In this sermon, the speaker shares a personal experience of inviting someone for hot chocolate and sharing the message of Christ with them. The individuals believed in the Lord and were saved, possibly due to the unusual manifestation of Christ's presence. The speaker then refers to Acts 4:13, highlighting how Peter and John, despite being unlearned and ignorant, were recognized as having been with Jesus. The sermon also touches on Acts 2, where the presence of God and the preaching of Christ led to repentance and baptism of 3,000 people. The speaker emphasizes the importance of walking in the fear of the Lord and shares five lessons on this topic.

The passage that Joshua read in Psalms 139 is an amazing passage of Scripture. If you go back and look at that, David is sharing his heart on understanding God, and it was quite an understanding when you put in the light of his life the tremendous responsibility that he had, the privilege, and the awful terror of his own failure. And it's in our failures that we really come to understand ourself, and that without the Lord we cannot do anything. Well, here to be dramatic, and I don't think I will be, I started this series on the fear of the Lord several weeks ago after studying it for several months, at least two, three, and every week it's just been, okay, I'm done. I'm not done. As a matter of fact, God showed me something yesterday afternoon that so propelled me I had to stay up until I couldn't stay up anymore last night. Normally I have a sermon. I jot down my notes. Sometimes I preach, especially in other places, but I like to do it here so I stay right on track, and usually six, seven pages. But as I've studied this week, I've got, I think, 19 pages of just jotting down things that God was teaching me. And all week I was on a certain text, just meditating on that, studying everything I could about that text, asking God, what's this mean? Looking at the Scriptures, looking up the words, the meaning of the words, looking at everything I could in the context. And that text was Acts 9.31, Then had the children rest throughout all Judea, and Galilee, and Samaria, and were edified, and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied. And so all week, even up until yesterday, I had to go out of town for a while. I was asking God, what does this mean? And studying it. Well, if you want a title for this message in this series of the fear of God, it would be shoes for the road. Shoes for the road. Because walking, generally you want some shoes. Walking in the fear of the Lord is a concept that the church has lost. And it wasn't until yesterday afternoon, I've been listening to this message over and over again by A.W. Tozer on an audio book. I hadn't found all the tapes, so I kept listening to the same thing over and over. In his book, The Pursuit of God, he has one section over there on the universal presence. And finally, I don't know, I must have listened to that thing 7, 8, 9 times. It hit me yesterday afternoon, what he was talking about. And it's like, when it did, it just opened up a whole thing. When I woke up this morning, my mind just, all these scriptures were just racing through there, coming there one after the other. It wasn't racing, I mean. Now I must share with you, on the subject of the fear of God and walking in the fear of the Lord, some things that God has showed me. I don't exactly know how to do this. There's not a lot of razzle-dazzle. I don't have a lot of stories and illustrations planned. And it wasn't until I got back. A lot of this is all foundational, it's all good that I've got. Back at the back, last night, and I'm not even finished. As I was going through this, and I was getting some lessons. I've got five lessons, out of all of this, on walking in the fear of the Lord. So I think I'll give you a little bit of the foundation, and I may jump over to one of them that was the most impressive to me. I was sharing with the men while we were back there praying. I might at least share that one with you. But I want to just come back and go through some basic things, so that we can be where God wants us to be. A lot of you know I'm interested in revival. I've been interested in this area and the revival ministry for 25 years. God has opened up for me to travel a lot. Share in some different states. Be in a lot of churches, and get into a lot of situations, and be in my own situation. And I think that what I have been shown today is really putting it all together for 25 years. The subject of spiritual pride, walking in the fear of the Lord, and the subject of spiritual pride, which really did something for you when God goes into your heart. Now, we started this thing off with Isaiah, back talking about the Lord Jesus, in Isaiah chapter 11, and his walking with the Lord. And this one verse is what had stuck out after also Ecclesiastes 12, 13, where Solomon gave the conclusion of the whole matter was to fear the Lord and walk in His commandments. But this thing here, I really got to meditating on it. And if you meditate on the word, you can learn a lot. And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. Shall make him, this was Christ, shall make him of quick understanding. Now, that ties in, and even gives more light after what I've learned this week. And so, walking in the fear of the Lord is walking in the presence of Christ. When Christ is there, it makes a difference. In the text that I was meditating on, the church was walking in the fear of the Lord, in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, and they were multiplied. So what I want to do, after last week, I thought, Lord, it would be good for us to maybe cover some of the positive aspects of walking in the fear of the Lord. We've gone through a lot of the rough stuff. But there are such powerful aspects of walking in the fear of God that I've just been so impressed, just to give you one. There are just dozens. Go get them. In thy presence is fullness of joy. And in the book of Acts, you look there, in the presence of the Lord, they had boldness. They didn't care, they were going to throw you in jail. We don't care. They were living and walking in the presence of God, in the fear of the Lord. And this is what it said, they continued there. Walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, they were a terror to the devil. Because they didn't fear anybody but God. And their fear was a holy, reverential worship. Just like the one Romanian pastor, the communists didn't know what to do with