“Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin” (Exodus 20:20 ESV).

The Bible makes it very clear that humans are intended to fear God – in fact, there are over three hundred instances of the concept in the Old and New Testaments (Ecclesiastes 12:13, Matthew 10:28, etc.). However, a proper understanding of  the concept of godly fear can sometimes be difficult to grasp.    

The difficulty comes from the fact that many people only see half of what is involved in fearing God.  For them,  such fear appears to be a purely negative thing. Like a sign saying “beware of the dog” or “danger, minefield,” the statement “fear God” elicits only negative emotional responses.

But there is a scripture that gives us the other half of the equation and helps us to see the fear of God much more accurately, as we should.  That scripture is Exodus 20:20 – the verse quoted above.  I think of Exodus 20:20 as my spiritual eyesight verse – it’s the “20/20” eye check report we all need if we are to see this aspect of our relationship with God clearly.

Notice that in speaking these words, Moses told the ancient Israelites three important things:

1. “God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you”:  These words make it clear that God wants to be sure that we do have the proper fear of him.

2. “that you may not sin” or “to keep you from sinning” (NIV): The clear purpose of that fear is to protect us from hurting ourselves or others through wrongdoing.

3. “Do not fear”:  Even though God wants us to fear to do evil so that we do not receive punishment from him, he actually commands us not to fear him for any other reason.

When we see the balance of this verse, we see that God treats his human children as we should treat ours – he encourages proper respect for the protection of the children themselves, but does not instill fear in any negative sense.  The morbid concept of a stern and judgmental God demanding abject fear is a figment of human imagination, as we read in Isaiah: “… their fear of me is a commandment taught by men” (Isaiah 29:13b). 

In the New Testament we see that Christ also reiterated fear of God in proper context:  “Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).  These words are followed immediately by the affirmation of godly love: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Matthew 10:29).

That kind of fear is analogous to the healthy respect of a child who hesitates to disobey its parent, yet who feels secure in the parent’s love and who knows it need not fear the parent in any other way. 

When we see the true parental love of God in our lives, it should not be difficult to see the fear of God correctly – to realize that we can fear God positively without fearing him negatively at all. 

“ … the Lord God is a sun and shield” (Psalm 84:11).

King David certainly had a way with words – not just in the eloquence and poetry of many of the psalms he composed, but also the way he often packs so much into even a few words about God. “The Lord God is a sun and shield” is a wonderful example of this fact.

Today, it’s easy to read over those two words “sun” and “shield” and to see them only as a reference to the sun as a great light and a shield as an antiquated symbol of protection.  But in the society in which David wrote, those two words were packed with an amazing amount of meaning. 

In ancient Israel, as in much of the ancient Near East, the sun was not only a symbol of light, but of sustenance and life itself.  The ancients understood that without the sun there would be no crops and no life itself.  The sun also symbolized many aspects related to light, such as righteousness, just as we see in the biblical statement: “But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise …” (Malachi 4:2).  In the same way, just as a pair of scales symbolizes fairness and thus justice for us today, in the biblical world, because of its association with light and righteousness, the sun symbolized justice.  

As a result, for several of the polytheistic cultures around Israel the sun god was the god of justice.  We see this association of sun and justice in biblical verses such as “He will bring forth your righteousness as a light, and your justice as the noonday sun” (Psalm 37:6 NSV) and the ironic statement in Ecclesiastes: “And I saw something else under the sun: In the place of judgment – wickedness was there…” (Ecclesiastes 3:16).  

In David’s time, there were many other associations that would have been recognized between the sun and characteristics such as majesty and strength. When David wrote that the sun was like:  “…a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy” (Psalm 19:4b-5), he was referring to the majesty of a bridegroom in his splendid wedding garments and the strength of a champion runner. These were concepts that his hearers would have easily understood by means of the symbolism of the sun.

The shield, in a similar way, primarily connoted protection and refuge and is often used alongside the image of God as a “rock” as in verses such as: “my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation” (2 Sam 22: 3), and “you are a shield around me, O LORD” (Psalm 3: 3).  In this sense, the shield was used as a symbol of help in any difficulty: “The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped” (Psalm 28:7 and see Psalm 115: 9-11).  But the shield not only signified protection, rescue, and help, it also signified many other things. It could symbolize kingship (Psalm 84:9) as well as monarchial power and kingly treasures, and even the words of God (Proverbs 30:5).

So: light, life, sustenance, righteousness, justice, strength, majesty, power, protection, refuge, rescue, help, kingship, monarchy, the treasures of kings, the words of God, and many other things  may all be symbolized in the two words “sun” and “shield” that David used in Psalm 84:11.  Most of these symbol-associated meanings would have been clear to the psalmist’s original readers with only a little thought, and the more we look at and meditate on biblical verses about God, the more we, too, can see of him. Not all the Bible’s descriptions of God are phrased in symbolic language, of course, but whether symbolic or literal, it can often richly repay us to think about those descriptions – even if they are only one or two words. 

