The Fear of the Lord - 10.12.2025 - 9AM (Elder Brett Rodway)

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Love Quest International

Church Podcast where we seek to love all nations, equip the

church, mobilize the equipped, and serve all.

We're super glad you're joining us from whenever and wherever

you're at in the world. Welcome to the family to get

your Bibles ready, get some water, get some coffee, maybe

some tea, and get ready to receive.

It's go time. Let's get into it.

Hallelujah, we celebrate you, we glorify you.

Lord, we rejoice in you. You are here in this place,

loved by your mighty Spirit. You're going to touch hearts,

reveal your word and move in power.

Lord, we celebrate you. We celebrate you in Jesus name.

Amen. Amen.

All right, take a seat. Now.

When Lily was singing, she was talking about he's in the room.

Do you believe it? Jesus said.

Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there

in the midst. But do you believe it?

There's a shift that occurs between a statement that is a

wish and a statement that is a confident faith belief.

When we pray with one another, God is there, but do we believe

it? How will your prayers change

when we believe that to be true? How does your worship change

when you believe that to be true?

How does your confident faith shift gears?

When you believe that He is there, He is present.

I want to thank Pastor Terrace and Pastor Julia for this

incredible opportunity to be able to share the Word this

morning at the 9:00 AM experience.

And thank you so much for all you have done in establishing a

work where people can encounter Jesus at the beginning of the

year. Who remembers the Word for 2025?

This is the year of the the fear of God, the fog, right?

The year of the fear of God. And we're going to be look into

that this morning. The fear of God, the fear of God

is not a I'm afraid of God, right?

If you look back, actually, Elder John had a great message

where he spoke about the difference between afraid of

versus the fear of God. The fear of God begins with a

recognition of who he is. And This is why as we're seeing,

I was like, yes, when I recognize that the presence of

God is here, when we worship, when we pray, as we believe, it

changes everything. So we're going to be looking

into the fear of God. Proverbs Chapter 9, verse 10

Proverbs 9:10

says the reverent and Worshipful fear of the Lord is the

beginning, the chief and choices.

Part of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight and

understanding. Now the reverend and Worshipful

fear of the Lord is the beginning, but also the chief

and choicest part of wisdom. Wisdom started begins.

And the best part of wisdom, the most important part of wisdom,

is to fear God, to know God to to have a reverential awe of

God. Often you'll see in the

Scriptures we bring up, it's the reverent and Worshipful fear of

God. There's a recognition of the

greatness of God, the wonder of who he is.

There's If somebody's lived in the prairies all their life,

this may not be the best illustration, but work with me

here. I've been in the prairies.

We spent some time in Moose Jaw. Well, to be fair, not Moose Jaw,

the bedroom community of Moose Jaw, Karen Port.

Yes, yes, we spent a few months there working on a campaign that

we were part of and we went for a walk one day.

This is just to give you has anyone never been to the

Prairies, never been to the some of you never been to the

Prairies? That's crazy.

Yeah. We went stationed out.

We're going for a walk and we saw a tree and we said that,

well, look, we'll walk up to the tree.

We'll walk up to that tree and then we'll turn around and we're

we're walking, we're walking. We're still walking.

It's like the tree is running away.

What's going on? We can we get to the tree?

It's flat, right? And that's my, that's my story

about the prairies anyway. Bless.

And and it's, it's flat. We were driving between Medicine

Hat. Oh yeah, around there and then

all the way through to Karen Port.

And Stacey's never bought a magazine to read in her life.

She was so bored. She's like, please pull over.

Please. I got to see something.

Anyway, I digress. But it's the prairies are flat.

There's there's nothing there in terms.

There's very little ups and downs, right?

But then you come into Whistler or or or Banff and you go, you

see now these incredibly high mountains, the grandeur, the

awesomeness, it's like, whoa, what is that?

Especially being in the prairies all your life, you'd be like,

I've never seen anything that big, that amazing, that

incredible. As I say, not a great

illustration, but that's the idea of the fear of God.

The awe of God is I've got I, I'm used in this and I see this

and I go, wow, this is this is magnificent.

This is powerful. This is incredible.

The fear of God is actually understanding who he is and

going, whoa, nothing can be compared to that.

No one can compare to him. That's the all.

The fear of God, the reverent and Worshipful fear of the Lord

is the beginning of wisdom. What does that mean?

Means when we recognise who God is, then we can start to

understand with just the beginning of understanding of

wisdom is to get to know who he is.

