The Fear of God, Part 3

 Words are tricky things, especially Bible words because there are eternal consequences for misunderstandings. Some words do not mean what you think they mean (like inconceivable!) and some words do not mean what they once did.  This is hard to admit, but modern English is a stripped away, hollowed out version of its Elizabethan self, and frankly, despite my best efforts, I’m as dumbed down as the rest of you. 

  So rather than adopt an insufficient 20^th century definition of the word ‘fear’, we will let the Bible define its own words. There are obviously several ways to determine the definition should it become necessary, and one way is to look at words that it associates with each other.  For example, the Bible says in Hebrews 13:4, “whoremongers and adulterers God will judge”.  “Whoremonger “  isn’t a  common word anymore, but  we all understand what an ‘adulterer’ is, and so that at least puts us in the ballpark to understanding the sentiment.   Employing this principle, we will look at the words that the Bible associates with the ‘fear of the Lord’, and hopefully reintroduce the reader to a more Biblical definition.  This may come across as an academic exercise, but it’s not.  Deducing the definition is essential towards the comprehension of what should be our attitude towards God.

  Psalm 33:8 says “Let all the earth fear the LORD: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.” Psalm 22:23 says “Ye that fear the LORD, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel”.  In Rev 14:7, we are commanded, “Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come : and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters”.   The psalmist announces to  us in  chapter 5 his intention to “.. come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.” Even from this small sampling, we don’t see men that fear the Lord cowering. We see them standing in awe of him. We see them praising him, glorifying him, and worshipping him because of his awe-encompassing powers of creation.  The Bible is plain on this, that God made all that is, and that he sustains all that is. The wind and the sea obey him. He knows the stars and calls them by name, and for that fact alone, a man saved or lost owes the God of all glory his worship and his adoration.  Out of all the things that are, the only thing deserving of any credit or praise is the one who made them.  The invisible God has chosen to declare the visible firmament to show off his power and majesty to his creation.   Only a fool of the first rate would stand proud and  self-righteous before such majesty!  A man with any sense at all would fear the maker of the sun, the driver of the hurricane, the author of his own DNA, and that fear would drive him to   acknowledge his own smallness and weakness and insufficiency by comparison.  Only with that acknowledgment can a man even begin to fear God.

  Furthermore a man who fears God will see himself in Deuteronomy 10:20 when it says “Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God; him shalt thou serve , and to him shalt thou cleave , and swear by his name.” Biblical fear carries with it an obligation to serve the object of your fear, and to swear by his name.  After all, that is the name that is above every other name, and if the Lord is my helper,  whom shall I fear? If God be for me, who can be against me?  If I fear God I will “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with  trembling” . 

  Fear is a verb, and  it’s synonyms are words like ‘awe’ , ‘glorify’, ‘worship’, ‘serve’,  and ‘cleave to’.   It’s not a man hiding in a corner while averting his eyes, it’s a man spending his life to  bring glory and honour to the one that not only made him, but died for him.  It's God getting what he deserves for all he has done, all he is doing, and all he will do.  It is a life which gives God good pleasure ( Rev 4:11), a life spent fearing him.

  Next we’ll tackle the benefits of fearing God.

The Fear of God, Part 2

  Carrying on the study of the fear of God, there are some things that need to be established from the   beginning.  As I said before, ‘fear’ is a verb, but why should we fear God?  The Bible is clear on this; we should fear God not only because he made all things (Jonah 1:9), and henceforth deserves our fear, but we should also fear God because of what he is capable of doing (Matt 10:28).  The Bible even indicates that God does things specifically to provoke fear in his creation (Ecclesiastes 3:14).  I know this may not be the warm and fuzzy God of your Sunday school class, but God is a multifaceted complex individual and his ways are far above our ways, and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts.  This side of him, the side in which he desires fear (which we will define shortly) is just one side of who he is, and to neglect this part of him is to neglect him.  We could easily construct in out minds and in our theologies a God who did not match the attributes of God given in the Bible, but that God would be an idol, regardless of what name we gave him.

