dealing with those things. The title of our message this morning is Conquering Fear. We are going to be reading from Genesis Chapter 15. Genesis Chapter 15, we will read the first four verses of Genesis Chapter 15. Genesis, Chapter 15, verse 1. After these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abraham said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed, and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir. And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir." Let's pray. Dear Father, we thank You for the Word of God and for the challenge that it has for us. for the implication that we should fear not and help us, Lord, to take that into our hearts. And we pray that your spirit would teach us this morning. Lord, give me strength. Thank you for safety this morning. And Father, we pray that you would just bless and that your spirit would be in control and that your son would be glorified and that you would be well pleased. For it is in Jesus' name that we pray, amen. Did I have this on? I don't think this is on. It is now. When I was a young preacher, working for Hugh Adkisson at Metropolitan Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. His son, Larry, our church supported as a missionary and he's been here and preached years ago. In fact, he preached a revival for us about a year before he died. That always makes me feel feel my age is because when the people that are my age pass on and Brother Larry Atkinson was my age and his father was like a spiritual father to me and I served as his assistant they gave me some kind of title but it didn't mean anything I just did whatever he wanted me to do. And so he would give me something to do and then I was expected to do it. And so he kept me busy and it was a, but while I was there, there was a big meeting of one of the national organizations of Baptists. They called themselves Independent Baptists, but then they had an annual convention. And it was at Rolling Hills Baptist, I think, in Fort Worth. And he said, you're going there, and I'm going to take you to see the show. You need to know what these guys are really made of. Because their preachers are away from their churches, and they're preaching to each other. And they raised money for their college and for their fellowship at the close of this. And you need to see it just for your, I guess, for religious voyeurism and your education as to what goes on in some of those stripes. And one of the keynote speakers was Lester Roloff. How many of you know who Lester, or know the name? Well, quite a few of them. He is an old preacher and he had a girl's home in somewhere in the south. I forget where it was. And the remnants of it are in Texas now. But he was quite a character. He had a radio program and people listened to him all the time. And people thought that Lester Roloff just hung the moon. And we're in this building and there was probably, I don't know, 800 or 1,000 people in this building. And it was a big, just a big square box and a high ceiling. And in the back, there's just a solid wall. And it went up. There's a little window way up high where the sound man sat way up high in the back of the building. And we'd had a break. And Lester Roloff was just introduced and he was getting up to speak. And it may have been after lunch. There was this man that was coming in the back door, and he went through this doorway where there was a stairway to go up to that room. And Brother Roloff said, brother, brother, and all the men are saying, yeah, what? You there in the back, and this guy finally figured out he was calling to him, and he turned around and looked at him. He says, I want you to find yourself a seat. Close that door. Find yourself a seat right down here. Because if you're going up there in that sound booth, he says, I don't want to holler and have you unholler me. And that was my introduction to Lester Roloff in person. And he didn't want anybody to unholler him. So I had to make sure this was turned on or I never would get hollered. And so in our passage of script, that had absolutely nothing to do with the message except it had something to do with the, Well, wool gathering. Anyway, my mind rambles. I started to talk about Lester Roloff and I thought to myself, where are you going with this? And I said, self, I have no idea whatsoever. Lord, you're going to have to help me. Immediately said, remember, Lester Roloff went up. Oh yeah, the sound. I got to make sure I get hollered. But in this passage in Genesis chapter 15, God is giving a charge to Abram in a vision, and He says, Fear not. Now, if God says, Fear not, there is one assumption you can make. Somebody's afraid. Fear not, or somebody's gonna get afraid. And guess what? Every one of us is gonna be afraid sometime about something. We must all deal with fear on a daily basis. But here, what Abraham was afraid of, he was afraid that God didn't really mean what he said. Because God had promised Abram and Sarah a son, hadn't He? an heir and that he would make a great nation and this patriarchy would result in a great nation and they'd be as the sand to the sea. There'd be so many of them. And so God had given him a promise. You