The Awe Of God // John Bevere

This is HungryGen Podcast, and I just want to thank you for joining us today. Here at HG, our vision is to see thousands saved locally and millions globally. We hope you enjoy this week's message. Uh, this morning I am really interested in giving the Holy Spirit all the time he wants, and so I want to get right into allowing him to speak to you. I am not interested in bringing you a message. I am more interested in seeing your life changed forever. And I could be, and I am not saying that I am, I could be one of the best communicators on the planet, but if the Holy Spirit doesn't anoint these words, we're just gonna get information. We need a whole lot more than information, we need transformation. Can you say amen to that? So the Bible makes it very clear you don't have because you don't ask. I know there were 3 men up here asking, but I gotta ask, and I wanna ask with all of you in unison. How many of you believe God can change your life in one service? Let me see your hand. Put it up, put it up high. Now put up your other hand, 'cause we don't have if we don't ask, amen? So Heavenly Father, we come before you as a people, and Lord God, first of all, thank you for the privilege of being called your sons and daughters. What an absolutely astounding, loving move that you made, that you would adopt us into your family, the one who created everything seen and unseen. So we're asking, Holy Spirit, that you would invade this sanctuary. I declare it is holy ground. And I am asking that you, and along in agreement with my brothers and sisters, that you would do what you love to do the most, and that is glorify Jesus. As you do this, may we go from glory to glory and from faith to faith and from strength to strength, for I decree that your kingdom has come, your will shall be done, this place on earth as it is in heaven, and for this we give you the glory, the honor, all the honor, all the glory, all the praise, all the thanksgiving, and it's in Jesus' mighty, wonderful, majestic, holy, awesome, magnificent name, we pray. And everybody that agrees shouts! Come on, give him praise. Give him praise for what he's gonna do. Amen, amen, amen, amen. You can be seated. This morning, I'm gonna share with you out of the book that came out 2 years ago, actually 2 and a half years ago. The title of it is called The Awe of God. Has anybody read it? Okay, good, a few of you have. Let me tell you this. It is a 42-chapter book, 'cause I made the chapters really short, 'cause I know people are not reading nowadays. And so, I'm only gonna be able to share from maybe 3 or 4, possibly 5 chapters of the 42. So I wanna encourage you, please, if you get touched today by what is said, invest in your life and get it into your life so that you can continue. To grow. I wanna open up this morning with 3 verses of Scripture, and I want you to look at these Scriptures like you've never read them before. If you're familiar with them, I want you to read this on the screen like you've never read it before. The first one is found in Isaiah 33, verse 6, where we read, the fear of the Lord is God's treasure. Now look at these words. The fear of the Lord is God's treasure. Is God's treasure. Now would you please stop and think about this? Do you have treasures? How do you handle your treasures? Carelessly or carefully? Do you just put 'em in the drawer or do you put 'em in a safe place? The fear of the Lord, I want you to think about this, it's God's treasure. Now I want you to look at Isaiah 11:3, which says the fear of the Lord is Jesus's delight. Now I wanna bring you to the New Testament, and I wanna show you something amazing. The Apostle Paul writes to the Philippian church, and he says, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Notice he doesn't say work out your own salvation with love and kindness, with fear and trembling. So let's just think about this for a minute here. We're talking about God's treasure, Jesus' delight, and the very thing that matures our salvation. Why in the world isn't the American church talking about this a whole lot more? First of all, let's ask the question, what is the fear of the Lord? Let me say this, it is not to be scared of God. How can we have a relationship of intimacy with somebody we're afraid of? And this is God's number one desire for you, is to be intimate with you. When you look at Moses, he leads Israel out of Egypt. When he brings Israel out of Egypt, where is he bringing the people? Where is their destination? Everybody shout it. The Promised— no, no, no, no, no, no, it's not the Promised Land. He's bringing them to Sinai. Why is he doing that? Because that's where he met with God. At the burning bush. He wants to bring them straight to the place he met with God. See, I see an amazing thing. I look at Israel. Israel is abused, actually abused by Egypt. Their children are put to death. They work all their lives building somebody else's inheritance. Yet they come out of Egypt and they're constantly saying, let's go back to Egypt, it was better for us. I look at Moses, who is raised in the most beautiful home in the world, His grandfather is the richest man in the world. He comes out of Egypt and he never once says, "I wanna go back to Egypt. It was better for me back in Egypt." Why? Because he had one encounter with God at that bush. Israel had a chance at that mountain and they missed what they had the opportunity for. When Moses leads them to that mountain, God has a private meeting with Moses and he says, "Moses, I want you to go tell those people the whole reason I brought you out of Egypt out of Egypt was to bring you to myself. He said, I want all of these people to be a kingdom of priests, which means they can approach me just like you approach me. So God tells Moses privately, tell them to get ready because in 3 days I'm gonna come down and introduce myself to my kids. God comes down on the mountain 3 days later, and when he does, all the people scream and run away. Moses is now perplexed. He looks at the people and says in Exodus 20:20, do not fear. Everybody say, do not fear. Do not fear. Because God's come to test you. What's the test? To see if His fear is in you so that you may not sin. Wait a minute, do not fear because God's come to see if His fear is in you? What is he doing? Is he talking out of two sides of his mouth? No, he's differentiating between being scared of God and the fear of the Lord. There's a massive difference. The person who is scared of God hides from God. What does Adam do when he sins against God? He hides from the presence of the Lord. The person who fears God has nothing to hide. That person's actually terrified of being away from God. So, if you want your first definition of the holy, healthy fear of God, it is to be scared even further, terrified of being away from God. So, what is the fear of the Lord? It is when we stand in utter awe of Him, when we tremble before Him. When we do this, we honor Him, esteem Him, value Him, reverence