Good morning. I am so blessed to be able to be with you. I've shared with a couple of you, I thought that I was coming to this conference to help dear brothers minister to precious saints. And I'm glad for the opportunity. But the fact is I have been ministered to by you, the friends, the family of Christ, the body of Christ, more than I will ever be able to minister to anyone during this time.

I just wanna thank you from the bottom of my heart, thank you on behalf of my family for the encouragement, the kindness, friendship, your expression of how you've been in prayer. For us your concern- for my health my well being for for our family I just thank you. God is teaching me much in the circumstances that he permits in my life and one of the things that he has taught me this weekend as he has been teaching me is about the love of the Saints and about how he loves his own through his people, through the prayers of his people, through the kindness, through the friendship, through the encouragement. I am so grateful and my heart is so full. I am most of all grateful to have an opportunity, Lord willing, to glorify God in the time that we have together by considering what it really means to fear Him as we ought to.

To have that fear that a Christian ought to have with regard to the Lord. And I am so blessed to be able to share with you for the next little while about the fear of the Lord. How many of you are old enough to remember when the fear of the Lord was synonymous with Christianity? I remember my parents and especially my grandparents, when they would describe a Christian man to me, when they would, when my grandparents would talk about their pastor, when they would talk about particularly fervent, earnest, committed, fruitful Christians. They described them as God-fearing men, God-fearing women.

It's no accident that that has historically been a synonym for Christianity, and it still should be, friends. When they talked about those kinds of men, they were not talking about slavish, skulking, snarling, resentful, bitter, servile servants of God. They were talking about Christians. What does it mean to be a Christian? First and foremost, it means to love the Lord.

It means to have a heart that has been changed so that there is not enmity but friendship. It means to have a filial fear of God. And we have heard so much. We've heard so much taught so beautifully about the kinds, the types of fears of the Lord, the benefits, the blessings of fearing the Lord, what it means to fear the Lord, what it looks like when we fear the Lord. Oh for the day when we're not looking back to the good old days of when Christians were God-fearing people but when we hearken to those things again.

And being a God-fearing people comes to characterize us and describe us in ways that the scripture says that it should. I'm so grateful for how this conference began. How many of you remember Dr. Beekie's message on the opening night of the conference? There's some things he said during that time that really stuck with me.

One of the statements that he made, and it wasn't just a statement or an opinion, It was something that he proved as he exposited the scripture as he went to Ecclesiastes 12. And I won't try to prove again what he has already proven, but I'll repeat something that he said. He said, true filial fear is always motivated by love. True filial fear is always motivated by love. We've seen that kind of fear described as that affectionate reverence and awe, that wonder, that adoration that the Christian is to have for the Heavenly Father.

I really appreciated Dr. Beekie's illustration of how we love differently, we react differently, depending on the kind of fear that is in our heart. Remember he gave just that beautiful illustration of how we view sin when we sin against someone we love as opposed to when we sin against someone who we perhaps just fear or fear in the wrong ways, don't fear with a godly fear. The more we study scripture, as I know you know, the more continuity we see between the principles and precepts that we find in scripture. And I hope that during the time that we'll have together this morning, we will see some of the beautiful continuity that exists among the fear of the Lord, the faith of the Lord, and loving the Lord.

I really see a beautiful connection among those things, and there is a thread, there's something in common with those three things that when those things are understood properly and lived as they should be in the life of a Christian, this common thread will be there. And that thread is that that Christian will know the Lord. Will know the Lord. If we have the kind of faith that we ought to have, if we have the kind of love that we ought to have for our God, for our Savior, if we have the kind of fear that we should have for the Lord Jesus Christ, we will know Him. We will know Him.

We will spend our lives coming to know Him. You know that the fear of the Lord is a gospel-centered concept. A gospel-centered concept. I know that at a conference of this size, I don't know, 1500, 2000 people, I don't know how many people are here, but I am, I would be shocked if there are not those among us who are lost, who simply do not know the Lord. You think, well, you know, in a conference where families would come to be taught for hours, for days about the fear of the Lord, lost people would come.

Yeah. There are some lost people here among us. There are children in really, really sweet, neat Christian families who don't know the Lord. They may be hiding in Christian families, their husbands and wives. I expect here who may not know the Lord.

