The Fear Of The Lord

You heard Greg right. I'm not preaching today. Dan Bolton is. I was planning on being gone this weekend, but God and His providence changed those plans, and I certainly did not want to deny Dan the privilege of ministering the Word of God. Besides, most Sundays I don't get to sit under the ministry of the Word of God, and so I didn't want to pass up this opportunity.

Dan graduated from the same seminary I did, Grace Theological Seminary, only in 1975. I graduated in 81. I thought he was older or younger than me, but he just looks younger, I guess. Dan's the Director of Sales and Training for Great Commission Publication, which happens to be the curriculum we use, not because of Dan, but we adopted that some many years ago.

And Dan spends a lot of time in churches training and helping them put their educational things in order and to help them and so forth. He and Vicki have been members here for about a year. And I'm just thankful that Dan is able to come and minister the word of God. And I'm anticipating great blessings as he does. So, Dan. Well, it's a privilege once again to preach here at the church.

And this is kind of a loaded question as you're starting to think, well, what's he going to preach about? I think I'll preach one of the sermons I've preached before. Now, that's a little daunting, isn't it? Can anybody remember what I preached before? but no I'm not going to do that but it also reminds me how difficult it is to pull in things that God has worked in our lives in the past and how important it is to be reminded of things and you know we are going to participate in the Lord's table here in a little while and remember what Jesus said about that do this in remembrance of me we need to do things to remember and bring to the forefront of our thinking, therefore our believing and our living, the things of the word of God Now if you have your Bible with you this morning you may want to turn and follow along in Proverbs We going to do a little bit of Proverbs chapter 1 I going to read some of it and then after that I going to Lord willing expound one verse in this little section of Proverbs chapter 1.

So listen as I read the Word of God and God's blessing to us through the Word. I pray will be upon us. This is Proverbs chapter 1, verses 1 to 7. It says in verse 1, The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, to know wisdom and instruction, to discern the sayings of understanding, to receive instruction in wise behavior, righteousness, justice, and equity, to give prudence to the naive, to the youth knowledge and discretion, to a wise man will hear and increase in learning.

A man of understanding will acquire wise counsel, to understand a proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Let's pray together. Lord God Almighty, we come before you asking that you will speak to our hearts, illumine our minds through the work of your Spirit in reference to this passage.

We realize, Father, that these are your words and that you are speaking to us through the written word of God. Thank you, Father, for revealing yourself to us through all the pages of Scripture, that we might know you better, love you more fully, and follow you more closely. Pray, Father, that as we learn of you today through your word, that you will work in our hearts and minds afresh.

In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Now, as you look at these first seven verses of Proverbs, I would call this the front door of the book of Proverbs. You walk up to a house, got that in your mind, okay? Got the front porch, well this is the front door, okay? And if you open this door up there all the Proverbs behind it So these first seven verses are that kind of a thing for Proverbs We tend to call this the prologue If you think back to literature class in high school some of you are going, oh, wow, that was a long time ago.

But this is the prologue of the book of Proverbs, another way to say it. And in these seven verses, we have some very critical features of the book of Proverbs to help us understand the whole book. So if you're a note-taker, you might want to write some of these things down. Verses 4 and 5 give us the purpose statement for the book of Proverbs. And like any book of the Bible, it's important to know why it was written.

So here's the purpose statement for the book of Proverbs. And that helps us understand all the rest of Proverbs. Let me read these verses. The purpose of Proverbs, the book of Proverbs, is to give prudence to the naive, to the youth knowledge and discretion. A wise man will hear and increase in learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel.

So that's the purpose. That's why Proverbs was written. Let me kind of break this down just for a minute. Verse 4, think about this if you're a young person. elementary school, high school, middle school, wherever you happen to be, here's some words to you. The purpose of Proverbs is to give prudence to the naive and knowledge and understanding to youth.

