Acts, Week Five

Some years ago I was invited to speak to some churches in South Africa. Spent the first week in Johannesburg and then the second part of the week went down to Cape Town, which is Indescribably beautiful. If any of you have been there, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve got the vineyards, you’ve got the vistas. They do three hour lunches after church and why wouldn’t you when you could sit in a countryside like that, if the Garden of Eden wasn’t located in Cape Town, it must have been right next door to it. I remember after I preached at the church, I saw a doctor go up to the pastor and they were arguing, I mean, just really strenuously. I thought, oh no, did I say something? Did I cause a problem? So I go up to the pastor, I said to have, is there a problem with the sermon?

He goes, oh no, he loved your sermon. He’s just really upset with the wine. We’re serving you for lunch. Now I, I wouldn’t know box Costco wine from a glass of Roman e Conti. They could have saved their money, but that’s sort of the culture there. They take it very seriously. Another thing that we did was go on one of these private reserves where they have these big cats. They had all of these lions and what amaze me is you drive right by them. You’re in an open jeep. It seems like it would be terrifying, but the, the guides made it very clear, as long as you stay in the Jeep, you’re safe. You don’t look like Bray. If you get out of the Jeep, there could be trouble. So just stay in the Jeep. And we were really close. I did notice that the guide had a rifle in front of him, but I was committed to staying in the Jeep.

I had my son with me. I kept him right there. And a few months before a tourist had come out and he wanted to take a picture ’cause they seemed kind of docile and tame there except for the one that was nine on what was left of an antelope. But for the most part, they just kind of seem like they’re sitting there. He wanted to take some closeup pictures of some cubs. So he got out of the Jeep. It was the last picture he ever took. I was amazed it was still going on. ’cause I thought in the United States they would’ve been sued, there would’ve been all the problems. They would’ve shut it down in South Africa, their attitude was he shouldn’t have gotten out of the Jeep <laugh>. We told him, stay in the Jeep. It’s not the Lion’s fault, it’s not our fault, it’s your fault and you paid the price.

But having driven by those lions, which which struck me as when you see ’em in person, I was just struck by how incredibly large an adult male lion can be. You just see the strength. They’re just these awesome bees. And coming away I realize the brilliance of CS Lewis writing the Chronicles of Narnia, when he makes the Christ character Aslan a mighty lion. It’s perfect because Alan has all of the strength that you would need in a world that was in trouble. The the white witch who keeps it always winner and never Christmas, who’s turning creatures into stone? You need someone powerful. But yet Azlan seems so approachable, but in the midst of that approachability, you never lost sight of his power. In one sense, how terrible he could be. That’s what Mr. And Mrs. Beaver were trying to explain to Susan and Lucy before they had ever met Azlan, they were the two kids who had gotten gotten into Narnia and they talked about how Azlan might come in to turn things around in Narnia. And Susan begins by asking, and I’ve practiced my English accent all week to get this right. Susan begins by asking this, is he

Quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion that she will dear and no mistake said Mrs. Beaver, if there’s anyone who could appear before Ashlyn without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly, then he isn’t safe, said Lucy Safe said Mr. Beaver, don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe course he isn’t safe, but he’s good. He’s the king. I tell you,

If you’ve ever been tempted to make Jesus your buddy or boyfriend or turn God the Father into jolly old Saint Nicholas, we’re about to read from the book of Acts, a terrible occurrence that happened to Anani since the virus that reminds us that we worship a powerful God who calls us to fear him. We’re continuing on in the Book of Acts. We’re in chapter five verses one through 11. Let’s start with the story of Ananias and Sfi. But there’s a certain man named Ananias who with his wife Sfi, sold some property. He brought part of the money to the apostles claiming it was the full amount. With his wife’s consent, he kept the rest. Then Peter said, Anani, why have you let Satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit and you kept some of the money for yourself. The property was yours to sell or not sell as you wished.

And after selling it, the money was also yours to give away. How could you do a thing like this? You weren’t lying to us but to God. As soon as Ann and ias heard these words, he fell to the floor and died. Everyone who heard about it was terrified. Then some young men got up, wrapped him in a sheet and took him out and buried him. About three hours later, his wife came in not knowing what had happened. Peter asked her, was this the price you and your husband received for your land? Yes, she replied, that was a price. Peter said, how could the two of you even think of conspiring to test the spirit of the Lord? Like this, the young men who buried your husband are just outside the door and they will carry you out too. Instantly, she fell to the floor and died. When the young men came in and saw that she was dead, they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. Great fear gripped the entire church and everyone else who heard what had happened.

