Fear of the Lord
One of the seemingly confusing concepts in Scripture is the fear of the Lord. If God loves and cares for us, how could we fear Him, and why would we need to?
This week, Janet and Jocelyn explore what it means to fear the Lord by examining the Scriptures. They discuss how we often fear many things in life, and how these fears can be misplaced. The ladies guide us to understand why fearing the Lord actually leads us to find hope in Him.
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Transcript:
Jocelyn: I don't just need to feel better. I need the truth. And ultimately that will make me better.
Janet: I just want to make it as totally simple as possible for ladies to see that the Bible is really applicable to their everyday life.
Jocelyn: When they understand theology, the application flows out of it quickly with joy.
Janet: It is a journey, but even the journey itself is joyful when I'm doing it, holding the hand of my savior and trusting him all along the way. This is the joyful journey podcast, a podcast to inspire and equip women to passionately pursue beautiful biblical truth on their journey as women of God. When you choose truth, you're choosing joy.
Janet: Welcome back listeners, Janet, once again with my trustee, co-host, Jocelyn.
Jocelyn: Hey, friends.
Janet: And today we're gonna be talking about a phrase that many of us use, but that might be actually hard for us to define. Of course we use it anyway, right? It doesn't stop us. But it would be really helpful if we understood what we were talking about. We know it's important, but there are so many biblical concepts that are hard for us to actually understand.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: So today's concept is the fear of the Lord or fear of God. I know Proverbs tells me it's the beginning of wisdom. I know it's very important, but what is it and how do I grow in it? So Jocelyn, when you hear the phrase fear of the Lord or fear of God, what do you think of?
Jocelyn: I think of the Old Testament in the wilderness when Moses was invited by the Lord to have everyone clear the mountain. And they had to put a fence up so no animals even got on the mountain. And they stood there and watched the thunder and lightning on the top of the mountain, just like everyone was trembling and trembling with fear. When I think of the fear of the Lord, I think that like very close to annihilation.
Janet: And that's what they knew. If they touched the mountain.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: They would be annihilated. And there is truth to that. Is that the full concept that we should think about? So that's fascinating. Probably a lot of us are like, I know I'm supposed to fear the Lord and it's terrifying. Whatever that is. So if we're gonna understand it, we do need to understand different nuances of the word, fear. I did read a transcript of Tim Keller's sermon called, "Anatomy of Sin: Part One".
Jocelyn: Interesting.
Janet: And he talks about the fear of the Lord, and it really did help me. So you're gonna,
Jocelyn: Oh, that's cool.
Jocelyn: Some of that's gonna be in this.
Jocelyn: I love Tim Keller.
Janet: Yeah, it was very helpful sermon. I've said in the past, which is true that fear is what we orient our lives around. And I've said that, you've probably heard, if you've listened to this podcast much, I'm afraid of spiders. When I see one on the wall, it's so funny, this happened about two or three weeks ago. Brent was in the shower, you hate to bother him, and I was out doing my bible time and I'm in the kitchen and I looked up and I saw above our porch door at this little bug spider thing. And at first I'm like, what? Oh, that's a spider. And I'm thinking it's way over there. It's not a big deal. Go back to reading your Bible and I'm telling you, every five seconds I was looking up, I need it to stay there because I need to know where it is so Brent can kill it.
Jocelyn: That's so funny because just today I was struggling. Brian was home in the middle of the day, which is not normal. and I ate lunch and then I was like, I need you to pray for me. And so he's let's just pray right now. So we prayed opened your eyes and there was a spider on the counter right in front of us and Brian was like, oh look, a spider wants to talk to Jesus too.
Janet: Yeah, that's not how I feel about that. I can't talk to Jesus with it there. So I was like, Lord, is okay and I kept looking and every time I looked it had moved a little, but if I stared at it, it didn't move. So I'm like, if I stare at you, you don't move. But as soon as I look down and look back, it's moved a little. So.
Jocelyn: How do you handle the Lord of the Rings part where they go into those giant, that giant spider?
Janet: I go to the bathroom. I do, I get up, and leave the room. Brent's always going, you can stay. I'm like
Jocelyn: no. Actually, no.
Janet: I'll be back. I'll be back. So It was a fear that oriented my life around it. That's all I could think about. And there's truth to that. Keller says this way, fear absorbs you. It obsesses you with an object, so you can't do anything except with reference to it. That was me at that point. I can't do anything except with reference to where is it?
Jocelyn: That's so interesting.
Janet: And Brent needs to get it. So there's that level of fear. First John 4:18 talks about a different kind of fear that involves punishment.
Jocelyn: Oh, yeah.
