All of us are born with a set of instinctive fears--of falling, of the dark, of lobsters, of falling on lobsters in the dark, or speaking before a Rotary Club, and of the words "Some Assembly Required." (Dave Barry)
To combat the paralyzing force of fear that gripped a nation in the throes of the Great Depression, FDR said, The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. (First inaugural address, March 4, 1933).
Reality of Fear
Surely, we can all agree that there are healthy fears and unhealthy fears, rational fears and irrational fears. The problem is that legitimate fears can be taken to a completely irrational, paralyzing level. Being destitute in the depression was an understandable fear, but to give up hope for better days was unhealthy. Spiders, snakes, girls, little kids, and teenagers are to be feared, but never leaving the house is taking it too far.
Irrational Fear
How fear becomes consuming and irrational is best illustrated in Enver Hoxha, the communist leader of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. I was on the way from the International Airport in Albania to Tirana, the capital city. As we were climbing in and out of crater size potholes, my head was banging on the passenger side window of the Land Rover, not the soccer mom kind of Land Rover. This Land Rover was the white, square box kind, like you might see in the outback. It’s like a tank with tires. I noticed in the fields, along the road, and in odd and strange places, mushroom like domes, some larger, some smaller, sticking up out of the ground.
My driver seemed not to notice these unsightly growths. Finally, I asked, What’s with the concrete mushrooms? He said, They are bunkers. Bunkers were everywhere—in the fields, on the road banks, in towns, in the cemeteries, on the beach, along the sidewalk. Bunkers were everywhere.
Moved by fear, the fear of losing power, of losing control, Enver Hoxha slowly isolated Albania from the rest of the world. Hoxha’s heroes were Stalin of the Soviet Union and Mao of China. One by one, because of fear and lack of trust, he eliminated his allies—Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and China. Albania became the most isolated and poorest country in Europe. Convinced that the United States, Yugoslavia, or the Soviet Union would attack, he led a nation of 3 million people that could hardly care for itself to build 750,000 bunkers of various sizes in every part of the country. Do the math. 3 million people at the height of their population growth and 750,000 bunkers.
It kind of reminds me of being raised in Cold War America. Our schools were designated as Nuclear Fallout Shelters. Regularly, we had drills in which we would get under our desks in case of nuclear attack. I suppose the rationale was if you see the kid in front of you dematerialize due to a nearby nuclear blast, get under your desk.
Albania became the first atheistic state in Europe. Enver Hoxha went so far as to make people change their Christian or Muslim names to one of 300 state approved names. He closed almost 2,200 churches and mosques. Hoxha said, The only religion of Albania is Albanianism. Hoxha feared men, but he did not fear God.
The Fear of the LORD
I suppose the fear of God has 3 categories. 1.) A sense of awe and reverence; 2.) dread or terror; 3.) No fear. No fear is a mirage. It’s not a house but a hotel. You default to dread and terror when you meet Him. A sense of awe and reverence is the result of believing. If a believer heads toward sin, he should experience dread and terror. If not, he is not a believer. He is a make-believer.
The Superscription—Taught to Fear
Psalm 34 is about fearing God rightly. When God is feared rightly all other fears are subdued and held in check. The fear of God tames all other fears, trains all other fears, and teaches all other fears. The superscription of this psalm and Psalm 56 recounts 1 Samuel 21:10-15. David finally realized that he could no longer appear before Saul. He fled in desperation to Nob, no doubt, wanting to hear a Word from the Lord. His escape from Saul left him without food, weapons, and friends. He was alone, afraid, desperate, and on the run.
At Nob Ahimelech, the priest, and David had a strange conversation. Ahimelech gave David the showbread for his hunger and Goliath’s sword for a weapon, all under the watchful eye of Doeg the Edomite, chief of Saul’s herdsmen. David left Nob and fled to Gath of the Philistines. Maybe David did this because he knew Doeg would tell Saul, and Gath would be the last place Saul would look for him.
The problem with Gath, however, was David was known there, and besides, he was carrying Goliath’s sword. Gath was Goliath’s home town. David was promptly arrested, taken to Achish, king of Gath, the Abimelech in the psalm’s superscription (Abimelech was a title for Philistine kings, meaning my father is king), and presented as the king of the land, to the tune of the couplet, Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands.
The Fear of the Lord—Training our Fears
If you are going to be afraid, now is the time to be afraid. Verse 4 of the psalm expresses David’s fear at that time. What will David do? Psalm 34 was written to commemorate God’s mighty hand in delivering David. It might not look like God’s hand, but it was God’s hand nonetheless. David feigned insanity, went on a graffiti fest on Philistine doors and gates and let saliva run down his beard. Apparently, his act was believable, because instead of killing him, Achish freed him to get rid of him.
