Ask Pastor Mike Fabarez

Speaker 1

Scriptures tell us the fear of the Lord is essential to faith. But what does that mean? And what about perfect love casting out fear? Well, stay tuned for this edition of Ask Pastor Mike to hear a biblical response directly from Pastor Mike Febares here on Focal Point.

Welcome to a special edition of Focal Point. You probably know, each week at this time, we clear our Bible teaching schedule to sit down with the lead pastor and shepherd of Compass Bible Church in Southern California and our Bible teacher every day on Focal Point, Mike Febarez. He'll respond to some of the relevant questions from our listeners today.

So let me turn the microphone over now to Jay Worton, the executive director of Focal Point for this week's edition of Ask Pastor Mike.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Dave. Pastor Mike, you hear the term fear of God a lot. We read it in the Bible, obviously, and we talk about it a lot around here. And a listener asks, what does it mean to fear God? Isn't God supposed to be love?

Speaker 3

Yeah. Maybe I should speak first to what it doesn't mean because I know that's the real concern. People look at First John, chapter four, and they see that passage in verse 18 that says there's no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear. And that's absolutely 100% biblically true. But the context of that in verse 17 is the day of judgment. The rest of verse 18 speaks of the punishment that people fear on the day of judgment. It says that that fear is gone for Christians. There is no condemnation for those in Christ (Romans, chapter 8, verse 1). So there is no fear of being cast into outer darkness for those that are Christians.

With that out of the way, then you ask, well, then there is no fear, fear, I guess, in the Christian life? No, not at all. When it comes to God, he is the only one that we should fear. He is the one that, if you go back to Proverbs and you study what it means to be someone who is wise and lives a righteous life, that one, it all begins with fear. Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. I mean, it is the foundation for all these things.

You say, well, that's an Old Testament truth, not a New Testament truth. Well, it's all over the New Testament as well. In the Book of Acts, when God was disrespected, let's put it that way, to put it mildly, by Ananias and Sapphira, and he struck them down, the church rightly responded with great fear. Fear came upon the people of God. It says that twice in Acts, chapter five, because of the situation with Ananias and Sapphira.

So the bottom line is that to have that healthy fear of God is not the fear of him casting us into hell. It's the fear of his discipline. It's the fear of displeasing Him. It's the fear of just the sheer authority of a great God that we should all stand in awe of. I mean, think about it. You want a passage about fear from a New Testament perspective? All I have to do is read Hebrews chapter 12. That's clearly a New Testament passage that says, hey, if you feared him, I'm going to Mike Fabarus paraphrase here, if you feared him in the Old Testament when he came down on Mount Sinai, then how much more should we fear him in the New Testament?

The God who we come to, which it says is a consuming fire. I mean, if they didn't escape the opportunity for life on Mount Sinai, how are we going to escape if we neglect it? We ought to come to him and worship him with reverence and awe. We ought to remember he's a consuming fire. We ought to come to him with that attitude that recognizes his unmitigated authority in the universe and in our lives.

So there are several aspects to fear in the Christian life, but it is not the fear for Christians of being cast into hell.

Speaker 2

Is there some way you could illustrate what that deep reverence for God would look like for us today?

Speaker 3

Well, you can open your Bibles and see it. It's the same as it was in the Old Testament, Isaiah, chapter 6. Here was Isaiah going about his job as a preacher of righteousness. And he's five chapters into it after being very firm about what sin is and the problem of sin. And then he has the vision of God in Isaiah 6. Here he was completely weak in the knees, trembling before God. He falls and he's overcome by the greatness and the glory of God.

Run the clock forward to the New Testament. Here's John the apostle, the one who would lean against Christ at the last supper meal. They were close. He called himself the disciple that Jesus loved. And now he is on the island of Patmos. Christ shows up and he falls at his feet, trembling with great fear. That concept of seeing that unmitigated authority lets us recognize that God, if you were to spend 15 minutes in his presence, you wouldn't come back to earth and go, well, I fear him less. You know, I'm much more casual with God now. You would definitely elevate your view of God like John did on the island of Patmos, like Isaiah did in the year that King Uzziah died. You would be someone who had an increased respect for him.

