In his sermon 'The Right Fear,' Peter Allison explores the concept of fear within the Christian faith, particularly focusing on Acts 5 and the account of Ananias and Sapphira. He distinguishes between 'right fear,' which is reverence and respect for God's power and commandments, and 'wrong fear,' which is a terror of evil. Allison emphasizes that the right fear of God leads to heartfelt obedience, moral integrity, and an avoidance of sin. This kind of fear, he argues, is crucial for a strong and impactful church that commands respect both within and outside its walls. The sermon also highlights how the fear of God influences kindness towards others and is essential for proper worship and prayer. It is described as a work of the Holy Spirit that brings about humility, submission, and boldness. Ultimately, the right fear of God is deeply connected to understanding God's grace, as it brings believers into a proper relationship with Him, free from the fear of His wrath.

Please turn to Acts chapter 5. I'd like to read beginning at verse 11. This has just completed the account of Ananias and Sapphira being struck dead by God because they are seeking to cover their sin. So we pick up verse 11, So great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things and Through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people and they were all with one accord In Solomon's porch yet none of the rest there joined them, but the people esteemed them highly. And believers were increasingly added to the Lord multitudes of both men and women, so that they brought sick into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that At least the shadow of Peter passing by might fall on some of them.

Also a multitude gathered from the surrounding cities to Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all healed. Then the high priest rose up, and all those who were with him, which is the sect of the Sadducees, and they were filled with indignation, and laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison." The Lord is our hiding place and our shield. May we hope in this His Word. Heavenly Father, You are our hiding place. You are our protection.

And we do hope in Your Word. For Your Word is truth. We ask that you might impress upon us this morning the truth of your Word. We ask that we may have a right and a good fear of you. We ask, Lord, for Your Spirit to teach us this morning, to open our eyes, to give us understanding.

Lord, we don't want Your Word to come merely in human wisdom, but in demonstration of Your Spirit and of power. That our faith should not be in the mere wisdom of men, but in Your power. And I ask that You would sanctify my lips this morning, that they may proclaim the gospel of Your grace, that through a vessel of clay the riches of Your salvation might be made known to us. In Jesus' name, Amen. So, great fear came upon all of the church.

Did you ever ponder or meditate on the fact that scripture commands us both to fear the Lord and not to fear? Deuteronomy 6 says, Deuteronomy 6 says, You shall fear the Lord your God and serve Him, and shall take those in His name. That's a command. Fear the Lord. But then in Exodus 20, when God has spoken from Mount Sinai, remember the mountain that is quaking and smoking and trembling, and it's a terrifying sight.

When all the people witnessed, Exodus 20 says, witnessed those thunderings and the lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and the mountains smoking, when all the people saw it, they trembled. And they stood afar off. And they cried out to Moses and said, You speak with us and we will hear, but let not God speak lest we die. And Moses said, Do not fear, do not fear, For God has come to test you, that His fear may be upon you, so that you may not sin." Now really, how do we reconcile these things? Very often, these are the exact same words, even in the Hebrew.

We can't say, well, those are two different words, And they mean two different things. It's the same word it means the same thing How do we reconcile this What is being commanded and what is being forbidden? What are we to do and what are we not to do? How are we to fear God and how are we not to fear God? One we call the right kind of fear, and the other we'll call the wrong fear.

The right fear and the wrong fear. The right fear we would say is, of course, irreverence, and the wrong fear we would typically describe as a slavish dread. But if these are two different things, why does the Bible put them together and use the exact same word for them? I would submit that it is because at their core, both of these fears, both the right fear and the wrong fear, share one thing in common. And that is this.

In both the right fear and the wrong fear, we are taking words and intentions seriously. In both of these fears, we are taking words and intentions seriously. We are putting weight on someone's words. Or we are putting weight on someone's ability to accomplish something. Because we believe that They have the strength and the power to back up what they are saying.

If a little toddler pulls out a toy gun and says, I'm going to shoot you, maybe your little children have said something like that. We don't have a fear of dying whatsoever, do we? Why? Because we don't put any weight on those words. We don't believe that little toddler has any ability whatsoever to carry out His words.

We might even doubt He understands what He's saying. And we don't think His toy gun can do anything at all to harm us. So we have no respect for that toy gun. We don't have any fear because we don't put any weight, any stock in what he's saying. Or take another example.

