Fear Needs an Object

“And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.” (Ex 20:20 AV)

Moses is at the foot of Mount Sinai.  The people gathered at the mountain and were terrified at the glory of God.  Fire ascended from heaven.  The earth quaked at the voice of God.  There was thundering and lightning.  To say they were deeply concerned would be an understatement.  They feared.  They feared for their lives.  This chapter is about the giving of the law.  When the law is the topic, fear is part of the discussion as well.  Law has no force if there is no fear.  So, to instruct the people not to fear seems a bit strange.  If I saw the glory of God as they did, fear would be my overwhelming emotion.  The word ‘prove’ means to mature by testing.  Note that Moses told them not to fear, but then he turns around and tells them to purpose for this experience is that the fear of the LORD might be before their eyes.  Fear needs context.  Do not fear the glory of God if the law and His command for holiness are not part of it.  It is right to fear.  Fearing for the right reason is what Moses and the LORD are driving at.

A relationship with a father is an interesting one.  Dad takes on many different roles.  He is the mentor.  He is the encourager.  He is the protector and provider.  Dad is the teacher, the coach, and the cheering section.  Dad also sets boundaries and demands conformity.  He is the lawgiver.  He is the judge.  Dad is the security of the children.  He is the rock upon which they feel safe.  He wears many hats.  When we say we respect our fathers, we are saying we fear them.  Their rules were never made simply to please Self.  At least my father’s rules were not.  He had definite opinions regarding the nature of life.  There were certain things that were always true.  Only rarely did we get the sense that a rule was made merely to make his own life easier.  For the most part, we knew why the rule existed, and respecting his judgment was a part of our relationship.  Fear was not terror.  Fear was a healthy respect for my father’s judgment and humbly accepting the consequences when we failed.  There was order and structure to his home.  What was will always be.  There was no confusion.  That was the rule of the home, and it would always be that way.

This is to what Moses is referring.  Fear is good as long as it is focused on the right object.  In our text, fear is focused on the law and God’s nature.  They feared the glory of God to where the law and His judgment were secondary.  Yet in the person of God, His glory and judgment cannot be separated.  Both are infinite characteristics of God.  I think the takeaway here is that fear is good as long as it is experienced in the correct context and in the right priority.  To make another application, most of contemporary Christianity fears the glory of God.  They sing about it all the time.  Yet the law is not a priority.  They fear the person of God, but they do not fear the character of God.  I would even go so far as to say this is not a strictly contemporary Christian problem.  It is endemic to a culture that is self-centered and sees God as their servant rather than their Holy God.  God is to be feared.  Not in the way we fear a tyrant.  Rather, He is to be respected, obeyed, and humbly surrendered to.  We are captivated by the glory of God, yet we ignore His commands.  This was the point at Mount Sinai.  God did not show them His glory so they would only fear that.  He showed them His glory, so they were fear His holiness and law.

All Day Fear is All Day Protection

“Let not thine heart envy sinners: but [be thou] in the fear of the LORD all the day long.” (Pr 23:17 AV)

I am curious as to why being in the fear of the LORD every waking moment of the day is a defense against envy.  It would be a defense against all sins.  Why did Solomon word it this way?  I think there is a great lesson here on the nature of some sins.  Some sins are premeditated.  They take thought and planning.  Some sins are habitual.  They are part of our character.  Then there are sins like envy.  Envy enters as an impulsive response to something observed.  Once entered, it can fester.  I think this is why Solomon instructs his children to be in the fear of the LORD all day long.  No one plans to be envious.  No one seeks circumstances to create envy.  For the most part, it just happens.  But envy is not the only sin that is an impulsive response to outward stimulation.  Lust is another of those sins.  Envy and lust often go together.  There is impulsive anger.  We are driving and someone cuts us off.  There are many emotions that are not planned.  They simply happen.  For this reason, being in the fear of the LORD all day long is the first and most important defense against ungodly emotional responses.