It’s a little bit of an uncomfortable passage, isn’t it? What do we do when we come across passages of scripture like this? It makes this a little unsettled. Seriously, they they had to die for lying, for misrepresenting what they were giving. Doesn’t that sound a little harsh? So what do we do? Let me be a pastor here, not just a teacher for a second. I want you to immerse yourself in scripture. I believe scripture leads to life and truth. And as you read scripture, you’ll come across this and other passages like that that just make us feel a little uneasy. God doesn’t always explain himself. He doesn’t always give us any perhaps mitigating factors that might make us feel differently because the attitude we should have when we go into scripture is this. I go to scripture to be judged by scripture. I don’t go to scripture to judge scripture.

And so when I come across passages like this I, I wanna step back. The easiest thing to do is say, what’s the theological meaning of this purpose? Why did Luke write it? Why did God inspire Luke to write it? In fact, why is it in the Bible in the first place, thousands of events happened in the Book of Acts, God had to choose what was important for the church to remember. He chose this. The question is why I’d like to say the why is so crucial. In fact, it may be one of the most important messages for the church today if we go there first to judge God for doing what he did, will miss how God wants to judge us for what we may not be doing today. Because every time God moves salvation history forward, something like this happens. It’s very significant. Anani and sari don’t appear out of nowhere.

You could actually do a series in scripture called people God killed. There are a lot of ’em and there’s always an occurrence like this when God is moving worship and relating to him forward first, there was a time when Israel’s just wandering around the desert. They’ve been released from Egypt and the primary mode, I’m sorry, of meeting with God is through the tabernacle sanctuary. And God set it up. This is to be holy. You approach it in a reverent way. Two sons of Aaron, Nate, AB and Aue get a little bit too comfortable with it. They offer unauthorized fire before the Lord and they’re incinerated on the spot. Everybody takes notice. You go forward and then you’re in the book of Joshua. Now Israel is just entering the promised land, a key point in Israel’s history. They’ve gotta take over the inheritance that God has given him.

And the very first battle, God makes it so clear you’ll take no spoils from this land. It’s all to be devoted to me. Aiken says to himself, okay, I’ll give most of the spoils to the Lord. I’m gonna keep a few things back. And he and his family pay a tremendous price for that. Then you have moving the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem. Okay, see how this is so key when you’re wandering around the desert entering the promised land. Now they’re in the promised land. They have much of the territory and they worship God through the Ark of the Covenant, which David wants to bring back to Jerusalem. Now you’re getting to a huge point in Israel’s history. Worship will be surrounded, it will be focused on Jerusalem, but they gotta bring the Ark of the Covenant back. It’d been captured by the Philistines and then stored for a while somewhere else in Israel.

And God had given very clear directions to Moses how the Ark of the Covenant would be moved by the Levites with poles on their shoulders. David doesn’t confer with that. He confers with his men. He decides to bring the ark back on an oxcart. It starts to topple. A man named Za reaches up to steady the ark. He’s dead on the spot. David’s angry at God. How dare you do that? This should be a day of celebration. We’re just trying to move the ark. And God would judge David, how dare you treat something so holy without reverence? Okay, now it’s not just the Ark of the Covenant. They built the temple that’s the center of the worshiping of God. But God made it very clear. Kings do not offer sacrifices in the temple. That’s the Levites king. Siah thought, ah, but I’m king. I’m sure God will make an exception.

So he goes in and he found out God didn’t make an exception. He gets leprosy and then he dies. So now we have anani of fire, which may be the biggest development in how God relates to his people. ’cause he’s just sent his Holy Spirit. Remember earlier in the chapter the power of the Holy Spirit, the presence of God, not in a tabernacle, not in an arc, not in a temple within us. A whole different way of relating to God and anani and sapphira act as if the Holy Spirit isn’t real. They lie to God and they die immediately. What this tells us is that when God is doing a new thing, when God is revealing himself to his people, reverence and awe are essential. The whole point of anani and sari, we don’t have to guess. I believe it’s summarized in verse 11. This is the theological meaning of the story behind Anani and Sapphira.

