Having a Healthy Fear of God Part 1- Romans 7:19-25

-Transcript-

00:24 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.

00:29 Welcome to the Cafe. Pastor Clark Covington here with another episode of KJV Cafe. I’m so glad you’re here joining us.

00:35 If it’s your first time joining us, make sure you check us out online at kjvcafe.com. And there you’ll find links to all kinds of stuff. We’ve got a YouTube channel, social media, and then also too, we’ve just launched a daily podcast, KJV Cafe, just search it up on whatever podcast app you have. If you have one or on the web, we’re on Amazon and Google and Apple and all the rest, KJV Cafe podcast.

01:06 So I thank you so much for joining me today. Hopefully you’re doing good. I’m doing good.

01:10 I’ve got myself a little almond milk latte here with some open road coffee roasters. They’re out of Columbus, North Carolina.

01:26  I want to say that because I know there’s a Columbus County, but there’s also a Columbus town and I think this is the town just beyond Forest City, like truly at the foothills of the mountains.

01:32 Amen. You can see the mountains. Yeah.

01:36 It’s in Polk County, North Carolina. And I think, yeah, that’s where it is. Open road coffee roasters went there on Christmas Eve and got us a bag of coffee and Hey, it’s still good.

01:43  A couple of weeks later, it’s been put to good use. And so I’m just glad you’re joining me today. Hopefully you’ve got yourself a hot cup of coffee or tea.

01:54 You got your Bible open, you got your pen and paper, you’re ready to dive in, or maybe you’re moving and working or whatever. I get that. I listened to a lot of stuff when I’m working.

02:02 And so if you’re working, you know, I get that. If you’re driving, you know, of course I understand that. But either way, hopefully you’re ready to devote your heart and your mind to God’s word.

02:14 That’s what we’re gonna do here today. Amen. And we are in a five part series.

02:17 We’re number one here of a five part series on having a healthy fear of God. And throughout this week, we’re gonna be going through the book of Jonah and why God acts the way he acts and how fearing him is appropriate. When we fear God, good things happen.

02:37 And when we don’t, bad things happen. When we fear God, good things happen. When we don’t, bad things happen.

02:47 We can believe in God and not fear him. This is where many Christians stand today. Is it not? They believe in him, but they don’t fear him enough to hearken or listen unto him.

03:01 And this can have potentially deadly consequences, very severe consequences. I mean, think about this for a minute here. You have many people that you know, some of who go to church and say they’re Christians and aren’t living like it.

03:21 Maybe that’s you here today. Maybe you’re struggling with some sin in your life. And by the way, we all have sin in our lives.

03:25 So you’re not unique in that regard, but maybe you just realize, hey, you know what? I’m not doing what God wants me to do. 

03:34 You know, I’m not living how God wants me to live, which I just have to go to the scripture here real quick. Romans 7:19-25.

03:43 Paul writes about this. Paul, the great apostle Paul, where us Gentiles get our doctrine from, amen. Paul writes this in Romans, the book of Romans 7:19-25.

03:56 For the good that I would, I do not. But the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

04:07 I find then a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. 

04:15 But I see another law in my members, or my body, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members.

04:26 O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. 

04:41 So Paul here is writing some very deep truths, and one of them is that he’s finding he wants to do good, for the good that I would do, I do not.

04:53 For every good thing I’m doing for the Lord, I’ve got about 50 things I’d like to do for God that for some reason don’t happen. Sometimes I pray to God and say, Lord, is this not your will, or am I falling into sin?

05:16  All of these things, again, it’s just the sin that dwells in us, that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and Jesus Christ alone. And Paul says, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

05:22 So we’re saved, and we’re not under the law, yet we still fall short many times. And I think that that is part of the Christian walk, living under the curse and dealing with our shortcomings and going to God in repentance for that sanctification, because once we’re saved, we’re always saved.

05:42  So we go to the Lord for sanctification, but at the same time we need to realize maybe we’re making it a little more harder than it needs to be.

05:50 Maybe it doesn’t have to be this, oh, I can’t figure out why I do these things. Maybe we just need to fear the Lord. You know, Jonah had an opportunity to fear God and do something great, and instead he ran from God.

06:03 And I’m going to make the argument that because he ran from God, he didn’t truly fear him. And you may say, well, if you fear someone, wouldn’t you run from them? 

06:12 No, because I believe if he feared him like godly fear suggests or implies, he would have obeyed him. So our text verse here is just Jonah 1:1-2

06:24 As we go through the week, we’re going to go through the whole book of Jonah, but here we’re just focusing on two verses. Now, the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. 

06:39 Okay, so the word of the Lord came to Jonah, right? And God spoke to Jonah and said, Arise, go to Nineveh.

06:47 He didn’t say, Arise and think about it, Arise and make a journal, Arise and talk to some people about it, Arise and ignore me, Arise and rebel against me. He said, Arise and go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.

07:03  And so he’s giving Jonah a very clear set of instructions, an order, some marching orders, if you would.

07:11 And oftentimes when God gives us these marching orders, we’re reluctant to follow them because they are frankly uncomfortable. 

07:20 I’ll never forget, I was at church one evening before I was called to preach, and the Lord had put me under conviction to confront a brother about a situation they were in that was not what they should be doing as the Bible purports. And I just was like, Oh, Lord, no way.

07:37 I don’t want to do that. Like, man, I mean, look at who am I to go tell this individual. And I mean, you know, it was a tough thing.

07:47 You wrestle with the Lord a little bit. And I said, You know what? I’ll surrender. And I was under heavy conviction.

07:51 And I took that brother aside. And I said, I love you, and I’m no better than you. And I’m just telling you, God has really put on my heart.

07:59 I got to give this to you. What you’re doing, how you’re living is not biblical. And I used to live like that.

