From His Heart

Guest (Male): Does fear control your life? If so, today is the perfect day for you to join us on From His Heart.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Lots of times you see athletes wearing shirts that say no fear. Truth of the matter is everyone gets afraid. Lots of people have physical fears. They fear going to the doctor and getting the report that says you have cancer. Lots of times moms and dads fear that their children will die. So many people fear that they'll lose their job, that they'll go under. God doesn't want us to live life paralyzed and play by fear. The Lord wants us to face the giant of fear and defeat the giant of fear by the power of his spirit and by the power of his word.

Guest (Male): Years ago, I remember looking at a website that listed the most known phobias or fears. I counted 68 different phobias and those were only the ones that started with the letter A. There are so many fears that truly paralyze and destroy people. They may seem silly to some, but they are real fears to them, even God's own children. Today, Pastor Jeff Schreve begins a two-part message designed to help you out of that bondage to your fears. The message is called The Giant of Fear. Now, if you missed any of these messages this month from the Land of the Giant series or this Facing the Giant series we're in now, go to fromhishart.org and listen again to any of these lessons.

You can also download a free MP3 of any broadcast. Right now, though, open your Bible to the book of 2 Samuel chapter 21 and let's let Pastor Jeff help us discover how to defeat the giant of fear.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: In the summer of 1996, Debbie and Jill and Amy and Sarah and I moved from Houston to Wake Forest, North Carolina to attend seminary. I didn't have a job. I just knew that God had called me and to to the ministry and I needed to go to school and I needed to study and so we went and I had a little bit of money saved up and we rented a a small house and we were there and the Lord was blessing. Now, we didn't have any extras. There was no health insurance cuz I couldn't afford it and I was working three jobs just trying to make ends meet and then Debbie got a job at the Baptist bookstore.

Didn't really pay much, but it was a place for her to work and to make a little bit of extra money and one of the perks of working in the Baptist bookstore was they had a little section of movies and you could rent movies if you worked there for free. And so this was great and so we had Friday night movie night at our house with the girls. They were young. Joe was nine, Amy was seven, and Sarah was five. And so every Friday night we'd have popcorn and we'd watch movies together. Well, I got the movie one night at the Baptist bookstore.

I found the movie The Thief in the Night. And then the sister movie to that, the sequel was called The Mark of the Beast. Well, I had heard about these movies. I had never seen them about the rapture and the Antichrist and all that. I thought this is really cool. So I got them. They should have had a little note not for children under 10. I mean, it was rated I for intense and so we're watching this movie and all of a sudden this guy is shaving and the rapture hits and his shaver falls into the sink.

It's just buzzing there and his wife comes in and he is gone and she's screaming. I look over at my kids and their eyes are like this, you know, and they're freaking out and then all these different people get raptured and then the Antichrist comes and then people are getting killed and they show a guillotine and blood and It's like, oh man. Well, Jill finally was like, Dad, I can't take this anymore. I don't want to watch this anymore. So we shut it off. We put him to bed. In the middle of the night all of a sudden Jill comes by my bed.

I said, oh, what is it? And she said, Dad, I cannot sleep. I am freaking out over that movie. Can I sleep with you? I said, okay. Come on in. I I felt bad, you know. It was supposed to be a night of fun. It was a night of fear and I I brought her in. Well, about an hour after that, I hear this sick little voice. Now, we had two bedrooms upstairs. Amy slept by herself and Jill and Sarah shared a bedroom. Well, I hear Sarah crying out to me, Daddy. Just a sick little voice.

I thought it might have just been a bad dream, so I said, well, maybe it'll go away. And it didn't go away. Just kept coming, Daddy. And so I get up there going to a room and there is Sarah. She is shaking like a leaf. She's so scared. She says, Daddy. And I said, Sarah, what's wrong? She said, Daddy, Jill's gone. I said, Jill's not gone. She's in my bed. She's one not sleeping in here by myself. Okay. So she ended up sleeping with me and Jill slept with Debbie. Nobody got any sleep that night and you know, I I just never forgotten that picture of fear on her face.

