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                         Love, Fear and Obedience

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By David Wilkerson
August 17, 1992
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          "... By the fear of the LORD men depart from evil."
          (Proverbs 16:6) "The fear of the LORD is to hate
          evil..." (Proverbs 8:13) "He that hath my commandments,
          and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me..." (John
          14:21) "And this is love, that we walk after his
          commandments..." (2 John 1:6)

          Love, fear and obedience - when it comes to walking
          with God, they all mean the same thing. In the past I
          have preached on love for God, the fear of God and
          obedience to God, as if they were three different
          aspects of our relationship to the Lord. But I am
          learning now that these three are inseparable that you
          cannot practice one without the other two:

          You cannot love God without having the fear of God in
          you. You cannot love Him without obeying His Word. And
          you do not truly fear God unless you love and obey Him.

          Ask yourself: What is your motivation for gaining
          victory over lusts, passions and besetting sins? For
          obtaining holiness, godliness and purity of heart?

          Some teach that only the fear of God provokes believers
          to flee lusts. They quote these biblical passages:
          "Destruction and misery are in their ways: and the way
          of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God
          before their eyes" (Romans 3:16-18). "Fear the Lord,
          and depart from evil" (Proverbs 3:7). "The fear of the
          Lord is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares
          of death" (Proverbs 14:27).

          Scripture says the early church was edified by "walking
          in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy
          Ghost" (Acts 9:31) And Jeremiah said sinful Israel
          didn't follow God with all their heart because they
          didn't fear Him: "My fear is not in thee" (Jeremiah
          2:19).

          But other ministers teach that the only proper
          motivation against sin is love. I heard a Baptist
          pastor thundering on the radio recently: "Fear is not
          for the Christian - it has torment! You can't walk with
          God if you fear Him. Love is the only response to grace
          you'll ever need. If you love God, you'll obey Him."

          This pastor absolutely ruled out the fear of God as any
          motivation for obedience to the Lord! The very idea of
          teaching people the holy fear of God seemed abhorrent
          to him.

          Indeed, from pulpits everywhere today you hear mostly
          messages on love. There is little preaching about the
          fear of God - almost no powerful prophetic sermons that
          bring conviction of sin and compromise. Instead,
          pastors teach: "Just love Jesus with all your heart,
          and everything will be all right. We're not under the
          law - we're called to liberty! We all fail, but love
          covers all sin. So just learn to love. Love Jesus and
          the brethren, and you'll be guaranteed heaven."

          That sounds good - but it's not what the Word of God
          says! You may answer, "But didn't Jesus say the two
          most important commandments hinge on love - that we're
          to love God and love our neighbor?"

          Yes, He did! I have no argument with those who teach
          that love ought to be our primary motivation as
          believers. My problem is the difference between the
          modern-day church's definition of what Jesus calls
          love!

          Love is not merely an emotion or an affection for
          Christ. It cannot be fully shown just through worship
          or preaching. And it can't be measured by emotions.
          Many Christians can sit in church and feel great
          emotion, crying out to God and weeping and then walk
          straight out of the church and disobey God. Jesus says
          that's not loving Him!

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             Nothing Could Be Clearer in God's Word: Love Means
            Obeying the Commandments of the Lord Jesus Christ!

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          Jesus said the only kind of love acceptable to Him is
          obedience to His every command - obeying His Word in
          all things and at all times!

          "If ye love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15) "If
          ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love;
          even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide
          in his love" (John 15:10). "For this is the love of
          God, that we keep his commandments: and his
          commandments are not grievous" (1 John 5:3). Christ
          could not have made it plainer: Loving Him means
          obeying His every command!

          But what produces a consistent, lasting obedience? I am
          convinced that godly, loving obedience springs from one
          source: the fear of the living God! Obedience birthed
          by a true and pious fear of God is love perfected. I
          offer the following Scriptures as proof:

          "And hereby do we know that we know Him, if we keep His
          commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth
          not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not
          in him. But whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is
          the love of God perfected: hereby we know that we are
          in Him" (1 John 2:3-5).

          "Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be
          moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God
          acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God
          is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:28-29).

          You don't hear these Scriptures preached from many
          pulpits today. Instead, Jesus is portrayed as a doting
          grandfather who overlooks sin! Of course, He knows
          we're all weak, and that at times we're going to fail.
          But Scripture is saying something different here: It's
          saying that obedience to His commands is love perfected
          - and the fear of God is what motivates us to obey!

          Simply put it all boils down to this: If you truly have
          the fear of God in you, then you will obey His every
          word and by doing that, you will be loving Him in the
          way He says is acceptable to Him.

          If you fear the Lord and obey His Word in all things,
          you won't have to keep examining your heart to see if
          you truly love Him. You won't keep trying to measure
          your love by your tears or lack of tears. You can
          simply rest in His Word - Christ's very own Word - that
          your obedience to Him is love!

