So this is the last session and I'm going to try to collect up some of the thoughts that at least I've had during our time. What I typically do at these conferences is I try to listen intently and see what the Lord seems to be impressing upon me to try to catch the the various themes of the things that men you know have brought to us and I and as today's worn on I've really arrived at a particular text of scripture. And there are just two verses in Isaiah chapter 50 that I like to direct your attention to. So please open your Bibles to Isaiah 50. And I want to make some general comments, and then I want us to zero in on Isaiah 50, verse 4.

You know, you've just experienced a gathering in which our prayer is that the preaching of the Word of God would cause little sparks of reformation that would grow and that they would find their application in your homes and in your work and in your churches. And we really do believe that preaching is the tool that God uses to change our lives. And so we have tried to emphasize that here as we always have. And there are a couple of things I want to encourage you to do as you go from here. And the first is this, look for fear.

Look for fear and categorize it. Now you've had quite a bit of time to think about the various ways that fear has impacted your life, and I identified eight elements of fear that you find in the Bible. There are more than just eight, and I just want to just quickly repeat them. The natural fear of every man, consider that. Secondly, the sinful fear of the believer.

Thirdly, the chameleon fear of man. Fourthly, the dreadful fear of the person who defies God and knows that the wrath of God is coming. And fifth, the servile fear that serves out of obligation. Number six, the humble fear of sinning. Number seven, the trembling fear that leaves you in awe at His word.

And then finally, the fear that we really spent the most time on, thankfully, and that is the pleasing fear that draws you near. I'm sure you noticed that most of the the preachers here could not get their minds off that kind of fear And they spoke of it over and over again. And the reason is because it's what's in their heart. It's the fear that really orders their lives. And not that any of us who have preached have found any kind of perfection in the area of dealing with our ungodly fears and also cultivating godly fear.

And I think we've all had a sense of our littleness in this whole matter. One of the speakers asked me, well, Scott, how do you think it went? And I said, well, you know, when we get to heaven, we'll probably know, but we won't know. And there isn't any way I can know. Now I might be able to know a little bit if I followed you back home.

Or went to church with you, you know, for a few years. I might have an idea how it went. But these are matters of the Holy Spirit and His work in our lives. And I pray that God has done a work by His own Spirit. That's the only kind of work that lasts.

And one of the things that has been a real encouragement to me over these last three days is there seems to be a spirit of happy humility in the place. Because people seem to be struck by their lack of godly fear and they want more. That's pretty much what I encountered my whole time here. And I think it was what I experienced myself. Wanting more, seeing how poor and slim my fear is, my godly fear is, and wanting it to be great.

I think one of the things that I want to remind us all of is that this filial fear, this beautiful fear of God is an implanted power as a result of salvation. That God is so kind that he would put something in the heart of a sinful creature. He would place it in there and it would stay there forever. And It would grow. It might shrink from time to time.

But it can grow and it can continue to grow, but nothing, no power can destroy it. Because when you receive the fear of God by the Holy Spirit in your soul, it's an everlasting fear. And you'll experience for all eternity, for 18 quadrillion, quadrillion, quadrillion years, trying to, you know, investigate that many universes. And so God has given this as a gift of salvation. This fear is embedded in the code of salvation.

And it is, as we said at the beginning, it's this alien force that works in your life that draws you near to God, that gives you a desire to love God, and to turn away from your sin. And thankfully, it's an everlasting fear. And it comes from love, it creates love, and it makes you never flinch from God, Unless you know you're trapped in sin, and then there's a fear that will make you flinch because you know you are running in sin, God gives you that fear to turn you. So these fears that God has, this seminal fear that God has implanted, It works both ways in a heart. It makes you desire more of His fear and it makes you hate sin even more and it turns you.

So it's such a blessing. That's why John Bunyan said it was that darling grace. It was that jewel. And I'm just so grateful for that fear. I received that fear when I was a very young man.

And I'm so thankful for it. And I have seen it be stronger and weaker over time, but I know it. And I pray that you know it. And if you have it, you know it. And if you don't have it, there's only one hope for you, and that is that this Holy Spirit of God would turn you.

And you would have the strength in your heart to cry out, oh Lord Jesus Christ, save my soul. If you have that desire, recognize where that comes from, it's the beginnings of godly fear. That'll last for all eternity. So the first thing is that it's a fear that we know and we feel its presence. And the second thing has to do with growing godly fear.

