Importance of Right Spiritual Climate — A.W. Tozer

Discouragement as the Christian’s Worst Enemy

Now I want to read from two passages, two parts of the scriptures, one from Joshua 1 .9. The Lord says, Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage. Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed.

For the Lord thy God is with thee, with us wherever thou goest. Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, and be of a good courage. Then Deuteronomy 1 .21, Behold, the Lord thy God hath set the land before thee, go up and possess it.

The Lord God of thy fathers hath said unto thee, Fear not, neither be discouraged. Now if I wanted to, I could have called, had wanted to, I could have called this morning's talk, The Causes and the Cure of Discouragement.

And I begin by telling you that I am speaking today about the Christian's worst enemy, or at least one of the very worst enemies the Christian can have. It is an enemy and a bad enemy, not because it is the greatest really, but because it's the greatest nuisance.

Its value to the devil is very great, because it is very seldom recognized as being an enemy. And it works when other temptations can't work and wouldn't work. A person who would scornfully dismiss a temptation to physical sin may nevertheless go along with this enemy of his soul we call discouragement.

So I want to talk about discouragement as a mood, as a sort of a climate, and show the causes of it and the cure of it. Now to begin with, a discouragement is a mood, that is, it's an internal climate, a mental climate.

It is a ruling emotion. The person who is discouraged is not a coward necessarily, but he has for the moment lost his courage, and it becomes a very painful thing, he feels it. It is an emotion which can be, and often is, very distressing.

But it goes on past being an emotion, it becomes a disposition. And it goes past that and becomes an outlook and an attitude. There are people who are permanently discouraged, I have met some. They have a discouraged look on their face, the tone of their voice is discouraged, their voice is flat and dead.

I have met a few like that, not many, thank God, but a few. They're even too discouraged to commit suicide. They're just too discouraged to do anything about it. They're going to live it out somehow or other, if you can call what they're doing living.

Now that is, we find, a great many places. But it ought not to be in the church, and I want to point out the causes of it, and I want to point out the cure. For this is a mental climate or a spiritual climate, this combination of outlook and disposition and emotion.

This becomes a climate, and a discouraged climate, nothing much can grow in it. If you go to some parts of the world, you will find bananas and oranges and avocados and bougainvillea. And friends here just came back from Florida, and it's a nice sun tan, and no doubt they saw all those things down there.

Well, now you don't see them up at Muskoka. Why? Because the climate up there isn't favorable. It's favorable to some things that don't grow in Florida. But Florida's favorable to things that don't grow up at Muskoka Lake.

So there are certain things that just won't grow in a discouraged heart, and not only that, the heart itself won't grow. The mood, the climate, the prevailing feeling, the attitude, the outlook, the expectation or lack of it, all combine to make the climate.

And where there is this discouraged or defeated sort of climate, some plants just can't grow. Joy can't grow. The Lord's people ought to be, as I've said many times, a joyful people, but joy won't grow in the cold, gloomy, damp climate of discouragement.

Neither will power grow there. You never saw a discouraged man that had any power of any sort, moral or spiritual. And there can be no effective activity. There are some churches that accept discouragement as the prevailing mood.

They come to church discouraged. They sing their hymns discouragely. They give a discouraged five-dollar bill. They listen to a discouraged sermon, and they go home discouraged. And, of course, nothing grows.

There is nothing there. There can't be anything there. Their activity is what there is of activity. It's got to be an effective, and their power, what power they have, can't be spiritual power. And then this same mood that favors or that does not favor such fruit as joy and power and effective activity, it favors certain noxious plants.

Certain plants that ought not to be, but they are, such as fear, the discouraged person is afraid. That's what the word means. Courage means not afraid. And this courage dehydrates it and makes it the opposite so that there's no courage there.

And so fear takes the place. Then there's self-pity. You just shout at the average discouraged man, and he'll break down. And cry at him not because of fear, his worry of the world, but because he's pitying himself.

And self-engrossment, the discouraged person is utterly wrapped up in himself. And you know that the man who's wrapped up in himself is satisfied with a pretty small package. And this discouraged, self-engrossed, self-pitying attitude toward life, it isn't good.

And the children of God shouldn't have it at all. They should be utterly unlike that. Now, discouragement is more prevalent than you know. The Sunday school superintendent, if his attendance is down, he feels blue about it.

That's discouragement. The pastor, when the crowd falls off a little Sunday, he's discouraged about it. And their teacher in Sunday school, if his class doesn't come up, he feels discouraged about it.

