God-fearers experience meaningful lives that glorify God. That’s the concluding message of Ecclesiastes 12:13. Here we see that the childlike fear of God (unlike slavish fear) is reverential, heartfelt worship of God as a way of life. In this message, Joel Beeke defines what the fear of God is biblically, and seeks to explain the importance of it in the Christian life.

It's great to be with you again. I just read my bio in the booklet. I noticed it said I've been a pastor in my church for 20 years. Well actually, in a couple weeks it'll be 30 years, so it tells me how many years I've been coming here. 10.

I want to, you determine me tonight to Ecclesiastes. I want to build off of the wonderful addresses Scott Brown has given us, and they have been wonderful. A great introduction to the theme. I want to look with you, particularly at verse 13. 13, we're going to read verses eight through 14.

Vanity of vanity set the preacher, all is vanity. And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge. Yea, he gave good heed and sought out and set in order many proverbs. The preacher sought to find out acceptable words, and that which was written was upright, even words of truth. The words of the wise are as goads and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies which are given from one shepherd.

And further, by these, my son, Be admonished of making many books, there is no end, and much study is the weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil." Let's pray. Great God of heaven, we pray that thy benediction would rest upon this conference, upon this evening, upon this particular address, and we pray that we would get better and better of an understanding of this comprehensive doctrine of the fear of God that comprehends all genuine piety in the Scriptures, and that at the end of this address tonight, we would understand it better, we would know its fruits more poignantly, and we would be beseeching the Holy Spirit to increase and augment in every one of us who are believers the tender, filial, childlike fear of God.

And also be praying that for those who do not know this tender fear, that thou would work it, Lord, by Thy Holy Spirit in their hearts tonight and throughout this weekend. We ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen. The Fear of God is important for three great reasons. Number one, it surfaces in the Bible hundreds of times.

You can't turn to any book without seeing this theme in one form or another pop up in front of you. Secondly, it's such a common theme that our forefathers, particularly the Puritans, used to describe a child of God or a believer as a God-fearer. That was just a common name because that so characterized the entire life of a believer. William Gooch, a Puritan, writes, No one point throughout the whole scripture is more urged upon us than this fear of the Lord. John Bunyan says, it seems to me that this grace of fear is the darling grace, the grace that God sets his heart upon at the very highest rate.

As it were, he embraces and lays the man in his bosom that hath and grows strong in this grace of the fear of God." In the 20th century, John Murray said, the fear of God is the soul of godliness. But third, the fear of God is important to consider, as John Murray goes on to say, because of the present eclipse of the fear of God, whether viewed as doctrine or as attitude, evidences today the deterioration of faith in the living God. If Murray could say that 60, 70 years ago, how much more we can say it today. So the book of Ecclesiastes is all about cultivating the need for and the calling to the fear of God. Now the book of Ecclesiastes is a confusing book for many people.

And it's confusing because many people, I believe, misunderstand this book. They misunderstand the repetitive phrases, vanity of vanities and such like phrases. I just want to read to you three paragraphs before we jump into our talk. Three paragraphs taken from our study Bible that we crafted to summarize the book of Ecclesiastes. I hope it opens a new window for you into understanding this book.

Although Ecclesiastes, you see, is often described as being pessimistic, fatalistic, or cynical, it is actually a book that realistically examines the issues and questions of life with the intent of directing all to God and to His fear. So to that end, the book is evangelistic, bringing man to a sense of total dependence on God who is the powerful creator, sovereign ruler, infallible judge and supreme reality. A proper understanding of God makes possible a proper use of life. So while the preacher directs both saints and sinners to the Lord, Ecclesiastes is primarily divinely inspired and revealed philosophy of life for believers. Here the conclusion of the whole matter, fear God and keep His commandments.

Now a biblical Christian worldview requires recognizing and submitting to who the Lord is. How we view God will determine our entire view of life. And how we view life mirrors how we view the Lord. Think about it this way. I digress a moment.

Stephen Sharnock, the Puritan said this, every time you sin at that very moment that you consciously sin you are believing that God is not. Because if you understand who God is you would never sin. If you had some apprehension even as an unbeliever of His majesty, holiness, reverence, greatness, transcendence that He is the ultimate judge. So even as believers every time we toy with temptation, every time we go over the brink and think something sinful or speak something sinful or do something sinful we're acting as if God is not. That's what the book of Ecclesiastes is telling us.

And so this book is saying to us since we live in the midst of the brevity of life that's actually what vanity means In Hebrew it means a breath. Since we live our lives as a temporary earthly life, remember the repeated phrase, under the sun, we can never find ultimate satisfaction in this breath of a life alone. Trying to find contentment in whatever is temporary is like chasing after the wind. Actually, that's the literal translation of the Hebrew that is repeatedly translated, at least in the King James Version, vexation of spirit. And so we are to take full advantage of what life entails, recognizing that our lot in life is God's gift for our good, but we must never view the gift apart from the giver.

So you can't understand Ecclesiastes without understanding these key expressions. Vanity of vanities is literally breath of breaths. A figure of speech designating the transience of life. Life is just a breath, just a shadow, just a moment. The Hebrew construction expresses a superlative idea and effectively conveys the message of this brevity by saying we live under the sun and we are traveling to a great eternity.

