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Welcome to the Daily Blade. The Word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

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Welcome to day three of week two of the 23rd Psalm. We're going to start from the beginning again. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want he makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake, and even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death again. Yesterday we covered this, in fact, fellas, if you know somebody walking through the valley of the shadow of death, this is part of what's great about the Daily Blade. Maybe you should send them yesterday and maybe even today's content.

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He says I will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You see, fear is a very, very dangerous thing. You see, fear is a tool in the hands of the enemy. I don't know if you realize this, that there are some people that are wired just differently. Okay, I'm not a super fearful guy. If you know anything about Kyle, he's not a super fearful guy. Some people are more prone to worry and other people are not.

Speaker 2: 1:16

Okay, but according to the Bible, fear is not a feeling, fear is a spirit that does not come from God. Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 1, these words he says God has not given you a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-discipline. And so if there is fear in you, then that does not come from God. Now let me distinguish. There's a difference between being afraid or being full of fear and just being scared. Scared is a feeling. Scared is a physiological reality that God has given us so that we know that we can either fight or flight. If the bear comes, it's okay to be scared, so you run away. If there's lightning outside and you're scared, so you can go get in the house. Scared is a feeling, and when you feel scared, then what you do is, by faith, you cowboy up and you take a step forward, and that's called courage. And we need some more men of courage in the church, no problem. But fear is something different. Fear is when we are so gripped by our circumstances that it paralyzes us. David doesn't say I will fear no evil, because there's not evil to fear. There's all kinds of people out there that want to kill him, but he refuses to be paralyzed by his circumstances and instead, by faith, he's going to move forward. I don't know if you've ever thought about this. But the opposite of faith is not doubt. That's right. The opposite of faith, no problem.

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If you've got unanswered questions, great. If you've got things about the Bible and about theology and about the reality of God and suffering, or God and lost people or whatever it is. If you've got unanswered questions and doubts, great. You could make a great disciple. And you say, pastor, where do you get that? I get it from the New Testament.

Speaker 2: 3:02

Have you read the Gospels Matthew, mark, luke and John? They had all kinds of doubts, they had all kinds of unanswered questions, and Jesus chose these ordinary, uneducated men to turn the world upside down. What do you do? You just pick up your doubts. You pick up your unanswered questions and you follow after Jesus and one day all of your doubts will go away. One day you will be in heaven and you don't even need faith anymore. You will have proof. You just open your eyes and there he is, sitting on the throne.

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So the opposite of fear is not doubt. The opposite of fear, excuse me, the opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is fear, because faith produces action and fear paralyzes. And the reason that King David will fear no evil is not because he's good enough and strong enough, not because he's powerful enough, not because he says I got this, one of the most dangerous things you can say as a grown man. The reason that he has no fear of evil is because God is with him, and where there is light, no darkness shall prevail. Where the truth stands up, the lie has to leave. Where the presence of God is, the presence of evil cannot be that. Perfect love casts out fear.

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Listen, when my little girl was that, when she was a little girl and I would tuck her in and sometimes she would be afraid of the dark, she'd be like daddy, I'm scared, I go, baby, why are you scared? And she would say cause there's monsters under my bed. And the last thing I did is tell her that there weren't monsters. That's a terrible thing to tell your kids Cause there are monsters in this world. And so I would get her down with a flashlight and she and I together would look and say see, baby, there are. Like look and say see, baby, where this light goes, they've got to flee.

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But know this, know this I am here with you, and when I am with you, you have nothing to be afraid of. And so, even though King David was walking through the valley of the shadow of death. The reason that he would fear no evil is because the almighty, sovereign king of the universe was with him. And the reason you and I don't have to fear is we have one up on King David. If you were a follower of Jesus Christ, the moment you put your faith in Jesus Christ, the spirit of God is not merely with you, he is in you. So what have you been afraid of? What do you need to take courage in and, by faith, step forward where previously you have been paralyzed by fear. Go and do walk through that valley, knowing that God is with you.

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Amen. Thank you for listening to today's episode Before you go. If you want to help equip other men for the fight, share this podcast around and leave us a five-star rating and review. Stay sharp.