And the knowledge of the Holy One is insight and

understanding. You see this, it's this

recognition, this knowledge, this understanding of how great

God is that begins our understanding of life, of what

we're called to, of whom we are. The fear of God is based on a

recognition of who God is. It begins with understanding who

he is going to read from Job chapter 38 and verse one and has

Job 38 · chapter mention

anyone read the book of Job who but hands up if you've read the

book of Job Fantastic encouraging book.

Yeah, has this moments for those who don't know the book of Job

story of a man who loses everything because Satan says he

only, he only loves you because you give him everything.

So if you take it all away, he'll just he'll curse God,

he'll curse you and he loses everything.

And there's a whole bunch of what, what we call Job's friends

who are not really helping him. And then his wife despises him

and says he should never have been born, you know, all the

good stuff like that. And, and he gets this stage, but

he, he never curses God. He questions the Lord, but he

doesn't curse God. But I want to read here, this is

God's response to Job. And it goes for three chapters.

I'm not going to read the three chapters, but I want to read

this first part because I think it we begin to understand the

vastness of God. This is from the message Job 38.

And now finally, God answered Job from the eye of a violent

storm. He said, why do you confuse the

issue? Why do you talk without knowing

what you're talking about? Pull yourself together, Job up

on your feet, stand tall. I have some questions for you

and I want some straight answers.

Where were you when I created the Earth?

Tell me, since you know so much, who decided on it's size?

Certainly you'll know that. Who came up with the blueprints

in measurements? How was it's foundation poured?

And who set the cornerstone while the morning stars sang in

chorus and all the angels shouted praise?

And who took charge of the ocean when it gushed forth like a baby

from the womb? That was me.

I wrapped it in its soft clouds and tucked it in safely at

night. Then I made a playpen for it, a

strong playpen so it couldn't run loose, and said stay here.

This is your place. Your wild tantrums are confined

to this place, and have you ever ordered the morning get up or

told dawn get to work so you could seize earth like a blanket

and shake out the wicked like cockroaches?

As the sun brings everything to light, brings out all the

colours and the shapes, the cover of darkness is snatched

from the wicked. They're caught in the very act.

Have you ever gotten to the true bottom of things?

Explore the labyrinthine caves of the deep ocean.

Do you know the first thing about death?

Do you have one clue regarding death's dark mysteries?

And do you have any idea how large this earth is?

Speak up if you have even the beginning of an answer.

Do you know where light comes from and where darkness lives?

So you can take them by the hand and lead them home when they get

lost. Why, of course, you know that

you've known them all your life, grown up in the same

neighborhood with them. Have you ever travelled to where

snow is made, Seen the vault where hail is stockpiled?

The arsenals of hail and snow that I keep in readiness for

times of trouble and battle and war?

Can you find your way to where lightning has launched it?

To the place from which the wind blows?

Who did you suppose calves? Canyons for the downpours of

rain and charts, the root of thunderstorms that bring water

to unvisited fields, deserts no one ever lays eyes on, drenching

these useless wastelands so they are carpeted with wildflowers

and grass. And who do you think is the

father of rain and dew, the mother of ice and frost?

You don't for a minute imagine these marvels of where they just

happened to you. Can you catch the eye of a

beautiful Pleiades sisters? These are constellations or

distract Orion from his hunt. Can you get Venus to look your

way or get the great bear and her Cubs to come out and play?

Do you know the first thing about the Sky's constellations

and how they affect things on Earth?

God is saying, Do you really think that I am small?

He's saying, where were you when I created the earth?

When I set the boundaries of where the water was to flow, not

to flow. The beginning of the fear of God

is to understand and really to recognize that we can't fully

understand how great He is. How can you begin to measure

eternal? How can you begin to measure the

one who holds the earth in his hand?

There's a immensity to God, His power, His greatness, His

fullness, His immenseness and also His mercy, His love that

cannot be measured. You can never come to the end

of. The beginning of the fear of God

is to recognize that the Lord of the universe saw fit to send his

Son Jesus, because he wanted you.

He desired you. God so loved the world.

He gave his Son the Lord of creation, the Lord who made

heaven and earth, the Lord who has set the stars in their

place, who set in place the planets and the expanse of

heaven so we could discover it. When we talk about he's in the

room, when we pray, when we worship, this expansive

understanding of who He is can fill us with awe and the

incredible power of the blood of Jesus that has set us free to be

able to walk in him, set us free so we might live a life filled

with his spirit. There's an immenseness to it.

There's an awe in it. There's a wonder in it.

In fact the the caption is for the year was the year of the

fear of God, the year of awe and wonder.

