Fear and Fortress

Fear and Fortress

Intro

Today, church, I hope that we can learn a lot about ourselves. And not just about the religious version of us, but the total version of us. Today we will tackle an issue that has been on my list of need to talk about it but just don’t see how I ever could. Now obviously that isn’t a real list, but it is a way of saying that today’s subject is something that I have alluded to a good many times, but have never really directly addressed.

Well why not? It is a fair question. Too often, I think, most pastors will fail to consider the impact of the words they speak. Not that I think we should be taken more seriously, but that what we say can often only be partly heard, and in the partial hearing feelings or faith can be fully hurt.

And so, seeing no way or opportunity to address this without doing just that, I have avoided it altogether.

But what makes today different? Well, in short, my intentions are more obvious. There is no attempt to prove any point, as there are no points to prove anymore. No leveraging of scripture - which is in fact perhaps the main point of this message - for my purposes, as I have no real purpose remaining apart from attempting to glorify God in my last few opportunities to speak.

So to the disclaimer. Some of you will perhaps read too much into what I am about to say and get angry. That’s ok. Just hang around for the second half and it will all make sense and you won’t be angry any more - I think.

Some of you will hear my heart even through the obvious example I am offering and will cruise on through thinking we are on the same page. Stay tuned in to the second half, though, because there is some challenging stuff for you too.

All of us need to be open and transparent enough with ourselves and with our God to allow Him to convict us through this time and scripture.

Daniel 11:36–39 ESV

“And the king shall do as he wills. He shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak astonishing things against the God of gods. He shall prosper till the indignation is accomplished; for what is decreed shall be done. He shall pay no attention to the gods of his fathers, or to the one beloved by women. He shall not pay attention to any other god, for he shall magnify himself above all. He shall honor the god of fortresses instead of these. A god whom his fathers did not know he shall honor with gold and silver, with precious stones and costly gifts. He shall deal with the strongest fortresses with the help of a foreign god. Those who acknowledge him he shall load with honor. He shall make them rulers over many and shall divide the land for a price.

Daniel 11:36-39

Pray

“And the King shall do as he wills…”

This is the starting point. This person - the one that Daniel is describing as what we would call the “AntiChrist,” is a leader of a nation who will do whatever he wants. He won’t be burdened by expectations. We won’t worry about what other people think. He will likely speak his mind with no concern to political correctness as we call it.

More importantly, he will essentially ignore the council of all those around him and just do whatever feels right to him in that moment. After all, when you are famous, you can do whatever you want. Right?

But not only that, he will exalt and magnify himself! I mean, who else but him could understand everything it takes to lead a country? Or everything about business, or the economy? How else buy he could solve all the problems we are facing?

That is the attitude Daniel is showing us. One that surely we all have seen lived out.

Daniel 11:37 ESV

He shall pay no attention to the gods of his fathers, or to the one beloved by women. He shall not pay attention to any other god, for he shall magnify himself above all.

Verse 37

These verses are interesting, I think, because they are used to solidify the previous thoughts. Essentially, this person will do what they like, and make themselves out to be the only solution to the problems of this world and the only one who can handle everything. And then this verse tells us that this will be surprising because he will even ignore the gods of his fathers! In other words, those things that his predecessors worshipped or did - be they customs or traditions or rules - this guy won’t worship them. No, not only that, he won’t worship anything besides himself!

In our modern context that might be hard to see. After all, we all worship ourselves a good bit. I think it is most obvious through the image we project out into the world. And this person will only care about what they think. Surrounding themselves with those who mimick and parrot all they say! They will be obsessed with themselves and what they have to say so much, that they would do anything just to make us listen to them. Even if they have nothing to say.

But instead of worshipping the ideals of those who came before him, he will worship the God of fortress. Projecting only strength with no substance. Using fear as the primary coercion to get everyone else to do what he wants. He will be, in short, one who weaponizes fear to force others to worship him and do what he wants.

Perhaps through bribes. Payoffs. Litigation. Intimidation. Name calling. He will, like a child bully, try to force others through whatever means needed to build the walls of fear - literal as well as figurative.

