Let us turn to the Gospel of Luke. I am going to read a couple of verses in this chapter. We read in Luke 12:4-5:
And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.
I will stop reading here. Today, we are going to ask a question, and it is a question that is put to each one of us. Do you or I fear God? Do you fear God? Are you someone of whom it could be said lives in the fear of the Lord? Can it be said of you that you fear God?
We live in a world where man does not fear God. He is born in sin and he lives his life as he pleases. Basically, he lives his live in arrogant rebellion and pride. The picture of someone shaking their fist at God is very accurate; it really is, because we are creatures. We are all created beings; we are all made by God. Yet most people just live out their lives like this, until God enters in and intervenes and draws someone to Himself. People live their lives according to their own desires and their own ideas and their own wants, and they really do not give too much attention to what God wants of them and what God demands of them, as He lays out His Law in the Bible, as He lays out His Word.
People know that they sin. Everyone knows, deep down, that they have sinned and that they have broken the Law of God, but continuing on in sin really reveals that someone does not fear God, because God says, “the wages of sin is death” and “the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” The Bible tells us these things, and God goes on to lay out what He has in mind by that “death.” It is the “second death” of eternal damnation, and He even lays this out, to some degree.
He can not tell us fully and exactly what this is, because we would not be able to understand or to comprehend an eternity in Hell. Since we are finite beings who live under the constraints of time, we just do not know how horrible this is. But God still takes the time and gives us verses and paints pictures through the Word of God to describe just how awful Hell will be. He tells us it is “the blackness of darkness for ever” where “the fire is not quenched” and “where their worm dieth not,” and where “the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever.”
We find many, many verses in the Bible, and each one is giving us a horrible description of “things to come” and of what lies ahead for any person who continues on, going the way in which they have been going—the way of the world, the “broad way” that the Bible says “leadeth to destruction.”
God lays it all out and says, “Here is what is going to happen to you—to you, man who has so transgressed my Law. This is your future. This is where you are going to end up. This is your eternal fate.” This is the fate of man, unless there is a turning from sin and unless God has mercy and bestows His grace. This is unsaved man’s future.
Many people are aware of this, but it does not faze them. It just does not faze them. It does not impact them. They still continue on, day after day, in their sins—whether it be drinking or drugs or smoking or cursing or lying or stealing, whatever it is. Whatever it is—evil thinking, lustful thinking—whatever the sin is, man continues on, day after day. So man is displaying and really demonstrating in the way that he is living his life that he does not fear God. He just does not fear God.
God says, “Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.” He warns that He will destroy them eternally. If man really believed God, then he would show fear.
If you are in a jungle and you hear a lion roar and it is not too far off, you are naturally going to fear. Or let us take something that we understand a little bit better, since we live in the city. It is 2:00 in the morning and you are in your car and it is starting to sputter and it is giving every appearance that it is going to break down. You are in the West Philadelphia area, one of the murder capitals of the world. It is 2:00 in the morning, and there are gangs all over the area. You are naturally going to fear. The believer, of course, is going to be repeating verses to himself, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear,” or “I sought the LORD, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.” We will have this going in our minds, but the natural reaction is fear.
Yet when it comes to God, when it comes to this Almighty Being who really possesses All Power, All Might, and He, in essence, says that it is nothing to get caught by a gang of murderers at 2:00 in the morning, this is because we can not even compare this situation to what is coming when someone falls into God’s hands, when someone is in the hands of an angry God! So in ignoring and avoiding and in definitely not heeding the Word of God to repent and to turn from sin and to obey His commandments, people are really showing that they have no fear, no fear of God.
One of the problems and reasons that this is to the degree that it is in our day is because of what the churches are doing with the Bible and what they are teaching the people. If they would teach faithfully and all of the people who go to church could hear what the Bible actually says, if they would be warned of just how angry God is with people’s sins, then this could at least help a little bit. But the churches are not teaching this. The churches teach, “God loves you. God loves everybody.” Why should I fear a God who loves me and everybody else? Why fear that kind of a God? But the problem is that God does not love everyone. He does not love everyone. The Bible tells us this.
Let us turn to Psalm 7:11:
God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.
He is not just angry with their sins. He is angry with the person, the “wicked doer,” the “evil doer.” God is angry every day.
Another verse to look at is Psalm 5:5:
The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.
God hates you because of your sin. He is not happy. He is not pleased. He is not like some gentle and kind God (who overlooks sin). Of course, God is gentle and kind; but when it comes to those who transgress the Law of God, He has only furious anger, and not just with the sin. God does not separate the sin from the sinner, but He is angry with the sinner who sins. God is angry. God hates them, and this is why the Bible does say, “Jacob have I loved,” these are God’s elect, “but Esau have I hated.”
