When I am afraid,
I put my trust in you.
(Psalm 56:3)
There is a European legend about a peasant who was hailed by an old woman to give her a ride to town in his wagon. On their way, the woman’s appearance struck the peasant with fear. When he asked who she was, she said she was the cholera plague.
Angry, he insisted that she get out. She promised that she would only kill ten people. Then she handed him a dagger and told him that he could kill her with it if she did not keep her promise. Soon after she arrived in town, several hundred died.
Meeting her on the street one day, he drew the dagger to kill her. But she raised her hand and insisted that she had kept her promise, “I killed only ten; fear killed the rest.”[1] Most of us are disabled more by fear than we ever are by real enemies.
Psalm 56:3 urges us to trust in times of fear. When you are afraid, you must find a promise in Scripture to answer your need. The promises of scripture reveal God’s supply for our fears, therefore giving us a reason to trust in God.
They are like a pillow on which to rest your head. I have a book in my library called Classic Sermons on Overcoming Fear. A number of fears are addressed, but as I read them it occurred to me that all could be subsumed under three heads; fear of past guilt, fear of present loss, and fear of future death.
Past Guilt
Some are plagued by a past that is particularly regretful. It may be for you that sins of the past that have wrecked relationships, or harmed your health, or disrupted your present marriage continue to haunt you. You need a pillow upon which to lay your weary soul. You need promises that assure that Christ is a sufficient Savior to deal with all sins no matter how heinous or regretful. You need to hear that Christ was “numbered with transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12).
Christ doesn’t identify with any other group but transgressors, so if you identify yourself as one, then you are in position to receive Christ’s forgiveness. You can know that though your sins be of the deepest die—scarlet sins of adultery or crimson sins of murder—Christ’s blood can make them white as snow or wool (Is. 1). You must hear that if you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness” (1 John. 1:8,9).
Because we are constantly deluded into thinking we can save ourselves, it is easy to trust Christ when we do not feel our sins. We take him as sort of a supplemental policy. It is actually a blessing to feel your sins acutely, because then you have the greatest potential for true faith which clings to Christ alone. Why does this matter in a time when a pandemic threatens our health? Because we are prone to believe that God will use such things as a punishment for our sins. When Jesus and his disciples came across a man who had been blind from birth, his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). Jesus responds by saying that he is not blind as a punishment for sin but so that the works of God might be displayed in him (John 9:3). Declining health and pandemics are the result of sin in the world, but they are not individual punishment for sin. For those who trust in Christ, the punishment for sin has been dealt with on the cross.
Present Loss
For others, the fear of a present loss of some kind is what cripples. You may have lost some financial investment, or gainful employment, or a good friend, or a spouse. In such times you need a pillow too. In emotional trauma, you need a promise like this one: “When you walk through the fire, I will be with you; when you walk through the floods, they shall not sweep over you” (Isaiah 43:2).
For bodily afflictions you need a promise like the one in James 5. God promises to raise up the sick one who prays along with his elders. “Raise up” is an eschatological word with a dual reference. It means that God will often heal in this life but will certainly heal at the resurrection. In times of financial loss, you must hear the words of the Chief Shepherd, “Fear not, little flock, your heavenly Father knows you need these things” (Luke 12).
Future Death
Others of you are afraid to die. You need to hear again Paul’s mockery of death: “Where, O death, is your victory; Where, O death is your sting.” Christ’s substitution removed the ability of death to drag you into hell. Your next stop is heaven. You need to revisit I Thessalonians 4:13-18, words Paul says are sufficient to comfort, because they assure that death is as painless as sleep. And you must remember that God cares about your experience of death too. He says that the death of one of his saints is “precious in his sight” (Psalm 116:15). When you are afraid, search your Bible for a promise that fits, then put it under your head like a pillow and rest on it.
Prayer
The psalmist’s honest admission of his fear is in the midst of a prayer. In this time of uncertainty, perhaps the best thing we can do is pray. Acknowledge your fears to God and search the scriptures for promises on which to rest your head.
For more opportunities to pray and serve, please visit https://www.2pc.org/covid-19-response/.
[1] Clarence Edward Noble Macartney, “Fear,” in Classic Sermons on Overcoming Fear.