9. And while you're turning,
there's a birthday card that Obie got, and he put it back
on the table. It's Brother Henry's birthday.
And he's going up to Rocky Mount this Sunday, and so he's going
to take the card up there with him. So you all sign that card.
It's out on the table there before you leave this evening, a birthday
card for Brother Henry. You sign that, and Eleanor and
Pam are going to Ohio. Her brother Arnold passed away. He's at funeral tomorrow. Tomorrow.
That's her oldest brother, ain't it? Yeah. Arnold, yeah. So remember her and then Kathy's
son, he's going to have surgery next Sunday, Monday. I told you
how they're going to drain his, he goes in tomorrow for a CAT
scan to see how to make sure everything's all right, make
sure everything will fit right. But anyway, they got to drain
his brain and then they're going to put skull back where he had
that stroke a couple years ago. Very serious, and that's happening
next Monday. And then Wednesday, they put
the heart skull back on his head. But very serious. I know she'd
really appreciate you all remembering him when you pray. And Lord,
have mercy on her and him. Bless his heart. He's very young
and had an awful stroke. It really had a profound effect
on him. Three strokes? Three strokes.
Now, I'm telling you. so young for that to happen.
I'm just going to read this one verse of scripture here in Proverbs
9 and verse 10, and this is where I'm going to hopefully bring
the Lord's message from this evening. The fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is
understanding. Our Father, in the blessed name
of our Lord Jesus Christ, We do come before you as always,
needy people. Needy people. We're like Bartimaeus. We're like those lepers when
they came and they said, Lord, if you will, you can make me
clean. And Lord, we come as beggars for mercy, for strength, for
grace, for your help that only you can give. And Father, we
pray for those who are traveling, Pam and Eleanor, Lord, protect
them, preserve them, see them safely home. God bless and strengthen
them as they go through the loss of her brother. And Father, we
pray for Stumper. Lord, God help him. Please give
the doctor's wisdom and may he improve and may his life improve. God bless his mother as she goes
with him and all the fear and anxiety she has. Please bless
her and strengthen her and encourage her. And we pray for Daryl's
sister, Diane. Lord, that you'd please help
her. Lord, she's got this awful disease and ask that you'd be
merciful to her. God, may she be, may the treatments
go well. May she have some time, good
time. And please enable me to speak
tonight to your glory and the good of those gathered here for
Christ's sake. Amen. Amen. All right. You know, I told you, before
that these, from Proverbs 10 on, they're all just one proverb
after another. There's no connection to them.
No connection to them. And so what I'm going to do for
a while is I'm going to preach topical. Just take a subject
out of Proverbs from here on and preach just one subject. And tonight I want to use the
subject as the fear of the Lord. There in verse 10. The fear of
the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And you know this fear
of the Lord is something that's mentioned so many times throughout
the scriptures and I dealt with it a little Sunday night. But
the fear of the Lord, look over here in chapter 1 in verse 7,
look what it says, talking about the fear of the Lord. Not only
is the fear of the Lord, it's here, it's described as the beginning
of knowledge. Proverbs 1.7, the fear of the
Lord is the beginning of knowledge. That's when knowledge begins
to enter into us. Knowledge of God, knowledge of
herself, knowledge of the Scriptures, knowledge of sin, knowledge of
righteousness, knowledge of justification, so many things that we didn't
have any knowledge of until the fear of the Lord entered into
us. And that's what happened. And then over here, it says the
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. One's the beginning
of knowledge, one's the beginning of wisdom. And I want to say
just a few things this evening about the fear of the Lord. And
we need to understand what it means, and I've seen this. There's three different meanings
of the word fear of the Lord, or fear, in the Old Testament,
or in the scriptures. Three-fold meaning of it. The
first one is dread and terror. when you can look at it yourself
in Deuteronomy chapter one and also in Jonah you know they in
Jonah there and when they was only found out that uh... there's
in this awful storm this awful dread and terror came upon them
because they thought that the gods were against them and that's
what God told the Israelites he said don't fear don't dread
your enemies because I'll fight your enemies for you So there's
this dread and that kind of terror. And then another kind of fear
of the Lord is, fear is, is that to revere and respect like you
would a king. You know, it's like you stand
in, you know, you stand in awe in reference to a king. You know,
this great king, this glorious king, like they did Solomon.