There are those that we have heard described previously like chameleons who change colors whenever they are around the people of God and then when they are around the world who look different depending on the interaction they're having and those with whom they're having that interaction. Friends, I'll tell you, if the reason that you're struggling with fearing the Lord properly is because you were lost, you need the gospel. You need the gospel. It is not a happy accident that you happen to be at a conference like this, that you were born into the family that you're born in, that you're married to the person you're married to. If you are here and you are lost, you need the gospel.

You need a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you were here and you were a sincere, committed, earnest Christian, and yet you still struggle with fearing the Lord as you ought to, with that filial, affectionate fear that draws you to God as it should. You know what you need? You need the Gospel. You need the gospel.

And so that will be a thread throughout the time that we spend together because it is vital that we know and understand the gospel if we are to know and understand God. If we are to have a saving knowledge of God, we must know the gospel. And if we are to be sanctified, if we are to repent, if we are to, because of what God has done, turn away from our sin in repentance and not just stand there, but move in the direction of the Lord Jesus Christ follow him we need the gospel I'm so grateful for the sermons of Paul washer I heard one recently where he talked about the glory the the amazing fact that we will spend eternity better understanding the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. That it will be a study that occupies us for all of eternity. Why would that be?

So many Christians come to the Lord and they think, okay I know the gospel, I've got that, check it off, Let me go to the next thing. Let me go to deeper things. Let me go to the more profound, sanctifying things of the world. There is nothing more profound or sanctifying than the gospel. There is nothing more awe-inspiring, mysterious, and amazing than that the Creator would come and die for a creature like me.

That he would make me, that he would create this world knowing that it would rebel against him and that ultimately he would not just condescend and leave the throne and become a man and enter the womb, not arrive 30 years old ready for ministry, enter the womb and be born. By the way, does that instruct us about this awful sin of abortion? The image of God in the womb, Thou shalt not kill. That's what our God did. He entered the womb of a woman and was born like you and me and lived and was subject to his parents and honored them and honored his family, his heavenly father and was perfect, perfect, perfect.

And he went to the cross and he endured not only the shame, the horror of that cross, but he took the judgment that you deserved if you belong to him and that I deserve. He took it on himself. If you were here and the fear of the Lord is something that you just really are scoffing at right now in your heart, that you mock privately or maybe you are even so bold as to do it publicly with those who will entertain such things who might be here. If you are lost, I plead with you to consider the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a clumsy, foolish, terrible, pitiful vessel to talk about the gospel.

But you know that's not really the most important thing. In fact it really doesn't matter very much at all. I was talking to Kevin Swanson at supper the first night that we arrived and we were talking about a Martin Lloyd Jones sermon wherein he said, hey preachers, don't think too much of yourself. Don't think too much of your ability to reach the lost of your ability to be prepared to be persuasive to be eloquent to convince friends Charles Finney was wrong when he said that he could bring any man to Christ in 15 minutes. We'll talk about that.

If you were here and you don't fear the Lord because you were lost you are dead. Your heart is dead. I am preaching at least partially to a graveyard if there are any lost people here. And as Martin Lloyd-Jones pointed out, I have no more hope of getting a response out of a grave than I have of, I don't know what he compared it to, I would say, you know, me flapping my arms and flying to the moon. It takes the work of God to get a response to the gospel from those who cannot respond, who are in enmity with him, whose hearts have not been quickened and have not been changed, and who don't love him.

And so the gospel needs to be a very important part of what we think about when we think about fearing the Lord. It is not only the only hope for the lost but it is the great occupation of the saved. How God saves us. And make no mistake, He saves us. We've got to have our doctrine right if we're going to fear the Lord.

Repentance is indeed necessary for salvation, but it is not the producing factor of salvation. What causes salvation in the heart and life of a man or woman is God. The gift of faith, Him changing a heart, that's what causes a man to repent. It must be there, it's necessary if one is saved. And yet it is a fruit, it is a byproduct, it is something that grace equips a believer for, for the rest of their lives.

Our theology really is critical to a proper filial fear of the Lord. Why do I say that? One of the speakers earlier in the conference said something very close to this that filial fear of the Lord only grows in the soil of humility. That it only grows in the soil of humility. You know understanding the gospel is one of the most humility producing events that can ever occur if we understand it properly.

