Depend on the Lord - Bro Jimmy Shook | Godly Fear - Bill Moseley | 9.6.26

Well, as always, Nancy and I are glad to be with you and be in the house of the Lord and come to these little oases.

That we live in a dry, thirsty world.

I have something on my mind this morning that's uh kind of different, maybe kind of silly.

But it's made an impression on me.

And I pray the Lord's in it.

And I uh if you'll bear with me a little bit, I want to tell you about a dream I had.

Um Most of my dreams are crazy, they don't make any sense.

Wake up in the morning and don't even remember what it was, but this one made an impression on me.

And I think it taught me a lesson.

I and I at least it was a lesson to me.

Uh the dream was I was at a church meeting, uh and it was a big auditorium, probably had two or three hundred people there.

It wasn't just Primitive Baptist, I didn't know most of the people there.

Some maybe some kind of a community gathering or something.

And they were singing before the service, of course, and they were calling on different ones uh to lead, and uh they called out a name, and y'all know me, I don't hear very well, and uh if you brother Elton calls on me, sometimes Nancy has to punch me saying they're calling on you.

So I asked the fellow next to me, I said, uh, whose name did they call?

And they said they called him Mr.

Shook.

And I said, Well, that's me.

So I got my book and I went up to the front of this big auditorium and all these people, opened up the song book.

I couldn't find a song in there that I'd ever sung.

Never never knew a song in that book.

And I was stumbling around there trying to find something that I knew, but I I couldn't find a song that I could lead.

And y'all know I've done that many times, but I I just couldn't do it.

And there was a fellow sitting on the front row, and he walked up and handed me another book, and it was our old Harp of Ages book.

I said, Well, I know I've I know a song in there for sure, and I was I've been I've had this leaning on the everlasting arms uh on my mind, and but I couldn't I didn't know the number, so I turned over to the index to try to find that number.

There's no index in the book.

You know how dreams are.

So I couldn't I couldn't find a song in that book I could lead.

And so finally those lady brought me up a little black book, and I looked in it, and I don't know what it was, but there wasn't any song in there.

So there I was in front of these hundreds of people, and I couldn't I couldn't lead a song.

And in my dream I said, you know, God knows how to humble his people.

And something as simple as leading a song.

We've got to have God's grace and we've got to have his mercy.

And he when he humbles us, we have to look to him.

We can't we can't do it.

We can't do it ourselves.

I couldn't do it.

This fellow tried to help me, couldn't do it.

This lady tried to help me, she couldn't do it.

We have to have God's mercy and his grace.

And so in my dream I said, Well, God knows how to humble his people and and make us realize that we stand in need of his grace every hour, every day, even in the leading of a song, we need his grace.

And I say I said, uh, let's just sing Amazing Grace.

And uh course everyone knew that song and and the dream turned out good in in that that respect.

But I was thinking the the lesson I saw in it is just a simple lesson, how that uh we can't we can't do things wrong.

We know we can't save ourselves, we can't do a lot of things on our own.

We depend on God's grace and on his mercy, and I was thinking, as I every morning when when I wake up, I need to thank God for all the blessings he's given me.

Need to thank God for the grace he's showed upon us, and we need to I need to thank him for that new day that he's given me, given us another day, and I would pray that I would use that time that he's given me to do something that would bring honor and glory to the name of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I thank God for his amazing grace.

Thank you for your time.

Dreams can be very teaching.

Uh can open up our mind to think and process things that we might not try to process when we're awake.

But the Lord certainly sometimes it's just just the way the mind works, sometimes it can be a message that the Lord will make you to understand that by yourself and of yourself you're weak, uh, but with him you can do all things.

So I appreciate what Brother Jimmy has brought before us.

Those those old songs, like you get into situations when you don't know what to do, just go to one of those old songs that that are in the heart, much like Paul and Silas did in a prison.

They didn't have a book either, Brother Jimmy, but they whatever they sang, and I don't know what they sang.

Uh I suspect it was some psalm that they had heard.

Maybe it was one that one of that David wrote.

Maybe it was the Lord as my shepherd.

I don't know.

23rd Psalm.

Uh that would be a good one in the midst of a jail cell to remember that he led me through the green pastures, and though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, he's with me.

