Welcome to the in touch podcast with Charles Stanley for Tuesday, December 26th.

Jesus is more than just the baby in a major that we celebrated yesterday.

He was and is God. Let's learn how to cultivate a healthy sense of awe as you hear what it

means to fear the Lord.

Are you afraid of God? You know if a person picks up the Bible and they don't know any better

they could get confused because the Bible says, Fear the Lord. All through the

Old Testament the emphasis is by the prophets. We are to fear the living God. We are to fear the Lord.

But then the Bible says, fear not. Fear not, fear not, fear not, fear not, fear not. The scripture says that God has not given us the spirit of fear

but of power and of love and of a sound mind. So why would he say on the one hand we

to fear the Lord, on the other hand we are to fear not, that God hasn't given us the spirit of fear but of power and of

love and of a sound mind. Fearing the Lord is a vital lesson that God wants every one of his children to learn.

And you and I are living in an age when the fear of God is not very prevalent.

But all through the scriptures we are taught to fear the living

God. Now what is the fear of God? Well this is one passage of scripture. We won't have to wonder, we won't have to question what is the definition, because I want you to turn, if you will, the Proverbs chapter 8. Now this is not our primary text, but it is a part of it. Proverbs chapter 8 and the 13th

verse gives us a biblical definition of what the fear of the Lord is. He says in Proverbs 8, verse 13, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil.

The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Now what is evil? Any form

of disobedience is evil. Any kind of immorality is evil. There are all kinds of adjectives we could describe evil. I think we understand

what evil is. Now the question is, why does God tell us to hate evil because God hates evil. Why does God hate evil? He hates

evil because evil by its very nature is corrupting and destructive. Anything that will corrupt the life of a

believer, his body or her mind, her emotions, her spirit, anything that corrupts the life of a believer is evil and God hates it.

Anything that will destroy one of God's creations, God hates it.

Now God hates it because of its destructive corrupting force.

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