Fear God
or Die
Well,
praise Jesus today, everyone. I have just a quick message that I wanted to
speak about today, and it's in regard to fearing God vs. fearing men.
There are
not too many men today that fear God, not many Christians that really fear God.
Most Christians fear people. They fear their peers, their contemporaries. They
fear what people think, and there's a reason for that. Likely the people they
fear, they feel that they are the ones supporting them. So they don't want to
undermine those that support them, even if their support comes from an evil
area. So they will never stand up for the truth at their workplace because they
fear they might get fired. They won't stand up for the truth around their
parents, their family members, because they might be outcasts in the family.
And at the end of the day, they fear men and what men think way more than they
fear God.
Now a lot
of Christians I know belittle or they speak down against those who have the
fear of God in them. They say, we shouldn't really fear God, we should love
Him. And we shouldn't fear going to hell. We shouldn't fear because, you know,
we should have love in us. And they say the fear of God is only the beginning
of wisdom. And they say, perfect love casts out fear. So they pull these Bible
verses out of the Scripture to try to convince you that you don't really need
to fear God anyway. But the hypocrisy of it all is, these same Christians that
say that fear men to no end. That is why they always compromise with their
religion to what people will say. They're always molding their religion to the
pattern of the world and not to what God thinks of them. And that proves that
they have fear of men over the fear of God.
But the
interesting thing here is, Jesus Himself, it says in the Scriptures, had the
fear of God. Now Christians will say, well, perfect love drives out fear. So if
you are made perfect, you won't fear God anymore. You don't have to. It's just
love. And they go through the words of the Apostle Paul and all these different
Scriptures that say you don't really have to fear God. Well wasn't Jesus
perfect? Yet the Scriptures say He had the fear of God in Him. Did Jesus ever
sin? No, He didn't, yet He had the fear of God in Him. And that's what the
Scripture says. If you don't believe me, go look it up for yourself. It's
Isaiah chapter 11, specifically verse 3. It speaks prophetically that Jesus
would have the fear of God in Him. And Jesus was perfect. He was without spot
and without blemish.
So if
Jesus being the Messiah and Lord and perfect Lamb of God, had this reverent
fear in Him of His Father in Heaven, then how is it that we can say "We
don't need fear. We're being made perfect and then once we're perfect enough.
We don't have to fear God. We don't have to really obey Him. We can just know
we're safe and secure and going to Heaven. And it doesn't really matter what
God thinks anyways, because we can twist His arm at the end of our life to let
us go into Heaven because, we prayed a
prayer years ago"?
That's obviously rubbish. It's a false doctrine.
We have to fear God and we have to put this into practice. I was thinking about
this the other day, how the fear of men leads so many people. They call it peer
pressure in school. So when you're in junior high and high school, the word is
peer pressure. You feel peer pressure to do things and that is fear. You fear
that people might not think you're cool. And so you dress a certain way. You
fear when you get older that you might not be intellectual enough. So you read
more books or you research certain things so you don't look ignorant. And
obviously we don't want to be uneducated. A lot of people are led by fear of
their contemporaries or their peers or the people at their workplace. And at
the end of the day, they care a whole lot more about what the people around
them think of them, you know, ten times as much as they care of what God
thinks. If people were to really care what God thought of them more than
anything, they would be scared to be looking at pornography. They would be
fearful to be lusting after the neighbor's wife because they know God would
smite them, that He could send them to hell for that. They would fear that God
has all power and all authority and He could deal with them in a horrible way
if they didn't serve Him and obey Him.
So both of these things have to lead us as
Christians, fear and love. Jesus truly had the fear of God in Him even though
He wasn't thinking about disobeying God. And so if the prophet Isaiah wrote
this about Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, then we also have to fear God
because if we don't daily work out our salvation with fear and trembling, then
we're bound to become lukewarm, complacent, not caring about our neighbor, not
loving others as ourself, not picking up our cross, all those things that we
need to do as a Christian we will not do, if we're just thinking, “well I don't
need to fear God, I was saved 20 years ago and now I can just sit back and do
whatever I want, it doesn't matter, God has to let me into heaven.”
