A Fresh Dose of the Fear of God | Jentezen Franklin

He's not your genie in the bottle. He's not the man upstairs. He's not your co-pilot. God is my co-pilot in my car. He is not. He is God Almighty Creator, the ruler of heaven and earth. We are to fear Him in all and in reverence. Together, we're inspiring people to live for Jesus. If you're looking for more in life, to live with a purpose and peace, to make a difference for your family and those in need around the world, Jesus is the answer. And our mission is to simply point you to end them. You're watching Kingdom Connection with Judson Franklin. If you have your Bibles, I'd like for you to open them with me. To the book of 1 Samuel, chapter 9, I have a message that I'm going to preach, and the way that this sermon came about was through my son and my daughter-in-law's on the phone with him. We were just talking stuff. He said something to me this past week, not knowing what he was saying, but he said, "Dad, I wish you would preach on the fear of God again." He said, "We need the preachers to preach on the fear of God," which is so weird for Him to be telling me what to preach on. So I take that challenge since you're on the front row, amen. He did not intend to be here, but circumstances brought him here today, miraculous circumstances that I'll tell you before we leave. There was a man, a Benjamin, whose name was Kish, the son of a Hill, the son of Zeror, the son of somebody I'm not preaching about, keep moving in somebody I'm not preaching about. A Benjaminite, a mighty man of power, and he had a choice and handsome son whose name was Saul. There was not a more handsome person than he among the children of Israel.

From his shoulders upward, he was taller than any of the people. And I'll stop there because this man saw of the Old Testament became the first king of Israel that the people demanded to have. God doesn't choose the leaders that we have. I know he raises one up and pulls one down. I understand he's sovereign. I understand he knows everything and he is in charge of everything. He allows. But we choose our leaders just like Israel. If you understand, we say, well, God, people say, well, God put that person there. No, the people put that person there. And then God can anoint what he does if it's in line with his word. But we choose. That's why you need to understand that it's important for you to vote. Because God's not choosing who our governor will be, God's not choosing who our senator will be and God's not choosing who our president will be. People are choosing. And if you don't choose by not voting, you're not choosing. And that's not my sermon, but I like what I'm saying right now because I've never been one to be quiet about stuff like this. We are to stand for the Bible and vote our convictions. And as long as Christianity will survive without America, but America will not survive without Christianity, I don't you if we don't put our trust in God, we will not survive. If we turn our back on Israel, we will not survive. My words write it down. He was choice. He was godly. He was good looking. He was from the shoulders, upward taller than any other man in Israel. And God would go on to say later in the next chapter, I gave them a king in my anger and

I took him away in my wrath. What a verse. I gave them a king in my anger. They asked for it, I gave them what they asked for, and I took him away in wrath. You see, God gave them what he didn't choose. But when Samuel went to him, God said, "I am not going to do it." him and fear me." And 1 Samuel chapter 15 and verse 17 said that he was, "When you were little in your own eyes, when you saw yourself as lowly, even though you're tall and powerful, and now you're the king of Israel, but there came this time where he began to lose the fear of God and after a while, after he started with such anointing and such humility and such wisdom that there came a moment that when he started getting his eyes off of God and listening to the prophet Samuel and listening, which would be the word of the Lord, he did not read it, he did not cherish it, he did not listen to it, he did not give attention to it. Samuel every time he would come, he would not do what he said over and over and over. He said, "Kill all the Amalekites." You know why? Because God said, I don't have time to preach this, but he remembered the water hole when the children of Israel were in the wilderness and they finally got to a water hole that they could drink and here comes the Amalekites and attacked them and God said, I'll put a curse on the Amalekites because they've attacked you when you were so thirsty and I'll get you back one day. And this was the moment when Samuel, when Saul had conquered the Amalekites and had their leader, a kiss, I believe his name was, or had their leader and God said, get, you know, sometimes we can't play with sin, sometimes we can't hold on to things, sometimes some things have to die. And he said, we don't entertain this in our nation. Jeremiah 2 and 19 said that it's your backsliding and your corruption and your bitter evil. They have forsaken God that my fear is not in them.

