Transcript: Episode 0026

“The Fear of the Lord”

This transcript:
  1. Was machine generated.
  2. Has not been checked for errors.
  3. May not be entirely accurate.
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00:00:00 – 00:00:02:	...

00:00:30 – 00:00:42:	Welcome to the Stone Choir podcast. I am Corey J. Moeller, and I'm Woe.

00:00:42 – 00:00:48:	There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit,

00:00:48 – 00:00:53:	and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,

00:00:53 – 00:00:59:	the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord,

00:00:59 – 00:01:03:	and his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

00:01:03 – 00:01:12:	Today's episode is discussing the fear of the Lord, the fear of God. What does it mean to fear God properly?

00:01:12 – 00:01:19:	What you'll find as you look at all the examples in Scripture, particularly throughout the Old Testament,

00:01:19 – 00:01:29:	fear of the Lord is used as synonymous with one who has faith, someone who was a believer was described as fearing God.

00:01:29 – 00:01:38:	This is how Jonah described himself. It's how Joseph described himself to his brothers when they didn't recognize him.

00:01:38 – 00:01:45:	Those men describe themselves as having fear of the Lord. It's synonymous with having faith. It means to be a believer.

00:01:45 – 00:01:55:	Something that's lost on us in the modern world is the connection between proper fear, as it's understood scripturally,

00:01:55 – 00:02:01:	and what it means to have faith. We think of it in sort of euphemistic terms, like, oh, he fears God.

00:02:01 – 00:02:07:	No, these men actually feared God. They were afraid of God in the traditional sense,

00:02:07 – 00:02:18:	which is not the sense of a spooky movie, or of being afraid of the dark, or being afraid of running out of fuel on the highway.

00:02:18 – 00:02:26:	It's not that exact type of fear. It's a much more properly oriented relationship to God.

00:02:26 – 00:02:31:	Harkening back to the episode that we did a while back on Perfect Hatred,

00:02:32 – 00:02:39:	it's important to note that when we're talking about these things that today we called emotions, fear and hatred,

00:02:39 – 00:02:44:	those are prime emotions or primal emotions, that's not all that they are.

00:02:44 – 00:02:52:	When we talked in the episode on Perfect Hatred, we talked about the fact that hatred is in fact a fruit of the Holy Spirit,

00:02:52 – 00:02:56:	proper hatred against those things which are opposed to God.

00:02:56 – 00:03:04:	And in that sense, it's not emotional. It's not an emotional response or outpouring. It's relational.

00:03:04 – 00:03:14:	If you love God, if you are oriented towards God's things, naturally that flows to a hatred of that, which is contrary to God's will.

00:03:14 – 00:03:20:	The same is true of the fear of God. When we say fear God, it doesn't mean hide in terror.

00:03:20 – 00:03:25:	It doesn't mean flee as the wicked man when no man pursues.

00:03:25 – 00:03:32:	To be afraid of God is to understand your relationship to God as your Creator. We're creatures.

00:03:32 – 00:03:36:	We are at the bottom. God is at the top.

00:03:36 – 00:03:39:	So today we're going to basically be doing another Bible study.

00:03:39 – 00:03:47:	We're going to go through a bunch of Bible verses talking about all the manners in which scripture describes fear and examples of it being used.

00:03:47 – 00:03:54:	Well, not all the examples because as we said, there are hundreds of them. This could be a 30-hour Bible study if we went through every single one.

00:03:54 – 00:04:02:	They're redundant, but it gets the point across that if you are not able to say, I fear God, there's something wrong with your faith.

00:04:02 – 00:04:07:	And I think today that's largely absent from the way we think of our own relationship to God.

00:04:07 – 00:04:11:	We think of God as being loving, as being our loving Father.

00:04:11 – 00:04:17:	A Father in a head also naturally inspires fear, properly understood.

00:04:17 – 00:04:21:	That's a part of that relationship because there's a hierarchy.

00:04:21 – 00:04:25:	Any time there's a hierarchy, there's fear, properly understood.

00:04:25 – 00:04:33:	Again, not in the sense of a scary movie, but in the sense of there's something greater above me that can do good or ill.

00:04:33 – 00:04:41:	And I understand my relationship to that as one of submission and one of not being able to resist whatever comes from above.

00:04:41 – 00:04:49:	And so today we're going to talk about how we properly understand what it is to fear, love, and trust in God.

00:04:49 – 00:04:53:	That's how Luther correctly, I think, explained the first commandment.

00:04:53 – 00:04:55:	You shall have no other gods before me.

00:04:55 – 00:04:59:	Luther said that means we fear, love, and trust in God above all things.

00:04:59 – 00:05:01:	Fear comes first.

00:05:01 – 00:05:05:	And that wasn't just Luther sort of picking words at random.

00:05:05 – 00:05:09:	What we find in scripture is that fear comes before love.

00:05:09 – 00:05:13:	Just as law comes before gospel, it's synonymous.

00:05:13 – 00:05:14:	It's the same thing.

00:05:14 – 00:05:23:	You cannot understand God's love for you if you do not have a proper fear of the God who must love you so that he doesn't destroy you.

00:05:23 – 00:05:25:	So that's where we're going to begin.

00:05:25 – 00:05:29:	So to start off, we'll turn to Genesis 31.

00:05:29 – 00:05:37:	I think this is a good place to begin because here we actually have fear as a name of God.

00:05:37 – 00:05:47:	If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed.

00:05:47 – 00:05:50:	God here is called the fear.

00:05:50 – 00:05:59:	Yes, it's the fear of Isaac, but fear is properly capitalized in the ESV and some other translations because it is a name of God.

00:05:59 – 00:06:02:	This is an attribute of God.

00:06:02 – 00:06:07:	God is fearful in the sense that he is something to be feared.

00:06:07 – 00:06:21:	And as was mentioned, modern readers, modern listeners are going to have an incorrect background set of assumptions when it comes to what fear is.

00:06:21 – 00:06:33:	And when preparing for this episode, I looked up fear in the 1828 dictionary to get a better idea of what this term used to mean in English.

00:06:33 – 00:06:43:	And as we were discussing before we started recording, there's actually a hierarchy given in the definition, and I think it's an important hierarchy for modern ears.

00:06:43 – 00:06:46:	This is something we should hear, something we should understand.

00:06:46 – 00:06:50:	We have fear, dread, terror, and fright.

00:06:50 – 00:07:01:	Now, fright is the one that, as we were preparing for the show, we discussed because fright to the modern ear doesn't really mean worse than fear, dread, and terror anymore.

00:07:01 – 00:07:03:	But that's the hierarchy here.

00:07:03 – 00:07:19:	And the reason that I want to point out this hierarchy is that the classical definition of fear, one of them in English that is sort of fallen by the wayside, is that fear is a mixture of dread and reverence.

00:07:19 – 00:07:23:	And so it's important to recognize that dread.

00:07:23 – 00:07:30:	That's the aspect that we're really missing today when we think about what it means to fear.

00:07:30 – 00:07:39:	And so if we fear God, yes, there's the reverence, yes, there's the respect, these other things.

00:07:39 – 00:07:46:	But there is also dread because God is something that is wholly other from us.

00:07:46 – 00:07:51:	I'm not saying in the sense of anti-realism or moral anti-realism, anything like that.

00:07:51 – 00:07:54:	That's a different subject.

00:07:54 – 00:07:59:	But in the sense of God is sui generis.

00:07:59 – 00:08:02:	God is different from us.

00:08:02 – 00:08:05:	His ways are not our ways, our ways are not his ways.

00:08:05 – 00:08:09:	He is above and beyond us to an incomprehensible degree.

00:08:09 – 00:08:17:	And so there is a certain response that we would and should have when in the presence of God.

00:08:17 – 00:08:24:	And in the theological and philosophical literature, this has sometimes been called the numinous.

00:08:25 – 00:08:28:	This comes from a Lutheran theologian called Rudolf Otto.

00:08:28 – 00:08:32:	His main book on the subject is actually a good book worth reading.

00:08:32 – 00:08:34:	It's the idea of the holy.

00:08:34 – 00:08:36:	It's worth noting again what holy means.

00:08:36 – 00:08:37:	Holy means to be set apart.

00:08:37 – 00:08:38:	It means to be other.

00:08:38 – 00:08:39:	It means the sacred.

00:08:39 – 00:08:41:	These are interchangeable terms in this case.

00:08:41 – 00:08:44:	But again, God is sui generis.

00:08:44 – 00:08:45:	God is Gansandra.

00:08:45 – 00:08:48:	He is, this is the holy other God.

00:08:48 – 00:08:53:	And that elicits from men who have a proper respect for God,

00:08:53 – 00:08:59:	a proper conception of God insofar as the mind of a mortal man can conceive of the infinite.

00:08:59 – 00:09:01:	It elicits fear.

00:09:01 – 00:09:04:	And so that is what we are talking about today.

00:09:04 – 00:09:06:	That's what we're going over in Scripture.

00:09:06 – 00:09:11:	And as mentioned, Scripture uses the word fear repeatedly.

00:09:11 – 00:09:15:	It appears over 400 times in the ESV's text.

00:09:15 – 00:09:21:	The connection between fear and dread is also called out in Genesis 9 where it's given context.

00:09:21 – 00:09:23:	God said to Noah,

00:09:23 – 00:09:28:	the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon the bird of the heavens,

00:09:28 – 00:09:32:	upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea.

00:09:32 – 00:09:35:	Into your hand they are delivered.

00:09:35 – 00:09:39:	And that's fundamentally what fear and dread is.

00:09:39 – 00:09:43:	The beasts today naturally fear us.

00:09:43 – 00:09:45:	Now some are less fearful than others.

00:09:45 – 00:09:47:	Some are too dumb to be afraid.

00:09:47 – 00:09:52:	But when you encounter a wild beast, it will be fearful of you.

00:09:52 – 00:09:54:	It may not be fearful of other things in nature,

00:09:54 – 00:10:03:	but it will be fearful of man in the sense that it will naturally understand that you are above it in creation.

00:10:03 – 00:10:06:	It doesn't know why, but it knows that you're something dangerous,

00:10:06 – 00:10:09:	something that might be a predator, something that could hurt it.

00:10:09 – 00:10:12:	It has the sense that it is delivered into your hand.

00:10:12 – 00:10:16:	Now, a dumb beast isn't comprehending these things in the way that a man does,

00:10:16 – 00:10:20:	but as God said, he put the fear and dread of man in the beast's heart.

00:10:20 – 00:10:21:	So it doesn't have to understand.

00:10:21 – 00:10:24:	God has given those things into our hands.

00:10:24 – 00:10:28:	And the beasts understand that as well as they can understand anything.

00:10:28 – 00:10:40:	And the fact that being delivered into someone's hand is the root for that fear and dread is why we should fear God.

00:10:40 – 00:10:42:	We are not delivered into his hand.

00:10:42 – 00:10:48:	We were held as his children in his hand, but it's in his hand.

00:10:48 – 00:10:49:	He's our creator.

00:10:49 – 00:10:52:	Again, he's at the very top of creation.

00:10:52 – 00:10:55:	We're not at the bottom because there are many things beneath us,

00:10:55 – 00:10:59:	but relative to him, we're less than worms.

00:10:59 – 00:11:03:	That's something we'll get into a bit later in some of the examples.

00:11:03 – 00:11:07:	One of the first passages I wanted to call out was from Psalm 19.

00:11:07 – 00:11:12:	Before we move on to that, I actually just want to add an anecdote here because very convenient timing.

00:11:12 – 00:11:21:	When it comes to the fear of God and particularly the analog here, the fear of man that animals have,

00:11:21 – 00:11:26:	I went down to take care of my chickens a little while before we started recording,

00:11:26 – 00:11:32:	and I went down there and one of them had managed to get out of the pen because every so often they do fly.

00:11:32 – 00:11:34:	Chickens can actually fly.

00:11:34 – 00:11:39:	They don't really remember they can fly, so they get spooked, they go upward, they get out of the pen,

00:11:39 – 00:11:43:	and then they look at the fact they're out of the pen and go, how did this happen?

00:11:43 – 00:11:48:	And they can't figure out how to get back in because, again, they don't realize they can fly.

00:11:48 – 00:11:56:	But the chickens obviously trust me to some degree because I feed them, water them and all those things.

00:11:56 – 00:12:01:	I take care of them and I haven't harmed them, but they are still afraid of me.

00:12:01 – 00:12:07:	They will run away if I try to capture them and pick them up because there is still that fear.

00:12:07 – 00:12:12:	They recognize that I am something that could very well cause them harm.

00:12:12 – 00:12:20:	That is analogous in some ways to man's relationship to God, the fear of God that man should have with respect to God

00:12:20 – 00:12:31:	because God, the difference between me and the chickens is nothing compared to the difference between God and me,

00:12:31 – 00:12:33:	between God and man.

00:12:33 – 00:12:35:	God is infinite, man is finite.

00:12:35 – 00:12:43:	God has absolute control over your life, over what will happen in your life, over the world, over everything.

00:12:43 – 00:12:52:	God has control over the universe on the grandest scale down to individual divisions of cells,

00:12:52 – 00:12:56:	the way that quarks interact inside the particles inside atoms.

00:12:56 – 00:13:01:	God has control over absolutely everything.

00:13:01 – 00:13:09:	And it's the fear of God flows in part from that proper understanding of the majesty of God,

00:13:09 – 00:13:12:	the power of God, the nature of God relative to man.

00:13:12 – 00:13:21:	And so it's good to think of the way that animals interact with man to some degree because it gives us a picture of that sort of fear.

00:13:21 – 00:13:24:	It's not always just abject terror.

00:13:24 – 00:13:31:	It is a respect due to the power differential, due to the nature of that relationship.

00:13:31 – 00:13:36:	And it is because of God's love for us that He reveals all of this to us in Scripture.

00:13:36 – 00:13:41:	He tells us why and how to fear Him, why and how to love Him.

00:13:41 – 00:13:43:	He tells us that He loves us.

00:13:43 – 00:13:50:	Again, He tells us these things because He loves us and He wants us to fear and love Him in that order.

00:13:50 – 00:13:53:	In Psalm 19 it reads,

00:14:12 – 00:14:14:	And I did that whole passage.

00:14:14 – 00:14:18:	You could cherry pick just the fear of the Lord is clean and during forever and say,

00:14:18 – 00:14:20:	well, obviously fear is good.

00:14:20 – 00:14:26:	When you look in context, fear of the Lord is put in a list of synonyms for God's will,

00:14:26 – 00:14:31:	the law of the Lord, the testimony, the precepts, the commandments, the rules, the fear of the Lord.

00:14:31 – 00:14:36:	Those are all part and parcel according to God of the same thing.

00:14:36 – 00:14:41:	So when we say fear God, when God says fear God, like this is in stone choir theology,

00:14:41 – 00:14:46:	God is literally saying, if you fear me, you know my law.

00:14:46 – 00:14:48:	It's the same thing.

00:14:48 – 00:14:58:	God lifts synonym after synonym in Psalm 19 for the purpose of making clear that the fear of God is not emotional, principally, it's knowledge.

00:14:58 – 00:15:03:	The proper, rightly ordered knowledge of God is itself fear.

00:15:03 – 00:15:15:	It is interesting that she would pick that example for explaining that the fear of God can be a synonym for His law, His word for obeying God,

00:15:15 – 00:15:21:	because that is literally the example verse given in Webster's 1828.

00:15:21 – 00:15:28:	Because one of the, and I want to point out that you did not actually look at Webster's 1828 before this episode.

00:15:28 – 00:15:34:	I happen to have it open, but the eighth definition under fear is the law and word of God.

00:15:34 – 00:15:41:	And it gives Psalm 19 nine as the example, which this is actually something worth noting here.

00:15:41 – 00:15:46:	Webster's 1828 cites to scripture constantly.

00:15:46 – 00:15:56:	It is, it's probably far and away the top source that is cited for examples of the use of various words.

00:15:56 – 00:16:03:	So just looking at this one, the verses themselves are hyperlinked, so it's very easy to see they're all blue.

00:16:03 – 00:16:07:	It is almost every single definition of fear cites to scripture.

00:16:07 – 00:16:09:	And this is something that we've lost as a society.

00:16:09 – 00:16:14:	If you open up a modern dictionary, it is not going to cite to scripture as often.

00:16:14 – 00:16:25:	Academic ones, interestingly, will actually cite to scripture more because, as we have mentioned previously, if you do not know scripture, you are functionally illiterate in a Western context.

00:16:25 – 00:16:36:	It doesn't matter if you're Christian, if you're pagan, Buddhist, whatever you are, if you are in a Western context and you do not know scripture, you are functionally illiterate.

00:16:36 – 00:16:42:	And that definitely shines through when looking at the examples in older dictionaries.

00:16:42 – 00:16:53:	Just imagine how terrible things must have been in 1828 when we had a Christian nation and people had to know the word of God to understand their own language and how they related to others.

00:16:53 – 00:16:54:	Sounds like a nightmare.

00:16:54 – 00:16:57:	It's a good thing we're not Christianizing nations anymore.

00:16:57 – 00:17:01:	Another Psalm that I wanted to highlight was Psalm 111.

00:17:01 – 00:17:04:	The works of his hands are faithful and just.

00:17:04 – 00:17:06:	All his precepts are trustworthy.

00:17:06 – 00:17:08:	They are established forever and ever.

00:17:08 – 00:17:13:	To be performed with faithfulness and uprightness, he sent redemption to his people.

00:17:13 – 00:17:15:	He has commanded his covenant forever.

00:17:15 – 00:17:17:	Holy and awesome is his name.

00:17:17 – 00:17:19:	The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

00:17:19 – 00:17:22:	All those who practice it have good understanding.

00:17:22 – 00:17:25:	His praise and dirt is forever.

00:17:25 – 00:17:29:	There's a passage that ties into what we'll be talking about in Job in a little bit.

00:17:29 – 00:17:38:	How not only is fear of the Lord wisdom and understanding, but it is glory to God to fear him.

00:17:38 – 00:17:45:	And again, I talked at the beginning about how this is a relational concept, not an emotional one.

00:17:45 – 00:17:50:	When you hate that which the Lord hates, as we talked about in the perfect hatred episode,

00:17:50 – 00:17:52:	that's not you being angry.

00:17:52 – 00:17:58:	That is you having a spirit that is oriented in the same way that God's spirit has told us to be oriented

00:17:58 – 00:18:01:	against those things which are contrary to God.

00:18:01 – 00:18:08:	So when we talk about fearing the Lord, it is giving him glory to fear him.

00:18:08 – 00:18:15:	It is not being presumptuous to not fear the Lord is to be a cocky jerk.

00:18:15 – 00:18:18:	I was thinking earlier about examples.

00:18:18 – 00:18:24:	I'm going to give this example by realizing it's not blasphemous, but it's kind of absurd.

00:18:24 – 00:18:33:	I was thinking of the example in Die Hard when the cocky idiot in the tower wanted to go in and negotiate with Hans Gruber.

00:18:33 – 00:18:38:	And he puts his feet up on the desk and he says, Hans, booby, like they were equals.

00:18:38 – 00:18:44:	And Gruber is sitting there just astonished that this idiot could be so close to death and not realize it.

00:18:44 – 00:18:48:	That man did not have a proper fear of someone who had his life in his hands.

00:18:48 – 00:18:54:	Now, Lord, forgive me, I'm not comparing God Almighty to Hans Gruber.

00:18:54 – 00:19:01:	But that sort of inversion of proper understanding of relationship is when you get your head bitten up.

00:19:01 – 00:19:08:	There are examples in scripture where God himself says, don't put yourself at the high place at the table.

00:19:08 – 00:19:10:	Go at the low place at the table.

00:19:10 – 00:19:15:	Let God invite you. Let the master of the ceremony invite you up to the place of honor.

00:19:15 – 00:19:17:	That is the approach that we're to have with God.

00:19:17 – 00:19:23:	If you fear and have the dread of God in your heart, you're not going to be cocky.

00:19:23 – 00:19:29:	You're not going to put your feet up on the table and act like you're in equal and act like you can negotiate with God.

00:19:29 – 00:19:31:	You're going to come as a supplicant.

00:19:31 – 00:19:33:	That is what God wants from us.

00:19:34 – 00:19:38:	By God telling us in scripture that that's what he wants,

00:19:38 – 00:19:44:	it then permits him to invite us to the table to receive us as his adopted children.

00:19:44 – 00:19:48:	None of what we're saying today is about nullifying God's love.

00:19:48 – 00:19:52:	It's about making sure that we don't lose the context of who God is.

00:19:52 – 00:19:58:	I think so much modern theology is oriented completely around man.

00:19:58 – 00:20:07:	It's all focused on us, on you, on me, on our feelings, on our relationships in the small R sense.

