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The Fear of the Lord
Apr 6, 05:50 PM
“Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since we are under the same sentence?” Luke 23:40
I recently made a pilgrimage to Cain Ridge, about 40 miles east of Lexington, Kentucky, the site of one of the most historic revivals in history which occurred there in 1801. The events of those days are legendary as over 20,000 people assembled in and around this little log church of which Barton Stone was the pastor. The people camped there for many days while the preaching went on virtually around the clock. Preachers were all over the place, preaching to small circles of people. The effect was monumental; people fell under the conviction of their sin and turned to God. The revival was marked by overt physical manifestations of the Spirit of God. People fell under the Spirit’s power, crying out, shouting, laughing, jumping and jerking. Needless to say, there were imposters in the group, many of whom were either skeptical or simply trying to emote some kind of spiritual experience. The emphasis, however, is not the few who were fraudulent but the many that were genuine. The focus of the preaching was repentance and bringing people into a right relationship with God.
The day after my trip to Cain Ridge, I went to a large modern church which draws nearly 8,000 people on a weekend. The atmosphere was very different than the one which pervaded that old log church. The difference was not simply building or the technological medium through which the message was conveyed. The message itself was different. The emphasis was less on repentance and more on what God could do for the people in attendance. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with that. The work of God in the life of an individual is obviously quite beneficial. The difference seems to be that the contemporary church exhibits less of a God-centered approach to the faith and more of a self-centered one. For whatever reason, the church is no longer warning people of their accountability before God.
Somehow I can’t help but feel that in 207 years we have changed from trying to make people acceptable to God and are now trying to make God acceptable to people. In our noble attempt to reach people for Christ, we have in many ways taken the challenge out of the Gospel. The end result of faith will always be a life transformed from self-centeredness to God-centeredness. A genuine encounter with God produces passionate worship, connection to community, and engaged service to others. A converted soul no longer walks in the proud arrogance of its own ego-centric self-will but has submitted itself fully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Human beings have always tried to exalt themselves in the place of God. This current trend of the exaltation of self has its origins in the Enlightenment and found its fulfillment in the explosive American decade of the 60’s. There no longer seems to be a reverential fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of true wisdom. Pastor Barton Stone often said these words: “God will not be mocked.” These days however, any warning of a coming judgment is quickly written off as antiquated religion. May I remind us all of the words of Jesus: “For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and given in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” (Matthew 24:38-39)