent fear. It is a deep, reverent respect
for who the Lord is. He is the Lord God Almighty. He is the holy one of Israel. He is the sovereign, the majesty. That's who he is. And it's a
deep reverent respect for him. You don't even want to take his
name in vain in any way, shape or form. I hear people who call
themselves believers and they use God's name in such a flippant
way. It's disturbing. It's disturbing. I don't like to hear anyone say,
well, my Lord. That's vain. That's taking God's name in vain. There's a deep reverent respect
for God's name. Listen to Hebrews 12, 28. Wherefore,
we receive in a kingdom which cannot be moved. Let us have
grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and
godly fear. You see, it is a godly fear because
it's of God. That's why it's godly. It's produced
by God the Holy Spirit in the heart. And it's a real godly
fear. And then it's a fear that's born
of love. When the love of God is shed abroad in the heart,
you have this reverent respect for God that you never had before. You never had it before. And here's how it's manifest.
First of all, it's manifest by faith. The just shall live by
faith. It's manifest by faith. And then
it's manifested in the way we approach God. We approach him
in reverence, in prayer. Say a little prayer for me. There's
no such thing as a little prayer. I don't care if it's two-word
prayer. It's not a little prayer. If
you're going before God, It's not little. It shows up in the way we approach
God with the reverent respect that we are approaching the sovereign,
the creator, the one who holds our breath in his hand. That's how we approach Him. And
it's a fear, listen, it's a fear of offending the Lord. I don't
want to offend Him. I don't want to bring reproach
on His name by anything I say, anything I do. I don't want to
bring reproach on the name of the Lord. And then it's a fear
of walking unworthy of the Lord who called us by His grace. That's
what it says in Colossians 1-10, to walk worthy of the Lord. Paul
says to do so. Walk worthy of that name, that
name that you call on, that name by which the only name that's
given under heaven whereby we must be saved, we walk in reverence
of that name and walk worthy of that name. Then it's a fear
of forgetting his loving goodness to me. What did he write to the
Church of Ephesus? You think we wouldn't do that?
You think we wouldn't grow colder? You think that wouldn't happen
to us or to me or you? He wrote to the Church of Ephesus.
He said, you left your first love. You're busy. You look busy. You still have the doctrines,
but your heart's not in it. Your heart's not in it. Now,
they can call me a Calvinist. That's fine with me. But I'm
not a Calvinist just so I can spell Tula. I'm a believer. I believe the
Lord Jesus Christ. I believe on him. And I don't
want to offend him. I want to walk worthy of him.
I don't want to forget his love and goodness to me. And listen,
it's a fear of losing his fellowship. Now, if God has saved you, God
has saved me, we can't lose salvation. We can't lose it. He'd have to
die and perish for us before we'd lose our salvation, but
we can lose the fellowship of it. David said in Psalm 51, restore
unto me the joy of thy salvation. We can lose that joy. We can
do that. And it's a fear of losing that.
This is respect. This is reverent fear. And then
there is this fear. This is a very real fear. But
it's like a child to the parent. It's a fear of chastening. I
don't want to be chastened. I know the Lord chastens everyone
whom he receives, because none of us are that good. We all sin
daily. We all need correction. We all
need discipline daily. We need it. But you know, I feared
my, I loved my father. I loved my mother. Growing up,
I loved them. But I can tell you right now, I did have a fear
of being chastened. I did have a fear of the switch.
I did. It wasn't that I didn't love
him, but I just didn't want him to, I didn't want to make him
mad, and he was going to have to give me a whipping. Probably
hard to use that word in this day, but I got a whipping. I don't want to do that. I don't want to have to be chastened
because of my conduct. I want to walk worthy of the
Lord. I want to walk worthy in this
life. It's a reverent fear. It's a
fear of love, out of love. It's a fear of respect. And this
fear shows up in our character. This fear shows up in our character. He says, listen, that walketh
in his ways. Blessed is everyone that feareth
the Lord that walketh in his ways. You see, it's not just a fear,
it's also conduct. A right fear of God will show
up in our character. It'll show up at will. It'll
show up in our walk. We do not walk as other men walk,
the scripture says. We do not walk after the flesh
as we used to. In Romans 8, 1, it says, there
is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. It controls
that. Listen here in Ephesians 5, 1
and 2. Be ye therefore followers of
God as dear children. and walk in love. You see, here's
the character. Here's the character of a believer.
A believer walks in love. We walk in love toward one another.
