When A Nation Doesn’t Fear God - Pastor Daniel Batarseh

Father, we pray in Jesus' name that you would speak to us and that you would give us what we need. Lord, we pray for our nation. We realize that this livestream is not platform to the whole world to see, but Lord, we are a community of believers, and you have given us your word. And Lord, it starts by by us. It starts by a small group, and we pray that this would have a ripple effect through our lives and to our families, to our friends, and that people would be changed as a result.

Lord, we trust that you're able to do it because it has to start somewhere. And so, Lord, we pray that if it's gonna affect anybody, let it affect us. So, lord, we pray for grace, and we pray for your power, and we pray that you would lead us into your truth, and let it be done in the spirit. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

I wanna say that from a personal perspective, I do not remember the last time I felt fear for this nation. Thoughts have come to mind, but in the past couple of weeks, these these thoughts have been something that I've been feeling, and the feeling that I've been having is that America is capable of destroying herself. I maybe you've thought that in theory, but to have to see the potential of what a nation's own people can do, never mind outside nations that can threaten us, we're talking about those that represent this nation. If the if the scene is set right and if you have the right ingredients, this entire nation can implode as we know it. And this this produces a healthy fear, as it should, to see that this is something that can happen in our generation.

And just looking at news headlines, titles such as America is Burning and and terminologies such as that, And we are witnessing it before us. And now we're hearing the cries of the people. Are we not? There are echoes that we've heard before, but there seems to be an intensity, not just with these riots and this whole issue of of of a man that was murdered, even with this whole virus. We're we're thinking about how America from coast to coast has been shut down because of a sickness, and now America from coast to coast is seeing eruptions of of havoc and madness.

And people are wondering and crying out for answers. Where's righteousness? Where's justice? Where's stability? Who can we trust?

Even the common man feels like they can't trust the information that is being provided to them. It is nothing short of confusion. It is nothing short of what can drive a people to madness. And here's the thing. As people are searching for answers, if they are looking for answers anywhere apart from God's word, they might find temporary solutions, but these issues will only be magnified and will only re surface in some way or shape or form in the future.

It's gonna happen. It's bound to happen. If we are not looking for answers in God, we will not find permanent solutions at all. And so as we hear on social media, on the news, and celebrities, and politicians, and even religious leaders crying out for solutions, I'm sure we can get answers in the political realm. I'm sure we can get some suggestions in in social reform.

I'm sure we can hear about our corruption and our leaders, and we need this and this policy. Listen. If we're honest and if we are truly a spiritual people, we know that this is rooted in a spiritual issue. And so the answer I make the case this morning is found in God's word, and I'm wondering if the people of America are desperate enough to find relief even at the expense of them surrendering to God's answers for what we're experiencing today. Do you wanna know how we came to this place?

Do you wanna know how in 2020 in our generation, we are experiencing what we're experiencing, to such a point that other nations are watching and are criticizing, and even some are rejoicing at the state that we are in? Well, I believe the answer is found in the book of Isaiah chapter 33. Let's go to Isaiah 33 verse five. And look what God's word says. The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high.

He will fill Zion with justice and righteousness, and he will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge. The fear of the Lord is Zion's treasure. Here's a prophetic declaration of what will come about the nation of Israel when the messiah, when Jesus Christ will rule and reign as we've talked about so many times before in his earthly kingdom, Look at the things that are being offered here. Justice, righteousness, stability. This is something that God is willing to give to Zion, which represents Jerusalem, which represents the nation of Israel as a whole.

God is willing and able from corner to corner, city to city, town to town, blanket this people with the very things that our nation is asking and demanding. And I love this word here, stability. It speaks of a firmness. It speaks of a constancy. It speaks of a a sense of comfort of knowing that things are in place.

And literally everything in our society seems to be out of place. Everything from our politics, to our leadership, to even the emotional state of this people, everything seems out of whack. And yet here we see God willing to offer it. Now in the King James, it says that wisdom and knowledge will be the stability of thy times. But it comes to the same conclusion.

