« Back to Article Archives

Where Is God's Fear?

By Bobbie Jean Merck

"The fear of God promotes spiritual joy; it is the morning star

which ushers in the sunlight of comfort."

(Spoken by Thomas Watson in 1660 A.D.)

Jude 17-25  The Everyday Bible

Dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ said before. 

They said to you, "In the last times there will be people who laugh about God. 

They will do only what they want to do ~ things that are against God."

These are the people who divide you.

They do only what their sinful selves want.

They do not have the Spirit.

But dear friend, use your most holy faith to build yourselves up strong.

Pray with the Holy Spirit.  Keep yourselves in God's love.

Wait for the Lord Jesus Christ with his mercy

to give you life forever.

Show mercy to people who have doubts.  Save them.

Take them out of the fire.  Show mercy mixed with fear to others.

Hate even their clothes which are dirty from sin.

Praise God.

God is strong and can help you not to fall.

He can bring you before his glory without any wrong in you

and give you great joy.  He is the only God.

He is the One who saves us.

To him be glory, greatness, power, and authority through

Jesus Christ our Lord for all time past, now, and forever.

Amen.

          On January 24, 2004 God, the Holy Spirit, clearly spoke to me that we must get the fear of the Lord back into the Church of America.  The command was so strong and so urgent, that I instantly began to search the Scriptures, and the Greek and the Hebrew concerning “the fear of the Lord.”  "A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name.  And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?"  (Malachi 1:6).

How could we presume upon God’s mercies by earnestly praying that “righteousness, truth, and justice would prevail” in the 2000 national elections; and thereafter in the White House, in the Capital, in the Supreme Court Building, in the Pentagon; and presume that it would not first begin in the house of the Lord ~ the Church of the Living God ~ when God says that salvation begins in His house, and what we sow, we reap?

For many years I have (and shall continue to do so) magnified the “fear of the Lord” as awe, reverence, respect, honor, and the worship of the Lord.  These are all a part of true worship.  But, they basically have to do with the positive aspects of the fear of the Lord God.  True to the anointing that came with the command, I was quickened to the other side of "the fear of the Lord" which we might identify as negative.  God requires balance and hates all false balances (Proverbs 11:1).  Therefore, let us begin our journey into the other (negative) side of the fear of the Lord.

Without fear of the Lord, one has no wisdom or revealed or experiential God-knowledge (see Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 1:7; 9:10,11 Amplified Bible).  “The reverent fear and worship of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom and skill [the preceding and the first essential, the prerequisite and the alphabet]; good understanding, wisdom and meaning have all those who do [the will of the Lord].  Their praise of Him endures for ever” (Psalm 111:10 Amplified Bible).

David, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, pleaded with the people (just as the Holy Spirit is pleading with us today), “O fear the Lord, you His saints [revere and worship Him]!  For there is no want to those who truly revere and worship Him with godly fear” (Psalm 34:9 Amplified Bible).

The fear in this psalm is defined in Zodhiates Bible: to be afraid; to fear; to be feared and reverenced, (notice ~ to be feared and to be reverenced).  Zodhiates Bible gives the balance saying, “there are two main types of fear: (a) the emotion and intellectual anticipation of harm, what one feels may go wrong for him; (b) a very positive feeling of awe or reverence for God, which may be expressed piety or formal worship.”

We will address “a” as negative fear.  But, saints, I assure you, that fear has kept me from taking a wrong step many times.  Yes, I loved Him so much I didn’t want to hurt Him by disobedience.  But, I unashamedly and without fear tell you that I fear this Holy God to the degree that I am motivated to do right and to destroy the works of the flesh, with a godly fear that if I don’t, I will not accomplish the perfect will of God for my life.  Believe me, this motivates one to discipline and obedience: godly living.

The fear of the Lord shows that you are a true follower of the Lord, that you are devoted to, committed to, and faithful to Him without fear of man.  The devil knows when we live a God-fearing life, and he knows when we don’t.  And when we don’t, it is his invitation to “come on in, the door is open, take your place.”  “Then Satan answered the Lord, Does Job (reverently) fear God for nothing?” (Job 1:9 Amplified Bible).

We are not to have the fear of man, nor timidity, insecurity, or any phobias.  All such fears have their root in lacking the fear of the Lord in the fullness of all it’s dimensions.  Such fears cause one to shrink, just as a pin-poked inflated balloon deflates, and to run away from God and the very things and plans that God has for one’s life.

