The fear of God is to be our safety net to cover all of our wandering ways, as well as our sinful indulgences and actions against our Creator. However, there are many who spend a lifetime of energy trying to walk “in His ways” (Ps. 128:1) or “keep His commandments” (Eccles. 12:13), without ever actually coming to a true knowledge and fear of Him (1 Peter 1:17). If we are to walk in His ways in a manner that is considered an acceptable service, we are to do so with reverence and awe “for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28-29).

I do bring you greetings from my wife, who usually travels with me to this, but because I'm scheduled to arrive in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Monday, She's not going with me this time, and so she's stayed at home. I also bring you greetings from my brother, Alex, back here in the room. He's here with me. Alex is the head of New Horizon Home, our girls' home in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. We have 46 girls, one boy, and then Alex has four sons of himself, and his wife is currently pregnant with child number five into the V yard household.

So I bring you greetings as well from my kind church in Twin Falls, Idaho. Eastside Baptist Church. They're a generous people and a kind people and I bring you greetings from them as well. Is anyone here from Idaho? Has anyone ever driven through Idaho?

Okay, great. Has anyone eaten an Idaho potato? Probably every single one of you have. Well, that means little to nothing. During the time of our stay on earth, it is an amazing moment that the Lord has given to us to be His witness to all of the world, to be a voice for His righteousness, to be a display of His glory.

And how complicated that is, and how messy we make it, and how gracious our Lord is in all of it. We've heard such good and profound and helpful teaching all week long, and it is my expectation that that will be the ongoing experience that we'll have later this morning and this afternoon. And it is my prayer that it will even be beneficial for the time even now. We've heard good exhortation from Jeremiah 32. I will not use that as the primary of the exhortation that we heard so good from last night and really from all of the messages.

But I do want to direct your attention to the 32nd chapter of Jeremiah as a starting place for us. In the 32nd chapter, in this particular verse, number 40, we do have this good directive information about how active God is and what God is specifically doing. And in this, we have this sweetness of what God wants to do by putting his fear into our life. In that 40th verse it says, I will make with them an everlasting covenant, and I will never turn away from doing good to them. So it would be important that you that you not forget that, That even in hardships in the course of life, in the experiences that you will walk through, that the Lord is doing these things for your good.

What a good thing it is to know that in advance, and how good it is to know that in the struggle, and how good it is to know this after the struggle, that God is doing, He's doing good to them. And the good that He's doing to them is this. He has put the fear of himself in their heart. When Jeremiah says this, he's speaking of God and for God, he says, when God says, I will put the fear of me in their hearts and they will never again turn away from me. Well, I really want to use that, the good that God intends to do, and the action, the active, the intentional active work of God is that he's putting this fear.

It is an accomplished work that he has done by putting this fear in our hearts. You know in our experiences of life, in the human experience, this is a common thing that so many people say. To err is human. That's what we love to say whenever we've sinned. That's how we comfort ourselves to get through a sin that we've committed or a struggle that we have and we can't seem to overcome it.

We seem to find some kind of confidence and some kind of consoling of our soul that, well, that's just the way it is because I'm human. Well, I really believe that Jeremiah speaks otherwise. Really, to fear God is human. Now certainly we have sin, and certainly in our human experience all of us are sinners. And so it is equally profound that yes it is, to sin is human, to have the fear of God is as well human.

But because of sin, that natural fear of God is not in us, and this is why in Jeremiah's expression of this and God explaining this new covenant, this everlasting covenant, and the active work of what God does by putting His fear in our hearts. So we can certainly say to err is human and it would be an accurate statement, but would it not be better for a believer to be mindful of this, that God has put his fear in our heart and so to fear God is human. The problem for many of us is that we're blinded with many of the impressive things of God, the blessings of God. We obviously don't agree with everything that a profound, intelligent, I would even argue, godly man like C.S. Lewis.

Certainly there's some flaws and some problems in his theology and complications and some various things, but I do believe that he, in his processing and his thinking, is helpful. He talks about how easily distracted we become. We have the splendor of God, we have the glory of God before us, and yet we're so easily distracted with garbage. You can almost imagine, we have a little boy in the room. We could have him tell us how fun it is to play in mud and to get himself all make mud pies and throw rocks in the mud and splash the mud and such and And it would be indeed a true experience of him.

