Leon Fontaine - The Effect Of Worry
Today, I want to talk about a sin nobody thinks about. Today, I want to talk about a sin that is destroying so many lives, shutdown so many miracles, and people don't get it that it's a sin. Now, the word "sin" is different in after the new covenant than the old. Now, the word sin though there's about, there's a number of different Greek words for the word sin. One that's used the most is the one that literally means to miss the mark for God's best. And so when we look at the word sin in the Old Testament, man, it would bring judgement and the curse. In the New Testament Jesus became a curse. But now when you mess with sin, you still have things that are going to mess with you on this planet.
And so it's such wisdom, God's Word bring such wisdom. When He says don't do this. There's a reason and it will help you to get along and to prosper and to walk in health. So the sin that I'm talking about today is the sin of worry. The sin of worry. Now most are going to go, "Ah, shucks, golly, gee. Not a big deal". I'm sorry but you're wrong. Worry at its root is fear. And wherever you've got worry, anxiety, the cares of this world. We know through some of the latest studies of the human body, that if you do not turn off and learn to deal with cares, anxieties, etcetera. That you are literally throwing the switch on for disease and sickness to begin to permeate your body because you won't control the chemical mix that is going on there.
If you don't deal with cares and anxieties and worries, we know that it affects that physical organ, the brain. We know that your mind when it is filled with anxiety and care, that you become double-minded. That you're not an enjoyable person to be around. Most people who worry are very proud of their worry. They think that it's their burden to bear. But let me show you what the Word of God has to say about this. Now, when you talk about faith which is of the heart. Faith, there is two kinds of faith we've talked about. There is mental assent which is just agreeing the Word in your head but not doing the process of faith of planting the Word in your heart. And so as people kind of live out this mental assent. When you are worried, anxious, and stressed, you are double-minded.
Now, the Bible says a double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways. And so the enemy of our souls who has been stripped of his power and authority can only turn your power against you. He is going to try to get you to worry, to get you to be anxious. And this is not a light message. There are people, I know after decades of counseling with people. There are people who are literally in psyche wards and it's because of worry a large percentage. Worries, anxieties, fears.
There are people who are sick, and we know that much. In fact, some of the stats coming out of the most amazing medical experts are saying so much of sickness and disease today is psychosomatic in origin. They mean, that you can't control your emotions. You can't control your thinking. And they know that it opens up doors to sickness and disease, and the sickness and disease is very real. It's not just in origin from bacteria or any... It's literally from an unease. Dis-ease means you're not at ease. And so God's Word has profound things to say about this. I would say that worry is an addiction that many people have, and I believe it will destroy you worse than some of the other substances, not all of them, but some of the other substances that people are addicted to.
Now, as you look at this in the Word of God, it's very clear. Let me read you something so I can give you kind of a framework for why I'm being so strong on this. In Hebrews 3:12, it says, "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you". He's talking to brethren, born-again people. He says, "Lest there be in any of you an evil heart". Now, stop right there. Well, man, if the guy's got an evil heart, he must be a murderer. He must be a rapist, a kidnapper. No, it's a heart of unbelief. A heart of unbelief. And when you have a heart of unbelief, it says you depart from the living God. I could share so many stories today of people who although they have given their lives to Christ through different things, unanswered prayer, traumas, tragedies in life their heart's been impacted and unbelief began to take root and they began to walk away from the principles of God, walk away from living for God, and even walk away from believing there is a God or that He cares.
So this unbelief, this thing that starts in your mind through worry and stress and cares it will get into your heart. And the Bible says it's an evil heart that does not mean that that person is a murderer. That they're so wicked. No, but it's showing you that the heart is the autopilot of our lives. And that when, if the enemy can, he will get worry and thoughts and thinking so bad in there, that it literally becomes evil and out of a born-again spirit filled man. If you don't believe me read Galatians 5:19 and on. That when you get carnally minded even as a born-again believer, the things that begin to come in your life are bizarre. They're weird. You think, "What? Really"?
Now, as we look into the Word of God, it's in Mark 11:24, "Therefore I say to you, whatsoever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them". All right. The enemy, Satan, would love to shutdown your ability to pray in faith. When you pray and you take a promise of God and you declare it over your life in whatever area, okay. The Bible says to believe you have received it. Worry does not believe that. Anxiety does not believe that. The cares of this world do not believe that. And the enemy will attack anything that you stand in faith for. And he would love even in your everyday life for you to start worrying about things that you never worried about before. I'd have people tell me, "You know, I was just minding my own business one day and I started worrying about this and I kept thinking about it". And they talked about how their life became consumed by this.
In Mark 4:19, it teaches us here where Jesus is teaching about the parable of the sower sowing the Word, and that the soil is the heart, and that the seed is the Word of God. But then it says that in one kind of soil. It says that the cares of this world that goes on mentioning other things like the destructions of the age, pleasures, false glamour, the deceitfulness of riches, the craving for other things. It chokes the Word. It suffocates the Word. Now, there's a whole lot of messages in that, but let's talk about the one thing we're talking about today. Cares and anxieties. Cares and anxieties if you do not deal with them and treat it as sin and get that out of your life. It will shut you down.
You can hear a message after a message, read book after book. You can confess God's Word. Do everything you can to get the cares out of your life and you will find that if you do not, that it will choke the Word of God. And you can't get the Word to stay in you until you learn to deal with this anxiety. So if you do not deal with worry, okay. You are never going to build strong faith. Now, in 1 Peter 5:7-9, it talks about casting the whole of your cares. Now, this word "care" does not mean that you can't think about something or be, what's the word, concerned about it. So that you're dealing with it as a problem. It's talking about, if you look up the Greek word, it means cares that lead to anxiety. It is caring to such anxiousness.
But people can be so good at picking up that worry. "Well, you know". And they just start talking as though it's their burden to bear. But the Bible says cast the whole of your cares. In the King James it says cast all your cares. Which means the cares of anxiety. Anxious cares cast them. Push them off. Get rid of them. It literally means cast it. You know, it's one thing to push something out. It's something to throw it off of you. I mean, it's like this violent emotion of, "No! I'm not going to get caught up in the cares and the anxieties".
Later on in 1 Peter 5:7-9 it says that we have an enemy, and that he's like a roaring lion. He is seeking out in fierce hunger someone to seize and to destroy. Then it says, "Withstand him, be firmed in faith". Well, you can't be firmed in faith if you're anxious, worried, and stressed out. And so his job is to fire those little darts that the Bible says in Ephesians 6 the shield of faith should put out. He gets you worried. He gets you concerned. And if he can keep you there, then you literally are double-minded, unstable in all your way. You are anxious. You can't get the Word to grow on the inside of you. And so who does he seize? He seizes the person who is in fear.
Job 3:25 gave us some great principle about fear. What we, Job says, "What I fear befalls me. What I dread comes upon me". He can't stop it. Why can't he stop it? Because he's trying to stop it, but he's got no faith. He's filled with fear. Fear is not an emotion. Fear is not a feeling. Fear is a spirit. There is a spirit of fear. You can't counsel it out. You can't talk with somebody. In fact, if you do help them to kind of problem solve, they'll just find another way to worry or something else to worry about and the list is endless. And so you can't counsel out a spirit of fear. You can't talk it out. You need to cast that thing off. So in Jesus' name, I have not the spirit of fear but of power and a love and of a sound mind. You as a believer have access to a spirit of power, a spirit of a sound mind. You do not have to sit in a spirit of fear.
And I'm telling you right now there somebody going, "Well, I'm always fearful. It's a feeling". It's not a feeling. It's a spirit. There was no feelings of fear in the garden of Eden when man was created with emotions. Fear came up after the fall and it is called a spirit of fear. And the Bible teaches us you are to withstand that. Be firm in faith and keep that fear, the anxiousness, the worry off. All right! Now, James 4:7, it says, "Submit to God, resist the devil and he will run away from you". Oh, what does that mean? What mean someone is saying, "Well, Leon, I can't help it. Don't you tell me I can stop. Well, I've been trying all my life". Well, I've got news for you. The Bible says according to your faith, so be it done unto you. So if you believe that worrying you can't stop. Welcome to your beliefs.
Now, you must go into God's Word and you must change your beliefs and become what God says and believe what He says about it. If God says to you, do not let your heart be troubled, John 14. That means that you do have the ability. But it says submit to God first. When you submit to God, you are submitting to the principles in His Word. And then it says submit to God first, then resist the devil and he will flee from you. Take this scriptures down. Listen to this message over and over this week until you walk in such a peace. There are people listening to me right now especially you men who you just think, "Ha! Yeah, so that's for my wife. Yeah".
Now, listen to me. Grumpiness is fear. Okay? Being irritable is fear. If you are not living in a joy that is laughing and excited about life. Tiredness can be down to anxiety and fear. I mean, I could list over and over a ton of things that will show you that you have not successfully dealt with anxieties, with the cares of this world. If you can't, just put that aside and rise up. Put that burden on Him. Jesus is the burden bearer. Cast all your cares on Him and keep going laughing and loving. The Bible says, "The joy of the Lord is your strength, a merry heart doeth good like a medicine". If you're not living that, then you're stuck here somewhere. And you need to hear this Word over and over again and clean this out. Submit to God in this area and resist the devil and he will flee.
Now, 1 Corinthians 2:16 says here that we can have the mind of Christ. The Amplified says you can hold His feelings. You can hold His purposes, His thoughts. Well, if we can have the mind of Christ, then there shouldn't be anxiety, fear, and worry. In Matthew 6:33-34, it talks about seeking first the kingdom of God, His righteousness, and all these natural things will be added to you. The whole chapter is talking about food and clothes and money and shelter and all the things that we worry about on this planet. He says, "Hey, seek first the kingdom of God. Get into His Word. Get His Word in your heart". And it says that stuff will just start coming your way. It will be added to your life.
