Creflo Dollar - How to Defeat Fear - Part 1
We're gonna deal with the spirit of fear, because I just don't think people are seeing, they're just not seeing what's happening right now, it's happening right in front of your face, and the Bible talks about how the Antichrist, the person, the Antichrist will show up one day and he'll deceive so many people, and I see how that's happening right now. And I'm talking about the deception that Satan is throwing on people where fear is concerned. Our world is inundated with a bunch of people, just all the stuff you hear about the shootings and people that are doing, those people are full of fear. Fear is a foundation by which darkness is released and darkness tries to make suggestions and control your mind and people are doing things and then after they do it, they don't even understand what they did, why they did what they did.
There are things going on with church people, not recognizing what, what pandemic has done. And so when the pandemic came and the churches all closed down, that nobody got the significance of what just happened. A voice of unity was disrupted. A sound that could be produced only when we would come together, was taken away. And then thank God for the technology that we use and people could still get involved in church and do some things. Let me read you this prophetic word by the prophet Isaiah, and you look at it with me. I'm still trying to articulate what I'm about to teach you and, I mean, I can't do it, but I trust God. I trust God that you and others are gonna be delivered. I just don't know, I would just, I would just rather go home and be in heaven than to have my life tormented by fear.
And I know some people don't feel that way. There's a solution to fear, but it involves the Word of God. So a lot of people are not interested in that solution because it involves the Word of God. And sometimes we look for other solutions where there are other ways, but honey, there's coming a time right now in this life, we are in such darkness, the only antidote, the only vaccine, since that's the big word now. The only vaccine against darkness is the Word of the living God, the light of God. That's right, and you ain't gonna need a booster when you get this. All right now, listen to this carefully now. Here's what, here's what he prophesies. Now, before I read this, the word arise, I thought that was interesting. That word literally means to change your posture or change your position. So if I'm in this particular posture, to arise would mean for me to change my posture and position.
So what's your posture? What's your posture? The first thing he says here is the answer. He says, arise, change your posture and position. Now it's gonna show you later that he is talking about arise out of darkness. Change, in order to get out of darkness there's gotta be a change of posture and position. "Arise, shine; for thy light is come". I wanna simplify this very, just make sure you understand it. The light that every time I say light, I want you to think about the Word of God. In fact, I wanna go deeper than that, I want you to think about God. The Bible says God is light. "Arise, shine for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you". Verse 2, "For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth".
Now he's not talking about night time shall cover the earth. Darkness is everything that is in opposition to the light. Darkness is everything that opposes the Word of God. That's the darkness he's talking about. He's talking about a way of thinking that opposes the Word of God, a way of doing that opposes the Word of God, a way of governing that opposes the Word of God, anything that stands in opposition to God and his Word is darkness. And he says, the darkness shall cover the earth. The whole earth, not just this country, but darkness shall cover the world. Opposition against God and his Word shall cover the earth. We're there. When is the last time you took a look at the whole world. They hate God. They hate the Bible. There's a constant attack to try to pull people who used to believe in God or who still believe in God away from him. It's worldwide, that's the darkness. "Behold, the darkness shall cover the earth". It shall cover the earth.
Now remember there's another prophecy that says that the glory of God shall cover the earth like the waters in the sea. So you gotta please understand something, darkness will not win. But this prophecy will come to pass and has come to pass. "The darkness shall cover the earth," now watch this, "And gross darkness the people". The only way it can cover the earth is gotta cover the people. You know what it's like to have a person that's in darkness? He is a person, his way of thinking, his way of doing, his way of living is in total contradiction to the Word of God, why? It may be 'cause he don't know it. Because when you, when you come against the church so much, and you beat it up so bad, and you build a way of thinking that says, don't need church, don't want Church, not interested in church, all church does is ruin people, then what happens is you step away from the light that should be a part of church or the Bible.
So you're not getting any Word. You're not getting any understanding of any Word, no light. You don't know what the Word says about how you should live, how you should treat people. You don't know what the Word says about how you should think. You don't know what the Word says about how you should conduct yourself. None of that is in your life. You don't know it, you're not being trained up, the Bible says, "Train up a child in the way that he should go". That's over. The Bible's an enemy. The light has become the enemy.
