What Are The More Immediate CAUSES Of Discouragement?

1. Distrust of God. Is not that plainly intimated by the words of David when he was chiding himself for his soul being cast down: "Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why so disquieted within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God" (Psalm 42:11).

It was because he had allowed the difficulties of the way to take his eyes off the Lord that he had become dispirited.

Was it not also the case with Israel in the above incident?

When the Lord turned their course from a direct approach unto Canaan and led them back into the borders of the desert, they were "much discouraged."

They doubted God's goodness unto them-and questioned the wisdom of His guidance.

And do not the subtle operations of unbelief lie behind our discouragements?

Are they not due to a lack of faith that the very objects which dismay us are among the "all things"

God has promised He will work together for good!

If we concentrate our attention on the seen things, rather than on the unseen-we soon weaken and pine.

2. Discontent with God's provision. When faith in God's goodness and wisdom ceases to operate, then dissatisfaction takes possession of the heart.

Unbelief breeds fretfulness with our lot and circumstances, and prevents our enjoying the portion God has given us.

Discouragement, when analyzed, is being displeased with the place or portion God has assigned us.

It was so with Israel. They did not relish the fare which He had so graciously given them. 

Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?

For there is no bread, neither is there any water was the language of peevishness.

The real reason for their disaffection was expressed in "We detest this miserable food!" (Num 21:5).

Sad condition of soul was that!

They were "much discouraged because of the way," because the day and fare of the wilderness ministered not unto their carnal lusts.

3. Self-will. That is the root both of our distrust of God and our discontent with His provision.  

Discouragement is nothing less than a rebelling against the sovereign dispensations of God!

It was so with Israel.

They were distressed because things were not going as they wanted.

They desired to press forward in a direct course unto Canaan;

And since the Lord determined otherwise, they were cast down-much like spoilt children who are allowed to have their own way, and murmur and sulk if they be denied anything.

And is it not thus, at times, with many of God's children?

Most of our discouragements are due to the dashing of our hopes, disappointments in either things or persons from whom we looked for something better.

But disappointment is really a quarreling with God's appointment.

It is lack of submission unto God. 

Discouragements issue from our longings remaining unrealized-from our plans being thwarted, our wills being crossed:

It is nothing but vexation of spirit and insubordination to the divine will.

4. Impatience. That also appears plainly in the above incident. Israel chafed at the delay.

They wanted to reach their objective by the short-cut, and when a roundabout course was appointed them, their spirits fell, and they gave way to complaining.

Unless we prayerfully heed that exhortation, "let patience have her perfect work" (Jam 1:4), we shall often become faint through discouragement.

The work which God has appointed patience to do...is to wait His time.

Patience is a contented endurance of trials which enables a Christian to bear up under them;

Whereas impatience is an ill-humored resentment against anything which checks the attainment of our desires-and a sinking of spirit which saps our energies when the hindrance persists.

Like Israel, only too often we are "discouraged because of the way."

But we ought not to be so, for God has not promised us a smooth and easy passage through this world...

But has told us that "we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22).

~Arthur Pink~

                                      
 

Sin Blotted Out

Psa 51:1 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

Psa 51:2  Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

Psa 51:3  For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
 
A boy ran in to his mother one day after he had read that promise, "I will blot out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions." 

And he said: "Mother, what does God mean when He says He will blot out my sins?

What is He going to do with them? 

I can't see how God can really blot them out and put them away.

What does it mean...blot out?

The mother, who is always the best theologian for a child, said to the boy, "Didn't I see, you yesterday writing on your slate?" 

Yes, he said.

Well, show it to me. He brought his slate to his mother, who, holding it out in front of him, said, "Where is what you wrote? 

Oh, he said, "I rubbed it out."

Well, where is it?

Why, mother, I don't know.

But how could you put it away if it was really there?

Oh, mother, I don't know. I know it was there, and it is gone. 

Well, she said, "that is what God meant when He said, 'I will blot out thy transgressions.'" 

~Campbell Morgan~

The Power of Silence

Psalm 46:10  Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

Is there any note of music in all the chorus as mighty as the emphatic pause? Is there any word in all the Psalter more eloquent than that one word, Selah (Pause)?

Is there anything more thrilling and awful than the hush that comes before the bursting of the tempest and the strange quiet that seems to fall upon all nature before some preternatural phenomenon or convulsion?

Is there anything that can touch our hearts as the power of stillness?

