256: Tim Galbraith - With Moses on Horeb

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:13

   Welcome to good Chris Elfian talks. I’m Levi. And I’m Chris. And I’m Brian. Thank you for joining us this week on this podcast. We select one Talk a week to help us get the Bible in our Daily News feed. We post a new episode at the start of each week. With a short intro beforehand to kind of set the stage for the talk you’re about to listen to. And now, let’s talk more about this week’s talk. This week’s talk is a lecture by brother Tim Galbraith from Hyderabad, India.

2. 0:54

   He presented this talk in 2001 at the Los Angeles Ecclesia here in LA. This is a midweek class and it’s the first class in a series of midweek classes that he gave leading up to A to a study weekend back then. The title is with Moses in Horeb because as he kind of touches on right at the beginning, this is one example of of an interaction on the mountain, and this is the first one.

3. 1:21

   And he kind of makes the point that Moses and horrib is he he he uses this as a as a jumping pad to a discussion on the fear of the Lord. So it’s pretty funny. I’m putting this title here on the podcast because he barely talks about Moses at horrib. It’s really a a really amazing study on the concept of the fear of the Lord and how the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

4. 1:44

   And then he broadens that really over the whole scripture. And this is something I’ve known from hearing Brother Tim in person. Jess and I were in India many years ago and then I’ve heard him when he’s been here in the States other times. He is one of the best we have at just a comprehension of of the total message of scripture and you’re going to hear it in this class.

5. 2:06

   It really is a broad study. He goes all over the place to expand this concept of how the fear of the Lord is the beginning but it is still necessary and that that I think might be my favorite part. Middle of the second-half at some point he talks about how he still needs to remember to have the fear of the Lord for even his thoughts.

6. 2:30

   This is a really excellent class, really fun to listen to. I’m thankful to have this recording. Brother Chris, one of the Co hosts here, has taken on a task of converting a lot of old tapes. We’ve been sent tapes and been put in touch with those who have a tape library. So this is a class that’s online now on good on Chris Lefkin, bibletalks.com but recently converted from the tape that it was in 2001.

7. 2:56

   So thank you Chris for doing that work. It’s been really fun to listen to some of these talks that we don’t have as of yet on any of our Internet sites. So very thankful to share this one. This is really again a study on the beginning, the fear of the Lord’s beginning of knowledge. But here is Moses that Horeb by brother Tim Galbraith. Thanks, Brother Mark and good evening. It’s lovely to be back after four years since I had the privilege of being with you in this ecclesia. We wanted this week to look at the question of our spiritual growth, of getting closer to God as we go through our spiritual walk.

8. 3:43

   And of course there are steps. That need to be taken if we are going to feel in our lives and genuinely be closer to our God. And I thought it would be profitable to go through this week looking at out of the many mountain experiences which the Bible talks about, looking just at 4 incidents, 4 situations that seem to epitomize our growth as we draw closer to God.

9. 4:15

   And as Mark told us, those four experiences are first of all, this experience on Mount Horeb, the experience with Elijah on Mount Carmel, the experience of our Savior on Calvary, and the prospective experience of being with redeemed on Zion. Now obviously, when we read this scene in Chapter 19, there’s something that really comes to the fore.

10. 4:46

    And that is that there is a very frightening experience for the people. We are told in verse 16 that in the third day in the morning there were thunders, lightnings, a thick cloud upon the mount, the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the people that were in the camp trembled now for some reason. God chose to scare his people in this beginning of the experience.

11. 5:22

    See, the covenant has not yet been fully made. God is still in the process of bringing the people unto himself, bringing them to the covenant which he is about to make with them. But for some reason he decides that this opening experience that he’s going to give them as he gives his Lord to them. Is 1, which makes them afraid.

12. 5:48

    They’re told to keep well away from this mountain. They are given signs that well make them scared. The there is an earthquake that the mountain we are told in verse 18 was on smoke and fire. The whole mount quake greatly. There was a mighty earthquake. Now in this step then of God bringing Israel unto Himself, after all, that’s His purpose in verse 4, how I bear you on eagle’s wings and brought you unto myself. So here he’s bringing them unto himself. He seeks to owe them with His mighty power, with His Majesty. Now we can think why.

13. 6:39

    According to the Proverbs, as we read again and again, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Let’s just look at a couple of those references from Proverbs. Proverbs chapter one and we read in verse 7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Again we read in the 9th chapter and verse 10.