Now, some of you that think you're young, well, you can be included in that too. And since I'm older than Tim, I'll, you know, let him be the young guy here, okay? Tim asked me what I, you know, when I graduated from Grace Seminary, and I told him in the previous century, Doesn't that sound like I'm a part of church history or something, you know? But so did Pastor.

But, you know, the naive and the youth are going to benefit from Proverbs. That's one of the reasons it's written. And then verse 5, also, the wise person will become more wise. So there's things in Proverbs for both the naive or the innocent, the person that doesn't know a whole lot, And there's also a lot in Proverbs for the person who has gained a certain amount of wisdom.

And Proverbs is full of things information knowledge wisdom for all of life for all of us in other words Then verse 7 is the verse that we call the theme verse or the key verse of Proverbs So let me read verse 7. It says, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. So if you're taking your notes, you can mark verse 7 as the theme verse or the key verse.

And it's the main point, the big idea, the overriding concept, the theme of the book of the Bible, of this book of the Bible is kind of summarized here in verse 7. That the fear of the Lord is the beginning of these things is the point. And if you read all of Proverbs, you'll start realizing, you think, okay, what's the major theme of Proverbs? It's the fear of the Lord.

Fear of the Lord brings wisdom. Fear of the Lord brings understanding. Fear of the Lord brings instruction. All these different things. I mean, think about, if you know a little bit about Proverbs, there's a lot in there about how to handle your money. Anybody interested in how to handle your money?

Some of you might be saying, I really need some help handling my money. OK. And in our culture, handling your credit card. How do you get a get a handle on those kinds of things? Well, Proverbs full of practical information about a myriad of subjects. All right.

So we have in this, you know, prologue front door of Proverbs here. Not only the purpose statement, but the key verse, the main theme of the verse right here altogether. So next time you're reading Proverbs, what I would encourage you to do is check back with this. Get this in your mind, then read Proverbs. Or if you're reading some Proverbs later, you're studying, think, all right, how does this fit into the purpose of Proverbs?

How does this fit into the main theme of Proverbs? It will help you understand the whole book. Now, one of the things also that we need to note here as we get going in this sermon is to recognize in verse 7, which is going to be our focus today, what's in verse 7, that it's talking about a relationship with the Lord. This is not just a bunch of information about how to have a successful life, but it's information, it's wisdom about how to have a successful life.

I have a relationship with the Lord that's going to lead to all these other things. So that's why it says here that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all of this. The relationship with the Lord, fearing him, is the beginning of all of these Proverbs and understanding them and recognizing what they're all about. So in order to understand verse 7 more fully, I've developed three questions that we're going to answer in our time together here.

The first one of those questions is, who is the Lord that we're to fear? So we're going to talk about who the Lord is that we're to fear. Then we're going to answer the question number two, what does it mean to fear the Lord? And then we're going to ask and answer a third question, what does it mean to neglect the fear of the Lord? And all that is in verse 7.

And if I ever preach again, maybe I'll include the other three quarters of things that ought to be said about verse 7. So, you know, it's like I told Vicki, I said, I've got more to cover than possibly have time to do. And I'm dealing with a verse. All right. But the word of God is alive and active and sharper than a two edged sword. And there is so much here.

So that's all by way of introduction. You've got the theme verse. You've got the purpose statement. You understand the importance, briefly here, of a relationship with the Lord. That's the beginning of all of this. Now let's get into the three questions and the answers to those questions.

All right. Question number one, again, who's the Lord we're to fear? Who is this Lord that's talked about here? Now, if you look in your Bible, as I look in my Bible, if you look in the Pew Bible, I checked, okay, the name Lord, L-O-R-D, you'll see is in all capital letters. Now, it's a little lesson in how Bible translators and Bible printers try to help us understand some things.

There are different names for God in the Bible. So every time Yahweh is found in the Bible, they put it all in caps like this. Most modern translations have carried out this kind of thing. It almost becoming a normal way to print the Bibles and help us sort this out So you see this capital L capital O capital R capital D named for God and that's who we're to be fearing.

