“Humility is followed by the fear of the Lord, riches, and honor, and life” (Prov.22:4)
What is fear? Fear is a horrible thing when it is not sanctified with the divine fear, when it’s not impaled on a spear of the fear of God.
There’s the fear of man, it is horrible, because we are afraid of death most of all. If you ever were on the edge you know what terror it is when you head into the unknown. It is normal to fear death, and in a sense the fear guards us: you see a dangerous place, you say, I won’t go there and thus save your life. But the fear of man is anguish, it suppresses man and leads him the wrong path, and we need to get rid of the fear of man, of human fear.
There’s a blessing – fear of God. Is it the result of the fruit of the Spirit? Or is it the gift from God? It is indeed an incredible gift! I would receive it rather than the gift of prophecy, because he who fears God is above he who is wise, as the Scripture says that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God. We know this by the example of Solomon who tested and tried all kinds of wisdom and was given this gift so that no man before or after him was wiser than him. I don’t think it was the amount of gold in his kingdom that measured the gift, but that he had tried all the manifestations of happiness and well-being. But he never found God in that. He found it was all vanity. Eventually he did not want to leave his inheritance to his children, saying they would squander it. And so it happened – Rehoboam squandered it and caused the spirit of war come against Israel.
There’s false fear that keeps true fear of God from its purity. The fear of God is pure, and it is very important to understand that there’s “dirty” fear. I think there are such admixtures to the fear of God as “fear to come to God”, when we stumble or feel we are not worthy or when we sin or make mistakes in life. So this fear to come to God is a false fear. Pure fear of God will never turn man away from seeking the Lord. Even if man stumbles or even sins he still runs to God, falls before Him, saying, “Father, forgive me, I still come to you, I am still with You, because I am yours!” This is pure fear.
Another admixture is the fear of hell. Yes, it works for God. People fear hell and don’t go to the devil. But this is not love. If we serve God only because of fear of hell we have not known the freedom of love, we have not comprehended the freedom of spirit. But it is namely the freedom of spirit gives us assurance of salvation and liberates from the fear of hell. Hell is not my place. Hell is not what I was born for – why should I fear hell. I’d rather fear God than hell. God is much more terrible than hell, and the hell shall be cast into the lake of fire. So fear God rather than hell. Fear of hell is noises, it isn’t pure knowledge of Christ.
What other noises are there? Fear of punishment. Yes, fear of punishment is included into the whole complex of God’s fear. We all certainly fear punishment, but there’s sweet part in it. It is written that if God punishes you it means you are a son: “For whom the Lord loves he chastens, and whips every son whom he receives.”(Heb 12:6) Do you remember times when you expected to be punished, but Dad didn’t punish you because you punished you yourself. I could give you an hour-long teaching of how first, God punishes you, second, of how we should punish ourselves.
So these are the noises. Fear of God is purer than these, it is higher. The fear of God is pure and abides forever – it means it shall be.
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endures for ever.” (Ps 111:10) He who fears the Lord, takes the path of wisdom. Wisdom doesn’t start with knowledge or behavior – it’s starts with the fear of the Lord.
“Humility is followed by the fear of the Lord, riches, and honor, and life” – this is an interesting ladder. There five steps: 1 – humility, 2 – fear of the Lord, 3 – riches, 4 – glory, 5 – life, eternal life. So the beginning is humility – it is so good to be a humble person! I so much desire to get humbled and unhumbleness is such a hindrance. Think of yourself – are you a humble person? If you have bitterness and anger, desire of revenge in your heart – this is probably not humbleness. A humble one never touches or attacks anyone, a humble one never chases anyone, a humble one never is jealous on anyone, a humble one never brings evil, he doesn’t speak evil of anyone, a humble one is pure – he is a humble one.
We are talking of how to receive fear of God. This is the first step: you want to receive God’s fear – then humble yourself, because God’s fear follows humility. And answer to yourself – “Am I humble?” Some people decrease in humility with the years of their belief. After fifteen years in faith they have “poor” in humility – they rule people without humility, not serving as a model, but giving instructions.