14. 7:12

    The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And again in verse 33 of chapter 15, the fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom, and so Knowledge, wisdom instruction. Again, says the wise man with an awe, a fear, a reverence of God. And so it is that all the people feared greatly when this happened. Now not only did all the people fear, Moses himself was frightened by this experience.

15. 8:00

    Moses knew what was happening, and yet he was exceedingly frightened by this. Demonstration of God’s power. This we learn only from the New Testament record in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 21 reads. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. And so Moses himself was frightened by the experience.

16. 8:36

    Now that was in Hebrews 12 and verse 21. Now if then the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, beginning of wisdom, beginning of instruction, is that where our walk before God starts? And yes, it is. Of course we know that, unless we have some knowledge of God. Then we can no way draw near to Him, and unless we have some wisdom in choosing to draw an eye to Him, we cannot draw an eye to Him. And so, as again Hebrews Chapter 11 tells us, verse six, that if we are to draw near to God, if we are to come to God, we must believe that He is we must have knowledge of His existence and knowledge.

17. 9:29

    Of his character. Because how can we draw near to regard whom we do not know? How can we make that choice back in Proverbs chapter one? We read and we’ll pick up at verse 29. Talking about those who refused the ways of God, for they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. It was their choice as a wise man whether they were going to fear God or not.

18. 10:11

    How people respond to demonstration of God’s power is their choice. And sometimes I used to think as a young child, look, why doesn’t God just do something catastrophic, that something so amazing that nobody can say, look, is there a God, Does God really exist? And to realize as you read through Scripture, it doesn’t matter what God did if people choose not to fear God, if people choose not to heed him. That they won’t do it.

19. 10:46

    And Scripture is full of examples of people who, despite the most catastrophic situations, refuse to acknowledge, fear, respect God. Just turn for example, to the Book of Revelation and the judgments which are poured out there. Very awesome judgments in Revelation chapter 16. And we read here verses 10 and 11. And the 5th Angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast, and his Kingdom was full of darkness. And they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains in the source, and repented not of their deeds.

20. 11:35

    So they they had a clear choice. That in these terrible situations they found themselves. They could they could turn and plead God, acknowledge that God had the right and the power to deal as he was with them, but they would not acknowledge that. They would not respect that. They would not fear that they chose just to blaspheme.

21. 12:01

    And that tells us also why. God is calling out of the nations, the people for his name and not simply plunking the whole human race into his Kingdom. Again, many times we hear people say, well look, really couldn’t God just in his kindness put everybody into the Kingdom? But he couldn’t have a Kingdom if he did that, because people would not. Acknowledge God’s right to do as He wants in His Kingdom, and His role just turned to Isaiah.

22. 12:33

    Chapter 26 we read here starting from verse 9, Isaiah 26. With my soul have I desired thee in the night. Yay, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. OK, so when Christ comes back and sets up the Kingdom, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

23. 13:09

    But verse 10 Let favor be showed to the wicked. Yet he will not learn righteousness in the land of uprightness. He will deal unjustly and will not behold the majesty of the Lord. That word there, Behold. Literally means to acknowledge. In other words, put him in the Kingdom. Put him in a perfect situation where everything is just fine and he will still not acknowledge God’s right to do as God wants to do. And so there are people.

24. 13:43

    There are, unfortunately it would seem, the majority of human beings who will not fear the Lord regardless of whatever situation they may face. Now fear of course is something therefore that people must have of God. And that’s why you will find, for example in the Acts of the Apostles, the apostles sometimes addressing the the multitude and saying, men, brethren, ye that fear God, how can?

25. 14:17

    Because if people don’t fear God, if we don’t fear God, then we are not going to listen to what he says. And that is why God needed to bring this horrible experience to Israel. That they might hear, that they might listen because they fear Him. Now, sometimes we don’t have these experiences that that frighten us. Sometimes we do.

26. 14:45

    Sometimes things happen. And as much as we know, every day is a day within God’s care for us. Yet isn’t it true that when tragedy strikes, when something really happens to us, in our family, in our close nitty cleisures that we do, we get frightened. What is God trying to teach us? What really is going wrong in my life, in my family’s life, in my cleisure’s life?