And again, we're addressing this question, who is this Lord that we are to fear? Now, let me work at answering that with you for a few minutes. Think with me about Moses and the burning bush. Most of you have probably heard of him. You've heard of the burning bush. You've heard of the book of Exodus.

If you went to Exodus chapter 3, and I'm thinking specifically of verse 14, but all of Exodus chapter 3, it talks about Moses' encounter with God at the burning bush. And that God is this Lord that we're talking about. Same Lord, okay, as at the burning bush. Same name for God, both places, right? So you can picture Moses, the bush, God speaking, and God says to Moses in verse 14 of chapter 3 of Exodus, I am who I am.

And he said, thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I am has sent you. Some of you are probably going, oh, I've heard that before. You know, trying to remember some of these things. You remember the account of Moses, Exodus? Now, think with me where the children of Israel were getting ready to go. Where were they?

They were in slavery in Egypt, and they were getting ready to go to the promised land. And God is going to send Moses as their leader, their deliverer, to take them out of slavery in Egypt and take them to the promised land. And then you have all of those intervening things that happen in between. That's the Lord that we are to fear. That's the Lord who can deliver his chosen people from slavery in Egypt.

Now think about it. That's not a simple process. Anybody here able to organize that, convince Pharaoh to let him go, all those kinds of things? No. That was the providential, sovereign work of an almighty God to turn the heart of Pharaoh to let Israel go. And that goes all the way back to God being the creator God that he is and his making a covenant with Abraham and he keeping his covenant to Abraham Isaac and Jacob and all of that goes with those kinds and that this Lord that we are supposed to be fearing So the passage is telling us fear the covenant keeping God Jehovah Almighty.

That's who we're talking about here, the Holy One of Israel. Those scriptures that we read or that were read this morning, that kind of terminology was there, the God of Israel. That's the God that we are to fear. Now, another illustration would be in the book of Isaiah, chapter 42, verse 8. And in there it says, I am the Lord, and that's my name, and I will not give my glory to another nor my praise to graven images.

God is a jealous God. He is the only God. and he desires all glory and all praise and all honor to be his, not somebody else's and not something else's. That's the Lord that we are to fear. That's the Lord we are to understand is calling us to fear him. Now, another verse that I think is insightful here is just a page or two over, maybe from Isaiah 42.8, if you're looking around in your Bible, Let's Isaiah 43, verse 3.

In Isaiah 43, 3, it says that, For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. So here we see God saves his people. He's the redeeming God. He's the holy God. He's pure. He's righteous.

He never sins. He never has, never will. So that's this Lord. And you think about, all right, he's the savior of his people. We just learned about him in Exodus chapter 3 and how he is saving his people out of the slavery in Egypt. And, of course, that's a picture to us of being redeemed from the slavery of sin in our lives.

And we have a redeemer ultimately in Christ. So that's a little glimpse of who this Lord is. Now, think with me into the New Testament a little bit. So this is not just an Old Testament concept. If you looked in your Bible at John chapter 8 verses 57 to 59 that where Jesus says to the Pharisees truly truly I say to you before Abraham was born I am And you ought to be going, wait a minute, that's what you just read in Exodus.

Same God. The triune God was there in Exodus, and in a sense, we would say he's present with Christ and what Christ was saying in the New Testament. Same God, same Lord. And then it says, therefore, this is back to John chapter 8, they picked up stones to throw at him. So Jesus says, I am. The Pharisees recognized, oh, this man is claiming divinity.

And they weren't going to have somebody claiming divinity. Their solution to people who went around claiming to be divine was to kill them, stone them. And for those of you who have been to Israel or seen pictures of it, there are stones by the gazillions there. So they didn't have to reach very far. And they picked up stones and they were going to kill him because they thought, this is blasphemy.

