Fear: Law and Gospel Pt 1

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast, making Theology Central. Good evening everyone. It is Tuesday, April the eighth, twenty twenty five. It is currently six forty three pm Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Well. We've been talking about a lot of controversial things over the last few broadcasts. Right We've talked a little bit about Salem, all of the fear, the panic, the paranoia. We have talked about the Great Satanic Panic of the nineteen eighties, fear, worry, anxiety, panic.

0:50 We talked about the album Hell Awaits by the bands Slayer and All the Fear, Panic Can Worry in Anxiety. That album into the country in the midst of the Great Satanic Panic. In fact, the album was released on April eighth, nineteen eighty five. Today's what forty year anniversary of that album. We talked about that. We've talked about things that maybe typically Christian podcast may not even discuss or talk about, which again, hopefully is some evidence some proof that, you know, maybe there's a reason this podcast exists because we try to do things a little different. We don't try to follow the template that everyone else follows.

1:31 And hopefully all of that has been interesting. But did you notice in a lot of what we talked about, we talked about fear, we talked about panic, we talked about anxiety, we talked about worry. And that's within the church, within the Christian world, within the Christian world. So I think that that's very interesting, and I think there's a lot we could we could talk about in regards to it. But I had kind of moved on, right, I kind of moved on. Okay, I covered all of that. I went back and listened to the last one. I could have done things a little bit better, but okay, there was a couple of times I got my notes got messed up, but I think for the most part, I did pretty good. To me, I do all of the broadcast live, so you know, there's no like editing or second take. So I'm thinking, okay, let's move on. And then I went to my mailbox. And then my mailbox was a Sword of the Lord newspaper, so I brought it and I threw it down on the stack of all of my other sort of the Lord newspapers. Because I have a lot of them, and a little while ago, I sat down here in front of the microphone, going, well, what should I broadcast tonight? I should do something tonight because I just feel like all of that discussion about Slayer and the hell Awaits album, that's gonna make a lot of people med. They're not going to like it.

2:47 You know, maybe I could do something a little different. And so then I kind of looked down started going through the sort of the Lord newspapers, and I saw an article in the February the twenty first, twenty twenty five edition of the sort of Lord newspaper, on page twenty one, faithfully facing your fears fearlessly. Faithfully facing your fears fearlessly. I'm like, okay, well that's about fear. Do we face our fears fearlessly? Well, my first thought kind of I kind of laughed, I kind of chuckled. Well, clearly, in history, Christians have not faced their fears fearlessly because they they go into complete panic. And while twenty people die in Salem and sanity erupts in the late seventies eighties through the you know, for the Great Satanic Panic and all the other times where the Illuminati is going to get us, and this is going to happen, and this is going to happen, and it's fear, fear, fear, fear, fear, fear.

3:46 So I'm like, in some ways the church never really handles it. And then on the other hand, the church preaches constantly fear that's a sign of spiritual immaturity, a lack of faith. Stop worrying, stop fearing, and they come after you telling you you should not have a spirit of fear. So on one hand, it's fear, panic, worry, anxiety. On the other hand, it's don't fear because it's a spiritual problem and it's a sin. And I'm like, I don't really know if the church has a good theology on fear. So I was just sitting here kind of running all of this through my head, and then I thought, you know what, I think the problem constantly in the modern church is that the church does not have a proper law gospel distinction. I talk about this all the time.

4:33 I've even said the most important series I've ever done is on the proper understanding of law and Gospel. So I'm like, let's talk about fear and do so through a law gospel lens through a law gospel perspective. Most people have never heard a discussion about fear through a law gospel distinction. This should be interesting. We can take a long and winding road to get there, but I think once we get there, people should be like wow, whoa, Wow, I never heard that. Hopefully that's the reaction. Now, the reaction may end up being like, yeah, who cares. But I hope that the reaction will be like whoa. I gotta share this with all my friends. But I don't know if that will happen. But that's my goal. Now.

5:24 That's going to take us a while to get there. So first, let's do this from the Sword of the Lord newspaper. I'm just gonna read some paragraphs here, all right, let's start right here. This is the third paragraph in the article. Again, this article is entitled titled Faithfully Facing your Fears Fearlessly. I believe this article is very much a law approach to fear, definitely not law gospel. There's all kinds of problems with it, but I'm not here to necessarily take it apart. I'm just gonna use this to get us into a good philological discussion. Are you ready, here we go, paragraph three. Fear is defined in the dictionary as painful emotion marked by alarm state or habit of fearing anxious concern. Fear produces dread, which often results in apprehension and anxiety, accompanied by loss of courage. Let me go through that again. Fear is defined in the Dictionary as painful emotion marked by alarm state or habit of fearing, anxious concern. Fear produces dread, which often results in apprehension, anxiety, accompanied by loss of courage. Now, I don't know if you're in a position to do this, but if you've got a notebook, a journal, just right now,

6:55 just honestly, now, No, you don't have to let anybody see you're not in church. Ok, you're not in church because in church we have to pretend. Right, everyone's got to put on their little mask and we all got to pretend. But we're not in church. That's one of the wonderful things about a podcast. Right. I don't know where you are. You can you can take your phone and walk away and go hide in a in an empty room somewhere or a closet. You can go outside, you can go for a drive wherever. You need to be, but I want you to write down. Come on, what do you really fear? Really fear? What do you really worry about? You have anxiety about, You get stressed out, you get you get upset, you get bothered. I know, I know you're supposed to say. I'm a Christian. The spirit of God cast out all fear. God did not give me a mind of fear, but of courage, of a sound mind. He did not give me a spirit of fear, but a sound mind courage. That's what he I'm not to worry. I'm not to worry about tomorrow.

