Episode Transcript
We're in 2 Kings 17.
Verse 29 is still our text.
Time having failed us last week to finish it out.
So we'll finish the verse today and keep moving.
2 Kings 17 verse 29.
Last week we continued learning about the response of the Gentile residents of Samaria, whom we will call Samaritans as we go further in the chapter here, and how they were taught to fear the Lord.
And so they responded to that wonderful teaching by making their own gods and putting them in the religious centers in all the cities where they dwelt.
Quite the opposite, kind of like teaching a toddler, isn't it?
Do the exact opposite of what you teach them.
We learned that people from several nations had been sent by the Assyrian king to occupy these cities of Samaria.
And from those cities the king had taken the prior residents, the children of Israel, who were in disobedience.
So let's reread the verse and then continue learning about the heathen's rebellious response to God's word.
2 Kings 17 verse 29.
It says, "Howbeit every nation made gods of their own and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made.
Every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt.
" And as we begin the new part of our study, I would like for us to look for a moment at the phrase, "the high places which the Samaritans had made.
" Now we've looked at high places plenty of times and we're probably not done looking at them.
In fact, as long as there are high places in the world, then we need to keep preaching about them, just like salvation, as long as there are lost people in the world.
So don't miss this.
These Samaritans were Gentiles racially.
They were not of the seed of the children of Israel.
Their families did not spring from the line of Jacob, who was also named Israel.
These Samaritans were also Gentiles spiritually.
They were not of the spiritual seed of Abraham, which continued through Isaac and Jacob and spiritually through every person who has believed.
I'm not a Jew racially, but I am of the children of Israel spiritually.
I am of the Israel of God.
I'm of the seed of Abraham by faith in Christ Jesus.
If you've been here long, you've been exposed to that truth about being of the seed of Abraham because of faith, not because of what your flesh is.
And this spiritual body is called the Israel of God there in Galatians chapter 6.
But these Samaritans were not of that spiritual body.
Their testimony was that they rejected the way the priest taught them to fear the Lord.
And they made their own gods.
The high places they made were places of worship for these Samaritans.
And there are many such places in the world today.
But the difference in a high place and a holy place is in who built them.
That's the key difference.
So let's notice here that the Samaritans built their gods and they also built their churches or their places of worship.
The Samaritans built the high places and they're still building them, even though the people may not be called Samaritans by name.
And those high places, those Samaritan churches, are often marvelous architectural structures with so many worshipers they may even have to have multiple services and have multiple campuses.
Some though are smaller, nondescript buildings tucked out in the woods.
But they're still spiritual high places.
And none of them are the Lord's church.
Brother Fulton taught recently that Christians were defined by what they believe, not by what they're called.
And that truth is exactly the same when it comes to the Lord's church.
After all, who makes up the Lord's church?
Believers.
The Lord's church is not defined by what the building looks like or by the name on the sign, but by what the people inside it believe.
Jesus said in Matthew chapter 16 and verse 18, Matthew 16 verse 18, "And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
" The Samaritans built the high places.
Jesus built the church.
And as Peter wrote, the church that Jesus built was not made of lifeless wood or lifeless bricks of dead stones, dead steel.
We're going to see what Simon Peter says about that.
He said, "Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house.
" So you can have a Samaritan place of worship, a high place, that's made up of stones, but they're not living stones.
They're dead stones.
"Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
" The Samaritan high place is bound by what it's made of.
It's bound by the worshippers who come there, what they believe is true.
But the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, while it is bound by truth, it's not bound by bricks and mortar and stones and wood and all of that.
Whether there's a building here or not, there's always a church.
And from the passage written in 1 Peter, and I think I didn't give you the verse, it's 2-5, 1 Peter 2-5.
From that passage, we learn about differences between high places and a holy place.
A church is not identified by what it's called, but by who built it.
And too many people are seeking high places built by the Samaritans, and too few are seeking the holy place built by the Lord Jesus.
And this ought to come as no surprise to us, that many are looking for the Samaritan high place, and fewer are looking for the Lord's church.
Listen to what Jesus said about that.
In Matthew chapter 7 verses 13 through 14.
Matthew 7 verses 13 through 14.
"Enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in there at.
" Now for many to go in, there has to be a wide entrance, doesn't there?
And that's what this is.
This is drawing the image in your mind of a gate that a lot of people, in fact most of the people, are going to go into.