Now imagine life with no light. The light's the enemy. The Bible says, that he says the sad part about it, is that the light will come with the darkness, but people will choose the darkness rather than the light. And people have chosen darkness rather than light. I don't wanna hear what the Bible has to say. I don't wanna hear about no preacher. And we formed these, these things about the light and their lives because they all came from the devil and he can't do nothing but lie. If you wake up in the morning, the devil say this is gonna be a good day, it's a lie, prepare for the worst day of your life, do you understand? Darkness, pumped through television, darkness, pumped through social media and hey, there's a new type of thing getting ready to come, where now instead of you reading it now you can be a part of the technology and enter into the darkness and stay there.
A type of reality that's a virtual reality. That if you thought the social media caught people's lives, this thing that is about to break open is going to be so demonic that things that are gonna happen, you're gonna think, how did it happen? And it's right before your face, but you don't know no light, so you don't pay no attention to the artificial stuff that's coming up right now. Gross darkness, the people. It even has you as a Christian, you who know God questioning the things you at one time knew were the truth, and now you even question the things that you knew, because society and the norms and values are so big that darkness has convinced you that something's wrong with you.
And so now, if you'll notice, everybody uses this phrase, "My truth," and when you talk about my truth, it's really your deception, but to feel better about your deception, you call it your truth, and then you got everybody's truth. Everybody trying to live their own truth when it's not your truth at all, it's destruction and darkness and deception that you have bought. And you live by your truth to feel better about being so deceived and convinced yourself that this thing your mama said was wrong is now your truth. Gross darkness on the people. Kids going to school shooting folks, and they got to stare in their eye and you're trying to figure out what's going on with them and afterwards you talk to them, they say, "I don't even know why I did that," because darkness is now available to guide you, lead you, be your religion, be your God, control you at your will.
And you know what leads people to darkness? Fear. Fear. There's some people in darkness that are betting, the church is over with, it's done, it's over, we've destroyed it and they're applauding, but I got news for you, baby. When I fall, I shall arise, you're never going to be able to defeat the church of Jesus Christ, because in the middle of the darkness, there's always gonna be some light, and light will arise and it'll shine and the glory of the Lord will appear, you're never going to extinguish this light. Darkness everywhere. You feel like the fool for standing for something that the Bible says, you now walking shame of your relationship with Jesus. You now keep coming up with a thousand excuses to blame God or somebody for your situation in life.
And the problem with playing the blame game is the blame game just continues to indicate that you still have not accepted responsibility for what you have done. You keep blaming the folks. It's the key. Anytime you say something to somebody and they start blaming, oh, the problem is, is you won't accept responsibility for your own actions. "Hey brother, how you doing? Haven't seen you in church in a while". "Oh, I don't go to your church no more". "Why won't... oh, what happened? What happened"? "Well, such and so such and so such do". "Yeah, but I didn't do that. Why, why you stop going to church"? "Oh, oh, oh, oh". You're being governed by darkness. See, 'cause darkness will feed you excuses so it can protect itself. Do y'all see what's going on?
So what happens when at one time you were in the light, but for two years you're not in the light. You don't read the Word no more, you don't listen to sermons no more, you don't make no confessions no more. You don't pray no more. You don't meditate in the Word no more. You ain't got time to listen to no church music, that's what you call it, church music. You boast and brag about why you left the church and try to recruit other people over to your darkness as if you should be congratulated. You just was in the wrong church, don't make every church look like your experience. There's some churches I wouldn't go to, but I'm not gonna leave Jesus over a bunch of clowns that did what they did at the church. I'm gonna find me another place, there's got to be a good one somewhere.
Darkness, gross darkness, the people. "But," now that word but, three letters, awesome. That word but is going to erase everything that was said before it. "Darkness will cover the earth, gross darkness the people, but," you can zero all that out because God says I'm getting ready to change everything that just said. Let's look at the other side of this but. "But the Lord shall arise upon you, and his glory shall be seen upon you". I prophesy to you World Changers, get ready. God's getting ready to change his position on you. God's getting ready to get on you like you ain't had him on you. God's getting ready to get in your household like it ain't been in your household. He getting ready to get on your mouth like it ain't been on your mouth. He getting ready to get on your words and give you words like you never had. He's getting ready to reposition himself on you and the glory of the Lord is gonna be seen on you.