7:54 I'm not to have any anxiety. I'm to cast all of that upon God, and the peace of God will pass all understanding. I know all the scriptures are what I'm supposed to do. I know you're supposed to say all of that, and I know some of those I wasn't quoting those scriptures exactly right. We will look at them and I will quote them more accurately. But you get the idea. Come on, what do you fear? Come on, be honest. I know I'm minya. I don't fear anything. I'm not scared of anything. Oh, I hear a lot of that big talk. But come on, deep down, you know what I find fascinating. I see on all the colleges that I've attended, seminaries, Bible colleges, all of the things I had to do in the United States Military, Airman Leadership School, in CEO Academy, all the different schools I went to get it working on a degree for what I did in the military, All the different things and all schools I had to over and over and over.

8:55 I was put in play positions where I either had to take speech class class give speeches, had to do speeches in the military, And you know what I found, real big tough guys who supposedly weren't afraid of anything, fell completely apart when it came to public speaking. And some people have said that some people fear public speaking more than they do death. Now, if you were to ask them what do you fear, they would say nothing until put in the position that they had to give a speech. And over and over and over, I would always be called in, Hey, these people, they're gonna they got to give a speech, and they're scared to death, and so I would try to help them and see what I could do to, you know, give them some tips because I did never. I never had a problem with public speaking. It was never, never an issue for me, so but for others it was. And it's not because I'm brave, No, because I got plenty of other things that I fear and other things that I'm scared of.

9:54 But I want let's be honest. We all have fear. I guess that's what I want us to do. I want us to all to admit we have fear, we have worries, we have anxiety. I know we say we're not supposed to and I know as Christians we try to claim that we don't. But there's fear, and there's worry, and there's anxiety, and there's paranoia, and there's all kinds of other things that shows up in the life of Christians, just like it shows anywhere else. I was in the military, found myself in some very you know, difficult situations, and guess what, the Christians were just as scared and worried in those situations as the non Christians. Fear, worry, anxiety, right right, admit it. At least. The article goes on to say, fear can cause one to be restless, it can weigh upon the soul like a mountain, slowing down spiritual progress as well as hindering effective service. It can rob one of spiritual joy and cause the heart to fear each new day. In other words, fear, anxiety, worry can have very negative consequences, not only spiritually, but emotionally, mentally, relationships, so many other things. It can have impact on. The article goes on to say a nationally prominent psychologist, in

11:27 his book on Man's Fears, lists a total of two hundred and eighty eight fears. Now, this article does not give me the name of the book, so I cannot verify, cannot check. I didn't bother to ask Ai where this supposedly comes from. But let's just say it's true. There are two one hundred and eighty eight fears. The article goes on. Of all fears cited, six rise to the top, the fear of poverty, the fear of criticism, the fear of rejection, the fear of illness, the fear of old age, and the fear of death. He states that the fear of rejection is the greatest of all, stronger than the fear of death. Do you fear being rejected? Do you fear being the outcast, not received, the laughingstock, mocked, nobody likes you. Do you want to be accepted? Are you afraid to stand out different than everyone else? Oh? I know you're a Christian and you say God has given me the spirit of power and sound mind. I know what you're supposed to say. Stop the church talk. Okay, this podcast does not allow for church talk. Forget that.

12:55 I can't stand church talk. I hate it. I loathe it. I despise it. Right, I used to do that when I when I was teaching youth in a church in Nebraska, and they would come walking into the youth room like you see the trash can put your church mask down, put it right there, just leave it, leave it. I don't want your I don't care church kids. I know you know all the right answer. I don't care about your church answers. I just need you to be real and authentic. That's the only place we can get anywhere. We don't have to be all pretend. We don't have to show up and pretend to be saints when we all know we're aints, all right? Oh that that that that was pretty clever, wasn't it. Not really, it's pretty old saying. But you get the idea. Some fear high places, others fear low places. Still others fear being squeezed into close a close space or small space claustophobia, Right, do you have that? Some people are scared of heights? What are you scared of? Here's some Now I'm probably gonna mispronounce every one of these. So so I'm gonna fear looking stupid here, but I'm gonna confront my fear by doing this. How about my sophobia? My sophobia the fear of dirt or germs? M Y s O P h O B I A my sophobia? Did I say that right?

14:27 Because I do have a fear of saying things incorrectly, and I do it all the time and I end up looking stupid and I feel humiliated. But my sophobia, there's one. Do you have that phobia? Do you have the fear of dirt or germs? Do you? I worked I worked in the medical world, you know, for a very long time, and I had a person who worked for me, and he he was a germaphobe. He was constantly worried, and so he would like even he would wear like gloves, even eating his food. Right, he didn't e in one his hand, touching foot, even if he cleaned his hands, it was like it was over the top. He was always always had a mask on. I mean, this is way before COVID. I mean it didn't matter.

15:10 He didn't want to He didn't want to be around anyone anything. I think he I think he almost had a nervous breakdown. Even just walking into work. He was like, I'm in a hospital. There's germs around. I'm like, how did you end up in the medical world? I don't understand, Okay, but he definitely had a fear of germs. Do you have a fear of dirt? I live in West Texas. If I have a fear of dirt and dust, I'm gonna have to move. But that's that's my See. I just I thought I said it all correctly, and then I say it incorrectly. Mysophobia. How about hydrophobia, the fear of water? Are you scared of water? Are you some people are scared to death. They don't like it in any way, shape or form. They don't want to swim, they don't want to be on a boat. How about nicktophobia, the fear of darkness? Nicktophobia the fear of darkness? Do you have the fear of darkness. Now, when I was little, other kids were scared of the dark. I never was.

16:13 I always I didn't want a night light. I didn't want any lights anywhere. And a lot of times, I know this is gonna you're gonna say, no, wonder, You're you're weird, Okay, But when I was a kid, they would be like, if anybody was looking for me, if they wanted to find me, I typically was like, you could find me inside a closet, pitch dark, pitch dark, and I would have like a little radio in there, just listening to the radio. I like being in a dark place. I like darkness. I like it dark. Even now, if I go to sleep there can't be a light anywhere. I will cover up every known light I can find. I want the room so dark that I can't see anything.

