Study – Grow – Know

Would You Know God, Pt 2?

May 13, 2021 at 1:54 PM 1 comment

Audio for this article can be heard here: SermonAudio.com/studygrowknow

Israel
As you are no doubt aware, Israel is being pressed from many sides. Hamas terrorists are out in force. The world community is largely speaking out against Israel, however. In response to these attacks, Israel has called up thousands of reservists to take out terrorist strongholds in Gaza and may result in a direct assault on targets in Gaza.

Many “Palestinians” (there is no such culture group as Palestinians; they are all simply Arab), participate in propaganda videos made to paint Israel as the great Satan of the Middle East. Here’s one where the IDF uniforms are not even close. Other videos show make-up artists creating war wounds and bloody faces and bodies in preparation for filming other propaganda videos. Here’s another video explaining the propaganda.

This is a good, ten-minute video explaining just how badly Islam wants Jews eradicated from the face of the earth. Unfortunately, America is complicit. We are begging for God’s judgment. Pray for peace.

CV-19 Updates
Thanks to a reader who sent this article. Apparently, the CDC is playing numbers games by raising or lowering the CTs (cyle threshholds), number used in PCR testing to determine whether a person has CV-19 or not. The higher the number of CTs, the greater the chance of the test finding viral material, usually dead or non-infectious. These are reported as “positive” for CV-19.

Labs originally used a very high CT number, which created a picture that most in society had contracted CV-19. Over a year later, the CDC quietly suggested reducing the CT number to well below the 35-40 CT number.

The CDC is again reducing the CT number specifically when it comes to testing those who have received the CV-19 vaccination. This will result in fewer people diagnosed with CV-19 after they’ve taken the jab. Read it and decide for yourself what you think it means.

A doctor who dared to comment on the situation in Ohio, where Ohio’s governor is offering people a chance to win one million dollars if they receive the CV-19 jab, was apparently suspended for his comments. Not sure what the overlords of social media considered “false” or “misleading.” He seems correct to me. One can only wonder that they seem to be trying way too hard to convince us. They’ve offered free donuts, beer, weed and now a chance to win a million dollars. Nothing to see here.

Dr. Michael Yeadon – former Vice President and Chief Scientist for Allergy & Respiratory – tells us that we should be very concerned about taking the CV-19 jab. He believes that within two to three years we will see mass deaths from the “vax” those folks took this year. He believes the CV-19 “vax” is nothing more than a planned destruction of the immune system in a variety of ways.

Yeadon and numerous other doctors believe governments are lying to us and if what he says is true about the “vax” being part of a depopulation program, we can expect lots of deaths upcoming. Interestingly, all of these medical professionals are categorized by the Left as “conspiracy theorists.”

Will we all watch as friends and relatives die in the next 24 to 36 months or so all because they believed the government when that government said they just wanted us to be “safe”? According to Drs. Yeadon, Coleman, Tenpenney and others, the possibility of people experiencing what they call “cytokine storms” is very real. Future mass deaths, if they occur, will be blamed on a new “variant” requiring a new “vaccine” or a “topping off” of the current vax already in the system. Those who refuse to take it will likely be pushed further to the fringes of society and treated as “lepers.”

How to Fear the Lord
While by no means done with the subject of fearing the Lord, I want to finish up with a continuation of the previous “Would You Know God, Pt1?” I’m presenting in this article a summation of how we Christians can fan our fear of the Lord into a flame so that all areas of our lives are impacted by it daily. The below points are drawn Albert N. Martin’s book titled, The Forgotten Fear: Where Have All the God-Fearers Gone?

Martin lists no less than seven things we can do to promote a God-fearing demeanor within us. The proper, growing fear of God in daily living does many things for the believer. Martin believes the items listed below are our responsibility in the process of God developing that holy fear within us.

