181. Courage in an Age of Cowards: An Interview With Matthew Everhard

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the broadcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf. This is episode 181, my interview with Matthew Everhart.

Well, hello, everybody, and welcome back to the broadcast. Happy New Year.

This is our first episode back, so I'm excited about what we're gonna be talking about today.

One of the reasons that I started this show was because I felt like there was so much cowardice in the ranks of Christian pastors, and I wanted a show where we could speak frankly, boldly about culture, about eschatology, because I think that actually influences the way that we think about culture and all of that.

And recently, I saw on my feed that a brother in Christ, another pastor, has written a book called

Bold as Lions, Courage in an Age of Cowards, and I was so intrigued by the title,

I had to have him on the show, and I'm excited to bring that interview to you today. Thank you so much for everyone who subscribes and follows this channel, shares this content.

Thank you for everyone who is a member of this channel. You help make all of this content possible, and thank you so much for everyone who's taking the time to comment or to share their thoughts or to ask questions or to even send a note of encouragement.

It has really been an encouragement to me to see how much God has used this show and this community, and you in my life as well.

So thank you so much, and without further ado, God bless you, and enjoy the interview.

Well, hello everyone, and welcome back to the broadcast. My name is Kendall, and I'm here with a new friend,

Matthew Everhard, who is gonna be talking to us about a brand new book that he's just put out.

I'm really excited about that. I'm excited that this is the first episode of the year, and I think that the topic is actually really fitting for that.

So, I mean, I'm very encouraged. Matthew is a Presbyterian pastor. He's author of several books and theologian who serves at Gospel Fellowship PCA Church.

He labors to shepherd God's people with courage and with biblical fidelity.

He is a man of many talents. I just recently watched him pop an ollie on a video, which

I thought was super cool because I'm not coordinated enough. I would kill myself if I did that, but I'm excited,

Matthew, to have you on the show, brother. Welcome. Well, thank you so much, and I'm trying to avoid a workplace injury by skateboarding in the church gymnasium.

I'm not sure my elders would be pleased if I fall and break a hip. You know, I am 50, so if someone's gonna fall and break a hip at age 50, that's kind of a likely possibility, don't you think?

Yeah, but what cooler way to break a hip than doing it on a skateboard? That's right, yeah.

There's a story there for sure, definitely. I actually broke my arm snowboarding, so it's similar.

Oh, well, you haven't done that yet. Don't get hurt. I'm gonna try not to, yeah. So, man,

I'm friends with you on Facebook, which means that we're like best friends and we know everything about each other.

And I saw that you had put out a new book, and I was really encouraged by that.

And the title of the book is Bold as a Lion. So I just wanted to begin by just asking you, like, what went into writing that book?

It's a great book cover also, by the way. Whoever you got to do your design, that was fantastic. What went into writing a book like that?

I will tell my wife that you said that, because my wife is actually the one who designed the cover. She has a little bit of skill on Canva and some graphic design.

So I could say that we did it together because we talked about various iterations, but she's the one who designed the cover.

But to answer your question, the book is about fear. And this is something that every single one of us goes through.

We all have fears. We all like to pretend that we're tough guys and that we don't have any fears at all, but that's not the reality.

The reality is that we know that there are certain things that we are afraid of. And so I was writing this book to confront some of the sin in my own life, some of the fear, some of the sinful fear even in my own life.

So there's a certain aspect of the book which is personal on my part, but it's also very universal, because as I said, every single one of us has various fears of certain kinds.

But the title, Bold as a Lion, actually comes from Proverbs 28 .1, which tells us that the wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.

So there's the title right there. And even in that verse, in some sense, the whole book is a commentary on Proverbs 28 .1.

It does tell us that there's a moral implication to our fear, because the wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.

So it has to do with our standing firm in the faith and trusting in God, and confronting by his grace and by his help, some of the things that are besetting anxieties and fears in our lives.

So that's kind of the whole theme of the book in a nutshell. Yeah, and I really appreciate how you began the book by talking about COVID as an example of failure, especially failure in the leadership of the church and in the pastors of the church.

I was, as I was reading it, I was thinking about Boniface and how he goes right into the middle of town, tries to evangelize all of these

Norse people, and they're afraid of Thor. And he's like, well, fine, I'm just gonna chop down Thor's tree.

And chops it down. He doesn't die. Everybody converts to Christianity. And you see this, you see that, and this is an aspect you pick up on, that boldness is contagious, and that it's something that is led.

And in COVID, we watched an epic fail among the pastors of this country.

Yeah, and I confess some of my own failings in that endeavor. You know, on one hand, we're a little bit excusable because we were facing what we were told was going to be a very, very serious pandemic.

The likes of which we had not seen in over a hundred years or more. We were told that there was gonna be mass waves of death and suffering and disease and so forth.

The winter of death is coming upon us and all that. And so we believed it. You know, we believed the experts because they were the experts.

And I don't fault us for believing the experts because we're not supposed to be experts in pathogenic diseases ourselves.

Not every lay person understands how these things work. For the most part, we do kind of trust the authorities that be.

However, the shameful aspect was that many Christians were as afraid of the disease as the unbelievers were.

And that's shameful because we have the gospel. We have the answer, not only to suffering, but to death itself.

