Do you FEAR or LOVE God?

Happy Sabbath, everybody! My name is Jim Tuck. I occasionally come to this church, but it seems like that. We, I think, if you read my letter last night, we were back in Oklahoma and Arkansas. This past week, we had a really tough flight down. We had to use points, otherwise the ticket would have cost us, I don't know, 800 bucks, probably, per person. So we just couldn't swing that. And so we went by points. We ended up flying into Texas, renting a car. That was cheaper. And then driving all the way up, it was like 300 miles up.

So we made it on time to the funeral. In fact, went from Texas straight to the funeral home and saw my brothers there. And I'm really glad we had the chance to do it because I think it really helped my older brother for family to be there with him. And, you know, it's like all of us, I think, in our case, we're getting to the same point many of you are at.

The older you get, you're going to lose some of your relatives. I don't think I have, we don't have any relatives on my dad's side left. All of his brothers are gone, and all the aunts are gone now. So we're, and there's only one on my mother's side. So only one uncle, he lives over in Bakersfield. But so time, you know, one of the things that happens about life as time gets on, and I think a great lesson that at least came to my mind is how short this life is that we have.

I remember, you know, when my mother died, looking over at my brothers and my sisters, and I think I mentioned to them, you know, at the funeral, we're next. It looks like one generation comes, and it goes, and then you have a new generation that comes along, and they think they will never die. And yet it rolls around, doesn't it? It's like a wheel that keeps turning, but anyway, one of the things too that on this trip, a big lesson, is that it really shows us we're getting old.

And I don't know when I, it's like when you're in the church, we're around young people all the time. You know, you spend time with young people. And of course, we spend time with all ages, but I mean, it makes you, it tends to make you think you're younger than you really are.

But anyway, it was, it's like old Rodney Dangerfield. I don't know if you ever heard him say this. He said, if you want to look skinny, he said, you know what you do? Hang around with fat people.

If you want to be young, you got to hang around with young people. So, you know, I think there's a little bit of truth to that, you know, in terms of that way of thinking. And I'm thankful that God has put us where we are. But it's good to be back here with you all. And I'll say hi to our brethren in Hawaii, and as Mr. Knutson did, and our brethren in Sholo as well, or whoever is listening out there in radio land, as they used to say, you know, years ago.

But, you know, hard to believe the Passover and Unleavened Bread is going to be upon us before we know it. We don't have much time before that comes on us. But I get to thinking about this new festival year that we're entering. It's like with everything or anything in life, it's always better if you start outright.

It's always better if you have a good beginning. And we need to have a good beginning to make this 2019 festival year a success. If it's going to be something that's going to really drive home the point for us, and one of the big points of God's feast when we come to the spring, or whether we're talking about the fall of the year, is that it's a time of renewal. It's a time to energize. It's a time to renew our zeal for the calling that God has given to us.

And underlying the Holy Day seasons as they begin, every last one of the Holy Days, in fact, is a very key life principle. There's a very important life principle that we need to understand that will carry us through to the very end. And to drive home that point, let's go to Deuteronomy 14. Deuteronomy 14 over here, interestingly, this life principle is brought out in Deuteronomy 14 in the context of tithing, of preparing for the feasts of God.

But Deuteronomy 14, in verse 22 here, here it says, And you shall truly tithe. Of course, the tithe is where we're saving a tenth, and we are supposed to be saving a tenth for keeping the feasts of God, for observing the feasts of God. And it is a matter of faith that we do this. But it says, tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year. And it says, And you shall eat before the eternally your God in a place where he chooses to make his name abide, the tithe of your grain, and of your wine, and your oil, and the firstborn of your herds, and your flocks, and this is why that we do this here.

And we're not farmers today. Of course, we make a salary.

But somewhere along the line, somebody's producing a product like a farmer is, and we are to tithe our increase, whatever that is. Why do we do that? That you may learn to fear the eternally your God always. That's the very key life principle for us, for our entire life, that we may learn to fear God always. You know, many people think actually loving God and fearing God are the antithesis of each other. They're mutually exclusive of one another. You can't have love if you've got fear, and you can't have fear if you've got love. You don't have any fear there. And the fact is that it does mention in the Bible that God is love, and perfect love casts out fear.

