When was the last time you considered how
essential to your life journey in our Lord Jesus is a holy fear of God, a
fear that leads you to live according
to His Word? The Apostle Peter was
astonished to witness the Holy Spirit come upon the Gentile
centurion Cornelius and his friends. This startling turn of
events was spiritually eye-opening to the devout Jew:
In truth I perceive that God shows no
partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works
righteousness is accepted by Him (Acts
10:34,35).
All through the Bible the theme of fearing God and doing what is right is the
basis to relating to Him the way He calls for. Sadly, a large
part of Christen-dom today has discounted any need to “fear God”.
Pervasive in modern teaching is an
understanding, whether voiced or not, that God exists to
fulfill our needs in exchange for our giving Him a few hours a
week of “worship and study” while trying to live as
“good people”. This perversion
of biblical truth has pointedly
increased as perceived relevance of the Hebrew Scriptures to
Christian life today has continued to decrease.
Ever aware of and obedient to the Hebrew
Bible, Jesus commanded of those He called His friends a holy fear of God:
I will show you Whom you should fear: Fear Him Who, after
the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes,
I tell you, fear Him” (Luke
12:5).
This is a holy fear with an element of
terror in it—the kind of terror that knows that God
isn’t to be trifled with despite His wonderful love for
you! When you firmly trust this all-powerful God you love and
serve, His commands regarding interaction lose their sense of
infeasibility: “Honor all people. Love the
brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king” (1
Peter 2:17).
Note that aside from your relationship
with God, none of the other categories deserve your honor or
love. Certainly the oppressive Roman regime didn’t
inspire honor. Yet because of their fear of God, the followers
of Jesus were able to submit even to that tyrannical governing
power.
When the Apostle Paul commands the
Philippian believers to “work
out your salvation with fear and
trembling” (Philippians 2:12), Whom are we to fear in the
pilgrimage to our salvation? It’s obvious from the Newer
Testament writers that we have a personal responsibility of ongoing obedient trust until we receive our salvation at the Judgment
Throne. That element of holy fear is part of the salvation
journey. [See our Hebraic Article, The
Gospel of the Covenant is the Pilgrimage to Salvation, for more on our
covenant responsibility and privilege in Jesus.]
The Bible never depicts our Lord as our
buddy or as our “personal Savior”. That the King of
kings and Lord of lords has reached out to embrace His own as
beloved bondservants who collectively are His Bride is HIS
prerogative, not the presumptive familiarity with which many
regard Him.
There IS a holy confidence which we who
trust and follow our Lord Jesus have as we hold fast to our
hope in Him to the end (Hebrews 3:6,14). But beware that you
don’t bring our Lord Jesus down to a manageable
figurehead toward whom you have no awesome fear. He is and ever
will be the King of His Kingdom!
Holy Fear: A Generational Responsibility
Perhaps it’s timely at this point to
visit the tragic error of our Israelite forefathers who strayed
into compromise that led to full-fledged spiritual adultery. As
Psalm 78:10,11 mournfully intones, the descendants of the
Patriarchs were guilty of the following sins. As you read them
below, examine your heart and discuss them with your faith
family. Do vestiges of these sins linger in your own faith
practices? In those of your family?
• They did not keep the covenant of
God. [Newer Testament believers are also in covenant with God,
with the covenant privileges and
responsibilities that His Word
calls for.]
• They refused to walk in His law.
[The Newer Testament contains 1050
commands that followers of Jesus
are both empowered and called upon to keep.]
• They forgot His works and His
wonders [all the wondrous answers
to prayer and Divine intervention that
you and they experienced].
In setting aside the parameters of
God’s covenant, His commands and teachings, and His
awesome power as evidenced by His miracles and deliverance,
contemporary Christians have thrown off any fear of Him.
He too often has become a historical
figure in a text called the Bible.
Do you recall the old saying, “What
one generation allows in moderation, the next excuses in
excess?” If you have completely disregarded any concept
of holy fear of God, then you can be sure your children and
their children will relegate God to a file of irrelevance.
Psalm 78 stresses time and again the
necessity of rehearsing repeatedly with your children the
praiseworthy character of God, His power and His law so that
they may set their hope in Him, not forget His works, and keep
His commands (v. 3-8). These requirements haven’t been
nullified for us who are followers of Jesus!
