Fearing God as Father, or fearing Him as Judge

Deuteronomy 1:19 (ESV)
"Then we set out from Horeb and went through all that great and terrifying wilderness that you saw, on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as the LORD our God commanded us. And we came to Kadesh-barnea.

And went through all that great and terrifying wilderness that you saw. This way from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea was terrifying because God was terrifying to them, due to their complaining and lusting:
Numbers 11:1,4-6 (ESV)
And the people complained in the hearing of the LORD about their misfortunes, and when the LORD heard it, his anger was kindled, and the fire of the LORD burned among them and consumed some outlying parts of the camp.
[4] Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving. And the people of Israel also wept again and said, "Oh that we had meat to eat! [5] We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. [6] But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at."

When we are discontent at our blessed state in Jesus Christ, our journey to heaven is surely made terrifying. It is wilderness even without God's hand of chastisement. Why then do we want to make our lives more miserable with God's frown of displeasure? As Paul said, the Christian life on earth is already difficult, and we are indeed the most miserable people in the world if our hope was not in Heaven:
1 Corinthians 15:19 (ESV)
If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
Why then do we want to add God's opposition upon our lives because of our pride?:
1 Peter 5:5 (ESV)
"God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."

It is a wonder why Israel "complained of their misfortunes", and provoked the anger of the Lord. Misfortunes? They were weeping in the bondage of slavery in Egypt, and God had rescued them with a mighty hand, laying the land of Egypt into a wasteland for their sake. For their sake God opened the Red Sea, but closed it upon Pharaoh and his men. It seems Egypt was the misfortunate ones, not Israel. It seems the blessing of God is upon them. They received the Law of God that no other nation on Earth received, and had a God who looked after them and fed them and gave them water. Why then were they complaining of their misfortunes? It is no wonder the fire of God fell on them.

Christians can also "complain of their misfortunes", not understanding how blessed they are. God has chosen them from amongst a God-hating, wicked crowd. He sent His only Son to bear the wrath and the curse for their sins, uniting them with His Son, so that they may be His very own children by the Spirit of adoption. God has counted them righteous and blessed them with every spiritual blessings in heaven. God makes everything to work together for their good, so that whatever happens, God can use all things to give Him glory. He gives them faith and good works and repentance, for which He praises them, even though He gave these to them in His grace. He hears their every prayer because they pray in His Beloved Son's precious name, and delivers them from all their troubles. He loves them as He loves Jesus Christ, because we are His people. He does all these good things for us.

Yet we complain, despising God's blessings, and think of ourselves as people God has experimentally chosen to make us live lives of misery. When we go through suffering, to which we are ordained so that we may be more like Christ, we complain as though we are in Hell, not understanding at all that it is nothing compared to the misery of not knowing God. We realize not that we are the only people in the world who can rejoice in our sufferings, because it makes us to share the glories of Christ:
Colossians 1:24 (ESV)
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,

Israel could have entered in the promised land in this same year, if they had repented of this complaining attitude. Instead they spent 38 years in the wilderness and died because they did not count the blessings they had received. Above all, they did not love God above all things. If they knew that God was with them, and they said, 'This wilderness is fine, all this walking is fine, and having only manna as food is fine - as long as God is with us'. But they preferred the chains of slavery more than God and the cucumber and leeks of Egypt than God's word.

It is no wonder the wilderness was made terrifying to Israel. It was the display of God's anger through the fire and the plague that made Israel afraid. When we are right with God, then we have nothing to be afraid of:
Proverbs 28:1 (ESV)
The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.
But when we are wicked before Him, then we have something to be scared about. For if we live in sin, God is coming after us with a rod of iron, and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hand of God. None can deliver from His hand:
Hebrews 10:29-31 (ESV)
How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? [30] For we know him who said, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay." And again, "The Lord will judge his people." [31] It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

A wounded conscience is a terrible burden to live with. It makes our lives as barren as the wilderness. It is a life of hiding from the terrifying presence of God the Judge:
Genesis 3:10 (ESV)
And he said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself."
Just as criminals live in fear of being caught by the police, so do human beings live in fear of death, of being one day caught by God to be judged of all their deeds. We live petrified of what destruction awaits us in the next corner, of what disease, sorrow and evil will overtake us tomorrow. And what is most terrifying to us is God's patience, knowing that we have sinned against Him and we deserve immediate destruction, but that His judgment tarries. We know that we must die and be punished for our sins, but we don't know when or how. This is the fearful state of an evil conscience.

But we know that Christ has died for our sins, so that we may be cleansed of an evil conscience by trusting in His Holy Blood:
Hebrews 9:14 (ESV)
how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
We can now serve the living God without fear, as Zechariah prophesied:
Luke 1:74-75 (ESV)
that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,might serve him without fear, [75] in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

Because Christ has died the death for our sins, if we trust in Christ's works, we don't need to be afraid of God's punishment. This is what it means to be have our consciences purified. Read what Christ went through for our sins:
Isaiah 53:4-10 (ESV)
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. [5] But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities;upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. [6] All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned-every one-to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. [7] He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. [8] By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? [9] And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death,although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. [10] Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

If Christ was so thoroughly punished by God for our sin, how can we be punished again by God? We may be chastised, in a fatherly displeasure, but we will never be punished as a criminal is punished by the justice system. We fear God not as a soldier fears an enemy nation's king, but we fear Him as a son fears his father and listens to his rebukes. When we were a child, and we did something wrong, were we not afraid that we would be caught by our mother? But that fear, no matter what evil we had done, never made us doubt that we were our mother's child. We never doubted our relationship as mother and son, because we came forth from her. Perhaps we feared the rod and her rebukes, but certainly not of being disowned. That's the fear and trust that we have with God. We were born by the Holy Spirit of God. We will always be the child of God, no matter what sin we commit. Nothing can change that. Yet we do fear Him as our Father, and are ashamed before Him for our sins.

Yet the unbeliever can never have such loving fear of God. To them it is indeed a TERROR, for God is not their Father. They are like pots that He has made, yet pots that were useless to Him. As a potter smashes the pots that are not pleasing to Him, God will also smash them by the power of His might. He shall be glorified in their destruction. God will have pleasure in destroying them, for they are the children of the devil and do the things of their father. Their fear will never end; Christ will never comfort them by saying:
John 6:20 (ESV)
But he said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid."
But they will be afraid because it IS Jesus Christ, the one they have opposed and mocked their entire lives. They will say:
Revelation 6:16-17 (ESV)
"Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, [17] for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?"
We look forward to this Day when Christ comes, but unbelievers will desire to hide away from the glory of Christ as though He were a meteorite coming to consume the whole earth. They shall run, but shall be caught by His omnipresent hand of destruction, and what they have feared, God's wrath, will come true for them:
Proverbs 10:24 (ESV)
What the wicked dreads will come upon him, but the desire of the righteous will be granted.

This life of wilderness does not have to be a terrifying wilderness. We don't need to live in the fear of death. Knowing that Christ has died the death of condemnation for us, so that we may be freed from this fear:
Hebrews 2:14-15 (ESV)
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, [15] and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
By rising from the dead, Christ gave us the good hope and assurance of our resurrection. Our death is made sweet, because we believe in this promise that Christ made to us:
John 11:25-26 (ESV)
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, [26] and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?"
Let us then believe in Jesus Christ, that we may fear God as our loving Father and not as our terrifying Avenger, that we may serve Him without slavish fear, bearing the fruits that only comes from a purified, calm conscience. Let us dwell in the love that which He loved us, that we may do those things that are pleasing to Him. Amen.