• Ricky Wright
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Sunday night Ricky Wright challenged our youth group in the area of fearing God. His appeal was to fear God and not man, and he used Proverbs 29:25 to challenge us. Here is the gist of what he said. We are sharing it on the blog, because as we all know, the fear of man doesn't stop when you become an adult.
Fearing God and Not Man from Proverbs 29:25
Last year, a research team from Chapman University in Orange, California conducted a poll in which they focused on what strikes fear in the heart of the American people. 1,573 Americans from across the country and from all walks of life participated in this poll in which they were asked questions on personal fears, crime, natural disasters, and fear factors. This is what the research team found: Over 60% of participants admitted to a fear of public speaking, or a fear of heights, or a fear of animals. 40% or more admitted to being afraid of drowning, of blood or needles, of enclosed spaces, or of strangers. To top it all off, 34% admitted a fear of the dark; 24% admitted a fear of ghosts; 19% admitted a fear of zombies; and 16% admitted a fear of clowns . The fear of clowns I can understand, not so much, ghost and zombies.
Now, the research team did not dig into great detail about how the lives of these people were affected by the things they feared, but I am certain they were. I wonder which participant would admit he never goes to the pool because he just might fall in and drown; or her electricity bill stays rather expensive because she cannot bring herself to turn out the lights when she sleeps; or he has never been to the circus because he just might run into Bozo the Clown! The truth is what we fear will affect us, it will even control us. This is no less true for our topic on tonight – the fear of God vs. the fear of man. What we have laid before us is two ways in which we can live in this world, and the way in which we choose, has the power to affect all areas of our life.
Let’s read Proverbs 29:25. Let’s pray.
To start off, I am going to flip this text as I speak to you tonight. I feel as if it may be more appropriate to talk to you about the fear of the Lord before I talk to you about the fear of man, even though in our text the fear of man is mentioned first. So, I plan to go (I) Fear of the Lord; (II) Fear of Man; and (III) Fear the Lord, not Man.
I. Fear of the Lord (29:25b)
“Whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.”
Fearing the Lord may seem like a strange idea to you. You have heard of loving the Lord, or worshiping the Lord, or even obeying the Lord. But, fearing the Lord? What is that? Well, if we were to start reading at Proverbs 1:1 and arrive here at 29:25, we would gain good insight into the meaning of this phrase. For example, Proverbs 1:7 tells us that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” So, if you are looking for true knowledge, start with the fear of the Lord. Proverbs 8:13 tells us that the “fear of the Lord is the hatred of evil”. So, if we are people who fear the Lord, we will have a hatred for evil. Proverbs 10:27 tells us that the “fear of the Lord prolongs life,” and Proverbs 14:27 further tells us that it is a “fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death.” So, if we want a long life, if we want true life, we must start with the fear of the Lord. Then we arrive here at Proverbs 29:25 which tells us that the person who trusts in – who fears – the Lord is “safe.”
In his book The Beginning and End of Wisdom, Douglas Sean O’Donnell defines the fear of the Lord in this way:
“…‘the fear of the Lord’ is a continual (Prov. 23:17), humble, and faithful submission to Yahweh , which compels one to hate evil (Prov. 8:13) and turn away from it (Prov. 16:6) and brings with it rewards better than all earthly treasures (Prov. 15:16)—the rewards of a love for and a knowledge of God (Prov. 1:29; 2:5; 9:10; 15:33), and long life (Prov. 10:27; 14:27a; 19:23a), confidence (Prov. 14:26), satisfaction, and protection (Prov. 19:23).”
Pastor and author Tim Keller further comments on the phrase by stating:
“The true sense of the ‘fear of the Lord’ in the Old Testament implies relationship. Obviously to be in the fear of the Lord is not to be scared of the Lord, even though the Hebrew word has overtones of respect and awe. “Fear” in the Bible means to be overwhelmed, to be controlled by something. To fear the Lord is to be overwhelmed with wonder before the greatness of God and his love. It means that because of his bright holiness and magnificent love, you find him “fearfully beautiful.”…Fearing him means bowing before him out of amazement at his glory and beauty.”
New Year’s Eve was a day in which I had a fresh experience with the fear of the Lord. I was sitting in the break room with three of my coworkers, and as can be assumed the conversation soon turned to what we were all doing to celebrate the New Year. Now, it became clear that my coworkers did not intend on walking in the fear of God that night as they mentioned the various things they planned on doing with drunkenness being one of the highlights of the evening. Then somehow the conversation turned to me. They all know I am a Christian, so they naturally assumed I would be at church. My response: no church. Then, they assumed, I must be doing the alternative, what they planned on doing. No. Interesting enough, I soon led them into a conversation in how alcohol would never satisfy them. It would never satisfy me, only Jesus could do that. I went on to further tell them of how I wanted everything in my life to be affected by Jesus. Now, I got from them a positive response, I think even a convicting response as I heard the “I am just not that strong in my faith as you are” comments. Now, I could have just avoided their questions. I could have quickly ran for the exit door. But, I spoke to them with confidence. I felt safe. I was so overwhelmed by the fact that Jesus is far better than anything they could pursue on night that it affected me, and I believe it did something to them. There was the fear of the Lord at work in my life.