And so you have to make it wide enough, and make the way broad enough so they can all get on it, and go into this wide gate, into that Samaritan church, which is where they're going.
And he said, "Because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
" You don't have to be a mathematical genius to know that few is less than many.
Many is greater than few.
And those verses are often used to show us that Jesus prophesied that most people will go the way that leads to destruction.
Religious people, whether they're saved or not, will normally assemble themselves together with other people who believe like they do.
Muslims assemble with Muslims, although not all Muslims believe alike.
And so you have even separation there.
The Sunni Muslims don't congregate with the Shiite Muslims, or with the other branches.
Presbyterians across the parking lot congregate with other Presbyterians across the parking lot, don't they?
They're not coming into here, unless they've lost their directions.
And we hope if one of them ever does come in here, they never go back over there.
That's what I'd like to see.
But just as most individuals will go down the Broadway that leads to destruction, the churches, the synagogues, the mosques, the temples, where those people gather, will also go down the Broadway that leads to destruction.
And what's worse is that their religious leaders will tell them you're on the right path.
You're fine.
You're good to go.
However, you won't really know if you're going to be accepted by whatever God they serve until after you die.
How's that?
You won't really know if you were on that way that leads to life until you actually die, and then you can find out what a miserable group of people that must be.
Now, salvation does not come by going to the right church building.
It comes by being a member of the church Jesus built, wherever that is, whatever it's called.
But after a person is saved, that person's spiritual growth is going to come by going to a church building where the people inside the building who are members of the church Jesus built are congregated.
That who needs to be inside that building are members of the church Jesus built.
They need to be inside this container and eat the same spiritual food as one another.
Now, some people don't like the food that we're serving here and what we're serving is just what Jesus served.
It's not anything that we came up with, and some don't like that.
And I'm not talking about somebody who has a personality difference with one of us.
I mean people who just flat out don't want to be taught the Bible.
They won't say that, but it's true by their actions.
More concerned about all the extraneous things with the church.
Well, I notice y'all don't have a "uh" and then you just fill in the blank.
And you're right, we don't have a lot of those things that people want.
But we are made up of people who Jesus brought to the church, the people whom He used to build the church upon the rock, which is Him, not Peter.
And we're going to feed those people the food that Jesus gave the apostles and the food that the apostles passed out to the people and that we continue to give and that we live by.
We don't feed you something we don't live by.
We feed you what we live by and that's God's Word.
And so the spiritual growth comes by going to that church building where people are congregated who are members of the church Jesus built.
And in our case, going to the church building takes two forms.
Walking through the doors of the building or walking through the doors of cyberspace, the internet, which some have tuned in to do.
Now let me just take a moment here, by the way.
I want to encourage our online members.
There may be people around you, online members, who go to a church building every time the doors are open.
And some of those people may give you a hard time because you don't.
But when you scroll your way to this broadcast and you set aside your time to assemble yourselves with us by way of the internet and to eat the same spiritual food that we're eating who are physically present in this building, then you're more faithful to the Lord's church than a person who goes to a building where the gospel is not preached.
Or where God's Word is used as a prop rather than the very food that gives spiritual life to dead sinners.
And I'm not saying that the people who give you a hard time about going to church on the internet are unsaved or are members of churches that don't preach the gospel.
I'm not saying that.
God knows.
And Brother Fulton and I have prayed that through this online ministry that you all would be built up in the faith and strengthened and able to rightly divide the word of truth and to know truth from error.
And we further pray that once you've been built up and people arrive there at different times, once you've been built up to that place, that you also would be able to find a physical church where there is a good Bible teaching pastor and people who love to hear God's Word taught above everything else.
So you can be in the physical presence of like-minded believers.
And there's nothing that compares to that kind of fellowship and I know you know that.
Some of you have been able to meet with Brother Fulton and Miss Tammy when they've come out to Arizona or to Indiana or Kentucky, Missouri.
And it's a beautiful thing to behold from our end.
We get to watch you all having physical fellowship, hugging one another's neck and shaking hands and sitting down and breaking bread together, physical bread in each other's presence.
But I also know that for some of you that might not ever be possible outside of those what have become biannual meetings with our pastor and his wife.
So when you tune in with us, you're where you're supposed to be.
We don't ever want this to be a crutch.
We want it to be a cafeteria where you get all of what God has in His Word so that if you're ever able to find a good church in your area, you'll go there and you'll know the difference between the Lord's Church and the churches that the Samaritans built.
