Transcript: Fear God or Die - WarningThePeople

 

Fear God or Die

Well, praise Jesus today, everyone. I have just a quick message that I wanted to speak about today, and it's in regard to fearing God vs. fearing men.

There are not too many men today that fear God, not many Christians that really fear God. Most Christians fear people. They fear their peers, their contemporaries. They fear what people think, and there's a reason for that. Likely the people they fear, they feel that they are the ones supporting them. So they don't want to undermine those that support them, even if their support comes from an evil area. So they will never stand up for the truth at their workplace because they fear they might get fired. They won't stand up for the truth around their parents, their family members, because they might be outcasts in the family. And at the end of the day, they fear men and what men think way more than they fear God.

Now a lot of Christians I know belittle or they speak down against those who have the fear of God in them. They say, we shouldn't really fear God, we should love Him. And we shouldn't fear going to hell. We shouldn't fear because, you know, we should have love in us. And they say the fear of God is only the beginning of wisdom. And they say, perfect love casts out fear. So they pull these Bible verses out of the Scripture to try to convince you that you don't really need to fear God anyway. But the hypocrisy of it all is, these same Christians that say that fear men to no end. That is why they always compromise with their religion to what people will say. They're always molding their religion to the pattern of the world and not to what God thinks of them. And that proves that they have fear of men over the fear of God.

But the interesting thing here is, Jesus Himself, it says in the Scriptures, had the fear of God. Now Christians will say, well, perfect love drives out fear. So if you are made perfect, you won't fear God anymore. You don't have to. It's just love. And they go through the words of the Apostle Paul and all these different Scriptures that say you don't really have to fear God. Well wasn't Jesus perfect? Yet the Scriptures say He had the fear of God in Him. Did Jesus ever sin? No, He didn't, yet He had the fear of God in Him. And that's what the Scripture says. If you don't believe me, go look it up for yourself. It's Isaiah chapter 11, specifically verse 3. It speaks prophetically that Jesus would have the fear of God in Him. And Jesus was perfect. He was without spot and without blemish.

So if Jesus being the Messiah and Lord and perfect Lamb of God, had this reverent fear in Him of His Father in Heaven, then how is it that we can say "We don't need fear. We're being made perfect and then once we're perfect enough. We don't have to fear God. We don't have to really obey Him. We can just know we're safe and secure and going to Heaven. And it doesn't really matter what God thinks anyways, because we can twist His arm at the end of our life to let us go into Heaven because,  we prayed a prayer years ago"?

That's obviously rubbish. It's a false doctrine. We have to fear God and we have to put this into practice. I was thinking about this the other day, how the fear of men leads so many people. They call it peer pressure in school. So when you're in junior high and high school, the word is peer pressure. You feel peer pressure to do things and that is fear. You fear that people might not think you're cool. And so you dress a certain way. You fear when you get older that you might not be intellectual enough. So you read more books or you research certain things so you don't look ignorant. And obviously we don't want to be uneducated. A lot of people are led by fear of their contemporaries or their peers or the people at their workplace. And at the end of the day, they care a whole lot more about what the people around them think of them, you know, ten times as much as they care of what God thinks. If people were to really care what God thought of them more than anything, they would be scared to be looking at pornography. They would be fearful to be lusting after the neighbor's wife because they know God would smite them, that He could send them to hell for that. They would fear that God has all power and all authority and He could deal with them in a horrible way if they didn't serve Him and obey Him.

So both of these things have to lead us as Christians, fear and love. Jesus truly had the fear of God in Him even though He wasn't thinking about disobeying God. And so if the prophet Isaiah wrote this about Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, then we also have to fear God because if we don't daily work out our salvation with fear and trembling, then we're bound to become lukewarm, complacent, not caring about our neighbor, not loving others as ourself, not picking up our cross, all those things that we need to do as a Christian we will not do, if we're just thinking, “well I don't need to fear God, I was saved 20 years ago and now I can just sit back and do whatever I want, it doesn't matter, God has to let me into heaven.”

See most Christians have absolutely no fear of God and it shows in our towns and in our cities and in our nation. People really, really care what others think of them but they don't care what God thinks and that's going to be the demise of a whole lot more families and nations, it's going to be the demise of our world. The whole world cares about what people think but they don't care about what God thinks. So I want to encourage you to get the fear of God in you. Jesus Christ has the power and authority to send you to hell or to welcome you into his kingdom so you better get to know him. And whether you think that is a good thing or a bad thing, if you are scared of God and you know that you're on the wrong side of the law, if that leads you to repent, that is a good thing but then don't stop there, then start having the reverent kind of fear towards God to loving him.

You know as parents, our children should fear us but they should also love us. There are parents and there are governments and ruling authorities that only rule by fear. And they make everyone their subjects and they force people to do things out of fear. And fear is ultimately not as powerful as love. It also turns people away and it makes people hate a tyrant government. So ultimately what needs to lead us is the love of God, loving our neighbor as ourselves, but of course we need to have a reverent fear towards God knowing that he has all power and all authority and that he is a just God.

If we don't believe that God is just, and we think that he is just love, only love, then we will be like the complacent Christians that think that we can go on sinning and that there is no, that God doesn't have morality, that he's going to let paedophiles into heaven, to be molesting people in heaven and it's absolutely ridiculous. What Christians think will be allowed into heaven because they're allowing it into their church. So God is just. He will not allow perversion, he will not allow hatred, murderous thoughts and impure heart into his kingdom. So we have to fear God but then after we learn to fear him, we have to learn to love him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength and walk forward in faith with him and teaching others to do the same.

Do we fear God? Do we love Him, and do we obey Him? Or do we just have a love for this world, We just have a carnal love for those in this world, the sort of love that says, I will love you as long as you love me back? I will give you money as long as you give me money back. I'll be your friend as long as you do good things to me back. Remember Jesus said, what reward do you have in heaven if you just invite rich people who can pay you back? But when you invite people over as your guests, then invite people that can't repay you, the blind, the poor, those that are lame and then you will have treasure in heaven. We want our treasure to be in heaven because where our heart is, there our treasure will also be. We want our treasure to be in Jesus, in eternity, not with things that are perishing in this world.

So we got to be introspective with this and look into our own hearts. Do we really fear God at the end of the day? Can you say with certainty that you fear God more than anything and you love him more than anything? Or are you being led by peer pressure? Are you being led by fear of what people think? Are you being led by ultimately the fear of men? So look into your own heart and into your own life and answer that question. And if you realize you do have the fear of men like how most Christians do, then you need to repent of that and say, “Lord Jesus, help me to fear you and to love you more than anything so that I can be set on the right path, and not on the path that leads to destruction that most of this world is on.”

So I want to pray for those of you that want the true fear of God in you that you may be set on the right path. “So Lord Jesus, I pray for those that are part of your true church, for those that are wanting to come out of the world. I pray that the fear of God will enter them, the same kind of fear that was in you, Lord Jesus, when you were walking this earth. I pray that you can pull your sons and daughters out of the world, purge them of worldliness and ungodliness and let them be separate and severed from those of the world that are polluted with sin and ungodliness. Let them be separate because we know that you are separating the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the tares. Let us be separate from this world so that we can follow you and obey you in complete righteousness and with the fear of God and the love of God in us that we may walk in holiness and righteousness all the days of our life and endure with you to the very end. May more children of yours come out and be separate from the world so that they can proclaim the truth and be salt and light and bearing fruit for you. In your name we pray, Lord Jesus. Amen.”