Sermon: Overcoming Destructive Fear

#1734A
Clyde Finklea
Given 11-Nov-23; 39 minutes

It does not go without saying that we live in a world that is filled with violence, one that is torn by wars. Even now we are being threatened with the nuclear war. The nation of Israel was attacked by a terrorist group called Hamas. (We just heard that in Ryan's sermonette.) They parachuted by night into an Israeli neighborhood like ninja assassins, executing families that were totally unaware.

I want to show you something interesting about this that I found in Genesis.

Genesis 6:11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.

Do you know what this Hebrew word is for violence? It is hamas. I thought that was very interesting because they are a very violent people. But that ain't all.

Turn with me over to Zephaniah the second chapter and we will begin in verse 4. He says,

Zephaniah 2:4-5 For Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon desolate; they shall drive out Ashdod at noonday, and Ekron shall be uprooted. [all these places mentioned are places in Palestine] Woe to the inhabitants of the seacoast [Who is on the sea coast? Gaza, the Palestinians, which are descendants many of them, from the Philistines. It is probably a mixture.], the nation of the Cherethites! [Who are they? Well, you know what that means. Cherethites means executioners. This Hamas group are violent executioners. That is exactly what they did.] The word of the Lord is against you, O Canaan, land of the Philistines: "I will destroy you; so there shall be no inhabitant."

Let me show you one more thing here in Ezekiel 25 about this and then we will move on and get into the crux of the message today.

Ezekiel 25:15-17 Thus says the Lord God: "Because the Philistines have dealt vengefully and took vengeance with a spiteful heart, to destroy because of the old hatred," therefore thus says the Lord God: "I will stretch out My hand against the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites [these executioners] and destroy the remnant of the seacoast. I will execute great vengeance on them with furious rebukes and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay My vengeance upon them."

Wow, we have got all these sympathizers and protesters in our own country. And there is a concern that this could even happen here with all of the over 6 million illegals that are in our country. Who are they? Are they some of these executioners here? We do not know. But I want you to see, anyone who wants to sympathize with them, you might want to see what God is saying here first. I wish they could see this; probably would not do them no good, the ones that are doing it, but God says He will take care of them. He is going to destroy them.

Our world today is also torn by injustices. Just look at the injustice that is happening just to one man, our former president Donald Trump. I mean, look at what they are trying to do to this man. It is just totally unjust and their corrupt governments are run by these little self-seeking politicians who are like little spoiled children. In Isaiah 3:4 He says, "I will give children to be their princes [princes just means rulers], and babes shall rule over them." That is like spoiled children when they pitch a temper tantrum because they cannot get their way.

Our world is polluted also by a darkness, by demonic powers, and through this prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working within the children of disobedience (we see that in Ephesians 2:2), that man perverts and distorts that which is good and wholesome and in the process is taking people further and further away from our God. And as in the days of Isaiah, Isaiah 5:20 says evil is called good and good evil. Darkness is substituted for light and light for darkness. Bitterness is substituted for sweet and sweet for bitter. And the root of the problem is that people have become wise in their own eyes and clever, as it says, in their own sight.

And people, that is, the people of the world, people like you and I, Americans, and not just Americans because this is happening in other nations and all over this world—all this stuff is causing people to become filled with what one might call the fruits of discouragement and even despair. And because of all of this, our trials and persecutions are going to be intensified the closer we get to the coming of our Lord, and our faith is going to be severely tried. And all of this can certainly cause our hearts to be deeply troubled.

Turn with me over to John 14. Jesus speaking to His disciples.

John 14:1 "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me."

John 14:27 [He repeats this again.] "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

Now, these disciples were troubled, as you can tell if you go back and read through this. I am not going to go all into it. But by the questions they were asking, they were perplexed. Maybe they were disturbed, their minds and their hearts were troubled, and Jesus could see it in them because here they are, their Messiah, the Son of God, and they knew, they believed He was the Son of God. They had given everything up to follow Him, and He is talking about dying and it is troubling them deeply because they just did not understand something.

