“Intimidate” means “To make timid; to make afraid; to deter a person from action by inducing fear.” It also means to make a person timid of spirit and submissive.”
The antonym (opposite word) to timid is assertive. An intimidated person becomes defensive and shifts his or her body weight onto the back foot. A not intimidated person becomes assertive — and when necessary aggressive — and shifts his or her body weight onto the front foot. An intimidated person acts; a non-intimidated person defends.
“God has not given us a spirit of fear (timidity) but of power, love, and a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7)
I’ve found myself in some difficult, even dangerous situations at times, in my teen years but mostly as an adult overseas. One time, on a dark night in Central Luzon, I was preaching under a single, battery-powered florescent globe on the edge of rice fields, when a thought came ‘out of nowhere’: Out in the dark there could be a NPA (New People’s Army) member armed with an AK74, who could shoot you dead without warning. It was the “voice of a stranger” (John 10:5), that was aiming to paralyze me with fear.
Instead of allowing it to intimidate me, I preached even louder. I shouted: “As for you men standing out there in the dark: you will not come into the light because the things you are doing are evil!” I challenged them to come out from the darkness, cross over the road, and come into the light. Thirty men stepped forward out of the darkness and surrendered their lives to the Lord Jesus. In my mind, I replied to the would-be-intimidating voice: Is that all you’ve got?
The scene has now shifted to our own country, and the new challenge is the hostility — even outright aggression — that is being presented by socialist haters of all things Jewish (and increasingly Christian). These are not agrarian Marxists reacting against Corporate Capitalism (as the NPA did) but are would-be Stalinists. Old enemy. New location. Same voice. My reply is the same now as it was then: Either Jesus is Lord or he is not. I know that he is. He has proven that to me many times, in many places. And because I know that, I fear not, and so will not be intimidated.
Christians are victors, not victims. As the late Keith Green sang: “It is finished: he has done it! Life from the dead — Jesus Christ has won it!” The final chapters in a suspense novel become increasingly tense, due to the impending resolution of events built up over preceding chapters. This is happening now, in Real Time, and the greater the build-up and tension, the closer the resolution — and the nearer we are to The End.
Come quickly, Lord Jesus! Not just to rescue us but to save the world!