Away with Fear

"Fear not; for I am with you: do not be dismayed; for I am your God: I will strengthen you; yes, I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness." Isaiah 41:10

If there should be nothing in the sermon this evening, brethren, there is enough in the text to satisfy your mouth with good things, so that your youth may be renewed like the eagle’s. May the Holy Spirit spread for you a table in the wilderness, and give you appetites to feed by faith upon these royal dainties, which, like the pulse that Daniel and his companions fed upon, shall make you well favored before God and man. To whom are these words spoken? for we must not steal from God’s Scripture any more than from man’s treasury. We have no more right to take a promise to ourselves that does not belong to us than we have to take another man’s purse from him. These words were evidently spoken in God’s name by the prophet to God’s "chosen" ones. Read the eighth verse "But you, Israel, are my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend." And again in the ninth verse: "You are my servant; I have chosen you." So, then, if you or I should meet with anything that is gracious and comfortable here it will come to us, not upon the footing of merit, but upon the ground of sovereign grace. It will not be ours because we have chosen Christ, but because he has chosen us. Our heavenly Father has blessed us with all spiritual blessings according as he has chosen us in Christ Jesus from before the foundation of the world. The eternal choice is the well-head from which all the springs of mercy flow. Happy are you, my soul, if grace has inscribed your name in God’s eternal book! You may come to this text, like a child to his father’s own table, and you may draw from it all manner of comforts to sustain your spirit.

But since, dear friends, you and I cannot read the secret roll of God’s electing love, we are helped to judge whether this text belongs to us by another description; for those who are here called "chosen," are, in the ninth verse, also described as being "called." "You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called you from the chief men thereof," God’s chosen people of old were set apart for himself, and called out from all the rest of the world, and so they are now. They are a people called out by his special grace, with a gracious call which they have not been able to resist, and they have come forth and declared themselves on the Lord’s side. "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called." If you are called, depend upon it you are chosen. I do not mean if you are called in the common sense with the universal call of the gospel, for in that sense, "many are called, but few are chosen;" but I mean if you are effectually called, personally called, called of the Holy Spirit, called as Mary was when Jesus said to her, "Mary," and that gracious voice thrilled through her soul, and she responded to it, and said to him, "Master!" Have you been so called that you have forsaken all for Christ, or are willing to do so? Have you left your old pleasures and your old companions, and are you now a separated one, set apart for Christ? Oh! if it be so, let nothing keep you back from enjoying the riches of my text, for every comfortable sentence in it belongs to you.

Still, farther to help us to find out to whom this text belongs, notice that the person here described is spoken of in the eighth verse as a "servant." "You, Israel, are my servant," and in the ninth verse, "And said unto you, You are my servant." Now, are you God’s servant, dear hearer? A servant does not do his own will. He would soon get his discharge if he carried out his own whims and wishes. He takes his guidance from his master’s mouth and his master’s eye. Have you submitted your will to God’s will? Are you no longer governed by a proud and high spirit, which cries, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey him?" But do you desire to know what God’s will is, and then to do just what he bids you? Do you count it your highest honor to be called a servant of Christ? Is it for him that you live? Is his glory your highest aim? If so, then you who are willing to labor, may come and feast upon the text, for every honey-dropping word of it belongs to you, since you serve the Lord Christ.

One more word to help you to see whether you have a right to these promises. He says in the ninth verse, "I have chosen you, and not cast you away." Now you have, some of you, been professors of the Christian faith for many years. Some of the younger ones of us have now been twenty years maintained in his house, for it is just so long since we were baptized in Christ’s name. Surely, my brethren, we feel that, judged by the strictness of the law, we deserved to have been cast away, and yet, being under grace, we have been preserved by the Lord’s salvation even until now. Still though faint, we are pursuing. We are bound to confess, "My feet had almost gone; my steps had well-near slipped;" but we have been upheld even to this hour. Oh! then, we have much to be grateful for, and much to rejoice in, for perseverance is a great pledge and earnest of final salvation. "To him that overcomes The crown of life shall be." And to us, as having overcome up until now, the promises of the text belong. He who has kept you, my brother, until this hour, bids you now come and look into this choice cabinet, and take out the jewels and wear them, for they are all your own to deck you, that you may adorn his doctrine the more. In a word, the text belongs to God’s chosen, who are his by being separated from the world, who are distinguished by their practical service of God, and who continue in that service, and by God’s grace will continue in it even until the end.

