The Fear Of The Lord Part 1

INTRO: Our subject this morning is the fear of the Lord. If my records are correct, I gave a message in 2004 on the fear of the Lord. That is ten years ago. As I have thought over this subject over the years, I realized that one of the reasons the Church has left true spirituality in the last number of decades is that we have lost the fear of God. The Church in North America is in a crisis condition today. There are a number of doctrines that I believe have crept into modern Christianity that have been, at least in part, the cause of the loss of the fear of God. Surely there are other things as well, but I believe that the present teaching of unconditional love; unconditional forgiveness, unconditional eternal security; unconditional grace and possibly unconditional election have been the cause of much of this loss of the fear of God. Lord willing, I want to do two messages on the fear of God and the importance of that subject, and then a message on the subjects I have just mentioned. In this message I am redoing the message on the fear of God I did some years ago, and then I want to add one message dealing with those passages that speak of the fear of the Lord. As important as the topics of the grace of God and the love of God, and the goodness of God are, they must brought into balance with doctrines such as the fear of the Lord, God's justice and His holiness. And I fear we preachers have failed to do that for a good many years. I believe one of the missing elements in North American Christianity is a healthy fear of God.