God promises in Joel 2.28 to pour out His Spirit on all humanity. Welcome to Global Outpouring, where we contend for that promised outpouring, we equip for that outpouring, so that we will engage in that very outpouring. I'm Philip Buss. And I'm Sharon Buss. Welcome to the podcast today. We are going to do a Bible study, Philip and I, about something that is so important for these days that we're living in.
There's turmoil everywhere, and some places have more turmoil than others, but there's always a potential of something happening anywhere in the world. Anywhere you are, anywhere we are, there's a potential of things happening that can bring trauma or trouble or stress. But we want to talk about making fearlessness your position. Thanks for joining us today.
We're so glad that you're with us, and we just want to encourage you, before we get started, if you haven't already done so, to please go to our website, globaloutpouring.net, and sign up for our email list so that we can stay in contact with you. It's really, really important. And we really want to hear back from you. There's a place there that you can fill out to give us some feedback, let us know how you're being blessed or something you want us to talk about.
We received some prayer requests recently, and we're praying over those. So be in touch with us and let us know how we can serve you better and how the Holy Spirit is leading you. There's also other things on our website that you can enjoy and dig around in and avail yourself of these wonderful resources that are there. So today we're talking about making fearlessness your position. Why do you want to make fearlessness your position? What's so important about it?
Because we're not supposed to live in fear. That's right. What's the first scripture that comes to you when you think about not being in fear? God has not given you a spirit of fear and a power. And of love. Love and of a sound mind. Amen. And that's 2 Timothy 1, 7. And that's the one that just always comes to mind first for most of us. The way that we got started on this was Philip and I were reading in Philippians, and we were reading it together.
And I saw a scripture that I hadn't ever really processed before, and it's verse 28. We were reading in the King James because we're familiar with it. That's what we normally read ourselves. And it says, in nothing terrified by your adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation and that of God.
And it just lit up to me that when we have no fear, when we're not terrified by our adversaries who are trying to terrify us, they're trying to put us into fear, whatever kind of adversaries they are, whether they're human or spiritual or circumstances, when we're not terrified by them, when we do not allow fear, it is giving them fear because they realize this is doomsday for them.
The whole devilish outfit out there, all of the demonic darkness, all those fallen angels, all Satan and all of his minions, they know that their time is short and they're running out of time. The whole time thing is it's the countdown to their destruction. And when they can't terrify us anymore, when we stand with courage, when we stand with fearlessness, when that is our position that we stand in, it is causing them to fear. I want to just bring a couple other translations of this.
The New Living Translation says, don't be intimidated in any way by your enemies. This will be a sign to them that they are going to be destroyed, but that you are going to be saved even by God himself. The ESV, the English Standard Version says, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation and that from God. And then the Amplified Classic, let me turn to it. I have it open to something else right now.
Philippians 1.28 says, and do not for a moment be frightened or intimidated in anything by your opponents and adversaries. For such constancy and fearlessness will be a clear sign, proof and seal to them of their impending destruction, but a sure token and evidence of your deliverance and salvation and that from God. You know, that reminds me of the story that Michael van Vleimen has told us and we've heard him tell it a couple of times, I think.
I don't remember if he said it on the first podcast that we did with him or if it was a story we heard him tell when he was here the first time. But he tells the story of how he was sitting on the edge of his bed, getting ready to go to bed, but you know, just praying for his family. And he's an amazing prayer warrior. Amazing.
So he's sitting on the edge of his bed praying for his family and he sees across the room in the corner is this mean, defiant, ugly demon with horns sticking out of his head. And he's, I don't know if it's just the way I've imagined it or if he described it this way, but I imagine him with his arms crossed and just absolutely defiant. And Michael looks at him, he says, what are you doing here? How did you get in here? You're not allowed to be in here.
And he starts rebuking the thing and he rebukes and he rebukes and rebukes and he pleads the blood and he says all the things that he knows to say. And this goes on for like 20 minutes, I think. It was a serious amount of time and he's rebuking, rebuking. And the thing is just staring at him with this insolent, defiant look on his face as if to say, there's nothing that you can do to make me leave. Like I have authority here. I can do this. And finally it left. So Michael was really troubled.
Yeah, troubled is the word. He said, Lord, I thought I had authority over that thing. How come did it take so long? And the Lord said to him, you do have authority. And he said, the thing is you have to remember that these characters are liars and they are able to put on a face that is not showing what's going on inside them. And what was really happening was that inside the thing, he was terrorized that he was going to have to leave.
But if he could just hold on a little longer, if he could just hold on a little longer, maybe Michael would quit and he could stay. You know? And that's their MO. That's how they operate. Their modus operandi, their mode of operation. That's how they operate. They're deceivers, they're liars. They don't know how to tell the truth. But inside they really are full of craven fear because they know their time is short. Destruction is around the corner for them. They are forever losers.
And when we stand up in our authority with fearlessness. Yeah. So you have to have the authority. And you do. And you have it. But you can't pretend to have something you don't have. You know, that reminded me in Acts chapter 19. This is Paul. This was in Ephesus. And I tell you, there's a lot of demonic stuff. Oh, man. Yeah. We've been there. It's just bad. And God gave him all kinds of amazing miracles. Those that, that, handkerchiefs for things that he prayed for.
The people would be delivered of all that. There was seven sons. Oh, yeah, yeah. Seven sons of Sceva. Right. Now Sceva was the chief of the priests. So these are his kids. And so they're going to cast out in the name of Jesus these evil spirits out of this person. You know, and the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus, I know. And Paul, I know. But who are you? Right. You know, and the man whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overcame them and prevailed against them.
So they fled out of the house just naked and wounded. You know, because this man was full of demonic spirits. Right. But this, this is people that had no authority. Right. And that's what the real world is out there. Take the veil away in the spirit life. There are those that just see in the spirit all the time and they see demons all the time and they see angels and things like that. And I'm praying to get there. I don't want to see demons, though, you know, but you need to.
Yes. You know, I think there's some say you actually you see demons first. Right. Some of them, you know. But when you have the blood of Jesus living you, you have the spirit of God in you. You have that authority over them. Right. Even if they look intimidating. Right. And I remember, I remember that our daughter wanted us to watch the Lord of the Rings and I didn't want to have anything to do with it. Maybe I was being religious, but I felt in my spirit that I was to go ahead and watch it.
And at the same time to that to that place where they're inside the mountain and they hear this down the corridor, you know, and they see this red glow and they and and everybody gets all scared and says, it's a Balrog run for your life. Well, I got up to leave at that point and I heard the Holy Spirit say, sit down and watch it. You're going to see worse things before it's over.
Oh. And I remember, it was Bruce Allen, I believe it was that said all of all this demonic stuff that you're seeing in the movies and movies and you like your little E.T.s, these cute little what's the guy with the big ears? They make all the creepy thing, all that stuff. And those are actually models of real demons. Yeah. It's trying to get everybody ready. Getting everybody ready.
And Bruce says, when and when these things appear, men's hearts are going to fail them for fear because they have no power over them. And that's why it's important for us to get our power from our relationship with our father. That's where our authority comes. That's where our authority comes in our walking with him into the maturity of trusting in him, knowing he's absolutely trustworthy. It doesn't matter what has happened in the past and it doesn't matter what's going to happen next.
Because you never know where you run into something. Right. I'm not telling a story on our daughter. There's an antique place in our city. And I remember going in it before and it was you could just feel spirits and stuff in it, you know, was attached to things that were in there. And I took our daughter in there. I don't remember how old she was. And she says, Dad, this place is creepy. I says, yeah, it's full of spooks. Let's go. But it was good for her to experience that, to feel that.
Because when you feel creepiness or something like that, you know, there's something or you feel the hair on the back of your head coming up. There's something there. Right. You know, and that's when you have to raise up instantly in your authority. Because I felt that before. Right. Yeah. You just, you just got to do it. Yeah. And that's part of its discernment.