So in view, then, of the troubled hearts of the disciples that we just saw here, it actually points us to two problems. And then with two problems, you have to have two needs, right? And every one of us is facing this in this world today.

That first problem of course, is the troubled hearts. But I want you to note upfront that a troubled heart is really the result of a deeper problem. And I am going to address that here in a little bit.

Also, the first need here Christ said was, "Let not your heart be troubled." This word troubled, in the Greek it literally means to agitate, stir up trouble. But metaphorically, it means to cause inward commotion, take away calmness of mind, and disturb one's equanimity. It means to disquiet, make restless, to render anxious, or distressed. And it also means to strike one's spirit with fear and with dread—and we can see this coming upon us now.

I want to quote something from a Greek and Hebrew scholar. He was also a Protestant minister, but he is also a very smart man. He also did some commentaries talking about this and I want to quote what he said. He said, "But we must not allow an English translation such as 'let not' imply a mere permissive idea. It is more like 'do not let your heart be troubled' or 'you must not let your heart be troubled.'"

The commentators, and this one especially said,

The aspect or action of this present negative imperative verb commands the cessation of our troubled hearts. In other words, we are to consistently calm the agitations of our hearts. The disciples were definitely troubled and the Lord was here calling on them to deal with their fears.

Now, that is really the root of the problem. That is the second problem and it is the root. The root is fear coupled with unbelief. It is here that we find the second need, but this need is one which, when corrected, also becomes the solution.

Forms of the words fear and afraid are found over 700 times in the Bible. This alone should cause us to realize the importance of fear in our lives.

Years ago I read an article titled "The Worst of All Fears." I think it was probably one of my first sermonettes I ever gave back in the early 2000 I was talking about this. The author asked the question, "Of all the fears, which one would you say is the greatest fear of all? What fear is most likely to cause us to deny Christ, to be untrue to ourselves, and dishonest with others?" And then he goes on to reference Proverbs 29, verse 5, "The fear of man brings a snare." He continues on, "It is a trap, a pit into which many have fallen."

We know that Peter even denied knowing Jesus three times because of his fear of what would happen to him, I guess—his fear of man.

Turn with me over to Isaiah 57, verse 11. This is a verse I want to read here.

Isaiah 57:11 "And of whom have you been afraid, or feared [God is asking the question], that you have lied and not remembered Me, nor taken it to your heart? Is it because I have held My peace from of old that you do not fear Me?"

You see fear, as we are going to see, is what I call destructive fear and this destructive fear can separate us from God. How many people have denied God's truth because of the fear of trials and even persecutions?

Turn with me now back to Matthew 13. We are going to just touch on a parable here, the Parable of the Sower. This is where Christ is actually going through this and He is describing the meaning of this parable to His disciples. And He said,

Matthew 13:20-21 "But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles."

He did not have any root in himself. He was not rooted in Jesus Christ. Remember Jesus is the root, we are the branches. We should be rooted in Him. And if we are not, we are going to be quickly offended.

Now this word offended [stumbles] according to Thayer's definition of this word, it can mean "to cause a person to begin to distrust and desert the one whom he ought to be trusting and obeying." And this has happened to a lot of people that are coming and going in the church. I know this because I have been around over 48 years. I was baptized in 1975 in the Worldwide Church of God and the people have come and gone, come and gone, come and gone. Things get tough; persecutions come, people get offended, and they leave us.

Anyway, God has not called us to fear, not with destructive fear. You see, our call from God is to courage. He tells us over 80 times with the words do not fear, fear not. And He is referring to this destructive fear. Not the fear of Him, but destructive fear.

In II Timothy 1, verse 7 it says (and this is a very familiar verse that you have many, many times before from different speakers in sermonettes and sermons throughout the years).

II Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear [that is, destructive fear], but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Let us look at this a little bit because this word translated fear is sometimes translated as timidity, meaning cowardice. If you can recall in Revelation 21:8 where it talks about those that are on the outside are the fearful and the cowards and so on are outside of the Kingdom of God. They will not be in God's Kingdom. This is because of this destructive fear and cowardice. It is the opposite, then, of courage. God tells us to be courageous, right? To be strong and courageous. Remember how many times He told Joshua that when they were getting ready to enter into the Promised Land to cross the Jordan to go in? He kept telling them to be strong and courageous.