So we can certainly find the grace of God even in those moments of sleep and slumber, that the Lord will awaken us uh with his way.

This morning I would uh like to venture into something and I'm I'm at a little distance.

I walked out, I had everything ready to load and loaded everything, and my Bible was sitting on the counter, and and I walked out and forgot my Bible.

So I'm working a little bit in unknown book, but I hope that I can find the right passages.

This morning I want to try to look at the fear of the Lord.

The fear of the Lord.

I want to begin in the Hebrew letter, the twelfth chapter of Hebrew.

And it's going to be the next to the last verse.

Wherefore, Paul Paul's in the twenty eighth verse, he said, wherefore we receive we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved.

Let us have grace.

Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.

With reverence and godly fear.

That is defining the fear under consideration.

Fear hath torment.

And one place in scripture says, fear hath torment.

Another place it says that love casteth out all fear.

That's a fear that is a uh it is a a fear of fright.

Where you you're frightened by something or you're you're scared.

That's a word that I probably use most times.

Talking about fear, I'm scared.

There's things that scare me.

Uh there's things that scare me uh because I don't know the end of it.

Uh the things that may or may not come to pass, they scare me.

They they take, I I go when I think about those things, I go to a place of unsurety.

That is a fear of that is within man.

That is an indicator of our inability to control our environment or ourselves.

Fear.

Now that that's a natural type of thing.

It's actually a good thing to have some fear.

If I'm going to cross that road out there, there is an essence in me that fears crossing without looking.

Because maybe I don't see what's coming, and my mind can go what could happen.

So that's a healthy fear.

A fear of jumping off a place too high.

I've got a fear of that because I can't control the landing.

It's beyond my ability.

So I fear there is a healthiness about fearing things that we don't understand or things we cannot control.

That's within man to fear.

Fearing spiritual things is a healthy thing because we as we fear, we're moved to try to learn, to try to get an understanding of the truth to alleve our fear.

So fear is something that is good and it's also a torment.

But that's not the kind of fear that when we talk about reverence and godly fear, this is a different type of fear.

Now, I'm trying to work through this comparison of the fear of nature or the fear in nature, and the fear of God, the godly fear.

I'll tell you, the godly fear is wonderful.

There is a wonder about this fear of God.

I want to take you to some places in a moment concerning the fear of God, but to understand one thing is that not all men fears God.

Mankind has a subset within it that Paul says there is no fear of God before their eyes.

If you go over to Roman letter, let's go look at it.

The nature of man, third chapter of the book of Romans.

Let me find my starting place.

In the tenth verse it says, as it is written, there is none righteous, no not one.

There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable.

There is none that doeth good, no not one.

That is the summation of the natural man.

That passage of scripture right there knocks down any idea that there's something that you as a natural person can do to satisfy God's law, God's not just the law, but God's holiness, God's cleanness, God's wisdom, God's knowledge.

There's nothing that anyone could do.

If there was, Paul wouldn't have said there is none.

There's none after the natural flesh that'll ever take that step towards God when it comes to relationship with God.

He would go further to say this about those that he just said.

And we were part of that.

We had that.

And when I say we, you say, well, who's the we?

We are those that God chose and have quickened from death and trespasses and sin.

You have been taken out of that and brought into the family of God by his work, not by your work, because Paul said there's none.

There's none that seeketh after God.

That ought to defeat any work system.

There's none that seek after God.

They'll go and tell you you've got if you'll just come and seek God, Paul said there's none that'll seek after God.

It says their throat is an open sepulcher, like a grave, their throat, the very place of articulation.

Actually, in the throat or in the neck is the gland that even produces the autonomic life of a person.

You don't decide to breathe.

Your body has a built-in automated thing that will make you breathe even in the dreams at night.

Even in the dreams at night, when you're not thinking about I need to breathe, that body is breathing because of what's in that throat, of what's in that body.

Their throat is an open sepulcher, an open grave.

And you can just imagine what that would be like.

With their tongue they have used deceit.

You see the death in this very description?

The death of those that do none that doeth good, no none righteous, not one seeks after God, all gone out of the way, and this is just the way that they've gone out of the way.

With their tongues they have used deceit.