00:20:07 – 00:20:11:	Not in the sense of how we are oriented towards or away from God.

00:20:11 – 00:20:20:	When Psalm 111 ties the fear of the Lord with wisdom and praise and how holy and awesome God's name is,

00:20:20 – 00:20:22:	it's all part and parcel.

00:20:22 – 00:20:27:	Just as in Psalm 19, the rules and the precepts are part of the fear of the Lord.

00:20:27 – 00:20:31:	God's glory is to be feared by us.

00:20:31 – 00:20:33:	That is a good thing.

00:20:33 – 00:20:35:	We're not saying hide in terror.

00:20:35 – 00:20:42:	We're not saying, as God doesn't say, flee and just be mindlessly terrified of me.

00:20:42 – 00:20:48:	God says you should have a proper orientation towards me that is one on your knees.

00:20:48 – 00:20:54:	It's something that used to be a part of worship in the West where a lot of most churches used to have kneelers.

00:20:54 – 00:20:58:	There were periods in the church service where you would literally get down on your knees.

00:20:58 – 00:21:02:	Thankfully, at least in the Lutheran church and some Catholic churches and probably others,

00:21:02 – 00:21:08:	there are still kneelers or there's a bench to kneel at a rail when you receive communion.

00:21:08 – 00:21:11:	That is the proper posture of fear.

00:21:11 – 00:21:19:	When you get down on your knees, it is a posture, a physical posture of supplication.

00:21:19 – 00:21:25:	If we met in person and I said, get down on your knees, you would be deeply unnerved.

00:21:25 – 00:21:30:	You don't know what's going to happen next, but it doesn't seem like it's probably going to be good

00:21:30 – 00:21:35:	because the physical orientation of me standing and you kneeling by command

00:21:35 – 00:21:40:	is fundamentally one of dominance and then fear on the part of the kneeler.

00:21:40 – 00:21:46:	When we kneel before God at the communion altar, it is in fear as well as thanksgiving.

00:21:46 – 00:21:50:	We are kneeling before the Almighty in receiving His body and blood in our mouths.

00:21:50 – 00:21:52:	That is a fearful thing.

00:21:52 – 00:21:53:	It is a wondrous thing.

00:21:53 – 00:21:55:	It is a gift beyond imagining.

00:21:55 – 00:21:59:	But if you just go up there and say, I want that, that's mine.

00:21:59 – 00:22:04:	It's like putting your feet up on the rail as though you were entitled to these things.

00:22:04 – 00:22:09:	These are gifts from the Master that are undeserving to any of us.

00:22:09 – 00:22:16:	When they're received, receiving them through the love by which they're sacrificed and offered

00:22:16 – 00:22:20:	means fearing the nature of He who's giving these things

00:22:20 – 00:22:23:	because God could just as easily have not given these things.

00:22:23 – 00:22:28:	In fact, it would make far more sense for us, for God not to give us anything.

00:22:28 – 00:22:32:	We know naturally we don't deserve any of the good gifts.

00:22:32 – 00:22:35:	That's not what we're talking about when we say fear God.

00:22:35 – 00:22:37:	We're not saying fear God is a pagan.

00:22:37 – 00:22:41:	We're saying fear God so that when you receive His gifts,

00:22:41 – 00:22:46:	it is in the proper understanding of how much He loves you,

00:22:46 – 00:22:51:	that you do have to fear Him and yet you receive these things anyway.

00:22:51 – 00:22:56:	And despite of the infinite disparity between the Creator and the creature,

00:22:56 – 00:23:00:	all of these things of love are still poured out for us.

00:23:00 – 00:23:07:	And so to not fear God is to receive those gifts unworthily if we receive them at all.

00:23:07 – 00:23:15:	You mentioned pagan fear and I think this is a good spot to divide two different kinds of fear,

00:23:15 – 00:23:19:	two different senses of the term that we can mean when we use it.

00:23:19 – 00:23:29:	And that is what you call the pagan fear would be just blunt fear, fear of being squashed like a bug.

00:23:29 – 00:23:36:	That's the sort of fear that you would have of a tiger or a bear or trapped in a cave, what have you,

00:23:36 – 00:23:39:	something like that, that kind of fear.

00:23:39 – 00:23:42:	There is some of that when it comes to God.

00:23:42 – 00:23:45:	It's not exactly the same.

00:23:45 – 00:23:52:	Yes, God is so high above you that obviously it is worse in a way to stand in the presence of God,

00:23:52 – 00:23:58:	you know, as a man of unclean lips say, than to be trapped with a bear.

00:23:58 – 00:24:06:	But there is a difference between the kind of fear that we mean when we are speaking of the Christian versus the unbeliever.

00:24:06 – 00:24:12:	And I'll just read definition six from the 1828 version of Webster's.

00:24:12 – 00:24:17:	In scripture, fear is used to express a filial or a slavish passion.

00:24:17 – 00:24:22:	In good men, the fear of God is a holy awe or reverence of God and his laws,

00:24:22 – 00:24:27:	which springs from a just view and real love of the divine character.

00:24:27 – 00:24:33:	Leading the subjects of it to hate and shun everything that can offend such a holy being,

00:24:33 – 00:24:36:	and inclining them to aim at perfect obedience.

00:24:36 – 00:24:38:	This is filial fear.

00:24:38 – 00:24:42:	Slavish fear is the effect or consequence of guilt.

00:24:42 – 00:24:46:	It is the painful apprehension of merited punishment.

00:24:46 – 00:24:48:	And so that's the distinction here.

00:24:48 – 00:24:56:	There is a difference in the sort of fear that a believer will have with respect to God versus an unbeliever,

00:24:56 – 00:25:01:	because an unbeliever does not have a loving father.

00:25:01 – 00:25:06:	An unbeliever has an angry God who is going to punish him for eternity.

00:25:06 – 00:25:12:	Whereas a believer has a loving God who is going to chastise him yes here in time,

00:25:12 – 00:25:16:	because beloved children are disciplined by their fathers.

00:25:16 – 00:25:21:	However, he is a loving God who is doing that for our good.

00:25:21 – 00:25:23:	That is filial fear.

00:25:23 – 00:25:27:	That is the fear that a son has toward his father, which is a good thing,

00:25:27 – 00:25:32:	as opposed to the slavish fear of the pagan, of the unbeliever of the atheist.

00:25:32 – 00:25:35:	That also ties back into what was said in Psalm 111.

00:25:35 – 00:25:40:	This is the glorification of God comes from a proper fear.

00:25:40 – 00:25:45:	You can't glorify God if you're just in blind animal terror.

00:25:45 – 00:25:50:	The last verse I wanted to pull from wisdom of literature is from Proverbs 1.

00:25:50 – 00:25:53:	At the very beginning of Proverbs, it says,

00:26:21 – 00:26:22:	I think that last line,

00:26:22 – 00:26:27:	fools despise wisdom and instruction is something that many of us encounter in our own lives.

00:26:27 – 00:26:28:	You're interacting with someone.

00:26:28 – 00:26:33:	You're trying to tell them something important that they don't want to hear,

00:26:33 – 00:26:35:	that they don't understand.

00:26:35 – 00:26:39:	Maybe it was about COVID vaccines or any number of things.

00:26:39 – 00:26:43:	One of the most common responses that you'll find with some people is,

00:26:43 – 00:26:44:	I don't want to hear it.

00:26:44 – 00:26:46:	I don't want to hear anything about it.

00:26:46 – 00:26:49:	Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

00:26:49 – 00:26:52:	What is the exact opposite of that?

00:26:52 – 00:26:55:	The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

00:26:57 – 00:27:00:	Fear of God is a blessing.

00:27:00 – 00:27:07:	We're not talking about something that we do, again, not out of animal terror.

00:27:07 – 00:27:09:	We're talking about a fruit of the Spirit.

00:27:09 – 00:27:12:	The fear of the Lord is a fruit of the Spirit.

00:27:12 – 00:27:15:	If you have the Holy Spirit, you're going to fear God.

00:27:15 – 00:27:20:	If you are listening or you know someone who has absolutely no fear of God,

00:27:20 – 00:27:25:	if they're just going to put their feet up on the table and chat away like they're equals,

00:27:25 – 00:27:28:	and that's the only understanding that they have,

00:27:28 – 00:27:32:	that person, their faith is in trouble.

00:27:32 – 00:27:37:	Obviously, Jesus, God, the Son of God, came down from heaven,

00:27:37 – 00:27:40:	was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and was made man.

00:27:40 – 00:27:43:	He sat and ate with his friends.

00:27:43 – 00:27:46:	We're not saying that that is not God, that is absolutely God.

00:27:46 – 00:27:48:	God can sit among us.

00:27:48 – 00:27:52:	He can sit across the table and be a friend, and be a brother,

00:27:52 – 00:27:55:	and be someone who is close and intimate.

00:27:55 – 00:27:57:	This is not a denial of that,

00:27:57 – 00:28:03:	because there were also times, even in Jesus' earthly ministry before the ascension,

00:28:03 – 00:28:08:	when the apostles were afraid, when the disciples were afraid of what was going on,

00:28:08 – 00:28:13:	because although their knowledge of him as the Son of God was imperfect

00:28:13 – 00:28:17:	before the veil was lifted from their eyes at Pentecost,

00:28:17 – 00:28:20:	they still knew that he was God,

00:28:20 – 00:28:24:	and they knew that there were things that he could do that no man could possibly do.

00:28:24 – 00:28:27:	It's one of the reasons that they believed in him,

00:28:27 – 00:28:30:	and their response to that knowledge was fear.

00:28:30 – 00:28:31:	They feared Jesus.

00:28:31 – 00:28:32:	They loved him.

00:28:32 – 00:28:35:	They loved him as a brother who had lived with him for years,

00:28:35 – 00:28:37:	and they feared him because he was God.

00:28:37 – 00:28:39:	He was fully God and fully man,

00:28:39 – 00:28:44:	and so the love of God and the fear of God are part and parcel.

00:28:44 – 00:28:50:	They go together, but they didn't just hang out with Jesus because he was a fun guy,

00:28:50 – 00:28:51:	and they liked being around him.

00:28:51 – 00:28:54:	They were with him first and foremost because he was God.

00:28:54 – 00:28:58:	He was the fearful God who was capable of infinite things,

00:28:58 – 00:29:02:	and the fact that he masked that infinite glory,

00:29:02 – 00:29:06:	glory that would kill them if they had seen it fully,

00:29:06 – 00:29:08:	that was his love for them.

00:29:08 – 00:29:11:	But the fear always came first in the relationship.

00:29:11 – 00:29:13:	Even when they weren't necessarily thinking about it,

00:29:13 – 00:29:16:	it still was there because they knew that he was God.

00:29:16 – 00:29:21:	They feared the Lord, and they loved their brother, Jesus, who lived among them.

00:29:21 – 00:29:24:	That's what all these passages are talking about.

00:29:24 – 00:29:26:	The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

00:29:26 – 00:29:28:	It's the law of the Lord.

00:29:28 – 00:29:30:	It's all of these good things.

00:29:30 – 00:29:32:	That's the point of this entire episode.

00:29:32 – 00:29:35:	The fear of the Lord is a good thing.

00:29:35 – 00:29:37:	We're not saying be terrified like an animal.

00:29:37 – 00:29:40:	We're saying that if you have no fear of God,

00:29:40 – 00:29:43:	you're missing out on one of God's blessings,

00:29:43 – 00:29:46:	and it's such an important one that it's potentially jeopardizing your faith.

00:29:46 – 00:29:49:	That's the reason that we're devoting an entire episode to this.

00:29:49 – 00:29:51:	It's not saying, oh man, you should be afraid of God.

00:29:51 – 00:29:52:	It's terrible.

00:29:52 – 00:29:54:	God is glorious.

00:29:54 – 00:29:55:	God is perfect.

00:29:55 – 00:29:58:	He is infinite, and his love for you is infinite as well,

00:29:58 – 00:30:00:	and that is something that's fearsome,

00:30:00 – 00:30:03:	and it's okay for a Christian to say that out loud.

00:30:03 – 00:30:09:	We could spend hours just going through fear in the wisdom literature,

00:30:09 – 00:30:12:	particularly in Psalms,

00:30:12 – 00:30:17:	but I want to read one more snippet from one of the Psalms

00:30:17 – 00:30:22:	because it highlights this difference between the slavish pagan fear

00:30:22 – 00:30:26:	and the fear of a believer, and that's from Psalm 130.

00:30:26 – 00:30:30:	If you, oh Lord, should mark iniquities, oh Lord, who could stand,

00:30:30 – 00:30:34:	but with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared.

00:30:34 – 00:30:38:	Now, obviously, this is not the kind of fear that an unbeliever would have

00:30:38 – 00:30:40:	because it says with you there is forgiveness,

00:30:40 – 00:30:44:	and it is only believers who benefit from the justification.

00:30:44 – 00:30:48:	Yes, all of creation is redeemed in the objective justification,

00:30:48 – 00:30:53:	but the subjective justification is applied to believers by faith,

00:30:53 – 00:30:59:	and so this sort of fear is the fear that a son has for his father.

00:30:59 – 00:31:01:	This is filial fear.

00:31:01 – 00:31:06:	This is exactly the kind of fear that we are speaking of with regard to Christians.

00:31:06 – 00:31:10:	This is what we should have in relationship to God.

00:31:10 – 00:31:15:	We can properly fear God because there is forgiveness of sins.

00:31:15 – 00:31:20:	If there were no forgiveness of sins, we could very well still fear God,

00:31:20 – 00:31:22:	but it would not be filial fear.

00:31:22 – 00:31:26:	It would be the fear of God as transcendent,

00:31:26 – 00:31:32:	the fear of God as so totally other that we are forever disconnected from him.

00:31:32 – 00:31:36:	It's the kind of fear that an animal has of a hunter.

00:31:36 – 00:31:38:	It is sheer animalistic terror.

00:31:38 – 00:31:42:	That is what you would have if there were no forgiveness,

00:31:42 – 00:31:46:	but with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared.

00:31:46 – 00:31:49:	Which is why God revealed all this to us in Scripture.

00:31:49 – 00:31:56:	God has given us this knowledge for our edification, for our comfort, for our fear.

00:31:56 – 00:31:59:	That's an okay thing to say.

00:31:59 – 00:32:04:	God wants you to fear him, and if you understand him, you will.

00:32:04 – 00:32:10:	We're going to get now into Job, which is one of both Cory and my favorite books of Scripture.

00:32:11 – 00:32:19:	I think that the way that Job and God interact is a perfect illustration of what we're talking about here.

00:32:19 – 00:32:24:	It also lends into what we're going to talk about at the end about trusting in God,

00:32:24 – 00:32:27:	because fear and trust are part and parcel.

00:32:27 – 00:32:31:	Cory's chickens fear him, and they trust him.

00:32:31 – 00:32:34:	They know that when he comes out, he's going to feed them.

00:32:34 – 00:32:39:	That trust, they can be confident that they're going to receive treats,

00:32:39 – 00:32:44:	and they're going to receive food, and they're not going to be hurt when he's doing good things for them.

00:32:44 – 00:32:50:	The fear of him as being over them is also manifest in their trust for the gifts that he gives.

00:32:50 – 00:32:53:	That's the same thing as true for all of us.

00:32:53 – 00:32:58:	I think there's no better example in all of Scripture than the entire story of Job.

00:32:58 – 00:33:00:	I recommend you read the whole thing.

00:33:00 – 00:33:07:	I especially recommend, even if you want to cut out some of the dialogue between Job and his three friends,

00:33:07 – 00:33:12:	the first couple chapters and the last four chapters, beginning with 38,

00:33:12 – 00:33:16:	are really the perfect encapsulation of what we're talking about here.

00:33:16 – 00:33:20:	I'm not going to read the whole thing, but I want to give some clips from it

00:33:20 – 00:33:28:	to give a sense of what it is that God says when he's describing fear being a good thing.

00:33:28 – 00:33:34:	And the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job, for there is none like him in the earth,

00:33:34 – 00:33:40:	a perfect and an upright man, one who fears God and turns away from evil?

00:33:40 – 00:33:45:	And Satan answered the Lord and said, Does Job fear God for naught?

00:33:45 – 00:33:51:	Have you not made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he has on every side?

00:33:51 – 00:33:56:	You have blessed the work of his hands, and his livestock has increased in the land.

00:33:56 – 00:34:03:	But put forth, pray your hand, and touch all that he has, and he will renounce you to your face.

00:34:03 – 00:34:12:	So it's notable there that God specifically holds up his servant Job as someone who fears God and turns away from evil.

00:34:12 – 00:34:17:	And Satan's argument against him in the Divine Council is, Well, of course he fears you.

00:34:17 – 00:34:19:	Look at all the good things you give him.

00:34:19 – 00:34:23:	So this is right here in the very beginning of Job.

00:34:23 – 00:34:31:	The fear of God is faith, and it is the natural response to God's blessings.

00:34:31 – 00:34:32:	That's what Satan says.

00:34:32 – 00:34:33:	And he's right.

00:34:33 – 00:34:39:	Like Satan's not lying about this when he says, Does Job fear God for naught?

00:34:39 – 00:34:40:	He's absolutely right.

00:34:40 – 00:34:41:	Job was blessed.

00:34:42 – 00:34:53:	And I think in a recent episode, Corey, you mentioned that the list of all the animals and the servants and all the wealth that Job had marked him as probably one of the richest men on earth.

00:34:53 – 00:34:55:	He was profoundly wealthy.

00:34:55 – 00:34:59:	And God's response is, Go ahead.

00:34:59 – 00:35:05:	You can go and you can do evil to this man, to my servant, but don't harm him.

00:35:05 – 00:35:10:	And so Satan went down and he killed all of his animals.

00:35:10 – 00:35:11:	He killed all of his children.

00:35:11 – 00:35:13:	He killed all of his servants.

00:35:13 – 00:35:19:	The only thing that Job had left at that point was his wife, who was never touched, and his health.

00:35:19 – 00:35:22:	And so when I read next, I'll just read from ESV.

00:35:22 – 00:35:23:	Interesting.

00:35:23 – 00:35:25:	ESV and ALV are actually very close in this.

00:35:25 – 00:35:29:	I preserved a lot of the same wording, which is nice to see.

00:35:29 – 00:35:33:	I'm glad that that literalism carries through.

00:35:33 – 00:35:44:	After Satan delivered this evil to Job, a servant, three servants, and each rapidly in term came and told him and his wife, all the evil that had just befell him.

00:35:44 – 00:35:47:	Here's Job's response to finding out all his kids are dead.

00:35:47 – 00:35:48:	All his servants are dead.

00:35:48 – 00:35:51:	All his animals are dead.

00:35:51 – 00:35:56:	Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped.

00:35:56 – 00:36:01:	And he said, Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked shall I return.

00:36:01 – 00:36:04:	The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.

00:36:04 – 00:36:06:	Blessed be the name of the Lord.

00:36:06 – 00:36:10:	And all this Job did not sin or charge God with any wrong.

00:36:10 – 00:36:13:	I think I mentioned this in a previous episode.

00:36:13 – 00:36:15:	Imagine you're Satan in this scenario.

00:36:15 – 00:36:21:	You basically make a bet with God that you're going to torture this man so that he will curse God.

00:36:21 – 00:36:22:	You go down.

00:36:22 – 00:36:24:	You kill his entire family.

00:36:24 – 00:36:26:	You basically take all his possessions.

00:36:26 – 00:36:28:	He has nothing but his health and his wife.

00:36:28 – 00:36:31:	And after all of this evil, what does Job do?

00:36:31 – 00:36:32:	How does he respond?

00:36:32 – 00:36:37:	He falls to his knees and he worships and he gives glory to God.

00:36:37 – 00:36:39:	Imagine you're Satan.

00:36:39 – 00:36:45:	Imagine what a kick in the teeth that is to do just about the worst possible things you can do to any man.

00:36:45 – 00:36:47:	He just found out all his kids are dead.

00:36:47 – 00:36:51:	All of them, all 10 children, seven sons and three daughters have just been killed.

00:36:51 – 00:36:57:	His enemies from other nations have slaughtered all of his servants and all of his livestock.

00:36:57 – 00:36:59:	He basically has nothing left.

00:36:59 – 00:37:04:	He went for being one of the richest men on the planet and blessed by God and protected by God with a hedge,

00:37:04 – 00:37:08:	as Satan pointed out, to someone with nothing but his health and his wife.

00:37:08 – 00:37:10:	He falls to his knees.

00:37:10 – 00:37:12:	He worships God and he said,

00:37:12 – 00:37:14:	The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.

00:37:14 – 00:37:16:	Blessed be the name of the Lord.

00:37:16 – 00:37:18:	He doesn't attribute the evil to the Lord.