When we pursue the things of this life as our be all and the end all as Scott Brown called it playing games throughout life what we are doing is we are exercising this vexation of spirit. We are striving after, chasing after the wind. Yes, we eat and we drink and we enjoy even outwardly as unbelievers certain things. But what Ecclesiastes is saying is that we are to do everything in the fear of God. This is the conclusion of the whole matter, looking to eternity, fearing God here, and then we may eat and drink and enjoy, as we just heard, not in humanistic hedonism but in a true enjoyment of God, in the fear of God, in that contentment and full use of what God has given to us to sustain our lives.

And so we go to the end of the book and the preacher says, this is the conclusion of the whole matter, the whole of life. Fear God, in Christ of course, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of men." And so this verse is in conjunction with this last group of verses as well more directly. Verse 8 tells us that everything outside of God is vanity. This is the conclusion of the book. Everything outside of God is just a breath that comes and disappears.

Verses 9 through 11 say that wise, God-honoring words and proverbs are not vanity. The wise man then reverts back to the theme of vanity in verse 12 by telling us there is no end to the making of books and much study is wearisome. I know there are some of you students that like verse 12 because it gives you permission to say to your mom or dad that you've got too much homework and there's too many books and too many assignments. But you know what? I hate to let you down boys and girls but that's not the meaning of this verse.

But we read this verse in its context. What it is saying is that if we read and study books that do not lead to the end of the whole matter which is the fear of God and growth such books are useless. They are vanity. They are breath that will come and go. That's why Kevin Swanson in Burnings of the Soul was suggesting that everything in our education that does not bottom itself upon God, all the books that don't end in Christ in their essence, really are vanity.

They're a breath that comes and goes. And so all of life is meaningful only in this context of the fear of God. Only God fearers. And that's the central message of my message tonight. Only God fearers experience meaningful lives.

And so from the beginning to the end of this verse. The preacher is showing us that every earthly vanity actually shows the emptiness, the shallowness, the transgense of everything outside of God. So that the sinner is motivated to embrace a genuine fear of God. It's actually an evangelistic book. It's an invitation.

Because deep down there's an emptiness in every unbeliever's heart. Everyone who's here tonight who's an unbeliever, there's an emptiness in your heart isn't there? Because you want to know what life is all about. You want to know isn't there something more to life than playing games and just eating in a shallow way? What is the true meaning of life?

Job 28, 28, Unto man he said, behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of life, it's the beginning of wisdom, It's the beginning and the continuation of what life is all about. Now today there are many Christians who say, well, we don't fear God. We've moved beyond that. We just love God.

Well, I've got news for you. In the Bible, love and fear most of the time are synonyms. Perfect love casts out fear, said John, but he's talking then about what Scott Brown called those ungodly forms of fear. But the true filial fear is motivated by love. You see, that's the difference, boys and girls, between you loving your mother and being really grieved in your soul when you sin against her and it really bothers you.

And going down a highway when you turn 16 or 17 years old driving a car and you get stopped by a policeman and you get a ticket, you also feel sad. You also know you've sinned, but it doesn't grieve you because you don't love that policeman. When you love your mother, when you love your father, you have a different kind of grief. You see, when you love God, you grieve when you offend Him. So the fear of God and the love of God come together in the Scriptures.

That's why the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And that's why God says that He wants His children to fear Him. Oh that there were such a heart in My people, Deuteronomy 5 29, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always that it might be well with them and with their children forever." So the deepest wish of a true believer is to live in the loving fear of God. David says in Psalm 86, 11, Teach me thy way, O Lord, I will walk in thy truth. Unite my heart to fear thy name.

May I ask you and myself tonight, if there were no heaven and were there no hell, would you have a tender, reverential fear for the majesty, the being, the glory, the love, the grace, all the attributes of the living God. See, that's what a child of God can say. Thou knowest all things, Lord. Thou knowest that I love thee, yes, but thou also knowest that I fear thee because I love thee. So tonight I want to address three questions.

First, what does the fear of God mean? Second, how does the fear of God impact our lives as believers? I'm gonna give you nine quick marks. And then third, how does the Holy Spirit plant and increase the fear of God in our hearts? So first then, what does the fear of God mean?

Well, the Oxford English Dictionary says that the fear of God is the emotion of pain or uneasiness caused by the sense of impending danger or by the prospect of some possible evil in relationship to God, and goes on to say it's a mingled feeling of dread and reverence towards God. Well, that's a partial definition from one perspective, but that doesn't embrace the full meaning of the Hebrew and Greek words in the Old and New Testament. The Hebrew word in the Old Testament can mean dread or terror but it can also mean reverence and awe and stupendousness and a sense of wonder. That word is used in Hebrew for fear more than a hundred times in the Old Testament. Sometimes it does express the fear of God's punitive judgment, but also it expresses reverential awe and adoration for God in his being.

