Fear… is an interesting emotion and is powerful in it’s potency. This Sunday we are going to be talking about how Old Testament believers and writings deal with the “fear of God” and next Sunday we will explore about the implications for New Testament and new covenant believers.
Wikipedia says that, “Fear can be distinguished into serious fear, metus gravis, and trifling fear, metus levis. Serious fear grows out of the discernment of some formidable impending peril. Trifling fear is that which arises from being confronted with harm of inconsiderable dimensions, or, at any rate of whose happening there is only a slender likelihood.” In other words I believe this is talking about a rational and an irrational fear.
Sometimes we play with fear, especially those of us with siblings. We have this “rational/irrational” fear. But growing up we used to try to scare each other all the time. Our TV was in the basement, and so our family would sit around and watch TV it inevitably came to that time of the night when we were told to go to bed. Sometimes we could sense when that was coming, and it was almost always a game to be the first one up to hide, and jump out and scare the other. There was anticipation as one of us (sometimes me, sometimes him) would creep down the dark hallway waiting for the big scare. Sometimes the tension was far too much for me to handle that I would race down the hallway into my room and thus surprise him, or make it easier. This is more of a rational fear. You know something is about to happen. It’s this fear that we like to play with. The surprise fear, the ones that make us chew our fingernails during a movie in anticipation of the bad guy jumping out from the closet.
The other “irrational fear” is something that I personally know really well. I have always had a very vivid imagination. It did not take long at all for me by the power of someone’s suggestion for my imagination to come up with what they were talking about. I remember in grade 2 the bloody Mary “trick” and everyone talking about it, had me petrified to be anywhere near a bathroom mirror in the dark. Even now it creeps me out to be in the bathroom in the total dark.
I only really have two irrational fears, that I overcome when I need to. That is Arachnophobia and Acrophobia, that is the fear of spiders and heights. Spiders just creep me out and they can bite you. I will kill them if I must, but I prefer not too. Heights however, probably have a far stronger grip on me. One time I remember skiing at Sunshine Village in the Rockies. You have to take the gondola up to get to the mountains that you can ski on. Halfway up, the gondola stops. I was fine as long as it was moving, but it just stops. Hanging in midair, Extremely high up. My dear loving brother apparently did not realize that we had stopped our competition of “scaring the other” as he started to shift side to side to make the car rock. I started to imagine the massive wire slowly start to snap and come apart. For ten minutes (seemed like eternity), the car finally started moving, and I didn’t die.
Both of those fears at various times in my life, I have confronted and faced numerous times. I have gone rappelling off a simulated helicopter skid, and side of a tower that was rated above the point of fear of heights. I have stood at the edge of cliffs, jumped off high diving boards, conquered and killed many spiders, and even stared in amazement as they ate their prey (prey that I threw in their web), even touched the leg of a tarantula.
There are hundreds of phobias, I found a list and you can find literally anything. Some of the things on that list literally blow me away, and I can not understand it at all. There are phobias handwriting, balloons, gravity, moon, mother-in-laws (completely rational if you ask me!), moon, stars etc.
Fear Quotes:
“All of us are born with a set of instinctive fears–of falling, of the dark, of lobsters, of falling on lobsters in the dark, or speaking before a Rotary Club, and of the words “Some Assembly Required.”
-Dave Barry-
“Am I afraid of high notes? Of course I am afraid. What sane man is not?”
-Luciano Pavarotti-
“Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom.”
-Marilyn Ferguson-
“What we fear comes to pass more speedily than what we hope.”
-Publilius Syrus - Moral Sayings (1st C B.C.)-
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; A good understanding have all those who do His commandments; His praise endures forever.”
-Psalms 111:10 (Cf. Job 28:28; Prov. 1:7; 9:10; 15:33 Is. 33:6; Micah 6:9)-
What does this have to do with the fear of God?
