"It is significant therefore that the fear of the Lord plays such a central role in the Biblical worldview. It is a potent dimension of radical monotheism that if there is truly only one God, then He alone should be the object of our true fear. Then those who live in the fear of the Lord need live in fear of nothing else. Other objects of fear lose their divine power and their idolatrous grip. This is the testimony of the author of Psalm 34.I sought the LORD and he answer me;
He delivered me from all my fears...
The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him
And he delivers them.
Taste and see that the LORD is good;
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
Fear the LORD, you his saints,
For those who fear him lack nothing (Ps. 34:4, 7-9)
Or as Nahum Tate put it, "Fear him, ye saints, and you will then have nothing else to fear."
The idolatrous power of fear is enormous and seems to bear no direct relation to the scale of what is feared. It has been pointed out that although in contemporary Western society we live lives that are immeasurably more safe, healthy and free from risk than any previous generation, yet we are consumed by anxieties, fears and neuroses. Fed by garish media hype, we swoon at the latest rogue virus and seem willing to spend exorbitant amounts on security measures that can never actually prevent the terror we struggle to fend off."
-Dr. Christopher Wright, The Mission of God, p. 168
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