OVERCOMING FEAR
DR. JIM DIXON
1 JOHN 4
MARCH 13, 1983
I want to speak to you this morning on the subject of fear. God does not want us to fear. I want to speak from the Word of God, the fourth chapter of the first letter of the Apostle John. From the beginning, mankind has sensed the presence of evil in the supernatural realm. We had this first message from John. I want to give two messages this morning are two teachings. The first teaching is this: that as Christians, God does not want us to fear the evil one. From the beginning, mankind has sensed the presence of evil in the supernatural realm. The Bible says there are spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. There are demonic spirits. There is a being called Satan, an angel once mighty and now fallen. He is sometimes called the prince of darkness. The Bible calls him the ruler of this world, but as Christians, we need not fear him. For John says, “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”
Satan is a pretender to this world’s throne. The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is Lord of Lords and King of Kings, the eternal Son of God, the one through whom the universe was made. The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ will one day come again. He will come to judge the world and He will come to receive His people unto Himself and He will cast Satan into the outer darkness, into eternal ruin. God wants us as Christians to know that even now, Satan is bound and he is defeated because Christ sealed his defeat on the cross.
Two weeks ago, a good friend came in to talk to me. He’s a Christian. He’s a committed Christian. He loved Jesus Christ. He is certainly not given to psychological delusions, nor is he preoccupied with the world of the occult. Yet he has felt as though these last two months he has been under Satanic attack. It began with some rather strange dreams. He dreamed that there was a presence of evil in the room, and this presence of evil took on the manifestation of a black cat. This black cat would begin to claw at him and he would begin to pronounce the name of Jesus Christ and the cat would be transformed into a large devouring dog. But he would continue to say the name of Jesus and eventually the presence of evil would flee the room, but the dreams reoccurred and the presence of evil would be stronger in the subsequent dreams and the struggle a little longer.
Then two weeks ago, he had a dream that he went into the bathroom and there was a presence of evil there stronger than he had ever felt before. Now from the bathtub there rose this black ooze, and a demonic voice speaking to him. It sounds like something out of a sci-fi horror flick. But it wasn’t very funny to him. He tried to open his mouth and to pronounce the name of Jesus Christ, but it was as though his mouth was glued shut, as though his mouth was sealed. This demonic voice began to mock him to tell him that he was defeated, to tell him that his cause was hopeless. His wife woke him up in the midst of tremendous frustration and anxiety, and she too sensed a presence of evil in the room. They began to pray together. They said the 23rd Psalm together and eventually the presence of evil left the room.
I’m sure most of you have never experienced anything like that and you never will. I’m also sure that many psychologists would give varying explanations and interpretations to a nightmare like that. But as Christians, we should understand that throughout history many of the great saints have had similar dreams, including Martin Luther. We should also understand that there is a demonic realm and Satan does like to attack and seeks to oppress Christians. But what God wants us to understand is that we need not fear Satan. He cannot hurt us. Christ has disarmed him. Even dreams like that, should they occur in your life, cannot hurt you. The truth is that in that moment when you cease to fear (you see Satan’s only weapon is fear), in that moment when you cease to fear, in that moment when you have complete confidence in the power and the love of Jesus Christ, in that moment Satan flees from you. The Bible says, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
There’s a little parable that is told by Louis Evans Jr. who is pastor of National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. It’s a parable of a western town. It seems that in this town there was a gun slinger. This gun slinger was dressed in black and he was fast and he was strong. Before him, no man could stand. He would tell the men and women in this town what to do and they would do it. The whole town, because of him was in bondage to fear. But one day there came another person to that town and this person was different. This person was dressed in white and he too was strong, but he was loving. In his presence, the people felt secure. In his presence, the people felt freedom. In his presence, the people felt happiness. Yet the people knew that one day the man in white and the man in black would have to face each other.
So it was in the middle of the city, in the center of the street, the man in black went for his gun. But the man in white just stood there and the man in black fired bullet after bullet after bullet after bullets and the man in white fell dead in the street and the people’s hopes were crushed. For fear, they fled to their houses and their little world seemed hopeless again. It was a few days later, some of the town’s people were in a back room of one of the old buildings and they were hiding. Suddenly, the man in white appeared among them and he was alive. He told them that he had defeated Satan. He had defeated the man in black by the power of his resurrection from the dead. He told them that the man in black had actually emptied all of his bullets from his gun in that moment when they stood and faced each other in the street. He told them that the man in black, his gun is empty, that they could now, if they believed, go forth into the town with no more fear. That they could go forth in victory, they could go forth in confidence and in joy. That the man in black’s only weapon was fear and they need not fear if they believed.
