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Peggy Joyce Ruth, aka "the Psalm 91 Lady" is author of a variety of Psalm 91 book titles with over six million copies in print. She taught a weekly Adult Bible Study for more than 35 years in her church in Central Texas as she shared how to make God’s Word your final authority. Known for her easy-to-understand style of communicating the Word of God and warm storytelling, Peggy Joyce's heart is that her books and teachings will bring you into the same freedom from fear she experienced and help you put God's Word to work in your life.
Today, we're going to be talking about the results of fear. Now, we've had a lot of teaching on fear in the past, but because fear is really faith's number one enemy, without a doubt, I felt like the Lord was impressing me to have us just take another look from another angle, because fear hides. It hides all the time behind so many different faces, and it manifests in so many subtle ways that half the time we don't even realize that it's fear that's causing us to lose the victory. We don't even realize many times we're operating in fear. So, we're going to look at some interesting stories out of the Old Testament, and we're going to demonstrate problems that arise from fear, what fear causes.
Speaker 1:Okay, number one: Fear causes us to forget how big our God is. I want to say that again. Number one: Fear causes us to forget how big our God is. Now, you're all familiar with the story in the Old Testament of the magnificent victory now that God gave Elijah up on Mount Carmel. Now, this is in one Kings 18, verse 19, so I want us to kind of refresh our memory here.
Speaker 1:Elijah sent for the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of the Asherah, who ate at Jezebel's table every day. Well, that meant they lived there in the palace with her. So, want you to think about it. 850 satanic priests were hired full time now to help Jezebel sacrifice to her idols. Wow.
Speaker 1:And, they lived there. That means that she fed them. Our tradition tells us that Jezebel was a witch, literally. With those 850 men, she was constantly worshiping idols. They were constantly worshiping idols.
Speaker 1:So they had to be deep now in the occult activity. Then in verse 21, Elijah calls all the people together and he says, How long will you continue now to hesitate between two opinions? How long will you hesitate between wondering if Jehovah God is our answer or if Baal is the answer? And then he says, There's going to be no more double mindedness because today we're going to prove who the real Jehovah and the real Baal is. Now, Elijah alone is the prophet of Jehovah, and Baal has 850 prophets, you know, so I'm sure that impressed a lot of people.
Speaker 1:I'm sure a lot of people said, Well, they have so many prophets. They're bound to be right. But, that doesn't slow Elijah down for one moment. It doesn't intimidate him. He fearlessly now declares that they're going to each prepare a sacrifice for their gods, and then he has the prophets of Baal call first on their god, little g god.
Speaker 1:He says, You can go and see if your god will consume the sacrifice. So, from sun up till sundown, now the prophets of Baal, they holler, they leap, they cut themselves, and they do this to no avail. Now, First Kings eighteen twenty eight says that they cried with loud voices, and they cut themselves, as was their custom. So, they weren't just doing it this time. That was, you know, their stupid custom, and they would do it, it said, until the blood gushed out.
Speaker 1:So, they weren't just scratching themselves. They were cutting themselves until the blood gushed out. That means they had pretty deep cuts. Now, before that, in verse 27, Elijah had gotten so brave that he had even begun to taunt the prophets of Baal to mock them. Now, Elijah was saying, maybe your God's going on a journey.
Speaker 1:Maybe he's asleep. Maybe he doesn't hear you. Why don't you get a little bit louder and wake him up? Now, this went on all day long, and when they couldn't get their gods to respond, then Elijah prepares a sacrifice on the altar to the Lord God Jehovah. And he had trenches then dug around the altar.
Speaker 1:He put the wood on it, and he poured water all over it, you know, until the trenches were full of water. And then he very calmly prayed to his God in faith and trust. Now, wasn't cutting himself. He was just calling out to his God. And God consumed the sacrifice with fire.
Speaker 1:And all the people saw it, you know. And when they saw it, all of them fell on their faces before God because they realized the other gods couldn't do a thing. And here, Elijah had just called out to God and oh, the miracle started happening. Then Elijah single handedly had all of the prophets of Baal killed. Okay, now that was a pretty fearless demonstration of faith in God's power.
