We Obey What We Fear: A Biblical Truth About Faith and Obedience

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Do you know what truly shapes our obedience? Our actions are governed by what we fear. Drawing from the timeless examples of Abraham, the Hebrew midwives, Pharaoh, Saul, and even the religious leaders, we learn that obedience to God flows from a genuine fear of Him—and not from our fear of man. Why? because we obey what we fear.

Let me share four of the strangest fears I read about and observe how they affect people’s lives.

Nomophobia is the fear of being without your cell phone. People with nomophobia experience excessive anxiety about not having their phone, their battery running low, or their phone being out of service. They have difficulty going anywhere or doing anything without frequently checking their phones. I wish Katie had this fear so I could reach her more easily. One of her most common statements is, “I can’t find my phone.”

Arithmophobia, derived from arithmetic, refers to an intense fear of math. Individuals with this phobia experience anxiety when doing math or interacting with numbers. Katie often sends the kids to my office for help with math, and a few seem to have this fear. Arithmophobia can significantly affect a person’s life because many tasks and jobs require dealing with numbers.

Xanthophobia is the fear of the color yellow. Individuals with this phobia fear yellow objects like school buses and flowers. These people avoid the color at all costs and find yellow foods distressing. Xanthophobia can disrupt daily life because yellow items are found everywhere.

Ablutophobia is the fear of bathing. We can imagine how this fear impacts the lives of those who have it and those around them.

We have a child, and I’m not going to tell you whether it’s our oldest, who claims to be afraid of holes. Because I love this child and don’t want her to live in fear of something absurd, I told her there’s no such thing as a fear of holes. Unfortunately, we live in a world where anything can be labeled as a phobia. So when I took out my phone to search the Internet, prove to my daughter that she has nothing to worry about, and help her overcome this irrational belief, I discovered trypophobia. Trypophobia is the fear of irregular patterns with numerous holes, such as those found in sunflowers, honeycombs, sponges, and seedy fruits.

If fears did not affect our lives, they wouldn’t matter. But because fears shape our decisions, they matter greatly. The Bible doesn’t mention any of the fears I just discussed, but it does teach that what we fear controls us. I want to show you some examples and discuss their application to our lives.

Abraham Obeyed God Because He Feared Him

Genesis 22:2 He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

Because God commanded Abraham to sacrifice the son he loved, we would be led to believe that Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac because he loved God so much. He loved God even more than he loved Isaac. But look at Genesis 22:11 to see what the Angel said when he stopped Abraham:

Genesis 22:11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 12 He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that YOU FEAR GOD, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

James 2:23 calls Abraham the friend of God. This leads me to believe that Abraham loved God. That’s not a question in my mind. But Abraham obeyed God because he feared God.

The Midwives Obeyed God Because They Feared Him

When the Israelites multiplied in Egypt, Pharaoh began to fear them. He commanded the Hebrew midwives to murder all the baby boys:

Exodus 1:16 “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” 17 But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live.

What’s fascinating about this account is that, on the surface, it says that the midwives only feared God. Do you think the Hebrew midwives feared Pharaoh, too? Of course. If a man is evil enough to enslave a whole race of people and murder their babies, then you live in fear that if you disobey him, he will murder you, too. So it’s not just that they feared God. It’s that they feared God more than they feared Pharaoh.

This greater fear of God is often what’s required to obey. For example, imagine these situations: We believe God wants us to share the gospel with someone. We are afraid we won’t know what to say or that they will laugh at us. However, our greater fear of God than our fear of the people leads us to obey in this situation.

Imagine we are in a group of people, and they start using crude language or gossip. We know we should say something, but we fear embarrassing ourselves or losing friends. Our greater fear of God leads us to obey in this situation.

Pharaoh Disobeyed God Because He Didn’t Fear Him

If fear of God produces obedience, the absence of fear of God leads to disobedience. Sometimes, you’ll meet people who say they fear God, but if their lives are characterized by disobedience, regardless of what they say, they don’t fear God.

Let me give you the context for this first example with Pharaoh. Seven plagues had been unleashed. The seventh plague was hail and fire, destroying everything left out in the field, both man and beast, and all the vegetation.

Exodus 9:27 Then Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron and said to them, “This time I have sinned; the Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. 28 Plead with the Lord, for there has been enough of God’s thunder and hail. I will let you go, and you shall stay no longer.”

Pharaoh looks humble and repentant. He said he sinned and would let the people go. We know that’s not true. More plagues remain. Now Moses tells Pharaoh why he will continue to disobey:

Exodus 9:29 Moses said to him, “As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will stretch out my hands to the Lord. The thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the Lord’s. 30 But as for you and your servants, I know that you DO NOT YET FEAR THE LORD GOD.”

