The fear of God in today's world

What does it mean to fear God? In this episode we discuss comparisons between the Old Testament and the New Testament and what both tell us about God, sin, and holiness. We also talk about how we view sin compared to how God sees it, and the life-altering impact of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Links

14:40: Barb mentions an interview with Brandon Lake (discussion of "Christian Buddhist" begins at 33:31 mark)  https://youtu.be/upbtdE-3WN4?si=LO-efqhksrOg5AOK&t=2010

People Get Ready Podcast Website: https://pgrpodcast.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hi everybody, you're listening to the People Get Ready podcast. I'm Heather Depp, and in just a minute, we'll be jumping into a conversation with Barb Ho. We're talking about everyday issues from a Christian perspective while we even await our Jesus. People get ready. Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

I'm doing more study in the Old Testament. One of the things that it's making me think about is how different we often see God in the Old Testament than we see him in the New Testament. I want to say maybe perspective of God. Of course, he's the same God in the Old Testament as he is in the New Testament, the very same God. One of the stories that I was reading were Saul, when he was king, had um broken a promise with the Gibeonites. And so it played out that years later there was a famine that was going on in Israel. And when David sought the Lord to say, why is this going on? It was shown that it was because of this broken covenant or prom promise, I guess, that Saul had made with the Gibeonites. And um what they demanded, the Gibeonites demanded were seven descendants of Saul. And so David gave seven descendants, and some of them were even related to him and related to his wife, and he gave it to them and they hung them. And I think, boy, it's just it's a it's really different side of God. I mean, and after that, the famine stopped. It really did solve it. It needed blood to do it, and uh the famine ended, and there's so many stories like that and examples like that. And I I've been thinking about the holiness of God as I've been watching and reading about Him in the Old Testament, and the difference that that focus is a lot of times from the New Testament. What are some of your thoughts about that, Heather?

SPEAKER_01 1:54

We have mistaken grace as something that minimizes sin, but it it doesn't. Like you were saying that there was blood required for that sin. Well, there is still blood required, but we know now through the gospel that Jesus paid that price. And I think there's a tendency to kind of minimize what it is to sin against a holy God because we know that our sins have been forgiven. And in the Old Testament, they were constantly having to make sacrifices and then make atonement for their sin. And part of that was actually taking a knife to an innocent lamb and slaughtering it as payment. I just think about sweet little perfect little lamb. When you lived that way, you were constantly aware that sin doesn't happen in a vacuum, that there is a a consequence to it. And not that we have to live in obsessive awareness of our sin now, but we need to live in an awareness of what Christ has done on our behalf.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

And the one thing, you know, that I keep over and over and over and over thinking about is the focus in the Old Testament was so much more on the holiness of God, the justice of God. Hebrews talks about how God is a a a consuming fire. That that side of God, I I think. And and I think what we've done, like what you were talking about, is we've replaced it with thoughts of God being just loving and and full of grace, which He is. But if we don't have an understanding of the Old Testament, we cannot understand the meaning of the gospel in the New Testament. You can't understand the purpose of the death of Christ on the cross if you don't fully understand who God is, what his feelings are towards sin. And that's what when I think of people like I have to say, with Andy Stanley, and you know, he talks about disengaging with the Old Testament and how it's all focused on the New Testament, and we don't need the Old Testament. The Old Testament is our foundation for why we need what Christ did, for what the sacrifice for Christ did really changed and how that really affected our lives for eternity. We have turned away from the basic foundation of the holy, just, righteous, powerful, awesome creator God, and we've just put a focus on who we want him to be in the New Testament.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Yeah, and it's not even that the New Testament doesn't portray that picture as well as, I mean, it's different, but it's not that it doesn't do it as well as the Old Testament. It's not like what if you read the Old Testament and the New Testament, you're gonna see, like you were saying initially, you're gonna see uh a different God. He's the same God, and the New Testament does talk about the holiness of God and his justice and that he's the judge, that there is judgment. I mean, there's so much language in the New Testament about that. So it's not that the teaching is lacking in the New Testament. I think it's just that we have trained ourselves to filter it or to look at it differently than than we ought to. And I think you're right. I think part of that is because we don't have that balance of seeing God revealed in that explicit way in the Old Testament.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Yeah. And I think as I was thinking about this, I think there are two main areas that I see being played out in our society, in our churches, in our country, in our world. One of them is kind of a flippancy toward God. You know, God is being brought down to our level. I think the other one, and I'm gonna get into a little bit later, is a a a cavalier, I want to say, attitude towards sin. Really minimize the idea of sin. But I think in the attitude of flippancy towards God, I see this played out so much. I see, I see this God is all of a sudden being brought down to our level. He is our buddy, he's our friend. And you know, God is our God. I mean, he we are a friend of God, but he is God, he's the same God that in the Old Testament you couldn't even say his name. He was so holy. Recently, I was looking at this the tabernacle. I was watching a video and it was really interesting. It was talking in detail of what the tabernacle was and how the different things were part of the tabernacle, and it and it showed everything and what you know, the specific size and where everything had to go and what could be in there. And you just see that's God. God is that holy God. I mean, you did not do, you did not bring into that tabernacle what was not right. And I the thing that I walked away with that was, God, you are still that holy, righteous God. And I still have to think of you in that way, even though I I speak with you every day on such a friend and such a daughter level. I still have to keep in mind that you're that God that I have to respect and fear. That's the thing of it. What does it mean to fear God? One of the articles I read talked about how fearing God is a lot deeper than just respecting God. I think a lot of people, the phones, they have a respect of God. And what that article was saying was that it goes a lot deeper than respecting God. What what do you say fearing God involves?

