The Wickedness Of Being a Discouragement To Others — James Jennings

The Wickedness of Discouraging Others

Go ahead and turn in your Bible to Numbers 32. I want to think about the wickedness of being a discouragement to others. The wickedness of being a discouragement to others. So I hope this is an encouraging sermon.

Unless you're a discouragement, then you won't leave encouraged. You'll be discouraged about not being an encouragement. And then my only plea to you is don't get caught in some cycle where you're back and forth analyzing yourself and you fall into self-pity.

No one will be encouraged by you if you're having a pity party. Numbers 32. Let's just start in verse 6. The first five verses just speak about these tribes wanting to stay in this land. They don't want to keep going further.

They want to stay and take this land as their possession. As verse 5 says, do not take us across the Jordan. Verse 6, But Moses said to the people of Gad and to the people of Reuben, shall your brothers go to war while you sit here?

And look at this statement. Why will you discourage the heart of the people of Israel from going over into the land that the Lord has given them? Amazing, right? There's land the Lord's given that they've yet to take, but it's given to them.

Incredible. Verse 8, your fathers did this. So now he's bringing in history. You want to give someone a really firm reproof on an action they're about to do? Can you appeal to something in history? Your fathers did this.

Wow, appealing to their fathers. When I sent them from Kadesh Barnea to see the land, when I sent them. Verse 9,. For when they went up to the valley of Eshgal and saw the land, here we have it again, they discouraged the heart of the people of Israel from going into the land that the Lord had given them.

So you see here two times, right? You guys presently are discouraging the hearts of these Israelites if you don't go into the land and wage war with them. And then remember your fathers. Your fathers were a discouragement to the hearts of those people back then when the spies came and the report that ten of them gave, it was a real discouragement.

How do you think God views this discouraging the hearts of these people? How does the Lord view it? Well, let's find out. Verse 10, And the Lord's anger was kindled on that day, and He swore, saying, Surely none of the men who came up out of Egypt from twenty years old and upward shall see the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, because they have not wholly followed Me.

None except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, the Chesanite, and Joshua the son of Nun. For they have wholly followed the Lord. Verse 13, The Lord's anger was kindled against Israel, and He made them wander in the wilderness forty years until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord was gone.

And behold, you have risen in your father's place, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more the fierce anger of the Lord against Israel. For if you turn away from following Him, He will again abandon them in the wilderness, and you will destroy all this people.".

But you see it there, two times, discouraged their hearts. Discouraged their hearts, right there, in verse 7 and in verse 9. They discouraged the heart of the people of Israel from going into the land.

And to be discouraged, it's to have a loss of confidence. You lose confidence. Instead of having courage, you lose confidence about moving forward. Instead of pressing forward, you get discouraged and what happens?

You shrink back. You don't go forward. You shrink back. And these men are discouraging the hearts of the people as their fathers did in the previous situation from many decades ago. And as I mentioned, what does this discouragement bring about from the Lord?

Yeah, His fierce anger is brought about. And you could say, yeah, but that's because they're not wholly following Him. Right. But why is that happening? Their hearts are being discouraged. The discouragement leads to a lack of confidence where you don't wholly go on after the Lord, and God's fierce anger is brought about, verse 14 says.

And to me, that's interesting. Because kind of like a sin like self-pity or anxiety, do you look at how sinful it is to be a discouragement to others? Do you look at how does God view me when I am a discouragement to others?

God is angry at these people, right? When in their own belief, they drag others down and they cause those other individuals to lose courage. That increases the fierce anger of God. Do you guys see that in the passage here?

He's reproving them. You discourage their hearts. And then it says the outcome of this is the fierce anger of God, verse 14. It increases still more and more. And then look at verse 14. It says, these men have risen in their father's place, a brood of sinful men.

So let's consider their fathers. Let's go to Numbers 13. This is where we're going to spend our time. Numbers 13. By them not moving forward, fully trusting the Lord, their discouragement to the other individuals of Israel, and this is provoking the fierce anger of God.

The Spies’ Report and the Loss of Courage

The God who is fully trustworthy. The God who's given us every reason we have to trust Him. And yet, people are not trusting in the Lord here. So Numbers 13. Let's start in verse 17. Moses sent them. And the them is referring to the chiefs of the tribes.

