One of the biggest antichrists in our day is about fear. It’s a sort of spirit involviong a set of machinations that bring about and use fear as a tool.
Fear of death, fear of government, fear of mandates, fear of vaccines, fear of anti-vaxers, fear of no income, fear of loss of wealth, fear of what other people will think, fear of growing old, fear of war spilling over, fear of the future, fear of being rejected, fear for your health, fear for loved ones, fear of the culture, fear of missing out, fear of elections, fear of terrorism, fear of abduction, fear of abuse, fear of being exposed, fear of being canceled, fear of peers, fear of making a wrong decision, fear of too much success, fear of failure, fear of loss, fear of global warming, fear of losing power, fear of queers, fear of bad influencers, fear of losing your church, fear of losing your sight, fear of losing your hearing, fear of losing your mind, fear of the unknown, fear of the decline of culture, fear of bad monetary policy, fear of guns, fear of white nationalists, fear of Marxists, fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. It’s the air we breathe today. Everything is about fear. It’s what’s for breakfast.
Fear paralyzes us and makes us do crazy things. I can tell you this that even those with all the power and money, they fear the most. Justin Trudeau is a man acting out of fear. He is imposing tyranny out of abject fear that his worldview narrative is falling apart, and that is what most of these authoritarians in control are doing also. They’re afraid of being exposed as wrong, blamed for something, or their side losing, and so they spread fear and control people like little chess pieces, even ruining lives, because they fear.
I believe that it’s possible that even Putin is doing this act of aggression against Ukraine out of fear. If we pay attention to the things he has said for years, he sees what looks like the West falling apart with postmodernism creating all kinds of crazy behaviors, and he has argued for years that Christendom is the key to the survival of a culture and a nation. There is a big rift right now in the Russian Orthodox church, and Ukraine holds the city that is sort of like their Jerusalem.
I believe that he wants control just like Trudeau does, and Kiev, where the Russian Orthodox church was founded. It was founded in 988 after Vladimer of the Rus having been converted to Christianity through a marriage to the Christian Emperor Basil II’s sister had everyone in the city gather at the river Dnieper for a mass baptism.
In 2019 the Ukrainian part of the Russian Orthodox church declared independence from the rest, and the Russian Orthodox church based in Russia rejected this independence, and declared it was still part of the churches “canonical territory”. So, if Putin will have a legacy of restoring Christendom in our day against the rise of the Godless post-modernism in the rest of the West, he must unite the church and its holy seat must be seen as Moscow.
This is I think, one of the biggest motives of this war. He made a flimsy argument to the corruption and neo-Nazification of the governing authorities in Ukraine (which both Ukraine and Russia are regarded as the 2 most corrupt nations in Europe). But this sounds in some ways like some of the justifications of a just war that America has used in recent years, only he didn’t have a Western media pumping up the stories of suffering and abuse of those he now claims to be defending by taking out the bad people.
When it comes to being motivated by fear though, the defiant President of Ukraine is possible one of the bravest men in the world today. He gave a speech recently, in a t-shirt saying that he knows he and his family are target number one, and that he is ready to talk with Putin or he is ready to fight, and to die. There is a man who, though he might be afraid, (and who wouldn’t be?), he is fighting his fear, and doing his duty, and he will die for his country as many people who are fighting for it will die.
How are we Christians willing to die to self and live to Christ today?
It has been said that the most repeated teaching in the bible, in various forms is “do not fear”, or “do not be afraid”. Over and over again, we’re told not to let things control us, and that “the love of Christ controls us”. That we fix our eyes on the things above, where Christ is, where our eternal life and inheritance is and this gives us context in the now. That we are pilgrims here, that we have eternal life, and so we are shown again and again in the New Testament that this is the narrative of the Christian life and Christian worldview.
However, in our day there is a desire in the church for Influence, and numbers, and there is this fear that we might lose influence and not get numbers. So, this has changed the narrative, and now we see a lot of people operating out of fear. Fear of a small church, fear of being rejected by the culture, fear of being rejected by our chosen side. Fear of calling out someone for bad theology that one of our peers liked, fear of losing friends, and influence. This is not good. This is not right. This is not “fear of the Lord”, but this is “fear of man”.
The battle today is not so much with others, but it’s between our own ears. In our own minds. Fighting to not fear, but to trust the Lord, to move forward with a clear conscience, and be faithful to what the Lord says is true. Like the brave Ukrainian president, we Christians should be willing to stand with no pomp, or favor, or with the world not on our side at all, and say what’s true.
The offensive message of what God has said is true in His Word without compromise, and without fear. That God is holy and is coming to judge and condemn to hell all mankind who are not dressed in holy and perfect righteousness, and of faith in Christ alone as the only way to be redeemed, restored, and to have eternal life and a place in heaven with God. The bad news and the good news are the witness we have to a dying and condemned world. Christian, don’t fear man, or your temporary circumstances.
Luke 12: 22 And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! 25 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 26 If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? 27 Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! 29 And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. 30 For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31 Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.
32 “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.