Robert Taylor

THE FEAR OF GOD

Malachi 3: 13-18; 4: 1-4 (to “servant”); 1 Peter 1: 17-23

These scriptures make it very plain that God is to be feared. It is something that increasingly is becoming lacking. Laodicea did not fear God: she had grown rich and was independent. And that is the state of things that is abroad today. It may well creep in to our own hearts to be independent of God, to lose the fear of God. He has been made known in grace as Father in all His love, and yet He is to be feared. We sometimes offset that and say it is not a slavish fear but Scripture is plain that God is to be feared. The scripture says of the Lord Jesus that He was "heard because of his piety" ('in that he feared' (A.V.), Heb 5: 7. We often say that we know God hears us. Well, it says of the Lord that He was heard 'in that he feared'. God may not hear us, not that I would put any doubts or discouragement on people praying, but there is a reason why the Lord was heard in that instance. It was 'in that he feared' or "because of his piety".

In these scriptures you can see God hears and His eye is on them that fear Him. The Lord said that too, "Fear ... him", Matt 10: 28. That is what it says about certain notable persons in Scripture, that they feared God. Nehemiah says of one that he was "a faithful man and feared God above many", chap 7: 2. What a commendation to have in a world such as that in which we are of lawlessness and independence. Joseph says that too about himself. He says, "I fear God", Gen 42: 18. It is a good answer to give to persons when they ask why we are not doing this or that, why we do not even speak their language, do not go where they go. "I fear God". God honours that and here He is honouring persons in a day such as we are in when people say, what is the advantage? You will get people saying that to you, Why be so strict? Why do you go to so many meetings? Why do you need to do this? Why do you not go there? That is the day in which we are. Well, the answer is that we fear God. We honour Him in that sense and God honours those that fear Him. In Malachi they were saying there is no point in it, like the days that we are in, when people are saying all these things: the scripture says, "Then they that feared Jehovah spoke often one to another". They lived on different principles. Their life was coloured in that they chose to walk in the fear of God, chose to tread a separate path because at the end of the day, the Lord says, the most that men can do is kill you; that is the extent of what they can do, but after that God has to be answered. He says, "Fear ... Him who is able", to destroy both body and soul in hell. His rights extend beyond death, beyond the grave. These people were walking as fearing God and God "heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared Jehovah", not persons that were intelligent and bright and knowledgeable, but think of Him writing down those names! Think of God writing down your name and against it He puts those words, 'he feared Me'. What a commendation, as I have said! And that is how God was writing this book, "for them that feared Jehovah". The day of judgment is coming, of which Malachi is speaking, and God is writing up this book, as it were, and He sees certain names there that are spared the judgment because they feared Him. They did not walk in the way that the rest of men lived. They were not driven by the principles of the world. And He spared them "as a man spareth his own son". Think of God looking down on the saints like that! What pleasure He has in the midst of the day we are in, that there are persons who walk in His fear! So He says about them, "And unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings". He gives to persons that fear His name the light of another day, and that is a great governing principle that we walk in, the light of another day. This day is fast declining. The world in which we are and its system is fast going on to judgment, but God says, "And unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth and leap like fatted calves", persons that have been enriched in the light of another day, able to go against the stream in the fear of God, irrespective of what men may do or of what things may seem publicly.

Peter in writing to the brethren reminds them that things are in God's hands, not in man's hands. Irrespective of what has come in in the breakdown and the confusion that exists publicly, and the love of the many perhaps having waxed cold, things are in God's hands. Peter is encouraging these saints as to that. And now he says, if you call on the Father, remember that He is God, all majesty, might and power belong to Him. To know our Father is God is a wonderful thing to remember and to lay hold of. That God is our Father is true and speaks of the wonderful blessings, the resources of His love and of His care He brings into the relationship, that He is a Father to us. But that Father is God, and that means that He is to be reverenced. Peter says, because of that you "pass your time of sojourn in fear", knowing that to Him belongs the last word. Men may misunderstand grace. It is a day of great licence, a day when we are apt to take licence, dear brethren, but remember that the Father is God. Peter says if you are invoking Him as Father, you are to "pass your time of sojourn in fear", not in slavish fear, as we say, but in reverence as to what is due to His name, that He has the last word. He is writing His book of remembrance of them that fear Him. Think of these dispersed Jews being in that book! Peter says, "knowing that ye have been redeemed". Redemption is not just something that would free us from our sins and our guilt, but redemption has in view relationship. When we speak of redemption, we go back to Ruth and she was redeemed to be the wife of Boaz. She was not just redeemed to remove her Moabitish history and live differently, but she was redeemed to be the wife of Boaz. So redemption has in view that we are brought to know God as our Father, and we know the grace and the love of that relationship; but we walk too in the light of His majesty and His greatness and to Him belongs the last word.

So it says, "ye have been redeemed" from vain conversation, handed down from your fathers, from worldly principles and things, and worldly customs, to walk as the redeemed. The redeemed should have a very deep appreciation of the Redeemer. Ruth must have adoringly looked on Boaz all her days. He who had the right of redemption was not able, but think of Boaz stepping in, taxing His own resources, you might say, but still able to do it, to remove the burden and the load that she might come into the liberty of being a true Israelite. She comes into the genealogy. That is what redemption brings us into, a great line of royalty, and I think that is what marks those who fear God, that they are walking on a royal line. If you acknowledge that your Father is God, it means you are a prince. You walk as a prince, not as ordinary men. There are some persons who have the devil for their father. What a solemn thing, sons of the devil. It speaks of some like that in scripture (see Acts 13: 4), a warning to us as to what men are under, but persons who invoke God as their Father are walking in this precious light of redemption in princely steps. They are exhibiting the features of the family showing that they fear God when they are tested by circumstances.

In these verses Peter goes on to encourage them as to the glory of what they have been brought into by the blood of Christ, showing the extent of His love for us and the favour He would bring us into. It says, He "has been manifested at the end of times for your sakes, who by him do believe on God". You are thus brought into a system of grace, of liberty and life and blessing, "who by him do believe on God". Joseph said, "I fear God". He walked in the light of that, the ruler of Egypt, the man who could have had everything he wanted in that country. He says, "I fear God". May we be helped, dear brethren, to walk in the joy and the liberty of what we have been brought into and yet walking, as Peter speaks of it here, passing "your time of sojourn in fear". It means we are not doing what we like, but we are walking in the principles of the kingdom. It says, "The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom", Ps 111: 10. Intelligence comes through fearing God.

Well, here it is all shining for us in Christ: "Having purified your souls by obedience to the truth". We are coming into these things, not toeing the line or obeying rules, but, in the fear of God, we are led into a circle of blessing, a circle of love. It says, "that your faith and hope should be in God" and then you are brought into this circle of the brethren, "unfeigned brotherly love, love one another out of a pure heart fervently". Peter goes over these things that the saints were to enjoy in that broken day. May we be helped to be living in the fear of God in the circumstances that exist today, in the liberty of loving the brethren fervently, and of knowing God and the blessedness of being His sons, walking before Him in all the light and the liberty that is ours in a broken time when there is departure all around. May we be encouraged in loyalty to One who has brought us at such a price for Christ's Name sake!

KIRKCALDY

22 July 1997