In order for us as human beings to live a proper human life, we need to fear the Lord, to revere the Lord; for us to fear the Lord is for us to be in fear of offending Him, of losing His presence, of losing His smile in this age and His reward in the next age. Oh, Lord!
This week in our crystallization study of the book of Proverbs we come to a great matter which is seen quite a lot in this book and throughout the Bible, something related to fearing the Lord.
The title is The Intrinsic Significance of Fearing the Lord in the Economy of God.
We did not get into the depths of this subject before, but it is like a gold vein in the Bible and in the ministry of the age; it is a huge matter in the whole Bible, especially in the Old Testament, is also sprinkled through the New Testament.
When we consider the matter of fearing the Lord or fearing God, we need to consider it prayerfully in the light of God’s economy; everything we see in the Bible needs to be seen in the context of the economy of God.
The book of Proverbs teaches us the proper way of human contact, how we should contact people, which is mainly to reject the self and live in God.
The book of Proverbs speaks of the way to conduct ourselves and contact others; however, this is not to be taken and applied in the natural realm; rather, this book is a guide to those who live in resurrection. Amen!
Those who live in resurrection are those who deny the self, those who don’t rely on the self but rather, trust solely in God and live in God.
We want to be those who come to the word of God and live our daily life not by trusting in ourselves but by living in resurrection by denying the self, rejecting the self, and trusting solely in God to be everything to us.
This is what God’s economy is about.
When speaking of the matter of fearing God, we need to realize that to fear God is to have a reverential awe of God; we should never lose our sense of the awesomeness of God.
In Gen. 28:17, after Jacob had the dream of the heavenly ladder at Bethel, he exclaimed that the place he was in was awesome.
This is the feeling we should have concerning the church: the church is awesome.
And in Daniel 9:4, as Daniel was praying to God, as a man of preciousness, he refers to the Lord as the great and awesome God. This is wonderful.
Our God is awesome; in our relationship with God, we need to fear the Lord. When we fear the Lord, it is a relationship of reverence, openness, and obedience to the Lord.
In our relationship with the Lord, we need to have an intimate feeling of His reverence, being open and obedient to Him.
May the Lord shine on us and bring us into a proper fear of the Lord according to His economy, His eternal purpose.
We need to Fear the Lord, being in Fear of Offending Him, Losing His Presence, and not Receiving Him as our Reward in the Next Age
The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of knowledge (Prov. 1:7); again and again, in the book of Proverbs, we are told concerning fearing Jehovah and the fear of Jehovah.
The first principle for us as men to live a proper human life is for us to fear the Lord, to revere the Lord. What does it mean to fear the Lord? It is to be in fear of offending Him, of losing His presence, and of not receiving Him as our reward in the next age (Prov. 1:1, 7; Eph. 4:30; 2 Cor. 5:9-10).
We are not talking about being scared of God, thinking that He is after us and He wants to get us, punish us, and strike us; such thoughts are inflicted on man by the enemy, who actually himself does this – he wants to destroy man.
To fear the Lord is to be in fear of missing the Lord’s smile in this age and His reward in the next age.
Experientially, as we talk to the Lord, we may have a sense of losing His presence; this is a kind of a foretaste of what outer darkness is like.
When you are in outer darkness, that’s the worse thing for the thousand years; when today we lose the Lord’s presence even for a little bit, we don’t have Him as light shining in us, that is a fearful thing.
Light is the presence of God; light is the presence of the Lord with our spirit. In this age, we fear losing the Lord’s presence and we fear not receiving Him as our reward in the next age.
It would be a tragedy for us to live a life of not living in His presence in this age and not receiving Him as our reward in the next age.
This is why the Lord brought us into His recovery so that we can be prepared to be His bride in that thousand years and receive Him as our reward, to enjoy a feast with Him and reign with Him for a thousand years.
May we be in fear of missing the Lord’s smile in this age and His reward in the next age.
The Lord’s smile means that we’re living in the person of Christ (2 Cor. 2:10); we live in the index of His eyes, being infused with Him, having His sweet and intimate presence with us.