Him above anything or anyone else. When we do this, we literally take on His heart. We now love what He loves. And we hate what he hates. You say, whoa, whoa, whoa, John, John, hold it, hold it. You just used the word hate and God in the same sentence. I sure did. Now let me alleviate concerns, okay? The legalist, everybody say the legalist. And by the way, God hates legalism. The legalist is the person who says, I fear God, that's why I hate those sinners. No, you don't fear God at all. God loves those quote sinners so much he sent Jesus to die for them. So you actually hate who God loves. Don't even tell me you fear God. You don't. You're a legalist. What God hates is the sin that unmakes the object of his love. This is why the Bible says In Proverbs chapter 8, verse 13, all who fear the Lord will hate evil. Now wait a minute, notice this. It doesn't say all who fear the Lord will dislike evil. You dislike evil, I question if you fear God or not. I'm gonna let that one sink in just for a moment. You tolerate evil, You really lack in the fear of God. You celebrate evil. You're so far from knowing God, you don't even know who He is other than what other people say. Paul brings it to a higher level in the New Testament. He said, "Abhor what is evil." Look at this, abhor. Do you know what the word abhor means in the Greek? It means strong hatred. It doesn't mean hatred, it means strong hatred. I remember back in 1990 when we were birthing Messenger International, our pastor had launched Lisa and I to travel and minister, which we've been doing now for 42 years. Well, actually, it's 35 years now. And I remember I was having a lot of time to pray. I prayed 2 hours every single morning., and then I would start reading my Bible because I wasn't getting invited to a lot of places to preach and I wasn't that busy. And when I did get invited to preach, I would go into churches and I would speak, and my words were— how else can I say it— they were hollow. They were void of power. They were empty. And I was getting frustrated. And so one morning in 1990, I'm in prayer and I said, Lord, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm really frustrated. I didn't even want to go into ministry. I was going into corporate America. I have an engineering degree from Purdue. I was gonna go to Harvard, get my MBA, and I was gonna go into corporate America. I didn't even want to go into ministry, and I obeyed you, and now I go preach and my words are powerless. Why isn't there a stronger anointing on my life? And the Holy Spirit whispered to me right at that moment. He said, because you tolerate sin. I went, what? He said, you tolerate sin, not only in your own life but in the lives of others. He said, son, read Hebrews 1. So I go over to Hebrews 1. I really don't know what I'm about to read. I do know what the chapter says in general, but Hebrews 1, for those of you who don't know, this is the day that Jesus is raised from the dead and God the Father is inaugurating Jesus as King of the universe. I start reading Hebrews chapter 1, verse 2. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. I get to verse 9 and look what I read. "Because you have loved righteousness." The Holy Spirit said to me, "Stop, you love righteousness and so do all Christians." He said, "But that's not all I said." He said, "Because you love righteousness and hated," not disliked, hated, "lawlessness, sin, therefore God, even your God, has anointed you beyond your companions." He said, "Son, you learn to hate sin the way I hate sin.", you'll see the anointing of God increase upon your life. Now let's, let's ask a question here. What is this word lawlessness? It is the Greek word anomia, which means this: you're a law unto yourself. It means you're not submitted to the— listen to me— to the law of God. Some people think the law of God went away when the New Testament came in. No, grace gave us the ability to walk in his laws. Remember, he said, I have written my laws on your heart. The Bible tells us there's gonna be massive deception and a great falling away from the faith in the last days. Why? Because there will be a mystery of lawlessness at work in our society. So what is this lawlessness? Well, you gotta go back to the garden and learn what it is. You got these two main trees in the garden. Does everybody remember those trees? The tree of life, what is that? God is my creator, he knows what's good for me, and he knows what's bad for me. Therefore, I trust him. Let me illustrate the tree of life. Those 4 sons, when they were toddlers, how many of you know Christmas is a workday for me? All the dads in here that have children understand what I'm talking about. They open up all the gifts on Christmas Day and I'm the guy that's building them all day long, right? I am your typical dad. I rip open the box, I throw the pieces on the floor, I throw the box, the instruction manual away, and I now start building the toy. I spend an hour building the toy. I'm finished, there's still 5 pieces on the floor. I hit the switch and the thing doesn't work. Now I'm angry. I've just wasted an hour of my time building this defective toy. I wanna call the manufacturer, but it's Christmas Day. So what do I do? I go get the instruction manual, the guy who designed this thing. I deconstruct the toy and I build it the way he says build it, and oh my gosh, There's no 5 pieces on the floor this time. I hit the switch and the thing works. That's the tree of life. He is my creator. He knows what's good for me. He knows what's bad for me. What is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? It's— listen to me. The Bible says, when she saw it was good and would make her wise. It doesn't say when she saw— when Eve saw the tree was evil and it would make her wicked. The tree of life is when I choose what is good for me outside of what God says. When you hold up a pair of pants and a skirt in front of a 12-year-old and you say, "Which one are you drawn to?" Do you know what you say to that 12-year-old? Forget that you were fearfully and wonderfully made by your Creator as male and female in your mother's womb. You get to choose what's good for your life. Now, the problem is we don't hate it. And because this mystery— I mean, we got a couple that everybody loves in America, and they profess to be Christians. And you know what they do? They highlight 3 families in the wilderness, and one of them is 2 men married to each other. Now, I love this couple. So does God. What would cause them to do this? The mystery of lawlessness. Let me tell you something. Do you know that it was in 2006 when you have Lawrence v. Texas that homosexuality became an acceptable lifestyle and it was no longer against the law? If you go back 40 years, it was against the law. Today, it is against the law to murder somebody. But what happened? The mystery of lawlessness was at work. Listen, 60 years ago, you get arrested for homosexual behavior. Why? Because 100— listen, 100 years before we removed prayer from