And we're discouraged. We look the people over carefully and wonder if there are as many as there were last week. And we feel discouraged if there are not. Now, this discouragement, this sense of deceitism and self-pity and this blue feeling, doesn't come to old people only, nor to young people only.

It comes to both young and old and middle-aged. It comes to the sober. It comes to the radiant. It comes to the lofty. It comes to the practical. It comes to the poetic. It comes to the pedestrian type of mind.

It is universal. It's like the common cold. Everybody's likely to get it, but I hope nobody needs to get it. And it would astonish a lot of you if we were to... We had some sort of fluoroscope affair, such as the doctors have, and we were all compelled to walk in front of it and have everybody else look on.

It would be really an alarming thing to see how many of the Lord's people are discouraged in times like these. If that fluoroscope could show the little lumps we call discouragement in the human spirit, there's a lot of them there.

Loneliness and the Loss of Like-Minded Support

Now, there are causes for discouragement. The curse doesn't come causeless and the blessing doesn't come causeless. The only thing I know that has no cause is the change of women's fashions. I can't imagine what that's about.

I have never seen any reason for that. But apart from that, everything has a cause. And if you can trace the cause, you might be able to find the cure. Well, one cause, and I want to go to the Bible for my example, so you will know that I'm not just combing this out of my own head.

But there's a sense of loneliness. There was a man one time by the name of Elijah. And Elijah lacked the support of like-minded souls. If you have the support of others, you're not so likely to become discouraged.

But Elijah didn't have any support at all. I may be talking to some people, you have not one grain or trace of help back home. You haven't anybody around you at all. Now, most of you, I would say, come from Christian homes.

For somebody's sympathetic with your spiritual intentions, but a lot of people come from homes where there's only one Christian. The Lord told us about that. And so the temptation is to become discouraged about this.

And the truer the soul, the truer and the more loyal to God, the more likely the soul is to become discouraged because the contrast is so great. Because the way they want to see, between what they want to see and what is, and the higher the ideal that we set, the poorer it will be.

And the more likely we will be to become discouraged. The ballplayer that starts out of the season and says, if I can hit 200, I'll be all right. That is, if I can get one, every ten times I come to bat, if I can get two hits, I'll be satisfied.

He's not likely to be discouraged because almost anybody could get two hits out of ten. But if he's got his mind set on being a 400 hitter, he's not likely to make it. There have been very few, none in the last several, ten or twelve years.

And of course there will be a sense of discouragement. The ideal is high, and when we fail, then we plunge into despondency because our ideal has been high. Why, the man without ideals isn't discouraged.

Browning talked about a finished and finite clod uncoupled by a spark. And you never heard of the discouraged cow. You've heard of the contented cow. The cow that is contented with being a cow, and that's why she's a cow, and that's why she'll stay a cow, because she's contented to be a cow.

I'd just like to write a little book or a little short story sometime, an imaginative piece about the cow that's determined to be an angel. She wouldn't make it, but she sure would be an interesting cow.

And you have high ideals, and you don't make it, you're discouraged. Well, now what's the answer to that? Well, the answer is based upon, of course, an error. It is this sense of loneliness, this feeling that there's nobody else that's longing after God, nobody else like you.

The error lies in this, that there are thousands of others like you. When Elijah went into that tailspin and said, Lord, take me away, take me away, and you know I've got, I warn people, be careful about getting, pouting and going to God and asking to die.

Elijah asked to die. He didn't die, but he went out of this world. God took him home. He took him out of here. And there's one or two other cases in the Scriptures where when a man asks to die, the Lord let him.

So you be careful about that, you know. You might say to your husband, I'd rather be dead, but he'll do anything about it, only buy you some candy. But if you seriously talk like that to God, he may just take you at your word.

And there'll be some preacher standing over you telling about your virtues, forgetting that the Lord took you home because you were too discouraged to live. Well, remember that there are a lot of people in the world that are just as bad off as you are.

Just as bad off as you. I sometimes visit places, hospitals and places, and see people with tubes down their noses and their leg in traction, and I'm not exactly what you'd call athletic, but at least I can get around and I don't have a tube in my nose.

And I walk awkwardly, but that's natural to me. It isn't because anything wrong with my leg. So you're better off than you think. I'd advise some of you to go. If you're worried about your IQ, go to a home for retarded children or for feeble-minded.

And boy, you'll feel like a million when you come out of there. You'll say, well, there's other people a lot worse than I am. Sure there are. And your spiritual state and your spiritual condition, you're lots better off.

