November 19, 2017
Call to Worship: Psalm 106:47 “Save us, Lord our God, and gather us from the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise.” Psalm 2:11 “Serve the Lord with fear and celebrate his rule with trembling.”
Songs: Made Me Glad Travis Cottrell
Shout to the Lord Hillsong
Jesus Umobile
Scripture: Habakkuk 3:1-19
Song: Revelation Song Sandi Patty
Sermon: “Fear and Tremble Before Him”
Closing Song: Stand (The Way) Kutless
Benediction: Hebrews 12:28 “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, 29 for our “God is a consuming fire.”
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Sermon: “Fear and Tremble Before Him”
We have been talking these last few weeks about God’s word and how powerful His word is. That same word that has created and destroyed became flesh and dwelt among us. By that same word we were commanded to obey. Then by that word we were told we would do greater things and by that word he said to go in his name and by that word he gave us the promise that he was coming soon. Next week we will be talking about Jesus the King. Then we will move into Advent where will see what is available to all who believe, not only at the very end but what is available in our present. The word gave us the opportunity in our belief for God to live in us John 14:23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Solomon was told by God 2 Chronicles 7:14 “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. 16 I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there. In Solomon’s dedication he said 1 Kings 8:29 “My Name shall be there,’ so that you will hear the prayer your servant prays toward this place.” God also made clear that promise depended on our obedience. He will give us new hearts but we must obey; there is no other way. 2 Chronicles 7:19 “But if you turn away and forsake the decrees and commands I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, 20 then I will uproot Israel from my land, which I have given them, and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name.” We have already been warned but unfortunately man did not continue in the way and followed their own desires. We were supposed to follow Paul’s command from Philippians 2:12 “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling” but we did not remain in Him. All the warnings said to Israel have been ignored and we lost what it means to fear God and tremble before Him. Paul tells us in Romans 3:9 “For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. 10 As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” 13 Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. 14 Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. 15 Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and misery mark their ways, 17 and the way of peace they do not know.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Next Sunday we will be focusing on Jesus Christ our King. I will show you how the Gentiles have become just like the Jews when it comes to Jesus and his kingdom. The Gentiles have followed in the footsteps of the Jews. When we do not fear God, we lack knowledge. We also will not have discernment and as we see today, the church will follow any teaching, doctrine or theological statement that is peddled. This has lead to the lack of fearing God as acceptable but by accepting this we have lost the power that is available to us as believers. The church has become very content with a form of godliness but they still continue to deny its power and we get further and further away from the truth and are not speeding the coming of the Lord. We were warned 2 Peter 3:17 “not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.” Not only is there no fear in the land, no one trembles at God’s word. To many are impressed by the words of man. Listen to the accounts of these men. First of all Isaiah said, Isaiah 6:5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Then we hear from Job. He says, Job 42:5 “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. 6 Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Luke 5:8 “When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” Luke 7:6 “The centurion sent friends to say to him: “Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. 7 That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed.”
Then we see this amazing verse, yet it should bring us to our knees. Isaiah 66:2 “These are the ones I look on with favour: those who are humble and contrite in spirit, and who tremble at my word.” We live in a day where God’s words have been set aside and ignored. They have been watered down and the power softened. God’s words have been replaced with man’s words that lack power and people love it this way. They are content to sit through a service and say wonderful, inspiring, delightful, superb or complain and question yet are not concerned that we have lost our way. They continue following the path to obscurity and refuse to repent. People have accepted the words of men because they can keep them entertained for twenty minutes but there is no change. Yes people change to fit in but it is a superficial change in most cases as those same changes can be seen in the secular world. The church listens to God’s word week after week yet there is very little change because God has turned His face from shining on us. There is a famine of hearing the word of God. God’s word is supposed to be as Jeremiah describes it. Jeremiah 23:29 “Is not my word like fire,” declares the LORD, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” We need that fire and hammer to fall once again if we are to be changed. It boggles my mind how every week the word of God can be read and people still do not see the available power. The truth is most do not want to see and hear as it doesn’t fit into most peoples belief system. They would actually have to change what they were taught. Remember most change the word of God instead of being changed by the word of God. Sadly most read the bible as a storybook. Is it any wonder, as that is what we were taught in Sunday school? Tell me the old, old stories of Jesus and his love; just don’t make it personal. People want to be changed but with no commitment or laying down their lives. They want to be blessed without the obey part. They want to be blessed because they committed a couple of hours on a Sunday morning. That is not the obedience God is looking for. Deuteronomy 28:1 states very clearly “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. 2 All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God:” 9 The Lord will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the Lord your God and walk in obedience to him.”
