>> Jen: Merry Christmas, faithful listeners, and welcome to the 5th annual Candlelit Christmas episode on the Bible Explained podcast. My name is Jen. I am the host of this podcast, and I'm very excited that you've chosen to tune in on this Christmas morning to share this nice festive episode with me. And also a cup of hot chocolate or tea or coffee or whatever you prefer. In fact, in order to listen to this episode tonight, I encourage you to get nice and cozy if you're
not already. Pause the podcast, go brew yourself some hot water, get in your Christmas PJs and light a fire if you have a fireplace. If not, don't light a fire and just enjoy yourself while we, uh, discuss our topic for tonight, which is fear. And you're also going to want to grab your Bible as well tonight, because we are going to be talking about a lot of different passages of
scripture. We're going to be jumping around from the New Testament to the Old Testament to the New Testament again, and, uh, probably discussing about 10 to 12 different passages of scripture. Now, you might be wondering what fear has to do with the Christmas season, but actually, if you read through the Christmas story, you're going to notice a lot of different
passages relating to fear. For example, in Luke chapter one, which Luke one and Luke two are the famous chapters of the Bible that talk about Jesus birth, fear is mentioned actually quite a bit. Verses 11 through 16 talk about this man named Zechariah. And Zechariah was a priest, and he was also a very old man who wanted children but was unable to have
any with his wife. So it says in verse 11, while Zechariah was in the sanctuary, an angel of the LORD appeared to him, standing to the right of the incense altar. Zechariah was shaken and overwhelmed with fear when he saw him. But the angel said, don't be afraid, Zechariah. God has heard your prayer. Your wife Elizabeth will give you
a son, and you are to name him John. So there's the first mention of fear we see in Luke, chapter one, Zechariah being terrified of this angel standing before him while he's doing his priestly duties in the temple. The second mention of fear, see in the Christmas story is in verse 26, when Gabriel appears to Mary. It says in verse 26, in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a
virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, greetings, favored Woman, the LORD is with you. Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. Don't be afraid, Mary, the angel told her, for you have found favor with God. So there we see Mary having some fear when she hears the message from the angel and notice that it was actually the angel's words that scared her,
not the angel himself, which is kind of interesting. She was scared at the angel's words. And then the third mention of fear we see in the Christmas story is at the very end of the chapter of Luke 1, in verses 67 through 80, where Zechariah the priest, starts prophesying after his baby boy is actually born. He was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he gave this praise the LORD, the God of Israel, because he
has visited and redeemed his people. He sent us a mighty savior from the royal line of his servant David, just as he promised through his holy prophets long ago. Now we will be saved from our enemies and from all who hate us. And then jumping down to verse 74, we have been rescued from our enemies so we can serve God without fear in holiness and righteousness for as long as we live. So that is the third time we see fear mentioned in the Christmas story.
