The Fear of the Lord is Clean

Dear friends,
I pray that you are well. I have been preaching through the book of Acts and it has been very eye-opening. I have been in chapter 5 for three weeks now and in dealing with the passage on Ananias and Sapphira it became increasingly apparent that in the 21st century church we have lost the fear of the Lord. I want to talk a little about that today. As always I pray this will be a blessing to you.

Then immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. And the young men came in and found her dead, and carrying her out, buried her by her husband. So great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things. Acts 5:10,11

Can you imagine, one of those young men goes home and tells his family, "We had an exciting time at church today, two people dropped dead!" I am not sure what that might do to the next weeks attendance.
Was that fear a good thing or a bad thing? Look at the following scriptures with the understanding that there were no chapter or verse breaks in the original. What do we see in verses 12 through 16?
1. Many signs and wonders were done among the people by the apostles.
2. They were all in one accord.
3. Even those who did not join the church had great esteem for them.
4. Multitudes were saved.
5. All the sick and demonically tormented that were brought to them were healed.

I'd like to add a few thoughts on what we see there. Years ago I heard a couple of preachers speak of a coming revival which would come in four stages. The four stages were:
1) Intimacy
2) Purity
3) Unity
4) Power
I believe these stages were evident here and that the fear of the Lord is the catalyst in each of these stages.They were in one accord. In the verse used for the title, the fear of the Lord is clean, the word clean in Hebrew means pure, clean, purified, unalloyed. We cannot have unity without purity of heart, purity of motives. Do we dare assemble in the presence of a holy God with impure motives in our heart. Tradition says a rope was tied around the ankle of the priest so He could be dragged out if he died in the Holy of Holies.
Intimacy and purity are closely related. How can I get close to God if I refuse to walk in purity.
The psalmist asks in Psalms 15, "Lord who may abide in Your holy tabernacle? Who may dwell in Your holy hill?" Again, he says in Psalms 24,"Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He that has clean hands and a pure heart...."

It seems that David's greatest fear in his psalm of contrition, Psalms 51, was losing the Lord's presence."Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Psalms 51:11. It seems to me that one of the facets of the fear of the Lord is fear of losing intimacy with Him. I am thankful, that I can come boldly before His throne and receive mercy and find grace in my time of need and if I confess my sin He is faithful and just to forgive my sin and cleanse me from all unrighteousness. We have a loving and forgiving Father who is approachable, full of mercy and grace, but He is holy. Where sin abounds grace does much more abound, so what shall we say then, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! How can we who are dead to sin live any longer therein? Can we continue in sin and it not affect our relationship with the Father? I think not. We reject grace if we continue to sin. Consider this for example, unforgiveness is rejecting God's grace. Jesus clearly states if we do not forgive, we'll not be forgiven. To harbor unforgiveness is to reject grace and the fear of the Lord.

Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit...? ......you have not lied to men but to God. Acts 5:3a;4b

It seems that Ananias had allowed the enemy place in his heart. The deception he devised could be categorized as the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life. He wanted the money and the praise of men as well. In his impure motives he lied to the Holy Spirit. We can quench the Spirit and we can grieve the Spirit. It grieves the Spirit to give anything else His place and to quench the Spirit is like crimping a water hose. the Spirit gives life, but any place we give to the enemy in our heart, he will work death in. I hate to say this but there are those who have quenched and grieved the Holy Spirit for so long that they are like Sampson when his hair was cut; he did not know the Lord had departed from him. There are many who are not walking in the fullness that God has for them. There are many in the church in whom the enemy is working death.

Friends, I say this in fear and trembling, but I feel I must say it. Much of the American church has lost the fear of the Lord. Notice that those who wouldn't dare join them had high esteem for them. It seems that our society has lost its esteem for the church. Over the last few years our church has been broken into many times, we have lost thousands of dollars from people stealing copper from our air conditioning units, and have often been vandalized. When I tell someone about it, they are stunned and often respond,"They'd do that to a church?". This is what I feel God is showing me about our society. Much of society does not esteem the church because the church has lost the fear of the Lord. What the church fails to teach and model before the world will not only be absent in the church, but its absence will be multiplied exponentially in society.

In Proverbs it says the fear of the Lord tendeth to life. Psalms 34 says the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. In both the Psalms and Proverbs it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. There are many promises for those who walk in the fear of the Lord. the fear of the Lord is a reverential awe. The awesomeness of God brings terror to our flesh. I have come to see the fear of the Lord as not allowing anything that would in any way hinder my relationship with Him. The fear of the Lord is pure; it is clean and it positions me for His power to flow through me.

I believe that as we see God move again in the church, the days of Ananias and Sapphira will return. There will be intimacy, purity, unity, and power. We choose the fear of the Lord.

Be blessed,
Herb Dean