The Fear of God

Fear is fear. The word means fear. We know what fear is. Yes, fear is reverence. That's the easy part. Let's talk about the hard part.
"It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Why would the author of Hebrews say this? Fear is reverence but it is also terror.
Terror is what is unknown, inconceivable, unnatural. The incomprehensible terrifies us. God is incomprehensible. He is far beyond anything and everything that we conceive or create. Terror also threatens us, not with mere harm or common peril or even death. Terror threatens us with uncommon destruction. Terror threatens us with a lasting trauma that affects us deeply and to our core. It causes us to question everything that we have built our identity on. Terror exposes us for the conceited, egotistical cowards that we are. Terror burns us down to ash. God is terrifying, for he passionately hates the sinner.  Outside of Christ, God threatens us with eternal, agonizing, burning destruction. Do not merely revere him. Fear him.