SPEAKER_01 7:22

The danger for us as Christians is not so much that the world does not fear God as it should. The danger for us is that this is creeping into the church. Because the people who don't know God, they're not going to fear God in the way that they should. What you're explaining here is what we're seeing, not that's happening just in the world at large, but in the church, how a lot of bad doctrine that does bring God more down to our level. We're not God. We're not anywhere near God, but God is other. He's outside of us. I think that word holy, it means separate. Having a fear of God is an understanding of the exponential difference between who I am and who this holy God is. And as you read through scripture, a scene of worship in heaven, like I'm thinking in Revelation, they're crying out, holy, holy, holy. They're not doing that just like reading a script saying the words, but they're compelled in the presence of this holy God that that's what they must say. And I think fearing God, we can't fear God if we don't understand who he really is.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Right, which is one of the three basic concepts of who God is, who he is to us, and who we are to him. And, you know, I I think you're right. For a a non-Christian, the fear of God is different than a cr than for a Christian. I think for a non-Christian, the fear of God involves um a fear of judgment, right? It it involves a fear of eternal death and judgment. I mean, that's a good thing for a non-Christian to have, because that will, if anything, will bring them to Christ, that will. For a Christian, we don't have to have fear of judgment or fear of punishment or eternal death or anything like that. I think our fear, like we were talking about, is a a deep understanding and an awe and a reverence of who this God is. It's a deep understanding. And I, you know, I I still think that even though we don't have a fear of um of death and judgment like we did, I still think we need to have an understanding of how much God hates sin, right? I I think that we've gotten away from that. I think we've gotten away from the fact that God still hates sin. It's not okay. You you can't look at sin in a flippant way.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

To minimize sin is to minimize the savior, you know. If if sin is little, then we didn't need such a savior to save us from it.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

You know, let's talk about, let's do a little back shifting here. How do you think our churches have lost the fear of God? The whole seeker-sensitive movement has really affected this in a negative way. It's brought the church to a place where you want the church to be so comfortable for everyone to come in that we've sacrificed in some ways the awe and the reverence of God. It'll be 15, 20 minutes into worship, and you see families coming in with their frappuccinos, and you know that they're late because they're online getting their coffees. And I think I get it. I mean, I I don't want to be legalistic, and I know that you can definitely become legalistic in your thoughts about this. I but I think there's a balance. I think there's something about having a little bit of respect for God and for and for corporate worship. Well, I guess what I'm talking about is more the compromise that the body of Christ I see making in order to reach non-Christians. The the compromise of the fear of God and the awesomeness of God.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

The music of the church, I I don't have a problem with that sounding completely different than the music of the world. When someone walks into a fellowship of Christians and we start singing, that they realize this is not like music I've heard before. People are in the world before they come to Christ, they understand that they're they're in need of something that they don't have and it's not in the world. Sometimes they have been searching high and low and they've exhausted every kind of pursuit known to man to find happiness, and they find it nowhere in the world. So why in the world would we in the church want to make the church resemble the world when the people that we're reaching out to are people? I mean, it's kind of like if people are drowning in an ocean and they know that they're drowning in an ocean, and then we're gonna put, you know, big pools of water when people walk in the door so that they can fall into a pool and feel like they're drowning again. That makes no sense. When they come into a fellowship of Christians, it shouldn't be at all like the world. It should be like Christ. There is something that is so different and unique about the fellowship of Christians and the worship of God that is unlike any other encounter in the world. The more we separate ourselves and differentiate the church from what people are seeing in the world, the better. Not to get legalistic at all. It's not about the do's and don'ts, but it's about making the most important things most important. And that is a reverence for God.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

