Angelic Conflict part 181: Human history (fear) – Psa 56:3-4, 10-13; 118:5-9; 23; 27; Heb 13:5-6; .

Title: Angelic Conflict part : Human history 181 (fear) - PSA 56:3-4, 10-13; 118:5-9; 23; 27; HEB 13:5-6; .

 

 

Principles on fear:

Fear is used two ways in the Bible.

 

Fear is used for a mental attitude sin, characterized by panic when in a dangerous situation. It is a painful emotional distress aroused by impending pain, danger, disaster, evil or by illusions regarding the same.

 

The people hear the bad report given by 10 of the 12 spies and form illusions in their mind as to what they will face if they enter the PL and that illusion is defeat and death despite God's promise of victory.

 

No one likes panic, emotional distress, or pain and in their struggle to trust God they often find themselves helpless and therefore resort to other solutions, such as numbing or supplication or acting out or any number of human defense mechanisms.

 

Sinful fear is worry, apprehension, consternation, or horror. Fear is also an active feeling of dread, of which fright and terror are the more intense degrees.

 

Fear is used for reverence, respect, or awe. It is a reverence manifesting itself in obedience. In this respect, fear is a Christian virtue, 1PE 2:17.

 

1PE 2:17                                                        

Honor all men; love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.

 

EXO 20:20

And Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid; for God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin."

 

The meaning of the word “fear” in the Bible is determined by the context in which it is used.

 

Donald Barnhouse writes of a young couple that he married and were very much in love. When he saw them in church after their honeymoon. He joked with the groom, asking him if she had burned the roast for his first dinner. She laughed and said, "Oh, I was afraid that I was going to. I had read so much about the bride being unable to cook that I decided that John was going to have the very best meal a bride could prepare for her husband. So I began about three o'clock. I got everything out and started to work. When I finally put things on to cook, I wanted everything to turn out well, and I was afraid they wouldn't, and, of course, he had to be a little late, and I was so afraid things would be spoiled." He interrupted her and said, "You have said three times that you were afraid. Did you think he was going to beat you?" "Of course not," she said, "You know what I mean." He concludes in his book that her fear was not fright; her fear was a great desire to serve the one to whom she had given herself entirely. In this case a reverent fear was the beginning of good cooking. Perhaps that will enable you to understand how the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Some Christians do not understand the difference between fear of the Lord and fright of the Lord. If you have bowed down before God and accepted the gift of His love and mercy through Jesus Christ, you need have no fright. Fear in the Bible sense is a godly thing, a wonderful thing, a lovely thing.

 

Fear is lack of thinking under pressure. We are designed by God to be rational creatures; fear makes us irrational.

 

It is a general problem in life. Fear is an irrational and emotional sin.

 

Alektorophobia - fear of chickens. Barophobia - fear of gravity. Chronomentrophobia - fear of clocks. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia- Fear of the number 666. Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia- Fear of long words. Novercaphobia- Fear of your step-mother. Omphalophobia- Fear of belly buttons. Ophidiophobia- Fear of snakes. (Snakephobia) Peladophobia- Fear of bald people. Pluviophobia- Fear of rain or of being rained on. Selachophobia- Fear of sharks. Zemmiphobia- Fear of the great mole rat.

 

For the believer, fear is failure to learn and apply Bible doctrine to the problems of life, and failure to learn and utilize divine problem- solving techniques.

 

Fear is one of the many emotional sins. Fear is a whole system of sins which include worry, anxiety, insecurity, incapability of doctrinal application, and therefore inability to solve problems.

 

Fear also includes all the problems of emotionalism, for fear is an emotional sin. Many sins involve only thinking (e.g. lust), but fear involves emotion and no thinking.

 

The Christian will be bogged down and hindered from his advance by various categories of sins and arrogance related to fear.

 

Fear was one of our first sinful reactions after the fall:

 

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."

 

Yet the Lord did rescue us, so that after the fall, though we are still sinful, we were given someone to trust in who promised to provide for us and in fact restore even more than what we had lost.

 

Stated in the Psalms three times:

 

PSA 56:3 When I am afraid, I will put my trust in Thee.

 

PSA 56:4 In God, whose word I praise,

In God I have put my trust;

I shall not be afraid.

What can mere man do to me?

   

PSA 56:10 In God [Elohim], whose word I praise,

In the Lord [Jehovah], whose word I praise,

 

PSA 56:11In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid.

What can man do to me?