know, if you're going to have a lot of descendants, you got to have one. You got to have a child or there's not going to be any descendants. The line ends with you. Now, under the culture that Abram was living, if a man of means, which Abram was, he was a wealthy man, he had a large household, many people that depended upon him, and he had a steward in his house, a manager, and that man had a son. And that was Eliezer of Damascus had a son. And their custom was if a man would go childless and he had a steward, a man he trusted, and he had a son, then that son would become the head of the household. You know, that may cause that household to be held together for the next generation, but it just ain't the same. But God had made him a promise. And this was a promise that God repeated again and again and again. And in fact, that he had to remind Abraham of, on multiple occasions. And still, Abram got afraid and thought, well maybe I didn't hear God right. Maybe the way he's gonna give me a son is through, is through my servant. Well, he told him, You know, he told Sarah, remember Sarah laughed? That's because she's an old woman. Guess what, Abraham was older than she was. And it was unreasonable, it was not a realistic thing for them to expect children in their old age. It just didn't happen. But God made a promise, and when God makes a promise, it doesn't matter how unreasonable, unrealistic, or impossible the promise may sound, no matter if you get to where you just don't feel confident in the promise, the promise is still secure, and God is going to fulfill it. What is this fear that God had to remind Abram that he wasn't to do. Fear is defined as a painful emotion marked by alarm, dread, disquiet, and anxious concern. It's an occasion for alarm sparked by danger, to feel painful uncertainty, to doubt, to be tempted. There are all different, all kinds of different levels of fear. And we have reason to fear and become afraid when there is no reason. Brother Josh, look at here. I'm disassembling the parts of that. I'm falling apart. This is as bad as when I comb my hair, you know. My parts fall apart. I was talking to Brother Josh before the service and he was telling me about the joy of driving downtown to U of H and how he takes a different way each time. And there's some ways that you look out the window and you say, I wish I wasn't here. This isn't the place I want to be. And I remember a preacher friend of mine, a black gentleman, Brother Campbell, in Chicago. He was in the worst part of the Chicagoland. And it was really bad. It was a place where the cops didn't go unless they had four cars in caravan. And he asked me to come up and preach at his church, and I said, brother, you're gonna have to meet me at the, you know, I gave him an intersection because there's parts of your neighborhood I'm afraid to go in. And he said, brother, I'm as dark as the rest of them and there's places in my neighborhood I'm afraid to go in. And we got together and had a great time with him. Brother Campbell was a great brother. But, you know, there are things Like when Josh is driving in those neighborhoods, he may drive through a neighborhood that he won't go through after dark. I mean, just going to the airport here, you can take a wrong turn and you can end up in a neighborhood you don't want to be in. And I remember years ago when we first came to the Houston area, There were some preachers said well we heard on the news. You know how are you managing down there? We heard on the news that there was like six murders last week in Houston and I said They weren't in my neighborhood, and I don't go there You know a lot of the places It's the same places where they have the drive-by shootings and all of that stuff, and you know what just don't be outstanding on the street corner at 2 a.m. Be home in your bed and you're not going to have any trouble. Of course, some of the things are bad for people who live down there. We've all heard of the times where a little child was killed sleeping in her bed, you know. But there are things that are realistic to be afraid of. God put us, gave us a fight or flight instinct. There are things that, you know, fear is something that God put in us. Now, there's some good fear. And there's some bad fear. But one thing you can be sure of, fear cannot be contained or controlled. If you harbor fear, it will grow. The only positive response is to conquer fear. I have heard interviews, taped interviews of soldiers from World War II. And there were many of those infantrymen, riflemen, who went in on D-Day and they were in constant combat until victory in 1945, in April of 1945, V-E Day. They were in constant combat. And some of them were asked, how did you deal with that? He said, well, after, this one man said, after about a week, we got to talking and we decided we were all dead already. We were all dead. And so there was no sense worrying about anything because we were already dead. And so you got, that's how they dealt with that constant fear of death all of the time. Well, we're already dead. They saw so much death and so many people died and that they just decided they were not going to make it and they