A reverence for God.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Reverence for God, a love for one another, um, and and just, yeah, an exaltation of Christ. You know, I'm reading through Colossians, and um, this is one of those verses. I mean, you read it a million times, and um, you know how sometimes something just jumps out at you, but in Colossians 2.8, it says, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. A couple weeks ago when I read that, I just thought to live according to Christ is I just pictured myself like taking some uh like large hook and removing it from something and then just hooking it on to Christ. And whatever I was bound to before, I'm not living my life in that way. There is a complete and total shift to live according to Christ because He becomes the center of everything that I do. That translates to everything that we do as believers, even especially as we're talking about how we quote unquote do church.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

I don't want to come across like legalistic where people feel like if they don't look a certain way or act a certain way, they can't come in. I don't want that. Like what you're saying that once they come in, they should sense the presence of God. They should there there should be something there that's just different. They shouldn't get that same feel as they do in the world. And sometimes we're trying to reach the masses by changing changing the format of what we're doing. And we have the presence of God in us when we come together. Like the Bible says, one is a hymn, one is a song, one is a, you know, all these different things. We become who the church is. And I I think that should be the drawing card. But we don't have to mask it or or market it or change things in order to reach the world. It's a balance, though, isn't it, Heather? It really is a balance because you don't want the legalistic thing. I was watching this morning a YouTube video of Brandon Lake, and it's it's all it's kind of all over YouTube where he was interviewed and they asked him, a guy asked him, and he said, I am he called himself like a Christian Buddhist. And he said, Is there a place for me in church? Is there a place for me? And you know, Brandon kind of danced around, but basically he kind of said yes. He said, There, there is a place for you, you know. He said, We hope you always feel and I get it on some, and there, you know, and I even read a lot a lot of the comments that people were making, but he kind of went on to describe it a little bit too much like he's welcome. And and and I even comment and I said, I believe everyone should feel welcome to come into church, but unless they accept the Lord, they're not welcome into the fellowship of believers. You know, that is the fellowship of believers. Not everybody is welcomed into the fellowship of believers, but everybody is welcome to church. Our churches should be the place where everyone feels they can come, but they know that unless they've given their lives to Christ, really authentically given their lives to Christ, they're not part of the body of Christ. We're not all children of God.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

It needs to be very clear what a life of faith is, what believing in Christ means. By blending the church with the world, it we're communicating this message. It's okay for you to live this life that's blending the world and blending Buddhism, blending Christianity. Right. But I think the the more that we can clearly separate from the world when someone who does not know God comes to church, they are confronted with biblical truth and they have a decision to make. And if we water down the fact that this is a life-altering decision, then that does them no good. I mean, they need to understand that this changes everything. And I I think that's that's a that's a good thing that people need to encounter, you know, a stark difference between what a life in Christ is and what life in the world is.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Yeah. And I think part of that, the whole thing of like my burden for the church is a lot of the preaching now is, and we've touched on this before, it's gotten away from, you know, teaching about sin. And and that is so much involved with the fear of God, because you can't have a fear of God, a righteous fear, a holy righteous fear of God, and not be teaching the truth about sin and the truth about you know what sin does and how it affects us because we love the people, they need to hear the truth. The Bible talks about having their ears tickled. We we don't want to say anything to offend them. And I think that all has to do with the fear of God.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Yeah. Come as you are, but leave changed. I mean, there has to, there must be a transformation. I mean, and that's what this life is about. You if you give a testimony, how can you give a testimony of a non-moment? If nothing happens in your life, in your heart, you don't really come to a saving knowledge of Christ, what can you testify about? You know, again, in Colossians uh 1, 13 and 14, it says, For he rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And I I just love that illustration. We have been rescued from the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of his beloved son. That that is life, definitely life-changing. Yeah. And I again, like that next verse says, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, that whole transfer from darkness to light is related to what happened on the cross and our sin issue that we could never deal with on our own, but that Christ paid that penalty in full on our behalf. Again, now I'm thinking, too, out of that, I must live a life of gratitude. If I really understand what I have been delivered from, this domain of darkness. And again, I don't want to dwell on my sin, but every once in a while, you know, I prayerfully reflect back on what God brought me out of, what he delivered me from, what, you know, and and the depth of my need for him and his the greater depth of his love for me. And how can I live a life of gratitude for that if I don't really think it was, I'm gonna say, that big of a deal. And and I'm saying that in relation to if we minimize sin, then we minimize our praise. If we minimize sin, then we minimize our life of gratitude. If we minimize sin, we minimize the testimony of what God has done. And I mean, it's just uh an evidence that we really don't understand the holiness of this almighty creator God.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Exactly. And yeah, that was that was really true. You know, I think about um there's a street evangelist named Ray Comfort. I know you're you're aware of him, and he goes out in the street and he preaches the gospel, and he always uses the Ten Commandments as as the pinpoint, and and he'll say, like, you know, why you think you're going to heaven? And they'll say, Yeah, and he's a why? Because I'm a good person. That's nine, a lot of the the percentage of the people say. So what he'll do is he'll bring him face to face with the Ten Commandments from the Old Testament, and he'll say, Have you ever have you ever done this? Have you ever stolen? Have you ever told a lie? Have you ever, you know, used the Lord's name in vain? Have you ever, you know, and he goes through a lot all many of the Ten Commandments and they say yes, yes, yes. And he said, So why do you think you're gonna have a right to stand holy before a holy God and for him to accept you? Why why do you think that, you know? And I just think that that's where the Old Testament and an understanding of who God is is so important to bring into the gospel. I think that the gospel encompasses all of that. You know, we don't we don't understand our sin, like you were saying, we don't need a savior. Who needs a savior if you don't think that your sin is not bad? And I think our society today is really getting away from that, and I think it's it's having an adverse effect on him.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Yeah, and we mentioned music earlier, and that's a really important part of it too in the songs that we sing, because it's good if the church is singing doctrine and it's singing biblical truth, and a lot of the words of the songs that we're singing, which that means that we're repeating over and over and over again, can minimize, you know, the the holiness of well, either minimize the holiness of God or elevate who we are. We've touched on that before, but it's relevant to this conversation that music is is a huge part of our thought patterns.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

