October 19, 2025
FEAR NOT
MACK WILBERG AND RYAN MURPHY
Conductors
BRIAN MATHIAS
Organist
DERRICK PORTER
The Spoken Word
I THINK THE WORLD IS GLORIOUS
Music: Alexander Schreiner
Text: Anna Johnson
Arrangement: Mack Wilberg
WITH JOYFUL VOICES RINGING
Music: William G. Tarrant Text: Irish folk song
Arrangement: Mack Wilberg
JESUS LOVES ME
Music: William B. Bradbury
Arrangement: Brian Mathias
JESU, JOY OF MAN’S DESIRING
Music: Johann Sebastian Bach
Text: Martin Jahn
Arrangement: Mack Wilberg
THE SOUND OF MUSIC
from The Sound of Music
Music: Richard Rodgers
Text: Oscar Hammerstein II
Arrangement: Arthur Harris
THE SPOKEN WORD
“Fear Not”
LET US ALL PRESS ON
Music and Text: Evan Stephens
Arrangement: Richard Elliott
O LOVE THAT WILL NOT LET ME GO
Music: Albert L. Peace
Text: George Matheson
Arrangement: Ryan Murphy
FEAR NOT
The Spoken Word, October 19, 2025
By: Derrick Porter
FEAR IS A GREAT IMMOBILIZER. It’s so powerful that its effects can include diminished self-confidence and abandoned dreams. Fear does all it can to work itself into our minds and hearts and then demands it be allowed to stay even as it selfishly seeks to monopolize our thoughts and feelings.
Like you, I know something of fear and at times have felt its pangs. But this I also know— faith and fear cannot exist in the same heart at the same time.1 This truth brings me comfort because in its statement lies the answer to conquering fear, and that answer is faith.
So what do we do when we’re plagued with fear? How do we move forward? We take two steps at a time.
Step one: We pray. We plead with heaven above for relief. We talk through our fears with Him who always listens, and we stay on our knees until the fear leaves. And if it returns? We pray again and again and sometimes again.
Step two: We move forward in faith while courageously filling our hearts and minds with the things of God. Elder Richard L. Evans had this to say about fear: “One way to cast out our fears is to not leave room for them in our lives. It is usually the vacant house that acquires a reputation for being haunted. And it is perhaps equally true that the more vacant our lives are, the more likely they are to be haunted by fears. The idle [person] has more room for … fears, more time to feed them and indulge them, than [those] whose [lives are] filled with good works.”2
And after we’ve taken these steps? We take them again. As we pursue faith, our fear is cast out. We then can look back and realize that our faith in God has created miles of space between yesterday’s fears and today’s peace of mind.
The spirit of fear does not come from God.3 Instead, He says, “Fear not.”4
As we look to God in every thought, doubting not and fearing not,5 our confidence will grow and our faith will triumph over all our fears.
References:
1. See Lectures on Faith (1985), 71.
2. Richard L. Evans, “Antidote to Fear,” Music & the Spoken Word, Mar. 31, 1946.
3. See 2 Timothy 1:7.
4. Luke 12:32; see also Isaiah 43:1; Doctrine and Covenants 6:34–36; 98:1–2.
5. See Doctrine and Covenants 6:36.