This morning, I want to talk about a
topic that is not very widely taught.
There's a simple reason for that.
But there is one aspect in a love
relationship which we claim to have with the
Lord Jesus.
There is one aspect in the love relationship
which is widely neglected today, and that is
the fear of God.
It is quite interesting because the fear of
God is expounded in Scripture very largely.
But it's neglected.
And I believe the reason for that is
we don't know quite what to do with
that.
Because it doesn't fit our theology.
Certainly not our Western one.
It really doesn't have a place in our
theology.
And we struggle with the fear of God
because we don't know how to understand where
to put it.
Now, me personally, I heard about the fear
of God.
Certainly it was mentioned in some sermons.
It was mentioned in some books, on some
tapes that I listened.
But it was always just mentioned.
But it was never explained.
And so I, just a few months ago
really, I started, I want to find out
what does the Bible say about the fear
of God?
How can I experience and live in the
fear of God?
Does any one of you, have any one
of you seen the movie?
I don't know exactly the English title.
A Soldier, James Ryan.
Or what's the English?
Alright, so you know, maybe some of you
have seen that.
If you haven't, I don't think you have
missed much.
But I, sometimes I go with my wife.
A few times a year we go to
Salzburg.
This is our closest big city that we
have.
We drive about 45 minutes.
It's quite a nice city, you know, Sound
of Music city.
And I sometimes go there.
I take my wife out for the evening.
And sometimes we go to see a movie.
And so it happened, we went to see
a movie.
And we didn't know which one we go.
So we just pick this one.
We thought it's probably a good one.
A friend told us, you know, they've seen
it and so on.
But it wasn't a very long movie for
us at least.
Because my wife just couldn't stand it.
The first 5 minutes or 10 minutes of
this movie, that is so brutal, so incredible
scenes.
When they approach the coastline of France.
And they basically run into the fierce weapons
that totally destroyed them.
And it always, it gives you a fear,
you know.
So the way it's made, of course, it's
fantastic.
It's so vivid, so real.
And my wife just said, we were out
for a romantic evening.
I don't think that's very helpful.
So we left the movie.
So I've never really seen it.
Just seen a couple of shots of it.
And sometimes in a preview.
Now, it creates a fear when you see
something like this.
Now, when we talk about the fear of
God.
We certainly talk about a different kind of
fear.
But no less a fear.
When we come to God, we don't be
afraid of something awful.
But it's the fear of someone called wonderful.
Now, for everything that we say about the
Lord, about God.
Our basis is scripture.
Now, the Bible teaches us from beginning to
the end to fear God.
I've always seen that.
But I never knew what to do with
it.
Do you want to be wise?
Do you want wisdom?
Well, fear God.
The fear of God is the beginning of
wisdom.
It says in Psalm, in Proverbs, The fear
of God is the beginning of knowledge.
It's the fear of God which is the
beginning of those things.
Do you want to have a long life?
Well, fear God.
It's what the Bible teaches.
Do you want the protection, the blessing of
God?
Fear Him.
It's what the Bible says.
Do you want to experience God's love?
Fear Him.
There are lots of passages.
I don't give you all the quotes because
it's long.
You just get your concordance.
You will find not only dozens but probably
hundreds of references about the fear of God.
Do you want to please Him?
How can you please God?
Fear Him.
Do you want to be free from the
fear of man?
There's one way to do that.
Fear God.
It says in Proverbs 28, The fear of
man is a snare.
Do you want that it goes well with
your children?
You know what the Bible says?
Fear God.
Now, who says so?
Is it the psalmist?
Is it some disciple?
Actually, in Ecclesiastes chapter 12 and verse 13,
we have a beautiful summary.
It says, To fear God is the whole
duty of man.
Ecclesiastes 12, 13.
To fear God is the whole duty of
man.
It's quite interesting.
If it's the whole duty of man, why
do we never hear anything about it?
When you read the characters of the Bible,
Old and New Testament, you find they have
all been afraid of God.
When you look at Moses, when he stood
in front of the burning bush, he was
afraid.
You look at Isaiah in the temple, when
he saw God, he was terrified, he was
trembling.
When you look at Pharaoh, he was trembling
when he saw God at work.
You look at the disciples that Jesus had,
they were afraid when Jesus walked on the
water, when Jesus told them to catch the
fish, when he rose the dead, when he
drove out demons.
They were afraid, it says.
They were terrified.
It says in Matthew chapter 17, on the
Mount of Transfiguration, the disciples were terrified when
they heard the voice of God.
This is a message we rarely hear today.
Today's emphasis is on the love of God,
and rightly so.
Nothing wrong about that.
