Isa. 66:5

5 Hear [shama`] the word [dabar] of the LORD [Yahovah], ye that tremble [chared] at his word [dabar]; Your brethren ['ach] that hated [sane'] you, that cast you out [nadah] for my name's [shem] sake, said ['amar], Let the LORD [Yahovah] be glorified [kabad]: but he shall appear [ra'ah] to your joy [simchah], and they shall be ashamed [buwsh]. KJV-Interlinear

5 Hear the word of the LORD, you who tremble at His word: Your brothers who hate you, who exclude you for My name's sake, Have said, 'Let the LORD be glorified, that we may see your joy.' But they will be put to shame. NASB

Who among us shiver or tremble at the Word of God. Probably not very many of us. And why is that? Because we just don t see the danger, or the risk associated with ignoring the Bible.

We generally go along in life with our heads in the fog of life. The fog of life? That is everything that goes on in our daily life. Most of us commute to work and back. Most of us are engaged in getting chores at home done. Most of us have kids to chase around town in their activities. Most of us have weekend self-entertainment schedules we have to out together, lest we get bored or lonely at home. Most of us are just busy. We have a life to live, we have bills to pay, we have obligations, we have our own wants and needs to see to, and we often times feel the need, to get even, in life, to gossip, to be angry and so forth.

So, the Bible seems a bit too far away from our daily habits, needs and activities. We lose track of the realities of life and get caught up in our daily routines. And that is of course just what the world wants you to do, to get distracted with life.

Who has time for the Bible anyway? What good is it? So what if David threw a rock at the big guy. How does that pay our bills? And with that kind of attitude, the world has already defeated you and destined you to doom and failure in life. And, you don t even realize it.

Tremble? Tremble at what?

Well, the first thing you should realize is that the sum total of your life is not found in your daily worldly activities. So you have soccer to get to, and bills to pay, and work and chores and a social life to get to. Those things are not your life. They are just filler while you spend your time here on this earth. They are there for you to learn, and grow up, and to understand God a little more, but they are not intended to be the sole focus of your life.

Your life began when you were born, and it will end on this earth when you die. Those are two certain things you will experience, birth and death. After death, you will move onto something else. If you are saved by believing in Christ, then you will move on to heaven. If you have not believed in Christ, then you will move onto the Lake of Fire.

That, in itself, should be a source of terror for you. It is not what God will do to you, to make you fear, but it is what God will not do for you, that should make you tremble.

After this life, your real life begins. This life on this planet is merely an opening introduction to life, a single page introducing you to the universe. The rest of your life is a very long book, with an infinite number of pages, covering your life, which will occur in eternity.

So tremble? Salvation is the first source of trembling. But once you have believed in Christ, your trembling does not stop there. You have to grow up, just like everyone who is born, only in the spiritual life you are born again into the spiritual life.

That growing up process, if followed, will qualify you for greater blessings both now and in eternity. The eternal blessings are infinitely greater than anything you will ever have here on this earth. That should be obvious.

In heaven, in eternity, you will either have the greater blessings associated with spiritual maturity, or you will not. There are several parables, which teach this principle.

If you want to think of the Lake of Fire as being extremely poor and destitute verses living in heaven as a millionaire, then spiritual maturity is like comparing a millionaire to a multi-trillionaire-trillionaire. There is a huge, huge gap between the three categories. And this greater blessing in heaven due to advancing to spiritual maturity will continue forever. It will never be lost.

So now, God can withhold from you, those super blessings of eternity if you choose to ignore your spiritual life now.

If you look around at life, in this world, you will see many examples in life to give you a perfect frame of reference to this principle. How many of us want to live like the extremely poor of the world, starving and destitute? How many want to grow up and be poor? How many of us want to grow up and be just middle class for all of our lives?

Then there is the possibility of growing up and being just filthy rich, wealthy beyond ones dreams, having the money and resources to do anything a person can think of?

So of these three categories, who wants to be poor? Who wants to be common? And, who wants to be wealthy beyond dreams? A normal person would choose the last one. A normal person would fear the possibility of losing out on the greater blessings in life, to the point that they won t let a day go by that they do not study their Bible.

Those who don t see the blessings of the spiritual life, don t fear God. But as we have already seen they will fear the very things, they want in life. Their pursuit of happiness apart from Gods way, will be their downfall, and their misery, and their doom.

Why are they doomed, and why do they fail? Because the world excludes people from attaining their happiness, from attaining their goals.

The world will likewise direct its condescending attitude, its ridicule, its sarcasm at those who do pursue their spiritual dream.

The world is full of hypocrites who will try to abuse God, while at the same time put on a superficial show in support of God. While all of the while despising God, and truth, and anyone who associates with God or truth.

A typical example. Liberal minded leaders are generally wealthy folks, but they hate anyone else who is wealthy, or wealthier than they, especially when that wealth or success comes from the application of truth such as free enterprise. Anyone who is successful is attacked ruthlessly because of this hate.

Free enterprise is a component of truth. Since free enterprise is attacked, so truth is attacked, so God in effect is attacked. You can apply this principle to any element of truth whether it is by some absurd scientific theory, or some alternate life-style, or by some alternate method of salvation.

Every element of truth, which God has defined, has an equal but opposite element, which we call lies, that are in this world to confuse and distract your thinking away from God.

Liberal minded leaders preach their goal and intentions to help the poor and the needy, then they try to create plans that will keep the poor right where they are, so that the poor will be dependent on their leaders. This keeps the hypocritical leaders in power, which is their true objective. Get their votes but keep them dependent, that is an application of the principle of distraction from truth.

These are only but a couple of examples of distractions. The world is full of distractions whose objective is to keep you from your spiritual growth.

The four major areas of trouble you will find in your life, come from your own thoughts, from other people, from bureaucracies, and from natural phenomena like storms or accidents.

The solution for your own thought process flaws, is to learn Bible doctrine. The solution for not letting the other three areas get to you, is learning to deal with them by means of spiritual growth to maturity, by focusing on God, and not on the things in this world.

In the end, your life will be far greater both now and in eternity, if you advance to spiritual maturity.

And as for those who ignore God, or those who try to take advantage of God through deceit, they will be disgraced forever.

Now is the time to post a prayer.