If we understand it properly. Why is it that most professing Christians believe that they are in charge of their own salvation? That they came to the Lord because of something in them for which they are, whether they admit it or not, taking credit about which they are boasting some difference in them that sets them apart from someone else and what does this have to do with fearing the Lord well if you've read Romans 3 if you've looked at it at all you know that that's not true you understand total depravity you understand that dead people can't respond no matter how good the preaching is. But that's the work of God. But you know what a bad understanding with regard to that part of our doctrine produces in us is a lack of humility.

It produces pride. It gives reason to boast. That's what Romans chapter 3 warns against. And if you allow me to just read the first few verses of Romans chapter 4 that points back to Romans chapter 3, we see very clearly what our attitude about this ought to be and how it works. What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh?

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now to him who works the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. Christians here may say why would why would anyone want to reject grace?

That's the craziest thing I've ever heard of. And yet the great majority of profession Christians in America are really struggling with accepting the grace of God as they should. Why is that? Because we don't want to be in God's debt. We want him in our debt.

We're proud. In our flesh we are proud. And we want to do something which obligates God to save us. You want to know why we don't live in a God-fearing America? Part of the reason is because our doctrine is bad, because so many Christians do not understand, even if they have come to the Lord, how they got there.

Have it been taught. They don't understand. And they're walking in a pride that is an enormous barrier to the kind of humility in which the soil is created, in which a filial fear of God grows. God save us from that, God protect us from that. What other cult that you could name, what false religion could you name that is not about works?

Is there one? Is there a single one? None anywhere. Any religion you can name is about works, is about earning favor, is about deserving the favor of whatever false deity that it sets up, not Christianity. Christianity, we're in debt to God.

He is not a debtor to us and an understanding of this humbles us. Creates the kind of soil in our lives, gives us a saving knowledge of God, an understanding of the gift of faith that results in loving and fearing God. Friends, there's a dangerous pride associated with focusing on our own actions, our own works. Imagine that any of us who have shared the gospel have run into people who couldn't get past what they must do to be saved and could not just understand that salvation is faith in Christ alone by the grace of God alone. A gift of God for which he receives all the glory which then produces as a necessary fruit and a part of the life of the believer certain things.

Repentance, a following after the Lord Jesus Christ and a fear of God. A fear of God that drives us to God, not away from him. This kind of pride, what does it say about us? It says we want to be God. Wasn't that Adam and Eve's problem?

They wanted to be God. How did Satan tempt them? He called God a liar and he tempted them to be God instead of God. Didn't he? Genesis chapter 3.

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, has God indeed said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. Then the serpent said to the woman you will not surely die for God knows that in the day you eat it eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil why don't men fear God because they want to be God they want to be like God It was the temptation that led to the fall of man. This desire to set oneself up like God.

And we see something else there, don't we? We see a lack of belief in God. We see God being called a liar. That's what the enemy does. Because God really said, oh, that's not true.

You do this and you'll be like God in these ways. And Adam and Eve, who had walked in perfect relationship with God in perfection, succumbed to that temptation. They believed God was a liar, they set themselves up in rebellion against him, they aligned themselves with Satan, and they decided it meant that much to them to be God instead of God being God. And the humility, the soil of filial fear changed to a servile, fearful, awful place. The garden changed.

And what did they do? Instead of desiring to walk with God as they had, they couldn't get away from him fast enough. And that's servile fear. And they had a filial fear. And they threw it away because they wanted to be God and because they believed God was a liar, and because of their pride, the same kind of pride with which Christendom struggles today.

I'm a Christian because of me. I came to the Lord. There's something about me that's smarter than Him. I've accepted the grace of God. It's all about God.

It's all a gift of God. We are debtors, debtors, debtors, debtors, nothing else. And the debt we can never pay. And if we know the Lord Jesus Christ, we understand that when he went to that cross when he dreaded what was coming in the garden he he wasn't cowardly in the way that that martyrs who have gone and died for God were not cowards what a silly idea that that he asked God if the cup could pass from him because of his fear of death, of the cross, of what man could do for him. That is utter nonsense.

Make no mistake, what Christ dreaded was the cup of wrath of God Almighty that would be poured out on him because you owed a debt that you could never pay. And so did I. And the only way that could change is because of the cross. Because of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of him crucified.

And that's why Paul said, that's all I'll preach. That's all I have to say to you. I will not come with eloquence of speech Lest you care more about the eloquence you Greeks than you do about the cross. I know this is foolishness to your culture. I know who you are and how you are.