Come we now to the text. I will read it again, "Fear not; for I am with you: do not be dismayed; for I am your God: I will strengthen you; yes, I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness." There is here, first, a very natural disease — fear; there is here, secondly, a command against fear — "Fear not;" and there is, thirdly, God’s promise to help us to overcome it, and that promise is given in three or four ways, so that we may chase fear away with a whip of many thongs.

I. First, then, we are reminded OF A VERY COMMON DISEASE OF GOOD MEN-FEAR AND DISMAY.

This disease of fear came into man’s heart with sin. Adam never was afraid of his God until he had broken his commands. When the Lord God walked in the garden in the cool of day, and Adam heard the Almighty’s foot-fall, he hastened to commune with God as a dear child talks with a loving father. But the moment he had touched the fruit that was forbidden, he ran away and hid himself, and when God said, "Where are you, Adam?" Adam came cringing and trembling, for he was afraid of God. It is sin, consciousness of sin, that "makes cowards of us all." Though he who made us is a consuming fire, and we should always have a holy awe of him, yet the fear that genders bondage would never have come into our spirit if we had not first of all transgressed his law. Sin is the mother of the fear which has torment.

And, brethren, fear continues in good men because sin continues in them. If they had attained to perfect love it would cast out fear, for fear has torment; but, since the flesh is still in them and the lusts thereof still strive for the mastery, even the holiest of God’s people are sometimes afflicted with the mockings of the child of the bondwoman. O that he were cast out, for he can never be heir with the free-born nature! As grace grows and increases in power, fear declines; and, when sin is cut up root and branch, then no doubt or fear will ever vex us again. Once strip us of these houses of clay, once deliver us from all indwelling sin, and our spirits shall seek God as the sparks seek the sun; but until then, since by reason of weakness sin sometimes prevails, fear also prevails, and we are sadly cast down. Fear, coming in by sin and being sustained by sin, readily finds food upon which it may live. Let the believer look within, and, my brethren, he has only to do that but for a moment to see abundant reasons for fear. "Ah!" says fear as it looks within, at the heart still prone to wander, I shall never hold on my way." "Ah!" says fear as it looks at the besetting sin, "I shall be tripped up yet; I shall never persevere to the end." Grace is there, it is true, but fear is blind to the better nature, and fixes his glance only on the body of this death. Looking within upon the old nature is seldom a very pleasant operation, especially if we forget that it is crucified with Christ. I suppose if any man among us could see his own heart as it really is, he would be driven mad. The poet was right when he said — "Heaven’s Sovereign saves all beings but himself, That hideous sight, a naked human heart."

Faith looks at all the ruins of the fall, and she believes that the blood of Christ will get the victory, and she sings her poem of triumph even while the fight is raging, rejoicing with the apostle, that "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin has reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." But fear says, "I shall one day fall by the hand of the enemy; such a poor frail bark as mine will never stem the flood and weather the tempest, but I shall make shipwreck after all." And then, my brethren, if fear finds food within, it also very readily finds food without. Sometimes it is poverty, sometimes sickness, sometimes the recollection of the past, and quite as often dread of the future. Even those who have faith in God may occasionally be weak enough to fear and be dismayed about common circumstances to which they ought to be indifferent, or over which they ought by faith to exult. Desponding people can find reason for fear where no fear is. A certain class of people are greatly gifted with the mournful faculty of inventing troubles. If the Lord has not sent them any trial, they make one for themselves. They have a little trouble-factory in their houses, and they sit down and use their imaginations to meditate terror. They weave sackcloth and scrape up ashes. They know that they shall be bankrupt; there was a little falling off in their trade last week. They believe that they shall soon be too old for labor; it is true they are older than they were a month ago. They feel sure that they shall die in the workhouse; it is clear they will die somewhere. They feel certain about this dreadful thing and that, and fret accordingly. None of these things have happened to them yet, and in the judgment of others they are less likely to happen now than ever they were, but yet they convert their suspicions into realities, and torture themselves with them though they be but fancies. Oh! it is sad that we should degrade ourselves to this.

In certain instances the habit of fearing has reached a monstrous growth. Indeed, I know some of my acquaintance who think it the right thing to be always fearing, and are half suspicious of a man who has strong faith. They even call full assurance "presumption," and are amazed that anybody should have confidence in God. But, if they did but know it, there is more presumption in unbelief than there can be in faith. It is gross presumption on a child’s part to disbelieve its father’s word. There is no presumption in a child’s believing what its father tells it; it then only does its duty. For me to accept the naked promise of a faithful God, and, despite my unworthiness, still to believe it true, is humility; but for me to take that promise from my father’s lip, and begin to cavil at it, and to question it, is nothing better than pride hiding its nakedness with the thinnest gauze of pretended modesty. Shun, I pray you, the unbelief that apes humility, and seek after that unstaggering faith which is the truest meekness in the sight of God!

