Michael Reeves: "Our Culture of Fear and the Fear of God" - Lecture 2

well good morning I am thrilled to see there are some people back here this morning I wasn't sure that would happen I was in a restaurant a couple of days ago in Oklahoma and I started by ordering simply a tomato juice and the waitress just laughed at me and I didn't know why and I tried to order the rest of my breakfast she just collapsed in laughter and walks off so I wasn't sure if anyone was actually going to stay so I'm very glad you are here whether you understand a word I'm saying no we were looking yesterday at how our culture having cast off the fear of God is now swimming in anxiety we were seeing how it seeks to deal with the problem by medicalizing and eradicating all fear now in some conversations afterwards yesterday I was saying by that statement medication can have a place in dealing with particularly chronic anxiety though it's not the solution to it but our society is seeking to medicalize and eradicate all fear and we saw how the church is largely capitulated removing the fear of God from its vocabulary now there are some who smells something of this and think exactly we've capitulated to our culture we've just said the nice fluffy stuff about God's love and what we really need now is to get people to fear God what's going on is they see the clear lack of reverence or for God in our Christian circles today but it sounds to me like they think the solution is to make people afraid of God well we began to see yesterday that is not how scripture speaks of the fear of God would you turn with me to Exodus chapter 20 to see something of this that the fear of God is not the same thing as being afraid of God Exodus chapter 20 verse 18 now when all the people saw the Thunder the flashes of lightning the sound of the trumpet the mountains smoking the people were afraid and trembled and stood far off and said to Moses you speak to us and we'll listen but do not let God speak to us lest we die and here we go verse 20 Moses said to the people do not fear or be afraid for God has come to test you that the fear of him may be before you that you may not sin so Moses sets out a contrast here between being afraid of God and fearing God if you have the fear of God you will not be afraid of him do not fear or be afraid for God has come to test you that the fear of him may be before him and and it's the word fear that's used in both do not fears an extraordinary sentences know do not fear for God has come to test you that the fear of him may be before you so clearly what we see here is there are different types of fear different type Saphir of God some good some bad and this is what I want us to press into now and by getting clarity on the different types of fear we build our understanding of that fear of God that scripture commends we get clarity on that so let's start with what we might call ungodly fear ungodly fear this is the sort of fear James tells us the demons have when they believe and shudder James 2:19 it is just this fear we've seen in Exodus the fear the Lord wants to remove from the Israelites at Sinai it is the fear adam had when he sinned and was afraid and so he hid Genesis 3 verse 10 and in that action that moment Adam shows us the essential nature of this wrong or ungodly fear Adam was afraid and so he hid an ungodly fear drives you away from God and that's it's essential nature with this ungodly fear you remain a rebel at heart it is the fear the unbeliever has young believer hates God fears being exposed as a sinner and so runs from God this is the fear that is linked to doubt in Scripture fear this wrong fear being the cause of unbelief and so in Revelation chapter 21 verse 8 as for the Cowardly or fearful as for the fearful and the faithless there rolled into one as for the fearful and faithless or cowardly and faithless their portion will be in the lake that burns we saw her yesterday Bertrand Russell said that fear is at the heart of religion and he'd misunderstood what that fear was but actually see fear is the motor for both atheism and all wrong and fear filled human religion it's ungodly fear driving people away from God on a reading something from John Bunyan in 1679 the year after he published his pilgrims progress Bunyan produced his quite marvelous treatise on the fear of God now this is one of bunions most theologically astute works and it is proof Bunyan must have been one of the most intellectually gifted and past really wise tinkers the world has ever seen a tinkerer was a man who would wander from village to village with a toolkit on his back mending pots and pans and Bunyan would go from village to village with a 60 pound anvil on his back so he could hammer out pots and pans for people and then he would find a place and preach and my parents house is right next to bunions old house and there's a wood there and in the middle of it is called bunions del it's a little hollow in the ground like a natural amphitheater where he would preach he was actually by profession a tinkerer but he became such a preacher of the gospel the King once said to the vice-chancellor of oxygen University he called him that illiterate tinker and Owen John Owen the greatest scholar of his day said please Your Majesty if I could possess that tinker's ability for preaching I would gladly relinquish all my learning it actually wasn't his gift for preaching it was his message and here's something of his theological wisdom here in his treatise on the fear of God now what Bunyan's doing is he's seeking to quell this ungodly fear that makes people flee from God and so Bunyan turns to the reader and says this reader do you have fears that make you question whether there was ever a work of grace in your soul reader do these fears make you question whether you have indeed had any comfort from the word and spirit of God do you have fears that weaken your heart in prayer do you have fears that keep you away from laying hold of the promise of salvation by Jesus