I Was Afraid Gen 3 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

When Adam sinned, he hid himself from the voice of God and said, I was afraid.  From that day till this, men often hide themselves from God because they are afraid.

When you are afraid your mind and body react.  When I had an MRI my mind imagined such danger that I panicked and could think of nothing else but, “Get me out of here now or I will die” – and my body reacted instantly: I could hardly breathe, my adrenaline surged, my pulse skyrocketed, I had tunnel vision, my body was in a knot, I wanted to scream, and I felt like I was going to be suffocated.  There was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING wrong in there but the fear was so great and instantaneous that there was no way that I could stay in there.  I buzzed the technician and got out immediately.

Do you understand that fear like that is not a good thing.  I needed the MRI for the doctor to be able to determine how to operate on my shoulder.  There was nothing that was going to hurt me and I was not in danger in any way.  However, I could not have been more afraid if I had just walked into an ambush in a dark alley to be kidnapped and thrown into the trunk of a car.

That kind of fear will hurt you.  Here are some things that you will do when you are afraid:

You will hide from God – Gen 3:10 – Adam hid from the voice of the Lord – yet the Lord is the only one who could help him and he is the only one who can help you.

You will lie to God – Gen 18:15 – Sarah laughed at the thought of bearing Isaac – yet when the Lord caught her she denied it and lied – you are never going straighten out the problems in your life until you can be absolutely honest with God [and yourself].

You will go to great lengths to prepare for danger that never comes – Gen 32:7 – Jacob was told by the Lord to return to the land of his fathers and the Lord promised to be with him Gen 31:3 – Jacob made elaborate preparations for the coming of Esau and prepared for the worse – absolutely nothing happened – and I suppose he ended up paying the Lord’s tithe to Esau [see Gen 28:22, 33:10-11] – many are scared to death that they are unprepared for coming danger.

You will believe that every evil circumstance is directly related to your sin – Gen 42:28 – Joseph’s brothers did try to get rid of Joseph – however, the event in Gen 42:28 occurred 13-14 years after the boys had ditched Joseph [Gen 32:2, 41:46] – they were still spooked about it – the money was returned because Joseph put it in there – their fear caused them to believe that God was getting back at them – in fact, God was preparing to take care of them in Egypt [the exact opposite of what they thought, Gen 50:20] – fear will cause you to miss many of the blessings of God because you will imagine he is still trying to punish you!!

You will doubt God’s protection and promises [fear obscures faith] – Ex 14:10, Deut 1:29 – the Jews were scared to death that Pharaoh was going to kill them by the Red Sea and they were scared to death of the giants in the Promised Land – God did not bring them out of Egypt to kill them and they knew it – but they feared to believe him – how many Christians live in fear rather than in faith!!

Conclusion: The way to solve this problem is simple and it is two fold – First, Prov 3:5-6 – you must trust the Lord and LEAN NOT unto thine own understanding – you do not understand; you must trust – Second, Prov 14:26 – you must fear the Lord – in his fear is STRONG CONFIDENCE – in other words, if you fear him fully, there is no room to fear anyone or anything else – next time you feel fear remember that you are at that moment not fearing God – then trust God and fear the Lord.  By the way, after coming out of the MRI machine, I prayed to the Lord for courage and trusted Him to give it to me – I went back into the “tube” and made it through the MRI with no problem; the fear was gone!!