Holy Fear of God

Cabin- 3 weeks ago. My sin, holiness..and a loss of fear.

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Introduction:

Nietche popularized the phrase “God is dead”. Father was a minister and both his grandfathers was a minsters. Last 14 years he spent insane..and he would randomly quote scripture that he had learned as a boy. He was an athiest..and in 1882 wrote this piece pointing to what was happening to the Western world, and what would happen when we began to lose our fear of God, and completely deny his existence all together.

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: 'I seek God! I seek God!' As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? Thus they yelled and laughed.

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. 'Whither is God?' he cried; 'I will tell you. We have killed him--you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

'How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred gamesshall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? ..

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. 'I have come too early,' he said then; 'my time is not yet.

-Friedrich Nietzsche -1882

Psalm 2 ESV

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.” I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

He was speaking to a decline of Christianity in the Western world, and a collapse of all of European morality. All sense of right or wrong. He is saying, if we remove God, what do we anchor ourselves to? Where will the light come from? Who decides what is up and what is down? He could see the direction we were heading a loss of the fear of God, and we were coming to a place where we were loosening our ties to God altogether.

April 8th 1966 “Is God dead?”- Time Magazine (Removal of God from theology)

Christmas: Missing family. Grandma Margie and Grandpa Clarence. Holiness. Things you could do and things you couldn’t. Movies you couldn’t watch. Things you couldn’t say. Music we couldn’t listen to.

Psalm 2 ESV

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.” I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

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The Problem: We have lost a fear of God

Untill we fear God

Psalm 2:1–3 ESV

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”

God asks..why do we plot, rage, and set our mind against God? Why do we attempt to ignore Him..why do we try and sever the bonds that tie us to God? It is all in vain..it is all pointless. It is all no good.

A lot has changed over the years.

Pinckney- Charleston Shooting- Church Secrity. There is a lost sense of the Holy, and no fear of God.

Grandma Margie and Grandpa Clarence.

Lightening they’d make you sit down. Within the church.

Television- Censored words. Children's movies and language.

Sin in general- Adultery, sexual sin, pornography, homosexualIty. You can see the casual nature of sin.

Has God changed? Can you see it..not just around you, but in your own heart? I can..in me.

There is this sense that because we have nicer cars, clothes, gadgets..that we are somehow more blessed. But the foundations are decaying..and you can see it. The world has to keep selling us new things to hide us from the moral and spiritual decay we are in!

Jeremiah 5:12–13 ESV

They have spoken falsely of the Lord and have said, ‘He will do nothing; no disaster will come upon us, nor shall we see sword or famine. The prophets will become wind; the word is not in them. Thus shall it be done to them!’ ”

We say, the Lord will do nothing. Or, he will forgive me, its no big deal. For the past 20-30 years we have preached and preached the grace and mercy of God. His forgiveness and how he is a merciful king, but the problem is that we have completely lot sight of God’s holiness, and we’ve turned grace into something cheap.

Christmas is about the birth of Jesus..and you know when He is in a manger there is something cute and harmless about Him. The problem is we never get beyond that. We still have this picture of a cute Jesus, and a God who like grandpa shrugs off our sin, and is harmless.

Can I tell you something church. He is not a baby anymore! Can I tell you something, He is king of kings..and yes He is merciful and kind, but He is Holy and does not simply shrug off sin. Every sin will be answered for.

We scream God is love..but we’ve forgotten God is Holy!

Untill we fear God, all that we think we know about Him remains fruitless.

The fear of God is the foundation of everything else in the Christian life.

Proverbs 1:7 ESV

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Psalm 9:10 ESV

And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.

Proverbs 9:10 ESV

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

Ecclesiastes 3:14 ESV

I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him.

Proverbs 8:13 ESV

The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.

Ecclesiastes 5:7 ESV

For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear.

There is nothing we can do that is accepted by God unless it is seasoned with godly fear. -John Bunyan

So if the fear of God is step one to everything else…and the fear of God means to hate evil. Can we know grace and be comfortable in sin? Can we know God and sin not break our heart. Grace is only understood as grace, when God is undertood as Holy, and we see ourselves as deserving only Hell. When we see that God doesn’t put up with sin..and to fear God, means to hate evil. Evil in ourselves.

The fear of God means an awe and reverence for Him..but also fear. Not because God is wicked, or evil, or the villain..its that He is Holy and we are the wicked, evil one. We are the rebels!

Set his majesty before the eyes of your souls and let his excellence make you afraid with godly fear. “Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread” (). -John Bunyan

We fear God becuase He is righteous and he will pronounce judgment on the unrighteousness. We fear God because He is so far greater and different than we are. And even belivers fear, we fear disobeying God, and the more we see God the more we will tremble and fear.

1 Peter 1:15–17 ESV

but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile,

Your whole life as a believer should be conducted with a fear of the Lord! The defining mark of the righteous is the fear of God.

The fear of God is tied to understanding God’s holiness.

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The Holy King

Psalm 2:4–6 ESV

He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.”

Isaiah 6:1–7 ESV

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

Holiness refears to moral perfection, but more specifically it means that God is seperate. Different, cut from a different cloth. God is beyond all comprehension.