We cannot avoid every temptation.  We live in a world full of it.  It’s like going to our state fair and avoiding the midway.  I avoid the games of the midway because they are designed so that the player never wins.  All one has to do is to do a bit of research and note the odds of winning any one game.  Impossible.  So, I avoid the midway.  Then there are the vendors.  Very few are fair and honest.  Most are there to make big money on small-value offerings.  Some are downright scams.  We always go to the booths or buildings that host competitions.  We particularly like the horses.  I can sit there half a day and watch the horse judging competition.  We go to the building with all the arts and crafts.  The things people can do are amazing.  But as soon as you go out of those buildings, the smell of food and fun hit you in the face.  When they do, thoughts of the midway and craftsmen or the sound of a merry-go-round or hawkers bring the mind right back to parts of the fair we do not visit.  This is the world in which we live.  It cannot be avoided.  There is always one more car better than your own.  There are those homes that you would give anything to own.  There is that customer who is worth seven figures but worries about every penny.  The list goes on and on.

Envy, and any other sinful and impulsive emotion, can occur at any moment.  One can sit at a restaurant eating what one can afford and someone next to you gets the most expensive item on the menu.  Envy, lust, anger, etc. can happen at the drop of the hat.  The first guard against it is to fear the LORD.  The LORD has a plan for you.  It is your plan.  It is not someone else’s plan, nor did God accidentally give to someone else your plan.  You are what you are by the grace of God.  You have what you have by God’s providence and provision.  Your life, aside from the wrong choices you make, is part of God’s perfect plan for you.  Desiring something else questions God’s sovereignty and shows no fear toward the one who created you.   This is why Solomon instructs his children to be on guard for envy by being in the fear of the LORD all the day long.  What is even more pertinent is Solomon, being the greatest king at the time, could acquire by force anything of which he was envious.  This makes it even more dangerous.  But being in the fear of the LORD will halt such violent acquisitions. 

Inherited Hope

“But thou [art] he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope [when I was] upon my mother’s breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou [art] my God from my mother’s belly.” (Ps 22:9-10 AV)

How interesting.  David says that the day he was born and took nourishment from his mother, God gave him the ability to hope.  This makes sense.  The moment a baby is born and suffers hunger pain, he instinctively knows that sucking upon the breast is the way the pain diminishes.  One does not have to teach a baby to suck.  He knows this as part of his being.  All one has to do is stick a fingertip into the mouth of a baby, and he instinctively sucks, looking for food and comfort.  This natural and intuitive act is referred to as hope.  If there were no hope, the baby would not seek it, cry for it, and attain it.  The baby may not understand the spiritual principles involved.  All he knows is that his belly aches.  All he knows is the only way to make that go away is the seek the breast.  This is an important truth here.  God made mankind to hope.  Not only to hope but to seek out that which one hopes for.  The ability to hope is in our nature.  If we lose hope, that is not of the LORD.  He created us with the natural ability and desire to hope.  The devil and the world want you to lose it.  But they have no power to take it.  If we lose hope, we do so because we choose to do so.

Our world is not a great source of hope.  All one has to do is watch the news, the weather, or any drug commercial that might be running.  If you listen to it all, the apocalypse is right on our heels.  If we listen to them, the best we can do is to barely survive.  Every event, forecast, or disease is the end of mankind.  There was an interesting study done decades ago.  This study compared the music teens decided to listen to and their reaction to it.  They found that those who listened to dark music or music with hopeless lyrics were far more apt to make very bad decisions.  Including suicide.  Even today, one of the warnings of AI is the grooming aspect of it.  AI is being used by nefarious sources to poison the minds of teens to the point of giving up hope.  The world hates God.  It always will.  The Devil hates God.  He always will.  The Devil is known as the destroyer.  What he cannot have, he will destroy.  He knows he cannot win.  So, like a bully at the beach, he wants to kick over our sandcastle.  The way the world and the Devil do this is to remove hope.  If there is no hope, then there is no purpose.  If there is no purpose, nothing matters and existence is futile.  Therefore, the despondent take drastic measures to cure the hopelessness.