And I and I, I labour on this point because I believe, I know

that as we get an understanding of his greatness, it shifts us.

It, it, it gives us an understanding of how great this

God is who we when we pray, when you bring your request to the

Lord, the Bible says he has the cattle on 1000 hills.

What that means is he's got it all.

When we pray, when we worship, we're worshiping the God of

heaven and earth. Luke 12 verse 2 to 5 says

Luke 12:2–5

everything hidden and covered up will soon be exposed.

Sounds like the wind is blowing right?

For the facade is falling down and nothing will be kept secret

for long. Whatever you have spoken in

private will be public knowledge, and what you have

whispered secretly behind closed doors will be broadcast far and

wide for all to hear. Listen, my beloved friends,

don't fear those who may want to take your life but can do

nothing more. It's true that they may kill

your body, but they have no power over your soul.

The one you must fear is God, for He has both the power to

take your life and the authority to cast your soul into hell.

Yes, the only one you need to fear is God.

This seems to be a hard word. If you go back to the the

previous slide, we get context. Everything hidden and covered up

will soon be exposed, for the facade is falling down and

nothing will be kept secret for long.

Whatever you've spoken in private will be public

knowledge, and what you have whispered secretly behind closed

doors will be broadcast far and wide for all to hear.

So he's saying, look, these things are going to be known.

Don't be afraid of the ones who can just kill your body.

That seems like something to be afraid of.

But you know, right. And I, I kind of like to balance

that off with, well, you know, someone was going to take my

body with something and I'm no longer living.

That's that's that's pretty severe, but he's giving a

contrast. He's giving the contrast.

Jesus is saying don't allow that to be your greatest fear, rather

that you are in relationship, you are in line with, you are

walking and following with God because he determines your soul.

The fear of God is a posture of heart and surrender.

I want to just add, there's two scriptures I didn't put in

there. I'm just going to read them

briefly. And this just speaks to that

first section that we're talking about the understanding of who

God is. Isaiah chapter 6, verse one.

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

And you don't need to put it up, just just listen.

In the year that King Isaiah died, I saw in a vision, I saw

the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and the

skirt of his train filled the most holy part of the temple.

Above him to stood the Seraphim. Each had six wings, with two

each covered his own face, and with two each covered his feet,

and with two each flew. And one cried to another, and

said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of his glory.

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of

him who cried, and the house was filled with smoke.

And then said, I woe is me, for I am undone and ruined, because

I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people

of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of

hosts. Revelation One, verse 10.

John, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind

me a great voice, like the calling of a war trumpet, saying

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the 1st and the last.

Write promptly what you see in a book and send it to the seven

churches which are in Asia. Then I turned to see whose was

the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw 7

golden lampstands. In the midst of the lampstands

one like a son of man, clothed with a robe, which reached to

his feet with a girdle of gold about his breast.

His head and his hair were white like white wool, as white as

snow, and his eyes flashed like a flame of fire.

His feet glowed with burnished like burnished bronze as it is

refined in a furnace. His voice was like the sound of

many waters. In his right hand he held seven

stars, and from his mouth they came forth a sharp 2 edged

sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full power at

midday. When I saw him, I fell at his

feet as if dead, but he laid his right hand on me and said, do

not be afraid, I am the 1st and the last.

These are two visions of encounter with God, and the only

response was to fall at his feet.

Father, give us a revelation, Lord, when we pray, when we

worship, when we, when we engage in you, when we're at home.

Lord, may we have a revelation of the vastness of who you are,

Father, a revelation that goes beyond my our mental thinking,

our reading, but actually gives us a understanding of who you

are. Your awe, Your grace, Your power

with those who are like us, saw you.

They fell at your feet. May we not become familiar with

your presence. Cold to your word, Father.

May we burn with passion. May we get a revelation.

May we get a revelation. The fear of God walks humbly

before God acts Chapter 9. So in this story, actually the

Acts 9 · chapter mention

the verses before this is actually Paul who had become had

an experience and encounter with God comes to be a believer in

God. He goes, the first thing he

does, he, he goes from hating the church, throwing him in

prison to the the next thing he's in Damascus and he's

telling everyone about Jesus. Yeah.

He had that same fire that he was, you know, taking Christians

and throwing them in, in prison and and persecuting them.

He took that same fire and the first thing he does is, OK, I'm

going to tell you all about this Jesus.

Hang on. Weren't you the guy just

throwing these guys like just a week ago?

I remember just a week ago, you, you were uttering threats and

you were out there going to take all the Christians down.

Now you're telling me you've got this Jesus.

You had it. We had one encounter with Jesus.