Oh, they just stood in awe of Solomon. They came from all over
the world to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And the third thing
is, is to revere and to respect the way that children ought to
do their parents. Revere them and respect them.
So when you put these three things together, then you have this
word fear. Now I know one thing, when there's
people that don't know God, they ought to be in dread and terror.
But those of us that know Him as King, as the King of Kings
and Lord of Lords, we stand in awe of Him. standing all of Him
in His glory, standing all of Him in His grace, standing all
of Him in His blood, and standing all of His righteousness, standing
all of what He has done for us when He suffered on the cross
for us. And we that have the fear of
the Lord, we revere and respect God and the Scriptures and the
Lord Jesus Christ and the Gospel in thanks of the holy nature
of the things that we love. We respect and revere them like
nothing else in this world the way we regard God and the way
we regard the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word. And let me show
you what I'm talking about. Look in Exodus with me. Exodus
chapter 20. Here's an illustration about
what the fear of the Lord is. The meaning of the fear of the
Lord. And this is what he says. Look over in Exodus 20 and verse
18. Look what happens here. This
is when Moses is up on the mountain. And he's up there getting the
law. And everybody's down at the bottom
of the mountain. They've got a rope around it.
And they tell nobody to get near. Because they'll have to die if
they do. And it says in verse 18, And
all the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings, and the noise
of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. Now God's up there. Whenever God manifests Himself
like this, that smoking is His glory. And the people saw it. And you know what they did? They
began to back up. That's not like this generation
today. They just come waltzing into God's presence These folks, when they saw that
thunder, and saw that lightning, and saw that smoke, and heard
that trumpet, and that mountain shaking, they began to back up. And look what they said here.
And they said unto Moses, You speak with us, we'll listen to
what you got to say, but let not God speak with us lest we
die. If we have to come face to face
with God and God has to speak to us, we'll die. We can't stand
in his presence. We don't have the ability to
stand in his presence. So Moses, whatever he's got to
say, you come tell us. And look what Moses said back
to him. And Moses said unto the people, fear not, For God is
come to prove you, to try you, that His fear, His fear may be
before your faces that you sin not. God done this so that you
would fear Him in such a way. And He did this to prove you
so that you wouldn't go out and sin. He scared them, he brought
the fear of God on them, and the good fear of God, and this
is what we're talking about, the fear of the Lord, it'll keep
you from sin. It'll keep you from doing things
in the world, and doing things to people, and doing things that'll
keep you back from that. The fear of the Lord will. And
oh, that's why He said that you fear before you so that you may
not sin, may not sin. So that's the fear, meaning of
the fear of the Lord. And let me tell you something.
How should the fear of the Lord be in us? How should it be in
us? How should we regard it? How's
the fear of the Lord in the life of a believer? Look in Matthew
chapter 10, look in Matthew 10. In verse 12, look what it says
here. No, Matthew 10.28, excuse me. Matthew 10.28. Oh, what about
the fear of the Lord? And you know, there He was back
there to dread and terror, stand in awe and to revere and respect.
God proves us to see whether we go, you know, I want the fear
of God before you so that you sin not. And look what He said
here in verse 28. Our Lord Jesus speaking. 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 SOUL
AND BODY IN HELL." And that's a good fear, that's a wonderful
fear, that's the fear of the Lord we're talking about. Oh
my, Shirley and I was talking about it yesterday afternoon
that I want to know the Lord. I want to know the Lord. I want
to be saved. I don't want to be deceived.
I don't want to go out here and live high-handed against God.
I want my thoughts. I want my heart. I want my affections.
I want my mind. I want my will. I want everything
about me. to stand before God with some
sense of awe and reverence of Him, a fear, afraid of going
out here and do something that would prove that I don't know
Him. And that's why He said, I send you fear that you should
not. And here he says, don't worry about a man, all he can
do is kill your body. All he can do is kill your body.