Daniel 11:39 ESV

He shall deal with the strongest fortresses with the help of a foreign god. Those who acknowledge him he shall load with honor. He shall make them rulers over many and shall divide the land for a price.

Verse 39 - He shall deal with the strongest fortresses with the help of a foreign god. Those who acknowledge him he shall load with honor. He shall make them rulers over many and shall divide the land for a price.

He will “deal with” or perhaps better said “overcome” the strongest nation with the help of a foreign god.

He will take the greatest nation, and with the help of something foreign to it - be it a god or perhaps a ruler from another country - he will gain advantage over it. Not on his own, but only with the help of an outsider can he overcome, or be victorious.

And as striking as that is, the next sentence really seals it for me. Those who agree with him, who acknowledge him, he will load them with honor. He will make them rulers and divide up the land, the country, for a price.

In other words, if you just blow smoke and act like you like him, he will support you. And if you do it enough, and pay him enough, you might get a position in his government!

A little flattery is all it takes, at least as long as you are useful to him.

This is who is going to bring back the golden gods. Who will make idols of themselves so that their followers would craft idols of gold to worship! Revelation says you will see the mark on their foreheads! They will wear it!

Church how clear this picture was to Daniel and how clear it should be for us!

Anger. Division. Hatred. Greed. Narcissism. Lies. Deceit. Selfishness. All signs of the Anti-Christ and one who stands against God.

How could we not see it!

And what is the result of all that? The very end of the world! Brought on by this person and by those who support him! All of them lead astray by one who claims to know God, but who they knew - deep down - cares only for themselves.

Still they followed them to the coming destruction of the world.

[Antichrist]

Church, everything I just said is absolutely truth. Acting like that, following leaders who act like that. Participating in a lifestyle or a social ethos that allows that. Those are all against Christ.

But concerning whatever image for this Antichrist that you might now have in your head based on what I said - it is wrong. I mean after all, as John writes, it isn’t even going to just be one! There are antiChrists everywhere! Every time we act outside of Christ’s Spirit, one could argue that we ourselves are it in that moment!

But all that isn’t the point of this message. In fact, I only interpreted Daniel that way to prove a point. And not to put to fine a point on it, but hear this again - whatever you might be thinking about me or that prophecy right now was brought on by my purposefully interpreting Daniel in a way to make a very clear point.

And that point is this: We all are far too easily led to the conclusions we have already silently made in our minds. All it takes, it turns out, is the least little bit of fear mixed with a slightly prophetic voice or text to tip us over the edge to believe the worst in others.

And that happens in our faith lives, but just as concerning, it happens in our everyday lives too. Only it isn’t prophecy then. It is tradition. Or social convention. Or opinion more broadly.

[ripple]

But back to our faith. To get what I am saying we need to talk briefly about prophecy. Church, prophecy isn’t a horoscope. Neither is it something that can otherwise be completely removed from its given context to then suit whatever purposes we might have for it.

To that point, scripture itself is the same! It is bound to the circumstances under which it is written and through which the author lived. To remove it entirely from that and to place it in our own nullifies the divine.

Not that we can’t interpret it! And not that we can’t apply it contextually then to our own lives! But to do so blindly or to use our own points of view as the starting point for prophecy would open a Pandora’s box that we can never successfully navigate.

Just look at what I just did. Some of you thought I was railing away about my dislike of one single person, and because of your context - your support of them perhaps - you either got a bit mad at me, or tossed my attempt interpretation completely aside missing out on any truth available. Others perhaps liked it, and assumed I disliked the same person you dislike. And viewed it as verification of your opinion and in so doing missed out on the challenge to be careful of loving ourselves so much that we only see things from our own point of view.

All of those emotions, all of the possible broken relationships, all of that cementing of ideas and feelings over a piece of scripture taken out of context.

Now think of something for me. Just imagine if there were 10’s of thousands here, all who admired me - I know that is pretty hard to imagine - but who admired and agreed with me. What a tidal wave of now supposedly scripturally codified - to them at least - opinions I would have caused.

All for something out of context. Something that perhaps I wanted or used to persuade others to do my bidding.