1. Focus on the Greatness of the New Covenant
   1. Jeremiah 32:40 – God says He will put His fear in our hearts
   2. This comes only to those who actually have His salvation
   3. It is a work of God
   4. It all starts there with salvation!
2. Immerse Yourself in His Word
   1. Feed on His Word
   2. Memorize His Word
   3. Meditate on His Word
   4. The more His Word is absorbed, the greater the resultant fear of God
3. Focus on God’s Greatness!
   1. The more we focus on His majesty and greatness through His Word and Creation, the greater our reverential fear will become
   2. Revelation 15:3–4 tells us of those who in heaven praise Him and ask, “Who shall not fear you, Oh Lord and glorify your Name?”
4. Cultivate an Awareness of God’s Presence
   1. This is not done mystically or with the help of our feelings
   2. It is done based solely on the truth of His Word
   3. Proverbs 23:17 commands us to, “Be zealous for the fear of the LORD all the day”
   4. Realize that God is within us and all around us. Psalm 139 tells us we cannot hide from His Presence
5. Think on Our Obligations to God
   1. We should be like Joseph who said to Potiphar’s wife, “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” in Genesis 39:9
   2. Our obligation to live rightly before God only comes with a real fear of offending and grieving Him.
6. Associate with People Who also Fear the Lord
   1. Psalm 119:63 says, “I am a companion of all who fear You, and of those who keep Your precepts.”
   2. In 1 Corinthians 5:9–10, Paul tells us that we cannot avoid dealing with people of this world, but we should not partner with them because light has no fellowship with darkness.
   3. This may mean separating from friends or even family or allowing them to walk away from you as many walked away from Jesus during His earthly life
   4. In other words, we have an obligation to separate from the things and even people who are either not in relationship with the LORD or not taking that relationship seriously enough
7. Fervent Prayer Brings About the Fear of the Lord
   1. Matthew 7:7 tells us to ask and it will be given to you
   2. James 4:2 tells us that we do not have because we do not ask
   3. 1 John 5:14-15 reminds us that we should have confidence that if we ask Him anything according to His will, He hears us…
   4. What could be more aligned to His will than asking that He grows the fear He placed within when we became saved?

If we take our relationship with God seriously, we must do the things He requires in order to draw closer to Him. That’s only logical.

The one thing we must remember is this simple fact: this is a lifetime effort. We can never sit back on our laurels, believing we have arrived. It’s ongoing or should be and it’s never too late to start.

In 2 Chronicles 33, we read of horrible king Manasseh, who began his reign at 12 years-old and ruled for fifty-five years in Judah. He was thoroughly idolatrous, even offering his own children to Molech. He also used witchcraft and sorcery (v 6). He was very likely originally advised by counselors who were evil themselves. However, as he became an adult, he alone bore the responsibility of his actions that ultimately caused God to send Assyrian armies to Jerusalem to take Manasseh captive.

It was during this time of Manasseh’s captivity that a miracle happens. He actually, with his whole heart, turned to the LORD.

And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers,

And prayed unto him: and he was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God. (vv 12-13 KJV)

Who would’ve thought that someone so evil, so corrupt would finally come to the end of himself? I wouldn’t have seen that coming, but God did. God heard Manasseh’s prayer and supplication and returned Manasseh to Jerusalem. The text then tells us that “…Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God.”

What this means is that there is hope for even the most calloused, incorrigible person yet alive, isn’t there? Is this why God allows some very evil people to continue on as though judgment was not in their path? (2 Peter 3:9)

In keeping with his newfound faith in God, Manasseh immediately set about to correct the bad things he had done. Manasseh finally dies after having done all that he could to right wrongs. He had put his faith into serious action. He had begun to know God and because of it, he learned what it meant to fear Him. His fear of God prompted the right course of action for the remainder of his life.

Amon, son of Manasseh, is the next king and he did not do the right things in his life as king. He lasted for two years because apparently, his own servants got totally fed up with his sacrilege and killed him. David could’ve done that to King Saul on several occasions, but refused to touch the Lord’s anointed. The people of the Land executed those who had killed Amon and then placed Josiah on the throne.

Interestingly, Josiah began ruling at the age of 8, so it is also that he also had counselors just like Manasseh had. However, these particular counselors were of one mind in ensuring that all things were done according to God’s Law. Verse 3 tells us more about Josiah’s heart.

For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images.

So by the time Josiah turned 16, he began to seek God for himself, either at the urging of wise counselors or on his own. Four years later in year 12 of his reign, he puts pedal to the metal and purges Judah and Jerusalem from everything that offended God.

It was also under Josiah that the Book of the Law of Moses was discovered. As the contents were read to the king, he was extremely sorrowful and “rent his clothes” as a sign of his despair (v 19). He then asked what should be done through a prophet of God? God’s answer was twofold; evil would visit Judah and Jerusalem but it would not happen during Josiah’s reign because of how he sought the Lord and was so alarmed at how the Law of God had been ignored for so long (2 Chronicles 34:33).

By mercy and truth iniquity is purged; and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil. (Proverbs 16:6 NKJV)

This is the only way I’m aware of that we grow in Christ. It begins and ends with fearing Him; having so much awe and profound reverential respect for Him that we never wish to grieve Him at all. Only a holy fear keeps us from that.

Like me, you probably do not fear the Lord enough. May we endeavor to do so starting today.

Entry filed under: Religious - Christian - Prophecy. Tags: idolatry, judah, king amon, king josiah, king manasseh.