And so don't worry about that. But he said, I'll tell you who
you ought to fear, God. Because he can destroy your soul
and your body, both of them, and put them in hell. And I certainly
don't want to go there. I don't even like to, I don't
like to preach about it, don't like to think about people going
there, and that's why the early churches says they walked in
the fear of the Lord, and I tell you walking in the fear of the
Lord, that's what the men did in the Old Testament, that's
what people did in the New Testament, they walked in the fear of the
Lord, and the scriptures tells us that we're to work out our
salvation with what? fear and trembling. And that's
what I was just talking about. Working out with fear and trembling. I can't work out your salvation.
And you can't work out mine. And what that means is, is to
make your calling and election sure. And when the gospel gets
close to where we live in sometimes, and it makes us wonder, and we'll
go out here and think something, do something, act some way, and
we'll say, did I just do that, me being a believer? Did I do
that? Did I really do that? And you back up and you say,
oh Lord. And you get that fear and that trembling. And that's
what he's talking about. And I'll tell you something else,
and I want you to look at this with me too. I know you're looking
at some things, and it's warm, but these are things that we
need to... I think if we stay hearing the Scriptures, it'll
help us. But you know, and we ought to
be afraid. Men ought to really fear of falling
away. You know, would you fall away?
Would you eventually fall away? I know that folks, they don't
do it all at once. I do know that. They don't do
it all at once. When people fall away, they do it by degrees.
They do it a little here, they do it a little there. They'll
miss a service, then they'll miss two services, then they'll
miss three services, then they'll miss four. And then after a while,
you know, they just show up about once every five weeks, six weeks,
or something like that. And that's troubling. And it's
the gospel, it's the gospel's only thing that'll keep you believing
and cleaving to Christ. And I don't care what goes on
in your life, do not let anything interfere with your relationship
with Christ. Don't let your children, don't
let your mother, don't let your neighbors, don't let nobody keep
you from your relationship with Christ. That's what we're talking
about, the fear of the Lord. I read a Lee Tate, some of you
on the back there know Frank and Lee Tate. Lee put up today,
she said this, and she's one of the sweetest women, her and
her husband, and both of her boys, sweet as they can be. And
they talked about how when they got married that Frank went off
to preach a meeting up in Virginia, in Michigan. And he was up there
preaching, and he said, you know, he said, I love my wife, I love
my children, but I love God the most. He said, he's my, I love,
and she said, now he's been gone all these years, and she said,
I still feel the same way. I still love my children. I still
love my husband even though he's gone, but I love God more. Because God does something for
me that nobody in this flesh, nobody in this world can do for
you. He can comfort you when nobody
else can. He gives you strength when you
feel like you can't get up and face the day. He'll keep you
believing when you think that you ain't got enough faith to
take your hat off your head. He will give you assurance when
you ain't got none, and when you get too proud, He knows how
to bring you down, and when you're down, He knows how to bring you
up. And He's never, ever failed you one time in your whole life.
And so, oh, fear apostasy. But look what it said here in
Hebrews 12, 28. Wherefore we, Hebrews 12, 28. I didn't tell you all that at
first. I just said third Hebrew. Now keep you on your toes, keep
your, keep your... Wherefore, we receive in Him
a kingdom which cannot be moved, listen to this now, let us have
grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and
godly fear. Why? Because our God is a consuming
fire. And He consumed our sins in the
fire of His wrath in Christ, or He'll consume us with His
own wrath one of these days, one or the other. So, oh, I tell
you what, that's what it should be in us. And I tell you something
else we ought to do. We ought to be so thankful for
the fear of the Lord. If you have the fear of God,
if you have the fear of the Lord in you, and you have a fear of
the Lord in you, it means be thankful for it because I'll
tell you several things about it. First of all, it'll cause
you to hate evil. You can't love righteousness
and not hate evil. Can you? You know that old saying
that God loves the sinner and hates the sin? That's not the
way it works. God punishes sin wherever He
finds it. That's why the cross was there.
That's why Christ was sacrificed. That's why sin was put away by
the death of Christ. And when the fear of the Lord,
one thing it will do is to be thankful for it. It will cause
you to hate evil. It will cause you to hate evil. And do you
know where you hate it at the most? In yourself. That's where I hate
it at the most. And I tell you what, I tell you
something else it'll do. Look over here in Proverbs 14
with me. And I tell you, I'm having you
everywhere tonight. But look here in Proverbs 14, talking
about be thankful for the fear of the Lord. If you've got the
fear of the Lord in your heart, look what it says here in Proverbs
14 in verse 26. Oh, it'll give us a strong confidence
and it produces a fountain of life. Look what he said in Proverbs
14, 26. In the fear of the Lord, there's
strong confidence. Confidence in who? In the Lord.