And I think it's part of the whole there's just a big thing nowadays to make God our buddies. And I think that's reflected in our songs a lot of times, and he's just we bring them down to our level.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

And um Yeah, I I agree. That's just one of the ways between music and media and and culture that that message is really proliferating, not even in the world only, but through the church too.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

And I think in a lot of ways it you know, when I talk to people about these different things, and they say, Well, it's the message is Going out. I mean, and the idea is the end justifies the means. I mean, the message is going out, but I I guess I want to say what message is going out and what Jesus are they preaching? You know, are they are they preaching when people are making commitments, are they making commitments really to God? I mean, do they really understand the commitments they're making? Is it just a numbers thing to try to get people to raise their hands? Or is it something, you know, the Bible doesn't say to make converts, it says to make disciples. It's important that the people know up front, you know, Jesus never watered down the gospel. He drew a line and he said, You're either for me or against me. He said, If you want to follow me, let the dead bury the dead, and you know, he never compromised when when a person came to him. It was all or nothing. And and I think that that's important because God doesn't just want part of us, he he doesn't just want us to raise our hand in a service. He wants our life, he wants our complete and total, you know, dependence to be on him. And we've talked about that, you know, the whole thing of depending on him and being um, you know, being surrendered, not being committed. I mean, he doesn't want our commitment. He wants our complete surrender, and we're not speaking the truth in love. How can they surrender to something they don't fully understand? And I think that we're doing that a lot nowadays. We're we're compromising a lot.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Yeah, I'm thinking of a quote, and I think it was Spurgeon, and I think it goes something like this but discernment isn't the difference between knowing right and wrong. It's the difference between knowing right and almost right. And we can sort of get a little, I'm gonna say lax in thinking that the details don't matter. And that's one of the things that we need to be on guard with grace, because the grace of God, the love of God has covered our sin. We can't get laxed in thinking that all those details don't matter. And that's one of the things reading through the Old Testament. You cannot read through the Old Testament apart from the understanding of how important every little detail is to God. I can't think of an example right off the top of my head, but God would discipline the Israelites and He would discipline his prophets, and if they were in an attitude of partial understanding or almost getting it right, he wouldn't leave them in that place. We see played out in scripture very detailed, arduous, trying, challenging trials of God leading them to the proper understanding of who he is because he loves us. He doesn't leave us in that place of not really knowing him. And speaking of myself, I can get lazy in this too because of my human tendency to minimize the wrong that I do and my own wretchedness. We can kind of get laxed in an understanding of the magnitude of what Christ did for us and who God really is and and what his position on sin is. And that that is not going to change.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