I know your pride. The church at Corinth looks so much like the church in America today in so many ways. We must have humble soil and it starts with the right doctrine and a right understanding of God and what He has done for us. And it starts with faith. Faith leads to righteousness.

Faith leads to righteousness. Not some misplaced idea of, oh, I believe in Christ and I believe who he was and that he existed, but believing Christ. Believing, yes, in Christ, but in Christ. We are in him. Believing as only He could equip us and cause us to believe, as only God could change our hearts.

That is Christianity. That is the fertile soil of humility in which the filial fear of God grows and is beautiful. And friends, whether you are lost or a Christian, I promise some more humility won't hurt you. It sure does me no harm. I can't get enough of it.

Think of what God has done for you. Think of the love. This is the God you must know if you will fear him. You must know him and you must know and understand what he has done. I hope to have time for us to talk a little bit about love as it's described in the Bible at the conclusion of our talk about patience and kindness and how it is expressed by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.

Just consider with me before we get there though, the patience of a God who not only bore with Israel throughout all of history, but who decided to save you in eternity past before he ever created you. That's a lot of patience. I can't get my mind around that but I'll just float it out there for you to think about. That is a lot of patience friends. And the kindness to pray for forgiveness for those who crucified him is a lot of kindness.

We must make our lives as Christians a study of this gospel. It's never anything that we are done with. Oh and I pray that if you don't know the Lord, that He would change your heart, He would quicken it, and He would take you out of your dead condition and give you life because you won't respond otherwise. You won't. I might as well be preaching to a grave marker by anything I can do, by any difference I can make.

But you need to marvel that God can change that, that he can take that dead heart and make it alive, and he's done it. Throughout history, throughout the history of God fearing Christian people, God has done it. I'd like for us to consider in the context of what we've talked about in terms of knowing God a little better and how it informs the three things that we began discussing, our faith, our love of God, and our fear of God. Do you see now how those things must be seasoned with knowing God? And how if we are taught bad doctrine and we let it go and don't confront it in the church, that we will create soil in which the fear of God cannot thrive.

Again, I won't prove to you the point that was proved in the sermon in which that point was brought forth. I believe it was brother Beekie again who said that. Go back and listen to that sermon, but I'm telling you it's true. There is a humility of heart that's a part of the life of faith and the fertile soil of knowing and loving God that produces a filial fear of God that affectionate I don't want to get away from God I want to run to him daddy daddy daddy let me crawl up into your lap and pour out my heart and whisper in your tender ear, Daddy, you need to know Him. Christians, we need to know Him better, Better every day.

Could we stop wasting time on stuff that doesn't matter? Could we stop playing games? Could we stop using the precious time that God has given us in this life which has such impact on eternity, on things other than knowing God better? Please, I plead with you. The world's lying to you.

These things are worthless. They're vanity as we have heard. Consider with me for just a few minutes the legacy of those who knew their God, who lived in faith, who loved their God, and who are commended in Scripture for it. Hebrews chapter 11 beginning in verse 1 we read, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, for by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were formed by the Word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.

In other words, it is by faith that we will believe what God says about creation and how we got here. No coincidence that that is a massive battle today. I'm so grateful that Ken Ham is here with us and for the work he is doing with Answers in Genesis and that he is speaking right now to the glory of God about this truth. You know who will believe it? Those who know God, those who have faith, those who love God, those who fear God.

And so many others will fear man and fear being mocked and fear being belittled because they don't buy into evolution. Don't get me started. You want to have an unsupported, blind, idiotic faith. Become a student of evolution and buy into it. It's not the topic.

May God give us faith to believe that he did what he did, the way he said he did it, and no other way. May we be a people of the book who say, you know what settles it for me? This is what God said. That's it. End of discussion.

By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous. You see that? The connection between his righteousness, how did he offer that sacrifice? By faith, by believing God, by understanding from God that he had been given a sacrifice that ought to be returned to God by God. He had a sacrifice to offer because God gave it to him and he understood that and he returned to God what was God's and he's declared righteous because of his belief in God given to him by God and expressed through his obedience.

You know how to be an obedient Christian? Stop sinning? Everything we're talking about? That's what the fear of the Lord produces in the life of a believer. It translates to obedience, it translates to action.

You're gonna hear that all through Hebrews 11 here and we're gonna have to hurry up y'all, I'm not listening fast enough. By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and through it he being dead still speaks. By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death and was not found because God had taken him. For before he was taken he had this testimony that he pleased God. What do we know about the life of Enoch that he walked with God?

