In the sermon 'Just and Unjust Concealment' by Peter Allison, the speaker explores the biblical distinction between just and unjust concealment of truth. The sermon emphasizes two types of fear: filial fear, which is rooted in reverence and love for God, and slavish fear, which arises from guilt and dread. These concepts are crucial in understanding the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom, as stated in Proverbs. The sermon defines lying as the unjust handling of truth, contrasting it with just concealment, which is permissible and even commanded by God in certain contexts. Biblical examples, such as the actions of the Hebrew midwives and Rahab, demonstrate how the fear of the Lord leads to righteous acts of concealment that save lives. The sermon also highlights the blessings associated with fearing the Lord, which include confidence, protection, and the prosperity of one's children. Additionally, the fear of the Lord serves as a deterrent to sin, encouraging believers to live in a way that pleases God. The message concludes with a call for Christians to cultivate a filial fear of God, which brings life and blessings.

Our text this morning is Proverbs 14. To read verses 24-27. Sorry, 25 on it. A true witness delivers souls, but a deceitful witness speaks lies. In the fear of the Lord there is a strong confidence, and His children will have a place of refuge.

The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, to turn one away from the snares of death." Thus far the reading of God's Word. May He add His blessing to it. Heavenly Father, your Word is truth. We ask that you would instruct us this morning out of it. We ask that you would sanctify us by it.

We ask that that spirit of truth and of wisdom and of revelation might rest upon us. That the proclamation of your Word May not return to you void, but accomplish the purpose for which it has been sent. This we ask of you, through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen. Well, when I was a little boy, there are a couple of times that I can remember watching out of the window for my father to come home.

Given the work that my father had, he wasn't always coming and going like that. But I remember there were times where he was. And to this little boy, Daddy was strong. Daddy was big. And Daddy was good.

Daddy was awesome. His strength and His goodness, His ability inspired admiration and a bit of awe in this little boy. In fact, Proverbs tells us that the glory of children is their father. The glory of children is their father. In fact, when he got home, if in that moment of awe, if he asked us to do something, we were very quick to do it.

In fact, as my younger siblings came along, we may even vie with one another for the privilege of doing whatever it was that He asked that we could serve Him. We wanted to be the one to deliver the requested object, perform the task, and receive the thanks from Him. Now this reverence or this awe that springs from love and devotion. In the Bible, it's called fear. Fear.

And this is what We mean by the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord. We call this a filial fear. A family fear. A fear that comes from wonder and amazement, from reverence, from honor.

But there is another kind of fear in the Bible as well. That's the fear I had when I had done wrong, when I had sinned and was dreading my father coming home. That's a very different sort of fear. That's the fear that makes you want to run and hide. We'd really prefer he didn't come home that night.

Prefer he got busy in the office and had to work past bedtime. Because We really didn't want to be in His presence at that point. We were afraid. I can remember that, those times. Thankfully, not many because my mother was wise enough to know that she needed to take care of those moments of discipline.

But sometimes, sometimes, it wasn't handled. It was reserved for Father. That's the fear that Adam had when he hid from God, when God came to meet with him in the evening. That's a kind of slavish, we call it a slavish fear. It is the consequence of guilt.

It's the painful apprehension of future pain. And of course, this is something very different from a filial fear. But we need to understand these two different types of fear as they are used in the Bible. Because if we don't understand these two differences, then we won't really understand what the Bible means when it speaks about the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord.

It's throughout Proverbs. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That's not talking about a slavish fear, apprehension, dread of future pain. That's speaking about a filial fear. Reverence and honor.

And honor. So this morning our text is about this fear of the Lord and the blessings that flow from it. There are a number of blessings that are mentioned in our text, and we're going to look at them this morning. But The first thing we need to understand is that the fear of the Lord is true. To fear the Lord is to rightly handle the truth.

A true witness delivers souls, but a deceitful witness speaks lies. We need to understand what is the difference between these two things. What is lying? What is deception? Lying.