school and the Word of God from school, in the 1860s, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that if a public high school didn't teach the Word of God, they didn't get government funding. We understood that we needed the Word of God to protect us from lawlessness. Now we got a quote Christian couple platforming what God says is an abomination. The mystery of lawlessness is at work, and it's dulling people, and you know what it's doing? It's pulling us away from the presence of God. See, what do human beings crave more than anything else is the presence of God. The mystery of lawlessness is at work to pull you away from God. Can you imagine the profound loss that Adam and Eve felt? Do you know there are early church fathers who wrote that Adam and Eve would sit in caves for months? They were so depressed because they walked in the presence of his glory and they lost it because because they chose what was good for them outside of what God said? Just like I tried to build that toy outside of the way the guy who designed it did, and it didn't work. The reason we should hate homosexuality and hate pedophiles, pedophilia, and murder is because it hurts people. It hurts people. It pulls them away from their loving Creator. And now you've got people that think, well, to submit to God is slavery. If you go read Psalm 2 in the New Living Translation, they said, let us break the bands of slavery with God. We want to choose what's good for our lives. The fear of the Lord— this is why Jesus loved the fear of the Lord, because it's The fear of the Lord says, I know whatever God wants in my life is what's best for me. Whatever God has said for human beings is what's best for human beings. The devil comes in and says, hey, it's what you— I'm going to put desires in you. I'm going to put these things in you that actually will kill you, and I'm very seductive about it. But when you lose the fear of the Lord, you can no longer discern it. Now you call yourself a Christian couple and you, and you platform a homosexual couple who are raising two boys who will never get the nurture of a mother. See how perverted our society has become? Why aren't we talking about this? Why aren't pastors preaching on this? We don't hate people, we love people. So what is the fear of the Lord? Let me— you could put it into two categories. Everybody say two categories. Category number one, to tremble at his presence. Category number two, to tremble at his word. All right, now I want to talk about each. First of all, to tremble at his presence. God says through the prophet Jeremiah, he says, look at this.— this is amazing. He said, "Do you not fear me? Will you not tremble at my presence?" I think we've forgotten who it is we're serving. I think we've reduced Jesus down to such a buddy in the Western church that we've forgotten who it is we're serving. You know, God makes this statement through the prophet Jeremiah. "Who are you gonna compare me to?" This is the one who, listen, weighed every drop of water on this planet in the palm of his hands, measured the mountains in a scale. He's the one that put the stars in the universe with his fingers and called everyone by name. He is the one that measured the width of the universe with the span of his hand. And he says, "Who are you gonna compare me to?" I look at Isaiah who writes this, I love Isaiah. Because, you know, in Isaiah chapter 6, which is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible, you've got this man Isaiah, he's a godly man, and the year is 742 BC, and God transports him out of his body and plops him right down in the middle of the throne of God. I mean, can you imagine this? Literally transports his spirit and puts him right before the throne of God. And Isaiah sees the Lord, and the first thing he notices are these massive angels, and one is crying to the other, "Holy!" Now I know it says holy, holy, holy 3 times, but that's just the Hebrew form of writing to put emphasis on the word. You write it 3 times in a row, you can't emphasize it anymore. In fact, these angels are crying out holy so loud. See, we made a song out of this. They're not singing God a song making Him feel good about Himself. They are responding to what they see. Every moment another facet of His glory is revealed and one cries, holy! And they cry holy so loud that they're— listen to this— they're shaking an arena in heaven that holds over a billion beings to its foundations. Look at this. To its foundations. Every moment another facet, and one cries to the other. He doesn't sing, he cries, holy! See, some people have this weird, perverted idea that heaven's gonna be boring. Okay, this life is a dream, that's reality, and what created this is so far better than this, Okay? And as amazing as it's gonna be, as good as the pickleball's gonna be, and the golf, and the construction of galaxies, and the development of communities in galaxies, nothing's better than being at the throne. You see, this is why David the king, who's got the most beautiful house in Israel, goes, I'd rather, just let me be a doorkeeper in that that, that building in God's house. See, Isaiah, Isaiah, these angels are crying holy. You know what's amazing? They're not crying faithful, faithful, faithful. Is God faithful? Yes, you better believe he's faithful, but that's not his attribute that stands out. They're not crying love, love, love. Is God love? Yes, he doesn't have love, he is love, but that's not his attribute that stands out. The attribute that stands out above all other attributes is his His holiness. I love what Oswald Chambers says. He said, "When we preach the love of God, there is a danger of forgetting that the Bible reveals not first the love of God, but the intense blazing holiness of God, with His love at the very center of that holiness." Now, when Isaiah sees the Lord, he doesn't go, "Hey God, it's me! I'm your boy, I'm the one that's preaching the gospel!" And he is. 'Cause if you read Isaiah 5, he says, woe to the wicked, woe to those that are proud, woe to those who call good evil and evil good, woe to those who linger long at the bottle and get drunk. But he comes to Isaiah 6, he has one glimpse of God, it's no longer woe is the sinner, it's woe is me. What is happening here? For the first time in his life, even though he's actually the most godly man in Israel, But for the first time in his life, he actually realizes who it is he's really serving. That's why he writes later, God, you are a God that hides yourself. He's hidden his glory. I told my boys one day when they were young and they were all into Michael Jordan, I said, hey guys, God weighed every drop. We were at the Atlantic Ocean. Every drop of water in the palm of his hands. And you're impressed because this is you know this guy can jump from a 15-foot line and put a ball through a hole that big? They went, oh my gosh, Dad, we got it. I said, yeah, he's hidden his glory to see what's gonna turn you on. The athletes, the superstar models, and all this other stuff that have no glory in comparison, or if you're gonna see his glory in your heart. For the first time in his life, he realizes who he is before this holy God. This is a godly man, the most godly in Israel. If you look at, hey, hey, look at Job. Think about Job, think about Job. God said, not his mayor, not his pastor, God said there is not a more godly man on planet Earth than Job. Can you imagine if the Lord said that about you? There's not one human being more godly than you on the entire face of the earth. Yet that's what he said about Job. And yet Job cries out. He sees the Lord because God reveals himself. And Job said, I heard about you in the hearing of the ear. I heard about you at church, but now my eye sees you. I abhor myself. If you look at Moses, he's the most godly man in Israel. Yet the Bible says he trembled with fear when he saw the Lord. If you look at John the Apostle, he's the closest disciple to Jesus, yet he sees Jesus on Patmos and he falls down like a dead man. I think we've forgotten who it is we're serving. I remember, I remember I was asked to the nation of Brazil to do their national conference. It was the first time I'd ever preached in Brazil. I've been there like 20 times since, but I was so excited because I wanted to go to Brazil. I just really wanted to go, and it was 1997. Can you remember? Some of you weren't even born that time, okay? Vladimir was, Vlad, you were just a kid at that time. And I remember, I go down to Brazil, I pray all day, and I'm doing the Friday night service. They drive me to the arena. Okay, the place made this place look really small. The arena where they're having this conference. It's a church network of over 300,000 people. And I remember they walked me on the platform during the praise and worship. This is back in the days when the pastors had to sit You know when you sit on the platform? Oh gosh, I'm glad we're done with that today. It's ridiculous, but anyway, it worked. And I remember I'm on the platform, and I mean, these are the best musicians and singers in the nation. They're good. But there's not a, listen, listen, the first thing I noticed was there isn't a drop of presence in the entire arena, a drop of the presence of God. And I am so confused. I'm like, this is a believer's conference. Where is your presence? And I closed my eyes and I said, Lord, where's your presence? And when I opened my eyes, I saw the people standing there like this. I, I started seeing things I wouldn't see 'em before. I saw people with their hands in their pocket, you know, looking around. People were talking to each other. People were fumbling through their purses. People were walking down the big aisles going to the concession stands all around the arena, getting their tacos, their, their soft drinks, and seeing somebody got on the way back, high five and having a conversation with them and I'm like, really? And they get through the whole worship set and now when the music stops, because there's no music, you can hear the rumble of all the conversations going on in the arena. And then to my horror, I watched one of the leaders walk up and start reading from the scripture. And people are still standing there like this, they got their hands in their pocket, conversations are still going on, and I'm like, whoa!. And the Holy Spirit speaks to me and He said, "Son, you have to address this." I said, "Lord, I know, but how do I even get their attention?" And He gave me an idea. So, when they introduced me, I remember walking up, my translator's here, and I just sat there and put my elbow on the podium and just stared at everybody and didn't say a word. Now, when you're the Friday night guest speaker of the national conference and you've been introduced and you're just just standing there staring at everybody for about 60 seconds, that will get their attention. It seems like an hour. And all of a sudden, all the conversations stopped, people stopped moving, and everybody was looking at me. And when I realized every eye was on me in the building, I didn't dare introduce my family or show a picture of them. I said, I'll lose them. So the first words I ever spoke in public in Brazil, these were the words. I said, I have a question. That's the first public words I ever spoke in Brazil. I have a question. You're sitting talking to somebody across the table from you, and the whole time you're talking to them, they got their arms folded as if they're disinterested, their hands in their pocket looking down, or they're actually carrying on a conversation to somebody else sitting next to them. I said, are you going to continue to talk to them? No. I said, I've been in this arena for over an hour and there's not an ounce of the presence of God in here, because God will never come into a place where he's not held with the utmost of respect. I said Psalm chapter 89, verse 7 says God is to be greatly feared in the assembly of the saints and to be held in reverence by all those around Him. You're never gonna find Him in an atmosphere where He's not greatly feared and held in reverence. I said, if the president of your nation would have walked on this platform tonight, you would have given him 10 times the respect you gave the Holy Spirit. I said, if Pelé, your greatest soccer player in the history of Brazil, your Michael Jordan of soccer, would have walked on this platform, you would have been on the edge of your seats anticipating every word. I said, you've given no respect to the Spirit of God. And I preached them for the fear of the Lord for an hour and a half. When an hour and a half was up, I said, "All right, you're in this place, you say you're a Christian, but you lack the fear of God and you're willing to repent, stand up." 75% of the arena stands to their feet. Now listen, as soon as they stood, the presence of God fell on the arena. And I remember I kept thinking, we haven't even prayed yet. And I remember I'm hearing people sob all over the arena. And it was so wonderful. After about 4 minutes, the Lord said, lead him in a prayer, son. And I led him in a prayer of repentance. And then it got even a little stronger, the presence of God. And I remember all of a sudden it lifted. The presence lifted. I was like, God, God. And the Holy Spirit said, son, I'm coming one more time. Now I have— there is no way I can ever describe what happened next. But I'm gonna try. I want you to imagine being at the end of the runway at the airport over here that I'm gonna fly out of in 2 hours, and a Boeing jet takes off. That kind of a violent wind came blowing into that arena. When it did, the people started screaming. Now, can you imagine thousands of Latinos screaming? That's loud. Listen, the wind was louder. Now, I'm standing there. Now listen to my words because I'm gonna choose them carefully. I was petrified, yet I was drawn to it. It's the weirdest thing. It's so hard to describe unless you experience it. Literally, I am terrified, but yet I'm drawn to this presence. I had never encountered a presence like this in my life. I'd never encountered such authority and such awesomeness. And I remember, you know what thought went through my mind? John Bevere, you say one wrong word right now, you make one wrong move, you're dead. Would that have happened? I don't know, but there was a couple in the book of Acts. They came to their church service. They brought an offering, they came into that atmosphere with that kind of an attitude, they buried both of them. I knew irreverence, and that's New Testament, I knew irreverence would not be tolerated in this presence. And I remember, I mean, the people are literally screaming. I'm standing there going, oh my God. And the wind lasts for 90 seconds, and it gradually subsides, and leaves in its wake people collapsed all over the arena. Literally collapsed between the aisles. They're collapsed over chairs. And I'm standing there, I'm like, God, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? And the Holy Spirit spoke to me, and he said, son, I'm through with you. So I said to the leader, it's all yours. They escort me immediately out into the car. They put the soloist that night— she was a female— with her husband in the car. She screams, did you hear the wind? Did you hear the wind? I said, maybe it was a jet aircraft flew over the arena too low. She said, what are you talking about? And she started getting upset with me, and her husband quieted her. And her husband said, sir, that was no jet airplane. I said, how do you know? He said, there were security men and policemen all around the outside of the arena. They are union workers. Most of them aren't even Christians. When the wind started blowing on the inside of the arena, they came running in to see what was going on. He said, I was at the main soundboard making sure my wife's levels were right for her singing. He said, I looked at the decibel meters the whole time the wind was blowing and they were at zero. Not one inch of the— one bit of the sound came through our sound system. I said, I said, take me to my hotel room. Right now. And I remember I'm on the balcony of the hotel until 1:30 in the morning just worshiping God. I mean, I'm literally going, it was so surreal. I remember the next morning in that same arena, same people, the miracles that happened because of holy awe. We heard about this, we heard about this, listen, We heard about this for 22 years. First of all, it was snail mail, then it was emails, people testifying how their lives were changed in that wind, and then I go to Goiânia, Brazil in 2016 to speak to 12,000 pastors and leaders. The first pastor I meet, he goes, I was in the building 20 years ago when the wind blew. My life has never been the same. That's 'cause, listen, your life is never the same when you encounter the awe of God. He said, "By those," this is Leviticus 10:3. This is a law. "By those who come near me, I must." Not I should. You want to draw near to God? This is the only way. You try praying and you don't have holy fear, God will stay away to protect you. He doesn't want you to be another Ananias and Sapphira. By those who come near me, I must be regarded as holy. 2 years later, it was 1999, I was asked to do another national conference in the nation of Malaysia. That is a Muslim nation. It is state law. This conference was an auditorium like this. It was jam-packed, and there were people from all over Malaysia. They had come to Kuala Lumpur for this conference, and we were in our 10th service, and I was exhausted. In our 10th service, I had women that were called to ministry that had never publicly acknowledged it. They were about 5 deep, and I started down the stairs to minister to them, and all of a sudden, within 30 seconds, this— the presence comes in again. Within 30 seconds, they're all on the floor. There were literally 3 women on top. People— nobody caught them. Every single one of the women were on the floor. And that presence came again, but no wind this time, but it was stronger. And I had the same thought, John Bevere, you make one wrong move, you're dead, right? But here's the thing, it got to a point where I found out there's a difference between my head and my heart, because my head started saying, Lord, I can't handle this. This is too strong. And my heart said, please don't lift, please don't lift, please don't lift. No, don't, don't lift. My head and my heart are arguing. Remember the word of God divides between soul and spirit? And I remember I'm walking back and forth, and out of my mouth comes words I'd never thought of in my life. I cried out something I'd never thought of. I said, this is the spirit of the fear of the Lord. And all of a sudden I went, oh my gosh. That's it. And I remember what Isaiah wrote. Isaiah said, the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him. Spirit of wisdom, counsel, understanding, might, knowledge, and the spirit of the fear of the Lord. And his delight was the fear of the Lord. I realized this is one of the 7 manifestations of the Holy Spirit. I remember this presence lasted for about 6 minutes. It lifted. People are collapsed all over the auditorium. I turn the leader over to the leader. The leader comes up and says, hey, we were gonna end with a song. We're not singing any song. You can just stay as long as you want. People stayed there for so long. I was exhausted. After 15 minutes, I start walking out. When I get to the back doors, there's a couple from India. Okay, this was the largest Bible school in the nation of Malaysia. India hosting this conference. And this couple was in the Bible school. And I happened to notice she was one of the women laying on the floor getting baptized in fire. And I remember walking to that double door and the husband and the wife from India are just staring at me. And I stare at them. I mean, like, what do you say? Whoa, wasn't that cool? There's just no words. So we're staring at each other for like 30 seconds, and she breaks the silence. She goes, I feel so clean inside. And in my mind I went, oh my goodness, that describes what I felt in Brazil, in California, in North Carolina, in Texas, because it's only happened like 5 or 6 times in my life. I wish it happened a I remember I didn't say anything, I just shook my head and I went to my hotel that night and I kept thinking, clean, clean, she nailed it. I feel so clean when that presence comes. So the next morning I'm getting ready to play basketball with the Bible school students and I'm putting on my basketball shorts and the whole, listen, Holy Spirit speaks to me and he said, son, read Psalm 19. Now, this is '99, 1999. I don't have an iPad, so I grab my physical Bible, I open up to Psalm 19, I have no idea what I'm gonna read. I get to verse 9, and look what I read. Look what I read. The fear of the Lord is clean. I went, oh my gosh! Now look at the next words, look at the next words. In other words, enduring forever. Holy Spirit speaks to me right there in that hotel room. He said, "Son, Lucifer led worship