The great tragedy is that we don't really Often grow much beyond that and how much fun it is to be in the mess when just beyond us, 100 yards maybe, is the splendor of the Atlantic Ocean or the Pacific Ocean or a massive spring-fed stream flowing just beyond us. We're so easily distracted by what that is immediately around us that we can't see and we won't see because we don't pick our heads up and look beyond. And So there's a great problem for many of us is that we're so easily distracted by the things of this world and we don't even, we don't take the time to relish and to take pleasure in the fear of God that He's placed in our heart and the work that He's done there is really for our benefit. In a moment I want to ask some questions around that. Why the heart?

Why not the hands? Why not the eyes? Why not the mind? Why not the ears? Why didn't God put the fear of Himself in our feet?

Why does He put His fear in our heart? Now I want to probe through that question. Not that I'm questioning God in, is that really the best place to put your fear? But I want to ask the question because in our journey through life I think it will help us to see that obviously what God is doing by putting his fear in our hearts is for our benefit that will have impact upon our minds and our eyes and our ears our feet our hands. So we'll want to probe through this in consideration to the journey of our experience in life.

I've grown to love the phrase that I've heard often this weekend, and that is the experience of the God-fearers. I think maybe I'm going to go home convinced that where I live, this is maybe not so profound or as impactful for you in your context of where you live, but where I live, it is so important that the definition of who I am as a Christian has to be described. I'm going home in my mind wanting people to know me as a God fearer, not just as a Christian. Because of where I live, and you may not know this about Idaho, but we have a large, enormous population of Mormons in my community, and they love to call themselves Christians. So it's a great problem inside of this, it has nothing to do with my message, I just thought I'd chase that little rabbit for a moment.

But there is perhaps a need for us to have a longing for the world to see who we are in relationship to the character of what God has implanted into our hearts as God-fearers. Oh wouldn't that be a marvelous thing. So in this blindness that we have that we're so easily impressed with the promises of God or even the blessings of God and we get it that those are good things but what a great tragedy that we're not impressed with God as much as we are with the things that He promises us. We can become chasers of the things that God promises and still miss God. Isn't that a great...

Wouldn't that be a great tragedy at the end of the days of your experience on life that you've chased after the promises of God and the blessings of God, and you've never once chased after God. I think that's a great tragedy, and I fear that that's happening. Again, in the context of where I live, it is profoundly true. The great problem is they don't know the God that they're chasing to begin with and they're just chasing the philosophies of men or those things that have become impressive to them. And that's both inside the church and outside the church, but what a great tragedy that we would not want to understand this.

This purpose of what God is telling us in Jeremiah chapter 32 and verse 40, The reason that God puts his fear into us is that we would not turn away from him. We know this throughout the Scriptures that there is this teaching of Scripture that we would delight, we would find pleasure. David expresses this about the commandments of God and his precepts, that we would love them, we would delight in them. We're so easily distracted. So through the journey of this world as a believer, How do we not become distracted by lesser things or even by godless things or even so?

How do we keep ourselves from being distracted even with the blessings of God and still not knowing God for who He is. So if we walk in our ways, the writer of Hebrews describes it in this way that our God is a consuming fire, that it would have impact upon us, that the ways of God would have an impact upon us in the manner in which we live our lives in the course of our days here on earth, that we would give consideration to the fear of God and His consuming fire attribute, and it would have impact upon us in our acceptable service and that which would be considered to God pleasing to him as Paul would describe in Romans chapter 12 So the natural man more fears himself than he fears God And this is why I believe that Jeremiah tells us of God's descriptions that this is what God's doing to help us to not fear ourselves or to fear other men or other people or circumstances, but rather that we would be fearers of God in this reverential manner, in this respectful, awe-inspired manner of living. So who even talks about the fear of God anymore.