An example of what you were talking about is when they were transporting the ark for the ark of the covenant and started to fall, and someone put their hands up to stop it, and they were struck dead, and and you just think, wow, Lord, you know, but it was that holiness of God that that was not okay. God has to be worshipped, and they knew that that was a disobedience. That was that was clear. You didn't touch the ark of the, you know, the ark of the covenant, and and yet God God held true to that, and you think, What? I mean, he was just trying to help, right? But but God doesn't need our help, and and the holiness of God outweighs that. And you can see that there. And also the tabernacle, like we were saying before, it was so it was so set up so exactly right. And it was because God is a holy God that expects from us. We are compromising things. I mean, I want people, I want all to come to know Christ. That that's my burden, that's my desire. And if I thought that the compromising in these things is actually bringing people into a reality of who Christ really is, I would say praise God for it, but I'm not seeing that. The more I see compromise of sin, the more I see compromise of the attitude of who God is, I see the world and our churches going in a direction that I don't think is healthy. I don't think it's biblical and I don't think it's good.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Do you want to talk about how we can better reflect the fear of God? Okay, Heather.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

So how can we better reflect the fear of God in our lives, in our churches, in our homes, in our Christian walks? What steps can we take to do that?

SPEAKER_01 26:46

It first has to start in our one-on-one relationship with God. And from there, you know, we just need to bring that into every relationship and every aspect of life. It's it's something that we need to be on our guard about because we are in a culture. And even as we've been talking, we're surrounded with even quote unquote Christian media that's maybe not in line with the fear of God that's kind of bringing God down to our level because we're swimming in a sea of that. We just that much more need to be on guard and we need to be diligent in our prayer time, in our study, in our worship time, exalting the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

When I was a young Christian back in the 70s when I first became a Christian, we talked about the Bible and even had names like Devo time and QT time. And it was a known thing that you were supposed to spend time with God daily. A lot of Christians, and I don't say all because there's a lot that have not stuck with that. I'm not saying he means, but I see I see a lot of Christians that have gotten away from that. I love to ask people, how's your quiet time? How's your prayer time? And not in a judgmental way, but just in the way you're talking about it. And and a lot of them say, well, it's not where I want it to be. I really need to get closer to God. I need to draw back on God. And then we talk about how to take steps to do that. But if you don't face the reality, you're not going to change the reality. If we don't recognize that we've gotten away from it, we're not going to make changes to do it. Christians are spending less time with the Lord than they than they had in the past. That's what I I've experienced with working with people and writing books about prayer and stuff. I've just seen that. And I think we need to get back to it. We need to understand the importance of having that time with God every single day or as much as we can. And again, not in a legalistic way, but in a the fear of God way. I mean, this is God, and we have to get to know him. If we don't know God, how how can we serve a God we don't know? And the only way to get to know God is not by just watching videos or or listening to things, it's by spending time alone with him. That's how you get to know people. And that's how you get to know God, and we need to get back to that. Yeah. Well, I think we've had some some areas today, some some things, you know, and and we always say our conversations are for the purpose of stirring, stirring the water and bringing things out and talking about it. Not that we are always right in in you know our thoughts, but just getting people to think, getting Christians to think about the truths of the word and kind of stirring things that we see going on in our society. And I think that we might have done that for some things today. So All right, well, let me close in prayer and come before the Lord with this. Father, we just thank you so much, God, for who you are, but you are such a loving and compassionate and God full of grace. And yet, Lord, you are an all-consuming fire. Father, you are the the the holy creator, God, and and God help us to keep in mind the importance of of honoring, of reverently fearing you, of knowing who you are, God, that we're in the arms of a compassionate, loving God, but one who still holds a standard, Father, that you are still a righteous, holy, just God. Lord, I pray against this teaching and against the Old Testament and the thought that we don't need the Old Testament, Father. I pray that you would help us to change that, Lord. Forgive us for that. Help us to live out the reality of the New Testament under the fulfillment of the Old. We thank you, God, that you are just an awesome, loving, powerful God who cares deeply about our lives and who cares deeply about us. God, we pray, Father, for those who are living apart from you. Lord, I pray, Father, that people would hear from you, Lord, and people would surrender their lives to you. I pray that you would use us, God. I pray that we would have a deep understanding of what life and eternity is like apart from you, that there is no hope. That unless people surrender their lives to you fully, Father, there's no hope and their future is bleak at best. God, give us a heart for those who don't know you. Lord, give us a heart to share your gospel, your full gospel, your truthful gospel, God, your complete gospel, Lord. Use us, Lord, as people who have been given this task, this privilege. I pray for a deep stirring of our hearts for the gospel, a heart for evangelism, God. And I pray that you would use each person that's hearing this, that you would stir our hearts for that. Use us, God, give us opportunities and then give us a deep conviction to step out of those opportunities. Thank you, Father, for this time. Thank you for who you are, Lord. We love you, we honor you, and we worship you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.