One of the things that I was, that I learned when I was studying this to get ready for this podcast was that, that there's something happens when fear physically, when fear comes on you, there's something happens in your chemical makeup. Okay. That it causes like this, the stress hormone cortisol kicks in and it kicks in adrenaline. You know, adrenaline is the fight and flight thing. Yeah. Either, either it's going to give you what you need to fight or what you need to flee.
And what I learned from this was that the blood flow kind of doesn't go to your brain. It goes to your limbs so that you can fight or run. Whichever, whichever thing that the situation calls for, you can either run or you can fight. Oh, that's amazing. But your reasoning begins to go down. Okay. So we can't just reason our way out of this. So that's why it's so important that we have a relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Like in the book of Luke, it says in Luke 12 verse 11, it says, when they bring you before the synagogues and the magistrates and the authorities, do not be anxious beforehand how you shall reply in defense or what you are to say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour and moment what you ought to say.
And then Jesus said again in Luke in chapter 21, it says, they will lay hands, lay their hands on you and persecute you, turning you over to the synagogues and prisons and you will be led away before kings and governors for my name's sake. This will be a time, an opportunity for you to bear testimony. In other words, don't get afraid.
Resolve and settle it in your minds not to meditate and prepare beforehand how you are to make your defense and how you will answer, for I myself will give you a mouth and such utterance and wisdom that all of your foes combined will be unable to stand against or refute. And then it says in verse 19, by your steadfastness and patient endurance, you shall win the true life of your souls. Beautiful. It is. It's really beautiful.
But it comes from when your reasoning isn't there, your spirit still is. You can depend on that. There's a part of your spirit that's your intuition. And when your intuition is connected to the Holy Spirit, you're going to have something that others don't have in a moment of crisis. And that's one of the things that the Lord is trying to help us get ready for whatever kind of crisis is coming down the pike. Now at the moment when we're recording this, Israel is at war.
They were unprepared for it. And the whole of the nation is suffering trauma. Because everybody knows somebody who was kidnapped or murdered or whatever, all of these horrible heinous things that were done by Hamas. But there's something that is from inside our spirit that will overcome trauma. It will overcome these horrific things that happen. I wrote in my book, Rich Wounds, the testimony of a woman that was raped. And she was not a young woman.
She was, I think she was in her 80s already when this happened. At least late 70s, I'm not sure. But here's what she says. I was robbed and raped by two men in the early morning hours of June 1st, 1991. She's gone to be with the Lord now. As soon as the men left, I picked up my Bible and started reading out loud the first five Psalms. I read five per day. The next thing I recall was all this love being poured into my heart like a whooshing sound. I was lifted up into heavenly places.
Then out of my spirit came the song, my glory and the lifter of my head. I sang the song over and over for many days. The same afternoon of the incident, the Lord said for me to pray for the two men. I had no anger, resentment toward them. I told the Lord, first I'll forgive them. And then I prayed. I have no idea how I prayed, probably in tongues. Days later, the Lord said, this is how I want you to pray for these two men. As Jesus said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
And as Stephen prayed, Father, lay not this sin to their charge. Every day I prayed for these two men after first meditating on 1st Corinthians 13, 4 to 8A from the Amplified, especially verse five that says, I'll take no account of the evil done to me, not to have suffered wrong. From the beginning, the Lord said, as I would read his word, the word Jesus would heal me.
It was very hard to come back home and be by myself after spending some weeks with family members from the first day I kept prophesying that I would have to go through this twice. I had to return to my family to get some sleep. During this time, I meditated on fear scriptures, man and gods, and on peace and healing. I was also praying for the police and special investigators for my case that God would give them success. This was done in love.
I praise God for the gift of tongues to help me pray during the night hours against the fear and terror. In September, now remember this happened in June. In September, the Lord spoke to me through the book of Jonah. I was no longer to pray that the police would capture these men. That night was the first night I slept in over three months. That's real forgiveness. I continued to pray for the two men and their salvation.