00:37:18 – 00:37:21:	He doesn't give Satan any credit at all.

00:37:21 – 00:37:23:	He said, bless God.

00:37:23 – 00:37:30:	Bless God for having given me these things and bless God even though these things have been taken away from me.

00:37:30 – 00:37:32:	That is fear of God.

00:37:32 – 00:37:37:	Just as God said he had, God said that he had fear of the Lord and this is a fearful response.

00:37:37 – 00:37:45:	When calamity falls, whatever it is in your life, you should be equipped by your faith and by your meditation on scripture

00:37:45 – 00:37:51:	that whatever happens to you, you should be able to respond to it the way Job does here.

00:37:51 – 00:37:55:	Because such a man is unbeatable.

00:37:55 – 00:38:00:	Such a man lives his life every moment of it in fear and trust of the Lord.

00:38:00 – 00:38:05:	Satan has taken everything and in the next passage, he takes his health as well.

00:38:05 – 00:38:07:	He's covered in sores from head to toe.

00:38:07 – 00:38:12:	But even at that, Job still knew that he was in God's hands.

00:38:12 – 00:38:19:	Such a man cannot be defeated because such faith, which is a gift from God, is forever.

00:38:19 – 00:38:27:	If that is your faith, if you have the faith of Job, there's nothing that can possibly happen in your life that will rob you of that faith.

00:38:27 – 00:38:29:	Again, God's giving it to us.

00:38:29 – 00:38:32:	God is telling us these things for our edification.

00:38:32 – 00:38:39:	God is encouraging us to fear him such that when calamity befalls, we give thanks for it.

00:38:39 – 00:38:45:	How can you possibly have your spirit broken when that is your response to the worst thing imaginable?

00:38:45 – 00:38:48:	You have to think that Luther probably had

00:38:48 – 00:38:52:	this section among other parts of Job and mine when he was writing

00:38:52 – 00:38:56:	the four stanza of Ein Festerberg.

00:38:56 – 00:39:02:	For those who aren't familiar with it, I'll read it in German and then translate it

00:39:02 – 00:39:06:	because I don't like a lot of the English translations.

00:39:06 – 00:39:21:	And the English translations lose a little bit.

00:39:21 – 00:39:26:	The rough translation from the German would be,

00:39:26 – 00:39:31:	Let them take our life, God's honor, children and wife.

00:39:31 – 00:39:33:	Let these go.

00:39:33 – 00:39:35:	He cannot win.

00:39:35 – 00:39:39:	The Reich, the kingdom, must remain with us.

00:39:39 – 00:39:45:	And so it really is a picture of what is happening to Job here.

00:39:45 – 00:39:51:	And it was also, of course, what was being threatened by the Papus against the Lutherans at that time

00:39:51 – 00:39:53:	and thereafter for quite a while.

00:39:53 – 00:39:58:	And they nearly succeeded in the Thirty Years' War, of course.

00:39:58 – 00:40:03:	But this is what happened to Job.

00:40:03 – 00:40:08:	Satan took his goods, his honor, his children,

00:40:08 – 00:40:13:	didn't take his wife, notably, although did drive a wedge between them

00:40:13 – 00:40:18:	because of her reaction to what happened versus Job's reaction,

00:40:18 – 00:40:23:	because, of course, she says curse God and die, which is not the reaction Job has.

00:40:23 – 00:40:25:	Job has the proper reaction.

00:40:25 – 00:40:28:	But this is what happened to Job.

00:40:28 – 00:40:35:	And the reaction of Job and the words of the hymn are equivalent.

00:40:35 – 00:40:37:	Let these things go.

00:40:37 – 00:40:40:	If they do, if it be God's will,

00:40:40 – 00:40:45:	everything works together for the good of those who trust in and love God.

00:40:45 – 00:40:49:	We know that from Romans.

00:40:49 – 00:40:50:	Satan cannot win.

00:40:50 – 00:40:54:	The evil cannot win because Christ has already won.

00:40:54 – 00:40:57:	And so we know, and in later verses in Job,

00:40:57 – 00:40:59:	I know that my Redeemer lives

00:40:59 – 00:41:01:	and that at last he will stand upon the earth

00:41:01 – 00:41:07:	and that I will see him with my own eyes, I and not another.

00:41:07 – 00:41:08:	Satan cannot win.

00:41:08 – 00:41:09:	The evil cannot win.

00:41:09 – 00:41:14:	All of this works together for good in God's plan.

00:41:14 – 00:41:16:	And so even if the worst happens,

00:41:16 – 00:41:20:	which the worst very well happens to Job,

00:41:20 – 00:41:22:	this is about as bad as it can possibly get.

00:41:22 – 00:41:24:	You lose your possessions.

00:41:24 – 00:41:25:	You lose your servants.

00:41:25 – 00:41:27:	You lose your children.

00:41:27 – 00:41:28:	You lose your position.

00:41:28 – 00:41:30:	You lose everything.

00:41:30 – 00:41:34:	And finally you're afflicted with some sort of terrible disease.

00:41:34 – 00:41:36:	That's rock bottom.

00:41:36 – 00:41:37:	And he still praises God.

00:41:37 – 00:41:38:	That is the correct reaction.

00:41:38 – 00:41:41:	That is proper fear of God.

00:41:41 – 00:41:45:	That is fear directed toward a proper ultimate end.

00:41:45 – 00:41:49:	God, instead of fear of these temporal consequences

00:41:49 – 00:41:53:	of losing these things in life.

00:41:53 – 00:41:55:	Yes, they are important.

00:41:55 – 00:41:57:	We're not saying they're not.

00:41:57 – 00:41:58:	That's not what Scripture is saying.

00:41:58 – 00:42:02:	It's not saying that your children, your wife, your health, your goods,

00:42:02 – 00:42:03:	these are all blessings from God.

00:42:03 – 00:42:06:	These things are good, but they are not an ultimate good.

00:42:06 – 00:42:08:	They are not ultimate goods.

00:42:08 – 00:42:10:	They come from God as blessing.

00:42:10 – 00:42:16:	And so proper fear is directed toward God as that ultimate good.

00:42:16 – 00:42:23:	And that is really, if you look properly at the first commandment,

00:42:23 – 00:42:25:	that is what you are supposed to do.

00:42:25 – 00:42:26:	That is what Job is doing.

00:42:26 – 00:42:28:	Job is obeying the first commandment.

00:42:28 – 00:42:32:	He is not putting his trust in these temporal goods.

00:42:32 – 00:42:36:	He is putting his trust in the eternal good that is God.

00:42:36 – 00:42:39:	And that is right fear directed rightly.

00:42:39 – 00:42:44:	And when after Job is beset by the sores from head to toe

00:42:44 – 00:42:47:	and he's scratching himself with broken pottery,

00:42:47 – 00:42:50:	he's sitting in ashes and his wife is nagging at him saying,

00:42:50 – 00:42:52:	Curse God and I, he said to her,

00:42:52 – 00:42:54:	you speak as one of the foolish women would speak.

00:42:54 – 00:42:58:	Shall we receive good from God and shall we not receive evil?

00:42:58 – 00:43:02:	Which is reiteration of what he said previously.

00:43:02 – 00:43:05:	You take the good with the bad because it's all blessings from God.

00:43:05 – 00:43:08:	The bad things are a blessing from God too.

00:43:08 – 00:43:10:	It's not obvious, doesn't make sense.

00:43:10 – 00:43:13:	But if you receive it as a blessing, as God intends it,

00:43:13 – 00:43:16:	God didn't intend for Job to be cursed here.

00:43:16 – 00:43:21:	God permitted evil to befall him, but it was not a curse.

00:43:21 – 00:43:25:	And that's something that intellectually I don't think we can process.

00:43:25 – 00:43:30:	It's not how we would treat each other typically.

00:43:30 – 00:43:33:	Although I think it's important to acknowledge that throughout all of this,

00:43:33 – 00:43:37:	fear is fundamentally a part of headship.

00:43:37 – 00:43:42:	In some of the passages in the New Testament talking about the relationship

00:43:42 – 00:43:45:	of husband and wife, and one of them specifically says

00:43:45 – 00:43:48:	that the wife is to fear her husband in this sense.

00:43:48 – 00:43:51:	Not that she should be terrified that she's going to be beaten,

00:43:51 – 00:43:53:	that something horrible will be happening to her,

00:43:53 – 00:43:57:	but she should have a properly ordered fear of her husband.

00:43:57 – 00:44:02:	In the same sense, fear and headship go together.

00:44:02 – 00:44:06:	So when Job receives this evil, these bad things,

00:44:06 – 00:44:10:	he says, this came from God, I receive it in gladness.

00:44:10 – 00:44:15:	Even though he was suffering, and after he was reduced to scratching

00:44:15 – 00:44:19:	his terrible sores with pottery, he did curse the day that he was born,

00:44:19 – 00:44:24:	and then his three friends laid into him and made his life miserable

00:44:24 – 00:44:26:	for a while on top of everything else,

00:44:26 – 00:44:29:	having friends who were giving him bad advice

00:44:29 – 00:44:32:	and saying things about God that were not true.

00:44:32 – 00:44:35:	I want to jump ahead to Job 38,

00:44:35 – 00:44:37:	which is where I highly recommend that you begin reading

00:44:37 – 00:44:38:	and just read the rest of it.

00:44:38 – 00:44:41:	Start in Job 38 and read every word of it.

00:44:41 – 00:44:43:	I want to highlight a few portions here,

00:44:43 – 00:44:46:	but the specific thing I want to call out is that

00:44:46 – 00:44:50:	after Job had been bitching at God for a while

00:44:50 – 00:44:54:	about having been born and when God comes to him.

00:44:54 – 00:44:59:	Now keep in mind, Satan and God had had this discussion.

00:44:59 – 00:45:03:	God had permitted Satan to do this evil to Job.

00:45:03 – 00:45:10:	Job never cursed God, but he did get fed up with how miserable he was.

00:45:10 – 00:45:14:	When God comes to him, when he comes out of the whirlwind,

00:45:14 – 00:45:16:	what does he say to Job?

00:45:16 – 00:45:19:	This is what he says, and then we'll get into what he...

00:45:19 – 00:45:21:	I'll just highlight up from what he doesn't say.

00:45:21 – 00:45:26:	Job, when God comes to Job and says, I'm God and here's what I'm here to say,

00:45:26 – 00:45:28:	he doesn't blame Satan.

00:45:28 – 00:45:30:	He doesn't say, Satan did this, I didn't.

00:45:30 – 00:45:34:	Why are you complaining to me? This evil stuff is coming from somewhere else.

00:45:34 – 00:45:36:	He doesn't even acknowledge the evil.

00:45:36 – 00:45:41:	Basically, what God is about to do to Job is to put him completely in his place.

00:45:41 – 00:45:47:	He completely ignores his complaining and his moaning and his whining,

00:45:47 – 00:45:50:	and he says, who do you think you are?

00:45:50 – 00:45:55:	God in this passage puts the fear of God in Job.

00:45:55 – 00:45:59:	And Job relents, Job, I'm not going to read that passage, but when you read it,

00:45:59 – 00:46:01:	you'll see Job repents.

00:46:01 – 00:46:03:	He's like, you're absolutely right.

00:46:03 – 00:46:07:	I was way out of line complaining to you, Lord.

00:46:07 – 00:46:10:	Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said,

00:46:10 – 00:46:13:	Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge,

00:46:13 – 00:46:15:	dressed for action like a man?

00:46:15 – 00:46:18:	I will question you and you make it known to me.

00:46:18 – 00:46:21:	Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

00:46:21 – 00:46:23:	Tell me if you have understanding.

00:46:23 – 00:46:26:	Who determined its measurements, surely you know?

00:46:26 – 00:46:28:	Or who stretched the line upon it?

00:46:28 – 00:46:30:	On what were its bases sunk?

00:46:30 – 00:46:34:	Or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together

00:46:34 – 00:46:37:	and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

00:46:37 – 00:46:40:	Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?

00:46:40 – 00:46:44:	When I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band

00:46:44 – 00:46:47:	and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors

00:46:47 – 00:46:50:	and said thus far you shall come and no farther.

00:46:50 – 00:46:53:	Here shall your proud waves be stayed.

00:46:53 – 00:46:55:	Have you entered into the springs of the sea

00:46:55 – 00:46:57:	or walked in the recesses of the deep?

00:46:57 – 00:46:59:	Have the gates of death been revealed to you?

00:46:59 – 00:47:02:	Or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

00:47:02 – 00:47:04:	Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?

00:47:04 – 00:47:06:	Declare if you know all this.

00:47:06 – 00:47:08:	Can you bind to the chains of the Pleiades

00:47:08 – 00:47:10:	or loose the cords of Orion?

00:47:10 – 00:47:13:	Can you lead forth the Maseroth in their season?

00:47:13 – 00:47:15:	Or can you guide the bear with its children?

00:47:15 – 00:47:17:	Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?

00:47:17 – 00:47:20:	Can you establish their rule on earth?

00:47:20 – 00:47:22:	I skipped a few passages,

00:47:22 – 00:47:25:	but what God is saying to Job and all of this

00:47:25 – 00:47:28:	is who do you think you are?

00:47:28 – 00:47:31:	Where were you when I created the foundations of the earth?

00:47:31 – 00:47:33:	When I set the stars in their places

00:47:33 – 00:47:36:	and ordained their movement through the heavens?

00:47:36 – 00:47:37:	Where were you?

00:47:37 – 00:47:39:	You are nothing compared to me.

00:47:39 – 00:47:41:	How dare you criticize me?

00:47:41 – 00:47:43:	Who do you think you are?

00:47:43 – 00:47:46:	This was God's response to Job's complaining.

00:47:47 – 00:47:49:	I think that that's important.

00:47:49 – 00:47:54:	That is God establishing his fearful relationship

00:47:54 – 00:47:57:	with all his creatures.

00:47:57 – 00:48:00:	God upfront said that Job was without sin.

00:48:00 – 00:48:01:	He was blameless.

00:48:01 – 00:48:04:	He feared the Lord and obeyed his precepts.

00:48:04 – 00:48:07:	And yet when Job mouthed off,

00:48:07 – 00:48:09:	he didn't get any credit for that.

00:48:09 – 00:48:11:	God said, who do you think you are?

00:48:11 – 00:48:13:	And he goes on for four chapters

00:48:13 – 00:48:16:	describing his own glory

00:48:16 – 00:48:19:	in terms of creation.

00:48:19 – 00:48:20:	Which is an aside,

00:48:20 – 00:48:23:	as some of the numerous pastors for the past week

00:48:23 – 00:48:25:	have been viciously going after Cory

00:48:25 – 00:48:27:	for something he wrote a couple of years ago

00:48:27 – 00:48:29:	where Cory made the same argument

00:48:29 – 00:48:33:	that the heavens testify to God's glory as God.

00:48:33 – 00:48:35:	Well, where did Cory get that from?

00:48:35 – 00:48:36:	He didn't get it from Odin,

00:48:36 – 00:48:39:	as these idiot pastors claim.

00:48:39 – 00:48:41:	Cory got it from Job.

00:48:41 – 00:48:44:	This is how God talks about himself.

00:48:44 – 00:48:46:	When dealing with someone who's acting faithless,

00:48:46 – 00:48:47:	who's acting apathy,

00:48:47 – 00:48:49:	who's putting their feet up on the table

00:48:49 – 00:48:51:	and saying, God, booby,

00:48:51 – 00:48:53:	God puts his foot down

00:48:53 – 00:48:55:	and said, you've got to be kidding me.

00:48:55 – 00:48:57:	Do you have any idea who you're talking to?

00:48:57 – 00:49:00:	The fear of the Lord is oriented around

00:49:00 – 00:49:02:	we are not the same.

00:49:02 – 00:49:04:	The creature and the creator

00:49:04 – 00:49:06:	are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

00:49:06 – 00:49:09:	So we'll turn now from the wisdom literature

00:49:09 – 00:49:12:	and the writings back a little bit in Scripture,

00:49:12 – 00:49:13:	although not in time

00:49:13 – 00:49:16:	because Job is the oldest book in Scripture

00:49:16 – 00:49:18:	to Exodus 3.

00:49:18 – 00:49:20:	Now Moses was keeping the flock

00:49:20 – 00:49:23:	of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian,

00:49:23 – 00:49:25:	and he let his flock to the west side of the wilderness

00:49:25 – 00:49:28:	and came to Horrib, the mountain of God.

00:49:28 – 00:49:30:	And the angel of the Lord appeared to him

00:49:30 – 00:49:32:	in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.

00:49:32 – 00:49:34:	He looked and behold, the bush was burning,

00:49:34 – 00:49:36:	yet it was not consumed.

00:49:36 – 00:49:37:	And Moses said,

00:49:37 – 00:49:39:	I will turn aside to see this great sight

00:49:39 – 00:49:41:	why the bush is not burned.

00:49:41 – 00:49:44:	When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see,

00:49:44 – 00:49:46:	God called to him out of the bush,

00:49:46 – 00:49:49:	Moses, Moses, and he said, here I am.

00:49:49 – 00:49:52:	Then he said, do not come near,

00:49:52 – 00:49:54:	take your sandals off your feet

00:49:54 – 00:49:57:	for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.

00:49:57 – 00:50:00:	And he said, I am the God of your father,

00:50:00 – 00:50:02:	the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,

00:50:02 – 00:50:03:	and the God of Jacob.

00:50:03 – 00:50:05:	And Moses hid his face

00:50:05 – 00:50:08:	for he was afraid to look at God.

00:50:08 – 00:50:12:	And here we see that proper fear response

00:50:12 – 00:50:13:	from Moses.

00:50:13 – 00:50:17:	He is afraid to look directly at God.

00:50:17 – 00:50:18:	And of course we have other places

00:50:18 – 00:50:20:	and we'll get into those verses

00:50:20 – 00:50:23:	about why that is a proper fear to have

00:50:23 – 00:50:25:	of looking directly at God.

00:50:25 – 00:50:28:	But this is a recognition of,

00:50:28 – 00:50:30:	as mentioned earlier, the numinous

00:50:30 – 00:50:33:	of this presence of the divine,

00:50:33 – 00:50:36:	of God's physical manifestation

00:50:36 – 00:50:39:	in the world in a special way.

00:50:39 – 00:50:42:	That should induce fear in anyone.

00:50:42 – 00:50:45:	In the righteous, in a believer,

00:50:45 – 00:50:47:	it is going to induce a certain kind of fear,

00:50:47 – 00:50:49:	again, that filial fear,

00:50:49 – 00:50:52:	a proper respect and dread of God

00:50:52 – 00:50:55:	as our father and as God.

00:50:55 – 00:50:57:	As opposed to, if God had appeared

00:50:57 – 00:50:58:	to a pagan in a burning bush,

00:50:58 – 00:51:00:	he would have run away screaming as

00:51:00 – 00:51:03:	Moses does in a little bit with regard to the snake.

00:51:03 – 00:51:05:	But that is the response of an unbeliever

00:51:05 – 00:51:08:	to God is just abject terror.

00:51:08 – 00:51:10:	Moses doesn't have the abject terror

00:51:10 – 00:51:13:	because Moses believes in God.

00:51:13 – 00:51:16:	Perhaps he doesn't believe in God as fully

00:51:16 – 00:51:18:	as he will later on after seeing

00:51:18 – 00:51:20:	what God does to the Egyptians

00:51:20 – 00:51:23:	and what God does in the wandering

00:51:23 – 00:51:26:	in the desert and the Ten Commandments, etc.

00:51:26 – 00:51:31:	But this is a proper fear response

00:51:31 – 00:51:35:	from Moses with regard to the presence of God.

00:51:35 – 00:51:38:	This is awe of God.

00:51:38 – 00:51:41:	This is reverence for God.

00:51:41 – 00:51:44:	This is the kind of fear that God wants us to have

00:51:44 – 00:51:46:	in his presence.

00:51:46 – 00:51:49:	And yes, we do come into his presence still today.

00:51:49 – 00:51:52:	No, it's probably not going to be a burning bush.

00:51:52 – 00:51:55:	But every time you attend the divine service,

00:51:55 – 00:51:57:	you are coming into the presence of God.

00:51:57 – 00:51:59:	That is why you go to the divine service.

00:51:59 – 00:52:01:	You go to the divine service

00:52:01 – 00:52:04:	to be in the presence of God and to receive his gifts.

00:52:04 – 00:52:07:	Yes, then, in response to that,

00:52:07 – 00:52:10:	you offer your worship and praise.

00:52:10 – 00:52:14:	But it is first and foremost God coming to his people.

00:52:14 – 00:52:18:	And so that should instill awe and fear in you

00:52:18 – 00:52:20:	when you go to the divine service

00:52:20 – 00:52:23:	because you are in the presence of God.