16:53 Like So, I'm definitely not afraid of darkness. I'm not. Are you afraid of darkness? That's nicktophobia. How about not this one. I'm gonna get all wrong. T half a phobia, tapophobia. Now I'm gonna get that one right. I got that one right, taphophobia, I got that one right. That's the fear of being buried alive, tafophobia? Are you afraid of being buried alive? And even saying I'm not afraid of being buried alive? Are you? Are you sure? Are you not? All right? Are you not? Are you sure? Because I bet you if you put in a situation where you thought you were about to be buried alive, you would get very scared, very quick. I know I would. Okay, I know, I can't even think about that, like being buried alive, that would be that's gotta be the Can you imagine someone puts you in a box, they know it shut, and then all of a sudden they drop you in a hole and you hear the dirt being dropped on top of it. Come on, does that not start making you Your heart start pounding a little faster, and you're just in there. You feel like you're suffocating.

17:57 But you're a Christian. You're not supposed to have any fear, no worry, no anxiety. Oh well, and then, of course won't make five hundred exceptions. But okay, how about xenophobia the fear of strangers are foreigners. That's been talked about now. Some people say xenophobia, that's one of that that's woke stuff. Okay, all right, Xenophobia is a real phobia, right, How about him? A taphobia? Hima taphobia? I think I'm saying that right him A taophobia? That's the fear of blood. What happens when you see blood? What happens when you see a blood hum atophobia? I think I'm seeing it correctly. See, I have more. I have more of a fear of seeing it incorrectly than I have the fear of blood.

18:44 But do you get what happens some people when they see bloody they're gone. I remember we were in basic training military. I don't know where we were at. I don't know if it was like, I don't know what building we were in, because when you're in basic training, you spend most of your time. I'm just marching looking forward. You don't. You can't see what's around you. You're always looking at the person right in front of you. Leof loop, leof bruh. And you're like, okay, I can't say I want to look around, I want to take this in, okay, but all you do so. I don't know where we were, but we were getting blood drawn. I don't even know why they were taking our blood. You never asked questions. Right, It's like when we got when you get to basic training and get your vaccine, that's put you in a line with the people with those guns and you're just getting shot with that everything. You don't even know what they're putting in you. You have no idea if they say roll up your sleeve or taking your blood, you don't have You don't know what's going on. They're always sticking you with something. But they were, they were taking blood, and the person sitting next to me, obviously you had some form of fear of blood something. But they start taking they get they're trying to poke the you know, the vein, they're trying to hit the vein, and I can't remember exactly what happened, but just it was just a little bit of blood that came out, and the person next to me just like, boom, boom, just drop.

19:56 Just want the sight of blood. Just drop. MoMA. You're in the military and the sight of blood makes you a drop Hmm. I don't really know how this is gonna work out for you. How about necrophobia the fear of dead, of the dead or death necrophobia? Do you have the fear of dead people or the fear of death. Now, I think sometimes some people don't like to be around a dead body. They may that may make them uneasy, I think, I think I don't really I like kind of separating those, right. The fear of dying, I think is very different than the fear of maybe something about making you uneasy about around a dead body. Now, this one I'm definitely not going to say correctly. Tris guide decaphobia, trisc guide decaphobia. That's the fear of the number thirteen.

20:49 Trisc guide decaphobia. Now, a lot of people have some weird phobias, fear superstitions. I worked with a lot of these ladies when I worked in an office in the hospital, and they had this weird phobia that you could not like take off the like we had a calendar there and you couldn't remove the calendar until the day of If you removed it early then I don't know, you would have some kind of bad luck. I'm like, what is wrong with you people? And they were like, and so I tore it one day and they got furious at me, and I'm like, calm down, it's a calendar. But so do you have a fear of thirteen, I don't, I mean, do you? I don't know. How about agaphobia the fear of pain? That's kind of a weird who won who's not afraid of pain? I mean, who's like, I'm not afraid of pain at all? You know, And I'm gonna I'm gonna hit myself in their head with a hammer and put a knell through my Isn't everyone have a fear of pain? How about photophobia the fear of light? Okay, I have the fear of light. Turn off the lights. I always want it dark. Maybe maybe maybe I'm a vampire. Okay, now I'm joking. I'm not a vampire. So those are phobias, those are fears. There's so many again, according to this article here, in this sort of the word newspaper, they reference a book that don't give us the name, two hundred and eighty eight Fears, worries, anxieties.

22:17 Now that seems to tell me that I think everyone has their share, their share of fear and worry and anxiety. I know we always try to play it down. I think it's more there than anybody wants to admit. So how has Christianity typically approached the subject of fear and maybe phobia and worry and anxiety. Well, the more classic evangelical maybe devotional response. Typically it tries to be encouraging, but it's often very oversimplified. They basically would say, fear is the opposite of faith. Oh you haven't you heard that preach fear is the opposite of faith. We do not fear. We have faith. And everybody's like, amen, oh this is so good, and they write it in their notebook and then we're all like, I don't have fear.

23:15 I have faith, everybody, and we all talk a big game. We may quote a scripture like the one I was misquoting or the one I was horribly paraphrasing Tewod Timothy chapter one, verse seven, for God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Now, of course we don't bother to put that in any textual historical context. It's just like God has not given us a spirit of fear, so we don't fear. Christians don't fear. And if you fear, that's because you are not responding in faith, and basically you are sin and sin because it's a command. Basically, that's how it's understood Philippians four six. You can write all of these down. You probably have a lot of times you're told to memorize these. If you're struggling with any fear or worry in anxiety, and you go to biblical counseling, you'll be told to memorize these. Put them on your refrigerator, put them everywhere. Philippians four to six.

24:12 Be careful for nothing or be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving thanksgiving, let your request be known unto God. We don't respond in fear. We respond in faith and prayer. And everybody will be like ay Man again, as if we don't have these issues Isia, they will quote Isaiah forty one ten fear not for I am with you now. Don't even get me started on people using Isaiah. But okay, they will quote it. Matthew six. Do not worry or take thought about your life. That's Matthew six, twenty five through thirty four. All of these are like fear is the opposite of faith. We do not respond with fear. We respond with faith, and we memorize these scriptures, and we quote these scriptures.