He sent them out to spy out the land of Canaan. And he said to them, go up into the Nagab and go up into the hill country and see what the land is. And see whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak.

Whether they are few or many. Whether the land they dwell in is good or bad. Whether the cities that they dwell in are camps or strongholds. And whether the land is rich or poor. And whether there are trees in it or not.

And then he commands them in a positive way, be of good courage. The opposite of being discouraged and full of discouragement is you're full of courage. You're not stepping back. You're stepping forward.

Be of good courage. And bring some of the fruit of the land. Now the time was the season of the first ripe grapes. Now go to verse 25. At the end of the forty days, they returned from spying out the land.

And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.

And they told him, we came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey. And this is its fruit. Verse 28, However, however, the people who dwell in the land are very strong and the cities are fortified and very large.

And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Malachites dwell in the land of the Negev. The Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the Jordan.

So here, these ten of the spies are given a very, very negative report. They've been told to go in the land and be of good courage. They come back. They start with something positive. Then they bring in the statements, however, besides.

They bring in these two statements. They put all this negative, discouraging content forward. And Caleb tries to make an attempt here to steer things in another direction. Verse 30, But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are able to overcome it.

This is faith speaking. Then the men who had gone up with him said, we're not able. He got Caleb. We are able. He got the other guys. We are not able. We're able. We're not able. We're able. We're not able.

You've got this debate here. One thing you've got to remember is their accusation about we're not able ultimately reflects their view of who? Of God. They're ultimately accusing God of not having the ability to give them that which He has promised.

That is an incredibly deadly accusation to make against the Lord. What verse were we in here? Verse 31, Then the men who had gone up with him said, we are not able to go up against the people. Why? For they are stronger than we are.

So, they brought to the people of Israel a bad report. Or you could say this, a discouraging report. Very discouraging what they're saying. Their whole tone is just... Talk about a wet blanket. It just totally discourages you on moving forward when these guys are saying what they're saying.

They spied out the land. The land through which we have gone to spy out is a land that devours its inhabitants. Wow, they must have forgot that our God is an all-consuming fire who devours His enemies.

Forget about the land devouring its inhabitants. And all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak who come from Nephilim. And we seem to ourselves...

This is their perspective, right? You know what? You want to get discouraged and not go forward for the Lord in some area? Just get an incorrect perspective. View yourself in a way, or view your circumstances in a way that is not according to the Lord.

We seem to ourselves like grasshoppers. And so we seem to them. Let's keep reading a few verses in chapter 14. Then all the congregation raised a loud cry. And all the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron.

The whole congregation said to them, would that we had died in the land of Egypt. Or would that we had died in this wilderness. Why is the Lord bringing us into this land? To fall by the sword? Our wives, our little ones, will become prey.

Wouldn't it be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to one another, let us choose a leader and let's go back to Egypt. Verse 5, then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel.

And Joshua the son of Nun and Cadle the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, they tore their clothes. They said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, the land which we passed through to spy it out is an exceedingly good land.

If the Lord delights in us, He will bring us into this land and He will give it to us. A land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord. Do not fear the people of the land, for they are bred for us.

Their protection is removed from them. And the Lord is with us. Do not fear them. Then all the congregation, they didn't agree with him. You want to talk about being encouraged? Imagine standing there and you hear Caleb.

That would be encouraging to hear everything Caleb is saying. And what do they do to the encourager amongst them? Yeah, let's stone them. Verse 10, they said to stone them with stones. But the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of the meeting to all the people of Israel.

And the Lord said to Moses, how long will this people despise Me? How long will they not believe in Me in spite of all the signs that I have done for them? I will strike them with pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.

Amen. Well, that's the Word of God. So, if you just came in before what I've stated at the beginning, what we're going to look at right now is the wickedness of being a discouragement to others. And it's interesting to me, in the account we just read, as we saw in Numbers 32, the way the Scriptures describe what just took place here is that they discouraged the hearts.

They discouraged the hearts of the nation. That's how Numbers 32 describes it. And as we saw, that discouraging the heart, the hearts of these people, was something that brought about God's fierce anger, right?

