GOD’S PROMISES
TO THOSE WHO FEAR HIM
Psalm 103:8-18
Don’t you hate it when you find out
that a great deal you were counting on does not apply to you because your
didn’t “read the fine print? The
coupons and flyers of the department stores get you excited about their huge
discounts until you get ready to make your purchase and save a bundle. Then the clerk tells you that the fine print
points out that certain brands and product lines are not included in the sale!
We like
unconditional stuff! When someone makes
a promise, we want it to be unconditional.
The sweepstakes letters arrive and inform us that we are already a
winner…but we know we aren’t because there is a catch, something we still have
to do to qualify.
But once in a
while, if the promise is good enough, we are quite willing to meet the
conditions. Now granted, that doesn’t
happen that often but when it does, we jump at the opportunity presented. When Cathy says, “If you can help me with
some projects around the house in the morning, why don’t you plan to play golf
in the afternoon?” That is a condition
I can meet and live with in order to enjoy the promise of playing golf
later. When you tell you kids, if you
make the grades, we will see to it that you get to go to college, they would be
wise to accept the challenge, meet the conditions and enjoy the fruit of their
labors and your promises.
The Lord exhorts
us to walk in the fear of the Lord. He
lays the challenge out there for us, but then He follows it up with more than just
words of explanations, or threats of consequences. The Bible is full of promises made to “those who fear the
Lord.” Meet the conditions—and they are
not written in fine print! “If you will
fear the Lord, I promise to bless you by…” and then He fills in the blanks with
an incredible array of promises.
THESIS: When we walk
in the fear of the Lord, we are granted access to all the promises of God and
filled up with the pleasures of His abundant goodness.
What God calls
us to do is meet the conditions, conditions that are impossible apart from
Jesus Christ but guaranteed in Christ!
His promises are unshakable and the strength of His name assures us that
He can keep His Word:
Romans 4:20-21
Yet with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief,
but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that
what He had promised, He was able also to perform.
--Yet there are many who still have no fear of God in their
hearts, just as Paul says…
Romans 3:18
There is no fear of God before their eyes
--Those who have no fear of the Lord are graphically
portrayed in the previous verses of Romans 3.
Useless lives
– 3:12 Open graves –
3:13
Deceiving
tongues – 3:13 Poisonous lips –
3:13
Bitter words –
3:14 Persistent violence
– 3:15
Destructive
patterns – 3:16 Miserable days –
3:16
Peaceless
malcontents – 3:17
--But, those who fear the Lord…
·
Approach Him
with Awe
·
Submit to Him
with Humility
·
Obey Him with
Vigilance
·
Trust Him with
Confidence
--Then the promises He makes to those who fear Him will be
activated in our lives without fail!
I. GOD’S
PROMISES TO THOSE WHO FEAR THE LORD
--Typically, we would not associate the concepts of fear and
promises, since that which we fear often arises from ungodly and threatening sources.
--But the fear of the Lord is not like that…ungodly fears
drive us away from the Lord, but a godly fear of the Lord draws us to Him.
--Therefore, we can look to Him as our Protector and
Provider since He is powerful enough to overcome any threat that comes our way.
--But we also can come to Him as Promise Keeper because He
is always faithful to keep His word.
--Let’s take a look at a few of the many promises
God makes to those who will dare to take Him seriously enough to fear Him.
--This morning, we want to
look at SEVEN promises:
A.
HE
SAVES THOSE WHO FEAR HIM
Psa. 85:9 Surely his salvation
is near those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land.
--Only when we fear Him enough to see that our eternal
destiny rests in His hands and realize that He would be justified in condemning
us forever will we seek our salvation from Him alone.
--Those who have no fear of God, who have concluded that
either His judgments are irrelevant or His hand is impotent, will see no need
for salvation.
We are afraid in direct proportion to our immediate
sense of danger. Although I may have a
fear of cancer, that fear does not grip me until I have reason to believe that
I have it. Although a person may have a
vague sense of fear for what happens after death, until its immediacy hits
them, their fear does not motivate them to find a satisfactory answer and
genuine solution.
Only those who fear the Lord and
His righteous judgments find His salvation…He saves those who fear Him!
B. HE POURS OUT HIS LOVE AND MERCY ON THOSE WHO FEAR HIM
Psalm 103:11, 17 11For as high as the heavens are
above the earth, So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him… 17But
the lovingkindness of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who
fear Him, And His righteousness to children’s children,
--God’s lovingkindness, or mercy, is poured out in full
measure on those who fear Him.
--The text tells us that there is no limit to that mercy, no
end to His lovingkindness as it extends “from everlasting to everlasting.”
--God knows how needy we are, how desperate our condition is
as we try to live holy lives in an unholy world with hearts that are often
divided.
--Therefore, our God loves us so much that he takes all
those who fear Him and pours out His mercy on them, giving them every
consideration and extending to them the fullness of His affection—in spite of
what they have done to deserve their plight!
--We can run to Him and find in Him and His awesome, even
frightening power, a tender heart toward those who trust Him enough to come to
Him.
Lam. 3:22-23
The LORD’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never
fail. 23They are new every
morning; Great is Thy faithfulness.