him. So when they threatened to kill him, praise the Lord, I'm just going to be with Jesus and my blood's going to spread this message more than I could ever do it on my own, go ahead. And they were afraid to kill him. So, what are the practical aspects of walking in the fear of the Lord? There's one main thing. And that is the presence of the Lord. And there's one aspect of the presence of the Lord that just really opened up my eyes to see some things I never really understood. I'm always looking to learn new things. Not to just learn new things, but I want to know new things. Paul was continually pressing forward. And they might know Christ. And it all revolves around not knowing things, but knowing Christ. New things that Christ is teaching us all the time. So it would be good to ask ourselves these questions. Are these aspects in my life that come out of knowing the Lord and walking in the fear of the Lord? Are these aspects in our church? These things are important. Now let me go back over Acts just for a little bit and give you some background. And at some point before, I don't know how far we'll go. I don't know anything except I'm going to do this next week. I thought I was done last week, every week. But the Lord hadn't turned me loose. And I've been so blessed. All week though, I was struggling, going, digging, what is it? But yesterday, after God began to show me about His presence, that it's His presence, and I saw that walking in the fear of the Lord. But one special thing about His presence that really does something. I'm going to go ahead and share it with you in case I die. The presence of the Lord is always with us. He said He'd never leave us. But I want to at least get this out in case the Lord comes and gets me before I get done. It is the manifest presence of the Lord that just brought such powerful results. I'll give you an illustration. When the disciples were in the boat, Jesus was in the boat. He was present, right? And He was sleeping, right? At that particular story. And the storm came up, right? And God brought the storm up, right? And they're bailing and grabbing sails and ropes and trying to do everything they could to save their lives. And finally, at the last moment, just before it's all over, they run to Jesus and wake Him up. And don't we do this? And when He woke up, they experienced the manifest presence of God. And Peter, was that the story where he said, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man? I don't know if that's the same story. But it's the manifest presence of God that brought such a fearful understanding of His presence. He was there with them. They saw it like Jesus walking down the road to go heal somebody. And a woman walks up behind Him. She's in the presence of God, but when she reached out and touched the hem of His garment, she experienced the manifest presence of God in her life. And it was this manifest presence of God in the life of the early church that brought such fear upon the other people around them that they wouldn't even join them, but yet they had a great respect for them. It was because God's manifest presence was there. And it's the fact that the manifest presence of God is gone in the church that the world doesn't respect us. They don't care. And we're content to live without the manifest presence of God. I don't want to live my life without the manifest presence of God. And as God opened up to me this thing, and I look back over my life, I say, Wow! God, I can see the times now. I understand that there were times I knew God was present. There's been a few times when I was praying. I was praying for a brother one time. Agony, off in another church, in a room, praying for hours for God, and God's presence came there. And He took me into an agony of intercession for this brother. I mean, Jesus, He didn't show up. I didn't see Him, but His presence was felt in there. And the anointing of His presence was powerful as I interceded for my brother. Those times are rare. They do happen. One time I was praying, and I was asleep and half asleep in a warm trailer, and a manifest presence of God came as I'm praying, and I'm preparing to go preach in a jail service. And Jesus came. I was asleep and half asleep and just sort of there, but He came. And when I preached in that jail, the anointing of God was so powerful that all those prisoners there gave their life to Christ. They just recognized the presence of God there, and it came out of that experience. And you've had those. I've had several of those, but they're rare. I don't have a lot of them, but there is the manifest presence of God in our daily life that gives a testimony of Christ. Now I'm sharing all these things. I didn't plan to share anything. As a matter of fact, I'm sitting over there saying, God, I don't know what I'm going to say. You're just going to have to give me something to say. I've got these things that I've been learning, but You give me what You want. I don't have stories and illustrations. You want me to share something. The manifest presence of God gives a testimony of the presence of Christ in your life. It gives a testimony of the presence of Christ in the life of the church, and when we don't have it, we go to substitutes. Don't we? Because the manifest presence of Christ affects people. It draws them to Christ. People love Jesus. They were drawn to Him by the thousands in Galilee. They could feel His love. They didn't feel the condemnation that they felt with the Pharisees. And what did the Pharisees do? They repelled. And the people only come around them because they had to. The terror that they had was not the terror of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the fear of man. But when Jesus came walking, they experienced His presence. And then when He reached out and raised the dead man, or He reached out and healed the blind, then they experienced the manifest presence of Christ. Have you had the manifest presence of Christ in your life? Can you look at some times and you see where God's presence manifested itself forth and touched somebody? Are you willing to live without that? I'm not. And it may get you into trouble. With me, it just probably will. Because the devil don't like it. Because he doesn't like Jesus. He doesn't like anything of Jesus to come out of your life. That's why sometimes so many Christians, if they're even Christians, don't bother the devil at all. Your life, your prayer life, your spiritual life should bother the enemy. It should. So don't get all upset if you get attacked. That's part of the game. And Jesus, as He walked amongst people, drew people to Himself by His manifest presence. All He did was exhibit God to them. All He did was exhibit God's love and care and concern for them. And He drew. Now, this passage in the book of Acts, going back in the background just quickly, in Acts 2 and 43, Acts 2, 43, with the presence of God there and things happening and the preaching of Christ. Peter is the main preacher there. And in 38, he's saying repent, be baptized. He comes on down through here. The Word of God is working. In 41, they're gladly receiving this Word and they're baptized. 