Reasons to Fear God
from duty, "I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground" (Matthew 25:25).
But there is also a fear of diligence. A Christian fears—and prays; fears—and repents. Fear quickens industry. The spouse, fearing lest the bridegroom should come before she is dressed, hastens and puts on her jewels, that she may be ready to meet him. Fear causes a watchful eye—and a working hand. Fear banishes sloth out of its diocese. "The greatest labor in true religion," says holy fear, "is far less than the least pain the damned feel in hell." There is no greater spur in the heavenly race—than the fear of God.
Reasons to Fear God Includes the following:
1. God's eye is always upon us. He who is under the eye of his earthly prince, will he careful of doing anything which would offend him. "Does He not see my ways and number all my steps?" (Job
31:4). God sees in the dark: "Even the darkness is not dark to You.
The night shines like the day; darkness and light are alike to You"
(Psalm 139:12). The night is no curtain, the clouds are no canopy—to hinder or intercept God's sight. God sees the heart. An earthly judge can judge of the fact—but God judges of the heart. "I, the Lord, examine the mind, I test the heart!" (Jeremiah 17:10). He is like
Ezekiel's wheels, "full of eyes." God is all eye! Should not this make us walk with fear and circumspection? We cannot sin—but our judge looks on!
2. God interprets our not fearing of Him—as a slighting of Him. As not to praise God is to wrong him—so not to fear God is to slight him. Of all things, a person can least endure to he slighted:
"Why has the wicked despised God?" (Psalm 10:13). For a worm to slight its Maker causes the fury to rise up in God's face! "My fury will flare up!" (Ezekiel 38:18).
3. God has power to destroy us. "Fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell!" (Matthew 10:28). God can look us into our grave—and with a breath blow us into hell—and shall we not fear him! Is it easy to wrestle with flames? "Who knows the power of his anger!" (Psalm 90:11). What engines or buckets can quench the infernal fire of hell? We are apt to fear men who may try to hurt us— but what is their power compared to God's power? They threaten a prison, God threatens hell. They threaten our life, God threatens our soul—and shall we not tremble before him! Oh, how dreadful, when the great fountains of God's wrath shall be broken up, and all his bitter vials poured out! "Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong, in the day that I shall deal with you!" (Ezekiel 22:14)
Objection: But are not we bidden to serve God without fear?
(Luke 1:74) Answer. We must not fear God with such a fear, as the wicked do.
They fear him as a Turkish slave does his master; they fear him in such a way as to hate him—and wish there were no God! We must not serve God with this hellish fear—but we must serve him with a sincere filial fear, sweetened with love.
Use 1. Refutation. This refutes the Papists who hold that a Christian cannot have assurance, because he is to serve God with fear. Assurance and fear are different—but not contrary. A child may have assurance of his father's love—yet a fear of offending him. Who was more fearful of sin than Paul? (1 Cor. 9:27) Yet who had more assurance? "Christ, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Gal.
2:20). Faith procures assurance (Eph. 1:13) fear preserves assurance.
Use 2. Instruction. It is a Christian duty to fear God. What strangers, then, are they to true religion—who are void of this holy fear! The godly fear—and sin not. The wicked sin—and fear not.
They are like the Leviathan, who is "made without fear" (Job 41:33).
Lack of the fear of God is the innate cause of all wickedness: "Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood" (Romans 3:14-15). Why was this? "There is no fear of God before their eyes!" (verse 18).
Abraham surmised that the men of Gerar would stick at no sin. Why so? "I thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place" (Gen.
20:11). The judge in the Gospel is called an unjust judge (Luke 18:6); and no wonder, for he "had no fear of God" (verse 2). There must be an excess of sin, where there the fear of God is lacking to restrain it.
The water must overflow, where there are no banks to keep it out.
We live in a godless age; would men dare to sin at the rate they do—if the fear of God were ruling in their hearts? Would they dare to swear, be immoral, use false weights, bear false witness, hate purity, deride
God, forge plots, persecute Christ's body—if they had the fear of God before their eyes? These men proclaim to the world that they are atheists; they do not believe in the immortality of the soul. They are worse than brutish—a beast fears the fire—but these fear not hellfire! They are worse than devils, for the devils "believe and tremble"
(James 2:19).
Use 3. Lamentation. Let us bewail the lack of the fear of God in our world. Why is it that so few fear God?