And God wants us to love Him, but the Bible talks a great deal about fear, fearing God as well. And what is, in fact, fearing God? Well, there are two aspects of it. Number one, to respect God, or to reverence Him. This word is used, in fact, in the word fear, or to have awe for God. Or number two part is that it could involve fright. I'm going to show you scriptures that talk about where God's people had fright. They had terror, in fact, and dread. That's another part of it as well. So these are the components of the fear of God. I'm not going to go to it, but Solomon wrote in Proverbs 1 and verse 7, that the fear of the eternal, he said, is the beginning of wisdom. In other words, when he meant it's the guiding principle of our lives. It is what should, in fact, lead us in the decisions that we make. So it's very, very key and very, very important. So the question I have for you, the remainder of the sermon, is do you have a fear or a love of God? Or do you have both? Which is it? What does it mean to fear and love God at the same time?

What does that mean? What does it involve?

You know, right now, up in the Northern California area, and I tend to keep an eye on this because John and I lived up there for over 15 years. And I know all of those towns up there, but the American River is over its banks, and there are whole towns underwater up there. But do you ever notice that when there are floods that take place? You know, they will give warnings about people. Now you need to get out because it's going to crest. The river is going to crest, and you could be flooded here. There's always that stubborn person that won't leave. Usually, that's the person, when they're trying to do cleanup, they're taking the boats around to see who survived, they're sitting on the roof waiting for somebody to pick them up. But sometimes, some people in fact end up dead because they don't heed the warnings. Same is true with a tornado or a tsunami. They had a tsunami that washed through the big island on the Hilo side, and it did major, major damage over there, washing buildings away.

And if you didn't get out of the way of that, I mean, it's a wall of water, and it will flatten you like a pancake. A lot of people die because they do not listen.

So when we're talking about fear and love, I think water is a very good analogy of what we do in terms of just water. Now, that's just an inanimate matter, but it can carry a big lesson. Water gives us life. We like water, don't we? We like the rivers that bring us water to drink and recreational opportunities. We use the water to clean ourselves, to clean our different utensils and things that we have. And you know what? We play in water. We enjoy water. You know, water skiing, swimming, all kinds of boating type of recreational things we enjoy. We love water in that way. It's very enjoyable for us. But water, on the other hand, can hurt us. It can hurt us. It could kill us, in fact. And if floods come and warnings are given, people don't heed them. Many people often are drowned because they don't. They're washed away. And the point being, brethren, just because we love water doesn't mean that we don't respect it. We respect water. We teach our kids to respect water and to have a certain amount of fear of it.

Even if we fear it, doesn't mean we do not love it and we, you know, don't enjoy it. We do enjoy it. Even when somebody is drowned in a lake, a river, whatever, it does not keep anybody from going out and enjoying the water afterwards. They may be more cautious, though. In other words, fear evokes a more cautious approach to something such as water.

A lovey-dovey, Jesus loves me, yes I know, brethren, does not negate the need to fear God. You know, sometimes people want to hear—they don't want to hear about the word fear. You know, some people, in fact, in some churches, it's almost like a naphtha, if you mention the word fear. You know, that they want to hear about love. They want to hear about God's mercy. They want to hear about God's grace, about all the things that he does for us. But they do not want to hear about fear, the fear of God, and respect for God, and respect for what he commands. In fact, brethren, the Bible reveals that God punishes those who are contemptuous of him. You know, if somebody gets a kind of a huffy attitude, as far as God is concerned and they begin to thumb their nose at God, it might be that that person will be stricken down by God, because God does punish people that have this arrogant, contemptuous attitude. I'm not going to go over to it, but I will refer to it and read from the NIV. But you might want to write these scriptures down in Hebrews 10 in verses 26 through 27. And this I'm going to read from the NIV, because to show that God punishes those who deliberately are contemptuous of him, it says here, if we deliberately keep on sinning after we've received the knowledge of the truth, in other words, we've been warned about it, there's no sacrifice for sins left. God has no sacrifices for an unrepentant person who continues to sin. But going on here, it says, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. If anybody makes themselves an enemy of God, God says he will ultimately consume them. That might not be that it will be in this lifetime, but there will be a time when God will do that, when people will be cast in the lake of fire. But the emphasis here that we just read again in the NIV is that God will act.

You know, we should never think that somehow, because we get away with something, that God will not act. The shoe, the other shoe is, as they say, is going to drop somewhere along the line. And the piper will have to be paid. And God will again demand that of us.

Because the sinner, somebody who refuses to listen, by their conduct is showing that they do not properly fear God. They do not have a respect toward God. In chapter 10, or chapter 10 in verse 30, the next verse, after what we just read there, I want to continue in the NIV because it says, for we know Him. The question is, do we know Him? Do we know Him? Do we know what God is or who God is? Do we truly know Him? I will put to you, brethren, that there are many people who claim to be Christians in this world that think that they know God, but they do not. The same God, brethren, that shows mercy, that shows grace to all of us, and indeed He's shown it bountifully to every one of us. If He didn't do another thing for us, God would have done magnificent things for each of us already. But the same God that shows mercy, the same God that shows grace to us, also makes judgments. That's hard for us to believe, isn't it? He makes judgments and He makes decisions.