Yeah, one touch from the Lord. Yeah, 1 encounter.

They changed everything. And then you can't keep your

mouth shut about it. In fact, he got so bad and the

masters had to let him down with a out of a basket down the wall

because they were going to kill him this radical anyway.

And then and then he comes to Jerusalem and they're, of

course, a little nervous. I mean, again, a week ago we

were running from you and and Barnabas has to come along and

say he he he grabs Paul. He says, OK, I hear you.

I, I'm, I'm with you. And he grabs Paul.

He brings me to the apostle, says, you've got to hear this

story. Check this out.

Yeah, God took the worst of them, the one who was just

killing us. And he decided that he'd share

his love with him. There's a nugget there.

There's a nugget there. He took the worst one who hated

us and transformed them. So the church throughout the

whole of Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was

edified, growing in wisdom, virtue and piety and walking in

the respect and reverential fear of the Lord and in the

consolation and excitation of the Holy Spirit.

And they continue to increase and were multiplied.

So here they are. They're like they they, they've

now met Paul and they're going, man, if God can get that guy.

He is big, His love is amazing. If he could get that guy.

And they walked in the fear of the Lord.

They walked in this all this reverence of God that they were

walking in the respect in the reverential fear that God was

more than able. They walked in this reverential

fear of God and out of that reverential fear and out of the

ministry of the Holy Spirit, they continue to increase and be

multiplied out of that. Then God took that and ran with

it. They started with the fear of

God to honour Him and glorify Him.

So the fear of God walks humbly before God.

The fear of God keeps you from sin.

Proverbs 3 verse 7 and 8. Don't be impressed with your own

Proverbs 3:7

wisdom. Instead fear the Lord and turn

away from evil, and then you will have healing for your body

and strength for your bones. By mercy and love, truth and

fidelity to God and man, not by sacrificial offerings, iniquity.

Oh, that's a different verse. Go back please.

Sorry, the fear of the Lord. Now this is interesting.

First of all, note to self, don't be that impressed with

yourself. I I've had times where I was

very impressed with myself. Yeah, it didn't always work out

that well, but instead fear the Lord and turn away from evil.

See, there's the fear of the Lord means you don't want to.

I don't want to be in that space.

I don't want that when I I recognize who God is.

I don't want to be somebody who breaks his commands, who who

makes, who turns on him. My recognition is actually the

fear of God that he is able to do it.

But there's a promise attached. Then you will have healing for

your body and strength for your bones.

There's a strengthening from it, there's an empowerment in it,

and it keeps you from evil Proverbs 16/6 By mercy and love,

truth and fidelity to God and man.

Not by sacrificial offerings. Now that's a pretty big

statement here in the Old Testament because the whole

setup of the law was the sacrificial offerings to deal

with iniquity. But here you're saying by mercy

and love, truth and fidelity to God, iniquity is purged out of

the heart because when they when they were were giving

sacrifices, they were they were offering the sacrifice for their

sin, the ACT. But what he's saying is the

mercy and love of God purges it from your heart, right?

It's not just a cover. Oh, I did that.

So I'll go and do this, right? It's actually getting that out

of your heart. And by the reverent Worshipful

fear of the Lord, men depart from and avoid evil, because at

that point it turns you away. You're when you come into the

place of the fear of God, you're turned away from those things

that that offend him. You're turned away from the

things that are evil because you're turning to Him.

The word repent means to turn, to turn around.

We're repenting. We're turning around from that

thing to receive what God has for us.

We're turning around. We're coming to Him.

When? If you want to know if you're

walking in the fear of God when you do something against Him,

you're not comfortable with it. I remember, I think it was, I

think it was a Pastor Vernon Tompkins.

She said it, but she said once, once God's got you, you're a

horrible Sinner. Once you give me your life to

God, you can't, it just doesn't work.

You can't do it because you're the Spirit of God within you is

reacting to that. And so now I'm going to come

into forgiveness and praise God. He gives us that forgiveness,

but the fear of God will line you up and align you with him

and he's aligning us. The the there's been great

stories of revivals that have occurred and there when the

presence of the Lord is just so rich and heavy.

I believe it was Jonathan who Edwards, Thank you.

Yes, when he was praying, he's preaching.

Sorry, he's preaching. And the Lord would give people

visions and the Lord would convict them.

And in the middle of the sermon, they would start crying out to

God, crying out for mercy, crying out because when God was

operating here, their conviction was about getting them back in

returning back into alignment with God.

Two Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20, I believe in the new living

translation, it says come back to God.

There's this reconciled to God, be reconciled, come back.