Heard these old preachers talk about Enoch walked with God in such a way that one day they were just closer to God's house than his so they just went on there instead of going back to Enoch's house. He was taken. He was a man that walked with God. A saved man producing repentance which caused him to not just turn away from sin but go away from sin after his God, to walk with God. So he pleased God, but without faith it is impossible to please him.

For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. By faith Noah being divinely warned of things not yet seen moved with godly fear prepared an ark for the saving of his household by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. I know we're having messages centered on this during this conference. I won't linger here long but please notice the action, the obedience that faith and fear of God and love of God and knowing God and not daring to call God a liar even in the face of seemingly ridiculous odds produced in the life of Noah. I spent 100 years building an ark when it had never rained.

My measure of my own faith just really plummeted. And it led to action, didn't it? Moved with godly fear. And it led to confrontation, didn't it, with the world. Every day, every day, every day, they built that ark, he and his family.

And how many of us are a little embarrassed about looking too Christian when we walk into the grocery store? Because there might be some confrontation about dressing modestly when we go out in public because someone might think we're weird, we don't fit in, we're something that we're not. Maybe they'll think our theology is wrong, maybe they'll think we believe certain things, maybe they'll think we're this, that, or the other. I don't need to go into all of that. Godly fear confronts the world, friends.

There is no other way of describing it. It leads to confrontation with the world. A hundred years. That's the confrontation Noah had with his culture. That's godly fear.

I can't comment much on the rest of these verses, but I really would like to read them. Just look at the thread of obedience and what is done by those who are commended in the scriptures here, the heroes of the faith, the heroes of Christianity. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance and he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country dwelling intense with Isaac and Jacob the heirs with him of the same promise for he waited for the city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God by faith by faith by faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed and she bore a child when she was past the age because she judged him faithful who had promised I have to stop there for a second. Has God ever been unfaithful to you?

Can you point to a single example in history where God has been unfaithful? Ever. You can't. If you think you can, you're wrong. God can't be unfaithful.

He never has been and he never will be. We must count him faithful. That is such a component of believing him. How dare we call him a liar? We don't wanna call it that when we disobey God.

We don't wanna go there. That's too strong. In the old west, you called a man a liar. You better be wearing a gun you better reach for it because That kind of a condemnation was a death knell to a man and I'm not saying it was right for it to be that way But it was serious How flippant are we about calling God a liar and looking through the scriptures and saying well I think I'll disregard this because that's not convenient and this was cultural and that doesn't seem to apply to me and this I just really don't want to do it I'm not even really sure God's right about that. Remember what happened to Adam and Eve?

We dare not call God a liar we must believe him. If you hope to have any kind of appropriate filial fear of God, you dare not call him a liar. Fear that friends. Be honest about it when we do it and repent of it Because just because we've become Christians doesn't mean we're through with it. The struggle is still there, that sin nature is still there, and we're not done with that for a while, not until this life's over.

And that's one thing I look forward to, is not having this sin nature. We dare not call God a liar. Sarah judged him faithful who had promised. She knew God. Do you see the thread?

She knew God so she had faith. Noah knew God so he had faith so he believed God and it translated into action. It was all about how he lived. It was everything about how Sarah expressed her faith and her confidence in God and how God blessed her. We've talked so much about the blessings of fearing the Lord.

Go back and review those. Put them on your wall. Contemplate them. Rejoice in them. Believe them.

It will be the best thing for you and your family if you will fear God. The blessings are innumerable. Go back through these sermons and listen to them again. We see them exemplified here as we read on about the heroes of the faith. Therefore from one man and him as good as dead were born as many as the stars of the sky and multitude innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly, if they had called to mind to that country from which they had come out they would have had opportunity to return but now they desire a better that is a heavenly country therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for He has prepared a city for them. You know one of the things that a godly fear will do? It will cause you to stop looking at now at the temporal and it will cause you to look at the eternal.

It'll cause you to understand that you have not just been saved from the consequences of sin from God's judgment but you are being saved now from the power of sin and that you will be saved for glory, for an eternity that matters so much more than now. That's what fear of God does. It makes us eternal minded, it makes us glory minded, it makes us look forward to that which by comparison this life is just a vapor. What a beautiful benefit of knowing God, of loving God, of having faith in God and fearing God. By faith Abraham when he was tested offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son of whom it was said, and Isaac your seed shall be called, concluding that God was able to raise him up even from the dead From which he also received him in a figurative sense.