Too many of you have been hurt and that includes maybe people in here by churches that the Samaritans built.
And don't allow others to discourage you online members.
You find out from those people who do criticize you whether they know their Bibles better this year than they did last year.
Ask them what new truths they learned this year from God's Word.
Invite them to church with you even if that means on your couch or your breakfast table so you can watch it.
They can watch it with you on the internet because you have no business going to a high place that a Samaritan made just for the sake of saying, "I went to a church building on Sunday morning.
" Verse 30 in our text, "And the men of Babylon made Sukkoth Benath, and the men of Kuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima.
" So now we're introducing the wall of shame of these false gods that were made by the nations who have inhabited Samaria, whom the Bible is going to call or is called Samaritans.
Now notice who made the gods.
Men did.
Verse 30 said, "The men of Babylon made Sukkoth Benath.
" That's their god.
Their idol.
Now that statement ought to end your search for a church right there.
What?
Men made their god?
Even a baby Christian knows that God made man.
Not the other way around.
So the religion of the Babylonians here can't be true if they made their god.
You don't have to know anything else about the Babylonian religion other than that right there, and you would know that's a false religion.
You don't know that you don't have to know what they believe about Jesus Christ, although it tells you right there they believe that they created God and it wasn't Jesus Christ and He didn't make them.
And so it was with each succeeding nation.
What they all had in common was that they made their own gods.
They made their own gods.
And what a timely lesson we're learning.
You know there would be people, if they listened to this message or perhaps what the pastor will teach from Hosea here in a little while, they may say, "Don't y'all know what time of year it is?
Why you're supposed to be telling about the baby Jesus and all all of that?
" Well they hadn't been around us very long.
I bet we preach more on the baby Jesus than what they've ever heard, even if we don't.
Our message isn't about that on Christmas Eve day.
But they say, "Well you should be in Matthew or Luke talking about the birth of Jesus.
" Listen, in this church we don't skip anything, including Luke and Matthew.
In fact, when we get to Luke and Matthew, we teach every single verse of every chapter until we come to the end of the book.
We don't skip a word.
We don't skip anything.
And I want to know if people did criticize how we do things here in the Christmas season as it's called, how many of those pastors who are preaching from the Nativity passages this morning will teach the entire book of Luke or Matthew to their people in the preceding and succeeding weeks?
Probably none of them.
They'll leave that verse and they'll go right back to whatever topic they were on for next Sunday and then the following Sunday, by the grace of God, I'd submit to you that verse by verse students "Know more about Jesus' birth without it being taught one day in December than those who hear it every year but only go to church that one time to hear it.
" We teach year-round from just about every book in the Bible.
We refer to the different books of the Bible.
That's what our commentary is.
I don't say, "Well here's what this commentator says and here was what this one says and this one says.
" Boy, that leads to confusion after a while.
We just try to show you what the Bible says about the Bible.
It works out a lot better that way, doesn't it?
There's no off-limits passages and there's no wrong season to talk about Jesus' birth or the resurrection as some might imagine.
So our text here gives me the opportunity to tell you about some of the man-made gods that we do see at this time of year.
One, here's a man-made God.
Here's something people brought into this argument.
They insist that Jesus was born on December 25th and they have absolutely no biblical evidence of their claim.
I don't know the date on which Jesus was born.
My study of the Scripture leads me to believe it was closer to some time in October.
But don't get upset with someone who doesn't do Christmas just like you do.
If this time of year brings into focus the birth of our Savior, the Savior of the world, then I say praise God.
I'd like you to be brought in focus every day.
But don't get hung up on a date because that date has turned into a man-made God and it detracts from the joy that we ought to have that God sent His Son into the world through a virgin womb that He might live among us and perfectly obey the law on our behalf and die a substitutionary death and be raised from the dead on the third day so we could also be raised to eternal life.
Another man-made God we see this time of year.
Now this will stir some of you up.
Don't leave because some of you have either said something like this or you liked it on Facebook and here it is when someone says don't say happy holidays, say Merry Christmas, quit taking the Christ out of Christmas.
There is no biblical warrant for that criticism either.
Did you know now this I'm only going to let the secret few in on this you on the internet too.
If you're not here you will never learn this.
The word Christmas is not in the Bible.
Do you know what is in the Bible?