We can't have somebody saying this kind of thing and claiming to be God. the jews jewish leaders recognized jesus claim to be the divine god that's the lord in this proverbs passage then think with me a little later on in the gospel of john uh to john chapter 11 verse 43 that's the account of lazarus okay remember lazarus that's the fellow who died his sisters were real concerned about it Jesus came a few days late he was in the grave remember can you picture that for a minute this man's died his name was Lazarus Jesus comes one of Jesus best friends and what does Jesus do he says Lazarus come forth now what did Lazarus do He came forth. He came out of the tomb. He was raised from the dead.

Now, I'm telling you folks, that's God Almighty. If you think that's not the power of God, stop by a cemetery this afternoon. walk over to a grave, read the stone and say, so and so, come forth. I don't think it's going to happen. I know. Get a few of your friends, all go together. Get a committee.

I know. Check with the American military. Have them send some people. They'll raise them. No. I know.

Call the United Nations. They'll get it together. It isn't going to happen. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. That's the Lord God. That's the Lord of Proverbs 1, verse 7.

That's who we are to fear. So that helps us understand a little bit about who is the Lord that's being referred to here in Proverbs 1, verse 7. So when you're reading this again, say, well there's a whole lot here when it says lord l-o-r-d all in caps all right now that brings us to the second question all right that was the answer to the first question first question was who's the lord where to fear and i gave you a little bit of an answer we could spend a year or two talking about the lord but we got to get through this sermon okay question number two Now, what does it mean to fear the Lord?

Think about this verse again. Look at it here. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. So what's this mean to fear the Lord? Let me give you a little bit of insight into that. Before we get into that more specifically, I want to just say this is a positive thing to fear the Lord.

This is a good thing to fear the Lord. This isn't something negative. We ought not look at this and say, oh, well, there's a God-fearing person, and that's kind of mm-mm. No, we're talking about this is a really good thing to be a God-fearing person. To fear the Lord is something in Scripture that is a good thing. It's something to commend ourselves to and encourage ourselves about these kinds of things.

Now, as you think about fearing the Lord, if you think about that word fear, if you did a little word study on it, did a little homework, you find out it talks about being full of reverence being reverential we might say It the concept of worship and honor To a certain degree that what we doing here this morning I hope We don't use the terminology so often, but this is a worship service. What are we doing here as a group? We are here to worship or revere God. we we mark off a day we call it the lord's day we mark off a time a few hours we get together and we say we're going to set aside our activities we're not going to work out in the garden i'm not going to wash the car i'm going to go get together with god's people to do what worship the lord or another way to say that is to fear the lord it's part of what's what's going on here this morning in this hour, we would say.

All right, now, let me give you some illustrations of what I'm talking about here. Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 13, back there, and there you are, Israel again. Now, they had gotten out of slavery. They'd wandered around in the wilderness for 40 years, all right, and in Deuteronomy, they're getting ready to go into the promised land. Now, that's a brief history We have the first five books of the Bible in a minute.

And they're looking across. They're on the east side of the Jordan. They're on the east side looking west. We're going across the river, across the valley there. We're going to go in the promised land. And they're getting some final instructions from Moses.

And what do we find out here? It says in verse 13 that Israel is to fear the Lord and to worship him. Here's this concept of fear and worship together in the same verse. And that's what Israel is to be doing as they go into the promised land. They are to fear and worship Almighty God, the Lord. So as you think about this, that concept of worship and reverence and fearing the Lord was, I would say, shot through the life of Israel as a nation as they were to worship God.

Then you might say, well, how about the New Testament? If you looked at Matthew 2, verse 2, I know this isn't Christmas. Matthew 2 talks about the advent of Christ coming to earth and being born those kinds of things And it tells us in Matthew 2 2 about the Magi Remember the wise men The guys with the camels, they came from the east, they followed the star, got the picture.

And what did they do? They came to worship the King of the Jews. They came to worship Jesus. And what were they doing? They stopped by and checked with the local headman, Herod, and said, where is this guy? Where is this guy we've come to worship?

