Prayer Meeting 6/9/2022

Lord I Know What's Wrong With Me, I Do Not Fear You Part 2

Proverbs 9:10

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

At our last prayer meeting we shared the teaching of 17th century Dutch reformer Wilhelmus à Brakel From his writings on the fear of God. Let me read first a few of the quotes we used.

Brakel writes:

The fear of God is the fountain of all the holiness which delights you. Sinful lusts will lose their potency, corruptions which surface will readily be subdued, you will be stopped in the middle of sinning, and you will find yourself inclined toward the practice of all manner of virtues.

Another:

Would you not have committed many more sins and neglected many more Holy things, if the fear of the Lord had not prevented you?

He adds:

Does not the fear of God nip many sins in the bud, and does this motivate you to perform your duty?

Again Brakel writes:

First, we are to be severely reprimanded, if, knowing that God is majestic, having experienced how good it is to humbly walk with the majestic one, and knowing how invigorating it is to walk in the way of uprightness, we nevertheless neglect to thus focus upon the Lord and fear him continually. This makes us vulnerable to all kinds of sin.

Brakel goes deeper here and brings an ever more scary, sobering thought when he

continues and says:

Secondly, this is followed by a disposition which is yet more evil, namely, when we even proceed to satisfy this lust, doing so not only when our conscience points out its evil, and counsels us not to begin; and upon having begun, counselled us to desist from and subdue the lust, to be silent in the midst of an evil discourse, and to refrain from the sin which we are currently committing; but also when our conscience causes us to reflect upon God and his majesty. Indeed, this is especially true (which is most abominable) when God manifests himself to the soul, sensibly discourages the soul from sin, and, so to speak, shakes his finger and says, “behold! I am here, and I certainly see what you are doing! Cease sinning—or else I shall cause you to feel my displeasure!” It is a setting aside of the fear of God, a grieving of the Holy spirit, and the inflicting of a deadly wound upon the soul when, due to the agitation of sin, we are driven onward and seek to hide ourselves from the presence of God in order to be able to proceed, and then actually prevail in carrying out the sin which is at hand. If God were not infinitely longsuffering and immutable, he would cast away such impudent souls!

Tonight I ask the question: is that finger still pointing? Have you once again learned to shut out the presence of that pointed finger? Or has God once again been pushed out of our mind, has He been moved to a place where we can no longer see Him, or feel the guilt of sin as we did? Before we were saved our eyes were closed, there was no need to work so hard to remove Him from our sight. But as believers we must turn and hide from Him and hide, as it were, our eyes, our heart from Him in order to maintain and pursue our depraved mind. I’m sure that finger pointing was alive and well in the days following the last prayer meeting, but is it still as alive now? Has it been?

Let me again read our prayer for tonight. It’s from the ‘The Valley Of Vision’, and the very next prayer after the one we read during our last prayer meeting called ‘Yet I Sin’. This one is entitled: ‘The Dark Guest’, it’s on page 126-127 in the leatherbound copy, the paperback copy is on page 71.

O LORD, Bend my hands and cut them off, for I have often struck thee with a wayward will, when these fingers should embrace thee by faith. I am not yet weaned from all created glory, honour, wisdom, and esteem of others, for I have a secret motive to eye my name in all I do. Let me not only speak the word sin, but see the thing itself. Give me to view a discovered sinfulness, to know that though my sins are crucified they are never wholly mortified. Hatred, malice, ill-will, vain-glory that hungers for and hunts after man's approval and applause, all are crucified, forgiven, but they rise again in my sinful heart. O my crucified but never wholly mortified sinfulness! O my life-long damage and daily shame! O my indwelling and besetting sins! O the tormenting slavery of a sinful heart! Destroy, O God, the dark guest within whose hidden presence makes my life a hell. Yet thou hast not left me here without grace; The cross still stands and meets my needs in the deepest straits of the soul. I thank thee that my remembrance of it is like David's sight of Goliath's sword which preached forth thy deliverance. The memory of my great sins, my many temptations, my falls, bring afresh into my mind the remembrance of thy great help, of thy support from heaven, of the great grace that saved such a wretch as I am. There is no treasure so wonderful as that continuous experience of thy grace toward me which alone can subdue the risings of sin within: Give me more of it. 

As always, we know not who wrote this prayer but for me it’s very John Owen esk,

especially in its similarity to the language he uses in his writings on ‘The Mortification Of Sin’, which we will touch on nearer the end tonight.

Without the fear of the Lord, we will have no defence against sin. Without the fear of the Lord we will never have peace. Interestingly, that would seem a foolish statement in the world. How can fear give you peace? Well the answer is simply this: to fear of the Lord will stop us sinning, and us not sinning brings us into closer communion with God, and in that communion is joy and peace. Therefore there is no joy and peace in sin.