00:52:23 – 00:52:28:	Moses gets a little more ambitious later on in Exodus 33

00:52:28 – 00:52:30:	when he goes up on Mount Sinai

00:52:30 – 00:52:33:	and God is about to give him the Ten Commandments.

00:52:33 – 00:52:34:	Moses said,

00:52:34 – 00:52:36:	Please show me your glory.

00:52:36 – 00:52:37:	And God said,

00:52:37 – 00:52:39:	I will make all my goodness pass before you

00:52:39 – 00:52:42:	and will proclaim before you my name the Lord.

00:52:42 – 00:52:45:	And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious

00:52:45 – 00:52:48:	and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

00:52:48 – 00:52:49:	But he said,

00:52:49 – 00:52:51:	You cannot see my face,

00:52:51 – 00:52:54:	for man shall not see me and live.

00:52:54 – 00:52:55:	And the Lord said,

00:52:55 – 00:52:58:	Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock.

00:52:58 – 00:53:00:	And while my glory passes by,

00:53:00 – 00:53:02:	I will put you in a cleft of the rock

00:53:02 – 00:53:05:	and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.

00:53:05 – 00:53:08:	Then I will take away my hand and you shall see my back,

00:53:08 – 00:53:11:	but my face shall not be seen.

00:53:11 – 00:53:12:	Now,

00:53:12 – 00:53:15:	Moses was perhaps a little less fearful here,

00:53:15 – 00:53:16:	not sinfully so,

00:53:16 – 00:53:17:	but he was curious.

00:53:17 – 00:53:18:	He said,

00:53:18 – 00:53:19:	I'm standing before you.

00:53:19 – 00:53:20:	I want to see your face.

00:53:20 – 00:53:22:	I'll come as close as I can,

00:53:22 – 00:53:23:	but if I show you my face,

00:53:23 – 00:53:24:	you'll die.

00:53:24 – 00:53:27:	It will kill you to see me.

00:53:27 – 00:53:29:	If we properly understand who God is,

00:53:29 – 00:53:32:	we understand that if God were to appear in your living room,

00:53:32 – 00:53:34:	you would be struck dead on the spot.

00:53:34 – 00:53:36:	That's God.

00:53:36 – 00:53:37:	Moses,

00:53:37 – 00:53:38:	I think,

00:53:38 – 00:53:40:	probably not arguably,

00:53:40 – 00:53:42:	has a higher standing in heaven

00:53:42 – 00:53:44:	than any of us will.

00:53:44 – 00:53:45:	And yet,

00:53:45 – 00:53:47:	Moses would have been struck dead

00:53:47 – 00:53:49:	if God had shown him his face.

00:53:49 – 00:53:51:	Because of the glory of God.

00:53:51 – 00:53:52:	Again,

00:53:52 – 00:53:54:	it goes back to the passages from Psalms.

00:53:54 – 00:53:55:	It is the glory of God,

00:53:55 – 00:53:56:	which is fearful.

00:53:56 – 00:53:58:	And the fear of the Lord

00:53:58 – 00:54:00:	is a recognition of his glory.

00:54:00 – 00:54:02:	So all of this fits together.

00:54:02 – 00:54:05:	It's not terrifying emotional response

00:54:05 – 00:54:06:	to spooky,

00:54:06 – 00:54:08:	scary Hans Gruber God.

00:54:08 – 00:54:11:	It is a proper understanding

00:54:11 – 00:54:14:	that the Almighty is just that.

00:54:14 – 00:54:15:	He's omnipotent,

00:54:15 – 00:54:16:	omniscient,

00:54:16 – 00:54:17:	omnipresent.

00:54:17 – 00:54:19:	All these words that we had to come up with

00:54:19 – 00:54:21:	to try to describe something

00:54:21 – 00:54:22:	that's inconceivable.

00:54:22 – 00:54:23:	We can't understand

00:54:23 – 00:54:25:	what any of those words actually mean.

00:54:25 – 00:54:27:	We know that they're just

00:54:27 – 00:54:28:	a collection of infinities

00:54:28 – 00:54:30:	of different properties.

00:54:30 – 00:54:32:	We can't understand.

00:54:32 – 00:54:34:	And that is why it shouldn't be hard

00:54:34 – 00:54:37:	for anyone to be properly fearful of God.

00:54:37 – 00:54:39:	So when God says himself

00:54:39 – 00:54:41:	in no uncertain terms,

00:54:41 – 00:54:42:	if you see my face,

00:54:42 – 00:54:43:	you'll die.

00:54:43 – 00:54:46:	You'll be killed if you see me.

00:54:46 – 00:54:48:	That's something to be fearful of.

00:54:48 – 00:54:50:	And that's something to be thankful for.

00:54:50 – 00:54:52:	We have a God who is so glorious

00:54:52 – 00:54:54:	that even seeing him would kill us.

00:54:54 – 00:54:57:	While that's something that is a source

00:54:57 – 00:54:59:	of fear in the proper sense,

00:54:59 – 00:55:01:	it's something to rejoice in.

00:55:01 – 00:55:03:	We don't have a measly, piddly God.

00:55:03 – 00:55:06:	We don't have a God that's just a superhero

00:55:06 – 00:55:08:	or part of a pantheon.

00:55:08 – 00:55:09:	We have an infinite God

00:55:09 – 00:55:11:	who's inconceivably glorious.

00:55:11 – 00:55:14:	So glorious that perceiving that glory

00:55:14 – 00:55:16:	would cause our physical death.

00:55:16 – 00:55:18:	That's incredible.

00:55:18 – 00:55:19:	That's amazing.

00:55:19 – 00:55:21:	That's the kind of God you want to have

00:55:21 – 00:55:23:	because that sort of God

00:55:23 – 00:55:25:	can overcome all of your evil,

00:55:25 – 00:55:27:	all of your own personal sin,

00:55:27 – 00:55:28:	which is why he came on the cross

00:55:28 – 00:55:29:	to do precisely that.

00:55:29 – 00:55:31:	It took a God that fearful

00:55:31 – 00:55:34:	to be able to sacrifice all

00:55:34 – 00:55:36:	for our sins.

00:55:36 – 00:55:38:	So this is about the gospel too.

00:55:38 – 00:55:40:	This is about the good news

00:55:40 – 00:55:42:	of what God has done for us.

00:55:42 – 00:55:45:	A lesser God couldn't have done enough

00:55:45 – 00:55:47:	for our sins and the sins of the world.

00:55:47 – 00:55:49:	It took a God this fearful

00:55:49 – 00:55:51:	to be able to do what was necessary

00:55:51 – 00:55:54:	for us to, in the resurrection,

00:55:54 – 00:55:56:	be able to see him face to face.

00:55:56 – 00:55:59:	As Job said, he knew that his redeemer lived

00:55:59 – 00:56:01:	and he would see him with his own eyes.

00:56:01 – 00:56:03:	Job was talking about the resurrection.

00:56:03 – 00:56:05:	The resurrection of the body

00:56:05 – 00:56:07:	was not some prophecy that came

00:56:07 – 00:56:09:	midway through the Old Testament.

00:56:09 – 00:56:12:	It was known by every believer from Adam on.

00:56:12 – 00:56:14:	They knew that they would die according to the curse

00:56:14 – 00:56:16:	and they knew that they would be restored

00:56:16 – 00:56:18:	anew in the flesh

00:56:18 – 00:56:20:	and that they would see God with their own eyes

00:56:20 – 00:56:22:	and not be struck dead,

00:56:22 – 00:56:24:	as was the case throughout Scripture

00:56:24 – 00:56:27:	in this life prior to Judgment Day.

00:56:27 – 00:56:29:	Before Judgment Day, if you see God, you're dead.

00:56:29 – 00:56:31:	After Judgment Day, those who see God

00:56:31 – 00:56:33:	will see him with their own eyes,

00:56:33 – 00:56:35:	with our own eyes, and we will live.

00:56:35 – 00:56:37:	And we will live in eternity

00:56:37 – 00:56:39:	with God in perfection,

00:56:39 – 00:56:42:	where his glory will still be fearful.

00:56:42 – 00:56:45:	Because again, this fear is not a product of the fall.

00:56:45 – 00:56:47:	It's not a product of sin.

00:56:47 – 00:56:51:	When God in Job described his glory in creation,

00:56:51 – 00:56:54:	describing how fearful he was

00:56:54 – 00:56:56:	in the six days of creation,

00:56:56 – 00:56:58:	that demonstrates the fear is not

00:56:58 – 00:57:01:	something that is a product of sin.

00:57:01 – 00:57:03:	It is a product of the disparity

00:57:03 – 00:57:05:	between the creature and the Creator,

00:57:05 – 00:57:07:	which is preserved in heaven.

00:57:07 – 00:57:09:	It's preserved in the New Earth.

00:57:09 – 00:57:11:	That is the dichotomy.

00:57:11 – 00:57:13:	That is the headship that exists

00:57:13 – 00:57:15:	according to God's proper order.

00:57:15 – 00:57:17:	Before we leave Exodus,

00:57:17 – 00:57:20:	there's one other instance of fear

00:57:20 – 00:57:23:	that highlights a point we've been making.

00:57:23 – 00:57:25:	And that's from Exodus 20.

00:57:25 – 00:57:27:	Now, when all the people saw the thunder

00:57:27 – 00:57:29:	and the flashes of lightning

00:57:29 – 00:57:31:	and the sound of the trumpet

00:57:31 – 00:57:33:	and the mountain smoking,

00:57:33 – 00:57:35:	the people stood far off and said to Moses,

00:57:35 – 00:57:37:	You speak to us and we will listen,

00:57:37 – 00:57:39:	but do not let God speak to us

00:57:39 – 00:57:41:	lest we die.

00:57:41 – 00:57:43:	Moses said to the people,

00:57:43 – 00:57:45:	Do not fear, for God has come to test you,

00:57:45 – 00:57:47:	that the fear of him may be before you,

00:57:47 – 00:57:49:	that you may not sin.

00:57:49 – 00:57:51:	The people stood far off

00:57:51 – 00:57:53:	while Moses drew near to the thick darkness

00:57:53 – 00:57:55:	where God was.

00:57:55 – 00:57:57:	And we see both kinds of fear

00:57:57 – 00:57:59:	and one of the reasons for the fear

00:57:59 – 00:58:01:	here in these verses.

00:58:02 – 00:58:04:	Initially, the people are afraid

00:58:04 – 00:58:06:	and that is a proper response.

00:58:06 – 00:58:08:	They see God's majesty

00:58:08 – 00:58:10:	descend on this mountain.

00:58:10 – 00:58:12:	That is a fearful thing. That is terrifying.

00:58:12 – 00:58:15:	And they are, in fact, terrified.

00:58:15 – 00:58:17:	And so they ask Moses

00:58:17 – 00:58:19:	to have God speak to him

00:58:19 – 00:58:21:	and then Moses speak to them

00:58:21 – 00:58:23:	because Moses is not terrifying

00:58:23 – 00:58:25:	in the way that God is, at least.

00:58:25 – 00:58:27:	And so Moses tells them,

00:58:27 – 00:58:29:	Do not fear.

00:58:30 – 00:58:32:	God is not displaying his majesty

00:58:32 – 00:58:34:	to destroy you

00:58:34 – 00:58:36:	until you make the golden calf,

00:58:36 – 00:58:38:	but that's a separate matter.

00:58:39 – 00:58:41:	God is showing his majesty

00:58:41 – 00:58:43:	so that they will fear God,

00:58:43 – 00:58:45:	have proper reverence, dread of him,

00:58:45 – 00:58:47:	that they may not sin.

00:58:47 – 00:58:49:	And that is one of the reasons

00:58:49 – 00:58:51:	to fear God.

00:58:51 – 00:58:53:	That is one of the chief reasons

00:58:53 – 00:58:55:	to fear God.

00:58:55 – 00:58:57:	You have fear for God

00:58:57 – 00:58:59:	that you will not sin.

00:58:59 – 00:59:01:	It is one of the reasons

00:59:01 – 00:59:03:	you will attempt to avoid sinning.

00:59:03 – 00:59:05:	Because if you sin,

00:59:05 – 00:59:07:	you incur God's wrath

00:59:07 – 00:59:09:	and that is a fearful thing.

00:59:09 – 00:59:11:	And so if you have proper fear of God,

00:59:11 – 00:59:13:	you will attempt to avoid sinning.

00:59:13 – 00:59:15:	Yes, of course,

00:59:15 – 00:59:17:	you are still going to fall.

00:59:17 – 00:59:19:	You are fallen.

00:59:19 – 00:59:21:	You are still corrupt.

00:59:21 – 00:59:23:	You have original sin.

00:59:23 – 00:59:25:	You will not be perfect in this life.

00:59:25 – 00:59:27:	The fear of God set before your eyes,

00:59:27 – 00:59:29:	the indwelling of the spirit

00:59:29 – 00:59:31:	will give that to you.

00:59:31 – 00:59:33:	If you have faith, if you are a Christian,

00:59:33 – 00:59:35:	that fear of God will keep you

00:59:35 – 00:59:37:	from some sins.

00:59:37 – 00:59:39:	That is part of your sanctification

00:59:39 – 00:59:41:	is developing that proper fear

00:59:41 – 00:59:43:	of God, that proper reverence

00:59:43 – 00:59:45:	and dread for God.

00:59:45 – 00:59:47:	In order to, over time,

00:59:47 – 00:59:49:	through sanctification,

00:59:49 – 00:59:51:	diminish the rate

00:59:51 – 00:59:53:	at which you give in to temptations.

00:59:53 – 00:59:55:	And in case of some sins,

00:59:55 – 00:59:57:	to simply drive them out of your life.

00:59:57 – 00:59:59:	You won't drive out all,

59:59 – 01:00:01
but you will be able, over time,

01:00:01 – 01:00:03:	with the help of the spirit,

01:00:03 – 01:00:05:	to drive out some sins.

01:00:05 – 01:00:07:	And that is one of the chief purposes

01:00:07 – 01:00:09:	of this fear of God

01:00:09 – 01:00:11:	that all believers

01:00:11 – 01:00:13:	should have.

01:00:13 – 01:00:15:	There's one more passage from Exodus

01:00:15 – 01:00:17:	that's worth mentioning.

01:00:17 – 01:00:19:	It comes immediately after Moses came down

01:00:19 – 01:00:21:	off Mount Sinai.

01:00:21 – 01:00:23:	One of the two tablets of testimony in his hand

01:00:23 – 01:00:25:	is he came down from the mountain.

01:00:25 – 01:00:27:	Moses did not know that the skin of his face

01:00:27 – 01:00:29:	shone because he had been talking with God.

01:00:29 – 01:00:31:	And Aaron and all the people of Israel

01:00:31 – 01:00:33:	saw Moses, and behold,

01:00:33 – 01:00:35:	the skin of his face shone,

01:00:35 – 01:00:37:	and they were afraid to come near him.

01:00:37 – 01:00:39:	But Moses called to him, and Aaron and all the leaders

01:00:39 – 01:00:41:	of the congregation returned to him,

01:00:41 – 01:00:43:	and Moses talked with them.

01:00:43 – 01:00:45:	Afterward, all the people of Israel came near,

01:00:45 – 01:00:47:	and he commanded them all that the Lord had spoken

01:00:47 – 01:00:49:	with him on Mount Sinai.

01:00:49 – 01:00:51:	And when Aaron managed speaking with him,

01:00:51 – 01:00:53:	he put a veil over his face.

01:00:53 – 01:00:55:	Now, Moses didn't even look

01:00:55 – 01:00:57:	at God's front.

01:00:57 – 01:00:59:	He looked at his back after he had passed.

01:00:59 – 01:01:01:	So much glory was present in that moment

01:01:01 – 01:01:03:	that it was terrifying

01:01:03 – 01:01:05:	for the people of Israel to look

01:01:05 – 01:01:07:	at a man who had looked at God.

01:01:07 – 01:01:09:	That's the transitive property

01:01:09 – 01:01:11:	of the fear of the Lord.

01:01:11 – 01:01:13:	That degree of radiance

01:01:13 – 01:01:15:	and magnificence,

01:01:15 – 01:01:17:	we don't have the words for it.

01:01:17 – 01:01:19:	We don't even look like.

01:01:19 – 01:01:21:	And yet, Moses had to veil his face

01:01:21 – 01:01:23:	so that they could be around him

01:01:23 – 01:01:25:	and not be terrified.

01:01:25 – 01:01:27:	This is something that

01:01:27 – 01:01:29:	is also exemplified in another passage

01:01:29 – 01:01:31:	from Isaiah 6.

01:01:31 – 01:01:33:	At the beginning of Isaiah's

01:01:33 – 01:01:35:	vision of heaven.

01:01:35 – 01:01:37:	He wasn't physically

01:01:37 – 01:01:39:	in the presence of the Lord.

01:01:39 – 01:01:41:	It was a vision.

01:01:41 – 01:01:43:	Isaiah writes,

01:01:43 – 01:01:45:	In the year that King Uzziah died,

01:01:45 – 01:01:47:	he lifted up and the train of his robe

01:01:47 – 01:01:49:	filled the temple.

01:01:49 – 01:01:51:	Above him stood the seraphim.

01:01:51 – 01:01:53:	Each had six wings with two he covered his

01:01:53 – 01:01:55:	faiths and with two he covered his feet

01:01:55 – 01:01:57:	and with two he flew.

01:01:57 – 01:01:59:	And one called to another and said,

01:01:59 – 01:02:01:	Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts.

01:02:01 – 01:02:03:	The whole earth is full of his glory.

01:02:03 – 01:02:05:	And the foundations of the threshold

01:02:05 – 01:02:07:	shook at the voice of him who called

01:02:07 – 01:02:09:	and the house was filled with smoke.

01:02:09 – 01:02:11:	And I said, woe is me for I am lost,

01:02:11 – 01:02:13:	for I am a man of unclean lips

01:02:13 – 01:02:15:	and I dwell in the midst of a people of

01:02:15 – 01:02:17:	unclean lips. For my eyes have seen

01:02:17 – 01:02:19:	the King, the Lord of hosts.

01:02:19 – 01:02:21:	Then one of the seraphim flew to me,

01:02:21 – 01:02:23:	having in his hand a burning coal

01:02:23 – 01:02:25:	that he had taken with tongs from the altar.

01:02:25 – 01:02:27:	And he touched my mouth and said, behold,

01:02:27 – 01:02:29:	this has touched your lips, your guilt

01:02:29 – 01:02:31:	has taken away and your sin atoned for.

01:02:31 – 01:02:33:	So here

01:02:33 – 01:02:35:	Isaiah has a vision of God.

01:02:35 – 01:02:37:	He sees God in heaven and he says,

01:02:37 – 01:02:39:	woe to me, I am undone.

01:02:39 – 01:02:41:	He was utterly terrified to see

01:02:41 – 01:02:43:	God. He knew that it was the end of

01:02:43 – 01:02:45:	him, unlike Moses on the mountain,

01:02:45 – 01:02:47:	because he was not physically present.

01:02:47 – 01:02:49:	He was not killed.

01:02:49 – 01:02:51:	But even at that, the angel of

01:02:51 – 01:02:53:	one of the seraphim came to him

01:02:53 – 01:02:55:	and touched his tongue and said, your sin

01:02:55 – 01:02:57:	is atoned for. That

01:02:57 – 01:02:59:	reconciliation was necessary for him,

01:02:59 – 01:03:01:	even the vision to be able to be

01:03:01 – 01:03:03:	in the presence of God. He was

01:03:03 – 01:03:05:	rightly terrified of what he saw,

01:03:05 – 01:03:07:	because he saw God in his glory,

01:03:07 – 01:03:09:	something that no man is equipped

01:03:09 – 01:03:11:	to see.

01:03:11 – 01:03:13:	We see a similar reaction in

01:03:13 – 01:03:15:	the New Testament. When John

01:03:15 – 01:03:17:	has given a vision of heaven in

01:03:17 – 01:03:19:	Revelation, he writes,

01:03:19 – 01:03:21:	then I turn to see the voice that was

01:03:21 – 01:03:23:	speaking to me and on turning I saw

01:03:23 – 01:03:25:	seven golden lampstands and in the midst

01:03:25 – 01:03:27:	of the lampstands one like a son

01:03:27 – 01:03:29:	of man clothed with a long

01:03:29 – 01:03:31:	robe and with a golden sash around

01:03:31 – 01:03:33:	his chest. The hairs of his head were

01:03:33 – 01:03:35:	white like white wool like snow.

01:03:35 – 01:03:37:	His eyes were like a flame of fire.

01:03:37 – 01:03:39:	His feet were like burnished bronze,

01:03:39 – 01:03:41:	refined in a furnace, and his voice

01:03:41 – 01:03:43:	was like the roar of many waters.