Because rather than having courage, which the Lord told them to be of good courage, to go forward trusting Him, people make statements that cause discouragement internally in individuals' hearts where they doubt the Lord and they shrink back.

And what I'm calling that is something wicked when you and I do that, right? I want us to view it as the Lord views it, because it brought about His fierce anger. It brings about people not wholly following the Lord as they should.

And I feel like even just studying this is hitting me in a fresh way. Do I view the times that I'm a discouragement to you all from wholly following the Lord in some specific way? Do I see it for what it is?

It brought about the fierce anger of God, right? This isn't some little neutral thing there where you being a discouragement has no effect. It has an effect. We saw the effect it had on all of these other individuals.

So that's what we're going to consider. The spies were going out to the land that is called the promised land. As we call it, the promised land. It's not the unpromised land. It's not the land that was up for auction.

It is the land that is said was given to them by the Lord. Given prior to them even conquering it. And even given to them, even after they didn't enter the first time and they got to wait 40 more years, it's still that secure of a thing for them to take that the Lord has promised.

I mean, there's every reason to believe the Lord and yet here people doubt the Lord in unbelief and they bring about discouragement upon the nation. And we saw there how they should respond. Numbers 13 verse 20.

He just made multiple statements. Whether the people, verse 18, whether the people are strong or weak, whether few or many, whether the land is good or bad, whether the cities they are in are camps or it's a city with massive stone walls and it's a stronghold, whether the land is rich or poor, whether there are trees or whether it's a barren desert.

His point is, all those things are irrelevant. Whether it's this or that or that, don't get consumed in the circumstances. I want you to be of good courage and I'm going to give you the land. Those things don't matter is what the Lord is telling them.

And yet they let these things, obviously 10 of the spies let this factor in to a point where it stripped them of their courage. It stripped them of their courage. And it says right there in 13, 18, and see what the land is.

See. I mean, you're commanded to go into the land. You don't know what you're going to find out. You go in there and what changed their perspective on God's ability? What ultimately allowed unbelief to enter in and caused them to lose courage?

Say again? How did they know there were giants there? They didn't send 12 blind spies. They sent men in who had two things you've got on your head. Eyes. And their eyes and what they saw with their eyes determined their perception of the situation.

Oh, this is bad. That guy is huge. We're small. I feel like I'm a grasshopper and he's going to come over here and crush me. What happened to what the Lord said? You know what happens often? Your eyes, what you see, leads to you losing heart and falling into discouragement.

Brethren, we are a people who walks by faith, not by sight. Yet, we are a people who have to continue to be reminded of this reality because we're living in the realm of the sight. We're seeing things.

You might have seen something this week that discouraged your heart. We're going by faith and the Word of God and His promises, not by sight. And so you have this dynamic inner here of what you see affects them and not going forward.

And this is continual theme throughout the Bible, the Old Testament. Everything's going A-okay. You're following the Lord and then you face a trial and what you see with the physical eye looks like this is an impossibility.

But what do we find often happens? You don't see the thousands of angels that are surrounding you. You don't see the power of God and His ability to absolutely conquer in that situation. And there's certain people the Lord lets them see into that realm, but often, you and I, we don't see into that realm.

We've got to take it by faith. And you know, these guys were gone 40 days. They had time to think about what they were going to communicate to the people. This wasn't them running into a five minute video on YouTube about what is the land like and they come away with a knee-jerk reaction.

They had time to fight the thoughts of discouragement and unbelief. I mean, did Caleb and Joshua even know what the other ten spies were going to say? Did that just catch them off guard? We don't know some of those details.

Look at v. 28. I emphasize this, but look at this. This is a very interesting word. However. Have you guys ever used that word before? This is true, this is true, this is true, this is true. However. It doesn't matter.

All this is true. However. Look at this. Right? That's what unbelief does. I should believe God, but however, this is here, so now I lack an ability to trust the Lord. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong.

Wait, wait, wait. You're worshiping the Lord who you've already seen do what up until this point? Divide the Red Sea. I mean, who's got strength destroying Pharaoh and his men? Who picked up a sword for that battle?

God did. And He used creation to consume His enemies. Who has strength? He does. There's every reason to be courageous because you have the Lord with you. But the people, however, we saw. We saw the descendants of Anak there.