No matter what we do to make ourselves shut out shame and guilt, we cannot. If you’re a believer you will feel such shame you that can’t have peace. Yet we will attempt to shut it out. As the prayer we read says: ‘…all are crucified, forgiven, but they rise again in my sinful heart’. The great gift of salvation has many facades and attributes but one is a stronger conscience of one’s sin and shame. But that conscience will subside when we do not commune with God, when we don’t keep our eyes fixed on Him. The fear of Him goes.

Alistair Begg says:

Every time I go to see a film or read a book that is out-with the realms of the biblical guidelines for living, I have lost my fear of the Lord.

When we can ignore the promptings of God, the ‘finger pointing’ of God, as Brakel says, we have stepped away and allowed our flesh to work on our behalf to silence the fear of the Lord, which in turn leads to unwise, and always stupid and detrimental decisions for the good of our soul, and the peace of our heart.

John MacArthur says:

Fear is another word for worship.

Meaning in the context of the fear of the Lord. Now, when you simply see fear that way it gives a simple clarity of what is meant by:

Proverbs 9:10

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

We worship what we fear, we obsess over what we fear, what is dependency to anything or anyone but a worship of that thing? To fear people is to obsess with people, to know their thoughts and intentions. We study them, we learn all can about them to serve them, to please them. How many people are insecure and obsess with not getting love and approval from man, that they literally can’t think straight without wondering what they are doing, where they are, and who they are with? I mean, some people are so obsessed with the fear of man, they will even pretend to love and fear God to get that love and affection from man. Think of the amount you obsess about money. How much effect it has on you, how much you think about it? How affected are you when you think you are going to lose it? Think of a bill coming in, or something breaking, it’s like full-on worship of that thing.

Okay, now ask yourself two things:

1. Do you fear God and obsess over Him as much, and react like that at the thought of losing Him?
2. Does that type of worship and obsession make you wiser and bring godly knowledge?

No! There is nothing more stupid, and perpetually unhealthy than obsessing over man. What is fear therefore but a worship and obsession of things or people? If we had that amount of fear of God would we know Him more, just like we know everything about the fridge we need to buy, or the car we want, or the person we obsess over. How much do we think of their every need, and mood, and action? Often I think when I speak to people, I’m like wow, you know way, way too much about every facet of their life, but you can explain so little about God.

How many of us when we look at it, make all our worst decisions when obsessing over people? In most areas they seem quite sane, but when it comes to them, or what it is they worship, all logical thinking and behaviour is out the window. Yet the fear of God is the opposite: it’s that which is the beginning of wisdom. And it starts with fear; with an obsession and a worship of God.

Ever notice how clarity and balance returns when you stop obsessing and worshipping man, and turn your eyes back to Christ? So the truth is we get wiser as we obsess and fear the Lord, as we worship Him. Because it’s in that we learn who He is, and to learn who He is where we learn who we are to Him. To grow in wisdom is to grow in fear. It’s your fear of losing something that causes you to worship that thing or person. To fear anything more than the Lord is a great sin and thee greatest hindrance to you gaining wisdom.

What is the first commandment?

Exodus 20:3

³ “You shall have no other gods before Me.”

Because what we fear, we obsess over and worship. We do all for them to please them, to serve them. We can’t cope when they are angry, or sad, or bitter, or the worst: when they turn on us. Yet you can handle sinning and turning from God.

Brakel writes:

It is not sufficient to be on guard against the sins which are contrary to the fear of God; rather, it is our great duty to conquer them all by the fear of God. The livelier the fear of God is—the less power will sin have over you.

In other words, the more you are in communion with God, the more in awe you will be, and the more in awe and reverence you are, the more power you will have over sin.

In Romans 3:18 Paul challenges those who are in perpetual sin, by telling them the reason.

Romans 3:18

¹⁸ “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

God is absent from them, to the point that their conscience is not even affected. John Owen tells us in his writing on ‘The Mortification Of Sin’ that we must:

Charge your conscience with the guilt of indwelling sin.

He adds:

Not only should you acknowledge that it brings guilt upon you but you should charge your conscience with the guilt of its actual risings and out-breakings.

What Owen is saying is that as soon as you feel guilt, or even contemplate something ungodly, we must allow that guilt to pierce our hearts and speak to us as ones who know it’s wrong, and that in so doing it will bring conviction. Owen then adds this which is so profound and deep. That we must:

Lay your particular corruption next to the Law of God and let it’s pressure weigh heavily on your conscience.

When we are not in communion with God, when we shut God out, or as apostle Paul says: when ‘there is no fear before our eyes’, often our sin no longer penetrates our conscience, it no longer jars us, or puts us under pressure. We remove the pressure by removing God from our eyes, from our mind, from our conscience. Prayer is what keeps our conscience from slipping into apathy.

Truly, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. It’s what brings peace, joy, clarity and allows us to make wise choices. Let our conscience be continually stirred by our fear of the Lord. As the prayer we read ends, it simply says ‘give me more of it’.

Amen