From all-consuming FEAR - begging Him to leave
my room -
to PEACE that consumed me!
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do His commandments: His praise endures for ever.” (Psalms 111:10)
Today's blog is helping folks achieve at least these 3 things:
1.) Create in you an
unquenchable desire to seek God with your whole heart, mind, body, and soul!
2.) Encourage you that, if
you have not yet experienced anything like what I am about to share with you
today, God will reveal Himself to you in His time and His way! God shows Himself big to us in various ways,
including in the small matters of our lives:
·
getting a much-needed check in the mail just as a bill comes due;
·
getting an encouraging phone call when we need it most; or
·
hearing His soft and gentle whisper in our spirit that builds our
faith like nothing else can.
3.) Tell you why NOT to be afraid of God, as in "earthly fear."
In fact, as a result of the following
testimony, I have come to define the fear of the Lord as being, "a
personal knowledge of the All- consuming Awesome Power of Almighty God!"
The encounter that I am talking about took place around 4:00 AM on
September 13th, 1985. That morning I
experienced something that, up to that point in my life, I had only heard of or
read about, but had never witnessed for myself. It all started out as a dream that I had
that was set in what appeared to be the ruins of an old stucco-style
village, like the kind that would have been in Jerusalem during the time that
our Lord physically walked the earth.
Appearing before me was the figure of a man whose face I never saw
because he had his back to me the whole time and was wearing what seemed to be
an oversized, full-length, hooded robe. From
the moment the dream began I heard what sounded like thousands upon thousands
of angels singing the song that Jack Hayford wrote entitled “Majesty.”
As I heard this chorus being sung in awesome beauty, I saw the
robed man kneel down at the base of one of the stucco structures next to me. As he knelt, I leaned over his shoulder and
watched him take both of his hands and reach into the wall of the structure, as
if it were transparent, and pull out a toy-sized figure of a horse; and on the
horse was the figure of a rider. The horse
was about ten inches in length, and the rider on its back seemed to be a small,
invisible man made visible only by very loosely-wrapped strips of cotton cloth
that were wound around his body.
During the entire time that I was watching this take place, the
consuming praises of God were being sung by voices that, all the while, were
growing greater in volume and power. As
I continued looking over the shoulder of the man at the figure of the horse and
its rider, the voices of what seemed to be legions upon legions of angels began
to suddenly increase in even greater volume and power, like a mighty rushing
wind, not harsh to my ears, but with an all-consuming beauty that forced me to
look straight up over my head.
When I looked up, I saw, faster than the human eye can follow, an
angel descending down upon me from straight up above. It seemed as if it was going to land right on
top of me but, instead, suddenly stopped and slapped the tips of its wings
together, about three inches from my face. With the clash of its wings together, I awoke
from the dream.
I awoke to find my spirit hovering about two feet over my body,
which was laying flat on its back in the bed. The first thing I realized was that I had been
stripped from my will and was totally subject to whatever God wanted to do with
me at that point! The fear I felt cannot
be relayed with words!
Shortly after, I experienced my spirit slowly settling back down
into my body. Once back in my body, I
fought to get my hands up over my face in hopes that it would somehow shield or
protect me from seeing God, or Jesus Himself, and being consumed like a Kleenex
tissue in a raging bonfire. The terrifying fear was indescribable to say the very
least!
By this time, the power of God was so all-consuming, that I could
not so much as move or speak. The only
thing that I could think to do was to try to praise God, but by this point I
couldn’t even move my hands away from my face, still in fear of what I might see.
The fear was like nothing I had ever
experienced, seen, or even heard of before! It rendered me powerless to move, as if I had
been turned to stone. It was only by the
grace of God that I was able to cover my face with my hands. I was totally subject to whatever God wanted
to do with me! It was also at that time
that I learned, much better than I wanted to at that moment, just how frail our
physical bodies are in the presence of God. For example, I was totally amazed that my
heart didn’t actually burst. It sure
felt like it was going to.
After about an hour had passed, the fear began to subside enough
to where I started to regain the use of my faculties. I remember the first thing to come out of my
mouth were pleas for Jesus to leave my room! Even the thought of seeing Him gripped my
heart with a fear that can’t be explained with mere words. As the horrifying, all-consuming fear continued to
subside, I began to notice that it was now being replaced by an all-consuming
peace. The peace was also like nothing
that I had ever experienced or even heard of before. Just like the fear, the peace was indescribable.
Within just a few short hours the Lord
had taken me from one extreme to the other. The peace of God that settled in my room, (since
there are no words that can ever come close to describing it) was “like” a dew
or mist that fell on everything around me.
