Fear of the Lord IV: Our Refuge | Behold Your God Podcast

Welcome to the Behold Your God podcast. I'm Jon Snyder, and I'm here again with my co -pastor Chuck Baggett, and we're looking at the fourth in a series of episodes on the theme,

The Fear of the Lord, and particularly looking at God as our refuge. How does this

God, who describes himself as fearful, and terrible, dreadful, unapproachably pure, and yet also, shockingly, the

God who is the sanctuary of his people, or the refuge? So that wonderful paradox in Scripture, we understand, is solved in the person of his

Son, Jesus Christ, in his labors, where we see all of these things, you know, dovetail together in a way that results in the rescue of any sinner that comes repentant and believing, you know, laying hold of Christ.

We looked at a couple of things in our last episode. We looked at not getting caught up in what the world gets caught up in when it looks at all the different crises, you know, so do not say like they say, this is a conspiracy, but also not to get paralyzed by the same fears that trip up the worldling, who, not belonging to God, not having

Christ as his refuge, you know, everything seems to just be so daunting, and despair creeps in.

So, Chuck, where do we pick up with this week? Yes, in Isaiah 8,

Isaiah had warned the people not to fear what they feared, as you were kind of saying, not to consider it a conspiracy, but rather to fear

God and let him be their dread. So amazingly, the answer to not fearing what we should not fear is to have a greater fear, is to fear

God himself. He shall be your fear, he shall be your dread, Isaiah said. When we look at the

Scriptures, there are over 150 references to the fear of God. So there's so much material, and we talked a few weeks ago about Exodus 20, that there are two different categories of fear.

Exodus 20 says, Moses speaking to the people, do not be afraid, this servile kind of fear, for God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of him may remain with you, so that you may not sin.

So don't have one kind of fear, but do have this other kind of fear, the filial fear. Yes, so let's go back over again, a good definition for servile fear, slavish fear, and filial fear, the fear of a son.

And we'll use R .C. Sproul again for this. This is what Sproul says about the servile fear. The servile fear is a kind of fear that a prisoner in a torture chamber has for his tormentor, the jailer, or the executioner.

It's that kind of dreadful anxiety in which someone is frightened by the clear and present danger that is represented by another person, or it's the kind of fear that a slave would have at the hands of a malicious master who would come with the whip and torment the slave.

Now that's servile fear, and that kind of fear is a sinful fear, and that's not how we're to view

God. But what is filial fear? Well, that comes from the Latin word, filial comes from the

Latin word which means son, and so Sproul writes, it is the tremendous love and respect that a child has for his father or mother, whom the child dearly wants to please.

He has a fear or an anxiety of offending the one he loves, not because he's afraid of torture, but because he's afraid of displeasing the one who is, in that child's world, the source of security and love.

So a very clear difference between the two types of fear. Right. And for the believer, if we are in Christ Jesus, we have something of this filial fear.

Jeremiah chapter 32 speaks about New Covenant blessings, and one of those is that the

Lord will put His fear in our hearts. And so we cannot really conceive of saying that we're in the

New Covenant, but not know anything of this filial fear. But it doesn't mean that we never respond with the servile kind of fear, or that we always live perfectly in light of that good kind of fear.

So what do we do? I mean, if we live in the grip of the fear of people, if we live in the grip of circumstances, so that we become paralyzed and we're making bad decisions, obviously we're not focused upon God, we're focused on ourselves or on others.

We're living without reference to God. We're like Ahaz in Isaiah 7 and 8, who scared at the thought of the approaching armies, and yet despising

God's word, and not considering the fact that Isaiah was sent to tell him they're not going to be successful.

So when we give way to fear like that, fear of creature or fear of circumstance, we really are robbing God of glory, like Ahaz, when

God offered to demonstrate Himself powerful on His behalf. We're not sanctifying

Him, we're not treating Him as holy, but we're dreading something else more than we dread Him.

We must live in the grip of fear, but not fear of people and circumstances, we must live in the grip of the fear of Him.

And so we're to fear Him in such a way that we're moving toward Him, and not away from Him, not wanting to get away from Him, not because we're afraid to get away from Him because He's so mean,

He might punish us if we slip away, but because He's so good, we just don't want to move away from Him.

If you think about the contrast between Isaiah and Ahaz, it might help us. Isaiah saw the

Lord, and in a sense falls on His face and cries out, I am a sinful man, and I am surrounded by sinful men.