We were not created with a natural tendency to hopelessness.  Just the opposite.  The desire and pursuit of life prove this.  That is why David uses the example for his first day of breath.  He was created to hope.  God made him that way.  God made you that way.  Losing hope is contrary to the very definition of what it means to be human.  Hope requires the ability to see a future not realized yet.  Hope requires seeing a God in control of it all.  Hope requires that we understand God as our benevolent and all-powerful God.  Hope is in our DNA.  Losing it is our fault.  Losing hope is not what God designed us to do.  Like a child reaching forth and making sucking motions with his lips testifies that we were created to hope.  When we cease to hope, we cease to be human.  That is what the Devil wants.  Don’t let him have it!

Deliverance Over Failure

“It [is] a night to be much observed unto the LORD for bringing them out from the land of Egypt: this [is] that night of the LORD to be observed of all the children of Israel in their generations.” (Ex 12:42 AV)

You have probably guessed, but this verse regards the establishment of the feast of Passover.  It was a night to remember.  It is a night to remember in a particular manner.  The more removed from the bondage of Egypt this nation became, the less the actual bondage could be remembered.  It is a matter of historical fact.  But there would come a generation that never experienced that bondage.  The great-grandchildren of the slave-generation that came out would never know what bondage was like.  What they could always experience and remember is the deliverance.  Because God brought their ancestors out of bondage, they were free.  Other than to read the account in the word of God, future generations would never have known the hardship from which their forefathers were delivered.  But they could know and experience the deliverance that followed.  They were free and delivered because their forefathers were.  Therefore, Passover should emphasize deliverance and not bondage.  What does that mean for us?

There is a politician who came out recently and threatened her opponents with their past.  She stated that if her colleagues ever got control of their government, they would do a deep-dive search into the lives of those contrary to her beliefs and find or manufacture crimes for which they could be put away for life.  She threatened to ignore her country’s statute of limitations.  She promised to help pass laws that made non-criminal behavior criminal, and prosecute retroactively any and all manufacture crimes to completely dismantle and opposition to her and her ideology.  In short, a person’s past, to her, is never gone, and no matter how innocent they had been, there would be something which she could manufacture to make innocence a punishable crime.  This takes a sick person!  To hate your opposition to the point of destroying them over thoughts and opinions, no matter what, is not a good thing.  It is a sickness of hatred.

Yet we do the same thing when we remember our past and forget the deliverance.  When the failures of the past are more pressing that the elation we should experience at deliverance is a sick kind of self-loathing.  Yes, one I was a enemy of God and did things that I would never mention.  Yes, there were times as a child of God that I miserably failed Him.  I have brought shame to my LORD and Savior by some of the choices I have made.  As remorseful and full of regret I might be over those things, joy at deliverance should be greater.  When they celebrated the Passover meal, there were bitter herbs added to remind the Hebrew his ancestors served with bitterness.  But the psalms that followed spoke of God as a great deliverer who brought them out with a mighty hand.  The book of Exodus spends only a few chapters describing the bitter bondage.  The rest of the Exodus is about deliverance.  At some point, the reality of our deliverance must be greater than the bitterness of our sin.  Then and only then can we truly understand the spirit of the Passover.

Consistency

“Divers weights, [and] divers measures, both of them [are] alike abomination to the LORD.  Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work [be] pure, and whether [it be] right. The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the LORD hath made even both of them.” (Pr 20:10-12 AV)

Verse eleven, if taken by itself, could mean two things.  Either it is a warning to children that their behavior reveals who and what they are, or it is a warning to adults that as a child’s behavior cannot be hidden, neither can an adult.  Both are true and biblical.  But I think Solomon means something a bit different.  The statement of a child’s behavior is nestled between a verse that deals with consistency of standards and a verse that declares God made our ears and eyes.  I think what Solomon is trying to convey is a warning against inconsistent standards, thinking the inconsistency is not necessarily observable by others.  We may miss a lot, but inconsistency is not one of them.  All one has to do is speak with children under your charge, and you will hear very quickly how unfair certain things appear.

