Psalms 50:3-5 KJV
Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.
He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.
Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.
When I lived in Astoria it was not uncommon for people to go to the coast to watch the storms. People would travel to the South Jetty so they could see the huge waves pound over the jetty rocks. Something about seeing that power, and yet knowing they were safe from it exhilarated the people.
The fear of the Lord and salvation is something like that. Christians fear the Lord. In fact, we could not get saved if we did not fear the Lord.
We recognize His mighty power.
We have observed the fierceness of His fire
We believe that "it shall be very tempestuous round about Him"
The Christian has gotten past the idolatrous concept that "a loving God could never send somebody to hell." We know that God is love, but we also know He is holy and just and true. We believe the Bible when it says without the shedding of blood [there] is no remission[1] of sin and the wages of sin is death[2].
Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.
He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.
Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.
When I lived in Astoria it was not uncommon for people to go to the coast to watch the storms. People would travel to the South Jetty so they could see the huge waves pound over the jetty rocks. Something about seeing that power, and yet knowing they were safe from it exhilarated the people.
The fear of the Lord and salvation is something like that. Christians fear the Lord. In fact, we could not get saved if we did not fear the Lord.
We recognize His mighty power.
We have observed the fierceness of His fire
We believe that "it shall be very tempestuous round about Him"
The Christian has gotten past the idolatrous concept that "a loving God could never send somebody to hell." We know that God is love, but we also know He is holy and just and true. We believe the Bible when it says without the shedding of blood [there] is no remission[1] of sin and the wages of sin is death[2].
God’s power is reflected in events such as
The eruption of a volcano, like Mt St Helens in 1980
The tsunami of a couple of years ago and
In the hurricane Katrina
But those events pale in comparison to the power of God when He will one day pour out His wrath “against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.”[3]
But here is the thing: the Christian has been hidden, safe from this storm, in Christ. It is as if we behold the frightening power of God from inside a safety zone.
We see it,
We marvel at it,
We are awed, inspired, even fearful of it, but
We know we are safe from it.
And our safe place is not of our own making, not even of our own doing. Christ gathered us up to Himself and made us safe. We fled from His shelter but He captured us with His grace.
The eruption of a volcano, like Mt St Helens in 1980
The tsunami of a couple of years ago and
In the hurricane Katrina
But those events pale in comparison to the power of God when He will one day pour out His wrath “against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.”[3]
But here is the thing: the Christian has been hidden, safe from this storm, in Christ. It is as if we behold the frightening power of God from inside a safety zone.
We see it,
We marvel at it,
We are awed, inspired, even fearful of it, but
We know we are safe from it.
And our safe place is not of our own making, not even of our own doing. Christ gathered us up to Himself and made us safe. We fled from His shelter but He captured us with His grace.
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