It's like in the case of Job, God made a decision.

Now, in Job's life, it was not very comfortable when he made the decision. He was better off at the end than he was at the beginning, but God made a decision.

But it says, for we know Him, who said, it is mine to avenge, this is verse 30 of chapter 10, I will repay, and again the Lord will judge His people. So Paul's focus in Hebrews 10, from what we just read, brethren, is knowing what God's character is, that we should want to know what God's character is. God is righteous, and it says He will judge His people. He will not neglect judging His people. And it says in Peter that judgment is upon the house of God today. Even if we don't think we're being judged, we're being watched and we're being judged at this very moment in time.

And He will judge His people as we just read. But He's just, He's righteousness, He's righteous, He's fair. And if we know Him, you know what? We'll make that a part of our personal character, our character, because we want to be like God. We're going to make that a part of our thinking, the way we think. You know, Paul was talking to people, by the way, that were forsaking the assembly of the church together. And apparently there were, apparently enough within the church that were not frequenting church services, that were skipping up out on the Sabbath, not keeping the Sabbath properly, that the Apostle Paul had to write this. And they were in danger of rejecting their calling because they had no fear of God.

You know, sometimes too, people can minimalize Jesus Christ. I wanted to throw this out and mention it to you because today there's a lot of people that try to minimize Christ.

You know, we had a group up in northern California, and they were throwing seminars about how Christ was a created being, and He was not God. Well, you know, I can show you scriptures that talk about Jesus is God in the Bible. You know, either you accept the Bible or you don't. And we have some that are teaching now, they're teaching that Jesus was not the one that dealt with Israel. I can show you one scripture where that exists exactly who dealt with Israel.

There's some people that think that, in fact, the Father dealt with people in the Old Testament. You know, that's what the Protestants believe, you know. And Jesus Christ was the one who Christ was in the New. Well, I can show you a scripture where Jesus Christ Himself said, no man has ever seen the Father, but the one who came down from heaven, and that was Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen the Father. You look in the Old Testament, where you think it might be talking about the Father. You know, there are a few scriptures that distinctly talk about the Father, by the way. But most of the time it's talking about the one who became Jesus Christ, the Word that dwelt among us and became Jesus, who was the Emmanuel, the God with us.

I'm going to give a sermon about this a little bit later on down the line here, because I think you need to be careful not to be deceived by people that are trying to talk about this, because it minimalizes Christ. That Christ is the head of the church.

It's Christ that's coming back to this earth. He's going to set His feet on the Mount of Alice. He will not be the Father. The Father does not, in fact, come until, in fact, after New Jerusalem has come down, and the Second Resurrection is over.

That's what the Bible says. But again, I guess some people missed out on that in this world that we live in.

You know, one thing that was kind of interesting to me, I was talking—let's go to Matthew 10, verse 28—I was talking to my brothers, and I forget what was brought up.

They're very religious people, by the way. My brothers and their wives, in fact, were very religious. My brothers, whose wife had just died, he and his wife belonged to the same church for over 35 years. They're very friendly people, and very outgoing in many ways. Of course, their theology is not so good. We don't think the way that they do. In fact, as long as the preacher stayed away from theology, his message was just fine. But as soon as he cracked that Bible, I mean, he started tripping all over himself.

As I mentioned in the letter, my sister-in-law, to begin with, he preached her in heaven.

And before the end of the day, he had preached her right back down into the grave.

So she could be there just in time for the resurrection. It really was strange in that way, but I know you're also familiar with this. You've dealt with that in the different churches and what they believe. It is really a tremendous thing, what we understand and what we know. But I made the point to my brothers, I said, you know, it's interesting that in the Bible, whatever God says, men say the opposite. It's like I was thinking about the one scripture where Christ says, think not. How much clearer could you be? Think not that I've come to destroy the law and the prophets. No, I'm not come to destroy, but I've come to fulfill or to magnify, as we understand it. But all of them were saying, you know, you're right about that. You're really right about that. Now, that would have been a splendid opening for me, but it was not the right time to talk about the things that people don't listen to. But one of the things that people don't listen to is where Christ Himself that no one has ever seen the Father. No one has seen or heard the Father. And yet, that's exactly what people think. And now we have some ministers, in fact, who stumble at this.

