About six years ago now, I sat down for lunch with a man from church who wanted to help teach me to teach.  My first assignment was to dissect Proverbs 2, to know it from front to back, and be able to teach it to someone else.  He never told me why he chose that chapter and I never asked, but looking back, it makes perfect sense.  What he was asking me to learn and be able to teach is foundational to anyone who truly wants to   The first five verses of Proverbs 2 say this:

“My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.”

It’s a long sentence.  It’s difficult to break apart, but that’s what I had to do then and that’s what God has been pressing into me recently.  So, from the beginning of that section of scripture, there is a question that must be asked.  What is the purpose of receiving and treasuring God’s commandments?  First, let me say something that would cause all sorts of problems if I said it in the church that I grew up in…God doesn’t need your obedience.  Acts 17:25 tells us – “nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”  If you are in Christ, covered by His blood, then you are perfectly righteous already.  So what is accomplished through obedience?  Through our efforts at obedience, we learn the holiness of God.  This was the entire purpose of the Law, God’s commandments to us.  Romans 7:7-10 – “if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.  For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.  So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.”  So if through our obedience we see our failings, and the holiness of God, what then should our response to the revealed holiness of God be?

We live in an interesting time, where our enemy has attacked us in the US through entertainment.  Everything is about being entertained, including church.  Pastors today are told in seminary to “lighten up” and to “be funny”.  You will hear little about holding fast to the Word to preach the fear of the Lord.  Do you remember the term “God-fearing man” and “God-fearing woman”.  What happened to that?  Was that a product of bygone “fire and brimstone” preaching?  God doesn’t want you to fear Him, right?  He’s your friend, He loves you.  At least that is the refrain we hear in our PC church.  After all, doesn’t the Bible say in 1 John 4:18 – “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”  So if you have a fear of God, that must mean that you’re not really trusting Him, right?  This is the line of thought that is peddled amongst many Christians.  Foolishness.  Let me say it another more direct way; if there is no fear of God in you, then you do not know God.  I say that with the full authority of God, because God says it above in Proverbs 2 – “then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.”  When Paul is describing the natural state of all men in Romans 3:10-18 he concludes with a summary statement – “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”  At the end of His life, the wisest man that has ever lived, Solomon, concludes his writings on wisdom with these words – Ecclesiastes 12:13 – “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” 

As Christians covered by the blood of Christ, we need not fear the judgment of God, but we should have a tremendous amount of fear of the holiness of God and our condition as sinners.  You should not accept the grace of God in vain, but the mercy of God is something you walk in each day as your are following Christ.  If you believe Christ enough to follow Him, then you will be confronted with your sin and God’s holiness again and again and again.  When you consider Isaiah 55:9 where God says “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” and you consider that God’s holiness is infinitely greater than we can possibly imagine, you should feel something, a weight; the glory of God pressing against you.  This should weigh on our souls continually to force up joy and praise to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, hoping in Christ alone.  Understanding the weight of the glory of God in His holiness should press on our hearts to be in awe of the mercy of God to redeem sinners, and grant us tremendous fear that we should defame the name of the Lord by calling ourselves His sons and daughters, yet continuing to choose sin over our Savior.  

If you want to make the most of your days, seek out wisdom to know Truth and to act in accordance to that knowledge.  Psalm 110:10 says “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”.  You cannot embrace the love of God without having a fear of God.  The fear of the holiness of God, and His wrath removed through Jesus Christ is the gospel, the foundation of our faith.  God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.  Therefore, each day, as we seek to follow after Christ, to choose to follow Him and die to ourselves and the world, know that you will be confronted with your own sin and the holiness of God.  Satan, our enemy will continually tempt you to believe that in your fear of the holiness of God, your sin is greater than God’s love for you – it isn’t.  The love of God in Jesus Christ is greater than all your sin, know that as you are aware of greater and greater depths of your sin, so too should you be aware of greater and greater depths of the love of God for us in Jesus.

Grace and Peace,

Adam