2 Sam 6:9 David was afraid of the LORD that day and said, "How can the ark of the LORD ever come to me?"

 

   

The “fear of the Lord” seems a fairly rare thing in the modern church, and yet it is mentioned a number of times in Scripture. Mostly we rationalise it as “awesome respect” for God but Scripture indicates a number of times that when God makes a point about His holiness, the fear of the Lord suddenly becomes very real. We live in a day when foolish atheists pontificate about the absurdity of belief in God but one day they will face Him and know the fear of the Lord.

 

David had been casual about bringing the ark of the Lord to Jerusalem and when the oxen pulling the cart stumbled and the ark looked like it might fall off, one of the ‘helpers' put out his hand to push it back on – and dropped dead. Suddenly the fear of the Lord was very real. Suddenly David realised that you did not be casual with God. There other such instances in both Old and New Testaments of those who died because they thought they could trifle with God. Indeed 1 Cor 11 suggests that there were members of the New Testament church who were ailing and even dying because they were over casual about Communion.

 

Such talk is not comfortable in the twenty first century but the truth is that God is unchanging and He is still holy and if we mess with Him we will be held accountable. The Lord may give time before He acts or He may act speedily but not in an obvious way, and thus we may not realise what is happening, but we should pay attention to this warning!