What does a being of infinite purity have to do with any of us? And Isaiah is aware of the problems of the war, and of the moral decline in the nation, but he's not paralyzed by that, because he is in the grip of the person he's just seen, so to speak.

Ahaz says he's a believer, but is not a believer. And so when Isaiah brings the promises of chapter 7, that there is one who is coming, and we know that ultimately that refers to Emmanuel, the

Emmanuel, God with us, I will send someone who will rescue you, and I will not allow these men in the present moment, these countries will not overrun you, in fact

I will provide a rescuer. You can't even imagine the dimensions of this coming

King. And Ahaz is so uninterested that he won't even ask for a sign when he's commanded to.

Sometimes it's a sin to ask for a sign, but here Ahaz is commanded, and Ahaz says, oh no,

I don't want to tempt the Lord. A complete unbelief that just says, what's the use of asking for a religious sign, when we know that God is not really a practical answer to anything here.

And so one thing I have to ask myself, as an individual, as a dad, as a husband, or as pastors, when we are faced with a crisis, and that happens about every five minutes it seems, what grips me?

Is it the crisis? And I'm gripped by the same things a worldly man would be gripped by. What am

I going to do? What about this? What about these angry people? What about my kids? What about my marriage? What about what I see in me?

Or am I gripped by the realities of the Emmanuel? His realities are in front of my eyes in such a way that I am just bent toward running toward Him with every crisis, instead of being like Ahaz saying, oh yeah, yeah,

Jesus talked. That's wonderful. I mean, I appreciate it. But it's not really of any practical value for my marriage or my kids, or even for a church.

And after he talks to Ahaz in chapter 8, he really turns to a remnant. And as he reminds them, don't, you know, let

God be your fear and dread. We have to come back again and again and be reminded to look to God and to remember that that is what

I need to be in the grip of and not these ongoing dramas being played out. Yeah.

Another thing that he says there is that God does possess a might.

OK, a holy might. I don't just mean holy as in the sense of it's morally pure, but holy as in the sense of it's separate from every other kind of might.

So there is a solitary, unique kind of strength in the arm of our

God that is unlike any kind of strength that we see expressed throughout creation or nations or great leaders.

You know, the psalmist tells us that strength belongs to the Lord. Power belongs to the Lord. It's not just that he is powerful.

It's not just that he is more powerful and not even just that he is most powerful as if God is, you know, 100 level power.

And then the next being, the archangel is only a 22. It's that all capability, all ability, all strength and power manifested in any form in creation is on loan from God.

Here it describes it this way. Very simple picture. He is described as the Lord of hosts. He is the one that we regard as holy and he is the one who is fearful.

That's, you know, an Old Testament phrase we hear a lot. I wonder if we understand what it means. Very simple. It means he is the

Lord of these armies. It can be any kind of army. He is the almighty one.

And he not only possesses all ability to rule, he's also sovereign. So he possesses the unique combination of an infinite ability to rule and to govern and then also an infinite right to rule and govern, which is what we mean when we say sovereign.

So think about it. God rules over the armies of the world in the sense that he rules over all the governments.

Isaiah chapter 40 compares the great nations of the earth, which we stand in awe of.

And he says, but look, look at God and now look at the nations. They're a speck of dust on a scale.

Nobody worries about dust on the scale. You know, we jokingly say, you know, I have a scale in my bathroom.

And so I can tell, you know, where I'm at. Am I losing weight? Am I gaining weight?

Especially with the COVID -19, you know. And I think, yeah, okay, I gained 19 or I lost.

So I get on the scales. Now, I might, you know, not want to wear my boots on the scales.

I don't wear heavy clothes. I might lock the bathroom door and strip down to the essentials.

But I never get so paranoid about my weight that I've knocked the dust off the scale.

All right. A drop on the edge of a bucket. We get a bucket of water, we bring it. If we spilled it, if we tripped and spilled the whole bucket, we have to go back.

But if someone said to us, as we carry this five -gallon bucket up, we set it down and they said, a drip's run down the edge, you would say,

I don't care about a drip. Who notices a drip? So God is the Lord of hosts. And compared to the nations, the nations compared to Him, specks, drips.

But He's also the ruler of not just of nations. I mean, He's the ruler of economies. He's the ruler of viruses.