Do you think he believed God friends? I'll kill him God you tell me to I'll kill him because I know you've promised That the seed is coming through him and I know you'll bring him back There's faith There's believing God. How do you get there? You just will yourself to it, grit your teeth and try hard enough? No, you know God.

You walk with God. You know the one in whom your faith is placed. You know the one you fear. If you hope to fear him anything like you ought to, you must know him. If you hope to have the kind of faith that you ought to have in him, you must know him.

You must be consumed, passionate, devoted, wasting time on nothing else, Knowing your God. That's what's true about these heroes of the faith. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith Jacob when he was dying blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worshiped leaning on the top of his staff. By faith Joseph when he was dying made mention of the departure of the children of Israel and gave instructions concerning his bones.

By faith Moses when he was born was hidden three months by his parents because they saw he was a beautiful child and they were not afraid of the king's command. You know what the fear of God will produce? A lack of fear of man. Oh, that that would describe the church. That we would take the Word of God and say, you sir are a liar.

I'm not saying so on my own opinion based on my own wisdom and knowledge. You are a liar because the Word of God says you are a liar and therefore I confront you in the lie. A man's a man, a woman's a woman, God has a design, there was a groom, there was a bride, this is salvation, this is the gospel, and we will not agree that it be perverted. Do to us what you will. This is our faith.

This is the fear of God. And it is not consistent with being submitted and made subservient to the fear of man. Not by Noah, not by us, not by any. This is the fear of God. This is what we need in the culture in which we exist today.

You know part of our problem as Christians we don't have enough experience with God. Have you ever done this that sort of silly exercise where you learn to trust somebody by falling backwards into their arms. Or maybe it's a group of people if you're my size. I think I've done that somewhere in the past. I think I had a coach or something somewhere, somebody that said, hey, we're gonna trust each other.

And you know what, the first time was really hard. Cuz I knew those guys and I'm thinking, you know what? Those guys will let me hit the ground and I'm going to look pretty silly. But you know what? They caught me because they knew I think coach was going to run their legs off if they didn't catch me.

And, you know, then the next time it was easier because they'd done it once and I knew they could catch me I knew they would they'd proven it once and if we'd done that a hundred times they would have gotten easier every time. You know part of our problem as Christians today you know part of what we have robbed ourselves of as Christians in America. We have been so afraid of man and so afraid of persecution and God has spared us a great deal of persecution. Friends, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to know God and to see His faithfulness whenever we shrink and run from the confrontations that He calls us to. When we don't believe Him, we lose an opportunity to see him faithful in what he promises.

I cringe at how many of those opportunities I have lost in my life because my fear of man because I didn't want the trial. I didn't want trouble. I didn't want the persecution because I was a coward. How many opportunities can I not get back in this life to see God prove himself faithful? That's what he had done in the lives of these heroes we're reading about.

That was their entire experience. That was their life. They've seen God prove himself over and over and over throughout all their history that he was unflinchingly unwaveringly always faithful. Maybe the maybe the persecutions that are coming for Christians in America aren't such a bad thing. Maybe if we'll fear God instead of man and even suffer a little bit for it, maybe we will be blessed with opportunities to observe the faithfulness of God whenever we believe Him and are obedient and when we fear God.

Eternally speaking, those things are so much more important than the temporal trials we may experience because of the wrath of man. Let's don't rob ourselves of opportunities to see God as faithful, to see him show himself faithful. That's how you know Him. Remember the common thread? Knowing God.

It's an experiential thing in this life. It is a spirit-produced experience that we have as Christians because we are given the grace, as we heard described yesterday, to fear God. Every believer. You have the grace to fear God. You have victory over the power of sin right now.

That is an aspect of your salvation. Not just that you've been saved from hell, the consequences of sin, but that you are currently being saved and sanctified from the power of sin to glory. Christians in America need to be a more courageous people, not Confrontational for the sake of confrontation's sake but confrontational whenever the gospel requires it whenever the fear of God requires it It may be rough, but I can promise you one thing God will be faithful Bank on it It can't be any other way Though they slay you God will be faithful Though they drag you off and imprison you, God will be faithful. You know what they used to say about a man being arrested, what Spurgeon said? I like it.