Janet: He says there is no fear and love. Instead, perfect love drives out fear because fear involves punishment. So this kind of fear cannot exist with love. This kind of fear is the anticipation of pain.
Jocelyn: Oh, interesting.
Janet: According to Keller.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: You're anticipating pain or you're anticipating punishment.
Jocelyn: So no wonder you're afraid, you know what's coming.
Janet: Yes.
Jocelyn: Like my dad would say, just you wait till we get home. You're getting spanking.
Janet: Yes, there's a fear of what's coming. And so again, in this kind of fear, you're focusing on it You're orienting around it. And in a future episode we're gonna be talking about the fear of man which it says brings a snare and that kind of fear of punishment from other men or whatever I think that's gonna be it cannot exist with love
Jocelyn: That's so interesting I can't wait to learn more about that with you
Janet: But the fear of the Lord is different. Listen to these verses This was fascinating to me Proverbs 28:14, happy is the one who fears always.
Jocelyn: That's crazy.
Janet: And you don't think about that.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: With the other kinds of fears I just talked about. Psalm 130:4, because you've forgiven my sins, I fear you. It's not like I fear you because you haven't.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: Because I know I'm completely forgiven. I fear you. In this case, to quote Keller, he says it's an inward condition of delight in the magnitude of who He is. It obviously doesn't involve punishment at all.
Jocelyn: That's what I was just thinking that's not the fear of pain or fear of punishment.
Janet: No. I fear God because he's forgiven. Listen to some of these other additional verses about fearing the Lord and what it leads to, and then we'll talk about how they connect all the fears. Proverbs 19:23, the fear of the Lord leads to life. One will sleep at night without danger.
Jocelyn: Wow, I love that passage.
Janet: No fear at night of even the things that I might typically fear if I fear the Lord. Proverbs 22:14, humility, the fear of the Lord, results in wealth, honor, and life. Proverbs 14:26-27, in the fear of the Lord, one has strong confidence and his children have a refuge in it. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life turning people away from the snares of death. And Proverbs 15:16, better a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure with turmoil. So somehow fear of the Lord is being contrasted with turmoil.
Jocelyn: That's cool.
Janet: It's the opposite of turmoil.
Jocelyn: Yeah. That's neat.
Janet: And I think for some people, the fear of the Lord is turmoil.
Jocelyn: Yeah. It causes turmoil.
Janet: And it's the opposite. Isaiah 33: 6 says, there will be times of security for you. A storehouse of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge. The fear of the Lord is Zion's treasure. It led to security, wisdom, and salvation.
Jocelyn: Wow. Cool.
Janet: And then Deuteronomy 6:2, he's telling them how to live and he says, do this so that you may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life by keeping all His statutes and commandments I've given you, your son, and your grandson, so that you may have a long life. Orienting around God's commands brings a long life.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: Deuteronomy 6:24, the Lord commanded us to follow all these statutes and to fear the Lord our God, for our prosperity and also for our preservation. And Psalm 19:9, the fear of the Lord is pure enduring forever. In that same Psalm, in verse seven, we're told the instruction of the Lord leads to wisdom. We see that connection to wisdom also clearly in Proverbs 1:7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and discipline. So in this way, we are orienting our lives around the right things. Around the right one.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: And according to Proverbs, it helps us wisely navigate life. We will see the ways and paths that God has made. We're gonna see where they lead and we're gonna choose wisely. . The fear of the Lord leads to life and confidence and joy and happiness.
Jocelyn: That's so cool.
Janet: Yeah. Keller says it this way, the fear of the Lord means He is absolutely central.
Jocelyn: Yes.
Janet: So for me, when I fear a spider. And the spider is absolutely central. I fear punishment. It paralyzes me and I can't do what I need to do. I don't have confidence. I have the opposite.
Jocelyn: Yeah, the opposite. Yeah. Definitely.
Janet: The fear of the Lord, when He is central and I can do nothing without reference to Him, it leads to the opposite. There's nothing you can possibly do or think without reference to His glory, His greatness, His love, and His power. This can help us see why fearing anything above God is what is ultimately leading me to sin.
Jocelyn: Yeah, absolutely, because you orient your life around it.
Janet: Yes. Listen to Jeremiah 2:19. Your own evil will discipline you. Your own apostates will reprimand you. Recognize how evil and bitter it is for you to do what? Abandon the Lord your God and have no fear of me. It was having no awe.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: Or fear of God. That's what led to their evil. The essence of sin. No awe of God.
Jocelyn: Yeah because if you had awe of God, you would agree that His way is best and you would think that it's good for you and so you would obey Him.
