’Saying with a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water’ ” (Revelation 14:7)
Saying with a loud voice. The message is to be proclaimed with an audible voice, with firmness, with a powerful voice, with confidence, and without fear.
Fear God and give glory to Him. Fearing God is to worship Him, and the most appropriate way to glorify His name is through reverent fear, submission, respect, absolute loyalty, and complete surrender to His will.
This fear of God is envied by Satan, which is why he tries to take worship to other extremes: false worship, full of emotions but empty of reverence for God. Or service to God with fear, full of formalities. When you fall into one of these extremes, the enemy steals your praises. ‘It is Satan’s constant effort to misrepresent the character of God, the nature of sin, and the real issues at stake in the great controversy…. At the same time, he causes them to cherish false conceptions of God so that they regard Him with fear and hate rather than with love. The cruelty inherent in his own character is attributed to the Creator; it is embodied in systems of religion and expressed in modes of worship.”—be Great Controversy, ch 35, p. 569.
The enemy knows that true fear of God brings many blessings, and he tries to keep believers from it. Respect for God destroys all fears, gives genuine peace, guarantees divine mercy, teaches us to trust, and keeps us from treating God with disrespectful familiarity. Once this happens, we will worship God the way that pleases Him and that He deserves, not according to our own pleasure. His grace will allow you to replace fear for sanctified godliness.
The fourteenth chapter of Revelation contrasts two fears: the fear of God, which guides us to obedience, and the fear of the final persecutions. One fear will always dominate the other, depending on which one we feed best and most consistently. The message to Fear God and give Him glory is appropriate in the times represented as “the time of judgment.» This is the period that began in 1844. As the day of judgment draws nearer, humanity will give itself over more and more to materialistic gods, mixing the worship of God with worship of self, frivolity, and even blasphemy, diluting the due reverence for God. Satan knows that ‘if you please [God] you will secure everything which your soul requires.”—This Day with God, p. 334, November 21.
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Taken from: Devotional Thoughts for Women 2023
“DAUGHTER OF MINE” Do Not Be Afraid
From: Arsenia Fernandez-Uckele
Collaborators: Xiomara Perdomo & Esteban Cortes