The word holy day and when you put them together what does that make?
Holiday.
Bringing those two words together forms the English word holiday.
You know how many times the words holy day and holy days are in the Bible?
More than Christmas because that's zero.
Colossians chapter 2 verses 16 through 17.
I'm just trying to stir you up a little bit here this morning.
Colossians 2 16 through 17.
Now you think about this about the way you do Christmas or don't do Christmas.
Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of an holy day or holiday or of the new moon or as or of the sabbath days which are a shadow of things to come but the body is of Christ.
And if the body is of Christ why get all bent out of shape about the way someone else observes a holiday?
So if someone tells you happy holidays don't get offended.
In fact that'd be a great time to tell him about why the day Jesus was born whatever day it was was a holy day.
And the reason for which he came because that's who all the holy days point to.
That's what the Colossians text told us.
Don't get all wrapped up in the meat and the drink and the holy day and the new moons and the sabbath how people do that because every one of them are a shadow but the body is of Christ.
Christ is the real thing.
He's the reason for all of those shadows all of those types in the Bible in the Old Testament.
And then another man-made God we see this time of year is the lie that people tell their children about who gave them presents.
And it's a long-winded lie but as soon as children learn about math geography and the lack of wings on a reindeer they realize they've been hoodwinked and their parents start losing credibility with them.
You know my wife and I have worked for all of our money that we've ever made and we get the privilege of graciously giving gifts to people throughout the year especially our children and our grandchildren.
And when a child is about to have a birthday for example we ask them what do you want?
And if that request is appropriate within our financial means then we will usually buy the present for it.
Now if it's our grandkids we will definitely buy the present for it.
And if they're grateful children they'll say thank you mom and dad.
Guess who did not bring them the presents for their birthday?
Birthday Claus.
Exactly.
When they get their high school diploma graduation clause doesn't give them a gift.
You do.
The parents do.
And it's your business if you have Christmas tree ornaments with a fat white bearded man on them in a red suit or if you wear your red knit cap driving down the road with a white piece of cotton on the end of it.
But where I want to draw the line is that lie that you tell your children that this big fella called Santa Claus is responsible for giving their gifts to them.
And I'm not done with this one because there's an even greater harm than your children finding out you lied to them about who gave them their presents.
Now let's just get we're going to get very doctrinal about this because I want you to take this away with you.
Parents have typically told their children that being good is necessary for them to receive gifts.
Now what does the Bible teach us about gifts?
Here it is.
Romans 6 23 for the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Sin is a work.
It's an evil work and its wages or its payment or its reward all three will fit is death.
Now the gift of God is contrasted with the wages of sin.
By sin you earn death but by a gift not by wages but by a gift you receive eternal life.
So when you teach a Santa Claus indoctrinated child about the gift of salvation after you've taught them their whole life if you're naughty Santa won't bring you any presents you won't get any gifts unless you're really nice.
You've placed a stumbling block in the way of that child's understanding of the gift of God.
Now you may not you say well I would never try to do that.
I know but you do because the gift of God is not determined by whether the child is naughty or nice but by the grace of God.
It's whether God's naughty or nice and he is nice.
He's not evil.
On the other hand and this is the right way to teach your children if I teach my children that I give them gifts because I love them even if they threw a tantrum yesterday about something even if they said something ugly if I teach them that these gifts are because I love you not because you were good then I've set the stage for their understanding of why God would send his son to die for them.
The scripture says that God so loved the world that he gave if you give something or you gave something what was it?
It was a gift wasn't it?
And what was that gift?
It says God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
So the gift with a capital G that God gave us was prompted by love not by whether we were naughty or nice.
This is good doctrine.
Meditate on this.
I'm not just on a high horse right now.
I'm trying to get rid of some of the gods of the Samaritans that they've made and this time of year is no exception.
Let's move to the next verse.
Verse 31.
And the Aevites made Nipha's and Tartak and the Sephravites burnt their children in fire to a Dromalek and an Amalek the gods of Sephravaeum.
Now these Sephravites and these Aevites had twice as many gods as the nations in the preceding verse.
Did you notice that?
The Sephravites went all the way.
They sacrificed their children in the fire to those gods.
And the one true god tells parents to teach their children in the ways of the Lord to nurture them, to raise them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Not to burn them up in a fire.
Now you might ask why some heathen nations had one god and others had two.
Well let's look at that.