Consider Someone that works on the wind towers, you know, the wind turbines, wind generators, or radio antennas. Some of those radio antennas extend up over a third of a mile into the sky. You know, the one out by Shepherd over here? It goes up over a third of a mile into the sky. Someone has to change the light at the top of that thing, you know, the light that blinks up there.

Somebody's got to go up there and change it. They've got to climb that tower and change it. Or they've got to climb that tower and fix it if it breaks. Especially like a wind turbine. I don't know if those are quite as high, but they're still way up there.

People have to climb up to the top of those things. Now the people that do that, they're not in terror of going up there. Their knees don't knock and shake and so on. They go up there every day. It's routine for them.

They aren't paralyzed. They aren't trembling over it every day. But if you ask them, well why are you wearing that harness? And why do you have those ropes tied off to things? They will tell you so they don't fall.

See, they have a fear of heights. And they have a right fear of the danger that those heights pose if they should fall off of that tower. They respect gravity. And they respect what would happen if they fell. And so they don't play around with those harnesses.

And they don't play around with those ropes. They inspect them very carefully because their life depends on it. And they won't tolerate anyone else messing around with those harnesses and those ropes either. And I imagine they might be quite displeased if they found somebody messing with them. You see, fear, both the right fear and the wrong fear, is the result of putting weight, putting value, respecting somebody's words, their actions, or their capabilities.

See, the wrong fear is a terror of evil, of something bad that could happen to us, of some horrible crime or evil that could be perpetrated upon us. And in that sense we can dread somebody who might be able to do evil to us. Somebody could hurt us in some way, whether physically or even emotionally. We may experience anxiety if we believe that there is a possibility that people think poorly of us or are speaking poorly of us or defaming our name or our character in some way that might make us anxious. There's the infliction of emotional harm to us.

And so that's a fear. These kinds of fears are fears of something that's wicked, something that's wrong, something that's unjust. You see, God is never wicked. God is never wrong. God is never unjust.

And so we should never fear God in that sense. It's the wicked though that fear God in that sense. They are angry at God's judgments. They are terrified at God's judgments. But the right fear is when we put weight behind God's words.

And we honor God when He says, do not commit adultery by avoiding adultery. The right fear is when we love God, causing us to have an innate moral repugnance over the things that God hates. Because we love God. The right fear is when we believe God's Word that every transgression of His commandments deserves everlasting damnation, everlasting judgment. The right fear recognizes God's hatred and judgment of sin is just.

That God's hatred and judgment against sin is good. And the right fear trembles at that. And this is the fear that came upon the church after God killed Ananias for lying to God and covering up his sin. And God killed his widow for lying to the Holy Spirit and seeking to cover that sin up. This is the fear of the Lord that went on though to produce this powerful church that's described, that we read about.

A church that's having an impact in the community. A church that is causing everybody to look at it and respect it and hold it in high esteem. A church that is having an impact such that the enemies of Christ are getting angry and indignant at the outreach and the effectiveness of this church. See, without this right fear of God, There's just a cavalier disregard of God's commandments. It's an attitude that says who is God that I should listen to Him?

And the wicked do not fear God. They don't believe His Word. They don't put any weight behind what He says and who He is. This is how the psalmist describes the wicked. In Psalm 36, verse 1, An oracle within my heart concerning the transgression of the wicked." What is that oracle?

They have no fear of God. They do not put any weight behind His words. They don't regard what He says seriously. They don't believe what He says. It's because they have never encountered the living God.

Now, to really see and understand this connection between the fear of the Lord and this powerful church that it produced, we should really understand what the fear of the Lord is. What does the Bible say about the fear of the Lord? The first thing we see regarding the fear of the Lord, the most obvious and prominent result of fearing the Lord is that it produces a heartfelt obedience to the commands of God. A heartfelt obedience to all that God says. There is great weight that we put upon His commandments and what He says that we ought to do.

When Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Isaac as he raised his hand, remember God had told Abraham, go take this son, your only son, the son of promise, and Go and sacrifice your son. That's probably one of the hardest commandments that God could give anybody. Go and sacrifice the son that Abraham had waited years for, decades for. He promised that Son early when he went into the Promised Land, that God would make a great and mighty nation of him, and in him all the people of the earth would be blessed. And he waited 25 years for that Son to be born after that.

