Proverbs 1:7
Let’s give our attention now
to the word of the living God, Proverbs 14, 26 and 27. Verse 26 says, in the fear of
the Lord, one has strong confidence and his children will have a
refuge. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life that one
may turn away from the snares of death. And we’ll look at about
13 other places in Proverbs tonight that speak of the fear of the
Lord. A couple weeks ago, I was having breakfast with a friend. And we were chit-chatting about
life before we got down to the business that we were going to
do together. And he said to me something about
one of his boys. He has five or six kids. And
he says, so I came home from work one day. And my wife says,
ask your son what he told me today. Well, you know how those
conversations go. The son’s not going to tell it.
The wife is going to end up telling it. But she had asked him, I
think, to blow the leaves off the deck or something like that.
And he says to his mom, I don’t believe I’m going to do this
anymore unless I get paid. And so the dad, who is in the
financial business, he says to his son, really in Bill Cosby
fashion, let’s talk about what you get for nothing living here. Right? So he said, let’s talk
about your portion of the mortgage. Let’s talk about your portion
of the electricity, your portion of the gas. You use the internet,
don’t you? You like your little game thing?
He just went through the list. And his son started realizing,
when I blow the leaves on the deck, I’m getting off pretty
cheap. And by the time the conversation was over, which I think was one
of those I brought you into this world talks, and I can take you
out, the son realized very quickly that he could strike out on his
own But he was barely going to have a roof over his head. There
wouldn’t be electricity, gas, internet, and other amenities. And so he got rather thankful
really fast. But what did it take? It took
a fear of God speech. It took a reality check. It took
a mom and dad are your reality. Without mom and dad, you would
have nothing. And without mom and dad, you are nothing. And
so let’s make sure we have our heads screwed on tight. Well,
that’s what the study of the fear of the Lord ought to do
for us. It ought to instill in us several things about who God
is, what he’s done, what he’s promised, what he expects of
us, and how we ought to conduct ourselves in this world. A lot of times we’re ungrateful
like this young fella just described. A lot of times we feel entitled
to what we have and we don’t realize God could take it away
at any moment. He could strip it from us. I
want to shift gears for just a second and mention another
angle that we could take. Every Bible verse is not about
you, right? You turn on the NBA and Steph
Curry, because he can do all things through Christ who strengthens
him, can hit threes for million dollar contracts, right? I hate
to tell him, but Philippians 4.13 is the Apostle Paul talking
about all his sufferings, particularly his recent imprisonment, all
his beatings and all his hardships. He’s hardly making multi-million
dollars shooting threes in the NBA out on the West Coast. Philippians 4.13 is a reminder
from Paul to his compadres that we can endure the sufferings
for Christ if we must go through them. Or how about Jeremiah 29
11 we’ve all gotten the graduation card maybe even given the graduation
card and we say to the graduate you’ll go places because God
knows the plans he has for you plans to prosper you and not
to harm you plan to give you a hope in the future and That
verse is not about your recent college graduate, though that
may be true. God may have plans for your recent
high school college graduate or whatever. But who is that
verse written to? It was written to the exiles
in Babylon and God was coming to them to give them hope that
their exile would soon end and that a remnant would return to
the promised land to rebuild the temple. And so every Bible
verse is not about you. And most Bible verses are meant
to be to y’all, right? You plural. They’re to the church.
They’re to the corporate body of God’s people. Well, we’re
going to look at an exception to that rule tonight. Proverbs,
wisdom literature, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, the wisdom
Psalms, they often have a very individualistic approach. And it’s appropriate to look
at wisdom in light of what it says to the individual and not
necessarily to the corporate body, the church. Should the
church be wise and not foolish? Of course. But what we see in
wisdom literature, what we see in Proverbs is a word to individuals
that we ought to be wise, not foolish, and so on. So tonight
we wanna look at the fear of I Am, the fear of Yahweh. And we wanna begin by thinking
about who is I Am with the story of Moses. Do you remember Moses?
He was born and he was a boy. And what did the Pharaoh say
about Hebrew boys? They gotta die. so he was hidden
in the bulrushes and the little cask. Pharaoh’s daughter was
bathing in the river, found him. He was raised in the palace.