If I were a Philistine, it would seem more reasonable to me to take Goliath’s sword and cut David’s head off with it to avenge not only Goliath but the ten thousands. The problem with us is, we want God to move powerfully in our lives, but we have already figured out what that has to look like. We want the thrill of deliverance without ever having been in a position of needing it. We want a life charmed by the divine in which we get everything we want. We want to define our needs and be assured God will meet them all. God does not let us define our needs. He defines them and trains them in fear of Him.
In the fear of the Lord, God trained David. In the end of this event, David hid in the cave near Adullam, his father’s house came to him and everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul. David became their captain, and there were about 400 of them. God sent Gad the prophet to instruct David (1 Sam 22:1-5).
The Fear of the LORD—Taming our Fears
Life is hard when you are a type of Christ. If there is no crisis, there is no crying out and no deliverance. If Saul doesn’t seek your life, you don’t run to Gath, act insane, and have God deliver you. If there is no crucifixion, there is no resurrection. Psalm 34 is full of the language of fear of enemies, trouble, evil, crying out, and deliverance.
What not to Fear
The greatest hindrance to fulfilling the Great Commission is fear. We fear the Philistines. We fear living in third world conditions. We fear that our children will miss all the advantages of western culture, economy, and education. We fear that our colleagues that remain seem to advance to enviable positions. We fear dying in some foreign land. We fear living in a small smelly apartment in a high-rise building with thousands of other people, where the lift does not work, and where you step over drunks and in dog poop in the darkened stairwells because people steal the light bulbs. We fear malaria, and following a nomadic tribe around. We fear leaving our families and not having our children know their grandparents and extended family very well, so they call the missionary around them aunt and uncle. We fear our kids coming back into this culture and not fitting in and not knowing who they are.
Some of us fear raising our children. We don’t want to make a mistake and mess them up. Some fear getting married. We don’t know if that person is right for us, if we will be happy, if they will abandon us. We fear a career. It could be that we are not being careful but fearful. Our problem is we fear the immediate more than the eternal. We are foolish enough to believe that we can control our present and that the eternal is not as important. Fearing God tames all other fears. If you walk in the fear of the Lord, you don’t have to fear your children or your spouse or your career.
Whom to Fear
Fear is not a value in western culture, yet we are the biggest afraidy cats in the world. You might be afraid if you have clothes with the logo no fear. We are afraid of being psychologically damaged by fear. In some cultures, fear is a value that is taught and learned. It is a legitimate motivation. In the Bible, fear is a value; it is something to be desired. It carries both the idea of dread and awe or reverence. It has a meaning of awestruck reverence and worship and a meaning of trembling, tormenting dread.
In the context of impending persecution as a result of being sent out by Christ to engage the world with the gospel, Jesus said, So have no fear of them…do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Matt. 10:26a, 28). God puts us in desperate situations because He wants to deliver and make us displays of His grace. He puts Saul at our back and Achish in our face just so we have to trust Him in front of them.
Don’t fear the Philistines. Fear God. If we fear God rightly, our fear of the Philistines will be diminished. Why would we give this world the honor of fear and turn from obedience to God?
In Psalm 34, the psalmist instructs us in the fear of the Lord (v11). The psalm is a merging of two genres—praise or thanksgiving and wisdom—in the form of an acrostic poem. I think we can take from this psalm that wisdom, especially the fear of the LORD informs our praise. This psalm reveals that the fear of the Lord instructs both the righteous and the wicked.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Prov. 1:7). The foundation for knowing anything rightly is to live in the fear of God. The psalmist will show us how the fear of LORD shapes God’s people.
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowing God, and it produces awestruck praise. The psalmist was trembling in his boots before Achish, king of Gath (1 Sam 21:12). By all accounts, he should have been killed. God delivered him. He was filled with awestruck praise at the greatness of God.
In verse 1 his praise would be continuous. With Saul at his back and Achish in his face, David has a praise fest. When he was suddenly released, you can hear him boast (v2) in the LORD. David was not bragging about his acting ability. He was weak and powerless (humble v2), so he can invite the weak and powerless to praise God.
In verse 2, we will never be able to praise until we can see ourselves as weak and powerless. The fear of the LORD teaches us our weakness so that we can be glad in His strength and draw from it. God puts us in circumstances to teach us our weakness. He calls us out of the make-believe world where we are in control and insulated from the bad and evil that others endure around us. You think you can handle that addiction. You are confident that you know how to be a faithful spouse. You think you have your future worked out. I don’t hear any weakness in that. I see no fear of God in it.
