Ingredients: Part 2c
May I use one more illustration? I’ve labored at trying to make this concept clear. Suppose we went down to the local library, and we were going to find out all the facts we could find out about the Grand Canyon. I’ve talked with some people who have been to the Grand Canyon, and it’s made me want to go there. But we could get all the facts: so many miles across at certain points, so deep. And we’ve got all these facts about the immensity, the majesty, the beauty, the transcendent splendor of the Grand Canyon. And so we memorize all those facts and could pass a test and be experts on the physical properties of the Grand Canyon. But now let me ask you a question. You get up in the morning and brush your teeth; get your toast and coffee and go off to work. All that you know about the immensity, the majesty, the grandeur, the glory of the Grand Canyon doesn’t affect you one bit in how you live.
But if it were possible, when you got up the next morning–you’ve got all the facts about the Grand Canyon–and suddenly you were saddled up on the back of a ray of light that broke over the Eastern Coast of our country, and within the snap of the fingers, you found yourself standing right in the midst of the Grand Canyon. What would happen? I doubt you’d take your tube of toothpaste and start brushing your choppers. No, no, what would happen? You’d say, “O yeah, I got all the facts, but this is the Grand Canyon. This is the Grand Canyon!”
What’s happened? All the facts and figures–not a one of them has changed. You can look out and see the mile or two mile expanse; you can see the depth. You can see all the factors, but what’s happened? You’ve been put into the presence of the Canyon itself, and all that should have illicited awe suddenly grips you with a sense of awe and wonder. Now that’s what I’m trying to say. We can have all the facts about God, even good Biblical and Reformed facts about God (holy, sovereign, transcendent, immense, boundless, and all the rest), but unless we learn to cultivate an all-pervasive sense of His presence, it won’t make much difference in how we live.
That’s why some people who’ve got a smaller God in their theological propositions but have more of a sense of the presence of God live a lot better than people who’ve got a great big God in their theology but have a distant God in their experience. He’s not the orbiting spy satellite. He’s the ever-present personal God. And in that sense–and I say it reverently–the very environment in which we live–and I have Scriptural grounds for this–is this great God. That’s why Paul, speaking to pagans and setting before them the God of Scripture, the God who is creator, the God who is sovereign; who governs the nations, made of one blood all nations, rules them–he says, “In Him we live, and move, and have our very being.” It’s not pantheism, but it’s a Biblical concept I fear I know too little about experientially. And it is this which is the essential ingredient of the fear of God.
What we’ll do is look at several illustrations of how this has its practical effect upon the life of the man who learns it. Turn to Genesis 17. Abraham has walked with God for a number of years. God has revealed Himself to him, and here we have another record of one of those self-disclosures that God makes to His servant whom He calls His friend. Verse 1:
“And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him [here’s the first element in the fear of God], I am the Almighty God [Abraham, whatever you think of Me, I want you to think of boundless might. I want you to think of Me as the God in whom all might and power reside]; walk before Me [that is, walk in the constant awareness of My eye upon you, My presence with you, and your relationship to Me being the all-important thing to you in every circumstance. Wherever you walk, may your walk be before Me], and be thou perfect.”
This is the practical outworking, the moral, the ethical implications of a man who says, “I believe what is revealed about the character of God. And by His grace, I shall cultivate an all-pervasive sense of the presence of God.” The result will be a life of obedience to that God.
Now let’s turn to a passage where this command of God was put to perhaps its most crucial test. And see how when Abraham passes the test, God interprets that test and also Abraham’s successful passing through that test. Genesis 22. You remember the command of God was to take Isaac the son of promise and to kill him. I like to use the term because we miss something of the heart-wrenching nature of God’s command. When God said, “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering….”, that sounds beautiful to us. But what He’s saying is, “Go out and kill him.”
“Abraham, as you’ve plunged the knife into many an animal and you’ve seen the spurt of blood and the quiver as life has struggled to maintain itself, and then you’ve seen that final quiver, and then it’s dead, now go on up and plunge the knife into the breast of your own son and see the blood spurt forth, and see the twitching of the body as it fights for life, and then see it breathe its last.”
That’s what God told him to do. “Walk thou before Me, and be Thou perfect.” “Who has told me to go up and kill my son? This great majestic, transcendent, almighty, all-holy, all-powerful God. And I have learned to walk before Him. He’s God; I’m the creature. Mine is to obey; the consequences of my obedience, His responsibility.” And so, Abraham, regardless of what struggles he may have had in the wee hours of the morning–and no doubt he had them–Scripture passes them over. And all it does is record for us his implicit obedience.
So we read in verse 3: “And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.” Then you remember the story. I need not over the details. Just as he’s about to do that very thing God told him to do–the knife is raised; God stays his hand; God speaks to him. Now notice what God says to him– and this is pivotal to our study this morning–verses 11-12:
“And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from Me.” I haven’t read this in. This is God’s interpretation on the whole event. He says,
“Abraham, this test and now your obedience in the midst of it is an eloquent cry and eloquent testimony of many things, but above all, Abraham, this is the eloquent testimony of the depth and the reality of your fear of Me. For I know thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from Me. Abraham, You’ve shown Me that you fear Me, a fear which has as it’s indispensable element such a concept of My character and the worth of My being–I’m worthy to be obeyed–and such a pervasive sense of My presence that you know that to walk before Me is to walk in the path that I’ve laid out for you. And in that path, I will be your reward even if Isaac must die.”
He obeyed, and we see something of the effect of the fear of God in the life of a man.