God Has Not Given Us A Spirit of Fear - Part 2

Now, last week I spoke to you a message called, God has not given us a spirit of fear, part one. So tonight is part two, God's not given us a spirit of fear, part two. Last week I shared with you how after coming to Christ as a police officer, the Lord delivered me from nine years of panic attacks, nine years of a deep inset fear in my life that I could not get free from. But by the mercy and the power of God, reading the word of God, going into prayer, the Lord touched me. Just as we heard Leslie speak tonight, she talked about that warmth that came over her, the same thing happened to me. And in about 30 seconds I was set free from nine years of hell on this earth, nine years of having to take Valium tranquilizers to go to class in college, nine years of if the attention of people focused on me, I would only have two options, pass out or run out of the room. Nine years of being in a prison that I couldn't get out of, by the mercy and by the grace of God, he touched my life and set me free. But there's a second part, the first part is the freedom, but tonight I want to talk about the second part of being set free from fear. If you'll go with me to Psalm 40 in the Old Testament, Psalm 40, and I'd like to pray again. Father, I want to give you thanks tonight, Lord Jesus Christ. I want to thank you not just with my words, but with my whole life. With my whole heart, God, with my whole being, I want to say thank you for giving me life. Thank you for giving me a reason to live. Thank you for changing me from the man that I was and turning me into the man that you had intended for me to be. I thank you, Lord, that you have given me abilities to do things I could never have done in my own strength and to go places I never could have gone. You have opened prison doors that I might be free, and you've opened other doors that I might go into something that only you can do through a surrendered life. God, it has been a marvelous journey, an awesome journey. And if I could leave one statement with those that are coming after me, it would be simply follow me as I've followed Christ. So Father, I thank you tonight. God, put an anointing on your word for people here in the sanctuary and for those that are listening around the world. Put an anointing on this word tonight and bring us into the place, God, where fear no longer dominates our lives. In Jesus' name, amen. Let me start in Psalm 40, started at verse 1, the Psalm of King David. He says, I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined to me and heard my cry. And he also brought me up out of a horrible pit. I know what that is, out of the miry clay, out of a, remember I shared with you last week that when you have a panic attack, it's like somebody's pouring a bucket of sand on your head. If you feel like your heart's going to explode out of your chest, there's this foreboding sense of darkness comes over you. You know it's irrational, but you have no control over it. And you feel like you're sinking, never to rise again. That's what my life was for nine years. And these things could come without a moment's notice, generally in moments of quietness, which is why a lot of times that people suffer with this, keep themselves active all the time. He took me out of a horrible pit, out of this miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock and established my steps. And he's put a new song in my mouth, praise to our God, and many will see it and fear and trust in the Lord. Blessed is that man who makes the Lord his trust and does not respect the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies. Many, O Lord my God, are your wonderful works which you have done, and your thoughts towards us cannot be recounted to you in order. If I would declare and speak of them, there more than can be numbered. Now David is speaking an amazing truth. He says, God, you are thinking things about me that I've never thought about myself. You have a plan for me that hasn't occurred to me. It's not entered into my consciousness yet. You want to do things through my life that are too wonderful, in a sense, for me to even entertain in my own ability to think. Sacrifice and offering. In other words, David's saying, after you took me out of this horrible place and after you put this new song in my heart, and I began to understand that you are thinking things about my life that I've never thought for myself. For all the students here in our Bible school and those that are visiting from the community, that is a reality. God is thinking something about you tonight that you've not yet thought about for yourself. He has a plan for your life. He has something that he has ordained your life to do, and you don't yet know what it is. But the hope that I have for you tonight is that you'll have this courage in your heart that says, God, whatever it is, I want that that you have for my life. I don't want to determine what my life is going to be from this. I thank you for setting me free from the past. I thank you for giving me a new song. I thank you for giving me an understanding that you have a plan for my life. But oh God, just as you did to the Church of Philadelphia, I have a little strength and I've not denied your name and I've kept your word. And you told Philadelphia, you said, behold, I