Exodus 20:20: The Fear of the Lord

Intro:

Today we are going to talk about an often misunderstood and misused topic of scripture. In fact this is right up there I would guess as one of the most misused and misunderstood themes of scripture, particularly in our day. I was prompted to take up this theme last week as Jake was preaching and I looked forward there in the text of Exodus 20 and saw verse 20. Exodus 20:20, there in the context of Israel receiving the 10 words or ten commandments, the law that Jake has been working through we find this interesting statement of Exodus 20:20

Exodus 20:20 ESV

Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.”

I love verses like this because the are so great at prompting us to pause and think more deeply about the text. We ought to rejoice in things that make us pause and ponder the Word of God and this is a text that is well suited to move us to do just that!

Moses says to the people, “Do not Fear” we got that, do not fear, that is great, we love to talk about the fear nots in the Bible right, you can get your daily fear not devotional. However, look how Moses continues, “do not fear”… “For God has come to test you that the fear of Him may be before you!”

Do not fear but God is moving you to fear, do not fear but fear. If you pause for even a second as you read that you will see that we obviously have a great need to do some thinking here.

We start from a position of trusting that as the Word of God, that scripture is without error and that it does not contradict itself and so that them moves us to ask some questions that will hopefully help to clarify what exactly Moses is doing here. Questions like, “What are the people not to fear?” and “What is the fear of the Lord that is to be before them?”

Now for those familiar with scripture at all you will know that the idea of the fear of the Lord is one of the most prevalent themes to be found in God’s Word. Fear the Lord, the Fear of the Lord, over and over again we see this phraseology and as we will see this morning, not in a negative light.

And yet when we consider the church today and how it is that many think about and speak about God you would be hard pressed to find many sermons and worship songs and devotionals about the right and proper fear of the Lord.

What has happened, how is it that a theme that is so important to and pervasive throughout scripture is so neglected and minimized in our modern contemporary church culture?

Now you may have some ideas and I would suggest that a major part of this is a misunderstanding and misapplication of 1 John 4:18

1 John 4:18 ESV

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

The misunderstand of this verse has caused many Christians to pit the love of God against the fear of God because it seems that this is the case in the verse. Now obviously I disagree and we will get there but first we need to take up this topic of the fear of the Lord and see what it is and why it is the right and proper response of man before their Creator and then and only then will we be able to rightly understand what Moses is declaring to the people of Israel there in Exodus 20:20 and to dispel the misunderstandings of 1 John 4:18.

Before we do that though lets take a moment to pray.

PRAY

The People At the Mountain

Now as we get into the fear of the Lord here in Exodus 20 we need to set the stage for what leads up to this statement by Moses. Jake has mentioned some of this in his messages on the Law but lets back up to Chapter 19.

We read starting in the middle of verse 2:

English Standard Version Chapter 19

There Israel encamped before the mountain, 3 while Moses went up to God. The LORD called to him out of the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: 4 ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”

7 So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words that the LORD had commanded him. 8 All the people answered together and said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do.” And Moses reported the words of the people to the LORD. 9 And the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever.”

We see God setting the stage for entering into this covenant with the people of Israel. He tells them a brief summary of what He has done for them in the exodus and then calls for their obedience. Moses delivers this message to the people and they agree to enter into this covenant and so Moses as the intermediary goes back to God and reports the words of the people which then sets in motion this act in which God is going to manifest Himself to the people.

Again we read:

“Behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever.”

So moses is commanded then to tell the people how o prepare themselves to appear before their God!

English Standard Version Chapter 19

When Moses told the words of the people to the LORD, 10 the LORD said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments 11 and be ready for the third day. For on the third day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. 12 And you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ‘Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death. 13 No hand shall touch him, but he shall be stoned or shot; whether beast or man, he shall not live.’ When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain.” 14 So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and consecrated the people; and they washed their garments. 15 And he said to the people, “Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman.”

We must must must get this! God is the one who set the parameters for approaching Him! As Jake has been showing us in the Law God tells us when and how we are to worship Him. These people were to take 3 days to consecrate themselves to make themselves ready to appear before God!

It already might be giving us pause to think how it is that we prepare ourselves to appear before God in worship?

Now we see the people made ready and on the morning of that third day God comes. We read:

English Standard Version Chapter 19

16 On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. 17 Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. 18 Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the LORD had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. 19 And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. 20 The LORD came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. And the LORD called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.

