The Right Kind of Fear

But speaking against the Spirit carries this lifelong implication of rebellion, of rejection, rebellion that never turns into repentance. This person is committing the unpardonable sin it's called, only because he doesn't want to be pardoned. I meet those people all the time. Ask them if they want Jesus to forgive them and they'll say, for what?

I don't need to be forgiven of anything. Do you have any fears? If you ask people what they're afraid of, you'll hear a lot of the same answers.

Heights, the dark, public speaking, that's a big one. These are some of the most common fears. But today, Stephen Davey will help you understand that there are only two categories of fear that really matter.

They have a lot more to do with who you are than what you're afraid of. Stephen called this lesson the right kind of fear. Jesus Christ is about to teach his audience to be afraid of certain actions, certain perspectives. In fact, the word fear is going to show up five times in the next few verses. We're in Luke's Gospel now at chapter 12 where I invite your attention. As we go through these opening verses, we're going to cover 12 of them today. I want to organize our study around the kinds of fear that Jesus is endorsing, encouraging. We could call these justifiable fears. Here's the first one.

I'll give it to you in principle form. We need to be afraid of living a lie. Look at verse one. In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say this to his disciples first, or they were his priority.

The rest of the crowd is listening. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you've whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops. Now, if you were with us last Lord's Day, a meal had convened at a Pharisee's home where the Lord Jesus ends up exposing their hypocrisy. The meal has now broken up, and Jesus has walked out. Now, the multitude mentioned back in chapter 11 and verse 29 has now turned into this mob of people.

It's so thick, they're stepping on one another. In fact, Luke uses the word for this crowd, murias, from which we get our word myriad. It means ten thousands. Frankly, it can be used for an impossible crowd, too impossible in size to count. They're jammed in every street around this Pharisee's house.

They're jammed in every alleyway. They're waiting. Now, Jesus walks out and immediately he's confronted by this massive crowd. He says primarily to his disciples, but loud enough for the crowd to hear, you need to beware the kind of hypocrisy that I just exposed.

You need to be aware of living like those men, those religious experts, yet spiritual hypocrites. It's like leaven, their hypocrisy. Of course, the crowd would have immediately understood his analogy to leaven. Leaven is yeast. Yeast had become by this time a symbol of the permeating power of sin. The Jewish people annually removed all the yeast from their homes. They would sweep and dust carefully to remove it all during the Passover festival. They were to eat unleavened bread for seven days, even into the New Testament.

The analogy is still alive. Paul will talk about the leaven, the yeast of wickedness. In 1 Corinthians 5a. Now, the fearful thing about Jesus's analogy is that hypocrisy then isn't necessarily loud, crass, obvious.

It isn't always discovered initially. Like yeast, it works silently, quietly, invisibly. Hypocrisy, Jesus says, does to a person what yeast does to dough.

It puffs us up. If it isn't checked, it permeates someone's entire perspective and thinking and life. This is the creeping, corrupting bacteria of hypocrisy. It's subtle.

It's silent. It's deadly. A hypocrite can reach a point where they complain about the hypocrisy of others without realizing they are describing themselves, seeing in others what they cannot see in themselves. We're all to be warned of this. He is speaking primarily to his disciples as the crowd listens in. How many of you have had somebody say to you, I'm not going to go to church anymore because it's full of hypocrites?

Someone from the church sent me this some time ago. The title reads, reasons why I'm not going to a ball game anymore. Number one, the coach never came up to meet me. Every time I went, they asked for money. The people sitting in my row weren't very friendly.

The temperature was either too hot or too cold. The referees always made decisions I didn't agree with. Some games went into overtime and I was late getting home.

The marching band played songs I'd never heard before. My parents took me to too many games when I was a kid growing up and I always end up sitting near hypocrites who only come to the game to watch other people. I'm not going to go to church because there are hypocrites there.

Well, I'm not going to go to a ball game for the same reason. By the way, when somebody says to you, I'm not going to go to church because it's full of hypocrites, tell them, you know, come to ours. We always have room for one more. But I think I just called us all a bunch of hypocrites, didn't I? The truth is, we can be. It's a potential reality. We need to be afraid of living a lie. Secondly, we need to be afraid of forgetting the future. Verse four, I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear, fear him, who after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell.

Yes, I tell you, fear him. Now, Jesus knew that his disciples were going to face martyrdom. Almost all of the original 12 will be martyred, sawn in two, speared, beheaded, crucified. Many more of those who chose to follow Christ would lose everything they had like many who choose Christ around our world today.

They lose everything. There are a lot of good reasons to be afraid of following Christ. But Jesus says here you'd be fearing the wrong thing. Don't forget that would be temporary. Don't forget eternity. Don't forget about life beyond the grave.

Don't forget your future. The worst someone can do to you will last a brief lifetime. They take your life, that's as far as they can reach.