It means the very same thing. I love how the ESV puts it, he will be the stability of your times. And so this is not just for the individual. We're talking here corporately. We're talking here on a national level, that this can be adopted, this can be the inheritance of not just Israel, but any people group.

But I want you to notice that these things cannot be achieved or attained apart from one reality. It is connected to a foundational principle, and it is found in verse six at the end of it. The prophet says by the spirit, the fear of the lord is Zion's treasure. Now what's the connection? Well, I want you to think of justice and righteousness and stability, wisdom and knowledge being like jewels, like gems, like diamonds in a treasure chest, and they are for the soul.

They are for society. But I want you to think that there is only one way to open this chest. There's only one access point to receiving and experiencing these beautiful things, and it is found in the fear of the Lord. That is the only key that gives access to these realities. You can almost render this phrase to say that the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.

The fear of the fear of god is the access point to these experiences. There's no other way to try to pursue it in in in politics, to try to pursue it in in any type of reform apart from the reform of the soul being saturated with this truth is a pointless pursuit. And so Zion's treasure is found in fearing God. And any nation who does not see the fear of God as its national treasure will not know the things that God is willing to offer as we see here. If you have a low view of the fear of God, if you dismiss God, if you try to push God out of your mind, out of your policies, out of your laws, forget justice, forget righteousness, forget stability in any sense.

These things are connected, and they can never be divorced. And yet man is trying to foolishly pursue these things outside of the realm of a holy terror towards God. No wonder we can never find solutions, at least permanently. What do we mean by fearing God? How is the fear of the lord a treasure?

Well, we have to understand that the fear of God is an inner trembling that results from an accurate understanding of who God is. It is a reverence that is produced when you truly comprehend who God is and his nature and what he is capable of. The fear of God is a dread of displeasing God If you do not choose to surrender to his rule and his will for your life, it is a motivational factor that says, I choose to live my life according to his reign. And if I choose to go outside of that, or even if I mistakenly slip out of that, there is this fear of of displeasing God. It is the necessary element that produces a reverential worship and a lifestyle of surrender and obedience to the almighty.

The fear of God is something that we are lacking today. It puts God in his place in our hearts. He it elevates him and realizes and recognizes him as supreme and superior and that everything revolves around him. To fear God is to include him in all our decisions. To fear God is to keep him in mind in every choice that we are faced to make.

And here's proof of that. Go to another prophet named Jeremiah, chapter five, and look at his indictment of the same people that Isaiah is offering these wonderful things to, and look at the questioning that God brings about to his nation, to his people. He says in Jeremiah five twenty two, do you not fear me, declares the lord? That's a question. Do you not fear me, declares the Lord.

Do you not tremble before me? I place the sand as the boundary of for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass. Though the waves toss, they cannot prevail. Though they roar, they cannot pass over. So here here's an examination that God is bringing to his people because he's he's finding a lack of this reverential awe from his people and he's saying, listen, Do you not fear me?

Don't you tremble? And then he presents something that he has done in the past, something that he has done from the beginning with the expectation that it should produce a present sense of trembling. He's almost calling his people to look and saying, realize that I'm the one who has authority over every body of water in this world, every ocean, and I've set its limits. I I've set where it can crash every time the waves come twenty four seven. Every single particle, every single wave surrenders to my authority, and if I let it loose, it's because I let it loose.

Nothing nothing is withheld, and nothing is apart from my influence. And as he points to creation, even just one part of creation, he's saying, do you realize that this is who I am? So then where's my fear? And so it begs the question, is it possible the reason why people don't fear is because they realize they don't realize who God is? There is a correlation between a limited or diluted view of God and the the lack of reverence that a people should have.

And I'm afraid that part of the major contribution to the lack of fear of God in our generation is not because the world doesn't fear God. That that's a given. It's because we are not presenting God from the pulpit the way he should be described. Most of modern preaching has been reduced to psychological tactics to how we can live a moral life at best. When it has been given to us, what we are experiencing right now, as a platform to continually declare who God is and what he is able to do, what he has done, what he is doing, and what he is going to do.