We walk in love toward all men, toward all people. I was just as lost as those out
there that are lost. Children are wracked by nature
even as others. There's nothing better about me by nature as
anybody out there. Anybody in hell, there's nothing
better about me than the ones that are already there. And walk in love as Christ also
hath loved us and hath given himself for us an offering and
a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. Walk in love. This is the character of God's
children. In 1 John 2, 6, he that saith
he abideth in him, in Christ, ought himself also to walk even
as he walked. Even as he walked. Love as Christ loved. Forgive
as Christ forgave. And walk in humility as he did.
He humbled himself. He made himself, it says in the
Philippians, of no reputation. Anybody that had one, he did.
And he made nothing of it. He made nothing of it. Listen, now, how this applies
to Christ The Lord Jesus Christ is the only man who ever walked
in perfect fear of God, the man Christ Jesus. He walked in perfect
fear of the Lord. This fits him as it fits no other
person. He walked in perfect fear. As
a man, he pleased God by his obedience. It says, even unto
death, even unto death. He said, my meat is to do the
will of him that sent me and to finish his work. He walked
in perfect faith. He walked in perfect fear. He
walked in perfect obedience. This fits him. This fits him,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what is the effect of such
fear? What's the effect of it? It leads
to worship. It really leads to worship. And it overcomes all other fears.
If you have a real proper fear of the Lord, it'll overcome all
other fears. It will. Those who have a proper
fear of the Lord have a proper understanding of who he is. They have a proper understanding
of providence. All things are of God. All things
are working together for our good. We understand that. And we bow to him. Not unwillingly, but willingly. We willingly bow to the Lord
Jesus Christ. We bow to him. It leads to worship. It overcomes
other fears. The wrong fear of the Lord will
leave you fearing everything else. If you and I are afraid
of everything coming and going, we've got a problem. We've got
a spiritual problem. Solomon said in Proverbs 29,
25, the fear of man bringeth a snare. Listen, the fear of
anything but God brings a snare. It'll cause us to compromise
the gospel. It'll cause us to shut up when
we ought to speak up. a wrong fear wheel, then it's
a fear that is accompanied with peace and joy and happiness. It's not this fear that makes
you afraid of God, it's peace, it brings peace and happiness.
And this blessedness belongs to everyone, he says, who feareth
the Lord. For thou shalt eat, now listen,
verse two, here's the blessing continued, this is of God. For thou shalt eat the labor
of thine hands. I read to you last week, Ecclesiastes
519, every man also to whom God has given riches and wealth and
has given him power to eat thereof and to take his portion and to
rejoice in his labor, this is a gift of God. It's a gift of
God. God enables us, he enables his
children who walk in faith, they walk in fear, he enables them
to enjoy the labor of their hands, he enables them to do that. We
still labor because of sin, but God turns it into a blessing,
doesn't he? We are so blessed, good night,
we're so blessed. Unbelievably blessed. But look
at how this applies to the Lord Jesus Christ. He labored in God's
vineyard as a man, God's church. He toiled in the darkness of
this world to redeem us from our sins. He toiled in this and
worked in this ungodly world, this world that hated him on
every turn. He labored in it. He labored
in it. He labored to produce a righteousness
for his bride, for us. He is our righteousness. He worked
that out. By his obedience, he worked that
out, that righteousness that God demands, he produced it. He produced it. And he shall
eat of the fruit of his labor. Look over in Isaiah 53. In Isaiah 53, listen here in
verses, look in verse 10. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong
his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his
hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great. He shall divide
the spoiled with the strong, because he had poured out his
soul unto death. He was numbered with the transgressors. He bared
the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. He shall
eat. For the Lord shall eat, thou
shalt eat the labor of thy hands. This belongs to Christ first.
