God?
God & Sex?
God's Wrath?

The Fear of God
(extract from Joshua: Power to Win, Kevin Logan)

PUTTING the fear of God into people is considered a bit O.T.T. -- Old Testament Terror-ism. Surely, the argument goes, all we need today is love -- a la New Testament. A balanced biblical view stresses that we need both.

As I composed this chapter (of Joshua), I was called to visit Dave, a bereaved husband. A few hours before, his wife had died of lung cancer at 49. He just wants a nice, quiet funeral. God never really entered the conversation, and when I brought up the Lord there was a puzzled shrug. 'Is he relevant to this funeral?' the gesture seemed to ask. There was no fear of facing God. If there was such a being, all well and good. If not, what does it matter anyway?

Bearing in mind what I was in the middle of writing, I felt an urge to ask if he didn't have the slightest worry where he was going when he died. Didn't it bother him that one day there would be a judgement day. Was he not concerned about accounting for his life? (2 Corinthians 5: 10 onwards). Wouldn't he like to know that God's love could save him?

Of course, I resisted the urge. In his grief, he wouldn't have heard. If he had, he would have dismissed me as an insensitive oaf. There might be a right time to talk, I pray, but even then Dave will struggle, unless God convicts him of his sin, and his need for a loving saviour.

Naturally, human beings cannot fear God. That's what Martin Luther said. Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans stated that we are dead in our sinful state, and on our way to hell.

continued in next column...

God loves us so much that he will do anything to keep us out of such an eternity. He will send prophets to tell us how to escape. He'll send preachers and pastors. He'll even come himself, in his Son, and die an agonising death for our sins so that we might live.

He will even go O.T.T, and try to terrorise us into our right senses. God loves us so much that he will do anything he can do to keep us from an eternity of terror.

True, we still need to preach his love and forgiveness, for only then will men and women escape their own fears. But it does no harm at all -- and possibly some good -- to put the right fear of God into people's minds. "...let us purify ourselves from everything that makes the body or soul unclean, and let us be completely holy by living in awe (reverent fear) of God." (2 Corinthians 7:1).