I was looking through sermons by Alexander MacLaren to study more about Isaiah 55. And then I found a sermon called “Love and Fear” and it has a lot of imagery in it. So I’m going to write about it today. It goes along with what we have been talking about with God’s offer of salvation. In my previous posts we have been talking about people who are thirsting for God. They have that longing after Him….a restlessness because of their sense of being separated off from God by sin. In this sermon, MacLaren is talking about things in terms of a sense of dread that a person feels because of the sense of their sinfulness.

1 John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

Some commentators say that “perfect” love refers to the love of God that dispels fear in the same way that light dispels darkness. In MacLaren’s sermon, when he says “perfect love,” instead of talking in terms of God’s love directed towards us driving out fear, he will be talking in terms of human love and fear directed towards God…he says that the reason there is still fear remaining in the heart of a Christian is because the person only has a partial love towards God that leaves room for fear to remain. He gives an image that represents the experience of many professing Christians…the image is of the heart…there are 2 lodgers within the heart: a partial love to God lives within the heart next to a fellow-lodger, fear…which a perfect love should have driven out already. I thought that was an interesting image. If there is not enough love in the heart, it will not be able to drive out the fear. Take time to examine your own heart…how much love is there? How much fear?

In his sermon, MacLaren talks about 1) the empire of fear, 2) the mission of fear, and 3) the expulsion of fear.

1) The Empire of Fear

MacLaren says, “Fear is a shrinking apprehension of evil as befalling us, from the person or thing which we dread.” In other words, Fear is an awareness (or anticipation) of judgment befalling us that causes us to shrink or tremble…and it’s an awareness of judgment coming from the person or thing we dread…which in this case would be God. He says, “My text brings us face to face with the solemn thought that there are conditions of human nature, in which the God who ought to be our dearest joy and most ardent desire becomes our ghastliest dread.” The root of such a change from viewing God as our dearest joy to viewing Him as our greatest dread “lies in the simple consciousness of discordance between God and man, which is the shadow cast over the heart by the fact of sin. God is righteous; God righteously administers His universe.” We know that God will punish sin…and we know that we have sinned. “Therefore there lies within people…the slumbering cold dread that between [them] and God things are not as they ought to be. I believe, for my part, that such a dumb, dim consciousness of discord attaches to all men, though it is often smothered, often ignored, and often denied. But there it is; the snake hibernates, but it is coiled in the heart all the same; and warmth will awake it. Then it lifts its crested head, and shoots out its forked tongue, and venom passes into the veins. A dread of God is the ghastliest thing in the world, the most unnatural, but universal, unless expelled by perfect love.” MacLaren is saying that our dread of God…that fear…must be driven out so that God will be our greatest joy rather than our greatest dread. The image he uses here of a snake is very helpful to work with.  MacLaren says that dread of God…this slumbering cold dread that things are not right between you and God…lies within the heart like a coiled snake that is hibernating. But warmth will awaken it…then it lifts its head and shoots its venom throughout your veins…so now that dread is no longer cold and slumbering…but awake and active and coursing through your veins.  The only thing that will dispel that fear and cause that snake to disappear and take away the effects of that venom of dread in your system is perfect love. You can envision that perfect love either as you having a perfect love towards God…perfect in terms of complete, not a partial love so that it allows God’s love to flow in freely…and also in terms of God’s perfect love towards you…perfect in terms of sinless and perfectly holy as only God can love someone.  Envision God’s perfect love filling your heart and then coursing through your veins, dissolving that dread and making it disappear. Now…only God’s love is flowing through you. Perfect love has driven out fear. And that is the condition God wants us to be in after we are saved….remembering that if you are saved, you no longer have to face Him as a Judge…you no longer face judgment…you have been pardoned.

Take time to think about if you have any dread of God in your heart, and if so…how much dread do you have? See if there is still that snake there. Then pray to God about it. Ask Him to help you feel His love for you. Ask Him to drive out that fear.

