Michael Reeves: "Our Culture of Fear and the Fear of God" - Lecture 1

good afternoon well it is lovely to be with you a great pleasure to be here at southern and being here I cannot but help of a time I was learning to preach in England and after I finished the sermon a senior Saint came up to me and said the sermon was ok but oh dear brother you do preach like a Southern Baptist by which I think he meant passionately now I won't be preaching to you today but it's good to know that as I talk I know I will sound like I'm from round here I'd like to give my sincere thanks to dr. Mohler dr. wills the faculty of southern for their very gracious invitation to me to give these esteemed lectures and I'm also grateful to mr. and mrs. C Edward Gaines for their exemplary generosity in making these lectures possible my original aim in giving these lectures was to attempt something of a retrieval of the neglected and very much misunderstood doctrine of the fear of God from the one hand there is a constituency that will talk about the fear of God but will see it as the gloomy theological equivalent of eating up your greens you know so we love God there's the nice bit we like that but unfortunately before we get carried away we remember we must also fear Him the gloomy negative and what happens is many are repelled by that idea and so ignore the doctrine of the fear of God but biblically and historically I hope we'll get to see this is a delightful joy-giving topic and for that and its many benefits to be appreciated this is a doctrine that needs retrieving today however as I looked more into the subject of the fear of God it became clear that the church's neglect of this biblical theme a theme that was once much more widely written on taught on preached on a neglect is actually part of a bigger social tide it's not just in the church in Western society as a whole the winds are changing with regard to the whole notion of fear and so what I want to do is to establish first of all in this first lecture the cultural context of fear in which we now live and having seen that broader social context will then be in a position to better see first our misunderstanding of what the fear of God means then secondly see why then it is so neglected but thirdly why it is so important now I know I'm not coining a phrase when I speak of our culture of fear today speaking of a culture of fear is everywhere from online social media to political commentary and even though we are more prosperous we are more secure even though we are safer than most societies our Western society has become fixated on safety and at the same time our Western society has become disposed to skittishness and panic anyone in management knows about the staggering proliferation of bureaucratic red tape around health and safety this preoccupies those in management in the news we fret about global terrorism extreme weather pandemics political turmoil in the UK's 2016 referendum or membership of the European Union the term project fear was used the project term project fair was used to describe the attempt to persuade voters that the UK leaving the European Union was simply too scary to contemplate but the fact that it could have a title like that project fear shows how widely accepted it was that fear drives voting patterns and a few months later in 2016 we saw similar fear rhetoric used by both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the American presidential elections and it's not just at that level our daily lives are filled with more mundane but still more sources of anxiety our diets for example if you choose the full fat version on the menu you're going to get a heart attack if you choose the low-calorie alternative well we've just found out that that's carcinogenic and so we fret we've read about how to raise our children paranoid parenting with a Val but very often overblown fear of the pedophile online outside every school gate leading to helicopter parenting children not being allowed outside of their parents site increasingly fenced in to keep them safe universities are now called upon to provide what they call safe spaces what are these they are spaces to protect or quarantine students who are not expected to be able to cope with opposing viewpoints or criticism it's a telling indicator that students people in general are considered to be more fragile than they were a generation ago and it's not just the pejoratively named generation snowflake we are in increasingly anxious and uncertain culture and therein lies and extraordinary paradox but we live with more safety than ever before from seat belts and airbags in our cars to the removal of lead paint and asbestos from our homes our safety is assisted more than our shorter lived ancestors could ever have dreamed so why is the culture of fear so strong when we are so relatively well cushioned professor Frank 4ad writes why Americans fear more when they have far less to fear than in other moments in the past is a question that's puzzled numerous scholars one argument used to explain this paradox of a safe society is that prosperity he encourages people to become more risk and loss averse but interestingly Ferretti disagrees with that assessment instead in his book published earlier this year he argues the books called how fear works culture of fear in the 21st century for ad argues it is moral confusion in society that has led to an inability to deal with fear and an increase in the number of fences erected around us in the name of preserving our safety and what is so interesting is that Professor Frank fer ad is not a Christian he's an ardent humanist and yet he feels it is moral confusion that has left our society so anxious now can I ask you to hold on to that insight from 480 for a moment moral confusion leading to anxiety hold on to that for a moment because I want to couple it with an insight from the 19th century Danish philosopher søren kierkegaard Kierkegaard made a