You fear the Lord, you have some confidence, strong confidence
that He's going to uphold you, that He's going to keep you,
that He's going to meet your needs. And His children, not
only that, but His children have a place to hide. They'll have
a place to hide. And look what He said here in
verse 27. The fear of the Lord, what is it? It's a fountain of
life. It brings life. You go to God and He gives you
life, and that fear of the Lord produces life to depart from
the snares of death. Oh, thank God for the fear of
the Lord. If you have it, thank the Lord
for it. And not only that, but I read it to you Sunday night
from Job 12, 28, where he says, The fear of the Lord is wisdom,
and understanding is to depart from what? Evil, evil. And I tell you what, we'll have
a satisfied, our life will be satisfied with life. We'll be
satisfied with the life that Christ give us. We'll be satisfied
with our life here. And we'll be spared from an awful
lot of evil in this world. We certainly will. And I tell
you something else, for whatever God gives us, we'll enjoy it.
If He gives us riches, we'll enjoy it. If He gives us honor,
we'll enjoy it. If He gives us life, we'll enjoy
it. If He don't do those things, we'll still fear the Lord and
we'll still seek the Lord. Is that not right? Let me tell
you something else about the fear of the Lord here. You know
what happens if people don't have the fear of the Lord? You
know what happens to them? They don't know anything about
the wisdom, the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that belongs
to God in Christ. They'll never know nothing about
it. Without the fear of the Lord, they won't know nothing about
God's wisdom and God's knowledge given to us in Christ, the treasures
of it given in Christ. And not only that, but sin itself
will be the master. God won't be the master, the
fear of the Lord won't be the master, sin will be the master.
And a lot of people, a lot of people's lives will be shortened,
shortened by refusal to heed God's Word. And I tell you, people
that don't fear the Lord, I'll tell you this, they'll never
know anything about the love of God that's in Christ. They'll
never experience the love of God that's in Christ. They'll
never know nothing about that that gives us assurance and gives
us confidence of our salvation that's in Christ. And I tell
you what, they certainly can't work out their own salvation
because they don't have it without the fear of the Lord. And I've
heard a lot of folks say over the years, you know, I don't
understand what it means to fear the Lord. Said, you know, He's
a God of love, so you know, why should you fear Him? And the
fear I'm talking about, it's not a fear that makes you just
walk in dread and terror. That's not the kind of fear He's
talking about. Not even a fear of, you know, Maybe this happened
to some of you, I don't know. But years and years ago when
fathers worked and they had kids at home, mom had to stay at home
and they'd say, you wait until your daddy gets home and I'm
gonna, you know, you're gonna, you would not believe what's,
I'm gonna tell your daddy and you're gonna get it. And you'd
go all day long worried about Daddy getting home. And Mama
gonna tell Daddy. And Daddy's gonna say, come on
over here. Get over here. Bend over. You was always dreading
that. That's not the kind of fear we're
talking about. Because the one who holds the, what we would
say, the belt or the power to punish us and do anything against
us, he's the one, he's our father. And he's already punished us.
He's already suffered for us. He's already put away everything
that's against us in himself and his blessed son. So we don't
have to sit and worry and dread. That's not the kind of fear I'm
talking about. And let me give you this. Trying to get through
this causes the heat. I don't want you all to sit here
and suffer. How does a person come to fear the Lord? How do
you come to... How does the fear of the Lord
come into a person's heart? How does it happen? How does
it happen? This right here. This right here.
Lightning ain't gonna make you fear the Lord. Thunderstorms
won't make you fear the Lord. A tornado coming through and
taking your house out, that won't make you fear the Lord. I was
at a funeral one time and they was trying to Somebody's son
had died and the preacher was trying his best to get a profession
out of people because this person's son had died and went on and
on about, you know, this could be you and this could be you
and you need to. And a fellow walked up to him, said this,
if the death of God's son don't save a man, the death of your
own son won't save you either. It's the death of Christ that
God used to save people, not a death in the family. Ain't
that right? And I'll tell you something,
how then does the fear of the Lord, how do we come to fear
the Lord? Just like faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the
Word of God, that's just exactly the same way we're brought to
fear the Lord through the preaching. When God's presented to the mind,
God's presented to the understanding according to His Word, as He
says about Himself in His Word. and the gospel goes forth in
power and it goes into your mind, your heart, your understanding.
