# The Fear of God as the Foundation of the Old Testament Liturgy > The Church has received a long and deep heritage from the Old Testament, and the dearest thing in it is that God is an awesome Creator, Master and Lord: "If then I am the Father, where is My honor? And if I am a Master, where is My reverence?" (Malachi 1:6). *2016-12-01T17:52:16Z* ![Quote card: "When a father raises his son, he raises him in fear, and the child begins to feel fear toward his father... But if love is not rooted in fear, it will not live." Fr. Matta El-Meskeen, from a sermon on the fear of God, beside an icon of Christ.](/uploads/sites/1274e232-e31c-46f4-a48b-27b854406479/media/fear-of-god-old-testament-liturgy.png?w=815&h=815) \[The Church has received a long and deep heritage from the Old Testament. And the dearest and most beautiful thing in this heritage is that God in the Old Testament is an awesome Creator, Master and Lord: "If then I am the Father, where is My honor? And if I am a Master, where is My reverence?" (Malachi 1:6). God in the Old Testament is Master and Lord, to whom belong all majesty and honor. This is an inheritance we have received. When a father raises his son, he raises him in fear, and the child begins to feel fear toward his father. And when the child grows up, his father loves him and regards him as a brother. But if love is not rooted in fear, it will not live. In other words, if the son lives pampered and has not learned fear, and then tries to form a relationship on the basis of love, that relationship is bound to fail, because the son, in this case, will mock his father, and his father will not receive his majesty or his honor, and sadly this trait is the prevailing one in this generation.\] [^1] These beautiful words, spoken by the late Fr. Matta El-Meskeen in a sermon on the fear of God, teach us something very important about the foundation on which the liturgy of the Old Testament church was built. Worship is a state of passionate love, springing from the heartfelt love of the worshiper toward the One worshiped, as we have understood from the words of the Lord Jesus, the Good Teacher, in the Gospel of St. John, but if love is not rooted in fear, it will not live, and therefore worship will not last with it, and even if a worship appears from a heart whose love is not built on the foundation of the fear of God, this heart will after a while turn into a kind of voluntary worship that St. Paul the Apostle spoke of: \[These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh\] (Col 2:23). That is, our worship will turn from its foundation in the heart, which rests on love, into a kind of formalistic worship that the Pharisees took as a method, which the Lord Jesus rejected strongly and rebuked. So from here we understand that if our worship does not spring from true love founded on the fear of God, it will not bring us to the pleasing of the loving heart of God, since He asks of us only that we love Him as the foundation of our worship, as He taught us: \[Jesus said to him, "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." 38 This is the first and great commandment.\] (Matt 22:37-38). And on this foundation, that is, the fear of God, the Old Testament church was established, and as Fr. Matta El-Meskeen mentioned, it is the inheritance that the New Testament church inherited from the church of the wilderness. This foundation appeared when God came upon Mount Sinai, and God said to Moses: \[Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. 19 Then they said to Moses, "You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die." 20 And Moses said to the people, "Do not fear; for God has come to test you, and that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin."\] (Ex 20:18- 20) And from the mountain, in the midst of the fear of God, the Old Testament church came forth, to be the first church with its beautiful liturgy and heavenly rite, and for the first time God dwells in the midst of His people and speaks with them and they speak with Him. And in our journey in search of God's dealings with His people and the development of the liturgy and the rite across the generations, down to our present church, we will go after the people in the wilderness and settle with them in the Promised Land, we will build the Temple with them and go with them into exile, we will sing praises with David the prophet and his moving psalms, and run after Asaph and his splendid melodies, and walk after Solomon the Wise and his instructive wisdom, in a beautiful, wonderful journey up to the Redemption and the Cross and the church of the Apostles, and we will run after the traces of the sheep and the church of the Fathers and the church of the martyrs, to see the effect of the liturgy in the lives of these saints, recording what can be recorded, so that we may reach our final aim, which is to worship a living, true worship in spirit and truth. And I pray that the Holy Spirit who cries in us "Abba, Father" will be our guide in this journey, that every word in this research may be a true word that drives us to life with God and makes us know more and more about the Holy Trinity, the living, speaking Being by His Spirit, to whom is eternal glory, now and forever, Amen.\ tt\ [^1]: See the sermon at this link [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W0X7Q-UTrw) --- Source: https://abba.fadymondy.com/en/blog/fear-of-god-old-testament-liturgy