Moses said he would bring the plague to an end, but he also knew Pharaoh would return to his old ways – he would repent of his repentance – and disobey – because he didn’t fear God.

The Israelites Would Obey God If They Feared Him

Here’s the context: God brought Israel to the base of Sinai. Given everything He did to get them out of Egypt, such as unleashing the plagues and parting the Red Sea, we would expect Him to be friendly and welcoming. Instead:

Exodus 20:18 Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off 19 and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.”

God was so terrifying that they thought His voice would kill them! Moses explained God’s motivation…

Exodus 20:20 Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.”

Moses told Israel that their fear of God was good because it would prevent them from sinning.

Saul Disobeyed God Because He Didn’t Fear Him

God commanded Saul to utterly destroy [the Amalekites and] all that belonged to them, but he only destroyed what he didn’t want and kept what he did want. God sent Samuel to rebuke him, and listen to Saul’s excuse:

1 Samuel 15:24 Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.

I’m not going to have you turn there, but two chapters earlier, Saul offered the sacrifice he wasn’t supposed to, and God told him that He would take the kingdom from him and give it to David. Saul knew God’s discipline. He had to fear Him at least somewhat.

Earlier, we talked about the competition between our fears. Disobedience doesn’t always mean that we don’t fear God at all. It just means that we don’t fear Him more than something else. And that was the case with Saul: he feared God. He just feared the people more.

The Religious Leaders’ Hatred for Jesus

The religious leaders have wanted to murder Jesus for a while. The earliest date I found is when He healed the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath:

Matthew 12:14 But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.

Believe it or not, they wanted to murder Him because He healed the man with a withered hand on the Sabbath. So, it has been a while, and if they hated Him before, they hated Him even more after He made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

Luke 19:45 And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, 46 saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.”

How do you think the religious leaders felt about Jesus ruining their big payday? Luke 16:14 says they were lovers of money, so this must have infuriated them. It got even worse because what did Jesus predict the destruction of at the beginning of the Olivet Discourse? The temple! So, then He said their whole false religious system was coming down.

Luke 19:47 And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, 48 but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.

The religious leaders want to murder Jesus. Now we see why they couldn’t do it earlier: because of the people. A public arrest would risk backlash from all the people who still think so highly of Christ.

In Luke 20:9-18, Jesus preached the parable of the vineyard owner. In this parable, God the Father is the vineyard owner, and the vineyard represents Israel. The owner sends servants, representing Old Testament prophets, to the tenants, representing the religious leaders. The tenants beat the servants and threw them out of the vineyard. Finally, the owner sent his “beloved son”:

Luke 20:14 But when the tenants saw him, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours.’ 15 And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? 16 He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” When they heard this, they said, “Surely not!”

The people couldn’t believe this. The tenants didn’t even talk about murdering the servants, but they murdered the son. They represent the religious leaders who murdered Jesus, so it’s a fitting prophecy. The vineyard owner, or God the Father, is going to destroy the tenants or religious leaders for murdering His Son.

The “they” in verse 16 who heard what Jesus said are not the religious leaders. Instead, they are people in the temple. So, consider Passover is only a few days away, which means millions of Jews are in Jerusalem and around the temple, which also means lots of Jews just heard Jesus prophesy that God was going to destroy the religious leaders. And any Jews who didn’t hear Jesus preach this will hear it from everyone who’s talking about it. We can imagine how much angrier it makes the religious leaders when Jesus tells everyone God is going to kill them.

The Religious Leaders Obeyed the People Because They Feared Them

Luke 20:19 The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people.

The religious leaders could have heeded Jesus’s warning, humbled themselves, and repented when they learned God was going to destroy them. Instead, they want to have Jesus arrested. But they can’t because they’re afraid of the people.

Usually, fear of man is a bad thing. But in this instance, because the people the religious leaders feared were Jesus’s disciples, fear of man was a good thing because it kept the religious leaders from murdering Jesus. But was it that good of a thing? They still want to murder Jesus. They don’t only do so because they are prevented from doing so.

Is it a good thing when people are prevented from something, not because they don’t want to, but because they can’t do it? This is the struggle with our children as they get older: We see them obeying or let’s say we see them not doing bad things, and we wonder: Are they obeying because they want to obey, or are they obeying because they can’t disobey?

Luke 22:1 Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called the Passover.

Passover was the first of the spring feasts on Nisan 14, or March 30^th. The feast of unleavened bread began the next day, Nisan 15, and lasted for one week until Nisan 22, from Friday to Friday. The Feast of Unleavened Bread began the day after Passover. When people prepared for Passover, they also prepared for the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Over time, these two feasts began to be viewed as one feast lasting eight days, with the people simply calling it Passover.

Let me explain why it’s significant that Passover is near:

Luke 19:11 [Jesus] was near to Jerusalem, and [the Jews] supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately.