C. HE HAS
COMPASSION ON THOSE WHO FEAR HIM
Psalm 103:13-14 Just
as a father has compassion on his children, So the LORD has compassion on those
who fear Him. 14For He
Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.
--This compassion arises from the deep, tender love of a
Father for His children as He looks upon us in pity for our helpless condition,
our overwhelming needs (from the same root we find the word for “womb,” —racham— that place of helplessness but also that place of hopeful
love where prospective parents focus their love on one as yet unborn, deserving
no love, having done nothing to earn it, just loved because of who he/she is!).
--The ideas of unconditional
choice (by which we have been called by God to be His children) and of His unconditional mercy and forgiveness (by
which we have been made His own despite the fact that we deserved to be
rejected forever from His presence) are both included in the idea of God’s
compassion.
--The fact that He has compassion “on those who fear Him”
reminds us that the fear of the Lord is an awesome gift that He plants in our
hearts as we come to know Him.
--How awful if we had to live without His compassion,
without the knowledge that He knows our every weakness, “our frame…is mindful
that we are but dust!”
Our pride cries out, “I don’t want your pity!” but
when our hearts are full of the fear of the Lord, we are grateful to pray,
“Lord, have mercy on me, for I have sinned against You and plead for you to
have compassion for me. Please
understand my weakness and take into consideration that I am but dust!”
To those who
fear the Lord, His promise is that He will always have compassion on us born of
a deep, tender love from Father to child!
D. HE STORES UP HIS GOODNESS FOR THOSE WHO FEAR HIM
Psa. 31:19 How great is your goodness,
which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you bestow in the sight
of men on those who take refuge in you.
--Those who affirm the biblical revelation of
God will gladly acknowledge that He is good, and that all that He does is good.
--The promise of God is that those who fear
Him will enjoy the storehouse of His goodness toward them as He bestows that
goodness without measure on them.
In our minds, we tend to see the fear of the Lord as
a negative thing, a response to Him that limits the full extent of joy that we
would like to experience from Him. In
God’s plan, it is by fearing Him that His bounty is unleashed, that the flood
of His goodness is poured out. Those
who want to make Him their “good buddy” and avoid all notions of fearing the
One they call friend, not only mistakenly assume that He can be diminished to
our level and made like us, but they effectively cut themselves off from the
very thing they want…to enjoy the goodness of the Lord. He stores up His goodness not for those who
presume to call Him “pal” but for those who fear and revere and hold Him in
awe.
E. HE MAKES SUFFICIENT
PROVISION FOR THOSE WHO FEAR HIM
Psa. 34:9-10
Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing. 10The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those
who seek the LORD lack no good thing.
Psa. 145:19
He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves
them
--If you want to find complete contentment,
you will find it only in fearing the Lord, because only in the fear of the Lord
are we promised that we will lack nothing.
--All that your heart desires as you have
learned to fear Him will be fulfilled as He hears your cry, recognizes your
need and gives so freely that you lack no good thing!
--When our longings are controlled by hearts
that do not fear the Lord, we will never be content and whatever provision we
receive will never be enough…it is only in allowing the fear of the Lord to
determine our desires that we will find contentment and realize that we lack
nothing.
F. HE
DELIGHTS IN THOSE WHO FEAR HIM
Psa. 147:11
the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing
love.
--Over the past few years, I have grown to
love the image of the Lord God Almighty delighting Himself in folks like you
and me!
--Who is it who brings delight to the heart of
God? It is those who fear Him, those
who put their hope in His unfailing love and abide in Him as those who could
not find any greater source of pleasure than to be with Him and stand in awe of
Him in all His splendor and majestic glory!
Zeph. 3:17
The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight
in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with
singing.”
G. HE
CONFIDES IN THOSE WHO FEAR HIM
Psa. 25:14
The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them.
--When the Lord knows that we fear Him, He
then knows that He can trust us with the secret things of His heart and confide
in us by showing us those wonderful blessings and promises contained in His
covenant with us that are hidden to those who have no fear of God in their
hearts.
--Why should He reveal His heart to those who
do not hold Him in the highest regard and who see Him as the God whose revealed
glory causes every knee to bow and heart to cry out for mercy?
--No, the Lord only confides in those who fear
Him, shares the secrets of His covenant with those He can trust to handle such
things with reverential awe and profound respect.
In Christ, our fear of
condemnation and punishment at the mighty hand of God have been taken
away. But we are now called to fear Him
in a new way, a deep way that impacts everything we do and how we understand
what it means to approach the God who really is Lord of heaven and earth. The strength of His promises is
unquestionable, as is the firmness of the conditions upon which these promises
have been given.
If you
fear the Lord, all these things are yours.
He wants to pour out His blessings on those who come to Him and find in
Him One who is sufficient for all things we will ever face in this life!
Psalm 46:1-2 God is our refuge and strength, a very
present help in trouble. Therefore we
will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains slip
into the heart of the sea…
His promises are true, His conditions are
clear, and the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever as a holy and
unshakable foundation upon which our lives can be lived in the delight of the
Lord. He loves us and wants us to
embrace these promises, so come let us walk in the fear of the Lord and enjoy
the love of our Father!
Psa. 103:11,13 11For
as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who
fear him… 13As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD
has compassion on those who fear him.
September 28, 2003
© David Horner 2003
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