The Cure for Fear sermon examines what Christians can do when we face fearful situations. Know that God will lead you through any situation because His cure for fear is faith.

Key verses:
Matthew 8:13-34

I invite you to take your Bible and turn with me now to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 18. Now, we are going to be looking at verses 13 down to 34. But to begin with I want us to just look at verse 26.

Matthew 8:26: “And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.”

“Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” – I want to talk to you this morning about the cure for fear.

What Do You Fear?

We were talking in the Sunday School hour about what are you afraid of and several people shared things, and everybody shared something, and it’s different things. One of the most common things were snakes and there were other things. I personally am afraid of electricity. I don’t like working with it and don’t like having anything to do with it. But if I have to, it can stay in its place and it’s fine but that’s about the limit.

But I want to tell you a story that I didn’t share in Sunday School. One of the times in my life when I was very afraid for just a short time, but I was very afraid. There have certainly been other times. It certainly isn’t the only time I ever had fear. I’d love to tell you I only had fear once in my life, that’s certainly not true, not even close.

But there is a little background to this story. Some of it you are probably going to find unbelievable. But I’m telling you this is what happened. The year was 1976 and I was in Chattanooga, Tennessee, living there, and was in need of a job. There weren’t a lot of people hiring at that time.

So, I went to the state employment office. In those days they didn’t have computers for you to look at, but they had microfilm. You look through the microfilm and there wasn’t much there in the way of people hiring but I saw one job advertised for a security guard. I said, “Well, I could do that. Not really what I want to do but I could do it and it would give me a paycheck until I find something better.” I believe in doing things like that. You don’t wait with nothing; you do what you can when you can.

I wrote it down and went over to see the job counselor. He looked it up on his microfilm. He wrote out a card and handed it to me and said, “Go see this man and I’m pretty sure you’ll get the job.” I looked at the card and I looked at the man and said, “OK, that’s funny now give me the real card.” He said, “What? That is the real card.”

Now, remember this was a security job, right? And the name that he gave me on the card – I’m telling you God’s honest truth – the man I was to see, the name was James Bond. I thought it was a joke, I did. I thought, “Okay, that’s funny, who’s the real guy?” He said, “No, that’s the guy’s name.” And it was his name. He was nothing like the guy in the movies. But that was his name. I went to see him and worked for them for a while.

Well, during that tenure, I had a job where I worked at the operations building for First Tennessee Bank, they have branches all over the state. And my job was to monitor the silent alarm system. If the alarm went off during banking hours, we would call the bank and there was a coded question we would ask whoever answered the phone. Depending how they answered that question we’d know whether to send the police or not. Don’t ask me the question because I’m not going to tell you. But that’s the way it worked. But if the alarm went off outside of banking hours, we just automatically call the police.

It was about four in the morning on this particular day the alarm went off and I called the police department. And the person who answered the phone said, “Yeah, we’re getting a lot of alarms in that area right now. We think it is a power failure in which I will get back to you.” Okay, pretty standard. Half an hour went by, I didn’t hear anything. That was unusual. Normally it didn’t take that long.

So, I called the police department again and the person who answered the phone this time said, “You’d better get hold of the manager because the bank is gone.” I said, “What do you mean, gone?” They said, “It’s not there anymore.” Somebody put a bomb in the bank and the bank was gone and several buildings around it were severely damaged. That’s why they were getting multiple alarms.

Now, this was an attempted robbery. The fellow bombed the bank hoping to crack the vault and get money. But he didn’t crack the fault. He just destroyed the building completely, just rubble but didn’t crack the vault. As a matter of fact, they came a couple days later with a crane, picked up the vault, and took it away somewhere. I don’t know where they took, none of my business.

But during that time, the time between when the explosion happened and the time they took the vault away, our company put up a 24-hour guard on that vault. I was, one night, on guard with the vault and the police had closed off the entire block around there as you can understand, and nobody was supposed to be in that area. I was working one night, and it was late, and a fellow came to relieve me, and I started walking to my car which was a block away. I was going down an alley and this alley had another alley that kind of T-ed into it.

As I passed that other alley that came in, I heard somebody say, “Stop where you are.” And then I heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun shucking like that [demonstrating]. And I turned very slowly and there were three police officers there and one of them had a shotgun which he had just cocked, and I was scared to death. I thought I was going to be shot. I really did. I put my hands up. As I turned, they could see my badge and that calmed things down a little bit. But nobody was supposed to be in that area. It was a closed area. They asked me who I was, and I said I just got off work, just going to my car. I wasn’t doing anything.