Now, we are in a series called Facing the Giants and we've talked about the giant of discouragement. We've talked about the giant of shame and today we want to talk about the giant of fear. Lots of times you see athletes wearing shirts that say no fear. People think they're pretty tough. They wear a t-shirt says no fear. Truth of the matter is everyone gets afraid. You do, I do, the guy wearing the no fear t-shirt does. Fear is just something that we deal with. Webster defines fear this way, a strong sense of personal danger, whether real or imagined.

We have all kinds of fears. We fear the future. We fear change. We fear failure. We fear the unknown. We fear rejection. We fear criticism. Lots of people have physical fears. They fear going to the doctor and getting the report that says you have cancer. We have family fears. We fear that our marriage might crater. Kids fear that their parents are going to get divorced. Lots of times moms and dads fear that their children will go haywire or their children will die. Lots of fears, financial fears. So many people fear that they'll lose their job, that they'll go under.

Single people, especially single women fear that they'll never get married. I had a lady who was going through a separation in her marriage tell me one time she said, Jeff, I'm so afraid that I'm going to grow old alone. That's a big fear. Now, the Bible clearly says that God has not given us a spirit of fear. God doesn't want us to live life paralyzed and plagued by fear. The Lord wants us to face the giant of fear and defeat the giant of fear by the power of his spirit and by the power of his word.

2 Samuel chapter 21 we'll read one verse today, verse 18. The scripture says this, Now, it came about after this that there was war again with the Philistines at Gob. Then Sibbecai the Hushathite struck down Saph who is among the descendants of the giant. Just a short little one verse story about a guy named Sibbecai who defeated a giant named Saph. Well, what in the world can we learn about fear from this story? Three truths. Truth number one, fear is a thief. Now, this is the third giant that David and his kingdom, his men have had to face.

We read about Goliath. We read about Ishbi-benob. That giant represented discouragement and now here's the third giant. Now, David is not fighting him, but one of David's mighty men Sibbecai is fighting this giant. And this giant 's name is interesting. His name is Saph, not Staff like an infection, but Saph. And the word Saph means to snatch away or to wait at the threshold. To snatch away or wait at the threshold. And that's what fear does. Fear is one of those things that waits at the threshold to snatch away from us, to steal from us.

And fear wants to steal and lurks in the shadows at the threshold to steal away your peace. Your peace. Have you ever noticed how fear does that when your heart gets fearful, there is no peace? Jesus said in John chapter 14, Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. The Lord gave us peace. That's your birthright as a child of God. That's your gift as a child of God is peace. But now when you allow your heart to get fearful, you lose your peace.

The The fear comes in and snatches away your peace. And when you lose your peace, you know, the word for peace in Hebrew is shalom. And that word means is translated peace. It also means well-being. But you know, when you get fearful, the fear steals away your peace. It steals away your well-being. There are many people today who are so fearful and because of that fear they have ulcers. They have colitis. They have insomnia. Can't sleep because they're too afraid. When I was a kid growing up, I had watched my share of scary movies and the scary movies would haunt me at about 2:00 in the morning when I would invariably, I don't know why, but I would always wake up about 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning when I was a kid growing up.

And you know, when you wake up at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, you start to hear all sorts of stuff, don't you? I mean, you hear just certain creaks in the house. Never heard them before. They're just there at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. All these creaks and all these little sounds and your mind just begins to race. And for me, I just knew what it was. It was that sweet dear boy from Camp Crystal Lake, Jason. He had found out where I lived and he was at my door ready to kill me.

Scared me to death. Man, I couldn't sleep. I was so scared. My heart would just start racing. It's over. It's curtains. Jason's coming. He said, well, that's dumb. Well, what's your Jason? What do you wake up in the middle of the night fearing? Your health? You just know that you have this terrible, horrible disease. You're never going to get better. Wake up in the middle of the night and you fear for your children. You just know something bad is going to happen. Talked to a dear lady just today and and she said, I struggle with fear.

I fear something bad is going to happen to my husband or to my child. Maybe you wake up in the middle of the night and your Jason is your finances, your job situation. What am I going to do? How am I going to make it? You can't sleep. It steals away your peace, your shalom, your well-being. But not only does it lurk to steal your peace, fear lurks to steal your confidence. When fear comes in, you lose all confidence that you're ever going to be able to succeed. You just start thinking in terms of failure.

