The fear of the Lord...

[Slater]

There have been a number of "coincidences" in the past 24 hours that make me feel like there's an issue here that I have to address... This isn't going to be a light thread, and I can only pray that God can take my words and transform them into a form which you, my friends, can understand, for it seems like there are not enough words to describe the things I need to say. May the Lord of the realm of existance take these words and speak through them in a way that I cannot, but only He can.


How it all began... I saw a movie (that I won't name here) that raised me into thinking of things... one thought lead to another which lead me to recount something that happened in my life that I will never forget. It's something that I've never told anyone before because... well... to be honest, whenever I hear someone say that they've heard the voice of God, I think they're nuts, flipping crazy.

But... I don't believe that I should think that, because quite a few years ago, I too heard the voice of God. I won't go into details about it except for that I'm sure that it wasn't a human voice (it came to me from out of a wall, it seemed, and I was all alone at home the day it happened) and the voice kept me from committing a certain sin that I probably would have regretted greatly today.

And as I pondered these things last night, I wondered how I could have heard that voice. God is so powerful and perfect... wouldn't such a voice destroy my corrupted flesh? But... I didn't give it much more thought than that till this morning, when my pastor "randomly" decided to take a break from his sermon series he was on and talk about another subject, the fear of the Lord... and what he talked about DIRECTLY adressed the thoughts that I had been going over since the night before, and I'm sure that this was no "coincidence" and that it was a sign that I need to share what's on my mind.

In this day and age, most people (Christians, perhaps, is a more specific term) see God as a God of Love, and that He is. But there's much more to God than that. It is written that our God holds his wrath in bowls... that's a lot of wrath. Jesus warned us to not fear any man who can kill us, but to fear the One (God) who can send us to hell. And God will be sending people to hell... many people. Indeed, God loves all people, but the sins we have He hates.

We can never see the full glory of God with these bodies of ours. Moses got to see the backside of God filtered through the hand of God and cloaked by having him hide in a cave, and it had a supernatural effect on his face which made it radiate light for days after that. Ezekiel saw the full glory of God in a vision and feared for his life because he knew that his sin would cause him to be vaporized had it not been forgiven him. Think of it this way: if we got even a million miles away from the sun which our planet orbits around, we would be vaporized before we could know what hit us. Now imagine what would happen if we got too close to the One who created that sun and countless others which are more massive than it. The majesty of God would surely strike any of us dead.

God is a God who demands respect. He is holy and can't even look upon sin. Consider the Ark of the Covenant, the box wherein God dwelt with the Israelites for a good long time. The Israelites treated it like a lucky charm one day and brought it into battle with hope that God would help smite the Philistines. God had told nobody to do that, and as a result He allowed the Israelites to loose not only the battle, but the Ark as well.
But the Philistines were no better off than the Israelites in keeping the Ark well, and were all too glad to give it back to the Israelites. However, even then, God's word wasn't followed; King David had it transported about in a way that it wasn't made to be: on a cart. At one point in its transportation, the oxen began to sway the cart and it became somewhat unstable, and a man named Uzza steadied it with his hand. This man touched the very holy dwellingplace of our most holy God, and the anger of God was kindled against him. Uzza was smitten by God on the spot. David understood that God was unhappy with the proceedings that were taking place and was afraid, so he pretty much decided that it would be better to refrain from trying to move it again that day and had it put in temporary storage, if you will.

And there are divers more examples in the Bible of how serious it is to not pay heed to the holiness of God as we should.

God should be feared because He has so much power... more power than we will ever be able to comprehend. And He is to be feared because He is a holy and perfect God, and sinful humans have no chance of standing before Him.

It isn't until you consider these things in all of their gravity that you can understand the love of God and Jesus' sacrifice. Just as we need protection from the sun, we need protection from God's incomprehendable glory, and that's why Jesus' blood needs to cover us. It will be a desperate day for the human race when we all stand before God in all of His power, for anyone who is not protected by the blood of Jesus is going to have their fate sealed in that instant for all of eternity, and there will be no respite for them while they burn through all eternity in the lake of fire. It is because God has the power to seal our fate like that that we should fear Him, and it is because of the miracle that He performed for us with the sacrifice of His Holy Son that we should love Him with all our hearts.