“Holy,Holy, Holy”

Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary

The continuour song had a single theme: The Lord’s holiness, concerning which we learn two truths. First, Hebrew uses repetition to express a superlative, as when “pure gold” in translates “gold gold”, or a totality, when ‘full of tar pits’ in translate ‘pits pits’. But here for the only time in the Hebrew bible a quality is ‘raised to the power of three’, as if to say that the divine holiness is so far beyond anything the human mind can grasp that a ‘super superlative’ has to be invented to express it and, furthermore, that this transcendent holiness is the total truth of God.

R.C. Sproul writes, “The Bible says that God is holy, holy, holy. Not that He is merely holy, or even holy, holy. He is holy, holy, holy. The Bible never says that God is love, love, love, or mercy, mercy, mercy, or wrath, wrath, wrath, or justice, justice, justice. It does say that He is holy, holy, holy, the whole earth is full of His glory.”21

For whatever you think you know about Him He is higher still! He takes very seriously sin!

Isaiah knew it, because He said to Himself, “Woe is me”. Literally curse is me! I am going to die! Because of my sin!

He says, how can I stand before the power of this God? How could i think to upset Him..and yet here I stand in my sin. He says I am going to die..he doesn’t say this as if its some injustice..Hes saying I see now..I deserve death! And here I stand before the Holy King.

God will deal with every sin!

Matthew 10:28 ESV

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

We can write “Holy” with four letters. But we could not grasp it if we had 400 life times. Isaiah is grabbing trying to express the indescribable. He is greater still!

Revelation 1:13–17 ESV

and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last,

C. S. Lewis once commented to an American friend, “How little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing, … it is irresistible. If even 10% of the world’s population had it, would not the whole world be converted and happy before a year’s end?” (C. S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady [Grand Rapids: Wm. Eerdmans, 1967], p. 19).6

Revelation 1:13–16 ESV

and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

John was given a vision of God..He had walked with Jesus, talked with Him..knew Him..but when He saw Him in His holiness..he was grasping for words!

And when He saw this holiness..what did he do? Celebrate? No?

Revelation 1:17 ESV

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last,

If this was John what a do yo think we would do if we saw Jesus?

Cup of water- Holiness is not something you grasp but something that grasps you!

Rejoice with Fear and Trembling

But RJ wouldn’t you have us rejoice? Shouldn’t we be joyful because of our salvation?

Man crumbles to dust in the presence of God, even when the Lord comes to bring him salvation. -John Bunyan

Psalm 2:10–12 ESV

Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Objection: But would you not want us to rejoice at the sight and sense of the forgiveness of our sins?

Answer: Yes, but I would also have you trembling when God tells you that your sins are pardoned. I would have you, “Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling” (). A joyful heart and wet eyes go together very well when you have a solid and godly joy. If God comes to you and visits you with the forgiveness of sins, and that visit removes the guilt, but increases the sense of your sinfulness, then that sense of God’s presence will make you both rejoice and tremble. -John Bunyan

God removes the guilt, but increased our sense of sinfulness!

Hebrews 12:28–29 ESV

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

Jeremiah 5:22–23 ESV

Do you not fear me? declares the Lord. Do you not tremble before me? I placed the sand as the boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass; though the waves toss, they cannot prevail; though they roar, they cannot pass over it. But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; they have turned aside and gone away.

The Necc

Matthew 8:27 ESV

And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”

The Righteuos Tremble and Fear God, the Wicked do not!

Job 1:1 ESV

There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.

Job

Righteous, blameless..fear God!

Job 40:6–8 ESV

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: “Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?

Job 40:6–9 ESV

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: “Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?

Job 40:7–9 ESV

“Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?

Job 42:3 ESV

‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.

Job 42:5–6 ESV

I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

Well thats Old Testament RJ, what about the New Testament? Paul himself

1 Corinthians 2:3 ESV

And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling,

Romans 14:11 ESV

for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”

God will not have to tell you to bow. As wax melts before the flame, so every false sense of pride, protection, will all. Children will bow willingly even in trembling..and non believer will bow too, but with fear and trembling understanding the judgment that is to come! There will be no excuses then!

Revelation 1:17 ESV

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last,

Revelation 1:13–17 ESV

and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last,

The Silver Chair- C.S. Lewis

For a second she stared here and there, wondering who had spoken. Then the voice said again, “If you are thirsty, come and drink.”…It was deeper, wilder, and stronger; a sort of heavy, golden voice. It did not make her any less frightened than she had been before, but it made her frightened in rather a different way. “Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion. “I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill. “Then drink,” said the Lion. “May I — could I — would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill. The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. …The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic. “Will you promise not to – do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill. “I make no promise,” said the Lion. …“I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill. “Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion. “Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.” “There is no other stream,” said the Lion.

We get to come to God but we can’t make God less thhn who He is. That when you except Jesus ye He is merciful, but He is Holy. He is King. And Yes He Can save you from your sin, but he will not leave you there. And if you want to stay in your sin, then you can’t come to God! Becuase He is righteous and He must deal with your sin. He love you enough to save you where you are, but He won’t leave you where you are!

Take time to humbly refelct on the Holiness of God

Come to Jesus, the Holy merciful king, for forgivness and salvation!

Pray that God would show you mercy and allow your sin to break your heart!

Stop playing with sin. Sexual sin, pornography, lies, gossiping, unforgivness, cussing.

This should change the things you watch and the things you listen to.

Stop using the excuse..O God will forgive me. Don’t you dare make light of sin which was so heavy only God himself could come and carry it. Don’t you dare.

Rejoice with trembling.