Speaker 1:Now, if anyone had taken a vote that day, Elijah would have been voted the most fearless man alive. I mean, everybody was there. Wow, look at him. Though his fearlessness, he proved the bigness of God beyond a shadow of a doubt. So there was no question.
Speaker 1:Everybody saw it that day. And, like I say, the people had fallen on their faces in worship of that. Now, in fact, no one doubted it that day. The people all fell on their faces and 850 prophets recognized the bigness of Jehovah God. Even those that were on the other side, they saw it because 850 men could have escaped.
Speaker 1:But they were powerless because they were paralyzed with fear in the face of the one true God. Then, in chapter 19, Jezebel hears what Elijah has done. But, instead of getting into fear over what might happen to her since she's lost all eight fifty prophets, you would think that she'd think, Oh, Lord, I'm next. But that wasn't what happened. Instead, she became furious and she turns and puts all that fear over on Elijah.
Speaker 1:So, leave it to a godless woman. And in one Kings nineteen:two-three: Then Jezebel sent a message to Elijah, saying, 'So may the gods do to me and even more if I do not make your life as one of them by tomorrow about this time. She wasn't even worried about what all he had done to all of her prophets. She just said, Wait. Just see what I'm gonna do to you.
Speaker 1:And Elijah, it says, became afraid and he arose and he ran for his life, even left his servant in Beersheba. We're real quick to be judgmental of him, but so many times that's what we do. We run-in fear. But I want you to think about it. Elijah fled from one lone woman when only the day before now he had stood up to 850 false prophets.
Speaker 1:But fear caused him to forget how big his God was. Now fear caused him to forget how big his God had been just the day before. The day before is when God had done all these miracles for him. Now fear is what causes us to forget. We need to make a note and put it in front of us that fear is what causes us to forget how big our God is and that our God will never leave us and He will never forsake us.
Speaker 1:And that's why we need to have these things written down and keep them wherever once in a while we get them out and read them to remind ourselves of how big our God is. And He's just as big to take care of today's problems as He was to take care of yesterday's problems. But, when we get into fear, what it is, we run just exactly like Elijah did. Now, we may not always run physically, but we have our own ways of running from God. Most people don't run physically, but they do have their ways of running away from God.
Speaker 1:Have you ever stopped to wonder why Jezebel was able to provoke that much fear in Elijah? Okay, I want you to hear me on this. Fear is not just an emotion. Fear is a demonic spirit. It actually has the character of the enemy.
Speaker 1:It's actually a demonic spirit. And it's no accident now that the Word of God says do not fear so many times. It says it over and over through the Word of God. It's amazing sometimes if you just stop and go through the Word and see how many times God tells us do not fear. God's saying don't play around with the character of the enemy.
Speaker 1:He says it's dangerous. It opens us up into the demonic realm. Now, when you come in contact with someone who's in deception or maybe in witchcraft, you can actually sense the evil. You know, a lot of times you can actually feel the effects of the evil the effects of the fear. I've had people tell me that their throat will get real tight or sometimes the palms of your hand will get wet and moist.
Speaker 1:Some get a sick feeling, they say, down in the pit of their stomach. And others have their nose burn on the inside. So there's different ways that fear affects us. But it's real. It's because fear is a demonic spirit.
Speaker 1:Okay, now if you're not quick to recognize that it's spiritual warfare that you're encountering and if you're not quick to remember how big your God is, that He's bigger than any of these demonic spirits, when we forget that, the fear will overtake us. But spiritual warfare is real, and it's not more powerful than our God is in us unless we forget who we are in Christ. And that's what happens to a lot of people. We have the most powerful God of the entire universe. He is the God of the universe.
Speaker 1:But, sometimes, when a person forgets who they are and who God is and what they have available to them, all of a sudden, bad things start happening and they start getting pulled down. And so many people do forget. It's amazing how many Christians forget that they do not have to fear. God is bigger than any demonic spirit, but when we forget that, then the fear will overtake the person. Now, God's willing and He's waiting to fight our battles.
