Fear Not
If Jesus is in the boat of your life and you are obeying Him, you have nothing to fear. You are unsinkable! Give yourself to Him and let Him renew you and guide you
Transcript
Alright thank you very much, and hello again dear radio friends. How in the world are you? Doing alright? I had a delightful experience the other day, I was getting into a limo or a taxi or whatever at an airport in New York ,and Dr. Ben Armstrong and I were talking with each other, as we rode along, and suddenly the driver leaned back and said, “Would you be Dr. Cook?”, and I said, “Yes, how in the world are you?”, we he darn near ran off the road and we had a delightful time of fellowship there for some minutes as we went from one point to the other, and found out that he, like many of you, carves out some time every day to listen and to fellowship with yours truly, around the Word of God. How precious it is to have this fellowship, and of course I am no longer surprised that people recognize the, what I call the buzzsaw voice, the voice you know, is as distinctive as fingerprint. They’re manufacturing now locks and other devices that can be actuated only by the sound of one person’s voice. They call it a voiceprint. Jesus said, “My sheep know my voice and they follow me”. The voiceprint of the divine on your life makes a difference.
Well in any case, here we are together and were looking at Mark chapter 5, “Our Lord Jesus came over into the country of the Gadarenes, and when He was come out of the ship immediately there met Him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit”, that develops as the conversation goes on that it was not one but, many demons that inhabited in Jesus that ask him. “Jesus asked him his name and he said my name is Legion for we are many”. So this man looked at Him. Now, what kind of a person was he? He lived among the tombs, no man could bind him, no not with chains. The superhuman strength that is given to a human body when it is energized by another being, we call them demons, and for a Christian of course, that person who in dwells you and me when we trust the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, is the Holy Spirit of God. The point being that, the human body can do more than it ordinarily would when energized, either by satanic or much better divine strength. “They the wait on the Lord shall renew their strength shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint”. This is true. A human being can be energized, motivated, and driven by another entity. Thank God we who know the Lord Jesus Christ, know that the blessed spirit of God dwells within us.
You need never be afraid of demon possession, believer, when you’ve made the Lord Jesus Christ your Lord. He’s greater, “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world”, the Bible says. Satan can fight you, he may oppress you, you may be distressed because of things that happen in your life, as the enemy of your soul tempts you and tests you. This it may all be true but you never need to wonder about being the demon possessed because you won’t be, if you know the Lord Jesus Christ. “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world”. Well, this man lived in the tombs, nobody could bind him. “He’d often been bound with fetters and chains and the change had been plucked asunder by him, fetters broken in pieces, Neither could any man tame him”. Always night and day, he was in the mountains and the tombs cry and cutting himself with stones and when he saw Jesus, he ran and worshiped Him and cried with a loud voice, “What of I to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou son of the most high God, I adore Thee Thy God! Torment me not”. “For Christ had said unto him, ‘Come out of the man thou unclean spirit”. He asked him, what is thy name and the answer was my name is Legion, for we are many. Well, the Lord Jesus gave permission, as you recall, from reading this passage, gave permission to the demons to enter into the swine that were there feeding. Well, what of all this? First of all, there is no legislation or reforming process that can change the bent and the attitude and the power of a heart that is under the control of sin and Satan. You cannot educate it away, you cannot sublimate it away, you cannot legislate away, you cannot enforce it with law enforcement and hope that sin will go away. See the big mistake that society makes is this; if we have big and bigger and better schools, and bigger and better jails, and bigger and better laws, then everything will be all right. Oh no it won’t. The only way for a nation to become better is to become better from its heart out. God said, “If my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked way, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sin, and heal their land”.
Oh, the broken places even in our own blessed United States of America. We think of her as the greatest on earth. We sing God Bless America and our eyes fill with tears in our heart with pride and joy as we look at old glory waving there in the breeze and it’s all as it should be. Lady Liberty still holds her torch aloft in the New York harbor. All true, but you cannot beloved, by passing laws or by employing policemen or by teaching in the school room, any one of these things by itself is good, but it’s not enough to change a nation toward God. Only a God sent revival will do that in answer to prayer, and so I call people everywhere to pray for God’s touch upon the United States. We are fast becoming a heathen nation. Ninety per cent of our people believe in God and in life after death, George Gallup says in his poll, but we are fast becoming practically speaking, in the way we live, in the standards by which we live, fast becoming a heathen nation. Oh, we need to pray for God’s touch upon America, don’t we? Join me in that prayer.