Well, we are fixing to enter into a promised land too. We are getting very close. I do not know how close, but we are getting very, very close to the end of this age where Jesus Christ is going to bring all this to a head. He is coming back and before He does, we know there is going to be a lot of things going on and a lot of scary things happening in this world. And that is why we need to be strong and courageous, and be rooted deeply to Jesus Christ.

Now, the word power here means the ability to do what we should. But He gives us that power through this Holy Spirit. That is His power. The word love is, of course, the agape love, that godly love, that sacrificial love and concern for others. And a sound mind means discipline or sound-minded thinking, and this is what holds our fears in check and gives us courage when we need it. So then, it is vital that we understand that destructive fear coupled with unbelief can cause us to turn away from following Jesus Christ. And therefore, we can lose our opportunity to be part of the firstfruits even though we are here in church today.

Turn with me over to Matthew 24. Ryan touched on some of the scriptures I am fixing to cover right here, but we are going to look at them again. (Thank you, Ryan. It is always encouraging to me when these things fall together like they do.) I am going to begin here in verse 6 where Jesus is speaking and the disciples had come to Him and they want to know what is going to happen when You return and all that, and the end of these things are going to be done. He said,

Matthew 24:6-7 "And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom."

Now this has always kind made me think about what does it mean nation against nation and kingdom against kingdom? The word nation here is the word for Gentiles. Are the Gentiles going to be rising up against each other? We do have the king of the north and the king of the south, are they not Gentiles who are going to war with each other?

And kingdom against kingdom. We could look at this spiritually because there is really only two kingdoms. You have got the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. And remember at the end, there is going to be another war between Michael and his angels and Satan and his angels, they going to be cast out, as it says there in chapter 12 of Revelation. And when he comes back to this earth, they say, Woe to those on the earth, because he is angry. He knows he has got a short time left and what does he do? He attacks God's people immediately. God takes some of them, as He has a place prepared for a time, times, and half a time, that is that last 3.5 years. And we know that Satan's kingdom at that time will be coming to an end.

Matthew 24:7 "And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places."

Now, back when I was in the Worldwide, we were taught that, or at least I heard a lot of ministers talking about this. It was not carved in stone or anything like that. It was just like their thoughts on the opening of the seals. And some of them believed that the first four seals had already been opened. Religious deception, the wars and rumors of wars, and we have had famines all over the world, and we have had pestilence here and there.

But, you know, I do not know that I agree with that. I think maybe (this is my opinion) because it shows us this in Revelation. We are talking about the end of the age here. But the things that are coming and I do believe (and this is just my belief so please do not write that in stone for sure) but it is that I believe that the first seal of the religious conqueror has come when the Pope established his 2030 agenda. Now, you know, the UN has already adopted that. It is 17 points of that 37 agenda. They have adopted it too, the same 17 points for that 2030 agenda. So anyway, so we need to be looking at this stuff.

Now, what about the second seal with the wars? I do not know. Is it opening now or is it already open? I really do not know. (We shall see, as Richard said. We will just wait and we will watch and we will see what happens next.)

We are now in verse 8. Now, all these things, when these things start happening, and I believe they are starting with the opening of the first seal and I think these things are going to begin pretty soon. And that again, that is just my thoughts on it and that is all it is. But He says, these things are going to be the beginning. These are the beginning of sorrows.

Matthew 24:9 "Then shall they deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and shall be hated by all nations for My name's sake."

That is at the opening of the fifth seal, when the saints are going to be martyred, a lot of God's people are going to be martyred, and this is happening with the opening of the fifth seal.

Matthew 24:10 "And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another."

Who is He talking about who are going to be offended? I mean, the whole world is sinning now. Is He talking about His saints, the church? Is He talking about His people Israel? I mean, I do not know but they are going to betray one another and hate one another.