You think in terms of can't. I remember when I was a senior in high school, played basketball all through school. Very first game of the year we uh we were excited. We had a good team. We had played a varsity schedule my junior year. I was the first graduating class of that school. Varsity schedule my junior year did pretty good. So our senior year we were really good. We ended up only losing six games all year, 29 and six. I was one of the three top three players on my team and uh I remember the first game.

Here I am. You always have butterflies in your stomach when you're playing basketball, when you hit the tip off, you know, and then they go away. Well, for some reason that first game mine didn't go away. And early on in the game I was fouled and I went to the free throw line to shoot free throws and my first free throw airball. Airred it. Man, that's like anybody that plays basketball knows you don't want to airball a free throw. Better just shoot a brick, hit something, but I airred it. All the guys on my team started laughing.

My coach was cracking up. He just thought it was so funny. I tried to laugh it off, too, but that stuck in my head for the whole year. And I ended up shooting that year less than 50% at the free throw line. Every time I would get fouled after that I would think one thought, don't airball. It's not a good thought when you go to the free throw line, but I just lost all my confidence. Peter had that happen to him. Peter was the one that saw Jesus walk on the water and he said to Jesus, Lord, if it's really you, command me to come to you on the water.

And Jesus said, come on, Peter. And so he got out of the boat and he starts walking on the water and things are going great until the Bible says seeing the wind he became afraid and he began to sink. He lost all his confidence, all his confidence in the Lord's word, all his confidence of what he could do in Christ. And he began to sink. That's what fear does. Fear tells you you can't. And see, when you allow fear to steal your confidence, you end up staying in the boat. You end up saying, I don't want to get fouled because I'll go to the free throw line and I might shoot an airball and I'll embarrass myself, so I'll just stay back.

I'll let someone else play. I 'll sit on the bench. Fear does that. Fear steals your peace, steals your confidence, steals your potential. Your potential of all that you can do and all that you can be for God. Do you remember the parable Jesus told about the talents and how the the wealthy master went on a trip and he gave to one servant five talents, to another servant two talents, and to another servant one talent. And do you remember the one talent guy, what did he do with his talent? And talent was a sum of money, like 80 lbs of money.

And he took his talent and he buried it in the ground. And when the master asked for an accounting, what did you do with what I gave you? He said, I buried it in the ground. He said, why did you do that? He said, because I was afraid. I was afraid. I was afraid to risk it. There was fear in my heart. And I didn't want to lose it, so I kept it in the ground. The other guy, the guy with five talents, he risked it and gained five more. The guy with two talents, he risked the two talents, gained two talents more.

The guy with one talent was so afraid that he didn't risk it. He ended up losing all that he had. But he was a total bust. He lost all his potential all because of fear. I want to ask you a question. Think about this. What would you like to do in life? I mean, the dream in your heart to really do in life if you knew that it wouldn't fail? What would you do? How would you live? What venture would you enter into if you knew that it wouldn't fail? So much of the time we play everything so close to the vest.

Why? Because we're afraid. We're afraid this will fail and we let our dreams die. Why? Because we're afraid. Some of you could be great witnesses for the Lord and you want to talk to your friends and to your neighbors and to the people at on on the airplane and people that you come in contact with. You want to talk to them about the Lord, but you're too afraid, so you don't. Some of you want to give to the Lord's work, but you're just so afraid. I just won't have enough. I'm afraid I won't have enough and so you don't and you miss out on the blessings associated with that.

Some of you could sing, but but oh, I'm just too afraid. Some of you could teach. Oh, I'm just so afraid. I just can't do it. God might be putting into one of your hearts to start a business, to do something really out of the ordinary from what you're doing now and God wants to bless that and God has put that in your heart, but you're so afraid that you bury it in the ground. You bury that dream in the ground and you don't let the Lord do what he wants to do because of fear.

Saph means to snatch away, to wait at the threshold and snatch away. Fear is a thief. But truth number two, not only is fear a thief, fear is a liar. Fear lies to us. I think it was Zig Ziglar that said this, fear is false evidence appearing real. F e a r, false evidence appearing real. That is fear. And we look at the evidence and we say, well, it must be this, it must be that. And then we take all that evidence and we come to false assumptions because we just think, well, that's the way it is.