3,000 added. In 42, they continue steadfastly in the apostle doctrine and fellowship and breaking the bread and prayers. And what's going on? Jesus' presence is manifested there in the person of the Holy Spirit. He's the operating practical area of our life is the Holy Spirit. Yesterday, did you have some conversation with God the Holy Spirit? If you didn't, you didn't walk in the Spirit because that's walking in the Spirit. It's talking to the Lord and Him talking to you in your spirit. And it goes on all the time for a Christian that's walking in the Spirit. And they continue steadfastly in the apostle doctrine. And what happened? And fear came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And not only was there just fear coming upon every soul and the wonders and signs, but it affected their heart. And if it doesn't affect your heart, it's not going to affect your pocketbook. Because the next thing you see, and they all believe were together and had all things common. They sold their possessions, goods, parted them to all men that every man had need. And they continued daily. They were in one accord. All of this is a by-product of the manifest presence of God. Powerful is wonderful. All of a sudden, they are experiencing the presence of God in the midst of them. And He lived in their hearts. And He's living through this life and that life, and they're having a powerful time like they've never had before. It's because Jesus has come in the person of the Holy Spirit. And that's the comfort. Walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost. Are we content to live without the comfort of the Holy Spirit? And I'll have to get over to that. I don't even know if I get over. But notice something else. In 45, "...and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need." Here, look at the trickle-down effect of the fear of God. It broke them free of the fear of their finances where they didn't have to have that big savings account in case God didn't help them. In case God failed, they had this. Now all of a sudden, they are set free. Sacrificial giving. And you can go on down. Look at 46 of 1 Accord. 47, "...praising God and having favor with all the people." It's the presence of Christ. It's the presence of Christ in your life that draws the unsaved. And many times, it's sacrificial. It's something you do and something that you wouldn't normally do that you wouldn't like to do, but you're doing it because you're living in the presence of God. And you're obeying the Holy Spirit. And He tells you to do this, and you do it. And people say, Wow! Nobody's ever done that for me before. And you get your stories. I mean, it may cost you to let God manifest Himself. Are you willing to do that? Back in the days when I used to pick up a whole lot more hitchhikers than I do now. This is back in the 70's. That was wonderful. You got you a chapty. He couldn't get out unless he was going to go in the window and jump out. But so many of them were the byproduct of praying. Getting in praying with God and then going about my business. And then sometimes it would cost me to do that. One time we're coming back. I had a jail ministry. I was in a jail out on the east side of Omaha. We're coming back. We picked up the hitchhiker. He had another guy or two with me. And this guy was going somewhere. And we drove way out into Iowa. But it paid off. One time on a cold, wintry type night. It was rainy. It's cold. I'm heading back home. And here's a man and a woman. And I tell you this story before. With a little child out there in the rain trying to hitch a ride. God said, pick him up. The flesh said, Lord, I'm tired. I want to go home and go to bed. But I stopped and I picked him up and found out where they're going. Seventy miles down to Peru. I think it was Peru or Purdue. And so, God said, take him home. It was a manifest presence of God doing it. So I did. I took him home. They invited me in for hot chocolate. Shared Christ with them. They believed on the Lord. We're saved. I think they were saved. You really don't know who's saved or not. But what impressed them was Christ doing something unusual. We don't like to do those things. But it was His manifest presence that affected them enough to repent of their sins and turn their life over to Christ and rejoice. It cost. Now, just going on down through there. Look at 4. Chapter 4. Just to give you the background on this. 4 and 13. 4 and 13. Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled and they took knowledge of them that they'd gone to the seminaries. No, that they had not gone to their seminaries, but they had been with Jesus. They had been with Jesus. Look at verse 39. And they had the boldness there. It's the manifest presence of God in our life that will bring forth the boldness to share Christ. Christ is with you. He'll never leave you. He said He would. That's His Word. You're sealed into the day of redemption. He'll never leave you. But it's when His manifest presence comes. It just does. We just had a neighbor that moved a couple months ago. Maybe less than that. And God had taught us as a family, just love her. Just love her. Unusual things. Amount of time and sacrifice and things that we would do. Living in a bad lifestyle. But God the Holy Spirit said, let my presence be manifested through love. Don't come down and condemn. It's love. I believe God will save her someday. But look at 29 there. And now, Lord, behold, there are threatenings and grabbings to Thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak the Word. With all boldness. There again, it's the boldness. Then look at 5 in verse 4. Father, remain, was it not in Thine own hand? There's the thing with Ananias and Sapphira and the deal that they pulled off had what kind of effect? Everybody saw, wow, this God kills people. Everybody, let's get out of here. In verse 5 it says, Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and gave up the ghost, and great fear came on all them that heard these things. Everybody heard about it. The fear of God, the fear of the Lord came. Now look at verse 11. And great fear came upon all the church. After his wife kicked the bucket, great fear came upon all the church upon as many as heard these things. So what happens? Everybody gets away from them. They have their little holy huddle. No. Because of the manifest presence of God, the Word went forth in more power. In 12, And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people, and they were all one accord in Solomon's porch, and the rest thus. No man joined himself to them, but the people magnified them. And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women. If we don't have the presence of God manifest amongst us, we've got to go get our church growth programs. And it's our duty to make sure that Christ is known. We've got to get our church growth programs and we've got to go out and get them. Jesus said, You go out and preach. Just go preach the gospel and the power and He'll do the rest. Says the Lord added. Well, if the Lord's not adding, then we've got to do these things. And so there's signs and wonders. They're one accord. In 13, The ungodly are separating themselves, but they have great respect. They're coming under conviction. There's high esteem for the church. In verse 14, the believers were more added. You keep on going. 15, Sick are healed. Do you think that God could show up in a church and people not know it? He's here. Where two or three are gathered together in my name. He's there. But when He shows up and when He makes His presence known, how many times can you think of some kind of situation in your own personal life where you had a need? A personal need. And God showed up and took care of that need. And you know God did it. One time, I had a need of bills being paid. I can't remember if it was one bill or several bills. I think it was one bill. It was $629. And all of a sudden, one day in the mail came all this money from somewhere that had a tax return somewhere way back there. They figured something out. And all of a sudden, somebody sent me a gift here and there. All of a sudden, I got all this money to come in the mail and open it up, put it there, add it all up. Surely it wouldn't have been $629. That was the man. He loves to do things like that. But first of all, He likes this to get us needy. We have an amazing God. And you remember in Acts 19, I was looking over there, the sons of Sceva. They see all the miracles that are going on. In 1911, God brought special miracles by the hands of Paul so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs, aprons, and disease. You think Paul is doing that? Living through his life. You know, Jesus still does that. He still heals people. Over in India, they're seeing such miracles happen over there. Because of our theological correctness, we say, I don't believe in that. Miracles ceased and all that. They have it. But they're seeing this happen. Whole villages are coming to Christ. God is manifesting Himself through these people that are surrendered to Him. Which is one of the conditions back here we get to it. God's not going to manifest Himself to a half-hearted Christian. He's going to manifest Himself to those of us that are completely surrendered to Him. And so these sons of Sceva, they see what's going on and say, looks like a good deal, let's try it. And so in the name of Jesus, they try casting out some demons. You know what happened to the demons. They said, we know Paul, we know Jesus, but who are you? And they jumped on them. And that's what we're doing. In a lot of our places, we are inviting the power of Satan to come in by trying to imitate the power of God. The demons are waiting for some kind of opportunity. And we're a mess. And you know, they got into a lot of trouble. But in 17, after God straightened them out, and the demons, they jumped in them and they took off. It says they were naked and wounded. They took off running. And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling in Ephesus. Then fear fell on them all and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. Do you see how this works? The name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. And many that believed came and confessed and showed their deeds. And many of them also with curious hearts brought their books together and burned them before them all. We were in a church one time. They were living there and working in that church. And there was a cleansing time when we went through the houses, the homes of the church. Everything that had any kind of connotation or connection with satanic or demonic power or whatever was brought went out to a farm in the country and they had a burning just like this. I can't remember how many thousands of dollars. Somebody said, I can't remember, maybe $50,000 or so worth of all of his movies and stuff. Some very demonic stuff and stuff that Satan likes to use. Just burning books. And the Word of God grew. Look at 20. And so mightily grew the Word of God and prevailed through the manifest presence of God. Now our text in verse 31. And you know the story. This is where Saul got saved. He had his encounter with him and ends up going and Barnabas takes him under his wing and he goes through all of his stuff. This is where this comes about. And this is where 31, Acts 9, 31 ends up. Actually the chapter doesn't end up there. But in 31 after, Saul was saved. It says, Then had the churches rest. Now it didn't last for long. I was talking to a friend of mine in another state and I said, what's going on? And it wasn't too much going on. And I said, well I got a lot of stuff going on. But God gives us those times. I said, God gives us those times of rest. And you're in a time of rest. You have to have the, I was taught by a godly principal a long time ago. One of the three men that mentored me. He said, a church has to have rest times. Those churches that just go, go, go, go, go, go out the roof and they just go apart. He said, it's inclined and plateau. I said, brother, you're in a plateau time. Enjoy that time. Rest out. Because a lot of times it's just things and God uses this. He saves millions. Two thousand people. I don't know if they really got saved down in South America. Preaching. He's a man that knows the power of the Spirit of God. But, rest was a result of Saul's conversion. It was just temporary. And there's the five