MacLaren says, “Arising from that discomforting consciousness of discord there come, likewise, other forms and objects of dread. For if I am out of harmony with God, what will be my fate in the midst of a universe administered by Him, and in which all are His servants? Oh! I sometimes wonder how it is that godless men front the facts of human life, and do not go mad. For here are we, naked, feeble, alone, plunged into a whirlpool, from the awful vortices of which we cannot extricate ourselves. (I think he is talking about being born into this fallen world in a sinful condition.) There foam and swirl all manner of evils, some of them certain, some of them probable, any of them possible, since we are at discord with Him who wields all the forces of the universe, and wields them all with a righteous hand…Then there arises up another object of dread, which, in like manner, derives all its power to terrify and to hurt from the fact of our discordance with God; and that is “the shadow feared of man,” that stands shrouded by the path, and waits for each of us — (death). God; God’s universe; God’s messenger, Death-these are facts with which we stand in relation, and if our relations with Him are out of gear, then He and all of these are legitimate objects of dread to us.”

Next, MacLaren warns us that there is something else that casts out perfect fear – and that is perfect levity. Merriam-Webster defines levity as “Lack of seriousness; Levity refers to a lack of seriousness or a tendency to treat serious matters in a non-serious way.” Remember how MacLaren said that dread is like a slumbering, hibernating snake? Apprehensions of the disharmony between us and God warms and awakens that snake and feelings of dread spread throughout our body. But what MacLaren is saying here is that we need to be careful to take our condition seriously and respond to those apprehensions of judgment correctly…because if we do not…and we take matters lightly…our levity can keep that snake in a slumbering, hibernating condition…and prevent it from being awakened. We will stop responding to the warning signals that are there to drive us closer to God…to seek salvation from Him. MacLaren says that some people feel neither love nor fear towards God. “They never think about Him, or trouble their heads concerning either Him or their relations to Him or anything that flows therefrom. It is a strange faculty that we all have, of forgetting unwelcome thoughts and shutting our eyes to the things that we do not want to see.” They “shuffle out of sight with inconsiderateness the real facts of their condition.” He says, “Ah! dear friends, do not rest until you face the facts, and having faced them, have found the way to reverse them.” He says, “A man who is in discord with God has reason to be afraid, and I come to you with the old exhortation of the prophet, ‘Be troubled, ye careless ones.’ For there is nothing more ignoble or irrational than security which is only made possible by covering over unwelcome facts. ‘Be troubled’; and let the trouble lead you to the Refuge.”

So we need to be careful not to be overwhelmed by dread…and at the same time must be watchful to make sure we are taking our condition seriously. We must let those feelings of dread lead us to the Refuge…Christ. We must receive that free and full salvation and be reconciled to God. We must be sure to draw close to God…have a complete love towards Him…and feel His perfect love flowing through us and driving out fear.

2) The Mission of Fear

Next, MacLaren explains The Mission of Fear. The way he writes it is very powerful so I’m going to quote that paragraph so you can read it in his words:

John uses a rare word in my text when he says “fear hath torment.” “Torment” does not convey the whole idea of the word. It means suffering, but suffering for a purpose; suffering which is correction; suffering which is disciplinary; suffering which is intended to lead to something beyond itself. Fear, the apprehensions of personal evil, has the same function in the moral world as pain has in the physical. It is a symptom of disease, and is intended to bid us look for the remedy and the Physician. What is an alarm bell for, but to rouse the sleepers, and to hurry them to the refuge? And so this wholesome, manly dread of the certain issue of discord with God is meant to do for us what the angels did for Lot—to lay a mercifully violent hand on the shoulder of the sleeper, and shake him into aroused wakefulness, and hasten him out of Sodom, before the fire bursts through the ground, and is met by the fire from above. The intention of fear is to lead to that which shall annihilate it by taking away its cause. There is nothing more ridiculous, nothing more likely to destroy a man, than the indulgence in an idle fear which does nothing to prevent its own fulfillment. Horses in a burning stable are so paralyzed by dread that they cannot stir, and get burnt to death. And for a man to be afraid-as everyone ought to be who is conscious of unforgiven sin-for a man to be afraid and there an end, is absolute insanity. I fear; then what do I do? Nothing. That is true about hosts of us. What ought I to do? Let the dread direct me to its source, my own sinfulness. Let the discovery of my own sinfulness direct me to its remedy, the righteousness and the Cross of Jesus Christ. He, and He alone, can deal with the disturbing element in my relation to God. He can “deliver me from my enemies, for they are too strong for me.” It is Christ and His work, Christ and His sacrifice, Christ and His indwelling Spirit that will grapple with and overcome sin and all its consequences, in any man and in every man—taking away its penalty, lightening the heart of the burden of its guilt, delivering from its love and dominion. All three of these things are the barbs of the arrows with which fear riddles heart and conscience. So my fear should proclaim to me the merciful “name that is above every name,” and drive me as well as draw me to Christ, the Conqueror of sin, and the Antagonist of all dread. Brethren, I said I was not preaching the religion of Fear. But I think we shall scarcely understand the religion of Love unless we recognize that dread is a legitimate part of an unforgiven man’s attitude towards God. My fear should be to me like the misshapen guide that may lead me to the fortress where I shall be safe. Oh! do not tamper with the wholesome sense of dread. Do not let it lie, generally sleeping, and now and then waking in your hearts, and bringing about nothing. Sailors that crash on with all sails set, whilst the barometer is rapidly falling, and boding clouds are on the horizon, and the line of the approaching gale is ruffling the sea yonder, have themselves to blame if they founder. Look to the falling barometer, and make ready for the coming storm, and remember that the mission of fear is to lead you to the Christ who will take it away.