Just before I came up to this platform, a young man came up to me and he said, Mr. Brown, what's the thing I need to do to grow fear in my life? And I said, read Proverbs 2, there's the answer. Read Proverbs 2, that's how you grow fear. That's one way.

The second way is actually like it, and that is learn from Jesus Christ Himself. Because the Lord Jesus Christ feared His Father with perfect fear, And that's why we come to this great passage in Isaiah chapter 50. And I wanna leave us with this passage in Isaiah chapter 50 beginning in verse four, and I'll read it to you. The Lord God has given me, now who's talking? It's the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord Jesus is speaking of the fear that he has toward his father and the relationship that he has with his father. The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens me morning by morning. He awakens my ear to hear as the learned." And then verse 5, the Lord God has opened my ear and I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away." That is an example of the kind of fear that the Lord Jesus Christ experienced. And Notice what happens as a result of this godly fear that the Lord Jesus Christ has.

The Savior is a servant with a learned tongue, and what does he do? He comforts the weary. The fear of the Lord Jesus Christ is changed into comfort for the weary. And so he says, the Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned. He is a learner.

The Lord Jesus Christ, in His incarnation, learned from His Father. He learned perfectly. There was no sin in His learning. He learned the fear of God in the days of His flesh. That's what Hebrews says.

And in the days of his flesh, that's what Hebrews says. And in the days of his flesh, he was experiencing this godly fear. And he is a learner, he is a disciple. So the Lord Jesus Christ, in the days of his incarnation, was learning from his Father. Now, there was no sin, no barrier, in his learning from his Father.

With us, there's so many barriers to our learning from our Father. But in Jesus Christ, there were no barriers at all. But He is an example to us of this godly fear. And He is a learner in order to do something, to have the tongue of a disciple. He has a listening ear and his tongue speaks the words of God.

So as he is in conference with his God, he's learning And he learns to speak. He speaks out of his fear of God. And his tongue is activated by the very presence of God in his life. And so to have the tongue of a disciple, you also have to have the ear of a learner. And The Lord Jesus Christ demonstrated this with his Father in his incarnation, and his tongue spoke the words of God.

And he was learning from his Father. And as he was learning from his Father, he became skilled. And what was his skill? His skill was experienced in his tongue. In other words, his fear of God, his relationship and conference with God made him speak differently.

He had the tongue of a learner. In other words, he wasn't just saying whatever he wanted to say. He was saying what was consistent with what he was learning from his father. And what does he do? What kinds of words are these?

He speaks words for the weary. That I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. So because he's a learner and a hearer, he's also a comforter. And this is how our Lord Jesus Christ is wonderful counselor, and He's mighty God and Prince of Peace and everlasting Father, but He is wonderful and He's a wonderful counselor. Because He's a Hearer who learns and out of His learning, he comforts his brethren.

And he speaks with grace and truth, and he is speaking with this sword of the word of God that discerns the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. His voice is activated by his conference with his father. And I think this is such a critical matter in the whole doctrine of the fear of God and how it is acquired. It's acquired out of the conference that you have with your father. You're meeting with your father and out of your meeting with your father you speak a word to the weary.

You speak words that are appropriate. You speak the truth in love. You do exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ does. And that works in a marriage, it works in your work, it works in the church, everywhere. This is why the fear of God is the sweetest thing in a family, like we learn in Psalm 128.

It's the sweetest thing in a church. It's the sweetest thing everywhere because the people start speaking differently. They speak out of the fear of God. Because they have an ear of a learner, they see themselves always in a conference with God, always in a meeting with God, and when somebody comes into their presence, that person comes into a meeting that's already in progress. You have this constant meeting with your Father.

And then there are people that come into that meeting. They're invited. Maybe they barge into that meeting, but whether they burst in or they're invited in, they come into this meeting because you're having fellowship with your Father. John says our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son. And when someone enters the presence of a true disciple of Jesus Christ, they've also entered the presence of a fellowship.

It's a fellowship of love. It's a fellowship of truth. And it's a conference with God. And this is exactly how the fear of the Lord Jesus Christ worked he was in conference with his father he had the ear of a learner he was in fellowship with his father And out of his fellowship came words of comfort for his brethren. And so the fear of God has application every moment of your life.