In these days of deception millions of so-called Christians are following a man made church totally void of the power of the Holy Spirit and they are not even aware of the massive deception they are entangled with. They were told basically go to church, pray a prayer and be good and the Holy Spirit will be with you and never leave you. They misunderstand Paul’s writings. Ephesians 1:13 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.” Here is the problem. This is true if we remain in Him. Ask yourself what exactly do you believe. If you go to a church most will have a statement of faith. I can guarantee you that is what you are expected to believe, that is what you were taught to believe. Just because they don’t always talk about it does not mean they don’t believe it. The reality is most do not actually know what they believe other than they go to church. This promise does not apply if you have accepted another gospel as truth. Notice Ephesians said “you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth.” You are included when you hear the true message.
During this dark time of desolation, we have millions who are not hearing the truth yet they think they are giving their lives to it thinking they have been sealed. Someone said you are good to go, signed sealed and delivered yet they do not realize they have been marked not with the Holy Spirit but with the beast. This mark is already here. Revelations 19:20 “With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image.” They have accepted false gospels as the true gospel and received the mark. Later in Ephesians Paul tells us, Ephesians 4:30 “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” But the church continues to grieve the Holy Spirit day after day. Hebrews 10:29 “How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?” So then we have people going to church every Sunday who instead of trembling before God are trampling the Son of God underfoot. Most people have been told something false about God’s word and have believed it. They accept teachings of man and doctrines of demons as truth and will not turn from them even they it is right in front of their eyes. The neither see or hear and the church lies in desolation.
During this dark time of desolation, we have millions who are not hearing the truth yet they think they are giving their lives to it thinking they have been sealed. Someone said you are good to go, signed sealed and delivered yet they do not realize they have been marked not with the Holy Spirit but with the beast. This mark is already here. Revelations 19:20 “With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image.” They have accepted false gospels as the true gospel and received the mark. Later in Ephesians Paul tells us, Ephesians 4:30 “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” But the church continues to grieve the Holy Spirit day after day. Hebrews 10:29 “How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?” So then we have people going to church every Sunday who instead of trembling before God are trampling the Son of God underfoot. Most people have been told something false about God’s word and have believed it. They accept teachings of man and doctrines of demons as truth and will not turn from them even they it is right in front of their eyes. The neither see or hear and the church lies in desolation.
So you have to ask is the word of God changing you or have you changed the word of God because you are set in your ways. Now we are not talking about how we worship in a public gathering such as pianos and guitars or seating etc. We are talking about obeying the word of God wholeheartedly. Most think change means with the times. Those things don’t help us stand strong. If we don’t obey it really won’t matter how great the worship service was as you might as well have gone to a secular concert of some sort. Psalm 16:7 “I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. 8 I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.” This is the only way we can stand our ground. Unfortunately many do not realize that they are not holding on to the right rock. They think they are safe and secure but there are alarms going off but no one is listening. Psalm 62:6 “Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. 7 My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. 8 Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.” But instead God’s word has been replaced and people are dying because they are hanging onto sand yet they will not be moved. Deuteronomy 32:15 “They abandoned the God who made them and rejected the Rock their Savior. 16 They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols. 17 They sacrificed to false gods, which are not God— gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your ancestors did not fear. 18 You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth. 19 The LORD saw this and rejected them because he was angered by his sons and daughters. 20 “I will hide my face from them,” he said, “and see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation, children who are unfaithful. 21 They made me jealous by what is no god and angered me with their worthless idols. I will make them envious by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding.” Because we no longer tremble at God’s word nor do we fear it, we will remain in desolation until we do, until God hears our cry. If we feared and trembled, God would have mercy on us and hear our cry. Fearing and trembling before God actually means listening and waiting on God to direct our paths. It means trusting him to make our paths straight. It means actually believing he will go ahead of us into the land he is giving us. Deuteronomy 9:3 “But be assured today that the Lord your God is the one who goes across ahead of you like a devouring fire. He will destroy them; he will subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them quickly, as the Lord has promised you.”
Jeremiah gives us understanding of why we fear and tremble. He said, Jeremiah 10:10 “But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God, the eternal King. When he is angry, the earth trembles; the nations cannot endure his wrath.” 11 “Tell them this: ‘These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens. 12 But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding. 13 When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses.” Nahum 1:2 “The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The LORD takes vengeance on his foes and vents his wrath against his enemies. 3 The LORD is slow to anger but great in power; the LORD will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet. 4 He rebukes the sea and dries it up; he makes all the rivers run dry. Bashan and Carmel wither and the blossoms of Lebanon fade. 5 The mountains quake before him and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his presence, the world and all who live in it. 6 Who can withstand his indignation? Who can endure his fierce anger? His wrath is poured out like fire; the rocks are shattered before him.” Daniel 10:10 “A hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees. 11 He said, “Daniel, you who are highly esteemed, consider carefully the words I am about to speak to you, and stand up, for I have now been sent to you.” And when he said this to me, I stood up trembling. 12 Then he continued, “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. (this is an example of what 2 Chronicles 7 means when it says to humble yourself and turn form your wicked ways. So when we humble ourselves God hears)13 But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia. 14 Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.” 15 While he was saying this to me, I bowed with my face toward the ground and was speechless.”
David said Psalm 119:120 “My flesh trembles in fear of you; I stand in awe of your laws.” We have totally lost this. Take for example songs. Many will say the good old days when the church had better music. The harmonies were amazing yet here we are sitting in desolation. Just because songs are harmonious and makes your skin tingle, doesn’t mean the Holy Spirit is among us. If the Holy Spirit was among us there would be power not just people gathering in a building once a week. Just because there are crowds doesn’t mean there is power. The masses will have walked along with Jesus, close enough to crush him yet they will hear Luke 13:25 “I don’t know you or where you come from.’ 26 “Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets. 27 “But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!” The difference will be that one person who reaches out to Jesus. Luke 8:47 “Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed.” Luke 13:24 “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.
We live among a people of unclean lips. Jesus said Mark 7:6 “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 7 They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ 8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” Peter warns us to save ourselves from this corrupt generation. I trust as we continue that you are seeing the desolation we are in. If Jesus were to return what would he find. The answer to that question is easy as he already told us Luke 18:8 “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” Even while he was here people did not believe. John 6:35 “Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.” Matthew 13:58 “And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.” I know it is easier and less obtrusive to our lives if we just say God doesn’t do that any more. What a grandiose deception that is!!! When will we tremble at the word of God and wait expectantly for him to fulfill His promises to us. When will we realize our ways, our plans are nothing before God? They only lead to death and destruction. I would rather be like the centurion who believed his word was good enough. When will stand by the word of the Lord? When Jesus heard the centurion Matthew 8:10 “he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.” What does Jesus say about our faith?
Sadly most are like Israel. Hosea 3:4 “For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or household gods. 5 Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.” When God pours out His Spirit upon us once again, our only option will be to fall on our faces and say we are sinful and do not deserve His presence. We do not have to wait to do that as sooner is better. The presence of God requires awe, respect, fear, trembling, and reverence. We are unworthy to stand before him. Malachi 1:14 “Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king,” says the Lord Almighty, “and my name is to be feared among the nations.” If we do not tremble before him and fear him we are the cheat. So we continue to pray Habakkuk 3:2 “Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.”
