FREEDOM FROM FEAR, PART ONE: EVIL SPIRITS AND DEATH

1 John 4:4, Matthew 10:28, Selected Texts (NASB)
David Bruce Linn, Pastor-Teacher
8 September, 2002
All Rights Reserved

I. FACEDOWN AT THE CANTINA

Steve stepped down out of his small house into the dusty unpaved street. "I am finally here!" he thought to himself as he walked down the road with the last rays of the setting sun peeking out between other small, crude houses in the Bolivian village.

"Time to taste the local food," he said out loud as he wondered where he might find a cantina. Steve had plenty of time. His missionary assignment to Bolivia would stretch for years before his first furlough back to the United States. It had been more than ten years since he had first discerned that God was calling him to be a missionary. The years of college and seminary, internship in an American church, and language study had seemed like they would never end. As he walked through the large village and the dust accumulated on his sandals and between his toes he felt glad for every minute of preparation. This would be the biggest challenge of his life.

Steve found a typical South American cantina on the main street and looked inside above the swinging louvered doors. The room was narrow and long with the bar running the length of the left side. Backless stools, manned by farmers and merchants relaxing at the end of the day, supplied the seating on the left and there were a few simple tables and chairs against the right wall. The raised floor was made of rough planks and was strewn with sawdust. Steve stepped up into the doorway and went inside.

He ordered and sat down at one of the small tables. The men at the bar watched him with sidelong glances. The cantina was much more than a place to get food and drink. It was a social center of the community. Steve knew he was an alien presence to the local campesinos--an Americano. He knew it would take a long time to gain their trust and he was prepared to make that investment. Steve dawdled at his food and sipped at his drink as night fell.

Without knowing why, Steve began to feel apprehensive. He looked around the cantina for evidence that any of the rough-looking men lounging at the bar might be a threat. Their faces revealed nothing. Steve took his drink and moved to the stool furthest from the door and sat with his back to the wall. His apprehension grew into anxiety. Without hearing or seeing anything, Steve had the impression that someone was coming down the street who meant to do him harm. His mind raced through playground bully scenarios--the only physical conflicts he ever had--as his adrenaline began to flow.

Steve's anxiety now grew into genuine fear. The narrow room began to seem stuffy and confining--a deathtrap. Steve felt a heavy unseen presence squeezing the air from his lungs. He took a deep breath and realized that the weight was on his soul and spirit. This looming presence seemed to be located outside the swinging doors. Though Steve's attention was transfixed by the interior sense that someone, something, intended to do him harm, he could see nothing.

Steve's heart pounded in his chest like a blacksmith's hammer. Though it hardly seemed possible, the lurking, massive sense of malevolent evil expanded, making it feel as if the entire cantina would be crushed under the weight of it. Steve's mind began to be clouded as if a wet blanket were being used to smother his thought. Time seemed to stand still.

In a moment of crystal clear thought, Steve knew that no mere human being could warp the spiritual realm with this much power. This was demonic. In fact, Steve thought to himself, "A foul presence this immense could very well be the Evil One himself." As if he had been trained to do so, Steve saw his own right arm extend straight out with his index finger pointing at the presence outside the doorway. His mind and heart were now gripped by the complete opposite of helpless fear, and full-throated words resonated up from within his chest: "In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to leave this place!"

Instantaneously Steve found himself sitting up in bed, damp with sweat, and trembling. The heavy, unreasoning sense of fear was completely gone. His right arm and index finger were extended straight out, pointing to nothing off the end of his bed. That he had indeed spoken those words was revealed by the fact that Brenda, his wife, was now wide awake.

Reality poured in on him. He was not, in fact, a missionary in Bolivia but a pastor in Illinois. As vivid as his facedown with the demonic had seemed, it was only a dream. "What sort of dream is this?!?" Steve wondered. Over the next year and a half Steve would dream four more such dreams, each different, every one more intensely real than a movie, every one more instructional than a college class, and every one with one and only one point.