The poison of asp or serpent, the poison of an ass is under their lips.

James talks about what a great fire a tongue can produce.

We understand that with just a small match you can burn a great forest.

So with their lips, with their tongue, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood.

Their feet, their movements, their very activities.

They have no concern with shedding blood.

And when it says shedding blood, it's talking about killing.

Talking about death.

Swift to shed blood.

Destruction and misery are in their ways.

And then finally, and one more, and the way of peace have they not known.

Have they no peace in their what they've known?

It's all been of sinfulness and offense.

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

They are void of the fear of God.

That is a bleak and an ugly picture, but it is the ugly picture from where we're come where we've come from.

That is a nativity.

That is that you want to get a picture of that baby in the field out there in Ezekiel?

That is the details to that nature that we all came from.

We walked in the course of this world, just as was described by Paul.

Not all men, not all mankind, fear God.

But God has shown that there are those that fear God.

They fear God.

I want to take you just not to go look at it, but just to describe it.

That man was created in the garden.

Man was given a commandment.

Man by his own action, not deceived, transgressed against God, and realized that he was naked, that he was open, his shame was on display, and he heard God come in the cool of the day.

I have no doubt that Adam and Eve had seen God before.

They had met with God before in the cool of the day.

I don't believe this was a brand new event.

This was something that Adam was aware of that God would come.

Eventually God would come there.

And when he heard God in the cool of the day, it says that he was afraid.

He was afraid.

I believe it uses that word.

Third chapter of Genesis says that he heard God in the cool of the day, and he was afraid because he was naked.

Other side of that afraid is God certainly confronted man, he confronted woman, he confronted Satan.

He dealt with each one in their way.

And then God slew an animal and clothed the man and the woman.

He gave them the grace of clothing them with skin from a sacrificed animal.

God gave them grace even in that time.

But the the thought was it hit me here is that when he heard, and I'm trying to let my mind go back to that point, when he heard God in the cool of the day, it says that he was afraid.

He was aware.

He was fully concerned that God was coming.

That God was coming to meet him.

And his fear was I'm going to have to stand before a holy and righteous God, and I am naked.

Not that he was naked, that's not this.

The point is, is that his shame was on open display before God.

There's no hiding it.

He had tried to hide it.

They had made clothes out of fig trees, fig leaves, and that didn't work.

What happens to a fig tree leaf that comes off the tree is that it quickly dies and displays its death.

That's what they tried to use to hide their nakedness.

But there was a shame and there was a fear, and there was a fear especially that God had said, Thou shalt not eat, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

There was a fear of God and his holiness and his righteousness to stand before him on full display.

I am guilty.

I cannot come as one that comes to the court in these days, and they are obviously guilty, and they'll try to claim not guilty.

My friend Adam didn't have anything to plead.

He was guilty that he had violated God's law.

But yet God gave him the grace of clothing him, protecting him, covering him, and ultimately the figure is he would redeem him from that position, that death position.

Adam feared God, and I believe he feared him with a reverential fear of knowing that he was condemned before a holy God.

Now let's go forward here, third chapter of the book of Exodus.

And there's a man by the name of Moses that gets the vision of that mountain on fire, and he says, I must I'll turn aside and see this great sight.

And as he goes up there, and he gets up there and he looks, and behold, there's a bush that's burning.

How long is it going to burn?

Well, there's something strange because that bush is burning, but it's not going away.

It's not being consumed.

There is something awe about this.

And it says that Moses was afraid.

Moses was afraid to stand before God.

He realized.

He came to an understanding beyond himself.

Just let yourself go upon that mountain and you walk upon that scene where there is a bush burning and it's not being consumed.

And that bush speaks to you.

And that bush talks to you by name.

By name.

Oh, if you didn't hear the first name, I'll give it to you.

Moses, Moses, take off thy shoes, for the ground thy standeth on is holy ground.

Mount Sinai was no more holier than any other site in that whole holy land, except for this one time.

And what made this holy ground is that the Holy One was there in front of Moses.

Moses was afraid.

Moses was in the best place he could be.

He was afraid.

He had godly fear.

There was something in Moses that recognized I am in a place beyond me.

I'm in a place I can't control.

It is controlling me.

