Welcome to Bible Believers Fellowship and the ministry of bbfohio.com. I'm Pastor Greg and I welcome you to our study in 2 Timothy chapter 1 verses 6 through 7 titled, For God hath not given us the spirit of fear. By the way, our study was cut short by about 10 minutes due to severe weather with high winds above 60 miles per hour, which caused a short power outage right after we ended this study and gathered in the basement. All right, 2 Timothy 1, 6 and 7. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear. Yes. Okay. All right. Well, they're saying they're getting bad storms out there in Madison County. Yeah. Let's say a word of prayer for these folks. Father, we thank you for the assurance of salvation as we face life's trials. We ask, Lord, you protect our kids and grandkids out there and anybody else in the line of these storms. And we will keep the service going here unless we're blown into the basement. We're thankful for this building and that it has a basement. We have a place for shelter. so that we can be prudent. And we thank you, Lord, for all your blessings. Well, there are others might be out and about, driving around or whatever. We just put them all in your hands and ask for safety in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right. Well, Second Timothy, we're going to focus on our spirit a little bit tonight. 2 Timothy chapter 1 verses 6 and 7. And we'll just have you read both of them with me if you're there. Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Amen? So he first talks about personal gifts, specifically of Timothy. Then we're gonna discuss the spirit of fear, and then what we're supposed to have, power, love, and a sound mind. So Paul reminds Timothy to make use of the gift of God in him. And this brings to our discussion personal gifts. Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee, The gift of God in this reference is personal gifts. As I said, it's not, sometimes we talk about the gift of God being salvation. That's the great gift that all of us receive and are most thankful for. But even then after you're saved, God still gives gifts. And then the collection, you have a gift bag. That's what this is saying. God doesn't just give you one gift. I could actually, no I'm not going to, but I could go around the room, and I was thinking about it today, and I could tell each one of you, I've seen you perform gifts, plural. More than one. And that's what this is talking about. It's a gift bag, the gift of God. John Wesley said, I remind thee of stirring up, literally blowing up the coals into a flame. I like the picture that he's giving you there. The gift of God is all the spiritual gifts which the grace of God has given thee. Now you know how much I love Christmas and that we're only 190 days away. And so you think of it in terms of that tree, and now my mom and dad changed it up. When I was really little, they'd wrap each one of the gifts, and we'd come out and unwrap them, and it was a lot of fun. Then, mom and dad were like, these kids are, they don't, you know, let's just put them under the tree. So we'd come out, and the gifts were just under the tree. And then we didn't have to unwrap anything. We just had our name on it, but no unwrapping, which I kind of liked. But then as we got older, the gifts get smaller. You know, they don't put like big wheels, you know, anything like that. You start getting more clothes and, you know, stuff like that. And so what mom started doing is we'd have three big bags and two smaller bags in the back where mom would buy dad some gifts and mom would buy herself some gifts. And so we'd come down, there'd be five bags. And then each one was your gift, but when you opened it up, what'd you find? A bunch of little gifts, smaller gifts. And that's how God gifts us. And we can just look at all the gifts that God has given us, and we're talking about gifts, we're talking about things that you can use in service to Him. These are the gifts we're talking about here. gifts, you can encourage people. Intercessory prayer. helps help people out in different ways. Some of you got extra money and you can actually buy something for somebody and they need it. Or you can just cook for somebody and feed the belly, you know. And all these things you people can do and I've had people do all of those and more for me through the years. And what a blessing it has been. Many times, really, if they hadn't, I would have gone without. I'm not kidding you. I told this story many times, but there's been different times. I went down to Southern Ireland, preached, had no idea how I was going to get home because I was on E. And didn't tell anybody. I just got up and preached. And you know what? That church didn't think about me needing cash, so they gave me a check. Well, Sunday night, I couldn't cash that check. So I still didn't, they gave me a nice little gift for coming down and preaching. I didn't have any way of spending it. So I'm thinking, I guess I'll spend the night out here until the banks open in the morning. And I just