Well, in this chapter we have, and in the last few verses of chapter 4, we have examples of different kinds of fear. In the last few verses of chapter 4 you have fear of physical danger and damage because you are doing God’s will. Christ our Lord Jesus, God in the flesh had said to them, “Let’s go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee and on the way they encountered this fierce storm”, as you recall we talked about that, and in that relationship we need to remember that doing God’s will does not ensure the fact that you will always have smooth sailing. They’ll be storms in life, they’ll be problems and troubles and tears and heartaches. Yes, there will. Often times you’ll be tempted to look up and say, God what are you trying to do, kill me? No, He’s teaching you that He is God and He’s bigger than that circumstance. These disciples needed to learn that, and so the storm came, the waves were beating into the ship it says, “It was now full”, full of water that is. If you’ve ever been in a small boat and the water was coming in fast, you could bail it out, you know that that’s a panicky situation, and they woke are Savior who was sleeping there, and they said, “Master don’t even care there we’re going to drown? He rose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Peace, be still”. Then He said, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith? Why did you get scared of physical danger? I am in the boat”. The point being that if the Lord Jesus Christ is with you in the boat so to speak, if you’re doing God’s will, if you know that you’re in the will of God and Jesus is with you, you my friend are unsinkable. That’s right. If you’re doing God’s will and the presence of Christ is with you, just as it was on that occasion, He was in the little ship and that meant that they could trust God. You don’t have to be afraid of physical danger in any situation, whether you’re flying or walking or working or whatever it may be. Jesus has sent you to do His will and He’s not going to let you fail.
I often say on these broadcasts it’s a familiar saying to many of you, God has not brought you this far to drop you now. Now, we come to this man who is the indwelt by many demons. What characterizes him? Well, he was violent, that’s for sure. Had this satanic power to even to break chains and handcuffs. He was unhappy, restless, “Day and night”, it said, “he was in the mountains and in the tombs crying and cutting himself with stones”. Restlessness, and he was nude. He didn’t have any clothes on. We get that by inference from a verse later on, when they saw him seated at the feet of Jesus clothed, and in his right mind. These my friend are the marks of a godless life or godless society. Violence, have you heard any of a violence recently? Of course you have. Violence is escalating and while people piously talk about, we ought to cut down the level of violence in TV, I notice that all the new television shows that come out, have more violence than ever. We are educating our people to become calloused to violence and the taking of human life. This is a mark of a godless society or godless person, violence, than restlessness. No peace at all, “Day and night in the mountains crying and cutting himself with stones”, restlessness and the nudity. I need not comment, I guess on that because everywhere we go, the level of clothing is being deliberately diminished it would seem, and sin, lustfulness, nudity – this is all part of it, isn’t it? We have what we call pornography. That simply is the art of unclothing the human body and exploiting it for sinful and sexual purposes. Sad, these are the marks, these of the marks ladies and gentlemen, of a life that is under the control of sin and Satan, and that was this man’s plight. He was afraid however, of being delivered. Strange he said, “I I just ask you, don’t torment me”. Why, what was he afraid of? That Christ to deliver him? Many people are. It is a genuine fear. You know you’re unhappy, you know your life is in pieces, you know your marriage is broken up or breaking up, you know your children are slipping away from you and to all kinds of serious misdemeanors and bad habits and bad company, you know that you’re desperately unhappy and restless, but you are afraid to let Lord Jesus Christ deliver you.
I’m talking to somebody who is exactly like that right now. Oh, my dear friend let Jesus Christ deliver you. You will never find anyone in this world who has met the Savior who’s sorry about it. I have never met anyone who commended their life to Christ, who regretted it. Our Lord Jesus Christ always makes things better. Yes He does. Don’t be afraid of yielding yourself beloved completely to the Lord Jesus Christ, and that goes for those of you are believers as well, why hang back and say, oh I’m afraid, I’m afraid to yield to the Will of God, I’m afraid to give myself completely to God’s indwelling Holy Spirit for what might happen. Listen, you can trust your heavenly father. It’s always good. He’s says, “I know the thoughts that I think toward you, thoughts of good and not of evil, to give you a desired end”. Trust Him today. Well we’ll take this up the next time we get together.
Dear Father today, take away our fear of yielding to Thee and help us to say yes to the Will of God, and the blessed Spirit of God. I ask in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!
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