Global Andy

Psalm 128 is only six verses but has some powerful promises:
Blessed are all who fear the LORD, who walk in his ways. You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your sons will be like olive shoots around your table. Thus is the man blessed who fears the LORD. May the LORD bless you from Zion all the days of your life; may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem, and may you live to see your children’s children. Peace be upon Israel.

The promise of blessing if you fear the Lord is great. The Psalmist tells us that if we fear the Lord we will benefit from our work – it will be fruitful and we not someone else will eat of it. Instead of using ‘prosperity’, I like how the NAS says that we ‘will be happy and it will be well with you.’ Fearing God brings about joy not despair and drudgery.

Then he moves to the home. He describes the wife of a man who fears the Lord as a fruitful vine and their sons as olive shoots. A vine needs support and often oneness of the vine and the tree or post that support it is so great that you can’t tell where the vine begins or ends. I certainly want to support Robin in order that she will bear fruit to the Lord all her life. I want us to be one and not two.

Olive Shoots is an interesting choice of words too. I have been told that an olive tree takes at least 4 years to bear fruit and then it can live up to 500 years – maybe longer. It usually bears fruit on the previous year’s growth. It takes special care, pruning and nourishment. I want all three of my boys to grow up to be olive shoots that bear fruit even in harsh dry times because of the care they received at a young age.

I can’t help but notice too that the vine bears fruit in the house of the one who fears the Lord and the olive shoots are around the table. It is within the context of the home that these things happen.

The blessing of seeing your children’s children is great especially for someone who is past 40 with young boys!

In Genesis 22 is the scene where Abraham is tested to sacrifice Isaac. (I think this is the same Michelangelo rendition of that hangs in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, Russia. In the summer of 1991 when I was there on a summer project, our tour guide said this was a painting of a myth about a crazy old man trying to kill his son. I had the priveledge of telling her it was in fact a true story from the bible.)

The angel of the LORD says to Abraham, “Do not lay a hand on the boy… Now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

We know in Hebrews 11 that Abraham is commended for his faith demonstrated here. James in his letter to the church relates it as an example of faith and actions working together. So it makes me wonder how does fearing God and faith relate?

The writer of Hebrews tells us that Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead because he knew that God had promised that through Isaac the covenant of blessing the whole world would be established. I personally believe that even though he had never seen or heard of someone being raised from the dead, he believed God was able because in essence God had taken what was dead – he in his old age and Sarah’s womb – and made it alive (Heb. 11:12).

Now saying that it still is beyond amazement to me that Abraham fully believed God and His character. I look at my three little boys and can’t fathom walking up Mount Moriah taking one of them to sacrifice to God even believing that we would both return (Genesis 22:5).

Abraham feared God and this led him to obey and demonstrate unbelievable faith. May I fear God in such a way to fully believe Him in the impossible knowing that without faith it is impossible to please Him.

I was reading this am in Isaiah 11 where it speaks prophectically of the Messiah Yeshua and how the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him. In verse 2, the Spirit is described as a Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

I think of the Spirit in terms of giving us wisdom and understanding as Jesus promised in John 16 that the Spirit would lead us into truth. I think of the Spirit being a Spirit of power whether reading when Paul reminds Timothy in his 2nd letter to him that God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a Spirit of power, of love and self-discipline, or when Jesus tells the apostles in Acts 1:8 that when the Spirit comes we will have power to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the remotest part of the earth.

But I rarely think of the Spirit being a Spirit of the fear of the Lord. It makes sense in that Paul tells us in Galatians 5 that if we walk in the Spirit we will not fulfilled the desire of the flesh. That is very similar to what Moses tells the congregation in Exodus 20 about fearing God keeping you from sinning.

Isaiah goes on to write in 11:3 that the Messiah will delight in the fear of the Lord. I am sitting here in The Press coffeeshop at a time I should be heading home wondering if anyone would write that about me. Could I put my name in there? Andy will delight in the fear of the Lord. May it be so.

I better get home and help Robin with the boys!

A few years back a friend of mine and co-worker, John Lamb, made this statement (I am paraphrasing because it was in 1997), “the reason we still struggle with sin is because we don’t really know what it means to fear God.” I thought, “you know, I know intellectually what it means to fear God but I am not sure I practically know.”

So I went a journey that Spring of studying all the passages in the bible that relate to fearing God. The first passage I studied and that I often come back to is in Exodus 20:18-21. It’s a pivotal scene in the history of mankind. Paul writes in Romans 5 that sin and death entered the world through Adam but it was not taken into account because there was no law. So death reigned from Adam to Moses but people didn’t realize they were dead until this scene in Exodus 20.

It’s kind of remarkable when you read it again, God spoke and everyone heard the 10 C’s. There was thunder, lightening, trumpet sounds and smoke from Mount Sinai. Needless to say, the congregation was scared spitless.

They stayed at a distance and tell Moses, “speak to us yourself and we will listen but don’t have God speak to us or we will die.” Moses tells them not to be afraid but that God has come to test them, so that the fear of God will keep them from sinning. Then they stay at a distance and Moses enters the thick darkness where God is. (In Deut 5, God says this is a good thing because they would die. “Oh that their hearts would be inclined to fear me…”)

They were afraid of God and stayed at a distance. Moses feared God and entered His presence. They were afraid of God and said they would listen to Moses and again in Deut 5 it says they make a commitment to obey what God says. But there is no real life change because in a little over a month they will be worshipping a golden calf. Moses fears God and he is changed – even physically as he enters His presence.

Fearing God draws us to Him and invokes a change in our lives. Being afraid of God is no different than not believing God or being indifferent to Him. We keep Him at a distance and there is no real change. We keep on sinning. Often I ask myself if I am really fearing God or just afraid of Him.

“Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. – Psalm 86:11