Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. -John 15:14
[Lesson 30 PDF available for print CLICK HERE]
Have you ever known someone for a while and realized later that what you thought was a friendship only turned out to be a one sided relationship? You may have been the one doing all the calling, texting, arranging coffee time, etc.,. only to find out that that person really didn't have your best interest at heart. Maybe they had other motives and interests, or maybe you discovered that you just didn't have the same ideals or beliefs. Whether you've been a 'victim' or 'perpetrator', we all can relate to this type of relationship.
The Scriptures tell us that "Happy is the man that feareth alway." (Proverbs 28:14a) It is happiness when we have a true friend. The best of happiness is found only in God and the blessedness of the this relationship is that God wants to be our friend and best confidant.
The difference of this perfect friendship from a friendship with another person is that it is God who sets up the standard. He allows us to be His friend if we follow his ways. It doesn't work any other way. We can desire a relationship with the Almighty God through Jesus Christ his only begotten son, but desiring and obtaining are two entirely different things.
Making a declaration, affirmation, or joining in the chorus of "I'm a friend of God" doesn't make it so. There is only one way to the Father, there is only one mediator between God and man and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.
We will find much encouragement in this lesson of our study of A Treatise of the Fear of God.
On page 65, Bunyan writes, I come now to a use of encouragement to those that are blessed with this grace of fear... It is sent to thee from God, not only to join thy heart unto him, but to keep thee from final apostasy -- "I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me" (Jeremiah 32:40) That thou mayest never forsake God, is his design, and therefore, to keep thee from that wicked thing, he hath put his fear in thy heart.
Many are the temptations, difficulties, snares, traps, trials, and troubles that the people of God pass through in the world, but how shall they be kept, how shall they be delivered, and escape? Why, the answer is, the fear of God will keep them -- "He that feareth God shall come forth of them all." (Ecclesiastes 7:18)
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. -Romans 5:15
For the arms of the wicked shall be broken: but the LORD upholdeth the righteous. - Psalm 37:17
Let's look up the following words and verses first and then we'll finish up with the five things in this grace of fear that have direct tendency in them to keep us from that final apostasy/deception.
DEFINE:
- FRIEND
- JUSTIFY
- ACQUAINT
- APOSTASY
- REPROBATE
- ENCOURAGEMENT
- ENMITY
- SAVE
- SANCTIFY
LOOK UP:
- Philippians 2:14
- John 17:17
- I Thessalonians 5:23
- Romans 6:12-16
- John 15:14-15
- James 4:4
- II Thessalonians 2:1-17
- Romans 5:1-5
Back to page 66 of our text: these five things to keep us -- that is to say that God uses the fear of him and who is he is as a safeguard for his children:
1. It is seated in the heart. The fear of God is not placed in the head, as knowledge is; nor the mouth, as utterance is, but in the heart, the seat of all. " I will put my fear in their hearts." When the heart, this principal fort, is possessed with the fear of God, then he is safe.
2. As the heart in general, so the will specifically. Fearing of God is a voluntary acct of the will, and that being so, the soul is kept from rebellion against the commandment, because by the will where this fear of God is placed, and which it governeth is led all the rest of the powers of the soul.
3. It is God's well-wisher. "I will put my fear in their hearts." These words, his and my, they are intimate and familiar expressions, bespeaking not only great favour to man, but a very great trust put in him. If a soul should be possessed with all things possible, yet if this fear of God be wanting, all other things will give place in time of rebellion, and the soul shall be found in, and under the conduct of hell, when it should stand up for God and his truth in the world. This fear of God, it is God's special friend, and therefore it has given unto it the chief seat of the heart, the will, that the whole man may now be, and also be kept hereafter, in the subjection and obedience of the gospel.
4. This grace of fear is the softest and most tender of God's honour of any other grace. It is that tender, sensible, and trembling grace, that keepeth the soul upon its continual watch. A man cannot watch as he should, if he be destitute of fear: let him be confident.
5. This grace of fear is that which first affects the hearts of saints with judgments, after we have sinned, and so is as a beginning grace to bring again that to rights that by sin is put out of frame. O it is a precious grace of God! I know what I say in this matter, and also where I had been long ago, through the power of my lusts, and the wiles of the devil, had it not been for the fear of God.
This grace of the Fear of God produces the best results! With the end thereof being that God will be able to call us his friend. The Scriptures record for us that very intimate account of how God had chosen Abraham out of all the people on the earth to be friends with, to make a covenant with, to be Abraham's God, and to bring the Saviour of the world through Abraham's lineage. God chose Abraham because Abraham feared God. He obeyed God's every direction without wavering. And then the LORD graciously reinforced his kindness and mercy by Jesus' reminder found in John chapters 15 and 17.
Take time to read those two chapters and write a a few sentences about how YOU can be God's friend.
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