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We can’t emphasize enough the importance of the fear of the Lord. It appears about 150 times in the Bible. It is certainly important for every believer. In fact, when God regenerates our dead spirits, He includes this sense of the fear of the Lord.
Jeremiah 32:40, “I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me.”
John Calvin said it well, “All wickedness flows from a disregard for God…. Since the fear of God is the bridle by which our wickedness is held in check, its removal frees us to indulge in every kind of licentious or immoral conduct.” Just consider the lack of moral restraint galloping through our culture, the violence, anger, hatred, murdering, increasing foul language splattering public conversations. Godless professors indoctrinate their students in hard-core secularism. God is not in all their thoughts and they work hard to destroy any sense of God in the hearts of young people. Gender confusion, abortion, pornography, breakdown of the family, random murders, child molestation, and human trafficking are all the rotten fruit of erasing the fear of the Lord out of our land.
I can’t express how important the fear of God is, but David stands before us as our professor in verse 11 and is determined to teach us this great truth of the fear of the Lord.
Psalm 34:11, Come, you children, listen to me (KJV hearken unto me); I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
LEARN THE FEAR OF THE LORD
Many of you are familiar with Jerry Bridges book, The Joy of Fearing God. There he describes fearing God as “a profound sense of awe toward God…. a mixture of fear, veneration, wonder, adoration and love, all directed toward God Himself.” There’s no true faith, true love, true obedience, or true worship of God without the fear of the Lord. In very practical terms, true faith takes God seriously. Lot’s wife didn’t take God seriously. God said, “Don’t look back.” She looked back. Ananias and Sapphira didn’t take God seriously. Judas didn’t take God seriously. Going further, true faith recognizes God’s authority over your life. It is a daily awareness that you are living in the very presence of God. It is realizing God sees your heart as well as your actions, and He hears your words. True faith knows God is infinitely more important than anyone and anything else in my life.
Romans 3:18 clearly describes men in their depravity, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” They don’t take God seriously. If they think about God at all, they hope they won’t go to hell. They may be afraid of God’s judgment, but they don’t fear God. But when God gives you a new heart to repent and believe in Christ, included is that sense of the fear of God. Michael Reeves wrote, “The fear of God is the heartbeat of our new life in Christ and the soul of godliness.” When you get saved, you start taking God seriously.
How do you learn the fear of God. You study the character of your God. He is infinitely great and majestic and wise and holy and merciful and righteous and just and supremely sovereign.
Revelation 15:3-4, And they sang the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and marvelous are Your works, O Lord God, the Almighty; Righteous and true are Your ways, King of the nations! 4 “Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy; For all THE NATIONS WILL COME AND WORSHIP BEFORE YOU, FOR YOUR righteous ACTS HAVE BEEN REVEALED.”
You learn the fear of God as you study the great works and great judgments of God – the global flood, the tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah. But most of all, you study the greatest of all judgments driven by God’s great love for sinners when Christ bore the Father’s wrath in our place on that cross. The event of Christ’s crucifixion should strike the fear of the Lord into every heart. All of this we learn as we take in God’s Word and learn who God really is. John Bunyan gives us a taste of learning to fear God: “For as a man drinks good doctrine into his soul, so he fears God. If he drinks in much, he fears God greatly; if he drinks in but a little, he fears Him but a little; if he drinks not at all,, he fears Him not at all.”
And more than once God says the fear of the Lord is the beginning or the foundation for a life of true knowledge and true wisdom.
Proverbs 1:7, The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Charles Bridges comments on this: “What is this fear of the Lord? It is that affectionate reverence by which the child of God bends himself humbly and carefully to his Father’s law. His wrath is so bitter and His love so sweet; that hence springs an earnest desire to please Him.” Remember those words, “His wrath is so bitter and His love so sweet.”
The fear of the Lord isn’t mentioned only in the Old Testament. Peter actually quotes Psalm 34 in 1 Peter 3:10-12 and in 1 Peter 1:17 he wrote if you call God your Father, then live in fear the rest of your life. Should a child love his father or fear his father? Yes. To love without the fear of deep respect is presumption. And to fear without the kindness of love is severity and harshness. But the underlying attitude toward God and your earthly father should be respectful fear. Jerry Bridges said, “As we grow in understanding God’s love for us in Christ, we will more and more delight to fear Him.” Isaiah 11:3 says the Messiah, Jesus, would “delight in the fear of the Lord.” Fear and love are key attitudes in our relationship with God.
