Fear Not – Except
Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at His word:
“Your brothers who hate you, who exclude you for My name’s sake, . . . Isaiah 66:5 NASB
Tremble – Not very often, but when it happens—watch out! That’s my advice about hareid, the Hebrew word translated “tremble.” It’s only used five times, but what it expresses is critical to our relationship with YHVH. Tim Hegg puts it like this:
“This word is different than the word often used in combination with God’s name (yara’, to ‘fear God’, etc.). This word conveys a genuine fear or fright, . . . The application is obvious. God desires that we prepare a Mishkan of His dwelling in our very beings, a Mishkan (soul) that is humble and contrite—a soul that has a genuine fear or fright to transgress or disregard His word.”[1]
No wonder I’m so scared. Yes, I know the Bible says, “Do not fear,” over three hundred times. But that is yara’, being afraid of physical danger, being in reverence or awe, being concerned about those things that God will take care of. This is hareid. I should be scared for I have transgressed; I have disregarded His instructions; I have dishonored His name. I’m no different than Pharaoh. “Who is this God that I should be mindful of Him?” That has characterized my behavior even when I knew perfectly well who this God is. Sometimes I lay awake at night afraid to go to sleep for fear that I will hear, “You fool. This night your soul will be required of you.”
Maybe you have never felt like this, but I know at least one other man who did. His name was Peter. One night he made three declarations that caused him enormous grief. In fact, those rash statements of self-defense nearly destroyed him. After his words echoed across the courtyard, the sense of shame was so great that he was described by the word pirkos (“bitterly”). He wept in agony over his denial. Oh, I know Peter. He is me. And just like Peter, I think that all I can do now is return to my former life, giving up all hope that I would ever be acceptable to the one I have denied. Just plodding on until at last I die, relieved of the constant reminder of my shame. Yes, I know that Yeshua came back and restored Peter, but I am not so sure He can do that for me. After all, Peter had only one catastrophic collapse. I have known many. Perhaps it is really too late and all that is left is waiting for death to stop the pain. Ah, but maybe even that won’t stop the pain. Then I am afraid to sleep.
There is but one ray of light in this world of darkness. Paul’s remark, “So that no one would be disturbed by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that we have been destined for this” (1 Thessalonians 3:3) reminds me of David’s insight, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all” (Psalm 34:19). Ah, so if I even attempt to be righteous, I should expect affliction. Maybe that’s where I am, attempting to be righteous and experiencing loads of affliction. No pain, no gain.
In the end, I am not the one who can deliver. God must work that miracle in me. David asked for a clean heart. Not a reformed one but a new one. Something acceptable to the holy God. And only God can deliver such a thing. John’s promise is my hope. “If I confess, then He promises . . .” You know the rest. We all do. The problem is not confession but repentance, that struggle to turn away completely from whatever causes my ritual impurity. That is the affliction of the righteous—the denial of self-serving behaviors so firmly established from past repetition.
Today we clean house. All the hametz must go. Any tiny bit that remains will bring more affliction and I am very, very tired of the pain.
Topical Index: Isaiah 66:5, hareid, tremble, fear, yara’, 1 Thessalonians 3:3, Psalm 34:19, pirkos, bitterly
[1] Tim Hegg, Studies in Torah: Exodus, p. 157.
I’m so thankful for how this blog has given me additional insight into Jeremiah 9:23-24. Thank you, Skip.
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” I used to wonder how angels would know fear. That was before I understood the great controversy that started in heaven long before it started here. Yes, angels went through it first. The fight: the incomprehension, the dark long struggle, the ultimate choice. They did it, too! I think we forget that sometimes, and think no one understands, but Heaven did it first.
I have the privilege of working with dying people. I watched my mama die, too. There is something I have learned about death: it is hard work. There is nothing easy about living. Even death. It is all hard, and takes everything you have.
I had a good mama, who taught me well what obedience was, and the joys of obedience, and the rewards. She also taught me about God, Who must be obeyed, with those same joys and rewards. I learned to fear Him as I feared to disobey her. At 7 years old, I struggled through the choice to accept Him as my Lord. I knew that bliss for exactly 3 days. Then the freight train slammed into my family and I was plunged into the darkest hell. My prayers hit the ceiling; I didn’t even know HOW to pray! No matter how hard I tried to be good, read my Bible, go to church, endure it all, have faith; everything I was taught, none of it worked. I was a sick, exhausted, very frightened little girl who got up every day sheerly because someone had to get my mama up one more day and remind her who she was. Someone had to tend my father-in-a-shell, and my siblings, too. Then I had to go to school and fight for my family. I was sick, too, and didn’t even know it, as I knew better than to go check, because there was no one to take care of me. For 38 years, no matter what I did, there was not one breath from the Throne, not one. I eventually got so exhausted from trying, I just quit. Not that my faith had changed, I just thought it worked for others, but not for me, and that it must be my fault in a way that I was not going to get told, no matter how I begged.
