Fear of God? គំរូ

Should I Be Fearful of God?

Are you scared of what the fear of God might actually mean? What if it’s completely different than you ever thought or imagined possible? Maybe today is the day you were destined to find out once and for all how fearing God could impact your life for the good. For the next three days, soak up all you can from this devotional, so you can press into what God wants to reveal to you about Himself.

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. —Ecclesiastes 12:13–14

Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. —Psalm 34:11

Fear came upon every soul. —Acts 2:43

The 3,000 people who converted on the day of Pentecost were Jews. They grew up with the teaching of the fear of the Lord. It was a concept introduced thousands of years before. It emerged in the Garden of Eden. Enoch “pleased God” before being taken to heaven would have meant that he feared the Lord. Noah moved with “reverent fear” (“holy fear”—Heb. 11:7, NIV) in building the ark. The patriarchs experienced the fear of God. It was teaching enforced by Moses. It was an essential ingredient in the Psalms and the Book of Proverbs, and it was mentioned repeatedly by the prophets. Those people who converted on the day of Pentecost would have learned about the fear of the Lord in the synagogues. Whether they ever felt the fear of the Lord for themselves before that day, who knows? But one thing is for certain. An immediate fallout of Pentecost was that “awe” (Gr. phobos—fear); it was very, very real to them.

Fear came upon every soul. —Acts 2:43

There are basically two ways one comes to understand the fear of God: it is either taught (through instruction) or caught (by firsthand experience).

As we saw above, the first time the fear of the Lord was experienced was when Adam and Eve were afraid in the Garden of Eden. It was not taught but caught. There had been no word from the Lord God that said: “Fear Me.” There was no instruction about the fear of the Lord or a warning against the fear of man as in Proverbs 29:25. There was no caution about Satan showing up as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14) or resisting the devil (Jas. 4:7; 1 Pet. 5:8). The fear of God that Adam and Eve experienced came not from teaching but by passively and unexpectedly feeling it after they disobeyed the Lord.

Fear is an emotion. It is what one feels, and yet it can be taught. Abraham is an example. He did not have Moses to spoon-feed the Moral Law. We have no evidence that Abraham had been explicitly taught the fear of the Lord, but he obviously imbibed it at some stage. He said to Abimelech, “there is no fear of God at all in this place” (Gen. 20:11). How did he come to think such a thing? The answer almost certainly is that he developed a genuine fear of God by following and obeying the Lord, as recorded in Genesis 15:1–4. When he tried to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice – but was stopped, the Lord said to Abraham, “Now I know that you fear God” (Gen. 22:12). Where did he get the fear of the Lord? Answer: it was in some way taught to Abraham as he listened to and followed the Lord.

Some things we learn by unconscious mediation. Some things we can mediate through our parents or peers. For example, how did I learn to speak with a Kentucky accent? Did I go to school and get instruction on speaking as I did? No. It was the only kind of speaking I had heard for many years. How did I learn to like classical music? My mother was a pianist and taught me to love Rachmaninoff and Grieg because she preferred this kind of music. Why did I want to be a man of prayer when still a teenager? My first memory was seeing my father on his knees every morning before going to work. I found out that the most powerful preachers were men of prayer. Why did I develop the fear of God from childhood? It was because the fear of the Lord permeated the atmosphere where we attended church.

Therefore, the fear of God can be taught but not necessarily by cerebral instruction. Otherwise, why would David say, “I will teach you the fear of the LORD” (Ps. 34:11)? How did he teach the fear of God? Simply read the rest of that psalm, beginning of Psalm 34:12. How do you come to understand the fear of the Lord? The answer is this: Get to know God’s ways.

Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. —Psalm 34:12–14