          Yet, on the other side of the coin are all the ways we
          think we express love for Jesus. For example, we can
          sit in His holy presence and sing tearfully: "Oh, how I
          love Jesus .,.." "You're the love of my life...."
          "Jesus, you're the center of my joy...." But if we are
          not obeying God's Word in our daily life, then all our
          talking, preaching and singing about loving Jesus are
          nothing but sentimental soulishness. It is all a sham!

          God has commanded you to forsake the world, separate
          yourself from evil companions, and crucify your flesh
          with all its lusts and passions. Are you obeying Him in
          these things? If not - if you continually disobey the
          Word He has given you - then your worship is totally
          unacceptable to Him, It is as sounding brass, tinkling
          cymbals - meaningless noise!

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              Many Christians Do Not Take God's Word Seriously
               - They Don't Believe God Means What He Says!

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          Did Jesus really mean what He said to His own dear
          friends? He told the disciples, "Be not afraid of them
          that kill the body, and after that have no more that
          they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall
          fear: Fear Him, which after He hath killed hath power
          to cast into hell: yea. I say unto you Fear Him" (Luke
          12:4-5).

          Does God really mean it when He says, "If any man love
          the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1
          John 2:15)? Or, "When lust hath conceived, it bringeth
          forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth
          death?" (James 1:15).

          I heard one preacher say recently, "You can't obey all
          the commandments in the Bible. And even if you did obey
          them all, it still wouldn't save you. That would be
          legalism!"

          No! On the contrary we have tried to destroy Christ's
          commands by calling them the law! The wonderful
          commandments He gave us were for our good, to save us
          from ourselves and from our sins! He commanded us to
          repent. He commanded us to believe in Him and in the
          heavenly Father. And He commanded us to love our
          brother as ourselves to forgive others, and He in turn
          would forgive us.

          If you are obeying these commands alone - to repent
          from your sins, to believe that the Father sent Jesus,
          and to love and forgive your brother - then you are
          saved! You're walking in the light as you have received
          it.

          When Jesus says we're not saved by the law, He's
          talking about something altogether different. He's
          talking about our efforts to "earn" salvation - the way
          the Jewish leaders tried to by observing all the
          religious customs: the washing of pots and pans, the
          carefully calculated tithes, and all the rest of the
          660 works of the flesh.

          No one can ever be saved by works. But I ask you: Which
          of the Ten Commandments can you break and go to heaven?
          Adultery? Lying? The New Testament itself says,
          "Adulterers God will judge" (Hebrews 13:4), and "all
          liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth
          with fire and brimstone: which is the second death"
          (Revelation 21:5).

          Beloved, we don't have the right to break any of these
          commandments! Jesus said He came not to destroy the
          law, but to fulfill it - and that if any man taught
          otherwise, he should have a millstone tied around his
          neck and be cast into the sea!

          I'm going to make a very bold statement: I believe it
          is impossible to consistently walk in obedience and
          holiness unless you have the fear of God in your heart!

          If you don't have the fear of God, you will eventually
          believe that God is easy on sin. You'll think that
          since He's your loving Father, He'll never reject you -
          that you can sin all you want and keep getting up.
          You'll get on a merry-go-round of "sin, confess, sin,
          confess" - and you'll say to yourself, "I can do
          whatever I want, I'll just run back to Jesus and make
          it right. He'll forgive me at any moment!"

          No! It is true the thief who hung on the cross next to
          Jesus was saved in his dying hour - but true repentence
          had already taken place in him! Many today think they
          can cry out to God just before they die - but the truth
          is, they will be too hardened by their sin!

          Right now, you may be asking, "How can I obtain the
          fear of God? If the fear of the Lord is the very
          foundation of obedience, and obedience is love
          perfected - then show me how to lay hold of a holy
          fear."

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                      You Obtain the Fear of God Just
                       as Israel Did: You Learn It!

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          The Lord is ready to teach His fear to all who desire
          it: "Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach
          you the fear of the Lord" (Psalm 34:11)

          God teaches us the fear of Him through His Word! He
          used Moses to give us two examples of how we are to
          learn to fear Him:

          1. Before he died, Moses prescribed for Israel's kings
          how to walk in obedience. Moses could see prophetically
          that the children of Israel were going to make kings
          after their own lust. So he prophesied to these future
          kings:

          "And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of
          his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law
          in a book...and he shall read therein all the days of
          his life: that he may learn to fear the Lord his God,
          to keep all the words of this law and these statutes,
          to do them" (Deuteronomy 17:15-19).

          Every king was to constantly feed his soul and mind on
          God's record of past dealings with Israel. He would
          learn to fear God by seeing how the Lord Jehovah
          blessed the obedient - and how he utterly destroyed and
          cursed all who disobeyed His Word.