01:03:43 – 01:03:45:	In his right hand he held seven stars.

01:03:45 – 01:03:47:	From his mouth came a sharp

01:03:47 – 01:03:49:	two-edged sword, and his face was

01:03:49 – 01:03:51:	like the sun shining in full strength.

01:03:51 – 01:03:53:	When I saw him, I felt his feet

01:03:53 – 01:03:55:	as though dead. But he laid his right

01:03:55 – 01:03:57:	hand on me, saying, fear not,

01:03:57 – 01:03:59:	I am the first and the last, and the

01:03:59 – 01:04:01:	living one. I died and behold,

01:04:01 – 01:04:03:	I am alive forevermore, and I have the

01:04:03 – 01:04:05:	keys of death and hades. Right

01:04:05 – 01:04:07:	for the things that you have seen,

01:04:07 – 01:04:09:	those that are and those that are to take

01:04:09 – 01:04:11:	place after this. So this was

01:04:11 – 01:04:13:	John seeing in heaven

01:04:13 – 01:04:15:	Jesus Christ seeing the

01:04:15 – 01:04:17:	second person of the Trinity.

01:04:17 – 01:04:19:	I think just as an aside,

01:04:19 – 01:04:21:	read that passage in John 1

01:04:21 – 01:04:23:	and tell me this is not the picture of

01:04:23 – 01:04:25:	masculinity. God is

01:04:25 – 01:04:27:	not a wimp. Jesus,

01:04:27 – 01:04:29:	the second person

01:04:29 – 01:04:31:	of the Trinity, the son of God,

01:04:31 – 01:04:33:	is not a wimp. He is not

01:04:33 – 01:04:35:	a mild man.

01:04:35 – 01:04:37:	He's so terrifying

01:04:37 – 01:04:39:	that when John saw him, he dropped

01:04:39 – 01:04:41:	as though dead.

01:04:41 – 01:04:43:	Isaiah in his vision was at least

01:04:43 – 01:04:45:	able to spit out woe as me.

01:04:45 – 01:04:47:	John didn't even get that far. He dropped

01:04:47 – 01:04:49:	like a sack of potatoes, and Christ had

01:04:49 – 01:04:51:	to come to him and touch him and say,

01:04:51 – 01:04:53:	you're here for a purpose.

01:04:53 – 01:04:55:	We have almost totally lost

01:04:55 – 01:04:57:	this sort of reaction to anything

01:04:57 – 01:04:59:	in the modern world.

01:04:59 – 01:05:01:	And unsurprisingly,

01:05:01 – 01:05:03:	this is

01:05:03 – 01:05:05:	one of the consequences of the

01:05:05 – 01:05:07:	Enlightenment.

01:05:07 – 01:05:09:	And we don't harp

01:05:09 – 01:05:11:	on the Enlightenment

01:05:11 – 01:05:13:	because we just hate the Enlightenment.

01:05:13 – 01:05:15:	That's not the point.

01:05:15 – 01:05:17:	We point out

01:05:17 – 01:05:19:	the Enlightenment in so many

01:05:19 – 01:05:21:	of these episodes because it really

01:05:21 – 01:05:23:	is the nexus.

01:05:23 – 01:05:25:	It's the proximate cause. It is

01:05:25 – 01:05:27:	the fount from which so much of this flows.

01:05:27 – 01:05:29:	Because

01:05:29 – 01:05:31:	the Enlightenment attempted

01:05:31 – 01:05:33:	to subject everything to human reason.

01:05:33 – 01:05:35:	And

01:05:35 – 01:05:37:	if you subject everything

01:05:37 – 01:05:39:	to human reason, there are some

01:05:39 – 01:05:41:	things that you will simply have to

01:05:41 – 01:05:43:	jettison or ignore.

01:05:43 – 01:05:45:	And one of those

01:05:45 – 01:05:47:	of course is mystery, because

01:05:47 – 01:05:49:	if something is a mystery, it is by definition

01:05:49 – 01:05:51:	not subject to human

01:05:51 – 01:05:53:	reason. If you subject it to human

01:05:53 – 01:05:55:	reason, it is no longer a mystery.

01:05:55 – 01:05:57:	And so

01:05:57 – 01:05:59:	there are aspects

01:05:59 – 01:06:01:	of the Christian faith

01:06:01 – 01:06:03:	that are mystery.

01:06:03 – 01:06:05:	There are things that we cannot understand.

01:06:05 – 01:06:07:	There are things that we cannot reconcile

01:06:07 – 01:06:09:	with our

01:06:09 – 01:06:11:	limited abilities.

01:06:11 – 01:06:13:	Perhaps God will explain them to us

01:06:13 – 01:06:15:	one day. Perhaps we don't need to understand

01:06:15 – 01:06:17:	whatever happens. That is

01:06:17 – 01:06:19:	in God's good judgment.

01:06:19 – 01:06:21:	That is in His order,

01:06:21 – 01:06:23:	His design.

01:06:23 – 01:06:25:	But in addition

01:06:25 – 01:06:27:	to getting rid of mystery,

01:06:27 – 01:06:29:	you have to get rid of things

01:06:29 – 01:06:31:	like the numinous. You have to get

01:06:31 – 01:06:33:	rid of things that

01:06:33 – 01:06:35:	are outside

01:06:35 – 01:06:37:	the realm of human reason

01:06:37 – 01:06:39:	that are above and beyond it.

01:06:39 – 01:06:41:	And there are many things like this.

01:06:41 – 01:06:43:	If you

01:06:43 – 01:06:45:	go out into creation

01:06:45 – 01:06:47:	and view the beauty of God's

01:06:47 – 01:06:49:	creation, you cannot entirely

01:06:49 – 01:06:51:	reduce to reason

01:06:51 – 01:06:53:	why you believe,

01:06:53 – 01:06:55:	why you know

01:06:55 – 01:06:57:	those things are beautiful, because it is not

01:06:57 – 01:06:59:	purely a matter of reason.

01:06:59 – 01:07:01:	Beauty is beyond reason.

01:07:01 – 01:07:03:	There are

01:07:03 – 01:07:05:	metaphysical truths that are

01:07:05 – 01:07:07:	beyond human reason.

01:07:07 – 01:07:09:	They have existence

01:07:09 – 01:07:11:	that is prior to and

01:07:11 – 01:07:13:	above our reason.

01:07:13 – 01:07:15:	And so

01:07:15 – 01:07:17:	when it comes to the glory

01:07:17 – 01:07:19:	of God, when it comes

01:07:19 – 01:07:21:	to being in the presence of the divine,

01:07:21 – 01:07:23:	when it comes to this proper reaction

01:07:23 – 01:07:25:	of falling down dead

01:07:25 – 01:07:27:	before God,

01:07:27 – 01:07:29:	we do not

01:07:29 – 01:07:31:	have that anymore

01:07:31 – 01:07:33:	as part of our culture, because

01:07:33 – 01:07:35:	it has been ruthlessly driven

01:07:35 – 01:07:37:	out over time by the cult of reason.

01:07:37 – 01:07:39:	And so this is

01:07:39 – 01:07:41:	something that the modern reader

01:07:41 – 01:07:43:	has to come to with different eyes.

01:07:43 – 01:07:45:	If you bring your preconceptions,

01:07:45 – 01:07:47:	your presuppositions

01:07:47 – 01:07:49:	that were instilled in you

01:07:49 – 01:07:51:	by a post-enlightenment culture,

01:07:51 – 01:07:53:	by rationalism,

01:07:53 – 01:07:55:	you are going to miss

01:07:55 – 01:07:57:	a great deal of what Scripture is telling you

01:07:57 – 01:07:59:	and you are going to miss a great deal

01:07:59 – 01:08:01:	of any old book.

01:08:01 – 01:08:03:	Because there are things

01:08:03 – 01:08:05:	in those books that you will simply

01:08:05 – 01:08:07:	not understand, because they are

01:08:07 – 01:08:09:	so alien to you,

01:08:09 – 01:08:11:	because of the background

01:08:11 – 01:08:13:	information that forms

01:08:13 – 01:08:15:	your view of the world.

01:08:15 – 01:08:17:	And your view of the world,

01:08:17 – 01:08:19:	if you have this post-enlightenment

01:08:19 – 01:08:21:	view of the world, is very much

01:08:21 – 01:08:23:	an impoverished view of the world.

01:08:23 – 01:08:25:	Because you do not recognize

01:08:25 – 01:08:27:	that there are things outside

01:08:27 – 01:08:29:	of reason, things outside

01:08:29 – 01:08:31:	of so-called science.

01:08:31 – 01:08:33:	One just brief example

01:08:33 – 01:08:35:	is what we would call qualia.

01:08:35 – 01:08:37:	And that is

01:08:37 – 01:08:39:	the perception

01:08:39 – 01:08:41:	of something that is intrinsic

01:08:41 – 01:08:43:	to a person, so for instance

01:08:43 – 01:08:45:	the best example.

01:08:45 – 01:08:47:	Yellow

01:08:47 – 01:08:49:	is a color.

01:08:49 – 01:08:51:	Yellow is a certain wavelength

01:08:51 – 01:08:53:	of electromagnetic radiation.

01:08:53 – 01:08:55:	That is how it works.

01:08:55 – 01:08:57:	It hits the eye, certain wavelength

01:08:57 – 01:08:59:	you see yellow, because it activates

01:08:59 – 01:09:01:	certain cells in the eye.

01:09:01 – 01:09:03:	But it is more

01:09:03 – 01:09:05:	than that, because

01:09:05 – 01:09:07:	your conception of yellow

01:09:07 – 01:09:09:	in your mind

01:09:09 – 01:09:11:	is something distinct from

01:09:11 – 01:09:13:	that physical reality.

01:09:13 – 01:09:15:	It is above and beyond it. It is a metaphysical truth.

01:09:15 – 01:09:17:	Incidentally it is proof

01:09:17 – 01:09:19:	that materialism cannot be true

01:09:19 – 01:09:21:	but that is a discussion for another time.

01:09:23 – 01:09:25:	That's something that the modern mind hates.

01:09:25 – 01:09:27:	Because it cannot be reduced

01:09:27 – 01:09:29:	to the material, because

01:09:29 – 01:09:31:	the post-enlightenment thought,

01:09:31 – 01:09:33:	the schema in which we are

01:09:33 – 01:09:35:	operating in the modern world,

01:09:35 – 01:09:37:	wants to be able to reduce everything to matter.

01:09:37 – 01:09:39:	Because if it's matter

01:09:39 – 01:09:41:	it can be reduced to reason. If it's

01:09:41 – 01:09:43:	matter, I can poke at it until I understand it.

01:09:45 – 01:09:47:	And that is not how this works.

01:09:47 – 01:09:49:	That is not how God works.

01:09:49 – 01:09:51:	There is no amount of poking

01:09:51 – 01:09:53:	at God that you can do

01:09:53 – 01:09:55:	that will make you understand God fully.

01:09:55 – 01:09:57:	And so your reaction

01:09:57 – 01:09:59:	to God

01:09:59 – 01:10:01:	properly is one of fear.

01:10:01 – 01:10:03:	There is a mystical element to it

01:10:03 – 01:10:05:	not advocating for mysticism

01:10:05 – 01:10:07:	but there is

01:10:07 – 01:10:09:	a mystery to it.

01:10:09 – 01:10:11:	God cannot be fully understood.

01:10:11 – 01:10:13:	He is Holy Other.

01:10:13 – 01:10:15:	He is above and beyond us.

01:10:15 – 01:10:17:	And so we have this

01:10:17 – 01:10:19:	proper response

01:10:19 – 01:10:21:	to God, this proper relationship

01:10:21 – 01:10:23:	to God when we recognize

01:10:23 – 01:10:25:	this chasm

01:10:25 – 01:10:27:	between us, this vast difference

01:10:27 – 01:10:29:	between the finite

01:10:29 – 01:10:31:	man and the infinite God.

01:10:33 – 01:10:35:	And there are some authors who

01:10:35 – 01:10:37:	have captured some aspect

01:10:37 – 01:10:39:	of this, the unknown, the uncanny,

01:10:39 – 01:10:41:	the numinous.

01:10:41 – 01:10:43:	And in some cases

01:10:43 – 01:10:45:	it's actually been horror writers

01:10:45 – 01:10:47:	who have captured some of this. Well Lovecraft

01:10:47 – 01:10:49:	captures some of that

01:10:49 – 01:10:51:	because that is a lot of what

01:10:51 – 01:10:53:	his horror is about. It's the

01:10:53 – 01:10:55:	unknown. It's in the opposite direction

01:10:55 – 01:10:57:	of course because he was an atheist.

01:10:57 – 01:10:59:	And so for the atheist

01:10:59 – 01:11:01:	well that's the proper response because the

01:11:01 – 01:11:03:	unknown for someone

01:11:03 – 01:11:05:	who does not believe in God

01:11:05 – 01:11:07:	well it can be only sheer terror

01:11:07 – 01:11:09:	because something

01:11:09 – 01:11:11:	that is incomprehensible

01:11:11 – 01:11:13:	so far and above you

01:11:13 – 01:11:15:	that it is utterly alien

01:11:15 – 01:11:17:	is terrifying if there

01:11:17 – 01:11:19:	is no God.

01:11:19 – 01:11:21:	God for the believer is not

01:11:21 – 01:11:23:	terrifying. Yes he is dreadful

01:11:23 – 01:11:25:	but that is a different thing. That is

01:11:25 – 01:11:27:	paired with reference that is again that

01:11:27 – 01:11:29:	filial fear of God.

01:11:29 – 01:11:31:	And it's

01:11:31 – 01:11:33:	just something that we have lost in the

01:11:33 – 01:11:35:	world and so we read these things

01:11:35 – 01:11:37:	and with modern eyes

01:11:37 – 01:11:39:	we miss so much. I'm not saying you have

01:11:39 – 01:11:41:	to go back to being an ancient

01:11:41 – 01:11:43:	to understand scripture. No that's not it.

01:11:43 – 01:11:45:	But you do

01:11:45 – 01:11:47:	have to be careful when you are reading

01:11:47 – 01:11:49:	these things

01:11:49 – 01:11:51:	to assess your own

01:11:51 – 01:11:53:	presuppositions, your own priors

01:11:53 – 01:11:55:	and make sure that you are not bringing

01:11:55 – 01:11:57:	something to the text that isn't there.

01:11:57 – 01:11:59:	So see what it is saying

01:11:59 – 01:12:01:	form your world view from

01:12:01 – 01:12:03:	scripture. Don't bring your world

01:12:03 – 01:12:05:	view to scripture and then try to

01:12:05 – 01:12:07:	switch scripture into a little box.

01:12:07 – 01:12:09:	The fear of God is a good thing

01:12:09 – 01:12:11:	and the fear of God

01:12:11 – 01:12:13:	is based in

01:12:13 – 01:12:15:	large part on the fact

01:12:15 – 01:12:17:	that God is other.

01:12:17 – 01:12:19:	God is above and beyond

01:12:19 – 01:12:21:	us. He is God. He is

01:12:21 – 01:12:23:	infinite. You are finite.

01:12:25 – 01:12:27:	You can contemplate that. You can meditate

01:12:27 – 01:12:29:	on it and you should. That is an important

01:12:29 – 01:12:31:	thing to do.

01:12:31 – 01:12:33:	Meditation in the sense of

01:12:33 – 01:12:35:	Christian meditation, which is to meditate

01:12:35 – 01:12:37:	on something, not to clear your mind.

01:12:37 – 01:12:39:	If you clear your mind, you are just

01:12:39 – 01:12:41:	making room for demons to move in.

01:12:41 – 01:12:43:	So never do Eastern meditation.

01:12:43 – 01:12:45:	But Christians

01:12:45 – 01:12:47:	should think about these matters

01:12:47 – 01:12:49:	because the fear of God

01:12:49 – 01:12:51:	runs all throughout scripture

01:12:51 – 01:12:53:	and if you

01:12:53 – 01:12:55:	look at it as

01:12:55 – 01:12:57:	just, oh it's the word fear and then you move on

01:12:57 – 01:12:59:	No, think about it. Think about what that actually

01:12:59 – 01:13:01:	means. What does it mean to fear God?

01:13:01 – 01:13:03:	Look at the reaction

01:13:03 – 01:13:05:	of those in scripture who come

01:13:05 – 01:13:07:	into the presence of God.

01:13:07 – 01:13:09:	They fall on their face. They drop

01:13:09 – 01:13:11:	down to their knees. They

01:13:11 – 01:13:13:	cry out in terror

01:13:13 – 01:13:15:	that they are of

01:13:15 – 01:13:17:	unclean lips and they are in the presence of God.

01:13:17 – 01:13:19:	We have seen God

01:13:19 – 01:13:21:	and not died

01:13:21 – 01:13:23:	and that is an alarming thought.

01:13:23 – 01:13:25:	This is the right reaction to

01:13:25 – 01:13:27:	a proper fear

01:13:27 – 01:13:29:	of God.

01:13:29 – 01:13:31:	Both you and I are very fond of

01:13:31 – 01:13:33:	posting the meme that I made

01:13:33 – 01:13:35:	with the judgment day

01:13:35 – 01:13:37:	with Jesus and the angels coming back

01:13:37 – 01:13:39:	and judging that the pagan pantheon

01:13:39 – 01:13:41:	I superimpose the words

01:13:41 – 01:13:43:	every knee shall bow and every tongue

01:13:43 – 01:13:45:	shall confess.

01:13:45 – 01:13:47:	That will be a day of fear

01:13:47 – 01:13:49:	for everyone. Two different kinds

01:13:49 – 01:13:51:	of fear. For believers

01:13:51 – 01:13:53:	we will fall to our knees

01:13:53 – 01:13:55:	in fear and thanksgiving.

01:13:55 – 01:13:57:	Pagans won't have

01:13:57 – 01:13:59:	thanksgiving. They will have only fear.

01:13:59 – 01:14:01:	But they will fall to their knees and they will confess

01:14:01 – 01:14:03:	Christ just as we will.

01:14:03 – 01:14:05:	Only it will be too late for that to be a saving

01:14:05 – 01:14:07:	confession. It will be a damning

01:14:07 – 01:14:09:	confession. Nevertheless, they will be

01:14:09 – 01:14:11:	compelled to confess with their lips

01:14:11 – 01:14:13:	that Jesus Christ is Lord

01:14:13 – 01:14:15:	and those will be their final words

01:14:15 – 01:14:17:	before they are cast into eternal destruction.

01:14:17 – 01:14:19:	That's

01:14:19 – 01:14:21:	fearful.

01:14:21 – 01:14:23:	Corey, I think you meant an outstanding

01:14:23 – 01:14:25:	summation of all this. How did we get

01:14:25 – 01:14:27:	here? The Enlightenment

01:14:27 – 01:14:29:	let us put reason above everything

01:14:29 – 01:14:31:	and if you can understand something

01:14:31 – 01:14:33:	then you don't need to be afraid of it because you can

01:14:33 – 01:14:35:	put it in its proper category

01:14:35 – 01:14:37:	or you can taxonomize it

01:14:37 – 01:14:39:	and you can say, okay, it gets this flags

01:14:39 – 01:14:41:	I'm going to call it this sort of thing.

01:14:41 – 01:14:43:	I understand it now. I don't need to be

01:14:43 – 01:14:45:	afraid. God doesn't fit

01:14:45 – 01:14:47:	in any of those boxes.

01:14:47 – 01:14:49:	God doesn't fit anywhere. God is

01:14:49 – 01:14:51:	too big to fit, literally.

01:14:51 – 01:14:53:	Again, we don't have words for

01:14:53 – 01:14:55:	how big God is. It's just, it's God.

01:14:55 – 01:14:57:	There's God and there's everything

01:14:57 – 01:14:59:	else and everything else is what God created.

01:14:59 – 01:15:01:	And so when our reason

01:15:01 – 01:15:03:	attempts to rob

01:15:03 – 01:15:05:	God of his fearful majesty

01:15:05 – 01:15:07:	it turns God

01:15:07 – 01:15:09:	into something less than God. And if you're

01:15:09 – 01:15:11:	worshiping a God who is less than God

01:15:11 – 01:15:13:	it's not

01:15:13 – 01:15:15:	the God that you're going to be kneeling before on judgment

01:15:15 – 01:15:17:	day. That God is a fearful

01:15:17 – 01:15:19:	infinite unknowable God.

01:15:19 – 01:15:21:	That God is the God who will judge me.

01:15:21 – 01:15:23:	That God is the God who died

01:15:23 – 01:15:25:	for your sins on the cross.

