This is season four of John Flavel’s book, Keeping the Heart. The prior seasons were prosperity, adversity, and Zion’s troubles. Season four is on times of danger and public distraction (this season refers to any fear that takes our hearts off of God). Here is the biblical meaning of keeping the heart: Our whole will and understanding is to be loyally conformed and directed to God according to His commandments and Word, which is to manifest itself in every decision we make. That is how we come to love God with our whole heart, and what our chief duty as Christians is to Him. God honours our diligence and enables us to do this duty by His Spirit. The first six devotionals are an introduction to this supreme duty, and the seasons go over how we can apply this duty in the many situations in life. Here is Flavel on season four:
The fourth season, requiring our utmost diligence to keep our hearts, is the time of danger and public distraction. In such times the best hearts are too apt to be surprised by slavish fear. If Syria be confederate with Ephraim, how do the hearts of the house of David shake, even as the trees of the wood which are shaken with the wind. When there are ominous signs in the heavens, or the distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; then the hearts of men fail for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth. Even a Paul may sometimes complain of “fightings within, when there are fears without.”
But. my brethren, these things ought not so to be; saints should be of a more elevated spirit; so was David when his heart was kept in a good frame: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?” Let none but the servants of sin be the slaves of fear; let them that have delighted in evil fear evil. Let not that which God has threatened as a judgment upon the wicked, ever seize upon the hearts of the righteous. “I will send faintness into their hearts in the land of their enemies, and the sound of a shaking leaf shall chase them.” What poor spirited men are those, to fly at a shaking leaf! A leaf makes a pleasant, not a terrible noise; it makes indeed a kind of natural music: but to a guilty conscience even the whistling leaves are drums and trumpets! “But God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of love and of a sound mind.” A sound mind, as it stands there in opposition to fear, is an unwounded conscience not weakened by guilt: and this should make a man as bold as a lion. I know it cannot be said of a saint, as God said of leviathan, that he is made without fear; there is a natural fear in every man, and it is as impossible to remove it wholly, as to remove the body itself. Fear is perturbation of the mind, arising from the apprehension of approaching danger; and as long as dangers can approach us, we shall find some perturbations within us. It is not my purpose to commend to you a stoical apathy, nor yet to dissuade you from such a degree of cautionary preventive fear as may fit you for trouble and be serviceable to your soul. There is a provident fear that opens our eyes to foresee danger, and quickens us to a prudent and lawful use of means to prevent it: such was Jacob’s fear, and such his prudence when expecting to meet his angry brother Esau. But it is the fear of diffidence, from which I would persuade you to keep your heart; that tyrannical passion which invades the heart in times of danger, distracts, weakens and unfits it for duty, drives men upon unlawful means, and brings a snare with it.
Two kinds of fear become evident in the Bible: the fear of the Lord, and the fear of evil/man. What is the place of both? Psalm 111:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding” (ESV). Deuteronomy, Proverbs, and Isaiah (and numerous references elsewhere) also teach on this godly fear. In Proverbs, the same message in Psalms 111 is taught, and expands it further with the following: “The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate” (Prov. 8:13). This fear is actually very related to loving God with your whole heart. You may notice that keeping your heart entails the whole duty of the Christian, so the fear of the Lord is also included in the love of God. Proverbs, just as one example, juxtaposes the “love” of God and the “fear” of the Lord, showing that the two are inseparable. There is also the connection between pursuing righteousness and having the fear of the Lord. These are especially evident in the preamble of Proverbs, which is 1:1-7, and the message of loving God and neighbor throughout in the language of fearing God. The point? Fearing God is an important way for us to love God with our whole heart. In fact, the Bible speaks of fearing the Lord as a way of being loyal to Him, and it speaks of those who fear evil (in all its forms) as those who are not loyal to God. In other words, to fear something other than God is not only to reject the wisdom of God: it is to worship and serve something other than the Lord. In other words, to fear anything other than God (so as to prevent you from doing your duty to Him) is to show hatred towards Him. That is also why “the fear of the Lord is to hate evil.” Did you know that loving God means that you must hate evil? This is a message of loyalty! Hatred has a good place in the Christian life. Jude captured this truth very well when he said,
But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh (Jude 1:20-23 ESV).