On Sunday, October 6th, the Lord said I was no longer to call them my enemies, but my brothers. The burden was lifted. I believe with all my heart that these two men are now saved. And isn't that what this is all about, to get people saved? Glory to God. I can't believe it only took four months to get the victory. To God be the glory, the lifter of my head. It's powerful testimony. It is. And the Lord led her to praise the Lord for allowing her to go through this for His eternal purposes.
This is how you get over PTSD. See, she had a trauma. That was a serious trauma. It affected her for four months, but it didn't continue for years. Some people, like Vietnam vets and World War II vets, they would continually, their whole life. Right. Having nightmares and so on. But the difference is the Holy Spirit. And I believe we need to press in. If you, listener, if you have PTSD, there is hope for you. You do not have to live with this the rest of your life.
The Holy Spirit will deliver you. Now, a lot of times we learned from our chaplain course that we had some years ago that many of the people who go through some kind of a trauma in the military and they come out with PTSD, a lot of them were traumatized as children. If they're already suffering from PTSD from childhood, they're far more likely to have PTSD from something going on in war. Yeah, it really triggered it because of the severity of it. Sure. It just increases it.
And that's the way fear operates, you see. That's the way trauma operates. It's all about trying to get us to lose our courage, to lose heart, to become unable to operate and unable to resist. You know, David, in many of his Psalms would start out, Oh Lord, I've been forsaken of all these, many, many of his Psalms. But by the end of the Psalms, he's rejoicing and he's praising God. I thought that's a real key. That's why he was so successful. Exactly. Because he had battles. He certainly did.
He had mutiny. Oh yeah. He had betrayal. And yet he just praised God. Right. And I love the story of when they came back to Ziklag and found it burned down and their wives and children had been carried away. And they're ready to stone him. And his own buddies that he's gone to war with are ready to kill him. He encouraged himself in the Lord. Now that word courage is a beautiful word.
And I don't think we even realize it so much when we just think about it in English, but it really means heart as the seed of emotions. I'm reading from the Atomology Online app that I have. So it also means spirit, temperament, state or frame of mind. From old French courage, heart, innermost feelings, temper. And it goes back to Latin and so on. It means valor, quality of mind which enables one to meet danger and trouble without fear. That's what courage is.
But my point is it starts at the heart. When your heart, I'm not necessarily talking about your physical heart, but I think your physical heart is affected by your emotional heart. And if we are filling our hearts with the word of God, our hearts are going to help us to overcome just because there's word there. There's the power of the word. So this idea of courage, David encouraged himself in the Lord. So he was getting his heart right before the Lord.
He was getting strength of heart from the Lord. And that is all about our relationship. That is what keeps us walking towards him, keeps our eyes on him. And that's what gives us courage. It gives us that fearlessness that makes our adversaries really scared. Hallelujah. You know, the fear thing for most people boils down to the fear of death. And Hebrews 2.15, I just always go back to that all the time when we're talking about fear, because it's the fear of death that keeps people in bondage.
And the way it reads in the Amplified Classic is, I'll start with verse 14.
Since, therefore, these his children share in flesh and blood in the physical nature of human beings, he himself, talking about Jesus, he himself in a similar manner, part took of the same nature, that by going through death, he might bring to naught and make of no effect him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and also that he might deliver and completely set free all those who through the haunting fear of death were held in bondage throughout the whole course of their lives.
How many people have not served God, have not done something that God said to do because of the fear of death? They didn't want to take the risk to obey God. They could see that they could lose their life. Yeah, but you have a saying, you know, you're safer in the will of God in a war zone than you are going down the highway by your house out of the will of God. True. Or even in your own bed out of the will of God. Yeah. A tree can fall on the top of your house and that'd be the end of it.
But obeying God is always the safest place to be because even if you do lay your life down, it's still a win-win situation. You know, I'm reminded of the five missionaries in Ecuador back in the mid-50s that laid down their life for the local people that they were trying to reach. I think they're called the Wodani people. In those days, they called them the Alcas, but they found out that that's really a slam kind of a name for them. But Jim Elliott was one of those.