It is really ridiculous when people say that God loves everyone, but that there is going to be a Judgment Day when He will take multitudes of people that He supposedly loves and He is going to cast them down into Hell forever. How is this showing love? How can anyone say that God loved them? No, God is not going to love those people who have sinned against Him. He is going to hate them.
This is what Hell is. Hell is for those whom God hates. It is His hatred being poured out upon them forevermore. It shows the depths of God’s anger. He is so furious with the sinner that He can not just have that person pay a penalty in a day or a year or a thousand years, it is going to take eternity for God to fully display the totality of His anger on that person who is cast into Hell.
If the churches would just basically tell people what the Bible says, there might be more of the fear of the Lord in society, but the churches are failing to do this. A second error that the churches are involved in is their whole idea of Jesus, their whole presentation of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Just walk into a Christian bookstore and take a look at all of the children’s books and you will see a lot of pictures of “Jesus.” Of course the Bible tells us that we are not to make an image of God, and Jesus is God, so this is a totally sinful thing to do in making pictures of Christ. One of the results of this is that it really is something that demeans God. It brings Him down to our level.
These pictures depict Jesus as some smiling, gentle shepherd. Of course, the Lord Jesus Christ is these things but He is also Eternal God who spoke and created the world. He is also the Judge who will be seated upon the Judgment Throne on the Last Day. He is the One who is going to condemn man for his sin. So this whole idea of the Lord Jesus Christ just being someone who is kindly and gentle and a God who would certainly never cast someone into Hell is completely wrong, but this is how many in the church world are presenting the Lord Jesus Christ today.
Let us turn back and look at Luke 12:4 again, where it says:
And I say unto you my friends…
“My friends,” God picks His words very carefully. When God is speaking to His “friends,” who is He speaking to? He is not speaking to everyone, because “whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” But God does have those whom He identifies as friends.
If we go over to John 15, we will read a couple of verses there. We read in John 15:12-13, where it says:
This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
You see, Jesus laid down His life for His friends. To be a friend of God means that Christ has paid the penalty for your sins. But then, a lot of people claim this. A lot of people claim that they are Christian, and they claim, “Jesus died for me. I am a friend of God.” But Jesus goes on to qualify this more in John 15:14:
Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
This is a good way to examine ourselves then. Am I a friend of God? Am I a friend of the Lord Jesus Christ? Jesus died for His friends, yet someone who is a friend of God is someone who is described and defined as someone who does “whatsoever” God commands. This would be referring to the Bible, to what the Bible tells us, and God’s commandment is the whole Bible.
Are we living in accord with the Word of God? Are we being obedient to what the Bible says? If so, then we could be called a friend of God, like Abraham. This statement is made, “Abraham…the Friend of God.” Remember, Abraham was the one who, out of obedience to God, took his only son, Isaac, and was about to plunge the knife into him in order to obey God’s command to sacrifice his son, but then God stopped him and showed him the sacrificial animal that was pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ. But this is what a friend of God really is. It is someone who is obedient to the Word of God and doing things God’s way.
Again, Jesus says in Luke 12:4:
And I say unto you my friends…
So He is speaking to believers:
…Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.
This is really good counsel, excellent counsel, because we live in a very fearful world. It can be frightening out there, can it not? We live in a time when sin is multiplying. Just look at the paper. We hear the news about man who is constantly doing evil to his fellowman, and we could really begin to fear man and have trepidation towards our fellowman. But God says no. We are not to fear him who can only kill the body.
This is all that man can do and it is the worst that he can do. This is the maximum that anyone can do. They can call you names. They can revile you and reproach you with their tongue. They can hurt you physically to the point of death, but they can not do anything further. They can do no more than this. Someone can take your physical life, but they can not harm you any further than this. So God is really going to make a comparison between man and God.
Let us turn to Isaiah 51. We read in Isaiah 51:12-13:
I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass; and forgettest the LORD thy maker…
The word “LORD” is in caps, so it is Jehovah.
…forgettest the Jehovah thy maker…
By the way, the word “Jehovah” is a word that we find numerous times in the Old Testament. It is all over the place. The King James translators, most of the time, have used all caps and the English word “LORD.” We wonder if we should say “Jehovah” each time we come to this word, because it is the Hebrew word “Jehovah.” We will get back to what we are discussing, but to look at this a little further, let us turn to Matthew 22:42-45. It says there:
Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The LORD…
Notice that this word is all caps.
…said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?