words there. Main words, rest, edified, walking in the fear of the Lord, comfort in the Holy Spirit, and multiplied. Now, walking in the fear of the Lord means a God-governed people. Because God's presence, He's not going to sit back, okay, the deacons, they can run this show. Elders, they can run things. Maybe the janitor wants to run it. Does somebody know? When a church is walking in the fear of God, a church is under the governing of God. And the church will appear to be totally weak, totally ineffective, totally maybe, not know what they're doing, but if the presence, because this is the way God works. A God-governed people. And that's because it's His body. And that's because when He's going to work, He's going to add to the church. He knows how to do that. And so what we do, we try to go off and do it ourselves if God's not there. So there's great fear on the church. Let me give you this principle. I'm sure you've never heard it before. But maybe you have. But we just don't pay attention to it. Here it is. Matter of fact, it's an old principle. And it's this. God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints and to be had in reverence of all them that are about Him. Would you believe that's in the Bible? Psalms 89.7 God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints. I would fear to fail Him. I would fear to not edify Him. Let me go through some of these terms. Basically, that means to be built up. And this is what God's going to do. He's going to build up the church. The central thing. The devil's business is to tear down. God's business is to build up. The devil's business is to divide. God's business is to unify. So you can tell who's on God's side and who's on the devil's side by what they're doing. By their fruits you shall know them. And walking in the fear of the Lord. The church is not complete at this point. And I don't think it's complete yet. He's still working on me. But it's in progress. It's looking forward to finality. But the church, even though it's not complete, is invincible. It survived 2,000 years. It's amazing, isn't it? It survived. But persecution hasn't wiped it out. There have been men, world rulers, that set about to do it. Worldliness does more damage than anything, but it still hasn't wiped it out. It does great damage. The disease, the divisions, and all the fire that comes on them. But like a mighty army, it just keeps rolling on. It keeps growing in holiness. Now, walking in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit. Walking means going on your way. And Jesus gave us the commandment that as we go, we're to preach the Gospel. But walking on your way, walking in the fear of God, it means it's walking on purpose. This is some of my studying going through here. Walking on purpose to pursuing. Paul said that I might know Him and the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His suffering. It's walking on purpose. When I get up in the morning, the first thing I try to do is get my brain together to where it can think and then listen. As long as our brains can think, does God have anything to say? I get in my Bible. Does God have anything to say to me? My purpose is to walk in the ways of the Lord. And it's walking in truth. It's walking in obedience and all these different things. And our purpose is to persuade. When we go through the day, it's not, oh, wow, God, I survived today. Nobody hit me. Nobody ran over me. No bill collectors got me. I made it through the day. Oh, thank you. Nothing happened. I had no hits. I had no runs. I had no errors. We're going to have some hits and we're going to have some runs and we're going to have a lot of errors. But here's what Paul said. Listen to this in 2 Corinthians. This man had got so plugged into God that God was his life. And it so terrified him, that experience he had and wherever he got converted in there, it so terrified him and affected him, encountering the manifest presence of God, he never got over it. It amazes me these Christians that can get saved and get over it. Now here, what are we to be doing? Here's what he said. In 2 Corinthians 5.11, Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest unto God and I trust are made manifest in your consciences. He said he experienced the terror of the God. Knowing the terror of the Lord. In 14 he said, For the love of Christ constrains us. He was not operating in, oh, I'm so afraid of God. I've got to go tell these people about Jesus. No. Knowing the terror of the Lord and what God did for him, he was so propelled and his purpose was to expand the love of God because that's what he said in 14. For the love of Christ constrains me. It means it holds me fast because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead, and that he died for all, that they which live should not live for it, living to themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. We've got a different type of Christianity that's taken over the church of unsaved Christians, isn't that something? Somebody mentioned in a testimony, I've got it in writing, they said they were an unbelieving believer. There's also a section in hell professing Christians. But anyway, this is what the fear of God did in Paul's life. It put purpose in his life. It propelled him. And not only that, in verse 15, 14 and 15, you come on down to 18. Look at that. And all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation to wit that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Reconciliation means to bring to a change from enmity to friendship. Have you had an encounter with Jesus? No matter what your spiritual level is, you're going to have the love of God in your life propelling you each day to want to pass it on. And if you don't want to pass it on, maybe you don't have anything to pass on. That's why you don't know how to do it. Now let me share two master principles with you here in this thing. When I went into the Air Force back in 1966, 40 years ago. And I went in on August the 8th and flew me to Houston from New Orleans and we got a motel and went to San Antonio for basic training. I jumped off the bus there. I think that was August the 9th. And as soon as my foot hit the ground, I knew I had made a big, big mistake. Anybody that's ever encountered that, there was this little sawed-off, ugly sergeant. He started chewing me out and chewing everybody that jumped off the bus. He must have been a relative of a piranha. He just wanted to chew. I was yelling at him. All of a sudden, I am scared to death. Where's