right before my throne. He beheld my glory. He was anointed to do so. He didn't fear me. He didn't endure in heaven forever." He said, "A third of the angels beheld my glory. They didn't fear me. They didn't endure in heaven forever." He said, "Adam and Eve walked in the presence of my glory." Think about it. That's why they were so depressed. See, almost all unbelievers don't know what they lost, what Adam and Eve lost for us. They did. They walked in the presence of his glory. They didn't fear him. They didn't endure in the garden forever. Then he said this to me: Every created being that surrounds my throne throughout eternity will be tested in the holy fear of God. Later on that day, I started thinking, how many pastors, how many ministers have started ministry so on fire, but they fell? How many believers have walked away from the faith? I'll tell you how many. Barna did a study. In the last 25 years, over 30 million Americans have walked away from the faith. These are practicing Christians, believe the Bible, attend church on a regular basis, have walked away from the faith. Do you know that 30 million Americans is 1 out of every 10 Americans? Is it because we're not teaching on the fear of the Lord? Yes, it endures forever. This is why Jesus delighted in it. Now, the fear of the Lord is to tremble at his word. Everybody say, tremble at his word. Isaiah 66, God makes a statement that's so amazing. He said, "This is the one to whom I will look." You know what the word look in Hebrew means? Pay close attention to. God is saying, "This is the person I pay close attention to." In other words, God, remember Tommy Tenney wrote that book years ago, God Chasers? It's one thing to chase God, it's another thing to have God chasing you. What God is saying is, this is the one I chase. God chases people. Doesn't he send the senior prophet to a guy Jesse's house? He goes through the 7 most likely sons and God says, I'm not chasing any of those 7, I'm chasing the little ruddy one. Doesn't God send an angel to Cornelius who is a Roman centurion and the angel says, God really likes you, he's chasing you, but I can't tell you how to get saved, but Peter can. Go down there and get your men to go down there and get him. God is saying, this is the one I'm chasing. I don't know about you, but I wanna be somebody that God's chasing. Okay? Okay. Who is the one you're chasing? Who's the one you pay close attention to? Keep it up, we gotta see it. Okay, who is the one God's chasing? He or she who is humble and contrite. And who trembles at my word. Okay, what does it mean to tremble at the word of God? What does it mean? It means you obey him instantly. You ever meet somebody and they go, well, the Lord's been dealing with me about this now for several months. Oh, you're just bragging about your lack of godly fear. Amazing. David says in Psalm 119:60, I will obey your commandments with haste. When we tremble at his word, it means we obey God even if it doesn't make sense. Has God ever told you to do something that doesn't make sense? Does it make sense to forgive somebody who's really hurt your family? Sure is quiet in this Methodist church. You still here? Does it make sense to bless somebody who gossiped about you and you lost your dream job because of their gossip? But God says bless them. I could go on the rest of the day. To tremble at his word means we obey God even if it hurts. Do you know Jesus obeyed the Father to the point of the most gruesome death a human being could suffer? And Peter said, as Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourself with the same mind. Now you don't go looking for suffering. It just means I'll obey God in a fallen culture, and I, as a result, I'm going to suffer. To tremble at his word means we obey God even if we don't see a benefit. We've almost developed disciples that the only way you can get them to obey God is to show them the benefit. If you obey, God will do this. If you serve, God will do this. If you give, God will do this. If you pray, God will do this. Does God do this, this, this, and this? Yes, absolutely, yes, yes, yes, but that better not be your motive for doing it. I mean, whoa, whoa, whoa. What if Esther, what if that would've been Esther's motive? What do I get out of this? She's got everything a woman wants, and she has everything to lose and nothing to gain. Even her head, she has that to lose. But she says, I'm going before the king, and if I die, I die. She feared God. Number 5, it means you'll obey him to completion. King Saul did 99.99% of what God told him to do. God said he's rebelled. Why don't you look at the 97% that I did do? Why didn't God look at the 0.01% that he didn't do? Remember Jesus said when you've done all those things which are commanded to you, say we're unprofitable servants, we've only done that which is our duty. It's getting quieter in this church. Okay, now I'm gonna end it with this. In this book, I share the 40 absolute benefits in praying and crying out to God for over 30 years now. God has shown me over 40 benefits unique, amazing benefits, rewards, promises that he— listen— is only to those who fear him. Now, you know what's really sad? A lot of these promises, we say it's to anybody who's born again. Uh-uh, it's to anybody who fears God and is born again. Okay, I'm gonna give you one. I'm gonna give you one, and you can check out the others in the book, okay? Here's one, ready for one? Intimate friendship with God. Psalm 25, verse 14 says, friendship with the Lord is reserved for those who fear him. With them he shares his secrets. Do you share your secrets with just anybody or intimate friends? God's no different. Now who's the first person that's called the friend of God in the Bible? It's Abraham, why? Because Abraham, when he's old, God comes to him one night and says, Abe! Yes, sir, yes, Lord, yes, yes, yes. You know your son that you love so much that you waited for for 25 years, that you love him more than anything or anyone else, who I promised to you? Yeah, Isaac, he's sleeping. I want you to go sacrifice him for me. Hello, I have 4 boys. I can't even imagine. But you know what the Bible says? Early the next morning, he's on his way. I'm gonna tell you, He didn't sleep. And then I look at somebody that says, "Well, the Lord's been dealing with me about this now for several months. I know I shouldn't be living with my boyfriend, but you know, I really love him." You have no fear of God. I mean, God just tells this— whoa, whoa, whoa! God, stop, stop, you're cutting into my time. I gotta catch a flight, okay? God tells this man, God tells this man to go sacrifice what was more important than anything in his life, and he gets up the next morning to do it, and you're living in sin, you are offending, you're living in what drove the nails through your Creator's hand, and you're wrestling with this for several months? You don't even know God. I hope you get saved today. Okay, so, so God gives them a 3-day journey. Why? Because it's a little