3) The Expulsion of Fear

Lastly, MacLaren looks at The Expulsion of Fear. He says, “My text points out the natural antagonism, and mutual exclusiveness, of these two emotions (love and fear). If I go to Jesus Christ as a sinful man, and get His love bestowed upon me, then, as the next verse to my text says, my love springs in response to His to me, and in the measure in which that love rises in my heart will it frustrate its antagonistic dread.”

Take time to envision that imagery. God’s love is bestowed on you…and then your love springs up in response to His. We love because He first loved us. And note how MacLaren says, “In the measure in which that love rises in my heart will it frustrate its antagonistic dread.” So we must be sure that we are responding whole-heartedly…completely to God’s love to us. When you are envisioning God’s love being bestowed on you, look and see how your love towards Him is springing up in your heart. Ask Him for help if it is not springing up enough to drive out fear. I still struggle with dread and fear myself. Keep asking God to help you feel His love for you and to help your love for Him spring up as it should in your heart.

In the next paragraph, MacLaren uses helpful imagery. He says, “As I said, you cannot love and fear the same person, unless the love is of a very rudimentary and imperfect character. But, just as when you pour pure water into a bladder, the poisonous gases that it may have contained will be driven out before it, so when love comes in, dread goes out. The river, turned into the foulness of the heart, will sweep out all the filth and leave everything clean. The black, greasy smoke-wreath, touched by the fire of Christ’s love, will flash out into ruddy flames, like that which has kindled them; and Christ’s love will kindle in your hearts, if you accept it and apprehend it aright, a love which shall burn up and turn into fuel for itself the now useless dread.”

I think that’s a really interesting image…Christ’s love burning up and turning into fuel the dread that was there in your heart…transforming it into fuel. So take time to envision that pure water, that pure love of God flowing through your heart…and those poisonous gases being driven out. Love comes in…fear goes out.

MacLaren says that while love and fear are inconsistent…they may be united if the love is not perfect….they can live together in your heart. He says, “There are many professing Christians who live all their days with a burden of shivering dread upon their shoulders, and an icy cold fear in their hearts, just because they have not got close enough to Jesus Christ, nor kept their hearts with sufficient steadfastness under the quickening influences of His love, to have shaken off their dread as a sick man’s distempered fancies. A little love has not mass enough in it to drive out thick, clustering fears. There are hundreds of professing Christians who know very little indeed of that joyous love of God which swallows up and makes impossible all dread, who, because they have not a loving present consciousness of a loving Father’s loving will, tremble when they confront in imagination, and still more when they meet in reality, the evils that must come. They cannot face the thought of death with anything but shrinking apprehension.”

MacLaren says,  “The one way to get deliverance is to go to Jesus Christ and keep close by Him.” He warns us again to be sure we get rid of our dread not by ignoring it…but by making sure work of getting rid of the cause of dread…and that is sin. He concludes by saying, “Take all your sin to Jesus Christ; He will and He only can—deal with it. He will lay His hand on you, as He did of old, with the characteristic word that was so often upon His lips, and which He alone is competent to speak in its deepest meaning, ‘Fear not, it is I,’ and He will give you the courage that He commands. ‘God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and of a sound mind.’ ‘Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father,’ and cling to Him, as a child who knows his father’s heart too well to be afraid of anything in his father, or of anything that his father’s hand can send.”

Links: Love and Fear by Alexander Maclaren | SermonIndex