Jesus warns us about this fear as part of the signs of the end-times.  “...Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken" (Luke 21:26).

Godly fear of the Lord produces strength, boldness, security, confidence, peace, quietness, and the power to passionately pursue the will, plan, and purpose of God for one’s life without any fleshly fears or phobias whatsoever.  “In the reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord is strong confidence, and His children shall always have a place of refuge” (Proverbs 14:26 Amplified Bible).

Thank God for His promise in Jeremiah 32:40,  “And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.”

Noah feared God and thereby obeyed God when all but seven family members thought he was crazy.  (See Hebrews 11:7.)  This kind of fear runs with faith to do that which is impossible in the eyes of man!

Jude commands us to contend for the faith that was once delivered to the saints.  He then exposes and defines those who have no fear of God who have gained entrance among the believers.  These don’t contend for the faith which is Paul’s “same Jesus, same Spirit, and same Gospel.” They are worldly, ungodly, and lack respect for authority.  They have not the Holy Spirit, and therefore are of the Antihrist spirit and so they oppose the Spirit, and the mind of Christ, and they oppose the anointing, and the supernatural.  The list goes on. 

They are ready for all pleasure, they have no self-control nor restraints in their lives, they are wasteful, in pride, foolish, full of evil thoughts, they are adulterers and fornicators.  They engage in unclean spirit activities on whatever level.  Strife, envy, jealousy, confusion and every evil work accompany those who do not fear the Lord.

Is this teaching unusual?  It shouldn’t be viewed as such.  “And so I solemnly urge you before God and before Christ Jesus ~ Who will someday judge the living and the dead when he appears to set up his Kingdom:  Preach the word of God.  Be persistent, whether the time is favorable or not.  Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good  teaching"        (2 Timothy 4:1,2 New Living Translation).  "All Scripture is  inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives.  It straightens us out and teaches us to do what is right.  It is God's way of preparing us in every way, fully equipped for every good thing God wants us to do" (2 Timothy 3:16,17 New Living Translation).

When God says that a spirit of confusion and a spirit of worldliness have come into the Church, and that we have lost something valuable and precious, something that we had in the ‘80’s, then it is time to do something.  God is raising up His leaders and saints to cry aloud, spare not, and lift up their voice like a trumpet to warn us to “get it right in God’s sight.” 

Sin is rampant and tolerated in the Church of America.  Let us judge ourselves, and pray that such wickedness may depart the house of the Lord as we speak the truth in love.

It is not all right in God’s sight when 68 pastors tell their apostle during a 90 day period they have been committing adultery.  I pray in their “telling” they were absolutely entering into godly repentance.  If so, they are forgiven and cleansed according to First John 1:9.  They only represent, as the colloquial tip of the iceberg, the vanity and lack of godly fear that is rampant in the church.

The Christian is always on the battlefield, saints.  Great generals of God have warned us of three major things with which saints (and especially the leaders) will be tempted:

1.  PRIDE

2.  LUST

3.  MONEY

Not one, but three!  Abraham passed the test and all temptation, because he feared God.  “… I know that thou fearest God …” (Genesis 22:12).

One of God’s great generals received a visitation and a vision of God in the eighties.  It was a warning to be heeded, to be alert and on guard, to walk in the holiness of God, and to be filled with all the fullness of the knowledge of His wisdom and will, that we might do His will.  And to pray!!!  Pray to stop it!!!

In the vision, God revealed four spirits that were being unleashed with unrelenting force against the Body of Christ in the last of these last days:

1.                  The spirit of stupor.

2.                  The spirit of confusion.

3.                  The spirit of assault.

4.                  The spirit of terror. 

Twenty (more or less) years later, we absolutely know that these four powers of darkness are working.

            The church has been in a stupor to a measurable degree.  People are indifferent to the ways and to the true knowledge (intimacy) of God.  Passionate zeal for the house of the Lord is often unacceptable.  People are dying and going to hell, living life in a miserable fashion, while the Church moves merrily along.  Wake up!!!

            Confusion abounds.  Confusion is rooted in the demonic, and it results in carnality and the works of the flesh.  Carnality covers the entire domain of fallen nature made subject to vanity and that which is vain (having no God-end).  Therefore, flesh is more the ruling principle and life-style than godliness in the spirit. 

