“And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the LORD; and they shall be afraid of thee.” (Deut. 28:10) How many years has it been in our generation since these words have held meaning for the children of God, how long has it been since a born-again believer could walk down the street and command respect, not for himself as it were, but because it is known that he serves the Living God.
I mean this in no rash way, my intent is not and never will be to instill pride, for therein is the path of sin, (Prov. 16:18) but instead I seek to provoke within this letter to you a sense of awe and wonder of who we serve, and the attitude we are to constantly remain in while in that service. We are children of the Most High God, heirs to the kingdom of heaven, ambassadors of Jesus Christ, and we are to represent these duties accordingly, not seeking to place ourselves above those who are still lost, but to walk in a humility that references the strength and power of the Almighty at all times, visibly and without question. For the followers of Christ to behave in any other manner is to state to all we meet that our Lord is not all powerful and in control of all of His creation.
There is a confidence that is available to us, but one over the last seventy years or so that has been missing from the life of many believers, it has been replaced with a form of acquiescing, a complying to what the world says a Christian is to be, and not what the Word of God commands us to be. The general conception today is one of subservience to our fellow man, taking Galatians 5:14, “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” and transforming it into a type of love that never disagrees, never rebukes, never warns. We have begun to serve the ideologies of man instead of the path that we are to remain on, the path of the knowledge of the fear of the Lord.
My lovely wife remains firm in her convictions that at times I can be a very adamant man, but not so much in the way that she used to express it, she understands more each day that this unyielding temperament comes from the confidence that I have that the Lord God reigns on high, that He is faithful who has promised, and that I have been sent, as all of those who call His Son Lord have been sent. There is no fine balance that I seek for when I speak to anyone about the love of Christ and the suffering for those who will deny him to their last day, they are one and the same, you cannot separate the two, and therein lies the problem, the great trap that Satan has created and that many Christians have fallen into in our day, God is love, and that is all He is.
The lost are about as afraid of the followers of Jesus Christ today as they are a small kitten or a newborn infant, we pose no threat because we have shown them that there is no threat, God is love, never a God of wrath and fury. Many centuries ago our adversary began the employment of an idea that would ensure over time that he would be forgotten, seen only as a legend or fable, and all representations of him would be only in humor or jesting, a cheap Halloween gag. Without the fear of eternal punishment and suffering, without ambassadors revealing these parts of the Scriptures, fear subsides, and the lost see no need to be afraid of those who serve Christ, or even of God himself. Do not misunderstand this word “afraid” here, it does not mean an incredible terror or frightful horror, it is reverential fear, the Christian was not that long ago in our societies one to be looked up to, one to respect because of who he served, not because of who he was.
It’s different now, there have been times throughout the ages that the people of the Lord were reverenced, held higher as it were, than that of their fellow man, because of the close, personal relationship that they held with God, and that meant to the lost a type of power that they could not understand, one that caused them to be afraid of them. This confidence, this form of being adamant at all times is not what the average Christian portrays to the world anymore, the walk that we show them is not one of supreme trust and servitude, in other words my friends, they do no see all of Christ in us. We have decided to leave behind the Lord of power and instead only show them the one of love, and without both, our Lord is not rightfully represented.
The lost do not fear love, and they do not want to hear they are lost, that is the conundrum, so instead of warning them of the dangers of Hebrews 10:31, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” we herald only the infinite love that He has for all, and not the wrath that awaits those who will not bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ. We have been duped into becoming a generation of do-gooders, and not the driving force behind the majestic power of the will of the Almighty. That is the main problem, far too many who profess His Name have forgotten this most reverential Name of the Lord, the Almighty, Sovereign God of all creation, “For the LORD your God is God of gods, and LORD of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward:” (Deut. 10:17) “Thou, even thou, art to be feared: and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry?” (Psalm 76:7)
The lost, the wicked of this earth, are not afraid of us because we do not show them the entirety of who the Lord God is, only the parts that make them feel better, only the parts that we want them to hear, because if we rightly divide the whole Words of truth (2nd Tim. 2:15) to them, they may not like us, and for those who have been deceived by this practice, their confidence is not in the Lord, but only in one of His attributes, the one that makes them feel safe and secure in the presence of the lost. Doesn’t sound like the words of a martyr, does it, and perhaps that is why so many will refuse to speak to them about this part of our Lord, they still love their lives more than they love Christ.
We should never seek the respect of the lost, all glory belongs to God, but when we decide not to walk in a confidence that shows to all we meet the infinite and majestic power of the Lord God, then we have not shown them the truth in its entirety. “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.” (Rev. 1:7) No one fears anyone who loves them, they realize only kindness, mercy and forgiveness, and that is how the born-again believer knows that he is truly a child of God, but the lost do not know these truths that we have spoken of here about the Lord, and we are responsible to tell them about these attributes of Christ. But, if we are neglectful in our due diligent service to expound to them the entire truths of the Scriptures, the realization that if they do not accept Him as Lord of Lord and King of Kings, that there is an eternity of suffering, pain, and wailing awaiting them, then we are remiss in our duties.
They should not fear us, they should fear the Living God that we serve, and if we are not confident, yes, even adamant, in that service, then the fear and wrath that can be removed from them now will abide on them for all eternity.
