I did a course in management a couple of years ago and one of the things we talked about at some length was how to deal with people who had inappropriate attitudes to work.  As students we all thought that was the issue.  However our lecturer, a man with many years practical experience of management, told us that we were trying to address the wrong issue. He said to us “You cannot control what your staff believe, think or feel. You may be able to influence what they believe, think or feel but you can never control it, so don’t try. However you can control how they behave, and that is what you need to learn how to do appropriately”. That’s very true, and laws are all about attempting to control behaviour. But what is even more true is that it is what we believe, think and feel that determines how we behave. And that is where the real problem in our society lies. We act as if we are accountable to no one but ourselves because that is what we believe.

Over the last number of years we have repeatedly, as a nation, chosen to ignore God’s law – declaring it to be old fashioned and arbitrary – and we've gone our own way.  In previous generations such action would have been unthinkable. What has changed?  Quite simply this - we have lost the fear of the Lord.

What is the fear of the Lord and how is it relevant to our situation?  Is it not very Old Testament to speak of the fear of the Lord?  Surely the message of the New Testament is of a loving God who desires to be loved not feared?  Is that not what John says in the passage which we read together earlier in 1 John 4:7-18?  Well, we’ll come to that in a moment but first things first – turn in your Bibles to Proverbs 9:10. Here is what Solomon says under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding”.  Basically, if you want to be wise then begin with learning to fear God; if you want to understand what life is all about, then get to know God.  Go back a few pages to Proverbs 1:7.  Solomon says: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.” Here, if you want to have knowledge then begin with learning to fear God.  Let us be quite clear – if we do not fear God it is because we do not really know Him. And if we do not really know Him then it is not surprising that our behaviour towards Him is totally inappropriate. But why fear?  Fear of the Lord does not mean being scared of God.  It means giving to him the reverence, awe, respect and honour due to Him, simply because of who He is and what He is like – and how we are by comparison.

We could turn to any number of passages of scripture in order to catch a glimpse of the all-surpassing glory, power, might and majesty of God. As a quick example turn to Psalm 89:6-7 “For who in the heavens can be compared to the Lord? Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened to the Lord? God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be held in reverence by all those around Him”(NKJ).

He is the Creator of all things. He is the Almighty, the Judge of all the earth. And He is holy. Turn now to that familiar passage in Isaiah 6:1-4. “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty".   This is the One with whom we have to deal – the eternal, all-powerful, ever-living God who will judge the earth in righteousness. He is pure and holy and we are not. If we fail to fear Him then either we are fools (because we fail to appreciate who He is and how we compare to Him), or we deny His character and represent Him as being something other than what He is.  And make no mistake - to represent God as being something other than He is, is to take His name in vain.

Moreover, if our knowledge of God is so poor or defective that we fail to fear Him then we are incapable either of appreciating His love towards us or of truly loving Him in return. Turn to John 3:16.  Jesus says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son”. This is the best, most important news ever to have been uttered in the history of the world, and yet the person who doesn’t fear God shrugs and says, “so what?”.  If our conception of God is so low that we fail to fear Him; if our opinion of God is so small that we regard Him as irrelevant or unimportant then, sadly, whether or not He loves us is of no great importance to us.  However if we know God sufficiently to fear Him in the first place, then to know that He loves us is the most wonderful news imaginable.  As Jesus makes plain, it is because God loves us that He has provided a way back to Him through Jesus. That’s what Easter is all about – new life and new hope through Jesus Christ.  The knowledge that God loves us releases us from the dread and terror of judgement.

This is the fear of which John speaks in 1 John 4:18. What does John actually say? “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” . What sort of fear is John talking about?  Not all fear is harmful. For instance the fear of injury is what keeps us from being careless when crossing the road. We have an in-built fear of danger; a fear which God has placed within us for our protection and which frequently keeps us from harm.  John is not for one moment suggesting that we lose this fear – it is necessary for our physical survival.  Nor is John suggesting that we should lose the fear of the Lord.  It is just as necessary for our spiritual survival.  Turn to Exodus 20:20: Moses and the people of Israel are gathered at the foot of Mount Sinai. What does Moses say to them? “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you so that the fear of the Lord will be with you to keep you from sinning”.  John is not suggesting that we lose the fear of the Lord because it is this fear of God that keeps us from sinning and thereby breaking our life-giving relationship with Him.

The fear that John is talking about in his letter is the fear and dread of judgement.  If we have truly experienced the love of God, by repenting of our sin and availing ourselves of His cleansing and forgiveness through Jesus, if we are abiding in His love by remaining obedient to Him then we are, as John puts it, “made perfect in love” and need have no fear of judgement.   As the hymn-writer puts it: “Fear Him, ye saints and you will then have nothing else to fear”.