Moses, Moses, take off thy shoes, for the ground thy standethon is holy ground.

Do you know, my friends, that in a spiritual sense, when we come in to where God has said, I will meet with you, we need to come in with our spiritual shoes removed.

Where there is no clinging dirt.

You know, that's what kind of is about shoes is a lot of people don't like shoes in their homes because you track in the dirt and you make these big old marks all down this long hallway, and you gotta go back later and sweep it all back up.

Why?

Because the dirt clings to the to the shoe and the shoe brings in the dirt.

Take off that.

Take off that shoes.

Take off that dirt clinging to you.

Remove your that from you.

You are standing on holy ground.

When we come into the church, my friends, let us remove our dirty shoes of our mind and the things that clutter and that cling to our feet, our walk.

Put that away.

You know that's that should be part of our prayer.

Lord, give me a heart to put away the things that would distract my seeing you as you are.

Moses was afraid.

Moses was afraid.

But God showed him grace and let him see him in that great vision of that burning bush.

And this, my friends, is where he would learn that he was to be sent down to Egypt because God had heard the cries of his children.

He had heard their hearts, he had heard their oppressions, he had heard the things that afflicted them.

Moses was given grace.

So we see that not all men have the fear of God.

But then we find that and I've got some notes here.

I'm gonna use a little bit of notes because there's just so many of them.

There's nine places that the fear of the Lord, actually, there's eight that says the fear of the Lord is.

Well, if I could find out, you know, you say, what is the fear of God?

What is the fear of God?

And then we finally go look and we find eight places where it actually uses the phrase, the fear of the Lord is.

You know, the scripture says God is love.

God is love.

I can tell you, God is love, and he is perfect love.

God is my Savior, God is my refuge.

There's so many places where it says God is, but here it says the fear of the Lord.

Most of these are in Psalms, Proverbs, and one that shows up in Isaiah.

Let me just go through one of them, of all these all, and then we'll we'll kind of talk about it as a whole to get a picture of this fear of the Lord is.

Now, as we go through it, I want you to think about the ninefold fruit of the Spirit.

I want you to think about what those nine fruit is.

Let me just read you the ninefold fruit of the Spirit.

Love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.

Against such there is no law.

Those ninefold fruit of the Spirit, I could tell you, God is each one of those ninefold fruit of the Spirit.

God is love.

God is joy.

God is peace.

God is each one of those.

God is faith.

He's not, it's not a matter that God has faith.

He does have faith, but it's stronger than that.

God is faith.

That's why he can be the source of your having faith.

Because it comes out of the storehouse of God's grace, where he has faith, and he gives you faith that you might have faith and use faith.

Bible tell you, you have that faith in you.

Once you're born again of the Spirit, and that's where the ninefold fruit of the Spirit comes from, it comes from the source, which is God.

He that is born of God.

Born of God means you are you receive his very divine nature.

That's why that which is born of God cannot sin.

Because the source of it is the one that cannot sin, will not sin.

And he gives us that ninefold fruit of the Spirit.

Why do I bring that up?

Because it is sourced from God.

Now here's my here's one of my main thoughts is that that fear of God, Brother Steve, is not something you manufacture.

It's not something that you wake up in the morning and you say, Well, I think I will fear God.

I believe I will just work on fearing God.

My friends, you fear God because God hath put that in you.

Just like the fruit of the Spirit.

Matter of fact, I believe the fear of God that is in you is the fruit, it is the manifestation of that fruit of the Spirit.

That fruit of the Spirit, just like believing is an action based on an evidence, and the evidence being the fruit of the Spirit, fear of God, the fear of God is that same giving of the fear of God, that godly fear, with reverence and godly fear.

That is given to you, Brother Van, by God.

It is a grace that you fear God.

Let me just make it very plain that the fear of God is an evidence that you are a child of God.

Now let's set it beside those others.

There are those out there in this world, the blanket statement here, there are many in this, there are there are those in this world that are not God's children.

And the reason that there is no fear of God in them is because God did not give them godly fear.

He didn't give them the fruit of the Spirit, and by virtue of the very fact that they're not his, they have not the fear of God before their eyes.

But those that he has touched with that quickening voice, he puts this fear of God, and when we say here, fear of God, it's not that scaredness about things I can't control or things that might harm me or things I might get wrong or whatever, or I might be ashamed of.

