Fear can be crippling. Being afraid is often the result of not what is happening, but what we fear might happen. Such fears make each of us vulnerable to withdraw, give-up, hide, or excuse ourselves from ever trying something new. The result of this happening is that we each become less than who God has created us to be and in the process we deny the world the benefit of what God can do through us. In the Bible there are many stories of many heroes who learned the secret of overcoming their fears by trusting God and learning how to ‘fear’ Him despite their circumstances or fearful expectations. We read of how Kings led their vastly outnumbered army to defeat immensely more powerful and ruthless enemy armies by fearing the Lord. We read how previously unsure, uncertain, unable people became fearless, decisive, and confident and able to solve previously insurmountable problems by simply fearing the Lord. We read how the arrogant were humbled and transformed into gentle and caring souls when they experienced the fear of the Lord. Then, in the early chapters of the Book of Acts when becoming a Christian could cost you your life, we read of the numbers of Christians exploding across the Empire because they also no longer had a reason to be afraid because they had learned what it meant to fear the Lord.

¶ So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up.
And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.
Acts 9:31

OUTNUMBERED, OUTGUNNED, OUTMANNED, YET NOT AFRAID!

¶ Jehoshaphat lived at Jerusalem. And he went out again among the people, from Beersheba to the hill country of Ephraim, and brought them back to the LORD, the God of their fathers. He appointed judges in the land in all the fortified cities of Judah, city by city, and said to the judges, “Consider what you do, for you judge not for man but for the LORD. He is with you in giving judgment. Now then, let the fear of the LORD be upon you. Be careful what you do, for there is no injustice with the LORD our God, or partiality or taking bribes.”
Second Chronicles 19:4-7

King Jehoshaphat led the nation of Judah into revival even though they faced enemy forces on nearly every part of the borders. The secret to his leadership success is revealed in the one thing he insisted from his leaders – that they learn to fear the Lord.

And he charged them: “Thus you shall do in the fear of the LORD, in faithfulness,
and with your whole heart”
Second Chronicles 19:9

The result of fearing the Lord was that his officials refused to take bribes, they refused to pervert the cause of justice, and they refused to be intimidated by enemies. When someone truly fears the Lord they trust God more than they are afraid of those who try to intimidate them. King Jehoshaphat took the commands of the Lord through Moses seriously –

¶ “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you,
but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him,
to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
Deuteronomy 10:12

Jehoshaphat believed the words of the prophet Samuel who said that if Israel’s kings would fear the Lord they would trust God and therefore be faithful to Him by implication then, God would protect them from their enemies (1Sam. 12:24). 

¶ And the fear of the LORD fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands that
were around Judah, and they made no war against Jehoshaphat.
Second Chronicles 17:10

UNSURE, UNCERTAIN, UNABLE, BECAME FEARLESS, DECISIVE, & CONFIDENT

Someone has wondered how Lazarus viewed problems and threats after Jesus had raised him from the dead. When Jesus appeared at the tomb of Lazarus four days after Lazarus had died and been buried, He wept (John 11:35). F.W. Boreham suggested that Christ wept not because of what had happened to Lazarus, but because of what He was about to do to Lazarus in bringing him back from the dead.

¶ Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odour, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard Me. I knew that you always hear Me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that You sent Me.” When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
John 11:38-44

Bizarrely, after Lazarus had been raised from the dead, the Jewish religious leaders sought to put him to death (John 12:10). I can imagine that if Lazarus had discovered this plot to put him to death, he would have been somewhat bemused. Did these religious leaders really think that mere death threats could make Lazarus fearful? Perhaps through his pre-mortem illness (Jn. 11:1), which his sisters were hoping that Christ would come and heal him of (Jn. 11:3), the ailing Lazarus had become unsure, uncertain, and fearful. But after experiencing healing when his pain-ridden body was vacated for a pre-resurrected pain-free immaterial body, and he was ushered into glorious comfort that awaits the righteous, he could never be fearful of death or the trials of this life ever again! Lazarus’s fear of the Lord before he was raised from the dead would have been profoundly boosted after his death as a result of his experience in paradise where there was no sorrow or pain. After his being raised from the dead by Jesus, no more would the thought of dying ever cause him to be afraid. Lazarus had now discovered that the fear of the Lord was the fountain of true life (Prov. 14:27).   