If you invited the most powerful person that you respected in this human world to your house for dinner, I assure you you would have a kind of fear. Not a fear of being killed, but a fear of displeasing, a fear of doing something wrong, a fear of not responding rightly. You would have that unset feeling because you would recognize, this person is powerful. I respect this person. He's a great person, or she's a great person. You would have that response.

Do we think we're going to have it any less when we see God, when we bow before Christ? You know, God is a great and awesome God. He's to be feared. We come to a God full of majesty and power, and there's no room for casual attitudes when it comes to God.

Speaker 2

Pastor Mike it seems like the fear of God is kind of out of vogue in today's Christian world. We use terms like God's my co pilot, he's my buddy. Why do you think that is?

Speaker 3

Well, because we don't study the God of the Bible. I mean, the God of the Bible is not a God we would ever. If we just stuck with what the Bible tells us, we would never refer to him as the old man or the man upstairs or the co-pilot or anything else. We would see God for who he really is. If we study the Bible carefully and as First Peter chapter one says, we would know he is our Father, but he's also one who judges us, who analyzes us, who evaluates us. And we would, here's the words of First Peter, chapter one, verse 17, conduct ourselves with fear during our time on the earth, our exile here on the earth.

So that's an attitude of the mind that is not one that is like some servile fear that thinks I'm going to be cast into hell. But it's the familial fear, it's the family fear. That a son who is a respectful son, who recognizes the authority of a parent would come with that great sense of respect that doesn't allow us to be casual. So it's important for us to realize that love and fear are not mutually exclusive. I can love my father and also have a great deal of fear for him—a kind of family fear. Not a servant fear, not the kind of fear that a servant thinks they're going to be cast out of the family. I never feared that I would be cast out of the family as I grew up. And yet I had a great deal of respect for my father, who was a disciplinarian and a godly man and a police officer to boot.

I mean, I recognized his authority, loved him, and at the same time feared him with a godly kind of fear. And that's just the common grace, godliness of a child recognizing dad's in charge and I'm living in his house, and I'm careful to please him and do the things that I'm supposed to do. Now, of course, when I fail, especially when I fail, that's the time, as it says in First Peter, chapter one, I had to be really concerned—concerned for his discipline. Hebrews chapter 12 is all about that. If we respected our fathers who disciplined us on this earth, Hebrews 12 says, how much more should we respect this one, the father of all, the ultimate father? I mean, that I ought to submit to his discipline in my life and have that real godly respect for him.

It's out of vogue in part, I guess, to answer your question, not only because we don't read the Bible, but to get back to that question also because in our day, we've lost respect for any authority. I mean, we don't respect our bosses, we don't respect our parents. It's epidemic not to respect anybody in civil authority or governmental authority. We don't have a civil society anymore. In many ways, everyone's saying whatever they want about anybody and they don't care. And so, I don't know, the Bible has a kind of civility to it that brings us back to recognizing God as the all-powerful God. And that's a God that we tremble before.

Speaker 2

Well, thank you, Pastor Mike. I trust this practical discussion was a benefit to our listeners. And we're going to complete our time today with a message you gave called gratitude for grace and respect for the king.

Speaker 4

We, my family, we actually went to a restaurant for a buffet, which is dangerous for many reasons, but particularly hard with children, especially when they seat your family of five right next to the dessert portion of the buffet with bowls of M&Ms. And of course, your job as a parent is to make sure that that's not constituting the whole meal for your child. You've got to direct them to, you know, and frankly, there was a lot more of the other stuff. There's, you know, there's fruit, vegetables, and there's meat and chicken and salmon and everything was there. It was all there. But, you know, it was hard to get your view, your focus past the dessert section. I mean, it was just right there, beckoning all of us. But as the parent, I had to steer them properly.