What is deception? The confession or catechism defines or gives us a rather full answer as to what is involved in lying. What is included in the Ninth Commandment, You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." It talks about, in the larger catechism, question 145, talks about the things that we would expect, lying, deceiving, saying something that is not true and so forth, calling good evil and evil good. But it also talks about here some things that maybe might catch us off guard. Concealing the truth.

Concealing the truth is lying? Concealing the truth. Why is concealing the truth lying? Isn't lying concealing the truth? Concealing the truth undues silence in a just cause, holding our peace when iniquity called for a reproof from ourselves or a complaint to others, speaking the truth unseasonably or maliciously.

Speaking the truth unseasonably or maliciously is a form of lying, as well as all the other things that we might list. So let me compare it this way. The sixth commandment is that we should not murder. That is, we should not unjustly take a life. But it's not a prohibition against the just taking of life.

God takes lives. Everybody who dies, God has taken their life. God is not breaking the sixth commandment every time He takes somebody. Takes their life, either early in an accident or in the fullness of years in their sleep. God is still taking those lives, but it's not unjust, it's not murder.

And we don't murder, we don't break the sixth commandment when we execute as we read in our Old Testament reading this morning when we take, the civil magistrate takes the life of somebody who is committed a sin worthy of death. He's not committing murder to do that. What's the difference? One is unjustly taking a life, the other is justly taking a life. One is forbidden, the other is not.

Now we're not here to talk about that difference. We have the same distinction in the eighth commandment, thou shalt not steal. Well, the Bible says that the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous. God takes the wealth from the wicked and he gives it to the righteous. Is he stealing?

No, because it all belongs to God. He's not unjustly taking it. So theft, stealing, theft shall not steal, isn't simply taking wealth. It is unjustly taking wealth. God takes wealth and gives it as He pleases.

And the Bible says, blessed is the Lord. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed is His name. When the civil magistrate takes back or exacts restitution from somebody who has broken the law, he's not stealing, but he is taking their wealth. One is good and one is not.

Well, we have this same distinction when it comes to the Ninth Commandment. So the Ninth Commandment deals with how we handle the truth. How we handle the truth. Do we handle it rightly or do we handle it wrongly? It's not necessarily a question of whether we conceal the truth.

It's a question of rightly handling the truth. And so, just like we have to distinguish between unjust killing and just killing, and unjust taking of something and just taking of something, the just taking of property, we have to distinguish between the just handling of the truth, the just concealing of the truth, and the unjust concealing of the truth, the just revealing of the truth, and the unjust revealing of the truth. That's how we have to distinguish between what is violating the 9th commandment and what is not. So, what do we know about this handling of the truth? We know that Lying is always wrong.

Lying is always wrong. Thou shalt not murder is the proper terminology of the Sixth Commandment. Thou shalt not steal the unjust taking of property. Thou shalt not murder the unjust taking of life. Thou shalt not lie, or thou shalt not bear false witness, a false witness against your neighbor.

That is the unjust, improper handling of the truth. That is always wrong. Always wrong. We know this because St. Tim, the Bible says, is a liar and the father of lies.

How could it ever be right to Follow the father of lies and tell a lie. Bible says when he speaks, he speaks out of his own character. He's a liar. He's the father of lies. Lying can never be right.

Lying is the unjust handling of the truth. On the other hand, the Scripture says that God cannot lie. God is truth. His word is truth. He cannot lie.

He cannot deny Himself. If we suffer, Paul told Timothy, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He will deny us. If we don't believe, Yet he abides faithful, he cannot deny himself." Paul told Titus in the opening, he said, In the hope of eternal life, Paul was an apostle in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began." Numbers says that God is not a man that he should lie, or the son of man that he should repent. But the wicked are described in the Bible as those who turn the truth of God, the fear of God, into a lie.

Remember in Romans 1, the wicked are those who change the truth of God into a lie and worship and serve the creature more than the Creator. So lying then is mishandling the truth. It is always wrong because God cannot do it. It's contrary to His character. And if we fear the Lord, if we are those who fear the Lord, then we will be true as well.

