Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. 6

Transcription

1 March 15, 2015 Psalm 34 Pastor Larry Adams The Fear of the Lord Hello, my name is Larry Adams, and I want to take a moment to personally thank you for tuning into this week's podcast where you downloaded or are streaming this week's Bible message. I hope it will be a great encouragement to you, and it's our prayer that God will use it to strengthen your faith. I just want be sure to tell you too that we in no way intend for this message to be a replacement for your weekly involvement in a good local church. We hope that you are involved in a church in your community to worship, grow, and serve and to sit under the authority of pastors and teachers who can speak into your lives. We also realize that around the world there are places where there is no local church, so we re hoping that these messages each week will be a great encouragement to you and anyone else you may be gathering with to pray with, encourage, and to share with in this message. Thank you again for downloading this message, and we hope it will be a great blessing in your life. If you have your Bibles with you today, I d like you to turn with me to Psalm 34. We re continuing in our series, People of Praise, Blessings from the Psalter ; blessings from the psalms. Psalm 34 is probably one of the more famous psalms, certainly some of its verses are, but this is a time when David was in deep trouble that prompted the writing of this. In fact, he was in great fear. He was on the run. He went to the Philistine King Abimelech, and learned some things there about trusting God, which he passed along to us. You and I live in a scary world. There are many things we need to learn. But the fear of the Lord is foundational to all of them. In the subscript it says, Psalm 34, of David, when he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, who drove him away and he left. We will be coming back to that in a bit, Lord willing. Here is how David put it (Psalm 34:1-22): 1 I will extol the LORD at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. 2 I will glory in the LORD; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. 3 Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt his name together. 4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. 5 Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. 6 This poor man called, and the LORD heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles. 7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them. 8 Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. 9 Fear the LORD, you his holy people, for those who fear him lack nothing.

2 10 The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing. 11 Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. 12 Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, 13 keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies. 14 Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. 15 The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry; 16 but the face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to blot out their name from the earth. 17 The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. 18 The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. 19 The righteous person may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all; 20 he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken. 21 Evil will slay the wicked; the foes of the righteous will be condemned. 22 The LORD will rescue his servants; no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned. (NIV) Let s pray for a moment: Father, these are powerful words and through the centuries they have encouraged generations of believers. They have called all of us to account, to realize that we are accountable to the one true God, learning to fear You, to honor You, to reverence You, to respect You. To hear and obey Your voice is foundational to life itself. David learned that and shared it with us today. So God, as we open this word, speak to us, and we ll thank You. In Jesus name, Amen. Jay Grelen was an editorial writer for World Magazine. He was writing an article some years ago about an experience he had with his four-year-old daughter, as they sat on the floor of a used bookstore. He said, as they sat there, with his daughter on his lap, pulling down treasures from the children s section: I began to read aloud to her, when I noticed the proprietor s daughter, another little girl, was making her way toward us. We invited her to join us, and inquired of her name and age, as is the custom when meeting children. Her name escapes me these five years hence, but her age I remember because of another fact I soon learned about her. We weren t reading the classics at the moment, only a short tale about the gang from Sesame Street.