Now we see this awesome sight as God’s presence is made manifest and descends on the mountain. Lightning, clouds, smoke, fire, a loud trumpet and God’s voice thundering from the midst of the cloud and yet what is probably the most interesting thing comes next. We read:

English Standard Version (Chapter 19)

21 And the LORD said to Moses, “Go down and warn the people, lest they break through to the LORD to look and many of them perish.

It seems as though there was some sort of curiosity factor at play here where the people, at least some of the people, are being tempted to cross that line, to venture to close, to seek to take a peak as it were a little higher up on the mountain. Maybe they thought, hey, Moses went up cant we. It would not be the first or last time the people thought similar things. At any rate God sends Moses back down to remind the people that He is the one who sets this boundary and if they cross it they will die! Moses seems to have to sober them up one last time before God finally speaks to His people the words of His law that are to define their relationship with Him and with each other as a covenant people.

English Standard Version Chapter 20

And God spoke all these words, saying,

God speaks and when He has finished revealing to them these commandments we read in Chapter 20:

English Standard Version Chapter 20

18 Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off 19 and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” 21 The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.

The people we read are justifiably afraid. Far from pressing to close to the line it seems that as God has spoken they have begun to back away in fear. Hearing the voice of the Lord has been almost to much to bear and so they ask that Moses be their intermediary. The nature of the 10 commandments obviously required that more law was needed to be given, I think they understood that and so they ask that Moses be the one who gets the law from God and delivers it to them.

“You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.”

And then we get our verse for this morning:

20 “Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.”

This verse is actually super helpful in understanding the fear of the Lord in scripture and it brings us to a great position to explore what it means for God’s people to fear him and what constitutes a right and proper fear of God and what the fear of the Lord is that we are not to have. The fear God gives through His grace and the fear that He takes away, also through grace.

Notice what it is that the people are fearful of.

“Lest we die”

These people have been brought face to face with the holy and awesome nature of God. They have seen the flames and smoke burning on the mountain, they have heard the sound of the trumpet and most importantly they have heard the voice of God speaking to them out of the thick cloud and darkness. It seems to me that when they hear the voice of God they are suddenly struck with the depths of their own unworthiness to stand before this God. Any curiosity that would have moved them closer to the mountain has vanished and they now stand in fear fear of death as a punishment for their sins. They have after all just been given the law of God from the mouth of God. Who among them wasn't standing there thinking about just how far short of that law they came as they stood there. It is for good reason that they backed away!

However, Moses now comes and tells them to not be afraid, God has come to them in this way, has given them this test for a purpose, for a reason, this manifestation of God there on the mountain that had struck this fear of divine retribution in their minds was actually intended to move them to another type of fear.

Moses here sounds very similar to Samson’s mother when she told her husband Manoah, in response to his fear that they were going to die because God had appear to them:

English Standard Version Chapter 13

“If the LORD had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us such things as these.”

If God had intended to kill the Israelites He would not have appeared to them and delivered His law to them. Obviously something different is going on here.

Moses tells the people that God has revealed Himself to them in this way so that this fear of the Lord may be before them and notice that this fear is to serve a very specific purpose:

English Standard Version Chapter 20

that you may not sin.”

The fear of the Lord here serves the purpose of moving the people of Israel to keep themselves from sin and walk in the law that God has just revealed. The fear of the Lord is actually a grace now given to the people that is able to keep them from their sins and make them into a holy and righteous people who serve their covenant God in faithfulness.

In this way this message actually does fit well within this Precious Promises series. The promise here is that for those who have, through God’s grace, been granted this fear of the Lord they will be able to resist sin and live their lives in faithfulness and holiness. For a people who have come face to face with the holy character of God and who have heard the voice of the Lord as these people have no promise could be of a more precious nature than a promise that God is granting you something that has the power to keep you from sin!

Sin is what leads to the fear of punishment and death when we are brought face to face with the reality of the holiness of God and this fear that God is now granting them is a fear not of punishment but a fear of God that has the power to keep them from sin.

John Calvin says it this way:

“He lays before them the object, for which those signs had appeared to terrify them, viz., that God might subdue them to obedience. They were terrified, then, not that they might be stupefied with astonishment, but only that they might be humbled and submit themselves to God. And this is a peculiar privilege, that the majesty of God, before whom heaven and earth tremble, does not destroy but only proves and searches His children.”

What is this Fear?

And so what is this fear? This fear that serves to prove and search the children of God?

As we seek to define this fear it is important to understand what it is not. Many have tried to say that this fear is an awe or a wonder at who God is, a holy reverence you might say for the character, nature, and person of God. Awe, reverence, wonder, holy amazement. These words for sure are to be associated with this fear that we are talking about but they are associated not as synonyms but as results of this fear.