This is right before Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. They think Jesus will enter, overthrow Rome, sit on the throne of David, and rule and reign over Israel. Guess what made this belief even stronger?

Passover is only a few days away, and it was always an emotionally charged time for the Jews because it reminded them of their deliverance from slavery in Egypt and made them even more upset about their bondage to Rome. During Passover, the Jews looked forward to the Messiah delivering them from Rome, just as Moses delivered the Hebrews from Egypt.

Now, let’s tie all this together. The religious leaders despised Jesus. They have wanted to murder Him for close to three years:

• He has repeatedly made them look bad.
• He has destroyed their credibility with the people.
• He preached that God was going to judge them.
• He destroyed their money-making business in the temple.
• He prophesied that the temple would be destroyed, ruining their false religion and removing all their power and influence.
• They know He’s popular with the people who believe He’s about to establish His kingdom.
• Passover is right around the corner when He will probably be revealed as the long-awaited Messiah who delivers them from Rome.

The religious leaders want to murder Jesus, but:

Luke 22:2 And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to put him to death, for they feared the people.

This verse is shocking when you think about it. The religious leaders showed no fear in murdering the Son of God, yet they were terrified of the people. No fear of God, but a paralyzing fear of the populace.

We Obey God If We Fear Him

When we think of obedience, here’s the verse that gets lots of attention:

John 14:15 If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

I have always appreciated this verse because I came from a works-based religion that taught us to obey to be saved. Obedience was something we did for ourselves versus something we did for God. This verse teaches that we obey, not for us, but as an act of worship for God. But we should also recognize that fear of God produces obedience. We saw that with Abraham and the Hebrew midwives. And without the fear of God, disobedience arises. We witnessed this with Pharaoh, Saul, and the religious leaders.

Many verses make this point. Let me share some with you.

When Moses gave the law to the new generation, he established the relationship between fear of God and obedience:

Deuteronomy 8:6 you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God…by fearing him.

Obedience is produced by fearing God.

Psalm 128:1 Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in his ways!

Walking in God’s ways is synonymous with obeying. The psalmist said that everyone who fears the Lord will obey Him.

Deuteronomy 31:12 Assemble the people…that they may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, and be careful to do all the words of this law,

If they learned to fear God, they would obey Him.

Here’s a particularly fascinating example. We know how terrible it was for the Jews to worship idols in the Old Testament. There was no worse sin. We would probably think that when the Jews worshiped idols, it was because they didn’t love God enough. But listen to what God said was the cause:

Jeremiah 2:19 Your evil will chastise you, and your apostasy will reprove you. Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God; the fear of Me is not in you, declares the Lord God of hosts.

God said Israel abandoned Him because they didn’t fear Him.

Jeremiah 32:40 I will put the fear of Me in their hearts, that they may not turn from Me.

We tend to think people forsake God because they don’t love Him, but God said it’s because they don’t fear Him. Here’s a simple way to view the balance: Love might keep us near God, but fear keeps us from departing from Him.

David Wilkerson said, “What produces a consistent, lasting obedience? I am convinced that godly, loving obedience springs from one source: the fear of the living God! I’m going to make a very bold statement: I believe it is impossible to consistently walk in obedience and holiness unless you have the fear of God in your heart. If you don’t have the fear of God, you will eventually believe that God is easy on sin. You’ll think that you can sin all you want. You’ll get on a merry-go-round of ‘sin, confess, sin, confess’and you’ll say to yourself, ‘I’ll just run back to Jesus and make it right. He’ll forgive me at any moment!’”

The Whole of Duty of Man

Ecclesiastes 12:13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

Solomon’s statement that this is “the end of the matter ” is significant because he grappled with life’s most pressing issues and ultimately reached this conclusion. He said, “All has been heard,” or everything has been considered, and this is also significant because he tried, tasted, and experienced everything you could try, taste, and experience:

• Money
• Power
• Knowledge
• Relationships
• Parties
• Gardens
• Possessions
• Fame

But he didn’t mention any of these. Instead, he said, “Fear God and keep his commandments.” Again, the relationship between fearing God and obedience.

Also, notice he said, “This is man’s whole duty.” This is a surprising statement. I look at this and think, “This is it? That’s my whole duty? I have all these responsibilities. I have so many things to do and keep track of. But my whole duty is bound up in fearing God and obeying Him?” Yes, and it provides such beautiful simplicity for us.

If we fear God, we always only have one question to answer: “What does God want me to do?” That’s very simplifying.

What we fear shapes our lives. This can be terrible if we fear the wrong thing, but it can be wonderful if we fear the right thing. Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, second only to Christ, stated that man’s whole duty is found in fearing God and keeping His commandments.

If we fear God, it will shape our lives and eternities. Our decisions and actions will flow from our desire to please and obey Him. Oswald Chambers wrote, “The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else.”