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Most people fear something. We have “personal” fears, spiders, the dark, failure, and the list is endless. Even the toughest of men fear something. But what I’m considering is corporate fear. Politicians create an atmosphere of fear to benefit their efforts to stay in power and the more power gained the more ruthless the politician can be. It’s not that they have double standards but that there are no standards for them.
So we spend our lives complying with the dictates of nasty arrogant men. Complying with evil men pressures us to participate in their nefarious plans. Ordinary men become monsters obeying their edicts, doing the unthinkable to the innocent who have no way to defend themselves. We fear wicked men instead of God.
The Bible tells us we shouldn’t fear men because they can only destroy the body. We should fear God because not only can He destroy the body but He can throw us into hell. The problem is, we don’t “live” around God. If we want a relationship with him we have to seek it out and on top of that, we’ve got to trust Him by faith. In fact, you can’t even please God without faith. Men on the other hand surround us every day. We can’t hardly get away and are always dealing with them.
Deuteronomy 4:9 “Only take heed to thyself and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life; but teach them thy sons and thy sons’ sons.” We forget about how serious God is. If we love our sons we will keep God’s Word and teach our children and grandchildren that fearing God will keep us from sin. Doing that helps us remember not to think too highly of ourselves.
Verse 10 continues that thought of keeping the Word of the Lord before you. We’re to gather our family and friends together to hear the Word of the Lord. Why? So they will learn to fear God. Learn fear? Didn’t we design ourselves a God who is our friend? Doesn’t God just want the best for us kind of like a good parent? Maybe we have to reconsider what kind of God we’re dealing with.
Reading further we read that God has a good handle on just what kind of people we are. Right to our face He says we’re likely to make ourselves a graven idol in the likeness of corrupt creation. Men since the beginning have worshiped the moon, sun, and stars, not to mention everything on Earth. God doesn’t like it. He created the universe. Worshiping anything besides Him is the ultimate insult to the one whose breath we breathe.
The Bible says we are scarcely saved, barely, by the skin of our teeth. God is the only one who could pay the price for disrespecting Him. What’s Jesus Christ doing in heaven except making continual intercession for us. So much for, once saved always saved.
The American church makes light of sin, imagining God as some sugar daddy, willing to do whatever we ask to satiate our lust for the things of this world. Whilst the church in much of the world suffers persecution, we in America dream the American dream; good healthcare, good job, retirement accounts, and the rest. We are poor, naked, and blind.
In Deuteronomy, we read that the slave was to serve the Master first before he took care of his own needs. I realize our enlightened world can’t grasp the concept of a world where slavery was normal. I note that Jesus never commented on the way men “organized” their lives, and never mentioned slavery. He left that to Paul who said, slaves obey your masters, and masters treat your slaves well. In slavery, marriage, work, worship, or service to the Lord, be kind. God is the master, we are the slave; service to him comes first.
Priorities form habits in our lives. Do we strive and achieve fellowship with God? Do we start our day with Him? With technology, our eyes are owned by a screen with images placed there by another god. We succumb to the lust of the eyes and that leads to tangible actions that edify the flesh and not the spirit.
Remember, the Bible says to pray that we are worthy to escape the things to come. Perilous times are coming. Everything we base truth on is quicksand fabricated by demons that are a whole lot smarter than we. Reading God’s Word reminds us of the foolishness of following the ambitions of Godless men. Samuel warned the people of Israel about having a king, but they wanted a king like the other nations of the world. I guess the Kingdom of God was too confining, too rigid, and demanded too much worship of a God you can’t see. Saul was “pretty” to look at; some flesh looks especially good.
So in the footsteps of all kings, they steal our land, and our money, encourage our children to love them and not us, and then take those precious children and send them to fight a war for the protection of their power.
Jesus said that knowing God is eternal life. We’ve got to know Him personally. That takes a daily commitment for years, our whole life, or God can’t take us seriously. We have to want a relationship with Him.