It is November of 2022, millions of people did not die last winter as we were told they would, there is still food on the shelves of the marketplace, the economy has not crumbled, there is no centralized digital bank currency. How many more could I name; how many more desperate warnings were broadcast throughout the planet over the last three years or so that have not come to fruition.
Fear is the path to obedience, and believe it or not, most are controlled by some form of fear their entire lives. Am I pretty enough, did the officer see me run that stop sign, will the doctor say the dreaded word “Terminal.” Think on your life, find a point in it where you knew absolutely no fear whatsoever, I dare say that it will be difficult for you to do so.
I ask you again as I have before, search the Scriptures, do a personal Bible study, find the word fear and every occurrence where you see the words “fear not.” What say you to Deuteronomy 31:8, “And the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.”
What do you say in response to John 14:3, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”
How many reassuring promises do you know in the Scriptures that should assuage every single fear you have?
The flesh is the mind killer, the flesh tells us to fear, from the moment our first parents hid themselves in the garden to the last breath you will take, the flesh will fear, no words in all the Scriptures can stop this truth.
The mind says “ridiculous,” the words of Psalm 23:4, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” rings through our souls, “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.” (Psalm 91:7) And “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” (Prov. 3:5)
Romans 7:25 is one of the greatest truths in this area of fear and trust, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”
When the battle is over, we will understand better, when we are giving our account of how we spent this life for His glory right before we are glorified, we will know, the flesh, not Satan, not the world, not any other enemy set before us was our nemesis, we were.
During the Millennial period this truth will be well known, for Satan will be bound for 1,000 years, and man will still revolt against the will of God. Being born-again does not kill the flesh or its desires, we attempt to keep our bodies under subjection, but we fail, if not in our actions, then in our thoughts, the flesh our old Adamic nature is our worst enemy, and only the Holy Spirit of God can control him.
But we must be willing, we must desire to be pleasing in the eyes of the Lord, we are called to be holy, and we will be held accountable to that calling.
The flesh could not exist if we were not blessed with free will, love cannot be expressed save by our free will, it is, as they say, a catch 22, a dichotomy, the evil and the good living in the same body, The fear of the unknown, of a future we have little control over cannot be stopped, only hindered when we in submission and love trust in what the Word of God says, in the promises that have been given to all the elect throughout the ages.
Satan knows that his time is growing shorter, all the stops have been pulled out, the Lord God is allowing him more free reign than at any other time in history, and he will use every advantage at his disposal to cause fear upon all.
Faith is trust, trust is earned. Does the Almighty still need to earn your trust, or are you finally willing to say with Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.” (Job 13:15)
