Fire in
“Let us hear
the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for
this is the whole duty of man. “ Ecclesiastes
12:13
Sounds pretty
simple, doesn’t it? All the lofty intricacies
of religion and philosophy, all the stress in pursuing our goals, and all the
multiple complexities of life have been reduced to this one verse.
So why have we
made life so complicated? Because those
are the two things that we really don’t want to do.
We don’t want
to fear God; we want Him to be our Daddy. God is love, so that means to the bulk of our
modern, spiritualist pastors today that our spirituality should be beautiful
and full of love and flowers, and we shouldn’t have to be afraid of God. (I can almost hear Uncle Remus singing “Zipadee Do Dah” in the background.)
The messages
that we love the most from our preachers are about blessings, peace and joy –
all the good stuff. We want to
hear how God wants to bless us, not how we should stand in fear and trembling before
Him. We will flock in great numbers to
whoever will preach a message like that to us, and will send them money to
support those golden calves.
But the fear
of God that was prescribed in the Old Testament is the same that is prescribed
in the New Testament. Moses, the only
man that God talked to face-to-face, feared God so much his knees smote
together. David, the apple of God’s eye,
said that the skin on his bones trembled for fear of Him. The holy prophets spoke of God being their
dread.
Is the New
Testament any different? Hardly. Paul said that knowing the terror of the
Lord, we therefore persuade men, and that we should serve the Lord with fear
and trembling, knowing that our God is a consuming fire. (Yikes!)
But today, we
translate the fear of God as “awesome respect”.
Maybe we’re just made of better dirt than our ancestors were, or maybe,
because this generation is so much smarter than they were, that things are
different for us. Who knows? Whatever the reason, we have certainly
mollified that message of fear to something that is much more marketable and
palatable for the congregations and TV audiences of today.
As for the
commandments of God, well, we have different agendas today, so things apply
differently to us. Since we have to deal
with today’s sophisticated world instead of the old primitive tribal societies
from back when the Bible was written, God surely understands that we are not
subject to the same constraints as they were.
Divorce is not as big a deal, sex is commonly understood as acceptable
(as long as it is with only your current partner, of course), deceit can be
excused if it’s only a white lie or is for a good cause, and cheating on taxes
is expected because the IRS isn’t fair. Hey,
it’s all relative, isn’t it?
Oh, and don’t
worry, if we cross the line somewhere, we can rest assured that, because God is
Love (see the first premise above), we can always ask God and He will forgive
us every time we ask. And really, as
long as you’ve said the Sinners Prayer once in your life, you’re eternally
sealed into Heaven, so it really isn’t a big deal anyway.
Geez, what a
good God He is! Cheap, easy, and fun –
what else could you want? It’s like having your very own fairy Godmother.
I have listened
to people who, while wallowing in sin, still tell me that because they believe
in God, they know that they are going to Heaven. Why?
Because that’s what they have been told, and it’s what they wanted to
hear, so they believed it.
But it is not
what the Bible says.
The Bible is
not generational; it is universal and eternal.
You will burn in the same Hell, shoulder to shoulder, with all the other
guys who broke the same commandments throughout time.
The Bible
clearly states that it is by the fear of the Lord that men depart from evil, so
without it, men will not be driven to the Cross for Salvation. And without salvation, we have no power to
overcome sin. The problem is that we
hardly ever hear about the fear of God anymore, and when we do, it is always in
an intellectual capacity, or as Isaiah puts it, “by the precept of men”, not
with their hearts.
Yes, it can
all be reduced to the simplicity of one verse.
Satan knows this, so he has done everything he could to take away the
one thing that God has asked us to do. He knows that when, like mesmerized
children, we follow our fleshly hearts and succumb to teachers who will lead us
away from the fear of God, we relinquish our power to overcome sin.
And that is
why Hell hath enlarged itself.
Dale Garris
dale@revivalfire.org