set before you an open door that no man can close. And so God, I'm asking you tonight to set an open door before me. All of us in this room, we need the supernatural power of God again in every life. We need a testimony of the greatness of our God. We need, as we heard from our brother Serge tonight, he says, those who know their God in this, perhaps in our day that Daniel was speaking about, will be strong and they will do exploits, exploits being things that only God can do through us. We haven't even thought of doing them. Only God can do these things. David said, sacrifice an offering you did not desire. My ears you have opened, burnt offering and sin offering you do not require. Then I said, behold, I come. In the scroll of the book, it is written of me. I delight to do your will. Oh, my God. And your law is within my heart. So David said, what do you want me to do? Just come to church in a sense and just sing this new song the rest of my life. That's good. Should do that. What am I to do? Am I to spend the rest of my life talking about what you did in the past? And that's good. And we need to do that for the sake of others who need to know what God can do. But David says, no, there's something in the book written about me. This is what he's saying. And here's what it says. I delight to do your will. Oh, my God, your law is within my heart. In other words, David is saying, God, there's something in the future for me. And would you give me a delight to do what you've asked me to do? Would you give me a delight to go where you've asked me to go? Paul says in Philippians chapter four, verse 13, he says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Aren't you thankful tonight? It doesn't say some things, most things through Christ who strengthens me. I can do all things. In other words, if God's called me to do it, it can be done. Whatever it is, he's God. He's God. So if he's called me to do something, it's going to be done because he's God. Settle it in your heart. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Now, Paul is speaking in the context of abounding and suffering need and such like, but it has a greater context because it is the truth of the word of God that whatever Christ has asked me to do, whatever mountain I have to climb or valley I've got to go through, whatever it is, I can do it because of Christ who strengthens me. Think about the children of Israel in Exodus chapter 15. They were in bondage 400 years. I was only nine years in bondage. They were 400 years in bondage. You talk about a generational hopelessness. They couldn't get out. And then they cried unto the Lord. The Lord heard their cry and he sent a marvelous deliverance to the children of Israel and by his hand and by his hand alone, he brought them out of captivity. How many can say that here tonight? It's by the hand of God that I am what I am, that I'm not doing what I used to do. It's by the hand of God that the cords that were holding me were broken and I was brought out of captivity and into this new life that I have now in Christ. And as they passed through the sea, there was a sea of impossibility before them. God opened the waters, they passed through, and their enemies that were pursuing them were drowned in the same sea that they had just walked through on dry land. The water came in and swallowed their enemies and as they looked back and they saw the Egyptians and their horses and their chariots and their armies all dead literally on the shore side, that's what it says, they took out the tambourines that they had and they began to sing. And you read about it in Exodus 15, it's an amazing song that they began to sing. The horse and the riders are thrown into the sea, et cetera, et cetera, speaking about the marvelous works of God and they sang this incredible song of victory. Remember David said, God brought me out, heard my cry, and he set my feet in a solid place, established my goings, and put a new song in my mouth. But the song of Exodus 15 soon turned into the weeping of Numbers chapter 14. Isn't it amazing? We forget sometimes who God is. He brought them out of this captivity from which they couldn't escape, they didn't have the strength or the power to come out, so God brought them out and then he brought them to the shore, out of captivity, and then to the shore of a place of promise, or the border, may I say that, of the place of promise, this new life. Remember David said, it's written about me, I delight to do your will, and he said, this is my will for you, my people, I want to bring you into this place, yes this place that I'm bringing you into is occupied by some enemies at this time, of your enemies, but I'm going to give you the power to overcome them. Now they should have thought, they should have realized that we have just seen our enemies drowned on the seashore, but they sent in 12 spies and 10 of them came back and they said, I'm sorry, we just can't do this, we're too small, they're too big, we don't have weapons, they've got 10 foot spears, whatever it is that they had, and the hearts of the people were not singing anymore, but they turned to weeping, and you know sometimes that happens to us as the people of God, we come out of the sentence of death because of sin, we come into life in Christ, we start singing the new songs in church, and