The best synonym for fear is actually trembling and we can see this because the two are often associated together.

English Standard Version Chapter 20

18 Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off

Psalm 2:11 ESV

Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.

Psalm 119:120 ESV

My flesh trembles for fear of you, and I am afraid of your judgments.

Rather than serving to blunt the term as happens when it is substituted with words like awe and reverence, trembling helps us to understand what this fear is. This is a genuine apprehending of God that moves us to experience an internal feeling called fear that is marked by the external and visible sign of trembling. This rightly speaking is fear. But not all fear is the same.

In his little book “The Treatise of the Fear of God” a book I would highly recommend by the way, John Bunyan outlines at least three different types of fear of God however I think that John Piper is helpful here as he describes what is taking place in this text at the mountain and makes a distinction between two fears that we see in Exodus 20:20. He says that the first fear is a fear that causes one to move away from God and the second fear is a fear that causes one to move toward God.

He says: “There is a fear that is slavish and drives us away from God, and there is a fear that is sweet and draws us to God. Moses warned against the one and called for the other...”

Some speak of this positive fear of God as a familial fear. Illustrating it with the fear that a child ought to have of a parent. Now if that strikes you wrong then it is likely that you have drunk to deeply of our modern cultures disdain for fear.

At any rate a child simultaneously ought to know that they are beloved by their father and yet also know that their father has the power necessary to sternly discipline them when they have done wrong. This is why we spank our kids and when we spank we make sure that they can feel it and even when a child is past the age of spanking we still seek to make sure that discipline hurts.

We can see in this example how it is that honor and respect flow from but are not properly speaking fear. It is because of this familial fear that we show the respect and honor due to our parents.

This is exactly what is going on in Exodus 20:20, the people are not to fear that God is going to destroy them, they aren't to fear death at the hand of God rather they are to fear the Lord as their covenant Lord and Father who has given them His law and shown them that there is nothing that can stay his hand from executing the discipline that will fall if they fail to keep this covenant.

Consequently this is why as parents it is not our job to punish our children. We use that language from time to time but properly speaking our job is to discipline them.

Israel feared the punishment of the Lord and yet God was giving them His law in which He was graciously providing for them a substitute that would bear their transgressions. This was symbolized for them in the blood of the sacrifice which pointed toward the ultimate purpose of redemptive history where God would send His Son to die in the stead of all of His children and it would be God’s own Beloved Son who would bear the punishment that our sins deserved.

You see this is why Israel was not to fear God in this way, God had provided for them a lamb, a sacrifice. If God had so graciously done this as He delivered them from their bondage then if they truly understood the picture they had been given in that lambs precious blood they would have understood that they had no need to fear the judgement of God.

No, they were His people and He was given them His law and as a result He was now demonstrating clearly through the manifestation there at the mountain all that they needed to see to have a right and proper fear of God that would move them to live in obedience to His law and would keep them from their sin.

The right and proper fear of the Lord, this familial fear, causes one not to flee from God but to cling closely to Him and it has the power to keep us from our sins! How wonderful is that.

Objection 1: Fear in the NT

Now some might object still that this fear of the Lord is an Old Testament reality. I hope that you can see in what we have already said that it is not. The lambs slain in Israel pointed to the Lamb of God who was slain on behalf of all of God’s children and while we don't stand before the smoking mountain any longer the book of Hebrews tells us that:

English Standard Version Chapter 12

18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. 20 For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” 21 Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” 22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

25 See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. 26

and he continues:

English Standard Version Chapter 12

28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.

The sight before us, the sight of the blessed and awful cross of Jesus Christ, the precious blood of the perfect lamb of God poured out there in the dust of Jerusalem speaks a better word, drives to to an even greater fear as we see in the most clear terms possible what it is that the wrath of God against our sin demands and yet we find that in the cross, for those who have faith in Christ, we have recieved our adoption as Sons which far from causing us to not fear at all has the power to change our fear from that which would drive us to hide ourselves from God to that which causes us to cling all the more fervently to Him. Let us then offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, why? Because our God is a consuming fire!

Two more reasons we know that the removal of all fear is not the purpose of redemption.

First we see in Isaiah that even Jesus Christ Himself as the Son of God is said to have this familial fear at work in Him. We read in Isaiah 11:1-3,

Isaiah 11:1–3 (ESV)

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,

and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,

the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,

the Spirit of counsel and might,

the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

We also see that the fear of the Lord is a part of the promise of the New Covenant:

Jeremiah 32:38–41 ESV

And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.

