Choose The Fear

I come with a prophetic message today. So I'm going to ask you to stand one more time as we look at Proverbs chapter 1 and begin reading at verse 7. Reading three verses and then we'll jump down to verse 20 and read several verses there. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. My son, hear the instruction of thy father. Forsake not the law of thy mother. For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head and chains upon thy neck. Then looking at verse 20, wisdom crith without. She utterth her voice in the streets. She crith in the chief place of concourses. In the openings of the gates in the city, she utterth her words, saying, "How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? And the scorners delight in their scorn, and fools hate knowledge. Turn you at my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, and I will make known my words unto you, because I have called and you refused. I've stretched out my hand and no man regarded. But you have said it not all of my counsel and would none of my reproof. I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your fear cometh. When your fear cometh as desolation, your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer.

They shall seek me early, but they shall not find me. For that they hated knowledge, hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would not in my counsel. They despised all my reproof. Two different places in this text where fear is spoken of in 7-9 and also verse 29. There's the fear of the Lord that's identified. But then there's another fear that's only called your fear that we find in verses 26 and 27. I'm preaching today and I feel this prophetically for this church. Choose the fear. Choose the fear. God bless you. You may be seated. We find in verse 7 and verse 29 that there's a fear of the Lord that is the beginning of knowledge and it is fools that despise wisdom and instruction. But when you choose the fear of the Lord, it becomes a ornament of grace to your head and a necklace of beauty around your neck, if you will. But if you don't choose the fear of the Lord, even without choosing it, you are making the choice for the other fear, which is your fear. And your fear according to the scripture brings desolation. That means feeling rushed, feeling chased by fear like you can't catch your breath. It means destruction. Have an oppressive calamity. Your fear brings distress. Your fear brings anguish. It's wisdom that is preaching in this first chapter of Proverbs and loudly declaring it in the gates, loudly in the streets of the city.

He's making this known. He's not whispering it. It's wisdom that is being preached aloud. And his cry is, "How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity?" The words simple ones here could be easily translated easily seduced. You're simple. Your loving simplicity. You're easily seduced. Maybe it would be described as one that believes everything they see on the reals. >> We have even extended that to everything you see online. >> And with AI, it used to be seeing is believing. But not no more, my friend. Because AI can generate things that look absolutely real and they can be fake. Don't believe everything that you're seeing online. Don't believe every real you're seeing because if you're easily seduced, if you're simple, you'll fall in love with that and believe every wind of doctrine, every little thing that comes through. How long wisdom says will you love your easily seducable attitude? Simple ones. He continues by saying, "How long will scorners scorn?" That's individuals that mock truth. How long will they scorn and make fun of the truth of the word of God? Also, it declares, "You have the opportunity to turn at my reproof because fools continually are hating knowledge. So, turn ye at my reproof." He's calling on them to repent. If I was to take this proverb, this text that I've read here, I can identify two groups of what I see, not just in the West or in our nation, but all across the world.

There's a group of individuals that honestly want to know truth. They want to have true knowledge. They want to walk in righteousness. And then there's a lot that are easily seduced. They're simple ones. And they don't want knowledge and they don't want the fear of the Lord. They don't want God knowledge in their life at all. And they have chosen not the fear of the Lord. So their fear or your fear as the scripture says is upon them. To emphasize this, I went through and found what should be a truthful should be a reliable online publication from the National Library of Medicine. It should be something that we could depend on. We know that that's not true anymore. And this is the quotation. I'm quoting this. They said recently social media platforms are heavily moderated to prevent the spread of online hate speech. Heard a lot about hate speech. A lot of moderation. They go on to say they're usually they're usually fertile toxic words are directed to individuals or communities. And owing to such heavy moderation, newer and more subtle techniques are being deployed. One of these is fear speech. So, get what they're saying? There's so much hate speech out there and they've tried to moderate all what they have determined is hate speech. And now, because all that has been moderated, they say that there's new techniques coming in that are trying to bring all this problem and that is fear speech.