There is for the heart that will cease from itself, "the peace of God that passeth all understanding," a "quietness and confidence" which is the source of all strength, a sweet peace "which nothing can offend," a deep rest which the world can neither give nor take away.

There is in the deepest center of the soul a chamber of peace where God dwells, and where, if we will only enter in and hush every other sound, we can hear His still, small voice.

There is in the swiftest wheel that revolves upon its axis a place in the very center, where there is no movement at all;

And so in the busiest life there may be a place where we dwell alone with God, in eternal stillness, There is only one way to know God. "Be still, and know."

God is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.

~Selected~

All-loving Father, sometimes we have walked under starless skies that dripped darkness like drenching rain.

We despaired of starshine or moonlight or sunrise. The sullen blackness gloomed above us as if it would last forever.

And out of the dark there spoke no soothing voice to mend our broken hearts.

We would gladly have welcomed some wild thunder peal to break the torturing stillness of that over-brooding night.

But Thy winsome whisper of eternal love spoke more sweetly to our bruised and bleeding souls than any winds that breathe across Aeolian harps.

It was Thy 'still small voice' that spoke to us.

We were listening and we heard.

We looked and saw Thy face radiant with the light of love.

And when we heard Thy voice and saw Thy face, new life came back to us as life comes back to withered blooms that drink the summer rain.

Growth And Ability By Suffering

Progress and growth are also secured by sufferings. All nature declares it.

Growth, development, increase, is by that expanding power which creates a creak and a groan and an ache within the organism; and in the spiritual life it is like that.

We speak about growing pains. I believe that is considered to be unscientific now, but it is a very useful phrase.

Yes, there are growing pains, and the sufferings of Christ in the members of His Body are related to growth.

The difference is this, that in what we have called growing pains it is the growing that is actually taking place which causes the pains, while here, in what we have before us, it is the pains which produce the growth afterward.

We grow by means of suffering, there is no doubt about it. 

Show me a mature spiritual life, and you show me the embodiment of much suffering of some kind-not always physical...a life which has gone through things.

Paul found his turning point there “that we should not trust in ourselves, but in GOD who raiseth the dead”; a new discovery from the depths.

Where he touched bottom, he discovered GOD in a new way-”GOD who raiseth the dead”.

Such knowing of Him comes along that line. The values of suffering are there.

But then note what he says again “GOD… who comforteth us in all our affliction, that we may be able…” Oh, there is a lot in that!

That speaks of stock in trade, the means for service, does it not?

We may often have bad times about our lack of ability in many ways, comparing ourselves with other people and deploring our lack of ability in this and that.

Oh, for ability! But what is the greatest ability after all?

The best and most fruitful ability is to be able to help people in the deep experiences of spiritual life;

To be able to explain to them the meaning of GOD'S dealings with them, to be able to show them what is intended to be the outcome of it all,

To be able to give them some support by counsel which comes from real knowledge...some of that comfort which we ourselves have received of GOD.

That is real service, that is, building up the Body of Christ, the House of GOD-being really able, in a spiritual way, to strengthen the sorrowing.

That comes through suffering.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Songs Of Confidence

Psalm 138:7  Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me: thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me.
 
Wretched walking in the midst of trouble. Nay, blessed walking, since there is a special promise for it.

Give me a promise, and what is the trouble? What doth my LORD teach me here to say? Why this...”Thou wilt receive me.”

I shall have more life, more energy, more faith. Is it not often so, that trouble revives us, like a breath of cold air when one is ready to faint?

How angry are my enemies and especially the archenemy!

Shall I stretch forth my hand and fight my foes!

No, my hand is better employed in doing service for my Lord. Besides, there is no need, for my GOD will use His far-reaching arm, and He will deal with them far better than I could if I were to try. 

Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the LORD.

He will with His own right hand of power and wisdom save me, and what more can I desire?

Come, my heart, talk this promise over to thyself till thou canst use it as the song of thy confidence, the solace of thy holiness.

Pray to be revived thyself and leave the rest with the LORD, who performeth all things for thee.

~C.H. Spurgeon~

What Is GOD Doing With His People?

How do you pray for the LORD'S people in times of trouble?

Of course, we are all tempted to pray for their deliverance,to cry to the LORD that they may escape.

It may be right at times to pray thus, but suppose the Lord does not deliver?

He does not always deliver at once.

He allows the situation to continue, to become long drawn out.

