The Importance of Right Spirit — A.W. Tozer

To read from two passages, two parts of the scriptures, one from Joshua 1 .9, the Lord says, Have not I commanded thee? Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed. For the Lord thy God is with us wherever thou goest.

Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, be of a good courage. Then in Deuteronomy 21, Behold, the Lord thy God has set the land before thee. Go up and possess it. As the Lord hath said unto thee, Fear not, neither be discouraged.

The Christian’s Worst Enemy: Discouragement

Now if I 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, 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 sized as being an enemy, and it works when other temptations can't work and wouldn't work.

A Christian who would scornfully dismiss a temptation to physical sin, go along with this enemy of his soul we call discouragement. To talk about discouragement as a mood, as a sort of a climate, and show the causes of it, and the cure.

To begin with, a discouragement is a mood, that is, it's an internal climate, and it is a ruling emotion. The person who is discouraged is not a coward, but he has for the moment lost his courage, and it becomes a very painful thing, he feels it, which can be and often is very distressing.

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

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 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 a little climate, or a spiritual climate.

This combination of outlook and disposition and emotion comes a climate, and a discouraged climate, nothing much can grow in it. 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, because the climate up there isn't favorable. It's favorable to some things that don't grow in Florida, but Florida is favorable to things that don't. 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, 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 be in the cold, gloomy, damp climate of discouragement. Neither will power grow there. You never saw a man that had any power of any sort, moral or spiritual, and there can be no effective activity.

There are some churches that discouragement has the prevailing mood. They come to church discouraged, they sing their hymns discouragedly, they give a discouraged fight, they listen to a discouraged sermon, and they go home discouraged.

And of course nothing grows, there is nothing there. Their activity is, what there is of activity has got to be an effective, and their power, what power, the spiritual power. And then this same mood that favors, or that does not favor, the joy and power and effective activity, it favors certain noxious plants.

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

And so fear takes pity. You just, you just shout at the average discouraged man, he'll break down and cry, not because of the world, but because he's pitying himself. And self-engrossment, the discouraged person is utterly wrapped up in himself, that the man who wrapped up in himself is satisfied with a pretty small package.

And this discouraged, self-engrossing attitude toward life, it isn't good, and the children of God shouldn't, shouldn't have it at all. They should be that. Now, discouragement is more prevalent than you know.

The Sunday school superintendent, if the attendance is down, you know about it, that's discouragement. The pastor, the crowd falls off a little Sunday, he's discouraged about it. And their teacher, 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 they're last week, and we feel discouraged if they're not. Now, this discouragement, this sense of defeatism, and this blue feeling, doesn't come to old people only, nor to young people only.

It comes to both young age. 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. It is universal. It's like the common cold, everybody's likely to get it, but I hope nobody needs to get it.

I promise a lot of you, if we were to be, we had some sort of fluoroscope affair, such as the doctors have, so compelled to walk in front of it, and have everybody else look on, it'd be, it would be really annoying 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 discouraged spirit, there's a lot of them there. Now, there are causes for discouragement. The curse doesn't come causeless, and the blessing doesn't come.

The only thing I know that has no cause is change of women's fashions. I can't imagine what that's about. I have never seen any reason for that. From that, everything has a cause, and it's, you can trace the cause, you might be able to find the cure.

Loneliness and the Discouragement of Elijah

Well, 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 of loneliness. There was a man one time by the name of Elijah, and Elijah lacked the support of others.

If you, if, if you have the support of others, you're not so likely to become discouraged. But Elijah didn't talk. I may be talking to some people, you have not one grain or trace of help back home. You haven't anybody around.

Most of you, I would say, come from Christian homes, where somebody's sympathetic with your spiritual intentions, but a lot of people come only one Christian. The Lord told us about that. And so that this, the, 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. Contrast is so great, because what they, the way they want to see, between what they want to see and what is, and the higher the ideals that we set, the poorer it'll be, it'll be, and the more likely we will be to become discouraged.

