Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, August 28th. Today's lesson focuses our attention on Isaiah chapter forty-one to help us find victory over fear. The series on healing damaged emotions continues. All of us have to learn to deal with fear in our life. And if you'll think about it, we live in a very fearful time in history. And we live in a society that's full of fear. People are fearing about losing their job, their home, their health, their family, their friends, their position, you name it. Lots of things around us that cause fear. And in spite of all that, God's people are not to live in fear.
And so, somebody says, well, I've got lots of reasons to be afraid. Well, I would never question that, but how are we to live in a society? And somebody says, well, how do we get in this position in the first place? Well, I was just asking myself that question, thinking about what I found in the book of Ecclesiastes. And the passage, just one verse of Scripture in fact, that sort of sums it all up of how we got where we are. Why all this fear? The simple reason we have violated a very clear principle of Scripture which says, listen to this, at the end of Ecclesiastes, the thirteenth verse, the conclusion when all has been heard is, fear God, keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. And we've decided not to do that.
We've decided we're going to live the way we want to live, and we're going to ignore the principles in the Word of God, and as a result of that, what happens? We're a nation full of fear. And we fear many things we should not have to be fearing. And if you watch the news, you can stir up enough fear very easily.
And so, the question is, how does a believer live in a fearful generation, in a fearful time in life, and at the same time, be the kind of person God wants us to be? But let's think about why we get afraid. Why are people afraid?
Well, there are lots of reasons, so let's look at them for a moment. Because if you can't identify your fear, more than likely you won't be able to handle it. Well, one of the first things I'd mention is simply this, that our fears, whatever they are, they don't come from God. Paul said to Timothy, you remember what he said?
He says, God has not given you the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Have you ever been so afraid you thought you could hardly move? Have you ever been so afraid that you didn't know what to do next or how to handle the situation? Think about the cause of these fears. Well, one of the reasons we have fears is because we learned them very early in life.
They're learned attitudes. I can remember my mother saying, don't get close to the river. You may fall in and drown. Now, she was expressing her love, but she, what happened was in my little mind, water is dangerous.
And so it took me a while before I'd ever get in the creek to learn how to swim. Or she may say, don't play ball in the street, you may get run over. Well, I know what she was saying, but in my mind, you know, I would think about that. I may get killed.
Somebody may run over me. So, our parents have ingrained some things in us that oftentimes can be things that create fear. But teachers, for example, you think about kids going to school, all the things that they're learning. And when they're learning things that are totally ungodly and unscriptural, it's becoming a part of their thinking.
Once, listen, once you hear it, once you see it, once you feel it, it's a part of you. That's why you can be driving down the highway or doing something totally, totally oblivious of what all of a sudden comes to your mind that happened twenty years ago, forty years ago. And there it pops in your mind. Then, of course, there's imagination. One of the reasons we have fear is because of imagination. For example, if you imagine, and I heard a lady say not long ago, she said, you know, I used to watch on the TV but I thought I'd never join the church.
It's too big and nobody would be friendly and nobody would panic. She had this imagination of what First Baptist would be like. She says, I walked in here and I couldn't get in because so many people were welcoming me and saying, happy to see you, where are you from, so forth. Her imagination was about to keep her away. But her grandson, who had been watching, said, I want to go to First Baptist. He coaxed her here.
She joined the Second Sunday. But suppose she'd let her imagination control her. Then she still wouldn't be a part of it. Your imagination's an awesome thing.
It's a great Creator, but it can get you in trouble if you're not careful. Then, of course, there's sin. Sin causes fear, and that's a good thing. If sin was just all pleasure, when people tell us, well, you know, I do this and I do that, and God doesn't judge me, just wait, He's coming. In other words, when you realize the truth and if you're living in sin, it's time you became afraid. Because you will be held accountable.
You will stand in the judgment of God, and you will give an account for your life. And so, sin should create fear in our life. And all through the Scripture, that is very evident. Then, of course, there's ignorance. Ignorance can cause us to be fearful. I think about people, for example, who believe that you can be saved and lost. And it's amazing, people, they almost want to fight about it. And I think about this.
And I grew up in it. I understand that. So, when I say, look, here's what the Word of God says, that you're saved by the grace of God. He has atoned to your sin past, present, and future.
And so, it doesn't mean that you're not going to sin again, but it means that He's paid your sin dead and full, and if you sin again, He's going to discipline you. Sometimes, they will get so upset, it's almost like they want to fight. And look what they're fighting about. They're fighting to hold onto a belief that if they sin against God and they're sinning when they die, they're going to hell.