Christ do these fears tend to harden your heart and to make you desperate and do these fears make you sometimes think it is vain to wait upon the Lord any longer and if you won't say yes Bunnings reply errs well poor Christian I'm glad you've answered so plainly but I pray you look back now upon your answer how much of the Spirit of God do you think is in your answer how much of his spirit the grace of his word none at all for it cannot be that these fears are the true and natural effects of the workings of the Spirit of God these are not his doings listen to this do you not see in those fears the very poor of the devil it is he sang the devil's work to promote a fear of God that makes people flee from God it is the spirits work to produce a very different sort of fear that draws people to God and with that let's come onto the other main sort of fear the right or godly fear that scripture commands and where the distinguishing mark of ungodly fear is that it drives you away from God the essential nature of godly fear is that it draws you to God come with me please to Jeremiah chapter 32 Jeremiah 32 passed the Lord's explanation of the New Covenant and will dive in at verse 38 Jeremiah 32 38 the Lord says and they shall be my people and I will be their God I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me forever for their own good and the good of their children after them I will make with them an everlasting covenant that I will not turn away from doing good to them and I will put the fear of me into their hearts that they may not turn from me and this fear that the spirit will implant in believers that they may not turn from me is not a fear of punishment as if they will not dare turn from God for fear of what he will do to them no because over the page Jeremiah 33 goes on to explain the nature of this fear Jeremiah 33 verse 8 I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me I will 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 that's why they fear and tremble he's so gracious and John Bunyan comments and see how I'm needing to turn to the old school theologians for we saw yesterday how post-enlightenment appreciation of the doctrine of the fear of God has tailed off so this is really old time rock and roll theology Bunyan says no faith no fear of God Devils faith Devils fear Saints faith Saints fear godly fear flows from a sense of the love and kindness of God to the soul where there is no sense of hope of the kindness and mercy of God by Jesus Christ there can be none of this fear but rather Roth and despair which produces a fear which is devilish but godly fear flows from a sense of hope of mercy from God by Jesus Christ indeed nothing can lay a stronger obligation upon the heart to fear God than a sense of or hope in mercy isn't that striking and Bunyan goes on this hope of mercy baguettes true tenderness of heart true godly softness of spirit this truly endears the affections towards God and in this true tenderness softness indira des of affection towards God in this lies the very essence of this fear of the Lord that is not what people expect is in in this tenderness softness in Jared Ness of affection to God brought about by appreciating the mercy and grace of God in this lies the very essence of the fear of the Lord well now having distinguished godly from ungodly fear briefly we can press into see there are actually different sorts of godly fear the first sort of godly fear we might call the fear of the creator and I need to emphasize something quite strongly here this of the Creator is one part only of godly fear of God and I emphasize that because it is commonly thought that what I'm about to show this fear of the creator it's commonly thought that is a complete definition of the fear of God now the fear of the creator is most famously spelt out in the German liberal theologian Rudolf Otto is 1917 dust Heyliger thee is translated usually the idea of the holy and in that work Rudolf Otto coined the term the numinous numinous from the latin neumann meeting spirit or divine arguing that the numinous experience is the experience that underlies all religious experience it is something wholly other it is something we might call the mysterium tremendum at fusca nuns and by that he meant that the numinous is mysterious inexpressible it is tremendous or or inspiring if it makes you tremble and it is fascinating beautiful and overwhelming fascinating and terrifying all at the same time no Otto has captured something absolutely right about the Saints adoration of the righteous creator the Living God is a consuming fire and while the sinner dreads that thought the Saints they delight in God's holy righteousness the holiness the majesty the transcendence of God they do fascinate and overwhelm us however we need to be careful with Auto because this is not a specifically Christian idea it was something Auto saw in many different religions and we will be quite wrong if we think this is the sum total of what scripture means by the fear of God this mysterium tremendum at fusca Nance and so I want to give three reasons why we should be cautious not simply to take can I say Auto in toto first reason because Auto only considers our relationship to God as a creator creature relationship that's all he's got in mind because that's the case there is no gracious Savior in his explanation there is no mediator to bring us to God and without that revelation of Christ our conception of God will be inaccurate as Luther put it we were totally unable to come to a recognition of the father's favor and grace except through the Lord Christ who is the mirroring image of the father's heart listen to this Luther wrote without Christ we see nothing in God but an angry and terrible judge and there's no Christ in Otto's explanation so we're left with an angry and terrible judge but think how differently for example Jonathan Edwards as a Christian could conceive of God in his transcendent holiness Lister this description Edwards gives of God's