THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM

This morning I read a devotional that included the following illustration:

A group of boys were tempting a younger boy to pull a prank with them. “Come on, do it with us,” they said, “no one will find out.” The young lad did not want to join in and finally mentioned his father. They taunted him further, saying, “Oh you are just afraid that if your father finds out, he will hurt you.” No, said the young man, “I’m afraid if he finds out, it will hurt him.”

This illustration stirred me because it seems that so many, including Christians have lost their fear of the Lord. It isn’t a fear that God will find out because we know that God sees everything. He is already aware of our thoughts and deeds before we think or perform them. The fear of the Lord should be a holy reverence for God; an awareness that His word is true and whether it is a Shall or Shall Not, there is consequence to disobedience. As your relationship with God grows and you fall more deeply in love with Him, the fear develops into a fear of hurting the heart of God.

Sunday, Steven preached an awesome message. He brought out some facts about leprosy. Leprosy is an auto-immune disease that affects the nervous system. One of effects of leprosy is the inability to feel pain in the person’s extremities. A sensitivity to the possibility of injury is lost because they can no longer experience the warning signals of impending danger. If the ill person is not diligent about checking for injury the infected limb will have to be amputated or they will die.

The world in general has lost their sensitivity to sin. Most consider the use of the word sin to be avoided at all cost until it is eliminated from their vocabulary. This mode of thinking has stealthily crept into the church. Ministers are so afraid of offending the congregation that only happy, upbeat messages are preached. Church attendees go away Sunday morning feeling good about themselves instead of rejoicing in the fact that they have been set free from the burden of sin. They spend the week wondering why they have no joy, no love and no power to do the “right thing.”

Psalms 111:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.

Proverbs 9:10The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

I find it interesting that both David and Solomon wrote about the fear of the Lord. David had obviously passed this concept on to his son. The sad thing is, Solomon forgot his responsibility to his children. You will not find any reference that would lead you to believe that Solomon’s son Rehoboam was taught the importance of fearing God. In fact his life reflected the opposite. He ruled the kingdom in a selfish, hedonistic manner and eventually the kingdom of Israel was split.

As parents and grandparents, ministers and Christians it is up to us to make sure our children, congregations and loved ones learn the fear of God and do not lose a sensitivity to sin. We can only accomplish this daunting task if we continually check ourselves against exhibiting an indifference toward the wiles of Satan and someday wake up to find we have lost everything so precious and vital to our very existence.