And now God is telling him, take the Son, the Son that you love, and sacrifice Him. And just as He's about to do that, God said, Do not lay your hand on that lad or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear Me. Now I know, God said, that you fear Me because you were willing and ready to obey even in this extreme command. And now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your only Son from Me." Or in Deuteronomy 6, verse 1. Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land where you are going to cross over to possess, that you may fear the Lord your God to keep all His statutes and His commandments, which I command you, and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, that your life may be prolonged." These commands that Moses said he was given to teach them so that they may fear the Lord.

Or Ecclesiastes 12, which puts it this way, and I believe it's even in the back of our bulletin. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man's all. This is the conclusion of the whole matter. It's like the Westminster Confession says, What is the main purpose of man?

It's to glorify God and to enjoy Him. When Paul is describing the man still in his sins in Romans 3, when he's declaring that all men are sinners and all men have fallen short of the glory of God, his assessment is There is no fear of God before their eyes. So a fear of God first leads to a great carefulness with regard to His commandments. We put great weight on everything that He says to us. Everything He says to do, from the greatest to the least.

We want to obey it. We want to keep it. Because we believe what God says when He says to do this or not to do this. We respect those words. And we don't ever think that, well, that's not important.

It's not important whether I do this or not. It's just little. You know, when we fear the Lord, We put great weight on all of His commandments. Secondly, it does lead to a restraining or refraining from sin. In Exodus 20, Moses said to the people, Do not fear.

God has come to test you, that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin. Proverbs 3 verse 7, Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear God and depart from sin. Proverbs 8 verse 13, The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Or in the New Testament.

You see, the fear of God is not just an Old Testament doctrine. This carefulness to observe everything that God has commanded us and to be restrained from sin because we fear the Lord and we fear the judgments that He rightly and justly brings upon our sin. That's not just Old Testament. That's the New Testament. Paul said to the Corinthians in Corinthians 7, therefore having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

Cleanse ourselves from all filth in the flesh and the spirit. Perfecting holiness in the fear of God. What's the basis of this cleansing is that we rightly fear the Lord. We put great weight upon His words. We accord great reverence to them because we know that they're true.

We know that He has all power. We know that we never can evade Him, no matter where we go. The farthest reaches of space, the depths of the earth, there's nowhere we can hide from God. He's the exact opposite of that little toddler. He can do everything that He said He can do.

And He does. And we sometimes forget that. We sometimes are not mindful of it as we should. We lack the fear of God. And when we see God's judgments displayed, His just and holy judgments, when we see His mighty power, then that helps to restore a proper fear of God.

The fear of God also leads to kindness to others. Leviticus 25 talks about slaves and how masters were to deal with their slaves. You shall not rule over him with rigor. But you shall fear your God. In other words, to rule with rigor is to not fear God.

Or a little earlier, therefore you shall not oppress one another, but you shall fear God, for I am the Lord your God. When we rightly apprehend the majesty and the transcendent power and glory of God, then we dare not mistreat people like us who are made in God's image, who belong to God. Who belong to God. If you have respect for someone or something, for their power, You don't mess with their stuff. You're careful about it.

You don't indiscriminately walk into their buildings or defy them in any way. Well, We all have been created in God's image. We belong to Him. And when we rightly fear the Lord, we don't mistreat one another. And this has particular reference to masters and how they treat their servants.

Leviticus a little later in that chapter, Take no usury or interest from your brother, but fear your God. To take interest from a brother is to mistreat them. You shall not, Leviticus 19, You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God, I am the Lord." See, it's the fear of God that leads us to treat one another with the respect that we give the Lord because we recognize that we are all made in God's image. We're all like that. We're all like one another.

Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God to walk in His ways and to fear Him. God also favors those who fear Him. God favors those who regard His words with weight, who believe what He says. Psalm 33, Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him. The eye of the Lord to watch out for, to protect is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy.

Exodus 1, and so it was because the midwives feared God that He provided households for them. How did they fear God? They weren't afraid of what Pharaoh might do to them. They put more weight on the words of God who said, do not kill, than they did the words of Pharaoh who said, you kill every male that's born. They disregarded those words.

And they kept those babies alive. And God says they feared the Lord because they did that because they feared God. And when you fear God, we don't have to fear anyone else. And because they fear God, The Bible says that God provided households for them. He gave them husbands and families.

Psalm 34 verse 7, The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and delivers them. We have the deliverance of God. His arm is strong. Psalm 34, two verses later, "'O fear the Lord, you His saints!' There is no want, there is no lack, to those who fear Him." This is the favor of God. He will bless those who fear the Lord, both small and great, Psalm 115 says.

