Fear lions or the Lord?

I had a conversation on the phone yesterday afternoon that I fear that I may have several more times in the coming years. A young man that I had invested alot of time into called to explain why he hadn’t been at our church recently. He explained how he was going to another church in our town. It was more fun and the music is awesome, in his words. I was no way surprised by his call, however, even though I imagined it would be coming I was ready for it.

II Kings 17:24-30 tells the story of how the King of Assyria replaced the children of Israel in Samaria with people from Bablyon and different cities. When this happened God sent lions into Samaria to kill and chase out the these people. So they decided to get one of the priests that had been carried to come to Bethel and teach them about the Lord. He taught them of their need to fear the Lord. After they listened they went back to making and serving their own gods.

I feel like that priest in Bethel as times. I think this guy was the first youth pastor. The people listened to them teach because they feared lions not the Lord. The young man mentioned at the beginning had a mother who was all about our Bible teaching until her son got to a place where he didn’t look he might get eaten by lions.

As a youth pastor, more importantly as a “voice for the text”, I am not here to teach kids to fear lions (stds, meaningless life, bad marriage) I want them to have a reverential fear for our Lord. We have plenty of examples of men in the Bible who had a fear for the Lord and becuase of that they overcame lions!!