And you ought to be thankful to God every hour for all the friends that you have and all the people there are in all the world that are no worse off than you. Loneliness is pretty much a desire to be comforted.

Nobody around to rub your head and comfort you. So you feel bad. Let's get over that. Let's remember Paul said, everybody forsook me. And then he said, just a minute. He said to the man he went to. The man he went to started waiting.

He said, come back here. He said, add this in. Nevertheless, the Lord stood with me. He wrote that on the end. Everybody left me, said Paul, and said, here, put this on. Nevertheless, the Lord stood with me.

The Wickedness of the People and the Fruitfulness of Faithful Witness

It's always so. The Lord doesn't desert His people. Then there's a second cause of discouragement. And that is the wickedness of the people. And that was Jeremiah. Jeremiah cried and said he wished his head was a fountain of tears.

He just wished that the top would come off and salty tears would begin to flow and he could just sit there like a fountain and weep all the time. He got tired of talking to no purpose. He preached and nobody listened.

He exhorted and nobody obeyed. He tried to help and nobody wanted to be helped. And the man of God, being a good man on earth, trying to live in a bad world, he got very much discouraged. And he wanted to go away and dwell in the howling wilderness and be away from people.

He wanted to get out among the beasts. He said they're better off than the people. Well, now, what's the answer to this? Well, I'll tell you this about Jeremiah. If Jeremiah had known then what he knows now, he'd have gone around with a smile on his face right in the midst of all that iniquity.

Because, though Jeremiah, how long ago did Jeremiah live? Let's see here if I can find it. He lived way back there, 600 years before Christ. That's 2 ,600 years ago, nearly. And for 2 ,600 years, Jeremiah's book has been blessing mankind.

Now, if Jeremiah had known that, he never would have been discouraged. He gave his testimony, and it seemed to fall on stony ground. But it didn't. It fell upon fruitful soil, because that fruitful soil has brought forth fruit.

That 2 ,600 years has blessed mankind, I repeat. So you keep your testimony bright, and keep living for God, and don't get discouraged because of the wickedness of the people. Aren't you just a little bit blue, or tend to be a little bit blue, because Toronto the good is rapidly becoming Toronto the bad?

They blame it on American gangsters. I don't know. I didn't bring any of them with me. But none of them followed me either. But whoever's doing it, they didn't pass those laws permitting them to have Sunday movies now.

They didn't do that. People are just getting bad. That's all the world is getting bad, in nice places. They have a reputation, and Canada's had a reputation for being a moral country all over the world ever since she's been a country.

But she's learning to do evil things too. It's a disease, and it's spreading all over the world. It's spread all over the world, and there's no place where wickedness is not thriving. If you're in the midst of wickedness, don't be discouraged about it.

Our Lord walked among evil men, and there were wicked people, but lived and gave himself and did his work and said, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. Paul said, I have finished my course.

It's possible to live and do your work in the most unlikely condition. Jeremiah's testimony went on and on and still going on, and we're still taking consolation from Jeremiah. Jeremiah could have known 2 ,600 years ago, but 2 ,600 years later in a land he'd never heard of, among a people totally different from him, a man would stand and use Jeremiah as an example of courage and of fruit in the midst of discouragement, or at least discouraging conditions.

He just smiled and said, forgive me, Lord. I don't want my head to become a fountain of tears. I want to rejoice and praise thee. So remember, you can continue to praise God because you give your testimony and live your life, and the Lord will see that not one of your tears will be anything less than immortal, and not one of your prayers will ever die, for God keeps your prayers in his bottle up yonder.

I used to think that when people died, their prayers died with them, but I think so no more. The prayers of a man are kept up yonder, not on ice, but they're kept before the throne of God. I will keep all my tears in that bottle.

Captivity and Divine Revelation in Ezekiel

Then the third reason that I want to give you for discouragement in this bad mental climate is captivity. A man named Ezekiel, he was a priest, son of Buzi, the tribe of Levi, and he was among the captives, and he was by the river Kibar, and he was sitting there in complete despondency.

Now, he was captive, and he was discouraged because he was a captive. His nation had dissolved around him. His flag had been pulled down, and he was now at the mercy of a great and brutal nation whose language he couldn't speak.

There are a lot of people that are captives. You may smile at this, but it's very real, and there are times when it becomes so real to us that we don't smile. There's that housewife. She wants to get married so bad when she's a young girl.

