The Fear of God and Respect for Elders

We all know the well-known statement that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It's in Proverbs and I say that is the ABC of wisdom. So just like children when they go to school, you cannot learn any subject if you don't learn ABC first.

If somebody skips the learning the alphabets and tries to go ahead to study geography or physics or something, they won't understand a thing or they look through the book and they think they understand but they can't read it. I believe that is the reason why many people read the Bible and they don't get the real message. They get some facts.

There are people who can study the Bible and get facts out of it but don't get the essential message which is inside. You know like the Pharisees, nobody knew the Bible in the whole world when Jesus came. Like the Pharisees, absolutely nobody.

They knew the Bible, they were scholars and yet they were the ones who killed Jesus Christ. I mean the Greeks who knew nothing about the Bible came with respect to ask questions from Jesus but the people who studied the Bible thoroughly killed him. That is a warning for all of us who study the Bible and say we can know so much.

We can know memory verses and everything and all that. It's important for our children too. You can get your children to read, to memorize verses, very, very good thing.

I'm very thankful for all the verses I memorized in my life which have helped me tremendously in different situations. It comes back to my mind. For example, when Jesus was tempted by Satan, how did certain verses come to his mind to give an immediate reply to Satan? No, I'm not going to turn the stones to bread because the Bible says, God's word says man shall not live by bread alone.

How did that come to his mind? Because he had memorized it. Another time he's tempted with something else and Jesus said, but it is also written in another psalm. It's also written elsewhere, you shall not tempt the Lord your God.

Every time he had an answer, that is because the Holy Spirit would remind him of the exact word out of all the thousands of verses in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would pick out the exact word for that temptation. And I believe God loves me as he loved Jesus. It's one of the great truths we have taught from John 17 31.

So, I believe it's true. So in any situation that I face in my life, the Holy Spirit will bring to my mind the exact word out of the 31,000 verses in the Bible for me to find an answer to that situation. Isn't it good to have something like that? And I can tell you my testimony after more than 60 years of being a Christian, that has happened to me numerous times.

Numerous, so many times where I know exactly what to do because God brings one particular scripture to my mind. Do you experience that? The exact answer and when I obey that, I find a solution to the problem. That has happened again and again and again and again.

And even for such a big decision like my leaving my job when I was 24 years old, I took that decision. And after 60 years later, I don't regret it at all. I see how God led me.

Or another decision I took that I would never take a salary from anyone. I would never depend on people for money. I would trust the Lord for me, for my needs.

And I gave away all my income for the Lord. And the Lord, it was a very big step. But I see the Lord took care of me all these years.

I mean, he helped me to educate my children and all types of things. It's an absolute miracle. But I want to say something.

If we don't begin with the fear of God, you won't understand the Bible. And that's why when you come into a testing trial, the Holy Spirit does not bring some word to your mind. Why are you stuck? Why do you make the wrong decision? Why do you go consulting here, this person, that person, the other person, and you don't understand.

You look back over your life and think of the times when you made a mess of some situation when you need not have made it. I want to encourage you, at least from now, begin with learning the ABC. Then you will understand the Bible 10 times better.

Even if you don't read the Bible much, begin with ABC and read a little bit of scripture, and you'll get a tremendous lot. That was the difference between the Pharisees and some other people who studied the Bible like anything. Think of that old man who came to Jesus when Jesus was a baby.

He was brought to the temple. And Simon, he also studied the Bible, but he had the fear of God. And God spoke to him.

Go to the temple now. Something's happening there. He goes there, and he sees all the mothers with babies, and he sees one mother with a baby.

And the Holy Spirit says, go there. That's the one. And he goes and picks up.

Jesus didn't look different from any other baby in the temple. How did Simon go and pick up that one and say, this child is set for the rise and fall of many in Israel, and the thoughts of many hearts will be made revealed? And he said, God, I can now depart, for I've seen your salvation. Why did he know that? I mean, he got it from the Old Testament that the Messiah would be born.

And because he had the fear of God, that one person who feared God knew more than all the other people. And there was another woman called Anna who was also recognized Jesus, and so many others didn't. Now, what we learn from all these examples, don't just read it like a story.

It can happen today, that in certain situations, you can recognize what God is doing if you begin with learning the ABC. Otherwise, you're trying to read a geography book without having read the ABC, and you don't know what it's saying. You're reading the Bible, you don't know what it's saying.

I'm absolutely convinced that many, many believers who have read the Bible for 25 years don't know what the Bible is saying. I'll give you an example of it. Mark chapter 7. In Mark chapter 7, we read that the Pharisees were asking Jesus, why don't your disciples wash their hands? You know, the Pharisees had a ritual of washing their hands right up to their elbows before you eat.

