Whatever happened to the fear of the Lord? by Patrick McIntyre
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This last Sunday, I attended two churches in two towns. The Bible study in the morning was similar to the one in the evening in that the teachers didn't understand the fear of the Lord. The morning lesson included a discussion on why God had Joshua destroy all living things at Jericho (except Rahab's family), and the evening study was on Ephesians chapter five, part of which centered on why the American church is so much like the world. The morning teacher said she liked Jesus more than the God of the Old Testament, and the evening discussion ended with the Pastor's wife saying "If I feared God, I wouldn't come to Him". I struggled to find the scripture she was quoting, and finally realized she must have confused the Bible with Doctor Spock.
 
Now I will admit that in the last forty years, American society has abandoned the male discipline model for the female nurture model, but the inability to understand scripture when it clearly teaches the fear of the Lord has got to be the result of spiritual blindness. The morning teacher asked why church people don't come to prayer meetings and revivals anymore. The evening discussion asked why 82% of Southern Baptist kids never return to church once they enter college. They held the answer in their hands, but they couldn't see it. After 100 years of psychology-based theology, few people can read "fear God" without seeing "reverence God."
 
The pastor who taught the evening Bible study couldn't understand what Paul was saying in Ephesians 5:5-7. "For this ye know, that no whoremonger (fornicator, adulterer, homosexual), nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them."
 
Now Paul was speaking to the church of Ephesus. The Ephesians no doubt were a mixture of believers and tares like the church today. Paul was clearly warning them that God would send them to hell if they lived like the world. He made no exceptions for backsliding saints. Why can't church people today receive this message? Because their theology doesn't include the fear the Lord. Paul is saying one of two things. If Paul believed you couldn't lose your salvation, he is saying church people who live like the world are fooling themselves about their relationship to God and are headed for Hell. If Paul believed you could lose your salvation, he is saying church people who live like the world are fooling themselves about their relationship to God and are headed for Hell.
 
Life is not a game and there are no "get out of hell" cards. The first sermon John Wesley preached after God convicted him that the born again experience was more than just a legal status was "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new"  (2 Corinthians 5:17). He preached it with such conviction that the Pastor of the church asked him to never return. It was the first of many churches that barred their pulpits to such radical theology. George Whitefield met a similar fate in America. Where are the John Wesleys and George Whitefields when we need them?