No one would deny that reverence is due to Almighty God by right. But how can He be properly acknowledged and worshipped if the worshipper has replaced Him with a god of his own making – a much smaller god? Today many evangelical Christians have remodelled God, turning Him into a being only a bit higher than themselves. He is no longer the infinite, almighty, holy God, Who sees and searches every heart. He is merely a chum or pal sharing our smallness and triviality, and enjoying our entertainment-based culture. He is no longer to be feared; no longer to be given reverence.
With this new God, Moses would not need to remove the shoes from his feet, nor the apostle John fall at His feet as dead. This revised God does not mind how we worship Him, and so we need have no inhibitions or qualms about anything we do in His presence. But to change God is to deny Him and to insult Him. So where is reverence today?
Where is the God of Elijah? Where is Old Testament Jehovah? Where is the mighty God so respectfully addressed in the recorded prayers of the New Testament? Amazingly, this glorious God is not wanted, even by many who believe His Word and seek His salvation. Reverence has become distasteful. It has been relegated to the debris of a cast-off former culture. ‘Give us a God,’ we now cry, ‘on our level.’
This chapter is about the necessity of reverence for God and how it brings great benefits and blessings to worshippers. Hebrews 12.28-29 provides a specially challenging verse for the present day: ‘Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire.’ ‘Reverence’ here literally means – with downcast eyes or great humility. ‘Fear’ means caution, or the reverence of holy fear. The Lord Jesus Himself, when living out for us a life of perfect righteousness, maintained the deepest reverence toward the Father, the Bible telling us that His prayers were heard because He ‘feared’, using the same Greek term for caution or reverence (Hebrews 5.7). The term ‘fear’, indicating reverential fear, appears often in the New Testament. Cornelius of Caesarea, visited by Peter, was acknowledged by all to be one who ‘feared’ God. His reverence for God was conspicuous. When preaching at Antioch in Pisidia, Paul appealed twice to those that ‘feared’ God, using the same reverential fear term. They would be the people who truly received the Word. ‘Fear God!’ wrote Peter, using the same term (1 Peter 2.17). ‘Fear God!’ said the angel of the preaching of the everlasting Gospel in Revelation, using the same term, indicating that the ultimate objective of the Gospel is to bring men and women not just to salvation, but to reverence (Revelation 14.7).
The victorious people of God sang, ‘Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name?’ using the same reverential fear term (Revelation 15.4). And the voice from the throne of God commanded, ‘Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great’ (Revelation 19.5).
...The root of all our problems today as evangelical Christians is the collapse of such reverence. With the new style of worship, all carefulness in God’s presence and all deep respect for Him has gone, and yet this is the ultimate purpose of salvation – to revere and obey Him. Paul therefore says, ‘Exercise yourself unto reverence.’ Other spiritual graces cannot flourish without this foundation.
...Reverence is stated to be immensely significant and beneficial in the Christian life, but it must begin with worship. If worship is stripped of reverence, then reverence will be stunted in all other aspects of Christian living. What begins in worship, spreads into the whole Christian life. If worship is more like a performance, with showing off, imitation of the world, sensation-seeking, much noise, and everything for my pleasure, then reverence will not be found in any other department of life. How cruel it is, then, for churches to abandon reverent worship! The members will be seriously hurt and disadvantaged for their personal spiritual lives.
...Take our understanding of the Bible. Reverence for God produces humility and fear of offending Him in the handling of the Bible. We take the opposite approach of the fable-teachers and the charismatic teachers just referred to. ‘This is God’s sacred Word,’ we say to ourselves. ‘I must not rush through it. I must open my heart day by day to what God is saying. I must make sure I get it right, and if I don’t understand it, I must consult a reliable book or person for help. I must learn and obey.’ Reverence leads to conscientiousness with Scripture, and this in turn leads to right understanding. Reverence certainly helps us not to come to hasty and superficial conclusions. It safeguards us against many errors. This attitude of reverence and care is seen perfectly in the stance of the apostle Peter, recorded in 2 Peter 1.19-21: ‘We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.’
The person with reverence for the Lord and for His Word is concerned to get things right. The preacher always checks his work with conscientious care. If he thinks he sees in the text something he has not seen before, he worries lest his imagination should have led him astray, and checks his understanding more carefully. Reverence keeps him from falling into foolish conclusions and errors. Reverence checks his step and humbles his self-confidence. What a difference reverence makes! But if it is omitted from worship, it will not be found in handling the Bible. The essential exercising of reverence begins in worship. The house of God is the best gymnasium.*
*Masters, Peter (2012-01-11). Worship in the Melting Pot (Kindle Locations 1136-1150, 1150-1158, 1178-1180, 1225-1230, 1231-1238, 1238-1244, ). . Kindle Edition.
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