easier when you heard a booming voice of God the night before, but about 2 and a half days later, you haven't heard one word from heaven, and you're looking at the mountain. You're going to put the most important person or thing to death, and you're in your life just because God said do it and didn't even give you a reason. But Abraham says, let's go, Isaac. They build the altar. His 13-year-old son puts some salt in the wound. He goes, Dad, where's the offering? Son, just keep working. We don't, God will provide. The altar's finished. He ties up his 13-year-old son. He holds up the knife. He's ready to put the most important person or thing to death in his life just because God said do it and didn't even give him a reason. God didn't say to him, if you sacrifice your son, I'll sacrifice my son. He just did it. And right when he's ready to thrust the knife into his son, an angel appears and the angel appears and says, Abraham, stop! Because now I know you fear God. How does the angel know that Abraham fears God? Because he did it immediately? Because he did it when it didn't make sense? Because he did it when it hurt, because he did it when he didn't see a benefit, and because he did it to completion. Abraham puts down the knife, lifts up his eyes, sees a ram caught in the thicket, and out of his spear comes Jehovah-Jireh. God just revealed a facet of his personality to Abraham nobody had ever known before. 'Cause he's my friend. Okay, you're not getting this. Okay, all of you know me as John Bevere preacher. Some of you know me as John Bevere author, but there's a lady, I showed you her picture, she knows me as John Bevere husband, John Bevere dad, John Bevere G-daddy, John Bevere athlete, John Bevere best friend. Can I say this to you? None of you will ever know me as John Bevere husband. That is reserved for the person that is most closest to me. God revealed a facet of his personality to Abraham nobody had ever known before. 'Cause he's my friend. Now, look at the relationship between God and Abraham. It's amazing. One day the Lord says, should we do to Sodom and Gomorrah what we're planning on doing without first talking to our friend Abraham? So the Lord comes down at the terebinth trees, He and Abraham go walk on over to the cliff and they look over the plains of Jordan. And the Lord says, Abe, we're thinking about blowing up these two cities. What do you think? And Abe goes, Sodom? And the Lord goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, and Gomorrah. What do you think? And Abraham goes, think, think, think, my nephew's over there. Think, think, think. Okay, Lord, you wouldn't like blow up those cities if there was 50 righteous. And the Lord goes, excellent idea, excellent idea. Okay, I'm glad I talked to my friend Abraham. If there's 50 righteous people, we will not blow up the cities. Abraham goes, what if there isn't 50? Okay, what about 45? Would you blow them up if there's 45? The Lord goes, another good idea, right? So Abraham talks him all the way down to 10. He figures there's got to be 10. Lot's one, all I need is 9 others. But there isn't. Now listen to what the Bible says. The Bible says Sodom and Gomorrah was buying, selling, trading, marrying, giving in marriage, planting and harvesting. What does that mean? Life is Life is great. The economy is booming, and if there is a God, he doesn't mind our lewd, homosexual, adulterous lifestyle. They're 24 hours away from being obliterated, and they are clueless. That is not what's scary. This is what's scary. Lot, everybody say Lot. Lot. Who the Bible calls righteous. Can I put it in today's terminology? 2 Peter, it's there twice. Saved, born again, Christian. Lot's 24 hours away from being obliterated. He's as clueless as Sodom. It takes two messengers of mercy, two angels, because Abraham prayed. Thank God Abraham prayed to get him out. Now you got two righteous men. Everybody say, "Two righteous." I'm gonna put it in today's terminology, two saved. 2 Christians. One Christian knows what God's gonna do before he does it and helps God decide how he's gonna do it. The other Christian is as clueless as the world. Why is that? Because this righteous Christian fears God, therefore he or she is the friend of God, therefore God shares his secrets with him. This righteous, saved, born-again man He does not fear God, therefore he does not know the secrets of God, because he is not the friend of God. You say, whoa, whoa, John, is this in the New Testament? Mm-hmm. You know what Jesus said to his disciples? You are my friends. Okay, we write books on this, we preach messages, we sing songs, but we don't finish the statement. This is not an unconditional statement. There is a big if on there. In other words, everybody's not my friend. Only my friends, you're only my friend if you do this. If we do what? If you keep all my commands. If you do whatever I command you. We tell everyone in the church, Jesus is your friend. This is why so many millions of Americans walked away. Oh, Jesus is your friend. Yet they have no intimate fellowship with him. He doesn't share his secrets with them. They get bored of just going to church, just going to Bible studies. So they've walked away, and not one of those 30 million people ever said when they were walking with God, Oh, one day I'm gonna leave him. They never planned on it. Friendship is what keeps us closely connected, and friendship isn't there without the holy fear of God. So my question is, why in the world haven't we been preaching this in the Western church? We need a generation of young men and women that will— Preach the holy. Preach what Jesus delighted in, and preach God's treasure. Did you get something out of this today? Did you get something out of this? I want every head bowed. I want every head bowed, every eye closed. Heavenly Father, thank you for what you've given to us today. Holy Spirit, we realize we asked for this, and I just really believe, Lord, that you have done a work in which none of us will ever be the same again. Confirm your word, Holy Spirit, with mighty, mighty signs, wonders, and miracles, in Jesus' name. Now, keep your heads bowed and your eyes closed. There's something that's very important that we must do immediately. The American church has sold people on a half-truth. I think one of the things that has kept us from having a genuine relationship with God is our patented sinner's prayer. The Bible says he is the groom and we are the bride. Paul even writes, "A man shall leave his father and mother, be joined to his wife, the two shall become one." But this is actually an illustration of the way the church and Jesus are one. God gave us an illustration we see every day of a man being united with a woman. Now when a woman walks down an aisle, with a white dress on, she's actually making a bold statement. She's saying goodbye to about 3.9 billion guys. She's saying, this is the one and only man I'm giving my entire heart and life to. Can you imagine a young man, I'm gonna give him