3 As I often do, I try to make spiritual parallels in whatever I m reading. I realized that God didn t make Big Bird, but it was a chance to teach my daughter something, so I said to her, Samantha, who made Big Bird? God, she said. (Church-going children learn that s a pretty safe answer to almost any question a parent asks!) But Samantha s answer apparently wasn t what the little bookstore girls was expecting. Who? she asked, as she wrinkled her nose, puzzled at the response. I turned to face her directly, and I said, God. I suppose she expected to hear that Jim Henson was the creator of Big Bird, but whatever her pre-conceived notion, clearly, our answer didn t strike a chord. I thought to myself, six years old, growing up in a bookstore. She doesn t know God, not even His name. And we wonder what has gone wrong with our world? I didn t grow up in a Christian home. But I can tell you, around me were a mom and dad who at least acknowledged God s existence. When I was growing up, I still remember that in a courtroom, people put their hand on a Bible and raised their hand to swear an oath that they would tell the truth. Not any more. Today, even in the Bible Belt South, there are young people growing up without even knowing the name of God. Jay Grelen went on to say, These children don t even know in Whom they are NOT believing. So, children ambush children and slaughter them; children share illicit relationships, then kill their newborn babies; children know Captain America and Big Bird, but they don t know God. And we wonder what s wrong with our world. Well, we shouldn t. God has told every generation what would happen to any people, any nation, any society, any church, any individual who have lost their fear of God. The fear of God is an essential foundation upon which all of life depends. Without the fear of God, without a healthy reverence, respect, honor and acknowledgement of God as God, we easily fall prey to Satan s greatest lie, that you can be gods in your own life, accountable to no one but yourself. We live, then, as though there no absolute truth, no transcendent standards to which all mankind is accountable, no moral restraint, no evil, no demonstrated sense of inherent right and wrong. So societies who have no fear of God end up developing a fear of just about everything else. Paul the great apostle saw the great Roman empire coming unhinged and he drew six passages out of the Old Testament to tell a story that was a diagnosis of this societal decay. What he said reads like it could come from our morning paper or evening news. Romans 3: 9-17: 9 What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. 10 As it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away,

4 they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. 13 Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. 14 Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. 15 Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and misery mark their ways, 17 and the way of peace they do not know. Sound familiar? What was the cause of such moral, spiritual and relational decay? Romans 3:18: There is no fear of God before their eyes. David knew the danger of losing fear, respect and reverence for God, so he calls attention to it in Psalm 34. He says (Psalm 34:11-16): 11 Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. 12 Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, 13 keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies. 14 Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. 15 The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry; 16 but the face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to blot out their name from the earth. David knew what it was to be afraid. When he wrote this, he was on the run, fleeing from his own king, Saul, who had lost his fear of God, thinking he could run a nation on his own whim, and be the point man in everything. But he had lost his way and the nation was crumbling. He saw David as a threat to his reign and he was out to kill him. So David fled. He went to Abimelech, amongst the Philistines. Abimelech is a title, like pharaoh. The name of the king was Achish, king of Gath. David had fled to him for refuge. Israel s enemies were treating him better than his own king. Over time, as the Philistines geared up for war against Saul, the soldiers of Abimelech began to be afraid of David. Afraid that in the heat of battle, he would turn on the Philistines to gain favor with Saul. So they wanted to kill David. He pretended to be insane. Abimelech showed him off to his troops as being no threat. They spared his life. David wasn t spared because he pretended to be insane, as he goes on to acknowledge, he was spared because God intervened and saved him. So he wrote this psalm, giving praise where it was due. Psalm 34:1-3; 11: 1 I will extol the LORD at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. 2 I will glory in the LORD; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. 3 Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt his name together.

5 11 Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. David reminds us, the first lesson in the school of life is to learn the fear of the Lord. Why is this so foundationally important? Because David tells us it teaches the greatness of His purpose for us. If we do not learn the fear of the Lord, we will live a purposeless life. He said, the fear of the Lord is vital for us because it teaches the greatness of His presence with us. If you do not develop a healthy fear of God, you will live this life thinking all this is stuff you are facing on your own, and you have to sort it all out and figure it all out. You don t! The fear of the Lord teaches us of the greatness of His purpose for us. David said (Psalm 34:1-3): 1 I will extol the LORD at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. 2 I will glory in the LORD; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. 3 Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt his name together. Knowing God s purpose and the fear of the Lord changes the way you live. You remember just three summers ago, 2012, Dan Cathy the CEO of Chick-Fil-A restaurants had the audacity to make a statement that shocked the nation. He said that he believed a marriage should be between a man and a woman. Can you believe we re living in a day when that even has to be debated or explained? As soon as he made that statement, the gay community across America went ballistic. They organized a national boycott. The mayor of Chicago and the mayor of Boston went public saying they will never allow a Chick-Fil-A in their city! The Cathy family are conservative believers who support many charitable causes that help thousands of people every year and whose work advances the cause of Christ around the world. They don t discriminate against gay people. They hire them to work in their restaurants, they are managers of their stores, they serve them like anybody else coming in there to eat. They do not discriminate. They just happen to believe that what God said is truth. So they stood up for it. Well, the day of the boycott, it backfired. Across the nation, people were encouraged: if you believe in standing for traditional marriage, you need to go eat today at a Chick-Fil-A restaurant as the gays were planning a kiss-in a bunch of gay people standing around in front of these restaurants across the nation, kissing each other until people were driven away. But it backfired. On August 1, 2012, people turned up at Chick-Fil-A restaurants across the country in record numbers. It was the biggest sales day in their history. People were lined up at every store down the road, around the block, thousands of people turned out to say, Enough is enough! We are standing up for what we know to be right. (Applause). Why would the Cathy family even take this risk? They don t hate gays. They love God and they believe His Word, and they believe God has a purpose for them and that is to glorify Him; to stand with God no matter what.

