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Ask Pastor John

What Does It Mean for the Christian to Fear God?

Ask Pastor John

Desiring God

John Piper, Unknown, 163859, Pastor, Ask, Theology, Desiring God, Religion & Spirituality/christianity, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Questions

4.83.8K Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2014

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

God calls his children to fear him with trembling, reverence, awe, and worship — but not with cowering.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Eric writes in to ask of this, Pastor John, can you please explain the fear of God?

0:10.2

I have heard different definitions of what this means to fear God as a believer.

0:16.2

I would say this is a very important topic.

0:21.8

It's not marginal.

0:25.4

It is all over the Bible.

0:28.0

The fear of the Lord is a pervasive and important topic.

0:34.0

And I think it's needed today because we're so quick, I think, to solve the problem of

0:39.2

God's fierceness with the gospel that we may not give people a chance to really let

0:45.8

it sink in how deeply sinful they are or how fearful God really is.

0:53.2

The Old Testament, of course, everybody would think of the Old Testament, I suppose, as

0:56.7

it's strewn with commands to fear the Lord and warnings of the terrible things that will

1:03.5

come if we don't and the blessings that come if we do, Proverbs 28, 14, blessed is the

1:09.8

one who fears the Lord, who does not harden his heart.

1:16.6

So fearing God is contrasted with a hard, unperceptive heart or Isaiah 66, too.

1:26.0

This is the one to whom I will look, he is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles

1:32.7

at my word.

1:33.9

So again, fearing is corresponding with humility and loneliness and sensitivity of heart.

1:41.8

The sheer majesty of God as well as the holiness and justice and power and wrath of God cannot

1:51.8

be approached in a cavalier spirit.

1:54.5

It would be insane to think we can just stroll up to the creator of the universe and have

2:03.4

a cavalier spirit.

2:05.7

We're blind if we think we can do that without trembling.

...

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