then what happens is that our song of joys at some point turns to weeping, because God begins to put before us something, and we come to the wrong conclusion. I talked last week, I used the illustration of a football team putting on all their armor that they put on, the helmet, and the pads, and the jersey, and all of the stuff that they put on, and they come running as a roo-rah down the corridor, the tunnel, we call it the tunnel, Mark Gassner called me one time and said, it's not a corridor, it's a tunnel, it's not a sweater, it's a jersey, and I forget there was a third thing involved in that as well, so they come down the tunnel, and the first thing they have to go through is a paper wall before you get into the game, you've seen that in football games, they got to bust through this paper wall that a couple of people with banners are holding up, and I shared last week about how the devil writes all kinds of stuff on your paper wall, words maybe that were spoken over your life years ago, about you're always going to be a drunk, your dad was a drunk, you'll be a drunk, you'll never amount to anything, you're stupid, you're not going to achieve, just things that were spoken over your life, the devil will even draw fake bricks on the wall to make it look stronger than it is, but it's only a paper wall, and could you see how ludicrous it would be for a football team to go through all this preparation, you know they've come out of high school, may I put it that way, they've come out of the struggling and fighting to get recruited, now they're in the NFL, and they put on their equipment, they run down the tunnel, and they stop at the paper wall, and they say well we better go back and go to another spiritual warfare conference, or another conference on how to put on your armor, and they don't go through what's only a paper wall, you see if God's called you to do something, there should be a delight in your heart to say nothing is going to separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus, nothing is going to stop me from doing what God has called me to do, and this is my story, I shared part one last week about coming out of bondage, and tonight I want to share about going into the place of promise, Jesus said in Mark chapter 9 verse 23, if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes, I remember, I didn't grow up with a lot of positivity, and I just remember the first time I heard this, sitting in church, with God all things are possible, if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes, truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be removed and cast into the sea, and doesn't doubt in his heart, but believes those things that he says will come to pass, he will have whatever he says, and I'm starting to listen to this stuff, and I'm sitting there thinking, could this be true, is it possible, if you can believe all things are possible to him who believes, I was a police officer at the time, now I'm just free, I'm experiencing this brand new freedom from fear, I'm not running out of classrooms anymore, and God has given me this new song, he's given me this new heart, I am at this point leading a lot of other police officers to Christ, and a lot of people, because my heart is just filled with joy and with gladness, then a circumstance arose in the city in which I was in, where they needed somebody quickly in a public relations capacity to do radio, television, to speak to civic groups, and they chose me, of all people, they chose me, I remember being brought into a supervisor's office, and he said, we need somebody to speak to the public, we need somebody to be on radio, on television, to go out to civic groups, to do all this stuff, and then he asks me a question, I'm standing in the office, he says, are you afraid of speaking in front of people? Now he's talking to a guy that would run out of a classroom, to somebody who's suffered panic attacks, to somebody who was uncomfortable in a crowded room, and he says to me, are you, now, are you afraid of speaking in front of people, and I looked at him, I said, no, and I'm wondering, like there's this voice, and I said, what in heaven's name are you talking about? You know you can't speak publicly, you know that you don't have the power to do this, but I had been sitting in church, and I had been hearing the word of God, that if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes, now on my part, it was part faith and part lunacy, I wish it was completely faith, but it wasn't, because there was this voice inside saying, what are you doing? You know you can't do this, I couldn't put two words together if you printed them on a paper and held them up here, I wouldn't be able to do it, I would be completely paralyzed, and here I am, selected by the police department to be a public relations speaker, at a time when it was needed, he says, good, to me, he says, we're going to send you to a college, police college, and they're going to train you how to speak publicly, now I didn't know that God's preparing me for the ministry, I remember leaving there saying, heaven's name, what have I done, I'm going to be exposed as a fraud, but yet there's a promise of God, and if God, if you're doing this, and I want to go through this door, but oh God, I can't do this without you, so I remember I went