1. Men do not fear God—because they have not the knowledge of God. "They hated knowledge, and did not choose
the fear of the Lord" (Proverbs 1:29). Every sin is founded in ignorance of God. If only men knew God in his immense glory, they would be swallowed up with divine amazement. When the prophet
Isaiah had a glimpse of God's glory, he was struck with holy consternation: "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty!" (Isaiah 6:6). Ignorance of God, banishes the fear of God.
2. Men do not fear God—because they presume on his mercy. God is merciful, and they do not doubt of the virtue of this sovereign balm. But who is God's mercy for? "His mercy extends to those who fear him" (Luke 1:50). Such as do not fear God's justice— shall not taste his mercy.
Let this be "for a lamentation", that the fear of God is so vanished from our world. Why is it almost nowhere to be found? Some fear shame, others fear danger—but where is he who fears God?
And not only among the generality of people—but even among professing Christians, how few fear God in truth! Profession is often made a cloak to cover sin. Absalom palliated his treason with a religious vow (2 Samuel 15:7). The Pharisees made long prayer a cloak for oppression (Matt. 23:14). This is sordid—to carry on wicked designs—under a mask of piety. The snow covers many a dunghill. A snowy white profession covers many a foul heart! The sins of professors are more odious. Thistles are bad in a field—but worse in a garden. The sins of the wicked anger God—but the sins of professing Christians grieve him.
Use 4. Reproof.
1. This reproves jovial sinners, who are so far from fearing God, that they spend their time in mirth and wantonness!
"People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all!" (Luke 17:27). There is a place in Africa called
Timbuktu, where the inhabitants spend all the day in playing and dancing. What sensual, jovial lives do the gallants of our age live!
They spend their life in a frolic, as if God had made them to be like the leviathan who plays in the sea. "They sing with tambourine and harp. They make merry to the sound of the flute." (Job 21:12). They ride to hell upon the back of pleasure, and go merrily to damnation!
Does not God call us to trembling? Our sins presage evil. May not we fear that "the glory is departing"? May not we fear the death of true religion before the birth of reformation? May not we fear that some momentous calamity should bring up the fear of former judgments?
As the prophet Ezekiel says, "Should we then make mirth?" (Ezekiel 21:10). But jovial spirits have banished the fear of God.
"How terrible it will be for you who sprawl on ivory beds surrounded with luxury, eating the meat of tender lambs and choice calves. You sing idle songs to the sound of the harp!" (Amos 6:4,5). Sinners whose hearts are hardened with soft pleasures, let them have their lusts—but farewell Christ and his gospel. "They feast without fear"
(Jude 12.). But they forget death will bring in the reckoning, and they must pay the reckoning in hell-fire! The Turkish sultan, when he intends the death of any of his minions, invites them to sumptuous feast, and then causes them to he taken away from the table and strangled. Just so, Satan gluts men with sinful pastimes and delights, and then strangles them! Foolish pleasure-lovers are like the fish that swim pleasantly through the silver streams of Jordan, until at last they fall into the Dead Sea. "Those who want to be rich fall into
temptation, a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction!" (1 Tim. 6:9).
2. This reproves secure sinners who have no fear of God.
Like Laish of old, they are "a secure people" (Judges 18:27). Those who are least safe—are most confident! Carnal security throws men into a deep sleep. Birds which roost in steeples, being used to the continual ringing of bells, the noise does not at all disturb them. So sinners who have been long used to the sound of Aaron's bells, though now and then they have a peal rung out against their sins yet, being used to it, they are not startled at all. A carnally secure sinner is known thus: a. He lives as had as the worst, yet hopes to be saved as well as the best. "I am safe, even though I am walking in my own stubborn way." (Deut. 29:19). This is as if a man should drink poison
—yet believe that he shall have his health. A secure sinner now lies in Delilah's lap—yet hopes to some day lie in Abraham's bosom! b. A secure sinner thinks all is well, because all is in peace.
He hears others speak of a "spirit of bondage", and the terrors they have felt for sin—yet he thanks God that he never knew what trouble of spirit meant; he thinks his conscience is good, because it is quiet.
When the devil keeps the palace—all is in peace" (Luke 11:12).
Ungrounded peace presages an earthquake in the conscience. c. A secure sinner is careless about his soul. The soul is the princely part, which is crowned with reason. A secure sinner provides for his body—but neglects his soul. He is like one who waters his flowers—but never minds his jewels. Behold here a secure person, who is in a spiritual lethargy; he has no sense of the life to come; he is destitute of the fear of God.