Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #12 of Revelation, chapter 14, and we are going to be reading Revelation14:7:

Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

In our last study, we were discussing the fear of God and the Bible has a good deal to say about fearing God.  We saw that God commands us to fear Him.  We also saw a few Scriptures that indicate the positive aspects of fearing God; there is great blessing associated with it.

Actually, the fear of God ties in with salvation because it is only the true believers, with their new resurrected souls, that do fear God.  The unsaved person does not fear Him and God very specifically makes the link between “fearing God” and “salvation” in a few places.  One of these places is in Psalm 34:7:

The angel of JEHOVAH encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.

And it says in Psalm 34:9:

O fear JEHOVAH, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him.

In Psalm 34:11:

Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of JEHOVAH.

In verse 7 it said that God delivers them that “fear him,” and that is a reference to salvation.

It says in Psalm 85:9:

Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land.

Here the connection is made between fearing God and salvation.

We are going to look at a few verses in Psalm 103.  The first place is Psalm 103:11:

For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.

Also, it says in Psalm 103:13:

Like as a father pitieth his children, so JEHOVAH pitieth them that fear him.

And, in Psalm 103:17:

But the mercy of JEHOVAH is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children;

We can certainly see in these verses how God relates the “fear of JEHOVAH” to someone who has received the mercy of God and who has become born again.  The reason for this is because once God saves a sinner, He gives that person a new heart and a new spirit and they have an ongoing desire to do the will of God.  To do the will of God means to turn from sin and to turn from transgressing the Law of God to desire to obey and to keep the Law of God.  It is not something we do in order to become saved, but it is because salvation has already taken place.  In keeping the Law of God, there is a demonstration of loving God (“If ye love me, keep my commandments.”) and of fearing God (“The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.”)  The fear of the Lord is to depart from evil, so we leave the sin and when we leave the sin, we are keeping the commandment of God.  It is all related to the “fear of the Lord.” 

God also makes reference to fearing Him in Proverbs 1:28-30:

Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of JEHOVAH: They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.

They did not “choose the fear of JEHOVAH,” and this would identify with those that do not want the true doctrine of the Bible.  They do not want to keep the right teaching of the Word of God.  They have their own ideas and their own doctrines.  They prefer the doctrines of their churches and their church theologians.  They like the things written in confessions and creeds and they hold those things above the teachings of the Bible.  In doing so, they demonstrate a lack of the “fear of God.”  That is the point God makes here: “For they hated knowledge.”  God is “wisdom” and He is “understanding” and He is “Truth.”  There is the doctrine of Christ and true knowledge (the true teaching of the Word of God) is completely wrapped up in the Lord Jesus who is the Word.  Yet, “they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of JEHOVAH,” which means they refused to do things God’s way.  For example, they refuse to be humbly in submission to what the Bible says concerning the doctrine of “hell.”  It is the “grave” and it is language that speaks of death and it is not a place where man will suffer for evermore.  The true and right teaching of the Bible is annihilation.  Likewise, they refuse the knowledge of the Bible on the point of the doctrine of Christ having died from the foundation of the world and paying for sin at that time, rather than at the cross.  Men struggle with these things and they hate the correct teachings of the Bible on these points and, therefore, they do not “choose the fear of JEHOVAH,” which would be for them to bow the knee and submit to the Word of God as God opened up doctrines at the time of the end during the Great Tribulation and into the Day of Judgment. 

These corrected doctrines have really brought this issue to bear.  Do you fear the Lord or do you fear men?  Do you fear the corporate church or something other than God?  Who is your authority?  Is it the Bible and, therefore, God alone?  Or, do you have another authority you are in submission to?  God, again, and again, brought a testing program on this very point: “Who is your authority?”  He would open up information, for example, about the end of the church age, but none of the pastors agreed with it and they spoke against it and the churches began to call it heresy.  It is a fearful thing to be considered a heretic in the eyes of the corporate churches and to be an outsider that has been cast out of the congregations and to have your name listed in the company of cults and heretics.  They feared the title of “heretic” and they feared the wrath of the corporate church, or the wrath of their wife or other family members that thought it was crazy to think it was the end of the church age and they must get out of the church.  They feared man over and above the fear of God.

Of course, none of God’s people that were chosen by Him from the foundation of the world and predestinated to salvation and who were living during the time of the Great Tribulation and during this Day of Judgment put the fear of man or the fear of the corporate church above the fear of God.  The fear of God is the chief thing in the lives of those God has saved because His Spirit is within them and the Spirit of God will not allow anything to exalt itself above the love of God and the fear of God.  These things are essential in the life of the spirit and, therefore, God’s people fear the Lord, no matter what the consequences and no matter what other people think.  The Lord’s people follow the teachings of the Bible despite what others may think about them for doing so and that is where the “fear of JEHOVAH” is tested, as opposed to the “fear of man” and the fear of the attitude of those that despise the true things of God.  Many “buckle” under that pressure and they turn back because they cannot endure being reviled or disdained for the Word’s sake and they fear the things that are said about them; they fear what others think about them for holding to these things.  So they go back to the churches or they go back to the world, or they go back to former doctrines, such as “No man knows the day or the hour.”  It is going back on the “fear of God.”  There is no fear of God in that doctrine, but there is a fear of man: “What will people think if I hold on to the idea that we can know ‘times and seasons’ or that God will reveal details concerning Judgment Day?  After all, we were wrong about May 21, 2011, and now they have the upper hand.  It is all about how I appear in the eyes of others.” 