were already dead. They just did their best to do their part to get the US to victory or the allies to victory. And so were they able to manage the fear? No, they had to completely conquer it, because if you have a grain of fear, it will overwhelm you. Anybody that tells you that they've been in combat and says they were not afraid, they're either lying to you or they're crazy. I don't want to be anywhere near them. I was not an infantryman, I was a mechanic and I was not even in Vietnam. I did my Vietnam tour in Korea but they stuck me up in the demilitarized zone and I drew combat pay the whole time I was there. And every night we would hear the mortars going off and they would be shooting the artillery flares. up in the air, and they would fire them, and they would go way up and then explode. It'd take them 30 minutes for that flare to come down. It would light the whole area. And there was times that after I was out of the service for a long time, after I came home, that I heard these mortars, the fireworks they set off, and I woke up and I thought I was back in Korea. It just took me a minute to say, wait a minute, those are just fireworks. When I first woke up, my first impression was just to roll over, because if there's anything really bad, somebody will come and get me. And so I just, but I'd wake up, and then I'd realize I'm not there anymore, because even though I wasn't a rifleman, we were in a combat zone. And there's things that make you afraid, and fear, is real. Now the kind of fear that overwhelms the Christian, the kind of fear that Abraham experienced here, is a fear that grows in ignorance and darkness. Now you say, well, Abram knew that God had given him those promises that he would have a son. But you know what, God tells us things and there's things we know in the Bible. I'm sure all of us here have read Genesis chapter 15 before, probably innumerable times. And it's a very popular scripture where God says, fear not, I am thy shield and my exceeding great reward. That's a great encouragement. We don't have to fear because God will defend us and he'll take care of us. But you know what, we choose ignorance. We choose not to remember what God has said, and instead we just remember and focus upon the things that are going wrong, the problems that are facing us, the things that are all messed up in our lives, the mistakes that we made, and the omelet that we've made out of what should be a couple of sunny side ups of our lives. We wallow in that ignorance, in that darkness, or we sin and drift away from God, and we're not counting on Him every day, and so our fears grow. Our fears grow in disobedience. They grow in sin. So the solution to our fears is our God. Abraham learned in this passage that God was his commander, his defender, and his rewarder. Sounds like a three-point sermon, and it is. First of all, we see that God tells him that he can be safe and he can conquer his fears by following his commander. How do we know that he's saying that? Because he gives a command. Fear not. That is an imperative. It is not a suggestion. It is not one of several options and probably the best one. No, God gave a command. Now, when I went through basic training, way back in the olden days when cars had square wheels, you learned how to follow command. In fact, that's 90% of what basic training was. making you do stupid stuff that any reasonable person would say, why should I do that? Instead, they teach you to hear an order. Brother Josh knows about this because he grew up with a Marine as a father. When they give you an order, you have to just learn to automatically do it. You know, the problem is with, we were talking about this, this last week when there was, you know, they were talking about dealing with an active shooter situation. You know, most people, if you said, get down, you know what they do? They go. That's what people do. What they, they send you to, back when I went in, it was still 16 weeks of basic training. And they were teaching you, whenever you were given a command, you didn't think about it. You didn't ask any questions about, does that include me? Or did my mommy say I have to do this? You just immediately did it without reasoning. And that's one of the reasons that drill is so important. Marching is so important. You see, we still don't send out armies in columns or abreast, like they did in the days of the Napoleonic Wars, or even in the days of the Revolutionary War, even in the Civil War, where men lined up in lines and just fired at each other. In fact, Gettysburg, some of the greatest maneuvers were actually marching maneuvers that they had been trained when they told them to do a wheel and the position was stretched out in what they call the devil's den and they were told to do a wheel to the left and then what they did is they anchored on one end and they swept across the battlefield because there's another enemy that's coming at them, flanked them, coming at them from the side, and they had to face them. And so in that, they were still using those marching orders. All of that drill is from a bygone era, and the problem is we had so many casualties in the Civil War, realize this, both