And again, don't get suckered into that thinking. For one and myself, I want to believe Jesus Christ, what Jesus Christ said. Let every man be a liar and God be true.

Because Christ, I think, made it pretty clear to us all. But let's notice here in Matthew 10. Now, this is what Jesus said over here. I didn't say it. I didn't write it down. But it was written down a long time ago. But notice what it says. It says, And do not fear those who kill the body. In the Greek, the word for body is soma. It has to do with your chemical, your body. But it says, And cannot kill the soul.

In other words, here the word meaning life essence. They can't take away life. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. That's what the word hell here means from the Greek word Gehenna. And so here it says, Don't fear man. I want you to fear me. Fear God. Who's able to take away your opportunity for eternal life. He could snuff you out, and any of us. And we would be as though we never were. We never existed. Going on here, Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin. And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your father's will. So the father is immolatively qualified. He knows the hairs on your head. Or whether a sparrow drops in flight and dies. He knows it all. We worship a great God. No question.

The very hairs of your head are all numbered. But notice here, verse 31, kind of a puzzling statement. Do not fear, therefore. Do not fear, therefore. You are of more value than many sparrows. So in verse 28, he says, Fear, that we ought to fear him who could take away body and soul. And down here in verse 31, he says, Do not fear. That almost seems like a contradiction, doesn't it? Isn't that a contradiction? Fear, but don't fear? Don't be afraid? Here? What God in essence is saying here, what Christ is saying, in this case, if you fear me, you have nothing to fear. If you believe in me, if you have faith in me, you don't have anything to fear. But if you do not fear me, you have everything to fear. And there are a lot of people that have that kind of mentality. They don't fear God. And another aspect of this that I think really is a truism is if we don't fear God, we will fear everything. You know, not that we have everything to fear, but we will, by default, fear everything. We fear death. We fear man. We fear everything. But our God, our great God, brethren, can destroy and has the power over life and death, and nobody else does. Satan would like to convince us he does have that power, but he doesn't. Remember the case of Job? Did he have the power to take Job's life? No, he didn't. God says, you can't take his life. He made his life pretty miserable, but God healed it, mended it, and Job's latter end was greater than his beginning. God made it right. So we worship that kind of a God, therefore fear him. You know, people fear other people, but we are called upon of God to only fear him, to only fear God. You know, people I've known of men and women who fear their mates, afraid of their mates, their husband or their wife, and maybe for good reason, because of threats or because of violence or whatever. And I would hope that any of our members would get out of that kind of relationship if one's life is in jeopardy. Mr. Armstrong used to say that if a man hits his wife, and I would say it would be true for a man if his wife hits him.

That it's time to leave when people start using their fists on one another and start hitting one another. But God wants us to, again, to not fear others.

You know, some people fear their boss, they fear their teacher, they fear what their friends will think. They fear their landlord, they fear the IRS.

But, brethren, who more should we fear than God? I mean, should we be afraid of the IRS? Afraid of, you know, even the law of man, not that we should be obedient to the law of man, as long as it doesn't conflict with God's law. But let's go over here to Proverbs 29 verse 25. Proverbs 29 verse 25 over here, here's Solomon from his wisdom. We can pick this cherry from the tree of wisdom. But here in chapter 29 in verse 25, here Solomon says this, the fear of man brings a stare. It's like somebody puts a rope around your leg. The fear of man, but whoever trusts in the eternal shall be safe.

So the fear of man, brethren, is a wrong kind of fear.

And fearing God is a right kind of fear. Fearing man is not a godly thing. So, again, there are fears that are unhealthy, even debilitating to people, that are not godly, not what God wants us to have. And interestingly, in the world we live in today, worldly attitudes and authority oftentimes revolve around this aspect of keeping people under their thumbs, like the government. If they ever find a way, or frankly anyone in authority, in their power hungry, that they can get something over on you, they will milk it for all they can get out of it. That's why Jesus said when Jesus was talking, he told people, agree with your adversary quickly, lest you end up paying the uttermost farthing. In other words, you're going to pay big time if you don't try to settle it right away.

To be very careful because of the way the world is. We've got to live in it, though, don't we? And if you learn to be as wise as a serpent, as harmless as a dove, you can't. And you can avoid some of the pitfalls if you use wisdom. You know, really think about this. Where God is saying that fearing men is an ungodly kind of fear, do we appreciate the position God has put us in? We're not like the rest of the world. It's like when we go and we sit in a service to hear about, you know, someone's life and what's going to happen to them after their death. God has put us in the position of knowing the truth.