[left behind]

In my ministerial lifetime that has happened many times over, unfortunately. Not by me, mind you, but by things in popular culture. Pastors. Theological thought. Fads and trends that sweep through our churches and world. All of which drastically alter the truth of scripture because of their desire to make money and our desire to confirm what we already believe. Or to hear some hint that what we want might be made to be divinely blessed.

That is the power of prophecy. Both big and small. Those voices that write books, or preach, or teach, or even just lead movements, they all rely on that power to get what they want. And as Christians, we must constantly push back against them.

Now why do I say that? Well to put it simply, because they aren’t Jesus. I’m not Jesus. No matter what we say or want, we must - ABSOLUTELY MUST - view everything through that lens of Christ. Not through the lens of confirmation bias and self. And that means that when we hear something that tickles our ears and makes us giddy with smug condescension we need to IMMEDIATELY ask the questions of that situation, or person, and even our self, that Jesus would be inclined to ask!

[verse about fear]

Well how on earth do we do that?

Well it starts with dying to self. And more often than not, that means getting the bigger picture in every situation. And in this case, getting to what the intent of a given piece of scripture is. In this case we find Daniel writing - perhaps before the events happened or after - about what he believes the leader of those who will bring to the temple the abomination that brings desolation. Or in short, the leader of those opposed to God.

A little side track here. Why did I say after? Well there is compelling proof offered by some source critics - which is a segment of the greater scholarly studies of all texts that concerns itself with the origins of a given text. Time, place, author, etc. There is a good amount of proof offered that this could have been written AFTER some great post exilic event and then attributed to Daniel in some way - possibly in the 3rd century BC or so. That would obviously change the context greatly! This becomes descriptive and more of a warning about the possibility of it happening again.

But even if those people are wrong, and the others who believe it to be the 6th century just before Daniel's death are right, the point of the text and this greater prophecy doesn’t change all that much!

And that is because of the greater context of this moment in the text. Daniel - or whomever authored this - was living in a time of great fear. People were in upheaval. Life was unpredictable and unpleasant at times. Those ruling them, in turn, in the attempt to attain power over others used fear as a means of control. And as people gave in to fear, they began to identify, and even openly support and endorse the methods of their oppressors.

Those who stole. Who lied. Who cheated. Who did whatever they could to attain power.

In our modern context the most telling line I will offer - one that can be equally applied to all leaders - is when the supporters of a given leader or movement will make excuses for the bad behavior of those who rule over them. Maybe claiming that if they did that they were just “smart.” “We would do that too if we could,” they might say. Even some will say whoever did that must have deserved it.

All things said, by the way, because of fear. And not just fear really, but of worshipping the God of Fortress. Worshiping the IDEA of safety in this life. That if we are just safe, then we must be blessed!

If we have the job we want. The house we want. The life we want. The leaders we want. The country we want. IF WE JUST HAVE THAT THEN WE MUST BE BLESSED BY GOD AND ON THE RIGHT TRACK!

[in this life there will be troubles]

Our fear leads to our worship of safety. And then in turn, of those who offer it. We forget that GOD ALONE IS OUR ROCK AND OUR REFUGE! OUR EVER-PRESENT HELP IN TIMES OF TROUBLE! WE FORGET THAT GOD HIMSELF, THROUGH CHRIST, TOLD US THAT THIS LIFE WOULDN’T BE EASY! IT WOULDN’T BE ALL SUNSHINE AND RAINBOWS! BUT THAT EVEN SO WE COULD TAKE HEART BECAUSE HE HAS OVERCOME THIS WORLD!

And if it is overcome, than fear of ANYTHING, even death, is counter to all that He wants for us.

But we worship that other god sometimes, don’t we? Safety. Fortress. Stability. We pray for it. We yearn for it. I do too. But life, church, isn’t found on this side of that safety. Inside the fortress. There you will only mold and death and fear. You will find people conforming to social norms in the hopes of staying popular, or conformed enough to be safe from social troubles! Even to fit in enough to get a job, or to have our kids get invited to the right parties.

In those fortresses that we have built there is no real life. At least not the life God wants for us.