In verse 3, the psalmist calls us to the impossible task of magnifying the LORD and exalting His Name. He uses the imperative. We are commanded to magnify the Lord. To magnify the Lord is to make Him great. To exalt Him is to make His Name high. It is impossible to make God great.
John Piper uses the illustration of a telescope as opposed to a microscope. We magnify the Lord not like a microscope that makes something really small look bigger than it really is, but like a telescope that makes something that may not seem great appear as great as it is. To magnify and exalt God we point to how great He really is. You can’t remove the emotion from this. Praise comes from a perception of His greatness and creates an awareness of God’s greatness in others.
What are you communicating about the greatness of God this morning? When our hearts are unstirred with His greatness, there is something lacking in our fear of Him. The fear of the Lord produces awestruck praise.
Praise is the essence of boasting and magnifying God. Sinners are such that we need our attention drawn to God from ourselves and our pursuits. The fear of the Lord causes us to feel the greatness and mystery of God.
Verse 4, 6 The psalmist was terrified (fear) in his situation and he had no resources and no room for self-reliance. The temptation would be to be paralyzed by fear and to give up all hope of deliverance. He sought the LORD (4a) and as a resource-less man, he cried out to the Lord. The Lord tamed his fear (4b) and saved him out of all his troubles.
Verse 5, 7 From his own experience, he learned that we are changed by what we look at. We become like what we look at. People are impacted in their countenance by life. Those who look to the LORD cannot be ashamed. (5) The psalmist realized that even when he was before the Philistine king as a captive the LORD was there. The angel of the LORD is the LORD himself. The characteristic of those who fear the LORD is that they are surrounded by the LORD. You see His appearance in the OT with Abraham, Jacob, and Joshua. In the NT, you see Jesus—He converts the persecutor and stands to receive the persecuted. It was plain to see on both Paul and Stephen’s faces that they had seen Jesus.
You will never be alone. His promise is, I will be with you. David saw the Presence of the Lord in his situation and it changed his face from feigning insanity with spit in his beard to writing Psalm 34.
This is not merely the psalmist making up poem. In real time, he found himself completely without resources against the powers of this age. The Lord taught Him in that situation whom to fear. Who are you going to fear? The one who captures you, or the one who frees you? The one who kills you, or the one who receives you into glory. Fear God not the Philistines.
This is the missiological implications of the fear of the LORD. Those who fear God compel others to fear Him as well. Why? When people turn away from Philistine fears, they experience (taste) and realize (see) that the LORD is good, they know the happiness (blessed, v8) of trusting God, and they experience no lack.
This is the language of conversion—tasting and seeing. Peter quotes this text in 1 Peter 2:3 to begin a discussion of the things that characterize the lives those who have experienced true conversion. If you have experienced the goodness of God’s grace, it will show up in your life. Here the psalmist equates tasting and seeing (v8) with the fear of the LORD (v9). The awe and reverence implied in fear create the life context for the development of the moral and spiritual life (Word, 280). What you discover when you taste and see is the goodness of God. If you are going to experience the goodness of God’s saving grace, you are going to experience that through Christ. If you are not in hell, God has been good to you. You may not think so, but you’ve never experienced hell. God is good. None is good but God. Good does not define God, but God defines good. He is intrinsic goodness. The only good there is in the world is good because it is consistent with God’s character. God is good, therefore, what He does is good.
Because of God’s goodness, those who fear the LORD have no lack. Awe and reverence for God are the beginning of wisdom, the foundation for knowing anything. Without the fear of the LORD, something is amiss in our knowledge. Something is awry in our thinking. In the fear of the LORD, we lack nothing because our lives are rooted at the true center of existence, namely, reverence for the LORD (Word, 280). The powerful may lack, but not those whom God has set apart as his own.
The Psalmist instructs us in the fear of the Lord (v11). Desiring life and good days is the same as learning the fear of the LORD (vv11-12). The fear of the Lord shapes the speech and the deeds of those who fear the LORD (vv13-14). Psalm 34 aids us to understand David’s approach to Saul and even Achish. David was walking in the fear of the Lord. Saul hated David and sought his life for years. Yet David was God’s grace to Saul. David sustained Saul in the early years of his downward spiral. He kept Saul from self-destructing. He was God’s grace to Saul. Even when David assumed the throne the first decree he posited was, Is there any left of the house of Saul that I may show the kindness of God to him?