  Furthermore, not only is fearing God an activity, but it’s an observable activity.  It’s not only something that goes on in the mind and heart, but something that finds its way out into the physical world. In Exodus 18:21, Moses was told to seek out men who feared God.  There had to have been some sort of observable activity in their lives that Moses could see with his eyes that told him they feared God.  Did he look for men who cowered? No, he was told to look for men who loved the truth, and hated covetousness.    Those that reject the truth as revealed in God’s word, and those who are covetous, by definition, do not fear God. They are incapable of  it  Someone should be able to look at your life and see this.  They should be able to examine you and know whether you stand for the truth or whether you fold when opposition arises.  They can tell by your speech whether or not you live a life of contentment or a life where nothing is ever enough to satisfy you.  Just like everything else in your Christian life, the condition of your heart dictates the condition of your life.  The rise of covetousness among saved people, aided and abetted by  Hollywood  and Madison Avenue,  has produced a generation of people  incapable  of fearing God the way he deserves to be feared because they are discontent with what they have and obsessed with what they don’t have.

  A century of Bible rejecting scholarship has produced a body of believers who can’t love the truth because they have been taught they don’t have the truth, only a version of the truth.  A secondary effect of this is a body of individuals who cannot take correction or rebuke from the word of God.    They cannot bear it. They are thin-skinned and easily offended.  They use liberty as a cloak for their sin, while heaping upon themselves the lusts of their flesh and the desires of their heart.   They have been programmed by the shiny silver box in their living room to respond to the truth negatively while claiming to love it.  Truth-proclaiming men and women will be labeled ‘hateful’.

  A love for the truth, and a hatred of covetousness are two simple heart conditions that, if unattended lead to a world of sorrows and apostasy. Without those two conditions you cannot fear God, and with those conditions, not only will you fear God, but everybody will know it.

The Fear of God

“Render  therefore to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom is due, fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour..” Romans 13:7

 “Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God…” Deut 10:20

OK, now a quick story.  Our church one year had a float in a local parade.  The float consisted of a small structure built on the back of a trailer that sort of resembled our church building, along our church bus.  There was a gaggle on folks on the trailer, and several of us on the ground walking along behind and beside the trailer.  The intent by the organizers and float builders was for the church’s name to get out in the community. Most people involved with either riding or walking limited themselves to smiling and waving, but since I am hardwired to put the gospel out, I secured permission to preach along the parade route while handing out tracts.   I proceeded to do so for a good solid 45 minutes

  As we neared the end of the parade, I jumped on the church bus to get a ride back to my car.  Rounding a corner, we were flagged down by a clown. He was a member of a more prominent   church in town that has a ‘clown ministry’. This ministry, as far as I can tell, involves dressing up…well, as a clown.  I’m not 100% sure what goes on past that. Probably something involving oversize shoes. The aforementioned clown wanted to talk to me. He had been doing his clown-ness a few floats behind us, and had an issue with my approach.   We discussed it briefly, and one of his parting statements was that he was concerned people might think that God is “big and scary”.

  The problem, dear friend, is that God just happens to be big and scary. Men are commanded to fear God for a variety of reasons. Jesus warned people to fear he who could destroy both body and soul.  A man who lives on God’s earth, breathing God’s air and eating God’s groceries while in flagrant violation of God’s word has an eventual rendezvous with God scheduled, and he ought to be fearful.

  If you discuss this very long with people you will get comments like “ I don’ t think God wants us to cower down and be afraid. I think he wants our respect.”  That’s an interesting point, but the fact is that God uses the word ‘fear’ when he could have just as easily used the word ‘respect’. The word ‘honor’ is in the Bible enough times that I have no doubt God is aware of it’s existence, but yet he didn’t use the word ‘honour’, he used the word ‘fear’.

  I pondered this and pondered this. I even looked up every single use of the word ‘fear ‘ in the Bible.  Then one day it hit me what the problem is. We’re illiterate. Bound by the narrow definitions and usages of dumbed –down America; I hadn’t considered how the word is actually used in scripture. Fear, like love, is an emotion. But fear, like love, is also a verb.  The Bible says “For God so loved the world..” and the verb in that clause is ‘loved’.  The  context  establishes that  God doesn’t sit  up in the  third heaven with  tears rolling down his face because he’s just so crazy about me, he loved me. He doesn’t have a refrigerator up there with my picture on it.  He ‘loved’ me, and the rest of the verse defines what the love was; the sacrifice of Jesus Christ at Calvary.  It’s a definite action that occurred at a definite point in the past and it’s called ‘loved’.

  The fear of God is something you feel, but fearing God is something you do.  I have 20 or 30 scripture references to prove my point with, but unless we establish that basic fact, everything else is a waste of time and magnetic ink. Fearing God is a definite and observable action defined by context in scripture. It doesn’t mean cowering in a corner, averting your eyes and whimpering. It is an activity, not an attitude. Over the next few installments, I hope to  use the Bible to define what that activity is.

  Comments are welcome.