YouTube video sermon
Proverbs 1:7
Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Proverbs 1. And as you’re finding your place, let me pose this scenario to you. Suppose God actually spoke to you in an audible voice, and you knew what you were experiencing was real (you weren’t going crazy), and God told you that you could ask of Him anything that your heart desired and He would give it to you. What would you ask for?
During this time of chaos, perhaps you would ask for national and international peace. If you’re thinking religiously, perhaps you’d ask that God would cause revival to break out and for people to turn to Him in faithful obedience. Certainly, there are some folks that would ask for riches. I noticed a news story the other night about the two national lotteries: Mega Millions (est. 600M) and Powerball (est. 470M). Riches and wealth have always been a desire of mankind. What would you ask for?
Well, such a proposition was placed before a man named Solomon. Solomon was one of King David’s sons. His mother was Bathsheba, the woman with whom David had his horrible adulterous affair. He was about the age of 20 when his father died and left him to be king. He felt totally inadequate; incapable of leading and governing God’s people. And so, one night, God appears to Solomon in a dream and makes this amazing offer. God says, “Ask of me anything. Whatever you want, just ask and it will be yours.”
And Solomon says, “I’m a young man and I don’t know when to come in or when to go out. I don’t have the slightest clue about how to be a king. I’m ill-prepared for the task that lies ahead of me. Therefore, O God, just as you gave wisdom to my father David, give wisdom, understanding and discernment that I might be able to fulfill this responsibility before You.”
And God was pleased with Solomon’s request. God said, “Because you did not ask for wealth, or long life, or pleasure I will give you all of these things. But most of all, I will give you My wisdom, and as a result, no one will arise like you after you.” And it was true. God – by divine revelation – gave Solomon so much wisdom and understanding that people from all over the known world came to him for guidance and counsel, to know the difference between right and wrong, good and evil. Put simply; Solomon was giving the people God’s wisdom.
You know, in light of this past week’s events I thought about all of the various things that we (God’s people) might need to hear this morning. Should I preach another sermon on how Christians should interact with government: when is it right to revolt, when is it right to defy the law of the land vs. submitting ourselves to the governing authorities?
Or perhaps what we need is another sermon about hope? Should I, once again, remind us not to put our hope in horses and chariots, in government and men, but in Christ Jesus? Or maybe just the opposite. Maybe we need to be reminded of God’s judgment. Maybe a good scolding from the Bible is what we need? Maybe we need to be reminded that the Book of Revelation says that blood will flow as high as a horse’s bridle. Symbolic language, of course, but nevertheless, a reminder that things will indeed get worse before the Lord Jesus returns.
As I prayed about that… As I wrestled to come to grips with the state of our nation… As I poured over God’s Word in search of something to share with you today, I came away with this: we need God’s wisdom. We need God’s discernment. We need His understanding. We need a supernatural and divine ability to know God’s will for our lives and, as important, His power to obey it in each and every situation we find ourselves in.
And all of that starts with something that we find in Proverbs 1:7.
Solomon, writing to his sons and all future generations of God’s people, said this, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
What do you think of when you think of a “God-fearing person?” Someone cringing in a corner? Someone who never smiles? Someone who never laughs? What comes to your mind? Someone that walks around with a massive family Bible, talking in a lot of Thee’s and Thou’s, looking like an advanced agent for the undertaker?
In previous generations, we used to call someone a “God-fearing man,” or a “God-fearing woman.” And it was meant to be a compliment and a mark of high praise. To say that someone was a God-fearing individual meant they were a godly person. To be God-fearing was synonymous with having a singular devotion to God. It represented the very best that you could say about someone.
But such language isn’t used today. In fact, to call someone a God-fearing person today is almost like calling them legalistic, or pharisaical, or out-of-balance, or in need of some grace. Maybe we’d say that needed some counseling or they were “over the top.” Today, the fear of God is seen as a negative rather than a positive. And I wonder if the question we should be asking ourselves today isn’t: how much worse can our country get, or when will COVID-19 be over, or will the vaccine work, or should we wear masks, or any of the other questions that seem to us to be significant. Perhaps the question we should be asking is: whatever happened to the fear of the Lord?
