The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom

The Bible says in Hebrews 12:21 that "(...Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:)" In the book of Exodus 19:10-24, we have the account of which Hebrews 12 is speaking. God had told Moses that no one else, not man or beast,  but only he and Aaron were to come up into the mountain on pain of immediate death. I don't think that the children of Israel took God for granted that day.  I shall never forget the day that the Lord Jesus spoke to me and I turned to him. I remember standing to my feet and literally turning and facing the direction that I sensed Him standing.  Let me say that I was awestruck. My knees literally trembled. It was real and that experience has been my mainstay through all the trouble I have seen since. 

The Bible says in Psalm 111:10 and Proverbs 9:10 that "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom..." Oh I know that we serve a good and gentle Jesus.  I have never known Him to be cross with me (although I have given Him cause at times). I have heard the expression over the years that God is a gentleman. All of this may be true but to come into the awesome presence of the Lord is enough to make one fear and quake. 

In Hebrews 12:22-29 the writer goes on to say that we "are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel..." We are admonished to "...See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven..."

Oh friend, do not take the grace of God lightly, thinking that God will understand, that God will overlook our sinful ways.  The Bible says God's, "voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.." Let us then indeed serve the Lord in the same way we sing the chorus, "Our God is an awesome God, He reigns from heaven above," for as Hebrews 12:29 says. "...our God is a consuming fire."