CHAPTER 7: YOUR ULTIMATE HOPE
The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him.
In C. S. Lewis’s Narnia book The Silver Chair, the schoolgirl Jill finds herself alone and desperately thirsty in an unknown wood. She knows nothing of Aslan, the Christ figure in these stories, but when she comes upon a stream, she sees the great Lion between her and the water. Though her thirst is overpowering, Jill freezes in her tracks, too petrified with terror to either advance or run.
“If you are thirsty, you may drink,” the Lion says.
The terrified Jill, afraid she will be eaten, doesn’t move. She says, “Will you promise not to —do anything to me, if I do come?”
“I make no promise,” the Lion answers.
“I daren’t come and drink,” Jill replies.
“Then you will die of thirst,” the Lion tells her.
Jill says she will go find another stream, but the Lion responds, “There is no other stream.”[1]
Throughout the Bible God’s people are admonished to fear God. Is this fear to be equated with Jill’s —that of a child quivering in unmitigated terror at an all-powerful being who forces hard choices and may do anything to anyone at any time?
The same God who invites us to come boldly into His presence (Hebrews 4:16; 10:19) also expects us to “serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28-29; emphasis added).
As one who lives in Southern California and has seen consuming wildfires up close and personal, I can say that fear is an apt description of the emotion they produce. Do they also produce a sense of awe? Yes —one cannot help but be awed by flames shooting hundreds of feet in the air and consuming everything in their paths. But is it awe that causes my neighbors and me to flee for safety when these fires are on the loose? No, it is fear of dying in their presence —not because the fire has any intent of harming us, but because fire has an innate nature that can harm us if we don’t respect it. So when the author of Hebrews says “our God is a consuming fire,” I am not surprised to read that I should serve Him with “godly fear.” Yes, God inspires overwhelming awe. But just as fire acts according to its nature, so does God. He operates according to His providential intent for His world, and we had best align ourselves with that intent to keep from getting burned.
Two Ways to Fear God
Biblical references to the fear of God fall into two distinct categories. The first is awesome dread, and the second is astonished devotion. Let’s explore the meaning of these two terms.
Awesome Dread
The term awesome dread seems to indicate something to avoid rather than embrace. And I realize that I have been guilty of avoiding the topic myself at times because it’s so easy to stress the love of God and how Jesus is a friend of sinners. But that is only one side of the equation. Unless we balance our perspective, we end up with the idea that “there’s no need to be afraid of our good buddy God.”[2]
So when we go to the Bible to adjust that perspective, do we discover that fear is just a synonym for awe and reverence? As a matter of fact, no. In Genesis, where the word fear is first used in the Bible, we read about God walking in the Garden just after Adam and Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit. Apparently God made a practice of enjoying fellowship with them “in the garden in the cool of the day” (Genesis 3:8). But after Adam and Eve sinned and God drew near, Adam hid himself from God’s presence. He explains, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself” (Genesis 3:10).
I assure you that what Adam felt at that moment was much more than awe and reverence for his Creator. He was stone-cold afraid —exactly as he should have been. God had warned him that if he ate of the forbidden tree, he would die (Genesis 3:3).
We don’t fear what we don’t know. That’s why little ones touch hot stoves once. People who are without God are without fear of Him, so they don’t hesitate to act in immoral ways. In Romans 3, Paul the apostle gives us a long list of complaints about ungodly people, and in verse 18 he concludes it by quoting Psalm 36:1: “There is no fear of God before [their] eyes.”
But those who know God fear Him. People in Scripture such as Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Saul found this fear so overwhelming that they could not stand on their feet in His presence.
Many Christians today seem to think the Incarnation eliminated the need for any fear of God. In Jesus, God came to earth in the form of a man, giving us an accessible God, one we could love and relate to as a friend. Those who adopt this mindset as the whole truth often describe Jesus as a gentle, compassionate, loving person. He was (and is) all that, but this is not the entire picture. Forgotten is the fearsome Jesus who took a whip and single-handedly drove from the Temple a mass of thieving merchants. You can be sure that those around Him felt fear.
It is in the book of Revelation that we witness some of the most terrifying depictions of our Lord. For example, when John saw the risen Christ, he fell at His feet as dead (Revelation 1:17). This was not a voluntary act of worship but an instinctive reaction of fear.