praised the Lord, you know, and I just shook hands and fellowshiped. And then one of the last people I fellowshiped with reached and shook my hand and I felt something. And as he pulled away, I looked down, there's a $20 bill. I didn't tell anybody I needed cash. The Lord put it on his heart. I had gas money and got home. And I tell you, you've heard me tell the stories over and over, that there's been, there was other times where I just needed something and it wasn't necessarily cash, although if you give a person cash, they can usually get what they need, but a lot of times it's the thing itself. And people, I've told you about the time I used to preach in a denomination where you had to wear a suit and tie, and I couldn't afford them. So I had two suits, And I had two pairs of pants, and I'd interchange it to make it look like I had four suits. I'd wear the black and the brown, the brown and the black, the black and the black, and the brown and the brown. That was my four suits. And they were all getting worn out. I said, Lord, if you want me to preach like this, well, then some guy could. Out of the blue, he's an atheist. I've told this story. Some of you heard it. And he said this agnostic. He says, it must be God, because I keep thinking I need to give you these suits. And what a testimony. He's named Marty. Pray for him. I hope he gets saved. I witnessed to him and everything. He never would get saved, but he gave me these suits. I could tell you all kinds of things like that. How many of you have ever just been able to give somebody a jump? Their battery's dead. It may not seem like a big deal to you, but when you're left without a car that can run, man. Each of us must be honest. prayerful and careful to identify our gifts and get stirred to use them for God's glory. I have told you I could go around the room and tell you things I've seen God do, but I don't know what all your gifts are, and you may have gifts that you've been sitting on. so to speak, and that you are not using them. And I just tell you to pray about it and ask the Lord to help you. You say, well, I just don't know how. Ask Him. I've talked to people who say, I don't know. Have you asked God to help you use that gift, to open a door? Well, no. Well, try it. And what do you know, they pray about it, next thing you know they find an avenue and they're able to use that gift they hadn't been using. I encourage you tonight, maybe you got a gift that you could use and you're just not sure how. Pray and ask the Lord to open the door for you, amen? But we must take note of the fact that Timothy received a special apostolic endowment here. He says, the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. Now, I can put my hand, I've laid hands on people, I'm happy to do it if someone wants me to lay hands on them. We've sat right here and laid hands on people for healing. But I honestly don't believe that has any more power than me praying for you when you're across the road or down the street or in another town or another country. I believe God hears the prayer, the Bible said, the prayer of a righteous man availeth much if he's touching you. It doesn't say that. Now, but is there anything wrong with laying on of hands? No. I've had people ask me to anoint them with oil. I don't think that's necessary now. I think when James said that, it was at a time of transition that we've gone through in the book of Acts and they were still doing it. Does it hurt anything? No. So I've done it. I don't have a problem with it. Yes, Dave. Okay, have you looked at the map? Is it anywhere close? Alright, we'll go a few more minutes and then we'll come down. Thank you. So, I asked him to let us know, but we'll give it a few more minutes. If you want to leave and go down, go ahead. I'm not going to get my feelings hurt. Six minutes, alright. So, back on this thing about laying on of hands, though, fakes and pretenders claim apostolic succession, but it doesn't exist today. There are people who call themselves apostle, and they'll, you know, it's just, it's play acting. I call it the, it's almost always charismatics, and I call it the charismatic playpen. But this also includes this pretender. He claims to be the descendant of the apostolic succession from Peter, who was never a pope. Peter was never pastor of the Church of Rome. It's all fiction. So the Spirit of God in us does not produce, then, a spirit of fear. Amen? For God hath not given us the spirit of fear. And the perverted New Bible versions decided this wasn't clear enough, and they had to change it. So the legacy substandard version says, for God has not given us a spirit of timidity. They claim these new versions are supposed to make things easier to understand. That doesn't help. For God gave us a spirit not of fear. So they just made a really bad sentence so that they could say that they made a change. That's the English substandard version. Sounds like Yoda translated the ASV there, doesn't it? For God hath not given us the spirit of fear. A saved man or woman will only live in fear