I think sometimes we read the Old Testament and read the fear of God and we read it as though this too is irrational, or we even read it as a “reverential awe”, albeit a deep “reverential awe” but it sort of stops there. This is how the word is translated and I believe that there are times when that helps with understanding, but as we explore, I believe we can come to the conclusion that it is infinitely more.
We read the New Testament and read things like Hebrews 4:16, “Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” We overemphasize this as the way to worship God and create this “buddy Jesus” image. I believe however, there is that grace but it needs to be held in tension with the realization of who God is. We read that into the Old Testament stories, and indeed the merciful, loving God of today is the merciful, loving God of yesterday.
We forget sometimes that Jesus calls us to place the fear in something very real threat in Matthew 10:28, “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”
In this blog, I would like to focus on what OT believers would have believed about the fear of God. The reason is, it comes first, and another reason is, all of a New Testament believers framework, theology and understanding of God would come from a deep knowledge of the OT, it was the only Scriptures they had. Because we have both, we tend to start from the end, and read everything into the Old. But there were a couple of things that we need to bare in mind with the writings of the Old Testament that we will take this service to explore.
The first things has to do with the worldview of the ancient person. The ancient person, no matter the religion, believed that the gods were intimately connected with everything that happened in their life. There was good reason to fear the gods, they controlled everything, weather, crops, childbearing, outcomes of military campaigns. A simple glimpse, and I admit, this is based of the very simple glimpse that I have had, nothing extensive, into the ancient Mesopotamian religions shows how much they believed the gods to be a part of their world.
This is why God was so adamant about Israel fearing only Him. This worldview covered the structure of their whole lives. Probably one of the most important passages in the OT Law, Deuteronomy 6, God emphasizes and stresses the importance of fearing only God and it is my belief that this is because of how much this worldview structured their lives. God in the law gave them the method of how to worship and fear Him.
Deut. 6:13, “You shall fear only the LORD your God; and you shall worship Him and swear by His name. You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you, for the LORD your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; otherwise the anger of the LORD your God will be kindled against you, and He will wipe you off the face of the earth.”
Deut. 6:24-25, talks about confronting the worldview about the control and the importance for having fear of God, “So the LORD commanded us to observe all these statues, to fear the LORD our God for our good always and for our survival, as it is today. It will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all this commandment before the LORD our God, just as He commanded us.”
I think it could be argued that in this way we can gain a “reverential awe” that deep devotion of worship of ensuring that you obey so your life goes well. I think this is very easy for us to understand. It makes sense for us to devote our lives to obedience and recognize the importance of reliance on God and the forsaking of “other gods.”
There were a number of examples of this fear of God, motivating people to serve God, Abraham is described as fearing God, Joseph says that he fears God, the midwives who saved Israelite babies were described as fearing God, Job, and other leaders were judged on their merit of being righteous based on where their fear laid, in God or other gods.
Is that it? Is that as far as it goes? I don’t think so. I think if it stopped there, there would be no difference in the religions. A person could just be more devoted to following the rules better and if things didn’t go well, well, I suppose we just didn’t worship properly or hard enough. If things went well, then we worshiped God well. Why did God demand fear for His Holy name? Because it was not just a means of changing a whole worldview, it was also a what happened when He revealed Himself.
There is within the OT fascinating accounts of people meeting and talking with God. In nearly every encounter with God the commandment is “Do not fear”. Why? What is it about God that inspires fear? I’ll be honest with you, I am not completely sure, there have only one time when I felt complete fear during worship of God. But certainly not to the level that is recorded in the OT.
The first story I will begin with has to do with Moses. Part of the reason why the fear of God is more then a reverential awe, is because of the complete holiness of God.
Think of it, you have just experienced and witnessed plagues to a terrible nature that devastated Egypt, they have witness destruction of an entire army. Now as Moses is receiving the Law, God appears in thunder and lightening, smoke and fire, people cannot cross a certain point or else they will die. The elders and the people had no desire to go talk with God and were perfectly happy to allow Moses to talk with God because they were so fearful of Him. God warned them that they would die, if they were to come up and cross the boundaries that He set (Ex. 19:18-25).
