FLYING INTO THE KIND ARMS OF GOD

Nehemiah 1:11: “O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of . . . your servants who delight to fear your name .” And Isaiah 11:3 says of the coming Servant of the Lord, “His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.”

When you think of fear what is your first inclination? For some, especially for unbelievers, there is a sense of dread, of terror, of foreboding doom, apprehension, the unknown, and of uncertainty. When I think of fearing God as a believer it communicates a sense of awe, reverence, and respect. but the one thing both these aspects don't communicate is what Nehemiah and Isaiah felt in regards to fear.

John Piper suggests that there is a kind of s a kind of sweetness in fear itself. I say this first because it's what the Bible says. For example, Nehemiah 1:11: “O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of . . . your servants who delight to fear your name .” And Isaiah 11:3 says of the coming Servant of the Lord, “His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.” Both Nehemiah and Isaiah had a sense of "delight" in regards to fear.

Piper says that there is a kind of sweetness to the very experience of fearing God, when the real prospect of hell and judgment and condemnation are removed. When the condemnation of God is removed from the dread of God, what's left is a joyful humility, joyful trembling, joyful awe and joyful wonder.

Think about how people run away from scenes of terror in real life, but still go to movies to see the same terror. There's a reason why no one wants to fall out of an airplane, but they will bungee jump from incredible heights or take 100 foot leaps in Canopy tours in Costa Rica (like me!) for the same sensation of falling. We all enjoy "safe fear". The reason is that we were created to be safely afraid of God. Everything else is an echo of this truth. Piper says that we were made to be safely afraid of God, because when we are safely afraid of God—when there is no condemnation and we know that he is our Father and our Friend—then what remains in fear of God is deeply pleasant. Otherwise the Jesus and the saints would not have said, “I delight to fear your name.”

Paul exhorts us to "look at", "the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness" (Romans 11:22). The severity of God is meant to be looked at, reflected upon, considered, and focused on in order to send us flying into the arms of God's kindness, His severity is meant deepen our faith in his kindness, and when all condemnation is gone by faith in Jesus, His terrible severity is meant to become for us a trembling sweetness.

Before William Carey died Carey's explicit instruction was that his grave marker was to contain nothing more than his name, the date of his birth and of his death, and two lines from Isaac Watts, his favorite hymn writer:

A wretched, poor and helpless worm,On Thy kind arms I fall.

Falling away from fear onto the kind arms of Jesus,
Pastor Bill