Matthew 24:11-12 "Then many false prophets will arise up and deceive many. [We are going to see more and more of this.] And because lawlessness [that is, sin] will abound, the love of many will grow cold."

Did you get that? That love there is agape, that is that godly love. These people apparently have godly love and it is going to grow cold. Why? Because of destructive fear? Because they have no root in themselves to endure? Notice verse 13.

Matthew 24:13 "But he who endures to the end shall be saved."

Brethren, we have got to be really rooted in with our Savior.

Now, there are two elements I want to go through to show us what will deliver us from this destructive fear that causes these troubled and anxious hearts. And that first element is faith. You cannot trust God and remain fearful at the same time. We have been called to have a relationship with God through belief or faith in Him and His faithfulness. As the Lord Jesus points out, to believe in God is also to believe in Him, who is the way, the truth, and the life. Does it not say in John 1 that He was God in the flesh, that He came and dwelt amongst us. He says, "You believe in God, believe in also Me. I'm God too."

From the questions the disciples were asking (I mentioned this earlier), we can see that their hearts were deeply troubled with the uncertainty of what was going to actually happen to them. So uncertainty or ignorance or lack of spiritual understanding about God and His plan will weaken our faith. Is that not why prophecy is written? It is written so that we can know and learn and overcome and repent. Is that not what He did when He sent Jonah through Nineveh?" Go tell them I'm going to destroy them in 40 days." He sends the prophet there to tell them. Well, they believed Him and they repented and guess what? It changed history! He was going to destroy them. His words do not come back to Him unfulfilled. But He relented, He changed because of their repentance.

That is what God wants people to do. He shows us these things, this is coming, this is coming—repent and be ready.

Anyway, so this lack of spiritual understanding and all weakens our faith and it naturally results in our troubled hearts and minds. The disciples had troubled hearts because of their lack of understanding of God's Word as it related to the suffering of the first coming of the Messiah, His first coming. There was clearly talk in the Old Testament they had as yet not really grasped the need of the crucifixion, of what Christ had to really go through. They just had not grasped it at this time. They believed in Him as the Messiah. Remember they said, "Yes, we believe you are the Son of God," but they were struggling with His repeated comments about His death and resurrection. It was disturbing them bad because of the fear of the unknown or what was coming. That destructive fear was settling in their hearts and their mind.

Let us look at Psalm 56, verse 3.

Psalm 56:3 Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.

Notice it does not say if fear strikes, but when it strikes. There will be times fear will strike us, brethren. But we must quickly turn to God in faith, believing in Him and trusting in Him, believing in the One that He sent, believing in Christ, that He is with us and He will never leave us. He knows what we are all going through. He knows the suffering and the trials that each and every one of us are suffering today, and going through. You do not think He is watching us? Of course, He is. Believing that what He is allowed to happen to us is for our good. It is for our future in His Kingdom.

You see, it is through much suffering that we are going to enter into the Kingdom of God. We have to realize that and understand that, and these trials are for our good. Not that they are pleasant and we like for them to come. But you know, even Christ did not want to go through that crucifixion. Remember, He prayed three times asking God to remove it from Him. But then He finally settled in and said, "Let Your will be done, not Mine."

Psalm 56:4 In God (I will praise His word) [This is the psalmist. I think David wrote this.], in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh [or what man] can do to me.

We have to reach that point in our lives and our conversion. This is where we have to be, especially now, those of us that are living toward the end of this age. And I know that there is some of you young people that are sitting in this congregation listening to my words, I believe strongly that you are going to live to see the coming of Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 6:16 [Paul tells us] Taking the shield of faith. . .

Remember, he says, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, we wrestle against the demonic forces. And he said, we need to put on the whole armor of God.

Ephesians 6:16 . . . with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.

Fear is one of Satan's fiery darts. The shield of faith though, he says, will extinguish it. Faith is believing, trusting in God. I mean, truly believing. I am just saying it, but truly believing and trusting.