my mama? I thought it was rough at home. And boy, then they start insulting you. They take you in there and cut all your hair off and it's just two weeks of terror. We were at war in those days. The Vietnam War. And so they had to intensify everything. We went through crawling on the ground while they're shooting the bullets. I don't think they shot real bullets and all this stuff, but we had to go through all of that. Well, one of the things they loved to do was march you. And you marched. So you get up and they yell at you and they were not happy campers. They were just always complaining. And not only that, they would sneak around in the middle of the night and terrify you. You had to have your three hours of guard duty and you're so tired you could hardly stay awake. And here comes this... We got a sergeant that stays there and he would come sneaking around. He'd try to catch you sleeping. That marching. You know, they were training us. Trying to see if you would crack up. We had one guy that did crack up. But they would march you and the idea was that you were supposed to operate with everybody else. And so the guy, hup, two, three, four. They don't even know how to count. You know, hup, two. You know, can't count. Can't pronounce. I mean, my pronunciation was bad, but hup. That's one. Hup. Which in Spanish, I guess I'd spell that. But listen. They were teaching us to work under these principles. And if we wouldn't obey, it was bad enough. Can you imagine marching and it's 114 degrees? I thought, I'd think about that from Louisiana. I could understand a little bit of this. But anyway. Then they shut us off at 116. But anyway, the idea was that we were to march in step. You just got out a little bit. Here comes the frayner. You know. Gomer piles. God is discipling the church to march in step. And if he comes around and chews on us a little bit so that we would learn to work as a body. We're not soldiers. We are a body. And we're to function together. And the church is so dysfunctional and at large, they don't even have a clue what a functioning body is. I got some things that the Lord was showing me from A.W. Tozer about these things. And some of these things are rough. And maybe I ought to just jump over to one of those principles. But it means the Lordship of Christ. The Lord is mentioned five times in the Bible. It means, Lord, Lord, means your life is yielded to His dominion. When I jumped off that bus, I had signed up four years of my life, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I was under their dominion. I signed up. But I didn't have much option because I had got out of the army. I was in college and they gave me ten days to get in the army. I was raised around the air force base there. But either way, they got me. So I gave them four years, but they had complete dominion. When Jesus is Lord, Lord, that means He has complete dominion over you. And this is where a lot of our problems come from as Christians because we complain about His Lordship. But if He says, march as a body in order, it's our duty to march in order. Lord, Lord. And that means your life then is yielded to His dominion. Fifty-five times dominion. You know what Job said? Dominion and fear are with Him in the experience that He had. It means absolute authority. And it means not only that we are yielded to His dominion, but we are yielded to His disposal. And so in the early church, they said, we're going to throw you in jail, we're going to throw you in the lions, we're going to saw you in two. That's none of my business. I work for another boss. And by the way, you're not going to saw me into nothing. And if He doesn't say, you can do it. If He doesn't want me in your jail, Peter said, alright, I may not be here too long, but I'm here and we're praising God and singing God, and God comes along and opens the doors and gets him out of jail. That's what it means to be under dominion and His disposal from God. When God can do that with the church and His presence can be there and His manifest presence come forth, it's powerful. We need to be repenting and seeking God for our own personal heart and our own personal lives. And it's corporate. Now a church that's going to do that, be under the dominion and at the disposal, is going to also come under the blasting of the enemy. You can count on it. You can count on it. If we're a church and we've got no hits, no runs, and no errors, we're not under the dominion and authority of Christ. I'm going to flip back over here and close up on one of these principles. I haven't even got into them. But I've talked about, and here, I'll name them to you. These lessons back there. I'm going to just go over them. Number one principle, I got this from A.W. Tozer, is that God is everywhere. God is everywhere. Psalms 139.7, David said, Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? A little boy was on a bus, I think it was, or train or something with a man. And the man knew he was a Christian. He thought he'd have fun with him. And he says, Son, I give you an apple if you can tell me where God is. The little boy said, Mister, I'll give you a whole bushel of apples if you tell me where God isn't. He got his apple. Okay. God is everywhere. This is a basic principle. We live in the church and our lives like this is not true. We have moments of insanity where we, and I have lots of them, where we just act like and think like God isn't here. But he says, You know what? God comes looking for Adam and Eve. This is really pretty neat. God comes looking for them in the garden. Adam! Where are you? Now couldn't God see? Doesn't the Bible say God is everywhere? Down in the presence of God? He was out there hiding in the woods. And so they come out and said, We hid because we were naked. And he said, Who told you that you were naked? You know why God called them out? God knew where Adam was. But he asked the question so Adam would know where he was in sin. Out of the presence. Not able to experience the manifest presence of God that he had lost. I mean, how would you like to have been Adam? And He creates you and you've got this beautiful thing and no telling what all God was doing in His presence there. Walking in the cool of the evening with Adam every day. Did you have a good day Adam? Oh yes, had a wonderful name. Hey, you know, we've got an elephant now. I named an elephant today. God said, That's great. I'm just putting this stuff in there. But he lost it. Is there any joy in your life? Is there any power? Where you