Sid: We want everyone everywhere to have a fear of the Lord because if there’s a missing ingredient in Christian’s today it’s the fear of the Lord. There’s a misunderstanding of that term. There’s a misunderstanding of what happens if you do have it; there’s a misunderstanding if what happens if you don’t have it. I have a Pastor on the telephone right now Pastor Michael Cameneti. He’s Pastor of Canton Christian Fellowship in Canton, Ohio. He’s just written a book called “The Missing Ingredient to Success.” Michael what will happen if we do not have the fear of the Lord?
Michael: Sid if we don’t have the fear of the Lord; it’s very clear the Bible tells us there’s some things that will happen. First of all we’ll have a problem with sin; there is no doubt about it. We get desensitized to sin; and there are other things that happen like dishonesty. We read in Genesis about Abraham how he was able to be dishonest about his wife saying that it was his sister. Well, Abraham didn’t know God like we know God. He didn’t live in Him; wasn’t having the born again experience. But we understand that if even as a Christian we can begin to not fear God and then all of a sudden we fear man more than we do God. And that’s a dangerous thing; so we can get desensitized and have a life of sin that can lead us into some dangerous things. Or we can have unanswered prayer. And the Bible says in Proverbs 23:17 “Be thou in the fear of the Lord all day long.” And we gave a definition on one of the days on this about the fear of the Lord and I believe it’s a simple definition it simply means this. “It’s not a mere fear of His power; it’s not a mere fear of his righteous retribution, but it’s a wholesome dread of displeasing Him.” And all of us want to please God; I mean anyone who even if their fires not there; if they don’t even love God like they did when they were first born again. They can honestly say today “But I want to please God.” In order to please God we have to fear Him and in order to fear Him we’ll have to do something. And that’s simply this; we have to make an adjustment in our thought life. We have to make an adjustment on what we hear and what kind of things that we see and what we’re allowing in; we monitor if you would. The fear of the Lord Sid and I have a chapter on this and it becomes a limiter. We know that cars have limiters on them and they might not go to the full speed because they have a limiter. Or a laser; if someone has laser surgery for their eyes. There’s a limiter on that laser it could blast right through them; but there’s a limiter from doing what it could really do. Well, when we fear God there’s a limiter on life. And the limiter is I would not do the things that I would when I was in the world now because I’m fearing God. And it’s not because I’m afraid of Him; it’s not I’m afraid that He’s going to do something evil to me. But I fear Him and I want to please Him. But Sid better than that there are some things in the book that I’ve written that I think are very important for people. And that is simply this is there’s rewards to fearing the Lord. I sort of look at it this way and I even mention it in the book. God sort of does it as we do as parents you know. My kids are older and when they were younger I would tell my children when they were younger “If you do this there’s going to be a reward to it; but if you do this there’s also a discipline to it.” Well God did the same thing; what He put in His word Sid is simply this; if we’ll fear God there’s actually rewards to fearing Him. And I think that if people hear these rewards that they’ll say “Okay I want to fear God.” And the book explains exactly how to do that.
Sid: And I hear what you’re saying but for me as an individual I like the definition of I love God so much I don’t want to displease Him. It’s worth swallowing my pride if I’ve said something that’s an exaggeration to say you know “I’m sorry, that’s not what I really meant.” Because I don’t want to displease Him but then there are others you say who the reward is what attracts them.
Michael: Right, everyone lives on the different you know some people what’s going to attract some people is “I want to hear the rewards because they’re reward oriented because of at their job you know.” They feel like they get rewarded for being a good worker. Well, God rewards people and so let me just tell you some of them real quickly. Proverbs 10:27 says “The fear of the Lord prolongs days.” That means you live longer. And it actually says “The years of the wicked shall be shortened.” So I believe if we fear God we can live a long life on this earth. There’s nowhere in the Bible where God say “He wants us to die prematurely; He desires us to live long.”
Sid: But you know a lot of people live long but it’s not quality.