sides were our guys. And as one dear lady from Atlanta told me when I called it the Civil War, she said, there was nothing civil about that war, sir. And so anyway, they teach you to march and that, this goes back to the days when they maneuvered armies that way. And why do they continue to do that? Make you drill. I know in basic training for the boot camp for the Navy, They have them drill and march with a rifle. Well, sailors don't do that. They man a ship, don't they? Now, Marines march with a rifle and that, but sailors, they teach them that. Why? Because it teaches them to follow orders. And, you know, if you're marching and you don't follow an order immediately and in the right way when it's given, you end up all stumbling over each other. I remember when we learned to march and we were drilling, we were double timing, which is, which is marching and running in step. And we were double timing in the dark. It was like 4 a.m. And he gave an order and somebody in the middle got confused and did the wrong thing. The whole company was on the ground. You know, everybody from that guy back was on the ground. Why? Because everybody is depending on you doing what you're told. God is a commander. He is our commander, so He doesn't say, Abraham, I want you to sit down here, and I want you to tell me what you're worried about, and we're gonna talk it over. No, God says, fear not. Abraham didn't go, well, I don't know. He didn't whine about it. This is an oft-repeated command in the Bible. The phrase, fear not, is repeated 49 times in the Old Testament, 13 times in the New Testament, 62 times in the Bible we're told to fear not. It's a command from God. On 119 occasions, the Bible directs us away from fear. That's not where we want to stay. Now, God created in us our fight or flight instinct. There are things that scare us. If a lion roars, you're going to be scared. Now, Josh lived in Africa where they actually had lions. I just remember the, you know, the lion on MGM. You know, we watch old movies on YouTube. And sometimes when you go from one channel to the other, you have to turn up the volume. And I had the volume turned up, and it's all quiet in the house, and this movie's coming on. And this lion roars at 62. For that channel, I have to set it at 20. Scares the bajabbers out of you. Why is that? Instinctively, I know, listen, there's no lions in my house. Now the pastor was up here at the botanical garden, and they saw a cougar. Our pastor, Brother McIntyre, they saw a cougar. And there have been sightings of cougars in Texas. I saw them a lot. I was 14, almost 15 years in Colorado, and I've sat and watched them on a mountainside. Of course, there were none of them. hungry and looking for me. They wanted to stay away from you. You had to be where the wind didn't carry your scent. The wind would change and they'd get a whiff of you and they'd be gone. They don't want anything to do with people. But that roaring lion like Satan is, that's a scary thing, isn't it? And there are things that we are afraid of. And listen, the only thing we should be really afraid of is when God speaks to us and we're not listening. When he says, fear not, we should fear God and not fear anything else. Singularly focus on what God has said. We see that there are so many biblical examples. God said this not only to Abraham, but to his son Isaac. He said in Genesis 26, He said, I am the God of Abraham thy father, fear not. He said, I'm going to tell you just what I told your father, fear not. In Deuteronomy chapter 3 and verse 2, He said to Moses, Fear him not, for I will deliver him and all his people and his land into thy hand. There are some things we don't need to fear because of the promises of God. In Joshua 1.9, God said to Joshua, Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed. For the LORD thy God is with thee. God had made some promises. And because of the promises of God, Abram could stand and know that those promises would be fulfilled, and he was not to fear that they would not be. God told Israel through Isaiah, in Isaiah 41.10, Fear thou not, for I am with thee. In Isaiah 41.13, He said, Fear not, I will help thee. In Isaiah 43, he said, ìFear not, for I have redeemed thee.î You get the idea that fear is not to rule us. Many of our fears are unreasonable. Psalm 53, and in verse 5, there it says, There were they in great fear, where no fear was. For God hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee. Thou hast put them to shame, because God hath despised them. This is David talking about how The fool has said in his heart, there's no God. And then people start being afraid. And said they were in great fear where no fear was. You know, if you've trusted Christ as your savior, we're not to fear what men can do unto us. Because God is in control. The worst thing that a person on earth can do is kill you. And if you're born again, that sends you directly to heaven, because to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. The worst thing the world can do, aside from threaten to elect Kamala Harris, but the worst thing the world can do is send you straight to heaven. That's the worst thing they can threaten you