She named him Moses, which means drawn out. As he gets older,
he is out among the Hebrews and their enslavement. He sees an
Egyptian taskmaster ruthlessly treating the Hebrews who are
his own people and what does he do? He kills that Egyptian
and he buries him in the sand and circumstances get hot for
him and so he flees to Midian where he sits by the well. Apparently
the well is where you go for hospitality. There’s no Denny’s
or Holiday Inn Express and he meets his future wife, meets
Zipporah. And he lives there in Midian
with the priest of Midian. He has a baby named Gershom,
which means sojourning. Meanwhile, all the Hebrews are
suffering in Egypt. They’re groaning. God hears their
difficulty. And one day while Moses is tending
the flock, but what does he see but a burning bush? and he goes
near to see what it is. And as he goes near, what does
God always say when he appears to people? He says their name
twice. Moses, Moses, do not come near. Take off your sandals.
This is holy ground. And then he proceeds to tell
them, I’ve heard the groaning of my people. I’m gonna rescue them. I’m gonna raise up a deliverer.
By the way, that’s you. You’re gonna go to Pharaoh and
you’re gonna tell him, let my people go. Well, who should I
say has, sent me, and he says, you tell him I am who I am. And so when we look at the fear
of the Lord, in your Bibles, you see the fear of capital L,
capital O, capital R, capital D, Lord in all caps, and in the
Old Testament, that’s Lord meaning Yahweh. Meaning Yahweh literally
means I am. If you look at it in the Hebrew
alphabet, it is the verb to be. How often do you use the verb
to be? I am going to the store. I am going to bed. I am sleepy,
right? You is, you are, you was, you
were, you be. We use that verb all the time. And what do we mean when we say
those? We’re telling people about ourselves.
And so the verb I am is essential for telling somebody I am, I
exist. And so one of the great names
for God, there’s lots of names for God, is I am. And his name Yahweh, or capital
L, capital O, capital R, capital D in our English translations,
simply refers to Yahweh or I am. And so that’s who we are to fear. We are to fear I Am. We are to
fear Yahweh. Well, in wisdom literature, the
fear of I Am is all over the place. In the Proverbs, it pops
up 14 times. We just read in chapter 14, 26,
and 27, two of the times, and we’ll take a sampling of the
others. Well, actually in my notes, it’s time to do that now.
I won’t make you look, but I’m gonna read these for you. And
I want you to listen for what the fear of the Lord requires
or what it does. Okay, it’s usually gonna bring
a requirement or a benefit. So the fear of the Lord is the
beginning of knowledge. Because, that was 1 7, 1 29,
because they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of
the Lord. And then it goes on to list the
hardships, the difficulties. Proverbs 2.5, you will understand
the fear of the Lord and find knowledge. So you’re quickly
seeing fear of the Lord and knowledge are connected. Proverbs 8.13,
the fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Proverbs 9.10, the fear
of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the
Holy One is insight. 10.27, the fear of the Lord prolongs
life, but the years of the wicked will be cut short. 1516, better
is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure
and trouble with it. And then 1533, the fear of the
Lord is instruction and wisdom and humility comes before honor. And then 1606, by steadfast love
and faithfulness, iniquity is atoned for. And by the fear of
the Lord, one turns away from evil. Then 1923, the fear of
the Lord leads to life. Whoever has it rests satisfied. He will not be visited by harm.
So let’s look at the fear of the Lord in a couple ways if
we can. Let’s break it down. But before we break it down into
a couple categories, let me give you two ways to look at the fear
of Lord just broadly. It’s affectionate reverence and
obedience to I am. Affectionate reverence and obedience
before I am. This sounds a little bit like
a child to a parent, doesn’t it? Should children be afraid
of their parents in the right sense? Sure. Should they be affectionate
towards their parents? Absolutely. Should there be obedience
to the parents? Definitely. Those three things
are essential in a relationship between a parent and a child.
