When someone says the word fear, my first thoughts run to the things I am afraid of. There are two categories of fear in my life. First is the fear I have of God. This fear is grounded in the facts about God: His power, majesty, and judgment. When I came to Him for salvation, I came because I feared His judgment. Now, as His child, my fear is more of an awesome respect or reverence for Him. It is very much like the fear I had of my father. I had a great dad, but part of his greatness was his discipline. He was very loving but was also a disciplinarian. Never at any point in my life did I doubt my father’s love, but I held a healthy fear/reverence for him. The same is true for God.
Secondly, I am extremely fearful of snakes! My skin crawls when I see one, but this is a different kind of fear. I don’t know a lot about snakes, nor do I want to. Some are deadly if they bite, and they cannot be trusted at any level.
Sometimes the result of fear can be good, such as my salvation, or finding an escape route from a snake, and sometimes it can be bad. In Genesis chapter 3, we find the first account of mankind fearing God. While it is right to fear God, Adam’s fear caused him to react in the wrong way.
Genesis 3:8-13 “And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.”
Adam and Eve had a kind of fellowship with God that no one else on this earth has experienced. They walked with Him every day in the cool of the day. I can not imagine what that would be like. Yet, after this awesome time with their creator, Adam and Eve sinned. This sin brought fear into Adam and Eve’s life for the first time.
Fear caused Adam and Eve to run from God. We have no way of knowing how long they had been in the garden before they sinned, but we do know it was before they had their first child. Part of the punishment on Eve was the curse of painful births. The sweet fellowship they shared with God each day was broken. Now, when God came to walk with them, they ran and hid.
Fear caused Adam to take matters into his own hands. The one who created him and provided perfection for them was not sought after when they sinned. They could have gone to God and sought forgiveness and renewed their fellowship with their creator, but instead, Adam begins to make a plan. What do you do when you mess up? Do you seek God for help, or do you keep trying to figure things out on your own? Finally, when all your efforts fail, you then run to God?
Fear caused Adam to try to cover their sin. Adam and Eve knew once they had disobeyed that they were naked. They made clothes for themselves to cover their naked bodies. Again, instead of repenting and seeking God for the answers to deal with their guilt, they tried to cover their sin. Have you ever caught a child doing something that they were not supposed to do? The first thing they do is lie, or make excuses for their wrong. Guess what, their ancestors did the same thing. In verses 12 and 13, you will see that one sin led to another. God asked them a question and the blame-shifting and lying began.
In this passage, we see the origin of sin and we also see the beginning of fear. Never before was there a need for fear. How can we keep from reacting the way Adam and Eve did? Before we can answer that we must understand what fear is. It is the absence of faith, or the opposite of faith. The less faith we have the more fears we will have. If our confidence is in God, we have no need to fear. The more we know about God the closer we grow to Him, and the result will be more confidence in Him. The key to increasing your faith is to study and pray. Through reading His word we see how He has acted in the past, and we see what His design is for the future. We understand that He always keeps His promises and He cannot lie. This process of knowing God and trusting Him is an ongoing process. If we don’t stay in communion with Him, our confidence will change just like it does with people.
Sin caused fear, and it still causes fear. We can have a positive response and turn to God, or we can be like Adam. Sometimes we don’t even recognize why we have the reactions that we do, but there is one thing for sure, God does! He knows every detail about us, and He wants to meet our needs. He wants our faith to be strong. He reaches out to us all day long seeking to fill us with Himself, to calm our fears, to have us abide in Him. The proper fear of God will diminish all other fears.
Luke 12:5 “But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.”