holiness who else but a Christian who's studied scripture on this could write this Edwards writes God is arrayed with an infinite brightness a brightness that doesn't create pain as the light of the Sun pains the eyes to behold it but rather fills with excess of joy and delight indeed no man can see God and live why because Edward says the sight of such glory would overpower nature tis because the joy and pleasure in beholding would be too strong for a frail nature so according to Edwards God is fascinatingly overwhelming because of the super fluence of joy and perfection in him that is an understanding Auto couldn't grasp second reason to be cautious with Auto connected to that first one the idea of the mysterium tremendum needn't but all too easily does collapse into simply being afraid of God it needn't but it also often does so here professor John Murray's helpful wisdom here he writes the fear of God which is the soul of godliness does not consist in the dread which is produced by the apprehension of God's wrath when the reason for such dread exists then to lack it is a sign of hardened ungodliness but the fear of God which is the basis of godliness and in which godliness may be said to consist is much more inclusive and determinative than the fear of God's judgment and we must remember the dread of judgment this is such a wise statement the dread of judgment will never of itself generate within us the love of God or the hatred of the sin that makes us liable to his wrath even the infliction of wrath will not create the hatred of sin it will incite to greater love of sin and enmity against God punishment has of itself no regenerating or converting power the fear of God in which godliness consists is the fear which constrains adoration and love last caution regarding auto because auto only considers our relationship to God as a creator creature relationship auto cannot imagine that there is a higher fear than that of the creature before the Creator so for example we looked at Genesis 28 yesterday but when Auto reads Genesis 28 Jacob fo Auto argues Jacobs fear there in the presence of the Lord was the result of his consciousness of his creature hood in the presence of deity why did Jacob fear because he's conscious of his creature hood but that is not a conclusion you can draw from the text let me tell you how Auto puts it he says the emotion of a creature submerged and overwhelmed by its own nothingness in contrast to that which is supreme above all creatures he's saying that's what Jacob experienced at Bethel we're not told that in the text that that's the reason for his fear this consciousness of his own nothingness before God the context for Jacob sphere as we saw yesterday is the catalogue of the Lord's blessings overwhelming him with goodness auto in other words had a limited theological perspective all he was thinking about was creator creature and so in Otto's mind the fear of God could only be describing the creatures or at God God's transcendence and my fear is too much Christian language about fear of God is limited to autos per spec it's just the fear of the creature before the creator but that is merely one part of right fear of God however the Living God is not merely the Creator he is a father who eternally willed that his son might be the firstborn among many brothers he has sent his son as our Savior to bring us to himself to bring us to himself that we might be there not merely accepted creatures we might be beloved adopted cherished children and that pushes us into the second sort of godly fear the first sort of godly fear is the right fear and adoration of the Creator but believers are saved and adopted to enjoy a higher fear the feel fear and adoration not just of creatures before their creator but children before their Heavenly Father this is the fear that Christ himself has that's described in Isaiah 11 when Isaiah describes the spirit that rests on Christ as the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord and his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord the privilege of believers is that we are brought to share Christ's own feeling fear of God that is our privilege now charles spurgeon captured something of this when he said that unlike others for example the young unregenerate martin luther he said unlike others who are terrified at lightning spear Jean wrote I love the lightnings gods Thunder is my delight if you're scared of storms think of Spurgeon when next you see one Spurgeon writes men are by nature afraid of the heavens the superstitious dread the signs in the sky and even the bravest spirit is sometimes made to tremble when the firmament is ablaze with lightning and appealing Thunder seems to make the vast concave of heaven tremble and reverberate but I always feel ashamed to keep indoors when the Thunder shakes the solid earth and the lightnings flash like arrows from the sky for then God is abroad and I love to walk out in some wide space and look up and mark the opening gates of heaven as the Lightning reveals far beyond and enables me to gaze into the unseen I like to hear my heavenly father's voice in the Thunder he's thinking John 12 the father speaks they thought it thundered no note Spurgeon's enjoyment is I like to hear who precisely my Heavenly Father's voice in the Thunder he relishes the transcendence and power of God more because it is the transcendence and power not just of a righteous creator but of his loving father so this godly fear of the Father the Christ shares with his it is not the same thing as being afraid godly fear casts out such fear but neither is this a cool passionless regard of God we've seen repeatedly have those with a godly fear tremble overwhelmed by God's goodness and majesty and holiness and grace and righteousness in fact by every perfection of God's the faithful tremble in other words it looks as though this trembling fear of God is a way of speaking about the intensity of the Saints love for and enjoyment of God of all that God