Now, we need to look at this a little bit more because our text is going to demand it of us. Its connection between the fear of the Lord and the truth. We need to look a little bit more at what constitutes lying and deception and what doesn't. How do we define the unjust handling of the truth versus the just handling of the truth. How do we differentiate that?

For example, suppose you're a mother or a father and you purchase some treats for your family. And one of your children comes along before you can distribute them and hides them. Hides them in their dresser, let's say. And you don't know where they are. How would you view that concealment, that hiding?

Hiding the location of these things. The concealing, we would say, of the location. Would you consider that wrong? Would you consider that to be deceptive? Yes, probably you would, and rightly so.

But what if you're playing a game of ultimate frisbee, and you've got somebody guarding you and you're trying to get rid of this frisbee. This guy is guarding you. Every time you want to throw it, he's right there. And so what do you do? You want to hide where that frisbee is going from him.

You want to hide your intention of where you want to throw that frisbee. And so we say you fake out your opponent by hiding where that frisbee is going. You hide it behind your back. You pretend to throw it this way, but you're not really throwing it that way. You throw it a different way.

And you succeed. You get it away to your fellow team member. Now you hid that frisbee. You hid the location and direction of it from your opponent. Is that the same as hiding the treats?

Well I think we would all recognize, no, it's perfectly fine to hide the location of the frisbee. And get somebody to believe it's going somewhere where it's not going. That's acceptable, we would say. But how do we define those two differently? How can we say one is acceptable and the other is not?

If we just say, well, our gut tells us one is right and one is wrong, that might be okay in that case. But what if we get to some difficult cases? Like Corrie Ten Boom and the Jews in her hiding room. Now how do we distinguish between just handling, just concealment and unjust concealment? We need a biblical principle and the Bible gives it to us.

Lying and deception must be defined in terms of the righteous and the unrighteous, between those who fear God and those who do not fear God. Lying and deception can be either concealing what should be revealed or revealing what should be concealed. And when we look in the Scriptures, we see that God Himself hides the righteous from the unrighteous. That's not falsehood. That's not deception because God cannot lie.

So if God is hiding the righteous from the unrighteous, then that concealment is not what the Bible means by lying. Whatever is not of faith is sin, and sinful actions are never evidence of faith or of fearing God greatly. Those who fear God do not hide the wicked from the righteous, but they hide the righteous from the wicked. So in Psalm 83, it says that God hides the righteous from the wicked. He hides them in his pavilion.

In Psalm 27, it says that God hides us in His pavilion in the secret of His tabernacle to protect us from the wicked. It says that Moses' mother hid him in her home the first three months of her life. It says that God hides up or stores up goodness for those who hear Him and that God hides His people from evil conspirators in Psalm 31 20 and 83 3 So if God is doing this hiding it can't be wrong Look in Deuteronomy 13 Is a passage very similar to the passage that was read earlier, but this passage deals with apostates. That one we read this morning was dealing with those who blaspheme. In the first part of the chapter it talks about this false prophet, this dreamer, who arises and says to people, let's go after other gods, let's serve other gods.

It says that that person who would lead us and induce us and tempt us to serve other gods, should be put to death and you should put away evil. But what if it's your brother? Verse 6, If your brother, the son of your mother, your son or your daughter, the wife of your bosom, or your friend, what if it's one of these close people to you who entices you, who is as your own soul, secretly entices you saying, let us go and serve other gods which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers. Then what do you do? God has just said that the person that entices you to serve other gods should be put to death.

But now it's bringing it home. What if that person is somebody very close to you, somebody very precious to you, somebody that you love, somebody who is a soulmate, A bosom friend. What if they secretly entice you? Then what do you do? Well it says you should not consent to Him or listen to Him, nor shall your eye pity Him, nor shall you spare Him, or conceal Him." You see, it would be very easy to simply say nothing in that case.

To say nothing. I can't say anything against my friend. They're my lifelong friend. They're my own son or my own daughter. The Bible is very clear here.