27. 15:18

    Because we fear that God is working there and we don’t understand why. And that’s right, that we should do. Not that we should trouble ourselves too much as working out why, as we will see in a later study. But it is important to recognize that yes, we should pause, we should consider we should indeed respect and fear our God. Now, that doesn’t mean that our whole walk has to be, as it were, tailored out of fear.

28. 15:54

    Fear was the beginning of the experience for Israel, and fear of God may well be the beginning of our experience. But we must grow. We must grow until, as we will find by the end of the weekend, as we find in first John chapter 4 and verse 18 that perfect love casts out fear.

29. 16:16

    So we will get by God’s grace to that situation where love. And not fear is the prime mover of all that we do. But the starting point must be with fear until love takes over. And there might be times that we need to induce this. You remember back King David, of course, At various times in the Psalms he seems to deliberately induce a sense of awe, a sense almost of fear. Of the greatness of his God, so that he he really can feel his own position before God.

30. 16:58

    For example, in the 8th Psalm 1, which is very famous, and verse three and four, when I consider the heavens the work of your hands, of moon and stars which you have ordained, what is man? That you are mindful of him, the Son of man, That you visit him. I mean, what am I? Says David compared to this awesome universe. So he induces a sense of awe of his God, and that’s important. In fact, in the 34th Psalm, David reminds us of the need to always blow God up in our thinking into much bigger than He is.

31. 17:43

    At least much bigger than he is in our thinking. It’s impossible to to magnify God in our thinking bigger than he is because he’s so vast. But it’s the finding we have as human beings. We cannot readily appreciate that all the nations are us. But a drop in a bucket, I mean when we have one drop of water in a bucket we we reckon it’s empty. We, we, we, we say, look, there’s no water there. It’s nothing.

32. 18:10

    It’s the dust of the balance. And that’s the the. Prophet goes on to say, and as I thought, he that he counts the nations as less than nothing, absolutely nothing. So who are we? What are we compared to this great God? And therefore, in the words of Psalm 34, verse 30 magnify the Lord with me.

33. 18:37

    Magnify. We know what a magnifying glass does. It makes things bigger. Let’s make God bigger in our thinking, in our estimation, says David. And so we magnify the Lord. For those who fear the Lord, of course, do that. But those who don’t fear the Lord make God very small, so that God has no power. That they’re not.

34. 19:02

    They’re not frightened of God. And again, the Psalms are full of examples of people who are not frightened of God. It’s in Psalm 78, I think, that he makes mention of this, talking about the wicked and the terrible things that the wicked do, and he goes through. In Psalm sorry 73 Psalm 73 my correction and he talks about all the wicked things which the wicked do and they say in verse 11 and they say how does God know? Is there knowledge in the most High God? God doesn’t know all these things. How can God know everything that happens? God is a small God.

35. 20:00

    What’s he going to know if I do this or I do that? But of course our God is not a small God. Our God knows, knows, even the hairs of our head, even in the morning or in the evening after we’ve combed it. It might be less, but we don’t know. But he knows. And that’s the sort of God we have a God that that we we do fear.

36. 20:30

    And I think even as we walk through our lives in Christ, there is always an element that must be there of fear. We know that when we have small children, initially children, very small children will to some extent or buy us out of fear. They know that if they do something wrong that they will suffer. But gradually, and this is a long process in a child, those values which we are making the decisions on will be internalized by them.

37. 21:08

    So eventually they leave home. And they don’t need the fear of parents because they have internalized from us and from the Scripture the values that will keep them in the right way. They’ve internalized from us a fear of God, but their parents are no longer there, But God is there, and they don’t want to upset God. And so it is that in the beginning of our walk, this is the case.

38. 21:39

    And it’s interesting that as the Ecclesia grew in Acts of the Apostles, the beginnings of the ecclesia were marked often by incidents that, as it were exact, the ecleasure, the new little ecleasure, growing with fear that people might not take lightly the decision to become part of the family of the living God. Just turn to a few examples in Acts chapter 2, verse 43. And fear came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.

39. 22:27

    God saw to it with great things that there was a certain measure of fear that this was some great thing. This was not something to be dismissed lightly or to be just tampered with just for human pleasure. And in chapter 5, this is really driven home with the example of Ananais and Safira. And and why did this happen?

40. 22:55

    What was God’s purpose in allowing this to happen in the early church? Oh verse 5. And Ananais, hearing these words, fell down and gave up the spirit, and great fear came on all them that heard these things. This was God’s decision to induce fear. And again verse 11 And great fear came upon all the church and many who heard these things.

