Banishing Fear

So if you've got your Bibles, why don't you pick them up and let's just wave them around together, just like we always do?

It's our custom, and we make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Let's say this together, say Heavenly Father, I've tuned in on purpose tonight.

I have ears to hear what the Spirit is telling me from the Word of God.

It's the Spirit-breathed Word that brings me into the perfect will of God, that keeps me at peace, keeps me full of joy, keeps me in the place of victory and I do have the victory tonight in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And let's turn in our Bibles to 2 Timothy, chapter one.

Paul is writing to his son in the faith, and we'll pick it up with verse three.

I thank God, whom I serve for my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing, I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day, greatly desiring to see thee being mindful of thy tears, that I might be filled with joy when I called to remembrance the unfaith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother, eunice, and I am persuaded that in thee also.

Therefore, I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on or the laying on of my hands.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind.

And let me read verse seven in the Amplified God didn't give us the spirit of timidity, of cowardice, of craven, cringing, fawning fear, but the spirit of power and love and of a calm, well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control.

And so tonight I wanted to share a message entitled Banishing Fear.

Banishing Fear.

Fear and panic are alive and well in the nation, not only all around the world, but right here in America, at a level that it's hard for me to remember any time.

I guess during wars we had that kind of fear.

They predated my birth.

World War II Don't seem to.

I don't think that we had that kind of fear during Vietnam, because I don't think there was any fear of any kind of invasion.

There was that fear during World War II.

But when we look at the fear that's present in our nation because of this pandemic and we don't doubt that there's a virus it's just the response to it.

That is just unscientific, unrealistic and it's based on fear and panic, which is on purpose.

They want to cause fear and panic.

So this message.

You might not feel like that you are giving into that, but let's just have some checkups and let's make sure that we keep ourselves strong right now, because people need an example of courage.

God didn't give us this panic and fear.

Regardless of what's going on.

This fear is all a part of the gross darkness you know.

In Isaiah 60.

In fact it's worth looking there.

Let's turn back to the book of Isaiah and believe it's talking to the church right now.

Verse one it says arise, shine, for the light is.

Thy light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon thee.

For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, in gross darkness, the people.

But the Lord shall arise upon thee and his glory shall be seen upon thee.

And so we've been placed on the earth for such a time as this to shine with the glory of God, not to participate in a panic attack, amen.

And so fear and panic are part of the gross darkness that the prophet Isaiah was prophesying.

Another place in the Bible, in Luke 21, 26, jesus said that in the last days right before his second coming, that men's hearts would fail them for the fear of looking on the things that are coming upon the earth.

And so we have this terrorism, we have mass shootings, we have, in fact, I read the other day where murders are up in Houston 44% and the police chief, asavado, says it's because of the pandemic.

I think he's, you know, full of beans, sorry.

I think it's simply because we have a terrible justice system that is turning out criminals.

As fast as they're arrested they're turned out with no bond, no bail, and they have a PR bond, a personal recognizance bond.

They don't even show back up and you've got some of these people that are committing murders and criminal acts.

Most of the murders are in the process of committing felonies.

They do admit that.

So there's a lot of tension, we can say fear in the community.

Right here in Houston.

People are afraid to leave their homes, people are afraid to go out after dark, sometimes, when you know this is a 24-hour day city.

Some of our women work shift work.

They have no choice except to go to the store at night and they're fearful and we can understand why they would be.

But thank God that we have a covenant with Almighty God and if we're in that case, we can face these fears and reject them, amen.

I think we ought to use common sense.

I think we ought to do what we can to minimize risk.

But terrorism, drive-by shootings, mass murder, robbery, car jackings, home invasions, economic woes, you know, I think we can even start thinking about the fear of freezing.

You know, we had the fear of frozen pipes A lot of us.

Our fears were realized when we turned the water on.

I know, in my case I had a flood and so you know, weather disasters, earthquakes, all of these kind of things contribute to this atmosphere.

You know, it was just about six months after we moved into this building.

It was October of 04.