And they didn't get there in a day or two. They came from what we would call the Far East. I mean, it would have taken them months, even on camel, to get over there to Israel. And they came to worship Jesus. What were they doing? fear the Lord. Worship.

They were reverential men. And they came to fear the Lord. Again, I'm trying to help you understand what does it mean to fear the Lord. Now, let me just kind of give you a little word of warning and exhortation here for a minute as we think about fearing the Lord. The fear of the Lord is a serious thing. And there are too many in our generation, as in previous generations, we're not any different, that have a far too casual approach to God.

This is serious business we're talking about here. we live in a time just like previous times where there are all kinds of accommodations made to try to do things that make fearing God a little more palatable to people we have to be very very cautious reminding ourselves that as Christians as I pray God-fearing people, we are going to have different priorities, different lifestyles than the non world is going to have You ought to turn on the radio and television and feel like I don fit This doesn't make any sense. Now maybe if you're listening to the Christian radio or the Christian television, hopefully it's a little better. But I think you understand what I'm driving at.

You look around and see, well how do your non-Christian neighbors and fellow students and friends what are their priorities? How do they spend their time? How do they spend their money? What do they do for recreation? Where do they go on vacation? Who do they talk to?

Those kinds of things. If you're a God-fearing person, you take God seriously. And a good illustration would be that you're here today. Scripture tells us that we ought not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. And while we're here, encourage one another to love and to good deeds. All right?

I'm telling you, folks, the unbelieving world is not breaking the doors down trying to get in here with us. We have different priorities. All right? So God-fearing people are always going to live differently because they fear the Lord. It's going to show. It will make a difference.

Now, a little bit more about being God-fearing. it ought to bring some awe into our lives because god is an awesome god there ought to be a there ought to be some kind of you know i'll just say a little step back here going wait a second you just told us a little bit about god almighty delivering the children of israel from slavery in Egypt. We just learned about, you know, Jesus raising Lazarus. That's the God we're talking about.

That ought to put a little awe into our lives, all right? Think with me in Luke chapter 8. I'm not asking you to have all these verses memorized, but in Luke 8 verses 22 to 25, we see something really interesting going on. Let me read these verses to you. Because I can't quote them all. Luke chapter 8, verses 22 to 25.

This is where Jesus still lives. the sea, calm the storm. Let me read this to you and listen carefully for the awe statement. Now on one of those days Jesus and his disciples got into a boat and he said to them, let us go over to the other side of the lake. So they launched out. Sounds like a normal day going on a boat ride in the Sea of Galilee. but as they were sailing along he fell asleep anybody fall asleep on your boat you know he's kind of going along other guys are rowing and sailing and you're just kind of riding okay so jesus tired fell asleep and a fierce gale of wind descended on the lake and they began to be swamped and to be in danger the boat was taken on water you get the it's windy okay the the waves are coming the wind's blowing it's tilting this rock and the belt we got water in the boat now these guys weren't novice boat people okay they probably had their buckets and it's coming in faster than they can deal with it you got the picture and this is windy probably the clouds are a little dark okay verse 24 and they came to Jesus and woke him up saying master master we are perishing.

No, that's not what it says. It says, Master, Master, we're perishing! Notice the exclamation. We're in trouble! That's the idea. And he got up and rebuked the wind and the surging waves, and they stopped, and it became calm.

Okay. Gale came up. Boat's rocking. We're taking on water, we're going to die. Jesus calms the storm, goes calm. Okay.

25. Now listen for the awe statement. And they said, and he said to them, where's your faith? They were fearful and amazed, saying to one another, who then is this that he commands even the winds and the water and they obey him that's the creator almighty god that we fear who can calm a storm in a with a bunch of guys in a boat that who we talking about that who we here to worship this morning that who we fear day in and day out at our homes at our jobs at school wherever we go We fear the Lord.