Speaker 1:You know, it's wonderful to think that the God of the universe wants to fight our battles with us and for us. But we have to run to Him. When we don't run to Him, it's not going do us any good. Fear is the enemy. I want you to hear me.
Speaker 1:You can put everything else to the side. Fear is your enemy. Fear can cause us to forget to run to God, to have Him tell us what to do. Fear makes us forget. It's one of the big forgetters.
Speaker 1:Now, it's so easy to run to our own reasoning. It's easy to run to our own emotions rather than running to God. Now, caused Elijah to panic. It caused Elijah now to run-in fear rather than run to God. And that's surprising after what he had just been through.
Speaker 1:But, one Kings nineteen fourteen tells us that he ran a day's journey to get away from Jezebel. She had frightened him that badly. Now, that was about 18 to 30 miles that he ran by foot that day. And I want you to notice that he ended up in the wilderness. Now, anytime we run-in fear, what we're doing, it always takes us into the wilderness.
Speaker 1:It takes us into dry, barren places. And when we are running from the Lord, when we're running in fear, we're going to find that nothing's going right because we're in dry, barren places. We're not running to God. So Elijah was so weary that he prayed and asked God to let him die. So he had gotten pretty under the spirit.
Speaker 1:Now notice what this teaches us about fear. Fear causes us to look to the flesh now and look to our own self effort and try to see what we can do to handle our weariness and our problems rather than run into the God of the universe. Okay, now have you ever noticed when you have opened yourself to fear over a period of time that you grow so weary that finally you just go into despair and hopelessness. And you see a lot of people today, a lot of Christians today that are in despair. They're in hopelessness.
Speaker 1:And it will eventually now lead to wanting to die just exactly where Elijah came to. You become dry and you become barren spiritually. And it becomes a spiritual wilderness. And that's exactly what happened to him. Now, fear is very draining emotionally.
Speaker 1:And so, verse five: He became so weary that he just went to sleep. He just laid over and went to sleep. Have you ever known someone facing a crisis and they just went to bed? You know, I can't handle this. I'm going to bed.
Speaker 1:Sleep can become a form of escape. When we forget how big God is, we finally become weary and we try to escape in one way or another. Now, I remember I had a friend years ago and she would get excited about having a party at her house and she would plan it and start getting everything ready. It never failed. She would get so weary over it that she'd just go to bed, go to sleep.
Speaker 1:Now, she told me she wanted to give me a baby shower before Angela came. Well, I was excited. This was my first baby and I was excited about that shower. But the morning of the baby shower, she just didn't get out of bed that morning. I mean, literally didn't get out of bed.
Speaker 1:The invitations had gone out and so the guests came. She was in bed. Now, one of the guests had gotten there a little bit early and when she realized what had happened, she actually started cleaning and picking up in her house and ended up hosting the party herself. This is a true story. Her task had gotten so big in her mind that she just got in fear.
Speaker 1:And she had not learned how to rely on God. She had not learned that she was giving in to the enemy. So she panicked and she escaped into sleep. Now, I know that that's a little bit extreme, but it's easy to notice the different ways now in which we find ourselves trying to escape when we temporarily forget how big our God is. And in one Kings, chapter 19, verse nine, Elijah hid himself in a cave out of fear.
Speaker 1:He's all alone. He has run so far away, and yet he feels like he still has to hide himself. Fear causes us to run. It causes us to sleep or try to escape. It causes us always to try to hide.
Speaker 1:Now, something else fear caused. It made Elijah waste a lot of time and effort. Have you ever noticed what happens to you when you get into fear? You get preoccupied and it takes twice as long then to get something done. If you study this portion of Scriptures, you find that Elijah went 180 miles south of Mount Horeb.
Speaker 1:180 miles now. He's on foot. And then, when he finally got back to his senses and sought God and got his next assignment, he had to go 300 miles north to Syria, four eighty miles on foot. I mean, that's hard for me to even conceive of. Now, that was a lot of wasted effort just because of fear.
