JANUARY 16, 2000
THE FEAR OF THE LORD
Psalm 25: 14 “the Lord confides in those who fear Him, He makes His covenants known to them.”
WHAT A GREAT IDEA, THAT IF WE SIMPLY FEAR GOD HE WILL TELL US HIS SECRETS.
PROPOSITION: Whatever it is that you fear the most will dictate how you will live your life.
I’d like to give you an example... i know it is a bit silly but i have thought it over and it is the best I can do for now. What if you were lost out in the middle of the ocean without a life jacket. Your chief fear is drowning. So that fear dictates how you live your life. You do everything in your power to stay afloat. Now suppose with me that just a week ago you had been watching the Discovery Channel and they had a special about this 18 inch cockroach that swam in the ocean and ate people’s faces. (of course there is really no such animal) If you saw this creature swimming toward you then your chief fear would go from drowning to being eaten by a cockroach. you would now have a new fear to dictate your living. What if in the midst of all of this you heard that eerie music and a dorsal fin of a 24 foot great white shark pierced the surface of the water. Suddenly drowning and being eaten by a cockroach have taken backseats to being mauled by this massive shark. Now here you have an even greater fear that will dictate how you live your life.
So then i contend that as long as our greatest fear is how we will meet the bills next month or when we will be married, or if we have enough groceries for tomorrow, or if we are popular, then those things will dictate how we live our lives. It is not until our chief fear is the Fear of the LORD that we will live our lives fully for God.
Some people think that to fear God simply means to respect Him but it is clear through scripture that this idea of respecting God undermines the true meaning and depth of what it means to fear God.
Jonah 1:17 do you think it was respect Jonah had for God when he was swallowed up by the great fish. Think about this story for a moment. You have heathen sailors harboring Jonah a man who is fleeing the living God. God brings a great storm up on the waters and begins to dash this boat to pieces. Eventually the men are told by Jonah that they should throw him overboard. When they do the waters become calm and the storm disipates. The heathen men then bow down and worship God! They even offer sacrifices to Him. This is not a result of respect but of Holy Fear. Jonah meanwhile is in the great deep in the belly of a fish. Do you think that Jonah was thinking to himself "man, i sure have a lot of respect for that God." No. I believe rather that Jonah had a Holy Fear of the Lord God.
Or consider the passage in Exodus 20:18-21 the people believe that if they go near the mountain of God they will die, this is not simply respect. It is not only a respect that they hold for God but rather a Holy Fear.
Think about it in this respect. NASA calls you up and says they want to train you to send you into space for a new mission. What an exciting prospect. Then the NASA dude proceeds to tell you that they want to send you to the SUN! Directly into the burning ball of fire! It is not out of respect for the sun that you will turn down the offer; rather it is because you fear for your life. You know that the closer you get to the sun the hotter it will get and you will eventually be consumed. We respect what the sun can do on a hot day so we put on sunblock. But to be sent into the sun goes so far beyond sunblock... so much beyond respect. To be sent to the sun is fear. This is much the same in our spiritual life. So often we are content to just respect God. Just like a sunburn, we may have signs that show we have encountered God, but we really very seldom fear God anymore. Everytime someone in the Bible saw God their response what fear that they might die. If not that then they fell down in worship of Mighty God. The closer we draw to the SON the more likely you are to be consumed. This is the God we are to fear. And we must fear Him if we expect Him to share with us His secrets, His very covenants.
Isaiah 33: 6 speaks of the fear of the Lord being a treasure.
Matthew 6:21 says that where your treasure is there your heart will be also. So you see that the thing you fear the most will dictate how you live your life. If it is God that you fear most then your life will reflect that in that you will serve God.
Do not think that i have come to say we must alway shake in the shadow of God. Rather, as we learn to Fear God we will be driven to Him. He will be our treasure and our very great reward. Our Holy Fear of God brings us so relationally close to God that we are enveloped by Him.
What does it look like to fear the LORD?
If you can remember this acronym I believe you can remember what it means to fear God. S.O.A.P.= STUDY OBSERVE and PRAISE.
1. STUDY:
Deuteronomy 17:18-20 Israel is commanded that when they take a king for themselves that the king should write out for himself a copy of the whole law that he should “read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, by observing all the words of the law…” You see the king is commanded to study.
Deuteronomy 4:6-10 the people are commanded to be gathered that they may hear the words of God so that they “may learn to fear me all the days they live.”
God’s design is that we would come to know Him more by the study of HIM.
2. OBSERVE:
As we see in the above Deuteronomy 17 passage, the king was to read so that he may also observe the things of the law.
Deuteronomy 31:12,13 “assemble the people… that they may hear and learn and fear the Lord your God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law.”
Joshua 24:14 “fear the Lord and serve Him… fear the Lord”
1 Samuel 12:24 “only fear the Lord and serve Him… and consider the great things He has done”
Deuteronomy 10:20-21 “you shall fear the Lord your God and serve Him… He is your praise and he is your God”
Several things I want you to note in this section. In the first two verses we see that study promotes observance of those things studied and learned. We further see that observance is indicative of fearing God. In the last two verses we see that as we serve the Lord we are called to consider the things He has done and realize that he is our praise. Which of course leads us to our final point on fearing God.
3. PRAISE:
Psalm 22:23
Psalm 118:4
Psalm 135:20
These verses say that those who fear God should praise Him and say that His loving kindness is forever.
This is a perpetual motion, a circular pattern for if you come through step three you will find yourself again at step one.
STUDY-> OBSERVE-> PRAISE-> STUDY-> OBSERVE-> PRAISE-> STUDY
As you study the things of God you realize His promises and His commands, thus you are compelled by the Spirit to put these things that you have learned into practice. As you observe these things of God you see Him as faithful to His word and always a true and righteous God, thus prompting your praise of Him. As you praise your God you enter into a deeper relationship with Him and find yourself desiring more of Him thus thrusting yourself into a more arduous pursuit of Him in your study and so the cycle goes on and on.
Now all of this began because of Psalm 25: 14 and our desire to know the secrets of God. So the question still begs to be answered: “will following these steps give me God’s secrets?” Here is my reply:
Job 28:28
Psalm 111:10
Proverbs 1:7
Proverbs 9:10
Proverbs 15:33
Micah 6: 9
All of these verses have one thing in common. They each say that to fear the Lord is the beginning of wisdom or knowledge. So you see if you are pursuing the fear of the Lord through study, observation, and praise then you are having revealed to you the most intimate secrets of God almighty for you are fearing Him and He is giving you wisdom. And wisdom comes only from a generous God.