Great fear gripped the entire church and everyone else who heard what had happened. People always talk about wanting a New Testament church. The New Testament church operated in an appropriate fear of God. Why? When you call upon the Holy Spirit, as we just did in worship, the Holy Spirit is real. We are not inviting a tame house kitten to curl up on our heart. We’re inviting the lion of Judah. We best have an appropriate awe and respect Banana eyes and Sfi proved they didn’t fear God because they lied in the presence of God. Verse three, you lied to the Holy Spirit. Verse four. You weren’t lying to us but to God. Now I realize, I’ll just admit it, it still seems harsh to us, doesn’t it? And the reason it does is because lying is a much bigger deal to God than it is to us.

It just is. We don’t think it’s that big of a deal. But Jesus tells us why. He says in the book of John that he is the way, the truth and the lie. His very nature isn’t just to tell the truth but to be the truth. Where do lies come from? John 8 44. Satan is the father of lies. When you lie, you making Satan your father. When God listed the 10 commandments, one of the first is that we must not lie and it sets up all of life. If you talk to anybody in recovery, talk to anybody who’s been through regen, one of the first things they’ll tell you is for me to get healthy, I had to quit lying to others and even to quit lying to myself. Lying perpetuates sin, death, destruction, lying, destroys marriages. I’ve seen it so many times. I call it a spiritual divorce.

When you’re lying to your spouse to keep your marriage together, it what you really say is, I, I’m married to you in paper, but not in spirit. You’re God. We’re gonna really know me. I’m not gonna let you understand who I am. You’re literally adopting the strategy of Satan to keep your marriage together instead of basing it on the glory of the God of truth. And that’s why when we raise our kids, we have to stress the need for them to tell the truth and for us to speak the truth to them. Oh, there’s a moment I wish I could have. Back when Graham was young, my son, he was in the single digits and it was that period of life when I was larger than life to him. He really looked up to me. We were visiting my parents and my parents have this uh, garage door at the time where my dad had put a button way up top.

That kid couldn’t reach it, that would open it from inside. So I said to Graham, Hey Gram grandpa has a magic garage door. You can open it if you just say abracadabra and if you spread your hands apart, you gotta go like a abracadabra and the door will open up. Gram looked at me. He was old enough to know that doesn’t seem possible. I go try it. I said, okay, abracadabra. I clicked on the button and he’s like, he’s really surprised ’cause it just doesn’t seem like it would work. I said, you close it the same way you say Abracadabra and it will close. He goes, okay. He says, Abra. And he looks back before he says Cadra and he sees my finger on the button and I saw an expression on his face I’d never seen before.

He said an expression of betrayal. I thought it was just all in fun. He thought, you’re my dad. You lied to me. I thought, I never wanna see that expression again. I want you to consider the sheer folly of lying to God. How it’s an offense against the fear of God. God knows you’re lying. So whenever I lie to someone, what I’m saying is, God, I don’t care about you. Your opinion doesn’t matter to me. I care about pleasing this person. I don’t wanna face their wrath. I don’t wanna face their displeasure. My whole life is turned away from God to people pleasing. It’s the very definition of not fearing God. If you think it sounds too strong to say, when we lie, we make Satan our father. Look at what Peter said to Ananias in verse three, Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your hearts? You lied to the Holy Spirit. Now if you go back to Acts 4 31, the community is described as filled with the Spirit. Ananias who was a part of that community in five three is said to be filled with Satan even though he participated in the life of a church.

What is it gonna be? Will we be filled with the mighty spirit of God, be filled with the spirit of Satan? How do we know our relationship to the truth is a direct indicator of who is leading us, of who is our God. If we fear God, we speak the truth. And this to tells us that the early church for it to function, there had to be an appropriate reverence and fear of God. Now let me say that the biblical notion of fear of the Lord doesn’t just mean terror or dread. There’s a difference between fearing God and being afraid of God. And this is where I wish this was a conference where I had a whole hour. There are literally literally dozens and dozens of passages that talk about the appropriate fear of God and what it means. I just don’t have time here.