It is to present God to a people. And if from understanding who God is, then we are influenced to live in a certain way. But we have now cut and pasted these different ideas and pulling biblical principles, and we have now and this is the most popular type of teaching today, where it's become about God serving us, we having these dreams and God meeting those dreams. We having these expectation and God meeting those he he comes to help us when in fact it's him who's supposed to be the one who was served. And when you present that, and when this is the major message in our day from the most popular people, it's no wonder that we lack a fear.

God brings what he is able to do with the expectation that it should pull out of his people a sense of astonishment and fascination with who he is. In fact, you go down to verse 24 of the same chapter. What does it say? God says, they do not say in their hearts, let us fear the Lord our God, who gives us the rain and its season, the autumn rain and the spring rain, and keeps for us the weeks appointed for the harvest. So here is God again zooming into the hearts of his people, and he's saying, they don't even they don't even come to a conclusion and say, shouldn't we give God our reverence?

Shouldn't shouldn't we tremble before him? And and why do they lack that in their hearts? Because they don't realize even his goodness. Who gives what? The rain.

Who gives the necessary elements for survival. Who's the very source for all their well-being and for all their success. They fail to realize that behind all of their machinery and behind all of their endeavors and their plans and their achievements is one who enables them to even breathe in the first place, who gives them the the freedom to think and gives them the energy to even do what they think they are doing on their own. And so here's another thing, there is a failure of realizing their total dependency on God, that everything that they do and everything that they are is dependent upon God's enablement. And so when you fail to see that and you believe that you are independent and that you can run your life and that you can run a nation, you can run a city on your own, obviously, you're not gonna fear him because you have placed yourself where he belongs.

You have dethroned God of what belongs to him, and you've attempted to sit in his place by claiming that you are sovereign over yourself. And so here's God now criticizing his people who are not even suggesting to themselves that maybe we should reverence God because they have a failure in their perception of how day to day life is even granted to them. That is certainly true in our day. With all our achievements and all our advancements and all our boasting and all the things that we seem to be doing, it is no wonder that there is pride. It is no wonder that there is this sense of self sufficiency.

And when you have that, it's harder to fear god. And so here's god reminding them over and over again. I'm pointing at your failure. See, the lack of the fear of God is a failure of understanding of who he is and what he does. And now this whole concept of the fear of God has to be understood as not just some emotional sensation that you feel about God when you think of him.

No. It's it's not about God producing just a sense of, of understanding. It's an understanding that produces a surrender as a result of it. See, the lack of fear of God in Israel's day or in our day is not just us, missing out on one or two things. It is literally foundational to everything that we do individually and as a people.

If you remove this fear, you forfeit so many things. Again, God is not looking for just for us to to come into church quietly and to pray quietly. That's not the fear of God. It's a conviction that is settled. It's a frame of mind that is developed.

It is a conscious awareness of God that literally infiltrates every element of who you are and every decision that you make. And here's the problem. A greater knowledge of God is not the only thing that is necessary for this fear to be produced. It helps. It pushes us towards it.

So if you don't have this greater knowledge of God, kiss fearing God goodbye. But even if you are presented with truth, even if you come to a church that preaches the full counsel of God, it is still possible that you do not fear him because it's a it's a choice that you and I make once we are presented with who God is. And here's proof of that. You go to Romans chapter one and listen to this verse in 21. It says, for although they knew God although they knew God.

Now how do they know God in a personal intimate relationship kind of way? No. You look at the verses prior, and it says that creation exposes the world to who God is. Creation shouts the glory of God and demands people to submit to the reality that there is somebody who has designed all these things, that there is someone outside of themselves, more powerful, more wise, and more control than they are. Creation preaches to the world that there is a creator, and so nobody is without excuse.

