46_The Lord's Treasure.pdf

September 2004

L EGACY

OF D EREK P RINCE

The Lord’s Treasure

Fear is a powerful word. The notion of fear elicits a response from

virtually everyone—depending on the type of fear being discussed. Some

fears are unhealthy and affect our behavior in negative ways: fear of the

dark, fear of flying, fear of man. There’s one fear, however, that’s not

unhealthy, but rather can be a key to success in your life. This fear is one we

would all do well to cultivate in our lives. I’m referring to the fear of the Lord.

till, the fear of the Lord may not top the list of

topics you would want to learn about. You may

say, “I don’t like fear. I don’t want to hear that

message. It’s not going to bless me.” But let me

encourage you to rethink your position. In Isaiah 33:6

there are eight little words that make all the difference:

“The fear of the L ORD is His treasure.” The indication

here is that the fear of the Lord is not something to be

despised. It’s God’s treasure that He’s sharing with His

people.

Many Christians seem to believe the fear of the

Lord is something from the Law of the Old

Testament. I’ve witnessed many Christians act as if we

don’t need the fear of the Lord in our lives at all—that

it’s old-fashioned. That’s totally unscriptural and

incorrect. Let’s look at a few simple facts from

Scripture about the fear of the Lord. Psalm 19:9 says,

“The fear of the L ORD is clean, enduring forever.”

There’s never a time when the fear of the Lord ceases

to be relevant. It endures forever. Proverbs 23:17 says,

“In the fear of the L ORD continue all day long.” So the

fear of the Lord is forever and it’s for all day long. In

other words, there is no time in your life when you

should not be in the fear of the Lord.

Many people have a very negative view of what is

meant by the fear of the Lord. To better understand

what it is, I’ll begin by ruling out what it is not. First,

the fear of the Lord is not natural fear. It’s not the kind

T HE T EACHING

September 2004

of fear you experience in an

automobile when you see you’re

going to crash. Secondly, the fear

of the Lord is not demonic fear. It

is not something influenced by a

spirit of fear—a demon. Over the

years, I’ve ministered to hundreds

of people who needed deliverance

from the spirit of fear. But that’s

not the fear of the Lord.

In 2 Timothy 1:7 Paul says,

“God has not given us a spirit of

fear.” And in 1 John 4:18, John

says, “There is no fear in love; but

perfect love casts out fear, because

fear involves torment.” Tormenting

fear is from the devil and it has no

place in the life of a Christian. And

the greatest remedy for the

tormenting fear is the true fear of

the Lord.

The fear of the Lord also is not

fear of man. In fact, the fear of

the Lord delivers us from the fear

of man and enables us to show

respect and honor for the Lord.

One of the best words to

describe the fear of the Lord is awe,

from which we get the word

awesome . It expresses our reaction

to majesty, to power, to holiness.

Another word I would use to

describe the fear of the Lord is

reverence . Reverence is a response

to a revelation of God. You cannot

demonstrate reverence without

revelation. When God reveals

Himself, I believe the only

appropriate response is reverence.

And with it goes submis-

siveness. A submissive attitude

toward God is an expression of

the fear of the Lord in our lives.

When we’re high-handed,

arrogant, self-sufficient, self-

proclaiming (as too many of us

are), that has nothing to do with

the fear of the Lord. There is no

fear of the Lord in a person who

conducts himself like that.

Another truth revealed in

Scripture is that what you fear can

become your god. In Genesis 31

Jacob is talking to his father-in-law

Laban, and he’s saying, “You didn’t

treat me right, but God looked

after me.” In Genesis 31:42 he

says:

Jacob says,

“The God of Abraham, the God

of Nahor, and the God of their

father judge between us.” And

Jacob swore by the Fear of his

father Isaac.”

The object of Isaac’s fear was

his God. Likewise, what you fear

is your god. If you fear people’s

opinion, that’s your god. If you

fear poverty, that’s your god. If

you fear disease and sickness,

that’s your god. What you fear,

for you, is god. Do you fear the

Lord? Is He your God?

The Jesus Perspective

It’s very informative to study the

fear of the Lord in the light of Jesus.

Jesus was God’s own beloved Son

who pleased His Father all His life

and all His days. And yet when

Isaiah speaks about the anointing of

the Holy Spirit that was to mark

Jesus out as Messiah—the Anointed

One that Israel was expecting—he

described seven distinct aspects of

the Holy Spirit that would rest on

Jesus. Isaiah 11:1–2 lists them:

“Unless the God of my father, the

God of Abraham and the Fear of

Isaac, had been with me, surely

now you would have sent me

away empty-handed.”

Jacob referred to God as “the

God of Abraham and the Fear of

Isaac.” In other words, what Isaac

feared was the true God. It was

his God. Then in Genesis 31:53,

There shall come forth a Rod

the teaching legacy of derek prince | dpm archive

September 2004

from the stem of Jesse,

And a Branch shall grow out of

His roots.