24:57 And therefore we overcome fear. Typically, in the classic evangelical devotional tradition, it'll be something like anxiety is typically portrayed as spiritual weakness. You have anxiety, you have worry, you have fear because you're spiritually weak. The solution will go something like this, pray more trust God, claim scripture, quote scripture, memorize scripture, go to church. Just you're basically giving a list of things to do. Basically, it comes down just stop doing it, stop it, stop it. And you're like, Okay, I'm gonna do it. I don't do it, and I don't do it. I don't do it, and well, that's typically the way it's kind of it kind of works, right, or what you're told fear is treated as a sin or lack of trust. Now you're in sin, you don't trust God. Now. What this does is almost always ignores clinical or neurological aspects of anxiety and panic. It doesn't even acknowledges the clinical or neurological aspects of it. Acts like that doesn't even exist. It typically induces guilt or shame and sufferers, and it usually does not allow space for a lament or ongoing struggle. And so it typically leads to people pretending claiming that they don't have any fear, worry, or anxiety until everything comes crumbling down and you're like that seems like you have a lot of fear, worried,

26:28 anxiety for someone who claims that they don't, or you're overcome with this, never any sense of guilt and shame. Why do I worry? Why am I afraid? Why do I have this? Why am I thinking about this? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? Because it's very law based, that's the evangelical devotional tradition. When we jump over to the Reformed tradition, so I may say the Reformed traditional philological tradition, this tends to be filled, logically rich sometimes though it can be very abstract or cold. Sometimes it even sounds good. Fear shows our need for Christ. Now, I like that fear shows our need for Christ. That's getting to a law gospel distinction. And I like that that goes back to Luther. Right, this goes back. Remember when we say the Reform tradition, forget the modern reform.

27:26 What you see in many modern reform churches, which is a weird mix of Reformed as far as maybe Calvinism. But then it obliterates a law gospel distinction, and it's almost mixed with a lordship's salvation. It's not even really a truly reformed thing. If you're gonna go really truly reformed. Law gospel is a very part of that tradition that in many so called reform churches they would know the distinction between law and gospel if it slapped them across the phase three times. Fear shows you your need for Christ. Keep that in mind. In this tradition, fear would be seen as a result of the fall in our separation from God. That's why fear exists and would and if you wanted to expand upon it. Because of the fall, we are all born with corrupt bodies. That's when we get sick. And guess what isn't a part of being sick not only an illness, a virus, a disease, not only breaking a bone, but it can deal with mental, emotional, neurological sickness and disease that somehow the church ignores as if that doesn't actually exist. It's weird. If you have depression, if you're filled with a phobia, worry, anxiety, that's a spiritual problem. But if you get the flu, or you get any or you get a heart attack, then that's not seen as a spiritual issue. Why both of them are sicknesses that come from the body. Some may come from the heart, that may come from the liver, and may come from the kidneys, that may come from or

28:56 it can come from the mind, it can come from emotion. That we are, we are corrupted, our bodies grown under the results of the fall. The fear of the Lord, and the reform tradition, they typically say the fear of the Lord is the only proper fear. Okay, all other fear should drive us to Christ's sufficiency. I got no problem with that. Typically the and again I'm saying the traditional reform view, this is typically not the modern day reform view, which doesn't really look reform to me. But clearly, in a traditional reformed view, you're gonna have a clear law gospel distinction. Fear reveals your weakness, that's what. Hey, the Bible says, don't fear, don't fear, don't fear, don't fear, don't fear. Guess what you're going to do. You're going to fear, You're going to worry, you're going to anxiety because whatever the command is, we never meet the command.

29:54 We never fulfill any command in scripture. You're incapable and capable of fulfilling the comm in scripture because you are still a sinner, You're still in a fallen body. I don't care. You can try to claim all day that when you become a Christian you can do it. You can't. So all of your fear reveals your weakness, and it drives you to Christ because Christ is your peace. Christ is your righteousness. Christ is your obedience to those commands not to fear. And we will clearly, you know, work this out in greater detail as we go through all of this. Typically, in the reform tradition, they will emphasize assurance and justification. Your assurance is not whether you fear, don't fear, you have worry, you have anxiety. Your assurance is in justification because in Christ, his righteousness is imputed to your account. You stand perfect. That's where your assurance comes from. However, sometimes in reform circles, especially traditional ones and even ones, they can minimize emotional or psychological realities.

31:03 And that's where once again the Church constantly does this. It doesn't want to acknowledge emotional and psychological issues. It always plays that down as it makes it spiritual, spiritual, spiritual. It's like, well, why do you make that spiritual, but you don't make that heart disease or this or this or all these other medical issues. They make that physical. Well, our bodies are made up, we have a mind, we have chemicals, we have all the things going on. All these other things are just as much a we can call it a disease, we can call it a medical issue, as any of the others. Sometimes in the reform world they tend to spiritualize suffering without offering practical mental health solutions.

31:50 They can tend to focus on so much on sin and depravity that those with anxiety feel condemned. Now, in some ways it's messed up because the reform reform tradition tends to say law gospel, which should remove that condemned feeling, But sometimes when it comes they won't really want to acknowledge the psychological and emotional issues, so that it's basically, this is because of your sin. This is because of your depravity, This is because of your sin, this is because of your depravity. Just look to Christ, well, That does sound good from a theological standpoint, but it's not going to help someone with their fear, worry, anxiety, discouragement, depression, or anything like that, because those are deeper issues. Now let's go to the charismatic Pentecostal tradition. Their tone is typically victorious. You're to be victorious over all fear, victorious over all worry, all anxiety, all doubt, all discouragement, and it can be very confrontational. And the charismatic world, it's typically fear is from Satan and must be rebuked. Fear comes from Satan, it doesn't come from God. So if you have fear, Satan is doing that. Satan is doing this, and so you have to rebuke it. Typically, in the charismatic world, fear, anxiety, panic, it's gonna be linked to demonic oppression. Satan demons are oppressing you. The reason you have fear anxiety, maybe you're having a panic attack. It's Satan.