The apostle Peter gives us what is perhaps the primary reason for our awe and dread of God. After a night of unsuccessful fishing, Peter was discouraged. Then Jesus performed a miracle that suddenly overloaded Peter’s nets. “When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!’” (Luke 5:8). Awe and dread are natural responses of the imperfect to the perfect, of the marred to the beautiful, of the contaminated to the pure, of the powerless to the powerful.
Astonished Devotion
If awe and dread are appropriate responses to God, how do we reconcile that with Paul’s confident statement in Romans 8:1? “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” As believers in Christ, we know we can live with absolutely no fear of the wrath of God. That’s an assurance engraved in eternity.
This brings up an important question. If Christ has removed the need for fear of God’s wrath, do we really need to fear God at all? Paul answers by telling us that fear still has its place. He instructs his friends in Philippi to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). Peter also affirms the role of fear when he admonishes us, “Conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear” (1 Peter 1:17). Why should we continue to fear God if His grace removes the consequences of His wrath?
We find the explanation in the Bible’s second conception of fear. For active followers of Jesus Christ, this understanding is the most meaningful for everyday living. We fear God by honoring, reverencing, and cherishing Him. His greatness and majesty reduce us to an overpowering sense of awe that is not focused only on His wrath and judgment but also on His transcendent glory, which is like nothing else we can confront in this world. It leaves us all but speechless.
Though God had every right to judge the human race, in astounding mercy He sent His own Son to stand in judgment for us. So to fear only God’s power with trembling and dread without fearing (or respecting) His astonishing love is an incomplete response that diminishes our experience and enjoyment of Him.
When we truly fear God, our fear of other things and other people begins to wane. Big fears make little fears go away. We can spend our days worrying about a host of daily challenges, but let the word cancer be mentioned in the same sentence with our name, and all our daily anxieties disappear into the cloud of a bigger fear. God, of course, is not a malevolent force like cancer. This means that when our smaller fears are absorbed by fear of Him, our lives gain security rather than become debilitated by the terror of an uncertain future.
God is the biggest fear of all. In fact, God is referred to as “the Fear” twice in Genesis 31: “Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had been with me . . . And Jacob swore by the Fear of his father Isaac” (verses 42, 53). “The Fear” is a figure of speech here in which the emotion is personified as the person Himself —in this case, God.
It is when other fears take precedence over God that we get into trouble. This is what happened to the Israelites who lived during the time of Isaiah. Listen to God’s words to them:
Of whom have you been afraid, or feared,
That you have lied
And not remembered Me,
Nor taken it to your heart?
Is it not because I have held My peace from of old
That you do not fear Me?
In losing their fear of God, the nation of Judah had become unduly afraid of false pagan gods. They no longer felt “astonished devotion” because they had lost the wonder of who God is.
Ravi Zacharias said, “The older you get, the more it takes to fill your heart with wonder, and only God is big enough to do that.”[3] No matter how old we are, we all need astonished devotion, which is the exhilarating element we find in the fear of God.
Hope for Those Who Fear God
When we consider both dimensions of the fear of God —awesome dread and astonished devotion —we discover that the Bible promises abundant benefits for those who hold these fears. The following list of seven promises summarizes why we can fear God —and put our hope in Him. I present them mostly without comment, because I believe they will minister to your heart in their raw beauty and blessing.
The Promise of Provision
Oh, fear the LORD, you His saints!
There is no want to those who fear Him.
The young lions lack and suffer hunger;
But those who seek the LORD shall not lack any good thing.
The Promise of Protection
Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him,
On those who hope in His mercy,
To deliver their soul from death,
And to keep them alive in famine.
The Promise of Purity
As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
As a father pities his children,
So the LORD pities those who fear Him.
Having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
The Promise of Prosperity
Blessed is every one who fears the LORD,
Who walks in His ways.
When you eat the labor of your hands,
You shall be happy, and it shall be well with you.
The Promise of Prolonged Days
The fear of the LORD prolongs days,
But the years of the wicked will be shortened.