with. And God says, fear not, for I have redeemed thee. Many of our fears are unreasonable. Were they in great fear where no fear was? See, fear without reason is paranoia. Unreasonable fears without reason produces phobias. Those are other words that are used and rendered fear in the Bible. We can conquer our fear through following our Commander. Just do what He says. We can conquer fear through walking with our Defender. What does God say in our text in Genesis 15 in verse 1? He said, Fear not Abram, I am thy shield. That phrase tells us that God will supply, He is what we need to overcome fear. The thing, you know, people say, well, you know, I don't know if I have enough courage. Well, we don't overcome fear through courage. I said once before, if anybody tells you that they've never been afraid, stay away from They're either lying to you or crazy, because everybody is afraid. And I'll tell you, when there's a lot of loud noises and things are going boom, everybody's afraid. You know who the heroes are? They're not people that aren't afraid. They're people who know how to deal with their fear, conquer their fear. And God gives us what we need to overcome fear, and it is not courage. You see, heroes are people that do things in spite of being afraid. Now, there are things that are going to scare us, but we don't have to stay afraid. We get afraid. We don't have to stay there. What is debilitating is when we get afraid and we stay there, and we feed our fears. And what do we feed them with? All of our doubts, all of the things that could go wrong. That's what Abram was doing. You know, oh, oh, I guess I'm not really gonna have a son, because Eliezer, he has a son, and he'll be my heir. No, God told him they would have, Abraham and Sarah would have a son, and not only that son, but generation after generation after generation, even to the very end of the earth. They would have their descendants. You see, God gives us what we need to overcome fear, and that is a shield. You know, there are two different kinds of shields that are spoken of in the Old Testament. One is the large shield, and they used to have a large shield. In fact, there were people that carried their shield for them. If they were archers, or if they were spear throwers, they would have somebody that would help them to move this great big shield, and they would stand behind their shield, peek out around it, or through a little hole in it, and do whatever their job was through that shield, that big shield. The other shield is what we have in the New Testament. It's called a buckler. It's a small, they called it a target too, it's a small shield that goes on the weak arm. You know, if you're right handed, it'd be on your left arm. And that was, so when you would go aggressively with your sword and fight, you couldn't drag along your shield bearer with this great big shield and hide behind it and sword fight like that. Because those weren't point weapons, those were edge weapons that would hack. with their swords back in those days. And so the idea was they had this small shield so that it was small enough they could, they had that on their arm because the other guy was swinging his sword and you had to get in close in order to kill. And to do battle was a very personal thing. And so you had this small shield, so when somebody was swinging their sword down at you, you didn't turn tail and run and cry and have mommy pat you on the head and say it's all gonna be better. You used your shield to stop the sword. And that small shield would keep you from dying, from being hewn in pieces. Not a very pretty thought, is it? but God says I'm your defender both the big shield you need all of the time you need that shield around you to protect you and when you're out doing things that are that are kinda dangerous like when you're out telling people about Jesus and and when you're out in the workforce with people who don't know Christ and when you're at school with people who don't know Christ and are not serving God you need a shield that will be mobile and with you all the time and God is just that shield God gives us what we need to overcome fear in 2nd Timothy chapter 1 and verse 7 2nd Timothy chapter 1 and verse 7, there it says, For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and of a sound mind. God has not given us a spirit of fear. But all of us have experienced the spirit of fear, haven't we? Where does it come from? There are three places it comes from. The world, the flesh, and the devil. We're not going to get that when we're in the Word of God. We're not going to get that when we're on our knees before the Lord. We're not going to get that spirit of fear when we're serving God faithfully, reading His Word, and living according to the Bible. That's not where fear comes from. It comes from the world, the flesh, and the devil. So we must be able to lay aside our fears. I believe I already quoted Isaiah 14 and in verse No, I didn't quote it. Isaiah 14 verse 3. Let's read that. Isaiah 14 and verse 3. It says, And it shall come to pass in the day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve. Now here, this is the song of triumph over Babylon, when