I don't want to scare anyone away from God, because that sort of fear is an unhealthy one. Remember that while God is too powerful for us to even know, He has used His power to bring us into a relationship with Him that we don't need to be terrified of Him. We should never underestimate what He is, but we need to remember that He loves us more than we could ever love Him.

In closing, I'm going to provide you with a picture that I hope most of you have seen before. At the end of the first chapter of the Chronicles of Narnia, Lucy, who loves Aslan (who is the Lion which represents Jesus), asks if Aslan is a tame lion. The answer was, of course, no; Aslan is not a tame lion. But Aslan did love those who followed him. Likewise, our God loves us all greatly and is pleased when we follow Him, but He is not a tame God. Today, it seems like the Church has forgotten this and has softened His image, but I will tell you that God cannot change (as it is written very clearly in the Bible) and He wouldn't change if He could, no matter what we think He is. He is not tame, nor is He subject to our weak, human view of Him. Fear Him, and love Him, for this God has the power to send you to hell, and this God has the power to save you from it.

[Silvanis]

Wow... just... wow. Thank you Slater, for reminding me of God's power.

[dreamhacker]

So, God is wrathful or loving, depending wether you follow Him or not. You know, people often use that as a arguement that God is evil, that He should save those who are good, but don't believe in Him, too...

Else, what you said was quite right, when I think of it. It acctually changed a bit how I see God, I think
Funny, I always gets a bit afraid when I read about/think of spending an eternity in the lake of fire

[soul alive]

Wow. Thanks for sharing your insight, Slater. I'm getting to a point right now where I really need to read things like that. Thanks.

So thankful for His grace.

[Puritan]

So, God is wrathful or loving, depending wether you follow Him or not. You know, people often use that as a arguement that God is evil, that He should save those who are good, but don't believe in Him, too...

That is a common argument, but one that is looking at the issue in the wrong way. One of the foundations of Christian faith is that no one deserves salvation, that all people have sinned and fallen short of God's righteous requirements, and we all deserve eternal death by God's perfect and just laws. However, He is merciful and has blessed us with undeserved salvation, He is willing to view us as righteous rather than sinful, and all He asks is faith and belief in Him as He works in our lives to bring us closer to Him and to purify us. To demand that God not only allow humanity to continuously rebel against Him and provide His Son as a sacrifice for covering the sins of all believers as a free and most undeserved gift, but also save people who deny His free gift of salvation requires an insane amount of pride. We often forget that no one is good, no one meets the Law of God, and God is thus not obligated to save anybody. Thus we should not demand that God save anyone, only be eternally thankful that God is such a loving and merciful God that He decided to save any one at all.

[kaji]

Very well put Puritan.

Its good that you are taking the time to consider somthing that many people (even Christians) overlook Slater. A healthy fear and reverance is somthing that is definately lacking in todays generation of Christians. But this fear should not be based on the wrath of God alone. Rather a concious reverance of his glory and holyness (that were you to look at Him it would consume you), and the fact that He desires to be close to each of us.

[Mangafanatic]

Every person should have a proper reverence and "fear" of the Lord, because He is holy and deserving of such reverence.

Personally, I'm just glad that I can live under the "Fear of the Lord and the Comfort of the Holy Spirit." (Acts 9:31)

[Slater]

of course, I wasn't trying to just hilight the wrath of God. But going back to how some people claim that God is evil because he is wrathful is totally bunk. It is because we are sinful that God has this incredible (and righteous) wrath in Himself. It is we who are evil until we are cleansed by the blood of the Holy One, not the other way around.

And like MF said, Christians need not be terrified by God, because He has our souls in His hands and will save each and every one of His children, inspite of our wrongdoings that He hates.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Very good Slater! Also the fear of the Lord is to be of awe and respect not scared of him, but worshipping him in the light that he is the Creator and Saviour of the World.

[mitsuki lover]

I don't think fearing God is the same thing as being terrified of God.I think it rather has to do with reverntial awe knowing that he is such a God of wonderful and loving grace that he chooses to save us rather than sending the whole of humanity to Hell
in a handbasket and starting over.