Or Psalm 147 says the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy. Psalm Proverbs 10, 27, The fear of the Lord prolongs days, but the years of the wicked are shortened. The fear of the Lord brings physical prosperity in this life. Proverbs 14, the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life to turn one away from the snares of death. That's an avoidance, restraining from sin.

The fear of the Lord does that. And in doing that, it becomes a fountain of life to us because God's commandments are life-giving. They bring life. 1 Peter 2, 17, honor all people. Peter is summing up what is it to be a Christian?

How are we to live as Christians? Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. There he has it. Honor all people. There's that kindness to others, respect for others that we looked at earlier.

Love the brotherhood, the same sort of thing. Fear God and honor God's servant, God's magistrate. When we rightly fear God, then we can be like those Hebrew midwives, Shifra and Puah. We don't have to fear anyone else. No matter how terrible they are, no matter how great their threats are, no matter how certain their wrath is or how hot their wrath is, we don't have to fear them when we fear the Lord.

And so David could say in Psalm 23, Ye, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Though I'm facing death. Though the pharaoh is saying, I'm going to kill you if you don't do this. I'm going to burn you. And then Bukhanezer, I'll burn you in the fire if you don't bow down and worship my image.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me." When we fear the Lord, we don't have to fear anything else. Nothing. Because there is nothing else in this earth that can compare to the Lord. There's nothing else that is as powerful as the Lord.

There is no one else that is as rich as the Lord. There is no one else that is as merciful and mighty and good and gracious. There is no one else that can say to the Lord, what are you, who are you, what are you doing? There is no one that can stay His hand. Actually the fear of God was a requirement for civil office.

If this magistrate is going to be God's minister of wrath on those who do evil, one of the main requirements was that he needed to fear God. Exodus 18 says, You shall select from the people men who fear God. Or 2 Samuel 23 says, He who rules over men must be just ruling in the fear of God. You see, this fear of God is what leads us to recognize who God is, the sovereign over us. It's to be gripped with His power that He rules all things, that the heart of the King is in His hand, that nations are but as a speck of dust on the scales.

It's the fear of God that we bow before Him in humility. It's the fear of God that leads us to serve Him with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength, to offer Our bodies as living sacrifices. It's the fear of God. See, this fear of God is an attribute of God, just like His holiness, His justice, His goodness, His truth. God is a God to be feared.

It's used as a name of God. Did you ever think about that? We think about Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide, the Lord is our healer, the Lord is our righteousness, the Lord is our banner, but the Lord is to be feared as well. In his final meeting with Laban, Jacob used fear as the name of God. He said, unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac had been with me.

The God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. But Jacob said the God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac. He used fear as a name of God. God is to be feared. He swore by the fear of His Father Isaac.

We're only to swear by God's name. He said the God of Abraham, in that same chapter, the God of Abraham, the God of Nahor, and the God of their father judged between us, and Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac." See, Deuteronomy 6 says, "'You shall fear God and take oaths in His name.'" And when Jacob took an oath In the fear of Isaac, he was taking an oath in God's name. He was using fear as a name of God. God is to be feared. It's also used of the Scriptures.

Psalm 19 talks about the Word of God, right? The statutes of the Lord, the precepts of the Lord, the commands of the Lord. Those are all references to the Word of God. And in verse 9 it says, The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. It equates the fear of the Lord as a word for the Scriptures, just like the statutes of the Lord, the commands of the Lord, the judgments of the Lord.

The fear of the Lord is a reference to the Word of God. The judgments of the Lord are righteous and true. The fear of the Lord. The Word of God is clean, enduring forever. See, the Word of God is where we learn the right fear of the Lord.

The fear of the Lord. And we learn about that fear. It removes all other fears in the Scriptures. And so they are called the fear of the Lord. And This word is used to describe God Himself.

God is called a fearful God in the Scriptures. Now, Deuteronomy 7. You shall not be terrified of them, speaking of the people in the land of Canaan that they were going to go to. The people that they said were giants, that they were grasshoppers. And Moses says, you should not be terrified of them, for the Lord your God, the great and awesome God is among you.

The great and awesome God. That word that's translated awesome is the common verb to fear. Yareh. Fear. That's the common word for fear in the Bible.