That's that natural fear.

This fear is an understanding of reverence and respect towards God.

It is developed through that inward man.

Now let's look, let's look at these statements of the fear of God.

First one is in Psalms nineteen that the fear of the Lord is clean enduring forever.

It's clean, it's not chaotic, and it's not on again, off again.

It's not where you can have it and then lose it.

It's clean and it endures forever.

In Ecclesiastes chapter three, we find that that's that chapter that says there's a season and time for all things.

And one statement in there is whatsoever God doeth, he doeth forever.

This, my friend, tells me that the fear of God is something God gives us in that inward part of you where it says, you will be in him, and him and you.

For I will be with you.

So this fear of God is clean and enduring forever.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

It's the beginning, it's not the full wisdom, Brother Jimmy.

It's not unloaded all the wisdom to you, because we'll never have all the wisdom, but it is the beginning of wisdom.

You know what?

One thing that a baby does not long after it's born, it becomes attached emotionally to mama and maybe daddy at times.

But there is an attachment, there is a beginning of knowing something about themselves.

Is there is a beginning of wisdom, a beginning to cry, mama.

Well, Paul tells us that he had not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, and he says it's whereby we cry ab a father.

This fear of the Lord is what brings on that crying, my father, an attachment to God, because of the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Well, the fear of the Lord is also the beginning of knowledge.

It's what to do with that wisdom.

It's what to do with that feeling of connection with God.

We learn a few things about God, and then we learn what we can do with that, what we've learned about God.

How we are to uh to go about and do what the Lord hath instructed us.

Because it's not just the beginning of wisdom, but Solomon would say that the fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom.

It's the instruction, it's getting to know more about what God hath said about himself and what he said about us and the connection between us and God.

This fear of the Lord, my friends, is a grace given to the child of God, whereby we can reverence, worship God and reverence and godly fear, but also remembering back to Solomon in Ecclesiastes, the last uh chapter of that book, he would say, let's get the conclusion to the whole matter.

Let's get the bottom line to the whole matter of this fear of God thing.

He said the conclusion to the whole matter is fear God.

Fear God and keep his commandments.

Take that wisdom that you get through that fear of God and that instruction from God.

He instructs us.

What's the gospel?

What's the scriptures for?

All scripture given by his first God is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished.

This gospel message, this scriptures that he has providentially kept, that we today can open up the book.

I forgot my book, but here is that same book I can read the same words out of.

I hope, my friends, we're all on the same page with his instructions.

The fear of the Lord is to hate evil.

Now, here's the important thing about that is that is the very nature of God to hate evil.

God hates evil, God hates sin.

And when it says the fear of the Lord is to hate evil means that you are sharing, or let me let me give you scriptural word, you are being a partaker of divine nature through the fear of the Lord.

Now remember, this is not something you produce, it's like faith, it's like love, joy, peace.

Oh, the you don't source it.

You're not the source of it, you're the recipient of it, and you're called to perform it.

Can I can I reject the fear of the Lord?

Yes, in my actions, certainly I can.

You know God is real.

You would not dare say God does not exist.

Why?

Because that's in a place that's clean and enduring forever.

Once, my friends, we've tasted that goodness, it doesn't go away.

We may deny it, just like, just like a kid may not make it out with their parents and and just absolutely come to a feeling of hatred for their parents.

And they can tell them, I hate you, I hate you.

But they know that's still their parent.

And my friend, I'm gonna tell you what's too.

We might try to deny the fear of the Lord, but it's in the depths of our heart.

It's it endureth forever.

The fear of the Lord hates evil.

It is a fountain of life.

The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.

Remember what he told that woman over there?

I have no qualms of telling you that was a child of God sitting by that well there in Samaria.

That Samaritan woman, as a child of God, the Lord went there on purpose to meet with her and to give her a good drink of spiritual living water.

And to make her know about it, to to be there and give her the beginning of wisdom and the beginning of knowledge.

Because he gave her that fear of the Lord.

Do you know she was expecting the Messiah?

She was looking for Messiah.

We know that Messiah will come, and when he comes, he will tell us all things.

She was expecting the Messiah.

