Defending Your Family - Lesson 4 - Discouragement

Here are some thoughts on discouragement from William Ward …

Discouragement is Dissatisfaction with the past,
Distaste for the present, and
Distrust of the future.

It is Ingratitude for the blessings of yesterday,
Indifference to the opportunities of today, and
Insecurity regarding strength for tomorrow.

It is Unawareness of the presence of beauty,
Unconcern for the needs of our fellowman, and
Unbelief in the promises of old.

It is Impatience with time,
Immaturity of thought,
and Impoliteness to God.


Satan's Discouragement

An old fable says the Devil once held a sale and offered all the tools of his trade to anyone who would pay their price. They were spread out on the table and each one labeled. Hatred, malice, envy, despair, sickness, sensuality -- all the weapons that everyone knows so well. However, off to one side lay a harmless looking wood-shaped instrument marked “discouragement.” It was old and worn looking but it was priced far above all the rest. When asked the reason why, the Devil replied, "Because I can use this one so much more easily than the others. No one knows that it belongs to me, so with it I can open doors that are tightly bolted against the others. Once I get inside I can use any tool that suits me best."

Ephesians 6:11, “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”

I Peter 5:8, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:”


II Corinthians 4:3-4, “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”

So the unsaved are blind, they should get discouraged, what about us?





Ted Engstrom insightfully writes:

· Cripple him, and you have a Sir Walter Scott.
· Lock him in a prison cell, and you have a John Bunyan.
· Bury him in the snows of Valley Forge, and you have a George Washington.
· Raise him in abject poverty and you have an Abraham Lincoln.
· Strike him down with infantile paralysis, and he becomes Franklin Roosevelt.
· Burn him so severely that the doctors say he'll never walk again, and you have a Glenn Cunningham -- who set the world's one mile record in 1934.
· Deafen him and you have a Ludwig van Beethoven.
· Have him or her born black in a society filled with racial discrimination, and you have a Booker T. Washington, a Marian Anderson, a George Washington Carver.
· Call him a slow learner, "retarded," and write him off as uneducable, and you have an Albert Einstein.

As one man summed it up:

Life is about 20% in what happens to us and
80% in the way we respond to the events.


Romans 12:21, “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”

So, we aren’t supposed to act, as the unsaved are we?





Philippians 1:12-14, “But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel; So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places; And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.”

How could our testimony possibly help someone else?





Discouragement with Temptation

It frustrates me when I get tempted.
It frustrates me when I give in.
I get frustrated when I don’t give in.
“If I am going to feel terrible, I should probably give in.”

James 1:14, “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.”

When he is drawn away, sounds like safety in numbers …





II Peter 2:18, “For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.”

‘They’, ‘Those’, ‘Them’ now they are ganging up on us …





I John 5:4, “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”

So if we are born again we have to overcome …





Psalm 73:2-4, “But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm.”

Do you get discouraged watching those heathens prosper?





-INSTANCES OF DISCOURAGEMENT

•Moses – when sent on his mission to the Israelites

Exodus 4:1,10, “And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The LORD hath not appeared unto thee ... And Moses said unto the LORD, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.”










Let’s not be a toy of the enemy with our children

Colossians 3:21, “Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.”

It’s fun to see them cry … What are we teaching them?





Deuteronomy 4:9, “Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons;”

How can we teach our children to be strong when we are still learning?





Luke 5:5, “And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.”

He doesn’t want to but he trusts the Lord.
Why don’t we trust the Lord sooner?
How can we work together to trust Him sooner?





DISCOURAGEMENT

To be deprived of courage or confidence,
To hinder by inspiring fear of consequences.

"Oh, what's the use?”
“ You don't get anywhere anyway.”
“No one really cares."

Discouragement, another tool of Satan's.
How many souls fall away due to discouragement?

In the parable of the sower,
the seed that fell on two types of ground
did not bring forth fruit due to discouragement:

Rocky-when trouble and persecution come (and they will)
because of the word (doing and standing for right)
they quickly fell away because there was no root to their faith.

Thorny - worries of this life
and the deceitfulness of wealth (these are always close to us)
choke it, making it unfruitful.

Rather then being discouraged,
or one who causes discouragement,
show encouragement, instead!


I Thessalonians 5:9-11, “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.”


Therefore, encourage one another
and build each other up.
We all need encouragement
to be built up at different times in our life.

As Christians, our purpose in life
is to be pleasing to God.
This in and of itself is encouragement.


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