The ballplayer that sees them and says, if I can hit 200, I'll be all right, that is, if I can get one time, every time I, every time I come to bat, if I can get two hits, I'll be satisfied. He's not likely to be discouraged, be discouraged, because all 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 very few, none in the last several, 10 or 12 years. And of course there'll be a sense of discouragement. The ideal is we fail, then we plunge into despondency, because our ideal has been high.

Why the man without ideals is browning talked about a finished and finite clod uncoupled by a spark, and you never heard of a discouraged cow, a 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 a cow.

I'd just like to write a little book or a little short story sometime, imaginative piece about the cow that determines she wouldn't make it, but she sure would be an interesting cow. And you have high ideals and you don't make it.

Well now what's the answer to that? Well the answer is based upon, of course, it is this sense of loneliness, this feeling that there's nobody else that's longing after God, nobody else. The error lies in this, that there are thousands of others like you.

When Elijah went into that tailspin and said, lay, take me away, and you know I've got, I warn people be careful about getting pouting and going to die. Elijah asked to die, he didn't die, but he went out of his world.

God took him home, he took him out of here. And there when a man asked to die, the Lord let him. So you'll be careful about that, you know. You might say to your husband, I might as well be dead, but think about it, only buy you some candy.

But if you, if you seriously talk like that to God, he may just take you at your word, and there'll be something over you telling about your virtues, forgetting that the Lord took you home because you were too discouraged to live.

Well 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 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.

I 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 legs. 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 a reason.

Or if the feeble-minded, and boy, you'll feel like a million when you come out of there, you'll say, why there's other people a lot worse than I am, sure. And your spiritual state, your spiritual condition, you're a lot better off.

And you ought to be thankful to God every hour for all the friends and all the people there are in all the world that are, that are no worse off than you. Loneliness is desire to be comforted. Nobody around to rub your head and comfort you, and so you feel bad.

Let's get over that. Let's remember Paul said, took me, and then he said, just a minute, he said to the Manuensis, Manuensis started away, and he said, come back here, he said, add this sentence. Nevertheless, he wrote that on the end, he said, everybody left me, said Paul, and said, here, put this down.

Nevertheless, the Lord stood with me. It's always so, heard his people. Then there's a second cause of discouragement, and that is the wickedness of the people, and that was Jeremiah. Jeremiah said he wished his head was a fountain of tears.

Discouragement in a Wicked Society: Jeremiah’s Example

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 all the time. He got tired of talking to no purpose. He preached and nobody listened.

He exhorted and nobody obeyed. He cried, but he wanted to be helped. And the man of God, being a good man on earth, trying to live in a bad world, he got 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 people. Well, now, what's the answer to this? Well, I'll tell you this about Jeremiah. If Jeremiah had known 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, see here if I can find it. He lived away back there 600 years before Christ. That's 2600 years ago nearly. And for 2600 years, Jeremiah's book has been blessing mankind.

Now, if Jeremiah had known that, he gave his testimony and it seemed to fall on stony ground. But it didn't. It fell to soil because that fruitful soil has brought forth fruit that 2600 years has blessed.

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? Or tend to be a little bit blue because Toronto the good is rapidly becoming Toronto the bad.

They blame America. No, 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. So they didn't do that. People just getting bad.

That's all the world is getting bad. And nice places that you have reputation and Canada's 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 all over the world. It's spread all over the world. There's no place where wickedness is not thriving. So if you're in the midst of wickedness, don't be discouraged about it. Our Lord walked among evil men and they were with Jesus lived and gave himself and did his work and said, the work which thou gavest me to do.

And Paul said, I finished my course, it's possible to live and do your most unlikely conditions. Jeremiah's testimony went on and still going on. We're still taking consolation from Jeremiah. And if Jeremiah could have known 2600 years ago, the 2600 years later in a land he'd never heard of among the people totally different from him, a man would stand and use Jeremiah as an example of courage and a fruit in the midst of, uh, of discouragement or at least discouraging conditions.

He just smiled, 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, be 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 die for God keeps your prayers in his bottle up yonder.

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

Captivity and the Revelation of God

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

He was captive and he was discouraged because he was a captive. His nation had dissolved around him. His flag had been pulled down. 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 captive. You may smile at this, but it's very real and there are times when it gets to become 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 rose and nice houses and a big car. But she finds that they're children and they're lovely little fellas, but they can be terribly hard on your nerves. And the worst part is away from them.