It's as far as they can go. But God has the authority to not only take your life but determine your eternal destiny. Verse five says he has the authority to cast you into hell. The original word used in the New Testament here is the word Gehenna, a term translated hell often, a term that was analogous to the description of Jesus for hell. Gehenna was a valley just outside the southwest wall of the city of Jerusalem. At one point it was a beautiful garden for the kings of Judah. Then as Israel drifted into idolatry, they actually set up a place there in that valley where they sacrificed their own babies to the God Baal Molech. Years later it would never be restored to a garden.

It would be turned into a town dump where rubbish and trash were continually burned. Jeremiah describes it in chapter 19. The Lord Jesus often related the future torment of hell to the burning stench of Gehenna. So Jesus says here, fear him who has the authority to cast you into hell. And by the way, I don't misunderstand, the person with the authority to cast somebody to hell isn't the devil. We know from Scripture the devil isn't throwing people into hell. The devil will be thrown into hell. The devil will be hell's most notorious prisoner. Satan is not the warden of hell.

He is its chief inmate. And like all others who've rejected God, there will be no pardon and there is no parole. So the text here warns of the terror, the reality of a future hell. By the way, if an unbeliever dies and simply no longer exists, as some believe, then God would be no more capable of doing to them any more harm than mankind. But the opposite is the truth. Mankind can do their worst, but they cannot reach beyond the grave.

And this is the point Jesus is making. God his Father reaches beyond the grave and assigns an eternal destiny. So be in fear of him.

Be in awe of God, your Father, as you consider your future. He knows where you stand and who you are. Then at this thought, though, Jesus, it's interesting, he suddenly shifts his focus to the believers, his disciples, and says, don't be afraid. Look at verse 6. Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten by or before God.

Skip to the end of verse 7. Fear not, you are of more value than many sparrows. Sparrows were the cheapest food purchased in the marketplace during the days of the Lord. They were considered the boniest, cheapest mouthful of meat you could buy.

They were considered almost worthless in value. So taken in the context here, Jesus is telling those who were his disciples that no matter how worthless they may be viewed by their world, or in fact, no matter how worthless they may feel about themselves, at times, not to God, they were anything but worthless. How many disciples through the ages, and maybe you're thinking even today, there's no reason God would remember me. Surely he has forgotten me.

No matter how worthless a follower of Christ may feel at times, there's no way you're going to slip out of God's omniscient, sovereign hand and somehow end up in hell. Jesus says, fear not to the disciple. God will not forget you. He will not overlook you.

He will not lose sight of you. You are of great value to him because his son is your Savior. Jesus gives us another analogy of God's omniscience, that is, that he knows everything.

His awareness is comprehensive. Go back to verse 6 again. Are not five spirits sold for two pennies and not one of them is forgotten before God? Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered.

The word for numbered is arithmeo, that gives us our word arithmetic. Imagine that kind of comprehensive knowledge. At any moment, God has done the arithmetic on your head of hair.

For some of us, that's not a long equation. But the point Jesus is making is that if God knows that kind of detail about every individual hair on your head, the point is he knows everything about you. Jesus wants us to know of the comprehensive knowledge in order to encourage us. Fear God. Fear this omniscient creator, God. Now, for the unbeliever, to fear God means to run from him, to be in terror at the thought of seeing him, to dislike him, to reject him, to avoid conversation about him. But for the believer, to fear God doesn't mean you run away from him. It means you stand in awe of him. You want to talk about him.

You love to sing to him and of him, to worship him. So let's not fear the wrong perspectives. We do need to be afraid of living a lie. For the unbeliever, that is going to end one day with total exposure to the light, the light of God's judgment. For the believer, this is a warning against that secret corrupting influence that we might marginalize or allow into our lives of sin. Secondly, we need to be afraid of forgetting the future. For the unbeliever, they don't want to think about the future. For us, we need to. It's encouraging as we consider eternity in front of us.

Now, thirdly, we need to be afraid of caving in to culture. He writes here in verse 8, and I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God. But the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.

Now, what does Jesus mean? I've heard a few sermons in my day growing up that said what this means is if you don't give your testimony when you ought to, if you don't speak up for Christ when you should have, if you fail at some point or lose your nerve to align with him, then you're not a Christian and Jesus is going to reject you one day when you stand before him. Well, that interpretation definitely, you know, that'll scare a lot of Christians into evangelism, but that isn't what he means.

In fact, it can't be because everybody he's talking to is going to run from him and refuse to acknowledge him and deny him. The word Jesus uses here for acknowledge is the same word you find for confessing. The word confess means to say the same thing as. In other words, Jesus is saying you're saying the same thing about him that he is saying about himself. And what's interesting is he uses a messianic title here.

