When There is No Fear, There is Power

Overview

Rev. Jon Ryan examines “When There is No Fear, There is Power” through 1 John 4, Genesis 17, Joshua 5, 1 Samuel 17, showing how fear, israel, lord shape a believer’s relationship with God, daily choices, and service to others.

Transcript

Understanding When There is No Fear, There is Power

When we don’t fear, there is power. If you turn to 1 John chapter 4, please. Fear can oftentimes creep up in our hearts as we face different things that are in front of us.

And yet, a great thing that we can do is remind ourselves that God is there. A great response and a way to do that is to pray. When you have a situation, God’s always right beside us.

And so we can lift the situation, whatever it is, to God. Thank Him for clearing whatever the problem is that may be out of the way. We just put our trust in Him.

In 1 John chapter 4 and verse 18, it says, There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. Sometimes that word perfect throws us off, but it doesn’t mean we have to do something perfectly.

It’s just that that word perfect is a word that means mature. We get to the place of maturity. When your kids are very young, I mean, they might wake up in the middle of the night with a bad dream, and you go running into their room, or perhaps they came running into your room, and you assure them that everything’s all right because you’re right there by their side.

And whatever it was that scared them, it’s not going to harm them. Well, that’s maturity. You know that this bad dream was just a dream, and this is not anything they need to be afraid of.

Sometimes in our lives, we face situations that are real. They’re not just bad dreams. They may feel like a bad dream, but we can respond the same way.

We just go, okay, God, we go crying unto Him, and we don’t have to have the fear. When the parent is there by the bedside with their child, the fear goes away. Maybe the mom or dad is giving their child a hug and just tucking them back into their bed, staying by their bedside for a while, whatever it is, to help them to be settled and fearless.

So what do we do? How do we get this maturity of love? Because there’s no fear in love. So I’m going to look at a few places with you just briefly, because these are sections of the word that we could spend a lot of time on. But if you go to the book of Joshua, chapter five, we’re going to see some men and women that had to deal with challenging situations, and yet they moved fearlessly because they remembered God.

Here in Joshua, chapter five, this is the group of Israel that have wandered for 40 years. Ever since they left the captivity they had been in, in Egypt, and Moses had come there and delivered them, He originally brought them to the brink of the promised land in the first year, but they were afraid to go in because they saw big cities, big people, and they didn’t see themselves as able to move in. And so as a consequence, they wandered for 40 years in the wilderness.

God took care of them. He fed them every day with manna from heaven. He protected them with a cloud of fire by night, and He led them through the wilderness, and they just were able to move ahead one day at a time.

Everyone over 20 years old passed away during those 40 years, except for Joshua and Caleb. And then here they come to the promised land once again with this new generation that now has confidence in God because they’re going to go face the same obstacles, the same big walls of these cities in the land that God has set aside for them. It’s called the promised land.

And in Joshua, chapter five, verse one, and it came to pass when all the kings of the Amorites, which are on the side of the Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel until we were passed over that their heart melted. Neither was their spirit in them anymore because of the children of Israel. So here’s this formidable enemy, and it tells us that their hearts are melted.

Now, they’re not holding up big signs saying our hearts are melted. The children of Israel have no way of knowing this, but God’s telling us what’s going on. Verse two, at that time, the Lord said unto Joshua, make the sharp knives and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time.

And Joshua made him sharp knives and circumcised the children of Israel at the hill of the foreskin. That’s an appropriate name. And this is the cause why Joshua did circumcise.

So why did God want him to do this? All the people that came out of Egypt that were males, even all the men of war died in the wilderness, by the way, after they came out of Egypt. Now, all the people that came out were circumcised, but all the people that were born in the wilderness, by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, them had not circumcised. They had not circumcised.

The Biblical Foundation

So this is not just a ritual. See circumcision was instituted by Abraham 440 years earlier when Abraham and Sarah had God had promised them a child and they had not been able to have a child. And it had been 30 years from the time God first made the promise.

Abraham’s now about a hundred years old and Sarah’s 10 years younger. And they were, it said that Sarah was past age. Abraham had no longer was able to produce children and God had them circumcised.

He told Abraham, circumcised the skin of your foreskin, your penis. And then in that incident in Genesis 17, they were restored to health and able to have this child that God promised. And what it was, was the circumcision represented that they’re not going to bring the promise of God to pass.