And you gonna walk into places and people gonna say what just happened? The atmosphere is gonna change, because somebody with the glory just walked in that place. Hallelujah. Lord have mercy. I Almost did a two and a half off the stage. Glory to God. I tell you, darkness is never gonna win. I tell you, darkness is never gonna be greater than the light. I tell you, the light is getting ready to shine in the middle of all of the darkness and all of the deception and all of the wickedness, the Lord Jesus Christ, which is my light. And he said, and you are the light of the world. I ain't, I'm not gonna live my life in fear and I'm not gonna live my life in darkness. And I'll preach this way if just three people left 'cause there's always be some light coming out of this dome.
"Yeah, pastor but..." get your but out of the way so the light can come in. You've trusted God all these years to keep you safe, to deliver you, to take care of you and you ain't had nothing to say to him since you've been operating in the fear that has been broadcasted to your attention over the last two, almost two and a half years. And some people have not recovered yet, and some of them won't, and some of them are gone. I gotta trust God. I gotta trust God. You do whatever you gonna do. I'm gonna stick with him. I'm gonna stick with him. I'm gonna stick with him long enough for this prophecy to come to pass. Arise, shine. Now arise, shine. Now it's gonna be some hellacious stuff that's gonna take place but hold on until you hear that command arise, shine. But as long as you're in the light, the darkness won't be able to comprehend. I'm gonna stay in the light. I gotta be careful about this 'cause I don't want, I'm not preaching no fear to you, I'm just telling you this is gonna come to pass.
Now watch this, verse 3. "And the Gentiles," now in that time the Gentiles were not a part of the covenant. So they would be a class of sinners. "And the Gentiles shall come to thy light". Look at that, you see what he getting ready to do? He said, I'm gonna have people who are not in the covenant that gonna come to your light. Look at that, there's a soul winning plan that God's got ready. Since they're not reading the Bible, they bump into your light, your love, your kindness, your consideration. That's why you can't be a hypocrite in these last days because your hypocrisy might drive away something that your light was supposed to draw. And so yeah, people acting rude at the grocery store, just step aside and say, "God bless you sweetheart, we love you". And the light will draw them. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I apologize". "Well, do you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior"? "I used to". "Come on baby, let's rededicate ourselves to the Lord".
The light, the light shall come and the Gentiles are gonna come to your light, your love, your confidence, your joy. All the things that we have as Christians is gonna be attractive. Your laughter is gonna be attractive. You know, the darkness eventually makes a person miserable, but they don't know what to do. They're not happy, so they have to act like it, because social media has taught them how to look like everything okay. Take an Instagram photo. And everything look good on Instagram. But if you go behind the camera phone, you see sad, stressed, disgusted people who've lost their identity and don't know what they're supposed to be doing, but the light's gonna come out of you. And it's gonna draw the Gentiles. "And Kings will come to the brightness of the rising". There will be people who are in political places of power that will see your light and come to it.
Number four, look at verse 4. He says so "Lift up your eyes round about and see all they gather themselves together, they come to thee, your sons shall come from far, and your daughters shall be nursed at thy side". Some of you have children that just don't wanna have nothing to do with you, that's gonna change. The light of God's glorious gospel gonna draw them. You know, everybody going to California, so I say, California, they gonna draw them from California, they gonna draw them from the east coast, west coast, from Italy, they gonna come, something just gonna happen on the inside of them by the Holy Ghost.
Verse 5, and watch what else gonna happen. "Then you shall see, and you gonna flow together and your heart shall fear," or reverence, "And be enlarged". Watch what else is gonna happen. "Because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee". That's a prophetic word about the wealth of the wicked is gonna be transferred into the hands of righteous people. "The abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, and the forces," look up that word forces, I believe it's translated wealth. "And the forces or the wealth of the Gentiles," watch this, "shall come unto thee". The Lord spoke to me and he said, "Start confessing, 'I believe I've received the wealth of the wicked into my hands right now.'"
Somebody, everybody say that. "I believe I receive, the wealth of the wicked into my hands right now". It's all throughout the Bible. That's one of the last events that's gonna happen. Somebody said, God, I never did that before, you better go read your Bible. Israel is being delivered out of Egypt, being delivered out of slavery and they're walking out with the wealth of the Egyptians. In one day, God transferred in their hands. Why do you think Pharaoh came after them? He's trying to get his money back. I'm telling you, look at James chapter 5. He says, there's coming a time where the rich man is gonna reap in how for the miseries that shall come upon him. He says that the wicked will gather it up, but the just will put it on. "I don't believe that". Yeah, 'cause you've been in the darkness where this is concerned.