Do your children or grandchildren point
out buildings with steeples and call them churches? Is a visible
representation of religious activity really any different than
the idols and statues which represented the false deities
lusted after by the Israelites (see Acts 7:39)? The true
“church” is of course the collective body of the
King’s bride—those in whom He dwells invisibly by
His Spirit.
Keep in mind that it’s all too easy
to stray into law-lessness: doing what seems right but still
violates God’s way. King David, the man esteemed for his
heart for God, fell into that trap. Calling for the ark of the
covenant to be transported to Jerusalem, David had it placed
openly on a cart. He flagrantly disregarded God’s
requirement for the ark to be carried on the shoulders of men
via special poles through the attached rings.
While David and all of Israel rejoiced
with dancing and singing, God’s displeasure was revealed
when one of the men extended his hand to keep the ark from
falling. That presumption cost him his life and instilled
terror in David — so much so that he delayed three months
to bring the ark to his city!
Unholy, feel-good soulish pleasure
describes the Israelites as they worshiped and frolicked around
the abhorrent golden calf in the wilderness. Stephen tells us
they “rejoiced in the work of
their hands” (Acts 7:41). But
was their joy pleasing to their holy, offended God? Obviously
not! Tragically for them, He gave them up to their darkness as
they mixed sacrifices to Him with unholy worship of false gods.
(See Acts 7:38-43).
What does this mean for us today? Can it
be that the dancing and singing and praising in so many
congregations is actually designed to attract and please worshippers rather
than give due praise to a holy and awesome God? Are numbers of
those worshippers also serving idols of self-gratification,
greed, personal prestige, or worldly choices alongside their
service to God? That’s spiritual
adultery, and a holy and jealous
God wants nothing to do with it.
What Does ‘Sin’ Mean To God?
Does It Mean The Same To You?
Many Christians think of sin as doing something wrong. But in keeping their definition of sin simplistic,
they’re failing to grasp how encompassing the concept of
sin is from God’s perspective. Scripture’s description of sin helps us
understand why we’re unable to pay the penalty our sins
deserve. The guilt of our sin is so severe that the Son of God
had to become human as we are, but without sin, so He could pay
on our behalf the punishment justly due us for our violations.
Various biblical terms denote sin:
failure, error, trespass, lawlessness, unrighteousness,
unmitigated evil. But sin’s true essence is that
it’s directed against God. Any definition of sin that does not contain
its true motive—rebellion against God—is deceptive
and misses its gravity.
Most teaching on sin today (what little
instruction there is) focuses on what you’ve done wrong. But this
approach avoids the reality of your full responsibility
for Whose character and laws were violated by your sin, and for the consequences that
unconfessed sin draws from our holy God.
Willful rebellion against God existed before the fall of
Adam and Eve. That’s evident because of the presence of
Satan in the Garden. He had been cast out of God’s
presence down to earth before man was created. But be-cause of
Adam’s sin, dire consequences have befallen all of us
since. We ad-dress these in our workbook, Demolishing Strongholds.
Sin:
1. Harms our Hearing from God
2. Harms our Belief in God
3. Harms our Desires
4. Harms our Actions
5. Harms our Relationships with Others
Sin also produces:
• Shame (Condemnation)
• Rationalization (Hiding from God)
• Fear
• Blame (Inability
To Take Responsibility for Your
Actions)
• Curse Instead of Blessing
• Rejection
• Vulnerability to Satanic Attack
Sin is far more sinister than our
decisions to transgress God’s righteous laws. Every sin we commit is an expression of our
depraved hearts. As we’ve
written previously, all of us were conceived
with a sin nature, a dark
propensity to sin.
Most of us also inherited demonic
strongholds from our parents that have filtered how we view
both our life and our relationship with God. You may remember
from Demolishing Strongholds that these spiritual forces attract us to
others of like demonic influence. People generally marry others
with the same prevailing strongholds because they feel they understand each
other. They attend faith communities with others of like
strongholds because they feel so accepted
and comfortable among those folks.
These unclean spirits, however, are determined to guide us into unholy relationships.
Is the depravity of our current world any
different than at the time just before the Flood?
Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every
intent of the thoughts of his heart
was only evil continually (Genesis 6:5).
The intense drive of our sin nature urges
us to sin: the unredeemed heart
wants to do evil all the time. Our
depravity is so great that without the power of God at work in
us, we can’t consistently resist sinning. The witness of
Scripture hammers home this crucial point: “The carnal mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to
God’s law, nor can it do so” (Romans 8:
7).