See what he lost was a good, healthy fear of God. You see, one of the greatest qualities that a person can have is a good, healthy fear of the Lord. Everybody needs a good, healthy, all reverence and fear of the Lord. He's not your genie in the bottle. He's not the man upstairs. He's not your co-pilot. God is my co-pilot in my car. He is not. He is God Almighty Creator, the ruler of heaven and earth, and we are to fear Him in all and in reverence. Every day we need to have a healthy dose of the fear of God. It is the fear of God that has kept me all my life. It wasn't just the mercy and the goodness, but we were raised in church where they preached on the judgment and they preached on hell and they preached on God's holiness and they preached on the, it's not legalism, it is just how a Christian conducts themselves. I fear the Lord. This is what the Bible said in 2 Samuel 23. He was talking to his son Solomon and David said, "He that ruleeth over men must be just ruling in the fear of God, knowing that they will be judged by God." Ruling in the fear of God, Solomon would go on and say in Ecclesiastes 12 and 13, "Let us hear the conclusion of everything." Fear God, keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man, not just to come down and get born again or do a religious ritual. That is not what is required, but to fear God, if you love Him, you will fear Him. If you know Him, if you know the God of the Bible, you will fear Him. I love Him. I'm not afraid of Him because I trust Him and I have faith that trust Him no matter when things happen that I don't understand, but I will say when I see things happen, it makes me fear God.

The fear of God keeps, He who fears God keeps His commandments. This is the whole duty of man. Proverbs 1 and verse 7 says this, "The fear So if you kick God out of our education, your knowledge is already flawed. I, you can put somebody up here more book smart than I am, but if I have the fear of the Lord and they don't, they're an atheist, godless, whatever. Any other religion but Jesus? Then you know what? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Proverbs nine, in verse 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Job 28, 28, behold the fear of the Lord. That is behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom and to depart from evil is understanding. The fear of the Lord keeps you from situations, keeps you from evil, keeps you from messing around, keeps you, it's the fear of God. When you are weak, you ought to have something in you, and every now and then you need to come to church and you need to come to church like this, where you can feel God while the preacher preaches. And suddenly you're getting a dose of the fear of the Lord back in your spirit. And you were doing things that you shouldn't be doing, but the fear of the Lord says, I've got to let that go. Saul of Tarsus, the first time we see him, he's holding the coats of men that he had ordered to throw the rocks and stone to death.

Steven, the first martyr of the New Testament and Paul, Saul is holding those coats, meaning if Roman authorities see us doing this task of killing these people for their faith, they will know it's okay because I'm a Roman citizen and they know I have the authority to persecute the church. He was participating in a murder. He was a blasphemer, he was throwing people in prison. He started out the worst. He's killing people in the name of God. The first Saul starts out best ends up worse. The second Saul starts out worse, but ends up best. He ends up the Apostle Paul. He ends up writing half the New Testament and in Acts nine and verse six, he says, Lord, Lord, when the Lord appeared to him in his resurrected body, he said, who are you? And he said, I am Jesus whom you persecute and it's hard to kick against the bricks. The next verse says, and he trembling, there's the fear of the Lord. Here it comes, it started right there. He trembling and astonished said, Lord, here's how you know you got saved or not. Not that you came down and prayed a prayer. What would you have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, arise and go to the city and it will be told now that you've got fear and trembling, it'll be told you what God's will is for your life. When you get the fear of God, you'll find the will of God.

The fear of God is a real asset. This is what I felt the Lord wanted me to say. If I'm summoning it, the fear of the Lord is a real asset. When we have a tendency to play games with God, the fear of the Lord will get us back where we need to be. Going to have a hard time defeating the demon that you enjoy playing with. That's why the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9 in verse 27, I keep my body. This is the man who preached to others. I keep my body under subjection, lest by any means when I have preached to others. I myself, he's not preaching to you. He said, there is a danger. This is the, this is the fear of the Lord. There is a danger of being graded preaching to others, but I myself become, does he mean that? A cast away. That's the fear of the Lord. I don't wanna become a cast away. I don't want someone else to get my crown that I'm gonna throw at Jesus' feet. I want this one too, and then I'm going to end. This is a scripture that's amazing. 1 Peter 2, 17, honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God, honor the king. Honor all men, show honor. Young people always show honor. Old people always show honor, honor, honor.