We need to speak about the love of
God.
But I am afraid, just as we will
never understand the grace of God without the
law of God, we will never enter the
fullness of the love of God without the
fear of God.
It's the paradoxes which bring forth truth.
One of my favorite songs, and I love
to sing it, maybe we can sing it
today, that would be great, is Amazing Grace.
And one line in Amazing Grace goes, it
was grace that taught my heart to fear,
and grace my fears released.
If you know grace, you will fear God.
Grace teaches us both to fear God and
to embrace God.
Both is there.
Now why shall we preach about the fear
of God?
You see, I do it sometimes, and I
don't end up very popular usually.
But that's okay.
But why shall we do it then?
Isn't it enough to speak about the love
of God?
Why speak about the fear of God?
Now let me give you one very simple
reason why I do that.
When I look around the world today, when
I look at my own country, when I
look at the leading politicians, when I look
at the deterioration of values, the change in
culture, you know what I notice?
There is no fear of God.
It says in 2 Samuel chapter 23 and
verse 3.
2 Samuel chapter 23 and verse 3.
It says, The God of Israel spoke, the
Rock of Israel said to me, When one
rules over man in righteousness, when he rules
in the fear of God, he is like
the light of morning at sunrise on a
cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that
brings the grass from the earth.
Why are politicians corrupt today?
Because there is no fear of God.
We need to hear that message.
We today, we have tamed, we have domesticated
God.
And fear of God today among evangelical Christians
is explained with awe, or with reverence, or
with worship.
But if fear is awe, why doesn't the
Bible use the word awe?
The Bible does use the word awe.
But it also uses the word fear.
The Bible does use the word reference.
But it also uses the word fear.
If it's one and the same, there is
no reason to use two words.
These are all things that are involved in
the fear of God, yes, but it's not
the fear of God.
I'm afraid that the fear of God actually
means to fear God.
It says in Psalm chapter 34, Psalm 34,
it says in verse 7, Psalm 34 verse
7, The angel of the Lord encamps around
those who fear him, and he delivers them.
Taste and see that the Lord is good.
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in
him.
Fear the Lord, you his saints.
For those who fear him, they lack nothing.
Verse 11, Come, my children, listen to me.
I will teach you the fear of the
Lord.
The fear of the Lord is something that
we can learn, and it's something that we
must teach.
It says in 2 Chronicles chapter 26, it
says, He instructed him in the fear of
God.
We need to instruct people and ourselves in
the fear of God.
Now, what exactly is the fear of God?
What is it?
My wife, she loves to read the Narnia
stories.
I don't know if you know, C.S.
Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
and all this, she loves to read it.
I don't read that stuff, but she loves
it.
I gave her the books that I don't,
that I want to take time to read
and I tell her to give me the
summary.
It's great to have a wife.
But there's one book among this series, it's
called The Silver Chair.
And it's a story of Jill, the little
girl, who just saw how Eustachius, the little
boy, fell off the cliffs.
And as she sat there crying, Aslan, that's
the king, that's the lion, you know Aslan,
he's the lion?
He sits there at the creek.
By the way, you know, I kind of,
I love these stories.
As I said, I haven't written a whole
book yet, but as she tells me, I
read portions of it and it's great.
It's great pictures.
I'm going to read them to my children
now.
You know what's interesting?
Whenever Aslan is around, things are right.
I love it.
Whenever he's around, things are just right.
And of course, in this story, Aslan is
always a picture for the Lord Jesus.
But I just want to read you this
portion about Jill.
Jill was exhausted and terribly thirsty.
The lion invited the girl, when you're thirsty,
come here and drink.
Jill was terrified by his appearance and didn't
say a word.
The lion asked again, aren't you thirsty?
Jill said, I die of thirst.
Then drink, said the lion.
May I?
Can I?
Would you mind to move a little bit
away from the Greek?
The lion's answer was only a look and
a deep growl.
When Jill looked at his motionless body, she
knew that she could have just as well
asked the whole mountain to move aside for
her own comfort.
The delightful splashing of the Greek almost drove
her insane.
Do you promise me not to harm me?
She asked.
I don't promise anything, replied the lion.
By now, Jill was so thirsty that unconsciously,
she made a step towards the water and
the lion.
Do you eat little girls?
She asked.
I have devoured girls and boys, men and
women, nobles and kings, cities and countries, replied
the lion.
I don't have the courage to come, said
Jill.
Then you will die of thirst, replied the
lion.
Oh no.
Jill made another step towards the water.
Then I will have to start walking to
find another creek.
There is no other creek, said the lion.
I like this story.
