The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 1301-B, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 4."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.  ©1976. All Rights Reserved.

Question

What are practical ways of dealing with Satan in terms of fear, especially at night?

Answer

I don’t know if you’ve ever had that problem.  I went through a little phase in my life where night was a fearful thing for me—and it was wasn’t when I was 6, it was when I was an adult.  I don’t know what I was afraid of, but I had a little time of about a couple of months there where I was sort of, you know, in bed like this, just, you know, checking everything out.  There are people who have this problem.  It may depend upon their background and what they were saved out of...  But, how do you deal practically with fear?

Well, I would suggest this method—and I’m not going to take the time to explain all of it—I would suggest that you take your concordance—and you ought to know what a concordance is; that’s the thing in the back of your Bible, or the separate little book.  And every Christian ought to have a concordance, incidentally.  There are three famous ones: Young, Strong, and Cruden.  We always say, “Young for the young, Strong for the strong, and Cruden's for the crude.”  So, you can pick the one you want.  Myself, I use Cruden's…  But, anyway.  Anyway, you ought to have a concordance.  Sit down with your concordance and find every use of the word “fear” in the Bible and just trace it through and see if you can’t build a little theology against fear.  I think the greatest thing to give you security is to know how the Bible teaches fear and how it deals with it.

But, let me just add this: there are two causes of fear, basically.  One is a guilty conscience.  The other is a lack of trust.  Two things cause fear: sin in your life that you haven’t dealt with (then you feel you have a right to being punished and so you’re afraid it’s going to come) or, secondly, you’re afraid because you don’t think God can handle your situation.  You’re afraid you’re going to die, you’re afraid you’re going to get sick, you’re afraid your kids are going to get hurt, you’re afraid the roof’s going to fall in, you’re afraid the demons are going to get you…  Whatever it is, it comes from two things.  Number one, you have a guilty conscience.  Number two, a lack of faith.

Now, you can deal with both of those.  A guilty conscience: confess your sin and get it all cleaned out.  A lack of faith: get your Bible open and read what God says about himself and learn to trust him.  Okay?  And pray.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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