they were delivered from Babylonian captivity. He said, there's going to be a time when I'm going to deliver you from fear. You won't be a slave, so you won't be worried about somebody taking your life or unreasonably challenging you. There is going to be a time when it will come to pass in the day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow. And praise God, there will be a time He gives us rest from our sorrows. There will ultimately be that time when there will be no more sorrow, no more fear, no more pain, no more crying, none of those things anymore. But you know, God promises a saint's rest right now. When we rest in the Lord, in the power of His Spirit, we can be freed from the spirit of fear. Doesn't mean we don't get afraid, but by the grace of God, by the instruction of His Word and the power of His Holy Spirit, He can deliver us from a constant state of fear and allow us to conquer that and be able to stand for Him. We have to be able to lay aside our fears. A lot of our fears are things we carry along with us. It's our baggage that causes us to fear. We've got to lay aside the baggage, the weight that does so easily beset us. How do we do that? Well, the Lord is the source of our confidence. Everyone knows the 23rd Psalm. It talks about there how to even face our greatest enemy of death. In fact, it is not even death that is spoken of there directly. It says, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Now, if there's a hawk over his head, you know, if he flies over a covey of quail and his shadow hits the ground, they're going to scatter, aren't they? Even though the hawk ain't there yet. Because they were in the shadow of death. You know when we get afraid? God gives us dying grace. A child of God when he's going to leave this world behind and be with the Lord forever and ever. But you know what happens? We get afraid of the shadow of death. death's oppressive presence. Perhaps you've had family members die. And you know the hard thing, the thing that causes grief and even fear, is we wonder what it's going to be like without them. We anticipate missing them. We want to hang on to them, even if they've been very sick. But there's somebody who knows the Lord, and it'd be a deliverance for them to be with the Lord. We still fear because of the shadow of death. David spoke about the shadow of death as being worse than death itself. David dealt with death, you know, even from a boy. He went to battle against Goliath because he said, is there not a cause? And he gathered up five stones, not only for Goliath, for all of his brothers as well. He's ready to do whatever God wanted him to have. He wasn't melting down with fear, but you know where David found fear that was oppressive and that bothered him throughout his life? It was the fear, it was the shadow of death. But he came to a place and he gave it to us under inspiration of God in the 23rd Psalm. And he said, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Doesn't mean he wasn't worried about a painful or agonizing death. You know, he was a soldier. He saw men die on the battlefield. And back in those days, it wasn't a pretty thing. Because they were using edged weapons. It was hand to hand and it was terrible. As terrible as combat is even today. It isn't as bad as what it was back in those days. But David said, it's not about fearing death. What is the thing that plagues him? It's the fear of death. The fear of the shadow of death. You know, we can make shadows that are, in our minds, are worse than the actual event itself. Just worrying about things. And, you know, worry and doubt and fear, they're all right in the same, in the same basket, because all of them are times when we're just not believing God. That's why Abraham had to be told, fear not. You know, A modern day scenario would be when your kid isn't listening to you and you walk up behind him and you pop him in the ear. And didn't I tell you not to do that? Now, God would be well within his rights as the Heavenly Father to pop Abraham in the ear and say, I told you better than that. But instead, what did he do? He gave him exactly what he needed. Follow my command. Fear not. And why can you do that? Because I am the source of your confidence. I will, in the face of opposition, give you strength and help you and watch over you. I will be your shield. Not only is he our commander and our defender, we can conquer fear because we can depend on our rewarder. He said in verse 1, Thy exceeding great reward. Thy exceeding great reward. Now, there's a lot of folks in the age that we live in who just think that God ought to bless them. They just think that, you know, ought to be all these good things just happen to us. Shouldn't have any trouble. You know, we got preachers that name and claim a crowd that just says, you know, you believe in God and you don't have to worry about anything anymore. Well, folks, we're still in the world. We're still influenced by the flesh and the devil's still our enemy. We have a dangerous life to live as a Christian, a hazardous life, a scary life. It's glorious. I like to say that Christian life is a bed of roses filled with thorns. It's a fact, isn't