John Murray said, we are taught in the Old Testament for the gospel's sake to put away the fear of terror and to entertain the fear of reverence and obedience. And then other times the Hebrew word for fear in the Old Testament means to serve. To serve as a response of obedience in and through the worship of the living God. And in this sense we get a fuller richer meaning of the word fear because to fear God means then to live meaningfully, to live properly, to live righteously, to live in proper response to the God who is worthy of fear. And that's the meaning here in Ecclesiastes 12 at the end of this book, the summary of the book.

And how do you do that? Well, it's a direct contrast to the wicked. The God-fearer exercises fear of God by number one responding to God's Word Ecclesiastes 8.13 by worshiping Him number two in His temple Psalm 5 verse 7 number three by keeping His commandments Exodus 20-20 number four by avoiding evil Job 1-1 number five by serving Him Deuteronomy 6.13 and number six as we just saw from Psalm 128, by walking in his ways. Now the New Testament, the most common word to express fear is phobos which we derive from which we derive our English word phobia which refers to unhealthy fears that sink into our subconscious mind. But this Greek word can also mean reverence and awe and is used abundantly in the New Testament of the fear that we owe to God that is His worthy due.

Of the fear and trembling which are enjoined upon us in the pathway of obedience and perseverance as John Murray puts it. So the fear of God in the Old Testament and the New Testament really are very similar to each other. Original words are different, but they mean the same. And this biblical concept of fear involves our entire relationship with God that permeates every area of our lives. There's a German phrase that expresses the fear of God when someone has the fear of God in the German Reformed tradition.

It's mit rut ernst machen. Being serious about God or literally being earnest about God. Seeing God in everything. Wanting to live to God in every area, in my thoughts, in my words, in my actions. That is the fear of God.

It's a synonym for living a lifestyle of worship of God, expressing gratitude for who He is and what He has done. A believer is a true God-fearer, one who serves God with reverence and Godly piety. I find it so interesting that John Calvin wrote, the only reason I wrote the Institutes, 1, 200 pages of doctrine, the only reason I wrote it is to promote pietas, that is piety, God-fearing piety, by which he meant the fear of God. Piety, godliness, godlikeness, the fear of God, these are all synonymous with each other. Now we heard already that Martin Luther made a distinction between a servile fear and filial fear, sometimes called slavish fear and childlike fear.

Actually, Luther borrowed that from Thomas Aquinas three or four centuries before. And Aquinas said that slavish fear views God with terror even with horror. And when used in this way in the Bible, Aquinas said, it usually refers to the fear of an unpardonned sinner living in antagonism toward God Such as Adam's fear in Genesis 3.10 when he hid from the Lord. So this is the kind of terror that a slave has for a tyrannical master. It elicits anguish and terror and he is motivated to obey because he fears the consequences.

That's his only motivation. In the parable of the talents in the New Testament this is the fear that the servant with only one talent had towards his master. So he buried his talent in the ground. He said, I was afraid and went out and hid thy talent in the earth. Lo, there thou hast that is thine.

But you see, this is not the kind of fear that motivates us to be fruitful for the Lord. It's a fear that tries to hide from the Lord, that buries our talents in the ground. Slavish fear is afraid of God's wrath and hates Him and His holiness. It seeks to avoid the punishment of sin Rather than sin itself because sin offends the God I love. Slaveish fear never surrenders in submission at the feet of Christ.

It's always looking for my self-survival. It's always looking somewhere else than to Christ. Slaveish fear can go far. Slaveish fear can leave deep impressions. Slaveish fear can bring us to temporary faith.

A slavish fear can make us say with a gripper, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. But in the end of the day, a slavish fear denies the power of God in the soul of man through Christ unto salvation. And so at best, slavish fear seeks to supplement the work of Christ with the sinner's own works, and at worst, it openly rejects gospel truth. But true fear of God is childlike. It's like a boy who just loves his dad, but respects him, respects his discipline, enjoys his dad's presence, adores his dad, sees his dad as being just everything he dreams of wanting to be.

I was with a father and a family some years ago. The dad was about maybe, well, up to my nose, I'd say, five, I don't know, five three, five four, small man, and frail. The boy took me out in the garage, and he wanted to show me some things, and he showed me this large steel bar, and he said, my dad is so big and so strong, he can just bend this bar. And Then he went on and told me three or four other great things about his dad. He just loved his dad.

His dad could do anything. Well, he was being unrealistic, but you see when you have childlike fear, You believe that your God can do anything. You believe he's almighty. You really believe in all of his attributes. You live in adoration and love and reverence to him.

John Calvin said that true piety is to experience great awe. Listen to these five or six couplets of things he says because these are all the fear of God. You experience great awe, reverential love, heartfelt worship, childlike confidence, prayerful submission, tender piety, and profound joy when you begin to understand who God really is and what He has done for you in Jesus Christ. You see, that is childlike fear. It's pietas.

It's the heart of all true religion. John Brown put it this way, "...the fear of God consists in cherishing an awesome sense of the infinite grandeur and excellence of God corresponding to the revelation He has made of these things in His Word and works, inducing in us a conviction that the favor of that God is the greatest of all blessings in life and His disfavor is the greatest of all evils. The fear of God is more than life, says a Psalmist. The childlike fear of God prompts a deep awe, a profound respect for the magnitude and the holiness of God and his glorious, amazing attributes. Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth.