That's when the fear of the Lord is born. And that's why it's
a proper fear. Let me show you what I'm talking
about over here in Deuteronomy 31. Deuteronomy 31. Verse 10. This is something that
they did every seven years. And then they went for years
and couldn't even find it. But here's what they said. In
verse 10. Deuteronomy 31.10 And Moses commanded
them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity
of the year of release, in the Feast of Tabernacles, when all
Israel is come to appear before the LORD thy God in the place
which He shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel
in their hearing. Gather the people together, men
and women and children, and thy strangers within thy gates, that
they may hear, that they may learn, and fear the Lord your
God." Hear, learn, and fear. Hear the Word of God, learn about
God, learn about His Word, and fear the Lord. And oh, look what
he says there in verse 13, And that their children, which have
not known anything, may hear and learn to fear the Lord your
God, as long as you live in the land where you go over to possess
it, even that your children may learn. And that's what the word
of God, the same thing that you say is the same thing that produces
fear in our heart. That's why Paul He said, despises
now the goodness and forbearance of God. Do you despise that? Knowing not that the goodness
of God leads you to repentance? And on Peter says, you know,
that today's coming. He said, you know, that, that
God himself, you know, they, they thought that the word of
God that was stamped to cause the earth to stand up out of
the water and said, nothing else has happened. He said the same
word is what's kept in store for the judgment. for the judgment.
And so how do we come to it? By this right here. By this right
here. By that right there. You read
some things about the high and the lofty one that inhabits us,
Ernie. That God says, my words shall
not return unto me but void. That our Lord Jesus Christ himself
said, he said, if you accept you believe I'm he, you'll die
in your sins. Oh, I want to believe he's he.
I do. And here's the thing that people
do. And this is how they don't know anything about the fear
of the Lord. Some all they read about is God's love and so they
have no fear of the Lord. Others read only about God's
judgments and don't know nothing about His loving kindness, don't
know anything about that. One he reads it and he thinks
about nothing but grace and gives it he gives him permissiveness
and he belittles God's wholeness and he's God's justice, he lives
a life of permissiveness and just belittles God's wholeness
and justice. and somebody else develops this awful fear and
terror that he forgets God's grace and compassion. That's
why when we have the Word of God and you take it line upon
line and precept upon precept, you see God in His attributes,
you see God in His grace, you see God in His judgment, you
know, you see God in justice, but also in grace. You see Him
in power, and you see Him in mercy. You see Him in truth,
and you see Him in righteousness. You see Him in every way that
He is, and that's what produces the fear of the Lord in your
heart. And so, oh my! Let me show you something in
closing. You know, we need to really be thankful for the fear
of God. God's put it in us. The beginning
of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. Look with me in Acts chapter
9 and I'll close with this. Acts chapter 9. Acts chapter 9 verse 31. Then had all the churches rest
throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, and were edified,
and listen to this, and walking in the fear of the Lord, and
in the comfort of the Holy Ghost. That's what the fear of God does,
it gives you rest. Because we actually know who
He is, and it's a reverence, it's a respect, it's holding
Him in the highest regard, and awe. Our Father, in the blessed, blessed
name of Christ our Lord, thank you for allowing us to have these
few minutes this evening. Have your word, have your presence. Lord, I thank you for the attention,
even though the heat is so oppressive this evening. But I thank you
that the saints of God, that they hear, they listen. And God
bless them, Lord strengthen them. Again, we pray for Eleanor and
Pam as they travel. Pray for Stomper and Kathy and
the family. Pray for Peggy. Pray for Daryl's
sister. Oh Lord, there's so many needs,
so many needs, but you're a God that can meet every need. You're
a God that's near, not a God that's far off. You're a very
present help in a time of trouble, and we thank you for that. Amen,
amen.