That is not how it should be.  It should be whatever the Bible says and the Bible has not changed on that point.  Ecclesiastes 8:5 still says, “A wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment,” and Amos 3:7 still says, “He revealeth his secrets unto his servants the prophets.”  Genesis 4:7 still says that God said to Noah, “For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth,” thereby giving Noah the exact day judgment would come with the flood.  The Book of Genesis still says that the angels went into Sodom and forewarned Lot to get out of the city before destruction came.  The Book of Jonah still says that Jonah went into the city a day’s journey and proclaimed, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”  And the Bible goes on, and on, and on, and all that information is still there.  Nothing has changed and no one has answered these things, but the Bible says, in the context of sealing up the Word until the time of the end, in Daniel 12:10: “None of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.” Nobody has answered these things, so why, all of a sudden, are people submitting and cowering to the churches’ position that no man can know the day and the hour?  It has to do with the fear of man rather than maintaining a “fear of God.” 

As we are looking at many verses where the Bible speaks of the fear of the Lord, the Bible says in Jeremiah 32:38-40:

And they shall be my people, and I will be their God: And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them: And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.

Here it is – this is a wonderful passage that describes the blessing of fearing God, which comes once God has given us a new heart: “I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever.”  This is saying that for ever more into eternity future (which begins at the moment of salvation in this life) God’s people will fear Him because they will always have a desire to do the will of God.  It is an eternal desire to do things God’s way and to obey Him and keep His commandments.  What did God say would be the common statement into eternity future?  “Let us run to do it.”  What did the Lord say we should do here and what did the Lord say we should to there?  “Let us go quickly and do the will of God.”  That is the nature of the heart that God has placed within each one that He has saved and that nature will never change again.  That nature will never be tested again, either, so it will never fail a test as Adam and Eve failed the test in the Garden of Eden.  In that glorious future to come in eternity, there will be perfect obedience and perfect “fear of the Lord” within each and every one of the elect of God.

There is one verse that sums up the fear of God and then we will go back to Revelation 14.  After looking at all these other verses, we have a much better understanding of what the “fear of the Lord” is really about.  It says in Ecclesiastes 12:13:

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

Now we have a good understanding. It is no wonder God says this because this is an apt summary and this is exactly what a creature created in the image of God ought to have been doing all along – to do what the Creator said to do: “Fear Him.”  Fear is demonstrated through keeping His commandments; it is our “whole duty” and it is why we were created.  It is why we exist.  It is what each one of us should be doing, which is the will of God. 

Of course, this is what was lost in the fall of mankind.  It is that which unregenerate mankind no longer desires to do, nor can they do it.  They have no fear of God before their eyes.  They fear a host of other things, but they do not fear God.  They have no fear that would drive them to keep His commandments in a right and proper way, but God’s people do have this fear.

So, in going back to Revelation 14, we can now see what is being said regarding the everlasting Gospel preached to all the earth during the Latter Rain, the last 6,100 days of the Great Tribulation period, as it says in Revelation 14:7:

Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come:

What does that mean?  The only way to fear Him is through salvation and, therefore, it is basically stating to the people of the nations that you are saved by the Word of God: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” 

And God did save a great multitude from the nations of the world as a result of that proclamation and now that great multitude fears God from their hearts; the Spirit of God is within them and they have new resurrected souls and, from their hearts, they fear Him.  Of course, this will come forth and it will be seen in their lives more, and more, as time goes on.  There will be that desire within them to do the will of God and to “give glory to him.”  Now we do not have too much time left in this study, but this also relates to salvation.  In a chapter describing Lazarus’ sickness and death, it says in John 11:4:

When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.

Lazarus then died and he was put into a tomb with a stone in front of it and the Lord, when He had come, commanded the stone to be rolled away and Martha, the sister of Lazarus said, “Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days already.”  Then Jesus answered, in John 11:40-44:

Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.

This was all done to the glory of God.  “You will see the glory of God,” Jesus said to Martha, and the glory of God was to raise the dead.  This was the case for someone that was physically dead, as Lazarus was brought to life, but it pointed to what God does in salvation when He raises the spiritually dead sinner, dead in trespasses and sins.  When God sent forth His Word into the entire world via the Gospel, it sought out those elect and when the elect heard the Word at the appointed time for their redemption, according to the will of God, God saved them just as Jesus brought Lazarus to life; they came to life and rose from the dead in their souls.  It was all to the glory of God in each instance when a sinner was granted salvation and was given new spiritual life in their new resurrected soul.  God got all the glory.

So, here in Revelation 14, with the statement, “Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him,” it has everything to do with God’s salvation during the Great Tribulation period.  It was the climax and conclusion of the great salvation program that God had mapped out from before the world ever existed.  And, finally, now it was ending and there was tremendous and great salvation, the completion of the salvation of all whose names had been written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  The entire company of the elect had been found and they were now safe and secure in heaven, seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.  What a glorious, beautiful and tremendous thing this was – God had reached the utmost in His salvation plan; you cannot get any more salvation than the salvation of every one chosen to receive salvation.  That is why it is really incorrect when people say, “Oh, that is a gospel of ‘no salvation’ that EBible teaches.”  No, that is not true – it is a Gospel of utmost salvation and the greatest possible salvation.  There is no additional salvation other than God having found every one of His elect.  He did not find just most of them or 99% of them, but the Bible teaches that every single one of them has received salvation.  It is the glorious finish to God’s glorious salvation program.