“God has not given us a spirit of fear; but of power,

and of love, and of a sound mind.”

(II Timothy 1:7)

Timothy was afraid. Why, we don’t know. Lots of times folks are afraid and they don’t know exactly why they are afraid or what they are afraid of. But there is abundant evidence here in St. Paul’s second letter to Timothy that one of the reasons Paul wrote this letter to his young friend, Timothy, was that Timothy was afraid.

It may be that Timothy just had a fearful, timorous nature. Maybe he was born that way. You know the type, afraid of his shadow, just ready to jump if one so much as said, “Boo,” at him.

Or, it could be that Timothy had been frightened by some early childhood experience and carried with him into manhood the scar of that wound on his courage. We know that Timothy was from the town of Lystra. It was there that St. Paul had been stoned and left for dead, bleeding and broken under a pile of huge stones. Perhaps young Timothy witnessed that whole cruel episode and fear stole into his heart when he realized for the first time what cruel and terrible things the unleashed passions of angry men could do.

Or, it may be that Timothy was afraid because he thought he could see something ominous and dangerous in his present situation there in Ephesus. Paul had dispatched Timothy to Ephesus, a high, pagan city, to be pastor over a small flock of believers Paul had gathered together there. It was an almost impossible task; utterly impossible, if Timothy tried to do it all on his own.  Demetrius, the city silversmith, had once stirred up those excitable Ephesians to riot. Christians were still a puny minority in Ephesus.  Swashbuckling paganism was the dominant power. And was not Timothy “the follower of a Lord who had been crucified by an imperial power that wanted no popular movements exciting the people? It would have been only natural if Timothy (and his fellow Christians there is Ephesus) had moments of fearful misgivings when they heard the tread of marching feet of Roman legions, even though there was no active hostility at the moment.”  (Interpreters Bible on text)

Then, too, was not the great apostle Paul presently a prisoner at Rome awaiting trial because of his faith? Who knew but what he, Timothy, might be next? Yes, it may be that Timothy was afraid because of the dark and threatening daily circumstances through which he was living hour by hour.

Or, it could be that Timothy was afraid because fear had crept into his religion. How dominant a role fear plays in most pagan religions and primitive cults. The very air of Ephesus was poisoned with fear. Reverence there meant simply dread. So, it may be that Timothy’s fear was a religious fear, for St. Paul wrote to him in his letter these words: “God has not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

Whatever Timothy’s reasons for fear, we can sympathize with him, can’t we? We all have had our moments of fear. For years, J. Fort Newton, an Episcopal minister, wrote a daily newspaper column and received thousands of letters from his readers asking his counsel about their personal problems. His was a sort of Ann Landers column in those days. And do you know what Newton said he found to be the most common and serious of all human maladies? Fear. Here is what he wrote: “Public Enemy Number One is Fear.” People from all walks of life, of all ages and temperaments are plagued with fear.

Sometimes, it seems that people are born with a timid, shrinking, fearful nature. Sometimes terrifying childhood experiences leave them with haunting fears they can never escape. The comedian, W.C. Fields, was an orphan in his early childhood and suffered harsh poverty. Throughout his whole life a fear of not having enough money in an emergency plagued him.  Even later in his opulent years, that fear clung to him and made him develop the peculiar habit of opening up bank accounts wherever he went, all over the world. He would explain his strange behavior by saying: “Who knows when I might find myself in that town again, flat broke, and then all I would have to do would be to step up to the bank window and draw out the cash.”

How many of us are afraid because of the tragic straightening realities of our present situation, or because of what we think might befall us in the near future. Fears of losing our health, fears of not being adequate for the demands made upon us, fears of losing face, or being snubbed and dropped by the people whose approval we want, or fears about our security in our violence plagued society – that something might happen to us like the woman who was murdered in her own car in the Oak Court mall parking garage.

But the most distressing of all fears that plague the souls of people are those which creep into their religious life. Spooks and hobgoblins there always have been which seek in the name of religion to haunt us. Most primitive religions and pagan cults are dominated by fear. One of the secretaries of our Board of World Missions told of finding in Africa a man who considered himself very religious but who was paralyzed by his fears. When the secretary mentioned the name of God to the man, he cringed and shook from fear.

