3) The Fear of the Lord

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We live in a time of unparalleled knowledge: practically anything we would like to know is available via the search option on our phone or laptop. No longer are we reliant on libraries filled with books or on knowledgeable people to teach us what they alone know. However, we do still need help to interpret that available knowledge. We have all become familiar now with concepts such as “fake news”. We might add to that “manipulated or restricted facts”: that is only being given biased information. We could perhaps include a category of “false facts”; but as facts, by definition, cannot be false, perhaps we should just refer to them as lies! So, we do need help in sorting out the true from the false.

gullible

But the irony is that despite swimming in knowledge, modern people have an amazing capacity to be fools. This is what makes wisdom so important: wisdom delivers us from the grip of foolishness and the influence of fools. Despite our education, we can still be easily duped. When one of the latest smartphones was unveiled, some clown announced online that it was waterproof. Admittedly, it was made to be less easily ruined if accidentally wetted. But this deception claimed the phone was waterproof and that you put it in a sink of water, and it would still work afterwards! Many new phones were ruined by purchasers who were unwise and gullible.

In 1999, a new fossil was “discovered” in China and announced by the National Geographic Magazine. It was presented as the missing link between dinosaurs and birds. In fact, some joker had combined the fossil of a bird’s body and the fossil tail of a dinosaur. It was a hoax which took in even very educated and intelligent people. Is this kind of thing happening just because we have given up on “common sense”? Or even because we are so educated? Is it, as Dr Ian McGilchrist suggests, that we are being taught to use just one side of our brains when analysing the world around us, rather than ensuring that both sides work in harmony? Or is it simply that we lack wisdom and are becoming self-deceived fools?

fear

Here is the bible’s take on this conundrum:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. (Psalm 111:10)

Put another way, God who created us, and knows how best we function, is telling us that knowledge, understanding, instruction and indeed ideas, must be rooted in wisdom; and this wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord.

Fear is an important part of our human experience; and of course, there are different types of fear. For instance, I try to remember to test the smoke alarm once a week. The fear of a house fire is a very considered fear. Although I have no personal experience of being in a house fire, I once worked with a colleague who had; her fear was still palpable whenever she mentioned it. As it happens, my daughter’s flat was once burnt out in the night due to a fire. My point is that fear of a house fire is a worthwhile fear; and one worth taking account of.

respect

I have dealt in more detail with the different aspects of fear in the Living with Mystery Podcast numbers 37 and 56. I won’t go over this ground again. But the greatest positive aspect of fear is possessing the fear of the Lord. It is positive because it gives respect where respect is due. It is the fear of the One who will judge everyone:

‘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 your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. (Luke 12:4-5)

These are the words of Jesus; and He should know the truth of what He says!

But the fear of the Lord is also the response of loving hearts to Someone who is both above sin, but also shows mercy and forgives sin:

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us …

But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children – with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts. (Psalm 103:11-18)

So, we see here that God’s love is conditional: it is forgiving and gracious to those who fear Him and who obey His commandments.

futile

This treatise on Wisdom is not an apologetic. I am not intending to justify the fear of the Lord against accusations that somehow love does away with the need for fear: I have covered that in the Podcasts. What I am seeking to show is that wisdom is a foundational human experience. It is wisdom that unlocks the riches of divine truth. But real wisdom is only given where there is the fear of the Lord. When this fear is absent, then people’s ideas will not be infused with divine truth; they will be only “human truth”! Sometimes this “human truth” will be benign and relatively harmless. For instance, should we be strict vegetarians or eat meat? Sometimes “human truth” is pernicious and destructive such as practices which deconstruct the family.

Those who will not fear the Lord divorce themselves from His divine influence. This has a corrupting effect on human thinking:

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. (Romans 1:21-23)

This passage was describing the pagan worship of idols. Although we do not make physical idols to worship now, we still become devoted to images. We worship the image of a perfect body. This is despite the fact societies have had different ideas of what constitutes a “perfect body” over the centuries. This exchange from a focus on what God is like – His immortal glory – to focusing on our own body image is a journey to nowhere. This is so obvious as to hardly need mentioning: we all age – gravity and entropy slowly get the better of us – we sag, we stoop, we wrinkle, we die! None of this happens to God who is gloriously immortal.