That's who we're talking about this morning. There should be a certain awe. It's amazing. God's grace. We sing the song. We ought to be remembering.

That is amazing that God would show me, us, all of us, his grace. Amazing. Do we deserve it? No. We see he's merciful. He's merciful.

All right? Now, what produces awe in your life? I ask myself that question. Can you think of something? What I realized with many of the things that to me are kind of awe-inspiring or that I remember just kind of takes your breath away a little bit, we say, are a lot of things that surround the heavens, the earth, the creation. And you might be thinking of the scripture.

The heavens declare his glory and the firmament shows his handiwork. And they do. Creation, if we pay attention, can produce some all. And you wonder why people long to go to the national parks and the state parks and these places. There is a certain presence of God manifesting himself in creation that you don't get apart from some of these kinds of things.

Maybe you've seen a sunrise. And you can remember that. Maybe you've seen a moonrise. Those are something else. It's like a sunrise, but it's the moon. Big orange moon about, you know, there it is, and it's coming.

That's the moon, not the sun. But look, anyway, you see what I'm saying? Maybe it's a double rainbow over the Grand Canyon. All right? Again, these are things that I'm just bringing up from my own memory, okay? And, you know, you look across the Grand Canyon, and you think from rim to rim is only 16 miles.

I don't think I'm going to jump that, okay? It just takes your breath away, all right? So those are things that are awe-inspiring, we would say, from creation, and God's declaring his glory to us. Now another thing to remember about the fear of the Lord is that it refers to being humble and worshiping God So there's a humility that comes because you see how almighty God is and how great he is and how small you are.

We have to remember that we need a high view of God and a low view of man. most people have a pretty high view of man and god's only a millimeter or an inch or two bigger all right and as one person said to me it's like you know we stand beside god and we kind of go yeah it's about he's a little and but if i go like this you know if i'm on my tiptoes we're we're kind of the same okay no no that's what we're talking about we're talking about the transcendence of God. He's bigger, larger than anything we are or ever will be or all of us combined can do. So fearing the Lord brings a certain amount of humility to our lives.

You know, we talk about bow down and worship. Well, that's in essence what's going on here. As we fear God, we're going to learn to bow down and worship because we're going to humble ourselves before the mighty hand of God. If you think about Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and 2, it kind of brings this up for us on a daily basis. All right, Romans 12, 1 and 2.

Let me read that to you because I want to get it right. Some of you maybe have it memorized, put a little star by it in your Bible. It says Romans 12, 1 and 2. Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. All right, that's what we're talking about.

Presenting our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice to God as our spiritual service of worship. all right so what we want people what i want you to understand is then in verse two it says and do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so as we have submitted our bodies as living in holy sacrifices we are going to be conformed to god and transformed in our minds so that you may prove what the will of god is that which is good and acceptable and perfect That humbling yourself before God It waking up in the morning you laying in your bed or on the couch or wherever you're sleeping, you're camping in your tent, wherever you are, before you get up, you pray, Lord, today I present myself to you, a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to you. I'm going to fear you today, Lord, is another way to say it. I'm going to worship you today, Lord, is another way to say that.

So I've tried to just, in the last 10, 15 minutes here, give you a summary of what it means to fear the Lord. There's a lot to this, and we are just kind of nicking the surface here. You know, I think there's, I forget now, 20-some references to fearing the Lord just in the book of Proverbs, and I'm only giving you one of them. We're only doing one of them this morning.

I thought, initially, when I was working on the sermon, I thought, oh, I'll cover all those. And I thought, and they started putting this together, and I thought, oh, we'll be here for a long time getting through all that. Okay? But you got the idea. We fear God because he's an awesome God. We fear God because we need to worship him.

We fear the Lord because he has called us to reverence him and to honor him in what we do. So, now, let's take a look at the third question answer. We've talked about the first question, who is the Lord we're to fear? Second question, what's it mean to fear the Lord? Now the third question, what does it mean to neglect the fear of the Lord? And I can just ask that question to you.