It flows with milk and honey, however, we saw something. Tall people, therefore, we're going to disregard all that we've seen God do. We're going to disregard what God has said. We're just going to fall into the state of discouragement and we can't move forward because we're too weak and God's too weak and God's not going to be with us.

Unbelief, brethren. All this does is it stinks of rotten unbelief. And we saw it there. Look at 1411. The Lord said to Moses, how long will this people do what? Despise Me. How long will they what? Not believe in Me.

In spite of all the signs that I have done among them. Isn't it amazing? You see, unbelief leads you and I to lack courage, and therefore, we could be a discouragement to others. And when we're a discouragement to others, it actually increases the fierce anger of God because our being a discouragement to others is preventing them from following the Lord in a direction they should be going because we make a statement to them that causes discouragement to enter their heart and they stop moving forward for Christ because of something we said.

Brethren, how many spies spoke negatively? 10. How many people heard what the spies spoke? Because millions. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands. And look how it affected all of them. How many people does it take to cause great discouragement?

It could take 10 people to discourage a million Israelites to not trust the Lord. It's incredible. That's very weighty, right? I mean, the very words I'm saying right now could be used to encourage, discourage, cause unbelief, help create faith.

I mean, some dynamic could be happening right now. Obviously, I'm hoping it's a positive dynamic from the text. So, are they of good courage like Moses told them? No. They've not. They've lost confidence based on what they saw.

And it's amazing, isn't it? God can just become irrelevant in your present circumstances because you get too caught up in what your trial looks like. God help us. The Lord is never irrelevant. The Lord is never far off.

The Lord is always there. Does what you see cancel God's promises for you? No. I mean, my confidence in persevering to the end by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, no matter what I see, whatever comes my way, that can't cause doubt to enter in that the Lord will not do as He has promised.

It's not like the Lord's lied here. It's not like the Lord's misrepresented things. I mean, the Lord even said, whether it's this or that, the Lord wasn't telling them exactly what they would find. I mean, in a way, this was going to test them.

It was going to test them to see do they trust the Lord? The Lord could have said, you're going to run into giants in there. The Lord didn't do that. He didn't tell them ahead of time exactly what they would find other than the fact they'd find fruit, because He wanted to see when they faced what they faced with their eyes, would they believe Him or doubt Him?

Same thing in our lives. The Lord has not told you what the next 10 years of your life will look like. That would defeat the purpose of the test of faith. As you enter trials, as I enter trials, we've got to trust the Lord no matter what we see with our eyes.

But we clearly see it takes faith to trust God when the odds are stacked against you in the physical realm. And the prevailing way that you and I interpret our circumstances can't be based on what we see with our eyes.

Because that's what these guys did and it didn't end up well at all. I mean, notice Caleb's confidence there in verse 30. He says, let us go up when? At once. I mean, this guy's got no delay. Let's go.

Let's go. Why could you have such a confidence? Let's just go. And he has that confidence even after all these people are doubting. You'd think he'd say, let's wait a week for them to think it through.

No, because who's the victory belong to? The Lord. I mean, you've just got to take their next step and not believe God. And the Lord's going to come through. He's going to help you, believer. He's going to strengthen you.

But they brought a bad report. Verse 32 says, a report full of unbelief, full of discouragement. Just so discouraging compared to everything that Caleb says. And they lost their confidence based on what they saw.

Based on what their eyes witnessed. And it's interesting here, the other word, it's not just however, but look later at the end of verse 28. He just finished saying the cities are fortified and very large.

And he says, and besides. Why would you say that? What's he mean? And besides. He just stated all these things are true. And it's kind of like he's saying this is the final nail in the coffin. We wouldn't encourage you all to go just based on all of these things being true.

But to top it off, besides all of that, we saw the descendants of the antic there. Kind of like that totally does us in where we can't go. And isn't that how it is with us sometimes, Christian? You're going along.

You feel courageous. You're believing the Lord. And all of a sudden, it's like this one... everything it seems may be doable, and then, oops, the Anak gets thrown in. And all of a sudden, now you really struggle with believing God.

It looked like it was going to work out. Just as long as this one thing doesn't happen, the Anak aren't there, then maybe we'll do it. And then boom, the Anak are there. It's like, oh, man. I thought I wouldn't be discouraged if this one thing didn't happen.

