Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans.  Tonight is study #30 of Romans 3,  and we are continuing to look at verse 18.  I will read Romans 3:18-20:

There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

I will stop there.  We are continuing to look at this statement in Romans 3:18:

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Mankind, according to the Bible, has no fear of God.  They do not fear Him.  That may be hard to believe because it seems a lot of people fear God.  There seems to be all kinds of people – maybe not so much today – that are afraid to do certain things because they have an internal sense of wrongdoing and offending God.  They have a conscience.  Some have done wrong and fear God will judge them.  There are people who really seem to fear God.  Why are there so many religions, like the Muslim religion.  They are always talking about God, and it seems they have a fear of Him.  And the same could be said of the Christian religion, and so forth.

Again, concerning all these statements, we know that as far as God’s true elect people, He has entered into their lives and given them new hearts, so the people of God do have “fear of God.”  We read in Philippians 2:12-13:

Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

So if we are able to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, it is only because God works in us to do so.  The people of God fear God.  We fear God in the sense that the Bible tells us to fear God.  In our last study we were looking at a few Scriptures in Deuteronomy.  We saw in Deuteronomy 5:29, Deuteronomy 6:1-2, and in Deuteronomy 8:6, that God joins together the fear of God with the keeping of His commandments.  And it said the same thing in Ecclesiastes 12:13: “Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” 

We can understand that when God made Adam of the dust of the ground, this was his greatest task.  Yes, he was to tend the garden, and do any other tasks assigned, but above all, to fear God and keep His commandments was the primary responsibility of man.  It was his whole duty, when it comes right down to it.  Man’s purpose for being was to obey God, fear Him, and to keep His commandments.  Of course we know that Adam disobeyed God, and he transgressed the commandment regarding the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  He failed in his duty to keep God’s commandment, as well as to fear God.  He should have feared to eat of the fruit of that tree to the point where he would not do it, no matter what.  You should have had to tie him down and force feed him in order to disobey God, but it was not that way.  Eve was deceived by the serpent, and she gave to Adam (who was standing right there), and he did eat.  And all of a sudden, he ruined his own purpose and the purpose of all his descendants (all mankind), and from that time forward, there would be no fear of God before their eyes, and it all ties in with a failure to keep God’s commandments.

So we can understand why God speaks of working out one’s own salvation with “fear and trembling.”  When we received that new heart and new spirit, we also received a renewed soul with a built-in desire to do the will of God.  We strongly desire to do the will of God, and to do it in perfection from our hearts.  Of course, our problem is that we are still in the flesh, so there is a battle raging within, and that is why there is a struggle as we work out our own salvation, but we do so with fear. 

And, again, fear is tied to keeping God’s commandments.  But it is a different kind of fear.  When we look at this word “fear,” where it says that mankind has no fear of God, much of the definition of this is due to the fact that they do not obey God.  They do not keep His commandments, but they go astray and transgress His commandments.

Let us go to Psalm 34, and I will read a passage where the “fear of God” comes into view.  It says in Psalm 34:7-11:

The angel of JEHOVAH encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.  O taste and see that JEHOVAH is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. O fear JEHOVAH, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him. The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek JEHOVAH shall not want any good thing. Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of JEHOVAH.

The next verses follow that statement about teaching the fear of JEHOVAH, so we expect that we will learn about the fear of JEHOVAH in the following verses.  It says in Psalm 34:12-14:

What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good? Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.

This is the teaching of the fear of JEHOVAH.  If you want to live, as we saw in those verses in Deuteronomy, the keeping of God’s commandments is connected to eternal life.  This has to do with “living always,” forever and ever, and the way to do it is to depart from evil, and do good.  We are to eschew evil as did Job, and we are to do good.  So if we eschewed evil, what would the good be?  The only way to remove oneself from evil and to do good is to keep God’s commandments.  To do the will of God, you must obey His Word.  There is no knowledge of good apart from the Bible.  Man does not know what is good out of his own mind and heart.  He can only do that which is evil because that is his nature.  The character of his heart is to be desperately wicked and deceitful above all things.  So is he going to figure out that there is something “good” apart from the Word of God?  He may claim to, but everything he would think of, and speak of, is pure evil.   That which is good is God, and the Word of God is good.  So to do good, you must do what the Word says, and follow the Word, and depart from evil.

We read in Proverbs 1:7:

The fear of JEHOVAH is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Why would the fear of JEHOVAH be the beginning of knowledge?  It is referring to an individual who is dead in sin, and in that spiritually dead condition, there is no fear of God before his eyes, so he has no fear of JEHOVAH, and, therefore, no true knowledge.  But when God saves that person He puts in him a new heart and new spirit.  People are not saved by their own knowledge or their will.  Salvation is of the Lord.  It is through, and by, the faith of Christ.  It is God’s granting of mercy to whom He will grant mercy, so God saves a sinner, and at that point there is the fear of JEHOVAH within him because from his heart he is keeping God’s commandments.  He is beginning to do the “whole duty of man” within his new born again spirit.  Therefore since he is perfectly keeping the commandments of God in the new heart that is within him, he is now beginning to fear JEHOVAH.  So the fear of JEHOVAH is the beginning of knowledge, and from that point he can move forward and grow in grace and the knowledge of God as a child of God.

Further on in this chapter, God speaks of those that have turned away from His Word.  They have turned away from His beckoning and call, and they have turned away from listening to Him.  They have dismissed, ignored, and mocked the Word of God.  So this teaches us about things God is doing now in the time of the world’s judgment.  We read in Proverbs 1:23-25:

Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof:

When we read the word “reproof,” we should consider 2Timothy 3:16:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

That is what the world wants none of – the Scriptures.  That is also the counsel of God. 

It goes on to say in Proverbs 1:26-27:

I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.

And this is when it gets into the subject of Judgment Day. 

And then it says in Proverbs 1:28-29:

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.

Going back to those earlier verses, it said in Proverbs 1:25: “But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof.”  They did not want the Scriptures.  The Scriptures are made up of commandments, and they did not want God’s commandments.  This would have applied to the unsaved of Israel of old, and to the unsaved within the churches.  They make their own commandments.  They teach according to the traditions of men, and not of the commandments of God. 

And it also applies to secular society, or the world in general, as they teach evolution over creation.  Whenever the world wants to do something, and the commandment of God is there, for example, saying, “Thou shalt not kill.”  But they want to abort (kill) babies in the womb, so they justify it to themselves, and they completely dismiss the Law of God.  Concerning marriage and divorce, they dismiss the Law that says the divorced shall not remarry.  Concerning the “new thing” of today where men marry men and women marry women, they are obviously going contrary to the Law of God.  Therefore, they do not choose the fear of JEHOVAH, and there is evidence that is no fear of God before their eyes when they are faced with these moments of decision: “Shall I do it the way I want to do it, or should I do it the way God tells me to do it?” 

And do not think they have no responsibility toward God because they are living their lives apart from God.  They are still human beings.  They are still creatures created by God to serve Him and to perform duty and service to Him regarding hearing Him and keeping His commandments.  And yet when they have opportunity to fear Him and keep a particular commandment, they do not do so, but they proceed to do it their way because they think they are so wise.  And wisdom dieth with them, does it not? (Job 12:2) Yes, we can see the great “wisdom of the world.”  Yes, I am saying that sarcastically, as the world has no real wisdom.  Their foolishness is obvious, even to themselves at times, but they always know better than God.  Inevitably, the result is always catastrophe.  It leads to misery and more harm to all involved when people go their own way instead of God’s way.  That is why there is such misery in this world.