Michael: Definitely, and that’s the next one Sid. Number 2 is living a satisfied life. Proverbs go on and talks about if we fear God we’ll be satisfied in life. We’ll have prolonged days and satisfied. Well, satisfied means that you’re happy, you’re just not living on earth and miserable; but I’m satisfied. And when we come to the end of our days we’re satisfied. Just like people in the Bible were and so the fear of the Lord attends to life and will abide satisfied. That’s Proverbs 19:23. But Sid here’s one that I think everyone would be interested in this. We live in a society today where sickness is prevalent in the earth. Where people even Christian’s are dealing with sickness on and off in their lives. Malachi chapter 4 verse 2 says “But unto you that fear My Name shall the Son of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings.” I believe that it’s God’s will to heal people; I believe God wants people healed. But this is telling us that this is one of the rewards for fearing God. One of the rewards for fearing God that He will actually heal us. The Son of Righteousness is referring to Jesus and this is a promise in the Bible that if we will fear God. You know someone might be listening today Sid and say “Well, that’s Old Testament Old Covenant.” Well, the Bible says in 2nd Corinthians chapter 1:19 & 20 there it says “Every promise of God is yes and amen in Him.”
Sid: Not only that the only Bible the first church had was the Old Testament. A lot of people don’t realize that.
Michael: Very true because they did not have what we have today where they put the books together. And so…
Sid: Speaking of sickness; about 4 years ago you went for about months where you had difficulty walking. Would you briefly tell me about that?
Michael: Sure in our congregation I told this testimony to them many times. Being the Pastor of the church and I teach on healing; I teach on faith; I teach the Word at our church. And I got attacked with something; I can’t tell you exactly what it was because I don’t know that any doctor every found out. They thought I had MS and they were doing every test they could to examine me for MS. That one doctor literally said with my wife there in the room “That they believe I have MS and they were doing all the test for that.” And what happened Sid is something attacked me to the point that I couldn’t walk. There were times in fact I went to a baseball game with friends from the church one time and they were walking across the parking lot into the ballgame and I fell right on the ground. I told my wife “Go ahead with them and when this stops I’ll get up and I’ll meet you.” I had no idea what it was I’m an athletic person I like to work out; like to run. So this was you know a pretty devastating thing to me. And what ended up happening to make a long story short is I sought God. I said “Lord I know that You’re the healer and obviously on my end there’s something wrong on the reception end here.” See that’s judging yourself and that ties all back into what we’ve been talking about all week. I told the Lord “I know that I’m not perfect if I’ve done something to displease you; if I’ve done something to open a door up to the devil I want to know I want to get this right.” Well, nothing came up there; I didn’t have anything that the Lord said but I made sure that I judged myself and told God “If I’ve done anything forgive me.” And I started to seek the Lord and we had a guest minister in on a Sunday morning and he said “I don’t know why I’m preaching this today, this church hears all the time about healing and faith.” He said “If you believe that you receive your healing according to Mark 11:24 then you have it now so act like you’re healed.” And it just hit me that I’d not been doing that; everyday I’d start over again because my legs would go out you know all of a sudden I’d lose any ability to walk. And I thought I did something wrong. So I’d start all over again. “Father, I believe I receive my healing.” And I would just go through this ritual if you would. So one day I had to take my son somewhere I was in a mall parking lot. I spent some time with the Lord in prayer; worship God and I got out of that car and I told the Lord “I’m running and I believe I receive my healing.” I started running and I fell right on my face exactly what happened all the other times happened. I got up and said “Father I don’t believe this attack is from you and I believe I’m healed” and I took off running. And ever since that point Sid 3 months had gone by 4 months or something like that. After that one time of running right there I never have experienced the problem again. The doctors said “It was miraculous; I should have had some kind of bad thing happen to me in their view point should not have been able to walk.” But the Lord completely healed me and it was marvelous and I’m thankful for it.
Sid: Michael, you’ve been teaching on this subject on the fear of the Lord for a long time and you’ve just written your book on “The Missing Ingredient to Success.” Which is the fear of the Lord; what impact does it have on people when it dawns on them what their problem has been?
Michael: Well, when we taught this at our church; when we taught this at the Sunday morning services at our church I had person after person come through the greeting line when we were greeting them. Telling them I never even; they would tell me this “I never even knew Number 1 that this is in the Bible.” And Number 2, some that knew it was in the Bibles “I was not applying it to my life; I just did not get it I did not see it.” When they began to apply it people were healed, other people had deliverance’s come; other people had their marriages healed Sid. With all the marriage things that are going on in the world.
Sid: What about children?
Michael: Children would turn around; because what happens with children you know as well as I do that if they don’t have that solid family structure the marriage is not strong; there’s not a dad there. When lives begin to get turned around then the children automatically will be looking at the parents. We’ve had parents say “My children beg to come to church now; they can’t wait.”
Sid: Michael we’re out of time right now thank you so much for being my guest.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth