Prayer
Reading
Proverbs 1:7.
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge...”
Meditation
The seventh and final observation about fearing God that we need to make is that fearing God means that we should fear God. As we’ve seen, fearing God includes submission, for we read in Deuteronomy 10:12 “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good?”
Following on the heels of submission is the knowledge that rebellion has consequences. So we read in 1 Peter 1:16 “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.” So also Psalm 2:11-12 calls us to “Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.”
Part of our reverence for God is that we live before God with the knowledge that – if we mock him – there will be consequences. A kingdom may have a good King who is just and fair, and the subjects of the king may love him, but even if they love him there is still a certain kind of fear to be found in the knowledge that the power is in his hand to put them to death.
When you’re visiting a zoo, and there’s a tiger on the other side of the glass, there’s something a bit confronting about that because you know what would happen if you were on the other side of that glass! And so we do not play games with God. Do not be casual with God. As the Lord said in Matthew 10:28 “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” In this sense, part of our fear of God is derived from a true fear of the fact that God is able and willing to throw unrepentant sinners, body and soul, into the eternal fires of hell itself. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb 10:31).
Be ye doers of the word…
How often do you meditate upon hell? And do you prayerfully ask the Lord to impress the reality of judgment upon your soul? The neglect of this may be one reason that we do not fear God as we ought to. A prayerful consideration of God’s awesome power, and his righteousness and holiness in comparison to our sinfulness, will be helpful for us to grow in the fear of the Lord. Pray that the Lord may cause you to fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
These various aspects of the fear of the Lord will come before us in our studies again and again – and so we conclude this part, and here is our instruction: fear the LORD. Acknowledge him. Show reverence to him. Trust him. Worship him. Imitate him. Submit to him. Fear him. And in all, remember that this is the path to blessedness. Proverbs 14:27 records “The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death.” There is no better place to be than living in the fear of God. There is no higher compliment than to say that someone is a God-fearing person, so we read in Proverbs 31:30: “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” This verse has direct application to women, but a broader application to the church as well. We are the bride of Christ, and as the bride prepares herself for the coming of her husband, so too the church should prepare herself in the fear of God. A woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. SDG.
Prayer of Confession & Consecration
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