Taught it by their family, taught it by people whom they love, people whom they believe, and they believe that. And so, it creates great fear. And I can remember believing that and thinking every night when I went to bed, Oh God, whatever I've done, I pray that You'll forgive me. Please, please forgive me tonight, in Jesus's name. I went to bed every night scared of what could happen to me the next day. But I remember this.
One night I was down praying and it had to be the Spirit of God. It's like I felt, that can't be true. If I belong to God, how can that be true?
And then in a short period of time thereafter, I knew it wasn't true. So, I can be on both sides of that situation, understand why people would be afraid. But when people are taught error, it can create terrible fear in their life. Then, of course, the whole issue of doubt. Hey, listen, if you live your life doubting God, you've got some reasons to be afraid. If you doubt that He loves you, if you doubt that He's forgiven you, if you're confessing the same thing over and over and over again, that you confessed last year and the year before that and two years before that, then how can you have any freedom and liberty and peace and contentment in life if you're afraid of God? Well, somebody says, well, isn't He holy? Yes, He's holy. Well, that's a reason to be afraid.
No, no, no, no. It's a reason to reverence Him, love Him, obey Him, follow Him. That's not a reason to be frightened by Him. He doesn't want us to be frightened by Him. What did Jesus say over and over again? Fear not, fear not, fear not.
And He says that He's not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of loving of a sound mind. Then I think about people who have a poor self-image. Here's what they think. They think, you know what?
They won't like me. And so, it creates fear from trying to have a relationship with someone. It creates fear. For example, I don't, I can't be a part of this group because I don't think I measure up. Fear of not measuring up. Fear of not pleasing. Fear of not being accepted. And listen, one of the worst kinds of fears is the fear of rejection.
It is, it's probably one of the worst of all the emotions because to feel rejected means many things. You shut out. Unwanted. You don't count. You're worthless.
You don't belong. And everybody needs to feel three things. Remember these.
You might jot these down. You know what a tripod is. Got to have three parts. You take away one, it's going to fall. Take away two, it's going to fall.
It's got to have three parts. First of all, everybody needs to feel like they belong. Number one, a sense of belonging. And everybody needs to feel like they are worthy.
That is, I'm worth something, I count. And everybody needs to feel a sense of competence that I can do whatever I'm supposed to do. You take either one of those out and a person's emotional being is not going to be what it ought to be. And God intends for us to be whole. This is why in the King James, Jesus talked about, He would say, Would you be made whole? And a whole person is spiritually, physically, and emotionally.
And then, of course, one of the worst fears is a wrong view of who God is. I can tell you, I had been a pastor a long time before I genuinely, emotionally felt. Oh, I knew it and I'd preached it, but before I emotionally felt, God really loved me as a person.
It was a long time. It was a wrong view of God. And that's the kind of church I grew up in. God was a judge above everything else. And that's the message I got sitting on the second row from the front every Sunday. That's who God was. And especially if you were taught that a sanctified life meant a life that you lived without sin.
That didn't work on a kid. And so, as I look back over all the things that caused fear, there are many other physical things that everybody understands, but I just want to bring those to your attention because I want you to think about, if you're afraid of something, what is it? Or if you feel like there's a cloud of fear that just covers you all the time, then what is it?
What is it that you feel? So, when you think about the consequences, think about it in this light. If you're fearful of something, it divides your mind. You can't concentrate well on something if beneath the surface of your emotions, you're fearful that your husband's going to leave you. You're fearful your wife's going to leave you.
You're fearful that your kid's going to get on drugs. In other words, if there's some continuing fear boiling within you, then it's going to divide your mind. Secondly, it's going to stifle your ability to think and act as you should. Because dividing your mind, you don't think clearly as often as you should.
And so, you begin to feel the consequences of it. Likewise, it's going to cause indecision because you're going to feel paralyzed oftentimes in making decisions. And a procrastinator, for example, is a person who does not act for fear of not doing it perfectly or doing it adequate to suit them. They may be a very gifted person, able to do many things. But if they don't think they can do it perfectly, they don't think so, what happens? Then they procrastinate. It's like they're paralyzed.
It doesn't work. And so, fear can damage a person in their work or whatever it might be. It undermines our self-confidence. When I think about the whole idea of self-confidence, some people, for example, can just walk into a situation.
They can handle it. They have self-confidence. Now, if a person just tells you, I can handle that, I can handle this, I can handle that, that's a little arrogant.