it? All of us know that there is no easy chair for Jesus. That's what folks are looking for. They just want to be rocked in the cradle of Abraham. Well, God said, okay, here's one rock, here's another rock, and here's a third rock, just like Abraham had. But He is our rewarder. But in order to be rewarded, it isn't something that just happens, that God just is so wonderful, He just rewards everybody. First of all, in order to be rewarded, you must seek Him. In Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 6, Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 6, that famous chapter where it talks about our great heroes but in Hebrews 11 6 it says but without faith it is impossible to please him for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder oh there it is he's a rewarder I believe that so he's God's going to reward me no that he's a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Boy, that's an exclusionary clause. That narrows the field down to be about 1% or less. How many are diligently seeking God? This isn't seeking God in order to get saved. This is speaking of those who already believe. And how many of us don't always diligently seek Him. If you've ever had a time when you really made a mess of things, you can go back and look at the history of that and find out there was a time you quit seeking God. Because He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. So it's excluded all but those who diligently seek Him. So well that's just not fair. Yeah, it's fair, because if you wanted fair, you'd be going to hell. That's what's fair, is hell. All of sin comes short of the glory of God. We all deserve hell. That's what we deserve. But God in His goodness offers us eternal life, and He also offers us with these wonderful promises that He will be with us, and He will reward us. We must diligently seek Him. How do we do that? By doing good works? No, by faith, trusting Him. His rewards are victory over death. We will share eternity with Him, guaranteed. Victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil. Victory over fear. He will grant us that. Yielding to fear robs us of victory. Ask yourself this, when you're worrying about something and you're really afraid of something, ask yourself, what will I get for my worry? What does my worry buy? What does my fear buy? Because worry and fear are just two sides of the same coin. All of them are in the sack of unbelief. And what do they buy us? What does fear gain us? Nothing. If you avoided the lion, turn the sound down real quick on the little remote, and you're no longer afraid of the lion anymore. There's no lion to get you away. We find something to be afraid of. What will I get for my fear? The answer is nothing. Fear is the great opponent of faith. Got to a place where God could say, there in Hebrews chapter 11, that Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him in righteousness. He had to get to the other side of Genesis 15 and hear God say, Fear not, I'll be with you, I'll be your shield. He had to get to the other side of that. Until he got to the other side of that, he wasn't going any further. The question really is, fear or faith? We have seven reasons for encouragement. You say, we're almost out of time. I'm just gonna read you seven verses. We have blessings in the journey of life. Genesis 26, 24. And the Lord appeared unto him the same night and said, I am the God of Abraham, thy father, fear not, for I am with thee and will bless thee and magnify thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake. We can be confident because of what God said. He's going to bless us in this journey of life, no matter where it takes us. He promised he'd supply our needs, even in the face of famine. In 1 Kings 17, 17, here's what Elijah said. Remember when he was talking to the widow woman? You know, she's just a little bitty girl, a widow woman, only about that tall. Widow, tiny woman. But he's talking to, I'm not making fun of her situation of having lost her husband. She was starving, wasn't she? She said, let me just go bake, I was just gonna go bake a cake, a loaf of bread, and my son and I were gonna eat it, that'd be the last thing we'd have and then we'd die. And what did Elijah, the prophet of God, here's what preachers, here's what Baptist preachers do. Elijah said unto her, fear not. There's a famine, there's no food. I've only got a little bit, a little dab, just enough to make one, you know, just a couple of cookies. We're gonna have our cookie and die. Elijah said under her fear not, go and do as thou hast said. Go ahead, bake your cake. But make me thereof a little cake first. There was only enough for a little cake. When she made a little cake for Elijah, there wouldn't have been anything for her. Before she could find a cruise in the oil that would not fail, she had to give it all up. She had to bake a cake for Elijah first, for the man of God who brought her the word of God. In obedience to the word of God, she had to trust that God was going to take care of her. He said, make a little cake first and bring it to me and after make for thee and thy son. What a leap of faith that widow had to take the last that