When I would wake up in the middle of the night and heard those creaks, I just assumed, I just took that evidence and said that means that Jason's here. I want to tell you Jason has never come to my house. Never. It was a lie. It was false evidence appearing real. Fear lies to us.

Guest (Male): And in just a moment, Pastor Jeff Schreve will return on From His Heart as he continues the message The Giant of Fear with an example of just that, a man who examined the circumstances surrounding himself and unfortunately followed his fear to a terrible conclusion. You know, there are many giants that we all face like the giant of anger or lust or guilt, insecurity, discontentment and worry and others. Are any of those on the attack in your life? Well, Pastor Jeff Schreve has an inspiring seven message series called Land of the Giants, How to Deal with Your Biggest Problems.

And this series along with the booklet When You Don't Like Yourself are our two gifts of thanks to you for your support this month of any amount. These lessons will help meet you where you are in your hurts and it'll bring lasting healing to your heart. Just call 86640 Bible, 86640 Bible or go online to fromhishart.org and request the series The Land of the Giants and the booklet When You Don't Like Yourself. You can get them in the format of your choice when you make that gift today to From His Heart. Remember, when you do give this month, you're also helping us launch a new initiative with pray.com to have our radio and TV broadcast translated into Spanish and Portuguese to reach a unique population around the world.

What an opportunity for us to invest in kingdom work for people that we'll meet in heaven. Again, to join us in this effort, call 86640 Bible, 86640 Bible or go online to fromhishart.org and we'll send you these resources as our thanks. Now, let's conclude part one of the message The Giant of Fear. Here again is Pastor Jeff. I read a story just this morning about a man named Nick. He worked at the railroad. He was working with cars and he had a job doing that. He was a very good employee, but he was very negative.

He always looked at situations negatively and he was given over to thinking the worst. Well, one day they were going to have a party after work with all the guys that worked at the railroad yard and so they were quitting early. And so the guys were all getting ready to leave early and Nick somehow got caught in a refrigerated rail car and the door locked behind him. And he didn't know that and when he went to leave the door was locked and he began to yell and scream for somebody to let him out, but all the guys had left and nobody could hear his screams and he began to pound on the door, pound so hard that he's his hands started to bleed, but nobody heard his cries, nobody heard his pounding.

And then he started to look around. He said, I'm in a refrigerated box car. I I I don't know what the temperature is, but I imagine it's going to be uh 5°, 10°. It is so cold and it's getting colder. He had a little uh piece of paper that he found and he had a pen in his pocket and he began to write out notes. And he said, I think I I don't think I'm going to make it. It is so very cold. And he was kind of chronicling his experience in that rail car. Well, the next day they came to work.

They opened that rail car and Nick was dead. He died from freezing. But you know what was interesting? They did a check on that rail car, that refrigerated box car. The refrigeration system didn't work. It wasn't 5° or 10°. It was 61° in that car. He thought in his mind that the temperature was below freezing and he willed in his mind his body to freeze to death. It was false evidence appearing real. Fear is a liar, a liar. And fear causes you and causes me to make bad decisions. Listen, if you ever are faced with a decision and fear is entering into the picture, don't do what fear says to do because fear is a liar and it will cause you to make bad decisions.

Do you find yourself being tempted to pay attention to your fears today? In the conclusion to this message on Wednesday, Pastor Jeff will lay out the practical, biblically based and unfailing plan for defeating fear with faith. Join us next time for part two of The Giant of Fear. Where we're going to close out today with a timely and appropriately heart-changing verse from Isaiah chapter 41 verse 10. It reminds us, so do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Well, that's a wonderful thought to conclude today's message The Giant of Fear. Be with us on Wednesday for part two. Join us then as we share real truth, real love and real hope from his heart.

Guest (Female): There is truth. There is truth. There is love. There is hope that you always dream of. He can heal every scar with real truth, real love, real hope from his heart.

Guest (Male): From His Heart is the listener supported broadcast ministry of Dr. Jeff Schreve speaking The Truth in Love to a lost and a hurting world. Remember that no matter what God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Find out more at fromhishart.org.