You know, ever since the Lord moved my heart toward Him as a young man, my prayer has always been, oh Lord, help me to have no break in my fellowship with you. And my days end and I can always see times during the day that I just wasn't as conscious of it. I wasn't as conscious that I was in a conference with God and someone was brought in it was as if they came in and now I Was just having this conference with them and there was no fellowship fellowship is Brings out the entire the whole concept of sharing sharing of life That's what the word fellowship is coin ania And when we gather together as the people of God, you know, our fellowship is with the Father and the Son. The Father fellowships with us in a particular way in His grace. The Holy Spirit fellowships with us in a particular way in His comfort.

Now there are many, many other ways that the Father and the Son distinctly have fellowship with us, and they really do have different roles with us. You not only have a father, you have a savior. You not only have a savior, you have a comforter. You have one called alongside to help, the parakalo. You know, you have in this fellowship are all these other persons.

This is the fear, living in the fear of God. And you know what I'm talking about, when you find yourself talking with someone and you realize you're just speaking your own words, you're just speaking out of your own ways, and you've lost a sense that you actually were in a meeting with God and somehow you closed the curtain on God. Now he was still there but your sense of him, Your ear, the ear of a learner, was not as engaged as it should have been, and so your tongue was not a comfort to the weary. This is the whole matter of fellowship with God and how this jewel of the fear of God, this alien force in your heart is nourished and activated. And what are you supposed to do when you encounter someone who is weary?

Do you just say, you know, buck up? Do you just say, no stop it? No, you bring the Word of God. That's how you bring a word for the weary. You bring words from God.

You don't bring your own counsel. That's totally unprofitable. And I think we're all aware of how many times our counsel has just been unprofitable because it's just come out of our own brain and not from God, not from this holy conference with the ear of a learner that speaks a word in season to the weary. Don't you love that word in season to the weary? Think about that for a minute.

Because whenever someone comes into that meeting, they are in a season. They too are in a moment. And their only hope in that moment is a word from heaven, a word for the weary, a word from the ear that comes out of the ear of a learner. You know, the world is so full of counselors today. Everybody wants to go to a counselor.

My view is that people jump to go to counselors way too soon. They need to go to Jesus Christ. They need to go to their word, the word of God. They need to just obey the word of God, and they can do that without a counselor. Now I know that some problems are very difficult and it does help to have human counselors.

And that's a blessing that God has given to his church. But let's be very clear about this. The counsel is worthless unless it comes from the ear of a learner who speaks the words of God. And that's where all the hope is. And then notice these words.

He awakens me morning by morning. He awakens my ear to hear as the learned. Now we learn something about how this works. You wake up in the morning and at the beginning of the day, you enter into this conference, and it says that God, God awakened his son in his incarnation. The Lord Jesus Christ always woke up in the right mood, by the way.

He always woke up in the morning with the ear of a learner. You know, some people wake up grumpy and slow and things like that. And you know, you should always pray to be done with that. But the truth is, we often sin. At the very beginning of the day, and we just wanna get going, we wanna get moving, we wanna get grinding away, and so we miss the value of the ear of a learner, and we run into the world too quickly.

So this is a word in the morning, a fresh word for a fresh new day. This is how the fear of God operates in the soul of a man. The word here that he uses here is the word Shema. Hear, O Israel. I mean, it's a strong and mighty word.

The seminal confession of the Jews. Hear, O Israel. You know, many people wake up and they grab for their smartphones the Lord Jesus Christ awoke with the ear of a learner so that he would have a word to speak to the weary. You know, we often have our priorities so messed up in this world, but the Lord Jesus Christ teaches us how to do this. You know, even in his earthly ministry, like for example in Mark chapter one, verse 35, we learn that the Lord Jesus Christ would often depart early in the morning to go be alone with his father.

This is what was happening when he did. He went to be with his father and he had his ears, the ears of a learner, so that he would have a word to speak to the weary. You know, when the Lord Jesus Christ spoke, everyone was astonished at the gracious words that would fall from his lips. He was the most remarkable communicator ever. But there's really only one reason.

It was because he was getting his words from his father. You know that song that we sing, great is thy faithfulness, oh God my Father, you can finish the line, morning by morning new mercies I see, all I have needed thy hand hath provided, That is the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ in his fellowship with his father. And that is the heart of a Christian who lives in the fear of God. That's why David prayed in Psalm 143, verse eight. Let me hear your loving kindness in the morning, for I trust in you.

