How to Have True Intimacy with God

Hey, everybody stand up, I gotta pray before I preach. Can I say that Brandon said it best tonight, it's family here tonight. And I've just grown to love the Bethel movement, the Bethel family so much. Last year, we actually did a 12, we did a nine city and 12 day tour where I actually slept on a bus. I was awake at night, dreading living on a bus, but I actually found it was the best two weeks of my life last year. It was absolutely amazing what God did. And I grew so close to this family. And just as I walked back in this atmosphere again tonight, I just sensed the unity, the love. There's a lot of love in this place. And there's a lot of passion in this place to glorify Jesus. Can you say amen to that? So it's a great, great honor to be here with my dear, dear friends, Brian and Jen and the entire Bethel team. And also with Chris Kane and Nick Kane and Robert Medu and Jensen Franklin. I absolutely love these men and women of God. So I just wanna say for those of you that don't know me, Lisa and I founded Messenger International in 1990. Our passion is to resource the body of Christ Jesus that make disciples of all nations, not just converts. And so we've been able by the grace of God to give 21.6 million resources to pastors and leaders

in 98 languages and 111 languages. Excuse me, 98 nations, 111 languages in the last nine years. And we have, the best way to really introduce myself is really introduce my family. They're the ones I love so much. And here's a picture of my family. Hopefully we can put it up here. But this was actually my youngest son's wedding. Is it up there? Maybe, no, no. Got it, where is it? Well, maybe you won't see my family. Is it on the side? Okay, good. So that's my youngest son's wedding that was in November. We have four sons, Lisa and I, all four of them work at Messenger International. So we love working with our sons. We have three daughter-in-laws. We have one who is single. So we need to get him married, come on. So anyway, they are amazing. And we have four G babies, as you can see. You say, what in the world is a G baby? I am way too young to be grandpa. So it is G daddy and G for short, okay? And so anyway, that's my family. And the more I love my family, the more I realize how much God loves us. Lisa and I have been married 37 years.

She is my absolute best friend. And many of you have heard her speak before, and I am affectionately known as Lisa Bevere's husband, and I love it. Anyway, I just, with this atmosphere that's here tonight, I really feel to go into the word of God. And as I've been praying, I really feel like God is going to do something so magnificent this week. And what I want to ask is that you would expect that. God will not, will not come into a place where people do not believe for him to change their lives. You know, we can have the best communicators on the planet in this platform this week, but if the Holy Spirit doesn't touch the words, you're just going to get information. And we need a whole lot more than information right now. We need transformation. So how many of you can believe with me that the Holy Spirit can change you forever? Let me see your hands. Okay, now we're going to pray for the whole conference. I want you to put your other hand up. And the Bible says you don't have because you don't ask. So we're going to ask him to do it, all right? Do we have believers? Okay, let's believe. Father, in the name of Jesus, thank you so very much. First of all, for the privilege of being your children,

you could have made us slaves and that would have been amazing, but you've called us sons and daughters. Holy Spirit of God, I'm asking that you would do tonight and this weekend what you love to do the most, and that is glorify Jesus. I'm asking that as you exalt him and you lift him up, that we would go from glory to glory and from strength to strength. I'm asking Lord God that we will never ever be the same again, that you would reveal a facet of your nature, of your character that we have never known before, that we would experience you in a way like we have never experienced you before, that there would be miracles, signs, and wonders done in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, master, and king. For we decree that your kingdom has come. Your will shall be done. In this place, we sanctify this place. We build a wall of fire around this place and we say, be the glory in our midst. And Father, we ask you this in Jesus' name and we give you all the praise and the glory and the honor and the thanksgiving. And it's in Jesus' mighty, wonderful, majestic, holy, awesome, magnificent name we pray. And everybody that agrees, shouts. Come on, give him praise.

Give him praise for what he's gonna do. Come on, praise him. Thank you so much. Amen and amen. You can be seated. I just wanna say we brought a few of the books. out there, and I picked three along the lines of where God's putting in my heart to speak on. They're out there. They're bundled. I do want to say one thing. We do have an online discipleship program. It's called All Access. And one thing I want to do for the Bethel family is I'd love to give you a month of free trial. So if you want that, you can just go out there and get it. It's a month. There's like 20 courses. We add a course a month. Now, what I want to share with you about is quite unusual. I'm really speaking a lot all over the United States and around the world on a particular subject right now, but as I prayed and prayed and prayed for this conference, and believe me, I did, I kept feeling the Holy Spirit pull my heart a different direction. So I want to talk about intimacy. I want to talk about intimacy with God. Does anybody want an intimate relationship with God? Can I see your hands? Well, you know, one of my favorite scriptures in regard to that is James 4.8. The apostle James writes, and he says this, he says, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Draw near to God and then he will draw near to you. So the question is who draws first, him or us? We do. There's something that we do. We initiate it. That will literally cause the one who put the stars in the universe with his fingers and called every one of them by name to come near me. Now, I don't know about you, but that really excites me. What the apostle is saying here is simply this, you, not God, are the one that determines the level of your relationship with him. Do I need to say that one more time? You are the one that determines how close you're going to be with God. In my travels I have learned that so many Christians, so many believers have this mindset that there are certain Christians that were born with, like, stars over their cribs. People like Bill Johnson. You understand what I'm talking about? Oral Roberts. Whoever you think. But in my years of ministry I have discovered some of the people that walk the closest with Jesus are people that you're never going to see in pulpits. Why? Because they determined