It says you shall not conceal That person. That is an unrighteous person. And for you to conceal, that person would be lying. Concealing what should be revealed. Your hand, it says, shall be the first against him, to put him to death and afterwards the hand of all the people.

And so all Israel shall hear and fear." It goes on to talk about that duty to bring, to reveal the wicked that are in the midst. In Joshua 8, God commanded Joshua to hide the truth from the people that they were battling. Joshua 8 is the conquest of Ai after they had gone against Ai and failed to take the city, were defeated because Achan had concealed some gold in his tent. Unjust concealment. They took care of that.

And then God came back to Joshua and he said, don't be afraid, don't be dismayed, arise, go up to Ai, I have given it into your hand and you're going to do to Ai just like you did to Jericho. But God told him to engage in some battlefield concealment. He commanded, he said, take 30, 000 men and send them away by night. And he said, behold, you shall lie in ambush against the city, behind the city. Don't go very far from the city, but all of you be ready.

And then I and the people who are with me, we will approach the city and it will come about when they come out against us. We're going to flee, we're going to run away just like we did the last time. And they're going to think, ah, they're losing again. And they're going to run out after us. And they're going to run out after us and they're going to run out of the city and in their excitement and jubilation over a second defeat they're not they're going to all run out of the city and they're going to leave it empty and unguarded and then you who were in ambush behind the city when you see that, when I give the signal, then you run up and run into the city and take it and burn it, and then we're going to turn around and start fighting.

So what is God commanding Joshua to do? He's commanding him to conceal the truth from the enemy. Now is God commanding Joshua to do what's wrong? Certainly not. God is commanding him to engage in battlefield concealment.

And so concealment of the truth in those circumstances is not of the devil. It's not wrong. It's not following acting in the character of Satan to do that. It's rather following and acting in the character of the Lord to do that. Because the Lord is the one member who hides us in His secret pavilion, who hides us as Psalm 31 and 83 say, from the wicked.

It's the Lord doing this hiding. And He's commanding Joshua to do this hiding. And so this is just concealment of the truth. This is not a necessary evil. Sometimes people want to say that, well, this is a necessary evil.

This is a necessary deception. No, this is not a deception. There is nothing in that passage that uses any of the words that the Bible uses to describe lying, deception, deceit, or unjust concealment. There are very specific words in the Bible for those things. Sheher, kazzab, and a number of others.

None of those words are used to describe these actions. You see, evil is never necessary. Evil is never necessary. It's never a righteous action. It's never just.

It's never unavoidable. It's never the proper course of human action to do evil. The fear of the Lord is true. So it's not then a violation of the Ninth Commandment to engage in hiding the truth. In fact, it's commanded.

The Ninth Commandment commands the proper handling of the truth. Concealing it when it needs to be concealed, revealing it when it needs to be revealed. Hiding the just from the unjust, revealing the wicked to the just. That is the principle in Scripture that differentiates between unjust hiding of the truth, which is lying and deception, and a just hiding of the truth which is done out of the fear of the Lord. And so our text here says that A true witness delivers souls, saves lives.

A true witness saves lives. Now, I was astounded, I guess, surprised, caught off guard, in studying this to see the connection in Scripture between the fear of God and those true witnesses who saved lives. The connection between the fear of God in Scripture and those true witnesses who saved lives. The fear of the Lord is life giving. Those who fear the Lord are true and because they are true, because they fear the Lord, they save lives.

Let's look at a few examples. Proverbs 10-27, The fear of the Lord prolongs days, but the years of the wicked will be shortened. The fear of the Lord tends to life, Proverbs 19-23, and he that has it shall abide satisfied. He shall not be visited with evil. Proverbs 22, 4, by humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, honor, and life.

The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, verse 27 of our text says, to depart from the snares of death. But let's look at some examples. Let's look at Exodus 1. If you have your Bible, please turn there so that you can read this. Exodus 1 talks about the Hebrew midwives, Shifra and Pua.