6 You see, one of the reasons that things like gay marriage get any traction at all, is there is no fear of God, or even an understanding of His purposes for us. Take just the purpose for marriage alone! If we had the fear of God enough to understand His purpose, it would be so different. God ordained marriage between a man and a woman because it is to be a picture on earth, he said in the book of Ephesians, of the relationship between the groom and his bride, Jesus and His church. He intended a marriage to be a visible picture in every neighborhood and every society that Jesus Christ loves His church and the church loves their groom. That s why even heterosexual couples need to be very careful how they handle a marriage. Gays two men, two women can t remotely fulfill that purpose because the other purpose was, that out of that union of Christ and His church would come new life. Image bearers, who would know this God and make Him known to spread His glory over the earth. That s the purpose for marriage. If people knew more of God s purposes for things, nonsense like gay marriage wouldn t even get a foothold in society. People don t know God s purposes because increasing numbers of people don t know God. David began Psalm 34 with a declaration of God s purpose for our lives. He said (Psalm 34:1-3): 1 I will extol the LORD at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. 2 I will glory in the LORD; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. 3 Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt his name together. Karla and I have that, verse 3, inscribed in our wedding rings. Why did we do that? Because we fundamentally believe that we are here on the planet to bring God glory. And God is not going to take two people who are living for His glory and bring them together for less glory! He is bringing them together for more glory. We wanted to be reminded of that (with our rings). The word glorify is the Hebrew word gedal it means to magnify. You get the idea. To make it great in size and importance. Our purpose is to live our lives in such a way that the greatness, the size and the awesomeness of God can be magnified in us for all to see. God intended that there not be anybody who is living around a Christian who doesn t know He exists. The New Testament equivalent is the word, glorify. It s the word doxa in the Greek. Paul used it in Ephesians1:11-12: 11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. If you walked in here today through our lobby, on the front of our balcony are the words FOR THE PRAISE OF HIS GLORY. People, those words aren t up there to be a decoration, they are up there to be a declaration! They are declaring our God-given purpose for our existence: FOR THE PRAISE OF HIS GLORY. For the purpose of knowing Him and making Him known. That purpose can t be realized without a healthy fear and respect of God. A fear of God that teaches us of His awesome holiness. A fear of God that confronts us with our sin. A fear of God that causes us to realize that deep sense of need for a savior. A fear of God that motivates us to live for God and to spread His kingdom over the earth. The world is so messed up because the vast majority of people have no idea why they are even on the planet. David knew why he was here and he knew God s purpose. And when God delivered him, he was quick to give God the glory. (Psalm 34:1-3): 1 I will extol the LORD at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.

7 2 I will glory in the LORD; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. 3 Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt his name together. People, think of this: What would our land be like What would our world be like What would our nation be like if our courts, our school, our churches, our neighborhoods, our homes, our universities, our marriages, our families abounded with the unbridled praise of God that flows from a sincere respect and reverence for the Lord? David said (Psalm 34:8-11): 8 Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. 9 Fear the LORD, you his holy people, for those who fear him lack nothing. 10 The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing. 11 Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. Not only the greatness of his purpose for us but the fear of the Lord teaches us of the greatness of His presence with us. David said (Psalm 34:4-7; 15-20): 4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. 5 Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. 6 This poor man called, and the LORD heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles. 7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them. 15 The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry; 16 but the face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to blot out their name from the earth. 17 The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. 18 The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. 19 The righteous person may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all; 20 he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken. If you ve ever had little kids, you can relate to this story. A little girl, in the midst of a thunderstorm, three years old, comes flying into her parents bedroom. Mommy! I m scared! she said.