to be close to him. They chose to be close to him. In fact, when you talk about being intimate with God, God is more passionate. Listen to these words. He's more passionate about being close with you than you are with him. Because verse five in this very same chapter says, or do you not know that the spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously? Everybody say yearns. That's not a word we use very much. What does that mean? It means to long for intensely and consistently. Now listen to that. He, the spirit of God in you, longs for you intensely and consistently. You know, Lisa and I, we're, she's my closest friend on the planet. But I'm going to tell you something. There are times she's not yearning for me intensely. Like, if I wake her up at three in the morning, I'm telling you, she's not yearning for me. You understand what I'm talking about? She's like, why are you waking me up, honey? Right? But I have had him wake me up in the middle of the night and he's hoping that I'll meet with him because he yearns for you and me. When I think about him yearning for us, I think about what David says in Psalm 139. David said, Lord, if I consider the thoughts that you have about me personally, this is not the church collectively, me personally. He said, if I was able to number those thoughts, they would outnumber every grain of sand that's on this planet. Now would you stop and think about every granule of sand that's on this planet, every beach, every desert, every golf course. That's a lot of sand. I mean, when I think about all the thoughts that I've had about my wife, my wife, Lisa, in the last 37 years of marriage, I don't think I'd get a shoebox full of sand. Because you know what scientists tell us? They tell us that in one cubic feet of beach, one cubic feet, that's how big one cubic feet is. There's 1.8 billion grains of sand. Now, how many of you know God can't exaggerate? Because exaggeration is a lie. You know, you've heard people say, I caught a fish this big. It was this big. It was holding out like this so it looked this big, but it was this big, right? It's just a nice little lie. God can't lie. So when God says, my thoughts that I have about you outnumber every grain of sand that's on this planet, do you understand how much he's thinking about you? And how many of you know you don't think about people like that, that you don't want to be close to? He yearns for us. Now, here's the situation. Why in all my traveling all around the world do I meet so many Christians that are not experiencing intimacy with God? There is a reason, I believe.

Because there's a foundation that we have to have in our relationship with God. If you don't have this foundation, it doesn't matter how much he wants to be close to you and how much you want to be close to him, you can't be close to him without this foundation. And this foundation can be found in Psalm 89, verse seven. Psalm 89, verse seven makes this statement. It says, God, now look at these words, is to be greatly, everybody say greatly, feared in the assembly of the saints. And he's, now look at this. He's to be held in reverence by all those around him. Let me say this. Look at the second part of that verse. God is to be held in reverence by all those who surround him. You will never find the presence of God in an atmosphere where he's not held with the utmost of respect. I just said something very powerful and there should have been a lot of amens. I'll never forget when I first learned this back in 1996, I was asked to do a national conference in the nation of Brazil. It was in the capital city of Brasilia. Obrigado, brother. It was in the capital city of Brasilia. I remember lots of people had traveled from all over. I had never been to Brazil. I was so excited. I fly down there. I have the whole day in the hotel room to prepare to pray.

I go, it's Friday night. It's the national conference. There are cars like literally blocks away. I could just feel it as I was getting closer as far as the anticipation, the excitement. My first time in Brazil, I remember they parked me in the parking lot. I could hear the worship coming from the, or the praise coming from the inside of the arena because down there, what they do is they have, usually in these cities, they have like a five foot gap between the upper wall and the ceiling for air ventilation. And so I walked into the auditorium. They put me on the platform. There are thousands. I mean, it's like tonight. There was, it was even more crowded than tonight. There wasn't a seat open in the entire arena. And I'm looking at this worship team and they're good. They're really good. But you know, there's not an ounce of the presence of God in the place. Now, let me make this really clear. The Bible describes two types of the presence of God. One is his omnipresence, right? That's where David said, where can I go from your presence? If I go to the highest mountain, you're there. If I make my bed in the lowest valley, you're there.

