What Kind of Fear for God Was Displayed in 2 Kings 17:33, 41

By -
Here's where the Bible actually displays some form of sarcasm in its showing of the truth.  Why?  It presents an oxymoron saying that the nations feared God and continued to serve their own gods that cannot save them.  So what's really going on?  How can one fear God and yet be serving idols?  This fear here is not the reverential fear for God but rather, terror for God.   This is not like the fear of the LORD as written in Psalm 111:10, Proverbs 1:7 and 9:10 which is reverential fear, a fear that gives God the glory and not taking Him lightly.  The very situation here was that in Ahaz's idolatrous reign, people were rejecting God and they were in fear of His power like a person is scared of a lion that's about to attack him/her yet they refuse to yield to Him who is the Creator of the Universe.  It can be seen in situations like the Pharaoh of the Exodus (Exodus 7-12) and as well as Ahab and Jezebel (1 Kings 17-21) in which although they were afraid of God's power, they however relied on their false gods who cannot save them for protection against the terror that the one true God has shown before them.  

This kind of fear for God that is not reverential fear but rather fear in terror and despair is still present to this very day.  How?  For example, Roman Catholicism in some ways makes its followers to approach God and His Son Jesus Christ directly so they created "various spiritual mediators" (canonized "saints") each one with a special purpose to pray for them, rather than go directly to Jesus who alone said in John 6:37, "For whosoever cometh unto Me I shall no wise cast out."  Instead of confessing their sins directly to God in confidence He will forgive them (Hebrews 4:16, 1 John 1:19) aside from just the various "saints", they have added the confessional as a means to distract people from the real mercy of God.  The practice of praying to Mary has become another way where they believe that although Jesus is merciful, they also teach Him as an angry Jesus who can only be appeased by His mother.  Friend, that is NOT Bible teaching!