to police college, and I got into this class, and it got even worse, the first day in the class, everybody in this class is a seasoned speaker, they're all of high ranking people in police departments right across the country, they do this for a living, they're just there to hone up their skills, you know, so they don't play with their change in their pocket and stuff while they're speaking, they don't use word whiskers, they learn intonation, stuff like that, so they're all there to polish, I have never spoken anywhere, ever, at any time, to anybody, and I'm standing here, and thinking, oh God, so they're there to polish, and part of the course is you had to do a one minute, a three minute, a five minute, a ten minute, and a fifteen minute, and a thirty minute presentation, and the thirty minute presentation was your pass or fail exam at the end of this course, you could fail this course, and so they would give us a course during the day on technique and all this stuff, and we were learning how to use illustrations, examples, and word whiskers, and all the rest of it, and then you had to do your one minute, so one minute for these guys was nothing, they'd just get up and they'd just, you know, talk about something for one minute, for me, at night, so they'd all be playing shuffleboard down in the lounge, or doing their thing, or whatever they did, and I'd be on my face, and I still remember the carpet to this day, it was a kind of pinky brown carpet, and I would be down on my face, face down, every night, oh God, I can't do this without you, you know I can't do this, oh Jesus, help me Jesus, that was my prayer, that's the prayer God's always answered, by the way, in my life, help me Jesus, oh Jesus, help me, God, you know I can't do this, and I remember the first time I got up, my very first, so he would give me a thought, it was the precursor, I guess, to preaching, years later, but he would give me a thought, and I would just stand up with it, and it was always a biblical thought, the very first message I spoke of was the coming collapse of western society, and anyways, that's what I spoke on, based on the biblical truth, and so I, every night, every night, the one minute, the three, the five, the ten, the fifteen, and I was just on my face, oh God, and I would get up, and God would give me a word from the Bible, and I would get up, and I would actually preach, because the anointing would come, I didn't know what else to do, and I would stand, and just suddenly this flood would come, and it surprised me as much as anybody else, and I would be graded on it after, and then finally, at the end of the course, it comes exam time, and it's a thirty minute presentation, and they called me in, the leaders of this course, and they said, Carty, you're a great guy, we really like you, etc., etc., and I said, but this, we are not an evangelistic association, this is a police college, and in order to pass your course, you're going to have to speak on a police related topic, or you won't pass, and I remember, okay, I said, thank you, so I remember thinking, oh God, what am I going to do now? I mean, there's no anointing, talking about emergency, and stuff like that, you know, it's like, God Almighty, what am I going to do? So I went back that night, and I prayed, oh Jesus, you've got to help me, Jesus, you've got to help me, so the next day I got up, and it was my thirty minute presentation, and you're going to be graded by the whole room, they're going to grade you, all the officers there, and the instructors are going to grade you after you're done speaking, so I got up and I said, gentlemen, I said, today I'm going to speak on a police related topic, the Bible, I said, because every time we get into a court of law, back in those days we did, a book is presented to us, and we place our hand on this book, and we say, essentially, I swear to God, that the evidence I'm about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God, and we swear based on what this book says, and our word we're saying is to believe, because we're declaring that we believe this book to be holy, I said, do you not think that maybe it would be a good thing that we know what we're swearing on, and everybody in the room went, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, so I started in Genesis, in the beginning, God went through the whole Bible, and finished in Revelation, He's coming back as King of kings and Lord of lords, and when I was done, when I was done, I said, so that is what you are swearing that you believe, and based on that, your testimony is to believe, thank you, God bless you, and I sat down, and everyone around the room, not one person critiqued my presentation, every officer in the room, I remember one guy says, man, oh man, I've never heard anything like that in my whole life, another guy said, wow, have you ever given me something to think about, I got a phone call in New York City just a few years back, while I was still pastor there, from one of the men who was in that room, 30 years later, he called me, got a hold of me in New York, he said, I never forgot that moment, I never forgot the feeling that he felt in that room, because the word of God was being spoken, it was a police related topic, and the word of God, not only did I pass the course, when it was over, the