Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

Exodus chapter 20, verse 20, Moses said to the people, do not fear, for God has come to test you,

that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.

All right, just make sure you get the context here.

This is right after God gives his people the Ten Commandments.

So commandments about how to relate to him and worshiping him alone, how to relate to others in a way that honors God, and the people are overwhelmed in this

meeting with God, with fear. And so Moses says to the people, don't fear for God has come to test

you, so there's an encouragement not to fear, but then right after that, in this verse, the Bible says

that the fear of God may be before you, that you may not sin.

So this is interesting. All throughout the Bible, we see the words don't fear. But then we also

see encouragement to fear God. So how does this work? Well, it all becomes all the more clear and complete when we get into the New Testament.

And we realize that none of us is able to obey the law, that we need Jesus to cover over our sin and our disobedience.

And that's what Jesus did at the cross. He paid the price of sin for us.

He went as a substitute for us to the cross, died in our place, and then rose from the dead in

victory over sin and death so that we can be saved from our sins, not by our obedience, but by our faith, by our

trust in Jesus.

So in that sense, when we trust in Jesus to forgive us of our sins, we turn from our sin

and trust in him, we repent and believe, we no longer need to fear the judgment of God.

By the grace of God, we don't need to fear death itself, because death has been defeated by Christ and we put our faith in Him and we know we have eternal

life with Him. God so loved the world. He gave His one and only son. Whoever believes in him

will never perish but have eternal life in him.

So we don't have any fear in that sense.

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