41. 23:27

    So the Ecclesia realized that it was not a small thing to tamper with the things of the living God, that yes, he was a God of love, who sought to bring them unto himself, as he did with Israel, in a very loving way. And yet he knew that it was necessary to instill in Israel, and it was necessary to instill in the Ecclesia some fear of God, that we who are so weak in the flesh, should not lightly tamper with the things of God.

42. 24:07

    And later on in Acts Chapter 9 and verse 31 we see the result of the development. Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified, and walking in the fear of the Lord and comfort of the Holy Spirit were multiplied. And so it was that the Ecclesia had to begin their development this way.

43. 24:39

    And when we jumped right forward beyond our day to the beginning of the Kingdom era, when you have a world which must be brought to its knees to to worship God in the Kingdom age again, it is ushered in by a great demonstration of God’s power inducing human fear. If you return to Isaiah 2 as one example of that, where we have this very graphic description of the fear of God induced by mighty powers, verse 10 Enter into the rock and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the Lord and for glory of His Majesty, the lofty looks of man shall be humbled, the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

44. 25:39

    And verse 21. To go into the clefts of the rocks, into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of His Majesty. When he arises to shake terribly the earth.

45. 25:55

    God does it because He knows that that is the only way that he is going to begin the process of instruction and knowledge and wisdom for a world that has gone so hopelessly wrong and and we can see it. We can see every time we we open our papers or or switch on our Internet news.

46. 26:20

    We can see that the world is going further and further away from the instruction of the Lord. That there are laws being ushered in in virtually every country that contradict the principles that the Bible is teaching us. And so it is that people will have to be given this fear of the Lord.

47. 26:41

    Now, once we have begun our walk, once we have been instructed in the things of God, once we have come to Christ, we have made our commitment through baptism. Does does there need to be any sense of awe, of fear of God? Well, I I think there does. I think God at times had to rekindle in Israel this sense of fear.

48. 27:09

    Little ways, not not mighty ways as he began. Just turn for example to First Samuel in Chapter 11. Here we just see a small example of how God caused his fear to come upon the people. First Samuel Chapter 11, verses 6 and six through to 8. And the Spirit of God came upon soul when he heard those things, and his anger was kindled greatly. And he took a yoke of oxen, and hued them in pieces, and sent them throughout all the coast of Israel by the hands of messengers, saying, Peace overcometh not forth after soul. And after Samuel so shall it be done unto his oxen. And the fear of the Lord fell on the people, and they came out with one consent.

49. 28:02

    Understand that it wasn’t the fear of soul that’s being talked about. You might think, well the soul did this graphic thing and people are a bit frightened that soul might cut them up if they didn’t respond, but it doesn’t say that. It says that the fear of the Lord because soul was simply the Lord’s instrument.

50. 28:21

    The spirit of the Lord verse six had come upon him wasn’t soul. It was the Lord who was at work here to bring this sense of fear so that the people would respond as God wanted them to respond at that time. Now open Luke chapter 12. Our Lord has something to say on this theme.

51. 28:50

    Luke chapter 12 and verse four and five. Now notice Luke chapter 12 is a message first one to his disciples. He began to sign to his disciples first of all. And so this is a message to us this for I sound to you, my friends, be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear. Fear him which has, which after he has killed, have power to cast into hell.

52. 29:26

    Yeah, I sound to you, fear him. And there’s a clear exhortation from the Lord to Don’t fear man, but but do fear God. Don’t say, well, I I fear nobody. I don’t fear man or God. That’s what the unjust judge said. I don’t fear God. I don’t fear anybody. Jesus says don’t be like that.

53. 29:49

    Certainly don’t fear man, but fear God. In fact, the wise man at the end of his experiment with life, as it were, and Ecclesiastes Trove tells us that that’s the conclusion of the whole matter, doesn’t it? In words which I’m sure you know very well. Verse 13 of Ecclesiastes 12 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

54. 30:24

    Notice, by the way, duty there in italics. It reads much more completely if we read it as Britain, fear God and keep His commandments for this, the whole of man, that’s all we are. It’s not just not a duty, it’s all that there is that is worth having in life is a life in conformity with God’s commandments because we fear him and the Lord. Jesus Christ himself had an element of this as we read again from a verse we know well in Hebrews chapter 5, a verse we often turn through to show the Lord shared our nature. And we read verse 7:00 and 8:00 during the days of His flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears unto him, that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared.