Now Pharaoh, you remember, had commanded these midwives to put to death any Hebrew male child that was born. They were to kill them. And that's why Moses' parents were hiding him in that basket. They were concealing Moses. They hid him.

Saffan is the word that's used in the Bible. It's the same word for, "'Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against you.'" So Moses is hidden. But these midwives, who have a little more difficult task, They're supposed to be killing every male child that is born. But what does it say? Verse 17, "...But the midwives feared God." And so what did they do?

Because they feared God, they hid the truth from the wicked king. They hid those babies from the wicked king's edict. And they did not do as the king commanded, but they saved the male children alive. A true witness saves lives. And right here, I wanted you to see that connection.

These midwives, the Bible says, did this because they feared God. And because they feared Him, they were true witnesses and they saved lives. And so the king called for the midwives and said to them, Why have you done this thing and saved the male children alive? And the midwives said to Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are lively and give birth before the midwives can come." Now what are they doing here? Are they lying?

No, they are not lying. They are not deceiving. Lying is always wrong. Lying is an unjust concealment of the truth, just like murder is an unjust taking of life. What they are doing is a just concealment of the truth.

What they are doing is like the civil magistrate executing a murderer. That is not murder. It is like the civil magistrate taking exacting restitution from those who have stolen. That is not theft. She is, these midwives, because they fear God, are concealing the truth from the wicked.

And that's what God does. He hides us in His secret pavilion. He hides the righteous from the wicked. They are doing that. Therefore, therefore what?

Because these midwives feared God and hid the truth, hid the righteous from the wicked, God dealt well with the midwives and the people multiplied and grew very great. These midwives didn't just save one or two, they must have saved hundreds and thousands of lives because they feared God. And it was so, verse 21, because the midwives feared God, that He provided households for them. We're going to just remember that, the connection there of a household with the blessing of fearing the Lord. But the point now in looking at this is the connection of the fear of the Lord to what they did.

Two times the Bible says they did what they did because they feared the Lord. And here's the other thing. There is nowhere in this text that the Bible ever uses the word lying, deception, to describe what they did. Whereas if you read about Genesis account where remember Rebecca and Jacob lied to Isaac, their father, deceived him. There when you read that text it does use those words for lying and deception because they were deceiving their father even though some have argued that What they did was just.

I think it wasn't because the Bible uses the word lying, shakair, to describe what they did, deception. But nowhere in this text does the Bible ever say that they used, that they lied or that they acted deceitfully. And there are a number of words that would have been used. But there's another example. Remember when David was running from Saul?

And he had his wife, Michael, put this image in his bed to give himself a little bit of time. And so the soldiers came to get, David escapes out the window, the soldiers get, come and his wife says, well he's sick. So they go back and they tell Saul he's sick. Saul says, well bring him on his bed anyways. So they go back and find out that this is not David in the bed that they had thought.

Well, David is fleeing from Saul and one of those times that he has to flee from Saul, he flees to Abimelech in the land of the Philistines. But then Abimelech realizes, well this is the one they said they saw has killed his thousands and David is 10 thousands of the Philistines What do I want this guy here for and so David is afraid and and and now he's stuck He can't go back to Israel because the king is seeking to kill him the Philistines are not don't want him They think he's an enemy combatant, which he was. And so David is in desperate straits. He feigns madness. And he starts, remember that's the saliva dribbled down his beard and he pretends to be insane.

And Abimelech says, get this insane guy out of here. And he was saved. Psalm 34 is the Psalm of David, the title says, when he pretended madness before Abimelek who drove him away and he departed. Now what do you suppose David is going to talk about in this psalm when he had to hide the truth from Abimelech? As Abimelech would have gotten a lot of points for capturing this great warrior of Israel.

Well David praises the Lord first of all. He says, I will praise the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul will make its boast in the Lord and be glad. O magnify the Lord with me, let us exalt his name together." He's rejoicing in the Lord who has delivered him from this wicked king.

