Above all, fear the Lord and worship him faithfully with all your heart; consider the great things he has done for you. However, if you continue to do what is evil, both you and your king will be swept away. [1 Samuel 12:24-25 (CSB)]
When the nation of Israel was established, God said He’d be their king. But the people wanted an earthy king like the nations surrounding them so Saul became king. Samuel told Israel that, as long as they and their king walked with God, all would go well for the nation. Reminding the people to remember all the wonderful things God did for them, Samuel cautioned Israel. If they persisted in rebellion and disobedience, there would be serious trouble: they and their king would be banished (a prophecy of their eventual exile).
When Samuel told the Israelites to “Fear the Lord,” he was giving them a warning about fearing the consequences of sin and God’s wrath. To make his message crystal clear, Samuel prayed for thunder and rain as a way of demonstrating God’s wrath. A rain storm would seem a blessing to people in an arid land but it was harvesting time. Rain during harvest damages the crops and causes them to rot. Not a boon but a disaster, this unseasonal storm was a clear sign of God’s displeasure at Israel’s desire for an earthly king. It demonstrated that the same God who brought blessings to them when He parted the Red Sea, made the walls of Jericho fall, rained hailstones on the Amorites, and scattered the Philistines with a thunderstorm, could rain trouble upon them as well. It showed that God’s people could be punished for disobedience as easily as they’d been blessed for obedience. The Israelites were given good reason to fear the Lord.
Unfortunately, Samuel’s warnings (and those of the many prophets who followed) were not heeded and, as prophesied, the kingdom was swept away less than 500 years later. One of God’s Biblical names is Elohay Mishpat, the God of Justice; the fall of Israel and Judah was His judgment against injustice, evil, disobedience, and sacrilege.
What does “fear the Lord” mean to us today? The Hebrew word for fear is yârêʼ and, when used in Scripture, it refers to an appropriate attitude of reverence and awe before the Holy One. Fully understanding that sin has consequences, rather than regarding God with terror and anxiety, fear of the Lord means our recognition that we are mere mortals before our Creator and Sustainer—we are nothing more than small children before their father or common criminals before their judge. Recognizing that we are recipients of His mercy, grace, and love, “fear of God” means regard for His might, trust in His limitless love, awe of His majesty and power, loving reverence for His being, submission to His commands, repentance for our sins, and an overwhelming mindfulness of His existence in our lives. Fear of the Lord involves our trust and love toward the powerful One who both protects and punishes us.
Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” and, as followers of Christ, we have no need to fear sharing the gospel, natural disaster, the strange or unfamiliar, tomorrow, enemies, persecution, judgment, or even death. Like the Israelites of old, however, we are to fear the Lord!
“Chocolate comes from cacao beans. Beans are vegetables. Salads are made of vegetables. Therefore, chocolate is a salad!” said the sign in the bakery. “I like their logic!” I thought. If you’ve ever tried to lose weight you probably know the loopholes used by dieters. Broken cookies have no calories because they fell out when the cookies broke, anything eaten with a diet soda is calorie-free, and food eaten off someone else’s plate doesn’t count because the original calories belong to them! Technically, anything licked off a spoon while preparing food isn’t eating; it’s cooking! Furthermore, if you’re eating with someone else, you’ve kept to your diet if the other person consumes more than you! As a once struggling dieter, I know all the excuses to justify over indulging. The worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves and, unfortunately, most of them aren’t as silly as these.
This proverb about iron sharpening iron reminds me of Sunday dinners when I was a girl. After the roast beef was placed in front of my father, he picked up the carving knife and a steel rod. With dramatic flair, he would run the knife back and forth against the steel before carving the meat. For the perfect slice of beef, he used iron to “sharpen” iron.
Along with sins of the heart like greed, pride, coveting, anger, and envy, we have jealousy. It’s hard to make a clear distinction between jealousy and envy and, in most cases, the words can be used interchangeably. The difference seems to be that the discontent and resentment of envy is focused outward toward something we desire and the person who has it while the discontent and resentment of jealousy is focused inward toward something we have and want to keep for ourselves. For example, Rachel was envious of Leah because she had given birth to Jacob’s children but both sisters were jealous of one another whenever Jacob slept with the other one. Most often used in the context of romantic relationships and often coming from insecurity, jealousy is a mix of overwhelming possessiveness with a little paranoia on the side.
While the Hebrew word translated as covet, chamad, can mean “take pleasure in,” it also means “ungoverned selfish desire.” Chamad ranges from wholesome delight to illicit craving. It’s not a stretch to see how taking pleasure in something that isn’t yours can lead to desiring it and wanting to acquire it. When David saw Bathsheba on the rooftop, he delighted in her beauty but that delight grew into such desire that he took what belonged to his neighbor. When Achan saw the riches that were to be set aside for God, he coveted the wealth for himself and stole it. When Elisha’s servant Gehazi saw the wealth Namaan brought to his master, he was filled with desire for what wasn’t his to take. Coveting the wealth that Elisha refused to accept, Gehazi chased after Namaan, concocted a lie, and took some of that wealth for himself.
Just as we must not become stumbling blocks to others on their faith journey, we must be cautious of the stumbling blocks we encounter on ours. The Greek word usually translated as “stumbling block” was skandalon. It originally referred to the stick that served as the trigger for a snare trap but, eventually, scandalon developed two meanings. It was both a snare or trap that catches unsuspecting prey as well as something that trips a person and causes them to stumble and fall—in other words, a stumbling block. In both cases, the purpose of the scandalon is to catch its victim unaware!
Devotions of the Heart 