Now, you don't have to do that, but that was a ritual. And it says in Mark 7, the Pharisees don't eat unless they eat like that. And he asked the Pharisees, came and asked Jesus, verse 5, why don't your disciples do according to the tradition of the elders and eat their bread with impure hands? Maybe the disciples just washed their hands like that.

That's not good enough, he said. It must be up to the elbows. And you know how Jesus replied to that? He didn't give them a lecture on hygiene.

No. He took them to the scriptures. He says, this people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me.

The reason why you don't understand this business of washing hands and all is something else. You haven't learned the ABC. In vain do you worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men, neglecting the commandment of God you hold to the tradition of men.

Then he said, you have set aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition. And he talks about something which has got nothing to do with washing the hands. For example, he said, Moses said, honor your father and mother.

And he who speaks evil of father and mother must be put to death. If you read the Gospels, the only time, the only one time that Jesus said somebody must be put to death was in relation to honoring father and mother. A woman caught in adultery should be put to death.

He said, let her go. Forgive her. He himself let her go.

But you don't honor father and mother. Jesus said, you must be put to death. And remember, the law was still there when Jesus was alive.

The law was canceled early on the day of Pentecost, many years later. When Jesus was alive, there was a law which said, if you don't honor your father and mother, you must kill that child. And Jesus endorsed it.

Imagine Jesus endorsing the death penalty while he was alive when he wouldn't allow a woman caught in adultery to be put to death. Now, if you were to ask which is greater sin, committing adultery or you don't respect your father and mother, every one of us may say, of course, adultery is much worse, but not Jesus. He said, let her go.

She committed adultery. Let her go. But this guy doesn't honor his father and mother.

Put him to death. You don't agree with it? Well, the Lord says, my ways are not your ways. That's all.

As the heaven is above the earth, so is my ways above your ways. And I'll tell you this. If you don't fear God, you'll never understand it.

We understand only when you learn the ABC. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. And even now when I say it, you may not agree with me.

That's fine. You're welcome. But I have learned through more than 60 years of studying the Bible that God answers every situation I'm faced in with something from Scripture when I learn to fear him, when I've learned the ABC.

That's why I'm telling you from my own experience, dear brothers and sisters, learn the ABC of Scripture, which is the fear of God. Okay. Here's an example of how you can fear God.

Leviticus Chapter 19. It's just in line with what we've just been hearing from Wenhai. Leviticus 19.

This is one of the laws of God. Verse 32. You shall stand up when you see a gray-haired man, and that way honor an older person, and thus you reverence God.

Now, I'm not preaching this for you to stand up when I come there. You don't have to do that. We're not under the law.

But what I say is in the Old Testament, this is how God taught the Jews to fear God because it says thereby you prove that you fear God. So if you ask a God-fearing Jew, how do you fear God? One says, well, when my dad comes up, I stand up. I don't sit down and talk to him.

I stand up. I respect him when he comes into the room. Oh, really? That's just a small thing, but that is a small ways in which God was testing, and that's what Jesus quotes later on.

This guy doesn't respect father and mother? Put him to death. And I want to say the Bible teaches that, that we must teach our children to respect parents. There were many things that my children did wrong which I could forgive them and overlook, but never, even when they were young, if they disrespected dad or mom, usually mom because I knew dad was very strict, I would ask them immediately to drop whatever they're doing and go and ask forgiveness from her.

I taught them to respect their mother and father from childhood. It was very important. It didn't matter what marks they got in school.

That was secondary to me. They made other mistakes. It's not so serious.

But if they did not respect father and mother, I was very, very strict because I knew what the Bible says, that if they honor father and mother, it will go well with them throughout their life, and I wanted it to go well with all my children throughout their life, and I taught them to respect father and mother. Now, the same thing applies. You know, the church is like a family, and I believe what we just heard.

You have to respect those whom God has appointed as elders in this church. They are the parents of the church. And the other thing I want to say is you ask yourself and your family.

Many of you are parents. You've got children. Would you allow your children to go and talk to some other family about things happening in your family? And if you discover that your children are going around talking about some problem that arose in your family, would you say, oh, that's okay, you can tell the whole world about it? Would any of you allow your children to do that? No, I don't think so.

You'd pull up your child and say, why in the world do you want to go and talk to those people about what's happening in our home? There's a little confidentiality here. But we don't have, I'll tell you this, I have seen people who do not have the same respect for God and for his church that they have for their own family. They're so protective about their family.

Oh, don't tell others about the differences we have here. But church doesn't matter. And I'll tell you this, I'll tell you in Jesus' name, you will reap what you have sown.

If you treat God's family like that, don't go to God and say, Lord, why is this happening to me? He'll tell you why. Because you despise my family and you care for your own family. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.