He's the ruler of every uprising. He's the ruler of creation itself. And, you know, when we see these things, it's not that we become apathetic and, you know, we say, well,

I just don't care what's happening in the world because I'm a Christian. No. But we find ourselves freed from the paralyzing fear, free to walk with God.

And, you know, and when we're afraid, all we do is tend to think of ourselves. So freed from fear to love other people in the midst of a crisis, you know.

How can you see this in the Lord Jesus Christ? He's about to go to the cross. Obviously, He is in the grip of the majesty and the worth of His Father.

And He's going to give His life as a sacrifice for His people out of love, not just for them, but for His Father. And as He's doing that,

He turns and He takes care of His mother when He's on the cross, you know. He has time to talk to the disciples in John 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17.

You know, how are you free from the preoccupation of self in the midst of a crisis to think of others?

Well, because He's not paralyzed by the fears that other men are paralyzed by. And we also see that according to Peter, Jesus is this

Lord of hosts. Isaiah identifies the Lord of hosts as the one we're to fear. Peter quotes from Isaiah in 1

Peter 3. And so there's this link in which

Peter is basically seeing Christ as being the one that Isaiah is talking about. He's the one that you're to fear and to dread.

That's kind of a jar to the picture that many people have of Christ. I mean,

He's the meek and gentle Jesus, but He is the Lord of hosts. And He is the ruler of armies.

He is one to be feared. In Luke 5, Jesus told

Peter to go fishing. Peter had been out working all night fishing. They had not caught hardly anything.

They're back in the morning washing the nets, putting everything up, getting ready to, I guess, sleep for the day and go back out the next night.

And Jesus tells them to let out in the deep. And Peter tells them, you know, we've been doing all this, we're tired, etc.

But I will do as you say and let down the nets. When they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish and their nets began to break.

So they signaled to their partners in the other boat for them to come and help them. And they came and filled both of the boats so that they began to sink.

But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus' feet, saying, Go away from me,

Lord, for I'm a sinful man. For amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken.

So interestingly to me, as they gather this great catch of fish,

Peter is not gripped by Jesus' ability to catch fish, remarkable as that is, you know.

But here's a power that obviously commands fish to swim in the nets and he knows where the fish are in a way that no fisherman knows.

But he also is gripped by holiness so that he falls down and says, I'm sinful, don't get close to me.

And yet while telling Jesus to stand back, get away, when

Jesus does leave, Peter and James and John all follow him. He tells them, don't be afraid, follow me,

I'll make you fishers of men. And they follow him. They're not put off by this fear, but they're drawn to it.

Yeah, think about Peter, James and John in another instance on the

Mount of Transfiguration. So it's as if for a moment the veil of his humanity is pulled back and the deity shines through in a way that is extraordinary, you know, supernatural.

And they cannot even look upon him because of the brilliance of his glory. And so there they are on their faces.

I mean that is not the end of the story of their following him. When he comes down off the mountain later, the other disciples don't say, what happened to Peter, James and John?

And he said, well, I'm sorry, I scared them, you know, so they're not willing to follow. So you can almost, as a believer, you can almost imagine the scene and what you would feel.

There is this shock again that this is not your buddy, your pal.

This is not someone to take lightly and just kind of stroll up to and be familiar with. Yes, he is humble and he is gentle with us and he is the friend of sinners.

But it was just a good reminder to them, he is infinitely above us in his deity.

And yet, surely, having seen his majesty expressed in that dreadful way, they love him more.

And they, so it's, you know, there's that wonderful sense of who am I to come near and yet, if you will command me,

I will come near. Because though you are terrifyingly other than, yet I love you.

And because of what you've done for me, I cannot help but love you. And I want to draw near to this light, you know, which even so I find terrifying, you know.

You know, I think in some ways, in a very, very imperfect way, C .S. Lewis' pictures of Christ in the

Chronicles of Narnia for children, you know, the lion Aslan, he does try to reflect that.

Where Aslan is somebody you would want to befriend and yet somebody you would not want to take lightly, you know, you don't stroll up to.

So, you know, do you promise not to hurt me, Aslan? No. Like, okay, I'm not a tame lion.

Okay. And yet, are you willing to turn and walk away? Like, no, there's no other place to go but toward.

So, yeah, wonderful picture of how that God can be in our dread and yet it is a delightful dread.

It is a dread that we, against all fear, because of the finished work of Christ, we feel impelled to draw near to.