And there's a quote from him that has always stayed with me from the first time that I heard it. And he said this, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. Why don't you say that again for everybody? I think it's good to repeat it. He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. And of course, that goes with Mark 8.35.
It says, for whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me and the gospel will save it. So Jim Elliott and the others, Nate Saint and the others, they gave their lives, but they got their lives. The eternal rewards for a martyr are out of this world. And that whole tribe ended up, the son went back. Yeah. One of the wives went with her children. And the man who actually killed his father became a father to him when he got born again.
He took responsibility for the young man. He got saved. He got saved. And the story is told, the end of the spear, that we'll put a link to where you can get the book. I think there's a movie about it as well. But the point is that you can't lose when you obey God. Even if you lose your life, you're not losing it. You're gaining it. You give what you cannot keep to gain what you cannot lose. You can't lose eternal life when you're obeying God. Yeah, that's very good. It's beautiful.
It's just so wonderful. And I just want to really, really hammer it home how our fearlessness, a position of fearlessness is not only going to make the devil scared, but it's going to encourage others. Fearlessness is contagious. And when we stand up with the power of God in a crisis situation, it is going to make a difference in that situation. I think a good example of that was 9-11.
The two planes flew into the towers and the people that was on the plane that had turned around it was coming back and they start getting calls on their cell phone. What happened? And I don't remember the fellow's name. They wrote a book about him. What did he say? Let's go. Let's roll. That was it. Let's roll. That's the name of the book.
And they took courage because they knew that they were probably going to die, but at least they wouldn't die crashing into a building, taking a whole lot of other people too. Exactly. They could have all sat there. That's what would happen. You remember the days there was a lot of hijackings? That was before security got what it was and more sophisticated. And we heard of hijackings that was frequent. It would happen. And do people do anything? No. They sat there in fear. Exactly.
Like one person, two persons. But if you had people rise up, and I think that book encouraged a lot of people. Right. We can do this. That's right. We're not going to sit. Why sit here until you die? Right. Right. Do something. Exactly. That's just what they did. They all died anyway, but they died not under control of the situation. Well, they did. They died because of that, but they did something. Yeah. And they stopped the terrorists from accomplishing their goal.
And that's the point here, that when we stand up, we can stop terror. If we don't let terror have a place in our hearts, we can stand up with courage. We can stand up with peace. We can stand up and command shalom into a situation. A soft answer will turn away wrath. If you don't let that stress hormone and that adrenaline make you fight or fly, if you will let the Holy Spirit control the situation, it will make a huge, huge difference.
Yeah. I remember when we were talking about Michael Van Vleimen earlier with that demon that was in his bedroom, Smith Wigglesworth. Oh, yes. I don't know if he was in bed or... Yeah, I think he was. He was in bed and all of a sudden the devil or big demon just appears in the room. And he just looked at him and says, ah, it's you. It's just you. It's just you. He rolled back, went back to sleep. We had a time in India. We were in a hotel room.
And then the pictures in the rooms, if you've ever been to India or you go to a Indian restaurant and you'll see pictures on the wall of garden scenes, this or that, and you'll see that some of the people are blue, they're gods. That's some kind of a deity of some kind. Demon. So we're in our hotel room. We had a big day. And I saw that they have one of these in our room. And I hung the picture upside down. I just... Or backwards. Or backwards. I thought, nah.
And I took it off and I just took it off the wall and I put it in the closet or something. And I could feel something. I mean, I made something mad. I remember that. And Sharon was already asleep, I think, on the way out. So I just prayed. I just spoke the blood of Jesus over us and this room, you can't touch us. And I went to bed and I slept real good. And I did hang the picture back up when we left the next morning. You just weren't going to let it influence our stay. That's right.
Or our sleep. Yes. And I remember... I don't remember who it was. I think it might have been Lester Sumrall, but I'm not sure. That there was some missionary anyway that had this demonic entity come into his room and shake his bed and move the bed over. Oh, yeah, I remember. Do you remember who it was? I don't remember who it was, but he said, you put it back. Yeah. First, he commanded the thing to leave. And then he realized, wait a minute, he moved the bed.
