I haven’t read much of this thread. (OneAccord’s post was great)
But this is a subject that I have spent some time thinking about.
The 1970s “rapture can happen any second” sermons left me with panic attacks as a pre-teen. I lived in fear. I would literally have panic attacks if I couldn’t find my mom (she was the only person I was sure was saved). I even had a plan in place in case the rapture came so I wouldn’t get my head cut off.
I lived in fear. It was terrible. Now I reject any of that kind of thing and it makes me angry when someone tries to walk down that road. I cannot find a way to see that as “Godly” or in keeping with sound teaching.
But the fear of God remains the beginning of wisdom. Not because I said it but because the Word of God said it.
I firmly believe that in some weird wisdomless effort to capitalize on natural fears in the culture of the 1970’s we lost scared people so badly we have lost the ability to preach and teach honest truth about the fear of God.
AND we are the losers for it. The fear of God should not lead where One Accord and I both went. In my fear of God I ran. I ran and paid the price for running. I wasn’t taught really well I suppose. I suspect most of us weren’t.
Having said that, in general I believe that the fear of God is something that while good for everyone is more important for preachers. Preachers had better fear God. NOT fearing God leads to a god complex. It leads to pride and pride will always lead to a big ole fall. I’ve seen too many preachers fall and in all the cases I am close to, I can honestly say something happened that left that guy without any fear of the All Mighty. They were able to “fake it” long enough that they began to believe that God was ok with their sin.
He isn’t. They paid….dearly.
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