I’ve been cutting all week long. I did a summary in one of my books, authentic Faith, where I went through all of these scriptures and here was my best attempt at a definition of what it means to fear God. The fear of the Lord involves trusting in God’s commands and goodness. See, fearing him means God spoke for a reason. I need to listen. When he speaks a willingness to accept his higher understanding, God, it doesn’t make sense to me why you would do that or say that, but I trust that you have a higher understanding than I do, which leads to a surrender to his will. If I fear somebody, I’m saying, okay, I give way. But this is so key. It’s underscored by a genuine love and affection. It’s not just terror like the pagans had of their gods. We have a love and affection for God, but that is also tempered by awe and reverence.

To fully fear God, we must practice all of the above. It’s a really difficult word to translate. If you take out any of these phrases, you’re gonna have an incomplete relationship with God. If you narrow down to two things, it’s appropriate. When we did the series on Exodus to talk about the compassion, the grace and the mercy of God, we should thank God for that. That’s who he is. We worship him for it. But in the midst of recognizing his compassion must never forget his power. This is the way Paul talked to the Romans in Romans 1122. Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God. They both go together. Now the fear of God is something we can and should teach to our kids. It’s something that could be learned. The Psalmist says this, come my children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

It is literally the best gift you can give to your kids seriously to set them up in life. The best thing they can have is the fear of God. When I was in Houston, I got to know some pretty wealthy families and there’s one guy I knew whose family was, was very wealthy. He wasn’t in church one Sunday, they’d just given birth to a baby boy. He is back the next Sunday. Where were you? He goes, well, I had to go home. We had to sign the trust fund papers for my son who had just been born. So I saw this little baby with a pacifier in his mouth and I said to him, Hey little buddy, how does it feel to be worth 10 times what I’ll ever be worth the rest of my life as he filled his diapers? Most of us can’t give an inheritance like that to our kids, but you can give them a better inheritance.

If you teach your children to fear the Lord by modeling it first, it’ll set ’em up for their relationships, their emotional health, their spiritual health, how they handle money, how they worship God. It sets everything up. Read the book of Proverbs, how fear of the Lord is so key to everything. The Dke, the earliest Christian document outside of the New Testament stresses this from youth. You will train your son and daughter in the fear of the Lord. Look, we don’t want our kids to wallow and dread and terror of God, but to teach affection for God without reverence for God isn’t to give them an accurate view of who God is. And if we lose it ourselves, no matter where we are in our faith, no matter how much God has used us, we’re in peril.

Exodus 2020 says this, the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning. This might sound kind of weird, but for me the fear of God is based in part on the fear of me. In this sense, I fear what I would become and what I would do if I step out of the fear of God. If you were here last week, I talked about the great heroes of the faith who messed up their families big time. We all hear of contemporary figures that God has used in powerful ways and their lives just implode. I’m a fool if I think I’m any holier or better than any of them. The minute, the very minute I step outside of the fear of God is the minute I’m moving toward sin. It’s something we can never lose. Let me make it more universal. The minute this church Cherry Hills community Church stops fearing God is the very minute Cherry Hill community Church becomes irrelevant to the work of God.

If we lie to maintain our image or handle personnel issues as a lot of churches have done, we’ve read about this. We’re not fearing God. We’re fearing the people’s response more than God’s response. If it’s all about us or power or reputations or we want this influence or that God can wipe us out in a second, he opposes the proud. He gives grace to the humble. God doesn’t need Cherry Hills community church, cherry Hills community Church needs God. There are 10,000 churches God could raise up or start. And so what matters is that we fear God. I have been so it’s been a sweet time in prayer last couple months getting a glimpse of what I think God’s plans are for Cherry Hills Community Church. It energizes me. It excites me. I haven’t shared it with anyone before this. I haven’t even shared it with Kurt.

And the reason is I think it’s conditional if we continue to operate in the fear of God and keep making it about Jesus instead of us. I think there’s no telling what God will do in this community and through this body of believers. But if we step out of the fear of God, he has no other place for us. He can raise up anybody in our place. There’s no individual in this church. None and no church in a community that is indispensable to the kingdom of God. The only person indispensable to the kingdom of God is Jesus. So we can never get out of the fear of God. Now why do I say that? Because one of the things that has hurt churches is the fear of man. They stop fearing God and they fear others’ opinions more. Well, I’m not gonna teach this passage ’cause people will say, we’re one of those churches.