Yeah, there's a sweetness in the fear of God. And as we've been thinking about Isaiah 8, there was the warning and the remedy.

Then there's the encouragement. And the encouragement is in verses 14 and 15, where Isaiah says that he shall become a sanctuary.

But to both the houses of Israel a stone to strike and a rock to stumble over, and a snare and a trap for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Many will stumble over them. They will fall and be broken. They will even be snared and caught.

So, two different pictures there. But the first, he'll be a sanctuary. And the he of verse 14, the pronoun, refers back to the

Lord of hosts of verse 13. And we've just talked about how that is Christ Jesus himself. Christ becomes a sanctuary to the believer.

His coming had been predicted in chapter 7 and verse 14. It's predicted again in chapter 9. The promise of the coming

Messiah had no effect on Ahaz and on most of Judah. But for the believer, Jesus does make all the difference.

He's a sanctuary, a place of refuge and safety. And so, this is the one that Isaiah is saying, let him be your fear and let him be your dread.

The very one that he says will be your sanctuary if he is a fear and dread to you. So, obviously not a servile fear that makes you want to run away.

But one that you want to draw near to because he is a place of refuge for you.

In the Old Testament, you know, we have that wonderful picture of Christ, the cities of refuge. So, God commanded in the justice system for Israel that there would be cities set up throughout the land so that wherever you lived, one was reachable.

And they were set up for the sole purpose of providing a safe haven, an oasis, a refuge for a person who had killed someone accidentally or in self -defense.

And in that system, then if someone has died at my hand, that person's family members, his near kin, have a right to have an eye for an eye, so to speak.

And so, the avenger of blood is on my trail. So, I would go home and say to my family, a terrible accident has happened.

You know, so -and -so has died. Their family members, they don't know it's an accident. They're going to just, they're going to lash out.

And so, we need to go somewhere safe. Where can you go? We can go to a city of refuge.

So, you would be allowed in the city of refuge, and the avenger was not allowed within the walls of the city of refuge.

And because it was a justice system, then the leaders of that city would hear the case. And, you know, evidence would be presented.

Was it accidental? Was it legitimate? Was it self -defense? Or was it murder? If it was murder, you were put out, and you would be judged, and the avenger would have his revenge.

But if it was an accident, or if it was self -defense, if it was not murder, then you would be allowed, you and your family, would be allowed to stay within this great city, behind its safe walls, until there was no one else looking to take revenge on you.

And it's such a picture of Christ. The law of God comes toward us. The wrath of God comes.

And there is only one place in all the universe where we could run to and then be at rest.

And that is in the finished work of Christ. Because He has already suffered the cost of our sin, and the law is satisfied now.

Justice is satisfied with Him. And within His walls, within His finished work, united to Him, while I find

God to still be as infinitely holy, as unapproachably glorious, and yet He is the one place that I'm safe.

The Lord Jesus has pledged His word that nothing or no one will ever pluck the believer out of His hand.

He is that for the believer. Not just for eternity, although certainly for that, but now. And we're called to walk with God now in such a way that we experience

Jesus as our sanctuary, or our place of refuge now. The psalmist said in Psalm 46,

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should shake, pardon me, though the earth should change, and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.

So, terrifying scene, it's reminiscent a bit of Mount Zion, pardon me, Mount Sinai, the giving of the law.

Shaking, you know, quaking. But we're not going to fear.

Why? Well, verse 1, God's our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Or in verse 7, the Lord of hosts is with us, the

God of Jacob is our stronghold. And so, the believer who has run to Christ finds

Him to be a sanctuary. Not just a promise of salvation, future in heaven, but a promise of sanctuary now in the face of COVID -19 or riots or whatever else is going on.

This word sanctuary has the same root as the word sanctify or holy in verse 13.

God calls you to regard Him as holy or to sanctify Him. And then He promises to be a sanctified place or a holy place to the believer.

The people of Isaiah's day might have asked, how could this possibly be? And the answer is the one we've already looked at, it is

Emmanuel, God's with us. Jesus is how this is possible. And so,

I guess a question for us, for those listening is, do you fear Him? And do you hold

Him in such reverence and awe that He has become a sanctuary for you and that you live in the grip of His fear rather than the grip of other fears?

And as you look at Him and view Him as Scripture describes Him, do you find other fears being quelled, the teeth of those fears being removed?