Do you appreciate that? You don't have to worry about whether Aunt Matilla is looking down out of heaven on you and wondering whether they're in the grave or they're up there, you know, I guess from a viewfinder looking down at you or me. And we can know the truth, brethren. Like Jesus said, the truth does set us free in so many ways. Do we appreciate, again, that God has placed us in a situation where we know what the proper fear is, what the proper approach is? Let's go to Hebrews chapter 12 over here, and I'll try to go through this hurriedly since it's more scripture than I like to usually read in one place. But here in chapter 12, I think it really you got to tie it all in together to make it make more sense to us. It talks about how that ancient Israel, they were at the foot of the mountain before the commandments, the 10 commandments that we read in Exodus, you know, are talked about there. And that, you know, Israel was there and they had barriers that were set up to keep animals out and people out so that they would not go beyond a certain perimeter. But in Hebrews chapter 12, let's notice this down in verse 18.

Here Paul writes here, he says, For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire and deblactus and darkness and tempest. Here's describing what it was like there at, you know, as they looked up at Sinai, what was going on up there where God was there.

For they could not endure what was commanded. And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned and shot with an arrow. And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I am exceedingly afraid and trembling. Even it scared Moses. You ever been in this situation, brethren, where you were afraid of power? I mean, I'm talking about power.

I remember this very well. I used to run a track in Alabama. This would have been back in the 70s. And there was a road that I'd run around. It was like, you know, it was quite a ways, actually. And I left, when I left to run this road, you know, it was, it was beginning to overcast a little bit. And Alabama has the kind of weather that when you have a thunderstorm, I'll tell you, you know you had a thunderstorm. But as we were, as I was running around on the road, it began to rain like cats and dogs. And then the thunder, I mean the thunder clap that it almost created a breeze just to sign, you know, in the concussion, the concussion of the thunder. That was so bad.

It did. It made my heart tremble. I understand what it was like, probably there.

For Moses, he was right there, and it made him. You know what happened on Sinai there, it made him tremble. It was not easy. This great sense of power, but this was not a thunderstorm. This was God at the very top of that mount going on here. But here he mentions here, but you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God. He's talking about, Mount Zion is a symbol of heaven. It's a symbol also of the church, of God. And maybe here, describing it more, you know, with greater breadth than even that. But here it says, but you have come to Mount Zion to the city of the living God. You know, here God is saying to the church through Paul, you keep that in mind. If they were afraid at the foot of a mountain when the commandments were given, you know, how much more should we be, you know, very careful, you know, at the foot of Jesus Christ, who is the head of the church and the Father in heaven? But it says, you've come to Mount Zion to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, probably millions of angels here, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, who are registered in heaven. They're not in heaven. They're registered in heaven. They're in the book of life, as I hope that we are. To God, the judge of all, to the spirits of just men, made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of the sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. But here in verse 25 it says, See that you do not refuse him who speaks. And God is speaking now, brethren, from heaven. He does it every Sabbath. See that you don't refuse what's being said. He uses human instrumentality. His word, obviously, he uses that as well, but we are to listen. We are to heed. For if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth, much more shall they not escape if we turn away from him who speaks from heaven. And it says, Whoso, whose voice then shook the earth, but now he is promised, saying, yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven. You know, God's going to shake everything in the future. And it goes on to say he's going to do it once more so that those things that can be shaken will be shaken loose. But going on says that therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, the solid rock solid, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptedly with reverence. And again, here it is, brethren, and godly fear. Have a godly fear. of this. Why? For our God is a consuming fire. You know, we ought to be afraid of God. We ought to have that certain amount of fear of God. And God says, don't turn away. Don't turn away. You know, you better listen. Don't run. Don't run at all. Don't run. Don't run at all. You know, God wants us to again to listen. So in these verses, it's certainly clear that there's elements of terror and even dread. There are other scriptures that talk about this as well. I won't take the time to go through all of them. I'll just reference this one here. But it's important, brethren, to understand the consequences of sin, which was a problem with the brethren that Paul was addressing in Hebrews 10, because they were forsaking the assembly of the church. Remember, God is a consuming fire. And the fear of God should promote fear in us. And that fear is fright, alarm, terror.

But on the other hand, it should promote awe, respect, esteem for God, and reverence of Him. We ought to have an awe for the great God. We worship a powerful God, a mighty and a powerful God. The fear of God is to be for each of us a foundational principle of life. Paul already shows you where Solomon says it's the beginning of wisdom. When you start wising up is when we begin to respect God, we begin to look at Him. Let's go to 1 Peter 1 over here. 1 Peter 1 and verse 17. 1 Peter 1 verse 17. I don't have a mechanical Bible up here. Some of you have those push-button ones. How many of you have computer push-button?