They see the magistrate drag him off and sympathy toward his cause is the result. And people who wouldn't have listened to him inquire as to why he's being treated this way. Friends, you want to see repentance in America? Believe God, fear God, don't fear me. Speak the truth and don't doubt that God will be faithful.

He is not a liar. Don't you dare Christian brother call him a liar, please. By faith Moses when he became of age refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. I should have just read that. Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt for he looked to the reward.

Eternal minded faith and fear of the Lord and love of God, born out of a knowledge of God. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them. By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land whereas the Egyptians attempting to do so were drowned. What the children of Israel would have missed if they had turned back.

If God had not hemmed them in and given them no choice but to be surrounded by those who could utterly destroy them and confronted by a sea which they could not cross. What a wonderful thing that catastrophe was. Stop worrying about what man can do to us. We need to be a people of the book, a people of the fear of God. I'm not calling to courage that you have within you, I'm calling to what God can do in you through his word, by his spirit, by his power, just as he saves.

Walk with him. It is all about him, but you also have duty. You need to respond the right way. You need to repent of sin. You need to have a tender conscience.

You need to respond as you should. And I'll be the last one to tell you I understand how all these things work together. I just know they're true. I know the Trinity is true. I don't have to understand how all of that works.

I just know because God said so that it's true. And I also know that he is sovereign and any good thing and you will be because of him and for his glory but you have duty. Respond the right way. His spirit in you has equipped you and anytime you don't you are not in that spirit you are in your flesh. That is your duty.

By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days. By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe when she had received the spies with peace. And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah also of David and Samuel and the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms worked righteousness obtained promises stopped the mouths of lions quenched the violence of fire escaped the edge of the sword out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Would you like to see that in America?

It ain't about majorities, it's not about who's president, it's not about the Supreme Court, it's about God Almighty. And the fear of the Lord and of people who love him. We don't need a majority, not from a human standpoint. We don't need might. There may be too many of us.

We need the Lord. Women received their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned.

They were sawn into, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us. Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

There's the gospel. We hear this recitation of the heroes of the faith and there's the gospel, there's the cross, there's the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's the one you must know. Here's the one that your life must be a passionate, diligent, joyful, delightful study of walking with, of knowing better, of loving more. This is the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is not a cruel, abusive master. Have no servile fear of Him. If you are lost and don't fear him because of that. Have every kind of fear possible and come to the Lord and let him give you the right kind of fear. But as Christians, That which the lost must know is that which we must also know, if we will judge him faithful who has promised.

And there is a reason that the Apostle Paul preached Christ and him crucified. Some don't think Paul was capable of extremely eloquent preaching. I'm not so sure about that. I've seen too much of what he's written, albeit inspired by the Holy Spirit. I wonder though if Paul did not choose not to speak with eloquence, especially with the Greeks, who elevated that rhetoric and that ability to debate and that knowledge of new things and that power of speaking.

Perhaps they would have elevated even above the cross. What Paul said was, I come to you preaching Christ and Him crucified. And I told you that I hoped we'd have just a couple of minutes at the end of this talk to consider how God's love has been expressed for His people with the cross. And so I'm going to turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and just share a couple of verses there with you But I want to share them in light of what we've been talking about this whole time of knowing God of The knowledge of God and the understanding of the gospel and what God has done instructing your faith, your love for God, and your fear of God. Give you a little context about 1st Corinthians 13 here about 1st Corinthians if you're not extremely familiar with it.

It was a dark place and this was a dark church having all kinds of problems. They came from a culture that was incredibly sensual. I can't get into everything because I don't have time, but shocking things went on in Corinth. Worship of things which are abominable. Temples with thousands of prostitutes who went every night to ply their trade in the name of the God they supposedly worshipped.

The word to Corinthianize became a word for to be incredibly immoral and evil. That's how Corinth was. It was a dark place and that's where this church came from and guess what? Their flesh was still giving them trouble. They still had the same kind of problems in the church.

In fact, they had some problems that were so bad that the community there in Corinth was shocked at what was going on in the church. That a man had his father's wife. This is a dark place friends. Think America's dark? You think God can do something about it?