Yet, I would not blame all those who are much given to fear, for in some it is rather their disease than their sin, and more their misfortune than their fault. Mr. Feeble-mind will never make a Great-heart even if you feed him on the finest of the wheat. Mr. Ready-to-halt will never stand so firmly, or run so nimbly, as Mr. Valiant-for-truth, do what you will with him. There are some in God’s family who are constitutionally weak, and will probably never outgrow that weakness until they have entered into rest. I would do anything I could to encourage the fearing ones to rise above their weakness; I would even give just enough of the tonic of censure to make them feel that it is not right to be unbelieving, but I would not like to censure their despondency so severely as to make them think that they are not the people of God. I tell you, sirs, I would sooner you would go to heaven creeping on all fours, with never a song in your mouths, than go to hell presuming. It is better to be a broken-legged lamb in Christ’s bosom than to be the strongest ram in Satan’s flock. God deliver us from being strong and mighty in ourselves; but yet at the same time there are many evils connected with fearing, and every child of God should be on his guard against giving way to it. In every case much may be accomplished by arousing ourselves to cry to the strong One for strength to overcome our unbelief.

Gloom need not be perpetual with us. I know it is said that some of God’s plants grow best in the shade. I believe they do, but I should like to try them in the sunlight a little, and see if they would not grow better there than their best has hitherto been. There are precious flowers of grace which are constantly watered with the tears of sorrow, but methinks the dews of consolation would answer their purpose just as well. May the Lord visit such, and bring them up out of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay. May they be of good courage, for the Lord says to them, "Fear not; do not be dismayed."

Be it also remarked before we leave this point, that even the strongest of God’s servants are sometimes the subjects of fear. David was a very strong man, and he overthrew Goliath, but we read that on one occasion when he was in battle, "David waxed faint." So the Lord’s mightiest heroes sometimes have their fainting fits. We used to talk of our "Iron Duke," and there was one man in Scripture who was an Iron Prophet, and that was Elijah the Tishbite, and yet he sat down under the juniper-tree, and, I had almost said, whined out, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers." The best of men are but men at the best, and the strongest men are weak if God’s mighty hand is for awhile withdrawn. Some of my dear friends will occasionally tell me, "We have suffered from doubts, and fears, and troubles, of which you have no conception."

They suppose that their minister, and others whom they love and respect, know nothing at all experimentally about their infirmities. I wish it were so. We have something better to talk of than our own follies, we do not feel bound to turn the pulpit into a public confessional, and all experiences are not to be published abroad; but, for all that, permit me to say, that there are times with the boldest and the strongest, when they would give all they have for the very smallest evidence of grace, and count themselves happy to creep to the foot of the cross, and say, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" Yet, I do not say this to encourage anybody in fearing, for, let me just give you the opposite side. There is no reason why, if we lived nearer to God, and walked more carefully, we might not, as a rule, live above all this fear and dismay.

I once met with a dear brother in Christ, who is now in glory, about whose truthfulness I never could have a doubt, who told me that by the space of thirty years he had not felt a doubt of his interest in Jesus Christ. At the time I heard him say it, I thought it was quite an unusual circumstance, but I bless God that I have now met with several, "the excellent of the earth, in whom is all my delight," whose testimony is the same, that though they may have been shaken they have never been moved from their steadfast hold on Christ; though they may have had a few tremblings, yet they have never been so dismayed as to question their part in Jesus. They have stood fast, and they have sung year after year, "O God, my heart is fixed; my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise." I hold that out as an object of ambition to every believer in Christ. Do try and see if you cannot rinse your mouth out of all that bitter stuff which makes you sing so often and so dolefully — "‘It is a point I long to know:" That is a very suitable song for Christian infants, a hymn often sung by enquirers; but O that you would get beyond such juvenile ditties, and learn to sing fitter music, such as this — "Now I have found the ground, wherein Sure my soul’s anchor may remain: The wounds of Jesus, for my sin Before the world’s foundation slain; Whose mercy shall unshaken stay, When heaven and earth are fled away. O love! you bottomless abyss! My sins are shallowed up in you; Covered is my unrighteousness, Nor spot of guilt remains on me. While Jesus’s blood through earth and skies, Mercy, free, boundless mercy cries! With faith I plunge me in this sea: Here is my hope, my joy, my rest! Here, when hell assails, I flee, I look into my Savior’s breast; Away, sad doubt, and anxious fear! Mercy is all that’s written there."

Next Part Away with Fear 2

Back to Charles Spurgeon