The Lord’s presence is His smile; if we have the Lord’s smile, we have everything.
If we live in the Lord’s presence in this age, He will be our reward in the next age. The Lord’s presence is everything to us, both in our life and in our work.
The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of knowledge; this knowledge, in view of the whole Bible, is the subjective knowledge of Christ.
We want to know Him personally, affectionately, and intimately; this is the kind of knowledge of Christ that we want.
In Eph. 4:30 Paul charged us not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God in whom we were sealed unto the day of our redemption; the day of redemption refers to the day of the redemption of our body, the day of the transfiguration of our body, when our body is swallowed up by the divine life.
We do not want to grieve the Holy Spirit of God; we don’t want to make the Spirit of God in our spirit unhappy. Amen, we don’t want to use His smile!
2 Cor. 5:9-10 is something we all want to declare as being our reality, for we are determined to gain the honour of being well-pleasing to God; we want to have this same determination as Paul to be well-pleasing to God, to have His smile.
For us to fear the Lord is for us to consider Him and regard Him in everything, never forgetting that He is the wonderful God who has created us (Isa. 43:7).
Fearing the Lord stops us from doing evil, and it causes us to be touched by the sufferings of others and to show mercy and compassion to them.
Thank the Lord, He is the God who made us, formed us, and created us; He created, formed, and even made us for His glory.
We are made for this one particular purpose, which is to express God in a corporate way.
For us to be His corporate expression, His fullness, we need to be filled with His riches.
As we enjoy the riches of Christ personally and corporately (Eph. 3:8) we become the fullness of the One who fills all and in all, the Body of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23), even the fullness of God (Eph. 3:19).
For us o fear the Lord isn’t only that we flee from sins but even more, for us to reject the self; fearing the Lord is not merely to fear that we have sinned or that we are worldly but to fear that what we are doing is out of ourselves, not out of the Lord (Matt. 16:24; 2 Cor. 4:5).
May our prayer to the Lord be that we want to serve Him in our spirit, serving by the Spirit of God, which means that we reject the self, and we do everything with Him and in Him. Amen!
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding; knowledge, wisdom, and understanding come from God, so if we fear Him, revere Him, these will be our possessions (Prov. 1:1, 7; 2:4-5; 3:5-10; 8:13; 9:10; 10:27; 14:2, 26-27; 15:16, 33a; 16:6; 19:23).
It is good to read these verses with much prayer and prayerful consideration so that the Lord may shine on us regarding the matter of fearing the Lord.
Lord Jesus, we love You and we fear You! We revere You and we fear offending You. We do not want to grieve the Holy Spirit of God in which we are sealed unto the day of our redemption. We love You, Lord, and we love Your presence; we fear losing Your presence! We don’t want to miss Your smile in this age and Your reward in the next. Infuse us with a healthy fear of God to live a proper human life in the presence of the Lord. Your presence is everything to us in our daily life and our work. We want to consider You in everything, regarding You, never forgetting that You are the wonderful God who created us. Amen, Lord, we flee from sins because we fear You, and we reject our self. We do not want to do anything that is out of ourselves, not out of the Lord. Your presence is everything to us. We love You, dear Lord!
The Spirit of Wisdom and the Spirit of the Fear of Jehovah Rested upon Christ and Filled Him – and this Spirit is with our spirit today!
Isaiah prophesied that the Spirit of Jehovah – the Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of understanding, the Spirit of counsel, the Spirit of might, the Spirit of knowledge, and the Spirit of the fear of Jehovah — would rest upon Christ (Isa. 11:1-2).
What is the Spirit of Jehovah, or who is the Spirit of Jehovah?
He is the Spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding, the Spirit of counsel, the Spirit of might, the Spirit of knowledge, and the Spirit of the fear of Jehovah.
If we get filled with the Spirit every day, we will be filled with the fear of the Lord, for fearing the Lord is one of the ingredients in the all-inclusive Spirit.
In our identification with Christ we, as we are one with Him, have access to the same Spirit; just like Christ, we need to delight in the fear of Jehovah, in the fear of God.
The Spirit was with the Lord Jesus all the time and was one with Him; Christ walked by the Spirit and lived a life in, with, by, and through the Spirit.