And if you’re sitting there thinking, “Well, I’m not sure I know what that means? I’m not sure I know what the ‘fear of the Lord’ is?” then let’s begin there.
Nature of Fearing God
Although the concept or the idea or the nature of fearing of the Lord sounds negative, it’s actually one of the most positive characteristics of God that you could possess. It’s one of the greatest things that could happen to you in your spiritual journey than to have this nature within you. John Murray, the great Scottish theologian, says “the fear of the Lord is the soul of godliness and the mark of true piety.”
The word “fear” is a Hebrew word (yirah) that means to be full of
reverence toward God. The idea isn’t the dread of God, that you’re paralyzed and cannot function, and it also doesn’t mean that you have polite and nice manners in church. The fear of God indicates that you stand in awe of God, that there’s a trembling within your soul, that you take God very seriously. In fact, you take God more seriously than anything or anyone in your life. You have a respect. You have reverence, and there’s a state of wonder in your heart towards God – an astonishment, an amazement towards God. More specifically, the fear of the Lord is a worshipping heart in which God seems very big and very great and we seem very small in comparison to Him.
The fear of the Lord means to recognize God for who He is and to respond appropriately. In our hearts and minds, it means putting God in His rightful place over our lives. It’s finding one’s self adrift in God’s grandeur, and greatness, and glory, so much that it causes us to honor Him and to trust Him and to obey Him and to worship Him. To have the fear of the Lord brings sobriety and seriousness of mind in relationship to the world. Contrary to our initial thoughts about the fear of the Lord, it isn’t the absence of joy, rather the fear of the Lord is what produces true and lasting joy.
The fear of the Lord is standing in awe of God, it’s kneeling in adoration before God, it’s bowing in humility before God, it’s being overwhelmed with His infinite perfections.
We’ve all experienced something of the nature of what I’m describing. Maybe you’ve visited the Grand Canyon and seen that vast expanse stretching out in front of you, with the Colorado River below. Perhaps you’ve been to Niagara Falls and stood there feeling the roar and rumble beneath your feet, or the spray and mist of the water as it tumbles over the edge. Some of you have had the opportunity to tour the Alps, or the Rockies, or the Andes, or the Himalaya’s and drink in those tremendous views. And even if you’ve never been to any of those places, you’ve stood outside on a clear, dark night and gazed up into the night sky and been in awe of God’s creation.
In small measure, that’s something of the nature of God. He’s high and lifted up. He’s awesome. He’s infinitely more powerful and transcendent than are we. And when we come to know God through Jesus Christ there’s something of that truth that comes to reside in our hearts and minds.
Just think about the various encounters of God that we have in the pages of Scripture. You have Moses on Mt. Sinai with the flames and lightening and thunder. In Isaiah 6 we see the Prophet Isaiah as he received a heavenly vision of God in His throne room, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Isaiah saw and heard the seraphim singing, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory” (Isaiah 6:3). And the foundations of the temple shook and Isaiah trembled.
We have Peter, James, and John on the Mt. of Transfiguration and when they see what they saw and heard the voice of God they fell on their faces and were terrified. Then you have John on the island of Patmos. He’s having a worship experience like he’s never had before and he hears the Lord Jesus speaking to him, and when he turns around to see who’s speaking to him he falls at Jesus’ feet as though he was dead.
Whenever people encountered the living God in all of His glory and majesty they were overcome with wonder and reverence and awe
and bowed down and trembled. Are you a god-fearing person?
Necessity of Fearing God
Back in Proverbs 1:7 we read, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge…” We can rightfully draw from this that this knowledge refers to spiritual truth. Solomon is not referring to mathematics or gardening, or athletics or the knowledge of science. He’s talking about the knowledge of the kingdom of God. He’s talking about the knowledge of God, Himself. Today, it would include the knowledge of God’s truth as recorded in the Bible and how to apply that in our lives.