Look at a this wouldn't be the only view on that but it's a good one.
The Bible's very clear about it.
People who do not understand or believe in the Lord also don't understand the attributes of the Lord.
If I describe, if you want to know what an attribute is for the children, if I describe Brother Doug as a hard worker, as a student of the Bible, as a faithful husband, an honest church treasurer, then I have described some of his attributes.
Hard worker, studious, faithful, honest.
Those are his attributes.
So the subject of God's attributes, as you can imagine, would take a long time to teach.
We sure couldn't teach them in the short time we have here.
So just to keep it brief, I'll give you a couple of examples.
One, God is holy.
He said, "Be ye holy for I am holy.
" Happy holiday by the way.
It's the Lord's day and it's holy because he's holy.
Okay, see I'm conditioning you.
Don't get upset when somebody says happy holiday.
Holy, that means he's clean, he's pure.
Another attribute of God is that he is omnipresent.
Now, omnipresent means every or all, and present means here.
So he's everywhere, or every here.
He's everywhere all at once.
He's not limited by time or space or matter.
And if you read the 139th psalm, those first eight to ten verses will tell you about that.
And then a third attribute, and here's one that I'll use to demonstrate why the Samaritans called the Sephirophites and the Aevites would have two gods, or this would extend to having more than two gods, but have multiple gods.
And this attribute of God is that he is omnipotent.
That means he is all-powerful.
He is the mighty God.
He is the highest, the most high, the Bible calls him as well.
Psalm chapter, now before I read this psalm, these Samaritans are also referred to generally as heathen.
Heathen is a word that means the nations.
So it's contrasted with the children of Israel.
And the heathen by and large were unbelievers.
They were idolaters.
They were against God in every way.
Psalm 47 verses 7 through 8.
47 verses 7 through 8.
"For God is the king of all the earth.
Sing ye praises with understanding.
God reigneth over the heathen.
God sitteth upon the throne of his holiness.
" Now the heathen or the nations refer to people like the Samaritans about whom we are studying in this text.
"And if the heathen understood and believed that God reigneth over the heathen, then they would not have made any other gods.
" They would have said, "Well, we don't need to make Niphas and Tartak or Adram, Adramalek and Hamalek.
God said he reigns over the heathen.
He's over us and he's over all the earth.
There is no place for these other gods to belong.
There's no other power that they could have because God reigneth over the heathen.
He's over us.
They have the same problem as the heathen whom Paul encountered in the book of Acts.
I'll read chapter 17 verses 22 through 23, Acts 17, 22 through 23.
"Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and said, 'Ye men of Athens,'" I bet he did his hand just like that too, "'Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God, whom therefore ye ignorantly worship.
Him declare I unto you.
'" Now that phrase, "to the unknown," those three English words come from one Greek word, agnostos, from which you get the word agnostic.
And agnostos means unknown.
If you ask an agnostic whether there is a god, he would say that is unknown.
An agnostic says it cannot be known whether there is a god or not.
I spoke with an agnostic woman many years ago when I was in college.
I had never come across somebody who identified themselves as an agnostic, and so I had no idea what that meant.
And she said that she and her husband neither affirmed nor denied the existence of God.
They said, "We're not saying he doesn't exist or that he does exist.
We're saying it cannot be known.
" Now an atheist on the other hand says there is no god.
An atheist doesn't ride the fence.
They say, "Nope, there is no god.
" So there's a slight difference, but what do both of them have in common?
They're unbelievers.
Whether one says there is no god or one said, "Well there could be.
" Well the devil says there is one, and he trembles, and he's an unbeliever.
And Athens was the chief city of Greece, still is, and it was full of idolatry.
In fact, if you studied in school, you may have studied some Greek mythology as part of your literature or whatever class it fell under, and they had all of these gods of the god of the sea and the god of the sun and the god of this and the god of that.
They had the same problem as these Samaritans.
They refused to acknowledge that god reigneth over the heathen.
In fact, in Ephesus we read about the goddess Diana.
In Demetrius the silversmith made a lot of money constructing, forging statues of this goddess Diana.
And when the apostles came to preach the gospel, people started believing it and quit buying these idols, and it made Demetrius upset.
And that's what happens with the devil's crowd.
When God's people begin interfering with the devil's way of doing business, then he rises up.
And the goddess of the Ephesians, Diana, according to Acts chapter 19 verse 35, these Athenians or these Grecians in Athens, believe that she fell down from Jupiter.