Dying to self. I listen to people excitedly tell me about when they accepted Jesus into their hearts, and how wonderful it has been ever since for them. I have no idea what they are talking about.
For me, dying has been nothing but hard work, and most of it was SOOOO lonely and dark, with no ray of light. I am out of words. What can be said to a person who has not counted the cost? What needs to be said to those who already know what I am talking about? There is nothing fun about funerals.
Abraham. Thirteen years without a word from God. And no Scriptures to read to rely on. Job. Dark sayings in the midst of terrible crisis. The prophets. To a man, called to act in ways that were unexplainable and unaccepted. Moses. Forty years doing nothing but trying to forget and be forgotten.
Your in good company. And I am right there walking with you.
Wow, now that you point it out, I see it! I sure didn’t hear that sermon in church! Thank you. For the record, this is the first part of the Body that I have told this to. The thought came to me that perhaps here, somebody might even be able to hear it. Its not exactly a church pew testimony! Thank you, Skip, for that, too.
Love, your sister in Yeshua.
Laurita, Skip and all who are sharing just now, I am useless with words but I HEAR you. At 57 years of age, I am still that child. Gasping for the air of just a glimmer of love to go on existing. Knowing that I was never meant to be, yet trying to believe the Lord has a purpose. Failing at every turn and heartbroken in breaking His heart… Thank you all for being there. Helen
Thanks Skip,
Once again you have put into print some deep yearnings/meditations of my heart. Quite often I have wondered if I will be one of those tragic souls to whom Jeshua says, “Away from me I never knew you!” That’s my “hareid”. So I memorized through repeated use John 1:9/Phillipians 1:6 and I do my best.
In some ways I think it is a good place to be. Because of my life BC and my cognizance of my feet of clay I am more like the tax collector praying in the synagogue, for mercy.
Apparently Yeshua liked tax collectors. In fact, he seems to have preferred them to the religious types.
Laurita, I find myself wanting to hug and comfort that little girl you wrote about today! Here’s the rest:
What were we in a younger day?
What did we wear when we went to play?
Who saw the tears that silently fell
From too little heaven and too much hell?
The dreams were shattered one by one
More hope was crushed with each setting sun.
Were the prayers unanswered and spoken in vain?
Would there never be one to share the pain?
The past shouts of failure, the future speaks fear,
The church is too busy. The Lord, does He hear?
We’ve spent far too long in the enemies camp.
We long for the oil to refill the lamp.
Please teach us to hope, and to dance, and to sing!
Please model through faith the joy He can bring.
There is very much judgement and so little grace.
Would you have done better in such a dark place?
The answer’s been given and while we are here
He’s called us to love to banish the fear.
Will you answer His call and handle with grace,
The many walking wounded that enter this place?
I see now that love is I John 5:2 combined with I Cor: 13. This is where Skip is comforting today. I can’t do that on my own. That kind of love is from above. We have a God who commands us to be holy, and yet knows we cannot. He provides what we need to choose the right way. We are more more “comfortable” with the wrong way. That leaves a trying Way.
Thank you, Theresa, I wondered when you would write the rest of that poem! I love it!
I needed a song when it was so bad. I looked and looked for one for me, to give me courage and fortitude. Nothing else could get in when it was really dark. I married a man who I found did not trust words; words were all i thought I had; then I broke the silence code to ask “how can I get through?” I didn’t expect an answer, but I got back, clear as a bell, the thought that it was music. I was angry again, andsaid “That’s not a language! I don’t know that language!” I needed a song for ME first! But I went looking for a song for him, as I had gone hunting for a song for my mama years before. I finally got his song, and her song, and then I went asking for a song for one of my clients who could not hear the Word at all, but needed to. I got that song. I finally found the song I needed so long ago, too. Leonard Cohen (those Kohathites still can make music!) sang it. He sang it for my dad, mama, big brother, little brother, and little sister. In order, too. I wonder sometimes if it was written for me way back when, when I needed it.
HEART WITH NO COMPANION
“Now I greet you, from the other side, of darkness, and despair
With a love so vast and so shattered, it will find you, everywhere.