Ignorance

In Ephesians, Paul enlarges on this problem of futile thinking:

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed. (Ephesians 4:17-19)

The reference to Gentiles is interesting. It was supposed that the Law of Moses would produce a people who feared the Lord and were ruled by wisdom. However, some of them did not fear the Lord and indulged in the futility of idol worship like those who did not know God’s Law.

There are two important observations from this passage. Firstly, there is the ignorance which comes from ignoring God and the hardening of the heart. Secondly, there is the consequence of this ignorance leading people into sensuality, greed and indulgence. This chapter in Ephesians lists many examples of these things. We see them in our society now. The significant thing is that such indulgence is praised by the world as being a good expression of “human wisdom”. In fact, it is the road to the destruction of wholesome human living. As the apostle writes, they have lost “sensitivity”. This word has the meaning of being callous or having no sense of shame. I’m sure you have observed for yourself examples of behaviour in our ungodly society which is shamelessly indulgent .

But some of Israel, who were God’s own special people, also failed to fear the Lord even though, of all people, they should have known how important it was. The prophet Malachi highlighted this conflict:

“You have spoken arrogantly against me,” says the Lord. “Yet you ask, ‘What have we said against you?’ “You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What do we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly evildoers prosper, and even when they put God to the test, they get away with it.’”
Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honoured his name.
“On the day when I act,” says the Lord Almighty, “they will be my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not. (Malachi 3:13-18)

Even God’s people could be bewitched by “human wisdom”. They thought those who did not fear the Lord (the arrogant) were blessed just because they prospered in worldly terms and were not immediately judged.

But the prophet reveals God’s mind and thoughts. Those who feared Him were His true treasured possession. In the final judgment, this difference between the righteous and the wicked will become apparent. But even before then a distinction can be seen in people who live in the wisdom of the Lord and whose lives thus prosper spiritually.

knowledge

To finish, here is a verse from Proverbs:

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

This is because, as well as wisdom, we need to think about the importance of “knowledge” and “instruction”.

Again in Ephesians we find help to understand this. Paul wrote:

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. (Ephesians 1:17)

Wisdom enables us to know God in a personal, revelatory way. That is, the fear of the Lord paves the way to the knowledge of the Lord.

In fact, there are three kinds of knowledge; what I am calling:

Trivial knowledge
Valuable knowledge
Vital knowledge

Trivial knowledge is what we are fed moment after moment in the Western world. There is celebrity gossip. There are endless videos. There is information about sports results or the latest fashion.

Valuable knowledge comprises information which helps us construct our lives from day to day. How to be healthy; social skills which help us to relate to other people; financial, travel or weather information. In times past, of course, valuable knowledge would have been how to light a fire from scratch; or how to kill and dress animals for food. In the Old Testament Law, there was much valuable knowledge included in God’s instructions to His people. This would include not least restrictive food laws to help them avoid food poisoning. Or something as basic as how to go to the toilet in a hygienic way [Deuteronomy 23:12-13].

instruction

But vital knowledge is growing in the knowledge of the Lord. Paul wrote that this was his main priority:

I want to know Christ– yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. (Philippians 3:10-12)

Knowing Jesus is our goal and calling. There is nothing more important; there is no knowledge greater than this; nothing we can learn can ever take its place. And as we fear the Lord, we will come to know Jesus, and from that know our own sin, know redemption from sin and know wisdom.

And finally, instruction is the twin of wisdom. Fools will despise spiritual instruction. They will seek people who will entertain them; or people who affirm their weaknesses and sins. But those who fear the Lord will eagerly seek that instruction which comes from genuine bible study and preaching. It will be genuine if it is delivered by those who fear the Lord and so are growing in the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. It is this spiritual revelation which makes the bible the book which never disappoints those who read and study it to discover God’s wisdom. It is the book which is as fresh today as it was fifty years ago. It is the book which gives and keeps on giving. Bible teaching should be grounded in wisdom. This is much more important than professionalism, smart presentation or academic scholarship. Perhaps we should end with that timeless reminder of the importance of God’s word to us:

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16 NKJV)