Not hate speech, fear speech. Back to quoting. Fear speech, as the name suggests, attempts to incite fear into a target community. Although subtle, it's highly effective, often pushing communities toward physical conflict. Now I'm going to say this and this is in my opinion a very liberal political article but this study speaks about having done a study and a test of 400 fear speech post and 700 hate speech post. This is their conclusion that social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. necessitates using sophisticated moderation policies and mass awareness that we must combat fear sphere speech. So understand the politically correct position of our world is saying all fear speech must be done away. In fact, that's what our culture pushes us to. Even so-called Christian churches are removing biblical words from their church services, especially their online presentations. And they are not wanting to use these words even more. Not singing about it, not preaching about it, not talking about it because it's creating what they say is fear. They're removing words and censoring words like rapture of the church. left behind eternal torment. The crucifixion is now considered a fear word. The word hell, even blood, which is a principle theme in the word of God. They are taking the word blood out of their church services because it's creating too much fear. The problem with this is that God's word tells us that we should have fear >> in certain areas.

The reasoning that they're saying this is that in a society full of individuals dealing with anxiety, panic attacks, fear phobias, etc. Let's do with all way with all fear. But the scripture tells us that we are to fear our God, that we are to fear the Lord. And there's particular things that we must fear. Now, let's just talk some good old common horse sense. As the elders would say, having fear of things is not always bad. Fear can be very healthy. In fact, it is the fear of heights that kept us along with a lot of other things from having this church service today on top of the roof. Let's have an out of the roof experience. The reason why we don't do that is because we know if we get too far off the ground in unrailed, unprotected spaces like the roof, someone could easily fall off. Now, there's not a lot of hurt with fallen. It's that sudden stop at the end of the fall. And if it happens to be on concrete, I have a personal testimony. Concrete doesn't give as much as a human body, it's going to cause damage. So understand, it's the fear of heights that keeps me from doing somersaults on the edge of this building and age and weight. And it's a good healthy fear. We need to have some fear in our life. It's a fear of poverty that gets us out of bed and gets us to go to work.

Now, there's elements of our society that wants to take that fear completely away from us. And more the fear that that's taken away from us, the less of us will get up and go to work. Human nature can be very lazy. But because I don't want my family to go hungry, because I want to provide for those that God has entrusted in my life, I get up and I go to work because I don't want my family to suffer. >> Fear can be good. It's fear of sickness that causes me to be very intentional about what I feed my face, about how I take care of washing my hands, sanitary things. These are things that I've experienced enough sickness to know that I don't want germs in my body if I can help it. I don't want to get virus and sickness if I can help it. So, I do what I can do. I'm fearful of being sick. That doesn't mean I'm cowering over here and shaking that I'm going to get sick. But it's a healthy fear of sickness that makes my life make different choices. It's the fear of God that is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom and instruction. And if there is no fear of God in your life, you're going to lack heavily in wisdom and in knowledge. Our world today wants to define God as only a God of love and a God of mercy and grace.

He is absolutely a loving God like no other loving entity. He is a long-suffering God like no other entity. He is a merciful God and a God of grace. But if that's all the knowledge we have of him, then we're going to make choices in our life that only depend upon his mercy and his grace and his love. >> But also along with these things, he is a God of righteousness. >> He is a holy God. He is an all powerful God. >> He's an all knowing God. He knows the thoughts that you're having. He knows the desires of your spirit. He knows the temptations of your mind and your life. He knows it all. We don't want to entertain that. We like the mercy and the grace and the love. There is absolutely a fear of the Lord that we must have. And just in case you're wanting to water down this word, this word fear literally means in the original ancient Hebrew to have terror. Not just reverence, it means reverence, but it means to have terror, to be fearful, to have re great respect and reverence. This is the fear of the Lord. And Proverbs 1:29 that we read said, "Fools hate knowledge of who God is, of what truth is, so that they can live in a place where no fear of the Lord directs their life, directs their choices." We have gotten away from this so much.

I believe it's because there's so much of what the scriptur is saying is your fear in the world today until we're are somehow very hesitant to preach about an almighty God and an all knowing God and an eternity that we've got to live. All of us will live someday. Whether in the angels of heaven or the demons in hell, you're going to live forever someday. In the gospels, you will find that there are many times that Jesus is giving great knowledge, understanding, wisdom of who he is, proving that he is the son of God through miraculous miracles, healings, etc. And so many of these times, the Bible describes individuals that are blessed to be there, see that or experience it, their gratitude, their thanksgiving, how they clapped their hands, how they spoke words of adoration. But there's just a few times that Jesus did something so amazing that they did not just clap their hands and wave palm branches and shout praises, but there was a quite different reaction. One of these is in Matthew 17:E6. It's a story of Mount Transfiguration where Jesus has separated Peter, James, and John to go up to the mountain with him. Jesus travels a little further. As the disciples are watching, Moses appears to speak to Jesus. Elijah, the Old Testament prophet, is speaking to the Lord. A cloud descends upon that mount. The disciples are watching this.