The fear of God actually wants us to makes us to want to run

from evil, to run to him, to run into his arms, to run into that

place of His presence. The fear of God.

Skip a couple. The fear of God brings us to His

presence. Psalm 25 verse 14.

Psalms 25:14

I love this. The secret of the sweet

satisfying companionship of the Lord.

Have they who fear Him, and He will show them His covenant and

reveal to them it's deep inner meaning.

The fear of God is that starting point for the secret of the

sweet, satisfying companionship of the Lord, that sweet

relationship, that place of connection, but also that place

where He desires to give you the secret of His coven, the secrets

of His Word to confide in you, to share it with you.

Those who fear the Lord get to walk in this space of

relationship of connection. And I love that.

I love that, that the visual of this He will show them his

covenant, reveal to them. It's deep inner meaning.

He he wants to have that engagement with you when the

word comes alive. The Holy Spirit is the teacher.

And as we read the word out of that sweet relationship, out of

that connection, there's this life that comes.

It's like I share, I get excited about these stories about from

Acts and it's like we're reading in just in the back from Acts

Acts 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4 and the Peter and John had been reprimanded by the

authorities told don't speak in the name of Jesus.

They were going to try and kill him.

But the unfortunately that they had had a miracle where someone

who was lame walked and said that was a bit of a problem so

they couldn't kill him right on the spot.

It's wild guys. And they go back to the, the,

the church and they gather together and they hear it.

They, they, they, they share. This is what happened.

They threatened us with this. They threatened us with that.

Well, let's pray. Well, let's pray, Lord, you see

their threats, You hear what their charges are.

You know what's going on? You know these people.

You know what's going on. Now grant us the boldness and

the courage and the freedom to declare Your Word.

You see, that's what the fear of God does.

It connects us back to Him. It connects us back to the cult.

It connects us back into that life giving spirit.

It connects us. We come back into that, that

cold place. We come into this, this position

of love, this place where God's immenseness is realized.

The fear of God is surrender. It's a place of surrender.

A place where we have come to the feet of Almighty God and He

calls us to come. Come closer, come there, come

into that place of rest, come into that place of presence.

I was reminded this week Friday I was picking up some stuff at

Costco and that's not an ad. It's just a location.

It's just a location and a weight.

A heaviness had been building over a couple of weeks.

And God talks to you wherever he wants to talk to you.

Facts. And it was a simple thing.

I reminded of the verse that Jesus said, coming to me.

All you who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest.

And, and a little bit of it was, didn't you remember?

Did you get it? I told you this.

You know this. But there's also a reminder.

I love you. If you're weary, come to me.

I'm the I am rest, I am wholeness, I am peace.

Today I want to encourage you. The fear of God is the chief and

choicest part of wisdom. It is that place where we can

come into His presence and He desires to know you.

As I said in Psalm 25, it was say it's that sweet

companionship with the Lord. To those who fear the Lord

today, be reminded God is big. God is great.

God has all power and all authority.

Recognize it, receive it, and come to Him because His love is

just as big, just as great, and just as powerful as we walk in

the fear of the law. He will bring us to the place of

completeness and peace and rest. Father, thank you.

Father God, thank you. Lord of heaven and Earth, thank

you. Create a God who made the

heavens and the earth and set the boundaries and the path, who

measured out the foundations of the earth.

Thank you. You are worthy to receive

praise, You are worthy to receive honour.

You're worthy. Lord, Your goodness and your

greatness are magnificent. Father, thank you.

I encourage you. Take a moment.

Take a moment. Consider what the Lord has done.

Consider who he is. Take a moment to consider the

vastness of God. Take a moment to remember what

he has brought you from. Remember what His love has taken

you from. Remember how He has engaged and

matured you and blessed you. Take a moment.

The safest place is surrendered, broken before a holy God who

loves you, whose mercy is towards you, whose heart is

towards you. A place of greatest healing is

in the fear of God, in the presence of the King, a place of

surrender, the place of Him being our everything.

Amen. Amen.

Just take a seat for a minute. I want to encourage you the

there's plenty of announcements on our social media.

There's lots of things that are happening here.

We've got fast coming up. We've got giving opportunities,

We have baptisms. So I want to encourage you to

engage in that. But we may be out of time.

We're never out of the goodness of God.

So until next time, get your love fixed man.

Thank you so much for tuning into this week's sermon.

We pray you were challenged, equipped and encouraged.

Make sure to follow us on all platforms.

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need to find us. But until next time, you know

the drill, you know the get your love fixed man and we'll see

y'all real soon.