DELIVERANCE FROM FEAR

Vol. 18, No. 6, Nov. - Dec. 1989


DELIVERANCE FROM FEAR

J. Alec Motyer

"He laid his right hand upon me, saying, Fear not;
I am the first and the last, and the Living one;
and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore,
and I have the keys of death and of Hades." Revelation 1:17-18

THE first words which Jesus spoke after His resurrection were directed to bewildered women who were moving away from the tomb. Mary Magdalene had already gone running to fetch Peter and John, so she missed this little interview. Other groups of women seem to have scattered. But there was one group whom He met, and to them His first word was "Rejoice!" In the older versions this is properly translated, "All hail!" and in the newer ones, "Greetings!" but when we take the word to its literal sense it means "Rejoice!"

Mary Magdalene duly fetched Peter and John but, soon after they had gone back home, she remained by the tomb weeping, so preoccupied with bereavement that she did not even recognise the risen Lord when He asked her why she was weeping, but she knew Him when He called her by name. So the risen Lord takes away sorrow and tears.

There was a couple on their way to Emmaus late that afternoon. Their faces were downcast and no doubt their steps were slow, for sadness makes the feet drag. It was then that the Stranger came and matched His steps to their slow steps. By the time He left them their hearts were burning within them. The risen Lord comes and walks with us when the going is hard and transforms everything, making our steps swift and glad.

There was an evening gathering that same day. The doors were locked, for we imagine that they said to themselves, "If they were able to do that to Jesus with impunity, what will they do to us?" The lovely inverted English of the older versions records, "Then came Jesus". He said, "Peace be unto you". And in case they hadn't heard it the first time, He again said, "Peace be unto you!" The resurrection brings us joy, comfort, companionship and peace.

His Majesty

Here in Revelation we have words spoken by the Lord Jesus with all the majesty of His resurrection. He said, "Do not be afraid". The resurrection of Jesus is not a problem, it is a fact; and out of that fact springs a great reassurance -- fear is banished.

Look at His feet! They are like bronze as though glowing in a furnace. He is the Jesus who knows what it is to walk through the fiery furnace of life sufferings, and so it follows that He knows how to sympathise with us when we have to walk that way.

Listen to His voice! "His voice was like the sound of many waters". If you have ever been to Niagara you have been able to sense the immense and frightening power of that water. But as you walk farther away and listen to that sound, it is deep and compelling.

Look at His [108/109] face! It shines like the sun. Look at His hair; it portrays the spotless white of total purity. Look at His eyes; they are like a flame of fire. In one sense there is much to make us timorous and fearful. The unreconciled sinner may well feel dread at the prospect of meeting such a One. But to us the resurrection word is "Fear not!" When He speaks to His Church as represented by the golden lampstands, He asks us what we have to be afraid of. He gives perfect deliverance from all fear.

1. There is a sovereignty that takes away fear.

He gives us reasons why we are not to fear. He says, "I am the first and the last," which is another way of saying that He is the alpha and the omega. He is the "A" who begins things and He is the "Z" who brings things to their conclusion. When we think of all the letters which lie between the "A" of life's experiences and the "Z", of all the intermediate steps of life's pathway, we might well fear if we did not hear Him say that He is there and He is the Living one. He is not a passive spectator of what happens on earth; He is the first, initiating everything, the last bringing everything to its conclusion, and He is present at every intermediate stage. The sovereignty of the risen Lord rules over every experience of life and so takes away all our fear.

The alphabet has some awkward letters in it. If you don't believe me, try playing Scrabble. If you have a "Q" without a "U", it means that you end up with minus 10, and there is nothing you can do about it. If you have a "J" with no spare "O" to put beside it, you are in trouble. And as we move from "A" to "Z" in life's pathway, there are some stumbling places to face. There are things that stumble us in our minds; things that stumble us in our circumstances: things that stumble us in our families. There are some awkward corners in life. The One who is first and last assures us that He will be with us to put us through those experiences of "Q" and "J" and every other of life's problems.




