It also gives us a reason to be eternally grateful and to grow in love to be more like our loving God! The reverential fear of the Lord is designed to help us grow to become more like God—to grow in love. As the apostle John put it:.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. The same shade of meaning is applied to the word fear in Romans 8: Some misunderstand and think that love casts out not only fear but law. God wants His laws written on our hearts. For example, even if we had no fear of being caught, we should choose to never steal from others—because we love them and God. A different Greek word for fear is found in 2 Timothy 1: Deilia is consistently used in a negative manner, unlike phobos.
So, rather than a paralyzing terror, the positive fear of the Lord taught in the Bible is a key element in change. It helps us have a proper, humble perspective of ourselves in relation to our awesome God; it helps us in times of temptation when we need to remember the serious consequences of disobeying God; and it motivates us to become more like our loving Creator.
Let us be your guide as you spend a week discovering who God is and what He has in store for you—in this life and the next. But our loving Heavenly Father? Why would God tell us to fear Him? Choose your preferred format to start your subscription. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding Psalm But he stands alone, and who can oppose him? He does whatever he pleases.
He carries out his decree against me, and many such plans he still has in store. That is why I am terrified before him; when I think of all this, I fear him. God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me Job Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man Ecclesiastes In addition, there are other Hebrew words that portray softer meanings, such as kabad Exodus In fact, the great news is that the Love of God reflected through Jesus Christ in the New Testament scriptures has the power to cast out this fear and set us free!
There is no fear in love. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, out of which all life springs. When you say, "What is the fear of God? It is a hatred of sin. It is a fountain of life. But according to Proverbs Do not let your heart envy sinners, But be zealous for the fear of the LORD all the day; For surely there is a hereafter, And your hope will not be cut off. When you have fear in the Lord, it is hope in the Lord. So you do not envy what the world is offering or what they say is cool or neat or sharp or wonderful or tremendous for you.
You do not envy it. You do not want anything to do with it. The world is passing away. What the fear of God is, is hope in the Lord. You know that what He has promised will come true. Our souls are in so much turmoil. Because there is no anchor of the soul. We are bouncing on the water, so to speak. We are not anchored down.
And the anchor is the hope and confidence that we have that God cannot lie; and He has promised to us wonderful things, so we trust Him. Now I begin to learn a little bit more about what the fear of God is. It is the key to knowledge and wisdom. It does mean to hate sin and all of that, but it is hope and it is confidence in the Lord.
It is not confidence in what life presents to me, but in the Lord Himself. And you can almost see when the fear of God is dribbling out of your life when you lose confidence in the Lord, and all of a sudden your circumstances and the events of your life and even people in your circle of ministry, become the key focus and you are getting your hope from them. Soon you will see that the fear of God is lacking. You are more worried about what people think about you. You are more worried about how the circumstances of your life are turning out.
And if they are in your "category negative"-that is, you do not like what is happening-all of a sudden, you are getting bent out of shape. Yeah, things are getting worse. You are losing your confidence. You are losing your trust. Well, your problem is lacking the fear of the Lord. We need to fear God. Now, let me give you some reasons to answer the second question: Why should we fear God?
And there are a lot of wonderful reasons why.
One is that it prolongs days. You say, "Man, I can hardly get through a day now, you are telling me it is going to be longer? That is why study is good. The Bible says, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman who has no cause to be embarrassed or ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" 2 Timothy 2: At first glance sometimes you wonder.
Now, right away comes forth a doctrine that I believe is incorrect, but is taught by many, many Christians. It teaches that if you fear God, you will live longer than the guys who do not fear God. That is what a lot of people believe that verse says. Looks like it, doesn't it, on the surface? Do you know any wicked people who have lived a long time? Do you know any people who have walked with the Lord who have, so to speak, had their lives cut short-did not live very long on the earth?
What does it mean to fear God?
No, Proverbs is not presenting the earthly life as the big deal. The hope of Proverbs, the wonderful joys and blessings of Proverbs, are not rooted in whatever this life has. Remember the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians. That does not sound like somebody who has the fear of the Lord in his life, who thinks prolonging days means just living longer. Hey, there are a lot of reasons why one does not want to live longer. Let me give an example. I was thinking about this the other day.
When a loved one has a heart attack and dies, sometimes it is a shock-especially if there is no warning and they just die. And you know we almost all, in hearing that go, "Gasp! I mean, it is like one day you are here and "bang," the next moment you are in heaven. Man, wasn't that something? Praise the Lord that he died of a heart attack!
They will ask, "Why aren't you more grieving? Now on the other hand, have you not also seen what I have seen and still live with every day, the suffering and agony of a loved one? They are not going to get better. The suffering gets worse. And you tell me to rejoice because the fear of the Lord prolongs days and all that means is that they may live to be ninety. Hey, they might have wanted to die when they were seventy, if they had only known what the next twenty years would have been.
No, God's Word here is not promising earthly extensions. God is talking about the hope that we have in the Lord. You talk about prolonged days! We are talking about living with the Lord forever! So why should we fear God? Because it prolongs days and that means we are going to be with the Lord forever.
It is a statement again about those who have come to believe in Him. If you fear God, you put your hope in the Lord and your confidence is in Him. And what a wonderful promise we have of living forever with God. A second reason why we should fear God is because it protects us from some very serious problems. We are leaning on God's everlasting arms.
You are the lifter up of our head" Psalm 3: And there are so many wonderful declarations of God's protection. He will give grace and glory. No good will He withhold from those who walk uprightly" Psalm The Lord will deliver us. The fear of the Lord protects us. In the fear of the Lord there is strong confidence. If you understand that it is putting your confidence in God, in who He is and not who man is, then you realize how you can have strong confidence-no matter what happens.
To fear God is:
If you really fear the Lord, there is a refuge there. God has promised protection to those who fear the Lord-confidence and a refuge. A place to go when it looks like all hell is breaking out around you. Hey, in the Lord there is strong confidence, no matter what happens. God is promising protection of the believer. Even Paul prayed, in 2 Thessalonians 3: Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified, just as it is with you, and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men; for not all have faith.
But the Lord is faithful, who will establish you and guard you from the evil one. Thank God for it. God takes care of us. This brings me to a third reason why I should fear God. Not only because it prolongs days and involves living forever with the Lord; not only because it protects us from evil and the evil one; but also, it provides for our needs. It provides for our needs. It is interesting that there are a lot of people who wonder if God will provide for their needs. Trust in the Lord. They will not lack any good from the Lord.
What a fascinating statement that is. God is going to provide for all of our needs. You say, "Man, I knew it! That new house, we got it. A lot of us struggle with how God provides for our needs. Oh taste and see that the Lord is good. This is rooted in our trust in Him and that there is no lack. God will always give what is good. Now isn't it possible, my friends, to have something happen in our lives or not happen that we expected that we would regard as "bad" and He would regard as "good"? The thing that causes one to have the fear of God and trust in the Lord is that everything-no matter whether it is my perspective of how bad or good it is-everything God does, will be and is good.
Do you believe it was good for you to lose that job? Do you believe it was good for you to face that trial and that circumstance and that pain and that sorrow and that fear? You know, sometimes God is gracious and in our lives He gives us understanding of those things. But I am to trust Him to the point that even though the understanding never comes, I will still put my confidence in the Lord that everything He has done is good. You see, that is rooted also in my understanding of the sovereignty of God.
All things are being worked together for good to those who love God. If I fear the Lord then I will recognize that. I know God provides all my needs, no matter what it is. Now, I may come up with my own list. I do not know if in marriage you have this problem, but I used to teach until I realized what a problem it was that you ought to make a list of things to do. You know, you call it a "honey do" list. You know, instead of worrying about communication and getting hurt, just make a list of things. The trouble is with preaching this, my wife took me seriously and started making a list of things I ought to do or not do.
And so I have dropped that out of my teaching and preaching. But anyway, it is interesting because in our list of things that we might make and then say, "This is really my need. And then we fail to recognize what God is in fact doing to answer the prayers requests on our little list-sometimes He is telling us "No. But He doesn't get glory. He doesn't get trust. There is no fear of God because our list is the biggie. And we say, "God, as soon as You do something about my list, then I'll know that You exist.
Bible Search
In the beginning God created. The Bible does not set out to prove to you the existence of God. It asks you to respond to it, to believe in Him and to trust Him no matter what. And if you never see anything in your life that is in your "category good," would you still trust Him? Job said, "Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him. He always does good and He will take care of us. That is what He said. Let me give you a fourth reason why you should fear God. Not only because it prolongs your days, which involves living forever with God, it protects us from evil and the evil one, it provides for all of our needs, and God does good constantly for us; but folks, it also pleases the Lord to fear God.
It pleases the Lord. He does not delight in the strength of the horse; He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man. Do we have any guys who are into being buff? Go down to the club, man, work out. Hey, get into the weights. I did that as a young man. In fact, for quite a long time I really went after it and I loved it.
I became a life member of a gym and all that stuff. You know, I never told my kids to do that but they did it too. And I know the grandkids are going to do it too. I will never forget one day I was working out in the gym on the leg machine-pumping it up, you know. And we were kind of having a little contest, a few of us that were playing ball together.
Fear of the Lord: What Does It Mean? - Life, Hope & Truth
We were trying to see who could push the most with our legs, you know. I remember a little kind of a thin guy who was not into sports or anything, but he was in the gym and he was a Christian. He was always talking about the Word. He came up to me and he quoted this verse. Man, what a bummer! Hey you know folks, it pleases the Lord when you fear Him. And in this passage you've got even another definition of the fear of the Lord. It involves hoping in the mercy of God.
Mercy is holding back from us what we really deserve and getting His loving kindness and tenderness. Hoping in that is the same thing as fearing the Lord. When you fear the Lord, you recognize that were it not for His mercy, you would be zapped right now. What a neat passage. And we have all this busyness going on. We are into everything and trying to prove that we can handle everything. All of life is like that. The Bible says that God does not take pleasure in that.