Everybody will be held accountable by the basis of that revelation alone. And then Paul goes on to say, although they knew God, although they can look out in the world and say, there is a God, there must be a God, This just couldn't have happened on its own. Look what it says. They did not honor him. They did not honor him or give thanks to him.

So you can know that there is a God. You can acknowledge that there is a creator. You can believe even that he is the reason why all things exist and are held together. But even in that state of awareness, you can still choose to say, I'm not gonna honor him, and I'm not going to give thanks to him. I'm going to willfully reject giving what is due onto him, even though I am aware that he is.

That's terrifying. And what happens when a person or a nation does not choose to honor God or worship God and give thanks to God? Why wouldn't somebody give thanks to God? Because you are admitting that he is the giver and you're the receiver. You are admitting that you are the one who is under and he is the one who is above.

You are admitting that you are not God and that you do not produce blessings from your own strength or your own mind. That's what give thanks means. So to to reject the idea of even saying thank God, to reject even naming the name of God, what does that produce? Well, we are told they became futile in their thinking. This is what happens when you don't honor God or give thanks to God as a nation.

It begins to affect the way you think, and their foolish hearts were darkened. You push the God of light out of your home, you push him out of your life, you push him out of your city, you push him out of your nation, and you inherit darkness as a result. It is the automatic consequence of pushing God out. You plague yourself with a darkened understanding and foolish thinking. And then verse 22 says, professing to be wise, they became fools.

Here's the saddest part. Even in that state of darkness, thinking that you are doing yourself and your people a favor by living separate from his wisdom, people think that they're wise in doing that. People think they figured it out. People think we're autonomous now. We get to rule and reign and make our own choices, and professing to be smart, professing to be wise, they are actually fools.

So instead of there being two genders, now we have a spectrum of options between fifty and sixty genders. And we're progressive, and we're we're advanced with that kind of thinking apparently. Because God says male and female, but when you choose not to honor God and when you choose not to give thanks to God, you inherit foolishness. You inherit confusion. You inherit systems of thoughts that even contradict simple biology, and yet people are being praised.

People are being praised. And so when you have a people that at a certain portion of time determine that a baby is not a baby but is a fetus, and that even a lot of people believe that a baby is not a baby until it comes out of the womb, attempting to think that they are wise, they are fools. They are fools. And you can even see it as they begin to argue their case, and they go against basic facts. And you wonder how did we come to this place where we have this liberty now to determine reality based on self opinion?

I can, at this time, declare myself to be a five foot four Filipino woman, and people will praise me for that. How? Because they have rejected God, and therefore there's a rewiring in their thinking as a result. And this is God's passive judgment. You wanna not give me honor and thanks?

Then I'll leave you to yourself. And what you have when a people are left to themselves is one form of destruction manifesting itself to another. How is that possible though? It's because the famous verse tells us, does it not, that the fear of the Lord is what? The beginning of wisdom.

The fear of God is again, you can't separate the fear of God and wisdom. Well, what's wisdom? It's the ability to navigate through life in a way that you most glorify God and you most ensure yourself joy and protection from unnecessary evils while experiencing the most harmony that you can through your journey on the earth. That's wisdom. And you know what the Bible says?

If you don't have the fear of the Lord, you don't even have the beginning of that kind of a reality. And so you can make this equation. If you don't fear God, you don't have wisdom. If you don't have wisdom, well, what do you have? Chaos, confusion, a people stumbling.

And that is God's judgment to a certain degree when people say, I won't honor him, and I won't give thanks to him. And so it should not surprise us of what we're seeing. It should not cause us to wonder. It should not be some kind of a strange thing. It is something that the bible warns us about thousands of years before our time.

And the fear of God is such an important element to how not just an individual works, but how society works, that it is oftentimes in our bibles the necessary requirement for how leaders should be elected, for how people in positions of judgment, how they should operate. Now, can you imagine any leadership position? I'm talking about in the world. Any officials, anybody that has any control of any matter of society, can you imagine that any interview, one of the requirements would be, do you fear God? You say, that sounds ridiculous.