So many of us, myself included, are wondering who we can trust. Where can we turn to get the truth. What Solomon is describing here is true knowledge, real knowledge, the highest knowledge there is. And notice that Solomon says that the fear of the Lord is the “beginning” of knowledge. In other words, until you fear the Lord there’s no true knowledge in your life. In fact, without the fear of the Lord you don’t even know God, much less have knowledge of His kingdom.
See that word “beginning”… It means the starting place. It means the first and controlling principle. It means the chief thing, the foundational thing, the fundamental thing. Fearing God is the very beginning principle of true knowledge and it’s the first step into the knowledge of God. And it ought not ever end. The Apostle Paul said that we should “work out our salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). And Ecclesiastes 12:13 – this other wisdom literature that we rarely study – says, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all” (NKJV). Another translation of that very same verse puts it this way, “Everything you were taught can be put into a few words: Respect and obey God! This is what life is all about” (CEV)
Fearing the Lord, having reverential awe for God that produces lowliness of mind and humility of soul is at the beginning of our Christian journey, it’s in the middle, and it’s at the end.
Watch this progression. You don’t have to turn there, but follow my argument. After the introduction of the Holy Spirit in the opening pages of Acts, we’re introduced to the early church. And in Acts 2:42-43 this is what we read: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe [fear] came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.”
Maybe you’re like me, maybe you want to see a spiritual revival take
place in this community and in your family and in your own life. Maybe you’ve heard other Christians talking about signs and wonders and miracles and you’ve been tempted to think, “Man, I’d like that to happen here. If God would miraculously heal Bill Canata then I’m sure so-in-so would come to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.” And perhaps that would be the case. We pray that would be the case.
But listen to me church. Whether signs and wonders and miracles of
that magnitude ever happens on this mountain, or in this church, or in your life I don’t know. But this I can tell you with absolute confidence, if you’ll take just a minute every day and look in the mirror and take inventory of your own life, you’ll discover that God has already done everything that’s needed to keep us in a state of perpetual awe – when He saved our sorry souls.
When we reflect upon the truth of the Gospel, that God did indeed become incarnate in the person of Jesus and lived among us, and was obedient to the Father unto death for us, and that through the power of the Holy Spirit He was resurrected to life eternal, and that by accepting His substitutionary death in our place (by faith) we’ve gone from being dead in our sin and trespasses to alive in Christ, we’ve gone from being an enemy of God to a child of God, we’ve gone from being destined to spend eternity as an object of God’s eternal wrath in hell to being an object of His delight in heaven.
You and I, dear friends, if we’ve truly trusted in Christ have received the only real miracle that we need to keep us in awe of the Lord Almighty.
And when you leave Acts 2 and get over to Acts 5 you have the story
of Ananias and Sapphira – this husband and wife couple that sold some land and kept some of the proceeds for themselves and gave the rest to the church, but actually told the church they gave it all. In Acts 5:5 we read that Ananias lied to the apostles and to the Holy Spirit, and he dropped dead and great fear came upon those that heard it. Of course, as the story continues, his wife, Sapphira comes in and she also lies about the transaction and she, too, dies on the spot. And Acts 5:11 says, “And great fear came upon the whole church and upon
all who heard of these things.”
And just so that I don’t end this little progression on such a negative note, over in Acts 9 we get a concluding summation of the missionary work that the apostles had accomplished following Pentecost. And Acts 9:31 says, “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.” Do you and I want to see more people coming to know and love Jesus the way that we do? Do we desire to see friends and family and strangers that are headed for an eternity separated from God actual spend eternity with God? Do we have any desire to see real and lasting change in our nation, then we need to recapture the fear of the Lord? Do you see the necessity of fearing God for 2021?
