---NEW--- The Fear of God and Worship “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters” (Revelation 14:6-7) This is one of the greatest pictures of the love of God toward a sinful humanity like us. This shows God’s love, in that, after all the judgments, after all the rejections of the LORD Jesus and reception of the doctrines of the antichrist beast, the LORD God would still allow the Gospel to be preached on earth again. The word of God and the preaching of the cross and blood forgiveness through Jesus Christ is just as important as the actual death burial and resurrection of Jesus. One may ask, “How can I affix such importance to preaching?” The answer is simple: without the preaching of the cross and forgiveness in the Name of Christ Jesus no one can be saved. The Bible says, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14). That is plain and simple, how can anyone call out to and believe in Christ unless what He can do is made known to them. There is no salvation, and there is no other way than Jesus. If you call out and believe in some supreme being and if you are a good person you will still go to hell without salvation, because it is all vested in Jesus’ name. Peter, when preaching that Christ is the only way, states, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Here, in our verse of study we see that God exhibits and manifests His love towards people in that He allows the Gospel of the blood forgiveness in Jesus name to be preached again. Notice the first two words of the Gospel that the angel heralded, “Fear God.” In what passes as the Gospel in our modern world, those words are almost completely absent in preaching. Most certainly it is absent in mainstream churches that have drank the Kool-Aid of the hypergrace heresy. Jesus, contending with the devil, gave us an understanding of what the fear of God is. Jesus, when quoting the Old Testament, said, “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. (Matthew 4:10). He quoted Deuteronomy 10:20. There, the Bible says, “Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God; him shalt thou serve…” Notice that Christ gave us a fuller meaning of what the fear of God is; it is worship. In our modern way of doing church worship has come to be known as a few songs we sing before someone gets up to preach, but that is far from the biblical idea of worship. We are given an insight to what the Holy Spirit means for worship to be. The Bible, speaking on the fact that only the Blood of Christ can remove sin, states this about the Old Testament sacrifice system, “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the WORSHIPPERS once purged should have had no more conscience of sins” (Hebrews 10:1-2; emphasis mine). Here, we see that those who came to worship came for forgiveness of sins. They came to give their lives over to God. In order to bring all this together, Christ worshipped the Father, in that, He gave Himself over to be the sacrifice for sin, and we worship by giving ourselves over to God seeking forgiveness from sin. Therefore, the act of worship, which is the action of the fear of God, is basically presenting our total lives and given them over to God. While that is the action of the fear of God, there is also an underlying mindset in the fear of God. This mindset is exhibited in two ways. First, there is a negative side to the mindset of the fear of God. The LORD Jesus gave us that idea when He said, “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). This is the mindset of the fear of God in the idea of judgment. It is the idea that God is able to throw you into eternal torment of hell for your sins. That idea ought to cause you to have a mindset of actual fear for your eternal soul unless you are saved by the blood of Christ. Some people think it is wrong to try and save people with fear. The problem is that the Bible point blank states that it is an option to save people with fear. The Bible says, “Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And of some have compassion, making a difference: And OTHERS SAVE WITH FEAR, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh” (Jude 21-23; emphasis mine). A preacher is not worth his salt as a man of God unless he causes people to fear where they will spend eternity. The last idea of fear of God that I see presented in the Bible is involved in the verse where Jesus says, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). This is living a life where you fear doing something that the one you love doesn’t like. This is the highest and most pure form of the fear of God, in that, you fear doing something that God does not approve of. A Christian who truly loves God will not make excuses to indulge in sin because they fear offending God because they love Him more than the pleasure of sin. It has been my endeavor to seek to live in this way and it is my humble prayer that those who hear me preach will join in this walk of love where we “fear God.” Chris Fisher, Pastor The Church of the New Beginning 01-11-15
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 21:29:11 +0000
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