08:05 And I gave it to God, and I repented. And the Lord forgave me, and he’s been good to me. And he’ll be good to you, and he’ll forgive you.

08:12 But brother, it’s time, you know, and that’s all biblical, that we are to confront one another, that we are to do it in private, that we are to do it not behind each other’s back, that we are not to take them to court or whatever it is. 

08:23 So I did all of the biblical things correctly as God had convicted me to do. But nonetheless, it was a very challenging situation.

08:28 And I, like Jonah, felt like I wanted to just go ahead and run the opposite direction. But I didn’t. And of course, the Lord wasn’t asking me to preach to a whole city.

08:38 He was asking me to preach to one person. So I’m certainly not elevating myself above Jonah. Because Jonah was asked to go preach to a great city.

08:44 You know, where is Nineveh? That was kind of the capital city of Assyria. As I understand it, it’s in modern-day Iraq. And it was a great city, a huge city.

08:53 Talking about later on in the book of Jonah that it’s a two, three-day journey to walk through that city kind of reminds me of New York City, especially if you start looking at the outer boroughs and the suburbs, and you’re walking through Jersey and then into the city or through Brooklyn or Staten Island or Long Island. And you say, wow, that is a great city. I mean, just for miles and miles, you’re just, all you’re seeing is buildings.

09:17 And I know that statistically or whatever you want to say, New York City is only so long and so wide. But man, when you’re there, it feels massive. And it’s all these people.

09:26 And God’s telling Jonah to go to the New York City of his time and preach. And who was Jonah? He was a Hebrew. He was a Jew.

09:35 And he was called to go preach to these people that were at odds with the Hebrews, that he would have considered his enemy, likely. And he was going to tell them that, hey, you know what? You guys are living wicked. And God is going to judge you for it.

09:50 And yet he ran away. We know he ran away. We know he got on the boat and so forth.

09:55 And we’re going to read through that whole chapter throughout this week. But today, I just want to talk about the idea of godly fear. You know, a word about fearing God.

10:09 You know, godly fear is so big, it’s bigger than a little 15-minute message. Godly fear can be preached on for years and years and years and not totally covered. And so with that being said, I can’t get to all the aspects of godly fear.

10:15 But when I said that Jonah didn’t fear God in the situation of him running from God, here are some aspects that I’d like you to consider. Fearing God is our duty. Ecclesiastes 12:13.

10:27 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Now, remember, Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon, the wisest man to ever live. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.

10:37 Fear God and keep his commandments. For this is the whole duty of man. So our duty of man, us being man, man and woman, our duty is to fear God and keep his commandments.

10:49 That’s it. That’s pretty clear. So number one, a godly fear is our duty.

10:55 It’s not optional. Just like we were commanded to love our brother and sister in Christ, we’re commanded to love our neighbor, we’re commanded to love our God with all our heart, soul, and mind. We are commanded to fear him.

11:07 It’s our duty. And it’s the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 1.7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

11:12 Proverbs 1:7. So in order for you to have true wisdom, you must first fear the Lord. You see the progression, right? I was teaching my daughter. We’re in homeschool today.

11:30 And she just learned how to add up big numbers, you know, like 25 and 12 or something. And she’s doing that. It’s amazing.

11:38 The first day she kind of cracked that code on it. And I praise God for that. But before she could do that, right, she first needed to understand what those numbers were, what they represented, right?

11:48  And before we can have wisdom in life, we first have to understand who the creator of life is and what he represents and what he is about.

11:59 And we can’t understand him until we fear him, right? 

12:00 So the beginning of wisdom is fearing the Lord because we say, okay, Lord, we fear you. We have faith. We believe you are who you say you are.

12:07 You’re a scary, fearful God. You’re a righteous God. You’re a holy God.

12:14 You’re so much higher than we are. So we’re putting ourselves in that position to then elevate him to his rightful place as King of Kings and Lord of Lords of all humanity, of all mankind, of the whole universe.

12:22  And how could you not fear and be in awe of such a God? And that is when we could then get wisdom, right? But we can’t get that wisdom until we fear the Lord.

12:32 Just like my daughter couldn’t understand the math problem until she understood what the numbers were. We can’t understand this world or have any wisdom in this world until we understand who the creator is. And not a full understanding.

12:45 We’ll never fully understand who God is, but to the beginning of it, the Bible, his word, all that he’s told us through his word, amen. 

12:55 The fear of God is a part, literal fear. So I don’t, you know, a lot of times as a preacher, we get caught on these rabbit, you know, rabbit trails or chasing these rabbits here and there.

13:06 And, you know, fearing God is respecting him and loving him. But, you know, it’s also a literal fear. Matthew 10:28,and fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him, which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

13:17 And that’s a literal fear that God can not just take our life, but he’ll actually take our soul and send it to hell. That’s someone you’d want to fear, amen. And only God has that power.

13:28 And so it is a literal fear, but it’s also a reverential fear. That referencing of God, Psalm 33:8, let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.

13:41 Psalm 33:8 helps us to understand that we are to have that reverence towards God, to stand in awe of him, amen.

13:49 And then finally here for time’s sake, we’re made safe by fearing God. Proverbs 14:26, in the fear of the Lord is strong confidence and his children shall have a place of refuge. The great irony that we are made safe by fearing God.

14:03 And all of these aspects tie in to what Jonah was dealing with when he ran from God and when he listened to God. And I wish I had time to get into more aspects of fearing the Lord because there’s many more aspects,

14:13  but for time’s sake, we’re out of time. So I just urge you to tune in this week, if you can tune in next time, as we get deeper into the book of Jonah and we see the consequences of not fearing God and the consequences of having a healthy fear of God.

14:28 Thank you for listening. Take care, God bless, amen. 

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