A cloud descends upon that mountain. The garment of the Lord is shiny as it is shining. His garment is so bright. AND A VOICE FROM HEAVEN DECLARES, "This is my beloved son, hear ye him." >> And the Bible tells us that they weren't just clapping about what a great thing happened here. The Bible says that they fell on their face and were sore afraid. I have made it my life, my ministry to hear the voice of God. Every church service I go, every day that I live, I want to be sensitive to the spirit of God. I want to hear his voice. I want to know him and he speaks to me. I'm thankful that he does. But I will tell you honestly, I don't think that I have ever heard an audible voice of God. Now sometimes he has spoken to me so loud in the spirit that I wondered what was that audible but I think I would define that as just a loud spiritual voice but I'm asking for him to do that. I would love if he'd interrupt the service right now and just speak from heaven and choose to declare a word to us of whatever confirmation of healing of repentance of whatever if he would TAKE TIME FOR THIS CHURCH and this moment AND THIS SERVICE AND JUST HEAVEN WITH THUNDER and speak to us. I have a feeling >> if and when he does that, we're not just going to jump up and clap.

And that's appropriate for so many situations. But I think the most of us that have any kind of knowledge of God are going to be on our face because of the power, the anointing, him choosing to speak to us. Another time when this happens in the gospels, Mark 4:41, it's the storm on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus this time is in the higher parts of the boat. And when the disciples exhaust all kind of ability to even keep the boat afloat, they finally go wake Jesus up with these pitiful words, "Don't you care that we dead and drowning here?" Jesus rebukes their little faith. Let me throw this in. Every time in the gospels where you see Jesus frustrated, it's because of people's lack of faith. And every time you see him overjoyed and just beyond what we would actually think he should, it's when he didn't expect faith and he found it. >> Faith is so important to the Lord. And so Jesus rebukes their little faith, steps to the edge of that boat and declares to a hurricane type wind and a tsunami type wave, "Peace be still." And instantly a sea of glass instead of the raging waves and gentle breeze instead of the blowing wind and screaming wind. And the disciples that are watching this are not jumping up and down and clapping hands and woohoo. They're on their face and this is what they say.

What manner of man is this that the wind and the sea obey him? I would liken that to perhaps what we do. Let me say what we do is when we get into the time of the season and maybe hurricanes are going to come into the coast and maybe tornadoes are going to be in this area, we get the warnings. We get the watches and we will be so bold as to pray something like this. God, would you let that tornado go south of us? Like, what about them poor people south of us? Would you let that hurricane miss where we live and where our church is and JUST GO DESTROY ALL OF LOUISIANA? We just want God because I think our FAITH IS SO SMALL THAT YOU KNOW IF you just nudge it a little bit and protect my home that somehow that's the greatest faith we have concerning the winds and the waves. I I'm ready, Lord. Help it to be me, to stand in front of a tornado and not say, "Move south, move north," but declare, "Cease, winds. Be still, waves. Just stop it right now in the name of the Lord Jesus, and watch it instantly fizzle out." I have a feeling if we saw that and knew it was an AI, but if we saw that, we'd be a little more than woo. Yeah, that's appropriate at times. But sometimes God does things that beyond our thinking, our imagination, and best we can do is fall on our face because we're respecting and reverencing and fearing a God that we don't sometimes think of him that way.

In Mark 5 and 33 is another instance. This is the story of the woman with the issue of blood who declares, "If I can but touch the hymn of his garment, I know I shall be made whole." Jesus is going about a ministry session. Many people are there perhaps touching him. But when she reaches out and touches the hymn of his garment, it stops Jesus because he feels a flow of power leaving him. The King James, it says Jesus felt virtue flow from him. That word virtue is the Greek word dunamos from which is usually translated power. He literally felt power leave his body. In true ministry of the supernatural, you can feel power leaving your physical body as God is moving through you. And he STOPPED THE MINISTRY SESSION AND SAID, "SOMEBODY just touched me." They thought that was such a strange question. Look at all of these people wanting to shake your hand, hug your neck, love you, just get a touch of you. But somebody had touched him with intention and power had flowed from him. When she realized that she had been healed, the Bible says that she had great fear and trembling and confessed, "I have been completely healed from the touch of your garment." Yeah, >> probably everyone in the place can talk about stories of healings that we have heard. But I have been privileged to see some miracles with my own eyes, to feel them happen with my own arms, to see them, to hear them, to watch them.