55. 31:28

    And the margin there has tried to turn around and say all his his piety, because they have a problem with the fact that Jesus feared his Father. But he did indeed seek to do the Father’s will, because he stood in awe of all that the Father represented. And many great men of old, many great men of wonderful faith, operated at a level of fear that God was not to be tampered with. For example, Noah Noah in Hebrews 11 we are told prepared an ark.

56. 32:15

    Now why did he prepare an ark? Verse 7 By faith now are being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house. He was quite sure that God meant what he said and that there was no tampering with God. And I think this is the important thing that we have to carry through our whole walk in Christ. Sure, we will move gradually from a position of terror, as some of the Israelites would have felt, to a position of great security and of great love. But I think in that movement we we must retain an element of awe and of fear that our God is not to be tampered with. And we’re reminded of that in the words of the New Testament in the 12th chapter of Hebrews, having talked about the the quaking, regarding Moses reading from verse 28 and 29, Wherefore we, receiving a Kingdom which cannot be removed, be moved? Let us have grace we may, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.

57. 33:43

    So we cannot ever, I think, say, well, I don’t, I don’t have to fear God If we were perfect, yes, in the Kingdom, yes. But let’s face it, there’s a very clear test, I think, for myself as to why I need to have a greater sense of the fear of God. Maybe for yourself.

58. 34:11

    My actions, which I do, are usually within the law, both within God’s law and within human law. My words are usually within God’s law and with human law, but my thoughts are very, very often outside of God’s law and even human law. I sometimes in my mind think of doing things that I I’m I’m just so blessed.

59. 34:45

    I feel that people don’t know about and why don’t I do them? Well, I don’t do very often those things because what would people think? I mean, I just couldn’t afford emotionally to do those things because I couldn’t cope with the reaction of all the people I love and many of the things that I might think about saying, I won’t say because I know what people will think, but my thoughts, they’re my own.

60. 35:19

    But then they’re not our own, are they? The Bible’s very clear that every thought that we have, even before we think it, God knows now. Why is it that my thoughts are dirtier than my behavior? For the simple reason that I have more fear of what you think right now perhaps than what my God thinks.

61. 35:43

    And I have to remind myself constantly that it has to be the other way around and that God is looking on the inside. God is looking on my thoughts, God is looking on my heart. And therefore I have to see that my thoughts, not just my words, not just my actions. My thoughts must be brought under his control because he knows what I’m thinking now on 1/2 of me. Of course I my motivation is is the motivation of love. I want to please God, but there is definitely an element that says, look, I I’m afraid to think like that because God knows what I’m thinking.

62. 36:30

    And I think for me that’s a telling point that therefore there has to be still in my my spiritual work, an element of fear of God. And that’s in agreement with what the apostles write. In the second chapter of Corinthians, Chapter 7, Paul having in the previous chapter talked about the necessity of of a pure and separated walk, begins in 2nd 15 seven verse one.

63. 37:04

    Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Now we can cleanse ourself from all filthiness of the flesh, very much because of the fear of man, but filthiness of the spirit, perfecting holiness that requires the fear of God. Again over in Colossians chapter 3, reading this time from the 22nd verse, Servants obeying all things your masters according to the flesh, not with I service as men pleases, but in singleness of heart, fearing God that whatever we do for whoever we do it, it is with the knowledge that I’m doing this to God and God is not to be tampered with.

64. 38:11

    I don’t do little things on the side that people don’t see because God knows and God is not to be tampered with. He’s a God of love, but he’s a God of great power and justice. Again in Peter’s first epistle, First Peter and Chapter 2, verse 17, Honor All. Love the brotherhood. Fear God, Honor the king. That’s a pretty quick exhortation, isn’t it? 4 injunctions in one little verse. Honor everybody.

65. 38:57

    Give respect to everybody. Love your brothers. Fear God, Honor the authorities. And see when he had to pick out one thing that that was needed for for these believers was to remind them that the responsibility to God was to to fear God. Now we know that that’s not a fear of absolute terror. That’s not just shaking in your shoes as the Israelites started out.