          Beloved, that is how I have learned the fear of God!
          I've searched again and again throughout First and
          Second Samuel, Kings and Chronicles and each time God's
          dealings have been clear: "And the king did that which
          was right before the Lord, as did his father, and he
          walked in the fear of God. And the Lord was with him,
          and blessed him and prospered him, and put the dread of
          Him in all of their enemies...."

          Yet, over and over, the same biblical record says of
          other kings: "And the king did that which was evil in
          the sight of the Lord, and forgot the ways of God, and
          walked according to his own mind. And the Lord departed
          from him, and there was famine and ruin and
          destruction..."

          It was very simple: The ones who did what was right.
          God blessed. And those who did was what evil, God
          forsook.

          God says through His record, "I have never winked at
          sin, and I never will. And if you continue to
          compromise and flirt with sin, I will deal you with
          just as I dealt with David! I have no favorites. Do you
          think I will somehow overlook your wicked deeds, when
          I've judged him - a man after My own heart?"

          2. Moses also commanded Israel to read anew the
          commandments of the Lord to every generation. The
          people were to call a special assembly every seven
          years, to recount all of God's righteous dealings with
          their fathers. Moses prophesied to them: "That they may
          hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your
          God, and observe to do all the words of this law: And
          that their children which have not known any thing, may
          hear, and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as
          ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to
          possess it" (Deuteronomy 31:12-13).

          Moses was prophesying, "New generations of children
          will rise up who know nothing about the fear of God!
          They will have no motivation whatsoever to obey Him and
          to walk in holiness. Men and women of God must teach
          them the record of God's ways in His Word - how He
          blessed everyone who obeyed Him and cursed all who
          disobeyed!"

          Beloved, Moses was speaking of our day! Isn't this what
          is happening in our country right now? A new generation
          of youth has risen up, and they know nothing about
          responsibility and morality. Listen to the talk of any
          teenager on the street - you'll hear the vilest, most
          filthy language on the face of the earth! It's right
          out of hell - and our children have been baptized in it
          through music, movies and television!

          This generation is lost - they know nothing about God!
          And if churches and Sunday schools won't cry out and
          provoke young people about their sins, who's going to
          do it?

          It won't be the educators! Schoolchildren are now
          learning about "AIDS education" - meaning, how to use
          condoms and perform sexual acts! Right now a tract is
          being circulated among New York City's seventh graders,
          called "Your Rights." It says, "You have a right to
          have sex with anybody of any gender, anytime you
          please." The tract is sponsored by school-related
          organizations - and their goal is to distribute
          one-half million of the booklets in every school in the
          city!

          God is saying to the church, "Your children aren't
          going to know anything about Me or about My holiness.
          You must teach them the fear of God - teach them the
          record of My dealings!"

          If you are unwilling to search out God's Word to learn
          how He deals with sin and disobedience, then simply
          consider how He has judged sin in His house over the
          past five years:

          He brought down the entire PTL ministry. The world saw
          a minister of the gospel chained like a common street
          criminal - and hauled off to prison for many years!

          God shook up His church by allowing all the filthy
          details to be exposed. I saw the front-page photo and
          said, "Lord, if nothing else You've said in history has
          put Your fear into every preacher in America, this had
          better do it!"

          God brought down the most-watched TV ministry on the
          face of the earth! Shame and reproach crashed down on
          America's best-known preacher, a man seen on television
          more than any other in history. And it all fell because
          of sin!

          God showed His church that a man can stand in the
          pulpit and preach about loving Jesus - but if he's not
          living those words, he's not loving Christ. He can cry
          and plead all he wants!

          I love both of these men - and I'm not setting myself
          above either of them, or above anyone else. But I do
          know that if I don't walk in the fear of God, I will
          fall too!

          Are you someone so special or important that God will
          overlook your sin, your secret lust, your disobedience?
          No - you can be sure your sin will find you out! If you
          have witnessed all of these public dealings of God
          against hidden sin in His church, and yet you still
          have not learned to fear God - then you are bound by
          your iniquity and headed for the same end!

          Dear saint, you have to want the fear of God - you have
          to seek it with all your heart! God does not give His
          fear to those who are slothful or spiritually lazy: "If
          thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as
          for hid treasures; then shalt thou understand the fear
          of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God" (Proverbs
          2:4-5)

          Yet obtaining the fear of God is actually very simple:
          It begins by your obedience to Him in what you already
          know.

          Now, when I talk about obeying God, I don't mean
          memorizing every red-letter word in the gospels in
          order to do them all. Rather, if you are simply
          faithful to obey the light you already have - to obey
          the commandments you know - God will lead you, step by
          step, in further obedience and into His holy fear. You
          won't have to figure out some legalistic way to obey
          Him. Obedience will come to you in a very loving,
          natural way!