I want to be in the fear of the Lord, it’s like the unbreakable scales of nana-technologies. A humble one is the strongest one, because God stands for him, it is written “meek ones inherit the earth”. The fear is followed by riches – now this man can be entrusted with riches of gifts, finances, health, people to govern – because he is humble and fears the Lord. Many people have incredible gifts in administration, but God doesn’t give them to him, because he has neither humility nor fear, he will torture people. This bad character is one of the reasons why churches are small – who will tolerate this?
And then such people can be glorified, some people do carry glory, they are humble. Humility is very beautiful, it is high, pure and noble. Pride is humiliating. It is foolish and stinking.
Life… life eternal! Such one can be taken into heaven – no need to change him there, he has been made perfect here on earth. It is written “to the spirits of the righteous ones who have been made perfect”, and I think humility takes the greatest part in this perfection.
“Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son lest He be angry, and you perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him” (Ps 2:11-12).
Brothers and sisters, serve the Lord with fear! Fear of God, come to me! Please, Lord, give me the fear of God. I want to serve with fear. And give me to rejoice with trembling! Help me to tremble when I am thrilled and want to cast the girding am girded with. Help me to tremble that this bird may not be gone, which is subtle and vulnerable, which is called the Holy Spirit, so that the joy is pure and heavenly.
Isa 11:1-5: “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the LORD shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD; And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth: with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.”
Jesus walked on earth and was filled with fear of the Lord – this is no simple to understand. This is why everyone could fill He wasn’t just a Son of man, but the Son of God. The wanted to get on “fellow terms” with Him, but He would turn heavenly, and it was impossible to follow Him or take Him, it was impossible to overcome Him, because He was always above in the fear. Namely the fear of the Lord made Him higher than others. He would suddenly disappear as a man for people, and they saw the Son of God because He was filled with the fear of God.
The fear of God helps to judge righteously, not after the sight of His eyes, but to judge with mercy. Do not judge others, judge yourself, who gave you right to judge?
The fear of God also gives power and authority to strike evil. The fear of God is help in spiritual warfare, and one has to wage warfare against darkness and evil in the fear of the Lord.
Where to get the fear of God. We already saw that the first key is humility. How can a proud person receive God’s fear, when pride itself stand opposite to the fear. I think we need to ask the fear. We can always start with asking from God – ask all things, except for what He says not ask like food and clothes and a living place, because He knows we need those things. But fear we should ask. And wherever there’s the fear there are riches – so it is written, and I believe the Word.
I believe, we should exercise fear, we need to build up ourselves, make effort, because it’s written we should mortify the works of flesh – this means effort. Brothers and sisters, God will not do many things instead of us, this is our part, our role. Strain yourselves to mortify the works of the flesh.
God’s fear should be multiplied, that it does not fade away or disappear. If you believe for forty years, but live according to the flesh those years give you little, but you get worse. So one should examine himself, whether he has more or less of the fear of God. This is a very serious conversation, because we are talking about a greatest of the sacred things – fear of the Lord. If you’ve lost it, you’ve lost God. If you’ve lost God’s fear, you are close to losing the Holy Spirit.
Holy Spirit is joined with the fear of the Lord because He is revering. Blasphemy against Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven, and Holy Spirit is joined with God’s fear. He is the Dove, you can’t beat Him, you can’t hurt Him, you can’t insult Him – this is the Dove of the Holy Spirit.
And we should impart God’s fear. Pastors, leaders, impart God’s fear! Let people see you fear God. Let the people look at you and learn from you, let them see not your coolness, but you fearing God. God’s fear can and should be imparted.
“The LORD is exalted; for he dwells on high: he has filled Zion with judgment and righteousness. And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of your times, and strength of salvation: the fear of the LORD is his treasure.” (Isa 33:5-6)
Lord give me, grant me this treasure, so that I keep it to the end, and breathe out my last breath with the fear of God in my heart. Brothers and sisters, lets us all ask the fear of God. I hope you hear this cry calling us to come up the mountain of the fear of God.
The devil hates those who fear God. But “they that feared the LORD spoke often one to another: and the LORD listened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought on his name. … Then shall you return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serves God and him that serves him not.”(Mal.3:16,18)
May all those who speak of the Lord fear Him!