This is a quote from Psalm 110, so let us go back to Psalm 110. We read in Psalm 110:1:
The LORD…
This is all in caps. This is the word “Jehovah.”
…said unto my Lord…
This “Lord” is not all in caps. This is the Hebrew word “‘Adonay.”
Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
This is the verse that Jesus is quoting in Matthew 22, “The Lord (Jehovah) said unto my Lord (Adonay).” “Jehovah” and “Adonay” are the Hebrew words.
Sometimes in the New Testament, when they are quoting an Old Testament word or verse, for certain words there will be a transliteration. For example, we read of “the Lord of Sabaoth.” In the New Testament, it spells out “Sabaoth.” It transliterates the Hebrew. It does not try to use a Greek substitute for this word. It just uses the Hebrew word “Sabaoth.”
So God can, if He so desires, take a Hebrew word, an Old Testament word, and in the New Testament Greek, He can spell it out. For example, we have the words “Apollyon” and “Abaddon” in the book of Revelation. God can say this is that particular word, and He can just transliterate it.
Yet in Psalm 110, we have the word “Jehovah.” We have the Lord Jesus Christ quoting Psalm 110, and He said, “The Lord said unto My Lord.” This is the Word of God, yet when Jesus quotes the word “Jehovah,” He uses the Greek word, “kurios.” “Kurios” is the Greek word for “Lord” in many, many places in the New Testament.
So in Matthew 22:44, we read:
The Lord (kurios) said unto my Lord (kurio),
They are basically the same Greek word, but they are different cases in the Greek language. One is like an accusative; the other is a dative or instrumental.
Also, in Matthew 22:45:
If David then call him Lord,
This is “kurion.” They are all the identical Greek word. They all have the same number in the Strong’s Concordance, but what I have been thinking about is whether or not I should say “Jehovah”? Am I obligated to say “Jehovah” whenever I read an Old Testament verse? Actually, no, I am not obligated to say “Jehovah.”
Jesus could have pointed this out. In the New Testament, there are many quotes from the Old Testament, and as far as I know, not in one place did God transliterate the word “Jehovah”—not in one place that I am aware of. He uses a word that is used for “Lord.”
Therefore, when we read in the Old Testament, in the English, the word “LORD” with all caps, we have a choice; we have an option. We can say “Lord,” and this is what the Lord Jesus Christ did. He followed in the Greek and He said, “Kurios.” Or we can let everyone know that this is the word for “Jehovah.” So we do have this option, and I just want to make everyone aware of this. As far as I can see, there is no command that we must use the word “Jehovah.”
Let us go back to Isaiah 51:12-13, where God is pointing out:
…who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass; and forgettest the LORD thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? And where is the fury of the oppressor?
It is almost as though God is shaking His head. It is amazing. It is dumbfounding that man fears his fellowman, and he sometimes fears his fellowman greatly. He fears his fellowman, but he does not fear God. He fears his fellowman, but he “forgettest the LORD”? He forgets God and the fear that is owed Him—“tribute to whom tribute…fear to whom fear.”
We owe Got fear. We ought to fear Him. Look at what He can do. He is the Creator. He is the Maker. He simply spoke and He created the heavens. He brought enormous planets and stars and suns into being with a simple word. He spoke and formed the mountains and the seas and everything that we see in this world. God often does this; He refers to His acts of creation in order to show a demonstration of His power. He is showing His Might as He discusses the creation itself.
Or let us go to Jeremiah 5:21-22, where it says:
Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not: Fear ye not me? saith the LORD: will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it?
Do you see how God is asking this question incredulously? “Fear ye not Me? saith the LORD.”
Again, He points to the acts of creation. Look at the seas. Look at the oceans and all that are in them. Look at the tremendous depths of the water. He simply spoke and made all of this and created all of the waters of the sea, yet man does not fear Him. “Will ye not tremble at My presence?” It really is amazing that man fears not God.
What is God getting at by “fear?” What does He want us to do? Does He want us to just think of our sin and literally shake in our boots? Well, that is not a bad start, but that is actually not what God is getting at. God does not want an emotional response, so much. He does not want us to have that kind of fear, but He wants us to have “the fear of the Lord.”
For instance, let us look at some verses that point this out. We read in Proverbs 16:6:
By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.
Let us also turn to Job, because Job is a good example of this. We read in Job 1:1:
There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.
So Job is a good example. Look at what it says in Job 1:8:
And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
This same statement is found in Job 2:3:
…one that feareth God, and escheweth evil...
“Escheweth” is an Old English word that I was not really that familiar with, but it really means “to depart from” or “to turn from.” It is found in Proverbs 14:16, where the same Hebrew word is translated differently:
A wise man feareth, and departeth…
This is the word “escheweth.”