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                         Let Me Share With You the
                      Glorious Benefits of Obedience!

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          Jesus has promised incredible blessings to all who are
          "perfecting holiness in the fear of God" (2 Corinthians
          7:1). There are many such benefits, but I will list
          only three:

          1. You'll be blessed with a manifestation of Jesus
          Himself in your inner man. "He that hath my
          commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth
          Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of my Father,
          and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him"
          (John 14:21).

          This is one of the most powerful promises in the Word
          of God! First, Jesus says: "He that loveth me shall be
          loved of my Father." In other words, "God will have a
          special love for you because you obey Me!"

          We know God has a corporate love for the whole world.
          But Jesus is talking about something else. He's saying
          the Father has a special love in His heart for you when
          you walk in obedience to His Son. He begins to love you
          in a very special way!

          And I will love him, and will manifest myself to him"
          (John 14:21). Jesus also says that if you obey Him, He
          will manifest Himself to you! That is so incredible, I
          can't comprehend it. As I prepared this message, I
          spent an entire week on this one subject: "Lord, what
          do you mean - if I obey You, You'll 'manifest' Yourself
          to me?"

          I still don't know how He'll do it. But I can go to Him
          in prayer and say, "Jesus, you made me believe I can
          hang onto this promise. You've told me I don't just
          know a historical Jesus - but that every day of my
          life, no matter how old I get, You will become more
          real to me until my last day!"

          Finally, Jesus said, "If a man love Me, he will keep My
          words: and My Father will love him, and We will come
          unto him and make Our abode with him" (John 14:23).

          Imagine it: Jesus has given you His personal promise.
          If you simply love Him through your obedience to Him,
          He will take upon Himself the obligation to do all
          these things for you! He will show you the special love
          that the Father has for you; He will manifest Himself
          to you; and He and the Father will actually come and
          dwell within you - possessing you entirely, opening up
          your understanding to who God is, and filling your
          body, soul and spirit with the glory of His presence!

          2. You'll be blessed with a special unction and
          anointing to hear and know His voice. "But the
          anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you,
          and ye need not that any man to teach you: but as the
          same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is
          truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you,
          ye shall abide in Him" (1 John 2:27).

          When the fear of God floods your soul - when you've
          obeyed Him, resisting the devil, fleeing lust, putting
          away the sin that so easily besets you - you begin to
          receive the unction of hearing and knowing His voice.
          You'll have spiritual ears to hear! You won't need some
          prophet or teacher to "give you a word" from God. You
          will be taught by the abiding Spirit of God!

          Yet any Christian who lives in sin - who walks in lust,
          fornication, covetousness or disobedience of any kind -
          cannot hear the true voice of God. In fact, nothing he
          hears is of God - but is either of the flesh or the
          devil!

          I have known Christians, including ministers, who were
          living in sin - lust-filled, sensual, bound by some
          wicked stronghold. They began hearing still, small
          voices.- lovely voices, directing them and promising
          them good things. These voices said, "My dear, beloved
          child - God is with you! You will behold wonders,
          miracles and blessings on all sides,"

          But these things never came to pass - because the
          voices were not of God! It was either their own fleshly
          desires or the powers of darkness, coming to deceive
          them!

          Oh, the blinding power of lust! Jesus said to the Jews
          who followed Him: "Why do ye not understand my speech?
          even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your
          father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will
          do" (John 8:43-44). Jesus was saying to them, "I speak
          plainly to you, yet you don't hear what I say. It is
          because your heart is filled with lust, and you're
          unable to hear the truth!"

          Do you want to hear from God? Then get honest with Him
          about your sin! Lay down your lust, let God deal with
          you and the soundproof wall that keeps you from hearing
          His voice will come down.

          3. You'll be blessed with answered prayers and fullness
          of joy! "if ye abide in me, and my words abide in you,
          ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto
          you.... These things have I spoken unto you, that my
          joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be
          full" (John 15:7,11). Beloved, fullness of joy comes
          from hearing His voice clearly!

          Nothing gives me joy more than knowing the Lord has
          truly spoken to me. When I have obeyed, and done all
          that He has asked of me, I come into the secret place
          to commune with Him - and He begins to speak. And that
          is as close to heaven on earth as possible!

          If you will but say to Jesus, "Lord, I want to walk in
          Your righteousness, to truly love You through
          obedience," God promises:

          "And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I
          will answer,' and while they are yet speaking, I will
          hear" (Isaiah 65:24). "The Lord is far from the wicked:
          but he heareth the prayer of the righteous" (Proverbs
          15:29). "The prayer of the upright is his delight"
          (Proverbs 15:8).

          Ask God to put a holy fear in your heart; begin to walk
          fully in obedience to all you know of His commands -
          and you will be perfected in your love for Jesus!

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