So rarely do we even give consideration to it. And obviously, we were told by Scott the very first evening Thursday that you would hear from all of the speakers about the fear of God and that we would be from time to time speaking about this difference of the fear of men and the fear of God in relationship to a child's fear of a father, a reverential fear versus a fear of trembling, of my father is going to be harsh to me or mean to me. And those are completely different kinds of fears. We certainly have gotten good instruction from that in Scripture and we see that even here that what the kind of fear God is putting into our hearts is not a fear that we would be afraid of God that we would not want to move closer to Him, but this is a work that God is doing in our hearts that we might be able to obediently, lovingly, longingly want to obey Him in the course of our experience here on earth. So this kind of fear is obviously different.

This kind of fear is a holy fear. It's a godly fear. It's not the kind of fear that the Quran poses of their God. It's not the kind of fear that the God of the Mormons posed before them. This is not that kind of fear that even other cultic or other religious experiences would have before them.

All of those fears are all about you doing something and if you don't do it properly, if you don't do it the way that someone else judges that you've done so, then all of your eternity is in danger. This is a fear that compels you. This is a fear that draws you close. This is a fear that gives, as even I believe that the writer of Psalms, David, is saying, this is the kind of fear that shines a beaming light on your lamp of your forehead and it lights your path throughout the course of your days. This is the kind of assistance that God has put into us that we would not only just know the right path, but then we would want to go the right path.

So I'm talking about a God who spoke all things into existence and that kind of a God puts a different kind of fear into our hearts than the gods of other of other philosophies or the gods of men or the gods that we've even created for ourselves, lest we think we're better than the other idolaters in the land. It's a great danger, even among professing believers, that we must always calibrate ourselves to the truth of scripture, lest we be in danger of creating a God for ourselves. And that God would create a different kind of fear. Certainly we understand when Jesus says, when He talks about a fear of men and a fear of God and the great difference, why fear man who can kill you? That's worth a little bit of consideration.

Man can kill you, And he can. But it would be greater that you would have an understanding and a fear of a God who can not only kill you, but who can destroy your soul. Now this is again not driving us to a position of fretful fear or a bondage of fear or some kind of consideration that if I don't do things properly in the way that that God specifically describes him in every capacity that God's going to strike me. But it is this also we must not forget and you must not become apathetic and unaware of the reality that God can do these things. This God who spoke all things into existence, He's a holy God, He's a righteous God, He's a judging God, and He judges all people, judges all sinners, He judges angels.

This God is different than any other God that man could ever dream up. And he has the authority and the power to not only to destroy the body, but to also destroy the soul. Well, we still, really at this moment, I'm just establishing, re-establishing and reminding even myself of the things that we've been hearing over the days that will be beneficial for us in the application of how do we then apply this, how do we make this part of our everyday living where we are going to be journeying through this time that we have here on earth. And how do we do it in a way that one, and primarily honors the Lord, but then secondarily would be a blessing to others during the time of our stay here on earth. We know that it's temporal but you haven't forgotten that the word in Jeremiah 32 that this is a this is an eternal fear.

So God's doing something in the temporal that has an everlasting effect. This isn't something that's just for our time here on earth, it goes beyond this. But what a great tragedy that if all we do is think that we've got this locked up and we're secure and we just randomly go throughout the course of our days and never give interest or consideration to will this give glory to God or is this something that I'm doing that is an offense to God. If we're not careful, we only begin to think about the eternal days beyond the temporal. But God has done something, He's planted something in us in the days of our temporal experiences that have both benefit for us today and forever.

And it's a gloriously good thing. It is a right kind of fear. It is an honor. It is a respect. It is a reverence of this Almighty God of the Bible.

Even more so whenever you consider that this God came to save you from His wrath. Have you ever considered? My expectation is that probably many of you have. Certainly we have this understanding of who God is and a certain level of His authority and His sovereign rule over all things. But would it not be right also to understand that the fear that God has planted in our hearts is a saving work and that that too is the part of the work of the fear of God as He's actually saved you from His own wrath.