The fear of God sends us to our knees in adoration and amazement and with profound gratitude for his indescribable mercy in Jesus Christ. The fear of God makes us see who God is and who we are in His sight. It makes us realize we deserve nothing but death and hell. One stepped on floor one on an elevator with a woman, and we were both going to floor seven in a hospital, and I thought, well, I've got about one minute to evangelize her. So I said, well, you know, nice weather out today, and she said yes.

I said, good thing we're not in charge of the weather. She said, you sure got that right. People would be arguing all the time. I said, yeah, that's true. Then she says, you know we don't deserve this good weather.

I said, yeah, that's right. She said, well my mother always taught me that anything above the ground is the mercy of the Lord. She's evangelizing me. What she was saying was I deserve nothing but death and hell. I'm just a hell worthy sinner and everything above death and hell, everything above ground is the mercy of the Lord.

That's how you feel when you fear God. And when you fear God you see you are the happiest person on the face of the earth because you are always getting far more than you think. That's why the world and its philosophy makes you so unhappy because the world is always saying, stand up for your rights, young people. You deserve more. You deserve better.

So you're always unhappy because you think you've got more coming. But it's a sinner who says, I deserve nothing but death and hell. Because of that, I appreciate everything God sends my way. Even the afflictions, I know I need them. I need every one of them so that I would fear God the more.

It's the same thing in a good marriage, isn't it? In our upstairs bathroom and our master bedroom, we've got a little plaque, my wife and I, and it just says this, a great marriage is when both partners think they've got the better end of the deal. I'm telling my wife all the time, I can't believe. I can't believe I have you. I'm not worthy of you." And she says the same thing to me.

Well, that's great when you both think of the other one higher than you think of yourself because then you are always grateful every single day that you have got such a wonderful God-fearing spouse. So the true fear of God that brings the happiness we heard about from Psalm 128 always grows in the soil of a sense of my own unworthiness. It grows in genuine humility which never recognizes itself but just responds in gratitude to God. How could God be so good to someone like me? We have a student in our seminary and every time you ask him, every day you meet him you say, how you doing brother?

He always goes, always. He goes, far better than I deserve but it's all by the grace of God. All by the grace of God. That's the fear of God. Now this fear of God then provides us with a deep inner sense of peace.

A submissive calm that helps us avoid mere servile fear on the one hand and a sense of over familiarity with God on the other hand. So that God does not become, well, the neighbor next door. That I talk to casually as I would to any other person who is my peer. God is not your peer. God is not your buddy.

He is your Savior. He is your Lord. He is your Father, your Holy Father who is in heaven. And so when you experience that you see, this filial fear fills you. It overwhelms you.

It will impact every aspect of your life. Which is my second thought. And so let me give you nine quick ways in which the fear of God impacts us. Well, first is, the childlike fear of God will restrain us from sin. We already heard about Potiphar's wife, how she tried to seduce Joseph, but he fled away.

What motivated his fear? It was the fear of God. How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? Psalm, Proverbs 16 rather says, by the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil. God says in Exodus 20, God has come to prove you that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.

You see, why do we see such blatant unfaithfulness, immorality, perversity these days? Because the fear of God has nearly disappeared. So dear parents, do you want your children to live a clean, unblemished life? Teach them from early years how important it is to fear God with a filial fear. Holy Spirit alone can work it in their hearts, but if you model it and you talk to them often about it, the Holy Spirit can use that as a means to bless them and give it to them.

You yourself can be almost like a means of grace to your children when you model this. Now one way to do that, I used to tell this story to our children quite often. I'd say this, you know there were two children. They were going to visit their grandmother because their mother had given them some cookies to carry to their grandmother. The mother had said, Susan and Mary, when you carry these cookies to grandma, make sure you don't take a cookie.

Make sure you give all of them to her. The kids were going on their way. Suddenly Mary said with this box of cookies, you know, I'm hungry. Susan said, well, I'm hungry too. Mary said, I know grandma won't mind if we just have one cookie.

I know mom told us not to do that, but grandma won't mind. And yes, her sister said, we can explain it to mom later, how hungry we were, and mom will forgive us. And the cookies looked so good, so they set them on the ground, they opened the lid, and Susan said to Mary, are you sure no one's looking? And Mary looked around and she said, yeah, no one's around. And they reached for a cookie.

And then suddenly Mary cried out, Susan, wait, there is someone here. God is here. And The lid was put back on. The girls brought all the cookies to grandma. You might say, well, they did the right thing.

Did they do it out of the right motive? Was it just slavish fear? Was there a childlike fear? Sometimes there's a mixture. It's hard to discern in our own hearts.

But the important thing is that you teach children that God is always here and the presence of God is foundational to the fear of God. Perhaps you've heard the story boys and girls that there was a very sad, bitter old man who was on his deathbed in the 19th century. He was dying. He had some form of cancer and he wanted to make all his children. Imagine that.

All his children and his grandchildren atheists. So he had a sign put above his head, God is nowhere. Then he had a six-year-old grandchild who was just beginning to learn to read, walk into the room, and The grandpa said, can you read this honey? Can you read the sign above my head? And the child looked and said, God is Now here.

