The Fear of Man
Fear is the number one mental health problem in the world. I came across this quote that I thought was really true: “He that fears you present will hate you absent.”
We’re going to talk about the fear of man. In order for a fear object to be legitimate, it has to have two attributes: it must be potent, and it must be imminent. All you have to do is take away one of those attributes, and it no longer functions as a legitimate fear object. So why do we no longer fear death? Death will still sting; it is still imminent. However, it is no longer potent because to live is Christ and to die is gain. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will leave even though he dies” (John 11:25). In other words, you will continue to live spiritually even if you die physically. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord—so we don’t fear that! The person who is free from the fear of death is free to live today.
I think we’ve all had some experiences in life where bullies intimidated us; sometimes it could even be your parents or your brother or sister that terrorized your life. Unfortunately, we hear in the news all too often where people who were bullied overreact later in life by pulling out a gun and shooting some people because of the horrible rejection and bullying that they had to endure. One thing that is really clear in Scripture, however, is that we are not to fear man. Jesus said, “What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:27–28).
Jesus is our model for everything. He lived in the real world. The kind of things that we fear in man, He experienced routinely—rejection, criticism, destroying His self-esteem, even to the point of taking His life. But not once did our Lord ever reveal that He was controlled by the fear of man.
He is the example that we follow in His steps, but we have to think this thing through a little bit because the fear of man has a legitimate fear object; there are people out there who can do us harm. So how do we respond to that? Proverbs 29:25 says, “The fear of man brings a snare, but he who trust in the Lord will be revealed.” By the time we finish this series on fear, I want you to understand why the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom—how it is the one fear that can expel all other fears. To overcome this requires a courage of conviction within every believer. You are going to end up compromising your faith if all you have is preferences in your life rather than deep conviction. Someone who did have deep convictions was Saul, the first king of Israel. He was commanded by God to go and totally annihilate his enemy, but he took some of the spoils and brought them back—which was against the commandment of God. And when he was confronted by Samuel, he said, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice” (1 Samuel 15:24).
Suppose you have an intimidating boss—I mean he or she really scares you—but as you are reading this right now, you’re not afraid of him. Why not? Easy: he’s not there. But you show up for work Monday morning, and when he comes in, you can feel the tension. You always feel the unease of fear, intimidation, or the potential power he/she has to fire you. Suppose you are a person of conviction, and the phone rings for your boss. You answer it, and the boss tells you to say the he is not there; he want you to lie for him. So what do you do in a case like that? Do you do what he tells you to do by compromising who are and lying for him? I suggest that the right thing to do is to say, “Sir, I want to be the best employee I can be. I want to honor you and support you in terms of what you are trying to accomplish at our company, but I can’t lie for you.” Now—what can happen; what power does he have over you? Nobody has any power over you except for that which you give them. I suppose he could fire you—and for this example, let’s say that he did in this situation. You have to trust God that He has something better for you than the position at the job you were just asked to leave. I’m not suggesting for you to not be submissive; we are to work heartily toward the Lord in everything that we do for it is Jesus Christ that we serve. One of the best things to do is to do what Daniel did when you are confronted by that kind of an alternative: give a creative answer back to your boss. Now Daniel was in the king’s court in a favored position, and he was instructed to eat the king’s food and drink the king’s wine. But this violated Daniel’s conviction, so he told his supervisor—whom he had the favor of—and said “I can’t do that. Why don’t you feed us vegetables and water for 10 days? Let the other servants have the king’s food. And after 10 days, we’ll see how things go.” The supervisor thought that was a very good answer, and he tried it out. And by!—10 days later, Daniel looked better than the other group who had been eating the king’s food, and everyone was satisfied. The moral of the story is to refrain from saying, “I’m just not going to do it” if you can find that creative alternative that can save faith for both of you, look for that.
Sometimes an alternative cannot be found though, and our faith is really put to the test. Peter was professing Christ everywhere and put in jail for it. Finally they released him, and he was commanded by the guards not to profess Christ, but Peter told them, “I must obey God rather than man” (Acts 5:29). This is a tough thing for us—to be a faithful witness in this fallen world. I’m not minimizing this; I know what the risks are—the feelings of rejection, the fear that wells up the moment we want to share our faith. But one of the traps that we find ourselves in that we need to get out of is the bondage of being a people pleaser.
Listen to what Paul says, “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10). One of the great keys of ministry is to stop playing for the grand stand and start playing for the coach. We should make it our ambition to please the Lord.
One of the challenges that I faced personally was when I was an engineer and wanted so badly to be a positive witness for Christ. One of the things that I have learned over the years is just the comfort of God’s presence. When I am faced with other fear objects, it is easy to forget that the ultimate fear object is God himself because He is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. But that’s why we worship God. God doesn’t need Neil Anderson to tell Him who He is. When I worship God, it brings to my own mind the awareness that God is always present. He is always there; He is always with us—the omnipresence of God.
Being driven by the fear of man and living by faith in God cannot be operative in our lives at the same time. Fear of anything other than God is mutually exclusive to faith in God. It takes courage, folks. Joshua was told to be strong and courageous four time in Joshua 1 as he was commanded to go into the promised land. It is the mark of a spirit-filled life to be courageous—courageous enough to share our faith. Why is it that when it comes to sharing our faith, we are almost immediately paralyzed by fear? I’ve been there, and the only way to overcome it is just to get out there and do it. But that fear is not coming from God; God has not given you a spirit of fear but of power, love, and sound mind. Phobias have a way of draining our confidence and making people feel week and paralyzed by fear.
Think about this for a moment: the love of mankind and the fear of mankind are mutually exclusive. What does love do? Love is self-giving. Fear is self-protecting. Love moves toward others. Fear causes us to shrink from others. This is what Peter has to say: “But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:14–15). So we don’t overreact; we stay in the spirit of God.
As long as you perceive that someone or something has power to destroy anything we value, we will likely end up in bondage to that person or object. That fear will paralyze you to a life of compromise and withdrawal. I look back at my life going from seminary into doing ministry around the world, being thankful that I had the opportunity to overcome the obstacle of fear to share my faith because that fear doesn’t disappear by itself. We have to take those golden opportunities to make the best of it. Paul never shrieked away from the opposition. Consider what he wrote in 2 Corinthians 11:23-26, “Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers.” Such courage is rare, but it is the mark of a spirit-filled Christian.
If you’re sense of worth is dependent on the approval and acceptance of others, you will likely end up being in subjection to them. As long as we believe that someone else has something that we need, we will fear the possibility of that being withheld from us. And that fear can control us all of our life.
If you are being harassed or abused in the workplace, you need to make an appeal. We hear so much about whistle-blowers today, but you will never help an abuser by allowing them to continue their abuse. I am fully aware of the risk that someone takes to put a stop to the abuse in their homes and workplaces. There will probably be retribution, but this world needs more people that say, “Enough is enough.” Abusers have been abused, and if we don’t stop that abuse, it’s just going to continue on. Why does so much abuse go unreported? They fear retribution by powerful people. It doesn’t compare to protect reputation and ignore the victim—that is a tragedy of life, and it is not in the mind of God. I don’t say that vindictively; I say it because you will never help the abuser by allowing them to continue what they are doing.
Faith in God does not include the fear of man.
Neil T. Anderson is the founder of Freedom in Christ Ministries. He began the ministry in 1989 and continues to spread the message of freedom to this day.