As you read on the story, she then
did come closer, she did drink, and then
she was standing between the two paws of
the lion and a very tender love relationship
developed out of that.
It's a beautiful story how fear is a
part of a love relationship.
You see, my kids, they love me.
I know that.
And they do.
But they also fear me.
It's not only respect.
It's a fear.
Now, what is involved in fear?
What is involved in fearing God?
I'm saying it's involved.
It's not fear, but it's involved.
One point is, something that's involved in fear
is to stand in awe of God.
This has to do with being overwhelmed.
Those who've been here over the weekend, I
spoke about worship.
To be overwhelmed about the greatness of God
with our mind, with our emotions, even with
our body.
And to be overwhelmed with His holiness, His
might, His purity, His justice, His greatness, His
glory.
I have a question.
Have you ever trembled in the presence of
God?
It's interesting.
We tremble as we see certain things, especially
when we are in them.
For example, we may be terrified when we
see an avalanche coming down the Alps and
destroying a village or a group of people.
I have seen it.
It's terrifying.
We may be terrified when we see an
earthquake like in India recently that destroys ten
thousands of people and villages.
We are terrified when we see a flood
that covers whole islands.
It's terrifying, especially when you're in it.
I have been in three avalanches myself.
I survived them, but whenever I got out
of it, my whole body was shaking.
I was afraid.
You see, it's interesting.
We are afraid and we are terrified about
those powers, but compared to the mighty God,
this is nothing.
The One who calls the universe into existence,
have we ever been terrified in His presence?
It says in Exodus chapter 33 verse 20,
No one may see me and live.
I'm a holy God.
And it says in Hebrews, in the New
Testament, Hebrews 10 verse 31, in case you
think that's only the Old Covenant, Hebrews 10
it says, It is a dreadful thing to
fall into the hands of the living God.
Last year, we did something in our mountains.
We have the Dachstein range.
It's the highest mountain in our area.
It's a very famous mountain.
For rock climbers, for insiders, it would be
one of the famous areas to go to
in the world, like Yosemite is in the
States or whatever.
And what we did, we had a hundred
year celebration of this mountain being climbed the
first time.
And what we did, we were 200 mountain
guides and mountain rescue men and we made
a chain of lights through the 1,000
meter high vertical wall.
There are two famous routes that are leading
up and 200 mountain guides, we climbed up
with special safety and so on.
I myself was in it as well.
It was just last year.
And we had 200 torches, a chain of
light, which showed these two famous tours.
And of course, I was in it, so
I wasn't aware of it, but my wife,
she was down.
There were about 2,000 spectators up on
the Alps.
There are only three houses there, but they
all came up to see that.
And my wife just told me it was
very interesting when we all had torches, magnesium
torches.
They're very light.
And they were lit at the same second.
We got a sign and we lit them
at the same second.
As those chain of lights became visible, there
was kind of, all you heard from those
2,000 people was, Ah!
And there was a silence for about two
minutes.
Nobody said a word.
You know what's interesting about that?
When people stand in awe, they behave different.
When people stand in awe, there seems to
be a moral change going on.
As we stand in awe of God, He
does something to us.
That's involved in the fear of God.
Another thing that's involved in the fear of
God is to show reverence to God.
The people of Israel, they had such a
high reverence before the Holy God that whenever
they read the Tanakh, the Old Testament, and
the Torah, of course, the Law, whenever the
name Yahweh, J-H-W-H, whenever it
appeared, that's the name of God, so to
speak.
We don't know how to pronounce it.
It has various reasons.
One reason is, they never spoke it out.
They always substituted the word Jehovah or Yahweh,
as we glibly call it.
They always substituted with the word Adonai, because
this name was too holy to even take
into your mouth.
That's one reason why we don't know how
to pronounce it anymore.
It's interesting.
As I watch my own life growing with
the Lord, I have a very hard time
to call the Lord Jesus, Jesus.
I just noticed it.
You know why I noticed it?
When I type out my sermons and my
teaching, I don't write Jesus.
I always write L-J, Lord Jesus.
Something has changed over the years.
As I prepared it, I became aware of
that.
I didn't in the process.
It's also interesting to note that nowhere in
the Bible, not even once, does anybody call
God or Jesus, the Lord, his friend.
Never.
The Lord Jesus says, You are my friends
when you do what I command.
But nobody ever dared to call Jesus his
friend.
It's interesting.
It says in John 13, 13, You call
me teacher and Lord, and rightly so, because
this is who I am.
I'm not the body from upstairs.
I'm not just your friend.
I am your Lord.
I'm the Lord Jesus.
It's interesting, always in the New Testament, nobody
calls the Lord Jesus, Jesus.
They always call him Rabbi or Lord.
Only three times people call him Jesus.
It's unbelievers, but it's interesting.
So it's to show reverence to God is
part of fearing God.
The next point I want to make, the
fear of God also creates in us a
desire to please God.
When we fear God, we want to please
God.
There is a right fear of God.
There is also a wrong fear of God.
We come to that later.
It creates a respect.
You see, there are some people in our
life that we respect incredibly, more than just
respect.
One in my life would be, for example,
Major Thomas.
I really respect him.
It's almost more than respect.
I would never call him by his first
name, even if he would offer it.
I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that.
When he calls me, I almost end up
in my office, although it's just a telephone.
He was always friendly to me, never threatening,
always encouraging.
But there is more than respect.
But it's interesting, fear also has a romantic
side.
I read an article the other day of
a pastor who married a lovely couple.
And he just wrote down this.
I just read it to you.
He says, Years ago, I married a lovely
young couple.
They were so much in love with each
other and still are today.
They got to know each other when they
were 13 and 14 years of age.
They never looked at someone else and they
never wanted to do that.
After their honeymoon, they returned home again a
few weeks later.
I saw them in church the following Sunday
and greeted them with a little joke, asking
the young man if she had burned the
first meal as she was cooking for him.
Both laughed, and the woman said, Oh, I
was so afraid that something terrible would happen.
I often read that young women cannot cook,
and so I was determined to cook the
best meal for my husband that I can
possibly do.
So I began to prepare the evening meal
at three o'clock in the afternoon.
I made everything ready and began to cook.
When I finally put all my pans on
the stove, I was so afraid that it
wouldn't taste well.
Then Charles came home a little bit later
than expected from work.
I was so afraid that because the meal
was too long on the stove, it may
have lost its taste.
I interrupted her and said, Three times you
now mentioned that you were afraid, that you
had fear.
Do you believe John would have beaten you
had it not tasted well?
With a funny look on her face, she
shook her head and said, Of course not.
And as she was looking over to her
husband standing next to her, you could tell
how much she loved him.
But I didn't give in so quickly and
asked again, You said that you were afraid.
She answered, You know what I mean.
Of course I knew what she meant.
Her fear was not something horrifying or awful.
Her fear was the great desire to please
the person she loves more than anyone else.
And in this case, her fear was the
beginning of a delicious evening meal for and
with her husband.
You see, fear has a romantic side.
But to have fear of God, to be
terrified of God, is something that I find
in the Bible.
Remember when Peter, when the Lord Jesus met
Peter the first time, what did Peter say?
Go away from me, I'm a sinful man.
He was afraid.
And we must rediscover again that God is
angry at sin.
He hates sin.
And he pours out his wrath on sinful
man and a sinful world.
It says in Psalm 8, God is angry
every day.
And hell is simply the final expression of
God's wrath, the anger of God.
Now, as we stand in the fear of
God, we have two choices.
Adam was afraid of God after he fell
into sin.
What did Adam do?
He ran away from God and was hiding
from God in his fear.
Peter was also afraid of the Lord Jesus.
What did he do?
He ran to Jesus and asked for forgiveness.
This undeserved love that we receive in the
Lord Jesus will produce in us, I call
it a wonderful fear, as we stand in
the presence of the one who is called
wonderful.
It says in Ephesians 6, in verse 5,
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and
fear and with sincerity of heart, just as
you would obey Christ.
It says in Romans 8, 15, it says,
We are no longer slaves to fear.
There's a big difference.
We are not slaves to fear anymore.
We don't have to be terrified, in a
sense, of running away from God, hiding behind
a tree from God.
No.
It says in 1 John 4, 18, Perfect
love drives out fear, but it drives out
the fear that drives us away from God.
And I understand that some people have a
hard time with that message, especially those who
grew up in a church where God was
always proclaimed as somebody who will slap you,
who will beat you, who will knock you
into shape.
When they come to know the Lord, they
never want to hear about that again.
But we need to learn.
It's just like, you see, our past always,
to some extent, determines our theology.
We can never escape that.
It was funny, I stayed together with Charles
now for a few days.
In the evening we sometimes talked about things.
He has a very different background than I
have.
We have the same Lord.
We have basically the same message, but we
come from different angles because we have very
different experiences.
But what we must learn as we mature
in Christ is not to throw out the
baby with the bathwater, but to learn a
balance.
And there is a good place for fear
as well as for love.
It belongs to the complete picture of God.
Now, I'm closing with how can we learn
to fear God?
In a right, in a healthy, in a
biblical way.