 

PSA 56:12 Thy vows are binding upon me, O God;

I will render thank offerings to Thee.

 

PSA 56:13For Thou hast delivered my soul from death,

Indeed my feet from stumbling,

So that I may walk before God

In the light of the living.

 

PSA 118:5 From my distress I called upon the Lord ;

The Lord  answered me and set me in a large place.

 

PSA 118:6The Lord  is for me; I will not fear;

What can man do to me?

 

PSA 118:7The Lord  is for me among those who help me;

Therefore I shall look with satisfaction on those who hate me.

 

PSA 118:8It is better to take refuge in the Lord  

Than to trust in man.

 

PSA 118:9It is better to take refuge in the Lord  

Than to trust in princes.

 

And repeated in the NT:

 

HEB 13:5 Let your character be free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, "I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you, "

 

HEB 13:6so that we confidently say, "The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What shall man do to me ?"

 

 

PSA 23:1 The Lord  is my shepherd, I shall not want.

 

PSA 23:2He makes me lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside quiet waters.

 

PSA 23:3He restores my soul;

He guides me in the paths of righteousness

For His name's sake.

 

PSA 23:4Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for Thou art with me;

Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.

 

PSA 23:5Thou dost prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; Thou hast anointed my head with oil;

My cup overflows.

 

PSA 23:6Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

 

The Snowballing Principle of Fear:

 

The more things you surrender to fear, the more things you fear.

 

Today you may be worried about only one thing; tomorrow about two things, etc. Soon you become so emotionally involved in fear that you have no identity. Irrationality means loss of identity, which means the accumulation of fear until you are afraid of life.

 

Fear is something that, if not controlled, continues to develop in your life until you have no capacity, and as a believer you become a spiritual loser. (One of the motivations for becoming addicted to drugs is fear of life, anxiety, worry, and tension.)

 

The extent to which you surrender to fear, the greater is your capacity for fear.

 

To the extent to which you surrender to fear, to that extent fear controls more and more of your life. Increasing fear means increasing insecurity, which destroys your capacity for love, life, happiness, and blessing.

 

No set of circumstances in life will ever make you happy.         There is no way you can have true love or true happiness apart from a healthy mental attitude.

 

Fear cannot coexist with walking in the plan of God for your life.

 

Walking in the plan of God means first the function of Bible doctrine in your heart.

 

When you have a point of doctrine, you can say as David did when facing Goliath, “The battle is the Lord’s.” That is a doctrine.

 

That overcomes the problem of fear and so releases your ability to go into action, which is exactly what David did and he ran to the battleline.

 

Fear and the function of your spiritual life are mutually exclusive.

 

People who live by fear are intimated by life. For the believer who lives in a state of fear, the fear increases like a disease. As the cancer of fear increases, that individual becomes intimidated by life.

 

Fear eliminates a personal sense of destiny, so that the loser believer cannot overcome emotional sins like fear, worry, anxiety, guilt, denial, projection.

 

He remains at the whim of emotion and circumstance and with that can in no way realize the fulfilment of his election in Christ.

 

Fear of death will never prevent your dying, but it will prevent your living.

 

The ten spies and most of Israel fear dying and so they do not really live and desire to go back to slavery in Egypt.

 

Fear of death destroys capacity for life; it is a sign that you are still in spiritual childhood. Death is the last thing in the world that should concern you, for you have no control over the manner of your death or time of your death. When you realize your death is strictly in the Lord’s hands, the one time when the Lord’s wisdom will prevail over your volition, there is no excuse for having fear of death.

 

Then once you understand there is nothing to fear in death, then you begin to realize there is nothing to fear in life.

 

Many people spend so much time being afraid of death, or of dying, or of starving, or of being poor, etc., that they do not enjoy life. They have no zest for life and no capacity for life. The one person in this world who has zest and capacity for life is the spiritually mature believer.

 

Fear is being overcome by the problem, becoming enmeshed in the disaster.

 

The disaster destroys the spiritual life rather than the advancing the spiritual life as designed by God.

 

A personal sense of destiny is included with the solution as each divine solution is a step in the direction of realizing the fulfilment of our PSD.

 

So the great problem-solving techniques of spiritual adulthood eliminate fear by equating living with dying and adversity with prosperity.

 

They are no different because the divine virtues of rest, peace, love, and joy do not change. Plus, they are no different because God has perfectly decreed both into His plan for your life and so they perfectly bring glory to Him when the word of God in your system of thinking is applied to both.