It belongs to him first. But it also belongs to the believer
in Christ. He blesses us, he blesses the
work of our hands, he gives the increase. Everyone in here is blessed of
God that you believe. Even the ones that don't believe
you're blessed of God. Even they get, you know, it rains on the
just and the unjust. They get to partake of the blessings because
of you. But listen to this in 1 Timothy
4, 8. For bodily exercise profit profiteth little, but godliness
is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that
now is and of that which is to come. The life that now is. God takes
notice of his children walking by faith and walking in fear
of the Lord. He takes notice of that. This
applies to Christ and it applies to everyone in Christ. And happy
shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. Happy shalt thou
be. Are you happy? I'm telling you the truth. I
couldn't be any happier. I don't think I can, but I'm
happy. Me and Vicki are happy. We're happy with each other,
right? I'm happy to be here. This is the Lord's will. It's
his will. I'm happy you're my brothers
and sisters. If I go first, I'll see you again. I'll see you again. In a little while, we'll see
each other again. But happy shalt thou be. Your
life will be happy. That doesn't mean you're not
gonna have trials. That doesn't mean that. Doesn't mean you're
not gonna have heartaches. Doesn't mean you're not gonna
cry yourself to sleep. You may cry yourself to sleep several
nights. But your life is gonna be happy. You know, Job, Job
thought he'd never be happy again. He did, he thought that it was
just gonna end in the grave. But look what, God blessed him
with double of everything, except his children. He got 10 children
again, but everything else was doubled. You know that I'm happy
now, you're happy now, I know y'all. You're happy. If you're
in Christ, you're happy. You're happy. But you know, what
is coming is far more than what we have now, what we can see,
what we've ever experienced. You know, I think if Job got
double, how much more are we gonna get when we finally leave
this life and it's over? It's gonna be over. I'm looking
at some, And I'm looking at myself too. But I'm looking at gray
hair, it ain't that long. I'm 68 years closer to home than
I was when I started. And I know, even if I live to
be my dad's, my dad and mom's in their early 90s, that's not
long. It's not long at all. And it shall be well with thee.
All your sins are gone. You're already standing before
God in Christ completely righteous, without blemish, without blame.
Can it get any better than that? No. But I tell you this, as it applies
to Christ, there's none so happy as our Lord. Yes, he was a man
of sorrows and acquainted with grief, but now he's happy. happy
with his children. When he cried on the calvary's
tree, it's finished. There couldn't have been a happier
man than when he cried, it's finished. I have redeemed all
of them. I've redeemed them all. And this applies to all in Christ. They shall eat the labor of their
hands. God blesses our work. He blesses us. We know we're
not saved by works, but he blesses us. He gives the increase. He gives the increase. Our labor is not in vain. It's
not in vain. God will see to it that we enjoy
the fruit of our labor. Our life is not a miserable life.
If I have to live in a shack, it's not a miserable life. I
have way more than I deserve, way more than I deserve. And
it shall be well with thee forever. It'll be well with you forever. And then we see here in verse
three, we see Christ, his church, and her children. And I'm gonna try to apply this.
to us too, but I was talking to Vicki, I said, my, I said,
you know, when you get to this verse three, I said, I know how to apply it
to Christ, but I said, in this life, it's tough. It's tough.
Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house. And that word by the sides of
thine house is the secret place. In this, you know, if you really
understand the time in which this is written, because you
take the time it was written, marriage, the family unit was
a lot different than it is in this country. It was a lot tighter
than it is in this country. And we are just, and we got too
much of this country hanging on to us when it comes to life
and marriage and family. Too much of this, free, so to
speak, this freedom that we have. No, it's abused. It's abused. There's nothing
Satan would like more than to destroy the family unit, because
it's such a resemblance of Christ to church and his children. But thy wife shall be as a fruitful
vine by the sides of thine house in the secret of the house. In
that day, a woman had her place in the house, in the back part
of the house. Because if anybody came into
the house, she was protected. She's in the secret place. Our
life is here with Christ and God. It's in the secret place. And this applies to the Lord
Jesus Christ, his church. She's called his bride in Revelation
21.9. She is a fruitful wife. He makes
her so. She makes herself. She's burying his children. She's
burying his children, the church as a whole. Those who are born
of God are called her children. And this especially speaks of
him and the church. His wife, the church, is fruitful,
and she's like a fruitful vine by the side of the house, and
thy children like olive plants round about thy table. This is
how we are in Christ. This is how we are in Christ.
I know that you can't apply this to every family, because there
are some in families that believe and some don't. Or some husband
believes and a wife doesn't, or wife believes and husband
doesn't. There's homes like that. And that's difficult. And so
I was trying to figure out how to even apply it to us. But it
does apply. It does apply. I can say this. God cannot give a believing husband
any better gift. Christ is the greatest gift,
all right? Christ, salvation, what we have in him. But the
next to that is a believing wife, a loving, believing wife. And
the flip of that is also true. God cannot give to a believing
wife a loving, believing husband. You know, when God gave the order
for the family, he did it in such a way that it just, it's
a picture of Christ and the church and the union we have with him. And that's the way a husband
and a wife and children are to be. It's like that. Listen to this, Proverbs 19,
14. Houses and riches are the inheritance of fathers. And a
prudent wife It's from the Lord. He gives her. He gives her. They don't just happen. You don't
just happen to marry one that's prudent. The Lord gives you a
prudent wife. If he gives you one, it came
from him. It says in Proverbs 18, 22, he
that findeth a wife findeth a good thing and findeth favor of the
Lord. That's what it says. And here it has this example,
I mean, this image that I get. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful
vine by the sides of thine house. Can I dare say she's a homemaker? Well, somebody got in trouble
with that saying that here not too long ago at a commencement
speech. It looked like they had a fit
over that. Called his wife a homemaker. Staying home, taking care of
the children. One girl was crying. She said,
he ruined my whole commencement. She was crying about it. Just
said, it just destroyed me. No, no. That's how God made it. That's how God made it. Listen
to this. She's a homemaker, not a homewrecker,
first of all. And she's the guy at the house. This is not the American way,
but this is the word of God. This is the way God has established
it, right here. 1 Timothy 5.14, I will therefore
that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house,
give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. That's how God set it up. That's
how he set it up. Listen here in 2 Timothy 1.5.