And God used it to the conversion of this man. From a child. But you see, God is now here. That's the way to live life. That's the way to train your children.

A lady was telling me in my church not too long ago, she's riding in the car, she's got her daughter in the backseat, she's three years old, and the daughter chimes up while they're riding. She said, Mommy, where is God? And the mother says, oh honey, God is everywhere. The child is sucking on a sucker and thinking and thinking. She says, Mommy, is God in this car?

Oh yes, the mother says. God's in the car. Child thinks a while. Takes a sucker out of her mouth. She says, God, would you like a lick?

Do you understand what the mother was doing right there? The child felt the presence of God. Now here. This is critical. This is critical.

When my parents had their 50th anniversary, I remember my brother saying, Dad, I want to thank you most of all for family worship and Pilgrim's Progress every Sunday night when you read it to us and you'd have us on your lap and you'd be teaching us about these different characters in Pilgrim's Progress, how the Holy Spirit works in the soul. You set the book down and you begin to weep as you told us. I remember it's my oldest memory in life. I would look up into your face and think. I can't remember a word you said anymore at that time, but I think God is real.

So Dad, I want to thank you. I never had to doubt the existence of God. You see, you're planting in the soul of your children with your words, with your walk of life, the reality God is now here. So that childlike fear of God is designed to restrain us from sin. Number two, the childlike fear of God fosters integrity, fosters integrity.

You know, there were many governors in Nehemiah's day that reigned through bribery and corruption. That was the norm. Nehemiah tells us that the governors who preceded him placed heavy burdens on the people, demanded bribes of money, food, and wine. Their assistance lorded themselves over the people. But what did Nehemiah say?

Chapter 5, 15. But so did not I because of the fear of God. You see you can't treat people like slaves. You can't work out bribes. You can't do these things at home, at work, in church, in the marketplace, at school, when you're living in the fear of God.

The fear of God fills you with integrity. You want to do what is right in the sight of the living God of the universe. Do you fear God with integrity? Number three, The fruit of fearing God with His childlike fear is that it promotes obedience to His commandments. Fear God, says Ecclesiastes 12, and keep His commandments.

You know, fearing God by keeping His commandments can be quite challenging. Think of Noah. He gets a commission to build an ark. He's obedient. He built the ark on dry ground.

Hebrews 11 says, by faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear prepared an ark to the saving of his house. And doing so, he reaped scorn from the people of his own day. And yet he did it because of the fear of God. Think of Daniel, he'd rather fear God and obey God's commandments than stop praying even at the price of being thrown into a den of lions. I thought often, if I was Daniel and I knew that the king had signed that decree, you'd be thrown into a den of lions if they caught you praying?

His enemies knew that he opened the windows three times a day towards Jerusalem, got down on his knees and prayed. Don't you think you would have just gone around the corner a little bit and said, Lord, I know, I know that I can't quite see through the open window to Jerusalem. I am going to pray you know my heart and then they won't see me and I can spare my life. But no, says Daniel. No, says Daniel.

I would rather be thrown into the lion's den and not fear God with childlike prayer to Him and obey His commandments. You see, fearing God calls us to obey Him implicitly, to trust Him completely, and to love Him supremely. God fear us. Therefore we'll also love other people out of the love they feel to God. Romans 12 is a catalog of the fruits in our lives that flow out of fearing God in our relationship with others.

Let me walk you through it real quickly. God fears will love others sincerely, verse nine, Romans 12, they will be devoted to each other, verse 10, they will share with each other in need, verse 13, they'll practice hospitality, they'll bless persecutors, verse 14, they'll rejoice and mourn with those who rejoice and mourn, 15, they will live in harmony with each other, 16, they will refuse to render evil for evil, verse 17. And so what happens, you see, is when you fear God, that obedience to the first table of the law generates an obedience to the second table of the law. The fear of God combines both genuine love and law obedience for love is the fulfilling of the law. That's why J.

I. Packer said this profound statement, without the law, love has no eyes and without love, the law has no heart. Number four, the childlike fear of God magnifies love for God. Magnifies love for God. Listen to the Puritan Henry Arey.

Fear is never severed from love, but the more we love, the more we fear. The more we fear to displease Him whom we love, and the more we fear to displease Him whom we love, the more we will love Him. If W. A. Faber poeticizes, they love thee little if at all, who do not fear thee much.

If love is thine attraction, Lord, fear is thy very touch. And John Bunyan put it this way, let God's distinguishing love to you be a motive to you to fear him greatly. He has put his fear in your heart and has not given that blessing to your neighbor, perhaps not to your husband, your wife, your child, or your parent. Oh, what an obligation you then have to fear the Lord. Remember also that this fear of the Lord is His treasure, a choice jewel given only to favorites and to those that are greatly beloved.

Fifthly, the fear of the Lord works covenant loyalty. Covenant loyalty. You know the positive aspect of the whole word we call covenant. The phrase that comes out of it, the response to the covenant of fearing the Lord positively has its negative side of throwing away all false gods. It means absolute loyalty toward Yahweh.