Oh, no, I'm maybe out of my arena here. I actually have to turn to the book. But 1 Peter 1. Good on you that you're high-tech. But in 1 Peter 1 verse 17, let's notice this here. And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to every man's work, remember He judges, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear.

You've got to be careful how you live your life.

Like I said, going back to Oklahoma makes me realize how short life is. So easy to use up all your life before you know it.

We shouldn't be coming to ourselves when we're about ready to die. We should come to ourselves now.

Want to wake up now, yes, God's people. 1 Timothy 5 verse 20. 1 Timothy 5 verse 20. 1 Timothy 5 verse 20.

Over here, Paul was telling Timothy this.

In verse 20, here he was talking about the issue of those who sin in the church. But in verse 20 he says, those who are sinning, they're not repentant, but they're in the process of sinning, rebuke in the presence of all that the rest also may fear.

So God uses that as a tool to maybe get people's attention, to show how serious sin is.

So we want to be careful again that God doesn't have to single us out. But the Bible does say, you know, be sure your sin will find you out.

So it's important to repent and to change before it does.

The proper fear of God will make us more careful. We're more careful about what we do.

We're more careful about how we keep the Sabbath. We're more careful about how we observe the Passover.

Now, Mr. Knuttsch is going to talk about the Passover more directly. We're more careful about these things. Now, Paul mentioned that there were people dead because some were not carefully observing the Passover. They didn't prize Jesus Christ.

And, you know, in the body and the blood that we partake of. So it makes us more careful with those things which we do as God's people.

It makes us more careful, you know, with all the things that we do, tithing and other things, how we treat people. We don't begin to eat and drink with a drunken. We begin to change our lives, transform our lives, try to influence others to do the same in their lives and to live lives in a godly manner. It causes us to be humble.

Not to vulnerable ourselves, but to be humble. Because we want that special relationship with God.

Now, God does not want us to be apprehensive about obeying Him. So fearful, we're afraid to take a step.

But He wants us to be positive, brethren.

Be motivated in a very positive way. After all, we have a daddy-father, an Abba-father relationship.

That just means a daddy-father relationship. Very, very much intimate in our relationship with God.

We shouldn't fear men. We shouldn't be afraid of men. I won't go to the verse, but you might want to write it down in Genesis chapter 20. And verse 11 is the key verse that I wanted to center in on. But I will tell you the story. Remember when Abraham went down to Gaurar?

And he was confronted by a Bimlic, who was the king of Gaurar. You remember that even at 90 years of age, Sarah was apparently a very beautiful woman. Because the king sent for her, and the reason he felt obliged to do so is that Abraham was so afraid, he was moved with fear of the king, he thought he might kill him, that he told people that Sarah was his sister.

You remember the story of how an angel came to a Bimlic by night and said, Abbimlic, you were a dead man.

Because he had taken Sarah. And later, a Bimlic has Abraham before him, and he says, Abraham, why did you tell me she was your sister?

You know, you caused me to do this.

And Abraham said, well, because, in verse 11 of chapter 20, because he said the fear of God was not in this place. You see, he thought, well, because nobody fears God here, I better lie about this. And maybe, as people call him, a white lie, because there's no such thing as a white lie, they're all black.

But what happens is, when we're afraid of men, if we're afraid of people, of human beings, it leads us to not fear God. And to not trust God.

And so, in the case of Abraham, he made a mistake. He sinned. And we do this all the time, brethren. Maybe we don't think of it in the same way.

But what happens when we begin to fear men, when we fear human beings, brethren, what we do is we take things in our own hands. Like Abraham did. He sinned, remember, when he had a child through Hagar.

But it was because he wasn't trusting God.

Again, we do the same thing. You know, we can think, well, you know, my boss doesn't understand about the Holy Days, so I'll just have to work on the Holy Days.

You see, that's working it out yourself.

And that's wrong. Should do what God says. Fear God first. Don't fear your boss. Don't be afraid of your boss. You know, God can always give you another job if you lose your job.

Or he could change the attitude of the boss.

I mean, the first job I ever had, at least decent job I had, you know, I got fired over the Sabbath. He told me not to come back to work.

I prayed about it over the weekend, went back in on Monday, right where I'd worked all along. And I know he was really very mad at me for showing up, because I put him in a very unusual situation. I said, he's going to have to fire me and send me packing.

