Gen 42:18, Now Joseph said to them on the third day, "Do this and live, for I fear God: 
We now come to a subject that, prayerfully, I believe needs some time of explanation and consideration. It is this matter, in Joseph’s statement, that he fears God. This is something that all of us need to take to heart and to ask for further understanding and enlightenment by the Holy Spirit. There are those of us who may have a good footing in what it means to fear God, and yet, there may be more at the heart of this than we have yet discovered. As well, there may be those of us who do not understand or appreciate all that is involved in this terminology. 
You see, our English language sometimes lacks the full breadth of vocabulary as was used in the original writing of the Word of God. We tend to use the same word over and over again for, in this case, 5 distinct Hebrew words for fear with their associated, sometimes subtle innuendoes and meanings. Because of this, we might get the wrong impression of what is involved in this fear of God. 
There have been good hearted and well meaning Christian believers over the course of years who have created doctrines that served to bring dread and terror of God before congregations. These have led to concepts indicating that God is to be thought of with horror and fright and apprehension and alarm and even panic. This has propagated a vision of God with lightning bolts in His hand ready to strike down and punish anyone who sins. This is such a distant and dreadfully erroneous twisting of Who God is and what is involved in a rightful reverence of Our Loving and Forgiving and Holy Heavenly Father.
We want to see what this fear of God really entails in the lives of His people in both the Old and the New Testament. We want to understand how it should be effective in our lives to bring us closer to God rather than to cause us to shun or to be afraid of or to be anxious about God. 
I hope you will bear with me in this endeavor for however long it might take, especially as I will be using a couple of learned sources in a long quotation or two. This is to help with the specific instructional aspects of defining what it means to fear God. We do so with the desired intent to allay any earthly apprehension of God and misunderstanding as to the true joy that is part of fearing God in our lives. 
	Our first source will be the Holman Bible Dictionary as it defines this reality of the fear of God. Quote, A prominent element in Old Testament religion is the concept of the fear of God. Most often the sense of fear comes as individuals encounter the divine in the context of revelation. When God appears to a person, the person experiences the reality of God's holiness. This self-disclosure of God points to the vast distinction between humans and God, to the mysterious characteristic of God that at the same time attracts and repels. There is a mystery in divine holiness that causes individuals to become overwhelmed with a sense of awe and fear. They respond by falling down or kneeling in reverence and worship, confessing sin, and seeking God's will… End quote. (from Holman Bible Dictionary. Copyright © 1991 by Holman Bible Publishers. All rights reserved.)        
	Please turn in your Bibles to Isaiah Chapter 6, verses 1-8, as we will read together how this revelation of God’s holiness should effect our hearts in a manner that so causes us to see ourselves rightly before God and desire to be of complete service unto Him. Isa 6:1-8, In the year of King, Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory." And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, "Woe is me, for I am ruined!, Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." Then one of the seraphim flew to me, with a burning coal in his hand which he had taken from the altar with tongs. And he touched my mouth with it and said, "Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is forgiven." Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I. Send me!" 
	Isaiah saw the holiness of God and was brought to the immediate recognition that he did not deserve to be in the presence of the most Holy One. There was an understanding in his heart that all that Isaiah was, no matter how good he might consider himself in his own eyes, was nothing in comparison to the awesomeness and the majesty and the glory of God. 
Yet, rather than strike Isaiah down as unholy and undone, God manifested His grace and His mercy in taking away Isaiah’s iniquity and forgiving his sin. The beneficence of God changed Isaiah in such a manner that he wanted to please and to serve the most Holy and Wonderful and Awesome Lord God Almighty.
	Continuing with the definition as described by the Holman Bible Dictionary, quote God as a fearful God-The God of Israel is an awe-producing God because of His majesty, His power, His works, His transcendence, and His holiness. Yahweh is a "great and terrible God" (Neh 1:5, And I said, "I beseech Thee, O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who preserves the covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments); He is "fearful in praises, doing wonders" (Ex 15:11, "Who is like Thee among the gods, O Lord? Who is like Thee, majestic in holiness, Awesome in praises, working wonders?); His name is "fearful" (Deut 28:58, "If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, to fear this honored and awesome name, the Lord your God) and "terrible" (Ps 99:3, Let them praise Thy great and awesome name; Holy is He.). The fear of God comes as people experience God in a visible manifestation (Ex 20:18, And all the people perceived the thunder and the lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood at a distance.), in dreams (Gen 28:17, And he was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."), in visible form (Ex 3:6, He said also, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.), and in His work of salvation (Isa 41:5, The coastlands have seen and are afraid; The ends of the earth tremble; They have drawn near and have come.). God's work, His power, majesty, and holiness evoke fear and demand acknowledgment. The fear of God is not to be understood as the dread that comes out of fear of punishment, but as the reverential regard and the awe that comes out of recognition and submission to the divine. It is the revelation of God's will to which the believer submits in obedience. End Quote. (from Holman Bible Dictionary. Copyright © 1991 by Holman Bible Publishers. All rights reserved.)        
	When we see God, we are brought to the separating point of our eternity. This is the decision spot at which we either fear Him with reverence and with awe and with humility at the splendor of His glory and worship Him, or we are brought to that fear of God which causes us to despair of life for all of eternity. 
There is that justified fear and anxiety and dismay at the revelation of God for those who refuse to acknowledge Him as Lord and Savior. Those who deny God and His very existence and those who refuse to accept the freely given salvation through His Only Begotten Son will experience that eternal fiery terror and horror of their own failure to come to Him in Christ Jesus. They will know the wrath of God because of their own stubborn refusal to honor God’s revealed Holiness and Majesty.
	However, those who do acknowledge Him as Lord and Savior come to Him, not in the fear and trembling of His wrath and punishment, but in the reverent understanding that all that God does is good and righteous altogether. No longer will there be any dread of coming into the presence of God, in Christ. Even though we may prove, over and over again, that we are not perfect of ourselves on this earth, we will not dread the Holy presence of God. We are forgiven in Christ and we are loved for all eternity. The continued work of God in our lives unto the more perfect testimony of Christ is done by a loving Heavenly Father Who desires only the very best for each of His children. 
There is full joy and blessing in seeing that the Most Holy and Awesome God has manifested Himself in grace and mercy and love everlasting. That will elicit a true and unending response of joy and adoration and worship for all that God is and has done. It will bring forth our hearts of obedience and all that would honor and serve God in our lives, no matter what the cost to ourselves. This is the next aspect that we must understand in our hearts that fear God.
	Consider the heart of obedience as manifested by Abraham in bringing his son Isaac before the Lord. He was ready to sacrifice the very son of God’s promise in order to reverently obey God. In his heart, and as an admonition to Isaac, Abraham made the statement that God would provide. He did not know completely what was to befall the two of them. Abraham did know that God was merciful and just and holy and trustworthy to do all that He promised. In that utter dependency upon God, Abraham readied himself to strike the blow when he was stopped by God. Gen 22:11+12, But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." And he said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me." 
	Abraham so loved God that he was willing to sacrifice his only son with Sarah, if that would please God. God had made other provisions, as we read of the ram caught in the thicket. Still, Abraham’s heart was that of pleasing God no matter what it involved. His love for God overrode his love for himself or his son and his own heritage on this earth. 
	Another example of this so great a love for God overriding personal consideration is recounted in Ex 1:15-17, as we read of those Hebrew midwives who chose to place their very lives on the line in defiance of the Pharaoh’s orders. Because they loved and feared God, they were willing to face the wrath of the king of Egypt rather than to destroy the male children whom God brought forth.
Ex 1:15-17, Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah, and the other was named Puah; and he said, "When you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live." But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded them, but let the boys live. 
	These women were willing to risk everything in order to honor God in their service to His people. They chose to ignore a direct commandment from the king in their faithful service unto God, thus paving the way for the birth and survival of Moses to be accomplished. Because they feared God in reverent submission to that which would please Him rather than their earthly ruler, they were blessed and God established households for them. 
	The final scripture we will read this morning introduces our discussion of the expectations that God fearing men bear in the decisions that they make. Please turn to Ex 18:17-22 as we will read it together. Ex 18:17-22, And Moses' father-in-law said to him, "The thing that you are doing is not good. You will surely wear out, both yourself and these people who are with you, for the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone. Now listen to me: I shall give you counsel, and God be with you. You be the people's representative before God, and you bring the disputes to God, then teach them the statutes and the laws, and make known to them the way in which they are to walk, and the work they are to do. Furthermore, you shall select out of all the people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain; and you shall place these over them, as leaders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens. And let them judge the people at all times; and let it be that every major dispute they will bring to you, but every minor dispute they themselves will judge. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. 
	In this passage we have the advice given to Moses to choose those men who fear God to help him with the day to day decisions and judgments that needed to be made as the Children of Israel were being led in the wilderness. Please note the description that was pronounced about these chosen able men who were known for their fear of God. They were …men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain… 
In their everyday conduct, they exhibited the character and the nature that was honest and faithful and honoring to God. This is a key fact of what it means to fear God. It will make a decided difference in our lives, in our behavior, and in our pattern of decision making. It will be evident to others in the manner in which they consider how we live our lives on this earth in our dealings with others. It will declare that it matters to us how we treat others, that it must always be with honesty and integrity as before the throne of God. 
	The fear of God means that our hearts reflect how we feel about God in the manner of our dealings with one another. There will be no hidden agendas or ends justifying the means sort of interaction. All will be gracious and above board in every honest intent to do what is right in the sight of God in our every dealing with those around us. We will continue with this course next time. Lord willing. So be it!
	Now Joseph said to them on the third day, "Do this and live, for I fear God: Amen.

	This morning’s benediction is Ex 15:13. "In Thy lovingkindness Thou hast led the people whom Thou hast redeemed; In Thy strength Thou hast guided them to Thy holy habitation. Amen.