Fear of God seems to have gone out of fashion. It is a wonderful and comforting thing to view God as a loving and tender Father, but more than a little frightening to view him as grabbing an iron bar and smashing nations like so much defective pottery (Psalm 2:9). The psalmist says we are to serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. How do fear and joy come together in our understanding of God? It is easy, when we are feeling good, to bubble on about the joy of the Lord. But where does the sense of fear come in? Fear of God starts with understanding who…