66. 39:25

    It is a a healthy respect and reference for God. But that underlying thought, as I said before, our God is a consuming fire. We don’t tamper with God. We we don’t take the things of God, like, and that’s what Anna and Safari did, didn’t they? They just didn’t have the fear of God. They they thought, we’ll get away with it, we’ll get some advantage.

67. 39:51

    And they didn’t see it as something so terrible. I thought, oh, well, that’s just a little bit of way of like making extra money. It’s not hurting anybody. At least they’re getting half the money. They could get nothing. But it was tampering, tampering with God, And God answered in in our most dramatic way.

68. 40:14

    And I think that’s a lot of our problem, isn’t it, that we tend to play down the seriousness of our sin? We tend to say, look, it’s only something small, It doesn’t matter so much. Anyway, just this once, it’s okay and I think God goes out of his way in the Bible to to show us again and again that that sin is horrible.

69. 40:40

    And let’s look at it right at the beginning. He he started out OK, they took a fruit they were told not to do. And we think, well, who suffers from that weather? What’s the real problem? But then God in the very next sin recorded has a brother kill his own brother and says that’s why it matters.

70. 40:58

    You think just something little. But if it’s not my standard, whose standard is it? The next thing from just taking a piece of fruit is killing your brother. And God gives us these two extremes to to show to us that sin is like this and sin is deadly. Why? Why does he use a second?

71. 41:18

    He uses the most deadly animal that that we have. Because it bites you. You look OK, but inside that poison is killing you. You look at the human kingdoms described in the Bible that are are controlled by the flesh, controlled by sin. They’re always grotesque animals. Wild animals. Daniel Chapter 7 that kill and devour.

72. 41:41

    They’re destructive. Why? Because God is telling us that sin is destructive. Don’t sin. I have to. I have to bring vengeance upon sin. So don’t sin. And of course if you do sin, seek forgiveness and say sorry about it and a world that doesn’t has to be destroyed. Philippians Chapter 2 and here I think Paul brings together two very important principles regarding our work. Remembering that that fear, remembering that that awe and reverence is necessary, that we might be instructed, that we might learn that we might have knowledge and wisdom. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, instruction, wisdom.

73. 42:47

    OK, Livings 2 versus verse 12. Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Now notice Paul is first of all pointing out in this chapter. Look, don’t listen to me simply because I’m there. And while Paul’s saying it, you know, we don’t want to upset Paul.

74. 43:18

    We’re a bit afraid of Paul, so we have to agree with him. No, he says. You’ve done it in my presence. Now do it much more in my absence, whether I’m there or not. It’s not a fear of me that should control your behavior. It’s not a fear of the of some senior brother or sister who might see us that controls our behavior. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. It’s up to you.

75. 43:52

    You. You can’t depend on the faith and control of your brothers and sisters. Ultimately it’s up to you and you having a relationship with God yourself where you fear God, not that the cleisure fears God and you’re a member and so that’s the way it is. You personally have a fear of God.

76. 44:14

    I personally need a fear of God and why do I need to have this? He says. Why do I need to have this respect for God verse 13. Because it is God that works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

77. 44:36

    God is the force that is working in you, and if you don’t have respect to that, then there’s going to be terrible chaos in your life. You have to acknowledge God’s authority, God’s power, because that’s the power that’s now inside you in Christ Jesus working. And it’s important that we tie these two verses together, as Paul does, that we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. And that’s not saying that we do it ourselves. That’s saying because for it is God who’s working in you, and it is God therefore that you must respect. And if we don’t have that respect of God, then God cannot work in us.

78. 45:31

    God can not do his will, He cannot do his pleasure. And so it’s necessary, even, says Paul, that right now we have this sense of fear before God. And I think very often as members of an ecleisure, we we can depend very much on the ecleisure, perhaps sometimes even too much, rather than depending on our God.

79. 46:00

    I think God taught Israel very important lesson because they were a big congregation. It was very easy for them to sort of just be one of a nation. They were born Israelites, so we’re God’s people. That’s the way it is. It was very easy for them to lose a sense of an individual relationship with God And the law which God gave through Horeb again and again brings us to the point of an individual relationship with God that we each must have born of a fear of his great power and of his great love to call us to himself.

80. 46:43

    It’s a little example of that if you just turn to the book of Leviticus and the very beginning. The whole book is full of this, but just at the beginning of the book. As an example, Leviticus chapter One, the ridiculous one, is about the burnt offering that had to be brought by anybody who was going to approach the Lord and wanted atonement for their sin.