Now, if we jump over to Matthew, chapter one, this is the other famous, uh, rendition or retelling of the Christmas story in the Bible. Matthew 1 and 2 talks about the birth of Jesus and also the wise men coming and visiting Jesus. But you'll notice that Joseph, Mary's fiance, was struggling with fear as well. Matthew 1:18 says, this is how Jesus, the, ah, Messiah, was born. His mother,
Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly. So he decided to break the engagement quietly. As he considered this, an angel of the LORD appeared to him in a
dream. Joseph, son of David. The angel said, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. So Joseph was afraid. He was actually afraid to take Mary as his wife because when he found out that Mary was pregnant, you know, Mary was still a virgin. They were only engaged to be married. They weren't married yet. And so Joseph obviously sees Mary with a baby bump, and he thinks that Mary went
out and cheated on him. And, you know, Mary probably gave him the entire story and said, you know, this angel visited me and told me that I'm Going to be the Virgin Mother. And can you imagine? Joseph wouldn't believe that. Who would believe that? Because that's such a preposterous story for anybody to say. So Joseph goes home and he's like, figuring out how to break up with Mary without publicly shaming
her. Because it was actually dangerous for young women in Jesus's time period to be caught in adultery or any type of infidelity whatsoever. Mary could have been completely disgraced or even killed by her own people. So Joseph was trying to figure out how to, you know, secretly break things off with Hm Mary without completely destroying her reputation. And as he's like, pondering this, he falls asleep. This angel appears to him and says, don't be afraid to take Mary as your
wife. So that's the fourth mention of fear we have in the Christmas story and the fifth mention of, uh, fear. And the last mention of fear is from Luke, chapter 2, verses 8 through 20. Now, this was right after Jesus was born. That night, there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly, an angel of the LORD appeared among them and the radiance of the Lord's glory surrounded them. And they were terrified. But the
angel reassured them. Don't be afraid, he said. I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. So that is the final mention of fear in the Christmas story. So you can actually see now that the Christmas story has quite a lot of fear associated with it. And you might be like, well, maybe it's because all of these people were terrified of seeing these angels. But you'll notice that some of the stories mentioned here either didn't have an angel in them, for example,
Zechariah's prophecy. And also it's mentioned in two situations, Mary's situation and Joseph's situation, that they weren't afraid of the angel. They were afraid of something else that the angel was talking about. So no, not every situation here was the people being scared of the angels themselves. In some cases, they were afraid of something else. So now this brings me to the three types of fear. Human beings, when they experience fear of any kind, it falls into three
categories. The first category is the fear of man. So this could include fears like the fear of rejection, abandonment, public speaking, judgment, confrontation, violence, or aggression from people. The second type of fear we experience is the fear of danger or death. So this includes basically all the phobias, such as fear of sickness, disease, fear of animals, public transportation like airplanes, heights, weather, darkness, death, etc. And then the last category of fear is the fear of
God. So this would be fear of God's control, fear of God's sovereignty, fear of God's will, fear of God's glory, or of God's righteousness. Now, these three category of fears can basically be applied to any fear that any of us struggle with. For example, I have a deep phobia of throwing up. It's called emetophobia. And I know it's ridiculous. And most people don't have that phobia. And they. They look at me, they're like, what do you mean you have the fear of throwing up?
But that phobia could be categorized as fear of danger or death. Because when I was a little kid, I had a trauma with throwing up. I had a really bad stomach, uh, bug. And I associated danger with throwing up. And so that's how I ended up having the fear of vomiting. Now, if you have the fear of public speaking, which is one of the most common fears that almost everybody struggles with, that is a fear of man. Because you're afraid of judgment. You're afraid of m messing up in front of
people. You're afraid of making yourself look foolish in front of people. So ultimately you are afraid of man. So these three categories can pretty much sum up everything that we are terrified of or afraid of. Now, I do want to mention one caveat with the fear of God category. Having an unhealthy fear of God is bad. We should not be terrified of God or terrified of His will or think that He's just out to get us or out to punish us in some way. But there is a healthy fear
of God. And throughout Scripture, this healthy fear of God is mentioned consistently. This healthy fear of God is when God appears to people and people cower in fear because of how sinful and mortal they are as compared to a completely righteous and holy and perfect God. That type
of fear is not necessarily unhealthy. However, what you're going to see with what we're talking about today is that God is actually even going to do away with that particular type of fear where we're afraid of Him because of how holy He is and how sinful and pretty much awful we are. But these three categories of fear that we have, including both the healthy and unhealthy fear of God, are mentioned here in the Christmas story.