The religious life of the Christian Church in the Middle Ages grew to be dominated by fear. Fear of punishment in purgatory for unforgiven sins drove men to buy indulgences from the church.  When the authority of corrupt church leaders was assailed by reformers within the church, an appeal to fear was used to keep them silent. Savonarola, the Florentine priest who cried out against the evils and immoralities of the clergy was burned at the stake to strike terror into the hearts of any other who might dare to criticize. When the Reformation began in earnest, the Roman Church turned to the tortures of the Inquisition to stamp out the movement.

It was this “appeal to fear, so powerfully used in the Roman Church which struck terror in the youthful conscience of Martin Luther . . . How could he save his own soul? . . . After preparing himself for a successful career in law, he suddenly entered the Erfurt Convent of the Augustinian Eremites, where he later became a monk. He, himself, has told us why: (He was afraid.) He did not trust himself to save his soul amid the temptations of the outer world; he saw no way to do it except by the austerities of a monastery. He fasted, he scourged himself, he piled penance on penance . . . Luther later wrote that no pen could describe his mental torture. He was struggling to achieve his soul’s salvation by good works, and getting nowhere. Then the light began to dawn, and one day, as he read the Epistle of the Romans in his cell, it came full upon him. ‘The just shall live by faith.’ Through that window the sun poured in. Salvation was a gift – a largess of God’s grace, not to be sought by good works, but received by a trustful and hospitable heart.  Good works were not the operative cause of a transformed life, but its consequence. God, Himself, revealed in Christ, could come into a man, forgiving his past sins, regenerating his spirit, making him a new creature. This experience was Luther’s ‘Damascus Road’ and, so far as he was concerned, the beginning of the Reformation.”  (Great Voices of the Reformation — H.E. Fosdick — Random House)

An amazing transformation took place in the personality of Martin Luther. From the timorous, orthodox-minded, gloomy munk, there emerged the bold, flaming reformer. Soon he boomed his great battle cry:   “I have been born to war, and fight with factions and devils. I am the rough forester to break a path and make things ready.” On the eve of his departure for Worms, when he must stand and answer to the Pope’s legate, Luther said to Melancthon: “My dear brother, if I do not come back, if my enemies put me to death, you will go on teaching and standing fast for truth; if you live, my death will matter little.”And our fears and their cure — how do we get our deliverance from fear? Whatever our fears may be, the cure is always a gift from God and it comes by way of a new spirit. “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

Of course, the spirit of the unregenerate man or woman is afraid. He or she who trusts in self alone: in our wealth for our security, in our health and strength for our future, in our wisdom for our guidance, of course, we will be afraid, hesitant, uncertain, confused. We had better be afraid if that is the best resource we have to marshal before the array of the hostile and competitive forces of the universe. As Alexander Miller says: “The human dilemma calls not for a resolve, but for a rescue.”

But the free gift of God to the man or woman of faith through Jesus Christ is a new spirit that is emancipated from destroying fears. This spirit is not native to us, nor of our achievement. It is the gift of God as St. Paul and Martin Luther found. The spirit of Christian men and women is really God’s spirit, a spirit of power, which means the intensity and drive of life; a spirit of love, or the warm affection of a self-giving life emancipated from the deadly slavery of self serving; a spirit of self-control, which means a reasonable, disciplined, well-ordered life saved from the irrationality of insane fears.

It is that spirit by which St. Paul, the prisoner at Rome, awaiting execution, unafraid, could write to timorous Timothy, pastor of the Ephesian Church: “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. . . Suffer hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. What if we do suffer some persecution? All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. You saw my persecutions; my sufferings which befell me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra. . . Yet from them the Lord rescued me. I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. . . For I am already at the point of being sacrificed, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight; I have kept the faith; I have finished my course. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day, and not to me only, but to all who have loved His appearing. Therefore, Timothy, take your share of suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.  Be strong, not in your own strength, but in the power of His boundless resource. For God hath not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”