Any neglecting going on out there? If you don't think there's some neglect of the fear of the Lord going on, get on the internet news when you get home. Check it out. A lot of neglect of the fear of the Lord going on. All right. Now, those that neglect the fear of the Lord are very aptly described in this verse.

Let me get back to Proverbs chapter one, verse seven. It says there that fools despise wisdom and understanding. Now. Think about it for a minute. We don't tend to use the term fool very often, at least I don't. I don't hear it said, I don't read it printed very often, I don't look, see it on the internet, news, but that's what a person who doesn't fear the Lord is called in the Bible.

And the Bible doesn't say anything good about fools. I just think about that. When was the last time somebody came up to you and said, you're a fool, or you called someone else a fool? You see what I'm saying? We don't do that very It's kind of like, oh, it's a little harsh sounding. Well, I'm just reporting to you, read it in your Bible for yourself.

Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Now, think about Psalm 14, verse 1. I just want to expand on this concept of being a fool and not worshiping God, neglecting the fear of the Lord. psalm 14 verse 1 tells us that the fool says in his heart there is no god that's a pretty strong statement the fool says in his heart there is no god we have to recognize that's really what the unbeliever is saying there really is no god and the Bible calls people like that a fool.

And if we're Christians, we claim Christ, and we're unrepentant, we know of sin in our lives that we're harboring, we will not repent, the Bible would identify us as fools. We need to repent of our sin if we're Christians, confess it to the Lord, receive the cleansing that 1 John 1.9 talks about, and the forgiveness of God in our lives and not play the fool anymore. So being a fool is not a good biblical idea.

Proverbs 1.7 also tells us that fools are the ones who despise. Let's think about that concept of despising wisdom and instruction. If we despise those things, what are we doing? The concept of despising here means to neglect the truth. The idea is that we have contempt for the truth. Now, if you think with me for a moment, the culture out there, and I just use that as a term is just replete with a lot of foolishness There a lot of despising of the things of God going on There's a lot of neglect of the fear of the Lord going on.

There's a lot of contempt for the truth. There's a lot of rejecting of the truth. There's a lot of promoting of untruth and of lying. and refusing, really, to take God very seriously. Remember what I said earlier. This is serious business. You know how serious it is?

People who are fools, who die in their sin, don't go to heaven. That's serious. They go to hell. And you know for how long? forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and as one preacher i heard say how long's forever it's forever that's serious all right and it ought to cause us to live accordingly all right as we think about how serious these things are um look with me to to romans 1 18 to 23 i've just got a few more passages here I want to call your attention to.

This passage describes sinful people, all right, and it really highlights for us just a big description of what sin is all about. In Romans chapter 1, beginning in verse 18 and ending in verse 23. So I just want to read it and then let you see what I'm talking about here. It says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

That's despising. That's the concept of despising because that which is known about God is evident within them for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks but they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened Professing to be wise they became fools There it is And exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed animals and the crawling creatures.

That's a description of non-Christian people. Foolish. Romans 3.18 depicts the unbeliever. it's a couple of pages over in your Bible maybe that they have no fear before their eyes no fear of the Lord before their eyes very common type of thing think with me for a moment real quickly I made a list here think about how the fear of the Lord would change things what would change if there was a fear of the Lord by multitudes millions of people would begin to fear the Lord Think what would change.

Let me list off a few things here. Think about what would change in science if there was a fear of the Lord. Think evolution. Think what would change in education. Think what would change in politics. Oh, they might tell the truth.

I don't know. Okay. Think about what might change in music. I'm not real sure about how it would change, but I know it would change. Think about how things would change in the business world. You know what I mean?

My father and his father, they did a lot of business with a handshake. As my dad said about my grandfather, his word was his bond. And they ran a pretty good business for a lot of years. but pretty soon they had to have all kinds of contracts and lawyers and all these things. My dad used to say when his father was running the business, he shook a man's hand and that man knew things were going to be done because he gave his word.