And you know, the Psalm you read for, it goes on to draw a distinction. God is in the midst of His people, this dreadful, fearful

God. But He's in the midst of His people preserving them, but the nations will totter.

Peter talks about this distinguishing line, you know, Christ from Genesis to Revelation.

God, and especially as we see Him, we encounter Him through His Son. Jesus is the dividing line for all humanity.

Listen to 1 Peter 2, verse 4 through 8, And coming to Him as to a living stone, which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God.

You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

For this is contained in Scripture. Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone.

And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed. This precious value, then, is for you who believe.

But for those who disbelieve, the stone which the builders rejected, this became the very cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.

For they stumbled because they were disobedient to the Word, and to this doom they were also appointed.

So, you know, when we think about the dreadfulness of God and yet the sanctuary in this

God of infinite might and goodness, we have to ask ourselves, where do we fall on this dividing line of Christ?

If God is a sanctuary, is He my sanctuary? Or have I run to Him because I see the finished work of His Son, because I see

Emmanuel and what the Father sent Him to do, and that is, I have found Him irresistible.

He's everything I need. Or have I run away from Him because I don't want to have to be honest with Him.

I don't want to be exposed for what I really am. You know, do I tremble, as Psalm 2 says, at the coming of the

King, but with joy? And so I surrender and kiss the Son, kiss the hand of the

King. I bow in allegiance to Him. Or do

I band together with others that say, hey, if there's enough of us, we're safe. We can do what we want.

Does the reality that we've been talking about God today, His holiness,

His purity, His dreadfulness, His power, does that make me want to run to Him and meet

Him at the mercy seat of Christ? Or does that make me want to, like Adam and Eve, go and hide behind the trees?

Yeah, and in hiding there are some, John, who pretend that God doesn't exist.

You know, they try to live as though there is no God. Maybe they say that. Maybe they don't say that, but they still live like He's not there.

Others maybe think they've made some kind of private arrangement with God, but an arrangement that completely ignores

God's provision in Christ. Others perhaps live with some kind of superstitious fear, but again, they have not come to God through Christ.

And yet you cannot deny His holiness with impunity. And you cannot just disregard

His warnings and think that you'll never reap any consequences. God's very clear in Scripture.

His demands are clear. His provision in Christ is clear. And to ignore those, and then to think that He will be okay with that, is foolishness.

Christ is a rock, and He is a rock that should be to us a source of salvation. But if He's not that, then

He becomes a cause of stumbling, and your fall will be catastrophic. You'll look for sanctuary, for refuge, but because you will not take refuge in Jesus Christ, you only find a snare and a trap, as Isaiah talks about in chapter 8.

God's not going to go away, and so you can try to ignore Him, but He won't be ignored. If you try, then you just end up colliding with Him on the day of judgment.

Rather than that, do what the psalmist says in Psalm 34. He said,

I sought the Lord, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces will never be ashamed.

This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. And we can do that.

We can seek the Lord and call to Him until He answers, trusting that the one who comes to Him will not be cast out.

The name Charles Spurgeon can evoke countless stories and quotes, but how much do you know about the man himself?

In the feature -length documentary, Through the Eyes of Spurgeon, get to know the man many consider the best preacher of the 19th century.

My take should be, Unto you, therefore, which believe,

He is precious. And I would trust the Lord to open my mouth in honor of His dear Son. It seemed a great risk and serious trial.

But depending upon the power of the Holy Ghost, I would at least tell out the story of the cross, and not allow the people to go home without a word.

To learn more about Through the Eyes of Spurgeon, visit Mediagratia .org or click the link in the description of this episode.

Yeah, so for us, Christ either the stone that forms this city of, even the law, the perfect law, even the wrath and justice of God does not come to us in anger.

Or Christ the stone, that while we run from our only hope, this fearful

God, we stumble over and our lives are broken against. Well, we want to read a prayer before we close, and it's from Isaac Watts.

And this is what he says. Oh, Lord God Almighty, my God, my refuge and my strength, incline my heart to seek

You in the name of Jesus Christ and hear my prayer for His sake. It is one of my highest privileges and one of my greatest mercies that Your ear is ever open to the prayer of those that call upon You.

Oh, Lord, though I have sinned, I have an advocate with You, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is the propitiation for our sins.

Oh, grant me faith in Him that I may be justified freely by Your grace through His redemption, that I may be accepted in the beloved