I went away to Galveston to pray and the Holy Spirit smoked my heart.

These words he said many are satiated with the cares of this world and with the pleasures of this world, and much of the care comes from the pursuit of the pleasure.

And I thought on that.

I knew it was the Holy Spirit speaking, because I wouldn't use the word satiated for anything.

I don't think I've ever used that word in a sentence.

So I looked up the word satiate and it means filled up, gorged, it means drunk.

And so the Holy Spirit was saying many are gorged, they're filled up, the overflowing with the cares and with the pleasures.

You know, america is such a prospered nation and even the poor among us are prosperous compared to a global standard.

People on welfare in this country are rich compared to a global standard.

And so there's much pleasure, there's much entertainment.

Almost every house has got a television.

Almost every household has got cable television with 300 channels, and all of that.

We have entertainment everywhere we look and we're just filled up with the pleasures of this world but at the same time with the cares and friendship and service.

And then the Holy Spirit said this.

He said many just tip their hat to me and go along their merry way, which I believe he was talking about.

A lot of Christians, a lot of Christians just tip their hat, as it were, come to church, you know when they feel like it.

Maybe it's every Sunday, but a lot of times it's not even that often they kind of give a little acknowledgement to God, but the rest of the time they're filled with care and they're filled with the pleasures.

They're pursuing both.

And so you know, if terror is a movie, then stress is the soundtrack.

You remember that old movie, psycho?

It came out in 1959.

I was just a kid when it came out and I was Catholic and Catholic the Catholic.

They had a movie rating system so it was rated, condemned, it was rated C so as a Catholic I couldn't go see it.

My mother would not allow me to go see that movie and it was a brutal movie and I read later after I got older, and I did see it on television, you know, when it was edited, I'm sure.

But I remember that soundtrack in there when the guy's going to stab the woman, you know, and it's all.

It's just real creepy and just like a horror movie and the soundtrack was.

And when you hear just those, it was violins and they were having the screeching sound and I mean, everybody's blood pressure is raised.

And I'm told at the movie that people ran out of the at the premiere.

People ran out of the movie theater because they were so unnerved and so terrified and that's kind of.

You know, there's a soundtrack going on in our mind.

It's stress, it's dread, it's probably not fear like the fear we think about, it's not like terror, it's just a mild soundtrack, a floor of stress and worry, and that type of thing which gives rise to fear, and full blown fear, it can do great damage to us.

Let's look at Isaiah 54.

Just in Isaiah.

Let's look again to the prophet and what he had to say.

And we want to banish fear.

I believe the church has an opportunity right now, where everybody's fearful and stressed out, that we can be an example to people with our countenance and with our comfort.

Isaiah 54, verse 14, in righteousness shall you be established.

Isaiah 54:14

You shall be far from oppression, for thou shalt not fear, and from terror.

You'll be far from terror, for it shall not come near thee.

Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by me.

Notice he says these things oppression and fear will gather together, but he said, god says I'm not sending it, it's not me that sends it.

Whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake.

Isn't that a great promise.

Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals and the fire and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work, and I have created the waster to destroy.

But no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that rises against the injudgment shall be demonstrated to be wrong in a court of law.

That's what one version of the Bible says.

So oppression there in the Hebrew means the spoiling of one's goods by terror or force.

So when we give in to fear, we're allowing and opening a door for the devil to take our goods he's able to steal from us.

It's the wrong thing to be thinking about what you're afraid of.

You know, god didn't give this thing to us.

He didn't say the weapon wouldn't be formed.

He just said it would not prevail.

Those weapons are formed against us.

In fact, all across the entire world, weapons are forming against Christianity.

Laws are being proposed right now by the Biden administration that are anti-Christian and anti-church.

They would love to get rid of the church and render it powerless and they are working day and night to do it.

They have already got these laws that.

He's doing several things.

He's got legislation.

They're proposing and also doing as much as they can with executive action, executive orders, which were pre-done, just kind of like Obamacare was pre-written years ago and they had it in a drawer and 2600 pages.

