When the Devil Gets You Down — E.A. Johnston

Spiritual Poverty Beneath Material Prosperity

I have a message today for the beat-up pastor who's ready to throw in the towel. I have a message today for the discouraged believer who can't seem to find any joy because of their trying situation. The title of my message today, friends, is When the Devil Gets You Down, and my text can be found in the book of Hosea.

You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. Hosea lived in a time where the Jews were enjoying a period of material prosperity under King Jeroboam II, but God had a controversy with Israel because the people of God were living in rebellion to God, and consequently, they were spiritually bankrupt.

They had material prosperity, but they had fallen into spiritual poverty. Do you think that's possible? Do you see what I'm saying? To fully appreciate this deplorable situation, we must read Hosea chapter 4 and verses 1 and 2.

God's Controversy With His Own People

Here now is the word of God, and may the Spirit of the Lord attend the reading of His holy word. The prophet Hosea was God's mouthpiece, and this is what he said to them. Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel, for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.

By swearing and lying, killing and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. I will stop there, friends. Who is God addressing here, the pagan nation or the people of God?

The people of God. God has a message for the world in the sacrifice of His Son on a bloody cross, but at times, God also has a message for His church. When I was a little boy, not everybody had a washer and a dryer.

My mother did her laundry on a scrub board and wrung it out to dry with her hands, and then she hung it on a laundry line outside in the sun to dry. Some of you know of which I speak. Well here in Hosea, God is hanging the dirty laundry of the Jews on a laundry line for all to see.

God is saying things have deteriorated so badly in Israel that God Himself has a controversy not with the pagan society they live in, but a controversy with the people of God themselves. Well, how did they get here?

How did they drift away so far from God that they just blend in with their godless neighbors? They talk like them with profanity. I used to know an elder who at church could pray like an angel, but in his workplace he cussed like a sailor.

Swearing, Lying, and Spiritual Compromise

God says they are swearing and lying. Do you think church people tell lies? Do you tell lies, even little so-called white lies? A small bullet can kill a man just as quickly as a stick of dynamite. I remember back when I was a Sunday school teacher, and I lied to one of the members in my class.

We were playing racquetball, and he asked me where I went to college, and I told him. And he said, well, when did you graduate? And I lied, and I gave him a certain year. At the time, I was a college dropout, but too embarrassed to admit it, so I lied to him.

I told him I graduated. But I was under conviction all week after that, and I ran and found him at church on Sunday and confessed to him that I lied to him. Swearing and lying in the people of God caused a controversy with God.

Next, God named some really terrible sins they were guilty of committing. Stealing is one of them. I believe you can steal from a person by overcharging them for a product or a service. When you put your commission ahead of the welfare of your clients, that is thievery.

How many businessmen are there in church today who churn their customers' accounts for extra commission? The Jews were guilty of stealing from one another, and God calls them out on it. Alongside stealing, God lists the heinous sins of killing and adultery.

Did you know, friend, that gossip in the hallway of church can kill a person's reputation? Did you know that Jesus said a man can commit adultery in his heart just as quick as he can in the bedroom? Can we honestly say that if Jesus was sitting right next to us on the couch while we watched some of that Hollywood entertainment, would we still be looking at it?

Backslidden Religion and Lost Intimacy With Christ

Well, it's a sad picture of the Jews in the days of Hosea. It's the picture of a people backslidden away from God, yet still going through the motions of serving Him. I'll never forget the story that Duncan Campbell told.

It was when he'd been a pastor for nearly 18 years. He was upstairs in his study, writing a sermon for an upcoming conference for ministers, when downstairs he heard his daughter singing a hymn. He walked down into the kitchen and asked, Lassie, why are you singing a hymn so happily at six o 'clock in the morning?

His 16-year-old daughter said to him, Oh, Daddy, I've just had the most wonderful time with Jesus reading my Bible. Oh, Daddy, isn't Jesus wonderful? Duncan Campbell said, He slowly walked back up the stairs, thinking to himself, Jesus isn't wonderful to me.

He said, Here I am, a pastor, preparing a message on the Holy Spirit for ministers at a convention, and I can't even say that Jesus is wonderful to me. Well, it broke his heart, and he threw himself down on the floor of his study, and for the next few hours he wrestled with God in desperate prayer, until at last Jesus was wonderful to him again.

How Pastors Drift Into Spiritual Bankruptcy

Well, how do you get away from God as a pastor? How do the Jews get away from the God who blessed them so abundantly? I don't normally, friends, use the sermon art of alliteration, because I feel it's become overdone.

Often you have to stretch a point to make a word fit your alliteration. But for today's message, friends, I'm going to use it a little because it just fits. Earlier I said the title of my message was, When the Devil Gets You Down, and some of you may be wondering how that fits the Jews in Hosea's day.

Well, I'm not preaching to the Jews in Hosea's day, but to a bunch of church people, some of whom are in the same sad spiritual poverty as the Jews in Hosea's day. And more than likely, you got into spiritual bankruptcy along the same way.

For people are people, and sin is sin. People back then just dressed differently from us. They didn't dress as immodestly as we do today. Well, listen, friends, I believe you can fall into spiritual poverty in the following ways, and I speak from personal experience, friends, so I know my subject well.

The devil also knows us well. He knows how to lay his traps before us, how to tempt us, how to get us drawn down into the dumps, so we think God is a million miles away and he doesn't care about us anymore.

Discouragement as a Weapon of the Enemy

Two of the devil's most effective weapons that he uses against believers are the weapons of discouragement and disappointment. If you're a pastor and you're down in the dumps, and if you were brutally honest with yourself right now, right now, can you look in the mirror and say to yourself that Jesus is wonderful to you?