have enough power to where even if you're washing dishes, you're believing God to work with your neighbors, you're praying with them. Oh God, I've got to wash these dishes and my neighbors there. Instead, you're fellowshipping with God. Washing dishes. Worshipping Him. And then God was going to... The neighbors there wants a bar or something and they broke down or something. I can't tell you how many times people had broke down. It was so God could... So God is everywhere. God is everywhere. The hypocrite's power is to condemn. And if he lived in God's presence, he wouldn't be quite so negative on everybody. But God is everywhere. Here's a second one. Just going to give you a little survey through here. That is this. He's knocking on your door. When Paul came... I don't know if I have time to mark a bunch of verses, but in Acts 17, when he came there to Athens and he's preaching with these guys and telling them about Christ, Acts 17, 24-31, this is really something. He's coming in to raw pagans. The Greek mind. He's talking to them about somebody that died and rose from the dead. I mean, they never heard of anything like that. And he comes in there and he starts in Acts 24. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worship with men's hands as though He needed anything, seeing He giveth to all life and breath and all things and had made of one blood all nations of men. I mean, he's talking to the Athenians for to dwell on all the face of the earth and had determined the times before appointed and the bonds of their habitation that they should seek the Lord if happily they might feel after Him and find Him though He be not far from every one of us for in Him we live and move and have our being. He's saying, boys, God is available to you. He's here. He's available. He's knocking on the door. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man was... There he was, kind of knocking and getting into his own church. Revelation 3.20 But he's knocking. He's knocking on your door. He's available to you right now for any area in your life. You know, Jacob got in a lot of trouble. And so he's off out there running away from his brother. And God meets him in Genesis 28.16. He has this encounter with the Lord and he says, Surely, the Lord is in this place and I knew it not. But there's more than that that he didn't know. That God had been around the whole time. He saw Him deceive His Father. But he said that in 28.16, God is in this place and I knew it not. And then God said something to him. He said, I'll be with you. In 15, He said, Behold, I am with thee and will keep thee in all places where thou goest and will bring thee again into this land. And back over in 20, Jacob bowed about saying, If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on so that I come again. He went through all this. He said, I'll give him a tent. When God touches your life, you'll give Him what He's got. That's His, the tithe. And not only that, He'll give beyond that. God is available. He said, I knew it not. And that was his problem. He didn't know that God could take care of him and his mother, Canaiman. That was the trouble. You know, some people are more occupied with church policies, church programs, church covenants, church doctrines. All these things are good. I've just listed things. Church procedures, politics, church buildings, and church conferences, and Christian books, and all of this stuff was so occupied that we're not occupied with Christ. We're so occupied. Why did the Lord tell us to have communion? And I believe having it once a week is the minimum. Because He said, this doing remembrance to me, He said, don't forget me. To walk in the fear of the Lord is to be occupied with Christ. That's all it is. They were occupied with Christ. The devil didn't like it. He was always grumbling, complaining about the presence of Christ. Don't worry about it. Rejoice. He said, they're going to come along and try to kill you and slander you and gossip you and write letters about you and do all these things. He said, rejoice. It's because of my presence being with you the devil's complaining. He said, God, did you get him out of my life? Get him... He said, he ain't coming an inch towards you. By the way, the reason that the enemy's coming in on our country is so horrible, we haven't even begun to woke up. It's because we've lost our God consciousness as a nation. Presidents in the past, the founding fathers all focused on God and prayed to God. Public prayers in the White House, in the Congress, in the Senate, they prayed. We've lost it. And so, God is trying to... He's knocking on the door. So, the awareness of His presence. Third thing, that second thing, is God is available. Third thing, just on the outlining of these things, the awareness of His presence is God making Himself known. And that to me is one of the most powerful things there is. With the disciples walking down Emmaus Road. He's walking and talking to them. These two have not even been a man and a wife. And when He gets into the house, they had been walking with Jesus, but how was He made known to them? It was in the breaking of the bread. When we come and we have communion, God's intent is that we would express and experience His manifest presence in our communion together as a body. That there's nothing that you have against anybody in this fellowship. There's no schism in the body. Maybe there's something that needs to still be worked on, but you're trying to work on it. There's nothing in your life. And maybe there's something there, but there's nothing that you are willfully, you're willfully resisting and rebelling against God. Don't fool with God. I'm a fear God. I've experienced enough of His paintings. He's got a big leather belt that says Don Corbill. When He gets it off the nail, I'm a trembling. And He can run faster than me. I've got a feeling He can run faster than you too. The Lord Jesus received. His holiness begun. The Lord Jesus cherished. His holiness advancing. The Lord Jesus, count upon, is never absent. His what? Holiness. The manifest presence of God. Him making Himself known. What does this mean? It means that I'm surrendered to Him. I'm surrendered to Him. Somebody reminded me of a counselor that does a lot of counseling with people that are possessed with the enemy. That he said that he could not do anything for that person until that person would completely surrender themselves to Christ. He's present. And the demons don't mind Him being present. They'll come. They'll