“Happy is the man that feareth alway.”—Proverbs 28:14.
But did not John say that “fear hath torment?” Then how can he be happy who hath fear, and especially he who hath it always. Did not John also say that “perfect love casteth out fear?” How is it then that he is happy in whom love is not made perfect, if so be that the fear which John mentions must be left in it? Dear friends, the explanation is that the word “fear” is used in different senses, and both Solomon and John are right; neither is there any conflict between their two statements. There is a fear which perfect love casts out because it hath torment. That is the slavish fear which trembles before God as a criminal trembles before the judge, —the fear which mistrusts, suspects, and has no confidence in God,—the fear which, therefore, keeps us away from God, causes us to dread the thought of drawing near to him, and makes us say like the fool to whom the psalmist refers, “No God.” Many of you know what this kind of fear is, for you once suffered from it; though I trust you are now delivered from it by faith in Christ Jesus and by the love which the Spirit of God has wrought in your hearts. There is also another sort of fear which springs out of this slavish fear, and which is to be equally shunned, namely, a fear which leads to the apprehension that something evil is about to happen. There are many persons who have so little faith in God, that they fear that the trials which will sooner or later overtake them, will also overthrow them. They are afraid of a certain form of suffering that threatens them; they fear that they will not have patience enough to bear up under it, they feel sure that their spirit will sink in their sickness. Above all, they are dreadfully afraid to die. They have not yet believed that God will be with them when they pass through the valley of deathshade; and because they cannot trust him they are all their lifetime subject to bondage. They cannot say that all things work together for good to them, but they often say as poor old Jacob mistakenly said, “All these things are against me.” And so they go on, fearing this and fearing that and fearing the other, and their life is spent, to a great extent, in sorrow and sighing. May the Lord graciously deliver any of you who are in that condition!
That is a kind of fear from which the true believer is free. He knows that whatever happens, God will overrule it for the good of his chosen. “He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.” Resignation to the divine will has made him feel that whatever the Lord wills is right; he does not seek to have his own will, but he is glad to make God’s will his will, and so he is perfectly satisfied with all that comes. God save you, my brethren and sisters in Christ, from all fear of a slavish sort! Above all, no Christian ought to have any fear which would bring dishonor upon the truthfulness, the goodness, the immutability, or the power of God. To doubt his promise,—to suppose that he will not make it good,—this is indeed a fear which hath torment. To doubt God’s faithfulness,—to suppose that he can ever forget his children, that his mercy can be withdrawn from them, or that he will be favorable to them no more,—this also is wrong. To doubt the perseverance of the saints when God’s Word has so plainly declared that he will keep their foes, and will perfect the work which he hath begun in them,—indeed, to doubt anything that has the inspired Scriptures to support it, and to tremble in any way when your trembling arises out of a suspicion that God may change or cease to be faithful to his promises, and faithful to his Son, all that kind of fearing is to be cast far from us.
But, dear friends, there is another fear that ought to be cultivated,—the reverential fear which the holy angels, feel when they worship God, and behold his glory;—that gracious fear which makes them veil their faces with their wings as they adore the Majesty on high. There is also the loving fear which every true, right-hearted child has towards its father,-a fear of grieving so tender a parent,—a proper feeling of dread which makes it watch its every footstep, lest, in the slightest degree, it should deviate from the path of absolute obedience. May God graciously grant to us much of this kind of fear!
Then there is a holy fear of ourselves, which makes us shun the very thought of self-reliance,—which weans us, equally from self-righteousness and self-confidence,—and which makes us feel that we shall surely fall unless the Lord shall continually hold us up, and that we shall certainly die, unless he shall sustain our spiritual life. This fear of our own selves – the fear of sinning against God —is a fear which we ought always to cherish, and concerning which the text saith, “Happy is the man that feareth alway.”
I have taken this topic for a special reason. You know that we have recently had a great deal of preaching of “Believe! Believe! Believe!” and I have very heartily joined in the evangelistic services which have been held. We have also had a great deal of singing about full-assurance, and we have had a little chattering about perfection, or something wonderfully like it, as far as I can make it out and as I put all these things together, I cannot help being afraid that there will be a great growth of the mushrooms of presumption. With warm days and damp days and with everything tending to make vegetation luxurious, we may expect to see an abundant crop of poisonous fungi growing up,—noxious agarics, toadstools, and I know not what besides. They will come up in a night but they may not be destroyed in a night; and they will be a great nuisance, and possibly worse than that. So I want to speak in such a way that we may all be led to do some sincere heartsearching, and to commend to you the cherishing of an anxious fear, lest peradventure all that glitters should not prove to be gold, and lest much of that which looks like wheat should, at the last, turn out to be tares.
I. My first observation shall be that There is, after all, very grave cause for fear.
. Otherwise Solomon would not have been inspired to write, “Happy is the man that feareth alway.”
There is cause for fear, dear brethren and sisters who love the Lord, because corruption still remaineth in us. In the best man or woman here there is still the old flesh that lusts against the spirit, that flesh which is in constant enmity to the spirit and never will be reconciled to it. If that flesh keeps quiet for a time, it is there all the while, just as a lion is still a lion even when he is lying hidden in his den. He only needs some dark hour to come, and he will rush forth from his den; so is it with the flesh which still lurks within us. When a man imagines that all his corruptions are gone, that is no proof that he is clean rid of them, but only that he does not really know his true condition; for if God were but to lift the veil that covers his eyes and to let him see the great deeps of sin that are in his nature, he would soon discover that he has grave cause for fear, and he would be driven to cry out to God, “Oh, keep me, I beseech thee, or else I shall commit spiritual suicide! I must and shall become like the vilest of apostates unless thy sovereign grace shall hold me on my way.”
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
