One of the tragedies of the modern church is that she has nearly set aside the practices of biblical church discipline. Jason Dohm speaks of how church discipline increases the fear of God in a congregation. When one member is disciplined, all examine themselves and see how they themselves have sinned in the same way. It is here that the fear of God is a cleansing force in the whole congregation. https://ncfic.org/fearofgod

We're coming out of a season where in the last four years we've had seven instances of church discipline, various levels, not all by any stretch resulting in church discipline. But in each one of them, the congregation was involved in each one of them, at the end of it, I would be in conversations with brothers and they would comment that this caused them to fear God more. That's one of the things we learn when God exposes sin in the church is that he has a thousand ways to expose us. That's one of the things that increases the fear of the Lord, is to know that he knows all things, and that the things that we've thought we could keep secret are only kept secret until God reveals them. And he, because he's omnipotent, he can do it at any time and through a multitude of ways.

And when people see this happen, sin exposed in the church, we all know that our secret sins are not safe. We thought they were safe. We thought they were secret, but God sees them and God can reveal them. And so when sin is dealt with in the church, exposed and dealt with in the church, the fear of the Lord rises. And it's good.

It's good for us all. It helps us to walk worthy of God. You