Being consistent before others requires respect.  By assuming our inconsistencies are minor or hidden, we show disrespect to the observational skills of those who watch us.  I think that is what Solomon meant in verse 12.  I had above average parents.  They had their flaws, and some were on the serious side.  But there was one side to them that was perhaps the strongest of all qualities.  They were consistent.  My father was relentless in this area.  If there was a rule, then it was for everyone.  If it appeared as though the rule was relaxed for one and not for another, there was a principle involved that explained that decision.  My mom has benchmarks of maturity set for us that were the same for all.  Our eleventh birthday, we got a watch.  Our 14th birthday meant we could get a ten-speed bike.  We had a bedtime based on the school class we were enrolled in.  Starting with sixth grade up to eleventh, we went to bed on the hour that reflected the number of our class.  There were chores.  There was a schedule.  The rules for behavior were the same for all.  Even when they got old and gray, these rules still set.  This did several things for us.  It gave us a sense of predictability and security.  This consistency also ended arguments before they began.  We knew the rule and the answer we would get.  There was also our opinion of Mom and Dad.  They were not perfect.  But they were fair.  Right down to the details of how they ran their home.

Consistency is not merely for our sake.  When we are consistent, the consequences for choices are predictable and can be planned.  When we are consistent, fewer things will derail us from our goals.  When we are consistent, maturity becomes easier and with less trauma.  There is personal benefit in being consistent.  More so, consistency is for the sake of others.  The above example is in weights and measures.  If someone was changing them for personal gain, it would not take long for word to get out and business to drop off.  Knowing where someone stands and how they process life goes a long way in determining just how committed we can be to them.  Inconsistency is the death of deep relationships.  Being a person of your word and being predictable ministers to the need for trust for others.  The misnomer Solomon is trying to convey here is that if we live an inconsistent life, it will be just as evident as a immature child trying to be someone he is not.  They don’t have the sophistication yet.  They don’t have the savvy yet.  We think a child is obvious, but we can hide.  According to Solomon, not so.  Living inconsistently is as obvious as the motive of a child.

Worse Before Better

“And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Lord, wherefore hast thou [so] evil entreated this people? why [is] it [that] thou hast sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people; neither hast thou delivered thy people at all.” (Ex 5:22-23 AV)

Sometimes, things have to get worse before they get better.  What strikes my attention are two things.  First, Moses questions God’s judgment.  He questions God’s judgment in sending him.  He does so under the illusion that ministry is nothing but positive growth experiences.  The second is Moses’ emotional state as he asks these questions.  I don’t think it is nefarious.  I just think his approach to ministry is naïve.  Or better yet, his approach is altruistic.  He expected his ministry to immediately alleviate the suffering of his people.  This is a good desire.  We would never wish more harm than good when we are trying to help others.  I can certainly identify with Moses.  All he wanted to do was to deliver his people from horrible slavery, and he had just made things worse.  Now they had to gather their own building materials, yet the tally of bricks could not diminish.  More work, not less.  His remarks cannot be seen as rebellion or bitterness.  They are not.  The words of Moses are words of honest remorse that he couldn’t help more than he did.  What Moses cannot see is that things might have to get worse before they get better.

You have to admire the love Moses has for his people.  You can hear it in his argument.  This is the heart of the pastor.  He will defend his people even if it means questioning God’s plan.  You can hear the pain he is experiencing as he sees the depth of the suffering.  You can understand his consternation at the increase of their trial.  This is the man God chooses.  By his own admission, Moses was not the most articulate man God could have chosen.  Aaron was the better choice of oratory was the main qualification.  Military acuity was not the primary qualification for the deliverer.  Otherwise, Joshua would have been His first choice.  God chose a man who would love His people.  Moses loved Israel to the point he was willing to sacrifice his own eternal life for the survival of the nation. Moses wasn’t a politician.  Moses lost patience with managing the nation.  He had an issue with anger.  Yet with all his faults, there wasn’t a man on earth that loved the Jewish people as much as Moses did.  This was why God chose him.  This gives life to the words above.

