My friend Lazar Puhalo recounts his memory of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth on a new-fangled invention called the ‘television. It was June 2, 1953. During the coronation of this graceful and gracious 27-year-young woman, the same style of King James language used above referred to the new queen as our ‘fearful and ‘terrible sovereign, which sounds ominous indeed. And yet, those who ‘feared her with reverence and awe’ also felt a deep love for her, however solemn and reverential the occasion. 

For me, that analogy was extremely helpful. So many preachers have told us to ‘fear God, fear God, fear God,’ using the threat of punishment and ultimatums of eternal fire if you don’t. But the fact is that you cannot love someone under compulsion or threat. Such ‘love’ is nothing more than a form of psychosis on the one making such demands or an obsession in the one who consents to them.