But he walked by me a number of times that day when I was working there. And anyway, after a period of time, he came over to me prior to lunch, and he said, he said, don't worry about it. He says, you don't have to be here on Saturday anymore. And I never had one problem with him after that. God worked it out.

You put your fear in God, God will work it out. He may not have that job, but you might get a better job if you trust God. You know, God can create a company for you, or He can take one out. I remember there was a fellow back years and years ago, I won't even say where, he worked for UPS.

And he came to be one Sabbath with just that story. Well, you know, he said, I'm going to have to work on Saturday. I said, I just encourage you to trust God.

But he said, if I do, he says, if I don't work, they're going to fire me. And I need the job, he said. So that's what he did. He worked on Saturday.

Guess what happened?

They laid him off. Anyway.

But he didn't trust God.

You think God's going to bless somebody if they don't trust Him? No.

Sad thing about it is he didn't repent.

He didn't repent. If he had done that, God would have been very confident very kind to him.

You know, another thing that people make excuses up, my landlord doesn't understand about tithing, so I will pay him first.

Well, you know, again, same principle, same principle altogether. We have to trust God, put our faith in God.

Sometimes people try to connive their way. You know, in life, such is the story of Ananias and Sapphira, of Acts chapter 5.

You remember that Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of property, and they conspired with each other to come to the church and say to the church, well, we sold the property for this, and we're going to give this big chunk of it to the church. Doesn't really specify the story, but what they did is they held back on what the full price of the land was.

And Ananias came in and told his lie, and Peter says, you know, what has caused you to lie to the Holy Spirit?

And you know the story about how Ananias dropped dead right there. And a few hours later, his wife Sapphira comes in. She had not known what had happened to her husband.

She did the same thing, and Sapphira dropped dead.

You can go and read about it in Acts chapter 5 over there, but it says, great fear came on all the church.

And then it mentioned after this, when everybody began to fear God and respect God and show off for God, that there were tremendous miracles that began to take place. That even the shadow of Peter healed people.

That's what the Bible says. That if all of us fear God, God sees that, he begins to intervene for us. Remember, another story that is closely connected with this was Peter and the rest of the disciples.

That they were, remember, arrested for preaching in the name of Christ.

Thought that they were causing an insurrection in Jerusalem, turning everything upside down. The Pharisees and the scribes took them and threw them in jail. And an angel miraculously opens the gates and they're able to leave.

And the scribes and the Pharisees are saying, didn't we put these guys in prison? Didn't we put them in jail? And yet they're out here preaching today.

And they, you know, brought them in and they interrogated them. And they said, did we not expressly tell you not to preach in the name of Jesus? And this is the statement that they made. We ought to obey God rather than men.

And even though they had suffered greatly, they went out of there when they were released. They rejoiced into what they were thankful that they suffered shame and suffering in the name of Jesus Christ. For what Jesus had done for them. You know, anodized the phyra, they didn't have the fear of God.

The disciples had the proper fear of God, to trust God, no matter what. God wants us to internalize that, make it a part of us.

That should be the product, in fact, of our relationship with God as his sons and daughters. In fact, the Bible tells us that we could be like ancient Israel.

Know that they had to wander in the wilderness for 40 years because they did not have a fear of God.

And we're warned about that in this modern era of the church.

Know this New Covenant church that God has raided up through Jesus Christ. That unless we have the proper fear, we won't enter into the millennium. We won't be there.

You can read it in Hebrews 4.1. I'm not going to go over there.

I find it very paradoxical.

The things we fear, oftentimes, we run from. We run away from.

You know, we're afraid, obviously, of the dangers. You see a train coming down. You run away from it, don't you? And we should.

So there are instinctual fears. And people have what are called phobias. You know, claustrophobia. You know, the fear of closed doors or closed spaces. Some people can't even get on an elevator. It's debilitating to them. They'd rather walk a hundred flights of stairs and get on a, you know, an elevator. Hydrophobia. Some people are afraid of water. I'd actually baptize people afraid of water. But their fear of God was much more than their fear of water when it came down to it.

I can think of distinct times when I had to talk people into getting baptized. I guess in cases like that, they sort of wish that they were being baptized into the Catholic Church. You know, just get sprinkled in the face with it.

But no, because they have a fear of God, they know what the word baptism means is to be immersed. They were willing to do it.

And again, these fears people have can be debilitating. But the one we should fear above everything, brethren, we should run to run to.

You know, you might run from water. You might run from being in a closed space, you know, or an open space or whatever it might be one is fearful of. But we are to fear God and we are to run to Him.