She thinks, you know, there's nothing but romance and pretty clothes and nice houses and a big car. But she finds that they're children, and they're lovely little fellows, but they can be terribly hard on your nerves.

And the worst part about these, you can't get away from them. They're there, and you brought them. And the Lord may have sent them, but you were there, and you brought them, and there they are. And your husband's off at work, and they're in your hands, and you're not rich enough to have a governess.

And so you must be everything to them. And though they're angels, they have a strange way of acting as if they'd come from another direction. And you feel captivated. I mean, in the wrong sense. You're bound.

It's all right for a day or two, maybe for a week if you put up with it and tell jokes about it and kid and say, oh, they were terrible. But when there's no end to it, a week follows a week, and a week follows a week, another week follows another week, and that runs into a month, and a month runs into years.

And you're still captive. Captive to the stove and the vacuum cleaner and your children and blowing noses and combing hair that doesn't stay combed and washing faces that won't stay clean and pulling them down off of places where they've been climbing.

After a while you feel, oh, Lord, why did I get married? I'm captive. I'm a slave. I'm bound. Now, you won't say it. If you're a Christian, you won't say it, but it gets in your system. Doesn't it now?

Haven't I described some of you good women? You've never told your husband this, and the great big lug doesn't know it. He doesn't know how you feel to this day. He thinks that everything is just wonderful.

He comes home, you have on a clean apron and supper's ready. Oh, boy, he thinks, what a wonderful wife. But you've been home discouraged that day. Well, then there are workmen that are discouraged. Go to work to the whistle and quit at the whistle, and you're pretty much a little straw boss that isn't worth that.

Pushing you around, telling you what to do. A fella just out of high school, you know, the brother-in-law or the son-in-law of the big boss, sitting at a desk looking you over as though you belonged to the proletariat and he belonged up there.

Well, it's not so nice, but you've got it to do. You say to yourself, I'm going to quit. I won't take that from this fella. And then you remember your age. And you say, if I quit now, I can't get another job.

If I quit now, I'm finished. You know, they give you vitamins to make you live to be 90, and then when you're 45, they say, I won't hire you because you're too old. But a lot of people are discouraged because they're captive to their work.

Then there's the family man. I remember when we were, our children were coming along, you know, just coming along, one right after the other, just as if they didn't want to break the rhythm. And one little boy would bounce in, and then we'd barely get him straightened around.

Another little boy would bounce in. Well, six of them had bounced in. And I remember one time lying in bed, and I woke with an awful start and a sense of deep fear. What if something would happen to me, and my boys, my wife would be left with nobody to look after my boys.

Well, that was pretty tough. I remember going through that heartache for a while there. I never told anybody about how I suffered worrying about those boys, but I was captive to those boys. It was a beautiful captivity, but it was captivity nevertheless.

So we get captive to things, and there are shut-ins, and there are lame people, and we were captive. Ezekiel was a captive. But do you know what happened to Ezekiel when he was captive there? Suddenly, heavens were opened, and he saw visions of God.

And the word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel, and the hand of the Lord was heavy upon him. It wasn't when Ezekiel was all walking in the midst of a flowery garden, but it was when he was captive.

Always remember that as long as you live, you belong to a minority group. Always remember that as long as you live, your candidate won't likely get elected. Always remember that the law you'd like to see passed, you shall get defeated.

Always remember that the thing you'd like to see done likely won't be done, because the country isn't in the hands of saints. It's in the hands of Adam's fallen race. All countries are. And you as a Christian belong to another world altogether, and your ideal is to bring in the kingdom of God down to men.

But it doesn't come down like that now. Wait on the coming of Jesus Christ the Lord. When he comes whose right it is to reign, then the will of the Lord will be done on earth as it is in heaven, but not now.

The Discouraging Influence of Pessimistic Brethren

So you're going to have to remember that, and look out to see whether the heavens won't be opened in the midst of your captivity. Then it says, Our brethren discouraged our hearts. That was in Israel in the days of Ezra.

Our brethren discouraged our hearts. A bunch of them got together. I don't know whether it was a board or just a bunch that were unintentionally, just without purpose, that met together. And each one looked so gloomy that each one looked at the other one and felt, if anybody is as gloomy as that in the world, things must be in bad shape.

So they gloomily looked at each other and slowly took on the other's mood, and they were gloomy outfits. Timid, pessimistic brethren always infect the crowd. When a pastor with some zeal and a board with some forward look wants to go somewhere, usually there are a few old deacons, God bless them, who have seen things as they were so long they don't think they can be otherwise than what they have been.