She had the fear of the Lord within her.

She had the fruit of the Spirit within her.

The Lord gave her the instruction.

He gave her this fountain of life.

He said, if you had asked, I would have given you living water.

This fear of the Lord is that fountain of life.

The fear of the Lord is something that tendeth to life.

It tendeth to life.

It directs you toward life.

Not towards the dead things like the natural man.

Remember, we talked about the dead man, the dead man thing, the those things, the mouth was full of bitterness, cursing, and the swift to shed innocent or swift to shed blood.

That's directed towards death.

But the fear of the Lord tendeth to life.

It directs you towards life.

At one time, the dollar bill was a tender in the fact that it directed you to be able to go get in return.

We've got some silver notes at home, and at one time, those notes was good to go exchange that two dollar, a two-dollar silver note for silver.

It directed you towards it to go get it.

That's what the fear of the Lord does.

It directs you to find the things concerning the Lord.

It is an internal sharing or partaking of that divine nature whereby it tendeth to life, tendeth to the things that are good.

And finally, Isaiah says that the fear of the Lord is his treasure, is his treasure.

We can look at that as either his that treasure is in earthen vessel being the fruit of the Spirit.

But I submit to you, my friends, he's also put that fear of God within you.

That you have a you have a partaking of a divine nature in you that reassures.

Finally, let me get one more place.

In Proverbs 14, 26, it says, it doesn't say the fear of the Lord is, it says in the fear of the Lord.

Now think of that for a moment.

In this heart condition of fearing the Lord, and you fear the Lord out of your heart, your your very soul, in that heart and soul that knows God is, and he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he's a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

And I'll say seeking him from the fear of the Lord, from that reverencing, that very connected way that we are with the Lord, where you know the Lord is near you.

You trust.

That's why, Brother Justin, we can bow down and we can pray to God with a trust that he listens to us, that he hears us, and that he answers in his way.

In the things that he knows is for our good.

The fear of the Lord is a strong consolation.

It is a strong consolation.

It is in the fear of the Lord.

In that condition of fearing the Lord, that's where we find our strong consolation.

I'm gonna give you just one more one more thought.

He has given us that fear of the Lord connection and a I say connection, actually it's something that is dwelling within us, just like the fruit of the Spirit is within us.

It is a capability.

You are capable of fearing the Lord because He has graced you with a heart to fear him in a reverential, knowing and drawing near with a diligently seeking, asking, seeking, knocking.

Those things that Jesus told us, ask, seek, and knock.

There's a strong consolation in that is that when I do, I have one that hears me.

And all of that, my friends, he's given us that fear of the Lord so that we don't have to be scared of the Lord.

Just think about it.

Just think about it.

Yes, there is the fear of the Lord, and we can we can let our mind think that that's talking about being scared, but there is nothing that he has ever done, ever said in any form or fashion that has ever made us his children to be scared of him.

But my friends, most of this world will take the idea of fearing the Lord and applying it as if we're supposed to be scared of our heavenly father.

He would never have us fear him from a natural scaredness of him.

To be scared of our heavenly father, why would we not be scared?

Well, he loved you before the world began.

There's nothing to be scared about his love.

He purposed that he would send his only son to redeem us from that dead place, that death and trespassing.

There's nothing to be scared of the Lord because he's our redeemer.

And my friends, there's nothing to be scared of of him for the finality, is that he has promised to come and to get us at the end of time.

He bought us, he owns us, we're not our own, we're bought with a price, and someday he's coming to get that which he purchased.

There's no reason to be scared of the Lord.

There's no reason to be frightened of the Lord.

Just like Adam at a point where he plunged all of humanity into death, God still showed Adam and Eve grace.

When Moses feared to even be at the place where God had called him to, God took him and he comforted him.

Take off thy shoes.

You know what?

That's an invitation of welcoming.

Take off your shoes.

For the ground thou stand upon is holy ground.

What a great privilege God gave Moses to take off those natural shoes and come and stand and talk as one talks face to face.

For the first time, man talked with God.

And that, my friends, is a picture of our time of access when we can talk to the Lord in prayer.

In the fear of the Lord, and the fear of the in full reverence and respect and knowing that we're not consumed because his mercy endures forever.