when the spirit of God is hindered. If you have a spirit of fear in you, the spirit of God is being hindered in some way. Now, the question we have to ask and answer is, why am I suffering under a spirit of fear? Well, first thing you have to do is ask if there's carnality and sin in your life. That is a big problem and can cause a spirit of fear. But let's say you've repented, you've confessed your sin, you believe you're right with God, then you have to ask some basic questions. You may be on medication with side effects that makes you feel anxiety and fear. You may have bad weather, but drug abuse, Legal and illegal. And drunkenness, the abuse of alcohol. It'll give you, make you paranoid. Make you, give you that spirit of anxiety and fear. You may have suffered brain trauma or brain injury in some way, and that'll cause that in people's lives. And then just illnesses or hormones. Your hormones could be out of whack. So it doesn't necessarily mean that if you are suffering a spirit of fear that it's a spiritual thing, in the sense that it may not be caused by a spiritual thing. but it is spiritually affecting you. So you need to then pray and use wisdom to see about doing something about this anxiety that you're suffering. I've shared my personal experience and testimony of suffering fear, anxiety, and depression, and it turned out to be dangerously low levels of vitamin D. And I went through several weeks of feeling horrible and just having this terrible, dark cloud over me and feeling nervous and anxious and everything. And somebody just in passing mentioned it and I thought, well, it won't hurt anything, so I mentioned it to my doctor, so I was gonna have blood work done anyway, so he threw vitamin D on there. They checked it and found out, yeah, he said if you hadn't got this fixed, you might end up with a heart attack or something. So I'm on it to this day, vitamin D supplements. So the spirit of fear wants all possible obstacles. You go through that list and pray about it, might be something else, I don't know. But once those are removed, the only cure is then the Spirit-filled life. If you see something in your life that you need to change, change it. But it isn't just getting rid of things. It's then being filled with the Spirit of God. So we're told in Ephesians 5.18, but be filled with the Spirit. Now, you're not filled with the Spirit by running around, singing songs over and over, and getting all hype and emotional. You're filled with the Spirit. Well, Jesus said in John 6-63, the words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit in their life. You want to be filled with the Spirit of God, you get filled with the Word of God. And that is receiving it with faith. You believe it. That's spooky sounding. So real quick, the spirit-filled believer will then experience power, love, and a sound mind. And I'm going to stop right here, and we'll pick up there next time because there's no sense in staying up here and waiting for the things to start blowing over. So we're going to close with a word of prayer. and let you all make your way downstairs. Father, we ask, Lord, that you keep us safe. Keep all the others out there safe. And we're just going to be wise and cut things off right now and get out of the weather. And we thank you for your love and protection and the spirit of power, love, and a sound mind that we can take with us. In Jesus' name, amen. Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee. Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of Thy love, at the impulse of my love. Take my feet and let them be Swift and beautiful for thee Take my voice and let me sing Always, only for my King Always, only for my King Take my lips and let them be filled with messages for thee. Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold. Not a mite would I withhold. Take my love, my God, I pour at Thy feet its treasure store. Take myself and I will be ever only all for Thee, ever only all for Thee. In His glory just to walk with Him whose blood has ransomed me It is rapture for my soul each day It is joy divine to fill Him near, wherever my path may be. Bless the Lord, it's glory all the way. It is glory just to walk with Him. It is glory just to walk with Him. He will guide my steps aright, through the vale and o'er the height. It is glory just to walk with Him. It is glory when the shadows fall to know that He is near. Oh, what joy to simply trust and pray. It is glory to abide in Him when skies above are clear. Yes, with Him is glory all the way. It is glory just to walk with Him. It is glory just to walk with Him. He will guide my steps right through the vale and all the height It is glory just to walk with Him It will be glory when I walk with Him on heaven's golden shore Never from His side again to stray It will be glory, wondrous glory With the Savior evermore Everlasting glory all the way It is glory just to walk with Him It is glory just to walk with Him He will guide my steps aright Through the vale and o'er the high It is glory just to walk with Him Man.