8 Mom, half awake, half unconscious, replied, Go back to your room. God will be there with you. The small figure stood in the unlit doorway for a moment, then said softly, Mommy, I ll sleep here with Daddy. You go in there and sleep with God! We live in a scary world! Scary things happen. We want to know that no matter what, we are not alone. That s why a little kid gets up, goes down the hall, needing to know mommy and daddy are there. We need someone bigger, stronger, wiser to protect us. That someone bigger, stronger, wiser is God Himself. God is that help but we often don t feel it because we don t see it. David said, that s why we need to learn to fear the Lord. So that no matter what you face, you will know in that moment, God is there. He said (Psalm 34:4-7): 4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. 5 Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. 6 This poor man called, and the LORD heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles. 7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them. That word fear is to be afraid; fear that stems from scary experiences and a fear of the future. David said, when I came to fear God, He delivered me from those other fears: the fear of what is happening and the fear of what might happen. David learned the reality and the greatness of God s presence with him as his protector, his provider and his purifier. God is our protector, David said (Psalm 34:6-8): 6 This poor man called, and the LORD heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles. 7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them. 8 Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. God is our protector. Where did David learn that? Do you remember 1 Samuel 17, his first battle? The Philistines when he was a little boy. The Philistines were the enemy of Israel. They had a nine- to eleven-foot goon named Goliath. Must have been pretty intimidating. Israel went out to fight under King Saul. The Philistines met them and for forty days, Goliath, this goon, comes out with his armor and his shield, an intimidating figure. He had a spear like a weaver s beam like a 6X6 beam, with a 25-pound spearhead on this thing. He said, Hey! We don t need to fight the whole army. Just send someone out to fight me! You beat me, we ll be your slaves. We beat you, you ll be our slaves. We don t all have to die in this thing. Send out just one man, you bunch of wimps! That went on for forty days. David was the youngest of his brothers. He was home with Dad, watching the sheep while his brothers were fighting the war. Dad called David in, and told him to take provisions to his brothers and find out the progress of the war. So David did. When he got there, Goliath was coming out for his daily challenge. When David heard it, he went to the troops and said, Hey! How come nobody s going out to

9 fight this windbag?! Samuel 17:32, David said to Saul, Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine. Your servant will go out and fight him. Saul went on to tell him, I know you are well-intentioned, here, but this guy has been fighting since he was a lad. He s huge. He s experienced. You ve never been in a battle and you re just a boy. You don t have a chance. Then David told him, When I watch my dad s sheep do you think that s trouble-free? Bears come into the camp to steal the sheep. Lions come in to try to get them. Do you know what happens? I go out there and grab them by the hair, and bring them down and I kill them! God delivered me from the paw of the bear. God delivered me from the paw of the lion. This uncircumcised Philistine is going to be just like one of them. It s not me! It s God! Think of that! This isn t just a story! This really happened! So what does Saul tell him? Go and the Lord be with you. What do we have to lose? I got nobody else going out! So David goes out. What s he got? Five stones in his little shepherd bag, his sling shot, and God. That s it. Goliath can t believe what he is seeing. 1 Samuel 17:42-44: 42 He looked David over and saw that he was little more than a boy, glowing with health and handsome, and he despised him. 43 He said to David, Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44 Come here, he said, and I ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals! David said, Not so fast! You don t know who you are messing with. (that s a paraphrase!). You know what David told him? You are so high and mighty because all you see is me that s your first mistake. The one you are really fighting is God. You fight God, you re going to lose every single time. (Applause) 1 Samuel 17:45-47 : 45 David said to the Philistine, You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the LORD will deliver you into my hands, and I ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. 47 All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD s, and he will give all of you into our hands. You know the results. Goliath came at him, full of himself, and a big head. When David and God were done, he was empty of self and had no head! God was David s protector. Psalm 34:15-22 : 15 The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry; 16 but the face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to blot out their name from the earth. 17 The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.

