The New Life

XXXVI.
THE FEAR OF THE LORD.
" Blessed is the man that feareth the L,ord. He shall not be
afraid of exdl tidings. His heart is established, he shall not be
afraid."—Ps. cxii. i, 7, 8.
" So the Church, walking in the fear of the I^ord and in the
comfort of the Holy Ghost, was multiplied."—Acts ix. 31.
THE Scriptures use the word " fear " in a twofold
way. In some places it speaks of "fear" as
something wrong and sinful, and in the strongest
terms it forbids us to "fear."i jjj well-nigh one
hundred places occurs the word "
: Fear not." In manyother
places, on the contrary, fear is praised as one
of the surest tokens of true godliness, acceptable to
the Lord, and fruitful of blessing to us.'^ The people
of God bear the name : those that fear the Lord.
The distinction betwixt these two lies in this simple
fact : the one is unbelieving fear, the other is believing.
Where fear is found connected with lack of trust in
God, there it is sinful and very hurtful.' The fear, on
the other hand, that is coupled with trust and hope
in God, is for the spiritual life entirely indispensable.
The fear that has man and what is temporal for its
1 Gen. XV. 1 , Isa. viii. 13 ;
Jer. xxxii. 40; Rom. xaii. 15; i Pet.
iii. 14
; 1 John iv. 18.
2Ps. xxii 24, 26, xxxiii. 18, cxii. i, cxv. 13 ;
Prov. xxviiL 14.
'Matt. viii. 26 ;
Rev. xxi. 9.
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