Janet: Yes. So instead of having an awe of God, I'll have an awe of something or someone else.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: Keller puts it this way, whenever you sin in a particular way, at that point, you're holding something in more awe than you're holding God in. Something you find more wonderful than God. Something more dynamic than God. Something more captivating than God. Something more awesome than God.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: So I am fearing a spider, or fearing man, which leads to a snare, which involves punishment, which is the opposite of love, but fearing God because it's the right object. His character and His power leads to all that I'm really wanting.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: Confidence and joy and all of those things. When I was thinking about this episode a few months ago, I was reading in Jeremiah at the time, and I was struck by how this played itself out in chapters 42 and 43. So at this point in history, Israel's been taken over by Babylon and Jeremiah, the prophet, who had already warned them about this.
Jocelyn: Yeah. Multiple times.
Janet: And the people wouldn't repent.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: He's still in Judah when this happens.
Jocelyn: Okay.
Janet: There's still more sin and murder after this. It's a long story. But I'm trying to encapsulate. Babylon left a leader in charge of all the people he left behind, and that leader, that Babylon left in charge others in Israel assassinated him.
Jocelyn: Yeah. Good times.
Janet: So now they are fearing.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: That Babylon's gonna be angry with them.
Jocelyn: They should.
Janet: Yeah. And gonna kill the ones who are left. They're like, oh my word. Now what? So the commanders of the armies that are left now, they go to Jeremiah and they say, what should we do? Of course they haven't listened to him up to this point, but you think, okay, now they're realizing everything Jeremiah said happened. So this seems really good and wise to finally go to him and say, okay, now what do we do? Finally, they're gonna listen to the prophet. Here's what they actually say in Jeremiah 42:2, may our petition come before you pray to the Lord your God on our behalf, on behalf of this entire remnant. For the few of us remain out of the many as you can see with your own eyes. Pray that the Lord your God, may tell us the way we should go and the thing we should do. Excellent.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: So far, so good. They're afraid. They fear and they're asking God, what should we do? In verse five, they go on to say this, may the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us. If we don't act according to every word, the Lord your God sends you to tell us.
Jocelyn: Whoa.
Janet: Whether it's pleasant or unpleasant, we will obey the Lord your God, to whom we're sending you, so that it may go well with us. We will certainly obey the Lord Our God.
Jocelyn: Sounds good.
Janet: I know. Even better and like how many times could they say that?
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: Whatever he tells us to do.
Jocelyn: We're ready.
Janet: We're gonna do it. Okay, Jeremiah hears from the Lord and in verse nine. Here's what the Lord says, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to bring your petition before Him, if you will indeed stay in this land. So that's what He tells them to do.
Jocelyn: Okay.
Janet: Then I will rebuild and not demolish you. I will plant and not uproot you because I relent concerning the disaster I've brought on you. Don't be afraid of the King of Babylon, whom you now fear. Don't be afraid of him. This is the Lord's Declaration because I am with you to save you and rescue you from him.
Jocelyn: Wow.
Janet: I will grant you compassion and he will have compassion on you and allow you to return to your own soil. But if you say, we will not stay in the land in order to disobey the Lord your God. And if you say no, instead we'll go to the land of Egypt where we will not see war or hear the sound of the rams horn basically fleeing where they don't have to fear Babylon war. Or we'll go where we won't have to hunger for food and we'll live there. Then hear the word of the Lord remnant of Judah. This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel says, if you are firmly resolved to go to Egypt and stay there for a while, then the sword you fear will overtake you there in the land of Egypt and the famine you're worried about will follow on your heels there to Egypt and you'll die there. All who resolve to go to Egypt to stay there for a while will die by the sword, famine, and plague. They will have no survivor or fugitive from the disaster I bring on them. Could God be any clearer?
Jocelyn: Oh, it's pretty clear to me.
Janet: So He's saying to them. Choose who you're gonna fear.
Jocelyn: Yeah, definitely.
Janet: If you fear Babylon and you run away, it's gonna be bad.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: But if you will fear me, orient around me, you're gonna prosper. What do they do? Listen to their response in Jeremiah 43, 2, you're speaking a lie. The Lord our God hasn't sent you to say, you must not go to Egypt to stay there for a while. Rather, Baruch son of Neriah is inciting you against us to hand us over to the Chaldeans to put us to death or deport us to Babylon.
Jocelyn: Goodness.
Janet: You hear that?
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: Catch the instances to fear their wrong fear. Led them to stubborn rebellion and destruction. They couldn't believe God would actually say to stay and face their fear by fearing him.
Jocelyn: That's interesting.