In the Lord’s human living, the Spirit was manifested with all these wonderful attributes (see Luke 4:1, 14; 10:21; John 1:32; Matt. 12:28).
The Lord Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit; He returned in the power of the Holy Spirit, He exulted in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit descended upon Him as a dove, and He cast out demons by the Spirit of God.
Christ was the centre of the Divine Trinity, yet He did nothing of Himself, by Himself, and for Himself; He did everything one with God the Father as He commanded Him to do, and He did everything by the Spirit.
In His human living, the Lord Jesus was filled with the Spirit of the reverential, obedient fear of the Lord; He delighted in the fear of the Lord.
Praise the Lord, in His resurrection Christ is now the all-inclusive, bountifully supplying Spirit of Jesus Christ as the Spirit of the fear of Jehovah, who includes the indescribable human living and ministry of the Lord Jesus (Isa. 11:2-3; Phil. 1:19)!
How can we submit to the Lord? How can we fear the Lord and be filled with the fear of God?
It is because the Spirit of the fear of Jehovah is in our spirit, mingled with our spirit.
His life of submission is in us, in our spirit. His very life is in us and is our life.
We simply need to turn to Him and sitch on the law of the Spirit of life; spontaneously, Christ as obedience and submission gets dispensed into us.
If we look at the life and living of Jesus, we realize that no human being feared God as much as Jesus did; in carrying out God’s New Testament ministry, the Lord Jesus told us that He never did anything out of Himself (John 5:19), He did not have His own work (4:34; 17:4), He did not speak His own word (14:10, 24), He did everything not by His own will (5:30), and He did not seek His own glory (7:18).
No human being ever feared God as much as Jesus did; He feared God to such an extent that He didn’t do His own work, didn’t seek His own glory, didn’t speak His own word, and He did everything not by His own will. Such a One now lives in us.
He is the Spirit with our spirit to live the same kind of life today. Jesus lived a life in which He did everything in God, with God, and for God; God was in His living, He was one with God, and everything He did was in oneness with God. This is the reality in Jesus (Eph. 4:20-21).
Today we can fear the Lord and live a life fearing the Lord simply by asking the Lord as the Spirit of reality to guide us into the reality of experiencing His life of submission and His life of obedience to the Father (John 16:13; Phil. 2:5-11).
We need to, day by day, open to the Lord completely and absolutely, asking the Father to fill us with the resurrected Christ as the all-inclusive Spirit!
This all-inclusive Spirit with and in our spirit is also the Spirit of the fear of the Lord that includes the human living and ministry of the Lord Jesus (Luke 11:5-13).
May we open to Him and ask Him to fill us with Himself as the Spirit of the fear of the Lord; when we ask Him to fill us with the Spirit, He will do it, for it is His desire to give good things to His children.
Father God, we open to You and we ask You to fill us with the all-inclusive Spirit! Amen, Lord, fill us with Yourself as the Spirit, with all that You are and have obtained and attained! Hallelujah, Jesus lived a life of fearing God, being filled with the Spirit of the reverential, obedient fear of God! Thank You, Lord, for coming into us as the Spirit of reality to guide us into the reality of experiencing Your life of submission and Your life of obedience to the Father! Amen, Lord, we fully open to You and we take You as our everything: guide us as the Spirit in the reality of all that You are! We want to experience Your life of submission and obedience to the Father.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Proverbs, pp. 7-8 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes (2020 winter training), week 11, The Intrinsic Significance of Fearing the Lord in the Economy of God.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Our conscience too the Lord must clear, / That we may walk in godly fear; / Our conscience must be keen today, / Else we cannot the Lord obey. (Hymns #1300)
– And, while Thou shalt smile upon me, / God of wisdom, love, and might, / Foes may hate, and friends disown me; / Show Thy face, and all is bright. (Hymns #460)
– Thy law of life in heart and mind / My conduct regulates; / The wealth of Thy reality / My being saturates. / O Thou art ever one with me, / Unrivaled unity! / One spirit with me all the time / For all eternity! (Hymns #539)
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