That's the presence of God that says, I will never leave you nor forsake you, right? The other presence of God that is very, very real in our Christian walk is called the manifest presence of God. Jesus said, I will manifest myself to you, right? What does manifest mean? It means to bring out of the unseen into the realm of the seen, out of the unknown into the realm of the known, out of the unheard into the realm of the heard. It's when God makes himself real to your senses. That presence was totally absent in that building. And I'm baffled because these are really good worship leaders, the nation's best, thousands of Christians, because it was a believers conference. The building's filled and I'm baffled. And I remember under my breath, I said, God, where are you? Where's your presence? And all of a sudden, it's like my eyes opened up and I've seen people sitting there during the worship looking around like this. They got their hands in the pocket looking down like this. They're whispering to one another. They're fumbling through their purses. People are walking in and out, getting some refreshments because they have concession stands in this massive arena. And I'm sitting there going, this will calm down.

This will calm down. Well, they go praise, they go worship. Then one of the leaders gets up and he begins to read the word of God, right? And I'm still seeing people just sitting there looking around like this. They got their hands in their pocket looking down. They're sitting there talking to one another. And you can actually hear a little mumbling going on from people talking to each other. And at this point I'm getting kind of upset, right? And so all of a sudden they introduced me, right? And I'll never forget, I did something. I don't know if I'd do it again, but I just sat there and I walked up and I just put my elbow on the podium and I just sit there and stared at everybody and didn't say anything. Now, when it's Friday night and it's the national conference and you are the guest speaker and you're just sitting there glaring at everybody for 45 seconds, that will get people's attention, right? So they stopped looking around, fumbling through their purses, walking around and everybody just kind of stopped and looked at me. And when I realized I had every single eye on me in the entire arena, this is the first words I ever spoke in Brazil.

I said, I have two questions. Question number one, you're talking to somebody sitting across the table and the whole time you talk to them, they're fumbling through their purse. They're looking at the ceiling. They're looking down at the floor. They talking and whispering to somebody sitting beside them. Will you continue to talk to them? They said, no. I said, what happens if you go over to somebody's house and you knock on their door and when they open the door, they go, oh, it's you again. And they walk away. I said, will you continue to go to their house? They go, no. I said, I've been in this auditorium now. for over an hour, and I have not sensed an ounce of the presence of God, and the reason is that He will never come into a place where He is not held with the utmost of respect. I said, if the president of Brazil would have walked on this platform tonight, he would have gotten ten times the respect the Holy Spirit did. I said, if Pele, your greatest soccer player, would have walked on this platform tonight, you would have been on the edge of your seats anticipating every word. I said, you've given no respect to the presence of God. In the next seventy-five minutes, I preached to them about the fear of the Lord. At the end of the seventy-five minutes, I said, every person—I knew it was a believers' meeting—I said, every person in here, you say you're born again, you say you're a Christian, but you lack the fear of God, and you're willing to repent, stand up. Three-fourths of the auditorium stood to their feet.

Soon as they did listen to this, the presence of God falls on the auditorium. No, no, no, no, no, no, we didn't even pray. The presence of God just falls, and people start weeping all over the auditorium. I'm like, oh, finally. I mean, services are so, so tough when the presence of God is not there, right? And I'm like, oh, God, this is wonderful, right? So last two or three minutes, it lifts, and the Lord said, whispers in my heart, said, lead them in a prayer of repentance. So I led them in a prayer of repentance. All of a sudden, now, here comes another wave of His presence, even stronger. Now people are weeping, right, all over the place. You can hear sobs. It's wonderful, right? Last about three minutes, lifts, and the Holy Spirit whispered to me, said, I'm coming one more time tonight. And the only way I know how to describe this, and I can never describe this, but I'm going to try, is that you're at the end of the runway at DFW, and a 737 takes off right in front of you. That kind of a violent wind came blowing into that auditorium, okay? When that wind began to blow, the people started screaming. Now, I want you to imagine thousands of Latinos screaming, how loud that would be, right? As loud as that is, the wind was much louder. And I remember, I am standing there going, and I remember, I'll never forget this. I'm going, oh my God, because I've never experienced anything like this. Oh my God, oh my God. I'm saying this under my breath, right? And I'm going to tell you, a thought hit me. I'm not saying it would have happened, but I thought to myself, John Bevere, you make one wrong move, you say one wrong word, you're dead. Now, would that have happened?

I don't know, but it did happen with a guy named Ananias. He made a wrong move in that kind of presence, and they carried him out dead. And his wife, three hours later, same thing. So I'm sitting there going, oh, see, let me tell you, Daddy didn't come in. Listen, Daddy didn't come in, the King came in. Okay, you understand? He is Daddy, but he's also King. He is Abba Father, he's also the consuming fire. And I'm sitting there, and all I can say is I'm terrified, but I'm not scared of him. It's really crazy. And I remember the wind lasted about 90 seconds, and it gradually subsided and left in its wake. People collapsed all over the auditorium. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, what do I do? And God said, I'm through with you. I looked at the leader, I said, it's all yours. So they whisked me out to the car, and the first person who gets in the car is the national singer, she's really well-known in Brazil, and her husband. And she goes, did you hear the wind? Now, I still don't want to admit it. I said, oh, it was probably a jet airplane flying over the top of the building, right? And she goes, what are you? She's mad at me now. She goes, what are you talking about? I saw fire all around the building. She's going, right? And I'm like, yikes. And her husband calms her down. He's a quieter guy. He says, sir, that wasn't an airplane.

I said, how do you know? He said, there are policemen all around the outside of the building. He said, most of them aren't even saved. He said, when the wind started blowing, they all came running in the building to see what it was. He said, secondly, hold on. He said, I'm at the soundboard, because making sure my wife's levels were right. He said, I'm looking at the soundboard the whole time the wind's blowing, and the decimal meters were at zero. He said, not one ounce of the sound came over our sound system. I said, my God, take me to my hotel. They're like, you want to go eat? I said, no, take me to my hotel. The next morning, you cannot believe the miracles, the deliverances, what happened in the meeting on Saturday morning, just because of one word, because of reverence. Are you with me? See, I've learned something as a believer. I used to struggle to get into the presence of God. I don't know if you've ever had that, but maybe I was the only one. But I would struggle. And one day I just started, I didn't sing, I didn't pray, I didn't say a word. I just started meditating on the awesomeness of my father, right? I just started meditating. how awesome he is, right? And all of a sudden, bam, there's the presence of God. Well, I started doing this every morning. All of a sudden, I'm going, whoa, this is getting easy. And so one day I said, Lord, this is now so easy getting your presence. He said, son, how did Jesus teach his disciples to pray? And so I said it. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. There it is. Jesus taught his disciples to come into the presence of God with reverence. What is the fear of the Lord?

Let's talk about it because people are scared of this word. What is the fear of the Lord? First of all, it is not to be scared of God. How can you have intimacy with someone you're scared of? Right? So what is the fear of the Lord? Well, let me begin by saying this. The fear of the Lord is to be terrified to be away from him. It's not to be scared of him. It's to be terrified to be away from him. Moses shows us this. When Moses leads the Children of Israel out of Egypt, God was so excited. He was like, Hey, man, the whole reason I delivered you out of Egypt, the whole nation was to bring you to me. I can't wait to meet my kids. Tell them I'm gonna come down and meet him, right? And when God comes down to meet the kids, they all run away. And they say, Moses, you talk to God. We can't handle him. And Moses is devastated. And Moses, I mean, think about it. Moses has already experienced him at the bush. I mean, Moses, when he delivered Israel out of Egypt, wanted to bring them right to the place that he met with God. He didn't say to Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, let my people go that they can have a promised land. He said, Thus saith the Lord, let my people go and then go worship him in the wilderness. Why does Moses want to bring him to the promised land before he first brings him to the promiser? So God comes down to meet him. They run away, and Moses makes the statement to Israel. This is the most powerful statement, Exodus 2020. Everybody say 2020. Here's a 2020 vision for you. Moses said to the people, Look at this.

Do not fear. Look at this. Do not fear. Everybody say, Do not fear. For God's come to test you. What's the test? That his fear may be in you so that you may not sin. Now look up at me. Wait a minute. This sounds like a contradiction. Do not fear because God's come to see if his fear is in you so that you don't sin. Moses isn't contradicting himself. He's differentiating between being scared of God and the fear of the Lord. The person that is scared of God has something to hide. That's what Adam does in the garden. He runs from the presence of God. He's got something to hide. The person who fears God has nothing to hide. He's terrified to be away from God. He doesn't say, How close can I get to the line of compromise and not fall in? He says, I want so far away from that line, you can't even see it. So what is it to fear God? It's to venerate him. That's a big word. What does venerate mean? Venerate means to honor, respect, esteem, value, reverence and stand in awe of him more than anything. Or anyone else. We firmly embrace his heart. We love what he loves and we hate what he hates. You ever see a religious person go, I fear God.

