All through the scriptures we are told to fear God. This is not a contradiction when it is properly understood, for the fear of God has been taught by the precepts of men, and this is a very erroneous, or mistaken idea.
The best thing I can think of as a comparison to God is fire, and many Scriptures refer to God not only as being like fire, but to those who have seen Him, He even looked like fire. The angel which appeared to Samson's parents went up in the flame of the fire of the altar. When Abraham prepared the sacrifices as God told him to, when the covenant was established with Abraham, there was something which passed through the blood of the sacrifices, which looked like a "smoking furnace and a burning lamp". When Moses saw Him He looked like a bush which burned yet was not consumed. To me, He looked like pure energy the color of a blue-white gas flame, and the "flames" of energy radiated outward from Him much like ripples in water when one pebble is tossed in after another.
So, if we liken God to a fire then the fear of Him is readily understood. Understand, God did not take on different forms, but this is what His form looked like to each person who saw Him, based upon their knowledge. Perhaps no one in Biblical history knew of the word "energy", and I have never seen energy, only the results of it, but to me He appeared as I perceive energy to be. Fire, itself, is simply one form of energy, so I will have to admit, He appeared as fire. There are many other instances, but each time He was likened to fire. To John on the isle of Patmos, His eyes were as a flame of fire, and his feet were like fine brass burning in a furnace, and His appearance was as the sun shining in His strength.
Now, if we consider all the things which a fire can do for us, such as warm us when we are cold, cook our food, boil our water, burn our trash, garbage and waste, sterilize an instrument, temper metal, etc.. Then consider what it can do to us if we become stupid with it, such as burn us, scald us, burn our house down, destroy everything we own, destroy thousands of acres of timber, etc.
Then we moan and bellyache, why did the fire do this to me? I didn't deserve it. Well, what did you expect from your stupidity? You had no fear of fire, or you would not have become so careless.
The exact same thing with God. When you stick your hand into the flame, it has no choice but to burn it.
Both God and fire are for you, if you adhere to the precepts which apply to them. A precept is a standard, or guide to morals. Just as a child must be taught about fire, by precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, until the child can learn to not jump into it, with parents to keep it from doing so until it learns to not do it on its own, so have we been given guides, angels, if you will, to keep us from acting stupid where God is concerned until we learn to stand in His grace alone.
But what if a child refuses to heed its parents and lets some one else tell it that the fire will not really burn him/her if he/she jumps into it? Same with man when he listened to satan say; "Thou shalt not surely die". Do we fear God yet? Do we love others enough to not judge them? Did we believe it when He said that if we judged others we would be judged the exact same way? If I say you are a fool, that statement automatically establishes me as the fool, for Jesus said in Matt. 5:22 that "..whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire". Would I not be a fool to call anyone else a fool? Yet we can be so quick to call others much worse than that. How much fearing God is in this?
Whatever situation you are in when you read this, that is the exact situation God intended for you, because of your own unequalness. It is written in Proverbs 16:9 A mans heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps. In other words, our heart determines where we need to be, but it is God who puts us there. So if we find things not going well with us, then we know our heart needs an adjustment.
However, it is now time for you to come out of that situation and it will be done if it takes a mighty battle on the "Mount of slaughter" (Armageddon) within you to bring you out. Of all within each person that they hold dear, there is only one third which is dear to God. Of all within each person there is only one tenth which is aligned exactly with God. Two thirds will be destroyed and the rest, the other one third will learn from the tenth, or rather will survive by it.
I did not say one third of the people will be left, but one third of each person, and according to Zech. 14:5, it will be as when you fled from the earthquake, but God is not in the earthquake.
As Jesus said to the women when he was on his way up Calvary, "... weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children... For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" (Luke 23:28-31). Well, they have done it. They have twisted the scriptures all out of proportion, and some Scriptures, they went back and twisted them even more.
They never told you of the Living Word of God within each one of you, whoever you are reading this, and you have never been told that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. Not your flesh, but His flesh, which is your spirit.
I will not say that the battle of Armageddon is something to look forward to, but I can say it is worth looking to that which is beyond it. After the battle, and after the earthquake, which is the same thing, then we can look forward to the peace which many say they desire, but will not take one step toward it, and keep anyone else from going forth to it.
However, if mankind has it's way in the doom and gloom prophesies then we are really in for it. Surely, if people loved peace as much as they claim, then someone would have "invented" a different interpretation for the prophesy concerning the battle of Armageddon, and then any two people agree on it, and it would have been so.
In Matthew 18:19, we find Jesus speaking these words; "Again I say unto you,(evidently He had said this before) That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven".
It does not say much for any two people who can only agree on things like people burning in hell forever, or on any and all kinds of doom and gloom prophesies, like total destruction of everything on the earth, etc..
The irony of it all is, there is a different interpretation, and it will be so, even if no one agrees on it.
We have built up so many erroneous ideas about the destruction of mankind, it is nothing short of a miracle we have not brought this about ourselves. We have certainly tried hard enough. If we would learn to look at the Scriptures through spiritual eyes, and interpret them with love instead of resentment, then we would not be so quick to come up with such asinine ideas. For example, the end of the ‘world’, and the end of ‘time’.
The ‘world’ is the abode of the ego in each person, the ‘false self’, and the things of the ‘world’ are pride, vanity, fear, lust, greed etc., and the end of the world is the end of those things. The primary reason people so greatly fear the end of the world is that they cannot comprehend a lifestyle of giving instead of taking, or having humility instead of pride.
The ego, from which we get our separate personalities, will not be destroyed, but its ‘army’ will be. Just as when Moses parted the Red Sea, Pharaoh was not destroyed, just his army...his power. Time only exists so far as anxiety is concerned, and we are only anxious about that which we fear, so when fear goes, so goes anxiety, and so goes time.
The earth will keep on spinning, day and night will still come and go, but ‘time’ will mean nothing. However, only ‘perfect’ love casts out fear. Perfect love is the out flowing, unselfish, altruistic, no strings attached love. This is Charity. Since that seems to be the last thing people want, it may be sometime in coming.
Every Scripture, from Genesis to Revelations lays within each person. However, there will still be many who say that the table of the Lord is contemptible (Mal. 1:7), and still will not believe any Scripture which goes against that which they believe, yet their "belief" is based upon only half the Scriptures on any subject.
Psalms 56:5 says; "Every day they wrest my words: all their thoughts are against me for evil". The word "wrest" means to twist violently: a perversion. When people read a Scripture which goes against their belief, they either twist the Scripture to fit their belief, or totally ignore it.
There will be much more on "Armageddon" later, but I must digress a little here in order to make that which pertains to the subject easier to be understood.