            Carnality is infancy, characterizing mere babes in Christ who walk after the cravings of the flesh, who cannot be fed any meat because they can only tolerate and digest milk.  Holiness is not a pleasant word to such babes in Christ.

            Where carnality exists, envying, strife, worldliness (friends of the world, preferring the world’s “goodies” to God’s goodness), confusion and every evil work exists.  (See First Corinthians 3:1-4 and James 3.)  God’s answer, antidote, and cure?  The same as He told Cain, “do good and sin cannot come in” (Genesis 4:7).  All such confusion and carnality can be summed up in one word ~ unrighteousness!

            A mocker and a scorner (a hearer only, and not a doer of righteousness) is a believer in unbelief.

          When the Lord spoke to me in a night vision concerning the three things that had entered the church (confusion, worldliness, and the loss of that which was valuable and precious in the eighties), I understand today that He included the Church of America in the eighties.

          I sought God’s answer concerning how to make right what was wrong in His sight.  He let me know in receiving the answer that, “The voice of righteousness is rejected and hated only by those who are not producing the fruits of righteousness.”  By reading Philippians 1:9-11 (Amplified Bible) and the four Gospels, one can easily understand His statement.

            God sets the boundaries, He raises the standard, and He declares the Truth in First Corinthians 14:33.  “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.”

            Confusion is disorder which results in being unsettled, unstable, and unsteady.  Is this the reason many are wondering if what they think they believe is really what they believe and should believe?  Is this the reason for all the “running to and fro,” is a malady and not a motivation of God?  Is this the reason many think that the universe, including God and others, centers on them and owes all to them?  Is this the reason it is hard to find “a faithful” person?

            Does stupor and confusion result in assault?  I remember one of God’s generals sharing the number one assignment of this demonic spirit of assault.  God had revealed to him that its greatest attack would be against those who knew the Holy Spirit, and His ways, and who “flowed” in the Holy Spirit ~ in the supernatural.  Indeed, this is the spirit of Antichrist, anti-anointing, anti-supernatural.

            I have learned the major way to defeat the works of the devil and his demonic powers of darkness after you have bound them in Jesus’ Name is to release and do exactly what he hates.  For example, the spirit of python like the spirit of assault, the spirit of Antichrist, which hates the Holy Spirit, the anointing, and the supernatural.  Therefore!  Do all that is within you, doing all in Christ you can possibly do by His grace to give Satan no place by releasing Lordship to the Holy Spirit 24 hours of every day, and  in every way that the Holy Spirit desires.

            Meditating on the life of Christ, and that of the apostles, I am convinced of our need of the Holy Spirit without measure.  He knew no sin (He did not sin)!  The apostles were carnal, fleshed-out weaklings until they received the Holy Spirit without measure.  THAT ole’-time religion is good enough for me and for you!  I conclude — having no fear of God, being carnal, flesh-centered, and producing works of unrighteousness are only symptoms of Holy Ghost starvation.  "It is the Spirit who gives eternal life.  Human effort accomplishes nothing.  And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life" (John 6:63 New Living Translation).

             In the same way we fight disease germs by raising the level of health in the total body organism, thereby expelling disease germs by health; let us raise the level of health in the total Body of Christ organism by receiving the Holy Spirit without measure resulting in the fear and holiness of the Lord! This will result in wisdom, knowledge, and understanding, which, in turn, results in wholeness and obedience to the joy of His heart and will for our lives.  Selah.  Amen.

            All the while remembering what Paul spoke to the Ephesians:

   Show to others the Father's nature because you are members of his family.  Let your life be characterized by the kind of love that Christ had when he offered himself to God in our behalf.  Such love will give off a fragrance in your life.  Because you are God-persons, avoid practices such as promiscuous sexual relations, sexual perversion, double standards, grasping for more and more.  In fact, don't even joke about these things, and avoid meaningless superficial talk.  Learn instead to give thanks to God for his good gifts.

                                                                                                     Ephesians 5:1-4 Heart of Paul

               In 1660 A.D. Thomas Watson said:

“The fear of God promotes spiritual joy; it is the morning star

which ushers in the sunlight of comfort.”

HOME PAGE     ABOUT     CONTACT US     INTERCESSORS' CORNER     ITINERARY     PRAYER FOCUS

OVERFLOW SIGN-UP     PRODUCTS     24-7 PRAY USA SIGN-UP

Return to Top of Page