You notice it? The Son of Man that comes from the prophet Daniel. In other words, if you deny that Jesus is the Messiah, if you cave in to culture around you and you come to the conclusion that Jesus is just another prophet, that Jesus is just a, you know, a good teacher or is a man who was raised in the Protestant church and was a leader in his church, told me in recent days that to him Jesus was just another rabbi. Well, you're not saying the same thing about Jesus that Jesus is saying about himself. If you deny that Jesus is God the Son, the anointed Messiah who came to die for your sin to save you from hell and take you to heaven, well, you deny that and Jesus will deny you.

Jesus is not talking about losing your nerve. He's talking about a definitive repudiation of who he is. Let's tan him out to blaspheme in the Holy Spirit, by the way. Notice further here in verse 10, and everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven. While they're alive, that is, they can ask forgiveness and all the disciples probably will have to do that. But the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. The sin can't be forgiven because this person is not going to want to be forgiven.

This expression refers to somebody who has closed their eyes, closed their heart, closed their mind, closed their ears to the truth of the gospel and the convicting voice of God's Spirit. Speaking against Jesus can be forgiven if you ask him, but speaking against the Spirit carries this lifelong implication of rebellion, of rejection, rebellion that never turns into repentance. This person is committing the unpardonable sin, it's called, only because he doesn't want to be pardoned.

I meet those people all the time. Ask them if they want Jesus to forgive them, and they'll say, for what? I don't need to be forgiven of anything. That is blaspheming the ministry of the Holy Spirit who came to exalt the crosswork of Christ, the word of truth regarding sin and the Savior, and somebody who dies in that condition will not be pardoned. But listen, church, be careful to draw the verdict on anybody's life to whom you're witnessing. A single act of rejection or blasphemy, even years of blasphemy, doesn't doom someone as hopeless. As long as they're alive, keep testifying to them, there is the possibility they'll be brought to repentance. We know that's possible because one of the most antagonistic blasphemers of the ministry of the Holy Spirit through the early church was none other than the Apostle Paul, who described himself in his own personal testimony to Timothy by saying, I was once a blasphemer. Same word used by Jesus here. I was once a blasphemer, persecutor, violent aggressor, but I received mercy.

Blaspheming the Holy Spirit is simply rejecting who Christ is, rejecting the gospel, and that cannot be forgiven, not because it's a worse sin than others, but because that person comes to the end of their lives and they have not asked to be forgiven. Maybe today, here in my audience, you're an unbeliever and maybe your conscience is troubled. You're wondering if it's too late for you to believe. My answer would be it's not too late for you to believe because your conscience is troubled.

Satan will never trouble your conscience to make sure you're saved. That's the ministry of the Holy Spirit in your heart. Jesus seems to be warning here, but he also seems to be inviting this unbelieving mob to believe in him as their Messiah. Now he shifts more specifically to his disciples from the language he uses. We can tell because he says this, and when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and authorities. By the way, Jesus did not say if they bring you, but when they bring you and they will be brought before the synagogues. Those are the ecclesiastical courts of religious leaders, rulers and authorities.

Well, those are the political leaders. This is Pilate. This is Herod.

This is Nero. Do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say. When you're put on the spot, you're asked that question by a coworker or a neighbor or a child. You're summoned, as it were, to appear as a witness.

You haven't had time to prepare anything. Nothing eloquent, sure. At those times, the encouragement is you belong to Christ. You speak what's on your heart with what you know and leave the rest to God. Well, the Lord has addressed a number of fears, warnings about things we should fear, living a lie, forgetting the future, caving in to culture. But embedded in these warnings are these wonderful encouragements for the Lord's disciples to this day. These are what we need. Never fear.

Let me wrap up our study just by drawing out two of them and saying it just a little differently in principle form. First of all, don't be afraid of getting lost in the crowd. If God knows about every sparrow out there, Jesus says, not one of them is forgotten by God, then he knows about you and you're not forgotten either. Remember, he has your hair counted.

But here's the point. If God knows that kind of minutia about you, he knows where you are right now, every detail. You're never going to get lost in the crowd.

Secondly, don't be afraid of facing difficult times alone. The Holy Spirit is there with you in that courtroom scene, so to speak, when you're summoned to speak. That unexpected moment of pressure or pain. We would call those unscripted moments when you haven't had time to think.

Those are those spontaneous events. And you're responding, we would call it, off the cuff. You're winging it with only a prayer.

Well, here's the promise. You're not winging it. You're walking through it with God's Spirit by your side. You will never face difficult times alone.

You will never get lost in the crowd. You can trust your shepherd's presence and his wisdom and his guidance. That was Stephen Davey and you're listening to Wisdom for the Heart. Stephen is the president of Shepherds Theological Seminary. One of his passions is training and equipping men and women for service to God. That's why he founded that school. Graduates are serving God in their churches and communities all over the world. If you feel God is calling you to be a pastor, Shepherds is a great school to train. But even if you just want to be better equipped to know God's Word, I encourage you to just take a class or two. Many people relocate here and take classes in person, but you don't have to. Courses are also offered online. Learn more at wisdomonline.org forward slash s-t-s and join us back here next time to discover more wisdom for the heart. you