10 18 The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. 19 The righteous person may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all; 20 he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken. 21 Evil will slay the wicked; the foes of the righteous will be condemned. 22 The LORD will rescue his servants; no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned. People, David never said that the righteous won t have troubles. In fact, he said the righteous will have many troubles. By the way, just a reminder: you can t be saved out of troubles until you are in the troubles! You have them we all do. But David said, when you are in those troubles, you know now that you don t face it alone and God is in the details. Look at verse 20 (Psalm 34:20): He protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken. A thousand years later, those words were literally fulfilled when God put Jesus on the cross. His legs were not broken, as was typical fashion of a crucifixion. Why? John 19:36: These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled Not one of his bones will be broken. God is in the details. He knows what you are going through. The righteous might have many troubles, David said, but the Lord delivers them from them all. I ve got a lot of people I love in this church who are struggling with cancer. It seems like we are losing one every week. Yesterday, we lost another Dwayne Mirati who was on our staff as a maintenance man for a while. I saw him in the hospital just a short time ago. He went home to be with Jesus yesterday. When I met with Dwayne in the hospital, I said, Dwayne, we have all kinds of troubles in this world, but the Lord delivers us from them all. I said to him, I don t want to make light of your situation, because your struggle is real and the battle is long, but I want you to know this, Dwayne, cancer may ravage your body, but cancer can never touch you, because you belong to Jesus. The apostle Paul, when he was facing his own execution, wrote in the last letter we believe he wrote, to Timothy -- by the way did Paul die in that execution? Yes he did, but look what he wrote. 2 Timothy 4:18 : 18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen. Do you see what Paul is saying? The same thing David is saying. God is our protector. You may die in this battle, but no harm will come to you, because the Lord delivers from them all. Not only that God is our Protector, God is also our Provider. Psalm 34:9-10: 9 Fear the LORD, you his holy people, for those who fear him lack nothing. 10 The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing. Remember in our study, God s Eternal Kingdom? We focused on Jesus teaching in Matthew 6, the Sermon on the Mount. Remember the question? Jesus said, Why do you worry? Why do you worry

11 about what you are going to eat, what you are going to wear, what you are going to drink? Why do you worry about the basic stuff? God knows you need these things. In fact, as He developed that argument, He said, All your worry -- what does it accomplish? Absolutely nothing. So why do you worry about those things, Oh you of little faith? Jesus said. Then He said in Matthew 6:31: So do not worry, saying, What shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear? For the pagans {the people who do not know God, who don t fear God, who think they are doing this all on their own} they run after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well. God is our protector, He is our provider, and David said God is our Purifier. Psalm 34:12-16 : 12 Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, 13 keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies. 14 Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. 15 The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry; 16 but the face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to blot out their name from the earth. Keep your tongue from evil, your lips from telling lies, turn from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it. You know, before I was a Christian, I tried to do all those things. I got so disgusted with my life and the sin in my life, that without even knowing God, I would try to clean up my act once in a while. But I couldn t do it. I could stop doing one thing for a little while, but later in the day, I d be doing something else. I couldn t shake it. I learned, I can t live the righteous life that God requires on my own! I can t do it! I need Him to live it in me. To live it out through me. I need Him to purify me. David would be the first to tell you, when you get your eyes off God, you are capable of anything! He got his eyes off God and onto the lady next door and he ended up committing adultery and murder! When God confronted him, he put his eyes back on God and he confessed his sin. He owned it. He got it right and he repented. Psalm 51 you can read later he begs God for forgiveness because he got the fear of God back in its right place. He realized, I m accountable to this Holy God! In Psalm 51:10 he says: Create in my a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Why would he cry that out? Because he knew on his own he couldn t live it. He got his eyes off God, and look what he did! You and I are no different. Last night, Karla and I were driving back from Bakersfield. She wa reading her Bible. She said, Larry, do you know what Exodus 20:20 says? I said, Well, I ve read it but I can t exactly remember it. What is it?

