Terrible, Terrible

“By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation; who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are afar off upon the sea:” (Ps 65:5 AV)

When we use the word ‘terrible’, we almost always use it in the sense of morally or ethically unfortunate.  Something that is terrible is distasteful.  Like baloney and orange juice.  Not a good combination!  Or, like the tragic death of a loved one.  That is terrible.  These things have the sense of loss.  A sense of fate interfering with the events of life that rob us of a better outcome.  When the Bible uses this word, it means to inspire dread or awe.  It all depends how one looks at it.  In the above verse, the righteous answers of the LORD are awe inspiring to the righteous, yet stoke dread in the wicked.  The answer or decree of God is what it is.  Our relationship with God will determine how we respond to that action.

I had the privilege to pastor a church in western Kentucky.  Perhaps one of the most significant periods of personal spiritual growth I experienced in quite a while.  One of the admirable aspects which I was blessed to observe was the attitude towards work which those who lived there possessed.  It was almost to a fault.  Work was not a dread.  Work was an aspiration.  Now, granted, it got a little out of hand when work came before God or work was seen as a virtue above all other virtues.  These led to serious personal and family issues.  Nonetheless, I enjoyed hearing of times past on the family farm, struggling and making ends meet by hard work.  As they told the stories of bailing and stacking hay, milking the cows, working on equipment, or daily chores around the farm, they spoke of those things with fondness.  There was no bitterness that Dad made them put in four to eight hours on the farm rather than go to the mall with their friends.  There was no avarice in their voice as they spoke of slaughtering the family pig, preparing the meat for storage instead of spend the day on the river like other young men.  The didn’t see the hardships of life as a dread.  They saw them as a value.

God’s righteousness, to the saint, is an awe.  His ways are not grievous.  He gives us those laws and standards as a means in which to please Him and to bless our lives.  He constrains our liberty, not to make our lives more miserable, but rather, to teach us that joy and peace comes from compliance and restraint.  We stand in awe at the righteous answers of God because God is truth and right!  Because He is consistent in nature and benevolent in His care towards them that love Him.  To the wicked, repentance and faith in Christ is the answer.  To the saint, it is appreciation for who and what God is!  He truly is a God worthy of our awe!