…and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident.
This is really what God is saying. Where is God’s fear? Where is man’s fear towards God? Do we fear Him?
You read the Bible. You hear the Word of God. You know that you are a sinner; you have come to that point. You know what the Bible says about your sin, that if you continue on, you are surely going to end up in Hell forevermore. So are you going to go on in your sins, or will you fear Him and eschew evil? Will you depart from evil? This is what demonstrates “the fear of the Lord.” This is really what God is getting at.
Turn to Proverbs 8:13, where we read:
The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.
We are very comfortable in this world with evil, and all sin is evil. It is true that we are surrounded by it. It is everywhere. It is on TV. It is on the computer. If you pick up a book other than the Bible, you will probably find some evil. If you just look out on your neighborhood block, it is not hard to find. It is almost everywhere, and we live in a world that has given itself up to evil as God has given them up.
Yet God is telling us that we can not live the way of the world and continue going the way that the world is going, because they are about ready to walk off a cliff and go down into a bottomless pit. They are ready to fall into the ditch that is Hell itself.
So God is instructing us that if we are to be a child of God, if we are to be a believer, there has to be fear. There has to be the fear of God, and this fear will show itself when we are turning from our sin and when we are doing things God’s way and when we are keeping His commandments.
This English word, “eschew,” is also found in the New Testament. Let us turn to 1 Peter 3:10-11, where we read:
For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it.
You see, “eschew evil…seek peace;” Jesus is Peace. Jesus is who our desire should be towards. So God is saying the same command here in the New Testament, “eschew evil.”
Now we are helped a little bit, because the Greek word for “eschew” is found in only three places in the New Testament. It is in Romans 3:12, where it is translated as “out of the way”:
They are all gone out of the way…
Also in Romans 16:17, it is translated as another English word:
Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.
“Avoid” is the same word as “eschew.” “Eschew evil.” Avoid it.
I was trying to think of an example, some kind of picture of what it is to avoid evil. All I could think of, and it is not that good of an example, but it is like when you are in school and you are walking down the hallway and maybe the bully is coming down the opposite way. You see him coming; you see him turn the corner. So now what are you going to do? This is the kid who always picks on you. He can rough you up a little bit if you run into him, so you try to duck into a classroom. Maybe the stairs are close, so you go up the stairs to the next floor, or the last resort if there was nowhere to turn, you put your head down and you kind of just stare off to the side until you pass him. This would by an example of avoiding something.
We are to “mark them” which bring other doctrines, and this is teaching us one thing. We do not want to be involved in any other kind of a gospel, but as far as evil, as far as sin is concerned, avoid it. Avoid it.
We can see it coming, can we not, many times? I think that it is rare if we are surprised by evil. That can happen, but normally we see it. We see it a little bit in the distance, a little bit afar off. The problem is that we run to it. The problem is that we have our arms open ready to embrace it, and God is saying, no, eschew it, hate it, avoid it, as we read a little earlier in Romans 12:9:
Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.
Hate it! Hate sin! Why should you hate it? Oh, it is pleasant, is it not? It has its pleasures. It is enjoyable, so why should I hate it? Why should I hate it when it is exciting, when it is thrilling, when it gives me a certain satisfaction?
You should hate it because it is reigning in your life. It is ruling over you. It has dominion over you, and it is taking you to death. It is carrying you, each day, step-by-step, closer to final destruction.
Sin is very deceitful. It gives all the appearances of something that we really want, we really need, we really desire. It comes. It is the allurement. It is the bait. Just like what happens to a fish when you are fishing; you try to make that bait as attractive as possible and what that fish is going to want and what that fish is going to go after. Then the fish takes the bait…well, any other fisherman but me…the fish takes the bait and it is trapped. It is caught. It has the hook in its mouth. Now it can kick and now it can try to get off the line and it can try to get away, but it is nabbed. It is caught and it is going to be brought up and that will be the end of that fish; that is it for that fish.
So God is telling us, He is telling us and warning us in Luke 12:5:
But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.
Do not fear man. Fear God! If we continue on in our sin, if we keep going in the year 2007, into the year 2008, into the year 2009, if we keep going, day after day, the time passes. If we keep going on in your sin, we will end up in Hell. We will be there on that Last Day. Suddenly, it is over! No more time. No more space for repentance. No more warnings from God. We will suddenly be destroyed, and that without warning. That is what the Bible says.
So God is mercifully, mercifully, speaking to us, each one of us, “Fear God. Fear God. Fear what is coming and turn; turn from your sin.”