81. 47:13

    And we read in verse three of this offering that had to be brought and it was a male without blemish. So of course it is the Lord Jesus Christ that is being talked about, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one through whom we have the Atonement, first four, And He shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering. Now if you’ve got a reference Bible, you will find the cross reference there gives you a host of examples, and there are many, many more where the Bible tells us you shall put your hand on the head of the offering.

82. 47:54

    Why the head? Why not the side? Why not grab the tail? Why not the leg? Why the head? Because the head of the body is Christ, and unless each one of us has our own individual relationship with God through Christ, we cannot go forward in our growth. You cannot have a relationship with God by holding the leg, some strong member of the eclesia, by holding the side, any other part of the body, because you are not joining the eclesia, you’re joining God through Christ. The hand must be on the head, and then it will be accepted to make atonement for him.

83. 48:45

    And so it is that the fear of God is an important element in developing this individual relationship with God. Not fear of the ecclesia, not fear of family or brothers and sisters. Fear of God through Christ Jesus. And it’s for each one of us, if we are going to, if we are going to walk in a way that draws us close to God, we’re going to have to remind ourselves constantly that this is where our contact point has to be.

84. 49:21

    And it’s interesting that Paul in Colossionist Chapter 2 picks up on this point of holding the head and he says Colossionist 2 talking about those who were not fearing God but seeking to puff themselves up. He says verse 19 not holding the head from which all a body by joints and bands having nourishment, administered and knit together, increases with the increase of God. It’s essential that each one of us hold on to the head, that each one of us has our individual relationship with Christ.

85. 50:11

    And even men, as we said, are of great faith, were men and women who were required to experience, sometimes again, the fear of God. And Elijah, who we’re going to look at more in our next study, is one who had to go back to Horeb to learn this lesson, that he was small, he was nothing, that God was everything. Just let us close by taking thoughts from that experience in First Kings and Chapter 18, Chapter 19. Rather, this is after the Carmel experience in First Kings Chapter 19.

86. 51:00

    And here is Elijah, feeling distressed, and he’s run all the way down to Hoeb. We find in verse 11 of First Kings 19 that the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains and break in pieces of rocks before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind, not the wind and earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake, and after the earthquake of fire.

87. 51:30

    But the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a still small voice. Now Elijah had just done dramatic things. He just put the fear of God into the people by slaying 400 prophets of bail.

88. 51:53

    But here God is having to say to Elijah, you also Elijah, you need the fear of God. He brought great power, he said. But Elijah, I’m not always in that. And it was through the still small voice which, when when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood. That still small voice was almost more frightening than these great signs of power.

89. 52:25

    Elijah had to be humbled. He had to be instructed that, Elijah, you are nothing. I don’t need you, Elijah. I’ve got 7000. People in Israel have about the need to bail. If you want retirement, Elijah, that’s fine. I’ll appoint somebody else. That’s not a problem for me. You’re not indispensable. He thought he was. He’d lost to some degree, his fear of God. That he was nothing.

90. 52:56

    That God was everything. That it wasn’t he. I alone am left, and I rely to you you’re not. It is God that worketh in you to will and do of his good pleasure. And we have to remember that that will humble us, to realize that we are nothing.

91. 53:18

    So here we stand, brother and sisters, stand now centuries later, but still standing in awe of the great and mighty God. You know of him because of his great power, but because of his great love. And we hear the still small voice and we almost wrap ourselves in embarrassment and think, is that is that really calling me?

92. 53:50

    And it is God is calling us to respond to journey to the Promised Land. We’ll begin our journey with fear. That fear grows to a holy reverence that we can walk humbly with our God until Jesus comes. Thank you for listening to the good Christadelphian Talks Podcast. We hope this talk helped you in your walk if you would like to hear more. Please subscribe for new episodes and leave a review, an Apple podcast, or whichever service you are using to help more people find the show when they search for it. If you enjoyed this particular talk, please share it with someone who you think might enjoy it as well. For show notes on the talk you just listened to, visit our show page at Anchor dot FM GCT or check the Show Notes section of your podcast player.

93. 54:56

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94. 55:13

    Send a suggestion to our e-mail at good [email protected] or message us on any of our social media accounts. Thank you for listening. God bless and talk to you next week.