I think that that would, if I could learn to live out the course of my days with that understanding that God saved me from His wrath, that ought to strike a level of fear, of awe, of respect and honor of what God has done for me. I do not deserve it. Oh, His salvation is as beautiful a part of the fear, knowing and full understanding. And Not only does He have the authority and the power, and it would be right for Him to destroy both body and the soul, but then to see that He extends His grace at His pleasure, That too would increase his fear in our hearts and grow. So, do our pastors, do our churches, do the books you read, your favorite authors, take it even further, what about the music you listen to and the entertainment that you engage in?

Are you hearing a consistency about the honor that is due to God? If not, I think it would be wise that we give consideration. Are we dabbling in some kind of a mud puddle? We're having a grand old time, but all the while we're missing completely the splendor of God. Because in the course of our time in this life, we're not willing to acknowledge and realize that we are in an eternal moment, even in the temporal of where we are.

So will you base your authority, or will you base your opinion of God on the authority of men? Or are you going to base your opinion of God on His word? We must answer that question if we're going to be able to give then further direction to how are we going to live out our experience in the temporal? How do we live in the course of our days and be a blessing to others by the way we live our lives. Are we going to bless our families?

Are we a blessing to our church? Are we a blessing to our pastor? Are we a blessing to our community? Are you a blessing to the state that you live in? Are you a blessing to the nation?

Well, I believe those who fear the Lord are all of those. They may not be befriended by those, but they will be a blessing because in the temporal, in the moments of all of our experiences in the human experience at large, we are crossing paths and speaking in conversations and engaging in business with many people who will spend eternity separated from the splendor of God's glory. Is there anything about that that would have impact upon the way that you live your life? Are you a blessing? Is everyone, the Word of God tells us, again in that primary theme type of verse for the whole of our experience in Psalm 128 verse 1.

It's how blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways. So regardless of the outcome of our walking, whether it's to our benefit and to our good or is it difficult and hard, we can still be a blessed people, we can still be a happy people, we can still be a people who give blessedness to other people in our exchange with them in the course of our time here on earth. So in that consideration again of Psalm 128, our world wants to put a period early in that sentence. This is how blessed is everyone. And let that just be the verse.

But you know that that's not the verse, you know that's not the end of it. So many people, even those who are professing believers, they just cannot in their mind comprehend a God who would judge people. Well the problem is is that they're not chasing after the God of the Bible. They've made a God for themselves who wouldn't do that. And so that's why they want to put a period at the early part of this of the of the verse or of the sentence where it says how blessed is everyone.

How everyone's happy and and the only way you can be happy is to let people do what they want to do. Well this verse obviously teaches us different. It speaks different to us. It's how blessed is everyone who fears the Lord. How can we fear Him if we do not know Him?

Will we fear a God we've made for ourselves in our own minds or in our own experiences of life? Or are we going to submit ourselves to the authority of Scripture and know this God, who both has the ability to destroy the body and the soul and has the ability to save souls from God's wrath. Blesses everyone who fears the Lord and walks in his ways. So we're going to walk in his ways in this temporal world. So it brings me back to this first question that I want to begin to just unfold and unpack in the remainder of our time, and that is, why put this fear in our hearts?

Again, I'm not questioning God's decision to put it in his heart. I'm asking the question primarily for understanding for why he's put it here. Think about it. I ask myself, why didn't he put it in our minds? I mean, after all, what does Paul say in the book of Romans chapter 12?

You're to be transformed by the renewing of your what? Of your minds. It seems as though if there's going to be a renewing work to take place, wouldn't the mind be the right place to put the fear of God into our lives? Well, I'm not saying, and I don't want you to think at any level I'm trying to consider or make argument with God, that seems like a better place to put your fear than in my heart. Wouldn't it be good to be in that place where my mind is going to be, where it's going to have impact upon all of my thinking?

I'll address that in a minute. Why not our ears? I mean, we see in Scripture, especially in the New Testament, but we see this phrase even in the Old Testament, those who have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches, listen to these things. So why not, again I'm not asking God, I'm not arguing with God, that seems like the right place to put your fear. It's in my ears so that whenever I hear you, I would hear properly and I would know that it is you speaking.

Why not our eyes? Again, Scripture has a lot to say about our eyes. Why put so much focus and attention upon the things of this world? They are corrupt and evil. Remember, in Scripture we're told to lift our eyes up, lift our heads up into the heavens.