Now, not at all to sound condescending, but you know, the church, I mean, is in need of some direction. And it is the pastor's job to look at the word of God, the variable, you know, buffet of biblical truth, and make sure that we get a good balanced diet. I mean, that's important. And much like the buffet that I was at this week, most of scripture are the things that a lot of folks in their Christian life want to avoid. The broccoli of the scripture. But it's good for you. You gotta have it.

I want you to look at Proverbs chapter 9 with me and to look at some of the real meat and potatoes of the Bible. And I say that you may not believe this, but it is absolutely true. Do the search yourself. If you go through the Bible, the topic and theme of our message constitutes in the Scripture at least three times as much in terms of imperative and directive and command and instruction for us as Christians to see God this way than the things that you are used to. The topic is the fear of God, okay? Godly people fear the Lord, which is the theme of the Book of Proverbs.

In large part, you'd say, well, the theme of Proverbs is wisdom. You're right, it's about wisdom. But from the first chapter by seventh verse, we get the instruction that you can't know the wisdom in the Book of Proverbs until you fear God. You have to fear God. And then all the chapters deal with the fear of God. And in the last chapter, you know, praising this godly wife.

Speaker 3

I mean, how does it end?

Speaker 4

Right? The woman who fears the Lord. Should we love God? Absolutely. But what I'm saying is that as fallen human beings, what we need reminders of more often than not is our need and our calling to see God.

Speaker 3

For who he is.

Speaker 4

And it should invoke the response of fearing him. Or as A.W. Tozer says, you can't even know grace until you learn to fear the Lord. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of it all. Look at verse number 10. Now, Proverbs chapter nine. That's how it's put, isn't it? I mean, look at this phrase. You've heard it; it's repeated often in the Book of Proverbs. And it simply says things like this. Check it out. Verse 10, the fear of the Lord. This is Proverbs 9:10, the advanced segment of wisdom. Circle the word. Advanced. No, intermediate. Now what is it? What's the word? Beginning of wisdom. The point is, you can't even begin down the path of biblical wisdom. Now pay attention to this. Unless you fear the Lord, you can't, you cannot.

You next phrase. You can't even know him. Let me put it this way. You don't know God until you fear God. A lot of objections at this point; some of you are crossing your arms already. I see you. You're going to, you know, listen, I know God, and I've been taught, and I've read the best-selling Christian books, and I'm telling you, you can know God and not fear God. We get two options if that's your view. Either the Bible is wrong, right? Because it says here you can't even begin with wisdom till you fear him. You can't know him unless you fear him. Or your God that you think you know is not the God of the Bible.

Because you're free to think of God any way you want, right? I mean, you can go between now and the day you die when you really meet him, and you can think about God anyway. You can be the most tame, the most domesticated, the most friendly. You can be the guy that you're dreaming and singing about, dancing with when you see him and high-fiving him when you get there. And you know, we sing these songs, we pass around these DaySpring cards. He's a cool guy. We can't wait to be there. We'll high-five him. We'll play a little golf together. It'll be great. Unless, of course, the God that you're thinking of is not the God of the Bible. Then you'll meet the real God, and perhaps he'll say to you, "Depart from me, I never knew you." And by the way, addendum: "And you never knew me." You can't know God until you fear God.

And when it comes to the most fundamental thing about God, that he'd like to deal with your sin problem, you can never have your sin problem dealt with until you fear God. Let's start at the very beginning of biblical Christianity and talk about the issues of getting it right with God instead of suffering his punishment, getting his blessing. Turn with me to Proverbs chapter 19, and let's start there. Proverbs chapter 19. I know that the fear of God is important. I need to get it; I need to understand it. But I want to talk to you about the Gospel of Grace in the book of Proverbs. And it's often overlooked and missed. We read it quickly; we don't see it. But you need to understand this phrase here and begin to fill it in with the rest of your knowledge of the Bible, and it'll open, begin to make some sense to you.

