FEAR Revised

Matthew 10:28 KJV (WS)

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Jesus is speaking to the disciples prior to their going on a commission for him, the subject is fear, and the context is persecution.

THE PLACE OF FEAR

Judges 7:3 KJV (WS)

Now therefore go to, proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from mount Gilead. And there returned of the people twenty and two thousand; and there remained ten thousand.

“Fear.”

Fear is a very powerful force in man’s life.

1 John 4:18 KJV (WS)

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

It is a tremendous motivating attitude be it fear of embarrassment or fear of death.

It can drive us to do strange and unusual things at times.

All fear is not bad, our text tells us that, The problem is that we generally are controlled by the wrong fear.

We fear things we ought not to fear and we do not fear things we ought to greatly fear.

THE PRIORITY OF FEAR

“Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul.”

In our text Christ shows us the priority of fear.

That is, where our fear should be first and primarily.

The focus is on the spiritual, the soul, not the physical, not the body.

Yet mankind fears in the physical but seldom in the spiritual.

Any little sickness and we often run to the doctor to get some medicine to make us well.

We fear the sickness prevailing and dealing us a death blow.

Yet spiritually we can be in great jeopardy, and we have little fear.

Christ shows the priority of fear here by telling the disciples not to fear those who can only kill the body but to fear Him who can slay (punish) the soul.

In so many words Christ says physical well-being is not nearly as important as spiritual well—being.

This does not mean we are to be careless physically about danger and perils which can adversely affect us physically, but it says the spiritual is the most important.

I have noticed that in church prayer meetings, where requests for prayer are often made, that there are many requests that relate to the body.

I do not condemn or criticize that, what I do criticize is that there are few if any requests for spiritual healing and protection.

Many who make these requests for physical help have far greater spiritual needs, but they do not fear the consequences of spiritual problems like they do physical problems.

They need the rebuke of Christ as given in our text and that of the Apostle John who said he wanted the people to be as physical healthy as they were spiritually.

3 John 2 KJV (WS)

Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.

If we were to pray that prayer for people today it would be to make a lot of people sick physically, for spiritually they are in poor health.

THE PUNISHMENT TO FEAR

“Fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Christ ends our text with a reference to the punishment of the sinner.

We laugh and joke about hell, yet we ought to fear it as nothing else.

Dr. Bob Sumner wrote a book entitled, ‘Hell is no Joke.’ There is a hell to fear, Jesus says so, and He should know, for He is God.

We need to fear God, for He is the One Who can cast us into hell forever.