In recent sermons, Pastor Sykes has been emphasizing the marks of a biblical church — the kind of church that we aspire, by God’s grace, to be. In Acts 2:42, we read that, following the baptism of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, the believers "devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching (that is, to the Word), and to the fellowship, and to the breaking of the bread and prayers (the observance of the Lord’s Supper, and the offering of prayers, in corporate worship). May the Lord grant us grace to be a church in which these three marks are increasingly evident.

And, may the Lord grant us grace, that another distinctive mark may be evident among us. That passage from Acts continues by saying that "Everyone was filled with awe ... " or, as the King James Version puts it, "Fear came upon every soul."

As one of your pastors, I must tell you that I have a great concern that evangelical churches, evangelical believers, in America have lost much of the sense of the fear of God. And I believe that this loss of the fear of God is one major cause of our weakness, our spiritual apathy and lethargy; a major reason that we are so lax in spiritual discipline, and so lackadaisical about the pursuit of holiness and real fruit-bearing to the glory of God. I think this loss of the fear of God is the reason we have so much fluff in evangelicalism today, and this air of giddy, glib familiarity with God. It is a major reason that our lives are so fractured and distracted and our priorities are so out of line that we often do not fulfill even our most basic duties as Christians; a major reason that we molly-coddle the sin in our own personal lives and do not slay it with a holy hatred; and so we go about puffed-up in pride with our own self-righteousness while pointing out the sins of others without repenting of our own. And I believe that this loss of the fear of God is perhaps the main reason that we in American evangelicalism today have become so human-centered, so "me" centered, so "me-and-my-experience-centered," so "me-and-my-personal-preference" centered, in our whole approach to the Christian faith, and to worship, and personal discipleship.

We have trivialized God, and made Him very small, and weak in our eyes — as though He has to "relate" to us on our own terms; as though He has to have our permission to do what He will; as though He has to prove Himself, and meet our "needs" and expectations, in order to "earn" our respect. Something is dreadfully wrong. And to whatever degree we have lost the fear of God, it is simply because we do not know who God is. If there is no sense in our souls, if there is no palpable apprehension in our hearts, if there is no bracing awareness in our minds, of the infinite majesty and incomprehensible glory and incomparable power and absolute holiness of the eternal and almighty Creator of heaven and earth, then we do not know who God is. If we have no fear of God, then either (1) we have never met God or (2) we are the worst of fools.

In the early church, as they devoted themselves to the Word in the apostles’ teaching, and to the fellowship, and to the breaking of the bread and the prayers in worship, everyone was filled with awe, fear came upon every soul, because they knew and they realized that the living God was in their midst — the God who, in the beginning, said, "Let there be light," and there was light; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God who parted the sea, and spoke from Sinai; the everlasting God who measures the waters of the globe in the hollow of His hand, before whom the nations are like a drop in a bucket, dust on the scales; the God who sits enthroned above the circle of the earth such that we are like grasshoppers beneath Him; the God who poured-out His righteous wrath upon His only-begotten Son on the cross, and then raised Him from the dead. Those believers knew that the living God was in their midst; they knew that they were in the presence of the Most High who is holy, holy, holy, before whom the angelic seraphim in heaven cover their faces; and so "fear came upon every soul." And that is how it ought to be with us.

The Word of God written in the Letter to the Hebrews, speaks to us today, reminding us that the Holy God who thundered from Mt. Sinai has now graciously drawn near to us in His Son Jesus Christ that we might receive His eternal kingdom through the blessing of the New Covenant in His sacrificial blood. And so the Word warns us not to trivialize God, not to take lightly His great work of redemption through His Son Jesus Christ, not to be presumptuous about His grace or ungrateful for His mercy or forgetful of His holiness or unconcerned about His wrath. It warns us not to be casual and careless about the character of our lives, but calls us to respond to the great grace of God with thanksgiving, and, therefore, to live our lives in the pursuit of holiness, and to worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, that is, with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire. This passage from Hebrews is, in a sense, echoing what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians, "...continue to work out your salvation in fear and trembling" (Phil.2:12).

The fear of God is a theme or doctrine that runs throughout the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Now, there may be someone here today who has the misunderstanding that the Old Testament is about a God of holiness, righteousness, law, justice, and wrath, who the people of the Old Testament feared, but that the New Testament reveals a God of love, grace, understanding, forgiveness, and acceptance that we do not need to fear. Now, that way of thinking is terribly wrong. It is a tragic error and it is a false teaching which has absolutely no basis whatsoever in the Bible, and it will wreck and ruin your understanding of God and your relationship with Him. The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament is one and the same God, and God does not change. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, just as He has been everlastingly from the depths of eternity before time ever began. And He is holy, holy, holy, whose "eyes are too pure to look on evil," and in whose holy presence no smidgen of sin is tolerated; yet, this same God who is holy, holy, holy, is the God who is full of compassion and mercy, gracious and willing to forgive iniquity, who out of the wellspring of His everlasting love has provided a way for us miserable sinners to be completely cleansed of all our foul impurities, to have all our sins forgiven forever, that we might be restored in righteousness and reconciled to Him, redeemed from the curse of our guilt and saved from the wrath to come. God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten, dearly-beloved Son, to be the Redeemer of His people, to bear in His own body our sins upon the cross, there to endure the righteous wrath of God and to satisfy His justice against our sins, that whosoever believes in Him might not perish but have everlasting life. Yes, the living and true God is a God of holy justice and holy love, yes, He is a consuming fire of holy justice and holy love, and therefore He is to be worshiped and served with reverence and fear.