distinction that is helpful between fear and acts or angst or anxiety the distinction is this fear he said is a response to a specific object anxiety is a general condition without a specific object anxiety is like something in the atmosphere and to build on those insights from Ferretti and Kierkegaard I want to make a suggestion one that goes beyond 484 ad said it is moral confusion that has left our society anxious I suggest moral confusion self is a consequence of a prior loss a loss of the fear of God and to use kick guards distinction between fear and anxiety fear is a response to a specific object anxiety is a general condition I suggest it is due to a loss of the fear of God that we see both moral confusion and our culture spiraling into anxiety it is not moral confusion as such our moral confusion today and our general state of heightened anxiety are both the fallout of a cultural loss of God as the proper object of human fear for that fear of God was a healthy fear that shaped and controlled other fears and helped to rein in anxiety as we'll see however having lost that proper object of fear the healthy fear for which we're made our culture is becoming ever more neurotic anxious about anything everything anxious perhaps most of all about the unknown for in a secular godless world view there is no governing framework to reality everything's built on shifting sand founded on chaos leaving us morally and existentially uncertain and feeling helplessly fragile thus society today is filled with free-floating anxieties which can morph effortlessly in a moment that's why they're so revealing so one minute I'm concerned about knife crime but my anxiety can morph in another to be kept to be caring or fretting about our children's safety it's a free-floating anxiety that latches onto any object now if there is anything to this the idea that the loss of fear of God is ultimately what has made us more anxious as a culture if there is anything to that that is a real blow for atheism because atheism promised exactly the opposite atheism sold our culture the idea that if you get rid of belief in God it will liberate us from fear so here's how Bertrand Russel argued the case in 1927 in his famous address why I am NOT a Christian and I want you to know two things as I read you this bit from Bertrand Russell two things first how profoundly he misunderstands the fear of God we've not detailed it yet but here's a definition of the fear of God that is a profound misunderstanding and second and more importantly for now see how wildly inaccurate this prophecy is turned out to be Russell said this ninety-one years ago Russell said religion is based I think primarily and mainly upon fear it is partly the terror of the unknown and partly as I've said the wish to feel you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes fear is the basis of the whole thing fear of the mysterious fear of the eat fear of death fear is the parent of cruelty and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand it is because fear is at the basis of those two things in this world that Russell we can now begin a little to understand things a little to master them with the help of science which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion against the church's against the opposition of all the old precepts science can help us get over this Craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations science can teach us and I think our own hearts can teach us no longer to look around for Imaginary supports no longer to invent allies in the sky but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it that was 91 years ago and it should 91 years later it should have become clear to even most vision-impaired mole that throwing off the fear of God has not made our society happier or less fretful quite the opposite and it is a staunch atheist professor frank 4ad who has become one of the global experts on our modern culture of fear who's acknowledged that and it's not just Bertrand Russell who's argued that more self-dependence unless God dependence will help us the whole premise of the Enlightenment was that the advance of our knowledge would dispel our problems and our superstitious fears does that happen quite the opposite so today we all sort of love our smartphones we all sort of love our sat-nav our technology but we acknowledge that the advance of knowledge is a mixed blessing because it promotes technologies that have consequences we cannot foresee so when first you bought a smartphone you had no idea what it would do to your social behavior or your sleep patterns when first you use social media you saw some potential bonuses you had no concept of how it would feed were your fear of missing out and the great irony is that the free-floating anxiety that fills our enlightenment godless culture is really nothing more than primitive superstition in 1866 Charles Kingsley delivered a lecture at the Royal Institution in London entitled superstition and in that lecture Kingsley defined superstition as the fear of the unknown not guided by reason which is precisely what we see all around us a fear of the unknown not guided by reason of course it's never obvious to us that our fears are actually irrational or superstitious because we always endeavour to make our superstitions look reasonable we rationalize them and to prove his point Kingsley gave the example of the 15th century textbook on witchcraft the malleus Maleficarum who've heard of it is probably through the crucible and this was the text which sought to make a science out of which finding and this fueled the superstitious urge to find witches by giving witch hunting an apparently scientific basis so according to the malleus Maleficarum you could not question the reality of witches in our midst that was defined as heresy it was to find witches it was saying it was a reasonable scientifically verifiable concern but superstition it was now what does