You know they didn't generate that in a few days.

It was sitting there for a long time and that's the same with all of these things, a Green New Deal, all of these crazy things that they're proposing.

But thank God we have the weapons that are greater.

We don't have to give in to fear and panic and worry and all of that.

Somebody said, well, but look at Job.

Job lost everything.

He lost his family.

I propose that we look at Job the way that he really is.

Job is the double portion man he wound up with twice as much.

Why don't you read the end of the story?

We always freeze reading about Job when he lost his kids and he did.

He lost his children and then he got sick and then his friends showed up and tried to preach to him while he was down.

Have you ever had that happen to you?

When somebody you know comes up and tries to preach you a sermon, you know they don't have any help for you.

They just want to let you know how much more spiritual they are than you.

Job's friends.

God wasn't very pleased with Job's friends.

I've had a few of Job's friends that they lived all the way through the centuries and they lived in my day when they came to me.

So, but Job said it all himself.

He said the thing that I greatly feared has come upon me.

You see, he had children that he had raised, that he didn't train up in the way that they should go and they were living worthless lives.

They were partying, and they were.

They were living high on the hog and they were rich, and all their riches came from their dad.

Their dad funded their sin, and the Bible says that he knew that they were sinning and he was worried about their sin, and so he would offer sacrifices continually for them.

What he should have done is gone over to their house and said hey, the party's over, I'm calling the note on your farm and if you can't pay me, I expect you to come tomorrow and start working.

Boys, I've got some horses that need to be broke, and girls, there's a bunch of cows that need to be milked.

You get to work.

Yeah, the party's over, dad's not financing this partying.

But no, he didn't do the right thing as a father.

He just indulged them and spoiled them.

And so he said the thing that I greatly feared has come upon me.

So fear opened the door for Satan to steal everything he had, including his wealth.

I mean, how about a woman?

He married to a woman and says curse God and die.

How about that kind of?

How about a wife like that?

And?

But the Bible says at the end of the story, the end of, he was healed when he prayed for his friends and God restored to him twice as much as before.

Let's think about him as the double portion man.

Let's look at how things really turned out when he got his life right, when he got his priorities correct.

You know, sometimes with our loved ones, we want them to be blessed so much that when they're being disobedient, when they're running from God, we're still praying the blessing over them.

Years and years ago I was at Lakewood when Dr Roy Hicks came to town and he was preaching along these lines at Lakewood and he started chastising parents for doing that.

He said you know, you ought to be praying.

If you want to pray for your kids, pray for them in the Holy Ghost and turn them over to God for and you ought to be praying this God, whatever it takes.

I want my child saved, I want them serving God, I don't care what it takes.

Instead of praying a better job and praying raises and praying health and praying all the goodies that they're not qualified to have, why don't you just pray in the Holy Ghost and let God handle it?

And oh, he got criticized.

I mean, people really didn't like to hear that.

Oh no, I want my little one, my little four, my little ones, they're special.

That's kind of the attitude Joe had.

So anyway, praise God.

You know waves and wind didn't sink Peter when he was walking on the water.

It was doubt that sunk him.

You know, jesus said wherefore did thou doubt Peter?

Why did you doubt?

Oh, you have little faith.

Why did you doubt?

Doubt sunk him, not the waves, not the wind.

And so doubt is acting on fear.

Fear always has a consequence.

Faith and fear are incompatible.

Faith is acting on what God says.

Fear is acting on what the devil says.

Or we could say it this way fear is acting on what our five senses tell us.

That's exactly what happened to Peter.

His five senses told him he was sinking.

So when we act on our five senses instead of what God says, then that's fear.

To act in faith is to bring God's promise into fruition.

To act in fear is to bring the devil's promises into fruition.

Let's look at Hebrews, chapter two.

Behind all fear, the basis of all of fear, is the fear of death.

You know, we can talk about all kinds of phobias and we can talk about all kind of hangups, but really behind all of those types of things it's nothing but the fear of death.