Well, listen. That's how the Bible promotes hiring people, whether in religious institutions or in societal institutions. In fact, there's a man, and I would encourage you to turn there, in second Chronicles chapter 19, who brings reform to the nation of Israel. It says that he brought the nation back to God. And part of his reform, Jehoshaphat, was to elect judges in fortified cities because that is necessary for a society to function, to have the right type of leaders.

And so when he hires these leaders, I want you to see what he says in verse six of second Chronicles 19, and said to the judges, here's the king of this nation. He says, consider what you do, for you judge not for man but for the Lord. He is with you in giving judgment. Now then let the fear of the lord be upon you. Be careful what you do, for there is no injustice with the lord our god, no partiality or taking bribes.

Do you see what's sandwiched in between considering what you do and being careful what you do? It is the meat of the matter, fearing God. Corruption is the inheritance of a nation that rejects the crowning of Jesus Christ as Lord. Chaos is the inheritance of the nation that chooses not to fear God and to surrender to his government. And so he says, the very thing that will keep you from being bribed, the very thing that will keep you from having ill motives in your positions of power, what will make you consider and analyze the temptations that are presented before you or issues and matters of life is that you understand that you're gonna be held accountable to God, that you will stand before him as judge even though you are a judge.

How many do you think are thinking like that today? And yet, Jehoshaphat knew that the only way to see stability in his nation under his reign was that if he feared God and if those under him feared God, and a people can't fear God until the leaders do. I want you to see another verse. We're just jumping from scripture to scripture here. Go to Genesis chapter 20.

Let's consider this again. The reason why we're doing this is so that we can be convinced that the reason why we're here is because we've not feared God. The issue is not that we're not going to church, the issue is that now we're not having enough events, or that we don't have enough evangelists or seminaries or radio hosts. No. The issue is we do not tremble before God.

In Genesis chapter 20, Abram Abraham goes into a city. And here at this point, for the second time, he lies that his wife is not his wife, but is his sister, lest he be killed by the inhabitants of this city so that they can have his wife. Now when he is confronted by Abimelech, the ruler of that city, I want you to see what Abraham says in verse 11. Abraham said, I did it. I lied.

I deceived. I tricked. I did it because I thought there is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife. I want you to think, this is the first time in the entire bible the phrase the fear of God appears. It's here.

And notice that Abraham, when he moved into the city with his family, he looked around and he analyzed himself, surely these people don't fear God. Maybe he's heard something of them. Maybe he understands the reputation of this place. And the sad story is Abraham was the one who really didn't fear God because he had to come to these means to protect himself instead of trusting and fearing God himself, but that's not the point. Says I did it because I thought there is no fear of God in this place.

What brought Abraham to this point? When he looked at his neighbors and he saw their behavior and he saw their way of thought, when he looked at their media and he looked at their entertainment and and he looked at their policies, who knows what he saw for him to come to this point? And he thought to himself, surely, they will kill me because he is right. Although his analysis must have been wrong because Abimelech proved otherwise, he is right in this sense. If you have a people that don't fear God, anything is possible in terms of wickedness.

If you don't have the fear of God, you have all the reasons to fear everything else. If you don't have fear of God in America, you give America a thousand reasons to fear all these other things. Do you know it's possible? Because it's happening in our day. We we thought maybe it wasn't possible, but it is happening right now.

People are afraid to leave their homes. People are afraid to go and and drive at night. People are afraid to go to the city. Why? Because there's no fear of God.

Anything can happen when this thing is afflicting a nation. So what's the solution? What's the solution? And some might say, well, we gotta fear God. You're right.

But are we expecting the world to fear God? I would argue that if there's gonna be any hope for this generation to fear God, then it must begin in the church first. It must begin in the house of God. It must happen with God's people first before there's even any hint of chance of it happening outside of us. You know, God asked the question in Malachi one six.

He says, where is my fear? Where is my fear? And guess what? He didn't say that to a pagan nation. Finish the verse.