The Promise of Privilege
Those who feared the LORD spoke to one another,
And the LORD listened and heard them;
So a book of remembrance was written before Him
For those who fear the LORD
And who meditate on His name.
The Promise of Perpetuity
Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all My commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!
The mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting
On those who fear Him,
And His righteousness to children’s children.
These are only a sampling of the outpouring of promises the Bible gives to those who fear the Lord.
It’s true that there is a consequence for not fearing God, but it’s not as if God exacts a pound of flesh for our failure. Instead, we face the consequence of missing the blessings described above. It’s more like the consequence of a child missing out on Christmas morning. Who would want to forgo the spiritual treasures of fearing God?
Yet He leaves the choice to us.
The Conclusion of the Whole Matter
Solomon spent his life questing for meaning and significance, and he concludes that it was wrapped up —yes —in “fearing God.”
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:
Fear God and keep His commandments,
For this is man’s all.
Did you realize the Bible has so much to say about the fear of God? Would it surprise you to know that this fear has played a large role throughout church history? Times of spectacular spiritual revival have always been sparked by a renewal of the fear of God. The best example is the preaching of Jonathan Edwards during the First Great Awakening. During that era, Edwards, George Whitefield, and others preached on God’s judgment, which brought a sense of terror over the audiences. It’s hard for us to imagine today how Edwards’s famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” brought on moaning and weeping and prompted listeners to grip tightly to pews and posts to keep themselves from tumbling to the floor.
Reverend Joseph H. Weber, a Methodist evangelist who witnessed a revival in the town of Algona, Iowa, wrote, “It seems as if many more sinners are moved by fear than love.”[4] Scottish evangelist Duncan Campbell said, “It is an entire town gripped by the fear of God, causing an awareness of God coming over the whole community.”[5] During the Irish revival of 1857, a thirty-four-year-old man fell to his knees in the street, crying out in deep agony. People came rushing to his aid, asking who had attacked him. But he would only cry out, “Unclean! Unclean! God be merciful to me, a sinner!”[6]
Wesley L. Duewel, in his book Revival Fire, said that the fear of God was so sudden and so powerful in these times of revival that whole communities came to Christ. Hardened men began weeping. Miracles occurred. Addicts were made clean, homes were restored, and local crime was all but wiped out. The fear of God changed everything. Duewel goes on to record this quote: “They were first affected with awe and fear —then they were bathed in tears —then filled with love unspeakable.”[7]
It’s a sad fact that something so well established in the history books is so difficult for us to visualize today. As a culture, we have no fear of God; so, as Dostoyevsky said, “All things are permissible.” We see no miracles. We are flooded with addictions; broken homes; and rampant, uncontrollable crime. Yet some Christians say we need less “fear of God” in our teaching, though they’re all for “love of God” talk. But as we have seen, the road to love leads right through the fear of God.
I will close with a passage from pastor and author John Piper, who imagines a scenario from nature to illustrate what it means to fear God’s power and put our hope in His protection:
Suppose you were exploring an unknown glacier in the north of Greenland in the dead of winter. Just as you reach a sheer cliff with a spectacular view of miles and miles of jagged ice and mountains of snow, a terrible storm breaks in. The wind is so strong that the fear rises in your heart that it might blow you over the cliff. But in the midst of the storm you discover a cleft in the ice where you can hide. Here you feel secure. But, even though secure, the awesome might of the storm rages on, and you watch it with a kind of trembling pleasure as it surges out across the distant glaciers.
At first there was the fear that this terrible storm and awesome terrain might claim your life. But then you found a refuge and gained the hope that you would be safe. But not everything in the feeling called fear vanished from your heart. Only the life-threatening part. There remained the trembling, the awe, the wonder, the feeling that you would never want to tangle with such a storm or be the adversary of such a power.
And so it is with God. . . . The fear of God is what is left of the storm when you have a safe place to watch right in the middle of it. . . . Hope turns fear into a trembling and peaceful wonder; and fear takes everything trivial out of hope and makes it earnest and profound. The terrors of God make the pleasures of his people intense. The fireside fellowship is all the sweeter when the storm is howling outside the cottage.[8]
I am thankful that my God is a fearsome God. My love for Him is all the deeper for the fear that His love has answered. The storm rages all around, but my hope is in Him.