Welcome to the Daily Blade . The Word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit , the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil . Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson , and they stand ready to equip men for the fight . Let's sharpen up .
Welcome to day three of week two of the 23rd Psalm . We're going to start from the beginning again . The Lord is my shepherd . I shall not want he makes me lie down in green pastures . He leads me beside still waters . He restores my soul .
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake , and even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death again . Yesterday we covered this , in fact , fellas , if you know somebody walking through the valley of the shadow of death , this is part of what's great about the Daily Blade .
Maybe you should send them yesterday and maybe even today's content . He says I will fear no evil , for you are with me , your rod and your staff , they comfort me . You see , fear is a very , very dangerous thing . You see , fear is a tool in the hands of the enemy .
I don't know if you realize this , that there are some people that are wired just differently . Okay , I'm not a super fearful guy . If you know anything about Kyle , he's not a super fearful guy . Some people are more prone to worry and other people are not .
Okay , but according to the Bible , fear is not a feeling , fear is a spirit that does not come from God . Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 1 , these words he says God has not given you a spirit of fear , but of power and of love and of self-discipline . And so if there is fear in you , then that does not come from God . Now let me distinguish .
There's a difference between being afraid or being full of fear and just being scared . Scared is a feeling . Scared is a physiological reality that God has given us so that we know that we can either fight or flight . If the bear comes , it's okay to be scared , so you run away . If there's lightning outside and you're scared , so you can go get in the house .
Scared is a feeling , and when you feel scared , then what you do is , by faith , you cowboy up and you take a step forward , and that's called courage . And we need some more men of courage in the church , no problem . But fear is something different . Fear is when we are so gripped by our circumstances that it paralyzes us .
David doesn't say I will fear no evil , because there's not evil to fear . There's all kinds of people out there that want to kill him , but he refuses to be paralyzed by his circumstances and instead , by faith , he's going to move forward . I don't know if you've ever thought about this . But the opposite of faith is not doubt . That's right .
The opposite of faith , no problem . If you've got unanswered questions , great . If you've got things about the Bible and about theology and about the reality of God and suffering , or God and lost people or whatever it is . If you've got unanswered questions and doubts , great . You could make a great disciple . And you say , pastor , where do you get that ?
I get it from the New Testament . Have you read the Gospels Matthew , mark , luke and John ? They had all kinds of doubts , they had all kinds of unanswered questions , and Jesus chose these ordinary , uneducated men to turn the world upside down . What do you do ? You just pick up your doubts .
You pick up your unanswered questions and you follow after Jesus and one day all of your doubts will go away . One day you will be in heaven and you don't even need faith anymore . You will have proof . You just open your eyes and there he is , sitting on the throne . So the opposite of fear is not doubt .
The opposite of fear , excuse me , the opposite of faith is not doubt . The opposite of faith is fear , because faith produces action and fear paralyzes .
And the reason that King David will fear no evil is not because he's good enough and strong enough , not because he's powerful enough , not because he says I got this , one of the most dangerous things you can say as a grown man . The reason that he has no fear of evil is because God is with him , and where there is light , no darkness shall prevail .
Where the truth stands up , the lie has to leave . Where the presence of God is , the presence of evil cannot be that . Perfect love casts out fear . Listen , when my little girl was that , when she was a little girl and I would tuck her in and sometimes she would be afraid of the dark , she'd be like daddy , I'm scared , I go , baby , why are you scared ?
And she would say cause there's monsters under my bed . And the last thing I did is tell her that there weren't monsters . That's a terrible thing to tell your kids Cause there are monsters in this world . And so I would get her down with a flashlight and she and I together would look and say see , baby , there are .
Like look and say see , baby , where this light goes , they've got to flee . But know this , know this I am here with you , and when I am with you , you have nothing to be afraid of . And so , even though King David was walking through the valley of the shadow of death .
The reason that he would fear no evil is because the almighty , sovereign king of the universe was with him . And the reason you and I don't have to fear is we have one up on King David . If you were a follower of Jesus Christ , the moment you put your faith in Jesus Christ , the spirit of God is not merely with you , he is in you .
So what have you been afraid of ? What do you need to take courage in and , by faith , step forward where previously you have been paralyzed by fear . Go and do walk through that valley , knowing that God is with you .
Amen . Thank you for listening to today's episode Before you go . If you want to help equip other men for the fight , share this podcast around and leave us a five-star rating and review . Stay sharp .