August 20, 2015

dumbfounded or reverent fear...



Do you have a healthy fear of God?  Do you see Him as so marvelous and powerful that you are truly, at your core, afraid of offending Him through your sin?  

At Mt. Sinai, the nation of Israel, encountered God.   This encounter was not a simple happening.  The arrival of God brought with it amazing events.  The twentieth chapter of Exodus states, “When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”  This encounter with God was formidable and forbidding at the same time.  Moses’ response to Israel’s distress was to proclaim that, “…God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”  

In the world today, the God that so many worship looks little like the God which Israel encountered in the desert.  The God, the Jesus in which many profess faith has an uncanny resemblance to them.  He is not a God to be feared.  Rather, He is facsimile of the culture and His conduct is based off of its principles.  This is not the God of the Bible!  This is not the God that exist!  This is not the Jesus who came to save us!  This is not the Jesus that will return in power!  This is a God invented by people to set their mind at ease.

The problem with position is that each and every person will one day stand in the presence of God… not the imaginary God of their own invention but the God of Israel but the awe-inspiring, fierce, remarkable God who shook the ground at Mt. Sinai.  

The question is… will you stand dumbfounded or will you stand with a reverent fear before God?