Defeating Discouragement

Listen, he lost all credibility with many of the preachers there, because that just sounded like it could not be true.

Everyone has to battle some degree of discouragement at some time in life; I MEAN EVERYONE! The Bible tells us that there was none greater born among women than John the Baptist, but he got discouraged.

In Luke 7:19-23, we read, “And John calling unto him two of his disciples sent them to Jesus, saying, Art thou he that should come? or look we for another? When the men were come unto him, they said, John Baptist hath sent us unto thee, saying, Art thou he that should come? or look we for another? And in that same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits; and unto many that were blind he gave sight. Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.”

Everyone has to deal with discouragement in life to some degree. Some are discouraged because:

• Their jobs are being threatened

• Their spouse is not treating them right

• Their children have disappointed them

Everyone has to deal with discouragement; none of us have the perfect life!

As we look back in history, we see that people like Martin Luther, the reformer, and C. H. Spurgeon had a difficult time with discouragement.

As we look in the scriptures we see some of the great saints of God had a difficult time with discouragement. Men such as…

• Jeremiah

• Jonah

• David

• Elijah

• Solomon

• Abraham

Everyone has to deal with discouragement, and for a nationally known preacher to say he has never been discouraged a day in his life, seems to be incredulous!

In our text, King David was a great man of God, but he became discouraged. We can see that as we read through the Psalms.

Also, in 1 Samuel 30, that I read earlier, notice, when he and his men came home from battle

• He discovered the whole city had been burned

• He discovered those who had burned the town had kidnapped their wives and children

• He discovered the soldiers who were with him wanted to blame all their trouble on him and they wanted to kill him

All three of these things had to be discouraging to King David.

While the men were grieving over the loss of their family members, he was also grieving over the loss of his family members. HE LOVED HIS WIFE AS MUCH AS THEY LOVED THEIR WIVES!

Illus: He was not like the man whose wife ran off with a highway patrolman. He was going down the road and he looked in his rear view mirror and he saw lights flashing from a patrol car and he sped up.

• The highway patrolman finally caught him and pulled him over and the patrolman said, “You saw my lights flashing, why didn’t you pull over when you saw them?”

• The man said, “I am sorry officer. You see my wife ran off with a highway patrolman several weeks ago, and when I saw the lights flashing I thought it was him trying to catch me so he could give her back to me!”

David loved God and he loved his wife. This had to be a great discouragement to him when he found out they had been taken.

But David was a great man of God. When bad times came into is life, he knew what to do; He knew to trust in God to see him through these difficult times. He actually did three things.

We see . . .

I. HE SHUNNED DISCOURAGEMENT

Discouragement is not a disease; it is a choice we make each day. God does not want us to live a life of discouragement. To be discouraged or not, is a choice.

Some folks choose to be discouraged every day. They do that because they want you to feel sorry for them.

When something bad happens to some folks, they throw a PITY PARTY because they crave people rallying around them saying, “Oh, I FEEL SO SORRY FOR YOU!” This is how they get attention.

Illus: This is how the news media operates. They seem to think that if all they reported was good news, no one would listen to them. They report bad news and report it in such a dramatic way that it causes people to focus on that bad news.

Some people love a life full of bad news because it gets people to focus in on them. But the things that happened to David were not things he concocted for attention; they were dreadful things that actually happened to him.