It honors the Lord for congregations to hear this profound sermon by Jonathan Edwards. I read this for our congregation a while back and the audio file is available to you here. If you would like to read the full text of this message, it is available at the Christian Classics library. Click here to listen to a reading of this message.
I hope that this message will mean as much to you as it has meant to me. When I think of messages such as this one, I think about the “20/20 vision” articulated by Moses in Exodus 20:20. When the people of Israel expressed the wish that God would not speak to them because they were afraid they would die (Exodus 20:19), Moses responded, “Fear not, for God is come to prove you that His fear may be before your faces.”
This may seem confusing to some, but Moses was appealing for them to embrace the Fear of God. This is not a fear that alienates, but the fear that attracts. One who has the Fear of God has admiration and respect for God that attracts him to the Lord. Those without the Fear of the Lord will be driven away by their own fears. It honors the Lord for us to dwell “in the Fear of the Lord” with the result that His Fear is “before our faces.”
Sincerely,
Gordon Dickson, Senior Pastor, Calvary Baptist Church, Findlay, Ohio