Fear the Lord!

Exodus 20:20 Moses said to the people, "Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of Him may be before you, that you may not sin."

Do not fear....

It seems that the cure for all our everyday fears, worries, problems etc is to transfer that fear to a "fear of the Lord." In Philippians 4:6-7, Paul tells us: do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. A benefit of coming to God through faith in His Son Jesus Christ, is now we have a Comforter in the Holy Spirit that will help us through any circumstance we may encounter. Jesus tells us: Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Matthew 6:26

If you fear the Lord, have no fear. If you do not fear the Lord, then be afraid, be very afraid!

...for God has come to test you...

God has provided the remedy to our biggest problem! None of us can do anything to make ourselves right with God. We are to evil-minded and sinful to even be able to approach God. Jesus paid the penalty for our sin, so that simply by faith in Him, we are made "right with God." This is why you should come to God, to show appreciation for the sacrifice of His own Son for your sins!

Don't think that simply by becoming a Christian than all of a sudden all of your problems will suddenly go away. As a matter of fact, they will most likely become worse, and new "problems" will arise! So this is a good thing you ask? Yes it is, James explains it like this: Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)

...that the fear of Him may be before you...

Godly fear, while it certainly does include an idea of terror, also has the idea of respect, reverence and piety. If we feel terrorized, it is because we are struck by the awesomeness of God. What is "belief" in God? What is faith? Pay close attention every time you see "fear of the Lord" used in the bible, and you will gain a pretty clear understanding. God allows us to be tested so that we learn to rely solely on Him, to fear Him.

...that you may not sin.

Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. (James 1:12-15)

Do not confuse tests with temptation. Tests are God's ways of growing us, making us stronger and stronger in the faith, in other words, making us fear Him more. When temptation to sin does come then, as it will because of our lusts, we are able to over come the temptation and not sin. We now have too much respect for the sacrifice that was paid. We have faith in Jesus. We fear the Lord!

You brood of vipers

Among the crowds coming to be baptised by John also came the the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Matthew 3:7-12 (New American Standard Bible)

⁷But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

⁸"Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance;

⁹and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham for our father'; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.

¹⁰"The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

¹¹"As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

¹²"His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

When John seen them, he shouted you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee the wrath to come? I think this was sort of a sarcastic greeting, in other words, he might also have said, "what makes you think I would baptise you?" Or "what are you doing here?"

The Pharisees were looking at John's baptism in the same way they were counting on the fact that they had Abraham as their father, as kind of an insurance program that they could live their sinful lives, and still get to heaven.

They had no repentance in mind, they just wanted to be able to "have their cake and eat it too." They figured that by being baptised, that they would have their "get out of hell free card" and then just go on living their lifestyle of debauchery.

Jesus also had a lot to say about this kind:

Matthew 23:13-36 (New American Standard Bible)

Eight Woes

¹³"But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.

¹⁴["Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation.]

¹⁵"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

¹⁶"Woe to you, blind guides, who say, 'Whoever swears by the temple, that is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is obligated.'

¹⁷"You fools and blind men! Which is more important, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold?

¹⁸"And, 'Whoever swears by the altar, that is nothing, but whoever swears by the offering on it, he is obligated.'

¹⁹"You blind men, which is more important, the offering, or the altar that sanctifies the offering?

²⁰"Therefore, whoever swears by the altar, swears both by the altar and by everything on it.

²¹"And whoever swears by the temple, swears both by the temple and by Him who dwells within it.

²²"And whoever swears by heaven, swears both by the throne of God and by Him who sits upon it.

²³"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.

²⁴"You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!

²⁵"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence.

²⁶"You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.

²⁷"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.

²⁸"So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

²⁹"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous,

³⁰and say, 'If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.'

³¹"So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.

³²"Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers.

³³"You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?

³⁴"Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city,

³⁵so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

³⁶"Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

Mark 7:6 (New American Standard Bible)

⁶And He said to them, "Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:
'THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS,
BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.