And the concept of a change just won't enter their poor old heads. And so they drag their blessed feet till the toes are worn out of their shoes, dragging their feet. I literally now, I've been preaching a long time, and I've literally gone ahead dragging the feet of people.

More people have dragged their feet. Anything you want to do. We wanted to build a new church one time where I was. We foolishly pronged the congregation that we wouldn't take any steps without consulting them.

So when we'd get a new set of blueprints or something, we'd call a congregational meeting. And the result was, you know, there'd be always some pessimistic brother who couldn't see it. Somebody said, if you build a new church, your missionary offering will fall off.

Build a new church, this will happen or that will happen. So I went before the people one time and I said, will you please release us of our vow. For where we're going now, we're getting nowhere fast.

And I'd like a motion to put in the hands of the board and the building committee all authority to commit you. All in favor say aye. Everybody said aye. You know, it's too late to say anything else. And they hadn't thought it through, but they just said aye and we were free.

We had our church in very short order. Almost immediately. We'd still been trying to build it as if it hadn't been. We got free. We got the old boys with a toad dragon and got them off our neck. Excuse my confused imagery.

But that's what we got. Now, the timid gloomy brethren often cause the true Christian to be blue. I don't think we ought to be always smiling. Really don't. When a fellow smiles too consistently, I wonder about his mental condition.

But there ought to be what the great English lexicographer and writer Samuel Johnson called, did he call it about Wesley? He said he found in John Wesley the most perfect example of high moral happiness that he'd ever seen anywhere.

High moral happiness. And there ought to be in the people of God high moral happiness. It doesn't keep them giggling. They don't necessarily have to be the kind that are always laughing, but they're at least cheerful and hopeful and optimistic.

Optimistic outlooks. Wonderful. You don't know what you do for a man. You don't know what you'll do for this little man behind me. If you call him sometime and say to him, instead of saying that you felt we shouldn't have sung number nine, that was a poor choice, or the usher was just as courteous to me, turned his back on me, or something.

If you'd say, oh, Brother Gray, you don't know what yesterday's service did for me. I would just lift it up. Fill around a little bit of a hopefulness and see what it'll do for preachers. Absolutely. I get letters occasionally that tell me that they don't say it like that, but the general import of it is that I never should have been born, and if it had to be, then I should have died young.

But I get letters also that tell me other things, and they cheer me up, really. They help me a lot. I don't want your letters. I'm not asking for letters. I'm just saying that you can help a man by being careful.

How Biographies of the Saints Can Discourage Christians

Then, the fifth and the only last one I'm going to mention, the cause of spiritual discouragement is reading about the exploits of the saints of old. You say, well, I think that would be very encouraging.

Well, it is and it isn't. If you want to read a biography, simply as literature, I suppose it's encouraging, but if you're a serious-minded Christian, it's likely to make you feel pretty bad. Because, you see, everything that's good about them was put into the biography, and everything that wasn't so good was carefully edited out.

So you get the idea that here at last was born the perfect man. And then you compare yourself with him, and you say, well, I wonder if I'm even a Christian. It's not good, brethren, not good. Because the biographer usually takes the warts off, and if he's casting the eye, he straightens the eye.

And if the fellow had a stoop, he straightens the man. And everything that was wrong with his idol, he straightens out before he prints his book. And the result is, the average biographer is just not so.

There may be things in it that are true, but the general tenor of it's not true, because all we found out about the good man was how good he was. The Bible isn't that kind of a book. Wherever the Bible gives us biography, it gives us both sides.

It says David was a good man, and after God's heart. But David walked on the roof one day and saw that he got it. It shows both sides, and I can read the life of David and not be discouraged. It tells us that Jacob wrestled with the Lord all night.

But it also tells us that Jacob was a crooked man. And that Jacob didn't cheat, but he came pretty close to cheating his father-in-law out of a lot of cattle. So when I read the Bible, I see both sides of the man.

The good and the bad. I see the light and the shade. I see that he could be a saint, but also he was a man of life's passion. But when I read the Christian biography, faithfully written by the man's wife, I say, oh God help me.

I'm awful. I'll never make it at all. This thing here. Where was his humanity? Where was his humanhood? He must have had the blood of Archangel circulating in his veins, and I got the blood of Adam. And I'm discouraged.