Most of the folks I know who do that usually end up making a mess of things. And so, it's one thing to be self-confident in your God-given skills, abilities and talents and giving Him credit for it. It's something else to have a cocky kind of self-confidence. Then, of course, I think fear can enslave a person with a feeling of uncertainty. If you live with fear, it's one thing to walk up on a snake and be afraid wisely and walk away. It's because that's an incident. It happened yesterday at that moment in time. It's something else to be afraid of something that maybe you know what it is, but it's ongoing.
It's continuous. Maybe the doctor said, you've got thus and so, or something happens to your son or your daughter. It just hangs in there. Or something about your finances.
Whatever. There are many, many things that could fit into that category. But the fear just hangs in there and it won't go away. How do you handle that? I want us to look at a passage of Scripture and I want us to look at it from the perspective, if you'll just think about it. Okay, God, here's something I think I'm afraid of or whatever it might be. I want you to think about dealing with it in this light. And that is, first of all, to acknowledge its presence. Let's say that you're afraid financially that you're going to lose everything.
And there are people living right there. Whatever the fear is in your life, whatever it might be, the first of all, you acknowledge that it's there. And then what you need to do is to identify where did that come from? Why am I afraid of that? Is it something somebody built into your thought processes? Or is it something that you did that you are afraid of the consequence?
In other words, what's the real source of it? So, here's what I'm afraid of and here's the source of it. That's two very important points.
The third one is this. As, watch this carefully. As long as I focus on what that fear is, it's not going to get any smaller. The longer I focus on it, what happens?
The bigger part of my life it consumes, the more it influences my decisions or my makeup or whatever it might be. So, I've got to change my focus. If I'm going to get over it and freed of it, I've got to change my focus. I've got to get it off of that and I've got to get it on God.
And then here's what I must do. I must turn my focus immediately to the most powerful weapon. Listen, to the most powerful weapon that I can have in time of fear.
And what is that? It's the Word of God. Now, with that in mind, I want you to turn back to Isaiah forty-one and I want you to look at this in the light of who you are and what it is that you're facing in life and what you may be fearful of. Look in Isaiah forty-one now, verse ten, because I look at this as an anchor. That is, whatever storm I may be facing when it comes to fear, here's my anchor right here.
Listen to what he says. Verse ten, he says, number one, do not fear. Why?
I am with you. Who is I am? That's Jehovah God. Look at this. Do not anxiously look about you. That's one of the most important phrases in the whole Bible when it comes to overcoming anything. Do not anxiously look about you.
You know why he said that? Because he wants to get our focus on God. As long as I focus on what I'm afraid of, it gets larger and larger and more important and more detrimental. Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. Not just your friend, I'm your God. I'm the sovereign creator of the universe and I'm your God. I'm your personal God. Then he says, I will strengthen you.
How much strength does he have? He's omnipotent. He says, I will strengthen you. Surely I will help you.
What do you put that surely in there for? To say, listen, you can rest assured of this. Because I'm who I am and because I love you and because I am your God, I am going to help you. He says, surely I will uphold you with my righteous hand.
It doesn't make any difference what you face in life. Listen, you're in my hands. I, sovereign God of this universe, you're in my hands. I will hold you up. I will lift you. I will strengthen you. I'm your God. You don't have anything that can outmaneuver Almighty God. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Now, let me ask you a question. Do you believe He's trustworthy enough to take that fear of yours, whatever it might be, and say, Lord, I know this doesn't belong in my life any longer. And so, what I'm going to do is I'm going to take you to your word and now, from this point on, I'm going to set my focus on you and I lay this fear down. I'm laying it down on the basis of who you are, what you said.
So, here's the question. Do you believe that God is who He says He is? Amen? Do you believe that God will do what He says He'll do? Amen?
Then you need not carry that fear any longer. Because watch this. You know what this all boils down to? It is a faith battle. Now, you say, oh, but you don't know.
Mm-mm-mm-mm. I don't know, but who does? God knows.
Let me ask you this. Is there anything you know about you that God doesn't know? Doesn't He know everything about you? He can handle it. He keeps His promise. He keeps His Word.
He loves you unconditionally? Then give it to Him. Watch this. If that's not your response and that's not what you're going to do, what are you going to do with your fears? Watch this. There may be something in your life that you can't change. Does that mean you have to fear it?
No, it doesn't. Just because you and I can't change it, what did He say? He said, I'm going to uphold you with My righteous right hand. He didn't say, I'm going to remove this, remove that, remove the other.
No, He said, I'm going to uphold you with My righteous right hand, which means when the storm blows, you've got an anchor that absolutely is not going to move because that anchor is Almighty God. Thank you for listening to Victory Over Fear. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia. .