II. FEAR OF EVIL SPIRITS

Western culture is not particularly prone to the fear of evil spirits. We have fun with haunted houses and we get jumpy in graveyards at night, but few people consciously think about the effect which evil spirits, also called demons, have on daily life. While animistic cultures attribute far too much to evil spirits we are prone to the opposite failure. For example, the West is a hotbed of New Age belief, central to which is the practice of granting control of your life to some alleged spirit guide (or "ascended master") who will help you evolve to a higher form of consciousness. It never seems to disturb New Age practitioners that the spirit guides might be malevolent rather than benevolent beings. Biblically, we know that that there are only three possible outside spiritual guides who can exert control over us: the Holy Spirit, who only indwells and guides those who receive Christ as Lord and Savior; holy angels, who are prohibited from exerting direct control on humans by God; and fallen angels who are all too eager to oppress and possess susceptible humans to the destruction of their souls. Tell your New Age friends!

I have found that Christians, who are delivered from the control of the Evil One and his servants, nonetheless often fall into various fears about evil spirits. When a Christian friend, family member, or generally good person turns to evil behavior we wonder if they have been tricked or controlled against their will by demons. It is hard to swallow that sinful people do evil because they like it.

When our own lives are not working out well and all the possible chances for improvement seem to drop on the wrong side, Christians can be stricken with the fear that God is not really in control of their lives and that Satan and his minions are having their way. We fall into the fallacy of yin and yang, thinking that God and Satan represent equal opposing forces of good and evil--with God losing at the moment! Nothing could be further from the truth.

I have also heard believers express the fear that when they or others keep falling into the same destructive sins that evil spirits have established a "stronghold," by which they mean that demons have gained decisive control of a Christian in one area of life. It's as if the Christian loses control of his own life even though he is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. No, evil spirits can trick Christians into needless suffering through lies and temptations, but they can never gain decisive control.

How do I know this? The Bible tells me so. The Apostle John wanted his beloved children in the faith of Christ to be free from all fear of evil spirits, so he included this in his first letter: "You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world" (1 John 4:4). "He who is in the world" refers to evil spirits and the humans who are controlled by them. False prophets spew out the lies fed them by the servants of the Evil One. The Bible calls them "doctrines of demons" (1 Timothy 4:1). Some people will like these lies and choose to believe them, but the true people of God will not.

Many demonic lies are designed to control people by fear. Satan wants to make believers miserable, so he claims all sorts of control over us which he does not have. If we believe the lies, we shrivel up in fear when we are in fact free of any control he might wish to exert over us. The way for Christians to overcome all such lies is to know the truth and take our stand in it. Paul explained to the Ephesians the freeing truth of the believer's utterly safe position in Christ: "But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus..." (Eph. 2:4-6).

The hard-to-believe truth is that those who are in Christ are seated with him in the heavenly realms. We share the authority of Christ over every demonic being, including the Evil one himself. There is no need for fear. Jesus taught his disciples: "Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall injure you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven" (Luke 10:19). So we live by the truth of our authority over the spirits, but we do so soberly. Our rejoicing is reserved for our destiny in heaven.

So what happened to Steve in the cantina? You may be thinking: "That's such a weird story! It sounds made up." Actually, this story records the memories of a man who wishes to remain anonymous. The dream and its aftermath actually happened. You see, evil spirits can create a temporary sense of emotional fear within us by various means. It is then up to us to choose to live in our authority in Christ. We must believe the truth that we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places and then, when necessary, speak the word to whatever spirits may be harassing us. It is the birthright of the children of Almighty God that we need fear neither human nor spirit.

III. FEAR OF DEATH

This kind of freedom is not always easy to maintain. The deadly terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001 have changed the emotional and spiritual landscape of the nation. In a few short minutes America was changed from a country full of people who had never experienced an enemy attack on home soil to a country where our lives might be lost at any moment. This has been the daily reality in Israel for many years. The sheer regularity of murder-suicide bombers there has become like a drumbeat of death. They have experienced sudden death this way on buses, in public squares, in restaurants, at nightclubs, on university campuses, and many other places where one would hope to have a measure of safety.