God is fearful. The King James puts it as the great and terrible God. The great and terrible God. One who strikes fear in all those who encounter Him. Now, our modern tendency is to remake God and to downplay God's vengeance and His wrath.

And I think that has somewhat influenced the translators in their word choice here. But There are a number of other passages that describe God as the one who strikes terror in people. And I'll read them in the King James, so you get their choice of words. Deuteronomy 10. For the Lord your God is the God of hosts the Lord of lords a great God a mighty and a terrible Which regards not persons nor takes rewards or Nehemiah I beseech you a Lord of heaven the great and terrible God and that those that were terrible is fearful It's it's fearful terror terror The God that keeps covenant and mercy for them that love Him and observe His commandments.

Or Nehemiah 4. Nehemiah says, I looked and rose up and said to the nobles and the rulers and the rest of the people, but be not ye afraid of them. Remember the Lord which is great and terrible. Great and one who strikes terror. One who is to be feared.

And what should they do when they remember that God is terrible? Fight for your brother and your sons and your daughters, your wives, and your houses. Or later on in Nehemiah. Now therefore our God, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God. The God who strikes terror.

The God who is a fearsome God who keeps covenant and mercy. Let not all the trouble seem little before you that has come upon us on our kings, our princes, and our priests, and our prophets, our fathers, and our people. He addressed God as a terrible God. A God who is fearsome. Or Daniel said, I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, And I said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God.

That's the word for fear. The great and dreadful God. Do we think of God as a dreadful God? A God who is to be feared? A God who strikes terror?

It is used also of the faith. The fear of the Lord refers to faith itself. David says in Psalm 34, Come, you the children, and listen to me, and I will teach you the fear of God. I will teach you the faith. I will teach you the Word of God.

Or we looked at that passage in Ecclesiastes 12 that says the same thing. Now in describing the New Covenant in Jeremiah 32, Jeremiah shows us that this fear of God is the work of the Holy Spirit. The fear of God is the work of the Holy Spirit. He describes, everybody understands that what He's describing in Jeremiah, there in the New Covenant, where He's describing the work of the Holy Spirit. He says, they shall be My people and I will be their God.

He's speaking about He would make a New Covenant with the people that came back from Babylon. Not like the covenant which their fathers broke. But He would make a new covenant with the people that came back from Babylon. Not like the covenant which their fathers broke. But He would make a new covenant with them.

He would put His law in their hearts. He said, they will be my people and I will be their God. Then I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever for the good of them and their children after them. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them that will not turn away from doing good. I will not turn away from doing good, but I will put my fear in their hearts, so they will not depart from Me." That whole chapter, a big part of that chapter is speaking about God making this new covenant where He would put His law upon our hearts and He would give to us His Spirit and give to us a right heart.

This is the work of the Holy Spirit that does this. And so this fear of God is the work of the Holy Spirit. And you see now why this fear of God is in God's people, and it's not in the wicked. It's not something we can conjure up in ourselves. It's the work of the Holy Spirit.

And so it was this good fear of God worked in them by the Holy Spirit that made this early church strong and powerful in their impact on the world around them. Because the fear of God, which is the work of the Holy Spirit, brings humility, it brings submission, it brings contrition, it brings self-control, it brings a boldness, And this is what we see in this church. First of all, fear followed the judgment of God. Fear came upon all those in the church. Great fear came upon all the church as a result of this judgment.

Notice that it followed a judgment. It followed God revealing Himself, revealing a part of His character like He was revealed in Exodus 20 at Mount Sinai. God revealed Himself, something of His character here. And it brought fear on the church. A fear that brought humility, that brought submission and self-control and a boldness.

It served to purify the church secondly. It had a sanctifying effect on the church. They had more reverence for God as a result of witnessing His judgment on sin. They had a greater sense of the wrath of God for their sin. And they had more appreciation of Christ, their Savior, who bore that wrath.

They had a greater love for Christ, who bore that wrath in their place. They honored Christ. John Calvin said, nothing is more powerful to overcome temptation than the fear of God. And so fear was a restraint even on the unbelievers. The unbelievers dared not join the church.

As it said that in verse 13, none of the rest dared to join them. See, this fear of God had a purifying effect on the church. It sanctified those who feared God. And it kept away, it drove out those who did not fear God. It was a restraint even on their sin.