Love of God and fear of God go together. They are not contradictory. In fact, where there is no fear of God, there is no real love for God. Where there is no fear of God, there is no humility before God, or true thanksgiving to God, or any real understanding or experience of God’s redeeming grace and mercy. It is only through the fear of God that we can ever really know in our hearts what it means to be freely forgiven by God, and experience the joy of salvation. If you have no fear of God, you have no true love for God and no real saving faith in Jesus Christ.

The doctrine of the fear of God is sometimes "softened" so-to-speak, by saying that we as Christians do not need to be, or ought not to be, "afraid" of God, and that "the fear of God" really means "reverence" and respect toward God, or awe before God. Well, yes, the fear of God does mean reverence and respect and awe before God, and certainly it is true that we are not to be "afraid" of God as though He were mean-spirited and capricious and malicious toward us. No, as Christians, we are not to be "afraid" of God as though He were like a mad, bad dog. No. But let’s not kid ourselves. He is the immortal One of omnipotent power and infinite glory who clothes Himself with blinding light and rides on the wings of the wind and does whatever He pleases among the armies of heaven and the peoples of the earth. He speaks and the earth trembles; He touches the mountains and they smoke. All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Yes, He is worthy to be feared, by frail, finite creatures of the dust such as you and I. Jesus said, "Fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matt.10:28). And if we do not contemplate our God with holy fear and trembling, then we have never met Him and do not know who He is, or we are the worst of fools.

Consider well the experience of the prophet Isaiah, when the veil of eternity was pulled back and he saw into the throne room of heaven, and saw the LORD, high and lifted up, and heard the seraphim calling back and forth, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty, "and immediately Isaiah cried out "Woe is me! I am undone!" There was something more in Isaiah’s cry than reverent piety and respectful awe; there was holy terror: the traumatic experience of a mortal soul in the presence of the Immortal God.

Consider well the experience of the Apostle John, the beloved disciple, the one who leaned on Jesus’ breast at the Last Supper. When the veil of heaven was pulled back in a vision, and he heard a loud voice like a trumpet, he turned and saw one "like a Son of Man," — the glorified Lord Jesus — "dressed in a robe reaching down to His feet and with a golden sash around His chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp double-edged sword, and His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance." And John tells us, "When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man." (Rev.1:12-17).

The Apostle John, the beloved disciple, had experienced the intimate, sweet love of Jesus to a depth and degree probably greater than any other person ever has or ever will in this world, and he wrote in his Gospel and in his letters all about the assurance of the love of God in Christ. But when the beloved disciple saw his glorified Savior, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the Lamb upon the throne, it scared him to death!

This is the God we worship! Jesus Christ is the incarnation, the human embodiment, of the consuming fire of God’s holy justice and the consuming fire of God’s holy love. Do you know Him? Have you come to terms with what it means to live and move and have your very being in the almighty and eternal God who is a consuming fire of holy justice and holy love? Have you experienced that cataclysmic catastrophe in your own soul that comes from the dreadful realization that you are but a mortal, frail, and finite creature of dust who lives and breathes only by the grace and goodness and mercy of your immortal, infinite, omnipotent Creator? Have you experienced that cataclysmic catastrophe in your own soul that comes from the dreadful realization that you are a sinner in the presence of the Holy One? And have you, therefore, fallen on your face in His holy presence and stretched out your empty hands, with fear and trembling, to the cross, to receive the free offer of His pardon and mercy in Jesus Christ? For it was there on the cross, that Christ Himself burned for sinners. It was there on the cross that Christ was consumed by the fire of God’s wrath against sin; yet it was there on the cross that Christ burned with the flames of God’s all-consuming love for sinners. Do you look to the cross, and fear the wrath of God against sin, and love Him for saving you from it?

The Scripture from Hebrews warns us — warns us, the covenant people of God who enjoy the blessings of the New Covenant, who hear the Word of God preached from week to week, who were born into Christian families, who have been set apart from the world by baptism, who commune at the Lord’s Table, and who outwardly profess Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord — the Scripture warns us that if we abuse the grace of God with ingratitude, and harden our hearts against Him in haughtiness, and refuse to obey His Word, and turn away from Christ and pursue the way of the world rather than the way of holiness, then we are really unbelieving hypocrites who trample the Son of God under our own feet and despise His precious blood, and, therefore, condemn ourselves to suffer the righteous wrath of God. And the Scripture says, "It is a dreadful, fearful, thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31); "for our God is a consuming fire."

So, if we do not have a right, reverential, loving-fear of God, a fear which causes us to tremble and to humble ourselves before Him, a fear which acknowledges our need and dependence upon Him and our smallness before Him, a fear which shudders at the thought of rebellion against Him, a holy, godly fear which glorifies God for who He is — the consuming fire of justice, the consuming fire of love — if we do not have a fear of God which finds its relief only in the cross of Jesus Christ, then either we do not know God or we are the worst of fools.

But, the Scripture says

"Blessed are all who fear the LORD";

"The mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear Him";

"Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear Him, upon them who hope in His mercy; to deliver their soul from death ...";

"The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy";

therefore, let us "fear God and give Him glory," 

for our God is a consuming fire. Amen.