Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear and let him be your dread.
– Isaiah 8:12–13
This is a clear call from God not to fear things, people, anything in this world, but to fear him, instead to fear God, knowing that when we fear God, it puts everything else into perspective in this world. I want to encourage you just to consider for a moment, pause. In your heart and mind reflect on this question. What do you fear? And part of me wants to just pause for a long time here and just let this soak in. Just think about anything in your life right now that you fear or that you’re prone to fear in your life, in your family, in your work, in the world around you.
Isaiah 8:12–13 calls us to a holy fear of God above everything else.
And just think about, get to the root. Anything you fear, and as things come to your mind that you fear, now, think about how fearing God above those things, fearing God, revering God. Seeing God as holy is what Isaiah 8:13 says. “Honoring him as holy, the Lord of hosts.” Fear, to revere his power, his love, his wisdom, his sovereignty, his justice, his mercy. All of these things that are infinite and perfect in God.
When you see him and when you trust in him and you honor him, and you worship God as holy, as perfectly wise, as perfectly loving, as all sovereign, as all powerful, and as the one who holds your life and your family and your work and the world in his hands, realize how fearing him and trusting and honoring him and worshiping him puts everything else into perspective. We can rest in God. We don’t have to be afraid. And we don’t have to fear anything in this world when our fear is ultimately in God.
Isaiah 8:12–13 reminds us we can live free from worldly fears.
And so God, I pray that today, even in this moment, you would bring freedom from fear in people’s lives. Fear of anything, fear of health failing, fear of death, fear of something happening in someone’s life or someone’s life whom they love, fear of anything, fear of disappointment, fear of rejection, fear of… oh, I don’t even want to presume to know all the different ways that the adversary right now is causing people to fear. God, we pray that you would take it all the way through the fear of you, even right now in this moment. God, that in each of our lives you would help us to see who you are, the Lord of hosts, the holy, holy, holy God, your sovereignty, your power, your wisdom, your love, your mercy, your justice.
You are perfect in every way, and you hold our lives in your hands, and not only hold our lives in your hands, but you love us so much that you’ve sent Jesus to die on a cross for us, to rise from the dead so that we don’t have to fear sin or Satan or death itself. All glory be to your name for taking away the fear of death from us, and as a result, for taking away the fear of anything and everything in this world from us.
Prayer for the Zanzibar Swahili People
So God, help us to live in freedom from fear. God, I pray that over my life. I pray that every person who’s listening right now, free them from fear. Help them to live in the fear of you. And God, as we pray for this in our lives, we pray for people who don’t know this freedom from sin and don’t know this freedom from death because they’ve never heard about your love for them in Jesus. God, for the Zanzibar Swahili people, God for 817,000 in this Muslim people group who don’t know your love in Jesus. God, we pray that the Zanzibar Swahili people would be reached with the good news of your grace and your love, that they would be free from the fear of death and everything else in this world.
Help us to live in that freedom and help us to spread that freedom in the world, in our neighborhoods and to the nations. We pray in Jesus’ name, all according to your word in Isaiah 8:12–13. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
