Caution: Be Very Afraid!
Proverbs 8:13
Proverbs 8:13
13 To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.
(NIV)
I hate “Idiot” Lights. You know, those warning lights on the car dash to let you know something is not quite the way it should be. Because I am such an “idiot” when it comes to mechanical things, I really should pay close attention to those lights. But they annoy me! Some cars have gauges, some have chimes, some have voices! I always seem to wind up with lights.
Twice I have run out of gas. Both times the arrow on the gas gauge pointed toward “E”. Doesn’t “E” mean that as soon as you find an “Exxon” station you should stop and buy some? Really, I’m not that much of an “Idiot”, but everyone knows there is still a little fuel in the tank! Both times, that “Idiot” light also flashed to indicate that the gas tank was not happy about the amount of fuel left. And both times I was determined to stop as soon as I could get to the next Exxon station.
Both times I had to walk to the next Exxon station. And why don’t Exxon stations sell gas cans anymore? As my un-luck would have it, both times I ran out of gas predated cellphones and I was not currently a member of AAA. Thank God for comfortable shoes!
I don’t like Idiot lights, but I am learning to value them. My current vehicle has a fuel gauge, an Idiot light, and a chime! Maybe with the three of them to warn me, there won’t be a third time to charm me into paying attention!
Why do we not listen to WISDOM’S WARNINGS? The Book of Proverbs is full of warnings…warnings to tell us of danger, of trouble ahead, of how we should live our lives “to fear the Lord”.
What did God create first? WISDOM!
Proverbs 8:22-23
22 "The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old;
23 I was appointed from eternity, from the beginning, before the world began.
(NIV)
Since God knew how badly we would need wisdom that He made sure wisdom was in place before creating man, and since “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom…” (Psalm 111:10 NIV), we need some “warning lights” to remind us to FEAR THE LORD!
The key to developing an intimate friendship with God is
understanding and developing a healthy FEAR OF THE LORD.
Hebrews 12:28-29
28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.
29 For our God is a consuming fire.
(NKJ)
I. Understanding the Fear of the Lord
There is one place in all of scripture that actually tells us what the fear of the Lord is.
Proverbs 8:13
13 To fear the LORD is to hate evil… (NIV)
To FEAR THE LORD means to have an appropriate awe and respect for God’s holiness.
If we are to fear the Lord, we must cultivate reverence for Him for who He is.
1 Peter 1:15-16
15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;
16 for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."
(NIV)
The only way to be “HOLY” is to be “WHOLLY” His!
To FEAR THE LORD means to hate evil as God hates it.
You cannot love God without having the fear of God in you. You cannot love Him without obeying His Word. And you do not truly fear God unless you love and obey Him.
Psalm 97:10
10 Let those who love the LORD hate evil, for he guards the lives of his faithful ones and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.
(NIV)
Psalm 101:2-4
2 I will be careful to lead a blameless life…. I will walk in my house with blameless heart.
3 I will set before my eyes no vile thing. The deeds of faithless men I hate; they will not cling to me.
4 Men of perverse heart shall be far from me; I will have nothing to do with evil.
(NIV)
Romans 12:9
9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.
(NIV)
If you truly fear the LORD, you tremble at the thought of being involved in things that would stain you with sin, that would cause Him to be angry with you. If you don’t have the fear of God, you will eventually believe that God is easy on sin. You’ll think that since He’s your loving Father, He’ll never reject you - that you can sin all you want and keep getting up. You’ll get on a merry-go-round of "sin, confess, sin, confess" - and you’ll say to yourself, "I can do whatever I want, I’ll just run back to Jesus and make it right. He’ll forgive me at any moment!"
There is NO ROOM in the life of a disciple of Jesus Christ for winking at sin. Which of the Ten Commandments can you break and go to heaven?
We are a church that is centered on the idea that people need a place to come where they can feel the love, acceptance, and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.
But what we must never do is confuse this idea with the idea that we are not serious about sin.