He says, I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to him and were radiant, their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him." David is alluding to the fact that he feared the Lord here, and the Lord delivered him. Now what does he go on to say then?

Does he go on to talk about, well, there are some times when you need to lie? No, he doesn't do that. He doesn't ever say, well, there are some times when it's okay to lie and deceive, like he did. Now what does he go on to say? He goes on to say the exact opposite.

O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the Lord, man who trusts in Him. O fear the Lord, you His saints. There is no want to those who fear Him. The young lions lack and suffer hunger, but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.

Come, you children, and listen to me. I'm going to teach you what? The fear of the Lord. I'm going to teach you the fear of the Lord. Who is the man who desires life and loves many days that he may see good?

What kind of person is the person that fears the Lord? Remember, David is in a spiritual high, we might say. He has just been delivered from the hand of a Bimalak. And He's rejoicing in that. And He's saying the Lord delivers those who fear Him.

And now come, children, I will teach you what it means to fear the Lord. What's the answer? Verse 13, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it. This is not Psalm 51.

David isn't coming in where in that Psalm he had sinned. And that Psalm you see his broken heart. Confession of sin. You don't see that here. David isn't coming saying, yes, I deceived the king.

He's coming rejoicing, saying I feared the Lord and the Lord delivered me. And children, come and I'll teach you how to fear the Lord. Don't lie. Don't lie. See, I don't think we can say that David deceived Abimelek.

He concealed the truth from him. He righteously concealed the truth. Look at 1 Kings 18. Obadiah, remember, was a servant in Ahab's house. And God had sent a famine on Ahab's house, on all of Israel, because of Ahab's wickedness.

And then three years later God told Elijah, He said, go present yourself to Ahab and I will send rain on the earth. So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab and there was a famine in Samaria. And Ahab had called Obadiah who was in charge of his house. Now Obadiah, parenthetical statement, feared the Lord greatly. Now what did he do because he feared the Lord greatly?

Well, While Jezebel massacred the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah had taken 100 prophets and hidden them 50 to a cave and fed them with bread and water. What did his fearing of the Lord cause him to do? Hide the righteous from the wicked and feed them, sustaining their life because he feared the Lord. Was Obadiah just somebody who had absolutely no concern for himself? No, when Elijah told him to go get Ahab, he was like, well, wait a minute.

If I go get him, are you going to be here when I come back? Because if not, he's going to kill me. And Elijah had to assure him that yes, I'll be here. This was before the Mount Carmel experience, not after it. Obadiah because he feared the Lord hid those prophets.

He concealed the righteous from the wicked. We have the same thing with Rahab, because Rahab feared the Lord. Rahab had basically two choices. When those spies came to her, she could have received those spies as enemy combatants, she could have received those spies as a neutral party, a non-belligerent, or She could have received those spies as a neutral party, a non-belligerent, or she could have received those spies in peace. Those are the three options she had.

If she received them as enemy combatants, then she would have revealed their presence to her country, her king. She would have hid them up on the roof or take them into her house and then send a signal to the king to, hey, guess who I have in my house? If you come quickly, you can catch them. And I will, she's a prostitute, I will entertain them until you get here. That would have been receiving the spies as enemy combatants.

That would have won her the praise of the king of Jericho. She could have received the spies as a neutral non-belligerent and done nothing. She said, oh, no, I can't take you. Go somewhere else. And neither told the king about their presence in the city, nor concealed them.

That would have been a neutral. Have nothing to do with them. Just leave. I'll pretend you never came because I'm neutral. Or she could have done what she did, receive the spies in peace.

That is a description that the Bible uses that encompasses her whole engagement. Because you can't really divide her hiding the spies from what she told the soldiers. It's all part and parcel of that same activity. And she is rewarded in Hebrews 11 because she received the spies in peace. Now if she had taken the spies and hid them under the Flacks on her roof, but when the soldiers came and said where are they she and she just looked at them and smiled Which she had been concealing the righteous from the wicked they would have known immediately while either here somewhere and not stopped until they found them.