33:22 It's Satan. It's Satan. It's Satan. It's Satan. It's Satan. It's Satan. Breakthrough is often emphasized, you just gotta you gotta press on, You gotta grab onto God, hold on to God, hold on to his promises, Claim his promises, Profess his promises, Confess his promises. Speak it into existence, and you will get your breakthrough. And then the demon the demons will flee from you, and you'll no longer have fear, worry, anxiety. You'll be fixed. That's so, that's such the charismatic world. Almost inevitably, they're going to ignore medical or psychological conditions. Almost all Christian traditions ignore medical and psychological conditions. They typically blame the sufferer for our lack of faith or failure to rebuke demons. This is your fault. You don't have enough faith. You're not rebuking demons.

34:17 You're not speaking you're not speaking power into existence. You're not speaking faith into existence. And it almost always lacks any nuance. So there's the evangelical, there's the kind of reform or reform a traditional reform view, and there's a charismatic view. How about a more pastoral counseling approach. Typically, this approach will be much more compassionate and holistic. It will be something like God meets us in our fear and healing may include many tools. Typically, they will recognize that anxiety and panic can be both spiritual and clinical, and you know what kind of weird. A lot of times this approach doesn't happen inside the church. This happens outside the church, which is kind of weird because this is sometimes referred to as the pastoral or counseling approach, but in many cases you have to go to a counselor because you're not going to get it in the church.

35:16 Isn't that weird? The pastoral counseling approach is usually not done by the pastor because the pastor is going to typically handle it from a philological perspective, which is almost going to deny. The the physical and the mental or how would we say this, the clinical type of approach, the medical type of approach. Now, this will encourage prayer, community support, counseling, and sometimes but even this approach, they're still going to be very iffy about medication, still going to be very iffy about medical. The other ones are not even going to consider medication.

35:57 They're almost always going to be anti medication. It's weird. You can get medication for your high blood pressure, medication for cholesterol, medication for this, medication, for that, medication to fight this, medication for this, but when it comes to anything possibly emotional or mental. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no. Now, I'm not saying medication is always the first approach. I'm not saying that. I understand some of the negative consequences that come from mental health, some mental health drugs. I understand that, But you don't just throw it out. You at least acknowledge that there can be a deeper issue than just a spiritual issue right now. Typically, in the pastoral counseling approach, they will embrace the idea that the psalms are a model of emotional honesty before God, which I think is a big step. Man, if you can just acknowledge that in scripture you can be blatantly honest with your emotions, with your depression, with your anxiety, with your worry, with your anger, with your frustration, with your bitterness, and that doesn't mean you're committing a sin.

37:01 To me, it's more of a sin to hide it and pretend than just being able to scream it out. The pastoral counseling approach typically will point to Luke twenty two and Jesus agony in the Garden of Gethsemane right Elijah's despair under the tree in First Kings nineteen, Paul's admission of fear and trembling in First Corinthians, David's lament, and the Psalms. So he says, hey, these people in the Bible, they express pain suffering. How about job He expressed his I wish I was never born. But in many cases you have to go outside the church to really get this. In some cases, I'm not saying in every case, but in many cases. Typically this approach will affirm mental health as a part of Christian health. It does not shame people for emotional struggles. It usually encourages long term healing, not quick fixes. Typically this is used by Christian therapists and biblically integrated counselors. Please note not churches, not pastors, and usually not from the pulpit. Sometimes I'm not gonna say always, but a lot of times the church goes with these more philological traditions that plays this down, which is kind of weird, that like, if you really need to get this, you got to leave the church.

38:28 That's not the way it should be. So there's the evangelical, the reform, the charismatic. The more we'll call it biblical counseling approach. How about in more contemporary philological circles, or what's going on maybe from a contemporary theilological perspective, What is happening from a contemporary perspective, Well, some will say that there is at least a move and a contemporary perspective. To be more realistic and nuanced, The message is something like fear is human. God works through it, not just in spite of it. It typically emphasizes lament as worship. Hey, the Bible and the Psalms has lament in our worship.

39:22 We can offer lament. See typically you think when in worship you can only offer praise, you can only offer thanksgiving. No, in your worship, you can offer lament, a spiritual scream, a spiritual scream of pain. You can acknowledge your pain. You're suffering, your fear, your doubt, like in many people, in many churches, people would lose it if if someone begin to pray, Lord, I come to you today in worship, and I want to tell you I am angry, I am upset. I wish I was never born. I wish I could die. I don't know how my life is in up in this mess I feel alone. I feel abandoned.

40:03 I feel that my needs are not being met emotionally physically, and I'm angry. God, you have the power to fix it, and you've abandoned me. Oh try that in church. You'll be probably someone to come and grab your arm and tell you to shut up and sit down, because the church doesn't want raw, honest worship. Know, you're supposed to put everyone's supposed to lift up their hands and put a smile. And if they say God is perfect, God is good, everything is wonderful. My life is perfect, even though marriages are falling apart at their sins. There's worry, there's anxiety, there's fear. No no no no no no no no no no. We all show up to pretend because church is simply drama club. It's just a staged performance.

40:51 There is some contemporary trends saying no lament as belongs in worship. There's a there's some trends in the contemporary Christianity that questions this triumphant, triumphant Christianity that seems to almost deny suffering. It encourages faithful presence and endurance and fear rather than escape from it. It typically encourages wrestling honestly with fear, doubt and trauma. It will bring in psychology, neuroscience, and theology, and it will recognize that healing. Guess what, for some, it's not going to come in this life. In fact, there's millions of things. We're never going to be held up. We're not going to be held of our sin in this life. We're not going to be held of all of our physical problems. We may not be healed. We're not going to be held of all of our mental problems, emotional problems. We're not because we live in a fallen world. And guess what. Your life is filled with pain, suffering, death, And there's what it's all around us, and it's not fixed tal glorification. You're still going to sin every single day until glorification. You're going to have worry, fear, anxiety, doubt, and depression. And different people will have different levels because that's how it works in your life. Some people that don't have physical elements, others have many. Some people have a great life. Other people are alone, abandoned and have no one. Some people get all of the If you want to look at that hierarchy of needs, all all of their needs are met.

