A Biblical Perspective of Fear

1 A Biblical Perspective of Fear

Captive to Fear

A number of years ago, one of the richest men in the world died of fear. He was a Texan named Howard Hughes. He was born into a family of high achievers who afforded him unlimited privilege and opportunity. His father was a noted industrialist and inventor whose creative DNA passed on to his son.

By nature and nurture, Howard was inquisitive and inventive from his boyhood and was especially good in math. He became an engineer and was particularly drawn to aviation. He soon became a pioneer in the growing aerospace industry and founded the Hughes Aircraft Company. One of his most famous planes was the Hercules “Spruce Goose” eight-engine prototype, the largest seaplane ever built. It was one of a kind and was never duplicated.

Hughes set multiple world air speed records and broke the world record for a flight around the globe in one of his planes. In his young career, he survived a number of near-fatal plane crashes that left him in chronic pain, which he later self-medicated through injections of morphine.

As a business magnate, Hughes earned billions of dollars through his business genius and various entrepreneurial en-

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terprises. He became one of the most famous figures and faces in America.

Over time, Hughes developed an interest in Hollywood and filmmaking. He dated some of Hollywood’s most beautiful and famous women, marrying actress Jean Peters in 1947. However, he became an incurable womanizer in the process and was never faithful to any of his three wives. He had everything money could buy. Everything, that is, but freedom from fear.

In spite of his many successes, great wealth, and fame, he became more fearful and paranoid as he grew older. He was especially fearful of germs, a phobia that seems to have originated with his mother when he was a little boy. She was deathly afraid that he would contract some fatal germ or virus, especially polio. So, she hovered over him like a mother hen trying to protect him from germs.

His fears caused him to increasingly pull away from people and embrace an eccentric and reclusive lifestyle. As a result of his growing paranoia, this once-famous figure purposefully disappeared from public view. Over time he developed an extreme obsessive-compulsive disorder that caused him to fixate on minutiae. In his obsession to have no contact with people and circumstances that might contaminate him, Hughes hid away in some of the most beautiful and famous hotel penthouses in the world, most of which he bought. That way he could totally control everything and everyone— except fear!

He ultimately bought the Xanadu Princess Hotel in the Bahamas in 1972. It had become the most celebrated resort in the Caribbean since it served as a vacation hideaway for

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the Hollywood jet set of the day. There in his opulent penthouse with a multi-million-dollar view, Hughes lived out his last days as a totally fearful recluse.

Aloof from the world, Hughes had no direct contact with people for the last several years of his life. He was fearful of everything and everyone. He would only pick up objects with tissues to avoid possible contamination by germs. Whenever he had to get out of bed, he used the empty tissue boxes as slippers to move around the room to avoid contamination. Because of his obsessive-compulsive fears, Hughes lay naked in a darkened room on his bed with paper towels as his sheets. He did not bathe or cut his hair, beard, fingernails, or toenails. He ate little food and ultimately died like a malnourished person in the Third World, weighing around 90 pounds.

Public records reveal that Hughes died on April 5, 1976, on an emergency evacuation flight to the hospital from another of his penthouse hideaways in Acapulco, Mexico. His autopsy said he died at the age of 70 from kidney failure, with large amounts of codeine and valium in his bloodstream. But, he really died of fear!

For many years, I have ministered in Freeport, Bahamas, where the Xanadu Hotel is located on choice beachfront property. Every time I drive by it, I always think of the sad story of Howard Hughes—the billionaire who died of fear! He had it all. Everything money could buy. But he did not have freedom from fear. It increasingly dominated and destroyed his life. To die of fear is a sad way to end one’s life, whether you are a billionaire or an average guy or gal.

While most people do not have the luxury to die of fear

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like Hughes did, they still live with fear and ultimately die with fear in one form or another.

If fear can reduce an intelligent, educated, handsome, prosperous person like Howard Hughes to an empty shell of a man, it goes without saying that fear is a very complex spiritual, mental, and emotional enemy. Fear attacks both the head and heart. As an emotional enemy, fear invades the spirit and soul and ultimately manifests itself in the body, as the story of Howard Hughes reveals. It can hijack the mind, distort the emotions, cripple the will, and destroy the body of its victim, slowly or quickly. And while fear’s onset may be small, subtle, and slow, it tends to pick up momentum as the years go by. For a time, fear can be managed by alcohol, prescription pills, sedatives, tranquilizers, or workaholic behavior. But over time, nothing ultimately conquerors the demon of fear. It completely and totally possesses its victim.

A Biblical Perspective

Fear is not a foreign subject to the Bible. Quite the contrary. Fear is a recurring theme from Genesis to Revelation. Biblical history teaches us that fear is man’s oldest spiritual and emotional enemy.

Fear is also the first negative emotion recorded in the Bible. Ever since the Garden of Eden, fear has relentlessly pursued every member of the human family. It is usually the first emotion experienced by a newly born infant and the last emotion experienced by a dying elderly person.

But where did fear originate? Basically, fear is a learned

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behavior. We are not born with innate fears. Newborn babies or young children do not naturally fear things. It would seem that the only natural fear they have is being separated from their parents, especially their mother. All other fears are learned as they grow. These fears are both taught and caught from their parents, siblings, environment, and growing experiences. As a child grows, they learn both good fears and bad fears, but bad fears tend to dominate their lives.

That being the case, we need to study fear more carefully. Otherwise, it will be the cruel dictator that will drive and manipulate our lives: from birth to death, from childhood through old age, and from the cradle to the grave. Fear will be our constant companion in life and our undertaker in death.

Albert Camus, the French existential author who influenced a whole generation of people in the twentieth century, made this observation: “Ours is the century of fear.” He was right. And our fears have only increased in the twenty-first century. If that is the case, exactly what is fear?

Defining Fear

Let’s begin with a basic definition: Fear is a feeling of uneasiness, disquiet, concern, dread, alarm, agitation, apprehension, fright, or terror. That’s a pretty comprehensive emotional umbrella under which many people live their lives.

Fear is also defined as the emotional reaction to an environmental threat. It is therefore a reaction that is caused by the presence or nearness of danger, evil, or pain. And fear can range from a mild uneasiness to terror to sheer panic.

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Jesus mentioned fear when He spoke about the last days of human civilization: “On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity . . . People will faint from terror [fear], apprehensive of what is coming on the world” (Luke 21:25–26).

Just as Jesus said, while the world contemplates that foreboding scenario, there will be more and more people who “faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world.”

The critical question is, How is it all impacting you? Are you, too, fainting from fear as a result of all these clashing political conflicts locally and globally?

It is my prayer that the principles in this book will help liberate you from whatever fears you live with. We all have them to one degree or another. Or rather, the fears have us! So by the end of this study, I hope you will be well on your journey to liberation and freedom as you learn how to faith down your fears through the Word and Spirit.

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