And as God is our father and we are his children, it’s very
much the same. Affectionate, reverence and obedience
before I am. Or another way to put it, this
is What we hear very often from R.C. Sproul and from Ligonier
Ministries, our lives are to be Coram Deo, before the face
of God. What was the big controversy
this year from University of Texas? What are they, the Hook
Em Horns? And what do they sing? What’s their fight song? The
eyes of Texas are upon you. And what’s the saying? You go to the University of Texas
or whichever school it is, I forget which, but you go to the University
of Texas and you need to live life. because Texas wants you to make
them proud. That’s kind of the idea, right?
The eyes of Texas are upon you. You do us proud by living a good
life. Or my favorite television show
back in college, I watch it now and it’s kind of goofy, but Walker,
Texas Ranger. The eyes of the ranger are upon
you. Anything you do, he’s going to
see. When you’re in Texas, look behind you because that’s where
the ranger’s going to be. It’s kind of that same Or maybe
your parents said, I’ve got eyes on the back of my head. I will
see everything. Well, we live our lives before
the face of almighty God who sees all things, knows all things,
and he deals with all things. And then also one last way to
look at it. How do you live life? Think of it as your ABCs. You
gotta know your ABCs to read, right? You gotta know your music
notes to play music. And so how do we live life? We fear the Lord. This is one
of the essentials, one of the building blocks. It’s one of
the ABCs, one of the major music notes we ought to know. All right,
so we wanna break this up into three ways, the fear of God. We wanna think about it in light
of our brain, in light of our heart and in light of the realities
that it brings to us. Think about the fear of God in
light of the brain first. We read, we rationally, we objectively
look at God’s law. We look at his precepts, we look
at his statutes, his commands, his ordinances, his words, his
imperatives, his sayings, his promises. We read his shalls
and his shall nots. Think about when Israel was at
the foot of Mount Sinai, Moses received the law. I am the Lord
your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of
the house of slavery, out of the house of bondage. Therefore,
four commands about your relationship to me and six commands about
your relationship to others. And then what took place? The
whole mountain shook and it was consumed. There was fire and
there was smoke. And so in our reverence, in our
reading of God’s word, it’s not the comic pages. It’s not the
funny papers. It’s not a novel. It’s not fiction. It’s not fun
reading. When we read the word of God
and all those things I just listed, it ought to have us shaking in
our boots. This is the word of the living
God who made us, who redeemed us, and he expects something
from us. So there’s something about our
brain engaged in the fear of God. But what about our heart?
What about the things that we pursue, the things that we desire?
Do we pray for the fear of God? Do we seek God’s face? Do we
stir up in our lives an affection and a love for Almighty God?
Do we nurture our faith? Do we receive God as he is on
his terms? Do we understand him? Does the
fear of God establish our lives? Sometimes I wonder if between
Sundays we’re living like the world, and then on Sunday we’re
reminded, oh yeah, there’s God, and there’s His ways and His
works. But the mind ought to go after the law and the precepts
and the words and the imperatives, but our heart ought to pursue
these things. The first thing we do when we
wake up in the morning, oh Lord, my Father in heaven, hallowed
be your name give us this day daily bread forgive us debts
it ought to be engaged in a relationship with the lord nurturing it so
there’s there’s a brain or a mind aspect to fear of the lord there’s
a heart aspect to pursuing God, pursuing the fear of God. But
there’s also blessings and curses. There’s the benefits. That’s
the third thing. So there’s the brain, there’s the heart, and
then there’s the blessings and curses. What happens if you obey
God? You get life. What happens if
you disobey? You suffer. and you ultimately die. What
happens if you obey God? Well, you get blessings. You
get long life. You get riches. You get grapes
and grandkids. You get to live and receive honor. But what happens if you disobey
God, if you don’t fear the Lord? Well, there’s curses for disobedience.
There’s suffering. There’s poverty. You get dishonor. Ultimately, you die. It does
not go well with you. And so the fear of God is a multifaceted
thing that we ought to think about. We summarize it in affectionate
reverence and obedience before I am, but we look at it in the
mind. We look at it from the perspective
of the heart. We look at it in the perspective of blessings
and curses. Another way to look at it in
general is this, regular, everyday, individual, normal kingdom living. Who a person is, is the sum of
their everyday moments. You look at a person and what
they accomplish, whether it’s wealth or success or character
or family or generational living, it’s the sum of moment by moment
living wisely, living before the fear of God. And if you live
a long time in the fear of God, it’s going to go well with you.