Where does our redemption come from? It comes from the Lord. Why not our eyes? It would seem like if we're gonna have, as John Bunyan would argue, all of these are gates into our bodies, into our souls. Our ear gate, our eye gate, our mind gate.

These are places where things of the world come into us. Wouldn't it be a good place that God would put, again, I'm not arguing with God, God, I'm not arguing with you. I'm saying, ooh, in our processing, wouldn't that be the right place? Put it at the gate. Put it at those places where the world's going to attempt to come in and let's just stop it from the beginning.

Why not our hands? Why not put the fear of God in our hands, wouldn't that have impact? Can you imagine if the fear of God was in your hands when you're on the internet? If the fear of God was in your eyes when you're alone and somewhere else, wouldn't it be good if the fear of God was in your ears when you're in conversations with people, and gossip train begins to roll the moment, and the whistle of the gossip train begins to blow its horn, and the fear of God would stop it and would guard your mouth from spreading it as well. The Word of God says Jesus himself saying, the follower of his who puts his hands to the plow and turns back is not worthy of the kingdom.

One might want to say, that seems like a good place to put the fear of God. Put it in his hands so that he will not turn away. He will not turn back. He will not look back. Why not his feet?

Paul the apostle, in his descriptions of the armor that God is that we are to put on and onto our lives the last thing he speaks of is these shoes well they are beautiful shoes the scripture the Old Testament even describes these feet who bring good news, beautiful feet. Why not the gospel shoes? Why not put the fear of God in our feet. That song we were trained and taught as children, Oh be careful little feet where you go, for the father up above, and I forgot the rest of the song, is looking down above. Oh, I shouldn't forget that, should we?

He's looking down in love, oh be careful little feet where you go. Wouldn't it be arguable in the sense of all of our lives where God would put his fear, wouldn't it be good that his church would never take off her gospel shoes? Well, obviously, the argument is empty. The right place for God to put his fear is in our heart. That's the very place that springs out of us who we are.

That's the very place that will affect our eyes. It's the very place that will affect our minds. It's the very place that will affect our ears and our mouth and our hands and our feet. If the fear of God is placed in any of these other places, I fear we too easily would set it down. We would walk away from it.

We would not set our eyes upon it. We'd temporarily set it aside. But in the heart, and you know this, you get this. I'm not being too oversimplistic on the matter. But you know this, we're not talking about the blood pumping heart.

We're talking about the core of you that really drives you. That's what makes you passionate for the things of God. That's a messenger of good news. Thank you. This fear of God that He places in our heart, it is the right place for us to love the Lord in our homes, in our churches, in our communities.

Certainly, in the course of our days, we may come across days that are difficult and hard. And you know this, that if your heart is set on something, the current temporary moment will not deter you from pursuing that which your heart is fixed upon. If your heart is fixed upon the fear of God because that's where God put it, then whenever it gets difficult and you're plowing up the Gospel fields and you get weary and you're tired and people are mocking you and they're slandering you, you won't let go of that Gospel plow. You'll keep working on that fallow ground of the heart of your family. You'll stay plowing up that hard, fallow ground of your neighbor who mocks you and laughs at you.

You'll keep your hands to that gospel plow in the workplace when your co-workers want to gather up and tell nasty jokes and talk nasty and filthy about other co-workers. When the fear of God is in your heart, your eyes are going to stay fixed upon that which is pure and good. When the fear of God is in your heart, you're not going to put up with garbage that wants to come through the ears, through either conversations or in music or in entertaining ways. Your heart is arguing inside of the very core of you, this will not be of benefit to us, we want nothing to do with it. If you leave it up to your ears, they will not walk away from those types of moments.

But your heart will say, ears, we're done. We're not doing it. Hands put your hands on that gospel plow. Ears follow along. We're to the work.

Feet shod yourselves with the gospel of peace now. Oh this is this is critical. In the course of our days, So what's the final way to make application? How do we consider these things? Look at it this way.