We have to open that fortress up! To let life in! To air out all the fear that has built up in our lives because of those prophetic voices that would ask us to blindly follow those same fears!

There will always be troubles. There will always be obstacles. There will always be people who try to use fear and fortress as a means to control you. But scripture screams out to us to ignore them.

They worship fortress! They act as if God is smaller than what they can do on their own! Or what they can get if they follow these ideas or people! Church, hear this clearly, God has given us all that we need here on earth to handle the problems of earth. Science, technology, nature, the fruits of His very Spirit! All tools that we can use to dispel the fear we are offered by those who worship themselves and would try to enslave us to conform to their idea of life and faith!

And given that, we have to look at this text as an opportunity to answer God’s call. Not a call offered with answered prayers, but one that challenges us to fully trust God to be in control and to then in turn help ourselves as we help others overcome fears.

[picture of towers at benning]

There are many moments in our lives that are turning points. In fact, if we would pay attention, we would see them all the time. There is one in my life that changed everything far more than any other apart from those things that happened as a result of this moment.

It started with those towers. And an 18 year old, with a deadly fear of heights and of death. I sat for 3 weeks staring at them every night praying that God would take them away. Praying that I wouldn’t have to be hoisted up on those towers by a wire only to be let go and fall to earth in a parachute that may not open.

It was the first time I can recall praying in my life. THE FIRST TIME! And I promise you on my life, during those weeks of prayer I never got an answer to those prayers. I felt nothing but more fear. Like God wasn’t there. Then on the last day before I had to go, I pulled out my wallet. I opened it to my pictures and found one of a couple pictures there in it and I stared at it.

It was Kate. The thing is, we weren’t dating.

But I sat there and stared at her picture. And I felt at peace. I dreamed about what she would look like one day. My mind shifted from the object of my fear to the object of my love.

Church, I was asking God to remove the fear, but instead of making me some brave super soldier God offered me something else. Not an answer to my fear, but a reminder of a life beyond it! A completely un-guaranteed hope that drew my attention and dreams!

So that night I slept. And the next day they told us only a few of us could go up because it was getting windy. So they asked for volunteers. Obviously, in my fear, we all know exactly what I did. I stepped forward and said I would go.

Ridiculous, right? You want to know why I did it? Apart from me not always being the brightest bulb in the drawer. It was because the guy next to me was just as scared as me. It was because someone had to stand up to the fear that stood before them before anyone else would follow suit! It was because I knew then in that moment that if I didn’t step forward they would get increasingly more angry and punish everyone for the rage at not getting what they wanted!

Bigger than that, it was because I knew in that moment, that one day I would have to tell my kids with the Kate in that picture about a time when I was really afraid! And in that moment, church, God didn’t release me from my fears! I was still petrified! I was so scared I was throwing up and swallowing it all the way up. And don’t miss this part of the message church! GOD DIDN’T TAKE THE FEAR AWAY, HE MADE ME LIVE WITH IT!

God offered me something bigger though. Not the worship of a God of Fortress, but the comfort, peace, and worship of a God of love smiling at me as I overcame something I never needed to fear.

A God that said you can do it. I will be there. In the worst as I am in the best.

[i’ll be with you even to the end of the age]

That is the true message of Christ. So when you hear those other voices shouting about fear and twisting and guiding others to twist God’s word into a book of curses for a world God Himself created, remember the truth.

God is love. A perfect love. And perfect love casts out fear. Love, in fact, CANNOT live with or use fear. So when it is being used - by us and others - God isn’t there.

I want to close with a word on prophecy and its danger.

Prophecy is meant to open our eyes both to what is and what is possible. And that is both the good and bad. It isn’t a guaranteed prediction, as much as it is an open window to see what might be if we continue on the path we are on.

And that is Daniel’s message too. If we act like he is describing. If we follow people who act like he is describing. We will become those who worship fortress and use fear to guide others. We become blind guides.

BUT - when the light of Christ can guide us, we can not only overcome great fear, we can live our lives WITH that fear, and know that we belong to God, we will return to God, and that no matter what, as long as we live in that moment with God, we will be right where God wants us to be.

Always. Even to the end of all that we know.