Then it happens. Right? Think in your life. Has you ever had anything like that happen? You kind of reason like that? Caleb, he doesn't let these things faze him. He's by faith trusting the Lord. Look at v. 33 again.

The whole thing of perspective at the end there. He says, we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers. Where else does the Bible talk about grasshoppers? Isaiah. Listen to this. Isaiah 40, v. 21. Do you not know?

Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like what?

Grasshoppers. Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, spreads them like a tent to dwell in. Who brings princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. I mean, newsflash, you think you're like a grasshopper.

I mean, the reality is all of humanity is ultimately like a grasshopper before the Lord God Almighty. Brethren, we need to get rid of the howevers. We need to get rid of the, and besides this thing, we need to have faith.

We need to be encouraged in our hearts to be obedient to the Lord, to follow Him, to trust Him. Don't let there be one thing that gets added on and it tops it off where it's like, I can't go on. I could have went on, but then that one thing happened.

Is that what your faith is like? That's unbelief. You've got to trust the Lord. Like I said, ten spies discouraging over a million people, the women and children included. Ten chiefs of the tribes. What they said had a massive impact.

Do you realize the negative impact of discouragement you could have on the brethren? Do I realize that? I mean, there's something there to be gripped with. You know what talks about death and life are in the power of the time?

One of the ways you could bring death is with a discouraging word. You could strip someone of their courageousness to by faith press on to the Lord. You could go, I appreciate your faith, brother, but don't you see that?

Do you see? Do you see what I see? The anechor over there. You see, it doesn't matter the faith you have. Let's dump water on the coals of the burning faith. Let's go look at what things look like. Right, and then you lose heart.

And now God's fierce anger is against you for being a discouragement to them and stripping them of the confidence that they were having as they were trying to plow on for Christ. So we shouldn't say besides the anechor there, we should always say besides God is with us, so we go forward, right?

If He's with us, who could be against us? Isn't that Paul's argument in Romans 8? What an argument of faith that we've got to believe. So Joshua and Caleb, we saw it. They sought to encourage the people.

They tore their clothes. They desperately said what they said. But the people wanted to stone them. The people wanted to stone them. And then we read in chapter 14, verse 11, we saw the Lord's response is how long are these people going to despise Me?

How long will they not believe Me? They're rebelling against the Lord. They feared man. They don't have a fear for God. Think of this, by fearing what they saw and not acting on what God said, they're despising the Lord Himself.

Any time I don't act on what God has said because of what I saw, the Lord says I'm despising Him. I'm treating Him as little because I'm not going forward. I'm not having courage there. It's an act of unbelief.

So just think of this, this whole giving into discouragement is giving into what? Not just unbelief, but to use the words of the text, giving into discouragement is giving into despising of the Lord. They had a clear path.

The Lord commanded them. Yet, they fell into discouragement which is unbelief. And they didn't go forward. And ultimately, the text says they despised the Lord Himself. Do you think of discouragement like that?

You being discouraged to go forward and be courageous for the Lord means you're not trusting His power for you to go forward. In other words, you're despising Him and viewing the Lord as small and insignificant with whatever it is that you're facing on the path ahead of you.

So I think it's interesting. It's one thing to say, you know, I'm really discouraged. It's another thing to say, I'm really despising the Lord right now. How do we tend to word it? We don't say, I'm really despising the Lord.

We use the phrase, I'm really discouraged right now. You really lack the courage and the confidence to believe God in the midst of your trial and move forward because of something you saw. And you're not moving forward.

The Lord looks at you and says, how long will they despise Me despite all the signs and the wonders that I've done? You guys see what I'm saying? Perspective. I'm wanting to think, according to this passage, correctly about the seriousness of being a discouragement to you brethren.

I don't want to be a source of discouragement. I want to be a source of you finding courage to believe the Lord and follow Him wholeheartedly. And what's that going to take? We've got to believe God and His power.

Look at 14, verse 9. This is an amazing statement. He gives a reason why not to fear the people of the land. And He actually gives a perspective there. He says they're like bread for us. Isn't that an interesting way to look at it?

And then what's the next thing He says? Their protection is removed from them. What's that? What's that imply? I mean, any protection anyone has is put there by who? And that protection, if it's removed, is removed by who?

