I ain’t skeered!

A friend of mine is new in his Christian walk. At my urging he has started reading the Bible all of the way through. I decided to test him the other day and asked him, “Do you fear God?” He was taken aback and kind of stammered around for a second fearing a trick question and said, “No not really”.

“Are you a fool?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

Hmmm I told him that the Bible teaches in Psalm 111:10 that the “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”. I joked with him that if he has not yet even begun to attain wisdom how can he claim that he is not a fool?

In Matthew 10:28 Jesus said, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell”. It is very obvious to even the casual student of the Bible that we are to fear God and keep His commandments. In fact the exact phrase, “Fear God” occurs ten times in the Bible and the phrase “Fear of God” occurs 30.

It is interesting to me that the Bible, (Hebrews 5:7), teaches that during the days of His flesh in the Garden of Gethsemane, even our Savior Jesus Christ feared God and “offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly FEAR, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.

So even Jesus in His flesh feared God, and we of course should emulate Him. Moses taught the Jews in Exodus 20:18-20 a similar notion.
“Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. Then they said to Moses, You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.’ And Moses said to the people, Do not fear; for God has come to test you, and that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin.'”

Wow now there is an interesting concept. We should fear God in order that we will not sin. That strategy worked when I was disciplining my children. They feared the wrath of my belt on their butts if they misbehaved and it no doubt resulted in better behavior. Interesting that the Bible teaches this concept as well. Prov. 16:6…the fear of the Lord makes men turn from evil.


The type of fear of God in the Bible is often described as a reverential awe of God; a reverence for His power and glory. I agree with that; however, we would be fools if we did not allow for a proper respect for His wrath and anger too. In other words, the fear of the Lord is a total acknowledgement of all of whom God is, which comes through knowing Him and His attributes.

Here is how things will go down so listen carefully to the Holy Spirit:

Heb 12:25-29: So be sure you do not refuse to hear the voice that speaks. For if they who refused to hear those who spoke to them on earth did not escape, how little chance of escape is there for us if we refuse to hear the One who speaks from Heaven. Then his voice shook the earth, but now he promises: “Yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven.” This means that in this final “shaking” all that is impermanent will be removed, that is, everything that is merely “made”, and only the unshakable things will remain. Since then, we have been given a kingdom that is “unshakable”, let us serve God with thankfulness in the ways which please him, but always with reverence and holy fear. For it is perfectly true that our God is a consuming fire.

And then the Bible clearly states that even after we enter paradise we shall continue to fear the Lord: Ps 19:9: The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever.

Now I have shared my Bible research and lesson for today with you on the subject of the fear of the Lord. Is it clear as muck? If so or if not, kindly read the verse below and I leave you with the infamous words of wisdom from my hero Forrest Gump, “That is all I have to say about that.”

Psalms 2:11
Serve the Lord with fear,
And rejoice with trembling.