Proverbs 19:23. Are you with me on this one? The fear of the Lord, it leads to life. Are you seeing that there with your eyeballs? The fear of the Lord leads to life. That sounds like a bit of an oxymoron. I think fear would lead to trembling and shaking and being uncertain and unsettled. No, as a matter of fact. Next phrase. Whoever has it—do you have the fear of the Lord? Right, you rest satisfied. He will not be visited by harm. Security, security and rest. Being satisfied starts with the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord leads to life. Life is defined here as satisfied, rest, and security. The fear of God leads to that.

Well, how does it get me there? How does the fear of God get me to this place? Glad you asked. Turn with me back to chapter three, Proverbs 3:34. Here is the basic equation of the Bible. And if we get that, then we can fill in the middle section of this equation that the fear of God is going to lead to life, which is rest and security with God. How does that work? Verse 34. Toward the scorners—right. We don't use that word a lot. It's kind of an old-fashioned word. To the scorners, he is scornful. What does that mean? A scorner is to take something or someone—let's just talk about the village. I don't know, the mayor, the magistrate of the town. A scorner looks at somebody in a position of authority or power, and he belittles him, he makes less of him, he mocks him, he takes something that's worthy of respect and honor and lessens that.

As a matter of fact, if the context here is God, it's someone who looks at God as less than he is. As a matter of fact, here's a better way to say it: scorning is the opposite of fearing, right? To fear is to exalt and venerate that person of authority, in this case, God. To fear God. The opposite of the fear of God is to scorn God. I mean, I don't care about him, in the words of Samuel, to despise God. Right. The response of God then is, well, you'll be lightly esteemed; God will despise you. Same thing here. If you scorn God, well then God will be scornful toward you, and that's not what you want, particularly on the day that you die. You'd like to be in with that God. You don't want him to think less of you or little of you. You want God to do something opposite.

Which is next in the contrastive Hebrew parallelism, coming in verse 34, the bottom of the verse: but, right, instead of that, to the humble, he—that is God—gives favor. To the scorners, he is scornful. If it's the opposite of fear, well, then he's not going to value you. And if you are humble, though, see, then he gives favor. That Hebrew word favor is translated often as grace. It's the same word, grace. Grace is God's favor. It's when he sets his favor on us, when he embraces us, he accepts us. You know what you've got when you've got the favor of God?

Speaker 3

You've got rest and security.

Speaker 4

If the ultimate authority of the universe, when you really ponder who he is, right, leads you then to humility, that's the natural response. Contrition. You recognize, like Peter when he sees the greatness of Christ, "Away from me, Lord, I'm a sinful man." Or how about Isaiah, chapter six, right? He sees God high and exalted, and he said, "Woe to me! I'm a man of sinful lips." Well, if that's the way it works, then your fear of God leads you to contrition and humility. And that contrition and humility, that's the trigger to what God's favor is. God gives favor. To the contrary, God gives his grace to those that are humbled. And if you have that favor of God, then you have life. So you rest securely.

Jesus taught the same thing in Matthew, chapter 10. Jesus, right, tells us about God the Father and makes it clear that he should still be feared. And he makes it super clear why. Matthew, chapter 10, verse number 28 says, "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul." Now, I'm kind of afraid of people that can kill me, particularly when they're threatening to kill me or have, you know, tools of killing in their hands to kill me. But he's saying, listen, that's no big deal by comparison. Because really what they can do to you is only end your temporal life. That's all they can do. They can't touch your immaterial part. Your software is untouchable by them.

Rather, fear him. Look at this now. Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, Day Spring card subject. Here he goes. "Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." Wow, that's a big statement. Fear him who can destroy soul and body in hell. And there's only one person that's in that position to do that: the triune God. He has the authority, the power. And because he's holy and just, he looks at sinful people. Hell is a place of retribution. It's a place of settling the score, right? He has the authority to cast your soul and body in hell. And if you see him exalted for who he is, he will lead you to that contrition. You'll recognize that that's where you deserve to be.