You know We have a part of the argument inside of ourselves and in our nation in a sovereign God is some of the temptation is let's stay out of politics and let's not engage ourselves there. But what if believers who understand that God has put his fear in their hearts, engaged in politics? They may or may not get voted into office, But could there not be a voice of a holy God in our land again? It's possible. Could it be possible that on election day, my trip to Haiti, scheduled on purpose, that I return home on November the 7th so I can vote on November the 8th, barring any kind of unforeseen problems that I've had in the past.

I will vote on November 8th, and the candidate I will vote for most likely will not be the President of the United States. Because God has put His fear in my heart, I do not fear man, and I do not fear the arguments of men that want to push me to voting for so-and-so because it might elect so-and-so. Ah, the fear of God is in our hearts. We can walk with our heads high without fear of men, regardless of who our leader is. What would happen if some of you got home?

Now, obviously, it's too late to get on the ballots in your local communities. What if you decided next year there's probably a city council position open? God has put his fear in the hearts of His people that we might have impact upon those who we come in contact with. Now again, there's no guarantee that they'll like us, but that's not why God put His fear in our hearts, is it? God didn't put His fear in our hearts so that we'd be popular.

He didn't put His fear in our hearts so that we'd be liked by by godless people. He put His fear in our hearts so that we would obey His commandments. Would it be a blessing if those whom God has put His fear in their hearts were in leadership positions in our communities? It would be a blessing to many in the temporal experience of life. Most likely, your public library has positions on their boards.

Now, I don't know if you visit your public library often. It's a place filled with a lot of garbage. But what would happen if God's people, whom He's put His fear in their hearts, were on boards of libraries? You'd still have garbage. But maybe that garbage could be moved to a room that's locked and safe and secure from our children.

Because someone whom the fear of God is in them has a voice, a kind voice, a generous voice, a concerned voice, not an arrogant, mean-spirited voice, but a genuinely concerned voice. You probably won't be the most popular person on the library board. But do you know why our libraries are filled with such garbage today? Because those whom God has placed his fear in have abandoned a lot of these places. Because they're difficult.

They're hard. We're slandered in places like that. We're ridiculed. We're made fun of. We're called names.

This is why God did not put His fear in your hands. It's why he didn't put his fear in your feet. That's why he didn't put his fear in your mouth. He put his fear in your heart. So that through the course of your days, you would obey his commandments.

What about your neighbors? You think about them often? We live in different kinds of neighborhoods. Maybe your closest neighbor may be five miles away, ten miles away. In Idaho, it would be possible to have a neighbor about 50 miles away.

Regardless of where our neighbors are and our neighborhoods of those whom we see on a regular basis, what if those whom God has put his fear in their hearts began to treat their neighbors differently? What if we were intentional about our conversations with our neighbors? Because God has put His fear in our hearts, we're now not afraid to speak truth to our neighbors. I had a neighbor one time who, as soon as I moved in, he knew I was a pastor and I'm sure he was thinking, oh great, preacher moving next door. First conversation I had with him, he said, preacher?

So I knew he knew I was a preacher. He said, preacher, I don't want you to ever talk to me about God. I don't want to hear any talk about God. If you want to talk about my chickens, We'll talk about my chickens. But I don't want you ever talking to me about your God.

Well, so thankful to the Lord he put his fear in my heart. Because I was so afraid that moment of what kind of neighbor is he going to be like? God puts his fear in our hearts so that we would be a blessing to others as well. So through the course of time and striving to be a good neighbor and not wanting to obey his warning to me, but wanting to be cautious and careful. I would take advantage of every moment to speak kindly to him, to speak of the things of God.

And I would still speak to him about God. Every Sunday morning, he knew I was going to church, and I think He eventually decided he would do no yard work in the front so he wouldn't have to see me going to church. Then I'd come home in the afternoon at various times and, oh, many times he'd put his garden hose down and immediately go in the house because he didn't want to have to talk to me. Until one day, a great tragedy struck his household. His only child, a daughter, was in a car accident, a head-on collision, paralyzed in a coma.

He couldn't hardly wait for me to get home. He said, preacher, I need you to pray for my daughter. It's an amazing moment to weep with my neighbor on his front yard in the very place he once told me, never talk to me about your God. What if God's people, whom he's put his fear in their hearts, literally obeyed God in their ways. What kind of impact would it have upon our neighbors?