They're there and you brought them and Lord may have sent them, but you were there and you brought them. 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 everything to them. And though they're angels, they have a strange way of acting as if they'd come from another direction. And captivated. You're, I mean, in the wrong sense. You're bound. It's all right for a day or two.

Maybe put up with it and tell jokes about it and kid and say, oh, they were terrible. But when it's, there's no end to it. Week follows week and week follows week follows another week and that runs into a month and month runs into years.

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

After a while you feel, oh Lord, why did I get married? 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?

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, he thinks that they're wonderful. And he comes home, you have on a clean apron and tupper's ready.

Oh boy, he thinks, what a wonderful wife. But you've been home discouraged. Well, then there are workmen that are discouraged. Go to, go to work to the whistle and quit that. You're pretty much a little straw boss that isn't worth that.

Telling, pushing you around, telling you what to do. And a fellow just out of, brother-in-law or the son-in-law of the big boss, sitting at a desk looking you over, as though you belong to the proletariat and he belongs, well it's not so nice, but you got it to do.

You say to yourself, I'm gonna quit. I won't take that from this fellow. And then you remember your, and you say, if I quit now, I can't get another job. If I quit now, I'm finished. You know, sediments to make you live to be 90.

And then when you're 45, they say, I won't hire you cause you're too old. But they're discouraged because they're captive to their work. And then there's the family man. I remember when we were, our children were coming along, you know, just coming after the other, just as if they didn't want to break the rhythm.

And uh, one little boy would bounce in and then we'd barely get him straightened around. Another little boy, six of them had bounced in. And I remember one time lying in bed and I woke with an awful start of deep fear, thought that something would happen to me and my boys, my wife would be left with nobody to look after my boy.

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

So we get captive to things and there are shut-ins and there are lame people and we're captive. Ezekiel was a captive, but do you know what happened to Ezekiel when he was captive there? Suddenly heavens were opened in the name 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 that he was all walking in the midst of a flowery garden, but it was when he was captive. Remember that as long as you live, you'll belong to a minority group.

Always remember that as long as you live, your candidate won't last. 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 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 are all together and your ideal is to bring in the kingdom of God down to men. But it doesn't come down like that now. It waits on the Christ the Lord. When he comes who's right it is to reign, then the will of the Lord will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Discouraged Hearts and Pessimistic Congregations

But not now. You're going to have to remember that and look up and see whether the heavens won't be opened in the midst of your captivity. Then it says, discouraged our hearts. That was in Israel in the days of Ezra.

Our brethren discouraged our hearts. A bunch of them got together, or just a bunch that were unintentionally, just without purpose, had met together. And each one looked so gloomy that each one looked at the other one and felt, it's as gloomy as that in the world, things must be in bad shape.

So they were gloomily looked at each other and slowly each took on the other's, they were gloomy outfit. Timid, pessimistic brethren always infect the crowd. When a pastor was bored with some forward look, wants to go somewhere, usually there are a few old deacons 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 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, I, I've been preaching a long time and I've literally gone ahead dragging the feet of people.

More people have dragged their feet. And we wanted to build a new church one time where I was, and we foolishly pronged the congregation that we wouldn't take any steps without consent. 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 some pessimistic brother who couldn't see it. Somebody said, if you build a new church, your missionary offering will fall off. You build a new church, that will happen.

So I went before the people one time and I said, will you please release us of our vow? 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 commit you, all in favor say aye.

Everybody said aye, you know, just too lazy to say anything else. Thought it through, but they just said aye and we were free. We had our church in very short order, almost immediately. But we still hadn't been, we got free.

We got, they got the old boys with their toes dragged and got them off our necks. Excuse my confused image. But that's what we got. Now, the timid, gloomy brethren often cause the I don't think we ought to be always smiling, really don't.

When a fellow smiles too consistently, I wonder about his smile. But there ought to be a, there ought to be what, what the great English electrographer and Brunson called, did he call it about Wesley?