The enemy will encamp upon that fact and give it his own twist and interpretation-‘God is not doing anything; He has left His people, is standing back, is not concerned.’

There is no answering voice, no slightest indication that He is taking any account at all.

It is like that very often, and that is a real playground for the enemy.

GOD apparently makes no response.

How shall we be delivered from going to pieces, from being overwhelmed in such a time and under such conditions?

Only by grasping this thought of GOD; and then we have to begin to pray along other lines.

If GOD does not act to deliver His people, there is a deeper and a higher thought and purpose than their deliverance, and He is at work upon that;

And deeply in them He is going to reproduce the patience, the endurance, the longsuffering of Jesus Christ.

Meekness and gentleness-these are foreign things to our natures; under stress, under adversity, under the cruel hand of tyrannical men, to say, ‘Father, forgive’!

He could say “I am meek and lowly in heart.”

Oh, you see-the image of His Son.

Such testing conditions are a terrible challenge to our natural dispositions.

Our whole nature revolts against meekness and lowliness and wants to rise up and be even with the other one, or be the master.

Our nature does not accept and delight in opposition, antagonism, frustration, persecution, and all such things.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Losses Overcome

Joel 2:25  And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.

Yes, those wasted years over which we sigh shall be restored to us.

God can give us such plentiful grace that we shall crowd into the remainder of our days as much of service as will be some recompense for those years of unregeneracy over which we mourn in humble penitence.

The locusts of backsliding, worldliness, lukewarmness, are now viewed by us as a terrible plague. 

Oh, that they had never come near us! The LORD in mercy has now taken them away, and we are full of zeal to serve Him.

Blessed be His name, we can raise such harvests of spiritual graces as shall make our former barrenness to disappear.

Through rich grace we can turn to account our bitter experience and use it to warn others.

We can become the more rooted in humility, childlike dependence, and penitent spirituality by reason of our former shortcomings.

If we are the more watchful, zealous, and tender, we shall gain by our lamentable losses.

The wasted years, by a miracle of love, can be restored.

Does it seem too great a boon? Let us believe for it and live for it, and we may yet realize it, even as Peter became all the more useful a man after his presumption was cured by his discovered weakness. 

LORD, aid us by Thy grace.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Unadorned Life

1Ch 4:23  These were the potters, and those that dwelt among plants and hedges: there they dwelt with the king for his work.     
Anywhere and everywhere we may dwell "with the king for his work."

We may be in a very unlikely and unfavorable place for this; it may be in a literal country life, with little enough to be seen of the "goings" of the King around us; it may be among the hedges of all sorts, hindrances in all directions; it may be furthermore, with our hands full of all manner of pottery for our daily task.
     
No matter! The King who placed us "there" will come and dwell there with us; the hedges are right, or He would soon do away with them.

And it does not follow that what seems to hinder our way may not be for its very protection; and as for the pottery, why, that is just exactly what He has seen fit to put into our hands, and therefore it is, for the present, "His work."

~Frances Ridley Havergal~
     
Go back to thy garden-plot, sweetheart! Go back till the evening falls, And bind thy lilies and train thy vines, Till for thee the Master calls.
     
Go make thy garden fair as thou canst, Thou workest never alone; Perhaps he whose plot is next to thine Will see it and mend his own.
     
The colored sunsets and starry heavens, the beautiful mountains and the shining seas, the fragrant woods and painted flowers, are not half so beautiful as a soul that is serving Jesus out of love, in the wear and tear of common, unpoetic life.

~Faber~
     
The most saintly spirits are often existing in those who have never distinguished themselves as authors, or left any memorial of themselves to be the theme of the world's talk; but who have led an interior angelic life, having borne their sweet blossoms unseen like the young lily in a sequestered vale on the bank of a limpid stream.

~Kenelm Digby~

The Threshing Instrument Challenges.

The threshing instrument is at work and it is being found out whether they have got the real thing, or whether it's only a profession - it is at work.

The day has already begun when this very thing is coming to the whole of the professing church. Let there be no mistake about it.

It asks, or confronts with the question: What are you? What have you? And then as it proceeds with its work, it separates; it separates, it discriminates.

You see what it is doing? There is the chaff. There are the husks; there is that which is apparent, on the outside; there is that covering - there it is!

And the sharp threshing instrument gets to work to separate between what is merely and only external, outward, and that which is truly inward - the grain - to separate them. Yes, it's a great discriminating ministry.

