Reasonable Fear
A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household!
So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matthew 10:24-28
There are fears which are irrational, unnecessary, illusory, unfounded. Jesus often counseled against fears, "Fear not, little flock . . ." (Luke 12:32); "Let not your heart be troubled" (John 14:1). But there is a fear that is rational, real and redemptive. Jesus also commanded "Fear." Fear is a valid motive. We teach a child to fear fire. We instruct a little girl to fear and run away from the man who attempts to pick her up in his car when she is walking home from school. The wise parent and counselor makes sure that the consequences of certain destructive practices are clearly understood. Fear is fundamental
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to education; fear is fundamental to life.
Russell Kirk in a Chicago address based upon the text, "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Psalm 111:10), said, "Without knowledge of fear we cannot know order in personality or society. Fear is an ineluctable part of the human condition. If fear is lacking, hope and aspirations fail. To demand from mankind freedom from fear as politically attainable was a silly piece of demagogic sophistry. If fear were wiped out altogether from our lives we would be desperately bored, longing for old or new terrors. There are things which rightfully we ought to fear if we are to enjoy any dignity as men. To fear to commit evil; to hate what is abominable, is the mark of manliness."
Then Kirk quotes a striking passage from George Shaw's book, Back to Methusaleh. "Good-natured, unambitious men are cowards when they have no religion. At the spectacle of half of Europe being kicked to death by the other half they stare in helpless horror, or are persuaded by the newspapers that this is a sound commercial investment and an act of Divine justice. They [good-natured,
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unambitious men without religion] are dominated and exploited, not only by greedy and often half-witted and half-alive weaklings who will do anything for cigars, champagne and motor cars and the more childish and selfish uses of money, but by able and sound administrators who can do nothing else with them than dominate and exploit them. Government and exploitation become synonymous under such circumstances, and the world is finally ruled by the childish, the brigands and the blackguards."2
Kirk continues, "Freedom from fear if I read St. John aright, is one of the planks in the platform of the anti-Christ. Such freedom is purchased only at the cost of spiritual and political enslavement. It ends at Armageddon. Lacking conviction that 'the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom' the captains and kings yield to the fierce ideologues, the merciless adventurers, the charlatans, and the metaphysically mad, and then truly when the stern, righteous God of fear and love has been denied, the savage god lays down his new commandments. Yes, from the post-Christian church [Kirk is referring to the contemporary church] the dusty fear of God and the odor of sanctity have been
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quite cleansed. Within the doors there remains, spiritually speaking, simply a vacuum which nature abhors. Presently something will fill that vacuum, perhaps a rough beast, its hour come round at last, with a stench of death in its fur."
Men who fear God face life fearlessly. Men who do not fear God end up fearing everything.
Jesus said that we are to fear. Whom are we to fear? What are we to fear? He said, "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28). This admonition was spoken in the context of persecution. "Behold," Jesus said to His disciples, "I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves . . . They will deliver you up to the councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues; . . . and you shall be hated of all men for my name's sake" (10:17-22); but, said Jesus, do not fear them. Do not be afraid of them! "Fear not them that can destroy the body but not the soul."
Does this mean therefore that Jesus was indifferent to the physical welfare of people? The question is almost sacrilegious, and its answer is superfluous. Who cared more,
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did more for men's bodies? Never has there been another like the Great Physician, the paragon of compassion and love, filled with gentleness, tenderness, caring.
Does this mean that the church is to be indifferent to the physical welfare of people? The answer is obvious. Wherever the church has gone with the gospel of Christ she has brought enlightenment, compassion and healing. The church has led in giving the world schools and colleges, progressive agricultural methods, hospitals, clinics, orphanages, widows' homes and care for the aging. Like rivers of compassion the mission of the church has flowed into valleys of need the world around, over and over, age after age. Centuries before anybody ever thought of foreign aid or a Peace Corps the church was there meeting and ministering to the bodies and minds of men; and she continues her work throughout the world to this very moment.
The church is busy by day and by night binding the wounds of the terribly bruised and burdened and broken in our inner cities. Not as much as she should — but she is there and must increase her ministry there. The church is caring for
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the orphans and the widows, the hungry and the homeless and the hopeless in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America. Jesus was not indifferent to physical suffering, nor is His church. The church that is faithful to the gospel does not ignore the physical sufferings of men. The gospel is for the whole person.
But Jesus did teach that the antidote to irrational and unnecessary fear is a greater fear, a basic fear. Who is to be feared? Now at this point scholarship is divided on the text. Some say the "him" in verse 28 —"Fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" —refers to the devil, on the grounds that the verses following, 29 through 31, in which Jesus speaks of the loving concern of the Father, would be out of place if God were the One to be feared. Others argue that it is God who is to be feared, and insist that the following verses give the reasons why He ought to be feared. As the psalmist said, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Even though the one to be feared may not be absolutely clear in the text, there is no doubt at all as to what is to be feared: the destruction of the soul and body in hell. Jesus is saying, according to one commentator, "Fear not the
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persecutor but the tempter. Don't be afraid of the man who kills you for your fidelity, but fear the man who wants to buy you off, and the devil whose agent he is." Jesus is arguing for the incalculable value of one soul. "What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" (Matthew 16:26). What have we done for a man after all if we feed him and clothe him and let him go to hell? No evil that befalls man this side of the grave can be compared with the destiny, the awful, indescribable destiny that awaits the unredeemed man beyond the grave.