And so, this, her whole exchange with the soldiers, I don't believe was a lie. I believe it would be wrong to call it a lie. And again, the Bible never, anywhere, ever associates any of the words for lying with what Rahab did or said. It says just the opposite, that by faith she received the spies in peace. That's a summary statement of the entire transaction.

She is another example that a true witness saves lives. She saved the life and what happened as a result of her action. God saved her family, her entire family. And so the fear of the Lord thirdly brings blessing. In the fear of the Lord there is strong confidence And his children have a place of refuge.

The fear of the Lord brings great blessing. The angel of the Lord, we read in Psalm 34, encamps around those who fear Him and delivers them. The Fear of the Lord is a strong confidence. Abraham sacrificed his son because he feared God. And he did so, but he didn't do so out of a slavish fear, but out of a complete confidence that God would preserve to him his son, that God would even raise up that son from the dead if need be.

This fear of the Lord gave Daniel confidence in the lion's den, that God would shut the lives of the lions. It gave Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego great confidence, great boldness that They could stand in front of Nebuchadnezzar and say, we don't fear you, O King. We don't fear your idol. We don't fear your threats. We serve the living and true God, and He's able to deliver us.

And if not, we will still serve Him. We will still serve Him. Psalm 128 connects this fear of the Lord with the blessing of family. Remember Pua and Shifra received families because they feared the Lord. Psalm 128 opens with, Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord and walks in His way.

And what are the blessings? You will eat the labor of your hands. You're not going to plant and the locusts destroy. You're not going to plant and the Midianites come in and capture the harvest, but you will eat the labor of your hands. When you work, that money won't go into pockets with holes that fall out, but rather the Lord says, those who fear the Lord will eat the labor of their hands.

You will be happy. You will be happy. And it will be well with you. Have you ever talked to somebody who says that their life has been miserable? And when people say that, I look back and I think, that's not the way I think of my life.

I think of it as being greatly blessed. Now, have there been trials? Certainly. Certainly pain and grief and trial. But when I look back on my life, I think that the Lord is greatly blessed.

He's been easy on me. That's how I see it. And I think this is what is being said here. When you eat the labor of your hands, you will be happy. And it will be well with you.

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine in the very heart of your house. Your children like olive plants all around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord." This isn't speaking of perfection or sinlessness. This is speaking of sinful people who fear the Lord. There is great blessing and that blessing is is intimately connected with our family, our wives, our children, our labor, the work of our hands.

Behold thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. The Lord bless you out of Zion, and may you see the good of Jerusalem all the days of your life. Yes, may you see your children's children. So the fear of the Lord brings great confidence, brings boldness, it brings blessing. But the fear of the Lord specifically brings blessing on our children.

Now that's, in Hebrew a lot of times you need to supply the subject. And sometimes you need to supply the verb as well. And so, the way that's in the King James, it says, in the fear of the Lord there is strong confidence, and His children will have a place of refuge, as if it's speaking of the children of God. But I don't think that's what it's saying. And I would follow Jay Adams' translation of this verse that by the fear of the Lord, and that preposition could also be by, by the fear of the Lord, one is confident.

One is strongly confident. You see, there is no verb there. You have to supply it. And so you can just as easily say, by the fear of the Lord, one is confident, and his children, the one who is confident, the one who fears the Lord, will have a place of refuge. And I think that's the right understanding here, because it's not wrong what the first way of rendering it, but to use his children to refer to Christians is an odd construction in Proverbs.

But the children of the righteous is not. In fact, It speaks often of the children, of a man's children in Proverbs. And so what this passage is saying then is that those who fear the Lord, their children are saved. Their children have a place of refuge. Really?

Yes, really. Look at Psalm 112. Praise the Lord. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments. There is the understanding of what it means to fear the Lord.

His descendants will be mighty on earth, the generation of the upright will be blessed. The generation, the fruit, the seed of the upright is going to be blessed because this man fears the Lord. Wealth and riches will be in his house and his righteousness endures forever because His righteousness is that of Christ imputed to Him. That is a blessing of the man who fears the Lord. Or Psalm 103, Again we find this same concept that those who fear the Lord, their children are saved.