If we’re truly honest with
ourselves, we can identify with Paul in his struggle against
sin. Put yourself within his lament and see if you’re
both as grieved and as grateful as the apostle is:
We know that the law is spiritual; but I
am carnal, sold under sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I will
to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate,
that I do. If then I do what I do
not want to do, I agree that the law
is good. As it is, it is no longer
I who do it, but sin living in me.
I know that nothing
good lives in me, that is, in my
sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but to do what is good I do not find. For what I do is not
the good I want to do; no, the evil
I do not want to do—this I keep
on doing. Now if I do what I do not
want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. I find then a law, that evil is
present with me, the one who wills
to do good.
For in my inner being I delight in God’s law;
but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? I
thank God God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God,
but with the flesh the law of sin (Romans 7:14-25).
It is Jesus in
us Who enables us to resist
sin (see James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:9). Another way to say this:
The Spirit of Jesus in His followers
enables them to resist anything that’s against God. Jesus
alone is the true power against our dark, sinful desires.
Does God Hold Us Accountable
For Our Sins?
Unless we can grip with all our strength
the utter depravity of our natural sinful heart, we will wink
at our willful sin and grow complacent in all that Lord Jesus
has accomplished on our behalf. Let’s review just how
vile sin is.
Sin is never impersonal, confined within a
vacuum of space and time. Sin is very real, an outflow of our
human sin nature against a holy and righteous God. His just
wrath is a deserved consequence of the sin that’s been
enacted by every person on earth (Psalm 53:2,3; Romans 3:
10-12).
While other people are indeed im-pacted
and hurt by our sin, our violation is against God — and
He’s neither inattentive nor indifferent about it (Psalm
51:3,4). It doesn’t matter how much we excuse our sin; our
holy God holds us guilty, worthy of eternal damnation. THIS is
how our holy and caring God reacts to our sin. And as Scripture
makes terrifyingly clear, the Judge is standing at the door
(James 5:9).
The frequency with which the Scriptures
mention the wrath of God should compel you to take account of its
reality for those apart from Jesus.
• The wrath of our God is not the
fitful passion so commonly associated with human anger. His
holy wrath suits His purposes. (Jude 1:15)
• His wrath is a deliberate and
resolute displeasure which His holiness demands. (Nahum 1:2)
• His wrath is neither vindictive nor
malicious, but rather His righteous indignation against our
sin. (Romans 1:18)
The reality of a God who executes wrath
upon the unrepentant is not confined to the Hebrew Scriptures
as so many today erroneously believe! The Newer Testament makes
plain that God’s wrath is always against those who reject His Son as well as those who claim to be His
but continue to violate His law:
He who trusts in the Son has everlasting
life; and he who does not trust the
Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him (John 3:36);
Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord,
Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say
to Me in that day, ‘Lord,
Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in
Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then
I will declare to them, ‘I
never knew you; depart from Me, you
who practice lawlessness!’” (Matthew 7:21-23).
Grievously, those who reject God’s
mercy and fail to trust in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus
remain under God’s wrath forever. And consider this: those
who claim to be His but are law-less predominate western
Christianity.
The Holy Spirit has come, among many
reasons, to convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of
judgment (John 16:8). If your heart is still of the world, you
need to cry out to Him in repentance that you may not be judged
along with the unrighteous of the world.
We can rejoice with Paul that Christ has
paid the just penalty that our sins deserved! Now may you and
your family not be among the lawless who live as though He is not your Lord and
King. It truly is a fearful thing to be in the shoes of the
ancient Israelites and blaspheme God through compromise with
evil. He purposes to lead His own in paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake.
Our next Teaching E-mail will clarify sins
as described throughout the Bible. Don’t be ignorant of
the righteous standards of our God! Ignorance of His commands
doesn’t make you innocent in His sight. Presumptuous unrepentance leaves you under His wrath.
• Put an ‘X’ below
indicating the level of your fear of God.
None Some At times
A holy fear
0 10 20 30 40
50 60 70 80 90 100
• How does your “fear of
God” affect your spiritual life?
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• God’s wrath remains against
those who refuse to walk in His
Lordship—those who choose to
live apart from His commands. Examine your own life (2
Corinthians 13:5). Will you be among the disqualified who abide
in lawless sin?
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