The heinousness of these crimes cannot be overstated, and the sheer hulking evil of them is precisely the effect desired by the killers. Their fondest hope is that Israelis may never have a day of peace and rest in their own land, that they will fear to step outside their doors, and that they will give up sometime and go somewhere else in order to protect their wives and children. And now Americans have a first taste of such a state of affairs. Who can protect oneself from a light powder in an envelope, or a poison in the food supply, or a dirty bomb exploded in a city square? The potential to spend our whole lives living in fear is great.

This tactic comes straight from the twisted mind of the Devil, as clearly explained in Hebrews 2:14-15: "Since then the children [redeemed people] share in flesh and blood, He Himself [Christ] likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives." The Devil uses the fear of death to enslave people. Most people structure their lives around crippling fears and death is among the highest of these.

But thanks be to God for the great story of the dying God who through his own death defeated death for all who believe in him! Because death is defeated in Christ believers have a blessed relief from that fear, whether from terrorists or disease or old age. I remember experiencing an increased fear of death as a young pastor. Between the time I spent visiting the sick and dying as a pastor and the sheer number of such cases I saw while serving as an emergency medical technician I began to live in fear of my own death. This was not a great condition for a pastor! How could I speak the truth of the Christian's freedom from the fear of death when my own emotions were running away with me?

Well, the promise is not that we will never feel fear, but that the reason for that fear has been removed. I had to process my emotions over the sick and dying, primarily by rereading the many Scriptures where Jesus teaches us not to live in fear, such as this one: "And do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Mat. 10: 28). The urging of God is to redirect our focus to his power and greatness and let the awe of him drive out earthly fears. That is not something which is automatic but which must be built into the devotional life of the believer. We must learn to know God well enough that the fear shrivels up like a dry leaf. And then, poof! the breath of God blows it away.

This is where I often turn to the devotional writings of the reformers and their followers. The Puritans and others of their ilk had a tremendous grasp of the supremacy and majesty of God. It is the almighty, all-knowing, immutable, thrice-holy, ever-present, eternal, and infinite God who has the power to drive fear away. Jesus commands us: "Don't focus on the humans who are frightening you or any other reason for fear or worry--get to know God, in all of his breath-stealing fullness!" It is clear that no small view of God could deliver us from the towering power of death and the limited but fell power of evil spirits.

The classic work Knowing God by J. I. Packer was my first introduction to this level of devotional study as a young Christian. Since then I have drunk deep from the Scriptures under the guiding hand of many Christian writers. John Piper has been a tremendous healing force to my soul because his books force me to deal with the glory and majesty of God in the Scriptures. And, of course, it is the Scriptures which matter. I have little tolerance for devotional writing which is not clearly founded on Scripture, and neither should you. You will inevitably find that you don't understand or agree with everything you read, but the value of the knowledge of God gained is worth the effort to sift.

IV. CONCLUSION

Do you find it hard to overcome fears of evil spirits or of death? Then get with God! Read the Scriptures which reveal the immense power and glory of God, such as Isaiah 45:21b-25: "And there is no other God besides Me, /A righteous God and a Savior; /There is none except Me. /Turn to Me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth; /For I am God, and there is no other. /I have sworn by Myself, /The word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness /And will not turn back, /That to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance. /They will say of Me, 'Only in the LORD are righteousness and strength.' /Men will come to Him, /And all who were angry at Him shall be put to shame. /In the LORD all the offspring of Israel /Will be justified, and will glory."

If you have confessed your sins to God and received Jesus Christ as your Redeemer and Master then you are one of "the offspring of Israel" who "will be justified and will glory." God has sworn by himself, for there is nothing higher in the universe by which to swear, that he will call every human being of all history to account and cause every knee to bow to him. Every enemy of God, both human and spirit, will be put to shame. If he cannot drive the fear from your heart, no one can.

I urge you to discipline yourself to read a chapter or two of the Bible every day. Ask God to teach you the reality of his greatness so that you might live fearlessly as his child. How was pastor Steve able to confront the looming evil presence "as if he had been trained to do so?" Because he had indeed been trained to do so in his devotional life. The supremacy of God and the position of the believer in Christ were so ingrained in his life that he was prepared to confront the Evil One even in his dreams--or were they only dreams?