Speaker 1:Now, we get shocked at Elijah's swing from his ministry and his miracles there at Mount Carmel and then to his flight the next day. It's hard for us to imagine that those two things could have happened one day apart. But how many times have we been just carried away with some miracle intervention of God and, boy, we're telling everybody and we're so excited? Then, all of a sudden, maybe a week or so later, the enemy rears his ugly head and fear starts to engulf us and we temporarily forget the great victory we saw just a week ago. That's what happened to Elijah.
Speaker 1:Fear is what makes us forget how big our God is. And I'm going to say that again because it is fear. You need to mark that down. Write it in your Bible so you don't forget that fear is what makes us forget how big our God is. Now, it's not the adverse circumstances.
Speaker 1:It's not even Satan's loud growl. It's the fear. We need to remember: put fear on a big note in front of you. It's the fear that causes us to forget how big our God is. Okay, it's the fear that causes us to forget that He's as near as the very breath that we breathe.
Speaker 1:God tells us that over and over and that nothing is impossible with God for those that believe. Okay, I'm going to make a statement that I probably will make throughout the Bible study because I want you to hear it. Fear is a choice. So many people don't realize that, but fear is a choice. I spent eight years wallowing in fear because, although it's an overwhelming emotion and I thought I didn't have any control over it, and for eight years I believed that there was absolutely nothing that I could do about it.
Speaker 1:But God finally renewed my mind to the fact that fear is simply a choice. That's all it is. And when I come to it, it's always going to be because I have forgotten how big God wants to be in my behalf. But He can't be if I allow fear to dominate my mind or dominate my emotions. Fear becomes idol when we pay respect to it and when we give it a place in our heart.
Speaker 1:Okay, number two. Fear causes us to fail to enjoy that which we already have. I want to say that again because fear will cause us to fail to enjoy all the things that God's already given us. But we fail to see it when we're in fear. And in two Kings, there was a famine in the land of Israel and it was something more than they had ever experienced before.
Speaker 1:But they weren't seeking after God, so they didn't have God working for them because they had shut the door to him. Now, they were in rebellion. They were following after their own ways, seeking what they wanted, what they thought they needed. And the famine was repent. Now, in chapter six of two Kings, we find that many of the people had resorted to cannibalism.
Speaker 1:Now, that's amazing for us to think that in Israel they resorted to cannibalism. And two Kings six verse 25: There was a great famine until a donkey's head was sold for 80 shekels of silver. But this is what got me. Dove's dung was sold for 5 shekels of silver. Were they binded to eat it?
Speaker 1:You know, that was the question I was asking myself. The horrors of famine were all around them, yet right in the midst of this indescribable famine in Israel now, Their enemies, the Syrians, they were camped nearby and the enemies were flowing with everything their hearts desired. I mean, they had houses. They had donkeys. They had food, drinks, silver.
Speaker 1:They had gold. They had clothes. While Israelites, they were all dying. And in two Kings seven, verse three: Now there were four lepers at the gate. And they said to one another, You know, are we just going to sit here until we die?
Speaker 1:Is that what we're going to do? Now, those four lepers were sitting at the gate of Samaria, dying with the rest of the people from starvation. But they finally came up with a brilliant idea. So, in chapter seven, verse four, they said, If we enter the city, we know we're going to die. They're all dying there in the city.
Speaker 1:If we stay here, we know we're going to die. But if we go into the camp of the Syrians, we at least have a fiftyfifty chance. They may kill us, but then again, they may have mercy on us and they may feed us. So, what do we have to lose? We're gonna die anyway.
Speaker 1:What do we have to lose? So, they took off to the Syrian camp, but when they got to the camp now, the camp was empty, and that was a shock. But, in two Kings seven:six-eight, God had caused the Armenians now to hear the sound of chariots and horses and to hear the sound of a great army. And so, they thought that Israel had hired the Hittites and the Egyptians to come and help them fight. Well, they knew that they didn't have what it took to be able to fight off three kingdoms.