01:15:25 – 01:15:27:	Fear

01:15:27 – 01:15:29:	is our acknowledgement

01:15:29 – 01:15:31:	that we are creatures

01:15:31 – 01:15:33:	in this hierarchy and that

01:15:33 – 01:15:35:	the creator is he who

01:15:35 – 01:15:37:	made us, who redeemed us

01:15:37 – 01:15:39:	and who calls us to be enlightened

01:15:39 – 01:15:41:	and sanctified by his word.

01:15:41 – 01:15:43:	Just to sum up this part

01:15:43 – 01:15:45:	about fear, I want to read another passage

01:15:45 – 01:15:47:	from Deuteronomy 10 that I think summarizes

01:15:47 – 01:15:49:	all this perfectly.

01:15:49 – 01:15:51:	And now Israel,

01:15:51 – 01:15:53:	what does the Lord your God require of you

01:15:53 – 01:15:55:	but to fear the Lord your God

01:15:55 – 01:15:57:	to walk in all his ways, to love him

01:15:57 – 01:15:59:	to serve the Lord your God with all your heart

01:15:59 – 01:16:01:	and with all your soul

01:16:01 – 01:16:03:	and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord.

01:16:03 – 01:16:05:	Which I am commanding you today

01:16:05 – 01:16:07:	for your good. Behold

01:16:07 – 01:16:09:	to the Lord your God belong

01:16:09 – 01:16:11:	the heaven of heavens, the earth

01:16:11 – 01:16:13:	and all that is in it.

01:16:13 – 01:16:15:	God is

01:16:15 – 01:16:17:	referencing back

01:16:17 – 01:16:19:	or forward in this case, I guess back

01:16:19 – 01:16:21:	in both directions, you know. God's outside of time

01:16:21 – 01:16:23:	we'll talk about that some other time that

01:16:23 – 01:16:25:	time is part of creation. So

01:16:25 – 01:16:27:	when God operates in time

01:16:27 – 01:16:29:	that's according to his

01:16:29 – 01:16:31:	good will, but it's not because he's stuck there.

01:16:31 – 01:16:33:	It's not that God has to do things

01:16:33 – 01:16:35:	in certain order, which is why

01:16:35 – 01:16:37:	on the night on which

01:16:37 – 01:16:39:	Jesus was betrayed, he broke the bread

01:16:39 – 01:16:41:	and said, this is my body

01:16:41 – 01:16:43:	that wasn't a forward looking statement.

01:16:43 – 01:16:45:	It actually was his body.

01:16:45 – 01:16:47:	It was Christ's crucified body that would be crucified

01:16:47 – 01:16:49:	the next day.

01:16:49 – 01:16:51:	God is outside of time. When he operates

01:16:51 – 01:16:53:	within it, sometimes it doesn't make

01:16:53 – 01:16:55:	sense.

01:16:55 – 01:16:57:	But when God says that everything belongs

01:16:57 – 01:16:59:	to him in this passage in Deuteronomy 10

01:16:59 – 01:17:01:	that's arcading back to his

01:17:01 – 01:17:03:	proclamation to Job

01:17:03 – 01:17:05:	to say, I made everything

01:17:05 – 01:17:07:	who are you to question me

01:17:07 – 01:17:09:	in this passage, love the Lord your God

01:17:09 – 01:17:11:	with all your heart and with all your soul.

01:17:11 – 01:17:13:	It's something that Jesus quotes.

01:17:13 – 01:17:15:	Jesus references this

01:17:15 – 01:17:17:	as the law

01:17:17 – 01:17:19:	as proper fear of the Lord

01:17:19 – 01:17:21:	of faith and God

01:17:21 – 01:17:23:	is this is the manifestation

01:17:23 – 01:17:25:	to love God is to fear God

01:17:25 – 01:17:27:	as notable at the beginning of that

01:17:27 – 01:17:29:	God requires of you to fear the Lord

01:17:29 – 01:17:31:	to walk in his ways to love him

01:17:31 – 01:17:33:	and to serve him. Love comes third

01:17:33 – 01:17:35:	in that list. Fear

01:17:35 – 01:17:37:	walk in his ways and love

01:17:37 – 01:17:39:	when the modern

01:17:39 – 01:17:41:	so-called Christian tries to put

01:17:41 – 01:17:43:	love before everything else

01:17:43 – 01:17:45:	it upends

01:17:45 – 01:17:47:	the God that is revealed in Scripture.

01:17:47 – 01:17:49:	God begins

01:17:49 – 01:17:51:	with fear.

01:17:51 – 01:17:53:	God testifies in Job and in Genesis

01:17:53 – 01:17:55:	as well.

01:17:55 – 01:17:57:	The creation of the universe is fearful.

01:17:57 – 01:17:59:	We can't even comprehend

01:17:59 – 01:18:01:	what it's like for God to be creating

01:18:01 – 01:18:03:	everything that we know

01:18:03 – 01:18:05:	from the smallest scale to the largest

01:18:05 – 01:18:07:	neither of which we can conceive of

01:18:07 – 01:18:09:	and those are finite. Those are measurable

01:18:09 – 01:18:11:	those are concrete and yet

01:18:11 – 01:18:13:	they're still beyond our minds.

01:18:13 – 01:18:15:	What God did in creation

01:18:15 – 01:18:17:	is far beyond anything

01:18:17 – 01:18:19:	that could fit in our minds because that's how God works

01:18:19 – 01:18:21:	and so

01:18:21 – 01:18:23:	it is a natural properly ordered

01:18:23 – 01:18:25:	response to fear that

01:18:25 – 01:18:27:	God. If you don't fear God

01:18:27 – 01:18:29:	you don't know that you're God. It's as simple

01:18:29 – 01:18:31:	as that. When we try to

01:18:31 – 01:18:33:	subject everything to human reason

01:18:33 – 01:18:35:	we don't just

01:18:35 – 01:18:37:	miss the proper

01:18:37 – 01:18:39:	relationship of man

01:18:39 – 01:18:41:	to God.

01:18:41 – 01:18:43:	We also lose

01:18:43 – 01:18:45:	a proper understanding, a proper

01:18:45 – 01:18:47:	perspective on many of the good things

01:18:47 – 01:18:49:	that flow from God, on many

01:18:49 – 01:18:51:	of the gifts God gives to us.

01:18:51 – 01:18:53:	For instance

01:18:53 – 01:18:55:	I'll just give one example.

01:18:55 – 01:18:57:	If you attempt

01:18:57 – 01:18:59:	to reduce love

01:18:59 – 01:19:01:	to reason, if you attempt to reduce

01:19:01 – 01:19:03:	it to material, if you attempt to explain it

01:19:03 – 01:19:05:	in a materialistic

01:19:05 – 01:19:07:	framework, you are going

01:19:07 – 01:19:09:	to destroy it. You are going to

01:19:09 – 01:19:11:	utterly

01:19:11 – 01:19:13:	misunderstand it

01:19:13 – 01:19:15:	and you are going to miss the entire point

01:19:15 – 01:19:17:	because love

01:19:17 – 01:19:19:	is not simply

01:19:19 – 01:19:21:	a matter of neurochemistry.

01:19:21 – 01:19:23:	It is not dopamine and serotonin.

01:19:23 – 01:19:25:	I could explain

01:19:25 – 01:19:27:	all those pathways and how that works

01:19:27 – 01:19:29:	and which chemicals are

01:19:29 – 01:19:31:	released when you do certain

01:19:31 – 01:19:33:	actions, whether it's a hug

01:19:33 – 01:19:35:	or other things.

01:19:35 – 01:19:37:	That's not what love is.

01:19:37 – 01:19:39:	Love is something above and beyond

01:19:39 – 01:19:41:	that and we are actually starting to get

01:19:41 – 01:19:43:	into some proof of

01:19:43 – 01:19:45:	that on the physical side because

01:19:45 – 01:19:47:	when you start looking

01:19:47 – 01:19:49:	very specifically

01:19:49 – 01:19:51:	at when a thought originates

01:19:51 – 01:19:53:	and when an action starts

01:19:53 – 01:19:55:	we start running into problems

01:19:55 – 01:19:57:	of causation because it starts to look like

01:19:57 – 01:19:59:	you are doing things before you think them.

01:19:59 – 01:20:01:	Which is of course

01:20:01 – 01:20:03:	proof that materialism is false

01:20:03 – 01:20:05:	but to return back to the issue of love

01:20:05 – 01:20:07:	if you try to reduce

01:20:07 – 01:20:09:	your relationship with your wife

01:20:09 – 01:20:11:	to neurochemistry

01:20:11 – 01:20:13:	you are going to get divorced.

01:20:13 – 01:20:15:	It's really the long and the short of it.

01:20:15 – 01:20:17:	That relationship is not going to last

01:20:17 – 01:20:19:	if you start to reduce it to that.

01:20:19 – 01:20:21:	Yes, you can take those things into account

01:20:21 – 01:20:23:	because you are not

01:20:23 – 01:20:25:	a spirit, a ghost, piloting

01:20:25 – 01:20:27:	a meat suit as

01:20:27 – 01:20:29:	some atheists and others, particularly

01:20:29 – 01:20:31:	Gnostics, will attempt to argue.

01:20:31 – 01:20:33:	You are your body.

01:20:33 – 01:20:35:	You are body and soul, also

01:20:35 – 01:20:37:	mind but that's a separate

01:20:37 – 01:20:39:	matter.

01:20:39 – 01:20:41:	You cannot reduce these things

01:20:41 – 01:20:43:	to the purely material. You cannot

01:20:43 – 01:20:45:	reduce them to reason. You cannot

01:20:45 – 01:20:47:	subject them to the

01:20:47 – 01:20:49:	limited human understanding

01:20:49 – 01:20:51:	post enlightenment.

01:20:51 – 01:20:53:	That's not how this works and

01:20:53 – 01:20:55:	if you do it you will destroy it.

01:20:55 – 01:20:57:	And so

01:20:57 – 01:20:59:	in the small case as it were

01:20:59 – 01:21:01:	with

01:21:01 – 01:21:03:	relationships between human beings

01:21:03 – 01:21:05:	if you try to reduce them in this way

01:21:05 – 01:21:07:	you will destroy them. You will not understand them.

01:21:07 – 01:21:09:	You will miss the real

01:21:09 – 01:21:11:	import of what they are.

01:21:11 – 01:21:13:	And on the grander

01:21:13 – 01:21:15:	scale you will do the same thing

01:21:15 – 01:21:17:	with your relationship

01:21:17 – 01:21:19:	to God if you attempt

01:21:19 – 01:21:21:	to reduce it simply to reason.

01:21:21 – 01:21:23:	You attempt to put God in a box because

01:21:23 – 01:21:25:	you will no longer have God.

01:21:25 – 01:21:27:	You will have your

01:21:27 – 01:21:29:	conception of God and your

01:21:29 – 01:21:31:	conception of God is

01:21:31 – 01:21:33:	imperfect. Your conception of God

01:21:33 – 01:21:35:	is inaccurate. Your conception

01:21:35 – 01:21:37:	of God is an idol.

01:21:37 – 01:21:39:	And so if you attempt

01:21:39 – 01:21:41:	to use these post enlightenment

01:21:41 – 01:21:43:	presuppositions and priors, if you attempt

01:21:43 – 01:21:45:	to use human reason

01:21:45 – 01:21:47:	to say this is God, he

01:21:47 – 01:21:49:	sits in these little boundaries that I have

01:21:49 – 01:21:51:	created because I can understand these boundaries

01:21:51 – 01:21:53:	and so I am comfortable with them.

01:21:53 – 01:21:55:	If you attempt to do that, you no longer

01:21:55 – 01:21:57:	have God. You have an idol.

01:21:57 – 01:21:59:	You have violated the first commandment.

01:21:59 – 01:22:01:	You have probably ceased

01:22:01 – 01:22:03:	to be a Christian. At least you will

01:22:03 – 01:22:05:	if you continue down that path.

01:22:05 – 01:22:07:	And so this is

01:22:07 – 01:22:09:	why it is vitally important

01:22:09 – 01:22:11:	for Christians to come to the text

01:22:11 – 01:22:13:	of Scripture and

01:22:13 – 01:22:15:	see what it says.

01:22:15 – 01:22:17:	Not to import the

01:22:17 – 01:22:19:	world has told us that it

01:22:19 – 01:22:21:	has to mean or cannot mean.

01:22:23 – 01:22:25:	Scripture should form your thought.

01:22:25 – 01:22:27:	Your thought,

01:22:27 – 01:22:29:	your reason, your limitations

01:22:29 – 01:22:31:	should not form Scripture.

01:22:31 – 01:22:33:	So to wrap up, we are going to

01:22:33 – 01:22:35:	be bridging a little bit from

01:22:35 – 01:22:37:	fearing God to talking

01:22:37 – 01:22:39:	about in particular

01:22:39 – 01:22:41:	what we shouldn't fear.

01:22:41 – 01:22:43:	And in a minute, Cory is going to

01:22:43 – 01:22:45:	read from the ALV

01:22:45 – 01:22:47:	in Matthew 6 where Jesus

01:22:47 – 01:22:49:	tells us not to worry about

01:22:49 – 01:22:51:	tomorrow, not to worry about where

01:22:51 – 01:22:53:	food is going to come from and so forth.

01:22:53 – 01:22:55:	I think that that is

01:22:55 – 01:22:57:	an important part of properly understanding

01:22:57 – 01:22:59:	fear because if you fear

01:22:59 – 01:23:01:	God properly,

01:23:01 – 01:23:03:	you don't fear anything else.

01:23:03 – 01:23:05:	And that is probably

01:23:05 – 01:23:07:	the chief benefit

01:23:07 – 01:23:09:	apart from doing what God says

01:23:09 – 01:23:11:	is that when you are fearful of God,

01:23:11 – 01:23:13:	nothing else can matter.

01:23:13 – 01:23:15:	Job understood that.

01:23:15 – 01:23:17:	Job understood clearly

01:23:17 – 01:23:19:	that all the good things he had

01:23:19 – 01:23:21:	came from God.

01:23:21 – 01:23:23:	And when those good things went away,

01:23:23 – 01:23:25:	God was still God.

01:23:25 – 01:23:27:	So he had nothing to fear.

01:23:27 – 01:23:29:	That is a key part of this.

01:23:29 – 01:23:31:	And I think that

01:23:31 – 01:23:33:	it's something that we are

01:23:33 – 01:23:35:	particularly going to have to

01:23:35 – 01:23:37:	grapple with in our own personal lives

01:23:37 – 01:23:39:	in this decade.

01:23:39 – 01:23:41:	As the world gets worse

01:23:41 – 01:23:43:	and more dangerous,

01:23:43 – 01:23:45:	as the actions of the state

01:23:45 – 01:23:47:	and the actions in our churches

01:23:47 – 01:23:49:	and our communities and our own families

01:23:49 – 01:23:51:	get worse for us,

01:23:51 – 01:23:53:	we are going to be confronted

01:23:53 – 01:23:55:	with fear that Jesus

01:23:55 – 01:23:57:	condemns.

01:23:57 – 01:23:59:	And I think that in particular

01:23:59 – 01:24:01:	pastors who are called

01:24:01 – 01:24:03:	to proclaim the whole council of God

01:24:03 – 01:24:05:	have become so fearful

01:24:05 – 01:24:07:	of proclaiming the parts

01:24:07 – 01:24:09:	that might get them into trouble

01:24:09 – 01:24:11:	at some point.

01:24:11 – 01:24:13:	They are devolving into idolatry

01:24:13 – 01:24:15:	because they don't believe Jesus

01:24:15 – 01:24:17:	words here.

01:24:17 – 01:24:19:	When Jesus says you don't need to worry about

01:24:19 – 01:24:21:	where your next meal is going to come from,

01:24:21 – 01:24:23:	I'll take care of you.

01:24:23 – 01:24:25:	How many of our pastors are like,

01:24:25 – 01:24:27:	oh, I can't say that. I might lose my job.

01:24:27 – 01:24:29:	Well,

01:24:29 – 01:24:31:	there's a pragmatic concern

01:24:31 – 01:24:33:	and there's a right way and a wrong way

01:24:33 – 01:24:35:	for a pastor to preach these things.

01:24:35 – 01:24:37:	Nothing that we're saying here

01:24:37 – 01:24:39:	about your life and

01:24:39 – 01:24:41:	be as stupid as possible

01:24:41 – 01:24:43:	and trust that God is going to take care of you.

01:24:43 – 01:24:45:	That's foolishness. That's not what we're advocating.

01:24:45 – 01:24:47:	However,

01:24:47 – 01:24:49:	if proclaiming the whole

01:24:49 – 01:24:51:	council of God

01:24:51 – 01:24:53:	means that bad things

01:24:53 – 01:24:55:	happen to you, is that a reason not

01:24:55 – 01:24:57:	to do them?

01:24:57 – 01:24:59:	Is the reason that you might lose your job

01:24:59 – 01:25:01:	a reason not to obey God?

01:25:01 – 01:25:03:	Is your job

01:25:03 – 01:25:05:	an end? Or is that a means to an end?

01:25:05 – 01:25:07:	Is it a gift that God has given you?

01:25:07 – 01:25:09:	Just as

01:25:09 – 01:25:11:	Job had been given all the gifts of

01:25:11 – 01:25:13:	camels and livestock

01:25:13 – 01:25:15:	and servants and children,

01:25:15 – 01:25:17:	when those were taken away,

01:25:17 – 01:25:19:	Job was still Job and God was still God.

01:25:19 – 01:25:21:	Job still ate

01:25:21 – 01:25:23:	despite being reduced to nothing.

01:25:23 – 01:25:25:	He didn't starve to death.

01:25:25 – 01:25:27:	God continued to take care of him

01:25:27 – 01:25:29:	as Jesus promises here in Matthew 6.

01:25:29 – 01:25:31:	And so when we are confronted

01:25:31 – 01:25:33:	with situations in our own lives

01:25:33 – 01:25:35:	where there may be material

01:25:35 – 01:25:37:	consequences for being faithful,

01:25:37 – 01:25:39:	there's a time

01:25:39 – 01:25:41:	and a place to be judicious

01:25:41 – 01:25:43:	about how you approach these things.

01:25:43 – 01:25:45:	But ultimately, if you can't

01:25:45 – 01:25:47:	tell the truth because you're afraid

01:25:47 – 01:25:49:	that you might not be able to feed

01:25:49 – 01:25:51:	your kids, that is faithfulness

01:25:51 – 01:25:53:	to God. You have a vocation

01:25:53 – 01:25:55:	to keep them fed. God

01:25:55 – 01:25:57:	has promised he will keep them fed.

01:25:57 – 01:25:59:	If you think disobeying God

01:25:59 – 01:26:01:	is going to win you points,

01:26:01 – 01:26:03:	it will with the world, but it won't with God.

01:26:03 – 01:26:05:	And so we're going to end with this

01:26:05 – 01:26:07:	and I'm going to end with a personal story

01:26:07 – 01:26:09:	about something that I dealt with

01:26:09 – 01:26:11:	in a much smaller manner than Job

01:26:11 – 01:26:13:	that I think illustrates how this stuff

01:26:13 – 01:26:15:	all ties together.

01:26:31 – 01:26:33:	Not so nor reap nor gather into barns,

01:26:33 – 01:26:35:	and your heavenly father feeds them.

01:26:35 – 01:26:37:	Are you not of much more value

01:26:37 – 01:26:39:	than they?

01:26:39 – 01:26:41:	And which of you by being anxious

01:26:41 – 01:26:43:	can add one cubit to the measure of his life?

01:26:43 – 01:26:45:	And why are you anxious concerning

01:26:45 – 01:26:47:	raiment? Consider the lilies

01:26:47 – 01:26:49:	of the field, how they grow,

01:26:49 – 01:26:51:	they do not toil nor spin.

01:26:51 – 01:26:53:	Yet I say to you that even

01:26:53 – 01:26:55:	Solomon in all his glory

01:26:55 – 01:26:57:	was not arrayed like one of these.

01:26:57 – 01:26:59:	But if God so close the grass

01:26:59 – 01:27:01:	of the field, which today is

01:27:01 – 01:27:03:	and tomorrow is cast into the oven,

01:27:03 – 01:27:05:	shall he not much more clothe you,

01:27:05 – 01:27:07:	you of little faith?

01:27:07 – 01:27:09:	Be not therefore anxious saying

01:27:09 – 01:27:11:	what shall we eat, or

01:27:11 – 01:27:13:	what shall we drink, or

01:27:13 – 01:27:15:	with what shall we be clothed?

01:27:15 – 01:27:17:	For after all these things the Gentiles

01:27:17 – 01:27:19:	seek, for your heavenly father

01:27:19 – 01:27:21:	knows that you have need of all these things.

01:27:21 – 01:27:23:	But seek first his kingdom

01:27:23 – 01:27:25:	and his righteousness.

01:27:25 – 01:27:27:	And all these things shall be added to you.

