[b]The Fear of the Lord is Gone from Pulpits and Pew[i]by L.E. Maxwell
“My friends in the ministry will recollect that the old theologians of the Reformation had a wholesome sense of the fear of the God. Their appreciation of fear was linked with the fact that, unlike many today, they did not belittle the Mosaic revelation. Recall that it was when Sinai’s law was thundered from the Mount, causing the Israelites to quake and cringe in mortal terror, that Moses explained the meaning of that ministry: “God is come to prove you, and that His fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not” (Exodus 20:20). On the other hand, through no-law preaching extreme dispensationalists have not only contributed to lawlessness but as a consequence have also swung from a true understanding of the important place that fear should exercise in their ministry. Since in their theology Moses is largely tabooed, how can they conveniently drive home the terrors of a broken law? If the avenger of blood be not on the sinner’s trail, why should he flee for safety to the city of refuge? With the neglecting of the law’s curse there has developed not unnaturally a corresponding criminal failure to preach the wrath and judgment of the New Testament. The result is that people in the pew are led to feel that the consequences of disobedience are no longer to be dreaded as they once were. If “by the law is the knowledge of sin,” it is not at all strange that there develops before us a growing insensibility to sin. It can scarcely be denied that the theology of extreme dispensationalism leads us still farther away from the fear and dread of God…
Let us turn to the sequel of this heavenly warning to the tribulation saints who fear God. How satisfying to finish reading the account of these tribulation saints who heeded this everlasting gospel and are enrolled forever as “them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name”! These victors on the sea of glass sing “the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb,” with that mighty burst of assurance for a finale: “Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before Thee: for Thy judgments are made manifest.”