Speaker 1:So, they had fled and they had left their tents, they had left their horses, they left their donkeys, and they fled for their life. Now, they were pretty frightened not to even pick up their stuff and take it with them. So when the lepers entered now the Syrian camp, they entered into one tent after another, and they found everything waiting there for them. And so they ate and drank. They're starving, so can't you imagine that they're just stuffing the food down?
Speaker 1:So they took the silver and gold and they took the clothes and they went out and hid all of it. The lack of fear caused these lepers now to come into prosperity. Now, the rest of Israel, they were dying, but these lepers had I don't know whether they heard God, but they had come up with this idea. But I mainly wanted you to see that it was fear that had caused the Syrians now to leave and lose the prosperity that they had already been enjoying. Their tents were full of all these good things, and yet fear caused them to get up and run.
Speaker 1:Fear always causes us to fail to enjoy that which we already have. Now, so many people today are so fearful of what's going to happen tomorrow that they're missing out on all the good things that they have today. I see that so much in different people's lives that no matter how much they have today, they're worried about something tomorrow. And so, in Proverbs 20 eight:one, we need to memorize this scripture because it says: The wicked flee when no one is pursuing, but the righteous are as bold as a lion. That's a Scripture we need to memorize.
Speaker 1:That illustrates this story so well. So, you need to remember this verse that the wicked and the fearful, they flee when no one is pursuing, but the righteous are as bold as a lion. Okay, now that's exactly what the Syrians did. They were pagan nonbelievers, and out of fear now, they fled, and no one was pursuing them. Know, it was their imagination.
Speaker 1:Now, there was no one coming, but that fear thought began to take root in their minds until, finally, they actually believed that all these armies had been hired to come and fight with them. And so, left everything and ran. Okay, how many times have we overlooked the blessings and the prosperity that's already ours just because we think in fear? We let fear come on us and we lose. Okay, now let me give you an example.
Speaker 1:How many times have you been enjoying maybe the peace of the Lord with not a care in the world? There's times that I can remember Oh, I'm just so happy and no fear. And from out of nowhere, seemingly, a fear thought just comes. I think we've all experienced that at one time or another. We're just going along.
Speaker 1:Everything's fine. But a fear thought comes and it invades our mind and many times we run off leaving our peace and leaving our joy behind. Just as surely as those fear thoughts cause the Syrians to run off and leave their abundance. A fear thought can cover any area from like, What if I'm not going be able to pay my bills next month? Or, What if my children are going to get in trouble?
Speaker 1:So many of the kids are getting into rebellion. What if my kids go there? Or what if I get sick and die? What will my family do? There are so many times when Satan just throws one fear after another.
Speaker 1:And as long as we keep taking that fear, he's going to throw another one to us. Fear knows no boundaries. Fear is a demonic spirit. We ourselves are the only ones who can put a boundary or a stop on fear. I want to say that again because we're the only ones that can put a stop on the fear that satan is sending toward us.
Speaker 1:And we have to do that with God's Word. He's given us His Word. He's given us His promises. But if we don't take those promises and put them to work, they're not going to do us any good. The Word can put a boundary to keep satan out of our garden, but not if we run off in fear and leave the very promises that could change our circumstances.
Speaker 1:Now, lot of people fail to enjoy the provision of today simply because they fear that they're not going to have enough tomorrow. And I know you've been around people who are like that. You know, it doesn't matter what they have today. They're in fear of what they're not going to have tomorrow, what's going to happen tomorrow, and they're failing to enjoy the prosperity they already have simply because of this demon spirit of fear, fearing what they might be needing later. Now, if God provided today, then we can trust Him.
Speaker 1:We can know that He's still going to be our provision tomorrow. If He's willing to provide for us today, then all He wants is for us to trust Him that He'll do it for us tomorrow because He is our source. He wants to be our source. It's kind of like the mother whose child was miraculously spared from a car wreck. And it was a miracle.