So in Luke chapter one, where Zechariah the priest sees the angel standing in front of him in the temple, he is absolutely terrified. And this is Zechariah having a fear of God. He is absolutely Terrified when he sees this angel, obviously. Because angels, I'm sure, do not look the way they are depicted in art. They probably look very different than what we think they look like. We don't know what angels look
like. And anytime they're described in scripture, they are described as being absolutely terrifying looking. The. The most famous descriptions of angels are in Ezekiel, where Ezekiel is describing this angel that had, like, a ton of eyes and like these wheels surrounding it. And it was just really freaky looking as compared to what we're used to. So angels don't necessarily look like a human being. So this angel standing in front of Zechariah, Gabriel
might not look like a human being. We don't know what, what Gabriel looks like. And of course this is going to cause Zechariah to experience deep and complete fear of what he is seeing. But not to mention, uh, seeing an angel in front of you would probably make you feel extremely vulnerable and terrified that you are going to die. Because this angel is a messenger from God. He has power from God, and he could take your life away with the flash of his sword, basically, and you'd be defenseless.
So Zechariah is terrified not just because he's seeing an angel standing in front of him, but because he doesn't know what God is telling this angel to do. Also, don't forget Zechariah was a priest, and the priests had a huge responsibility while they were inside the temple to do things the right way. And if things weren't done the right way inside of God's temple, as we know, God did judge the priests, and He on occasion, did judge them right then and there, and their lives were
taken away or they were completely consumed. So now Zechariah is inside the temple doing his priestly duties alone, and he sees this angel in there and he's like, oh, boy, I messed up something and my life is now going to be gone. But the angel says, don't be afraid, Zechariah. God has heard your prayer. Your wife Elizabeth will give you a son, and you are to name him John. Now, what's so cool about this passage is that Zechariah probably stopped praying for a son years before
that. Because Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth were very old. They probably gave up all hope of being able to have children. And yet God heard Zechariah's prayers for a child. And even years after it was possible for Zechariah and Elizabeth to have a child, God makes it possible for this old couple to be able to have a child. So the angel says, don't be afraid, Zechariah. You are going to give birth to a son and name him John. So Zechariah
didn't have to fear here. Because God loves Zechariah and God loves His people. And because God's love is so great, we don't have to fear God and fear God's plan or God's will for our lives because He is completely righteous and He is completely loving. The most famous verse in The Bible, John 3:16, says, For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only son. God loves humanity so much that He sent Jesus. And because God is so loving and because He knows the
future, we don't have to fear. We don't when He enacts a plan in our life because He loves us. What Does Matthew chapter 6 say? Matthew 6:25 27 and this is from Jesus own lips. He says, this is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life. Whether you have enough food to eat or clothes to wear. Isn't life more than food and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don't plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your Heavenly
Father feeds them. And aren't you far more valuable to Him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don't work or make their clothing. Yet King Solomon in all of his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and then thrown into the fire tomorrow, He will certainly care for you. So why do you
have so little faith? So don't worry about these things. These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers. But your Heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously and He will give you everything you need. And that is a promise from Jesus lips. So if Jesus promised it to us, who is God in human flesh, then we know we don't have to fear God's will or God's plan in our life. So that fear should be over and done
with. Anything that makes us unhealthily afraid of God should be over and done with because God loves us and God cares for us. And that is proven throughout Scripture time and time again. But even the healthy fear where we are terrified because we literally can't be in God's presence at all. First Corinthians chapter 15, verses 54 through 57. This says, when this perishable body will have become imperishable and this mortal will have put on immortality, then what is written will happen. Death is
swallowed up in victory. So death, where is your sting? Hades, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our LORD Jesus Christ, our mortal bodies will be changed to something completely immortal. We will be resurrected the same way that Jesus was. Jesus was the first of everyone who was resurrected, and we are the next. So we won't have to fear standing
in front of God. Instead, we're going to be able to go boldly to the throne of God is what the Bible says. So the Christmas story completely gets rid of the fear of God, the unhealthy fear of God, and then the healthy fear of God, even to an extent as well. I do believe we're always going to have a healthy fear of God, even when we are immortal, because who wouldn't have a healthy fear of God?