PRACTICE THE FEAR OF THE LORD
Psalm 34:12-14, Who is the man who desires life And loves length of days that he may see good? 13 Keep your tongue from evil And your lips from speaking deceit. 14 Depart from evil and do good; Seek peace and pursue it.
David urges us to learn the fear of the Lord with this promise. Surely you desire life and want to see good days. Parents want their children to see good days and some measure of happiness. Here is God’s prescription for enjoying the good life, although that doesn’t mean a trouble-free life. But fearing the Lord will keep you from grumbling, complaining, frustration and anger. Here are the marks of a man or woman who has the true fear of the Lord in his heart.
Guard your mouth (vs. 13). “Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.” The fear of the Lord puts a bridle on your tongue. When you know you are accountable to God and want to please God, you will become aware of what you say. You’ll remember what James 3 says about the tongue – it is powerful and capable of all kinds of evil. Here God says, “Get a grip on that slippery muscle!” Your mouth is capable of two ungodly things: evil and lies. Nothing wrecks life quicker than an out-of-control tongue expressing the evil thoughts of our heart. James 3:6 describes it as a weapon of mass destruction ignited by the fires of hell.
James 3:6, And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell.
Psalm 73:9 describes the unbeliever’s tongue as “parading through the earth.” What a picture of the tongue. We’ve seen godless tongue parades in many cities lately. They spew out evil and lies without a thought of God, even cursing police and other authorities. The fear of the Lord takes God seriously about our mouth. You want to speak truth with your neighbor and build others up rather than attacking or cutting them down. Colossians 4:6 agrees, “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, so you may know how to answer each person.”
Guard your behavior (vs. 14). “Depart from evil and do good.”
These aren’t just marks of morality. These are the fruit of godliness produced through faith in Christ that nurtures the fear of the Lord. Theologian John Murray said, “The fear of the Lord is the soul of godliness.” Godly behavior flows from the heart that wants to glorify God. Jesus taught us to pray, “Deliver us from evil.” We need to remember we are always living in the very presence of God. So when you’re tempted to some evil habit, run away from it. Depart. Get away. Don’t do it. Flee. Quickly. Don’t have a friendly conversation with evil. Evil is spiritual poison.
Many years ago our family was hiking through Brown County State Park when we heard a rustle in the leaves nearby. We had just seen a timber rattler at the nature building so we knew a timber rattler when we saw one. Did we stick around and try to have a conversation? No! What did we do? We ran away from it…immediately and quickly! Depart means say no and flee, like Joseph fled from Mrs. Potiphar. Biblical counselor Ed Welch in an article on addictions wrote, “Whatever earthly desire doesn’t take ‘No’ for an answer is a lust that surpasses your desire for Jesus Himself…. Self-control is an essential discipline in a high-stakes spiritual battle.” When it comes to the enticements of evil, we need a personal “declaration of all-out war.” Paul put it like this.
2 Corinthians 7:1, Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
Notice God doesn’t just tell us what not to do but what to do. Depart from evil…do good! This is God’s replacement principle. Fill the void of evil habits with godly habits of serving, caring, and loving your neighbor as yourself.
Guard your relationships (vs. 14) “Seek peace and pursue it.”
Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.” That’s what the fear of the Lord leads us to do. Don’t just seek it but pursue it. Go after it. If you’re the cause of the offence, do whatever is necessary to bring about reconciliation. That’s the fear of the Lord. Is that easy? No, but it’s right. You want to honor Christ. I can easily remember times I had to go to someone to ask forgiveness for some dumb comment I made. The trip from the point where you decide you need to go and be reconciled until you get there is a long trip with many temptations to turn back. But God says seek peace and pursue it. You may not be able to change the other person, but Romans 12:18 says as much as lies in you live at peace with all men. You should be able to look every human being in the eye and know you have done all you could to make it right. And if you’re on the offended side, you have no basis for withholding forgiveness.