And I sing this for the captain, whose ship has not been built
For the mother in confusion, the cradle still unfilled
For the heart with no companion
For the soul without a king
For the prima ballerina who cannot dance to anything.
Through the days of shame that are coming
Through the nights of wild distress
Though your promise count for nothing
You must keep it, nonetheless.
You must keep it for the captain, whose ship has not been built
For the mother in confusion, the cradle still unfilled.
For the heart with no companion
For the soul without a king
For the prima ballerina who cannot dance to anything.”
To hold the faith for those we love IS to hold it for ourselves, too. That is what I found in my dark night of the soul. Looking back, I don’t think it was so much that HE ‘needed’ to see if I could do that, but I do know now that I did. I learned to care about others the hard way, but is there an easy way to learn that one?
P.S. For the record, Theresa, and thank you very much, you would not have been able to even catch that little girl, much less hug her. I was either up a tree or under a couch….lol No one touched me. I was a tough cookie. I think you might have possibly broken a tooth on me if you had tried me! I think the only way anyone would have been able to touch me is if I had seen them fix the ones I loved, first. I didn’t exist, then.
Laurita. Now you’ve gone and quoted Leonard Cohen. *sigh* I don’t know what it is about his poetry but I so often feel that he gives my heart and my pain words. My husband doesn’t get it. Not a poetry guy. 😉
I fear God. I know I have blasphemed. I know I have mocked Him. I have challenged Him, bossed Him around, and slandered his character to others when they were in a fragile, vulnerable place in their belief. They are now atheists. The dread, the sweat, the panic that sweeps over me when I think of it, the guilt that sits heavy in my gut all the time…
I tell myself He is forgiving and He can fix what I have broken. But I have since come to love and crave Him so deeply that I can’t bear to imagine having to look Him square in the eye knowing what I have done.
But I have other evidence that He is with me, and it gives me some hope that He forgave me, knowing I behaved the way I did out of a profound hurt. There is no time in my life thus far that He has not met me, matched my efforts and then some, mightily, when I truly did teshuvah, deny myself and turn away from sin.
The fact is, there’s nowhere else to go. There’s literally nowhere He isn’t. I would rather live out my days in the shadow of his throne and face an eventual death sentence than to even try to run from Him. It’s futile. I know. I did it for years.
David carried out a complex pre-meditated plan of adultery and then murder to cover it up. Moses murdered and fled into the wilderness. Paul brutally murdered followers of Yeshua.
Where would any of them be without God’s forgiveness? But look at the lives they led after their sin and repentance. Are we afraid of death, or are we afraid of the life of servitude to the King that we exchange for our forgiveness? We are not our own. We were bought with a price. Our guilt is removed but we don’t walk away. We live for Him now. What might he ask of us??
But if he calls us, he equips us. The staff that Moses used to walk the mountains with goats for forty years became the staff through which God brought forth snakes and frogs and blood and plagues and death to Egypt, the staff by which the waters parted, and poured forth from a rock to quench the thirst of a grumbling, groaning people who would become a mighty nation carrying God’s name and covenant.
I have to live each day believing that I’m forgiven. That’s not cheap grace. That’s me taking Yeshua’s yoke. I can’t bear any other yoke. And if, at the end, I have to explain the things I’ve done… I will look back and know there was still no better way to live. I don’t mind too much being least in the Kingdom of Heaven, if I can just be there at all.
“Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face.” (Job 13:15 ESV)
He has now put a new song in my heart. Thank you! This brings me full circle. I so wanted to help “fix” other people’s pain. I always had the children in mind. I actually got a degree in Community Service so I could make a difference in a community that had a 90% poverty rate. I used to drive through the city and weep. If I could help the adults, that WOULD help the children. The deeper I got, the more I realized the gravity of the problem. The only thing I could really do was learn to properly govern myself. That’s the very thing I haven’t been able to master. I have to at least “try” to keep my promise to be part of a holy Kingdom. Now I don’t even really know who the “citizens” are anymore. I’m not sure “how” to be holy. These discussions lately have been bittersweet. I, also, can’t relate to those who have a popcorn and cotton candy journey to the city of the Great King. I guess I was hoping for some better scenery on this next leg of the journey. The reports so far from most of the the scouts haven’t been too favorable. Might there be a few figs, pomegranates or an olive tree for those who are choosing Torah and Messiah? I hope that those who are in a desert time might experience a time of refreshing.
God’s home is in the wilderness precisely because Man cannot live there without Him. You might want to head away from the city.