The spirit of the L ORD shall rest

upon Him,

The Spirit of wisdom and

understanding,

The Spirit of counsel and might,

The Spirit of knowledge and of

the fear of the L ORD .

prophet says:

The fear of the Lord has to be

taught. And if we listen to the

Holy Spirit, He will teach us. If

we don’t listen, He won’t teach

us. The Holy Spirit goes on in

Psalm 34:12–13 to describe the

type of person you have to be to

experience the fear of the Lord:

His delight is in the fear of the

L ORD ,

And He shall not judge by the

sight of His eyes,

Nor decide by the hearing of His

ears . . .

So Jesus was marked out as

Messiah by the sevenfold

anointing of the Holy Spirit upon

Him. The seventh and final

anointing was the fear of the Lord.

And the very next words are, “His

delight is in the fear of the L ORD .”

Surely we cannot improve on

Jesus. If God’s beloved Son—our

Messiah and Savior—was

marked out by the fear of the

Lord and if He delighted in the

fear of the Lord, how can you or

I ever dare to say we don’t need

the fear of the Lord?

Who is the man who desires life,

And loves many days, that he

may see good?

Keep your tongue from evil,

And your lips from speaking

deceit [guile].

Here we see the sevenfold

manifestation of the Holy

Spirit—a list of the seven Spirits

of God. The first one is the Spirit

of the Lord, that is, the Spirit that

speaks in the first person as God.

In Acts 13:2 the Holy Spirit says,

“Set apart for me Barnabas and

Saul for the work to which I have

called them” ( NAS ). The Holy

Spirit was Himself speaking as

God.

The list continues with the

Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of

understanding, the Spirit of

counsel, the Spirit of might, the

Spirit of knowledge and of the

fear of the Lord. It’s extremely

significant that the final

manifestation of the Holy Spirit

that marked out Jesus as the

Messiah and God’s beloved Son

was the fear of the Lord. We see

this in Isaiah 11:3 where the

The first mark of the person

who receives the fear of the Lord is

manifested in his speech—the way

he uses his mouth. Ask yourself

this confrontational question:

Does the way I speak represent the

fear of the Lord? Or am I at times

arrogant, self-pleasing, fearful,

irritated, impatient or unwilling to

receive correction? That’s not the

fear of the Lord.

I have been impressed deeply by

the fact that we must choose the

fear of the Lord. In Proverbs 1 God

is speaking to people who have

rejected Him, and He says some

terrible words. Sometimes we don’t

really appreciate how forceful God

can be. We have a picture in our

It Must Be Learned

Let’s look at the conditions that

we must meet to have the fear of

the Lord. In Psalm 34:11, the Holy

Spirit is speaking and He says:

Come, you children, listen to me;

I will teach you the fear of the L ORD .

the teaching legacy of derek prince | dpm archive

September 2004

minds of a courteous old

gentleman up there in heaven who

never says anything difficult or

hard or unpleasant. He just

cuddles us. That’s not God. Read

what He says in Proverbs 1:25–29:

did not choose the fear of the Lord.

If you do not choose the fear of

the Lord, there is every indication

that God will not restrain His

judgments in your life. Earlier, in

Proverbs 1:7 we see:

combine evil and the fear of the

Lord. We must make a choice.

Which are we going to make

room for in our lives: The fear of

the Lord or things that are evil?

Adapted from Derek Prince’s teaching:

“The Lord’s Treasure: The Fear of the

Lord.” This message will be continued

in our next edition of The Teaching

Legacy of Derek Prince.

Because you disdained all my

counsel,

And would have none of my

rebuke,

I also will laugh at your

calamity;

I will mock when your terror

comes,

When your terror comes like a

storm,

And your destruction comes like

a whirlwind,

When distress and anguish come

upon you.

Then they will call on me, but I

will not answer;

They will seek me diligently, but

they will not find me.

Because they hated knowledge

And did not choose the fear of the

L ORD . . .

The fear of the L ORD is the

beginning of knowledge,

But fools despise wisdom and

instruction.

If we adopt a contemptuous

attitude toward the fear of the

Lord, we’re simply advertising

our own foolishness. Then in

Proverbs 3:7 it says:

For further study, we

recommend Derek’s message:

Do You Fear God?

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Do not be wise in your own eyes;

Fear the L ORD and depart from

evil.

We are not to trust in our own

wisdom. If you are brimming

with self-confidence and think

you have all the answers, you

leave no place for the fear of the

Lord.

Another thing it says is,

“Depart from evil.” We are told

that we cannot associate with evil

and have the fear of the Lord. If

we are going to have the fear of

the Lord in our lives, we must

depart from evil. We cannot

Derek Prince Ministries

P.O. Box 19501

Charlotte, NC 28219

704.357.3556

www.DPMusa.org

ContactUs@DPMusa.org

That’s God saying He will

mock when terror comes. That’s

God saying He will not answer

when called. The last two lines

make the reason for all this clear:

His people hated knowledge and

TL043

the teaching legacy of derek prince | dpm archive

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