The Fear of the Lord

7 God shall bless us; let all the ends of the earth fear him! — Psalm 67:7

Let’s parallel this week’s text with Proverbs 1:1-7 to get a full understanding on what it means to Fear God and how this correlates with Wisdom.

Proverbs 1:1-7
1 The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel: 2 To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, 3 to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity; 4 to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth— 5 Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance, 6 to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles. 7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

What we have here is the introduction into the proverbs, which is a book written by Solomon, the son of David. And we see here in the first 6 verses his purpose in writing this book. And it is a natural build to the climax, the pinnacle, which is verse 7. Verses 1-6 are like a stair-step upward to verse 7, which is the crescendo of this prologue saying that THIS — verse 7 — is what is most important.

Verse 7 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

What do you think of when someone uses the term “God-fearing person”? Do you think of a Quaker dressed in all black with a top hat? Do you think of someone who carries around a 100 pound Bible? Do you think of someone saying a bunch of “Thee’s” and “Thou’s”? Do you think of someone who is legalistic and in need of much grace?

There was once a time that being a God-fearing person was the highest honor someone could receive. It was synonymous with someone who was walking in holiness. But we do not talk about the Fear of God anymore. As a matter of fact, the average American “Christian” “Evangelical” “church” has done everything it can to remove the Fear of God from its “worship” services. The common design of a worship service is to remove any and all Fear of God. The idea is to make people feel comfortable. Make them feel casual. Just settle in… Make people feel at home. We don’t want people to Fear. The Fear of God is considered to be a negative and not a positive. But the Fear of God is VITAL to our Faith!

Look at the build into verse 7 here… The signature verse for the entire book of Proverbs. If you take this verse and this prologue with this build to the climactic verse 7 out of the book of Proverbs, then you might as well take the entire book out of the Bible. Look at each verse and see the reason for why verse 7 is so important…

Verse 2 — To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight…

This book was written for us to gain wisdom. This is the primary reason that this book exists. To point the disciple of Christ to pursuing wisdom. It is also written for the believer to be instructed. And to gain understanding.

Verse 3 — to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity…

This book was written for us to understand righteousness…To understand justice… To understand equity… And remember to our Psalm 67 study in verse 4… One of the reasons that we are to Praise God is because He Judges with “Equity!” Wisdom helps us to understand the equity of God. Remember in Psalm 99 that God loves Justice and Righteousness and Equity. We need to pursue an understanding of these things.

Verse 4 — to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth…

This book was written for us to gain prudence and apply it to our life. To gain knowledge… To understand discretion… As an Ambassador for Christ, these things are extremely important!

Verse 5 — Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance…

This book is written for us to learn. This book was written for us to obtain guidance.

Verse 6 — to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles.

We can understand here, that this learning comes in the form of a proverb, a saying and words of wisdom. This book was written for us to understand wisdom. This book was written for us to gain wisdom.

Each of these verses points to verse 7. Each of these verses is a climactic build to getting us to the peak of the mountain. As you study the Bible, understand the building of the text. Read the text as the author intended for it to be read. Everything is building here. Everything is leading us to verse 7.

Verse 7 — The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Meaning this… Until you are a God-fearing person, you know NOTHING! You don’t know anything about God. You don’t know anything about the Kingdom of God. And step one into the Kingdom of God is to be a God-fearing person. And as we walk in a manner that is worthy of the calling to which we have been called, every step along the way is a step to increasing in the Fear of the Lord!

You never out-grow the Fear of God. It is not just simply to Fear God when you are first saved and once you get to know God you get comfortable with Him and cuddle up to Him and move to a different level of relationship. No… As you grow in grace, you grow in the Fear of God. You should always and forever as a believer in Christ be taking God very very seriously… All the more every single day.

So, I think it is best for us to consider an evaluation of our own spiritual life before we move on to the rest of this text tomorrow. Ask yourself these questions:

Do I Fear God? Am I a God-Fearing person? Do I take God seriously?

Do I take His Word seriously? Is there a reverence and an awe about my life regarding my love for God? Do I take obedience to the Word of God seriously?