But the terrified feeling that Zechariah has when he's standing in front of the angel and other times we see people just being absolutely terrified in God's presence. That is going to be done with when Jesus someday gives us our resurrected bodies. So the Christmas story removes the unhealthy fear that we have of God's will and
God's plan. But the Christmas story also gives us righteousness through Jesus's sacrifice of coming to earth as a baby and then being sacrificed, so now we can stand before God boldly. So that's the first category of fear, which is the fear of God, which the Christmas story takes care of. The second fear is the fear of man. Now, the fear of man is mentioned in Joseph's story. In Matthew chapter one. The reason Joseph was afraid to take, um, Mary as his wife was because of the fear
of man. He was afraid that Mary had cheated on him and would cheat on him again if he took her as wife. He was probably afraid of his reputation if he took Mary as wife. Because think about it, you know, Mary was showing signs of being pregnant, and everybody would be like, oh, man, you know, Joseph and Mary were, you know, doing the deed before they were married. Not good. So Joseph was probably afraid of his own reputation and afraid of what it would look like if he took Mary
as wife. Joseph was afraid to take Mary as wife because of his fear of judgment or confrontation or something along those lines. So here's what the angel says to Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and she will have a son. And you are to name Him Jesus, for He will save his people from their sins. And all of this occurred to fulfill the Lord's message through the prophet.
Look, the virgin will conceive a child. She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God is with us. So the Christmas story, Jesus coming to earth as a baby also takes away our fear of man. Let's turn to Luke chapter one again and reread Zechariah's prophecy. So Zechariah, remember, was the old man who ended up having a baby with his wife Elizabeth. Their baby was Jesus
cousin named John the Baptist. So after the birth of John the Baptist In Luke chapter 1, verse 67, Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and gave this Praise the LORD, the God of Israel, because He has visited and redeemed His people. He has sent us a mighty savior from the royal line of David through His holy prophets long ago. Now we will be saved from our enemies and from all who hate us. He has been merciful to our ancestors by remembering the sacred covenant. The covenant He swore with
an oath to our ancestor Abraham. We have been rescued from our enemies so we can serve God without fear, in holiness and righteousness for as long as we live. As we know, Jesus came to earth the first time to give Himself as a sacrifice to us. But because of Jesus first coming to the earth as a little baby, we have hope. Because Jesus promised us while he was on earth that He was going to return again. And when He returns again, He is going to completely destroy every single
enemy that He has. And the enemies that He has are the same enemies that you and I have. Hebrews 13:5,6 says, Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have. Because God has said, never will I leave you, never will I forsake you. So we say this with confidence. The LORD is my helper. I will not be afraid. What can mere men do to me? And the Christmas story is proof of that verse, that God never does
leave us or forsake us. Because if He left us, He never would have sent Jesus as a baby. Jesus coming to earth as a baby is proof that God will never leave us or forsake us. And because He never leaves us or forsakes us, we don't have to be afraid of man. We don't have to be afraid of abandonment or judgment or, uh, violence from other people because God is with us. He is on our side, and He proved it to us by sending His son Jesus as a baby to save us from
our sins. So now the second fear category is completely done away with because of the Christmas story. And then the last category of fear, which is the fear of danger or death, I think was expressed by Mary when the angel came to her and told her that she was going to be the virgin Mother. Luke, chapter 1, verses 26:33. In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee,
to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, greetings, favored woman. The LORD is with you. Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. Don't be afraid, Mary, the angel told her. For you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will m name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called
the Son of the Most High. The LORD God will give Him the throne of his ancestor David, and he will reign over Israel forever. His kingdom will never end. When Mary hears that she is favored by God, she is terrified of the future. At that point, she has no clue what this angel is about to say to her and what God is calling her to do. Who knows what she was feeling in this moment, but she was scared because the angel specifically called her a favored woman and then told her
that the LORD was with her. Because anytime you read a story in the Old Testament and Mary must have had a very good knowledge of the Old Testament scriptures for her to connect the dots like this. Anytime an angel appears to somebody in the Old Testament and tells them not to be afraid, it means in humanly terms, they have something to fear. They have something very hard that they are about to go through, whether it's war, whether it's facing death, whether it's being like a warrior for
Israel. Whenever an angel appeared to somebody and gave them a message of do not fear. God is with you, something scary was about to happen to them. And when Mary hears the same message from the angel, she's probably thinking, oh, boy, what do I have to do? What scary thing am I going to have to do? But the angel consoles Mary immediately. He says, don't be afraid because you have found favor with God. And this doesn't mean that Mary did something special to find favor with God.