Speaker 1:That child should have died in that car wreck. But, instead of rejoicing over God's protection, instead of her just telling everybody, Oh, look what God did for my child. Instead of telling everybody about the wonderful way in which the child had been spared, she constantly relived that fear over and over. You'd get around her and she said, You know, my child nearly died. It really could have been bad.
Speaker 1:And that fear just kept reminding her of what a close call it had been. Fear caused her to fail to enjoy the provision of God that had protected her child. And we've got to watch ourselves because sometimes it's easy for the enemy to make us look at what could have happened rather than what God did that spared us. Now, a lot of people fail to enjoy their children while they're growing up because of all the kinds of fears of what might happen. We can look out in the world and we can see really bad things that are happening to children out in the world.
Speaker 1:But, instead of looking at that, we need to be thanking God, Lord, that we're trusting You for Your protection over our children. Some people fail to enjoy their marriage for fear of maybe losing their mate or they don't enjoy what they've been given for fear of what might later happen to put them in need. Oh, Lord, yes, I thank You that I've got these things that you've provided for me today but, Lord, everything's looking bad and I don't know how long this prosperity is going to last. And I hear that from so many people. And so many fail to enjoy their walk with God because of some fear that He might not provide.
Speaker 1:Now, fear keeps us from praising. It keeps us from rejoicing and enjoying that which God has provided. I mean, we need to be praising God every day. We have 100 of things to thank God for. And that needs to be something that's coming out of our mouth and out of our heart all the time.
Speaker 1:But fear is the great robber. Now, when we read this in two Kings seven:seven-eight and read how this imaginary thought caused these Syrians to run off and leave their great abundance, which they did, it sounds like just an amusing story. We think, Oh, you know, how funny. They had all this wealth and they just ran off. But this is a picture of the blessings that we leave for Satan to plunder if we're not careful to recognize fear.
Speaker 1:Fear is Satan's most powerful tool. Sometimes we don't think that much about what an enemy fear is, but it's Satan's most powerful tool. It's the character of the enemy. Okay, number three. Fear causes us to operate out of a spirit that's not of God and then sometimes even give God the credit in the process.
Speaker 1:In two Kings one:one-four, Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab. And then, Ahab's son, Ahaziah, he became king in his father's place. Well, for some reason, we don't know what happened, but he fell through the lattice in the upper chambers in Samaria, and he became very ill. And so he sent messengers to inquire from the god of Ekron if he was going to recover from that sickness. Am I going to die or am I going to recover?
Speaker 1:Now, it's sad to me to think that it's only been probably a very short time before that Elijah on Mount Carmel proved beyond a shadow of a doubt how big God was. And he proved that Baal was nothing and he even had 850 of Baal's prophets killed. So, you know that the people, they remembered that. It had just happened. And you know the King remembered the 850 of his mother's priests being killed.
Speaker 1:But here they go again, and the King himself is sending to inquire knowledge from a dumb idol to ask if he's going to live from this fall that he's taken. So he's saying, Am I going to live or am I going to die? He saw that the prophets of Baal were all killed. He saw that. In two Kings then one:three-four, Elijah was bowed to go and meet with the messengers of the king of Syria and say, 'Is there no god in Israel that you would go and inquire of Baal?' He said, 'Look at all the messengers of God.' So he tells the king, he says, And you run to the god of Baal and ask questions?
Speaker 1:He's already been proved to be of nothing. Therefore, the Lord says to the king, you will not come down from your bed. You're gonna die.' And I've often thought he probably would have lived if he had just for one minute turned to God. And when they gave him the message, you can imagine how it caused all kinds of commotion in the kingdom. So, in verse seven, the king began to question, What kind of man was he who gave you this message?
Speaker 1:His servants had told him, You know, someone has told us that you're going to die. And he said, Well, who was the man? What was he like that gave you this message? And so the servants described him and they said, Well, he was a hairy man. He was wearing a leather girdle.
Speaker 1:Well, immediately then, the king knew it was Elijah the Tishbite who had killed all of the demonic prophets. And so, in verse seven, the king sends 50 soldiers down to get Elijah. And Elijah calls down fire and he consumes all 50 of the soldiers. Now, I'm going to show you later that Elijah was still operating in a lot of fear and he wasn't operating out of the Spirit of God even at this time. Now, this is the same prophet now that we read about earlier who ran from Jezebel because he was afraid.
Speaker 1:So now, obviously, Elijah is still having a big problem with fear. But in verse 11, the king sends 50 more soldiers to bring Elijah into the palace. And, again, Elijah then calls down fire and consumes the next 50. But, when we read that, it sounds like, wow, you know, God has given him all this power to have all these men killed. But the king is determined and he sends a third group of 50.
Speaker 1:Okay, how would you like to have been in the king's army and you've been ordered now to go and get Elijah and he's already killed 50 of the men that have gone to get him? And I can imagine that their knees were knocking and I think I would have done exactly what this third captain did. Now, the Angel of the Lord intervened this third time and you ask why. Well, why on earth did God intervene when He didn't intervene the other two times? Well, it's real easy when you read the story.
Speaker 1:This third group asked God to help them. That's all God was waiting for. He was just waiting for them to look to Him and then He was more than willing to answer their prayers. So this third captain goes. He falls on his knees before Elijah and he begs for his life and for the lives of his 50 men.
Speaker 1:And in verse 15, the angel of the Lord tells Elijah, Don't be afraid of him. Go with him to the king. It's okay. I'm going to take care of you. So the angel of the Lord then intervened this third time.
Speaker 1:And you ask why? Because this third group asked for mercy. That's all God's waiting for. He's ready and willing to do whatever we need, but He wants us to run to Him as our Lord, our God, our Savior, and look to Him for the help. Now, if the captain of the first and the second group had asked, the Angel of the Lord would have intervened for them as well.
Speaker 1:And in James four:two, it says: You have not because you ask not. There are so many Scripture promises that tell us what we're supposed to do. And also in Matthew, it says: Seek and you will find ask and it shall be given to you knock and the door will be opened. But, many times, we don't have the door open simply because we don't ask. And that's what happened here so many times.
Speaker 1:But, in this particular time, they did ask and God intervened in their behalf and told Elijah not to react out of fear, but they said, Don't be afraid. Just go with them. Now, the king of Samaria had the wrong source. He saw help now from the god Beelzebub, and there was no help from that idol. And he never repented.
Speaker 1:He never made God his source, so he died. But, what I'm wanting us to see out of this incident is that fear caused Elijah, a man of God, a tremendous man of God, caused him to operate out of a wrong spirit that was not coming from God. If Elijah could do that, we could do that. That's why we need to watch ourselves. We need to watch what we're doing.
Speaker 1:We need to remember this story of what happened to Elijah. And you say, Well, how do you know that? Well, not only did God stop Elijah from calling down fire on this third group when they asked for mercy, but let's look at the rest of the story in the New Testament in Luke. You know, sometimes something happens in the Old Testament and we can find an answer in the New Testament. If you've seen Jesus and know what He will do, then you've seen the Father and you can know what the Father will do.
Speaker 1:That's what they said in Luke. And in Luke nine fifty four, James and John asked Jesus, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume these that are coming against you? Because they remembered about old Elijah. And some translations say, Do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them like Elijah did? Some of the translations say that.
Speaker 1:And so they were following Elijah's example of calling down fire. But look what Jesus answered. He rebuked them when they said that. And he said, you don't even know what spirit you're of. For the Son of Man, Jesus, he didn't come to destroy men's lives, but he came to save them.
Speaker 1:Okay, there is no doubt that the disciples could have called down fire. They could have. They could have done the same thing that Elijah did. His disciples were following Elijah's example from the story here that we read in two Kings. But Jesus said, No, he was of a different spirit.
Speaker 1:So He's letting us know here that even though Elijah, the great man Elijah, did it, he was wrong. And Jesus was saying, Don't follow his example because that's not the way to go. So Jesus clarified that Elijah was not operating in the spirit of God. He was operating out of a spirit of fear. And we've seen fear now in Elijah twice.