And I know it's missing here too, as well, but look at the next verse. If we recognize God in that way, see, then we'll recognize his grace is placed on us. His favor is put on us. And he immediately turns the conversation and says in verse 29, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny, and not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father? And even the hairs on your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you have more value than many sparrows." So everyone who acknowledges me before men, right? "I will also acknowledge before my Father. But whoever denies me, anyone who scorns me, anyone who thinks less of me, who despises me," to add Samuel and Solomon, and now Jesus's words in a tight little package here, "I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven."

Here's the thing: you cannot know the grace of God until you know the fear of God. You need to fear God, right? And in sequential order, embrace grace. Fear God and embrace grace. Here is one verse. If you want to see repentance and grace in the book of Proverbs, we can't skip this one. Proverbs 28, verses 13 and 14. Proverbs chapter 28, verse 13 says, "Whoever conceals his transgression," which is impossible to do if you get a full view of the greatness, holiness, power, and authority of God, "will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them." That's a picture of what's going on in Isaiah. I mean, that's what's going on in the life of every person who becomes a Christian. They confess their sins, they forsake them. Well, then you'll obtain mercy.

What's the motivation behind that? Verse 14: "Blessed is the one who fears the Lord always. But whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity." Right? If you conceal your transgression, you're not fearing the Lord. If you confess your transgression and you forsake it, right, then you are fearing the Lord and you find mercy. Blessed is the one who fears the Lord always. But if you harden your heart, man, the end of that is not good.

And I know some of you right now, you just don't dig this stuff on the fear of God. That's not what I've heard. That's not what I've read. That's not what I've seen. That's not what the Christian music always talks about. I don't care what the world says. What I care about is what the Bible says. This is the only good book that God wrote. Here you realize that, and he's revealed himself to be a God who three times to one will tell people on the planet, "You need to fear me." That is the beginning of wisdom. That is the beginning of what it means to even know God. You cannot know God unless you fear God.

I want to love him, but that's the bowl of M&M's, right? I also need to learn to fear him. Fear God, love God. They're not mutually exclusive. They go hand in hand.

Speaker 1

Loving God begins with fearing Him. Sobering but scriptural. You're listening to Mike Febares talking about the fear of God in a message called "Gratitude for Grace and Respect for the King." To hear the full, unedited version, go to focalpointradio.org. Pastor Mike warned we're not a Christian if we haven't first been broken by the fear of God. A true relationship with God starts by examining ourselves in light of His holy character. That leads to the contrite attitude that honors God, and He'll bless you.

And that humility radiates from the pages of our September resource, a book by Josh McDowell titled "77 Frequently Asked Questions." Maybe you've run into situations where you needed a solid answer for someone who's questioning your faith. Perhaps your kid or co-worker springs a zinger on you, and you wish you could have answered it better. This easy-to-read paperback arms you with truthful answers in Josh McDowell's engaging style. "Come Let Us Reason Together" reflects the warm and engaging tone of the book "77 Frequently Asked Questions."

And that's our gift to you when you give a donation to Focal Point. Call 883-205-885 or go to focalpointradio.org. Your generosity is making these daily visits from Pastor Mike possible and ensures thousands of listeners have access every day to the accurate, reliable study of God's Word. It's what recharges us when we stagger and empowers us to overcome trials today. So thanks for sending your encouraging contribution to FocalPointRadio.org.

If you have questions for Ask Pastor Mike, we want to hear them. Post them on our Twitter or Facebook feeds, and by connecting there, you'll help others in your circles of influence discover us too. Join these active communities and find like-minded disciples who will keep the conversation going. You'll find helpful links at focalpointradio.org.

I'm Dave Drouehe, wishing you a perfectly wonderful weekend ahead. Join Pastor Mike Fabarez next week to continue our study in the Psalms. That's Monday on Focal Point. Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.

Speaker 4

Sam.