I was terrified. Now, that scared me. What scares you? Different things scare you. I’d love to tell you that was the only time I was scared but there is, there have been other times.

So, we talked in Sunday School this morning about 2 Timothy 1:7:

2 Timothy 1:7: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

So, what is the cure for fear? We are going to look into a series of stories here in Matthew chapter eight and I want you to understand that God is many things. We talked about God in theology, and we use the “omnis”. God is omnipresent. God is present everywhere. He is present everywhere. God is omniscient. He is all-knowing. There is nothing that God does not know. One of my professors said on one occasion, “Did it ever occur to you that nothing ever occurred to God?” You think about that for a while. He is omniscient. And then, He is omnipotent. He is all-powerful. He is in control and that is what we are going to see when we look into the text this morning.

His Touch Heals Illness

Many things can cause you to have fear. But I want us to look at these three stories and see what’s going on. The first one has to do with illness and some people are afraid of illness. That’s understandable. Nobody wants to be sick. I was talking to somebody yesterday who had been ill, and I said to them as I have said to countless people over the years, I said, “I’m glad you’re feeling better because I learned a long time ago that being sick is bad for your health.” And folks, it is. I don’t have any trouble saying that. That’s an absolute fact. But in verse 14, it says:

Matthew 8:14: “And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother laid, and sick of a fever.”

There are several things in that verse I want you to see. First of all, it says Jesus came to Peter’s house. So, it tells us that Peter had a house. It was most likely in Capernaum. When I was in Capernaum decades ago, they took us to a house, the old ruins of a house, and they said that this was Peter’s house. It was definitely a house; it was someone’s house.

But I wondered how in the world did they know it was Peter’s house to tell you the truth. I said, “What, did you find his mailbox? How do you know it’s Peter’s house?” And honestly folks, I’m not sure that it is Peter’s house. It’s someone’s house and it’s from that time period and it’s in the city where Peter lived but it doesn’t make it Peter’s house. Do you understand what I’m saying?

But he had a house and Jesus was there and something else it tells us in this verse. He (Jesus) saw his (Peter’s) wife’s mother laid, sick of a fever. That tells us something else, Peter was married. I would assume all the apostles were married. But the truth is, this is the only place that specifically tells us that one of the apostles was married.

And I think God did that for many reasons, but I think one of the reasons He did was this, that centuries later, He knew people were going to come along and they were going to say Peter was the first Pope. That would make Him a priest in the Holy Catholic Church, and they’re not supposed to marry. And I think of all the apostles, God said guess what, Peter’s the one who was married.  We know that because he couldn’t have a wife’s mother if he didn’t have a wife. Does that make sense?

So, Peter’s wife’s mother is sick of a fever. She’s sick. Now that is a time when we can be afraid. When someone we love, someone we care about is sick and we want them to be well. We want them to have health again. And so, we care for them, we take care of them, and we pray for them. And I think we ought to pray for those who are sick. And many times, we pray for those who are sick, and the Lord brought them through it. There was healing and we rejoice in that.

But sometimes we pray for folks who are sick, and the healing doesn’t come, and they don’t get well, and we lose our loved one, or, they have a long-term illness. Should we then not pray? No, we should still pray. We should still trust God in the matter. And we still need to trust that what He is going to do is right and He will. In verse 15 it says:

Matthew 8:15: “And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them.”

“And he [Jesus] touched her hand, and the fever left her” – Look at that, isn’t that amazing? “And she arose, and ministered unto them.” What does that mean? She probably got up and fixed a meal. That’s most likely what happened. So, what does that tell us? It tells us that as soon as she was well, she served them. She had a servant’s heart.

But the thing I want you to see in these two verses is the power the Lord Jesus has over illness. He came. This lady was quite ill, and He touched her hand, and she was well.

On one occasion a leper came to Jesus, you’ll find this in the Gospel of Mark. And he said, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.” And Jesus said, “I will; be thou clean.” That’s the way we need to come and pray and say, “Lord, we know that you can if it’s your will. You can do so.” We also need to be accepting of God’s will. And this man was when he came and prayed to be cleansed of his leprosy. He said, “Lord, if thou wilt” – I know you can. If you will, make me clean.

So, we need to come to the Lord and come in prayer and we need to pray for the specific healing that we want to see. But we also ought to submit ourselves to his will. His plans and His purposes are way beyond ours and I learned many, many years ago, folks, to understand that God knows things that I don’t. And sometimes when we are praying, we don’t know exactly how we should pray, so we pray to the best of our ability and that’s not bad. The Holy Spirit helps interpret our prayers the way they would be if we did know. But the fact is we have to trust the Lord in all situations.

His Word Casts Out Demons

That brings us to the next story, verses 16 to 18:

Matthew 8:16: “When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick:”

Matthew 8:17: “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias [or Isaiah] the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.”

Matthew 8:18: “Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side.”

I want you to notice the phrase where it says in verse 16, “he cast out the spirits with his word.” How did He cast out these demonic spirits? We talked about this some last time. We’re going to reference the text that we used last time, a different writer, the same story. The truth of the matter is this demon possession is a reality.

I think sometimes people label folks as demon-possessed who aren’t. We talked about this last time, and we talked about it in Sunday School this morning and how mental illness is not always an indication of demon possession. Someone has a mental illness it is very likely a physical problem, not a spiritual problem. We need to understand that and so it needs to be treated as a physical problem.

The brain is an organ and if it’s damaged by injury or disease, it’s not going to function properly, and the person is not going to think properly. That is not an indication that there’s demonic involvement. So, don’t jump to those conclusions. “Why do you even say that pastor?” Because many people have made that wrong assumption, and it is wrong.

But we also need to understand that we are physical, mental, and spiritual beings. And when one part of us becomes ill it affects or injures the other parts. So, if we are mentally ill, that is going to affect us physically and spiritually. If we are physically ill, that’s going to affect us mentally and spiritually. And if we are spiritually ill, that is going to affect us mentally and physically. Does that make sense?

Because you can’t put your mind over here, your body here, and your spirit over here – they have nothing to do with each other. You can’t do that because it is all part of you. So, the fact of the matter is if it is a spiritual problem, we need to address it spiritually. If it’s a physical problem we need to address that. If it’s a mental problem we need to address it that way.

Addictions, for example, affect all those areas. An addiction problem affects a person physically, mentally, and spiritually, in all of those areas. Now, there are other things that do as well, but I think that is one you can understand.

What I want you to notice here is that Jesus cast out spirits with His Word. That’s all it needed. There’s no ritual that He went through. There’s no ceremony that He went through. It is just His Word. And the Word of God – we are told in Hebrews 4:12 – is quick, and the word “quick” there means living:

Hebrews 4:12: “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

The Word of God is powerful.

Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”

The word “power” in Romans 1:16 is the Greek word “dunamis” from which we get our English word, dynamite – that kind of power is the power of God. So, God’s Word has power over everything, over demonic spirits, and over everything else.

Focus on Following Jesus

That takes us to the next story. Verse 19:

Matthew 8:19: “And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.”

Now, folks, that’s an honorable thing and that’s what everybody should do. We should all come to Jesus and say, “Lord, I’ll follow you wherever you go.” We sing that sometimes. We sing a hymn that says, “Where he leads me, I will follow, I’ll go with him all the way.” We sing, “All to Jesus, I surrender, all to Him I freely give.” We sing that but do we mean it? Do we really give ourselves to follow the Lord wherever He takes us?

I’ll be honest with you. Following the Lord has taken me to places I never thought I would go. Well, like for what, for instance? 38 of the United States and 10 other countries and I don’t think He’s finished. “What are you saying?” I’m saying had I not followed the Lord I had not have gone to most if not all of those places.

It all has to do with following God’s will for your life and doing what He tells you to do. Paul, on the day he got saved, his first prayer after being saved was, “Lord, what would you have me to do?” “What do you want me to do?” And the Lord told him to go into the city. Somebody will meet you there and you’ll be told what to do next and that’s the way the Lord works.

The Lord doesn’t lay out the whole plan for your life in front of you and say, “Look at all the things planned for you.” Why? Because it would probably scare you to death. But the truth of the matter is, He takes you one step at a time as you follow Him, as you commit yourself to follow Him.

And so, this fellow has the right attitude at least his wording is right. He comes and says, “Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.”

Look at what Jesus said:

Matthew 8:20: “And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.”

“You want to follow me? I don’t have a place to sleep tonight.” There are a lot of folks who don’t have a place to sleep tonight. They don’t have a bed. I don’t know if you ever do this, but if you don’t, you should. If you have a bed and you get in bed at night maybe you ought to say a prayer before you fall asleep and say, “Thank you, Lord, I have a bed to sleep in.” There are lots of folks in the world who don’t.  A lot of folks in this country who don’t, a lot of folks in this area who don’t – maybe closer than you think.

Jesus did not preach the prosperity gospel. He didn’t preach that if you follow Him, you’re going to have everything you need. Jesus said [paraphrasing], “Good, you want to follow me? I don’t have a place to sleep tonight. You still want to follow me?” That’s not what the prosperity gospel folks say.

We were invited, my wife and I, years ago, to a revival service at another church. I won’t name the church. It was not too far away from here. And a fellow was preaching his whole sermon he preached like this. Now, I have to give him credit. He did at the end of the thing have the Gospel, he did, and I give him credit for that.

But the bulk of his sermon was all about this, “If you want something to be true, be so, call it and it will be. Whatever you call, it will be. If you have a car you want to sell, call it sold, it will be sold.” He said, “If you want a new Cadillac, call it yours, and it will be in your carport.” Now, folks, I don’t find that in the Bible. I just don’t. I don’t see anything like that. A lot of folks refer to that as the name and claim it theology. That’s not in the Bible.

Now, should we pray expectantly? Should we pray in faith believing? Should we believe that God is going to answer our prayers? Yes, absolutely. You definitely should pray in faith believing. If you don’t pray believing, there’s not a great reason for you to expect your prayer to be answered. Sometimes, God is so gracious He may answer your prayer anyway but there’s no guarantee of that. You ought to pray in faith believing. You must pray in faith believing.

But you know the Bible says, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” Don’t ask God to do silly things. You know I am fairly convinced about this. God does not do for us what we can do for ourselves. You know what God does for us? He does things we can’t do. We don’t have the ability. We don’t have the power or the authority to do. He does that for us.

“Well, give me an example.” Yeah, that’s easy. We can’t save ourselves. We call on the Lord and trust Him to save us, and He saves us. Nobody goes to Heaven and brags about it. Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 2 where he says that no man should boast. The truth of the matter is:

Ephesians 2:8: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:”

Ephesians 2:9: “Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Nobody gets to Heaven and brags about it. Nobody gets to Heaven and says, “Heh, I made it, I got here. My neighbors, I don’t see them around here. They weren’t quite as good as me, but I got here.” Nobody talks like that in Heaven. Nobody. People in Heaven say, “I am here by the love and the grace and the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ.” That’s it. It’s the only way.

So, this man says I will follow you and Jesus says okay, I don’t have a place to sleep. Look at the next verse:

Matthew 8:21: “And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.”

Matthew 8:22: “But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.”

Some people read that and on the surface think man, that is so cold. That is so cold. Don’t even bother going to your father’s funeral. You just come on with me. That is not exactly what the Lord meant. What the Lord meant was this. He’s saying, most likely, this fellow’s father hadn’t died yet. As a matter of fact, he probably wasn’t even sick.

What the fellow’s saying is [paraphrasing], “Lord, I’ll follow you but let me wait, let me wait until my father passes away and I have obligations to him and so let me wait. And after he’s gone then I’ll follow you.” And Jesus is saying no, the time to come is now. This is it. Jesus is saying to him to let the spiritually dead bury the physically dead. And He’s saying to them if you are saved you need to place your Savior first in your life and you need to focus on following Him.

That’s not being cold. That’s not saying abandon your family. The Lord talks a great deal about the family and the importance of the family, and it is such an essential understanding to have. I encourage you to read through the book of Ephesians and then you’ll get a pretty good idea of God’s viewpoint of the family, particularly in chapter five. But read the whole book so you get it all in context.

The truth of the matter is what the Lord is saying here is this [paraphrasing], “If you are going to follow me it requires a total commitment.” And it does. So many people are like these two who offered to follow Him, and you’ll find this account again in the Gospel of Luke. But they are saying, “Lord, I’ll follow you.” And the Lord says, “Fine, leave everything and follow me.” People say, “Well, I didn’t quite mean everything.”

“What do you mean preacher when He says everything?” Did not Jesus say to take up your cross and follow me? Yes, that’s exactly what He said. Now, what is a cross? It’s an instrument of execution. I mean, it is kind of like this. Jesus said to take your cross and follow me, so a fellow picks up his cross and starts to follow and says, “Lord, where are we going?” The Lord says that we’re going to that hill over there. “What are we going to do when we get there?” We’re going to die. “Oh, let me put this thing down. It’s not what I want to sign up for.” But that is exactly what the Lord is saying to follow me and commit to following me completely. Do not put anything ahead of me. That’s not what we want to do. That’s not what we want to hear. But that is exactly what the Lord is calling for us.

The Word Calms the Storm

And so, then we come to the next story. Verse 23:

Matthew 8:23: “And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him.”

Now, this is on the Sea of Galilee. Maybe some of you have been there. I had the privilege of being there one day. It was a group of us, and we went out in the middle, and they shut the engine off in the boat and we just drifted there for a while. That was great. I love that because you look around and you think about all the stories you’ve read that happened around the Sea of Galilee.

We set out from Capernaum; you could look back over your left shoulder, back there’s Capernaum. If you brought your hand to about nine o’clock you could say over there is Gadara, and over there is Caesaria, and all of it. You could just see it all and think about this is where Jesus walked on water. You can think about all the different things, the miraculous drought of fishes and so many other things that happened in and around the Sea of Galilee. This is one of those stories.

Matthew 8:24: “And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep.”

He, Jesus, was asleep during the storm. There’s a tremendous storm happening. That wasn’t unusual but some of these men – not all of them – some of them were professional fishermen. They had worked their whole life around the Sea of Galilee, and they knew about these storms. And you’d think they’d know what to do but they’re afraid. Why? It tells us why, “insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves.” It looked like they were about to sink out there in the middle of the Sea of Galilee.

Now, while you could see the shores as I indicated earlier, from the middle of the sea it was a long way to swim, folks. A long way to swim. I don’t know if you’ve had this experience, I came close to drowning twice in my life and thank God, someone pulled me out. But it is not a fun experience. And the truth of the matter is, I’m not sure all of these guys could swim. We know Peter could swim. Why? Because later on, we learn about him swimming. But I don’t know if all of them could even swim. And they’re afraid. The water is coming into the boat and Jesus is asleep.

I read a story years ago about a farmer who hired a man. He lived up along the Northeast coast of the United States here. They have bad storms there as we do here sometimes. One night, one of those storms came in and the farmer went to wake up his hired hand and said, “Hey man, wake up we’ve got a storm blowing in. We’ve got to go secure everything.” And the man said, “Nope, it’s alright, nothing to worry about.” The farmer thought he hired a lazy bum and went out and looked. Everything was secured. He came back and talked to the man and said, “You did that?” He said, “I did.” He [the farmer] said, “why did you do that?” He said, “I knew a storm was likely to come so I secured everything down so that I could sleep during the storm.” That makes sense, doesn’t it?

So, the fact of the matter is Jesus could sleep in the storm. Why? Because He knew everything was secure. He wasn’t worried, nothing for Him to worry about. Bob Puffer, I talked about many times, he sung here many times and he writes songs. Most of the songs he sings, not all of them, the majority of songs he sings he writes himself. One that he wrote a few years ago was “This Boat Cannot Sink While Jesus Is in It”. Have you thought about that? That’s the way to look at it. This boat cannot sink while Jesus is in it. You really think Jesus is there in the boat and it is going to sink? It doesn’t, does it? It doesn’t make sense. But look, that’s what they thought. Verse 25:

Matthew 8:25: “And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.”

We’re all going to die out here in this storm. This boat is going to sink, we’re going to drown. The storm is overwhelming us, we’re all about to die. Verst 26 is where we started:

Matthew 8:26: “And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.”

What did He do? He didn’t stand up and perform some ritual. He didn’t go through some ceremony. He just got up and spoke. The other Gospel writers wrote He said, “Peace be still.” – and the storm stopped. At what? At His Word. Do not underestimate the power of the Word of God. The heavens and the earth were created by the Word of God.

Matthew 8:27: “But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!”

That’s exactly what happened. The wind and the sea obey Him. When they were afraid, they went to the right source. They went to Jesus. But they said here, look at it again:

Matthew 8:25: “And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.”

They were not confident that the boat would not sink because Jesus was in it. “Lord, you’ve got to wake up we need you. You’ve got to save us now in this situation.” And what does He say? “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” They were with Him. They had followed Him, and they needed to trust Him.

