"And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
Matthew 10:28
(Download your PDF copy here and add it to your study binder)
We will be discussing pages 11-18 of A Treatise of the Fear of God. (Still need your copy? you can download your copy here)
In these pages, John Bunyan gives us a throughout explanation of what ungodly fear is.
Synopsis: Ungodly fear causes man to ignore the nudging of the Holy Spirit, to hide from God, to avoid God, and to run from God. Godly fear causes man to humble himself and acknowledge that God is God hereby submitting himself to God cheerfully in all manner of living.
We endeavor to always be relevant in the course of our study. You have probably heard a lot of the chatter about being fearless. Notice next time you watch TV how many commercials use the concept of 'Be Fearless' in their marketing. Here's an eye opening article by the New York Times on this subject.
Be Fearless, Be Brave, Be Courageous .. all these are used interchangeably. All saying that we can conquer, overcome, succeed in anything we put our mind to; we can tell fear to take a hike and do what WE want without any one or any thing stopping us. "Fearless" mentality has saturated all areas of our day: fitness, health, relationships, higher education, business, life.
This is dangerous ground. It sounds a lot like what was going on during the construction of the tower of Babel. The fearless mentality tells us: have NO FEAR.
There are those within the 'church' that teach that ALL FEAR is of the devil. They take the Scripture: I John 4:18 "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." out of context to support their error.
The LORD God does not contradict himself. So, what's the truth in the midst of such a bombardment of the fearless chatter?
Let's jump over to Genesis 11. Read the chapter. Here we find the people gathered together - a united front - to reach God in Heaven -was this a possible coup? And what was God's response?
The people of the world had no fear of their Creator. They could do anything they set themselves to do. Sound familiar? If you do a word search in the Scriptures, you will find the word FEAR used 400 times.
- FEAR GOD - 10 times
- FEAR THE LORD - 30 times
- FEAR NOT - 62 times
- FEAR THY GOD - 10 times
I ask you, What is the CONTEXT of the word FEAR found those 400 times? It is a VERY interesting and eye opening study...if you want to know.
Jesus' very words in Luke 12:5 "But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him."
The number one fear that a person has is the fear of death. What is death? Society would say that it is when your body ceases to be alive. This is only part true. Death is eternal separation from God. It is this fear that man, whether he really realizes it or not, is the greatest fear.
To compensate, man puffs himself up and then says.."well, I just won't fear." "I won't be overtaken by fear. I will do what I can to stay alive, be fit, be healthy, be successful, be the boss, etc."
Essentially missing the point of fear which is to lead us to the merciful arms of our Maker. Instead, saying within himself, "I choose ME over God." Hmmm, pride, Hmmm.
Salvation in Jesus Christ frees us from the eternal separation from God. Salvation in Jesus Christ answers the question 'death where is your sting?'
Now let's take a look at ungodly fear and godly fear. (With a peak at pride..could that be considered fearlessness??)
5 Examples of UNgodly Fear:
- Fear that causes a continual grudging and discontent; complaining against God. READ Exodus 14:11-13
- Fear of God that drives men away from God: disobedience and rebellion
READ Genesis 3:10 and the book of Jonah - Fear that causes the hearts of men to be discouraged from attempting to exercise themselves in the power of religion. These turn into the lukewarm or backslidden Christian.
- Fear that doesn't trust completely Christ for justification of life, but bends the powers of the soul to trust partly to the works of the law. Afraid to wholly trust Christ. READ Mark 5:36
- Fear that will add (or subtract) to the revealed will of God their own inventions, and there own performances of them as a means to pacify the anger of God. ie,,Catholics, Mormons, Adventists, etc
We can conclude from these five examples that when what we do is tainted by pride it brings with it ungodliness.
- When the Lord gives us an instruction and we gripe, murmur, complain as if God is unfair, unjust, unkind, unreasonable, etc.
- When we simply choose to run from what God has said. Because we think we know better, or we don't like what God said.
- We grow weary of doing what is right in God's eyes. We give up and just do nothing.
- We don't fully believe that what Jesus Christ has done to pay for our sin is good enough. We were too bad,or we feel we have to get back into God's good graces, or impress God with our effort.
- We listen to man's opinions, ideas, and teachings more than we listen to God.
Draw your attention to this society of fearless living and how the Christian can be deceived and join the NO Fear cult or be overwhelmed, confused, and discouraged if he doesn't read for himself what God has to say on the matter. Because of this assault on true Christian living; we must be vigilant and humble.
FOR YOU TO DO AND CONSIDER:
What is pride? What is humility? What, then is UNgodly fear?
PRIDE: Inordinate self-esteem; an unreasonable conceit of one's own superiority in talents, beauty, wealth, accomplishments, rank or elevation in office, which manifests itself in lofty airs, distance, reserve, and often in contempt of others.
Why was Lucifer kicked out of heaven? Isaiah 14:11-15
Who is Lucifer? Genesis 3:1 Revelation 12:9
What are 4 things God says about the proud?
- Proverbs 16:5
- Malachi 4:1
- Romans 1:21-30
- James 4:6
until next time,
~Cristina
~Cristina
DIG DEEPER:
Bible word search: Look up the words PROUD: 48 times / PRIDE: 49 times
What did you discover?
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