The Fear Of The Lord What is the fear of the Lord? Job 28: 28 And to man He said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom

Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Psalm 34:10 Fear the Lord, you His saints; For to those who fear Him there is no want.

Luke 12:4-5 I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after the killing of the body, has power to cast you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him.

Deuteronomy 10:12-13 And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul; to keep the Lord's commandments and statutes that I am commanding you today for your own good.
Revelation 14:7 With great voice he said, Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has now come; so bow ye before Him and worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and the springs of water.

Isn't it the very essence of man's total depravity in every age, according to the Apostle Paul, that "there is no fear of God before their eyes" (Romans 3:18, Psalm 36)? The repentant criminal asked the other criminal in amazement at Calvary: "Don't you fear God?" (Luke 23:40). When our Lord wanted to indicate the character of the unjust judge in a parable, He did so by saying that he "neither feared God nor cared about men" (Luke 18:2).

God's people, on the other hand, are described in the New Testament as those who are "walking in the fear of the Lord" (Acts 9:31). The risen and ascended Christ has poured out His Spirit upon His church, and, as we have seen from Isaiah's prophecy, the Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of the fear of the Lord. The fear of God is the heart of godliness... If we are thinking of the [marks] of biblical piety, none is more characteristic than the fear of the Lord.

The mother of our Lord praised God that "His mercy extends to those who fear Him" (Luke 1:50). The apostle Paul called upon Christians to "make holiness perfect in the fear of God" (2 Corinthians 7:1), to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12), and to "be subject to one another in the fear of Christ" (Ephesians 5:21). The apostle Peter urged them to "love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king" (1 Peter 2:17), and to "live your lives as strangers here in reverant fear" (1 Peter 1:17).

In the song of Moses and of the Lamb, we hear, "Who shall not fear you, Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy" (Revelation 15:4).

It seems that having no fear of God is the root sin of the church today, the root cause of its moral flabbiness and ineffective witness! Although it is certainly too strong to say that there is no fear of God, it does seem that there is too often very little fear of God.

Let us pray that the Spirit of Christ will make us a God-fearing people. Then, fearing God, we shall have no one or nothing else to fear.

As we read in Isaiah 8:11-13, The Lord spoke to me with his strong hand upon me, warning me not to follow the way of this people; and He said: "Do not call conspiracy everything that these people call conspiracy; and do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it. The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, and He is the one you are to fear, and He is the one you are to dread, and He shall be your sanctuary."

We must not ignore the element of fear the Bible commands us to have. To test the patience of our holy God, to willfully disobey His will, should be a fearful and hateful thing to us, because "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31). We have seen that it is the very essence of man’s depravity that "there is no fear of God before their eyes."

1 John 4:17-18 however says "In this way love is perfected among us, that we may have confidence on the day of judgment, for as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, for perfect love casts out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."