Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
Jacob reveals that every time fear comes into your life, you are not living the Christian way of life.
Sunday, August 18, 2002
EXO 3:6 “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
God had been protecting him and to assure him of divine guidance and protection in the promise land.
Mahanaim = two camps or encampments, God and his, recognizing that the angels had been there with him all the time even though he could not see them.
The real problem here is not that Esau is coming with 400 men, the real problem is that Jacobs mind is racing in many different directions and he is filled with fear.
Once you have virtue-love, you are not afraid of anything whereby you need promises, for now you know the One who makes the promises.
There is no reality in your life until it is reality from thinking or what is in the right lobe of the soul, the heart.
JOH 15:16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you.
Our relationship with God begins by truly understanding the impersonal unconditional love that God had toward us.
MAL 3:6 For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.
ACT 2:23 this Man, was delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God,
All losers and winners have the perfect righteousness of God given to them at the moment of salvation and God loves His righteousness.
You possess His righteousness, so His justice is free to love you with an impersonal unconditional love.
Fear ranges from uneasiness to a total insecurity about life.
Fear is nothing more or less than a system of self torture, and frightened people are constantly torturing themselves.
1. Fear is described in the Bible as a mental attitude sin, 1SA 17:24-26. ROM 14:23 - whatever is not from faith is sin.
2. Fear is a sign of backsliding or going AWOL in the Christian life, 1SA 18:12,29, 21:12.
3. Fear can produce sickness and depression, GEN 21:17 - Hagar was worried sick and ailing physically because of fear.
4. Fear can produce suicide, 1KI 19:4 - Elijah was so afraid of the threat of a woman that he wanted to die.
5. NEH 2:2 - Nehemiahs countenance was sad and sick because of fear.
1. Rejection of Bible doctrine. PSA 53:5 The fool rejects doctrine and is in great fear where there is no fear.
2.Worrying about the details of life. MAT 10:29-31 “Therefore do not fear; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
3. Breakdown in the mentality of the soul over the pressures of life. LUK 21:26 “Men will be fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken,”
4. Fear of witnessing for Christ, fearing what others might say or do. JOH 7:13 “No one was speaking openly of Him for fear of the Jews.”
5. Fear of death, Satan uses this fear to keep people in bondage all their lifetime. HEB 2:15 “And might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”
6. Fear of rejection. GAL 2:12 For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision.
7. Fears of old age or getting old, ECC 12:1-8.
8. Fearing the floods of ungodly men or fearing what the ungodly or the wicked might do. PSA 18:4 The cords of death encompassed me, and the violence of ungodliness terrified me.
9. When the body is weak and weary and cannot think properly, 2SA 17:2.
10. Words can cause people to live in fear. ISA 37:6 “Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard.”
11. Sin and guilt. GEN 3:10 “And he said, I heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.”
Robert R. McLaughlin All Rights Reserved 2002