I like that little parable because it tells us something of what Jesus Christ has done for us. He has disarmed Satan, the Bible says, and therefore the children share in flesh and blood. He Himself, likewise, partook of the same nature, that by His death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil. And deliver those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage. You see, Jesus Christ has come to free us from fear of Satan. He has come to free us from bondage to fear.
In 1974, a man named William Blatty wrote a book called “The Exorcist.” The paperback sold 7 million copies that year. Subsequently, Hollywood produced a movie by the same title. That movie was watched by millions of people. It was the beginning of a great glut of Hollywood movies dealing with demonic and occultic themes; movies such as “The Omen,” movies such as “The Amityville Horror.” Millions of people in this country flood the theaters to see those kinds of movies. We live in a society that is preoccupied with demonism and unfortunately this same preoccupation with demons, this preoccupation with evil has infiltrated the church of Christ. There are many Christians today who are actually preoccupied with demons. Now, what I’m going to say may offend a few of you, but I feel led of God to say it. There are actually some Christians who equate minor personality flaws with demonic activity and with demons. They see demons everywhere. They speak of the demon of irritability, the demon of resentment, the demon of nagging, the demon of overeating.
There is a total preoccupation in some segments of the church of Christ, a preoccupation with demons. Some of these Christians go to deliverance ministries seeking to have these minor personality flaws, seeking to have these demons removed. But their personalities do not change. They think that in going to these deliverance ministries that they are exercising mastery over Satan. But in truth, Satan has them right where he wants them. He has them preoccupied with demons. He has them preoccupied with evil. I certainly believe that demons are real. I’ve had times in my ministry through the years where I have felt that a person that I was with was possessed by a demon. I have sensed the presence of evil. I know with all my heart that God has given us as Christians power to cast out demons. But you see, I do not believe that as Christians we can be possessed by demons.
There is not one example in the whole of the New Testament, in the writings of Paul or Peter or James or John, not one example of a person who was born of the Spirit, a person born anew through faith in Jesus Christ who was possessed by demons. Now, certainly Satan attacks Christians and he can oppress Christians, but God does not want us to fear Satan. In fact, John says in his little letter, he says, “He who is born of God, the Son of God keeps him and the evil one can not touch him.” God wants you to believe that. He does not want you to fear Satan.
A strange thing happened in 1960 in a little village of Tsyrkuny in the Ukraine. A man named Grisha Tsekalinko came out of hiding. His neighbors had not seen him in 18 years. They thought that he had died in 1942 as a World War II hero. But actually he had fled from the front line and he had deserted. He had returned to his mother’s house. There, his mother had hid him in a cave beneath the manure pile behind the tool shed. For 18 years, she brought him two meals a day. He nearly froze in the winter and he almost suffocated of heat during the summers. But he was afraid to come out. He was in fear that he might be prosecuted, though in truth the statute of limitations had long since run out. But you see, he was in bondage to fear. Because he was in to fear, he remained in a living grave for 18 years.
Now that’s exactly what Satan wants to do with people and even with Christians. He loves to have Christians in bondage to fear. He loves to see Christians who are afraid of entering into personal relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ. He loves to see Christians who are afraid to make themselves vulnerable and form friendships. He loves to see Christians who are afraid of ministry, Christians who are afraid to go into the world and share their faith in Jesus Christ, and afraid to share the love of Jesus Christ. He loves to see Christians who are preoccupied with fears. He loves to seek Christians who have fears regarding their physical health. He loves to seek Christians who have fears regarding their emotional stability. He loves to see Christians who have fears regarding their financial security. He loves to seek Christians in to fear.
So we have this first message from John: as Christians, we need not fear. We need not fear the evil one, for He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. The Bible says, “Behold your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that this same experience of suffering is required of your brotherhood throughout the world. When you’ve suffered for a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus will Himself restore, establish, and strengthen you. To Him be the glory and the power and the dominion forever. Amen.” So we have this first message from John: as Christians, we need not to fear the evil one.