God sets up the whole structure of how He is to be worshipped (in the tabernacle, how it was to be set-up, taken care of, and how they were to camp around it), how He is to be enquired of in every way, rules for conquering, nearly every aspect of life, God covers. Moses is gone for 40 days and already the people are breaking the commandments, worship of a golden calf. God tells Moses that He wants to destroy the whole nation and start again with Moses, (it was only because of Moses entreaty that He did not destroy the whole nation Ex. 32:11-14). There is this interesting narrative of Moses having to intercede for the nation. Would God actually destroy them? I don’t know. Is He capable of it? Absolutely. Also, every time Moses went before the Lord, he would come back glowing and had to wear a veil, because it frightened everyone around him.
There is the story of Nadab and Abihu in Lev. 10. All that is said is that they “offered strange fire before the LORD which He had not commanded.” God consumed them with fire. Now consider this, Numbers 11, people complain, and God sends out a fire that kills them. If you look through the whole narrative of Israel within the desert you will find many times that God punishes them in real tangible ways. This begs the question, why did they continue in this cycle when they had tangible methods of punishment? I’ll be honest. I don’t really know. There were harsh punishments. Brutal deaths, leprosy, snakes, earth swallowing people, fire consuming them from the very sanctuary of the tabernacle. When you read through Revelation we have a picture of the exact same cyclical behaviour, through intense judgments and harsh times, people still refuse to acknowledge God as the one ultimately in control.
Now continuing on through the OT, I want to look briefly at Rahab. She talks to the spies of, “terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you.” (Josh 2:9) She talks about this fear, and it seems logical to me to assume that she also feared. Notice, Josh 2:11, “When we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you; for the LORD your God, He is the God in heaven above and on earth beneath.” She asks for safety and she is granted it. She talks of this intense fear that motivates her to risk her life in saving the spies and sheltering them, and it motivates her to acknowledge God.
Now I just would like to show you some people who have feared for their lives when they realize that they have “seen” God. Gideon Judges 6:22, “Alas, O LORD GOD! For now I have seen the angel of the LORD and face to face.” Samson’s parents had an encounter with the “angel of the LORD” in Judges 13, and when they realized who he was, they began to tremble and thought they were to die. When God talks to Job, He talks to Him in such a manner that commands respect. He talks of having complete control of the universe. Job’s reply has a sort of sinking feeling to it, a deep apology. In Isaiah 6, Isaiah’s response is such that he feels ruined for having seen God (Is. 6:5), Ezekiel falls on his face before God when he seems Him in a vision (Ezekiel 1:28), Daniel has a vision that not only terrifies him, but the other “seers” around him, so much so that Daniel has an adverse reaction that causes him to faint, and “sleep” (Daniel 10), the sailors that were with Jonah once they saw who controlled the storm, they, “feared the LORD greatly” (Jonah 1:15-16).
So what?
In every case with exception of Samson’s parents and the sailors in the Jonah story, God allowed these people to experience that terrifying fear first. That fear and recognition that says, I should be dead. There is no reason why I am alive right now. How many people have been in accidents, or situations where it was only afterwards, that you started to shake when you realized how close you actually were to dying? I had that experience when I had my car crash two years ago. At first I was just mad that my car wasn’t able to go anywhere, and I had no idea what to do. But as I started to look around, when I realized how close I was to a major bridge and river, how steep the ditch was, and all the things that could have happened, I really began to shake. When God hid His appearance to people, and later they realized who it was, I believe it was that same reaction.
The cases when they actually saw God for who He was in visions, there was a literally petrified, a feeling of terror, not reverential awe. We experience reverential awe when we look at creation, when we look at amazing church buildings, when we see and incredible sunset, the power of a storm, the prairie night sky lit up from stars and northern lights, when we see the works of God, we have a reverential awe for Him. I firmly believe that the precedence set forth from Scriptures is when people are actually in the presence of God it is somehow more then reverential awe.