The Lord. I mean, pretty simple. And that's one of the reasons He gives to not fear. So obviously, if you don't go forward and you're not courageous, what does that imply? They don't believe what about the Lord.

They don't believe the Lord is the One who gives protection and removes protection. I mean, if you really believed that, you would keep marching, right? You would trust Him in faith. The ironic thing is, their disobedience, not going forward believing the Lord has removed the protection of the people of the land and they will get victory, what's that now done to their protection?

The Israelites' protection. Where's their protection gone? It's now being removed and the fierce anger of God is now being against them because of their despising Him and not believing Him. So a very move they thought they took to protect themselves ended up doing what?

Endangering themselves. You see what I'm saying? It's kind of like that story, that antidote we keep repeating of Rosalind Goforth where she had such a sense. Her husband was saying, we got to move to a certain place in China.

We got to move the family and they'd already had one child die and she thought we're not going to go there because there's all the sicknesses. We're going to lose more children. And she did not submit to her husband.

She fought her husband and she stayed there and God killed one of her children. And then they went all the way up to that place. They were there for decades and no kid ever got severely sick. And the whole point is, you're most protected when you're in the will of God, right?

Your greatest protection is being in the will of God. It's not being in a place where everything appears to be full of protection because the only reason any protection is anywhere is the Lord. And you want to think about how unprotected you are apart from God.

Listen to Kurt Daniel's sermon called A Step Between Life and Death. I mean, he goes through lists of ways people died from mowing their lawn and a plane flew over and a bolt fell off and it flew all the way down, hit the guy in his head and he died.

I mean, you're just hearing the sermon and all these ways people died and you just realize we are but grasshoppers. We were but small before God. Apart from His protection, we won't make it. I mean, we could have a stroke at any moment.

God could take our life. So the safest place to be is the place God has guided you, right? By not going into the land to face the giants, they're actually putting themselves in greater danger. Who would have thought?

You're putting yourself in greater danger by not facing great danger in the physical realm because you are now disobeying the Lord. So do you see here? Not going forward for the Lord because one is discouraged, is despising the Lord.

It's an act of unbelief. We instead should have courage to trust the Lord despite what our eyes have seen and to believe Him. Let's see, what time is it? We've got 20 more minutes. Okay, so where's your confidence in Christ today, right?

Being courageous, being encouraged is having confidence in the Lord. It's all about who God is. Who is the Lord to you? What is your view of the Lord? It's not even about being confident you're in the will of God.

You could say, well, I need confidence I'm in the will of God, then I'll have courage to go forward. You know what you need? You need confidence in God more than you need some confidence that you're in the will of God.

What if you get confidence you're in the will of God and you're not and you've deceived yourself? I mean, how do you know whether you're in the will of God or not? Well, you're not looking so much for what's the will of God as you're looking to God following Christ and then He is faithfully guiding you and you'll find yourself in His will and serving Him.

But discouragement, it says what the spies said. We are not able. I'm not saying there's not a time where you actually need to discourage someone who's saying we're able and they're saying we're able to do something that's just, it is crazy and it's not a faith.

I mean, there's times you want to discourage people and it's a right discouragement. But often, us being a discouragement and bringing in the language we are not able, often it's rooted in some unbelief there.

And what we see, we're not going by faith. Listen to J .O. Frazier. He was a isolated missionary among a mountain people in China. And for years, he saw very little fruit. Eventually, revival came to the mountains.

And after a trial, listen to what he said. If such a trial had happened a year ago, it would have driven me down to the depths of depression. I have given way to discouragement, dark discouragement far too much in the past.

Now I know rather better and thoroughly agree with the assertion all discouragement is of the devil. Discouragement is to be resisted just like sin. And we've seen that here from numbers. Discouragement is to be resisted just like sin.

To give way to one is just as bad and weakens us as much as to give way to the other. God has wonderfully sustained me through this trial. And to Him be all the praise when I say that not for one instant has it disturbed my peace or radiant faith in the risen and ascended Lord.

God has enabled me to trust Him more than ever before to rejoice in Him more than ever before and to believe more than ever before for a work of grace among the lesu. You see, Frazier, he got to a point he had to view being discouraged for what it is.