Now the second element we see is love. You know, like Paul said, there remains these three, faith, love, and hope, right? But he said love is greatest of them. So the second element of course, is love.

Please turn to I John 4, verse 18. The apostle John is telling us,

I John 4:18 There is no fear in love [again, we are talking about destructive fear]; but perfect love casts out [destructive] fear, because fear involves torment.

Destructive fear is what causes us these agitations and causes this troubled heart and it causes all the discouragement. And it is this destructive fear that does this. Notice what he says here.

I John 4:18 But he who fears [if you have this destructive fear] has not been made perfect in love [yet].

Now, you know we are going through a conversion process. You still have to grow and you have to learn these things and we have to overcome these things. But eventually we are going to have to be perfected in love and overcoming this destructive fear is one way we are going to be perfected.

There is but one perfect love obviously. And that is that love of God, that godly love. That love is in us and stronger is He that is in us than he that is in the world. So we do have the strength and the power to overcome this.

In chapters 13 and 15 of the gospel of John, Jesus instructs us with a new commandment. And you have heard this many, many times. That new commandment is to love one another as He has loved us. The command that God's people love one another was not really new. As an outworking of love for God, loving others is at the very heart of God's law. We love God with all our heart and soul, mind and strength, and we love our neighbor as ourselves. And then Jesus says, well, this is a new one.

I want to quote here again from commentator Hampton Keely, III. He is a Hebrew and Greek scholar. And he says,

New here is the Greek word. It means which often denotes that it is qualitatively new as compared to what has existed until now. What is better than the old versus what is young and recent. It speaks of what is new in the sense of unused, that is, fresh. So while loving others was not new in the sense of recent, it was new in the sense no one had fully manifested God's love as had the Savior in such a sacrificial way. So in that way, it was unused. In contrast to the self-righteous religious Pharisees [he goes on], the Lord Jesus had come to fulfill the law and demonstrate its true meaning in both love to God and love for others. The new commandment to love one another then is based on His example, "even as I have loved you." So the command is new in that it is a special love for other believers based on the sacrificial example of Christ's love.

So with our faith then, brethren, and our trust in God, and of course, we know without which is impossible to please Him, and our hearts filled with His perfect love, we are equipped with two elements necessary to overcome destructive fear that causes troubled hearts, troubled minds, discouragement.

When trials come upon us, we must understand that God is going to test our faith. He is going to test our faith and He is going to test our love toward Him and toward each other.

In closing, I want to quote something interesting that I found. We heard this parable recently about the wheat and the tares. Kind of keep this in mind as I read this and I will be quoting here. I do not remember where I got this from. I actually brought it out back in the early years when I was giving sermonettes at the Feast. I brought it out one time, but I want to bring it out again. It is pretty interesting to me, especially talking about what we are talking about, the suffering and trials and things we go through and the fears we have. So it says,

In the pictures of the ancient Roman method of threshing grain, one man is always seen stirring up the sheaves while another rides over them in a crude car equipped with rollers instead of wheels. Sharp stones and rough bits of iron were attached to the cylinders to help separate the husk from the grain. This simple car was called a tribulum. [You know, that is where we get our word tribulation.] When great affliction comes upon us, we often think of ourselves as being torn to pieces under the cruel pressures of adverse circumstances. Yet as no thresher ever yoked up his tribulum for the mere purpose of tearing up his sheave, but to disclose the precious grain or remove the chaff or the tares from the grain, so our loving Savior never puts us under the pressure of sorrow and disappointment needlessly.

So the Scripture exhorts us to be filled with the Spirit of God and to be filled with the fruit of His Spirit. And we know that from Galatians 5:22 that the fruit of that Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control. But we have to ask the question, right? And I am going to be closing with this statement right here.

How do we know if we are full of the fruits of the Spirit? Or full of faith, for example? And this again is something I have mentioned before. I do not remember when, but I know I have mentioned before in a sermonette. But just think a moment about a water-saturated sponge. If we put even slight pressure on the sponge, water runs out. So the same is true with us. We can tell what fills us on the inside by what comes out under pressure.

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