The Fear of The Lord

Call To Prayer

Title: The Fear of the Lord

By: Daniel Peter

Date: 30/08/2023

”Then the king of Assyria issued a command: “Send back one of the priests you deported. Have him go and live there so he can teach them the requirements of the god of the land.” So one of the priests they had deported came and lived in Bethel, and he began to teach them how they should fear the Lord . 2 Kings 17:27‭-‬28 CSB

Shortly after Israel was captured and expelled from their land by Assyria, the Assyrians brought other nations to take their place. These nations had their gods, and manner of living different from that The Lord committed to the Israelites. Because of this, God sent lions to attack them (2 Kings 17:25). The solution to this problem was that a teaching priest was sent to teach the new inhabitants of the land how to Fear the Lord.

There are several things we can learn from this portion of scriptures. Firstly, we can get a succinct definition of what the fear of the Lord is. In verse 27, it was stated that the priest was to teach them the requirements of the God of the land. And in verse 28, it said the priest began to teach them the fear of The Lord. From this, we can deduce that obedience to the requirements (commands or doctrine) of God is the fear of the Lord. Applying this to the New Testament, and knowing that the commandment Jesus Christ gave us is to love our neighbor as He has loved us(John 13:34). Therefore, The fear of God is to love your neighbor as Jesus loved you.  

Another thing we can learn from our scriptural verse of today is that the fear of the Lord is learnt, for the priest was to teach them how to fear God. Sometimes in the Bible, especially from the Old Testament, one can think that the fear of the lord is an intrinsic quality in certain individuals. This notion produces two extremes of people: ‘Those who fear the Lord and those who don’t’ as expressed in Malachi 3:16. This make it look as if we do not have a choice as to which part of the group we fall into. Esau was not born naturally wired to despise God, he learnt to. So was Jacob, he had to learn to revere God. The same can be said of Cain and Abel. Therefore, knowing the responsibility rests on us, we can all choose to learn the fear of God, thereby eliminating the other extreme. One doesn’t need to be rejected for the other to be accepted, we are all heirs of the same promise.

Lastly, God sent lions to attack the new inhabitants of the land because they did not fear Him (2 Kings 17:25). This means that, if we do not walk in the fear of the Lord, we are open to satanic attacks. For the devil is described to be as as roaring lion in the New Testament (1 Peter 5:8)

Prayer Point:

Let’s take out time today to ask God to help us, the entire body of Christ, to learn His fear (to learn how to love our neighbor), and He should help us to walk in it. God bless you all.

Re-posted from : 01.03.2021