That's why I hate those people. You know, you don't fear God at all because God's in love with those people. So you hate what God loves. Good preaching, John. Amen. Thank you so much. Y'all are really quiet on me right now. So when you take his heart, what is important to him becomes important to you. What is not so important to him is not so important to you. So you love what he loves, you hate what he hates. This is why the Bible says the fear of the Lord is the hate evil. No, no, no, no. Listen, listen. Notice it doesn't say the fear of the Lord is to dislike evil. Boy, it's quiet in this Methodist church right now. Hmm. Back in the late eighties, early 1990s, I prayed two hours every single morning. I'm not kidding. I got up at 4 45. I was outside in a remote place praying by five and I prayed till 6 30 to seven every single morning. To be honest with you, I wish I prayed like that now. I read my Bible diligently, but there was no anointing, no anointing on my preaching. It was flat. My prayers weren't anointed. One day I said to God, I said, God, I don't get it. I pray like two hours every day. I'm reading your word. I'm serving you diligently.

I've left an engineering job and I'm working for a church. I took up several thousand dollars. dollar a year pay cut. How come I'm not seeing a stronger anointing on my life? You know what he said to me? He said, "'Cause you tolerate sin, not only in your life, but in the lives of others." I said, what? And then he brought me, he brought me, you know how the Holy Spirit does this, to Hebrews chapter one. Do you know when God the Father inaugurated Jesus? Do you remember that on the day he was raised from the dead? Hebrews one records that, right? Look what God the Father says to Jesus. He says, "'Because you have loved righteousness.'" And the Holy Spirit said, "'Stop, every Christian loves righteousness.'" He said, but I didn't stop there. He said, "'And hated sin, or hated lawlessness. Therefore God, your God has anointed you more than your companions.'" He said, "'Son, learn to hate sin the way I hate sin, and you'll see the anointing of God increase upon your life.'" Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

I was in Malaysia. I did 10 meetings. It was the largest Bible school in the nation. Pastors had come from all over. We had a full packed auditorium. 10 services, some of the hardest meetings I've ever experienced in my entire life. 35 years of ministry. And I'll never forget the very last meeting. The Spirit of God fell on that building. I mean, it was packed wall to wall. And the Spirit of God fell on that building like he did in Brazil. Again, I'm not kidding. My mind was screaming, I can't take this. It was so strong. You have to understand there is a presence. Okay, Isaiah is a very godly man. He's preaching, woe to the wicked, woe to the proud, woe. He has one glimpse of God in his throne, and he goes, woe is me. Okay? No longer, woe is the wicked, woe is me. Because he realized for the first time who this God was he was serving. Amen. And I remember that presence came in and these quiet Malaysian and women started screaming like they were on fire. And it wasn't demonic.

I've seen demonic. And I'm sitting there and again going, Bavir, you make a wrong move, you say a wrong word. I don't know if you'll live through this. And I remember my mind in that particular time, because it was even stronger than Brazil. I remember my mind went, I can't handle this. And my heart went, God, don't lift. That is when I found out there's a difference between your heart and your soul. The word of God divides between soul and spirit. I'm sitting there, I'm having a fight. My mind's going, God, please lift. I can't handle this. My heart's going, God, don't lift. And I remember I'm walking back and forth reverently, and out of my mouth comes these words. This is the spirit of the fear of the Lord. And I thought, oh my gosh, that's it. I mean, I'd never known this before. But do you remember what Isaiah said about Jesus? He said, the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. Do you remember this? Look at the scripture. The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the spirit of the fear of the Lord. I thought, that's one of the manifestations of the Holy Spirit.

No wonder Paul said, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. No wonder Paul said, having the promise of walking in his presence, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God, not in the love of God. Had an evangelist that was in jail for five years, one of the best known evangelists in the world. And I said to him, I said, when did you fall out of love with Jesus? He said, I didn't. And I looked at him, I said, you're in jail. You committed adultery. You did all this stuff that put you in jail. He said, John, I loved him all the way through it. And he sees I'm puzzled. This is back in the early nineties. And he said, John, I didn't fear God. And he said, there's millions of Americans just like me. They love Jesus, but they have no fear of God. Because look what Isaiah says. Look at this. Scripture back up there. His delight, Jesus's delight. Everybody say delight. Was in the fear of the Lord. It wasn't in the spirit of wisdom. It wasn't in wisdom and counsel, might.

It was in the fear of the Lord. Shouldn't his delight be our delight? Do you remember the Bible says in Hebrews that Jesus was heard because of his godly fear. It's one thing to pray. It's another thing to be heard. You still with me? So this meeting's over in Malaysia. And you remember, it's a Bible school and there were. people from all over that hemisphere. And there was a couple from India that were in the Bible school, they were in the meeting, and she was one of the women just got rocked, right? And the couple comes up to me after the meeting and they go, we feel so clean inside. I said, man, you just hit it. That's exactly what I feel, clean. So I left, next morning I'm in prayer at my Malaysian hotel and the Holy Spirit just speaks to me and said, read Psalm 19. I have no idea what Psalm 19 said, seriously. So I just start reading away. And all of a sudden I get to the ninth verse and it says, the fear of the Lord is clean. Look at this, enduring forever. And the Holy Spirit said to me, he said, son, Lucifer led worship right at my throne. He didn't fear me, he didn't endure forever. He said, a third of the angels were around my throne.

They didn't fear me, they didn't endure forever. He said, Adam and Eve walked in my presence. They didn't fear me, they didn't endure in the garden forever. He said, every single being that surrounds my throne throughout eternity will have been tested in the fear of the Lord. You still with me? So what's the manifestation? What's the evidence of somebody who fears God? You understand what I mean by this? What's the evidence? In other words, you put a knife in a socket. If they're doing your funeral three days later, the evidence is there was power in that socket. If you live, there was no power in this. What's the evidence of somebody who truly fears God? Number one, they'll obey God instantly. You ever meet somebody who says, well, you know, the Lord's been dealing with me about this now for several months and they kind of laugh about it, right? They're just laughing about their lack of the godly fear. It's really quiet in this Anglican church now. Number two, listen, you obey God even when it doesn't make sense. God ever tell you to do something that didn't make a lot of sense to you? You haven't been saved very long if you can't say yes to that, right?

Number three, you obey him even if it hurts. Well, I understand that one. When my mom looks at me and goes, you'll go to Bible school over my dead body? Because she was strong Catholic? It hurt. Especially when I didn't get invited to my dad's retirement party because she was scared I was gonna witness to people. But now she gives away my books. Yeah. Number four, you obey him even when you don't see a benefit. You know how many Americans, the only way you can get them to obey God is if they see a benefit. What's in it for me? If you give, God will do that. If you pray, God will do this. Well, listen, will God do that if you give? Absolutely. Chris Cain couldn't have said it better tonight. Right, give and it'll be given to you. The world of the generous gets larger and larger, right? But that's not your motive. Number five, you obey to completion. Saul did 99.9% of what God told him to do, but God said he didn't obey me. It sure is quiet here. Now I wanna get to the scripture that I've been trying to get to all night.

This is the one I wanna really talk to you about. Psalm 25, verse 14, one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible. Look at this, look at this, look at this verse. Friendship, everybody say friendship. With the Lord is reserved for those who fear him. With them, he shares the secrets. You know what God's saying right there? You know what God, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know what God's saying right there? You know what God's saying? God's saying not everybody's my friend. Let me go a little bit deeper, okay? God's saying not everybody in the church is my friend. That one went over like a lead balloon. Two men in the Old Testament that were called the friends of God. Were there others? Oh yeah. David's a friend of God. You know, Joseph's a friend of God. But these two men's lives exemplify what it takes to have a relationship of friendship with the Lord, right? The first guy is Abraham, right? He's called the friend of God, right? Why does God call Abraham his friend? Because when Abraham. old, God comes to him one night and says, Abe. Yes. Yes, sir. I want you to sacrifice your son. You know, your son you've waited for for 25 years, the son you love so much.

I want you to go three day journey and kill him for me. Now, God didn't say if you do this, you'll seal the covenant and I'll send my son. He didn't give him a reason. He just says go kill him. Can you imagine the evening? You know what my Bible says? Now look at this. It says early the next morning, Abraham's on his way. Now God gives him a three day journey. Why? He wants three days for him to think it over in case he wants to turn back. It's easy when you heard the booming voice of God the night before, but what about two and a half days later? When you're looking at the mountain, you're going to put your only son to death. The one you waited for for 24 years, just because God said did do it and didn't give you a reason. Abraham goes to the top of the mountain, builds the altar, put Isaac's on the altar, lifts up the knife. He's ready to put the most important person or thing to death in his life just because God said do it. And the angel of the Lord appears. And the angel of the Lord says, Abraham, stop! Look what the angel says, because now I know you fear God. How did the angel know that he feared God? Because he obeyed instantly. Because he obeyed when it didn't make sense. Because he obeyed when it hurt. Because he obeyed when he didn't see a benefit. And because he obeyed to completion. Now watch this. Abraham puts down the knife, unties Isaac, lifts up his eyes, sees a ram in the thicket, and out of his heart comes this. Jehovah! Jireh! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Whoa, whoa, whoa. God just revealed a facet of his, listen, of his personality to Abraham nobody had ever known before. Wait a minute, some of you aren't getting, some, no, no, I see blank looks on some of your faces. Okay, all of you tonight know me as John Bevere speaker. Some of you know me as John Bevere author. But there is a lady, and whoa, she is a lady. Her name is Lisa. She knows me as John Bevere husband, John Bevere G-daddy, John Bevere dad, John Bevere, she knows me as John Bevere athlete. She knows me as John Bevere lover. Can I say this? None of you will ever know me as John Bevere lover. That is a facet of my personality that's reserved for one person, the person that's closest to me on this earth. God just revealed a facet of his personality to Abraham nobody had ever known before because he's my friend. I'm preaching myself happy. I don't know about you. Now, now, now, now look at this. Look at the relationship between God and Abraham. It's amazing. One, one day God says, should we do to Sodom and Gomorrah what we're planning on doing without first talking to our friend Abraham? So God