“Then there came again
and touched me one like the appearance of a man, and he strengthened me, And
said, O man greatly beloved, fear not: peace be unto thee, be strong, yea, be
strong. And when he had spoken unto me,
I was strengthened, and said, Let my lord speak; for thou hast strengthened
me.” (Daniel
10:18-19)
As the all-consuming peace of Lord began to subside, I was then
and only then, able to sit up in my bed and begin worshipping Him. Believe me, I worshipped Him with every fiber
of my being for, as best as I can recall, abount three hours. I can vividly remember the muscles in my
throat feeling as if they were on fire. My
eyes had run out of tears after just the first thirty minutes or so, and my
voice was literally worn out from singing praises.
It was during that time that I realized that it is only because
God enables us that we can even participate in the wonderful privilege of worshipping
His Holy Name!
Another amazing thing I learned, while in His presence, was that
there are literally no words that can even begin to describe Him! As a matter of fact, even the names “King of
kings” and “Lords of lords” didn’t come close to describing who He is.
As His peace continued to settle in my room, I was only then able
to ask God what was meant by the dream, and what the significance was of the
horse and its rider that He had shown me early in the dream. He said, “The horse and its rider that I
showed you represent satan and his hoards of unclean spirits. The reason I showed them to you at the size
that I did was to relay the insignificance and powerlessness they have against
you while you walk in Christ.”
Then He spoke something that left me speechless yet again. He asked me, “Remember how you were totally
consumed with indescribable fear by what you thought was my presence? Do you remember how you were terrified beyond
measure by what you thought was Jesus himself standing in your room? Do you recall losing the complete use of your
body to what you just knew were legions upon legions of angels? Keith, the truth is, I never did come anywhere
near you; My precious Son never even stepped so much as one foot into your
room; and what you thought were legions upon legions of angels was only one
angel.”
Not only was I once again totally amazed, but I also immediately
remembered and understood fully the account in Matthew where he records what
took place at the tomb just after Jesus rose from the dead. Matthew writes, “In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of
the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher. And behold, there was a great earthquake: for
the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and rolled back the stone from the
door, and sat upon it. His countenance
was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow. And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and
became as dead men.” (Matthew 28:1-4)
Then the Lord said to me, “So, if you were totally consumed by the
presence of just one angel, then how much greater things will I do with the
legions that I have set at your side (and at the side of all who love Me) to destroy
the things that separate My children from Me!”
He then said, “All of the demons of hell ride a horse named
‘Deception'!” He concluded by saying,
“Get your pen and paper, and document exactly what you have both seen and
heard.”
At that, I reached into my night-stand, grabbed my pen and
notepad, and began the difficult task of trying to put into words the things I
had seen and heard in the spirit. And,
if I might add, this brief account of what took place does in no way begin to describe
the awesomeness of what had taken place.
In that brief period of time in 1985, I received an understanding of "the
fear of the Lord" that I had never known before. It was this new understanding that enabled me
to adopt as my own personal definition of the fear of the Lord, “a personal
knowledge of the all-consuming, awesome power of almighty God!”
Although what I experienced that morning was terrifying beyond
description, I found it to be something that never turned me against, or drove
me away from, God, but one that endeared me to Him in a profound way.
What took place firmly set my affections on God and established in
my heart a love for Him that, until then, I did not think was even possible.
“In the fear of the LORD
is strong confidence: and his children shall have a place of refuge. The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, to
depart from the snares of death.” (Proverbs 14:26-27 )
Unlike the damaging “fleshly fear” that is experienced by a child
who is exposed to an abusive parent, experiencing the awesome presence of God, hence
the fear of the Lord, establishes a reverence and awe of God which opens the
doorway to understanding like nothing else can.
“A wise man will hear,
and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise
counsels: to understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the
wise, and their dark sayings. The fear
of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and
instruction. My son, hear the
instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: For they
shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.” (Proverbs 1:5-9)
Where the fear of the
Lord is absent in the life of a Christian, lifeless religion will prevail!
If you desire for the Lord to show Himself to you in a great way,
then you must seek Him diligently!
“But without faith it is
impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is,
and that He is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” (Hebrews 11:6)
If you noticed, Paul did not say that God is a Rewarder of them
who “merely” seek Him. He said that God
is a Rewarder of them that “diligently” seek Him!
This walk with God is an “all in or all out” endeavor! God wants nothing more than to draw close to
us, but the one thing that hinders Him from doing so is our own lack of desire
to first draw close to Him!
“Draw nigh to God, and
(then) he will draw nigh to you.” (James 4:8)
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