01:27:27 – 01:27:29:	Be not anxious therefore,

01:27:29 – 01:27:31:	for the morrow, for the morrow

01:27:31 – 01:27:33:	will be anxious for itself.

01:27:33 – 01:27:35:	Sufficient to the day is its own evil.

01:27:37 – 01:27:39:	So in Matthew 6, Jesus

01:27:39 – 01:27:41:	talks about anxiousness, not so much fear,

01:27:41 – 01:27:43:	but I think that fear

01:27:43 – 01:27:45:	is typically how it manifests

01:27:45 – 01:27:47:	among us when we're afraid

01:27:47 – 01:27:49:	that, you know, I have to take care of myself,

01:27:49 – 01:27:51:	I have to feed myself, I have to clothe

01:27:51 – 01:27:53:	and shelter and all these things.

01:27:53 – 01:27:55:	And that's functionally true,

01:27:55 – 01:27:57:	but it's not ultimately true.

01:27:57 – 01:27:59:	If you fear

01:27:59 – 01:28:01:	and trust in God, you know

01:28:01 – 01:28:03:	that those things come from him.

01:28:03 – 01:28:05:	That is what Job knew,

01:28:05 – 01:28:07:	when those things were taken away from him,

01:28:07 – 01:28:09:	what did he say? He said,

01:28:09 – 01:28:11:	the Lord giveth him, the Lord taketh away,

01:28:11 – 01:28:13:	blessed be the name of the Lord.

01:28:13 – 01:28:15:	God pours out his bounty on all of us

01:28:15 – 01:28:17:	every day, and we should be thankful

01:28:17 – 01:28:19:	for it and we should be acknowledging it

01:28:19 – 01:28:21:	because the manner

01:28:21 – 01:28:23:	in which those things are delivered

01:28:23 – 01:28:25:	is another testament

01:28:25 – 01:28:27:	to God's glory.

01:28:27 – 01:28:29:	The fact that, especially, and we're so blessed

01:28:29 – 01:28:31:	to live in the West, where

01:28:31 – 01:28:33:	we have relative peace,

01:28:33 – 01:28:35:	we have relative security,

01:28:35 – 01:28:37:	we have relative prosperity,

01:28:37 – 01:28:39:	frankly, that exceeds almost

01:28:39 – 01:28:41:	all times and places in history,

01:28:41 – 01:28:43:	even at this late hour where things seem

01:28:43 – 01:28:45:	to be getting ugly,

01:28:45 – 01:28:47:	we're still well off today.

01:28:47 – 01:28:49:	And

01:28:49 – 01:28:51:	I think one of the things

01:28:51 – 01:28:53:	that as we face

01:28:53 – 01:28:55:	harder and harder days,

01:28:55 – 01:28:57:	the reason we're talking about this today is that

01:28:57 – 01:28:59:	this is going to get more and more important

01:28:59 – 01:29:01:	in your own life,

01:29:01 – 01:29:03:	in your faith,

01:29:03 – 01:29:05:	in your relationship with God.

01:29:05 – 01:29:07:	If you are confronted with

01:29:07 – 01:29:09:	your children dying, you losing your home,

01:29:09 – 01:29:11:	are you going to curse God

01:29:11 – 01:29:13:	and die? That's what the world says to do.

01:29:13 – 01:29:15:	You know, when something

01:29:15 – 01:29:17:	terrible befalls a Christian,

01:29:17 – 01:29:19:	the atheist mocks

01:29:19 – 01:29:21:	his, where's your God now?

01:29:21 – 01:29:23:	Why didn't your God save your wife

01:29:23 – 01:29:25:	or your child, or whatever you've lost?

01:29:25 – 01:29:27:	Horrible losses that

01:29:27 – 01:29:29:	are heart-wrenching.

01:29:29 – 01:29:31:	When you trust

01:29:31 – 01:29:33:	in God, you know

01:29:33 – 01:29:35:	that those gifts were from him,

01:29:35 – 01:29:37:	and as long as they last, we enjoy it.

01:29:37 – 01:29:39:	And when they're gone, we give thanks

01:29:39 – 01:29:41:	that we had them. And we give thanks

01:29:41 – 01:29:43:	for whatever's coming next.

01:29:43 – 01:29:45:	We don't know what's coming next, but we know

01:29:45 – 01:29:47:	that it will also come from God.

01:29:47 – 01:29:49:	And so, to end with a personal story,

01:29:49 – 01:29:51:	we say I and we and

01:29:51 – 01:29:53:	us more than I would like on this

01:29:53 – 01:29:55:	show. We don't want this to be a show about us.

01:29:55 – 01:29:57:	The story I'm about to tell is a

01:29:57 – 01:29:59:	personal story because

01:29:59 – 01:30:01:	I'm an expert on it. I lived it. I was there.

01:30:01 – 01:30:03:	I know what it was like.

01:30:03 – 01:30:05:	I'm not telling it for the sake of

01:30:05 – 01:30:07:	self-aggrandizement.

01:30:07 – 01:30:09:	I'm not telling it for the sake of saying,

01:30:09 – 01:30:11:	oh, I'm great. You should be like me.

01:30:11 – 01:30:13:	The purpose of

01:30:13 – 01:30:15:	sharing this particular story is to

01:30:15 – 01:30:17:	illustrate that when one has

01:30:17 – 01:30:19:	the particular

01:30:19 – 01:30:21:	sort of faith that we're trying to

01:30:21 – 01:30:23:	emphasize, when bad

01:30:23 – 01:30:25:	moments in your life arrive,

01:30:25 – 01:30:27:	you will have confident

01:30:27 – 01:30:29:	faith that God will take care

01:30:29 – 01:30:31:	of you no matter what.

01:30:31 – 01:30:33:	So, my story is this.

01:30:33 – 01:30:35:	On January 27th,

01:30:35 – 01:30:37:	2020, it was about two

01:30:37 – 01:30:39:	months into COVID becoming

01:30:39 – 01:30:41:	a thing that was well known. I'd been tracking

01:30:41 – 01:30:43:	it for about two months. I was already

01:30:43 – 01:30:45:	tracking

01:30:45 – 01:30:47:	plague doctor memes at the end of January.

01:30:47 – 01:30:49:	I knew it was going to be a big deal

01:30:49 – 01:30:51:	even before most people had heard anything about it.

01:30:51 – 01:30:53:	I think it was either a Friday or Saturday.

01:30:53 – 01:30:55:	I was

01:30:55 – 01:30:57:	sitting in my living room, probably watching

01:30:57 – 01:30:59:	something on TV and playing on my computer.

01:30:59 – 01:31:01:	My dog got feisty,

01:31:01 – 01:31:03:	wanted to go outside, wanted to play for a bit.

01:31:03 – 01:31:05:	And so, I took him out

01:31:05 – 01:31:07:	and we went out the sliding

01:31:07 – 01:31:09:	door in the backyard.

01:31:09 – 01:31:11:	And I live on kind of a steep hill.

01:31:11 – 01:31:13:	It was January. It was snowy. It wasn't too cold.

01:31:13 – 01:31:15:	So, I didn't have to bundle up,

01:31:15 – 01:31:17:	but the ground was slippery.

01:31:17 – 01:31:19:	And because of how steep the hill was,

01:31:19 – 01:31:21:	when, what I did, I grabbed

01:31:21 – 01:31:23:	I think either a stick or a

01:31:23 – 01:31:25:	Frisbee to play with him just to run him around

01:31:25 – 01:31:27:	for a few minutes.

01:31:27 – 01:31:29:	I threw the, it was a Frisbee, I remember.

01:31:29 – 01:31:31:	It was a Frisbee. I threw it once

01:31:31 – 01:31:33:	and he ran down the hill after it because he's got four legs

01:31:33 – 01:31:35:	and he's unbeatable. He's

01:31:35 – 01:31:37:	a super athlete. So, he just charged down

01:31:37 – 01:31:39:	the hill one after it. I had to be more careful

01:31:39 – 01:31:41:	so I wouldn't fall on my butt

01:31:41 – 01:31:43:	and hurt myself. So,

01:31:43 – 01:31:45:	because of how slippery it was, now steep

01:31:45 – 01:31:47:	it was, I decided to stomp all the way

01:31:47 – 01:31:49:	down the hill, basically planting my heels

01:31:49 – 01:31:51:	with every step to make sure I had

01:31:51 – 01:31:53:	good purchase and wouldn't lose my footing.

01:31:53 – 01:31:55:	But it's steep enough

01:31:55 – 01:31:57:	that I had to do it in a hurry. So, I kind of half

01:31:57 – 01:31:59:	ran, half stomped

01:31:59 – 01:32:01:	down the hill, got to the bottom and was flat

01:32:01 – 01:32:03:	and stopped. He brought

01:32:03 – 01:32:05:	the Frisbee back. I threw it once

01:32:05 – 01:32:07:	or twice more. And

01:32:07 – 01:32:09:	the last time I threw

01:32:09 – 01:32:11:	it, it went off to the right. He ran

01:32:11 – 01:32:13:	off to the right to run after it.

01:32:13 – 01:32:15:	As I was standing there sort of watching

01:32:15 – 01:32:17:	him, not really thinking

01:32:17 – 01:32:19:	about it, it dawned on me

01:32:19 – 01:32:21:	that something was wrong.

01:32:21 – 01:32:23:	I couldn't tell what it was.

01:32:23 – 01:32:25:	I, like, it wasn't, there was no

01:32:25 – 01:32:27:	sensation, there was no

01:32:27 – 01:32:29:	thought. It was just, I

01:32:29 – 01:32:31:	could tell it was missing something and it

01:32:31 – 01:32:33:	was beginning to concern me. It's like,

01:32:33 – 01:32:35:	did I leave the gas on? It was just

01:32:35 – 01:32:37:	there was something wrong. I didn't

01:32:37 – 01:32:39:	know what it was. And so I had

01:32:39 – 01:32:41:	this sort of sense of illities,

01:32:41 – 01:32:43:	disease.

01:32:43 – 01:32:45:	As I was trying to figure out

01:32:45 – 01:32:47:	what it was that I was missing, what it

01:32:47 – 01:32:49:	was that I didn't know, I

01:32:49 – 01:32:51:	felt my dog tapping on my

01:32:51 – 01:32:53:	left thigh.

01:32:53 – 01:32:55:	And that confused

01:32:55 – 01:32:57:	me because he was still off to my right.

01:32:57 – 01:32:59:	I was watching him get the Frisbee and run

01:32:59 – 01:33:01:	around. But he was tapping on

01:33:01 – 01:33:03:	my leg. I looked down

01:33:03 – 01:33:05:	and it was my arm.

01:33:05 – 01:33:07:	It was my hand tapping

01:33:07 – 01:33:09:	against my leg, basically swinging

01:33:09 – 01:33:11:	in the wind like a wind chime.

01:33:11 – 01:33:13:	I thought, huh,

01:33:13 – 01:33:15:	that ain't right.

01:33:15 – 01:33:17:	So I reached out, I tried to move it.

01:33:17 – 01:33:19:	My arm couldn't move at all. It was completely dead.

01:33:19 – 01:33:21:	I grabbed my left wrist

01:33:21 – 01:33:23:	with my right hand, picked it up,

01:33:23 – 01:33:25:	totally dead. At that point

01:33:25 – 01:33:27:	it was not my arm at all. It was

01:33:27 – 01:33:29:	it was just an appendage attached

01:33:29 – 01:33:31:	to my shoulder.

01:33:31 – 01:33:33:	It was meat, but it had nothing

01:33:33 – 01:33:35:	to do with me anymore. My wrist

01:33:35 – 01:33:37:	was flopped down, totally

01:33:37 – 01:33:39:	dead. Zero motion.

01:33:39 – 01:33:41:	I thought, wow, this is some sort

01:33:41 – 01:33:43:	of medical condition. I am going to have to address

01:33:43 – 01:33:45:	this pretty urgently.

01:33:45 – 01:33:47:	So standing at the bottom

01:33:47 – 01:33:49:	of the hill, my first thought was I need to

01:33:49 – 01:33:51:	get back inside because this

01:33:51 – 01:33:53:	is a medical problem. I don't know how much

01:33:53 – 01:33:55:	warts is going to get, but I

01:33:55 – 01:33:57:	need to get inside so that I at least

01:33:57 – 01:33:59:	have the opportunity to call for help before

01:33:59 – 01:34:01:	I am incapacitated.

01:34:01 – 01:34:03:	It was just my arm. Everything

01:34:03 – 01:34:05:	else was working, but I didn't know what

01:34:05 – 01:34:07:	it was and that's a bad sign.

01:34:07 – 01:34:09:	So I called the dog, thankfully, he listened

01:34:09 – 01:34:11:	to me and came up with me. As I

01:34:11 – 01:34:13:	marched back up the hill, I hung

01:34:13 – 01:34:15:	on to my dead arm because

01:34:15 – 01:34:17:	I realized it was

01:34:17 – 01:34:19:	sufficiently dead that if I moved up the

01:34:19 – 01:34:21:	hill with the speed I intended, I

01:34:21 – 01:34:23:	was running the risk of actually

01:34:23 – 01:34:25:	dislocating my shoulder

01:34:25 – 01:34:27:	because I knew it was just going to flop around like crazy.

01:34:27 – 01:34:29:	So I hung on to it. Basically, I carried

01:34:29 – 01:34:31:	myself and I carried my dead arm up the hill.

01:34:31 – 01:34:33:	I got back inside

01:34:33 – 01:34:35:	and went back into the living room.

01:34:35 – 01:34:37:	As I was standing there, my arm started

01:34:37 – 01:34:39:	working again, partially.

01:34:39 – 01:34:41:	It still felt a little

01:34:41 – 01:34:43:	funny, but I was able to move it again and go,

01:34:43 – 01:34:45:	oh great, whatever that was, maybe it was a nerve problem.

01:34:45 – 01:34:47:	It kind of came and went.

01:34:47 – 01:34:49:	Obviously, I was

01:34:49 – 01:34:51:	still concerned. I got to figure out what's going on,

01:34:51 – 01:34:53:	but momentarily I had the use

01:34:53 – 01:34:55:	of the arm again. So

01:34:55 – 01:34:57:	I remember I grabbed my

01:34:57 – 01:34:59:	iPad and I walked back to my bedroom,

01:34:59 – 01:35:01:	which is a long way away.

01:35:01 – 01:35:03:	Part of what I

01:35:03 – 01:35:05:	was thinking was that I might be having

01:35:05 – 01:35:07:	a stroke. If I'm having a stroke, do I take

01:35:07 – 01:35:09:	aspirin or not? I wasn't sure at the time

01:35:09 – 01:35:11:	what to do, but

01:35:11 – 01:35:13:	I thought I'll just go back to the bathroom

01:35:13 – 01:35:15:	and get

01:35:15 – 01:35:17:	aspirin. Whether I was going to

01:35:17 – 01:35:19:	take it, I was going to have it in hand and

01:35:19 – 01:35:21:	look in the mirror to see if my face was drooping or anything.

01:35:21 – 01:35:23:	So I carried

01:35:23 – 01:35:25:	the iPad back to my bedroom. It's probably

01:35:25 – 01:35:27:	about 120 feet away.

01:35:29 – 01:35:31:	Look in the mirror, face looks fine.

01:35:31 – 01:35:33:	I speak out loud to see if I can talk.

01:35:33 – 01:35:35:	I was able to speak okay, so I'm like, well,

01:35:35 – 01:35:37:	I'm not sure what's going on. Maybe it's a stroke, maybe

01:35:37 – 01:35:39:	it isn't. And I wanted

01:35:39 – 01:35:41:	to pick up the iPad, I think, to look at stroke symptoms

01:35:41 – 01:35:43:	online, because

01:35:43 – 01:35:45:	even in a medical emergency, I want to be

01:35:45 – 01:35:47:	analytical. I realized that

01:35:47 – 01:35:49:	my arm was dead again and I didn't have my iPad.

01:35:49 – 01:35:51:	So I walked back down the hallway

01:35:51 – 01:35:53:	and found a halfway down the hallway.

01:35:53 – 01:35:55:	The iPad was laying on the ground.

01:35:55 – 01:35:57:	So at some point, I had dropped it

01:35:57 – 01:35:59:	from my hand, which had died again.

01:35:59 – 01:36:01:	I didn't even know it. So, well,

01:36:01 – 01:36:03:	that's strike two. Something's definitely wrong

01:36:03 – 01:36:05:	here. I picked it up, went back

01:36:05 – 01:36:07:	towards the living room

01:36:07 – 01:36:09:	and the arm came back kind of

01:36:09 – 01:36:11:	again. So I went back to the living room,

01:36:11 – 01:36:13:	set the iPad down again, went into another

01:36:13 – 01:36:15:	bathroom to look at my face,

01:36:15 – 01:36:17:	because I've been moving around for a bit

01:36:17 – 01:36:19:	and look at a better mirror

01:36:19 – 01:36:21:	more closely. The left side of my face

01:36:21 – 01:36:23:	was starting to droop a little bit

01:36:23 – 01:36:25:	and so I tried speaking out loud again. I was

01:36:25 – 01:36:27:	still able to speak, but I was pretty sure

01:36:27 – 01:36:29:	I was having a stroke.

01:36:29 – 01:36:31:	And so I walked into the living room and

01:36:31 – 01:36:33:	this is the point of the story. What happened

01:36:33 – 01:36:35:	next?

01:36:35 – 01:36:37:	I had realized at that point I'm having a stroke.

01:36:37 – 01:36:39:	I'm going to be going to the hospital today.

01:36:41 – 01:36:43:	Before I called 9-1-1,

01:36:43 – 01:36:45:	I said a prayer. It was like a 10,

01:36:45 – 01:36:47:	15 second prayer.

01:36:47 – 01:36:49:	I remember very clearly

01:36:49 – 01:36:51:	I bowed my head

01:36:51 – 01:36:53:	and I began the prayers. I begin every

01:36:53 – 01:36:55:	prayer, no matter what, with Thanksgiving.

01:36:55 – 01:36:57:	I will not pray without

01:36:57 – 01:36:59:	first thanking God for something.

01:36:59 – 01:37:01:	Sometimes it's dumb.

01:37:01 – 01:37:03:	I'm not talking about

01:37:03 – 01:37:05:	big ticket items, you know,

01:37:05 – 01:37:07:	whatever, like eating or anything.

01:37:07 – 01:37:09:	I don't pray unless I thank God first.

01:37:09 – 01:37:11:	So as I was standing there with a dead arm

01:37:11 – 01:37:13:	knowing that I was almost certainly having

01:37:13 – 01:37:15:	a stroke, I said,

01:37:15 – 01:37:17:	Dear Lord, thank you for the use of this

01:37:17 – 01:37:19:	arm for these many years.

01:37:19 – 01:37:21:	If it is your will that I regain

01:37:21 – 01:37:23:	the use of this arm, please

01:37:23 – 01:37:25:	guide me through whatever I need to do

01:37:25 – 01:37:27:	next to get help.

01:37:27 – 01:37:29:	Please help the doctors to figure this out

01:37:29 – 01:37:31:	and if this is going to get worse

01:37:31 – 01:37:33:	and if I'm not going to

01:37:33 – 01:37:35:	be healed

01:37:35 – 01:37:37:	or if I'm not going to recover, if I'm not

01:37:37 – 01:37:39:	going to survive, please strengthen

01:37:39 – 01:37:41:	and preserve my faith under the end.

01:37:41 – 01:37:43:	Amen.

01:37:43 – 01:37:45:	9-1-1.

01:37:45 – 01:37:47:	And the reason I did that

01:37:47 – 01:37:49:	was that I knew that

01:37:49 – 01:37:51:	a doctor wasn't going to save me.

01:37:51 – 01:37:53:	9-1-1 wasn't going to save me. It wasn't going to be a paramedic.

01:37:53 – 01:37:55:	I was in God's hands.

01:37:55 – 01:37:57:	That's something that

01:37:57 – 01:37:59:	I know all the time.

01:37:59 – 01:38:01:	It's not something that

01:38:01 – 01:38:03:	you're always conscious of,

01:38:03 – 01:38:05:	but it's something you should reflect on

01:38:05 – 01:38:07:	and I'm thankful that prior to

01:38:07 – 01:38:09:	January 27th, 2020

01:38:09 – 01:38:11:	I had thought about

01:38:11 – 01:38:13:	being in God's hands because

01:38:13 – 01:38:15:	when I was having a stroke

01:38:15 – 01:38:17:	my first thought wasn't

01:38:17 – 01:38:19:	oh, I got to fix this problem.

01:38:19 – 01:38:21:	My first thought was, I'm up a creek

01:38:21 – 01:38:23:	and there's nothing I can do about this.