And the answer to death itself is in the gospel. So of all the people that should be the least afraid to die, you would expect that Christians would be able to face that kind of a pandemic with some greater certainty in the confidence of the promises of God.

But then moreover, not only were we actually afraid of the disease itself as much as the unbelievers, and we were subject to all kinds of emotional manipulations, you're killing grandma, et cetera.

But then many of us went too far in our measures, I think, in closing down the churches.

And for those who did close them down, very often for far too long. And even to the extent of many churches closing permanently because the gospel witness of their churches were veritably extinguished, they never came back.

The fact of the matter is that thousands of churches closed down that never opened up again. And that's a sad thing, because in the moment when the culture needed us the most to be faithful witnesses, we were unfortunately,

I think, too afraid of death and disease and suffering and so forth.

And I think we missed an opportunity to be really bold, courageous, light -filled and hopeful witnesses that we could have been.

I think about a great juxtaposition in my mind of Martin Luther talking about going and fumigating those who are infected with the bubonic plague and how he didn't stop doing ministry because there was this plague.

It actually fueled him to get out in the streets and administer aid to people, which is such a

Luther move, right? To be like that kind of boldness. And then the message

I kept hearing from pastors during COVID and all of that was, it's about love of neighbor.

It's about wisdom. We need to be wise because this isn't a cowardice issue.

I'm not afraid. I'm just trying to be wise. What do you think about that? Was that just a cloak for a kind of cowardness using nice evangelical language for that?

What do you think? Well, on one hand, we have to admit that the disease was real.

There was a thing called COVID -19. A lot of people got sick. I had in my congregation several people that actually died from COVID.

So I cannot wave this off as though it were merely a political thing, but unfortunately it became very, very political.

And it was interesting how one's political ideology was often a tip of the hat as to what they were going to actually do about COVID.

And so unfortunately, like most of the issues in our culture today, it became extremely polarizing so that if you voted towards one direction, you were probably gonna do

A, and if you voted towards the other direction, you were probably going to do B. Whereas this was a moment where gospel preaching and some bold evangelizing of the lost would have been,

I think, most appropriate. And you're right to bring up the reformers because we're not the first generation to face a plague. It's not like plagues were invented in 2020.

I mean, there's been various kinds of plagues that have been through the church many times at various centuries.

And often the church rises to the occasion to be that light and witness that the dying culture needs to see around it.

However we did that successfully or unsuccessfully, the Lord will judge. But as for me,

I sensed that in my life, there was a little bit too much temerity about that.

And I'm kind of challenging myself. And not only that, but simultaneously, there was another plague happening.

And that is the plague of transgenderism that was kind of sweeping across the country. And it really peaked,

I think, in about those years because 2020, 2021, these were the years of the BLM riots in the major cities and so forth.

And so you had social unrest, you had COVID -19, which was real, but maybe not exactly what they were saying it was gonna be.

And then you had this really deep, intrinsically wicked ideology spreading across the culture like a demonic horde of social deception.

And again, unfortunately, so many churches and denominations, right at the moment where the world needed us to speak a clear word, instead, many churches and denominations caved to the ideology.

And part of my purpose in writing this book, Bold as a Lion, is to say, basically, what the heck were we doing?

We're supposed to be the people that are bold and courageous because we have Christ, because we have the

Holy Spirit, because we have the infallible word of God. And instead, a lot of churches and denominations, probably not your denomination or mine, though they parroted the unbelieving ideologies of the

LGBTQ movement and so forth, and basically became just kind of like dull recordings and replays of what the unbelieving secular culture was saying.

Yeah, I think about this a lot, actually. And I think about it a lot with pastors because I really do believe that congregations tend to take on the attributes of their pastor.

It's a phenomenon. And if we look at the unhealth of the church, and in this book specifically of cowardice, there has to be some level of self -examination for us men who are called by God to serve

God's people that have I been cowardly. And part of the reason why

I even started doing a podcast was that I felt like that there was too many soft men in the ministry, and there wasn't any kind of say it like it is, tell the biblical truth, be kind about it, but not be this squishy version of kindness that we pass off that is afraid to say anything whatsoever that might hurt someone's feelings.

So I'm seeing this like, it's not just COVID, it's everywhere, cowardice in the church. And it's in the pastorate as well.

For sure. And if anybody ought to be bold, it should be the pastors because they're the ones who have the, literally the

God -ordained responsibility of saying true things. And how we know what is true is what is written in God's inspired word.

Now, there's all kinds of different things that we could debate about or have in -depth discussions of, but as it relates to God's word and the authority therein, we are supposed to be bold proclaimers of the truth like prophets, not capital

P prophets, like the inspired writers of scripture, Isaiah and John and Paul and so forth, but lowercase

P prophets that are bold announcers of what is true, both the law and the gospel of the scriptures.

And we're supposed to do that without flinching. And pastors too though, you and I both know this, we're susceptible to what is called in the

Bible, the fear of man. And that is this kind of fear. It's a major theme in the book that we regard people's opinions more highly than we regard the authoritative revealed word of scripture.

And that's a major problem. And it's one that if you're gonna struggle with the fear of man, you probably shouldn't even be in a pulpit because the

Lord calls men to be ferocious decriers or proclaimers of the word who have to be able to do it without flinching.

Right. What do you think? So this is interesting to me because I actually did begin ministry with this sin.

I had a tremendous amount of fear of man. And I remember the first,

I'm not trying to name drop, but the first time that I felt so convinced that I had to name names in the pulpit,

I was talking about the downfall of Joshua Harris. And I remember trembling thinking,

I'm gonna offend someone. And, but by God's grace, I did that.

It was hard. I had to grow that muscle because it was flabby and not just to,

I'm not just talking about Josh Harris, but to say something that was difficult that would even lead to someone being uncomfortable in the sermon.

And by the Lord's grace, he strengthened me over the years, but that fear is real, especially in ministry.

It is, it is. It's a real fear. And sometimes we fear, sadly, our wives or the elders' wives or the elders themselves or the influential givers in the church, or even we kind of chase this impossible clout of just wanting most people to generally approve of our ministries.

And on one hand, there is something about that. We're supposed to be above reproach. And generally,

I think it's a good thing for people to like you and to respect you and to esteem you, especially as they consider you a true pastor, one who cares about people and loves the suffering people in the church.

And pastors ought to be considered a person that's open and honest and meek and humble when it calls for that, which is very often.

So there is a sense in which our people should kind of like us, you know what I mean? Because they sense that we're genuinely benevolent people who truly love others and are concerned for their welfare and so forth.

But I do think that there's a kind of snarky politician in a lot of us that just wants to make sure the majority are pleased by what we're doing.

And that could be a pretty negative, that could be a pretty negative polarity in our ministries, because if I calculate every sermon or every dynamic leadership decision

I'm gonna make in the church based on whether or not 51 or more percent of people are gonna approve of it, it's just not a very good way to try to be a leader.

Pastors aren't populist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have to be biblicists and have to be kind and gracious, but we definitely do have to be those who have a steel spine and a thick skin to sometimes slough off criticism.

Now, let me ask you this, in your research, how do you think we got here? Because I think about who we would consider, me and you, our spiritual ancestors, men like John Knox, who stood up to Queen Mary, men like Luther, who stood up to the

Pope, Calvin, who basically stood up to the whole city of Geneva whenever they were doing their thing.

I mean, Whitefield, Edwards, all of these guys are bold men. And how is it that we get, and I'm not gonna say particular people here, but how do we get to this culture of we just wanna be seen as reasonable, we wanna be seen as nice, we wanna be well thought of by unbelievers, and all those things are good, but where did we cross over from it being a good thing to a bad thing, maybe even an idolatrous thing?

Well, a couple of thoughts about some of those heroes, because I share all of those heroes that you mentioned, especially

Edwards and Whitefield and so forth. Item one on this is that these men were extraordinarily gifted, and they were called of God for particular moments in history.

And by God's grace, he raised them up, gave them the gifts that were necessary, and God used them as he does all of the tools that he raises up in his sovereign will to carry about his decreed purposes.

So there's a sense in which we're not going to be like these guys, because they were in some sense unique.

Now, on the other hand, flip that coin over to point two, they are actually just like you and I, because when you look into their personal lives, or you read some of their journals or their letters, what you find is that they had the very kind of basic instinct fears that you and I really do have.

And so in one sense, they're kind of raised up for the moments, but you and I, hey, we're raised up for this moment.

And our names will be remembered in as much as we are bold to do what

God calls us to do, or else we flag in that moment and we fail to be the men that God calls us to be.

But I also don't want to make these guys into superheroes with capes, because I love church history, and particularly

Edwards and so forth. And when you read some of their more personal writings, you do find that they often had weaknesses and fears and trepidations, and they too were caught in the crosswinds of congregational difficulties and pastoral gossiping and so forth.

So they're very mortal, just like the rest of us. We can learn from them, but we don't want to put them on podiums and assume that they're in a different class entirely.

Yeah, and what I mean, and that's a good point, obviously, but what I mean is, yeah, of course they had fear.

Luther was up all night long before the Diet of Worms. That's right. Wondering whether he would be able to do what he needed to do, what he knew he must do.

And in the moment, God gave him by his spirit, the courage to do it. But you and I both know that courage is not the absence of fear.

So where did we, I think I'm wondering more macro, how did we get to a place where our fears are ruling us instead of courage in the face of fear?

Well, I guess if you want to make like a cultural assessment of the day, you could start off with some of these mega trend movements that are kind of bigger than any one particular moment in history itself.

So you could talk about the advent of postmodernism, for instance, or you could talk about some of the major ideologies of the day.

Probably the biggest ideology today would be like the DEI movement and some of the wokest ideology and so forth, which really is almost totally at a crosswinds from the foundation of our nation.

Going back to our own history here, we were founded on certain principles in the West and particularly here in America, biblical principles, a

Christian subculture, at least a Christian subculture, if not overtly Christianized mentality.

But because of a number of major ideological changes, that's no longer the case.

And so to be Christian now requires a bit of a stronger spine than it did in times past, or at least it requires a different kind of steeled spine for different moments.

But we're living in a unique place here in the West because at least as far as America goes, this is kind of the first moment where Christianity is now considered to be a detriment.

Originally, Christianity was considered to be a kind of a bonus. It was a good thing. It was perceived to be a very good thing.

And then we went kind of to an era probably when you and I were kids where Christianity was at least neutral, if not a positive, but now it's sort of a detriment.

And so I think a lot of churches and Christians individually are much more susceptible to societal pressures than we have been because we're kind of facing this minority status as Bible -believing

Christians for the first time in our Western ethos. But I'm interested in your opinion too.

