Hello everybody and welcome in to episode #216 of the Bible 2021 podcast.  We are reading Psalms 25-26 today and our focus is on The Blessings and Benefits of Fear We are a daily 10 minute podcast, where we will dig in to the truth of the Word of God by reading one Bible chapter a day and discussing it. Welcome to new listeners in . Thanks for listening!  Our goal is to encourage DAILY Bible reading, so you can jump in at any time and join with us. We want to invite as many people as possible to join us in daily Bible reading, so help spread the word and share the podcast! Don’t forget about our web-page, Bible2021.com – contact page, show notes, transcript and more– Click here for our Bible 2021 reading plan\

Revelation 21:3-4 is one of my very favorite Bible passages – one of the single most comforting and hope-filled truths in the entire Bible:

Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away. Revelation 21:3-4

I was walking last week and considering this verse, and I had an interesting thought about that passage. According to this promise, there will be no more grief, crying, pain, or death – what a joy…but will there be FEAR in Heaven? And I think, in a very real sense, that there will be an abundance of fear in Heaven. Not fear of humans, or fear of rejection, or pain, or death, or loneliness, or werewolves or snakes…but fear of God. We know that, at least for now, there is fear in Heaven from passages like Revelation 19:5 “Praise our God, all his servants, and the ones who fear him, both small and great!

So even though we think of fear as a negative emotion – and in many cases it is – it is also a good thing and a proper response to the majesty of God. In today’s Psalm we see a multitude of benefits for the person who fears the Lord:

12 Who is this person who fears the Lord?
He will show him the way he should choose.
13 He will live a good life,
and his descendants will inherit the land.
14 The secret counsel of the Lord
is for those who fear him,
and he reveals his covenant to them.

I count 5 different benefits and blessings of fearing the Lord in those 3 short verses:

  • God will guide the God-fearer to make right choices
  • God will give the God-fearer a good life
  • God will cause the descendents of the God-fearer to inherit land
  • God will reveal His secret counsel to the God-fearer
  • God will reveal the depths of His covenant to the God-fearer

Those are five remarkable blessings, and is a great reminder to us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, as we learn in Proverbs 9:10. Let’s read our Psalms and then discuss the fear of God a little bit more.

So what does it mean that God will reveal His secret counsels and the depths of His covenant to those who fear Him? Here’s Charles Spurgeon to help us see the beauty of this promise:

It is fondly imagined by some that it must have involved very special privileges to have been the mother of our Lord, because they supposed that she had the benefit of looking into his very heart in a way in which we cannot hope to do. There may be an appearance of plausibility in the supposition, but not much. We do not know that Mary knew more than others; what she did know she did well to lay up in her heart; but she does not appear from anything we read in the Evangelists to have been a better-instructed believer than any other of Christ’s disciples. All that she knew we also may discover. Do you wonder that we should say so? Here is a text to prove it: “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant.” Remember the Master’s words—“Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.” So blessedly does this Divine Revealer of secrets tell us his heart, that he keepeth back nothing which is profitable to us; his own assurance is, “If it were not so, I would have told you.” Doth he not this day manifest himself unto us as he doth not unto the world? It is even so; and therefore we will not ignorantly cry out, “Blessed is the womb that bare thee,” but we will intelligently bless God that, having heard the Word and kept it, we have first of all as true a communion with the Saviour as the Virgin had, and in the second place as true an acquaintance with the secrets of his heart as she can be supposed to have obtained. Happy soul to be thus privileged!

C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).

Bible Memory verses for the month of August: Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13:4-6 

The Bible 2021 Podcast Is a ministry of Valley Baptist Church, A North Salinas church in California.

Happy by Mike Leite https://soundcloud.com/mikeleite
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