Hebrews 10:31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

This is a famous Scripture, largely because it was the foundation for a famous sermon by Jonathan Edwards which triggered the revival in North America called The Great Awakening. From our perspective we can see that God used it to prepare the people for the Revolutionary War, but at the time it was simply a mass repentance and turning to God. Contemporary records indicate that Edwards read his sermon from the elevated pulpit of his Congregational church very unemotionally, but the Holy Spirit took his words and pierced the hearts of his hearers, generating such fear that some literally clung to the posts that held up the balcony, fearful to fall into hell. That shows a number of things. The first is that God doesn’t need “special effects” to get His message into people’s hearts. All the lights and smoke machines and such that are found in some churches are humanistic manipulation. The second is that the people had no real Scriptural foundation for their faith, whatever that faith might have been. Clinging to something physically won’t keep you from hell! Sadly, a huge percentage of church members today are in the same situation, without a genuinely Biblical world view and therefore with unbiblical beliefs and practices in their lives. Third is that God’s grace and mercy don’t always seem gentle! Failing to speak truth because we don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings is not accurately representing Christ. We are indeed to speak the truth in love, but doing so faithfully will doubtless get us accused of being unloving! For example, “affirming” someone’s gender confusion is horribly unloving, but is called the opposite by people who don’t have a Biblical world view. American society, and modern society in general, has largely lost the fear of God, and that is a dangerous thing indeed. It is clearly the source of the idiocy that is so publicly proclaimed by many. As it says so clearly in Proverbs, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” (Proverbs 9:10)

For many years I thought I was in some way related to Jonathan Edwards, but My Heritage hasn’t come up with any connection that I’ve seen. I seem to be related to at least one president, not to mention the Plantagenet kings of England, but not Edwards. I would consider that the higher honor! All that aside, my own relationship to the fear of the Lord has certainly had its ups and downs. I was raised to love the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, (Mark 12:30) but I didn’t really understand what fear had to do with it. In the years since I have come to know that fear is an essential part of discipline, so if I don’t fear God I won’t respond rightly to the discipline He applies in love. I was too focused on 1 John 4:18, ignoring Hebrews 12:7-11. I’m reminded of something Dennis Prager reports. In his decades of doing talk radio, he asked many people who had never done drugs why they hadn’t, and the reply was always the same: “My mother would have killed me.” If we fail to fear God’s wrath, we will be open to countless deceptions of the devil. I am to proclaim God’s grace and love, certainly, but always in the framework of His holiness and omnipotence. This verse, so effectively used by Jonathan Edwards, should never be forgotten.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Help me follow through in all my interactions so that people will be given the opportunity to repent and believe for their salvation, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!