Speaker 1:He ran for Jezebel and then here it's letting us know again that he wouldn't go with them because he was afraid. Even his disciples still didn't fully understand that Jesus came to give life, not death, and that it's the thief who comes to kill, to steal, and destroy. It's the thief who comes to consume us with fear. Now, the Old Testament writers and prophets like Elijah, they couldn't fully understand this because John one seventeen and eighteen says that the truth about God can only be realized through Jesus. So, we can see why they didn't really understand that in the Old Testament.
Speaker 1:Jesus is the only way a person can fully understand God. Now, it was a progressive revelation in the Old Testament which was fulfilled in Christ Jesus. Fear caused them to operate in ways that were not spirit led. Now, if you want to know the right spirit in which to operate, then it's doing it the way Jesus did it. He's our example.
Speaker 1:He's where we need to look. Now, I'm sure Elijah, you know, thought that he was operating in God's power but the spirit of fear got him into error and got him into deception. Now, I think this probably happens in the body of Christ a lot more than what most of us realize. Fear is a spirit of the devil. It's not just an emotion that we have.
Speaker 1:So many people think, Well, fear is just an emotion. No, it's not. Fear is a demon spirit of the devil. Have you ever gotten someone towed off and, boy, you thought you were rebuking them in the name of the Lord and you just felt pretty good about it because you felt like God had given this spirit of boldness when, in reality, that person had intimidated you and you, in fact, had just got into the flesh and towed them off in the flesh. I think a lot of people have done that.
Speaker 1:But if you'll notice this example in the New Testament, bonus was given to speak the good news. We're told, when we're told to be bold, it's always to speak the good news. Boldness was given to God's people to witness the love of Jesus, not to tell somebody off. Fear, fear of confrontation, intimidation, insecurity can cause people to sometimes react to others in an ungodly way and yet, many times, think that they're just in spiritual boldness. It's like Jesus said, When we do that, we don't know the spirit that we're of.
Speaker 1:Pride comes before the fall. But, on the other end of the spectrum, we can't fail to look at that. A person can sometimes be too lenient and continue to overlook and tolerate ungodliness, thinking that they're walking in love. In reality, they don't care enough or they're too fearful to confront. Some think that they're turning the other cheek by being passive when the God kind of love is sometimes a tough love.
Speaker 1:And it's a love that cares enough to overcome fear and require godliness. Okay, now fear can disguise itself as boldness. Fear can also hide behind weakness. Therefore, we have to be led by the Spirit of God. It's ironic, but sometimes being blunt is just fear in disguise.
Speaker 1:And passivity on the other end of the spectrum can also be the results of fear, fear of confrontation. So, we have to hear God at every level. Fear can cause us to operate in the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law, but the Bible tells us that the spirit of the Lord gives us life. Now, certain actions can sound right and yet be coming out of a spirit of fear rather than faith. Again, I want us to say that fear is a choice.
Speaker 1:Fear is always a choice, and it can cause us to operate in a way that's not godly. We have to avoid fear at all costs because it's not just an emotion. Satan is fear personified. Father, in the name of Jesus, Lord, sometimes we put up with fear. We think Oh, this has been so bad.
Speaker 1:It's kind of normal for me to have some fear. No, it's not normal. It's coming straight from the pit of hell. It's coming straight from the enemy. It's the characteristic of the enemy.
Speaker 1:So, Father, I pray that You'll help us, that we'll stop and start recognizing that fear is never of God. Fear is never coming to us for any good reason. It's never coming to us from God. It's always coming from the enemy. When we see it that way, Father, we'll start taking our stand and saying no.
Speaker 1:Father, in the name of Jesus, if if if all of your children could start standing against fear, Father, it would turn things around in the spiritual realm. So that's what I'm asking for, Father. I'm asking that we will start recognizing fear as a huge enemy. And we'll put our foot down and we'll say, No, I'm not going there. I'm trusting You, Lord.
Speaker 1:In Jesus' name, Amen.