God’s Word to the World (4)

Now therefore, be wise, O kings;
Be instructed, you judges of the earth.
Serve the LORD with fear,
And rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son, lest He be angry,
And you perish in the way,
When His wrath is kindled but a little. Psalm 2.10-12

The King and His Kingdom
God’s response to the raging and vanity of those who do not wish to have Him rule over them consists of the announcement that a new King is on the throne of the world and a new Kingdom has begun its advance against all kingdoms, worldviews, and rebellious men.

Jesus Christ is God’s Anointed One, and to Him has been granted as an inheritance all the nations of the world and every creature in the vast cosmos. Over them all He rules with truth and grace. And He intends to make the nations prove the glories of His righteousness.

This announcement of King Jesus and His Kingdom has been entrusted to the loyal subjects of this Sovereign. We who have believed in Him are appointed for the task both of embodying the reality of the Kingdom of God and of calling the nations to forsake their folly and force their way, by grace through faith, into the Kingdom of life (Lk. 16.16). All our reading and study and meditation in God’s Word should lead us to this conclusion, this calling, this life of obedience. We are witnesses to the King and His Kingdom, and His Word of promise and warning is in our hands.

But we must be certain that we understand all the various aspects of this message, so that we make our appeal to the vain and raging lost souls in our spheres of influence according to the receptors and chords that resonate most powerfully in their souls.

And the first of these is fear.

Living in fear
People today live, to varying degrees, lives of fear. Above all, as the writer of Hebrews explains, they fear death (Heb. 2.15). They fear the pain of it, the loss of it, and the uncertainty of what lies beyond it. Many people today fear not having a job or being able to provide for themselves and their loved ones. They fear losing the things they cherish most, or missing the good life as they envision it because of some unforeseeable tragedy or disaster. They fear terror. They fear pain and suffering. They fear the whims of the economy. They fear what others might think about them.

All these fears – and they are very real – serve to remind us that men are made for fear. God, Who made us in His image, intends fear to be a driving force in the decisions we make and the lives we choose.

But fear can only do its proper work when it is rightly focused and sufficiently engaged. And those whose fear is only attached to the things of their temporal experience are not fearing wisely. No small part of our message from God to the world is that the world should look past all its petty, temporal fears and learn, as Jesus warned, to fear Him Who can destroy both body and soul in hell (Matt. 10.28). “Now what does the Lord require of you,” the Lord asks through His servant Moses, “but to fear Him…” (Deut. 10.12).

We must present Jesus Christ to the world as a King and Sovereign and Ruler to be feared because of what He is capable of doing to those who oppose His will. He can break them as with a rod of iron, and smash them into pieces like a potter’s vessel. He Who upholds the universe and everything in it by the Word of His power, Who brings the storms and sends the lightning, Who stills and stirs the seas, breaks the mountains, cracks open the earth, explodes planets, and sustains whole galaxies – He has power to wield according to His pleasure, and His pleasure is that men should fear Him.

A day is coming, and is at hand
The wrath of King Jesus, our psalm explains, can suddenly flare. No man knows the day of his death. I recall a witnessing situation I was involved in with Jim Kennedy one time. Jim had shared the Gospel patiently, clearly, and lovingly – as he always did – and the young man he was talking with explained that, while he was sure that everything he had told him was true, he just wasn’t quite ready to believe. Soon, he insisted, or sometime later, but not right now. To which Jim responded, “Then promise me one thing, will you, my friend? Between now and the time you decide to give your life to Jesus, don’t die first.”

No man knows the day of his death. But the wrath of Jesus doesn’t wait for men to die. The wrath of God is even now being poured out against all manner of unrighteousness and ungodliness, and men who persist in opposing God and His Anointed King should know that their Maker and Sovereign will give them up to increasing corruption, hardness of heart, and the growing fears and dangers of an increasingly corrosive and corrupted world, for this is the way He is bringing His wrath to bear against the nations in our time (Rom. 1.18-32).

Now we may convince only a few with such an approach. But that’s not our problem. We have a sword to wield (Ps. 149); we are entrusted with a message – God’s Word to the world – and that message of a new King and His advancing Kingdom must include a serious and well-pointed warning concerning Whom to fear and why.

For as long as men do not fear our King, they will have no reason to obey Him.

For reflection
1.  Do you agree that fear is a basic human affection? And that God intends to use fear in directing people’s behavior? Why or why not?

2.  God commanded men to fear Him. Why should we fear God? Is it really all that important to fear God? Why or why not?

3.  Can we truly love and serve God if we do not fear Him? Explain:

Next steps – Conversation: Would you say that you fear God? Why or why not? Meditate on Hebrews 12.3-11. Does the writer seem to be encouraging us to fear God? Meditate on 2 Corinthians 7.1. What is the relationship between fearing God and growing in the Lord? Talk with some Christian friends about these questions.

T. M. Moore

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.