Hartland Summer Conference 2021: Revelation's Cosmic Conflict

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Hartland Institute of Health and Education

Dee Casper's Weekend

Dee Casper

02 Fear God and Give Glory to Him

03 The Hour of His Judgment has Come

01 The Everlasting Gospel

04 Worship Him Who Made

06 The Faith of Jesus

05 The Spirit of the Babylon

Okay, making sure we got our ducks in a row here technologically.

So we covered in our first presentation together the topic of the everlasting gospel, and now what we'll be addressing is this idea of the statement, fear God and give glory to him.

We'll primarily focus on the fear God part, and then later this afternoon we'll address the topic of the hour of his judgment has come.

And so that's gonna be our next couple of presentations together, but I'd like to start here.

Sweet Jesus, thank you again that we had this privilege to come into your presence to hear from you.

And Lord, we just ask that you would speak with clarity.

Help us to better wrap our minds around what you mean by the fear of God.

And I pray that you would give us a solid biblical foundation for this.

Bless us, we pray, And we ask this in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, so 1 of the reasons why I'm passionate about this topic is because it's so easily misunderstood for 1, and 2, I've met a lot of our people who really grapple with the topic of fear.

And so I want to kind of walk through kind of a healthy biblical way to see this and how to sort through what we see.

So in 2 Timothy 1 verse 7 we're told that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." Now this implies a few things.

I've kind of written this out in a way that has made it easier for me to better understand.

If it says that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.

This implies that fear robs us of power, the ability to love God and others, and to be loved by God and others, and to be able to think and make decisions with a sound mind.

So fear literally alters the way that we do the essentials of life.

And so this certainly is problematic and we're going to have to wrestle with this.

Fear actually leads us to make bad decisions.

The people in the Gadarenes in Luke chapter 8, whenever Jesus cast the demons out of the demoniac that's living amongst the tombs, they're so scared about what has happened to the pigs that run off the edge of the cliff that they literally tell Jesus to get out of here.

Get out of here and leave because they're scared of what has happened.

And so just imagine, fear led them to basically kick the Messiah out of their community.

Now, is that a good decision or a bad decision?

Basically, the entire life of King Saul from his first fall onward is filled with him making really bad decisions that were largely fear-based.

We see Elijah, whenever Elijah calls down fire from heaven at Mount Carmel.

Soon after that, he gets a report that Jezebel wants him dead.

And as soon as he gets word of that, the guy loses it, right?

He runs for his life from the wrath of an infuriated woman, we're told.

No longer wanting to see a man, he's seized with depression, he's discouraged, he's despondent, and he doesn't even want to live anymore.

So he goes from a mountaintop experience with Jesus to complete despondency, and it was fear that led in this transaction, this change of thought and change of mind for him.

Peter denying Jesus, right, in front of the servant girl and in front of John the Apostle.

If you read the gospel carefully, John's gospel, you recognize that John goes in the house, John leads the servant girl to the front door, Peter's on the other side of that front door.

She opens the door and says, you are not also 1 of this man's disciples, are you?

Which implies that she knew that John was a disciple of Jesus.

So if God hasn't given us the spirit of fear and doesn't want us to have that type of experience, then what's the solution?

This is found in 1 John 4, verses 16 and 17.

And we have known and believed the love that God has for us.

God doesn't just want you to intellectually agree with the possibility that maybe God loves you.

He wants you to experientially know that and to believe it with every ounce of your being.

Then it says that God is love and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him.

And love has been perfected among us in this that we may have boldness in the day of judgment.

God wants us to be filled with boldness in the day of judgment, but most of us are horrified about the fact that there is going to be a judgment and we don't know what to do about that.

But he says that if we know and believe the love God has for us, we won't be afraid in the judgment.

That's 1 of the reasons why the 3 angels' messages are filled with the message of God's love.

And so we've, when we preach the message of God's love centered to the heart of every aspect of the 3 angels messages, this is what will lead people to be able to fear God and give glory to Him in the midst of the judgment hour.

That's the main premise and the purpose of that.

So, and we may have boldness in the day of judgment because as He is, so are we in this world.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love does what?

So when we are filled with God's love, it removes the possibility for us to be afraid of God, right?

And in fear of anything, honestly, in that sense.

But fear, perfect love, casts out fear because fear involves torment.

We're afraid of getting hurt, but when we are immersed in God's love, we recognize that his protection will be with us.

But he who fears has not been made perfect in love, and we love him.

The only way for you and I to fall in love with Jesus is to come face to face with the reality that he's already in love with us.

This is the topic that we should be focusing on, not at the expense of other things, but we shouldn't think, oh, I talked about God's love in the first Bible study, let's move on to the more mature adult things.

Let's move on to the meat of the message.

You ever hear people say things like this?

You know, let's move on to the meat and give people present truth.

Well, if you weren't aware, Ellen White actually referred to the message of Christ our righteousness as meat in due season.

It is always welcome on my table and should be welcome in every meal that we serve, amen?

Whether you're talking about the state of the dead, the Sabbath, the sanctuary, we should see a true healthy picture of God's love for man in everything that we address as a people.

And we were told that every 1 of those other teachings find power in relation to the theme of the cross.

So we're doing a disservice to those other teachings and to the cross when we don't center everything in that particular understanding.

It is not the fear of punishment or the hope of everlasting reward that leads the disciples of Christ to follow Him.

They behold the Savior's matchless love, revealed through His pilgrimage on earth, from the manger of Bethlehem to Calvary's cross, and the sight of him does what?

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Series

Dee Casper's Weekend

02 Fear God and Give Glory to Him

Transcript

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Recorded

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Plenary

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Are You a Balanced Christian?

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Plenary Sessions

To a Land I Will Show You

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The Great I Am

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Harnessing the Health Professionals in Your Church

9m

There Is A Promise In It

23m

Reflections on the Resurrection

30m

Jeremiah

09. Jeremiah: Jeremiah’s Yoke

43m

Faith and Reason in the Christmas Story

35m

Getting Involved in Outreach

11m

Biblical Missionaries

03. Biblical Missionaries: The Unlikely Missionary

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Sound Doctrine