I promise you he can. And against this incredibly dark backdrop, the portrait of the love of Jesus Christ was painted. I think it was a sermon by John MacArthur where I heard it described that way and it has stuck with me ever since. Here is a portrait of love of the brightest, most beautiful light ever imaginable painted in this circumstance in this example in Scripture with this church against one of the darkest backgrounds that you could ever imagine what a contrast what beauty we behold in what Christ has done. And at least in the parts of love we're going to talk about, Christ is the model.

Oh, I wish we had more time. We could preach two or three sermons just through this but just listen with me. First notice how important love is. Remember we talked about love being a really important aspect of the fear of God. We know him so we are people of faith.

We know him so we are people who love him. We know and have faith in him and love him therefore we fear him. You cannot divorce these things you don't slice them up you don't take the thread of knowing God out. There is continuity in Scripture continuity continuity It all is woven together so beautifully, more beautifully than we understand, more beautifully than any preacher can ever describe. Remember that continuity as we consider here the importance of love, this part of our Christian walk that is so critical in whether or not we fear God.

Because we have to know Him if we're going to fear Him. We have to know Him if we're going to count Him faithful. Here's some things that I want to leave you with that you ought to know about God and about love. Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels but have not love I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains but have not love I am nothing.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not loved, it profits me nothing. How many of y'all could do one thing that I just read about? How many of you think it's even possible for a human being to do any of what I just read about. I don't much think it is. I think these are examples of impossible things that even if we could do them, move mountains, give your body to be burned, you know these kinds of things that people don't do.

Even if we could, if we did them without love, they would be worthless. There you learn the importance of love. I don't have time to say much more about it than that, but there you see the importance, the priority of love. Do you see how big a deal it is? If you could do these impossible things, these things that really are hyperbole, you know, for the sake of setting an example and getting us to think about how important love is.

You could do all these things and you did them without love, they would be worthless. Love is mighty important In our relationship with God, in our relationship with each other, Christ described all the law, all the prophets. Love God, love your neighbor. This is a priority. Here's a couple of things that we see about it in the next couple of verses.

Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy, love does not parade itself, is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. I'm gonna stop right there. We're just running out of time.

Notice here that we see what love is and what love is not. Love suffers long and is kind and then you see this long list of love does not. The first two are a description of Christ. The rest of them are a description of us. I'd like for us to just consider together the description of Christ that we find here.

Love suffers long. Some of your scriptures may say love is patient. There we see love suffering long. That Greek word translated there, suffering long or patient, is a kind of long suffering in patients with which we're not really familiar. It is suffering to the max.

And I had Greek and I just you know, we're out of time I've got a zero back there. So I got to wrap up But This is the kind of patience that God has had with us about which we talked at the beginning of this talk. This is the patience of a creator with a creature who would call him a liar, rebel against him, murder his son, rip out the beard of Christ, and flog him to the point where most men would have died, spit on him, crown him with thorns, beat them into his head, falsely accuse him, lie about him, drive nails through him, hang him on a cross, the most shameful death, one that was prohibited from Roman soldiers, from Roman citizens because it was so shameful, something considered by the Jews to be An absolute mark of a curse to ever be crucified. But that wasn't the worst. God suffered long with the people who he purposed to save in eternity past for whom he would give his son and he poured out the wrath that could not be satisfied any other way.

There was nothing else that could pay the price. God is just and the price had to be paid and the Lord Jesus Christ paid it. He went in obedience to his father after praying if it were possible for the cup to pass from him. He went in obedience and he suffered all the horrors that I described but a horror that I can't describe. The wrath of the perfect Father was poured out on the perfect Son and the only acceptable sacrifice that could satisfy the justice of God was made.

Love is patient, long suffering. I can't do justice to how long suffering God has been with us and love is kind. This word kind here means to return a benefit or a blessing in exchange for abuse for horrible treatment. Precisely what our Savior has done for us. He not only suffered long, He was kind.

He saved you and me when we spit on Him, called Him a liar, and feared man more than Him, and committed a host, a host, a host of sins that could not otherwise be forgiven and which were otherwise totally inexcusable apart from the fact that Christ came and said you are going to do this to me you have been this way toward me you have called me a liar you have rebelled against me you desire to be God instead of me here's what I'm going to do I'm going to suffer long and be kind. I'm going to bless you when you deserve an eternal curse and judgment that could never be satisfied for all of eternity. This is the God we must know if we will fear Him. For more messages, articles and videos on the subject of conforming the church and the family to the word of God and for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, where you