42:13 They've got friends, they got family, they've got intimacy, they've got their physical needs met, sexual needs met, they've got shelter. They got it all. And other people look at that list of hierarchy and needs and they're like, I'm missing about eighty percent of those, and some people will die with those ever being met. And it gets really sick. I get really sick and tired of many Christians who get all of them met looking down on the other scone, What is your problem? Just have enough faith? God is enough. All you need is Jesus. He's efficient, do all things. We're all grumbling and complaining. Don't have any worry, don't have any anxiety. Get over yourself. Now, go home, live by yourself. And I'm going to go and have all the things that I have and my life is perfect.

42:55 I don't know what your problem is. You just don't have enough faith. No, we live in a lot of world that it may never get better, and we have to acknowledge that. Now. I asked AI to make a chart of these different approaches and break it down. I'm not going to go through the chart. It is pretty interesting. It gives me the approach it gives me the view of fear and anxiety, the strengths and weaknesses. It does a really good job. But that's kind of a journey through how the Church has typically handled it. So I started thinking about, Okay, that's I think that's fair. I think I've tried to cover every basic tradition, right. Obviously, that's not like I'm not being very clear. I'm not seeing that covers every view within Christianity. Obviously I tried to look everything from the contemporary to the traditional reform, to the charismatic, to the evangelical, to the biblical counseling.

43:57 I tried to cover every typical view. And you're going to get something in there. So this is a good moment on your time and you're in this broadcast for you to write on that same paper where I told you to write down your fears. How have you basically been told to handle fear, worry, anxiety, depression, discouragement, all of these things? How have you been told to handle it as a Christian? What suggestions have you been given? What help have you been given? Or is it basically always read your Bible more, pray more, go to church more, do more, go to church? Don't miss a small group, seeing more, do this, do this. It's always a list of here's the fifteen things you need to do, and then everything will be perfect in your life. Now what I find interesting? In fact, I asked artificial intelligence about this.

44:50 I asked artificial intelligence. This is what I said to artificial intelligence. Isn't interesting that while Christianity at large says don't fear, fear is wrong, don't worry, don't have any anxiety because it all shows a lack of faith. It shows immature faith. It shows that you're not trusting God. It's sinful. They will, at the exact same time constantly preach about all the things we're supposed to ultimately be afraid of. Satanists, LGBTQ, music, books, movies, culture, wokeness, liberals, Muslims, on one hand, don't have any fear. And the other thing, you need to be worried about this. You need to be worried about this. Don't let your kids do this, don't don't worry, worry, worry, worry, worry. I find it somewhat contradicting in my mind. So I asked Ai, Am I onto something here? In Ai says this contradiction is not only interesting, it's deeply revealing. This is what AI says, you're naming a real and widespread thingological and cultural inconsistency within much of modern day Christianity, especially in the United States, within the evangelical world, and it's offshoots. So I says that, hey, you're pointing out something that's very real and it's a real inconsistency, and he and AI not he. AI focuses

46:21 on the United States evangelical world, and it's offshoots, so it doesn't talk about what's going on outside of the United States, but it focuses here on the United States, which I found it found it interesting that that's where AI put its focus. So AI said, let's look at this contradiction at a glance. On one hand, the church says things like this, do not fear. Fear is a lack of trust in God. Fear shows weak faith. God has not given us a spirit of fear. Perfect love cast out fear. But on the other hand, the church often uses fear. Be afraid of Satanist infiltrating schools, be afraid of Satanic symbols and Disney movies. Be afraid of the LGBTQ agenda, corrupting your children. Be afraid of books, movies, music, they're gateways for demons. Be afraid of culture, wokeness, vaccines, ai, globalism, drag queen story time, be afraid of everything. In those cases, fear isn't really discouraged, it's weaponized. In fact, fear becomes the fuel of outrage, which is then disguised as just righteous concern. We're not really afraid, we just have righteous concern.

47:50 Now once again, go to sixteen ninety two Salem. We've been talking about this absolute full blown panic and insanity that resulted in twenty people dying. Nineteen were hung, one was crushed under rocks. That's straight up fear, panic, worry, anxiety, insanity. Jump to the nineteen eighties. Widespread satanic panic was everywhere. Christians were scared, fearful, worried. Oh, cal Oh, I gotta get into my kids room, find that album, burn it, or demons are gonna take over them. Oh, we gotta get rid of Harry Potter. Burn Harry Potter books because Harry Potter's gonna have all of our kids flying around on broomsticks. This is the end of the world, The end is here. Oh, the Illuminati is everywhere. It's everywhere, the Illuminati, reptilians. This, Oh, there's a secret criball of this group, in this group and this. Oh, we gotta be aware. Oh no, no, don't look at this. There's symbolic messages in movies. Wait, they're playing. If I listen to that album backwards, I'll hear hidden messages. But no, no, no, we're not really afraid. It's just righteous concern. It's full blown panic. Happens all the time within Christianity. Well, here's the theological problem that exists in this clear contradiction within Christianity.

49:10 They will go something like this, They will go something like this. Here's kind of the theological problem. All right, So here's the theological problem. Selective application of scripture. Fear is sinful unless it serves Christianity, Christianity's agenda. This is a selective use of scripture, and it creates confusion and manipulation. The fear that should be cast out is embraced when it's aimed at others. It sometimes is a misuse of the fear of the Lord. The Bible commands the fear of the Lord as reverent, awe and humility, but many churches replace that fear with cultural, political, or social fear, often rooted in control or moral panic. So instead of fearing God, Christians are taught to fear their neighbor, fear the world, fear the liberal fear, this fear that no say, I'm not afraid of it. Oh, it's full blown fear.