If you live a long time not in the fear of God, it’s not going
to go well with you. And so one of the great blessings
I think to see in the fear of God is it’s just regular individual,
everyday, normal kingdom business living. It’s not rocket science.
Yes, it’s hard. Yes, it’s spiritual. Yes, you
need God’s help and grace. But it’s just, as Eugene Peterson
said in the title of his book years ago, a long obedience in
the same direction. And so what about another aspect
of the fear of God? What about the afraid part? And
maybe we could put this under the heart section, the brain,
there’s the heart. Maybe we could put the fear and
the stirring that God does. Maybe we could put that there,
but we’ll just look at it separately. What about the non-rational,
emotional side of the fear of God? the fear of God are being
afraid of him in the right sense of the word. It’s because he’s
true. It’s because he’s trustworthy.
It’s because he can give and he can take away. It’s because
he can discipline us. The fear of God causes us to
shrink back in literal fear. What did Moses do when he approached
the burning bush? He stopped because the voice
said, don’t come any closer. Today we talked about the temple,
the tabernacle. Where could common Israelites
go? They could go in the outer court.
Who could go in the holy place? The priest. But who could go
in the most holy place? And that only once a year. Only
the high priest. See, there were degrees of separation
in the temple. There were degrees of separation
in the tabernacle. Only some could draw near, and
that with a blood offering for their own sins and the sins of
the people, and so fear of God is the non-rational side of this
whole business, and it’s emotional. We shrink back because of who
God is, but we also step forward. Remember Lucy when she discovered
Aslan? Is he safe? Oh no, he’s not safe,
but he is good. And that’s how we look at our
approach to God. He is good, but he is not safe. And so what do we know about
God and his his truth, the truth about him. Well, just think of
maybe Psalm 46. A mighty fortress is our God,
a bulwark never failing. He’s our help. He’s our fortress. He’s trustworthy. He’s the God
who chooses. He’s the God who saves. He’s
the God who covenants. But another aspect of the fear
of God is he gives and he takes away. You know, we joke about
our kids, you know, I brought you into this world, I can take
you out. Yes, you brought your child into the world, but I don’t
recommend you taking them out because you’ll be on the Fox
eight evening news and the people in white coats will come get
you and you’ll probably be wearing stripes for the rest of your
life stamping license plates. Um, you know, it’s not good to kill your
children, right? You may want to some days, but that’s not
a good thing. But only God can give and take. Only God can give life and only
God can take life, except those that governors or those in authority
should do, because capital punishment where it’s legitimate. But think
for just a moment about this give and take. Some of you maybe
are familiar with the popular Christian blogger named Tim Challies. He writes a lot about books and
resources that are available to the Christian world. And I
want to say about two months ago, his 20 year old son, who
was a student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminaries
College in Louisville, Kentucky, was out playing Frisbee with
his, one of his siblings, and I think some of his college friends,
and he just fell over dead. Unexplainable, sudden, shocking,
20 years old, and not even in the prime of his life, getting
to the prime of his life. And recently, Tim Challies wrote
on his blog, something to the effect of, I fear God. He, without
explanation, took my son. He has a healthy sense of fear.
I’m sure he biblically and theologically and in his mind had it before
and in his heart had it, but he has it for real now. There’s
not a son to touch. There’s not a child to hold.
He’s not going to have Christmas with him. And he just said flat
out in this blog article, I am afraid of God. And isn’t that
a mercy and a grace for the rest of us who may not experience
the loss of a child in that way to take his word for it. to take
his word for it, that God can give and God can take away. Or how about the discipline of
God, the hand of God? God disciplines his sons and
his daughters as a father ought to. And so with this fear of
God, there ought to be some dread. There ought to be some aspect
where we are terrified of him. But there is also this sense
of he is great and awesome. Something to think about in this
study of the fear of God in light of our whole look at the book
of Proverbs, all the rules and all the wise ways of living,
the don’t do this’s and the do that’s, be wise, don’t be foolish,
all of that can only be done through the lens of fearing Yahweh.