Paul write to Timothy, he said, when I call to remembrance the
unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother
Lois and thy mother Eunice, and I persuade that in thee also,
and that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures. Well,
how did that happen? Timothy, from a child, how is
it you knew the Holy Scriptures? His grandmother and his mother
took him at nighttime and they would read the scriptures to
him. And since they had faith, Timothy says, or Paul writing
to Timothy says, this faith dwelt first in your grandmother and
then in your mother. And no doubt they took the word of God. And
they read it to Timothy when he was a child. I mean, just
a child. And he said that these scriptures, listen here, that
from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are
able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ
Jesus. But your grandmother and your
mother read the scriptures to you. and God saved you. God used that to bring you to
faith in Christ. See how important that is? See
how important that home unit is, that family? It's so important. Behold, that thus shall the man
be blessed that feareth the Lord. Thus is the Lord Jesus Christ. blessed for his perfect fear
of the Lord. He's the one spoken of here first. He's the blessed man. You go
all the way back to the first Psalm, blessed is the man that
walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. That's Christ. He's
that blessed man. And here, Psalm 128, he's still
that blessed man that walked in the fear of the Lord. And
because of that, you and I are saved. Who believed, he brought
us to faith, we're saved. We're saved. Because of his obedience,
because of his walk, his faith, we have been saved. In our substitute,
in our representative, in our federal head, we've been saved.
Because what belongs to him belongs to us. It belongs to us. And those who believe the Lord,
those who believe, who walk in this fear, will be blessed of
God. They'll be blessed of God. The
Lord shall bless thee out of Zion, and thou shalt see the
good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. This speaks here of the importance
of attending the house of God, coming together here as the house
of God. You're blessed out of Zion. There is a special blessing
that goes on here you're not gonna get anywhere else. There's a special blessing. The
Lord, Jehovah, shall bless thee out of Zion. That's why we are
told to gather together and forsake not the assembling of ourselves.
There's a special blessing that is, if the world stands another
thousand years, we'll still do this, and God will bless his
children out of Zion. through the preaching of the
gospel by his spirit. We don't forsake this. John Gill
said this, here he blesses them with his word and ordinances,
which are the goodness and fatness of his house, and with his presence
in them, so that the man that fears God is blessed, and not
only in his person and in his family, but in the house of God,
he's blessed. There's a special blessing on
this. And listen, thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem. That's
just another word for Zion. This is the church. You and I
are gonna see the good of the church someday when all this
is over. We're gonna see the good of Jerusalem. Listen, all the days of thy life.
Well, how long is your life? Forever. It's forever. forever with the Lord, we will
see the good of God's people forever and ever and ever. Yea, thou shalt see thy children's
children in peace upon Israel. This is true of the Lord Jesus
Christ and his spiritual children. He's going to see the children's
children. He's going to see all of them.
He's going to see the travail of his soul and be satisfied.
He's going to see every one of them. None of them are going
to be stillborn. They're all gonna be alive, they're all gonna
be with you. This, this is the blessing that we have in Christ who perfectly
walked in the fear of the Lord, and this is the blessing that
we have as we walk in faith, in a right fear of God, This
is the promise. This is the blessing that's upon
you. God, give us this right fear. Enable me to do it. Give me this. You know, our prayers should
be full of asking for spiritual blessings. Everything else will
be added. You know, when you are asking
the Lord for spiritual blessings, That's the same as seeking the
kingdom of God and His righteousness. All these things will be added.
I pray the Lord, give me faith, repentance, love, joy, peace,
fear, a right fear of God. These are the things I want.
These are the things I ask God in Christ's name to give me and
you. Everything else will be all right. All right.