Neglect of Fearing God
You may be saying, “Pastor, this is too heavy. I came to church today to be uplifted. Instead, you’re increasing my anxiety.” Well, let’s consider the alternative. After all, in a group of this size there’s a real possibility that there’s at least one person that’s thinking that. There’s at least one person that would prefer to just leave things as they are. So, look at the last line of Proverbs 1:7 and notice that there are only two options: fear the Lord or foolishness. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
And don’t be misled; this isn’t speaking about someone who doesn’t have the capacity and capability to understand. No, to the contrary. A fool is someone that understands the truth that’s set before them, but instead chooses to reject it and go their own way.
You’ve heard me refer to Dwight Moody many times. He was a great American evangelist of the mid-late 1800’s, and he was preaching in London on one occasion and his text was Acts 4:12, where Peter is preaching to the religious leaders of Jerusalem after Pentecost and he gives us this famous biblical text, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” D.L. Moody was preaching the exclusivity of the Christian faith – that one is saved only by and through the completed work of Jesus Christ.
And there was a man standing in the back of the room that thought he was the biggest fool he’d ever heard speak. To proclaim such a message to this educated and elite group of English people was foolish. So, the man took out a piece of paper and he wrote down one word: FOOL. He folded it up and raised his hand. An usher came over to him and the man said, “I have an urgent message for Mr. Moody.” Not knowing what the message said, the usher rushed up to the pulpit and put the note on Mr. Moody’s Bible.
Mr. Moody is preaching was great passion and zeal, and he stops and opens this message and there’s the word: FOOL. The man in the back of the room is standing there was a big smile on his face and raises his hand to wave at Mr. Moody. Dwight Moody said, “A very unusual thing has just happened. Many times, I receive a letter from someone that forgot to sign it. This person has signed their name but forgot to write the letter.”
The Bible doesn’t have anything good to say about someone that doesn’t fear God. Psalm 14:1 says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” If you’re here this morning and you’re still wondering about the events of this week… If you’re looking for someone to blame… If you want to know what’s wrong with America, and indeed the entire world, let me give you at least a partial answer: we no longer fear the Lord.
Noteworthiness of Fearing God
Now, in the final minutes that we have together, let me real quickly showcase just how important this idea of fearing the Lord is. We’ve already seen Proverbs 1:7.
Proverbs 2:5 says, “…then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.”
Proverbs 3:7 says, “Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.”
Proverbs 8:13 says, “The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.”
Chapter 9:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”
Proverbs 10:27 says, “The fear of the Lord prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be short.” Be careful not to read this as an absolute promise, but a general principle.
Proverbs 14:2, “Whoever walks in uprightness fears the Lord, but he who is devious in his ways despises Him.”
Just a few verses later in 14:26-27 we read, “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.”
Proverbs 15:16 says, “Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble with it.”
The last verse of that chapter 15:33 says, “The fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor.”
Proverbs 16:6 says, “By steadfast love and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for, and by the fear of the Lord one turns away from evil.”
Proverbs 19:23, “The fear of the Lord leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied; he will not be visited by harm.”
Proverbs 22:4, “The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life.”
Proverbs 23:17, “Let not your heart envy sinners, but continue in the fear of the Lord all the day.”
Proverbs 24:21, “My son, fear the Lord and the king, and do not join with those who do otherwise,”
Finally, Proverbs 31:30, at the conclusion of a passage that we associate with Mother’s Day and the description of a godly woman we read, “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”
We’ve seen the nature of fearing the Lord, the necessity of fearing the Lord, the neglect of fearing the Lord, and the extreme noteworthiness of fearing the Lord. So, there’s really just one question that remains: do you fear the Lord? Do you want to grow in your fear of the Lord? If you’d pray this morning and ask God for a deeper and richer and more fulfilling fear of Him, He’s looking for someone like you to put
His hand upon in a mighty and special way.
For those of you that might be here today and you’ve never trusted Jesus as the Lord of your life. You’ve never accepted the free gift of God’s grace in Christ as the atonement for your sin, then it pains me to say this but the Bible says you’re a fool. For God sent His only Son into the world to go to the cross and die for your sin, and I would simply call you, beg you, plead with you to do that today. You may never again be at the crossroad of this moment of personal conversion.