Then the next verse 34 says, "Take therefore no thought for the morrow". Now it says, "For the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof". It is showing you and I that tomorrow while you're worrying about it. There's something you can't deal with till tomorrow, deal with it tomorrow. Maybe there's a meeting that you have to deal with tomorrow. And so you prepared for it. Well, don't let it wreck your day today. Today is going to be gone and you're never going to reclaim it. And so when it talks here in Matthew 6, take no thought. That word in the Greek take no anxious thought is what it means by definition in the Greek word.
So everywhere you look in the Word, it's going to tell you and I that if you allow anxieties and the cares of this world, that these things enter your life. They're going to choke out the Word. They're going to mess with your emotions. They're going to wreck all your relationships. They're going to make you double-minded and unable to use your faith. You are going to transfer this into your kids and, you see, spirit is a fear. It transfers, and so does faith transfer. Someone saying right now, "Well, you don't understand. I've got a sick child". Oh, then be in faith-filled as you walk this out because anxiety shuts faith off. Worry shuts faith off. Stress, it will shut faith off.
So yes, you're focused on that. Yes, you're believing God for a miracle. But don't let in the fear of the enemy through any of the words that modern English would like to switch to and make it look as if it's not fear based. It is fear based. Don't be anxious for anything. And it's giving us a real amazing way here to win over anxiety. Rejoice in the Lord! Sing along with that song of victory. Speak forth the Word of God in your prayer closet. Declare the future and what you're believing God for because to sit around and to worry and be anxious about stuff is not going to help you. The way governments or the way a person can take over an entire nation of people is to first bring fear, and unreasonable fear.
How do you bring it? Exaggerate it. Pound away at it every news, every article. Go, go, go until this spirit of fear dominates an entire nation. There are nations in the world today that fear is the primary spirit dominating that culture. And I refuse to let that into Canada. I refuse to allow it into my life, my home, my family. I have not the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind. We the church are the salt. We are the light. We are to be able to deal with this and say, "No! I'm not living in this incredible fear that makes me sick. That literally shuts me down, paralysis me".
See, wherever there's fear, anger is always right behind it. People get angry when you don't pay attention to their fears. I had people looked at me and get upset because I wouldn't join them in their fear. That I should be sensible like face reality. I've faced reality for decades. I'm not a kid anymore. I've been preaching the Word for 40 years and I've built organizations. I've seen thousands and tens of thousands and maybe million times. I'm not a stupid man and I have learned. I am not living in fear. I'm not living in anxiety. I'm not giving in to the lie and the trick of the enemy. I'm going to continue to speak the Word of God in whatever storm is blowing and let Him guide me in a creative answer to whatever is going on. In your personal life in Philippians 4 it teaches us.
Now, if you want to stay in peace. It says, "Finally, brethren, here's what you do. Whatever is true, whatever is noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, something is virtuous and praiseworthy, meditate on these things". Listen, I watch the news but not fourteen times a day. I want to know about what's going on around the planet so I can pray and be aware. But I'm not letting that stuff pound a way on me until I am just so absorb in fear. Not a chance. The God that I serve sent His Son, Jesus, who is the first begotten Son. You and I are also in the family of God. And we are on this planet here to be the salt, to be the light.
You know, I'm surprised by some of the Christians today. There's just one belief in cessationism where there are no miracles today. We're just the church waiting for Jesus to rescue us. But then we got a bunch of churches on the other side who do believe in the miracles of God. But they believe that their end times doctrine is you can't overcome the devil. He's going to rise up and win. There's going be all this, so we're going to need Jesus to rescue us. I disagree with both think thoughts. Whatever goes on on this planet the church of Jesus Christ has been given authority. It has been given power. It has been called you are salt. You are the light.
So besides you and I learning to deal with this personally. We must speak this way, act this way, talk this way in our businesses. Wherever we have influence. Whether you work for governments or whether you work in hospitals. Whether you work in business. Do not allow the fear of the enemy because in the midst of all that goes on when storms blow. The design of the Father is that you should stand and that no storm could shake you. That the world will look at you and say, "Well, my world is gone. My business is gone. My house is gone. My relationship is gone. My health is gone. How do you stay so filled with blessing"? And you say, "It's not me. It's the Jesus that I serve".
Read the Bible. When storms blow. When things happen. When all around you people are screaming like chicken littles. The sky is falling. We rise up and say, "No, it's not because nowhere in the Word does it say that". God has called us to rise up and to be salt and light. My challenge to you, deal with this personally and then let's rise up and continue to radiate this peace of God. Radiate. It doesn't matter what problems you're working on. Believe! God will make a way. Where there is no way. See, it doesn't matter if you haven't figured out what's going on in your life. It doesn't matter if you haven't found a way financially, physically, relationally, or nationally, governmentally. Then we stand believing as we're serving and doing our job every day.
God will make a way. He will never let us down. I've never seen the righteous forsaken. I've never seen their seed begging bread. These promises are given to you and I to rise up and to use in our personal life, our families, and every person that we can influence. We want a Canada that is strong. We want a Canada that understands. Government is here to protect our freedoms, not tell us what to do, not lead us. They're here to protect the freedoms so the giftedness and all the things in the citizens can rise up. Remember that when you pray and let's believe God.