come, take over, whatever. But they have to be in His manifest presence. They're going to kick and complain and everything. The third thing. Awareness. Walking in the fear of the Lord is walking in the awareness of Christ's presence. Unbelievers were aware. The church was aware. After Ananias' fire deal, Peter had a burning out later on too when he had to get his hide nailed to the wall by the apostle Paul. They were pulling back. The awareness of God will mean a new revelation. You know, Moses had an incredible experience with God. An incredible experience with God. One of my favorite passages in Exodus is when he asked God. He wants to get to know God in Exodus 33. He said, I know Thee by name, and Thou hast also found grace by my sight. Thou hast said this. Now therefore I pray Thee if I have found grace in Thy sight, show me now Thy way that I may know Thee that I might find grace in Thy sight and consider that this nation is Thy people. God kept trying to push him. You know, you're trying to push these people off on me. I don't want them. They're yours. But then he said this. God said, this is how he answered Moses in 14. He said, My presence shall go with Thee. And he said, My presence shall go with Thee. My presence shall go with Thee. Matter of fact, Moses had said, and Thou hast not let me know in verse 12 of Exodus 33, Thou hast not let me know who that was sinning with me. Moses, would it be okay if I just go? I think together we can handle everything. The fear of the Lord. We've lost in the body of Christ an awareness of God's presence. And the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God merciful and gracious and longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth. You know what? God is manifesting forth Christ. He's gracious. He's merciful. He's gracious. He's longsuffering. Are you aware of Jesus Christ? It will affect your soul. You'll have a life-changing experience. I haven't got over that encounter with the Lord 44 years ago, July 10th. You'll have a new relationship with God. You'll have a deepening relationship with God. You will have an ongoing relationship with God. Tozer said, It is for increasing awareness that we pray for a more perfect consciousness of the divine presence. And a fourth thing, Paul said that, I might know Him, continue to know Him. Fourth thing, one more thing after that, is the receptivity of Christ. Christ is a gift. Being aware of Him in His presence. The Pharisees were aware of the presence of Christ. They were aware that He was there. They were aware that He was claiming to be God. That's why they were trying to stone Him. But they didn't want Him. He came unto His own. His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them He gave, what? Power. What is that power? It's the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life. You have power to become the sons of God. He knocks. You respond. Somebody knocks. You respond. Either you answer the door or you don't. It's Jesus saying, Can I be Lord of your life? Every area. Will you give me that area that I don't have? So many times we're worried about other people. We need to be more worried about ourselves. Let God fix us up. Then we'll know how to go help others. I don't know how many phone calls I got this week. I'm nothing. Nobody. But guys are calling me. I'm not looking for it. I just have to say, God, You have something for them. You give me the wisdom. I don't have anything, Lord. They've got a serious problem. Be available. But receive Christ. Let Him take over. Let Him do everything. You know, if you've got a child that never looks at you, never talks to you, never comes to you, you don't have much of a relationship. It's all about receptivity. Receptivity has to do with relationships. 101. Your prayer life. When you get there and you pray with God, I got my list. Do this. And don't forget this, God. We'll see you later. Bye. No. A conversation is, you say something to God, you listen to Him. As a matter of fact, it's good to listen first. It's receptivity. Are we receptive? Are we receptive of Him? And this fifth thing, if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship, one with another. We fool ourselves. We've got people that, you and I, we have relatives probably that think they're Christians. They have no desire to walk in the light. It should be our duty to pray for them that they would come to see the light. The fifth thing, the last thing I'll close up on, just jumping over these five lessons, there's a lot of stuff back there. It's this, that walking in the fear of the Lord is walking in the presence of the Lord with all these things, but it's also being conscious of the privilege that we have. You look at all the times in the book of Acts, their business was to preach Christ. Get your concordance and look up how many times the word preach is used. It's to preach Christ. And so, the church, at this point in Acts chapter 9, had rest for the time being. Also, the Jews had another problem. There was another Roman general come down there, going to put up his statue in the temple, got them all stirred up. I was thinking, boy, God, in just one moment, You removed their problem with Saul, and You gave them another problem to work on themselves. Saul was the problem of the church, and all of a sudden, he's gone. And the church is not even being bothered by the Jews, because they've got another problem with a Roman general trying to put his statue up in the temple. And God gave them some rest. The business of the church was preaching Christ, and so the church took off. Then had the church's rest throughout all of Judea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified, walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost. I didn't cover a lot on the comfort of the Holy Ghost. Paul said, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. What is your burning desire? Oh, Father, totally inadequate, totally with a pile of dust. This is all we are without Christ. Lord, forgive us. We need revival. We pray for the church in America. We need revival. We need to repent of all of our selfishness, our self-orientation, that You would have mercy upon us and bring revival in our land and turn us. We confess the wickedness of our own hearts is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. But we thank You that in Your mercy You search our hearts. Lord, we want to experience Your manifestation. Thank You for opening up. Thank You for having us. Not the messenger of God. It's the Word.