Their children have a refuge. In verse 17, but the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him. And His righteousness to children's children to such as keep His covenant. The children of those who fear the Lord have a refuge. They are blessed.

They are saved. Psalm 111 says that the Lord is ever mindful to keep His covenant. That's what Genesis 17 is. God promises in Genesis 17 to be a God to us and to our children, to those who fear the Lord. This is also what we find in the New Testament as well, in Acts 2.

Peter is preaching to the Jews there, and he tells them that the promise is to you and to your children. And in Acts 16, Paul is at Philippi, and he went out to the river, and he prayed where prayers were made, and he found Lydia. And the Lord opened her heart to heed the things that Paul said to her. She believed. And when she and her household were baptized, her belief led to her household being baptized.

Or the Philippian jailer a little later after Paul and Silas were thrown in jail. And God sent an earthquake, broke open the jail. And the jailer is surprised that Paul and Silas are still there. They didn't run away. And so he says to them, what must I do to be saved?

And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. And that's exactly what this verse I believe is teaching. In the fear of the Lord, one has strong confidence and his children will have a place of refuge. They will be hidden by the Lord, protected and saved.

Now this is not a... This doesn't mean that we can simply sit back and say, well, because we believe, our children will believe too. There are many commands in Scripture that speak otherwise. In fact, God said of Abraham that he would bless him because he knew Abraham that he would command his household after him. For since Abraham will become a great and mighty nation and all the nations of the earth will be blessed in him For I have known him in Order that he may command his children and his household after him that they keep the way of the Lord and do righteousness And justice So there is a duty that we have to command our children after us to teach them the fear of the Lord, to lead them in the way of righteousness, but we also have at the same time God's promise of blessing upon that labor.

And so thus, Rahab saves her family because she feared the Lord. Shua, Apua and Shifra are given families, given households because they feared the Lord. And lastly, the fear of the Lord restrains us from sin. The fear of the Lord restrains us from sin. The fear of the Lord in verse 27 is a fountain of life to turn one away from the snares of death.

The fear of the Lord is a carefulness not to do unrighteousness. It's a desire not to break the law of God, not to grieve the Holy Spirit by whom we have been born again. Without the fear of the Lord, people will say, I can kill my baby, God will forgive me. I can get angry and stomp around the house in a funk, and God will forgive me. I can look at pornography, and God will forgive me.

But when we have the fear of the Lord, then there is a desire not to grieve the Lord, a desire to please the Lord, to do what's pleasing in His sight. And as we walk by the way or sit there, we know that even if nobody else is seeing what we're doing, even if nobody else knows about the baby that we killed or will kill, or nobody else is going to know about what we're looking at on the computer screen. God knows. And there is a desire not to displease Him. A desire born because we fear Him.

With a filial fear. We have a devotion. We love Him because He's loved us. And the most grievous thing we could possibly do would be to offend the God we love, the God we fear. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life to deliver us from the snares of death.

By mercy and truth iniquity is purged and by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride and arrogance in the evil way. May God give to us a fear of the Lord, that we may know His blessings upon us and upon our children to preserve us in the way of truth and righteousness. Let's pray. Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank You that You have loved us even when we were not lovable.

We thank you that you are faithful even when we are not. Father, we do cry out to you this morning as your redeemed children, Those who do love you, those who do stand in great awe and admiration of your glory, of your beauty, of your power, of your wisdom that made the earth and that made us, and that governs this earth and all that is in it. Father, as we walk in the fear of You, We ask that you would preserve us. We ask that we may know your blessing upon our life and upon our families. We ask, Lord, that you give us faithfulness to pray without ceasing for these blessings that you have promised in your Word.

And Grant us that strong confidence that you gave to Abraham, that you gave to Daniel, that you gave to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that your word is true and that you will do as you have promised. We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.