I was in a church service where there was a binding. There was literally a breakthrough that needed to happen in the spiritual. They brought a woman in who was paralyzed from her neck down. Long story short, she was baptized and she was delivered of seven demons or spirits. And when we spoke to her that God was going to heal her physical body, she was completely paralyzed from her neck down. We spoke the word and reached out and lifted her up. When she walked from the back doors down through the aisle and everybody saw who they knew to be paralyzed walking down the aisle, their first response was shock. And then it wasn't clapping hands, but people began to cry. and a fear of the power of God that can take a body whom doctors had given up whom life for years have given her the experience that she would never walk and in a moment's time heal all the problems of muscles and nerves and let her walk in that congregation. It was some time before they could actually get from that fear and respect to jumping and worshiping and shouting and thanking God with that gratitude. We need more miracles like this. Why not in a service just like this >> that God would maybe touch Bishop What a great man of God. >> But an instantly reversal of everything that disease and sickness has caused.

>> I think our first response would not be putting him on our shoulders and walking him around. I think we'd be on our face. >> I'm ready for this. I'm ready for this. I'm ready for God to blow our minds. Not where we're just so scintillated and excited about a special move, but when GOD DOES SOMETHING SO POWERFUL, IT PUTS US on our face. In Luke 2:9, Mark 16:8, and several places in the scripture, the Bible talks about how the disciples responded when angels appeared. The scripture says they fell down with fear and trembling. I can recognize with spiritual sensitivity when angels are in the room. There's an atmospheric change spiritually. There is like an electric excitement and there is a heavy power. Best way that I could try to explain it. When angels come in, I recognize that atmosphere. I can hear, but only in the spiritual rustling of angel's wings. I can feel the brush of them flying and moving cross and forth when they are in the room. I recognize it. But I'm telling you honestly, I don't I have never seen what I know to be an angel with wings and such. I'm sure that I've entertained angels unaware that look like men, but I've never seen a physical heavenly angel like we would think in a church service. Not physically, but I'm ready for that to happen. >> Lois has been praying this recently.

You still praying this, Lois? She's been praying this recently that God would let her see angels, physically see angels. And then she had to rethink that for a while because you know Lois can she's kind of she concentrates so strongly that I can come in the house and the door shut loudly and move up behind her and just go to hug her or SAY SOMETHING AND SHE JUMPS. And so we've had to rethink that. Do you really want to see an angel? I mean, she's seeing angelic meat. No, I'm just not true. Do we re I think that our response would not be, "OH, THAT'S SO AWESOME. Let's clap and let's" I think that we would be more moved than that. Yes. >> Hallelujah. >> Another time you see it, and this is about all the times you'll see it, but the other time that we see this, and you find it in Mark 5:15, Jesus has just delivered a man who has been possessed with so many devils that they called himself legion. And when Jesus rebuked these devils, every one of them came out. But when the people saw this man clothed and in his right mind, they were afraid and they wanted to get out of the presence of this miracle and this healing. This of course I have seen many times but I'm telling you this generation of young people most of them have never seen a possessed individual delivered for a couple of reasons.

First of all here in the west where we live we heavily medicate what sometimes is spiritual things. Not here to condemn anything, but this is what we do. Until an individual who is possessed and would actually foam at the mouth and nash with their teeth and roll on the ground just like we see in the scripture, but they're so medicated that they're docel. They don't get too high and they don't get too low. >> So they live with this possession. Secondly, we don't this generation, most of them has not seen this. because we don't allow that to happen in our church services. I I'm being a little oldfashioned here, but we are we're so sophisticated and we're so educated and that's pros and cons, but because of live stream and not wanting to be on church laugh, >> we we're going to immediately take an individual that is possessed and begin to act up into that Sunday school room and you five guys just take care of it. Instead of having a demonstration of the power of God over the powers of darkness, >> I think most here would think that's so scary. Well, yes, but we need the fear of the Lord upon us. Even when I was a child, and this happened several times when I was a child going to church services, that when that would show itself up in church, this is what they did back then.

