[Please use the message here as the Lord leads, but nothing on the message must be used for profit!]
Today’s Scripture Reading [August 15, 2010]
Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul. [Psalms 66:16. KJV]
Today, again we are going to examine a topic that once was considered to be a very basic part of our spiritual life. It was discussed quite often even to the extent that it was part of common conversation back in the days of our great-grandparents when one of the highest compliments you could give an individual was to say that they were a God-fearing person. Today, to say that an individual is a God-fearing person brings derision or scorn. This topic is now not only just shunned by society, it is even hated by many people who just couldn’t stand to hear these few words: The fear of the Lord. You don’t need to go further to verify this statement, just watch the comments and feedback of this post following this message and you will notice how true this can be! Their negative violent reactions of hatred in respond to this message simply tell us that they want to be completely left alone. This attitude of arrogancy to reject God’s sovereignty and authority simply points to the corrupt, sinful and lawlessness nature of human race. It is a fact that people know and fully accept that without effective governmental authority, there will be chaos and anarchy in the society, yet, many people cannot accept similar fact that when we live a godless life, we will also end up in a state of “personal chaos and anarchy.” But, why is it so?
Before we continue to answer this question, let us first examine the meaning of ‘the fear of God’ from the Holy Scripture. In Psalm 33:8 it reads: “Let all the earth fear the Lord; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him”. Here, the Psalmist defines fearing the Lord as standing in awe of Him, having awesome reverence of Him due to His being the glorious and majestic Person that He is. There is no way for any fallen and carnal mind to fully comprehend His greatness and His supremacy but by the Holy Spirit we are overwhelmed when we think about His infinite knowledge and His power, His complete sovereignty, His high holiness and justice and His benevolent goodness. He is an awesome God and being aware of that fact produces awe and reverence for Him. This is a fundamental part of fearing God.
In Malachi 1:6, it is mentioned: “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a Father, where is My honor? And if I am a Master, where is My respect (literally, it could mean fear) says the LORD of hosts”. Here, the Lord teaches us what it is to fear Him by using two earthly examples. A child is to honor their father. A servant is to respect their master. Honor and respect come from recognizing authority. Children and their fathers are not equals. They can never be. Children humble themselves and seek to please and obey their father who has higher authority over them. But time has changed. Children are getting more disobedient towards authority both at home and outside the home. The end result of obedient children brings chaos not just to the home but also to the society. We see this in schools where teachers simply have given up disciplining their students leaving them instead to social counselors. Try talking with these social counselors and they will tell you all the challenges of managing and counseling today’s students. Having social counselors in our schools is a recent development. There wasn’t such thing during my school years. All we had was a school teacher doubled up as disciplinary master and I remembered that in my school days, we often had to run to ‘take cover’ when we saw the disciplinary master coming towards us. We simply feared him because of the extra authority that he had as a disciplinary master. The students back then were much more respectful of authority.
We must acknowledge that God is both our Father and Master and until we recognize this, we will not respect Him let alone fear Him. But once we recognize this, we will come to honor, respect and fear Him due to His rightful authority over us. With humility, we seek to please Him and take every effort to please Him. The fear of God is an extremely important integral part of our worship and service to our God. Unlike our earthly parents who, frankly, sometimes fail to demonstrate their love because often their own examples have fallen far short of what is demanded from God or even from society. Our God is, nonetheless, totally different. Jesus has demonstrated His love and the greatest love that He has demonstrated to us was His willingness to travel all the way to Calvary, stretched out both His Hands and said: “This much I love you” and gave up His life for us!
In Luke 12:4-5 we read: “And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who after He has killed has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him.” Who then do we fear? Man or God?
If someone were to confront you with a loaded gun or some other deadly weapon, it would be quite natural for us to experience fear. It is common for us to want to avoid or run-away from what we are afraid of especially when we are confronted with a life-threatening situation. With our fear of God, it is quite the opposite. Our fear of God will draw us more closely to Him because He is the only One Who can save us from eternal death. He provides the only way for our salvation. On the other hand, the fear of man brings a snare but the one who trusts the Lord will be safe (Proverbs 29:25).
From cover to cover, the Bible is full of verses concerning ‘the Fear of the Lord'. Just take the Book of Proverbs which has only 31 Proverbs and ‘the Fear of the Lord’ is mentioned 18 times. What could be more obvious to us then this revelation that the fear of God must so essential to our Christian living that God has to remind us 18 times just in the Book of Proverbs. Besides the Book of Proverbs, there are many verses in the Bible that also tell us the positive results that we are going to experience when we fear God and give complete reverence to Him. For today I like to share with you all some of the positive results that we will experience when we all live as God-fearing Christians as told in the Book of Proverbs:
• The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and the fear of the Lord will give us the wisdom to obey His instruction (Proverbs 1:7; 9:10).
• Without the fear of the Lord, not only we don’t fully comprehend His knowledge, we even hate it (Proverbs 1:29). This is the reason why people who have no fear in God will keep blaspheming and mocking God.
• Unless we fear God, we will not be able to find His knowledge (Proverbs 2:5).
• The fear of God will give us the wisdom to be wise, not in our own eyes but through His eyes, and the fear of God we help us to stay from the evil way (Proverbs 3:7; 16:6).
• When we fear God, we will hate evil like pride and arrogancy (Proverbs 8:13).
• The fear of the Lord will prolong our life but the wicked, those who have no fear in God will have their years shortened (Proverbs 10:27).
• The fear of the Lord will give us the Spirit of Christ to walk upright but those who despised Him will walk in perversion (Proverbs 14:2).
• The fear of the Lord will protect the children of those who fear Him and He will be the source of their refuge (Proverbs 14:26).
• The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life (Proverbs 14:27) upon which we can drink the living water of Jesus which we will never thirst.
• It is better to have even a little when we truly live in the fear of the Lord because the fear of the Lord is greater than great treasure (Proverbs 15:16).
• The fear of the Lord will be our strong force that we can use to conqueror evil and stay away from it (Proverbs 19:23).
• We can be rich, we can have honour and we can have life without envy as long as we live a God-fearing live (Proverbs 22:4; 23-17).
• A God-fearing woman is to be praised (Proverbs 31:30).
In this satanic age when abnormal things have become all too normal, we now all are in danger of being insenstivized by these ‘abnormal normal’ things that may give us enjoyment and pleasure for only a short season but we will soon find ourselves craving for more to a point of addiction. In fact, many are already so insensitivized by these ‘abnormal normal’ things that we see people walking like zombies and digital addicts on the streets listening to music on their mobile phones, iPods, watching movies, playing video games on their handheld video devices or mobile-phones, sending SMSs and they unaware what’s going around them. Many of us have lost the sense of our true identity and life purpose that indeed we are God’s children and that our basic life purpose is to give reverence and respect His authority, to fear God and to serve and worship God with our whole heart.
The saddest thing is that there is no longer such a thing as the innocence of childhood because kids are exposed to unrighteousness at a younger and younger age, thanks to the digital world! Parents are now fighting a losing battle to exercise their authority over their children. It is urgent for us therefore as adults to fear God right away and thereby hate evil in all of its forms in order that we too can bring our kids to fear God. The sooner the better it is. We need to stop making excuses! Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD, our Heavenly Father, has compassion on those who fear Him (Psalms 103:13).
