Study – Grow – Know

Discerning the Times: CV-19 and Fear God, Shun Evil

May 25, 2021 at 12:14 PM 5 comments

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

CV-19 & Miscellaneous
I present some links for your consideration and research. I have not fully researched these myself but I list them for your consideration.

• Doctors and Science Under Fire
• Canada May See CV-19 Resurgence in Spite of Vaccinations
• Nobel Prize Winner Claims CV-19 Vax Creating Variants
• Pathogenic Priming from Certain Vaccines?
• Vaccinated Being Tracked?
• New Zealand Rules Pfizer Rollout Unlawful
• Rise in CV-19 Positives After Vaccine?
• Vaccine Injuries
• Assoc of American Physicians and Surgeons
• Pope Francis Preaches Gaia and Green Deal (candidate for the False Prophet?)

Fear God, Shun Evil
I’m learning that fearing the LORD is a main underlying theme throughout the Bible. Even when it is not directly mentioned, it is obviously implied. Job directly mentions it.

There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil.

Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?” (Job 1:1, 8 NKJV)

Job was blameless, upright and shunned evil. I believe he was all of that because he feared the LORD and had cultivated that fear for years; maybe decades. Without this fear, he may have only looked blameless and upright on the outside, but God would’ve seen Job’s heart on the inside.

God saw that Job had the requisite fear of the LORD; a profound, awe-inspiring, deep, reverential respect for God that was the essence of Job’s character and which naturally promoted holy living. I doubt that God would have declared Job blameless or upright had this not been the case.

Have you ever tried to “live” the Christian life by forcing yourself to do and say the things that you know you should with mixed results? You muscle through because, “that’s what Jesus would do,” right?

In Romans 7:24-25, Paul says we have been delivered from this body of death, yet we are still in it, aren’t we? I believe Paul is actually trying to doctrinally negotiate the truth that we see in places like Job or Psalm 86:11 (Teach me Your Way, O Lord. I will walk in Your truth. United my heart to fear Your name). Christian victorious living in thought, word and deed – from the heart – only happens as our godly fear of the LORD grows. It is not an accident that the Bible tells us in many areas that the fear of the LORD goes hand in hand with pleasing God because it naturally results in true righteous living.

The lack of fear is how Paul describes the life of the average non-believer in Romans 3:18.

Job feared God and because of that, he successfully shunned evil. This is such an important concept to grasp! I went through years of thinking victorious living occurred because of some “second blessing.” Not true. Victorious living occurs as our fear of the LORD grows. That fear of the LORD becomes our motivation for righteous living.

To shun something means to actively turn away from it. Many of us (myself included) can and have done this with our own inner strength, which results in what Paul refers as wood, hay and stubble (1 Corinthians 3:12-13), that burn up. The best way to avoid sin and shun it is to have a deep-seated and growing fear of the LORD that is naturally repulsed and opposed to temptation to sin.

Greater Fear? Greater Victory
From my ongoing biblical studies, it seems the greater a person’s fear of the LORD, the greater their victory in Christ will be. Conversely, the less fear of the LORD a person has within them, the greater their failures. Let’s consider a few examples.

Genesis 3 is the chapter in which our first parents, Adam and Eve sinned against God through rebellion. Ultimately, I believe they sinned because they did not fear God at all.

What?!! How can I possibly believe Adam and Eve should have feared God in the perfect environment of Eden prior to any sin?!!

If we understand fearing the LORD to be a deep, conscious, profound, respect, love and awe, there is no contradiction here. If, on the other hand, we think of fearing the LORD in terms of being on the receiving end of God’s judgment, then we do have a problem. Adam and Eve should not have ever been at a point of thinking God was going to judge them. They had no reason whatsoever prior to their sin. However, after they did sin, judgment is exactly what they feared. Adam even told God that he had been afraid when he heard God’s voice so he and Eve hid themselves because they were naked. He was afraid of God because of impending judgment!

Prior to Adam and Eve’s sinning, I believe there should have been the type of fear of the LORD that causes a person to bow in deep awe before God’s majesty, the created before the Creator. At the very least, they both should have clearly had absolute respect for God’s one command given to them. They didn’t. They began questioning it and then embraced Satan’s lie. They lacked fear of the LORD.

It doesn’t look to me that this existed prior to the fall. I’m quite sure Adam enjoyed God’s Presence and had absolutely no reason to be in (judgmental) fear of Him. Yet, what seemed to be completely missing was any sort of profound reverence and abject awe for the Creator of the universe. I could be wrong, but I don’t see that it existed.

In the perfect environment of Eden, there was something missing that the unfallen angels had: a true fear of the LORD for who God IS. I believe had Adam and Eve had that fear of the LORD, the temptation to sin might not have seemed quite so pleasing to them. Of course, we have no way of knowing. But in the end, it certainly seems like Adam and Eve sinned due to a complete lack of any fear of the LORD.

During the coming Millennial Reign of Jesus (Revelation 20), do you think we Christians with glorified bodies will NOT have this deep, profound, awe (fear) of God? Do you believe after the creation of the new heavens and new earth that a palpable fear of the LORD will be absent from those who inhabit the earth then (Revelation 21-22)? I believe it will be inseparably part of who we are as finished new creations in Christ.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 is where Solomon comes to the end of his searching and realizes that the true purpose of humanity is to fear God and obey His commandments. Again, we see the twofold concept of fearing God tied with living correctly. The positive side of this is to obey His commandments. The negative side is to shun evil, but they are simply two sides of the same coin.

We already know how Solomon failed God because he failed to fear the LORD. Because of it, he did the very things God had said he should not (marry pagan wives, etc.). These things he did because of a lack of fear. This is proof that wisdom alone is not good enough. Wisdom guided by a true fear of the LORD is what is necessary.

Why did Cain murder Abel (Genesis 4)? The immediate reason Cain murdered Abel was due solely to jealousy. However, the real underlying reason, I believe, was due to a complete lack of fear of the LORD from Cain. Fear of the LORD was absent.

Why did David spend so much of his life doing well, being a man after God’s own heart, but completely messed up in 2 Samuel 11, so that he lusts after Bathsheba, commits adultery with her and then has her husband murdered? It was due to the fact that leading up to that instance and during it, David lacked the fear of the LORD.

Why was Joseph able to withstand Potiphar’s wife and her sexual propositions to him (Genesis 39)? Because Joseph feared the LORD. This gave Joseph the strength he needed to resist.

Why did Moses, who had spent years speaking to God face-to-face, on that fateful day strike the rock for water, instead of obeying God’s Word and speaking to it (Numbers 20)? Moses’ anger toward Israel pushed out any fear of the LORD he had prior. This lack of fear resulted in his disobedience to God’s command.

I am convinced that for the past 5 decades of my life (since I became a Christian), there were times of victory (all too few), and times of failure (too many). I can clearly now see that my failures, whether in my attitude, words, or thoughts, occurred because I was not fearing the LORD. It is so obvious to me now.

But what is interesting about Job is even though he feared the LORD at the outset, God allowed Satan to put that fear of the LORD to the test. What is fascinating about the whole thing is that Job came out of the entire situation with an even greater fear of the LORD! This should speak to us all as a reminder that we can never fear God enough in this life. There is always another level of fearing the LORD that we must seek to develop. In fact, our fear of the LORD will not be perfected in this life, but only when we receive our glorified bodies and our sin natures are removed.

In Isaiah 11:2-4, we learn some very important traits of the coming Messiah, fulfilled in Jesus. Among the things that Isaiah points out to us are these words:

The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The Spirit of counsel and might,
The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
His delight is in the fear of the Lord,
And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes,
Nor decide by the hearing of His ears; (Isaiah 11:2-3 NKJV; emphasis added)

If Jesus was said to have a Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD as well as the fact that He would delight in that fear, how much more should we? I believe Christians must seek to delight in the fear of the LORD. It is a process that begins when we receive salvation and needs to be cultivated until the day we are taken home.

I do not believe we can actively shun evil in this life unless we are actively fearing the LORD. Even then, we can still make mistakes if we – for a moment – set our fear of the LORD aside. Brothers and sisters, may we seek to cultivate a true, biblical fear of the LORD. As a reminder, this previously written article highlights biblical ways in which we can learn to cultivate that fear: Would You Know God, Pt 2?

Do you want victory in these days of growing evil? Do you want to be like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (Daniel 3), who had no fear of Nebuchadnezzar at all and instead feared the LORD, allowing them to face the fiery furnace with near delight, thinking nothing of their own lives? Then we must cultivate a true fear of the LORD. Without it, we will be overcome.

What say you?

Entry filed under: Agenda 21, Atheism and religion, christianity, Communism, Cultural Marxism, Demonic, Eastern Mysticism, emergent church, Emotional virtue, eternity, Global Elite, Maitreya, new age movement, Political Correctness, Politically Correct, Politics, Religious - Christian - End Times, Religious - Christian - Prophecy, Religious - Christian - Theology, salvation, Satanism, second coming, Shadow Government, Transhumanism, Trilateral Commission. Tags: fear god, fear the lord, job feared god, king david, moses, solomon.