By their own ability, by their own strength. It says Sarah had been barren her whole life and she was now 90 years old. And Abraham, it says he was a hundred years old and he was not able to have sexual intercourse either.

But God said this circumcision represented the dead works of man. You can’t bring to pass the promise of God by your own works. It’s going to be by God’s grace.

And it was interesting because it’s in Genesis 17. It’s the fifth time that God talked to Abraham. He adds the fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

His name was Abram. He changed it to Abraham and Sarai to Sarah. He did the same fifth letter to Sarai’s name.

And this was representing God’s grace. Five is the number for grace. And even when he made the promise, you read in Genesis 17 five times, the phrase comes up social thy seed be.

And came this the children that they had not yet have or they did not yet have. So this was all about recognizing God’s grace and his ability. So to have this circumcision here in the wilderness, as they’re about ready to contend with their enemies, it really incapacitates the men.

It’s not something you just do. And then you’re ready to go next day. There’s a period of healing.

And yet it’s all about recognizing that God’s grace is how they’re going to win this. It’s not their own ability. Look at verse 10, Joshua 5, 10.

And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal and kept the Passover on the 14th day of the month, even in the plains of Jericho. So the Passover also was set up as a memorial to recognize God’s ability to deliver his people. The Passover, the original Passover, is when the night before they had killed the lamb of the first year, they had had this meal with their shoes on their feet, ready to go.

They’d put the blood over the lintel and doorposts. And the next day, after all these years of captivity, they walked out and they were allowed to go. The Pharaoh and the people of Egypt just let them go.

So God told them to remember this year after year, keep the Passover to recognize God’s ability to deliver. Again, it’s God’s grace. And so here with Joshua, they just had the circumcision, they kept the Passover.

And look at chapter 6, verse 1. Chapter 6 of Joshua, verse 1. Now Jericho was straightly shut up because the children of Israel, none went out and none came in. And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given unto thee, into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valor. And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once, thus shall you do six days.

Examples and Spiritual Lessons

And he goes on to describe to them that they’re going to do this for a week, and on the seventh day, they’re going to go around the city many times. It says, verse 4, And seven priests shall bear before the ark, seven trumpets of ram’s horns, and the seventh day shall compass the city seven times. And the priests shall blow with the trumpets, and it shall come to pass when they make a long blast with the ram’s horns, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city shall fall down flat.

And the people shall ascend up every man straight before him. That’s God’s grace, obviously. That’s how you’re going to win the battle.

He’s going to march around the city, and on the seventh day, march seven times around the city, the trumpets blow, everybody shouts, and the walls, these 40-foot-high walls, are going to come down and you go take the city. So they didn’t have fear. When the fear is gone, there’s the power of God unleashed.

Go to 1 Samuel, please. 1 Samuel 17. I tell you, this was exciting to look at these records, because there’s so many of them.

I’m just showing you a few of them. But when people put their confidence in God and no longer have the fear, then the power is unleashed. Here in this record, the armies of Israel are being confronted with the Philistines, and they’ve got this giant Goliath that has come to threaten them.

And we read in here that David, the youngest son of Jesse, who has been anointed by Samuel, he’s got the spirit of God, and he’s not even old enough to be in the army. He’s 17 years old. And he comes and hears this giant threatening Israel.

They’re going to do a man-on-man, that one man against one man fight. And David says, who is this uncircumcised Philistine that dares to defy the armies of the living God? Everyone else is encased in fear. They’re full of fear.

This man is enormous, and nobody feels that there’s a chance to stand before him. So David says, he goes and comes before the king, King Saul, and in verse 34, and David said to Saul, thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock. And I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth.

And when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him. Can I picture this? If you’ve ever tried to take a bone out of a dog’s mouth, the dog is going to be growling, and it’s probably not a good idea to try and go and wrestle that out of his mouth without getting bit. Well, now picture a lion.

You’re going to go up to a lion. First of all, you’re going to catch the lion. That’s just taking one of your sheep.

And you’re going to confront this lion. I mean, you can’t have any fear, but you know, David realized that God was on his side. And so he is reporting to the king, I just took the lion by the beard and smote him.

I have a hard time even picturing this. And he did the same with a bear. See, with no fear, he had the power of God.