It says, where is my fear, says the lord of hosts, o priests? O priests. He's speaking about the religious leaders. He's speaking about those who are supposed to teach and admonish and be an example. And so the question of the lack of fear, he's not going to the politicians.

He's not going to the lawmakers necessarily. He's going to the religious leaders first. And he's saying, where is my reverence? Where is the trembling that you should have? Where is your sense of awe?

Is it not prompted within you? Because if it's not happening here, surely it will not happen outside of these walls. Do we think that this day and age, the world is not watching the conduct of believers? You better believe it. The media is bloodthirsty for another scandal.

The media will pounce upon any type of misconduct, especially from those who have great platforms in the church, so they can showcase to the world that the church can't even live up to what they're saying. That the the media is eager for another one. But we have the ability if we tap into this truth to give them nothing to work with. We have the ability to to to show the world that because we fear the lord, peek into our buildings, peek into our families, and you'll see righteousness, justice, stability, wisdom, and knowledge. See, we want schools to return to prayer in the bible when I argue that it should get back into the homes of Christians first?

Why do we want it in public schools when we can't even do it in our own homes? But if we can give the world a taste of what it's like, maybe they'll be convinced that Zion's treasure and the fear of the Lord can be their treasure as well. But this light casual attitude towards God, as much as we might think that it might attract the world, it is not. It is not gonna attract this world. It's when we stand firm, and it's when we live by this, and when we include him in all that we do, and we show them and we show them that we really actually believe there is a God that can intervene in my life, that has power, that has wisdom, that is omnipresent, that is all knowing.

When we live that way, when we live in that fear, then there will be a fragrance. It has to get into us first. It has to come back to the church. Judgment begins in the house of God. And so this is a simple message to to give a diagnosis for what's happening.

Let's just clear the air, lest you believe some wisdom that the world is trying to offer and some solution that they're trying to give, when in fact it comes down to this. The very things that they're asking for are attached to this truth, fear God. Fear the Lord. Tremble before him. Bow before him.

And then these things will come to you. But they have to come to us first. And I would say that as this generation, we're seeing a generation of ministers that are passing on into glory. Do you realize that? There is a generation of Moses', so to speak, that are going into glory, and there is a new generation of ministers and church leaders and churchgoers and believers that are rising up.

And my fear is that as this new generation is rising up, they are doing so without growing in this fear. And yet, if we choose to make that conscious decision to say, it's time to get back to understanding who God is, not picking and choosing what we like about him, lest we make it God in our own image, but just coming back to the word of God, changing our delivery method, our message, the core essence of our message, then just maybe an entire generation of ministers that are in training, of church people will rise up with this fear. And it can change, it can change the direction of this nation. I'm not gonna say anymore. I think that's clear enough.

And with that being said, don't be confused from this moment on. If in the next few months things get worse or if things resurface again, Isaiah tells us that the key to the very things that we are longing for, you can't unlock it until you fear him. And once we give God what is due unto him, he will give to us what we don't deserve. But it begins in the house of God, and so let's pray. Lord, we simply ask, like the psalmist, unite my heart to fear your name.

We wanna fear you. Help us not be afraid of the fear of the lord, but to believe that it is the fountain of life that your word tells us is. And we ask God that as the fear of God returns to the church, that it would spill out into our neighborhoods and spill out into our governments and spill out into our leadership. Lord, we pray, as Jeremiah 29 says, to pray for the welfare of the city, for their welfare is your welfare. And so, Lord, we pray for our city and the cities that are represented from this livestream that you would bring upon them the fear of the Lord and that we would see a revival in our day.

Lord, if we have seen, from every single state a pandemic shut everything down, if we've seen in every major city almost eruption of riots, then surely you can bring a Holy Spirit move of God from coast to coast, from border to border. That's what we ask for, that we would be hold it in our day. And, Lord, if there's gonna be a revival of anything, let it be a revival of fear in God. We pray and we ask these things. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.