2. There is a death which takes away all fear.


John confesses that when he saw the risen Lord he "fell at his feet as one dead". We can understand this, for the glory of Christ must be overwhelming. It was at that moment that he heard the Lord saying to him "Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last and the Living one. I was dead ..." It was as if the Lord told him that he had no need to die. Christ had been the one who did the dying. You cannot die, John, because it was I who died for you.


I dare say that, with me, you have wondered a little bit at Charles Wesley's temerity in asserting in his hymn: "No condemnation now I dread. Jesus and all in Him is mine. Alive in Him my living Head and clothed in righteousness divine. Bold I approach the eternal throne ..." Can that be possible? Well done, Charles! I hope that it was like that for you. It was not just poetic licence but the sober truth.

For most of us there is an inner tremor; a trembling at the thought of standing before the throne of God. But even if on that day, we were to fall on our face in fear, why the same would happen to us as it did to the apostle -- we would feel a hand on our shoulder and hear a voice in our ear saying, "You are in no danger of death. I am the one who died and when we looked we would see in His hands the marks of the nails.

Beloved, will you look at the hands of the Saviour; look at His hands and His side; and then explain the meaning of those wounds. There is only one explanation; it is that "In my place condemned He stood!" That was it. The death of Jesus takes away our fear before God, because the Son of God has died in our place; borne our punishment: discharged our debt; made peace with God through the blood of His cross. There should be no fear for us since His perfect love takes away all fear.

3. There is a life which takes away all fear.

Our Scripture continues: "I was dead and behold, I am alive forever and ever". I love that word, "Behold!" No doubt John was standing before the risen Lord and taking in every aspect of His glory, when he heard the Lord say, "Yes, I was dead. I experienced what it is like to be dead, but behold ..." And His hands go out as He indicates the majesty, the vibrancy and vitality of His risen person. "Look", He says, "I am alive now and for ever."

What does the resurrection mean to us? We look hack at the great fact. We rejoice in an empty tomb. But what does that past fact mean to us today? What does the resurrection actually [109/110] mean to us now? If we ask Mary Magdalene what it meant to her that the Lord was alive from the dead, she would reply that when she was bereaved, she had Someone to come and dry her tears. And so have we. If we ask the disciples in the upper room what it meant to them to have a risen Lord, they will reply that it means that when we were afraid, we had Someone to come and minister peace to us. And so have we. If we ask the walkers to Emmaus what it meant to them that they now had a risen Lord, they would say that it meant that when their steps were dragging with life's sadness, they had Someone who came and walked with them. And so have we. "I will never leave you" He has said. "I will never forsake you."

4. There is an expectation which takes away all fear.

Having said "Behold" and called attention to Himself, the Lord Jesus drew John's attention to one thing in particular: "I hold the keys of death and of Hades." It is surely a strange person who is not afraid to die. When my wife and I are on our way to our home in Devon, there is a point in the rather weary road when she says to me -- or I say to her -- "Have you got the keys with you?" That is all important. The journey would be wasted if at the end no-one had the keys.

In the Bible the keyholder is the one with complete unanswerable authority. If that one opens a door, no-one can shut it. Death and the life to come are here seen as under the sovereign command of Christ. He holds the keys. "There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin, He only could unlock the gates of heaven and let us in." And He did unlock those gates. There is a welcome for us. This is our great hope. There is no need for the Christian to fear death and the hereafter, for our Lord has the keys.

In the Bible hope is a pure expectation. It involves the certainty of a future event. And it is closely associated with resurrection, Our hope is like an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast and entering into that which is within the veil, where Jesus, our Forerunner, has already entered in on our behalf. That is what He did when He rose from the dead; He pierced heaven's curtain and went back home. He has left the door wide open and no-one can shut it. All who will may enter.

Alas, there are many who will not enter, many who do not want the Lord Jesus. We must make it plain that it is no good holding the Saviour at arms length in this life and expecting Him to clasp them to His bosom in the next. That will not happen. How important, then, to know deliverance from all fear by reason of a personal relationship with the Risen Christ.