Obviously it was God working in this situation to confront these vicious animals. And he says to the king, this Philistine is going to be like one of them. I don’t care how big he is.

He can’t stand up against the living God. And David fearlessly went forward, as we know this record is so familiar, and he slew the lion. See, when there’s no fear, there’s power.

Obviously it took action on his part, but it was God that was taking care of things. Go to second Kings, please. Second Kings.

Let’s go to chapter seven. Second King seven, there’s been a severe famine in the land where Israel is. And they’ve got it once again, the enemy pressing down on them.

Faith in Action

And they are in such dire straits that they don’t see how they’re going to make it through this whole situation. And there’s four lepers that are on top of it all. They have leprosy, and they’re not allowed to come into the city.

And so they are at their wits end. They don’t know what they can do. They only see death ahead of them.

And it says in verse three of chapter seven. And there were four lepers men at the entering in of the gate. And they said one to another, why sit we here until we die.

If we say we will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city. And we shall die there. And if we sit here, if we sit still here, we die also.

Now, therefore, come and let us fall onto the host of the Syrians. That’s the enemy that’s pressing down upon them. If they save us alive, we shall live.

And if they kill us, we shall die. So they’ve gotten to the place where they don’t have any more fear. You know what? We got nothing to lose.

Let’s go. If we just sit around here, we’re not going to get any better. Nothing’s going to happen for us.

So maybe we can go and see what happens. But they’ve just got rid of their fear. Verse five.

And they arose up in the twilight to go onto the camp of the Syrians. And when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, there was no man there. For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots and the noise of horses, even the noise of a great host.

And they said one to another, lo, the king of Israel have hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to come upon us. Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight and left their tents and their horses and their asses. They even left their asses.

And even the camp as it was, and fled for their life. And when these lepers came to the uttermost part of the camp, they went into one tent and did eat and drink. They were starving.

They did eat, drink, and carried then silver and gold and raiment and went and hid it. Came again and entered into another tent and carried thens also and went and hid it. Then they said one to another, we do not well this day.

This day is a day of good tidings. If we hold our peace, if we carry till morning light, some mischief will come upon us. Now therefore come that we may go and tell the king’s household.

And so they came and called, and I’m not going to read the rest of it, but they go and tell the king that, hey, the enemy’s gone and all their booty is still there. They left everything. And Israel goes over there and they’ve been starving.

They’ve been in this famine and they get to eat and drink and they get all the silver and gold, all the valuables that the enemy left. Because God made this noise that the enemy, it just came out of nowhere and the enemy hears it and figures that it’s these other armies that have come to help Israel. And they left without taking a thing and they just ran for their lives.

See, God takes care of us. God can pull off these things because he’s God. We just have to be able to get rid of the fear, to not allow the fear to overtake us.

Walking in Love and Confidence

Go back one chapter to chapter six. Second Kings chapter six. Here, the man of God, Elisha, is taking care of God’s people and it starts off with the first few verses where we learned that another enemy has come to affect them.

It says in verse eight, then the king of Syria warred against Israel and took counsel with his servant saying, in such and such a place shall be my camp. And the man of God sent unto the king of Israel saying, beware that thou past not such and such a place. For thither the Syrians are come down.

And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of and saved himself there, not once or not twice. So this Syrian king is trying to go to battle with Israel, but Israel knows the plans that they’re making because God’s working. So once again, there’s this opportunity to be afraid unless you put your trust in God.

Verse 11. Therefore, the heart of the king of Syria was sore trouble for this thing. And he called his servants and said unto them, will you not show me which of us is for the king of Israel? Who’s the traitor here? And one of his servants said, none my Lord, O king, but Elijah the prophet that is in Israel telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber.

And he said, go and spy where he is. Now they want to get Elijah. And it was told him saying, behold, he is in Dothan.

Dothan’s a little city. Therefore he sent he there their horses and chariots and a great host. And they came by night and encompassed the city about.

So they come to Dothan in the middle of the night and they’ve surrounded the city. Verse 15. And when the servant of the man of God was risen early and gone forth, behold, that host compasses the city.

So the servant is in whatever home they’re sleeping in and they didn’t have indoor plumbing. So when you needed to do your business, you went outside to the bushes or if they had an outhouse, whatever it was, but you went outside and did your, took care of business. And he goes out to relieve himself and he sees the enemy surrounding their city.