But how is all this relevant to our current situation?  Please turn with me to Jonah 1:2-3. The people of Nineveh were living as if they were accountable to no one but themselves. Here is God’s verdict on the city, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me”. The city of Nineveh had become so notorious for its sinfulness that God had decided to act in judgement and Jonah was sent to proclaim its fate.  Now we all know the story about Jonah and the whale but what became of Nineveh?  We’ll come to that in a moment. For now turn to Genesis 18:20-21.  Here we find another two cities whose names have become bywords for sinfulness and wickedness – Sodom and Gomorrah. What has God to say about them? “Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know”. What became of those two cities?  If you read on in Genesis you will discover that Abraham’s nephew Lot was living in Sodom at that time. God is about to destroy the city and Abraham is concerned that the innocent will die with the guilty. And so he negotiates with God. He pleads on behalf of the city (v24), “What if there are fifty righteous people in the city. Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it”. And God agrees to relent if fifty righteous people can be found. But Abraham isn’t convinced that fifty can be found and so, bit by bit, he negotiates God down to ten.  If ten righteous people can be found in Sodom it will not be destroyed. But even that is not enough to spare the city. Lot, his wife and his daughters escape but both Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed.

Now back to Nineveh.  Jonah tries his best to avoid going to Nineveh, hence the incident with the whale. However, when he gets there he walks from one end of the city proclaiming “Forty more days and Nineveh will be destroyed”. It takes him three days to get from one side of the city to the other – it’s a big city. And what happens?  Is the city is duly destroyed thirty-seven days after Jonah crosses it?  NO! Nineveh is spared!  Go back to Jonah 4:1.  Jonah is angry with God. Listen to him, “But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now O Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live”.  What happened?  Why was Nineveh not reduced to rubble as Sodom and Gomorrah had been?

If you examine the original Hebrew text the complaint against Sodom and Gomorrah was in the sense of a passing insult.  The complaint against Nineveh was much more serious - it was more in the sense of a deliberate sustained barrage of insults towards God.  How did Nineveh escape God's wrath when Sodom and Gomorrah didn’t? Think about it! Abraham – God’s friend – pleaded for Sodom yet it wasn’t spared. There was no friend of God pleading for Nineveh – just Jonah waiting eagerly to see the city destroyed. So how did Nineveh escape?   The answer is because the people took God’s warning seriously and did something about it.  The people of Sodom did not.

Jonah enters the city and prophecies disaster and how do the people respond? (Jonah 3:5)  “The Ninevites believed God".  If we examine the actions of the Ninevites we get a good picture of what believing God is all about. They heard God’s warning and acted on the assumption that it was true. Their belief wasn’t something that just happened in their heads, it determined their course of action. They repented, both individually and as a city, both as their instinctive reaction to the warning received and by order of the king. And it was exactly the response that God required – a wise decision by the heathen king of a heathen city. Where did he get this wisdom?  Job 28:28 tells us exactly: “The fear of the Lord – that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding”. They may not have feared God sufficiently to keep from sin in the first place, but they certainly feared Him sufficiently to heed His warning of imminent destruction. They had heard enough about the Lord God Almighty and had seen Him in action sufficiently to believe that if God was warning them that He was about to destroy their city, He was perfectly capable of doing so.  The people of Sodom were not so wise. When Lot warned his sons-in-law to flee they thought he was pulling their legs! Look at Genesis 19:14 “So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said “Hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking”. They didn’t take seriously the idea that God could or would destroy their city and so they perished with it. Similarly, while Noah was building the ark, the people laughed at him. I’ll bet they weren’t laughing as the ark floated off in safety and they perished.  What saved the people of Nineveh?  It was the fear of the Lord.  The fear of the Lord combined with their sudden realisation of His displeasure with them and the consequences of that displeasure caused them to repent of their evil ways and be saved.

So what about us? Do we take God seriously – or do we laugh in His face? How many times have we heard His word faithfully preached?  How many times have we heard Him speaking to us, calling us to repentance and faith in Jesus? And yet we will not come to Him. God says in 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will forgive their sin and heal their land”.   How many times have we heard those words? And what have we done about it?  The reality is that we have taken God far too lightly and we need to repent, both as individuals and as a nation.

So what are we going to do? God’s Word always demands a response.  Are we going to leave this place unchanged or are we going to submit ourselves to God afresh? Are we going to give to Him the honour and reverence that is His by right?  Is our desire to please Him going to be our first, last and only concern?  Or are we going to continue to treat Him lightly, casually fitting Him into our lives only when we find it convenient?  Look around you.  Our land cries out for healing.  Like the people of Nineveh, may we rediscover our fear of the Lord and repent and seek His face today.  AMEN.