We don’t wanna teach this passage. ’cause that will sound like we’re not loving or tolerant. We’re more afraid of people and what they say about us and the God who were called to worship. Can I just say this, A church that does not fear God more than people’s opinions isn’t a church. It’s a political party or a country club. And we might as well go home. We’ve stopped what our mission is before God. Why does this matter so much? If the church doesn’t fear God, the world won’t fear God and then they’re in terror. They have to see us fearing God. That’s what happened with Dan and I and Sapphira. Great fear didn’t just grip the church, but everyone who heard about it, God is real. He is powerful. Look at what he’s doing. But churches that fear people and not God, we tailor our message.

That’s why so many churches won’t talk about hell. It just doesn’t seem loving to our culture. Today. My parents are very generous from my dad retired. He took the entire family and extended family on a Hawaiian vacation with his retirement settlement. And then uh, after some of the other grandkids grew up, they said, grandma and grandpa, how come you never taken us to Hawaii? Well, you didn’t live well. I still can’t believe you went to Hawaii without me. So they took us all on this Caribbean cruise and one of the stops was in Grand Cayman Islands. And we did this. Um, they gave us information, one of those excursions where you go to the Stingray Place and then this very touristy place called hell. There’s a community in the Grand Cayman Island. It’s literally called hell. So you can buy t-shirts. I’ve been to hell.

They have a post office. So you can say I’m sending you a postcard from hell. We all knew that this was coming up. So we have this <laugh>. He’s a great nephew. My, he’s now actually a commercial pilot. We’re all proud of him. But he was a bit of a rabble-rouser when he was in grade school. And there was a little girl in his class that he knew was very religious. And so the teacher asked the students to get up and say, so what are you doing this summer? And Logan got up and said, I’m going to hell. And he sat down, she said, no. He goes, my grandparents are taking me there. She said, don’t say that. He goes, my entire family is going to hell. And that’s all he said. A teacher’s like what? So she calls my sister that afternoon and she says, Linda, what’s going on?

And Linda’s kinda laughing. Well, actually it’s kind of true <laugh>. It’s his place in Grand Cas that he heard about. We need the boldness of Logan with maybe a little more compassion and explanation that this is what God’s word says. I don’t like to brag too much about my kids, but my youngest daughter, Kelsey really got into running and I loved it. ’cause as much as I loved running, I never got to run in the state. Cross country meet. My daughter went there four years in high school, so happy getting to watch her doing that. And early on she was running track. And in Bellingham, Washington, this is, everybody gets a ribbon. She would be in track meets and you would get the blue, the red, the white. Or if you didn’t get one of those, they would give you a participant’s ribbon. They were these green ribbons and Kelsey figured it out. I loved it when she told me one time, yeah, these are my blue ones, red ones, white ones, and these are the good job. Anyway, ribbons, <laugh>, she knew it didn’t really count. You didn’t even get first, second, or third, but, but good job. Anyway, here’s a ribbon.

Without the fear of God, we could preach a message of good job. Anyway. That’s the way we look at God. As if he might say, you know what? You were my enemy for 80 years. You never acknowledge me. You marked people who followed me. You were marked by oppression and hate and abuse. You were in rebellion against me your entire life. But good job. Anyway. Enter into your rest. The problem with the good job anyway, God is that Jesus is the one who directly, consistently, frequently says That’s not how it will be. That’s not who God is. We serve a compassionate and gracious God who will forgive us for anything. But he’s also a God of wrath. And if we won’t fear him now we will be terrified of him. Then. This is for believers. We read this in Hebrews. The Lord shall judge, what’s this word?

His people. This is for believers, not those who don’t follow the Lord will judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God fearing God helps us live this life appropriately. I wish every husband feared God. Like this one young man feared his father-in-law. He was in Texas. He was not a good man as a single guy. The pastor had this woman in the church that he just loved. She was sweet. She loved the Lord. He wanted the best for her. When she started dating him, he was like, please don’t date him. He’s no good. This is not gonna end well. Pastor, I love him. She agreed to marry him. He’s like, oh, I’m just gonna have to be there and pick up the pieces after everything falls apart in her life. Then he watched for the next three years as this guy became one of the best husbands in the church.