our culture do with all that free floating superstitious anxiety well given its essentially atheistic self-identity our culture will not turn to God so the only possible solution must be for us to sort it out ourselves and so Western post enlightenment society medical eise's fear fear has become a disease to be medicated now this has a very significant consequence it means comfort has become a moral category where once discomfort was considered quite normal discomfort was considered proper for certain situations now fear is deemed to be an essentially unhealthy thing fear is something to be removed in toto cle-cle fear is not acceptable it is not acceptable to be uncomfortable and this means you've heard the conversation a university student can say I am uncomfortable with your views and when that statement has been made I am uncomfortable with your views the Sayre can believe that itself is legitimate argument for shutting down further discussion of whatever has made them uncomfortable I cannot be made to feel uncomfortable and so while our culture is awash with fear and anxiety fear has come to be seen as a wholly negative thing in our culture and the church has largely capitulated not only shying away from those things in God's Word that might make people uncomfortable but joining in with society's negative assessment of the very idea of fear and so where traditionally Christians have thought that fear can be a healthy thing we today tend to shy away from what Scripture gives us the only ultimate antidote to our fears and anxiety that is the fear of God now that's us today Christians in the past have spoken with much greater roundedness take John Flavel one of the last generation of the Puritans he wrote a wonderful - a title called a practical treatise on fear and he showed how rounded he rounded Lee he could approach the subject he showed us sensitive he was to how our fears can torment and lair slow listen to the heart of a pastor here Flavel wrote among all the creatures God has made Devils only accepted man is the most apt and able to be his own tormentor and of all the scourge 'as with which he lashes and afflicts both his mind and body none is so cruel and intolerable as man's own fears and the worst the times are like to be the more need the mind has of encouragement to comfort fortify it for hard times but from the worst prospect fear inflicts the deepest most dangerous wounds on the mind of man cutting the very nerves of its passive fortitude and bearing ability so he sees the danger of fear practically and interestingly for our context today Flavel argued the root of most of our fears is unbelief he said if men would but dig to the root of their fears they would find unbelief leur and he quotes Matthew 826 why you afraid you of little faith and says the less faith still the more fear fear he said is generated by unbelief unbelief is strengthened by fear and therefore all the skill in the world can never cure us of the disease of fear till God cures us of our unbelief Christ therefore took the right method to rid his disciples of their fear by rebuking their unbelief but while Flavel could look at fear in that way he surrounded li was clear there are different sorts of fear and he classified three different sorts of fear we're going to see they're actually more than this Flavel categorized three he said there is natural fear there is sinful fear and then there is what he called religious fear or the fear of God which we'll unpack in the next lecture what exactly that means and Flavel was simply standing in line with mainstream Christian thinking which is taught that not all fear is bad or indeed unpleasant no of course say today that not all fear is bad or unpleasant doesn't tend to go down too well and in Christian circles you know the first it'll get thrown at you I'm gonna try to say this in the culturally appropriate way is it first John that's right is it first John 4:18 there is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear for fear has to do with punishment whoever fears has not been perfected in love the verse that seems tailor-made for a modern aversion to the fear of God and is used as a weapon to say all fear is a bad thing but what John was talking about is there is a fear even a fear of God that is bad there clearly is a fear of God and other things which is bad so in Luke 1 Zechariah the father of John the Baptist prophesied that Jesus salvation would mean that we being delivered from the hands of our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days so there is such a thing as a bad fear to be removed and yet again and again in Scripture we are called to fear God so classically proverbs 9 verse 10 the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom for some reason I don't know why that verses always seems to be quoted as as if it's from proverbs 1 but its proverbs 9 the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom the knowledge of the Holy One is insight Psalm 86 teach me verse 11 teach me your ways o Lord that I may walk in your truth unite my heart to fear your name Isaiah 33 verse 6 that yes that's how you say it by the way in England Isaiah that's the correct way the fear of the Lord is his treasure professor John Murray but it's simply when he wrote the fear of God is the soul of godliness or his John Owen John Owen was vice-chancellor of Oxford University Oxford University is one of our poor universities in England it's not comparable with Cambridge he said by the fear of the Lord in the Old Testament the whole worship of God moral and instituted all the obedience which we owe to him both for matter and manner is attended for Oh eNOS thinking of say job when the Lord says have you considered my servant job there is none like came on the earth a blameless and upright man who fears God and that fear throughout the Old Testament so often fear of the Lord is used as shorthand to sum up true faithfulness and it's not just