The Fear Of The Lord

Twice this week the I have encountered the topic of reverence for God, at worship kinship and in Monday's devotion. 

The Hebrew word for fear is yare which literally means to fear or to be afraid or to revere.  Other meanings include to stand in awe or to have a deep respect or honor for what is holy.  So the fear of the Lord is to have a deep, genuine, and abiding respect for Him which includes a holy, reverential fear or honor of Him because of who He is, what He can do, and thankfully what He has done for us.

In 1 Samuel 5-7, the Philistines captured the ark of the covenant, the ark of God.  The ark was a gold-plated chest which contained the stone tablets upon which the Ten Commandments were written.  It's golden cover had two sets of cherubim wings facing each other.  God's presence was to have rested or to have been enthroned between these wings.  

God gave the Israelites not only the specifications for building the ark but also specific rules for handling it.  He commanded that it be treated in a holy manner following His guidelines.

When the Philistines captured the ark, they placed it in the house of Dagon, the fish god.  The next morning the Philistines found that the statue of Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground in front of the ark.  They then set the statue in its place again.  The morning after, the statue had again fallen facedown to the ground before the ark.  This time Dagon's head and both the palms of his hands were cut off on the threshold of the temple. 

After the incidents in Dagon's temple, the Lord plagued the ark's captors with tumors.  The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us,  for His hand is severe on us and Dagon, our god.  

So the ark was sent from city to city for awhile.  In each city, the hand of the Lord was against that city bringing confusion and more tumors.  This lasted for seven months.  Eventually the Philistines sent the ark back to the land of the Israelites along with an offering.  For twenty years it rested in Kiriath-jearim and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord.  

In the years afterwards, Samuel called Israel to return to the Lord, Israel demanded a king, Saul became king and was again at war with the Philistines, the Lord rejected Saul as king, David was anointed the next king and soon began to serve Saul, and David defeated Goliath and became friends with Jonathan and married into Saul's family.  After Saul died and after a brief civil war, David was crowned king.

After David was crowned king, he defeated the Philistines and gathered the chosen men of Israel and the people to bring the ark home to Jerusalem.  They placed the ark on a new cart at the house of Abinadab which was on a hill.  Abinadab's sons were accompanying the ark, and the people were celebrating before the Lord with all kinds of instruments. 

But when they came to the treshing floor of Nacon, one of the sons reached out to steady the ark because the oxen nearly upset it.  The anger of the Lord burned against Uzzah, and God struck him down dead there by the ark for his irreverence.  David became angry at the Lord's outburst and was afraid.  How can the ark of the Lord come to me?  Unwilling to move the ark, David took it to the house of Obed-edom where it remained for three months.  (2 Samuel 6)

Enough with the history lesson. 

Why kill Uzzah?  How could God do something like that?  Fourth paragraph above.

God gave the Israelites not only the specifications for building the ark but also specific rules for handling it.  He commanded that it be treated in a holy manner following His guidelines.

The ark of God was never meant to be carried on a cart, new or otherwise.  It was to rest on golden poles on the shoulders of men, specifically the Kohathites who were priests before the Lord.  Furthermore, some historians think that the cart might have been a Philistine cart since they had just been defeated again.  I know, I know.  There is a long span of time between God's commandments and David's time.  A lot of life happened in that time.

Ignorance is no excuse.  Maybe someone should have done a little research on how to handle the holiest piece of furniture in Israel's history - literally the house of God, the place where He was enthroned on earth. 

All of that to say this:  We need a healthy dose of the fear of the Lord.  We have the holy and the profane even in our day.  Do we take seriously our duties and services to the Lord and our worship of Him?  Or do we just plow right on into the holy place with a little dirt on our hands and face? 

The older I get, the more I feel like Paul in 2 Cor. 7: 1.  Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God. 

What promises?  2 Cor. 6: 16-18:  I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate and do not touch what is unclean and I will welcome you.  And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me.

So, since we have these promises, we are to cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, from anything worldly, anything that is more important to us than God, and we are to pursue holiness which is embodied in only Christ.  We are to live and move in Him.

 

May we be reverent toward God in all things and at all times.

May He keep us from any unspiritual service, or Philistine way of doing things.

May we be not confused by the voices and customs of the world around us

but be separate and live as the children of God.

May we be like Jesus who said only what He heard the Father say

and did only what the Father wished in every detail.

Teach us how to walk in reverence before You.

May we seek His will and His timing and follow these in every detail.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom.