Fear of the Lord (Recipe: Chocolate Cake)

If we are not afraid of the Lord, it’s high time we started! We love our parents, at the same time, we can be terrified of disobeying them. The reason for this is because our parents punish and correct us when they believe we are in the wrong. God is no exception to this. It is obvious that God despises sin as He is Holy. But just like our parents, some things clearly push Him over the edge and He metes out a stronger punishment. So what does God hate? We see this in

Zachariah 8: 14-17: For thus says the LORD of hosts: "As I purposed to bring disaster to you when your fathers provoked me to wrath, and I did not relent, says the LORD of hosts, so again have I purposed in these days to bring good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah; fear not. These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace; do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the LORD."

Here we see God telling the people of Israel that He was provoked by their fathers to wrath, but He held back in His love. God clearly shows what provoked Him and he tells the people to do or avoid things that can prevent His wrath in verses 16-17.

It appears pretty simple, don’t’ lie, don’t judge falsely and always try to be peacemakers, don’t plan evil in your heart and do not love lies. God does not make a distinction between big lies and little lies, nor does He make any concession for the kind of evil you plan in your hearts. If you see something someone has and you don’t think they deserve it, or you want them to lose it…that is planning evil in your heart. If someone you are not fond of is attempting something and you want them to fail, that is planning evil in your heart. I don’t know about everyone else, but I am sure that I have been guilty of many of these things. But God’s judgment is provoked on those who do this. This is not about following law or living in grace. Grace means that although we have done these things, once we realize that we have disappointed God, we can ask for forgiveness and try to never knowingly commit these sins again. If we were under the law, we would probably have to sacrifice some animal to atone for our sins and even then there would be no guarantee of forgiveness. So even though we are under grace through our Lord Jesus Christ, this does not take away from us the responsibility of living rightly before God and avoiding things that He despises.

Jesus clearly says this in Mathew 10: 28: And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Even Jesus emphasizes to us the need to fear God in our lives. Recently I was studying about the persecution of Christians under the Emperor Diocletian, before the first Christian Roman Emperor Constantine came to power. The account of this was given by a church historian of the time, Eusebius. In his description of what happened, it is quite interesting to see what he has written about the persecution. Although this attack on Christians was initiated by a Roman Caesar, Eusebius first lays the blame on Christians. This is what he says,

“This persecution began with the brethren in the army. But as if without sensibility, we were not eager to make the Deity favorable and propitious; and some, like atheists, thought that our affairs were unheeded and ungoverned; and thus we added one wickedness to another. And those esteemed our shepherds, casting aside the bond of piety, were excited to conflicts with one another, and did nothing else than heap up strifes and threats and jealousy and enmity and hatred toward each other, like tyrants eagerly endeavoring to assert their power. Then, truly, according to the word of Jeremiah, The Lord in his wrath darkened the daughter of Zion, and cast down the glory of Israel from heaven to earth, and remembered not his foot-stool in the day of his anger. The Lord also overwhelmed all the beautiful things of Israel, and threw down all his strongholds. Lamentations 2:1-2”

Eusebius believed that the infighting, the jealousy and hypocrisy of the Christians of the time provoked God into allowing the great persecution they suffered for almost ten years.

We need to see this as a lesson to be learnt and not repeat the mistakes of the past. Churches and denominations are all fighting, disagreeing and saying wicked things about each other. If this does not stop, the wrath of God is imminent. We need to pray for the unity of the body of Christ, for churches to stop fighting and to follow the only true message of the Word of God. We need to also pray that we can live in the fear of the Lord, because only when each member of the church and the body of Christ has this understanding, can the entire body be whole and live in the fear of God.



Today’s recipe if for a perfect chocolate cake!


Chocolate Cake


Ingredients:


Water – 1 cup
Sugar - 1¼ cups
Butter/Oil -125g
Unsweetened Cocoa - ½ cup
Soda bicarbonate - ½ teaspoon
Self raising flour - 1¼ cups
(If you have only plain flour, then add 1 teaspoon baking powder to it)
Eggs - 2


Instructions:


1.Preheat oven to 190ºC.

2.Mix water, sugar, butter or oil, cocoa and bicarbonate of soda and heat in a saucepan stirring continuously, until sugar dissolves, but do not let it boil yet till all the sugar is dissolved.

3.Once the sugar is dissolved, allow it to boil, reduce the flame and let it simmer uncovered for two minutes. Remove from flame and let it cool to room temperature.

4.Add flour and egg to the cooled mixture and beat for two minutes.

5.Pour into a greased 9 inch cake pan and bake for 40 minutes. This may vary with different ovens, so wet the blade of a knife and poke into the cake, if the blade comes out clean then the cake is done. If not, you may want to leave it for some more time. When done, remove from oven, let it cool well before you remove from pan and cut.