Janet: Even though they'd seen Jeremiah's predictions all come true, even though they said, whatever he tells you to do, we're gonna do, they chose to believe Jeremiah was lying rather than face their fear.
Jocelyn: Wow.
Janet: This sin started with a wrong fear.
Jocelyn: That's a really helpful story to hear because that's, it can seem like a difficult passage to understand and that is saying a big story. They sinned by having the wrong fear.
Janet: Yeah. A lack of an awe of God and a greater awe of the Babylonians, and they
Jocelyn: oriented their life around it.
Janet: Yes. We're willing to now be irrational. You must be lying. Jeremiah hadn't lied to this whole time and
Jocelyn: they just got done saying whatever God says we will do. Yeah.
Janet: So now I tell myself I'm not going against God. You must be lying. I'll say whatever I have to say to justify whatever I wanna do when I fear something else other than God.
Jocelyn: Yes. Yes.
Janet: And so it, it's a snare. Fear is not the problem. It's wrong fear. Here's how Keller puts it when you worry. You're more in awe of the power of some factor than you are in the power of God.
Jocelyn: Oh, that's helpful.
Janet: When you're guilty, you're more in awe of the power of your sin than you are in the magnitude and power of his grace.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: When you're in self-pity, you're more in awe of some great benefit, which you lost than you are in his mercies.
Jocelyn: Whoa, wow.
Janet: When you're sure that everything is going wrong in your life, you're more in awe of your own wisdom than you are of his wisdom at the moment.
Jocelyn: Wow.
Janet: Isn't that, ouch.
Jocelyn: Yeah. That's really powerful
Janet: And it's painful, but there's so much hope there. Because when I fear God, it leads to confidence, joy, and boldness.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: When I orient around lesser things. It destroys me. Here's how he describes what the fear of the Lord looks like in these situations. Your worries are gone when you see him as more awesome than any factor in your life. Your guilt is gone when you see his. Grace is more awesome than any sin in your life. Your self pity's gone when you see his mercies are as more awesome than any missing factor in your life. Your anger is gone. When you see God's wisdom is more awesome than any of your wisdom and any of your little agendas for your life. And if you come out of this saying I'm so wicked and I'm so evil and I'm so bad, why would God have me? Here's the one thing that you're not in awe enough about His grace.
Jocelyn: Wow, that is really powerful. Yes, really powerful.
Janet: Yes. I've been reading through the Bible with some friends and we're using Paul trips everyday gospel, and on January 13th he said this. There's a connection between the depth of our fear of God and the strength of our resistance against temptation.
Jocelyn: That's true.
Janet: When fear, life shaping awe of the Lord rules our hearts, we will resist temptation no matter what the consequences of our resistance may be. Look at the confidence and boldness that comes from it.
Jocelyn: Yeah. Yeah.
Janet: Then he says, may we cry out for grace to fear the Lord more than we fear, man, may we pray for help so that we would love our Lord more than we love a comfortable life. And may we believe that hardships that come because we have said no to sin, are never the end of the story. And I look at that and say, that is a life oriented around the fear of the Lord.
Jocelyn: Absolutely.
Janet: And it just exudes confidence, joy, humility, purpose. The fear of the Lord invigorates me and gives me life as I orient around him. The fear of anything else is paralyzing. And I think some of our problem with understanding the fear of the Lord is we think when I fear this other thing now I'm supposed to feel that same way as I fear God and fearing God has the opposite result of fearing a spider.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: Or fearing man.
Jocelyn: Yeah, I'm just really ruminating on the what do we orient our life around. When you're fearing it, you're orienting your whole life around it. And I think about how much I've feared not having people happy with me in the past.
Janet: Oh, me too.
Jocelyn: Like my whole life is oriented. I think about it all the time. Yeah. I worry about it. I,
Janet: how did I say that? Yeah. Did they hear that wrong?
Jocelyn: I replay it in my head. Yeah. Like I plan better, and it's so like I can have the self-control necessary to have them leave with a good opinion of me. When really the problem is. I was orienting my life around the entirely wrong thing. And that fear enslaved me and a fear to of the Lord will free me. It's just such an opposite.
Janet: Yes. I'm hoping that's at least a start for us to begin to say, when you read the fear of the Lord's the beginning of wisdom, it doesn't mean the trembling. It's the orienting around the awe of him. And if he's, because he's who he says he is. It only leads to confidence.
Jocelyn: Yes.
Janet: And joy. All the things I want. Come from fearing the Lord. Happy is the one who fears always.
Jocelyn: Yes.
Janet: The right things.
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Host Janet and her husband, Brent, also speak at a variety of conferences as a way to raise money for the seminary. If you want to look at what they offer or book them for a conference, go to their website.
