Job was called righteous and blameless by God Himself. Yet as good as Job was, even he trembled before God and cried out woefully that he needed to repent when confronted with the enormity of Who God is and what His great majesty is like!
Isaiah had a similar experience when he saw God. God's splendor shined a bright light exposing his own filth and all he could do was cry out "Woe is me for I am unclean!"
When we stand there before Him, will we be any less afraid and shaken? I think this is when the verses about fearing God come into play. Fearing God is the beginning of wisdom because when you recognize that there is a reason to fear, you wise up and start to think clearly. Satan loves it when you don't fear God - or when you don't think about Him at all for that matter. One of his smartest tactics is to convice people who love their sin that they should continue in it because "God is too loving and merciful to really punish them."
What these people are forgetting is that love cannot be love if it is not also just. God is just. A just God will demand justice. A just God will demand that the price for sin be paid. Going back to that moment when you stand before Him in terror and trembling, will you be looking around desperately for Jesus to help you at that instant... crying out to Jesus to shield you from the flaming majesty of God the Father which has you exposed to the core? (Heb 4:13)
I can tell you one thing, I will be! And I will be so thankful when He steps forward on my behalf. I will be falling at Jesus' feet and reminding Him that I believed in the sacrifice He made for me! I will cling to Him in utter dependance on the faith I have been putting into Him during the years I spent on this earth.
I will thank Him that He atoned for my sins so that as I stand before God, I will be able to be presented holy and spotless and pure... because I would be cast out of His presence otherwise! The Bible says in that moment, all things will be open and exposed, even the things done in darkness which we thought no one knew about. Naked and exposed. That's how we'll feel and I'm sure it will be nothing short of sheer terror.
Matt 7:21 says there are going to be people in this very situation who will have a terrible surprise in that moment of confrontation with the God of all Creation! It says there are going to be people who are shocked and saying, "But Lord! Lord! We did great works in your name on the earth! We were your followers!" And what does God tell them??
(Here's one of those things Satan would rather you not think about!)
He says to them, "Depart from me, I never knew you." How on earth can people spend their lives calling Him "Lord, Lord" and doing work in His name and yet He never really knew them? How can we know we're not going to be shocked in that moment, finding out He doesn't know US? I believe the book of First John was given to us (among other passages) as a test to see whether He will say that He knows us or not.
A sample of that test: "God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin."
Look at the people filling up churches today who are saying they have fellowship with Him and yet walking in darkness! God says these people are lying. They might be content right NOW to be pulling the wool over the eyes of other people, but in that moment - face to face with God - they are going to be confronted with just how dangerous it was to trample the Son of God underfoot, count the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insult the Spirit of grace. (Heb 10:29)
I believe the biggest heresy ever brought upon the Christian church is that it's reasonable or acceptable for a saved person to be carnal. Romans 8 says the carnal mind is enmity with God. Enmity means: Hatred; ill will; hostile or unfriendly disposition. If you are a "carnal Christian" you are putting yourself in a position of "hatred, ill will, hostility, or unfriendly disposition" with the Creator God who has promised to punish all sin. He cannot lie and therefore He will punish all sin as He has promised He will.
If you are calling Jesus your "savior" because you were led in a prayer one time, but He is not your LORD this very day, then chances are He really doesn't know you. (If you're going to be CALLING Him "Lord, Lord" on that day, better make sure He really IS your Lord right now!)
If He is LORD over you, it means that you have surrendered all of those selfish things that He hates and you have chosen instead to do things His way! If He is truly your Lord you will love what He loves and hate what He hates. "Sin to a true believer is horrible because it crucified the Savior. He sees in every iniquity the nails and the spear." - Charles Spurgeon
If you are His child, He will not let you continue in sin for very long without straightening you out, just like any good Father does. "If you are without chastening, then you are illegitimate and not sons." A sign of a true Christian is that they are sensitive to the sin in their lives. (Would you expect the Spirit of God to live inside a person and NOT cause that person to be sensitive to the very thing He hates the most?)
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GOD HAS ONE DESTINED END FOR MANKIND - HOLINESS. His one aim is the production of saints. God is not an eternal-blessing-machine for men. He did not come to save men out of pity for them. He came to save men because He had created them to be holy. - Oswald Chambers
"There is something worse than holding our silence while the lost world runs headlong into hell. It is the crime of preaching to them a watered down, culturally carved, truncated Gospel that allows them to hold to a form of godliness, while denying its power, to profess to know God, while denying Him with their deeds, and to call Jesus 'Lord, Lord', while not doing the Father's will. Woe to us if we preach not the Gospel, but even greater woe if we do so incorrectly!"... Paul Washer
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I am told that Christians do not love each other. I am very sorry if that be true, but I rather doubt it, for I suspect that those who do not love each other are not Christians.
Charles Spurgeon
Charles Spurgeon
Excuses
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shown it to them.
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and divine nature, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man - and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.
For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorailty, wickedness, greed, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness, they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, invetors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful;
Who knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.
Romans 1:20-32