It is a heartbreak for a father, pastor, or leader to be an instrument that inflicts short-term pain for long-term gain.  A really compassionate and wise coach will require his team to go through hard times.  There is pain to be experienced.  There are emotions to feel.  It is all in preparation to gaining the victory.  But the coach does not like having to do it.  A leader must anticipate the natural response to his leadership.  Those who are following will not like the fact that their lives just got more difficult.  They will not enjoy more work, or preparation, or more hardship.  This is even more evident by what Moses was called to do.  He was called to deliver them.  It appears his leadership was headed in the opposite direction.  How Moses felt is completely understandable.  Some leaders cannot stomach this part of leading.  They cannot bring themselves to lead knowing their decisions we cause short-term negative effects.  They cannot live with the complaints and suffering their leadership might bring.  If they cannot, they are not fit to lead.  Moses is learning here.  He is learning to balance his love for his people with the necessary and uncomfortable steps that will eventually work to their deliverance.   If he reacts purely out of emotion, the people will never be free.  If he does what is best even if it means short-term pain, then he is a leader God can use.

Prayer is a Two-way Conversation

“Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited [me] in the night; thou hast tried me, [and] shalt find nothing; I am purposed [that] my mouth shall not transgress.” (Ps 17:3 AV)

I don’t think David is speaking of perfection here.  Surely, as a depraved and sinful man, there was still sin in his heart.  I am sure he had to confess and forsake, seeking God’s forgiveness before his prayer could continue.  David is not claiming sinlessness.  Rather, I think what David is claiming is sincerity, truth, and purity in his prayer.  He is not claiming the purity of the substance of his heart.  This proving and visiting are what I am most interested in.  Finding nothing is also important.  What I see here is honesty in prayer.  This statement is a great illustration of the give and take that happens in genuine prayer.  Sometimes we approach prayer as a one-sided conversation.  We see it as a project or task.  We have our list. We have our sins to confess.  We have many things on our minds that have to be brought to the throne of God.  And that might be the case.  However, prayer is not one-sided.  I think if we stopped and paused long enough to listen to the Spirit’s input, our prayer life might just blossom into something far more intimate.

Who hasn’t had times of vulnerability with a parent or other mentor?  A time when patience and concern were the key elements in the conversation.  A time when there was give and take.  A time when honesty and openness were the character of the words you used.  A time like this requires trust.  When the heart is laid open, there has to be a trust that the one to whom it is opened will not take advantage of your vulnerability.  I remember a few conversations with a baseball coach, a scoutmaster, and a schoolteacher.  One of my most memorable ones was with my high school photography teacher.  My dad had a darkroom, so I was very familiar with the process.  It made photography class rather easy.  The teacher asked me to be the student who took the lead in managing the classroom.  It was my job to clean the room and set up the darkroom.  It also had the privilege of working with equipment that other students were not.  There were several afternoons I spent in the darkroom and with my teacher learning new skills or talking about life.  It was my senior year, and I had just moved from my hometown.  I lived there all my life, and my senior year was a very lonely one.  This teacher and I spent many hours talking about life.  He was an elderly man and was retiring after my senior year.  You could say that I was his last class pet.  There were things I could tell him that I could never tell my father.  But he never used that information to manipulate or misguide me.  He spent those hours listening and asking questions.  If it weren’t for the give and take of those darkroom sessions, I may not have made it my senior year.  In some way, he may have contributed to my finding Jesus and saving my life.

Prayer with God is not a rote exercise of naming off things we think we need.  Prayer with God is not merely speaking so we can be heard.  It is a conversation between two beings.  It is a two-way conversation.  To our detriment, we often speak of the word of God as the voice of God by which He speaks.  That certainly is absolutely true.  But His word is not the only way by which He communicates.  The Bible tells us that the Spirit of God bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.  How does He do that?  Only through the written word?  The psalmist says that God knows there is no sin in his prayer.  How does David know that God knows that?  How does this searching happen?  The Spirit must bear witness with our spirit.  This means there is communication that goes on.  Not an audible voice.  It is not something someone else hears with us.  Rather, it is the opening of the heart and conscience to divine input.  It is the thinking and meditating on what the divine voice would tell us.  I have to say, when the Spirit does this, often there are chuckles that ebb forth.  Sometimes in the process of prayer, I have words, but I know the words are not accurate or truthful.  So, I stop and ask the Spirit to frame them better.  Prayer is not one-sided.  It is a dual conversation between two beings.  Our prayer lives would be vastly different if exercised our prayer lives in just that way.