It says he had gone forth behold with a host. I’ll read the verse again. Verse 15.

And when the servant of the man of God was risen early and gone forth behold and host compasses the city, both with horses and chariots and his servants said unto him, Alas, my master, how shall we do? He’s full of fear. He comes back to Elijah tells him they’ve got us surrounded. Elijah answered.

He answered fear not for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And yet as far as we know, it’s just Elijah and the servant here. Maybe there’s a couple of other people in the house, but they don’t have any army.

What Elijah is doing, see what he has done is he knows that God’s on his side. And so you’ve always got the advantage with God on your side. So with no fear, there’s power.

So again, verse 16, and he answered fear not for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elijah prayed and said, Lord, I pray the open his eyes, the eyes of his servant that he may see and the Lord opened the eyes of the young man. And he saw and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elijah.

It’s amazing. See, this is how we can face challenges as we go to God. And God just worked in this situation to alleviate this young man’s fear.

He was afraid because he could see the physical enemy, but then when Elijah prayed, he saw that God’s armies were going to take care of them. Mountains are full of horses and chariots fire round about Elijah. And when they came down to him, Elijah prayed unto the Lord and said, smite this people I pray thee with blindness.

And he smote them with blindness, according to the word of Elijah. And Elijah said unto them, so they came. They’ve got their wanted posters.

Applying the Teaching in Daily Life

They know who Elijah is. They’ve spied out to find out where he is. And he had a lot.

She has no fear to just walk up to them. Okay, God. Smited with blindness.

And I don’t know if they were blind to where they couldn’t see anything at all, or if they just could not recognize Elijah because look what happens here. Verse 19 and Elijah said unto them, this is not the way. Neither is this the city.

Follow me and I’ll bring you to the man whom you seek. But he led them to Samaria. So I don’t think he could lead a whole army of blind men because how are they going to follow him? I think that they just couldn’t recognize that this was Elijah.

And so they are willing to go with this fellow that’s going to leave them to Elijah. And instead he brings them right into the Syrian camp. That was the camp of Israel.

And it came to pass, verse 20, when they were coming to Samaria that Elijah said, Lord, open the eyes of these men that they may see. And the Lord opened their eyes and they saw. So again, I don’t know.

Maybe they were blind where they could see or else they couldn’t distinguish that they were in the camp of Israel because I don’t know that they would have just willingly walked into the camp. But whatever it is, God is working in this situation. The power of God is at work where this army comes in to the middle of where Israel is.

And the king of Israel says, let’s kill them. The king of Israel says, verse 21, until Elijah when he saw them, my father shall I smite them? Shall I smite them? And he answered thou shall not smite them. With thou smite those whom thou hast taken captive with thy sword and with thy bow, set bread and water before them that they may eat and drink and go to their master.

And he prepared a great provision for them. They fed their enemies and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away and they went to their master so the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel. What a great deliverance.

Again, it’s just recognizing God and that God will take care of us. Let’s look at one more. Go to 2 Chronicles chapter 20.

Please, 2 Chronicles chapter 20. It’s amazing, these accounts. But these men of old did not have to be beaten or suffer consequences when they got rid of their fear, the power of God was unleashed.

2 Chronicles 20 and verse 1. It came to pass after this also that the children of Moab and the children of Ammon and with them other besides the Ammonites came against Jehoshaphat to battle. Jehoshaphat’s the leader of God’s people. Verse 2. Then there came some that told Jehoshaphat, saying there cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea on this side of Syria.

And behold, they be in Asim Tamar, which is in Gedi. And Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord. You know, there’s a verse in Proverbs where it says, be not afraid of sudden fear.

Sometimes we get the bad news and our heart clenches up. Oh my God. But the response is just like Jehoshaphat here.

When we start to get threatened with bad news or situation, it’s time to pray. Verse 3. And Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. And Judah gathered themselves together to ask help of the Lord.

A Life Shaped by God’s Word

Even out of all the cities of Judah, they came to seek the Lord. So they’re going to go to prayer together. And isn’t that what we do sometimes? We have a situation where we’ve been informed that so and so is having a difficult time and is asking for our prayer on their behalf.