We believe that when the Bible calls something sin – it is sin! We believe that God hates sin, and he hates it when people know what is right and do not act accordingly. And he calls us to hate sin, and to hate the deeds of people who willfully choose to sin against His Holy ways. In other words, we hate sin, but love the sinner!
QUESTION: Do you HATE EVIL?
When you’re given a chance to sin: WHAT IS YOUR REACTION?
Your reaction to temptation and to the sin that so easily entangles us either illuminates your fear of the LORD, or it betrays your lack of it.
I once heard the story of a father who was trying to teach his teenagers to be more discerning about what they watched on TV. Having brought home a questionable movie from the video store, the kids tried to sell their dad on letting them watch it because “it just has a little bit of bad stuff in it. Most of it is really good!”
The wise father agreed to let them begin watching the movie, and then retired to the kitchen.
Soon, the smell of fudge brownies began wafting from the kitchen out to the family room, and the kids started drooling, asking when they would be ready. “In a few minutes” their dad replied.
And so, when they were finished cooking, the dad brought out a trayful of delicious looking brownies. Just as the teens grabbed for a handful, however, he stopped them and told them “I hope you enjoy these brownies - I put in all the normal good stuff, sugar, cocoa, chocolate chips, and then I added in just a little bit of grounded worms from the backyard. But don’t worry - there’s just a little bit in there, the rest is really good!”
II. Developing the fear of the Lord in your Life
How much evil are you willing to tolerate in your life? The degree to which you are willing to tolerate evil (or even invite it) in your life is the degree to which you do not yet fear the LORD.
The degree to which you fear the LORD will be the degree to which you hate evil. One leads to the other. You don’t start by mustering up hatred for evil in order to develop a fear of the LORD. The more you learn to fear the LORD by respecting his holiness and his power, the more you will, naturally, hate evil and its influence in the world and in your life.
You develop the Fear of God the old fashioned way: You LEARN It!
The Lord is ready to teach His fear to all who desire it:
Psalm 34:11
11 Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
(NIV)
God teaches us the fear of Him through HIS WORD!
He used Moses to give us two examples of how we are to learn to fear Him through paying attention to the “Idiot” lights displayed in the Word of God:
1. Before he died, Moses prescribed for Israel’s kings how to walk in obedience. Moses could see prophetically that the children of Israel were going to make kings after their own lust. So he prophesied to these future kings:
Deuteronomy 17:18-20
18 When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites.
19 It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees
20 and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left.
(NIV)
Every king was to constantly feed his soul and mind on God’s record of past dealings with Israel. He would learn to fear God by seeing how the Lord Jehovah blessed the obedient - and how he utterly destroyed and cursed all who disobeyed His Word. It was very simple: The ones who did what was right. God blessed. And those who did was what evil, God forsook.
2. Moses also commanded Israel to read anew the commandments of the Lord to every generation. The people were to call a special assembly every seven years, to recount all of God’s righteous dealings with their fathers. Moses prophesied to them:
Deuteronomy 31:10-13
10 Then Moses commanded them: "At the end of every seven years, in the year for canceling debts, during the Feast of Tabernacles,
11 when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose, you shall read this law before them in their hearing.
12 Assemble the people-- men, women and children, and the aliens living in your towns-- so they can listen and learn to fear the LORD your God and follow carefully all the words of this law.
13 Their children, who do not know this law, must hear it and learn to fear the LORD your God as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess."
(NIV)
Developing the fear of God is actually very simple: It begins by your obedience to Him in what you already know. We start with what we KNOW to do.
If you are simply faithful to obey the light you already have - to obey the commandments you know - God will lead you, step by step, in further obedience and into His holy fear. You won’t have to figure out some legalistic way to obey Him. The Fear of the Lord will come to you in a very loving, natural way!
James 1:22
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.
DO WHAT IT SAYS.
(NIV)
QUESTION: Do You Obey?
FINAL WARNING:
James 4:17
17 Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.
(NIV)
