Fear Or Faith Series

The Golden Gate Bridge in California got way behind schedule when it was being built. There

were so many casualties, and the men were afraid of falling off. A huge safety net was placed

beneath the area of operations, but for a time this made no difference. Then a man fell off into the

net. When he came up smiling the men knew they were safe, and from that moment the project

leaped ahead. When fear rules men are cowards. When faith reigns men are courageous. Carlyle said

that the ultimate question every man has to face and answer for himself is this: "Wilt thou be a hero or a

coward?" This was the decision Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, had to make in the crisis he faced

when his daughter was dying, and even pronounced dead. He was caught in a bind, for the facts

seem to support fear, and yet Jesus in verse 36 said, "Be not afraid, only believe." Jesus was saying

that faith is the only soil in which the seed of hope will grow. If you forsake faith, the plant will

wither, and you will be a victim of fear. Don't do it Jesus said. Don't give in to fear even when all

the evidence supports it, for faith is not limited by the evidence.

Faith not only can change the future, it can altar the past. Faith not only rises above the

knowledge of man, it sometimes must choose to go even contrary to knowledge. The unknown can

stimulate either fear or faith, courage or cowardice. By the authority of Jesus the Christian is to

choose faith, even in the face of negative evidence.

Faith, mighty faith, promise sees,

And looks to God alone;

Laughs at impossibilities

And cries, it shall be done!

But sometimes it doesn't get done. Sometimes the impossibilities laugh back. The fearful forces of

evil win the battle. The storm does sink the ship. The sick child does die. The maniac is not cured

and the disease is not healed. There is much evidence to support those who chose the way of fear

rather than faith.

If Jesus meant to teach by His series of miracles in Mark 4 and 5, in which He conquered

danger, demons, disease, and death, that the Christian need never worry about these, since he would

be miraculously spared from them all, then we have great reason to be disappointed. The fact is that

Christians do suffer from all of these afflictions, and none yet have escaped death. The purpose of

Jesus in all of these miracles is to convey to us that we need not fear any evil when it strikes, and

succeeds in doing its worst, for as Lord of all He is superior to all the forces that produce fear.

The demons had succeeded in making the man a slave. The sickness of the woman in verses

25-34 had succeeded in making her life miserable for 12 years. Death had succeeded in taking the

life of this 12 year old child. Jesus does not pretend that all of these evils are just fictions. They are

real, but He makes it clear that they are only temporal. Therefore, fear ought not to be our

motivation in life, but faith ought to be, for faith leads to the ultimate, and is assured of eternal

victory over all fearful foes. All of this show of miraculous power, however, would not have been

necessary if fear was not a powerful foe, so let's consider for a while-

I. THE POWER OF FEAR.

In January of 1966 a federal court jury decided that fear, and fear alone, is an injury sufficient

to cause death. This was in connection with the death of 47 year old Ralph Thompson. He was a

third mate on a vessel driven into the center of Valdez, Alaska by the title wave in 1964. He

suffered no visible injury, but fear caused such a psychic injury that he died. It is a fact that fear can

kill you. You can be scared to death. It can also make living extremely miserable. Lloyd C.

Douglas said, "If a man harbors any sort of fear, it percolates through all his thinking, damages his

personality, makes him landlord to a ghost."

Poor King Herod did not want to kill John the Baptist at the request of a dancing girl, but fear of

ridicule drove him to an evil shocking to his own mind. Fear of being mocked and laughed at, or

rejected, leads millions of people into doing acts of folly or evil they despise. They are victims of the

power of fear. They are landlords to a ghost. Most of the foolish things teenagers do, they do out of

fear of being laughed at or rejected by their peers.