Contemporary man finds the concept of hell, eternal judgment, the wrath of God to be archaic. In his sophistication he relegates such ideas to the realm of the superstitious, unworthy of rational consideration. But such conclusions must be weighed in the light of certain stubborn, irresistible data. Jesus took these matters seriously. Every record of His life and teaching indicates these subjects to be His preoccupation. So seriously did He take them that He submitted to an early death by crucifixion when He could have avoided it by repudiating His message. The apostles, who continued what Jesus
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began, took these matters seriously. And their teaching started a movement which has continued and grown for 2,000 years and is expanding faster than the population in Africa, South America and some parts of Asia today. That which Jesus began and His apostles continued is far and away the most powerful and influential force in human history. Despite all the effort that has been made to destroy the church, she exists today, 2,000 years since her inception, stronger than ever. Christ promised, "I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her" (Matthew 16:18).
Furthermore, the Bible takes these matters seriously. The Bible is an ancient book, but year after year it outsells every modern best-seller. Though the Bible was completed nineteen centuries ago, it has been translated into more languages (more than 2000) than any other book ever written. Its enemies have tried to destroy the Bible literally by confiscation and burning. Some of the brightest minds humanity has produced, involving the most brilliant scholarship, have attempted to discredit the Bible generation after generation. Yet the Bible remains the most read book, the most
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carefully studied book in the twentieth century. Last year more than 500 million copies of the Bible were published and sold. No other book has ever come close in its lifetime. The Bible does this annually.
It is hardly intelligent to disregard the teaching of Jesus which has persevered despite incredible opposition and hostility in every generation for two millenniums. Indifference to these stubborn facts is unworthy of thoughtful people.
Modern man is discovering the emptiness, the hollowness, the meaninglessness of life without an eternal reference. In a culture which caters to the body in every conceivable way, he is discovering that preoccupation with bodily appetites does not satisfy, is not fulfilling. The consummate product of the "liberated" man is a jaded, bored, fed up, exhausted culture, seeking for "kicks" in the most ancient of corrupt life-styles and practices. Modern man is discovering that nothing works right when God is rejected, when man becomes his own god and he finds no sustenance for his indestructible soul. Man is an eternal creature, made for eternity, and he is never satisfied with anything less. There is something basic to
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humanness that cannot be satisfied by anything tangible, material, visible. Humanness is spiritual as well as physical and will never be satisfied with that which gives only biological satisfaction.
The absolute moral law of God is no more to be ignored than the law of gravity. Violation of either ends in destruction, however clever the violation may be in man's self-justification.
Jesus said, "So shall it be at the end of the age. The angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire [that is, Gehenna; Jesus uses the word hell not hades in this text], and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 13:40-42). Jesus said, "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels . . . . These shall go away into everlasting punishment" (Matthew 25:41, 46). Jesus said, "It is better for you to enter into life maimed than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire, that never shall be quenched" (Matthew 18:8).
Paul said, "[They] shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of
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his power" (2 Thess. 1:9). In Revelation we read, "The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone" (14:10); "The devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever . . . And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire . . . But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death" (20:10, 15; 21:8).
Can you think of any leader you would trust more than one who was motivated by a healthy fear of or reverence for Almighty God and the eternally destructive power of evil? Or can you think of anything worse than a church or a Christian—warned and informed of the destiny of the lost—that would ignore the salvation of men's souls in its preoccupation with sociological, economic and political concern? In the church, the gospel is
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always fundamentally relevant to life, both eternally and in the here and now.
In the matter of mission, the church of Jesus Christ is absolutely unique in history. She exists for the salvation of men's eternal souls. No other organization or institution has this mission. There are thousands of organizations, in addition to government itself, which exist for the social welfare of men: and incidentally these organizations are manned in great part by church people and receive a great part of their financial support from church people. They are doing what they are designed to do, thank God. They are not intended, nor will they ever devote themselves to the eternal welfare of men's souls. If the church fails in its unique mission there is no organization that will fill the breech. If the church fails to labor for the eternal redemption of the souls of men, she is failing, whatever else she does. If the church is not primarily concerned with the destiny of people beyond the grave, she is defaulting, however busy she may be in her care and concern for people.
The key to the missionary message is the propitiation of Christ Jesus. Take any phase of Christ's work—the healing phase, the saving
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and sanctifying phase; there is nothing limitless about those. "The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world!—that is limitless. The missionary message is the limitless significance of Jesus: Christ as the propitiation for our sins — and a missionary is one who is soaked in that revelation.
The key to the missionary message is the remissionary aspect of Christ's life, not His kindness and His goodness, and His revealing of the Fatherhood of God; the great limitless significance is that He is the propitiation for our sins. The missionary message is not patriotic, it is irrespective of nations and of individuals, it is for the whole world.3
June 2, 1965
Forty-three years ago I was part of an enterprise that was then caring for over 100,000 orphaned Armenian and other children left destitute by World War I and the Turkish Massacres.
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Last summer my wife and I revisited the scenes of this early work, now Soviet Armenia. You can understand my dismay in finding not a trace, not a memory, of this humanitarian work. No one we met had ever heard of the "Near East Relief." There was, however, a great deal heard about the "Liberation."
In asking why evidence of this great humanitarian effort had disappeared, like a stream flowing into a desert, I have concluded that it was the failure to heed the example of the apostles: it left the Word of God to serve tables (Acts 6:2).4
Humanitarianism is not Christianity. As high as the heaven is above the earth, so high is Christianity above humanitarianism. If we are not trying to snatch men from hell as brands from the burning then we are out of line with the mission of our Lord and disobedient to the mandate He gave His church. Hell is the ultimate enemy of men. The church is in the world
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to warn men of this and to point them to the Saviour who died for their sakes to save them from hell! This is relevant.
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2. George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah, rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1947), as quoted by Russell Kirk.
3. Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, the Golden Book of Oswald Chambers (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1935), p. 289.
4. Quoted from a letter to Bob Pierce from Elgin Groseclose, Ph.D., of Groseclose, Williams and Associates Financial and Investment Consultants, Washington, D.C. Used by permission.