is in His grace His Majesty's holiness his righteousness his transcendence his compassion it seems then we can say the fear of God defines true love for God scripture calls us to love God but here's the problem we can mistake that word love thinking that love for God means just the same love as we have for other things but the nature of a love is defined by its object let me illustrate that the nature of a love is defined by its object I want to illustrate by giving you three true statements I mean all of them one I love and have affection for my dog - I love and have affection for my wife - that jar as a statement number three I love and have affection for my god I mean all three statements but I hope you're slightly troubled by how I put them all together like that because while each is true they jar put together because I mean rather different things by each in each the love is different because the object of love is different and because of the infinite perfection of God in all that he is from his transcendent Majesty to his humble compassion we do not love God a right if ours is not a trembling overwhelmed love a fearful love that is right love for God the fear of God is the right response to God's full orbed revelation of himself therefore the fear of God is not one side of our reaction to God we often suppose that God's grace makes us love him and His Holiness makes us tremble know true fear of God is not lopsided in how it trembles before God we've seen examples of this in Scripture his very grace makes us tremble - and we love his holiness when we understand it or right so it is not that we have a love for God that is tempered or balanced out by our fear of him godly fear is love defined shaping what sort of intense love we have for God and if I may I'd like to read you a poem called the fear of God by the hymn writer FW Faber and this is a poem that seeks to explore just this idea is titled the fear of God favor eyes my fear of V O Lord exalts like life within my veins a fear which rightly claims to be one of Love's sacred pains the goodness to thy Saints of old and awful that I mean that means an awesome not about an awesome awful thing appeared for Wertheim majesty less good much less would it be feared there is no joy the soul can meet upon life's various Road like the sweet fear that sits and shrinks under the eye of God a special joy is in all love for objects we revere and thus joy in God will always be proportioned to our fear o thou art greatly to be feared thou art so prompt to bless the dread to miss such love as thine makes fear but loves excess the fullness of thy mercy seems to fill both land and sea if we can break through bounds so vast how exiled shall we be for grace is fearful which each hour our path in life has crossed if it were rarer it might be less easy to be lost but fear is love and love is fear and in and out they move but fear is an intense a joy than me run frightened love when most I fear the Lord then most familiar I appear and I am in my sole most free when I am most in fear I should not love thee as I do if love might make more free it's very sweetness would be lost in greater Liberty I feel the most of father when I fancy the most near and thou comest not so nigh in love as thou comest Lord in fear they love the little if at all who do not fairly much if love is thine attraction Lord fear is thy very touch love could not love the half so much if it found thee not so near it is thy nearness which makes love the perfection of fear we fear because thou are so good and because we can sin and when we make most show of love when we are trembling most within and father when to us in heaven thou shalt thy face unveil then more than ever will our souls before thy goodness quail blessedness will be to bear the sight of these so near and thus eternal love will be but the ecstasy of fear and last point not only this vapor entered out does fear define proper love for God the fear of God helps define how we enjoy and glorify God please excuse me ecclesiastes sums up fear God keep his Commandments for this is the whole duty of man the Westminster Shorter Catechism not scripture I know but a good summary of Reformation belief tells us and hold these two together man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever Ecclesiastes and Westminster are approaching the same truth through different aspects fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole duty of man man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever as a love for God is a trembling wonder filled love so our joy in God is a trembling and Wonder filled a fearful joy for the object of our joy God is a unique and fearfully wonderful object and make no mistake as Christ's own delight is in the fear of the Lord Isaiah 11 3 so the fear of the Lord is a pleasure to believers for it is about enjoying his fearful glory and thus nehemiah prays in Nehemiah 1:11 Oh Lord let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name Psalm 2 verse 11 says serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling in Isaiah sixty verse five the ESV reads then you shall see and be radiant and your heart shall thrill or tremble and exult and that word translated to thrill or tremble describes a joyful emotion where the heart rubs with pleasure in God and in that particular enjoyment we glorify God as fearfully wonderful revelation 15 verse 4 who will not fear thee O Lord and glorify your name our God is a fearfully happy God he is not moderately happy but fearfully so-and-so it is when we have this fear we enter into the joy of our master in our next and last lecture we will explore how we can cultivate this fear and will see just how important and practically helpful it is especially in the face of our anxious culture thank you [Applause] you

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

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Length: 44min 28sec (2668 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 14 2019