Another prophet, the prophet Jeremiah, whose life and ministry had so much to do with the false, the false in Israel, asked the question in the Name of the Lord, of the people.

His question was: "What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord of hosts? What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord of hosts".

Chaff, chaff! That which is so light, so flimsy, so superficial, and can be so easily carried away by any draft that blows - it goes with the wind; the light stuff.

Oh, I am not trying to make up something this afternoon. Anyone who has any concern about the state of things today, will feel a poignancy, a pain, over the superficial­ity, the lightness, the frivolousness, of a great deal of Christianity.

Indeed, indeed, it seems that some people have laid themselves out to make it so; turned Christianity into having a good time, and the best of both worlds!

All their attractions are - "Come and have a good time!" And when you look into it to see what it is, it is all so light, so frivol­ous, so superficial.

There's a lot of that today. I'm not exaggerating, and God knows how I hate anything like unnecessary criticism, but the spirit of a prophet (I don't claim to be a prophet) but the spirit of a prophet demands that the ministry of the sharp threshing instrument shall come alongside of every other kind of ministry, to first challenge, and then to dis­criminate, to separate between what is true and what is false.

The chaff may be a deception - it may be a deception.

You may go to the wheat-field where it's all growing, standing up, and take hold of an ear and when you press it, you find nothing in it - husks! It's empty! It's a lie! It's a deception.

Do you think God is going to be ministered to by that sort of thing? Just an outward deception?

No, the sharp threshing instrument... a ministry of such character will always find out whether the thing is true or false.

It's a very necessary thing. It's necessary for it to be done in you and in me - finding out whether there's any deception about our position, any lie in our position - how far it is true.

And I say again, God needs a ministry that will do this, that will, by His mercy, make those who are in a false position realize how false their position is, and seek for reality.

Chaff! Would you like to feed on chaff? How much satisfaction and growth would you find in a diet of chaff?

And is it not true that there's very, very much today in ministry, in Christian life, on which Christians are feeding, that brings no satisfaction - it's empty.

It is not ministering to their spiritual building up, and strength, and constitu­tion. It's not doing that!

There's far, far too many Christians who are in spiritual debility, because of the lack of solid food - real food - bread corn.

How necessary it is. The Lord must have a ministry that finds out, and discriminates between that which is only chaff, and never, never does build up, and that which ministers to spiritual stature, and full growth.

If we take the Great Servant, the Lord Jesus, that One who did satisfy God, with all the other aspects of His ministry - how true these things were of Him.

How challenging He was to the situation in His day! Oh, it was not possible for Him to be anywhere without the state of things being exposed.

It was a vital part of His servanthood to challenge, to challenge! And how thoroughly He did it. 

Yes, in that respect He was a sharp threshing instrument, having teeth. And how true again it was of Him, that He was all the time  discriminating, setting things in their place: this is the truth, and that is the falsehood.

This morning we referred to the Vine - Israel, as God's vine.

And we read from Isaiah, chapter 5, how the vine had disappointed the Husbandman.

Then Jesus came in. And we have to put a circle around one word: "I am the true vine" - the true Vine. "This is but a tradition; this is but a profession; this is an empty thing - a pretense. I am the true Vine, I am the Truth".

His presence, as well as His ministry, had that effect of dividing between the false and the true.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Listen For The Signal

2Samuel 5:24  And let it be, when thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself: for then shall the LORD go out before thee, to smite the host of the Philistines.
 
There are signs of the LORD's moving which should move us. The Spirit of God blows where He listeth, and we hear the sound thereof.

Then is the time for us to be more than ever astir. We must seize the golden opportunity and make the most we can of it.

It is ours to fight the Philistines at all times; but when the LORD Himself goes out before us, then we should be specially valiant in the war.

The breeze stirred the tops of the trees, and David and his men took this for the signal for an onslaught, and at their advance the LORD Himself smote the Philistines.

Oh, that this day the LORD may give us an opening to speak for Him with many of our friends! Let us be on the watch to avail ourselves of the hopeful opening when it comes.

Who knows but this may be a day of good tidings; a season of soul-winning. Let us keep our ear open to hear the rustle of the wind and our minds ready to obey the signal.

Is not this promise, "Then shall the LORD go out before thee," a sufficient encouragement to play the man? Since the LORD goes before us, we dare not hold back. 

~Charles Spurgeon~