Christians are accused of being hypocrites all the time. Is this a just charge?

News flash for the non-Christian, Christians do sin! You need to understand that there is a difference between professing Christians and true Christians, but the difference is not that one group sins and the other does not. The bible tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. This means all, non-Christian, professing-Christian, and true-Christian! This also means past sin, current state of sin, and sins you have yet to commit in the future!

Non-Christian, you may be in a more enviable position than a professing Christian, perhaps you are just in a state of ignorance? God has provided you with the Ten Commandments as an example to judge yourselves against. If you take time to examine yourself honestly, you will find that you have broken every one of them! Also realize, that the Commandments have a deeper meaning if you think about them, for example Jesus tells us that looking with lust is the same as committing adultery, and hating someone is the same as murder. God not only judges you for your deeds but also your thoughts!

Non-Christian it does not matter if you think you do not believe in God, or if you believe in the wrong god. If a criminal is in court, he is just as guilty of the crime, even if he does not believe the Judge is there or not, or believes the judge is a doctor. It also does not matter if you think you have not committed a crime, or if your crime does not warrant prosecution! Sorry, you don't get to write the rules. The One True God is the God of the bible, and the only way to come to Him is through Jesus!

Now the true-Christian recognizes that he is helpless to do anything to make himself right with God, and by even trying to do so offends God. The true-Christian comes to God by relying on the atoning work that Jesus already did at the cross! Jesus paid the penalty of all your sins with His death, all your sins past, present, and future! The true-Christian then, as John the baptist would say, "bears fruit in keeping with repentance." The true-Christian is awestruck by the thought that Jesus died for their sins, and makes every effort humanly possible to stop sinning, and makes efforts to prevent future sin, and is repentant when he does sin. These efforts are not made so that God will forgive him, but because God has forgiven him, and he is grateful! But the true-Christian will fail daily despite his best efforts, because of his fallen sinful human nature. Still day by day, as a true-Christian battles the flesh, more and more victories will be attained, and the true Christian will grow closer and stronger in his walk with the Lord!

Non-Christian, you need to decide for yourself what you will do with this information. On the one hand you have the sin that you love, most likely it is one sin in particular, that you just cant do without. Oh you try to tell yourself its not that bad, or "everyone does it," but you know it will lead to your ultimate destruction if you are honest with yourself. Listen to your God given conscience, every notion of right and wrong you have in your head is there because God put it there. At least consider the cost? Is it worth and eternity in hell? Or will you repent of it and turn to Christ to save you? In this sense Jesus really is your get out of hell free card.

But if you are going to come to Christ, then come All the way!.... Become a Christian! Do not fall into the trap of becoming a pharisee, a hypocrite, one who professes to know Jesus, one who maybe even believes they are a Christian because Jesus died for their sins, and now they are free to go on living a life style of sin just because they "are a son of Abraham," or they were "baptised," or they prayed a "sinners prayer" some time in their life.

Non-Christian understand that to become a true-Christian, you must be repentant of your sins and trust completely in Jesus Christ as your savior. You will be thankful to Christ for dieing for the wretched, evil, sinner you are and then will bear fruits keeping with your repentance. But don't be surprised that when you try to stop sinning then you will meet failures. Here's a secret you will come to understand, you are powerless over your sin, but now there is a difference in your life, you now have a Helper in the person of Holy Spirit. You have repented and trusted Jesus, and as a result, you receive the Holy Spirit, sent to help you! And with His help you will, day by day, grow in Christ and sin will lose more and more of its power over you!

Non-Christian if you choose not to believe what has been laid out here for you, well at least you have considered it. Enjoy your sin and go on with your life! This is better for you then becoming the "hypocrite" that you despise. But at least you know that difference between a pharisee and a true Christian.

It was these hypocrites that John the Baptist called a "brood of vipers." Are you a viper? Stop It! Repent and turn to Christ. "Who warned you to flee the wrath to come?" (You've just been warned!)