Fear, The Forgotten Word

[saint701]

Hello Christianity Oasis, All...


Blessings from the Lord God Above to those that fear Him!

Long ago a minister of the gospel told me that the various uses of fear in the Bible, especially the New Testament, did not mean fear as in fearing God. Fear, the minister told me, meant reverence, the kind of reverence that involves a deep respect, and the act of bowing down before a person of dignity. I accepted what that minister had to say without any kind of study on my part. Nevertheless, for years that minister's definition of fear, fear not meaning fear, but rather reverence, haunted me. There was always this "but" fear is written in the Bible as fear. Then I would ask myself...why isn't fear translated as reverence in the Bible if fear, as used in the Bible, actually means reverence?

Well, baa'aa, baa'aa...all we like sheep have gone astray. Young Christians are often naive like that. Why? Because our ministers of the gospel are revered. Heaven forbid they could be a tad off in their teaching! But in some instances they are just like you or me, they hear something. It sounds good and sticks. And so begins a teaching that is slightly off that speads far and wide. Baa'aa...The use of reverence in the place of fear takes the bite out of fear. The difference between the two is subtle. Using reverence instead of fear gives us a comfort zone. It broadens our way. For example, I might feel a great deal of reverence for the Pope, but that doesn’t mean I see eye to eye with him, and it doesn’t mean I have to fear him or obey him. Such is because there aren’t any consequences…that is, of course, unless I become a radical Catholic voicing my disagreement with the Pope openly worldwide. Many of us of all denominations think the same way about God. He is to be respected, to be revered, and to be bowed down to. But we’ve learned to know Him as our Sugar Daddy. We want and desire and want and desire…we revere Him, but we do not fear Him, we don’t have to agree with Him, because our reverence for God does not include obedience…we have the idea that things are the same with God as with the Pope, there are no consequences.

The same can be said for those of us that disagree with the bare knuckled Word of God. It is easy to bow the knee to God because we revere Him. It is easy for us to say we give Him glory. It is easy for us to say we love Him. But when it comes to obeying Him because we fear Him that is another matter entirely. For example…this nation we live in…from Hawaii to New York…there aren’t many that fear the Lord. You might ask, “Well, how do you now that?” I know that because there are consequences for disobedience. With the Pope…no consequences…and I best clarify what I mean here by no consequences…things like the use of contraceptives.

But with God there are consequences if we disobey Him. As a nation we can see the consequences of our disobedience. We can see the rise in deadly fires and earthquakes and storms. We can see the rise of sickness and disease among us. Our leaders are weak and cowardly for the most part. They lack wisdom and understanding. They ignore the lessons of the past. They don’t fear God. They don’t fear the people. They pretty much do as they please. Lawlessness has begun to rear its ugly head in high places. The love of truth has dwindled down to a few. A lie in high places has become the truth. Atheism is on the rise. We’re an obese nation. Our borders are not secure. We’ve been overrun with aliens. Now pot is legal. Perverse sexual practices are commonplace. There is no peace…we war and we war and we war…and we talk about how we are going to fix everything. We can do it! We’re the United States of America! We don’t need God anymore. He either doesn’t care or doesn’t exist, but that’s ok because we can fix it. We don’t know what “SIN” is anymore. We don’t fear God because we believe it is ok to do many things He has said for us not to do. We do evil and call it good. We venerate the Pope but don’t worry much about consequences, but have forgotten that with God there are consequences if we ignore the fear of Him and do as we please.

Consequences are built into our actions, our deeds, our vision and our dreams of a better future, yet as a nation we’re spiraling backwards into a thick darkness where the wrath of God resides. We can’t see that. We don’t take God at His Word. We don’t fear Him and give Him glory. We mock Him, spit in His face, and shame Him without mercy. We piss on His image and say it is a form of free speech. We take our free speech on the internet to extremes. You can get anything you want at Alice’s restaurant you know. We should rename the internet Alice’s place. We allow our youth to learn about war and violence there, and practice war in their video games…and if not there we have a Play Station model XYZ that shows game images in 3D. It makes you feel as though you are REALLY IN ON THE ACTION, THAT YOU ARE REALLY KILLING THE BAD GUYS. Gee, isn’t killing fun? We love violence…the more horrific a movie is the better many like it…all the gore, the blood and guts, the profanity…ALL THE WHILE IGNORING THE FACT THAT SATAN IS IN THE MIDST OF GATHERING THE NATIONS TO WAR AND HE IS USING WAR GAMES ON THE NET AND ON VIDEO GAME DEVICES TO TEACH AND TRAIN OUR CHILDREN HOW TO KILL WITHOUT REMORSE…THE REAL ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES PRACTICES WAR GAMES BECAUSE WAR COMES AND IT IS REAL…OUR CHILDREN ARE PREPARED ALREADY FOR WAR…WE DON’T BELIEVE IN SPIRITUAL BEINGS. We can’t interpret spiritual things going on in this world because we love sin. The Arab Spring…the uprisings and revolutions keep increasing but that doesn’t mean anything to us. We can’t see that Satan is behind the chaos and is in the process of gathering the nations to war. The storms of unrighteousness increase and the devastation grows, but we can fix it.

It is time to face the facts about the fear of God being the beginning of wisdom. We must understand that fear in the Bible means fear. Reverence does not mean fear. Reverence means reverence and fear means fear. Certainly it is good to revere the Lord, but it is better to fear God and give Him glory! I can hear some screaming at me now…they are saying that fear is bad for us. To that I must reply, if the fear of God is a bad thing then why is the fear of God in the Bible blessed. You see we are gradually becoming more and more like the world. Fear is a bad thing. Everything has to be nice and cozy for us. There is no punishment for lawlessness. The same is true in a lot of schools. We don’t smack the hell out of our rebellious sons, as John Hagee has said, to give their mind a new revelation. No…we give them a piece of candy, a little detention, time with a counselor, a day away from school, and that is what we call discipline. Spare the rod and spoil the child…how silly…just another Bible cliché that is no longer relevant in today’s society, but Bible cliché’s will save your soul and keep you from going down into the fiery pit of hell fire. Why do you love folly and spend your days in vain? Fear God! Give Him glory! Serve Him! All else is vanity...but your service to God is not in vain.

Every P.E. teacher I had from the 7th grade on had a paddle strapped to his gym shorts. Most were about 2 feet long and some had holes bored into them to raise welts. Welts made the memory of our disobedience last longer. From 7th grade until the 12th grade there really wasn’t a whole lot of paddling going on. Most of us feared those men with the paddles. You see, we did not revere them at all. We didn’t love them. We didn’t bow down to them. But we respected the heck out of their position in authority over us. Fear makes a person respect boundaries that keep us from going astray. Lawlessness has no boundaries. Sin is a reproach to any people. Sin has no understanding of the consequences directly a head or the beginning of them already behind. But those that fear God see and understand what is behind and what is ahead. They sanctify themselves through the blood of His cross and through the testimony of Jesus Christ the Lord that is within them. They fear God and give Him glory, and they love Him because He first loved them. They fear God and give Him glory! They fear God and give Him glory! They fear God and give Him glory. Choose wisdom and understanding! Fear God and give Him glory!
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Blessings!
Love,In Christ Jesus, Saint701