That's a godly thing. And then love your brothers, love the church, love your family, forgive one another. middle of all that fear God. I command you to fear God and honor the king. And again, the people choose the king. Whoever gets voted in, you know what I will do? I will honor them. I will never, you'll never see me if someone comes in here that would be everything against the scriptures. I still show them honor because if you can't honor the person, honor the office. I never really noticed this, but I'm glad that I ran a little reference and found it. And I thought, oh, I found a revelation. Jesus is hanging on the cross, on the middle cross. There's a thief on the left and he's cursing him with his last breath, cursing him. There's another thief who turns and we always say he addressed Jesus and ask him for forgiveness and said, Lord, remember me when you come into the kingdom. That's not what he did. He leaned out, stretched out his body, looks over at the thief on the cross, cursing Jesus and he says these words. The other answering rebuked him saying, does not thou fear God? He said, I feel the fear of God. You don't feel the fear of God and you're about to go into eternity? Seeing that we are of the same condemnation, next verse, we indeed are justified. We are getting what we deserved, for we received you reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing amidst, nothing wrong. And he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Watch this because he had the fear of the Lord. Watch this next verse. And Jesus said unto him, Verily, I say unto you, today, you didn't, you didn't, you didn't burn no candles. You didn't pray, no prayers. You didn't give any ties. You didn't win any souls. You didn't treat your wife right. You didn't do nothing. You didn't help nobody. But this day, because you showed the fear of the Lord and repenting, call me Lord. I don't look like Lord, but you call me Lord. This day, you shall be with me in paradise. You've had fear, a godly fear, and I'm drawn to that. I'm going to ask you not to leave. I'm going to ask you to stand to your feet all over this room. I'm going to ask you to bow your heads all over this room. I feel led to have an old-fashioned altar call. Drake, would you come up here with me? I want all of you young men to listen to me and listen to me good. He's 27 and got his beautiful wife and child here. His arm, his left arm was swollen, unusual, and it was red and hot. And we took him to the emergency room. He and I went to the emergency room and they did an MRI, they came out and they said, well, this is pretty serious. And what we have is a blood clot from his

elbow all the way up to his armpit, basically. And there are multiple blood clots and one of them has gone through his heart and has gone into his lungs. Now, this was this week. This was this was Thursday of this week. But you don't know that you've got another 20, 30 years to make a decision for Christ. And what he had said to me earlier on the phone that week was, "Dad, preach on the fear of God." He would be watching in DC on TV. But he didn't know what was waiting when he got here with putting him a brand new fear of God like he hadn't felt in a long time. So I want to give a different order call. I want to give an order call from every man in this room, 30 and under. Come on, every man, every man. You say, well, I'm not living right. You're the one I'm talking to too. Come on with them. All of us need a healthy dose. All of us need a healthy. This Preacher needs a healthy. It'll keep you. It'll keep you from evil. It'll keep you from the wrong places and the wrong people, wrong choices and wrong steps. It'll keep you. That's it. Look at them. Come on, they're coming. My God, what a great army. What a great army of young men. I've asked God for a thousand young men in this church who will take up their cross. This is revival. This is revival. Come on. Come on, young man. Come on. I fear you. I honor you. I revere you. I reverence you. I stand in all of you, Jesus. Just telling them to raise those hands and say, God, I fear you. Like the people on the cross, I repent. Lord, write my name in the book of light. Swings me, forgive me. I'll take up my cross. I'm so thankful for the means that couldn't kill me, that didn't kill me. I'm so glad that you had mercy and you had grace. When I wasn't even aware, I was in trouble. You held it back. Whoo. Hallelujah. Whoo. Who am I? That you've had me on your mind. You've watched over me. When I wasn't even aware. Oh, my, my, you've been right here by my side, but I'm just waiting for you. So just lift up your hands toward heaven. That's what they do. When they surrender, when someone surrenders, you just raise in those hands saying, I give a, I give a, I've tried it all. I give a, just say, Jesus, have mercy on me. I thank you for your goodness. It's why I'm still here. I thank you for your exceeding love. You never gave up on me. Even here this morning, you ordered my steps. I was supposed to hear this message. And right now, I commit my life to you, Jesus Christ, the good, the bad, the ugly. I give it all to you.

It's not mine. It's yours now. And I will walk in the fear of the Lord and I will serve you and honor you the best I can. And if I fall, your mercy will be ready to pick me up. But I'm going to do my best to have a fresh dose of the fear of the Lord in my heart from this day forward. In Jesus' name, I am forgiven. Say this, I am a God-fearing man. Hallelujah. Give the Lord a great, great, great, great, great, great. We're not ashamed of the gospel. We're not, we're not embarrassed about who we are and what we believe. [BLANK_AUDIO]