Not as slaves, not destructive.
Well, the first thing is the fear of
God comes from God, not from man.
That's very interesting.
No man has to beat you into fearing
God.
The fear of God comes from God.
The natural man does not fear God.
Fear is not something that is already present
in the cradle.
Heathens have no fear of God.
It says in Romans chapter 3, 18, there
is no fear of God in their eyes.
Therefore, we must ask God that he may
give us this reverent, this constructive fear of
God.
It says in Jeremiah 23, verse 39, It's
something that we get from God, not from
man.
But we must teach, we must instruct, gentle
the scriptures.
You see, we are always tempted to selectively
leave out those passages that don't make sense
to us or those we don't like.
And always come back to those chapters that
we like.
But friends, we don't have the freedom to
do that.
This is why, secondly, contemplate over the character
of God.
I encourage you in your Bible reading, don't
pick out those chapters you like.
Read every chapter.
Read also those passages that make you feel
uncomfortable when God is destroying nations in the
Old Testament and so on, because only then
you get the full, the real picture of
God, not the one that you create in
your own mind.
What is the first command?
Do not...
What is it?
Do not make any image of God.
Now, we think of image immediately of something
we create.
No, you can make your image of God
in your mind.
It's first command.
We must get to know this God who
revealed Himself in and through scripture.
One other point that helps me to fear
God is to look at God's creation with
open eyes.
And even though we live a fallen world,
there is enough evidence that makes me astonished
and fear God because of His greatness.
I read an interesting article as well about
the Dome of Cologne in Germany.
It's a fantastic building.
But in the Second World War it was
almost destroyed.
Bombs have hit the building, walls collapsed, but
the structure remained.
And I've seen pictures of that dome and
even though it was half destroyed, it was
dirty, the bombs have hit it, you could
still see.
You know what?
There must be a very wise man who
constructed this dome.
It still spoke of the one who created
it.
You see, even though we live in a
sinful world, there is plenty of evidence that
there is a mighty, a very wise God
behind all this.
As I said before, the greatness of God
that makes us fear God we see in
the galaxies.
The wisdom of God we see in our
DNA, in the atoms.
And the mercy of God, look at the
cross.
And one other thing that helps me to
fear God is to worship God in His
creation.
There is an order, a Catholic order called
the Jesuits.
And those monks who live in a monastery,
they have a very good tradition.
They still do that.
They get up at five o'clock every
morning.
The first thing they do is they read
the last five psalms.
Forty-five to fifty.
It's actually six they read.
The Hallelujah Psalms.
Every morning.
You know what?
I do it, not all the time, but
every now and then I do that.
You know what it does to me?
Before I go into the day, I get
a right perspective with whom I am living
today.
Who is the God who indwells me and
in whom I am sheltered?
This is the one I'm living with.
It puts all other things in the right
perspective.
It's good to remind ourselves with the psalms
what kind of God we are dealing with.
And one last point and then we close.
How can we learn to fear God?
We learn to fear God the best in
our homes.
Teach your children to fear God.
When you read the Bible with your children,
read every chapter.
Don't leave out the nasty ones.
If you do that, your children will grow
up with a false understanding of God.
The Holy Spirit can use it as we
faithfully show our children the whole counsel of
God.
As I prepared this, I was driving someone,
Lucas was with me, my ten-year-old
son.
Just a couple of months ago, I asked
him, Lucas, do you love me?
He said, of course I do.
What a question.
And I said, do you also fear me?
Then he was thinking about it and he
said, yes, I do.
And he said, how come?
When is it so?
He said, when I do something I know
I'm not supposed to do and you come
around the corner.
I have fear of you.
It's not respect.
It's more than respect because there are consequences.
And in a tender love relationship, fear is
always involved.
And so I want to teach my children
the fear of God.
Of course the love of God.
But give them the whole picture of the
one who is our Lord, the Lord Jesus.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for your Scriptures that
you have given us in order that we
can understand you.
That we can learn to think the way
you think.
That we can learn to see you who
you really are.
And Lord, I ask for forgiveness when we
try to shape Scripture according to our mind.
And I pray that we allow you to
shape our mind by your word.
That we don't change your image into ours,
but that our image is changed into yours.
Father, we have twisted so many things around.
And very often we have not even been
aware of it.
Thank you that you are a forgiving God.
Thank you that you do not hold it
against us.
But Father, you are so pleased when we
learn to understand you, to obey you as
our God and Father, the Eternal God, the
King of kings, the Lord of lords.
And thank you that we may know you
as our life.
So good to know.
Thank you for this morning, for your word,
for your presence.
And in your own name I pray.
Amen.