Then Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all the people who were with him rose early and encamped beside the well of Harod, so that the camp of the Midianites was on the north side of them by the hill of Moreh in the valley. And the Lord said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against Me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’ Now therefore, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead.’ ” And twenty-two thousand of the people returned, and ten thousand remained.
Judges 7:1-3
“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
Isaiah 41:10
The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.”
Proverbs 29:25
One of the first battles under the leadership of Gideon, a judge chosen personally by God, was the ambush-like assault on the Philistines with a mere 300 men. When Gideon was initially assembling his army, however, the number was much greater. 32,000 men gathered before Gideon prepared to go to war. God told Gideon he had too many men, they needed to reduce the size of the army to prevent the troops from thinking they won the battle due to military strength alone. So, Gideon told the army that any men who were afraid should go home. More than two-thirds of the army left, leaving 10,000. The army would then reduce to 300 based on a combat-survival behavior test.
Moral of the story: There is no place for fear in the army of God. Fear is weakness. The weak are to go home.
You do not see fearlessness promoted in modern religion because it is easy to be weak yet remain in the church. There is no real violent persecution in the U.S. and no accountability for people who are not progressing spiritually. In fact, most people use the church as a convenient social gathering. They walk into the assembly with their worldly problems and thoughts, discuss them with their friends, “worship” for an hour (are angry if worship goes five minutes over the scheduled time), then fellowship while again complaining about their worldly problems and leave to go back to the world. This is the extent of the faith of most men. These are the men who would have left Gideon’s army out of fear, but they remain in the church because it takes no courage to do so.
Weak men have done more to damage the church than the so-called “persecution” facing Christians in the modern world. I argue that fearfulness damages the reputation of Christians and makes it harder to evangelize because fear is anti-masculine.
Secular men do not want to become part of the church because they believe it will require them to become emasculate, effeminate eunuchs.
No man wants to be weak but being weak and effeminate has been popularized by modern religion. Megachurches and evangelists have made faith a matter of emotion, and as a result, have made it weak and unstable. One blow to the “faith” of these men and they crumble. These men have dead-tree faith. The tree still stands upright, but it is dead, and one good kick or a light storm will topple it. Do not be like these fearful men. Reject their weakness and embody the strength and spirit of the Spartan.
“We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular”.
Edward Murrow
Affirmation
Fear is worse than death, therefore I am fearless.
Application
Consider yourself and look at areas of your life where you are fearful. It is okay to be fearful, but it is wrong to stay that way. As always, our nature requires progress in order for us to be satisfied, so we have to work on reducing our fear over time. At the very least our goal should be to take courageous action despite fear. Because even though fearlessness is the goal, is it truly something that is attainable? The 10,000 men who were left after Gideon sent home the afraid – how many of them do you think were truly fearless? Some perhaps still felt a twinge of fear but stayed out of courageous action.
The way we reduce fear is through training.
Think back to all the times you have been afraid and try to think of the root of that fear. You were afraid about taking a test in school, but by studying you reduce your fear. Through preparation, you increase your level of control over the situation and that reduces the anxiety associated with tests. Or perhaps you are giving a lesson in your church and you are afraid. You can reduce your nerves by rehearsing the speech many times and immersing yourself in the moment of practice.
Training and rehearsing are natural anti-anxiety medications. They force you to exist in the present moment, which is a place that anxiety cannot exist. Think about this, anxiety can only exist in the future because it is a mental prediction of a negative outcome(s). So by involving yourself in the present moment through training or meditation and by preparing for events in advance, you ensure that you become fearless. One day you may even be fit for the army of Gideon. But it is imperative that you train this ability now so that if difficulty or persecution does arise in your lifetime, you will at the very least be better mentally prepared than your peers.
Conduct yourselves like Men.