Let's get all the Sunday school kids and take them back to the Sunday school room and sing songs of Father Abraham and the rest of the adults stay in here and deal with this. I you know, they talked about the scripture says that when an unclean spirit comes out, it looks for an unclean. I think they thought all their children were unclean. he's going to jump from that individual right into me. And so that's what they did. But we have created a culture where we're not having faith and believing for that type of dimension to happen in our church services. >> I'm telling you prophetically, God sent me here today with a message of deliverance. But deliverance is very limited because of our lack of faith. And there's lack of faith because we have no knowledge of how powerful he is, of how awesome he is, of how anointed he can make us, of the strength. We just have very little knowledge of that. SO THERE'S NO FEAR of the Lord. And fear is very key. Let me share this with you. And if you can pull up some of these, that that'd be great. And if it doesn't come up that that'll be fine also. But just so that we're not just in Old Testament. New Testament says this. Luke 1:50 says that his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to this is a generational thing.

We should teach our children how to fear the Lord. And if we truly teach them the true fear of the Lord, then there's a generation of mercy that will live upon them. >> Acts 2 and 43, you know how close that is to the outpouring. And Acts two, Acts 2 and 43 says, "Fear come upon every soul." And then many signs and wonders were done by the apostles. Acts 19 and 17 were sons ofKeva trying to do things without a pure relationship with God. And the enemy came out of individuals they were trying to cast and came upon them, tearing them. >> Fear of the Lord. Second Corinthians 7 tells us that you perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord. If we have a problem with holiness, it's because we have no fear of the Lord. >> How about this? Ephesians 5 and 21. Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. If you're having difficulty submitting yourselves one to another, it's the fear of God isn't upon us. Something we have gotten away from. Philippians 2:12 talks about the personal responsibility every one of us have to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. That doesn't mean decide the way that you want to live and call it salvation. But you get in the word of God personally and work it out. Don't just listen to what you see on some reel with some individual declaring THEY'VE GOT THAT.

YOU work it out from the word of God. >> You do that with fear. Hebrews 12:28 says, "It is just our acceptable servants. We serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear." 1 Peter 2:17 gives us a wrapping up of the human nature. We are to fear God, honor men, love the brethren. It's a principle command to fear the Lord. But our antichrist spiritfilled world is wanting to get rid of all fear and with it any fear of God. In fact, Matthew 10 and 28, the disciples have just done powerful things in the spirit as Jesus loosed them and anointed them to raise the sick, cast out devils, to heal individuals and they come back rejoicing and Jesus cautioned them and said, "Well, you've got to realize when you begin to operate in this kind of power, the political world is going to come after you. the religious world is going to come after you and there's going to be a lot of persecution. >> But then he said, "Don't fear what they can do to you. Even if they take your life, don't fear them." And then he tells them what to fear. Fear rather him which is able to DESTROY BOTH SOUL AND BODY and hell. >> That's God. >> Don't fear what they can do to you. Pastor can straighten this out and I've already said it once, so let me just say it again. Charlie Kirk was not a political assassination.

It was a Christian martyrdom. The reason why he was killed is because people didn't like what he was saying about principles in the word of God. >> They didn't like the Christianity that he stood for. And they're willing to kill him. and a great portion of our society thought it was great and laughed about it. The way that happens in our society is that we don't have a fear of God. >> We can take him OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS AND WE CAN QUIT PRAYING to him and we can begin to take him off our money and we can DO ALL OF THESE THINGS because we don't fear God. We do whatever we want and there's no consequences because God is not a God of righteousness and power. I've left this one for last because we don't preach about this. Acts chapter 5 was a time of intense unity. In fact, I will tell you that in just a few years from this story in Acts 5, Titus will come in with a Roman army and destroy all of Jerusalem. So whatever you had in the Jerusalem banks are going to be gone. Whatever you had in retirement, whatever you had in land, you would have none of that when Titus comes in and destroys it all. So a unique time of unity and outpouring of the power and the Holy Ghost and the spirit of God speaks to them and says sell what you have and bring it to the kingdom.

Now they don't know Titus is coming in. So they have got to have faith to obey the spirit. I believe that when we get that close to the rapture of the church and this wraps up, God is going to start speaking to us and saying, "You don't need a retirement because I'm coming in just a couple of YOU BETTER KNOW HIS VOICE." That's another message. And so they're selling all these things. These two saints of God and Annas fire sold their property. and they wanted to look like they were greatly sacrificial and they decided among themselves, let's tell people that this is everything we made from the sale of prop. I guess it would have been okay. I guess if they had just said, hey, this is half of what we sold. That have been a great sacrifice. But when they came to present it to the pro to the apostle Peter, Simon Peter said, "You've lied to the Holy Ghost." and they fell dead in the church service and they dragged them out. But then the Bible says great fear came upon all the church and miracles and signs and wonders to a greater degree. Even Simon Peter walks down the sidewalk and his shadow is touching people that are sick and they are being healed. It's a greater dimension of miracles and power and signs because of a greater dimension of fear of the Lord.

There's no separating the two. That's how it works. Where we live today is that people are being so foolish because they want no knowledge of God in their life. They especially don't want to know the righteousness and holiness and the full power and the full knowing of God. They only want enough to know him to feel like that they can lean on his love and mercy and do whatever they want. And because of not choosing the fear of the Lord, then they have chosen by default your fear. This is why there is more panic attacks and anxiety and fear phobias in our world today than has ever been recorded in human history because we've chosen not to fear the Lord as a society. We're trying to protect people from a God that would ever bring judgment and punishment from him ever being a judge to our life and to our choices and to what we do. And so therefore, we have the your fear which is desolation which is chasing us and we can't get away from it. It's invading our nighttime sleep with nightmares and invading our entire emotions in the daytime with anxiety and individuals that can't even come out of their house trembling from the fact that if they left their room that something would happen. And fear is all over us because we have not chosen as a society the fear of the Lord.

Won't you stand with me today? I feel conviction in the house today and that's good. But this is about deliverance because there's people here today that are struggling fear, anxiety, panic attacks. I dare say that everyone has somebody in your family that's dealing with it big time. Can't sleep at night, taking all kind of drugs to settle themsel everything. And the truth of the word of God tells us you choose. It's not that you just have you choose. You choose the fear of the Lord or your fear will come upon you because no fear of the Lord. Now, if you honestly believe this and you choose the fear of the Lord and you're trusting in him as your heavenly father, as your savior, then there's no fear in his perfect love. Not in this sloppy love, in his perfect love. And whom he loveth, he chastineth. We don't want any of that in our society. But this is the answer to deliverance from the your fear that the scripture is speaking about. We must choose the fear of the Lord. How do we do that? By personally taking responsibility to find out things about his power, his anointing. Psalms 24. I love it. Sister Lindsay, king of glory is coming in. Something about speaking of him as the king of glory. Lift up your gates. Lift. And something about the splendor and the power of God.

There was an angelic brush that happened when we were beginning service and talking about the king of glory. And we did some old songs today. I love it. I actually knew the tenor part of most of them. Couldn't sing it, but I knew it. Some songs that I grew up with, but I began to recognize that we sing so much about me feeling good today instead about how awesome and powerful and what a righteous God he is. It's a good balance. Yes. But if we're dealing with fear like we're dealing with, we got to make a choice. So we need to make sure songwriters that we're singing about the fear of the Lord in good context of the word of God. that we're not just testifying about all the lollipop parts of our testimony, but the journey needs to be spoken about. The chastisement needs to be spoken about. Vulnerability doesn't just need to be of what I went through and what I felt and what I but it needs to be how God dealt with me. >> We need to start speaking and preaching. There's a swing of the pendulum happening. I'm going to appeal to our young preachers here. Get a good message on hell. It It's what the spirit is saying. And I am going to have a difficulty preaching about hell because I think I think maybe I think maybe that in my generation it was used to intimidate and manipulate.

