The promises of getting wisdom, instruction, understanding and insight and to receive instruction, in righteousness, justice, and equity, and to give prudence to the simple, and to receive knowledge and discretion as promised in the book of proverbs chapter one verse one to v6, depends totally on v 7 the fear of the Lord.
Proverbs 1:1–7 (ESV)
1 The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel:
2 To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
3 to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
4 to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
5 Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
6 to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.
What’s the Fear of the Lord? And how to get it?
It’s a disposition cultivated in relationship with God
It is a disposition cultivated in relationship with God. It entails the humility to accept the book’s teaching out of the conviction that God upholds it, rewarding the faithful with life and punishing the unfaithful with death. [1]
Disposition : the predominant or prevailing tendency of one’s spirits; natural mental and emotional outlook or mood; characteristic attitude.
Dictionry.com: a natural tendency to do something, or to have or develop something:
It’s a natural disposition or tendency y of a person through cultivation of relationship with the Lord. That natural disposition or tendency with God doesn’t come easy call my definitely is not an intellectual assent or understanding but it really is an experiential personal walk with God in this relationship based on the understanding of the word of God. It is being refined by tough experiences of down and cry to God for help and how he is lifted up by God in the process. It is through this thick thin and thick experience with God that one becomes stronger in faith with God and emerging and cultivating that sense of fear of God. This should really develop like God centered presence in his life and thinking and philosophy.
2 To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
3 to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
4 to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
5 Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
Looking at all these wonderful human attributes and abilities like wisdom, instruction, wise dealing, insight, righteousness, justice, equity, prudence discretion: we definitely need the fear of the Lord as foundation premise that must be there before we can get any of this. So what is the correlation between the fear of the Lord and all these wonderful virtuous attributes and abilities for us? This is precisely the difference between Christianity and all other religions, because all religions centered on the ethics or morality morals that need to be followed and complied with, while Christianity focuses on the God man Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “I am the way the truth and the life”, Jesus never told us to follow the commands he gives you; they are the way to God the Father and me. Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life.
So it is the same thing here we need to cultivate the relationship with God and to gain that fear of the Lord there’s ultimately so vital for us to even develop wisdom call my discretion, wise dealings, prudence, righteousness, justice and equity. It’s because it is impossible to gain any of this without the fear of God our Lord.
That cultivating requires time and submission, and a strong desire and thirst for the Lord. Remember David writes:
Psalm 42:1–3 (ESV) 1 As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God,for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long “Where is your God?”
How did David cultivate such thirst and pants for God? Because he was so destitute going thru some real hard times, he was driven to the Lord. As a deer pants for water, so my soul pants for the Lord. What a beautiful intimate and fantastic language right here! This is a man who longs for the Lord, and not just wanting to be blessed by the Lord. He wants God’s deliverance, but above all, he wants the Lord himself. The Lord is the source of all blessings and love.
That’s how you develop your fear of the Lord.
Fear of the Lord is the conviction that God rewards the faithful with life and punishes the unfaithful with death
It entails the humility to accept the book’s teaching out of the conviction that God upholds it, rewarding the faithful with life and punishing the unfaithful with death. It also is an attitude that shapes one’s worldview and serves as the seedbed in which wisdom might be cultivated.[2]
The conviction that God rewards the faithful with life and punishes the unfaithful with death it’s a tremendously important conviction that comes from the Bible and that is the premise for the fear of the Lord. God rewards the faithful with life, that life there is the life on earth now and the eternal life to come. So that is the promise of God that if we are faithful to him and his word, living in obedience to the commandments of the word of God in Christ Jesus like Jesus said in Matthew 28:18-20, we will be rewarded with the life of abundance.
Jesus said in Matthew 28: 20 “To teach them to obey everything I’ve taught you” is tremendously important and that is coming from the fear of the Lord in the positive sense because you are so awed by him. Jesus also said I’ve come to give you life, life of abundance. I think the biggest problem is in the process of journey in this world many times we still struggle as being faithful with Jesus’ commands and the word of God, many feel like being lost and that’s when the cultural forces and the satanic forces of temptations and insinuations all coming to attack us spiritually. Many Christians are therefore shaken up and that’s why Hebrews 11 says our life journey is a journey of faith. In a sense our Christian walk with God is so multifaceted that it is hard to pin it down, but it all has to be anchored on the Lord Jesus Christ our God.
The second part of the conviction is punishing the unfaithful with death, that death is not only the physical spiritual death on earth now, but also the eternal death coming up and that is going to be very ugly and devastatingly frightful because it will be hell eternal fire. It is something most Christians do not even want to talk about because it’s almost like too discouraging, and also non-Christians definitely do not want to hear that. But the fear of the Lord must also be balanced by the conviction that the unfaithful will be punished with death the eternal death. Facing the eternal judgment of God is not something to be glance over but it’s something to be wrestled with and to birth that eternal conviction in Christ because he’s the only one who can deliver us from such peril.
Therefore we must have this two in balance in producing the conviction of this two that will give us the healthy balanced fear of the Lord.
[1] D. A. Carson, Ed., NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2018), 1060.
[2] D. A. Carson, Ed., NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2018), 1060.
Al Ngu sermons & devotion 