If you can, then this message is for someone else. But if you're a pastor and you can look yourself in the mirror right now and say, Jesus isn't wonderful to me, then this message is right up your alley, friend.

I don't know why some deacons can be the devil's dupes, but I call it as I see it. How many pastors have I known who were fired from their church or ran off and switched churches because of some devilish deacon?

After that troublesome deacon has you discouraged, you can get down in the dumps. I'll never forget the story Ellen Redpath used to share of the time he was pastor of the Moody Church in Chicago. He said he was trying to grow the church at the time, and every week a certain deacon would poke his head in his study and exclaim, the numbers weren't so good on Sunday.

And Ellen Redpath became so discouraged by the words of that deacon, he allowed the devil to use it to get him down in the dumps. Finally, he came up with a strategy to pay the deacon a compliment every time he saw him, and it wasn't long the deacon was saying, we had a better turnout Sunday, and the problem was solved.

Discouragement is real, friends, and it's often a tool of the enemy. Let's talk about Satan's other weapon, which is disappointment. Oh friends, to be disappointed, it can take the wind right out of our sails.

Disappointment and the Loss of Spiritual Joy

Maybe, when we first started out in ministry, we had high hopes and great expectations for what we would accomplish for God. Perhaps a big church, maybe planting several churches, thinking of thousands of conversions in our city.

We wanted to set the world on fire for God and the gospel, but as the years went by, and our hopes and dreams evaporated like the morning dew, rather than becoming reality, we became disappointed. We got down in the dumps to such degree that we could look in the mirror, even right now, and say, Jesus isn't wonderful to me.

Oh, how disappointment and discouragement go hand in hand, like two wolves running through a forest, stalking their prey. When the devil gets you down through discouragement or disappointment, it's a descending staircase to dissatisfaction.

And when we live and move and breathe in an atmosphere of dissatisfaction, it's toxic to all who come in contact with us. Do you want to know why there's so little preaching today and so much teaching?

It's easier to teach a nice little Bible lesson, check off all the homiletical boxes like sermon candy, but it's often a box of chocolates. It's tasteful, but providing nothing lasting as far as nourishment.

Doctrinal Preaching, Repentance, and Regeneration

Preaching is hard work. Doctrinal preaching is often disturbing, especially if you're hitting hard man's duty of repentance and his utter necessity of regeneration. Then you have a fight on your hands because you have to preach against sin.

You have to preach about the dangers of damnation in the devil's hell. And if you do that, you run the risk of running off some of your biggest givers. But a lot of times, we don't preach on fire for God because we are not on fire for God ourselves.

Oh, friends, let's be honest here. When we get dissatisfied with our current situation, then the devil can really get us down because we fall into rebellion against God because we've hardened our hearts.

Hardened Hearts in the Wilderness

Do you know what I'm talking about? When we allow discouragement and disappointment to lead to dissatisfaction, then we'll be like the Jews in the wilderness who complained, oh, how God spoke out against those complaints.

What does Hebrews 3 .8 say? Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the days of temptation in the wilderness. Are you in a wilderness, friend? Have you allowed it to turn into dissatisfaction?

I submit to you that if the devil has you down in the dumps, it's because you are dissatisfied with your situation, whether it's your marriage, whether it's a son or a daughter or your job or your church, you are living in dissatisfaction and you have hardened your heart.

And right this very moment, as I'm talking to you now, you can't say, Jesus is wonderful to me because right now he isn't. Well, what can you do to change things? Well, let me first share a story with you that I think might be helpful to you.

Learning to Live Faithfully in Difficult Circumstances

It's about Manly Beasley telling about the time he met F .J. Hegel. Manly Beasley derived much spiritual benefit from the writings of F .J. Hegel, who wrote such Christian classics as Bone of My Bones.

Well, one day Manly Beasley wrote F .J. Hegel a letter asking if he could come visit him. Manly wanted to meet Hegel to see if what he wrote was real in his life. So Manly Beasley traveled down to Mexico where F .J. Hegel was a missionary.

And when he got there, he got to know the man. And eventually he shared a personal situation with F .J. Hegel and asked for his advice. F .J. Hegel replied, I can't tell you how to get out of your difficult situation, but I can tell you how to live in it.

Oh, friends, how that story has spoken to me time and time again through the years. For whatever reason, the devil has you down in the dumps and you are out of step with God. Go to him now and seek him earnestly.

Returning to God Through Earnest Seeking

God has a promise in Malachi. Return to me and I will return to you. Listen to how God directed His wayward people as seen in Hosea. Look at Hosea 10 -12. Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy.

Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord till He come and reign righteousness upon you. Like Duncan Campbell shut himself up with God in his study and he didn't emerge until he had a victory with God.

I want us, friends, to do the same now. My message is over. I know what it's like to be in a spiritual wasteland. I know what it's like to be down in the dumps. I know what it's like also to be on a mountaintop with God.

God's Unfailing Love for the Discouraged

Listen, friends. Even the great Charles Spurgeon struggled with depression. The devil would get that great man so down in the dumps so bad he had a name for it. He called it the Black Dog. But most wonderful statement of God's unfailing love.

I see it's found in Hosea 10 -8 where we hear the love of a broken-hearted God over the sin of His people. And God exclaims, How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? Even though at times we let the devil get us down to his level and we get down in the dumps and away from intimacy with Christ, we must remind ourselves that although man will let us down, situations may press us down, God will never let us down and He'll never let us go.

Go to Him now, friend. Stay there until you can say, Jesus is wonderful to me.