What would you say are some of the macro issues that are causing us to be susceptible to this now?

What do you think? Well, I haven't put as much thought into it as you on the whole of it.

But I know I think a lot about how our eschatology has really given us, and not everyone,

I know there's different views, but the biggest view in our childhood at least, and I think it's waning now, has been dispensationalism.

Yeah. And I think that so many people have just expected that we're going to lose, that we're going to lose down here, as MacArthur once said, that we should not anticipate victory, the kingdom advancing, and all of these things.

So I think there becomes a kind of self -fulfilling prophecy that we don't engage culture because we think it's going to go to hell in a handbasket.

And as we have removed the salt, the meat has rotted. And we say, see, the world's going to keep getting worse.

And it just kind of is a, it's gotten us into this place now where 50 to 100 years later, the culture itself is rotten because we've pulled back in a lot of ways.

Okay, so that's interesting. I like that line of thought there. So you're suggesting that actually our eschatology influences this because our eschatology is kind of like our timeline for how we see the events of the world unfolding.

And if you begin with the presupposition that culture is going to continually get worse, a la some pre -millennial dispensational ideologies that the world is kind of going to hell in a handbasket, as you said, that's going to dispose me then to react to certain things in certain ways.

Whereas if I have a more triumphal eschatology and I expect, no, actually I need to fight back because this land belongs to the

Lord. And not only this land, but all lands belong to the Lord. And he is the King of Kings. And to him, every knee must bow and every magistrate needs to honor

Christ as Lord. Then that does kind of steal you up from a different perspective than if you kind of assume that we lose down here and that things are going to continue to get worse and worse.

Yeah, and it also, I think it works itself out in our time horizon because I was always brought up in that left behind mentality that it could be today.

I remember my grandparents and my parents went to the grocery store together and they were gone longer than they were supposed to be.

And I was at home by myself and I couldn't get them on their phones. And I thought, maybe

I missed it. Maybe they were raptured. Thinking that way has totally affected the way that we do ministry in the

West because all I need to do, because I don't have time to do anything else, is get them saved, get them into the kingdom by the skin of their teeth.

I don't have time to disciple them. And because I'm not discipling them, they're not discipling their families. Because families aren't being discipled, we don't have a vision for how to actually live for 100 years, 200 years, 300 years, and actually take back our culture.

Why would we do that when people are dying and going to hell and we're going to be tractor beam to the sky 15 minutes later?

Yeah, yeah, that's a very good point. Yeah, I've been thinking about Jonathan Edwards and his eschatology a bit.

In fact, I have a video coming out, I guess it's going to be tomorrow, where I look at Edwards' eschatology.

I've been combing through some of his writings to make what I think would be Edwards' chart. You know, different eschatologies have different charts.

The dispensationalists are famous for them. We who are either amillennial or postmillennial, our chart's a little bit more simple because we don't get super fancy with some of the ways that dispensationalists do.

So I made Edwards' chart, and for the most part, it's an eschatology of triumph.

Edwards believed that the revivals that he was experiencing in the Great Awakening were harbingers of the millennial age, if not actually the dawn of the millennial age.

There's a moment where he kind of almost comes out and says he thinks it is, and then later he has to backtrack and say, eh, it's just a harbinger of that later great time.

But Edwards did hold that there would be a millennium and that it would be marked by the fall of the

Roman Catholic Church especially, as well as the fall of Islam. So he saw it as kind of an east -west duel falling out of the powers that be.

And for Edwards, the powers that be are the Roman Catholic Church and the expanse of Islam. When he thought that those two things would fall and collapse, then the millennial age would dawn.

And that the gospel would be successfully proclaimed throughout the earth and that the nations would be discipled and catechized in the ways of the

Lord. But he did hold for a final rebellion at the end, which is a little bit different, because it almost feels like he has to kind of shoehorn that rebellion in towards the end.

But he would hold to a final rebellion at the end of all things with the man of lawlessness and so forth before the coming of the

Lord. But it's a whole way of looking at life. It's a way of looking at life that the trials and difficulties are mostly temporary.

They're going to be overcome by the goodness of God and by the ordinary means of grace and that God's kingdom is going to be established and proclaimed.

And unbelievably, that's, I mean, Edwards held so firmly to that. So when Northampton fires him, which was not good and not what they should have done, and now

I think they probably would look back on that and say that was a bad move. But Edwards goes and immediately starts being a missionary to the

Indians because he believed Christ was going to be successful and victorious. And hey, it's not going to be in Northampton, now it's going to be in Stockbridge.

But that overarching view of the victory of God was a centralizing sort of feature in Edwards' life.

I think it's something that we've lost permission to think that God is going to still have victory. Yeah, it almost feels like a utopian view or a pie in the sky type view if you start talking about cultural victory and especially gospelizing victory.

Now, you and I, we might disagree a little bit on this issue because I would describe myself as an optimistic amillennialist.

The optimism comes in the fact that I think that the gospel is successfully going to permeate the whole of the earth.

You know, Habakkuk 2 .14, the knowledge of the Lord will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea and so forth.

Isaiah 11 .9 says the same thing. But I don't necessarily think that the persecution of the church is going to be terminated.

I think it very well could be a very strong church, but nevertheless experiences persecution and kickback and difficulties in various times.

But I do think that largely the church will be thriving and the church will be evangelizing and the church will be enduring when

Christ returns and he will find his church ubiquitously plants it all over the earth, though perhaps experiencing more or less difficulty in various places on the earth.

Right, yeah, we believe the same things except it's just a matter of extent. But I think that that belief that we have fuels us to think, well, what's next?

I'm not just gonna hunker down on a foxhole. I'm gonna do everything I can with all the energy and life that I can to spread his kingdom.

And that's what, you asked me a little bit ago what I think, that's what I hope comes back into the church because I think that will fuel courage.

Yeah, yeah, very good. Well, one of the things I try to do in the book in part one,

I try to diagnose different kinds of fears that we experience. And so I basically break that down into four different categories.

There's rational fears, there's irrational fears, there's natural fears, and there's supernatural fears.

And then those categories can kind of overlap a little bit. So as to irrational fears, we all probably have these kinds of things that we're afraid of that really don't make any sense.

We're not even sure why we're afraid of them. We just kind of are. Like for some people, it's maybe a fear of heights or a fear of social situations or excess fear of snakes or spiders or something like that.

For others, our fears are much more rational and real. We're afraid of illness and death, which are in fact inevitable.

There's nothing you can do to entirely prevent that. We're afraid of things like car accidents and so forth, which, you know, it's a real thing that happens to a lot of people.

And then there's supernatural fears too. Fear of, well, primarily

God, first of all, He's the most rational supernatural fear that there is. Fear of demons and temptation and hell and death and so forth.

So part of, in the book, conquering our fears is first of all, identifying what they are and then trying to get a grip on why it is that we fear those particular things.

Because you and I, Kendall, we probably have some differences in our fears. There's probably some things that we commonly agree on, but maybe we have some different reactions to different settings than each other and certainly other readers of the book too.

Right. I think it's so important that you talk about diagnosing fear because fear loses power once you actually identify what it is.

What are some practical steps that you found that have helped you learn how to put your finger on what it is that you fear?

Because there's sometimes we don't know really what it is that we're afraid of. We just know that we're fearful of something.

So walk me through, how do you identify, going from just identifying it to mortifying it?

That's a great question. So the answer is always the gospel, but the gospel is applied in different ways.

So let's suppose that there's a culture that has irrational supernatural fears.

So this would be places like in Africa, for instance, where I was a missionary, where they're constantly afraid of being cursed by other people.

They're afraid of curses. They're afraid of dark spirits. They're afraid of ancestor spirits and so forth.

So the way that the gospel is applied here is through the catechesis of a biblical worldview.

And one thing that's interesting, Kendall, is wherever the gospel goes throughout the earth as a missionary enterprise, we're trying to catechize pagan people into biblical worldviews.

It's not easy to do because a lot of these fears kind of carry out over even after a person is converted or a place is

Christianized, but we want our worldviews to be biblical. We don't wanna be afraid of things that have no power over us.

And that's a key theme in the book. There's a lot of things that we're afraid of that really have zero power over your life.

What I wanna do is I wanna actually be afraid of things that have real power over my life, such as God.

God is the one who we ought to ultimately fear. And Jesus even says that. He says, don't be afraid of those people who can kill the body and after that do nothing, but fear rather him who has the power to destroy both the body and the soul in hell.

So again, gospel applied. How is my fear of God taken away? Well, by being justified by grace through faith in Christ.

And I realized that through Jesus, I'm not cursed, but rather I'm the recipient of all of the promises that God offers to me, regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification, and so forth.

So really whether you're a believer or an unbeliever, it is the gospel that cancels out our fears, but I guess it'd be more person specific to, what are you afraid of and how do we apply the gospel to it?

Yeah, I remember there's a great book that I love. I've read it several times. It's actually just a sermon, but it's in booklet form.

Thomas Chalmers' book, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. Yeah, great one. Yeah, and I remember just thinking to myself how fear and affection are so intimately tied together because fear is an affection for something inordinate and how we often trade fear for fear instead of the true fear to God.

Like I'm gonna be afraid of my finances and oh, I realize that's a sin, so I need to repent of that, but then

I end up becoming afraid of some other thing. It's just trading one affection for the other.

What you're saying, and I think this is right, is we actually have to trade it in for the ultimate thing whenever we identify any of that and submit it to the

Lordship of Christ. Yeah, now let's say that our fear is in that category that we commonly call phobias.

So these would be things that are typically irrational and yet they have gripping power over us.

So one of the examples I give in a book is a dear friend of mine, awesome dude, loves the

Lord. He's covered in tattoos. He's a mechanic by trade. He goes on mission trips all over the world. He's an awesome guy, but he's afraid of elevators, like pretty scared of getting on an elevator.

Now that's an irrational fear because yes, it's true that there have been elevator accidents and so forth.

However, the chances of actually perishing in an elevator accident are so infinitesimally small that there's no reason why

I should allow this fear to have any kind of inhibitive power restricting me in my life so that I can't do the things that God would call me to do.

I can't go visit a widow in the fourth floor because I'm afraid to get on an elevator and go see her. Like no way, man,

I'm not letting that have power over me. So in these kinds of things, we have to confront them incrementally.

And this is substantiated in even the secular literature about confronting phobias that you confront them by exposure therapy.

You have to piece by piece and from small to large, expose yourself to the thing that you're afraid of, conquer it bit by bit and continue to make progress.

So first you maybe just think about an elevator and then maybe you draw a picture of an elevator and then you go stand near an elevator and then you get on one but you don't push the buttons and then you get on one and you do push the buttons and then you get on one and you go all the way up.

It's like a little bit at a time, that's how we have to confront these things. But it's true for just so many areas of our lives.

We just have to let the spirit of God in his power rise above the thing that we're afraid of and let him conquer it by his grace.

Yeah, I don't know if this is actually true but I did hear this that there's 365 times in the

Bible that it says, fear not. So I haven't actually went and counted it myself.

I think it's a great illustration though. Every day, there's enough fear nots in the

Bible for every day to remember, do not fear. That's exactly right. I haven't counted them myself either although I've heard the same anecdote.

But regardless, it is certainly true that the Bible is filled with admonitions to us either fear not or do not be afraid or however other way it's variously said.

Sometimes it says take heart. Sometimes it says to be bold or to act like men or whatever.

But there's almost innumerable encouragements in the scriptures for us to trust in the Lord, rely on his promises and confront the things that we're terrified of.

Yeah, amen. And I like the concept of exposure therapy. I mean, there's some things that we can absolutely just reject from secular thinking.

But the Puritans tell us that there's two books. There's the book of God and there's the book of creation.

And sometimes those people who don't know the Lord, sometimes they stumble upon truth in nature that is worth receiving.

I think there's a lot of merit to exposing yourself to things so that you can grow.

I remember I was irrationally afraid of snakes and overcame that fear by, this is, somebody is gonna be offended by this probably.

I was on a golf course and I took my pitching wedge and went mayhem on the snake.

You hacked it up. I hacked it up, chopped his head off. Genesis 315 to him with a pitching wedge.

Yeah. And I was not afraid of snakes anymore after that. Same thing with heights. I was really, really afraid of heights, so much so that I would just feel paralyzed.

And by God's grace, I went into the army and one of my things that I had to do was jump out of planes.

Wow, wow. So I've seen this in my life that I can conquer the fear by facing it, not by running away from it.

Well, hey, let's talk about a real practical one here too, because a lot of your listeners are gonna have the fear of public speaking.

And that is a very natural thing. It's a very common thing. In fact, there's probably a pretty slim minority of people.

If we were to draw up a pie chart, it's a pretty thin piece of pie of people that are just not afraid at all to get in front of a large group and just to talk or give a speech or a lecture of some kind.

But there's a real call for that. We do need people that are bold enough to do that.

And so again, this kind of exposure or incremental type of conquering this fear, we do it piece by piece and step by step.

Whereas you don't just get out and talk to a thousand people for an hour first. The first thing you do is you give a little family dinner table prayer when people come over at Thanksgiving or you introduce yourself in a social situation, or then maybe you give a brief testimony one day an evening service or something like that.

And that's how we work our way up to having the courage to be able to address, much less even rebuke a large group of people and say things that are difficult to say.

But again, it's by God's grace, through his spirit, the power that he gives us in the Holy Spirit, we have to rely upon that.

But like, hey, if you're a pastor and you're afraid to public speak, you're gonna have to confront that.

And the only way that I know of to confront it, it's not through hypnosis or something crazy like that, but it's through the doing of the thing.

And so that's why we have to train men, even bit by bit, practical things like internships and so forth to get them to be able to adequately address the people of God with the word of God.

Yeah, and this is so, like what you've written is so practical because it affects so many things. Like for instance, say a guy is afraid of marriage for whatever reason.

Maybe he's afraid that he's not gonna be a good husband. Maybe he's afraid that whatever, maybe I don't have enough money to provide for a wife.

So he avoids even getting into relationships with a young woman who would be a wonderful wife, exposure therapy, whatever we're calling that, face your fear, be faithful, do the thing that...

And I think of another example of Bible reading. I'm afraid that I won't understand it, so I just avoid it.

So many practical applications of what you're talking about. We're evangelizing or how about this, just like a general vague fear that you're gonna be a failure in life.

Yeah. What you do is you don't do anything. You don't take any risks. You don't apply for the job.

You don't move across state to take a different call because you just settle for the lousy one that you have.

You're afraid to ask a girl out on a date because you're afraid she's gonna say no. You're afraid to go to your employer and ask for the raise or the promotion that you think you deserve after all these years.

There's so many things that fear can cause us to just wither away in the inertia of inactivity.

And that's why the bold man acts like a lion because he's not afraid of the consequences.

Now, that doesn't mean it's gonna work out. Sometimes it actually doesn't work out and you're confronted with the very thing that you're afraid of.

You thought she might say no and she did say no. Okay, so what? So that's not the girl for you.

You need to find a different girl and ask her out on a date. And if she says no, then you find a third girl but you gotta keep on going because what are you gonna do if you don't?

You're going to, again, wither away in just kind of the slew of despond like remember in Pilgrim's Progress, Christian gets stuck in the slew or the slough of despond almost from the get -go.

But you gotta pull yourself out of that and you gotta make progress because there's no other way. There's just no other way. Yeah, and the only way is to go through it because Christian knows he can't go back.

So he has to go through it to the other side in order to actually get the hand that pulls him out.

Yeah, that's right, yeah. Such a good book, isn't it? We could do a whole podcast on Pilgrim's Progress because it's just so filled with analogies and stories that relate to us so deeply.

I'm actually leading a small group right now through the Pilgrim's Progress. So I'm enjoying it again, all over again.

It's such a good book. Yeah, very cool, very cool. Let me ask you this. It's something I was curious about when

I was reading and it's something I've been curious about. I have thoughts on it, but I'd love to hear yours. Do you think that this is why

John, and obviously through the Holy Spirit in that great list of sins in Revelation 21, lists cowardice first, even that the cowardly will not be permitted in heaven?

Yeah, it's a bit of a shock to read Revelation 21 .8 because you're not expecting to see cowardice at the top of a list like that because that list has the kinds of things that we would imagine, sexual immorality and idolatry and even sorcery.

Sorcery, of course, being like as demonic as it gets, right? Because sorcery is basically the using of dark powers for evil purposes.

So we expect to see sins like that, but we don't expect to see cowardice just kind of hit us in the face in the very first sin item in that vice list.

Now, I don't think that when we read that list or any other list that that's necessarily like a staged tier ranking of which sin is worse.

That's not the point. But sometimes the first and the last in a list like that are kind of there to get your attention a little bit.

You know what I mean? Like it's not a coincidence that the last thing John says at the end of 1 John is children do not fall prey to idols or something like that.

I biffed up the verse, but you get the idea. He leaves us on that thought of idolatry as like the last line of the book.

It's like, whoa. Well, same thing too in this list. Cowardice is mentioned first because throughout the whole book of Revelation, what has

John been preaching? Confidence in the Lamb, confidence in the

Lion of Judah, confidence in the Christ who reigns over heaven and earth. He's on his throne.

Look at him, he's glorious. The heavens and the earth are praising this Christ. And yet you're going to fall prey to the intimidations of the dragon?

No way. The whole point of the book of Revelation is to summon people to courageous witness and activity.

And this is the line where fear becomes sinful, right? Because Kendall, if you and I are walking home today and we see a bear, like it's not a sin for me to be afraid of a bear because a bear can eat me for dinner.

But if my fear causes me to shut my mouth when I should be speaking, or if my fear causes me to back up when

I should be stepping forward, then yeah, fear is a sin at that moment because it's inhibiting my witness and it's muting my obedience to Christ.

And that's why he lists it first in that list. Yeah, amen. I totally agree with that.

And also, I haven't thought about this before. So this is a brand new thought. It's not very well thought out either.

So it could be, you could tell me if this is not true, but it seems to me that fear is ubiquitous in every sin.

Because, you know, go back to the garden of Eden, pride led to the sin and then fear is the result of the sin.

It seems to me that fear is intricately connected in a way that sexual immorality isn't connected to every single other sin, but fear is.

Yeah, that's a really interesting thought. I think that's true because it's one of the really base level, like for lack of a better term, gut level instincts that we have is to be prideful and to be afraid.

Whereas there are certain other sins in the whole catalog, like there's a thousand things that are sinful, right?

Certain other sins though are not so nearly universal. For instance, I have never been tempted to gamble.

Like gambling has no purchase on me. I just, I have no desire. I don't care and I would never want to gamble because I'm kind of fiscally conservative.

I think it's like a risk of my money, so I'm not gonna do that. Whereas other people gambling might be a real temptation, right?

Like that might be just like in their face. Certain sexual proclivities,

I don't face them. Other people might, but fear and pride just seem to be like so central to the human heart.

It's like they are the root of so many other sins. Selfishness is probably even the baser one because selfishness is the root of both pride and fear.

And selfishness is the opposite of Godwardness. So there's no wonder that we all struggle with selfishness to some degree.

Yeah, that's so good and so true. There's so much that we could talk about and your book is fantastic.

I wanna encourage everybody to go pick up a copy of it and read it. But I wanna turn the corner here as we kind of wind down on our time and I wanna talk about, okay, so what?

We've identified it. Now, what do we do? How do we as optimistic millennials and super optimistic post -millennials, how do we now live?

You know, ask this Francis Schaefer question. Yeah, how should we then live? That's a great question. Thanks for asking it.

So the second part of the book then, it's actually not all about fear.

Only the first part is really about fear. The second part is about bravery. So about halfway through the book, we turn the corner to then discussing what is clearly a virtue.

If cowardice is a vice and everybody agrees that it is, even the Greek philosophers and so forth that are not

Christian, they're like, yeah, it's definitely a vice to be a coward. But Christian and non -Christian alike see bravery as virtuous.

And so what we do in the second part of the book is I look at five, what I call archetypes of Christian courage.

This is basically courage applied to five areas. So here they are. Number one, the courage of a disciple, because it takes courage to just simply believe the gospel and to follow after Jesus, right?

Secondly, the courage of the prophet, because at some point, our discipleship requires us to speak.

We have to talk, we have to speak out against evil in the world. And we have to speak true things that edify

God's people. Third, there's the courage of the philosopher, because as Christians, we have to think in ways that are diametrically opposed to the unbelieving world.

Like we cannot be caught up in the secular philosophies of this age. We have to have our minds formed by Holy Scripture and by the good, the true, and the beautiful of God's word.

Fourth, there's the courage of the warrior, which is the fact that we have to sometimes fight against evil.

Now that could be a metaphor, and it sometimes is, but it could also be a literal reality.

There is a sense in which we do have to fight for what is true and what is lovable about our land and our families and our churches and our nation.

And then finally, the fifth one is the archetype of the martyr. Now you and I may never actually be martyrs and praise

God if we aren't, but there is a sense in which every believer ought to be able to say, to live as Christ and to die as Gain.

And so the second part of the book that applies bravery or courage to those five areas. There could be more areas,

I'm not saying those are exhaustive, but there are five specific applications of courage that we are to see in our lives and try to exemplify us as Christian believers.

Yeah, how do you delineate? So you start with the first and then go towards the fifth.

How do you delineate as far as time spent? Because one of the things I've thought about is if Christians would just read their

Bible and pray and do family worship at home and be at church on Sunday and develop a robust Christian worldview, most of this would take care of itself.

I think so, yeah. Just the simple means of grace. Yeah, yeah. Yes, I don't know that I have anything to add to that other than that you're exactly right.

I think if we subject ourselves to the ordinary means of grace and exactly the three legs of the stool that you mentioned, there's private devotion, there's family worship, and then there's gathered boards they worship with the people of God, that's going to help us and equip us in so many areas of life.

Now, is that the shield that will prevent me from suffering? No, probably not, because all of us are going to experience suffering to some degree in our lives and probably different kinds of suffering.

But what it is going to do is it's going to gird me up and sanctify me so that when, not if, but when suffering comes into my life,

I'll be able to face that suffering with the confidence of Christ, knowing that wherever I go or whatever happens to me, the

Lord is with me. And that's the promise right there, isn't it? The promise of the gospel, the

Lord will be with you. And we see that so many times in the scriptures when a particular saint is suffering by himself, even

Joseph in the prison, Daniel in the lion's den, Paul and Silas in the Philippian prison, yet it's there that the

Lord is truly with us. And that's our greatest confidence, I think, right there. Yeah, I was thinking, as you were just saying that,

David ripping apart a lion, and it says right before that the spirit of the Lord came upon him, the breath of the

Almighty came to him, and he has this great moment of courage. And that's true, whoever's listening to this right now, that's true of you all the time, because David did great acts of courage when the spirit came on him.

You have the spirit living in you, which means that in almost every way you are in a better position than David.

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome, yeah. Yeah, Samson, it also says the spirit of the

Lord came upon Samson, he ripped up the lion. But David too, he fights off lions and bears as a shepherd before he's even called to be king.

And it's in a sense that his fighting off the lions and the bears as a shepherd boy that qualifies him and enables him to be the better king when he has to actually then go on to slay

Goliath and then various of the Philistines, and he has to confront Saul and Absalom and so forth.

But look, here's the summary of the book. Believer, you have the spirit of God in you.

You have his promises that he's with you all the time. You have victory over death and the grave and sin and hell and guilt, all these things.

We are more than conquerors through him who loves us. So that's kind of the rallying cry to the book, and I hope people will take that away as a positive.

So whether it's men or women or teenagers studying the book, whether alone or in groups, I hope believers are edified and strengthened by reading it.

Yeah, amen. And I hope that it is disseminated far and wide because it's a good read, brother.

I'm reminded as we close of a quote that Charles Spurgeon said, we are immortal until God is finished with us.

And that has been such a truth that has anchored me when

I'm tempted to fear. Well, I can't actually die until God is finished with me, so I can be bold.

I can conquer this irrational fear that I've got right now. I can move forward because God's not finished with me.

I'm not dead yet. Thank you so much for sharing that, Kendall. And I really appreciate the opportunity to come on your podcast today.

I do wish all the best to you and to your church this year. I think it's gonna be a great year. I'm personally pumped for 2026.

I'm really encouraged about what the Lord is doing here at Gospel Fellowship PCA. Thankful for what

He's doing in my family. Thankful for what the Lord has done in my personal life and just give all praise and thanks to Him.

So thank you, man. Appreciate it. Oh, I'm so glad that you came on and so glad you were able to talk to us. That's what

I'm hoping too. I'm hoping 2026, we'll see the church not just wake up, but grow up into her calling and maybe even see a kind of acts -like situation where the church is advancing again and strong and vigorous.

So I couldn't agree with you more. Praise God for that. Well, thanks, brother. You're welcome.

God bless you, brother. Thank you for coming and God bless your ministry and God bless all of the endeavors that you're working on.

Where else can we find you, by the way? I needed to ask that too. Well, primarily my YouTube channel. So YouTube .com

slash Matthew Everhard for two videos a week. Also on Spotify or Apple podcast if you want.

Hey, if you're interested in seminary, come check out RPTS, the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary right here in Pittsburgh.

It's about the best place in the world to get a reformed education, in my opinion. And we'd love to have you as a student in class or online.

And that has nothing to do with your professor. They don't pay you to say that. No, I'm just kidding. They don't, but they should.

So admin out there, if you're listening, hey, I'm just kidding. That's a fair point. Well, God bless you, brother.

And we will hopefully connect with you again soon. I hope so. Thank you. Thanks again, Kendall. That does it for us today.

Thank you so much for watching the interview. And remember, be courageous, be bold as lions, serve your

God without fear and with all hope. And until next time, God richly bless you, and we'll see you next time on the broadcast.