The fear of the Lord means your heart takes God seriously. You know you are living Coram Deo, in the presence of God, and under His authority. It’s this deep respect and awe for your loving God and Father that gets traction in your life. You don’t just hear the Bible; you hear, learn, fear, and do. When you pray, “Lord, there are some things I need to change,” you know God’s Word is getting traction in your heart. Hear what Samuel said to God’s people.
1 Samuel 12:24, Only fear the LORD and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you.
DELIGHT IN THE FEAR OF THE LORD
Psalm 34:15-18, The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous And His ears are open to their cry. 16 The face of the LORD is against evildoers, To cut off the memory of them from the earth. 17 The righteous cry, and the LORD hears And delivers them out of all their troubles. 18 The LORD is near to the brokenhearted And saves those who are crushed in spirit.
David ties the fear of the Lord to answered prayer and God’s close, loving attention to His people. His eyes are on you. His ears hear you when you cry. His face protects you. Again, when you cry He hears and delivers. He is near to His people who are brokenhearted and crushed in spirit.
Notice the great contrast in verses 15-16. For God-fearing people, God’s eyes of love, protection, and care are all over you, and His ears listen to your cries for help. But what about people with no fear of the Lord? God’s face is against them to cut off the memory of them. They will not get away with their godless pride and evildoing. One commentator said their memory is cut off, “until there is not the slightest trace of their earthly existence.” What a dreadful thought.
Look at verse 18. What does a God-fearing heart look like? It is broken-hearted and crushed. This is just the opposite of pride and self-sufficiency. Broken hearts and crushed spirits have no spiritual merit in themselves. They aren’t assuring themselves they aren’t all that bad. No, they are desperate and know how wrong they’ve been, how guilty they are, how much they deserve God’s judgment, and therefore plead His mercy in Jesus Christ. Jesus described them in the beatitudes as “poor in spirit.” Do you want to see a man poor in spirit? Go to the temple in Luke 18 and there he is standing afar off, head down and beating on his chest crying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” He wasn’t like that other man praying out loud to himself, “God, I’m glad I’m not like other men.” The man with head bowed low is what a God-fearing heart looks like – all in pieces brought to God. Verse 18 says God is near to these people.
REJOICE IN THE FEAR OF THE LORD
Psalm 34:19-22, Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the LORD delivers him out of them all. 20 He keeps all his bones, Not one of them is broken. 21 Evil shall slay the wicked, And those who hate the righteous will be condemned. 22 The LORD redeems the soul of His servants, And none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned.
This passage is prophetic of Christ. John 19:36 says since Jesus was already dead, the soldiers didn’t break his legs. However, they did break the legs of the two others crucified with Him. In Christ’s case they didn’t and couldn’t. They had no idea they were fulfilling Scripture. God had decreed from David’s day, nearly a thousand years earlier, that not one of Jesus’ bones would be broken. John says, “These things came to pass to fulfill the Scripture.” Where did John get that quote from Scripture? Right here in Psalm 34:20!
Let’s finish this wonderful Psalm highlighting God’s promises to those who fear His name.
Verse 19, Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the LORD delivers him out of them all. You’re going through all kinds of troubles, afflictions, but somehow, sooner or later, God is right there and delivers you from them all, ultimately through death.
Verse 20, He keeps all his bones, Not one of them is broken. You are under the sovereign care and protection of God Almighty. No one does anything to you unless God allows it. Just like they couldn’t break Jesus legs, God is sovereign over your life too.
Notice the contrast between verses 21 and 22. God will condemn those who hate Him and His people. And God will not condemn but redeems all who take refuge in His Son, Jesus Christ. Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” Are you in verse 21 or 22?
SO WHAT?
Does the fear of the Lord rule your heart? Are you taking God seriously, knowing you’re always in His presence? Are you more concerned about what God thinks about you than what people do? Have you come with a broken and contrite heart to Christ as your Lord and Savior, trusting Him to save you from His wrath? We believers will be in God’s school of learning the fear of the Lord the rest of our lives. And we’ll thank Him and give Him all the glory.