The pastor couldn’t understand it. He, he knew what it was. So he calls him in. He says, I just want you to know I told your wife not to marry you. He goes, I know. She told me. He goes, look, I knew who you were before you got married. You know who you were. You were not marriage material. I just wanna know what happened. Why do you treat her so well? He said, pastor, do you know who her father is? Yeah, she told me He’s a businessman in Mexico. He’s not a businessman. He’s a drug Lord. On the day we got married, he pulled me aside and he said, son, if you hurt my daughter, if she comes running to me ’cause she’s not treated well, I have people who will kill you and I’ll tell him to take a very long time to do it.

The young man looked at the pastor and said, pastor, I believe him <laugh>. He’s gonna treat his wife as good as he can. Now, we don’t wanna do it out of dread because of violence. We have not just fearing our heavenly Father, but we have gratitude for everything that God has given us. Nothing has shaped my marriage more than the fear of God in a positive sense because when I was married, I was so selfish and so self-absorbed and my marriage changed. When after the fear of God, at the end of the day, instead of evaluating how my wife treated me, I’ll pray, God, have I pleased you with how I’ve loved your daughter? Have I spoken to her appropriately? Am I making her a priority? Are you okay with how I love your daughter? That fear of God has been the biggest aspect of my marriage. But can I just say this is an academic issue. If God were to say enough of this and unzip the veil of heaven and reveal his real presence to us today, we wouldn’t be arguing about the fear of God. Every one of us would be on our faces. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

This Peter who told Anani and Sfi that they’re about to die is the same Peter who urged the church. Live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. That’s why Anani and in the Bible, you’re getting the power of the Holy Spirit. It is awesome. It is comforting. He reveals God’s affirmation, but he’s not a tam kitten. He is the lion of Judah. We talk about Jesus returning, oh glorious day when Jesus comes back. That will be true only if we fear him. Now, if we fear God, now we will celebrate. We will shout, we will dance. We’ll clap our hands. If you ignore God now, if you don’t fear God, now seeing Jesus returning will be a day of terror and dread for you. We will all fear God best to fear him now than to be terrified of him later at the end of Lion, the witch and the wardrobe, which I reread recently on a plane, which ended up being a big mistake.

’cause at the end of the book, it tells a story of Alon giving him himself up for the sin of Edmond. And it’s so close to the story of Jesus. I’m just starting to cry. I’m sure this woman next to me is thinking, what is with this guy? I mean he’s, he’s crying and reading a children’s book, but it’s a story of my Lord I I thought I could make up an excuse. Boy, can you believe how bad allergies are? 35,000 feet up in the air? Boy, the ragweed is just terrible up here, but I didn’t wanna lie. But Lewis captures it so brilliantly where the powerful alon agrees to be killed by the white witch. And he lets him shave his beautiful man and then with the most hideous loathsome creatures of Narnia, sneering and yelling and celebrating. They tie him up. Even though he could have killed any of them with one swipe of his paw, he lets them put him on the stone slab and then the white witch cackling thinking this is our victory, raises the stone dagger and plunges it into his heart. Lucy and Susan had scrapped away to see it, and they can’t believe the hope of Narnia is gone. He’s dead. They’re in despair. But you know how the story ends? Azlan comes back to life. His mane is restored. Susan and Lucy see him and they’re beside themselves with joy. They get so familiar. They’re putting their hands in his mane, they’re kissing his face. They feel comforted by his velvet. He paws and azlan lets him hug him and kiss him. But then he says, girls, you must step back. I must war. And they heard this.

That’s Jesus. We can be intimate with him. We can love him. We can talk to him. We can take our concerns to him, but we mustn’t take away his roar because we live in a world that has more evil than even the white witch who keeps it always winner and never Christmas. Turning people to stone. I’m hearing secular people talk about it. What is the rise of evil? We see today in so many sectors of the world, not just in this country, but globally. And that should give us hope because we don’t worship a house kitten. We worship the lion of Judah. Father, I pray this could be received as kind words of love for some who are starting to stray, who have lost their fear of you, who have acted like you’re just a way of life. Who’s left behind a dead book, you’ve gotten overly comfortable and have lost the fear, Lord, call them back. It’s not a word to condemn. It’s a word to invite into a fuller expression of who you are in your grace and compassion. But in your awesomeness, Lord, in your power, we find our refuge. Thank you Lord for letting us be uncomfortable to hear these truths, to read these stories, Lord, that happened to know you still have a message for us today. May we fear you may be a church and individuals who fear you in Jesus name. Amen.