This loyalty presupposes the rejection, the service, the cult of every foreign god, the usurpation of all idolatry. The Old Testament and the New Testament alike call us to worship the living God in holy covenantal allegiance and loyalty. So the religious experience involving both fear and love of God, which is that the heart of the covenant relationship cannot be taught to anyone through the sheer dint of a teacher's will, any more than any other spiritual response can be communicated through human willpower. It's awakened in our soul by the Spirit of God. Six, the childlike fear of God trumps the slavish fear of man.

What an example Stephen is here for us. We read in Acts 7 that while his hearers gnashed at him with their teeth Stephen being full of the Holy Ghost looked up into heaven and saw Jesus standing on the right hand of God and prayed for his persecutors while they are stoning him to death. That's what gave the reformers and the martyrs the extreme courage they had to go to the stake, to be burned alive, to be singing praises while the flames are licking up their bodies. Yes, it was the miraculous sustaining persevering grace of God, of course, but it was also a very deep-seated fear of God that trumps the slavish fear of man. And what a difference when a believer has that.

And when he doesn't. Peter doesn't have it, he denies Christ three times in front of a little servant, girl, he has it, he stands up in front of thousands and fends off all objections, and 3, 000 are converted in one day. Too often our Christian freedom is threatened by fearing the ungodly Queen Marys of this world and not being like John Knox. For fear of the Jews, Joseph of Arimathea was a secret disciple for years. For fear the parents of the healed blind man declined to give their testimony.

For fear the apostles hid behind closed doors. You see when the fear of God decreases the fear of man increases. But the fear of God. Really as John Brown put it, this is my favorite definition of the fear of God. John Brown said, the fear of God means that we esteem the smiles and frowns of God to be of greater weight and value than the smiles and frowns of men.

May I ask you young people, you're particularly susceptible to peer pressure at your age. Are you really fearing God more than your friends? Seeking to please God more than your friends, seeking to avoid the displeasure of God more than the displeasure of your peers. You see, who you fear is God. You need not fear men.

When you fear God, everything falls into place. That's the beauty. That's the beauty of Psalm 128. You've got a contented lifestyle. You could be at peace.

You know, A year ago at our annual conference for our seminary, one morning a little boy came to me with his dad and he wanted to apologize, to ask for my forgiveness. I said, what do you want to be forgiven of? Well, the dad said, last night we got back to our room and we had little jars of candy all over the conference site. And the boy looked around and pocketed whole groups of candy from different dishes. And that night, they emptied his pockets.

They found 64 pieces of candy. His dad said, in the morning, in the morning you're going to have to go to Dr. Beekie and apologize to him. The boy was petrified, I can't do that dad, I can't do that dad. Dad said, you will.

I'll take you first thing in the morning." The boy was restless when he went to bed. He couldn't sleep for a while. In the morning he comes to his dad and he says, Dad, I'm not afraid to go to Dr. Beekie anymore. His dad said, well, what happened?

He said, last night I realized that I just didn't sin against Dr. Bicke, I sinned against God, and I asked God to forgive me, and I felt his forgiveness. So if God forgives me, I think Dr. Bicke will forgive me too. You see, when you fear God, when you live in the circle of his love, When you go to Him for repentance, it's easy then to repent in front of men because God is supreme.

Seven, the childlike fear of God promotes a healthy respect for the discipline of our Father in heaven. Like a child learns to respect the loving discipline of his father. So we learn to respect the chastening hand of our God. And we learn to see it as a badge of our sonship. And that comes from growing in the fear of God.

You know when you hear a believer say, well I know this is wrong, but you can't be righteous over much. You can't always be doing the right thing. Or, I know God doesn't like this, but, you know that that person doesn't have much of the fear of God. You know that person is in spiritual trouble. When you are living in the fear of God, you don't flippantly say, I know this is sinful, but God will forgive me.

That's an abuse of grace. You learn to deeply respect your father's firm correctives against your sins, and you learn to hate sin, and you see sin as exceedingly sinful, precisely because it is against a loving father. And number eight, The childlike fear of God produces a zeal for evangelism. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord says Paul, we persuade men. Paul's involvement was not a short term mission break activity.

Paul knew that souls were dropping into hell every day. He knew that God's dreadful wrath was exercised against him. He was convinced of the complete salvation that was available in Christ that made mission work an absolute urgent necessity. And yet Paul, even in the midst of that urgent necessity, feared God so completely that when he was thrown into prison he wrote to the Philippians, I have learned in whatsoever state I am to be therewith to be content. Even when it seems like the whole worldwide church needs me, I'm the leading apostle, I'm the leading evangelist in the Christian cause, and God throws me into prison right at that moment as churches are being planted and I can no longer preach, I can no longer evangelize, I can no longer plant churches, I bow under my sovereign God because I fear him and I'm learned to be content with whatever he gives me in life.

What a blessing when we can act that way. What a blessing when our children see that in us as parents. I was 10 years old. I was asking my mother a whole series of heady questions at that time. I came to her one day and said, Mother, if you could be any age you wanted to be, what would you want to be?

She said, 42. I said, oh, what a coincidence. That's just what you are. She turned to me and said, I've learned in whatsoever state I am there to be content. If you're 55 and your kids hear you say, well, I wish I was younger, what does that say about God?

