Whom Do You Fear?

One of the great ironies in the life of Jesus Christ is that His enemies, primarily the religious authorities of His day, showed greater fear of the crowds than they did of the Son of God Himself.

It is recorded that the “chief priests, the scribes, and the elders” had devised a plan to do away with Jesus. But out of fear of a public outcry they wanted to avoid doing so during the feast of Passover (Matt. 26:3-5). Simply put, the religious conspirators seemingly weren’t worried about the consequences of doing in the Son of God; they just didn’t want to rile up the masses of their constituents in the process.

How blatantly misguided! Fourth-century Bishop of Constantinople, John Chrysostom, remarks that such leaders “never were afraid of the judgment of God but only the judgment of people.”

Throughout history, one of the characteristics of the truly great is that they feared God rather than men. Jesus Himself warned earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (10:28).

Such fundament fear of God caused the Jewish midwives in Egypt to defy Pharaoh’s command to destroy baby boys. Such fear of God in the heart of Martin Luther drove him to risk his life rather than compromise the truth. Standing up to the religious leaders bent on destroying him, he responded with the bold words, “Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God.”

There is still a price to be paid for defending God’s truth. You may be branded a bigot, a narrow-minded fool, or worse. You will not be popular with those more concerned with pleasing the masses than maintaining integrity of conscience. But stand you must, or bear the consequences on the Day of Judgment to which Jesus referred.