Teach me the way in which I should go. For unto you I lift up my soul." This is the work of God in the morning. I don't know if you're a morning person or not, but you need to be at least this kind of mourning person. If you're not this kind of mourning person, it's sinful. This was the kind of mourning that the Lord Jesus Christ, your Savior, walked before you so that you might experience the very same thing.

You know, Moses wrote a psalm, Psalm 90. And in verse 14 he talks about how important it is to be aware of him in the morning and how satisfying, how gladdening it is to see his laws at the break of the day. And he says, oh satisfy us early with your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad to the days in which you have afflicted us, the years in which we have seen evil. Let your work appear to your servants and your glory to their children, and let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us.

That is exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ was experiencing. The beauty of the Lord was resting upon him because when he was awakened by his Father, he had the ear of a learner, and as he learned, he had the tongue of a disciple, and he spoke a word of comfort to those who were weary. When you meet the Lord Jesus Christ in the morning, there will be a word for the weary. In other words, you need a revival every morning. You need to enter into awakening and revival every morning.

And I need a revival every morning. You know, in the morning you're dry and you need water, you need bread, you need illumination, you need a word for the weary so that you don't just jabber on through the day without some connection to God. Somebody earlier mentioned George Mueller's biography. There's a brilliant and extremely helpful section of his biography in which he talks about the morning. And it really is a reflection of what we learn about the Lord Jesus Christ in Isaiah 50.

He said this, the first and great primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. To have my soul happy in the Lord. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ was doing. It was so happy that he had a word for the weary. In other words, he was able to give.

There was overflow for the weary that were surrounding him. We all encounter weary people in this world. You know, everyone has a story, and you have to recognize that the Lord brings you into their presence for a reason, so that you'll have a word for the weary. He says, the first thing to be concerned about was how I might try to get my soul into a happy state and how my inner man might be nourished. And then he said, the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warmed, reproved, instructed, and that thus, while meditating, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord.

In other words, that you are experiencing him. You are feeling him, you are knowing him, you are thinking his thoughts after him. You are literally a disciple who has the ear of the learned and you speak words of comfort to those who are weary. And then he says this, he says, that my inner man might almost invariably is sensibly nourished and strengthened, and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful, if not a happy state of heart." And then he says this in short, it is as plain to me as anything that the first thing the child of God has to do morning by morning is to obtain food for the inner man. As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time except we take food.

And as this is one of the first things we do in the morning, so it should be with the inner man." And then in verse 5, we learn how the Lord Jesus Christ paved the way. He was the one who taught George Mueller this principle. Verse 5, the Lord God has opened my ear and I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away. It was God who opened his ear and he was not rebellious and he did not turn away. That, brothers and sisters, is the fear of God in the heart of a man or a woman.

And so you have this whole matter of being in secret conference with God at all times. This is the fear of God. It's this life that exists in the soul of a believer, this implanted alien force. And it can grow, and it can be shrunk by the affections. And my experience this weekend with the people here is that they wanted it to grow.

They saw how little it was, they wanted more. And I pray that God would give us all more, that we would have a greater sense. And if God would have such mercy upon us, is it possible that he could give us an unbroken sense of his presence? Is it possible? It isn't something I've experienced, but I pray that I could experience more of it and that it would grow in my heart like that mustard seed that grows and grows and the birds of the air find refuge in it in the same way that there's refuge for those in the world who come into the presence of someone who is in conference with God, unbroken conference with God, and they have something to say, and it's a word for the weary.

So I know, you know, some of your husbands, some of your wives, some of your children, And the question I would just like to ask is what about you? Do you want more of this fear? Do you want to have a word for the weary in season? Children, would you like to be the kind of child that has a word for your weary mother or your weary father? And you parents, what would it be like if whenever your children came into your meeting that you were already having a meeting with your father, and you had a ready word for the weary in time of, in due season.

What a blessing it is. Isn't God good? Isn't God kind to implant such a gift, Such a marvelous, eternal, blessed gift to make you happy and make you useful in this world. So, may your tribe increase. I'm just gonna pray.

Oh God, I pray that you would bless all of us, that you would give us this fear deep within our hearts, that You would expand it, that You would grow us. And oh Lord, I pray for the sweetening of every church that's represented here, the happily-fying of every family that's here, the blessedness upon every business that's represented here. Oh God, I pray that you would give it to us and have mercy upon us, that we would have a ready word for the weary from such a kind father and such a loving Savior. Amen. 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 can search our online network to find family integrated churches in your area, log on to our website, ncfic.org.

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