From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Do you have an opportunity? I have an opportunity today to align my life to live in the fear of the Lord always, always. Paul said, "Knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, for our God is a consuming fire." How are you doing with the fear of the Lord?

Larry Nobles: Welcome to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve. Thank you for joining us today. He's just begun a timely series for the days in which we live. It's entitled "Foundations," intended to call us back to some very important pillars of the faith. That's why the message today is entitled "The ABCs of Life," exploring five pillar principles that are foundational for our lives on this earth if we want to please God and assure ourselves of our eternity with Him when we die.

As we're reminded in Psalm 11:3, "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" The first thing is to build a solid foundation for your life to build from. If you can now, open your Bible to Proverbs chapter one. Here again is Pastor Jeff to further explore and explain the power and security we have by building on the ABCs of life, part two.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: We know when we're teaching our kids how to read, we teach them the ABCs. Those are the basic building blocks of the language. You have to know the alphabet in order to read. You have to know the alphabet in order to write. The basic building blocks of a relationship with God for a society, for an individual, is the fear of the Lord.

David said in the book of Psalms, Psalm 34:11, "Come you children, listen to me and I will teach you the fear of the Lord." Get the children around because when they're little, they need to learn. From the time they're able to learn anything, they need to learn about this thing called the fear of the Lord. In Proverbs, written primarily by Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, he starts off Proverbs, which is a book of wisdom.

He says in verse seven, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction." He says in Proverbs nine that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So it's the beginning of knowledge, it's the beginning of wisdom. It is the important foundation of a life, of a family, of a church, of a society: the fear of the Lord.

We want to talk about that today. I want to share with you three discoveries about this thing that the Bible talks about a lot, this thing called the fear of the Lord. Discovery number one: the fear of the Lord is critically important. One of the reasons it's critically important is because it's the beginning of it all. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. It's the beginning of wisdom.

In Proverbs 1:7, the word there for beginning means the first in place, the first in time, the first in order, the first in rank. It's a principal thing. It's a foundational thing, this fear of the Lord. And it is an indispensable aspect of a successful life. You can have money, you can have fame, you can have a good-looking wife, but you're not going to have peace and you're not going to have joy and you're not going to have a sense of fulfillment because the fear of the Lord is the fountain of life. It's the beginning of wisdom and the beginning of knowledge. But fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Second discovery: the fear of the Lord, not only is it critically important, it is sadly misunderstood. So many people misunderstand. What does this mean, the fear of the Lord? The natural thing when you talk about the fear of the Lord is, "I'm supposed to be afraid of God." If I'm supposed to have this thing called the fear of the Lord, I guess that means that anytime you get around God, you back up because you get afraid of God.

God does not want you to be afraid of Him. God wants you to fear Him. There's a big difference between being afraid of God and fearing God. God wants us to fear Him in reverence and awe. God wants us to know and understand who He is and who we are in relation to who He is.

He is the infinite God. He is the eternal God. He is the omniscient God. He is the omnipresent God. He is the God who can do anything, the God in whom nothing is impossible. He is the God who is almighty. He is the God who is most holy. He is the God who is full of lovingkindness extended to you and to me. That is God. God says, "I want you to know who I am and who I am in relation to who you are."

In Isaiah chapter 40, Isaiah talks about the greatness of God. Isaiah says this, "All the nations are as nothing before Him. They are regarded by Him as less than nothing and meaningless because God is so great." This great God of the universe who wants us to have reverence and awe of Him, He also wants us to obey Him. He is the Master, you and I are the servants.

The fear of the Lord involves obeying God. Proverbs 15:3 is a good definition of the fear of the Lord: "The eyes of the Lord are in every place watching the evil and the good." Because the eyes of the Lord are in every place watching the evil and the good, it's not that God's going to get me. It's that God sees everything that I do and I don't want to do things that displease the great, the mighty, the awesome God.

God wants us to obey Him. It's important to obey the Lord, to do what He says. Disobedience is a serious thing because the eyes of the Lord are in every place watching the evil and the good. How are you doing in this thing called obeying God? God wants you to do that. It's part of the fear of the Lord.

Not only does God want you to obey Him, God wants you to enjoy Him. That's included in the fear of the Lord: enjoying your relationship with God. In the Westminster Shorter Catechism, we read these words, "The chief aim of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever." To enjoy Him forever. In His presence is fullness of joy and in His right hand there are pleasures forevermore.

God wants us to get close to Him. How do we know that? When He created Adam and Eve, one of the highlights of God's day was when He would come down in the cool of the day and walk with them. God likes to do that. He likes to spend time with us. He wants to be with us. The irony of it all is the great, the awesome, the God of the King of the universe would stoop to spend time with you and me and we don't even have time for Him.

We so often blow Him off because we're saying, "God, I got to play Xbox. God, I got to watch TV. God, I got to check Facebook. I got other things to do, God, that are a lot more important than just spending time with You." What could possibly be more important than spending time with God? I'm speaking to myself. God says, "I don't want to guilt you into spending time with Me. I want you to spend time with Me. I want you to obey Me because I'm love and everything I tell you to do is out of the heart of love."

When I say don't do this, it's not because I'm the cosmic killjoy. It's because that's going to hurt you and I don't want you to hurt yourself. I know everything. I know the end from the beginning and you don't. Don't go down this road that seems to look so good because at the end of that road is a pigsty and God says I know it's there and so I'm telling you don't go down that road. Everything God does is for our good.

When He tells us don't do this, "thou shalt not," it's because that's going to hurt you. When He says do this, it's because that's going to be good for you. We just trust that God knows more than I do and God is a good God and so I say, "Yes, Lord." God, I want to enjoy You. You enjoy God by spending time with God.

My children like to spend time with Debbie and me. When they spend time with us and my girls with me, none of my girls are afraid of me at all. They're not intimidated by Dad. They tell me sometimes, they say, "Some of these boys that we go out with, they can be intimidated by you." I said, "Really?" They said, "Yeah." I said, "Good." That's a good thing. It makes them a little afraid to watch your step.

My girls don't because they know Dad. You can get close to Dad, but you don't disrespect Dad. You don't treat Dad like he's an old shoe. You don't dishonor him. That's the way we're supposed to be with God. We can get so close to God, but we always remember He is God. He's King of kings and Lord of lords and we always honor Him with our lives and with our lips. That is the fear of the Lord.

I love what theologian Charles Bridges said about the fear of the Lord. He said, "The fear of the Lord is the affectionate reverence by which the child of God bends himself humbly and carefully to the Father's law. His wrath is so bitter and His love so sweet that hence springs an earnest desire to please Him and a holy watchfulness and fear that he might not sin against Him."

Adrian Rogers, my favorite preacher, said what is the fear of the Lord? He said, "It is love on its knees." That's the fear of God. It's "God, I love You and I bow my life to You because You're the great and the awesome and the mighty God who does not show partiality nor take a bribe."

God wants you and me to have the fear of the Lord. It is critically important. It is sadly misunderstood. Thirdly and finally, it is blatantly disregarded.

Larry Nobles: Pastor Jeff Schreve will elaborate a bit more on this in just a moment. But first, as he has made so clear so far today in this message called "The ABCs of Life," we should be aware that Satan loves to make people view God through the lens of their bad circumstances instead of viewing their circumstances through the lens of God's goodness. He loves to whisper that sin has no consequence. Has he done that to you? Maybe your loved ones, friends, workmates, or neighbors?

Listen, if ever there were a time when people needed clarity, boldness, and biblical conviction, it's now. That's why Pastor Jeff is offering a special resource this month to help you make yourself and other people aware of the devil's sly schemes. It's found in his new book called "The Devil's Newsroom: Muting Satan's Fake News and Tuning in to God's Truth."