And he commanded the thing to come back and put the bed back where it was. And it did. And it did. There's authority in our relationship with God. There's authority. As we read the word to get to know the author, as we walk with him, as we talk with him, we will get this victory. And it comes from our trust in him. Comes from drilling down into him and letting him just permeate us with his light and his life and his love.
And I just want to close with 2 Corinthians 2 verses 14 to the first part of 16. And it says, But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumph as trophies of Christ's victory, and through us spreads and makes evident the fragrance of the knowledge of God everywhere. For we are the sweet fragrance of Christ, which exhales unto God, discernible alike among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.
To the latter, it is an aroma wafted from death to death, a fatal odor, the smell of doom. To the former, it is an aroma from life to life, a vital fragrance living and fresh. So when we stand up in our victory, the victory that Jesus paid for, we don't even have to do it. He did it all. It's been paid for. It's been paid for. And when we realize that we can trust in that, you know, the idea of letting go of the stress, letting go of stress comes from trusting.
When you trust, your whole blood pressure can go down. The fear dissipates as you anchor your soul in trust in the Lord and resting in the Lord and just getting into his presence and letting just the delight of his presence transform you. It will cause all of the stress to just right away down, all the way down. The stress goes down, the peace returns, and the courage comes to your heart that it does not matter what your circumstances are.
Your Lord, your life, your life giver, your King, your lover of your soul is there with you. He is there with you right now, no matter what you've just been through, no matter what your family members have been through. You may have been through trauma. You may have been through PTSD. You may be suffering from something that has happened. Now, we just declare in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, this is your time for freedom.
This is your time for victory through the victory that Jesus paid for. He paid for it in the horrible beating and abuse that he took. Every possible thing that's happened to you happened to him. Just know that he took it for you. And he will deliver you right now in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Just reach out to him. Inhale of his presence. His presence, the air all around you, the oxygen all around you is his love.
Just draw his love into yourself and let all the stress go as you just begin to worship him. Breathe in of his presence. Breathe out worship. You don't even have to say anything. Eventually you'll begin to sing. You'll begin to praise. You'll begin to give glory as you just, but start with resting in his presence. Start with trusting in him. Father, I trust you. Just say, Father, I trust you. Holy Spirit, I trust you.
I trust you to deliver me from the snare of the fowler, from the noise and pestilence, all of those things that attack us. In Psalm 91, we declare the power of Psalm 91 over you right now to come and dwell in the secret place of the most high and abide in the shadow of the Almighty. He is there for you right now. He is there for you right now. He is there for you right now. Receive him. Receive him. Receive what you need from him and just keep coming back. Just keep coming back.
Every time that the trauma tries to arise again, just keep coming back to the Lord. Just keep coming back. Just keep. And every time you come back, it gets easier. Every time you come back, it gets easier until you're able to stay there in his presence. And those things just begin to fall off or roll off like water off of a duck's back. The oil of the anointing of his presence will cause these things to just roll off of you and heal those wounds. He's there to heal those wounds.
We declare healing over the wounds and we declare the grace of God to forgive the people that have hurt you, the circumstances that have hurt you, the trauma, the accident, whatever it was, the attack, the brutality that has happened to you, the betrayal that has happened to you. All of those things just dissipate in the presence of the Lord. Just start worshiping him. Just start worshiping him. Lord, we give you praise. We give you honor.
We give you glory, Lord, as you're bringing healing to each listener. Lord, thank you, Father. We thank you. We thank you for your glory, Lord. Pour your glory on each one. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please subscribe, rate and review this podcast on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your review helps the podcasting platform suggest this podcast to other listeners who are also looking for a great move of the Holy Spirit.
Check out our website at globaloutpouring.org to find out more information, read our blogs, connect with us and donate. You can also browse our web store for life-changing anointed books. Until next time, this is Sharon Buss and I'm Philip Buss. God bless you with this overwhelming loving presence.