Hilarious, Theresa, even though I bet you weren’t trying to be. I am sorry, I have to laugh. So you would rather have a few figs, pomegranates or perhaps at least some olive oil for the wounds, instead of that popcorn and cotton candy? Teehee.
I have found the edge is where all the really good stuff goes down. All the trash gets dumped outside that City, for starters. Its easier there! And cheaper, when you have nothing left to lose! (Pun intended.) You can see pretense, and, I am sorry, but there is also apparently where all those bulls go to dump theirs, too, I have found. (Trash, that is.) I have heard a lot of that stuff! It is getting harder to pull one over on me, I think, please God. I can smell ’em coming now! Also, the edges of impossible are where all the miracles are- for those who keep wishing for one, that’s a tip! I have seen my share, y’all. And, free fall is a really good place to figure out what faith is. You know the tale about the guy who fell out of the window of a skyscraper? At the thirty-eighth floor a woman, concerned for him, leaned out her window and asked him how he was doing. “All right so far!” he replied. I have learned not to borrow trouble, and if I fall all the way down, but end up even one inch above disaster, that still counts as a win. (I have also learned to bounce! LOL!) I have also learned that you can figure out how to use disaster to still get where you need to go. There is literally opportunity everywhere! Faith, in fact, is learned best without a rope, and training under live ammo is another good way to figure out what works and what only appears to work. Where else is there to try out the Gear? And, finally, I have had to sit with my fears a long time. We became good buddies in that cell. I finally stopped and took a long hard look at them. What I saw would fill a book, but it would be disastrously boring reading. I think the day I woke up bored with the same old fears is the day I stopped being fascinated by the snake. I decided it was time to trade in the entertainment.
Relationship Restored
~ Peter had only one catastrophic collapse. I have known many ~
~ Peter came to Jesus and asked, “LORD, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” (Matthew 18.21)
lol! Oh, Peter..! How magnanimous! Forgiving not once, not twice- not three times.. but a “very generous” seven! But was was the answer our “prodigal” (yes, prodigal!) LORD gave him?
“I tell you, not just seven times, but seventy times seven!!”
~But with You there is [plenteous] forgiveness, that You may be feared!! ~
(Psalm 130.4)
Forgiveness is HUGE!! ~ The weapons of our warfare are NOT carnal, but I’d say of all that is at our disposal, the power or authority to forgive ranks up there among the top!
Is this the problem we are having? God has forgiven us, but we have yet to forgive ourselves? We will never be free from the chains of our own making until we know that we know.. “He has forgiven me!!”
“Love covers a multitude of sins, – and God is love!!
Thank you LORD, for the covering of animal skins You provided for Adam and Eve! [Was it a Lamb that was slain?]
Never hold a grudge, – they are not worth holding on to! Forgive that person, You can do it!- God can and will help!
We need to hear God’s words one more time!
~ If we confess our sins, He is Faithful and Just [that is His Name!] to forgive us our sin AND to cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness! ~
BTW, ~ If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar [He says “ALL have sinned!..”] and His word is not in us!
Is there any reason (at all) David’s “confession” cannot be ours as well?
None that I know of..
~ I acknowledged my sin to You, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and You forgave the iniquity of my sin ~ Selah (Psalm 32.5)
Herein lies “the rub?” Does this seem “too easy?” Too simple?
It worked for David. – Why wouldn’t it work for us? It worked for the errant son, “Father, forgive me..” – why would it not work for us? Need forgiveness? (what do the scriptures say?) ~ Ask,- and you will receive!!
And forgiveness (from God and towards our neighbor) is the first step to freedom! So forgive! – and then love!
No “holding back,” now! None of this, “Well, I’ll forgive but I won’t forget” stuff!
What do the scriptures say? ~ For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more! ~ (Hebrews 8.12)
Excuse me.. but WOOHOO! ~ No misfortune is seen in Jacob, no misery observed in Israel. The LORD their God is with them; the shout of the King is among them! ~ (Numbers 23.21)
“The blessing of the LORD is no form of misery!” and friend,
~ Blessed [how blessed!] are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered ~ (Psalm 32.1)
~ Shout for joy, all you whose hearts are [now] pure! (Psalm 32.11)
Skip, I pray for you and Roseanne daily, but I have to admit, you’ve had a few posts lately that concern me. You give so much to us, how can we help you? Shabbat shalom~
Thank you for asking. Keep praying. God is taking me through things that need to be addressed. He is faithful. I am crushed. But it is His doing, I am sure.