Bunyan says of this new covenant fear:

The Treatise of the Fear of God What This Fear of God Flows From

This godly fear also flows from a sense of the love and kindness of God to the soul. Where there is no sense of hope of the kindness and mercy of God by Jesus Christ, there can be none of this fear, but rather wrath and despair, which produceth that fear that is either devilish, or else that which is only wrought in us by the Spirit, as a spirit of bondage; but these we do not discourse of now; wherefore the godly fear that now I treat of, it floweth from some sense or hope of mercy from God by Jesus Christ—“If thou, Lord,” says David, “shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared” (Psa 130:3, 4). “There is mercy with thee”; this the soul hath sense of, and hope in, and therefore feareth God. Indeed nothing can lay a stronger obligation upon the heart to fear God, than sense of, or hope in mercy (Jer 33:8, 9). This begetteth true tenderness of heart, true godly softness of spirit; this truly endeareth the affections to God; and in this true tenderness, softness, and endearedness of affection to God, lieth the very essence of this fear of the Lord, as is manifest by the fruit of this fear when we shall come to speak of it.

This godly fear says Bunyan, this familial fear, flows from our sense of mercy from God by Jesus Christ. The cross doesn't removed our fear it transforms our fear into this fear that drives us deeper into a reverent awe and worship of God and that drives us to serve Him and give our lives fully to Him that we might be holy just as He is holy!

Objection 2: God has removed fear

And yet there is still the objection to this based in 1 John 4:18

1 John 4:18 ESV

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

Now it could be that you can see how it is that we come to resolve this objection now that we have dealt so much with these types of fear. Notice what kind of fear John is talking about! “Fear,” this fear that he is dealing with “has to do with punishment.”

This is right, as we have seen when God moves in grace and love to make us His children, to make us His covenant people, just as He did with Israel there at the mountain we do not need to fear any longer the punishment of God which would require the taking of our lives for the payment of our sins.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!

We do not fear punishment! But still all that we have said about the right and proper fear of the Lord persists. And even in 1 John, John goes on to talk about the need for us to stop sinning and live in obedience to the Lord! This is the exact thing that this familial fear is graciously given to us to accomplish in our lives. In this way it would be hard to separate our Love from God from our fear of God, they are so joined together that you could not separate them even if you wanted to. Those who fear the Lord are those who love the Lord!

Closing

But now as we close this morning I think it appropriate to make some observations as to what this fear ought to look like in our lives.

As you read and study the Fear of the Lord one of the things that becomes apparent is that it is closely tied with worship. We see this illustrated throughout the OT in that the people are called to worship God in the fear of the Lord. The entirety of the Temple worship was aimed at kindling this trembling entrance into the presence of God.

Consider Israel preparing for three days to enter into God’s presence at the mountain. While we may not draw a one to one parallel between this event and our weekly gathering for worship we must also acknowledge that the same God who manifested Himself there to the people’s great fear is also the God who has manifested Himself in all of his mighty holiness at the cross of Jesus Christ that we have seen pictured before us this morning in the bread and the cup of the Lord’s Supper.

We have sought this morning to enter into the presence of this God to worship Him and yet how much thought did you given to preparing your heart to do just that? Did you seek to get enough sleep last night that you might have a clarity of thought and mind as you entered into worship, did you consume wordly entertainment that saps your desire and love for God, did you devote some time to prayer and the reading of the Word to seek to make your heart ready to come into the presence of almighty God. All to often the answer to many of these questions is no and I think that it could just be because we have never truly considered how it ought to make us tremble when we come before our Heavenly Father. Not the fear and trembling of one who fears the wrath of almighty God, who hates God and is in bondage to sin but rather the fear and trembling of one who has with new eyes beheld the glory and wonder of the Love of God for His children in the cross of Christ and can not turn away from that blessed sight but clings all the more fervently to Him in this familial fear.

Also this fear as we have seen ought to motivate our obedience and it ought to even give us cause to thank God for his loving hand of discipline in our lives. After all this is what we saw in Exodus 20:20 that this gear was given for, to keep them from sin to bring them into obedience to this mighty magnificent God.

How wonderful it is that this God then calls us His sons and daughters!

Hebrews 12 reminds us:

Hebrews 12:5–11 ESV

And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Just as a son fears the discipline of his father yet, if his father is a good father, he will not stop loving his father so also by the Spirit of Grace God will work in us this holy fear of the hand of God’s discipline not so that we may be driven from Him but rather that we will be drawn closer to Him in love. We do not despise the discipline of the Lord though we fear it because it is this very thing that we should rightly fear that truly shows us to be His precious children!