I don't know. But maybe. But even if it was done wrong, I remember my pastor preaching from this and maybe even out of context saying when you realize that the rapture has come and you missed it, how you're going to try to get a hold of God and he will laugh at your calamity and mock when your fear come. I think that is out of context. Forgive me, but I'll tell you what I was doing. I was snotting and pawing in the altar, making sure my sins were repented of because of good, healthy fear. Those of you my age have stories about when you came home from school and to your surprise, nobody was there, you went down the hall and there was a pile of clothes there. Could it be the rapture of the church? So, you went and you called your Sunday school teacher because if anybody made it, Sister Joyce did. And the phone rings and rings and rings on the landline, no answer. And for just a few moments time, a fear that God would come and we would not be ready. It led me to repentance over and over in my life. Did we forget what Jude tells us that yes, you will save a lot of people with compassion, pulling them out of the very flames of fire, but there's some that will only be saved through operation of fear, conviction.

Our own lives across our world, there's awakening that is happening spiritually. And what this world does not want is some church where they can just go and feel good about themselves. They want to be taught truth. And they want to see in the word of God a true picture of who he is. Not just a sloppy grace God. when they want to see him in the fullness of his power. We've got to preach to them fear of the Lord. It's the very beginning of knowledge. Okay? I know it's old time, oldfashioned, but if you've been dealing with a battle of fear and you're ready to make a choice here today, I'm opening up this altar for those that want delivered from the your fear kind of stuff that's bringing anguish and it's chasing and there's no end. These are good people of God. I I'm not preaching to ranked sinners. I'm preaching to everybody that's dealing with this. This fear will demonstrate itself to you in so many areas. Fear for your future, fear in relationship, fear in your finances, fear for you can't even sleep at night, fear of the dark, fear of all these things because not pursued the choice of the fear of the Lord. You want to kneel, that's good. If you want to stand, that's good. Just a little longer for people to make a step of faith and to come down here as a confession.

I want deliverance in my life today. We're still coming. Would you help them, church, as you begin to come and find somebody to stand beside? Everyone's invited right now. Don't give yourself to prayer ministry yet. I'm going to speak to you, but just come down and stand in this altar for just a moment. Yes. Yeah. Just come on down and stand in this altar. I'm going to speak to you for just a moment. Ministry is coming standing close to people. This is a choice just like repentance is a choice. You make up your mind. I believe the word of God. I choose to think that way, act that way, designate my life that way. That's true repentance. Yes, godly sorrow and all these things. But true repentance is a change of mindset, a change of thought process, a change of the way you're going to live. You're going to think and walk and act differently. The same thing is true for choosing the fear of God. It's a choice you're going to make for whatever Stephen King and I know we came out of a Halloween season that the culture has. Whatever spooky, frightful book or movie or show, that's not what fear is, that's fictitious playing on emotions. What fear is knowledge of God. Because the more knowledge you get of who he is, the more respect and reverence and fear, true fear that you have for him, the more love.

Yes, the closer you get. Yes. But the more fear and terror and respect you have. And that's only going to be by us saying, "Hey, I'm going to choose to find it out for myself. I'm going to I'm going to study Psalms 24. I'm going to look in Revelation. I'm going to see him the books of Revelation when he comes with a mighty sword and from his mouth destruction." I'm going to read about his nature, how he hates sinful nations and he spews them out of his mouth in the old I'm going to study this and find out who he is, how much he is objecting to sin. And when I make that choice and begin to pursue that, it's a direct correlation between what you're dealing with all these mental fears of your fears versus the fear of the Lord that you have put in your life through wisdom and knowledge. And when you get that fear, you don't fear those that can bring sickness to your body, bring pain, torture you, take your life. But who you fear is an eternal God, one that chooses life and death and also eternity for our soul. And you live with an authority and a power as a child of God because the fear of the Lord. You want to make that choice, lift up both your hands right now. I'm going to pray for you today.

Holy righteous God, we choose to not be foolish, to not be easily seduced, to not be simple. But we're hearing wisdom crying out in the church today. Turn you at my reproof. Hear wisdom. Hear what the fathers and the mothers are declaring. We choose the fear of the Lord. And because we choose that fear, we rebuke right now the spirit of your fear. WE DECLARE IT MUST LEAVE. It must depart. You are LOOSED FROM THE YOUR FEAR, FROM THE ANGUISH. And we choose to receive the fear of the Lord. You got your hands up. Begin to let the Holy Ghost begin to let the love of God assure you that THE POWER OF GOD IS COMING upon you. That the presence of God will minister to you. at the healing, the healing of his spirit. Ministry, help us as we begin to sing in worship.