We have a second and final message from John, and it is this: as Christians, God does not want us to fear Him. God is love and He wants us to love Him and to trust His love for us. The Greek word for fear is the word “fobos.” It had two meanings. Sometimes it could be used to refer to reverential awe and respect. In this sense, God does want us to fear Him. God wants us to reverence Him. He wants us to respect Him. He wants us to worship Him. But sometimes this word “fobos” was used to refer to terror. It was used to refer to fright. It was used to refer to being afraid. In that sense, the Bible says God does not want us to fear Him because God wants us as His children, as those who have been born into the family of God through faith in Jesus Christ. He wants us to trust Him as His very own children. He wants us to trust His love for us. The Bible says God is love. There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out all fear. Fear has to do with punishment. He who fears is not perfected in love.
I don’t remember much about my first year in high school. One thing I do remember is when we first went to high school, the seniors called us scrubs and they used to paint our faces and do all kinds of mischievous things to us. We didn’t much like it. I remember one day a friend and I were hiding behind an oleander bush near the school and we had little bowls full of cumquats. Those are small little fruit like oranges. We had picked them from my parents’ trees and we had them there. They make great throwing objects. If you hit a car with a cumquat, it really splatters. We were hiding behind this oleander tree waiting for seniors to drive by in their cars so we could pelt them. I remember one time this carload of seniors came by. I remember the back end of the car was about two yards off the ground. Everyone in the car had their hair greased back. We just began to take these cumquats and just pelt that car. We just blasted it. Suddenly, the car came to a screeching halt. All those seniors got out and they began to run towards us, and we didn’t count on that.
So my friend and I began to run and he went one direction and I went the other direction and four guys followed me. I turned down this one street. That was my big mistake. At the end of the street, it was a dead end street. At the end of the street there was this high wall and there was a driveway leading up to a garage. I knew that my only chance was to jump up onto the roof of the garage and go over the garage. But the overhang on the garage was about eight feet high. I didn’t know whether I could jump that high and pull myself over, but I was panicked and I could hear footsteps behind me and my heart was beating and I ran and I just jumped with all my strength and I missed the ledge of the garage. However, I caught it on my way down and I went right over the garage, and I got away from those guys.
Now, psychologists tell us that fear can be a tremendous motivator. That you can do things when you’re afraid that you could never normally do. Some ministers have picked up on this. So they try to motivate congregations through fear. One minister in San Francisco got an asbestos suit. He lit himself on fire and he preached a sermon on hell telling people that they were going to burn. Now, hell is very real. It does exist, but God does not normally want to motivate us through fear. He wants to motivate us through love. He reaches out to us in love. “In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God’s sent His only Son into the world and we might have life through Him.” God does not want us to be motivated by fear.
I love the story of Alice Fisher. She was an old retired schoolteacher and she lived back east and she lived in an old country house with a lot of property around her house. Near the edge of her property line there was an old tree. She loved that old tree, but her neighbor and the neighbor’s family did not like the tree. They kept asking her to cut it down. But she said she just couldn’t do that because the tree meant so much to her. Well, one night the neighbors went and they cut the tree down in the middle of the night and they chopped it up into firewood and they took it back to their own home.
When Alice Fisher found out about that, she was pretty mad. At first, she wanted to get even. She wanted to make them pay, she wanted to scare them. She thought about threatening to sue them. She thought about threatening to call the police. But Alice Fisher was a Christian. One day, she was reading the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord by His spirit convicted her that she was to turn the other cheek and she was to try to win her neighbors by expressing love towards them. So she baked a cake, and one week she took that cake to the neighbor’s house and they slammed the door in her face. The next week she baked custard cups and she brought them to the neighbors and they looked at them for a while, apparently they liked custard cups, but they closed the door anyway. The next week she took a large bouquet of flowers over to the neighbor’s house and they accepted those. Eventually, little by little, her little gifts of love reached them and they became good friends. Finally, Alice Fisher was able to share the love of Jesus Christ with those people.
You see, that’s exactly how God has tried to reach you and how God has tried to reach us. If you have discernment and you look back on your life, you will see those little gifts of love that He has sent your way in an effort to reach you. He has tried to reach the world with His love. He sent His prophets into the world. He sent angelic mediators. Ultimately, He sent His Son, the Lord of glory. “God loved the world so much that he gave His only begotten Son.” As Christians, as those who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of life, we are those who have come into the realm of God’s love. God wants us to continuingly trust His love for us as his children. If we really trust God’s love, we will not fear in this world. We will not fear anything.
Martin Luther, during the Reformation, had a cardinal come up to him. The cardinal was sent by the Pope. They tried to give Martin Luther gold to bribe him back into the Catholic fold. Martin Luther refused the gold and he gave the cardinal a message for the Pope and the cardinal was indignant. The Cardinal said, “You fool, you think the Pope cares for an opinion of a German boar?” He said, “Do you expect your friends to rise up with arms and defend you? The Pope’s little finger is stronger than all of Germany. If the Pope moves against you, where will you be?” Martin Luther just smiled and he said, “I’ll be right where I am now. I’ll be in the hand of the mighty God.” He believed that with all of his heart and that’s why he wrote that hymn “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” We sang that this morning.
Martin Luther knew and he was so confident of God’s love for him that he would not fear anything. That’s how God wants us to be. He does not want us to fear anything. You may be going through a crisis right now in your financial life and you may not know how to pay all your bills. God doesn’t want you to be afraid. You may be going through a relational struggle. Maybe your marriage is not everything you meant or you hoped for it to be. Maybe you’re afraid of losing someone you love very much, but God does not want you to be afraid. You may be having health problems. You may be afraid for your very life physically. God does not want you to be afraid because you see He loves you and He wants you to trust His love for him.
Many years ago, a British citizen, a man named Campbell was taken captive in a little providence or a nation called Abyssinia. Abyssinia was the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia. The kingdom of Abyssinia had low lying deserts that were hot and they also had high cold mountains. They took this British citizen named Campbell captive and they took them high up into the mountains to this fortress city called Maqdala. There they held him prisoner. It took the British Empire six months to discover that one of their citizens was held captive in Abyssinia. When they found out, they demanded the immediate release of Campbell. But King Theodore of Abyssinia refused to release Campbell. So the British Empire immediately sent forth 10,000 men, sent them forth by sea, and they came to the coastlands. Those 10,000 men marched 700 miles across the desert and they went up the mountains to the fortress city of Maqdala. It’s a manner of historical record that those 10,000 men literally blew down the gates to the city. They went and they took Campbell and they carried him across the desert all the way to their boats. They brought him home safely to England. It cost the British Empire 25 million dollars to rescue Campbell, but they wanted to prove that they had power to protect their citizens.
If that is true of the British Empire, how much more is that true of the kingdom of Christ? Christ has power to protect you and He will go to any length to protect you and provide your security. He has power to keep you safe. He wants you to know that. Our Lord Jesus Christ, towards the end of His earthly life, just before He went to the cross, you’ll recall that He was in Gethsemane. The Roman soldiers came for Him, that they might deliver him unto Pilot. As they drew near to him, Jesus said, “Whom do you seek?” A Roman soldier said “Jesus of Nazareth.” And Jesus said, “I am he.” The scriptures say that the Roman soldiers drew back and fell to the ground at the power of His presence. But Jesus encouraged them on and He said, “I said, I am He.” As the Roman soldiers rose and began to come towards Him, you’ll recall how Peter took his sword and he cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest, a man named Malchus. But Jesus rebuked Peter.
Jesus said, “Do you not know that I could summon the Father and He would at once send 12 legions of angels.” A Roman legion was 10,000 men, 12 legions of angels would’ve been 120,000 angels. He had power to summon them in that moment. But Christ reached forth and He touched the ear of the servant named Malchus and by the power that was in Him, He restored his ear. Then Christ turned to Peter and He said, “I must drink the cup that the Father has given me.” He went to the cross for you and for me. But He had power to defend himself and He has power to defend you. There is no doubt in the Word of God, no doubt at all, that He can protect you and keep you until your earthly ministry is full. He can protect you and keep you until it is time for you to go forth into His presence. He has power to keep you safe. He wants you to know that.
Before He left this earth, He said, “All power in the heavens and on earth have been given to Me. Go therefore unto all the world.” And He said, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.” He said, “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you, not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled and neither let it be afraid.” The apostle Paul said, “I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor heights, nor depths, nor anything else in all of God’s creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The Bible says, “Fear not, I am with you. Be not dismayed, I am your God. I will uphold you. I will strengthen you with my victorious right hand.” So we have this message from John that as Christians, we need not fear anything. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” Shall we pray?