This timely new book is our gift of appreciation to you for your support of From His Heart this month of any amount. It'll help us to expose the lies of the devil. You can get your copy of "The Devil's Newsroom" book when you make a gift of any amount to From His Heart this month. Simply call 866-40-BIBLE or go to FromHisHeart.org. We are very grateful for your support and your gift today will continue to speak into the chaos with biblical truth. Again, call 866-40-BIBLE or go to FromHisHeart.org. Request the book "The Devil's Newsroom."

Now, let's get back to conclude the first message from the "Foundations" series. It's entitled "The ABCs of Life."

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Verse seven again of chapter one of Proverbs: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction." Fools. That encompasses lots of people. That's a catch-all term that includes lots and lots of people. What is a fool? The root word in the Hebrew for "fool" is a perverse person. To be perverse, if you look it up in the dictionary, this is what you'll find: perverse - showing a deliberate and obstinate desire to behave in a way that is unreasonable, unacceptable, often in spite of the circumstances.

That's a perverse person. A fool is perverse in his understanding and in the way he relates to God. It's foolish to reject and despise wisdom and instruction. To despise is to hold in contempt, to view as insignificant. Instruction is reproof. A fool is going to reject this fear of God. They reject the person of God. They reject everything about that.

"I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm captain of my own ship. I'm going to be the boss here. If God doesn't like it, so what? I'm doing what I want to do." That's a fool that says that in his mind and in his heart or who operates that way, that it doesn't matter what God says or what God thinks. Mark it down, it is very foolish to reject the fear of the Lord. Very foolish to do that, but so many people do it because they don't want God to tell them what to do.

In the book of Romans, it talks about in chapter one that that which is known about God is evident to every single person. It's evident within them because God made it evident to them. The knowledge of God, who God is, is evident to every single person. It's evident through two voices. First, the voice of conscience. God gives every man, woman, boy, or girl a conscience. You're born with a conscience, a moral compass. It can be polluted and corrupted, but it's still there. Inside, your conscience tells you there is a God.

The Lord has set eternity, it says in the book of Ecclesiastes, eternity in man's heart. He knows that there is more. Conscience and then the second voice is creation. You just look outside and you see what God has made and what does that tell you? It says that there's a creator. We know that if you see a creation, there had to be a creator.

If you look at my watch and you say, "Jeff, that's a nice watch. Where'd you get that watch? Who made that watch? Who's the manufacturer on that watch?" I said, "Nobody. Nobody made this watch. The parts just commingled together. This watch used to be a button. Then it became a speedometer. Then it was a steam gauge and who knows what it's going to be a million years from now."

That's just dumb. Who would believe that? If there's a watch, there's a watchmaker. If there's a creation, there's a creator. Anyone in the medical field, when you study the human body and the complexity of the human body, if you would have the audacity to say there is no God, then you are poking out your own eyes. It's obvious there's a God.

Something as complex as the human body doesn't evolve. The whole idea of evolution is kind of this way: you put some junk parts in the washing machine, put it on spin cycle for a billion years, and out comes a camera. It doesn't work that way. We know that. There are two voices that speak to us: the voice of conscience and the voice of creation to tell us there is a God.

It says in Romans chapter 1, verses 21 and 22, "For even though the people knew God or knew about God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools." We live in a world today where people profess to be wise and they have become fools.

Richard Dawkins, the famous atheist scientist, was asked in an interview with Ben Stein, "Where did it all come from?" Nobody knows where it came from. Ben Stein got Richard Dawkins, the guy who is supposedly so smart, to say, "We don't know where it started from, but it could have been some slime on the back of an alien that started this whole planet Earth."

Ben Stein said, "I thought we were talking about science. This guy's talking about science fiction." He refuses to say there's a God, so his explanation for how it all began was some kind of slime on the back of an alien, some kind of garbage in the backpack of an alien. It's ridiculous. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

It is foolish to reject the fear of the Lord, but it's not only foolish, it is devastating. It's devastating to reject the fear of the Lord. It's devastating to reject who God is, to think you're all that and a bag of chips and somehow you're equal with God. It's a devastating thing to reject God.

Look what it goes on to say in Proverbs chapter 1, verse 20: "Wisdom shouts in the street, she lifts her voice in the square. At the head of the noisy street she cries out, at the entrance of the gates of the city she utters her sayings, 'How long, O naive ones, will you love simplicity? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing, and fools hate knowledge? Turn to my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you.'

'Because I called and you refused, I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention, and you neglected all my counsel and you did not want my reproof. I will even laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your dread comes, when your dread comes like a storm and your calamity comes on like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come on you. Then they will call on me but I will not answer,' says the Lord. 'They will seek me diligently but they shall not find me.'

Why, God? Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would not accept my counsel, they spurned all my reproof. So they shall eat of the fruit of their own way and be satiated with their own devices. For the waywardness of the naive shall kill them and the complacency of fools shall destroy them. But he who listens to me shall live securely and shall be at ease from the dread of evil."

The Bible tells us, "Call on the Lord while He may be found. Call on Him while He's near." But if you reject and you reject and you reject and you reject and you reject, finally, you hit a point where God says, "All right, you don't want me, you don't want to acknowledge me, then have at it." And God steps away.

Then the destruction comes and the storms come and then the people cry out, just as no doubt in the days of Noah, when Noah entered the ark, preached for 120 years and no one came other than his own family. The people laughed at him and blew him off until the flood came. When the water started coming up, they began to knock on the ark and beat on the ark and say, "Noah, let us in!"

Noah couldn't let them in because God shut the door of the ark and the day of grace was over for them and all that was left was judgment. Call on the Lord while He may be found. Call on Him while He's near. God may be found today. He may be near today.

Listen, you might be one who's been resisting and resisting and saying no to the Lord. You're going to do your own thing. You're going to go your own way. You're going to enjoy, as one friend of mine told me who was lost, he said, "Jeff, I like my sex and I like my beer. So I'm not coming to the Lord because I want to have sex and I want to drink my beer."

Then my friend Jerry had a stroke and I talked to him after his stroke some weeks later. He told me with a sick laugh, he said, "I told you that I like my sex and I like my beer. I wouldn't come to Christ because I like my sex and I like my beer." He said, "Now I can't have sex and the taste of beer makes me sick." He lost it all.

I have an opportunity today to align my life to live in the fear of the Lord always, always. How you doing with the fear of the Lord? Non-Christian, how you doing with the fear of the Lord? Christian, how you doing with the fear of the Lord? Paul said, "Knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, for our God is a consuming fire."

Larry Nobles: Well, that begs the question for you and me today: how are we doing with the fear of the Lord? Perhaps you know that you're a believer that Jesus is indeed the Lord and Savior of your life, but you've not been living with a proper fear of the Lord and your sin has caused you to feel distant from God. Come back to Him today, would you? Confess your sin and resurrender your life to walking by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Or maybe you know right now at this moment that you're not a child of God. You've never asked Him to come into your heart with repentance and faith. Well, you can do that today. If you don't know Jesus in a personal way, sincerely cry out to Him with your heart. Repent, turn from your sin, and put your faith in Christ alone for the forgiveness of sin.

He promises to forgive you now and forever. What a great blessing and comfort that is knowing that you are a part of the family of God, a child of God, and He loves you so very, very much. If you'd like to know more about how to surrender your life to Jesus, you can do so when you go to FromHisHeart.org and click the "Why Jesus" link. It's on our homepage and you'll find a lot of free material there and downloads and some specific messages and writings from Pastor Jeff that'll bless your heart and we pray you'll do that today.

This message today, "The ABCs of Life," is from the powerful series "Foundations," and you can get your copy of the five-lesson series on a USB flash drive, CDs, DVDs, or MP3 digital download when you go to FromHisHeart.org or call 866-40-BIBLE. When you do, we hope you'll consider a gift to help From His Heart expand our outreach with your extra gift today.

Thank you for joining us today on From His Heart. I'm Larry Nobles, trusting you'll be here tomorrow for the next lesson in Pastor Jeff's series "Foundations." Join us for the incredibly bold and essential foundational lesson for our society. It's a message entitled "When Life Begins." That's Wednesday here on From His Heart.