Government. Think how the government would change if people feared the Lord. Think about how worship might change. Think about how the courts might change. People might tell the truth. You might not get off on a technicality or something, you know, kind of thing.

Okay? Think about the media. I mean President Trump has introduced us at least introduced me to the term fake news Maybe that would stop We just have true news real news Technology You wonder, all the things that keep happening with all the hackers that are hacking into things, if they feared the Lord, there wouldn't be any hacking going on. Or the social media things, what are they doing with all this information they have about us?

We're not sure. Think about how things might change in athletics. Yes. Recreation. I know if people feared the Lord, how about things? How would they change in the use of alcohol?

Is alcohol a problem? It has been in biblical times. OK, it's nothing new. OK. Think about how things would change from the abuse of illegal drugs if people feared the Lord. I mean, you could just go on and start thinking this through and you see, wow, There's a lot of lack of fear.

The neglect of the fear of God is rampant in the unbelieving world. But the same thing can be true of Christians. I don't want to just beat down on the non-Christians. But Christians who don't fear the Lord and don't repent of their sin do the same kinds of things. So let's not just point the finger at somebody that doesn't know Christ, but let's ask ourselves how we do it.

So we've dealt with three questions and three answers. Don't want to lose track of what we're doing here. That first question, remember? Who's the Lord we're to fear? We talked about that a little bit. Moses, children of Israel, remember that?

Bernie Bush. We talked about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Try to give us a little picture of who's this Lord we're fearing. We talked a little bit, second question, about what does it mean to fear the Lord? This idea of reverence, worship, be in awe of God. The third question, what does it mean to neglect the fear of the Lord?

It basically means a sinful life, an unrepentant life, whether you're a Christian or a non-Christian. That's to neglect the fear of the Lord. And those people in the Bible are described as fools. And they despise the things of God. now if you're thinking about all of this and you think of man this is there's a lot here well step one in all of this if you're here and you're not a christian step one is to be born again is to trust in christ as your lord and savior to have sins forgiven, to believe on the Lord Jesus and to be saved.

That's step one in all of this, fearing the Lord. And if you're a Christian and you're here and you're going, oh man, I'm not sure if I fear the Lord very much. If there's some unconfessed sin in your life, repent of that, confess that, understand the cleansing of the Lord God Almighty in your heart and mind as well. You know, we really need the power of God to enable us to live this out.

We need the Spirit of God, the Word of God, stirring us day in and day out. Remember what I said earlier about when you're laying in your bed in the morning, Romans 12, 1 and 2, pray and say, Lord, today I want to be a living and holy sacrifice to you. We need God's help to do that. We can't just, you know, give it the old college try kind of a thing.

Now, in a few minutes, we're going to participate in the Lord's table. And that's a lot of what's going on here. It's being right with the Lord. For the non-Christian or the Christian, it's to be reminded that the Lord's table ought to be a place where we all come with humble, worshiping, God-fearing hearts. And now the time I would say to you in this room Be right with the Lord Say in your own heart in your own mind Lord I want to be a God Christian Whatever God's stirring you about.

So you can come to the communion table with a clean heart, clean hands, and serve the Lord. Now, as I try to summarize all this, as you think these things through, just be asking yourself, what's the use of this sermon to me? What does God want you to gain from this time together? And only you can answer that question. And it's going to be different probably for just about every one of us as to how that would work out in our lives.

Let's pray together. Father, as we turn our hearts to you this morning, we recognize that the word of God is you speaking to us. I pray Father that we would have ears to hear what your spirit is telling us and eyes to see what you're guiding us about and I pray Father that as we come to the communion table we would do it with humble hearts teachable minds fearing you worshiping you honoring you loving you humbling ourselves before you Thank you, Father God, for being here with us in this worship service.

In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.