Now I don't tell you that because I'm a perfect neighbor. I had a dog that ate some of his chickens. I was a bad neighbor sometimes. I had to pay for that chicken. My dog enjoyed it.

But what if, What if the next time you think about in your mind a moment of leisure, a moment of relaxation, a moment to set your mind at ease and you give consideration to the entertainment? What if you let the fear of God make the decision for you instead of your passions, instead of your favorite genres of life. And I get this. What are we to do with the school boards in our communities, in our states? Our public schools, you know this, you get this, you understand this, better than most in our nation.

It is a place that has been greatly abandoned by the fear of God. Are you a taxpayer? Yeah, good. You answered that question properly. Good.

If you're a taxpayer, you have a place, you have a voice to your school boards. Your children do not have to be in those schools for you to have a voice. What if God's people, whom He's put His fear in them actually showed up at a school board meeting while they want to talk about bathroom usage? Now Let me caution you here. I'll give you the advice that I've learned from Charles Spurgeon and that whenever you're in a conversation and you begin to feel your blood pressure rising and you know what it feels like you're short of breath and you know that you're if you're if you speak right now it's gonna mostly just be a vomiting of great anger and you're really not behaving a lot different than those who are wanting to do the things you don't want them to do.

I would say take with you a good large water bottle. Charles Spurgeon actually made this argument. He made the argument. You go out to the water pump and you fill your cup up and drink. Check your pulse.

If it's still racing, get another drink of water. Excuse me just a minute. If you're going to show up at your school board meetings, you're going to need to be a person of reason. You're going to need to make good, sound arguments. You cannot make your arguments out of emotion.

Your emotional arguments will win nothing. This is why God put his fear in your heart. So that when you speak of the holy things of God, they again may not like it, they may not appreciate it, but one thing you've done is you've spoken truth. You've not spoken opinion, you've not spoken political party, You've spoken truth. And that maybe it will land on the ears of another whom God will begin to plant, or God will plant his own fear into their own hearts.

You may walk away from that school board meeting, the mockery of the community. But can I tell you right now, there is hardly anyone whom God has put His fear into their hearts, that are speaking into our school boards? We really can't blame a world who has no one among them, whom God has placed His fear in them, begin to move and shift toward godless behaviors. We cannot abandon these places. I believe it's right to get your children out of them.

But God still has you in a community that has a school board in it, most likely. Would it not be of benefit? Would it not be a blessing? Do you pay attention to your state legislatures? It might be within your interest to go home and see what's on the docket for this winter.

Will there be anyone whom God has placed his fear in their hearts? Go and speak to those legislators about the godless laws they are about to pass. Again, you better take a water bottle with you. You might take two. I would recommend to you you write out what you want to say because the emotion and the fear of men is very enormous in those kinds of settings.

You actually have an opportunity to speak, you do, to your legislators. They may not listen, but is that going to be the reason you're not going to go speak? During the course of our days here on this earth, God has given his fear and placed his fear in our hearts for a specific benefit to ourselves. We would be happy people and he's put it in our hearts so that we won't become discouraged. If you put it anywhere else, we set it down, we forget about it, we move away from it, we become distraught with it.

But He's put His fear in our hearts for a purpose that we might be in the course of these days on and about the business of the Father. We cannot just put our heads down and move throughout the course of our days. We must, with the fear of God in us, move forward. Well, those are not the only places. I've got a list of probably 20 and it was clear whenever whenever I was writing these out I thought, whoa Paul that's way too many things you'll never get that far.

So let it spill over to the other things in your own life, in your own community. Think about the grocery stores you go to. Are there things that would be of... The only reason that those magazines at the front of the place are there is because who with the fear of God in their hearts ever says to the management of the grocery store, would you consider moving those? Not angrily because they'll never hear.

The anger of men, the Word of God tells us, James, the anger of men never accomplishes the righteousness of God. But is it possible that that store manager, he's just never heard a reasonable voice from someone whom God has placed his fear in their heart and asked them, would you consider moving them? They actually might. They might also not. Maybe you have another option of another grocery store you can go to.