Peter gives these words their ultimate meaning in the NT (1 Pet. 3:8-12). Ultimately, these words reference eternal life. The fear of the Lord is nothing less than heartfelt trust in Christ, a trust that shapes life. He quotes verses 12-16a. It seems that Peter has based much of his argument in chapters 2 and 3 of his epistle on Psalm 34. There is reference to it in verse 2:3 and again in 3:10-12. Peter is saying that our lives are shaped by our relationship with Christ, not by those who persecute us. How we respond shows the validity of our faith.
Two things will hinder the advance of the gospel. First, division in the body of Christ destroys our gospel witness (v8). The one place on the planet where peace should reign is in the body. Division is never the work of the Spirit. Second, we cannot take the gospel to the nations if we repay evil for evil. We cannot take the gospel to the nations without suffering unjustly. We were called to this. In this we show that we have genuine, heartfelt faith, and without being so shaped by the Spirit, we have no right to claim we are Christ’s.
I have to ask myself, In my words and actions am I pursuing goodness and peace? If not, I am advancing evil and deceit (vv13-14). The pursuit of goodness and peace is evidence of saving faith.
David’s life was characterized by the fear of the LORD. He knew the LORD’s eyes were toward him and against those who do evil to cut them off (15,16). Like Christ, When he was reviled, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly (1 Pet. 2:23). There is no circumstance beyond the gaze of divine scrutiny. His eye in on the righteous, and his face is against the wicked. We must in the church and in the world entrust ourselves to the One who judges justly.
One has been appointed to judge the world in righteousness, and we are not Him. He bought that right in His sufferings on the cross, and God confirmed it in raising Him from the dead. David may have had, as king, the right to act in the place of God in vengeance on the wicked, but we don’t. Lay down your sword. Take up hopeful gospel of grace.
The righteous are not crying out because they have a carefree life. It is not God’s purpose to give us an easy life. Life is ultimately going to kill us all. We are promised three things. First, we will have many afflictions (19). Second, the LORD, not only knows about our troubles, He is near us in our troubles. Third, and ultimately, He will deliver us unharmed.
Verse 20 is instructive. It refers ultimately to Christ and through him to us. John 19:36 says, For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of His bones will be broken.” He was crucified, but not one of His bones were broken. This text is not meant to lead us to think that somehow His suffering was mitigated. He was already dead; breaking his legs would have not issued in more or less suffering. They did stick a spear in his side. What then is the meaning of this text? God was working out His redemptive plan in Christ. He was in absolute control. Every lash of the whip, every swing of the hammer, the dividing of his meager possessions, the bitter drink, the thieves at his side, the borrowed tomb, all of it, every detail, was under God’s control and happened under His watchful eye.
What we learn from this is evil men did not have the last word, even in the details of their evil actions. Think of it. We are not to learn that God directed the details of those men, but He doesn’t do that now. We are to learn just the opposite that God directs our lives. You may be on the handle end of the hammer, but don’t think for one second that you are acting independently of what God allows you to do. I want you to consider what God may be doing in you? What is His intent for you? Learn from this text the contrast in the righteous and wicked. God will remove the memory of the wicked, but He raised Christ from the dead. d.The fear of the LORD teaches us that God has a redemptive purpose in our pain. (vv21-22)
Evil is not an impersonal force in the world. Evil is personal. Evil is present because there are evil people. We cannot be saved unless evil people are condemned. Evil people not only hate the righteous, they hate everybody else too. Affliction is the same as evil. The text could read, Evil will slay the wicked. Evil people are self-destructive. In the destruction of others, they are destroying themselves.
As Peter said, we are called to this that we might obtain blessing (1 Pet 3:9). What was God doing in Christ’s sufferings? He was reconciling the world to Himself. He was redeeming His people. He was acting decisively to make them His own.
What is God doing in our suffering? He is working out our redemption and for the redemption of others. Christ’s sufferings and ours are not equal in their reward. His sufferings purchased our salvation. Ours authenticate our faith and advance the gospel. The life of the church mirrors the like of Christ. We walk the Calvary road in this world. He is weaning us off this world and everything that we have constructed our lives around and is teaching us the fear of the LORD. If we don’t endure, we prove that we are not His. All of our suffering and tragedy is ultimately resolved in the cross. We will not be condemned with the world.
The fear of the LORD teaches us to hope in God. We are brought to heartfelt praise and worship, and we are taught that God always works for our good. We are further taught that the wicked will not prosper.
If you are not walking the fear of the Lord, be honest with yourself this morning. There is no future in evil, in being wicked, in rebelling in your heart against truth. You can plainly see that you are on a course of self-destruction. But don’t think you are in control of that. It is the outworking of God’s condemnation on your life. In the fear of the LORD, in awe-filled reverence for Christ, we come to the table this morning. His death, His sufferings, His resurrection answer every issue of our hearts and lives.