Sermon Central
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No Fear Series
Contributed by Paul Wallace on Oct 28, 2008 (message contributor)
Summary: Where there is no fear of Lord, there is no restraint from doing evil.
NO FEAR (of God)
“No fear”. It’s on clothing, it’s in commercials.
But having no fear is stupid. Little children with no fear of heights can get hurt badly. Having no fear of boiling water on a stove leads to burns. Having no fear of getting hurt leads to reckless driving. It may sound really brave to say “I have no fear”, but in many situations, fear is a very healthy thing to have!
In our spiritual life, fear is also a very healthy thing to have! In fact, having no fear of God has disastrous effects in our lives, and in the effectiveness of the Church.
The concept of the Fear of the LORD is found all throughout the Bible, with about 200 passages that teach those who are willing to listen how important this attitude is in our relationship with God.
Introduction: Do we still fear God? This country we live in was founded on the very principles and morals of Christianity. God was reverenced, respected and celebrated. Even bad people wouldn’t desecrate a church or hurt a church because they were afraid what would happen to them. They feared God.
In our day and age we have musicians who speak against God and say he was a fake, comedians who make fun of God and have thousands laughing as they poke fun of the Lord God Almighty. Actors who make up their own God and a world full of people like us who allow it and who have even become so desensitized to it that we call it entertainment.
People don’t fear God no more and that is what is wrong with the world today. Part of the problem is that preachers don’t preach it anymore. They want you to know that God is love and he brings peace and he restores and he is always they’re waiting on you, begging you to come home.
This is true, God is all these things but let’s not forget that God says about himself that he is a jealous God. God is a just God that reigns down judgment on the wicked. That God hates sin and will destroy it. That God is the most High that sits on the throne in Heaven that could end your existence with a word. A God that has created a Hell, a place of judgment for Satan and all his followers.
God is to be feared. Because of his power. Because of his greatness. Because of who he is. He is the one and only, I am that I am, Alpha and Omega, Jehovah God
I What is the fear of the Lord (Our Definition has changed)
The word can be interpreted as awe, respect, reverence, terror, dread, and we have taken the light end.
We say Christians need to reverence God but not fear him. And there is some truth to that because there is a change of relationship, but I think we are taking God far too casually because of this new definition.
Fearing God with real fear
A lot of preachers say that the definition of fear is respect but I looked everywhere and never found that. But what I did find is dread, horror, fright, panic, alarm, terror, worry, be afraid of.
a. These are definitions of fear. understand that respect has a lot to do with it but so does fear. Don’t play it off because it doesn’t make you feel all cuddly inside. We should respect God, yes but we should also stand in horror, fright and panic when we sin. We should do this because of who God is and we just disobeyed him. We just did something that he hates and he has the power to judge us and he is the only being that can do that.
. I feared my Father. I loved him and I respected him and I loved to be around him but there was also times that I feared him because I know I did something wrong, and I would face a whipping.
Think about it in this respect. NASA calls you up and says they want to train you to send you into space for a new mission. What an exciting prospect. Then the NASA dude proceeds to tell you that they want to send you to the SUN! Directly into the burning ball of fire! It is not out of respect for the sun that you will turn down the offer; rather it is because you fear for your life. You know that the closer you get to the sun the hotter
it will get and you will eventually be consumed. We respect what the sun can do on a hot day so we put on sun block. But to be sent into the sun goes so far beyond sun block... so much beyond respect. To be sent to the sun is fear. This is much the same in our spiritual life. So often we are content to just respect God. Just like a sunburn, we may have signs that show we have encountered God, but we really very seldom fear God anymore. Every time someone in the Bible saw God their response what fear that they might die. If not that then they fell down in worship of Mighty God. The closer we draw to the SON the more likely you are to be consumed. This is the God we are to fear. And we must fear Him if we expect Him to share with us His secrets, His very covenants.