Where do you see the presence of fear of the Lord in your life?
Now, let’s turn to what Proverbs 29:25 describes as the fear of man.
II. Fear of Man (29:25a)
“The fear of man lays a snare.”
Now, as we read through Proverbs, we find the words “the fear of the Lord” emphasized repeatedly; however, it is only here in the Book of Proverbs where we find these four words - “the fear of man” – together. What should concern us even more is what we are told it does. “It lays a snare.” It lays a trap. It is something that catches us, like an animal, around either our feet or neck, and it brings an entangling net with it. It’s a hole covered with leaves that we fall into, and we find ourselves utterly trapped. There are no rewards here – no knowledge of God, no long life, no confidence or satisfaction or protection. We only find serious danger.
Ken Sande, author of the book The Peacemaker, defines the fear of man in this way:
“Fear of man may involve an actual fear of what others can do to us (Prov 29:25; Luke 12:4-5) or an excessive concern about what others think about us, which can lead to a preoccupation with acceptance, approval, popularity, personal comparisons, or pleasing others (John 9:22;12:42-43;Gal 1:10; 1 Thess. 2:4). This idol can make us reluctant to address serious sin, tempt us to gossip or do other things we know are not right, and make us reluctant to admit our wrongs or ask for help.”
Now, let me be careful here and make something clear. There is nothing necessarily wrong with being accepted or approved or pleasing to others. Notice it is an “excessive concern about what others think about us.” You should desire to be known as a person of integrity and character. You should desire to be pleasing to others, not by bending to their every whim, but by rightly giving the proper respect and honor they are due. So, yes, give appropriate weight to what your parents or your boss think or say; don’t quickly brush off the comments and opinions of others, especially when in love, they are pointing out serious sin in your life. But, the fear of man comes knocking when certain people become the ones you are overwhelmed and consumed by. How he or she acts towards you, or what he or she thinks about you, becomes the excessive concern of your life. He or she becomes, as Sande so rightly says, “[your] idol”. Suddenly, what you value, what you think, how you behave become deeply affected. Is there anyone like that for you? There probably is, or at least sometime in your life, there has been or will be. Ed Welch, author of When People are Big and God is Small, writes, “Fear of man is such a part of our human fabric that we should check for pulse if someone denies it.”
Along with the 60% of Americans who participated in the poll conducted by Chapman University, I have known all too well the fear of public speaking. I remember a time in which I and three others students were selected to present speeches we had written to a local Rotary Club. I remember arriving at the restaurant, eating, and waiting my turn to speak. I am glad I did not go first because as I waited my turn, I went through a multitude of emotions in a matter of seconds. Questions such as Will they like my speech? What if I freeze up? ran through my head. I am sure my tongue was sticking to the roof of my mouth, and I must have been experiencing something worse than death itself! What everyone in that room was thinking about me was my only concern.
Where do you see the presence of the fear of man in your life?
III. Fear the Lord, Not Man
As I close, a question obviously rises: What do you do when you see that your life clearly shows that you fear man more than you fear God?
Here is the truth: as fallen, sinful people, we do not care about and we cannot fear the Lord. Scripture make it quite clear where our natural bent is: “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Romans 3:18). Left to ourselves, we care nothing about relationship with God nor do we care anything about submitting to him – the very things that define the fear of the Lord. Our sin has and does separate us from him, and brings us to that moment when being afraid of God, being terrified of God, should be a reality for us as we the unholy meet him who is holy; as we the unjust meet him who his just; as we the unrighteous meet him who is righteous. But praise God that he has provided the cure for this! He has sent his Son to redeem sinful people like you and me. And through the saving grace that is offered to us in Jesus Christ, we can be restored to right relationship with God, right relationship with one another, and receive a new heart that desires to submit to and delight in God. God works in us to will and work for his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). Then we will be able to begin to walk in the fear of God. If we do not start here with nothing less and nothing more than the Gospel, everything else I say to you about growing in the fear of God, will be of no use to you.
Then, we must begin to fight fear with fear. That is, we must fight the fear of man with the fear of God. A pastor by the name of John Witherspoon once wrote, “It is only the fear of God that can deliver us from the fear of man.” If you want to be rescued from the snare known as the fear of man, you must pursue the joy, freedom, life, and safety found in the fear of the Lord. When you do that, not only will you glorify God, but you will be able to rightly interact with, serve, and love others. I will not tell you that this will happen overnight, it will take time. It will take faith. It will take continual effort that is dependent upon the Spirit of God and the grace of God, but you can start now.
“The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.”
Let’s pray.