Give you an example of what I'm talking about.

Run to God's Passover.

Run to God's Holy Days.

Run to the Sabbaths.

Run to our knees, getting on our knees in prayer before God. And you know what? We'll do all of those things to the proportion we have the right fear in us of God.

To that direct proportion.

That's how much you're going to do it as God's people.

You know, in our lives, we fear God for two overall reasons. Number one, to avoid what's unpleasant by disobedience to God.

And number two, the greatest reasons is so that we can be enriched, so that we can be a part of God's kingdom that no one takes away from us the crown that God has laid up for us for the King of God, for being in the family, for being kings and priests in the world tomorrow. Well, God, brethren, is holy. He's just and He's good. Therefore, we are to fear Him.

The fear of God, however, is not instinctual. It's not...

People can have instincts which cause them to fear certain things.

But the fear of God is learned. You've got to be taught about it. You know, I dare say most of us don't even think about the fear of God if we come out even of a religious background.

I don't think that often the churches talk about this. Although it's hard for them to get past love. They don't know more than that. Let's go to Psalm 34. You know, David, David, who wrote thousands of Psalms, makes it...lays out a challenge here in Psalm 34. Psalm 34 here.

And chapter 34 and verse 8, we'll begin reading down there.

But down in verse 8, it says, David says, O taste and see that the eternal is good, that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who trusts in him. But notice verse 9 here. O fear the eternal, you his saints. God's talking to each one of us here today. O fear the eternal, you his saints. But notice the next part of this verse.

There's no want to those who fear him. You have to worry about where the next meal is going to come from. We know God will provide. God will take care of us. The young lions lack and suffer hunger. For those who seek the eternal shall not lack any good thing. And then David says here, Come, you children, listen to me, listen to me, and I will teach you the fear of the eternal.

And if you just keep reading on down through there, you'll find out what the fear of God is. Because it teaches you. David teaches us about the fear of God. The fear of God, brethren, is learned.

Doesn't come through hereditary means. Everybody's got to start from scratch and learn it. When I first came into the church, I had no knowledge of it. I thought I trusted God, but not really. Not really.

There are many lessons learned through the years. There are so many ways that we can learn. Let me give you an example. There was a man who stayed home from the feast to farm. And he ended up, he felt that was more important than going off to the feast. Because he had to get that crop in. What would be all the good reasons why you'd have to do that? Well, so he didn't go to the feast. But while everybody was away from the feast, this man who stayed back injured himself, hurt himself, and it set him back several weeks because he did that.

You see how these things work, brethren? If he had trusted God, he would have been able to do both. If he had trusted God, he would put his faith in God. Another example I would give you is people who withhold their tithes. They think somehow that if they don't pay their tithes, that life's going to be better for them. Somehow they've got more money after all. If you don't send the 10% or whatever tithe and offering you happen to give, then you've got that much money, don't you?

Well, that's what men would think. But nine times out of ten things fall apart. You end up paying much more for something you didn't expect it was going to happen. A long, long time ago I learned that about tithing. I made the mistake of not tithing on what I was supposed to tithe on. And let it slide too long, and it ended up costing me a whole lot more. And I realized how God works. That if we trust Him and do what God commands us to do, He will bless us.

That's just the way it works. We have to learn that through the University of Hard Knox. The fear of God, brethren, is the beginning of wisdom. It's the beginning. You get that down? You're on the beam to being successful in your life. There's a lot of other principles, of course. But this is a life's guiding principle. All moral and ethical matters and all spiritual knowledge stems from the fear of God. And before that, of course, it stems from love as well.

You know, God, of course, will use many devices to wake us up to the potency of sin in our lives and the negativity of it and how we need to make a choice to do the right thing. Fearing God is a choice that each of us has to make.

Nobody can make it for you. Fearing God means that you trust Him, and you trust His Word, and you take that into account of every part of your life. Everything you do. You can't go wrong if you do that, because God will bless you all the days of your life. I want to conclude by reading to you one simple verse written by a man known for his wisdom, who went through the University of Hard Knox himself. And at the end of his life, he summed it up in this way. In Ecclesiastes 12, verse 13, Solomon wrote, Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.

He's saying here, let's hear the conclusion of the summation of life, what life is about. And he goes on, fear God and keep His commandments. For this is man's all. This is man's everything. So, brother, let's learn that lesson of fearing God and making that a part of our character. And realize that the fear of God is not mutually exclusive of the love of God, that we should have a love of God and a fear of God, that both are very important in our relationship with God.