Plan Three: Nurturing a Fear of GodSample

GOD’S GLORIOUS CREATION HELPS US FEAR HIM, PART 2

We tend to view the fear of Abba as an emotion, but emotions are unpredictable and influenced by outside forces we often cannot control. God views the fear of Him as a choice we make. It’s a conscious decision that is blatantly obvious if we examine His creation and not take for granted even the most rudimentary aspects of life, such as seasons, oceans, natural boundaries, and landmasses.

The people of Jeremiah’s day did not know about God’s creation that we now possess. They did not know that the seasons of the year existed because God tilted the earth at precisely 23.5 degrees, thus changing the angle of the sunlight as the earth makes its way around the sun.

They did not know that the angle of our planet is kept constant because God also gave us just the right-sized moon that exerts the perfect amount of gravitational pull on the earth. It also creates ocean tides that rise and fall twice daily, replenishing nutrients in coastal waters.

They did not know that, unlike many other planets with elliptical orbits, our orbit around the sun is almost a perfect circle, so the amount of sunlight reaching us remains constant. Ancient peoples would gaze up at approximately 9,000 stars visible to the naked eye and not know that God created trillions of stars of different sizes, types, gases, and colors.

They did not understand the unusual properties of water, which floats when frozen rather than sinking. Without this property, ice would never melt, and the earth would be a barren, frozen wasteland devoid of life.

Christian astrophysicist Hugh Ross has conservatively identified over 400 parameters that must characterize a planet if it can support higher life forms. Such parameters include the correct atmosphere, a sun that emits the correct form of sunlight, planets that circle the earth that protect it from asteroids and comets, a thin earth’s crust, the correct position in the galaxy, the right amount of gravity that keeps us on earth but does not crush us, and an electromagnetic field that allows life to function.

If God expected the Jewish people of Jeremiah’s day to fear Him, with their elementary knowledge of His creation, we are certainly without excuse.