And so we go, we get together and pray. Verse 5. And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the Lord before the new court and said, O Lord God of our fathers, art not thou God in heaven, and rule is not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen, and in thy hand is there not power and might so that none is able to withstand thee. Art not thou our God who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend forever.

And they dwell therein and have built the sanctuary therein for thy name, saying, if when evil cometh upon us, as the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we stand before this house and in thy presence, for thy name is in this house, and cry unto thee in our affliction, then thou wilt hear and help. So that’s how they did it in the Old Testament. Now we have the same authority and power, only we use the name of Jesus Christ.

We don’t have to go to a particular sanctuary. We can just go to God ourselves or together with one another and in the name of Jesus Christ, ask for his help. Verse 10, and now behold the children of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom thou wilt not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them and destroyed them not.

Behold, I say how they reward us to come to cast us out of thy possession, which thou has given us to inherit. O our God, wilt thou not judge them? For we have no might against this great company that cometh against us, neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon thee. And all Judas stood before the Lord with their little ones, their wives and their children.

And then upon Jehaziel, the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeil, the son of Mataniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, came the spirit of the Lord in the midst of the congregation. And he said, harken ye all Judah and ye have it of Jerusalem, and thou King Jehoshaphat. Thus set the Lord unto you.

Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God’s. Tomorrow go ye down against them. Behold, they come up by the cliff of Ziz, and ye shall find them at the end of the brook before the wilderness of Jerul.

And ye shall not need to fight in this battle. Set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Fear not, nor be dismayed.

Tomorrow go out against them, for the Lord will be with you. And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the Lord, worshiping the Lord, and the Levites of the children of the Coethites and the children of the Korites stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a loud voice on high. And they rose early in the morning and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa.

And as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, in the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God, so shall you be established. Believe his prophets, so shall you prosper.

And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord that should praise the beauty of holiness as they went out before the army and to say praise the Lord for his mercy and endurance forever. And when they began to sing and praise the Lord, when they began to sing and praise, the Lord set embushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, which were coming against Judah, and they were smitten. How incredible.

See, we have to deal with the fear. Sometimes we have fear and we have to deal with it, but we go to God and we believe that God hears our prayer and then we can move without fear and the power of God kicks in. It’s incredible.

So this is in 1 John. We started in 1 John 4 18. There is no fear in love.

It says in that same chapter that God is love. So there’s no fear when we realize that we have God, that’s the mature perspective that we don’t ever have to fear and the power of God is unleashed and we can see our challenges melt before us. The Grace is Heavenly Father.

We are so grateful for your goodness, for your love, for your grace, and that you do watch over us and you provide the way for us to walk. We know in each day and time there are obstacles to overcome. There are challenges that we face and yet you’ve given us your son and what he accomplished has made it available for us to have access to you and that he won the victory over all the enemies and so we can come to you at any point in time and make our request to you and then we can have peace.

We can walk with confidence knowing that you are directing our steps. You will provide the solution that we need. So God, I thank you for this and lift this day to you once again in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Key Takeaways

• And one of his servants said, none my Lord, O king, but Elijah the prophet that is in Israel telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber.
• The king of Israel says, verse 21, until Elijah when he saw them, my father shall I smite them?
• It says in verse eight, then the king of Syria warred against Israel and took counsel with his servant saying, in such and such a place shall be my camp.
• And when they came down to him, Elijah prayed unto the Lord and said, smite this people I pray thee with blindness.
• And it came to pass, verse 20, when they were coming to Samaria that Elijah said, Lord, open the eyes of these men that they may see.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the main message of “When There is No Fear, There is Power”?

Rev. Jon Ryan examines “When There is No Fear, There is Power” through 1 John 4, Genesis 17, Joshua 5, 1 Samuel 17, showing how fear, israel, lord shape a believer’s relationship with God, daily choices, and service to others.

Which scriptures are central to this teaching?

The teaching draws especially from 1 John 4, Genesis 17, Joshua 5, 1 Samuel 17, 2 Chronicles 20.

How can believers apply this teaching?

Believers can receive the truth presented, verify it in Scripture, and put it into practice with faith, humility, love, and consistent action.

Scripture References

1 John 4; Genesis 17; Joshua 5; 1 Samuel 17; 2 Chronicles 20

This text was prepared from the teaching audio or source document. Please verify scripture references against your own Bible.