Chapter 13 -- The Fear of Faith
"By faith, Noah moved with godly fear prepared an ark." Heb. 11: 7.
There are many who suppose that, when the
word of God says, "Blessed is the man that feareth always," it is
commending a disposition that is at variance with the rest and
assurance that are given by faith. And they thus regard this unbelief
as a sort of virtue: they fear this great and holy God, and they fear
their own weakness and unfaithfulness, and they dare not believe. This
view is altogether out of harmony with the word of God; for the word
teaches us that fear and confidence must go hand in hand with each
other. "Many shall see it and fear, and shall trust in the Lord." (Ps. 40: 3). "Ye that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord." (Ps. 115: 11). "Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear Him, upon them that hope in His mercy." (Ps. 33: 18). Fear and confidence go in union: the one increases the other.
Very clearly is this truth set before us
in the history of Noah. "By faith Noah, being warned of God concerning
things not seen as yet, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark.”
The fear was partly the fruit of his faith, and partly a motive to make
his faith active in the building of the ark. He believed the
announcement of the avenging flood, and feared; feared in view of the
destruction that was to overtake his fellow-men, and in view of the
holy God from whom the judgment was to proceed. He feared, and
therefore he cleaved in strong faith to the promise of the ark, and
worked at it as the only means of preservation. Fear and trust were
with him inseparable, the one indispensable to the other.
Anxious soul, you fear the Lord, you fear
His holiness and His judgments, and you say that it is out of
veneration for Him that you do not dare to believe. You say that you
are too unworthy in the presence of such a holy and dreadful God to
appropriate the right of being called His child, and of speaking to Him
with confidence. O that you knew how grievously you are mistaken. There
is nothing that so much tends to arouse in the Lord the sense of
dishonor and anger as unbelief -- not believing His word, that He has
compassion on all the unworthy. There is nothing on which God so much
sets His honor as His free grace and His pity for the ungodly. You
wound Him in the most tender point when you doubt if His grace is
indeed for you, and so drag its greatness and trustworthiness into
doubt. O souls, when you fear the Lord, pray, fear to dishonor Him by
unbelief.
But, no: you say that it is not the Lord,
but yourselves that you doubt. You fear on account of your
unfaithfulness, your insincerity. And do you not then understand that
it is just this fear of yourselves that is the strongest argument for
your casting yourselves upon the Lord and entrusting yourselves to Him.
O soul, pray, seek no longer something in yourselves; for, if you wait
until you no longer fear for yourselves, you will never come to Christ
at all. God never asks you for an engagement to be faithful on which He
can rely. No: He gives you a promise of faithfulness on which you can
rely. And just because you fear your own unfaithfulness, you must place
your confidence on God's faithfulness. Herein just lies the glory of
free grace, that the sinner, who cannot trust himself, who feels that
in everything -- in faith, in humility, in earnestness, in sincerity --
he comes far short, may yet surrender himself to the Lord as one who is
utterly wretched, with confidence in the word that He certainly
receives, and will keep such an one. Yea: it is he who fears on his own
account that must trust in the Lord. This is the only remedy. He has
nothing on which he can hope but the promise of God's compassion. Every
thought of fear must be a new motive to confidence. So shall he learn
to fear no more, according to the word of the psalmist: "Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord: his heart is established, he shall not be afraid."
(Ps. 112: 1, 8). He shall also learn to experience that the fear of the
Lord then becomes through confidence the source, not of anxiety but of
peace and growing power, according to that other word: "The Church, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, was multiplied." (Acts 9: 31).