50:24 And this has a psychological social dynamic because fear. Oh, oh, you got to listen to this, And I mean, I wish I could take you back to the nineteen nineties and you could hear the Prophecy Club that aired on Christian radio in Nebraska and around the country. The Prophecy Club. I think it's still out there somewhere on the internet. It's all insanity. It sounds like Alex Jones on crack is. Just throw in a lot more Bible verses. Because fear is a powerful motivator. See fear sells books, Fear drives donations, bear builds political alliances. Fear keeps people coming back to the church for answers. That last one, fear keeps people coming back to the church for answers made me think of this book right here, and now you know what this is. Come on, Do you know what that is?

51:30 That's the Satanic Bible, Oh fear you open it up for Diane. Table of contents, introduction kind of the story of Anton Leavey, how he ends up becoming a Satanist, goes on for number of pages. The Satanic Bible, the preface, the prologue. Here they are the nine Satanic statements? Do you know what number nine is? Come on so they may you know what number nine is? Are you good Satanist out there? Do you know what number nine is?

52:20 These are the nine Satanic statements? If you want to be a Satanist, these are This is like their confession of faith, This is like their creed satan Satanic statements, Number nine. Satan has been the best friend the church has ever had, as it has kept it in business all these years. You could say fear has been the best friend the church has ever had because it keeps it in business. Point out the danger. Fearful of this, fearful of that, fearful of this. But you gotta keep coming here the answers to get the protection. You need us.

53:03 You need our books, you need our conferences, you need this, you need that, you need my DVD set, you need this you need to subscribe to this. You need this, you need this. The Church has been using fear to manipulate people forever. On one hand, it will condemn fear. On the other hand, it uses it all day. Well, someone sent me an email. Oh man, I won't even go into it, but it's a famous Christian speaker telling us about the dangers and the possible prophetic messages found in the movie Snow White, or at least the prophetic message supposedly found in the movie Snow White. It's ridiculous.

53:46 I gave it to Ai, and AI is like, basically, you know what I'm done. I give up on humanity. You people. I don't get it right. It's bad, But I mean there's always like ooh this and this is going to happen, and this is going to happen, and be fearful of this, and this is happened, and the coming economic collapse and this is going to happen, and Satanists they're taking over in this and they're gonna come again. I can go back through so many things I've witnessed in my Christian life. Forget the Satanic panic which I've been talking about. I can go back to when Obama was coming coming into office. We were all gonna become Muslims. Surreal law was going to be issued. They were going to burn down churches, shut down churches, take away our bibles. We were all gonna be locked up in FEMA camps. We're going to be injected with some vaccine that has a chip in it that's basically the mark of the beast.

54:30 On and on and on and on and on and on and on and on, and all those people sold books and did all of this stuff. I remember when when Pope Benedict was going in he passed away and we were going to wat to Pope Francis. Oh, then there was just supposedly the prophecy of the last Pope, and then all of a sudden this was gonna He was gonna be the anti Christ and we were all gonna be. And I remember all the Christians telling me about it, and I'm like, this is ridiculous. Oh no, no, you just don't see it. You should be worried about this, and you should be worried about that. And there's this conspiracy and they're coming to get you here and they're coming to get you there, and I don't know what your problem is you need to warn people, and then every single time it all goes away, and where are those people? Do they come back apologize saying I was ridiculous, over the top and fearful. No no, no, no, They've moved on to the next thing. We're supposed to be fearful love. At the same time, the church says, don't fear, don't worry, don't have anxiety. Well, which is it? Am I supposed to be scared of everything because Satan is behind every rock, The Illuminati and Reptilians are five seconds away from taking over my brain? Which is it? Christians?

55:31 Can you make up your mind? Oh? Fear works for you when it helps you get power, position and make a lot of money and keeps your doors open. Fear is not good when you want to tell everyone be good, nice little boys and girls and don't fear and just don't worry. But I mean you need to worry about this. We don't care about consistency. We care about keeping the doors open and the money coming in. You see, if you can convince someone that the world is increasingly dangerous and you alone have the solution, you gain tremendous power. This is why some Christian leaders or media constantly portray believers as under siege, even if the facts don't support it.

56:18 We're under see Christmas is under siege. This is under siege. We're under attack. We're being persecuted. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, we have a I'm gonna throw the microphone across the room. Oh no, no no. We put up a Nativity scene. And you know what the Church of Satan did the Satanic Temple. They put up a display of a demon. Oh no, Christianity is under attack. I don't know. Are we under attack or do you need to be afraid of it? I thought we're not supposed to be afraid. I'm not. We're supposed to be worried. Can you make up your mind. Here's what's kind of the weird thing. Fear is then used to fight fear. You're told don't fear death, trust God. But you're also told fear drag queens, fear yoga, fear Marvel movies, fear dungeons and dragons, fear targets, pride section, fear your public library, fear MTV, fear TikTok, fear Taylor Swift, fear Harry Potter. I mean what are we not supposed to be afraid of? But don't fear death?

57:30 Trust God? This cultivates a perpetual anxiety, not peace. Christians are conditioned to see the world as hostile and demonic. They view themselves as constantly under spiritual attack, and they fear the erosion of their cultural power and this world. Fear becomes righteousness as long as it's aimed at the right enemy. Oh, you can't fear, but you can fear that, because we got to have an enemy, because we have an enemy that keeps us in business, right, that gives us in business. Anton LeVay understood the way the church stays in businesses It needs satan, it needs fear, it needs an enemy. What does this result in? It results in a double minded discipleship. Christians live with kind of a spiritual whiplash. Told to be fearless, but then constantly fed fear. Told to trust God but trained to panic.