Maybe there's another in your community that you could support. Not in an angry way, not in a manner to boast yourself up and fill yourself up with the pride of men, but rather being governed and directed in your life by the fear of God. Well, there are so many experiences in life that we have, and God has put his fear in our hearts so that we would obey him, we'd keep his commandments and doing so, we would be a blessed people. We'd be a happy people. It's okay to want to be happy.

I would say, I would let the fear of God govern what you're happy for. If your experiences in this life are the things that are not of God, then when difficulty comes your way, you'll then become the arguer in your community for your bill of rights. I live in Idaho. I get gun toting citizens. In my church, we probably have more guns in my church on any given Sunday morning than the gun shop.

In the West, Baptists don't check their guns at the door at church. We probably should, but we don't. But do you realize, if we're only going to be known as those who are out defending our amendments or our rights that are in the Bill of Rights and we're not ever there with the fear of God in our hearts then all we are is an American patriot. Analysts, don't you dare walk away from here thinking that guy doesn't appreciate patriots. Oh, I do appreciate it, but you believer, you follower of Christ, whom God has placed his fear in, you are not a simple patriot.

You are an ambassador of God's reconciliation. If the world takes your guns, you've still got your Gospel shoes on. If the world takes your religious liberties away from you, you've still got the fear of God in your heart. They have not taken away your voice, they've not taken away your eyes, they've not taken away your ears, they've not removed your Gospel shoes. Put your hands to the plow because God has put his fear in your heart to plow through these kinds of days.

Oh dear saints of the living God Almighty, this is the reason why we must keep our gaze fixed upon God, not because that's where he's put his fear into our lives, but because of the fear that he's put in our hearts, we can keep our eyes fixed on him. There was a sweet moment in my life about six years ago as I was concluding 19 days in a Haitian jail and my brother Alex here is a significant part of those days and it was unfathomable and unimaginable in our minds of why this was happening and why all these false accusations that I'm rolling through in my mind in the darkness of this Haitian jail of how do I go back home? I mean I've been accused of kidnapping and trafficking children. I've been accused of criminal association all while in the course of obeying God's command to take care of orphans and widows. How do I go home then?

How do I go back to my church? I mean, I don't have any contact with anybody. What do I do then? It would have been so, it was so tempting to just lay it all aside and say, I don't want this God, I didn't sign up for that. But God put His fear in my heart.

By the grace of God, the reminder of a sweet and God-ordained moment of a song that begins to roll through my mind, O soul, are you weary and troubled. No light in the darkness, you see. There's hope for a world that's dying. Oh, turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful ways.

Because God has put His fear in our hearts. We'll be able to, when the world wants to completely shame you, mock you and ridicule you, you'll be able to turn your eyes upon Jesus. Oh dear friends, What a pleasure it's been to have the Word of God open with you. For the impact of it, my hope and my prayer has been for months now knowing of my coming. Not knowing you, not knowing who would even be present, that it would be a blessing to you that God's word would have an impact upon your life.

I want to make something available to you if you're of interest or time is out and up, But let me encourage you to write down a website of consideration for you. Paul Thompson blog.com. I wanted to make available to you By the blessed kindness of God during our days in Haiti, and we're still active, and we're very active in Haiti, been active in Saudi Arabia and in other closed countries with the gospel, but if you'll contact me through that blog, there's a contact spot, and you just simply tell me that you were here at the Fear of God conference, I want to make sure you get a copy of my journal. It's free. It's self-edited, so it's bad spelling, bad grammar, all those kinds of things.

But I'd like to share that with you as encouragement to you. You'll hear vulnerable expressions of questions rolling through my mind of those days and the blessedness of God as well. So do that, please. I'd like to share that with you in that way. Let me pray.

Lord, we bless you for today. And oh, we thank you. You've given us this, as we've learned this week, as John Bunyan described it, to this darling grace of fear. Oh, dear God, May it be of help to us in the journey through this world. Thank you that you've implanted it there, not only for the temporal time, but for all eternity.

In Christ's name I pray, 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