What does that say about your submission? What does that say about your providence? You're talking like the world. If you're 63, be happy you're 63. Be happy you're not 35 or 20 and have the immaturity you had at that time.

Thank God for every state, every condition you're in. That is the sweetness of bowing in the fear of God under the sovereign will of God. Number nine, the childlike fear of God brings all kinds of blessings. Let me just give you a couple of them. The Bible says childlike fear in God results in general good, Proverbs 22 verse four, and social justice, 2 Kings 4, one and two, personal longevity, Proverbs 10, 27, Family security, Proverbs 14 verse 26.

God fears our promise, true happiness, Psalm 112. True wisdom, Proverbs 9. Divine goodness, Psalm 31. Provision of every need, Psalm 34. Divine protection, Psalm 33, overshadowing loving kindness, Psalm 103, promises of fulfilled desires, Psalm 145.

Thomas Watson said, The fear of the Lord promotes all kinds of spiritual joy. It is the morning star that ushers in the sunlight of comfort in our Savior. John Howell puts it this way, to live in the fear of God is not without its great pleasures. It composes the soul, expels the vanity which is not without vexation, represses exorbitant motions, checks unruly passions, keeps all within a pleasant calm, is health to the navel and is marrow to the bones. Well that leads me to my last concluding question.

How does the Holy Spirit then increase this fear of God in our hearts? How can we grow this plant in the soil of our own soul by the grace of the Holy Spirit? Well of course, the Holy Spirit has to plant the seed there initially in what we call regeneration. Prior to regeneration, we can have much of a slavish fear and God can use that in some kind of preparatory way, the Puritans said, to make us hunger for something better, to make us feel the emptiness of our own heart without a childlike fear of God. But only when you are born again can you have this childlike, tender, sweet fear of God.

You know, our Reformed fathers speak so much about this, this sweetness, this sweetness that comes from the fear of God. I once heard John Hestling give a whole talk, a whole talk on Calvin's view of sweetness and he referenced dozens of times Calvin used the word. I happened to be in the last row and he singled me out in the Q&A afterwards because someone stood up and said, do the Puritans also teach that? He asked me the question because of my love for the Puritans I guess. You know I had never noticed that before.

I said, I don't know. I think they use the word sweetness now and then. And you know ever since that stupid answer every time I read a Puritan book I see the word sweetness everywhere. Sweetness, sweetness, sweetness. It all flows out of this sweet fear of God.

And the Holy Spirit you see draws us to it. So we see it as a sweet thing not a bitter thing and we learn to fly to the Lord Jesus Christ as Wohamisar Brakkel said, the Dutch Puritan, hundreds of times every day, over and over again, I'm flying to Christ for help, for solace, for strength. This is the fear of God living with the consciousness in all that I do, darting up sweet little prayers to God. Lord, help me with this. Lord, come down, visit me here.

Lord, make me faithful. Lord, give me wisdom here. Throughout the day spontaneous prayers. That's what's motivated by the fear of God. What we need to do is we need to pray much for evangelical fear as the Puritans call it in distinction from legal fear.

Richard Sibb said, legal fear is always or most commonly before evangelical fear. It's the needle that pricks the conscience that draws the red scarlet thread of faith after it as the thread. You see the Spirit normally leads us first to a conviction of sin which teaches us that we cannot stand before God so we do fear, we do tremble, but then He brings us to Mount Calvary where we experience the kind of forgiveness that leads us to evangelical fear. As Samuel Bolton said, the law leads me to Calvary and Calvary leads me back to the law out of gratitude to fear God. So the realization that the sovereign God who should condemn me on account of all my sins has sent his Son to save me, even to adopt me and make me his heir.

That is what generates childlike fear of God so that we can sing Amazing Grace with John Newton with all our heart. And we can cry out, Abba Father, Father, Father, Knowing He will help us. You know in Romans 8, 16 there, where that cry is Abba, Father. It's actually, in the original Greek, a cry of desperation, a cry of urgency. When we are in trouble to have a father to go to, out of tender fear, and knowing he will take up our needs, is unspeakable sweetness.

Derek Thomas once told me he was in Israel and he was walking to the wall, the weeping wall. He saw a little boy being kind of dragged along by his dad. He was taking big steps over to the wall. The boy couldn't keep up. He was trying to run and then he got tired.

He was trying to run. The dad just kind of kept dragging him along, and finally the boy just collapsed on the cement. And he said, haba, haba, haba, haba, haba, haba! And the dad reached down and picked him up, held him to his chest, and the boy put his head calmly upon his father's shoulder. And Derek Thomas said to me, I never understood Romans 8, 16, like I did at that moment.

Abba, Abba, he holds you in his bosom. That is the tender fear of God. You know, that's what made John Calvin say, prayer is climbing up into the lap of my father and whispering my needs in his holy ears. It's a tender thing. It's a childlike thing.

It's an Abba thing. It's a thing that echoes Romans 8.31, if God be for us, who can be against us? That's what the Holy Spirit works in our soul. And we stand amazed by it. We're overwhelmed by God's goodness to us.

