The fear of God is natural to man until, by false teaching and evil association, it is destroyed. The severe things we see in nature about us lead us to have a dread of Him who is the author of all these things. And, then, death is an awful and a fear-inspiring thing, and the thought of what is to come after death, in that unknown country from which no traveler has ever returned to tell us of it, fills us with awe and sobers us whenever it comes to us. And most men even that are in their lives wicked, and seemingly have no thought of God or fear of Him, are often troubled with the fear of death and what is to come after death. This was my own experience. 2. But merely to have this fear of God is not sufficient, and will do no good if it does not lead a man to obey God and keep His commandments, as the text says. For example, I knew a fireman in an engine-house here who had this fear of God; but he lived a swearing, drinking man, and, of course, he was not at all benefited by his fear of God. No doubt this fear of God was created in the human mind in order to lead men to keep God's commandments. But how are we to know His commandments? Why, my brothers, they are given with great plainness in His Holy Word--so plain that the wayfaring man, though he be a fool, need not miss them if only he is willing to know them and to do them. And, as St. John says, "His commandments are not grievous." They only require of us what is most just and reasonably due to Him who is the giver, the free and bountiful giver, of all the good things of this life, and the gracious promiser of perfect blessedness in the life to come. And, on the human side, His commandments require of us only that we keep from doing to others what they ought not do to us, and that we do for others that which they ought to do for us. In other words, the commandments of God are all embraced in two sentences, "Love God with all your heart, because He first loved you," and "Love your fellowmen, because they are commanded to love you," and when you submit to God's Spirit, and become renewed in mind and heart, born again, made a new creature, you will see the reasonableness of keeping God's commandments, and the desirableness of it, in such a light that you will go on in His ways with delight, desiring to know more and more of Him. 3. And we are told that to do this is the _whole purpose_ of man's existence, and when he does this he has fully answered the end of his existence, met all that is required of him and is secure amid the problems of life and the possibilities of the unknown future.