she had. There wasn't any more. And, you know, starvation is not a pleasant way to die. Takes a while. And you're hungry all the time. But she took the man of God at the word of God and did it. And so she was supplied through the whole famine. She kept going to that barrel to make the last cake, and there was stuff to make the last cake. I think they were making, I think they were icing cakes before it was done. Because they trusted God. God gives us protection in peril in 2 Kings 6.16 it says, and He answered, Fear not. For they that be with us are more than they that be with them. How many times do we think, I just can't stand for the Lord because there's just not many of us anymore. You know the world is full of lost people and they hate God and I don't have any chance and I'm afraid and I'm fearful and all of this. As many as there are out there, there's more that are with the Lord than are with them. You say, well, I don't know if that's true anymore. Yeah, there's more that are with the Lord because there's an innumerable company with Him. And all His holy angels and His Holy Spirit that'll be with us. And there are those, even though you think you might be the only one, there are still thousands that haven't bowed their knee to Baal. God's given us this promise. That He'll give us strength in weakness, protection in peril, and strength in weakness. Isaiah 41 10, Fear thou not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee, yea, I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. You see how God piles on all of those assurances? He says, look at the construction of that sentence. He said, fear not, semi-colon, continuation of thought. What does he say then? For I am with thee, colon. Here's all the stuff, the reason that we know God, that we don't need to be afraid because He's going to be with us. What is He going to do? He says, be not dismayed for I am thy God. You know, we don't need anything else but the Lord. I will strengthen thee, he says. Yea, I will help thee. Yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. The only question is, is how much are we going to trust God? And what are we going to trust God for? What are we going to trust God with? The fifth reason for encouragement is he's promised us companionship in trial. In Isaiah chapter 43 he says, but now Thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that found thee, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be bound, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior. I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Sheba for them. He reminded them how God had taken those who had defeated them and overpowered them and plundered those people so that Israel might be prospered. We see, sixthly, that God assures us of His overshadowing care in Matthew 10. He says, but the very hairs of your head are all numbered I know he's not having to count very high with me anymore but he still got a number from the time I was born from before the time I was born when I was conceived God knew how many hairs I had he numbered them the hairs of your header numbered fear ye not therefore you're more value than many sparrows God values us, and He will take care of us and exercise His overshadowing care over us. Finally, He promises us life beyond the grave. With the worst things that the world may threaten us with, even our lives, God makes a promise. He says that He will take care of us. In Revelation chapter 1 and verse 17 it says, And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not, I am the first and the last. I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And have the keys of hell and death. I'm not trusting in me for eternal life, I'm trusting in him. And He defeated death, hell, and the grave. But how do we deal with fear? Let's turn to one last passage in 1 John chapter 4. 1 John chapter 4, in verse 18, it says, There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth not is made perfect in love, We love him because he first loved us. How do we deal with fear? We must learn to stand by faith. And the only way to do that is to stay in the word of God. You get away from God's word, I guarantee you, you'll start being afraid. We've got to stand in the word. That's why it's important to read your Bible every day. You've heard me say it before, if you aren't reading your Bible at all, start reading one verse every day. You'll have read one verse more than you were, and in a week that'll be seven verses. If you're reading a verse, read a chapter. If you're reading a chapter, read three chapters, and in a year you'll have read the whole Bible through. If you stay in His Word, you will find victory over fear, because you will, with every page, find reassurance over the words of God are coming and speaking to your heart, that these things are true, that God will do what He says He will do, and our fears need not overwhelm us. We can stand by faith in God's love. Fear is destructive. Faith builds, and where do we increase our faith? In the Word of God. Conquer our fear? Question mark. How? Follow our commander, walk with our defender, and depend on our Redeemer. Let's all stand together with every head bowed,