What to fear.
Fear has a place in the economy of life, but the common mistake of people is to put it in the wrong place. We have dangers, but not where we commonly look for them. There is a needless fear which should be discouraged, am! there is a necessary fear which has to be cultivated.
I. THE DISCOURAGEMENT OF NEEDLESS FEAR.
1. In what it consists. This is the fear of man. The apostles were sent out as sheep among wolves. The gathering opposition of the authorities of Israel against their Master was likely to turn against them also if they showed themselves zealous in advocating his cause. The fear of the disciples under these circumstances would be a type of worldly fear. With us this is not the dread of martyrdom; it is a horror of ridicule, a terror of being despised by fashion.
2. Why it is stimulated. There was real danger to the apostles. Men can kill the body, and Christ does not deny this obvious fact. He does not offer his disciples a smooth course; on the contrary, he distinctly affirms that he has come to send a sword (Matthew 10:34).
3. How it is discouraged. Various considerations prove this to be a needless and even an unworthy fear.
II. THE CULTIVATION OF LEGITIMATE FEAR.
1. The object of this fear. This is the awful destroyer of souls—he who goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. There is a childish fear of the devil that haunts the minds of superstitious people—a terror that sat like a nightmare on the people of the Middle Ages. Such a fear is but physical. But that which Christ would inculcate is moral—the dread of sin. Our great enemy is the spirit of evil, and he attacks us whenever we are tempted. Christ wants us to have a horror of doing wrong.
2. The grounds of this fear.