And then the holy fear of God begins to consume under the Spirit's influence every area of our lives. Horatius Bonar said, the fear of God affects our privacy with God, the confidentiality of our homes, the competitiveness of our work, the pleasures of social friendship, the way we observe Sabbath. No time is exempt from the call to fear God. Fear and holiness is practiced every hour of every day. Calvin said the whole life of Christians ought to be a sort of practice of godliness, a continual exercise of the fear of God.

The call to fear God is a whole life commitment to live Godward, to set all things apart, to sanctify everything, to the lordship of Jesus Christ. So the fear of God is an inward thing that fills our soul and then fills out and it flows outward extending to all of life so that as 1 Thessalonians 5 23 says, our whole spirit, our whole soul, our whole body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Thomas Boston said, the fear of God with holiness is a constellation of graces. You see, this change, this great change in our lives to childlike fear just impacts the whole spiritual quality of our lives. And we fear God both in big and small matters. Then the fruits of the Spirit become habits of acting and reacting to circumstances.

And we learn an emotive instinct that thinks God and speaks God and acts as God would have us to act. And what a beautiful thing that is. You know what it's like. When you're backsliding, you don't think God. But when you're walking with God, you think God.

When something happens, you think, what will God think? You want to think God's thoughts after Him. That's why you've got to be in the Word. You've got to be using the spiritual disciplines. So how does the Holy Spirit grow it?

Through the spiritual disciplines. He teaches you these things. What disciplines? Let me just quickly summarize them. There's four families of spiritual disciplines we're to exercise if you really are serious about growing in the fear of God.

The first is private disciplines. Private disciplines. To read and study and meditate on the scriptures with relish, like you're digging for hid treasure, to read sound biblical literature for your soul, to move you Godward, to pray and work for the glory of God's name, to really bathe your prayers with the words of scripture, turn the Psalms inside out so that the petitions and the imperatives and the praises, you turn into petitions. To pray the Psalms. Exercise private disciplines and you will grow by the grace of God in the fear of God.

But also exercise family disciplines, family worship, speaking to your family about the things of God. Teaching your family to see God in everything, everywhere. And then exercise church disciplines. In faithful church attendance, teaching your children how to go to church, how to Listen, talking about the sermon afterward, bringing it down to their level, catechizing them, and teach your children the value of the sacraments, what they mean to you, what they mean to a believer, how they foster the fear of God. Teach them about prayer meetings, why it's important that God receives signatures from more than one person on the petitions we utter.

And then there's community or neighborly disciplines. The fear of God increases when we evangelize and serve others, when we flee worldliness, when we exercise stewardship over our time and money, when we see everything belonging to God also in society and not to ourselves, when we see all of our possessions as belonging to God, our furniture, our car, our houses, and we dedicate everything in our lives to God. The people in our family, our spouses, our children, our loved ones, everything redounds to the glory of God. And so the fear of God comprehends everything. John Bunyan said, the only thing that stands in the way of the fear of God in us is our heart.

Our hard heart, our prayerless heart, our light and wanton heart, our covetous heart, our unbelieving heart, our forgetful heart, our murmuring heart, our high and captious heart, our envious heart, and a heart that stifles convictions to engage in the spiritual disciplines. That's my heart too often, and yours as well. So in conclusion, if you're not saved, the message tonight, all three messages tonight, call you to faith and to repentance. You know that the fears in you are paralyzing fears. You know that you're not moving in the right direction.

You know that deep down within you. And you know that the day of judgment is coming. You've been trained. Boys and girls, teenagers, you have got to fear the Lord with a childlike, loving fear. And you, seniors, friends, no matter how old you are, it's not too late, and your heart is not too hard.

God can break the hardest heart. You know, there was once a chess champion who was traveling through Europe, went into an art museum, saw an oil painting. The title of the oil painting was Checkmate. Two players on either side of a chess board. One was dressed up like Satan.

Satan had in his hand his own queen and was moving it over to checkmate the king of his opponent. His opponent was a young man who was biting his teeth. And the chess champion looked at that painting. He stared at it for a good long while. Finally, he shouted out to the young man, there's a move you can make.

There's a move you can make and you can checkmate season. Then he thought, how stupid. The guy can't hear me. But you say, you can hear me tonight. And I say to you, if the fear of God is not predominant in your life, there's a move you can make.

Repent of your sins. Confess your emptiness. Turn to this Holy Spirit who can give you the fear of God. Believe, cast everything upon the Lord Jesus Christ and trust in Him alone for salvation and you too can know the joy of fearing the living God. That's the way to live.

That's the way to die. And don't rest until you too can say this is the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. Let's pray. Great God of heaven, we ask that thy fear may predominate our lives, may encompass us, may encircle us, may undergird us, may impact us, may fill us, may overflow us, and that we may treasure the tender, sweet, childlike fear of God, valuing thy smiles more than the smiles of men, and thy frowns more than the frowns of men.

So bless us now, and guide us in every way, In Jesus' name, amen. For more messages, articles, and videos on the subject of conforming the Church and the family to the Word of God and for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches where you can search our online network To find family integrated churches in your area, log onto our website, ncfic.org. You