comes down at the territories, says, Abe, yes, yes, Lord, yes. Abe, we're thinking about blowing up these two cities. What do you think? Abe goes, Sodom? And the Lord goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, Gomorrah too. What do you think? Abe goes, oh my gosh, think, think, my nephew's over there, lots over there. Oh my gosh, think. Okay, God, you wouldn't like blow up those two cities if there were 50 righteous people, would you? And the Lord goes, excellent idea, excellent idea. Okay, we will not blow up the two cities. If there's 50 righteous people, glad we talked to our friend Abraham. Abraham thinks, what if there's not 50? Okay, what about 45? Would you do it if there was 45? And God goes, another good point, right? So Abe talks God down to 10 people, okay? He figures there's gotta be 10, lots one, all I need is nine others, right? But here's the scary thing, there isn't, okay? Now, now, now, now, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen. The Bible says that Sodom and Gomorrah, that they're buying, they're selling, they're marrying, they're giving in marriage, they're planting, they're harvesting. Well, let's put it in today's vernacular, life is great. The economy's booming. And if there's a God, he doesn't care the way we live. They're 24 hours away from being obliterated and they're clueless. That's not what's scary. That's not what's scary. This is what's scary. Lot, everybody say lot. Who the Bible calls right righteous. Let me put it in today's vernacular, saved, born again, okay? Lot is 24 hours away from being obliterated. He's as clueless as Sodom. It takes two angels of mercy because Abraham prayed. Thank God Abraham prayed. It came in. and got lied out, but even his wife, you know, Jesus, I remember his wife, right? So now look up at me, here's two saved men, two born again men, let's modernize it, okay? Two righteous men, born again, right? One saved, born again, righteous man knows what God's gonna do before he does it and helps God decide how he's gonna do it. The other righteous, saved, born again man is as clueless as the world, why? Because this saved, righteous, born again man fears God,

therefore he's the friends of God, therefore God shares his secrets with him. This, this saved, born again man does not fear God, therefore he is not the friend of God, therefore he does not get the secrets. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, Moses, Moses knew his ways, Israel knew his acts. Israel knew God by how he answered their prayers. Do you know how many Christians there are? The only way they know God is by how he's answered my prayers. My daughter was sick, I brought her to a Bethel meeting, she got healed. Moses knew many times what God was gonna do before he did and help God decide how he's gonna do it. In fact, twice, listen, twice, he changed God's mind. The Bible says the Lord relented because of what Moses said to him. Two born again groups of people, coming out of Egypt is a type of coming out of the world. They ate that rock, which was Christ, they followed that rock, which was Christ. But yet one group only knows God by how he answers their prayers. The other one knows God so intimately, he knows what God's gonna do before he does it and he helps God decide how he's gonna do it and twice changes God's mind.

Now, do you wanna see this in the New Testament? I said, do you wanna see this in the New Testament? Okay, Jesus, he's at the Last Supper, right? Right, are you following me? Okay, so Jesus at the last, and look what he says to his guys, no longer do I call you servants. Now, the fact that Jesus says no longer means at one time, these 12 were looked at or these 11 were looked at and regarded as merely servants. That's not a revelation, that's an English lesson. If I say no longer, I'm calling you, that means that one time I did see you as servants. Are you still with me? Why does God do that? Why is there a time? Remember the Bible says, as long as the heir is a child, he differs nothing from the servant. Why does God do that? To protect us. He doesn't want any Ananias and Sapphira situations. Let me give you a really weak example. The first employee our Messenger International ever hired, I said, I had come out of two very large ministries. I said, I'm gonna run my ministry totally, or Lisa and I are gonna run our ministry totally different. Every employee is gonna be my best buddy. Some of you already know the stupidity of that wisdom. So the first employee, his name was John, best buddy, played ball together.