12 She said, Do you see what God said to Moses on Mt. Sinai when He gave them the ten commandments? People were terrified at what they saw on the mountain. God said to Moses, You tell the people, The fear of God is with you to keep you from sinning. The fear of God terrifies us! When you know you are accountable to this God Who sees everything, you think twice before you do some things. But let me tell you, that s not the highest motivation to the purified life that the fear of God brings because when you fear God, you honor Him, you respect Him, you reverence Him, and you fall in love with Him you don t want to sin. People, I have hurt God enough! Way too much! How can I intentionally keep doing it? I can t! I still sin and I hate it, but I ll tell you the love of God and the fear of God is a purifying thing. It helps us to live a right life. That s why David said in verse 15, 15 The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry. The fear of God can transform any culture. Chuck Colson was part of the presidential team that was arrested in the Watergate Scandal of the Nixon years. When he was in prison, he found Jesus Christ as his savior and when he came out, he proved it wasn t just a prison conversion, it was the real deal. He went on to live his life for Christ and to do whatever he could to advance Christ s kingdom, especially in the prison world. He founded a ministry called Prison Fellowship which has sought to elevate the awareness of the plight of the prisoner around the world and to bring Christ to bear in those situations to make those into redeeming moments when they are locked away. He visited prisons all over the world. He wrote about his experiences, but there are few I ve ever read about as powerful as this one, that happened in San Jose Dos Campos, Brazil. There was a prison there that was so bad, Brazilian officials turned the running of the prison to two Christian laymen, who knew nothing about running a prison. The government didn t want to deal with it any more. So they turned it over to these two men. Their plan was to run it on Christian principles. The name of the prison was Humaita. When Chuck Colson visited there, he noticed the prison had only two full-time staff. The rest of the work is done by inmates. Every prisoner is assigned another inmate to whom he is accountable. He is assigned a volunteer family from the outside that works with him during his term and after his release. Every prisoner joins a chapel program or else takes a course in character development. When I visited Humaita, he said, I saw clean living areas. I saw people working industriously. The walls were decorated with biblical sayings, psalms and proverbs." Humaita has an astounding record. Its recidivism rate is 4%, compared to 75% in the rest of Brazil and in the United States. 75% repeat offenders! Only 4% out of Humaita. How is that possible? I saw the answer when my inmate guide escorted me to the notorious punishment cell, used for torture. Today, he told me, that block houses only a single inmate. As we reached the end of the long, concrete corridor and he put the key into the lock, he paused. He said, Are you sure you want to go in? Of course, I replied impatiently. I d been in isolation cells all over the world. Slowly, he swung open the massive door. I saw the prisoner in that torture cell. It was Jesus, impaled on a cross. He is doing time for the rest of us, my guide told me. In that cross, carved by loving hands, is a holy subversion. It heralds change more radical than mankind s most fevered dreams. Its followers expand the boundaries of the kingdom that can never fail. The shining kingdom that reaches into the darkest corners of every community, into

13 the darkest corners of every mind. The kingdom of deathless hope, of restless virtue, of endless peace. Hardened criminals in one of the world s worst prisons, have been taught the fear of God and become a transformed community. Colson observed that inside the walls of that prison, he found more love, more respect, more peace and more safety than on almost any street in America. Could God do for a family, a neighborhood, a nation or a world, what He did inside the walls of that prison? He not only could, He said He would. Psalm 34:11 Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. What will we learn in that fear? The greatness of His purpose for us. We are here to live for the praise of His glory to know Him and make Him known and the greatness of His presence with us. No matter what, we are never alone. He is God and He is working His life out, in us and through us, for the praise of His glory. Psalm 34:1-3; 11 1 I will extol the LORD at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. 2 I will glory in the LORD; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. 3 Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt his name together. 11 Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. It s the most important lesson in life. Thank you, God for this reminder. Moses had to learn it. David had to learn it. The apostles had to learn it. We have to learn it. The fear of the Lord. Job said, (Job 28:28): The fear of the Lord that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding. Thank you, God that we live to magnify Your name, and that You are always with us. May You transform our lives and the lives of those around us as we live in the fear of the Lord. We thank You. In Your precious Name, Amen.