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

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

I would say this is a very important topic.

It's not marginal.

It is all over the Bible.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

at my word.

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

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

be approached in a cavalier spirit.

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

a cavalier spirit.

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

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