I'm reading two things. Along with four or five others. But I'm reading two things. One of them is the life of Woodfield. Man, when you read the life of Woodfield, don't read it, brother. If you haven't read it, don't read it.

At least until you get older and can take it. That man, that man, what a, what a saint. What a, what a man he was. I think it's wonderful if I preach four or five times a week and he preached four or five times a day.

And then I'm also along with that reading the letters of Samuel Rutherford. When I read Samuel Rutherford's radiant, wonderful descriptions of Jesus, I grieve that I have not felt that. But I settled it one day and took some notes I'm going to write on it.

I settled it one day. Oh God, I am not as great as Woodfield, but I am thy child. I don't love thee as much as Rutherford evidently did, but I love thee more than he used to. And I'm growing in my appreciation of him every day.

So instead of letting these great men discourage me, I'm going to thank God. If I can only stand under their shadow, I can at least stand or kneel. I'm not going to let them discourage me. If I can't preach to tens of thousands, I can preach to some of the best people in the world.

So I'm not going to be discouraged by reading about good people. They had their times too when they weren't so good. And they had their times when they weren't so optimistic. They might have got a little blue too.

But the point is, don't give away to it. And beside that, suppose these men were as great as they are supposed to have been. They're dead. And a living dog's better than a dead lion, says in the Proverbs.

And people come up to me, you know, to compare me to Dr. Simpson. It's embarrassing because I don't compare. That great Canadian preacher was, he was on top of the world in his day, you know, great preacher.

But Dr. Simpson is dead. And I am alive. And he can no longer preach. That silver voice is silent and my gravelly voice is still able to be heard. So I'm not going to be discouraged because I'm not as great as Dr. Simpson.

I'm just going to keep right on giving my witness till the Lord comes. Then, anything that depends on a dead man has got to fail. Anything. The Lord can't say, Dr. Simpson, I want you to go to Toronto and preach to the people of Avenue Row.

But he could say it to me. He couldn't say it to a man who is sleeping in the sleep of the just. But he can say it to a man who is fighting the fight of the just, still alive and able to talk. Amen. Well, I want to read a passage of Scripture here for you.

Confidence in God’s Vindication

50th of Isaiah. For the Lord God will help me, therefore shall I not be confounded. Therefore have I set my faith like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. He is near that justifies me. Who will contend with me?

Let us stand together. Who is mine adversary? Let him come near to me now. Behold, the Lord God will help me. Who is he that shall condemn me? Lo, they all shall wax old as there's a garment, and the moth shall eat them up.

That's your enemy. The moth will eat your enemy. And under the kind wing of God, you'll peek out to see a moth eating your enemy. God will look after that. So I say, I would encourage you this morning.

I would ask you to get your chin up, elevated a little bit. Be grateful and thankful to God. And remember that there's a Son of God at the right hand of the Father, pleading for you by name. And God always hears the prayer of his Son.

So no matter how things may seem to go in the world for you, everything's going all right in your Father's house. There's a little colored song. I used to hear them sing sometimes. Everything's all right in my Father's house.

There's joy, joy, joy. Everything's all right in my Father's house. We're living in a miserable, mixed-up, checkered world, part good, part bad, mostly bad, in and out and up and down, changeable as the weather, a world of iniquity and sin.

Persevering as God’s People in a Hostile World

But we're called to be good men and women in a bad world, to witness to God among the men who don't want to hear about him. And yet we've got to stay here and give that witness till he calls us home. Let's do it.

Let's continue to do it. Let's keep right on. You teachers and your class, they won't listen to you. All they do is wiggle. Keep on teaching them. God Almighty who made them and put the wiggle in, and built it in, he'll see they get some truth.

You'll be surprised in a serious moment how much they're learning. They wiggle and bring bugs to Sunday school class, you know, and all sorts of things. And you think, oh, I might as well quit. Don't quit, brother.

Get on your knees and thank God that you're able to preach and teach the word of the Lord to little wiggling children. They'll get it all right. I want to read a hymn written by the same man I talked about, Dr. Simpson.

Cultivating a Cheerful and Hopeful Spiritual Climate

Oh, fearful soul, be still. Be still. Be of good cheer. As he has said, I will be with you. Fear no will. Tis I. Tis I. Be not afraid. Oh, praying soul, be still. Be still. He cannot break his pledged word.

Sit down into his blessed will and wait in patience on the Lord. Oh, waiting soul, be still. Be strong. Though he carry trust and wait, doubt not. He will not wait too long. Fear not. He will not come too late.