ONCE AFRAID, ARROGANT, AND THEN HUMBLE & GENTLE

Discovering the magnificence of the fear of the Lord is a very humbling transformation. Saul of Tarsus was an arrogant, fearful, man. He was fearful that the growing number of Christ-followers would undermine his world and everything he believed in. As with most violent men, he too was afraid and responded to what he was afraid of with murderous violence (Acts 9:1). Then he experienced the fear of the Lord (Acts 9:5) and his newfound fear meant that he was no longer afraid (Acts 9:18, 20). From that moment, Saul became Paul and he lived with a constant awareness that Christ was not just with him he was always watching over him (Matt. 28:20). Living in the fear of the Lord transformed Paul from an angry, afraid, man into a gentle, humble, man (1Thess. 2:7). And this is what the fear of the Lord does to a person.

The ultimate example of what living in the fear of the Lord was declared in 750BC by the prophet Isaiah to be the coming messiah.

And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him,
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD
And His delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.
He shall not judge by what His eyes see,
or decide disputes by what His ears hear,.
Isaiah 11:2

No one exemplified living in the fear of the Lord more than Jesus did. According Isaiah 11:3, Jesus delighted in the fear of the Lord. That is, Jesus delighted in the knowledge that everything He did was watched by His Father. Jesus described the fear of the Lord in terms that would bring comfort to every person who turns to Him in faith and obedience – but in terrifying terms for those who refuse to accept the love of God (Matt. 12:36-37).

NO LONGER AFRAID

Little wonder then, that when people encountered the Christ they experienced the fear of the Lord. Thus, in the early chapters of the Book of Acts, the apostolic preaching of the gospel resulted in new believers walking in the fear of the Lord –

¶ So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up.
And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.
Acts 9:31

Three things resulted from these members of the early church learning to walk in the fear of the Lord. Firstly, they experience the comfort of the Holy Spirit. Secondly the Church (and churches) grew exponentially. Thirdly, they were no longer afraid of death. Athanasius, writing about A.D. 280 described this change in attitude about death by the early believers as “the disciples of Christ [now] despise death”. By despise Athanasius was saying that the early Christians were no longer afraid of death.

All the disciples of Christ despise death; they take the offensive against it and, instead of fearing it, by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ trample on it as on something dead. Before the divine sojourn of the Saviour, even the holiest of men were afraid of death, and mourned the dead as those who perish. But now that the Saviour has raised His body, death is no longer terrible, but all those who believe in Christ tread it underfoot as nothing, and prefer to die rather than to deny their faith in Christ, knowing full well that when they die they do not perish, but live indeed, and become incorruptible through the resurrection.
On The Incarnation, Athanasius, A.D. 280, Chapter V, The Resurrection (27)

ONCE YOU DELIGHT IN THE FEAR OF THE LORD,
YOU NEED NEVER BE AFRAID AGAIN!

When the early Church walked in the fear of the Lord, their lives reflected a sincerity of authentic trust in the Lord. The fear of the Lord brought a fear to sin or compromise and it also led to these early believers no longer being afraid of death despite the threats that came from the Jewish leaders, then from Rome. This is why I am bewildered by the spate of high profile Christian celebrity preachers who have been exposed for compromised lifestyles which has brought great disgrace to the cause of Christ. It is my pastoral hope that we will learn—and delight in—the fear of the Lord so that we be quick to repent when we fall, eager to seek God’s will in our lives, and strive to make Christ known by how we live and by our preparedness to confidently share the gospel. And we can do this because through Christ we never have to be afraid again!

Your Pastor,

Andrew

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