a fictitious name. We got Matt dating Sarah. They've been dating for 2 years. Matt gets down on one knee, he's got the little ring box, he opens up the ring box, He says, Sarah, I love you. Will you be my wife? And she squeals with excitement. She pulls him up. She jumps into his arms with both legs and both arms. She almost chokes his breath out of him. She is so happy. She said, oh, Matt, Matt, this is the happiest day of my life. She gets down. They start talking a little while about how wonderful married life is gonna be. Then she looks at Matt and she says, now, Matt, of course I dated Tony in high school. I need a couple nights a year with him in bed., and you know, my college beau was Aaron, and if you could just give me a couple nights with him a year, you know, Matt, you will be my favorite. I will love you more than Aaron or Tony. You will get 360 nights a year. You will be my favorite. How many guys in the United States would go for that? Not one. Yet I look at Jesus. When did He get down on His knee and open up that ring box? It's when He came to this earth, our Creator. And took on a body, knowing that by the time they got done beating him, he wouldn't even be recognized as a human being. Isaiah prophesied it. They so beat and so disfigured him, you couldn't even recognize him to be human. He gets nails driven into his hands and feet. He sheds every drop of blood in his body. That is him getting down on one knee saying, would you be my bride? And we think he's coming back for a church that said, you'll be my favorite, "but just give me a couple nights to sleep with the world." If you believe that, you're as deceived as that girl Sarah. He's coming back for a bride that has given herself to him the way he gave himself to her. Don't make any mistake about it. So I'm gonna ask you, have you done what that bride's done? I want you to not think about the person sitting next to you, and I certainly don't want you to deceive yourself, but I want you to ask yourself the honest question. Have you given your life to Jesus Christ the way that girl gives her life to that groom? I won't date anybody anymore. I won't flirt with anybody anymore. I won't give my phone number out anymore. If you're flirting with the world a couple nights a year, You still don't know him, but I wanna give you a chance because listen, he's standing here right now with his arms open wide and he's hopeful. I'm gonna tell you why he's hopeful. Because he wants a bride that has a free will. He doesn't ever want somebody, one human being to feel like they're forced to serving him. So he's hopeful, he's already died for you. And if you remember the prodigal son, the father came running before he even said anything. But if you're in here and you'd say, John, truth be told, I've not given my life to Jesus the way that bride gives her life to a groom, but I want to do it right now, then I want you to lift up your hands right now with every head bowed. Oh my goodness, look at the hands. All right, if that's you, now listen, you've not done what that bride does, and that's you, lift up your hands high, and I want you to stand to your feet because no bride's ever been ashamed of her groom. Stand up. If you have your hands in the air, stand up quickly. Okay, now wait a minute. Keep your heads bowed and your eyes closed. There's a few people sitting that you want to be standing. Can you ask yourself why you're not standing right now? Do you want to play Russian roulette with your own soul for eternity? You're not promised tomorrow. I'm not, hey, Jesus and I will not get you to do something contrary to your will, but I sure want you to make a decision. Please decide. If you're standing, I want you to look at me. If you're standing, I want you to look at me. I don't ever want you to forget this moment. Whatever it is that you know the Holy Spirit dealt with you about, I want you to break up with it right now. You know how you broke up before you got engaged? You broke up with every girlfriend, every boyfriend. I want you to break up with whatever it is, and I want you to step out in the aisle. I want you to come as far to the front as possible, 'cause I wanna pray for you, and I want you to give 'em a hand as they come. Come on, give 'em a hand. Come on, give 'em a hand. Come on, come on, come on. Come on. No, no, no, no, guys, guys, let him come in. Let him come in. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you and you and you and you and you and you. I'm so proud of you guys. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. Keep coming, keep coming. I'm so proud of you guys. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you. Keep coming, keep coming, keep coming, keep coming. Come on, give 'em a hand. Heaven's having a party right now. Tim, would you put up— would you put up the awe of God on the screen right now, please? All right, keep coming in, keep coming in. They're still coming. All right, can you look at me, those of you that are down here? Look at me. Why do you have these sad looks on your face? Have you ever seen a bride walking down the aisle going, "Hahaha, this is the greatest moment!" If you could see Jesus right now, he's going, "Yes, yes, yes, yes!" Do you understand that? So this is what I want you to do. I want you to close your eyes. I don't want you to lift up your hands. It's the greatest moment of your life. Holy Spirit, I'm asking you, fall on these men and women. Reveal Jesus to them like they've never ever seen him before. Open our eyes, open our ears, open our hearts. Now I want you to say this to the one you're beholding. Say this. Dear Lord Jesus, forgive me for living life apart from you, my creator and my bridegroom, my Savior and my Lord. I am so sorry for this, and today I repent. I repent of flirting with the world. I repent of sleeping with the world. Today, I give my entire spirit, soul, and body, everything I am, everything I have, to you, Jesus. You are my King, my Lord, my Bridegroom. Thank you for washing me with your blood and receiving me into your household. I'm yours forever. Now, Holy Spirit, thank you for revealing Jesus to me. Now lift up your hands one more time. Heavenly Father, I am asking— I'm praying for you. You don't need to pray. Just lift. Just lift your hands and receive. Heavenly Father, I'm asking, baptize every single man and woman who has their hands lifted up to you. Baptize them in the Spirit of my Lord Jesus Christ. Fill them with the spirit of holy fear. If your hands are lifted, I want you to say this. Father in heaven. Father in heaven. Baptize me. Baptize me. Fill me. Fill me. With the spirit of holy fear. With the spirit of holy fear. The Holy Spirit of the fear of the Lord. The Holy Spirit of the fear of the Lord. May Jesus' delight. May Jesus' delight. Jesus, become my delight. From this moment on, I want to walk in the holy fear of God. Now lift your hands up one more time. Thanks for listening to today's podcast. 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