“…The LORD will be … strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate” (Isaiah 28:5-6).

Sometimes we don’t see God because we give up looking for him before we should. The verse quoted above from Isaiah has always been one of my favorites.  It reminds us that even if God does not come through till the last minute, he will be there before it is too late.  Isaiah’s words reflect a situation in which warriors defending their city are beaten back to the its very gates, but who are then given strength to turn the tide of battle right at their own doors. That’s an “eleventh hour” rescue by an “eleventh hour” God!

Isaiah’s point is that we must not give up even if the battle goes on. We must not give up too soon.  It’s a principle we see throughout the Bible.  One of the most famous examples is seen in the story of King Saul, when Israel was  under attack by the Philistines and the prophet Samuel told him to go to the area of Gilgal and to wait there seven days till Samuel  arrived to offer  sacrifices and ask God’s help (1 Samuel 10:8).  But as time passed, Saul’s faith, like that of his men, began to falter:  

“Saul remained at Gilgal, and all the troops with him were quaking with fear. He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul’s men began to scatter. So he said, “Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings.” And Saul offered up the burnt offering. Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived …” (1 Samuel 13:7-10).

The account indicates that Saul had not waited the full seven days as instructed, but waited only till the time was almost up – to the eleventh hour of the sixth day – which is when God’s representative Samuel arrived.  Saul’s disobedience in being unwilling to wait past the eleventh hour, till the last minute (as well as usurping the position of the priests and prophets), cost him his kingship (1 Samuel 13:13-14).

We see many other examples of this principle of the arrival of God’s intervention at the eleventh hour in the Bible. It appears from God’s test of Abraham (Genesis 22:1-12) to Paul’s last minute rescue (Acts 21:31-36).  There is nothing automatic about God’s intervention in situations, of course. He will intervene if it is his will, and he may intervene at any time if he chooses to do so. But the point is that once we have determined we will trust God for the outcome of any situation, we should not give up too soon.

As Christians we may sometimes get discouraged by events in our own lives and those of family and friends, let alone conditions throughout the world. But it is part of coming to see how God acts in our lives and in history itself to understand that God will indeed sometimes wait till the very last minute to intervene or to act in some way. But even if it is at the “eleventh hour,” if God acts, he never acts too late. More often than not, the question is not really one of “Will God act in time?” but “Will we give up too soon?”

“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil,  for you are with me; your rod and your staff,  they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4).

From the soldier on patrol in an active war zone to the timid individual “afraid of his own shadow,” we all face dark valleys in some parts of our lives – even if they are only in our memories.  King David’s words in Psalm 23 have been a help to those going into the dark valleys for thousands of years, but we can sometimes miss their point.

If you have ever seen  devotionals or other religious writings urging us to “take God with you into the valley,” you will perhaps know what I mean.  Well intentioned as this approach is, it can have the unintended consequence of reducing God in our minds to a kind of spiritual good luck charm – a token we feel we must have with us for the sake of survival.  But the truth is, of course, we don’t need to take God into the dark valley – the One  who is everywhere is already there.   We see this in the words of David: 

“Where can I go from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there;  if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn,  if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me,  your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’  even the darkness will not be dark to you;  the night will shine like the day,  for darkness is as light to you” (Psalm 139:7-12).

These verses from Psalm 139 dovetail perfectly with those from Psalm 23. David is not saying “Where can I hide from your spirit?” He is asking, rhetorically, “Where can I possibly go where you are not already there?” In the same way,  “Surely the darkness will hide me” does not mean “I can hide from you in darkness,” but an honest admitting of anxiety in the form of “What if God does not see me in the dark valley?”

David knew the answers to these rhetorical questions.  He had been in the dark valley – numerous times.  He had cried out from the darkness around him enough times that he knew  he would be heard.  We can learn the same trust, too.   We needn’t ever feel we are trying to contact a distant God – like someone radioing or calling from a signal-dead spot. God is there in the dark valley as much as anywhere.  Notice David’s words again: “In my alarm I said, ‘I am cut off from your sight!’ Yet you heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help” (Psalm 31:22). All we have to do to establish contact is to speak to Him, and if we do, He will respond.

So we need not  think that we have to take God with us into the dark valleys of our lives.  The good news is, He is waiting to hear from us there, waiting to be with us there just as much as He is anywhere. And, as David wrote, there is no valley dark enough to hide us from Him, no valley dark enough to block Him from helping us.  We need not feel we must somehow take Him into the valley – He is already there.