Here we have “keep[ing] yourselves in the love of God” being applied to “building yourselves up in your most holy faith” (righteousness), which also entails that love being applied in that we “fear” God by “hating even the garment stained by the flesh.” Thus it is that fearing the Lord is to love God with our hearts. It is a dimension of keeping the heart that cannot be ignored. Just as God is holy and hates evil, so does loving Him entail fearing only Him and hating evil (which is the beginning of true wisdom). We are commanded to fear God, and not anything else, in many places in the Bible: “For the Lord spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: ‘Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread’” (Isa. 8:11-13; italics added). When we fear the Lord above all else, our fear of evil (and all that opposes God and our service to Him) dissolves. That is recognizing the greatness and majesty of Yahveh, and giving Him worship above all else. Did you know that whatever you fear has rule over you? Fear the Lord and you will be emboldened to keep your hearts in every situation! That is love for God.
Now let us inquire how a Christian may keep his heart from distracting and tormenting fears in times of great and threatening dangers. There are several excellent rules for keeping the heart from sinful fear when imminent dangers threaten us.
1.) Look upon all creatures as in the hand of God, who manages them in all their motions, limiting, restraining and determining them at his pleasure. Get this great truth well settled by faith in your heart, and it will guard you against slavish fears. The first chapter of Ezekiel contains an admirable draught of Providence: there you see the living creatures who move the wheels (that is, the great revolutions of things here below) coming unto Christ, who sits upon the throne, to receive new instructions from him. In Revelations, 6th chapter, you read of white, black, and red horses, which are but the instruments God employs in executing judgments in the world, as wars, pestilence, and death. When these horses are prancing and trampling up and down in the world, here is a consideration that may quiet our hearts; God has the reins in his hand. Wicked men are sometimes like mad horses, they would stamp the people of God under their feet, but that the bridle of Providence is in their mouths. A lion at liberty is terrible to meet, but who is afraid of a lion in the keeper’s hand?
In the great chapter in Proverbs on loving God with your whole heart (Prov. 3:1-12; parallel to the Shema/Greatest-Commandment passage in Deuteronomy 6:1-9), we are commanded not to fear the destruction and judgement that God brings upon the earth against the wicked: “Do not be afraid of sudden terror or of the ruin of the wicked, when it comes, for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught” (vv. 25-26). Even those great judgements in Revelation are not against God’s saints (all believers in Christ are His saints). Knowing that He controls and manages His judgements even to the most minute detail should give us comfort. Yes, God is our confidence and protector, even as He is our fear and our dread! Those who fear God above all are those who can also rest in His love and assurance. The knowledge of God in loyal fear can be the greatest assurance and confidence in even the hardest of times. He is greater than all else. His greatness has no comparison.
2.) Remember that this God in whose hand are all creatures, is your Father, and is much more tender of you than you are, or can be, of yourself. “He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of mine eye.” Let me ask the most timorous woman whether there be not a great difference between the sight of a drawn sword in the hand of a bloody ruffian, and of the same sword in the hand of her own tender husband? As great a difference there is between looking upon creatures by an eye of sense, and looking on them, as in the hand of your God, by an eye of faith. Isaiah, 54:5, is here very appropriate: “Thy Maker is thine husband, the Lord of hosts is his name;” he is Lord of all the hosts of creatures. Who would be afraid to pass through an army, though all the soldiers should turn their swords and guns toward him, if the commander of that army were his friend or father? A religious young man being at sea with many other passengers in a great storm, and they being half dead with fear, he only was observed to be very cheerful, as if he were but little concerned in that danger; one of them demanding the reason of his cheerfulness, “O,” said he, “it is because the pilot of the ship is my Father!” Consider Christ first as the King and supreme Lord over the providential kingdom, and then as your head, husband and friend, and you will quickly say, “Return unto thy rest, O my soul.” This truth will make you cease trembling, and cause you to sing in the midst of danger, “The Lord is King of all the earth, sing ye praise with understanding.” That is, ‘Let every one that has understanding of this heart-reviving and establishing doctrine of the dominion of our Father over all creatures, sing praise.’
Just as we were to reverence and awe our earthly fathers while under their care, so our awe and fear of God, the Father, is all the more wonderful and reassuring. We do not fear a tyrant or one who is a stranger to justice and mercy. Rather, we fear the One who is the author of all goodness, mercy, and steadfast love. He is One who will never mistreat His children and who leads them tenderly to green pastures. We have nothing to fear but God! And this is great news, because He is who He is! Therefore, we can rest in Him and there is no reason to be truly anxious or be in despair. Sing to the Lord, our Great Father, all you who call on His name! Great is He and mighty are His works! May we never again be a slave to fearing evil.
Next time we will be looking at four more reasons why we don’t need to fear evil or God’s judgement upon evil.