I know some people believe, some religions believe that Mary was sinless, but no, she was a human being, the same as you and I. She struggled with her own sets of sins, and we know she did because she actually did sin. When Jesus was older and doing his ministry, Mary tried to stop Jesus from doing His ministry because she was afraid of how people were responding to Jesus's message. So Mary tried to hinder Jesus from m preaching the gospel message as Jesus was getting older. So we know that Mary
sinned. Mary was the same as you and I, but she found favor with God. In other words, God granted her favor. It wasn't because Mary did something special in her life to gain favor with God. It was because God made her righteous, the same as he makes you and I righteous today. But regardless, when Mary hears this message from the angel, she is absolutely terrified of some sort of danger or death that she is going to have to experience. So let's read First Corinthians 15, verses 20 through 28.
We just talked about this portion not too long ago. This portion is talking about how Jesus is going to conquer both danger and death, verse 20 of uh, 1 Corinthians 15. But now Christ has been raised from the dead. He became the firstfruits of those who are asleep. For since death came by man, the resurrection of the dead also came by man. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive, but each in his
own Christ. The firstfruits, then those who are Christ's at his coming, then the end comes when He will deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when He will have abolished all rule and all authority and all power. For He must reign until He puts all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death. For He put all things in subjection under His feet.
So because of Jesus first coming to the earth as a baby, death someday is going to be completely and totally destroyed and abolished. And if death is destroyed and abolished, that means that all danger that anybody experiences is going to be completely abolished as well. So the third category of fear, because of the Christmas story, is completely abolished. So look at it this.
Jesus came to earth not just to grant us resurrection and life, which is enough in and of itself, but He also came to completely demolish all of our fears. We don't have to be afraid of anything because of the hope that we have through the Christmas story. So if you are struggling with fear this Christmas season, give it to God, because God is the one who completely destroys fears. And listen to what Jesus says in Matthew chapter six, that you are special to God.
The reason God sent His son to begin with was for you. He loves you. You are special to God. And God wants you to give Him every fear that you have, and He wants to demolish those fears that you are struggling with. So tonight, give those fears that you have to God. As usual, I'm going to perform a Christmas song for you guys. And this Christmas song couldn't be more relevant to the topic that we talked about today. And this Christmas song is very obscure, actually. It was written in 1987 by
Steve Green. And this song is called Rest. It's a song I remember being on when I was a little kid because my mom had the Steve Green cd, and whenever we were decorating trees, we'd put Steve Green in the little CD player that we had, and we would listen to his songs. And his voice is so beautiful. And I'm actually going to link the original song, Rest, in the description of this episode because it is such a beautiful, beautiful song. It is on his Christmas record, but I think it's actually
relevant for the entire year. And I'm going to perform that for you right now.
>> Speaker B: Rest the LORD is near Refuse to fear Enjoy His love Trust His mighty power Fills every hour of all your days There is no need for needless worry with such a savior you have no cause to ever, uh, doubt His perfect word Still m reassures in any trial Rest the LORD is near Lift up your prayer for He is strong Trust He'll bring release and perfect peace Peace will calm your mind There is no need for needless worry with such a Savior you have no cause to ever doubt His perfect
word still reassures in any trial Call Him if you grow frightened Call Him with loving care He'll lift your burden and you'll rest the LORD is near Refuse to fear Enjoy His love Trust His mighty power Fills every hour, um, of, uh, all, uh, your days Rest the LORD is near Refuse to fear Enjoy His love.