If we adore him, if we fear him, if we are devoted to him, our
conduct will follow. Think about the contrary, though,
in the scripture. There is no fear of God in this
place. Where does those words come up?
Well, they come up when Abraham sojourns to the land where Abimelech
is king in Genesis 20. There’s a famine, I believe.
They go out of the promised land where God could have taken care
of them in miraculous ways, but he failed in his faith, and so
they go to the land of Abimelech, and what does God tell Sarah,
his wife, and she’s his half-sister, remember. Don’t tell anybody
you’re my wife because they’ll kill me. They won’t treat me
well. Tell them you’re my sister. So what does Abimelech do? Well,
he takes Sarah, who’s pretty, into his harem. She’s in training
to be one of his many wives, and it does not go well for Abimelech.
God comes to him in a dream and says, you have another man’s
wife. Bible says he didn’t touch her yet, but he realized this
ain’t good, and so he comes to Abraham and says, you big fat
liar, why did you do this? You brought curses. Here, here’s
a bunch of stuff. Go, get out of here. Quit cursing
my life, because I’ve taken up with your wife, not your sister. And so Abraham, though, is motivated
to do this, to tell the fib about his wife, because he says, there
is no fear of God in this place. He left the promised land for
help, which was foolish. And he went into a place where
there was no fear of God. Why do we run to Egypt for help
when God is our fortress and our strength? That’s a lesson
there, isn’t it? There’s another place in the Bible where it says
in Psalm 36, there is no fear of God before God. his eyes. It’s speaking of wicked people,
unrighteous people. And you could pick up this theme
in the story of Esau. Esau was unwilling, he was willing
for the sake of a meal. to give up all the blessings
of Almighty God for a pot of soup, a bowl of soup. How about
Nadab and Abihu? They came before the Lord and
they offered unauthorized fire and God said, no, he struck them
dead. Or Uzzah, the cart. or the Ark of the Covenant was
to be carried with the poles, put through the holes with the
Levites and the appropriate people. And Uzzah put it on an ox cart
and when it stumbled and he thought it was going to fall, he dared
to touch it and God struck him dead. God wants to be believed,
obeyed. Or how about Ananias and Sapphira?
There was no fear of God in these people. What do we think about the fool
who doesn’t fear the Lord? Well, he’s conceited, he’s thick
headed, he’s stubborn, he refuses training and discipline, and
most of all, he’s probably unsaved. And so there’s a reminder to
us that to fear the Lord, we need to have faith. We need to
accept God, God’s offer of salvation through Jesus, fearing that if
we don’t trust in Jesus, repent of our sins and ask for forgiveness,
then the wrath of God, which is the worst thing we could fear,
will fall upon us at the last day. So we must have faith and
accept and believe and rest and submit to God, trusting in Jesus,
fearing him and obeying the Lord who brought us near. We need
to be reminded that God is good, but he is not safe. He brought
us into this world. He can take us out. His eyes
are always upon us. And no, our moms do not have
eyes on the back of our head, but it’s a good ploy as long
as it works. But God sees everything. And so we must live life, let
the moments add up, and in the end, it’ll determine whether
we’re foolish, whether we’re wise, whether we fear the Lord,
or we love men better. And we wanna end tonight by being
reminded of what Solomon says at the end of Ecclesiastes. He
says, I’ve been the king, I’ve had it all, There’s nothing that
I could have had that I withheld from my life. And he says, the
sum of it all is this, fear God and keep his commandments. That’s
the sum of the way we ought to live. So let’s look to God in
prayer. Lord, bless to us this study
of the fear of God. We pray that we would love you with all our minds.
Know what is good, right, and true from your word. We’d love
you with all our hearts. Our devotion would be to you.
reverence and all. And we pray that we would receive
your great blessings, not only in this life, but the life that
is to come. Good treasures from your storehouse, because we have
feared you and live before your face. We ask for your grace in
Christ’s name. Amen.