Remember a little later in this chapter, Gamaliel restrained the Sanhedrin from the greater sin of murdering the apostles because of the fear of God. Remember, He said His reason that they shouldn't murder the apostles was that they might be found fighting against God, and they wouldn't want to do that. So this fear of God, this fear of being found to fight against God, restrained even the Sanhedrin from murdering the apostles. They wanted to. Now this judgment of God was obviously discussed outside the church.

Verse 11 says, Great fear came upon all who heard these things." So this was something that people were talking about even outside the church. It was news. And the judgment of God brought great fear and caused those outside the church to have respect for God and His people. None of the rest dared to join them, but the people esteemed them highly. They didn't dare to join them, but they had a respect for them.

They were held in high esteem. And I would submit the church today is not feared by those outside the church. God is not feared and His people are not feared because we have lost this fear of God. See, all too often, we want to take away all fear of God from our worship. We want to make everybody feel comfortable and not be offended and not be confronted.

But this early church was just the opposite. The fear of God brought a respect for the church to those outside the church. What do we learn from this? Well, I have four things. The first is, when we fear any of these other things, we are obviously not fearing God.

When we fear the threat of a man who says he'll kill us if we don't stop preaching, or he'll imprison us if we don't stop growing our own food, or he'll debank us, or if we don't refer to some man masquerading as a lady by she, then we are putting more weight behind the words of some man than we are putting in the Word of God who made that man. And when we do that, we are dishonoring God. When we put more weight behind the words of people than we are of God, in effect, we have another God. We have substituted that person and their words for the Word of God. And we are in fear of them and not of God.

We have another God. We don't want to have any other gods before the face of Jehovah. We don't want to put more weight on any human's words, or their capabilities or their actions than we put on the Word of God. Secondly, I think the right fear of God influences our prayer and our worship. We don't pray like, hey daddy, my car is not working.

Can you send a mechanic to fix it? I love you, Daddy. Bye. I've got to go." We don't pray like that because it lacks the fear of God. It lacks reverence.

And we shouldn't worship like that either. We are in the presence of a fearful and terrifying God. It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God. And that should breed a reverence, a sobriety in our worship and in our praying. A proper fear of God is necessary for a right relationship with Him.

Psalm 25, 14 says, The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and He will show them, He will show those who fear Him, His covenant. Covenant is that word for relationship with God, the relationship that the Lord has with us. And it's those who fear Him with whom He has this relationship. He relates to us as families. And that's why He commands believing parents to baptize their children.

It's a part of our relationship with Him. And a necessary part of that relationship is that we fear Him, that we reverence Him, that we honor Him. The secret of the Lord. That's referring to this fellowship, this communion that we have. Remember Jesus said that the Lord shares His secrets, what He's going to do with His friends.

Remember the Lord shared with Abraham what He was going to do. Because that's what we do with friends. The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him. We fear Him. And so our worship also ought to be reverent.

Now fourthly, we rightly fear God because of our sin. Adam, remember, was afraid of God in the garden after he had sinned. He ran away and hid, and God said, Where are you? And Adam said, I'm afraid. I ran because I was afraid.

And God never said to him, do not be afraid. Did you notice that? Never said there, Adam, don't be afraid. Because Adam's fear of God was right. Adam had sinned.

But the Gospel message is that God's grace removes the judgment so that we do not need to be afraid. We do not need to be afraid. With God there is forgiveness so that He may be feared. The Gospel message is that God's grace removes that judgment, And we don't need to be afraid. When Mary was afraid, remember when the angel Gabriel came to her to announce the birth of Jesus, she's afraid.

And the angel said to her, Mary, don't be afraid. For you have found favor with the Lord. The Lord has given you grace to you. You've found favor with Him." That's the wonder of the Gospel. That we do not have to be afraid of the wrath of God because we have found favor with God, that God is gracious to all those who call upon Him.

The right fear of God believes and puts great weight on God's Word that if we confess with our mouth that He is the Lord and believe in our heart that He's died for us, then our debt is paid, our sin is forgiven, God's wrath is propitiated and turned away from us. That's the Gospel. And when we fear God, we believe those words. And we rest in Him. And we aren't afraid.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your sacrifice. We thank You that you have propitiated the wrath of God. Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief. Help us, Lord, to fear You.

To remember Your judgments. To put great weight in respect and reverence upon all that You say and all that You do and all that You are. Your power and Your wisdom and Your goodness, That you are good. You are always good. Help us Lord to remember these things.

To fear you rightly. By the work of the Holy Spirit we ask in Jesus name, Amen.