Well, who made Jupiter?
God did.
He is sovereign over Jupiter.
He reigneth over Jupiter.
He made Jupiter.
So why would the Ephesians believe in a goddess who fell down from a planet that God made?
Again, it's a lack of understanding and belief in the omnipotence of God.
That he who created all things is ruler over all things.
The Bible says, "By him were all things made, and without him was not anything made that was made.
" That's in John chapter 1.
And if the Ephesians then or the Sephiorites in our text understood and believed in God's omnipotence, then they would have no need for any other gods.
So to understand God, you have to have a Bible-centered view of him.
If you don't, then you will have a world-centered view of God, which can be in its most common form a mixture of a Bible-centered view and a world-centered view.
And you know what that is?
That's a world-centered view of God.
You either have a Bible-centered view of God or you do not.
You add one thing in there, you take something, some of his attributes away, you add something to him, you don't have a Bible-centered view of God.
You'll just believe what you're told.
"I have a dear person in mind whom I love, and he's a believer.
He professes faith in Christ.
But I would love to see him study his Bible more.
" Sometimes he says things, he's older, quite a bit older, and he says things like he hopes that heaven will have, and I won't name the particular hobbies and pursuits as he could be watching, you know, hope I'm able to play this game or eat this food or do these things, things that we do here on earth.
And when I was a little boy, I wondered if there'd be french fries in heaven.
Some of you did too, don't raise your hand.
But when I matured, I realized that the Bible never promises those silly things.
In fact, the new bodies that we're going to have will be glorified.
They won't experience hunger.
They won't want earthly things that perish with the using and go into the drawf.
And friend, if you have some sort of desire that heaven will be a great fishing place, and you're talking to a person who loves to fish, but if you think, well, it's going to be a great fishing hole up there, or it's going to be a place where you engage in some earthly past time that you currently enjoy, then you're being very shallow.
Because being in the presence of the Lord ought to be the thing that thrills you the most, that gives you the greatest comfort about life after death.
A funeral I went to recently, the pastor and I know he meant well, but one of the things he said is, "If you'll get saved, you can go be with brother so-and-so who just died.
" That's a side benefit.
I want to see Jesus, and I'm going to see Jesus.
Whatever Jesus has me doing is fine with me.
That ought to be the thing that we look forward to the most, not trying to forge heaven into some sort of a hodgepodge of things we enjoy here and things we'll enjoy there.
Have a Bible-centered view of life in Christ, both now and you will then.
Verse 32, we'll go into this very quickly and then we'll have to stop.
"Wow, you wonder where verse 32 came from.
So they feared the Lord and made them under themselves the lowest of them priests of the high places which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places.
" First, you might think, well, that's a contradiction.
It just said they built their own gods and sacrificed to them.
How could they fear the Lord and do those other things listed in verse 31?
Remember, the word fear, the English word fear, is widely used in the Bible, and it describes a feeling of terror on one hand.
In Genesis chapter 3 verse 10 is the first place the Hebrew word for fear is used in the Bible.
And this is after Adam sinned and he was hiding from God.
How foolish was that?
Genesis 3 verse 10, and he said, "I heard thy voice in the garden," he's talking to God, "and I was afraid.
" That's the same as the word fear, because I was naked and I hid myself.
But fear also describes a feeling of reverence, of respect.
In fact, same Hebrew word now, it's given to us in Leviticus chapter 19 verse 20, which we'll have to close with.
Leviticus 19 verse 20, where God told the children of Israel, "You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary.
" That reverence is the same word as fear in our text.
So it can mean the terror of the Lord, it can mean the reverence or the respect that you have for the Lord.
We reverence this sanctuary in here.
God said, "You reverence the holy place, the place where you are, the place where you assembled.
" He said, "For I am the Lord.
" And we'll pick up with that verse and expound more on it when we meet again, Lord willing, next week.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you so much for the good attention from the people who came and from those who tuned in online and for those perhaps who will watch later on.
And Lord, we pray that this would be edifying to them, that because your word was front and center this morning, that the people would be edified, would be committed to obeying it.
And Lord, that this would just give us one more way to resist the devil, that he may flee from us.
And we ask this same liberty for our pastor during the next hour and that our singing, our prayer, our fellowship, the preaching of your word and the receiving of it would be pleasing to you.
In Jesus' name, amen.