And when you and I are following the Lord, we are in His will, we are going to have some storms in our life. We are. You may be going through some right now. We’re going to have storms. That’s guaranteed. You know what Jesus said on one occasion? He said, “In the world you shall have tribulation.” You know what that is? That’s a promise. In this world, you are going to have trouble. It’s not you might have trouble, you will.

But what did He say next? He said, “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” [John16:33] You are going to have trouble; you are going to have problems. You’re going to go through storms but trust me – that is what the Lord is saying.

So, even when the storms come, He is still with us. And He rebuked the winds and the storm, and the sea became calm. That surprised the disciples. It shouldn’t have but it did. Sometimes things we look at later and realize we shouldn’t have thought that way about it, but you did. And that’s what’s happening here. They are surprised that He spoke to it but think about who He is. He is the Creator. You know what the Bible says about Jesus? It says all things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made. It was He who spoke the world into existence. Surely His Word has power over nature.

So, we saw earlier with Peter’s wife’s mother, His Word had power over illness. Here, we see He has power over nature. Whether it is an illness, whether it’s a storm that comes, or whatever problem that comes into your life, His Word has the power.

Power Over Demonic Spirit

One more story and we are finished this morning. This is the same story as last week, so we won’t spend so much time on it. A different account, we looked at Luke’s account last time. The same story, verse 28:

Matthew 8:28: “And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way.”

Matthew 8:29: “And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?”

Matthew 8:30: “And there was a good way off from them an herd of many swine feeding.”

Matthew 8:31: “So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine.”

Matthew 8:32: “And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.”

Matthew 8:33: “And they that kept them fled, and went their ways into the city, and told every thing, and what was befallen to the possessed of the devils.”

Matthew 8:34: “And, behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus: and when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts.”

One of my pastors years ago said that’s the strangest verse in the Bible. Imagine, Jesus comes with all of this healing and help, and they ask Him to leave. That’s exactly what people do. They reject Him. But one word from Jesus, “Go” – one word had powerful results. The demons left the men and possessed the pigs, they destroyed the pigs, and the devil always destroys what he uses when he’s finished using it.

I’ve said this here before and I’m going to say it again. Have you ever noticed these horrific mass shootings that happen? Somebody goes into a place, a public place, and they don’t even know the people there – people there have not done anything to them – and they just open fire, and they shoot many people, just murder them in cold blood, total strangers. And then, not every time, not every time does it happen but more often than not, what do they do next? They shoot themselves.

Now, you don’t have to agree with what I’m about to say but I’m going to tell you what I think that is. I think that’s demonic activity. I think a demonic spirit motivates this person to do that and when they are finished with this person, they destroy the person. “Why do you think that?” Because that is typical of demonic activity and here’s a case in point right here. Demons are cast out of these men, they go into the pigs, and they destroy the pigs. It’s just typical. You don’t have to take my word for it, you don’t have to agree with me. Study it through. You may come to the same conclusion. You may not but then again you might.

But there were those there who were afraid of Jesus, so they asked Him to leave. Jesus’ word is demonstrated here to have power – have power over illness, have power over nature, have power over demonic spirits. So, you could be afraid of His power.

Trust the Lord

Or you could trust the one who has that power. That’s exactly the point we are trying to share with you today. Trust Jesus. When you are ill or someone you love is ill, trust the Lord. When you are going through a storm and it looks hopeless, trust the Lord. You may be going through a literal storm with wind and rain. You may be going through a legal storm. You may be going through an emotional storm. You may be going through some other kind of storm. Whatever the storm is, you’re still going through it, aren’t you?  You know, the Lord never promised us that you wouldn’t go through things like that. What He did promise is to go with you.

I can’t help but think of the three Hebrew children. We call them by their non-Hebrew names Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They wouldn’t bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s idol. They were cast into the fiery furnace and Nebuchadnezzar looks in and says, “Didn’t we cast three men into the fire?” And the fellows surrounding him said, “That’s right King.” They would have said that whether it was true or not because they were afraid of him, so they say, “That’s right.” He says, “I see four men walking in the fire and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.” How did he know that? Had he seen the Son of God before? No. But who He was, he said it’s got to be the Son of God.

Did people in the Old Testament time know that God had a Son? Yes, read your Bible and you will see it. You’ll see it in Psalm 1. You’ll see it in Daniel which we just mentioned. You’ll see it in Proverbs, you’ll see it, it’s there. The truth of the matter is Jesus did not stop those men from going through that fire. They went through it.