He came over to watch videos with us. He ate Thanksgiving with us. He was best friend, right? Best friend, it was great for the first year until I had to confront him because he was being rude to people at a resource table. And when I confronted him gently, he just points his finger at me and goes, you're this and this and this and this. And I'm sitting there going, oh my gosh. And I said, God, what do I do? And the Holy Spirit said, fire him. So I said, hey, I'm really sorry. You can't work for us anymore. And he storms out the door and I'm crying because I really cared for the guy. Three months later, he calls me up and says, man, God's never talked to me the way he's talked to me. In the last three months, I said, oh yeah? He said, I took you for granted. I lost sight of the position that God had placed you in my life. I lost sight of the position God had placed Miss Lisa in my life. I lost the sight of the position I had in your life and I had in her life. I'm so sorry. I said, would you come back and work for us? He did and we never had problems with him again. Now I have a new strategy, okay?

Somebody, employee comes, because we have 45 team members, team member comes on board. They are not best buddies. But once I know they're very established in who I am and who they are, then I bring them in. Some of my employees are my very closest friends. You know what God says to us? Till you're very established in who you are before me and when you're very established in who I am before you, even though you are an error, I got to keep you as a servant because I don't want to see you end up like Ananias and Sapphira. But when you're very established in who I am, the fear of the Lord, then I can bring you in as my friends. You with me? So now look at this. Jesus is no longer, do I call you servants? He doesn't know what his master's doing, the master's ways, his secrets, his wisdom, his, but he said, I've called you now friends. Look at this. Here's a statement to the whole church. You ready for this? I'm gonna close. Jesus said, you are my friends. We quote it, we preach it, we sing about it, but we never finish the statement

because you notice the word if, if is a condition. If I say to you, if you work for me, if, if, if, if you work for me for 20 hours, I will pay you this much. And you don't work the 20 hours, you don't get the money. And then you say, hey, where's the money? I said, well, I said, if you work. Jesus said, you're my friends. If there's a condition, what's the condition? He said, if you do whatever I command you. There it is, the fear of the Lord trembling at his word. Do you know what Jesus is saying right there? Not everybody in the church is my intimate close friend, but listen, listen, listen. He passionately, listen to my words. He passionately desires every one of us to be his intimate close friends, but you're the one that determines the level of your relationship with God, not God. Therefore, draw near to God and he'll draw near to you. Did you get it? Did you get it? I want every head bowed, I want every head bowed, every eye closed, I want every head bowed, every eye closed. You know, I don't have to belabor this, labor on this. I want you to ask yourself some questions. You find yourself only obeying God when it's convenient for you? You find yourself only obeying God when it doesn't interfere with your agenda,

your schedule, your pleasure? You treat the word of God casually? You take his presence for granted? These are just some of the symptoms of a lack of holy fear, but you know what Jesus said? If you ask the Father for the Holy Spirit, he'll give him to you. Almost every day when I pray, I ask the Father for a fresh baptism of the holy fear of God. If you're in here tonight and you'd say, John, I'm born again, I do love Jesus. I'm like that minister that you met in jail. But I lack the fear of God and I know it and I want the fear of God. I wanna repent of my lack of the fear of the Lord. I wanna ask him for it. If that's you, stand up right now. Don't even wait for anyone else, stand up right now. Wow, wow. About 90% of the building's standing. If you're sitting right now and you say, John, I really do fear God. I want you to stand up with your brothers and sisters, with the 90% of the people that are standing. I want you to lift your hands up. I want you to close your eyes because I want you to open the eyes of your heart. I don't want you to see who's standing or sitting beside you, it doesn't matter. If you could see his face right now

and some of you may get a glimpse. You're not gonna see an angry look. You're not gonna see a disgusted look. You're not gonna see angry eyes. You're gonna see the biggest smile. Eyes dancing with joy, so strong though, strong eyes. You see those eyes? Holy Spirit, give them a glimpse of Jesus. You're gonna notice the body posture. He doesn't have his arms folded at his chest. He's got his arms out reach to you. He's got the hugest smile on his face. You see him? He wants to be your friend. He longs, he yearns. Here's the presence of the Lord. We haven't even prayed, he's already here. My goodness, he just manifested. He's here. Just keep your eyes open in your heart. Don't look for a feeling. Don't look for a manifestation. Look for Him. There He is right there. Right there. Right there. Right there. Master, thank you. There's His presence right there. Holy Spirit, thank you so much.

I want you to say these words to the one you're looking at. Say these words. Father, say my Lord. Father, forgive me for my lack of holy fear. I realize tonight I've been a little casual with you. I've only seen you as dad. I failed to see you as king. I'm asking you to forgive my ignorance and my casual attitude. Cleanse me with the blood of Jesus. I lift my hands to you. And I'm asking you, my Father, baptize me in the Holy Spirit of the fear of the Lord. Jesus delighted. Jesus delighted in holy fear. So do I.