01:38:23 – 01:38:25:	I got to go try to get help, but

01:38:25 – 01:38:27:	the only way I'm going to make it

01:38:27 – 01:38:29:	is by God's grace.

01:38:29 – 01:38:31:	So before turning to the state, before turning

01:38:31 – 01:38:33:	to 9-1-1, I turned to God.

01:38:33 – 01:38:35:	And

01:38:35 – 01:38:37:	after I hung up

01:38:37 – 01:38:39:	and it was funny, when I called 9-1-1

01:38:39 – 01:38:41:	I said, I think I'm having a stroke.

01:38:41 – 01:38:43:	At that point

01:38:43 – 01:38:45:	that's where my speech was

01:38:45 – 01:38:47:	and that was kind of confirmation.

01:38:47 – 01:38:49:	The operator didn't really argue with me.

01:38:49 – 01:38:51:	He's like, okay, what's your address?

01:38:51 – 01:38:53:	And it came up and took about 8 minutes

01:38:53 – 01:38:55:	for the ambulance to get there. I went outside.

01:38:55 – 01:38:57:	I locked up the house so my dog wouldn't get away.

01:38:57 – 01:38:59:	I think I texted a friend to say, hey,

01:38:59 – 01:39:01:	can you come get my dog? I'm going to be at the hospital for a while.

01:39:01 – 01:39:03:	And

01:39:03 – 01:39:05:	by the time

01:39:05 – 01:39:07:	the ambulance got there about 8 minutes later

01:39:07 – 01:39:09:	arm was completely dead.

01:39:09 – 01:39:11:	I could barely speak at all.

01:39:11 – 01:39:13:	My face was severely drooping.

01:39:13 – 01:39:15:	It was a severe stroke.

01:39:15 – 01:39:17:	I would have been permanently

01:39:17 – 01:39:19:	debilitated if I had not

01:39:19 – 01:39:21:	been healed. And so they took me

01:39:21 – 01:39:23:	to the local hospital.

01:39:23 – 01:39:25:	They did a quick MRI, I think.

01:39:25 – 01:39:27:	And within

01:39:27 – 01:39:29:	about 15 minutes they said, yeah, you're having a stroke.

01:39:29 – 01:39:31:	And I'll tell you

01:39:31 – 01:39:33:	secondarily, another value of me sharing this

01:39:33 – 01:39:35:	story, there's a drug called TPA.

01:39:35 – 01:39:37:	You don't need to know what the name of the drug is,

01:39:37 – 01:39:39:	but there's a clot busting drug

01:39:39 – 01:39:41:	that if it's administered within like the first 90 minutes

01:39:41 – 01:39:43:	or so, I think 90 minutes to 2 hours

01:39:43 – 01:39:45:	is the absolute outside of when they can

01:39:45 – 01:39:47:	administer it. It's a super clot busting

01:39:47 – 01:39:49:	drug that will just break up the clot

01:39:49 – 01:39:51:	and minimize the amount

01:39:51 – 01:39:53:	of brain damage you suffer. Because

01:39:53 – 01:39:55:	the reason my arm was dead was that

01:39:55 – 01:39:57:	I had brain damage.

01:39:57 – 01:39:59:	If the clot gets broken

01:39:59 – 01:40:01:	up quickly enough, that can be temporary.

01:40:01 – 01:40:03:	It goes on long enough for the clots

01:40:03 – 01:40:05:	to move around. If there are more of them, it could be permanent.

01:40:05 – 01:40:07:	It could very easily kill you.

01:40:07 – 01:40:09:	But they said,

01:40:09 – 01:40:11:	do you want to take aspirin or do you want

01:40:11 – 01:40:13:	the drug? And he said, give me the drug,

01:40:13 – 01:40:15:	give me the drug. Well, I couldn't say anything.

01:40:15 – 01:40:17:	I couldn't speak at all. I was just sort of

01:40:17 – 01:40:19:	I could kind of

01:40:19 – 01:40:21:	struggle to the point of getting out a single word.

01:40:21 – 01:40:23:	But it was not really articulable

01:40:23 – 01:40:25:	speech. They gave me the

01:40:25 – 01:40:27:	drug and within about 90 minutes it knocked some of it

01:40:27 – 01:40:29:	out. And they kept me for about

01:40:29 – 01:40:31:	24 hours because one of the risks of the drug

01:40:31 – 01:40:33:	is brain bleed

01:40:33 – 01:40:35:	hemorrhage. So I had to be under

01:40:35 – 01:40:37:	neurological analysis

01:40:37 – 01:40:39:	once an hour for 24 hours,

01:40:39 – 01:40:41:	which was itself worse than the stroke.

01:40:41 – 01:40:43:	Getting woken up every hour and being poked

01:40:43 – 01:40:45:	and prodded is

01:40:45 – 01:40:47:	pretty much torture. It's sleep deprivation. I don't

01:40:47 – 01:40:49:	recommend it.

01:40:49 – 01:40:51:	By the time I got out of there, I was

01:40:51 – 01:40:53:	good to go. My arm was working again. I could

01:40:53 – 01:40:55:	speak again.

01:40:55 – 01:40:57:	My speech was probably 99%.

01:40:57 – 01:40:59:	My arm was interesting.

01:40:59 – 01:41:01:	I could still move my arm. I got full function

01:41:01 – 01:41:03:	of the arm back within

01:41:03 – 01:41:05:	three hours, but virtually

01:41:05 – 01:41:07:	no sensation. It took a year and a

01:41:07 – 01:41:09:	half for the sensation to come back.

01:41:09 – 01:41:11:	And basically my arm was just tingling like it was

01:41:11 – 01:41:13:	waking up for a year and a half. It's

01:41:13 – 01:41:15:	still kind of tingling to this day.

01:41:15 – 01:41:17:	And

01:41:17 – 01:41:19:	unfortunately, for a new

01:41:19 – 01:41:21:	podcaster, I have brain damage. You probably

01:41:21 – 01:41:23:	hear me occasionally stumble over words.

01:41:23 – 01:41:25:	Use the wrong

01:41:25 – 01:41:27:	word once in a while like I'm doing

01:41:27 – 01:41:29:	right now in the sentence.

01:41:29 – 01:41:31:	I didn't used to be like that. I used to speak

01:41:31 – 01:41:33:	with perfect clarity like Cory's does.

01:41:33 – 01:41:35:	I was so

01:41:35 – 01:41:37:	precise in my speech at all times

01:41:37 – 01:41:39:	that on the rare occasions, by rare

01:41:39 – 01:41:41:	I mean like once a year, once every other

01:41:41 – 01:41:43:	year, when I might miss speak in

01:41:43 – 01:41:45:	front of friends, they would literally

01:41:45 – 01:41:47:	interrupt me to stop and laugh

01:41:47 – 01:41:49:	and point at me and mock me for

01:41:49 – 01:41:51:	making a mistake, which wasn't cruel.

01:41:51 – 01:41:53:	It would be cruel to do it to most people, but

01:41:53 – 01:41:55:	the precision

01:41:55 – 01:41:57:	of my speech was so

01:41:57 – 01:41:59:	reliable that I

01:41:59 – 01:42:01:	came across as an android just in terms of never

01:42:01 – 01:42:03:	making a mistake. So my friends would get

01:42:03 – 01:42:05:	excited that I would actually show I was a human being.

01:42:05 – 01:42:07:	God has since spared me

01:42:07 – 01:42:09:	any sort of vanity for that. That's long gone.

01:42:09 – 01:42:11:	So if I hadn't told you

01:42:11 – 01:42:13:	I think you probably most people wouldn't notice

01:42:13 – 01:42:15:	if you had heard

01:42:15 – 01:42:17:	if we had been recording before I had

01:42:17 – 01:42:19:	had the stroke, you would definitely be able to tell the

01:42:19 – 01:42:21:	difference. I certainly can. I find it

01:42:21 – 01:42:23:	very aggravating to do anything

01:42:23 – 01:42:25:	imperfectly, especially when

01:42:25 – 01:42:27:	the purpose of me being here is to

01:42:27 – 01:42:29:	speak clearly to fail to do

01:42:29 – 01:42:31:	that to my best ability.

01:42:31 – 01:42:33:	Well, this is my ability now, so

01:42:33 – 01:42:35:	it is what it is. I am absolutely not complaining.

01:42:35 – 01:42:37:	God gave me my arm back. He gave

01:42:37 – 01:42:39:	me my ability to speak without

01:42:39 – 01:42:41:	sounding like I was a vegetable.

01:42:41 – 01:42:43:	My brain worked fine the whole time. I just couldn't

01:42:43 – 01:42:45:	spit any words out. I could barely mumble

01:42:45 – 01:42:47:	a single word with great effort

01:42:47 – 01:42:49:	and it didn't last long enough that I really got

01:42:49 – 01:42:51:	upset about it.

01:42:51 – 01:42:53:	It was still a novel experience, so

01:42:53 – 01:42:55:	I would never call myself any sort of

01:42:55 – 01:42:57:	stroke survivor or

01:42:57 – 01:42:59:	anything like that. What happened

01:42:59 – 01:43:01:	to me, although the stroke was severe

01:43:01 – 01:43:03:	the recovery was

01:43:03 – 01:43:05:	very swift and I'm eternally

01:43:05 – 01:43:07:	thankful to God for

01:43:07 – 01:43:09:	sparing me. If God had not given me

01:43:09 – 01:43:11:	my arm back and my voice back, I couldn't complain.

01:43:11 – 01:43:13:	I certainly

01:43:13 – 01:43:15:	deserve far worse than that and so

01:43:15 – 01:43:17:	I'm thankful to have been put back together

01:43:17 – 01:43:19:	as well as I have been.

01:43:19 – 01:43:21:	Everything that we have

01:43:21 – 01:43:23:	is a gift from God, my ability

01:43:23 – 01:43:25:	to use my arm to speak,

01:43:25 – 01:43:27:	your ability to do everything that you can do,

01:43:27 – 01:43:29:	all the stuff that we take for granted.

01:43:29 – 01:43:31:	All of those things are gifts from

01:43:31 – 01:43:33:	God and so

01:43:33 – 01:43:35:	part of the reason for telling the story is

01:43:35 – 01:43:37:	that if you lose something

01:43:37 – 01:43:39:	temporarily, permanently,

01:43:39 – 01:43:41:	remember to give thanks for everything else.

01:43:41 – 01:43:43:	In addition to giving thanks

01:43:43 – 01:43:45:	for the

01:43:45 – 01:43:47:	for the cross to bear of

01:43:47 – 01:43:49:	something that will help maybe straighten your life

01:43:49 – 01:43:51:	out in a way that you needed,

01:43:51 – 01:43:53:	certainly did in my life.

01:43:53 – 01:43:55:	Give thanks for the stuff that still works.

01:43:55 – 01:43:57:	If you're blind, you can still taste

01:43:57 – 01:43:59:	food. If you can't move your arm

01:43:59 – 01:44:01:	you can do something else. There's always

01:44:01 – 01:44:03:	something to be thankful to God for

01:44:03 – 01:44:05:	and that's part of the reason that

01:44:05 – 01:44:07:	we focus this episode on fearing

01:44:07 – 01:44:09:	God. If you fear God

01:44:09 – 01:44:11:	all these other bad things that happen

01:44:11 – 01:44:13:	they're nothing by comparison.

01:44:13 – 01:44:15:	If you fear

01:44:15 – 01:44:17:	God, are you going to fear starving?

01:44:17 – 01:44:19:	Of course not. You can't

01:44:19 – 01:44:21:	fear starving if you fear God because

01:44:21 – 01:44:23:	the God that you fear has promised to take care

01:44:23 – 01:44:25:	of you and that taking care

01:44:25 – 01:44:27:	of you includes perhaps

01:44:27 – 01:44:29:	starving

01:44:29 – 01:44:31:	as stupid as that sounds, but

01:44:31 – 01:44:33:	we know the people sometimes starve, Christian

01:44:33 – 01:44:35:	sometimes starve.

01:44:35 – 01:44:37:	If the worst befalls

01:44:37 – 01:44:39:	us in our own personal

01:44:39 – 01:44:41:	lives, we must

01:44:41 – 01:44:43:	still fear, love, and trust in God

01:44:43 – 01:44:45:	above all things. Above

01:44:45 – 01:44:47:	the food that's not in our bellies

01:44:47 – 01:44:49:	or whatever abilities that we've

01:44:49 – 01:44:51:	lost, whatever things that we had

01:44:51 – 01:44:53:	and we don't have, whatever people are taken

01:44:53 – 01:44:55:	from us, if we get

01:44:55 – 01:44:57:	thanks to God none of that can be

01:44:57 – 01:44:59:	seen as anything

01:44:59 – 01:45:01:	more than a painful

01:45:01 – 01:45:03:	reminder that we live in a fallen

01:45:03 – 01:45:05:	world. The reason that I'm

01:45:05 – 01:45:07:	talking about this experience today again

01:45:07 – 01:45:09:	is not to say anything good about myself.

01:45:09 – 01:45:11:	Everything about that experience

01:45:11 – 01:45:13:	and my response to it

01:45:13 – 01:45:15:	was from God. It was

01:45:15 – 01:45:17:	completely outside of myself. I'm not saying

01:45:17 – 01:45:19:	oh, I have good faith, be like me. I'm

01:45:19 – 01:45:21:	saying believe in God in the

01:45:21 – 01:45:23:	manner that Job did, in the manner

01:45:23 – 01:45:25:	that I'm trying to describe in that

01:45:25 – 01:45:27:	moment. You know, if I tell an

01:45:27 – 01:45:29:	atheist, yeah, I was having a stroke

01:45:29 – 01:45:31:	and I wasted 15 seconds

01:45:31 – 01:45:33:	talking to Sky Daddy before I

01:45:33 – 01:45:35:	called 911, they would say that's

01:45:35 – 01:45:37:	completely retarded. When seconds count

01:45:37 – 01:45:39:	why on earth would you

01:45:39 – 01:45:41:	pray to your imaginary God?

01:45:41 – 01:45:43:	As a God-fearer, as

01:45:43 – 01:45:45:	a Christian, I knew that the

01:45:45 – 01:45:47:	opposite was true. Why would I bother

01:45:47 – 01:45:49:	calling 911 if I wasn't going to turn to

01:45:49 – 01:45:51:	God? So in that moment, it was

01:45:51 – 01:45:53:	the only possible choice that I had.

01:45:53 – 01:45:55:	It wasn't a burden, it wasn't

01:45:55 – 01:45:57:	scary. I was never scared through any of it.

01:45:57 – 01:45:59:	I knew that God was going to take care

01:45:59 – 01:46:01:	of me. Even if it got

01:46:01 – 01:46:03:	worse, even if I died

01:46:03 – 01:46:05:	I was still going to be in God's hands.

01:46:05 – 01:46:07:	That is what you

01:46:07 – 01:46:09:	should believe so that when the

01:46:09 – 01:46:11:	time comes, that is what you can feel.

01:46:11 – 01:46:13:	Because if these

01:46:13 – 01:46:15:	doctrines, if these understandings

01:46:15 – 01:46:17:	are not part of

01:46:17 – 01:46:19:	the way we view the world

01:46:19 – 01:46:21:	when everything's hunky-dory,

01:46:21 – 01:46:23:	when you're sitting in your living room

01:46:23 – 01:46:25:	listening to a podcast, then later

01:46:25 – 01:46:27:	on, when you're by yourself

01:46:27 – 01:46:29:	and something terrible happens,

01:46:29 – 01:46:31:	you won't have laid the

01:46:31 – 01:46:33:	foundation and the groundwork

01:46:33 – 01:46:35:	to be able to approach

01:46:35 – 01:46:37:	that issue in a God-pleasing manner,

01:46:37 – 01:46:39:	in a manner that shows that you fear God.

01:46:39 – 01:46:41:	Dealing with these

01:46:41 – 01:46:43:	things in this manner is a

01:46:43 – 01:46:45:	godly order in our lives.

01:46:45 – 01:46:47:	It is how faith is to be

01:46:47 – 01:46:49:	manifest, to fear God, to

01:46:49 – 01:46:51:	love God, to know that God will

01:46:51 – 01:46:53:	take care of us no matter what.

01:46:53 – 01:46:55:	It's something that used to be part of the Christian

01:46:55 – 01:46:57:	life. We used to focus on

01:46:57 – 01:46:59:	our death a lot more.

01:46:59 – 01:47:01:	Memento Mori used to be an important part

01:47:01 – 01:47:03:	of the Christian life.

01:47:03 – 01:47:05:	Graveyards used to be right next to churches.

01:47:05 – 01:47:07:	When you go to church, or the same church

01:47:07 – 01:47:09:	that your family has gone to for generations,

01:47:09 – 01:47:11:	you're walking past their

01:47:11 – 01:47:13:	dead bodies. The unbeliever

01:47:13 – 01:47:15:	finds that incredibly morbid.

01:47:15 – 01:47:17:	The believer knows that the vast

01:47:17 – 01:47:19:	majority of Christian

01:47:19 – 01:47:21:	burial grounds, the feet

01:47:21 – 01:47:23:	are facing east.

01:47:23 – 01:47:25:	Why east? He's going to appear

01:47:25 – 01:47:27:	in the sky everywhere once, with

01:47:27 – 01:47:29:	the promises that he's going to come from the same

01:47:29 – 01:47:31:	place that we saw him go up.

01:47:31 – 01:47:33:	Christians in the west

01:47:33 – 01:47:35:	face to the east in death

01:47:35 – 01:47:37:	because we know that our bodies have been planted

01:47:37 – 01:47:39:	in hope of the resurrection.

01:47:39 – 01:47:41:	Hope doesn't mean, I don't know if it's going to happen.

01:47:41 – 01:47:43:	Hope, for the Christian,

01:47:43 – 01:47:45:	is certain.

01:47:45 – 01:47:47:	I hope in the resurrection.

01:47:47 – 01:47:49:	I don't know if I'm going to wake up tomorrow.

01:47:49 – 01:47:51:	I don't hope for that. I like to.

01:47:51 – 01:47:53:	I hope in the small

01:47:53 – 01:47:55:	age sense, but my hope

01:47:55 – 01:47:57:	is not in waking up tomorrow.

01:47:57 – 01:47:59:	My hope is in the God who my fear

01:47:59 – 01:48:01:	who's given me

01:48:01 – 01:48:03:	all these things, who's given you all these

01:48:03 – 01:48:05:	things.

01:48:05 – 01:48:07:	If you think about these things now, when the pressure

01:48:07 – 01:48:09:	isn't on, when you're on your death bed

01:48:09 – 01:48:11:	it's going to be easier for you.

01:48:11 – 01:48:13:	And that's why Cory and I speak about these

01:48:13 – 01:48:15:	issues. That's why we talk about these doctrines

01:48:15 – 01:48:17:	that are neglected, because all these

01:48:17 – 01:48:19:	places where Satan is trying to weasel

01:48:19 – 01:48:21:	into our lives and saying, oh no,

01:48:21 – 01:48:23:	you need to be afraid about losing

01:48:23 – 01:48:25:	your job, about not being fed, about

01:48:25 – 01:48:27:	health concerned, about having a stroke,

01:48:27 – 01:48:29:	about being on a ventilator. That's what should

01:48:29 – 01:48:31:	terrify you. No.

01:48:31 – 01:48:33:	If you fear God, none of the rest

01:48:33 – 01:48:35:	of that stuff can take hold of you.

01:48:35 – 01:48:37:	Because there's no room.

01:48:37 – 01:48:39:	You're in God's hands.

01:48:39 – 01:48:41:	Job knew that. He knew it

01:48:41 – 01:48:43:	before Satan came and killed his entire

01:48:43 – 01:48:45:	family, except for his wife.

01:48:45 – 01:48:47:	Killed all of his servants, killed all of his

01:48:47 – 01:48:49:	animals. Job believed it

01:48:49 – 01:48:51:	and God credited it to him as righteousness.

01:48:51 – 01:48:53:	So when Satan came and killed

01:48:53 – 01:48:55:	everything, what was Job's response?

01:48:55 – 01:48:57:	It's the response that we should all have

01:48:57 – 01:48:59:	when we're confronted with every

01:48:59 – 01:49:01:	day, with the good or the bad.

01:49:01 – 01:49:03:	The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

01:49:03 – 01:49:05:	Blessed be the name of the Lord.

01:49:05 – 01:49:07:	Amen.

01:49:55 – 01:49:57:	Amen.

01:50:25 – 01:50:27:	Amen.

01:50:55 – 01:50:57:	Amen.

01:51:25 – 01:51:27:	Amen.

01:51:55 – 01:51:57:	Amen.

01:52:25 – 01:52:27:	Amen.

01:52:55 – 01:52:57:	Amen.

01:53:25 – 01:53:27:	Amen.

01:53:55 – 01:53:57:	Amen.