Be not afraid of their terror
Returning to the subject of sanctification, the scripture says:
‘But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:’ (1 Peter 3:14-15).
Two fears? The ‘terror’ of those who would persecute us – but in us, ‘meekness and fear’.
And, to ‘sanctify the Lord in our hearts’ means (among other things perhaps) to set apart God to rule in our hearts in a place high and lifted up beyond the pressures (on us) of the world, where his reign in us is uncontested, holy, and without compare.
A wonderful story of some who truly ‘sanctified the Lord God in their hearts’ in the face of a terrible threat is found in the book of Daniel, chapter 3. The source of the terror in this case was Nebuchadnezzar.
In short – and this falls so short of doing justice to this story (therefore I exhort the reader to read the story) – Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego refused to worship a great idol set up by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, and were told that if they did not relent then they would be cast into a fiery furnace. (These men were highly valued counsellors of the king, otherwise I expect they would have been sent direct to the furnace without review or even a royal memo.)
Their answer: ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.’ (Daniel 3:17-18)
‘We are not careful to answer thee’? Worship an idol or be burned alive? Furnace every time, no question. To Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego this was a ‘no-brainer’.
Nebuchadnezzar, one should understand, was a destroyer of nations. Persons in his presence lived or died at his whim, is my impression from the scriptures which describe him. He had absolute power, so far as it can be known by men in the worldly sense. So he was not accustomed to his most venomous threats being given scant regard.
‘Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego: therefore he spake, and commanded that they should heat the furnace one seven times more than it was wont to be heated.’
It seems to me that Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego were the living embodiment of the scripture from 1 Peter, ‘But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts’. So I think it is worth thinking carefully on their example. I will return to it.
I have been noticing of late that fear seems to be a recurring theme in modern Christian music. (Forgive me if ‘modern’ does not seem the right description; the Christian songs I favour were once described by a younger believer as ‘Michael’s dinosaur praise’… but these ones are not too old.)
‘I’m no longer a slave to fear; I am a child of God.’ Amen to that.
‘My fear doesn’t stand a chance when I stand in your love.’ Amen.
I also sense a less obvious desire to overcome fear in other lyrics. ‘You won’t fail.’ ‘You won’t let me down.’ ‘You’ll never let me go.’
Perhaps it is just some issue of mine – but with many of these good confessions, I sense a struggle with those very things – the fear that God might let us go, let us down, abandon us.
Well I suppose we all have struggles, and if those are the struggles we have – what better way to overcome them than to proclaim the truth about God? That he won’t let us down.
I can imagine Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego bringing to remembrance and perhaps singing a few songs like that from the cells on the eve of their trial by fire.
But what do we mean – you won’t let me down?
Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego had an interesting take on this.
Can God save us? 100%.
Will God save us? Up to him.
Their response – if we need saving, God will do it. Not a shred of doubt. But either way we have been given a clear choice (hence Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego were ‘not careful to answer’). So we know what we have to do, and God will do as he will. All praise to him!
Is that what we mean when we sing, I know you won’t let me down?
Or do we think that by reciting many times the thing we want God to do for us – a good thing, no doubt – that he will be bound to do it? Or more likely to do it, one way or another.
Is that what it means to ‘sanctify the Lord God in our hearts’? Or is it to fall in worship before the sovereign throne of God, like Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, doubtless of his power, submitted to his will?
I think the true release from fear that God gives us is not an assurance that we will never experience the things we have feared – but that his promise means we have nothing to fear, whatever we go through. It is by that knowledge that we are able to ‘sanctify the Lord God’ in the face of fear. And if that is a fear of people – to ‘be not afraid of their terror’.
And the ‘terror’ that people bring may not be the Nebuchadnezzar sort. Praise God that for most of us in the privileged ‘west’, it is not. But the fear of what people think – the poisonous gossip and rejection – the social media attacks suffered by our young people and others – these are real threats as well. For some, tragically, they have proved fatal.
‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.’ (Psalm 23:4)
Was David talking only about the ‘shadow’ of some deadly threat? Or, as many have taken this scripture to mean (and have been comforted) was David also speaking of death itself? Because if death holds no fear for us – why should we fear only the threat of death?
When Pilate said to Jesus, ‘do you not know that I have power to crucify you, and power to release you?’, Jesus replied, ‘You could have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above’.
Though Jesus ‘sweated as it were great drops of blood’ in the garden of Gethsemane as he wrestled with the terrible trial awaiting him, nonetheless, he knew it was not a trial given him by man. And knowing that, man held no fear for him at all. Nor did the threat of death dissuade him from his course. ‘Nonetheless, not my will but thine be done.’ The Father remained sanctified in Jesus’ heart. And Pilate saw it, and he ‘marvelled greatly’. Pilate knew that whoever reigned in Jesus’ heart, it wasn’t him.
‘I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved’ (Acts 2:25 – from Psalm 16:8). Written by David, but speaking also prophetically of Jesus.
That is how we can ‘sanctify the Lord God in our hearts’ in the face of fear. We must see him.
We must be as though Jesus himself was standing there right with us – because in truth, he is. Nebuchadnezzar looks a little different then, and his words take a different tone. Worship an idol? Are you crazy? Don’t you know who’s standing right here with us?
It is no longer fear of others that takes our attention then. Rather, we are more concerned with our own appearance before God. Not to paint our Lord in the same fearful light as Nebuchadnezzar – but I’m sure when we stand before him visibly, it will be with the ‘meekness and fear’ – the fear of the Lord – that is also named in 1 Peter 3:14-15. Certainly it won’t be others’ opinions or threats that concern us. Jesus will be all that matters.
And Moses, the hero and the victim of last Sunday’s News, also saw God in this way. He ‘endured, as seeing him who is invisible’ (Hebrews 11:27). When ‘all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron’ (just some 600,000 odd) and looked to appoint new leaders to take them back to Egypt – and were getting organised to stone Moses and Aaron to death – Moses and Aaron ‘fell on their faces’. They weren’t afraid of the people. They were afraid what God would do, with the people acting in such unbelief. And they weren’t wrong.
‘And the Lord said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them? I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they.’ (Numbers 14:12) Which offer Moses rejected, and pleaded with God to stay the course, and save his people despite their churlishness and rebellion.
So, with the argument between Moses and the people about to turn deadly, Moses’ attention was fixed on someone else entirely, someone whom the people didn’t even know was present. The presence of the Lord filled Moses’ experience and his view of things. He was shocked – not by what the people were planning to do to him and Aaron, but that they would speak this way before God.
So if you are unsure whether the Lord God is ‘sanctified in your heart’, when fear grips you, when people rage against you, when they reject you, or when you face the ‘valley of the shadow’ – ask yourself this question: how would I view things if Jesus was standing right here in the flesh? Because he is standing here with us – though we may not see him.
Then let those around us marvel, as Pilate did before Jesus, seeing that in us the fears of this world hold no sway.
Let the peace we have in the face of all the overwork, opposition, anger and accusation the world can throw at us – every deadly fear we may face – speak of a sanctuary within, and one who is sanctified there. Amen.
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