He said, he said he found in John Wesley the most perfectly moral happiness that he'd ever seen anywhere. High moral happiness. And there ought to be in the people of God, high more than giggling. And they don't necessarily have to be the kind that are always laughing, but they're at least cheerful and hopeful and optimistic.

Outlook's 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. You call him sometime 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, or something. If you'd say, oh, brother Gray, you don't know what yesterday's service did for me. I would just bless and lift it up, found a little bit of a hopefulness and see what it'll do for preachers.

Absolutely. I get letters occasionally that tell me that, say it like that, but the general import of it is that I never should have been born. And if I had, if it had to be, then I should have done it.

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 now. I don't mean on that. I'm just saying that you can help a man by being careful.

Learning from the Saints Without Comparing Ourselves

Then fifth, and the only last one I'm going to mention, encouragement is reading about the exploits of the saints of old. You say, well, I'd think that'd 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 like bad. Because, you see, everything that's good about them was put into the biography, and everything that wasn't so good, out.

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

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 biography, just not so.

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 God's heart, but David walked on the roof one day and saw Bathsheba. 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 he 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 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 like passion. Christian biographies, faith is written by the man's wife.

I say, oh God help me, I'm awful. I'll never be a saint here. Where was his humanity? Where was his humanhood? He must have had the blood of archangels circulating in his veins, and I got the blood of Adam.

I'm reading two things now. I'm reading two things. One of them is the life of Whitefield. Man, when you read the life of Whitefield, don't read it, Brother Gray. If you haven't read it, don't read it.

You get older and can take it. That man, that man, what a saint, 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 all the letters of Samuel Rutherford.

When I read Samuel Rutherford's radiant, wonderful descriptions of Jesus, 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'm not but I'm thy child.

I don't love thee as much as Rutherford evidently did, but I love thee more than I used to. 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 stand or kneel, and 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. So I'm not going to be discouraged by reading about good people. They had their times too when they weren't so good. That's 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, they weren't 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 with Dr. Simpson, and it's embarrassing because I don't compare.

That great Canadian preacher was for the world in his day, you know, a great preacher. But Dr. Simpson is dead, and I am alive. No longer a priest. That silver voice is silent, and my gravelly voice is still able to be heard.

I'm 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's got to fail. Anything. The Lord can't say, Dr. Simpson, I want you to go to Toronto and preach to the people there.

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

In 50th of Isaiah. That's your enemy. That's your enemy. And under the kind wing of God, you'll peek out and see a moth eating your enemy. God will look after that. So I would encourage you this morning, I would ask you to get your chin up, elevate it a little bit, and be grateful and thankful to God.

Faithful Witness in a Fallen World

And remember that there's a God at the right hand of the Father, pleading for you by name. And God always hears the prayer of his Son. And so no matter how things go 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 mix.

Part good, part bad, mostly bad. In and out and up and down. Changeable as the weather. A world of inequity. And 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.

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, your class, all they do is wiggle. Keep on teaching them. God Almighty who made them and put the wiggle in and built it in.

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. And I want to read a hymn written by the same man I talked about. As he has said, I hear no will, tis I, tis I be not afraid.

Trusting God’s Will and Waiting Patiently

Oh, praying soul, be still, be still. He cannot break his, sink down into his blessed will and wait in patience on the Lord. Oh, waiting soul, be still, be strong. Doubt not, he will not wait too long.

Fear not, he will not come too late. Be still, oh troubled heart, be father's arms enfold thee. Take up thy cross, lay down thy will. Be silent unto God and let him mold thee. Be in cheerful hopefulness.

Rise from your knees with a good optimistic outlook and let your soul be cheerful, hopeful, filled with faith and expectation. And the little flowers that couldn't come out before will begin to come out.

Little crocuses begin to grow. Oh, they're more than growing, they're blooming. They will. Weather change, a little, not much, but a little. And if you'll get a change of internal weather, you'll find the lilies of Sharon will begin to bloom inside you, inside your heart.

You'll be fragrant. And the people will turn their noses your direction and sniff and say, where's that sweet fragrance coming? And it'll be you. Because you've cultivated a right spirit.