Je 42:11-12 - Do not fear the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid. Do not fear him, declares the Lord, for I am with you, to save you and to deliver you from his hand. I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy on you and let you remain in your own land. 13 But if you say, ‘We will not remain in this land,’ disobeying the voice of the Lord your God 14 and saying, ‘No, we will go to the land of Egypt, where we shall not see war or hear the sound of the trumpet or be hungry for bread, and we will dwell there,’ 15 then hear the word of the Lord, O remnant of Judah. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: If you set your faces to enter Egypt and go to live there, 16 then the sword that you fear shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine of which you are afraid shall follow close after you to Egypt, and there you shall die.
Again, God gives Himself as the reason to not fear. I am with you. I will save you. I will deliver you. I will grant you mercy. If I am on your side, you have nothing to worry about, literally. But, if you disobey God by not fearing Him and by not listening to His voice, than that which you fear will happen to you. It is so clear cut, and a great principle for us to consider, in that, sometimes God would allow that which we fear to happen as discipline so we can learn to fear God, only.
1 Ch 17:20-22 - “There is no one like you, O Lord, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears. And who is like your people Israel—the one nation on earth whose God went out to redeem a people for himself, and to make a name for yourself, and to perform great and awesome wonders by driving out nations from before your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt? You made your people Israel your very own forever, and you, O Lord, have become their God.
This is the desired result of fearing God, in that , God makes a name for himself. That is God’s ultimate desire and plan, to make a name for Himself through His people. As we fear God, the world will see our witness and they will fear God. If we do not fear God, who will? God wants us to fear Him and worship Him so that the world will see the glory of our God!