instructors called me in, and they said, Carter, if we can get your department to give you a two year release, would you be willing to come back and be one of the instructors in this police college? Can you imagine, from laying on the floor, yes, because God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind, thanks be to God, all things are possible to him who believes, to her who believes, you're taken from laying on my face day one, saying I can't do this, to being invited to be an instructor at the end of the course, only God could have done that, God is a miracle working God, and whatever he has called us to do, that's what we're going to do, David said, in the volume of your book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, oh my God, and you and I will never know what it is to be set free from fear until we break through that paper wall, until we go into the battle that's before us, and believe God that everything he's called us to be, we are going to be, and in my life, I am at the place now where I'm 68 and a half, I told you that last time, I told you halves count before 10 and after 65, Joshua chapter 14, Caleb said these words, he said, verses 10 and 12, he said, now behold, the Lord has kept me alive as he said these 45 years, ever since the Lord spoke this word to Moses, while Israel wandered in the wilderness, and now here I am this day, 85 years old, and yet I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me, just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for coming out and for going in, now therefore, give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day, for you heard in that day that the Anakim were there, these are giants, and that the cities were great and fortified, it may be the Lord will be with me, and I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord has said, this is my prayer now, at my age, that God, thank you for the past, thank you for all that you've done, but God, I'm asking you for this mountain now, I'm asking you for these giants that have come into the land, these voices that have been raised against this generation, this captivity that's trying to take our whole generation of young people captive into a godless ideology, God, give me the mountain at this age in my life, I've seen what you can do, I've walked with you through the world, I've been in places that only you could have taken me into, and now at this age, now as Caleb said, now that I'm 85, God, I've waited a long time for this, and I have too, the Lord spoke to me that I would live to see a spiritual awakening when I was just in my 20s, and I feel like Caleb, I've waited a long time for this moment, now God, give me the mountain, I'm not afraid of the giants, I'm not afraid of any personal cost that's ahead of me, by the grace of God, there is something worth fighting for in this generation, you are worth fighting for, our children are worth fighting for, our grandchildren are worth fighting for, we are not going to leave them in the hands of the enemies of God in this generation, we're going to stand and we're going to fight and we're going to win, we're going through our paper wall into the battle and we're going to see Christ do what only he can do, in this generation, by the grace of almighty God, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, God has not given us a spirit of fear, I'm not afraid of the future and I'm not defined by my physical limitations anymore, I am what God says I am and I go where God says I go and what God says will happen will happen, and that settles it, it's not by might, it's not by power, it's by the spirit of almighty God, in the volume of thy book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, oh my God, God give me the mountain, God give me the mountain, that's got to get in everybody's heart and everybody's gut in this generation, give me the mountain, give me that thing that thinks it can't be moved, give me that entrenched position with these giants that say you will never conquer us, you will never take us out of our place where we have established ourselves, give me that mountain, by the grace of almighty God, by the power of almighty God, because God has not given us a spirit of fear, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, I had an old friend of mine, an old Pentecostal friend of mine that said every time I try to retire I get re-fired, hallelujah, the spirit of God starts stirring inside of me again, one of my sons said one time to me, he said you can't retire, you finally know something dad, you can't retire now, you finally know something, hallelujah, praise be to God, praise be to God, praise be to God, this is a fine day to be alive, this is a fine day to be serving God, and I speak to those that are online tonight too, God has a plan for you, he has a marvelous plan for your life, and don't sell yourself short, it's not about your resume, it's not about your success or your failure, it's about a heart that says God I'm going to call out to you, you're going to take me out of this sinking place that I'm in, you're going to set my feet upon a rock, you're going to give me a new song, and you're going to put within me a delight to do your will, I want to do what you want to do through my life, hallelujah, glory be to God, glory be to God, glory be to God.