Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
Feelings and Emotions. Part 5. The solution to the emotion of fear.
Sunday, November 28, 2004
HEB 2:14-15 Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
Satan, our real enemy, fears death – that death to himself which he already experienced between GEN 1:1 andGEN 1:2; MAT 25:41.
When you fear something, you give that which you feel power over you.
A person who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.
We have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Love is always creative, fear always destructive.
If you have personal love for God the Father and you understand His integrity, you do not need to claim specific promises for every situation.
Once you have virtue-love, love for God, you are not afraid of anything whereby you even need promises to hang onto.
ROM 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
MAT 7:11 You’re at least decent to your own children. So don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?
If you are dependent upon God and His integrity, then having fear is not only an insult to God, but it is blasphemous and sinful.
1. You punish yourself through self-induced misery by letting others and certain situations get the best of you.
2. When fear gets into arrogance, divine discipline inevitably follows, unless there is rebound.
You can be punished three ways by fear: by yourself, by your peers, and by God.
Mature believers are not fearful or anxious for other than just brief periods of time.
2CO 10:5 We are destroying speculations and every arrogant thought raised up against the knowledge of God’s word, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,
Mature believers are capable of appropriate action, despite high levels of fear being projected toward their personal lives, EPH 6:16.
If you worry about the possible troubles of the future, you are anticipating and adding to the weight of the problem – even if the problem does not come, you will experience some of the effects.
It pleases Him when you can testify, that you’ll trust your God to do what’s best and wait to find out why.
Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.
DEU 31:6 “Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the Lord your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you.”
DEU 31:8 And the Lord is the one who goes ahead of you; He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear, or be dismayed.
ISA 41:10 Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.
The PPOG is designed to remove all the cobwebs of fear in your soul and replace them with confidence in doctrine, which leads to confidence in the Lord.
This inevitably results in the greatest courage in life, a mental attitude courage in all relationships and in all circumstances of life.
True courage means sound judgment, thinking under pressure no matter what you are going through.
Verse 7 – sound judgment comes from Bible doctrine, not from emotion.
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.
Fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.
Believers in the emotion of fear cannot apply doctrine and handle the problem.
Courage is thinking doctrine and functioning under pressure as if there were no abnormal circumstances, no crisis, or no pressure.
The spiritually adult believer eliminates emotion as a criteria for Christianity since emotion cannot think, cannot apply doctrine, cannot learn or use the problem-solving devices, and cannot rationalize or estimate the situation from the divine viewpoint. The difference between fear and courage is the ability to concentrate under great pressure.
Adversity, suffering, and disaster have the ability to destroy concentration.
PSA 56:3 “In the day that I am afraid, I will trust in you.”
The solution to fear is found in the faith-rest drill, by which the believer claims a promise to stabilize the mind.
It is possible to learn a great many doctrines and yet fall apart in an emergency or sudden pressure situation.
For many believers, it is so difficult to deal with the test of distress and adversity because of the unexpectedness of it all.
The suddenness intensifies disaster and hinders the believer from concentration on the promises and on the doctrine that has been learned.
It was the suddenness of the trial and test that really challenged and caused them to live in fear.
True faith always selects something that is stronger than the strength of stress.
The faith itself is nothing except for the fact that faith reaches out and selects a promise from God, or better yet, a doctrine, to handle the stress.
The suddenness of a change often from prosperity, or what appears to be prosperity, causes stress.
They wanted to go back to dependence on man rather than dependence on God.
Many believers do not want freedom, they want security.
The suddenness of the situation has caused them to become emotional and forget all those hours and hours of Bible class.
Looked – Qal imperfect – nasa = they kept staring, they concentrated on Pharaoh’s army, they kept staring, and thinking, and gazing upon the problem.
They began to gripe and complain about the situation that God had put them in.
Like the Jews, a picture of the believer’s soul, we concentrate on the disaster rather than the solution.
The reaction of fear and panic removed any possibility of applying doctrine.
Because they failed to concentrate on what they had learned, they developed fear and panic in the soul.
You do not face your fears, you stand up to them.
Letting the Lord fight for you = utilizing the faith-rest drill.
Fear sees the problem; faith sees the solution.
Do not fear that your life will someday end, fear only that you do nothing with it.
You hinder your destiny when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith.