Neither Fear Ye Their Fear

In Isaiah 8/2 Nephi 18, the Lord counseled the people to not be afraid of the nations around them.  In particular He spoke of Assyria which would “pass through Judah” and “reach even to the neck,” presumably a reference to the time when the Assyrians conquered much of Israel and nearly conquered Jerusalem as recorded in Isaiah 36-37.  But the Lord told the Israelites that they should not “associate” themselves with the other nations or create a “confederacy” with them, but that their trust should be placed only in the Lord.  He told them to not “fear ye their fear, nor be afraid.  Sanctify the Lord of Hosts himself, and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread” (2 Nephi 18:8-13).  I love that principle: we should not fear the fears of the world; in other words, the things that the world worries about are not what we need to be afraid of.  We need only fear the Lord by seeking to do His will.  The world will raise lots of alarms and tell us to be afraid of everything from dangerous terrorists to an overcrowded earth to physical death.  But our trust is in the Lord—we need only fear if we have not put God first in our lives. 

                This reminds me of a story told by President Nelson of a time when he almost died (see here).  He was in a small airplane and one of the engines caught on fire and they were plunging to their death.  He told how a woman was “just absolutely uncontrollably hysterical” because she believed she was going to die, and President Nelson said that he was “totally calm, even though I knew I was going down to my death.  I was ready to meet my Maker.”  He did not fear what the world feared because of his faith and trust in the Lord.  He spoke of this experience in a talk in conference and told how he also had during that moment a “deep sense of gratitude that my sweetheart and I had been sealed eternally to each other and to our children, born and reared in the covenant” (see here).  The Israelites at the time of Isaiah wanted to make worldly alliances with other nations; they wanted a “confederacy” so that they might find strength in being an ally with the bigger empires around them.  But the Lord told them not to make covenants with them but rather to trust the Lord and He would “be for a sanctuary” (2 Nephi 18:14). 

                In the Doctrine and Covenants the Lord told us, “If ye are prepared ye shall not fear” (D&C 38:30).  The world will constantly give us more things that it thinks we should fear—we can find events and situations to be scared of every day in the news—but our main concern must be to be spiritually prepared for the future by hearkening to the counsel of the Lord.  If we do then we will be counted among His Saints, and “the Lord shall have power over his saints, and shall reign in their midst” (D&C 1:36).  And with the Lord in our midst, we need not have any fear for those things over which the world worries