He could have stopped them. He could have done something so that they didn’t have to go through the fire. He could have done that, but He didn’t. He could have put the fire out. He could have at the last moment sent an attacking army and occupy the Babylonians so they could not carry out their planned execution. There’re so many things He could have done but that’s not what He did. What He did was go with them.

Let me ask you this, just think about it. This storm that came up at the sea, did Jesus know that storm was coming? Sure. Did the others there know it was coming? Apparently not. They wouldn’t have set sail. So why didn’t He stop them from going through the storm? Because He is teaching them about faith, and He is going with them. That’s what He promised to do. Never said you’re not going to have trouble. Never said there won’t be fire. Never said there won’t be storms. Never said there won’t be illness. He said, “I’ll go with you.” And that’s exactly what He does.

“Oh, preacher, I can tell you about the time when I was almost in a disaster and the Lord spared me from it.” Yes, thank God, there are those times, there are. Many, many of us could tell stories like that. But more often, that’s not what happens. More often, we go through, but He goes with us. When He comes with us, it always comes out exactly according to His plan.

So, the cure for fear – there are a lot of things we are afraid of, a lot of things that bring fear into our life. Illness may be one of those, storms may be one. I hope you’re not dealing with demonic activity. I hope not. But other things come to make us fearful. I’ve told you a couple of things already that make us fearful. But the cure for fear is faith. Look again at verse 26 and we’re finished.

Matthew 8:26: “And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.”

He didn’t say they had no faith, He said they had little faith [paraphrasing], “Why are you afraid? Don’t you trust me? Don’t you believe in me? Haven’t you committed yourself to me? Don’t you believe I can bring you through this?” Have faith. Have faith. And folks, that’s exactly what you and I have to do. We have to have faith. We have to trust.

As I said a while ago, you trust that God knows things that you don’t. You trust that He knows how things are going to turn out. You can’t see how things are going to turn out or what you do see sure doesn’t look good. You have faith. If you’re a born-again Christian, there was a time in your life when you came and you realized that you and like all the rest of us was a sinner. And somebody told you or you read it in the Bible that Jesus paid for your sins on the cross. And you believed Him, and you trusted Him to forgive your sins and He did. And you were saved, and you know you are saved.

Now, if you’re saying, “Preacher, I don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s news to me.” We’ll be happy to help you with that, we would – one of the things we like to do most around here. But the truth of the matter is the same faith that you trusted the Lord with to save you, that same faith will get you through whatever you’re facing, whatever problem comes your way. But that same faith will take you through that. You trusted Him to save you, trust Him to bring you through.

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Let us pray. Thank you, Father, for blessing us. Thank you for the time we’ve had together this morning. Lord, it is my earnest prayer that you would help us to realize that the cure for fear is faith. Those things that make us afraid, those things that we don’t have the answer for – the cure for fear is faith. Help us, Lord, to trust you.

Lord, it may be that somebody present here today or somebody who’s listening is at that point in their life where they don’t know what happens when they die. They don’t know where they’re going to spend eternity, or they’re not certain about it. But they’d like to be. Lord, if that person is listening today, it’s my prayer right now, right where they are, they would open their heart and they would call on you in faith believing in you and say, “Lord Jesus, I do believe. I believe that you love me. I believe that you paid for my sins at the cross. And right here, right now, I’m trusting you to forgive me. I’m trusting you to save my soul and give me everlasting life. Thank you, Lord Jesus.”

If you prayed that prayer or even if you didn’t, you need help with that, we’ll be happy to help you. We’re going to sing a hymn of invitation if you need help in that area, you come meet me down front. We’ll have someone sit with you, take a Bible, and show you how to be saved. Your sins are forgiven and you’re on your way to Heaven. It won’t take long, and we aren’t going to keep you afterward where you miss something where you need to be or something you need to do. It will take just a few minutes, you come.

Maybe you are here this morning as I assume many of you are, “Preacher, I’m saved, no doubt about it. I settled that long ago. Thank God for you. Maybe the Lord is speaking to you about something else. Maybe you are going through a storm right now. Maybe you’re in the middle of the fire. Something is happening in your life, and it’s had you troubled, it’s had you worried. Put your faith in Him. Trust the Lord. He saved you, He’ll bring you through. If there’s something else on your heart this morning, we can help you with, I’ll be down front. I’ll be happy to pray with you, help you in any way that we can. Father, bless and move in this invitation time. This we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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