See most Christians have absolutely no fear of God
and it shows in our towns and in our cities and in our nation. People really,
really care what others think of them but they don't care what God thinks and
that's going to be the demise of a whole lot more families and nations, it's
going to be the demise of our world. The whole world cares about what people
think but they don't care about what God thinks. So I want to encourage you to get
the fear of God in you. Jesus Christ has the power and authority to send you to
hell or to welcome you into his kingdom so you better get to know him. And
whether you think that is a good thing or a bad thing, if you are scared of God
and you know that you're on the wrong side of the law, if that leads you to
repent, that is a good thing but then don't stop there, then start having the
reverent kind of fear towards God to loving him.
You know as parents, our children should fear us
but they should also love us. There are parents and there are governments and
ruling authorities that only rule by fear. And they make everyone their
subjects and they force people to do things out of fear. And fear is ultimately
not as powerful as love. It also turns people away and it makes people hate a
tyrant government. So ultimately what needs to lead us is the love of God,
loving our neighbor as ourselves, but of course we need to have a reverent fear
towards God knowing that he has all power and all authority and that he is a
just God.
If we don't believe that God is just, and we think
that he is just love, only love, then we will be like the complacent Christians
that think that we can go on sinning and that there is no, that God doesn't
have morality, that he's going to let paedophiles into heaven, to be molesting
people in heaven and it's absolutely ridiculous. What Christians think will be
allowed into heaven because they're allowing it into their church. So God is
just. He will not allow perversion, he will not allow hatred, murderous
thoughts and impure heart into his kingdom. So we have to fear God but then
after we learn to fear him, we have to learn to love him with all of our heart,
soul, mind and strength and walk forward in faith with him and teaching others
to do the same.
Do we fear God? Do we love Him, and do we obey Him?
Or do we just have a love for this world, We just have a carnal love for those
in this world, the sort of love that says, I will love you as long as you love
me back? I will give you money as long as you give me money back. I'll be your
friend as long as you do good things to me back. Remember Jesus said, what
reward do you have in heaven if you just invite rich people who can pay you
back? But when you invite people over as your guests, then invite people that
can't repay you, the blind, the poor, those that are lame and then you will
have treasure in heaven. We want our treasure to be in heaven because where our
heart is, there our treasure will also be. We want our treasure to be in Jesus,
in eternity, not with things that are perishing in this world.
So we got to be introspective with this and look
into our own hearts. Do we really fear God at the end of the day? Can you say
with certainty that you fear God more than anything and you love him more than
anything? Or are you being led by peer pressure? Are you being led by fear of
what people think? Are you being led by ultimately the fear of men? So look
into your own heart and into your own life and answer that question. And if you
realize you do have the fear of men like how most Christians do, then you need
to repent of that and say, “Lord Jesus, help me to fear you and to love you
more than anything so that I can be set on the right path, and not on the path
that leads to destruction that most of this world is on.”
So I want to pray for those of you that want the
true fear of God in you that you may be set on the right path. “So Lord Jesus,
I pray for those that are part of your true church, for those that are wanting
to come out of the world. I pray that the fear of God will enter them, the same
kind of fear that was in you, Lord Jesus, when you were walking this earth. I
pray that you can pull your sons and daughters out of the world, purge them of
worldliness and ungodliness and let them be separate and severed from those of
the world that are polluted with sin and ungodliness. Let them be separate
because we know that you are separating the sheep from the goats, the wheat
from the tares. Let us be separate from this world so that we can follow you
and obey you in complete righteousness and with the fear of God and the love of
God in us that we may walk in holiness and righteousness all the days of our
life and endure with you to the very end. May more children of yours come out
and be separate from the world so that they can proclaim the truth and be salt
and light and bear good fruit for you. In your name we pray, Lord Jesus. Amen.”