But in Hebrews, the second chapter, verse 14, for as much then, as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, let's talk about you.

And I see we are partakers of flesh and blood.

We have flesh and blood.

He also, talking about Jesus, himself likewise took part of the same Jesus is flesh and blood that, through death, he might destroy him.

That had the power of death that is the devil and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

So the fear of death, you know, you can say it's a phobia.

You can say I have the fear of heights.

You can say I have the fear of, I've had claustrophobia, I'm fear of tight spaces.

I have this fear and that fear all that people talk about, fear all the time, but what they're really talking about is the fear of death that's underneath it, and they are in bondage all of their life to the fear of death.

And Jesus broke that bondage.

He broke it by destroying the devil.

Now, does the devil cease to exist?

No, the word destroy doesn't mean that in the Greek.

It simply means that he has put him out of commission.

One version says he's put him out of commission, he's rendered him powerless, he has declared him null and void.

I love, I like that one.

Null and void.

That's the devil.

We have to know that, we have to believe that, we have to act like that's true.

And when we pay too much attention to our fears, see what always doubt your fears and believe your beliefs.

That's one of my favorite things doubt your fears and believe your beliefs.

So we're talking about banishing fear tonight and we have the power to do that.

And Paul gives his son and the faith Timothy some hints about how to best get rid of fear.

And so we're gonna go back to second Timothy, chapter one again, and in verse six he said to stir up the gift of God.

So number one on the list of banishing fear, stir up the gift of God.

In other words, the Holy Spirit is a gift that's been given unto you.

Stir up the Holy Ghost on the inside.

First Timothy four four says greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world.

Stir up, stir up the greater one.

He's in you to help you.

He's in there inside of you to put you over in every situation.

You have nothing to fear as long as he's there, and he is there.

So stir him up.

I read about a hunter that was out in Alaska hunting Kodiak bear and unfortunately the Kodiak bear found them the hunter and the guide before they knew they were looking for the bear.

But the bear found them first and by the time they noticed him he was in full charge.

He was coming full speed.

And so the man, all he could do is lift his rifle and fire, except his gun jammed.

And now it's too late.

I mean, the bear is coming and there's no way he can sit there and clear the breach.

And but, thank God, the guide stood right beside him and lifted his gun and shot the bear dead right there.

I mean, he fell in a heap right there, within about five or six feet of them, and they were about to be, you know, the dinner, dinner bell had rung and so the greater one did it.

He didn't have to do it.

I mean, his helper did it.

We've got a helper, we don't have to do it ourselves.

He's our helper.

He can dispatch the enemy, he can dispatch the situation if we're just trusting.

Stir up Word stirrup means to rekindle, to inflame one's mind, to rekindle your zeal, your strength.

Remember, we have a sound mind, a calm and well-balanced mind.

That's another thing God gave us.

We don't have to have a flaky mind, a fuzzy mind, a mind that's panic-stricken.

Given to panic attacks, those type of things are really just of the emotions, they're of the mind.

It's a symptom.

It's not something that you can.

It's just a symptom of an underlying problem.

What's the underlying problem?

Stinking thinking, you're thinking the wrong things, you're meditating on the wrong.

We've been talking a lot about the power of imagination.

Your imagination is headed in the wrong direction when you have panic attacks.

So the Bible says in Jude 20, building up yourself on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost.

In other words, become spirit dominant.

Let your spirit dominate your being, your mind and your body, and that way fear won't be able to get a hold.

You might feel fear.

You might have a feeling of fear.

It may be that you've got goosebumps on top of goosebumps.

That doesn't matter.

Those are involuntary reactions.

That doesn't mean that you have a spirit of fear.

That doesn't mean that the spirit of fear is attacked you.

It just means that you're having an emotional reaction.

You don't have to pay any attention to it.

You don't have to pay any attention to that.

What you say about it is more important than how you feel about it.

So stir up the gift that's in you.

There in verse six.

And then another part of verse six.

He says I put the in remembrance.

So the second part of banishing fear is remember, don't forget.

Remember what God has done.

He hasn't done wonderful things for you already.

See, a lot of times we just forget.

We forget in our trial, we forget in our tribulation, we forget in our circumstance and our pressure cooker.

We start thinking about we're all alone.

Well, number one, you're not alone because you've got the helper inside of you.

I think about David in 1 Samuel 17, 37.

We think David was so courageous.

I think he just showed up one day and he decided to kill Goliath.

Listen, he had to talk himself into it.

If you'll read 1 Samuel 17 carefully, you'll see that he stirred himself up.

You'll see that he started investigating and he started talking and he was speaking.

And I know he was doing that to stir himself up.

In verse 37, he said you know, god delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear and he will deliver me out of the hand of this uncircumcised Philistine.

So what did he have to do?

He had to remember.

When God showed up, you know, he knew he didn't kill that lion and that bear.

He knew it was God that had anointed him to do that.

See, he didn't take credit for it and he wasn't about to take credit for killing Goliath.

He was stirring himself up.

Oh, I tell you, it's so powerful for us to remember and not to forget God and forget that he has helped us so many times before.

In Psalm 78, israel forgot what God did in the land of Egypt and they limited the Holy One of of Israel.

They limited God because they forgot what he did in the field of Zohan.

And God did great things to deliver them out of Egypt and they forgot all about them.

They weren't persuaded.

I'm not saying they had amnesia, I'm saying it didn't matter to them.

They didn't hold it in their memory, they didn't rehearse it, they didn't talk.

Like you know, when they faced trouble they didn't say oh well, god got us out of Egypt, he's going to take care of us in the Promised Land.

We don't have any fear.

I know there's giants there, but we're going to.

We're a well able seat.

Only two out of the 12 had that report.

The other 10, they forgot.

They forgot.

Let's not forget what God has done.

Feed your faith, starve your fear, amen.

And, as I mentioned, let's think about the right things.

Philippians 4-8 tells us what we ought to be thinking about Things that are noble, things that are great and true and pure.

We ought to be thinking about those things.

We ought to not be thinking about what the devil's going to do and how the devil's going to do it.

And devil, devil, devil, devil, let's, let's magnify God.

Whatever you magnify will be magnified.

And then the final one is found in Philippians 4-4.

It says rejoice in the Lord always.

And again I say rejoice.

We find this also here.

You know, paul is writing Timothy and evidently he found out that Timothy had been crying.

He found out that Timothy had been in in, in intimidated by older members of the church, and he had been intimidated because Paul, his father in the faith, was now jailbird.

He'd been, he'd been arrested, and so he was kind of intimidated by all that and he said you know, I, I greatly desire to see thee being mindful of your tears.

I mean, I heard about you crying, so that I might be filled with joy when I remember so I he had Paul had, instead of being worried about him, crying and being offended and chewing him out and giving him and dressing him down for being lack of courage and being ashamed of Paul.

He just pointed him back to the heritage that he had of faith.

He said, son, I know you've got it in you.

Your grandmother had it, your mother had it.

I know you've got it.

I've been thinking about that, I've been remembering that faith.

I know you've got that faith.

Just stir it up, son.

See, he was encouraging him instead of beating him up and dressing him down and making it worse.

And so for us, we have to rejoice.

Let's remember to rejoice.

Rejoice, listen.

Praise is the language of faith.

That is proof.

When you praise God in the face of trouble, the devil goes haywire.

He can't stand it.

Paul and Silas started praising God in the prison when they were locked up.

They were praising God so loud that all the prisoners hurt him and he wanted to kill them.

So bad he sent an earthquake.

And God invaded the earthquake and broke them out of jail.

And I tell you, if the devil tries to shut your mouth, god will invade that and turn everything around.

So let's learn to rejoice in the time of trouble.

Amen, and let's quit cringing and start shouting.

Let's quit worrying and start laughing.

Let's begin to laugh at the impossibilities that the devil throws at us.

Amen, banish fear, come on, lift your hands and receive tonight.

Hallelujah.

Glory to God.