58:28 Told to love their enemies, but warned that their enemies are demon possessed threats to their children. This produces anxiety masked as discernment, bitterness masked as boldness, and division massed as holiness. Now a healthy Christian theology of fear should condemn manipulative fear used to control or politicize. It should distinguish between reverent fear of God and cultural panic. It should call out hypocrisy and churches preach peace for promote panic. It should recenter on Christ, who constantly told people fear, not even when they were surrounded by real threats. It should affirm that fear is human, but must be interpreted through the Cross, not Fox news, not TikTok, not charismatic influencers, not YouTube, not the next crazy, ridiculous thing going on in the Christian world. That I'm all supposed to be worried and we're all going to die. So if Christianity truly took what it typically says about fear and applied it to all of those things, it would actually teach people to respond in a completely different way. If Christianity consistently and faithfully applied its own teaching about fear across all areas of life, not just personal struggles, but cultural issues too, it would look radically different from what we see today. See a Christianity would if Christianity actually taught people to respond to fear both theologically and practically. Number one,

1:00:03 it would begin with this foundational message, fear not because God reigns. The Lord is my Light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? Psalm twenty seven to one. Christians would be grounded not in panic over the state of the world, but in the sovereignty, goodness, and ultimate justice of God. That means, no matter what happens culturally or politically, God is not surprised. God is still on the throne, and the mission of the Church hasn't changed. This removes the need for fear driven reactions and replaces them with stability and perspective. It would encourage critical thinking, not moral panic. Be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove.

1:00:45 Matthew ten sixteen says, if fear is not from God, then you don't need to panic about a movie because it includes magic. You don't need a boycott a company out of paranoia or outrage. You don't need to label your neighbor as an agent of Satan simply because they're different. Instead, Christians, we'd be taught to engage culture thoughtfully, not fearfully, discern without demonizing, challenge ideas, without attacking people. It would replace enemies with evangelism, Love your enemy, Bless those who curse you Matthew five point forty four. If fear leads to seeing others as a threat, love does the opposite. A Christianity consistent with its fear teachings, would say, don't fear LGBTQ people see them as image bearers, created in the image of God, sinners just like you and me. You don't fear wokeness. You understand the concerns and speak truth with grace. You don't fear secularism you live a compelling alternative Christianity would engage without rage and resist the temptation to turn cultural differences into spiritual warfare, validate human emotion while calling for trust. Fear, anxiety, and panic attacks wouldn't be treated as sin or failure. Instead, Christians would hear, You're not condemned for being afraid. God meets you in it.

1:02:14 There would be taught to pray their fears honestly, like David does in the Psalms, to seek help both spiritually and clinically, to walk in faith with fear, not pretending it doesn't exist. It would cultivate peace, not perpetual alarm. Let the peace of Christ rule your hearts. Colossians three point fifteen. Many Christians live in a perpetual alert mode, always ready for the next outrage, scandal, or enemy. But if the church truly applied its doctrine of fearlessness, it would stop feeding panic through fear based media and sermons. It would teach rest and trust, not urgency and alarm. It would remind believers that fear driven discipleship is not discipleship at all. It would say, fear dry control, love actually frees people. Much of what passes for concern in modern day Christianity is really fear driven control, controlling schools, controlling what others say, controlling moral behavior though fear though fear of hell. Let me state this again, controlling moral behavior through the fear of hell or decline, but perfect love cast out fear. A church that believes that would teach holiness out of love, not terror, trusts the Spirit to work rather than trying to force cultural change through fear.

1:03:35 Proclaim the Gospel that saves, not a morality that threatens. Much of modern day Christianity almost tries to sound like Stoicism, with things like basically, don't feel be strong, push down your fear, fake your trust, Christianity, he says, feel it, admit it, let it drive you to the cross. Christ obeyed where you couldn't, and he loves you even in your trembling. Now that brings us to the sixty four minute mark. I had to do that last part quick, and I fear that I didn't get it all right, and I fear I went too fast. But there's a lot there because the Church is so inconsistent. On one hand, it's don't fear, don't fear, do this, we should not fear.

1:04:28 On the end of the hand, we're supposed to fear literally everything, because we're constantly under attacking. We're five seconds of bay driven and driven down to the pit of hell. But the real answer is approaching fear from our proper law gospel distinction. Now I hinted at that next time in part two, we will look at fear not as law and gospel. That's what we'll do next time. We've covered all. We've taken a while, we took it a long journey, right, We've looked at how Christianity handles it.

1:05:14 We look at how Christianity teaches us not to fear, but then teaches us to fear. We've talked about this inconsistency. We talked about the problems, We talked about what it would really look like if Christians actually were consistent with their teaching of do not fear, we would approach the culture radically different. But for two thousand years, the church is constantly afraid, constantly a moral panic. I know I'm gonna get credit. We're not afraid. We're just concerned. We're not afraid. We're just not blind to the problems. Yeah, the problem that you're screaming about today will be forgotten fifteen minutes from now, and you moved on to the next thing that's five seconds away from destroying us. It's always fear, and sooner or later you always see who's getting the money by promoting the fear. Same thing. This goes on. This is the whole political way it works. Politics.

1:06:03 You got to give something everyone to be afraid of. You got to point at an enemy and then be afraid. This enemy's going to deshore you. Vote for me, Vote for me, vote for me, give me power, give me money, give me power, get me money, and then I'll take care of that fear, and I'll keep finding you new things to be afraid of and new things to worried about, so that you'll keep voting for me, so I'll keep getting power, and I'll keep getting money, and you'll just keep getting taken and played. And Christians should be the one like I don't need to be afraid. I'm not supposed to be afraid. If we're going with the typical Christian teaching, I think ultimately we need a long gospel approach. All right, there we go. I think that went pretty good.

1:06:49 I fear that about the forty eight to forty nine minute mark, my throat made some weird sound and I'm fearful of it because I feel like horrible, feel like it's embarrassing. So I'm going to go find it. Almost instantaneously, I'm going to upload it to Audacity. I'm going to find it. I'm going to cut it out, and then I'm going to re upload this because I'm fearful of being humiliated. I'm fearful of sounding stupid. I'm fearful of sounding like a human being, where sometimes your throat when you're swallowing, can make weird sounds. But I don't want those weird sounds because I want to sound perfect. Because I'm fear. Fearful of sounding less than perfect because of my own ego, my own pride. I always wanted to sound smarter than I am. There's my fear. What do you fear? What's the answer. I think along on gospel's the answer, and we'll talk about it next time. God bless h