an Old Testament thing that the New Testament then somehow rises above no in the Magnificat mary says his mercy is on them that fear Him from generation to generation paul writes since we have these promises beloved let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God that's second Corinthians 7:1 colossians 3:22 bondservants obey in everything those who are earthly masters with sincerity of heart fearing the Lord in other words Paul there are colossians 3:22 2nd Corinthians 7 agrees with the preacher when he wraps up Ecclesiastes saying the end of the matter all has been heard here God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole duty of man now scripture has some hefty surprises in store as it describes the fear of God that is the beginning of wisdom it is not what we were expecting at all and you begin to see this if you'd like to turn perhaps to Isaiah chapter 11 in the first few verses we see something the first surprise in the nature of the fear of the Lord Isaiah 11 we read there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse a branch from his roots shall bear fruit and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest on him the spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of counsel and might the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord and even more surprisingly the next line and his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord his delight now those last two statements should make us question what this fear of the Lord is for the fear of the Lord is not something that the Anointed One the one the spirit rests on the fear of the Lord is not something he wishes or is above he doesn't wish to be above this fear of the Lord he in all his sinless holiness and perfection has the fear of the Lord and he's not reluctant about it it is not that he loves God has joy in God but also finds unfortunately live that he ought to fear God know his delight is in the fear of the Lord the Spirit of Christ is the spirit of the fear of the Lord and ask God to make you ask what then is this fear that it could be Christ's delight this is not the gloomy theological equivalent of eating up your greens this cannot be a negative gloomy duty another surprise the God who is love is described twice in Genesis 31 verses 42 and 53 as the fear he is so intrinsically fearful by nature and identity he can be described as the fear of Isaac now that is a title that speaks of the profound impression left upon Jacob by his father's faith that is what Jacob had learned from Isaac God is the fear and through his word the glory of the one who is the fear shines through so that if you look at in Psalm 19 all those descriptions of the word of the Lord the commandments the precepts one of the descriptions in verse 7 is the fear of the Lord the Word of God itself is referred to as the fear of the Lord for through the Word of God the one who is the fear is made known one last price and it's to do with what this fear of God is now we often hear that the fear of God equals respect or reverence and certainly that's their will see men fall on their faces before him as though dead but I want us to see tomorrow that such words really don't capture it by themselves and to see some of why not leaving it all for tomorrow would you turn to Genesis 28 Genesis 28 from verse 10 Jacob left Beersheba went towards Haran and he came to a certain place as stayed there that night because the Sun had set and taking one of the stones of the place he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep and he dreamed and behold there was a ladder set up on the earth and the top of it reached to heaven and behold the angels of God were ascending and descending on it and behold the Lord stood above it and said I am the Lord the God of Abraham your father and the god of Isaac and listen to what he says now the land on which you lie I'll give to you in your offspring your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and the south and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed behold I am with you I will keep you wherever you go I will bring you back to this land for I will never leave you until I have done what I've promised you then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it and he was afraid and said how awesome or fearful is this place this is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven what of the Lord said turn not one word of threat it is promise after promise of pure grace and in the face of a poured out catalogue of blessing Jacob fears and for something similar come with me please do Jeremiah 33 Jeremiah 33 we read from verse 8 Jeremiah 33 verse 8 I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me I'll forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me and this city shall be to me a name of joy a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them and they shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide for it is it an extraordinary verse they shall fear and tremble because of all the good once again a catalogue of pure blessing and they fear and tremble because of all good clearly this fear is not the flipside of the Grace and goodness of God they fear here at how good he is clearly the fear of God is not at all what we with our cultural allergic reaction to the concept of fear might expect and tomorrow morning we'll press into understand this by seeing the scripture details multiple different types of fear some of them are negative some of them are positive and we'll begin to see how in the face of our culture of fear the fear of God is what deals with our anxieties thank you [Applause] you

Channel: Southern Seminary

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Keywords: Michael Reeves, Gheens Lectures, Southern Seminary, SBTS, Fear of God, Culture

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Length: 42min 22sec (2542 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 14 2019