How do you identify an individual that does not have the fear of God? Paul Thompson explains that there are a variety of characteristics typical of individuals who have lost their fear of God. This is a person who does not want God to be the ruler of their life because that keeps them from doing what they want to do. Thus, they separate themselves from the local church and other believers and alienate themselves from godly things while replacing that void with the things of the world. There is no delight or longing to read Scripture and to know God in their life. Are there ways that you have lost the fear of God in your life? Romans 12:2 (NKJV) “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

One who doesn't want the benefit of the fear of God in their life is one who likely doesn't want God to be any kind of Lord of his life. This person doesn't want the fear of God because the fear of God hinders them or keeps them away from doing what they want to do. They begin to, the warning signs for them, they're not going to see these things right away but they're going to begin to separate themselves from the local church. They're going to separate themselves from other believers who are going to help them and pray for them. They're going to separate themselves from position of being in a position to repent of their sins.

So They alienate themselves from all the good things, the right things, the beneficial things, the fear of God they remove themselves from, and they replace that with all of the things of the world. They're going to acknowledge, they're going to beef up and increase their craving for satisfaction of their own selfish desires. They're going to infuse themselves with with worldliness. They're going to bring as much of the world into them and surround themselves with other people who think like them and behave like them. There still be a level of morality because they're not going to go so far as to be like someone who's completely debased because they have at least some background in their life that they are a moral person.

But they don't want to be under the fear of God. They don't want to be under the jurisdiction of the law of God. They don't have any delight for it. They don't have any want for it. There's no longing for it at all in their lives.

Those kinds of warning signs in their lives, they show up in these ways. Alienating, separating themselves, not participating in the things of God, not wanting to read scripture for themselves. If they read the scripture at all, they're reading it for a quick little boost or pick-me-up or a moral nugget of something. They're not reading it at all to want to know who God is. And as they read it to know who God is, then it puts that fear properly back in their life so that they might want to fear God.

They might want to love God. They might want to obey His commandments. So those warning signs, just like any highway in the country where there's a warning sign, caution, slow down, road construction ahead, and reduction of speed along the way, you can ignore all those warning signs. In doing so, you put yourself at danger and you put everyone else who's traveling along the road with you. Because you're not going to slow down, you're not going to give caution.

You put the workers at risk, you put other drivers at risk, you put your family at risk or other passengers in the vehicle at risk with you. So completely ignore the warning signs that God gives us. So they're there for a reason. They're there for our benefit so that we might navigate through the difficult passage with greater ease or with with success even because we're gonna we acknowledge that they've put those signs there for a reason and so we're going to heed those warnings We're going to fear them and we're going to respect them and slow down, give caution, pull over to the side, make room for all that we have to navigate through. We're going to do that with greater success if we heed the warning signs, if we love that somebody took the time to put a caution road construction ahead, that's a good thing.

An individual who doesn't want that will do everything they can to avoid seeing those signs or heeding those signs or thinking those are signs for other people, not for me. You