Psalms 119:113-120

“My flesh trembleth for fear of thee; and I am afraid of thy judgments.” (v. 120)

There is not enough of the “fear of the Lord” nowadays, even among Christians. When we fear Him, we will respect Him, and, in fact, fear is a form of respect. To respect Him is to honor Him, and to honor Him is to obey him. Though the Christian need not fear the judgment of God as far as being condemned to an eternal hell is concerned, we need to fear His chastisement, which He will mete out as He sees the need. Whether this word “judgments” refers to His Word, as a synonym, or whether it refers to the judgments of God, literally, we do not know for sure. The word “judgments” is used in this particular psalm, beginning in v. 7, some sixteen times as a synonym for the Word of God. There are other times that it uses this word that are not too clear as to which they refer. At any rate, we need to fear God because of His judgments!

Fear is a deterrent to sin. It is the reason we spank our children, to cause pain, which they learn to fear, and thereby learn to do right. God sometimes must “spank” us, and teach us to fear so that we will be afraid to disobey Him, but if we do not fear Him, we will not often obey Him. The psalmist learned obedience by knowing God, and he knew that God put “away the wicked like dross” (v. 119). David feared so much in that he trembled at the thought of the awesome power of God, and of His judgments. David won the respect of the people, and the fear of the Philistines, when he “proved himself” faithful in the incident with Goliath, and many times thereafter when he won battles against the enemies of God. Here though, it is his turn to fear. David knew fear as all brave men do; it is not a shame to be fearful but the shame comes when we allow the fear to cause us to act contrary to the will of the Lord. I see no shame in trembling before God either, nor, at times, before men, if we still go on with the confidence that God will give us the victory. Perhaps it is the fear of the Lord that won David the honor of being a “man after God’s own heart.”